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 ESSAYS: SCIENTIFIC, POLITICAL, & SPECULATIVE.

 BY
 HERBERT SPENCER.

 LIBRARY EDITION,
 (OTHERWISE FIFTH THOUSAND,)
 _Containing Seven Essays not before Republished,
 and various other additions_.

 VOL. III.

 WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,
 14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON;
 AND 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.
 1891.




 LONDON:
 G. NORMAN AND SON, PRINTERS, HART STREET,
 COVENT GARDEN.




CONTENTS OF VOL. III.


                                                        PAGE

 MANNERS AND FASHION                                       1

 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY                        52

 THE MORALS OF TRADE                                     113

 PRISON-ETHICS                                           152

 THE ETHICS OF KANT                                      192

 ABSOLUTE POLITICAL ETHICS                               217

 OVER-LEGISLATION                                        229

 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT—WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?          283

 STATE-TAMPERINGS WITH MONEY AND BANKS                   326

 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM: THE DANGERS AND THE SAFEGUARDS    358

 “THE COLLECTIVE WISDOM”                                 387

 POLITICAL FETICHISM                                     393

 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION                              401

 FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE                                 445

 THE AMERICANS                                           471

 THE INDEX.

{1}




MANNERS AND FASHION.

[_First published in_ The Westminster Review _for April 1854_.]


Whoever has studied the physiognomy of political meetings, cannot
fail to have remarked a connexion between democratic opinions and
peculiarities of costume. At a Chartist demonstration, a lecture
on Socialism, or a _soirée_ of the Friends of Italy, there will be
seen many among the audience, and a still larger ratio among the
speakers, who get themselves up in a style more or less unusual.
One gentleman on the platform divides his hair down the centre,
instead of on one side; another brushes it back off the forehead, in
the fashion known as “bringing out the intellect;” a third has so
long forsworn the scissors, that his locks sweep his shoulders. A
sprinkling of moustaches may be observed; here and there an imperial;
and occasionally some courageous breaker of conventions exhibits a
full-grown beard.[1] This nonconformity in hair is countenanced by
various nonconformities in dress, shown by others of the assemblage.
Bare necks, shirt-collars _à la_ Byron, waistcoats cut Quaker fashion,
wonderfully shaggy great coats, numerous oddities in form and
colour, destroy the monotony usual in crowds. Even those exhibiting
no conspicuous peculiarity, frequently indicate by something in the
pattern of their clothes, that they pay small regard to what their {2}
tailors tell them about the prevailing taste. And when the gathering
breaks up, the varieties of head gear displayed—the number of caps,
and the abundance of felt hats—suffice to prove that were the world at
large like-minded, the black cylinders which tyrannize over us would
soon be deposed.

 [1] This was written before moustaches and beards had become general.

This relationship between political discontent and disregard of
customs exists on the Continent also. Red republicanism is everywhere
distinguished by its hirsuteness. The authorities of Prussia, Austria,
and Italy, alike recognize certain forms of hat as indicative of
disaffection, and fulminate against them accordingly. In some places
the wearer of a blouse runs a risk of being classed among the
_suspects_; and in others, he who would avoid the bureau of police,
must beware how he goes out in any but the ordinary colours. Thus,
democracy abroad, as at home, tends towards personal singularity.
Nor is this association of characteristics peculiar to modern times,
or to reformers of the State. It has always existed; and it has been
manifested as much in religious agitations as in political ones. The
Puritans, disapproving of the long curls of the Cavaliers, as of
their principles, cut their own hair short, and so gained the name of
“Roundheads.” The marked religious nonconformity of the Quakers was
accompanied by an equally-marked nonconformity of manners—in attire,
in speech, in salutation. The early Moravians not only believed
differently, but at the same time dressed differently, and lived
differently, from their fellow Christians. That the association between
political independence and independence of personal conduct, is not
a phenomenon of to-day only, we may see alike in the appearance of
Franklin at the French court in plain clothes, and in the white hats
worn by the last generation of radicals. Originality of nature is sure
to show itself in more ways than one. The mention of George Fox’s suit
of leather, or Pestalozzi’s school name, “Harry Oddity,” will at
once suggest the {3} remembrance that men who have in great things
diverged from the beaten track, have frequently done so in small things
likewise. Minor illustrations may be gathered in almost every circle.
We believe that whoever will number up his reforming and rationalist
acquaintances, will find among them more than the usual proportion of
those who in dress or behaviour exhibit some degree of what the world
calls eccentricity.

