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 5 
 
 BODY AND SOUL.
 
 ' THEY that have no Science are in better and nobler condition with their 
 ' naturall Prudence, than men that by misreasoning, or by trusting them 
 c that reason wrong, fall upon false and absurd generall rules. For ignorance 
 ' of causes and of rules does not set men so farre out of their way, as relying 
 ' on false rules, and taking for causes of what they aspire to, those that 
 ' are not so, but rather causes of the contrary.' HOBBES. 
 
 ' So plain a matter could never have been rendered intricate and volumi- 
 1 nous, if authority had not imposed on such as pretend to reason ; and 
 ' if such as did attempt to reason had not been caught in the common snares 
 ' of sophism and bewildered in the labyrinths of disputation. In this case, 
 ' as in all those of great concernment, the shortest and the surest method 
 ' of arriving at real knowledge is to unlearn the lessons we have been 
 ' taught ; to remount to first principles, and take nobody's word about 
 ' them.' BOLINGBROKE. 
 
 ' THE body, or, as some love to call it, our inferior nature, is wiser in its 
 ' own plain way and attends its own business more directly than the mind 
 ' with all its boasted subtilty. And it were infinitely better to remain 
 ' possessed of the whole legion of vulgar mistakes, than to reject some, 
 ' and, at the same time, to retain a fondness for others altogether as absurd 
 ' and irrational.' BURKE.
 
 Ex Libris 
 K. OGDEN 
 
 BODY AND SOUL, 
 
 OR 
 
 THE METHOD OF ECONOMY. 
 
 BY 
 
 F. W. BAIN, M.A., 
 
 FELLOW OF ALL SOULS* COLLEGE, OXFORD. 
 
 ' Agere constituit esse.' 
 
 JAMES PARKER AND CO. 
 
 6 SOUTHAMPTON-STREET, STRAND, LONDON; 
 
 AND 27 BROAD-STREET, OXFORD. 
 1894.
 
 (71 
 
 _._ UBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFOF 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 CUSTODI ET SOCIIS 
 
 COLL: OMN: ANIM: 
 
 O Gustos gregis optima decusque, 
 et vos, O Socii nimis beati, 
 inter pocula scepius remotd 
 cend salibus Atticis fruentes ; 
 me st fata miserrimum perosa 
 fiigavere, ubi ccesii leones 
 errant viva vagantium sepulcra, 
 solesque insidias parant iniqttas 
 sparguntqne atherios ubique tnorbos, 
 serpentesque periculosiores 
 mortem dente minantur et veneno ; 
 at desiderium domus relictce 
 altum in pectore delitet fideli, 
 vestrce et tot us a mans amoenitatis 
 dulcem semper imaginem recondo. 
 ipsi dum deus haud dabil redire, 
 hoc vobis opus en I bonum malumve 
 magnam partem anima mece reportat. 
 sic si prceda leonibus cadaver 
 hie vivum inveniet procul sepulcrum, 
 ludis nostram animam tuis tenete 
 pr<zsentem, Socii pii, futura 
 inter pocula scepe gaudeantes.
 
 SYNOPSIS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 NATURAL ECONOMY, OR THE SPECIES. THE PRINCIPLE OF 
 CREATION, DYNAMICAL EVOLUTION, AND DEFINITION. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY, OR THE COMMODITY. THE PRINCIPLE 
 WORKING IN THE COMMON OR SOCIAL SPHERE. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 ^ESTHETICS, OR THE WORK OF ART. THE PRINCIPLE WORK- 
 ING IN THE PECULIAR OR PERSONAL SPHERE. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 ETHICS AND POLITICS, OR THE COMMONWEALTH. THE PRIN- 
 CIPLE WORKING IN THE MORAL AND POLITICAL SPHERE.
 
 ANALYSIS. 
 
 BOOK I. I. General Statement of the Principle . 3 
 
 II. The Original Cause of the Prevalent 
 
 Erroneous Economical Method 
 III. The Rationalistic Method of Descartes 
 
 and his School . . .11 
 
 IV. The Mathematico-Materialistic Method 
 
 of Bacon and his School . 23 
 
 ,, V. The Dynamical Evolutionary Method 
 
 of Aristotle . . . -3 
 
 VI. The Relation of Darwin to Aristotle . 76 
 
 VII. Criticism of The Origin of Species . 79 
 VIII. The True Principle developed and 
 
 explained . . . .124 
 
 BOOK II. I. The Definition of Wealth, and the 
 
 Principle of Wealth Creation . 161 
 
 II. Analysis of the Relation, Value . 171 
 
 III. The Origin and Function of Money . 180 
 IV. The Four Causes considered and 
 
 illustrated . . . .188 
 
 V. Money, Banking, and Credit . . 203 
 
 ,, VI. The Sources of Capital . . 230 
 
 VII. Distribution .... 240 
 
 VIII. The Antinomy of Interest . . 242
 
 Contents. 
 
 BOOK III. I. The Work of Art and the Commodity 253 
 
 II. The Function of Art in General . 268 
 
 ,, III. ,, Architecture . 279 
 
 IV. ,, Sculpture . . 300 
 
 V. Painting . 307 
 
 VI. the Minor Arts . 329 
 
 VII. Music . . 331 
 
 VIII. Literature 341 
 
 BOOK IV. I. The Errors of Political Rationalism . 377 
 
 II. The Biological Basis of Politics . 391 
 
 ,, III. The Ethical Significance of the Principle 425 
 
 APPENDICES ...... 447 
 
 INDEX ....... 463
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 ^PHIS book, though second in the order of time, is in reality 
 the first volume of a work entitled The Principle of Wealth 
 Creation, which I published last year. 
 
 I showed in that book how the true definition of Wealth is the 
 central idea, out of which flows naturally and spontaneously the 
 whole complicated Science of Wealth-Creation : an idea which 
 conciliates the contradictions of all previous systems of Political 
 Economy : explains, and thus refutes, constructively, their 
 various one-sided errors ; provides a simple and convincing 
 solution of the perplexing problems of Money and Credit ; and 
 stands, in fact, to Political Economy exactly as the Copernican 
 idea stood to Astronomy ; being the focus, the fons et origo, 
 of the whole economical order. Indeed, without this central 
 idea, even history is unintelligible. For history during the last 
 few centuries is simply the record of the process by which society 
 has changed its structure : it was formerly organised on a feudal 
 and hierarchical, military and ecclesiastical basis, and is now 
 organised mainly on a commercial basis : a basis which can 
 only be understood by means of the idea explained on The Prin- 
 ciple of Wealth Creation ; for the economical organisation of the 
 whole of society flows deductively from it. Society is nothing 
 but the material embodiment of that central idea, which is its 
 soul. 
 
 In that book, however, I confined myself strictly to the purely 
 economical point of view. Here, I have shown Political Econ- 
 omy, regarded as the Science of the Production and Distribution 
 of Wealth, to be simply a special case of the universal law, that 
 Structure is determined by function. The whole of this book 
 is new, except that portion of it Book II. which covers the 
 same ground as The Principle of Wealth Creation. The reader, 
 however, will find that the one account is no mere repetition 
 of the other. For though I did not think I could find a 
 better expression for the essential matter than is contained in 
 that first volume, yet here I have been able to explain some
 
 xii Preface. 
 
 points more fully and analytically than there : and each account 
 will gain by being regarded as complementary to the other. 
 This volume stands to the other as a whole to its part : and 
 The Principle of Wealth Creation will therefore be of primary 
 importance to any one who only wants that one part. But 
 each volume is incomplete without the other. 
 
 A few words are necessary on the subject of this book. The 
 original cause of the chaotic confusion and anarchical internecine 
 strife which now reigns in the domain of Political Economy 
 is the absence of the real heir to the throne : a true economical 
 method. Our methods were originated by men entirely destitute 
 of the qualifications necessary to their task. The methods on 
 which we vainly endeavour to base all our mental and moral, 
 social and political theories have come down to us by direct 
 hereditary succession from an age of dense physiological ignor- 
 ance. But now, nemo psychologus, nisi physiologus. All sound 
 and permanent economical philosophy must and can only be 
 based upon the essential nature of man : a nature essentially not 
 logical, but biological. Neither the abstractions of the meta- 
 physico-rationalistic, nor the mathematical formulae of the me- 
 chanico-material, method, will avail us here. The man who 
 begins with abstractions must end with them : it is impossible 
 to start from abstractions and arrive at reality. We could never 
 have discovered the line from the point : nor the surface from 
 the line ; nor the solid from the surface : we cannot deduce the 
 facts of mechanics from mathematics, nor those of chemistry from 
 mechanics : nor those of biology from either. At each new 
 point of departure, at every stage onwards in the progress 
 of science, some new unknown, some x, is introduced from 
 without ; and this could never have been deduced or discovered 
 from the premisses of the previous step, for they did not contain 
 it. But though the later is not in the earlier, the earlier, on the 
 contrary, is contained in the later stage. Each has all that went 
 before it, but none that came after it. The elements actually 
 exist in the composition, but not l vice versa' Therefore it is, 
 that the ANALYTICAL DISSECTION OF CONCRETE REALITIES, 
 which begins with the complex whole and resolves it into its 
 component parts, going ever backwards, is the ONLY METHOD by 
 which we can be sure of leaving out nothing : and thus the only 
 method of discovering truth and arriving at certain and adequate 
 principles in human affairs. For only thus can we view every-
 
 Preface. xifi 
 
 thing in all its relations, the sine qmbus non: without which it 
 does not and cannot exist at all. Everything is what it is, 
 because it is when it is and where it is and as it is. Abstracted 
 from its constituent relations, a fact or thing is a non-entity. 
 Thus the ' laws ' of ' orthodox ' Political Economy are at once 
 entities and non-entities, but never realities. They are nought, 
 because they are merely the abstract denizens of a ghostly unreal 
 sphere. Orthodox Political Economy is, in fact, neither Natural 
 nor Political Economy. It knows nothing of the first, and 
 pays no attention to it ; while as to the second, it is actually 
 based on a theory which is the negation of the State. Its true 
 name is not Natural and Political Economy, but Unnatural and 
 Sophistical Economy. True Political Economy is neither ab- 
 stract nor hypothetical : it is essentially an ANALYTIC OF REALI- 
 TIES. That Economical method alone can be fruitful of solid 
 results which is rooted in its true soil, the biological investigation 
 of real growths and processes. * The worship of theories,' says 
 the man of the world, ' is the idolatry of the young : the real 
 ' question when considering the merits of a system is, how does 
 ' // work ?' That is the very thesis of this essay. 
 
 Orthodox Political Economy is a failure, because its origin- 
 ators knew nothing about Method, and never dreamed of con- 
 sulting the Oracle. The truth is, that it is impossible, not only 
 to get away from Aristotle, but to do without him. It is not 
 merely that, as Renan says, the Bible and Aristotle being the 
 two greatest authorities that have reigned over the world, all 
 history is unintelligible without either. It is not merely the past 
 which is unintelligible without Aristotle ; it is the present. 
 I made, after a long comparison and criticism of systems of 
 Political Economy, a discovery : I awoke suddenly to another 
 discovery, viz., that I was but repeating Aristotle's central 
 thought. It is the old story. Harvey, Wolf, Pander make 
 a great embryological discovery : Aristotle did it before them. 
 Von Baer makes another : that too belongs to Aristotle. Dar- 
 win always attributes the law of economy to Goethe and 
 St. Hilaire, never suspecting that Aristotle knew it well before 
 either of them. Darwin's own law of correlated variation was 
 perfectly well known to Aristotle. And so on. Moreover, what 
 is to these men all is but a tiny fragment of Aristotle. Aristotle 
 is omnilateral. Marx's ' Capital ' is only the expansion, mis- 
 understood, of the passage about Chrematistic in Aristotle's
 
 xiv Preface. 
 
 Politics, that astonishing book, in which the history of Europe 
 is found sketched beforehand. Who has added a line of 
 essential significance to his Logic, his Rhetoric, his Ethics ? 
 nay, who has risen to his level ? The Critical Philosophy, says 
 Schopenhauer, lies in embryo in Aristotle's writings. Yes. and 
 more than the Critical Philosophy. Who ever dreamed of the 
 true meaning of Aristotle's Psychology till the Origin of Species 
 brought back to man the consciousness of his relation to animals ? 
 For the true commentary to Aristotle is not to be found in 
 Simplicius or Philoponus, Themistius or even Averroes ; it is 
 the Origin of Species as I have shown for the first time in this 
 book. And when we come to look into the matter, we find that 
 biology, which abolishes the dummy Aristotle, idolised by the 
 schoolmen, and overturned by Bacon, replaces the true Aristotle 
 on his proper pedestal, and hails him as the Master of the Wise ; 
 the one man in all history who knew how to define. 
 
 Poona, 1893.
 
 eVi ra(f)cp 
 
 irdvra Xaos, xai TTCLVT ' ATTCJIT;, KOI irdvra 
 Novs yap 6 irdvra \\xav a>X* T ' ' 
 
 ws atrta, TrXijf Qavarov. 
 
 y- 
 
 avTT)i> l3ov\opfi>T) KaGopav a>s eon', KaTOTrrpa) 
 
 ^ (Averts o(f>dd\fj.ois xP^ Tal 'AptcrroTe'Xovf. 
 
 ' ocos irfirwrat' roi Se crKtai aio 
 
 (jMVTis 'AptaTore'Xet (fydey^aQ "Oprjpos ?7ros. 
 
 tya> CTKOTIOS' TO 8' f(nov ir\eov fjfucrv TTOVTOS 
 
 US &dpOS fV CTKOTIOIS (p<iMT<pOp6s fCTTl 
 
 ^J/fCSof fftnvyf Xo'yos ^vx^ s TTf'p' 5 7r ^ s ' 7* 5 dnudfif-i 
 
 > \ > / >>>> 
 
 avTos, evfpyos i>v ovuia atotos. 
 
 7- 
 ^S>fj.ov 'ApicrroreXet, ^pvcroi/ ndpioj/ rf TrapfiSajj 1 ,
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 p. v. line 4, for salibus r<fo</ noctibus 
 
 ,, ,, 21, far tenete read tenentes 
 
 > > 2 3> fa r gaudeantes read gaudeatis 
 
 p. xv. ,, 2, for \{i<av read \dtav 
 
 ,, ,, ,, 14, for avrei>fpyfriKuv read av 
 
 p. 130 n. I owe an apology to Professor Ingram for having been led to 
 allude to him as defunct. I had observed him so referred to in a 
 recent economical work, which fell into my hands just as this book 
 was going to press, and only discovered the error too late to correct it. 
 
 p. 375, last line but one, for Omepov Odrtpov read dartpov ddrtpoy
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 NATURAL ECONOMY, OR THE SPECIES. THE PRIN- 
 CIPLE OF CREATION, DYNAMICAL EVOLUTION, 
 AND DEFINITION. 
 
 TO y&p opyava irpbs T& tpyov fi <pv<ris iroie?, dAA* ov 
 rb fpyov Trpbs ra opyava. 
 
 De Partibiis Animalium, iv. 12.
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 NATURAL ECONOMY, OR THE SPECIES. THE PRIN- 
 CIPLE OF CREATION, DYNAMICAL EVOLUTION, 
 AND DEFINITION. 
 
 I. THAT nothing in Nature is isolated : that 
 everything alike acts upon, and is acted upon by 
 others : that all things accordingly reciprocally 
 limit and determine one another : that thus each is 
 as it is, in and through its relations to others : that 
 one thing is for the sake of another, and conse- 
 quently Correlation, or Co-adaptation, the first 
 law of Natural Economy : that all things must 
 necessarily adapt themselves to the place they fill, 
 and the work they have to do, on pain of disap- 
 pearing : that therefore function is the raison d'etre 
 and scientific explanation of structure, as such : that 
 the shapes of all bodies, natural, political, or me- 
 chanical, from the fin of the shark to the Cabinet 
 Government of England, are given to them and 
 determined by the end they serve : that all institu- 
 tions whatsoever take their form from the necessi- 
 ties that call them into being : that the constitu- 
 tion of all things organical, mechanical, moral, or 
 social, religions, languages, political forms, tradi- 
 tions, customs, manners, laws, weapons, tools, in- 
 struments and what not, derives from the need for 
 them, and answers strictly to special requirements, 
 on pain of death : that all these things are but in- 
 struments and tools to perform certain definite 
 
 B 2
 
 4 Body and Soul. 
 
 work : that everything truly is, only in so far as and 
 so long as it is able to do its appropriate work : 
 that, in short, work is the soul of everything in the 
 world, and the only principle of creation, definition, 
 and explanation : that we know what a thing is, 
 just in so far as we know what it is for : that the 
 reason for its existence, as such, and the cause of 
 its generation, as such, and the original why and 
 wherefore of its peculiar form, is just the special 
 work it has to do, and that, apart from its con- 
 stituent relations, nothing is or can be ; all these 
 are but different ways of expressing the same great 
 truth, the truth /car' e^oxyv, the alpha and omega 
 of Natural Economy, the creative soul of Nature, 
 that Function makes Structure. 
 
 This truth was the central conception of the 
 philosophy of Aristotle, the superlative genius, who 
 coming at a time when all had still to be done, 
 nevertheless accumulated so vast a variety of facts, 
 and interpreted them with so piercing an insight, 
 that he was able to discover and complete, alone 
 and unassisted, the whole logic of science, carrying 
 it in many directions at a single bound to a height 
 to which even after two thousand years the world 
 has not yet attained. And now, when by the 
 united efforts of successive ages that mass of phy- 
 siological data on which his scientific method rested 
 has once more been accumulated, Darwin has, by 
 his Origin of Species, once more established, im- 
 plicitly though not explicitly, for Darwin was not 
 Aristotle, that essential truth upon which all eco- 
 nomical philosophy, whether natural or political, 
 must depend : and without which it must either fall 
 in ruins, or hang unsupported in the air, without
 
 Natural Economy. 5 
 
 scientific justification. For it is nothing but the 
 ignorance of this cardinal truth and its corollaries 
 that has led astray the philosophy, mental and 
 moral, social and political, of the last three hundred 
 years ; during which, in an age of physiological 
 darkness, men whose critical qualifications in com- 
 parison with those of Aristotle can only raise a 
 smile have, in complete unconsciousness of their 
 own inadequate equipment, founded rationalistic 
 schools of all kinds, agreeing in nothing but their 
 rejection, and even virulent abuse, of a man whose 
 wisdom was all the time not beneath but above their 
 comprehension : a man of whom we can but say 
 that Nature seems to have made him in a moment 
 of braggadocio, just to show what she could do. 
 Nor is this all, for where error is only theoretical 
 it is of less moment : but on the contrary, the 
 failure to realise this truth lies at the bottom of 
 those vicious political theories which have worked 
 so disastrously in practice, and which have led 
 historians radically to misconceive and misrepre- 
 sent, in entire good faith, the history of the past, 
 and give to all political moments and events a 
 wholly false colour. Finally, in their ignorance of 
 this very soul of economy, so-called Economists 
 have put forth a chaotic jumble of one-sided 
 and fragmentary abstractions, and baptized it the 
 Science of Political Economy : whose preposterous 
 assumptions and glaring inapplicability to the busi- 
 ness of life have brought the whole subject into 
 contempt and derision among people conversant 
 and familiar with affairs. It is questionable, indeed 
 if there has ever existed in the world any body of 
 men whatever at once so arrogantly dogmatic and
 
 6 Body and Soul. 
 
 so totally mistaken, so dictatorial and so profoundly 
 incompetent for their task, as the ^^^2-professors 
 of orthodox Political Economy. 
 
 To explain, then, the exact significance of this 
 truth, that Function makes Structure : to point out 
 the cause of the erroneous methods by which men 
 have attempted to investigate Natural, and a fortiori 
 Political Economy : to show how the Origin of 
 Species has restored the true point of view : and 
 to illustrate by reference to the theory of Darwin 
 and the philosophy of Aristotle the essential scheme 
 of Natural Economy, and the necessarily resulting 
 Principle of Scientific Explanation and Definition, 
 which is and can be nothing but the mirrored image 
 of the Principle of Creation, will be the aim of this 
 first book. In the second, I shall show how this 
 truth is the key to difficulties in Political Economy 
 that have hitherto defied solution : how alike in 
 the body natural or body politic, with the animal 
 or the commodity, the same principle is at work, 
 creating and destroying in answer to imperative 
 necessity ; how things are, as they do, and hand- 
 some is as handsome does : how, in fact, the operari 
 is the key to the esse, and the esse again to the 
 operari. The third book deals with the aesthetic 
 side of Wealth, which has been so entirely neglected 
 by Economists that one might almost read their 
 works all through without suspecting that the 
 creations of music and sculpture, architecture and 
 painting are Wealth at all. The last book will be 
 devoted to an examination of the political signifi- 
 cance and ethical tendency of the principle, where 
 I shall show that nothing in political organisation 
 or history is intelligible without it. And should
 
 Natural Economy. 7 
 
 the leisurely and impartial reader succeed in reach- 
 ing the end of that book, he will be in a position 
 to realise how much more accurately the words 
 which Bacon applied to himself apply to Aristotle. 
 Aristotle is the man who might with reason have 
 exclaimed, Equidem Organum prtzbui : materies 
 vero a rebiis ipsis pctenda est. For he did in very 
 truth, old master wizard that he was, cunningly 
 boil down and extract in his great bronze Organon 
 the hidden secrets of beasts and herbs, and press 
 forth their quintessential virtues and properties 
 into a golden phial that should last for ever. But 
 we have got past Aristotle now ? yes, quantitatively 
 but not qualitatively. We know more facts, but 
 do not understand them so well as he did. For 
 facts are nothing ; it is their interpretation which 
 is all. Ours are the facts : but Aristotle supplied 
 the organic method which is the key to their mean- 
 ing, and their string of connection. 
 
 For philosophising without method may be accur- 
 ately compared to sewing without thread : whatever 
 pains and labour we may take, we shall accomplish 
 nothing : we may pick up our arguments, like 
 beads, one after another upon the needle of our 
 wit, but having no string to hold them together 
 we shall end with no chain, but the same old heap 
 of isolated units we started to connect. And to 
 vary the metaphor we may add, that just as method 
 is the thread that gives to every link in a chain of 
 reasoning its force and significance, so from another 
 point of view is method the skein, the filum laby- 
 rint/ii, the clue to the mazes of Natural and Po- 
 litical Economy, grasping which we may thread 
 with sure step the dark ramifications and obscure
 
 8 Body and Soul. 
 
 windings of reality, losing our way in none of the 
 intricate and involved side alleys of the subject, 
 because we still hold fast our connection with the 
 origin of all, and can accordingly return at will 
 upon ourselves, or emerge into upper air. But on 
 the contrary, those who have hitherto spoken with 
 authority on Political Economy have been either 
 without any method at all, or still worse, have 
 trusted to the guidance of a wrong one, and hence, 
 after much wandering about in the dark, they have 
 finally gone entirely astray. And the cause of this 
 is to be found in the philosophical systems to which 
 they fell heirs. 
 
 II. The age in which Aristotelian Scholasticism 
 flourished was an age of profound biological ignor- 
 ance. The Schoolmen who worshipped Aristotle 
 knew nothing of him, least of all on the biological 
 side, which was just the heart of the matter. They 
 were acquainted only with his superstructure, the 
 logical upper story of his giant edifice, and used it 
 or misused it with unfaltering intrepidity for their 
 ends. They made of it, as all know, an ancilla 
 tJteologia, but that was all : it was its logical and 
 theological application that served their turn. But 
 they could not either comprehend or appreciate it, 
 in its totality. They galvanised it into a fictitious 
 activity ; they could do no more, for it was in their 
 hands like a plant separated from its root, its 
 biological soil. They were utterly destitute of that 
 wide, and, indeed, for Aristotle's time really phe- 
 nomenal knowledge of plants and animals, their 
 varieties and their habits, their external and internal 
 organisation, their biological generation and de- 
 velopment, which astounds us even at this day, and
 
 Natural Economy. 9 
 
 on which he built up his whole logic of science. 
 Without this basis, he is unintelligible. Knowing 
 however, as they did, absolutely nothing of his 
 foundations, but wielding his logic as a weapon in 
 their theological disputations, their Aristotelianism 
 of the Schools had the appearance of a fantastic 
 and visionary unreality : it hung, so to speak, in 
 the air, supported only by the prodigious intellectual 
 gymnastics of Invincible and Angelic Doctors, who 
 toiled on at their task like men under a spell. 
 They toiled on, perpetually, endlessly combining 
 and permutating hieroglyphics whose true meaning 
 was hidden from them : just as men who should 
 constantly be using such symbols as H 2 O, or H 2 SO 4 , 
 without understanding how they were arrived at. 
 
 Now when at the Reformation epoch the human 
 mind began to throw off the chains that had kept 
 it in bondage for a thousand years (Rabelais con- 
 tains the real spirit of the period), this was the 
 way in which Aristotelianism struck the philosophers 
 who led the revolt against the scholastic method. 
 Fine distinctions are not drawn by leaders of the 
 public mind in an age of revolution, simply because 
 an ignorant and bigoted public selects ignorant and 
 bigoted leaders. All that belonged to the old 
 order was bad : this was a principle on which the 
 philosopher found himself at one with the religious 
 and half-educated zealot. The philosophers who 
 led this revolt were, it is to be carefully observed, 
 in a physiological darkness quite as great as that of 
 the Schoolmen whom they displaced. They were 
 not one whit more able : nay, it is more than doubt- 
 ful whether they were, in point of ability, on a 
 level with the great scholastic hair-splitters whom
 
 io Body and Soul, 
 
 they treated so cavalierly or so unmercifully abused. 
 But as the whole science of these scholastic argu- 
 mentators seemed to them to hang in the air and 
 to be based on nothing, they tossed it impatiently 
 aside. The deep wisdom which lurked, ' like gold 
 in a dungheap,' in that scholastic logic was entirely 
 hidden from the eyes of men who were bent quite 
 correctly, moreover, upon returning to Nature. 
 Here they were both right and wrong. Aristotle 
 himself would have said to them : You are as 
 certainly right in what you affirm, as you are wrong 
 in what you deny. That fact and experience are 
 the basis of all philosophy is beyond question : 
 I know that better than you do. Here you are 
 right : but you are wrong in condemning my logic 
 of science, which you do not understand. That 
 however is not perhaps your fault. To appreciate 
 me, you must wait till you are as widely and closely 
 familiar with the facts of natural history, biology, 
 embryology, and development as I was. Then you 
 will make amends and reparation to me. You owe 
 me an apology, but I will wait. And indeed he 
 could afford to be patient. Patiens quid ceternus. 
 He had ruled despotically over the human mind for 
 ever so many hundred years ; and in the fulness of 
 time when his facts had been rediscovered and his 
 points of view regained, his imperial position would 
 return. Till then he could lie still, like old Barba- 
 rossa, biding his time. 
 
 But this was for the future : in the meanwhile, 
 the philosophers of that day erected their schools 
 on the ruins of Scholasticism. They proceeded 
 bravely on, building on no foundation, little know- 
 ing how impossible all attempts to establish a per-
 
 Natural Economy. 1 1 
 
 manent philosophy of man and society must be, 
 with no previous knowledge of organic nature, 
 of which man is but a special case. Gliscit in- 
 tellectiis humanus : and if it has not the proper 
 materials, the human mind will use anything ready 
 to hand, so that only it may seem to be erecting 
 something architecturally imposing. In rejecting 
 Aristotle, they started philosophy on two entirely 
 different lines. Descartes stands at the head of 
 the one school : Bacon, at that of the other. 
 
 III. The method of Descartes was indeed 
 widely different from that of Aristotle. Aris- 
 totle's philosophy started everywhere from the 
 fact ; the objective fact to be explained : and al- 
 ways considered and contemplated all facts in their 
 own peculiar relations, knowing well that out of 
 these, a fact is not a fact at all. Descartes, on the 
 contrary, began by denying all facts. He admitted 
 nothing. He started from within himself, and 
 having so started he never could get out, except 
 to leap wildly in the dark, and go he knew not 
 where. Across the bottomless gulf that now 
 severed him from reality, he could not pass. But 
 the cardinal error he made was his initial as- 
 sumption : the subject or ego. The subject is, 
 in reality, the precondition of knowledge, for it 
 is the knower : but it can only acquire a knowledge 
 of itself by inference from objects. The perceived 
 fact is the first starting-point for the percipient 
 subject. Only by inference can it know itself from 
 objects, can it know its own existence. This is 
 not only the rigorous, critical truth, but all history 
 proves it. Early man in all ages and places begins 
 naively and objectively : only by reflection, by
 
 1 2 Body and Soul, 
 
 arguing from others to himself, can he become self- 
 conscious. Self-consciousness is not a starting- 
 point, but the attainment of a long series of ages. 
 To start, as Descartes did, from the self, is not 
 only a critical, but a historical blunder. It is 
 starting from a high stage in development ; and 
 further, it is essentially nihilistic. Accordingly 
 Descartes, the philosopher who begins by radically 
 denying all history, tradition, and objectivity, not 
 only radically errs by founding philosophy on an 
 abstraction the self removed from those conditions 
 which made it what it is, and in relation to which 
 alone it can exist and thus annihilating it : but 
 also lays the fatal egg, from out of which proceed, in 
 which lurk embryonically, moral and political ni- 
 hilism. Hume and Bakunin are but logical de- 
 velopments of Descartes. Abstract rationalistic 
 philosophy and politics spring from his Cogito ergo 
 sum. This, then, says Faust, when Mephistopheles 
 emerged from the poodle, was the poodle's kernel ! 
 To the logical Cartesian what can the world be, 
 but a mere series of shadow-pictures, together or 
 in sequence ? a mere dream ? Such a philosopher, 
 exclaims Aristotle r annihilates the whole of Nature's 
 creation. To such a man, the very conception of 
 a dynamical evolution of Nature from protoplasm 
 to high organisation is a pure delusion. A magic- 
 lantern is the best philosophy, from the abstract 
 theoretical standpoint of Descartes. What is ab- 
 sent from his pictures is power, force : the chemical 
 energy of Nature : the wondrous dynamite that 
 drives Creation's wheel. Descartes is simply the 
 hypostasis of an abstract entity : a description after 
 the fact : a metaphysical scholasticism worse by
 
 Natural Economy. 1 3 
 
 far than that which he dethroned. For that, 
 though it had forgotten its origin, nevertheless had 
 its origin in the analysis of realities ; but this was 
 simply explaining obscurum per obsciirius. And 
 thus the philosophies which have been based on his 
 foundation in later times, as those of Kant or 
 Comte and their followers, have proved this only, 
 that nothing can be based upon the rationalistic 
 self, except nihilism. But if, now, there is one thing 
 rather than another to which all history, fact, experi- 
 ence, and sentiment bear witness, it is this, that 
 Nature is not rational, but real. These subjective 
 philosophers would have been far wiser, if they had, 
 as in fact one and one only of all of them did 
 founded their philosophy not on the self of reason, 
 but the self of feeling, not on the head but the 
 heart, not the Self-Consciousness, but the Self- 
 Will. For the Self-Will, with its passions, is deeper 
 and more organic, more universal, more connective, 
 than the Self of conscious ideas. Accordingly, it 
 was well said of Schopenhauer, th-e solitary phil- 
 osopher here referred to, that he was not a phil- 
 osopher like the others, but a philosopher who had 
 seen the world. For it is just this feeling of reality, 
 of life, of work, of passion, of sympathy and energy, 
 of doing and suffering, which is entirely absent from 
 the lucubrations of the philosophers of the Cartesian 
 school. But not one of these philosophers has suc- 
 ceeded in explaining anything. The self cannot be 
 a principle of explanation : it requires itself to be ex- 
 plained. It is itself in Nature, acting and reacting. 
 The soul, not, as from within, a self, but as from with- 
 out, the total energetic activity of all the special 
 organic functions of that body of which it is the
 
 14 Body and Soul. 
 
 sou l : there is Aristotle ; how different from Des- 
 cartes ! but for the present we pass over this con- 
 trast, only observing that all that is sound in 
 either the Cartesian or Critical philosophies is 
 thoroughly appreciated and fully expressed by 
 Aristotle himself. As we proceed, the reader will 
 have ample opportunity of perceiving the deep 
 essential error lurking in the Cartesian position. 
 Yet it is not sufficient to confine ourselves here to 
 general indications, because these are vague, and 
 it is necessary to go into particulars. Only in 
 this way can we hope to persuade the partisans of 
 a definite error that it is an error : only thus can 
 we guard ourselves against the common counter- 
 charge of all irritated opponents, that the critic 
 has misunderstood what he denounces. Nothing, 
 in fact, is easier, than to expose the logic of the 
 idealistic or sensational school. Their thesis is 
 either a tautology, or a most miserable sophism. 
 
 Schopenhauer says, for example : ' Locke has 
 ' completely and exhaustively proved that the feel- 
 ' ings of our senses, even admitting them to be 
 ' roused by external causes, cannot have any re- 
 ' semblance whatever to the qualities of those causes. 
 ' Sugar, for example, bears no resemblance at all to 
 'sweetness, nor a rose to redness 3 .' Now, what 
 does ' sugar] or ' rose ' mean here ? If ' sugar ' means 
 that which we see, who ever said it was like sweet- 
 ness ? If 'rose' means that which we smell or 
 handle, who ever said it was like redness ? But if, 
 on the other hand, by ' sugar ' or ' rose ' we mean, 
 that which lies behind the sensation of sweetness 
 
 a The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Eng. 
 Trans., p. 96.
 
 Natural Economy. 1 5 
 
 or redness, then how in the world can we say that 
 it is not like sweetness or redness ? Ex hypothesi, it 
 is unknown ; and to compare two things, we must 
 know them both. We cannot institute any com- 
 parison between two terms, only one of which we 
 know. In this sense, to say, sugar is not like sweet- 
 ness, or a rose, redness, has absolutely no meaning 
 at all. It is nonsense. We have just as much 
 right to say it is like, as that it is unlike. Just so 
 J. S. Mill : 'an east wind is not like the feeling 
 ' of cold.' Why, what on earth does he mean ? The 
 truth is, all these ' thinkers ' are the victims of their 
 own over-subtilty. What they quarrel with is 
 knowledge, for being what it is : for not being 
 something else. When Kant tells us, e.g., that 
 ' we know only appearances, never things in them- 
 ' selves,' he appears very deep, but is really talking 
 pure nonsense. To know = not to know, that is 
 all he is saying : it is a mere quibble, a play upon 
 the word know ; not nearly so amusing as many 
 other plays upon words. The answer to Kant is 
 simply, that things in themselves are appear- 
 ances on that side, i.e. to us. Knowledge means 
 that. Things in themselves, forsooth ! things are 
 not ' in themselves/ but in relations, of which 
 knowledge is one. But Kant cries for the moon ; 
 he wants to know^ out of relation. Let us suppose, 
 for example, that some deity were to appear, and 
 grant to Kant a knowledge of things in themselves : 
 he would immediately say, from that new stand- 
 point, that he knew only appearances, not things in 
 themselves. Let another deity appear, and again 
 give him a knowledge of these : he would say 
 the same : and so on to infinity. He quarrels
 
 1 6 Body and Soul. 
 
 with knowledge for being what it is, and not some- 
 thing else. Because knowledge is a relation, there- 
 fore it is not knowledge, says Kant. These unfor- 
 tunate persons, in fact, all stand in sore need 
 of a little dose of Aristotle : he has refuted by 
 anticipation all their vagaries by pointing out the 
 distinction between the thing as actually visible, 
 and as potentially visible b . Of course, we never 
 can see the potentially visible, because, in the act of 
 vision, it becomes actually visible. ' Take away 
 ' the thinking subject and the whole material world 
 ' must vanish/ says Kant : ' because it is nothing 
 ' but a phenomenon in the sensibility of our own 
 ' subject and a certain class of its representations.' 
 Must vanish ? yes, qua perceived. Everybody 
 knew that : the knowledge must disappear with the 
 knower. But the known does that disappear ? 
 Did Rome cease to exist when great Caesar fell ? 
 The whole thing is a mere play upon the meaning 
 of the word ' world : ' world as being, and world as 
 known. Upon such a miserable quibble is the 
 Kantian philosophy founded. 
 
 But let us proceed. ' We know only our sensa- 
 ' tions, or representations, never things in them- 
 ' selves.' Now, let us ask the holder of this quibbling 
 thesis : Is there such a thing as error, illusion, 
 deception ? He must say No : deny the fact. 
 For suppose he says, Yes : then, how does he 
 know it ? The moment he admits that he knows, 
 at any given moment, or in any given illustration, 
 that he is being deceived, as, for example, when 
 looking at a stick which appears bent in water, yet 
 is not : or contemplating the mirage in the Arabian 
 
 b De Animd, iii. 2.
 
 Natural Economy. 1 7 
 
 Desert, which appears to be water close at hand, 
 yet is not : then he admits that he has, at one 
 and the same moment, a sensation, and a know- 
 ledge of that which lies behind the sensation, and 
 his thesis is destroyed c . But if, on the other 
 hand, he prefers to deny the fact, and say No : 
 we can but leave him to revel in that error or 
 illusion of which he denies the possibility. For 
 the end of philosophy is to explain facts : and a 
 philosophy which either begins or ends by denying 
 the facts to be explained is simply nothing at all. 
 
 Or take an astronomical illustration. Astronomy 
 is the grand stumbling-block for the philosophy of 
 idealism, which starts from the ego. Astronomers 
 tell us that the moon's face is always turned to- 
 wards us, because it revolves around the earth in 
 exactly the same time as it turns around on its 
 axis : that is to say, that, relatively to the earth, 
 it does not revolve. It acts just as though it were 
 tied to the earth by an iron rod passing through 
 it. Now, let the idealist take a plate, and lay it 
 on the table. This plate, now, will act precisely 
 like the moon. In twenty- four hours it will have 
 revolved on its own axis, as the earth revolves. 
 Let the idealist watch it steadily for the whole of 
 that time, and then let us ask him, Has it revolved? 
 He must say No ; denying the fact. For during 
 the whole time, as far as he can see, it has lain 
 absolutely still. If, on the contrary, he says Yes : 
 then how does he know ? He is expressly assert- 
 
 c So when we stand between two railway lines, and look 
 up them, they appear to get closer together, the farther they 
 go. But we know that they do not, otherwise the train could 
 not run on them. 
 
 C
 
 1 8 Body and Soul. 
 
 ing a knowledge respecting the plate which sen- 
 sation not only cannot give him, but which it posi- 
 tively contradicts. Thus he is asserting a know- 
 ledge of the noumenon lying behind the sensa- 
 tion. On the other hand, if he prefers to deny the 
 fact, and say No : then doubtless the Astronomer 
 Royal would be glad to hear from him. The 
 scientific world would be interested in knowing his 
 grounds for denying the exploded Newtonian 
 theory. For, though no one has remarked it, (it 
 would have been very inconvenient), the idealist 
 must consistently deny that the earth moves round 
 the sun. For here appearances bear direct tes- 
 timony to the reverse of what is the fact. If any 
 man holds the Newtonian theory of the universe, 
 he is directly asserting a knowledge of what lies 
 behind his sensations. For his senses tell him that 
 the earth is fixed, and that the sun moves round 
 it, with all the host of the stars. The heliocentric 
 theory of the solar system is a direct contradiction 
 to the anthropocentric Cartesian egoism. 
 
 In nothing does Kant more clearly show his 
 clumsy incapacity of thinking than in the terrible 
 pedantry with which he maps out the mind and 
 its Categories of the Understanding, Reason, and 
 what not. Psychologists ought to be absolutely 
 forbidden to use the words reason, understanding, 
 imagination, &c. These are only abstract general- 
 isations for special sorts of acts, and we ought 
 never to speak of them in the abstract, without 
 being on our guard. We may say, ' I judge,' ' I 
 imagine ; ' or ' the man judges, imagines,' and so 
 forth, with perfect propriety ; but this merely states 
 a fact, and contains no abstract theorising or pre-
 
 Natural Economy. 19 
 
 judice as to separate faculties, of which we know 
 nothing. But Kant carries this vicious procedure 
 to the very borders of absurdity. The whole of 
 his schematising, and indeed his whole philosophy, 
 save only the Transcendental ./Esthetic, has been 
 pulverised by his greatest admirer, Schopenhauer. 
 Kant's only discovery, says the latter, is that Time, 
 Space, and Causality, are forms of intuition. 
 But this is but an empty truism. How is it 
 to assist us in understanding perception ? The 
 difficulty lies not in the general temporal, spatial, 
 and causal relations of things, to which our mind 
 must necessarily conform, like other things, but in 
 the special temporal, spatial, and causal differences 
 of perceived bodies. Does the mind bestow upon 
 things their differences, forsooth ? does it take to 
 itself an amorphous chunk of the Ding-an-sich and 
 turn it, now into boots, now a hat, now a stick? 
 But it is mere waste of time, exposing the shame- 
 less ineptitude of this bastard philosophy : 
 yap evrfOes TO TOV? euT^e/y rwv Xoywv Xiav e' 
 
 The curious thing, one of the strange aberrations 
 of the human mind, is that philosophers of e.g., the 
 Kantian school, "who assert that space is simply 
 the form of intuition, shriek with horror if you 
 suggest that the ego is extended. But here is a 
 dilemma. If the ego is not extended, then, as it 
 undoubtedly perceives spatially extended objects, 
 it perceives something not itself. Why not there- 
 fore real objects at once? If, on the contrary, the 
 ego is extended, then it must be in space. On either 
 horn the idealist will be compelled to admit the real 
 and absolute existence of space. Or we may, if we 
 choose, put it thus. I perceive the very objects 
 
 c 2
 
 2O Body and Soul. 
 
 themselves, says the unsophisticated person. No, 
 says the Kantian, you are mistaken : you perceive 
 nothing of the sort : your visible object is merely the 
 result of a very complicated physiological process in 
 your brain. Brain ? why, what do you mean ? How 
 do 1 know that I have a brain ? / cannot perceive my 
 own brain: then, pray, WHERE is it ? The fact is that 
 the idealistic philosopher gets the knowledge of his 
 brain by inference from objects, and then uses this 
 inferential knowledge to base upon it a denial of 
 objects : thus turning in a vicious circle. The 
 evolutionist can easily sweep all these cobw r ebs 
 away by a simple observation ; that our ideas and 
 sensations do and must accurately correspond to 
 the realities is proved by the fact that we are here : 
 that is to say, have succeeded in adapting ourselves 
 to our surroundings. Otherwise we should have 
 gone out long ago. 
 
 But indeed, what point of community could there 
 be between Kant, who laid it down that the form 
 of things was given to them by our perception, and 
 Aristotle, who knew that the forms of things are 
 given to them by their function : between Kant, 
 whose dutum is es.se is percipi, and Aristotle, whose 
 dictum might be expressed, agere constituit esse : 
 between Kant, who held that we read teleology 
 into Nature, and Aristotle, who knew that teleology 
 was the soul of Nature : between Kant, who held 
 that Time and Space are but forms of Intuition : and 
 Aristotle, who knew that the intellect, like other 
 things, has been developed from form to form in 
 time and space : between Kant, who held that 
 Causality was but the link imposed a priori by the 
 intellect upon phenomena, and Aristotle, who knew
 
 Natural Economy. 2 1 
 
 that causality was the link that connected and 
 accounted for the whole chain of creation ? Or 
 what point of community is there between Aristotle, 
 who made such an analysis of causation as none 
 but himself has ever done, and Hume, whose 
 philosophy, apart from its bad psychology (i.e. the 
 confusion of ideas, notions, and perceptions, with 
 feelings and sensations) is based upon the vulgar 
 confusion of the concepts force and cause ; dynamical 
 power, and antecedent conditions. A spark is 
 applied to the gunpowder : result, an explosion. 
 The cause is patent, = all the conditions ; but the 
 power, or force, is immanent in them. Why, even 
 Kit Marlowe could have taught Hume here. Faust 
 says to Mephistopheles : 
 
 ' Did not my conjuring raise thee ? speak ! ' 
 and Mephistopheles answers : 
 
 ' That was the cause : but yet per accidens? 
 
 And his Satanic Majesty was quite right. Aha! 
 tu non pensavi c/i io loico fosse. Because the eye 
 cannot see force, ergo, we know none there is 
 Hume in a nutshell. A blow in the eye in a dark 
 room is the true answer to this sort of philosophy. 
 Moreover, it is ludicrous to note the complete un- 
 consciousness of these philosophers of the existence 
 of more kinds of causes than one d . The only 
 
 d There are four species of cause, material, formal, final, and 
 efficient. Hume and his school are entirely unaware of all 
 but the first. A glove fits the hand. Is there nothing, in the 
 relation of the glove to the hand, but invariable antecedence? 
 Constancy forms the very essence of necessity, says Hume (Essays, 
 p. 366, note). Very essence ! what an expression for Hume ! 
 What, then, have things essences ? Is there no reason why the 
 glove is so shaped ?
 
 22 Body and Soul. 
 
 cause they know of is the material cause, interior 
 power, or energy ; and as they cannot see the 
 necessary tie, they deny it. ' All causation is no- 
 thing but invariable antecedence' Well, let us ask 
 Hume this question : What is the cause of the 
 form of a razor ? Must not a razor, if it is to cut, 
 be sharp ? be, that is to say, of a definite and 
 peculiar form such as will perform the function of 
 cutting ? Is there no necessity here ? No necessity 
 in Nature, forsooth ? Must not animals feed, or 
 die ? Miist not all organic beings adapt themselves 
 to their conditions, or die ? Is there no necessity in 
 the struggle for existence ? Why, necessity is the 
 key to Natural Economy : structure is necessarily 
 determined by function : all organic forms are 
 shaped of necessity to and for the work they have 
 to do : and disgrace has necessarily fallen upon 
 philosophy, because a set of uncritical pedants have 
 monopolised her, who hand on to one another the 
 Cartesian error, conceived and begotten by a 
 hermaphroditic and self-impregnated dreamer, in 
 dense physiological ignorance, in total isolation 
 from the world, and carefully nourished by book- 
 worms, commentators, Germans and boobies during 
 the last hundred years till it has sunk into a quib- 
 bling and imbecile senility. Just think, in con- 
 nection with idealism, of even a hen's egg, out of 
 which develops a chicken : consider the marvellous 
 forces in that egg, and ask, is embryology consistent 
 with Hume, with a world of ideas and impressions, 
 representations, sensations and what not ? But nature, 
 says the Master, is not like a mere casual series of 
 spectacular phenomena, without a plot : no mere 
 disconnected show of coexistences and successions,
 
 Natural Economy. 23 
 
 like a Transpontine melodrama, or J. S. Mill's 
 sensational philosophy e . 
 
 IV. Such then is the one school which arose on 
 the ruins of Aristotelian Scholasticism : the philo- 
 sophy which we may style the essentially Con- 
 tinental philosophy : which starting with an abstract 
 entity, seeks to evolve the whole economy of Nature 
 from its inner consciousness, and appears philo- 
 sophically as absolute idealism in meditative Ger- 
 many, politically as anarchy and nihilism in revo- 
 lutionary France or mystic Russia. The other 
 school, the school of Bacon, Galileo, and Newton, 
 is a school of quite another kind. This school is 
 not, like the other, essentially visionary and abstract : 
 it is not essentially erroneous : it errs only re- 
 latively ; i.e. when it seeks to apply its own methods 
 to a sphere where they do not hold. Its method is, 
 in its own sphere, valid and excellent : but it errs 
 in attempting to extend its mechanical method to 
 the biological sphere. This is of extreme import- 
 ance. The danger of this method lies just in the 
 argument, that because it is valid in its own sphere, 
 it must be so universally. Let us look into the 
 matter. 
 
 Bacon was not, like Descartes, a subjective phi- 
 losopher : on the contrary. His philosophy, like 
 that of Aristotle, started from the fact. He might, 
 indeed, had he wished to have marked his starting- 
 point distinctively from that of Descartes, have 
 
 vcra e< ra>v (f)aivo/j,(va>v, 
 
 Metaph. xiii. 3. It is, as Professor Case says, 
 and has proved in his book on Physical Realism, ' the cognition 
 of the imperceptible ' which annihilates idealistic and sensational 
 philosophy.
 
 24 Body and Soul. 
 
 said, instead of Cogito ergo sum : Percipio, ergo sunt. 
 He condemned Aristotle, without entirely under- 
 standing him. He set aside the philosophy that 
 hung in the air, playing with vague notions hastily 
 abstracted from things, and not based upon solid 
 observation and experiment. But in this he was 
 both right and wrong. He was right, and Aristotle 
 would have been with him, against his own fol- 
 lowers, in condemning a method of philosophising 
 not based upon natural facts. He was, further, 
 right in this respect also, that the strictly mechanical 
 side of Aristotle's philosophy was in truth its weak 
 side. But Aristotle was not to blame for this : it 
 could not have been otherwise. Aristotle had no 
 telescope or microscope : he could see neither the 
 big nor the little of existence : he could see only 
 that which lay in the middle, open to his own 
 piercing eye : he had no retort, no electrophorus, no 
 crucible : he did not start, like Newton, on the 
 shoulders of Galileo, Copernicus, and Kepler. He 
 knew, and could know nothing of the chemical, 
 material elements of material bodies. Bacon, then, 
 is so far right in condemning Aristotle's physics 
 proper. But he is, on the other hand, wrong, when 
 he condemns Aristotle's logic of science, and his or- 
 ganic method. He had not the requisite biological 
 knowledge to appreciate it. Nor can anything 
 show us more clearly, than a contrast between 
 Bacon and Aristotle, as to their fundamental ideas 
 and ends, the radical inapplicability and insufficiency 
 of the mechanical method in the sphere of organic 
 life : and the way in which one great man will 
 condemn another for faults which are in truth 
 virtues, and would be recognised as such, had the
 
 Natural Economy. 2 5 
 
 critic only the knowledge that would enable him to 
 appreciate them. 
 
 Bacon, as all the world knows, placed the great 
 end and object of science in the discovery of forms, 
 and condemned very strongly the Aristotelian 
 teleology and logic, as opposed to the true spirit 
 of scientific investigation. Final causes corrupt 
 science : such was the dictum of Bacon. Now, 
 Bacon here was quite right, from his own point of 
 view. What he did not perceive was that the aim 
 of Aristotle was something quite different from his 
 own. He was, in fact, utterly at cross purposes 
 with Aristotle. As far as Bacon went, Aristotle 
 would entirely have agreed with him : but the 
 latter had a deeper and higher insight, springing 
 from his physiological knowledge, which Bacon 
 entirely lacked : hence his misunderstanding f . The 
 
 f Aristoteles, qui philosophiam naturalem dialectic^ sua corrupit ; 
 quum mundum ex categoriis effecerit : animce humance, nobilissimce 
 substantice, genus ex vocibus secundce intentionis tribuerit : negotium 
 densi et rari, per quod corpora subeunt majores et minores dimen- 
 s tones sive spatia, per frigidam distinctionem actus et potentice trans - 
 egerit : motum singulis corporibus unicum et proprium, et si 
 participent ex alio motu, id aliunde moveri, asseruerit ; et innu- 
 mera alia, pro arbitrio suo, naturoz rerum imposuerit : magis 
 ubique sollicitus quomodo quis respondendo se explicet, et aliquid 
 reddatur in verbis positivum, quam de interna rerum veritate. 
 Nov. Org. i. 63. 
 
 All this, unfortunately, is pure nonsense, and only shows how 
 immensely inferior the critic was to his subject. Observe, that 
 Bacon expressly speaks, not of Aristotelianism, but Aristotle 
 himself. He says he was worse than his followers, for they 
 deserted experience altogether, whereas he took it captive, and 
 forced it into harmony with its own arbitrary dogmas. Let the 
 reader judge, after reading the account of Aristotle given below, 
 how far this charge is true.
 
 26 Body and Soul, 
 
 fact is, that Bacon was looking for that which was 
 common to things outwardly or apparently dif- 
 ferent : Aristotle was looking for a principle of 
 explanation of differences amongst things otherwise 
 the same. Bacon was looking for fundamental 
 identity under differences, in the processes and 
 states of Nature : e.g. heat, light, and so forth, 
 which identity he called the law of pure action, the 
 latent process, or form, of heat. Aristotle, on the 
 contrary, was attempting to explain the differences 
 or varieties of structures otherwise identical, which 
 differences he asserted to have their origin and 
 principle of existence in the difference of work or 
 function to be performed. Bacon, in fact, is aiming 
 at gaining command over the processes and forces 
 of nature for mechanical ends by discovering the 
 nature of those processes ; Aristotle is aiming at 
 nothing but the knowledge of Natural and Political 
 Economy. Hence Bacon's Form is the mechanical 
 law of a process : Aristotle's Form, the shape or 
 structure of an organised body determined for a 
 special work. Hence the two are totally different 
 things : and from this one may see the want of 
 insight in those who have compared the two, and 
 debated whether they were the same. Further, 
 Aristotle was perfectly aware of the two methods. 
 He says expressly, 'the method of absolute mate- 
 ' rial necessity, and that of structural or organic 
 * necessity, are two entirely different things 8 ,' and, 
 as I shall show, never had the slightest intention of 
 making one usurp the place of the other. But he 
 devoted his attention principally to the second, 
 
 8 6 TpoTros TrjS aTTo8fi((as KOI rrjs dvdyKr]s erepof. De Part. Anim, 
 
 i. T.
 
 Natural Economy. 27 
 
 because the Greeks, living in a warm climate, 
 and requiring very little in the way of me- 
 chanical appliances or comforts to make their 
 lives good, did not want to make Nature sub- 
 serve their material ends so much as to under- 
 stand her economy. Thus, though Bacon was 
 quite right in looking for his own form, and in 
 asserting that experiment and observation alone 
 could discover it (for only by this means can the 
 properties of matter as such be disclosed) ; he was, 
 on the other hand, quite wrong, in condemning the 
 logic of Aristotle, which was based on biology, and 
 which aimed at an entirely different thing. Of this 
 on a future page. It was entirely beside the mark 
 to accuse Aristotle's philosophy of not leading to 
 fruits, a charge which has been echoed by later 
 writers after Bacon : all being entirely ignorant of 
 the greatness of the man they were condemning. 
 Hallam, e.g., does but express the common criti- 
 cism and the common ignorance when he says : 
 ' The Aristotelian philosophy, even in the hands of 
 ' the master, was like a barren tree that conceals its 
 ' want of fruit by profusion of leaves V There is 
 more than mere Philistinism, there is dense ignor- 
 ance in this sort of criticism. Where is the fruit 
 in Newton's Principia, in Darwin's Origin of 
 Species ? Whose bread will these great works 
 butter ? Are we to scout the wonderful discoveries 
 of Harvey and Von Baer (that is to say, of Aris- 
 totle), because they will not help us to make steam 
 engines ? Is there any ' fruit ' in history in Hal- 
 lam's histories, for example ? And if so, if political 
 wisdom be fruit, is there not more of it in Aristotle's 
 
 h Middle Ages.
 
 28 Body and SouL 
 
 Politics than in all the works of Hallam and his 
 whole generation ? Is not light itself, fruit ? Why, 
 what is fruit ? Is there no utility in knowledge ? 
 Or, even abandoning every reference to utility, is 
 not an avenue of elms or oaks as good as a field of 
 turnips ? Such rubbish can men talk, when they 
 think they are judicial. As if, forsooth, we were 
 to abuse Cuvier, because he could not make us 
 a pair of boots ! 
 
 Bacon, then, who was seeking to discover identity, 
 could not understand Aristotle, who was seeking to 
 account for variety. Bacon, who was thinking of 
 the ultimate states and chemical processes of matter 
 as suck, could not comprehend Aristotle, who was 
 thinking of the formal structure of bodies as such. 
 Hence the Novum Organum, which all the same 
 Bacon derived from Aristotle, and the substitution 
 in the general mind of the mechanico-mathematical 
 for the organic method of scientific investigation. 
 The final cause, said Bacon, speaking of what he 
 did not understand, corrupts the sciences : and so, 
 indeed, it does, if it be employed and understood, 
 as Aristotle never either employed or understood 
 it : if it be intended to supplant the full material 
 and mechanical explanation of the facts. Aristotle 
 knew just as well as Bacon, that, regarded as the 
 explanation of material processes, the final cause is 
 not an explanation at all. But he knew a great 
 deal more than Bacon about causation, as I shall 
 presently show. In those sciences which investigate 
 matterand its properties, the mechanico-mathematical 
 sciences, the final cause is no use at all, and tells us 
 nothing : in physics proper, chemistry, mechanics, 
 astronomy, and so forth. Here avayK-q reigns
 
 Natural Economy. 29 
 
 supreme. And the Baconian condemnation of final 
 causes, or teleology, was stamped and sealed into 
 a dogma by the ever memorable achievement of the 
 mathematical method in the Principia of Newton, 
 and the development of experimental and analytical 
 chemistry and physics. Nobody knew, till a very 
 recent period indeed, anything whatever about bi- 
 ology. Nobody could accordingly perceive that 
 there was no real antagonism between Aristotle's 
 organic and Bacon's experimental method : for 
 no one can understand logic apart from biology. 
 Nobody perceived that the latter had no right to 
 condemn the former, and was positively wrong 
 when it attempted to force itself into a sphere where 
 it was of no avail, the organic world. Nobody 
 knew it then and who knows it now ? Even the 
 author of the Origin of Species was entirely un- 
 aware what the real significance of his book 
 was, and wherein its true import lay. What that 
 book really did was, to reinstate the Aristotelian 
 philosophy throughout the whole domain of the 
 organic world ; that is to say, in biology, embry- 
 ology, physiology, natural history, logic, psychology, 
 morals, politics, and political economy. In all these 
 branches of science, the Origin of Species has 
 simply proved that Aristotle was right, and all his 
 detractors wrong : that it is not the abstract, hypo- 
 thetical, ideal, nor the mechanico-mathematical, 
 material, but the biological, analytical, evolutionary 
 method, that can alone achieve solid and permanent 
 results in the philosophy of the organic world. 
 And, in fact, after condemning Aristotle's philosophy 
 for three hundred years, we wake as it were from 
 a long dream to find that the essentials in all these
 
 3C Body and Soul. 
 
 Sciences were long ago anticipated by Aristotle, 
 in whom alone we shall find organic truth : and 
 indeed many a man has made in modern times 
 a great reputation with a tiny chip of Aristotle's 
 colossal block. 
 
 V. At the bottom of the scientific, i.e. mechanico- 
 material condemnation of Aristotle's teleology lies 
 the confusion between it and the Bridgewater 
 Treatise conception of the universe. But the two 
 have nothing in common. To confound them to- 
 gether is a vulgar error. People who look upon 
 science with the eye of a Macaulay, the brilliant 
 commonplace man, invariably argue in this way. 
 Teleologist ; ergo, Deist : this is the argument. 
 But the Origin of Species has annihilated it, by 
 showing that teleology, properly understood, is the 
 true explanation of all structure : and is thus the 
 verification of the whole Aristotelian philosophy, all 
 the more valuable because completely unconscious, 
 and drawn from the facts themselves. 
 
 What, in fact, is Darwin's result ? What is the 
 essence and sum of his teaching ? This, that every 
 detail of structure (except that which depends upon 
 correlated variation) has become what it is from its 
 function : that every organised body plant or 
 animal and every part of that body, is constituted 
 with reference to its peculiar end : that the count- 
 less and beautiful varieties of organisation are all 
 merely the same fundamental type-form, or, as the 
 Germans say, Ur-T/iier, modified in accordance 
 with different conditions : that the law of crea- 
 tion is co-adaptation of means to ends, and thus, 
 by reason of the struggle for existence, con- 
 stant victory of the forms best organised to
 
 Natural Economy. 3 1 
 
 achieve those ends : hence, that differentiation of 
 structure to meet ever more various ends is the 
 biological law of progress : every organised body, 
 and part of such body, being strictly an instrument 
 for the performance of work, which determines its 
 structure : that accordingly, as a corollary from this 
 view, the principle of explanation for all such 
 bodies is their final cause : and thus the history 
 of their development : that this is their true 
 definition : the process of defining, scientific ex- 
 planation, merely reflecting as in a mirror the 
 actual process of defining, i.e. limiting or marking 
 out the specific form by constant differentiation of 
 the generic type : nature proceeding according to 
 the great principle of gradation, gradual special- 
 isation, by addition, of structure : that thus, as Lord 
 Beaconsfield said, all is race, and that generation is 
 the principle of identity and community, conditions 
 the principle of variety ; hence the meaning and 
 significance of genus, species, difference, classifi- 
 cation, and proof : the what or essence of a thing 
 depending, alike in fact and knowledge, upon the 
 how and why : the scientific understanding of what 
 a thing is following upon, and only upon, the know- 
 ledge of ivhat it is for. 
 
 I shall examine closely the theory in the Origin 
 of Species on a future page : but this is the sub- 
 stance of Darwin's teaching. Now, what does 
 Aristotle say ? The very same. Either Darwin 
 or Aristotle might sign his name to the above 
 passage. And in order to establish the truth of 
 this assertion, I shall now proceed to give a short 
 exposition of the biological basis of Aristotle's 
 philosophy, no such thing, as far as I am aware,
 
 32 Body and Soul. 
 
 existing in the English language. And as in a case 
 of this kind the reader is always apt, not without 
 reason, to suspect the writer of reading modern 
 views into ancient thoughts, I shall accordingly, 
 even at the risk of a little repetition, and a certain 
 stiffness, confine myself entirely to Aristotle's 
 ipsissima verba, translated with severe accuracy 
 from his own language, and set down in the order 
 in which they occur in his own writings, except 
 where occasionally a word or two of explanation 
 may be required. Further, to make assurance 
 doubly sure, I shall refer every passage to its 
 place in the original Greek. Nevertheless, I must, 
 preliminarily, beg the reader to remember that no 
 series of extracts can give a truly adequate idea 
 of Aristotle's genius ; that I am illustrating only the 
 basis, and not the superstructure of his philosophy ; 
 and finally that there never would have been so 
 general an ignorance of Aristotle's true meaning, 
 had his incorrigible commentators interpreted him 
 in his own light : had they begun by studying his 
 biological treatises as the key to his whole system : 
 and had they not wilfully forgotten, when dealing 
 with his Metaphysics, that in that work he was not 
 contemplating forms as originating, but as being 
 what they were, when they had originated : a very 
 different matter, which fully accounts for the ap- 
 parent opposition between what he says there, and 
 what he says in every other part of his writings. 
 
 The problem of the natural philosopher is to 
 explain the world, as originating : to explain the 
 origin of things as they are. He starts from the 
 fact, and asks, What is it ? How is it ? Why is 
 it ? seeking for the causes of its generation. Now
 
 Natural Economy, 33 
 
 we may look at anything in two ways : either we 
 may ask, What is it when it is there ? or, How did 
 it come to get there, to be as it is ? The former is 
 the metaphysical and aesthetic point of view, and 
 does not concern us here. The business of the 
 natural philosopher is to account for how things 
 come to be as they are. What Renan says of 
 Averroes exactly paints Aristotle's conception of the 
 natural philosopher : le probleme de forigine des etres 
 est cehii qui preocciipe le plus Ibn-Roschd: il y revient 
 dans tons ses ecrits, et toujours avec une nouvelle 
 instance '. This is Aristotle : his own example 
 strengthens all his laws. For the great funda- 
 mental fact in Nature is Change. Everything is 
 constantly changing, and the process of Change in 
 all its various forms and spheres is the object of 
 scientific enquiry. Aristotle's treatise on Physics is 
 not what we mean by ' Physics ' : it is a critical 
 consideration of the process of change in general, 
 and its conditions, Time, Space, and Causality k : 
 the starting-point of his philosophy, the sketch or 
 ground-plan subsequently to be filled in in all 
 directions. Nothing in Nature is isolated. All 
 things are in intricate correlation, in action and 
 counter-action : everything is at once active and 
 passive. Thus the only possible way to study 
 anything from the scientific point of view is to 
 study it in all its concrete relations : to study it in 
 the abstract is superficial, and does not help us 
 to any real knowledge of its nature : for all abstract 
 treatment misses the point, viz., that everything is 
 
 1 Renan, Averroes, p. 108. 
 
 k Compare Mr. A. R. Wallace's remarks on Change, in the 
 first essay in his Natural Selection. 
 
 D
 
 34 Body and Soul. 
 
 what it is, only because it is when it is, where it is, 
 and as it is ' : in short, that ' everything's nothing 
 ' except by position.' The philosopher who does not 
 understand this may be a good mathematician or 
 metaphysician, but will do no good as a scientific 
 or natural philosopher. The man who does not 
 understand motion is necessarily ignorant of every- 
 thing in nature, says Aristotle. Now, there never 
 was any man who understood this point so well as 
 Aristotle ; and just because he did so, he is the 
 greatest of all natural philosophers. Rightly does 
 M. Barthelemy S te . Hilaire praise his Physics : for 
 this is the starting-point. Let us hear some of the 
 things Aristotle has to say about people who did 
 not grasp this fundamental condition of all physical 
 investigation. He speaks (Metaph. i. 5) of persons 
 ' who made their investigations in too abstract and 
 ' absolute a fashion ; thus defining things only super- 
 ' ficially.' Elsewhere (De Calo, vii. 7), ' It so hap- 
 * pens that what some persons say of the facts does 
 ' not agree with the facts : the reason being that they 
 ' have not correctly fixed their first principles : but 
 ' seek to drag everything into harmony with certain 
 ' definite dogmas.' (A description exactly fitting 
 orthodox economists.) Again (De Gen. etCor. i. 2), 
 ' The cause of the inability of certain persons to 
 ' take a comprehensive view is a want of experience. 
 ' For those who have been in the habit of investi- 
 1 gating physical nature are better able to pitch on 
 ' such principles as will connect the facts : whereas 
 ' those who, versed in books and discussions, never 
 
 1 This is the true doctrine of Relativity, of which the doc- 
 trine of Protagoras is only a special case. Mr. Grote, e.g. only 
 understands the superficial relativity.
 
 Natural Economy. 35 
 
 ' look at the facts of the case, are apt merely to cast 
 ' a glance at a few instances, and so come to an easy 
 ' conclusion. And from this we may learn what a 
 1 difference there is between those who look deep 
 ' into the concrete relations of things, and those who 
 ' examine things merely in a rationalistic and dis- 
 ' cursive manner.' Elsewhere, he says that the 
 reason why we cannot find out anything about the 
 movememt of the blood is the difficulty of observing 
 the facts : as dead animals are not living, and living 
 animals are closed up. (Hist. Anim. iii. 2.) Else- 
 where he observes (De Gen. Anim. ii. 6) that ' some 
 ' of the older scientific enquirers attempted to state 
 ' the order in which each part of the animal comes 
 ' into existence, without much observation of the 
 ' special facts.' And again (De Gen. Anim. ii. 8), 
 ' Possibly an abstract proof might seem to be more 
 ' cogent than what has been advanced. By such 
 ' a term I mean to imply that the more general 
 ' a proof is, the further it is from the principles 
 ' peculiar and appropriate to the case in point : ' 
 and of this kind of argument he adds, ' this sort 
 ' of argument is much too general and empty ; for 
 ' reasons not drawn from the peculiar principles of 
 ' each kind of case are vague, and only seem to 
 ' touch the matter, but do not really do so.' Again, 
 ' of the generation of bees, he says (De Gen. Anim. 
 ' iii. 10), ' Such seems to be the case with the 
 ' generation of bees, as far as the reasoning goes, 
 1 and the facts are known about them : but the 
 ' facts have not yet been observed with sufficient 
 ' accuracy : but should this ever be the case, then 
 ' we must trust to observation rather than reasoning, 
 ' and to the reasoning only in so far as it gives 
 
 D 2
 
 36 Body and Soul. 
 
 f results in harmony with the facts.' Sir John 
 Lubbock could say no more. Similarly, of certain 
 opinions held concerning the soul, he says emphatic- 
 ally (De Anima, i. i), ' they are all mere vague and 
 ' empty dialectical results.' And, discussing the views 
 of certain predecessors as to the object of perception, 
 he says (De An. iii. 2) that they erred, because they 
 spoke absolutely and abstractly of things that are 
 true only in certain relations. For, as he says (De 
 Soph. El. c. 5), ' absolute existence, and existence in 
 certain relations or conditions, are two very different 
 things.' ' Those who speak in generalities,' he says in 
 another connection (Pol. i. 13)' only deceive them- 
 ' selves.' And, in regard to inquiries into the soul, 
 he says (De An. ii. 3), ' It is ridiculous to seek for 
 ' a definition common both to these cases and 
 ' others : this would be the true definition of no 
 ' real existence, nor one strictly appropriate to any 
 ' peculiar and ultimate species (such a species being 
 ' entirely left out of sight). For it is the same with 
 ' souls as with figures : that which is earlier exists 
 ' potentially in that which is later, both in the case 
 ' of figures and of natural organisms : for example, 
 4 the triangle exists in the square, and the nutritive 
 ' in the percipient soul. We must accordingly seek 
 ' in each case for the soul peculiar to it, as, e.g., the 
 ' special soul of plants, of man or beast.' In this 
 passage he strikes the keynote of his method. For 
 just because each special class of objects is sui 
 generis, and peculiarly determined and situated 
 amid intricate special relations, it is impossible, 
 according to Aristotle, and unquestionably he is 
 right, to deduce the more from the less complex. 
 Hence it is useless, and a mark of want of insight,
 
 Natural Economy. 37 
 
 to look for any grand universal principle from which 
 the world should be deduced. In the sphere of 
 nature, abstract deductions are useless : the only 
 adequate and fruitful method is to go analytically 
 backwards : to start from the complex and go back 
 to the simple : to resolve the compound into its 
 elements. Only thus can we obtain a really 
 adequate and exhaustive knowledge of every par- 
 ticular subject, and make sure of omitting nothing : 
 for the earlier is contained in the later, but not 
 vice versa : in the state is the family : in the family, 
 the man : but from the abstract individual, much 
 less the ego, we could never discover either the man, 
 the family, or the state. Nor are Aristotle's pre- 
 cepts, as is often the case with philosophers, at 
 variance with his practice. He is the most concrete 
 of all philosophers. Before his eyes he lias ever 
 the limitations of time, places and circumstances 
 which qualify his statements : on every page you 
 find him distinguishing between the absolute or 
 unqualified, and the relative statement : the airXfos 
 and the Kara TL. His mind was 'immersed in 
 matter ' more than ever Bacon's was, and he under- 
 stood reality better than Bacon or any other philo- 
 sopher that ever lived. 
 
 But to return. All things being in such close 
 and intricate relations and correlations, everything 
 being equally active and passive : acting upon 
 others, and itself reacted upon by them ; only 
 a close and intimate analysis of things in their rela- 
 tions can furnish us with their explanation. Our 
 success in discovering the ivhat and the why, the 
 nature and causes of things, will essentially depend 
 upon a close attention to the when, where and how.
 
 38 Body and Soul. 
 
 We see in the universe an infinite multitude and 
 variety of Shapes constantly changing, constantly 
 arising and passing away. It is a sea of matter in 
 perpetual agitation. Out of matter all the Shapes of 
 things arise, and into it they all fall back again. 
 What, now, are the causes of all these transforma- 
 tions ? Certainly, all are made of material, and so far 
 determined by their material. But this is not enough. 
 For from the point of view of matter, all things are 
 identical : there is no difference between them. 
 Matter is the principle of identity and indistinguish- 
 able indifference. The differences lie, not in the 
 matter, but inthe Shapes and Structures, combinations 
 and compositions of things. It is the differences, and 
 not the resemblances, which are the important matter 
 for us. It is in respect of its Form that everything 
 is peculiar and distinctive. Therefore, although 
 the material element is one side, and an altogether 
 indispensable side of the explanation of the uni- 
 verse, it is yet neither exhaustive nor sufficient. 
 We may have a full and complete material expla- 
 nation of any Form or Shape, yet this is not 
 enough : it is, in reality, thoroughly inadequate. 
 For why should matter combine to produce just 
 this Shape ! Things are not matter only : matter 
 never appears, as it is in itself, but always as 
 determined in a special Shape. If, then, matter 
 furnishes the stuff out of which all these Shapes 
 arise, and of which they consist, we have still to ask 
 why this happens just as it does. What is the 
 instigating cause, and the raison d'etre of each 
 form ? What strange shapes they all are ! Consider 
 then in the abstract, how anomalous, how capricious, 
 how unintelligible they appear ! yet in their proper
 
 Natural Economy. 39 
 
 place, how natural ! What is the principle which 
 determines Shapes, which makes them just what 
 they are ? It cannot be the matter in them : this is 
 obviously insufficient to account for them, since it 
 remains the same in different Shapes. We must, 
 therefore, seek some further explanation, some 
 further principle ; this alone being insufficient 
 (OVK luavov). (It was from this that Leibnitz derived 
 his raison stiffisante.) The material elements of 
 which the Shape is composed cannot explain, or 
 furnish the reason why of the composition : the 
 composition, the synthesis, is something more than 
 its elements. The elements are perfectly happy, 
 perfectly natural, when existing out of combination, 
 as elements. It is not the matter, as such, but the 
 particular state or condition of matter, which we want 
 to explain. What, then, can this principle be ? It is 
 obvious that the raison d'etre of the Shape, Structure, 
 or Constitution of any body compounded of elements 
 cannot be found in itself, in its material elements. 
 Where then ? In the conditions which surround it, and 
 in which it exists, to which it responds, on which it 
 acts, and by which it is acted upon. The special con- 
 ditions of each Form contains its secret, its raison d'etre, 
 its creative principle. Every body, in fact, every Form 
 and Shape of body, is an adaptation to the work it 
 
 m And Wolf elaborated Leibnitz' Sufficient Reason into the 
 triple principle: Principium Fiendi : Principlum Essendi : Prin- 
 ripium Cognoscendi. But this is taken straight out of Aristotle 
 
 (.Met. IV. l), Tracrwf Se KOIVOV sari rcoi' np^a>i> TO irpforov eiVai 56(v 17 
 
 ecrrij', fj yiverai, 9 yty/'toa-Kerai. Schopenhauer, in his little treatise 
 on the Principle, adds to these three a fourth, which is a de- 
 lusion : like the fourth figure in Logic, merely an instance of the 
 way in which men think they are improving upon Aristotle, 
 when they are adding to him only what is nonsensical.
 
 4O Body and Soul. 
 
 has to do. Everything, in this intricate web of 
 related things, exists for the sake of the others. 
 Its true principle of explanation does not lie in 
 itself, but in others. It exists, to fit its place : to 
 do its appropriate work. An isolated thing could 
 have no Shape : for why should it be this rather 
 than another ? The principle of form would be gone. 
 For everything qua its Form, is to be explained 
 not from its constituent elements, but to its con- 
 stituting conditions. Its Shape is originally de- 
 termined not from its original interior stuff, but 
 towards what is in front of and outside it. The 
 principle of explanation of Shape and Form lies, 
 not in what it is made of, but what it is made/0r: 
 not in the necessary properties of its matter, but in 
 the necessities of the conditions which it has to 
 meet. This is the meaning of Aristotle's final 
 cause, his reXof and his ov eW/ca : which, after being 
 misunderstood for two thousand years, will now, 
 thanks to the Origin of Species, receive its due 
 recognition. 
 
 No sooner is the truth perceived, than it becomes 
 obvious that all true explanation of the origin of 
 Shapes, Forms, Structures and Species is double. 
 There are two necessary sides to all scientific ex- 
 planation : each is valid only on the assumption 
 of the other obtaining : both are in reality indis- 
 pensable. Aristotle calls them respectively absolute 
 (material, innate and original) necessity, and con- 
 ditional necessity : A^-cessity and AWafcessity, to 
 borrow an expressive Scottish colloquialism, which 
 exactly hits the truth. Matter, qua matter, obeys 
 the law of its own nature. But no portion of matter 
 finds itself alone in the universe : on the contrary,
 
 Natural Economy. 41 
 
 it finds itself in a jostling crowd. Hence it cannot 
 have entirely its own uncontrolled way, but must 
 adapt and adjust itself to other natures. Its first 
 law is its own material ^^cessity : its second, con- 
 ditional ttAO&essity (77 avayKri TOV Trot? Kao~TOv yiy- 
 vtvQa.i 7T(j)VK, KOL rj TOV Sia TI avctyKr]). Matter, 
 as such, obeys first its own law : but all organised 
 bodies must pay, as such, as organised bodies, first 
 regard to the second, the conditional necessity, if 
 they are to continue. The first is subordinate to the 
 second, for them. For example, it is, from a purely 
 material point of view, all the same whether a wolf 
 lives or dies : exists as a whole living wolf, or cut 
 into two or more pieces. But from the wolf's point 
 of view, it is not the same. If he is to exist as 
 a wolf, and not merely as his elements, he must 
 obey the laws of his organic nature first, and make 
 his material elements subordinate to these. He 
 must eat, he must run, he must find prey, and 
 avoid enemies, or conquer them, and his organs 
 must be such as to enable him to do this. In other 
 words, the Principle of Creation, Scientific Explana- 
 tion, and Definition, for organised beings, is pri- 
 marily the final cause, the principle of adaptation 
 of means to ends : and only secondarily their 
 material cause. The principle of explanation for 
 Structure is Function. It is the work it has to do 
 that makes every being what it is, and it lives, just 
 as it is capable of performing its work. The soul 
 and creative principle of every organic being is thus 
 the work it has to do : i.e. the harmonious and proper 
 performance of its function by its structure. This is 
 Aristotle's definition of the soul : this is the mean- 
 ing of his saying, TO yap OLLTLQV TOV eivai irao~iv rj
 
 42 Body and Soul. 
 
 ova-la. The body, i.e. the Structure, is, for the sake 
 of the soul, the Function. For the soul of all organ- 
 ised beings is nothing but their proper function or 
 work. All things are defined by their work : for 
 those things that can best perform their work most 
 truly are. For nature suits her tools to the work, 
 and not the work to the tools : these being con- 
 structed, indeed, of materials necessarily and de- 
 finitely endowed with properties ; nevertheless, the 
 structure is not determined by the material ele- 
 ments, but the end they must serve. And there 
 being thus two principles of explanation, the natural 
 philosopher might give both : but, beyond all, the 
 function. For the special business of the scientific 
 enquirer into Nature's Economy is to investigate 
 the souls of things. 
 
 Having now placed the Aristotelian philosophy 
 in its true light from a general point of view, I shall 
 show by a copious citation of important passages 
 from his principal scientific writings, how fully he 
 realised the scientific meaning of his own philo- 
 sophy ; to what a depth he had sounded the ocean 
 of organic existence : how comprehensive was his 
 survey of the field, how piercing his scrutiny into 
 the forms, of the vegetable and animal world. 
 
 The History of Animals is a vast mass of facts 
 accumulated as the material wherein to discover his 
 philosophy of the Animal, which he gives us in his 
 treatise on the Parts of Animals, on the Generation 
 of Animals, and on the Soul: and on which he 
 bases the whole of his higher philosophical struc- 
 ture, logical, moral, and political. How any one 
 with these treatises lying before him could accuse 
 Aristotle of not appreciating the importance of
 
 Natural Economy. 43 
 
 facts as the basis of science and philosophy, I do 
 not know : but we find calumny generally in the 
 company of ignorance and prejudice. There are 
 more facts in Aristotle's works than in the works 
 of all the other philosophers put together. He had 
 indeed a kind of genius for facts : the marvel is 
 that he should have been able in so. short a life to 
 bring such a vast variety on all sorts of subjects 
 together. He had to be his own Encyclopaedia. 
 
 If then, we think of things by their appropriate 
 names, we shall easily realise the organic connec- 
 tion running through the whole Aristotelian philo- 
 sophy. Thus beginning with Change in general 
 he goes on to consider it in detail, meteorological 
 and geological change, formation, generation and 
 decay ; next he arrives at biological change, and 
 investigates living beings (plants and animals), then 
 their structure and parts, their generation, their life 
 (soul) and kindred subjects : then rising to the 
 highest animal, man, he considers his manners, 
 customs, character, and morals, habits of life and 
 society ; (Ethics and Politics ;) his thinking and 
 reasoning power ; (Logic or Analytic ;) his speech 
 and rhetoric ; and his productive activity ; (Eco- 
 nomics and Poetics). The whole is simply an 
 ascending series based upon a biological conception 
 derived from a close study of life in all its forms. 
 Living beings, their structure, their functions, 
 their life, (spirit or soul,) habits, and doings : 
 this is the Aristotelian philosophy. It is es- 
 sentially, through and through, evolutionary. A 
 basis of deep generic unity, rising by succes- 
 sive differentiations, adapted to ever more com- 
 plex (TroAire Ae'ore pa) functions, to essential dif-
 
 44 Body and Soul. 
 
 ferences : this is the scheme. The central word in 
 Aristotle's whole philosophy is difference (8ta(f)opa) 
 just as in that of Darwin it is variety. 
 
 ' The parts of animals differ in degree, among 
 ' those of the same kind.' (Hist. Anim. i. i.) 
 ' Animals differ in respect of their lives, their ac- 
 ' tions, their characters, and their parts.' (Ib.) ' But 
 ' some animals have parts which are the same 
 'neither in kind nor in degree, but analogically: 
 ' thus the feather is to the bird what the scale is to 
 ' the fish.' (/&) The problem is to explain the 
 reason why of these differences on a basis of re- 
 semblance. The way to attack the problem is to 
 accumulate facts, ' we must first get at the existing 
 ' differences, and the facts of each case, and after 
 ' this attempt to discover their causes : for this is 
 ' the natural method of proceeding, having first ac- 
 ' cumulated the material facts in each case.' (Ib.) 
 ' Now, all animals have some parts in common : 
 ' viz., that wherewith they receive food, and that 
 ' whereinto they receive it ; (the mouth and the 
 ' stomach ;) and these parts are the same and yet 
 ' different in the way we have already mentioned : 
 ' that is to say, either in kind, or degree, or in 
 ' position,' and these parts he calls the ' necessary 
 parts' (dvayKouoraTa fj.6pia). (Ib.) 'People,' he 
 says, ' know the external parts of man better than 
 ' those of animals, just as they know the coins of 
 ' their own country best : but the reverse is the 
 ' case with the internal parts.' We see here how 
 hampered he was by the prejudices of his day 
 against human anatomy, and this will account for 
 many of his curious blunders : yet in spite of this 
 what did he not achieve ? He constantly refers for
 
 Natural Economy. 45 
 
 evidence to his anatomical works ; (according to 
 Diogenes Laertius he wrote eight books of An- 
 atomy ;) but we gather from his expressions that he 
 did not dissect man. 
 
 ' All animals have some parts in common, and 
 ' some peculiar each to its kind. Those parts which 
 ' are the same are also different from each other, in 
 ' the way we have often mentioned before. For as 
 ' a general rule animals different in kind have most 
 ' of their parts different in kind : and those which 
 ' are only analogically the same are generically dif- 
 1 ferent : some, again, are generically the same, but 
 ' specifically different : others again some animals 
 'have and others have not.' (ff. A. ii. i.) ' Ani- 
 1 mals with four legs use their forelegs as hands in 
 ' many ways.' (/#) ' The same species often has two 
 'different kinds of the same part.' (H. A. ii. n.) 
 'In all animals which have bones the spine is the 
 ' radical or original principle.' (//. A. iii. 7.) He 
 complains of the difficulty of examining the blood 
 and the veins, quoting, where observation fails, the 
 opinions of various doctors, Syennesis, Diogenes, 
 and Polybus. (H. A. iii. 2.) 'All insects, with 
 'certain exceptions, live when cut in two.' (H. A. 
 iv. 7.) He believes in spontaneous generation, 
 ' some animals are spontaneously generated when 
 ' their original principle, whatever it be, is formed 
 'by chance.' (H, A. v. i.) He is fully aware of 
 the close and gradual progress from lower to higher 
 organisation running through all nature : ' so grad- 
 ' ually does nature mount up little by little from 
 ' inanimate to animate beings, that the border- 
 ' land eludes our observation, by reason of her 
 ' continuity, and we cannot tell to which it belongs.
 
 46 Body and Soul. 
 
 ' For after inanimate things, next in order come 
 ' plants : and these differ one from the other in the 
 ' degree in which they share in life, as it seems : and 
 ' in general, plants, as compared with bodies below 
 ' them in the scale, seem as it were alive : as com- 
 ' pared, on the contrary, with animals, dead : but 
 ' the ascent from them to animals is, as I said, con- 
 ' tinuous ; and indeed, as to some things in the sea, 
 ' it is doubtful whether they are animals or plants : 
 ' for they grow fixed to their spot, and many of 
 ' them perish, if torn away from it. And the sponge 
 ' is almost exactly like a plant,' (i.e. Aristotle held 
 it to be an animal): 'and thus proceeding gradu- 
 ' ally by imperceptible differences, one thing after 
 ' another seems to acquire more and more life and 
 ' motion.' (H. A. viii. i.) Darwin had no clearer 
 conception of the ' great principle of gradation/ as 
 he calls it, than Aristotle. 
 
 He notices how ' animals differ in respect of the 
 'places they frequent, and in which they are found,' 
 and discusses, in fact, their distribution : meagrely, 
 indeed, how could it have been otherwise ? 
 nevertheless, he perceives its bearing on the pro- 
 blem. (H. A. viii. 27.) 'There are many kinds 
 ' of food, and consequently many different lives 
 ' both of men and animals. For it is impossible to 
 ' live without food : consequently the differences 
 ' in food have produced differences in animals. 
 ' For some beasts live in flocks, and some by 
 ' themselves, according to whichever way best fits 
 ' them (oTTorepcof (rv/jL^epei) for obtaining their food : 
 ' and their manner of life is such as necessity com- 
 ' pelled them to make it.' (Pol. i. 8.) Just so, 'the 
 ' difference of their habitat makes their characters
 
 Natural Economy. 47 
 
 ' differ.' (H. A. viii. 28.) The whole Ninth Book 
 of the History of Animals is devoted to the char- 
 acters of animals. For, as he says and only since 
 Darwin has the world begun to return to his 
 point of view, ' in most other animals we perceive 
 ' traces of the soul's ways.' (H. A. viii. i.) 'The 
 ' traces of all these moral characteristics are, as 
 ' it were, in all animals, but they become even 
 ' plainer in proportion as the animal acquires more 
 ' character : plainest of all in man.' (H. A. ix. 3.) 
 He notes the ' mimicries of human life ' which we 
 see in other animals. (H. A. ix. 8.) He is 
 perfectly alive to the struggle for existence, and, 
 as we shall see presently, explains the structures 
 of animals always with regard to their need for 
 defence (irpos fiorjdetav, a\KT)v, a-toTrjpiav, (^vy-qv). 
 ' There is war among animals between themselves : 
 ' in the case of all animals which occupy the same 
 ' places, and support their life on the same food : if 
 ' food be in scarcity, even animals of the same 
 ' species will fight for it.' (H. A. ix, 2.) He has, 
 however, no perception of jthe high ratio of 
 increase, the Malthusian element in Darwin's 
 theory, in its evolutionary bearing : although in 
 the purely political sphere the Malthusian argu- 
 ment, that too many children ruin the state, was 
 familiar to him and other Greek thinkers. 
 
 In proceeding, now, after accumulating the facts, 
 (it is only by perusing the History of Animals that 
 the reader will appreciate Aristotle's insatiate in- 
 dustry) in proceeding to ascertain the philosophy 
 of organic life, to find, that is to say, its cause or 
 principle, ' the first cause or principle is obviously 
 ' that which we call the principle of adaptation.
 
 48 Body and Soul. 
 
 ' For this is the account or definition of the thing : 
 ' alike in natural or artificial combination.' (De Part. 
 Anim. i. i.) ' The principle of necessity does 
 ' not apply to all natural objects in the same way, 
 ' although nearly everybody tries to base his defin- 
 ' itions or scientific explanations on a reference to one 
 ' sort of necessity only, not distinguishing the differ- 
 ' ent meanings of the term necessity. Absolute 
 ' necessity belongs only to eternal things, (Aristotle 
 is thinking of the heavenly bodies, of which he 
 knew of course nothing,) ' but conditional necessity 
 ' is the first law for all things that come into being ' 
 (i.e. have a passing or temporary form), 'just as it 
 ' is for the productions of art, as a house or any 
 ' similar object.' (D.P.A. Id.) Matter, that is to 
 say, as such, obeys the laws of its own necessary 
 nature, but matter, as organised in form must obey 
 first the laws of the organisation, as such : i.e. Aris- 
 totle's ov evKa, or final cause, the adaptation. If 
 this is not done, the organisation cannot originally 
 arise, and will disappear, even when arisen. If the 
 animal is to live, it must eat, and so forth : if it 
 is to do such and such work, it must be thus or 
 thus. Death represents the final triumph of matter 
 over form : the conditional necessity is broken, 
 and consequently the organisation disappears, hav- 
 ing existed only as long as it obeyed it. For all 
 organisation is adaptation to an end, and the law of 
 adaptation or coadaptation is the supreme law of 
 Natural Economy : there is the Aristotelian phil- 
 osophy in a nutshell. To mistake or overlook this 
 distinction of double necessity is to philosophise 
 absolutely and abstractly, and not concretely : i.e. 
 with regard to the special relations of the thing :
 
 Natural Economy. 49 
 
 it is the irpwrov \j/evSos' of all philosophies such as 
 Plato's, on the one hand, or one-sided material 
 necessitarians on the other. For ' the method of 
 ' scientific proof and investigation, and the method 
 ' of absolute necessity, are two entirely different 
 'things,' says Aristotle (D.P.A. i. i), refuting by 
 anticipation Bacon's imaginary refutation of him- 
 self. The one, that is, material absolute necessity, 
 starts from the original and necessary elements of 
 things as they are : the other, biological proof, 
 conditional necessity, starts not from what things 
 are elementarily, but what they are going to be : ' the 
 ' principle of the one is what is, of the other, what 
 ' is going to be ' (D. P. A. i. i), i.e. absolute necessity 
 is the principle of identity amidst differences : dis- 
 covered inductively : conditional necessity is the 
 principle of the raison d'etre of difference among 
 things at bottom identical : which follows deduct- 
 ively : this is the true distinction between Bacon 
 and Aristotle. Fire burns, because it is its nature 
 so to do : but the structure of the animal follows 
 from the work it has to do. The one method starts 
 with its eye on matter as such : the other with its 
 eye on matter, as definitely shaped towards an end. 
 As matter is, so it does : operari scqutivr esse, says 
 Bacon : as structure does, so it is : esse sequitur 
 operari, says Aristotle. And though Aristotle 
 understood Bacon's method, Bacon entirely failed 
 to understand Aristotle's : he knew nothing about 
 organic forms or biology : whereas Aristotle's 
 Logic of Science is based on his biological 
 knowledge : and in biological matters, said Aris- 
 totle, the fundamental principle is not the nature 
 of the elements as such, but the structure of
 
 50 Body and Soul. 
 
 the whole as such. Upon this adaptive or 
 conditional necessity ; this necessity of structure to 
 conform to and accord with function, depends the 
 whole creation : and of course, as science is no- 
 thing but the mirror of nature, the principle of 
 scientific explanation, definition, and proof. For 
 the cause of a thing's existence, and the definition 
 of its nature, are the same : TO yap CUTLOV TOV tiva.i 
 TTOLCTLV r) ovcria, KCU 6 Aoyoy rrjf ovaia? (De Aniui. 
 ii. 4), i.e. the need for cutting is the cause of 
 the saw, gives its peculiar form to the saw : and the 
 definition of the saw is an instrument for cutting : 
 the need for flying gives its form to the wing, 
 and the definition of the wing is an instrument 
 for flying. Esse sequitur operari. 
 
 Therefore our scientific salvation depends upon 
 our making and attending to this distinction between 
 the necessities of matter as such, and the necessity 
 of the structural organisation. This is what Aristotle 
 means when he says, ' we must not forget to ask, 
 ' whether it is better to account for a thing, as the 
 ' older philosophers did, by reference to its own 
 ' original material constituents, or by reference to its 
 ' organised form : for it makes all the difference.' 
 (D. P. A. i. i .) ' The structural explanation is by far 
 ' the most important : for the process of its genesis 
 ' is determined by the final structure : and not vice 
 ' versa' (/#.) ' For to give its material elements 
 ' is not a sufficient explanation of the organic being ' 
 (/#.), i.e. the web feet of the goose are not adequately 
 explained from the merely material side : but from 
 their function: the necessities of their conditions. 
 ' So much more influential is the structural than the 
 4 material side of the animal organisation : ' for the
 
 Natural Economy. 5 1 
 
 material has to grow to, shape itself to, its conditions. 
 (/<.) ' Now the soul of animals is just their function : 
 ' their reality in accordance with the definition : 
 ' this is the cause of their structural organisation 
 ' and their essence.' (Afetap/i. vi. 10.) 'The soul 
 ' is the actual working of the form : the body 
 ' is only the material possibility of the same.' 
 (Metap/i. vi. u.) ' Democritus was wrong in 
 ' asserting that the Shape and Form only was the 
 ' animal : it is not so ; the truth is, that it is function 
 * which makes Shape or Structure real : for a dead 
 ' man has the same Shape as a living man, yet is 
 ' not a man : the essential is gone : he can no longer 
 ' do his work' (D. P. A. i. i.) ' Therefore to say 
 ' that the reality of a body lies in its Shape is to 
 ' speak abstractly, not concretely' (/#.) For by 
 thus speaking, we miss the heart of reality. The 
 explanation and reality of shape or structure lie in 
 its action. Agere constitute esse. 
 
