Arthur Machen

“ What I have to prove is that man is not the Learned Pig, and that measures which would ensure the happiness of the latter will not at all advance the happiness of the former. Well, I have mentioned Socialism; I have declared my disagreement with its positive statement that the equalisation of wealth would make us all much happier. Now I want to declare my adhesion to its negative statement, its declaration that in modern civilisation, so-called, there is not merely a lack of happiness, but a great and ever-increasing horror, misery, ugliness, and degradation. ”

“ Wells, I believe, who pictures humanity in modern times under the figure of a man struggling in a hideous swamp, and, with his very efforts to escape, sinking deeper and deeper into the foul, abhorred slime. And this is the result of our "civilisation"—that is, of our theory that man is the Learned Pig, that the more machines you give him the happier he will be. In a word, the Socialist conclusion is in direct contradiction to the Macaulay and daily paper conclusion, which is, briefly, the more machines the more happiness. ”

“ It is, indeed, astounding that any one can ever have talked such outrageous nonsense; it is extraordinary how any one out of a lunatic asylum could have believed that the factory system in crafts, the Civil Service Church in religion, the invention of devices to make men's lives more comfortable and convenient, the absence of all poetry and all imagination from every place and every region of humanity constituted the ideal world for a human being to dwell in. ”

“ HAPPINESS AND HORROR I suppose there are still many persons left who labour under the delusion that the age in which we live is the most wonderful, the most splendid, the most happy, and the most civilised age that ever has been since the foundation of the world. ”

“ But now there comes the rather important point as to what does constitute happiness—that is, real civilisation. Churchmen can have no difficulty here, for Churchmen cannot deny that all the aims of "modern civilisation"—the real aims, not the sometimes loudly-expressed aims— are, from the point of view of Christianity, entirely and utterly damnable. For the real aims of our day are entirely directed towards the increase of bodily comfort, convenience, and pleasure, towards the increase and improvement of all material goods. ”

“ Suppose that he once possessed a palate, many years of the chemical drench called four-ale and the poisonous corn-spirit called whisky have ruined that palate for ever; to him the noblest magnum of Lafite were but sour wash. I will not say that no man can turn himself into an unintelligent machine and be happy; I do say that there is not one man in ten thousand who can accomplish this feat. ”

“ Men, however, are not Pigs. Their being, their aims are, in reality, entirely different, and we must not be tempted to confuse those two excellent but quite distinct creatures because they possess certain things, such as stomachs, in common. It seems to me that the whole of modern civilisation, in its amiable as well as its unamiable aspects, is vitiated by this one false premiss—that Man on the whole equals Pig, and that if you see to his material comforts, his bodily ease, he will be quite happy. ”

“ I have never seen a bull-fight—it is a cruel sport, doubtless—but I have no hesitation in declaring that the Spanish peasant in his poor hut, with his Sunday Mass, and his crust of bread, and draught of wine that owes nothing to the chemist, is very much nearer to true civilisation than a cotton-spinner or steel-worker in Manchester or Sheffield ”

“ It is not without amusement that I think of an age which, having scoffed at the bread of angels, cannot get an unadulterated cottage loaf, which, having refused the wine of Heaven, can scarcely obtain a decent glass of common beer for love or money. ”

“ As one meets this rubbish in popular journalism, I suppose that the populace still clings to the gospel of Macaulay, to the theory which flings all philosophy and all art and all religion on one side as irrelevant, because philosophy and art and religion have no "fruit"—in other words, do not lead to the invention of machinery. ”

“ It is hard indeed that Man in modern times, having made up his mind that he is a Pig, and having acted accordingly, should be poisoned in his wash, should be given unmentionable filth instead of his legitimate tub of potatoes and cabbage. ”

“ It is, of course, demonstrable that the first Christians were exhorted to take no thought at all for any such matters, to purge their souls utterly of the notion that happiness of any sort or kind is obtainable through physical or material channels. ”

“ I think a system called New Thought is the latest result of American liberty. It is a religion entirely suited to the parent soil: it does not promise the joys of Paradise, but I believe it guarantees a handsome income, if the directions are faithfully carried out. ”

“ And one does not need to take any man's word for the misery and horror and hideousness of our time. It is not necessary to go to Mr. Wells; we can look for ourselves. We can go to Manchester direct and see what it is like, and wonder that human beings have allowed themselves to be brought to such a pass. I do not know how many square miles of abomination and horror that city contains ”

“ I do not insist on the fact that while wealth abounds in a few hands most of the workers are poor, and some are wretched; that, as a manufacturer's wife has observed, the better the iron-trade, the more miserable the people seem to become. ”

“ Now all this would be quite sound sense in the mouth of a Pig: because, as a matter of fact, a Pig's aim in life is to secure as much wash as possible; and the Pig who gets the most wash is the best Pig, the Ideal Pig. ”

“ This is to be noted: that a scheme of things which has for its only excuse the production of money and material comfort has in practice worked out as a scheme which deprives the greater number of money and plunges them into the acutest material discomfort. ”

“ This, I say, is the tragedy, since we know that they would be not in the least happy if each man had a thousand a year. What is the good of presenting the purple-nosed drunkard at the corner public-house with the key of a cellar well stocked with the purest vintages of Bordeaux? ”

“ I say that the length of time in which it is possible to get to the cotton-factories from London is not of the smallest consideration in estimating the sum of human happiness, and I think' that if the cost of this rapid transit were fairly accounted for and reckoned up we should find that we were paying for our corridor express train a most hideous sum, with interest calculated at the rate of about ten thousand per cent. ”

“ For, you see, the fact is that Manchester—as modern conditions have made it—is not worth going to at all; on the contrary, any man not a maniac would pay heavily to be transported to some region where Manchester and places like Manchester were impossible, unheard of, and wholly out of the question. ”

“ I think that here is the distinction between the Renaissance and that illegitimate child of the Renaissance—modern civilisation, properly so-called. Not only are the ends bad, but the means are bad; not only is there hell at the bottom of the descent, but the descent itself is by steps of pit-refuse and burning marl. ”

“ It is one thing to worship false gods or even devils—deplorable practices both, I am sure—but if we must serve demons, at least let us do so in a reasonably artistic temple, not in such a piece of tomfoolery as the Tabernacle in the Tottenham Court Road. ”

“ It is my business occasionally to look through books of modern theology, and I find in almost all of them the suppressed premiss that "modern thought," or the "modern mind," is somehow or other vastly superior to the ancient mind, or the mediæval mind. ”

“ America, then, is the representative of modern civilisation in its purest form; but America is only a very violent example of what our modern civilisation brings about. We ourselves in England are a little better ”

“ The rich are denounced in these, certainly; but there is no word said in favour of moderate prosperity all round as the way of happiness. Park Lane is dangerous to the soul, doubtless; but there is nothing to show that salvation dwells in Peckham. ”