THE POLITICAL FATALISM OF TO-DAY. when they seemed most actuated
by capricious motives they were often blindly and instinctively furthering ends which they but dimly understood. To attribute, for instance, the English Reformation to the passions of Henry VIII. is to take but a shallow view, and to mistake the occasion for the cause. The statesman of to-day knows, however, that his power, either for good or evil, is in general very small ; that he is swept along by the stream of history ; and that his function is rather to steer the ship of State clear of rocks and shallows, than to determine the direction of its course. To become conscious of limitations which have always existed is, rightly re- garded, an increase rather than a diminution of human freedom. To understand the laws which lie at the root of human society and govern the fate of nations, is to a statesman a source of strength, even though it show him that his power is but weakness. But, as nearly every good has its accompanying evil, we find a most subtle form of fatalism springing from this new insight into social and political laws ; or, to avoid the appearance of deriving evil from good, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we find the tendency to fatalism ingrained in the weakness of human nature seeking from the increase of our knowledge to gain for itself a subtle justification.
There is a form of fatalism, abundant enough at present, which is bred by weariness of party strife, and consists in sheer indifference to public interests. But in this there is nothing new. The kind of fatalism we are about .to describe is at once more insidious and more charac- teristically modern. In the case of the latter, the individual citizen tries to reason himself out of his re- sponsibilities in some such way as this. Society, he has observed, or has learnt from Mr. Morley, has a certain self-protecting quality ; truth and justice have in the end a power of vindicating themselves ; honesty is the best policy, and dishonesty will in the long-run be frustrated. Therefore,' he concludes, I need not trouble myself to resist this dangerous attack on the social order, or to expose that falsehood or injustice, or to raise my voice against the dishonest tactics of my party.' There is, of course, a pro- found intellectual sophism as well as moral weakness in such reasoning. Society has no existence apart from its individual members, and if they all succeeded in arguing themselves thus into neglect of their duties, those general laws to which fatalism appeals would cease to operate. The social order has, indeed, an inherent stability and a quality of self-protection ; but only because individuals are inspired, it may be merely by a sense of their own interests, to battle for the principles on which it is founded, or to oppose a passive resistance to all who would meddle with them. There is a virtue in truth and justice by which they always ultimately prevail, but only because they are able to strike a responsive chord in the heart of man, and enlist his exertions on their side. To treat the laws which govern human progress as if they were laws of physical science whose operations are independent of us, is pro- foundly fatalistic ; to hope to stand aloof from the society to which we rightfully belong, and see them fulfil them- selves, is but shifting the burden of our duties on to the shoulders of others. This desire to evade our obligations by substituting an intellectual formula is only a modern manifestation of a weakness as old as humanity, the ten- dency to shrink from the actual facts of life, the longing for something external to lean upon, which shall dispense with the strenuous efforts of individuals and guide the race mechanically to the fulfilment of its destinies. At one time it is an idea of fate, at another a creed for literal acceptance, now it is a formula of progress, a scientific statement of the principles on which human society is constituted. This last is naturally the shibboleth of the cultivated. The less educated masses have their own form of fatalism too. They, too, shrink from the facts of life, and are unwilling to recognise that its evils are only to be overcome by manfully facing them. Their disposi- tion to rely on the State for the solution of every difficulty is at bottom fatalistic, for the State, as they con- ceive it, is not so much the organised expression of their own will as an external Deus ex machinti which can be called in at any time to minister to their vague desires. Democracy has brought many things in its train, good and evil, and among the rest, it is responsible for a certain revival of fatalism, or, at any rate, it has brought into evidence and given a position of influence to those in whom the tendency to fatalism is greatest. The tendency is naturally greatest among those whose characters are weak or undisciplined, whose individuality is unformed. It arises much more from want of fibre in the character than from erroneous intellectual opinion, though false doctrine may, of course, give strength and consistency to the ten- dency where it already exists. The English middle-class is much more remarkable for strong individuality and energy of character than the classes below, and the trans- ference of political power from the former to the latter was sure to bring this difference to light. As a matter of fact, we find a tinge of fatalism in nearly all the popular ideas and aspirations of the day,—in the belief in the efficacy of the State and the possibility of renovating Society by acts of legislation ; in the notion, directly opposed to the last, that it is only necessary to abolish the repressive action of authority for the innate goodness of human nature to shine forth in all its bright- ness; and even, perhaps, in the faith, however amiable in itself, that it will be an easy matter to redress inequalities of material condition, and vastly improve the lot of the poor. There is profound fatalism, too, in the tendency which the masses display to exercise their newly acquired power in an irresponsible fashion. They transfer their confidence from one party to another, moved rather by caprice, as it would seem, than by any sufficient reason ; and they seem to imagine that their own special interests must in any case be safe, and do not see that they run the risk of sacrificing them in the ruin of all. This reckless- ness of the masses produces again, among politicians, the fatalism of hopelessness and disgust. In other ways, too, the sense of responsibility in political leaders is in danger of being weakened at the present time. Individuals are abashed in presence of the democracy ; the great com- plexity of modern life, the multitudinous forces that at in politics, the ever-increasing strength and swiftness of the current of change, the difficulty of foreseeing whither it will carry us, all conspire to create a feeling of help- lessness and perplexity in the minds of statesmen which prompts them to take refuge in a feeble opportunism that provides only for the day, and is careless of the future. No doubt, as the masses make progress in intelli- gence and character, they will at once become less fatalistic in temperament themselves, and re-create clearness of aim and sense of responsibility in the statesmen who are their guides and leaders. The democracy, from being inchoate and inarticulate, will become conscious of its aims, and able to give them expression ; many things will pass under the control of its organised will, which are now subject only to chance, and the present will become more definite, and the future easier to foresee. To accomplish this, in other, words to educate and organise the democracy, is the work before us for the next two or three generations.
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