 From all this it follows that ' the special business 
 ' of the natural philosopher is to account for and 
 ' know the souls of things.' (/#.) ' As we saw, 
 ' nature has a double meaning corresponding to the 
 ' double sides of the existence of organic bodies : 
 ' which are on the one side matter, and on the 
 ' other structure organised to perform work.' (/#.) 
 1 There are accordingly these two sides of all ex- 
 ' planation, and two causes ; that of material ne- 
 ' cessity, and that of organic necessity, or adapta- 
 ' tion.' (Id.) 'We say that food is necessary, not 
 ' meaning necessity in the absolute sense, but mean- 
 ' ing that it is impossible to live without it ; that is 
 ' to say, the necessity is conditional : for just as, if 
 ' the axe is to cut, it must be hard ; and if hard, of 
 
 E 2
 
 52 Body and Soul. 
 
 ' brass or iron or what not : so too, since the organic 
 ' body is an instrument (for each part of it, as well 
 ' as the whole, is adapted to an end), it is necessary, 
 1 if it is to do its work, that it should be thus or 
 ' thus, and made of this or that material. Plainly, 
 ' then, there are two species of cause, and scientific 
 ' explanation must give both : or at any rate, must 
 ' try to : and all who do not do this miss the point 
 ' in their attempts to explain nature : for the organic 
 ' structure is far more the essential principle than 
 ' the material element.' (76.) And he expressly 
 says ' the reason why my predecessors never 
 ' arrived at this method, was that they knew no- 
 ' thing of the formative cause, and the definition of 
 1 the essential organic nature.' (Ib.) He says 
 again, ' Necessity sometimes means, that if a 
 1 certain end is to be obtained, this or that are 
 ' necessary as means : sometimes, it means, that 
 1 things are thus or thus in their original elementary 
 ' nature.' (/^.) ' Now since every instrument is 
 1 adapted to an end, and each part of the body 
 4 likewise, and the end to which each is adapted is 
 ' some action, it is manifest that the whole body is 
 * constituted to perform a certain complete action : 
 ' thus the body too is for the sake of the soul, and 
 ' each part for the sake of the work which it is 
 ' constituted to perform.' (D. P. A. i. 5.) ' But now 
 1 the instruments of all actions that aim at an end 
 ' will differ among themselves as variously as the 
 1 actions do.' (/<.) ' Since then the actions and 
 ' movements of animals are very various, both as 
 ' wholes, and in their parts, their constituent ele- 
 ' ments must necessarily be of different capacities.' 
 (D.P. A. ii. i.) 'But the organic necessities do
 
 Natural Economy. 5 3 
 
 ' not determine the original material potentialities 
 ' as s^ic/l, these were originally so from the begin- 
 ' ning' (D. P. A. ii. i) ; the organic necessity only 
 determines the form in which the potentialities of 
 matter shall reveal themselves. ' All the differ- 
 ' ences displayed to us by the parts of animals are 
 ' determined by the principle of the better adapta- 
 ' tion.' (D. P. A. ii. 2.) ' The animal that has but 
 ' few functions, requires but few organs : on the 
 1 other hand, those that in addition to bare life, 
 ' possess also perception, have a much more 
 'variously formed structure/ (D.P.A. ii. 10.) 
 ' In all animals that are not imperfect the two abso- 
 ' lutely essential parts are that whereby it receives its 
 ' food, and that whereby it gets rid of what is 
 ' superfluous, for without food it is impossible either 
 ' to grow or to exist.' (D. P. A. ii. 10.) (Aristotle 
 does not mention the stomach here, as in the 
 passage previously quoted from the History of 
 Animals, because he is thinking of the stomach as 
 the basis of the animal, and the mouth and vent as 
 its instruments.) Over and over again he uses 
 and enforces, as the reader will see, that law of 
 economy, which Darwin ascribes to Geoffrey 
 S te . Hilaire, and Goethe. ' In the case of the 
 ' elephant, as the legs owing to their structure are 
 ' not available for certain functions, nature, as we 
 ' said, makes use of the trunk to compensate the 
 1 animal for the assistance (/3orJ#eia) which it would 
 'have derived from the legs.' (D. P. A. ii. 16.) 
 ' For nature's peculiar and original way of working 
 ' is, as we said, to employ the parts which are com- 
 ' mon to all animals so as to obtain special and 
 ' peculiar ends : as for example, in the case of the
 
 54 Body and Soul. 
 
 ' mouth : all animals use it to receive their food, 
 ' but only some use it as a weapon of attack and 
 ' defence : others, again, use it for speech. Nor do 
 1 all animals use it for breathing. But nature has 
 ' crammed all these functions into one instrument, 
 ' making it differ according to its different require- 
 ' ments. Some animals, accordingly, have small, 
 ' some large mouths. Those that use the mouth 
 4 for food, breathing, and speech have small mouths : 
 4 those that use it as a weapon and a means of 
 ' security have great jaws and teeth. For as they 
 1 find their safety in biting, it is serviceable for 
 ' them to have the opening of their mouth large. 
 ' And the wider their mouth can open, the better 
 ' can they bite. And such fish as bite or are car- 
 ' nivorous have just such a mouth : those that are 
 ' not carnivorous, again, have little mouths : for 
 ' these are useful to them, whereas the big mouth 
 ' would be of no service to them. Birds again have 
 ' what we call the beak for a mouth : for this is 
 ' to them what the lips and teeth are to other 
 ' animals. Now this beak differs just in accordance 
 ' with its different functions and the different 
 ' methods of preservation (ftorjOeias) of the bird 
 ' owning it/ (D. P. A. iii. i.) Similarly of the 
 horns he says : ' As to the horns, these, in the 
 ' animals which have them, are placed on the head. 
 ' Only viviparous animals have them. But certain 
 ' others are metaphorically said to have horns, 
 ' owing to a certain resemblance of their organs to 
 ' horns : but they are not horns, beca^lse none of them 
 ' perform the work of the horn, properly so called. 
 1 For viviparous animals have them for their pre- 
 ' servation and defence ; and this is not the case
 
 Natural Economy. 5 5 
 
 ' with any of those other animals which are said to 
 ' have horns, for none of them use their " horns" 
 ' either in defence or attack : which are the func- 
 1 tions that strength is given to meet. No animal 
 ' that has digits has horns. And the reason is that 
 ' the horn is a weapon of defence, whereas the 
 ' digitalia have other means of defence than horns : 
 ' for nature has furnished some with claws, some 
 ' with teeth, and others with other parts sufficient 
 ' to secure their preservation. But many cloven- 
 ' footed animals have horns as weapons of defence : 
 ' as well as some solid-hoofed animals : others have 
 ' them for attack. But those to whom nature has 
 ' not given them, have other means of safety : as 
 ' swiftness, which is the horse's weapon, or size, 
 ' which is that of the camel : for a superiority of 
 ' size is sufficient to keep off the destruction arising 
 ' from other animals, and this is the case with 
 ' camels and still more with elephants. Tusked 
 ' animals, as well as all kinds of pig or boar, are 
 ' cloven-hoofed. But all animals whose immense 
 ' excess of horn renders it useless to them are 
 ' furnished by nature with another weapon : stags, 
 ' for example, with speed : for the size and branch- 
 ' ing of their antlers is rather injurious than other- 
 ' wise to them. So, too, with antelopes and ga- 
 ' zelles. It is true that against some animals they 
 ' offer to resist and defend themselves with their 
 ' horns, but against fierce and savage animals they 
 ' take to flight. But a certain kind of wild ox 
 ' (whose horns grow together inwards) has as its 
 ' weapon the discharge of its superfluity : for thus 
 1 it defends itself, when frightened ; and this means 
 ' of defence is employed also by other animals : but
 
 56 Body and Soul. 
 
 ' nature never gives to the same animal more than 
 ' one adequate and sufficient weapon of defence/ 
 (D. P. A. iii. 2.) It is here that Aristotle declares 
 ' that the man who studies nature must take a wide 
 ' and comprehensive survey of facts, for it is what 
 ' happens in all or most cases which is to be called 
 ' natural.' So much alive was he to the paramount 
 importance of exhaustive induction. He states 
 the law of organic differences thus : ' Let us now 
 ' consider ' (he is still considering horns) ' how the 
 ' absolutely essential and necessary material of the 
 ' generic organic nature, in those that have it to 
 ' start with, is employed by the specially determined 
 ' and defined nature n and adapted to various ends. 
 ' The superfluous excess of material existing in 
 ' such a body is used by nature for the preservation 
 ' and advantage of the animal, now for horns, now 
 ' tusks, and so on. But not both at once. For 
 ' nature is niggardly. She takes from one part to 
 ' add to another : and the nutriment that would be 
 ' given to tusks is expended (araA/o-iecrat) in the 
 ' increase of the horns.' (D. P. A. iii. 2.) Thus 
 Aristotle, like Darwin, makes the Principle of 
 Utility the basis of all explanation. How near he 
 
 n Dr. Andrew Wilson, in his admirable little book, Chapters on 
 Evolution, p. 122, was not thinking of Aristotle when he wrote, 
 ' By modification or adaptation we mean to indicate that potent 
 ' power, or factor, which seizing the common type moulds the 
 1 structure, limb or body, to the special way of life in which 
 ' the being ultimately comes to walk : ' yet he is using Aristotle's 
 very words. That is exactly what Aristotle means by Nature, 
 or <J>v<rts. I recommend the reader who really wishes to appre- 
 ciate Aristotle to read Chapters on Evolution. Without thinking 
 of it, Dr. Andrew Wilson has exactly illustrated, even to the 
 very words, Aristotle's biological method, in every page.
 
 Natural Economy. 57 
 
 comes, in this place, to the very core of Darwin's 
 theory. 
 
 Of the neck he says, ' not all animals have this 
 ' part, but only those influenced by the needs to 
 ' answer which the neck exists.' (D. P. A. iii. 3.) 
 The closeness of his biological observation is proved 
 by his remark, ' as soon as any animal that has 
 ' blood is composed, and while it is still a mere 
 ' pigmy, the heart can be seen. For it appears 
 ' sometimes in eggs, only three days old, as big as 
 ' a point, and also very small in certain embryos. 
 1 And just as the external parts are not used in the 
 4 same way by all animals, but each animal has its 
 ' own peculiar form of organ adapted to its life and 
 ' its movements, so too are the inward parts adapted 
 ' differently to different uses.' (D. P. A. iii. 2.) ' The 
 ' limbs,' he says, ' are different in different cases, 
 ' and not (like the heart) absolutely, but only rela- 
 ' tively, necessary to life : therefore, even when they 
 ' are removed, the animal lives.' (D. P. A. iii. 4.) 
 Again, ' in embryos, the heart is immediately per- 
 ' ceived moving, alone of the parts, as if it were 
 ' alive : as though to indicate that it is the principle 
 ' of life and their nature, in animals that have blood.' 
 (/#.) ' Nature/ he says again, ' makes use of super- 
 ' fluous matter sometimes for the benefit of the 
 ' animal ; nevertheless we must not expect, on this 
 ' account, to be able to explain all the parts of 
 ' animals on the principle of adaptation ; but in 
 ' some cases, some parts being so adapted, other 
 ' things will follow of necessity from the adapted 
 ' parts being as they are.' (D. P. A. iv. 2.) This 
 is exactly Darwin's ' correlated variation,' of which 
 principle he makes so much use ; and Aristotle fully
 
 58 Body and Soul. 
 
 understood the principle , as he often employs it : 
 the reader will find other examples given below. 
 Of the cuttlefish he says, ' it has what we call its ink 
 ' as a weapon of preservation and defence : for when 
 ' it is alarmed and frightened it makes its inky dis- 
 ' charge so as to shield its body.' (D. P. A. iv. 5.) 
 Of oysters he observes : ' they differ in their nature 
 ' very little from plants, yet seem to have more of 
 ' life than sponges : for these have an altogether 
 ' plant-like capacity. For nature ascends by gradual 
 ' steps continuously from inanimate objects to ani- 
 ' mals, through those things that are animate, in- 
 ' deed, but are not yet animals : so that one thing 
 ' seems to differ almost nothing from the next, by 
 ' reason of her continuity. The sponge, as we said, 
 ' is almost like a plant, in that it can only live 
 ' growing to a spot, but dies when pulled off. But 
 ' holothurians, and certain zoophytes, and other 
 ' such things in the sea, differ just a little from 
 ' this, in that they live when pulled off. None of 
 ' them have senses, but they live as it were like 
 
 G. H. Lewes in his Aristotle (p. 318), (the only book I know 
 of in which any attempt is made to estimate Aristotle's biological 
 value) remarks on this passage : ' This important passage should 
 ' be a set off against the many formal declarations of teleology 
 ' to be met with in his writings. It shows that he had a glimmer- 
 'ing of the philosophic conception, and that, like the modern 
 ' advocates of teleology, he was only disposed to employ final 
 * causes where proximate causes were hidden from him.' 
 
 Thus does Lewes presume to criticise Aristotle, while all the 
 time it is not Aristotle, but himself, who is at fault : knowing 
 nothing of evolution, or correlated variation. This is a sample 
 of Lewes' book : the most superlatively contemptible effort that 
 ever was made by a Comtist pigmy to pat an evolutionary giant 
 on the back. Two thousand years, apparently, will not level 
 a small man with a great one.
 
 Natural Economy. 59 
 
 ' detached plants. And among land plants there 
 ' are some such as live and are generated, some in 
 ' other plants, others when detached ; as, for ex- 
 ' ample, that which comes from Parnassus, and is 
 ' called Epipetron (the Rocky), for this will live 
 ' a long time hanging on a peg. And oysters, and 
 ' other kinds similar to these, only resemble plants 
 ' in that they grow fixed to a spot, but in having 
 ' a fleshy nature would seem to have some spark of 
 ' sensation. We cannot tell how to class them.' (/#.) 
 And of another marine creature, apparently the sea- 
 nettle, he says, ' it seems to partake both of animal 
 ' and plant nature. For in that it can detach itself 
 ' and fall in with its food, it resembles an animal, and 
 ' also in that it perceives things that come across it. 
 ' Further, it uses the roughness of its body as a 
 ' weapon ; yet in that it is imperfect, and easily 
 ' grows to rocks, it resembles a plant : and it has 
 ' no vent, but only a mouth.' (/<$.) So, of other 
 similar organisms, he says, that 'like plants, they 
 ' can live when cut in two.' (Id.} 
 
 ' Wherever two organs can be used for two 
 1 functions, and this is not hindered by some other 
 ' impediment, nature never produces any dirty little 
 ' cheap-jack instrument of all trades : but where 
 ' this is impossible, she employs the same organ for 
 ' many functions.' (D. P. A. iv. 6.) ' The organs of 
 ' motion in animals are necessarily very various, 
 ' because their actions are so : for animals that move 
 1 about most variously require the most various 
 ' organs.' (D. P. A. iv. 7.) 'It is with a view to their 
 ' safety that nature has encompassed the shell-fish 
 ' with their hard shell.' (/#.) ' All such creatures, 
 ' like plants, have their heads turned downwards :
 
 60 Body and Soul. 
 
 1 because they draw their nutriment from below : 
 ' like plants with their roots : thus they have their 
 ' upper parts below, and their lower above.' (Id.} 
 ' Shrimps differ from crabs in having a tail : from 
 ' another sort of crab, in not having claws : which 
 ' they have not, because they have many feet : for 
 ' their increase has been taken from the claws and 
 ' expended on feet.' (D. P. A. iv. 8.) [The crab, 
 it may be noticed here, has a tail during develop- 
 ment, which it loses,] ' The astakoi (a kind of 
 ' crab) are the only crabs which have either the 
 ' right or left claw larger than the other (the others 
 ' always the right), whichever it happens to be 
 1 which they have, both males and females. The 
 ' reason why they have claws at all is that they are 
 4 in the genus which has claws. But they are 
 ' anomalously constituted in that they exhibit them 
 ' in a rudimentary condition (ireirrjpcovTaL), and do 
 ' not use them for their true purpose, but to walk 
 1 with.' (D. P. A. iv. 8.) ' One sort of cuttlefish 
 ' has a big body, and another a small one : so that 
 ' nature has in the former case taken from the body 
 ' to give length of feeler, and in the other con- 
 1 versely.' (D.P.A. iv. 9.) 'All animals have 
 ' a dwarfish appearance as compared with man.' 
 (D. P. A. iv. 10.) ' The plant comes into existence 
 1 upside down with its head below.' (16.) ' Na- 
 ' ture always makes the best thing possible under 
 ' the circumstances.' (16.) This is a favourite 
 axiom of Aristotle's : Darwin has proved that it is 
 true. ' The hand is not one tool, but many : it 
 ' is, as it were, the tool of tools. All other animals 
 ' have but one tool, one weapon of defence, and 
 1 they cannot change it for another : the animal
 
 Natural Economy. 61 
 
 1 has, as if it were bound, to sleep with it, do all 
 ' with it, nor ever lay aside its constant watchfulness 
 ' for its bodily care, nor change the one weapon 
 ' it chances to possess. But man has a variety 
 ' of means of preservation, and he can always 
 ' change them : further, he has what weapon he 
 1 chooses, and whensoever he chooses ; for the 
 ' hand is both nail and claw, and horn, at will, and 
 ' spear and sword, and any other tool or weapon 
 ' whatever.' (D. P. A. iv. 10.) ' The parts we 
 ' call tails differ widely, and nature uses many, not 
 ' merely to protect and shield the seat, but also for 
 ' the benefit and utility of those who possess them.' 
 ' (/#.) ' Man cannot without inconvenience remain 
 1 long standing up, but the body requires rest and 
 ' must sit down.' (Id.) A most acute observation 
 in this connection : as Evolution shows. ' Nature's 
 ' works are never supererogatory.' (This does not 
 mean that nothing in nature is wasted : but that 
 all the formed productions of nature have a reason 
 for their existence.) Speaking of the facility with 
 which snakes turn their heads he says : ' this follows 
 ' from the mechanical necessity of their structure, 
 1 but it is also determined by the principle of the 
 ' best : to guard against enemies attacking it from 
 ' behind.' (Ib.) ' The bodies of the raptores, apart 
 ' from the wings, are small : because their nutri- 
 ' ment has been expended in these, as weapons 
 ' of attack and defence.' (D.P.A. iv. 12.) Speak- 
 ing of the raptores and their claws, talons, and 
 beaks, he" says : ' nature does not develop the bird 
 ' in all directions at once : for, if it were split up and 
 ' divided among many parts at once, the superfluity 
 ' of material would be weak and of no effect.'
 
 62 Body and Soul. 
 
 ' Some birds have long legs because they live 
 ' in marshes. For Nature suits her tools to the 
 ' work, and not her work to the tools.' (/#.) 
 ' These birds/ he says again, ' have had the matter 
 ' which might have gone to make tail expended in 
 ' the legs. And in fact, when flying, they use their 
 ' legs as a tail.' (Id.} 
 
 And we may sum up the whole treatise On the 
 Parts of Animals by saying, that it explains the 
 whole structure of animals, on the principle of 
 adaptation or utility, except those parts that are due 
 to correlated variation, which follow necessarily from 
 the others. 
 
 He commences his treatise On the Generation of 
 Animals thus : ' Since we have spoken about the 
 ' Parts of Animals, both in general, and concerning 
 ' each kind in particular, stating how each arises 
 ' owing to this cause : by which I mean, the adap- 
 ' tation to function : for there are four causes, the 
 ' principle of adaptation, or end, and the definition 
 ' of the form of the thing : these we must regard as 
 ' one : the third and fourth are the matter and the 
 ' beginning of motion : we have spoken of the rest : 
 ' for the formal and final cause are the same, and 
 ' the matter, in animals, is their parts,' (the beginning 
 of motion is the parent). This passage clearly 
 shows how Aristotle really conceived his formal 
 and final cause : the two are identical, the first is 
 the structure, the second the function, and the 
 latter is the raison d'etre of the former. He now 
 proceeds to consider generation. ' The male differs 
 ' from the female, according to their definition, in 
 ' that each has a different function : according to per- 
 ' ception, in certain parts.' (De Gen. An. i. 2.)
 
 Natural Economy. 63 
 
 ' Now since all things are defined by their capaci- 
 ' ties and their work or function : and since tools 
 ' are required to perform all work, and the tools for 
 ' the functions are the parts of the body, it is 
 ' necessary that there should be parts for generation 
 ' and copulation, and these differing from each 
 ' other, as male from female.' (D. G. A. \. 2.) ' We 
 ' should carefully observe that a very small change 
 ' in a principle is wont to bring with it changes in 
 ' those things that depend on the principle. And 
 ' this is plain in the case of castrated animals, for 
 ' the generative part alone having been destroyed, 
 ' the whole form changes to such an extent, as to 
 ' seem almost female, or but little removed from it : 
 ' as though to indicate that the animal is male or 
 ' female not in virtue of any chance fact or any 
 ' chance capacity in it. Obviously, then, the male 
 ' or female principle is an original and radical prin- 
 ' ciple : at least, any change in the animal, qua 
 ' male or female, brings much change in its train, 
 ' as though to show that a fundamental principle is 
 'gone.' (Id.} (Readers of the Origin of Species 
 know how emphatically Darwin's testimony cor- 
 roborates this.) ' Nature does all, either by 
 ' necessity, or as well as possible under given cir- 
 ' cumstances.' (D. G. A. i. 4.) Speaking of cer- 
 tain molluscs, he says, ' the egg they produce is at 
 ' first undifferentiated (ddidtyopov) : then it differ- 
 ' entiates and becomes many,' or as moderns say, 
 segmentates. This is the cardinal fact in em- 
 bryological development. (D. G. A. i. 15.) ' Not 
 'just anything can come from each germ, but the 
 ' special thing from the special germ ; nor again can 
 'just any germ come from any body: the germ,
 
 64 Body and Soul. 
 
 1 then, is the original and creative principle of that 
 ' of which it is the germ,' (D. P. A. i. i), and this 
 argument he uses against Empedocles : both here 
 and elsewhere. Things cannot be generated by 
 chance, he says, because ' it is necessary that the 
 ' germ should pre-exist, having within it a definite 
 ' capacity for development.' (D. P. A. i. i.) (In the 
 celebrated passage which is quoted in the Intro- 
 duction to the Origin of Species from Aristotle's 
 Physics, Darwin never understood that Aristotle 
 was here denying chance from a point of view 
 from which both Darwin himself and Herbert 
 Spencer have denied it, and all must deny it.) ' The 
 Germ is simply the hand, or face, or whole animal 
 ' in an undifferentiated state : and just what each 
 ' of these is in final actuality that is the germ 
 ' potentially.' (D. G. A. i. 19.) 'Woman is, as it 
 ' were, a man without seed.' (D. G. A. i. 20.) ' In 
 ' all animals that move about, the male is differ- 
 ' entiated from the female : the female being one 
 ' animal, and the male another : but both of the 
 ' same species : both, for example, man. But in 
 ' plants, these faculties are still mixed up, and the 
 ' female is not yet severed from the male. Therefore 
 ' they generate from themselves, and do not emit 
 ' seed, but have an offshoot, what we call " seed." 
 ' And Empedocles was quite right in speaking of the 
 ' e gg s f olive trees. For the egg is a sort of offshoot, 
 ' and from a certain egg arises the animal : the rest is 
 ' nutriment : so too from part of the seed arises the 
 ' vegetable growth : and the rest is nutriment, 
 ' coining to the little sprout and the early root. 
 ' Now in a kind of way this takes place with those 
 ' animals which have the sexes separated. For
 
 Natural Economy. 65 
 
 4 when it is necessary to generate, they conjoin, 
 ' becoming as plants : and their nature wishes to 
 ' become one, which is shown, in that one animal 
 ' results from the mixture and conjunction of the 
 ' two. And some, which emit no seed, remain 
 ' conjoined a long time, till the germ be consti- 
 ' tuted, as, for example, those insects which copu- 
 ' late : others only till they have imported some 
 * part which shall constitute the germ in a longer 
 ' time, as animals that have blood. In short, 
 ' animals are just like plants that have been differ- 
 ' entiated : as though a man should tear plants 
 ' apart, and separate them into the sexes immanent 
 ' in them.' And he goes on to explain that animals 
 have as it were risen in the scale of existence, and 
 yet when they wish to propagate their kind, they 
 have to fall back as it were on their fundamental 
 and lower nature, and become one, like the plant. 
 But hard-shelled animals, holding a middle place 
 between plants and animals, being as it were in both 
 departments, perform the function of neither. For, 
 as being plants, they are not differentiated into male 
 and female, and one does not generate into its 
 opposite : but on being animals, they do not bear 
 fruit like plants, but are constituted and generated 
 from some moist and earthy composition. (D. G. A. 
 i. 23.) Now though this passage shows that Aris- 
 totle was not as well informed about the facts of 
 plants and their generation as we are, yet how 
 completely he understood the fundamental corollary 
 of evolution, that sex and individuality are the 
 product of the evolutionary process : both being 
 absent in the lower forms of organic life. 
 
 As regards generation ' there is much com- 
 
 F
 
 66 Body and Soul. 
 
 ' plication between different kinds of animals. For 
 ' not all bipeds are viviparous (since birds are ovi- 
 ' parous) ; nor are they all oviparous (for man is 
 ' viviparous ) ; nor are all quadrupeds oviparous 
 ' (since the horse, the ox, and innumerable others 
 ' are viviparous ) ; nor are they all viviparous (for 
 ' alligators and crocodiles and many others are 
 ' oviparous). Nor does the difference lie in having 
 ' or not having feet : for animals without feet are 
 1 viviparous, such as vipers, and cartilaginous fish : 
 ' but some are oviparous, as fish in general and 
 ' other snakes. Also animals that have feet are 
 1 both viviparous and oviparous, as the quadrupeds 
 ' mentioned above : and both animals with feet, 
 ' as man, and without feet, as the whale and dol- 
 ' phin, are viviparous within themselves. There- 
 ' fore it is impossible to make a division in this 
 ' respect : nor does the cause of the difference lie in 
 ' any of the organs of locomotion : but those animals 
 ' are viviparous which are biologically more highly 
 4 developed, and have a more distinctly differ- 
 ' entiated principle (KaOapwrepas dpxv?) > f r no 
 ' animal is viviparous within itself, which does not 
 ' inhale and exhale air.' (D. G. A. ii. i.) Who- 
 ever will reflect upon this passage will under- 
 stand Aristotle's logical method, and realise that 
 Bacon's inductive Methods were no news to Aris- 
 totle. 
 
 ' Insects at first are vermiparous : then as it 
 ' goes on the worm becomes egglike, for what 
 ' we call the chrysalis has the capacity of an 
 ' egg : then out of this comes the animal attaining 
 1 the end of its generation in the third change.' 
 (Ib.) It is here that he discusses and maintains
 
 Natural Economy. 67 
 
 that biological view known as Epigenesis p , 
 which he. discovered long before Harvey. ' Con- 
 ' cerning the which there is much difficulty, as 
 1 to how the plant or animal, whatever it be, 
 ' arises out of the germ. No part can exist to start 
 ' with. But the parts lie potentially in the germ ; 
 ' and the process of its evolution is started by an 
 ' impulse given from without by the parents : the 
 ' effect remaining after this preliminary touch has 
 ' been given : just as in automata, in a certain way 
 ' the external impulse moves them ; not being now 
 ' any longer in contact with any part, but having 
 ' been in such contact before : so too the parent 
 ' from whom comes the germ, or that which makes 
 ' it, having formerly been in contact with it, but no 
 ' longer being so, is the originating cause of the 
 ' productive process : in another way the cause is 
 1 the inward motion so originally set going, just as 
 ' the house is built by the process of house-building.' 
 (/<.) This truly prophetic passage shows how 
 little those critics understand Aristotle, who sup- 
 pose that his final cause was intended to obviate 
 the necessity for a full material mechanical ex- 
 planation. Both are indispensable, says Aristotle. 
 E.g., at the beginning of this second Book, he ex- 
 pressly asserts that after having stated what is the one 
 cause, on the principle of the best possible adapta- 
 tion, we must then seek a full material explanation. 
 (D. G. A. ii. i.) Again, ' heat and cold and so forth 
 ' will make the stuff of the parts, but not the law of 
 ' combination, nor the essential nature : that comes 
 
 P Yet in historical accounts of the doctrine, as, e.g., that in 
 a recent text book on Embryology by Hertwig (translated by 
 Mark), Wolf, Pander, and Harvey, are credited with the dis- 
 covery, and Aristotle is not even mentioned. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 Body and Soul. 
 
 4 from the instigation of the begetter, who is in 
 4 actuality what the germ is only potentially, and 
 1 out of which it arises.' And again, ' as to whether 
 1 the germ has a soul, or not, that is a question 
 ' essentially connected with the account of the parts. 
 4 For no soul can possibly exist except in that of 
 4 which it is the soul ; nor can any part be a 
 ' part, not -partaking of the soul : except meta- 
 ' phorically : the dead eye is not an eye.' (/#.) 
 No mere extract will, however, adequately convey 
 to the reader the depth of Aristotle's insight into 
 embryology. ' None of the principles which give 
 ' to bodily activity its existence, and which it ex- 
 ' emplifies, can possibly exist apart from the body : 
 4 there is no walking without feet.' (D. G. A. ii. 3.) 
 4 Some -of the older physiologists attempted to 
 4 state -the order in which the parts succeed one 
 ' another, but failed owing to want of observa- 
 4 tion of the parts.' (D. G. A. ii. 6.) ' The 
 4 parts about the head and eyes are observed to 
 4 .be the largest at the beginning in embryos : but 
 4 the parts below the navel, as the limbs, small.' 
 (/#.) And of certain investigators he says, ' They 
 4 do not say well, nor do they point out the 
 1 necessity of the reason why in their statement.' (Id.) 
 4 Cold,' he says, ' is simply the absence or negation 
 4 of heat, and nature makes use of both, having 
 ' necessarily certain potentialities or capacities, so 
 4 as to make now one thing, now another : the 
 4 principle of inner material necessity, and outward 
 4 structural adaptation, combining to form the partsV 
 
 q Aristotle's material potentialities correspond exactly to Dar- 
 win's variation : the factor contributed by the irregular spon- 
 taneity of nature's material.
 
 Natural Economy. 69 
 
 (Id.} ' All these things we must account for partly 
 ' on the principle of inner material necessity, partly 
 ' not so, but on the principle of adaptation to an end.' 
 (/$.) From an embryological point of view, he says 
 that ' all things are first definitely sketched out, and 
 ' at a later stage get their colours, and hardness 
 ' and softness : nature going to work exactly like 
 ' a painter, for painters sketch- the outline first and 
 ' then fill in the animal with colours.' (/&) (This 
 is just Aristotle's own invariable method : cf. 
 Ethics I.) He knows how the embryo acquires 
 its characteristics only gradually. ' Not at once 
 ' does the horse become a horse, or a man, a man.' 
 (/#.) ' Nature like a good economist is not wont 
 4 to throw away anything out of which anything 
 ' good can be made.' (-fo.) In a subsequent chap- 
 ter he discusses the question of mules and hybrids : 
 finishing much as Darwin does, with uncertainty. 
 ' Animals naturally breed with their own kind : 
 ' nevertheless they do so also with other animals 
 1 closely akin to them, but not specifically identical, 
 ' if their sizes be about on a par and their periods 
 ' of gestation equal.' (D. G. A. ii. 7.) ' What 
 ' nature takes from one part, she adds to another.' 
 (D. G. A. iii. i.) 'If one part of any importance 
 ' changes, the whole structure of the animal be- 
 ' comes specifically very different.' (D. G. A. iv. i.) 
 This is the important principle from an evolutionary 
 point of view, and Aristotle shows how close he 
 was to the Darwinian theory by the way he applies 
 it to politics. ' For just as the organic body 
 ' consists of parts, and must increase propor- 
 ' tionally all round, if its harmony is to be pre- 
 ' served ; otherwise it will perish : and some-
 
 70 Body and Soul. 
 
 1 times it would change into the form of a wholly 
 
 ' different animal, if one part were to change dis- 
 
 ' proportionately not merely quantitatively, but 
 
 1 qualitatively : so is it with states.' (Pol. v. 3.) 
 
 This is the very core of evolution. Speaking of the 
 
 resemblance of progeny to their parents, he says : 
 
 ' Yet when we come to think of it, the child that 
 
 ' does not resemble its parents is already in a sense 
 
 4 a miracle.' (D. G.A. iv. 3.) ' It is impossible for 
 
 ' anything to be born except in its own proper 
 
 ' period.' (7#.) He develops here the principle of 
 
 correlated variation, as Darwin calls it, at more 
 
 length. ' Concerning these and all similar things, we 
 
 ' must no longer think of their cause in the same 
 
 1 way. For such things as are not organic forma- 
 
 ' tions, whether they be common to all, or peculiar 
 
 ' to some species, are not instances of adaptation, 
 
 ' nor formed on that principle. The eye, for ex- 
 
 ' ample, is an adaptation, but its blueness is not, 
 
 ' except where this colour is an essential peculiarity 
 
 ' of the species.' (Compare Darwin on the blue 
 
 eyes of deaf white cats.) ' In some cases, then, 
 
 ' it will come within the definition of the essential 
 
 ' nature of the animal, but in general we must refer 
 
 ' it, as happening by correlative necessity, to the 
 
 ' properties of matter and the efficient cause. For 
 
 ' as we said when treating of principles (in the first 
 
 ' book of the treatise On the Parts of Animals] in 
 
 ' the case of well-defined and regular works of 
 
 ' nature, a thing is not what it is, owing to its innate 
 
 ' original material potentialities, but on the contrary, 
 
 4 because it has to adapt itself, and become specially 
 
 ' coadapted thus or thus, so must its material be 
 
 4 determined. For the process of generation is
 
 Natural Economy. 71 
 
 ' conditioned by the nature of the fully formed 
 ' structure, and is adapted to this, but not vice versa. 
 ' But the old physiologists thought the contrary. 
 ' The reason for this was, that they did not perceive 
 ' that the causes were many, but took note only of 
 ' the material and efficient cause, and even these 
 ' only vaguely, but had no perception of the bio- 
 ' logical definition, and the principle of adaptation 
 ' to an end. Each thing then is an adaptation to 
 ' an end, and comes into being in general from this 
 ' cause, and is determined by its peculiar demands 
 ' in each case. But of those things that are not 
 ' adaptations, which nevertheless come into exis- 
 ' tence in this way, the cause must be sought in the 
 ' material motion, and the process of generative 
 ' growth, as being things that derive their distinctive 
 ' differences from the very nature of the organic 
 ' composition. The eye, for example, in the case 
 ' of an animal that has one, must necessarily be 
 1 there (on the animal's account) ; but any par- 
 ' ticular kind of eye (blue or green, e.g.) is also 
 ' necessary indeed, but not in the same sense of the 
 * word (it might, as far as the animal is concerned, 
 ' be otherwise) : but the material necessities of the 
 ' composition of the animal make it what it is.' 
 (D.G.A. v. i.) 
 
 ' Small changes/ he again says, ' may be causes 
 ' of great results, not in themselves, but because it 
 ' so happens that they change the principle. For 
 ' principles are insignificant in size, but all important 
 ' in their potential results.' (D. G. A. v. 7.) And 
 he is never tired of reiterating this : as e.g. in the 
 treatise On the Locomotion of Animals (c. 7), 'it is 
 ' obvious that a slight change in an original principle
 
 72 Body and Soul. 
 
 ' may cause many and great differences at a distant 
 ' point.' And if philosophers of history had re- 
 membered this, they would not have written such 
 volumes of rubbish about the ' great universal laws ' 
 that determine historical moments. For the very 
 law of history and politics is, that a stitch in time 
 saves nine. 
 
 Coming now to the treatise On the Soul : a work 
 that both for its intrinsic doctrine and for its his- 
 torical influence must be pronounced the most im- 
 portant book that ever was written, except the 
 Bible, we shall find that it presents no difficulty to 
 those who approach it in its natural order after the 
 treatises On the Parts and the Generation of Animals, 
 being in fact nothing but the summation and corol- 
 lary of those treatises ; though apart from them, and 
 taken only in connection with the Metaphysics, it 
 can only be unintelligible and the cause of perpetual 
 quibbling. ' The soul is as it were the original 
 ' principle of the body.' (De An. i. i.) The soul 
 is, in fact, simply the function of the structure. ' At 
 ' present those who investigate the soul apparently 
 1 confine their attention to the human soul only.' 
 (/#.) Aristotle knew how different from Des- 
 cartes ! the impossibility of studying the human 
 soul except as viewed as the apex of soul in general. 
 He refers to the 'empty dialectical babbling' of 
 people who talk about things without knowing any 
 of the special facts of the case. ' Plants live when 
 ' cut in two, as do also some insects, as though to 
 1 indicate that the parts have the same soul speci- 
 ' fically, though not numerically, as the whole. At 
 ' any rate each part has perception and moves about 
 ' for some time. That they do not continue to do
 
 Natural Economy. 73 
 
 ' so, is no wonder : for they have not (as the whole 
 ' had) organs wherewith to preserve their nature 
 ' (<j(>^tiv rrjv <pv(riv). None the 1-ess on that account 
 ' are all the parts of the soul in each part so 
 ' severed : and they are specifically similar to each 
 ' other and to the whole : and the principle of life 
 ' in plants seems to be a kind of soul, shared 
 1 equally by plants and animals." (De An. i. 5.) 
 
 ' The soul is the actual working reality of the 
 1 natural organic body, which has the capacity of 
 ' such work in it,' (D. An. ii. i), explaining his mean- 
 ing accurately and admirably by the addition : ' if 
 4 the eye were an animal, sight would be its soul : 
 ' for this is just what it is to be an eye, according 
 ' to the definition. The eye is simply the material 
 ' organ of sight ; which failing it is no longer an 
 ' eye, except by playing on the word/ (Id.) ' The 
 ' soul is thus the cause and creative principle of the 
 ' living body. For the cause of every organic being 
 ' is its essence ' (i. e. the function it performs). 
 (De An. ii. 4.) ' The animal must have perception, 
 ' if every product of nature be an adaptation to an 
 ' end. For every natural body is such an adapta- 
 ' tion, or else a necessary corollary of such adap- 
 ' tation : unless, then, all bodies that move about 
 ' had perception, they would perish, and never 
 ' attain that end, or perform that function which is 
 ' the business of their nature : for how could they 
 ' keep themselves alive ? Stationary animals find 
 ' their nutriment where they are born.' (D. An. iii. 
 12.) ' Further, the animal which is to preserve its 
 ' life must not only perceive whea ia contiguity with 
 ' the perceived object, but also at a distance. (Id.) 
 1 The head of the animal is analogous to the root
 
 74 Body and Soul. 
 
 ' of the plant : if it be the function of organs which 
 ' we refer to, in pronouncing any organ the same or 
 ' different,' (D. An. ii. 4.) He makes a very deep 
 remark when he says, ' since it is from its end that 
 ' we ought to define everything, and the really 
 1 universal end of the organic body be, as it seems 
 ' to be, to produce another like itself, the lowest 
 ' and most radical form of soul would be the gen- 
 ' erative principle.' (D. An. ii. 4.) Lastly, we may 
 notice his remark, that ' the activities and actions 
 ' with which the definition of soul is concerned are 
 ' prior to the capacities that have to perform them : 
 ' and prior again to the former are the objects of 
 ' the activity, which accordingly we ought to study 
 ' first.' (D. An. ii. 4.) 
 
 The above extracts will give a fair idea of the 
 biological basis of the Aristotelian philosophy, nor 
 can any one competent to form an opinion reflect 
 upon it without being struck with astonishment. He 
 had to wait two thousand years to be understood. 
 For his philosophy is throughout evolutionary and 
 biological : he is all along, as it were, on the brink 
 of that evolutionary theory, descent with modifi- 
 cation, which he could not, however, arrive at, 
 because the preconditions of the discovery were not 
 in existence. Nevertheless, the further step taken 
 by Darwin does not overthrow, but confirms and 
 substantiates his explanation : it supplies, as it were, 
 the missing key, the light to that which is still 
 dark in him. Aristotle's whole doctrine of science 
 is simply a corollary from evolution. Let us con- 
 sider, for example, what is his conception of defi- 
 nition, as indicated in the above extracts. ' The 
 ' definition,' he says, ' is a knowledge of the essence:
 
 Natural Economy. 75 
 
 1 a declaring of what a thing essentially is. All 
 1 things are defined by their function and their 
 ' capacity : for those things most truly are which 
 1 can do their work. Everything is thus a com- 
 ' pound : it is on the one side material, and as such 
 ' requires full material explanation : it is, on the 
 ' other, form, that is to say, a structure organised 
 ' for a function, an instrument to perform work, 
 ' material adapted to an end. This end, then, 
 ' this function, this work, is the cause of the exist- 
 ' ence of the thing, and the principle of its definition 
 ' and scientific explanation. The adaptation, how- 
 ' ever, is less and less obvious in things, according 
 ' as we get less and less form. There is more 
 ' adaptation in exact proportion as there is more 
 ' form : and less adaptation exactly as there is more 
 ' and more matter r . The higher, then, the organ- 
 ' ism, the more definite it be, the better can it be 
 ' defined. To define, then, is to give the common 
 ' genus or class of the object, the material of which 
 'it is a species, and add on all the differences 
 ' essential till we arrive at the ultimate differentiated 
 ' form, which it is our problem to define. In other 
 ' words, the definition of any organic structure is 
 1 simply the logical account of its life history ; an 
 ' enumeration of the causes that have made it. 
 ' Animals are constructed on a fundamentally iden- 
 ' tical type ; the differentiations, according to Aris- 
 
 r ' Domestic races often have a somewhat monstrous character.' 
 Origin of Species, p. 16. So Wallace: 'Domestic animals are 
 ' abnormal, irregular, artificial.' Natural Selection, p. 31. Because, 
 Aristotle would say, matter, or the superfluity, gets the upper 
 hand over form : since they are lifted out of the conditions that 
 kept their form true.
 
 76 Body and Soul. 
 
 * totle, are due to the differences of function, 
 ' habitat and conditions, to which the animal has 
 ' to conform itself. The animal is made to an- 
 1 swer to special conditions' Darwin adds to this 
 but a single word : gradually, or in the course 
 of ages. 
 
 VI. The teleology of Aristotle has nothing 
 whatever in common with what we may call 
 the Bridgewater Treatise conception of the uni- 
 verse. His final cause has no connection with 
 ' final causes ' in the sense in which that expression 
 is commonly understood. But Bacon, and those 
 who since Bacon's day have tossed aside Aristotle 
 as an obsolete teleologist were quite unable to 
 understand any teleology other than that of final 
 causes implying conscious design and a Providential 
 scheme : they accordingly accused Aristotle of 
 corrupting natural philosophy with his logic, and 
 introducing final causes in the sense in which they 
 understood them into Nature : joist because they 
 could not conceive how an organism could be an 
 adaptation to an end, how structure could correspond 
 with function, except by an agency similar to that 
 by which man makes his tools, manufactures his 
 productions : according to design. But observe, 
 how the whirligig of time brings about his revenges. 
 Aristotle, though he was accused of doing so, did 
 not argue from rr^wj to <frv<rif, from art to nature, 
 from manufactures to creatures. He placed them 
 both on the same level. He looked at nature on 
 her own ground, and pronounced the natural body 
 to be just as much an instrument formed to accom- 
 plish certain ends as the mechanical body was and 
 he was right. He asserted that function was the
 
 Natural Economy. 77 
 
 raison d'etre and explanation of structure, just as 
 much in the natural as in the artificial body, and 
 Darwin has proved that he was right. Nevertheless 
 it is undeniable, that the weak point in Aristotle's 
 philosophy lies here. He said, indeed, that structure 
 was determined by function, but he did not explain 
 the process by which the thing was effected, and 
 here Darwin differs from him. Aristotle stated 
 the why, but not the how. He based his whole 
 philosophy on the principle that coadaptation was 
 the law of Natural Economy : he accounted for 
 structure by function, and the forms of bodies by 
 the work they did. Looking straight at the facts 
 without prejudice or theory, he divined the truth 
 that all bodies are instruments or tools to perform 
 work, and determined by that work. But he did 
 not explain how this came about. Darwin's theory 
 is an attempt to supply the answer to this how. 
 But not to mention the age in which Aristotle lived; 
 not to dwell upon the fact that the three causes 
 which led Darwin to his Origin of Species, viz. the 
 'ever memorable theory,' as Darwin calls it, of 
 Malthus, the great development and suggestive 
 facts of cattle-breeding, and the geographical and 
 geological distribution and succession of plants 
 and animals in time and space these three 
 conditions without which Darwin could no more 
 have arrived at his Origin of Species than Newton 
 at his Principia without Copernicus, Galileo, and 
 Kepler; not to mention, I say, that these three 
 suggestive and significant preconditions were non- 
 existent as yet for Aristotle, the truth is that 
 Darwin himself, on the one hand, has done just 
 what his critics object to Aristotle, he Jtas argued
 
 78 Body and Soul. 
 
 illegitimately from art to nature ; and on the other, 
 he has not given us a valid solution of this how 
 of structural adaptation. He agrees with Aristotle 
 in his result, that all structure is adaptation, and 
 to be explained primarily on the principle of Utility : 
 he differs and passes beyond Aristotle, in attempting 
 to solve the problem of the way in which it came 
 about : in furnishing a theory of how things came 
 to be so. That theory, I make bold to say, is the 
 most palpable fallacy that ever was offered to 
 the world as a truth : an assertion which I proceed 
 to justify. I hope, however, that the reader will 
 not misunderstand me the question here is not as 
 to the fact of evolution. A man who does not 
 now-a-days believe in evolution ; that is, in the 
 theory that all organised bodies have descended 
 from earlier, simpler, progenitors by successive 
 steps of modification ; proves only that he is not 
 acquainted with the main facts of embryology and 
 biology, which alone are sufficient, as Darwin says, 
 to place the fact of evolution beyond all doubt. 
 But it does not follow, because a man accepts 
 evolution, that he must also accept Darwin's theory : 
 nor because he rejects the latter that he is not an 
 evolutionist : that he believes in special creation. 
 There are, in fact, not two, but three alternatives. 
 There is the theory of special creation, which is 
 only a dogma : a survival from an age of black 
 scientific darkness, the child of misunderstood 
 oriental metaphors : the mere statement of the facts 
 in other words : the creed of ignorance. This, 
 however, was the prejudice which Darwin found 
 in possession of the field. Hence he constantly 
 argues, especially in the later chapters of his book,
 
 Natural Economy. 79 
 
 as if there were but two alternatives ; as if the 
 rejection of the special creation hypothesis were 
 the establishment of his own. And much of the 
 reasoning, towards the end of his book, if regarded 
 as contributing to the support of his own theory, 
 is of no force whatever, because it only negatively 
 throws discredit upon special creation, without 
 adding any strength to his own theory. The theory 
 of descent with modification, however, or evolution- 
 ary differentiation, by no means stands or falls with 
 Darwin's theory of the modus operandi. Embry- 
 ology leaves no doubt as to the first : reason dis- 
 credits the second. 
 
 VII. We must distinguish, in the Origin of 
 Species, between what is and what is not peculiar to 
 Darwin. To give to Darwin the credit of evolu- 
 tion, in a biological sense, is enough to make 
 Lamarck and Aristotle turn in their graves : though 
 Darwin will always retain the honour of having 
 done, partly by genius and partly by fortune, and 
 ' occasion fitting virtue/ more than any one to bring 
 evolution into public notice and esteem. But what 
 is peculiar to Darwin is his theory as to how it was 
 done. Beyond all question, his theory is an entire 
 failure. It is not only not proven : it is, as can 
 be shown, logically impossible even on his own 
 principles. 
 
 The argument from art to nature is the keystone 
 of the Darwinian arch. He derived his theory of 
 Natural Selection from a careful investigation of 
 human selection, as even the name implies. Under 
 the breeder's bands, he says s , the animal organisa- 
 
 8 The quotations from the Origin of Species are from the fifth 
 edition.
 
 8o Body and Soul. 
 
 tion seems to become plastic. Breeders ' habitually 
 ' speak of an animal's organisation as something 
 ' quite plastic, which they can model almost as they 
 ' please.' Selection, according to Youatt, was the 
 magician's wand, by means of which he could sum- 
 mon into life whatever form and mould he pleased. 
 Lord Somerville, speaking of what breeders had 
 done for sheep, said, ' It would seem as if they had 
 ' chalked out upon a wall a form perfect in itself, and 
 ' then had given it existence.' The key to these 
 wonders is * man's power of accumulative selection. 
 ' Nature gives successive variations : man adds 
 ' them up in certain directions useful to him.' 
 (O. S. p. 33.) 'We see in our domesticated races 
 adaptation, not indeed to the animal's or plant's 
 ' own good, but to man's use or fancy.' (O. S. pp. 
 41, 32.) Observe that 'any variation which is not 
 ' inherited is unimportant for us.' (O. S. p. 13.) 
 ' The importance of selection consists in the accu- 
 ' mulation in one direction during successive genera- 
 ' tions of differences absolutely inappreciable by an 
 1 uneducated eye : differences which I for one have 
 ' vainly attempted to appreciate. Not one man in 
 ' a thousand has .accuracy of eye and judgment 
 ' sufficient to become an eminent breeder.' (O. S. 
 p. 34.) * Hence unless the closest attention is paid 
 ' nothing can be effected.' Hence too 'facility in 
 1 preventing crosses is an important element of sue- 
 ' cess.' (O. S. p. 44.) 
 
 Now this being so, these being the conditions of 
 human selection and the production of new forms, 
 Darwin obtains his theory of Natural Selection by 
 extending the argument to Nature : ' applies the 
 ' principles arrived at in the last chapter to organic
 
 Natural Economy. 8 1 
 
 ' beings in a state of nature.' (O. S. pp. 4, 48.) ' As 
 ' there is between all organic beings a very keen 
 ' struggle for existence, many more being born than 
 ' can possibly survive, it follows that any being, 
 ' if it vary in any manner profitable to itself, will 
 ' have a better chance of surviving, and thus be 
 ' Naturally Selected. From the strong principle 
 1 of inheritance any selected variety will tend to 
 ' propagate its new and modified form.' (O. S. 
 pp. 4, 72.) ' There is no obvious reason why the 
 ' principles which have acted so efficiently under 
 ' domestication should not act under nature.' (O. S. 
 p. 554.) ' If man can by patience select variations 
 ' useful to him, why, under changing and complex 
 ' conditions of life, should not variations, useful to 
 ' nature's living products, often arise, and be pre- 
 ' served or selected ? ' (O. S. p. 556.) ' The theory 
 ' of Natural Selection is grounded on the belief that 
 ' each new variety and ultimately each new species 
 ' (for a variety is on the theory only an incipient 
 1 species) is produced and maintained by having 
 ' some advantage over those with which it comes into 
 ' competition.' (O. S. p. 393.) ' Natural Selection 
 ' acts only by taking advantage of slight successive 
 'variations.' (O. S. p. 239.) 'Natural Selection 
 ' acts solely by the preservation of profitable modi- 
 ' fications.' (O. S. p. 208.) ' It would be an extra- 
 ' ordinary fact if no variations ever occurred useful 
 ' to each being's own welfare in the same manner 
 ' as so many variations have occurred useful to 
 4 man.' (160.) 'Only those variations which are 
 ' in some way profitable will be preserved or 
 'naturally selected.' (133, 125, no.) 'Natural 
 ' Selection can act only through and for the good 
 
 G
 
 82 Body and Soul. 
 
 'of each being.' (97.) 'This preservation of 
 ' favourable variations, and the destruction of in- 
 ' jurious variations, I call Natural Selection or the 
 1 Survival of the Fittest. Variations neither useful 
 1 nor injurious COULD NOT BE affected by Natural 
 ' Selection.' (92.) 
 
 Now, that any man should fail to see the gross 
 and palpable fallacy in this reasoning is unaccount- 
 able. Let the reader observe, that with human 
 selection, first, the variations are so slight as to be 
 almost imperceptible, even to an eye like Darwin's : 
 second, that they are useful, not to the animal itself, 
 but the fancy of man : third, that they are of no 
 account unless preserved and inherited : ' free inter- 
 ' crossing will stop the breeder's work.' (117.) 
 In all these points, man can exercise influence : 
 he can select for his own fancy : he can select 
 variations imperceptibly small : and he can ensure 
 inheritance. He performs his miracles by these 
 three means. Now, any one of these three points 
 would render the argument from Art to Nature 
 absurd and fallacious : all together, they absolutely 
 annihilate it. 
 
 First, the variations selected under domestication 
 are of a totally different kind from those selected, ex 
 hypothesi, under Nature. The ambiguous word 
 useful covers the fallacy. Useful, in the first sense, 
 means whatever suits man's aims, or hits his fancy : 
 the useful, in the second, must favour, profit, or 
 preserve the organism itself. ' Nature cares nothing 
 ' for appearances except in so far as they are useful 
 ' to any being . . . man selects for his own good ; 
 ' Nature only for that of the being which she tends.' 
 (95.) Darwin contrasts the power of Nature with
 
 Natural Economy. 83 
 
 the weakness of man. ' Natural Selection is as 
 ' immeasurably superior to man's feeble efforts, as 
 ' the works of Nature are to those of Art.' (73, 124.) 
 No doubt : but he fails to observe that, feeble as he 
 is, man is potent precisely where Nature is impotent, 
 according to Darwin himself: he can select any sort 
 of variation, however slight in degree, of whatever 
 kind, that hits his fancy ; whereas she cannot select 
 any variation at all, except it be in kind and degree 
 sufficient to profit the organism. This is the very 
 crucial point. How, then, can the argument from 
 Selection under domestication to selection under 
 Nature possibly hold water? How can Natural 
 Selection be inferred from Human Selection? The 
 variations which under human selection have pro- 
 duced such astonishing results are different in kind 
 from those which alone Nature could select. She 
 cannot select any but those which profit the organi- 
 sation varying. And yet further. Not only is the 
 kind distinct, but the degree. The variations are 
 infinitely slight. This is Darwin's cardinal prin- 
 ciple. He guards himself repeatedly here. If they 
 were not slight his theory would be open to ob- 
 jection from another side, as we shall see. Accord- 
 ingly, when it is objected to him that the production 
 of e.g. the eye or instincts of certain kinds would 
 imply simultaneous variations accurately adjusted to 
 each other, he says, ' the force of this objection rests 
 ' entirely on the assumption that the changes in both 
 ' instinct and structure are abrupt.' (288.) ' Natura 
 ' non facit saltum must on my theory be strictly 
 ' true.' (253.) ' Natural Selection acts only by taking 
 ' advantage of slight successive variations : she can 
 ' never take a sudden leap.' (239.) (Yet how about 
 
 G 2
 
 84 Body and Soul. 
 
 the Ancon sheep?) ' It is not necessary to suppose 
 ' all the modifications were simultaneous, if they 
 ' were extremely slight and gradual' (225) ; 'if any 
 ' organic being varies ever so little, and thus gains 
 ' an advantage' (222), and many more passages to 
 the same effect 1 . Now, note, that putting out of 
 consideration the fallacy of arguing from man's se- 
 lection of variations profitable to himself, i.e. pleasing 
 to himself, to natural selection of variations profit- 
 able to the organism the variations are then in- 
 finitely slight. Yet we are asked to suppose that 
 this infinitely slight variation, when arisen in a single 
 individual, is decisively to determine throughout life, 
 on all occasions, the existence of its possessor, in 
 every case of struggle, in spite of innumerable other 
 circumstances, whether of organisation, luck, or ex- 
 ternal conditions ; and that then, handed down to 
 its progeny, it is again to determine their lives simi- 
 larly, which are to vary in the same direction, and 
 increase the variation in amount ! Here comes in 
 the third condition, inheritance. (117.) The breeder 
 can not only select variations infinitely slight, suiting 
 his fancy or taste : but he can ensure inheritance by 
 preventing intercrossing. But how could an organ- 
 ism varying infinitely slightly under nature possibly 
 be prevented from intercrossing, either itself or its 
 progeny ? 
 
 4 * Natural Selection follows from the struggle for existence.' 
 Descent of Man, p. 142. It does nothing of the kind, unless 
 the variations are, what Darwin has not proved, capable in degree 
 of deciding the victory, when profitable in kind, and necessarily 
 inherited, by the prevention of intercrossing. Just so, Mr. Wal- 
 lace attempts to prove the theory apode.ictically, in set syllogistic 
 form, on p. 166 of Natural Selection: not observing the fallacy 
 in one step of the argument viz. heredity with variation.
 
 Natural Economy. 85 
 
 Yet further. Is this slight variation to occur in 
 one being only, or in a whole multitude at once? 
 If the latter, then it is not variation at all : but the 
 definite result of conditions common to the organisms 
 in question : i. e. it is not natural selection, but the 
 definite and direct action of conditions that determine 
 the change in structure : since it is clearly ridiculous 
 to assume the spontaneous variation (Darwin's own 
 phrase) in a number of cases at once in the same 
 direction. But if on the contrary the variation only 
 occurs in one organism at a time (and it must do so, 
 or it would not be variation : see below), then it is 
 absolutely impossible, on his own principles, that it 
 should be preserved, for intercrossing would in- 
 stantly destroy it, even if luck did not. This is 
 Darwin's own principle. ' Rare species will be less 
 ' quickly modified or improved within a given 
 ' period, and will consequently be beaten in the race 
 'for life.' (126.) 'Any form represented by few 
 ' individuals will during fluctuations in the seasons 
 ' or the number of its enemies run a good chance of 
 ' being exterminated.' (123.) Compare also p. 104. 
 
 Let the impartial reader observe that this cri- 
 ticism is not captious, not directed against non-essen- 
 tial doctrines, but the very core of the Darwinian 
 hypothesis : and let him judge, whether it does not 
 utterly wreck the argument from human to Natural 
 Selection. The kind, the degree, of man's selec- 
 tion are such as Nature cannot act upon, and even 
 if she could, intercrossing would instantly obliterate 
 her attempt. Yet Darwin never seems to be con- 
 scious of the extraordinary sophistry of his rea- 
 soning. This curious unconsciousness, however, 
 does not arise from any undue partiality for his
 
 86 Body and Soul. 
 
 own theory such as might have blinded him to 
 its faults. On the contrary, he is candid to an 
 unusual degree ; perhaps no author was ever 
 more so. He discovers many objections to his 
 theory, of which more anon : but the cardinal 
 error, the fallacious analogy between human and 
 natural selection, never seems to have entered his 
 head. Had it done so, he would never have written 
 his book, which is entirely based on that argument. 
 The whole of his laborious investigation into the 
 subject of Variation under Domestication is an 
 ignoratio elenchi. And here it is convenient to 
 notice another point. It might be argued, and with 
 justice, that even though we grant the palpable 
 fallacy of arguing from domesticated to natural 
 organisms ; even though, as has been shown, no 
 amount of evidence as to the former can be adduced 
 as evidence bearing on the latter, yet that putting 
 the accumulated evidence drawn from variation 
 under domestication entirely on one side, his theory 
 might hold. There might be sufficient evidence, 
 under nature, without having recourse to domesti- 
 cation at all. But now, the truly remarkable thing 
 is, that Darwin has not a single fact, NOT ONE, 
 within the sphere of Natural Selection to prove 
 his theory. This is just why he had to turn to 
 Human Selection to help him out. And there is 
 a very good reason why he could not bring a single 
 fact: it is, that, first, as has been shown, his theory 
 is impossible, and hence there are no facts : and 
 secondly, even if there were, from the very nature 
 of the case it would be impossible either to know 
 them, or bring them forward. For ex hypothesi 
 the process is too slight in kind and degree to be
 
 Natural Economy. 87 
 
 observed ; too slow, requiring aeons for its ' accom- 
 plishment, for any eye to mark it ; and essentially 
 untraceable ; for catch, e.g. your hare, how can you 
 compare it with its forerunners or descendants, or 
 contemporaries ? The process necessarily eludes 
 observation, assuming it to be real. What then does 
 Darwin do ? Mark the absurdity. He apparently 
 brings forward evidence, but it is all supposition : 
 all imaginary : and he invariably falls back in reality 
 upon two props : one, variation under domestica- 
 tion ; the other, the necessary consequence (which 
 is a truism) that if profitable variations occur, they 
 will be selected. They must. Every page of the 
 Origin of Species furnishes illustrations of this 
 method : e.g. : on p. 103 he illustrates the action 
 of Natural Selection by one or two imaginary ex- 
 amples. ' Let us take the case of a wolf, which 
 ' preys on various animals, securing some by craft, 
 ' some by strength, and some by fleetness : and let 
 ' us suppose that the fleetest prey, a deer, for in- 
 ' stance, had from any change in the country in- 
 ' creased in numbers, or that other prey had 
 ' decreased in numbers, during that season of the 
 'year when the wolf was hardest pressed for food. 
 ' Under such circumstances the swiftest and slim- 
 ' mest wolves would have the best chance of sur- 
 ' viving, and so be preserved or selected, -provided 
 ' always that they retained strength to master their 
 ' prey at this or some other period of the year when 
 ' they might be compelled to prey on other animals. 
 ' / can see no more reason to doubt this, than that 
 ' man can improve the fleetness of his greyhounds 
 4 by careful and methodical selection,' &c. Now 
 this exactly illustrates the essential weakness of
 
 88 Body and Soul. 
 
 his argument. His natural facts are always, not 
 facts, but suppositions, and he always has to fall 
 back on a reference to domestication, which, as 
 has been here proved, does not hold, and on the 
 obvious truth, that the fittest will survive in the 
 struggle : obvious, because we cannot tell which 
 was the fittest, except after the struggle is over : 
 we know a priori that that one which survives 
 will have been the fittest. It is in fact just the 
 extremely obvious nature of this argument which 
 gives a specious appearance to the whole reasoning. 
 But the point is not there. The point is not, 
 whether, in a struggle, that will survive which is 
 fittest to survive under the circumstances. That 
 is certain. But even excluding, which is manifestly 
 absurd, all circumstances from the problem but that 
 of the variation of the organism, the point is, the 
 degree and kind of the variation : and this is pre- 
 cisely the point in which the whole theory fails, 
 and in support of which no fact can possibly be 
 adduced. On p. 106 he gives us another illustra- 
 tion, drawn from plants : and we find ' let us suppose 
 that,' ' insects would get dusted with the pollen, 
 ' and would certainly transport it ' ' the flowers of 
 ' two species would thus get crossed : and the act of 
 ' crossing, as we have good reason to believe, would 
 ' produce vigorous seedlings, which would conse- 
 ' quently have the best chance of flourishing and 
 ' surviving. Those plants which produced flowers 
 ' with the largest glands or nectaries, woiild oftenest 
 ' be visited, and would oftenest be crossed, and so 
 ' in the long run would gain the upper hand.' And 
 so on. This is merely a sample of his procedure 
 all through the book. He cannot help himself.
 
 Natural Economy, 89 
 
 Not being able to produce a single fact in evidence, 
 he has, willy-nilly, to fall back on the two arguments 
 given above. In fact, Darwin's hypothesis is one 
 to which I defy any one to produce a parallel in 
 the history of the world. It is an hypothesis, sup- 
 ported, A. by facts drawn from one sphere and 
 applied to another where they do not hold : and 
 B. by conjectures. The facts are inapplicable, and 
 the conjectures are not facts. 
 
 As was stated above, any one can see at a glance 
 for it is a truism that in any struggle that being 
 will survive which is fittest to survive, under the 
 circumstances. To attempt to prove this is simply 
 otiose, and a mark of want of understanding : we 
 might as well go about to prove that two and two 
 are four. And it is from this that uncritical people 
 are apt to conclude, hastily, that Darwin's case is 
 proved. But it is nothing of the sort. Nobody 
 denies, or ever thought of denying, this proposition : 
 and if they did, it makes no difference : for it is 
 a necessary truth. After any struggle, that thing 
 which has survived, is, ipso facto, that one which 
 was fittest to survive. All circumstances whatever 
 must be taken into the account, or the thing is false. 
 But it does not follow in the least that infinitely 
 slight variations in the structure of the organism 
 will determine the result. To establish his theory 
 Darwin ought to have proved, or at any rate, 
 attempted to prove, bring evidence tending to prove, 
 i. that infinitely slight variations are profitable to the 
 organism, can be selected, and do in fact determine 
 the survival of the organism in question. 2. That 
 intercrossing will not destroy the variation, or that 
 such infinitely slight variation will tend to be
 
 9O Body and Soul. 
 
 inherited. 3. That these things being so, there is 
 every reason to believe that during the life of the 
 organisms in question additional variation in the 
 same direction will occur so as to enable Natural 
 Selection to accumulate them, or add them up. 
 4. That such insignificant variations, even assuming, 
 what is manifestly impossible, the other three 
 conditions, could all along preponderatingly decide, 
 amidst all the complex accidents and conditions 
 of life, survival in the struggle. He has not brought 
 a particle of evidence to establish any one of them. 
 
 Any one can see that other conditions being 
 carefully eliminated, in any struggle preponderance 
 in one required quality will give victory : as, for 
 example, in races, swiftness ; in single combat, 
 strength : and this metaphor is one of the illustrations 
 that Darwin most commonly uses, and which 
 impresses uncritical people. But in Nature, other 
 conditions are not eliminated. No one has proved this 
 more indisputably than Darwin himself. The race 
 is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. 
 No, some one might object, but generally speaking 
 it will be so. Yes, but this misses the point. The 
 point is that a single variation, infinitely slight, 
 having occurred, it should give the decisive turn, 
 and observe, not once only, but continuously, for 
 many lives, at all times, and many generations : 
 other influences and conditions powerless before it. 
 For variation begins, and as its very name implies, 
 as the very essence of the idea of variation shows, 
 with individuals : each varies from each : if all vary 
 simultaneously it is not variation, but the definite 
 result of a common cause. Therefore a single 
 variation infinitely slight, is Darwin's starting-point.
 
 Natural Economy. 91 
 
 And yet, even assuming it to be capable of being 
 selected, this miserable variation is to outweigh the 
 countless host of surrounding circumstances all 
 bringing to bear. The life of the variation, we are 
 asked to believe, must be as safe as that of a hero 
 of romance, passing unscathed through every peril- 
 ous combination of circumstances. Should it succeed 
 in so doing, it must be endowed with eyes of the 
 sharpest, so as to choose for its bride, with unerring 
 instinct, a variety similar to itself, and so hand on 
 to its posterity the precious charge, uncontaminated 
 by mixture with plebeian ordinaries. 
 
 But this is not all. The truth is that the Origin 
 of Species is a misnomer. It is the second title 
 which accurately describes Darwin's book : The 
 Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for 
 Life. Natural Selection, or to employ the more 
 scientific and accurate term, the Survival, under 
 keen competition, of the Fittest, is not an explana- 
 tion of the origin of species at all. It is the cause 
 and principle, not of the progress of organisation 
 from lower to higher, but of the perpetuity and 
 maintenance of organisation essentially as it is : it 
 tells us, not how a form came to be what it is, but 
 how it is kept as it is. It does not raise from one 
 step to another, but prevents degeneration. It 
 keeps structure up to the mark, but does not ex- 
 plain how it passes beyond it : nay, it does not 
 permit it. It is no explanation of the change of 
 forms, but of their immutability. It acts, in fact, 
 exactly in the opposite way, does exactly the oppo- 
 site of what Darwin conceived it to do. For ob- 
 serve, that, under keen competition, which is the 
 hypothesis, every organism must live by its organs :
 
 92 Body and Soul. 
 
 i.e. find in the weapons with which it is furnished 
 its safety. Consequently, it cannot possibly vary 
 out of its own line. In so far as its preservation 
 depends upon itself it has nothing but its own style 
 of self-preservation to trust to. Now it lives and 
 must live from hand to mouth constantly on the 
 watch to find prey or escape itself from being prey 
 to others : hence, it is true, competition will keep 
 all its faculties keen, polish them to the utmost, 
 eliminate inferior specimens, and so on : but on the 
 other hand, it will absolutely prevent it from varying 
 or even so much as attempting to develop along any 
 line but its own. It has no time to develop new 
 methods of preying or escaping. Long before it 
 could trust to any newly arisen very slight varia- 
 tion differing in tendency in kind: i.e. tending to 
 transform it and requiring ages for its full realisation, 
 it must have perished. It must stick to its old form 
 and find therein its life : and hence, though doubt- 
 less varying slightly in unessential points, just as 
 it does under domestication, none of these variations 
 can be selected, because they are of no value or 
 account under nature. Competition keeps it rigor- 
 ously to its own organs, and absolutely prevents 
 it from varying away from its shape, on pain of 
 death. Darwin most unaccountably overlooks the 
 fact that if, in a race for prey, as e.g. in his own 
 illustration of wolves, quoted above, the victory lies 
 with the swiftest (putting out of sight the considera- 
 tion that, unless deer were the only food, the beaten 
 wolf might otherwise feed), yet this natural selection 
 does not and cannot alter the form, for it assumes 
 the species wolf, with its organs, already there. 
 [And how are we to conceive the possibility of such
 
 Natural Economy. 93 
 
 cases as this tending to permanently change the 
 wolf into a subsequent form : except by the ex- 
 clusion of all circumstances save the fleetness of its 
 prey ? But is, forsooth, this all ?] For Natural 
 Selection to act upon organs, they must be already 
 there. Rigid competition may keep the animal 
 from degenerating, but then on the other hand it 
 ties it down to its conditions. Let the conditions 
 alter, so as to render the animal's weapons either 
 of attack or defence useless, unfit, then it must 
 cease to exist. For it cannot change within the 
 period of its life. It is better to be a high organisa- 
 tion than a low one, provided that you can live 
 in your appropriate conditions : otherwise the case 
 is altered. The more definite a thing is, the less is 
 its capacity of alteration. 
 
 But some one might say : this is just where 
 Natural Selection comes in. It is true, that a 
 sudden change in conditions would destroy the 
 organism. But let the change be slow and con- 
 stant : this will slowly and constantly change the 
 organism. No doubt it will (or else destroy it) : 
 but the point is not, whether the change will occur : 
 but how it will occur. Beyond all question, and 
 this is what is not peculiar to Darwin, changing 
 conditions will either destroy or change the or- 
 ganism : that is the essence of the truth, that 
 function makes structure. But will this change be 
 effected by the Natural Selection of one insignificant 
 variation, by the constant adding up of an infinitely 
 slight, inherited variation, or by the action of the 
 conditions upon all the members of the species? 
 That is the question for the Darwinian, and that 
 is exactly what we are now discussing. The point
 
 94 Body and Soul. 
 
 is exactly there : Darwin gives us a theory of the 
 how of the change : and on the contrary, reason 
 shows that the principle he invokes to account for 
 the change would on the contrary account, not for 
 the change, but the fixity. Natural Selection, as 
 presented by Darwin, is powerless to effect altera- 
 tion. In the sea of chopping circumstances, his 
 variation must be lost. 
 
 And this shows us, on the one hand, how little 
 Darwin comprehended his own principle, and how 
 he confused together two things essentially distinct : 
 the one, the law, that changing conditions change 
 the organism, which is not his : and the other, the 
 theory, as to how this is to be explained, which 
 is his, and which, as we have seen, is erroneous. 
 And it shows us, on the other hand, how we may 
 solve some difficulties that puzzled him, with his 
 aid. He denies (15) the statement of naturalists 
 that domestic varieties, if run wild, gradually but 
 invariably revert in character to their aboriginal 
 stocks. Were this true, he admits, that we could 
 deduce nothing from domestic varieties in regard 
 to species : but he says that there is not a shadow 
 of evidence for it*. Now, on the contrary, reason 
 shows that it must be so. It follows from Darwin's 
 own principle of Natural Selection. The constitu- 
 tion acquired by any organisation under domestica- 
 tion, does not depend any longer, as it did once, on 
 the necessity of preserving its life (for, as Aristotle 
 says, domestic animals derive advantage from their 
 position : they are in safety), but on the accidents 
 
 * He goes on to say, significantly, 'As has always been my 
 'practice, I have sought light on this head from our domestic 
 ' productions.'
 
 Natural Economy. 95 
 
 of matter and the whim of man It may therefore 
 become, and generally does become, as Darwin and 
 Wallace both say, somewhat monstrous. (Mon- 
 strosities, says Aristotle, are cases where matter 
 conquers the adaptive organisation.) Therefore, all 
 that artificial formation, enveloping, as it were, and 
 disofuisingr the oriorinal organisation, "must fall off and 
 
 o o o o 
 
 away from it, if it is dropped back into the struggle 
 for existence, and the state of war : leaving only 
 those organs of self-preservation with which it 
 started. It must, as it were, again strip for the 
 contest. For each specific form is determined by 
 the way it has to keep itself alive, as was long ago 
 pointed out by Aristotle : hence however much 
 luxury and security may have transmogrified it 
 under domestication, it must, if turned loose, lose 
 all those clothes which clog it and fetter its action, 
 unless it is to perish : it must get its living, just 
 as it did before ; it must be thrown again into 
 Nature's crucible : be born again : i.e. it must revert, 
 and lose its acquired character. 
 
 All this, now, while it throws into strong relief 
 the wide and essential distinction between the results 
 of variation under domestication, and variation under 
 nature, solves for us other problems that Darwin 
 did not succeed in solving : the limits of variation : 
 the definition of a species : and the apparent paradox 
 that though, according to his view, species were 
 mutable, yet there is no evidence for it, and a good 
 deal against it y . 
 
 y It is an error to say, as is often done, that ' change is the 
 ' law ' or that ' nature puts a premium upon variation ' without 
 qualification. Change is the law, only in so far as the con- 
 ditions do not require fixity. The more definite, the less
 
 96 Body and Soul. 
 
 It is most curious to see, what an amount of 
 difficulty has been imported into the essentially 
 simple question, what are the limits of variation. 
 It would be easy, but invidious, to adduce passages 
 from many well-known authors, showing how cu- 
 riously they misunderstand a thing on Darwin's own 
 principles easily accounted for. No two things in 
 Nature are exactly alike : that is the whole and 
 complete meaning of variation : a fact proved by 
 inspection, as universal as gravitation. This is the 
 whole material on which breeders go to work, in- 
 finitely slight as the variations are : and it would 
 also be the whole material on which Natural Selec- 
 tion must work, according to Darwin. If by varia- 
 tion is meant anything more than this, then it is 
 simply a gratuitous assumption, for which there is no 
 warrant. For Darwin expressly excludes the no- 
 tion of sudden unexplained leaps of Nature. But 
 now, though this is the whole meaning of variation : 
 viz. that things vary : it should seem, that no sooner 
 does a theory get based upon the fact, and Variation 
 acquire a big V, than it thereby acquires a sort of 
 mystical significance. Observe, that the question 
 here is not of the chemical causes of variation : 
 those are as mysterious as all chemistry : but the 
 organic limits of it. Obviously, and from the very 
 meaning of it, it has, intrinsically, no limit : no two 
 
 capable of change is any structure: e.g., Darwin says, p. 156: 
 ' a structure which has been developed through long continued 
 ' selection, when it ceases to be of service to the species, will 
 ' generally become variable, as we see with rudimentary organs : 
 ' for it will no longer be regulated by this same power of 
 ' selection.' This, though he does not see it, is antagonistic 
 to his theory of progress by means of selection.
 
 Natural Economy. 97 
 
 things are ever quite the same. But on the other 
 hand, relatively, its limits are given to us by the 
 theory of Natural Selection itself. As shown above, 
 no organic form, insignificantly as it may vary from 
 its like, can vary from its essential, i.e. its specific, 
 form. What, then, is its specific form ? What is 
 a species? Here we come upon a knotty problem 
 indeed. But though he does not answer the ques- 
 tion, he has yet, I think, shown us how to answer it. 
 ' No one definition has as yet satisfied all natu- 
 ' ralists : yet every naturalist knows vaguely what 
 ' he means when he speaks of a species.' (48.) It 
 is most striking to compare this utterance of 
 Darwin's with J. S. Mill's similar statement as to 
 wealth : ' every one knows vaguely what he means 
 'by wealth.' Nothing can be more singular, or 
 more ominous, than these two declarations. For 
 a species is to Natural, precisely what a commodity 
 is to Political Economy : and the vagueness and 
 indeterminate uncertainty proves in each case that 
 the question is still unsolved. To undervalue, as 
 J. S. Mill did, ' metaphysical nicety of expression,' 
 is merely a mark of inferior thinking power : for it 
 is certain that the definitions of species and wealth 
 respectively contain the key to Natural and Political 
 Economy : and the fact that the definitions are still 
 wanted proves that the appropriate method of study 
 is not pursued. I have shown this to be the case 
 with Wealth in my Principle of Wealth Creation, 
 and shall deal with the question anew in the follow- 
 ing book : here we are concerned with the definition 
 
 o 
 
 of species. 
 
 Darwin does not attempt the definition. He 
 looks upon species as a name arbitrarily given for 
 
 H
 
 98 Body and Soul. 
 
 the sake of convenience to a set of individuals closely 
 resembling each other, and holds that it does not 
 essentially differ from the term variety, which is 
 given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms. 
 (63.) From this, as we shall see, it is clear that 
 Darwin did not fully grasp the bearing and corollaries 
 of his own principle. Further, he was not anxious 
 to mark any essential difference between species 
 and variety : for his theory would fail, were this the 
 case. He was thinking here of the ordinary appli- 
 cations of the terms ' species ' and ' variety ' as 
 given by naturalists in the epoch before the Origin 
 of Species had made popular and public the idea of 
 evolution. We must never forget, as is admitted 
 by all authorities now-a-days, that our catalogues 
 of species and varieties had been drawn up by men 
 who had no principle of classification to guide them, 
 nothing but arbitrary accidental or numerical con- 
 siderations : and that until the Origin of Species 
 appeared ' natural history science was a mere collec- 
 1 tion of descriptions of species. It was a science 
 1 in which the search after new species, merely for 
 ' the sake of adding to the number of known forms, 
 ' was the paramount aim of the zoologist and botanist. 
 ' Classifications grew apace, but the relations of one 
 ' species to another, of group to group, or the general 
 ' plan upon which the animal world was constructed 
 ' and organised, were either undreamt of, as subjects 
 ' of study, or were cursorily dismissed from scientific 
 ' view. We have but to open a volume of natural 
 ' history lore of the past decade of zoology, to 
 1 realise the truth of this statement. We may readily 
 ' perceive that attention to outside characters and 
 1 to the construction of artificial systems of classifica-
 
 Natural Economy. 99 
 
 ' tion represented the chief labours of the biologists 
 'of past years V Nothing can show the futility of 
 the method better than the criticisms of G. H. Lewes 
 on Aristotle's History of Animals. He condemns 
 it, as though from a higher plane, for not proceeding 
 in this exploded style, and attempting to establish 
 some nonsensical artificial classification. He never 
 perceives that Aristotle's book is, in truth, a mass 
 of facts collected for the purpose of comparing their 
 differences with a view to discovering the reason 
 why and plan of organic structure in general. It 
 has taken the world as usual two thousand years 
 to get back to Aristotle : in the meanwhile, those 
 who could not understand, could at least abuse him. 
 Seeing, then, that all organised beings are instru- 
 ments, both the whole and the parts, we see also 
 that a species is simply a definite grade of form or 
 structure strictly organised for the preservation of 
 life and the propagation of the same in a definite and 
 peculiar way, or if we like, under a definite and 
 peculiar set of conditions a . The necessary or generic 
 part of the animal, for example, that which is com- 
 mon to all, is, as Aristotle correctly says, the 
 stomach, mouth and vent, so that the material out 
 of which the species of animals are formed or de- 
 rived, the Ur-Thier, might be roughly defined as 
 a portable sack, for the consumption of food. All 
 species of animals are simply complicated variations 
 
 z Chapters on Evolution, p. 31. Compare Darwin, p. 58: 'to 
 ' discuss whether they ought to be called species or varieties 
 ' before any definition of these terms has been generally ac- 
 1 cepted is vainly to beat the air.' 
 
 a Flourens, De Candolle, Quatrefages, and to some extent 
 Cuvier, include descent in their essential notion of species. 
 
 H 2
 
 IOO Body and Soul. 
 
 on this theme. The process of evolution has simply 
 endowed them with different organs, weapons of 
 attack or defence, according to the different de- 
 mands made upon the organic structure by its con- 
 ditions : food, habitat, enemies, and so forth. Put- 
 ting aside the consideration as to the kow of the 
 process, and attending only to the result, it is im- 
 portant to observe that the lower any organism be 
 in the scale, the more indefinite its structure, the 
 more capable will it be of adapting itself to new 
 conditions : i.e. the Hydne may be turned inside 
 out, and the exterior surface will then digest, and 
 the stomach respire (O. S. 227), whereas the higher 
 and more definite it be, the less will it be able to 
 alter. Just as in the outset of life, a man may be 
 lawyer or doctor, this or that, but the longer he 
 specialises the less will he be able to start again : 
 for to determine, is to end, in all directions but one : 
 so will it be with the organism which has once en- 
 tered upon a definite direction of development. 
 Once let it trust to legs for safety, it must give up 
 all thought of wings : if it depend upon speed, it 
 cannot, after a while, pause to change its weapon 
 for that of strength. It must go on. As it made 
 its bed, so must it lie upon it. Now the reader who 
 will reflect upon this and grasp its full significance, 
 will be able to correct what appears to me to be an 
 important error in the Origin of Species. Instead of 
 concluding with Darwin that evolution, descent with 
 modification, essentially involves the idea of the 
 mutability of species (a point which Darwin enforces 
 again and again, as though evolution and the muta- 
 bility of species were convertible terms), he will see 
 that the immutability of species is an essential
 
 Natural Economy. I O I 
 
 corollary of the gradual formation of species. This 
 will explain difficulties that will puzzle the Dar- 
 winian. It explains why many naturalists, in spite 
 of much evidence in favour of evolution, could yet 
 never bring themselves to believe that species were 
 mutable. It explains why we have no indication of 
 change in species within historic times. It explains 
 why species do not change within huge geological 
 epochs. It explains why Darwin, who was primarily 
 a botanist, a student of vegetable life, should be 
 strongly impressed with mutability; just as Lamarck, 
 who was the same, maintained evolution against 
 Cuvier, who, being concerned particularly with higher 
 animals, and big organic forms, stoutly defended im- 
 mutability. It explains again why every one who 
 knows anything of biology inevitably arrives at the 
 conclusion that natural organic structures have been 
 formed by degrees, while on the other hand the 
 uneducated man is apt obstinately to .maintain the 
 fixity of species. And indeed, when we consider 
 the perfect adaptation, and the original and peculiar 
 character of animals, the sober, imperturbable ox, 
 the generous, high-spirited horse, the sly and crafty 
 fox, the idiotic sheep, the noble lion, the merciless 
 spider, the voracious crayfish, the hypocritical, de- 
 mure cat, the gentle dove, the unwearied, industri- 
 ous ant or bee, the joyous, bustling, chattering jay, 
 the familiar friendly robin, the grotesque, waggish 
 bear, the vain, self-important cock, the wilful, self- 
 opinionated, unmanageable pig, and a hundred 
 others, it is difficult indeed to believe that such 
 definite, strongly marked, idiosyncratic characters, 
 recurring with such inevitable unerring truth in 
 every specimen, are not absolute : can once not 
 
 TXMfMBYY 
 
 TOTOTERSITY OF CALIFCHKtt 
 .JSAXTA
 
 IO2 Body and Soul. 
 
 have been, but have step by step arisen. And this 
 difficulty rests indeed on a mystical perception of a 
 truth which is deeper than reason : namely, that 
 they have become thus definite, in course of time, 
 and having so become, must so remain : that in 
 short the days of their generation are over : that 
 they are, to borrow the expression of the school- 
 men, mutable a parte ante, but immutable a parte 
 post. Time was, when they were not : but now, 
 they must be as they are, or die. For the exigen- 
 cies of their conditions, the need of self-preserva- 
 tion, a bottomless pit their continual exertions can 
 never fill, keep them rigidly to their own weapons : 
 keep them true to their specific form. Only when 
 and if they are delivered from their exigent con- 
 dition can they change their shapes : when they 
 escape from the GRINDSTONE OF NECESSITY : but 
 these are then not battle shapes, but peace shapes, 
 given to them not by the stern priming-knife of a 
 competition which makes each beast find its life in 
 its organisation, but the caprices of matter or man. 
 And hence it is obvious that the specific cha- 
 racteristics might quite accurately be described as 
 those of vital importance : for as Darwin says, 
 Natural Selection acts by life and death. The 
 animal lives by its form, and for its form : ac- 
 cording to Aristotle's admirable expression, its aim 
 is to preserve its nature (O-CO^LV rrjv fyva-iv}- It has 
 as it were the usufruct of its form : a life interest 
 only in it. It must hand it on to posterity. It 
 is the deep perception of this that makes Aristotle 
 say that every living being strives to produce 
 another like itself in order to share in the eternal 
 and divine (JW TOV aei /cat TOV 0iov zere'axjt- For
 
 Natural Economy. 103 
 
 it is only the specific element in the organisation 
 that is divine ; i.e. produced by the supreme and 
 universal law of co-adaptation of structure to func- 
 tion. In every organisation a large element exists 
 which is not essential, not so constructed : but has 
 arisen merely incidentally, by the material peculi- 
 arities of the individual. The specific form, owing 
 to the irregularities of matter, in which it is ex- 
 pressed ; matter, which at bottom prefers its own 
 laws to those of the organic form it composes, 
 and insubordinately breaks out on its own account 
 wherever it can ; the specific form, I say, is never 
 found naked and pure ; it is always enveloped in 
 non-essential clothing. Here we come upon the 
 relation of species and variety. Beings that have 
 the specific form may vary infinitely in non-essential 
 particulars. Accordingly, there will always be, 
 potentially, though not actually, an indefinite num- 
 ber of varieties of the species : though how many 
 is determined by the accidents of life. To call one 
 form, simply because it is numerically the largest, 
 the species, and other varieties, is essentially 
 arbitrary and unscientific b . All are equally varie- 
 
 b 'All naturalists have learned by dearly-bought experience 
 ' how rash it is to attempt to define species by the aid of in- 
 ' constant characters . . . every naturalist who has had the mis- 
 ' fortune to undertake the description of a group of highly varying 
 ' organisms ... if of a cautious nature, will end by uniting all the 
 'forms which graduate into each other under a single species, for he 
 ' will say to himself that he has no right to give names to objects 
 ' which he cannot define? Darwin, Descent of Man, 2nd Ed., 
 p. 174. 
 
 This is just what I say : naturalists do not know what they 
 mean by species. But now, how can Darwin reconcile this view 
 with his theory that varieties are incipient species'} Let the
 
 IO4 Body and Soul. 
 
 ties of the species. That one is numerically larger 
 than the other is of no moment at all ; it matters, 
 philosophically speaking, not the least, whether 
 there be one lion or a million. 
 
 According to Darwin, varieties are incipient 
 species, species in course of formation : and species, 
 varieties that have arrived. This is essential to his 
 view. According to the view explained here, this 
 misses the heart of the question. All varieties, 
 including that to which naturalists arbitrarily give 
 the name of species, are equally varieties of the 
 species. All are but different expressions of the 
 same fundamental root : but so many variations 
 on a single theme, which is the species. Varieties 
 do not lead to the species but away from it. They 
 are not prior to the species, but later : modifications 
 of it. But some one might urge, this is precisely 
 Darwin's view : what he seeks to show is just this, 
 that in course of time these varieties go far enough 
 to constitute new species. But here comes in 
 the essential difference between species and varie- 
 ties. No amount of variation will ever specifically 
 change the organisation, for varieties do not and 
 cannot differ in points of vital importance, of specific 
 value. The specific organisation is deep ; the varia- 
 tion shallow and superficial : just as all swords 
 are swords, though there may be infinite varieties 
 of them. No one has expressed the essential dis- 
 
 reader judge : is it unity or variety which conditions tend to 
 produce ? Will not one species diverge into varieties ? and is it 
 likely that innumerable varieties will tend to one species ? in the 
 Darwinian sense of that word. Is it not clear that varieties vary 
 not to but/row the species ?
 
 Natural Economy. 105 
 
 tinction between species and varieties more strongly 
 than Darwin himself : he speaks of ' the almost 
 ' universal sterility of species when first crossed, 
 ' which forms so remarkable a contrast with the 
 ' almost universal fertility of varieties when crossed.' 
 (546.) ' The fertility of varieties, that is, of the 
 ' forms known or believed to have descended from 
 ' common parents when intercrossed ; and likewise 
 ' the fertility of this mongrel offspring is with re- 
 ' ference to my theory of equal importance with 
 ' the sterility of species : for it seems to make 
 ' a broad and clear distinction between varieties 
 ' and species.' (300.) ' Varieties, even strongly 
 ' marked ones, though having somewhat of the 
 ' character of species as is shown by the hopeless 
 ' doubts in many cases how to rank them yet 
 ' certainly differ from each other far less than do 
 ' good and distinct species. Nevertheless according 
 ' to my view, varieties are species in the process 
 ' of formation, or as I have called them incipient 
 ' species. How then does the lesser difference 
 4 between varieties become augmented into the 
 ' greater difference between species ? ' [This is 
 certainly the knotty point.] ' That this does 
 ' habitually happen, we must infer ' [that is to say, 
 if my theory is true : if it does not happen, the 
 theory is false] ' from most of the innumerable 
 ' species throughout nature presenting well-marked 
 ' differences : whereas varieties, the supposed proto- 
 ' types and parents of future well-marked species, 
 ' present slight and ill defined differences.' (127.) 
 Thus, to support his theory, Darwin bridges the 
 gulf between varieties and species by an arbitrary 
 assumption.
 
 io6 Body and Soul. 
 
 We see, in this reference, how Darwin has to 
 admit that facts are against him : but he endeavours 
 to explain them away. He tries, in a most elaborate 
 manner, to get round the facts. But the slightest 
 critical sifting of his arguments will show us that 
 he has completely failed. He endeavours to make 
 out how, by artificial means carefully devised to 
 that end, some fertility may be forced to appear 
 between crossed species. But here, as usual, in 
 arguing from art to nature he misses the point and 
 begs the question. He cannot show that Nature 
 could do what man may just possibly, by far-fetched 
 devices, do : for the point is, does the thing in 
 question take place in Nature ? ' The real diffi- 
 ' culty,' he truly says, ' is not, as it appears to me, 
 ' why domestic varieties have not become mutually 
 ' infertile when crossed, but why this has so gene- 
 ' rally occurred with natural varieties, as soon as they 
 ' have been modified in a sufficient and permanent 
 1 degree to take rank as species' (334.) These last 
 words in italics (mine) are of course merely his 
 assumption expressed as a fact : viz. that varieties 
 are incipient species. But now, this difficulty only 
 arises from his theory, that varieties turn into 
 species : and moreover, it is one which, pending 
 any evidence to establish the fact, absolutely an- 
 nihilates it. He has not shown, nor could he pos- 
 sibly show, how, on his theory, varieties should 
 somehow or other cease to be fertile : for on the 
 theory of Natural Selection, fertility would be 
 the greatest of all conceivable advantages to 
 any species. He has therefore to take refuge in 
 ignorance : ' we are far from precisely knowing the 
 ' cause : nor is this surprising, considering how
 
 Natural Economy. 107 
 
 ' profoundly ignorant we are, &c. : ' and he con- 
 tinues with conjectures : ' must have been ' ' this 
 ' may well make a difference ' ' would probably in 
 ' like manner be ' and so on. But this is utterly 
 preposterous. Here we have a theoretical hypo- 
 thesis, flatly contradicted by facts, in its very heart, 
 and we are asked to take it, because we are ig- 
 norant : i.e. on the strength of another hypothesis, 
 that there may conceivably be some way or other 
 of reconciliation. Hypothesis based upon ig- 
 norance : this is certainly a new scientific method ! 
 The fact is, that in this chapter on Sterility, as 
 well as in that wonderful chapter on Instinct, the 
 most extraordinary amalgam of ' may be/ con- 
 jecture, theory-stretching, question begging, and 
 airy nothings, that ever was offered in support of 
 a halting theory to a credulous and illogical world, 
 Darwin is struggling with impossibility. Having 
 somehow or other established an apparent basis 
 for his theory by analogies drawn from human 
 selection, which, as we have seen, are entirely fal- 
 lacious, he finds himself obliged to face portentous 
 difficulties that refuse to be explained, and ac- 
 cordingly performs intellectual gymnastics of the 
 strangest kind to try and lay their spirits. He 
 was drawn on by the truth in his book, descent 
 with modification ; and never perceived the as- 
 tounding fallacy in that part which was unsound. 
 The miserable folly, ignorance and prejudice of 
 many of the objections that were brought against 
 him created a revulsion in his favour, and did him 
 good service, by leading people to suppose, later 
 on, that nothing but prejudice could dictate any 
 objections at all. Yet, though he considers many
 
 io8 Body and Soul. 
 
 objections, the most serious of all never so much 
 as presented themselves to his mind c . 
 
