THE THREAD OF LIFE

THE
THREAD OF LIFE

BY
H.R.H. THE INFANTA
EULALIA OF SPAIN
WITH A REMBRANDT PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE,
FOUR FULL-PAGE PLATES, AND A NOTE ON THE
AUTHOR AND HER BOOK
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD.
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
1912
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PREFACE

Some preface, however short, is needed to this book, the mirror of some of my ideas, and, first of all, I wish to put my readers on their guard against a false interpretation of the motives by which I have been actuated.

In publishing these opinions of mine, it has not been my wish to accomplish a literary work. I have not aimed at any display of learning, and I make no pretence of forcing on anyone my different points of view.

As a spectator in close enough contact with present social problems to understand all the points under discussion, yet at the same time sufficiently removed from them to analyse them coolly and judge them without prejudice, I bring forward my evidence unshackled by conventions. It has seemed to me that such fair, exact evidence might interest those who seek to glean, amongst all classes of society, the thousand dissimilar and contradictory elements whence proceed the lessons needed both for the present and the future.

Those who care to glance through the short chapters of this book will soon see that they have been written with the sincere conviction with which I always express my ideas and opinions, or perform any work independently undertaken.

I only ask my readers to excuse any faults of style, which I have tried to make up for by straightforwardness of tone.

EULALIA
Infanta of Spain

CONTENTS

THE THREAD OF LIFE

General Causes of Happiness

The most imperative motive of all human actions is the desire to be happy. But it is difficult to attain happiness if the search for it is made the constant aim of one’s life, although the primordial craving for it is an instinct in our nature.

The art of living is one in which we are but ill instructed by philosophers, scientists and metaphysicians; the first, because they leave the meaning of life as it is to show us some end in view; the second, because they are but rationalist theorists; and the last, because they claim to be able to lift the veil from the Beyond. The truth is that life is worth living, and that in order to live happily one must know how to draw from life a relative amount of happiness.

Simply by realising the charm of the pleasures—small though they be—which every instant of the day offers us, one may create for oneself a source of happiness, for this realisation gives what is usually called the joie de vivre (the joy of living), the principle in all happy nature.

Unfortunately, in the majority of cases, man does not see clearly the road leading to happiness because he is seeking it in the immediate and complete satisfaction of his desires, in material or intellectual delights whose worth he exaggerates; in superfluity, in possession, in all that he takes for happiness, but which is in reality mere enjoyment allied to fears, dangers, and regrets.

It is necessary, first of all, to simplify the causes of happiness. To illustrate my doctrine, I ask everyone to imagine the idyll in its true form, that is to say, as being the perfect presentment of the sentiment of love. Simplicity, whether in personal tastes, in the affections, or in daily actions, is the great secret of happiness.

With our nature, however justifiable it may be to acquaint ourselves with partial and transitory satisfactions, we cannot build up happiness on so fragile a foundation. Fortune is unstable; notoriety, whatever its cause, fades with time; glory is a vain word; health declines, and all is ruin and sorrow everywhere, save where complete satisfaction has been built up by continually aspiring towards the True, the Beautiful, and the Good.

Again, that aspiring must be the result of cultivating, in all simplicity, our mental “I.” Happiness lies in the depths of ourselves; it is by the right development of our personality that we may bring it into manifestation, make of it the enfolding comfort of our days.

Is it not true, that in love, if you live in the spirit, you possess more happiness than if you live in the senses? It is the same with material existence; simplified, reduced to the normal exercise of our faculties, it brings us a greater share of happiness than does excess. All the vices of our nature furnish but a momentary satisfaction, and that not unmixed with bitterness.

But how shall we attain to the development of our mental personality? First of all by the training of our Self, then by the selection of affinities. In this way each one, conscious of his own true desires, may bring around him those whose tastes and feelings are in harmony with his own. So may he avoid the painful and regrettable shocks and collisions which lead fatally to strife, from which combative and provocative natures cannot emerge without wounds, weariness, or disgust.

If you are obliged to live in a country different from your own, or amid surroundings where the mental atmosphere does not harmonise with yours, face the situation coolly; learn to be by turns the wise teacher and the willing disciple: in this way you will become understood, appreciated, and you will preserve intact your inner happiness.

You must learn to pass through moral and intellectual atmospheres as you pass through those of the physical world. Just as you put on the costume suitable to the season, so must your spirit assume the costume adapted to its surroundings. Many people fear life, they are in despair over the least ill-success; they tack about, dreading to enter the haven, and their mistakes vex and disconcert them. Remember that there is no circumstance which should cast you down or prevent your enjoying life, because, I repeat, happiness is inward content, a supporting spirit which one may attain in spite of the worst vicissitudes or unavoidable catastrophes. Since inward happiness proceeds from a habit of character produced by the training of oneself, the cultivation of simplicity, and adapting oneself to the uncongenial, it is necessary to submit to these things if one would steer his barque skilfully and taste all that constitutes the supreme enjoyment of life.

He who has followed these precepts will be able, when his days begin to decline, to look back calmly on the past. As he has drawn from every circumstance in his life the greatest possible good, as he will possess the certainty of having injured no one, he will see with infinite tranquillity the gates of Death opening before him; more especially if he has also cultivated a love of Nature, for the pleasure it gives by its restfulness and its eternal loveliness.

THE EDUCATION OF THE WILL

The will is the faculty of freely determining to do certain actions. But in order that the will may always be the result of ideas noble in aim, it is necessary to give it some training, through the investigation of conflicting causes and motives.

As Ribot says: “The I will declares a situation, but does not constitute one.” To constitute a situation requires the formation of character, which is nothing more than will power. And this may be obtained by a progressive training, the secret cultivation of one’s personality.

The human being should impress upon all his actions a unity of aim, and show forth his character in what he does.

The education of the will, then, is indispensable in life, if only for the avoidance of useless effort and to give us clearness of moral sight. This training brings us to the mastery of ourselves, to steady persistence in action, and uniformity of conduct. Thus considered, the will assumes paramount importance in the life of the individual, and forms one of the most powerful forces in the world—free and willing action under the control of sound judgment.

If you educate your will, desiring that which is good, beautiful and just, you will never undertake mental work at a time when inauspicious circumstances make it liable to failure; nothing which you undertake will remain unachieved; you will follow no aim whose fulfilment does not seem to you certain.

The immortal Guyau says: “He whose action is not in accordance with his thought, thinks incompletely.” Now, in order to think completely, an idea must be solidly based upon knowledge. And knowledge is the result of the education of the will.

Let us make no mistake, such training gives us force which is invaluable. A man, having considered the action he is about to perform, perceived what will be its results, grasped its utility, and shaped it to the end in view, may safely obey his will, provided his moral sense is satisfied. He thus assumes, in full understanding, the responsibility of his actions.

The effect of this idea of responsibility is that the individual will becomes answerable to itself only. From the moment the education of the will is completed, personal determination is almost instantaneous. The result is the avoidance of loss of time—we no longer exhaust ourselves in hesitation, questionings, indecision. Besides, as we are able to bring into play, through mental use, the forces which are ours, the sense of freedom grows stronger, and with it the sense of possessing the power to attain the end in view.

The education of the will is of such utility that, without it, the intellect is powerless to influence action. That is the reason why, in these days, so many intellectual people are the victims of hesitation and doubt, incapable of reasoned and logical action.

A trained will brings great stability into a man’s life, first because it enables him to do everything at the right time, then because it prevents conflicting feelings, by strengthening the reasoning powers; and, through systematised thought, saves him from those emotional storms which are as injurious to health as to free play of the will.

Let us no longer forget that all truly profitable actions and strong characters are the work of the will.

Timidity, to specify amongst qualities detrimental to the intellect, only comes from a lack of will-training, being a form of over-emotionalism without control. He who is ignorant of the laws which govern feeling, will be unable to act according to the dictates of reason.

