The men who conspicuously “succeed in life” — the generals and nobles, merchant-princes, powerful prelates, opulent bankers, wealthy manufacturers, never overload themselves with artificial moral principles. In their secret hearts they utterly despise all evangelicalisms and as for written law, they are above and beyond its reach. Kings, conquerors, millionaires, are perpetually being denounced for not abiding by Laws and Regulations enacted by Majority Votes.
The man who plays ‘the game of life; in strict accord with certain cut and dried principles — principles that everybody knows by heart, is not likely to come out a winner. He who in his younger days, incommodes himself with copy-book moralisms and terror of the Law; is like unto a soldier who (before entering the battlefield) ties his right hand behind his back and pledges himself to strike and shoot his adversaries on one pre-arranged spot of their bodies only. Could such a mad-man soldier hope to conquer? What chance would he have if pitted against brave, dauntless, well-equipped antagonists; who had not foolishly bound themselves by such a stupid obligation?
“The right of Nature, which writers commonly call jus naturale, is the liberty each man hath, to use his own power for the preservation of his own nature: that is to say his own life, and consequently of doing anything, which in his own judgement and reason he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereto” writes Hobbes in his “Leviathan.” The man who permits himself to be directed and mastered by the insolent moral principles of the Multitude, is like an eagle with clipped wings and broken talons.
In war, your chief end is to smash and paralyze your enemies’ combinations. To do this effectually you must meet wile with wile, steel with steel, and blow with blow. You must be equally prepared to fight in the open or fight under cover; to fight on sea, to fight on land, or to fight in the air. You shall wage your own war — you shall think your own thought. It is pusillanimity that evolves the Slave, and breeds the Idolator. ‘Quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines!’
Tacitus with true Roman stateliness observes: — “The gods look with favor upon supreme courage;” and Herbert Spencer savagely asserts that “a creature not energetic enough to maintain itself must die.” Cursed are the white-livered, they make excellent fertilizer. Truly — ‘The seed of the wicked shall be cut off.’
This age of ours wants men above all things — “men of spirit” — men ever ready to look into the eyes of death, without winking. Behold! I post up this New Proclamation. ‘The man who made Justice was a Liar.’
Whatever weapon your Enemy possesses, must be duplicated, or improved upon by you. If it suits him to challenge battle in open front, be sure and ambush him in the flank; or straightaway make a hidden detour to and charge him in the rear. It is your chief business to delude him, deceive him, decoy him, out-general him, if you can. If moral scruples and fear of “what the world will say,” prevents you from doing this, then you were born to subordination; and you had better surrender; for you can never hope to vanquish. You must be born again.
“Over an open grave” ever lies the road to success. In “the worlds broad field of battle,” every man is a combatant; and to be a successful combatant, he must not only be calculating, cool-headed, and brave but possessed of merciless strategy, a stout heart, a strong arm, and quiet indomitable determination.
Even the Siamese twins waged a life-long civil war. Man, as we have proved, is the King of the Great Carnivores. Homo Homini. By heredity and by training, all carnivores are instinctively strategic in their hunt-operations. They lie in wait for their prey, when they cannot capture it by other methods; but they do not hesitate to hunt in the open, if it pleases them to do so. Great animals (whether man or brute) never operate in strict accordance with prearranged rules of procedure. If they did do so, they could never prosper — and would die of hunger. Their greatness lies in springing surprises — in doing exactly what their antagonists (or intended quarry) don’t expect them to do — in being beyond and above all moral measurements whatsoever.
Genius in a first-class commander is always exemplified, not by his “goodness,” but by the originality and aggressive boldness of his pitiless tactics. When he is thought to be in full retreat, he whirls around and annihilates his pursuers. When his adversaries are preparing to give him a hot reception, “he foldeth his tents like the Arabs,” and silently wendeth away.
When it is whispered he will embattle his defensive legions on the frontiers of the Fatherland; he bridges the Rhine and bounds upon Paris with tooth and claw. When to invaders, he is expected to abandon Moscow and retire; he burns it to the ground; and while his foemen (imbedded in snow and ice) are freezing to death; he shells them with his field batteries. When wiselings predict that he will seize Gaul and establish a Colonial Dictatorship; he fords the Rubicon, marches on Rome and throttles the Law. When his nation’s foemen are embattled on Italian plains, he crosses the Punic foam and carries the war into Africa. When he is reported to be assaulting Babylonian Ramparts he digs a new channel for “the River” and writeth “mene mene rekel upharisin” on Balshazaar’s walls. When defenders believe he will march up the Slope with drums and banners gay he quietly scales the Heights of Abraham (in the night) and captures Quebec. When western diplomats think he is about to pounce on Constantinople; he runs Baldwin engines through the Great Wall and stuffs the title deeds of the moribund Chinese empire into his overcoat pocket.
The man-animal can never be rendered absolutely “moral” because by nature he is as full of wiles as a fox or a Jew. Should he insanely endeavor to abandon his predatory propensities, then he immediately begins to degenerate and ultimately becomes a feeble, diseased, ghost-ridden monstrosity, a horror to look at. Therefore those who conscientiously try to become “honest” and “good” are permitting themselves to be sacrificed — as burnt offerings on Idol Alters.
If all men were scrupulously honest, then honesty might be all right (although even that is questionable) but if one per cent are deliberately dishonest, then it is assuredly all wrong. Under such resultant circumstances the ‘ninety and nine’ actually become victims of ‘the one.’ Honest merchants are ruined by dishonest merchants, honest commanders out-maneuvered by dishonest commanders, honest workmen displaced by dishonest workmen, honest judges undermined by dishonest judges, and honest nations reduced to beggary and vassalage by dishonest nations.
Honesty is merely a policy — under given circumstances “the best policy” — nothing more. In all departments of human effort, honesty is used as a cloak for real designs; just as a wood, a ravine, or a stretch of rising ground serves (in campaigning) to hide squadrons deploying for flank movements.
Why then do parents inoculate the plastic minds of their children, with false conceptions of moral conduct, when they themselves know (from personal experience) that all such conceptions are a positive handicap in the race for Wealth and Power. What a witless procedure, to teach Ideals (at home, at school, and at college), that we know in our hearts, are thorough-going Lies, and then expect nobility of personal conduct to be the resultant? Turn out into the world a young man well trained in ‘moral principles’ and the chances are ninety-nine to one against him.
Indeed the majority of men never win success until they are middle aged; until they have had time to slough off the false Idealisms, they began the world with. Un-naturalism has never yet bred a race of heroes and never will. All great Races are predatory.