 The fact is simply that this fertility of varieties 
 and sterility of species is fatal to his view (other- 
 wise untenable), that varieties are but incipient 
 species : (unless of course we apply the name 
 species arbitrarily to the variety numerically largest, 
 in which case variety and species do not essentially 
 differ, are simply convertible terms, and the whole 
 question is stripped of its meaning and becomes 
 futile). But the whole of this discussion shows 
 us, that this is an inversion of the truth, and only 
 plays upon the surface of the mysterious origin 
 of species. All varieties are merely the specific 
 form in different clothes. They all get it, by 
 generation. Descent, as Darwin says, is the 
 hidden bond revealed to us by our classifications. 
 Unity of species is really unity of origin ; implies 
 common origin. Thus generation is the principle 
 of identity : conditions, the principle of difference. 
 As the specific form is handed down from form 
 to form the conditions clothe it differently : but 
 they cannot radically alter it : for keen competition, 
 i.e. Natural Selection, keeps its nose to the 
 GRINDSTONE OF NECESSITY : keeps it constantly de- 
 
 c Yet in the Descent of Man, p. 172, he takes his theory as 
 proved. ' I may here remind the reader that the sterility of 
 ' species when crossed is not a specially acquired quality, but, 
 ' like the incapacity of certain trees to be grafted together, is 
 ' incidental on other acquired differences. The nature of these 
 ' differences is unknown' He sees that it could not have been 
 acquired by Natural Selection, so he denies that it is a specially 
 acquired quality : but he has not succeeded in showing it to be 
 ' incidental.' It is merely the necessary assumption, if his 
 theory is to be true.
 
 Natural Economy. 109 
 
 pendent on its essential organs for life. When we 
 remember how short is the individual life, we 
 can easily see, that the specific form can never 
 change under a stern competitive regime. It would 
 not have time. For the change would have to 
 occur in a single life. The form is permanent only 
 through the succession of individuals. Therefore, 
 however much the individual may and does vary, 
 the variation can never be considerable relatively 
 to its essential organs, or it would go out. 
 The very meaning of the term ' to vary ' shows 
 us this. Each individual varies infinitesimally from 
 each, but they intercross freely, and hence there 
 cannot possibly be that accumulation of one very 
 slight variation in a definite direction which is the 
 postulate and the essential condition of Darwin's 
 theory of Natural Selection. There is no breeder 
 here with a plan in his head to watch for, preserve 
 and accumulate some infinitesimal distinction, and 
 carefully isolate it by preventing crosses. It re- 
 quires but a few days of starvation, and the indi- 
 vidual, and with it the species, is dead and gone. 
 Let the reader bring this home to his mind. Let 
 him contemplate some organic form ; let him watch 
 a few crows, or sea-gulls, as they fly about and 
 settle together, and observe how one will differ 
 but the word is too strong just a little from an- 
 other, yet let him wake himself up, as it were, to 
 see, feel and realise how identical at bottom each is 
 with each, in respect of its life : how this crow and 
 that crow are after all the crow : how each is, ac- 
 cording as it works : lives by its organs. We speak 
 loosely of the crow having wings, of the horse 
 having legs, yet this really includes a fallacy : the
 
 no Body and Soul. 
 
 crow is its wings : the animal is but the sum total 
 of its essential organs : we might, indeed, speak of 
 a crow having a white spot on it, with less in- 
 accuracy ; but properly speaking, to say that it has 
 wings is to make a metaphysical entity of the crow, 
 apart from its shape. The sum total of the animal's 
 organs, working correctly : that is the crow, and 
 that is Aristotle's definition of the soul, the life. 
 As, then, its life depends on, and is in fact nothing 
 but its organs working, how can the animal possibly 
 vary in any essential organ d ? and how if it vary in 
 any non-essential organ, if it vary only in particulars 
 both in kind and degree relatively to its nature 
 insignificant, can these be so accumulated by Natural 
 Selection so as to produce an essential change in 
 its form ? How can it vary away from its form ? 
 
 No one has brought home to us the intricate 
 relations of all organic beings in nature, the extra- 
 ordinary complexity and tangled balance of forces, 
 more clearly than Darwin himself. Each being 
 is just what it is, because it is when it is and 
 where it is : such is the sum total of his teach- 
 ing; such was the root idea of Aristotle. In the 
 
 d Darwin says (O. S. p. 50), that he can give instances of 
 variation in important organs (though he gives none), but he 
 does not say he can give instances of essential variation in 
 essential organs. 
 
 He says again (p. 106) : ' It may be objected by those who 
 ' have not attended to Natural History that the long continued 
 ' accumulation of individual differences could not rise to parts 
 ' or organs which seem to us and are often called new.' Let 
 the reader observe, that the question is not whether the long 
 continued accumulation of individual differences could do this : 
 the question is, whether Darwin's theory of Natural Selection 
 could effect this long continued accumulation.
 
 Natural Economy. Ill 
 
 competitive struggle, ' a grain in the balance will 
 ' determine the result.' (554-) ' Under nature, 
 ' the slightest differences of structure or con- 
 1 stitution may well turn the nicely balanced scale 
 ' in the struggle for life and so be preserved.' 
 (96.) But is it not astonishing to see how totally 
 Darwin misses the point. Most true it is, that 
 the slightest circumstance may determine the result, 
 but just for that reason is his theory impossible. 
 He always assumes in the most unaccountable 
 way, that the circumstance determining the result 
 (which is the life of the individual,) will be just 
 this insignificant variation of his, in the one in- 
 dividual in which it arises. For observe, though 
 he talks loosely about a ' variety having been 
 ' formed ' by his process, it must begin with the 
 individual variation 6 . But now, a thousand cir- 
 
 e Origin of Species, p. 47. ' In order that a great amount 
 ' of modification in any part should be effected, a variety when 
 ' once formed must again, perhaps after a long interval of time, 
 1 vary or present individual differences of the same favourable 
 ' nature, and these must again be preserved, and so onwards 
 ' step by step.' 
 
 Observe the fallacy here: a variety is not a variation. The 
 question is how is a variety to be formed ? Darwin says, by 
 individual variation. Yes, but how is the variation to be pre- 
 served ? If we assume the formation of a variety on Darwin's 
 principles, we may as well assume the formation of a species 
 at once. Variation begins with the individual, and even sup- 
 posing it to favour the individual, and even supposing it to 
 descend to his posterity, how is this slight variation to be 
 preserved during a long interval of time? amid the myriad 
 other determining factors, till another of the same kind arises ? 
 Or are all the individuals to vary together? then it is not 
 variation, but the definite result of the same conditions.
 
 112 Body and Soul. 
 
 cumstances come into play to determine the ex- 
 istence of this individual, and after it, of all its 
 progeny. Imagination plays us a trick here, and 
 gives to Darwin's theory its specious appearance. 
 When he speaks of a ' profitable variation de- 
 ' termining survival,' we feel of course that it must 
 be so, because we unconsciously picture this profit- 
 able variation as something big enough to give 
 decisive advantage throughout life. But this is 
 just what, as the facts of experience and Darwin's 
 hypothesis both require, it could never be. As 
 usual, the error lies not in the major premiss 
 but the minor. Nobody denies or could deny the 
 obvious and necessary truth, that a variation profit- 
 able to or giving advantage to the organism in the 
 struggle for life would preserve it, and this is what 
 gives to Darwin's hypothesis its apparent solidity. 
 But this does not touch the point, unless it can 
 be shown that variations profitable in kind and 
 degree could occur, or having occurred, could 
 be perpetuated by generation. The variation 
 that we know is quite insignificant, quite impotent 
 both in kind and degree, to produce any bene- 
 ficial effect whatever. Darwin's theory breaks 
 down entirely, just because the three essential 
 points, the nature, amount, and inheritance of 
 variation under domestication are such as could 
 do nothing at all under nature. The variations 
 are so slight, that they could not be profit- 
 able ; and even if they were, they could not be 
 accumulated, by reason of the mixture and crossing 
 of different individuals. The resultant of the in- 
 tricate play of forces in the competitive struggle 
 must necessarily be determined by the whole of
 
 Natural Economy, 113 
 
 them. Of all these forces, the very slightest is just 
 the insignificant, isolated, casual variation on which 
 Darwin builds his theory f . 
 
 He says with a truth that touches him nearly : 
 ' Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth 
 ' of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult 
 ' at least I have found it so than constantly to bear 
 ' this conclusion in mind. Yet unless it be thoroughly 
 ' ingrained in the mind, the whole economy of nature, 
 ' with every fact bearing on distribution, rarity, 
 ' abundance, extinction and variation will be dimly 
 ' seen or quite misunderstood.' (73.) Again : 'here 
 ' we see that cattle absolutely determine the existence 
 1 of the Scotch fir.' (83.) (Then, let the reader note, 
 how could any slight variation in the organisation 
 
 f Mr. Wallace, in his excellent and most unselfish statement 
 of Darwinism, has seen most fully the paramount importance 
 of establishing this point of variation in nature, but in his 
 chapter on that subject he has only succeeded in proving 
 what I have stated in the text, that great variation is only 
 found in low forms, largest in marine organisms and plants, 
 and least in higher organic forms : i.e. that the more special 
 the organic form, the less essential is its variation. As to 
 important specific organs, he leaves the question just where 
 he found it. l We can well understand] he says, on p. 130, 
 ' how after the first step was taken, every variation tending to 
 ' more complete vision would be preserved till we reach the 
 ' perfect eye of birds and mammals.' Mr. Wallace may, but 
 I for one understand not at all how variations, not very 
 large and simultaneous, could produce the eye of the swan, 
 owl, or eagle, adapted respectively for seeing under water, in 
 the dark, and at long ranges. The point is not, whether 
 accumulation could produce them : the point is, how slight 
 variation ultimately tending to issue in them could decisively 
 influence the survival of the organisms over all other influences. 
 
 As to how the variations could be perpetuated by inheritance, 
 Mr. Wallace leaves us in the dark.
 
 1 14 Body and Soul. 
 
 of the Scotch fir get over this preponderating factor 
 in the struggle for its existence.) Again he shows 
 how cats determine the existence of flowers (85) : of 
 what use then slight variations in the organisation 
 of flowers? Again in his imaginary illustration 
 as to how bees acquired their cell-making instinct, 
 he has a sort of perception of the point here enforced, 
 for he says : ' saving of time must be an important 
 ' element of success to any family of bees. Of course 
 ' the success of the species may be ' (he might have 
 said, must be] 'dependent on the number of its 
 ' enemies, or parasites, or on quite distinct causes, 
 ' and so be altogether independent of the quantity of 
 4 honey which the bees could collect. But let us 
 ' suppose, that this latter circumstance determined, 
 ' as improbably often has determined, whether a bee 
 1 could exist, &c.' (286.) Certainly, suppositions will 
 prove anything. ' Much virtue in if,' says Touch- 
 stone, and would doubtless have repeated the 
 remark, with emphasis, on perusing the Origin of 
 Species. Again ' a corollary of the highest import- 
 1 ance may be deduced from the foregoing remarks, 
 ' namely, that THE STRUCTURE OF EVERY ORGANIC 
 
 ' BEING IS RELATED, IN THE MOST ESSENTIAL YET 
 ' OFTEN HIDDEN MANNER, TO THAT OF ALL THE OTHER 
 ' ORGANIC BEINGS WITH WHICH IT COMES INTO COMPE- 
 
 ' TITION for food or residence, and from which it has 
 ' to escape, or on which it preys.' (88.) And similar 
 passages could be quoted in numbers to the same 
 effect. Thus he most emphatically expresses to us, 
 how decisively that equilibrium of forces in the 
 competition and play and battle within battle, 
 depends upon the energetic operation of each 
 being's essential organs ; or, to express it in other
 
 Natural Economy. 115 
 
 words, the existence of every being is determined 
 and conditioned by the structures of a thousand 
 others ; and yet he never perceives that since this 
 is so, the very least factor in determining the 
 existence of any being is some trifling variation 
 in a non-essential point. He never perceives that 
 this very war to the death on which he lays stress 
 in proof of his theory is precisely that which 
 annihilates it. The insignificant and trifling and 
 temporary variation (for it appears with and dis- 
 appears with the individual) is but a vanishing atom 
 in the presence of immensity : just because it is 
 merely individual and peculiar and not typical, 
 it can never influence the result. It is not the 
 peculiar and varying and inconstant, but the common 
 and typical qualities of the individual that give it 
 its place in the economy of nature : because 
 a permanent position in such economy can only 
 be won by permanent qualities. Take, for example, 
 his own illustration (85) : the existence of red clover 
 depends on humble-bees, of humble-bees on field- 
 mice. Here we have a chain red clover, humble- 
 bees, field-mice. But observe that thus the clover 
 depends on the mice, not qua their non-essential 
 differences, but qua their essential resemblances 
 not on this mouse or that mouse, but the mouse. 
 The equilibrium depends not on the inconstant, but 
 the constant element in the mouse. The variations, 
 just because they are variations, cannot affect the 
 result or come into play, or produce equilibrium. 
 Nature shows her power throiigh the individual, 
 but only because he is so numerous : not qua his 
 individuality. Individuality, as such, is impotent. 
 It is of course, in every case, a particular mouse 
 
 I 2
 
 1 1 6 Body and Soul. 
 
 which acts : yet for all that it is not the particular 
 mouse, but the universal mouse, the mouse qua 
 mouse, and not qua what is peculiar to him as 
 an individual, that really influences the economy. 
 Hence I say that the deadly competition to which 
 Darwin appeals, the intricate web of relations which 
 he adduces, in support of his theory that variations 
 determine the survival of the animal, really de- 
 stroys it ; and it shows that he did not fully 
 grasp the full significance of his own theory. 
 
 And I could show by a detailed critical exam- 
 ination of the Origin of Species, that Darwin did 
 not understand his own principle in many other 
 points of view, but I shall content myself with only 
 one Sexual Selection. Darwin speaks of this as 
 if it were something different from Natural Selec- 
 tion. He says that its action is less rigorous than 
 that of Natural Selection, and depends not on 
 a struggle for existence, but on a struggle of the 
 males from the females. (100.) From this it is 
 quite plain to me that he did not understand 
 Natural Selection. Natural Selection means no- 
 thing at all, unless it comprehends every cir- 
 cumstance that could possibly influence, or go to 
 determine, survival in the struggle. If it does not 
 mean this, it is simply an abstraction, an entity, 
 an unwarranted sophism. And sexual selection 
 is simply a special case of it; one of the factors 
 which go to determine survival. How could Dar- 
 win say that it did not involve existence? it in- 
 volves inheritance, progeny, which, for his prin- 
 ciple, is the same thing? It is true, that a male 
 rejected by one female may subsequently find 
 another. So may a wolf which has proved slower
 
 Natural Economy. 117 
 
 than a competing wolf in the pursuit of a deer, 
 find another deer. Sexual Selection stands ex- 
 actly on the same ground as any other factor in 
 Natural Selection influencing the survival of a 
 particular variation. It is no more possible to make 
 a separate item of Sexual Selection in the account 
 than of selection by speed, selection by cunning, 
 strength, size, or anything else. All are but cases 
 of Natural Selection, and that Darwin should not 
 have seen it is conclusive proof that he did not 
 fully appreciate the bearings of his own theory. 
 Further, it may be incidentally remarked, that 
 sexual selection will by no means explain facts to 
 which Darwin attempts to apply it. Many brilliant 
 butterflies could not possibly have been formed by 
 the selection of the female, partly because the 
 colours are so placed as to be out of her sight : 
 and partly, as has been shown by entomological 
 authorities, because in many cases the female does 
 in fact actually exercise no selection, but plays 
 a perfectly passive part, being impregnated without 
 resistance by the first male that finds her. If then 
 we find colouring of the most gorgeous description 
 in cases, as e.g. that of the Emperor moth, where 
 sexual selection could not act, why need we have 
 recourse to it in others ? 
 
 The reader will observe that throughout this 
 criticism, it is not with side-issues, but the very 
 core of the Darwinian theory that we have been 
 dealing. We have met the theory, negatively, 
 on its own ground. But it would be additionally 
 easy to bring arguments of a very positive nature 
 against it. ' If it could be shown,' says Darwin 
 (227), 'that any complex organ existed, which
 
 1 1 8 Body and Soul. 
 
 1 could not possibly be formed by numerous, sue- 
 ' cessive, slight modifications, my theory would 
 1 absolutely break down. But I can find no such 
 ' case.' Now, I have shown above that, in general, 
 numerous successive slight modifications could not 
 accumulate by Natural Selection, so as to produce 
 by addition a large positive specific difference. But 
 to pass over this for a moment, it is obvious, that 
 this assertion is a most novel and preposterous 
 method of gaining credit for a hypothesis. It 
 is not for us to accept any incredible hypothesis, 
 unless we can positively show that it is wrong. 
 It might be quite impossible to prove that any 
 particular theory as to the formation of a structure 
 was unsound, yet it by no means follows that 
 it must therefore be true. Such a challenge is 
 at once unmeaning, and a gratuitous ignoratio 
 elenchi. The onus probandi lies upon the man 
 who maintains a dogmatic thesis : not upon his 
 audience. Darwin's business is to prove that the 
 theory can explain the facts : it is not ours to prove 
 that it cannot. And yet it does so happen that we 
 can accept his challenge. For there is, as it seems 
 to me, an element in complex organs which utterly 
 destroys his theory. This I have noted by under- 
 lining, in the above quotation, the word successive. 
 For the effective action of a complex organ de- 
 pends upon a complicated co-adaptation of frequently 
 very numerous component parts, parts constructed 
 upon a highly differentiated and surprising plan : 
 which in order to be of any use at all (and this 
 is the sine qua non for Darwin) involve not a 
 successive but a simultaneous adjustment and varia- 
 tion. For example, the human eye, the human
 
 Natural Economy. 1 1 9 
 
 ear, one of the most miraculous pieces of me- 
 chanism in nature the eagle's eye, the method 
 of nutrition in the kangaroo, and similar organisa- 
 tions ; or still better, the interdependent and highly 
 artificial co-adaptations of two or more different 
 beings. Here is a hard nut for the Darwinian 
 
 o 
 
 to crack. Darwin does not attempt to disguise 
 it. But it is no defence to say, as he does, that 
 ' it is not necessary to suppose that all the modifi- 
 ' cations were simultaneous, if they were extremely 
 ' slight and gradual' (225), or that ' the force of this 
 1 objection rests entirely on the assumption that 
 ' the changes in both instinct and structure are 
 1 abrupt.' Apart from the fact that he here comes 
 under the criticism as to the slight and gradual 
 process which has been given above, who does 
 not see that no amount of simple variation can 
 ever account for complex co-adaptation ? no amount 
 of sequence can explain co-existence ? for one part 
 cannot exist, so as to be useful, before the other. 
 It is a logical impossibility. It is not in point to 
 appeal here, as he does, to the series of gradations 
 arising by unequal and often abrupt leaps from low 
 to high structure. The point here is not the fact 
 of evolution, but the way it is done g . And till the 
 
 s ' He who will go thus far, ought not to hesitate to go 
 ' a step farther, ff he finds on finishing this volume that large 
 ' bodies of facts otherwise inexplicable can be explained by 
 ' the theory of descent with modification : he ought to admit 
 ' that a structure even so perfect as an eagle's eye might be 
 ' formed by natural selection, although in this case he does 
 1 not know the transitional states.' (225.) He ought to do 
 nothing of the kind. Darwin here, as I have said above, con- 
 founds his theory of Natural Selection with the fact of evolution :
 
 1 20 Body and Soul. 
 
 Darwinian can show how slight and gradual suc- 
 cessive variations could ever, on the hypothesis 
 of utility, become simultaneous complicated co- 
 adaptations, his theory is simply out of court. 
 Darwin's own way of solving this portentous dif- 
 ficulty is simply the appeal to ignorance : we must 
 not say it could not happen, because we do not 
 know how. But with his permission, he must not 
 say it could happen, because he does not know 
 how : or until he can show how. Why, on this 
 method, I must believe anything. It is not scientific 
 explanation ; it is faith. "The soul, I am told, is 
 immortal : I must believe, for I do not know how. 
 Why, if these are your methods, should I not be- 
 lieve in special arbitrary creation at once : for it 
 would save me a great deal of trouble, and rests on 
 precisely the same evidence as your own theory 
 of Natural Selection : viz. that I cannot prove that 
 it did not happen, and I do not know how it 
 was done. Why not believe that the moon is made 
 of cream-cheese, or that the walls of Jericho fell 
 down at the blast of the trumpets of the children 
 of Israel ? Of all remarkable scientific methods, 
 this hypothesis based on ignorance is the strangest. 
 Deduction we know, and induction we know : nay, 
 even dogma we know, but what in Creation is this ? 
 Yet again there is a difficulty which, as far as I 
 am aware, has never yet been adduced against the 
 theory of Natural Selection, which is certainly 
 never considered by Darwin or Wallace, and which 
 nevertheless seems to me to be of all difficulties 
 
 as if the two were the same, and there was no alternative : 
 as if who accepted the latter necessarily and ipso facto accepted 
 the other.
 
 Natural Economy. 1 2 1 
 
 one of the most striking and obvious the question 
 of size. I believe, says Darwin, that all animals 
 have descended from at most four or five pro- 
 genitors, and plants even less. Well, we may 
 believe anything. But what is there to justify the 
 belief that this could have come about by Natural 
 Selection ? Consider and contrast the giant struc- 
 tures with the infinitesimal specks of Nature : com- 
 pare the mammoth, the elephant, the whale, the 
 megatherium, the pterodactyl, the albatross, the giant 
 trees of California and the tropical forests, with the 
 ant, the humming-bird, the gnat, the microscopic 
 infusoria and mosses. How are we to account for 
 these extraordinary differences ? Size is, indeed, 
 from one point of view, nothing : but from the 
 point of view of existence, it is everything. How 
 can we conceive the possibility of forms, so intensely 
 and definitely organised, yet so marvellously dis- 
 parate in size, arising from the same progenitors ? 
 Is there not here suggested to us the suspicion that 
 there must have been an original difference : that 
 to prove community of origin, between such in- 
 finitely disproportionate structures, we need more 
 than a mere survival in a struggle for existence ? 
 It is no explanation to say, as some might say, that 
 the larger the variation, the better the individual 
 would survive. For if that were true, why do small 
 things remain small ? Obviously because they fit 
 their conditions in the struggle. Then how can we 
 explain the origin of the big monsters ? Are we to 
 assume with Lucretius and Empedocles, that vast 
 shapeless lumps, huge conglomerations of unde- 
 termined and chaotic matter, struggled for existence 
 in the primeval age of the world ? For if there is
 
 122 Body and Soul. 
 
 one thing rather than another which Natural Se- 
 lection cannot explain, it is the proportionate and 
 all-round increase in size of a structure in its 
 totality. For every organised structure must be 
 proportionate ; and disproportionate increase in one 
 point would, as Aristotle says, tend to turn it into 
 a different sort of structure altogether : but that 
 every point of any structure should simultaneously 
 and continuously vary in size, is contrary alike to 
 reason and experience : not to mention that in- 
 crease in size would be just as likely to injure as to 
 benefit the organisation. What has Natural Se- 
 lection to say to this ? If we reflect upon it, we 
 shall, I think, see that Darwin's Origin of Species 
 is no theory of the origin of species at all. Natural 
 Selection, indeed, may be a perfectly valid ex- 
 planation of the preservation of favoured races in 
 the struggle for life : it may be perfectly true that 
 the best specimens of every form have the best 
 chance, ceteris paribus, of surviving: but the longer 
 we examine this idea, the more plainly shall we 
 discern, that this principle can do no more than 
 improve within specific limits : i.e., that it will 
 grind like a whetstone, and keep all the organic 
 weapons, or specific organs, keen and sharp, but 
 that it will not and cannot explain the origin 
 of species, or the transmutation of one species 
 into another. 
 
 The reader would very much misunderstand the 
 import of this discussion, if he were to gather from 
 it that it tended in any way to depreciate Darwin. 
 Much otherwise. We must not allow our respect for 
 the character of the author of the Origin of Species 
 to turn us aside from the main point, or bias our
 
 Natural Economy. 123 
 
 judgment h . The first qualification of a critic is to 
 be no respecter of persons. That is mere puerility. 
 We pay a far greater compliment to, and mark our 
 respect for an author in a far more deep and genuine 
 manner by closely and inquisitively thumbing his 
 classic work and sifting his views, even though we 
 should differ in toto from him, than by helping 
 to swell the chorus of worthless and insignificant 
 adulation, which Diogenes long ago correctly 
 estimated, by calling it ' the noise of madmen.' 
 Nor could there possibly be a greater mistake 
 to suppose that, if his theory is unsound, his book 
 is of no value. I consider the Origin of Species 
 to be, after the principal works of Aristotle and the 
 Novum Organum, the most valuable book from the 
 point of view of scientific method that ever was 
 written. It is true that Darwin's intellect was 
 imaginative and sympathetic rather than deeply 
 critical and analytic. We look in vain, in the 
 Origin of Species, for the close, never failing, 
 sleepless, critical, limitative thinking of Aristotle, 
 always awake to the qualifying influence of circum- 
 stances, and the special conditions in which his 
 thought is moving, so that he is constantly taking his 
 bearings, as it were. Yet where indeed shall we 
 look for it? Darwin, on the contrary, had as it 
 seems to me an essentially religious mind. Yet, 
 though the doctrine of evolution was not originated 
 by him, but Lamarck, nevertheless he did more 
 than any man to bring the fact of evolution home 
 
 h Nothing could give us a better idea of Darwin's character 
 than the trait which appears in what he said himself of the 
 human eye, ' the thought of which even to the very last gave 
 ' me a cold shiver.'
 
 1 24 Body and Soul. 
 
 to the world, and by refounding the doctrine that 
 function makes structure (however in the natural 
 world it may subsequently be explained) he has 
 reconstituted unintentionally for us the biological, 
 organic, dynamic and evolutionary scientific method 
 which was the soul of Aristotle's whole philosophy, 
 and which, as will appear presently, is the key to 
 Political no less than Natural Economy. 
 
 VIII. But let me take this opportunity of 
 presenting this parallelism from another point of 
 view, by means of some extracts from Darwin. 
 
 He speaks of 'the perfection of structure and 
 ' co-adaptation ' of specific forms. (3.) Again : ' we 
 ' see these beautiful co-adaptations most plainly 
 ' in the woodpecker and the mistletoe ; and only 
 ' a little less plainly in the humblest parasite which 
 ' clings to the hairs of a quadruped or the feathers 
 ' of a bird : in the structure of the beetle which 
 ' dives through the water : in the plumed seed 
 1 which is wafted by the gentlest breeze : in short, 
 
 * we see beautiful adaptations everywhere and in 
 ' every part of the organic world.' (71.) Again : 'the 
 ' chief use in the nutriment in the seed is to favour 
 4 the growth of the young seedling.' (89.) Again : 
 ' in Lobelia fulgens, there is a really beautiful and 
 1 elaborate contrivance, &c.,' and a little above, 
 'a special contrivance for self- fertilisation.' (113.) 
 ' I believe this objection to be valid, but that nature 
 
 * has largely provided against it, by giving to trees 
 ' a strong tendency to bear flowers with separate 
 ' sexes.' (115.) ' No one will maintain that we as 
 ' yet know the uses of all the parts of any one plant, 
 ' or the functions of each cell in any one organ.' 
 (151.) 'We must suppose that there is a power
 
 Natural Economy. 125 
 
 ' represented by Natural Selection or the Survival 
 ' of the Fittest, always intently watching each slight 
 ' alteration and carefully preserving each, &c.' 
 (226.) ' The common rule throughout Nature is that 
 ' the same end is gained by the most diversified 
 ' means.' ' How differently constructed is the 
 ' feathered wing of a bird and the membrane 
 ' covered wing of a bat with all its digits largely 
 ' developed : and still more so the four wings of 
 ' a butterfly, the two wings of a fly, and the two 
 ' wings of a beetle together with the elytra. Bivalve 
 ' shells are made to open and shut, but on what 
 ' a number of patterns is the hinge constructed, 
 ' from the long row of neatly interlocking teeth 
 ' in a Nucula to the simple ligament of a Mussel. 
 ' Seeds are disseminated by their minuteness ; by 
 ' their capsule being converted into a light balloon- 
 ' like envelope, by being imbedded in pulp or 
 ' flesh, formed of the most diverse parts, and 
 ' rendered nutritious as well as conspicuously 
 ' coloured, so as to attract and be devoured by 
 ' birds by having hooks and grapnels of many 
 ' kinds so as to adhere to the fur of quadrupeds 
 ' and by being furnished with wings and plumes as 
 ' different in shape as elegant in structure, so as to 
 'be wafted by every breeze.' (235.) A little lower, 
 he speaks of the simple plan by which fallen grains 
 ' are blown on to the stigma of a flower;' then again : 
 ' from this simple stage we may pass through an 
 ' inexhaustible number of contrivances, all for the 
 ' same purpose and effected in essentially the same 
 ' manner, but entailing changes in every part of the 
 ' flower.' Of the coryanthus orchid, he says, after 
 describing it : ' now at last we see the full use
 
 1 26 Body and Soul. 
 
 1 of every part of the flower, of the water secreting 
 ' horns, of the bucket half full of water, which 
 ' prevents the bees from flying away and forces them 
 1 to crawl out through the spout, and rub against the 
 ' properly placed viscid fallen masses, and viscid 
 ' stigma.' ' Flowers rank among the most beautiful 
 ' productions of nature, and they have become 
 ' through Natural Selection beautiful, or rather 
 ' conspicuous in contrast with the green leaves that 
 ' they might easily be observed and visited by insects 
 ' so that their fertilisation might be favoured: ' ' the 
 ' scarlet leaves of the holly serve merely as a guide 
 ' to birds and beasts that the fruit may be devoured 
 1 and the manured seeds thus disseminated.' (245.) 
 Again : ' the elaboration of dense clouds of pollen 
 1 by our fir trees so that a few granules may be 
 ' wafted by a chance breeze on to the ovules.' 
 (249.) And he constantly speaks of Nature working 
 ' for the good of each being : or improving their 
 ' structure.' 
 
 Truly did Aristotle say, ' the nature of a thing 
 ' is its final cause ' 77 (j>vtrts reAoy corty ' nature 
 ' suits her tools to their work, and not the work 
 ' to the tools.' Let me appeal to the impartial 
 reader, and ask him whether if these extracts 
 were given him as coming from Aristotle, or 
 quoted, say, two thousand years hence to some 
 one who had never heard of Darwin, he would 
 not be apt to dismiss them as old exploded teleo- 
 logical views : which Science since Bacon's day 
 has entirely condemned and flung aside, as mere 
 popularia. Well, that is what is done with Aris- 
 totle. People who know nothing of him, or who 
 know of him only this, that he was an obsolete
 
 Natural Economy. 1 27 
 
 teleologist, judge him by isolated and mistranslated 
 fragments, and never suspect that his teleology is 
 just that which Darwin has reinstated. For Dar- 
 win's result and Aristotle's result coincide : they 
 both say that a thing is what it is, is defined both 
 in fact and thought, gets its structure or form from 
 its final cause, i.e. its function, the work it has to 
 do, its adaptive necessity. True it is, that Darwin 
 has given an explanation of the how, while Aris- 
 totle gave none. But apart from the fact that this 
 ' how ' of Darwin's is fallacious, we may well ask, 
 could Darwin have given it, unless he had lived 
 just when he did ? The geological succession of 
 beings in time, the geographical distribution of 
 organic forms in space, the Malthusian doctrine, 
 and the general practice and peculiar results of 
 cattle breeding these were the essential precon- 
 ditions of Darwin's theory, and Aristotle knew 
 nothing of them. The astonishing thing is that 
 without them he should have risen, alone and 
 unaided, by the sheer force of his miraculous 
 genius, to his matchless scheme of a dynamical 
 evolution from potential to actual, from matter to 
 form ; to his marvellous all-embracing doctrine that 
 structure is explained by function, and that de- 
 velopment proceeds by consecutive and gradual 
 differentiations from the simple and homogeneous 
 to the complex and unhomogeneous, which is the 
 essence of that view popularly accredited to Von 
 Baer and Herbert Spencer, and which holds within 
 it the secret of Natural and Political Economy. 
 
 But let us look into this teleology a little more 
 closely. Let us concede for a moment that Darwin 
 has proved his point, and that Natural Selection
 
 128 Body and Soul. 
 
 is sound and sufficient : yet I say that Aristotle 
 has a point of view still further than this, and it 
 is one which is most curiously and conveniently 
 ignored by modern mechanical philosophers. 
 
 Here is a wood-pigeon's egg, or the germ of 
 e.g. a pig. Now, says Aristotle, this egg or this 
 germ contains potentially the wood-pigeon or the 
 pig that is to arise out of it by differentiation 
 and growth. Not just any germ or egg will de- 
 velop into just anything : but a wood-pigeon's egg 
 will only become a wood-pigeon, and a pig germ 
 nothing but a pig. Now, is not this a fact? How 
 can we escape teleology here ? Grant, if you please, 
 that Darwin has given us a full and satisfactory 
 explanation of the origin, the development in time 
 of the wood-pigeon or the pig its phylogeny, as 
 the Germans say : (which, as the argument has 
 shown, is not the case : but grant it :) how does 
 that enable us to get out of the fact that looking at 
 the individual specimen before us, at the ontogeny, 
 or growth and development not of the race, but the 
 individual, the full-formed animal is contained po- 
 tentially in the germ : or that the germ's develop- 
 ment is definitely determined by its final result ? 
 Is not that the case ? and can we explain how 
 it is done ? We can explain nothing : we have 
 not the dimmest of dim conceptions how it is 
 done. The more closely we examine modern 
 biology, the more do we discern that to increase 
 and multiply terminology is not therefore to ac- 
 count for facts. Post hoc is not propter hoc. How, 
 then, do we fail to see that Aristotle's teleology, 
 so far from being metaphysics 1 , is only a simple 
 1 Metaphysics, a meaningless word never used by Aristotle,
 
 Natural Economy. 1 29 
 
 expression of the fact. The evolution of the indi- 
 vidual germ and embryo is determined by its final 
 cause : i.e. as Aristotle says, ' that which a thing is, 
 ' when the process of its generation is completed 
 ' is what we call its nature, as, e.g., a man, horse, 
 ' or a house.' And again, ' the generation is for 
 ' the sake of the essential nature, and not vice versa.' 
 Is it not so ? Can any man who knows anything 
 of Embryology deny it ? Then what becomes of 
 all the ignorant abuse of Aristotle all these three 
 hundred years ? And how, in this regard, is Dar 
 win in advance of Aristotle ; in the essential par- 
 ticular of the development of the individual animal 
 from its germ to its full and predetermined form ? 
 But Aristotle has not given us any chemical expla- 
 nation of the process? No : but who said he had, 
 or who has ? Does that invalidate his exposition 
 of the fact ? Is there any book in modern embryo- 
 logical literature which has laid its finger on the 
 essential more clearly and firmly than his treatise 
 On the Generation of Animals 9 The microscope 
 has indeed told us a little more, in extent : but 
 has it told us anything radically deeper than what 
 Aristotle saw with his own unassisted piercing 
 eye ? 
 
 Long consideration of this point has convinced 
 me that the misapprehension of Aristotle's meaning 
 
 means in the mouths of nineteen people out of twenty, only 
 something unintelligible to them. In the mouths of Comtists, 
 it means realistic philosophy, philosophy that discovers causes 
 for causation is synonymous with reality. No causation, no 
 reality. But modern evolution and embryology have vindi- 
 cated Aristotle from the superficial rationalistic criticism of 
 Positivism, which emasculates Nature by denying dynamical 
 causation. 
 
 K
 
 1 30 Body and Soul. 
 
 here is simply due to the want of critical subtlety in 
 the Teutonic mind. People unconsciously suppose 
 that by final cause Aristotle meant a sort of other 
 mechanical and material cause of a mysterious and 
 mystical kind. But he did no such thing. By final 
 cause he meant adaptation to conditions ; nor did 
 he ever imagine for a moment that by assigning 
 this, the most essential of all the causes of structure, 
 there was any the less necessity for a full material 
 and mechanical explanation as well. Over and 
 over again, as I have shown in the account given 
 on a preceding page, he insists on the double nature 
 of all true and thorough-going explanation. I shall 
 endeavour to make this, however, still clearer by an 
 illustration. Here is heated water in a boiler. To 
 the idealist, it is just a sensation, et prceterea nihil : 
 to the mechanico-mathematical philosopher, it is 
 H 2 O, and the heat is, say, 212: but is this all? 
 No ; we still do not know the causes of that hot 
 water : the cause still needed is, that it is heated, 
 so as to drive the eno-ine, and the causes of this 
 
 o 7 
 
 again ramify out into untold branches : it is to 
 put money into the pockets of shareholders : to 
 carry ever so many people rapidly to their destina- 
 tions, and so on. Or take a natural illustration. 
 Here is a green butterfly. What is this green 
 colour? To the idealist, a sensation k (poor, thin, 
 
 k The late Prof. Ingram says (Hist, of Pol. Econ., 61), 'the 
 ' subjection of the phenomena of the social, and in particular 
 
 * the economic, world, to fixed relations of co-existence and 
 ' succession. This is the positive doctrine which lies at the 
 
 * bottom of all true science.' 
 
 It may be the positive doctrine, but there is no science in 
 it at all. It only says, that a thing does occur ; never why it
 
 Natural Economy. 131 
 
 incorrigible idealist) : to the mathematical philo- 
 sopher, a certain quantitative vibration : let us sup- 
 pose that he can give it exactly : has he explained 
 it fully ? No : we still require a further answer : 
 the reason why, raison tfvtre of the green is to 
 enable the butterfly, by mimicking other species, to 
 escape destruction. The green is materialised im- 
 posture. And so on. In every case of composi- 
 tion, of organic structure, the mechanical explana- 
 tion is inadequate : it is only half the truth : just 
 so, the final or adaptive explanation is inadequate. 
 Neither is wholly adequate. We may have a full 
 mechanical explanation, yet still remain ignorant of 
 the reason why of the fact : so, contrariwise, may 
 we have the final adaptive, functional explanation, 
 yet still remain ignorant of the mechanical ex- 
 planation of the fact. The one does not exclude, 
 but is complementary of the other. To know the 
 one, does not in the least do away with the neces- 
 sity for knowing the other : e.g. we may know that 
 the cause of A's death was that B struck him, yet 
 ignore the reason why : so we may, conversely, 
 know that the reason why a plant is thus or thus 
 constructed is that it must be visited by bees ; but 
 we may ignore the mechanical explanation. Both 
 are essential to complete knowledge. The Principle 
 of Scientific Explanation and Definition comprises 
 BOTH. But according to the end we wish to arrive 
 at, now one, now the other, is the more important. 
 
 must. The social and economic world is determined by re- 
 lations, not of co-existence and succession, but cause and effect : 
 thus, e.g., if this state is to survive, an army must be raised, 
 and so on. Not the material, but the conditional necessity, 
 is the social and political and economical principle. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 Body and Soul. 
 
 And just because the mechanical philosophy has 
 monopolised attention, no progress has been made 
 in Political Economy, because that has always 
 neglected the one thing essential in that sphere 
 the final cause : the function which gives to struc- 
 ture its shape, its meaning, and its significance. 
 
 Let me illustrate still further by a crucial instance 
 the cardinal superficiality of modern mechanical 
 philosophy. In his Address to the British Asso- 
 ciation at Norwich in 1868, Professor Tyndall 
 described the formation of salt pyramids, as pre- 
 cisely resembling Egyptian pyramids, but produced 
 by mechanical spontaneity : from these he went on 
 to apply the mechanical method and argument to 
 organic life grain : then he says, ' Given the grain 
 ' and its environments, an intellect the same in kind 
 ' as our own, but sufficiently expanded, might trace 
 ' out a priori every step of the process, and by the 
 1 application of purely mechanical principles would 
 ' be able to demonstrate that the cycle of actions 
 * must end as it is seen to end in the reproduction 
 ' of forms like that with which the operation began. 
 ' A similar necessity rules here to that which rules 
 ' the planets in their circuits round the sun. . . . The 
 ' formation of a crystal, a plant, or an animal is in 
 ' the eye of many scientific thinkers a purely 
 ' mechanical problem, which differs from the prob- 
 ' lems of ordinary mechanics in the smallness of the 
 ' masses and the complexity of the processes in- 
 ' volved.' 
 
 Here we see just what I wish to point out : 
 the illegitimate extension of the mechanico-mathe- 
 matical method to the organic sphere. It shows, 
 as I have said above, that modern science which
 
 Natural Economy. 133 
 
 fondly supposes itself superior to and beyond 
 Aristotle, stands in sore need of a little of his 
 criticism. Organic forms can not be explained 
 on purely mechanical principles : nor again does 
 a similar necessity rule in the organic world to 
 that which rules in the inorganic or mechanical. 
 Darwin has taught us just this. Purely mechanical 
 principles will never tell us just the essential 
 thing in the organic world. Take, for example, 
 the owl's eye. Mechanical principles will explain 
 exactly the mechanical adjustment and operation 
 of the eye : but they will not explain why it is 
 so : to see at night. Purely mechanical principles 
 will explain (assuming they are full enough) the 
 proboscis of the moth, and its mechanism ; but 
 they will not give us the cause of the proboscis : 
 which is to extract food from a well. Purely 
 mechanical principles will explain the arrival of the 
 carriage and horses : yet the cause why it is there is 
 still wanting. In fact, any one can, I think, now see 
 the wisdom in Aristotle's distinction between the 
 absolute or material necessity of the inorganic, and 
 the conditional necessity of the organic world. A 
 lump of inorganic matter must obey its own nature : 
 the laws of its material constitution. But the neces- 
 sity in the organic world is not of this kind. There 
 is no absolute necessity that A should exist : but 
 there is necessity that, if he is to exist, he should 
 eat. There is no necessity for this bird to live : 
 it may die : but if it is to live, it must have wings. 
 The necessity that rules the organic world is not 
 like that ruling the inorganic, absolute : but 
 hypothetical or conditional. It is conditional on 
 a required or assumed end. If the knife is to cut,
 
 1 34 Body and Soul. 
 
 it must be sharp. If the state is to survive, it must 
 do so and so. In other words, necessity is two- 
 fold. There is the absolute necessity of the 
 material constituent elements : they cannot act 
 otherwise than as they are : and there is the 
 conditional necessity of the organic bodily structure. 
 Living or dead, the body must always and every- 
 where obey the laws of its material : but from 
 the organic point of view the case is altered : 
 for it only obeys the organic law on certain con- 
 ditions. To retain and perpetuate a certain form 
 or shape, it must act thus or thus. Or, to put 
 it in other words, when the material elements 
 are so united as to form an organic body, it is 
 not qua its elements, but qua its totality that 
 it must act. The elements are now elements plus 
 something else : their special arrangement '. Ac- 
 cordingly the good of the organic body is not 
 determined by the laws of its elements, but the 
 laws of its organisation. That is to say that the 
 mechanical explanation of its elements cannot give 
 us the explanation of its organic constitution. That 
 can only be found in its function. We might 
 conceivably, though we probably never shall ar- 
 rive at the exact numerical expression of the 
 chemical and molecular constitution of the hand. 
 Yet this does not tell us the true reason why 
 a hand is just as it is. We require the function : 
 what it is for. It is an instrument for grasping. 
 All things organic must be defined by their func- 
 
 1 In nothing is this more obvious than in the case of 
 Protoplasm. It eludes all attempts at discovering its secret. 
 The very approach to analysis kills it and then the secret 
 has flown away.
 
 Natu red Economy. 135 
 
 tion. It is this which is their raison d'etre. The 
 material elements are subordinate to this, which 
 adapts them to itself. Just as a gun or an oar 
 gets its shape and its constituent elements from 
 the work it has to do : so are all things in the 
 organic world constituted as they are, built to 
 perform a peculiar function. 
 
 As our whole philosophical salvation hangs on 
 this distinction, the reader will forgive me for 
 trying to make my meaning still plainer, even at 
 the risk of a little repetition. Truism though it 
 may seem, nothing is less understood than this, 
 that the difference between organic and inorganic 
 bodies lies in the fact that the former are organic. 
 It is just the failure to understand this distinction, 
 and the nature of organic bodies, that has caused the 
 ignorant abuse of Aristotelian teleology during three 
 hundred years. The differences between inorganic 
 bodies lie in their material and their masses : stuff 
 or degree : but organic bodies may be identical in 
 these particulars, yet differ entirely in form and 
 function. Inorganic masses are lumps or heaps or 
 accumulations : you may put two or three together 
 and form one lump of them : they will coalesce : 
 but you cannot put two or three organic bodies 
 together and form a unity : you cannot do away 
 with their limits, unless you destroy them. Look 
 up at the stars, where Professor Tyndall's necessity, 
 the Greek dvdyKr], rules with absolute sway : now 
 qua this necessity they are nothing but lumps of 
 inorganic mechanical material. Or conversely, all 
 
 m Take, as an example, the way in which Glanvil in his 
 Scepsis Stientifica handles the Aristotelian definition of the soul. 
 It reminds us of a monkey with a violin.
 
 1 36 Body and Soul. 
 
 the organic bodies, plants and animals, which 
 swarm on our own earth, count, when viewed 
 astronomically, only as lumps : it is only their 
 material which makes any difference. If, with 
 certain philosophers, we suppose that the earth is 
 an animal : or if, what is the same thing, we were 
 to imagine an animal, a colossal elephant or mam- 
 moth, the size of our earth, revolving round the sun 
 in its orbit, its organic nature would not, relatively 
 to its astronomical position, count : it would, in that 
 regard, be merely so much matter, obeying the laws 
 of its material constitution. It is, to put the same 
 theory from another point of view, a matter of total 
 indifference to the sun whether the race of men, or 
 elephants, or trees keep their organic forms, or 
 simply lie in lifeless heaps : alive or dead, it is only 
 their material he cares about : but from their own 
 point of view it makes all the difference in the 
 world. This is precisely the point in Talleyrand's 
 remark to the man who said II faut vivre. Mon- 
 siettr, said Talleyrand, je rien vois pas la necessity. 
 But if Talleyrand did not, the man did : and this 
 mot contains the whole of organic philosophy. Ab- 
 solute necessity rules organic bodies, gud material 
 lumps : but qua their organic structure, a conditional 
 necessity only. A butterfly may either live or die : 
 but if it is to live, it must follow the laws not 
 merely of its material, but additionally and primarily 
 of its organic nature. If a butterfly goes into the 
 fire, it will thereupon cease to be a butterfly : but it 
 will nevertheless obey strictly the laws of its mate- 
 rial elements. For these are what they are. And 
 it was just because Bacon was thinking only of 
 the material point of view that he superficially con-
 
 Natural Economy. 137 
 
 demned Aristotle's Logic of Science, which he 
 could not understand. But the Aristotelian Or- 
 ganon laughs at such criticism : laughs, that is to 
 say, in the long run : for he laughs best who laughs 
 last. Barbarians may misunderstand me : what 
 then ? Is it the fault of the Belvedere Apollo if 
 an orang-utang takes no interest in it ? Are we to 
 blame Shakspeare if a Hanoverian King of England 
 thinks him ' sad stuff ? ' Does not the ass prefer 
 thistles, as Heraclitus the Dark said long ago? Is 
 it the fault of Disraeli if a House of Commons 
 rejects his wisdom for the nostrum of a Cobden or 
 a Peel ? Patience ! patience ! yet a little while, and 
 the same stone which Bacon rejected will become 
 the headstone in the economical corner. I bide 
 my time n . Rationalistic systems have their little 
 bustling day : they run to and fro, in an age of 
 hurry, shouting, gesticulating, and writing their 
 names, like American globe-trotters, on the colossal 
 legs of Egyptian Pharaohs, which wait the while, 
 silent and imperturbable, their hands reposing 
 on their knees and pointing downwards, their 
 eyes on the horizon of the past and future, and 
 on their thick lips the stony smile of smiles, 
 the sneer of sneers, as who should say : Qui vivra y 
 verra. 
 
 Aye, Time is the eternal ally, the constant prince, 
 the incorruptible auxiliary of genius, but he comes 
 everlastingly too late. O bitter irony of Fate, what 
 fiend inspired those old Egyptian sculptors to seize 
 
 n ' Being asked, What hope was, he replied, the dream of 
 ' a waking man.' Diog. Laert. in Vita Aristofelis. (Bacon took 
 this as he took much else from Aristotle without acknowledg- 
 ment.)
 
 138 Body and Soul. 
 
 with such intuitive accuracy and express with 
 such poignant and unfaltering fidelity the hidden 
 secret of which all history is but a revelation : 
 that the gift of imagination is a Nessus shirt : that 
 genius is a martyrdom, and that though the work may 
 win its way, at last, to immortality and a niche in 
 the Pantheon, the crown of glory is awarded to its 
 author only too often long ages after the fell troop 
 of Furies, Obscurity, Poverty, Ignorance, Preju- 
 dice, Stupidity, Derision, Bigotry, Malice, Envy, 
 Plagiarism, and Hatred and all Uncharitableness 
 have hounded him to his lonely, disregarded 
 grave. 
 
 And now after all this, if the reader has gone 
 with me through the exposition of this difficult 
 point, and supplemented the gaps and deficiencies 
 in the argument with a sympathetic understanding, 
 he will suddenly awake, like one who has forced 
 his way through a dark and impervious thicket, to 
 the fundamental identity between Darwin and 
 Aristotle. For whereas in the inorganic world 
 the great law of Nature is, Structure makes Func- 
 tion, and operari sequitur esse, i.e. matter acts after 
 its nature : contrariwise in the organic world, the 
 truth is that Function makes Structure, and esse 
 sequitur operari: the thing acquires its nature 
 from its acts, and gets its form from the work it 
 has to do : keeping that as long as it can do this. 
 This is, as Aristotle saw, and Bacon did not see, 
 the universal law of organic formation, from the 
 dawn of life in the lowest rung of the biological 
 ladder up to the fully developed moral and political 
 
 This is just why Bacon's philosophy strikes us as being 
 so jejune and unsatisfactory on the moral side.
 
 Natural Economy. 139 
 
 constitution and action of man. In this thought 
 lies the key to all ethics and politics. Not without 
 reason did the Jesuits, the greatest educators that 
 the world has ever seen, pin their faith to the 
 philosopher who saw all sides of the moral ques- 
 tion : who declared virtue to be a habit, and under- 
 stood, alone of all moralists, that if the spirit or 
 intention of the actor determines the nature of the 
 act, so the nature of the actor springs from the 
 constant repetition of his acts. 'Tis in ourselves 
 that we are thus or thus, says the greatest of the 
 barbarians : but who is responsible for our be- 
 coming so ? The acts and the persons who edu- 
 cated us, says Aristotle, and he is right. In 
 Education lies the secret of the universe. It is 
 not Natural Selection that explains the origin of 
 species, the creation of shape, it is Constant Repeti- 
 tion. Work is the Soul of Creation. Habit is 
 second nature ; and the work they do makes things 
 what they are. And it is with the world just as 
 it is with the individual : it is when he is young 
 that he is plastic : old forms cannot change. To 
 become actual is .to cease to be potential : that 
 which is DEFINED has lost the power of choosing, 
 of beino- other than it is. In this world it is, like 
 
 o 
 
 as it was with the steps to the lion's den in the 
 fable : there is no step back. ' Who chooseth me 
 ' must give and hazard all he hath.' Form is the 
 riddle of Portia, which he who adventures to win 
 must take with all its risks. For the organism, 
 once having chosen, there is no divorce nor putting 
 asunder of matter and form, till death them do 
 part. 
 
 But some one may say : it is not enough to say
 
 1 40 Body and Soul. 
 
 that Constant Repetition is the true secret of struc- 
 ture : this is mere vague assertion : it requires to be 
 proved. The answer to that is, first, it is the uni- 
 versal fact, which appeals to everybody with a force 
 which is deeper than reason : and secondly, that 
 it never can be proved. Why ? Because in the first 
 place we are so entirely ignorant of the material 
 of life even in its simplest forms, that it is, when 
 properly considered, pure presumption, and a mark 
 of want of logical insight, to suppose that, as yet, 
 without holding the truth of the facts, we can ex- 
 plain. No man is in a position to explain, till he 
 has evidence drawn from the nature of the case, 
 says Aristotle : it is vain to suppose that speculation, 
 imaginative or hypothetical, is knowledge. It will 
 be time enough to begin speculating on the material 
 how of the Origin of Species then, when we have 
 acquired some intimate knowledge of the chemical 
 process of life. And in the second place, it should 
 never be forgotten that it is vain to attempt to 
 explain the origin of things, unless we are thoroughly 
 acquainted with the conditions. Now these, in the 
 case of the origin of species, we do not know and 
 never can know. Indeed, it is probable that the 
 conditions were so different in primeval times that 
 a simple account of the true state of the case, even 
 if it were somehow or other discovered, would seem 
 so improbable and unnatural as not only to obtain 
 no credence, but even appear ridiculous. Of this 
 much, at least, we can feel certain, that as all 
 progress is from the vague and confused and homo- 
 geneous, to the distinct and separate and different, 
 it is probable that in the beginning of things land, 
 sea, and atmosphere were not definitely differen-
 
 Natural Economy. 141 
 
 tiated, but that they existed mixed up together in 
 a thick and soupy homogeneity : that the original 
 forms, however they did in fact originate, were of 
 a gelatinous and fishy nature, floating about in ooze 
 and slime ; that as by the mere mechanical action 
 of this protoplasmic solution, the lighter and heavier 
 part tended to rise or settle, gradually in course of 
 time some of these more or less amorphous beings 
 came to live on solid matter, some to rise, little 
 by little, and find their being in a rarer fluid, the 
 atmosphere, and some again remained in the inter- 
 mediate and original fluid ; these latter would be 
 the parents of fish, representing the old and abori- 
 ginal form, while animals and birds, which must 
 have begun in a fishy state, would develop from 
 the other two. The very gradual solidification of 
 land and rarefaction of air would admit of slow 
 adaptation to those elements : just as we may look 
 forward to a time when the process will have still 
 further advanced, and all atmosphere and liquid 
 having disappeared, nothing will remain but desert 
 and rock : like the present position of the moon. 
 However we may endeavour to account for the 
 variety in the sizes of animals, there seems to be no 
 reason to doubt that, in a semi-fluid viscous mate- 
 rial, original and protoplasmic bodies of indefinite 
 potentialities might have arisen of all sizes, and by 
 action and interaction, the rationale of which we 
 cannot explain, gradually grown more definite and 
 hard in various directions, giving rise to innumer- 
 able animals ' in the rough,' which time would lick 
 into shape. If this seems to be somewhat fanciful 
 and visionary, the reader should remember that 
 embryology itself indicates nearly all of it. I do
 
 142 Body and Soul. 
 
 not believe we shall ever know more of the 
 of species than embryology hints to us. Now, if, 
 as everybody admits, embryology really gives us 
 an epitome of the past development of the animal, 
 then it must have been of this kind. For all ani- 
 mals pass through a fish-like stage : and before that, 
 they are mere amorphous and indeterminate masses 
 of a soft pulpy nature. The beginning of organic 
 life, as we see it in the embryo, is a sort of pul- 
 sation and agitation in a mass of protoplasm which 
 gradually spreads from the centre outwards, be- 
 ginning with a streak and constantly subdividing : 
 now it seems to me that we may boldly throw 
 this back into the past, and, little as we understand 
 the chemistry or mechanics of the process, conclude 
 that in primeval times such exactly was the origin 
 of life and species. To watch an embryo develop 
 is to follow the history of creation. But we ought 
 never to forget that after all it is a vain effort to 
 attempt to discover the Jndiscoverable. It is not 
 the past, but the present that is our affair. It is 
 the understanding of the present which is our 
 business ; dabbling in the past is only a luxury. 
 For as time is eternal, we are really just as much 
 at the beginning now as it was in the dawn of 
 creation. The essence of wisdom is, to remember 
 that creation is a constant process, not an act that 
 began long ago : that creation is beginning now, 
 just as much as ever : that this very moment forms 
 just as good a starting-point as the imaginary 
 starting-point we postulate in our cosmogonies. 
 The fact that things do not all begin and end 
 together deceives us. But every fifty years or so, 
 the whole of organic nature is entirely renewed : it
 
 Natural Economy. 143 
 
 is but a short while ago, at any moment we like to 
 take, since everything now existing was merely 
 seed, or non-existent. 
 
 Whatever defects there may be in Darwin's 
 theory of the how of evolution, nevertheless in 
 result he coincides with Aristotle : that things 
 come to be, by reason of what they have to do. 
 He has done for us exactly what Aristotle did in 
 his day. He has annihilated the old statical 
 absolute view of structure. He has abolished the 
 old system of looking to forms for explanation of 
 effects : by showing that form, structure, shape, 
 requires itself to be explained and interpreted 
 by function. Form cannot be explained from 
 matter : this is what the philosophers of the school 
 of Kant and Hume never understood. The only 
 sense in which it is true to say that causation cannot 
 be known is that of material potentiality. You 
 cannot, said Aristotle, know matter in itself: this 
 is the whole truth in the Critical Philosophy. But 
 Aristotle knew what modern philosophers do not 
 know, that there is another side to causation which 
 can be and is known and is necessary : the causation 
 of form : i.e. function. Is there no necessary reason, 
 no raison d'etre, for the shapes of, e.g. swords, 
 billiard-balls, pens, chairs, carriages ? Must not 
 things that are to perform certain work have a shape 
 necessarily thereby determined ? The truth is that 
 Darwin has reinstated the Aristotelian philosophy, 
 the essence of which is that forms are not, as Plato 
 said p , entities, but accommodations. The key to forms 
 
 P It is the fashion now-a-days to try and save Plato, Ricardo, 
 and other miserable quibblers by frigid explanations and dis- 
 tinctions. Plato meant by his Ideas, ' laws of nature,' we are
 
 144 Body and Soul. 
 
 lies not in the metaphysical and statical, still less 
 in the mathematical, but in the dynamical method. 
 Nature is on the one hand the dynamical power 
 that makes, and on the other the structures 
 dynamically made : but it is the process not the 
 result that we must look at : the working, not the 
 work. Nature in fact, makes her works make 
 themselves by working : as they work, so they are. 
 So far from esse being percipi (a poor human 
 sophism, invented to buttress a special dogma, which 
 mistakes description for explanation) esse is agere. 
 AGERE CONSTITUIT ESSE. Function makes structure, 
 and work is the soul of the world. Instead of 
 Cogito ergo sum : the superficial epigram of an 
 ignorant dreamer, Darwin and Aristotle proclaim 
 aloud the secret of everything in Nature to be Sum, 
 quia ago. I work, therefore I am. I LIVE, TO WORK. 
 Actuality, reality, wirklichkeit, the true metaphysic 
 lies in language itself: what do the words tell us 
 but that to be real is to work, act? To be is to 
 do one's work : to stop working is to die, cease to 
 exist. And this is Aristotle's definition of the soul, 
 the life, the biological essence : the active opera- 
 tion of the structure proper to any organic body : 
 the dynamical condition of structure. 
 
 When Darwin tells us that flowers are beautiful 
 to attract insects : when Mr. Wallace tells us, that 
 such and such a butterfly looks like a leaf, to 
 escape its enemies : what are they doing but 
 giving illustrations of the Aristotelian aphorism 
 
 now told. I, too, have sat at the feet of the great Polymyth, 
 and consulted his Oracle, and I am sure that he meant nothing 
 of the sort. People are unwilling to admit in the case of Plato 
 and Ricardo that they took, like Caliban, ' a drunkard for a god.'
 
 Natural Economy. 145 
 
 that nature suits her tools to their work. Look 
 at the pink mantis of India, ' which is so formed 
 ' and coloured as to resemble a pink orchis, or 
 ' some other fantastic flower. The whole insect 
 ' is of a bright pink colour, the large and oval 
 ' abdomen looking like the labellum of an orchid. 
 1 On each side the two posterior legs have im- 
 ' mensely dilated and flattened thighs, which re- 
 ' present the petals of a flower, while the neck and 
 ' forelegs imitate the upper sepal and column of 
 ' an orchid. The insect rests motionless in this 
 ' symmetrical attitude, among bright green foliage, 
 ' being of course very conspicuous, but so exactly 
 ' resembling a flower that butterflies and other 
 ' insects settle upon it and are instantly captured. 
 'It is a living trap, baited in the most alluring 
 * manner to catch the unwary flower-hunting in- 
 ' sects.' Can the rationalistic idealist, who tells 
 us that form and design are put into Nature by 
 our intellect, or the mechanico-mathematical man 
 of science, explain the cause, the raison d'etre of 
 this structure ? No indeed, something else is re- 
 quired : Darwin's answer or Aristotle's answer ; 
 the most essential cause of all, the final cause or 
 adaptation : it is so in order to trap insects q . 
 
 And now the reader will perceive the full signi- 
 ficance of that criticism of the Darwinian theory 
 and explanation of Natural Economy which has 
 been given here. Darwin's solution is in fact half 
 right and half wrong. In opposition to the me- 
 
 q Wallace (Darwinism, 212). Note, in this case, the de- 
 pendence of such a structure as this mantis on the existence 
 of such orchids (which again depend on insects) as it 
 mimics. 
 
 L
 
 146 Body and Soul. 
 
 chanical school, he has shown that a mechanical 
 explanation cannot touch the heart of the matter : 
 on the other hand, we find that neither is his prin- 
 ciple of explanation exhaustive or adequate : it 
 requires to be supplemented, or complemented, 
 by the mechanical explanation. Not till both are 
 fully given have we the truth in its totality. This 
 is that which was spoken of Aristotle the prophet : 
 we must account for the origin of all these things 
 partly on the principle of material necessity, partly 
 on the principle of adaptive necessity r . And here 
 lies the true solution and laying of that antagonism 
 existing between men of science, as they are called, 
 and their opponents. Both are right in what they 
 affirm, wrong in what they deny. The former are 
 right in maintaining that a full material explanation 
 of the facts must be required ; yet they are wrong 
 in supposing and asserting that this explanation 
 exhausts the problem. The latter are right in as- 
 serting that the material explanation never touches 
 the heart of the matter, and in calling for an ' im- 
 ' material' principle of explanation : for though 
 they entirely misconceive what they mean by this 
 term, and drag in under cover of this phrase pueri- 
 lities of all kinds, yet beneath their misconception 
 lies the dim presentiment of the truth, that only 
 the function of a thing can explain, as it alone 
 can originate, its form. They feel what they can- 
 not express ; namely, that a principle non-material 
 
 r De Gen. Anim. II. 6, and elsewhere. Compare the quo- 
 tation from Naudin in the Historical Introduction to the Origin 
 of Species, on the puissance mysterietise of the principle of 
 finality, and the 'fonction? which is for each organism its 
 raison d'etre. This is the very point of Aristotle.
 
 Natural Economy. 147 
 
 lies at the bottom of the shapes of things, that their 
 explanation must be sought in another direction, 
 and they are right. And in denying this, the 
 mechanical materialistic philosophers have gone 
 beyond their last, and displayed a superficial dog- 
 matism that springs from a want of critical insight 
 into Nature, and an insufficient preparation in ana- 
 lytical method (81 aTraL^evcriav ru>v avaXvTLKtov). Yet 
 on the other hand, we have no right whatever to 
 suppose that this teleological, dynamical Aris- 
 totelian principle does away with the necessity 
 of a full material, mechanical, chemical Baconian 
 explanation. We have no right to use it as a cloak 
 for our ignorance. We have said much when we 
 have said that e.g. the caterpillar is green in order 
 to elude his enemies, and secure his existence ; but 
 this no more does away with the need of a full 
 material explanation in addition, than the posses- 
 sion of a ship and sails does away with the need of 
 wind and water. For Why is one thing, and How 
 is another : and one can no more replace the other 
 than the outside of a circle can replace the inside, 
 or male replace female. 
 
 The old mystic poet of Silesia, Johann Scheffler, 
 or as he called himself, Angelus Silesius, wrote 
 a number of apophthegms on the thesis Okne 
 Warunt) that is to say, Without a Wherefore, with- 
 out a raison d?etre s . For example, ' the rose,' he 
 
 3 Vide Metcalfe's History of German Literature and the 
 companion volume of extracts by Max Miiller. People who 
 have not penetrated into Aristotle's philosophy, and who do 
 not understand that in his Metaphysics he is expressly con- 
 sidering existence not as to how it comes to be what it is 
 but as what it is, when it is, absurdly identify this mystical 
 
 L 2
 
 148 Body and Soul. 
 
 says, 'is without a wherefore. It blooms because 
 1 it does bloom : it thinks not of itself : does not 
 'ask whether people see it.' Now this is a very 
 poetical and attractive point of view, and possesses 
 invincible fascination for such an author as Scho- 
 penhauer, who expresses exactly the same thing 
 in his theory of the Self-Will. The rose is, ac- 
 cording to him, only a definite grade of the Will, 
 objectified. And now, we can see exactly where 
 Darwin and Aristotle come in. They say, that 
 the rose is not without a wherefore : that on the 
 contrary it is essentially just what its raison d'etre 
 makes it. True, it thinks not of itself, and does 
 not ask whether people see it. But the Beautiful 
 must make itself Useful, if it is to exist. The beauty 
 of the rose is not put there on our account : we 
 can do nothing for it : but it courts the insect eye. 
 Its colour is a bait for these. Ohne Warum is not 
 the law of its existence : not the law of Life, 
 but of Death. 
 
 For what is life and what is death ? Aristotle 
 tells us. Life is the proper performance of function, 
 and death, the cessation of that performance. Let 
 
 doctrine of Scheffler's with Aristotle's. But though the pro- 
 fessors may make a fool of him (see Grant's Ethics, Introduction 
 on the End-in-itself, and Stewart, Notes on the Ethics, p. 4, 
 and elsewhere) Aristotle was not a fool. He never said 
 anything so ridiculous as that a thing could be its own final 
 cause. That is not Aristotle, but professorial twaddle. What 
 Aristotle does say is that the soul is the cause of the body : 
 function makes structure : a very different thing. But Aristotle's 
 commentators are incorrigible d^dXao-roi . instead of testing and 
 interpreting him by the fruitful realities of life and biology, 
 they are busy with musty Greek or German pedantry, perverting 
 and obscuring his meaning by Kantian comparisons or Platonic 
 parallels.
 
 Natural Economy. 149 
 
 any organic body cease to be capable of performing 
 its function ; or from the other side, let the need 
 for the performance of that function cease, and the 
 form must die. Life and death, according to 
 Aristotle, have meaning only in relation to func- 
 tions and the structures that perform them. And 
 is not this just the last grade of evolutionary 
 wisdom ? Death is a product of evolution. Death 
 is nothing but the stoppage or cessation of organic 
 structure to perform its function. But Death is 
 mere negation : nothing positive. It has no mean- 
 ing in relation to matters inorganic. Form rises 
 up into being and passes away, but that of which 
 it is the form, the material, changes only in respect 
 of its form, and not in respect of its own nature : it 
 is as Carlyle said, in his own inimitable fashion, ' born 
 ' forward through the bottomless, shoreless flood of 
 ' action and lives through perpetual metamorphoses.' 
 How could it be otherwise ? Let the reader 
 pause for a moment, and divesting his mind of 
 all its customary prejudices, and the deadening 
 effect of habitual familiarity, look hard at these 
 forms, these SHAPES that hedge him in on every 
 side. Only consider the oddness, the irregularity, 
 the anomalous and grotesque nature of these 
 shapes, if we can but forget for a moment what 
 the things are. A book, a watch, a hatchet, 
 a guitar, a rifle, an orchid, a squirrel, a fish, 
 an omnibus, a sheep, a court of justice, a 
 porcupine, a special religious service what you 
 will : what are these shapes, what can they be, 
 but just what the work they have to do requires 
 them to be ? How can shape receive any other 
 explanation of its origin and existence than func-
 
 150 Body and Soul. 
 
 tion ? Apart from its function, any shape is a mon- 
 strous, an absurd and unaccountable lusus natures. 
 And herein lies the quaint and always bizarre 
 effect of any thing organic or artificial, antique 
 or unfamiliar foreign body of which we do not 
 know and cannot readily see the use. It springs 
 exactly from the fact that the shapes of things only 
 cease to be meaningless or absurd, when con- 
 sidered in relation to their function. There, on 
 the contrary, they appear 'natural,' and so much 
 so, that we feel quite unable to conceive that they 
 could be otherwise than they are. This is what, 
 as Schopenhauer tells us, Goethe felt, ' when 
 ' contemplating whelks and crabs at Venice : ' 
 he exclaimed : ' How delightful, how glorious 
 ' is a living thing ! how well adapted for its 
 ' condition ! how true, how real '.' For Goethe 
 had a mind of essentially the same realistic 
 analytical kind as Aristotle himself : and in this 
 as many other of his ejaculations (the ejaculation 
 always springs from reality, from something strik- 
 ing] we see the true critical spirit. 
 
 And now at last the reader will perceive why no 
 progress was possible for Political Economy, as 
 long as Political Economists attempted to define 
 and explain organic or social structures on prin- 
 ciples purely mechanical or mathematical : being 
 entirely destitute of the knowledge of the analytical 
 and biological method, and vainly attempting to get 
 at the truth in politico-economical matters, which 
 are only the highest form of biological organisation, 
 by a laborious and empty shuffling and rearrange- 
 ment of mathematical, mechanical, hypothetical, 
 * Schopenhauer, Will in Nature. Eng. Tr., p. 277.
 
 Natural Economy. 151 
 
 statical, partial conceptions. Not one single econo- 
 mist has had the faintest conception of the truth, 
 that a thing is and can only be explained, or de- 
 fined, by its function : that this is the original cause 
 of all structure. Hence the futile absurdity of eco- 
 nomical investigations into Wealth, Money, Credit 
 and so on : hence the chimerical delusions of So- 
 cialism, which is nothing but Political Economy 
 turned inside out. 
 
 Let me give an illustration to show how vain is 
 the attempt to comprehend Political Economy along 
 abstract lines : how absolutely essentially necessary 
 is the Aristotelian analytic, and the knowledge of 
 the truth he expressed aphoristically by saying : 
 One thing is, for the sake of another : i.e. co-adapta- 
 tion is the secret of nature, and the key to economy. 
 There is a ship sailing, say, an ocean steamer, cross- 
 ing the Bay of Bengal. Now try to explain that 
 fact. You perceive a material fact : so much wood, 
 iron, and so forth, passing along in a definite di- 
 rection on the sea. But its causes ? How does 
 it go ? Who sent it ? Where and why is it going ? 
 How is it made ? Why is it made ? Who made it? 
 Who and what does it carry ? Just think of this, 
 an ordinary social fact. Just think where the 
 answer will take you. The ship, its builders, of 
 all kinds : its docks : its engines : the skill and 
 science and workmen that made it : its sailors and 
 officers : the people and things it carries : its charts 
 and chronometers : commerce : trade : Indian civil- 
 ians and soldiers : the shipping company and the 
 East India Company : the post office and the mails : 
 politics and the British Empire : England and 
 India : husbands and wives, fathers and sons : the
 
 152 Body and Soul. 
 
 rupee and the gold pound : the stars and Sir Isaac 
 Newton : and then comes Political Economy and 
 tells you that Labour is the sole cause of Wealth. 
 And do we really suppose that Political Economy 
 can investigate such a problem as this, merely a 
 single and common case of Wealth, on any method 
 but the analysis of reality ? Place, in connection 
 with such a fact as this, the frigid miserable ab- 
 stractions of Ricardo, and refrain, if you can, from 
 a sneer or a smile. 
 
 Certainly, Proudhon is right : there is more in 
 Economics than Newton ever dreamed of. The 
 depth of the heavens is not as the depth of the 
 human mind, as exhibited in life and realised in 
 society. Society is the material embodiment of the 
 human soul. Mathematics, abstraction, are at one 
 end of the ladder of Nature : they deal with nothing 
 but the material form of things. As we rise from 
 grade to grade, from pure mathematics and geo- 
 metry, through mechanics, phoronomy, chemistry, 
 physics, geology, embryology, biology, psychology, 
 logic, ethics, politics and political economy ; the 
 further we go, the more we lose sight of exact 
 mathematical symbolism : the more insoluble to 
 mathematics become the complicated inextricable 
 mazes of reality. The rational has become lost in 
 the real. How then can we possibly treat that 
 economical correlation by anticipations, abstractions, 
 mathematical and theoretical formulae ? It is not 
 the simple and absolute qualities of matter as such, 
 nor any deductive juggling with the mere abstract 
 forms of bodies, as material, but the complex 
 dynamical correlation, co-adaptation, action and in- 
 teraction of organic bodies as such, that we have
 
 Natural Economy. 153 
 
 to deal with. Of the two sides of all explanation 
 with which we have been dealing during the whole 
 of this discussion, the material side of absolute 
 necessity, in such a sphere as this, utterly dis- 
 appears ; and the other side, the side of conditional 
 necessity, the principle of adaptation, the depend- 
 ence of all structure on special, causative, originating, 
 instigating conditions becomes the supreme law. 
 The principle of explanation for all bodies, facts, 
 processes, and institutions in the sphere of Political 
 Economy lies not in themselves, but in others : those 
 others, in which they live and move and have their 
 being, and minus which they are non-existent. 
 This is the opposite pole of all previous systems of 
 Political Economy. A fine Political Economy, to 
 be sure, whose axioms lead directly to a denial of 
 that of which it is the economy: the State! If 
 there is and ought to be no such thing as a State, 
 but only ' individuals,' then there is and can be no 
 such thing as Political Economy. For just as the 
 end of Natural Economy is the good of organic 
 beings : so is the end of Political Economy the 
 good of the State, and through it, of its component 
 men and women. And the good of each thing, as 
 Aristotle said long before Darwin, is not that which 
 destroys it, but that which preserves and per- 
 fects it. 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton was a great, and also a lucky 
 man. Every time we stand under the canopy of 
 heaven, and look up at the starry dome, with 
 thoughts for which we can find no adequate ex- 
 pression, we are ready to exalt his sublime genius, 
 and fall in with the ordinary meaningless adulation 
 of his ' lone icy grandeur' and similar commonplace
 
 154 Body and Soul. 
 
 cant. But imagination deludes us here as else- 
 where. The stars were not the essence but the 
 accident of the matter to Newton. His problem 
 was simply a mechanical mathematical problem, 
 motion of the very simplest, purest kind, and 
 the ethical reference which is so impressive, 
 and which we cannot help mixing up with it, 
 had nothing whatever to do with it. The 
 ethical sublime was no more concerned in the 
 matter than it is in the algebraical formula 
 (x+y) (xy) = x*y*, or in the sine, cosine, or 
 tangent of 0- There is nothing here of that feeling 
 which the astonishing genius of Pascal so admirably 
 expressed when he said, Le silence eternel de ces 
 espaces infinis meffraye. When Kant, not without 
 reminiscences of Pascal, said: Two things fill me 
 with awe : the starry heavens, and the sense of moral 
 responsibility in the soul of man : he was really 
 talking not of two things at all, but one. Viewed 
 mechanically, there is no more of depth or sublimity 
 in the stars than there is in half a dozen balls 
 rolling in a box. The sublime comes from the 
 mind that puts into them its own wonderful deeps 
 and profundities. They are not in the stars, and 
 they were not in Newton's problem. The enigma 
 in his case was purely formal and algebraic. There 
 was neither the depth of chemistry nor the intricacy 
 of biology. For Chemistry is to Economy what 
 the abyss is to the height, the Nadir to the Zenith. 
 The mysterious Protean tranformations of matter 
 in its chemical constitution defy us by their minute- 
 ness, their depth, their impenetrable abysmal dark- 
 ness : and on the other hand when we rise through 
 every gradation to the biological realities of Eco-
 
 Natural Economy. 155 
 
 nomics, these again present to us a problem equally 
 inscrutable, though in a different way, for their in- 
 extricable mazes and tortuous inter-relations, their 
 circles within circles, of ever-increasing complexity. 
 But in comparison with these, the Newtonian pro- 
 blem was relatively simple and clear as glass. It 
 was such a problem as is solved by a Bidder, 
 a prodigious calculating boy : and reminds us of 
 Mr. Babbage and his calculating machines. Given 
 the elliptical form of motion, find the force of pull 
 required between body and body so as to keep 
 them just as they are. In addition to mere mathe- 
 matics, nothing is taken in here but a single 
 abstracted quality, weight, gravity, or better, at- 
 traction ; which is itself an assumption. Mass and 
 motion nothing more. But what is such a pro- 
 blem as this to the chemical or biological, that is, 
 economical riddle ? Its very completeness, its ap- 
 parently masterly comprehensive sweep, its archi- 
 tectonic simplicity and apodeictic certainty, arise 
 precisely from the fact that all the essentially in- 
 comprehensible and enigmatic side of nature is left 
 out of account. How infinitely the reverse of 
 sublime Sir Isaac Newton's mind really was is 
 seen when he attempts to deal with moral instead 
 of mechanical relations in the Book of Revelation. 
 Anything more fatuous and imbecile it is impos- 
 sible to conceive. And this is quite common with 
 mathematical minds. There seems to be some 
 inner connection between extraordinary deficiency 
 in understanding and mathematical talent, as though 
 to indicate that mathematical power of calculation 
 is a mere peculiar trick: a quality capable of 
 existing in perfection in minds perfectly foolish
 
 156 Body and Soul. 
 
 and uneducated in all other respects. But the 
 stars in their courses create a prejudice which we 
 cannot overcome, when we think of Newton : and 
 we attribute to him that mysterious sublimity which 
 we ourselves lend to the stars. It is not Newton, 
 it is Copernicus, who founded the sublime helio- 
 centric conception ; if indeed there is anything 
 sublime about the matter. A spider making and 
 using its web, or a dragon-fly hovering on a stream, 
 are to me infinitely more deep and wonderful than 
 all the countless host of stars. And this is why 
 Astronomy, as long as we do not study it, seems 
 to be so fascinating and attractive, whereas, when 
 we do approach it, we find with a kind of disgust, 
 that we are deceived, and instead of revelling in 
 sublimities, we are only wearisomely juggling with 
 x and y, ellipses and parabolas. The study of 
 Astronomy is exactly like the Arabian mirage. It 
 seems, from afar off, so unspeakably beautiful : but 
 we come up into it only to break the spell, and toil 
 on through dusty desert, lifeless, unvarying, and 
 unspeakably unprofitable. 
 
 But Aristotle who shall estimate the sublimity 
 of his mind ? H<ow shall we adequately appreciate 
 the man who could read and interpret, not the 
 merely formal abstract relations of a handful of 
 bodies in space, but the play of innumerable myriads 
 of forces in organic nature, who could sound the 
 never-before sounded abysses of the human mind 
 and Nature's economy, and introduce order and 
 everlasting light into the chaos, separating and con- 
 structing logic and psychology, embryology and 
 biology, ethics and politics : who had penetrated 
 into the adyta of Science, mastered the scheme of
 
 Natural Economy. 157 
 
 organisation, and grasped in its totality the whole 
 of life in all its manifestations, as no man before his 
 time or since his time had or has ever done. Put 
 all the philosophers of all the ages, biological or 
 logical, ethical, metaphysical, or political into a bag : 
 shake them up and roll them about : braze them in 
 a mortar and extract their quintessence ; and then 
 you will not have all that Aristotle will give you. 
 They have nothing essential to add to his work : 
 they fall short of it in innumerable particulars of 
 chief importance. For Aristotle reached the sum- 
 mit of human possibility : he is in every depart- 
 ment, save only and inevitably that of pure physics, 
 matter and its qualities, supreme : full to the fullest, 
 and yet short to the shortest. In ethics, politics, 
 and their corollaries, he is not only the greatest, 
 but the only master : and he has fixed for ever in 
 his Organon the essential working of the human 
 mind. Science, thy name is Aristotle. And when 
 the world has awoken from its middle-age night- 
 mare, the miserable little rationalistic, sophistical 
 systems that have presumptuously aimed at re- 
 placing his giant evolutionary realism will stiffen 
 into stony death, like Polydectes and his guests 
 before the head of the Gorgon, or vanish like a 
 troop of goblins, spectres, and night terrors, flying 
 at cockcrow before the morning light.
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY, OR THE COMMODITY. THE 
 PRINCIPLE WORKING IN THE COMMON OR SOCIAL 
 SPHERE. 
 
 la 5)j 6 Tot^tros rb tpyov tart irwr. 
 
 Eth. Nicom., ix. 7.
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY, OR THE COMMODITY. THE 
 PRINCIPLE WORKING IN THE COMMON OR SOCIAL 
 SPHERE. 
 
 I. MAN being physically dependent for his ex- 
 istence upon external nature and his fellows, natur- 
 ally endeavours to better his condition, or make 
 his existence as good as possible under the cir- 
 cumstances in which he finds himself : and to this 
 end he tries as far as he can to make Nature sub- 
 serve his needs ; twists the material with which 
 she furnishes him into shapes and forms that 
 answer to his wants and purposes. And here 
 then we come, beginning at the beginning, upon 
 the definition of Wealth. Wealth was accurately 
 defined by Aristotle, and by him alone, as an ac- 
 cumulation of instruments, private and public, 
 serviceable to existence. Language enshrines the 
 true philosophy of the subject. Wealth is simply 
 that which tends to the weal of man. The same 
 thing is expressed in the term ' commodities ' : 
 i.e. accommodations, or adaptations of material to 
 perform a special function, subserve a particular 
 use, or demand, of the human will. These com- 
 modities, again, are synonymous with the word 
 ' goods ' : a good being that which answers to 
 a particular end : and again, these are called also 
 ' wares/ which term expresses the notion of wealth 
 
 if
 
 1 62 Body and Soul. 
 
 regarded as exchangeable or transferable : a point 
 of view which is not fundamental or original to 
 wealth, but which in course of time has become 
 so inseparably associated with the idea of wealth 
 that it has been confounded with the essential and 
 original idea. But to this we shall return at a 
 subsequent stage. 
 
 Under wealth, considered as an accumulation 
 of instruments of existence, would come of course 
 political institutions, language, situation, climate, 
 health and similar things : unquestionably forming 
 part of the wealth of man : what, for example, 
 could be of greater value to man than language ? 
 But the term wealth is by ordinary usage com- 
 monly restricted to material objects : and as I 
 shall in a subsequent Book deal with the political 
 and ethical side of the subject, we may for the 
 present neglect what we might call the immaterial 
 and inalienable wealth of man and confine ourselves 
 in this Book to the investigation of Political 
 Economy proper : considered, that is, as the 
 science dealing with the production of the material 
 instruments to which we habitually refer when we 
 speak of wealth. 
 
 If, then, we look closely into wealth, considered 
 as an accumulation of the material instruments of 
 life, we observe that every commodity, or unit of 
 wealth, is, in ultimate analysis, just a piece of 
 matter, wrought or worked up, after a design, to 
 answer to a particular need, want, or demand. 
 Each is, in fact, a structure, fitted and contrived 
 to perform a definite function. Obviously the 
 function it discharges is, as it were, the soul or 
 raison d'etre of every commodity. This was that
 
 Political Economy. 163 
 
 which gave it its existence, called it into being, 
 bestowed upon it its peculiar form. What could 
 be stranger than the infinitely various shapes of 
 those things that constitute wealth. What could 
 have suggested or dictated those queer forms, 
 but the work each had to do ? How could e.g. 
 a corkscrew or a theatre ever have acquired its 
 peculiar structure ? how could we understand such 
 a strangely constituted object, apart from its work ? 
 And, on the other hand, how natural, satisfactory, 
 and appropriate each form, however anomalous, 
 appears, as soon as we understand for what it is 
 intended ! How little we are accustomed to wonder 
 at or pause over forms in themselves most extra- 
 ordinary, just because familiarity deadens us to their 
 essential strangeness ! how strange, on the contrary, 
 seem to us instruments with which we have no 
 acquaintance ! The truth is, of course, that all 
 structure is strange, odd : nay, even absurd and 
 ridiculous considered apart from its function, or the 
 work it has to do : and yet again, considered in 
 close connection with that work, it seems not only 
 not absurd, but even curiously natural : so much 
 so, indeed, that we fancy it could hardly have been 
 other than it is. Indeed, it requires no small 
 decree of imaa;ination to innovate in this connec- 
 
 o o 
 
 tion : to design new structures better fitted than 
 
 o 
 
 the old to perform any particular work. The 
 analogy in this respect between natural organisms 
 and commodities is exact : each strike us as being 
 admirably constructed, and fill us with pleasure, just 
 in proportion as they are specially determined to 
 a particular work. 
 
 Obviously, then, if we examine any commodity, 
 
 M 2
 
 164 Body and Soul. 
 
 we mav consider it as the embodiment of four 
 
 J 
 
 causes : we may view it from four aspects. It is, 
 to begin with, so much matter : e.g. a hat, on one 
 side, is nothing but a definite amount of material. 
 Again, this material is definitely shaped thus or 
 thus : it may be, for example, a lady's bonnet, a 
 man's tall hat, a cricket cap, a helmet, a sun hat 
 a cardinal's hat, a broad brim, or a mitre : and 
 again, these various shapes are all determined by 
 the functions each has to perform. Lastly, these 
 shapes are not produced by nature : no one finds 
 helmets or mitres growing on trees : human labour 
 is necessary to effect the transformation, and pro- 
 duce the required shape. Or to sum up, every 
 commodity presents itself, when closely analysed, 
 under four essentially different aspects : its material, 
 its form, its function, and the labour necessary to 
 produce it a . Briefly, every commodity is, according 
 as we regard it, Matter, Form, Labour, and Use. 
 
 This result we also obtain by considering not the 
 commodity but its creator, man. We can see the 
 fact, not only by examining and analysing, in- 
 ductively, every commodity : but also, by examining 
 the nature of man, we can show deductively, not 
 only that every commodity is, but that every com- 
 modity must be, of this four-sided nature. This, 
 says Aristotle, is scientific knowledge, when we 
 
 8 The reader must carefully guard against confounding the 
 work that makes the saw, meaning the labour which makes 
 it, with the work that makes it, meaning, the work or function 
 the saw itself does and performs. Both are causes of the 
 saw, but the work which the saw performs is the soul, or 
 original cause of the saw.
 
 Political Economy. 1 65 
 
 know the proximate necessary and original causes 
 of any fact, and that it cannot be other than it is. 
 There is reciprocal and exact correspondence be- 
 tween men and their commodities. That which on 
 the side of the commodity is Use or Function, is 
 on the side of the man, Need, Want, or Value. 
 Man's wants determine his wealth. He must eat, 
 drink, be warm, beget children, travel, fight on 
 occasion, play : he must still be up to all kinds of 
 mischief, or the reverse : and so on. Thus he 
 needs, and produces, instruments, to serve his 
 will : imparts to matter the form in which it will be 
 useful to him. But in order to do this, he must 
 know, and he must work. Thus it follows, from 
 a merely cursory inspection of the nature of man, 
 that his creatures, his commodities, his wealth, his 
 goods, the instruments he presses into his service, 
 must of necessity be foursquare in their essential 
 nature. They must be useful, correspond to a 
 definite need : they must, accordingly, be designed 
 or shaped to that end : they must be the product of 
 labour : and lastly, they must consist of material, 
 such as will best achieve the required end or 
 function. And we express the same thing by 
 scientific limitation. Not all material, not all sub- 
 stances, are wealth : but only some : i.e., those upon 
 which man sets his seal, selects, fashions, and 
 stamps with his approval. Thus if definition, be, as 
 Aristotle says, a making known of the essence of 
 a thing, and if this is nothing but enumerating the 
 causes, or the life history, or evolution, of the 
 thing, the genus and specific differences that mark 
 it out and limit it, Wealth is most accurately de- 
 fined, always and everywhere, as Material, so
 
 1 66 Body and Soul. 
 
 Shaped and Wrought as to serve a definite End or 
 Function, Want, Use, or Need. 
 
 This definition of a Commodity corresponds ex- 
 actly with the definition of a natural specific form. 
 Commodities are in the kingdom of man precisely 
 what species are in the kingdom of nature. Both 
 are formed, acquire their structure, on precisely the 
 same principle. The soul of an animal is exactly 
 analogous to the function of a commodity. All 
 bodies, as Aristotle said long ago, natural or arti- 
 ficial, are nothing but instruments : and the cause 
 of their generation is their essence or soul ; viz. the 
 work they have to perform. To define a body is 
 to give its essence, its raison d'etre; to state the 
 ground of its being, its ratio essendi. And the 
 difficulties which have played such havoc with 
 Political Economy up till now all arise from the 
 simple fact that those who have hitherto laid down 
 the law upon the subject have one and all been 
 quite unaware of what it is to define. How could 
 men who use the word substance as a synonym 
 of the word essence, who seem to imagine that 
 the essence of a thing is a sort of something mate- 
 rial existing inside it and underneath its visible 
 qualities, a sort of second self, a metaphysical 
 entity, ever comprehend the abstruse problem ? 
 The essence of a thing, as, for example, of a hat or 
 pen, is simply its function. And this is not some- 
 thing material existing behind or in addition to its 
 material, but lies in the action of its constituent 
 parts as arranged in a structural whole. Crush a 
 pen to powder ; its matter will still be there ; but 
 its function, i. e. its essence, that which made it a 
 pen, its capacity of writing, is destroyed. It can
 
 Political Economy. 1 67 
 
 now no longer perform the work of a pen. This 
 was what gave it its existence in that shape. And 
 if we wish to define a pen, we must give this 
 function : it is an instrument for writing. Writing 
 is the soul or essence of a pen. Just so, the per- 
 formance of function is in general the creative soul 
 of wealth. The body is subordinate to the soul : 
 for it is for the sake of the soul, for the perform- 
 ance of peculiar work, that all commodities come 
 into existence. ' Let it then,' says Dante, ' be un- 
 ' derstood, that God and Nature make nothing to 
 ' be idle. Whatever comes into being, exists for 
 ' some operation or working V 
 
 This shows us at once that of all the four causes 
 of wealth, the final cause, or the function it serves, 
 is in a sense the most important. All the others 
 are determined by this. The wood of a bow, the 
 steel of a sword, and so on, are chosen and deter- 
 mined for and by the work they have to do. If 
 the knife is to cut, it must be sharp : hence it must 
 consist of a material that will take and keep its 
 appropriate shape ; fitting it to cut. And there- 
 fore, we see at once that the material constituents 
 of wealth are throughout determined by the func- 
 tions it serves. Wealth must be as various in 
 structure as are the needs or functions of mankind. 
 Wealth is but the shadow of the life of man : the 
 flower of which he is the root. As men are, so 
 is wealth. To every desire, purpose, or action 
 of men correspond the bits of wealth that answer 
 and minister to it. Quot homines, tot commoda vitcz. 
 Qualis homo, tale opus. Opcrari sequitur esse. It 
 
 b Dante, De Monarchic),.
 
 1 68 Body and Soul. 
 
 is man's own nature that determines his produc- 
 tion ; and this again determines the nature of 
 his business. The whole business of the world 
 gets its structure, in order to minister to the 
 pleasure and life, the action of the world. 
 
