WEBVTT NOTE Postscript and Note on Philanthropy 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000 The Man versus the State by Herbert Spencer 2 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:08.000 Post-script 3 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:13.000 Do I expect this doctrine to meet with any considerable acceptance? 4 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:24.000 I wish I could say yes, but unhappily, various reasons oblige me to conclude that only here and there a solitary citizen may have his political creed modified. 5 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:29.000 Of these reasons there is one from which all the others originate. 6 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:35.040 This essential reason is that the restriction of governmental power within the limits assigned 7 00:00:35.040 --> 00:00:40.680 is appropriate to the industrial type of society only, and while wholly incongruous with the 8 00:00:40.680 --> 00:00:47.080 militant type of society is partially incongruous with that semi-militant, semi-industrial type 9 00:00:47.080 --> 00:00:51.640 which now characterizes advanced nations. 10 00:00:51.640 --> 00:00:57.480 At every stage of social evolution there must exist substantial agreement between practices 11 00:00:57.480 --> 00:01:04.480 Life can be carried on only by the harmonizing of thoughts and acts, either the conduct required 12 00:01:08.600 --> 00:01:14.520 by circumstances must modify the sentiments and ideas to fit it, or else the changed sentiments 13 00:01:14.520 --> 00:01:21.320 and ideas must eventually modify the conduct. Hence, if the maintenance of social life under 14 00:01:21.320 --> 00:01:26.960 Under one set of conditions necessitates extreme subordination to a ruler and entire faith 15 00:01:26.960 --> 00:01:27.960 in him. 16 00:01:27.960 --> 00:01:33.880 There will be established a theory that the subordination and the faith are proper, nay 17 00:01:33.880 --> 00:01:34.880 imperative. 18 00:01:34.880 --> 00:01:40.340 Conversely, if under other conditions great subjection of citizen to government is no 19 00:01:40.340 --> 00:01:46.520 longer needful for preservation of the national life, if contrarywise the national life becomes 20 00:01:46.520 --> 00:01:51.560 is larger in amount and higher in quality, as fast as citizens gain increased freedom 21 00:01:51.560 --> 00:01:57.740 of action. There comes a progressive modification of their political theory, having the result 22 00:01:57.740 --> 00:02:02.500 of diminishing their faith in governmental action, increasing their tendency to question 23 00:02:02.500 --> 00:02:07.720 governmental authority, and leading them in more numerous cases to resist governmental 24 00:02:07.720 --> 00:02:12.720 power, involving eventually an established doctrine of limitation. 25 00:02:12.720 --> 00:02:20.560 Thus it is not to be expected that current opinion respecting governmental authority can 26 00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:24.320 at present be modified to any great extent. 27 00:02:24.320 --> 00:02:28.520 But let us look at the necessities of the case more closely. 28 00:02:28.520 --> 00:02:34.800 Manifestly, the success of an army depends very much on the faith of the soldiers in 29 00:02:34.800 --> 00:02:36.920 their general. 30 00:02:36.920 --> 00:02:42.080 Disbelief in his ability will go far toward paralyzing them in battle, while absolute confidence 31 00:02:42.080 --> 00:02:48.080 in them will make them fulfill their respective parts with courage and energy. 32 00:02:48.080 --> 00:02:54.000 If, as in the normally developed militant type of society, the leader in war and the 33 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:59.640 ruler in peace are one in the same, this confidence in him extends from military action to civil 34 00:02:59.640 --> 00:03:05.900 action, and a society in large measure identical with the army willingly accepts his judgments 35 00:03:05.900 --> 00:03:08.160 as lawgiver. 36 00:03:08.160 --> 00:03:13.960 And where the civil head, ceasing to be the military head, does his generalship by deputy, 37 00:03:13.960 --> 00:03:18.600 there still clings to him the traditional faith. 38 00:03:18.600 --> 00:03:24.800 As with faith, so with obedience, other things equal, an army of insubordinate soldiers fails 39 00:03:24.800 --> 00:03:28.800 before an army of subordinate soldiers. 