Words cannot express the abysses of human infamy and hateful shame expressed by that elaborate piece of furniture. IT is one of the mean and morbid modern lies that physical courage is connected with cruelty. The Tolstoian and Kiplingite are nowhere more at one than in maintaining this. But it is all, thank God, a lie. FOR human beings, being children, have the childish wilfulness and the childish secrecy.
Men feel that the cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals.
This dark, scientific pity, this brutal pity, has an elemental sincerity of its own, but it is entirely useless for all ends of social reform. Democracy swept Europe with the sabre when it was founded upon the Rights of Man. It has done literally nothing at all since it has been founded only upon the wrongs of man. Or, more strictly speaking, its recent failure has been due to its not admitting the existence of any rights or wrongs, or indeed of any humanity. He can love all opinions, including the opinion that men are unlovable.