CHAPTER V.
THE NEED OF DIVERSITY.
A large part of the aims of government in all ages has been the securing of uniformity, and much of the misery of mankind has been caused by the enforcing of it. But when we look at nature we see that a highly uniform species is the least likely to advance; and a seedsman or a breeder will try to break up too uniform a strain by exciting conditions which may lead to beneficial new varieties. It is only in a fluctuating species in which new "sports" easily arise, or are quickly developed by conditions, that we can expect to acquire new qualities or beneficial advance.
It is therefore one of the essentials for an advancing species that it should have full scope for diversity, so that any new varieties may not be crushed out by a uniformity of conditions. Too uniform a type of government is a deadly thing. Compulsory orthodoxy killed the vitality of Spain, and—so far as it succeeded—that of France also. No state was more brilliant or vigorous than the Norman rule in Sicily, which equally patronised Muhammedan and Christian.
Diversity may be secured in two ways, either by large varieties within a single great state, or by differences between homogeneous small states. The diversity within a large state may be seen in England or America; diversity between small states was attained between the cities of ancient Greece or mediaeval Italy.
But we meet with limiting conditions in the necessity of combination for mutual support; and in small states that can be carried out by a vigorous intolerance which weeds out those who are not conformable, and drives them into more congenial communities. Intolerance, therefore, is a gain to a small community, though detrimental to a large state where it excludes the neighbourhood of variety.
In modern times it is with large states that we have mainly to deal. They are a necessary development where communication is sufficiently easy for the concentrated military pressure of the whole to be brought to bear on a single point. If states are so small that concentration on the border is too easy, the state will expand; if concentration is difficult owing to size, the state will tend to fall apart again. The size for states which is most successful is a function of the facility of internal communication. Let those who deplore the absorption of small states, and the growth of Imperialism in all countries, ponder the tale of the North American Indians, who resented the power of the white man, and considered how to rid themselves of him. Their great council was rejoiced, when one sage said that if they would do as he said, he would promise that no white man should remain. "If the white man is to go you must give up all that he brought, the horse, the gun, the blanket, the firewater; if you will do this you may be free." They thought—and then said, "No, he must stay." So, if we are willing to revert to nothing quicker than a cob, we might get back to a Heptarchy.
The modern condition of great states being therefore forced upon us by the railway and telegraph, the only practical question is the form of life in such communities. Uniformity that is enforced, either by law, or by custom or fashion, is certainly a detriment, as it will suppress the useful variations when they arise. And the objection to it bursts out in the form of anarchism, which is specially a disease of great states. The amount of anarchism is very closely related to the size of the state; and it is probably an exact measure of the internal strain produced by repulsion of diverse types and the pressure needed to keep them together.
It is only a very crude form of intolerance to expect many tens of millions of people to agree in religion, morals, and government. A degree of intolerance that may succeed, and even be useful, for some thousands, will be disastrous if applied to as many millions of men.
But here we run against another guiding principle of many people. It is often assumed that possibly in government, probably in religion, and certainly in morals, there is an absolute standard of right and wrong, immutable and irremovable. To take the last subject—that of morals—to the utilitarian they are the conditions for the well-being of society, and may vary indefinitely with the variations of society, and he recognises that there is perhaps no action which may not belong to the best code of morality for certain possible conditions. To the theologian morals are the Divine dictates, which have varied immensely under different dispensations; and the Patriarchal, early Jewish, Prophetic, or Christian codes are represented as quite incompatible one with another. The subjects of sister-marriage, concubinage of captives, lapidation, private revenge, communal or individual responsibility, and others, all show how entirely variable the presentation of the moral standard is for different states of society. Hence we must always regard any given moral standard as being rightly associated with some particular condition of society and typical of it; much as the colour of red heat, or yellow heat, or white heat, is typical of particular temperatures. And instead of blindly reprobating those among us who do not conform to our present theoretical standard, or even the present normal standard, we should regard them as fragments of a different society gone astray in time or space.
Thus we see that diversity should be tolerated up to the limits of the laws that are absolutely necessary to avoid confusion and misunderstanding between members of the same community: and there is no constraining principle which would narrow the variability allowable, short of permitting injustice, hardship, or unfair competition between those who need to work together in mutual confidence and good faith. It may truly be said that civilisation is the means for giving scope to diversity.