Slay one man (in order to rob him) and you are a murderer. Slay a million men (in order to rob them) and you are a renowned general. Annex from one person and you are a felonious ruffian, but annex from the whole population, or from rival nations, and you are made Chancellor of the Exchequer; Chairman of Ways and Means; or decorated with the grand cross of the Legion of Honor. Maraud direct for your own profit, and you are a heinous rascal, counterfeiter, forger, bandit; but maraud indirect, ‘on public service only’ and you are proclaimed “our opulent fellow-citizen and distinguished patriot.”
Take from the peasantry even an infinitesimal proportion of their petty property, and they will lynch you as a lazy thievish tramp; but take two-thirds of their harvests by law and rule (rent, interest or tax assessments) and they will turn out in the middle of the night, to cheer you in your steam-horsed palace car, as it whirls through their ‘God forsaken’ villages.
To “steal the goose from off the common” is awful rascality, but “to steal the common from the goose” is splendid statesmanship. Men who write down Holy Fables in books are called Apostles of God, or canonized as saints; but men who tell regulation lies in the ordinary course of business are popularly supposed to be wicked and ungodly scamps. The delightful story-teller who prints a pleasing yarn, coined out of his alcoholic imagination, is known as a gifted author: but the plain blunt writer who interprets Facts and proclaims them openly, is an incarnation of iniquity, madness, blasphemy — a veritable Apollyon, Satan. “What is one man’s meat is another man’s poison.”
Again, he who prevaricates in a pulpit for ‘the Glory of God’ is everywhere known as a Doctor of Divinity, but he who bears false witness in an ordinary Court of Justice, is universally condemned as a perjured villain.
It is questionable if there is one codified crime that would be considered a crime in every land on earth. Just as there are a thousand different icons and ideals of god, so there are a thousand mutually repellant views of Right and Wrong. Every climate, every nation, every community, has its own notion of what Virtue means. Moral Dogmas are manufactured to suit the occasion, and are always used as instruments of intimidation. They are not necessarily in harmony with, or based upon Nature: except in the sense that Fraud is natural. Biologically and historically considered — ‘there is nothing either Right of Wrong, but thinking makes it so.’
Every age and nation must interpret Right and Wrong for itself. So must every man. It is each man’s manifest duty to invent his own Ethical Credo. If he neglects this duty, and supinely (without thinking) adopts the Credo of the herd into which he is born; then his individuality is merged and lost. Other men with more personal will-power, may then set up fallacious, maladroit Dogmas — counterfeit twenty-four inch gauges — and compel him to “conform” against his wish. They become rulers and proprietors, while he descends to the position of a dependent or vassal. Here is the permanent menace to freedom that lies imbedded in all ethical, political, and religious Codes.
He who “keeps the commandments” of another, is necessarily the servant of that other. He who curbs his own thought, to please a majority; has already lost his mental liberty. He who implicitly relies upon “public opinion” becomes a mere marionette — a bloodless dummy. Professing independence, he is practically a prisoner in his own domain.
The pride of life is in deciding and doing — in taking the initiative — not in obeying the dictation of others. He who “keeps the commandments” is, and must always remain a subordinate — in a beggardom of rules and regulations. He who disobeys “the commandments” becomes himself a Commandment-Maker; that is to say, a ruler over the minds and bodies and property of inferior organisms. Obedience is characteristic of the menial. Disobedience is the stamp of the hero. “Man is the measure of all things.” — (Protagoras.)
“He who takes no initiative, and determines no issues, however intelligent and trustworthy” plays a subordinate part.”[17] All great deeds are the result, not of Majority Votes, but of Individual Activity.
Every man who is free (and freedom means something more than the mere privilege of dropping regulation pieces of print into a Majority Box) should judge ‘all things’ by his own personality. He should regard himself as the measuring rod — the determinant — the unit of value, and carefully abstain from blindly adopting other men’s measurements, without personal verification and reasonable tests.
The easiest way for a band of public robbers to plunder a nation, is for them to issue counterfeit currency, and exchange it for intrinsic values: and the easiest way to enslave a Race is to wheedle it into, or impose upon it counterfeit Ethics, that is to say, fraudulent standards of morality.
When the weighing scales (or measures) are falsified, all subsequent exchange becomes marauding. Then foreclosing bankers become cattle-lifters, and machine politicians develop into pirates. Thus it happeneth that the words ‘politician’ and ‘thief’ are now interchangeable terms; more especially in America, France, and Australia. “Government is the Great Blackmailer.”
Better far, for a free animal to be killed outright, than to be mastered, subordinated, and enchained.
Mentally, morally, physically, a full-grown man should swear allegiance to no extraneous moralism, custom, or arbitrary rule-of-conduct. He ought to take a special pride in developing his own individuality; independent of all other men whatsoever. In the maxim “union is strength” there lies an abiding fallacy. Very often, in practical affairs, he is greatest who stands most apart. “Every man for himself” is the law of life. Every man for an Institution, a God, or a Dogma, is the law of death. “Mind your own business” is a line of thought very much neglected in this infirm age; when every sodden degenerate fancies that it is his “business” to be every other degenerate’s keeper, guardian and nurse. Cain’s wrathful retort “am I my brother’s keeper?” contains a far reaching practical philosophy, that is deserving of calm consideration, in the light of contemporary socialistic maladjustments and biological evolutionism. Only the terrorized repent, but non-moralists found families, build cities, rule the earth and laugh at the Gods.
Each individual should think as he pleases — as “the spirit moves in him” — without the least respect for what others think or do — the only limit to his actions being (of course) the materialized opposition he actually meets with: for the Strong are the natural limit of the Strong. No one is bound to obey another (or a majority) except “the other” can coerce obedience; and to do that at all times, under all circumstances, would be terribly troublesome, expensive, and — dangerous.