While it is true that India continues to ail from the disease of untouchability, in spite of official steps to eradicate it, the roots of the evil, in one form or another, are present everywhere. The race problem and the class distinctions that exist in other parts of the world are but types of the disease of caste.

Ordinarily, socialism deals with the economic and political aspects of human society; the moral basis of socialism is neglected and that neglect is, in a great measure, reponsible for the failure of socialism. Everyone talks of Brotherhood, and even of Universal Brotherhood, but how many accept the full implications of the qualifying adjective "universal"? Capitalists and those who advocate capitalism are looked upon as enemies, actual or potential, by every budding socialist! Workers everywhere are fighting those for whom they work. The philosophy of socialism, its metaphysical foundation, is rarely considered.

A single glance at Nature reveals the variety of forms of life: stars and star dust; layers of atmosphere, proceeding from unimaginable rarity to suffocating density; under the earth many minerals; on its surface countless varieties of plants, insects, reptiles, birds, beasts; and human beings from the abject savage to the sage whose knowledge encompasses the ultimate divisions of Time itself. This stupendous variety is persistent. Geology, botany, zoology, have not discovered and never will discover an epoch when variety of species is absent. Anthropology and history, the latter aided by archaeology, reveal that savage tribes and civilized clans have ever been in existence, and they ever will be. Differences cannot be done away with, and least of all by political legislation. Inequality of mental capacity and of moral stamina is a persisting factor in human evolution, and these mental and moral inequalities reflect themselves in economic and environmental inequalities.

Is there, then, no hope for the realization of Universal Brotherhood?

There is, but we must first abandon two false ideas: (1) That differences are detrimental to Brotherhood. (2) That equality is Brotherhood—men will not be brothers because they are equals; equals do quarrel.

The metaphysical foundation of true Spiritual Socialism is to be found, not in Marx, but in the philosophy of the Buddha, of the Sages of the Upanishads, whose doctrines were carried to the Western world by their devotees, and among the latter by Pythagoras. The Greek doctrine of "the Many in the One, the One in the Many," was but an echo of the Upanishadic teaching of a single substance-principle from which the myriad forms of Life emerge.

To quote but one passage out of scores from the Upanishads:

As from a blazing fire, sparks by the thousand issue forth, and they all are of like form, so from the Imperishable, my friend, many beings are produced, manifold in nature.

The Buddhistic view that the entire manifested universe is composed of a milliard beings, all of one substance, svabhavat, is again the same teaching.

These ancient philosophers did not reject the differences and inequalities among people. They accepted them as necessary factors in human progression and perfection. But they proceeded to point to the Source, the One Life, which did make all human brothers and sisters because they had a common spiritual origin; but this did not mean that all had an equal mental capacity, or an equal moral stamina.

This is not the occasion for a philosophical disquisition on this intricate principle of metaphysics; but unless our legislators study it and grasp the proposition to some extent, they will be lured by the false dicta of materialistic socialism or be caught up in other false political theories.

One of the thorny problems that confront every individual in his own life, and every legislator as he thinks about improving the status of the "factory-hand" and the farmer, the "wage-slave" and the servant, is also rooted in this metaphysical doctrine of "the Many in the One." The dignity of labour is being preached, but unless its other aspect, reverence for life, is also taught, that dignity will not be recognized and accepted.

All work is important. Differences of work there must be; all cannot perform the same duty. Yet each organ in the human body has its own importance. In the olden days in India, the difference between the four castes was recognized, but there was no feeling of superiority or inferiority. That objectionable distinction came only with the corruption of the caste.

All useful professions are of equal value to the State, however different they may be in their function. The basic idea of right education, of the young or of the adult, should be to teach reverence for all forms of life and to look upon all types of work as equally sacred. The way to promotion should not be necessarily through a change of profession; there is promotion too in the improving of the function one is already engaged in, and such promotion is open to all. A clerk by becoming more efficient grows in his own position and is superior to a manager neglectful of his duties. And there are inner contentment and mental satisfaction to be taken into account along with the economic advantages. In our civilization we are apt to overemphasize the value of the coin, forgetting that its real value lies in our own capacity to use it in the right way. While it is imperative that the rich be taught—it would seem as if it would have to be almost compulsorily—to use their wealth properly for the uplift of society, we should not neglect to teach the poor to respect all work, and to uphold the dignity of all labour.

The moral of this principle which we have just pointed out is admirably brought out in a poem which deserves to be better known for its philosophy. In "Stradivarius," George Eliot puts great spiritual truths in the mouth of that superb craftsman-creator of violins. Antonio Stradivari "cherished his sight and touch by temperance," and posessing the sense which loves perfectness, "made perfect violins."

...he never cried,
"Why was I born to this monotonous task
Of making violins?" or flung them down
To suit with hurling act a well-hurled curse
At labour on such perishable stuff.

Naldo, a painter, weary of his labours at the age of thirty-one, has a conversation with Stradivari who was sixty-nine; Naldo teases the violin-maker to tell his aims—whether he was after gold or after fame—and wonders: "Why work with painful nicety?" Stradivari's explanation contains a highly practical philosophy of life:

"I like the gold—well, yes—but not for meals.
And as my stomach, so my eye and hand,
And inward sense that works along with both,
Have hunger that can never feed on coin.
Who draws a line an satisfies his soul,
Making it crooked where it should be straight?
...God be praised,
Antonio Stradivari has an eye
That winces at false work and loves the true,
With hand and arm that play upon the tool
As willingly as any singing bird
Sets him to sing his morning roundelay,
Because he likes to sing and likes the song."

He adds that God gives skill to those who play his violins, but he, Stradivari, provides the instruments to play upon, whereupon Naldo sarcastically asks:

"What! were God
At fault for violins, thou absent?"
"Yes;
He were at fault for Stradivari's work."
"Why, many hold Giuseppe's violins
As good as thine."
"May be: they are different.
His quality declines: he spoils his hand
With over-drinking. But were his the best,
He could not work for two. My work is mine,
And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked
I should rob God—since He is fullest good—
Leaving a blank instead of violins.
I say, not God Himself can make man's best
Without best man to help Him. I am one best
Here in Cremona, using sunlight well
To fashion finest maple till it serves
More cunningly than throats, for harmony.
'Tis rare delight: I would not change my skill
To be the Emperor with bungling hands,
And lose my work, which comes as natural
As self at waking."

The closing touch of the poem is fine. Says the great creator of magnificent violins:

"...'Tis God gives skill,
But not without men's hands: He could not make
Antonio Stradivari's violins
Without Antonio. Get thee to thy easel."

It is this spirit of self-respect, of reverence for one's own tasks, which endows all work with superb dignity. The scavenger and the sweeper are as important to society as the lawyer and the engineer—from one point of view even more important, for the sweeper can do without the lawyer, but can the lawyer do without the scavenger?

Wisdom as well as virtue is needed in him who inspires to the "highest development." Virtue leads only to heaven, wisdom leads to union with the whole. But wisdom must at last have virtue as companion. Virtue pursued and practised through many lives will lead at last to wisdom, yet wisdom first attained makes the cultivation of virtue easier. The highest development cannot be attained in any single incarnation. The teachers say that we must seek the company of those who are pure and wise, who lead holy lives, and that we must look for knowledge with persistency, humbleness, and faith, and that thus setting our feet upon the path the goal will loom in sight after many weary struggles.

—W. Q. Judge