THE EAGLE AND THE SERPENT.

No. 18. 1902.

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Our Sphinx’s Fatal Question:

Why do the Ungodly Prosper?

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Is Might Right?

Can the Poor be Saved through the Pity of the Rich?

The Pope of Rome, the Prime Minister, the King, and the Kaiser refuse to answer.

Answers by Messrs. Benjamin Kidd, G. Bernard Shaw, Benj. R. Tucker, J. H. Levy, Aylmer Maude,

Ragnar Redbeard, W. M. Thompson, Dr. A. R. Wallace, etc., appear below.

TO JUPITER.

Jove, much I marvel at the way

In which this world thou’rt pleased to sway;

No difference—none, for aught I see— *Twix knave and honest man with thee.

Nay, if the truth must be confessed,

Full oft, I fear, Vice fares the best,

Of gold, and land, and title brags,

And quaffs his wine, and drive his nags,

Whilst toil-worn Virtue dies in rags.—Theognis.

ARE THERE GODS?

Yes! there are gods ; but they no thought bestow

On human deeds—on mortal bliss or woe—

Else would such ills our wretched race assail?

Would the Good suffer?—would the Bad prevail?—Ennius.

Learned curiosity has at last met with its complete vindication and reward. With the modesty which becomes a great revelation (“The stillest words bring the storm”) the Editor of The Eagle and the Serpent announces to the world that he has discovered the fatal question with which the Sphinx confounded the ancient Greeks. That question was, “Why do the Ungodly Prosper”? After the lapse of twenty-five centuries this question is still as fatal as ever. We put this question to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, Dr. Parker, the Pope of Rome, the Prime Minister, King Edward the Seventh, and the Kaiser. We hold that these distinguished individuals ought to be able to give a clear answer to this question or else they ought to confess their incompetence for their several positions and resign them. But they have not been able to answer the question, and three of them are now dead; the Pope has had a very grave seizure (it was just about the time that our letter would have been handed to him), and the Prime Minister has been seriously indisposed. This then is the question which the Sphinx propounds and remorsely devours all who cannot answer it. Aye, let Society beware: this is the question which it must answer or be destroyed.

Our intention is to prosecute this intellectual fight to a “sort of” a finish. We advise those who have not done so to send us an answer to this question at once. We hereby give notice to the Colonial Secretary that we shall send this question (our ultimatum) to him immediately he returns from Africa. Gentlemen Pillars and Saviours of Society: We appeal to you to “interrogate your consciences” and your intellects (to employ the edifying phrase of Monsieur La Guillotine Robespierre) and help us confound the audacious Sphinx.

We append the Questions propounded and the replies received up to date:

QUESTIONS:

1. Why do the ungodly prosper?

2. Do present historical conditions justify the dictum that Might is Right? Do you conceive that this assertion ever had or ever will have justification?

3. Can the poor be saved through the pity of the rich?

With reference to question. No. 2, do you think the results of the Boer, Philippine, and China wars lend plausibility to the teaching that Might is Right?

Dr. A. R. Wallace writes; “Because the rule of Might has hitherto prevailed it does not follow that it must always prevail.” Do you agree with Dr. Wallace that the rule of Might has hitherto prevailed?

REPLIES:

We thank the authors of the following letters for their courteous replies:

Benjamin R. Tucker writes: (1) It is because the godly are such damned fools.

William T. Stead writes; I am much obliged to you for addressing to me your three questions, but I must beg you to excuse me attempting to answer them. To answer them off-hand would be impossible, and you don’t want a treatise. How is your journal getting on? How often do you publish it, and do you sell bound volumes?

J. B. Frost writes flippantly: I do not know why the ungodly prosper, but I am glad to ‘hear that you are prospering.

Robert Blatchford, Editor of Clarion, writes: The questions you ask are very interesting, but I am too busy to consider them. My own small task is quite large enough for me. I will, therefore, ask you to excuse me from entering upon so wide a field of speculation.

Dr. A. R. Wallace writes: Thanks for sending me your last Eagle and Serpent. Its perusal was refreshing. You are mistaken in supposing that I admit that “might was right” at any time. That it was-held to be “right” by those who had the “might” may be true—and also sometimes by the weak who submitted to them—proves nothing whatever. The two words “might” and “right” have nothing in common. They belong to different categories, and you might as reasonably say that sympathy is blue, virtue green, and cruelty red and yellow, as that might is right.

