From Morality to Savoir Faire – C.L. James, 6/23/1897

Republished from our predecessor publication Lucifer the Light Bearer

Programme for a new chapter in White’s “Conflict of Science with Theology.”

Morality, in the mouths of nine people among every ten, means observing those customs to which they are used. In
the tenth man’s mouth it means observing some modification of those customs, which he is pleased to think would
be an improvement. In every case, therefore, it means observing the customs of society, either as they are; as they
tend, through the agitation raised by individuals, to become; or as they have been, though society has now outgrown
them to the disgruntlement of conservative individuals. The idea, as Plato would say, of morality is always obedience
to “a rule of action imposed by a superior power,” even among moralists who dislike the existing rule. And in every
case that superior power which does, has done, or is besought to do, the imposing, is society. True, society, at first,
is quite identified with the clan totem or god. But the moment a “differentiation” between these conceptions arises,
it becomes clear that morality is the human element of law, in esse or in posse, while the divine is something else
—ritual, orthodoxy, in short religion. Moreover, morality includes all that society is pleased to exact from its members
—its canons of dress and etiquette no less than its laws about the sexual relation, about property, or about homicide.
If you doubt it, put on a felon’s suit of stripes and promenade in a fashionable thoroughfare. Of course you will be
mobbed. The police, far from protecting you, will very likely arrest you for “disorderly conduct.” If you ask a reason
of this persecution you will get one which contains the quintessence of “morality.” “When you live among people,
and accept their protection, you must not make yourself disagreeable by going against their customs.” At first sight,
the reason appears forcible. But why is it disagreeable to see a man in a striped suit? No one possessing any scientific
knowledge of anatomy or aesthetics will say that a striped suit is half as ugly as those monstrosities fashion actually
requires women to put on their heads, shoulders and waists. It is offensive only to that instinct which requires people
to do as others do—an instinct inherited from “our grandsire Ape.”

As to society’s protection, it may have been valuable in the days of Achilles; but sensible people now consider that if
society would only abstain from bullying them, they would cheerfully risk being murdered or otherwise incommoded
by individuals. Morality, therefore, stands on a par with other institutions. It is a contrivance for preventing change,
and therefore improvement. Naturally, when philosophers sought reasons for it, they made no great success. Their
systems are worth running over, for this reason that they are all very old, and the man who revives one, as a discovery,
is wasting time, which might be saved if he knew better. Plato found a basis for morality in the eternal intellectual life,
and condemned deviations from it as tending to the morality of brutes. This is exactly the Intuitional morality of our
time. Aristotle regarded morality as the discharge of social functions—which is practically Herbert Spencer’s view.
Zeno gave this a transcendental character by declaring society itself a part of the great organism, (zoon) the universe;
and Virtue the discharge of a function in nature—”life according to nature.” Epicurus anticipated all that is repeated,
with damnable iteration by Benthamites and “Egoists” today. Pyrrho preceded the Pessimists in declaring knowledge
impossible, which makes passion foolish, and jog-trot “good behavior” the dictum of mere common sense. The trouble
with all these criteria is that they are too general to be of much practical use. How can we decide that an action tends
towards Plato’s heaven of ideas, towards the well-being of society, towards the unknown purpose of creation, towards
our own happiness, or, on sceptical and pessimistic principles, to anything? It does not seem difficult, indeed, to say
that some actions do not; but I fail to see evidence that proving this ever prevents them. It did not keep from so low a
vice as drunkenness men as intellectual as Webster; sons and brothers as devoted as Lamb; statesmen as worthily
ambitious as Fox; materialists as dogmatical as La Mettrie,—or, probably, Nothingarians as blank as anybody.

That only is progressive philosophy which, instead of exhorting men to follow those ends they have already determined
to follow, or, what is quite as useless, to follow those they have determined not to follow, instructs them how they may
more effectually attain whatever end it suits them to pursue. It is, says Macaulay, very justly, on the pedestal of Bacon,
not of Epicurus, that those noble lines should be inscribed: Qui primus potuit rerum cognoscere causas Et disiecti lucem
extollere claram ex tenebris tantis. It is in proportion as people learn how to get what they want, that they come to feel
sensuality is suicidal and worldliness unsatisfactory. This is the substitution of savoir faire for morality; and therefore
Oscar Wilde is right when he remarks in his instructive little book “Intentions,” that an age of material progress is
always one of spiritual awakening, but an age of direct spiritual culture one in which art is barren, literature feeble, and
the prevailing habits grossly, stupidly selfish. The great characteristic phenomenon of modern civilization is increasing
use of the inductive method, which aims to acquire, by the only possible process, that power to do something which
alone proves mastery of truth. We have just shown that the method itself is the great cultivator of the individual mind;
that instructor which teaches men how they can attain their ends, and, in so doing, teaches them what ends are not
worth attaining. Among ends clearly necessary is protecting ourselves against the aberrations of degenerate individuals.
In previous articles I have endeavored to show inductively the futility of cruel governmental methods for this purpose.
But upon this generalization there comes an important rider—viz.: that no degenerate is useless when considered as
a study of human nature. I was strongly impressed with this truth the other day when reading, in the “Police Gazette”
a possibly authentic account of the lynching of the murderous Bender family. It does not seem to me very useful to
say that we should not be angry with criminals because their crimes are the result of circumstances.

Our anger is equally so. “Master,” said a slave, whom Zeno had caught pilfering, “you know fate ordained that
I should steal.” “True,” replied the philosopher, “and that I should whip you for stealing also.” That is the pre-
Baconian style of philosophy, which equally proves anything. But it is a reason against giving way to anger
that we can learn something from the degenerate. “The worst use you can put a man to,” said John Wilkes,
“is to hang him.” In a rude state of society, I admit that the Benders could scarcely be put to a better. That
is, in such a state, they were simply good for nothing; and in such states such branches of the great tree
Yggdrasil are promptly pruned away. But in so civilized a society as this, when charity fosters degeneracy,
and science investigates its laws, the Benders were surely well worth keeping alive for specimens. It is
unnecessary to point out that theology, whose assumptions are wholly reactionary, and its methods purely
rhetorical, is the institution principally opposed to substitution of savoir faire for morality, the chief nurse
of “fanatic rage and ignorant revenge.”