The Moral Economy | Page 5

be moral
is simply to be intelligent, to be right-minded and open-minded in the
unavoidable business of living. Morality is a collection of formulas and
models based solidly on experience of acts and their consequences; it
offers the most competent advice as to how to proceed with an
enterprise, whether large or small. It is the theory and technique which
underlies the art of conduct; that "master-workman," by whom kings
reign and princes decree justice; possessed by the Lord in the beginning
of his way, and whom to hate is to love death.
It is worth while to remark and proclaim such a conviction as this only
because mankind has so treacherous a memory, and so fatuous a habit
of disowning its most precious and dearly won possessions. Cardinal
truths are periodically overlaid with sophistication, blended with
tentative opinion, and identified with the instruments of the day. There
results a confusion of mind that fails to distinguish the essence from the
accident, and aims to destroy where there is need to rectify. Because
government is clumsy and costly, it is proposed to abolish government;
because education is artificial and constraining, society is exhorted to
return to the easy course of nature; metaphysics must be swept away,
because the {3} metaphysics of some time or school has outlived its
usefulness; and morality, because it is hard or tiresome, must give way
to the freedom and romance of no morality. Such blind and
irresponsible agitation is a perpetual menace to the balance of
impressionable and unsteady minds, if not indeed to the work of
civilization.
Now it is safe to say that these venerable institutions have arisen in
answer to fixed needs; needs implied in life as a general and constant
situation. There is no other way of accounting for them. They have
been tolerated only because they yield a steady return. Their loss would
be a catastrophe which mankind, obedient to the necessities of life,
would fall at once to repairing. Institutions are the very body of

civilization; and while they may grow and change without limit, if they
be abruptly destroyed civilization must suffer paralysis in some vital
part. At once the most direct and striking proof of this lies in the fact
that the revolutionist, whether he be propagandist or man of action,
invariably commits himself, and ends by executing the very function he
denied. At the moment when he comes to close quarters, and actually
engages the object of his attack, he is swept into some current of
endeavor that has from the most ancient times been pressing steadily
toward the solution of a problem that lies in the centre of {4} the path
of life. He straightway commences himself to govern, educate,
speculate, or moralize. And the more patiently he labors, the greater his
respect for the vested wisdom of his time. Whereas he first sought
utterly to demolish, he is now content to make his little difference and
hand on the work. In the end every purely destructive programme is
inevitably futile, because it goes against the grain. For all conduct is
constructive in motive, and forward in direction. But how wasteful is
the momentary fury--wasteful of high passion and distinguished
capacity, and how mystifying to the lay intelligence!
It may, of course, be said that there is method in this madness; since
man's twofold blindness, his dogmatism and his scepticism, his
immobility and his wantonness, tend in the long run to neutralize one
another. But with the perspective required for such consolation, neither
the agencies of destruction nor those of obstruction preserve the same
heroic proportions which they are wont to assume in their day. They
seem to be engaged in a sort of by-play, and wear an unmistakable
aspect of childishness. Lo! Mankind has been a long time on his way,
and endures hardily the prospect of endless leagues to go. He is the
Patient Plodder, symbol of mature intelligence. And he has in his
company two small boys who exhibit an incorrigible {5} naughtiness.
The one of these is called Destruction; his other names being Cynic,
Sceptic, and Nihilist. He it is that mocks and cries, "Go up, thou bald
head! go up, thou bald head!" Mankind does not curse him in the name
of the Lord, but invites him to play with another small boy, named
Obstruction, and whose other names are Vested Interest, Reactionary,
and Pedant. This one, whenever Mankind will lead him, digs in his
heels or lies down in his tracks; until, pricked and goaded by his

playfellow, he at length gets up and scrambles after. And so these two
keep ever by the side or at the heels of Mankind, whom they neither
lead nor deflect from his course.
Paradox serves to dislodge prejudice; and blasphemy may rudely but
effectually