A CRITICISM OF MORALITY. 41 



Respectability and if we ask why this code has to a great entent over- 

 whelmed the codes of the other classes and got the law on its side (so far 

 that in the main it characterises those classes who do not conform to it as 

 the criminal classes), the answer can only be : Because it is the code of 

 the classes who are in power. Respectability is the code of those who 

 have the wealth and the command, and as these have also the fluent pens 

 and tongues, it is the standard of modern literature and the press. It is 

 not necessarily a better standard than others, but it is the one that happens 

 to be in the ascendant ; it is the code of the classes that chiefly represent 

 modern society ; it is the code of the Bourgeoisie. It is different from the 

 Feudal code of the past, of the knightly classes, and of Chivalry ; it is 

 different from the Democratic code of the future of brotherhood and of 

 equality ; it is the code of the Commercial age and its distinctive watch- 

 word is property. 



The respectability of to-day is the respectability of property. There is 

 nothing so respectable as being well-off. The Law confirms this : every- 

 thing is on the side of the rich ; justice is too expensive a thing for the 

 poor man. Offences against the person hardly count for so much as those 

 against property. You may beat your wife within an inch of her life and 

 only get three months ; but if you steal a rabbit, you may be " sent " for 

 years. So again gambling by thousands on Change is respectable enough, 

 but pitch and toss for half-pence in the streets is low, and must be dealt 

 with by the police ; while it is a mere commonplace to say that the high- 

 class swindler is "received" in society from which a more honest but 

 patch-coated brother would infallibly be rejected. As Walt Whitman 

 has it, "There is plenty of glamour about the most damnable crimes and 

 hoggishjneannesses, special and general, of the feudal and dynastic world 

 over there, with its personnel of lords and queens and courts, so well- 

 dressed and handsome. But the people are ungrammatical, untidy, and 

 their sins gaunt and ill-bred." 



Thus we see that though there are for instance in the England of to- 

 day a variety of classes, and a variety of corresponding codes of public 

 opinion and morality, one of these codes, namely that of the ruling class 

 whose watchword is property, is strongly in the ascendant. And we may 

 fairly suppose that in any nation from the time when it first becomes 

 divided into well-marked classes this is or has been the case. In one age 

 the commercial age the code of the commercial or money-loving class 

 is dominant ; in another the military the code of the warrior class is 

 dominant ; in another the religious the code of the priestly class ; and 

 so on. And even before any question of division into classes arises, while 

 races are yet in a rudimentary and tribal state, the utmost diversity of 

 custom and public opinion marks the one from the other. 



What, then, are we to conclude from all these variations (and the far 

 greater number which I have not mentioned) of the respect or stigma 

 attaching to the same actions, not only among different societies in differ- 



