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The Communism of John Ruskin; Or, "Unto This Last"

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The Communism of John Ruskin; Or, Cornell University Library HX 696.R8 The communism of John Ruskin; or, "Unto t 3 1924 002 311 953 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS THE GIFT OF Morris Hillqult Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92400231 1 953 THE COMMUNISM OF JOHN RUSKIN "UNTO THIS LAST"; TWO LECTURES FROM "THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE"; AND SELECTIONS FROM "FORS CLAVIGERA." EDITED BY W. D. P. BLISS. "For indeed I am myself a Commvnist of the old school—reddest also of the red." —"Foes Clavigeea." NEW YORK THE HUMBOLDT PUBLISHING CO. Clinton Hall, Astor Place. Copyright 1891, BY The Humboldt Publishing Co. — — — CONTENTS. PAGE. INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR, - - - vii BOOK I.—UNTO THIS LAST, - - - i Preface, ... 2 Essay I.—The Roots of Honor, - - n II. The Veins of Wealth, - - 31 III. Qui Judicatis Terram, - 46 IV. Ad Valorem, - 66 BOOK II.—TWO LECTURES FROM THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE, - 103 Preface, 105 Lecture I. ^Work, - 119 II Traffic, - - - 151 BOOK III.—SELECTIONS FROM FORS CLAVI- GERA, - - - - 177 Preface bv the Editor, - - 179 I. Communism, - - - 183 II. Freedom and Slavery, - 188 III. Machinery, ... 189 IV. Taxes, - - 191 v.—Clergymen, .... 195 VI. Carlyle, - - - 197 VII. Expectants of Turnips, - 198 VIII.—Rich? - - 199 IX. Interest, - 201 X.—St. George's Company, - 213 XI.—The End of the Whole Matter, - 225 INTRODUCTION. ''1~\0 you read Ruskin's Fors Clavigeraf" Carlyle L/ asked of Emerson, "there is nothing going on among us so notable to me." "I venerate him as one of the greatest teachers of the age ; ... he teaches with the inspiration of a Hebrew Prophet" — such was George Eliot's estimate of Ruskin. Surely Ruskin needs no introduction to the world. The verdict of these two grand-jurymen in the court of letters is borne out by the testimony of witnesses from every portion of the globe. But of Ruskin's social teaching, of his message to society, of his gospel of the life in common, —of this we would say a word—not that he needs this either, but that we need it, —we need it to rightly appreciate and take home his message to our hearts. The production of a true social form has been the supreme task given to the nineteenth century. What is Ruskin's place ; what his message ; what his contribution to the century? Ar Ruskin is first and foremost a Teacher. He has not originated. He is not the originator of a new system, of a new order, even of a new philosophy. He says somewhere viii INTRODUCTION. " of himself : I have never applied myself to discover any- thing, being content to praise what had already been discovered, so that no true disciple of mine will ever be a Ruskinian." He will be something better, his disciples add; he will be one of God's men, with truer, deeper., joy, seeing higher, diviner beauty in the world because Ruskin has shown it to him. Ruskin' s Gospel, says one of those whom Ruskin has clung to, is a gospel not of a "news" but "like that of Jesus, a gospel of glad tidings." And let us not think it a disparagement to Ruskin that he was not an originator. Was Jesus Christ an originator? Did Christ establish a new order? Was Christianity aught but the simple flowering of old Jewish faith ? Did Christ come to destroy or to fulfill ? Fulfillment is the higher task. Many a man ran spe a t-rii|;h^ who cannot live i t. Jesus Christ lived the truth. His new commandment was more literally a new command, the reissuing of old orders. Before Christ came men knew that they should love one another. The secret of Jesus was that he led men in the loving of thei* neighbors. Is not this the secret too of John Ruskin, not so much that he created Beauty, but that he leads men to love it, helps them to live it—true life, the beauty of Truth, the grace of Sincerity, the Gospel of Noble Things? In this high function of the Teacher, Ruskin, in his line, stands unapproached. But how does he do this? "There are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit To one is given by th^ INTRODUCTION. Jx spirit the word of wisdom ; to another the word of know- ledge by the same spirit ; to another faith by the same spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues ; to another the interpretation of tongues:" is not this last best gift, Ruskin's gift? could any man ever