40 00:03:28.800 --> 00:03:33.460 Those whose obedience to their leader is perfect and prompt are obviously more likely to succeed 41 00:03:33.460 --> 00:03:52.460 and as with the army, so with the society as a whole, success in war must largely depend on that conformity to the ruler's will, which brings men and money when wanted and adjusts all conduct to his needs. 42 00:03:52.460 --> 00:03:58.420 Thus, by survival of the fittest, the militant type of society becomes characterized by profound 43 00:03:58.420 --> 00:04:03.180 confidence in the governing power, joined with a loyalty causing submission to it in 44 00:04:03.180 --> 00:04:05.820 all matters whatever. 45 00:04:05.820 --> 00:04:09.980 And there must tend to be established, among those who speculate about political affairs 46 00:04:09.980 --> 00:04:16.860 in a militant society, a theory giving form to the needful ideas and feelings, accompanied 47 00:04:16.860 --> 00:04:22.060 by assertions that the lawgiver, if not divine in nature, is divinely directed, and that 48 00:04:22.060 --> 00:04:28.900 Unlimited obedience to him is divinely ordered. Change in the ideas and feelings which thus 49 00:04:28.900 --> 00:04:33.780 become characteristic of the militant form of organization can take place only where 50 00:04:33.780 --> 00:04:40.100 circumstances favor development of the industrial form of organization. Being carried on by 51 00:04:40.100 --> 00:04:45.500 voluntary cooperation instead of by compulsory cooperation, industrial life as we know it 52 00:04:45.500 --> 00:04:50.860 habituates men to independent activities, leads them to enforce their own claims while 53 00:04:50.860 --> 00:04:56.740 while respecting the claims of others, strengthens the consciousness of personal rights and prompts 54 00:04:56.740 --> 00:05:03.740 them to resist excesses of governmental control. But since the circumstances which render war 55 00:05:03.740 --> 00:05:08.660 less frequent arise but slowly, and since the modifications of nature caused by the 56 00:05:08.660 --> 00:05:14.340 transition from a life predominantly militant to a life predominantly industrial can therefore 57 00:05:14.340 --> 00:05:20.180 go on but slowly, it happens that the old sentiments and ideas give place to new ones 58 00:05:20.180 --> 00:05:25.900 by small degrees only. And there are several reasons why the transition 59 00:05:25.900 --> 00:05:32.600 not only is but ought to be gradual. Here are some of them. 60 00:05:32.600 --> 00:05:37.320 In the primitive man and in man but little civilized, there does not exist the nature 61 00:05:37.320 --> 00:05:43.040 required for extensive voluntary cooperations. Efforts willingly united with those of others 62 00:05:43.040 --> 00:05:50.160 for a common advantage imply, if the undertaking is large, a perseverance he does not possess. 63 00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:55.300 Moreover, where the benefits to be achieved are distant and unfamiliar, as are many for 64 00:05:55.300 --> 00:06:00.200 which men nowadays combine, there needs a strength of constructive imagination not to 65 00:06:00.200 --> 00:06:03.520 be found in the minds of the uncivilized. 66 00:06:03.520 --> 00:06:08.240 And yet again, great combinations of a private kind for wholesome production or for large 67 00:06:08.240 --> 00:06:14.720 enterprises require a graduated subordination of the united workers, a graduated subordination 68 00:06:14.720 --> 00:06:18.440 such as that which militancy produces. 69 00:06:18.440 --> 00:06:23.600 In other words, the way to the developed industrial type as we now know it is through the militant 70 00:06:23.600 --> 00:06:29.680 type, which by discipline generates in long ages the power of continuous application, 71 00:06:29.680 --> 00:06:35.960 the willingness to act under direction, no longer coercive but agreed to under contract, 72 00:06:35.960 --> 00:06:41.040 and the habit of achieving large results by organizations. 