A Radical will tell you that this is a
transitional state. Possibly, if we accept the Radical theories of
progress. I held them once in a very light-hearted way; I am now far
less disposed to accept them as even imaginably true. Those who are
enthusiastic for the spirit of the age proceed on the principle of
countenancing evil that good may some day come of it. Such a
position astonishes me. Is the happiness of a man now alive of less
account than that of the man who shall live two hundred. years
hence? Altruism is doubtless good, but only so when it gives pure
enjoyment; that is to say, when it is embraced. instinctively. Shall
I frown on a man because he _cannot_ find his bliss in altruism and
bid him perish to make room for a being more perfect? What right
have we to live thus in the far-off future? Thinking in this way, I
have a profound dislike and distrust of this same progress. Take one
feature of it--universal education. That, I believe, works most
patently for the growing misery I speak of. Its results affect all
classes, and all for the worse. I said that I used to have a very
bleeding of the heart for the half-clothed and quarter-fed
hangers-on to civilisation; I think far less of them now than of
another class in appearance much better off. It is a class created
by the mania of education, and it consists of those unhappy men and
women whom unspeakable cruelty endows with intellectual needs whilst
refusing them the sustenance they are taught to crave.
Pages:
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668