“The life of this world or the life eternal?”
“The eternal life of this world, John. We have no quarrel with anyone’s belief as to what may happen after death, that is a free field; but the glory and power of our religion is that it rests with assurance on common knowledge of the beautiful facts of life. Here is humanity, a continuing stream of life. Its line of advance is clear. That which makes humanity stronger, wiser and happier is evidently what is right for it to do. We do teach it to all our children.”
“And they do it?”
“Of course they do it. Why shouldn’t they?”
“But our evil tendencies—”
“We don’t have evil tendencies, John—and never did. We have earlier and later tendencies; and it is perfectly possible to show the child which is which.”
“But surely it is easier to follow the lower impulses than the higher; easier to give way than to strive.”
“There’s the old misconception, John, that ‘striving idea.’ We assumed that it was ‘natural’ to be ‘bad’ and ‘unnatural’ to be ‘good’—that we had to make special efforts, painful and laborious, to become better. We had not seen, thirty years ago, that social evolution is as ‘natural’ as the evolution of the horse from the eohippus. If it was easier to be an eohippus than a horse why did the thing change?
“As to that army of ‘fallen women’ you are so anxious about, they just got up again, that’s all, got up and went on. They had only fallen from one position; there was plenty of room left to stand and walk. Why they were not a speck on society compared to the ‘fallen men.’ Two hundred thousand prostitutes in the city of New York—well? How many patrons? A million, at the least. They kept on doing business, and enjoying life. I tell you, John, all the unnecessary evils of condition in the old days, were as nothing to the unnecessary evils of our foolish ideas! And ideas can be changed in the twinkling of an eye!
“As to your hoboes and bums, that invalid tramp you instanced—I can settle your mind on that point. I was an invalid tramp, John; a drunkard, a cocaine fiend, a criminal, sick, desperate, as bad as they make them.”
“Which brings us back to that ‘moral sanitarium’ I suppose?”
“Yes. I strayed away from it. I keep forgetting my own case. But it is an excellent one for illustration. I was taken hold of with the strong hand, and given a course of double treatment, deep and thorough. By double treatment I mean physical and mental at once; such a complete overhauling and wise care as enabled my exhausted vitality slowly to reassert itself, and at the same time such strong tender cheerful companionship, such well-devised entertainment, such interesting, irresistible instruction—why, John—put a tramp into paradise, and there’s some hope of him.”
I was about to say that tramps did not deserve paradise, but as I remembered what this man had been, and saw what he was now, I refrained.
He read my mind at once.
“It’s not a question of desert, John. We no longer deal in terms of personal reward or punishment. If I have a bad finger or a bad tooth I save it if I can; not because it deserves it, but because I need it. People who used to be called sinners are now seen to be diseased members of society, and society turns all its regenerative forces on at once. We never used to dream of that flood of power we had at hand—the regenerative forces of society!”
He sat smiling, his fine eyes full of light. “Sometimes we had to amputate,” he continued, “especially at first. It is very seldom necessary now.”
“You mean you killed the worst people?”
“We killed many hopeless degenerates, insane, idiots, and real perverts, after trying our best powers of cure. But it is really astonishing to see how much can be done with what we used to call criminals, merely by first-class physical treatment. I can remember how strange it seemed to me, having elaborate baths, massage, electric stimulus, perfect food, clean comfortable beds, beautiful clothes, books, music, congenial company, and wonderful instruction. It was very confusing. It went far to rearrange all my ideas.”
“If you treat—social invalids—like that, I should think they would ‘lie down’; just to remain in hospital forever. Or go out and be bad in order to get back again.”
“Oh, no,” he said. “A healthy man can’t lie around and do nothing very long. Also it is good outside too, remember. Life is good, pleasant, easy. Why on earth should a man want to prowl around at night and steal when he can have all he wants, with less effort, in the daytime? Happy people do not become criminals.
“But I can tell you what treatment like that does to one. It gives a man a new view of human life, of what it is he belongs to. A sense of pride in our common accomplishment, of gratitude for the pleasure he receives, of a natural desire to contribute something. I took this new ethics—it satisfied me, it’s reasonable, it’s necessary. We make it our basic study now, in all the schools. You must have noticed that?”
Yes, I had noticed it, as I looked back. “But they don’t call it that,” I said.
“No, they don’t call it anything to the children. It is just life, the rules of decent behavior.”
We sat silent awhile after this. Things were clearing up a little in my mind.
“A sort of crystallization of chaotic progressive thought into clear diamonds of usable truth—is that about what happened?” I said.
“That’s exactly it.”
“And a general refutation and clearing out of—of—”
“Of a lot of things we deeply believed—that were not so! That is what was the matter with us, John. Our minds were full of what Mrs. Eddy christened error.
