This book is a frank criticism of most of the dominant ideas and institutions of our time: a confession of faith in nearly all the more daring heresies which hold, so to say, the firing line of our literature: a conception of a new social order and new planetary arrangement. It is therefore candidly egoistic, and I should like to explain the circumstances in which it was designed and written. It was conceived, and much of it was written, during the long voyage from Australia to England. At that

[This chapter is, with a few alterations, reproduced from The English Review , October 1914.] Although this work does not embody any system of speculation about the universe, any creed or ’ism or large and abstruse set of principles, it must begin with a careful study of the phenomenon of revolt. Never before was there such an age of general and feverish restlessness; never was there such quaking of the deepest foundations of old institutions, such tottering of thrones and altars. From every int

In the original conception of this work militarism was selected as the first sham to be assailed because it is at once the most costly and the least excusable. The way to remove many of the blots on our civilisation is by no means plain. A dozen conflicting theories confront you, and each has a sufficiently large body of adherents to entitle it to consideration. But there are others in regard to which a large and practical measure of agreement has been reached. Here we do not need so much the su

When warfare is abolished, and men no longer peep at their foreign neighbours over hedges of bayonets, there will be a number of less important international absurdities to remove. Some three hundred years ago, we discovered that the earth was a globe. To-day we are appreciating that this globe is the property of the human race, and that the friendly co-operation of all branches of the race is extremely desirable. National efforts and sacrifices are undone by international waste and disorder. We

The reforms I have so far advocated have one peculiar characteristic. They are urgent, easy to grasp, indisputable in principle, and enormously advantageous; but they need international co-operation, and we are only just beginning to form those friendly international contacts which may lead to agreement. Hence it is that, although very contentious reforms have already been realised, these linger, as we say, outside the range of practical politics. But this very phrase reminds us at once of anoth

In the last sentence of the last chapter I spoke of education, pacification, and industrial organisation as the three monumental tasks of a reformed political system. If the supreme object of a central administration—the sooner we cease to talk of “government” the better—is to make a people healthy, prosperous, and happy, these are surely the three reforms to which it will most resolutely apply itself. I have spoken of the very grave and pressing nature of one of these reforms: the need to aboli

Among the claims of reconstruction which the insurgent literature of our time puts forward, none, perhaps, so startles and inflames the Conservative as the demand for a reform of the family. Criticism of this institution is, in fact, so severely punished or so slanderously misrepresented that it is usually exercised in the more or less impersonal form of the drama or novel. It happens, however, that the drama or the novel is now quite the most effective means of inoculating millions with critica

The old tradition of the family is intimately connected with the old ideal of womanhood, and this in turn is summoned to the bar of modern criticism. A substantial change in the position of woman seems so revolutionary a disturbance, since it directly affects half the race and must very seriously affect the home and the State, that our Conservatives employ against the proposal the whole arsenal of controversial rhetoric. We hear of the wisdom of the race—as if the race did not grow wiser as it g

The constructive scheme which I have in mind throughout this criticism of our prejudices and institutions may, as I said, be summed essentially in two words: industrial organisation and education. When we have reformed our administrative machinery, which we miscall “government,” and abandoned our military and naval atrocities, and simplified international life, our chosen public servants will find that these two are their chief concerns. Probably the supreme concern will—once we have constructed

If it be granted that it is the interest and the duty of a nation to develop the intelligence of its people, we must conclude that the work is only half done, or not half done, by even an ideal system of what is commonly called education. I am assuming that a time will come when no youth or maiden will enter workshop or office before the age of seventeen, if not eighteen; and that the better endowed minority of our children will, without regard to their private resources, be promoted to secondar

Throughout the preceding chapters there have been resentful or disdainful references to the Churches, and it may be suspected that, in assailing other people’s prejudices, I have cherished and proceeded upon the anti-clerical prejudice. A very cursory examination will, however, suffice to show that these criticisms were sound and pertinent, and are not due to some mysterious antipathy to the profession to which I once belonged. Few of those ugly or mischievous traditions which form what I have c