If it be a fact that men of revolutionary aims in politics or religion,
are commonly revolutionists in custom also, it is not less a fact that
those whose office it is to uphold established arrangements in State
and Church, are also those who most adhere to the social forms and
observances bequeathed to us by past generations. Practices elsewhere
extinct still linger about the head quarters of government. The monarch
still gives assent to Acts of Parliament in the old French of the
Normans; and Norman French terms are still used in law. Wigs, such as
those we see depicted in old portraits, may yet be found on the heads
of judges and barristers. The Beefeaters at the Tower wear the costume
of Henry VIIth’s body-guard. The University dress of the present year
varies but little from that worn soon after the Reformation. The
claret- coat, knee-breeches, lace shirt-frills, white silk
stockings, and buckled shoes, which once formed the usual attire of a
gentleman, still survive as the court-dress. And it need scarcely be
said that at _levées_ and drawing-rooms, the ceremonies are prescribed
with an exactness, and enforced with a rigour, not elsewhere to be
found.

Can we consider these two series of coincidences as accidental and
unmeaning? Must we not rather conclude that some necessary relationship
obtains between them? Are there not such things as a constitutional
conservatism, and a constitutional tendency to change? Is there not a
class which clings to the old in all things; and another class so in
love with progress as often to mistake novelty for {4} improvement? Do
we not find some men ready to bow to established authority of whatever
kind; while others demand of every such authority its reason, and
reject it if it fails to justify itself? And must not the minds thus
contrasted tend to become respectively conformist and nonconformist,
not only in politics and religion, but in other things? Submission,
whether to a government, to the dogmas of ecclesiastics, or to that
code of behaviour which society at large has set up, is essentially
of the same nature; and the sentiment which induces resistance to the
despotism of rulers, civil or spiritual, likewise induces resistance
to the despotism of the world’s usages. All enactments, alike of the
legislature, the consistory, and the saloon—all regulations, formal or
virtual, have a common character: they are all limitations of men’s
freedom. “Do this—Refrain from that,” are the blank forms into which
they may severally be written; and throughout the understanding is
that obedience will bring approbation here and paradise hereafter;
while disobedience will entail imprisonment, or sending to Coventry,
or eternal torments, as the case may be. And if restraints, however
named, and through whatever apparatus of means exercised, are one in
their action upon men, it must happen that those who are patient under
one kind of restraint, are likely to be patient under another; and
conversely, that those impatient of restraint in general, will, on the
average, tend to show their impatience in all directions.

That Law, Religion, and Manners are thus related, and that they have
in certain contrasted characteristics of men a common support and a
common danger, will, however, be most clearly seen on discovering
that they have a common origin. Little as from present appearances we
should suppose it, we shall yet find that at first, the control of
religion, the control of laws, and the control of manners, were all
one control. Strange as it now seems, we believe it to be demonstrable
that the rules of etiquette, the provisions of the statute-book, and
the commands of the {5} decalogue, have grown from the same root. If
we go far enough back into the ages of primeval Fetishism, it becomes
manifest that originally Deity, Chief, and Master of the Ceremonies
were identical. To make good these positions, and to show their bearing
on what is to follow, it will be necessary here to traverse ground that
is in part somewhat beaten, and at first sight irrelevant to our topic.
We will pass over it as quickly as consists with the exigencies of the
argument.