Not the Pope but Mr. G. Bernard Shaw.

We had hoped to present our readers with a Papal Bull on this subject, but can only offer them a few of the Irish variety from Mr. G. Bernard Shaw:

Mr. Shaw writes: Your questions are enough to drive any man out of his senses. There is no more identity or necessary connection between might and right than between chalk and cheese. You had better start a discussion on the morality of Alpine thunderstorms and avalanches. Every man strives for might so that his will may prevail; and when he attains it, his will prevails whether it is right or wrong. That Will, like gravitation, is a force in itself, is true; and that the human race cannot really will its own destruction is a thing that we may at least hope for on the ground that it manages to ‘survive. But under the rule of a standard Morality evolution is limited by the fact that at a certain point of development the individual in whom the advance is manifested (say the Superman) is attacked and destroyed in the name of Right by the other less developed individuals; so that in effect the race does will its own destruction on the plane of the Superman. And the attack presents itself to these less developed ones as an attack of right on might; for to the ordinary citizen right means thinking as he does; and the Superman who goes deeper than he into morals is just as much a rascal to him as the criminal who does not go so deep. It seems clear, therefore, that the only chance for the Superman is to acquire sufficient might to defy the efforts of the average respectable man to destroy him. Hitherto these attempts have not been successful on the physical plane. Napoleon’s military system finally reduced itself to absurdity and forced the dufferdom of Europe to combine and destroy him. Caesar, with immense social talents and moral gifts in addition to moral capacity, bribed the masses into tolerating him, but was killed by a conspiracy of “good” men who killed him on principle as a protest of right against might. So much for the Superman of action! As to the Superman who merely writes and talks, he escapes because nobody understands him. “The triumph of his principles” means their degradation to the common level, the mob accepting his teaching just as a cannibal accepts the teaching of St. John or an Oxford undergraduate the philosophy of Plato or the poetry of Euripides.

You may take it then that right (if you insist on treating it as an absolute, which it is not) can only be effective when it happens to be mighty, and that might is effective whether it is tighty or wrongy.

Mr. Shaw writes further: There is no war between exploiters and exploited. The whole people cordially consent to and approve of inequality, privilege, peerage, and monopoly, because they all have (or think they have) a chance in the lottery. The exploiting system could no more stand to-day without an overwhelming concensus of opinion in its favour—especially among the working classes—than Monte Carlo could stand if people were not willing to lose money there.

(3) That depends on what is meant by salvation. If it means, for instance, can a rich man, drawing his income from the labour of the poor, be trusted to give back enough of it in charity to avert the scandal of having people dying openly and directly of starvation about the streets, Yes. If it means even giving back enough to enable the children of the poor to be qualified by education to produce incomes by skilled industry for future generations of rich men, Yes, perhaps (if the rich are thrifty enough). If it means anything more, No. You cannot have a Republic without republicans, or a Commonwealth without common welfare. If the average man wishes to be a slave, the able man can do nothing for him but be a master to him, however strongly he may disapprove of slavery and wish for the society of freemen.

J. H. Levy, Editor of Personal Rights, writes: (1). If I asked: “Why did you kill your grandmother?” you would be justified in replying that this question involves an assumption which I have no right to make. I bring the same complaint against your question. It implies that the ungodly prosper. But this is neither more nor less true than that red-haired people prosper, or that blue-eyed Londoners suffer from indigestion. Some ungodly people prosper, as the writer of the 73rd Psalm long ago found out. Why should they not? (2) The identification of Might and Right either means nothing or is a denial of the existence of Right, in the only sense in which existence can be predicated of it. Your own question—“Until the facts of life are ethical, what’s the use of talking about ethics?”—is not such a poser as you think. A more difficult question would be: “When the facts of life are ethical, what will be the use of talking about ethics?” We discuss ethics now, and endeavour to inculcate them, in order that the facts of life may be made ethical—or, rather, more ethical. “More ethical!” I can hear you exclaim. “Does not Might prevail? and has it not always prevailed?” I am not so mad as to deny this. Might has prevailed, does prevail, and, if I do not wind up by the assertion that it always will prevail, it is because I am averse to the use of sonorous phrases which are destitute of signification. For what do we mean by Might except that might prevails—and what, therefore, does the assertion “Might prevails” mean except “that which prevails, prevails?” I need scarcely add that the notion that a time will come when Might will not prevail is begotten of muddle-headedness. What we have to do is, not to substitute Right for Might—which is ridiculous—but to get them on the same side; not to depose Force, but to get it to take the ethical direction. (3) This leads up to my answer to your third question. Riches are so much economic force. If the pity of the rich were united with knowledge and genuine desire for the salvation of the poor—which it very seldom is—it might be made a great factor in the banishment of poverty. At present, millionaire endowments are building trouble in the future.

