In the second place, all the efforts of the Spartans were directed toward muscular strength, bodily skill, courage, and simple wants, but not at all toward a life of higher intelligence or ideal sentiments. The exclusiveness with which they only promoted man's bodily development, while neglecting his intellect, their negligence of the laws of organic evolution due to ignorance of natural science, would sooner or later have led to the decay of the Spartans.
However, it was not the laws of Lycurgus in themselves, but their abandonment, which was the direct cause of the decadence of Sparta. The Spartans only sought for power, and this led to envy and jealousy, a deplorable although indirect result of the exclusiveness of their laws. These laws, however, will always constitute a unique historical document, a remarkable attempt at human selection.
We are at the present day incomparably better armed intellectually than Lycurgus to deal with the question of selection. What is chiefly wanting is initiative on the part of the men who are charged with the government of their fellows. They are so deeply absorbed in economic interests and rival influences, that all desire of aspiring to a higher social ideal is paralyzed and etiolated in them. We require a powerful social shaking if we are to make steady progress.
Politics and the Sexual Question.—"Cherchez la femme" is the common expression when anything unusual occurs in society. It would be more correct to say "Look for the sexual motive!" The actions of men are determined much more by their passions and sentiments than by purely intellectual reflection, i.e., by reason and logic.
But no sentiment is stronger than the direct sexual sentiment, or its derivatives—love, jealousy and hatred. From this results a fact which social systems have too much neglected, namely: that in all the domains of human social activity, the sexual passions and their psychic irradiations often interact directly or indirectly in a mischievous way. Mistresses and courtesans have always played a considerable part in political intrigue.
It is not necessary to have such a tragic scandal as that which caused the assassination of the king and queen of Servia. Everyday influences, even the smallest and most dissimulated, are often the most efficacious. Sexual intrigues have at all times influenced and directed the fate of nations. History relates a number of cases of this kind, but there are many more which have never been revealed to the public. It is sufficient to mention this fact. Every one who reflects will find an illustration of it, in the history of the past as well as in the politics of the present, in the courts of monarchs and in small democracies, in the local history of provinces, in his own parish, and lastly among his own relatives, friends and acquaintances.
Sexual Life in Social Action.—The socialist who said that the social question was exclusively a question of stomach mistook its scope as well as human psychology. However admirably the economic relations of men and their work may be regulated, the introduction of sexual passions into social life will never be eliminated. All that can be done is to give both sexes an education which will elevate their social conscience and attenuate the evil influences exercised by personal sexual sentiments on social actions.
The sexual question, therefore, intervenes in politics and in the whole of social life. Moreover, if the deplorable social influence of money and the attraction it exerts could be eliminated, antisocial acts, which only depend indirectly on the sexual passions, would lose much of their danger and infamy.
The Rôle of Women.—Here again, much may be expected from the free emancipation of woman, and from her work in social questions in conjunction with man. This work in common will make them more clearly understand the high importance of their social task. Then sexual life will encourage social development instead of hindering it; it will cease to be considered as an egoistic pleasure but as a means of procreation, and will become the acme of an existence founded on the joy of work.
We can already see, in countries where women have a vote, that they know very well how to benefit by social progress. If it is objected that woman is more conservative and more routine than man, I reply that this inconvenience is compensated by the fact that she is on the whole more inclined to enthusiasm, and to be led by noble masculine natures, who have the sense of the ideal, than by others (vide Chapter V). Her great perseverance and courage are also inestimable qualities for social work which aims at true progress.