In Topsy-Turvy Land - Page 2

"Shall slaves so vile
as shop assistants even be allowed to propagate their abject race?"
But I suppose that is not what the purple poster meant.
We must face, I fear, the full insanity of what it does mean.
It does really mean that a section of the human race is asking
whether the primary relations of the two human sexes are particularly
good for modern shops. The human race is asking whether Adam
and Eve are entirely suitable for Marshall and Snelgrove.
If this is not topsy-turvy I cannot imagine what would be.
We ask whether the universal institution will improve our
(please God) temporary institution. Yet I have known many
such questions. For instance, I have known a man ask seriously,
"Does Democracy help the Empire?" Which is like saying,
"Is art favourable to frescoes?"

I say that there are many such questions asked.
But if the world ever runs short of them, I can suggest
a large number of questions of precisely the same kind,
based on precisely the same principle.

"Do Feet Improve Boots?"--"Is Bread Better when Eaten?"--"Should
Hats have Heads in them?"--"Do People Spoil a Town?"--"Do Walls
Ruin Wall-papers?"--"Should Neckties enclose Necks?"--"Do Hands
Hurt Walking-sticks?"--"Does Burning Destroy Firewood?"--"Is
Cleanliness Good for Soap?"--"Can Cricket Really Improve
Cricket-bats?"--"Shall We Take Brides with our Wedding Rings?"
and a hundred others.

Not one of these questions differs at all in intellectual purport
or in intellectual value from the question which I have quoted from
the purple poster, or from any of the typical questions asked by
half of the earnest economists of our times. All the questions they
ask are of this character; they are all tinged with this same initial
absurdity. They do not ask if the means is suited to the end; they
all ask (with profound and penetrating scepticism) if the end is suited
to the means. They do not ask whether the tail suits the dog.
They all ask whether a dog is (by the highest artistic canons)
the most ornamental appendage that can be put at the end of a tail.
In short, instead of asking whether our modern arrangements,
our streets, trades, bargains, laws, and concrete institutions are
suited to the primal and permanent idea of a healthy human life,
they never admit that healthy human life into the discussion
at all, except suddenly and accidentally at odd moments;
and then they only ask whether that healthy human life is suited
to our streets and trades. Perfection may be attainable or
unattainable as an end. It may or may not be possible to talk
of imperfection as a means to