Benjamin Kidd writes: Assuming the ideas upon which the Christian system of ethics rests to be given up, it appears to me more natural to expect the growth amongst the occupying classes, of that phase of opinion you appear to advocate than the continued ascendancy of the influence of the altruistic ideals to which secularism usually looks forward. I have never been able to regard it as more than a kind of unconscious self-deception (itself a striking tribute to the all-pervading influence of the Christian ideals) to think that if we hold the universe to be a mere clash of blind forces; the intellect could really supply a vigorous mind with any reason for that subordination of ourselves to the interests of our fellow creatures which the conditions of progress undoubtedly require. Your effort to spread the influence of Nietzsche’s ideas in England is itself evidence in support of this view—although unexpected; for one does not expect opinions of the kind to reach the propaganda stage, however firmly they may be held in private. I have to some extent made reference to the phase of thought which it seems to me that Nietzsche represents toward the end of Chapter VIII in Social Evolution.

Thomas Common writes: (1) This can only be answered properly (if at all) by a treatise on The Philosophy of History. (2) This would require a treatise on Moral Philosophy. I shall only attempt to condense an answer to (1): The ungodly (the wicked) generally prosper now-a-days because, with the rise of the sinner-saving regime, facilitated by the social changes brought about by the introduction of money and commercialism, the devils (Mammon, etc.) whom the ungodly worship, dethroned the righteous pagan Gods and usurped their place; to such an extent that the devils now disguise themselves as the true Gods, and their worshippers parade as the godly, the good, the just and respectable, in spite of their ungodliness. Besides the great Christian organisations in favour of sinners and the ungodly, all the modern products of the Christian regime of disguised devilry—such as the French revolution, liberalism, radicalism, utilitarianism, secularism, socialism, anarchism, slave emancipation, laissez faire policy, commercialism, Mammonism, millionaireism, Adam-Smithism, Hegelianism (in its English form, Green-parrotism and Toynbee-Hallism), Herbert-Spencerism, Benjamin Kiddism, etc:—notwithstanding that they sometimes contain good points, are also generally in favour of the ungodly (the wicked), and are fundamentally hostile to the justice of the true pagan Gods who rewarded each according to his merits. It is no wonder, therefore, that the ungodly (the wicked) generally prosper in these days.

I think this view of the philosophy of history, which is practically Nietzsche’s view, explains the facts of the case better than they are explained by any of the writers yet treated of in Professor. Flint’s voluminous History of the Philosophy of History.

Redbeard versus Tolstoy.

Aylmer Maude writes: (1) The reply depends on what is meant by Prosper. (2) The apothegm “Might is Right” means different things in different mouths. (3) One wants first to know what “saved” means in this context. Returning to (2) I do not think the results of wars (known to us objectively) can “lend plausibility” to moral or immoral perceptions, for our faculty of approving and disapproving belongs to the subjective side of our nature. The fact that murder has been practised for thousands of years does not oblige me to sympathise with murder. I doubt whether Dr. A. R. Wallace, in the remark you quote, meant to say that Might has always prevailed, and I think discussion of a detached sentence—without precise definition of the terms used—generally leads not to elucidation but to confusion of thought; and confusion of thought is a thing of which we have to-day a superabundance.

Ragnar Redbeard, LL.D., University of Chicago, writes: The ungodly prosper, in my opinion, simply because they are ungodly. They neither think nor act in accordance with cut and dried commands or formulas of any divinity. Indeed, the moral precepts of all gods and pontiffs (whether political or. religious) if strictly obeyed by each devotee, tend to subdue his mind and thus render him inefficient in the struggle for existence—the struggle that never ceases and is so merciless. When a man becomes really “godly” he generally develops a “conscience”; and my personal experience tells me that a man with a conscience cannot rise very high.

