Towards the Great Peace

by Ralph Adams Cram

The greater the prevalence of democratic methods, the greater is the danger of this surrender to propaganda of a thousand sorts and to the dominance of the demagogue, and the existence of an estate fortified by the inheritance of high tradition, measurably free from the necessity of engaging too strenuously in the "struggle for life," guaranteed security of status so long as it does not betray the ideals of its order, but open to accessions from other estates on the basis of conspicuous merit alone, such a force operating in society has proved, and will prove, the best guardian of civilization as a whole and of the interests and liberties of those who may rank in what are known as lower social scales.

But, it may be objected, such an institution as this has never existed. Every political or social aristocracy in history has been mixed and adulterated with bad characters and recreant representatives. There never has been and never will be a perfect aristocracy. Quite true; neither has there ever been a perfect democracy, or a perfect monarchy for that matter. As men we work with imperfections, but we live by faith, and our sole duty is to establish the highest ideals, and to compass them, in so far as we may, with unfailing courage, patience and steadfastness. The ideal of democracy is a great ideal, but the working of democracy has been a failure because, amongst other things, it has tried to carry on without the aid of true aristocracy. If the two can be united, first in ideal and in theory, then in operation, our present failure may be changed into victory.

What, after all, does this imply, so far as the social organism is concerned? It seems to me, something like this. First of all, recognition of the fact that there are differences in individuals, in strains of blood, in races, that cannot be overcome by any power of education and environment, and can only be changed through very long periods of time, and that these differences must work corresponding differences in position, function and status in the social organism. Second, that since society automatically develops an aristocracy of some sort or other, and apparently cannot be stopped from doing this, it must be protected from the sort of thing it has produced of late, which is based on money, political expediency and the unscrupulous cleverness of the demagogue, and given a more rational substitute in the shape of a permanent group representing high character and the traditions of honour, chivalry and courtesy. Third, that character and service should be fostered and rewarded by that formal and august recognition, that secure and unquestioned status, and those added opportunities for service that will form a real and significant distinction. Finally, that this order or estate must be able to purge itself of unworthy material, and also must be freely open to constant accessions from without, whatever the source, and for proved character and service.

I fear I must argue this case of the inequality in individual potential, that inequality that does not yield to complex education or favourable environment, for it is fundamental. If it does not exist, then my argument for the organization of society along lines that recognize and regularize diversity of social status and functions, falls to the ground. I affirm that, the doctrine of evolution and modern democratic theory to the contrary, it does exist and that the mitigating influence of education, environment and inherited acquired characters, is small at best.

Let us take the most obvious concrete examples. There are certain ethnic units or races which for periods ranging from five hundred to two thousand years have produced character, and through character the great contributions that have been made to human culture and have been expressed through men of distinction, dynamic force, and vivid personality. Such, amongst many, are the Greeks, the Jews, the Romans, the Normans, the Franks, the "Anglo-Saxons," and the Celts. There are others that in all history have produced nothing. There are certain family names which are a guarantee of distinction, dynamic force, and vivid personality. There are thousands of these names, and they are to be found amongst all the races that have contributed towards the development of culture and civilization. On the other hand, there are far more that have produced nothing distinctive, and possibly never will.

What is the reason for this? Is it the result of blind chance, of accidents that have left certain races and families isolated in stagnant eddies from which some sudden current of a whimsical tide might sweep them out into the full flood of progress, until they then overtook and passed their hitherto successful rivals, who, in their turn, would drift off into progressive incompetence and degeneracy? Biology does not look with enthusiasm on the methods of chance and accident. The choice and transmission of the forty-eight chromosomes that give to each individual his character-potential are probably in accordance with some obscure biological law through which the unfathomable divine will operates. Now these chromosomes may be selected and combined after a fashion, and with a persistence of continuity, that would guarantee character-potential, for good or for ill, through many generations, or they might be so varied in their combinations that no distinct traits would be carried over from one generation to another. As a matter of experience all these three processes take place and are recorded in families of distinct quality, good, bad and indifferent. If the character-potential is predetermined, then manifestly education and environment can play only the subordinate part of fostering its development or retarding it.

In the same way the character and career of the various races of men are determined by the potential inherent in the individuals and families that compose them, and like them the races themselves are for long periods marked by power and capacity or weakness and lack of distinction. There are certain races, such as the Hottentot, the Malay, the American Indian, and mixed bloods, as the Mexican peons and Mongol-Slavs of a portion of the southeastern Europe, that, so far as recorded history is concerned, are either static or retrogressive. There are family units, poverty-stricken and incompetent, in Naples, Canton, East Side New York; or opulent and aggressive in West Side New York, in Birmingham, Westphalia, Pittsburgh, that are no more subject to the cultural and character-creating influences of education and environment—beyond a certain definite point—than are the amphibians of Africa or the rampant weeds of my garden.

This is a hard saying and a provocative. The entire course of democratic theory, of humanitarian thought and of the popular type of scientific speculation stands against it, and the Christian religion as well, unless the statement itself is guarded by exact definitions. If the contention of the scientific materialist were correct, and the thing that makes man, and that Christians call the immortal soul, were but the result of physical processes of growth and differentiation, then slavery would be justifiable, and exploitation a reasonable and inevitable process. Since, however, this assumption of materialism is untenable, and since all men are possessed of immortal souls between which is no distinction in the sight of God, the situation, regrettable if you like, is one which at the same time calls for the exercise of a higher humanitarianism than that so popular during the last generation, and as well for a very drastic revision of contemporary political and social and educational methods.

The soul of the man is the localization of divinity; in a sense each man is a manifestation of the Incarnation. Black or white, conspicuous or obscure, intelligent or stupid, offspring of a creative race or bound by the limitations of one that is static or in process of decay, there is no difference in the universal claim to justice, charity, and opportunity. The soul of a Cantonese river-man, of a Congo slave, of an East Side Jew, is in itself as essentially precious and worth saving as the soul of a bishop, of a descendant of a Norman viking or an Irish king, or that of a volunteer soldier in the late armies of France or Great Britain or the United States.

Here lies absolute and final equality, and the State, the Law, the Church are bound to guard this equality in the one case and the other with equal force; indeed, those of the lower racial and family types claim even more faithful guardianship than those of the higher, for they can accomplish less for themselves and by themselves. But the fundamental and inescapable inequality, in intellect, in character, and in capacity, which I insist is one of the conditioning factors in life, is vociferously denied, but ruthlessly enforced, by the people that will be the first to denounce any restatement of what is after all no more than a patent fact.