Love, the Law of Life

Advancing to the psychical stage of society, mankind reaches, technically and consciously, its appointed place. To each man is given to determine his sphere of activity: the teacher in the school, the priest in the temple, the soldier on the battle field, the merchant in the mart, the actor upon the stage. In this society mythology has already lost its power. And as each individual proceeds by virtue of his own dignity in the direction chosen, a new type of love awakens.

Psychical society builds cities. A society of extreme variations and excessive mass production is formed. The extreme variations, through exchange, build up commercial markets, and the mills of mass production create industrial cities. Multitudes are attracted to the cities, fascinated by the superficial variety. They toil in the factories for their bread, and spend their money for diverse commodities.

Psychical society permits each individual to separate and go as he pleases, thus creating extreme free competition. Whereupon there develops a maelstrom of struggle, with no unity and no control. The best fitted individuals secure the best places, while the unfit weep in distressing circumstances. It is in this manner that psychical society has brought into being the strange civilization of modern times—an urban civilization, abnormal and void of mutual aid, which men call “free competition.”

The free competition brings in struggle, struggle creates armies, and the armies combine with the mythical powers of the olden times. Present-day civilization is psychical, but is not as yet a fully awakened civilization. It lacks selection. It is a civilization seemingly delirious, a society which thinks it quite natural for the strong to oppress the weak.

In this society morality is treated as limited psychic law. It is not observed as the ethics of the aggregate of society, but is regarded as an interest esteemed among a small coterie of self-denying folk.

Many of the groups into which psychical society is variously divided select their own aims and set out in different directions. Accordingly, society becomes pluralistic, discovering authority after authority. No longer can the groups pride themselves upon mere military power. They give themselves airs, rather, over money power, and we witness the appearance of a capitalistic society. The reason for this boasting of money power inheres in the fact that to aid in the process of weaving together this multifariously divided, pluralistic society, the fixed standard of value adopted, the medium which must needs be current in any group whatsoever, is money. This is tantamount to saying that in psychical society none but psychical forces really control. Wherefore, military power ceases to function, for it is replaced by money power based upon profit taking. Thus money power, in order to rouse the society to action, initiates the activities of the capitalists, and the pluralistic, psychical society is transformed into a capitalistic society.:

Pluralistic society is, however, always pluralistic. Since nothing can control it, a supposed unification is achieved through profit and money power. Yet is it an imaginary, not a real, unity. If social unity possessing genuine inner power is attained, the fictitious unity as a matter of course vanishes.

The declaration of socialism is just this, that when society is perfectly organized, the fictitious capitalistic society of the present will naturally pass away. In fact, when a psychically divided society awakens to true social consciousness, it will, of course, strike down the fictitious régime of capitalism and create an ameliorated, spiritual society.

Scientific socialists, interpreting capitalistic culture as materialistic, have done so because they were pointing out this imagined money-power system, and in this sense the criticism of materialism is not in error. But as the psychical laboring class by degrees awakens inwardly, it inevitably comes to bear antipathy toward the supposedly all-powerful class. Thus, the psychical society pluralistically divided, comes to the point where it awakens from the unconscious, money-powered unity to a self-consciousness which is, so to speak, class conscious. Up to this point the supposedly all-powerful class maintains its connection with the class of biological power in forming a mysterious, half-conscious, goblinlike society. But as the deeper, inner, social instincts are awakened, the external defects gradually become apparent, and the result is a genuinely awakened social organization.

Unless men are awakened inwardly, a genuine society is s impossible. One which is liable to destruction by an} external power is not as yet a true society. Just as' passionate love fears no sword, so genuine society fear \ no power whatsoever. A society which is fully awak- | ened has advanced far beyond the might-principle of | biological society. Military power plays no great part | in organizing society. The same holds true in regard | to money power. Ina genuine society men who have | awakened to the consciousness of humanity join together through their inner will to unite. A combination of this type I would term an ethical society. In this society neither imaginary force nor external power possesses any restrictive influence. Each individual is bound to the others by all the inner instincts of humanity. That is to say, herein is formed for the first time a genuine society in which every individual is infused with love: love works through each individual; love is the foundation of the body social.

Thus is created a society in which no person is oppressed, no one is deceived by profit making, no one | is shunned. It is a society of free codperation, where | no one is overbearing and no person is humiliated. / No further need exists for uniting people by the absurd method of a fictitious power, and without recourse to money power the society is sufficiently united through its own organization. It possesses a codperative aim and follows a codperative process. Since this aim is the free aim of a free society, there is no objection to calling it socialism. For true socialism, rather than being a system built up by class struggle, signifies nothing else than a psychical society awakened to genuine social consciousness. It banishes by the help of a perfect organization the imaginary money power which has sought to unite the pluralistic society.

In brief, unless the evolution of inner love is recognized, it is impossible to understand the development of socialistic morality. In other words, socialism means social principle. Without the instinct of inner love social organization is not feasible. I believe that the effort to bring in a genuinely socialistic order will be successful only through the awakening of inner love. A conqueror state which has prevailed by struggle, whether composed of propertied groups or proletariat, is not a perfect society, for it is not founded upon love.