I must make it clear that, in speaking of the education of the will, I do not mean moral restraint. The individual should feel himself at liberty, bound only by an ideal of goodness which repudiates all thought of authority; neither claiming nor suffering it.

This ideal, inseparable from our conception of what is useful both to ourselves and others, always takes form through the education of our will; giving consistency to the expression of feeling, and justifying us in our actions.

To envelop oneself in an idea, so that nothing has power to distract—to withdraw, concentrate upon it, burn for its realisation, obey its laws—such are the principal features of will-training, by means of which our actions and feelings, far from losing in strength, acquire greater force.

Violence and precipitation are foes to all wisely planned action. What one loses in intensity by calm reflection, one gains in quality as the result of this law.

If you train your will wisely, you will double the worth of existence; you will leave undone what is useless, you will realise to the full the purpose of your soul.

And, as all your actions will be performed with the approval of your own spirit, you will know the joy of well-doing.

HONESTY

Honesty, the quality corresponding to honour, may be said to be relative, according to the customs of different countries. For mankind generally, honesty consists in not exceeding the limits of licensed dishonesty. Thus in commerce, which is, at bottom, a cheating game, integrity is not, as Dr. Dubois says, the same everywhere. “There are communities, little cultivated in other respects, where it is observed scrupulously; there are others in which, in spite of scientific, artistic and literary development, this moral perception seems to be atrophied. A people whose business honesty is proverbial may have a very elastic conscience in regard to morality between the sexes.”

In the professions, or in social positions which place the individual above the mass of people, a man’s honesty consists in adapting his conscience to the circumstances of the moment.

In questions of commercial or industrial enterprise, intellectual ventures, public or private morals, general or particular interests, masculine honesty is an adjustable matter which springs from the desire for free action, without infringing upon the law.

Woman’s honesty is quite a different matter. It consists simply in safeguarding the “honour of the home,” in keeping away all “intruders” upon the sacred ground of marriage, and in averting any fracas tending to diminish the authority of the man, the husband, the owner, and free the feminine soul from its ancestral slavery.

This is why men and women cannot be in perfect accord, so long as honesty, taken in the widest sense, is not the same for both. Based upon respect for what is fair, just and good, honesty has essentially no sex. Whether strict or comparative, it does not imply a different moral law for individuals of different natures.

This primordial question has always been treated too lightly, though it has been the source of continual misunderstanding, especially in matrimonial questions.

How many examples one could give of want of scruple violating the idea of honesty and responsibility!

How many sins, grave in themselves, are committed by men in power, knowing themselves safe from the arm of the law; how many actions, unpunishable, yet which are an outrage upon the liberty of others, a breach of respect for human nature, and an injury to society!

How many men sacrifice, for the sake of ambition, their country’s vital interests, and incur no censure save that of powerless public opinion!

The orator who, in a moment of national excitement, throws his visionary dreams and interested lies broadcast into the press; the leader who, in full consciousness of his abominable work, deceives the people; the perjured politician who denies his convictions to attain promotion, should all have their honour called in question. To such as these, as to others, woman owes respect and obedience, without the option of comparing her own honour, based on imperative duty, with that of these empty talkers and tub-orators.

It is true that, on the other hand, a woman may, without censure, give out that her dearest friend’s husband is making love to her—that she may thus, by a word, destroy a home’s peace—without any pangs of conscience, and without the man attacked being able to call her to account.

In the relations between men and women some solution should be found by which both may be placed on equal ground as regards morality and responsibility. In this way loss of esteem between them would be avoided, and the value of each enhanced.

But, to obtain such a result, tolerance and the principle of harmony must first be taught; men must become less selfish, and women learn that their life is not only a work of love but a work of reason. Social rights must be equalised in the light of conscience and moral responsibility. In fact, thorough sincerity must bring about loyalty both in business and private affairs, creating a moral atmosphere in which forgery, fraud, plagiarism, the lie that corrupts the soul of a people, all the monstrous growths of our modern society, can no longer exist. Then honesty, from being comparative, will become supreme, incumbent equally upon man and woman, bound no longer only by social, but by moral ties.

FRIENDSHIP

Friendship, taken in its strict sense, that is to say as affection exempt from the attraction of the senses, plays an immense part in the lives of men and women.

Friendship, as between men, is based on moral equality. The tie uniting two minds and two hearts creates the same rights and the same duties for each of the friends, no matter how different their degree of fortune and rank in the world. Where friendship is, there is reciprocity. This is what made La Boétie, Montaigne’s great friend, say: “Friendship is a sacred name, it is a holy thing.... There can be no friendship where there is cruelty, disloyalty, or injustice.... The wicked are not friends, but accomplices.”

I must quote here an admirable passage from Emerson, whose judgment is sound concerning what is high, great and forceful in the dual character of Friendship: “The sufficient reply to the sceptic, who doubts the power of the furniture of man, is in that possibility of joyful intercourse with persons, which makes the faith and practice of all reasonable men. I know of nothing life has to offer so satisfying as the profound good understanding which can subsist, after much exchange of good offices, between two virtuous men, each of whom is sure of himself, sure of his friend. It is a happiness which postpones all other gratifications, and makes politics, and commerce, and churches, cheap. For, when men shall meet as they ought, each a benefactor, a shower of stars, clothed with thoughts, with deeds, with accomplishments, it should be a festival of Nature which all things announce. Of such friendship, love in the sexes is the first symbol, as all other things are symbols of love. These relations to the best men—which, at one time, we reckoned the romances of youth—become, in the progress of character, the most solid enjoyment.”

Friendship between women is somewhat different from that between men, just because it excludes the feeling of equality. It is very rare, in spite of the best education, that a woman will forget her rank and fortune with a friend who becomes her protégée. It is no less rare when a woman in a humble position does not resent any outward inequality. The result is that friendship between women is not a continual delightful exchange of feeling and opinion, but rests more on interest.

One of the most beautiful forms of friendship, as some think, is that between man and woman. Between persons of the highest education and refined tastes, such friendship not only plays a great part in life, but becomes a necessity, for it increases the intellectual power of both parties. It is very like disinterested love, and is governed by secret influences which give it its value. Certain people have the gift of drawing out our confidences; there are others the very sight of whom makes our heart rejoice. Our spiritual force, our eloquence, often come into play simply through the presence of such a beloved friend.

There is a peculiar feeling of confidence between the sexes; friendship between a man and a woman has something in it graver, deeper than any other. Even in family relationships, what I call “home friendship” depends entirely on this kind of mutual dependence. Cases are rare of sons turning against their mother, or of sisters who fail their brothers.

Friendship is said to be blind; I believe, on the contrary, that it is clear-sighted as to the duties entailed upon it, and needs no vow to make it binding.

If, for a man, a friend of his own sex is a second self, for a woman a man-friend is at once a confidant, a counsellor and a protector. He represents authority with reverence, incalculable devotion; he becomes the symbol of that Good which signifies refuge from suffering, forgiveness when one has erred.

For a man, a woman friend is everything; yet his feeling for her is the purest in the world, the affection which asks nothing in return.

Yet too great intimacy may kill friendship, which—to quote Emerson again—follows the laws of divine necessity; unless the things of daily life have become of common interest between the friends. But even then the friendship should be in some sort kept in a shrine apart lest it fall into the commonplace.

Yes, truly, the human heart desires a friend. It seeks him everywhere, even from childhood, and when it has found him, it is proud of him as of a victory through which it has won happiness, strength, the incentive to become better. We carry our friend’s eyes in our own; in his absence, they mirror his care for us. His coming strikes a note of triumph in our brain, his presence lightens every moment and makes our happiness. Montaigne did violence to a beautiful gift of the spirit in denying the existence of friendship between men and women; and Nietzsche declares too lightly, and without taking into account the moral worth of the individual, that for the maintenance of friendship between a man and woman a little physical aversion is necessary.

