NATIONAL DECADENCE.
IN the Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture which he delivered at Newnham College last Saturday Mr. Balfour speculated very thoughtfully, if purposely without much con- fidence or precision, on political and national decadence. Mr. Balfour can be original, as we all know ; but in his lecture he was searching rather for the common denominator of modern thought. That was worth doing, for modern thought, led by science, is recasting the assumptions of an earlier generation, and has already reached an appreciably new point of view. Mr. Balfour's optimism was in form a reflection of a new temper and new intuitions. The old assumption was that every body politic must decay, as Rome decayed, and that the British Empire, though its life might be long, must die in due course as inevitably as winter follows summer.
But is death inevitable in nations as well as in men ? That is the new question which is not, indeed, answered once for all, but which at least refuses to be disposed of by the old gloomy affirmations. Macaulay conceived national greatness as periodic; when New Zealand had become great, England's day would have passed and London would be in ruins. Berkeley told how civilisation had travelled slowly to the West, only to find there its greatest catastrophe as well as its greatest fulfilment. Every man who was weary or disillusioned, as Mr. Balfour said, used to speak as though he were the helpless victim of the decadent epoch in which he was born. Perhaps the beginning of what we take to be the new hope that national death is not inevitable—stupendously difficult to avoid though it be—is to be found in the assumption, very familiar now, that progress is assured. It is an idea at once elevating and sobering, this aspiration to eternal national life. Nations that endure, if any do, will change, we may be sure; but the links of the chain of change and progress will all be in a perfect sequence and continuity. There will not be obscure epochs of which little is known, in which the links are broken and cause and effect cannot be traced, or in which conscious national volition is wanting, as VMS the case, say, in the gradual transformation of the Roman Empire into modern Italy, or, in a different degree, of England before the Dark Ages into the England of the Renaissance. The nation which discovers the origin of decay and guards itself against it will have a higher vitality than the bulb which sinks into a winter quiescence though it has the spark of life all the time within it; that nation will unceasingly put forth blossom. Is all this only a tormenting dream ? Or is every nation, after all, born with a certain limited dynamic force which discharges itself, like a spring uncoiling, and then ceases ? Mr. Balfour, as we have said, stood forth as an optimist. He does not find that this age is more sordid or less spiritual than its predecessors, but believes exactly the reverse. He was treating, of course, not of literary or artistic "decadence" —" an overwrought technique straining to express sentiments too subtle or too morbid "—bat of that moral and philosophic decadence which in nations resembles senility in men and is the precursor of dissolution.
What is the cause of national decadence, and what is the prophylactic, if there is one, that will ensure eternal national life P Mr. Balfour touched on the diseases of slavery, a dropping birth-rate, and the lack of initiative. Let us, too, examine these things in passing, but let us not pretend that they are more than symptoms of the general disease of decadence. Slavery as a system is even worse for those who own slaves than for those who are owned. The unconditioned subservience of one man to the will of another is a source of hopeless corruption and moral reaction. Every State that founded itself upon slavery was rushing towards decadence, but those that had the strength of mind and the essence of health in the body politic rejected the germ and it did not cause a fatal illness. This is a point to notice, that disease, even the most dangerous, may be expelled from the body of national life, as it may from the human body, and health may be completely regained. The fall of the birth-rate, especially among the classes which are most worthy of reproduction, is a more pressing matter to-day. The national stock is being replenished from the wrong source, but even so the problem is not beyond the reach of science. And, moreover, the harmfulness of the conditions under which the poorest of our population are reared may be exaggerated. We say nothing of the pity of it, which cannot be overstated, but simply refer scientifi- cally to the potential power of development, the recupemti* force, which remains in the weediest class. It was Dr. Eichholz, we think, who, in giving evidence before the Committee which inquired into the alleged physical degeneration a few years ago, stated in effect that a child that was strong enough to be born was strong enough to have a decent chance in life if only it were properly treated. And in the same issue of the Times in which Mr. Balfour's speech is reported there is a letter from Sir Ray Lankester, who asks what authority there is for a statement by Mr. Hyndman that there is "appalling physical degeneration" among "large masses of our population," and that this is due to "permanent poverty." We need not linger over the familiar allegation that physical degeneration exists. It may well be that the conditions of degeneration exist, but all those who have inquired into the subject are agreed that the evidence does not support the idea that physical degeneration is already present. The notion that poverty necessarily induces deterioration is of course very easily accepted. Yet Sir Ray Lankester says : "There is no evidence that privation and injurious conditions cause deterioration of the stock in animals or plants. They may kill out a stock or race, but they do not alter its congenital quality. Has Mr. Hyndman grounds for asserting other results in the case of man?" We gather from Mr. Hyndman's answer that he has no more proof than suffices for most Socialistic assertions. As to the lack of initiative mentioned by Mr. Balfour, that is really a question of character, and it is under the larger and supremely important head of character that it must be considered.
Character, after all, is the mainspring of national life. If character were to remain to it, a nation could never come to an end. It would be endowed with perpetual motion ; the impetus would always be there. "We live by an invisible flame," says Sir Thomas Browne, and surely character is that flame. Mr. Balfour tries to name the stimulus which is still urging the British race forward. Philosophy has never touched the majority of civilised men except through religion. Similarly science can never touch mankind except through its practical applications. But in the last hundred years the application has been very practical, and in Mr. Balfour's judgment the whole material setting of civilised life has been altered, not by political institutions, but by the combined efforts of advanced science. Science, no doubt, has brought a revolution—nothing less—in our conception of the universe, but at its highest science is a criticism or an analysis, not an incentive. Character can alone supply the stimulus and the initiative; and character must be inspired by a religion which does not strangle thought. "Show me," one might say, "the character of a people, and I will show you the cause of their prosperity or their decline." But if we can point to the cause of decadence, is not this in itself a proof that decadence can be arrested ? Those who have the power of diagnosis in diseases of their own character have also the power to cure. Surely this is true; and if it is true, is not eternal national life imaginable P Rome fell, not because the hordes of barbarians arrived and humiliated her—that was only the superficial reason—but because her spirit, her ancient resisting power—in a word, her character—had departed. The Romans had lost their independence in advance through the enervating and pauperising doles of a Government which played at being a Universal Providence. The Goths and Huns overcame men who were no longer proud and resourceful soldiers, but spiritless pensioners of a sentimentally benevolent State. Dr. Hodgkin discusses all the conditions of Roman decadence, but invites the attention of British statesmen, above all, to the pauperising grain largesses. We can add nothing to his authority. Those who would not imitate the decadence of Rome must preserve sturdiness of character— national spirit—and if we recognise the cause of decadence, it is, as we have said, within our capacity to remove it.
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