 For the activity of man may be perfectly cor- 
 rectly divided into two species : he is always either 
 actor or maker : his action is always either practical 
 or productive. He produces in order to act : in- 
 vestigates in order to know how to produce and 
 to act. Hence all Wealth naturally consists and 
 must consist either of instruments of action, or 
 instruments of production. Here we get at once 
 the essential idea of Capital. By this term is 
 meant, originally and essentially, every instrument 
 of production. It is this which makes any part of 
 Wealth Capital. The same individual commodity 
 may or may not be Capital, according as it is, or 
 is not, employed in producing. To this we shall 
 return : only in this place it is worth notice, how 
 large an element of the confusion prevailing in 
 Economics springs from a total haze surrounding 
 the ill-defined and completely misunderstood term 
 Capital. Instead of following the natural and preg- 
 nant division, already laid down by Aristotle, of 
 instruments \n\> productive and practical, economists 
 went astray after Adam Smith's miserable dis- 
 tinction of productive and unproductive labour. 
 Whatever of use and worth and validity lay in 
 this negative term ' unproductive ' is more ac- 
 curately expressed by the term practical: on the 
 other hand, by branding all labour, not directly 
 productive, as unproductive, in a positive sense, 
 Adam Smith and his successors, as I have shown
 
 Political Economy. 169 
 
 elsewhere, fundamentally misunderstood the part 
 played by ' unproductive ' labour in the production 
 of wealth. Why, production exists only to minister 
 to ' unproductive,' i.e. practical action ; and this 
 ' unproductive,' that is, practical action is nothing 
 whatever but the final cause of all the production. 
 Yet the economists, after Adam Smith, would seek 
 to persuade us that production would go on just 
 the same, nay, better, if there was none of this 
 unproductive labour at all. The idea ! As if any 
 one would produce e.g. guns, if there were no 
 sportsmen to use them ? As if there could be 
 production at all, in any direction, unless action, i.e. 
 ' unproductive ' consumption, called for it ! As 
 Aristotle says, life itself is not production but 
 action. These philosophical economists, incredible 
 as it may seem, in condemning ' unproductive ' 
 labour, are really condemning life itself. Did they 
 ever ask themselves, why production exists ? 
 
 The fourfold definition of Wealth, which I have 
 elsewhere called the Quadruple Principle of Wealth 
 Creation, explains accurately and clearly what 
 hitherto has never been explained ; the reason why 
 society has assumed the structure it now displays c . 
 Let us consider briefly the natural course of its 
 evolution. 
 
 Of commodities, some are of course more vitally 
 necessary than others : in Aristotelian language, 
 some are necessary, others useful or pleasant. In 
 early stages of society, in the primitive and proto- 
 plasmic, as yet undifferentiated state of production, 
 
 c The reader will find these points admirably illustrated in 
 Cunningham's Growth of English Industry and Commerce^ 
 which has now happily been completed.
 
 1 70 Body and Soul, 
 
 existence and action, each man, or (for we must not 
 perhaps go back so far as a theoretical and impos- 
 sible unit) each small family group, hamlet, village 
 community, or tribe of men must be self-supporting 
 and self-producing. One man will unite many 
 trades : just like the emigrant, or backwoodsman, 
 pioneering in new countries, each must be Jack of 
 all trades : soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor. But as 
 gradually the advantage of combination and separa- 
 tion impressed itself upon the mind, arose the 
 division of labour. The early man produces his 
 own wealth (as do indeed creatures lower in the 
 scale than man), scantily and with hard labour adapt- 
 ing nature's niggard materials to poor and unima- 
 ginative needs and uses. But time passes on : 
 one man comes to do one thing and one another, 
 combining for a common object (the principal 
 instrument enabling this to be effected being lan- 
 guage and reason) : and then men come to perceive 
 that things are done best when not one man does 
 many things but each has one definite work. And 
 this is true not only of men, but things. Both men 
 and things now come to be instruments in a com- 
 mon work : and as the work grows out in all direc- 
 tions, so does the structure to accomplish it. Differ- 
 entiation begins. This is the principle of biological 
 evolution, first discovered by Aristotle ; continuous 
 and gradual differentiation of originally simple struc- 
 ture to meet ever new and more complicated func- 
 tions. The principle and the limit of this differentia- 
 tion is the nature of the work to be done. We 
 have seen that all commodities, i.e. products, con- 
 sist of four elements : matter : form : labour : and 
 use. Well, this fourfold structure of the work to be
 
 Political Economy. 171 
 
 done, the wealth to be made, gradually splits society 
 up, or combines it (for the two are but different 
 aspects of the same process) in that form. Society 
 gradually becomes, from an economical point of 
 view, sectionally arranged : dances, as it were, into 
 order to the tune of the Quadruple Principle : it 
 comes to consist of classes which answer to these 
 functions : classes of practical agents ; (many of 
 whom are otherwise necessary to society, as soldiers, 
 sailors, legislators, lawyers, &c.) workers ; designers ; 
 discoverers ; holders of property in land or things, 
 real or personal. The whole structure of society be- 
 comes essentially determined on the lines of produc- 
 tion, and the more so, in proportion as wealth-creation 
 becomes more exclusively the function of the society* 1 . 
 
 But at this point it becomes necessary to take the 
 subject up anew, and notice a further consequence of 
 the division of labour. 
 
 II. When people begin to subdivide and combine 
 their employments, and also to mix more freely with 
 others, there arises a phenomenon destined to exer- 
 cise important influence over the whole economic 
 development : Exchange. Some people would gladly 
 have something they do not possess, and cannot 
 procure for themselves : they hit upon the expedient 
 of exchanging what they have for what they have 
 not. Now, the question arises, what is the prin- 
 ciple upon which these exchanges will be conducted ? 
 \Yhat constitutes the basis of exchange ? Upon what 
 
 d There is a peculiar species of Wealth, which has been utterly 
 neglected by Economists, either not at all or only very slightly 
 susceptible of Division of Labour, and which stands in many 
 ways in opposition to ordinary Wealth : I mean Works of Art. 
 They will be considered in the Third Book.
 
 172 Body and Soul. 
 
 considerations and qualities does Value depend ? 
 Here is the fundamental question of Economics. 
 For all the categories of distribution are simply cases 
 of Value, and to misunderstand the essential cause 
 of Value is to shut yourself off from all possibility 
 of ever understanding any part of Economics what- 
 ever. Yet this is just what economists have done. 
 There is not a single economist from Adam Smith 
 down to this day, who has the dimmest conception of 
 the truth as to value, or even the way to arrive at 
 the truth. No one has ever ANALYSED THE RELATION. 
 If, says Aristotle, people would only look at 
 things in their growth and origin, in this as in 
 other matters, they would best gain insight into 
 the truth. A gives B, we will say, an apple for 
 a fish : now what determines the exchange ? What 
 
 o 
 
 are the constituent elements and the essential no- 
 tion of value ? This is \h.t pom asinorum of Political 
 Economy. This is a question on which solutions 
 that seem quite obvious are really quite wrong ; 
 and as every future step depends on the correct 
 solution, we must either make sure of the ground, 
 or give up Political Economy. I do not know of 
 any work in the whole field of Political Economy, 
 which contains an analysis of this notion of value 
 worth the paper it is written on. This was where 
 Adam Smith went so entirely astray. What is the 
 essence, cause, raison d'etre, of Value ? I shall 
 show that the fundamental error in orthodox 
 Economics and ordinary statements of the question 
 lies in this, that economists have considered com- 
 modities out of relation to the men who exchange 
 them : and thus, by substituting a mathematico- 
 mechanical, for the true biological analytical method,
 
 Political Economy. 173 
 
 have effectually cut themselves off from all possi- 
 bility of arriving at a true solution of the question. 
 
 Two leading solutions have been given. One 
 is the Smith- Ricardian-Marxian solution, to give 
 it the name of its best known exponents. This 
 asserts that the cost of production of every com- 
 modity is what essentially determines its value. 
 The other, which we may designate from the name 
 of its ablest exponent, the Macleodian or Exchange 
 Value solution, asserts that when one commodity 
 exchanges for another, the one is the value of the 
 other : or, the value of any thing is any other thing 
 for which it can be exchanged. 
 
 I shall now show, first, negatively, by a critical 
 examination of these views, and then positively, 
 by an exposition of the truth, that both these views 
 contain a small element of the truth, but that both 
 are erroneous. And erroneous science, it should 
 always be remembered, is infinitely worse than no 
 science at all. 
 
 The element of truth in the first solution may 
 be thus explained. Under a system of keen com- 
 petition, so keen as to render social relations very 
 fluid, and to admit of the rapid and reciprocal 
 influence of one part of the productive system 
 upon another, (observe that this, to begin with, 
 at once destroys the generality of the truth, because 
 such a competitive system only exists, if at all, to 
 some extent, in special periods, and in special 
 places, and where it does not exist the law does 
 not hold) : the value of some commodities only will 
 tend to approximate to their cost of production. 
 Suppose, for example, that I customarily give i 
 for a pair of boots : then if some one undersells
 
 1 74 Body and Soul. 
 
 the bootmaker, supplying the same boot for 
 the value will go down to that sum. But does 
 the value depend solely upon the cost of production 
 here ? Not in the least. It depends upon the cost 
 of production taken in connection with the other 
 elements, i.e. the material, make or shape of the 
 boots, and the customer's desire for them. All 
 this is assumed in the solution. But suppose, 
 that at the moment the cost of production fell to 
 IDS. the need of the customer doubled : then the 
 value would not sink. And in fact, this solution con- 
 fines itself to a mere fragment : attends solely to one 
 element in the problem. It arbitrarily leaves out all 
 the factors determining the problem except one. 
 
 Thus even in the case of those commodities in 
 which this solution contains a grain of truth, it is 
 really a fragmentary and accidental explanation. 
 But further, it will hold, even in this partial extent, 
 only of those common commodities which can easily 
 be replaced, and which therefore specially depend 
 upon their cost of production. Even under its own 
 competitive regime, this miserable solution halts 
 and limps. For take instances : Is it cost of pro- 
 duction that determines the value of a Stradivarius 
 violin, or a picture by Raphael ? Two plays cost 
 the same to produce : will their value, on that 
 score, be equal ? Why one may be damned on 
 the first night, and the other run for years. Does 
 cost of production determine the value of a house 
 or a ground rent ? Bad or good weather may ruin 
 a crop : does its value, therefore, depend on cost of 
 production ? Why, it is perfectly obvious that it 
 does nothing of the kind. A thing may cost what 
 you please to produce : it will not on that account
 
 Political Economy. 175 
 
 necessarily have any value at all : and on the other 
 hand it may cost next to nothing to produce, yet 
 have enormous value. 
 
 Hence it is clear that merely from a critical in- 
 spection this solution of value is radically false and 
 insufficient 6 . It assumes, first, a special set of 
 conditions which never yet existed in any country 
 or any time, in the degree that would be required 
 to make Ricardo's theory true : which has only 
 existed to a limited extent in certain cases, and 
 which is often entirely absent. Next, even under 
 these conditions, it only provides a fragmentary and 
 to a large extent futile solution, in a double sense : 
 for to the great mass of commodities it is entirely 
 inapplicable, and even where it does apply it fails to 
 account for more than one side of the facts. And 
 I shall show further on that it rests on a funda- 
 mentally erroneous basis. Exchange is not and 
 never can be based solely on equal costs of pro- 
 duction, for the very simple reason that such a thing 
 is a delusion and an absolute impossibility. These 
 economists have presented a special and exceptional 
 case as the rule and essence of value. 
 
 So much then for the first : what then as to the 
 second, the exchange value solution ? The value 
 of one thing is any other thing for which it will 
 exchange, say these Economists. It is valuable 
 because it will exchange : the essence of wealth 
 lies in its exchange value. 
 
 e Of course, even when value cost of production : it is not 
 the same thing. Value is one thing : cost another. This is 
 what Malthus objected to Ricardo. That illustrious economist 
 never even saw the point. See his Works, p. 30, n.
 
 1 76 Body and Soul. 
 
 This, an entirely mathematical and mechanical 
 solution, altogether misses the heart of the question. 
 It has fallen into an error somewhat similar to the 
 first : it assumes as essential something merely 
 accidental and by no means essential to wealth. 
 It reverses the truth. Commodities are not, as it 
 asserts, Wealth, not valuable, because they will 
 exchange : on the contrary, they will exchange, 
 because they are valuable. Their value does not 
 come from the fact of their exchanging, but exists 
 quite independently of that. Could a thing have 
 no value, forsooth, because it did not exchange ? 
 Why, obviously, the fact that a man will give such 
 or such a thing for another, is not the cause, but 
 merely the indication of the value of this other. It 
 is no more the cause of value than li^ht is the cause 
 
 o 
 
 of the sun. And if a thing were valuable because 
 it would exchange, why do people who have ac- 
 quired a fictitious object, or sham, object to it ? 
 Simply because it is not the fact of exchange, but 
 the qualities of the thing that give it its value. It 
 is not exchange, it is that which lies behind ex- 
 change, the demand of the person exchanging, that 
 bestows its value upon a commodity. To call A 
 the value of B, because two people exchange one 
 for the other, is an abuse of language. It leaves out 
 the 'men standing behind the things : CHANGE THE 
 MEN, and A will no longer be the value of B. 
 
 Here, for example, is, say, a box of cigars, 
 for which $ have been given. Now, the 
 cost of production says : these two are of the 
 same value because their cost of production 
 is equal : which is manifestly ridiculous. The 
 exchange value theory says : their values are equal,
 
 Political Economy. 177 
 
 because they have exchanged. This is either 
 an otiose tautology, an empty truism, or radically 
 erroneous. For observe. On the cost of production 
 theory, the cigars and the money are of equal value. 
 On the exchange value theory, they are also of 
 equal value. But THE FACT is, NOT so. For the 
 fact is, that even though they exchange for one 
 another, in a particular case, their values are never- 
 theless not equal, because in another case they will 
 not so exchange. One man will give ,3 for the 
 cigars : another will not. That is to say that with 
 the $ you can always get the cigars : but with the 
 cigars you cannot always get the ,3. Conse- 
 quently, paradoxical though it may seem, the ^3 
 are yet really more valuable than the cigars, even 
 though these ' exchange ' at that price : because the 
 demand for the ^3 is more general than the demand 
 for the cigars. 
 
 Let us make this still clearer. 
 
 A gives B a fish for an apple. Now, this does 
 not take place because the costs of production of 
 fish and apple are equal : that would afford no 
 reason why they should exchange. Nor is it be- 
 cause the exchange values are equal. The very 
 contrary. A gives B a fish, and B gives A an 
 apple, because, and only because, each party to the 
 transaction values the thing he has not MORE than 
 the thing he has. If it were not so, no exchange 
 could take place. If A valued or esteemed his 
 fish as much as the apple, he would keep it : so 
 would B his apple. It is quite false, and it misses 
 the very core of the problem to say in this case, 
 that the fish is of the same value as the apple. To 
 begin with, were that so, no exchange could be 
 
 N
 
 178 . Body and Soul. 
 
 effected. For each would keep what he had. Ac- 
 cordingly, those who base their notions of wealth 
 on ' exchange value ' are, curiously enough, basing 
 their Economics on a view which, if it held, would 
 make exchange impossible. No exchange could 
 ever take place if, in that exchange, things were of 
 equal value. It is just because they are not so, that 
 the exchange takes place. It is just because each 
 places a higher value on what he has not, that the 
 exchange comes about. Or to put it in another 
 way, the fish is of the same value as the apple only 
 in this exact particidar case, because the owners are 
 A and B. Let them be C and D, and the fish will 
 then no longer be the same in value as the apple, 
 because C may prefer his fish to an apple, and D 
 his apple to a fish. In other words, it is impossible 
 to solve the problem of value apart from the 
 valuers. It is quite false to assert that because two 
 things exchange for one another they are of the 
 same value. The truth is the very opposite. The 
 truth is, that because they are exchanged, each is of 
 more value than the other in the eyes of the man 
 who gets it, and of less value than the other in the 
 eyes of the man who parts with it. Change the 
 men exchanging, and the exchange value theory 
 will not hold. For value is always and every- 
 where determined by the relation of the thing 
 valued to the valuer : by the degree in which 
 structure answers to function. It is not deter- 
 mined by cost of production, nor by exchange value, 
 a meaningless expression that seems to mean much, 
 but which only means what is wrong, in so far as it 
 means anything at all. 
 
 In every case of value there are two terms, the
 
 Political Economy. 1 79 
 
 valuing mind and the thing valued. In every case 
 of exchange there are four terms, two valuing 
 minds, and two things valued. Just because the 
 two theories I have been considering eliminate 
 two elements, the two valuers, the theories are 
 mere abstractions and perfectly worthless. Every- 
 thing they say with regard to two things valued 
 tacitly assumes two valuers, and if these are 
 changed, what they conclude will be wrong. For 
 nobody will ever find out the truth in human affairs 
 who views things abstracted from their concrete 
 relations, in which alone they have any existence 
 and validity. And it is because the economists 
 from Smith and Ricardo to Macleod and Marx 
 have all without exception philosophised absolutely, 
 without regard to special relations, that they have 
 none of them ever been able to understand money. 
 The true understanding of money depends upon 
 the right appreciation of value. 
 
 Value expresses a relation between a person and 
 a thing. On the side of the thing, its value de- 
 pends upon its material, its cost of production, its 
 workmanship or form, and its use : the four causes 
 which gave it its existence. On the side of the 
 person, its value depends upon all these, together 
 with the greater or less need or demand he may 
 have for it, and the greater or less value of what 
 he has to give for it. He will not give i for it, 
 if he can get another in the next street for ios., 
 and knows this : he will again not give i for it, if 
 at the moment other causes make other things, 
 which he can get with the money, relatively more 
 valuable to him. All these elements are essential 
 elements of value : and it is mere puerility to sup- 
 
 N 2
 
 1 8o Body and Soul. 
 
 pose that we have settled the question of value, by 
 laying down such thin and frigid abstractions as 
 that value depends upon cost of production, or 
 upon supply and demand. Supply and demand ! 
 We might as well say that a man is not as tall as 
 the moon, nor as short as a hat. For the phrase 
 is purely vague and general : the difficulty lies in 
 the details. It is no explanation of a man's death 
 to say he died because he was at Jerusalem : the 
 cause is not specified. 
 
 Just because they deemed these miserable ab- 
 stractions sufficient, economists have most radically 
 misunderstood the nature and function of money, 
 with consequences so disastrous in practice to the 
 world. The paradox of money is just this, that 
 it is both more and less valuable than anything 
 it will buy. And the explanation of this paradox 
 can only be discovered on the lines of a true theory 
 of value. Let us see whether we can arrive 
 at it. 
 
 III. In those early stages of production which 
 succeed to the period of barbaric self-sufficiency, 
 during which each makes what he can for himself, 
 every man his own universal provider : in the 
 stage when people begin to exchange one thing for 
 another, the era of barter, there would be of course 
 great clumsiness and difficulty in exchange. People 
 would haggle with one another over their goods, 
 and find it very hard to come to an agreement 
 as to what each might consider a satisfactory 
 equivalent for his own produce. This at least we 
 may confidently assert, that the very last thing that 
 would ever weigh with a man in estimating another's 
 commodity would be the amount of labour it might
 
 Political Economy. 1 8 1 
 
 have cost. That would be a matter on which 
 he never bestowed a thought. The question in 
 his own mind would simply be, the extent of his 
 own want or desire of the article in question, 
 in relation to what he had to give for it. And 
 they would no doubt find much difficulty in coming 
 to an arrangement : sometimes that would be next 
 door to impossible : how could they measure or 
 compare each other's need or demand for the 
 several articles ? It is this difficulty which, as 
 Aristotle rightly said, money has necessarily arisen 
 to solve. It is impossible of course, in the absence 
 of all facts bearing on the question, to trace the 
 exact steps, historically, by which money acquired 
 its position. For we should never forget that 
 no enquiries can reach back to the historical origin 
 of anything. At first, no doubt, even money would 
 be but a sorry makeshift. For in a rude and un- 
 certain age, where very little could be had for 
 money, exchange of goods for money must have 
 been precarious, more or less arbitrary, and con- 
 stantly changing. 
 
 The qualities which would lead people to fix 
 upon metal, or whatever it might be, to function 
 as the measure of value, or degree of need, would 
 doubtless be that it was itself originally a com- 
 modity among commodities, but more permanent 
 more portable, more divisible, small in bulk, gene- 
 rally acceptable, easily concealed. Before it was 
 money, it would be, of course, a mere metal, valued 
 for its uses as such, ornamental as well as utilitarian. 
 But the point for us is this, that no sooner, however 
 we may explain it, had it got definitely recognised 
 and established as the universal go-between, than
 
 1 82 Body and Soul. 
 
 it acquired thereby a position which differentiated 
 it in many ways from every other thing. Hence 
 its paradoxical nature. In order to make this clear, 
 let us consider the essential nature of wealth in 
 general, from a point somewhat further back. 
 
 Every commodity, says Aristotle, rather loosely, 
 has two uses : its direct use, or special function, 
 and its indirect or derivative use, as enabling its 
 possessor to get something else for it. We may 
 wear a shoe, or give it away and get something 
 else for it. Of course, these two uses are not 
 really two, from the point of view of the com- 
 modity : they are only two, from the point of view 
 of the owner. The secondary use, exchange power, 
 is merely the first use viewed in relation to another 
 owner, who wants to satisfy his demand. Ex- 
 change value is simply use value, viewed from 
 the standpoint of someone who as yet does not 
 possess the commodity. Now, on the side of 
 their special function, all commodities differ : a 
 hat is one thing, a boot another, and so on. But 
 on the side of their capacity of acquiring another 
 thing in exchange for them, they are all exactly 
 alike, indistinguishable. It makes all the difference 
 to the man who wants boots, whether he has boots 
 or a hat : but if he can get the same thing for 
 either boots or a hat, wanting himself neither, 
 it makes no difference to him which he has. To 
 the special want, only the special instrument can 
 answer : but anything will do equally well, if a man 
 only wants to get rid of it. Here it is not the 
 special function of the commodity, as such, that 
 makes the difference : that is left out of account : 
 the important thing is, that it should be readily
 
 Political Economy. 183 
 
 and universally transferable. The more general 
 and less particular it is, here, the better. 
 
 Now, the secret of money lies here. It is, as 
 it were, commodities mimts their special qualities. 
 It is their general capacity. It is the expression 
 not of what is different, but what is identical in 
 them. They all differ endlessly, but agree in 
 one point, that of answering to demand. Money 
 is the embodiment of this fact. It can perform 
 the special function of no commodity : out of 
 society and commodities, therefore, it is useless : 
 but it can perform the general function of any 
 commodity ; in society, therefore, it is omnipotent. 
 It is the quintessence of the power of commodities. 
 It is no metaphor, but the expression of the deepest 
 conceivable, analytical, economical truth, to say, 
 money is power. Money is power : that is exactly 
 what it is. Money is in the economical world, 
 precisely what motion is in the physical world : and 
 parodying Aristotle's famous definition of motion, 
 we may define money as the potentiality of commo- 
 dities. This definition is the ultimate wisdom, the 
 truth /car' e'^o^f, the omega of Political Economy. 
 
 Now though it may seem ridiculous, nevertheless 
 it is true, that just because it could perform no 
 special function, it was, except to the man who at 
 the moment wanted any special function performed, 
 better and more welcome to everybody, than any 
 actual commodity. Everybody wanted it, because 
 everybody else wanted it too. Everybody knew 
 that he could not always reckon on finding a man 
 who wanted boots, but he could always find a man 
 who wanted money. Therefore, paradoxical though 
 it might seem, it nevertheless came about that
 
 1 84 Body and Soul. 
 
 money, in itself less useful than any other thing, 
 was in virtue of its relations more valuable than 
 any. This position it acquired early, and has never 
 since lost. 
 
 Yet again. Just because it had acquired this 
 anomalous and supreme position, it had two very 
 peculiar and ennobling rewards conferred upon it, 
 in addition, which raised it still higher, in all the 
 world's estimation, as well as in its own. To it 
 alone of all things was given the power of paying 
 taxes and of making war. This more than any- 
 thing else made it indispensable. When, for ex- 
 ample, the King (Henry I.) had decreed that pay- 
 ment in money was to replace the old system of 
 payments in kind, he made a change whose im- 
 portance he was probably very far from foreseeing. 
 From that moment, according as money was or was 
 not plentiful, were the taxes easy or oppressive. 
 For money had to be forthcoming when the tax- 
 gatherer called, and if it was difficult to obtain so 
 much, the more of his produce had the producer to 
 give to obtain it. And yet again money, being of 
 universal validity, now added a stimulus to accumu- 
 lation. To the heaping up of wealth, so long as it 
 consisted of perishable commodities, there was a 
 limit. No one could find it to his interest to 
 accumulate sheep or oxen, grain or stuffs, whose 
 value was destroyed by moth and dust, time and 
 casualties. But money would always keep its value. 
 Therefore no one could have too much of it : the 
 more he had, the more he still desired to have. 
 Money became now synonymous with power, alike 
 for the private individual and the State. He who 
 had money could at all times command the services
 
 Political Economy. 185 
 
 of all. Money was the supreme Lord of the World : 
 and conferred upon its possessors whatever human 
 nature could desire, or human services perform. 
 It was the universal instrument. That quality 
 which placed it lower than any actual commodity 
 gave it its prodigious dominion over them all : its 
 strength lay in its weakness. Its absence of utility 
 gave it at once universality and imperishability. 
 For to become actual, i.e. a commodity, is to lose 
 your power of becoming anything else. Once de- 
 finitely this or that, Commodities had nothing to 
 do but to be used and pass away : but money, 
 being never any actual commodity, but merely the 
 potentiality of any, did not perish in the using, but 
 endured. Money stood to commodities in precisely 
 the same relation as Samson with his hair stood to 
 Samson without it : or better, as a loaded pistol to 
 one already discharged. It held in itself the com- 
 mand over future destinies and possibilities. It 
 was master of all eventualities. It was a guarantee 
 against mishap, and an earnest of benefits to come. 
 Its star was always in the ascendant. It carried 
 with it hope and security. Commodities were 
 always the setting, money the rising sun. Power, 
 said Swift, which was used to follow land, is now 
 gone over to money f . And Bolingbroke is con- 
 stantly harping on this string. 
 
 To the corollaries and applications of these facts 
 I shall return : here our concern with it is different : 
 
 f Land is the opposite pole of money : between these ex- 
 tremes lies every form of wealth. Land is the indeterminate 
 possibility of wealth not yet formed : money, the quintessential 
 and sublimated extract of wealth, divested of all its special 
 qualities.
 
 1 86 Body and Soul. 
 
 we are at present analysing the notion of value. 
 These considerations will enable the reader to 
 appreciate the wisdom of Aristotle's assertion, al- 
 ready quoted, that money has arisen in answer to 
 necessity ; here too structure has been determined by 
 function. But what necessity ? Let him tell us. 
 There can be no exchange and no community 
 unless there can be found some means of equating 
 the values of commodities : there must be some- 
 thing therefore which measures all of them, and 
 this is in reality our need, which binds all together : 
 and money has come in to function as the instrument 
 or conveyancer of need. There is the truth about 
 money and value. Is it not strange that men 
 should so entirely have missed a truth which when 
 we approach the subject along the proper path seems 
 to lie under our nose? Is it not more than re- 
 markable to see to what an extent false methods 
 can throw us off the scent ? to see the laborious and 
 ineffectual attempts of economists to found an es- 
 sential notion of value upon what is merely secondary 
 and derivative, such as power in exchange ? If men 
 had adopted the analytic enquiry into concrete reali- 
 ties, instead of a vain theorising from certain re- 
 ceived dogmas, they would naturally have said to 
 themselves : the law of nature is universal, that 
 all structure arises in answer to function. Here 
 then we have a structure so remarkable as money. 
 There must be here too a reason why, for ' there 
 ' are reasons and causes why and wherefore in all 
 ' things.' What then is the necessity, the necessary 
 function, to perform which money has arisen ? Why, 
 what can it be, but to express and make visible, 
 concrete, external, our need for, or value of a thing ?
 
 Political Economy. 1 87 
 
 That is in fact the truth. Money is simply the 
 instrument, actuality, or realisation of demand, the 
 vehicle of demand, the embodiment of value. 
 Money is to value what the body is to the soul. 
 Value is the soul of money g . The amount of 
 money a man will give for a commodity is the 
 exact measure of his value of it. The value of 
 a thing, as Hudibras said with scientific accuracy, 
 is so much money as 'twill bring. The value of 
 a thing is not its cost of production, or the amount 
 of money you must pay to make it : but the amount 
 of money you can get for it : depends, that is to 
 say, on the esteem or demand placed upon it by the 
 man who is buying it, in comparison with his other 
 necessities at the moment. Hence, here comes 
 in the point that the Economists have never per- 
 ceived, the core of the financial question the 
 values, and thus the creation, of commodities are 
 determined by variations in supplies of money. For 
 it is important to observe that value, economically 
 not expressible, is economically of no account. A 
 man may potentially place any value he likes, great 
 or small, upon commodities ; this is of no economic 
 bearing, till it has been actually expressed. It is 
 deeds, not wishes or words, that are wanted. A 
 man shows his love for commodities by buying 
 them : they pay no attention to anything but this. 
 If, therefore, money be deficient in quantity, although 
 men might retain the same regard for commodities ; 
 
 % Money being embodied demand or value (as value is the 
 spirit or soul of money), exhibits exactly the old Platonic 
 idea that matter vitiates form: for just because it is value 
 materialised it is itself subject to impurities and variations 
 which detract from its perfection as a measure of value.
 
 1 8 8 Body and Soul. 
 
 although, that is, commodities might retain, poten- 
 tially, their value in the eyes of would-be buyers : 
 yet this ' would-be ' will not avail : actually, com- 
 modities will lose their values, and hence cease to 
 be produced, because men cannot afford to give so 
 much money for them as before. For in actual 
 economical life and real processes, the value of 
 commodities depends upon the money tendered for 
 them : depends, that is to say, not on their cost of 
 production, nor upon other commodities, but upon 
 money, which is not a commodity, but the actuality 
 of demand for commodities h . 
 
 The solution of all the perplexing enigmas which 
 have defied solution on the principles hitherto 
 dominant in economics flows, as I shall presently 
 show, from this fundamental conception of value 
 and money : and I shall show further from a dif- 
 ferent standpoint the truth of the analysis now ar- 
 rived at. But in this place it is necessary to return, 
 in order to attain to the proper point of view, to 
 the essential nature of Wealth. 
 
 IV. Every particle of Wealth, every commodity 
 or unit of Wealth, necessarily consists of, and is 
 defined by, four causes or forces, which are, its 
 
 h Notice the confusion introduced into Economics by what the 
 Economists call Ex change- Value. There is Value that is, the 
 mental esteem, appreciation, and demand for a thing and its 
 qualities in the mind of a man considering it : and there is 
 price: that is, money value, the commercial or concrete ex- 
 pression or realisation of the same fact : (when inexpressible 
 in money, we say a thing is invaluable or inappreciable). But 
 a thing like Exchange value which is neither of these two, but 
 a kind of mechanical relation between two commodities, ab- 
 stracted from men, is an abstract metaphysical entity which 
 exists only in the writings of Economists.
 
 Political Economy. 1 89 
 
 matter, its form, its labour, and the function it 
 serves. This last, the function of the commodity, 
 may from one point of view be regarded as the 
 most important of the four: it is the soul of the 
 thing : its creative principle. Yet it would be 
 a fundamental error to attend to it alone. Cer- 
 tainly, the matter, form, and labour in a commodity 
 are determined by the function. Nevertheless, 
 these three causes are as essential to every com- 
 modity as the fourth. For no commodity can 
 possibly exist if deprived of these four indispens- 
 able components. They are all impotent divorced 
 from the others. All wealth must result from the 
 combination of the four. There can be no wealth 
 which is not under one aspect Matter, under another, 
 Form, under another, Labour, under yet another, 
 Use or Function. This is the Quadruple Principle, 
 the Fourfold Root, out of which springs the whole 
 mass of human wealth. Flos de radice ejus ascendet : 
 a flower shall go up from his root. And from this 
 point of view we see the absurd fallacy of those 
 economical and socialistic doctrines, which assert 
 that labour is the sole origin or source of wealth : 
 which derive the value of wealth from labour alone. 
 A true analysis annihilates this crass and indis- 
 criminating theory, by disclosing the fragmentary 
 and inadequate nature of its reasoning. So far 
 from labour being the sole source of wealth, it 
 is on the contrary only one, and essentially the 
 least significant, cause of wealth. 
 
 It is impossible to understand society, without 
 this principle : for the growth of wealth is nothing 
 but the evolution of the Quadruple Principle. This 
 principle is in fact the central conception of econo-
 
 190 Body and Soul. 
 
 mics, which stands to economics in precisely the 
 same relation as the Copernican conception stands 
 to astronomy. It explains exactly why the world, 
 considered economically, is constituted just as it is : 
 and exposes constructively the errors of previous 
 systems, which are all but so many abstract frag- 
 ments and sides of the truth, unintelligible because 
 severed from that alone which can give them signi- 
 ficance, the root idea, source, and origin of the 
 whole of economical science : for it all ramifies 
 from and finds its explanation in this central con- 
 ception, and to trace the evolution of this concep- 
 tion is at the same time to explain the genesis of 
 our social system. Not only economics but history 
 is to a large extent unintelligible without it. And 
 being entirely without any perception of this truth, 
 economists have given us the most ludicrous state- 
 ments of production and its requisites : confounding 
 the primitive barbaric form of production with the 
 highly differentiated form now obtaining : utterly 
 misconceiving the nature and meaning of Rent, 
 Capital, Money, Credit, Interest, and other eco- 
 nomic categories. They tell us that land, labour, 
 and capital are the three sole requisites of produc- 
 tion : they deny that currency is capital : they 
 assert that capital is the result of saving yet how 
 can wealth be saved except in the form of money ? 
 they deny that money is wealth, and yet assert that 
 it is a commodity, yet what is a commodity, but 
 wealth ? they cannot make head or tail of Credit, 
 just because they completely fail to comprehend the 
 true nature and function of money : their theories 
 of banking are utterly self-contradictory and sui- 
 cidal, because they do not understand the part
 
 Political Economy. 191 
 
 money plays in the creation of wealth : interest 
 is a phenomenon that utterly baffles their efforts to 
 explain it on their principles : their explanation of 
 International Trade is pure nonsense: and their 
 whole system is a vast knot of errors and absurdities, 
 contradictory at once to itself and the facts and 
 practice of the world 1 . And yet the world, acting 
 on their theories, laboriously sets itself in a strait- 
 waistcoat, and brings upon itself gratuitous misery 
 and disaster, by twisting its commercial and finan- 
 cial policy into harmony with their mistaken notions. 
 Dearly has it paid for this : still more dearly may 
 it have to pay, unless it awakes betimes. Never 
 was anything bought for a heavier price than what 
 passes for Political Economy. So much misery 
 can Error inflict upon her misguided victims. 
 
 The test of a true and universal principle, says 
 Aristotle, is that it holds in any and every particular 
 instance taken at random. Just as a circle is always 
 a circle, whether it have a radius of one inch or ten 
 thousand miles, so always and everywhere, whether 
 we look at Wealth in the primitive barbarian proto- 
 plasmic system of production, or in the highly- 
 developed system of to-day, it is the same product 
 of four indispensable causes, matter, form, labour, 
 
 1 People try to excuse the Ricardian economics, by the 
 apology that its conclusions are true, only under ideal con- 
 ditions. If that were so, why did Ricardo presume to come 
 forward and offer advice, or lay down the LAW, as to real 
 conditions? You have only to assume everything to be just 
 what it is not, and any philosophy is true. The sphere of 
 philosophy is the real, and the man who thinks of things just 
 as they are not, may be a mediocre poet, but philosophically 
 can only count as a fool. Was Ricardo, forsooth, a poet ?
 
 1 92 Body and Soul. 
 
 and demand. But these causes are of very differ- 
 ent sizes at different epochs. It is the confusion on 
 this head that has led economists astray. We find 
 them united at first, separated at last : separated 
 but not divorced : differentiated, in order to per- 
 form their enlarged functions, into immense classes, 
 but not essentially changed. 
 
 In the rudimentary form, agricultural or nomadic, 
 venatory or piscatorial, we see early man plucking 
 fruit, growing corn, tending sheep or cattle, catching 
 fish, snaring birds and so forth : producing rude 
 wealth to serve his needs. Here nature does much 
 and man little ; and some of these simple forms 
 still necessarily remain. What is sport to many 
 to-day, was life and death to primitive man. In 
 these early forms only does it approximately ex- 
 press the truth to say that the requisites of pro- 
 duction are two, labour and appropriate natural 
 objects, or three, land, labour and capital (excluding 
 from this term money). I say approximately, be- 
 cause the statement is false even here. Under 
 Labour are faultily assumed Knowledge and De- 
 mand : i. e. three of the causes are erroneously 
 jumbled into one. For in fact in those early forms, 
 these three causes are united in the same indi- 
 vidual. It is not Labour, it is Man that ' makyth 
 wealth.' But by omitting to take this into con- 
 sideration, economists fall into fatal errors in sub- 
 sequent more complicated forms of production. 
 Similarly, only in these early forms is the economical 
 use of ' capital ' approximately accurate : meaning 
 wealth reproducd vely employed. In these forms, 
 of course, money has not as yet made its appear- 
 ance. But if we define capital, as we ought to do
 
 Political Economy. 193- 
 
 every instrument of production, as wealth in the 
 strict and primary sense may be regarded as every 
 instrument of life and action, we shall find, later on, 
 that money is capital just as much as anything 
 else : nay, that in a very significant and legitimate 
 sense it alone is regarded as capital at all. But to 
 this we shall return. 
 
 These low forms of wealth-creation, then, are 
 very simple, nevertheless they contain in germ the 
 essential elements of higher forms which are by no 
 means so simple : but which will escape the notice 
 of any one who has not correctly analysed the 
 simple forms. The man who raises garden pro- 
 duce for a bare subsistence does in truth raise it 
 from combining land, labour, and capital : i.e. the 
 ground, seed, and his spade, to gain a required end. 
 But it is pure nonsense to say that such a thing 
 as, for example, a gunboat, is produced by ' land, 
 labour, and capital.' Such a product never has 
 anything to do with land at all, and any one can 
 see, that even if we grant, what is not the case, 
 that science may be included under the term 
 labour, yet State necessities are an essential cause 
 of the production of the gunboat, and these are not 
 even suggested in the trinity. The true causes or 
 requisites of production here, as everywhere, are 
 material, form, labour, and demand or need : and 
 what we must do, if we wish to understand the 
 raison d'etre of such an instance, is to analyse 
 closely the four constituent elements that go to 
 make it up. 
 
 Take first the material cause. It is philoso- 
 phically and analytically a grave error to speak 
 of the material cause of wealth as ' land.' The 
 
 o
 
 194 Body and Soul. 
 
 expression, derived from agricultural notions of 
 wealth-creation, is even from a purely vague 
 regard ridiculous : do not the sea, the air, the sun, 
 cold and heat, contribute their quotum 9 If we are 
 to be vague, let us be vague consistently ; let us 
 say, the universe. But if we are to be scientific 
 and analytic, what is the use of the term land ? 
 Very few people are apt to reflect how immensely 
 the original nature of land, the earth, has been 
 changed by the way in which man has worked 
 it to his ends : these being determined by moral, 
 religious, personal and political ideas. ' Land ' 
 is not a thing homogeneous and everlastingly 
 identical with itself, such as would subsist under any 
 form of production. Therefore even a priori land 
 is a bad term. But a posteriori, it is still worse. 
 We only know a thing, when we know its proximate 
 causes. To leave gaps is not to have a scientific 
 knowledge: e.g., the cause of water is not 'gas,' 
 it is hydrogen and oxygen in definite proportions, 
 two to one. The cause of light is not ' land : ' 
 it is now wax and wick, now mineral oil, now zinc 
 and copper connected by wires and immersed 
 in a particular fluid, now friction, and so on. 
 The cause of the ruin of Troy is not Helen ; 
 it is the objection of Menelaus to let Paris take 
 her away. And thus, every particular bit of wealth 
 has its own particular material cause : sine qua nan. 
 The material cause of a table is wood or stone 
 or ivory : that of a knife, steel : of a pudding, 
 flour, raisins, sugar and so forth. That commodity 
 which regarded as an end is wealth, regarded 
 as a means becomes the material cause of a new 
 commodity. ' The end of one beginning is the
 
 Political Economy. 195 
 
 1 beginning of another end : ' and it is the last end 
 which conditions the first beginning of all. Here 
 we see what an insufficient and inadequate enumer- 
 ation of the requisites of production it is to say 
 'land, labour, and capital.' The cause of log 
 rolling in Canadian backwoods is ultimately, the 
 demand for the production of ships, houses and what 
 not all over the world. Production on one side 
 of the world is determined and conditioned by action 
 on the other. From animals, one man produces 
 fleeces : these fleeces are materials to the dyer 
 or carder : these, again, hand over their products 
 to be the material cause of new products in the 
 hands of tailors, dressmakers, upholsterers : and 
 so on indefinitely. And observe that what came 
 last in the order of time came first in the order 
 of necessity. Just because there are so many 
 customers of all sorts at the end, are there so many 
 producers of all sorts at the beginning. The raison 
 d'etre even of the material cause of wealth is the 
 special form of production and consumption existing 
 at the time. What an egregious want of insight 
 then does it argue to suppose that if the whole 
 constitution of society were changed the material 
 cause of the wealth would still be there. ' Land ' 
 certainly would be there, but ' land ' is not the 
 material cause of wealth. Land is the material 
 cause of a bare and scanty subsistence, that 
 is all. 
 
 Thus we see that the material cause of Wealth is 
 not land : but that it depends on, and is essentially 
 made what it is by, the whole dynamical play and 
 process of labour, power, science, and need, in 
 any society at any given moment. A man in 
 
 o 2
 
 196 Body and Soul. 
 
 England makes, we will say, brushes from fibre. 
 But he could not get this fibre from America, 
 unless there were steam-boats, elaborate machines, 
 a complicated banking system, an immense demand 
 for brushes : all these things again depend on 
 a host of conditions for their existence, which all 
 ultimately resolve themselves into the same four 
 causes. For every commodity is at once a result, 
 the terminus of a long set of processes, and again 
 the step or link in the chain of processes leading 
 to a new term. Hence not only each product, but 
 each process of production is structurally determined 
 by its function : or what is the same thing, the 
 needs or demands of customers at the end of the 
 chain. And thus in one aspect the whole eco- 
 nomical condition of society is dynamic : a set 
 of functions : and in another, it is a vast staircase 
 of material structures : dynamics petrified and em- 
 bodied. Viewed from the top, it is a graduated 
 series of forms, all performing functions : viewed 
 from below it is simply material, constantly pass- 
 ing into new forms. This is what Aristotle 
 means when he says that matter and form, struc- 
 ture and function, are at the moment of active 
 operation the same, but their essence is different. 
 The raison d'etre of the whole, the soul of Society, 
 is the performance of necessary functions. 
 
 I shall presently show, that the failure of econo- 
 mists to comprehend the function of money arises 
 from the fact that they have misunderstood the 
 dynamics of production, here explained. In order 
 that each productive process may have ready to 
 hand the material and instruments on and with 
 which it goes to work, the whole system must be
 
 Political Economy. 197 
 
 working properly. Now, it is just money which 
 works the machine. 
 
 But let us first succinctly consider the two causes, 
 science or knowledge, and labour power. 
 
 Obviously, the power of transforming material into 
 shapes that serve turns, essentially depends upon 
 science, and when we know what has to be done, 
 we still have actually to do it : apply power to 
 effect the transformation. Thus Science and La- 
 bour are the two handmaids of the will to compel 
 material to obey its wants. But they are two and 
 not one : and the evolutionary process shows this 
 by differentiating them. Science again naturally 
 falls into two divisions, theoretic and practical. 
 Theoretic science investigates and discovers the 
 
 o 
 
 properties and powers of matter and the forces 
 of nature ; finds out how to utilise and apply matter 
 and force. Hence, for example, steam, machinery, 
 navigation, artillery, and so on. Practical science is 
 essentially supervisional, forethoughtful: it introduces 
 labour to the demand for it, transports material 
 from place to place ; from here, where it is useless, 
 to there, where it is valuable : facilitates production 
 and the employment of labour and the satisfaction 
 of demand, by moving commodities about, and 
 devising ways and means, making enterprises, and 
 so on. Knowledge thus becomes power. In- 
 ventors, discoverers, chemists, philosophers, mer- 
 chants, agents, carters, railway directors and project- 
 ors, shipowners and shopmen all these supply the 
 indispensable element of science. Thus practical 
 science stands on the border-line between pure 
 science and pure power or force : but although pure 
 science has no element of power in it (Sidvoia S'
 
 1 98 Body and Son!. 
 
 av-nj ovOev Kivel), on the other hand some degree 
 of science, i.e. skill or practice, is always found 
 with labour power : it cannot act if it is blind. 
 Even porters and coal-heavers must know the way to 
 go to work. In machinery, again, hydraulic presses 
 or mechanical automatic saws, hammers, drills, &c., 
 we have force without human labour at all. From 
 all this we see the absurdity of the claim that labour 
 is the sole source of value and wealth. On the 
 contrary, labour is merely the agent or instrument 
 in the hand of science : to which, or rather to the 
 mediation of which, labour owes all its employment. 
 Without the eye to guide it, how could the hand 
 know what to do, or how to do it ? 
 
 Obviously, then, the degree of science in the com- 
 munity, and the practical, business-like aptitude for 
 designing, managing, providing, constructing, fore- 
 seeing, in the individual members of the same : as 
 well as, again, the skill, native or acquired, and 
 character of workmen, their efficient condition, their 
 political and social welfare, or any such circum- 
 stances as influence their action as motives to make 
 them take an interest in doing their work well, and 
 so on : have a large share in promoting or retarding 
 the creation of wealth in any community. 
 
 But in the last resort all depends on the demand, 
 the final cause, the need for the commodities pro- 
 duced, to serve which is their function, and the 
 need for the services of the producers. To this 
 great cause we must now turn. 
 
 The greater and more various the demand for 
 commodities, the more employment will there be for 
 labour which lives by ministering to demand. In 
 this lies the true refutation of the old ' wage-fund '
 
 Political Economy. 199 
 
 doctrine, which reposed upon the ridiculous principle 
 that a demand for commodities is not a demand for 
 labour : the most curiously devised contradiction 
 of the truth that ever puzzled the brains of two 
 generations. Here we see the economical aspect 
 of Darwin's law that diversity of character is an 
 essential principle of evolution : that the more 
 diversity there is in the character of the inhabitants 
 of any country or area, the more life will be able to 
 find support within that area. This is merely a 
 case of the great law of biological evolution first 
 discovered by Aristotle. It at once exposes the 
 absurdity of the dogma that a demand for com- 
 modities is not a demand for labour. The dictum 
 rests upon a radical misunderstanding of the 
 rationale of the productive process. All production 
 is essentially dependent upon and conditioned by 
 the necessities of action which call it out. It is 
 just to minister to life and make it good that all 
 production exists. But the nonsensical division of 
 labour into productive and unproductive prevented 
 the economists from seeing this. All life is essen- 
 tially action and not primarily production at all : 
 hence by baptizing action as unproductive, and thus 
 stigmatising it, economists are really stultifying 
 themselves and the nature of the world and man. 
 The end of production is not production, it is action. 
 This is. its raison d'etre. But according to this 
 economical dogma, people must give up action, and 
 confine themselves to production, which only exists 
 for the sake of action : i.e. they must give up that 
 for the sake of which it is that they produce, and 
 simply produce for the sake of producing ! Or we 
 may put the same point thus. If those who divide
 
 2OO Body and Soul. 
 
 labour into productive and unproductive mean by 
 this last expression simply something negative : 
 i.e. #0#-productive : the division is unimpeachable, 
 but an insignificant truism which tells us nothing. 
 It is like dividing things into roses and not-roses. 
 But if by unproductive they mean, as they do 
 mean, something positive : if they mean, as they do 
 mean, to cast a slur upon it, and to argue that what 
 they call 'unproductive' labour exercises no influence 
 on the production then it is a gross and vital 
 error. Tliere is no such labour in the world. Action, 
 which is non-productive, is nevertheless indirectly 
 the essential cause of all production : all production 
 rests upon its needs. There is no such thing as 
 labour that is unproductive in this bad positive 
 economical sense. All labour is either the final or 
 efficient cause of wealth. Fighting is the reason 
 why military instruments are made : ploughing and 
 reaping, &c., the reason why agricultural instru- 
 ments are made : praying, &c., the final cause of 
 churches : painting, music, &c., the final cause of 
 their tools : and thus generally, all productive 
 labour rests upon action, as its basis. To call any 
 labour unproductive, in a scientific sense, is either 
 a miserable truism, or a proof of total incom- 
 petence. 
 
 This is the consequence of omitting to take into 
 consideration the final cause, the end and reason 
 why of all wealth. Everybody desires to live, 
 i.e. to act, and that as well as he can : that is to 
 say, the aim of his life is to consume ' unpro- 
 ' ductively : ' (though this word contains of course 
 an element of moral censure which is not in the 
 facts : as if, forsooth ! it were a crime to wish to
 
 Political Economy. 20 1 
 
 live and act !) and this is what stimulates him 
 to exertion, to gain by producing, the means of 
 action. But conceive his horror, if he found no 
 one to buy : if everybody confined themselves to 
 producing, and nobody ever bought at all. Why, 
 the aim of the producer is to sell, to make profit 
 by selling. Is it conceivable that men should have 
 acquired great reputations as ' thinkers ' of a high 
 order, who so ludicrously misunderstood life and 
 its processes as to lay down laws which negated it : 
 which, if carried out, would instantly put an end 
 to existence. Unproductive labour! what a name 
 to give to life ! A fine man, riding on a magnifi- 
 cent horse : a beautiful woman, dancing at a ball : 
 a pretty child, playing in a garden : a regiment of 
 soldiers, marching along : a great actor, holding 
 his audience spellbound : a party of friends, 
 bivouacking by a river on a summer evening : 
 these are the fine flowers of existence which, all 
 unconscious of the ineffable absurdity of the thing, 
 these unutterable economists dismiss as ' unproduc- 
 tive labour.' The whole economical structure and 
 business of society has arisen and exists in order to 
 perform its function : the economists cut off the 
 function, never see it, and fondly imagining they 
 are able to explain the structure abstractly, i.e. out 
 of relation to its cause, pose as great thinkers, with 
 the grave dignity of men who will not be severe 
 upon inferior persons ! O Momus, where are you ? 
 did ever ancient Greece afford you such rich food 
 for an everlasting roar ? 
 
 The truth is that all employment rests upon 
 consumption : that all Wealth - creation depends 
 upon the diversity of character, and diversity of
 
 2O2 Body and Soul. 
 
 Demand for commodities. A highly-differentiated 
 form of production, where competition is severe, 
 necessarily implies a highly-differentiated society : 
 great diversity of character in the members com- 
 posing it. And as I have pointed out elsewhere, 
 there is strict correspondence between the men and 
 the commodities. To every different sort of man 
 there are commodities answering. For the soul of 
 commodities is the function they serve : and all 
 Wealth is Wealth, only in relation to the men who 
 use or demand it or buy it. To talk of ' social 
 Wealth ' as if Wealth was one great homogeneous 
 lump is absurd. Every particle of Wealth has, just 
 like every man, a definite character of its own : 
 there is no such thing as social, i.e. general wealth. 
 We may of course speak of wealth in the abstract : 
 but wealth is no abstraction. It is rather the most 
 real reality in the world. It is an accumulation of 
 infinitely various structures answering to infinitely 
 various demands. The failure to realise the con- 
 nection is at the bottom of arbitrary socialistic 
 schemes of division and distribution. You cannot 
 carve the mass of wealth into so many equal 
 portions. Its divisionary limits are fixed by diver- 
 sity of character. The portions are, if they exist 
 at all, essentially and necessarily unequal. You 
 may, for example, sum up the wealth of the com- 
 munity, and estimate it at, say, ten thousand mil- 
 lions. But you could not subdivide the wealth as 
 you could subdivide the money. For money is 
 fractionally divisible and discrete, but wealth is not. 
 Its nature limits its division. A loaf is worth, 
 say 4^. : a carriage, say ^150 : if now we think to 
 divide up this 1 50 into portions of 4^. each, you
 
 Political Economy. 203 
 
 will find you cannot : you will only annihilate that 
 form of wealth : with all the labour that depends on 
 its production. That ^150 worth of wealth exists 
 only because required in that form : and will not 
 exist at all, if you taboo that form. In other 
 words, the mass of wealth is as large as it is, 
 because it answers to the functions which are re- 
 quired : if you annihilate the functions, the wealth 
 correspondent to them will disappear. This is the 
 heart of that fallacy, dear to demagogues, which 
 supposes that a rich man might cut up and provide 
 for many poor ones. It is not so. Abolish the 
 rich man, and you will not be able to divide his 
 wealth, for it will disappear : and with it, the 
 employment of labour to which it gave occasion. 
 The amount of existing wealth is inseparably con- 
 nected with its form. You cannot change its form, 
 and keep it the same in amount. For diversity of 
 character is its condition : and it is impossible, as 
 Aristotle said long ago, for any state to exist, whose 
 individuals are all of one kind. They are essen- 
 tially different in kind : as different and numerous 
 as the necessities, capacities, and possibilities of 
 human nature. To attempt to unify them is the 
 old error of Plato : it is a denial of the evolutionary 
 law of nature, that to different functions different 
 structures correspond. And the essence alike of 
 Nature and Society is the dynamical evolution of 
 this law. 
 
 V. But let us look closely into the actiial opera- 
 tion of this final cause, this demand of the person, 
 answering to the function of the commodity. 
 
 The force which calls out all commodities from 
 the womb of the infinite possibilities of matter ;
 
 204 Body and Soul. 
 
 which sets the Idea to Work upon the Material, in 
 order to obtain instruments to serve it, is the Will, 
 Need, Want, or Demand of Man. But of course, 
 so long as it remains merely potential, it can effect 
 nothing. Mere desire, wishing, will do nothing. 
 We may long for commodities as much as we 
 please ; this will achieve nothing, unless we put our 
 demand into active operation, unless we actually 
 and definitely express and convey it. Here then is 
 the crucial point. On the one hand, it is obvious 
 that commodities are, in fact, produced in multi- 
 tudes. On the^other hand, we find that in order to 
 produce them, the power of demand must be actu- 
 ally exerted. How, then, does this take place ? 
 At what point is it that this occurs ? The answer 
 is, Money. Money is the actuality of Demand : 
 the medium, or conveyancer, or vehicle, or mea- 
 surer, or instrument of demand. Now, demand is 
 merely a synonym for value. A man's value for a 
 commodity is his demand for it : and money is the 
 expression or outward visible sign of the inward 
 spiritual esteem. Conversely, the value of a thing 
 is just the money it will fetch. 
 
 Here, then, we see the true function and the 
 immense importance of money. The most vital 
 and radical error in orthodox economics is its 
 failure to understand money. And this again came 
 about owing to the fundamentally erroneous method 
 of economical investigation. Instead of analysing 
 the causes of wealth, economists started from ab- 
 stract entities, of merely partial validity, where they 
 were of any validity at all : such as, for example 
 'labour.' They thus cut themselves off from all 
 Qpssibility of ever arriving at the truth. The true
 
 Political Economy. 205 
 
 way was, to discover first the actual causes of com- 
 modities, and then find out where money came in. 
 Instead of doing this, they laid down abstract 
 dogmas about Wealth ; and, as these never included 
 the most essential cause of all, how could they 
 possibly pick it up afterwards ? how could they 
 possibly solve the problem of money and value ? 
 For it is just this cause which is concerned, in the 
 case of money and value ; it is from this cause they 
 arise, and on it they play. 
 
 Instead of proceeding analytically and going 
 backwards, the economists started with dogmatic 
 abstractions and went downwards, argued, that is, 
 deductively from these. Instead of looking straight 
 at the facts of wealth, disentangling its causes, and 
 tracing them up to their simple forms, the econo- 
 mists began by laying down axioms drawn from an 
 agricultural and one-sided view of Wealth-creation, 
 and argued from them. As they had omitted 
 from their premisses the really decisive cause, that 
 of demand, they could never reach it again. It 
 was not in the premisses, and could not therefore 
 come out in the conclusion ; for you cannot get 
 out of the sack more than you put in. They 
 asserted that land, labour, and capital, meaning 
 by the last expression, not money, but wealth 
 reproductively employed, were the sole requisites 
 of production. They conceived wealth as being 
 therefore, somehow or other, first made, and, when 
 made, ready to be exchanged. Here came in the 
 notion of barter. One commodity was exchanged 
 against another, and money was devised simply 
 as a means of making exchanges more readily, 
 by providing a medium and measure of value.
 
 2O6 Body and Soul. 
 
 But this value was, they said, determined by cost 
 of production. Money only measured values 
 already determined. Money was thus a sort of 
 otiose deus ex machina introduced between two 
 commodities preparing to exchange. Indeed it 
 is hard to see what on earth was the use of it : 
 for both its own value and that of both the com- 
 modities, were all already determined by their 
 cost of production. It followed, that it was of 
 essentially subordinate importance. It did not 
 matter how much or how little there was of it. 
 If there was more, more could represent the same 
 value : if less, less. Being itself a commodity, its 
 value also, like that of commodities, settled by 
 cost of production, buying and selling were thus 
 essentially identical with barter : the substitution 
 of similars, equal costs of production. A purchase 
 and a sale were identical. Toute vente est achat : 
 tout achat est vente, said Quesnay, the fons et 
 origo mali. Commodities were purchased with com- 
 modities : hence, gluts are impossible. All holders 
 of commodities could exchange them against others; 
 therefore a glut was a contradiction. Commodities 
 were the market for commodities. Money obeyed 
 the same laws as all other commodities. 
 
 The only objection to all this is that it is 
 radically, hopelessly, wildly, and glaringly wrong : 
 in flat contradiction to notorious facts. Money is 
 not a commodity : it is not subject to the same 
 laws as commodities : commodities are not pur- 
 chased with commodities : gluts are possible : it 
 makes, not no difference, but all the difference how 
 much or how little money there is in an industrial 
 community : a purchase is not the same thing as
 
 Political Economy, 207 
 
 a sale : buying and selling are not barter : the 
 principle of exchange is not the substitution of 
 equal costs of production : value is not determined 
 by cost of production : and so far from it being 
 true that commodities are first made, and then 
 money comes to exchange them, or 'circulate' them : 
 on the contrary, money is a decisive agent in their 
 production : without it they cannot, in a commercial 
 society, be made at all. 
 
 It is perfectly true that money was originally 
 devised, or arose, in answer to the need of facilita- 
 ting exchanges, by measuring values. But their 
 false conception of value led Economists astray 
 here. Barter was no doubt the primitive form of 
 exchange. But barter was not based on the sub- 
 stitution of similar costs of production. How on 
 earth could this be determined ? And what reason 
 would it furnish for making an exchange ? Two 
 men might agree that their commodities \vere of 
 equal costs of production. But why should this 
 lead to an exchange? And what would lead, then, 
 to an exchange ? Why, of course, the fact that 
 each man wanted what the other man had, more 
 than he wanted what he had himself. But how 
 were they to agree how much value each placed 
 upon the other's commodity ? Here it is that 
 money comes in : it measures values, not because 
 these depend on cost of production, but precisely 
 because they do not : because on the contrary they 
 depend on the respective needs felt for the com- 
 modities. Money, however we may theoretically 
 account for its origin, came to be the medium in 
 which men reckoned their need or value of com- 
 modities.
 
 208 Body and Soul. 
 
 No doubt, it was originally chosen because it 
 was a thing everybody liked to possess : but the 
 more it won its way, as the medium, the more 
 would people like to have it. No doubt, metals 
 speedily seized upon the position, because they 
 were in themselves beautiful as ornaments, and 
 easily carried about : easily divisible, permanent, 
 and easily concealed. But observe, that as soon 
 as gold and silver were recognised universally as 
 money the medium of valuation they sprang 
 into a peculiar position. Henceforth, their value 
 as metals became a thing essentially subordinate 
 to their value as the universal valuer and de- 
 mander. From this moment anybody who pos- 
 sessed them could get what he chose in exchange 
 for them. And just because everybody would give 
 commodities in exchange for them everybody 
 strove to acquire them. They were simply ex- 
 ternal lumps of demand : bodies endowed with 
 the mysterious property of commanding everyone's 
 services. The world became the slave of money : 
 money became synonymous with power. 
 
 All things being estimated in money, direct 
 barter, being clumsy and indeterminate, went more 
 and more out of fashion. Everything was worth 
 so much money. To get anything, you had either 
 to make it yourself, or give money in exchange 
 for it. You could make other things, give them 
 for money, and then give this for what you wanted. 
 But this, the commercial method, is a roundabout 
 and laborious way. The short and easy method 
 was to lay hold of the golden mean direct : by 
 begging, borrowing, or stealing, gambling or specu- 
 lating. Hence the development of begging, bor-
 
 Political Economy. 209 
 
 rowing, stealing, gambling, speculating, stockbrok- 
 ing, pawnbroking, and so on : all are but various 
 ways of getting hold of the golden mean. Hence, 
 too, the growth of fortunes : i.e. wealth in money. 
 Hoarding was now the thing. There was now 
 a motive for accumulation. No one could have too 
 much of the universal demander. The measure 
 of value of any commodity was now just what 
 money you could get for it. This was determined 
 not merely by the need of it felt by the purchaser : 
 but also by the amount of money he could spare. 
 For here came in the influence of the important 
 fact that sometimes there was more money about, 
 sometimes less. When there was little money 
 about, a man could not afford to give so much for 
 any particular commodity as at other times : be- 
 cause it would leave him less for other things. 
 And when he had plenty, he would give more 
 easily of it, and also buy more things. This 
 accordingly was a good thing both for himself and 
 the producer whose goods he wanted. Thus we 
 see at once that scarcity of money lowers the 
 value of commodities : not mathematically, as the 
 Economists say, but dynamically : i.e. a man cannot 
 afford so much for his commodity. Conversely, 
 plenty of money tends to raise the value of com- 
 modities, but will not necessarily raise prices, be- 
 cause if more commodities are wanted, more will 
 come, if they can, and this will again tend to lower 
 prices : but in the meantime the process will increase 
 employment. Thus as the one great necessity for 
 a producing society is to sell its goods, plenty of 
 money is a great benefit ; and too little money, the 
 greatest possible evil. On the one hand, the con- 
 
 p
 
 2io Body and Soul. 
 
 sumer cannot afford to buy, and on the other, the 
 producer cannot sell. 
 
 We see, then, that the radical fallacy of the 
 Economists lies in this, that they have not, owing 
 to an erroneous method, understood the function 
 of money. Money is not a commodity, but the 
 vehicle of demand for commodities. It is thus the 
 most potent agent in Wealth-creation and distribu- 
 tion. For no one can buy commodities, if he 
 cannot offer or promise money in exchange for 
 commodities. And commodities, as we saw, are 
 the material cause of new commodities. Hence no 
 one can make commodities, unless he can get at the 
 money with which to buy his instruments and ma- 
 terials. For commodities are not purchased with 
 commodities, but always with money, which is not 
 a commodity, but the vehicle and expression of 
 demand for commodities. 
 
 Here comes in the truth as to Credit, Banking, 
 and Credit Instruments. Capital means, as has 
 been shown above, any instrument in production. 
 In autonomous societies not yet based upon ex- 
 change, where money has not arisen, these instru- 
 ments are simply previous commodities employed in 
 making another. Such as, for example, food and 
 clothes, tools, weapons, &c. But when society has 
 become commercial, and is based upon buying and 
 selling, the only way of obtaining commodities is to 
 offer money in exchange for them. Accordingly, 
 whoever wants anything, or to make anything, must 
 first want money. Hence, because money is the 
 indispensable condition of acquiring these required 
 instruments, and because they can only be got, 
 with money, Capital comes to be used exclusively
 
 Political Economy. 211 
 
 for money, as being the sole means of getting com- 
 modities : the indispensable instrument for purchas- 
 ing instruments : and in practice every one means 
 money when he mentions Capital : that on which 
 Interest is paid. The Capitalist is the man who 
 has money. The distinction between Capital, mean- 
 ing money, and Capital, not meaning money, but 
 instruments of production, is indicated by the terms 
 Fixed and Circulating Capital. The Economists, 
 owing to their want of comprehension of money, 
 have never been able to understand this distinction k . 
 Fixed Capital means Capital which is fixed in a par- 
 ticular form of production : as machinery, plant, and 
 so on. Circulating Capital means Capital which is 
 not so fixed, but which can circulate from form to 
 form : that is to say, money. To convert circulating 
 or floating Capital into fixed Capital is simply to 
 lock up money : to fix it permanently in a special 
 form of production where it must stay. And some- 
 times this leads to awkward positions : when, for 
 example, there is a rage for investing in one par- 
 ticular form of production : as, for example, railways, 
 and every one goes in for them : then it is found 
 that there are too many in the business : but they 
 cannot get out then, for no one will buy. This 
 is the rationale of the difficulty. The explanations 
 given by Economists are all explanations that ex- 
 
 k J. S. Mill surpasses himself in this connection. He bases 
 the distinction between Fixed and Circulating Capital on three 
 different notions, which contradict one another. See his Pol. 
 Econ., Pop. Ed., p. 57. He is obliged to observe that the 
 term ' circulating ' is not very appropriate. Not very : for his 
 meaning. According to one of his notions, Capital could not 
 mean money : according to another, it could mean nothing 
 else : according to the third, heaven only knows what it means. 
 
 P 2
 
 212 Body and Soul. 
 
 plain nothing : because they try somehow or other 
 to avoid admitting that circulating capital is money. 
 They therefore give arbitrary meanings to the words 
 fixed and circulating, which nobody means when 
 he uses the words, and which are unnatural to the 
 words. 
 
 To make Wealth, you must either have money or 
 borrow it. You cannot borrow Commodities ! : 
 (hence, if it were true that Capital is not money, 
 it would follow that you cannot borrow Capital: 
 what a consequence !) you have to buy them : it 
 is money that is borrowed. But now, you cannot 
 get people to lend you this money for nothing. 
 You must make it worth their while. You must 
 give them something for its use ; this is Interest. 
 To this we shall return. 
 
 But here comes in a further development. If 
 I wish to buy anything, I must pay money. But 
 perhaps I have not the money. Would the seller 
 wait a while for it? I promise to pay him subse- 
 quently. If this will do, then trade can go on. 
 I can get my materials, make my Wealth, sell it, 
 and repay my debt out of the proceeds. This is 
 the essential operation of Credit and Banking. All 
 Credit is simply a promise to pay money, and Banks 
 are simply the means of working the system of 
 Credit. The function of Banks is not, as most 
 people suppose, to receive deposits of money. This 
 is a means, and not the end, the raison d'etre of 
 Banks. The function of Banks is to lend money by 
 creating Credit. They advance money on enter- 
 
 1 Of course, you can, in another connection, borrow com- 
 modities ; i.e. hire them ; and pay Rent : but this is not the 
 point here. You do not pay Rent, but Interest, on Capital.
 
 Political Economy. 213 
 
 prisers' and merchants' securities before these have 
 completed their transactions. The whole thing 
 rests upon anticipation. Mr. So and So wishes to 
 make Wealth. He borrows from the Bank on the 
 security of his future profit : and, of course, an 
 essential element in the transaction is the character 
 of the borrower. The Bank charges a percentage 
 on its loan, called its Discount. Thus the Bank 
 makes its profit by lending : the merchant makes 
 his, by borrowing : all the tradesmen and wage- 
 earners employed by him gain : and the whole 
 thing is done by means of Credit. For the Bank 
 does not, except in rare cases, actually hand over 
 the actual money, when lending it. It empowers 
 the merchant to draw upon it for the money, if he 
 requires it: i.e. it opens a Credit for him in its 
 Books. He draws a cheque. This cheque is 
 handed in, but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred 
 is not paid in money : it goes off and is cancelled 
 against another. Thus the whole thing is per- 
 formed, without actiial money. 
 
 This is the rationale of Credit and Banking. To 
 analyse it more fully, we must go back a little. 
 
 The fundamental delusion in Economics as re- 
 gards Money (arising from its theory of value) is 
 this : that it gets its value from the metal of which 
 it is composed. On the contrary, the metal gets its 
 value from its function as Money. It is because 
 it is the material of which money is made that 
 people all wish to get hold of the metal. De- 
 monetise it, and it is of no use except as a metal : its 
 function as money is gone. Who then would care 
 to possess it ? The value of silver, for instance, has 
 sunk, not because its production has quantitatively
 
 214 Body and Soul. 
 
 increased, but because the nations have discarded it 
 as Money. And the value of gold has risen, be- 
 cause, silver having been ousted, double and treble 
 work has been thrown upon gold. 
 
 This requires explanation. It was stated above 
 that money was not subject to the same Laws as 
 commodities. Economists ' maintain the reverse. 
 Their theory of value lies at the bottom of this 
 error. Value being in all cases determined by cost 
 of production, and money being merely a commodity 
 among commodities, its value was on the same foot- 
 ing as that of the others. But we have seen, in the 
 first place, that money is not a commodity, but the 
 instrument or vehicle of value and demand for com- 
 modities : and in the second place, that value is not 
 determined by cost of production, but by the relation 
 between the qualities of the commodity and the man 
 who requires it. The function of commodities is 
 totally different from the function of money : and 
 their function, we should not forget to observe, is 
 the raison d'etre or cause of their existence. The 
 functions _ of commodities are all different, all par- 
 ticular : they all answer to special needs, and are 
 required only by special persons. The function of 
 the Commodity is special : the function of Money 
 general, universal ' : it answers directly to no needs, 
 but indirectly, i.e. through Commodities, to all : it is 
 not only wanted, but absolutely necessary to all 
 persons, in civilised society ; for whoever wants 
 anything wants Money. In this lies the difference 
 between Money and Commodities. Commodities 
 all differ in respect of their functions, but are all 
 identical, in respect of their capacity of changing 
 hands : money is just the universal expression of
 
 Political Economy, 215 
 
 this resemblance, this side of commodities which is 
 common to them all. Money is Commodities, with- 
 out their special functions : Commodities, in an undif- 
 ferentiated form : Commodity-power. Hence it does 
 singly what they all do together : i.e. satisfies every 
 sort of demand. Hence the shapes of commodities 
 are essential to them : for all their shapes are deter- 
 mined by their special function ; they are what they 
 are, in virtue of their shape : and without its own 
 peculiar shape each would cease to exist. But the 
 essence of money does not lie in its shape. Its 
 shape is to have no shape : but as this is impos- 
 sible, it has as little shape as it can : i.e., its shape 
 is not determined by any need for the material per- 
 formance of work, but as we might say, spiritually. 
 Its shape, as Kant might say, is not phenomenally 
 but noumenally determined. The essence of Money 
 lies not in its formal action, but its invisible potency. 
 Hence it is not its shape, but its quality and amount, 
 i.e. its material potentiality, that is the main thing. 
 Being merely a little lump of demand or value, it is 
 not formal, but qualitative and quantitative consider- 
 ations that make the difference here. It would 
 not matter in the least, as far as the performance of 
 its essential function was concerned, whether it were 
 round, spherical, oblong, square, triangular, poly- 
 gonal : nobody would care, except that some of 
 these shapes would wear holes in his pocket : i.e. 
 it is merely convenience which gives money its 
 shape : convenience, that is to say, a reason not 
 essential to money as such. For money does not 
 act through its shape as such, whereas with com- 
 modities it is just the reverse ; they are through 
 and through shapes, above all things shapes, just
 
 2 1 6 Body and Soul. 
 
 shapes, and could not lose their shapes without 
 ceasing to be that which they are. What is essen- 
 tial to money is that it should be what it pretends 
 to be : just so much gold or silver : genuine. 
 A false coin deceives, it may be, all the senses but 
 one : it looks, tastes, smells, feels, just like the real 
 Simon Pure : but is not : it does not ring true : 
 that is to say, it is not its visible but its invisible 
 qualities that are essential to it. It must be, not 
 just anything, but exactly what the human mind 
 expects that it ought to be, in its inner nature. 
 And in the abstract, no doubt the human mind can 
 confer upon any material it chooses, the function of 
 money. But here comes in custom and tradition : 
 the hereditary prepossessions and time-honoured 
 uses, and daily work-a-day practice of nations can- 
 not be rationalistically played upon, juggled with, 
 and lightly set at nought, in this case, any more 
 than others. Gold and silver are in possession of 
 the field. Nevertheless it is a vital error to suppose 
 that money gets its value from the value of the 
 metal in it, qua metal. The metal gets, on the 
 contrary, its value from its use as money. Money, 
 then, is valuable as containing so much gold, but 
 gold not qua metal, but qua money material. De- 
 monetise gold, and where is its value ? 
 
 Here lies the reason why money is not subject 
 to the laws of commodities. The demand for money 
 is not, like that for commodities, definite, but in- 
 exhaustible. The demand for any commodity is 
 simply the demand for that commodity ; the demand 
 for money is the demand for all commodities. 
 Increase the supply of any commodity, and you 
 will infallibly lower its value, for the limit of de-
 
 Political Economy. 2 1 7 
 
 mand for any special commodity is soon reached. 
 But this is not the case with money. Vast ad- 
 ditional supplies in highly civilised commercial com- 
 munities do not touch its value : for no man can 
 ever have enough of it. All that they do is to 
 increase enormously the production of commodities 
 and the employment of labour. For as all pro- 
 duction depends upon consumption, and to be a 
 consumer a man must first be a customer, his 
 capacity of buying essentially depends upon the 
 quantity of money he can give : and thus in the 
 question of prices lies the cardinal question of 
 Political Economy, and the welfare of a productive 
 community. 
 
 All this has been completely misunderstood by 
 Economists from Smith down to to-day. The 
 Physiocratic dogma that commodities are purchased 
 with commodities : and the semi-Physiocratic agri- 
 cultural error of stating the requisites of production 
 to be land, labour, and capital (from which term 
 money is excluded) blinded them to the truth. 
 This is why they have condemned the Mercantile 
 System. They did not understand the function of 
 money in the creation of Wealth, neither did they 
 pay any attention to another function that money 
 alone could perform in the days of that system, 
 and which alone it can perform still. It was the 
 instrument of war : the weapon par excellence. Who 
 had money, could fight : hence, who parted with his 
 money left himself defenceless. This was why the 
 Mercantile Theorists held, truly, that the side 
 which gained money in international exchanges, 
 gained : and the other side lost. Hence their theory 
 of the balance of trade. And most certainly they
 
 2 1 8 Body and Soul. 
 
 were right. The whole development of the English 
 constitution has hinged upon the power of the 
 purse. The Stuarts were beaten because they had 
 no money. It was the want of money which made 
 Edward I. lean upon his Parliaments for support. 
 It was the payment of money which made the 
 middle-class Englishman hate the Pope. It was 
 the fact that the Pope and King were rivals for the 
 money of their subjects that set them by the ears. 
 Want of money beat James II. and the Jacobites : 
 the power of money and the Bank of England kept 
 William III. on the throne and secured the Revolu- 
 tion. England beat Napoleon with her money. 
 The development of Banking made Scotland, and 
 saved England in spite of the Napoleonic war. 
 
 Here again we come back to Banking. It was 
 inevitable that the orthodox Political Economy 
 should find this a stumbling-block. For how could 
 any one comprehend Banking, who ignored the 
 function of money in the creation of Wealth, and 
 denied that the increase of money was a benefit to 
 the country ? The essence of Banking is, simply, 
 the multiplication of money, without mines. 
 
 If I have money, I can buy : if not, not : unless 
 the seller will take my promise : give me Credit. 
 I can write upon paper, ' I promise to pay so many 
 ' pounds, either on demand, or in a definite time.' 
 If I am believed to be able and willing to pay : if 
 my credit is sound : this promise will be taken by 
 people who know me as readily as money. This is 
 the essential structure of Credit. The function of 
 credit is to enable purchases and sales to go on, 
 business to be transacted, without the actual use of 
 money. For want of this, production would come
 
 Political Economy. 2 1 9 
 
 to a standstill. Credit enables us to do without 
 money that which intrinsically we can only do with 
 it. Credit is essentially identical in function with 
 money. It is the performance of money's function 
 by proxy. Money must be there, but only poten- 
 tially or in spirit. Credit does without money, not 
 absolutely, but relatively. Credit cannot replace 
 money, but must rest upon it, as a basis. Money is 
 to Credit what substance is to shadow : or, more 
 accurately, what act is to power. Credit is poten- 
 tially money, but not actually. It is the expansion, 
 the velocity, the wings of money. But it only can 
 exist, in so far as money stands, or is believed to 
 stand, behind it. Upon this CONFIDENCE rests its 
 efficacy, its power, its validity. In times of de- 
 struction of confidence, panic, political apprehension, 
 the potential, Credit, is robbed of its atmosphere 
 and dies : only the actual money then avails. It is 
 in critical times that the truth appears : that the 
 superstructure vanishes, and the pillars of gold and 
 silver stand firm. Credit only possesses a reflected 
 glory, or delegated authority : it has potestas, but 
 the dominium is money's. 
 
 Banks, as we saw, are nothing but machinery for 
 the working of Credit, for basing Credit upon 
 Money. Many have thought that if Credit can be 
 based upon Money, there is no reason why it should 
 not be based also upon other things, commodities : as, 
 for example, upon land. But now, this will furnish 
 us with an admirable corroboration of the view of 
 Money which I have been advocating. It has always 
 been found, in fact, that any attempt to base Credit 
 upon anything but Money ; on any Commodity, 
 for instance, has been a disastrous failure. And
 
 22O Body and Soul. 
 
 therefore, Mr. Macleod says, perfectly truly, that 
 a true theory of Money and Credit must explain 
 this. It must show what it is that constitutes the es- 
 sential difference between Money and Commodities. 
 It must explain why it is, that Credit, which works 
 perfectly when based upon Money, refuses abso- 
 lutely to be based upon Commodities. Now, this 
 is just what no Economist has ever been able to do. 
 Even Mr. Macleod, who sees the point, fails to 
 achieve the desired end : although he thinks his 
 own solution the true one. The truth is, that there 
 is an essential difference between Money and Com- 
 modities. The truth is, not as Mr. Macleod says 
 that Money is Debt, but that Money is Demand, 
 and Commodities, the things demanded. Credit can 
 be based upon Money, because Money is the power 
 of demanding whatever its holder wants. But all 
 holders of Money want different things. Therefore 
 no particular thing will do instead of Money to 
 satisfy all, because Money alone will answer every 
 demand. Here lies the reason why Credit can be 
 based upon nothing but Money : why all attempts 
 to base it upon land, like those of Law and Cham- 
 berlayne, or any other Commodity whatever, are 
 foredoomed to failure. Let the reader judge whe- 
 ther this be not a complete verification of the truth 
 of that view of Money here established : for only 
 this view of Money can possibly explain the facts. 
 We find that Credit will not work when based upon 
 Commodities, while it works excellently when based 
 upon Money. There must accordingly be some 
 essential difference between Money and Com- 
 modities : and, as I have shown, there is. The 
 function of Money is demand in general. There-
 
 Political Economy. 22 1 
 
 fore any body will take promises to pay Money 
 freely : because these give them the power of get- 
 ting anything they choose in exchange. But no 
 one will take promises to pay any particular Com- 
 modity instead of Money, because, whatever it is, 
 very few people want that particular Commodity : 
 consequently, it is not readily exchangeable or nego- 
 tiable : that is to say, Credit based upon Commo- 
 dities will not work. 
 
 It is well worth our while to consider this care- 
 fully, not only because it contains the gist of the 
 whole theory of Money, but also because Mr. Mac- 
 leod is a recognised authority on Banking, and 
 by far the ablest writer on Economics in modern 
 times, in spite of the fact that his system has gone, 
 in some directions, wildly astray, and is far more 
 correctly described as Mathematical than Political 
 Economy. When we find that in Mr. Macleod's 
 opinion, Money is Capital, Money is Credit, Credit 
 is Capital, and both Money and Credit are at once 
 Wealth and the representatives of Debt, we are 
 apt to lay him aside as maintaining views palpably 
 absurd. But the absurdity is not so great as it 
 appears : it is half true, half due to a want of 
 sufficiently close discrimination. If w r e define Capi- 
 tal as any Instrument in Production, it is unques- 
 tionably true that Money and Credit are Capital, 
 and may even, in a sense, be called Wealth, though 
 only indirectly. But that Money is Credit, ('money,' 
 says Mr. Macleod, ' is only the highest form of 
 'Credit,') or that 'currency is debt,' is not true, nor 
 is it difficult to point out the cause of this error. 
 
 'If,' says Mr. Macleod, ' a paper currency suc- 
 ceeds which is based solely upon bullion, and fails
 
 222 Body and Soul. 
 
 ' when based upon bullion and Commodities, which 
 ' are both articles of value, it necessarily follows 
 ' that we must search for some conception which 
 ' shall include bullion and exclude commodities. And 
 ' this is precisely what we have done. We have 
 ' found that a paper currency is based upon bullion 
 ' as the specific representative of debt and not as 
 ' an indifferent article of value. Bullion is the 
 ' representative of debt, and commodities are not. 
 ' Paper currency is the representative of debt. 
 ' Paper currency and bullion are homogeneous quan- 
 ' tities, paper currency and commodities are not 
 ' homogeneous. . . . There can then be no possible 
 ' doubt that we have at last obtained the true 
 4 conception of the nature of a currency. Currency 
 ' is the representative of debt and not of value. Now 
 ' this result is not doubtful, or a matter of opinion, 
 4 but it is a certainty.' {Elements of Political 
 ' Economy, p. x.) 
 
 The mixture of truth and error in this passage 
 is most instructive : still more so is the very positive 
 conviction of- certainty in the conclusion ; for, as 
 I shall have no difficulty in showing, instead of 
 being a certainty, it is certainly an error : and 
 this should teach us how careful we ought to be 
 before making sure of any scientific train of reason- 
 ing. It is unquestionably true that paper currency, 
 or Credit, is the representative of debt. William 
 Cobbett, as far as I know, was the first to point 
 this out, in a most characteristically dogmatic little 
 pamphlet entitled ''Paper against Gold,' in which 
 he maintains opinions that are undoubtedly erro- 
 neous with an amusingly cocksure conviction that 
 they are all right. Paper currency is debt, but
 
 Political Economy >. 223 
 
 this is exactly what bullion is not. Mr. Macleod's 
 error is precisely analogous to that of a man who 
 should maintain that a statue is the same thing 
 as its pedestal. Paper currency and bullion are 
 not homogeneous quantities. They are, on the con- 
 trary, unhomogeneous. Paper currency is a set of 
 promises to pay bullion. The first is debt : the 
 second is not : it is the thing itself: the thing owed. 
 Credit is debt : but Money is not : Money is De- 
 mand, and Credit is the debt, or owing, of Money. 
 As soon as we see this, we see also that Mr. Macleod 
 has not performed the task he set himself. For 
 if paper currency be debt, why should it not be 
 debt of commodities, as well as of bullion ? Mr. 
 Macleod's question still remains unsolved ; it is 
 still just where he took it up. 
 
 The true solution is the one I have given : but 
 it should be recollected that if Mr. Macleod did not 
 answer the question, at least he saw that it ought 
 to be asked, and so far he is a long way ahead 
 of other Economists. Bullion is not debt, and it 
 is the representative of value : it is the vehicle or 
 embodiment of demand. Bullion differs from com- 
 modities in this, that everybody wants bullion, and 
 only some want Commodities. People do not want 
 a promise to pay any particular article of value but 
 value in general: for the former would not be 
 universally taken, not easily disposed of, and so 
 would not be accepted in payment, just because it 
 would suit very few people, comparatively speaking : 
 but bullion suits everybody. Credit is Debt, but 
 it must be debt of the required sort : it must be 
 bullion, i.e. any commodity required, and not one 
 hard and fast particular commodity, that is owing.
 
 224 Body and Soul. 
 
 Here is the fallacy of Law's scheme or any similar 
 scheme of erecting a paper currency on a commodity. 
 And it is obvious that Mr. Macleod has confounded 
 money with the promise to pay it. Money is not 
 Credit : how could it be ? far from it. Money and 
 Credit are identical in function, but essentially dif- 
 ferent in their material nature. They both effect 
 demand. But though they agree in this, they do 
 not agree in all respects ; absolutely, as Aristotle 
 would say Money is no more Credit than sunlight 
 is moonlight. The one stands upon its own legs ; 
 the other upon the first, without which it cannot 
 exist. How can a promise to pay a thing be iden- 
 tical with the thing itself? How can a man lift 
 himself up in the air ? The solution of Mr. 
 Macleod's difficulty is not to be found in the false 
 identification of bullion and paper currency. It lies 
 in the difference between Money and Commodities. 
 And this difference consists in the difference between 
 their functions, and values : between that which all 
 the world wants, and that which only some want. 
 Bullion being the concrete realised embodiment of 
 demand, and commodities being the things de- 
 manded, the moment a commodity is substituted for 
 bullion in the promise to pay, Credit loses its uni- 
 versal quality, and retains only the particular value 
 of the commodity in question. Hence it will no 
 longer perform that function which is its raison 
 d'etre: to perform which it came into existence: 
 i.e. effect demand in all cases. And therefore it 
 must of necessity fail ; issue in panic, disaster, 
 financial ruin. 
 
 The truth is, that the attempt to base Credit upon 
 Commodities essentially involves the negation of
 
 Political Economy. 225 
 
 the very raison d'etre both of Money and Credit : 
 and must therefore of necessity be suicidal. If 
 Money was, as Economists tell us, merely a Com- 
 modity, then no one could ever explain why Credit 
 should not be based upon Commodities other than 
 Money : though in practice this is always found to 
 be impossible. And perfectly truly, for in fact 
 Money is not a Commodity. It is the power of 
 demanding Commodities. Just because it is so, 
 everybody who wants Commodities either to con- 
 sume, or to use as the instruments for producing 
 a further Commodity, must first obtain this power 
 of demand. This is the raison d'etre of Credit. 
 There is not enough metallic Money to accom- 
 modate all producers. Were Money to be confined 
 to the volume of metallic Money, Wealth-creation, 
 in the degree in which it exists and acts at present, 
 could not go on, and consequently immense numbers 
 of people who live by producing would die. Now 
 Banks are simply the instruments for enlarging the 
 volume of Money, by operating Credit. Banks can- 
 not make $ out of ;i ; but by their means >\ 
 does the work of ^5. Banks do not and cannot, 
 except in rare special instances, lend actual Money 
 to borrowers. They ' open Credits ' for them : that 
 is to say, they give them the power of claiming 
 sums of Money. But in ninety-nine cases out of 
 a hundred, this Money is never demanded, so long 
 as the borrower knows that he can have it. He 
 does not take the Money from the Bank. He 
 w r rites a cheque or draft, which is paid in to another 
 Bank, and by a system of cancelling cheques 
 and bills, the great bulk of payments, Banking 
 liabilities, is effected without the actual agency of 
 
 Q
 
 226 Body and Soul. 
 
 Money. Bankers live on averages. They know 
 that not one in a hundred will actually want hard 
 Money : so that they can, relying upon this, accom- 
 modate, say, a hundred people with a loan of ^100, 
 though they may actually possess no more than 
 ;i,ooo. The business being all carried on in 
 Credit, cheques and drafts, every hundred pounds 
 is enabled to do the work of a thousand. The 
 borrowing producers buy their required commodities 
 not with the body but the spirit of Money : with 
 cheques, not coin : bills, not bullion. And this is 
 why so small an amount of bullion can support so 
 vast an amount of producing and trading in Com- 
 modities of all kinds. 
 
 Now any one can see that when this system is 
 established everything depends upon the efficiency 
 and security of Banks. People take cheques, drafts, 
 bills, instead of the actual money, because they 
 believe they could have the gold if they chose. 
 They take the chance of the future, rather than the 
 actuality of the present, because they are confident. 
 But when, from any reason, people doubt the 
 security of Credit, they will not take promises to 
 pay: they will only take pay, the actual cash. 
 It is manifest that the very nature of Banking 
 makes it absolutely impossible for every claimant 
 to get his money, if all claimants ask for it at the 
 same moment. No Bank, however sound, however 
 solvent, could exist for a single day, if all who had 
 claims upon it came in a body and demanded pay- 
 ment at the same moment. For the essence and 
 function of a Bank is to promise money in excess 
 of what it has : to erect upon a basis of Money 
 a superstructure of Credit. The failure of a Bank
 
 Political Economy. 227 
 
 does not by any means necessarily argue that it 
 has been fraudulently managed. Every Bank must 
 fail if all its Creditors come on it at once. If 
 a Bank's reputation is discredited, it can be broken 
 at any moment. No amount of metallic reserves 
 can possibly enable any Bank to pay its liabilities 
 in money. It was never the intention, never within 
 the power, of any Bank to do any such thing. 
 It engages to pay Money, on receipt of securities 
 and deposits that are not Money, and cannot be 
 turned into Money except under favourable circum- 
 stances. It may hold millions of securities, worth 
 ever so much money, and yet be unable to pay 
 a shilling. It calculates that in ordinary times 
 so much Money on an average will be sufficient 
 to meet ordinary demands, and so much it keeps 
 by it : but it cannot possibly keep Money equal 
 to its liabilities. It would not be a Bank if it did : 
 further, it could not, if it would. There is not coin 
 or bullion in the world equal to the liabilities of 
 even English Banks. 
 
 When its trade has once been thoroughly based 
 upon the lending and borrowing of Money, and thus 
 upon the system of Banking and Credit, there could 
 not possibly be a more frightful disaster for a nation 
 than the sudden annihilation of her Credit. It 
 would be national death. All Wealth-creation, for 
 want of the means of demand, would instantly cease. 
 Therefore the most fundamental business of the 
 statesman in such a country should be to see that in 
 the event of panic, temporary loss of confidence 
 in Banks, means should be provided to enable them 
 to tide over the crisis. Now the fundamental error 
 in English financial legislation has been that its 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 Body and Soul. 
 
 authors did not understand this. Sir Robert Peel 
 and his advisers understood nothing about the 
 question. They had not the dimmest conception 
 of the process of Wealth-creation, or the part that 
 Money played in the creation of Wealth. They 
 thought that commodities were bought with com- 
 modities. They did not comprehend the mechanism 
 and function of Banks. They were possessed 
 by a vague and unintelligent fear of paper credit, 
 'over-issues,' and so on: they looked upon paper 
 money as essentially dangerous, doubtful, and mys- 
 terious. When gold left the country, they never 
 imagined it might be going away to pay for com- 
 modities : they looked upon the drain as an infallible 
 sign that our money was depreciated, because they 
 argued that no one would send away gold to pay 
 a debt as long as some other commodity was 
 cheaper : as if a man could pay a debt of pounds by 
 sending soap or candles ! They made it the aim 
 of all their efforts artificially and forcibly to restrict 
 the supply of money available for commerce, never 
 dreaming that they were thus throttling and en- 
 dangering the producing power of the nation. The 
 fact is, that here, as always, Peel was halting be- 
 tween two opinions. Either he ought to have recog- 
 nised that, all trade being carried on by the borrow- 
 ing of Money, the first essential was to secure and 
 ensure that there was enough : or else he ought 
 to have abolished Credit altogether and limited 
 trade to cash payments. This is, in fact, the inner 
 tendency of his legislation. By making Bank-notes 
 increase and decrease with the inflow and outflow 
 of gold Peel showed perfectly clearly that he was 
 totally ignorant of the true function of Money and
 
 Political Economy. 229 
 
 the necessities of trade. It is not only unsound and 
 insecure trade, over-speculating trade, that lives 
 on borrowed money ; it is essential to all trade to 
 do so. No one now-a-days keeps money by him. 
 Everybody rests upon the Banks. The most 
 wealthy trader in the world may be quite unable 
 to pay ten pounds without the assistance of the 
 Bank. And by robbing Credit of its elasticity, 
 reducing its volume to that of gold, raising the 
 interest on borrowed money, and making it legis- 
 latively impossible to get money from the Bank, 
 Peel was in reality cutting at the root of all Wealth- 
 creation. The Bank Charter Act is a monument 
 of ignorance. The man who made that Act wrote 
 himself down as emphatically as ever Dogberry did : 
 he proved in black and white that he was totally 
 ignorant of the whole economical structure of 
 society. Wealth-creation exists by means of Credit 
 facilities : destroy them and you annihilate Wealth, 
 Trade, and Industry. The whole system of Credit 
 is a system of Debts, reposing on a small basis of 
 metallic Money. The Bill whose avowed design 
 and inevitable tendency is to minimise Credit just 
 when it is most required, to confine vast trade 
 operations within the limits of a constantly lessen- 
 ing gold supply : why, the Black Hole of Calcutta 
 was nothing to it. You might as well enact that 
 as the gold left the country, so many tons of 
 machinery should be smashed up by the myrmidons 
 of the law. For the currency of the country is 
 as important as any part of a machine. The whole 
 economical machine, and every machine, works 
 by its means. Viewed economically, society is 
 a vast organ of production ; an immense piece of
 
 230 Body and Soul. 
 
 mechanism pyramidal in form. Every finished 
 commodity becomes in turn the material of some 
 further productive operation. Hence unless at 
 each step the producer is provided with the accepted 
 medium, the vehicle of demand, to enable him 
 to purchase his materials, the whole thing must 
 come to a stand. Money and its reflex, its deputy, 
 Credit, are essential and indispensable agents in the 
 creation of wealth. 
 