Certainly, Don Juan and Ninon de Lenclos could not have been friends; but it is equally certain that a beautiful woman may win the purest friendship of a charming man, for friendship between man and woman springs from a train of circumstances which lead them into soul fellowship, the sharing of similar tastes, and an affection entirely of the spirit. The constant interchange of high thought, the brotherly and sisterly tone of the relationship, safeguard the friends against becoming lovers.

The nature of each contributes greatly, in these heart unions, to the friendship’s being compatible with prudence and consideration for the feelings of others. It is obvious that a friendship begun between two people of unbalanced mind is almost always fatal, but two dissimilar natures, if morally equal, steady one another by a friendship which becomes for them a safety-valve.

For instance, a man with a calm temperament, but not a cold heart, will be the best of friends for an impulsive woman, and render her the greatest services that life can give.

Let us look at this loving friendship, so much discussed, so often described and cried down.

I said that friendship between man and woman was a form of disinterested love; it is a love based on mental sympathy, on respect for moral qualities, on admiration for certain actions or certain thoughts expressive of a character. In this kind of friendship, affection, which springs from the heart, governs love, which springs from the senses.

This form of friendship is not to be despised, dangerous though it may seem in the eyes of severe moralists or of hypocrites. Take such a case. If either of the friends needs advice on some matter he or she has deeply at heart, such advice will not be well considered, unbiased, and to the point, unless free from all jealousy—coming from the heart and not from the nerves.

Then, and then only, can this friendship be a precious resource, a deep, protective affection claiming not possession as its reward.

DIVORCE

Marriage, considered by society as a necessary mode of union, is a contract governed by law.

In the eyes of Roman Catholics, marriage being a sacrament, which renders it indissoluble, divorce does not exist. According to this principle we must accept as a sacrament an earthly tie which touches more nearly on material than on spiritual questions. But it seems strange that the Church of Rome should teach men, by the voice of her servants, that human perfection consists in the acceptance of all the sacraments, and then forbid marriage—which would be, from a practical point of view, the most useful to them—to her representatives. In so doing, the Church creates an illogical exception to her imperious rule.

“From the psychological point of view,” says Dr. Toulouse, “marriage is the union, first through passion, then through sympathy, of two beings; from the social point of view, it represents a mutual effort towards reproduction.

“The union of feeling between two beings has not been too highly exalted by the poets. It manifests in the highest degree that selection which purifies the instinct of sex.

“This selection is in itself a proof of the free will which works—with restraining effect—on the tyranny of passion. Again, the woman, in giving herself to one only, demonstrates in the most striking manner that she belongs to, and can dispose of, herself.

“Sex freedom, then, which is a condition of evolution, is manifested most clearly in a marriage entered upon willingly by both parties. But the corollary to this is, that divorce should also be possible simply at the wish of both.”

Let us study divorce from the point of view of its utility. Divorce offers an advantage in preventing marriage from being regarded as an endless chain, a crushing yoke, or a prison deliberately chosen as a livelihood. It means, in fact, that people need not be tightly bound together who cannot bear so to live; it would put an end to what is sometimes extreme mental suffering, abolish dangers which sometimes lead to murder; in a word, it means escape from “the sentimental and emotional results of the indissolubility of marriage.”

The termination of miserable “marriages of convenience” would ensure for many a new life, the production of healthier children under normal conditions; from the social point of view, it would increase the value of the man and the woman.

How many live together for long years who are strangers to each other in body and soul! How many slaves of marriage there are, whose union is unnatural, childless, and made hideous by mutual hatred!

Why should one see, in the name of a religious principle, these infernos—whose tortures are as varied as they are crushing—perpetuated? Why should not reason, individual rights, be allowed to correct ill-chance, false calculations, and disappointed hopes?

Why should a woman, who no longer finds in her husband the moral support she needs, submit to the horrors of a long agony without defence, of perpetual strife in which she is miserably vanquished; on the other hand, why should the man who does not find in his wife the companion—or even the slave—he desired, see the way to happiness closed to him for ever?

Marriage is based on a contract. Every contract can be rectified, modified, or broken. In a compact, there must be mutual agreement; from the moment when the agreement ceases to be respected by either of the parties, it is naturally dissolved.

Before the establishment of divorce the husband and wife who lived on bad terms had to endure suffering worse than death, for nothing, I repeat, is to be compared with the torment of being tied, body and soul, in hatred, contempt, or even merely in indifference.

In former days, the independent-minded, those who feared not public opinion, or thought little of social conventions, went each their way, to live in a different dwelling—as happens still in certain countries (in Spain, for instance, where divorce does not exist; where legal separation is not even recognised); but though they might live apart, the marriage contract held none the less, and the question of fortune remained a grave problem for solution. It is the same to-day when, through worldly expediency, or weakness, an ill-assorted couple share a miserable life or seek solace in separation. The woman, married under the Napoleonic Code, cannot dispose of her dowry, and the man, on his side, cannot sell without his wife’s signature. The société d’acquêts (common property of married people) is a constant menace in a situation of this kind; one comes to think that it is of no use for a couple to economise for the sake of their heirs, for, when one of the two parties dies, the common property goes to the other. Another case, also serious, may occur. If either husband or wife incurs debts, these, under the law, become common to both, and it comes about that the one who has not run into debt finds him or herself compelled to meet the liabilities of the other!

What manifold complications, what openings for dissension, what accumulated vexations! Widowhood, widowerhood, seems the only deliverance from a desperate situation.

But there is something worse still. In a household completely at variance, weary with strife, the children have to look on at scenes which wound their belief in the love between husband and wife. In such a case they suffer through the absence of divorce, both from the moral standpoint and because they are deprived of property which should fall to them, since through the société d’acquêts—that stern claimant—the children’s capital cannot be increased.

If we pass from this array of facts to another, which concerns this unnatural life of two people, the evil is no less great.

From the time when life together has become impossible, the husband more or less openly substitutes illicit union for marriage, and most frequently takes to live with him the woman he has chosen as his new companion. Because the marriage contract remains unbroken, this is an insult to the wife, for his house is still her home by law.

Although in a case of separation, the wife almost always acts with greater circumspection and caution, she will find it difficult to prevent the echo of any attention she may accept from reaching the ears of her husband, or his knowledge that she gives willingly to another what she has yielded with such aversion to himself.

Divorce prevents this gratuitous insult to marriage. The advantages it offers exceed by far the disadvantages cited by the defenders of an institution which to-day has grown weak because it has remained unchanged in the midst of social evolution.

The enemies of divorce assert that it is the destroyer of the family. That is not so, for there are no more families to destroy. Frankly, honestly, where is the family of old, since the law of the majority has freed the child, since compulsory education has lessened the moral authority of parents, without perceptibly improving the mass of the people; since in the vast field of higher education boys and girls, through school life, become strangers to the authors of their being and are mainly indebted to the State for their training?

If hypocrisy were not at the bottom of the whole matter, it would be quickly seen that nothing remains of the family as a sacred institution.

Authority on the one side, submission on the other, are the exception; the sacrifices, too, which parents made in the past, to the point of forgetting their own well-being, have to-day no longer any reason for existing.

Yes, divorce is useful, necessary, moral. But it may, it should, become more so, and undergo modification. Divorce by mutual consent must become the remedy for evils which dishonour the human soul; victims of unhappy marriages should be able to dissolve their union without the most intimate details of two lives—poisoned by misunderstanding, incompatibility of temper, excess, cruelty, and insult—being made a prey to public curiosity, the malice of barristers, and the opinions of judges. Those liberated from their matrimonial prison, and ripened by experience, must be allowed to marry the beloved one who has loved, consoled, and helped them through the battle of their days.

Nine times out of ten, these new marriages would be happy, because the husband and wife would have had time to appreciate each other’s qualities, because they would have obeyed the law of love, escaped convention and not been guided, generally speaking, by interest, that chief and pernicious element in conflict between the sexes.

