THE MAP OF LIFE * * * * * WORKS BY The Rt. Hon. W. E. H. LECKY. HISTORY of ENGLAND in the EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Library Edition. 8vo. Vols. I. And II. 1700-1760. 36s. Vols. III. And IV. 1760-1784. 36s. Vols. V. And VI. 1784-1793. 36s. Vols. VII. And VIII. 1793-1800. 36s. Cabinet Edition. ENGLAND. 7 vols. Crown 8vo. 6s. Each. IRELAND. 5 vols. Crown 8vo. 6s. Each. The HISTORY of EUROPEAN MORALS from AUGUSTUS to CHARLEMAGNE. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 12s. HISTORY of the RISE and INFLUENCE of the SPIRIT of RATIONALISM in EUROPE. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 12s. DEMOCRACY and LIBERTY. Library Edition. 2 vols. 8vo. 36s. Cabinet Edition. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 12s. THE MAP OF LIFE: Conduct and Character. Library Edition. 8vo. 10s. 6d. Cabinet Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s. Net. POEMS. Fcp. 8vo. 5s. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 39 Paternoster Row, London, and Bombay. * * * * * THE MAP OF LIFE Conduct and Character by WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 'La vie n'est pas un plaisir ni une douleur, mais une affaire grave dont nous sommes chargés, et qu'il faut conduire et terminer à notre honneur' TOCQUEVILLE New Impression Longmans, Green, and Co. 39 Paternoster Row, LondonNew York and Bombay1904 All rights reserved Bibliographical Note. _First printed_, _8vo_, _September 1899_. _Reprinted November 1899_; _December 1899_; _January 1900 (with corrections)_. _Cabinet Edition_, _Crown 8vo_, _February 1901_. _Reprinted December, 1902_. _July, 1904_ CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE How far reasoning on happiness is of any use 1The arguments of the Determinist 2The arguments for free will 3_Securus judicat orbis terrarum_ 5 CHAPTER II Happiness a condition of mind and often confused with the means of attaining it 7Circumstances and character contribute to it in different degrees 7Religion, Stoicism, and Eastern nations seek it mainly by acting on disposition 7Sensational philosophies and industrial and progressive nations seek it chiefly in improved circumstances 8English character 8Action of the body on happiness 10Influence of predispositions in reasonings on life 12Promotion of health by legislation, fashion and self-culture 12Slight causes of life failures 14Effects of sanitary reform 14Diminished disease does not always imply a higher level of health 15Two causes depressing health 16Encroachments on liberty in sanitary legislation 16Sanitary education--its chief articles--its possible exaggeration 17Constant thought about health not the way to attain it 18 CHAPTER III Some general rules of happiness--1. A life full of work. --Happiness should not be the main object of pursuit 19Carlyle on Ennui 202. Aim rather at avoiding suffering than attaining pleasure 213. The greatest pleasures and pains in spheres accessible to all 224. Importance and difficulty of realising our blessings while they last 24Comparison and contrast 26Content not the quality of progressive societies 27The problem of balancing content and the desire for progress 28What civilisation can do for happiness 28 CHAPTER IV The relation of morals to happiness. --The Utilitarian justification of virtue insufficient 30Power of man to aim at something different from and higher than happiness 32General coincidence of duty and happiness 33The creation of unselfish interests one of the chief elements of happiness 34Burke on a well-ordered life 35Improvement of character more within our power than improvement of intellect 36High moral qualities often go with low intellectual power 36Dangers attaching to the unselfish side of our nature. --Active charity personally supervised least subject to abuse 37Disproportioned compassion 38Treatment of animals 41 CHAPTER V Changes of morals chiefly in the proportionate value attached to different virtues 44Military, civic, and intellectual virtues 44The mediæval type 45Modifications introduced by Protestantism 47Bossuet and Louis XIV. 48Persecution. --Operations at childbirth. --Usury 50Every great religion and philosophic system produces or favours a distinct moral type 51Variations in moral judgments 51Complexity of moral influences of modern times. --The industrial type 53Qualified by other influences 54Unnecessary suffering 57Goethe's exposition of modern morals 58Morals hitherto too much treated negatively 59Possibility of an over-sensitive conscience 60Increased sense of the obligations of an active life 61 CHAPTER VI In the guidance of life action more important than pure reasoning 62The enforcement of active duty now specially needed 62Temptations to luxurious idleness 63Rectification of false ideals. --The conqueror 64The luxury of ostentation 64Glorification of the demi-monde 66Study of ideals 67The human mind more capable of distinguishing right from wrong than of measuring merit and demerit 67Fallibility of moral judgments 68Rules for moral judgment 73 CHAPTER VII The school of Rousseau considers man by nature wholly good 76Other schools maintain that he is absolutely depraved 76Exaggerations of these schools 78The restraining conscience distinctively human. --Comparison with the animals 79Reality of human depravity. --Illustrated by war 81Large amount of pure malevolence. --Political crime. --The press 83Mendacity in finance 85The sane view of human character 86We learn with age to value restraints, to expect moderatelyand