The New OptimismStacpoole, H. De Vere (Henry De Vere)
Philosophy
The New Optimism
Stacpoole, H. De Vere (Henry De Vere)
Evolution; Faith; Social problems; Stacpoole, H. De Vere (Henry De Vere), 1863-1951 -- Philosophy
“That an individual brain may participate in the life and light of
the brain universal and feed on and increase with that life, and feed
and increase that life, it must first of all receive that light and
life; and, secondly, it must be in a condition to receive it, and
this can only be done by material means. And I will show you what I
mean by an instance. The man who is crushed beneath ruinous labour,
the man whose poverty condemns him not to think, the man who shivers
without a fire, who goes with an empty stomach—all of that vast crowd
of what we call the Poor—each one of these is cut off, more or less,
from the mind universal and can never receive its light except through
material means. Preaching and teaching, dreams and theories are useless
to these. To participate in universal thought—which is universal
good—they must first have the time to think in, they must be defended
from the wolves that prey on thought, Cold and Hunger; they must be
preached to practically by the two great Apostles, Wheat-flour and
Firewood; they must be treated as Hoe treated the dull steel that made
his press—lifted materially.
“Having lifted them thus with food and firewood, let Education have its
say, and Eugenics, up to a certain point. But education is as useless
to a work-broken or starving man as algebra to an ass. Since Man has
awakened to life, he has begun to recognize this. The old religions of
men looked on the poor as a necessary evil. “The poor are always with
us.” But man, though still only a hundred years old, perceives that the
Poor are his disease, that the criminals are his disease, and that the
idle are his disease.
“The universal mind rejects Poverty just as it has rejected Hate, and
Lust, and Intolerance; and its teaching in this respect is, ‘The poor
shall not be always with us.’ That is one of the greatest triumphs of
the great good giant born of the fusion of intelligences; even though,
as yet, the means toward this great end have not been discovered.”
[Sidenote: Socialism]
“What about Socialism?”
“Socialism, Anarchism, and Syndicalism are as yet the most obtrusive
results of this universal-mind disturbance, due to recognition of the
evils that affect the body of Man. The giant, on opening his eyes, is
furious at his rags and tatters, and the sores which they disclose.
Man, newly awakened, is disgusted at his general condition—and that
disgust is at the bottom of all the ‘revolutionary’ unrest which we see
to-day in the western world.
“I spoke to you of set-backs. Should that unrest develop into a storm,
the progress of the world would receive one of the set-backs it is well
accustomed to.”
“What do you mean by a storm?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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