Divorce, as at present established, does not afford enough solutions for the melancholy problems resulting from marriage. It is inadmissible, inhuman, even immoral, that one who has suffered patiently twenty years “for the children’s sake” should be condemned, because he or she has left the torture-chamber, to pass the remainder of life without the right to create a new home and consecrate by marriage the affection and devotion which have healed the old wounds, given back joy in living, and created for him or her obligations at once moral and social.

The day when divorce shall become a law of justice, and no longer—as it sometimes is now—a tacit agreement covering wrongdoing; the day when divorce shall exist by the will of him or her who gives valid reasons for it, and also by mutual consent; the day, finally, when lover and beloved, under normal conditions, may marry, then true and rightful solutions will have been brought to impossible situations, and a noble work done for the individual and society at large.

THE FAMILY

The conditions of the modern family, in the northern countries particularly, have in reality become almost artificial; and it seems probable that, in the near future, the family will be completely disintegrated.

In France, especially amongst the bourgeoisie, the family appears to me likely to remain for a long time what it has been heretofore, because it constitutes an association the members of which, closely grouped, protect their common interests, whether commercial or industrial.

This family, representing a society in the possession of property, will exist as long as its members, in virtue of their fellowship, preserve intact their old social conditions, each of them continuing to have an interest in the success of their common enterprise.

In Spain, where the Moorish government has left so many traces of its primitive organisation, the family still continues in a state of slavery, a state wherein the woman glories.

But the question here is not of these two particular cases, where the maintaining of the family group serves the interests of the man, the head, the master; for the family differs according to different centres, countries, customs, and castes.

To come to more general statements, we must first go back to the fountain-head, and consider the family in its evolution through the course of civilisation.

The family, as it first appears in the history of humanity, was a patriarchal association formed of the father, mother and children. There was no binding marriage, but repeated unions. The conditions were such that the women were for all men indiscriminately, and the children knew no father in particular. This state of things in many cases continued so long that the Christian Church was obliged, at its birth, to wink at this communism. Herodotus tells us that the children of the Lycians bore the name of their mother; Varro assures us that it was the same in Athens, and that the woman, being the producer of wealth, was the only one to inherit.

When polygamy began, the woman was reduced to a state of seclusion and often of slavery. Her part consisted principally in bringing children into the world, and her care of them was more through instinct than love.

As for the man, he sought nothing, as regarded the woman, but his own gratification, and concerned himself not at all about fatherhood.

Later on, through the growth of civilisation, monogamy decided the limits of the family and formed class groups; but gradually, these groups becoming mixed and losing their old characteristic of brotherhood, the conditions of the family became much modified.

The causes of this slow process of breaking up accumulated, according to the particular centre and to social degrees. In one place primogenitureship began to take to itself privileges; in another the paternal power lessened the mother’s authority over her daughters; everywhere there was a tendency towards emancipation, and, finally, in our own day, at the two poles of society, family conditions have become almost artificial.

The home peace is troubled, and even where there is no rupture between the husband and wife, there is mental friction between parents and children, between brothers and sisters, through the clash of opinion, mutual intolerance, and the collision of personal interests; it is rarely that harmony prevails in the household.

It must be said that the reasons for marriage are not the same as they were in the old days, when the bond was indissoluble, based on the instinct of ownership, on the government of a community. Besides, the marriage for love, the only one worthy of respect, has destroyed the original idea of the association, and, unable to guarantee its own continuance, calls for an adjustment of responsibilities by means of the law, so that the man shall no longer be the brutal master, and the woman—though she be more moral, more virtuous, and more temperate than he—humiliated and degraded. It has been said that it is enough for a woman to be beautiful and to be a mother. That is altogether absurd nonsense. The woman has a right to the complete development of her faculties, a right to bring into play all the resources of her being. Noble women have proved that, quite apart from maternity, they are fit to walk in the immortal footsteps of heroes, artists and thinkers, and every day we see women

becoming, in talent, energy, and patient determination, rivals of scientists, poets, and all who devote themselves to enterprise in the world of mind.

But, it may be said, such claims are contrary to the idea of the family. Not at all. The family, essentially modified, each member subject to the determinism of thought and ensuring the observance of mutual rights and duties, will only become a more beautiful institution than before, its children born of sincere love and no longer the product of undesirable or questionable unions based upon the interests of the strongest.

THE COMPLETE INDEPENDENCE OF WOMAN

To this question squarely put: “Why does a man arrogate to himself the right to live as he chooses, and why should a woman submit to a prohibitive moral code?”—men answer that in marriage the virtue of the wife and the legitimacy of her children are absolutely and supremely essential.

This touches one point merely, and only applies to married women. In all that concerns “free” women, by what right are they condemned to abstain from making full use of their independence, as most men do? “Woman’s life, like man’s,” says Miramont, “is a harmonious evolution, by which every phase is developed, and which thus brings into play a succession of forms and aspects of existence. Daughter, mother and grandmother; dreamer, fighter, thinker—woman, like man, passes through many transformations in the course of life, and is always progressive.”

By the same fact of social evolution, thanks to her participation in the battle of life, and also to a rational education, it has long been proved that woman is not an inferior creature, of no use save for the propagation of the species.

We are far removed, happily, from the theories of Schopenhauer, who declared that woman was afflicted with intellectual shortness of sight, that she was childish, futile and narrow, inferior to man in everything concerning rectitude and scrupulous honesty; that she was lacking in sense and reflection, incapable of taking any unbiased view, etc. etc.

If woman’s characteristic feature be that nature has destined her for motherhood, it is none the less true that, just as she has a fine skin and quick sensibilities, her intellect is prompt to seize details, and that she possesses a brain as well furnished as that of man.

Her apparent inferiority comes from the fact that woman is oppressed by the law and ill-treated by the moralist, whence result her native timidity and diffidence. The truth is that man, desiring to keep the supremacy attributed to him, does not care to see in woman the qualities of courage and independence. He will not admit the immanent struggle between two beings inspired by the same needs and the same desires. Men would like women to remain tied down to household cares, while thinking women who have ceased to resign themselves to this wish their sex to profit by all the rights of men.

The partisans of absolute feminism desire that there should be no difference between men and women, in the name of biological equality which incites them to claim social equality.

Without going so far as this, it is certain that women should now enjoy more independence and be authorised, without losing caste in the eyes of moralists, to prove the strength of their personal faculties.

Unfortunately, as a modern thinker has observed: “Kept apart from magnificent realities ... maintained continually in a state of moral independence worse than physical slavery, only quitting the maternal yoke to fall under that of a husband, trained entirely with a view to marriage, which is to transform at a stroke the child into the wife, the wife into the mother, educated according to the prejudices of their set at the sacrifice of expansion of their own personality, women do not develop normally, except by finding a kindred soul, according to the ideal formed in their dim consciousness. And as social conventions do not permit them to seek this ideal, which is falsified and made vague, too, by novel-reading, enlightenment usually comes to them too late to destroy the effect of a narrow existence accepted through timidity, ignorance, or chagrin, and moulded by the dictates of society; so they live, for the most part, either like children broken in to their destiny, or like rebels in search of visionary compensations: in any case misunderstood.”

I have nothing better to add. For centuries, man has denied to woman her finest qualities, which are fearlessness and presence of mind, and the majority of women have come to be convinced themselves that these qualities are unwomanly and to be reckoned faults.

Now, if tenderness be woman’s most beautiful attribute, it should be recognised that true tenderness is especially found amongst those women who are courageous, strong and endowed with shrewd sense. The acceptance of servitude does not admit of real tenderness, such as influences, for instance, the conception and carrying out of works of art, as incites to noble action, and produces wonderful results in every degree of the social scale.