       *       *       *       *       *

That the earliest social aggregations were ruled solely by the will
of the strong man, few dispute.[2] That from the strong man proceeded
not only Monarchy, but the conception of a God, few admit: much as
Carlyle and others have said in evidence of it. If, however, those who
are unable to believe this, will lay aside the ideas of God and man
in which they have been educated, and study the aboriginal ideas of
them, they will at least see some probability in the hypothesis. Let
them remember that before experience had yet taught men to distinguish
between the possible and the impossible; and while they were ready on
the slightest suggestion to ascribe unknown powers to any object and
make a fetish of it; their conceptions of humanity and its capacities
were necessarily vague, and without specific limits. The man who by
unusual strength, or cunning, achieved something that others had failed
to achieve, or something which they did not understand, was considered
by them as differing from themselves; and, as we see in the belief of
some Polynesians that only their chiefs have souls, or in that of the
ancient Peruvians that their nobles were divine by birth, the ascribed
difference was apt to be not one of degree only, but one of kind. Let
them remember next, how gross were the notions of God, or {6} rather
of gods, prevalent during the same era and afterwards—how concretely
gods were conceived as men of specific aspects dressed in specific
ways—how their names were literally “the strong,” “the destroyer,”
“the powerful one,”—how, according to the Scandinavian mythology, the
“sacred duty of blood-revenge” was acted on by the gods themselves,—and
how they were not only human in their vindictiveness, their cruelty,
and their quarrels with each other, but were supposed to have amours
on earth, and to consume the viands placed on their altars. Add to
which, that in various mythologies, Greek, Scandinavian, and others,
the oldest beings are giants; that according to a traditional genealogy
the gods, demi-gods, and in some cases men, are descended from these
after the human fashion; and that while in the East we hear of sons
of God who saw the daughters of men that they were fair, the Teutonic
myths tell of unions between the sons of men and the daughters of the
gods. Let them remember, too, that at first the idea of death differed
widely from that which we have; that there are still tribes who, on
the decease of one of their number, attempt to make the corpse stand,
and put food into its mouth; that the Peruvians had feasts at which
the mummies of their dead Incas presided, when, as Prescott says, they
paid attention “to these insensible remains as if they were instinct
with life;” that among the Fijians it is believed that every enemy has
to be killed twice; that the Eastern Pagans give extension and figure
to the soul, and attribute to it all the same members, all the same
substances, both solid and liquid, of which our bodies are composed;
and that it is the custom among most barbarous races to bury food,
weapons, and trinkets along with the dead body, under the manifest
belief that it will presently need them. Lastly, let them remember
that the other world, as originally conceived, is simply some distant
part of this world—some Elysian fields, some happy hunting-ground,
accessible even to the living, and to which, {7} after death, men
travel in anticipation of a life analogous in general character to that
which they led before. Then, co-ordinating these general facts—the
ascription of unknown powers to chiefs and medicine men; the belief
in deities having human forms, passions, and behaviour; the imperfect
comprehension of death as distinguished from life; and the proximity
of the future abode to the present, both in position and character—let
them reflect whether they do not almost unavoidably suggest the
conclusion that the aboriginal god is the dead chief: the chief not
dead in our sense, but gone away, carrying with him food and weapons to
some rumoured region of plenty, some promised land, whither he had long
intended to lead his followers, and whence he will presently return
to fetch them. This hypothesis once entertained, is seen to harmonize
with all primitive ideas and practices. The sons of the deified chief
reigning after him, it necessarily happens that all early kings are
held descendants of the gods; and the fact that alike in Assyria,
Egypt, among the Jews, Phœnicians, and ancient Britons, kings’ names
were formed out of the names of the gods, is fully explained. The
genesis of Polytheism out of Fetishism, by the successive migrations of
the race of god-kings to the other world—a genesis illustrated in the
Greek mythology, alike by the precise genealogy of the deities, and by
the specifically-asserted apotheosis of the later ones—tends further
to bear it out. It explains the fact that in the old creeds, as in the
still extant creed of the Otaheitans, every family has its guardian
spirit, who is supposed to be one of their departed relatives; and that
they sacrifice to these as minor gods—a practice still pursued by the
Chinese and even by the Russians. It is perfectly congruous with the
Grecian myths concerning the wars of the Gods with the Titans and their
final usurpation; and it similarly agrees with the fact that among the
Teutonic gods proper was one Freir who came among them by adoption,
“but was born {8} among the _Vanes_, a somewhat mysterious _other_
dynasty of gods, who had been conquered and superseded by the stronger
and more warlike Odin dynasty.” It harmonizes, too, with the belief
that there are different gods to different territories and nations,
as there were different chiefs; that these gods contend for supremacy
as chiefs do; and it gives meaning to the boast of neighbouring
tribes—“Our god is greater than your god.” It is confirmed by the
notion universally current in early times, that the gods come from this
other abode, in which they commonly live, and appear among men—speak to
them, help them, punish them. And remembering this, it becomes manifest
that the prayers put up by primitive peoples to their gods for aid in
battle, are meant literally—that their gods are expected to come back
from the other kingdom they are reigning over, and once more fight the
old enemies they had before warred against so implacably; and it needs
but to name the Iliad, to remind every one how thoroughly they believed
the expectation fulfilled.[3]

 [2] The few who disputed it would be right however. There are stages
 preceding that in which chiefly power becomes established; and in many
 cases it never does become established.