If engaged in politics, finance, priestcraft, or commerce, he would soon meet with disaster, when brought into competition with men who knew not the meaning of a conscience—that is to say, men wholly “ungodly.” When a man is known to sincerely believe in certain ethical precepts, he is like unto the general of an army who openly publishes his Strategy to the eyes of his adversary. Thereafter everything he can do may be accurately calculated by his opponent and provided against. Hence he does not prosper. He wins no victory. He conquers no new territory. All his efforts to “do things” are in vain. He is everywhere out-witted and out-generalled, and even what he has is taken from him under one pretext or another. Finally, he is reduced to a condition of poverty and consequent servitude. The ungodly man rides rough-shod over him and seizes all that he has. How long would a nation of Christs last, for example? Christ himself was an abysmal failure, and so must everyone be who attempts to do the like. Just as Caesar crucified Christ, so all modern rulers’ crucify his followers. This is the reward of “godliness”—crucifixion.

As a further pointed example, take Count Leo Tolstoy and mine own self. I am thoroughly ungodly. I do not believe in any one of the precepts of Christianity—whereas Tolstoy believes in them all most literally. He proclaims his true-blue Christianity in a dozen volumes, and I proclaim my “ungodliness”—nay, utter Heathenism—in one volume. I say, every one of the teachings of Jesus is false, and foolish, and pernicious. Not only that, but I say the reverse of them is true.

Now place Count Tolstoy on an uninhabited island with me. Let his age be 25 and mine be 25. Let him act strictly upon his own precepts, and in 24 hours I guarantee that he would be my slave, or—dead. If I am any judge of human nature, the chances are that he would submit to my authority, and do what I commanded him to do. He would prefer slavery—just as all his followers now do.

Thus I would reign absolute lord and master—and if he had a beautiful young wife or charming daughter, why should I not covet and take possession of her. Clearly | would prosper mightily and he would not. Hence my argument. The world is to the Stronger, and all that is in it or on it. Might is lord of all; and I am its prophet.

Bertram Dobell, the well-known publisher, writes: (1) The first question is something of a conundrum. Do the ungodly prosper more than the godly? I should say that some of the ungodly prosper, and also some of the godly. Perhaps the question really means “Why does God allow the ungodly (or some of them) to prosper?” Well, that is a question which only those who are more intimate than I am with the diety can answer.

(2) To answer the second query properly would require a volume -and not a paragraph. More than one chapter would be required in order to define the meanings of “might “and “right.” But, after all, what is the use of discussing the matter? If might always overcomes right when the two are brought into collision (as it must do, for otherwise it would not be might) does it matter whether the fact of its being successful makes it right or wrong? The thing is so, and there is no practical object to be gained by enquiring whether it ought to be otherwise. The question is merely an academical one. Let us take a concrete case and see what we can make of that. The late war between Boer and Briton will serve the purpose as well as any. But here there is an initial difficulty in the way. Which party was in the right? Well, in my opinion, both were; or rather both were partly right and partly wrong. (So it is indeed in most disputes—which means that there is seldom or never that absolute difference between might and right which the question assumes.) How had the Boers gained their position in South Africa? By dispossessing, despoiling, and exploiting the natives. (Of course we were, and are, open to the same reproach.) Well, if might made right in the case of Briton versus Boer, that implies also that if the Boers could have driven us out of South Africa they would have been perfectly justified in doing so. That, no doubt, was their object, and they staked their existence as a nation upon its accomplishment. They would have won the game had they been braver, more enterprising, and more willing to pay the price which was necessary in order to succeed. Upon the whole it seems to me that our success in the war does seem to tell somewhat in favour of the notion that might makes right. But as I have said already, everything depends upon the way in which you define the words, “might” and “right.” “Might” is by no means equivalent to “wrong,” as the question seems to assume.

(3) There is a musty old saw about pity, which I need not quote. Of course, pity without practical help is as useless as a canvas tent in a whirwind: but pity with relief is not much better. Pity or charity in all its forms is little better than a modified evil, and often does more harm than good. The man or woman who accepts pity or charity has in some degree lost part of his or her manhood or womanhood. The human race will always be wanting in nobility and self-respect until there is neither pity nor charity; because they are no longer wanted. But that time will arrive, I suspect, only when the Greek Kalends are about due. As things are at present, charity is the conscience-money paid by the exploiters to the victims of their greed; or it is the bribe paid by the fortunate to the unfortunate with the secret persuasion that, by sacrificing a little, they are securing the continuance of their own good luck.