interpret as does John Ruskin ? And is it not the best gift? Can anything be better than to take the truth of God and bring it home to the hearts and lives of men? Was not this His gift who was "The Word" made manifest? Here is Ruskin's power, Interpretation. Whether it be a Vision of St. Ursula, by Carpaccio, "A Bible of Amiens," or a bit of lapis-lazuli from "St. Mark's Rest," who can ever read it and find in it anything that John Ruskin has not found? Who after Ruskin's reading of it, can ever read it differently? And yet Ruskin is a true teacher. He teaches you to read. He refuses to be systematic. He reads a word here, a line there, but he bids you to do your own reading. He simply shows you how. This is Ruskin's gift, in all his writing. Now how does he apply this to Social Problems ? Is he not here too a teacher, —a teacher, not an ' originator, -^and as a teacher, above all else an interpreter? There He certainly is not an originator in Soaal Ethics. in of a is no social gospel according to Ruskin, the sense : INTRODUCTION. Gospel according to Jean Jacques Rousseau. Ruskin is no Robert Owen, no Fourier, no Henry George, no Edward Bellamy. He is even different from William Morris ; he has created no Utopia. God's world is good enough for John Ruskin. His is the. diviner task of interpreting God's laws for the world that is. He has chosen that better part of sitting at the feet of Truth and showing what it is to be true in social life, and that part shall not be taken from him. This means no disparagement to Utopia dreamers. They have their place. Do not you dare to despise them child of the present, satisfied with the present, you who are doing nothing, not even dreaming, lying drunken with selfishness ; when you wake, only waking to speak frothy words of idle gossip. Utopias have their place, only it is not the highest place. As Mrs. Besant tells us: "There are two ways in which the scheme for future organization of industry may be constructed. Of these, by far the easier and less useful is the sketching of Utopia, an intellectual gymnastic in which a power of coherent and vivid imagination is the one desideratum The second way is less attractive, less easy, but more useful. Starting from the present state of society, it seeks to discover the tendencies underlying it, to trace those tendencies to their natural out-working in institutions." This was Ruskin's way. He reads not dreams; he reads the eternal in the present. ; INTRODUCTION. xi But see how he reads—how differently from Carlyle. Both are seers ; both read the eternal in the present ; both find God everywhere. But Carlyle sees things as they are Ruskin sees things as they are and as they ought to be. Carlyle dwells in the eternal verities ; Ruskin shows how to transform negations into verities.- Carlyle drives the plowshare of exposure through the hard crusts of society and social order. Into the yawning furrows, Ruskin drops the quickening seeds of truth. Where Carlyle is destruct- ive, Ruskin is constructive; Carlyle burns to free man from the yoke of circumstance ; Ruskin leads man to truer life in serving the beautiful and true ; Carlyle dwells amid the smoke and thunders of Sinai's law ; Ruskin bids us live and love as children of the Father, full of grace and truth. Such is Ruskin' s place in the development of the Social form, a teacher, teaching not by law, but by sug- gestion, by quickening, by fertilizing, by example, not with system, but with lightning flash, radiating upon mind far vistas of the truth. To-day among the Socialists of the world not many will be found who in the views they now hold call Ruskin Master, but many and many a thoughtful one will tell you that they were led to Socialism by John Ruskin. Second, his teaching. What does Ruskin teach? What is his Gospel? Like every true Gospel, it is a simple one and yet capable of infinite expansion, and of glorious xii INTRODUCTION. statement. The essence of his social teaching may perhaps be put in a single phrase, one of his own phrases: "There is no wealth but life, life including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration." From this simple teaching spring as from a corner stone all the noble pillars and portions of his structure. Because noble life is wealth, it follows with Ruskin, that that coun- try is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings ; that that man is wealth- iest, who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.
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