Essays in War-Time: Further Studies in the Task of Social Hygiene

by Havelock Ellis

We can also realise to-day that war is not only an opportunity for the exercise of virtues. It is also an opportunity for the exercise of vices. "War is Hell" said Sherman, and that is the opinion of most great reflective soldiers. We see that there is nothing too brutal, too cruel, too cowardly, too mean, and too filthy for some, at all events, of modern civilised troops to commit, whether by, or against, the orders of their officers. In France, a few months before the present War, I found myself in a railway train at Laon with two or three soldiers; a young woman came to the carriage door, but, seeing the soldiers, she passed on; they were decent, well-behaved men, and one of them remarked, with a smile, on the suspicion which the military costume arouses in women. Perhaps, however, it is a suspicion that is firmly based on ancient traditions. There is the fatally seamy side of be-praised Militarism, and there Feminism has a triumphant argument.

In this connection I may allude in passing to a little conflict between Masculinism and Feminism which has lately taken place in Germany. Germany, as we know, is the country where the claims of Masculinism are most loudly asserted, and those of Feminism treated with most contempt. It is the country where the ideals of men and of women are in sharpest conflict. There has been a great outcry among men in Germany against the "treachery" and "unworthiness" of German women in bestowing chocolates and flowers on the prisoners, as well as doing other little services for them. The attitude towards prisoners approved by the men—one trusts it is not to be regarded as a characteristic outcome of Masculinism—is that of petty insults, of spiteful cruelty, and mean deprivations. Dr. Helene Stöcker, a prominent leader of the more advanced band of German Feminists, has lately published a protest against this treatment of enemies who are helpless, unarmed, and often wounded—based, not on sentiment, but on the highest and most rational grounds—which is an honour to German women and to their Feminist leaders.[1]

Taken altogether, it seems probable that when this most stupendous of wars is ended, it will be felt—not only from the side of Feminism, but even of Masculinism,—that War is merely an eruption of ancient barbarism which in its present virulent forms would not have been tolerated even by savages. Such methods are hopelessly out of date in days when wars may be engineered by a small clique of ambitious politicians and self-interested capitalists, while whole nations fight, with or without enthusiasm, merely because they have no choice in the matter. All the powers of civilisation are working towards the elimination of wars. In the future, it seems evident, militarism will not furnish the basis for the masculinistic spirit. It must seek other supports.

That is what will probably happen. We must expect that the increasing power of women and of the feminine influence will be met by a more emphatic and a more rational assertion of the qualities of men and the masculine spirit in life. It was unjust and unreasonable to subject women to conditions that were primarily made by men and for men. It would be equally unjust and unreasonable to expect men to confine their activities within limits which are more and more becoming adjusted to feminine preferences and feminine capacities. We are now learning to realise that the tertiary physical, and psychic sexual differences—those distinctions which are only found on the average, but on the average are constant[2]—are very profound and very subtle. A man is a man throughout, a woman is a woman throughout, and that difference is manifest in all the energies of body and soul. The modern doctrine of the internal secretions—the hormones which are the intimate stimulants to physical and psychic activity in the organism—makes clear to us one of the deepest and most all-pervading sources of this difference between men and women. The hormonic balance in men and women is unlike; the generative ferments of the ductless glands work to different ends.[3] Masculine qualities and feminine qualities are fundamentally and eternally distinct and incommensurate. Energy, struggle, daring, initiative, originality, and independence, even though sometimes combined with rashness, extravagance, and defect, seem likely to remain qualities in which men—on the average, it must be remembered—will be more conspicuous than women. Their manifestation will resist the efforts put forth to constrain them by the feminising influences of life.

Such considerations have a real bearing on the problem of Eugenics. As I view that problem, it is first of all concerned, in part with the acquisition of scientific knowledge concerning heredity and the influences which affect heredity; in part with the establishment of sound ideals of the types which the society of the future demands for its great tasks; and in part—perhaps even in chief part—with the acquisition of a sense of personal responsibility. Eugenic legislation is a secondary matter which cannot come at the beginning. It cannot come before our knowledge is firmly based and widely diffused; it cannot come until we are clear as to the ideals which we wish to see embodied in human character and human action; it cannot come until the sense of personal responsibility towards the race is so widely spread throughout the community that its absence is universally felt to be either a crime or a disease.

I fear that point of view is not always accepted in England and still less in America. It is widely held throughout the world that America is not only the land of Feminism, but the land in which laws are passed on every possible subject, and with considerable indifference as to whether they are carried out, or even whether they could be carried out. This tendency is certainly well illustrated by eugenic legislation in the United States. In the single point of sterilisation for eugenic ends—and I select a point which is admirable in itself and for which legislation is perhaps desirable—at least twelve States have passed laws. Yet most of these laws are a dead letter; every one of them is by the best experts considered at some point unwise; and the remarkable fact remains that the total number of eugenical sterilising operations performed in the States without any law at all is greater than the total of those performed under the laws. So that the laws really seem to have themselves a sterilising effect on a most useful eugenic operation.[4]

I refrain from mentioning the muddles and undesigned evils produced by other legislation of a much less admirable nature.[5] But I may perhaps be allowed to mention that it has seemed to some observers that there is a connection between the Feminism of America and the American mania for hasty laws which will not, and often cannot, be carried out in practice. Certainly there is no reason to suppose that women are firmly antagonistic to such legislation. Nice, pretty, virtuous little laws, complete in every detail, seem to appeal irresistibly to the feminine mind. (And, of course, many men have feminine minds.) It is true that such laws are only meant for show. But then women are so accustomed to things that are only meant for show, and are well aware that if one attempted to use such things they would fall to pieces at once.

However that may be, we shall probably find at last that we must fall back on the ancient truth that no external regulation, however pretty and plausible, will suffice to lead men and women to the goal of any higher social end. We must realise that there can be no sure guide to fine living save that which comes from within, and is supported by the firmly cultivated sense of personal responsibility. Our prayer must still be the simple, old-fashioned prayer of the Psalmist: "Create in me a clean heart, O God"—and to Hell with your laws!

In other words, our aim must be to evolve a social order in which the sense of freedom and the sense of responsibility are both carried to the highest point, and that is impossible by the aid of measures which are only beneficial for the children of Perdition. That there are such beings, incapable alike either of freedom or of responsibility, we have to recognise. It is our business to care for them—until with the help of eugenics we can in some degree extinguish their stocks—in such refuges and reformatories as may be found desirable. But it is not our business to treat the whole world as a refuge and a reformatory. That is fatal to human freedom and fatal to human responsibility. By all means provide the halt and the lame with crutches. But do not insist that the sound and the robust shall never stir abroad without crutches. The result will only be that we shall all become more or less halt and lame.

It is only by such a method as this—by segregating the hopelessly feeble members of society and by allowing the others to take all the risks of their freedom and responsibility even though we strongly disapprove—that we can look for the coming of a better world. It is only by such a method as this that we can afford to give scope to all those varying and ever-contradictory activities which go to the making of any world worth living in. For Conflict, even the conflict of ideals, is a part of all vital progress, and each party to the conflict needs free play if that conflict is to yield us any profit. That is why Masculinists have no right to impede the play of Feminism, and Feminists no right to impede the play of Masculinism. The fundamental qualities of Man, equally with the fundamental qualities of Woman, are for ever needed in any harmonious civilisation. There is a place for Masculinism as well as a place for Feminism. From the highest standpoint there is not really any conflict at all. They alike serve the large cause of Humanity, which equally includes them both.