W.M. Thompson, Editor of Reynolds, writes: (1) As many of the “godly” prosper as of the “ungodly.” The difference between the two is that the latter are somewhat less hypocritical than the former. Yet Satan, in the end, came off second best. (2) Might is right in the estimation and practice of mankind—in the past, in the present, and will be in the future, until the dreams of supernatural Paradises are realised. And, even then, those who profess to know tell us that there is an imnipotent and irresistible power, whose will none can resist. The recent wars are mere illustrations of the foregoing statement. (3) No. The poor can only save themselves. If the poor knew enough they would act on the principle contained in Query 2. Criminals do not come within this category any more than mice, rats, wasps, or other furtive and annoying creatures.

William J. Robins writes: The poor cannot be saved by any one save themselves; and that only in so far as they acquire “wisdom and self-reliance”: two things which the Eagle and the Serpent came down upon the earth to give the children of men. The great mass of human beings are to-day but the manure out of which the free individual of the future must fructify. But even now the individual who has intellectually emancipated himself from every superstition, is materially fettered by the various State and State-granted monopolies which impede social and economic intercourse between man and man. When men have self-educated themselves into the knowledge that all governmental agencies, both local and national, are nothing but artificial barriers to the infinite ingenuity of humanity—then will the day of the legislator, the county councillor, and the labour bleeder be gone. Till then we egoists must frankly and persistently practise our egoism, regarding all the unconverted as our natural prey whenever we get the chance. Meanwhile we can give the following good advice to the poor: “Do not trouble about being saved by the pity—but rather from the pity of the rich.”

Canon Scott Holland writes: The poor will only be saved through the pity of the rich when that pity takes the form of enabling the poor to save themselves. All “salvation” is from within. That is what we Christians hold in the Incarnation. Man must be saved by himself. Pity, therefore, becomes man, that man may have power to win his own salvation.

Rev. John Glasse writes: I think the term “egoism” is unfortunate, especially as you very properly distinguish between a noble and an ignoble egoism. I am a Socialist, but I quite agree with you that the best rule of morals is to be true to yourself. We cannot know what is good for others except in so far as we know what is good for ourselves, and to suppress the desire for our own good is thus to arrest the forces of progress. At the same time man is a social being, and can only realise himself in and through others. The exploited have no prospect of success except through union, and could make nothing of their triumph except through union. The individual by himself is helpless. The age of alms-giving is past. It is not sufficient for the evils of our society, and is often demoralising to the recipients. Love is the queen of the virtues, but charity as a substitute for justice is hypocrisy.

In spite of these answers I sympathise to some extent with your position. I have often heard it said, for example, that my expectations as a Socialist for the future are too sanguine. It may be so. It is quite possible that society may not be able to realise such a system, but with that I have nothing to do. I must live my own life according to my own ideas, and am not going to pass the time in a pig-sty because others are willing to do so. It is the same with Democracy. I believe this to be the best form of government, but I have not, in consequence, any faith in the infallibility of majorities, nor would I submit to their tyranny.

E. Leggatt writes: (1) Because a man is less likely to succeed in life who has no abolished entirely the belief in gods or bogies. Therefore the ungodly prosper. (2) Might is not always right, but might will always prevail at all times, whether used physically or mentally. (3) The poor can never be saved through pity of any one. They will have to work out their own emancipation, or else always be the victims of their masters.

William Platt writes: The difficulty of answering these questions lies in this, that life is infinitely too complex to be summed up by any one rule—whoever tries to do this, fails all the time. Man is, and must be, swayed both by Egoism and by Altruism, at variant times and in variant degrees; “Morality” is not so much a fixed standard as an unconscious attempt (led up to by our good and needful qualities of Idealism) to get the best developments out of any given set of circumstances. That is why practical morality always differs from theoretical.

The question: “Why do the ungodly prosper?” admits of but one answer. Bad people are never happy—the happiest person is always the Idealist. A confusion of thought as to what is wickedness and what is prosperity have led to the shallow view suggested by the question.

“Can the poor be saved by the pity of the rich?” There is a class of stalwart hardworking poor who are much better off in point of happiness than the average of the over-rich; such men achieve their own salvation; but if the question refers to the submerged class, most of them deficient in ability or stamina, then surely it is evident that the only thing which prevents this class from being entirely crushed out is the aid constantly extended, either nationally or individually, from the wealth of others.

George Jacob Holyoake writes: The ungodly prosper because they attend to the business of sin, while the godly neglect the business of duty. No condition, present or past, ever justifies might as being right. The poor never are saved by pity.

Graham Wallas, M.A., writes: I am too busy to give proper thought to answering your questions, and am unwilling to answer them without thought.