 [3] In this paragraph, which I have purposely left standing word for
 word as it did when republished with other essays in Dec. 1857, will be
 seen the outline of the ghost-theory. Though there are references to
 fetishism as a primitive form of belief, and though at that time I had
 passively accepted the current theory (though never with satisfaction,
 for the origin of fetishism as then conceived seemed incomprehensible)
 yet the belief that inanimate objects may possess supernatural powers
 (which is what was then understood as fetishism) is not dwelt upon as
 a primitive belief. The one thing which is dwelt upon is the belief in
 the double of the dead man as continuing to exist, and as becoming an
 object of propitiation and eventually of worship. There are clearly
 marked out the rudiments which, when supplied with the mass of facts
 collected in the _Descriptive Sociology_ developed into the doctrine
 elaborated in Part I. of _The Principles of Sociology_.

All government, then, being originally that of the strong man who has
become a fetish by some manifestation of superiority, there arises,
at his death—his supposed departure on a long-projected expedition,
in which he is accompanied by the slaves and concubines sacrificed
at his tomb—there arises, then, the incipient division of religious
{9} from political control, of spiritual rule from civil. His son
becomes deputed chief during his absence; his authority is cited
as that by which his son acts; his vengeance is invoked on all who
disobey his son; and his commands, as previously known or as asserted
by his son, become the germ of a moral code: a fact we shall the more
clearly perceive if we remember, that early moral codes inculcate
mainly the virtues of the warrior, and the duty of exterminating some
neighbouring tribe whose existence is an offence to the deity. From
this point onwards, these two kinds of authority, at first complicated
together as those of principal and agent, become slowly more and more
distinct. As experience accumulates, and ideas of causation grow more
precise, kings lose their supernatural attributes; and, instead of
God-king, become God-descended king, God-appointed king, the Lord’s
anointed, the vicegerent of Heaven, ruler reigning by Divine right.
The old theory, however, long clings to men in feeling, after it has
disappeared in name; and “such divinity doth hedge a king,” that even
now, many, on first seeing one, feel a secret surprise at finding him
an ordinary sample of humanity. The sacredness attaching to royalty
attaches afterwards to its appended institutions—to legislatures,
to laws. Legal and illegal are synonymous with right and wrong; the
authority of Parliament is held unlimited; and a lingering faith
in governmental power continually generates unfounded hopes from
its enactments. Political scepticism, however, having destroyed the
divine _prestige_ of royalty, goes on ever increasing, and promises
ultimately to reduce the State to a purely secular institution, whose
regulations are limited in their sphere, and have no other authority
than the general will. Meanwhile, the religious control has been little
by little separating itself from the civil, both in its essence and
in its forms. While from the God-king of the barbarian have arisen
in one direction, secular rulers who, age by age, have been losing
{10} the sacred attributes men ascribed to them; there has arisen in
another direction, the conception of a deity, who, at first human in
all things, has been gradually losing human materiality, human form,
human passions, human modes of action: until now, anthropomorphism
has become a reproach. Along with this wide divergence in men’s ideas
of the divine and civil ruler has been taking place a corresponding
divergence in the codes of conduct respectively proceeding from them.
While the king was a deputy-god—a governor such as the Jews looked
for in the Messiah—a governor considered, as the Czar still is, “our
God upon earth,”—it, of course, followed that his commands were the
supreme rules. But as men ceased to believe in his supernatural origin
and nature, his commands ceased to be the highest; and there arose a
distinction between the regulations made by him, and the regulations
handed down from the old god-kings, who were rendered ever more sacred
by time and the accumulation of myths. Hence came respectively, Law
and Morality: the one growing ever more concrete, the other more
abstract; the authority of the one ever on the decrease, that of
the other ever on the increase; originally the same, but now placed
daily in more marked antagonism. Simultaneously there has been going
on a separation of the institutions administering these two codes of
conduct. While they were yet one, of course Church and State were
one: the king was arch-priest, not nominally, but really—alike the
giver of new commands and the chief interpreter of the old commands;
and the deputy-priests coming out of his family were thus simply
expounders of the dictates of their ancestry: at first as recollected,
and afterwards as ascertained by professed interviews with them. This
union between sacred and secular—which still existed practically
during the middle ages, when the