ARCHBISHOP MANNING'S DESCRIPTION OF SOCIALISM.
ARDINAL MANNING, who is termed in France " the
Socialist Archbishop," has warmly repudiated this title in his remarks to the interviewer of the Paris Figaro, and declares that he is nothing so little as a Socialist. But then, he appears to have definedSocialism in a somewhat special fashion of his own. He asserts that Socialism is the disorganising element introduced into society by "the individualism of this proud century, which destroys families and separates naturally common interests." We know, of 'course, what Cardinal Man- ning means when he says that Socialism destroys families. He means that it strikes at marriage, which is the root of the family unity; and no doubt there are and have been many forms of Socialism which treat the eiEdIusiveness of marriage as a sort of base individualism, whereas in reality it is the selfishness of individual self-will and passion which is at the heart of the wish to ignore the marriage tie, and by ignoring it, to introduce a base sort of cora- munism where all the higher individual rights and duties
and affections would perish in a general scramble of capricious and passionate desires. But even this socialistic attack on the sacredness of family life generally proceeds on the false assumption that selfishness is at the root of family exclusiveness, and that a higher kind of disin- terestedness would ignore it, and make the love of one's neighbour, and of one's neighbour's wife, a more active and practical principle than it now is. And certainly the more ambitious of the forms of Socialism have all aimed at the same ideal,—namely, so to organise society that the selfishness of individual tastes and aims should be overridden by some common endeavour to divide to every man exactly what the interests of the whole society demand. Robert Owen's Socialism, for example, and the various forms of French Socialism, have all aimed at reducing, not at stimulating, individualism, and would repu- diate as eagerly Cardinal Manning's imputation that they rest on "the individualism of this proud century," as he repudiates this individualism for himself when he identifies the true social organisation of nations with the antithesis of Socialism. We do not think that Cardinal Manning has succeeded in picking out the central idea of Socialism when he calls it a principle disorganising to society, and attacks it as selfishness or individualism in disguise. No doubt any attempt to organise society on an unnatural and false basis, a basis which ignores the great facts of human nature, will always end in throwing men back on their individual appetites and passions, which are sure to break out in some destructive fashion. But that is not the aim or intention, though it may be the result of Socialism in its commonest and most pro- pagandist forms. Fourier and St. Simon did not aim at that, nor did Robert Owen, though their systems may have failed because, owing to the absence of all authority in the social principle which they adopted as the basis of their systems, those systems collapsed, and left the individuals who associated themselves under them, the prey of the most passionate and noisy of human desires. Cardinal Manning says that "by Society we should mean legislation, evolution, transfor- mation, and not destruction," which is, of course, perfectly true, but not quite to the point. We want to know, not merely that society should mean orderly evolution, but what sort of orderly evolution it should mean. All the so-called Socialists agree with the Cardinal in desiring to see orderly evolution, and not destruction ; but then, the orderly evolution which they attempt to bring about, Cardinal Manning regards as 'destruc- tive, and that which he regards as destructive, they regard as of the very essence of social order. And Cardinal Manning's partial sympathy with agitators like Burns and Tillett and the rest, exposes him to the imputation that, though he disavows Socialism as mere destructive individualism in disguise, he nevertheless wishes for something which goes a long way with Socialism in recognising the right of labour to dictate its own terms to the capitalists. He thinks that legislation or society should intervene oftener than it does to curb the selfishness of the capitalist, and less often apparently, to curb the selfishness of the labourer. In other words, he really does wish to enforce the control of the whole society over its individual elements in cases where it has hitherto been customary to regard the whole society as too unwieldy and too little informed,—that is, too little possessed of any clue to the right and wrong of the dispute,—to intervene with judgment and justice between the conflicting interests of the disputants.
On the whole, we do not think it can be questioned that Cardinal Manning's description of Socialism (in the sense in which he rejects and condemns it) as due to "the indi- vidualism of this proud century," precisely inverts the aim of the Socialists, however true it may be that, under the artificial constraints of Socialism, the passions of individualism would break out, just as under the artificial constraints of Puri- tanism the human hunger for pleasure has again and again broken out. Socialism aims not at a looser but at a closer organisation of society than any yet realised, and fails, not because the organisation it aims at io too mild, but because it is too despotic. Human nature will not endure that pain- ful renunciation of individual ambitions and hopes in favour of a vague generalisation called Society, which Socialism requires. Human nature, even under the influence of warm family affections, will not endure too much harnessing, too much curb, too much dictation. It asks for a certain sphere of IlLerty and discretion, in which it shall have even the power to go wrong, rather than submit to the constant pressure of bit and bridle. Now, what we miss in Cardinal Manning's disclosures to the interviewer of the Figaro is this frank admission that it is the aim of Socialism to abridge this sphere of liberty, and to insist on renunciations in favour of Society which it is not in the nature of men to make except in deference to either the highest of the personal affections, or the highest religious motives. A sort of voluntary and self-imposed Socialism existed in the early Christian Church, and still exists in all the monastic and conventual societies of the Roman Catholic Church, and perhaps works fairly well while the sway of the religious motive continues. But Society in general is not an object which can excite any religious motive, or any loyalty ade- quate to the renunciations which it demands. How is talent or genius or even mere capacity to be persuaded that it must exert itself to the highest pitch for others' benefit, and yet reap no special advantages from that exertion P How is an ordinary labourer to be persuaded to work as hard for the common good as he would work for the good of his own. family ? Socialism requires a constant tension of self-denial without calling out any of those high emotions without which a con- stant tension of self-denial is not one of the permanent possi- bilities of human nature. There is no more mischievous illusion of our time than the illusion that mere "altruism," as it is called, is a force strong enough to knead all the individualities of each single nation into a coherent society without either a common worship to hold it together, or any considerable sphere of guaranteed freedom to give scope and range to its individual elements. We believe that even with a common worship to overrule and restrain the caprices and arbitrarinesses of individual impulse, it is very dangerous indeed to enforce too stringent a communism. As we interpret the story of monastic or conventual life, the wisest of the monastic founders have always jealously reserved a sphere of genuine freedom for the development of individual character and impulse and taste, without which even the religious life itself would become flavourless and oppressive. The more religious a man becomes, the more he resents the burden of any purely conventional pressure on his inner life, —the more necessary it is to respect, as it were, the originality of his nature, and the less possible it is for the mere conven- tional exigencies of society to tyrannise over him. Socialism disorganises, no doubt, as Cardinal Manning says ; but it disor- ganises only because it attempts to organise too much, too peremptorily, by rule and pattern and automatic principle, and to destroy the inner freedom of the individual mind and heart. The Cardinal's description of Socialism appears to us gravely defective. No doubt Socialism disorganises and destroys, but it disorganises through an effort at too com- plete and imperious an organisation. It destroys because it constructs what will not stand.
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