 VI. Not understanding this, economical autho- 
 rities fell into hopeless confusion over ' Capital and 
 Currency,' which at this point it is as well to 
 pause over. By Capital all the world means and 
 understands money. This is just what orthodox, 
 Political Economy refused to allow. Capital ac- 
 cording to it was Wealth reproductively employed : 
 but as money was not wealth, so neither could it 
 be Capital. That Currency was not Capital : that 
 Money was a Commodity : that Commodities were 
 Wealth ; and yet that Money was not Wealth : 
 what a confusion ! what miserable contradictory 
 thinking. Here appears a fundamental contradic- 
 tion between the theories of economists and the 
 practice of the world. As usual, it is the theories 
 which are to blame. Nay, they cannot even pre- 
 serve themselves from falling into the practical way 
 of looking at the matter : for when they are not 
 thinking about it, even those economists who most 
 sternly refuse to allow Money to be Capital, never- 
 theless use the term Capital to mean Money. Use 
 and the logic of facts are too strong for their 
 theories : which all arise from a radical confusion 
 and failure to trace with sufficiently strict accuracy 
 the essential notion of Capital.
 
 Political Economy. 23 1 
 
 Capital in its original meaning and raison d'etre 
 is every instrument of production, as distinguished 
 from instruments of action. In early stages of 
 society, when as yet exchange is only embryonic, 
 and Money has not arisen, such instruments are 
 of course procured directly by their employers : 
 axes, food, clothes, and what not. In later stages, 
 when society has been definitely based upon buy- 
 ing and selling, and Money has taken its place 
 as the universal mediator, it becomes impossible 
 to get any instrument of production, except through 
 Money. Hence Money, in itself not a direct in- 
 strument of production at all,, becomes indirectly 
 the instrument par excellence. It monopolises the 
 signification of the term Capital. By its means 
 all other agents are procured. Thus it alone is 
 looked upon as Capital, as the sine qua non: and 
 the Capitalist is the man who has Money. Further, 
 Interest, the correlative term of Capital, is paid 
 upon Money, and upon Money alone. Payments 
 upon other instruments are not called Interest but 
 Rent. To this we shall return. 
 
 That Capital properly means Money is proved 
 not only by the fact of universal use, but also 
 by the fact that the term only makes its appearance 
 concomitantly with the power of Money. Capital 
 is misapplied, when it is applied, as by the Eco- 
 nomists, to early stages of Society. The term 
 which subsequently turns into Capital is Stock. 
 Stock, a word Adam Smith is fond of, is what 
 the Economists mean by Fixed Capital : i.e. Capital 
 which is not purely general and universally appli- 
 cable Circulating Capital or Money : but Capital 
 fixed in one form. Capital, used absolutely, with-
 
 232 Body and Soul. 
 
 out any qualifying epithet, now means Money. 
 There 'is of course a border-land where the mean- 
 ings of ' Stock ' and ' Money ' shade off into one 
 another. But the popular meaning of Capital is 
 Money, and there never would have been such 
 terrible confusion in Economics, had economists 
 attended carefully to terminology, and not used 
 words of ordinary acceptation in peculiar arbitrary 
 meanings. There is always a reason why, in 
 popular language ; always a true apperfu in or- 
 dinary terminology. The true meaning of Capital 
 is Money, regarded as the indispensable instrument, 
 without which no produce can be produced. And 
 when a man has converted his Money into any 
 particular form of Wealth, any particular instru- 
 ments of production, he is said to have sunk his 
 Capital in them. He has risked it, by changing 
 its form, from the pure generalised expression of 
 value and demand, from the pure general instru- 
 ment of production, into an actual definite form : 
 and so it must stay. Now he must make Money 
 with it, not by lending it, but using it. Now he 
 will not get Interest, but Profit. For the Capitalist 
 makes his Interest by parting with his Capital : 
 but the Entrepreneur makes his Profit by keeping 
 and using his Fixed Capital, not Capital absolutely. 
 Now, all this will help us to clear up another 
 difficulty in Economics, due to a want of com- 
 prehension of the term Capital. Capital, we have 
 always been told, is the result of saving. How, 
 then, in the first place, if this is so, do not Eco- 
 nomists see that Capital must mean money ? For 
 how is it possible to save Wealth, Commodities, 
 to any appreciable degree ? how can anything
 
 Political Economy. 233 
 
 be saved except Money ? who can save perishable 
 and bulky, troublesome commodities ? And where 
 is the motive to save Commodities all of one kind ? 
 Any one can see at a glance that the motive for 
 saving and accumulation begins with Money : with 
 the possibility of accumulating a thing which is 
 not corruptible, not anything definite, which does 
 not lose value by time, but will in the future retain 
 all its power, being merely a concentrated essence 
 of desire. To save Money, and Money alone, is 
 to lay up power, the power of doing and getting 
 what you please. Thus we find the accumulation 
 of Wealth, and Money, making their appearance 
 together, for the two are in reality inseparably 
 connected. The economists, then, who tell us that 
 Capital is the result of saving, ought consistently 
 to have maintained that Money is Capital, for it 
 is a corollary of their proposition. But they did 
 exactly the opposite. 
 
 There is, however, more behind. The thesis, 
 that Capital is the result of saving, is only a very 
 small part of the whole truth. It is true enough 
 that saving will accumulate, and that ' savings ' are 
 in a way already Capital. But this is a trifling 
 matter : that Capital which was only the result of 
 saving would be a small and insignificant affair. 
 In fact, the doctrine only shows how totally those 
 who maintained it failed to understand their giant 
 subject. I do not refer here to what has been 
 pointed out as an ironical criticism of the doctrine : 
 viz. that great fortunes have been made by means 
 very different from that of saving : that the spolia- 
 tion of the Abbey Lands, at the Reformation, the 
 swindling sale of Church Lands, in the Revolution,
 
 234 Body and Soul. 
 
 bribery and corruption, gambling on 'Change and 
 so forth, have been the methods by which Capital 
 has been accumulated. These things are true 
 enough : but they are abuses and, scientifically 
 speaking, accidents ; and we must not press acci- 
 dents into the service of economical science. But 
 I refer here to the essential mechanism of economical 
 production itself: which is so radically misunder- 
 stood by these economists. It is not a merely 
 negative saving, that will account for the facts : it 
 is a positive cause which generates Capital. The 
 secret lies in the play of Banking. 
 
 Through the agency of Banking, a certain sum 
 of money, say ,1,000, is made to perform the 
 function of ,10,000. Now, suppose that ten men 
 borrow .1,000 from the Bank, engage in trade, 
 succeed, repay the Bank. Here are ten men using 
 the same .1,000, by means of Credit, to produce 
 wealth. Ten men are enabled to purchase their 
 instruments and employ the required service, by 
 the agency of Banks, where only one could have 
 done so before. It is, therefore, not saving but 
 Banking, which provides the means, generates 
 Capital, and promotes the production of Com- 
 modities. It is Banking which enables men to 
 get the means of producing, and thus creates the 
 demand for commodities and services of all kinds. 
 It sets the Idea to work upon Material. Wealth 
 can only make its appearance when it is called for, 
 or demanded. Without money, men cannot ask for 
 it. This is what Law meant, when he said that all 
 Scotland wanted to get on was more money. He 
 was perfectly right, and his prediction was verified, 
 as all the world knows, by the Banks started in
 
 Political Economy. 235 
 
 Scotland, and the system of Cash Credits. Yet 
 just because they could not understand the mechan- 
 ism of production and the function of Banking, 
 economists and historians have always loaded Law 
 with their ignorant abuse. Even Mr. Macleod, 
 who knows all about Cash Credits, and enlarges 
 on their merits, and the benefit they have conferred 
 on Scotland, most strangely fails to understand how 
 right Law was in this respect. His errors we have 
 already dealt with. But what are we to say to the 
 fact that Ricardo, the prime cause of all the ridicu- 
 lous financial legislation of this century, when he 
 was asked by the Lords' Committee in 1819 : ' Do 
 ' you not know that when there is a great demand 
 ' for manufactures, the very Credit which that circum- 
 1 stance creates enables the manufacturer to make 
 ' a more extended use of his Capital in the pro- 
 ' duction of manufactures ? ' actually replied : ' / 
 ' have no notion of Credit being at all effectual in 
 ' the production of commodities : commodities can 
 ' only be produced by labour, machinery, and raw 
 ' materials, and if these are to be employed in one 
 ' place, they must necessarily be withdrawn from 
 ' another.' And can there, then, be no more made ? 
 Then being still further asked whether Credit might 
 not be efficacious in creating an additional quantity 
 of machinery or raw materials, Ricardo answered: 
 1 Impossible : an individual can purchase machinery, 
 ' &c., with Credit: he never can create them" 1 .' 
 Observe the blank, hopeless, incurable idiocy of 
 the man : his absolute incapacity of seeing the 
 obvious points : yet this inconceivable blockhead 
 
 ^ McCulloch's Edition of Adam Smith, p. 530.
 
 236 Body and Soul. 
 
 has been held to be a great authority on questions, 
 of which he could not so much as master the 
 simplest preliminaries. Labour, machinery, and 
 raw materials, forsooth ! why, what sets these to 
 work? what, but the demand for commodities. 
 And how can the demand act, without Money or 
 Credit ? To such preposterous incapables can men 
 attribute great economical genius. 
 
 The Wage Fund theory, now abandoned, yet 
 both held and abandoned for equally fallacious 
 reasons, is merely another case of the failure of 
 orthodox Economists to understand Capital. When 
 men can get money to employ labour, they will do 
 so, provided they see their way to profitable enter- 
 prise : and being thus provided with employment 
 and money the labourer will purchase commodities 
 for himself. The whole thing rests on the possi- 
 bility, through the agency of Banking and Credit, 
 of anticipating the future. The failure to com- 
 prehend the operation of money, and the way it 
 acts under a system of Banking, is the cause of the 
 ridiculous Wage Fund Theory : a theory which 
 rests, too, on a statical conception of Society and 
 Wealth- creation, and a complete misappreciation 
 of the continuity of processes in the dynamical 
 alembic of a complicated industrial system. Wealth 
 is not made by fits and starts and jerks : its crea- 
 tion is not discrete, but continuous : and this con- 
 tinuity rests upon the foresight of what is coming. 
 If merchants foresee a large demand, they will 
 produce to meet it : and the possibility of this, the 
 point of connection between past and future, the 
 nodus of the whole question, is Credit and Banking. 
 If it were not for these, the Wage Fund Theory
 
 Political Economy. 237 
 
 would be true. It is just precisely the possibility 
 of anticipating, through the agency of Banks, which 
 gets over the limitation of Capital paying wages to 
 a past accumulated Fund, and enables it to increase 
 and expand up to any limit guaranteed by future 
 prospects and the calculation of coming Demand. 
 The money which production works with is not 
 the accumulation of the past, but the creation of 
 Banks, resting on the confident expectation of the 
 future. Hence, through Banking, the Wage Fund 
 is really conditioned by the Demand for Commo- 
 dities ; the exact antithesis of the old dogma, that 
 a demand for commodities is not a demand for 
 labour. That dogma conclusively proves that its 
 disciples did not understand Credit and Banking. 
 It was either a transparent and most miserable 
 truism, or a radical and vicious error n . 
 
 Similarly, it is nothing but the fundamentally 
 erroneous conception of Money, Credit, Capital, 
 and Currency prevailing in Economic Dogma 
 which lies at the heart of the financial difficulty 
 now puzzling the world, and the ' still vexed Ber- 
 moothes,' Bimetallism. Acting on the theory 
 that commodities are purchased with commodities ; 
 
 n A concise epitome of the true origin and sources of Capital 
 will enable the reader to understand clearly what is said in 
 the text. The economic dogma, that all Capital is the result of 
 saving, is only a mere fragment of the truth. Not all, but only 
 some, Capital is the result of saving. All Capital is the result 
 of either i. Saving; or 2. Banking, as shown in the text; or 
 3. Profitable enterprise ; that is to say, that where demand 
 for any commodity is very great, the producer may realise 
 thousands over and above his expenses : and this becomes 
 Capital, but is the result, not of saving, but of making.
 
 238 Body and Soul. 
 
 that money is a commodity ; that it makes no 
 difference how much or little of it there is : acting, 
 that is to say, on a total and criminal ignorance 
 of the true functions of Money and Credit in 
 Wealth-creation, the financial legislation of 1819, 
 1844, 1872, and onwards, has all tended to mini- 
 mise and restrict the supply of money, and thus 
 strangle and stifle the creation of wealth . It will 
 not be long before the world awakes from this 
 fatal delusion and rectifies its conception of the 
 authors of those tragic farces, the single gold 
 standard, and the Bank Charter Act : which have 
 proved fatal to thousands of excellent families and 
 sound commercial houses in this nineteenth cen- 
 tury, which has in so many directions plumed 
 itself upon superior lights when it was only pre- 
 sumptuously silly. 
 
 Socialism again is based, qua economical, on just 
 this radical economic error. It entirely fails to 
 understand the mechanism of Wealth-creation. It 
 takes from Political Economy its capital : its stock- 
 in-trade : the argument, Labour makes Wealth. 
 Therefore, argues the Socialist, labour should take 
 what it makes. Unfortunately, the thesis is falla- 
 cious. Labour does not make Wealth. On this 
 point I may refer the reader to my book on The 
 Principle of Wealth Creation. Yet orthodox Poli- 
 tical Economy has nothing to answer to Socialism : 
 for it is based upon her own premises. But we, 
 who have thoroughly analysed the process of 
 Wealth-creation, can not only answer, but weigh 
 
 I have fully exposed the fallacy of the single gold standard 
 in a little book entitled The Corner in Gold (Parker\ to which 
 accordingly I refer the reader.
 
 Political Economy. 239 
 
 Socialism in the balance and find it wanting. 
 Wealth is made not by labour, but by material, 
 science, labour, and demand. This demand de- 
 pends upon Money, Credit, and Banking, and so 
 again, material, labour, and science essentially de- 
 pend upon demand, both potential and actual, and 
 upon each other. The evolution of all these factors 
 essentially produces, and involves, society just as 
 we see it : a society highly differentiated in all 
 its parts. The structure is made by its functions. 
 The Wealth created essentially follows and shadows 
 the nature of its Creator : and operari sequitur esse. 
 The great and varied production of Wealth is 
 determined by and involves a great diversity and 
 inequality of human characters. A vast system 
 of Wealth-creation is impossible in a state whose 
 members are all alike : and the more alike they 
 are, the less can Wealth be in amount. Accord- 
 ingly, in vainly attempting to keep the Wealth, 
 and yet get rid of that which is its raison d'etre, 
 in attempting to unify Society more than is possible 
 or expedient, the Socialists are really betraying 
 their own hopeless incompetence to deal with the 
 problem. They are like men who should attempt 
 to get rid of the sun and still think to preserve 
 its heat and light : like men who should en- 
 deavour to abolish the realities, never conceiving 
 that their reflections in the water would vanish 
 at the same moment. For the production of the 
 World dogs its action more unerringly than ever 
 sleuth-hound did : men make what they make 
 because they are what they are and do what they 
 do. The work of the world is determined by its 
 play : its industry by its leisure : and the old
 
 240 Body and Soul. 
 
 mysterious Etruscans knew more than the Socialists, 
 when they allegorised the greatest truth in human 
 knowledge, that Function makes Structure, by 
 representing a butterfly drawn in a car by two 
 industrious ants. Man makes his instruments to 
 serve his ends. Wealth is a vast accumulation of 
 instruments, for production and action : how can 
 you have the instruments and the production with- 
 out the action ? the Structure without the Func- 
 tion ? the umbrella or the parasol without the rain 
 or the sun ? It is function which is the creative 
 soul of the world. 
 
 VII. And now, having gained an insight into 
 the essential mechanism of the Principle of Creation, 
 the law that function makes structure, as exhibited 
 in the sphere of common or general needs, Eco- 
 nomics : before turning to the consideration of the 
 same Principle in the sphere of special needs, 
 or ^Esthetics, a few words are necessary upon the 
 distribution of Wealth. As I have treated this 
 with sufficient detail in the companion volume to 
 this book, and as further, distribution is not the 
 question with which we are here essentially con- 
 cerned, I shall only pause here to examine one 
 point in that problem, that of Interest; partly 
 because it is essentially connected with Capital : 
 partly because it illustrates admirably the thesis 
 of this book : partly because I omitted to notice 
 in The Principle of Wealth Creation the particular 
 point to which I wish to draw attention here. 
 On Distribution in general I shall only say here, 
 that being essentially conditioned by and wrapped 
 up in Creation, it is quite impossible to treat it 
 adequately, until the creation of Wealth and its
 
 Political Economy. 24 1 
 
 mechanism are fully understood. Wealth is dis- 
 tributed in and by the process of Creation. Every 
 one who shares in production naturally tries to get 
 as large a share as he can, and in general it is the 
 amount of the need felt for his contribution to the 
 product which determines his share : as Aristotle 
 puts it, the division of Wealth will be based on 
 the relative proportions contributed by the common 
 producers to the result : the violation of this pro- 
 portion being injustice. And yet more; any 
 attempt to violate this proportion, this analogical 
 distributive justice, will only prove detrimental to 
 production altogether. An arbitrary system which 
 attempts to make the rewards ' equitable,' not 
 according to the necessities inherent in things, but 
 according to a harmonic theoretical ideal : e.g. which 
 attempts to disregard special qualifications and 
 endowments and reduce all contributors to the 
 level of their ' common humanity,' is bound to de- 
 stroy its own end, by stopping creation. You cannot 
 buy genius for the price of common minds. If the 
 honours and rewards are the same for all, there 
 will be no energy. Napoleon will not serve for the 
 pay of a common soldier : a Christopher Wren will 
 not be attracted to architecture by the prospect 
 of ranking with a mason or bricklayer : and so on. 
 Equality kills genius and originality, initiative 
 and enterprise : and the justice which is the bond 
 of society is not a Procrustean Platonic absolute 
 dead-level arithmetical equality, but a free and 
 spontaneous organic Aristotelian proportional 
 equality. What annihilates States, as Aristotle 
 admirably says, is just the sophistical misuse of this 
 term equality. Persons equal in some respects 
 
 R
 
 242 Body and Soul. 
 
 demand equality in all : and persons unequal in 
 some respects demand inequality in all. Both claim 
 more than their due. 
 
 Those who share in production and get a share 
 in the product, to enumerate them, are the Landlord 
 with his Rent, the Capitalist with his Interest, the 
 Labourer with his Wages, the Entrepreneur with 
 his Profits, the Tradesman, Merchant or Trans- 
 port Agent, with his Price, the Inventor or Patentee 
 with his Royalty) the State with its Taxes, and 
 other indefinable variations on these great typical 
 contributors. All these various shares are cases 
 of value : and the man who has correctly analysed 
 value has no difficulty in determining whatever 
 scientific element there may be in these various 
 shares. In all cases alike it holds that the Value, 
 whether it be Rent or Interest, Wages or Profits, 
 Price or Reward, is a resultant of the relation 
 between the Qualities of the Thing valued and the 
 Needs of the Valuer, in comparison with his need 
 for what he has to give for it ; that is, his command 
 over money. I shall here confine myself to an 
 analysis of what we may call the ANTINOMY of 
 Interest. 
 
 VIII. Interest is of course the sum of money, 
 a percentage given for the use of money : hence 
 its name usura, usury, interest. As all the world 
 knows, it is only in comparatively recent .times that 
 public opinion and law have ceased to condemn the 
 practice of usury : and in fact, although the law has 
 removed its prohibition, public opinion still retains 
 its old impression. A certain doubtful aroma still 
 hangs over the conception of Interest, still more of 
 Usury there is, as it were, a cloud over its exist-
 
 Political Economy. 243 
 
 ence. All this only finds its explanation histo- 
 rically. From the earliest times usury has been 
 condemned, and the animus against it played a 
 large part both in Greek and Roman History. 
 The earliest and greatest of all economists, Aristotle, 
 disliked and condemned it on philosophical grounds. 
 The production and provision of Wealth to minister 
 directly to needs, he called natural : but the pro- 
 duction of commodities for the sake of gaining 
 money by their exchange he considered to be a 
 distortion of the true end ; something unnatural. 
 Accordingly he condemned the making of money 
 by trade. ' To provide oneself with wealth, from 
 ' fruits and herds, is natural to all men. But this 
 ' act being, as I said, divisible into two provinces, 
 ' trading for money and economy proper, and the 
 4 latter being necessary and laudable, the former, 
 ' commercial exchange, being rightly condemned, 
 ' since it is not natural, but based upon mutual 
 ' over-reaching petty usury is most justly abhorred, 
 ' because the gain arises from the money itself, and 
 ' this is not the function money ought to perform : 
 ' for the cause of its origin was the need for facilitat- 
 ' ing exchange : whereas lending at interest makes 
 ' it more : whence it gets its name : for interest is 
 4 the offspring of money ' (there is here an un- 
 translateable play upon the word), 'so that this 
 ' sort of wealth-creation is of all the most contrary to 
 ' nature.' And a little before this passage he ex- 
 plains the ground of his dislike still more clearly : 
 viz. that commerce seizes all the arts, and turns 
 them into tools for making money : thus degrading 
 them and subordinating their true function to 
 money getting : substituting their ' venality ' for 
 
 R 2
 
 244 Body and Soul. 
 
 intrinsic worth, as the basis of their estimation and 
 their raison d'etre. 
 
 There was a true insight lying at the bottom of 
 Aristotle's criticism here, as I shall show in the next 
 Book : and those who puff aside Aristotle with an 
 air of cheap wisdom only show that genius sees 
 further than its critics : indeed the prophetic genius 
 of Aristotle was all the more remarkable in that 
 the truth in his criticism foresaw and anticipated 
 a solution which was less obvious then than it is 
 now. But to continue. The Fathers of the Church 
 carried on this view, not merely following Aristotle, 
 but also the moral code of Christianity : indeed, 
 both Old and New Testaments agree in condemn- 
 
 o 
 
 ing on different grounds however the practice 
 of usury and money lending. ' The prohibition of 
 1 usury is indeed, as Roscher says, the centre of 
 ' the whole canonistic system of economy p . f The 
 Angelic Doctor, S. Thomas Aquinas, ' the Aristotle 
 ' of the Middle Ages,' as Michelet calls him, argued 
 elaborately against it, and his authority was followed, 
 not merely for its own sake, but because it was in 
 harmony with public opinion. Calvin was the 
 first theologian to take the opposite side : a sig- 
 nificant fact, indeed. To oppose Catholicism and 
 Aristotle in all matters was a general maxim of 
 Reformers : moreover Protestantism, in one aspect, 
 is essentially a time-serving religion : it had to 
 make its formulae suit the material ends of those 
 who took it up. Further, the economical develop- 
 ment of society was undermining the ideas on 
 which the whole condemnation rested. Gradually 
 
 P Ingram, Hist, of Pol. Econ., p. 28.
 
 Political Economy. 245 
 
 necessity carried the day : though the legal con- 
 demnation of interest died hard ; and indeed, in 
 a sense, is not dead yet. 
 
 When a particular and possibly paradoxical view 
 maintains itself with indomitable tenacity through 
 long ages, and carries the votes of genius of the 
 first order, no less than that of common men, there 
 must be a reason for it Here, as always, the shallow, 
 impertinent rationalism of orthodox Political Eco- 
 nomy only displays its own original and native 
 incapacity, in its absolute condemnation and de- 
 nunciation of Interest in earlier ages, and the airs 
 of superior lights which it puts on when discussing 
 the ' errors ' of its poor benighted fathers. Here, as 
 always, structure finds its explanation in function. 
 And in order to make the point clear I shall take 
 the liberty of borrowing an illustration from the 
 admirable book of Dr. Cunningham on the Growth 
 of English Industry and Commerce, a work which 
 stands in marked contrast with the theoretical rub- 
 bish-heap of Political Economy, being based through- 
 out on the solid and fruitful ground of interpreting 
 ideas by their conditions. 
 
 In January 1377, Ralph Cornwaille, of Broad 
 Street, complained to the Mayor and Aldermen of 
 the City of London. He had borrowed 10 from 
 Walter Southous, giving security for the repayment 
 of the debt, and giving still further security by get- 
 ting his friend John Tettesbury to stand behind 
 him. At the time of repayment, he tendered the 
 ,10, but the unconscionable Walter Southous 
 refused to receive it, ' persisted in his demand for 
 ' 2 more, and sued Ralph before the Sheriff to his 
 ' great wrong and damage.' Accordingly, Ralph
 
 246 Body and Soul. 
 
 complained. ' The wrong that rankled in his mind 
 'was not that the interest was extortionate, but that 
 1 he was called upon to pay interest at all, to return 
 ' anything more than he had received ; and his view 
 ' of the case was fully endorsed by the City author- 
 ' ities before whom the matter was reopened.' 
 Ralph Cornwaille was declared free from all obli- 
 gations in connexion with the debt, and Walter 
 Southous was condemned to ' be imprisoned till he 
 ' had made over double the 2 which he had tried 
 ' to get by usury as a forfeit to the City of London.' 
 This will enable us to understand the force of the 
 odium against the Jews, who existed by usury ; as 
 indeed they were prevented from existing by any 
 other means. 
 
 What a different view is here from that of modern 
 men ! Dr. Cunningham says on the point : ' Walter 
 ' Southous demanded full security that the money 
 
 * should be repaid at a definite date, and there his 
 ' conduct met with full approval from city men at the 
 ' time. He was perfectly justified in seeing that the 
 ' money was fully secured. But when he went 
 ' further than this, and charged for the use of the 
 
 * money, public opinion did not support him. 
 ' Why should he, his money being safe, be repaid 
 ' for an action that involved no risk and no priva- 
 ' tion ? ' [These fourteenth-century men had never 
 heard of the great economical truth, Capital is 
 Abstinence, and Interest its Reward.] ' Of course, 
 ' if there was risk, or if the borrower "broke day" 
 ' and caused inconvenience, there was a reason for 
 ' making a charge ; but where, as here, there was 
 ' no risk and no real privation, there was as men 
 ' thought no justification for taking usury, or interest
 
 Political Economy. 247 
 
 ' as it is more commonly called in the present day. 
 ' " No risk, no gain" was their maxim of lawful 
 'traffic.' 
 
 So far Dr. Cunningham q ; and let us now see 
 whether we cannot carry the analysis still further, 
 and lay bare the essential antagonism in the two 
 views still more completely. 
 
 On the one side it is obvious that the system of 
 money-lending leads to a general state of things, in 
 which the lender or usurer reaps profit without any 
 risk, trouble, or exertion of any kind of his own. 
 This is the moral point of view from which those 
 who condemned and who condemn Interest look at 
 it. And who can blame them ? Does it not seem 
 hard that some men should sit still, and yet share 
 in the gains accruing from the risks undergone, the 
 labour, energy, prudence and invention exhibited 
 and expended, by others ? It goes without saying 
 that we have here a fact contradicting the moral 
 sense and conscience of every man who has got 
 one. 
 
 And yet on the other hand it is most unquestion- 
 ably true that the endeavour to remedy this state 
 of things from the moral point of view alone would 
 be most disastrous to the welfare of the world : and 
 this is just what gives the question its absorbing 
 interest and political importance. For however 
 hard the thing may seem, nevertheless, if those 
 who actually do the work and take the risk could 
 get no money, they could produce nothing ; they 
 could take no risk and do no work, and could 
 neither make Wealth nor any gain for themselves. 
 
 i Cunningham, /.r., vol. i., p. 325, sqq.
 
 248 Body and Soul. 
 
 It is therefore obvious that it is a good thing for 
 them to pay interest. The tax paid to the holder 
 of money is the essential condition of their pro- 
 duction. Now suppose that it were forbidden by 
 law to lend money at interest. It is perfectly clear 
 that not one man in a thousand will lend money 
 for nothing. Accordingly, if the law is kept, 
 Wealth-creation will stop : if it is broken, that is 
 itself a great evil ; and further defeats the end 
 aimed at : nay more, it will tend to make Interest 
 higher than it would otherwise have been : for 
 men who break the law run a great risk, and must 
 insure heavily against the chance of detection. 
 
 Let the reader reflect upon this, for, by heaven 
 and earth, it is worth his while. Let him meditate 
 over this economical ANTINOMY which is not, like 
 the Kantian antinomies, a palpable fallacy, but 
 a fact till he sees how both sides of the question 
 have truth on their side. It will teach him what 
 value to place upon the superficial condemna- 
 tions uttered by theoretic writers upon points of 
 view opposed to their own. It will enable him to 
 bring home to himself the futility of demagogues, 
 whose whole stock in trade consists of moral plati- 
 tudes. It will teach him to appreciate statesmen 
 whom perhaps he formerly misinterpreted and 
 depreciated, statesmen whose insight into social 
 evils is not more apparent than their apparently 
 inexplicable refusal to adopt moral or political 
 remedies. For statesmanship, like other things, is 
 determined by its function, and no statesman can 
 be correctly judged by any one who has not 
 mastered the preliminary condition, which de- 
 termines all a statesman's views : who has not fully
 
 Political Economy. 249 
 
 grasped the portentous fact, that evil is the nega- 
 tive condition of good ; and who has not seen 
 and savoured the wisdom of the old dark saying 
 that the tares must grow up with the wheat. He 
 who has not merely noted but felt this, and he 
 .alone, is on the road to political wisdom : wisdom, 
 justified of her children, and accordingly reviled by 
 the time-serving incapables and moral pedants who 
 have borrowed the feathers, aped the functions, 
 and degraded the epithet of statesmen in this age 
 of sophisms and sentimentalisms and shams. For 
 all things are defined by their work, and their 
 capacity of doing that work. We must not allow 
 ourselves to be deluded by words. Time was 
 when a statesman meant one who understood the 
 state and its necessities : but we have changed all 
 that. The modern Statesman does not require 
 either diplomatic finesse, or social insight, or finan- 
 cial sagacity, or patriotic sympathy : these things 
 are by no means the essential. If then we enquire 
 what is the true function and capacity of the states- 
 man now-a-days, we find that a statesman is one 
 who has the capacity of catching the votes of the 
 vulgar: and for this nothing is required but the 
 combination of vulgar prejudices with glib loqua- 
 city. Anything further than this is likely to 
 interfere with the true end of statesmanship. And 
 the reader should observe, that this is not an 
 epigram : it is merely an analytical definition, 
 which he can verify for himself by turning to the 
 newspaper.
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 ESTHETICS, OR THE WORK OF ART. THE PRINCIPLE 
 WORKING IN THE PECULIAR OR PERSONAL 
 SPHERE. 
 
 i] jap x^'p opyavdv ta-nv opyavtav KO.\ & vovs Se, eTSos flSuv' 
 S, flSos aiV^Tjrw^. 
 
 De Anima, iii. 8.
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 AESTHETICS, OR THE WORK OF ART. THE PRINCIPLE 
 WORKING IN THE PECULIAR OR PERSONAL 
 SPHERE. 
 
 I. HITHERTO we have considered the working 
 
 o 
 
 of the Principle of Creation in Society only in the 
 sphere of common or general needs : we have now 
 to examine it, and discover the peculiar nature 
 of its operation in another sphere. We have in- 
 vestigated the Commodity : we turn now to the 
 Work of Art. It is true that works of art may 
 be and often are commodities. Yet none the less 
 is there, as we shall see, a most essential distinction 
 between them. A work of art is or should be 
 only accidentally a commodity, and wherever cir- 
 cumstances compel Nature, and forcibly turn this 
 accidental relation into an essential one, the de- 
 gradation of art is the inevitable result. Works 
 of art have laws of their own, and refuse to obey 
 the laws of ordinary commodities, except at the 
 price of degeneracy. But for all that, works of 
 art are Wealth as much as, and many will say 
 far more than, any commodity. And indeed, it 
 is not only astonishing in itself, but a proof of 
 the very fragmentary and incomplete way in which 
 the subject of Wealth-creation has been conceived 
 and handled, that the subject of art has been so
 
 254 Body and Soul. 
 
 totally omitted. Not without reason have Adam 
 Smith and his followers been accused of Philis- 
 tinism : one might know their works by heart, 
 yet never dream that works of art formed any 
 part of the wealth of man. But that man shall 
 not live by bread alone, contains more truth than 
 is dreamt of in the philosophy of orthodox Political 
 Economy. And this weak point in their enquiries 
 appears in a still more glaring light in Socialistic 
 theory and propaganda. When Bazaroff, in ' Fa- 
 thers and Sons/ lays it down that a good chemist 
 is twenty times more useful than any poet, and 
 declares that Raphael is not, in his opinion, worth 
 two kopeks: when the old Liberal Idealist in 
 ' Demons ' finds himself hooted as behind the 
 times by an audience of ' advanced opinions ' for 
 asserting that Pushkin is worth more than a pair 
 of boots : these are but truthful pictures of the 
 Socialist tendency, already latent in orthodox eco- 
 nomy, to disparage all but mere manual labour 
 and creature comforts : a reductio ad absurdum and 
 an exposure of the radical deficiencies of a Political 
 Economy which has omitted from consideration 
 a whole side of wealth : the only side which en- 
 titles humanity to hold up its head and plume 
 itself on its attainments. Strike out the pro- 
 ductions of genius from the sum total of Wealth, 
 and what have you left worthy of attentive con- 
 sideration ? Are the statues and the temples of 
 the Greeks, the castles and the cathedrals of the 
 Goths, the painting of the Italians, the music of 
 the Germans, the literature and philosophies of 
 all countries and ages, of no value ; no part of 
 wealth ? Yet where is the orthodox economist who
 
 Aesthetics. 255 
 
 has given to them a moment's consideration ? And 
 if a ' science ' of wealth leaves them out, leaves 
 out, that is to say, all its best part, what are we 
 to think of its critical acumen, or its conception 
 of its field ? Why, it is just the apathetic and 
 material deadness to this side of the subject which 
 has impressed upon economical literature that 
 essentially low and soulless shop-keeperish view 
 of life, which cannot fail to strike and revolt any 
 one capable of appreciating the genuine worth of 
 things, who looks however superficially into the 
 subject. It is this lack of any reckoning with the 
 moral and aesthetic side of humanity in Political 
 Economy which lies at the bottom of the diatribes 
 of Carlyle, Ruskin, Kingsley, and similar thinkers, 
 against the dismal science : and though there was 
 in what they said much of impatient and irritating 
 want of logic, there was also much of truth, and 
 that of the deepest ; a treasure entirely overlooked 
 by people like Ricardo, J. S. Mill and their com- 
 mentators. So did the cock in the fable sapiently 
 reject the pearl of great price which he came upon 
 while scratching his dunghill for his commodities. 
 
 With works of art, no less than commodities, 
 the same principle holds that structure is deter- 
 mined by its creative function. But the difference 
 between them lies in this, that their functions are 
 different in kind. Both are called into existence 
 by demand. But the demand which summons the 
 commodity into life and being is merely the general 
 or average demand of the ordinary man, the de- 
 mand of the Many : the demand which creates the 
 work of art is on the contrary that of the special 
 man, the demand of the One.
 
 256 Body and Soul. 
 
 Every commodity is essentially a time-server. 
 The condition of its existence is that it shall, like 
 Pilate, please the multitude. Thus its production 
 must of necessity be determined by and follow 
 closely the pleasure of the million. Here, numbers 
 carry the day. That commodity best survives in 
 the struggle for existence which appeals to the 
 larger number. It obliterates its competitors. 
 The great evolutionary principle of the extinction 
 of minorities comes into play. (Origin of Species, 
 p. 126.) Rare species, says the Oracle, will 
 be beaten by the commoner species. Here then 
 appears the deep gulf between the commodity 
 and the work of art. The commodity aims at 
 the fittest : the work of art at the best. From 
 this peculiarity flow all the disadvantages which 
 reason, history, and experience prove to hold in the 
 case of the artist. 
 
 The Commodity is unscrupulous, ready, versatile: 
 does not set itself up, is not proud ; has not a stiff 
 neck. It fawns and cringes to its circumstances. 
 It aims at serving everybody, and being all things 
 to all men. It is hail fellow, well met, with the 
 world. It makes no pretence of being better than 
 its neighbours. It is ready and willing to be a tool 
 in anybody's hands. It adopts all colours, all 
 shades of religious or political opinion, with callous 
 egoistic indifference. Aristippus-wise, it yields to 
 all contingencies. It subordinates all things to the 
 preservation of its own existence. It has no prin- 
 ciples. To all who enquire of it respecting these, 
 it replies in the words of Artemus Ward : '/ haint 
 got cnny, not a prinscrpul. Fine in the show 
 bizncss.' Hence, as it is so universally democratic,
 
 ^Esthetics. 257 
 
 obliging, obsequious and convenient, everybody 
 likes it. It never attempts to blame or criticise 
 the world, but pays it that greatest of all com- 
 pliments, imitation : it dresses itself a la mode, 
 adopts any fashion which the world enjoins. It 
 shadows and reflects as in a mirror, and even 
 hastens to anticipate, every desire that men can ex- 
 press. The world feels for it that agreeable sympathy 
 existing between partners in crime. In the presence 
 of the Commodity, it feels quite at its ease. 
 
 But the Work of Art, how different from this ! 
 Proud, cold, exclusive, critical, fastidious, impatient, 
 imperious, autocratic : essentially aristocratic : turn- 
 ing away with ineffable disdain from the many, 
 expressing even by its silence its inexhaustible 
 contempt for the vulgar : currying no favour : seek- 
 ing to please no one, to serve no one, but its own 
 ideal : self-centred : capable of breaking but not 
 bending : absolutely useless for all common purposes: 
 nay, worse than useless, according to the old Italian 
 proverb : tanto buon che val niente : in whose 
 presence the world feels ashamed as of one who 
 is a silent and eternal condemnation of itself: 
 refusing to bow the knee to ordinary laws, customs, 
 prejudices, manners : refusing to admit the division 
 of labour, and to be produced, like the Commodity, 
 by the combination of many workmen : going its 
 own way and perishing in its obstinacy rather than 
 abate one jot of its pretensions : like the old Roman 
 senator, sitting silent in his irony, and regardless 
 of consequences, preferring death to dishonour, 
 smiting the irreverent .Gaul who took him by the 
 beard : constant as Julius Caesar, or the Polar Star, 
 to its own law : awakening in all lower natures the 
 
 s
 
 258 Body and Sou/. 
 
 superlatively exasperating sense of inferiority, and 
 the still more exasperating sense of an unfathomable, 
 indefinable, impassable gulf dividing them : patient 
 and suffering, calm, nay, ironical, flippant, sarcastic, 
 crushing down with superhuman energy the fiery 
 tumult of passionate rage and despair into the 
 bottom of its heart : master of itself : fearing one 
 thing only, lest it should contaminate the purity 
 of its ideal by being betrayed into any expression 
 of weakness before its eternal lynx-eyed enemy, the 
 malignity of the common herd : how can the Work 
 of Art complain, if its punishment is as terrible 
 as its consciousness of immeasurable superiority 
 is sublime. It will not fall down and worship 
 Satan ; nay, it is superior to virtue, reckless of 
 happiness : and therefore bitter is the pang. 
 Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Golgotha 
 and Gethsemane, and the terrible loneliness and 
 what is the reward ? Will the poor and tardy 
 applause of the undiscerning vulgar, whose praise 
 is perhaps still more unutterably loathsome than 
 its blame, make up to the genius for his horrible 
 torture, when he finds himself alive in a world 
 of dead ? Could the everlasting fame which now 
 glorifies the name of Shakspeare, even if he could 
 hear it, rolled round as he is with rocks and trees 
 and stones, make up to him for the insufferable 
 patronage of this or that noble lord in his own day ! 
 Could the roar of the excited crowd that welcomed 
 Lord Beaconsfield home from Berlin console him 
 for the years of agony during which, to use his own 
 terrible simile : ' IT SEEMED TO ME THAT I WAS 
 
 ' POURING WATER UPON SAND, BUT IT SEEMS NOW THAT 
 ' THE WATER CAME FROM A GOLDEN GOBLET ? ' Could
 
 ^Esthetics. 259 
 
 the noise of the populace who read his novels fill 
 the hole in the heart of Sir Walter Scott, which his 
 inexhaustible strength led him so entirely to keep 
 out of his writings that fools cannot even appreciate 
 it ? What could fame do for the immense sadness 
 of Michael Angelo ? Why was Napoleon old at six 
 and twenty? In vain did he offer hecatombs to 
 appease his demon : he was driven on : yet could 
 Marengo or Austerlitz wipe away the effects of those 
 years of horrible desperation, restore the liver that 
 the vulture had devoured ? Such a curse lies upon 
 those who have drunk at their birth from the pool 
 of imagination, and are seized with inexhaustible 
 thirst ; who carry to their graves the inexhaustible 
 craving for things other than the common. What 
 business have these madmen here ? Is not this 
 world enough for them ? then, in God's name let 
 them e'en get away to a better. We'll have no 
 cavillers here. Aye : and is it even so ? Seest thou 
 yonder knot of conspirators, pressing round Caesar 
 in the Curia ? or that dark band of inquisitors, 
 glowering at Galileo in the dungeon of the Holy 
 Office ? there you may see the everlasting contest 
 between bigotry and genius : the commodity and 
 the work of art. For the work, as Aristotle said 
 long ago, is the embodied spirit of the worker : the 
 worker puts himself into his work. And again he 
 says : the free man is the man who is his own 
 master, and not dependent upon another : but the 
 nature of man is in general slavish. If then there 
 is anything in what the poets say as to the divinity 
 being jealous, it would come in here : and this would 
 be the meaning of the fact that men of genius are 
 shortlived : the gods will permit no mortal to be free. 
 
 s 2
 
 260 Body and Soul. 
 
 There lies the deep significance of the unpopular- 
 ity of the work of art. It refuses to be bound by 
 the universal law of Natural Economy, that 'one 
 ' thing is for the sake of another.' The cause of all 
 things, as Darwin and Aristotle tell us, is the 
 necessity for their existence, the work they have to 
 perform. Now all the senses and organs of the 
 human being, nay the intellect itself, came into 
 existence originally to serve the needs of the body 
 to which they belong : to do that work it must do 
 to keep itself alive. This is their original raison 
 d'etre and the law of their being. The cause of 
 existence of reason itself is utilitarian. For the 
 raison d'etre of community is safety, as Aristotle 
 says : and the raison d'etre of speech or language, 
 which is to reason merely what the outside is to 
 the inside, convex to concave, is just the necessity 
 of communication between members of the com- 
 munity as to their common damage and advantage. 
 The essence of speech is communication. Hence it 
 follows necessarily that first, no animal not social 
 can have speech : for there is no need of it : second, 
 that the essence and gist of speech is the proposi- 
 tion : speech begins with the sentence : thirdly, 
 that any animals possessing it must eventually gain 
 supremacy over all others, provided they be of 
 a sufficient size. For upon reason depend all the 
 achievements of man. Now the point for us is 
 this : that the artistic use of all the senses and 
 organs of man turns its back upon their true and 
 original use, and is, as it were, ashamed of its origin, 
 despises its parents. It will not lend itself to utili- 
 tarian ends. And consequently Nature takes her 
 revenge. For man's existence would instantly
 
 ^Esthetics. 261 
 
 cease, were the artistic use of his organs to pre- 
 dominate over the utilitarian. This is the deep 
 mystical reason for the cloud that always hangs 
 over the artist, and the artist's life. It is similar 
 in kind to the reason for the fact that, socially 
 speaking, the woman who falls is a Pariah, while 
 the man is not. Shallow people who inveigh 
 against the injustice of this do not see that the 
 reason for it is deeper than reason : it rests on the 
 mystical feeling of the members of the community 
 that its life depends upon the purity of its women. 
 
 Upon this radical distinction between the Work 
 of Art and the Commodity rests the fact that as 
 civilisation develops, art in general tends to decay. 
 For it is only the commodity that admits of the 
 division of labour : the work of art, in essentials, 
 must come from one man. Here, brain, desire, 
 eye, and hand must all work together : only on this 
 condition will the result be a unity, stamped with 
 the cachet of genius. To dissociate these, is to turn 
 the work of art into a commodity. But now, it is 
 impossible that the business of the world, and hence 
 its evolution, should rest upon special demands. 
 It must of necessity be based upon common or 
 general demands. In early stages of society, when 
 as yet production has not been differentiated, this 
 distinction does not appear, except in embryo. All 
 early production is, so far, more artistic than its 
 later development, in that being a small affair the 
 product is the work of one and not many producers. 
 All early commodities, though owing to deficient 
 science they may be less directly adapted to a utili- 
 tarian end, less strictly accommodated, are yet just 
 for that reason more artistic. They bear a freer
 
 262 Body and Soul. 
 
 and more, personal character. This is why old glass, 
 old china, candlesticks, weapons, clothes, ships, 
 implements of all kinds, always preserve an aesthetic 
 value, apart from their special use, long after they 
 have been superseded and gone out of fashion : in 
 similar modern instruments, on the other hand, 
 there is hardly any aesthetic element : they are too 
 business-like : too strictly utilitarian : too much 
 branded with the stamp of the commodity, to retain 
 anything artistic. And thus it is that as time goes 
 on, the production of commodities growing larger 
 and larger, and hence necessarily requiring further 
 and further division of labour, there arises a 
 wide gulf between the work of art and the 
 commodity. The latter carries the day, for numbers 
 are on its side : suffragiorum jus habet. Now it is 
 that any one who with his eyes open chooses to 
 devote his life to artistic production does so under 
 the risk of starvation. No one is to blame for this : 
 it is a consequence of the nature of things. The 
 artist being essentially one who aims at pleasing 
 himself, realising his own idea, cannot expect to 
 work with the security of the man who makes 
 it his whole and sole object to cater for others. 
 Lucky for him, indeed, if his genius conquer its 
 fate : if he obtains recognition before he is dead. 
 
 And here appears the temptation, the choice of 
 Hercules, for the artist. Will he stick to his ideal, 
 choose her and work for her, and her alone, regard- 
 less of consequences, in spite of poverty and mis- 
 understanding, struggle and possibly death ? Or 
 will he succumb, and turn aside, Atalanta-wise, to 
 snatch at the golden apple ? This is the eternal 
 pitfall, spread by Nature (who does not love artists)
 
 ^Esthetics. 263 
 
 for them all. Gogol has given us a typical illustra- 
 tion of the point, in his little story of the obscure 
 painter. On the one side loneliness, hunger, cold, 
 perhaps universal condemnation, domestic and 
 eternal squabbling, false accusation, genius, the 
 purity of the darling idea, the hope of everlasting 
 fame, and the consciousness of intrinsic worth : 
 on the other, security, well-being, ease, happiness, 
 notoriety which passes with the vulgar for fame, the 
 degradation of the idea to the level of common 
 demand, and everlasting gnawing self-condemnation 
 and remorse. ' All these things will I give thee, if 
 ' thou wilt fall down and worship me.' A hard 
 matter, in very truth : he had need to be strong 
 who dares this quest. Not to all men have the 
 gods granted the power to resist the Devil. And 
 this it is which is celebrated by poets, and evinced 
 in the mythology of all nations. This was what the 
 Lord spake unto Joshua : Only be strong and of 
 a good courage. This was what Disraeli, in whom 
 the old Jewish spirit lived, and who found in the 
 sacred writings of his race the consoling power that 
 sustained him throughout his struggle with folly 
 and prejudice, meant, when he took for his motto, 
 forti nihil difficile. This was w r hat Spinoza meant, 
 when, thinking doubtless of his own stern choice 
 between philosophy and ease, he wrote, omnia 
 prceclara tarn difficilia quam rara simt. This is the 
 meaning of the old Eastern legends, copied and 
 elaborated in Western stories of chivalry and Holy 
 Grails, which show us knight after knight, princes 
 and calendars, ' sons of kings,' going upon terrible 
 quests, and failing for want of inner self-restraint. 
 All fall, when they enter the palace of Temptation.
 
 264 Body and Soul. 
 
 This is the esoteric meaning of the Faerie Queene, 
 and the Pilgrim's Progress. This is that which 
 was shouted by the demonic voices in the legend 
 of Thomas the Rhymer : 
 
 Wo to the coward that ever he was born, 
 
 Who did not draw the sword before he blew the horn ! 
 
 This is the core of the unutterably beautiful old 
 Middle Age legend of Tannhauser, who yielded to 
 the earthly Venus and was lost : a parable the 
 type of endless poetical fictions, from Orpheus and 
 Eurydice and the Sirens to Carmen and Ladislas 
 Bolski. For woman is the everlasting tempter, 
 who drags man . down to her own level, and 
 after making him the tool of her egoism, and 
 robbing him of his best, throws him callously aside, 
 like a squeezed orange, for some new caprice. And 
 then in vain he bellows in his rage : it is too late ; 
 he hears ringing in his ears the chorus of demon- 
 iacal laughter : ' the bite of the apple has made 
 ' thee ours.' Why didst thou taste ? Illico post 
 coitum auditur cachinnus diaboli. And this is the 
 moral that lives for ever in the Greek myths of 
 Perseus and Ship Argo, so beautifully painted anew 
 by Kingsley : ' Rashly and angrily I promised, but 
 ' cunningly and patiently will I perform. . . . Then 
 ' he thought of Medusa and the renown before him, 
 ' and he leaped into the empty air. And behold, 
 ' instead of falling, he floated, and stood, and ran 
 ' along the sky.' 
 
 But woe to the faint-hearted : ' who die in the 
 ' Unshapen Land, where no man ever finds their 
 ' bones.' This is the case with those who turn their 
 art into a commodity : and prostitute their mistress,
 
 ^Esthetics. 265 
 
 turning aside to worship Venus Venalis. Of this 
 we have only too good an example in modern liter- 
 ature, which has in very truth reached the Nadir. 
 The function of modern literature is to please the 
 sovereign people : and it is to be devoutly hoped 
 that it performs that function. How can anything 
 rise into notice, now-a-days, if it does not pay ? And 
 how can anything pay, but such as pleases the 
 greater number? The best and the fittest are here 
 in direct contradiction. The best cannot possibly 
 be the fittest, just because it is the best : that is to 
 say, one out of thousands : but it is just these 
 thousands, or rather millions, qiiem penes arbitrium 
 est. And who can blame the publishers ? they 
 must live, even though art has to become a trade, 
 a tool, to save them. Kto venovat ? Who is to 
 blame ? ' Neither Bacon, nor Newton, nor Locke, 
 1 nor Descartes, nor Gibbon, nor Hume, nor Adam 
 1 Smith, nor Montesquieu, nor Berkeley, nor Butler, 
 ' nor Coleridge, nor Bentham, nor Milton, norWords- 
 ' worth, could have made a living by their works,' 
 says the historian a ; and his list might be extended 
 indefinitely ; nay, even Aristotle, if he were ex- 
 pressly raised from the dead to instruct the world, 
 would speedily have to rejoin the majority, if he 
 had nothing but the sale of his works to trust to for 
 a living. It is puerile, and marks a want of com- 
 prehension of the world and life, to abuse this state 
 of things. It is impossible to establish any system 
 by which genius shall be made secure, and the work 
 of art identified with the commodity. Nevertheless, 
 in an age where the market is flooded with books of 
 
 * Lecky, History of England ', i. 457.
 
 266 Body and Soul. 
 
 every description, literature must of necessity decay : 
 for, just because it is in the minority, a work requir- 
 ing alike for its production and its enjoyment in- 
 tellect, culture, insight, discrimination, imagination, 
 breeding, lies buried beneath the mass. Yet as the 
 world refuses to admit that there can be anything 
 wrong with the majority, and every one must there- 
 fore praise what pleases the majority, we find the 
 most ironical contradiction between phrases and 
 facts. Books destitute of every qualification, books 
 betraying in every line ignorance, illiteracy, vulgar- 
 ity, false sentiment, cheap wisdom, innate and 
 original mediocrity masquerading in the garb of 
 genius, books destitute of every faintest vestige of 
 style, insight, taste or criticism, are every day be- 
 lauded in the papers, God knows by whom, in lan- 
 guage that sends one hurrying to buy them, expect- 
 ing to discover a new Scott or a second Pascal. 
 Under the magniloquent language lurks the very 
 pitifullest reality that ever deserved indescribable 
 contempt. And the reason for this is obvious. 
 Function makes Structure. The original and true 
 function of criticism was and is to analyse and 
 appreciate works of art on their merits. But the 
 function of modern journalism is not single but 
 triple. It must above all first please, amuse, and 
 chime in with its public : it must, next, provide 
 a living for the talented writer : and last, stuffed 
 in at the end, and an entirely secondary, nay ter- 
 tiary consideration, comes the actual not apprecia- 
 tion, but depreciation of the work, written perhaps 
 by some tenth-rate nobody, absolutely ignorant of 
 what he is talking about, who, skulking behind the 
 grateful wall of the anonymous column, damns ex
 
 Aesthetics. 267 
 
 cathedra anything he cannot comprehend. The 
 Liberty of the Press ! The Press is no longer a free 
 agent : it is the tool of material religious and poli- 
 tical interests : from a work of art it has become 
 a commodity : this is the fundamental condition of 
 its being, its raison d'etre. It is hardly possible 
 to pick up a paper without being immediately 
 struck by the disingenuous tone of one writer who 
 is seeking to evade by quibbles some obvious con- 
 clusion, or another vainly attempting to conceal 
 under a cloud of verbiage the fact that he has 
 derived his whole knowledge of the question he is 
 discussing from the book of the author he is depre- 
 ciating. What man who knows anything now-a-days 
 is deceived by newspaper criticism ? he takes it for 
 what it is worth, something intrinsically quite 
 insignificant^ using that word in its true sense : its 
 praise or blame equally worthless in itself, equally 
 significant by the way, as indicating merely the 
 tendency of the paper in question, and always 
 capable of being predicted beforehand. The one 
 essential for the newspaper is to preserve at all costs 
 an air of absolute freedom and independence, as well 
 as an appearance of universal knowledge ; and the 
 spectacle is almost too much for the augur behind 
 the scenes. Behind the sublime attitudinising, as 
 though of a Cato or a Chatham, he sees only too 
 plainly the miserable form of a Rigby crouching 
 and cringing to his callous and contemptuous owner 
 and patron, the public. The only way in which it 
 might be possible to remedy this state of things 
 would be to forbid by law any one to publish 
 a comment or criticism of anything without signing 
 his name at the bottom of the page : and limit
 
 268 Body and Sou I. 
 
 all anonymous matter to pure statement of matter 
 of fact and news. Half the authority of the 
 ' Press ' would then vanish at once, for if the world 
 only knew who were the persons who speak under 
 its cover, no one would pay any further attention to 
 anything they said. 
 
 II. The aim of the artist, the true artist, is to 
 realise his ideal : to embody, as it were, his soul, 
 in stone or colour, words or sounds, action or 
 achievement. It is contrary to his nature to make 
 concessions : he refuses to be bound. The con- 
 ventional is the antithesis and the death of the 
 artistic. Genius is led only by its own instinct 
 and laughs at all rules. This is a commonplace, 
 and yet one which is almost never understood. 
 The rules by which genius refuses to be bound 
 are those of other meji : on the other hand, it 
 is a slave to the rules regulating its own species 
 of art : but by instinct, not pedantically or con- 
 sciously. Genius is at once absolutely bond, and 
 absolutely free : free, in relation to those hard and 
 fast maxims and rules which are erected by inferior 
 criticism on the observation of works of art, which 
 rules are always based more on the letter than 
 the spirit : yet a bondslave to the true and inner 
 necessities dictated by the nature of things in his 
 special province, just because he cannot help him- 
 self, or disobey his demon. Genius is a law to 
 itself, and yet it obeys its own laws with the most 
 uncompromising fidelity, recognising them by in- 
 tuition. Napoleon sets military ' rules ' at nought, 
 but obeys the true laws of war better than any 
 rule-keeping mediocrity : this is but a type of the 
 procedure of genius in all art. Now, this capacity
 
 sEstftettcs. 269 
 
 of recognising the true necessities, this insight into 
 function, cannot be acquired : it may come out, as 
 we say, by education, but if it is not there to start 
 with, nothing can put it there. Poeta nascitur non 
 fit. Genius is not experience but instinct, and 
 arises out of the depths of the organic nature, who 
 produces her results not in the short compass of 
 the single life, but the subtle processes of ages. 
 
 For Nature does not imitate : she creates : so 
 does the artist. The doctrine which flourishes 
 now-a-days, that art is imitation, closely connected 
 with which is the doctrine that genius learns how to 
 do its work by experience, is radically absurd, and 
 though presenting a specious appearance, really 
 superficial to an incredible degree. If we want 
 to find out about genius, we must not ask medi- 
 ocrity to tell us what it is : and this is the doctrine 
 of mediocrity. The faculty of the artist is not 
 imitation but divination. He does not copy, he 
 creates. It is true, that his result is like the works 
 of Nature ; (though observe, that in the arts of 
 music and architecture there is nothing to copy 
 from, and therefore ' imitation ' in this case fails en- 
 tirely ;) but the very reason why the genius can 
 achieve this result where small men cannot is that 
 he does not follow Nature from the outside, but 
 the inside : he does not slavishly imitate her rcsiilt, 
 but works in her method: he knows beforehand 
 how she does things : the vis creatrix is in his 
 soul. If it were not so, he could not see it in 
 Nature : for each sees in Nature only so much as 
 he brings to her. Why does the artist present 
 us with pictures, far more ' true to Nature ' than 
 we could ourselves produce, if not just because he
 
 270 Body and Soul. 
 
 knows what is hidden from the eye ? Hidden, that 
 is to say, not in the totality of its effect, but 
 requiring for its depiction the pre-established 
 harmony which enables the genius to put it there, 
 because he instinctively knows Nature's ways of 
 going to work. Thus, for example, Dostoyeffsky 
 gives us a set of Nihilists, and these are not 
 copies, but creations built on an intuitive percep- 
 tion of the methods of human nature in general, 
 and Nihilists, that is, men swayed by certain social 
 and political ideas, in particular. The real artist 
 is not limited by his experience : he anticipates 
 it, having the fountain whence it flows within 
 him. Genius may be compared to the magic 
 mirror which reflected things that were not to 
 be seen in the scenes it was turned upon, and 
 which an ordinary mirror could not show. 
 
 Now, the divining power, which works its won- 
 ders not by copying Nature's results, but her 
 processes, by working in and on her own lines, is 
 nothing but a native and original gift of discerning 
 and understanding the true and proper correspon- 
 dence of Structure with function Nature's dy- 
 namical method. And just as Nature's actual pro- 
 ducts are limited, whereas if occasion should arise, 
 there are unlimited illustrations of her principle still 
 up her sleeve, which she could produce if put to 
 it : so neither is the artist limited to reproducing 
 Nature's actual results, but may draw upon his 
 imagination for ' the light that never was on sea 
 ' or land.' It cannot be too often repeated : imita- 
 tion is the principle of bad art : divination, that of 
 the true. But just for this reason, and it might 
 have been anticipated, we find imitation loudly
 
 Aesthetics. 271 
 
 proclaimed as the essential principle and function 
 of art in these times. For certainly, it is the prin- 
 ciple of most modern art. And just because it is 
 so, we find that the arts which really most obviously 
 refute the theory (though all art does so equally, 
 if properly understood) and make it ridiculous, the 
 arts of architecture, sculpture, music, epic and 
 dramatic poetry are those which flourish least 
 in our day, whereas painting and the novel, which 
 can flourish to a considerable extent on imitation, 
 are in great vogue. The novel is merely the imi- 
 tation of common life, painting, merely the careful 
 reproduction of nature and persons : both in a low 
 sense of the word art. Accordingly, we find that 
 whereas builders, musicians, and sculptors are so 
 rare, the world is literally deluged with great 
 painters and novelists. For as the test of worth is 
 now held to be popularity, and as the only pleasure 
 in art which the multitude can find lies in com- 
 paring it with something they have seen before, 
 it naturally follows that photography becomes the 
 principle of art : everybody pronouncing an artistic 
 work good, just in so far as it reminds him of some- 
 thing within his own experience. But this is the 
 degradation of art. Not Imagination, but Imi- 
 tation is the goal. Not great passions, great ac- 
 tions, but the small passions and insignificant 
 actions of mean and inconsiderable souls, are the 
 thing depicted. For art that sets itself to imitate, 
 and to please the multitude, must necessarily follow 
 the majority : whereas the great is essentially some- 
 thing above the average. This is why, in ultimate 
 analysis, the only form of true and real art left in 
 literature is the satirical. For a genius reduced to
 
 272 Body and Soul. 
 
 portraying mediocrity, ' our common human nature, 1 
 must at least despise it ; this makes its portraiture 
 tolerable. Who can endure mediocrity painted by 
 itself in admiring worship of its own utter insigni- 
 ficance ? Nay, the ' abstract individual ' theory of 
 philosophy has stripped man of all his ' lendings 
 and trappings,' the heroic buskin : and what can 
 we think of naked and ugly little unashamed hu- 
 manity, with no dignity lent to it by fictions and 
 opinions, creeds and beliefs ? The Man gone, who 
 can worship the Individual? whose God is no 
 longer heroic Zeus, but King Vortex. The 
 satirical criticism of Goethe, Disraeli, Dostoyeffsky 
 is the same thing at bottom as the whining of Shelley 
 and Byron. Scott is great, because he refuses the 
 philosophy and keeps his eyes chiefly on the heroic 
 past. But the unendurable style is the modern style, 
 ' the literature of the Victorian age,' where humanity 
 sees its own face reflected in the glass, and yet falls 
 down and worships it, without the excuse of Nar- 
 cissus ; never suspecting its own ugliness, and un- 
 enlightened by the humour, the infinite jest in the 
 thing. Der Mensch erkennt seine Fehler eben so 
 wenig wie eine Affe oder eine Eule, die in den 
 Spiegel seken, ihre eigene Hasslichkeit erkennen. 
 Truly function makes structure: and art based 
 upon imitation issues in such down-hill trudging as 
 the literature and painting of to-day. Where is the 
 artistic production requiring imagination, where the 
 building, the drama, the sculpture, the speech with 
 the faintest indication of greatness of soul in its 
 whole composition ? 
 
 And in another respect here as everywhere men 
 mistake the means for the end. The artist, as we
 
 Esthetics. 273 
 
 saw, is essentially the man bound by no law, but 
 that of his genius, the essentially unconventional 
 man. But he is so quite unconsciously, and without 
 malice prepense, because of his genius : his genius 
 is the cloak that covers the multitude of his sins. 
 But the sins without the cloak ? Mediocrities who 
 have no genius are only too eager to ape the artist. 
 This disregard of all conventions is easy to acquire. 
 Moral predigen ist leicht, says Schopenhauer : moral 
 begrunden, and he might have added, darstellen, 
 schwer. To adopt all the peculiarities of the artist, 
 without the inner spark, is just the characteristic 
 of the modern genius, whose portrait appears at 
 the beginning of his deathless works. Maudle and 
 Postlethwaite meet us at every turn. All the 
 outward visible signs without the inward spiritual 
 grace : the raison d^etre not there. Hence arises 
 the most ineffably sickening of all forms of human 
 society, the coterie, the clique, the mutual admiration 
 society : ' Societies of Authors,' ' Literary Men,' 
 and so on. Everything aesthetic becomes covered 
 with the horrid slime of these living whited sepulchres, 
 and consequently every one with any real instinct 
 for the things acquires a loathing for the words 
 connected with them. The Beautiful and the True 
 have become Bulwer-Lyttonised. Nothing is easier 
 than to read up a few books and have the techni- 
 calities of music, painting, and what not at your 
 fingers' ends. But no amount of technicality will 
 constitute genius. Nay, more ; technical knowledge, 
 except in the case of genius itself, is actually a bar 
 to achievement, and an obstacle to true criticism. 
 It is not the man who builds the house but the man 
 who lives in it, that is the best judge of the house,
 
 274 Body and Soul. 
 
 says Aristotle : and his remark is universally true. 
 The technique is only the scaffolding, but the work 
 of art should show none, and is best judged by one 
 who has no knowledge of it. It may seem para- 
 doxical to say that artistic study unfits a man for 
 judging a work of art, but it is true for all that. 
 ' Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast 
 thou ordained praise.' The mediocrity who has 
 acquired some technical knowledge, and does 
 perhaps a little dabbling himself, is inevitably 
 impelled to attach importance to technique as such : 
 further, it gives him an imaginary superiority, and 
 instead of judging the work as a whole, he judges 
 bits at a time. This, for example, is the reason 
 why not one woman in a thousand is a good judge 
 of dress in her own sex : she knows too much 
 about the technique, and looks too curiously into 
 details : she studies the effect, with the eye not 
 of an artist, but of a milliner or anatomist. But 
 the true way to judge a work of art is to forget 
 that it ever existed in pieces, or grew in time : 
 it must be considered abstracted from its causes, 
 ideally, as something absolute and eternal. Plato's 
 point of view, which is just the popular point of 
 view erected into a dogma, and which is scientifically 
 so jejune and worthless, is the right one here. 
 People all think of forms as something absolute : 
 only Aristotle saw the truth. But art is not science. 
 Taste and not technique is the necessary condition 
 of true aesthetic criticism : and those who, destitute 
 of taste, ' go in for art ' in whatever branch, must 
 necessarily fall back on the only thing left them, 
 technique. But this, just because it is conventional, 
 is almost always opposed to the true spirit of art.
 
 Esthetics, 275 
 
 A work may be technically perfect, and yet artis- 
 tically detestable. And though, speaking ideally, 
 the true artist should have perfect command over 
 technique ; for as Aristotle said, the three requisites 
 of production are natural abilities, education, and 
 practise ; as a matter of fact we rarely find this 
 to be the case. Genius is often technically careless 
 and impatient. The conception of a work is white 
 hot and glows : cold and laborious is the execution. 
 And so, rarely do we find the two consummate. 
 Homer nods: Shakspeare and Scott are slipshod now 
 and then : many great cathedrals betray the same 
 thing : indeed a very furious and impetuous imagin- 
 ation chafes and frets under technical restraint like 
 a wild horse : on the other hand, an overscrupulously 
 exact and pedantical finish is only too often the 
 stamp of second-rate genius, not too exuberant 
 to rebel at delay. The work smells too much of the 
 lamp. 
 
 There is, in fact, not exactly a contradiction, but 
 a fearful chasm, between conception and execution. 
 To pass this gulf, the artist must be endowed with 
 invincible tenacity : and this is the meaning of the 
 often-quoted saying that genius is the power of 
 taking pains. Of course, genius is essentially 
 nothing of the sort, but if it is without this, it will 
 not perform its task. Industry is not the essence, 
 not a cause, but a corollary of genius. Just as 
 Aristotle tells us that money is not happiness, but 
 that you cannot be happy without it : so too neither 
 is genius hard labour, but no work of genius can be 
 produced without it. Many a divinely gifted artist 
 has carried his secret to his grave for want of 
 patience and industry and self-control : on the other 
 
 T 2
 
 276 Body and Soul. 
 
 hand, no amount of these will put genius into a con- 
 scientious dullard. The head and the heart, which 
 conceive, require the hand to execute, and the will 
 to drive all on. And the differences of artists lie 
 in a great degree in this, that in their work now 
 one, now another of these qualities predominates. 
 But nearer to my heart is the irregular genius that 
 mars its work by impatience than the ultra con- 
 scientious elaboration due too often to a coldness 
 of the inward fire. Compare Shakspeare with 
 Milton, Scott with Merimee, Dostoyeffsky with 
 Turgenieff. A very great excess of imaginative 
 power is almost incompatible with laborious execu- 
 tion, regularity, formal excellence. Shakspeare, 
 said Wordsworth, could not have written an epic, 
 for his wealth of imagery would have killed him. 
 Matter, or Power, and Form are in contradiction, 
 when the former is superabundant. Theoretically, 
 the two should be both on an equality, in harmony : 
 but practically, we have nearly always to choose 
 between them. Exuberance, hurry, recklessness, 
 extravagance, a want of pruning and revision, 
 a lack of proportion : these are faults, indeed, but 
 they grow only in rich soil : Alexander and Caesar, 
 Shakspeare and Scott, Wolsey and Michael Angelo, 
 Mirabeau and Napoleon are, we feel instinctively, on 
 a higher plane than Wellington, Milton, Sophocles, 
 Marlborough, Richelieu : Gothic with all its errors 
 is nobler than Grecian architecture, and so on. Let 
 those speak who know : is not the best part of 
 genius that which is suggested rather than carried 
 out b : that which cannot find adequate expression : 
 
 b Therefore it is, that sketches are in a way better than any 
 finished picture. Compare Comyns Carr's Essays on Art,
 
 Esthetics. 277 
 
 that which remains ever potential, never succeeds 
 in becoming actual ? For material is stubborn : 
 imagination a goading demon : life is short : 
 accidents many : pleasure a Siren : and death, 
 sure. Happy the man who does not cease to be, 
 before, as Keats hath it, his pen, his chisel, or his 
 brush has gleaned his teeming brain. 
 
 The aim, then, of the artist is to realise as fully 
 as the obstinacy of matter and the impetuosity of his 
 own soul will allow him, his ideal. And as there are 
 infinite spheres of expression, in which he may 
 move, this ideal takes various forms, and these 
 determine the various arts : which roughly speaking 
 we may enumerate as architecture, sculpture, paint- 
 ing, literature, music : all of which issue in the 
 creation of a definite product, and which we may 
 call the productive arts : but there are other arts 
 of action, equally deserving of the name of art in 
 the highest sense, whose spheres are the stage, 
 politics, and war. For the great actor, the great 
 general, the great statesman must have the crea- 
 tive instinct in a degree as great as any produc- 
 tive artist. They too have to realise their ideals : 
 and in truth, when we come to think of it, we 
 may well doubt whether the result achieved by 
 a Siddons or a Csesar, a Hannibal or a Sulla, does 
 
 p. 79 sqq., and Ruskin's Modern Painters, iii. 144, and v. 37. 
 ' Imperfect sketches, engravings, outlines, rude sculptures, and 
 * other forms of abstraction possess a charm which the more 
 ' finished picture frequently wants.' ' In a small Greek coin 
 ' the muscles of the human body are as grandly treated as 
 ' in a colossal statue ; and a fine vignette of Turner's will show 
 4 separate touches often more extended in intention and stronger 
 ' in result than those of his largest oil paintings.'
 
 278 Body and Soul. 
 
 not for the difficulty and the glory of its final 
 accomplishment surpass that of any other artist, 
 and is not creative in a higher sense than any of 
 them all : though from its very nature, the result 
 here cannot endure : for it is not fixed in stone 
 or marble, but in men, who change and die. 
 But durability, as it has been well said, is not to be 
 regarded as the test of merit in human affairs. 
 
 Let us then cast a glance at these various arts, 
 and see whether we cannot throw light upon 
 them from the point of view of our essential prin- 
 ciple. But the reader should remember that it is 
 only in connection with this principle that they are 
 here considered : only in outline, in vindication of 
 that principle: and he must not quarrel with the fol- 
 lowing discussion for not being what it is not meant 
 to be, nor demand more of it than the limits of the 
 enquiry and the nature of the subject admit. The 
 creations of art, regarded as part of the wealth of 
 man, and considered in the light of their creative 
 principle, which is the same for all forms, differently 
 as it may clothe itself, this is the aim now before 
 us. And further, we should avoid much empty 
 dispute and confusion in these matters, if we re- 
 membered that it is impossible entirely to dissociate 
 the purely artistic effect of any work from that 
 which it receives in addition from historical and 
 personal associations. This is the case even with 
 the arts which must trust mainly to form for their 
 effect, as architecture and sculpture : or form and 
 colour, as painting : how much more, then, with 
 literature and music, which appeal to all the moral 
 emotions ? There is something special and peculiar 
 in every spectator, every listener, every critic, which
 
 ^Esthetics, 279 
 
 mingles in the effect that every work of art has 
 upon him : often, too, this ' something ' entirely 
 escapes analysis. Nevertheless, it is possible, and 
 valuable, to state with a certain exactness the pro- 
 vince and function of each several art. 
 
 III. Architecture, the great man's art par excel- 
 lence^ is, broadly speaking, the art of building : more 
 narrowly, the art of realising or embodying in stone, 
 aided by light, shadow, and the colour of the 
 materials, the ideas of grace, harmony, proportion, 
 and power. The sphere of this art is very limited ; 
 but just because it is so, it can attain better than 
 any other art to that exquisite simplicity which 
 has so inexhaustible and indescribable a charm for 
 us : an effect more potent, more purely artistic, than 
 all that can be produced by the more elaborate and 
 various appeals of arts that have a wider scope. 
 A beautiful building may be aptly described as 
 a poem in stone, and Goethe's comparison of 
 Cologne Cathedral to frozen music is well known. 
 We must not allow the happy turn of expression 
 to conceal from us the wide difference of the two 
 arts : and yet music and architecture have two 
 most remarkable and essential points of affinity. 
 In the first place, they have this in common, that, 
 unlike all the other arts, they have no prototypes 
 in nature. There is no copying bere : for the fact 
 that mountainous stones and crags resemble build- 
 ings is an accident. But the second point of re- 
 semblance is still deeper : both music and archi- 
 tecture are impersonal. They both appeal to us 
 powerfully, i.e. dynamically, rather than actually : 
 the basis of their appeal is the potential, in Nature 
 and ourselves : the potency of their effect rests
 
 2 So Body and Soul. 
 
 upon what is conveyed through them ; and just as 
 architecture speaks to us of the poiver of Nature's 
 materials, so does music speak to us of the deep 
 potential capacities of our own nature, the material 
 of emotion, as it were : there is nothing in either 
 of them special, personal, or limited, and so insig- 
 nificant. They both rest upon an essentially 
 mystical sentiment : and in the presence of both 
 we have a secret consciousness of our temporary 
 and fleeting nature, (which has nothing to do with 
 the size of buildings ;) as though we felt an inward 
 uneasiness about our existence : which really, as 
 regards its structure, is fleeting ; and is permanent 
 only in virtue of that which is potential : that 
 which may quite as well be other than it is. For 
 at bottom, matter is deeper and more fundamental 
 than form : more enduring, more terrible, more 
 sublime : and this is just what Music and Archi- 
 tecture hint to us, though they speak in a language 
 which reason, just because it has only to do with 
 form, and only came into existence to serve it, does 
 not understand. But this is why architecture is the 
 great man's art : for all great men are mystics, and 
 neither sculpture, painting, nor literature can ever 
 satisfy them : for these are too exclusively human 
 and superficial : whereas Mysticism rests upon 
 what is subhuman : organic and dynamic nature. 
 
 The sphere of architecture, we saw, is limited : 
 now, to do great things in a very limited sphere of 
 operations is essentially the badge of a master 
 mind. And architecture is not only essentially 
 limited, in respect of the ideas and emotions to 
 which it can appeal, but there are also special and 
 accidental limitations which trammel it still further.
 
 Aesthetics. 281 
 
 It is, to begin with, a very costly art, the erection 
 of a great building being a work of great expense : 
 and further, it is always more or less hampered by 
 its raison d'etre, for owing to considerations of cost, 
 as well as other reasons, a building is almost always 
 designed to serve some utilitarian end : which has 
 somehow or other to be combined with its artistic 
 aim. Yet again, climate has much to do with the 
 effectiveness of any building : a clear sky and little 
 rain being favourable conditions, whereas, on the 
 contrary, fogs, smoke, rain and so on, rapidly trans- 
 mogrify any building, however beautiful. Lastly, 
 situation is, one might almost say, half architecture : 
 for, architecturally speaking, a building ought to be 
 placed where a good view of it can be commanded. 
 The Greeks understood this far better than the 
 moderns, in general : although the builders of 
 minsters and cathedrals never imagined, when they 
 erected their glorious structures, that in course of 
 time their works would be almost entirely robbed, 
 in many cases, of their external effect by the growth 
 of horrible little huts and houses all round them, 
 making it completely impossible to view them ap- 
 propriately. The monks who built the old abbeys 
 understood the value of a fine situation well : what 
 would their feelings have been, could they have 
 raised the veil of the future, and seen the ignorant 
 and brutal iconoclasts instigated by John Knox and 
 similar horrid rascals at work sacking their brother- 
 hoods and battering into ruin some of the noblest 
 works that were ever raised by man to be the glory 
 of God and the proof of his own divinity. Cer- 
 tainly, buildings more beautiful than what those old 
 ruins of Dryburgh, Melrose, Coldingham and else-
 
 82 Body and Soul. 
 
 where must have been, it were hard to imagine : 
 well worthy of that immortality of another kind 
 which has been conferred upon them by Sir Walter, 
 in whom their spirits found an everlasting shrine. 
 
 But to turn from these limitations and con- 
 ditions, which all add to the difficulties of archi- 
 tecture, to its intrinsic function. The fact, that 
 it is not its utilitarian end, which the building, 
 considered architecturally, must be constructed to 
 meet, has misled some into very strange delusions : 
 Mr. Ruskin, for example, in his Seven Lamps of 
 Architecture shows us to what an extent a man 
 of artistic taste may go astray, for want of critical 
 discrimination. In his haste to get rid of the 
 directly utilitarian aim of the building, Mr. Ruskin 
 actually asserts that building is only architectural 
 when it is useless : he tells us, that ornament, 
 because it is useless, and only when it is so, adds 
 to the architectural beauty. A greater absurdity 
 was never printed : it is the very reverse of the 
 truth. Anything whatever is bad, architecturally, 
 if it is useless : to pile on useless ornament is just 
 exactly where the degradation of an architectural 
 style begins. Every detail of architectural form 
 and ornament should be determined by its end : 
 an end not utilitarian, but architectural : utilitarian, 
 that is to say, in another sense : having reference, 
 not to the base uses of man, but the form of the 
 building itself as such. To express the meaning 
 accurately by a comparison, we might say, that 
 a building should resemble, not a tame or domes- 
 ticated or pet animal, but a wild one. Its form 
 must be determined by considerations utilitarian 
 indeed, but not from an extraneous or human point
 
 ^Esthetics. 283 
 
 of view : from its own. It is the opposite of 
 Mr. Raskin's view which is true, and evolution 
 might, had his eye been open, have taught it him. 
 Not by useless ornament, but without it, does 
 architecture achieve its end, the reason of its being : 
 and few indeed are the Gothic buildings from 
 which we might not wish, speaking architecturally, 
 much, maybe intrinsically curious or beautiful, re- 
 moved. The truth is, that Mr. Ruskin has con- 
 founded architecture with sculpture, and a great 
 part of what he says becomes perfect nonsense 
 unless we remember this c . And it is the same 
 with much of his doctrine respecting colour and 
 ornamentation. In such a matter every one must 
 be left to his taste. But whatever may be the 
 intrinsic beauty or excellence of the additional gold 
 or silver, sculptured or coloured ornamentation, 
 I would appeal to the critic : let him turn sud- 
 denly from any highly decorated and carved archi- 
 tectural specimen if you will, Venetian : and 
 contemplate, either really or in imagination, a 
 
 c Mr. Ruskin, it may be noticed here, confuses throughout 
 aesthetic and moral ideas in a most puerile way. He writes 
 on art as if he were teaching children to be good. Sacrifice, 
 for example, has nothing peculiarly to do with architecture. 
 Mr. Ruskin makes it a ' Lamp.' A man must give ungrudg- 
 ingly of his best, says he, and give himself wholly to his work. 
 Of course, but this is not architecture : it goes without saying 
 with all work of any kind. He becomes ridiculous when he 
 goes so far as to say that a man should give architectural 
 material because it is expensive. This is as bad as it would 
 be to give bad material because it was cheap. Cheapness 
 and dearness have nothing to do with it : what should be 
 given is the material best suited to achieve the artistic aim 
 of the building.
 
 284 Body and Soul. 
 
 plain grey column, the shaft of some pillared arch 
 throwing up its graceful curve, in severe and 
 Doric simplicity, against green foliage, sleeping in 
 moonlight and shadow, or burnished like gold by 
 the sun, and judge which best achieves the archi- 
 tectural end. On some minds, at least, there will 
 never be a momentary doubt : anything which 
 tends to remove the attention from the whole to 
 a part is architecturally a mistake, whatever from 
 the point of view of sculpture or painting its merit 
 may be. Nothing can be a more decisive test 
 of true creative genius in any art than the power 
 of refraining, of rejecting superfluous beauties, A 
 really great artist never subordinates the whole 
 to its parts : never hesitates for a moment to 
 throw away his riches into the sea, so that he may 
 save the life and soul of his work : while on the 
 other hand, minds less dominated by the pure 
 aesthetic idea can with difficulty, or not at all, 
 refrain from improving, i.e. spoiling the whole by 
 hanging as it were chains and gewgaws to its 
 neck. The ornate style is always bad. No orna- 
 ment is ever architecturally justifiable except when 
 directly calculated to assist us in achieving the 
 sole and true end in view. In themselves, no 
 doubt, sculpture, paintings, and what not may be 
 full of the highest beauty, or the most fascinating 
 historical or moral associations. But everything 
 must be bought at its price. The more there may 
 be in a building to occupy the virtuoso, the longer 
 it may take to ' do ' it, the richer it may be in 
 artistic and antiquarian curiosity, so much the less 
 is a building a work of art. Modern buildings are 
 almost always not one but many : many, not so
 
 ^Esthetics. 285 
 
 much from their size, for size is nothing, but from 
 the multiplicity of their artistic attempt : which 
 was therefore foredoomed to failure. Such a thing" 
 
 o 
 
 could never spring from an artistic conception, but 
 only indicates a restless desire, perhaps ambition, 
 to build. 
 
 Closely connected with this is a point which 
 touches the very heart of the matter. The archi- 
 tect, says Mr. Ruskin, should copy the forms of 
 nature d . He is thinking here half of painting, half 
 of sculpture : in connection with these there is 
 a grain of truth in his rule : but as regards archi- 
 tecture, none. With admirable insight, on the 
 contrary, Mr. Fergusson tells us, that the architect 
 should never copy Nature's results, but only her 
 processes e . This is the genuine aper$u : this is the 
 philosophy of architecture. Mr. Fergusson was not 
 thinking, when writing this, of the peculiar prin- 
 ciple, universal in Nature, which it is the aim of 
 this book to illustrate : he was thinking of nothing 
 but architecture : and yet the reader will see that 
 it is in exact harmony with all that has been said : 
 a verification all the more valuable because inde- 
 pendent and unconscious, especially coming from 
 an architectural authority like Mr. Fergusson. This 
 is the true law of architecture, as it is the law of 
 all art. And what exactly is its meaning ? This, 
 that the creations of the architect should resemble 
 
 d Seven Lamps, p. 64 (ed. 1855). 'Whatever is in architecture 
 ' fair or beautiful is imitated from natural forms.' Ib., p. 94, 
 ' the value of architecture depends on two distinct characters : 
 * the one .... the other, the image it bears of the natural 
 ' creation,' and so on. 
 
 e Fergusson, History of Architecture, vol. i. p. 33.
 
 286 Body and Soul. 
 
 those of Nature, not as being modelled upon them, 
 but as being instances and specimens of her uni- 
 versal method of creation, according to which her 
 structures are all made by their functions. The 
 building should be no miserable copy, but itself : 
 it should obey its own function only, and be thus as 
 natural as any animal or any tree. What, then, is 
 it to be natural ? When we look into Nature, we 
 see everywhere unfettered spontaneity, an auto- 
 nomous and self-willed impulse, absolute freedom 
 from within outwards ; and yet none the less is all 
 this freedom in strict self-control, strictly obedient 
 to the dvayKr) TOV 8ia TL\ the law of each particular 
 organic nature. What more free, more graceful, more 
 self-willed, more independent than the movement 
 of a cat's paw ? And yet, free as puss may think 
 herself, she is really bound in iron necessity : for 
 every other cat moves in precisely the same char- 
 acteristic and cat-like way. Is not the hawk as it 
 hangs on the breeze, or the porpoise as it rollicks 
 along, leaping and playing, in the sea, the very 
 embodied spirit of liberty ? and yet in every 
 motion it obeys stern necessity, for each acts after 
 its kind, and you cannot tell when you stand on 
 deck, and watch, whether this porpoise which you 
 see now is the same as that which you saw but 
 now, or another one. But nothing perhaps can give 
 a more striking impression, can bring home to the 
 mind with more force the sentiment of this union 
 of freedom and slavery, of complete anarchy and 
 complete obedience to law, than to contemplate a 
 number of flowers of the same species gradually 
 growing and budding and blowing, making them- 
 selves under your very eye, and all in the same way.
 
 Aesthetics. 287 
 
 Now this union of opposites, this attainment of 
 free and airy spontaneity with absolute truth and 
 fidelity to the laws determining his art, is the true 
 TO KaXov for the artist. His work should be no 
 imitation, but an original, illustrating Nature's crea- 
 tive principle as well as her own productions : but 
 never copying her result. A building copied from 
 Nature would only be a caricature and a hideous 
 unlovely abomination. To copy her letter is to 
 miss her spirit : and spirit must work with hand, 
 said Lionardo da Vinci, or there is no art. Nature 
 must be mimicked not from the outside, mosaically, 
 pedantically : but understood and reconstructed 
 from the centre outwards. Nature's products, like 
 a King of England, can do no wrong, because they 
 obey unwritten laws. The two aspects are ad- 
 mirably illustrated for us in Pre-Raphaelitism and 
 Turner. Both are, in a way, realists. Yet the 
 former, by attempting to imitate Nature from the 
 outside, produces nothing but ridiculous caricatures. 
 Nevertheless beneath this method lies a perception 
 of the truth, which Turner understood. There is 
 more of the inner spirit of Nature in Turner, even 
 though he attempted often too much, than in all the 
 painters in the world : not because he imitated 
 more, but because he knew beforehand what 
 Nature was aiming at, and how she went about it. 
 His divining power is behind his eye. If Spenser 
 be the poet's poet, Turner certainly is the philo- 
 sopher's painter. 
 
 Now this is the heart of all that is good and true 
 in Mr. Ruskin's praise of Turner, although the 
 essential principle is not in Mr. Ruskin. All Mr. 
 Ruskin's rules of art follow from the law of nature,
 
 288 Body and Soul. 
 
 which is also the law of science, and the law of art, 
 that function makes structure. When Mr. Ruskin 
 contrasts the stones, trees, leaves, clouds, or 
 branches of Turner with those of Claude and 
 others, he is right in fact, but wrong in explana- 
 tion. What he says is not what he means. He 
 says, art should imitate forms, results : he ought 
 to say, art should imitate processes, comprehend 
 functions : only thus is it creative. It is true that 
 the creation will be in result imitative ; in the best 
 sense. Turner's boulder, for example, is more like 
 a boulder than Claude's because it looks heavy : its 
 weight has got into the picture. Turner felt that 
 it was heavy, and must look so : he did not attain 
 this result by mere copying. Just so, his branches 
 hang like Nature's, because they express weight. 
 Nature's appearances can only be represented by 
 the man who feels her realities. The reality is 
 hidden : the appearance, visible : but the appear- 
 ance is dictated by, gets its look, tone, and charac- 
 ter from, the necessities of reality that do not 
 appear. All this is absolutely a sealed book to 
 Pre-Raphaelites, and to the great majority of bad 
 artists in every sphere. That which is not seen 
 must be expressed : it is infinitely more decisive 
 than that which is, in the making of the artist. 
 This is the eternal paradox of art : the artist is the 
 man in whom this perception of the invisible scaf- 
 folding of Nature, this hidden play and balance of 
 forces, is innate. Upon this all depends. Alike in 
 art and in philosophy, in politics and in war, the 
 great worker is the man who understands the 
 dynamics of Nature : who knows that the key to 
 structure and form lies in function and potentiali-
 
 dELs the tics* 289 
 
 ties. Who can draw a cliff, but the man who feels 
 its weight ? Who can create a dramatic scene or 
 
 o 
 
 situation, but the man who feels the tendencies of 
 human nature ? Who can analyse economy, or 
 govern a nation, but the man who feels the tenden- 
 cies of events, the necessities of politics, the dyna- 
 mical energies and strivings of realities ? 
 
 And in architecture, as in other directions, this 
 law holds. Not imitation, but the intuitive senti- 
 ment of correspondence between every structure 
 and its causal function, is the principle of creative 
 architecture. It is not ornament and decoration, 
 nothing externally added, but the outward stamp 
 and inward character of balance, poise, sweep, 
 power, weight, grace, proportion, harmony, sym- 
 metry, clean and delicious, or magnificent and mas- 
 sive adjustment and coadaptation : these things 
 are the goal and glory of a great building ; and they 
 are seen in natural bodies, but will never be attained 
 by a servile imitation of her results. All but this is 
 secondary. Colour and ornament are entirely sub- 
 ordinate to these, and only truly admissible in so 
 far as subservient to the end. This is why (though 
 here each must speak for himself, according to the 
 measure of his capacity to savour the truth of 
 things), colour is, strictly speaking, to be limited in 
 architecture to the natural colour of the material. 
 A building all of one colour, and that its own, is 
 the best. It loses in unity whatever it gains in 
 added colour. To colour a body variously may be 
 otherwise successful ; but it must always disturb 
 the architectural effect : the relations of balance 
 and weight which give the building its unifying 
 character. Different colours inevitably and irresist- 
 
 u
 
 290 Body and Soul. 
 
 ibly suggest diversity of weight and material : still 
 more so if they are laid on from the arbitrary con- 
 ception of the artist. Colour is antagonistic to form : 
 painting out of place destructive of architectural 
 beauty. Of colour in painting anon. But of colour 
 in architecture and sculpture this at least may be 
 said, that we can no more colour a building or 
 sculpture than we can ' paint the lily.' Why ? 
 Because it then immediately becomes a thing 
 glaringly artificial and unnatural. Nature's secret 
 escapes us here. We can only colour arbitrarily : 
 we cannot connect in this particular the inward with 
 the outward : hence to colour a building or sculp- 
 ture is to make it false, false as it would be to 
 colour a lily. For all structure that is not per- 
 ceptibly spontaneous and original, jars against our 
 sense of beauty, and colour in this case must and 
 cannot but be arbitrary. Here of course tastes 
 will differ : for my part, I can but say that I can 
 never see colour on a building without experiencing 
 the same feeling of disgust which is aroused by 
 paint on the face of a woman. The true building 
 is all of one colour, or almost all : grey, or white, 
 black, or ruddy : even different materials should be 
 employed with caution, for differences of colour 
 inevitably suggest, as we said, different weights, 
 and densities : thus destroying, or tending to 
 counteract and annul that sense of balance which is 
 the soul of architectural beauty. And the reader 
 should remember that just as many a fool gets the 
 reputation of a wise man, and many a woman 
 passes for a Lucretia who is no better than she 
 should be, so many a building is praised which has 
 nothing architecturally beautiful about it.
 
 ^Esthetics. 291 
 
 And as with colour, so is it with sculptural orna- 
 ment and decoration. However intrinsically beau- 
 tiful it may be, it is always an architectural blot, 
 unless and in so far as it directly contributes to the 
 architectural end. As a general rule, it may be 
 laid down that the good in sculptural decoration 
 lies in such carving, moulding, tracery, and so forth 
 as is in and of, but not added to the architectural 
 form or basis. All work which tends to aid the 
 chief design by rendering it lighter, more graceful, 
 more airy, soaring : which helps to throw it out 
 into relief by the aid of light and shadow : adds very 
 greatly to the effect of the whole, provided it be 
 always subordinate to that effect, and does not go 
 so far as to weaken and emasculate the whole, give 
 it a gymnastic appearance, or tend to draw away 
 attention from the work to the personal merit, as it 
 were, of the piece. But on the contrary rich and 
 detailed ornament of all kinds which is positively 
 added on to the whole, and superfluous to the main 
 design, only succeeds in destroying all. No doubt 
 what is lost on one side is gained on another : and 
 those in whom the historical or antiquarian sym- 
 pathy predominates over the artistic will not readily 
 agree to a principle which would rob many a build- 
 ing of much of its interest. None the less is it true 
 that Gothic architecture sins very much by over- 
 doing its ornament and decoration : and the clusters 
 of foliage, grotesque figures, emblematic and sym- 
 bolic sculptures of all kinds that are dotted all over 
 it mar as well as make its effect. They may add 
 largely to its religious significance ; but this is 
 metaphysics and not art : so would ethical maxims 
 printed on the wall, though not quite so directly. 
 
 u 2
 
 2 92 Body and Soul. 
 
