Such facts, of course, conflict with the belief that there is an inborn moral sense which tells each man what is right and what is wrong. But the association of pleasure and pain, on the average, with good or evil conduct, indicates a measure of truth in the idea; and it may very well be that certain moral conceptions, acquired by the race, become hereditary with the individual.83 Here Spencer uses his favorite formula to reconcile the intuitionist and the utilitarian, and falls back once more upon the inheritance of acquired characters.
Surely, however, the innate moral sense, if it exists, is in difficulties today; for never were ethical notions more confused. It is notorious that the principles which we apply in our actual living are largely opposite to those which we preach in our churches and our books. The professed ethic of Europe and America is a pacifistic Christianity; the actual ethic is the militaristic code of the marauding Teutons from whom the ruling strata, almost everywhere in Europe, are derived. The practice of duelling, in Catholic France and Protestant Germany, is a tenacious relic of the original Teutonic code.84 Our moralists are kept busy apologizing for these contradictions, just as the moralists of a later monogamic Greece and India were hard put to it to explain the conduct of gods who had been fashioned in a semi-promiscuous age.85
Whether a nation develops its citizens on the lines of Christian morality or the Teutonic code depends on whether industry or war is its dominant concern. A militant society exalts certain virtues and condones what other peoples might call crimes; aggression and robbery and treachery are not so unequivocally denounced among peoples accustomed to them by war, as among peoples who have learned the value of honesty and non-aggression through industry and peace. Generosity and humanity flourish better where war is infrequent and long periods of productive tranquillity inculcate the advantages of mutual aid.86 The patriotic member of a militant society will look upon bravery and strength as the highest virtues of a man; upon obedience as the highest virtue of the citizen; and upon silent submission to multiple motherhood as the highest virtue of a woman.87 The Kaiser thought of God as the leader of the German army, and followed up his approbation of duelling by attending divine service.88 The North American Indians “regarded the use of the bow and arrow, the war-club and spear, as the noblest employments of man . . . . They looked upon agricultural and mechanical labor as degrading . . . . Only during recent times—only now that national welfare is becoming more and more dependent on superior powers of production,” and these “on the higher mental faculties, are other occupations than militant ones rising into respectability.”89
Now war is merely wholesale cannibalism; and there is no reason why it should not be classed with cannibalism and unequivocally denounced. “The sentiment and the idea of justice can grow only as fast as the external antagonisms of societies decrease, and the internal harmonious coöperations of their members increase.”90 How can this harmony be promoted? As we have seen, it comes more readily through freedom than through regulation. The formula of justice should be: “Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man.”91 This is a formula hostile to war, which exalts authority, regimentation and obedience; it is a formula favorable to peaceful industry, for it provides a maximum of stimulus with an absolute equality of opportunity; it is conformable to Christian morals, for it holds every person sacred, and frees him from aggression;92 and it has the sanction of that ultimate judge—natural selection—because it opens up the resources of the earth on equal terms to all, and permits each individual to prosper according to his ability and his work.
This may seem, at first, to be a ruthless principle; and many will oppose to it, as capable of national extension, the family principle of giving to each not according to his ability and product, but according to his need. But a society governed on such principles would soon be eliminated.
During immaturity benefits received must be inversely proportionate to capacities possessed. Within the family-group most must be given where least is deserved, if desert is measured by worth. Contrariwise, after maturity is reached benefit must vary directly as worth: worth being measured by fitness to the conditions of existence. The ill-fitted must suffer the evils of unfitness, and the well-fitted profit by their fitness. These are the two laws which a species must conform to if it is to be preserved . . . . If, among the young, benefit were proportioned to efficiency, the species would disappear forth-with; and if, among adults, benefit were proportioned to inefficiency, the species would disappear by decay in a few generations . . . . The only justification for the analogy between parent and child, and government and people, is the childishness of the people who entertain the analogy.93
Liberty contends with Evolution for priority in Spencer’s affections;94 and Liberty wins. He thinks that as war decreases, the control of the individual by the state loses most of its excuse;95 and in a condition of permanent peace the state would be reduced within Jeffersonian bounds, acting only to prevent breaches of equal freedom. Such justice should be administered without cost, so that wrong-doers might know that the poverty of their victims would not shield them from punishment; and all the expenses of the state should be met by direct taxation, lest the invisibility of taxation should divert public attention from governmental extravagance.96 But “beyond maintaining justice, the state cannot do anything else without transgressing justice”;97 for it would then be protecting inferior individuals from that natural apportionment of reward and capacity, penalty and incapacity, on which the survival and improvement of the group depend.
The principle of justice would require common ownership of land, if we could separate the land from its improvements.98 In his first book, Spencer had advocated nationalization of the soil, to equalize economic opportunity; but he withdrew his contention later (much to the disgust of Henry George, who called him “the perplexed philosopher”), on the ground that land is carefully husbanded only by the family that owns it, and that can rely on transmitting to its own descendants the effects of the labor put into it. As for private property, it derives immediately from the law of justice, for each man should be equally free to retain the products of his thrift. The justice of bequests is not so obvious; but the “right to bequeath is included in the right of ownership, since otherwise the ownership is not complete.”99 Trade should be as free among nations as among individuals; the law of justice should be no merely tribal code, but an inviolable maxim of international relations.
These are, in outline, the real “rights of man”—the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness on equal terms with all. Besides these economic rights, political rights are unimportant unrealities. Changes in the form of government amount to nothing where economic life is not free; and a laissez-faire monarchy is much better than a socialistic democracy.
Voting being simply a method of creating an appliance for the preservation of rights, the question is whether universality of votes conduces to creation of the best appliance for the preservation of rights. We have seen that it does not effectually secure this end . . . . Experience makes obvious that which should have been obvious without experience, that with a universal distribution of votes the larger class will inevitably profit at the expense of the smaller class . . . . Evidently the constitution of the state appropriate to that industrial type of society in which equity is fully realized, must be one in which there is not a representation of individuals but a representation of interests . . . . It may be that the industrial type, perhaps by the development of coöperative organizations, which theoretically, though not at present practically, obliterate the distinction between employer and employed, may produce social arrangements under which antagonistic class-interests will either not exist, or will be so far mitigated as not seriously to complicate matters . . . . But with such humanity as now exists, and must for a long time exist, the possession of what are called equal rights will not insure the maintenance of equal rights properly so-called.100