IT am unable to regard a society tainted by conquest, whatever may have been the nature of the conquest, as an ideal society. A true society must be a free society subduing no one at all, but closely cohering by love. Wherefore, I cannot believe that the Kaiser, or Lenin, or Mussolini have formed ideal societies.

The ideal society is not imposed from without, but springs up from within. It is not created by an individual, but by the society itself. It is not forced upon. men, but is born in response to a necessity which defies _disunion. A society of such a nature may be said to - constitute one vast personality, each individual mem-. ber bearing one function of that personality. Thus is created a social organization in which no one is ostracized, no one is unnecessary, everyone produces and everyone consumes—a society possessing a conscience, in which neither color of skin, nor physical features, nor age, nor quality in art, ignores any other portion of, human nature. This society is the ideal society—it is | the Kingdom of God. Herein is to be found none of the present-day hate, or crime, or impurity, or dearth of love. None is master, for all are masters and all are workers. Conquest and power retire, and love alone rules this order. | In this genuine society love is the final victor. |

In 1916 I visited Hull House, Chicago, the settlement under the administration of Miss Jane Addams. I was astonished at the size of the building, with its theater, concert hall, gymnasium, ateliers, the large dining hall accommodating three hundred people, and weaving room. In short, all the departments of social service were housed in this settlement. The location is in the Italian quarter, and the people of the neighborhood were continually moving. I also visited the large settlement of the Presbyterians on 104th Street in New York, under the supervision of Doctor White. Another, which though smaller is most efficiently managed, is the University Settlement in New York. In the last named, club work is the principal form of activity, amusements being, as at Hull House, secondary. It was on these visits to New York and Chicago that I was first brought heartily to recognize the usefulness of settlement work.

Settlement work is of course not a revolutionary movement aimed at the fundamental reconstruction of society. Nor is it a form of economic activity. It is, I think, more appropriate to describe it as a form of educational endeavor.

Modern cities are the solidified expression of the greed of capitalism, a society where even deformed persons can make a fair income by exhibiting themselves. In this world of speculative luck, if only there is an opening for a little money making, countless poor folk swarm, trying to get places as criers for shows. The quarter to which they flow—this economic, social, racial, occupational maelstrom—is the slum.

The slum may be found in every city in the world, but the slums of Europe and America are international. There is the Jewish quarter, the Bohemian, the Negro, the Italian; in fact, every nationality has its quarter. In contrast to these, what we call slums in Japan are very simple affairs. The groups in the slums-of the Occident, though living in the same city, have no connection with each other, occupationally, socially, or as castes. Within society, smaller, separate societies exist, and as Huxley said, the slums become the barbarian districts of the civilized metropolis. When these pandemonia develop in our cities, it becomes imperative to consider what measures may be taken toward the amelioration of the conditions.

As a matter of fact, in the capitalistic cities of today people separated by a single wall are utter strangers, and in times of sickness or distress neighbors never come to one’s aid. Originally, they all came to the city with the idea of getting jobs as criers for shows, wherefore there was no reason for them to speak politely to each other as neighbors. If they did say anything, it was merely the formal greetings of acquaintances. The movement to abolish these divisions of class, occupation, and economic status, and to make people more neighborly, was begun first in the east side of London by Rev. Samuel Barnett.

‘ For several years Barnett labored alone, and was

/then joined by Arnold Toynbee, a man of great beauty ' of character. Toynbee had been a well-known lec- turer at Oxford University, but he centered all his energies upon his work in the slums, studied the condition of the poor, and considered measures for their

\ relief. Ina very few years, however, he died, and his \ friends, in pursuance of his wishes, built a settlement _ house, which they named Toynbee Memorial Hall..The name of Toynbee, with a new beauty of sound, was carried to the ends of the earth. Many have followed in Toynbee’s footsteps. In the cities of America many, Miss Addams being the foremost, have entered into neighborhood betterment movements.

But in truth a world in which neighborhood movements must be maintained is an unhappy world, one in need of fundamental reconstruction. So long as classes stand opposed to each other, society cannot be bettered by mere neighborhood movements.

My own life in the slums was first undertaken for the purpose of investigation. And through my years of life with these poor folk I was led to a truly great discovery, namely, that poor people and the so-called proletariat are two absolutely different things. Karl Kautsky has, I believe, said something like this in his Proletariat Theory, but upon personal experience I felt it acutely.

The proletariat is not made up of bankrupts, in character, in mind, or in body. It is the best of the laboring class. The only trouble is that the members are uncertain as to livelihood, dependent in occupations, socially without credit, and standing alone. The poor are not so: they are one stage lower than the proletariat. The majority are character bankrupts and are psychically altered in their natures. Physically they are, many of them, ill or deformed or disabled. Yet in modern capitalistic centers even these character bankrupts have some uses. Since they can qualify as barkers for shows, they have influence among the gamblers, become rowdy quellers for prostitute houses, strike breakers, “mad dogs’ when mad dogs are needed, and are always on the lookout for their characteristic job as barkers for shows.