(To be continued.)

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Aeschylusat Marathon.

Are we Saved by Love or by Hate?

Once for all, let us clear our minds of cant. Let us rise to the noble honesty of the Greek attitude which faithfully reflected the sanity and the sanctity of Hate. Can we find a more faithful or more inspiring embodiment of this noble pagan position than in the beautiful, hate-breathing epitaph which Aeschylus wrote for himself? Here it is:

Athenian Aeschylus, Euphorion’s son,

Buried in Geta’s fields these lines declare;

His deeds are registered at Marathon,

Known to the deep-haired Mede, who met him there.

We wish to offer a few observations on one phase of the opinions elicited by our Symposium. We desire to reason in the most patient manner possible with the most misguided beings who have ever obstructed human progress, we mean the well-meaning but deluded Tolstoyans. The Tolstoyans tell us that Love is the only remedy for social misery. When the Tolstoyan stands before the victim of oppression and outrage, it is thus that he addresses the suffering man: “It is true that the oppressor has robbed you not only of the chance of a decent existence, but has condemned your wife to life-long starvation and your daughters to prostitution; nevertheless you are still more blessed than your murderer and exploiter because you have done no evil; and you must still love the instrument of your afflictions. You are far more prosperous than he is, although you are in this sorry light, because you have the approval of your conscience even while you are starving, and if you continue to love him till you starve to death, you will be numbered with the saints in glory everlasting.” When the Tolstoyans mock our miseries with such precious conselations (for I have but reduced their doctrines to their logical conclusion) I am compelled to say to them that it is such unutterable imbecilities as these which drive us to despair of humanity. Against such stupidities omnipotence itself must contend in vain. While these insanities meet us at every turn, progressis all but impossible—our perpetual damnation is the only thing of which we can be certain. Tolstoyans tell us that social “syncope exists because men do not love enough. We believe in the antithesis of this statement—we believe that, so far as it is not inherent in human nature, social misery exists because men do not hate enough. Love rarely inspires thought, and indeed its apostles tell us that with love no thought is necessary, that love is a substitute for thought. No apostle of Hate has ever talked such nonsense—it has never been alleged that Hate is a substitute for thought, but we have abundant proof that profound hatred has inspired some of the most impressive streams of thought, some of the most powerful intellects of all time. Karl Marx, quoting George Sand, declares “On the eve of each general reconstruction of society, the last word of. social science will ever be

“ Combat or death; bloody struggle or extinction,

“It is thus that the question is irresistibly put.”

H. M, Hyndman wrote: “Jt is precisely the hatred and disgust I feel for the misery, degradation and physical deterioration around me which had more influence in making and keeping me a Social Democrat than anything else.” William Morris, writing on “How I Became a Socialist,” says: “To sum up then, the study of history and the love and Practice of art forced me into a hatred of [the existing] civilisation.”

In a world whose characteristics were prevailingly “lovely,” love would best become a man, but in a world whose leading features are to the last degree unlovely, hypocritical and hateful, hate is the only sentiment an honest man can entertain. Hence it follows that in this predominantly hateful world, men of hate leave their impress on every page of history, while men of love, with their pale and ineffectual negations, have their day and cease to be. Hannibal, Napoleon, Nelson, Danton, Mirabea, Byron, Attilla, Morris, Marx, Proudhon— these names stand as sublime co-efficients of vast streams of Hate.

What are the greatest events in modern history, its most inspiring episodes? They are: Tell, Hampden, Milton, or Cromwell, hating and resisting the tyrant to the death; Nelson’s exploits with his middies, inspired to glorious deeds by their hatred of Napoleon and the French; Napoleon’s achievements with his Grenadiers, whose inspiring motive was hatred, first, of their own aristocracy, and then of the enemies of the Eagle; Paris razing the Bastille, France liquidating eight centuries of misery, Patrick Henry exclaiming “If this be treason make the most of it”; the embattled farmers firing at the. Bridge of Concord (Discord rather) the shot heard round the world, the shot of which Emerson wrote: “Their deed of blood all mankind praise, Even the serene reason says, It was well done”; Victor Hugo pouring the vials of his hate upon Napoleon the Little. These are the inspirations of Hate and they are among the noblest chapters of human history.