73 00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:46.760 The implication is that during long stages of social evolution their needs for the management 74 00:06:46.760 --> 00:06:52.960 of All Matters but the simplest, a governmental power great in degree and wide in range, 75 00:06:52.960 --> 00:06:59.520 with a correlative faith in it and obedience to it. Hence the fact that, as the records 76 00:06:59.520 --> 00:07:05.280 of early civilizations show us, and as we are shown in the East at present, large undertakings 77 00:07:05.280 --> 00:07:10.800 can be achieved only by state action. And hence the fact that only little by little 78 00:07:10.800 --> 00:07:16.720 can voluntary cooperation replace compulsory cooperation, and rightly bring about a correlative 79 00:07:16.720 --> 00:07:23.720 Chiefly, however, the maintenance of this faith is necessitated by the maintenance of 80 00:07:27.340 --> 00:07:32.920 fitness for war. This involves continuance of such confidence in the ruling agency and 81 00:07:32.920 --> 00:07:38.260 such subordination to it as may enable it to wield all the forces of the society on 82 00:07:38.260 --> 00:07:43.500 occasions of attack or defense, and there must survive a political theory justifying 83 00:07:43.500 --> 00:07:50.500 While their sentiments and ideas are of kinds which perpetually endanger peace, it is requisite 84 00:07:51.860 --> 00:07:57.180 that men should have such belief in the authority of government as shall give it adequate coercive 85 00:07:57.180 --> 00:08:03.340 power over them for war purposes, a belief in its authority which inevitably at the same 86 00:08:03.340 --> 00:08:07.420 time gives it coercive power over them for other purposes. 87 00:08:07.420 --> 00:08:13.420 Thus, as said at first, the fundamental reason for not expecting much acceptance of the doctrine 88 00:08:13.420 --> 00:08:25.420 The main doctrine set forth is that we have at present but partially emerged from the militant regime, and have but partially entered on that industrial regime to which this doctrine is proper. 89 00:08:25.420 --> 00:08:34.420 So long as the religion of enmity predominates over the religion of amity, the current political superstition must hold its ground. 90 00:08:34.420 --> 00:08:49.420 While throughout Europe the entire culture of the ruling classes is one which every day of the week holds up for admiration those who in ancient times achieved the greatest feats in battle, and only on Sunday repeats the injunction to put up the sword. 91 00:08:49.420 --> 00:08:55.140 While those ruling classes are subject to a moral discipline consisting of sixth, seventh 92 00:08:55.140 --> 00:09:01.620 pagan example and one seventh Christian precept, there is no likelihood that there will arise 93 00:09:01.620 --> 00:09:07.020 such international relations as may make a decline in governmental power practicable 94 00:09:07.020 --> 00:09:12.660 and a corresponding modification of political theory acceptable. 95 00:09:12.660 --> 00:09:17.380 While among ourselves the administration of colonial affairs is such that native tribes 96 00:09:17.380 --> 00:09:39.900 While the 97 00:09:39.900 --> 00:09:45.900 creed men profess is so interpreted that one of them who at home addresses missionary meetings 98 00:09:45.900 --> 00:10:15.900 A nation that seeks, when abroad, to ferment a quarrel with an adjacent people whom he wishes to subjugate, and then receives public honors after his death, it is not likely that the relations of our society to other societies will become such that there can be spread, to any extent, that doctrine of limited governmental functions which accompanies the diminished governmental authority proper to a peaceful state. 99 00:10:15.900 --> 00:10:22.900 It is impossible to unite the blessings of equity at home with the commission of inequities 100 00:10:45.900 --> 00:10:53.500 Abroad. Of course, there will arise, then, a question. Why, then, enunciate and emphasize 101 00:10:53.500 --> 00:11:00.100 a theory at variance with the theory adopted in our present state? Beyond the general reply 102 00:11:00.100 --> 00:11:05.380 that it is the duty of everyone who regards a doctrine as true and important to do what 103 00:11:05.380 --> 00:11:10.860 he can towards defusing it, leaving the result to be what it may, there are several more 104 00:11:10.860 --> 00:11:16.160 or special replies, each of which is sufficient. 105 00:11:16.160 --> 00:11:22.300 In the first place, an ideal, far in advance of practicability though it may be, is always 106 00:11:22.300 --> 00:11:25.100 needful for right guidance. 