A CRITICISM OF MORALITY : 



49 



torians of to-day teach us, that society is now probably passing through a 

 parenthetical stage of private property from a stage of communism in the 

 past to a stage of more highly developed communism in the future, it be- 

 comes clear that the thief (and the poacher before-mentioned) is that per- 

 son who is protesting against the too-exclusive dominination of a passing 

 ideal. Whatever should we do without him ? He is keeping open for 

 us, as Hinton I think expresses it, the path to a regenerate society, and is 

 more useful to that end than many a platform orator. He it is that makes 

 Care to sit upon the Crupper of Wealth, and so, in course of time, causes 

 the burden and bother of private property to become so intolerable that 

 Society gladly casts it down on common ground. Vast as is the machin- 

 ery of Law, and multifarious the ways in which it seeks to crush the thief, 

 it has signally failed, and fails ever more and more. The thief will win. 

 He will get what he wants, but (as usual in human life !) in a way and in 

 a form very different from what he expected. 



And when we regard the thief in himself, we cannot say that we find 

 him less human than other classes of Society. The sentiment of large 

 bodies of thieves is highly communistic among themselves ; and if they 

 thus represent a survival from an earlier age, they might also be looked 

 upon as the precursors of a better age in the future. They have their pals 

 in every town, with runs and refuges always open, and are lavish and 

 generous to a degree to their own kind. And if they look upon the rich 

 as their natural enemies and fair prey, a view which it might be difficult 

 to gainsay, many of them at any rate are animated by a good deal of the 

 Robin Hood spirit, and are really helpful to the poor. 



I need not I think quote that famous passage from Lecky in which he 

 shows how the prostitute, through centuries of suffering and ill-fame, has 

 borne the curse and contempt of Society in order that her more fortunate 

 sister might rejoice in the achievement of a pure marriage. The ideal of 

 a monogamic union has been established in a sense directly by the slur 

 cast upon the free woman. If, however, as many people think, a certain 

 latitude in sexual relations is not only admissible but in the long run, and 

 within bounds, desirable, it becomes clear that the prostitute is that person 

 who against heavy odds, and at the cost of a real degradation to herself, 

 has clung to a tradition which, in itself good, might otherwise have perished 

 in the face of our devotion to the splendid ideal of the exclusive marriage. 

 There has been a time in history when the prostitute (if the word can be 

 properly used in this connection) has been glorified, consecrated to the 

 temple service and honored of men and gods (the hierodouloi of the 

 Greeks, the kodeshoth and kodeshim of the Bible, &c. ) There has also 

 been a time when she has been scouted and reviled. In the future there 

 will come a time when, as free companions, really free from the curse of 

 modern commercialism, and sacred and respected once more, she will 

 again be accepted by Society and take her place with the rest. 



And so with other cases. On looking back into history we find that 