For years, in many countries, the attention of thinkers has been fixed upon the liberation of woman. Many mistakes have been made. Against one John Stuart Mill a crowd of philosophers like Nietzsche have arisen, but the idea is gaining ground in scientific centres, and, with the help of rational Socialism, the work of woman’s emancipation is being steadily pursued.

Reverting to old times, we find that in many primitive races, the males were chosen by the females for their valour, physical strength, or natural beauty. This selection having led to the progressive development of the male in the majority of races, resulted in an ideal female type also.

But when the woman became the “property” of the man, the slave destined to work for the male, the development of the race stopped short; the salutary effect of the woman’s free choice having ceased.

In a new state of society, when woman, duly trained for her part, shall recover her complete freedom, we shall see the triumph of affinities, and the power of a feminine ideal will ensure for the future a new and vigorous race.

THE WAR AGAINST FEMINISM

It is incomprehensible that so many intellectual, sensible men, claiming to be logical, should be hostile to modern feminism. I say “modern” to mark the actual state of conflict, for eternal feminism is contemporaneous with the eternal feminine, as Lucien Muhlfeld says. Following Schopenhauer and Strindberg, who strove to demonstrate the inferiority of woman, our detractors, in making war upon feminism, show themselves to be very inconsistent. As woman, is, in their eyes, an inferior being, they are either fighting what they have no reason to fear, which shows lack of courage on their part; or, by admitting that under present conditions woman plays an important part in everyday life, they recognise in her a certain value, which shows a lack of sincerity.

On the day woman first recognised the fact that she could earn her living by taking up the employments hitherto reserved for men, she made good her claim to a share of instruction and training by means of which to put an end to her mental inequality.

Unable to escape from the subordinate position in the family thrust upon her by the Civil Code, she determined to free her mind first, and gain recognition of her rights in the domain of intellect. This seemed inadmissible, even in respect of the principles of science.

Now, in times gone by, women worked as much as, and often more than, men, thus gaining recognition of their physical strength. When man was still a barbarian, hunting and fighting for mere subsistence, woman hunted and fought with him; just as his comrade, she carried the slain beast over her shoulder. Later, she spun flax to clothe her family; she was obliged, in her enslaved condition, to turn to common uses her intellect and devotion, and when, later still, the family was placed on a legal footing, she was obliged to give all her faculties to manual labour.

Long centuries passed. Man had no longer to fight for his daily bread. One invention after another had gradually modified the conditions of his life; he had become educated, had attained to different trades and professions, developed his power and authority, while woman remained the same dependent creature, tied to her duties as wife and mother. A time came when woman, too, learnt trades which she made her own. Man took them from her, possessed himself of her needle, of clothes-making, hairdressing, cookery. This is why, in the eighteenth century, women attempted an inroad into letters and the arts. This is why, helped by the Revolution, they sought to claim common rights. To-day, trained at school and college, women know that they can utilise their faculties more nobly than hitherto. They no longer live in an epoch when, men having absorbed everything, they have to resign themselves to being married, whilst hardly more than children, for a livelihood.

Consider how sad was the lot of the woman when, devoid of the means to free herself honestly from slavery, she was compelled to sell herself, by legal marriage or otherwise.

Whatever certain philosophers and anti-feminists may say, the reason why the personality of the woman weakened in the course of ages, was that her physical force had been exhausted, which entailed mental inferiority.

But through the progress of science, innovations of all kinds, economic and social evolution, daily events; throughout the complexities of a new life, woman began to make her influence felt, became conscious of her powers, strengthened by study, system and experience.

Strindberg, the misogynist, when he declared that “woman is incapable of acquiring complete knowledge in any branch of study whatsoever,” said a foolish thing. In proof of the contrary, in the university, in the art schools, in law, women are said to be, if not superior to men, at least their equal.

It must be remembered that it is less than a century since woman, even in the most advanced countries, was first allowed to receive the same training as man. Taking into consideration how far behind her rival in intellect she then was, the results she has obtained give a flat contradiction to those who opposed her equality, which, originally a law of nature, has, under modern social conditions, become a law of existence.

If it be true that it takes several generations to perfect a race from a physical point of view, it is equally true that several generations are needed for the development of the moral and intellectual qualities. If only through the consciousness of her ego, woman is called to take a more important place in the life of nations.

From the dependent that she once was, woman will become the agent required by her times. If she no longer receives from her comrade, as in old Teutonic days, the cuirass, helmet, and sword, that she may fight by his side, she will none the less endeavour to equal him in the field of intellect.

The start which man has gained and still keeps in the realms of Science and Art does not justify him in boasting over the inferiority of woman.

To sum up, woman claims no more than her right to-day when she demands knowledge of all the occupations in which man is employed and reserves for himself; when she desires to exercise her judgment and prove both her skill and taste.

“Whereas in men,” says Louis Dimier, “taste, which is a power of the mind, precedes and commands skill, which is organic aptitude; in women, on the other hand, it seems to be skill which determines and commands taste. One might say literally that with a woman the feeling for the beautiful is in her fingers. All women, too, some more and some less, but without exception, make use of their powers of action; but a man cannot rely all his life on the possession of his capacity for judgment.”

Yes, woman is, fundamentally, man’s equal. Belittled as she has been till recently by conditions which made her a nonentity, she is now, thanks to the spread of education, the mingling of classes, and social changes, becoming a respected worker and a valued being. Born into a new life, she will no longer be the jealous rival of man, but his useful fellow-worker, as she has always been his generous comrade, sharing his joys and sorrows.

THE EQUALISING OF CLASSES BY EDUCATION

The education which is the progressive adaptation of humanity to the conditions of social life has been, in a general way, so greatly developed by our modern civilisation, that it has, if not created the complete equalisation of the classes, at least brought the aristocracy, the middle classes, and the people together in a common effort towards individual action.

It cannot be denied that a very curious phenomenon exists in the equalisation so far effected, the causes of which are manifold, and amongst which the most noticeable and obvious are the partition of large fortunes, the importance assumed by Labour Syndicalism, and the competition established in all trades and professions.

Scarcely anything remains now of the ancient conditions of nations; the abolition of slavery has transformed the idea of servitude; compulsory education has raised the level of the lower classes, and by this means the first stone of the Socialistic edifice has been laid. But humanity, in attaining to a higher degree of self-consciousness, to a new ideal, has developed a spirit on new lines, and created for itself needs with which the old instincts have nothing to do. Capitalists, manufacturers, merchants, labour leaders, workpeople of all kinds, find themselves arrayed against one another in a new perception of their rights (if not always of their duties), and all, in the light of newly discovered needs, are jostling one another in life in this all-pervading struggle.

The mass of the people, whose one instinct in former times was the bare preservation of life, is on the way to emancipation; the pressure from beneath is mounting like a wave, leaping upward to the social strata where hitherto the monopoly of lucre and jobbery has been jealously held; the workmen’s associations, in their war against capital, want themselves to capitalise; members of the working class, with growing improvement in education, are entering the professional field; the middle classes are struggling for the attainment of public offices, and, by an inevitable reaction, the aristocracy, mulcted of some of its ancestral rights and privileges, is turning its eyes towards manufacture and commerce.

This does not mean that the balance has become even, for I am of Jean Lahor’s opinion: “The plutocrats may be preparing for the masses of the future a still more crushing yoke, with more falsity and more deadening effect—by the suggestions of the Press, which they have completely in their power—than has ever been the case with aristocracies or autocracies, whose authority had its origin at least in the finer human energies, in a noble desire for power.”

It must nevertheless be recognised that, in order that the relations between man and man should no longer be in the hands of those devoid of conscience and feeling, a certain equality, a meeting on common ground for action, has been already established in modern society; if the lower classes have climbed the ladder far enough to attain to that domain which seemed bound to remain in the hands of the higher, the latter, on the other hand, have not hesitated to leave the heights to which class prejudice might have held them, and invade the territory of trade and commerce.

