this appears to contemporaries who employ this justification) the aim of present-day experimental science.
All the theological subtlety that tried to prove that a certain church is the only true successor of Christ and that therefore it alone has full and unlimited power over the people’s souls and even over their bodies has that for its chief aim.
The juridical sciences: political, criminal, civil, ,and international law, all have that one purpose; most philosophic theories, especially the Hegelian theory that so long prevailed, with its assertion that whatever exists is reasonable and that the State is a form necessary for the perfecting of personality, have solely that aim.
A very inferior English publicist, whose other works have all been forgotten and acknowledged to be insignificant among the insignificant, writes a treatise on population in which he invents a pseudo-law about the increase of population disproportionately to the increase in means of subsistence. He sets out his pseudo-law in baseless mathematical formulae and publishes it to the world.
From the levity and lack of talent of this work one would expect it not to attract anyone’s attention and to be forgotten like all the same author’s subsequent writings; but what happened was just the opposite. The publicist who wrote that treatise at once became a scientific authority, and remained so for nearly half a century. Malthus! Malthus’s theory-the law of the increase of population in geometrical, and of the means of subsistence in arithmetical, progression, and of the natural and rational methods of limiting population, all became scientific, indubitable truths, which were not verified but were employed as axioms from which to deduce further conclusions. That was how learned, educated-people behaved; and among the masses of idle people there was respectful faith in the great law discovered by Malthus.
Why did this happen? These seem to be scientific deductions which have nothing in common with the instincts of the herd.
But that only appears so to one who believes that science is something self-existent, like the Church, which is not subject to error; and not simply the thoughts of weak and erring men who just for importance’ sake call their thoughts and words ‘science’.
It was only necessary to make practical deductions from the theory of Malthus to see that that theory was a very human one with very definite aims.
The deductions that flowed directly from that theory were as follows: the wretched condition of the working people is not due to cruelty, egotism, or lack of understanding, on the part of the rich and powerful, but is what it is by an immutable law not dependent on man, and if anyone is to blame for it, it is the hungry workmen themselves: why have they been so stupid as to be born when they know they will have nothing to eat? And so the rich and powerful classes are not to blame for anything and may quietly continue to live as before.
And this deduction was so valuable for the crowd of idle people, that all the learned people overlooked the lack of proof, the incorrectness, and the completely arbitrary nature of this proposition, and the crowd of educated, that is to say idle, people, scenting what these propositions led to, enthusiastically acclaimed it, stamped it with the seal of truth, that is of science, and made much of it for half a century.
The positivist philosophy of Comte and the I doctrine deduced from it that humanity is an organism, and Darwin’s doctrine of a law of the struggle for existence that is supposed to govern life, with the differentiation of various breeds of people which follows from it, and the anthropology, biology, and sociology of which people are now so fond-all have the same aim. These have all become favourite sciences because they serve to justify the way in which people free themselves from the human obligation to labour, while consuming the fruits of other people’s labour.
All these theories, as is always the case, are first formulated in the secret sanctuaries of the priests, and are diffused among the masses in indefinite, obscure expressions, and are so adopted by them. As in olden times all the theological subtleties justifying the violence committed by the Church and the State remained the special knowledge of the priests, while among the masses readymade conclusions circulated that were accepted on faith, to the effect that the power of the kings, the priests, and the nobles, was sacred; so later on the philosophic and juridical subtleties of so called science were the possession of the priests of science, while among the masses only conclusions accepted on faith were current, to the effect that the organization of society should be such as it is, and that it cannot be otherwise.
And so now, it is only in the sanctuaries of the priests of science that the laws of life and the evolution of organisms are analysed, while among the masses conclusions are accepted on faith, to the effect that the division of labour is a law confirmed by science and that things should be so: some should work and die of hunger, while others must everlastingly make holiday; and that just this very perdition of some and banqueting of others is an indubitable law of human life to which we ought to submit.
The current justification of this idleness among the mass of the so-called educated people, with their various activities, from railway officials to writers and artists, is now this:
We people who have emancipated ourselves from the duty common to humanity of taking part in the struggle for existence, are serving progress and thereby render service to the whole of society which compensates for all the harm we do to people by consuming their labour.
That reasoning appears to men of our time quite unlike that by which people who did not work used to justify themselves formerly; just as the reasoning of the Roman emperors and citizens that without them the cultured world would perish, seemed to them quite apart from the reasoning of the Egyptians and the Persians, and just as similar reasoning seemed to the medieval knights and clergy to be quite distinct from the reasoning of the Romans.
But that only seems so; it is only necessary to examine the essence of our present justification to become convinced that there is nothing new in it.
It is only a little disguised, but is the same, for it is founded on the same thing. Every justification of man for consuming the labour of others without himself working-the justification of Pharaoh and the priests, of the Roman and medieval emperors, and of the knights, priests, and clerics-was always constructed on two assumptions: (1) We take the labour of the common people because we are a special kind of people destined by God to rule the common folk and teach them divine truths; (2) members of the common
people cannot be judges of the amount of labour we take from the common people, because, as was said already by the Pharisees (John vii. 49), This multitude which knoweth not the law are accursed. The people do not understand what is good for them, and cannot therefore be the judge of the benefits conferred on them.
The justification employed in our time, despite its apparent difference, is constructed essentially of those same two fundamental propositions: (1) We are special people, we educated people who serve progress and civilization and thereby confer great benefit on the common folk; (2) the common uneducated people do not understand the benefit we confer on them and therefore cannot be judges of it.
We free ourselves from toil, and use up the toil of others and thereby make their condition more burdensome, and we affirm that in exchange for this we render them great service of which, from their ignorance, they cannot be the judges.
Is not this the same? The difference is only in the fact that formerly the right to other people’s work belonged to the Roman citizens, priests, knights, and nobles, but now to one caste of people who call themselves the educated classes. The falsehood is the same, for the false position of the people justifying themselves is the same. That falsehood lies in the fact that before reasoning about the advantage rendered to the people by those who free themselves from toil, certain people, the Pharaohs, the priests, or we educated people, occupy that position, maintain it, and then devise a justification for it.
That position of some people coercing others, both in former times and in the present, serves as the basis of it all.
The only difference between our justification and the most ancient one is that ours is more fallacious and has less basis than the former.
The ancient emperors and popes if they themselves and the people believed in their divine appointment, could explain simply why they were the people who should have the use of other people’s labour: they said they were appointed thereto by God himself, and that God destined them to transmit to the people the divine truths which had been revealed to them, and to govern the people.
But educated people of our times who do not work with their hands, acknowledging the equality of man, can no longer explain why just they and their children (for education also is only obtained by money, that is by power) are the chosen, fortunate people ordained
