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Page 26
The eighteenth-century theories of the social contract have
been exposed to much clumsy criticism in our time; in so far
as they meant that there is at the back of all historic government
an idea of content and co-operation, they were demonstrably right.
But they really were wrong, in so far as they suggested that men
had ever aimed at order or ethics directly by a conscious exchange
of interests. Morality did not begin by one man saying to another,
"I will not hit you if you do not hit me"; there is no trace
of such a transaction. There IS a trace of both men having said,
"We must not hit each other in the holy place." They gained their
morality by guarding their religion. They did not cultivate courage.
They fought for the shrine, and found they had become courageous.
They did not cultivate cleanliness. They purified themselves for
the altar, and found that they were clean. The history of the Jews
is the only early document known to most Englishmen, and the facts can
be judged sufficiently from that. The Ten Commandments which have been
found substantially common to mankind were merely military commands;
a code of regimental orders, issued to protect a certain ark across
a certain desert. Anarchy was evil because it endangered the sanctity.
And only when they made a holy day for God did they find they had made
a holiday for men.
If it be granted that this primary devotion to a place or thing
is a source of creative energy, we can pass on to a very peculiar fact.
Let us reiterate for an instant that the only right optimism is a sort
of universal patriotism. What is the matter with the pessimist?
I think it can be stated by saying that he is the cosmic anti-patriot.
And what is the matter with the anti-patriot? I think it can be stated,
without undue bitterness, by saying that he is the candid friend.
And what is the matter with the candid friend? There we strike
the rock of real life and immutable human nature.
I venture to say that what is bad in the candid friend
is simply that he is not candid. He is keeping something back--
his own gloomy pleasure in saying unpleasant things. He has
a secret desire to hurt, not merely to help. This is certainly,
I think, what makes a certain sort of anti-patriot irritating to
healthy citizens. I do not speak (of course) of the anti-patriotism
which only irritates feverish stockbrokers and gushing actresses;
that is only patriotism speaking plainly. A man who says that
no patriot should attack the Boer War until it is over is not
worth answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son
should warn his mother off a cliff until she has fallen over it.
But there is an anti-patriot who honestly angers honest men,
and the explanation of him is, I think, what I have suggested:
he is the uncandid candid friend; the man who says, "I am sorry
to say we are ruined," and is not sorry at all. And he may be said,
without rhetoric, to be a traitor; for he is using that ugly knowledge
which was allowed him to strengthen the army, to discourage people
from joining it. Because he is allowed to be pessimistic as a
military adviser he is being pessimistic as a recruiting sergeant.
Just in the same way the pessimist (who is the cosmic anti-patriot)
uses the freedom that life allows to her counsellors to lure away
the people from her flag. Granted that he states only facts, it is
still essential to know what are his emotions, what is his motive.
It may be that twelve hundred men in Tottenham are down with smallpox;
but we want to know whether this is stated by some great philosopher
who wants to curse the gods, or only by some common clergyman who wants
to help the men.
The evil of the pessimist is, then, not that he chastises gods
and men, but that he does not love what he chastises--he has not
this primary and supernatural loyalty to things. What is the evil
of the man commonly called an optimist? Obviously, it is felt
that the optimist, wishing to defend the honour of this world,
will defend the indefensible. He is the jingo of the universe;
he will say, "My cosmos, right or wrong." He will be less inclined
to the reform of things; more inclined to a sort of front-bench
official answer to all attacks, soothing every one with assurances.
He will not wash the world, but whitewash the world. All this
(which is true of a type of optimist) leads us to the one really
interesting point of psychology, which could not be explained
without it.
We say there must be a primal loyalty to life: the only
question is, shall it be a natural or a supernatural loyalty?
If you like to put it so, shall it be a reasonable or an
unreasonable loyalty? Now, the extraordinary thing is that the
bad optimism (the whitewashing, the weak defence of everything)
comes in with the reasonable optimism. Rational optimism leads
to stagnation: it is irrational optimism that leads to reform.
Let me explain by using once more the parallel of patriotism.
The man who is most likely to ruin the place he loves is exactly
the man who loves it with a reason. The man who will improve
the place is the man who loves it without a reason. If a man loves
some feature of Pimlico (which seems unlikely), he may find himself
defending that feature against Pimlico itself. But if he simply loves
Pimlico itself, he may lay it waste and turn it into the New Jerusalem.
I do not deny that reform may be excessive; I only say that it is the
mystic patriot who reforms. Mere jingo self-contentment is commonest
among those who have some pedantic reason for their patriotism.
The worst jingoes do not love England, but a theory of England.
If we love England for being an empire, we may overrate the success
with which we rule the Hindoos. But if we love it only for being
a nation, we can face all events: for it would be a nation even
if the Hindoos ruled us. Thus also only those will permit their
patriotism to falsify history whose patriotism depends on history.
A man who loves England for being English will not mind how she arose.
But a man who loves England for being Anglo-Saxon may go against
all facts for his fancy. He may end (like Carlyle and Freeman)
by maintaining that the Norman Conquest was a Saxon Conquest.
He may end in utter unreason--because he has a reason. A man who
loves France for being military will palliate the army of 1870.
But a man who loves France for being France will improve the army
of 1870. This is exactly what the French have done, and France is
a good instance of the working paradox. Nowhere else is patriotism
more purely abstract and arbitrary; and nowhere else is reform more
drastic and sweeping. The more transcendental is your patriotism,
the more practical are your politics.
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