A man of high position will no longer lose caste by becoming the head of a motor factory; a nobleman may take part in commercial enterprise, a prince of the blood sell, in his own name, the products of his vineyards and lands.

It is the same from the point of view of women. As they think more, as they become carried away by the desire to prove their value and the need for individual effort, the middle-class woman is reaching towards higher and higher branches of education. Great ladies, even princesses, do not disdain to draw profit from the industrial arts, from painting and literature.

These new social conditions could not continue but by the spread and improvement of education and the growing sense of justice as understood by Herbert Spencer; that is to say, the responsibility of the individual taken in connection with the need for social co-operation.

Complete equality will never exist; comparative equality must be based on such liberty as, by its exercise, cannot infringe upon the liberties of others.

It must not be forgotten that social harmony is the result of the adjustment of conflicting rights and duties. One has to-day to take into consideration the fact that the humblest artisan is working for the good of society just as is the most famous engineer, the greatest inventor, the noblest writer, or the most celebrated statesman. Therefore, being “morally equal in duty, they are morally equal in rights.”

Education, that leveller of castes, dispenser of good, justice, and harmony, is the outcome of the experience of each utilised for the good of all. It should come from ourselves as well as from others, and pass through the way of reason.

“It is through the combined working of all systems of education and hygiene,” says the author of Pessimisme Heroïque, “it is through the combined energy of all educators and hygienists, that we shall with certainty obtain some day fundamental reforms, and immense progress in the physical, intellectual, and moral life of humanity.”

SOCIALISM

Opposed to Individualism, Socialism is the idea of social equality in utilising the power, capital, property, labour, etc., of the community. The generalisation of the term means a social compact, a contract between the members of a society.

Born in the eighteenth century, with the theory of good to be shared by the community, Socialism, which should be a united inherent organisation of the social classes, and of the relations of different classes to one another, has become divided into several hostile cliques. Each has its partisans; there is Possibilist Socialism, the Socialism of Marx, Agrarian Socialism, Parliamentary Socialism, English Municipal Socialism, Collectivist Socialism, State Socialism, Christian Socialism, Pulpit Socialism—and more for aught I know.

The very splitting up of the initial idea which aimed at the regulation of the needs of society, proves that it is a very difficult thing to create, in its entirety, a new social machine, capable of satisfying everyone.

It is above all a question, in my opinion, of discovering a form of association which shall defend and protect by its collective force the person and property of each of its members, and through which each one, while united to all, is answerable only to himself (apart from obligations agreed upon), and remains free in his actions.

It should guarantee that no one should be rich enough to take anyone into bondage, and that no one should be poor enough to be compelled to sell himself.

Again, no man should be able to say: “I am hungry, I do not know how to get food: I am cold, I have no means of warming myself: I am homeless, I do not know where to rest my head.” No woman must need to make merchandise of herself to escape starvation.

Man being no longer obliged to sell his physical strength or intellect, woman no longer constrained to throw herself into the market, security of life would exist for all, and a sort of equality would be established.

But is not this equality a chimera, and can it exist in practice? Are not abuses inevitable? How can the feelings and duties of everyone be subject to rule, in such a way as to restrict the great as to their wealth and power and the small as to their avarice and covetousness?

Socialism would have to impose a sort of economic equality which would satisfy everyone; so that he who had climbed a few rungs of the social ladder need not envy him who is already at the top. It must, in short, do away with every cause of discontent, envy, and revenge, between the classes who are compelled to have constant dealings with one another. Thus would great social disorder be avoided. But it would be necessary to keep clear of side issues, to take as the base of Socialism the “simplifying of life,” always keeping an intellectual and spiritual ideal as the end in view.

“The characteristic of social organisation,” says Nicati, “is to be the means of information; a faithful medium between the individuals from whom primarily all activity emanates, and with whom it ends: just as the personal intellect intervenes in the emotional domain, between impressions and the impulses to which they give rise.

“The function of this natural organisation conforms to the religious principles regulating its formation and acts.

“Its ultimate object is to maintain harmony between men, as the intellect maintains harmony amongst the emotions, and to unite them in a common desire for equalisation, balance.

“The doctrine of the cultivation of an intellectual and spiritual ideal, then, may be defined as a natural social organisation having for aim the religious pursuit of good, remembering that we understand by ‘religious’ that which is consistent with the natural fabric of social relationship; and by ‘good’ the necessary and natural result of all harmony, balance.”

In reality, however, it appears to me that social equilibrium is no better established now than it was before. The weight which tipped one side of the scale is now on the other. The drawbacks of the lack of stability have not yet disappeared.

Why, for instance, should it be thought advantageous that one class, now in possession, be completely despoiled to profit another class, which would then take its place? Whether the inequality existed as from the heights downwards or from the depths upwards, would not the results be exactly the same? Is not the supreme power as dangerous in the hands of the many as in the hands of the privileged?

If it be true that man has a natural right to all that he needs, it is none the less true that his “right” should not exceed the limits of the needful.

In spite of all theories, the social organisation of humanity is not in existence yet, and will not exist so long as society fails to comprehend that its aim is to satisfy the needs of each one, in the order in which they become manifest.

THE WORKING CLASSES

The part played by the working man in modern society is of extreme importance. This producer of national wealth is the artery which keeps the heart of a country beating.

Jean Lahor says: “The wealth, power, and glory of the country are, in great part, the work of the humblest of her children—of the artisan, the worker, the common soldier, of unknown heroes of whom no one speaks, never will speak; silent whilst in life as they will be when dead.”

Lord Avebury, too, says: “It is an interesting illustration of the Unity of Man, and an encouragement to those of us who have no claims to genius, that though, of course, there have been exceptions, still, on the whole, periods of progress have generally been those when a nation has worked and felt together; the advance has been due not entirely to the efforts of a few great men, but of their countrymen generally; not to a single genius, but to a national effort.”

Then, since the working man is the great factor in national greatness, it is but just that he should be an object of consideration for the thinkers. This is a truth: the education received by the working man is not consistent with the place which he occupies in the State.

I have in mind, for the children of the working class, schools specially adapted to that class, where the child should be taught his rôle in life as a sort of religion; his employer of the future appearing as a kind of protective deity. The child destined to become an artisan should be made to understand, from the most tender age, not to regard himself as a mere tool, but as the most active element in society. He should be inculcated with pride in his condition, not have his temper embittered and be taught to hate the upper classes, which are, from another point of view, a vital element equally with his own class. The working classes—and this is a point which Socialism and Evolutionism have failed to recognise—should form a majority set apart in the nation, not for the purpose of excluding them from the common good, but, on the contrary, for their advantage, as being the most active and least fortunate.

In all countries which recognise wherein their strength consists, the working man should be the object of constant care on the part of the administration; he should be recompensed according to his merits, and receive help in his needs. The entire health of a country depends so much on that of the working population, that dwellings built in accordance with the most perfect sanitary conditions, public baths and wash-houses, national parks as in America, and institutes where he could educate himself to a higher mental life, should be guaranteed to the working man.

It is very strange that, in democratic countries, the most urgent reforms are generally delayed, that they put off the amelioration of the wretched conditions prevailing amongst the humblest—yet, by numbers and activity, the strongest—class; amelioration which is first carried out in aristocratic countries, such as England.

When French hospitals, for instance, are compared with those in England, Germany, and Russia, a clear idea is gained of the great difference, which does honour to the latter countries.

It is said that the first idea of working men’s dwellings originated in France. I admit it; but they only came into existence there after England and Belgium had set the example.

Where in the great French centres will you find the garden cities of England and Germany? Even in the matter of food, from the point of view of price and quality, the French artisan has reason to envy his English neighbour.

The artisan is too cramped by material conditions and constant labour, too much cut off from men superior in mental training to himself; he needs to be taken out of his sordid environment, allowed to acquire property of his own, to give him a taste for home life.