value compromise 86 CHAPTER VIII Moral compromise a necessity in life. --Statement of Newman 88Impossibility of acting on it 88Moral considerations though the highest must not absorb all others 90Truthfulness--cases in which it may be departed from 91 _Moral compromise in war_ War necessarily stimulates the malevolent passions and practises deception 92 Rights of war in early stages of civilisation 93 Distinction between Greeks and Barbarians 94 Roman moralists insisted on just causes of war and on formal declaration 95 Treatment of prisoners. --Combatants and non-combatants 95 Treatment of private property 96 Lawful and unlawful methods of conducting war 96 Abdication by the soldier of private judgment and free will 98 Distinctions and compromises 99 Cases in which the military oath may be broken. --Illegal orders 100 Violation of religious obligations. --The Sepoy mutiny 101 The Italian conscript. --Fenians in the British army 104 CHAPTER IX _Moral compromise in the law_ What advocates may and may not do 108 Inevitable temptations of the profession 109 Its condemnation by Swift, Arnold, Macaulay, Bentham 109 Its defence by Paley, Johnson, Basil Montagu 110 How far a lawyer may support a bad case. --St. Thomas Aquinas and Catholic casuists 111 Sir Matthew Hale. --General custom in England 113 Distinction between the etiquette of prosecution and of defence 113 The case of Courvoisier 114 Statement of Lord Brougham 115 The license of cross-examination. --Technicalities defeating justice 116 Advantage of trial by jury 119 Necessity of the profession of advocate 119 _Moral compromise in politics_ Necessity of party 120 How far conscientious differences should impair party allegiance 121 Lines of conduct adopted when such differences arise 121 Parliamentary obstruction 123 Moral difficulties inseparable from party 124 Evil of extreme view of party allegiance. --Government and the Opposition 125 Relations of members to their constituents 127 Votes given without adequate knowledge 131 Diminished power of the private member 134 CHAPTER X THE STATESMAN Duty of a statesman when the interests and wishes of his nation conflict 136Nature and extent of political trusteeship 137Temperance questions 138Legitimate and illegitimate time-serving 141Education questions 141Inconsistency in politics--how far it should be condemned 147The conduct of Peel in 1829 and 1845 148The conduct of Disraeli in 1867 149Different degrees of weight to be attached to party considerations 151Temptations to war 153Temptations of aristocratic and of democratic governments 155Necessity of assimilating legislation 157Legislation violating contracts. --Irish land legislation 158Questions forced into prominence for party objects 164The judgment of public servants who have committed indefensible acts 165The French _coup d'état_ of 1851 166Judgments passed upon it 177Probable multiplication of _coups d'état_ 182Governor Eyre 184The Jameson raid 185How statesmen should deal with political misdeeds 190The standard of international morals--questions connected with it 191The ethics of annexation 195Political morals and public opinion 196 CHAPTER XI _Moral compromise in the Church_ Difficulties of reconciling old formularies with changed beliefs 198 Cause of some great revolutions of belief. --The Copernican system. --Discovery of Newton 198 The antiquity of the world, of death, and of man 200 The Darwinian theory 201 Comparative mythology. --Biblical criticism. --Scientific habits of thought 201 General incorporation of new ideas into the Church 204 Growth of the sacerdotal spirit 204 The two theories of the Reformation 205 Modern Ritualism 210 Its various elements of attraction 211 Diversity of teaching has not enfeebled the Church 213 Its literary activity. --Proofs that the Church is in touch with educated laymen 214 Its political influence--how far this is a test of vitality 218 Its influence on education 219 Its spiritual influence 220 How far clergymen who dissent from parts of its theology can remain within it 221 Newman on a Latitudinarian establishment 223 Obligations imposed on the clergy by the fact of Establishment 224 Attitude of laymen towards the Church 225 Increasing sense of the relativity of belief 226 This tendency strengthens with age 227 The conflict between belief and scepticism 229 Power of religion to undergo transformation 229 Probable influence of the sacerdotal spirit on the Church 231 CHAPTER XII THE MANAGEMENT OF CHARACTER A sound judgment of our own characters essential to moral improvement 235Analogies between character and taste 236The strongest desire generally prevails, but desires may be modified 238Passions and habits 239Exaggerated regard for the future. --A happy childhood 239Choice of pleasures. --Athletic games 240The intellectual pleasures 242Their tendency to enhance other pleasures. --Importance of specialisation 243And of judicious selection 243Education may act specially on the desires or on the will 245Modern education and tendencies of the former kind 245Old Catholic training mainly of the will. --Its effects 247Anglo-Saxon types in the seventeenth century 248Capriciousness of willpower--heroism often succumbs to vice 249Courage--its varieties and inconsistencies 250The circumstances of life the school of will. --Its place in character 251Dangers of an early competence. --Choice of work 252Choice of friends. --Effect of early friendship on character 254Mastery of will over thoughts. --Its intellectual importance 255Its