Chancery." Thus, in meeting the demand that the law be certain, justice has ceased to be either flexible or progressive. CHAP. The XLII Dominant Social Be Inter ested in Retaining The dominant social class may preserve the outworn because it is to its interest to do so. In America the commercial class has long played upon a popular suspicion and jealousy of government inherited from the eighteenth century when government was an alien arbitrary agency over which the commonalty had no effec- the Effete tive control. Now that government has been made responsive to the popular will such distrust is unwarranted. Yet the business interests which fear state interference or regulation fan continually these dying embers. As departments of government multiply to keep pace with the complexity of modern life, the practice of electing all public officials becomes pernicious. The "long ballot " betrays democracy by giving the real selection of such officials into the hands of party "machines" and "bosses." It would have disappeared long ago but for the fight put up on its behalf by the politicians. The long retention of the "fellow servant " defence in suits for indemnity brought by injured employees exemplifies the power of the employing class over courts and legislatures. Its injustice had been conceded by all a generation before it was discarded. The persistence of the county form of local government in the South after the victory of democratic principles there can be accounted for only by the self-interest of a dominant class. A century ago Thomas Jefferson recognized in the New England township system of government the very foundation stone of democracy. In 1816, he wrote, "The article nearest my heart is the subdivision of the counties into wards (townships)." He realized that if the county was to be the smallest unit of government a few aristocrats or a few bosses would control. It was, indeed, the wealthy class which brought his efforts to nought and prevented the establishment of the township system in the South. The "Long Ballot The "Fellow Servant" Defence County Govern ment in the South But Some times the Dominant Class While the dominant class thus causes society to appear at times more stupid than it actually is, there are matters in which it lends society a deceptive air of ready adaptiveness. When this class puts its weight behind a logical change, reform may be effected Change with startling suddenness. Good roads, the gold standard, banking reform, the acquisition of dependencies, could never have crashed so irresistibly through the dense underbrush of American prejudices but for the driving power of the business interests. СНАР. How the Chief Instinctive Conservatism of the Propertied Of the chief elements in society the intellectuals have the least horror of change and the keenest appreciation of the need of it. The commercial class comprises many limber-minded adaptable men who, altho they may not see deeply into society, are clearsighted within their range of vision. These are hospitable enough to needed changes which do not appear contrary to their interests. On account of their lack of education the wage-earning class are often slaves to tradition. Their material interests, however, are not bound up with the inherited order and, once their minds are set free, they stand for radicalism, i.e., the rational and thorough-going adaptation of institutions to the needs of society. Owing to their dealing with nature rather than man, the tillers of the soil are limited in their mental contacts. They respond to the influence of their forefathers rather than of their contemporaries, and stand for the inherited order save when the need of reform is sharply brought home to them by their own painful experiences. Here is one reason why farmers and working men, altho they constitute the two wings of the great producing class and have common interests respecting the class which lives from the ownership of property, do not cooperate for long politically. Of all the economic classes the propertied is least sympathetic with the rational transformation of time-hallowed institutions. Its entire economic position rests upon inheritance and vested rights. Since it shares in current production in virtue not of present exertion but of title from the past, it cannot afford to allow the past to be discredited. Its attitude toward effete institutions is expressed in the maxim, "Let sleeping dogs lie." Since most reforms are detrimental to property in one form or another, the propertied become excessively timorous and develop an instinctive horror of all radical ideas. They grant you there are rotten spots in the buildings reared by our ancestors, but, they insist, once you begin to tamper and alter, you release new strains and some day you will bring the whole structure tumbling upon your head. The domination of the farmers or the propertied therefore makes society like a stiff-jointed rheumatic, while the shifting of power from these classes in the direction of the intellectuals, the business men, or the proletariat, is apt to make society more supple and adaptable. PREVENTIVES OF OSSIFICATION What can be done to save society from a burdensome accumulation of effete customs and institutions? For one thing retire the old earlier and commit the helm to younger men. How foolish it is to suppose that only the graybeards can preserve society whereas the young would run it on to the rocks! A group of 55 persons averaging less than thirty years of age abolished the shogunate in Japan in 1867 and turned the face of Nippon toward the rising sun. We should be better off, no doubt, were the majority of those in society's key positions below the age of fifty rather than above it. Men persist in futility and cling to forms void of meaning because they lack imagination and the power of constructive thought. To take things as he finds them and to do things as they always have been done is the recourse of the numbskull in office. Mediocrity loves to follow the groove. Therefore see to it that all important posts in society are manned by the talented. Perhaps the perfecting of mental measurements will enable us to penetrate the camouflage by which the dunderheads conceal their stupidity and creep into high places. The hardening