When legislators and rulers, teachers and employers, have taught the working man to recognise his own character and claim respect for his value to society, a thousand rational reforms will spring into being spontaneously.

It seems to me that in manufacturing centres every house should be a temple of fraternity. I will give an illustration: An artisan marries. His wife and he live in a very small house, which, after the birth of their children becomes too cramped for them, and inadequate from a hygienic point of view. Close by, there is an artisan living in a much larger house, as he has had a large family. The children, having grown up, have left their parents, and for this reason the house has become much too large for them. The couple whose family have gone take the little dwelling, and the houseful of children move into the large one. In this way a kindly interchange is made in response to particular requirements; hence, a share of happiness for everyone, and health for all.

Utopia! someone will say. Why? There is really nothing simpler. But then, unfortunately, the simple is always hostile to reason.

DOMESTIC SERVICE

Since the disappearance of slavery, domestic service has taken on new forms—variable, oppressive—and now it seems likely to disappear altogether. The terms, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, misunderstood by some, misconstrued by others, have created great disquietude in society. The servant of former days—the wage-earning man or woman—who formed an integrant part of the family, exists no longer, and those succeeding have changed the old ways and manners to the point of rendering them unacceptable—from the time when attachment disappeared before a false conception of liberty. So that to-day, amongst people of only moderate means, the lack of servants is becoming a serious problem, although changing fashions and the competition in “special lines of work” secures us assistance in much of our daily business.

We occupy ourselves with workmen’s dwellings, have honestly sought to secure better conditions for the poor; why should we not consider the case of those blocks of flats where the closeness of the quarters has become one of the principal hindrances to the “good and loyal service” so much appreciated by our forbears?

Servants in these days consider themselves as employees of a special kind, able to dictate their own terms and exempt from various duties. Their service, continuous and dearly paid, is no longer suitable except in palaces and large private houses.

In these they form a community of their own which is not, each member of it individually, every moment of the day in direct contact with the master and mistress. In such cases as these one scarcely realises the irritating position of servants with regard to their employers, and vice versa.

The question to be considered is that of small establishments and blocks of dwellings in large towns where, for the sake of greater accommodation, the employers’ and the servants’ quarters are close together, perhaps only divided by glass doors and thin partitions. Now, to ensure respect for the master and mistress in their private life, and willing obedience from the servants, distance in point of fact should be in proportion to distance in point of position and education.

“No great man is a hero to his valet,” says the proverb. This proverb is unfortunately true. It describes an evil which has grown to such a degree as to make domestic service in apartments impossible.

In America this question is almost completely settled. In England the example set by the United States is beginning to be followed. The Continent in its turn should evolve some practical expedient for the independence of both employer and employee.

To this end there should be a system of “service by the hour.” This will have to be arranged in view of the fear that we may find ourselves servantless. It does not imply that the service now extant will disappear entirely.

Like all innovations, my suggestion will at first alarm some and bring a smile to others; it will seem paradoxical in spite of its simplicity. However, I will explain my idea.

It is not to be denied that we have become servants to our domestics, for they dictate terms on entering our service, and we are compelled to accept their conditions for fear of finding ourselves boycotted and unable to get them at all. In America—I quote typical cases—people have ceased to have their meals at home on Sunday because the chef or cook spends that day in the country. In England ladies’ maids refuse to wait up for their mistresses’ return from evening parties. (I knew an unmarried lady who was compelled to sleep one night dressed as she was because her maid, having locked herself into her room, declined to get up to unfasten her dress for her!) In Germany the servants make it a condition that they shall spend so many evenings at masked balls; in France a weekly or fortnightly “day off” is one of the least inconveniences created by domestic service.

Is it not the truth that in flats, if one had a woman in in case of need, and a sort of watchman to guard against burglars, nothing more would be needed?

“Service by the hour” would have the advantage of providing regular attendance, and the servants themselves would earn more; they would not be obliged to listen to the voice of command from the same master or mistress all day long; they could choose the kind of service they preferred, just as the employer could choose his employees. There would be more freedom on both sides: the one party would work more conscientiously, the other enjoy greater peace of mind. There would be less friction, more justice, all round. In the absence of close proximity there would be no more irritating surveillance, no fear of gossip, no ill-temper over work ill-done or neglected.

If you have a masseur or masseuse, even a “bath attendant,” a hairdresser, a manicurist, a packer, a “vacuum cleaner,” and a floor polisher, what remains for you to ask of your servants?

If a woman can come and fetch your dresses to be ironed or “freshened,” and a man do the same with your coats, and someone else come and polish your boots, is not that all-important?

Companies for “service by the hour” would have to be established in different districts. According to one’s needs he would telephone to one of these establishments for a bath attendant, for someone to truss poultry, for housework, etc.

And then how delightful it would be to be alone again, no longer spied upon, to be one’s own master—without any servants!

“But the expense!” someone will say. If you calculate what the servants living in your house cost you in one way and another, you will come to the conclusion that there would be less expense for the employer and certain profit for the servants, whose service by the hour would be better paid.

In some of these modern blocks of dwellings there is but one common kitchen. It would be sufficient to mention the hour for meals and the number to be served to ensure regular attendance.

“Service by the hour” would do away with a thousand annoyances, some merely irritating by their frequency, but others serious, as in England, for instance, where the evidence of servants has so much weight in cases of divorce.

With “service by the hour” there would be no more spying, no more mean revenges, no more dishonourable compromises. As the lower classes have shaken off the yoke of their slavery, why should we still be the victims of a new state of things in matters domestic?

There is no perfect happiness without real independence. Let us aim at independence for everyone.

In doing good in a new way the human end in view has not changed. Let us bear in mind that good for all is only found in individual freedom.

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS

Now that the different peoples fraternise over science, commerce, and industry, now that they are jointly liable, in the name of economic relations, now that collective work, free from “national etiquette,” is instrumental in producing material and moral progress for all, international schools ought to be founded in the different civilised countries.

These nurseries of the intellect and will would bring pupils together by one single rational system of training; the pupils would be subject to the same examinations; and there would be effected between the different countries an exchange of individualities, destroying race hatred in the idea of rights common to all and the rightful administration of collective communities.

Armed peace, costly as it is for every nation, is a benefit in these modern times. Each nation, by preserving the integrity of its own territory, is more at liberty for intercourse with its neighbours, and for the development of the high ideals which are urging the peoples towards economic unity.

In former times, taking France as an example, the various provinces detested one another, and were at variance through all kinds of conflicting interests. They were separated by the barrier of opposite temperaments, dissimilar customs; each of them preferring to remain a stranger to the rest, though they all spoke the same language. But by means of gradual changes, they were at length drawn together, each province grew to feel a certain oneness of thought with the others, until finally the rigid barriers broke down, and to-day the whole race aims at the training in international feeling of every individual, desiring that future generations, free from too local a patriotism, should attain to what I may call geographical fraternity. For this object nothing would be so valuable as the creation of international schools, by which the tide of different ideas may enter, and thus solve the great problem of comparative education.

Let us imagine similar schools in every country. Young men and girls, sent abroad to follow up the course of study they have begun in their own country, would find the completion of their education in the mental intercourse offered by contact with the boys and girls of the foreign school. They would by this means widen the horizon of their ideas, they would become cosmopolitan without effort, reap such advantages from foreign life as would greatly add to the force of their own personality, and return home with an equipment of sound judgment and self-possession. In addition, they would have learnt the foreign languages so necessary to the pursuit of commerce, manufacture, letters, and the arts.

The young man and the girl thus educated in the idea of world-relationship would hold their own in the circles to which they belonged, and would be certain to do their country good service at an age when, in the ordinary course of things, they might dream of going abroad for the sake of seeing the world, without any ability to profit by that exchange of ideas and comparison of manners which the international school would secure to them just at the impressionable age.

