CHAPTER XIX[ToC]
CONCLUSIONS
Utopia and the Realizable Ideal.—The term Utopia may be applied to every ideal project elaborated by human imagination for the future welfare of society, which has no healthy and real foundation, is contrary to human nature and the results of experience, and has consequently no chance of success. Persons of conservative minds who live in prejudice and in the faith of authority apply the term Utopia to every ideal which has not been legalized and sanctioned by time, custom, or authority. This is a grave error, which, if it always prevailed, would bar the way to all social progress.
As regards the ideal, the future may realize much progress that the past has not known, and on this point Ben Akiba was wrong in saying that "there is nothing new under the sun." International communication, universal postage, the suppression of slavery in civilized countries, the artificial feeding of new-born infants, the telephone, wireless telegraphy, etc., are realized advances which had formerly never appeared on the horizon of humanity, and which would have been regarded as impossible fantasies, or Utopias.
Why should the common use of an international language and the suppression of war between civilized countries be Utopias? The most diverse races already speak English, and all might learn Esperanto. In the interior of countries such as France and Germany, etc., the old feudal wars ceased long ago. Why should a more and more international union between men be impossible?
Why should the suppression of the use of narcotic substances such as alcohol, opium, hashish, etc., which poison entire nations, be Utopian? Why should it be the same with the economic reform desired by socialists, that is the equitable division of wages; for example, by the aid of a coöperative system or by the reduction of capital to a minimum?
These things are all possible, and even necessary for the natural and progressive development of humanity. It is only the prejudice of old customs, based on the conservative tendency of sentiments, which opposes these projects and tries to ridicule them by calling them Utopian. In its shortsightedness, it does not see the change which occurs all over the world in the social relations of men, or does not estimate them at their true value, and it cannot abandon its old idols.
Lastly, why should rational reforms in the sexual domain be more difficult to realize than the artificial feeding of infants, than the actual triumphs of surgical operations, than sero-therapy, than vaccination, etc.? In the same way that shortsighted and longsighted persons wear spectacles, or those who have no teeth use artificial ones, so may men who are tainted by hereditary disease employ preventatives in coitus to avoid the procreation of a tainted progeny; and the same means may be employed to give women time to recover their strength after each confinement.