Chastening of Herbert Spencer 215
sent to teach the heathens Christianity, and then Christians are sent to mow them down with machine-guns! So-called savages who, according to numerous travellers, behave well until they are ill-treated, are taught good conduct by the so-called civilised, who presently subjugate them—who inculcate rectitude and then illustrate it by seizing their lands.
" The policy is simple and uniform — Bibles first, bomb-shells after. Such being the doings abroad, what are the feelings at home? Honours, titles, emoluments are showered on the aggressors. A traveller who makes light of men's lives is regarded as a hero and fêted by the upper classes; while the lower classes give an ovation
to a leader of fillibusters. ` British power,' ` British
pluck,' ` British interests,' are words on every tongue; but of justice there is no speech, no thought."
Viewing the eminence of the authority just quoted, it may seem bold to endeavour a recast of the philosophical setting in which historical criticism should be placed. But Spencer's tone, in the paragraph above, seems rather that of an angry Isaiah than of a scholarly determinist. Let me therefore endeavour to clothe the nakedness of his condemnations—while averring that the program outlined in the excerpt seems to have been closely followed in British Tibetan events.
There is in the universe but one Will (or self-existent law). It has expressed itself to us in the hateful tempests of Nero's soul, not less than in the ineffable happiness of accomplished sacrifice on the cross ; in the fury of Attila, not less than in the wrapt ecstasy of Gautama under the Bo tree ; in the turning of this leaf by you, 0 law-governed
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