If one turns to the pages of science, what a masterly array of natural diplomacy and artifice is there displayed! The fishes of the sea imitating the coloring of the grasses or shadows of the deep in which they hide and by means of which they escape their enemies (protective coloring is the scientific name); insects the same, in so far as foliage and grasses are concerned; birds the same; reptiles the same; man, for all his noble theories and dreams of a generous and unselfish mode of conduct, the same; as artificial and secretive as any, he. The stripling lawyer imitates the look and manner of his intellectual superior—words, phrases, carriage, side-whiskers even—in order to seem his equal, or in other words to conceal (secrecy, you see) the fact that he is not his equal, from some trusting and unsophisticated client. Protective coloring, as it were.
Take again the instance of a man beginning to rise financially and wishing to appear the equivalent of men far richer than himself. His office is in their vicinity, his residence in their neighborhood. He is in their club if possible, their church, their directories. He is not as rich as they are, but wishes to conceal the fact. It is not good for the world to know that he is not what he is not. His few public deeds would not be as acceptable or he would be compelled to doff the uniform he so much desires to wear, the manners, along possibly with the emoluments thereof, or the hope of them. Secrecy—secrecy—secrecy. A seeming only, where reality would leave life bare and hard.
And is it not the same with doctors, merchants, professionals of all kinds? To this day is not medicine, like most other professions, fond of mystery and secrecy.... Latin for instance, in preparing its prescriptions, thereby giving them an air of superiority which is not necessarily there at all, or to prevent the patient from knowing what is being put into his stomach, or to make the cure seem more formidable by being mysterious or secret. And to this hour, lawyers delighting in magnificently darksome briefs, which in simple language would be understandable to all and far less fearsome. Again, religion, the Catholic and many other versions, rejoicing in a ritual which, if presented or sung in English, would be just as impressive to the really intelligent if it possessed any genuine merit or appeal. But to the ignorant laity, according to the thoughts of the churchman, it might not be; hence the Latin. And perhaps it is as it should be, for do not the ignorant and the savage invariably crave that which they cannot understand? It may be that they desire something more symbolic of all they feel but cannot express, a quantity and quality of mysterious inner moods and emotions which no human spoken words, especially those of their own tongue, would even suggest.
Hence the priest and preacher, Shi’ite or Sunnite, Dervish, Buddhist, or Brahman formalist, one and all, although ordinary human beings like ourselves, are trained, and most carefully, in the protective coloring of their profession. For essentially they are no different, or, with very rare exception, no more spiritual, no more self-sacrificial—in other words, no more unnatural—than any of their fellows. But, in due process of time, the manners, customs, rules even of those who by chance or peradventure (the accident of disposition or revulsion from too much of something else) have been tender, self-sacrificial, humanitarian, have given these latter their cue. They now know, let us say, what “good” or self-restraining or humanity-loving men and women in times past have, at one time and another, been like, how they walked in humility, denied themselves the pleasures, even the necessities of life, divided a cloak with a beggar or gave it whole, went with an importunate enemy two miles instead of one, turned the other cheek to one who had smitten them on one, gave the last of money or food to one who was hungered, shelter to the shelterless, warmth to the cold, ignored frivolity or laughter because of so much existing misery. And so those who, without performing similar discomforting services, would like to appear thus, now know what to do, how such an one, assuming that he minister to the weak, the erring, the deficient, should conduct himself, his most appropriate airs, manners, moods. Hence—but does one need to call attention to the vast system of protective coloring which now produces saviors, samaritans, ministers by the hundreds of thousands throughout the world, all presumably embracing the qualities which make the self-sacrificial character important, if it is important, yet who perform few if any of those deeds which the coloring implies: the “cloth,” the hats, the reversed collars, the severe black, sign of abstemiousness, self-sacrifice, putting aside of the vanities, shows and pleasures of this world.
Of course there is always the rare individual born so strong, so wise, so courageous, that he needs few if any disguises in order to make life palatable to him, or his way in it. But he is rare, and, even when present, may not always proceed with ease or fearlessly but must disguise the courage and intelligence which he possesses (secrecy). Even he, when dealing with weaker, as well as stronger, individuals and groups, dare not show forth his true strength, save in their behalf, unless he would evoke their destroying anger. For masses, lacking power as to their individual units, are infuriated by one who is not so constituted, who offends by his strength their own futility. All lesser strengths, whether represented by individuals or masses, are envious and jealous of power. And the strong hate the strong quite as much as they do the weak when the latter are opposed to them. And, vice versa, the weak look upon the strong as driving masters, but the strong look upon the strong as rivals seeking power equal to their own, or equal to the task of displacing them. Hence their bitter and destructive rage; the hate of tiger for tiger, for instance, bull for bull. Secrecy, secrecy, here as elsewhere apparently the best policy Nature has been able to devise the only or the essential one, the one most employed. Truly the wise, however powerful, disguise their power and wisdom. They go softly, speak kindly, advocate justice or equation in all things, as well they may, seeing that they themselves may stand in need of it at any turn; and, if they work their will, work it in the dark and alone as much as possible.
