As the painted Redskin chants his vengeful ghost-song; so the furious Paleface whoops his double-leaded editorial. As the hungry lion roars at midnight o African karoo, or in Himalayan jungle; so the piratical Anglo-Tueton roars his ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ his Brittania Rules the Waves,’ or his ‘Watch by the Rhine.’ Exactly as the Moslem fanatic yells “Allah Akbar,” while slicing up hated “Christian dogs,” so the vicious Englishman thunders forth his “Hip, Hip, Hurrah!” while driving and elegant bayonet-dagger into the liver of “wicked heathens;” whose property he thereafter annexes — as a matter of course; for “business is business, don’t you know.”
Man’s anatomy, external and internal; his eyes, his teeth, his muscles, his blood, his viscera, his brain, his vertebra; all speak of fighting, passion, aggressiveness, violence, and prideful egoism.
Even the component elements of a human body are themselves in a constant state of internecine warfare. Our bony framework and pulsating tissues, are vast campaigning grounds; whereon microscopical animal-culæ in countless myriads, fight out their ephemeral lives, as we ourselves do — with tooth and claw. When one swarm of microbes, germs, or spores, conquer (in the struggle for sustenance) disease, or death supervenes to us, as the case may be. When rival hosts vanquish, then our flesh, nerves, bones, and blood become their happy hunting grounds, and our health returns — at least until the bacilli-battalions have finally eaten us out: or they have been, themselves, conquered and exterminated by fiercer swarms.
It is not improbable that this earth itself is a living breathing organism and that the Tribes of Man are microbes and bloodsucking vermin (on its outer cuticle) imagining themselves “the whole thing.” Just as itch-creating parasites burrow into our own hide, so (in our turn) we may be unpleasant parasites, burrowing in the hide of some nobler and grander Being.
From youth to hoary age, man takes an instinctive delight in all that pertains to warfare and the chase.
As a boy he twangs his arrows at the sparrows, trains and loads his toy-cannon, marshals his tin soldiers, brandishes his wooden sword, fights his mimic battles, builds his snow fortifications on the play ground; and the proudest day of his life is that on which he becomes the proprietor of “a real gun.”
As a full grown citizen he practices homicide with repeating rifle, at moving targets — slaughters tame pigeons with choke-bore breechloaders — hunts foxes, wolves, bears, pumas, over mountain and mere — wades up to his neck in swamps to kill teal, and travels to far lands in search of Big Game and nigger shooting.
The Indian fighters of North America take supreme joyance in slaying red devils; and to “pot a black-fellow” in Queensland is boasted of round camp-fires under gum trees, as — “great fun.”
The Cape of Good Hope, Australia, New Zealand, North and South America, have been made into veritable human shambles and gory hunting grounds, within the memory of middle-aged men. Indeed the delight which men take in slaying wild animals, is tameness itself, compared with the exultation they display in hunting, trailing and slaughtering each other.
Man-hunts were organized systematically in Lacadæmon, when the helots became too numerous and too restive. It is not improbable that as our own surplus “submerged tenths” increase in numbers, they may be thinned out by similar battues.
At every meal we rend flesh, scrape bones, suck marrow, and daintily lap blood; just as our hairy troglodyte progenitors did. The food supply of all Christian nations is composed of the body and blood — the hides and marrow of both human herds and vast swarms of inferior brutes, living, dying, dead. The lives of countless hordes of hirelings, are daily being transmuted into juicy steaks and sirloins; that those who have money may buy and eat thereof. Not only do we ferociously compete for prey i.e. for subsistence; but we literally eat each other with voracity, relish, and mutual toleration. Thus properly understood, Darwinism is no very comforting doctrine for fat men.
Public buildings and frowning fortresses; capitols and prisons; “temples of freedom” and cross-crowned cathedrals, have (every one of them) been constructed upon exactly the same general principles whereby the Pyramids of On and the palaces of Nineveh were built — every riveted girder, every iron transom, every block of concrete, every solid, squared, and polished stone, has been bedded literally in a dying groan; by the hands of dehumanized and conquered decadents, insensate, — “of reason void, of reverence full.”
There is nothing immoral, nothing abnormal, in these grim facts. All is in strict harmony with that cosmic enactment — the Survival of the Strongest.
In the proud language of Germany’s chansonist —
Instinctively we understand that the struggle for existence is absolutely needful. We feel that Nature makes no mistakes, and therefore we accept her dicta because we must, not because it has been eloquently formulated, by sublimated visionaries; or re-echoed, again and again, by thousands of human microphones.
When not thwarted by artificial contrivances, whatever argument Nature promulgates is — right. The further man gets away from Nature, the further he departs from right. To be right is to be natural, and to be natural is to be right. The sun shines, therefore it is right that it should shine — the rain falls, therefore it is right that it should fall — the tides ebb and flow, therefore it is right that they should ebb and flow.
Darwin’s law exists — may be seen in operation — is practicable — of daily demonstration — therefore it also is right. It is not a dream like “Religion,” it is not an invention like “Morals;” it is not an assumption like “God.” It is a cosmic Fact, like the sunshine, the rain, and the tides! Nature does not set up Idols, does not found Superstitions, does not invent Decalogues. These toys and fetters have been constructed by man, for his own infinite — damnation.
Neither morals, laws, nor creeds are First Principles, but they may (probably) have their uses; just as guillotines, and gardeners’ hoes have their uses. They may be convenient engines for the deletion of Lower Organisms, for extirpating individuals of infantile intellect. Indeed the secret object of all superstitions possibly is, to provide an ultra-rational sanction for fraudulent standards of Right and Wrong.
To base a Lie upon a myth, is certainly much safer than to base it on a Reality, for you cannot run a tape-measure over a Myth.
Christliness, as social quietism, has never been accepted by men of super-eminent strength, courage, and wisdom. Such men have everywhere regarded the Christ Ideal as a model for slavish souls only — to be humored for strategic purposes but never practiced by masters, conquerors, kings. “Don’t do as I do , but do as I say ” has ever been the dictum of High Priests and Rulers — to docile multitudes.
The evolution of sovereignty satisfactorily exhibits this ethical dictatorship, as an historical common-place. Moral codes, (always and everywhere imposed upon the common people by “immoral” combinations of cumulative craft) are never obeyed by Ruling Castes.