The great Haters are the great Lovers. Love which does not hate the hateful as profoundly as it loves the-lovely is mere hyprocrisy. Let us seriously ask the question, Do the predominant characteristics of the present age attract or repel an honest soul—in- other words, is our present age hateful or the reverse? We ought to base our answer upon the opinions of those whose honesty, capacity and experience entitle them to pronounce judgment on this issue. We present a series of such opinions in the article VIA HELLOROSA (see below). Those whom we have quoted are not journalists, statesmen, or Doctors of Divinity—but perhaps are not less trustworthy on that account. We believe that a consideration of the unbought opinions of Hugo, Heine, Lemennais, etc., will convince any free mind that the world has now reached the most murderous, most hypocritical, most hateful stage of social evolution known to history. Shall we love or shall we hate this horrible epoch which has been cursed by the united execrations of Heine, Hugo, Marx, Proudhon, Nietzsche, Shaw, Tucker, Morris, Redbeard, and Wallace? Surely, not to hate in the profoundest possible manner, such an era, which presents an apotheosis of legitimised assassination and worshipped hypocrisy, is to confess oneself a defender of assassins and a devotee of prostitutes and pirates. When one considers the systematic Slaughter of the young and helpless, when one ponders the malign influence of out boasted institutions upon thousands of young men and young women, robbing them, as it does, of their unreturning May time and condemning them to lives of unescapable ignorance, bitterness and vice, institutions which murder thousands to give to a few, luxuries as maleficent as the evils they rest upon, when one has circumnavigated this continent and sub-continent of misery, then one asks oneself the question, How can I sufficiently hate and curse this frightful epoch with which I am fatally contemporaneous?

Let us then, like Aeschylus of old, go forth to meet the Mede which threatens the self-realisation of the Free, with a spirit of Hate as unalterable as his own laws, and in a manner that he will be able to appreciate. If time permit, let us give our enemy a decent burial on the field of our vindication, and if time do not permit we shall leave the dead to bury their dead. But on our field of Marathon we shall erect, with due libations, a trophy of accomplished Hate and Love—of Love for ourselves and our own, of Hate for all that threatens us and ours.

JOHN ERWIN MCCALL, Founder of the Religion of Hate.

Via Hellorosa.

Scenes on the Way to Hades by Our Special Artists.

The Engines of Hell running full blast, day and night.

Watchman what of the night? And the Watchman said, “I see a great light—infact, I see the flames of Hell.”

One cannot bring the masses to shout hosanna until one rides into the city on an ass. —Nietzsche.

Between the government which does evil and the people who accept it there is a certain shameful solidarity. —Victor Hugo.

Within the memory of man the trade of governing has always been monopolised by the most ignorant and most rascally individuals of mankind. —Thos. Paine.

We shall have an Emperor in Washington within 225 years unless we can create a public sentiment which, regardless of legislation, will regulate the trusts. —A. T. Hadley, Pres. of Yale College.

We have among us people who would like to abolish radically everything that exists and carry us back, by violence if need be, to a régime discarded and condemned more than a century ago. They are called conservatives. —Paul Masson.

With the development of capitalistic production, European public opinion has stripped the last rag off conscience and modesty. Each nation glories cynically in all the infamy that goes to hasten the accumulation of capital! —Flaubert.

This old society has long since been judged and .condemned. Let justice be done! Let this old world be broke into pieces! . . . where innocence has perished, where villany has prospered, where man is exploited by man! Let these whited sepulchres full of lying and iniquity, be utterly destroyed! —Heine.

We say that your society is not even a society, that it is not even the shadow of one, but an assemblage of persons that can be given no name: administered, manipulated, exploited at the will of your caprices, a warren, a flock, a herd of human cattle destined by you to glut your greed. —Lamennais.

What kind of society is it which, at this period, has, for its base, inequality and injustice? Would it not be well to take the whole by the four corners and send it pell-mell up to the ceiling, the cloth, the feast, and the orgy, the gluttony and the drunkenness and the guests; those who have their two elbows on the table, and those who are on all fours under it, to spew the whole lot in God’s face and to fling the whole world at heaven? The hell of the poor makes the paradise of the rich, Not only has happiness not come, but honour has fled. —Victor Hugo.

Imperialism is a depraved choice of national life, imposed by self-seeking interests which appeal to the lusts of acquisitiveness and of dominion surviving in a nation from centuries of animal struggle for existence. Its adoption as a policy implies a deliberate renunciation of that cultivation of the higher inner qualities which for a nation, as for an individual, constitutes the ascendancy ft reason over brute impulse. It is the besetting sin of all successful states, and its penalty is unalterable in the order of nature. —J. A. Hobson's “Imperialism.”