When one considers how useless in most cases, and how invariably costly to parents, travelling is in the case of young men destined for professional or even commercial careers, when undertaken after their education is completed, one must acknowledge the advantage which would result from the exchange between the countries of young, amenable pupils, quick to assimilate all the elements needed for complete training.

Of course each student sent abroad would have professors of his own tongue and race to continue the course of study he was pursuing at home. But from the very fact that they were living in a foreign land, they would be able to learn the new language outside the classroom without any trouble, and become initiated in new ways and ideas, acquiring all sorts of useful knowledge, which would help to mature their minds. So would each one, without losing contact with his own land, profit by the constant recurrence of matters for comparison and analysis.

Sainte-Beuve had conceived the project of such a state of things when, on the eve of the Franco-German War in 1870, he said: “War is being prepared between the two greatest peoples in Europe.... It would be better to found two schools, one in Berlin and one in Paris. The flower of our youth would go and strengthen their minds in the laboratories of Berlin, which are richer than ours; the Prussians would come here and be moulded to our French grace.” The real difficulty between nations is that of mutual understanding. Whether it be a question of medicine, manufacture, commerce, or education, there are many efforts made which, in the first instance, are unknown in neighbouring countries, and thereby progress is hindered. By means of international schools, a solution would be found to problems common to all, for instruction would pass from one to another.

In commercial and industrial matters, especially, dealings between one country and another would be carried out more easily, and on a larger scale.

Through uniformity of customs, and harmony in feeling and ideas, brought into play for the good of all, peace would be assured, while rivalry, on which progress depends, would still exist. Autocracy, democracy, imperialism, all would be merged in the common desire for improved conditions.

On the day when harmonious endeavour shall become the rule between people and people, the wealth of the world will increase tenfold, simply through the working of all intelligence for the good of every nation.

THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION, AND ITS INFLUENCE OVER THE PEOPLE

Religion is neither a collection of natural laws nor a philosophic dogma. It is higher in dignity than teachers of to-day represent it, and it will be understood if we consider the meaning of the word “religion” as applied to the life of the individual. In the words of Dr. Nicati,” ... applied to an individual, it denotes the allied operations of the spirit upon which rests his judgments and actions. As applied to society, it is the symbol of the facts which determine the relations between individuals; it embraces in one common term the principles of social harmony.”

In giving us this definition of religion, Dr. Nicati is not considering any creed in particular, but all religions, each of which, taken separately, is a moral code.

The religious idea, which French governments of to-day set aside as useless, is, on the contrary, of obvious utility, primarily for all those whose brains, ill-supplied with mental nourishment, need both spiritual food and also a curb. What a strong restraining force is the fear of eternal punishment; what an encouragement the desire of endless reward!

In vain have all our orators striven, our materialists shown their contempt; it is none the less true that the wiser spirits—men like Littré, Taine, and Renan—have maintained in spite of all that “the people must have a religion, a religion considered purely as an idea inculcating morality.”

I will not embark upon the study of the evolution of religions, of the Roman Catholic religion in particular, which, from its origin, remains the moral authority of the Latin peoples. I will simply state that, compulsory education notwithstanding, criminality in France has increased in alarming proportion, whereas in England, as the noble thinker Lord Avebury remarked some time ago, “prisons have had to be closed for want of prisoners.”

Let us make no mistake. French criminality is in exact proportion with the lowering of the moral level; the absence of criminality in England comes of the respect shown by our neighbours for all religious sects, provided they use their influence for the development of the religious principle in children—that is to say, the fear of the punishment which comes of wrongdoing, and the hope of the reward which good merits.

Until the moral sense has become thoroughly developed in everyone, religion—that is to say, a preventive training against the passions—will continue necessary.

“We have schools enough of every description,” says the author of L’Education de Soi-Mème, “which give us general knowledge and admirable skill in the technique of every branch of human activity; what we need is a school for the making of men.” The Church would have remained such a school if the Romanists had not made of their authority a political weapon.

Nevertheless, religious morality dwells in the depths of the mind, and thus it is, according to Maurice de Fleury, “that modern savants who have lost their faith, and cannot believe in human free will, become reconciled ultimately to the teaching given us by the Church.”

The rational morality which comes of mental training may be sufficient for the strong, relieving them of a thousand illusions and childish fancies. It remains none the less true, however, that, even amongst those who are past masters in the arts, in science, and politics, there are some who, from an ethical point of view, are spiritual weaklings, needing, in place of the Latin intelligere, some creed, hidden or avowed, adapted to their imaginative and imperfectly-controlled brain.

Whatever may be said, the mass of the people has to be considered as an “inferior majority.” Apart from it, a “superior minority” stands out; no longer bound by all the old beliefs, but all the same given to an “inner” religion, which is the ethical intelligence whence springs rational morality.

Let us consider the apostle. The inferiority of his followers is manifest, but as soon as these disciples reach a higher level, through the education of their spirit, they in their turn will become apostles, and moral equality will exist in a group which, in its turn again, will win over other groups.

We must then concede to the people a religion which may take the place of the moral law, one giving them the hope of living again in

a better life, affording comfort in affliction, and restraining their cravings. Religious beliefs are but the poetic materialisation of moral truths. By maturing the popular mind, by improved education, the time will come—in some far-distant future—when man will need no other dogma than that natural one which is faith in himself, without which he does not (consciously) exist.

On the day when religion shall no longer serve to govern morals, it will be useless. For many it is already a dead letter. That matters nothing in the case of those whose morality, I repeat, is based on reason; but how regrettable when it is a question of persons of inferior intelligence who, without fixed rules, are unable to attain the perception of good and evil!

Amongst certain peoples, a religion was founded by philosophers as long ago as 500 years before Christ. Did not Confucius correct the habits of his country, reform justice, and bring in prosperity, through moral training? Chief authority of a new sect, governed by the idea of rectitude in the life, he organised a state of things which continues yet.

This may happen later on in our Western countries; but until we have replaced the ancient creeds by a moral Ideal impressed upon all minds, it will be necessary to keep up the religious sentiment amongst the people, who have remained hitherto an unconscious force.

THE PRESS

“The newspaper,” says Eugène Tavernier, “is the expression of society.” That is a rudimentary truth which has strangely lost its meaning since the Press, whose social rôle was that of an educator, gave itself up to sectarianism, and, in consequence, was no longer able to exercise, for the most part, a really moral influence.

From the fact that the Press sells itself shamelessly to its supporters, it often happens that it attacks the weak and blindly defends the strong, thus making capital out of ostracism and injustice.

Present-day morals have destroyed the original character of the newspaper. In the hands of men more concerned with their personal interests than the good of their country or the pursuit of truth, the Press has sacrificed everything to profit, for money is its object. Newspapers are bazaars where everything is sold, calumny included. And the turmoil of life has made of the journalist a purveyor of sensational news, of paradoxes which falsify the popular judgment, and information as misleading as it is swiftly obtained. The result is that in our democratic times, when everyone claims the right to give expression to his ideas, we see most journalists writing to order and playing the sorry part of impersonal machines.

Since writers worthy of the name found themselves obliged to bow to the will of these dealers in spoilt paper, many of them have refused to write for the daily papers.

Now, as journalistic over-production increases continually, and as the success of many enterprises (based on the exploitation of credulity, the fear of scandal, and excessive advertisement) is almost always in inverse ratio to integrity, hosts of ignorant men,—“men of all work”—shelter themselves behind the newspaper and make a livelihood out of their trash. The day after the Commune, Louis Veuillot said of the Press: “I have been associated with it all my life, and I do not like it. I may say that I hate it; but it belongs to the considerable class of necessary evils. Newspapers have become such a danger that it is necessary to create many. You cannot contend against the Press, except through its multitude. Add flood to flood, and let them drown one another, forming no more than a swamp, or, if you will, a sea. The swamp has its lagoons, the sea its moments of slumber. We will see whether it is possible to build some Venice within it....”