Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-12-02
LOOKING BACKWARD"
REV. C. P. MASSEY DISCUSSES SOME OF
BELLAMY's SOCIAL THEORIES.
Fundamental Errors Pointed Out-Hu-
man Nature the Most Serious
Obstacle.

WIZ LOOK IOr his text Matthew XII, II: 'Ihe
Kingdom of heaven sutfereth violence, and
the violent take it by force" He COM
menced by saying: at is with no feeling
of disrespect for acknowledgement enthusi-
astic company of men and women who
have given their allegiance to the new
social ideas advanced in Edward Bellamy's
recently published novel, that elevate
such caption as the text 1 have selected
for discourse intended to consider some
of the positions taken in this authors
fascinating book entitled Looking Back
ward 1 feel, however, that some funda-
mental errors have been committed
| in the cause of social reform
and that the contamination of desire
in respect to social conditions, if it shall
ever come at all in any absolute sense, will
come not only much more slowly than this
author anticipates but also in ways and
| through influences not included within the
scope of his prophecy. / therefore do not
believe the kingdom of Heaven will ever
come to the world by the adoption of these
suggested principles of practice, and so l
think that good men and women are
blinded to the injustice of many of the
contained propositions because of their
fervent desire to see the pail of human
misery speedily lifted and man secured in
the equality of his privilege and in the in
tegrity and honor of his life.
THE impeachment 1 enter against tie
whole pretentious fabric is that it strikes a
blow at the individual in the interest OF a
corporate LIE which, even if it could be es-
tablished, would fall into decay because of
the deficiencies in the units of which it is
composed.
ut has been objected that Looking
Backward is simply romance, and that
it deals with ideal situations, with favored
! conditions and anticipated possibilities,
not capable of realization upon this stage
of being. This think is altogether an I'M
! fair attitude towards it. We have no
means of knowing what may be possible of
accomplishment in the centuries which
swing in the eternities of Gods providence.
That the story is not realistic in the cur
| rent definition of that term does not mill
| tate against its art or its influence, We
are having entirely too much of photOgra-
ply in literature, the realization of nothing
| but fact. Writers come with their scalpel
and probe to the dissection of human mo-
| tive, and although their analysis is very
acute they forget some important factors
which are yet present in our busy, selfish,
utilitarian life They forget that there is
such thing as potential will standing in
the background of consciousness, and actu-
ally Influenced at times by things that are
not usually taken into account, truth that
| is not always found in its concrete symbols,
a recognition of the imminent life that
wraps US and supports US, and in subtle
ways tells us of righteousness and the obi
| cations of charity, and the instinct of
prophecy that restlesoly refuses to be con-
tent with present conditions, and so sees
beyond the night, crowded with terror and
distress, the dawn of serener day.
1.-THE Interpretation of life must not be
merely contemporary says recent writer,
| prophecy and retrospect are large elements
of any adequate art
"a man actually refusing to be influ-
enced by any transcendental arguments
| whatever, can rest assured of an element
tending to order and progress in the world;
the principal of Charles Darwin give us the
road over which humanity has already
travelled, the ethics of Herbert Spencer pre-
sents the goal, even if the far-of goal of
his temporal hope. Even upon the very
lowest lines of argument there is reason to
look forward in glad anticipation to an
ever cumulative achievement. There is
seen to be at least perfectability in human
p
purely physical lines, is indeed inspiring.
| The am@ba of an incalculable past has
come gradually up through protoZoan,
radiate, mullusk, articulate and verte-
brate, until as man he stands the ma
| iestic figure amid the civilization he
has established, and subduing nature,
makes her tributary to mis- power, invents
| the cotton gin and the combined harvester
and the Corliss engine, builds cities and
makes them the abodes OF intelligence and
| art, frames constitutions and systems of
| international law, writes Hamlet" and
I'm Memoriam," and becoming as god in
his knowledge of right aud wrong; applies
his lore to the righteous adjustmen of his
| relations with his fellows, and estimates it
as the promise and the prophecy of still
larger accomplishment.
Mr.. Bellany has our gratitude that he
at least touches our all-too- prosaic life with
coIors borrowed from his fancy and his
imagination but he errs greatly upon the
practical side in his teaching that future
advance will be in consequence of the in
PRODUCTION of new conditions, and that
there is not a potentiallty in the old ones
capable of securing an infinite accomplish
ment.
1.-The progress of society heretofore has
ever been upon the line of the individual
expressing his character in its institutions.
Washington is said to have been the revo-
luton, Madison the Constitution, Garrison
the accomplishment of negro emancipa-
ton, and so of many others; we character
ize separate and successive epochs as we
say Cesar, and Charlemagne, and Crom
would change this old order of the
world, and by at once building the
institutions and surrounding mau with
a comfortable environment, would
usher in another order destined
because of the moral appeal it shall make
to the consciences of men, to be eternal.
But the inequalities attending upon the
selfishness and the crime of our social life
cannot be so easily eradicated. why
could not we cast him out?' asked the disci-
pies of Jesus, when his power was recog-
nized over the dumb spirit that yielded to
his touch; and he answered, This kind
can come forth by nothing but by prayer
and fasting.
sit was through the possession of moral
power that the miracle was wrought, and
it can only be by the possession of moral
power, residing in the hearts of the citizens,
that the demons that aff1ict the body po-
| litic can be subdued. But how to create
this power, by giving society an environ
ment in which all cause for anxiety shall
be removed, and by which all wants shall
| be SuDDll6u! cry
not grow men, not beings possessed of
moral faculties requiring constant abrasion
. of their yiler parts against the stern i'm
pediments and obstacles which beset their
course, beings whose courage is to be nur-
tured by opposition, and who can only
! come out conquerors because host has
been subdued Better conditions may en-
.. sue. but these will remain, the necessity
| for conflict, the dependence for daily
strength upon daily struggle, the persist
ence of sorrow in our lot to constitute lifes
most angelic ministry. Jesus found many
, social conditions he could have attacked, but
} | he seemed almost unconscious of their
! existence The despotism of the Cesar was
| left without rebuke. Poverty was present
: then as now, injustice among men, low
ideas respecting domestic life; but Jesus
simply came with the teaching: Be pure,
) be upright, be charitable. God is your
father, and you are brethren in one COM
mon inheritance; and 10 mankind has APP
propriated the lesson, and the monuments
of civilization have been erected upon the
basis of his instruction.
at is the spiritual nature that must first
be kindled into life, and when the sacred
{ Aaue hurns there il will demand an ethe-