A Practical Programme.

Ragnar Redbeard, speaking from his 3 years’ experience in the Boer War, asserts that if he had 10,000 good guerrillas behind him he could paralyze the greatest standing army on the earth and make all the engines of battle ridiculous by use of the torch alone. He says that is exactly what will happen someday—that no reforms are any longer possible—and that therefore civilisation will have to be entirely destroyed like the old civilisations that preceded it—all of which, he affirms, were destroyed by fire. —Chicago Letter.

THE FLAMES OF FREEDOM

Property is Liberty. To have provisions, garments, and a house of one’s own Is to have the liberty, power, and certainty of eating, dressing, and lodging. Property—that is a firm, solid, palpable, concrete basis for abstract rights. Do you possess only your arms, your knowledge, your intelligence? You have but one right—that of choosing between dying of hunger and taking a master; between utter want and sacrificing your dignity, extending your hand for a little bread after having done a great deal of work; between not being clothed and wearing the livery of another. Not to have a share in property—that has been slavery, that has been servitude, that is the proletariat. —Ernest Lesigne in “Liberty.”

Scene in the American Congress.

Opening. Prayer. House proceeds to important business. Congressman A says that Congressman B is a fraud and horse thief. Congressman B replies that Congressman A Is a damned liar. Congressman A questions Congressman B’s legitimacy. Congressman B fires inkwell at Congressman C. They come to blows; friends part them. Time. Congressman C (drunk) says that he can lick Hell out of any damned Democrat. Congressman D (Democrat) smashes Congressman C on the nose. First blood for Congressman. D. Congressmen E, F, G, H, I, J, K, etc., rush to assistance of Congressman C. Quartette fight to finish. Time. House then proceeds to transaction of less important business. —Liberty.

He who would give the name of robbery or parricide to the iniquitous invention of interest would not be very far from the truth. What, indeed, does it signify if you have made yourselves masters of the wealth of another by scaling walls or by killing passers-by, or if you have acquired what belongs to you by the merciless method of the loan? —St. Gregory of Nyssa.

“A day will come, O St. Gregory, when that which thou treatest as robbery and assassination will become the law of the world, and when the Attorney-General will indict in the Assize Court the writers who share thy opinion. The whole of society will be founded upon usury. They will build a temple which they will call the Stock Exchange. This temple will fill the place of thy cathedrals even as thy cathedrals have filled the place of Jupiter or Venus. The priests serving in this temple will be called Levi, Arton, Reinach, Hugo Oberndoerffer. They will swindle others out of all the gold that will insure to them omnipotence. They will buy everything that is buyable, and some of the things that are not. And vain revolts against their frightful empire will serve only to make more manifest its terrible solidity.”

We are living in an age of decadence, and we pretend not to know it. Not a feature is wanting, though we cannot mention the ugliest of them. We are Romans of the worst period, given up to luxury and effeminacy, and caring for nothing but money. Courage is so out of fashion that we boast of cowardice. We care no more for beauty in art, but only for a brutal realism. Sport has lost its manliness, and is a matter of pigeons from a trap or a mountain of crushed pheasants to sell to your own tradesman. Religion is coming down to jugglery and table-turnings, and philandering with mysteries, brought, like the rites of Isis, from the East; and as for Patriotism, it is turned on like beer at election times, or worked, like a mechanical doll, by wire-pullers. There is not an ounce of manliness in the country; and as for the women, nothing draws the gentle sex like a child hanging by its toenails to a trapeze, or the chance of a wounded pigeon in their laps. If there were a gladiator fight in the Albert Hall next season, and the beaten man went down, the women would want his blood. We have the honour of belonging to one of the most corrupt generations of the human race. To find its equal we must go back to the worst time of the Roman Empire, and look devilish close then. —G. W. E. Russell.

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MIGHT IS RIGHT, or THE SURVIAL OF THE FITTEST. By RAGNAR REDBEARD, LL.D. (University of Chicago). Price 1 ½ dols.; paper 50 cts. Or 2/2. This volume has made a great impression, it is said, upon the leading minds of the world, including Count Von Buelow, Lord Kitchener, Emperor William, Joseph Chamberlain, and J. Pierpont Morgan. Adress the Editor.

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Might is Right, by R. Redbeard. On loan; send stamp for terms.