 For a moment we may abandon ourselves to the 
 charms of beauty, arrayed in all the costly magnifi- 
 cence that wealth can command or fashion dictate ; 
 but the spell disappears when familiarity has 
 destroyed the novelty, and we turn everlastingly 
 back, repentant and ashamed of our desertion, to 
 offer on our knees the apple to divine simplicity, 
 as she stands resting on the rock of Nature, cold, 
 white, pure and stony, magnificently patient, 
 biding her time. All her rivals do but dazzle and 
 disappear, but she, what she is to-day, that she was 
 yesterday, and will be to-morrow : something that 
 defies our analysis and commands our homage : 
 altogether indifferent whether we leave her alone 
 or stand before her lost in admiration and despair. 
 For nothing really excellent need ever hurry : 
 sooner or later its turn will come. 
 
 Such is the power of those creations of Art which 
 derive the source of their beauty from the same 
 fountain as the creations of Nature, and of those 
 alone. The indescribable charm which haunts 
 Nature's products lies essentially in this, that they 
 never aim at effect. Nature never anywhere aims 
 at beauty : it results, comes of itself without inten- 
 tion. Beauty is a corollary : it comes to those who 
 do not seek it, but who do their duty. Not a single 
 detail of structure is ever ornamental : to ornament 
 for the sake of ornament would spoil all. Nature 
 does her duty, suits her structures to their functions, 
 and beauty follows like the reward of virtue, like 
 the Legion of Honour to the sentinel who thought 
 only of defending his post. The very essence of 
 her consummate beauty lies in the fact that she 
 makes no effort after, no boast about it, sets no
 
 Esthetics. 293 
 
 store by it : there is no arriere-pensee here : she is 
 naive, open, and absolutely without pose. Each 
 natural creature attends strictly to its own business, 
 and is not ashamed. Hence its beauty. And so is 
 it with genuine art : let it think of no other thing 
 than simply performing its function, and the rest 
 will follow. 
 
 But at this point it is necessary to notice the all 
 important principle, a principle valid equally for 
 nature and art, especially architecture, and which is 
 forced upon both by the nature of things : I mean 
 the Aristotelian and Darwinian principle of cor- 
 related variation, which we discussed in the First 
 Book. Structure is not, they tell us, determined 
 throughout and altogether by function : it is so in 
 essentials ; but then, these being what they are, 
 necessarily involve corollaries : that is, parts correla- 
 tive and subordinate to those that are essential. 
 The architectural importance of this principle is 
 very great. For it is found that in the arrange- 
 ment of any building, the form of the chief points 
 necessarily involves and implies and defines those 
 that stand behind. For example, the early Gothic 
 builders found that their attempts to work out the 
 principle of the pointed arch necessarily obliged 
 them to have certain correlative openings not 
 originally contemplated. The formula they found 
 to rule over their labour was this : If certain prin- 
 ciples are to be pursued and attained, then certain 
 corollaries and concessions become necessary. And 
 this is the case with all creation, all formative 
 energy : let the statesman or party leader answer 
 for it : bu.t above all, with architecture. A building 
 entirely one in its ensemble is as impossible as an
 
 294 Body and Soul. 
 
 animal : one, that is to say, through and through 
 determined by function, in which everything is 
 essential. Something must always be superfluous : 
 it is as it were a percentage form has to pay to 
 matter : the price of the latter's consent to take 
 form. The skill of the artist lies in so working out 
 his idea as to subordinate this element as much as 
 possible. On a les defauts de ses qualitds. The 
 knowledge of the disadvantages thus necessarily 
 accompanying and hampering advantages, is the 
 supreme knowledge of the artist in any art. The 
 palm of victory is rightly awarded to genius which 
 can as it were turn even this refractory element to 
 good account, which can attain the greatest possible 
 amount of the true end of architecture at the least 
 possible sacrifice. This is the soul of composition, 
 or, as we might accurately call it, organisation : it 
 is not merely in his true conception of the end, but 
 in his grasp, or power of seizing his work in its 
 totality, that we discern the master of his art. It 
 is just the absence of this which leads directly to 
 the decay of art, by allowing the artist to look only 
 at the result in bits, all of which may be separately 
 above and beyond praise, and yet the whole a failure. 
 And this leads us directly to the solution of a 
 question, which has often been debated, yet as far 
 as I am aware has hitherto remained without an 
 answer the question, namely, wherein lies the true 
 distinction between fancy and imagination. Every 
 one feels, without being able to account for the 
 feeling, that such a distinction there is. And in 
 truth, the distinction can only be perceived and 
 made clear, from the point of view afforded by the 
 thesis of this book. Fancy and the fanciful are
 
 ^Esthetics. 295 
 
 notions exactly analogous to those of chance, hap- 
 hazard, luck, accident. AH these terms essentially 
 imply a negative relation to the term design. 
 When, for example, we say that anything happened 
 by chance, by accident, luckily we do not mean 
 that it did not happen of necessity, for this is not 
 the opposition involved : we always mean to con- 
 trast the event with a given design. A man aims 
 at a rabbit, and unluckily chances to kill his friend : 
 he takes a bridge by storm, and luckily it happens 
 to give his general the means of victory : he tries 
 to catch a train, and arrives late thereby avoiding 
 death in a railway accident and so on. The ele- 
 ment of chance always lies outside the design, but 
 implies a negative reference to it. Now, what 
 chance and luck are to design, that is fancy to 
 imagination. The fanciful in result or execution 
 always implies a negative relation to the law that 
 function makes structure : always implies, that is 
 to say, the absence of correspondence to function. 
 The fanciful element in art always signifies isola- 
 tion, arbitrariness, structure undetermined by func- 
 tion : intrinsically very beautiful, it may be, but 
 capricious and erratic : unfettered by rules and 
 laws : not required by the subject in hand. And 
 this is corroborated by the popular feeling that 
 fancy is, as it were, free, irresponsible, abnormal, 
 wayward, autonomous. A fanciful mind is one 
 that runs off the subject, wanders and strays from 
 the main point : catches at explanations, ideas, 
 analogies that want solidity and connection, i.e. 
 that do not answer to the need or function in 
 hand. Fancy is thus just the opposite of Imagina- 
 tion, and indeed, a far lower and more common
 
 296 Body and Soul. 
 
 faculty. Fancy shoots at random : Imagination 
 always aims at a mark : for example, Dickens is 
 fanciful as compared with Dostoyeffsky, an author 
 whom he otherwise resembles in many points : his 
 characters are whimsical, odd, amusing, but unreal ; 
 not imaginative : they are the children of originality 
 and fancy, but not based on that deep constructive, 
 imaginative, sympathetic intuitive insight into the 
 essential realities of things and natures of men 
 which the Russian possesses in so marvellous a 
 measure. Gothic ornamentation is very largely of 
 this fanciful description : imaginative ornament, 
 a far higher reach of genius, is rare. But the 
 ordinary mind finds more pleasure in the fanciful 
 than the imaginative. For any one can appreciate 
 the first ; whereas to appreciate imaginative power 
 it is necessary to possess insight into the nature of 
 the sphere in which it is exercised. Aristotle, for 
 example, is imaginative : Plato, only fanciful f : 
 Shakspeare or Scott, imaginative : Shelley, fanci- 
 ful : De la Motte Fouque, imaginative : Hoffmann, 
 fanciful ; and so on. Hence it is, that the grotesque, 
 the ridiculous, the quaint or curious, all but varieties 
 of the fanciful, caricatures and comicalities are 
 readily recognized and enjoyed : while on the 
 contrary the imaginative, because it requires sympa- 
 thetic interpretation, and demands a certain basis 
 of knowledge of its field in the spectator, is not so 
 readily received, but must wait perhaps for years to 
 
 f The reader to whom this may seem paradoxical should 
 remember, that imaginative thinking does not lie in thin 
 visionary arbitrary Utopian dreaming, but in large analytically 
 constructive insight, which leaves out no circumstances possibly 
 influencing results.
 
 sEstJtetics. 297 
 
 meet with recognition. And all the more, because 
 imagination is always terribly in earnest : hence all 
 men of real imagination are lonely : whereas fancy 
 is bon gar f on, a good fellow, constantly grinning 
 and playing antics : never scrupling to break 
 a scurril jest in the most sacred and solemn mo- 
 ments : nay, maliciously choosing just these for its 
 outbreak. This is the spirit so frequently seen in 
 Gothic architecture, where the solemn effect of 
 many a silent religious nook or arch is rudely, and 
 as it were boisterously, broken into by grinning 
 goblins and uncouth devils, shooting out the tongue 
 and startling the quiet meditations of the spectator 
 by malignant and disturbing scoffs and jeers. 
 
 The point is well illustrated by a comparison of 
 Greek with Gothic architecture : for comparisons 
 are not odious when the object is not depreciation, 
 but explanation. Of all nations, the Greeks best 
 understood the true province of pure art. The art 
 of the Greeks is at once the purest and the most 
 imaginative, the least fanciful and most natural of 
 all. Their temples, for example, are exquisite 
 models of proportion and harmony : though they 
 lose in power by not making use of the arch. The 
 rectangular form of their building could never, in 
 point of grace and power, compete with Gothic 
 curves. But in this as in other points the bar- 
 barians show both their strength and their weak- 
 ness. They spoil the purity of their fundamental 
 conception, in itself far more beautiful than that 
 of the Greeks, by overloading it with matter foreign 
 to its own nature. They attempt to turn art into 
 symbolism, and hide the beautiful simplicity of 
 contour under a multitude of fantastic and alle-
 
 298 Body and Soul. 
 
 gorical garments. It is the old story : here as 
 always the Barbarian, as against the Greek, shows 
 a higher moral spirit, but less mental freedom and 
 perception of form. Black night, Oriental mysticism, 
 and iron feudal oppression have entered into the 
 soul of the Goth : suffering and superstition poison 
 his taste and transmogrify his artistic productions. 
 ' What the artist is potentially, that his work actually 
 expresses.' Gothic architecture, as Michelet says 
 in his wonderful History of France, is the record 
 of the Passion. It attempts, in fact, to express 
 more than is artistically legitimate or even possible 
 in stone : ideas not only aesthetic, but metaphysical 
 and religious. This gives to it as it were a wider 
 public, a more democratic and popular appeal ; but 
 it only conquers by stooping. A genuine son of 
 Hellas would have felt uneasy in contemplating it : 
 he would have felt, yet not perhaps been able clearly 
 to explain, that form was here disfigured by feeling : 
 that the province of art had been invaded by sen- 
 timental vulgarity : that the idea was marred by an 
 unseemly want of self-command and knowledge of 
 limit ; as though he were listening to some orator, 
 spoiling the effect of a great idea by uncouth ges- 
 tures and bizarre expressions, which idea never- 
 theless shone through, inarticulately, in spite of its 
 medium. And in truth Gothic architecture stands 
 half way between the purity of Greek, and the 
 sombre and gloomy abominations of the Hindoo 
 or Russian style, which express nothing artistic, 
 but only a dark and oppressive superstitious awe : 
 curious from a philosophical or antiquarian point of 
 view, and presenting extraordinary evidence of 
 industry and patient sculptorial skill, but utterly
 
 ^Esthetics. 295 
 
 repulsive, artistically speaking, and destitute of 
 taste. On the other hand, Mohammedan architec- 
 ture with its peculiar horse-shoe arches and pointed 
 minarets displays in some ways a finer sense of 
 grace and beauty than all the others, especially in 
 its simple forms : though here too excess of orna- 
 ment mars the effect. And in general, we may see 
 how the Greek qualities are those of harmony and 
 proportion : while grace is the essential feature of 
 Moorish, and power of Gothic architecture. The 
 impression of sublimity in Egyptian building arises 
 chiefly from its colossal size. 
 
 So much, then, as to architecture, which is of all 
 the arts perhaps the most instructive from the point 
 of view of the central idea we are analysing. For 
 the work of this artist, just like that of Nature, 
 results in an original and completely independent 
 body, not imitated from anything, not tested by 
 reference to any model ; but whose excellence de- 
 pends upon the degree in which its structure an- 
 swers to its true and peculiar function, that of 
 expressing those ideas of grace and proportion, 
 harmony, balance, and reciprocal relation of part 
 to part, which are appropriate to and conditioned 
 by its material. The pleasure we experience at 
 seeing a panther noiselessly leap with ease from 
 point to point over immense spaces, is precisely the 
 same in kind as that which we experience in con- 
 templating a lofty roof springing out of and resting 
 on a single pillar : in both cases it depends essen- 
 tially upon the underlying sentiment of weight in 
 the bodies, and would vanish instantly were we told 
 that the panther's body was as light as a balloon, or 
 that the roof which seems to be so heavy were
 
 3<x> Body and Soul. 
 
 made of cork or paper. Herein lies the reason why 
 brick, wood, and similar materials are architecturally 
 a mistake. It might seem that iron, being heavy 
 like stone, would equally serve its purpose : and 
 yet an iron building would certainly not produce 
 the same aesthetic effect as one of stone. Why is 
 this ? It is because we know and feel that stone 
 inevitably tends and strives to fall, and will do so, 
 unless the balance is preserved : whereas iron, being 
 continuous and not discrete in its particles, may 
 stick up in any direction without falling, being sup- 
 ported by its cohesive force in its lower extremities, 
 and thus weight here does not determine the result. 
 But all balance and all grace in architecture essen- 
 tially depend upon weight ; apart from the weight 
 of their materials, the forms of arches, domes, and 
 so forth have no reason for their existence. Iron, 
 which imitates these forms without possessing their 
 inner necessity, displeases us, and with reason. 
 And on this account, too, it is, that on the one hand 
 those buildings would please us best which we 
 knew to have been built entirely without mortar or 
 any binding, but which held together entirely by 
 the weight and composition of their materials : 
 while on the other, leaning towers, such as those 
 of Saragossa and Pisa, are entirely abominable, 
 simply tours de force, violating the very inner nature 
 of all architecture, and jarring on us like a false 
 note in music. 
 
 IV. Widely different as they are, there is never- 
 theless a close relation between architecture and 
 sculpture, the art of carving wood, marble, stone, 
 and other material into shapes imaginatively and 
 fancifully beautiful. A certain amount of sculpture
 
 Esthetics. 301 
 
 is thus indispensable to architecture, for in the wide 
 sense of the word all cutting, carving, or chiselling 
 falls under the notion of sculpture. In a narrower 
 sense, sculpture is regarded as being peculiarly 
 concerned with the forms of men, animals, and 
 plants : organic life, real or imaginary. The er- 
 roneous view of art which places its aim in imitation 
 finds apparent support in the arts of sculpture and 
 painting. Of the latter anon : here we confine 
 ourselves to sculpture. Now, there is just this 
 amount of truth in the theory, that certainly, in 
 representing organic forms, the realities are always 
 at hand to serve as a test of the sculptured result. 
 But not to mention the fact that sculptural or- 
 nament may entirely neglect reality and set itself 
 to realising the fantastic here too imitation alone 
 will never produce any artistic result. Closely as 
 the artist may study models, both externally and 
 anatomically, his work will never be worth anything, 
 unless imagination teach him how to use his ma- 
 terial. The types of nature must be to him not so 
 much models, as hints. It is not so much what 
 nature actually shows us, that he will endeavour 
 to produce ; but that which he shows us will always 
 be such as nature might have shown us, under 
 suitable conditions. His creation will be natural 
 even when unreal. For nature is often hampered 
 by unfavourable conditions, which she must obey ; 
 especially in the case of man : this is what Aristotle 
 means when he says that it is Nature's object to 
 produce the best, but not unfrequently she fails. 
 The artist is he who sympathises with her, enters 
 into her soul to interpret her and learn her methods : 
 only the power of sympathetic imagination will
 
 3O2 Body and Soul. 
 
 enable him to divine and as it were anticipate how 
 she would act in any given case. Here too the 
 law holds that it is not the finished results, the 
 forms, but the processes, of nature that the artist 
 should imitate. He who can divine what, under 
 given ideal conditions, would be her action, he who 
 can imaginatively seize the structure which her 
 forms would take in answer to ideally noble or 
 sublime or peculiar conditions, is the sculptor par 
 excellence : provided always that his hand can exe- 
 cute what his head can conceive. For in no art 
 is matter so obstinately difficult as in sculpture : 
 viewed as the conquest of mind over matter most 
 unquestionably sculpture is the highest art : and 
 this is why it is the rarest. Just because it appeals 
 so directly to the eye, trained by the experience 
 of ages to estimate g , even in imperceptibly small 
 degree, nature's balance and proportion and finish, 
 a fine sculpture is the artistic ideal. The combina- 
 tion of boldness and delicacy, ease and sweep, with 
 scrupulous and minute accuracy ; the infinitely 
 laborious and patient toil which must nevertheless 
 entirely conceal itself, so that the result shall appear 
 as though instantaneously created ; the keeping of 
 the temper ; the real, living, spirited animation of 
 
 6 People are apt to attach far too much importance to 
 technical learning, as the qualification of a critic : and pay 
 no attention to the fact that the education of the eye has been 
 going on for millions of years. It is not the little rationalistic 
 technical furniture acquired in a few years of the individual life, 
 but the great deep popular capacities of the organic nature, 
 in a good specimen, that make the critic. Not merely vox 
 populi, vox Dei, but ocuhis populi, ocuhis Dei. Just as true 
 metaphysics lies in language, so does true judgment and 
 criticism lie in the organic faculties.
 
 jEstJictics. 303 
 
 a result obtained through a process contradictory 
 of it : the grace, fire, passion, or soul of the end 
 contrasted with the plodding, pedantic, exasperating 
 dulness of the means ; all this makes executive 
 excellence in sculpture next door to impossible. 
 The labours of Hercules are nothing to the labours 
 of the sculptor. No other artist has a tithe of the 
 struggle of the sculptor : no other finds such an 
 infinite distance between his ideal and his grasp. 
 Nor can he ever expect repayment in proportion 
 to his expenditure : for sculpture must always be 
 the least popular of the arts. 
 
 Apart from the unique excellence required in 
 the execution, the sculptor's peculiar endowment 
 and faculty is taste. This appears in the result : 
 the laborious execution, on the other, appears 
 by its absence, negatively : the less it appears, 
 the more we know it to have been there : the 
 more living and unfettered the result, the more 
 we guess the difficulty to have been overcome : 
 the easier it appears, the harder it was. Ars 
 suprema celare art em. But with taste it is the 
 reverse. Taste is the sculptor's quality, and 
 taste is just the point in which the Greeks are 
 most decisively and superlatively great. No 
 sculptures of any age or country can stand beside 
 the Greek without suffering : their supremacy in 
 taste is as undeniable as it is inexplicable. They 
 alone, we might almost say, had any taste at all. 
 Of sculpture, more than any art, may it be said, 
 that there is but a step between the sublime and 
 the ridiculous. It is further impossible to define 
 taste, or say how it is to be attained : it can 
 only be felt. It lies in no part of the whole, but
 
 304 Body and Soul. 
 
 pervades it all : and yet the charm vanishes, if 
 it be not there. The slightest suggestion of 
 its opposite, which just because it is negative, 
 has many names, the gross, the boorish, the 
 vulgar, the commonplace, the wooden, the lourde, 
 ruins all. We can only describe it by metaphors : 
 it is that which we see in all flowers, in most 
 birds, in some animals. How infinitely hard to 
 render it in stone ! It is not merely difficult, but 
 impossible, except by some divine chance the 
 artist hit the mark. The sculptor must be one 
 beloved by the Gods. 
 
 And yet sculpture has still an obstacle to en- 
 counter, and one which goes far to render it 
 almost impossible ; one which it can never con- 
 quer, but must compound with. Just because it 
 creates models and specimens of living forms ; 
 just because it approaches so infinitely close to 
 reality, it almost inevitably suggests a contrast 
 and comparison of its creatures with the realities 
 in a point to which it never can attain : motion. 
 Comparisons, here above all, are odious. It is 
 an inevitable defect essential to all sculptures that 
 the more lifelike and breathing they are, the more 
 do they challenge comparison with what they can 
 never rival. Half the charm of natural objects lies 
 in their motion, but this is for ever denied to 
 sculpture. Well did the author of the legend of 
 Pygmalion pitch upon the everlasting torture of the 
 sculptor : if only his creation could move ! It was 
 not all nonsense when Byron exclaimed, 
 
 4 I've seen much finer women, warm and real, 
 Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal.' 
 
 For he here touches to the quick the weak point
 
 ^Esthetics. 305 
 
 in all sculpture, its want of motion. There will 
 always be a sense of gene, which nothing can ever 
 banish or do away with, which sticks in the mind 
 like some faint unpleasant flavour left in the mouth, 
 in the contemplation of figures ever on the point of 
 moving, but never reaching it. We feel instinctively 
 as we look at them that something is lacking. It 
 is as though we were tied, or struggling in a dream 
 to run or escape. They are meant to move : they 
 are built for motion ; nay, they want, they strive to 
 move : why, then, do they not ? Alas, they cannot. 
 And here, as it seems to me, though here, again, 
 we can but repeat the old de gustibus, lies the reason 
 why statues ought not to be coloured. To colour 
 statues is to remove the last partition that divides 
 the stone from the life : and by bringing them still 
 nearer to reality than ever, to make them less real 
 than before. The feeling of uneasiness which lay 
 like a disturbing element in our pure contemplation 
 of their immobility before, now rises into positive 
 discomfort. Exasperation, almost anger, now suc- 
 ceeds to that which before was melancholy and 
 regret. Before, the artist confined himself to form, 
 and form is not yet life. But when we go further, 
 and attempt to mimic the very hues and warmth of 
 life, inseparable from motion, we arouse a positive 
 and glaring contradiction between the ideal and the 
 real : and the ideal turns out to be after all only 
 a caricature. Fools, exclaims old Hesiod, who 
 know not how much more is the half than the 
 whole : there is indeed a limit beyond which art 
 may not proceed : non datur ultra. Orpheus looks 
 back, oversteps the forbidden line, in his yearning 
 for complete fruition, and loses his Eurydice, who 
 
 x
 
 306 Body and Soul. 
 
 returns with a shriek to the hated halls of Dis. 
 For all genuine and complete achievement, and all 
 sublime reward, rests upon self-control : nor can 
 any one call out his realised ideal from the dark 
 realms of the formless who has not strength to 
 refrain. And yet genius is just excess of passion ! 
 Who can wonder, if that which involves the blend- 
 ing of two contradictions is so rare ? But as to 
 statues and their colour let who will colour his 
 statues, but let me not be there to see ! 
 
 And this inability of sculpture to attain to motion 
 explains why we find most permanent and undying 
 pleasure in those figures and groups which have 
 caught the instantaneous moment of repose. Not, 
 indeed, that sculpture should confine itself to the 
 representation of bodies absolutely still, or even 
 sleeping, though perhaps here it would most com- 
 pletely attain its end : but that the moment which 
 is naturally motionless in any action, one that suits 
 it for a dramatic tableau, is best fitted also for sculp- 
 turesque presentment. This has always seemed to 
 me to be the essential defect in the Laocoon : for 
 here the figures, writhing and striving with the 
 serpents in their agony, would certainly never be still 
 for a moment : and we feel this when we look at 
 it : it is an error of taste. But horses prancing on 
 the freize of the Parthenon, and similar momentary 
 poses, do not create the same unpleasant impression, 
 because sight is so rapid that even in real life these 
 positions photograph themselves on the eye. Still 
 even here, the aesthetic effect is a little hampered 
 by the feeling that they ought to change their posi- 
 tion, and we never can rid ourselves of this. We 
 are never in more entire harmony with any sculp-
 
 ^Esthetics. 307 
 
 ture than when it represents death. For here, 
 there is no more motion, but the object lies still 
 and quiet for ever. This is the aesthetic reason, 
 though a mixture of religious sentiment enters into 
 the matter, for the inward peace and satisfaction 
 aroused in the mind by old tombs of knights and 
 their ladies : there is no lie here, no self-deception : 
 the marble speaks truth at last. 
 
 V. Architecture and sculpture, being compelled 
 to trust to form alone for their result, must work 
 within very narrow limits : for this, among other 
 reasons, they are the least democratic of the arts. 
 With painting, we enter upon a wider sphere. 
 Painting, the art of representing on a flat surface by 
 means of form and colour any such ideas, objects, 
 characters, or emotions, as find their legitimate 
 expression through form and colour, is the most 
 popular of the arts. Partly because it appeals 
 directly and immediately to the eyesight, of all the 
 senses that which gives us most information and 
 pleasure with the least trouble, partly because it is 
 the least expensive, and partly again because it 
 requires less ability and less labour to produce a 
 tolerably satisfactory result in this than in any other 
 art, if it may be called the democratic art : and in 
 fact the terms art and artist are applied in popular 
 parlance primarily to painting and painters. Of all 
 the arts this is the one which gives most colour to 
 the theory that art is imitation. And this much at 
 least may be conceded, that skilful imitation alone 
 in this art will give very pleasing results. Yet here, 
 no less than elsewhere, the highest achievement is 
 possible only to imaginative construction. 
 
 The width of its province is not the least of the 
 
 X 2
 
 308 Body and Soul. 
 
 qualifications that recommend painting to the suf- 
 frages of the many. Thousands of people who are 
 quite incapable of appreciating architecture, music, 
 sculpture, or literature can take pleasure in pictures. 
 Their scope is as universal as the field of vision. 
 Scenery and landscape, portrait and character paint- 
 ing, historical, allegorical, ethical or religious, tragic 
 or comic, sublime or grotesque, subjects all fall 
 within its sphere. Painting is like a pedlar, who 
 has a ware in his pack for every customer. Nor, 
 regarding art from a strictly critical point of view, 
 have we any right to exclude anything whatever 
 from its ken. Raphael or Turner, Albrecht Durer 
 or Reynolds, Blake or Kaulbach or Cruikshank 
 the painter may paint what he chooses : from the 
 painter, as stick, we have no right to demand that 
 he shall paint this rather than that : provided 
 always that the subject, whatever it may be, be 
 treated with that degree of artistic and executive 
 excellence, and in that spirit which is proper to it. 
 But from another point of view, the case is altered. 
 From the point of view, not of the execution, but 
 of the subject ; not of the painting, but the painted ; 
 not, that is to say, of the painter qua painter, but 
 the painter qua artist, there arise differences of 
 rank. No one would ever think of the noble, the 
 sublime, or the beautiful, nor even of the terrible or 
 awful, in connection with Hogarth or Wilkie, Teniers 
 or Landseer. Regarded as imaginative creators, 
 everyone would give to different artists higher or 
 lower niches in the temple of fame : and rightly : 
 for though it might seem a sort of paradox to say 
 so, it is not painting that makes the painter : it is 
 creative genius. The ideal painter will combine
 
 ^Esthetics. 309 
 
 both excellences, but where this is not so, the true 
 critic will choose the former, and choose well. For 
 the true function of all art is to realize the ideal, 
 and it is better to hint at a high ideal, than to give 
 thorough and complete expression to a low one. 
 All art is more or less incomplete : it hints rather 
 than speaks out. No one knows better than a 
 consummate artist how infinitely far below concep- 
 tion even the most perfect achievement stands : so 
 much so, that even what it is given to him to attain 
 is attained, as it were, #e/a Tv\r), by some unde- 
 signed happiness. Since then this is so ; since even 
 the most finished result is, relatively to the ideal it 
 sought to express, but a suggestion and a sketch, 
 it should seem that the highest ideals are least 
 susceptible of completest definition, and the further 
 we go in the direction of definition, the more likely 
 we are to obliterate our original conception. This 
 is the really deep reason for the fact, which must 
 have struck every student of art, that the unfinished 
 studies and sketches, the stray fragments of imagi- 
 nation caught and jotted down under happy inspira- 
 tions, but never worked out, of great masters, often 
 possess an indescribable fascination that we miss in 
 their larger works, even in their masterpieces. For 
 on the one hand the rapid sketch comes, as it were, 
 warm from the forge and no frigid and perhaps 
 erroneous detail spoils it, while on the other much 
 is left to the imagination to fill in, and imagination 
 is free, while execution is bound. For the further 
 we go in filling in the sketch, the more do we 
 recede from the divine conception ; and is it not 
 the case, let those answer who have striven to fix 
 an ideal, that the best part of all is just that which
 
 3 io Body and Soul. 
 
 beggars all description and defies translation into 
 the language of material ? No finished picture ever 
 touches one so near, as many a rough and inspired 
 sketch, where with a few broad essential strokes 
 and features the artist has caught a spirit that would 
 have evaporated long ere he succeeded in imprison- 
 ing it in an elaborate magnum opus. For time is 
 the great enemy of the genuine artist. Especially 
 is this true of Turner, a poet painter if ever there 
 was one. The very reason of his failure, in many 
 of his larger paintings, is that he was attempting to 
 fix upon the canvas something utterly beyond the 
 power of brush and colour to express : while on 
 the other hand, in his studies and vignettes, the 
 letter had less dominion over the spirit, and thus 
 he was enabled to throw his soul upon the paper : 
 to do more by attempting less. Moreover, the 
 further we go into detail, the less can we cope with 
 the difficulties that beset us. But on the other 
 hand, it should never be forgotten, that everything 
 actual is superior to what is merely potential : to 
 realise is harder than to suggest : and from this 
 point of view, execution becomes more important 
 than conception. The truth is, that, ideally, both 
 should be supreme : where one predominates over 
 the other, it is impossible to lay down any law that 
 should guide us in our choice. Sometimes, ex- 
 quisite execution may pardon a want of imaginative 
 power : sometimes, we may forgive great executive 
 defects in one who has ' imagined much.' 
 
 And on this principle rests the paradoxical truth 
 that in landscape especially light and shadow alone, 
 black and white, will often produce a more artistic 
 effect than colour. For natural beauty depends to
 
 ^Esthetics. 3 1 1 
 
 a large extent upon colour, whose infinitesimally 
 continuous and infinitely various tints it is quite 
 impossible to seize ; and upon lights, which no con- 
 ceivable skill of hand or tractability of pigment can 
 do anything but caricature. For example, the low 
 evening sunlight striking through a pine forest, or 
 sunrise on hill and moor. In such cases, Nature's 
 very choicest and commonest feats, which she per- 
 forms with the most reckless and spend-thrift extra- 
 vagance, as if to mock and baffle all attempts to 
 follow her, who reaches after the impossible is 
 foredoomed to failure : it is better, and marks 
 a truer sense of art, to aim only at what is prac- 
 ticable. To confine oneself to light and shade, 
 without attempting colour, is no sign of a want of 
 colour sense : on the contrary, the more exquisite 
 the sense of colour in the artist, the stronger will be 
 his conviction of the total impossibility of reprodu- 
 cing it : the less time will he waste in verifying his 
 misgivings, and proving by experiment the despera- 
 tion of his forlorn hope. But what he cannot 
 achieve in full, he may in large measure effect by 
 suggestion : contenting himself with grasping the 
 basis of the miracle in its lights and shades, and 
 leaving it to the spectator to fill in sympathetically 
 the lacking tints, from the combined power of 
 memory and imagination. This again is the reason 
 for the apparent and familiar anomaly, that an 
 engraving often gives us a keener aesthetic pleasure 
 than the original painting from which it was taken. 
 The beauty of Nature gives to landscape paint- 
 ing in some ways a higher position than any other 
 branch of this art : on the other hand, its difficulty, 
 rising into impossibility, lays it open from another
 
 312 Body and Soul. 
 
 point of view to the opposite charge of being less 
 artistic than any other form of painting, just because 
 it can, to begin with, never effect its aim so ade- 
 quately as these, and may further degenerate into 
 commonplace by basing itself on unimaginative 
 mimicry. Nature we have always with us, and 
 who would barter the reality for the copy, however 
 skilful ? Moreover, a flat surface is after all always 
 a flat surface, and in spite of all the cunning of per- 
 spective and foreshortening, it necessarily comes 
 about, that the more space we take in, the less 
 adequate can be the treatment. The stereoscope 
 proves how little any painted picture can really 
 represent an extensive view. But now, the sense 
 of space is half the charm of scenery. If, therefore, 
 realism in the vulgar sense of the word, exact imita- 
 tion of nature, were the true aim of art, it would 
 follow that a stereoscopic photograph was higher 
 art than any painting. But this is a reductio ad 
 absurdum of the theory. On the contrary, it is the 
 true function of art to give us imaginatively what 
 is not to be found in Nature. Therefore the pre- 
 valence of imitative landscape painting in our day 
 marks a want of artistic imagination : the old 
 masters turned to ethical subjects as the sphere of 
 the noblest form of the art : and indeed, landscape 
 painting, such as is not mere conventionality and 
 caricature, is a comparatively modern invention. 
 Turner is great, not because, as Mr. Ruskin says, 
 he is imitative, but just because he is not : he is 
 imaginative. His paintings are poems. Realistic, 
 indeed, he is : true to Nature, even where he is 
 least imitative : but never realistic in the common- 
 place sense, never photographic. He does not
 
 ^Esthetics. 3 1 3 
 
 imitate Nature's results, but her processes. He 
 creates ; he does not copy : he gives us the light 
 that never was on sea or land, but as it would have 
 been, could it be found. For all true art is realistic : 
 not, that it copies, but on the contrary, because it 
 creates imaginatively in the spirit of realism. No 
 true idealism is arbitrary : it is idealistic of the real. 
 And Turner is the prince of landscape painters, 
 because he understood this. Realism idealised : 
 this is the true vocation of art ; and few indeed are 
 the painters who can cope with landscape. Vulgar 
 imitation is as common as it is abominable : but 
 creative realism is as admirable as it is rare. 
 
 The noblest forms of figure painting are historical 
 and ethical : portrait painting is a kind of cross 
 between the two. The art of the portrait painter 
 lies in so depicting his particular character as to 
 universalise him : in Aristotelian language, catching 
 not merely what is actual, but what is potential in 
 him : slavish reproduction of the individual, on the 
 other hand, is not art but a mere knack : cleverness 
 and nothing more. This will always be caviare to 
 the general, who think, not without reason, that the 
 first business of a portrait is to be like the original. 
 And so, indeed, it is : but then the question is, 
 what do you mean by like ? As any particular man 
 is not only a unit, an individual, but also a charac- 
 ter, the true portrait painter is he who can so catch 
 the character of the individual as to express this. 
 For it is only in so far as it expresses character : 
 only so far as the individual trait is characteristic, 
 that it is artistic. The individual, merely as such, 
 is always mean and insignificant : it is as a specimen 
 of the race, as a man definitely of this or that kind,
 
 3 14 Body and Soul. 
 
 that he becomes full of moral meaning. Now, 
 character diverges away from the common type ; 
 beauty, on the other hand, intensifies it. Character 
 is the quality of a man, beauty that of a woman. 
 This is why female figures are more appropriate for 
 sculpture than painting : with male, this cannot be 
 said : the portraits of men are however a higher 
 and more difficult form of art than those of women, 
 because character is a higher and more noble thing 
 than beauty. Character in woman is to character 
 in men what moonlight is to sunlight : a thing pale, 
 uncertain, faint and shadowy : not that women have 
 no character ; every woman has, rather, something, 
 some point, special to herself : but hardly what we 
 mean by character : because action is not the func- 
 tion of woman, and character is the correlative of 
 action. Sex is the thing of primary importance in 
 a woman : therefore it predominates in them all, 
 and is only slightly coloured by special qualities in 
 each : but nobody ever thinks of sex in the case of 
 men. They stand or fall by character and action. 
 This is why women are peculiarly styled ' the sex : ' 
 they have monopolised the word, as they would 
 monopolise everything else if they could. A proof 
 of all this is the fact, that a woman whose face 
 or manner expresses character more than is cus- 
 tomary seems almost masculine : we feel that 
 something is wrong : she is not the same as the 
 rest. The more character, as a rule, the less 
 beauty : but all women, give them their choice, 
 would choose beauty first. Their instinct tells 
 them what their function is : it is simply sexual ; 
 to attract men. As soon as a woman is married, 
 her goal is achieved : but a man's marriage is only
 
 Aesthetics. 3 1 5 
 
 an incident in his career : he may achieve his end 
 either with or without it. Hence with men the 
 resemblances are superficial, and the differences 
 deep : women on the contrary only differ super- 
 ficially ; at bottom they are identical. Therefore 
 it is that we always speak of women in the lump, 
 and base our inferences respecting any one woman 
 on the known characteristics of the sex ; for in spite 
 of commonplaces about the caprice and uncertainty 
 of woman, and the difficulty of ' knowing ' women, 
 the truth is that nothing acts with such apodeictic 
 certainty after its kind as a woman, and the diffi- 
 culty of knowing women does not arise from their 
 depth, but their superficiality : their motives escape 
 us by their extreme triviality. Just as Napoleon's 
 army puzzled themselves about the secret mysteries 
 lying hidden inside the Pyramids, and when they 
 went in, says Bourrienne, they found that there 
 was nothing to be found : so do men, arguing from 
 their own depth, delude themselves about the diffi- 
 culty of fathoming the heart of woman, while all 
 the time the deception is analagous to that of 
 a mirror, which seems so deep because it reflects 
 the profundities that stand above it, being itself 
 a mere surface. On the other hand, we never 
 assume that we can tell what any particular man 
 will do, till we have made his acquaintance, and 
 seen what sort of a man he is. And the reader 
 who with particular cases in his eye disagrees with 
 all this, should recollect that exceptions prove the 
 rule : and 77 Oypiov rj 0eo? : a woman is always 
 either a woman or a saint. 
 
 The cardinal defect in portrait painting is that it 
 is an abstraction, and thus compares unfavourably
 
 316 Body and Soul. 
 
 with historical or ethical painting. Characters in 
 life are always in "action, and thus expressive : 
 whereas in their portraits they are still, isolated, 
 in attitudes, and doing nothing, or, what is the 
 same thing, doing something fictitiously for the sake 
 of appearances and the portrait : this always lends 
 an air of stiffness and unreality to the very best 
 portraits, which is much increased when the por- 
 trait is only half length. We n^ever see people in 
 bits, but all together. Our conception of any par- 
 ticular person's character always rests upon the 
 whole man in action, and can never be adequately 
 expressed by the face alone in repose. Accordingly 
 very few portraits can ever enable us to feel sure 
 we have any certain knowledge of the character 
 they represent, and a stolid, stupid, wooden, phleg- 
 matic person is the best subject for portrait painting, 
 regarded as the means of conveying exact informa- 
 tion as to what the subject is like. This is proved 
 by the extraordinary differences that are presented 
 by portraits of many a well known character, so 
 that they hardly resemble each other at all : for 
 instance, those of Napoleon. And in fact, we never 
 really know what people are like till we know them 
 personally, because the mere dead expression of the 
 face in repose is hardly ever adequate to the 
 character. And thus the good portrait painter must 
 always compose, rather than copy the face at any 
 one moment, by living for some time with his 
 character, and throwing into the face more than is 
 actually there at any particular instant : which will 
 always make stupid people say that he has flattered 
 his subject. But he must flatter his subject, in this 
 sense, otherwise his portrait will be no portrait, but
 
 ^Esthetics. 3 1 7 
 
 a mere photograph ; and nothing could be a better 
 proof of all this than the well-known fact that photo- 
 graphs are always liars and stupid deceptive cari- 
 catures : there is nothing harder than to find out 
 what people are like from their photograph. Pho- 
 tographs are good only for people who have seen 
 the originals, because then they supply what is 
 wanting. As a very fine example of what is said 
 here, I shall instance Millais' portrait of the Earl of 
 Beaconsfield, which is totally different from all his 
 photographs and other portraits, but which ex- 
 presses admirably and completely the real character 
 of the man, as evinced in the totality of his life and 
 writings. This is what a true portrait should be ; 
 the quintessence of the life of the subject. We 
 should feel, as we look at it, with an intimate know- 
 ledge of the whole history of the man, that it is 
 there, expressed in the portrait. And the bust of 
 Julius Caesar, in the British Museum, always im- 
 presses me in the same way. 
 
 Far higher than portrait painting proper stands 
 imaginative ethical painting, though indeed the 
 former at its highest power is simply a special case 
 of the latter : for example, Vandyck's Charles I., or 
 the portraits of themselves by Lionardo da Vinci 
 or Albrecht Durer. And indeed, ethical painting is 
 but portrait painting : the two are related as poten- 
 tial to actual : thus the former, as Aristotle says, 
 has a wider province and a deeper meaning. The 
 special function of the ethical painter is to depict 
 character and expression of all kinds, legitimately 
 finding their due expression through form and 
 colour : that is to say, it is an artistic error to 
 attempt in one art what can only be truly and
 
 3 1 8 Body and Soul. 
 
 adequately performed by another : for example, to 
 depict characters in scenes or situations whose point 
 lies less in form than in sound or motion, or where 
 we feel that the characters are unnaturally still, or 
 inarticulate. The choice of such subjects always 
 argues a lack of instinctive or imaginative taste in 
 the artist, who is thus thrown back upon accident, 
 conventionality, or the interesting. For example, 
 there is nothing artistic in the feeling which leads 
 a man either to paint, or to buy a picture represent- 
 ing sportsmen in the act of shooting at partridges. 
 The essence of this lies not in contemplation, but 
 in action : honest Tony Lumpkin however loves to 
 have a ' picture ' recalling his favourite pastimes to 
 his mind. It all depends upon the spirit in which 
 the artist has approached his task, whether scenes 
 representing common life are aesthetically good or 
 bad. For example, the spirit of Hogarth is always 
 truly ethical and philosophical : on the other hand, 
 the great majority of analogous paintings is equally 
 commonplace and detestable : people without the 
 slightest artistic taste simply trying to put action 
 or anything familiar upon the canvas, because it is 
 interesting to those concerned. This is not art, but 
 ' shop.' The productions of Dutch artists are 
 largely of this kind : looking at their ' domestic 
 ' interiors ' one wonders why the honest painter did 
 not rather make a list of all the things in his room 
 and suspend it in a frame upon the wall. On the 
 other hand, even furniture, tables, chairs, and what 
 not may be artistic subjects in the highest sense, 
 provided that they are introduced and contem- 
 plated from an ethical standpoint : for example, if 
 the artist intends to bring out, through the senti-
 
 319 
 
 ments of familiar and common objects, a feeling of 
 absolute repose, loneliness, or the absence of some 
 personality. Thus, a picture representing for 
 example, Wallenstein just assassinated, the murder- 
 ers gone, everything quite still, would gain by the 
 most accurate representation of all the furniture, 
 which in moments of passion and emotion stand 
 as it were looking cynically on : what fearful stories 
 could not old arm-chairs and tables reveal to us, 
 had they but voice ? This occurred to me very 
 forcibly when I was listening, in the Chateau at 
 Blois, to the old man recounting the murder of 
 the Due de Guise : close by stood an old oak 
 settee, beautifully carved, with the porc-dpic, or 
 porcupine, of Louis XII. on the back. A per- 
 ception of character in furniture, for it has much, 
 will heighten the general effect. Or again, a pic- 
 ture representing the Empress Josephine, stand- 
 ing motionless and alone, steadily and fixedly 
 gazing at the door by which Napoleon has just 
 left, after telling her of his divorce project, would 
 require the eloquent silence of inanimate objects 
 to express the mood. For here the aim of the 
 artist is to express ethical mood, and everybody 
 who has at one time or another received some 
 fearful shock, such as seemed to paralyse while 
 it stirred to emotion, knows how curiously, as if 
 in pure irony, the mind seems at such a moment 
 frivolously to turn aside and examine and atten- 
 tively consider external objects of no significance 
 around it. Thus a man just on the point of being 
 beheaded or hung will count the faces of the 
 spectators, or examine, it may be, the pattern of 
 the executioner's coat, or perhaps smile at some
 
 320 Body and Soul. 
 
 grotesque expression on the face of the nearest 
 boor who has come to gloat over his last agonies. 
 And the intuitive knowledge of this indirect 
 expressiveness of outward objects is the essential 
 quality alike of the dramatic author and the dra- 
 matic artist. Consider, for example, the well- 
 known 
 
 ' Rolled round in earth's diurnal course 
 With rocks, and stones, and trees.' 
 
 What are rocks and trees to her ? Little 
 dramatic as was Wordsworth's genius, here he has 
 reached the core of dramatic expression, which 
 rests always on the imaginative and intuitive sen- 
 timent of the close relation between the actor and 
 his surroundings. So, too, Lear's Pray yo^t, imdo 
 this button. In literature, none have so profound 
 a sentiment of this sympathetic relation between 
 character and inanimate objects as the Russian 
 novelists. Dostoyeffsky is the very devil, and 
 this is just what is meant by realism, of which 
 more anon. 
 
 Ethical painting finds its highest expression in 
 the Italians, above all in Raphael. The spirit of 
 Christianity, of ascetism, of renunciation : that 
 peace which the world cannot give : the serenity 
 of the saint who has finally subdued his passions, 
 and the resignation of the religious soul, which 
 having weighed the world in the balance and found 
 it wanting, has attained to inward calm and pa- 
 tience : the untroubled quiet of faith that has long 
 ago emerged victorious from all doubt and anxiety, 
 lives in his Madonnas and Saints. And yet it is 
 impossible to deny that a certain conventionality,
 
 ^Esthetics. 321 
 
 a certain unreality and anti-natural mysticism lurks 
 in these artists and their Holy Families. Incom- 
 parably strong and intense on one side, their 
 imagination was yet confined within narrow limits. 
 They never really penetrated into the inner shrine 
 of that religion in whose cause they incessantly 
 laboured : their treatment of sacred subjects drawn 
 from Catholic tradition and Christian legend is 
 always philosophic, traditional, never intuitive. A 
 false unreal glamour, as of courts and riches, an- 
 tagonistic to the essential spirit of Christianity, 
 surrounds it all. Instead of poor obscure Jews, 
 despised and rejected of men, the Founder of 
 Christianity and his circle invariably appear as 
 well-to-do Italians. The constancy and everlasting 
 sameness of the conventional idea is a little weari- 
 some and irritating to anybody but Vasari. The 
 whole treatment is in fact inherited from the illu- 
 minations of the Middle Ages, a stereotyped 
 formalism. Christianity from the point of view 
 of Raphael's pictures and cartoons is a delusion, 
 a dream, and an impossibility. And in fact there 
 is really a contradiction between form and matter 
 here. Christianity cannot be idealised, cannot lose 
 reality, without losing all : the very core and essence 
 of it is that it was real. If it is not real, it is 
 nothing. Regarded as an ideal, it becomes absolute 
 foolishness : there is no ideal but the Greek ideal : 
 sorrow and care, disappointment, agony and bitter 
 repentance all these things only appear in the real 
 and actual world. Why do we turn from the real 
 to the ideal ? only because this is so. Therefore 
 it was necessary that if the southern intellect, sen- 
 suous and impressionable to colour and form, 
 
 Y
 
 322 Body and Soul. 
 
 adopted a subject so essentially opposed to its 
 genius, the result should be a contradiction. We see 
 how Michael Angelo strives as it were to get away 
 from the Christian to the Greek and Pagan ideal : 
 he has no inward sympathy with the one, every- 
 thing with the other. Had their atmosphere been 
 Pagan and their thoughts free, what would they 
 not have accomplished ? As it is, they are attempt- 
 ing the impossible, the reconciliation between 
 Christianity and art, sensuous art, that lives on 
 colour and form, joy and indulgence, light and the 
 garish world. It is not painting, but music, through 
 which religious emotion finds its true expression. 
 
 Historical painting is the highest form of the art, 
 and the rarest. The universal love of the stage 
 reposes on the same foundation : for the scene is 
 merely a historical painting that has quickened into 
 life ; and conversely, the painting is merely a gor- 
 gonised scene. Every one remembers the criticism 
 of the Greek priest upon Titian : Your scandalous 
 figures stand quite out from the canvas : they are 
 as bad as a group of statues h . Now, just as drama- 
 tic poetry, which is history actualised, is the highest 
 form of poetry, so is historical painting, which is 
 always dramatic, the highest form of painting : for 
 here imagination is supreme. No small man can 
 ever imagine or represent a big one, either in real 
 life, art, or as an actor on the stage. Historical 
 painting includes all other forms of the art. Its 
 subject is the whole field of human life and charac- 
 ter, in its highest and most significant illustrations : 
 its passions, emotions, situations, are not those of 
 
 h See Gibbon, Decline and Fall, cap. XLIX.
 
 Esthetics. 323 
 
 commonplace mediocrity, but special life, greatness 
 and genius. Pity and fear, terror and admiration 
 are the strings on which it plays. What element 
 of the sublime can possibly enter into middle-class 
 existence ? Who can care two straws whether ' the 
 individual ' lives or dies, except his relations ? But 
 Columbus, looking out westward from his cockle- 
 shell over the unknown sea, with his mutinous 
 mariners crowding behind him : John Hus, pleading 
 for his life before the Council of Constance : Corio- 
 lanus, cursing the mob : Caesar, carelessly smiling 
 and talking to the conspirators : Sulla, descending 
 from the rostra, in the Roman market-place : 
 Napoleon, standing motionless on guard, while the 
 tired sentinel sleeps beside him : Mary, Queen of 
 Scots, on the scaffold : Harold, with the arrow in 
 his eye : Ahitophel, putting his household in order : 
 Loyola, preaching in Venice : Becket, facing his 
 murderers : Wolsey, parting with the King : Abelard, 
 giving Heloise lessons in old Canon Fulbert's house: 
 Peter the Hermit, at the head of his ' believers : ' 
 Henry III., crouching at Canossa : Louis XL, 
 praying to his little leaden images : Hannibal, hear- 
 ing the news of Metaurus : Joseph, declaring himself 
 to his brethren : John of Gischala, emerging from 
 the caverns of Jerusalem : James of Scotland, meet- 
 ing the Highland woman at the ferry : Jephthah, 
 catching sight of his daughter : the Douglasses, 
 leaping from the table at the sight of the black 
 bull's head : Haroun Alraschid, strolling in disguise 
 through the streets of Bagdad : Beaumarchais, ex- 
 amining Mme. Goezman in Court : Harpagus, 
 gazing without emotion at the fragments of his son : 
 Philippe Egalite, passing his own house on a tum- 
 
 Y 2
 
 3 24 Body and Soul. 
 
 bril : Pharaoh's daughter, discovering Moses in the 
 bulrushes : John, among the Barons at Runnymede : 
 the Roman fetialis, receiving the insult at Tarentum : 
 Colonna, striking Pope Boniface with his iron 
 gauntlet : history furnishes an inexhaustible store 
 of the richest materials for art : but they are still 
 only material, to be spoiled by incompetence or in- 
 terpreted by genius. Moreover, although Aristotle 
 tells us, and rightly, that poetry is more philosophical 
 than history, yet on the other hand we should re- 
 member that imagination is here powerless, except 
 on the basis of history. For these things cannot 
 be invented. The individual, as such, is intrin- 
 sically insignificant : he can acquire dignity and 
 sublimity only in so far as he represents a cause : 
 only in so far as he embodies an idea, or stands 
 forward as the champion of a principle. This is 
 what makes him a great man, and great art deals with 
 great men. But these conditions cannot be wholly 
 imaginary : for they would in that case appeal to 
 no one, and instead of being sublime or terrible, 
 would only be ridiculous, or even meaningless and 
 unintelligible, and so of no effect. This is why the 
 characters of fiction that are wholly fictitious can 
 never impress us in the same powerful way as those 
 of history. And the practice of great poets shows 
 us this plainly, for they instinctively turn to history 
 for their tragic material. So too the greatest critic 
 that ever lived, Aristotle, requires the characters 
 of Tragedy to be of high rank. With Comedy, on 
 the other hand, the contrary is the case : nothing 
 is required here but the qualities peculiar to common 
 men as such. 
 
 Lastly, we must take note of allegorical painting,
 
 ^Esthetics. 325 
 
 which endeavours to express imaginatively moral 
 or religious ideas, and which from its very nature 
 must always be to a certain extent conventional, 
 that is, based upon ideas of local and temporal 
 rather than essential significance. Art of this kind 
 must always be either very bad or very good, 
 and requires for its realisation a very peculiar sort 
 of originality. As, for example, the curious Riders 
 of the Apocalypse, by Cornelius, or the strange 
 Knight of Albrecht Durer, on which Fouque* based 
 his inimitable Sintram : or, still better, the works of 
 that weird indescribable genius, William Blake, which 
 show us this kind in perfection. As instances of 
 the grotesque side of this form of art, Kaulbach's 
 illustrations to Goethe's Reineke Fuchs are worth 
 notice : they catch in a wonderfully subtle and 
 inimitable way the humour of the old beast fable, 
 such as we see it in ysop and Bidfai. The 
 difficulty of allegorical painting lies in the im- 
 possibility of clearly understanding the relation 
 between form and the abstract idea : and yet when 
 we turn over Blake's illustrations we often feel as if 
 he had just this inexplicable faculty of discerning 
 the appropriate form in which any particular moral 
 or religious conception should be clothed : so 
 much so, indeed, that it seems as if the idea 
 in question could often be suitably represented only 
 just in that form in which he has chosen to express 
 it, and in no other. A kind of second sight seems 
 to be needed here : this much at least is certain, 
 that nothing can possibly be more vile than the 
 commonplace in this field. The power of de- 
 tecting, or representing hidden analogies, which 
 escape us even while we experience their effect,
 
 326 Body and Soul. 
 
 a faculty in art akin to that of the mystic in phi- 
 losophy, is at the bottom of it : without which, 
 allegorical painting degenerates into mere sterile 
 symbolism, of no more inner significance than 
 algebraical formulae or anagram. 
 
 With regard, now, to all these various forms of 
 painting as an art, the reader must observe that only 
 the subject, not the manner, falls within consid- 
 eration, from the point of view of this book. 
 Any one who fails to note this will very much 
 misinterpret everything that is here advanced : 
 indeed, a few words in this connection will not be 
 out of place. In all forms of art, from our point of 
 view, technical excellence, workmanship adequate to 
 the subject, is necessarily assumed ; for our business 
 here is to discuss the function of art regarded as 
 aiming at an end, and the technical qualifications of 
 the artist lie entirely outside our ken. But the 
 tendency of the critic in all art is to exalt the 
 manner at the expense of the matter : while, on the 
 contrary, the vulgar think more of the subject than the 
 treatment. The former tendency is illustrated by 
 such aphorisms as ' art for art's sake ' and similar 
 epigrams : as if the thing of primary importance 
 were the form rather than what it conveys the 
 spirit ! There is a deep truth in the popular view. 
 An intimate familiarity with processes and methods 
 leads the critic to forget the cardinal truth, that 
 painting is not an end but a means. But wherever 
 this happens, degeneration in art necessarily follows. 
 Just as the first business of a hat is to protect the head, 
 while by dropping this native and original function 
 out of sight, and attending to artistic and subordinate 
 ends, the form of the hat may be actually modified
 
 ALsthetics. 327 
 
 till at length it becomes less and less fitted to 
 perform the function which gave it its existence, less 
 and less of a hat : so too, if we neglect the true 
 function of art, which is to realise the imaginative, 
 and centre our gaze more and more upon the 
 conveyances rather than the conveyed, upon, that 
 is to say, the form and manner rather than the 
 spirit, we shall end by worshipping the insignifi- 
 cant, the trifling, the ugly, the absurd, or even pure 
 nothing at all : a process which has been exempli- 
 fied by some modern schools of art. But the 
 great achievements in art were accomplished by 
 men who were thinking primarily of what they 
 wanted to express, and only secondarily of how to 
 express it: the opposite process leads to vapid inanity, 
 empty verbiage : ' culture,' without genius : style, 
 mannerism ; much ado about nothing : vain effort 
 and parade, with no result : laborious and artificial 
 composition, without any inner instigating idea. 
 The essential merit of all style, execution, and work- 
 manship is that it shall be, if not unconscious, at 
 least directly dictated and suggested by the neces- 
 sities of the thing to be so conveyed, the spirit : 
 felt, not excogitated : spontaneous, not elaborately 
 devised. But where this natural sequence is re- 
 versed, and the subject is chosen as the mere 
 parade - ground for technical talent, nothing but 
 mediocrity can ever be attained. The worst of all 
 styles is to have a conscious style. Instead of 
 Shakspere and Bolingbroke, we have now Tenny- 
 son, Browning, Macaulay : instead of eloquence, 
 rhetoric : simplicity is replaced by critical purism : 
 earnestness disappears, and the /cr^/za eV aet degene- 
 rates into the aywwoy-ia eV TO Trapa^prjfjLa. This is the
 
 328 Body and Soul. 
 
 predominant manner in all modern life. Ceremony, 
 where it endures, is no longer dictated by the felt 
 necessities of the case, but arbitrarily forced in from 
 above, and smacks of the unreal. Because here 
 structure is not honestly and naively determined by 
 function, but kept up, like a game, after the function, 
 the life, the reason why of all, has disappeared. 
 Just so art, whenever it is regarded not as a means 
 but an end, though apparently taking a very high 
 standpoint, is really cutting its own throat. The 
 first condition of all true art is that the means shall 
 be determined by the ends, the manner of ex- 
 pression by the imperious and uncompromising 
 desire of the artist to realise some ideal that makes 
 a slave of him. Reverse this : drop out of sight the 
 ends, and concentrate all attention upon the means, 
 and you have no longer any art, or any genius, but 
 only critics and criticism. The critic, in a high 
 sense of the word, is catholic, tolerant, comparative, 
 admits all ideals, so that only they be truly exe- 
 cuted : but this is not the nature of the artistic 
 genius. It is intolerant, exclusive, knows no ideal 
 but its own, and thinks of that only : the artist and 
 the genius are always men of one idea. No man 
 ever has two ideas worth anything. This he 
 labours to express, and expression comes to him 
 because he is striving to fit it to his idea, to clothe 
 his idea, and cares nothing for expression in itself. 
 Expression, like a woman, gives herself to those who 
 make light of her. But how can any one produce 
 lasting works, who is considering, not how to clothe 
 his ideal statue in fitting garb, but who uses any stray 
 wood e quovis ligno as a peg whereon to hang 
 and exhibit the clothes Academy Pictures ?
 
 ^Esthetics. 329 
 
 VI. We may turn aside here for a moment to 
 cast a glance into the bric-a-brac, or old curiosity 
 shop, of the minor arts. Holding a sort of distant 
 relation to plastic and pictorial art, yet not properly 
 falling within their sphere, these exercise nevertheless 
 an important influence upon life, and achieve some- 
 times really beautiful results. Such things as 
 curios, antiques, china, ware, glass, cups, rings, 
 snuff-boxes, the carvings and stuffs of China 
 and Japan, Indian ivory and boxes, old weapons, 
 bowls, jars, statuettes, lace and candlesticks, vases, 
 furniture, mats, arras, hangings, tapestry, and the 
 whole of that multifarious class of objects which are 
 properly regarded as within the province of the 
 virtuoso, deserve notice, for they often embody 
 extraordinary skill and artistic fancy, and give us 
 keen pleasure. These stand on the border-line 
 between the work of art and the commodity, and 
 show us, in fact, what the commodity was in old 
 days, when all production savoured of the artistic, 
 and the division of labour was as yet not para- 
 mount. Their artistic value varies indefinitely. 
 But just as it has been observed that it is the 
 multitude of small things rather than the isolated 
 big ones, that really colour and make up life, so we 
 might very well say that these minor and less 
 ambitious works of art have a primary claim upon 
 our attention. The things that immediately sur- 
 round us have a constant and unnoticed in- 
 fluence on our lives : taste, like virtue, is the 
 daughter of habit, of repeated acts. Now, all these 
 objects are far more the product of fancy than 
 imagination. Here, there is no imperative necessity 
 of correspondence, no underlying ground of being,
 
 330 Body and Son I. 
 
 or reason why : nothing archetypal : but all is way- 
 ward, capricious, anomalous, even to the grotesque 
 and absurd, nay the positively ugly, downright 
 caricature : form is dictated not by any deep sense 
 of function, but the good will and pleasure of the 
 workman, arbitrary and unconfined license. We 
 see here, in fact, structure escaping from the law 
 that binds it to function : these rudimentary forms, 
 as Darwin might say, are highly variable : structure 
 becomes plastic, irregular, fanciful, and even amor- 
 phous, just because there is nothing to determine 
 it but the potentialities of matter and the caprice of 
 the artist. And this is the deep reason why these 
 minor arts can never rise to the dignity of the great 
 arts ' ; they aim at no realisation of high and 
 determinate ideal, but sport and trifle, as it were, 
 with sacred subjects beyond their ken, like kittens 
 playing with chessmen, or puppies worrying a card- 
 inal's hat. Yet on the other hand this very absence 
 of seriousness and light airy thoughtlessness has 
 itself a charm. For though a great critic has told 
 us that ernst ist das Leben : heiter ist die Kunst : 
 nevertheless the solemnity and bitter earnest of life 
 lies always just below, and lurks within art, which is 
 serious and severe, or else it is no true art : and in 
 its presence close attention always involves a strain, 
 of which we are not conscious till we turn by 
 contrast to a sphere into which it does not enter. 
 And hence there is nothing so invigorating, so 
 unconsciously refreshing, no such tonic for the mind, 
 
 1 Herein lies the deep ground of distinction between men 
 and women : women can never recognise any sphere but the 
 arbitrary : men are always more or less aiming at bringing their 
 lives into correspondence with external necessities. Fancy is 
 female : imagination, male.
 
 ^Esthetics. 331 
 
 as to live surrounded by pretty things, even though 
 they may have no high claims to artistic merit : 
 for the soul retains this much of its old vegetative 
 life, that it grows and clamps itself to what is 
 nearest to it : and as this is, so is the soul. 
 
 VII. When now we turn from the plastic and 
 pictorial arts to that of music, it is as though we 
 were entering a different world. The field of the 
 former was the whole universe of form and colour, 
 and all that pierces through them. With music, 
 the whole visible world vanishes : it is as though we 
 closed our eyes : and in truth, we never appreciate 
 music so well as in the dark. For music is the art 
 of appealing to the emotions through sound ; of 
 embodying the feelings of the heart in sound. 
 Further, though we cannot explain how it comes 
 about, music achieves its aim more certainly and 
 directly than any other art. All the other arts must 
 appeal to the heart, if at all, through the head : 
 but music speaks directly to the heart. It requires 
 no interpreter. In all the other arts, we must first 
 understand, and then only feel : but music we feel 
 without understanding. Neither words nor pictures 
 are capable of reaching the core of feeling : they can 
 only hint and suggest, through the imagination : 
 but music is the embodiment of feeling : feeling is 
 the very soul of music. Music is Feeling : the two 
 are identical : opposite sides of the same fact : 
 and all music which is not directly inspired by 
 feeling in the first instance, all music that is scien- 
 tifically composed without this, is neither music nor 
 not music : it is nothing at all : it is simply gym- 
 nastics, suitable for the intellectual pabulum of the 
 young gentleman who holds the function of music
 
 332 Body and Soul. 
 
 to be the expression of thought k . For music is 
 essentially not rational, but ethical. And the 
 powers of music are coextensive with the powers of 
 the human soul. There is no conceivable moral 
 disposition which music cannot express. Music 
 stands there to convict every rationalist of foolish- 
 ness. Here are we, with our characters and 
 passions, doing and suffering, and the accidents of 
 life sweep over us, educing in us states and 
 emotions, infinitely various and different in each 
 different individual, as an ^Eolian harp swept by 
 the wind, or the billowy waste of waters by the 
 changeful gusts of every casual breeze ; taking 
 colour ethically as the sea does physically : and 
 there is music, which mocks us like echo or a glassy 
 mirror sending back to us with exact correlative 
 repetition every shadow passing over us. ' Dark- 
 ' ling we listen,' and the tears stand in our eyes : 
 tears it may be, of rage or pity, enthusiasm, 
 desperation, remorse, or sublime devotion. But 
 the greatest philosophers of all ages have striven 
 to solve this inexplicable community and pre- 
 
 k It is the modern musical cant to hold just the opposite 
 of this : to talk about music expressing ' thought,' and to call 
 emotional music ' sensual,' to emphasise the technical side. 
 Those who hold good music to be that which has ' thought ' 
 in it need not read anything said here about music, for they 
 will disagree with it all. For my part, I am convinced that 
 people who estimate music by what they call the thought in 
 it, understand neither what music is, nor what thought is. It 
 is passion that is required to appreciate music : reason has 
 nothing whatever to do with it But now-a-days, people are 
 over-educated for their intellect, and sling technical terminology 
 about the more, the less they have penetrated to the interior 
 understanding of the point.
 
 333 
 
 established harmony in vain. Aristotle, as usual, 
 is on the track : why, he asks pertinently, why is it 
 that music, being mere sound, resembles moral 
 character ? And Schopenhauer's mystical explana- 
 tion is well known : it has moreover, the great 
 recommendation of being endorsed by Wagner, 
 who held Schopenhauer to have understood music 
 better than any other philosopher. Yet Schopen- 
 hauer's explanation is, in fact, no explanation, but 
 an exposition of the fact, that music seems to have 
 a direct and immediate relation, or rather connection, 
 with the Will, the Self. Yet no one can ever tell, 
 why. The fact is there: it is ultimate: one of those 
 primordial facts in the universe, through which it is 
 impossible to penetrate. The more we think of it, 
 the more impossible does it seem to arrive at the 
 how of this mystery. Why is a minor key 
 melancholy ? there is a problem which baffles all 
 attempt at explanation. The Sphinx was a poor 
 creature : had she been a musician she might have 
 been alive still : her puerile enigma was nothing 
 to this. 
 
 Music does not appeal to the head, but the 
 heart : not to the ideas, but the feelings : that 
 is to say, it is not an intellectual but a moral 
 art. This differentiates it from all the other arts, 
 and makes it infinitely deeper and more universal 
 than them all. For intellect is merely superficial 
 compared with character, which is organic. Further, 
 intellect is the principle of difference and discord : 
 but morality is the principle of unison and com- 
 munity. Sympathetic appreciation of the other 
 arts essentially varies with various intellects : but 
 it is not intellect which enables us to appreciate
 
 334 Body and Soul. 
 
 music. To the intellect it does not appeal : 
 people of very different intellectual power can 
 equally appreciate music : people may be, and 
 often are, intellectually on a very low plane, yet 
 musical in the highest degree. Music is not 
 a rational art. Its function is not to realise ideals 
 that satisfy the intellect, but the heart : music 
 will express simply, directly, and exhaustively what, 
 if we try for a hundred years, we shall never 
 express in any other way, either pictorially or 
 reasonably ; it is potent where language is not 
 merely impotent but ridiculous. It is observed to 
 exercise a strange influence even upon animals : 
 and a well-known physical experiment proves that 
 to every musical note a special vibratory move- 
 ment corresponds in matter, such as can be tested. 
 
 And here it may be permitted to hazard a con- 
 jecture, though many a reader will perhaps regard 
 it as fanciful rather than imaginative. The Py- 
 thagoreans believed in a 'music of the spheres.' 
 Now let us consider, how the essential principle 
 in this book would apply to the stars. If all 
 structure and all form be such as it is, by reason 
 of the necessity of corresponding to its function, 
 what would be the function which determined the 
 form of the heavens ? which dictated the regular 
 motions and orbits of the stars ? what is the func- 
 tion of the heavenly bodies ? what is that duty 
 which they must perform, on pain of death ? 
 Chaos, it is obvious, might return again, and yet 
 the 'matter of the heavenly bodies would remain : 
 but not their form. Chaos, then, would be to 
 them what death is to organic bodies : and their 
 life, therefore, is to prevent this Chaos from coming
 
 ^Esthetics. 335 
 
 about. What, then, is the function of the heavenly 
 bodies, but harmony r They move and roll as they 
 do, for the sake of harmony. Harmony is the 
 function of the universe : that which is the raison 
 d'etre of its form. Does it, then, seem so un- 
 reasonable as at the first blush might appear, to 
 hold that, could we but hear it, this harmony is 
 musical ? or is it the mystical perception of the 
 truth, that music is so deep, just because it is 
 the upper, the illuminated side, of the great organic 
 fact of nature, that harmony is the supreme law ? 
 
 From a strictly musical point of view, we have 
 no right to say, that music should appeal to one 
 emotion rather than another. But from the ethical 
 point of view, we class music, and rightly, as higher 
 or lower, according as the emotion to which it 
 appeals is ethically sublime or the reverse. From 
 its very nature it follows, that apart from this 
 ethical standpoint, there is not and cannot possibly 
 be any objective standard of music. It does not 
 appeal to the external, but the internal sense. 
 Hence futile as most argument is, especially in 
 regard to taste, nothing is so essentially futile as 
 argument about music. There are no canons of 
 music, but men. Each man is his own law in 
 the matter. Music that misses its effect is simply 
 noise and nothing more. To the ear that cannot 
 ' see ' anything in it, Beethoven's Moonlight So- 
 nata is neither more nor less than a row. For 
 observe, that music, considered with regard to 
 its end, is sound, in the strictest sensational sense : 
 sound as heard and felt, not sound as consisting 
 of vibrations. Music is vibrations : but vibrations 
 are not necessarily music. The mathematical
 
 336 Body and Soul. 
 
 relations and expressions are nothing to the 
 purpose : these are the material of music, but 
 its raison d'etre is its moral effect on the listener. 
 There is therefore no test or criterion of music 
 except its effect : its result as heard. It is there- 
 fore pure nonsense, and a mark of insufficient 
 insight, to lay down rules beforehand with which 
 music is to comply, or by its adherence to or 
 rejection of which it is to be ticketed good or bad 
 music. The ear is the ultimate appeal. There is 
 no such thing as music in theory apart from music 
 in practice : there is musical taste, and no other 
 law. Teach harmony for years : you will never 
 enable the disciple to create music : on the other 
 hand, genius will laugh at all rules, in music as in 
 war. It is true that genius will be a slave to those 
 rules which really are laws of music : it is true 
 that every genius has the technicalities of his art 
 at his fingers' ends. But how does he learn how 
 to employ these technicalities? Instinct, and the 
 co-ordinating power of genius, which enables him 
 to separate a musical whole into its parts, to assign 
 to each part its function, to combine all into a 
 unity, all this is not in the rules. For what else 
 is musical theory and rule, but a deduction arrived 
 at by the analysis of the works of great composers ? 
 But who taught them the rules ? And does not 
 all art furnish in its history instances or cases 
 where certain rules were held to be such er- 
 roneously, till genius came to throw them away ? 
 Genius acts always in the same way : it masters 
 its subjects : then it goes to work in its own way, 
 using instinctively what is good, neglecting what 
 is bad : but neither in music, nor in any other art,
 
 j*Est lie tics. 337 
 
 can mere technical excellence make a work good. 
 For just as the Sabbath was made for man, and 
 not man for the Sabbath : so does music determine 
 its technique, and not technique the music. Good 
 music will be technically excellent, but not for that 
 reason will it be good music. It is good music, 
 because it achieves its end : has its due effect upon 
 the ear of the listener : and as what will rouse one 
 to madness, or melt him into tears, will leave 
 another cold, it follows that there is no such thing 
 as music, in an absolute sense. And the reason 
 for this is, that the essence of music is not actual, 
 but potential. Its power is essentially conditioned 
 by the nature of its correlative, the listener : lies, 
 that is to say, not in itself, but another. Only in 
 relation to this other can it actually become music : 
 take him away, and it is music no longer. And 
 this is peculiar to music ; for all other arts can 
 achieve their actual result independently of any 
 appreciation : but music alone, till it meets its 
 appropriate respondent, remains merely potential : 
 
 Had this essential potentiality of the musical art 
 been remembered, had the essential correlation 
 between music and men been steadily recollected, 
 a great deal of misunderstanding and dispute 
 would have been avoided. \\OLVTK>V pvO^wv ^rpov 
 avOpwiros, men select by instinct the music that is 
 congenial to them. National music follows the 
 national character. And what is true of nations 
 is equally true of individual men. According 
 as they lean by nature to gaiety or melancholy, 
 to sordid pleasure or sublime contemplation, to 
 cheap and sensual gratification or soaring ambi-
 
 338 Body and Soul. 
 
 tion, to simplicity or grandeur, to love or war, 
 so will they turn to Mozart or Chopin, music-hall 
 ditties or Handel, Strauss or Wagner, old ballads 
 or Beethoven, Anthea or the Marseillaise. There 
 is more cant in music and musical professions than 
 in any art in the world. Nineteen out of twenty 
 persons who flock to musical performances go there 
 for reasons other than musical. Some go because 
 it is the thing : some to admire feats of musical 
 gymnastics ; some, because they have nothing else 
 to do : some simply to say they have been : 
 some because they are taken : some, to flirt or 
 make love : how few, from really musical attraction. 
 And of all arts, music is the one which may say 
 from its heart, God preserve me from my friends. 
 To acquire a tolerable mechanical and soulless 
 proficiency, learn up the technique, and talk musical 
 shop, is the easiest thing in the world, and the most 
 insufferable : in general you may measure a real 
 musical taste by its absolute silence on all these 
 points. Of all arts, music can least bear profana- 
 tion, and yet of all it is the most profaned. From 
 the glib technicalities and fatal prestidigitation of 
 the ' musical ' young man or maiden, Good Lord, 
 deliver us : such is the heartfelt prayer of every one 
 who has a real love of music in his soul. 
 
 Music, appealing directly to the feelings, does not 
 require words, which can only reach the feelings 
 through the imagination, and do not really add 
 anything to the effect. Every piece of music is a 
 song without words : while every tale told in words is 
 only a special illustration of what music gives us in 
 general. For music, unlike words, speaks in 
 a language which is understood by all. Words
 
 ^Esthetics. 3 39 
 
 are the variations : music, the theme : and to every 
 theme there are innumerable possible variations. 
 In the song, appropriate words furnish a running 
 commentary upon the text of the music. The 
 opera is merely a higher and more elaborate power 
 of the song. The aim of opera is to combine music 
 with a special dramatic illustration of that passion 
 which it expresses in general, and so make music 
 and dramatic action reciprocally interpret each other. 
 The essential merit of opera lies in the fidelity with 
 which the music strikes as it were the keynote 
 of the passion which is specially exemplified in the 
 drama : the music being to the action just what the 
 law is to a special case. Of all musicians, Wagner 
 most fully realised this true function of operatic 
 music. For the highest function of music is to 
 interpret the highest and most sublime characters, 
 emotions, or passions : and these are to be found 
 ready to hand in the old heroic legend. How 
 admirably was the joyous gaiety of Mozart suited 
 to catch the spirit of Figaro, the adroit, ready, 
 universal versatile barber of Beaumaschais ! How 
 marvellously has Bizet expressed in his Carmen 
 the desperate sacrifice of military glory to love that 
 takes all and then betrays : the note of inexpressible 
 sadness and remorse, as of one who has staked 
 his all upon a card which has failed, and wittingly 
 fallen into error which his fate makes it impossible 
 to repair! Or look, again, at Tanhauser, the most 
 beautiful of all legends, interpreted as none but 
 Wagner could have interpreted it. Poorly do 
 those critics understand their trade, who have 
 objected to this opera that it is sensual. Sensual ! 
 why, the very keynote of the legend is the conflict 
 
 z 2
 
 34O Body and Soul. 
 
 between the sensual and the spiritual element in 
 man ! Throughout the whole runs the infinite 
 solemnity of the Middle Ages. The remorse of the 
 sinner, the chorus of Pilgrims, the martial ardour of 
 nobility, the sublime purity of Wolframo and 
 Elizabeth, especially as rendered in that most 
 exquisite of all unearthly human songs, the greeting 
 of Wolframo to the Evening Star ; the bitter 
 repentance of Tanhauser. How infinitely sublime 
 the legend ! how deep, how serious, how unutterably 
 solemn, and yet alluring, the music ! what bewilder- 
 ing sorcery, what ineffable disappointment, dis- 
 illusionment and remorse, does not the music of 
 Tanhauser reveal to us ! This is the peculiar 
 prerogative of genius, that it rises everywhere equal 
 to its subject. 
 
 Music, as it is the most divine of the arts, so 
 does it stand in certain respects at a disadvantage : 
 it has always to be executed, and must therefore 
 always be received through a secondary medium, 
 and not direct from the hands of its creator. In 
 this respect it resembles the work of the dramatic 
 poet. How great, then, the disadvantages of 
 opera : for here all, actors, voices, instruments, 
 drama, scenery or setting and music, must all work 
 together to produce the effect ; and small wonder 
 that excellence should be rare, where it depends 
 on such a multitude of well-nigh incompatible com- 
 ponents. Fine singers are rarely good actors : 
 setting is costly : again, there are few operas in 
 which there is not much padding, in which there 
 is not much that is wearisome and non-essential : 
 hence opera must always remain more of an ideal 
 than a real. Remembering this, we should always
 
 Aesthetics. 341 
 
 be thankful to genius for giving us so much, rather 
 than apt to cavil for that we have not more : and 
 this, which holds in all art, is above all true of 
 music, and especially of opera For to attain per- 
 fection in this kind requires the combination of 
 so many different sorts of genius and talent, that 
 we should count it a special favour of the gods, 
 when all its components are so happily suited as 
 even to approximate to success. No other work 
 of genius requires anything but genius to achieve 
 it : but here genius can do nothing, unless luck 
 assists it. And therein lies the innate and original 
 defect in all opera. For just because it is so in- 
 finitely hard, it can but seldom attain its end : 
 whereas music of other kinds, songs, fantasies, 
 sonatas, oratorios, and so on, being less dependent 
 upon accessories and combination, can within their 
 sphere best hit the mark they aim at. And there- 
 fore in general we enjoy these far more than in- 
 different opera : for in them the purely musical 
 effect is not ruined and rendered impotent by jar- 
 ring accompaniments. Corruptio optimi pessima. 
 Perhaps no artist ever felt a more desperate sense 
 of the distance between what he would have done 
 and what he could actually effect, than Wagner. 
 Imagination can conceive nothing surpassing the 
 ideal opera, the perfect and pre-established harmony 
 between dramatic action and musical commentary : 
 yet what more grotesque caricature of this ideal 
 could there be than some attempts to realise it ? 
 
 VIII. Lastly, we have still to consider literature, 
 an art which from its infinite variety is more easily 
 described than defined. Its field is the whole 
 world of the real, as well as the infinite world of
 
 342 Body and Soul. 
 
 the imaginary. In general, its aim is to reveal 
 to us by means of language the nature of the 
 world and man, macrocosm and microcosm, either 
 actual or potential : and according to the manner 
 in which it seeks to do this, it assumes, broadly 
 speaking, the forms of history, poetry, and phi- 
 losophy. History describes the real ; philosophy 
 endeavours to explain or interpret it ; while poetry 
 pictures the imaginary or ideal. Such are their 
 several appropriate functions. But, inasmuch as 
 human nature is the medium and basis of them 
 all, and men can rarely, perhaps never, entirely 
 separate the real and the imaginary, each of them 
 is coloured by and partakes of the other two. 
 There is no history which has not an admixture 
 of the poetical and philosophical : no philosophy 
 untinctured by history and poetry : no poetry that 
 is not also historical and philosophical. For the 
 three are in reality but different faces of one and 
 the same idol, which is man himself, or his sur- 
 roundings. Thus shall we often find that the poet 
 is most historical then, when most poetical : the 
 historian most real, when most poetical : the phi- 
 losopher then most truly philosophical, when both 
 historical and poetical. For all attempts to analyse 
 and discriminate, to separate and isolate in order to 
 know, do in reality divorce things from their con- 
 crete relations, which are all in life inextricably 
 blended together. Such attempts can never be 
 more than hints, which the wise will understand, 
 but out of which the fool will compose arbitrary 
 mosaics, in which strong dividing lines must always 
 appear, that are unknown in nature. 
 
 The proper function of history is simply to nar-
 
 Aesthetics. 343 
 
 rate : to describe things as they are or were, adding 
 nothing of its own. In the sphere of Nature, as 
 Natural History, it collects the facts on which phi- 
 losophy and science are based : heaps up a the- 
 saurus of material for science to reduce to order 
 and explain. But as the proper study of mankind 
 is man, so history proper has come to signify the 
 annals of mankind : and according as the account 
 deals with the state or nation or one man, it 
 appears either as history or biography. The latter, 
 if related by the man himself, is autobiography : 
 the former may take many forms according as it 
 confines itself to bare narration, or partakes more 
 or less largely of philosophy, by adopting special 
 points of view. From the ethical point of view 
 biography, above all autobiography, is infinitely 
 more valuable than any history : nay, even from 
 the political standpoint, a really good biography is 
 deeper than any history can ever be. For we must 
 have the history, to understand the biography ; 
 that is, we get the former in the latter : whereas 
 history, under the influence of false political and 
 philosophical theories, is wont to smother, disregard, 
 and eliminate the biographical element, the influence 
 and bearing of particular men, the special characters 
 of significant actors, in history. 
 
 History is, or should be, the mirror of politics : 
 it is the record of the actions and fortunes of men 
 combined in political groups or societies. Now, 
 every political event is the outcome of all the forces 
 tending to produce it. To leave out even one will 
 falsify to a certain extent the historical account. 
 These forces, now, may roughly be divided into 
 two kinds : first, the large general influences or
 
 344 Body and Soul. 
 
 conditions affecting the great mass of the men con- 
 cerned : and secondly, the particular characters, 
 motives and genius of the principle leaders in the 
 political life of the time considered. To omit 
 either element is equally unscientific. But two 
 one-sided schools of history have done just this 
 in modern times. One school ridicules the in- 
 fluence of individual character, and ascribes every 
 result to the action of great general forces alone : 
 another, known as the ' great man theory ' neglects 
 the general causes, and seeks to concentrate the 
 historical gaze exclusively upon great individual 
 characters. Both these extreme views are easily 
 seen to be superficial. It is just as certain, e.g. 
 that Napoleon could never have played his Imperial 
 part, except coming when he did in a period of 
 revolutionary agitation, i.e. that the great man 
 requires to suit his times ; as on the other hand 
 it is, that the absence of a special and peculiar 
 character would often have changed history, as e.g. 
 Themistocles at Salamis, Henry VIII. in England, 
 or Peter the Great in Russia. We see, too, the 
 same thing still better negatively : for example, 
 had Charles II. had a son, the Duke of York 
 would not have come to the throne, and then 
 where would the Revolution have been ? Without 
 Mahomet, what were Islam ? What, if Clive had 
 never gone to India, or been ill at the moment 
 when he marched on Arcot ? If Hasdrubal had 
 not been defeated on the Metaurus, or if Fabius 
 Cunctator had died, before the time came for his 
 policy to save Rome? In fact, any one who really 
 views history with a philosophic eye can see, in 
 general, that history is a resultant not merely, as
 
 Aesthetics. 345 
 
 the Bishop of Chester says, of the national cha- 
 racter, the national institutions, and foreign in- 
 fluences, but of all these in combination with an- 
 other factor, the special character of prominent or 
 influential individual men. For example, Fred- 
 erick the Great, or Bismarck, in Prussia : Peel, 
 in England. And it is to be observed, that the 
 special character on which all turns is by no means 
 necessarily a great man : he may be a very par- 
 ticularly small one. For small men are like small 
 states, which, according to Christina of Sweden, 
 are impotent to do good, but potent for mischief. 
 
 But there is a still deeper point of view, which 
 shows us from the strictly scientific and biological 
 standpoint how much history has been falsified by 
 necessitarian philosophers, who have endeavoured 
 to apply to history the mathematico-mechanical 
 method : not distinguishing the various senses of 
 the term necessity. These philosophers, in fact, 
 do not understand that distinction between absolute 
 material necessity, and conditional organic necessity, 
 which we endeavoured to analyse and unravel in 
 the first Book of this work, which to misunder- 
 stand is to misunderstand all, and therefore it is 
 necessary to recall it here. Where our historical 
 salvation is concerned, no apology is required for 
 a little vain repetition. Aristotle alone explicitly 
 understood and stated this : it is the cardinal fact 
 in him : though the same thing is latent in the 
 Origin of Species. The essential distinction, then, 
 as stated in his own incomparable way by Aris- 
 totle, is this : things are determined, or follow, 
 with absolute necessity, from that which is : they 
 are determined, with conditional necessity, from
 
 346 Body and Soul. 
 
 that which is to be. The former is the law of the 
 material world, qua material : the latter, of the 
 organic world, qua organic. Matter cannot help 
 itself, it cannot be other than it is : but organic 
 bodies can very easily be other than they are. 
 Viewed as a mere lump or congeries of matter, 
 it is all one whether the human body, for example, 
 is fed, starved, ragged or clothed, warm or cold : 
 whether it remains whole, or is cut in two, and 
 tastefully disposed on opposite sides of a bridge. 
 Dead or alive, whatever happens, it must obey 
 the laws of its material constituent particles, as 
 such. But if it is to remain whole, i.e. with a view 
 to a certain condition of its organic nature, certain 
 extra necessities, conditional on this required form, 
 arise. If it is to work and function, it must eat, 
 drink, and so forth. This is the great organic law, 
 known only to Aristotle, that STRUCTURE depends 
 on and is determined by the necessities of FUNC- 
 TION. Now, states are organic bodies, and what 
 the senses and intellect are to the organic body, 
 that are special characters and special political 
 heads to the state. This may continue to exist 
 as a state, or it may perish. But if it is to con- 
 tinue as such, political necessities arise which must 
 be fulfilled and obeyed. Adaptation is necessary. 
 But now, these political necessities may or may 
 not be understood by the men at the head of 
 affairs. When there are able men to comprehend 
 them, and adapt their measures to them, the state 
 flourishes : when there are not, not. And accord- 
 ingly it follows from the deepest organic point of 
 view, that history depends essentially upon individual 
 character. Look, for example, at Poland, in 1772.
 
 ALsthetics, 347 
 
 Its existence, as a state, was threatened : if it was 
 to preserve its life, certain political changes were 
 imperatively necessary. The Czartoriski family 
 saw this, and laboured to save it : but they met 
 with opposition from other nobles which neutralised 
 their efforts, and so Poland fell. Look at Russia. 
 If, at a certain period, she was to regain her free- 
 dom, from the Tartar yoke, certain action became 
 necessary. Ivan the Great was the man who com- 
 prehended the situation and did the deed. So did 
 Louis XL in France. Or take an opposite case. 
 In 1792, if Prussia were to rise, Poland had to 
 be kept down. ' Mollendorf said, what every Prus- 
 ' sian without any exception of party will say, that 
 ' this country (Prussia) can never acquiesce in the 
 ' establishment of a good government in Poland, 
 ' since in a short time it would rise to a very 
 ' decided superiority 1 .' Nor indeed is it necessary 
 to multiply instances. This ' political necessity ' 
 is the soul of history, and every practical statesman 
 knows only too well what it means. When it is 
 correctly comprehended and obeyed, the nation 
 flourishes : if not, it suffers or decays : and this 
 all depends on the wisdom or unwisdom of its 
 rulers" 1 . How then could history be truly inter- 
 preted by modern historical philosophers who are 
 entirely ignorant of this conditional organic ne- 
 
 1 See Fyffe's Modern Europe, i. 35. Despatch of Eden from 
 Berlin, July 17, 1792. 
 
 m ' Financial difficulties may lead, and have often led, to 
 ' great historical results. But by a single blunder in the conduct 
 ' of our foreign affairs, the most provident arrangements of the 
 1 finances ever planned may in a moment be cancelled or 
 ' destroyed.' Speech of Disraeli in 1868.
 
 348 Body and Soul. 
 
 cessity, as the ultimate political law ; and therefore 
 endeavour to apply to history the principle of 
 absolute material necessity ; thus necessarily ob- 
 scuring and neglecting the paramount influence 
 exerted by individuals over the march of events 
 and the national welfare ? 
 
 Now, this explains why it is that political genius 
 can do without experience. The knowledge that 
 tells us how to use experience, as Bacon says, 
 is more valuable than experience itself. Know- 
 ledge of history, in itself, is just as likely to lead 
 the statesman wrong as right, because he may 
 argue falsely from cases that are not entirely 
 parallel to his own. It is not experience, but 
 reason, and intuition, that make the true states- 
 man. The necessity follows from the nature of 
 the case, i.e. if a knife is to cut, it must be sharp : 
 if the state is to flourish, it must be or act thus 
 or thus. The argument in the head of the states- 
 man is not mere probability, derived from ob- 
 servation of similar cases in the past (which 
 may be deceptive analogies), but necessity, de- 
 rived from intuitive comprehension of the needs 
 and possibilities of the state in the present : and 
 this can only be discerned by native genius, eye, 
 and insight. It was not experience that taught 
 Themistocles his policy : it was not experience 
 that taught Kozma Minin or Joan of Arc : Csesar 
 and Hannibal, Stein and Bismarck drew not 
 their inspiration from experience. A real states- 
 man does not study history to accumulate cases 
 more or less alike, but to discover the method, 
 the way in which statesmen of a previous gener- 
 ation have seen and met their political problems.
 
 Esthetics. 349 
 
 History does not furnish models, but hints : the 
 statesman, like all other artists, does not imitate 
 results, but processes. Just so, the true historian 
 is the man who understands and exposes these 
 political necessities, and the way in which they 
 were or were not seen and provided for : such 
 are Thucydides, Commines, Polybius, Macchia- 
 velli, Mommsen, Rulhiere, the Cardinal de Retz, 
 Ranke, Brewer, Sismondi, and others who have 
 appreciated this primary function of the historian. 
 On the other hand, such historians as Tacitus, 
 Buckle, Carlyle, Froude, Macaulay, Hallam, what- 
 ever be their merits in other departments, have 
 not the dimmest idea of it. They are thinking 
 about style, 'laws,' Providence, literary effect, 
 party, and similar nonsense : they teach us no 
 political knowledge at all. And this is why the 
 letters, despatches, and biographies of statesmen, 
 either written by themselves, or by other states- 
 men (meaning by that term those only who are 
 capable of discerning these necessities), are more 
 valuable than any histories : such as the letters of 
 Napoleon, Disraeli's Life of Bentinck, Boling- 
 broke's Works, the letters of Christina of Sweden 
 (one of the greatest of statesmen, although a 
 woman), and many others. In general it is worthy 
 of notice, how the average intellect, which is quite 
 incapable of appreciating any political necessities 
 at all, derives no political instruction at all from 
 history ; it does not ask this from historians, 
 but turns by preference to the writings of ' his- 
 torians ' who aim at literary or sensational effect, 
 or the establishment of some religious or political 
 theory : all of which are loathsome to the true
 
 35O Body and Soul. 
 
 historical critic. Literary, philosophical, ethical, 
 dramatic, religious, sensational all this kind of 
 history and biography is, compared with real 
 political history, comparatively easy, and much 
 more to the taste of the vulgar than the genuine 
 article, which is only savoury to those who are 
 looking for it, who ask from it that which it can, 
 and its imitators cannot give. Thus a really great 
 historian is infinitely rare, because he must combine 
 the tact and insight of the statesman with the 
 diligence of an antiquary and yet be without 
 ambition. Style is altogether a secondary object : 
 but now we put it first. For everybody can tell 
 approximately what a style is ; but not one in 
 a thousand critics has any political insight at all. 
 Aristotle says admirably of style, in words which 
 are true to-day ; ' the ancients wrote TroAmKeSy, 
 but the moderns ' prjTopLKcos : ' that is, they were 
 thinking of realities, and the style came of itself, 
 suited itself to these : but we are thinking of 
 theories, or even the style itself, and with the 
 result that is before us : form without spirit : flabby 
 verbiage, thin, frigid commonplace, stereotyped, 
 phraseological and unreal. 
 
