Political Ideals | Page 3

itself as
conscience in the moral sphere; such influences are likely to do a man an inward danger
from which he will never recover.
Those who realize the harm that can be done to others by any use of force against them,
and the worthlessness of the goods that can be acquired by force, will be very full of
respect for the liberty of others; they will not try to bind them or fetter them; they will be
slow to judge and swift to sympathize; they will treat every human being with a kind of
tenderness, because the principle of good in him is at once fragile and infinitely precious.
They will not condemn those who are unlike themselves; they will know and feel that
individuality brings differences and uniformity means death. They will wish each human
being to be as much a living thing and as little a mechanical product as it is possible to be;
they will cherish in each one just those things which the harsh usage of a ruthless world
would destroy. In one word, all their dealings with others will be inspired by a deep
impulse of reverence.
What we shall desire for individuals is now clear: strong creative impulses, overpowering
and absorbing the instinct of possession; reverence for others; respect for the fundamental
creative impulse in ourselves. A certain kind of self-respect or native pride is necessary to
a good life; a man must not have a sense of utter inward defeat if he is to remain whole,
but must feel the courage and the hope and the will to live by the best that is in him,
whatever outward or inward obstacles it may encounter. So far as it lies in a man's own
power, his life will realize its best possibilities if it has three things: creative rather than
possessive impulses, reverence for others, and respect for the fundamental impulse in
himself.
Political and social institutions are to be judged by the good or harm that they do to
individuals. Do they encourage creativeness rather than possessiveness? Do they embody
or promote a spirit of reverence between human beings? Do they preserve self-respect?
In all these ways the institutions under which we live are very far indeed from what they

ought to be.
Institutions, and especially economic systems, have a profound influence in molding the
characters of men and women. They may encourage adventure and hope, or timidity and
the pursuit of safety. They may open men's minds to great possibilities, or close them
against everything but the risk of obscure misfortune. They may make a man's happiness
depend upon what he adds to the general possessions of the world, or upon what he can
secure for himself of the private goods in which others cannot share. Modern capitalism
forces the wrong decision of these alternatives upon all who are not heroic or
exceptionally fortunate.
Men's impulses are molded, partly by their native disposition, partly by opportunity and
environment, especially early environment. Direct preaching can do very little to change
impulses, though it can lead people to restrain the direct expression of them, often with
the result that the impulses go underground and come to the surface again in some
contorted form. When we have discovered what kinds of impulse we desire, we must not
rest content with preaching, or with trying to produce the outward manifestation without
the inner spring; we must try rather to alter institutions in the way that will, of itself,
modify the life of impulse in the desired direction.
At present our institutions rest upon two things: property and power. Both of these are
very unjustly distributed; both, in the actual world, are of great importance to the
happiness of the individual. Both are possessive goods; yet without them many of the
goods in which all might share are hard to acquire as things are now.
Without property, as things are, a man has no freedom, and no security for the necessities
of a tolerable life; without power, he has no opportunity for initiative. If men are to have
free play for their creative impulses, they must be liberated from sordid cares by a certain
measure of security, and they must have a sufficient share of power to be able to exercise
initiative as regards the course and conditions of their lives.
Few men can succeed in being creative rather than possessive in a world which is wholly
built on competition, where the great majority would fall into utter destitution if they
became careless as to the acquisition of material goods, where honor and power and
respect are given to wealth rather than to wisdom, where the law embodies and
consecrates the injustice of those who have toward those who have not. In such an
environment even those