importance in moral culture 255Great difference among men in this respect 256Means of governing thought 258The dream power--its great place in life 258Especially in the early stages of humanity 261Moral safety valves--danger of inventing unreal crimes 262Character of the English gentleman 266Different ways of treating temptation 266 CHAPTER XIII MONEY Henry Taylor on its relation to character 268Difference between real and professed beliefs about money 268Its relation to happiness in different grades of life 269The cost of pleasures 275Lives of the millionaires 281Leaders of Society 284The great speculator 287Expenditure in charity. --Rules for regulating it 288Advantages and disadvantages of a large very wealthy class in a nation 292Directions in which philanthropic expenditure may be best turned 296 CHAPTER XIV MARRIAGE Its importance and the motives that lead to it 300The moral and intellectual qualities it specially demands 302Duty to the unborn. --Improvident marriages 305The doctrine of heredity and its consequences 306Religious celibacy 308Marriages of dissimilar types often peculiarly happy 309Marriages resulting from a common weakness 310Independent spheres in marriage. --Effect on character 311The age of marriage 312Increased independence of women 314 CHAPTER XV SUCCESS Success depends more on character than on intellect 316Especially that accessible to most men and most conducive to happiness 317Strength of will, tact and judgment. --Not always joined 317Their combination a great element of success 318Good nature 319Tact: its nature and its importance 320Its intellectual and moral affinities 323Value of good society in cultivating it. --Newman's description of a gentleman 324Disparities between merit and success 326Success not universally desired 326 CHAPTER XVI TIME Rebellion of human nature against the essential conditions of life 328Time 'the stuff of life' 330Various ways of treating it 330Increased intensity of life 331Sleep 332Apparent inequalities of time 335The tenure of life not too short 337Old age 341The growing love of rest. --How time should be regarded 341 CHAPTER XVII THE END Death terrible chiefly through its accessories 343Pagan and Christian ideas about it 344Premature death 349How easily the fear of death is overcome 351The true way of regarding it 352 THE MAP OF LIFE CHAPTER I One of the first questions that must naturally occur to every writer whodeals with the subject of this book is, what influence mere discussionand reasoning can have in promoting the happiness of men. Thecircumstances of our lives and the dispositions of our characters mainlydetermine the measure of happiness we enjoy, and mere argument about thecauses of happiness and unhappiness can do little to affect them. It isimpossible to read the many books that have been written on thesesubjects without feeling how largely they consist of mere soundinggeneralities which the smallest experience shows to be perfectlyimpotent in the face of some real and acute sorrow, and it is equallyimpossible to obtain any serious knowledge of the world withoutperceiving that a large proportion of the happiest lives and charactersare to be found where introspection, self-analysis and reasonings aboutthe good and evil of life hold the smallest place. Happiness, indeed, like health, is one of the things of which men rarely think except whenit is impaired, and much that has been written on the subject has beenwritten under the stress of some great depression. Such writers arelike the man in Hogarth's picture occupying himself in the debtors'prison with plans for the payment of the National Debt. There aremoments when all of us feel the force of the words of Voltaire:'Travaillons sans raisonner, c'est le seul moyen de rendre la viesupportable. ' That there is much truth in such considerations is incontestable, and itis only within a restricted sphere that the province of reasoningextends. Man comes into the world with mental and moral characteristicswhich he can only very imperfectly influence, and a large proportion ofthe external circumstances of his life lie wholly or mainly beyond hiscontrol. At the same time, every one recognises the power of skill, industry and perseverance to modify surrounding circumstances; the powerof temperance and prudence to strengthen a naturally weak constitution, prolong life, and diminish the chances of disease; the power ofeducation and private study to develop, sharpen and employ to the bestadvantage our intellectual faculties. Every one also recognises howlarge a part of the unhappiness of most men may be directly traced totheir own voluntary and deliberate acts. The power each man possesses inthe education and management of his character, and especially in thecultivation of the dispositions and tendencies which most largelycontribute to happiness, is less recognised and is perhaps lessextensive, but it is not less real. The eternal question of free will and determinism here naturally meetsus, but on such a subject it is idle to suppose that a modern writer cando more than define the question and state his own side. TheDeterminist says that the real question is not whether a man can dowhat he desires, but whether he can do what he does not desire; whetherthe will can act without a motive; whether that motive can in the lastanalysis be other than the strongest pleasure. The illusion of freewill, he maintains, is only due to the conflict of our motives. Undermany forms and disguises pleasure and pain have an