 Poetry may be roughly divided into lyric or 
 meditative, epic or narrative, and dramatic, and 
 has probably been developed in this order, ori- 
 ginating perhaps in songs and hymns to the gods. 
 The function of lyric poetry is to depict words 
 and emotions as such ; of epic, to tell stories ; of 
 dramatic, to make the stories tell themselves, by 
 action. Poetry is commonly felt to be somehow 
 or other essentially connected with rhythm, metre, 
 and rhyme, and distinguished, in this respect, from
 
 Aesthetics. 351 
 
 prose. Nevertheless, this condition is not really 
 essential to poetry, as such. Regarded as creative, 
 poetry may just as well be prose or rhyme : the 
 original meaning of poetry being just our old word 
 1 making: ' for example, Spenser praises Chaucer 
 for his 'excellent skill in making.' We shall be 
 less inclined to make a difficulty of this if we 
 recollect that poetry was originally intended to 
 be spoken or chanted, not written and read : it 
 appealed to the ear, not the eye : hence Homer's 
 7rea 7rre/ooet>ra. Under these conditions, it would 
 obviously gain immensely by being metrical : this 
 necessity, on the other hand, becomes less of a 
 necessity, as in course of time poetry directed 
 its appeal rather to the eye than the ear. Ac- 
 cordingly, early poetry and those forms which 
 represent early and original poetry, and still con- 
 serve early tendencies^ seem still to require the 
 aid of metre and rhyme in a more peculiarly essen- 
 tial manner than others : whereas narrative and 
 dramatic poetry are no longer thought to be essen- 
 tially bound up with rhyme and metre : and these 
 do, in fact, gain in freedom, even if they lose 
 otherwise, by neglecting it. For rhyme and metre, 
 though they add powerfully to effect, yet hamper 
 simplicity and directness, by imposing restrictions. 
 Indeed it is partly just the feeling of the con- 
 summate art with which these restrictions have 
 been surmounted that leads us to value good 
 metrical poetry so highly. Further, metre facili- 
 tates quotation and memory, besides having some- 
 thing pleasing in itself. So too has an old style 
 which has completely disappeared, yet in its day 
 was regarded as the great beauty of poetry, I
 
 352 Body and Soul. 
 
 mean alliteration. Still, as life grows prosaic, and 
 art realistic, narrative or dramatic poetry in rhyme 
 or metre strikes us with a certain feeling of un- 
 reality and contradiction, and so these tend ever 
 more and more to be written in prose. In fact, 
 no rule is possible in this matter. Poetical genius 
 will instinctively discern the form suited to its 
 matter. 
 
 Lyric poetry, understood widely, includes both 
 passionate and contemplative or meditative feel- 
 ing : the emotional outpourings of Burns and 
 Shelley, and the calm perception of Goethe or 
 Wordsworth. The excellence of this sort of 
 poetry lies in its unity and intensity, combined 
 with beauty of expression. It goes of course 
 without saying that the negative condition of all 
 effect is that the feeling shall be sincere. Sincerity 
 is no positive poetical qualification ; but insincerity 
 makes all poetry impossible, and will ruin it, 
 though the poet had every other gift in perfection. 
 The perfect sincerity of many an old anonymous 
 lyric makes up for all that it may otherwise lack : 
 much modern poetry, on the other hand, is de- 
 stroyed by this want alone. Exquisite examples 
 of the lyric are, for instance, Goethe's Kennst du 
 das Land : Wordsworth's The world is too muck 
 with us: Shelley's Lines to an Indian Air: the 
 songs of Burns and Shakspeare : the odes of 
 Catullus, and so on. And this kind of poetry 
 will always preserve in a sense a sort of claim 
 to be poetry proper : for here the poet gives vent 
 to his uncontrolled yearning and passionate long- 
 ing, or enshrines as it were in a golden phial some 
 divine glimpse that he has caught of the inner
 
 Aesthetics. 353 
 
 light, some quintessential drop of imaginative 
 insight embodied in words of perennial charm. 
 The briefer, the better for unity : to be short is 
 here above all a virtue : and no poetry has ever 
 understood this better than some of the incom- 
 parable epitaphs in the Greek anthology. The 
 Arabians too, to judge from translations, seem to 
 have been masters in this kind : many of the 
 little scraps of poetry scattered through the Ara- 
 bian Nights possess a quiet, melancholy charm 
 all their own : as an example, I may instance the 
 lines in the exquisitely beautiful story of Azeez 
 and Azeezeh, about the tomb in the garden of 
 red anemones. 
 
 Epic, or narrative poetry, though in qualitative 
 intensity it does not compare with lyric, yet re- 
 quires a more fertile and various imaginative 
 power. The story teller in all ages has been 
 everybody's favourite, from Homer and the Ara- 
 bian Nights down to Mr. Rudyard Kipling. Now 
 the way a story is told is half the story. Who 
 does not know how often a story is spoiled in the 
 telling ? Or who does not think, at the very 
 mention of story telling, of Homer and Herodotus 
 for Herodotus is an epic poet of the Arabian 
 Nights, of the Middle Age Romances and the 
 Norse Sagas, of Sir Walter Scott, of Alexandre 
 Dumas, of Charles Kingsley, for in these was 
 the spirit of the old epic ? But some one will say : 
 epic poetry? and where then are Vergil, Milton, 
 Dante ? Although it may seem somewhat para- 
 doxical, none the less is it true, that these are not 
 epic poets at all. To suppose so, is to mistake 
 the letter of epic for its spirit. The epic spirit 
 
 A a
 
 354 Body and Soul. 
 
 does not lie in its metrical form, but in its heroic 
 action. Indeed, Shakspeare is more truly epic 
 than either Vergil, Milton, or Dante. The essence 
 of epic is life and action. Homer's first aim was 
 to tell his tale, and the form in which he conveyed 
 it was determined by the necessities of the time, 
 and the nature of his audience. But these authors 
 pedantically cling to a form that has no longer any 
 inward justification : it is no longer living, but 
 arbitrary and imitative. Hence, whatever else 
 they may be, the Divina Commedia, Paradise 
 Lost, or the sEneid, are not epic poetry. The 
 spirit of action is not in them : they smack of 
 antiquity, artificiality, imitation, learning, pedantry ; 
 they do not rest upon broad and deep popular 
 sympathies, but appeal only to special culture. 
 Licentious and degraded as he was, Petronius had 
 more of the true epic in him than Vergil : 
 Hudibras, though inverse and ironical and gro- 
 tesque, is far more the epic of its age than Para- 
 dise Lost. In such an age as the nineteenth 
 century, even to attempt ' epic poetry ' is proof 
 positive that you are no epic poet. The true 
 epic of our age is to be found in the writers who 
 throw aside the letter to attain the spirit : in 
 Westward Ho ! or Hereward the Wake, or The 
 Heroes, we discern the old Homeric and Scan- 
 dinavian ring. And indeed, Kingsley came within 
 an ace of being a very great man indeed. The 
 hot old fiery life of the heroes stirred within 
 him, and ran down into his pen : he is half a 
 pagan : he chants : his prose runs into rhythmic 
 harmonies, while our hearts beat, and our eyes 
 redden: his pages ring with battle -shouts and
 
 ss the tics. 355 
 
 mighty deeds of derring-do. But his Protestant 
 prejudices are ruin to his art. On the other hand, 
 Paradise Lost is a kind of lyrical exposition 
 of the Bible, with reminiscences of the British 
 House of Commons, and the debates therein : the 
 j&neid a vile soulless piece of pedantic imitation, 
 the work of a scholar who never had a spark of 
 battle or strife in his composition : the Divina 
 Corn-media, intense and passionate as it is, is never- 
 theless an epic a rebours : related to the true 
 epic spirit of heroic action just as asceticism 
 and religious meditation are related to the full 
 energetic assertion of life. Yet the man who has 
 not within him a genuine instinct for action, a 
 sympathy with adventurous daring as the true end 
 of life, will always be apt to place these artificially 
 cultured blossoms higher than the genuine wild- 
 flower : for on the one hand simple stones of 
 great and noble action will not touch him, while on 
 the other he will like the contemplative attitude, 
 the critical meditation, the associations of learning, 
 and so on, that he finds in the ' literary epic : ' 
 this in reality means that he prefers lyric to epic 
 poetry : or may be due to old associations, which 
 are more powerful than anything in determining 
 literary taste. In his case the word 'epic' is but 
 a word and nothing more. 
 
 Dramatic poetry is epic raised one step higher: 
 in the former, the narrator tells the story : in the 
 latter, the narrator disappears, and the actors speak 
 for themselves. But in true drama, where all is 
 before our eye, there is this disadvantage, that 
 much that can be imagined cannot be represented. 
 All kinds of impossibilities may pass muster, if 
 
 A a 2
 
 356 Body and Soul. 
 
 cleverly managed, in a narrative which would im- 
 mediately appear ridiculous on the actual stage. 
 Horrors, which excite pity or terror in imagina- 
 tion, would if enacted disgust us : nee coram populo. 
 Similarly, the imagination can feign more cunningly 
 than any scene painter, and has, in fact, in every 
 direction, a freer scope. Therefore there are 
 limitations in drama which do not confine nar- 
 rative, and accordingly to succeed in this field is 
 hard : above all in tragedy. For in this, whatever 
 is not sublime is ridiculous : whereas in comedy, 
 the ridiculous, even if unintentional, does not spoil 
 but assists the effect. Anything is good which 
 raises laughter. Therefore it is that there are hun- 
 dreds of good comedies for one good tragedy. 
 Further, all characters, high or low, are fit sub- 
 jects for ridicule : so possible is it in this world to 
 raise a laugh at all things in heaven and earth ; so 
 essentially has Vanity marked us for her own. But 
 how few are the characters that command our ad- 
 miration or deserve our pity ! This is why Aris- 
 totle said that great characters are alone suited for 
 tragedy. He was thinking of a tragic effect in 
 which there should be nothing mean or sordid, no 
 admixture of the grotesque, no element of humour, 
 still less of comic, but pure, sublime, dignified : 
 Prometheus Bound or Agamemnon. This was 
 the character of ancient tragedy, at the critical 
 moment of which no one must feel inclined to laugh, 
 but sit overawed and terrified at the mysteries of 
 fate. And therefore the subjects had to be choice : 
 the characters had to be something passing the 
 limit, overstepping common measures. But mo- 
 dern tragedy, though indeed it turns by pre-
 
 Esthetics. 357 
 
 ference for its great effects to the woes and calam- 
 ities of Kings and Queens and persons of high 
 degree, yet shall we say spoils or heightens ? 
 the effect of the catastrophe by placing the sublime 
 and the ridiculous side by side. Horror becomes 
 grotesque : here is Death the Antic, scoffing at 
 State and mocking at Courts : suffering not his 
 victims even of the highest rank to fall with dig- 
 nity. There indeed is the sting : ridiculos facit. 
 Could even the most heroic hero die superior to 
 the shocks of fate, did he but know the pitiable 
 figure he cannot choose but cut ? 
 
 The function of the tragic differs from that of 
 the comic poet only in that they appeal to different 
 emotions . The aim of tragedy is to rouse our 
 awe, pity, or sorrow : that of comedy, to make us 
 laugh. But they do this both in the same way : 
 the function of both is to hold the mirror up to 
 nature, the nature of man : to reveal to us life and 
 the world, by combining significant characters in 
 a common action, or a common catastrophe. The 
 characters are not an end but a means : the end is 
 the working out of the action or plot. Just as the 
 end. of the Iliad is to work out the Wrath of 
 Achilles, that of the Odyssey, the return of Odys- 
 seus ; so the end of Othello is to reveal the suicide 
 of jealousy : of Macbeth, the wages of crime : of 
 Julius Caesar, the murder of Caesar : of Corio- 
 lanus, the fall of pride : of Romeo and Juliet, the 
 
 n In Plato's Symposium, Socrates endeavours to convince 
 his drunken companions that the same man will be best both 
 in tragedy and comedy : a result which was not verified till 
 Shakspeare, but is thoroughly correct.
 
 358 Body and Soul. 
 
 course of true love : of King Lear, the misfortunes 
 of virtue: of Richard III., ambition; and so 
 on. Tragedy, just because it is serious, must be 
 much more of a unity than Comedy. Comedy, 
 therefore, can neglect the end for the means, and 
 turn off to side issues : it can thus accentuate its 
 characters and develop them out of connection with 
 the main plot, and so is more varied, democratic, 
 and inconsequent : finishing up perhaps with no- 
 thing at all : ending in smoke : as you like it, what 
 you will, a comedy of errors, much ado about 
 nothing. All this is quite proper to Comedy, but 
 fatal to Tragedy. Tragedy must have a definite 
 and necessary issue, essentially arising out of the 
 main action, or else it is nugatory, and there is no 
 tragic effect. Therefore a comedy may be, in it- 
 self, a very bad one, yet act very well on the stage, 
 if all the actors are very good, for their own char- 
 acters will carry it off: but this will not serve in 
 tragedy : the play must be tragic in its quality, or 
 no acting, however admirable, can make it so. 
 Similarly, to act tolerably in comic scenes is very 
 easy, for any exaggeration, idiosyncrasy, or origin- 
 ality will chime in and perhaps happily suit -the 
 effect : but to play tragedy well is hard, for here the 
 actor must play up to his part, and hit the right 
 mark, strike the true chord, or he will spoil all. 
 In comedy, he may remain himself: in tragedy, he 
 must impersonate his proper character, or the whole 
 play will be ridiculous. The tragedy and its author 
 are more than its actors : these are but interpreters : 
 but in comedy, the author may be nothing, or very 
 little, and the actors all. For there are a thousand 
 ways of making people laugh, but there is only one
 
 ^Esthetics. 359 
 
 way of making them weep or shudder : you must 
 stab them to the heart with iron truth. 
 
 Therefore consummate excellence in tragedy is 
 rightly regarded as the supreme gift of genius, for 
 it requires not merely the deepest knowledge of 
 men, which many have possessed, but the power 
 of making characters express their nature in action, 
 which is a very different matter, and few indeed 
 have been able to achieve it : so much so, indeed, 
 that Shakspeare is in this field what Aristotle is in 
 another, not merely first, but all: he stands alone. 
 The Greek tragedians, indeed, worked on magni- 
 ficent material. But what they really give us is 
 ethical legends expressed quasi-dramatically and 
 lyrically : they convey a moral lesson, in metrical 
 form, but the dramatic element is an altogether 
 secondary and subordinate matter : regarded as 
 dramatic, the Greek tragedies sink altogether into 
 insignificance, however sublimely the ethical tone 
 may be pitched. The effect, e.g., of the Aga- 
 memnon or the Prometheus Bound lies in the 
 idea, not in any dramatic element, nor in the dra- 
 matic form : this is often altogether ridiculous, 
 both as regards the Chorus and the puerile 
 aTL^o/jLvdla. In fact, we must approach the Greek 
 tragedies from quite another point of view than the 
 dramatic, if we are not to find them absurd. They 
 are elaborate cameos from Greek mythology. Aris- 
 tophanes had more of Shakspearian exuberant 
 fancy and action than any of the Greeks : but then 
 he is not a tragedian. Calderon's tragedies, again, 
 are religious and philosophical allegories : so too 
 is Goethe's Faust, which dramatically regarded is 
 altogether ludicrous : all that is best in it is taken
 
 360 Body and Soul. 
 
 from Marlowe and spoiled in the taking, for the 
 true spirit of Faust, rebellion, anarchy, presump- 
 tuous daring, Satanic pride, was in Marlowe, and 
 was not in Goethe, cold, pedantical, egoistic prig 
 that he was ; as a critic, superb : as a man, un- 
 endurable. As to French tragedians, the ma- 
 thematician who asked with a shrug of Racine's 
 Iphigenie Quest-ce que cela prouve ? appears to 
 have been much misunderstood : he was no doubt 
 an admirable literary critic with a turn for caustic 
 humour, and meant in this malicious question to 
 paint the general spirit of French tragedies. For 
 certainly they resemble nothing so much as theses 
 written to prove a point. Their characters do not 
 act, they harangue to each other, and deliver ethical 
 orations : they express ethical sentiment in general 
 but show no sign of it in particular. And it 
 is curiously instructive to see how Moliere does 
 precisely the same, whenever he attempts anything 
 higher than Plautian burlesque and buffoonery. 
 His Avare, his Tafiuffe^ and his Misanthrope act 
 at all moments with a logical and pre-established 
 avarice, hypocrisy, and misanthropy : on each cha- 
 racter we seem to see a paper ticket, / am a 
 wicked miser, a vile hypocrite or whatever it may 
 be, hanging round the neck : the plays are rigid, 
 syllogistic, mathematical deductions from the ideas: 
 we feel quite safe : we know that every time the 
 characters appear they will open their mouths and 
 utter some general and undeniable proposition re- 
 specting their own character, while never once 
 acting like the true character they represent. 
 Moliere's intention is that they shall be hypo- 
 critical, avaricious, and so forth : we can see
 
 ^Esthetics. 361 
 
 that : and so the characters have to do their best 
 to appear so : but it is all humbug : they are not 
 really anything of the kind : the author had not 
 the very slightest dramatic power of presenting 
 character through its manifestation in action ; his 
 only method, therefore, is necessarily to make them 
 talk the talk. In fact, the French dramatists have 
 never understood the one essential precondition 
 of all dramatic exhibition of character: viz. that 
 in life men do not as a rule know themselves, and 
 hence a man's discourse is almost always in exact 
 antagonism to his action : he does not know his 
 own motives. His character appears not in, but 
 through, his words. French tragedy, in fact, is 
 a feeble and misplaced imitation of Greek, with- 
 out the deep religious ethical sentiment or poetical 
 expression. It is thus neither one thing nor 
 the other, and vile, like all imitation. The essence 
 of dramatic power lies in expressing the required 
 effect through the action, and not by means of 
 moral sublimities or declamations : the spectator 
 must not feel that the dramatist wishes to produce 
 this or that effect, that it is designed, but the effect 
 must evolve itself spontaneously and naturally out 
 of the situations, to which the words ought to 
 be in entire subordination, as though suggested by 
 the events, and the whole should spring naturally 
 from the play of character and its motives under 
 given circumstances. And all this depends on the 
 dramatic grasp in the poet, that organising imagin- 
 ation which is the cardinal power and requisite 
 alike in the musical composer and the statesman, 
 the architect and the general. A tragedy should 
 be not a line, but a solid concrete whole : no thin
 
 362 Body and Soul. 
 
 abstract, but a many-sided reality. The test of 
 a real dramatic mastery over character is this : that 
 the characters should appear to possess, just as 
 they do in life, innumerable potentialities in other 
 directions and of other significance than those which 
 are actually called into play : they ought not to 
 leave upon us the impression of having been 
 created with capacities for this particular occasion 
 only : with only just one set of qualities each, 
 all different : they should have infinite possibilities 
 in them : then we feel the reality and the effect is 
 true. Just because Shakspeare knew this, are his 
 effects so powerful : he is the tragedian. Where 
 shall we find anything to compare with the effect 
 of Macbeth's terrible ejaculations to the ghost 
 of Banquo at the banquet ? any parallel, however 
 distant, to Lear's funeral orations over Cordelia ? 
 any conclusion so heartrending as Othello's ? any 
 outburst like that of Coriolanus to the mob ? any 
 eloquence like Antony's ? any overwrought frenzied 
 fury like that of Hamlet unable to control himself 
 in the player-scene ? Where is the LIFE in other 
 dramatists ? Why, Shakspeare is different from the 
 others not only in degree but in kind : he is al- 
 together of a different species : he is not in the 
 same intellectual plane. He and Aristotle are the 
 Great Twin Brethren : the one gives the intuitive 
 and poetical expression, the other the scientific and 
 philosophical explanation, of that truth which is 
 the heart of reality. For just as Aristotle saw that 
 power is deeper and more fundamental than act ; 
 that the capacities and possibilities of doing are 
 more than any particular result done : so did Shak- 
 speare achieve his triumphs through his instinctive
 
 ^Esthetics. 363 
 
 perception of this. Only because he understood 
 character in its powers, capacities, and infinite 
 possibilities was he able to create such true, na- 
 tural and unspeakably touching particular effects. 
 Whereas other dramatists, not having this instinc- 
 tive knowledge of the potentialities of character, but 
 imitating as well as possible definite special results, 
 only succeed in producing thin, frigid, abstract and 
 arbitrary compositions, which we may applaud, but 
 with cold hearts. For if you prick them, they do 
 not bleed : only sawdust or stuffing runs from their 
 staring seams. 
 
 It follows necessarily from the very nature of 
 tragedy that it can only flourish in an age whose 
 sympathies are with great action, the correlative 
 of which is great passion : and must fade away, 
 degenerate and disappear in an age of sensational 
 pleasure-seeking, nihilism, middle-class envy and 
 social equality. 'La democratic, c'est renvie! 
 There are no great men now : what would be 
 the use of them ? they are de trop, kept out 
 of the ring by the sharp-sighted cunning of oli- 
 garchical officialism and the votaries of Red Tape. 
 Si quelquiin excelle parmi nous, quil aille exceller 
 ailleurs, says the prophet. There is no more 
 adventure, no high endeavour, nothing to do worth 
 doing : the hum-drum existence of bourgeois busi- 
 ness and pleasure swallows up all, sucks all into 
 its vortex : every nature not congenial to this 
 condition, not after this type, is considered to be 
 mad : and thus as a rule subsides into irony, 
 sarcasm, insouciance, cynical do Ice far niente. In 
 such an atmosphere tragedy is impossible. Great 
 men were, in the old days, everything : now, they
 
 364 Body and Soul. 
 
 are only fools. Their chief use was, little as they 
 could have guessed it, to bring grist to the mill 
 of the future publisher, who should employ legions 
 of small men to reveal to the world big ones, in 
 half-crown volumes with fancy covers, all in a 
 series. Great warriors and statesmen, prophets 
 and philosophers, are here reduced to scale : one 
 inch to a mile. Men of iron will and super- 
 human genius are expounded to us by ' rational ' 
 milksops and 'judicious' pedants, for whom every 
 man of action feels a contempt that is not loud but 
 deep : your Strafford and your Wolsey, your Wal- 
 lenstein or your Graham of Claverhouse are here 
 gravely called up, hectored, lectured and dismissed, 
 patted on the back or it may be reproved, by mild- 
 mannered, civil-spoken, drawing-room, tea-party, 
 ethical, economical, aesthetical, metaphysical, gastro- 
 nomical gentlemen, nay, even ladies ladies ! with- 
 out any the faintest suspicion that there is anything 
 ironical, anything discrepant, in the business. All is 
 as it should be in this best of all possible worlds. 
 O boue humaine ! And is tragedy to be written 
 in an age like this ? is tragedy a flower that will 
 spring in the soil of mock humility, hypocrisy and 
 moral cowardice ? The buskin will never flourish 
 on the stage, where the mask has left the stage for 
 real life. ' Souvenez vous seulement, et noubliez 
 ' jamai's, que la pitie", le bonheur, et la vertu, de meme 
 ' que la patrie, la religion et r amour, sont des 
 ' masques . . . De q^^,clle religion ctes vous ? 
 ' Oubliez votre foi, et par sages se devenez athee' 
 
 Certainly, in such an age, tragedy is not a 
 propos. But if, then, we ask ourselves what form 
 of literature is best adapted for its expression, in
 
 Esthetics. 365 
 
 what direction we must look for its characteristic 
 literary outcome : if it be true, as it certainly 
 is true, that structure follows function : the answer 
 is, the novel. The novel is to our own age what 
 the plays of Shakspeare were to one, the poems of 
 Homer to another : the literary expression and reflex 
 of its endeavour. It is a kind of combination of 
 the epic and dramatic forms, adapted to the needs 
 of a sedentary age that has been educated, i.e. 
 taught to read. It is a mistake to confound the 
 novel proper with the romance or the tale. The 
 primary aim of the latter is to tell a story, and its 
 field is the unknown : story teller and story listener 
 alike turn by preference to distant ages and far-off 
 climes, to marvels and adventures : they love the 
 picturesque and the bizarre, they delight in local 
 colour and peculiar character. The excellence 
 of this kind lies, in short, in constructive imagin- 
 ation and simplicity of style. With the novel, 
 it is quite otherwise. The true function of the 
 novel is not imaginative but critical : it aims at 
 interpreting common life. What we demand of 
 the novel is precisely Touchstone's query : Hast 
 any philosophy in thee, shepherd ? The good 
 novel, whatever be its subject, is that which em- 
 bodies deep and genuine criticism : conveyed by 
 means of pictures of common life. But observe, 
 that the function of the novel is not to reflect, 
 to photograph, but to interpret. Even when it 
 reflects, it does more : it reflects reflectively : 
 and in this, though it were unaccompanied by 
 a single word, lies the criticism. The bad novel, 
 which, if we go by majority, the modern law of 
 truth and justice, may essentially claim the name
 
 366 Body and Soul. 
 
 of novel for its own, is just the novel without its raison 
 d'etre ; the form without the spirit ; shell without 
 kernel. It gives us a perfectly commonplace story, 
 varied by far-fetched absurdities, with nothing 
 whatever below : no significance, no criticism, 
 appealing to its reader on no grounds whatever 
 exept the resemblance of its author and its char- 
 acters to themselves : it deals with cheap senti- 
 ment, the sentiment of the drawing-room song, 
 births, marriages, and deaths : perhaps horses : 
 if it is very daring, a little tame illicit love-making 
 gives it a fatal fascination for school girls, maiden 
 aunts, and the clientele of the circulating library. 
 The name of this novel is legion : its safety is in 
 numbers : it is simply a means of killing time, 
 a preservative against ennui : an instrument by 
 which publishers and circulating libraries make 
 their living. Any human being can produce this 
 sort of thing who has a pen and paper, and an 
 interest in his own existence, its eating and drink- 
 ing, flirting and sporting. Neither in the pro- 
 duction nor the consumption of this species of 
 ' Wealth ' is there any element of the aesthetic 
 or critical : the emotions it appeals to and the 
 interests it springs from are purely personal : like 
 those of the sportsman or epicure looking at a dead 
 partridge. These novels are wealth in one sense, 
 and the very reverse in another. They are com- 
 modities, and if it be their function to sell well 
 perhaps they are more valuable to the publisher 
 than the good would be : for these are rare, 
 whereas novels are many, and numbers carry the 
 day. The lower you go down, the more general 
 you make your appeal, the larger will the golden
 
 ^Esthetics. . 367 
 
 harvest be. The biggest fortunes made in trade 
 are those that minister to the commonest and most 
 vulgar desires : hence monster shows, cheap illus- 
 trated papers, and so forth. This tendency of 
 commercial societies to twist the true function of 
 all the arts into the single one of making money 
 was long ago noticed by Aristotle : it must of 
 course lead to degradation, for money can only be 
 made by following the dictates of the multitude. 
 That is to say, the artist abandons his Psyche, and 
 worships Venus Venalis et Vaga. 
 
 The true novel, the novel which is determined 
 not by the desire of notoriety, nor the need of 
 dollars, nor the personal likings and dislikings of 
 writers and readers, but the critical appreciation of 
 life is very different from its bastard imposture. 
 A good novel is one of the highest forms of art. 
 Jane Austen and Turgenieff, Scott and Dostoyeffsky, 
 Lord Beaconsfield and Tolstoi exhibit to us in 
 various ways the novelist's faculty at its highest 
 power. This faculty is simply that of seizing, and 
 having the power to present imaginatively, human 
 life in all its forms from an aesthetic or critical point 
 of view. The attitude of the author to his work is 
 the first characteristic of real genius in the field : 
 the second is, that the work should be essentially 
 realistic : the third, that it should display, as its 
 essential underlying note, that quality which ap- 
 pears now as humour, now as irony, now as sarcasm 
 or bitter satire, according to the native spirit of the 
 writer. All these three points are in reality different 
 sides of the same fact, but nevertheless distinct 
 sides. A few words on each point will make the 
 meaning clearer.
 
 368 Body and Soul. 
 
 The first point, the attitude of the author to his 
 work, is of all the most difficult to describe in 
 words, and yet most undeniable in fact. Authors 
 of marked originality in every respect never attain 
 to it. It lies not in but behind the words : and it 
 cannot be acquired : you have it, or not. This 
 critical attitude, which is essential to all art, is 
 above all manifested in the novel and the drama. 
 We have only to think of Dostoyeffsky, or Scott, 
 in connection with Balzac or Thackeray, to feel it 
 at once. The latter authors are not superior to 
 their characters : they sympathise with them : but 
 this is fatal. A really great artist preserves a 
 wholly independent relation to his characters. 
 There is no sentimentality whatever in a great 
 artist : there always is, in the writings of lesser 
 men. The true artist looks at men not as one of 
 them, nor with the eye of curiosity, but critically. 
 He loses himself in their creation, yet always re- 
 tains in his work that undefinable superiority, as 
 of a Demiurgus to his creatures. Of all novelists, 
 Scott and Turgenieff are the most perfect artists : 
 Dostoyeffsky and Lord Beaconsfield the deepest 
 critics. 
 
 And this brings us to realism. Nothing is more 
 curiously misunderstood than the meaning of 
 realism. What is Realism ? Mr. Howells is right 
 in judging the Russians to be the greatest masters 
 of realism in the world, but his criticism and his 
 imitation show us that he does not understand in 
 what realism consists : its method. Realism is not 
 photography. Exact and photographic servile 
 imitation of gestures and mannerisms will not 
 produce any but pre-Raphaelitic, e.g. pseudo real-
 
 ALstJietics. 369 
 
 ism. Realism rests, not upon the imitation of 
 results but the comprehension of methods : upon 
 the intuitive perception of concrete realities ; and 
 imagination, not imitation, alone can give it. The 
 realistic artist can select with unerring instinct 
 those features, material or psychological, which are 
 essential to any required effect ; on which it 
 depends. He can see, not because he has an 
 eye, but because he knows what to look for, knows 
 beforehand how things are done. Copying will not 
 reach it. Balzac and Thackeray seem realistic 
 enough to a crude observer, but they are not : their 
 scenes, and treatment are all abstractions. Zola 
 is not a realist, but merely a sensational dauber. 
 Realism does not lie in piling up the horrors of 
 real life : neither does it consist in keeping very 
 close to common life : the most ideal picture in 
 the world may be more realistic than anything in 
 Zola. Realism consists in grasping the corres- 
 pondence between structure and function : it knows 
 that everything is, by its relations to other things : 
 and it understands how to present all that it pre- 
 sents in just those relations which are essential. 
 It understands how surroundings act upon the 
 mind and its moods. It understands accident, 
 and the part it plays in life. It understands the 
 association of ideas. It never gives us abstrac- 
 tions. It looks not at one side only of any event : 
 but understands it all round : alike what is there, 
 and what is conspicuous by its absence. Thus 
 it can produce positive results by negative 
 methods : it can describe, for example, by touches 
 in no way apparently connected with the subject 
 in hand, which would not occur to an unimaginative 
 
 Bb
 
 3/o Body and Soul. 
 
 copyist , because it comprehends the organic rela- 
 tion between all the component elements of an 
 effect, and can foresee, from its knowledge of 
 human nature, what any special character would 
 do under given conditions. Sympathetic intuition 
 is the faculty which does the miracle : and this 
 is merely a synonym for realism. The most 
 exhaustive description which was ever elaborated 
 and written down by Balzac, or one of his school, 
 cannot touch us so near as a suggestive line or 
 epithet used by Dostoyeffsky or Disraeli : for the 
 first is only observation and photography, the last 
 is psychological divination, imagination, black art. 
 A story told by a true artist never seems con- 
 sciously designed : it happens, just as in life : it 
 presents itself as a series of undesigned coinci- 
 dences : we experience no feeling of constructive 
 design in perusing Scott or Tolstoi : all is natural, 
 real, and so, impressive : for where the story is 
 obviously constructed, it disgusts us : we feel 
 intention and are put out of tune : there is decep- 
 tion. The artist is not a composer : he is a seer, 
 and he relates visions. Every one capable of 
 appreciating good work will understand what is 
 meant : those who are not need not puzzle over 
 it : they can read their Balzac or whatever it be 
 in peace : there is room in the world for all. 
 But as instances, take, for example, the chapter 
 entitled 'Among us' in 'Demons:' the questioning 
 of Madge Wildfire, in the ' Heart of Midlothian : ' 
 the death of Bazaroff, in ' Fathers and Sons : ' the 
 opening chapters of ' War and Peace : ' any scene 
 in which Mrs. Norris appears in Mansfield Park : 
 For example Lear's, Pray you, undo this button, is realism.
 
 Esthetics. 371 
 
 or any scene in Tancred, especially the latter 
 half. 
 
 Lastly, that humour, which is the finest flower of 
 literature, infinitely deeper and broader than the 
 mere sparkle and conceit, superficial and verbal 
 play of wit, springs out of the combination of the 
 critical attitude and the realistic treatment, and lies 
 not in the words, but in the sentiment underlying 
 the actions represented : it is felt and not seen. 
 Always subtle, it takes many different forms. In 
 Jane Austen and Sir Walter Scott it is genial and 
 playful : in Turgenieff, sad : in Disraeli, it becomes 
 bitter, withering irony : in Dostoyeffsky, the deep- 
 est of all, malicious indescribable satire : his 
 characters are nearly always tragic, yet usually 
 forced into grotesqueness by the comedy of errors : 
 the ineffable ridiculousness of humanity even in its 
 misfortunes rises before us : and yet he says no 
 word to that effect. His humour stabs. In 
 Tolstoi, humour is replaced by mystical serious- 
 ness. There is nothing ' funny ' about authors 
 like these ; we do not smile, much less laugh, in 
 reading them. A laugh has always something 
 vulgar in it : laughter is foreign to art. Just for 
 that reason art can never be popular : and this is 
 why we turn from all these authors, now and again, 
 with a sense of relief, to the buffoon. Ernst ist das 
 Leben: the artist who works at it must approach 
 it seriously, and so must its spectators. We find 
 in the absurd and the farcical, in caricature and 
 grotesque fancy, in Dickens or Mark Twain, or 
 clowns of all kinds, the very opposite of art : the 
 Saturnalia of aesthetics : and we love them just for 
 that reason. They represent the unbending of the 
 
 L b 2
 
 372 Body and Soul. 
 
 bow. But they can lay no claim to be art. The 
 very lowest conceivable conception of art is that 
 which demands from it amusement. Amusement ! 
 People who ask only for amusement should let art 
 alone. Life may be better than art, but the two 
 things are not the same, and those who prefer life 
 to art will always be the majority. The artist, 
 however, does the reverse : he is a fool : he sub- 
 ordinates life to his art : he is always in dire and 
 bitter earnest, and probably is not given to laugh- 
 ing. He never makes a joke of his art to himself. 
 To subordinate his art to the claims of life : to turn 
 it from the expression of ideals into the means of 
 amusement, as if he cared about amusing the 
 people ! this would indeed be the wisdom of the 
 1 sensible man,' but for the artist, it would be the 
 sin against the Holy Ghost. What are other 
 people or their business or pleasure to him, save 
 exasperating interruptions that waste his time and 
 break the thread of his imagination ? 
 
 Remains only, that we should consider the 
 subject of philosophy. But inasmuch as this 
 whole book is an essay on the subject, little need 
 be said about it in this place. It goes without saying 
 to any one who has followed me thus far, that I 
 regard Aristotle as the only philosopher who ever 
 really understood the economy of nature. And 
 this he did because of his method : because he was 
 no mere phraseologist : because his whole philo- 
 sophy was based upon a deep enquiry into biology, 
 or the science of life. Only in comparatively recent 
 times have we regained the evidence that places us 
 upon the platform to appreciate him. Before his 
 time, nothing was known about the economy of
 
 ^Esthetics. 373 
 
 nature. After his time, the world sank back into 
 barbarism : and the philosophers of the Middle 
 Ages and of modern times, who endeavoured to 
 refound philosophy, did so without the necessary 
 scientific basis. It is only since 1801, the year in 
 which Lamarck proposed the word Biology to de- 
 note the whole science of life, that the Aristotelian 
 point of view has been gradually regained : and, 
 mainly through the agency of Darwin's Origin of 
 Species has his logic of science been re-established. 
 For in biology lies the key to all natural and political 
 economy : and this is just the thesis of this essay. 
 
 And now, having passed in review the produc- 
 tions of art, let us pause to take stock. Here 
 is a whole mass of Wealth, whose value is certainly 
 not to be measured by its cost of production, or 
 the demand for it. Here there can be no talk 
 of ' homogeneous human labour,' of Capital and 
 Interest, of Wages and Profits, Diminishing Re- 
 turns, Machinery, Combination or Division of 
 Labour. Yet are not the productions of art wealth, 
 and that in the highest sense of the word ? Do 
 they not make life better, nay, are they not its 
 choicest flowers, without which life would be but 
 a bare and disgusting workshop ? Who is there 
 into whose life these do not enter in large pro- 
 portion ? Shall we reckon up our wealth, and omit 
 this? Why, what is life, but a series of actions, 
 enjoyments, memories and reminiscences ? for as 
 action sinks into memory at last, so does it issue 
 from and depend upon memory at the outset. 
 Memory is the condition of all : and while it 
 composes at least half of man's life, it makes up
 
 374 Body and Soul. 
 
 certainly two-thirds of woman's. What then are 
 the stores of memory ? To whom are we indebted 
 for the marvellous panorama which history and 
 legend roll out before us ? Whom have we to 
 thank for the countless visions that brighten the 
 dull background of existence, but the artist ? The 
 paintings and the sculptures, the buildings and the 
 music, the poetry and the history and the philo- 
 sophy of Egypt and Assyria, Greece and Rome, 
 England and France, Scandinavia and Germany, 
 Spain, Italy, Russia, Arabia, and others are these 
 nothing in the tale of wealth ? Will machinery 
 or human labour evolve you these ? Are the 
 accumulated wisdom and the accumulated beauty 
 of ages to be left out of account, when we calculate 
 our Wealth, because they are not subject to the 
 ordinary laws of demand and supply, prices, profits, 
 wages and all other economic categories ? These 
 things not Wealth : why, they are Wealth in the 
 supreme sense : and yet we are told with un- 
 utterable gravity, by economists, that the essence of 
 Wealth is Labour, or Exchange Value. No men- 
 tion of the Idea that gives form to the matter : no 
 account of the fiery consuming heart's Desire, that 
 gives birth to the Idea. 
 
 But, as we have seen, this, and this only, is the 
 difference between the Work of Art and the Com- 
 modity : that the former requires, for its produc- 
 tion, both labour, genius, and demand, nay even 
 material, of a special and superior kind. The 
 Work of Art is merely the Commodity, raised to 
 a high power ; nor can any definition of wealth be 
 framed which shall include the Commodity and 
 exclude the Work of Art.
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 ETHICS AND POLITICS, OR THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 THE PRINCIPLE WORKING IN THE MORAL AND 
 POLTICAL SPHERE. 
 
 Ocntpov Odrfpov. 
 
 Phys. Ausc., ii. 8.
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 ETHICS AND POLITICS, OR THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 THE PRINCIPLE WORKING IN THE MORAL AND 
 POLITICAL SPHERE. 
 
 I. In any attempt to arrive at scientific conclu- 
 sions in matters ethical and political, we should be 
 equally on our guard against two opposite errors, 
 both equally fatal to a right appreciation of the 
 truth, which here, as always, lies in the middle 
 between extremes. The one has been the vice of 
 the predominant political theories of modern times, 
 and it lies in ignoring the fact that the economy of 
 nature is the basis of the economy of man : that 
 1 man,' though the highest, is nevertheless an ani- 
 mal, an organic being, and subject therefore to the 
 general laws of organic nature, whatever else of 
 special may be peculiar to him. Artificial schemes 
 of political economy, arising in an age completely 
 ignorant of the true relation of man to his ' poor 
 cousins in the country,' could not fail to go entirely 
 astray. But conversely, modern speculation has 
 tended to throw us into an error on the opposite 
 extreme. In their anxiety to prove man an animal, 
 modern philosophers have often forgotten that he 
 is indeed an animal, but something more. Some 
 part of him is his own. Evolutionists nearly 
 always make this mistake : Aristotle never did.
 
 378 Body and Soul. 
 
 Though we must never overlook the resemblances 
 between things that are different, still less must we 
 forget the differences. The differences, just be- 
 cause they are differences, are the most important. 
 Man is no God, but neither is he a beast : and 
 mysticism shows us that it is just when he is most 
 inclined to fancy himself a God that he becomes 
 most of a beast. And in fact, Aristotle, in whom 
 nearly all modern difficulties are anticipated, and 
 many solved, actually found it necessary to make 
 this very objection to one of Plato's wild delusions : 
 * It is preposterous,' he says, ' to have recourse to 
 ' beasts, in this case, as if they were to be a model 
 'for man a .' But this is a favourite proceeding of 
 the divine Plato, and it is precisely the assump- 
 tion that lies under much speculation, ethical or 
 economical, of the present day. But it is a false 
 and degrading argument : better never trace the 
 higher back to the lower, better to discard the 
 investigation of origins altogether, if it is only to 
 lead to the confusion of the higher with the lower, 
 of result with origin : a method equally false in 
 science and fatal in practice. 
 
 Consider, for example, Nature's scheme. Nature 
 knows nothing of morality. She is individual, 
 physical, essentially immoral, if we may, by anti- 
 cipation, apply to her a conception which as yet 
 has not been evolved. ' I will have mercy and not 
 ' sacrifice,' is a law unknown to plants and animals. 
 Nature says, on the contrary, I will have sacrifice, 
 and no mercy. No quarter. Opfer fallen hicr. 
 What qualities does she favour in this world of 
 
 a Politics, ii. 5.
 
 Etliics and Politics. 379 
 
 battle, of strife, of force, where the weakest must 
 go to the wall, and all must live by their wits ? 
 
 All kinds of creatures stand or fall, 
 By strength of prowess, or of wit. 
 
 For why ? because the good old rule 
 
 Sufficeth them, the simple plan 
 That they should take who have the power, 
 
 And they should keep who can. 
 
 Nature loves injury, wrong, fraud, hypocrisy, trick- 
 ery and deception, outrage and spoliation : every 
 means that will ensure success, and preserve the 
 individual at the expense of other lives. Thus 
 her politics are essentially Liberal and Anarchical. 
 Robbers, thieves, murderers, misers, gluttons, tor- 
 turers, hypocrites, hawks, tigers, sharks, ants, cray- 
 fish, snakes, ichneumon flies, dragon flies, praying 
 mantides, spiders, and lions these are specimens 
 of Dame Nature's dear darlings. The God of 
 Nature is the Devil of Man. In that region of 
 unrestricted competition, might makes right ; 
 rj (f)V(ri$ SaifJiovia aAA' ov Oeia, says the Oracle. 
 In that demonic whirlpool of struggles for life, 
 there is no honour. There it is, that, according 
 to the old Greek satirist, Zeus having ceased to 
 exist, or rather never having come into being, in 
 his place King Vortex reigns supreme. His sub- 
 jects, the creatures of Nature, what are they but 
 living weapons, constructed for strife, attack 
 or defence. Heraclitus is right. Strife made them, 
 and strife is the breath of their nostrils. Strife is 
 the father of things. 
 
 Here, then, we can clearly discern the nature of
 
 380 Body and Soul. 
 
 that radical error which is the heart of the Liberal 
 theory of politics : a theory which has dominated 
 the political speculations and the historical practice 
 of the last three hundred years. 
 
 The essence of this theory is identical with that 
 of the theory of knowledge and the theory of being 
 refuted in the First Book. It is essentially indi- 
 vidualistic, and founded on a misunderstanding of 
 the nature of man. In fact, it substitutes rational- 
 istic individuals for real men : eviscerating these, 
 alike of their physical and moral character. The 
 Cartesian Cogito ergo sum is the starting-point of 
 moral and political as well as logical nihilism. In 
 every department of the philosophy of human life 
 and action, the true starting-point must be not 
 logical but biological : but of biology Descartes 
 knew nothing. He did not only know nothing, but 
 he did not even know that he knew nothing : he 
 never suspected his deficiency : he gravely pro- 
 ceeded, none the less, to erect Dogmatic theories 
 of human nature without possessing any essential 
 information on the subject. But if we excuse 
 Descartes for condemning what was totally above 
 his comprehension, and attempting to base ex- 
 planation upon and solve the problems of the 
 organic world by a superficial rationalistic quibble, 
 denying, such was his fundamental principle, 
 everything he could not distinctly conceive (the 
 cloven foot of the mathematician : as if, forsooth ! 
 we were to deny digestion, or any fact of the kind, 
 because we do not understand how it is done !) that 
 excuse cannot be extended to the miserable petti- 
 foggers of our own day, who still continue in 
 an age of comparative physiological enlightenment
 
 Ethics and Politics. 381 
 
 to ring the changes on his old dictum 
 XrjKv0iti>) and exhaust the patience of the world, 
 while they degrade its philosophical reputation, by 
 the crambe repetita of their thin ideological pseudo- 
 philosophies. 
 
 When Descartes asserted, at the very outset of 
 his Meditations, that the whole scheme of existing 
 knowledge had to be torn up by the roots, it did 
 not occur to him that he was violating the whole 
 
 o 
 
 of his own principles at a sweep when he went on, 
 after this sceptical preliminary, to lay down 
 a positive dogma of the highest grade as to the 
 nature of man. He began by doubting, and ended 
 by believing, all : this well-known epigram is as 
 true as it is pointed. If he was so ignorant as all 
 that, he ought to have seen the propriety, on his 
 own principles, of restraining the will and refrain- 
 ing from dogmatising on subjects of which the very 
 elements were unknown to him. How could he 
 fail to see the absurdity of a man self-confessedly 
 ignorant of all the facts of nature immediately pro- 
 ceeding to lay down positive dogmas as to the 
 essential nature, of all things in the world, of his 
 soul ! Is there anything in all philosophical litera- 
 ture to equal the monstrous absurdity and arrogance 
 of his Cogito ergo sum : always of course assuming 
 that it is not mere truism ? That marvellous 
 miraculous problem which stands at the summit of 
 organic nature, and pervades it all, of which only 
 a long biological preparation can enable us to see 
 the difficulty, much less to explain, is settled by 
 our ready reckoner in a trice. Thinking, the last 
 and highest function, the apex of organic nature, 
 the rarest and most valuable capacity of man, is
 
 382 Body and Soul. 
 
 turned by a presto ! into his essence. Every frag- 
 ment of his nature, except that, is cut away, 
 ignored b . I think, by all means, but I who think 
 am a man, and what is a man ? JVescio, says 
 Descartes : an animal, says Aristotle, but the 
 highest. Just so, says Darwin : and with Darwin 
 we regain what we loved long since, but have lost 
 awhile, our moral and organic nature, and the true 
 method of investigating it, which Aristotle carried 
 at one bound to the pinnacle of possibility. We 
 get back man as an organic being, man as a poli- 
 tical animal. We get back, instead of the rational, 
 the real. We get back the whole world, the world 
 of action and passion and creation. Where is it, 
 where can it be, in the Cartesian system ? Most 
 significant is it, that the Cartesians should have 
 accused Newton of introducing unknown causes 
 into nature : he did, in truth, introduce the first x y 
 the first element of the real, into mathematics. 
 Why is it that the last of the Cartesians, the 
 nihilist Schopenhauer, commends himself to us 
 as of all his school the best thinker ? the man ' who 
 ' had seen the world ? ' Because he has at least 
 established the paramount, the omnipotent power 
 
 b Aristotle would have disposed of Descartes, and exposed 
 the superficial quibble very shortly by adding to his Cogito ergo 
 sum qua cogitans. But how about me, not qud thinking, but 
 qua acting, loving, being, and suffering, qua living and dying, 
 qud growing and begetting? Cogitating, my dear Descartes, 
 may persuade you of your own existence, but it will not do 
 us much good. It is a description, no explanation at all. 
 A fine explanation, indeed, which places the explanation of 
 the fact in the fact to be explained ! This the death of meta- 
 physics ! why, it is the perpetuation of it. So little does 
 Comte understand the loinc of science.
 
 Ethics and Politics. 383 
 
 of the other side of man, the self-will as well as the 
 conscious ego : because he has rooted his philo- 
 sophy in the heart rather than the head : in the 
 organic depths rather than the superior shallows. 
 And who shall say nay to him ? Is not the self-will 
 of the cogitator far more essential to him than his 
 thought ? Schopenhauer's great work is, indeed, on 
 the strictly physical side, open to criticism. But if 
 we put this aside, and confine ourselves to the 
 human and ethical meaning of the word ' World,' 
 then we may fairly say that the ' World as Will 
 'and Mind- Picture' is the quintessence of all ethics 
 and religions : the still mirror of this transitory life, 
 with all its trouble, sorrow, pain and sickness. 
 What, forsooth, is the reason, the conscious, and 
 self-conscious self, but a mere weapon ' in the hands 
 ' of the Will ? ' That is Schopenhauer, and that is 
 Darwin. Cogito ergo sum : what, being, thinking ? 
 no indeed, being is doing : everything is as it does, 
 and because it does : esse is not percipi : percipi is 
 only a particular sort of esse ; ESSE is AGERE. This 
 is Aristotle, and all Creation is on his side. Opini- 
 onum commenta delet dies : natures judicia con- 
 firmat. Time which obliterates the fictions of 
 Descartes, ratines and approves the judgment of 
 Aristotle. 
 
 Descartes had indeed a dim perception of his 
 own fallacy. ' Ainsi je mimaginai que les peuples 
 ' qui ay ant e"te" autrefois demi-sauvages et ne s'ttant 
 ' civilise { s que peu a peu nont fait leurs lois qii a 
 ' me" sure que r incommodite" des crimes et des querelles 
 * les y a contraints ne sauraient $tre si bien polices que 
 ' ccux qui des Ic commencement quits sc sont assembles 
 ' ont observe 1 les constitutions de quelque prudent
 
 384 Body and Soul. 
 
 ' legislateur! In this passage of his Discourse on 
 Method he indicates the political tendency of his 
 own principle, namely that the thing to do is to 
 revolutionise from the bottom, and reconstitute 
 on arbitrary principles. Not organic growth (of 
 which he knew nothing) but arbitrary creation : 
 there is the Cartesian, the Rousseauesque revolu- 
 tionary scheme. But it strikes him dimly that there 
 is danger ahead here. ' La seule resolution de se 
 f ddfaire de toutes les opinions quon a recues aupara- 
 ' vant en sa creance nest pas un exemple que chacun 
 ' doit suivre! And, he continues, as the world is 
 composed of two sorts of persons, the one sober 
 and modest, the other apt to believe themselves 
 more clever than they are, and without patience, 
 (Cogito ergo sum did not give Descartes, after all, 
 self-knowledge, for here he paints himself exactly ;) 
 these ' s'ils avaient line fois pris la liberty de douter 
 ' lesprincipes qitils ont recues et de s ^carter du chemin 
 ' commun, jamais Us ne poitrraient tenir le sentier 
 ' quil faut prendre pour oiler plus droit, et denieurer- 
 ' aient e"gares toute leur vie c .' 
 
 Most true, indeed : not every one is a safe subject 
 for the Cartesian catharsis : to emancipate oneself 
 totally from all one's received and inborn customs, 
 beliefs, and what not, is not an example that every 
 one should follow. Unfortunately, each of us 
 considers himself exempt from the prohibition, 
 the one man in a million who can adopt this process 
 without danger. Hence, the Cartesian method 
 logically issues in absolute isolation, negation, 
 abstraction. The individual stands alone amidst 
 the chaos of the world : a vanishing unit : a speck 
 
 c This is precisely the theme of Dostoyeffsky's * Demons.''
 
 EtJiics and Politics. 385 
 
 of self-consciousness, without a tie to link him 
 to the fleeting shadows that crowd around him. 
 Instead of constituting a link in the moral and 
 physical chain of relations, the percipient subject 
 stands in no relation : it is absolute, and all its 
 surroundings, its neighbours, depend upon it. And 
 here it is, that as if to give the lie to these abstrac- 
 tions, up from under the rationalistic rises the real 
 egoism. The individual consciousness having de- 
 termined thus satisfactorily that it is itself the only 
 reality, puffs away its prejudices, like a child dismiss- 
 ing its fear of ghosts, and proceeds to assert its 
 Self and its own existence to the denial and exclu- 
 sion of others. Behind the Self of consciousness 
 arises the Self of will. In this lies the true 
 foundation of the principle of unrestricted com- 
 petition : a principle which is not the salvation, 
 but the utter destruction of any state in the 
 world. 
 
 Thus we find that the Cartesian rationalistic 
 position coincides in logical result with that which 
 identifies man with the brutes : though they start 
 from opposite ends of the abstract method. Des- 
 cartes, by drawing a magic circle around the 
 rationalistic speck at the summit of the organism, 
 cuts the individual off from any moral or political 
 relations, and reduces the world to the play of 
 isolated egoisms : just as, on the other hand, by 
 entirely neglecting the special nature of man, and 
 attending solely to his animal nature which is indeed 
 the basis, but only the basis, of his being, the evolu- 
 tionary struggle for existence levels him to that out 
 of which he has arisen. Both systems err in mis- 
 taking the nature of man, and both come to the 
 
 c c
 
 386 Body and Soul. 
 
 logical conclusion : war of all against all, and the 
 Devil take the hindmost. 
 
 And this leads us naturally to the consideration 
 of the political system of Hobbes, who is the ori- 
 ginal founder of the Social Contract theory, and 
 out of whom modern rationalist politicasters, Rous- 
 seau and the rest of the troop, have but quarried. 
 Upon the foundation of this war of all against all, 
 which Hobbes maintained to be the ' natural ' state 
 of man, depends his theory : viz. that in order to 
 escape the evils of this miserable condition, in 
 which the life of man is and must be ' nasty, mean, 
 ' poor, brutish, and short,' men have long ago entered 
 into a compact and sold their birthright of liberty 
 for a mess of pottage : i.e. resigned the absolute 
 authority into the hands of one who shall be re- 
 sponsible for keeping the peace. ' For men natur- 
 ' ally love liberty and dominion over others : ' it is this 
 last half of the sentence that the Revolutionary 
 theorist never remembers. Therefore having given 
 up their power, they have no longer any power to 
 escape from the terms of the compact, and may 
 therefore never rebel. All that their collective 
 representative may do, is RIGHT, and they must 
 obey. 
 
 But who is to determine when the sovereign has 
 broken the contract ? This was the dangerous 
 question that lurked in the speculations of Hobbes. 
 And his opponents drew from his-own theory con- 
 sequences the very opposite of his own. They 
 decided that 'the people' (under which meaning- 
 less abstraction, fit only to beguile ' the people,' 
 crouch all kinds of villainous usurpations) might 
 expel a sovereign who had broken the contract.
 
 Ethics and Politics. 387 
 
 The sovereign people should decide the matter. 
 And accordingly it is this theory which has really 
 been a primary cause of the history of the last 
 two hundred years. Within Descartes' abstraction 
 and the Hobbesian rationalistic compact was hidden 
 the egg, out of which in due time should develop 
 Russell's right of resistance and Carrier's panegyric 
 upon 'insurrection, holy insurrection :' and all that 
 infernal and arrogant, equally foolish and insane 
 Whig politics, which ends by converting men from 
 peaceable citizens into rebels when out of office and 
 despots when in it. The philosophy of revolution, 
 as displayed in the history of Europe, has yet to be 
 written. It is uniform. In 1640, in 1688, in 1789, 
 in 1825, in 1832, in 1871, the process is precisely 
 similar. Under the screen of principles the most 
 entirely virtuous, high-sounding, patriotic, philan- 
 thropic, philosophic, a gang of knaves, using folly 
 as a stalking - horse, cunningly cloaks nefarious 
 dynastical designs. The sin of the Stuarts was not 
 that they were bad kings, for they were not : their 
 crime was that they were kings at all. The oppo- 
 sition to them was not created by their evil deeds : 
 but anticipated them : it was a priori, and its 
 strength lay in the fact that it rested on a theory. 
 It was composed partly of men who really believed 
 in their theory, and aimed at ' freedom/ i.e. the sub- 
 stitution of a republican for a monarchical form of 
 government, not knowing, owing to a want of political 
 insight, that a republic is not a more free, but a less 
 free, form of government than a monarchy, and only 
 another name for the jobberies of an interested clique : 
 and partly of men who knew this only too well ; who 
 had their own aims in view, who wished to encroach 
 
 c c 2
 
 388 Body and Soul. 
 
 upon the supreme authority and substitute for one 
 king, whose interest was in the main identical with 
 that of the nation, many kings, not called kings, 
 whose interest was very different from that of the 
 whole : who aimed under cover of the ambiguous 
 cloak of the word ' people ' to hide their de- 
 sign of usurping the royal authority, and freeing 
 themselves from irksome restraint. The Revolu- 
 tion was actually based by its authors on the theory 
 of an original contract. Civil and religious liberty ! 
 These were but the banners flaunted in the air to 
 deceive the general eye. Religion never stood in 
 greater need of reformation than when it had been 
 reformed by the reformers : liberty was never less 
 enjoyed by the ' people ' than after that ' kings 
 4 having been driven out, consuls,' i.e. the Whig 
 oligarchy, had been created, and the reign of liberty 
 inaugurated. It was not their factious opponents, 
 it was the Stuarts who were the real supporters 
 of civil and religious liberty : their destruction 
 inaugurated the advent of civil and religious des- 
 potism. They fell because they strove to prevent 
 a minority, an enthusiastic party of bigots and 
 self-seekers from forcing their despotic views and 
 interests upon the nation : but these last succeeded 
 in throwing the colour of good over the evil : 
 of making the worse appear the better cause. 
 Shaftesbury is the true type of the Whig, forcing 
 on theoretical politics by playing on the passions 
 of the multitude. The theory is specious, but the 
 practice iniquitous. Jacob the supplanter is obliged 
 to clothe himself in the skins of Esau. Kings 
 might err, but their representatives might betray. 
 But theory alone, though it may afford a specious
 
 Ethics and Politics. 389 
 
 pretext, will never ensure the success of a revo- 
 lutionary attempt. There was more behind. Both 
 in the French and the English revolution the cry 
 of liberty was but the watchword of a rising interest. 
 Theory, to get itself adopted, requires to chime 
 in with the interest of a minority, but a coming 
 party. The law of history, unnoticed by every 
 writer except Aristotle, who knew it well, is just 
 this : that the potential strives to become actual. 
 Under cover of a popular theory the Whig oli- 
 garchy and the banking interest in 1688, the com- 
 mercial and manufacturing interest in 1832 and 
 1846, crept into power. 
 
 The theory of a social contract is now exploded : 
 everybody has been taught to look upon it with 
 an appropriate contempt. But it seems to have 
 escaped observation that there really was a relative 
 justification for Hobbes, if not Rousseau. Curiously 
 enough, the theory was not all theory. A state of 
 war, and a social contract : well, that was, almost 
 exactly, the feudal system. Dr. Cunningham tells 
 us : ' The feudal system of England was therefore 
 ' one of contract between the King as centre of 
 ' the whole, and each of his tenants' 1 .' He speaks 
 of it, again, as ' a national system of defence on 
 ' a basis of contract.' Sir William Anson tells us 
 that ' the Feudal System was a contract in which 
 ' the fidelity of the subject was the consideration 
 1 for a promise of good government by the King,' 
 and again, ' Feudalism invested the relation of 
 * King and subject with a contractual character 6 .' 
 So, too, Ranke says, ' Whether men's union in 
 
 d Growth of English Industry ami Commerce, vol. i. p. 115. 
 e The Crown, pp. 7, 8.
 
 390 Body and Soul. 
 
 ' a State in general depends on an original contract 
 ' is a question for political theorists, and to them 
 ' we leave its solution. On the other hand, how- 
 1 ever, it might well be maintained that the English 
 ' constitution as it gradually shaped itself assumed 
 1 the character of a contract.' And again, ' ever 
 ' since the times of Magna Charta there had 
 ' always been in the English constitution an ele- 
 ' ment which had the character of a compact : and 
 ' never had this appeared in a stronger form than 
 1 that which it assumed in the Settlement (of 1688). 
 4 Definite rights were reserved : definite expecta- 
 ' tions expressed : on these conditions the crown 
 'was offered and accepted V And much similar 
 evidence might be accumulated, were it necessary. 
 Hence as it seems, the Hobbesian theory of a con- 
 tract was not so historically ridiculous as some 
 have pronounced it. 
 
 His theory, in fact, as to a natural state of war, 
 and a social compact, is not so much historically 
 as philosophically wrong. Its radical failure was 
 the misunderstanding of human nature. Man is 
 not an individualistic but a social animal g . A poli- 
 tical animal is the definition of man. And this was 
 the fundamental doctrine of Aristotle respecting 
 man. The state, he says, is a natural institution, 
 if, that is to say, and the limitative addition shows 
 
 f Ranke, History of England, Eng. Trans., i. 56, and iv. 518. 
 
 6 Here lies the gist of Hobbes' error. He starts from the 
 abstract individual and binds the individuals together only 
 by a rationalistic contract. But as Aristotle would say, the 
 sentiment of community is not XoyiKoi* but frxrticbv i.e. the 
 community is the prior, and the individual only appears by 
 differentiation from the community.
 
 Ethics and Politics. 391 
 
 us what a cautious thinker Aristotle was, if the 
 original communities out of which it arose were so 
 too. Now, in some cases, this is not the fact. 
 The Norman Conquest had swept over England, 
 and introduced the element, not of (frvvLs but of 
 flia and avrtyvcri?. And here lay just the amount 
 of justification for Hobbes' theory of a contract. 
 Nevertheless, though there was this slender jus- 
 tification for Hobbes, still his theory fails just 
 because it is theory : it is arbitrary : it is not 
 according to the scheme of nature. Hobbes con- 
 founds men with animals. He misunderstands 
 human nature : a thorough and accurate comprehen- 
 sion of which must be at the base of all sound 
 political theory. It is true that we may maintain, 
 not without reason, that man is naturally an enemy 
 to man. So, too, may we maintain, with equal 
 reason, the exact contrary, that man is naturally 
 a friend to man. The fact is that these theories 
 are too vague : we must be more particular. 
 
 II. Man is the measure of all things : of the 
 things that are, how they are : of those that are 
 not, how they are not. This is politically the sum 
 total of human wisdom ; if it be properly under- 
 stood. ' Man,' ' humanity,' is a mere abstraction : it 
 is non-existent : but there are men. Now, who 
 ever found a man living in isolation ? Men always 
 exist in States or Communities. Isolated, man is 
 the weakest of animals : just because it is union 
 that constitutes his force. Language proves it. 
 For what is language ? simply the power of com- 
 munication, that is to say the precondition of form- 
 ing concerted plans. Hence the mere fact that he 
 talks proves undisputably that man always was a
 
 39 2 Body and Soul. 
 
 social animal. For an isolated individual needs not 
 to communicate ; his strength lies in himself. Just, 
 therefore, because language is essentially the cxter- 
 nahty, the imparting to another, the sharing or com- 
 munity of thought, Descartes' position becomes 
 utterly ridiculous. For the fact proves that the 
 essential nature of man lies not in himself but in his 
 relation with others : that he is, by means of and for 
 the sake of others. Language is thus not only the 
 strongest weapon of man, but the irrefragable refu- 
 tation of abstract individualistic, egoistic, nihilistic 
 theories. Language is the bond of society, and is 
 essential to every human being. It is fact which 
 completely upsets all the Descartes- Berkeley- Hume- 
 Kant-Schopenhauer-J. S. Mill philosophy. For 
 the first problem of all philosophy is to harmonise 
 with and explain facts. 
 
 From the evidence of language alone, then, it 
 follows that the theory of Hobbes is as false as it is 
 true. Man is a friend to his own kith and kin, 
 an enemy to strangers : that is the real universal 
 proposition. The man of whom Aristotle speaks, 
 the dtyprjTcop, d0jjLi(TTO?, aj/ecrrioy, is just what the 
 modern Scots used to call the ' kinless loon : ' one 
 who had no relations, and hence no disposition 
 to show favour : Ishmael. It is natural to man to 
 befriend his kind. Homo homini Deus as well as 
 homo homini lupus. Men are what they are, 
 because their neighbours are just what they are. 
 It is pure abstract nonsense to talk about indi- 
 viduals. There are no such things in human 
 society. When they seem to be individuals, men 
 are really lunatics, madmen : iSicorai, private 
 persons, the Greeks called them, with that depth
 
 Ethics and Politics. 393 
 
 of nomenclature which is only found in languages 
 like the Greek, which enshrine the native aboriginal 
 perceptions of things. 
 
 A man is an unintelligible abstraction, unless we 
 qualify the general with specific limitations, either 
 mentally or verbally: English men, French men, 
 and so on. A man is what he is, only by reason 
 of being one of a number. His native language 
 alone goes far to making him the sort of man he is. 
 Blood, race, or the principle of heredity, combined 
 with circumstances, or the influences to which he 
 is from his birth upwards subjected, whether of 
 time, place, or companions, mould him to a special 
 form. It is mere want of insight to suppose that 
 argumentation based upon our common human 
 nature, abstraction being made of its special qualifi- 
 cations, can lead to anything solid or in conformity 
 with reality. It is the qualifying circumstances that 
 determine the result. What then can possibly be 
 more futile than theories of ' the State,' or ' Man ' 
 in general ? Every State is essentially conditioned 
 by its men, and again, no reasonings about men can 
 ever begin till we know of what special sort of men 
 we are to speak. Till then, it is all ignoratio 
 elenchi. Are they English or Chinese, Greeks or 
 Russians, Jews or Turks ? Until we know this we 
 know nothing, for it is only when we know what is 
 the nature of the man's peculiar State and atmo- 
 sphere that we can discern what is his function, and 
 until we know what that is, we do not know any- 
 thing essential about him. 
 
 Those who like logical accuracy and clearness 
 may look at the matter in this way. The end of 
 man is to DO, and in order to DO, he must MAKE,
 
 394 Body and Soul. 
 
 and therefore also KNOW. Hence according to the 
 conditions of his existence at any special time or 
 place, so must his doing, or activity, take its pe- 
 culiar colour, and this will alike determine, and be 
 determined by, the nature of his making and know- 
 ing : his production and knowledge. But the con- 
 ditions are the masters of the whole. They 
 constitute that avayK-r] rov 8ia TI, that overruling, 
 tyrannical divinity, conditional necessity, that shapes 
 our ends, rough hew them how we will. Under 
 such a system of things as obtained, for example, in 
 the eleventh century A.D., a man's doing was pri- 
 marily determined in a military direction : his first 
 function was warlike ; for above all things he had 
 to preserve his life amidst a clattering melee ; it was 
 never safe for a moment. Under modern con- 
 ditions, all this is entirely changed : the difficulty is 
 rather to lose your life than to preserve it. What 
 puerility, then, are all abstract theories of the State 
 or the Man : still more, the Individual ! Is it not 
 as clear as day that these theories can never so 
 much as win their way into public attention, except 
 in so far as they chime in with the needs of the 
 age ? A theory succeeds when it fits the times, or 
 serves a turn. Any one who supposes that the 
 abstract theories of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John 
 Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, and others succeeded 
 because the world was attracted by the absolute 
 truth in them still lacks the fundamental aper$u 
 in politics and philosophy : for there is only one 
 absolute truth : it is, that all structure is made such 
 by its function, a law which is higher or deeper 
 than all other truth, for even truth must conform 
 to it, or be neglected. For Truth, even when it is
 
 Ethics and Politics. 395 
 
 truth, is as a rule accepted not for that reason, but 
 because of its services. 
 
 If then we consider that a State or Nation may 
 be defined : and here let me begf the reader to 
 
 o 
 
 remember that it is only of real States or Nations 
 that we are talking, and that in this matter only 
 just such a degree of accuracy and determinateness 
 is to be expected as the subject admits of, for very 
 rigidly accurate definition is here impossible : if, 
 I say, we define a State or Nation as a number 
 of men with their wives and children, who are 
 actuated by the sentiment, grown up gradually h 
 under the influence of time and place, of a half-real, 
 half-imaginary community of language, religion, de- 
 scent, sympathy, interest, action and passion, past 
 and present : we shall, I think, see at once that 
 everything for the individual man depends upon 
 the nature and relations of his community in itself 
 and to the world at large. Only from a thorough 
 comprehension of this, from a full and clear com- 
 prehension of what sort of thing is the State or 
 Nation of which he is a member, and minus which, 
 apart from which, he is a non-entity, can we dis- 
 cover what is a man's special function, what is his 
 DUTY. For this is the main point : a man's first 
 duty is to his country. I say, to his country, for it 
 is to his participation in the benefits derived from 
 common union that he owes all that he is. Is it no 
 birthright to be an Englishman'? And on the 
 
 h oraoriwrtKOj' Se Kat TO (J.T) ofjLofpvXov, ecor av (rvpTrvfiiaj)- >anfp yap 
 ot>S' (K rov TV\OVTOS Tr\T)6ovs tro\is yivtrai, ovrats ov8' ev T&5 Tv^oirt 
 
 xpova- Pol. v. 2. O prophetic soul of Aristotle, here is the 
 epitome of the history of Ireland. 
 1 Mr. Lecky (ffist. Eng. i. 178) says excellently well: 'All
 
 396 Body and Soul. 
 
 contrary, the vain and shallow rhetoric about ' rights 
 ' of man,' and ' our common human nature ' is seen 
 at once to begin at the wrong end : it is, scien- 
 tifically, abstract nonsense, and morally, in ninety- 
 nine cases out of a hundred, either mere meaning- 
 less cant, or the cloak under which is disguised pure 
 egoism. A man who has to feel such pan-humani- 
 tarian emotion will almost certainly end by caring 
 for nobody but number one. The rights of man 
 and universal philanthropy are seen when closely 
 inspected to involve in practice the interests of 
 a handful of knaves, and that war of all against all, 
 against which and out of which it is that the culti- 
 vated policy of nations has come into existence. 
 
 For Function makes Structure : every institution 
 religious, legal, political, organical, has arisen in 
 answer to definite needs and grown : it is the pro- 
 duct of the final necessity acting upon the original 
 arbitrary element furnished by chance or chaos. 
 For here, too, necessity can only form what is 
 supplied to her. Natural Creation can only pro- 
 duce, like the bear, by licking her cubs into shape. 
 
 The raison d'etre of the economical structure 
 of society was examined in the second Book, 
 and also in my Principle of Wealth Creation : and 
 
 ' civic virtues, all the heroism and self-sacrifice of patriotism 
 ' spring ultimately from the habit men acquire of regarding 
 ' their nation as a great organic whole, identifying themselves 
 ' with its fortunes in the past as well as in the present, and 
 ' looking forward anxiously to its future destinies.' And when 
 on a subsequent page, he tells us that ' stupidity is essentially 
 ' Tory,' which is certainly true, he might have added with 
 equal truth that virtue, as well as wisdom and good government 
 are essentially Tory. That which is the common basis of them 
 all is habit. See below.
 
 Ethics and Politics. 397 
 
 now I shall endeavour to illustrate the political 
 structure by reference to the development of 
 English constitutional history. Equally good, 
 perhaps in some ways better, and more deeply 
 interesting illustrations are furnished us elsewhere : 
 but in a case of this kind it is perhaps well to 
 remember the advice of Bacon : Read the ancients 
 for what is best, the moderns for what is fittest. 
 Nothing certainly could be more fit than for Eng- 
 lish people to know their own history : yet what 
 has hitherto been presented to them as such is 
 simply a monstrous caricature ; an elaborate and 
 to a large extent deliberate lie. And that it 
 should have been so, is merely a further proof 
 and illustration of our cardinal truth. For the 
 vicious political theory based upon rationalistic 
 Liberalism has always naturally refused to read any 
 history that contradicted it, and hence the pre- 
 posterous and ' systematic ' lying of historical 
 writers, who all do but ' flatter the big beast,' and 
 seek to curry favour with the public. But let us, 
 on the contrary, ' conceal nothing out of a desire to 
 ' curry favour, but make use of the actual facts.' For 
 the rationalistic theoretic politics has this among 
 other things of absurd in it : that nothing about 
 it can endure. Only that can endure which is based 
 upon realities : only that structure really built to 
 answer necessary demands : only that can exist 
 which is capable of doing its work : and on the 
 contrary, no structure can ever be permanent which 
 is rationalistic. For example, hard work arid prac- 
 tice will make the arm of the blacksmith brawny, 
 because his arm is here doing its proper work. 
 But on the other hand the mutilation of the foot by
 
 39$ Body and Soul. 
 
 the Chinese never tends to produce any lasting 
 alteration ; for this mutilating- process is merely 
 rationalistic : the structure it produces is arbitrary, 
 which answers not to any end of the foot, but con- 
 tradicts it : hence nature never takes any notice 
 of the fact, but goes on reproducing feet after her 
 own fashion, for the Chinese to whittle away at in 
 their delusive possession. Just so is it with poli- 
 tical institutions framed, not by the natural necessity 
 of things, but in accordance with the arbitrary 
 rational fancies of unpolitical mischief-makers and 
 bigoted busybodies. For the very essence of theory, 
 in the bad sense of that word, as opposed to fact, 
 lies in the want of inner and spontaneous adapta- 
 tion to necessity : e.g. a theoretic structure, such as 
 Sir William Temple's Privy Council Scheme, or 
 Sieves Consulate, or many of the revolutionary 
 governments of modern France, is framed apart 
 on rational grounds, and then superimposed from 
 outside and above upon the facts ; and thus it can 
 never endure : durability can only belong to a sys- 
 tem dictated by the inner necessity of events. And 
 this is just the difference between a good and bad 
 statesman, Julius Caesar and Plato. For the visionary 
 and puerile laws and institutions of the latter, as 
 well as those of all his school, though they present 
 an appearance of great moral sublimity and deceive 
 weak thinkers into insignificant applause, stand in 
 direct contradiction to the essential tendencies of 
 things in general, and the nature of men in par- 
 ticular, and hence no man of any political judgment 
 ever took them seriously ; whereas it was just his 
 profound insight into the needs of the time that 
 justified the usurpation of Julius Csesar and gave
 
 Ethics and Politics. 399 
 
 permanence to the system inaugurated by him. 
 For in human affairs there is, as it were, a logic, 
 the logic of circumstance, the iron dictation of ne- 
 cessity, against which all attempts must split and 
 shipwreck, which run counter to it : except in the 
 case of those that are strong enough to master the 
 circumstances contradicting them by the aid of 
 military force. Yet even this, just because it is 
 arbitrary, is always precarious. Thus Sulla's con- 
 stitution fell to pieces, the moment after he was 
 dead ; thus the Whig Revolution of 1688 tottered 
 and staggered for fifty years after that a combina- 
 tion of fortunate accidents had established it : thus, 
 too, Napoleon was in reality beaten by the fact that 
 he went too far : up to a certain point he was the 
 thing demanded by the circumstances ; but in going 
 too far in his personal caprices he awoke against 
 him the inner tendencies of events : the spirit of the 
 age broke his dominion, strong though it was ; it 
 slowly and ironically loosened, as it were, the des- 
 perate grasp he strove to tighten on the world, 
 with irresistible force. He struggled in vain against 
 a mighty impersonal agency to the existence of 
 which he would fain have closed his eyes : but like 
 Thor, lifting the whole earth, unknown to himself, 
 or the Slavonic Svyatogor, struggling with the 
 terrible Villager's Son, the fact that he could pre- 
 vail even so far as he did, proved him to be of 
 more than mortal strength. 
 
 If then we turn for illustration of the nature and 
 origin of political institutions to English History, 
 it is necessary to warn the reader at the outset, that 
 he will not find the history of England in that 
 school of historians who have hitherto made the
 
 4<DO Body and Soul. 
 
 popular conception of English history : historians 
 whom it would be invidious to name. That school 
 of history to which the popular exponents of 
 English History belong is dominated by various 
 essential errors k , which are all in essence resolvable 
 into a denial of the fundamental law of organic 
 economy, which it is the object of this book to 
 explain and illustrate, the law that function makes 
 structure. They have, to begin with, a fundament- 
 ally erroneous conception of the nature of society, 
 which at once vitiates all their political understand- 
 ing. They divide Society into the King and the 
 People ; as if all men but the Monarch were on the 
 same side, and homogeneous ! as if all who opposed 
 and rebelled against the King were thereby neces- 
 sarily on the side of the People ! Whereas the truth 
 is that Monarchy has always been triple in its nature, 
 the King, the Nobles or Upper Classes, and the great 
 body of the common people. But owing to their 
 total failure to apprehend this obvious truth, these 
 historians fall into a fundamental political and his- 
 torical error. They look upon the King as the 
 enemy of Liberty and the People ; whereas the 
 
 k The political niaiserie of Hallam, Macaulay, and their 
 'constitutional' school is as na'ive as their criminal lack of 
 social insight and sagacity. The artless ingenuity with which, 
 while totally ignoring the dynamical law of history, they 
 credit every party opposed to the King with large unselfish 
 public morality and zeal in the cause of ' the people ' is too 
 amusing. The King is always a ' tyrant ' and everything he 
 does ' tyranny : ' a dark, mysterious libel-label which turns 
 all the good he does into evil. As if, forsooth, only Kings 
 could be tyrants ! as if petty tyranny were not ten times worse 
 than anything the King could do ! as if legitimate authority 
 is to be branded tyranny, and every insubordinate rebel a 
 sublime patriot !
 
 Ethics and Politics. 401 
 
 truth is the exact contrary, the King is the natural 
 ally and protector of the people, and it is the inter- 
 mediate oligarchical party, which is hostile to both. 
 Just because the King aims at enforcing equal 
 justice on rich and poor, high and low alike, he 
 incurs the enmity of the oligarchical party. They 
 therefore proclaim him a tyrant, and spreading 
 specious phrases over their real designs \ they 
 present their nefarious machinations against the 
 supreme authority as being ' popular ' in their 
 tendency. Many a good King has lost his throne 
 and gone down to history as a tyrant because he 
 was not the enemy, but the friend, of justice, liberty 
 and the people. Such were Pedro the Cruel, 
 Charles the First, Mary Queen of Scots, and many 
 another, and this is the key to the history of 
 England, and especially that of the Stuarts. But 
 the historians, totally blind to this, or deceived by 
 lying authorities, actually mistake oligarchy for its 
 
 1 'The gloss of zeal for the public service is always spread 
 ' over acts of oppression, and the people are sometimes made 
 ' to consider that as a brilliant exertion of energy in their 
 1 favour which when viewed in its true light would be found 
 ' to inflict a fatal blow to their rights.' Edward Livingstone 
 (quoted in Bryce's American Commonwealth). As for example, 
 in 1215, 1832, 1846, 1792, 1688. 'The people' are always 
 deceived. 
 
 Buckle, for example, would have us believe that the Stuart 
 Kings of Scotland were destroyed by ' the people ' to gain 
 liberty. That the nobles who destroyed the King were not 
 the people's allies, but their oppressors; that the King was 
 the real friend of ' the people,' and their natural ally and 
 protector against the wild turbulence of the great feudatories, 
 never occurred to Buckle, and yet he thought himself a great 
 historian! He is rather the beau ideal of knowing nineteenth- 
 century self-ignorant omniscience. 
 
 Dd
 
 4O2 Body and Soul. 
 
 opposite, popular government, and in writing the 
 history of England under this delusion give to 
 every political event of importance a false colour. 
 Everything becomes in their pages exactly what it 
 was not. ' If there be one legislative quality more 
 ' valuable than another it is the power of dis- 
 ' criminating between the cause and the pretext.' 
 They utterly confound the cause and the pretext, 
 being utterly destitute of political insight : for 
 an antiquarian is one thing, and a historian another. 
 Hence the enemies of the true liberties of the 
 nation are panegyrised as its friends, and its friends 
 as its enemies : hence Wolsey and Charles I., 
 Charles II. and Bolingbroke are denounced, while 
 Pym and Cromwell, Shaftesbury and William of 
 Orange are extolled as the champions of liberty. 
 Liberty ! Yes, ' men do naturally love liberty, and 
 ' dominion over others : ' pity, that the second half 
 of the aphorism, which throws so glaring a light on 
 the first, should be invariably forgotten by the par- 
 tisans of licentious liberty. 
 
 And in close connection with this want of 
 political insight, this lack of comprehension and 
 understanding of abstract ' liberty,' is a heartrend- 
 ing ignorance of human nature. Everything is 
 presented to us in what are called ' constitutional ' 
 histories, or ' philosophies of history,' as happening 
 impersonally. The pages of e.g. Hallam would lead 
 us to suppose that the King was a wicked and 
 ' unconstitutional ' plotter against the peace and 
 well-being of all his subjects, while the House 
 of Commons was a large, absolutely moral, ab- 
 solutely united person, doing all with supernatural 
 wisdom, generosity, foresight, and self-abnegating
 
 EtJiics and Politics. 403 
 
 care for the interests of the people. That it was 
 composed of many different individuals, each with 
 his own end in view : that it might be at variance 
 with itself: that it might be actuated by mean, 
 bigoted, or sordid motives ; that it might be a tool 
 in the hands of two or three artful Macchiavellian 
 politicians : that these might be ambitious self- 
 seekers and ambitious mischief-makers : that thus 
 it might after all ' represent the nation ' still less 
 than the King, and be merely the ( instrumentum 
 1 regni ' of a party or a class ; that if Kings might 
 abuse the prerogative, ' representatives ' might 
 betray their constituents ; that irresponsibility 
 might be a failing of the House, no less than of the 
 King : that Parliamentary Government might be 
 simply many Kings instead of one : that its 
 interests might be in direct antagonism to those 
 of ' the people : ' that it might be ten times as 
 despotic'and tyrannical as the King : that * arbitrary 
 ' power ' may be exercised by a knot of placemen 
 in the pay of the ministers, no less than by the 
 King : all this and much more is conspicuous 
 only by its absence in the pages of Hallam or 
 Macaulay. 
 
 Certainly the rarest and most valuable of all 
 qualities is the power of rightly interpreting facts : 
 for upon this depends all science and all art, all 
 prudence, all action, and all history worthy of the 
 name. The fundamental necessity for any one who 
 wishes to understand the history of England is to 
 unlearn the bad: get rid of the delusion that people 
 are any more free under a republic than a monarchy : 
 throw to the winds the wretched sophism that the 
 King is a wicked tyrant, and a usurper of the rights 
 
 D d 2
 
 4C4 Body and Soul. 
 
 and liberties of 'the people.' The very contrary 
 is the truth. We owe everything to our Kings. 
 The King is the original source and fountain of 
 our justice and our liberty : the maker of our 
 commerce, the founder of our nationality and 
 security. To the Crown we are indebted for all. 
 To the Williams and the Henries, the Edwards 
 and the Charles, who conquered us and held us 
 together, gave us laws, thrashed us and took our 
 money, loved us and chastened us, gave their 
 laborious days to patient thinking over our army 
 and our navy and our trade, we owe it that we 
 stand in our present unexampled imperial position. 
 And yet a parcel of superficial rationalists in the 
 nineteenth century, without either any spark of 
 historical or political insight, or any discerning 
 gratitude to the great men who made it possible for 
 them to be proud of the name of Englishmen, 
 disparage monarchy and serve up a vile demagogic 
 caricature as the History of England" 1 , attributing 
 the whole evolutionary process by which we gained 
 
 m In his anxiety to prove ' the people ' the source of all 
 that is good in our constitution, Green, the most popular of 
 English historians (in every sense of the word), completely 
 misses the heart of the whole thing. To baptize the Norman 
 Conquest as ' England under Foreign Kings,' and assert 
 emphatically over and over again that all that England sub- 
 sequently became lay already formed in the primitive Anglo- 
 Saxon character and institutions, marks a total want of historical 
 science and perception. The truth is that the early ' English ' 
 society was but the chaotic material. The Norman Kings 
 supplied the formative idea (compare Stubbs, vol. i. p. 247) 
 and the conditions of the organisation, its raison d'etre, was* 
 war. England owes her peculiar nature more to the Norman 
 Kings than any one else. Foreign Kings ! As if England was 
 England in 1066 !
 
 Ethics and Politics. 405 
 
 our wealth, our laws, our learning, our nationality 
 and our glory to the comparatively recent and 
 entirely self-interested nostrums of bigoted quacks 
 and short-sighted traders. 
 
 The true theory of English history and its 
 evolution is admirably expressed in the old and 
 much vilipended Tory aphorism : a Deo Rex, a Rege 
 Lex: provided that we properly understand it. 
 A Deo Rex: here is the original arbitrary element, 
 the beginning of the evolutionary process. God 
 gives the King : he comes, as Carlyle would say, 
 by Divine right : the right of might. A Rege Lex : 
 when we have got the King, our Lord and Master, 
 then out of him by successive unfolding come all our 
 liberties and privileges : and without him we should 
 not have had any. It has been said, and said well, 
 that the defeats upon the Thames and the Avon 
 were probably necessary preliminaries to the victories 
 upon the Sutlej. 
 
 A Deo Rex. William of Normandy came over 
 and seized England for his own. It was then his 
 property, and well he and his descendants looked 
 after it. Stark men were they, and well is it for 
 us that they were so. Not without reason was 
 Delolme of opinion that we subsequently acquired 
 so much freedom because we were ruled by the 
 Normans with a rod of iron. Blood and Iron, says 
 Bismarck, are the things to build with. We verify 
 the epigram. We were saved from anarchy by the 
 Normans". Our liberty came not to us suddenly, 
 suddenly to die down and wither away, as it did 
 abroad : it grew slowly, and was therefore rooted 
 
 n ' The Norman Conquest restored National Unity at a 
 ' tremendous temporary sacrifice.' Stubbs, Hist. Eng. i. 203.
 
 406 Body and Sou/. 
 
 deep. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of 
 wisdom. Just in so far as the King was strong 
 were we well off; when the King was weak our 
 ' freedom,' i.e. our miseries, began. Freedom 
 meant the lawless and arbitrary violence of an 
 anarchical and licentious Baronage. When Com- 
 mynes praised our government in the time of 
 Edward IV. was he thinking of it in the same way 
 as those who have so triumphantly quoted his 
 testimony in our own day ? Not in the least. It 
 was the strength of the monarchy which had ren- 
 dered possible the praises of Commynes. Good 
 government, because strong government : that was 
 a state of things Commynes noted : it struck his 
 eye, because it was unfamiliar : it did not exist 
 abroad, as Louis XI. found to his cost. And to 
 whom did we owe it ? To William I., Henry I. 
 and II., and Edward I. The English constitution 
 was a work of art : and the Norman supplied the 
 idea. And are we to call the Normans Foreign 
 Kings ? Why, the fallacy is exactly akin to that 
 prevalent economical sophism which makes 
 Labour the sole source of Wealth. The Saxons 
 would never have made England. A Deo Rex. 
 The Norman furnished the Genius of England's 
 future : the soul that created the body. A Rege 
 Lex. The King's Court, the Curia Regis, ori- 
 ginally directly simple and personal, looked after 
 the Justice, with a keen eye to Finance. He had 
 a gift for Finance, had the Norman King, and he 
 knew that the best Finance is based upon Justice. 
 The Justiciar was the King's offshoot. As time 
 went on, the Court grew and differentiated to 
 answer to its growing functions. Function makes
 
 Ethics and Politics. 407 
 
 structure. Lords and Commons, Courts of Justice, 
 Army and Navy : they are all National : all these, 
 and all their corollaries, we owe to the Crown. 
 To the Stuarts, again, we owe it, that while their 
 subjects were running mad and enforcing their 
 bigotry, political and religious, upon the monarch, 
 the naval and colonial power of England bounded 
 ahead. Their policy was the policy of the future : 
 they fell before the madness of the time. Our 
 Abbeys and Cathedrals, such as the Commons 
 have left of them, were built by Normans. Our 
 art, what might it not have been, had Wolsey and 
 Charles I. had their way ? and what is it now ? 
 But our civil and religious liberty ? that surely was 
 the gift of the Revolution ? On the contrary, it 
 was the gift of the King. Charles II. vainly strove, 
 after the Restoration, to control the factious bigotry 
 and intolerance of the religious and political sects 
 that refused to tolerate any one but themselves. 
 The Stuarts lost their crown because they cham- 
 pioned an oppressed minority : the civil and re- 
 ligious bigots and traitors who called in William 
 
 o o 
 
 of Orange were tyrants to a far greater degree 
 than the well-meaning but dogmatic and unwisely 
 sincere James. The Venetian oligarchy cared not 
 a straw for civil and religious liberty, nor did 
 William III. He wanted a locus standi for his 
 Continental policy : they wanted a tool to effect 
 their oligarchical designs. The basis of the 
 opposition to the Stuarts was a bigoted refusal 
 to tolerate Roman Catholics. The Tories were 
 indeed honest bigots, but the Whigs were disloyal 
 knaves. They played upon the prejudices of the 
 vulgar especially the London mob to bring the
 
 408 Body and Soul. 
 
 King into discredit : the one thing they were de- 
 termined upon was to show no mercy to the reli- 
 gion which they had robbed of its patrimony, the 
 Abbey lands : which it held in trust for the people. 
 They hated the Roman Catholics with the hatred 
 of the injurer for the injured, according to the 
 well-known law : proprium humani generis est 
 odisse quern Inserts. But what was the value of 
 their cry of liberty ? Why, these gentlemen who 
 had made a standing army their pet grievance (as 
 if the Stuart Kings could have resisted anar- 
 chical traitors with no force !) established their 
 liberty with William's Dutch troops . They who 
 had played the injured patriot and the careful 
 economical watch-dog, and cut the King of the 
 money necessary to government (in a time of 
 rising prices) saddled the nation with vast taxa- 
 tion and a national funded debt. They who 
 had virtuously abused Charles II. for taking 
 money from Louis XIV. (which he did because 
 he could not get it anywhere else ; they drove him 
 to do it), having at the time some of the filthy lucre 
 in their own pockets (the cause for which Russell 
 and Sidney died on the scaffold !), turned England 
 into the mere tool of William's Dutch and Con- 
 tinental policy. They kissed the ground before the 
 
 Kivovcrt ras TroXiretar ore p.iv 8m /3m? ore 8f fit aTro'r^j, 8td /3ms 
 p.fi> fj (vdvs apxijs rj voTfpnv drayCafoPTCff. Kat yap TJ andrrf Sirrr)' 
 6Vf p.fv yap e^uTraTijo-aire? TO TTpwrov (KOVTCOV /zera /3uXXovcri TTJV TTuXlrtiai', 
 
 fid' v(TTtpov /3m KdTf\ov(riv UKOITUV. Pol. v. 4. This is exactly 
 the Revolution. The Whigs achieved it by the aid of the 
 Tories : these afterwards found they had been deceived and 
 wished to undo it, but then the Whigs and William maintained 
 their position by force and fraud. They had the money and 
 the advantage of occupation : still they only just won.
 
 Ethics and Politics. 409 
 
 man who distributed English soil and money to his 
 foreigners, who pensioned Titus Gates, the dirty 
 scoundrel who had by his infamous perjuries brought 
 innocent men to the scaffold, the tool of their trumped 
 up plot, and scare of being massacred by the Roman 
 Catholics, who were not more than four to a thousand 
 of the population. They had expelled James 
 especially on account of his exercising the dispens- 
 ing power : an exercise impolitic no doubt but 
 unquestionably legal and constitutional : their new 
 master, for they found he was their master, made 
 use of that power to a far greater extent than James. 
 They denounced and exaggerated James' cruelty : 
 was it then so black, compared with Glencoe ? 
 They had never repaid an atom of gratitude to the 
 Stuarts, who had made our navy with which we 
 beat the Dutch. William III. utterly neglected 
 it p . They had ousted a King on the plea that 
 he was a tyrant, and denounced, with a pharisaical 
 puritanism, the iniquities of Kings and Courts; they 
 inaugurated a period in which a grinding oligarchi- 
 cal tyranny threw the benevolent dispensation of 
 the Stuarts into the shade, and veiled its incredible 
 corruption when it did not openly, shamelessly, and 
 cynically preach it under a screen of popular hum- 
 bug and mystification q . They had expelled a line 
 of Kings who were above all careful to preserve 
 
 P See especially J. S. Brewer's English Studies, p. 168, and 
 passim. Brewer was a historian in the highest sense of the word. 
 
 i The Whig policy from the days of Pym downwards is 
 simply stealthy encroachment on the royal prerogative, under 
 theoretic pretexts. See, for example, Hearn's Government of 
 England (p. 160), on their mysterious policy as to the right 
 of electing the Premier, * abandoned as noiselessly as it was
 
 4IO Body and Soul. 
 
 the nation from continental complications, and 
 looked seawards for its future : they introduced 
 a dynasty, whose connection with Holland or 
 Hanover cost the nation untold sums of money, 
 absolutely barren of return. What in fine did we 
 gain by the Whig Revolution for civil and religious 
 liberty ? We gained a Venetian oligarchy, a Dutch 
 finance, slavery and degradation, darkness and 
 social misery for the body of the people, a despised 
 and parasitic Clergy, a privileged Brahminical order, 
 corrupt and dead to all higher things, and in ultimate 
 result, that social question which now defies our 
 solution and threatens our national existence. 
 
 But if the nature of the English government can 
 only be explained on the principle that structure has 
 arisen in answer to function : if theory is unable 
 to cope with the difficulties, and only in history, 
 i.e. in the organic evolution of the whole, is the true 
 raison d'etre and explanation of its existence to be 
 found ; how much less can merely rational or 
 theoretic considerations explain to us the nature 
 and formation of the English Church ? Let us look 
 into the matter, for nothing could be more worthy 
 of our closest attention. Nothing could be more 
 futile than the attempt to account for the Church 
 of England on rational grounds. The Church of 
 
 ' maintained.' But the truth is simply, that if there is no 
 justification for the royal authority, there is no justification for 
 any. Anarchy is the only alternative. 
 
