pages contain a sort of recurring protest against the
boast of certain writers that they are merely recent.
They brag that their philosophy of the universe is
the last philosophy or the new philosophy, or the
advanced and progressive philosophy. I have said
much against a mere modernism. When I use the
word “modernism,” I am not alluding specially
to the current quarrel in the Roman Catholic Church,
though I am certainly astonished at any intellectual
group accepting so weak and unphilosophical a name.
It is incomprehensible to me that any thinker can
calmly call himself a modernist; he might as well call
himself a Thursdayite. But apart altogether from
that particular disturbance, I am conscious of a general
irritation expressed against the people who boast
of their advancement and modernity in the discussion
of religion. But I never succeeded in saying the
quite clear and obvious thing that is really the matter
with modernism. The real objection to modernism
is simply that it is a form of snobbishness. It
is an attempt to crush a rational opponent not by reason,
but by some mystery of superiority, by hinting that
one is specially up to date or particularly “in
the know.” To flaunt the fact that we have
had all the last books from Germany is simply vulgar;
like flaunting the fact that we have had all the last
bonnets from Paris. To introduce into philosophical
discussions a sneer at a creed’s antiquity is
like introducing a sneer at a lady’s age.
It is caddish because it is irrelevant. The pure
modernist is merely a snob; he cannot bear to be a
month behind the fashion Similarly I find that I have
tried in these pages to express the real objection
to philanthropists and have not succeeded. I
have not seen the quite simple objection to the causes
advocated by certain wealthy idealists; causes of which
the cause called teetotalism is the strongest case.
I have used many abusive terms about the thing, calling
it Puritanism, or superciliousness, or aristocracy;
but I have not seen and stated the quite simple objection
to philanthropy; which is that it is religious persecution.
Religious persecution does not consist in thumbscrews
or fires of Smithfield; the essence of religious persecution
is this: that the man who happens to have material
power in the State, either by wealth or by official
position, should govern his fellow-citizens not according
to their religion or philosophy, but according to
his own. If, for instance, there is such a thing
as a vegetarian nation; if there is a great united
mass of men who wish to live by the vegetarian morality,
then I say in the emphatic words of the arrogant French
marquis before the French Revolution, “Let them
eat grass.” Perhaps that French oligarch
was a humanitarian; most oligarchs are. Perhaps
when he told the peasants to eat grass he was recommending
to them the hygienic simplicity of a vegetarian restaurant.
But that is an irrelevant, though most fascinating,
speculation. The point here is that if a nation