The modern mind is like the eye of a man who is too tired to see the difference between blue and green. It fails in the quality that is truly called distinction; and, being incapable of distinction, it falls back on generalisation. The man, instead of having the sense to say he is tired, says he is emancipated and enlightened and liberal and universal. In all the controversies about religion and morals, about men and women, about parents and children, about ethics and economics, we are familiar with the various forms of the evasion. Sometimes it takes the turn of saying in a general way, “Are not all united in the great greenish-blue oneness, as it eternally evolves into the bluish-green allness?”— or words to that effect. Sometimes the argument runs in effect, “Are not the beautiful blue things, the Blue Boy or the Blue Bird, the creations of the genius of Gainsborough and of Maeterlinck, are not these things more truly and divinely Green than the mere summer forests which in their arrogant greenness, etc., etc.?” Or again the philosopher will sometimes say, “Why should this one poor persecuted colour be excluded by an arbitrary rule from the exclusive society of the Blues (that crack regiment), and how long are we to wait before the claim of Green, emblazoned before us in the beauty of so many hills and meadows, is heard by a blind and prejudiced world?” There is also the argument from exaggeration, if one may so define it, which tells the arrogant blue that if it tries to keep away from green it will immediately turn purple, or which warns the fastidious green that it can only avoid blue by becoming yellow. Of course, there are also the sophists, the more subtle sort of liars, who are always careful to tell the truth, or the wrong half of the truth. They can always be trusted to point out that there is a green that is very nearly blue and a blue that is very nearly green, applying the argument to men and monkeys, or morals and manners, or anything else that may be convenient to the people who have the money to hire them. But I am one of those who obstinately maintain the propositions, which some describe as paradoxes, that green does exist and blue does exist; that they are not the same, but quite different; that those who believe them to be the same are not broadminded, but merely bored; that they only make the act of assimilation because they are too fatigued to make the effort of distinction; and that, sooner than show any respect for such supercilious myopia, I would infinitely prefer to halloa on the two colours to fight each other, and show a hearty and simultaneous sympathy for the True Blue of the Tories and for the Wearing of the Green.
The ramifications of this remarkable heresy are too remote and varied to follow. But the central and invariable part of it is the principle of insisting on the sameness of everything, to avoid the bother of noting the characteristics of anything. For instance, there is a true doctrine of the brotherhood of men—or, as I prefer to put it (with the motive of causing annoyance)—the equality of men. But, properly understood, that doctrine is itself a distinction; it consists in distinguishing the human soul in spite of many disguises—like recognising a King in many ragged masquerades. But many modern people assume that all men are brothers, on the principle that all cats are grey in the dark, and that therefore (as they argue) there is no difference between a tabby cat and a tiger. And it may be noted that these people always break down in their idea of the brotherhood when the argument passes beyond the brotherhood itself. They profess themselves quite unable to distinguish a man from anything else, whether from an ape or an angel. They will never admit that we owe anything to men that we do not also owe to monkeys, or possibly to microbes. Consequently, their concessions and amiable sentiments are somewhat lacking in substance and point. For a man may often be highly dissatisfied by being told that nothing will be done for him, except what is already done for a microbe. It is often discouraging to be told that there shall be no revolution for the rights of men until there is revolution for the rights of microbes; or that it is only what microbes have done that men can be called upon to do. Nor is it necessary, of course, to take so extreme a case, for all human claims are perceptibly lowered when they are levelled with any non-human claims. The commonsense of the thing, of course, is that we owe one sort of duty to men and quite another to monkeys or other animals. But when we say that, a third kind of duty immediately presents itself, and that is exactly the sort of intellectual duty which is specially repugnant to these intellectuals. It is the duty of making an effort, for it is the duty of making a distinction.
In short, to say that behind all races, and even behind all religions, there is a great human unity is one thing, and is quite true. To say that race does not differ from race, and even more to say that religion does not differ from religion, is quite another, and is quite false. But while this attitude is much more false than the other, it is also much more easy. A man can merely broaden his mind instead of making up his mind. A unity is an indefinite thing in the imagination of most people; they think of a vast vague cloud, when they do not only think of a vast vague blur. But a difference is a definite thing; and if a man says that two things are different, he must be prepared to consider in what they differ. In the case of races, or of the more definite and real things called nations, this will lead him into all the puzzling problems and quarrels of political history, all the curious things for which men fight and die and defy torture. And the differences between different religions will be still more strenuous as a branch of study. They will bring back the old worry called theology, which involves a still older worry called thought. They will require him to examine doctrines, even in order to disagree with them. How much easier it is to say that it is all much of a muchness, and pretty much the same in the long run! How much simpler is it to sink into an armchair with a seraphic smile, and say that the All is identical with the One!
There is the same fatigue in saying that the female is the same as the male, instead of considering where she is different and where she is even superior. There is the same fatigue in the trick of treating children as if they were grown-up people, even at the very moment when we admit that grown-up people would be better if they were more like children. We say that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a little child, and then try to make a little child as bored as a Byzantine Emperor. The chaos has the same cause; that we find it less trouble to let in a jungle of generalisations than to keep watch upon a logical frontier. But this shapeless assimilation is not only found in accepting things in the lump; it is also found in condemning them in the lump. When the same modern mind does begin to be intolerant, it is just as universally intolerant as it was universally tolerant. It sends things in batches to the gallows just as it admitted them in mobs to the sanctuary. It cannot limit its limitations any more than its license. Thus there are living human beings, outside lunatic asylums, who will tell you that there is no real difference between claret and cocaine. It is like saying there is no difference between shaving a man and cutting his throat. Then there are other lunatics, and lunatics now having power to lay down the law, who have somehow got it into their heads that any artistic representation of anything wicked must be forbidden as encouraging wickedness. This would obviously be a veto on any tragedy and practically on any tale. But a moment’s thought (did they ever indulge in such an excitement) would show them that this is simply an illogical generalisation from the particular problem of sex. All dignified civilisations conceal sexual things, for the perfectly sensible reason that their mere exhibition does affect the passions. But seeing another man forge a cheque does not make me want to forge a cheque. Seeing the tools for burgling a safe does not arouse an appetite for being a burglar. But the intelligence in question cannot stop itself from stopping anything. It is automatically autocratic; and its very prohibition proceeds in a sort of absence of mind. Indeed, that is the most exact word for it; it is emphatically absence of mind. For the mind exists to make those very distinctions and definitions which these people refuse. They refuse to draw the line anywhere; and drawing a line is the beginning of all philosophy, as it is the beginning of all art. They are the people who are content to say that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and are condemned to pass their lives in looking for eggs from the cock as well as the hen.