neglects his natural advantages. Long after the savage of the tundras
passed away we find vestiges of the family; and thenceforward discipline
advances steadily, though with occasional relapses toward anarchy, until
we see the ordered perfection which enables us to have West-end riots
and all-night sittings of the House of Commons without any trouble
whatever. I do not care much to deal with the times when the members of
the families elected each other promiscuously according to the success
with which they managed to club their neighbours--in fact, I wish to
come as soon as possible to the period when discipline, as understood by
us, was gradually allowed to sway the lives of men, and when the
sections of the race recognized tacitly the law of the strongest by
appointing their best man as chief. At present we in England are passing
through a dangerous and critical transition stage; a very strong party
inclines to abolish discipline of all sorts, the views of the
Continental anarchists are slowly filtering into our great towns, and,
as soon as such a move is safe, we shall have a large number of people
who will not scruple to cry out for free land, no taxation, free
everything. We have heard so much about rights lately that some of us
are beginning to question within ourselves as to what rights really are.
If a gentleman, no matter how bookish or eloquent he may be, desires to
do away with discipline altogether, I will give him credit for all the
tongue-power which he happens to possess; but I must ask leave to think
for myself in old-fashioned grooves just a little longer. After all, a
system which--for civilized countries--has been growing gradually for
more thousands of years than we dare compute cannot be entirely bad, no
matter what chance faults we may see. The generations that have flown
into the night may not have possessed complete wisdom, but they adapted
their social systems step by step to the needs of each new generation,
and it requires very little logic to tell that they would not be likely
always to cast out the good. The noisy orator who gets up and addresses
a London crowd at midnight, yelling "Down with everything!" can hardly
know what he means to destroy. We have come a long way since the man of
the swamps hunted the hairy elephant and burrowed in caves; that very
structure in which the anarchists have taken to meeting represents sixty
thousand years of slow progression from savagery towards seemliness