Why?
Because of the peculiar effect of the human brain on human action—the relation between concept and conduct. In adaptation to our physical environment, whether the original face of nature, or the latest inventions in mechanics, we have material relations to deal with, and have learned how.
Social relations are psychic. That a steel spade is better than a wooden one is easily proven to the hand and eye. That a democracy is better than a despotism is not so simple a proposition. The laws of the hydraulic press are established by visible experiment; but the laws of the distribution of wealth work in another medium, and are more difficult to establish.
Society is a psychic condition; all social relations exist and grow in the human mind. That one despot can rule over a million other men rests absolutely on their state of mind. They believe that he does; let them change their minds, and he does not. As a human animal the despot is of such size, weight, colour—he is a physical fact. As a Despot—he is but a psychical fact—he exists as a Despot only in the minds of men. (This is not Christian Science, but sociological science.) He is a concept, a common concept, acting under which all men do thus and thus; outgrowing which, they discard their Despot and adopt some other political belief.
In pre-social planes of evolution we do not find this factor in determining conduct. Earlier forms of life reacted directly to conditions and were modified by them. Man reacts to external conditions as do other animals, but also he acts according to these special inner conditions—his ideas. The power to form and retain concepts, and act under their influence precisely as if they were facts, is what gives the element of special progress and also of perversity to human conduct. This internal environment, the general furnishing of a man’s brain, and more particularly its basic concepts, do more to determine his action than does external environment. His reaction to external conditions is modified by these internal conditions; unless you know them you cannot predict the result; unless you change them you cannot change the result.
Present the same conditions of shipwreck to sailors of different nationalities, and see how widely they differ in conduct. A crew of Chinamen, wild with terror or in a stupor of fatalism, show no discipline or courage, they can scarce save themselves. A crew of the Latin race, as was so lamentably shown in the wreck of the Bourgogne, seek frantically to save themselves, at the expense of passengers, women, and children. A crew of English or Americans show self-control, resource, courage. They save first the women and children and the passengers, last themselves. If there is no escape they preserve their discipline to the last, as in the crew of the Victoria going down to death in perfect order, to the sound of music.
Even under that imminent pressure, the most direct modifying force in nature, the fear of death—the action of the human being depends more upon his character, that is, upon the sum of his concepts and consequent habits, than on the present environment. Maternal instinct is one of the strongest and most deep-seated in nature, but under the action of certain religious concepts, mothers have given their babies to Moloch or to the Ganges. The sex instinct is of incalculable force, but under the action of certain concepts men and women have been known to stultify it absolutely in voluntary celibacy.
An excellent proof of the power of concepts compared with conditions is given in the heroism of William Phelps, the Indianapolis negro. Two coloured men were at work in a great boiler, riveting. Some person by accident turned on the steam. Hot steam as a material condition is quite forcible, and the two men started for the ladder. But Phelps, who was foremost, was arrested by a concept. He stepped back, saying to the other, “You go first—you’re married!” Even in that comparatively undeveloped brain, a group of concepts as to Duty and Honour were stronger modifiers of conduct than boiling steam.
This power of directing action by concepts is at once our great advantage and disadvantage. If the concepts are true, if they are founded on fact and in accordance with law, they promote advantageous conduct; if they are false, they promote disadvantageous conduct. Even if once true, that is, as true as the brains of a given period, acting on the knowledge of that period, could comprehend, they become mischievous if not changed to suit the larger brains and larger knowledge of a later time. As shown in the previous chapter, this is precisely our difficulty. We are always being hindered by our back-acting brain. Society progresses far more rigidly than our recognition of it. The acts and facts of to-day continually diverge from the concepts of yesterday.
History exhibits an endless series of man’s efforts to check his own growth. Patient, persistent, ingenious, devout, he has laboured incessantly to stay where he was—where he used to be; and is continually astonished to find himself still in motion and going upward. In dealing with the average human brain, these deterrent forces are constantly met; the mere physical resistance to a new process of thought; and a conscious, yes, and conscientious, resistance to a concept not in accordance with the previous supply.