107 00:11:25.100 --> 00:11:30.380 If amid all those compromises which the circumstances of the times necessitates, or are thought 108 00:11:30.380 --> 00:11:36.960 to necessitate, there exist no true conceptions of better and worse in social organizations, 109 00:11:36.960 --> 00:11:42.200 If nothing beyond the exigencies of the moment are attended to, and the proximately best is 110 00:11:42.200 --> 00:11:48.760 habitually identified with the ultimately best, there cannot be any true progress. However 111 00:11:48.760 --> 00:11:54.820 distant may be the goal, and however often intervening obstacles may necessitate deviation 112 00:11:54.820 --> 00:12:00.720 in our course towards it, it is obviously requisite to know whereabouts it lies. 113 00:12:00.720 --> 00:12:06.720 Again, while something like the present degree of subjection of the individual to the state 114 00:12:06.720 --> 00:12:10.880 and something like the current political theory adapted to it may remain 115 00:12:10.880 --> 00:12:15.000 needful in presence of existing international relations, it is by no 116 00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:19.320 means needful that this subjection should be made greater and the adapted 117 00:12:19.320 --> 00:12:24.680 theory strengthened. In our days of active philanthropy, hosts of people 118 00:12:24.680 --> 00:12:29.120 are eager to achieve benefits for their less fortunate fellows by what seem 119 00:12:29.120 --> 00:12:33.160 the shortest methods, are busily occupied in developing administrative 120 00:12:33.160 --> 00:12:39.400 of Arrangements of a Kind Proper to a Lower Type of Society, are bringing about retrogression 121 00:12:39.400 --> 00:12:46.080 while aiming at progression. The normal difficulties in the way of advance are sufficiently great 122 00:12:46.080 --> 00:12:51.380 and it is lamentable that they should be made greater. Hence, something well worth doing 123 00:12:51.380 --> 00:12:56.960 may be done if philanthropists can be shown that they are in many cases ensuring the future 124 00:12:56.960 --> 00:13:09.560 Chiefly, however, it is important to press on all the great truth, at present but little 125 00:13:09.560 --> 00:13:15.600 recognized, that a society's internal and external policies are so bound together that 126 00:13:15.600 --> 00:13:20.240 there cannot be an essential improvement of the one without an essential improvement of 127 00:13:20.240 --> 00:13:21.240 the other. 128 00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:27.120 A higher standard of international justice must be habitually acted upon before there 129 00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:32.880 can be conformity to a higher standard of justice in our national arrangements. The 130 00:13:32.880 --> 00:13:38.720 conviction that a dependence of this kind exists, could it be diffused amongst civilised 131 00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:44.560 peoples, would greatly check aggressive behaviour towards one another, and by doing this would 132 00:13:44.560 --> 00:13:50.160 diminish the coerciveness of their governmental systems while appropriately changing their 133 00:13:50.160 --> 00:13:53.800 and Their Political Theories. 134 00:13:53.800 --> 00:13:57.800 Note In some of the criticisms on this work there 135 00:13:57.800 --> 00:14:03.680 has reappeared a mistaken inference several times before drawn that the doctrine of evolution 136 00:14:03.680 --> 00:14:08.360 as applied to social affairs precludes philanthropic effort. 137 00:14:08.360 --> 00:14:15.640 How untrue this is was shown by me in the fortnightly review for February 1875. 138 00:14:15.640 --> 00:14:21.440 Where I reproduce the essential part of that which was there said. 139 00:14:21.440 --> 00:14:27.440 I am chiefly concerned, however, to repudiate the conclusion that the private action of 140 00:14:27.440 --> 00:14:33.200 citizens is needless or unimportant because the course of social evolution is determined 141 00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:39.040 by the natures of citizens as working under the conditions in which they are placed. 