NOTES 627 



ifou may pretend with Rousseau that you have a " social 

 :ontract " with your fellows, binding you to obedience only 

 )n condition that they behave agreeably to yourself ; but 

 r6u will find that the contract is like one between a mouse 

 uid a lion. "Show us your agreement," the world will say, 

 ' and the seals and signatures thereof " ; and you may shriek 

 leprecations to it, but the lion will cover you with a paw and 

 •eply gruffly, " You are a little liar ! I make no agreements 

 vith a thing so small as you." A single molecule of a mass of 

 ead, say, might as well protest against the pressure of its 

 Trillions of fellow molecules. That pressure is a law of Nature. 

 3ur duties, also, are the laws of attraction and cohesion com- 

 bining us with other individuals. But our rights are only 

 ;he fancies, or the lies, of politicians. 



Admit then that we have no rights, you may say ; but 

 why should we not all possess the same privileges ? Because 

 it is impossible. Some one must do the gross work of the 

 world — must dig the coal and cook the dinners. Not all the 

 cells of the body may be the brain-cells, watching the beautiful 

 sarth through the windows of the eyes and communing with 

 heaven. This, too, is a law of Nature. Nature is not omni- 

 potent ; she does the best she can ; she may wish to make us 

 all kings and gods — but she cannot. Nor can human science 

 and all the parliaments and revolutions in the world do more. 

 And here enters another and perhaps a divine law — that the 

 tiny ant bearing his burden along the track is probably as 

 happy as the lion in his forest ; and the factory-hand, deftly 

 managing his humming engines, probably more happy than 

 the king, vexed by the clamours of a hundred rights-mongers 

 all pulling different ways. 



Be this as it may, but the following law is always true. 

 Try to break the chains which our fellows have bound about 

 !us, and they become chains of iron ; but try to bind them 

 closer, and they become chains of flowers. Only a little 

 while ago, a party of politicians were commending liberty 

 and thundering against every kind of compulsion, even that 

 |which forced them to fight for their country. But a philo- 

 sopher among them said, " Why so ? Freedom is not my 

 god ; I do not desire liberty ; I have given myself into the 

 hands of my country ; I serve a master, and glory in the 

 service ; and others serve me, and glory in theirs." "Ah," 



