It is not so that human relations will be conceived
when the evil heritage of economic slavery has ceased
to mold our instincts. Husbands and wives, parents
and children, will be only held together by affection:
where that has died, it will be recognized that nothing
worth preserving is left. Because affection will
be free, men and women will not find in private life an
outlet and stimulus to the love of domineering, but all
that is creative in their love will have the freer scope.
Reverence for whatever makes the soul in those who
are loved will be less rare than it is now: nowadays,
many men love their wives in the way in which they
love mutton, as something to devour and destroy.
But in the love that goes with reverence there is a
joy of quite another order than any to be found by
mastery, a joy which satisfies the spirit and not only
the instincts; and satisfaction of instinct and spirit
at once is necessary to a happy life, or indeed to any
existence that is to bring out the best impulses of
which a man or woman is capable.
In the world which we should wish to see, there
will be more joy of life than in the drab tragedy of
modern every-day existence. After early youth, as
things are, most men are bowed down by forethought,
no longer capable of light-hearted gaiety, but only of
a kind of solemn jollification by the clock at the
appropriate hours. The advice to ``become as little
children'' would be good for many people in many
respects, but it goes with another precept, ``take no
thought for the morrow,'' which is hard to obey in a
competitive world. There is often in men of science,
even when they are quite old, something of the
simplicity of a child: their absorption in abstract
thought has held them aloof from the world, and
respect for their work has led the world to keep them
alive in spite of their innocence. Such men have
succeeded in living as all men ought to be able to live;
but as things are, the economic struggle makes their
way of life impossible for the great majority.
What are we to say, lastly, of the effect of our
projected world upon physical evil? Will there be
less illness than there is at present? Will the produce
of a given amount of labor be greater? Or will population
press upon the limits of subsistence, as Malthus
taught in order to refute Godwin's optimism?
I think the answer to all these questions turns,
in the end, upon the degree of intellectual vigor to be
expected in a community which has done away with
the spur of economic competition. Will men in such
a world become lazy and apathetic? Will they cease
to think? Will those who do think find themselves
confronted with an even more impenetrable wall of
unreflecting conservatism than that which confronts
them at present? These are important questions; for
it is ultimately to science that mankind must look
for their success in combating physical evils.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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