142 00:14:39.040 --> 00:14:44.360 To assert that each social change is thus determined is to assert that all the egoistic 143 00:14:44.360 --> 00:14:49.320 and altruistic activities of citizens are factors of the change, and is tacitly to 144 00:14:49.320 --> 00:14:54.540 assert that in the absence of any of these, say, political aspirations or the promptings 145 00:14:54.540 --> 00:15:00.740 of philanthropy, the change will not be the same. So far from implying that the efforts 146 00:15:00.740 --> 00:15:05.900 of each man to achieve that which he thinks best are unimportant, the doctrine implies 147 00:15:05.900 --> 00:15:11.280 that such efforts, severally resulting from the natures of the individuals, are indispensable 148 00:15:11.280 --> 00:15:26.280 The correlative duty is thus emphasized in paragraph 34 of first principles. It is not for nothing that he has in him these sympathies with some principles and repugnance to others. 149 00:15:26.280 --> 00:15:33.280 He, with all his capacities and aspirations and beliefs, is not an accident but a product of the time. 150 00:15:33.280 --> 00:15:34.620 of the Time. 151 00:15:34.620 --> 00:15:39.920 He must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future, 152 00:15:39.920 --> 00:15:45.920 and that his thoughts are as children born to him, which he may not carelessly let die. 153 00:15:45.920 --> 00:15:51.400 He, like every other man, may properly consider himself as one of the myriad agencies through 154 00:15:51.400 --> 00:15:58.100 whom works the unknown cause, and when the unknown cause produces in him a certain belief, 155 00:15:58.100 --> 00:16:03.120 he is thereby authorized to profess and act out that belief. 156 00:16:03.120 --> 00:16:07.120 or to render in their highest sense the words of the poet, 157 00:16:07.120 --> 00:16:12.960 nature is made better by no mean, but nature makes that mean over that art, which you say 158 00:16:12.960 --> 00:16:18.880 adds to nature, is an art that nature makes. 159 00:16:18.880 --> 00:16:23.520 That there is no retreat from this view in the work Professor Cairns criticizes, the 160 00:16:23.520 --> 00:16:28.880 study of sociology, is sufficiently shown by its closing paragraph. 161 00:16:28.880 --> 00:16:35.700 Thus, admitting that for the fanatic some wild anticipation is needful as a stimulus, 162 00:16:35.700 --> 00:16:40.800 and recognizing the usefulness of this delusion as adapted to a particular nature and his 163 00:16:40.800 --> 00:16:46.480 particular function, the man of higher type must be content with the greatly moderated 164 00:16:46.480 --> 00:16:51.440 expectations while he perseveres with undiminished efforts. 165 00:16:51.440 --> 00:16:56.640 He has to see how comparatively little can be done, and yet to find it worthwhile to 166 00:16:56.640 --> 00:17:26.640 I do not see how Professor Cairns reconciles such passages. His statement that, according to Mr. Spencer, the future of the human race may be safely trusted to the action of motives of a private and personal kind, to motives such as operate in the production and distribution of wealth, or in the development of language. This statement is to the effect that I ignore it. 167 00:17:26.640 --> 00:17:33.440 or the Action of Motives of a Higher Kind, whereas these are not only necessarily included 168 00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:40.680 by me in the totality of motives, but repeatedly insisted upon as all-essential. 169 00:17:40.680 --> 00:17:48.360 I am the more surprised at this misapprehension because, in the essay on Specialized Administration, 170 00:17:48.360 --> 00:17:55.120 to which Professor Cairns refers, see the fortnightly review for December 1871, I have 171 00:17:55.120 --> 00:17:59.540 I have dwelt at considerable length on the altruistic sentiments and the resulting social 172 00:17:59.540 --> 00:18:07.180 activities as not having been duly taken into account by Professor Huxley. As Professor 173 00:18:07.180 --> 00:18:12.300 Cairns indicates at the close of his first paper, the difficulty lies in recognizing 174 00:18:12.300 --> 00:18:19.280 human actions as, under one aspect, voluntary and under another, predetermined. I have said 175 00:18:19.280 --> 00:18:25.880 and elsewhere all I have to say on this point. Here I wish only to point out that the conclusion 176 00:18:25.880 --> 00:18:32.320 he draws from my premises is utterly different from the conclusion I draw. Entering this 177 00:18:32.320 --> 00:18:37.320 caveat I must leave all further elucidations to come in due course.