Mankind in the MakingWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Philosophy
Mankind in the Making
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Social problems; Social sciences
On the whole I think a man or woman who is no longer a fabric of pure
emotion may, if there is indeed the passion for truth and the clear
sight of things to justify research, venture upon this sinister seeming
wilderness of speculation, and I think, too, it is very probable the
courageous persistent explorer will end at last not so very remote from
the starting-point, but above it, as it were, on a crest that will
give a wider view, reaching over many things that now confine the lower
vision. But these are perilous paths, it must always be remembered. This
is no public playground. One may distrust the conventional code, and
one may leave it in thought, long before one is justified in leaving it
either in expressed opinion or in act. We are social animals; we cannot
live alone; manifestly from the nature of the question, here, at
any rate, we must associate and group. For all who find the accepted
righteousness not good enough or clear enough for them, there is the
chance of an ironical destiny. We must look well to our company, as we
come out of the city of the common practice and kick its dust from
our superior soles. There is an abominable riff-raff gone into those
thickets for purposes quite other than the discovery of the right thing
to do, for quite other motives than our high intellectual desire. There
are ugly rebels and born rascals, cheats by instinct, and liars to
women, swinish unbelievers who would compromise us with their erratic
pursuit of a miscellaneous collection of strange fancies and betray us
callously at last. Because a man does not find the law pure justice,
that is no reason why he should fake his gold to a thieves’ kitchen;
because he does not think the city a sanitary place, why he should pitch
his tent on a dust-heap amidst pariah dogs. Because we criticize the old
limitations that does not bind us to the creed of unfettered liberty.
I very much doubt if, when at last the days for the sane complete
discussion of our sexual problems come, it will give us anything at all
in the way of “Liberty,” as most people understand that word. In the
place of the rusty old manacles, the chain and shot, the iron yoke,
cruel, ill-fitting, violent implements from which it was yet possible to
wriggle and escape to outlawry, it may be the world will discover only
a completer restriction, will develop a scheme of neat gyves, light
but efficient, beautifully adaptable to the wrists and ankles, never
chafing, never oppressing, slipped on and worn until at last, like
the mask of the Happy Hypocrite, they mould the wearer to their own
identity. But for all that--gyves!
Let us glance for a moment or so now, in the most tentative fashion, at
some of the data for this inquiry, and then revert from this excursion
into general theory to our more immediate business, to the manner
in which our civilized community at present effects the emotional
initiation of youth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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