 It is most curious to see how identical all down history is 
 the spirit of the Whig party : a factious and anti-national, 
 unconstitutional party, necessarily requiring to lean for support 
 on theory and extra-national props. In the days of Pym, it 
 leaned on Scotland: in 1688 and onwards, on the Dutch; in 
 the days of O'Connell, on the Irish, as it does now.
 
 Ethics and Politics. 41 1 
 
 England has, in fact, no rational basis at all. She 
 is not a rational entity, but a national and real 
 institution. No man could ever, on rational grounds, 
 become a member of the Church of England : nor 
 again could any member of the Church of England, 
 guided by purely rationalistic considerations, justify 
 his position. Such considerations could only and 
 inevitably turn him into a Sectarian : as indeed 
 history shows by copious instances. The Church 
 of England has no rational foundation : this, which 
 her enemies cast in her teeth, does in reality 
 constitute her glory and her strength. 
 
 Consider her origin. She owes her independent 
 existence to Henry VIII., beyond all question the 
 most execrable ruffian, the most whimsically gro- 
 tesque, the most superlatively wicked and capricious 
 tyrant that ever existed outside a dream r . Words 
 cannot paint the unique. Because the Pope would 
 not be either bullied or cajoled into humouring his 
 lust (rendered additionally abominable by its cruelty 
 and hypocrisy) by setting aside his marriage ; be- 
 cause he found in the Pope a moral barrier, Henry 
 VIII. dethroned the Pope and set himself up as 
 the Supreme Head of the Church, in order to give 
 the sanction of the Church, i.e. his own, to his own 
 villainy. A more outrageous and insolent piece of 
 absurdity was never perpetrated in the face of 
 
 r The writings especially of Brewer, Canon Dixon, Hubert 
 Burke, and Gasquet have settled this question for ever. I find 
 it impossible to examine the true record of Henry VIII. 's 
 villainies without a feeling of positive sickness. It is only 
 when reading of him that we can truly appreciate Rabelais. 
 Dr. Brewer knew how deeply Rabelais had penetrated into 
 the mixture of farce and solemnity which was the spirit of 
 the Reformation.
 
 4 1 2 Body and Soul. 
 
 humanity. This indeed was something altogether 
 'new and strange.' It is idle to assert that Henry 
 VIII. was but doing what his predecessors had 
 done before him. They had never dreamed of 
 such a thing. It is true that English kings as 
 William I., Henry II., Edward III., and Richard 
 II., had expressed in strong terms their claim to 
 supreme jurisdiction in matters ecclesiastical s . But 
 this was a totally different thing : the supremacy 
 of the civil over the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. 
 None of these Kings ever dreamed of usurping 
 the spiritual functions of the Pope. But this is 
 precisely what Henry VIII. did do. He who had 
 been the willing son of His Holiness, who had been 
 as vain as a peacock of his title of Champion of the 
 Faith, now, when his evil passions met with an 
 obstacle in the head of the Church, turned and 
 rent the Church asunder. In order that religion 
 should sanction his crimes, he had himself to be- 
 come the mouthpiece of religion. Then he could 
 
 8 There is nothing in history more ironical than the career 
 of John. He set at nought the authority of the Pope, and 
 his rebellious subjects exclaimed against his wickedness : he 
 submitted to it, and his rebellious subjects made that, too, 
 a crime : and they disobeyed the Pope themselves. What the 
 barons, lay or ecclesiastical, wanted was not liberty for the 
 nation but license for themselves. Hagiological history has 
 transfigured Magna Charta, in whose case we ought to recollect 
 the words of Renan, ' dans les hommes eleves d la dignite de 
 ' symbole, il faut toujours distinguer la vie personnelle et la vie 
 1 d 1 outretombe, ce qitils furent en realite et ce que r opinion en 
 ' a fait: Averroes, p. 432. The real nature of Magna Charta 
 is shown by the conduct of the Barons in the next reign. The 
 truth is that, under the influence of modern Protestant 
 anarchical theories, historians have entirely misrepresented the 
 events of John's reign.
 
 Ethics and Politics. 413 
 
 do what he liked. But the idea of reforming the 
 Church, morally or doctrinally, never entered his 
 head. All he wanted to do was to turn it into an 
 instrument, a tool, an engine in his own service. 
 But here he would have met, and did meet, with 
 a new check. The nation would never have sub- 
 mitted to his new-fangled immoral papacy, had he 
 not found means to make it also subservient to his 
 will. He found these means. He threw to the 
 upper classes the Abbey lands, as a sop to appease 
 them : he shut their mouths with the Abbeys and 
 Priories and Chantries of the Church ' ; and as for 
 the lower classes, when they rose in defence of 
 their old religion and their kind old friends, the 
 monks, he put them down with barbaric seventy by 
 the aid of foreign mercenary troops. Instead of the 
 old Pope, who with all his faults lived at a distance 
 and let them alone, the English people got a new 
 Pope, King Stork for King Log, a fierce, san- 
 guinary, and atrocious tyrant, who despoiled them 
 of all they had, and hung, burned and quartered 
 them for objecting. 
 
 Of reformation no faintest suspicion ever entered 
 his head. He slew with a boisterous and hideous 
 alacrity (' hang him up, hang him lip /') both those 
 who denied his supremacy and those who attempted 
 
 1 ' Our Abbeys and our Priories shall pay this expedition's 
 'charge.' (King John, Act. i. Sc. i.) The epoch is far more 
 correctly described as that of the ' New Proprietors ' than the 
 ' New Learning.' When a modern writer tells us that ' the 
 ' shrines and altar plate of York Cathedral were sent to the 
 * mints to be issued in base coin,' he epitomises the age. It 
 was probably not only of money, but of men, that Sir Thomas 
 Gresham was thinking when he enunciated his famous law, 
 ' bad money drives out good.'
 
 414 Body and Soul. 
 
 any the slightest innovation in doctrine. Wolsey, 
 the great Cardinal who had raised him to a pinnacle 
 of glory, and Katherine of Arragon, fell at the 
 divorce, and with them Henry's good genius died : 
 or rather, we should say, with them disappeared all 
 the genius and all the morality of his reign ; for left 
 to himself, he soon showed how little of either he 
 possessed. Fisher and More, two of the noblest 
 men that ever lived, were sacrificed to his su- 
 premacy. From that moment Henry never had 
 any but dirty and unscrupulous, greedy and in- 
 satiable tools and cormorants to serve him. His 
 ministers, civil or ecclesiastical, were there, ready 
 and eager to baptize all his outrageous crimes with 
 the professed formulae of religion and law. 
 
 And here now we come upon the difficulty. On 
 the shoulders of Henry VIII. lies the blame for 
 all the subsequent fearful disasters in Church and 
 State. He was now in an untenable position. 
 People began to say Quo Warranto ? By what 
 authority doest thou these things ? The old Pope 
 we understand, though we might condemn him ; 
 a moral reformation, a recasting, in the spirit of 
 purity and earnestness, of error and backslidings, 
 a reconstitution and reorganisation of religious 
 truth and doctrine, we understand : but who are 
 you ? Who made Henry VIII. Pope of the English 
 Nation ! Is the authority of the Pope to be cast 
 aside, only to install a new Papacy, differing from 
 the old one only in its sanguinary robbing and 
 murdering to enforce immoral complaisance and 
 winking at its own hideous crimes ? No, a thousand 
 times, No. And in fact, little as he intended it, 
 Henry VIII., by making the ecclesiastical authority
 
 Ethics and Politics. 4 1 5 
 
 of the King a farce, and yet tying it of necessity 
 to the civil, really ensured the fall of the supreme 
 civil authority of the realm. The Puritan crusade 
 under the Stuarts laid both together in the dust. 
 For this was just where the knot lay. Henry's 
 ecclesiastical polity was simply Catholicism minus 
 the Pope. But this was seen and felt by all to be 
 impossible. There was no religion or sincerity in 
 it : it was political only. Accordingly it could not 
 survive its author. No sooner was the arch- 
 buccaneer dead than his policy and his last instruc- 
 tions were cast to the winds by the gang of sharks 
 and pirates who succeeded to his power behind the 
 authority of Edward VI. Their policy was dictated 
 primarily by the impossibility of any reconciliation 
 with a Church on whose spoils they were batten- 
 ing u . A Protector who tried to pull down S. 
 Margaret's in order to build himself a house 
 was likely to be hostile to the old religion. And 
 
 u ' The spoil of the Church was now become the only 
 ' resource of all their operations in finance : the vital principle 
 ' of all their politics : the sole security for the existence of their 
 ' power. It was necessary by all even the most violent means 
 ' to put every individual on the same bottom, and to bind the 
 ' nation in one guilty interest to uphold this act and the authority 
 ' of those by whom it was done. In order to force the most 
 ' reluctant into a participation of their pillage, they rendered 
 ' their paper circulation compulsory in ^.payments. Those who 
 ' consider the general tendency of their schemes to this one 
 ' object as a centre, and a centre from which afterwards all their 
 ' measures radiate, will not think I dwell too long on this part 
 ' of the proceedings of the National Assembly.' 
 
 For ' paper circulation 1 and 'payments' substitute 'Anglican 
 ' Church ' and ' religious services? and this description by Burke 
 applies exactly to the English 'Reformation' of the Church 
 of England. How does history repeat herself !
 
 4 1 6 Body and Soul. 
 
 this lies at the root of the position. When Mary 
 succeeded, she was allowed to re-instate the old 
 faith on the distinct understanding that she let the 
 new proprietors keep their ill-gotten gains. (The 
 Reformation /) But this involved a contradiction, 
 and as soon as Elizabeth replaced her, some means 
 of founding a quasi-logical basis for the ' new 
 4 order ' had to be devised. As far as her own 
 personal inclinations went, and that was not very 
 far, Elizabeth was a Catholic. But she was the 
 daughter of Anne Boleyn : she was the fruit of 
 the crime. Moreover, her personal wishes counted 
 for least in the general situation. The circum- 
 stances in which she found herself were imperative. 
 Her line was no free choice : it was above all 
 a political necessity. She existed upon sufferance : 
 the sufferance of the new proprietors. Both from 
 the religious and the political point of view her 
 policy was throughout one of balance and ex- 
 pediency. There was no choice : necessity held 
 out the bowl. She had no great idea to realise : 
 she compounded with events as they came x . To 
 return to Catholicism, apart from the fact that it 
 would have branded her as illegitimate, and thus 
 de jure dethroned her in favour of Mary hinc ill(e 
 lacrima et spreta injuria formes ! would have 
 ultimately involved restitution of its goods : to go 
 forward was equally dangerous, for where were you 
 to stop ? Hence the English Church. It is essen- 
 tially an apology excogitated to give some show 
 of reason to a set of fails accomplis. It is mere 
 hypocrisy to try and eliminate the four hundred 
 
 1 Cf. Cunningham's Growth of English Industry and Com- 
 merce, vol. ii. p. 10.
 
 EtJiics and Politics. 417 
 
 years of Latin Christianity, and go back to Saxon 
 and British England for the English Church. To 
 its Roman connection our Church owes all its build- 
 ings, its achievements, its venerable age. Had, 
 indeed, a good and pious King destroyed the 
 monasteries and got rid of Rome, in order to 
 achieve noble national aims : had the destruction 
 of the Catholic organisation been, as Wolsey 
 wished it to have been, essentially a moral reform, 
 an endeavour to renew the spirit of religion and 
 apply the resources of the Church to religious, 
 educational, or other high and noble purposes, to 
 bring its structure into harmony with new functions 
 the case would have been altered. But such 
 was not the case. The appeal to early times, and 
 antiquated, long-forgotten origins, was merely 
 excogitated after the facts, to provide some sort of 
 justification for a series of atrocious crimes. These 
 were the essence, the apology was the accident, of 
 the matter. Elizabeth had in some way or another 
 forcibly to establish an Anglican Church, whose 
 structure had necessarily to be determined by its 
 function : and its function was, to suit the political 
 necessities of the new proprietors. What a func- 
 tion for a Church ! What an abysmal fall from the 
 great civilising function of the Roman Catholic 
 Church ! But Elizabeth was obliged to cut her coat 
 according to her cloth, and base her ecclesiastical 
 system not upon a moral and rational inquiry into 
 truth, not upon high social functions, but negatively, 
 upon an avoidance of extremes, dexterously egg- 
 dancing amidst a thousand causes of offence. 
 Catholic as against the reformers ; Protestant, as 
 being essentially hostile to Catholics ; the product 
 
 E e
 
 4 1 8 Body and Soul. 
 
 of compromise ; the convenient engine of State 
 necessity ; the tool of interested views ; the child 
 of diplomatic steering and material calculation ; 
 such was the unavoidable conclusion, the Anglican 
 Church. The logic of circumstances gave it its 
 form. It could, and it can, exist only in connec- 
 tion with the State to whose action it owed its 
 origin. This was its raison d'etre. And if, in the 
 
 o 
 
 next century, the Puritan, reforming, rationalising 
 rebels confounded the Stuart zeal for Anglicanism 
 with an attempt to reintroduce Roman Catholicism, 
 they were not without excuse. For in truth its 
 differences from the old faith lay in practical 
 exigencies, and not in rational or irrational dis- 
 agreement, like their own. And on the other 
 hand, it was more abhorred by Rome than all the 
 sects z . For Rome knew perfectly well the true 
 reason for its falling away : she knew the difference 
 between the cause and the pretext : the true 
 motives, lust and covetousness, and the laboriously 
 woven cloak of hypocrisy thrown over the horrible 
 ulcer already formed and spreading. Was there 
 nothing to palliate the attempts of Roman Catholics 
 to restore the past ? Why, I say it was a sacred 
 duty, and regarded as such by every Catholic just 
 in proportion to the sincerity and depth of his 
 religious conviction. 
 
 Odisse quern laser is : there was the soul of the 
 persecution of the Roman Catholics in the seven- 
 teenth century. The material interests of the 
 upper classes combined with and employed the 
 sectarian bigotry of the lower, mainly town, popu- 
 
 1 See Dryden's Preface to Religio Laid.
 
 Ethics and Politics. 
 
 419 
 
 lation to oppress the old Catholic party. But 
 in human affairs who gains time gains all. ' The 
 ' mighty years in long procession ran : ' and the 
 English Catholic Church, the child of crime and 
 violence, personal ends and sordid tyranny, gradu- 
 ally became associated, as the Church which it 
 had displaced had been associated, with an English 
 gentleman's early childish notions of respect and 
 veneration. But there was this difference : the 
 English Church was inseparably bound up with 
 the State. Church and King became an indis- 
 solubly rivetted single idea. The two became 
 inconceivable to his mind apart. And this is 
 logically the case. The Church of England has 
 no raison d'etre apart from the State. She repre- 
 sents the State on the side of its social duties, 
 and this is just her true function ; a function which 
 in this century she has begun to realise and to 
 perform in a manner worthy of herself. On her 
 due performance of this function depends her 
 existence. She has awoken from the lethargy in 
 which she sank after the glorious Revolution of 
 1688 : and is thus making reparation for the terrible 
 injury caused to the cause of the poor, morally and 
 educationally, by the events to which she owes her 
 birth. For two hundred years after Henry VIII., 
 being deprived of her property (which passed from 
 the hands of those who held it in trust for the 
 people, on the maxim that property has its duties, 
 into the hands of those who held it merely for 
 themselves, on the maxim property is liberty], the 
 Church was in a degraded condition : witness the 
 condition of the clergy in England in the seven- 
 teenth and eighteenth centuries. But now there 
 
 E e 2
 
 420 Body and Soul, 
 
 is no body in the State which performs its social 
 and religious functions more fully and unweariedly 
 than the Church. And we need not regret that 
 a cloud hangs over her origin, or echo the wish 
 of Dryden, that her inborn stains were washed 
 away. This is the guarantee of earnest and en- 
 during services. She stands in the position of 
 a wife, whom the consciousness of early faults 
 and doubtful antecedents urges to repair and 
 make up for the past by a faithful and sincere 
 performance of her duties to her children passing 
 the common. 
 
 My object in these observations on the con- 
 stitutional history of England is to succeed in im- 
 parting to the reader the conviction that neither 
 the State in general nor any of its institutions 
 are susceptible of a rational explanation, but 
 are only explicable through the method of real 
 definition, that is, the accounting for structure by 
 function, for what is, by the analytical investi- 
 gation of how it came to be so : or in other 
 words, that ' The State ' is a non-entity : but 
 that there exist States, which are nothing but 
 structures that have been formed in course of 
 time, and grown gradually to their necessities, 
 internal and external. Only the thorough in- 
 sight into this truth will enable us to compre- 
 hend the futility of all general and rationalistic 
 theories of the State, from Plato and Hobbes 
 downwards. Nothing is at once more useless 
 and more simple than the construction of any 
 such theories of the State. But just because 
 they appear complete and magnificent, each in 
 se totus teres atque rotundiis, just because they
 
 EtJiics and Politics 42 1 
 
 are purely abstract and require no deep imag- 
 inative insight into special circumstances and the 
 puzzling complicated nature of things and men, 
 the vulgar mind turns to them more readily than 
 to the really valuable political writings of states- 
 men who were thinking not of abstract but 
 applied politics. The vain and visionary verbiage 
 of Plato, Rousseau, Comte, and others of that 
 ilk, will always fill a large space in ' Histories of 
 Politics ' as being complete theories of the State : 
 though there is really more political wisdom to be 
 gained in any half-dozen pages of the Cardinal 
 de Retz, or one of Lord Beaconsfield's novels, 
 or a pamphlet of Lord Bolingbroke's, though 
 these are marked by a total absence of any theory of 
 the State such as might qualify them for fifty pages 
 in a History of Political Theory. For what inspires 
 all really valuable political writing, and breathes 
 in its pages, is just the profound and intuitive 
 perception of the truth, that, abstracted from its 
 function, or its evocating necessity, no structure 
 has or can have any meaning, much less existence. 
 Of what value, then, are pedantic and frigid 
 general lucubrations and systems of politics ? 
 What use are these, if a State be, as it is, es- 
 sentially a product of time ? if no State can 
 possibly leap full grown into existence, just be- 
 cause there can be no State without a past, which 
 past has made it what it is : in virtue of which past 
 it is just what it is, that is, a State of a peculiar 
 kind ? A special creative theory of the State, in 
 fact, is an absurdity : one, such as implies that 
 structure is absolute, and of absolute value : un- 
 related to function. This absolutism, in fact, this
 
 422 Body and Soul. 
 
 form minus function, is exactly the Platonic, as 
 opposed to the Aristotelian, view : precisely the 
 same, under all its varieties, whether it be found 
 in Plato's own pages, or in real life : as, for in- 
 stance, in modern times, during which some 
 mystical and absolute value has been attached 
 to ' constitutional ' government and its forms, in 
 themselves, and absolutely, as such : and every- 
 where people have striven to force it upon all 
 sorts and conditions of men, regardless of the 
 essential distinctions, which make that which is 
 adapted to one race absurdly unsuitable for an- 
 other. But there seems to be in the human mind 
 a radical propensity to absolutize structure : to 
 consider it as something independent and valid 
 in se : men seem to be radically unable to under- 
 stand that structure is nothing but that which 
 does work : and that you cannot have the structure, 
 where the work is not wanted to be done. It is 
 the need for the doing of the work that creates 
 the structure : but what preposterous folly to 
 attach abstract value to the structure, and en- 
 deavour to produce it arbitrarily, where the func- 
 tion or work it should do is not wanted ! Yet this 
 is just the thing that people are constantly at- 
 tempting to do in politics. The attempt is just as 
 ridiculous as it seems to us to be, when we read of 
 some low barbarian savage potentate, who inhabits 
 a sweltering tropical clime, and whose national garb 
 is his dark skin, adopting a pair of military trousers 
 with a gold band, and a tall hat, together possibly 
 with boots. The poor untutored Indian attaches 
 some absolute value to these structures : and we 
 laugh : yet in morals and politics we do precisely
 
 EtJiics and Politics. 423 
 
 the same. There has only been ONE philosopher 
 in all history who understood the truth of the 
 matter. And perhaps the most astonishing thing 
 about Aristotle, in whom all is astonishing, is 
 just this : that though a philosopher, and one who, 
 when it is necessary, can wield abstractions with 
 a masterly ease that leaves all other philosophers 
 far behind, he yet ranks, as a political writer, with 
 statesmen. Not Thucydides, not Macchiavelli are 
 more penetrated with the sentiment of reality, of 
 the limiting and qualifying effect of circumstances, 
 of relativity, in political affairs. Aristotle is the 
 only philosopher because he alone is always and 
 everywhere absolutely without pedantry : being in 
 this respect the exact antithesis to that prince of 
 superlative pedants, that King of uncompromising 
 politicasters, the divine Plato. 
 
 It would be easy and deeply interesting to il- 
 lustrate this point by a careful and wide historical 
 review. But notwithstanding the temptation to 
 make an excursion into the pleasant fields of 
 history, above all, in this connection, into those of 
 Russia and Poland, which present us with exactly 
 opposite object lessons on this very head, brevity 
 is the soul of wit : and enough has been said to 
 convince any one willing to be convinced and 
 nothing will convince those who are not so of the 
 truth, that a State and its institutions are real and 
 not rational things ; or conversely, that the greatest 
 error which can possibly be committed, is to at- 
 tempt to rationalise the State : to turn it into a 
 body of individuals : to forget its organic nature 
 and the overwhelming importance of bearing in 
 mind that the institutions of a country are the truest
 
 424 Body and Soul. 
 
 and most valuable portion of its wealth. This 
 which I state here as a historical and scientific fact, 
 is nevertheless also the true Tory principle. The 
 art of the Whig has, on the contrary, always been 
 based upon the negation of this ; it turns the in- 
 stitutions of the country into engines of oligarchical 
 government, under cover of popular cries. The 
 demagogue, on the other hand, is one whose de- 
 lusion lies in supposing that by getting rid of all 
 the old institutions of the country ' the people ' will 
 be 'free.' He never suspects that it is just these 
 institutions which are the guarantee of liberty, and 
 that liberty without institutions is at once a snare, 
 an impossibility, and a tyranny. The individual, 
 as such, can enjoy no liberty. This was the dis- 
 covery made after the Revolution was over in 
 I 795 a - The only man who can enjoy liberty is the 
 man who is a special sort of man : i.e. privileged 
 by his birthright to share the liberties of his 
 country, and the benefits of its institutions. All 
 
 * e.g. in Fyffe's History of Modern Europe, vol . i. p. 46, we 
 read 'Men left their homes (to fight for France) in 1792 in 
 ' order that the fruit of the poor man's labour should be his 
 ' own, in order that the children of France should inherit some 
 ' better birthright than exaction and want, in order that the 
 ' late won sense of human right should not be swept from the 
 ' earth by the arms of privilege and caste.' Magnificent ! But 
 on p. 103 we read, that on the establishment of the Directory 
 in 1795, ' the rich and the gay consoled themselves with costlier 
 ' luxury for all the austerities of the Reign of Terror. The 
 ' labouring classes, now harmless and disarmed, were sharply 
 ' taught that they must be content with such improvements 
 ' in their lot as the progress of society might bring.' Eh ! 
 was the Revolution then a failure ? Poor deluded lambs of 
 labour ! then after all it was not you, not man qua. man, that 
 derived benefit from the Revolution ? Who was it ?
 
 EtJiics and Politics. 42 5 
 
 history proves it, and the man who understands it 
 is a statesman : the man who does not, not. For 
 the individual, as s^lch, there is and can be neither 
 political liberty, nor moral duty. 
 
 III. For now it is time to examine the ethical 
 significance of our principle, and determine not only 
 the corollaries that follow from it, but also the 
 doctrine of conduct which it involves : which we 
 shall find to be nothing but the doctrine that struc- 
 ture is made such by its function, in other clothes. 
 Nor can anything be a more decisive proof of the 
 truth of this principle, than to find that it is equally 
 valid and fruitful alike in the economy of nature 
 and that of man, that it furnishes the key alike to 
 economics and politics, aesthetics, and ethics. And 
 when we comprehend it, in the ethical field, we 
 shall understand why moral philosophy is such 
 a chaos of conflicting opinions. For how could 
 any one arrive at a satisfactory conception of 
 conduct, unless he started from a correct analysis 
 of human nature ? The conduct of men can only be 
 deduced from the nature of men. And here, as 
 usual, our master is Aristotle. 
 
 And first then as to the deep inward significance 
 of the principle itself in the ethical sphere. What 
 it says is this : that all created things are merely 
 the material forms, the corporeal embodiments of 
 functions : they arise to perform peculiar and special 
 duties, in answer to the necessities that call them 
 forth : these are their souls. ' Let it be understood,' 
 exclaims Dante, ' that God and Nature make no- 
 ' thing to be idle. Whatever comes into being 
 ' exists for the sake of some operation or working.' 
 And conversely, the cessation of this is death.
 
 426 Body and Soul. 
 
 Things sink back and disappear, lose their in- 
 dividuality, become nothing, and merge again into 
 the universal sea of the formless, when those ne- 
 cessities that held their material particles together 
 cease : or when they themselves lose their capacity 
 of performing their function. The great law of 
 Nature, moral and physical, the raison d'etre of all 
 things is expressed by Aristotle thus : EACH THING 
 
 IS FOR THE SAKE OF ANOTHER. Now when WC fully 
 
 realise all this, we suddenly become aware that this 
 fundamental doctrine of Aristotle's is nothing but 
 the definite and clear philosophical expression of 
 the thought which lies at the bottom of all oriental 
 mythologies, and forms the kernel of the ethical 
 teaching of the old nature worship. The presenta- 
 tion of the central idea in these religious myths is 
 related to Aristotle's thought as the glimpses we 
 catch of objects reflected in rough and stormy water 
 to the exact and beautiful mirror of the same in 
 a quiet unfathomable mountain tarn. But the ob- 
 jects are the same. This principle of creation is 
 that which is signified by the Hindoo Trimurti, 
 Brahma, the Creative Principle : Vishnu, the Pre- 
 serving Principle, and Shiva, the Principle of 
 Decay : all being summed up in the neuter form 
 of the whole three, Brahman. All these are but 
 mythological forms of the same principle of genera- 
 tive evolution and decay, which Aristotle expresses 
 by naming the creative principle 77 TOV Sia ri amy/cr?; 
 the Necessity of the Raison detre*. We see the 
 
 b Cp. Fustel de Coulanges, La Cite Antique, ad fin. ' Nous 
 ' avons fait I 'histoire d 'une croyance. Elle s'etablit : la socicte 
 ' humainc se constituc. Ellc se moitifie : la societe traverse unc
 
 Ethics and Politics. 427 
 
 same thing shadowed in the Semitic myths of 
 Astarte and Adonis, the Egyptian I sis and Osiris, 
 Horus and Apis : the cosmogonical accounts of the 
 Babylonians and Assyrians, embodied in Genesis ; 
 in the dark obscurities of the old Chinese religion, 
 with its doctrines of Ying and Yang, and its wor- 
 ship of Tao c : and the various more or less de- 
 graded nature and fetish worships of the world. It 
 is this deep perception which gives to ancient 
 religious systems an attraction so much more 
 powerful than those of later times, which have lost 
 the old insight into natural relations, and are often 
 but superficial rationalistic arbitrary fancies repos- 
 ing upon no deep intellectual penetration into 
 Nature's arcana. This thought again is that which 
 is embodied in the proverb : vox populi vox Dei: 
 and which again Shakspeare, the Aristotelian poet 
 (just as Aristotle is the Shakspearian philosopher) 
 expresses when he makes Hamlet say : 
 
 ' There's a divinity which shapes our ends 
 Rough hew them how we will.' 
 
 For by this divinity he means exactly that which 
 Aristotle calls TO Otlov : the necessity which calls 
 out and fashions all attempts at construction, and 
 which is the supreme Lord Paramount of all action 
 and creation. We do but row, says Butler, we are 
 
 ' serie de revolutions. Elle disparait : la societe change de face. 
 f Telle a etc la loi des temps antiques? and of all time. 
 
 c Cp. ' The natural political, social, and moral orders of the 
 ' world are not only closely connected with one another, but 
 
 ' they are perfectly identical There are three fundamental 
 
 ' beings, the heaven, earth, and man, who must be in harmony 
 ' one with another.' De la Saussaye, Science of Religion, 
 E. T., p. 346.
 
 428 Body and Soul. 
 
 steered by fate. And this is the true meani ng of 
 Fate : which is not absolute mechanical material 
 Necessity, but formal, creative, conditional neces- 
 sity H TOV dta ri dvayKri, yflWfjLtvr) oiov opyavoi?, 
 
 7TOL61. 
 
 Upon the full understanding of this depends our 
 moral, political, and philosophical salvation. In 
 this lies that social mysticism, which puzzles super- 
 ficial rationalistic critics so much in the writings of 
 real political philosophers : which appears in authors 
 widely different in all other respects : in Dosto- 
 yeffsky and Burke, in Lord Beaconsfield and 
 Proudhon, in Pascal and Schopenhauer. (In Aris- 
 totle it is not mystic but clearly understood.) On 
 this depends the true and radical opposition be- 
 tween Tory and Whig views of politics ; and the 
 solution of the dark and disputed questions of the 
 relation of the Individual Man to the State : the 
 duties of the individual man : and in general the 
 whole difference, wide as the poles asunder, between 
 the rational and the real. For no shuffling and 
 juggling with abstractions will ever enable us to 
 reach realities : those who start from the individual 
 will never be able to understand man. Out of 
 individuals we never can get the State, except 
 a ' State ' which is an abstract entity : as unreal as 
 the individuals of which it is forcibly made to 
 consist. 
 
 For there are no such things as individuals. 
 There are men : and these men live in communities, 
 states, or nations, which are all different. They 
 differ in language, race, historical tradition, sentiment, 
 religion, custom, fashion, climate and civilisation, 
 and idiosyncrasy. Time and events and the law
 
 Ethics and Politics. 429 
 
 that harmonises every structure to the necessities 
 of its situation, make every state a peculiar thing. 
 It grows into existence gradually. Nothing more 
 false was ever said than that the State is nothing 
 but the individuals composing it. It is the indivi- 
 duals composing it, plus the composition. This 
 which seems nothing, is everything. The ' indi- 
 vidual ' grows up in the atmosphere of the State : 
 he is moulded into his form by its myriad influences. 
 As a unit, he is well nigh powerless against the 
 irresistible, because unconscious, strength of custom, 
 tradition, use, wont, inheritance. He sucks in the 
 national point of view, the national sympathies and 
 antipathies, the national prejudices and cultivation 
 with his mother's milk. He is made what he is 
 by his environment. The collective idea d if the 
 expression may be permitted, to denote the sum 
 total of the national idiosyncrasy shapes him into 
 conformity with it. It is only in later years, when 
 his character has been all but formed, that he begins 
 to rationalise, to estimate things and ideas from 
 an abstract, absolute, rational point of view. 
 
 Now, only in this way can we attain to truth 
 in the sphere of ethics. The strength of the national, 
 political, or social idea is too great for the individual 
 man. It is beyond his power. Every separate 
 member of the community might for example hold, 
 from the abstract standpoint, that some special 
 custom or point of manners was absurd. Never- 
 theless, collectively they would all continue to obey 
 
 d The reader will not confound this with Socialistic ab- 
 surdities. Socialism is just as rationalistic as Individualism: 
 they are opposite ends of the same false, foolish, theoretical 
 stick.
 
 43 Body and Soul. 
 
 it : because in such cases the individual opinion and 
 action is pitted against the whole of the rest of the 
 community : each only knows a handful of his 
 compatriots, and therefore no one can take a first 
 step : no one is strong enough to inaugurate a 
 universal change. The thing cannot be done on 
 a plan. This is that mystic influence of large bodies 
 of men which makes them act as it were providen- 
 tially, entirely independently of each man's indi- 
 vidual opinion : which therefore makes each man act 
 not rationally, but really ; this we express when we 
 speak of fate. The State is not merely the sum of 
 the individuals composing it : on the contrary, just 
 because the State has a character (rjdos) of its ov/n, 
 each man is obliged, even were it against his will, 
 to obey and conform to the social idea. Thus 
 custom and conscience do make cowards of us all. 
 
 Now here we have the point of essential distinc- 
 tion between the true statesman, or the true 
 novelist, and the false one. The true statesman 
 knows his people : this is what Shaftesbury was 
 praised for : ' his strength lay in his knowledge of 
 ' England.' He knows not merely human nature, 
 but that species of it which is his material in 
 particular : and cuts his coat accordingly. The 
 pseudo-statesman, on the contrary, frames his 
 measures from a rationalistic, it may be highly 
 moral, conception of 'humanity.' Similarly, your 
 true novelist never draws abstract individuals : he 
 knows that characters are abstractions, except in 
 their proper setting. The bad novelist, on the other 
 hand, gives us abstract individuals. The distinction 
 may be accurately expressed by the Latin words 
 vir and homo. Homo sum, nihil humani a me
 
 Ethics and Politics. 431 
 
 alienum piito has a fine ring : but it is the principle 
 of bad art and bad politics : and a sure sign of 
 decay. Homo is an abstract entity : unqualified 
 by conditions. Vir, on the contrary, is real ; a man. 
 Paradoxical as it may seem, it is none the less a 
 deep truth, that the artist who wishes to draw 
 character must beyond all know and depict every- 
 thing else as well : i.e. the character alone is false. 
 No one ever understood this like Sir Walter 
 Scott. A knowledge of human nature does not 
 merely imply an abstract knowledge of individual 
 character : it involves a knowledge of the relations 
 of things, social and political, apart from which 
 there is no such thing as character at all. This 
 is why lady novelists are so terrible. True character 
 painting in novels is as rare as true legislation in 
 politics. They both rest upon the same basis : 
 an intuitive perception of the special correlations 
 of men and things: and this is Imagination. The 
 creation of abstract characters is mere child's play : 
 what is hard, is the concrete. Therefore popularity 
 is the worst test of excellence, in art or politics -; for 
 not one man in a hundred is capable of judging. 
 
 Every State then is a peculiar unity, and has 
 a peculiar spirit of its own, a tone, a character, 
 a way of looking at and doing things, a hereditary 
 idea, or rather, an inherited multitude of various 
 ideas and customs, which makes its individual 
 members what they are. Therefore we can see 
 at once that it is utterly impossible to understand 
 the ' individual ' apart from, abstracted from, his 
 State. Abstract him, and we have cut ourselves 
 off from all possibility of explaining him : his 
 structure is now an insoluble puzzle : we have in
 
 43 2 Body and Soul. 
 
 him no longer a real man, but an entity : the 
 springs of his conduct, his motives, the raison 
 d'etre of his constitution, are gone. Therefore 
 Aristotle says that one who lives alone, a member 
 of no State, is either a god or a beast ; either 
 above or below the level of a man. And the depth 
 of this remark can best be appreciated when we 
 consider special instances : such as e.g. Spinoza 
 or Bakunin. Was Spinoza above or below hu- 
 manity ? Did not Bakunin and his followers, by 
 aiming at something above the level of possibility, 
 end by falling below the level of beasts ? Does 
 not the man who attempts to rise above patriotism 
 and profess universal philanthropy end by caring 
 primarily for his own interest ? The truth is that 
 out of a State a man is a non-entity and an ab- 
 surdity. Let no one quote the Jews, the standing 
 miracle, as men without a nationality : scattered 
 though they are, they have as strong a sentiment 
 of nationality as any other sort of men. 
 
 The life of a nation is built up, or we should 
 rather say, building up, long before it arrives at 
 the consciousness of its nationality. Its definitely 
 conscious national life dates always from some 
 striking and peculiar man, event, or situation out 
 of which it rose victorious. Henceforth it proceeds 
 on a fixed and settled basis of ideas and actions. 
 Thus the Greeks, especially the Athenians, awoke 
 in the battle of Marathon, a Greek Spanish 
 Armada. France dates from Joan of Arc : Russia 
 from Ivan III.: and so forth. But the ancient 
 history of the Jews presents us with the best instance 
 of all e . Jehovah, their national god, was the symbol 
 c Cp. Dostoyeffsky's Demons, p. 232 (Russian Edition).
 
 Ethics and Politics. 433 
 
 and index of their nationality, as Moses was their 
 founder. And in Christ, the old national spirit saw 
 the cosmopolitan, rationalistic spirit rising up in 
 opposition to it, denying its ritual and the efficiency 
 of its customs and moral code. Christianity was the 
 death of national life and character. It substituted 
 the individual for the man, homo for vir, an ideal for 
 a real morality. The Christian theory was pro- 
 foundly atheistic and immoral, from the point of 
 view of the good old national man. Its intention 
 was pacific : its tendency essentially warlike : not 
 peace, but a sword, lies in every philosophy which 
 attempts to dissolve the faith in the State and 
 reduce the world to rationalistic individuals. The 
 individual turns away from all ties of kindred or 
 nation, and centres in himself. From this time 
 morality disappears, and sanctity, i.e. mysticism, 
 leading to the wildest immorality prevails. For 
 there is no morality, apart from the State. Morality 
 is the true relation of the man to his kindred and 
 his State, and to aim at extending it to the whole 
 human race is only to annihilate it altogether, by 
 throwing him back, in the wild and immeasurable 
 sea of being, upon his own nature. Christian mo- 
 rality began again, only when its rationalistic basis 
 had decayed and dissolved into nothing, and the 
 CHURCH had arisen on its ruins. The Church, 
 becoming organised, again became politic, again 
 human f : and now entered upon that magnificent 
 
 f Religion had necessarily to stoop to conquer. For the soul 
 of Christianity being the denial of the world, the organisation 
 of the Church was the death of religion : since it had to adopt 
 and adapt itself to all the worldly politico - economic cate- 
 gories. 
 
 Ff
 
 434 Body and Soul. 
 
 course of education and civilisation which is essen- 
 tially connected with Rome. The truth as to the 
 distinction between Protestantism and Roman 
 Catholicism lies here. As Protestant holiness drew 
 nearer to primitive Christianity, it lost its social 
 value. Protestantism is essentially an anti-social 
 religion. The English Church is justified in her 
 contradictions by the fact that she has retained the 
 social idea of Catholicism g . The social tendency 
 of Protestantism in religion is precisely the same 
 as that of Cartesianism in philosophy : isolation, 
 individualisation of the man. Centred in himself, 
 he degenerates into vain and sterile egoism, out 
 of which he cannot get : for beginning with the 
 abstract individual, we can never get away from 
 him. True morality and true religion are essentially 
 social and political : they start from the man, not 
 from the individual : from the man as a social being, 
 
 s For example, Fyffe is constantly declaiming against priest- 
 ridden nations and the state of things due to centuries of priest- 
 craft, in pre-revolutionary Europe. But on closely inspecting 
 his own book we find (p. 411) that 'the people adored their 
 
 * Bishops and Clergy in the Tyrol. Nowhere could the Church 
 
 * exhibit a more winning example of unbroken accord between 
 ' a simple people and a Catholic Crown." And again (p. 26), 
 ' Hungary was the only part of the Austrian dominions in which 
 ' the peasant was not in a better condition than his fellows in 
 ' North Germany.' Again, ' the French peasant knew no such 
 'bondage as the Prussian serf,' and (p. 27) 'the comparative 
 ' freedom and comfort of the peasant in the Southern States.' 
 Again (p. 362), ' nowhere on the continent is there a labouring 
 ' class so stripped and despoiled of all interest in the soil, so 
 
 * sedulously excluded from all possibilities of proprietorship as 
 ' in England.' What ! then, apparently, it is not priestcraft, 
 but Protestantism, that is most to blame ! Et I'oila justement 
 co mine on tcrit rhistoire.
 
 EtJiics and Politics. 43 5 
 
 conditioned by and related to all others near him, 
 reciprocally dependent on each other : a biological 
 growth, and not a metaphysical entity. 
 
 For here appears the point which links morality 
 on to the fundamental thought in this essay. 
 Structure is what it is because of its functions : it 
 is what it is, only because of these : it is, in fact, 
 non-existent apart from them, being only embodied 
 function. Now what, in a biological sense, is 
 function, is, in an ethical regard, duty. Just as 
 engineers call its function or work the Duty of a 
 Machine : so is the Duty of man nothing but his 
 true function, ethically expressed. Apart from his 
 conditions he can have neither functions nor duties : 
 he becomes, metaphysically, an abstraction ; ethi- 
 cally, a non-moral entity : for a self-sufficient iso- 
 lated entity can have no duties. How, then, can 
 any one ever get any basis for moral action, on the 
 Cartesian or Kantian principles ? The thing is 
 absurd. Thus it has often been shown, and quite 
 correctly, that Kant's Ethics are palpably sophis- 
 tical, and only indicate the complete contradiction 
 between his intellect, which was weak, and his 
 feelings, which were strong. The latter told him 
 that there must be a ground of moral action ; 
 whereas the former was imposed upon by specious 
 but entirely fallacious sceptical arguments. But 
 there is no morality for the theoretical egoist. 
 Goethe is the true type of the Kantian critique, 
 a cold-blooded, pedantical, callous and inhuman 
 critic, from a moral point of view. There is no 
 morality except for 'men : i. e., ethics are, either an 
 absurdity, or they must be based on the biological 
 nature of man : upon the law, all things are for the 
 
 F f 2
 
 436 Body and SouL 
 
 sake of others. For if not, where is the moral 
 relation ? If each is, not for others, but for itself, 
 then where is the moral bond? Man being a 
 member of a community, reciprocally limits and is 
 limited, has rights and duties which follow from 
 that fundamental fact. But if he be a mere 
 rationalistic intelligence, a Cartesian self, all is lost. 
 And the history of moral philosophy during the 
 last three hundred years is simply a proof of the 
 total incapacity of philosophy to fix the foundations 
 of morality, if not based upon the organic nature of 
 man. It is vain endeavouring to extract, by jug- 
 gling of any kind, a moral doctrine out of either 
 Cartesian or mechanical philosophy ; for they do 
 not contain it. The world threw away at the 
 Reformation the only philosopher who held the 
 key of the fatal problem. 
 
 Was it, indeed, wonderful that an age of dense 
 physiological ignorance should, even had there 
 been no other reasons, fail to comprehend the 
 Aristotelian doctrine of virtue ? How could a gen- 
 eration that sought to explain man on rationalistic 
 or mechanical principles appreciate his extraor- 
 dinary insight into the truth that virtue rests not 
 on the logical and metaphysical, but the biological, 
 real, and organic nature of man ? Character, says 
 Aristotle, is simply a higher power of habit ; moral 
 character, i. e. virtue, is simply a habit, and men 
 become virtuous by constant performance of vir- 
 tuous acts, till they grow to them : till they ac- 
 quire the permanent habit of doing them in the 
 appropriate spirit. The man is made thus or thus by 
 his reiterated actions : this is the fundamental or- 
 ganic law of man's moral nature. It is simply
 
 EtJiics and Politics. 4.37 
 
 a case of the evolutionary process, considered in 
 the First Book. Not without reason did the 
 Jesuits, the greatest educators that the world has 
 ever seen, base their moral philosophy upon Ari- 
 stotle, the one philosopher who knew the vital 
 import of true education not knowledge, but 
 action in the formation of character. It is 
 not knowledge, not learning, rationalistic and dis- 
 cursive, that makes men virtuous : it is doing 
 virtuous acts. Train up a child in the way he 
 should go. Born with capacities and potentialities 
 for good or evil h , the child will become this or that, 
 according as he is led or made to do constant 
 actions of this or that kind. Thus repeated action, 
 i.e. custom, is not a little thing : it is everything. 
 ' It is by playing the flute that we become both 
 ' good and bad fluteplayers. Practice makes perfect. 
 ' And to perfection there are three things requisite : 
 ' natural abilities, education, and practice.' And how 
 should we know what to do ? Aristotle answers 
 in the exact words of the Gospel : ' Do unto others 
 ' as you would they should do unto you l .' 
 
 The Protestants fell into inextricable difficulties 
 over the great question of faith and works, just 
 because they rejected the assistance of the one 
 great moral analyst who knew the truth k . On the 
 
 h Compare Balzac, Preface to the Comedie Humaine. On 
 a point like this, Balzac is an authority. 
 
 ' (paTTjdels, ir)S av rots (pi\ols npocrfptpolntda^ f<pT], &S av fvatp.fda 
 
 avroiis rjfjiS>v TTpoo-(p(pt(r0ai- Diog. Laert. in vita Arist. 
 
 k 'Luther's most earnest remonstrances were directed not 
 * against bad, but " good workes," and the stress laid upon them 
 { by the advocates of the old religion. If that religion had been 
 ' in its practice so generally corrupt as it is represented to have 
 ' been by modern writers, such denunciations were idle.' Brewer,
 
 43 8 Body and Soul. 
 
 one side they accentuated faith, without works, and 
 fell into mysticism and immoralities of all kinds. 
 On the other, they accentuated works, without 
 faith, and lost the soul of virtue. The truth lies in 
 the harmony of the two. There are two factors, 
 the actor and the act. Viewed externally, the act 
 is the main thing : from the point of view of others, 
 its raison d^tre, the nature of the act determines 
 what is virtue. But this leaves still undetermined 
 the nature of the actor. For it is not enough to do 
 virtuous acts : they must be done virtuously. One 
 swallow does not make a summer, nor one virtuous 
 action necessarily argue virtue in a man. A vicious 
 man may do a virtuous act, but not therefore is he 
 virtuous. Internally, the nature of the act must be 
 determined from the spirit or intention of the actor. 
 The intention of the actor must correspond with 
 the nature of the act : then there is virtue. Fides 
 et opera. The two cannot be separated. This is 
 the great Aristotelian doctrine of the intention, or 
 ethical spirit of the actor, which has been made 
 familiar to all the world, in a way, by Pascal's Pro- 
 vincial Letters. But Pascal treated the Jesuits with 
 gross unfairness. Doubtless, they abused the pre- 
 cept, but not to the extent he made out. He 
 represented these theoretical casuistical puzzles as 
 practice. But at bottom their doctrine was per- 
 fectly good and sound. The two sides of the corre- 
 lation, the act and the spirit of the actor 1 , must be 
 
 Henry VIII., vol. i. p. 254. See Michelet's admirable Life of 
 Luther, passim. 
 
 1 Mr. Herbert Spencer, for example, considers in his Data of 
 Ethics only the nature of the act, or conduct ; and neglects 
 entirely the spirit of the actor, which is equally essential.
 
 EtJiics and Politics. 439 
 
 taken together. If we neglect the former, we fall 
 into the dangerous doctrine of Abelard, that crime 
 lies in the intention. If we neglect the latter, we 
 have no virtue, no ethical character : a bad man 
 may be identical with a good one. 
 
 And as with virtue, so is it with greatness. Who 
 or what is a great man? He who does great 
 things ? But he may do them accidentally. To 
 leave out the spirit is to mistake notoriety for fame. 
 The truly great man is he who does great things 
 greatly. Chance may elevate a small man, who 
 has blurted out some idea, or stumbled upon some 
 course without knowing what he was about, into 
 a great position : but he is not a great man, though 
 he may per accidens do great things. The great 
 man is he who does the thing with a full conscious- 
 ness of what he is about. On the other hand, 
 chance may deny to the really great man his sphere 
 of operations. Walpole, in esse, plays a great part, 
 but he was the very reverse of a great man. 
 Bolingbroke, in posse, was a great man, but his 
 schemes were shattered by a malignant evil star. 
 Csesar was great, both in esse and posse. It is true 
 that the world, which never goes to the bottom 
 of questions, but always judges by success, esteems 
 the esse all, and pays no heed to the posse. There 
 is just this much of truth in its view, that after all, 
 actuality is more and higher than potentiality. 
 Nevertheless, from the ethical point of view, this is 
 not the case. Here, posse is superior to esse. And 
 this is the deep ethical significance of the old victrix 
 causa Deis placuit, sed victa Catoni. For chance 
 has in many ways the ultimate arbitrmm in the 
 real world, and can with a dexterous twirl throw
 
 44 Body and Soul. 
 
 all into confusion : but the capacity of virtue, or 
 the capacity of genius, is not within the domain 
 or power of chance. The great and good man 
 may die on the scaffold, or come to an untimely 
 end : the mean soul, the scoundrel, may die in the 
 odour of sanctity, or succeed, and be pointed at by 
 the finger of those that pass by : none the less, 
 virtue is virtue still, and genius, genius. 
 
 ' For Loyalty is still the same, 
 Whether it win or lose the game : 
 True as the dial to the sun 
 Although it be not shined upon.' 
 
 A Charles I. may perish on the block, and 
 a Henry VIII. live out his cruel lecherous life 
 and die a bloated mass of carrion in his bed : Bruno 
 may burn, and Socrates may drink the hemlock, 
 while the mediocrities and sneaking toadies of all 
 ages lie under tombstones recording all their 
 virtues : but at bottom, there arises in every breast 
 the deep inexpugnable sentiment that this is 
 a lie : that success is not the test of merit, and 
 reward is not the proof of excellence. 
 
 And if men had listened to the teaching of 
 Aristotle they would have seen the solution of the 
 apparent contradiction existing between the in- 
 tuitive and the utilitarian school of morality. The 
 truth is that there is no real contradiction : the two 
 are complementary sides of the same fact. The 
 good of a thing, says Aristotle, is that which pre- 
 serves it. This is its physical organic good. This 
 therefore must be the tendency of all moral action : 
 its result : but this is not the spirit of the moral 
 actor. That is always altruistic and self-sacrificing.
 
 Ethics aud Politics. 441 
 
 The essence of morality is both preserving and 
 sacrificing: preservation of another; sacrifice of 
 self. Nor is there any contradiction : the two are 
 indeed absurd apart. To leap into a raging flood, 
 or a burning house, to save the life of a man, is 
 a noble act. Why ? Because, first, life is preserved, 
 and this is the utilitarian end of the act : secondly, 
 life is risked or sacrificed, the leaper thinks not of 
 his own interest, but that of another. This is the 
 spirit of the action. But if we remove the utilitarian 
 element, the morality, the nobility, disappears. The 
 actor becomes, not sublime, but ridiculous and fool- 
 hardy. To leap into the flood, or the fire, where 
 no life is to be saved, i.e. where the utilitarian end 
 is not, is not morality or heroism, but mere folly. 
 And this illustration is a type of all virtuous action. 
 All such action is and must be in result, utilitarian ; 
 in spirit, self-sacrificing. Aristotle is the concilia- 
 tion of the opposing views which have raged with 
 such indiscriminate violence between opponents 
 incapable of understanding the moral relation in 
 its entirety ; incapable of perceiving the ethical 
 significance of the truth that each is for the sake of 
 others, in which aphorism the whole of ethics is 
 enwrapped, and apart from which there is no 
 ground for virtue. If each be, not for others, but 
 for and in himself, virtue disappears, and egoism 
 becomes the only law. But it is not so ; how could 
 it be ? far from it : man is neither God nor beast, 
 but a member of a community. His function 
 makes his structure : and from the very contempla- 
 tion of that structure we can see that his duties are, 
 and also what they are. Will he deny it ? Why, 
 the very denial itself, his capacity of speaking,
 
 44 2 Body and Soul. 
 
 communicating, disproves his denial : language 
 alone proclaims the truth that his essence is not 
 absolute, not Cartesian ; but correlative, Aristote- 
 lian, biological, and moral. 
 
 And now for the conclusion of the whole matter. 
 The State, like its individual members, has a char- 
 acter : and its character too, like that of the indi- 
 vidual man, is formed by repeated acts. While it 
 is young and growing, it may be educated and 
 guided in the right way. But when it is old, when 
 it has become ' set,' and acquired once for all its 
 habit, its formed and ingrained moral character, 
 then can it no longer escape from itself, its con- 
 stitution (not political, but ethical), which is its 
 doom. It must go on as it chose to begin. There 
 comes a time when all subsequent struggle is un- 
 availing ; when the spirit of its institutions being 
 definitely fixed, it must of necessity ' dree its 
 weird ' and move on in its self-elected path. Ge'oy 
 ara/rtoy, airta d' e'Ao/^eVou. Then, when it was 
 unformed, chaotic, plastic, it might have been other, 
 retraced its steps : but now, the chance has gone. 
 Just as the sick man might, long ago, have been 
 healed ; but after long perseverance in debauchery 
 and loose living, uncontrolled indulgence, and dis- 
 obeying the voice of his physicians, he is past 
 curing ; so must he lay the blame not upon 
 external causes, chance, circumstances, but upon 
 himself, who had not the force to resist temptation, 
 or the patience to wait, but sank into slavery by 
 following his passions, and snatching at the fleeting 
 and imprudent present, rather than fixing his eye 
 upon the permanent power of action, and the 
 enduring future.
 
 Ethics and Politics. 443 
 
 Thus must it be : the more self-consciousness it 
 acquires, the more does it find itself bound by iron 
 automatic law ; 
 
 ' Y teniendo yo mas alma 
 Tengo menos libertad ? ' 
 
 In vain will the State which has once let itself 
 go, which has lost control over its fortunes by 
 neglecting to preserve its internal authority and its 
 external self-sufficiency and independence, seek to 
 recover its balance. Just because life cannot wait, 
 on it must go, obeying no longer the dictates of 
 prudence, but driven by the inner necessities of its 
 fatal organisation, by the irresistible forces spon- 
 taneously generated out of its own complicated 
 operations, goaded along as it were by fiends, 
 down the steep place into the inevitable lake.
 
 APPENDICES. 
 
 J~L
 
 APPENDIX, NO. I. 
 
 On the possibility of knowing the actual reality behind the 
 delusive apparent sensible phenomenon. 
 
 A N ounce of fact is worth a pound of theory, which is only 
 ** too often based upon a misinterpretation of the facts. 
 When, therefore, we find a fact or series of facts through which 
 a true theory shines out unmistakably, we should cling to it closer 
 than ivy. So, then, with regard to what is said, on pp. 14 20, 
 as to the fallacies of idealistic or sensational philosophy : the 
 philosophy which maintains that ' we knoiv only appearances, 
 never things in themselves] or that ' we know only our sensations] 
 and denies the possibility of knowledge of what realities are, or 
 even that they are, when not being perceived : I fell on a 
 passage in Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi which exposes 
 the quibble so admirably that I feel sure the reader will be 
 much obliged to me for recalling it to his attention. And by 
 the way, it is worthy of remark, how many philosophical fallacies 
 arise and are perpetuated by means of fallacious and question- 
 begging illustrations, and instances that are not typical, but 
 specially suited to disguise the pitfalls. 
 
 Here is the passage : 
 
 ' By and by Mr. Bixby said 
 
 ' My boy, you've got to know the shape of the river per- 
 ' fectly. It is all there is left to steer by on a very dark night. 
 ' Everything else is blotted out and gone. But mind you, it 
 'hasn't the same shape in the night that it has in the day- 
 ' time.' 
 
 ' How on earth am I ever going to learn it, then ? ' 
 
 ' How do you follow a hall at home in the dark ? Because 
 ' you know the shape of it. You can't see it.' 
 
 ' Do you mean to say that I've got to know all the million 
 ' trifling variations of shape in the banks of this interminable 
 ' river as well as I know the shape of the front hall at home ? ' 
 
 ' On my honour, you've got to know them better than any man 
 * ever did know the shape of the front hall of his house.'
 
 448 Appendix. 
 
 * I wish I was dead.' 
 
 ' Now, I don't want to discourage you, but ' 
 
 ' Well, pile it on me ; I might as well have it now as another 
 time.' 
 
 1 You see, this has got to be learned ; there isn't any getting 
 ' around it. A clear starlight night throws such heavy shadows 
 ' that if you didn't know the shape of a shore perfectly you 
 ' would claw away from every bunch of timber, because you 
 * would take the black shadow of it for a solid cape ; and you 
 ' see you would be getting scared to death every fifteen minutes 
 { by the watch. You would be fifty yards from shore all the 
 ' time when you ought to be within fifty feet of it. You can't 
 ( see a snag in one of those shadows, but you know exactly 
 ' where it is, and the shape of the river tells you when you are 
 ' coming to it. Then there's your pitch-dark night ; the river is 
 ' a very different shape on a pitch-dark night from what it is on 
 ' a starlight night. All shores seem to be straight lines, then, 
 { and mighty dim ones, too ; and you'd run them for straight 
 ' lines, only you know better. You boldly drive your boat right 
 ' into what seems to be a solid, straight wall (you knowing very 
 ' well that in reality there is a curve there) and that wall falls 
 ' back and makes way for you. Then there's your gray mists. 
 ' You take a night when there's any one of these grisly, drizzly, 
 ' gray mists, and then there isn't any particular shape to a 
 ' shore. A gray mist would tangle the head of the oldest man 
 ' that ever lived. Well, then, different kinds of moonlight change 
 ' the shape of the river in different ways. You see ' 
 
 ' Oh, don't say any more, please. Have I got to learn the 
 ' shape of the river according to all these five hundred thousand 
 ' different ways ? If I tried to carry all that cargo in my head 
 ' it would make me stoop-shouldered.' 
 
 ' No I you only learn the shape of the river ; and you learn it 
 ' with such absolute certainty that you can always steer, by the 
 ' shape that's in your head, and never mind the one that's before 
 1 your eyes.' Life on the Mississippi, p. 36. 
 
 This passage, now, is so accurately in point, that it might 
 have been written expressly for the purpose ; and yet, on the 
 other hand, the value of its evidence lies just in the fact that 
 it was written by a man who was not dreaming of anything that 
 it might or might not possibly prove. It is an exact and 
 complete refutation of the idealist, be he Berkeley, Hume, Kant,
 
 Appendix. 449 
 
 Mill, or any other of the tribe. ' We know only our sensations ; 
 ' only appearances, never things in themselves ; we cannot know 
 ' what lies behind the phenomenon.' Why, my dear Sir, we can 
 imagine one of these Mississippi pilots saying to our idealist, it 
 is obvious that you never went up the Mississippi : on all nights, 
 and three days out of six, that is exactly as it does not seem to 
 be: it seems to be exactly as it is not; and we know what 
 it really is, the constant reality amid the changing phantas- 
 magoria of sense. In fact, the reader who will reflect upon this 
 illustration will readily perceive the quibble, the play upon the 
 meaning of ' things in themselves? f We know only appearances, 
 never things in tJiemselves :" this thesis is, in one sense, un- 
 deniable ; an obvious and silly truism : in another, the only 
 valuable, sense, it is not only not true, but a palpable sophism. 
 There is a sense in which a thing is just what it seems to be, 
 and another, in which it is not what it seems to be ; by con- 
 founding the two, Kant's dictum appears to be very deep, while 
 in reality it is either absurd or a mere truism. Mirage, qua 
 mirage, is just what it seems to be ; regarded, on the other 
 hand, as indicative of other things that look just the same, it is 
 a delusion ; but this, instead of proving that we can not know 
 the reality behind the phenomenon, proves just the opposite, 
 that we can : for we distinguish between the appearances. Just 
 so, certain insects are so exactly like leaves or sticks that it is 
 impossible, by contemplation at a little distance, to know which 
 is which : nevertheless, the deception lies, not in our per- 
 ception, but its interpretation. The insect is exactly what it 
 seems to be ; it only becomes a deception when we infer it to be 
 another thing which looks the same ; something other than it is. 
 Two things can perfectly well be identical, qua their percepti- 
 bility, and entirely different, qua everything else. All this is 
 quite simple and straightforward. But who in the world, even 
 if Kant had never been born, would ever have supposed that 
 we could know, otherwise than as we know : that we could have 
 a knowledge which should not be knowledge ? If Kant means 
 merely that things, in order to be known, must appear before us ; 
 that we cannot know them, when and if they do not present 
 themselves ; that knowledge is essentially, qua. knowledge, based 
 upon a relation between perceived object and percipient sub- 
 ject ; where, forsooth, is the discovery? Who in the wide 
 world did not know that ? But if, on the other hand, he means, 
 
 G g
 
 450 Appendix. 
 
 that we cannot have a knowledge beyond and behind appear- 
 ances ; that we can never know what things are ' in themselves,' 
 i.e. irrespective of perception, or place ourselves in a position 
 which renders us scientifically superior to appearances, and 
 enables us to disregard them, because we know their nature, 
 in spite of the lying phantom which would otherwise deceive 
 us : if this is what he means, then I say that he is talking sad 
 stuff, and the passage I have quoted above decisively proves it. 
 What, indeed, differentiates the master in any art or science 
 from the tyro, but the fact that one knows, the other only sup- 
 poses or conjectures, the one has penetrated to the reality, the 
 other judges by appearances? As Mark Twain says himself, 
 a propos of the same subject : ' Nothing short of perfection will 
 ' do for a pilot He cannot stop with merely thinking a thing is 
 ' so and so, he must know it : for this is eminently one of the 
 ' exact sciences. With what scorn a^pilot was looked upon in 
 ' the old times, if he ever ventured to deal in that feeble phrase, 
 ' " I think," instead of the vigorous one " I know,"' (p. 59). 
 
 Just so have the 'feeble thinkers' of modern philosophy, 
 relying on vicious hypotheses, ambiguous terms, and a radically 
 false and clumsy psychology that confounds essential distinctions, 
 sold their Aristotelian birthright for a chaotic mess of Cartesian 
 pottage. 
 
 The truth is that here, as always, the want of method is the 
 cause of error. The critical analysis of normal and healthy per- 
 ception is the only starting-point of sound philosophy : the 
 analysis of concrete reality, which resolves the complex into its 
 elements ; but does not start with the elements, and dogmatically 
 pronounce a priori upon the complex. Sensation is one thing, 
 Perception another, Scientific Knowledge a third. There is more 
 in Perception than there is in Sensation ; more in Scientific Know- 
 ledge than there is in Perception. The radical error of modern 
 rationalistic psychology is, that it assumes Sensation to be the 
 origin and whole content of Knowledge. It ignores facts ; and 
 because it does not understand how Perception takes place, 
 it confounds it with Sensation. The two, however, are entirely 
 distinct. Scientific Knowledge does not start from Sensation, 
 but from Perception. Sensation is merely the consciousness 
 of an organic affection which tells us nothing but itself; it is 
 mere feeling : there is no element of objectivity in it. Know- 
 ledge begins with Perception, which, exactly the opposite of
 
 Appendix. 45 1 
 
 Sensation, gives us ulterior information about the Sensation 
 which accompanies it, information which is something totally 
 different in kind from that Sensation. A dull organic feeling of 
 illness is an instance of Sensation ; in a stomach-ache, Per- 
 ception has begun, for we can to some slight extent locate the 
 feeling : in sight as, for instance, the contemplation of Picca- 
 dilly Circus from the top of an omnibus Perception rises to 
 its highest point. 
 
 No critical philosophy which ignores facts is worth the paper 
 it is printed on : of what value, then, are the lucubrations of the 
 idealistic or sensational schools, which to suit their theory lump 
 together Sensation and Perception, pay no attention to the latter, 
 and make Scientific Knowledge start from the former? The 
 truth is, that only from an Aristotelian and evolutionary point 
 of view is it possible to arrive at psychological truth. The 
 Cartesians, Berkleians, Humists, Kantians and Millites are 
 all statical and unevolutionary. They all attempt to identify the 
 last result of asons of evolution with the first dawn of conscious- 
 ness : they all dogmatise upon Knowledge from their initial 
 assumption of Sensation, instead of analysing Knowledge and 
 its content as we have it, to find out what it contains, and going 
 backwards. Hence, starting from Sensation, it is impossible for 
 them ever to arrive at or explain Knowledge, for their premisses 
 do not contain it. The evolutionary psychologist reverses all 
 this. However he may seek to explain Knowledge and Percep- 
 tion, he does not make the mistake of denying the fact, because he 
 does not understand how it is done. He does not fall into the 
 error of denying the complex, because it cannot be deduced 
 from some of its elements which do not contain it. He knows 
 that the fact that we are here, alive, proves that our Knowledge 
 and Perception are accurately responsive to the truth of things : 
 that our Perception is necessarily trustworthy, being the result 
 of untold millions of years of education and correction, the 
 penalty of error being death : and that therefore it is the vainest 
 puerility to attempt to solve the mystery of Knowledge or 
 Perception with a superficial quibble based on the observation 
 of one or two men ; it is only to be solved, not from the 
 individual, but the race ; not from man, but all the long series 
 of lower forms out of which he has arisen. To attempt to 
 dogmatise on the rationale of Sight from one or two diseased 
 cases in an ophthalmic hospital ; to attempt to understand 
 
 G g 2
 
 45 2 Appendix. 
 
 or explain Vision, beginning with the man when he is born, and 
 forgetting that he comes equipped with the inherited capacities 
 of incalculable ages of practise is merely a mark of the utter 
 mental incapacity of the attempter, and a proof of his absolute 
 lack of appreciation of the problem. And the whole of 
 rationalistic psychology from Descartes to the last expounder 
 of the Kantian philosophy may be thrown with profit into the 
 fire, since its method of procedure is just this. 
 
 For the mere fact that we are here, proves beyond possibility 
 of refutation, that our normal and healthy perception of things 
 is true. Had it not been so, we should have disappeared long 
 ago. We cannot explain, we have not the dimmest idea, and 
 no one ever had or will have how we perceive. But the fact 
 remains. Perception is a relation between ourselves and its 
 object, giving us what we call an immediate intuitive knowledge 
 of that object (Scientific Knowledge differs from intuitive only 
 in its chain or connection) ; that is the fact ; and no one will ever 
 succeed in explaining, still less in refuting it, by puerile rational- 
 istic quibbles. We are inside the relation; we form one term 
 of it : nor will any one ever succeed in understanding how 
 it is done, in the abstract, just because he can never get outside 
 himself. Perception can only be understood by its exercise. 
 That it shows us things as they really are is proved by the fact that 
 action or existence would be impossible, if it were not so. But they 
 are not impossible ; they are actual ; ergo, perception tells us the 
 truth of things. Were Perception false, we could not exist for five 
 minutes: we could do nothing: LIFE is POSSIBLE ONLY IF PER- 
 CEPTION is TRUE. It is, however, quite wrong to call its teach- 
 ing inference. This is an abuse of language. Inference is 
 a comparatively tardy, conscious, fallible drawing of conclusions 
 from preliminary knowledge : to call the automatic, spontaneous, 
 unconscious, inevitable and immediate, instantaneous, dictatorial 
 and necessary evidence of Perception, inference, disguises the 
 fact that the one is deep and real, the other shallow and rational ; 
 the one is dictated by the necessities of things and reposes on 
 the accumulated verifications of whole geological epochs, the 
 other is simply the superficial process of one mind which as 
 often as not goes astray. In short, inference is merely logical, 
 rational, we might almost say exclusively human : whereas per- 
 ception is vital, universal, the indispensable weapon and means 
 of self-preservation in every creature that lives and moves.
 
 Appendix. 453 
 
 The only part of Kant's Transcendental ^Esthetic which 
 is true is a truism, and was clearly pointed out by Aristotle, out 
 of whom comes all that modern philosophy has said worth say- 
 ing. It is obvious that we cannot know things-in-themselves, 
 and the world knew it and would have known it if Kant had 
 never been born. As Aristotle says, when we are perceiving 
 e.g. a tree, it is actually visible ; when we are not perceiving 
 it, it is potentially visible. Of course we cannot perceive the 
 thing-in-itself\h& potentially visible, because, in the act of vision, 
 it becomes actually visible. We cannot perceive it, when it is 
 not being perceived. There is also, in Kant's much overrated 
 dictum, a reminiscence of Aristotle's remark, that matter is 
 ayvoxrrbs *a0' avrf)v matter is necessarily unknown, as it is in 
 itself. But Kant has spoiled the profound aper$u of Aristotle 
 by transferring it from its context, and confounding matter with 
 material objects. And if we wished to imitate Kant, and put 
 forth Prolegomena to All Future Systems of Philosophy, they 
 would be contained in one line : No philosophy is worth printing, 
 which has not mastered the essential distinction between Sensation 
 and Perception.
 
 APPENDIX, NO. II. 
 
 Note on the Bank Charter Act of 1844. 
 
 A CCORDING to Lord Beaconsfield, more people have been 
 driven mad by the ' Currency Question ' than even by the 
 passion of love. And if this epigram is not without some justi- 
 fication, why is it so ? Simply because the votaries of the Cur- 
 rency Question have had no method in their madness. It is 
 true, that the question is one of the most intricate, and therefore 
 the most difficult, that can be proposed. But this is not the 
 true cause of the peculiar perplexity of this matter. Difficult it 
 would always be, but it has been rendered unnaturally so, nay, 
 insoluble, by the false theoretic dogmas with which everybody 
 starts in the endeavour to unravel the mystery. No question 
 however simple can be solved, if the principles on which the 
 solution depends are directly opposed to the truth. Who could 
 solve a mathematical problem, on the assumption that twice six 
 were thirteen ? Yet this is exactly what has been done here. 
 Nothing can be more incomprehensible than the Bank Charter 
 Act, approached from the point of view of theories that are 
 palpably absurd : whereas in reality, when we closely investigate 
 the way in which its authors came to hold it, and the cardinal 
 assumptions on which it rests, its ludicrous fallacy emerges 
 of itself into the clear light of day. And I take this opportunity 
 of exposing it, because I have never met with any book dealing 
 with the question in such a way as really lays bare the heart of 
 the matter. 
 
 The primary object of the Bank Charter Act was to restrict 
 the excessive issue, or ' over-issue,' of Bank Notes. Why ? 
 Because its author held the currency to be depreciated, owing 
 to their excessive quantity ; owing to a ' redundancy of currency! 
 But what led them to suppose that this was the case? The 
 drain, or export of gold, from this country to foreign parts. And 
 why, again, did they suppose that this drain indicated a de- 
 preciation of the currency? Because Ricardo, Lord Overstone, 
 and their disciples laid it down, that a drain of gold was an in- 
 fallible sign of a depreciated currency : or in other words, that 
 the only cause of a drain of gold was a depreciation of the 
 currency.
 
 Appendix. 45 5 
 
 I shall show presently that this opinion is a delusion, and 
 stands in glaring contradiction to the most commonplace facts. 
 But how came they to hold it ? That is the really important thing ; 
 for a fallacy is not fully refuted till its psychological genesis is 
 clearly explained. 
 
 Ricardo's fundamental financial dogma was this, that commo- 
 dities are purchased with commodities. Buying and selling he 
 identified with barter ; or, as Lord Overstone put it, ' the normal 
 ' and legitimate condition of trade is barter.' (It is, of course, 
 nothing of the kind ; the introduction of money is the 
 abolition of barter, but let that pass.) Hence, the Ricardian 
 dogma for International Trade was, that one nation buys the com- 
 modities of another nation with its own : pays for commodities 
 imported with commodities exported. Now, obviously, the man 
 who has to pay, will pay as little as he can. Hence Ricardo 
 maintained, that no nation would ever pay money send gold out 
 of the country in payment for commodities unless it was the 
 cheapest commodity to send. But he said, that it never would 
 be the cheapest commodity to send, unless the currency was 
 depreciated ; and as the coin was all right, this could only be 
 due to an excessive issue of notes. From this it follows directly, 
 that people only send gold out of the country, owing to a de- 
 preciated currency, a ' redundancy of currency : ' or in other 
 words, whenever gold is observed to be leaving the country, the 
 currency must be depreciated. It was to put a stop to this state 
 of things that the Bank Charter Act was framed. 
 
 Now, parenthetically, nothing can be, according to our temper, 
 more amusing, or more exasperating, than to see how, in their 
 wilful and obstinate adherence to their preposterous dogma, 
 these masters of financial legislation shut their eyes to facts that 
 stare them in the face. Out of innumerable instances of this 
 disposition, I shall content myself with one, but it is final. Of 
 course, if there are any other causes of a drain of gold than the 
 depreciation of the currency, the whole theory falls to the ground; 
 for then it does not follow, because gold is leaving the country, 
 that the currency must be depreciated. Accordingly, Lord 
 Overstone was directly asked, by one of the Committee that sat 
 upon the question in 1848, whether he was aware that the gold 
 had gone to America, from which we had just then imported an 
 abnormal quantity of wheat : i.e. whether the export of gold was 
 not sufficiently explained by the extraordinary import of wheat.
 
 456 Appendix. 
 
 And here is his Lordship's reply. ' / do not know, I do not know 
 ' at all, where the gold goes to. If it goes, that is all I ever attend 
 ' to} Is it conceivable ? He actually confesses, not only without 
 a blush, but even without a suspicion that anything is wrong, 
 that he never pays the slightest attention to the facts on which the 
 settlement of the question essentially depends. And this astounding 
 person is a great financial expert ! Why, how can we wonder that 
 the Currency Question should be difficult of solution, when its 
 'authorities ' are literally not ashamed to write themselves down 
 like this ? 
 
 The truth is, that the whole theory is a total delusion. The 
 Theory of International Trade, on which foundation the Bank 
 Charter Act reposes, is a pure absurdity. So far from it being 
 true that a country pays for commodities with commodities, the 
 exact converse is the case ; a country never pays for com- 
 modities with commodities. The foreign trade of any country 
 is simply the sum total of all its individual operations ; and 
 simple as it may appear, the truth which is completely over- 
 looked by these superlative economists is just this, that people 
 pay for commodities, not with commodities, but with money, 
 which is not a commodity. It is perfectly true, that owing to 
 the system of Bills of Exchange, and methods of cancelling what 
 is common, that portion of a country's exports which balances 
 the value of the imports may be regarded, in result, as paying 
 for them. But though the result is the same, the rationale is 
 totally different. The thing is not barter : it takes place 
 through, and depends essentially on, money. People have not, 
 as Ricardo asserted that they had, a choice in the matter. They 
 cannot do, what he said they could do pay in any commodity 
 they choose, so that ' money is only sent when it is the cheapest 
 ' exportable commodity.' They must pay money, or by Bills of 
 Exchange, which are a method of doing the same. If they 
 cannot buy a Bill of Exchange, they must send money : they 
 cannot send anything else that they choose. As if, forsooth, a 
 man who owed a thousand pounds could send soap or candles ! 
 Further, on the theory that commodities are paid for with 
 commodities, imports and exports ought exactly to balance one 
 another. But as a matter of fact, they do not do so. Why, for 
 example, are England's imports so enormously in excess of her 
 exports ? It is really heartrending to see the desperate shifts 
 to which economists resort in their endeavours to solve this
 
 Appendix. 457 
 
 mystery. I have heard people discussing the point, on econo- 
 mical premisses, for hours, in a way that positively draws tears 
 to the eyes. And what, then, is the solution ? Simply, that a 
 country (i.e. all the individuals engaged in mercantile pursuits in 
 that country) pays for its imports in money : not merely some, 
 but all : but its exports, owing to the cancelling agency of Bills 
 of Exchange and similar Credit Instruments, balance the im- 
 ports up to the common point, where their value coincides : the 
 difference, of course, on whichever side it lies, cannot cancel, 
 and therefore must be directly discharged in bullion : i.e. bullion 
 must leave the country, NOT because the currency is depreciated, 
 but because debts must be paid. Hence, only a nation very 
 rich, in a pecuniary sense, a nation, for example, that is the 
 great loan-monger of the world, can buy more than she sells ; 
 i.e. by her imports exceeding her exports : whereas a very poor 
 nation, like a very poor man, cannot buy, if it has no money ; it 
 must produce commodities and exchange them for money. But 
 what, after this, becomes of the Ricardian dogma? Mark how 
 Ricardo puts the case : * we should not* he says, ' import more 
 ' goods than we export ', unless we had a redundancy of currency ; 
 ' which it therefore suits us to make part of our exports. The 
 ' exportation of coin is caused by its cheapness, &*c' A redundancy 
 of currency ! When a man has ten thousand a year over and 
 above his expenses, which he meets by producing ; ten thousand 
 with which he can buy luxuries of all kinds, up comes Ricardo 
 and tells him his currency is redundant, and the best thing for 
 him to do is to minimise it : the poorer he grows, the better off, 
 says Ricardo, he will be. Why, was there ever such a miracle 
 of analytical acumen as Ricardo in any other age or country ? 
 A redundancy of currency, forsooth ! yes, there is a redund- 
 ancy, but it is a redundancy of rubbish in Ricardian economics. 
 How that ever acquired ' currency ' is a mystery compared with 
 which the Currency Question is child's play. 
 
 And when, now, we realise the portentous absurdity of the 
 assumption on which the Bank Charter Act is founded, viz. 
 that a drain of gold infallibly indicates a depreciation or redund- 
 ancy of currency, and can arise from nothing else, we are in 
 a position to understand it. We see, first, that the Bank 
 Charter Act was designed to cure an evil that never existed ; 
 and we see, secondly, that it is itself the cause of disasters that 
 without it would never arise. In times when Credit is good,
 
 458 Appendix. 
 
 the Bank Act is useless; it is just as though it never existed; 
 it exercises no restraints on commercial speculation, because 
 people can buy commodities on Credit, whether they have Bank 
 Notes or not. On the other hand, as soon as gold is observed 
 leaving the country, the Bank Charter Act immediately tends 
 to produce a panic. Because everybody knows that when the 
 gold goes away, the Bank Charter Act compels notes to go too, 
 and hence, as it goes away, the total amount of currency is 
 reduced. This of itself gives a shock to confidence, because it 
 is known that, should a panic occur, money, which is required 
 when Credit collapses, and whose function notes will perform 
 just as well as coin, will not be forthcoming. Thus the rate of 
 interest rises, and that very drain of gold, which nobody would 
 care two straws for, except for the Bank Charter Act, is turned 
 by the Act into the initial cause of a panic that may, and often 
 does, cause ruin to thousands of deserving persons and houses, 
 whose progress is only arrested by the suspension of the Act. 
 
 The core of all these miserable sophistries is the Ricardian 
 dogma that money is a commodity: a dogma analysed and 
 exposed in my Principle of Wealth Creation, in my Corner 
 in Gold, and in this book. Nor until the world will revise 
 its cardinal economic assumptions, and throw Ricardo and all 
 his inexpressible commentators into the fire, can it expect 
 the Currency Question to be finally laid in its grave. Till 
 that time, it will haunt us, bringing panic and disaster in its 
 train, and, vampire like, feeding on the corpses of sound com- 
 mercial houses. The day will come when we shall awake as 
 from a horrid nightmare, induced by the indigestible nostrums 
 of Ricardo, Lord Overstone, and Sir Robert Peel. Time will 
 teach us to appreciate these economic doctors : as Lord 
 Overstone himself said of Peel and his Lordship's literary style 
 is no less worthy of our admiration than his unique scientific 
 methods ' Sir Robert Peel had never been properly appreciated : 
 * but year by year the character of that man upon this subject will 
 ' be appreciated." 1 I will answer for it, that the prophecy of his 
 Lordship was as accurate as it was unintentional and beautifully 
 expressed. 
 
 And now, lastly, some one may ask, Why, if the Ricardian 
 dogma, on which the whole thing hangs, is such nonsense, has 
 it been accepted so long by the world? A most legitimate and 
 pertinent query ! There are two reasons why. In the first
 
 Appendix. 459 
 
 place, not one man in a thousand either knows or cares to know 
 anything about Political Economy ; partly because it is sus- 
 pected, not without reason, of being a mere mass of theoretic 
 absurdity : and here too the old maxim holds good, that parmi 
 ks aveugles, borgne est rot. And in the next place, the policy of 
 minimising the currency, of which the Bank Charter Act is but 
 a special case, plays directly into the hands of the most powerful 
 interest in the world the financial interest. Those who actually 
 control the currency have the best of all possible reasons for 
 applauding and maintaining any system, theoretic or legislative, 
 which tends artificially to enhance the value of their ' com- 
 modity.' As our authority, Lord Overstone, said, once again, 
 ' Sir Robert Peel's Acts of 1819 and 1844 obtained ample and 
 ' efficient security that that honest foundation of our monetary 
 ' system shall be effectually and permanently maintained ; and 
 ' no inscription can be written upon his statue so honourable, as 
 ' that he restored our money to its just value in 1819, and 
 ' secured for us the means of maintaining that just value in 1844. 
 ' Honour be to his name!' Lord Overstone appears, in this 
 passage, to have been almost choking with financial emotion and 
 hysterical gratitude to the man who had raised the value of his 
 money : it needed only this, to make the grotesque amalgam of 
 economic charlatanry and financial chicanery complete.
 
 APPENDIX NO. III. 
 
 A Bird's-eye Review of the Substance of the Method. 
 
 TN order to assist the reader to grasp the exact purport of 
 
 this book, I will here present a brief epitome of its inner 
 tendency and essential economic upshot. 
 
 The whole essay is devoted to the working out in all directions 
 of a single central idea, arrived at by the Analytic or Organic 
 Method. This method, instead of attempting to deduce eco- 
 nomic truths mathematically from abstract assumptions or 
 ' laws,' plunges into the concrete complexity of things as they 
 are, and argues analytically backward, contemplating every 
 fact in its own peculiar constituent relations, abstracted from 
 which it does not and cannot exist. It discovers principles by 
 dissecting a particular specimen embodying those principles. 
 Proceeding in this way, pedetentim progredientes, we discover 
 the law, the universal law of all organic structure, to be this : 
 that every structure is made what it is by its own action, or 
 its function : briefly, that FUNCTION MAKES STRUCTURE. 
 
 I. The first fundamental fallacy of all previous economic 
 speculation is just this : that it has attempted to deduce structure, 
 somehow or other, always unsuccessfully, from its ELEMENTS, 
 instead of from its FUNCTION. 
 
 Next, carefully examining structures in their totality, we find 
 that there are four great kinds or classes of structure, viz. the 
 Species, the Commodity, the Work of Art, the Commonwealth ; 
 forming respectively the central conceptions of Natural Economy, 
 Political Economy (or the Science of Wealth], Esthetics, and 
 Ethics and Politics. The universal principle, that Function 
 makes Structure, appears differently clothed, manifests itself 
 differently, in each sphere, owing to the essential difference 
 of the functions of each central structure. For, as the laws 
 of every structure, or as we might say, its duties, are derived 
 from its function, where the functions differ, so must the laws. 
 Therefore, the laws of one kind of structure are not the laws 
 of another, as Aristotle saw and said long ago (ol< <vriv e' aXXou 
 ysvovs pfrapdirra 8el<u). The Work of Art cannot be subjected
 
 Appendix. 461 
 
 to the laws of the Commodity, nor the Commonwealth to the 
 laws of the Species, without ceasing to be what it is ; losing 
 its essence in exact proportion to the degree in which it loses 
 sight of its own peculiar laws. 
 
 II. The second fundamental fallacy, then, of previous economic 
 speculation is just this ; that it wrongly and wilfully seeks to 
 subordinate ALL kinds of structure to the SAME laws ; which 
 are either the laws of only one kind of structure, or else the 
 laws of no kind of structure at all ; and thus degrades or annihi- 
 lates the various kinds. Just so, for example, the Socialists 
 would annihilate Wealth, the Commodity, by negating its 
 laws, of which they are entirely ignorant. 
 
 And all this has come about, for want of training in the 
 analytic method (81' anaifawiav rS>v dMXvrucMr) and consequent 
 inability to distinguish between things that are distinct. 
 
 To give a single example, by neglecting the Commonwealth, 
 and starting from the Individual, or in other words, by turning 
 the individual from a member of a Commonwealth into a 
 specimen of the Species, all his obligations or duties disappear, 
 and morality is annihilated.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Absolutism, propensity to constitutional, 421. 
 
 Analytical Method, 37 sqq. : see Preface, and especially Appen- 
 dix III. 
 
 Anarchy, the philosophical basis of, 9, 12, 377. 
 
 Antecedence, invariable, not the essence of causation, 22. 
 
 Antinomy of Interest, the, 242 sqq. 
 
 Architecture, the function of, 279 sqq. 
 
 Aristotle, biological method of, 30 sqq. : relation of Darwin to, 2, 30, 
 126, and passim : weak point in his philosophy, 77 : his method 
 contrasted with that of Bacon, 26 sqq. : how misunderstood by 
 the Comtist, 58: and the vulgar, 30, 126 : Kant anticipated and 
 refuted by, 16, 20, 453 : the ethical problem solved by, 425 sqq. : 
 quoted and illustrated passim. 
 
 Aristotelian Scholasticism, the starting-point of modern methodology, 
 and its error, 8. 
 
 Art, the function of, 270 sqq. 
 
 Astronomy, idealism refuted by, 17-. its methods not of economic 
 utility, 152 sqq. 
 
 Bacon, method of, contrasted with that of Aristotle, 26 sqq. 
 Bank Charter Act, analysed, see Appendix II. 
 Banking, the function of, 212 sqq. 
 
 Biological Method, Aristotle's, 30 sqq. and passim: the basis of 
 politics, 391 sqq. 
 
 Capital, the nature and sources of, 210 sqq., 230 sqq. 
 
 Cartesian philosophy, see Descartes. 
 
 Causation, Hume's bad analysis of, 21 : Aristotle's analysis of, bor- 
 rowed by moderns, 39. 
 
 Character, in animals, 47, 101 : in portrait painting, 313 sqq. : the 
 core of ethics, 436. 
 
 Christianity, nothing if not real, 321 : original political tendency of, 
 
 433- 
 Church, the Roman Catholic, its function, 434: the English, its 
 
 function, 410 sqq. : its social spirit, 434. 
 Coadaptation, the supreme law, I, 48, 426, and passim. 
 Colour, in architecture, 289 ; in sculpture, 305 : in painting, 310. 
 Commodity, definition of the, 164 sqq. : distinguished from Work of 
 
 Art, 253. 
 
 Correlated Variation, the law of, 57, 70: in architecture, 293. 
 Cost of production, value not determined by, 174, 373. 
 Credit, the function of, 212. 
 Currency, and Capital, 230: Ricardo's theories on, see Appendix II. 
 
 Darwin, his relation to Aristotle, 2, 30, 126, and passim. 
 Death, definition of, 148. 
 Definition, defined, 75, 50, 129.
 
 464 Index. 
 
 Descartes, the method of, ir, 380, 436, andfiassim. 
 
 Difference, the central conception of the Aristotelian philosophy, 44. 
 
 Differentiation, evolutionary, discovered by Aristotle, 127. 
 
 Distribution, essentially involved in Production, 240. 
 
 Diversity of Character, economic significance of, 199. 
 
 Division of Labour, 170. 
 
 Duty, the moral equivalent of function, 435. 
 
 Economy, the law of, 40, 144, and passim: natural, opposed to poli- 
 tical, 378: errors of Orthodox Political, 153, 190, 206, and espe- 
 cially Appendix III. 
 
 Ego, dilemma for the Kantian as to the, 19. 
 
 Embryology, founded by Aristotle, 63. 
 
 Epigenesis, discovered by Aristotle, 67. 
 
 Ethics, absurdity of Cartesian, Kantian, or Materialistic, 435, 378. 
 
 Evolution, distinct from Darwinism, 78. 
 
 Exchange Value, 174, 188. 
 
 Faith and Works, relation between, 437. 
 
 Fancy, and Imagination, 294. 
 
 Fatalism, social, 442 : historical, 345. 
 
 Fate, meaning of, 428. 
 
 Final Cause, meaning of Aristotle's, 40, 130, and passim. 
 
 Form, not deducible from matter, 143. 
 
 Freedom, not contradictory of necessity, 286. 
 
 Habit, the substantial basis of virtue, 436. 
 
 History, the function of, 343 : true law of its march, 389. 
 
 Hobbes, Social Contract theory of, 386. 
 
 Idealistic Philosophy, see Descartes, Kant. 
 
 Imagination, and Fancy, 294: the faculty of, defined, 269. 
 
 Imitation, the principle of bad art, 269. 
 
 Intention, ethical doctrine of, 438. 
 
 Interest, the antinomy of, 242. 
 
 Invariable antecedence, not the essence of causation, 22. 
 
 Kant, criticism of, 15 sqq., and Appendix I. 
 
 Knowledge, not deducible from sensation, see Appendix I. 
 
 Labour, unproductive, 199 sqq. 
 
 Land, not the material cause of Wealth, 195. 
 
 Language, the function of, 260 : refutes idealism, 391, 441. 
 
 Life, defined, 148. 
 
 Literature, the function of, 341. 
 
 Macleod, H. D., criticism of, 220. 
 
 Malthusian theory, the, 47, 77. 
 
 Mathematical method, see below. 
 
 Method, analytical and biological, 37, see Preface and Appendix III.: 
 the Baconian contrasted with the Aristotelian, 26: inadequacy of 
 materialistico-mechanical, 132: and of mathematical, 153, and 
 Preface. 
 
 Money, analysis and definition of, 204 sqq., 180 sqq., 183 : not a 
 commodity, 214: distinction between Credit and, 220 sqq,: con- 
 stitutional significance of, 218.
 
 Index. 465 
 
 Monstrosities, significance of, 75, 95. 
 
 Moral action, analysed, 440. 
 
 Music, the function of, 331 sqq, : of the Spheres, 334. 
 
 Mysticism, social, 428 sqq. 
 
 Mythology, Aristotle and, 426. 
 
 Natural Selection, incompetent to explain the origin of species, 
 79 sqq. 
 
 Nature, what Aristotle meant by, 56 n. 
 
 Necessity, the two kinds of, material or absolute, and organic or 
 conditional, 40, 48, 146, and passim : in history, 345 : not con- 
 tradictory of freedom, 286. 
 
 Newtonian theory, the, fatal to idealism, 18. 
 
 Nihilism, moral and political, origin of, 12, 23, 380. 
 
 Organic structure, the law of, I, 40, 144 and passim. 
 Origin of Species, criticism of Darwin's, 79 sgq. : probable, 140. 
 Ornament, the artistic function of, 291. 
 
 Orthodox Political Economy, Philistinism of, 254 : errors of, see 
 Appendix III. 
 
 Painting, the function of, 307 sqq. 
 
 Perception, the basis of scientific knowledge, see Appendix I. 
 
 Political institutions, not rationally explicable, 420, 397. 
 
 Politics, the biological basis of, 391 sqq. : the errors of rationalistic, 
 
 377 sqq. 
 
 Potentiality, Darwin's variation corresponds to Aristotle's, 69. 
 Production, conditioned by action, 168: cost of, see Cost. 
 Protestantism, an antisocial religion, 434. 
 
 Rationalistic politics, errors of, 377 sqq. 
 
 Realism, in art, 320 : in politics, 348 : in literature, 368, 430, and 
 
 passim. 
 
 Redundancy of Currency, see Appendix II. 
 Ricardian theory of value, refutation of, 173. 
 Ricardo, financial theories of, see Appendix II. 
 Roman Catholic Church, function of, 434. 
 Ruskin, critical error of, 282. 
 
 Schopenhauer, 13, 382. 
 
 Scholasticism, error of, 8. 
 
 Sculpture, the function of, 300 sqq. 
 
 Sensation, not the foundation of knowledge, see Appendix I. 
 
 Size, the problem of, 120. 
 
 Social Contract, Hobbes', 386. 
 
 Socialism, economic error of, 238. 
 
 Soul, Aristotle's definition of the, 41, 72, and passim. 
 
 Species, definition of a, 97 : Origin of, criticised, 79 sqq. 
 
 State, definition of a, 395 : has no theoretic existence, 420. 
 
 Structure, the law of organic, see Organic. 
 
 Teleology, in Darwin, 124: misunderstood, 76: the true meaning of, 
 
 40, 130, and passim. 
 Theory, inutility of political, 420. 
 
 Hh
 
 466 Index. 
 
 Things-in-themselves, Kant's, 15, and Appendix I. 
 Toryism, scientific justification of, 424. 
 Transcendental Esthetic, Kant's, 19, and Appendix I. 
 
 Unproductive Labour, the fallacy of, 199 sqq. 
 
 Value, analysis of, the relation of, 172 sqq. 
 
 Variation, correlated, see Correlated. 
 
 Variation, Aristotle's potentiality equivalent to Darwin's, 69 : the 
 
 limits of, 95 sqq. 
 Variety, relation between species and, 103 : central conception in 
 
 Darwin, 44. 
 Virtue, based upon habit, 436. 
 
 Wage Fund theory, error of the, 236. 
 
 Wealth, and Species, 97: definition of, 161 sqq. : the Quadruple 
 
 Principle of, 188: evolution of, 192: artistic, 253 sqq., 373. 
 Whig, essential policy of the, 424. 
 Work, the soul of things, 144. 
 
 Work of Art, the Commodity distinguished from the, 153. 
 Works, relation between Faith and, 437. 
 
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