What, then, shall we say of life when confronted by truths such as these—that it is offensive, unbearable, a thing to be wept over, shunned, departed from as quickly as possible? I think not. Nature has always been so, and men for millions of years have undertaken life with all its difficulties and subtleties and have done well enough. Indeed, they have thrived, like all those who sharpen their souls against difficulty. It is Nature’s way. With steel She cuts steel, with subtlety subtlety, and the whole process appears to be one in which a more capable device for enduring the inherent restlessness and changefulness of Nature Herself is steadily prepared. It is one of dull wit upon whom, like barnacles, illusions fasten. And he is in error who assumes that the processes of Nature are different from those of man. We are like life, like the chemicals and forces of which we are composed, and have always been so. Only theory and dogma, growing upon and obscuring sluggish minds, have permitted the rise of a contra-conception. We should brush the cobwebs from our eyes and do away with illusion. In so far as possible, and as did the gladiators of old, we should face life with such weapons as we may, some with raw strength and short sword and shield, others with net and trident; one relying on brute strength if need must, the other on the skill and craft with which he may enmesh and slay. There is no other way. Life is so, and only the cowardly or the dull or the weak will either fail to see or endeavor to evade so solemn and even terrible a truth.
IDEALS, MORALS, AND THE DAILY NEWSPAPER
FOR two centuries now if not longer the newspapers, rather than the preachers and reformers generally who preceded and still parallel them, have been elevating themselves to the rôles of soothsayer, prophet, and guardians of all phases of virtue, honesty and the like, to say nothing of those shibboleths of the would-be intellectually dominant, “justice” and “truth.” And the particular views of these papers have come to have an undue weight with those so moderately equipped intellectually as to look upon them as moral leaders. Experiments in government and phases of moral self-control, public and private, are there constantly advocated for the good of the other man, yet nearly always in accordance with the current bias or the direction of the interests of the paper. Yet back of these papers, and in spite of a public following which is supposed to regulate or control or suggest their policy and viewpoint, is always, or nearly so, an individual or group of individuals, possibly a self-interested organization (commercial, religious or otherwise) with perhaps no more intellectual grip on the social and spiritual complexities of the world than any other individual of average capacity and judgment, possibly not so much. Yet with the tremendous leverage of circulation, plus a serviceable and profitable and aggressive counting-room to help out, their moral and social pronunciamentos ridiculously enough become all but sacrosanct, irrefutable, colossal! Yet after all is said and done, here is nothing more than an individual, all too human perhaps, or if not that, a group represented by one individual possibly, seeking via this same lever (circulation) the special, particular things which he or it or they crave. And as a rule he or his group is truckling and hand-rubbing to that which he or it or they imagine the time requires, but seeking always circulation first, as though that were the be-all and end-all of all value, wisdom and duty.
And yet, in America at least, where will you find a citizen who does not to a marked extent reverence the opinions of his paper? The slavish manner in which in certain regions to this day the voters follow a paper and the manner in which the American press has successfully clouded issue after issue since America began—the currency issue for one, the slavery issue for another, the tariff issue for a third, the trust issue for a fourth, the profiteering and European war issues at the present moment. And where will you find a newspaper not advertising passing panaceas that it knows cannot heal (I am not talking about patent medicines), or admitting that a satisfactory social solution for the woes of the millions cannot be found, or admitting frankly that human law is the widespread net that it is, through which great and small alike skip briskly, chance and accident restraining some and releasing others? Only when the big skip through the lesion is greater. Or where will you find a newspaper that will freely admit that the Ten Commandments are not after all God-given law (do not think for a moment that they privately believe they are), or that they constitute anything more than a form of social agreement based for their validity on the will of the majority and not holding where men do not believe them to be true and not followed by any spiritually destructive consequences where men do not accept them to be spiritually true? Life pours through the reportorial, editorial and counting-rooms of the average newspaper pell-mell quite as it does elsewhere, only a little more so. Those at the head note well the secrecy, the self-interest, the “policy” running through all things, the struggles of all individuals and organizations to grow, usually at the expense of everything else; yet editorially, and at the very best, a balance or dependent equation between rival clashing interests—rival, hungry, self-seeking hordes—is all that is ever struck here, although this is all but invariably announced as the Sinaitic command of an all-wise, omnipotent, omnipresent intelligence, the newspaper editor or owner posing as its especial mouthpiece and forwarder! Is it not too ridiculous that so human and fallible or greedy and venal a thing as the average newspaper should set itself up to be a moral and at times even a religious arbiter of a community?
Yet where would be the circulation of the average paper if it did not so do? And where would it be if it attempted to practice what it preached, literally and for itself, as it so freely advises others to do? As all those well know who have anything to do with the organization or control of anything in life, newspapers included, the Beatitudes, as Christ laid them down in the Sermon on the Mount, are not workable and never have been practically. Yet where will you find a newspaper honestly so stating, or even whispering a serious doubt? On the contrary, is it not the absolute workability of these that has, hitherto at least, been most violently insisted upon, and by organizations which well know the pagan complexities of life and are in no way representative of even the faintest approach toward a beatific conception of anything? “Do not as I do but as I say.” That only quiescence and decay could follow the enforcement of any such program as the Beatitudes or the fixed rules of justice, truth, etc., advocated by the average daily paper or any one else, is not only scientifically demonstrable by chemistry and physics but is a truism to the average, and even less than average, constructive and even newspaper mind. Nearly every one with any claim to intelligence or experience understands this, yet where will you find a newspaper or any other public medium of expression venturing on this simple truth? The average man is still in leading strings to various silly theories, religious or otherwise, fostered by self-interested groups, or to his hope of temporary human prosperity, and these are the things which still keep him in the wake of various sophisticated journals which cunningly play upon his illusions. Indeed he flees exact fact as though it were the plague. Blessed words or the sweet milk of romance and prevarication are the things which entertain and soothe him most. In other words—think of this ridiculous and paradoxical fact!—a creature invents a bugaboo and then kneels down and worships it. It forges chains for its so-called intellect, and then groans or rests content under their binding weight.