of the social arteries will be arrested when a high rating in ability tests becomes requisite to success in any line - even in politics. Leave the Hand Preserve to the individual the freedom of initiative. In a cus- Individual tom-bound time a single daring innovator may start something a Free which will hearten others to break their bondage to the past. One weakness of communal landholding as we see it in Russia is that farming becomes traditional, because the clever peasant is not free to till his strips according to his own ideas. Communal customs and ethics therefore hold men back, while the adoption of the principle that the individual can do what he likes with his own, can make mistakes ad libitum provided that he does not infringe the rights of others or hurt the community, encourages initiative and makes for social progress. Keep social institutions out of the grasp of religion. As revealing the will of a perfect and therefore changeless Being religion is the most conservative of influences. Only in that rare manifestation known as prophetism does it renounce its past. The more that institutions are delivered to the rigid clasp of religion the harder it is to adapt them to changing conditions. Let Religion Govern Individ als but Not In stitutions CHAP. Religious Dogma the Adaptive Process One cause of the immobility that has fallen upon the Mohammedan world is that its law is derived from the Koran. Judaism, too, owing to the sacred character of the Mosaic law, allows no free development of rules to govern human relationships. Fortunately there has never been a "Christian" law. Only small communities have ever relied exclusively on Biblical principles. Hence, the Christan peoples have had the advantage of two great plaste secular systems of jurisprudence — Roman Law and the Common Law. Basing right and wrong on human nature and the nature of Obstructs society keeps moral ideas plastic. Instead of being fixed for all time by the texts of an ancient book, ethical discriminations develop with changing conditions of social life and keep step with the progress of psychology and sociology. Rigid ecclesiastical dogmas as to interest, alms-giving, marriage and propagation simply cannot survive the light of social science. Again, the dissociation of the state from religion gives it a freedom of development unknown to the theocratic state. The latter has certain merits, but adaptability is not one of them. Let There Be a Bal ance between Groups of Intellectuals Cherish the Scientific Interest Not that religion should not give a rule of life to the individual and should not affect society by influencing its members. But its authority should end with the individual conscience. It should not preside over nor determine laws and institutions. Keep a balance between clergy and lawyers and between these and students of ethics and sociology so that religion may not be come formal and dry. The Moslem world is held back by fanatical Mollahs because there is no other group with which they are forced to compete for leadership. If lawyers, scholars and journalists encroached upon the clergy of Islam as they have encroached upon the clergy of Christendom, the Mollahs would be obliged to raise their standards of education. Apply critical scholarship to the history of institutions. This discloses whether or not a particular institution was founded on error and whether the circumstances under which it arose or the situation to which it was adapted have changed. What the utter lack of scientific interest implies may be gathered from the following extract from a letter from an Oriental official to a Western inquirer printed by Sir Austin Henry Layard in his "Fresh Discoveries at Nineveh and Researches at Babylon": "My illustrious Friend and Joy of my Liver: "The thing which you ask of me is both difficult and useless. Although I have passed all my days in this place I have neither counted the houses nor inquired into the number of inhabitants; and as to what one person loads on his mules and another stores away in the bottom of his ship, that is no business of mine. But above all, as to the previous history of this city, God only knows the amount of dirt and confusion that the infidels may have eaten before the coming of the sword of Islam. It were unprofitable for us to inquire into it. . . . Listen, O my son! There is no wisdom equal to the belief in God! He created the world and shall we liken ourselves to him in seeking to penetrate into the mysteries of his creation? Shall we say, Behold this star spinneth round that star, and this other star with a tail goeth and cometh in so many years? Let it go! He from whose hand it came will guide and direct it. . . . Thou art learned in the things I care not for, and as for that which thou hast seen, I spit upon it. Will much knowledge create thee a double belly, or wilt thou seek paradise with thine eyes . . .? "Thy meek in spirit, "IMAUM ALI ZADI." CHAP. XLII Freedom The restless intellect is the natural enemy of the effete as sun- Preserve light is the natural enemy of certain fungi. Therefore preserve of Inquiry inviolate the right of free inquiry. No institution may rightfully claim immunity from scrutiny and test. Nothing should be held. so" sacred" that it may not be criticized by a competent person at the proper time and in a seemly manner. The right of state officials to probe and criticize endowed agencies for religion, charity, education, or research should not, however, carry with it the right to control. This would lessen in such agencies their salutary power of initiative and ability to stand for unpopular truth. Let the search light play freely over them and the public will see that their faults are corrected. Altho many keen minds enter the professions we do not find the older professions imbued with the progressive spirit. It is not lawyers who call attention to the dead wood that cumbers the law but outsiders. The protests against the traditionalism of creeds. and church methods come not so much from clergymen as from intelligent laymen. The trouble lies with the training which students of law and theology undergo. They study books instead of life. Against the dictum of an eminent teacher of law, "The Let the Learner Study Life As Well As Books |