absolute empire overconduct. The will is nothing more than the last and strongest desire; orit is like a piece of iron surrounded by magnets and necessarily drawnby the most powerful; or (as has been ingeniously imagined) like aweathercock, conscious of its own motion, but not conscious of the windsthat are moving it. The law of compulsory causation applies to the worldof mind as truly as to the world of matter. Heredity and Circumstancemake us what we are. Our actions are the inevitable result of the mentaland moral constitutions with which we came into the world, operated onby external influences. The supporters of free will, on the other hand, maintain that it is afact of consciousness that there is a clear distinction between the Willand the Desires, and that although they are closely connected no soundanalysis will confuse them. Coleridge ingeniously compared theirrelations to 'the co-instantaneous yet reciprocal action of the air andthe vital energy of the lungs in breathing. '[1] If the will ispowerfully acted on by the desires, it has also in its turn a power ofacting upon them, and it is not a mere slave to pleasure and pain. Thesupporters of this view maintain that it is a fact of the plainestconsciousness that we can do things which we do not like; that we cansuspend the force of imperious desires, resist the bias of our nature, pursue for the sake of duty the course which gives least pleasurewithout deriving or expecting from it any pleasure, and select at agiven moment between alternate courses. They maintain that when variousmotives pass before the mind, the mind retains a power of choosing andjudging, of accepting and rejecting; that it can by force of reason orby force of imagination bring one motive into prominence, concentratingits attention on it and thus intensifying its power; that it has acorresponding power of resisting other motives, driving them into thebackground and thus gradually diminishing their force; that the willitself becomes stronger by exercise, as the desires do by indulgence. The conflict between the will and the desires, the reality ofself-restraint and the power of Will to modify character, are among themost familiar facts of moral life. In the words of Burke, 'It is theprerogative of man to be in a great degree a creature of his ownmaking. ' There are men whose whole lives are spent in willing one thingand desiring the opposite, and all morality depends upon the suppositionthat we have at least some freedom of choice between good and evil. 'Iought, ' as Kant says, necessarily implies 'I can. ' The feeling of moralresponsibility is an essential part of healthy and developed humannature, and it inevitably presupposes free will. The best argument inits favour is that it is impossible really to disbelieve it. No humanbeing can prevent himself from viewing certain acts with an indignation, shame, remorse, resentment, gratitude, enthusiasm, praise or blame, which would be perfectly unmeaning and irrational if these acts couldnot have been avoided. We can have no higher evidence on the subjectthan is derived from this fact. It is impossible to explain the mysteryof free will, but until a man ceases to feel these emotions he has notsucceeded in disbelieving in it. The feelings of all men and thevocabularies of all languages attest the universality of the belief. Newman, in a well-known passage in his 'Apologia, ' describes the immenseeffect which the sentence of Augustine, 'Securus judicat orbisterrarum, ' had upon his opinions in determining him to embrace theChurch of Rome. The force of this consideration in relation to thesubject to which Dr. Newman refers does not appear to have great weight. It means only that at a time when the Christian Church included but asmall fraction of the human race; when all questions of orthodoxy or thereverse were practically in the hands of the priesthood; when ignorance, credulity and superstition were at their height and the habits ofindependence and impartiality of judgment running very low; and whenevery kind of violent persecution was directed against those whodissented from the prevailing dogmas, --certain councils of priests foundit possible to attain unanimity on such questions as the two natures inChrist or the relations of the Persons in the Trinity, and to expel fromthe Church those who differed from their views, and that the onceformidable sects which held slightly different opinions about theseinscrutable relations gradually faded away. Such an unanimity on suchsubjects and attained by such methods does not appear to me to carrywith it any overwhelming force. There are, however, a certain number ofbeliefs that are not susceptible of demonstrative proof, and which mustalways rest essentially on the universal assent of mankind. Such is theexistence of the external world. Such, in my opinion, is the existenceof a distinction between right and wrong, different from and higher thanthe distinction between pleasure and pain, and subsisting in all humannature in spite of great diversities of opinion about the acts andqualities that are comprised in either category; and such also is thekindred belief in a self-determining will. If men contend that thesethings are mere illusions and that their faculties are not to betrusted, it will no doubt be difficult or impossible to refute them; buta scepticism of this kind has no real influence on either conduct orfeeling. FOOTNOTE: [1] _Aids to Reflection_, p. 68. CHAPTER II Men continually forget that Happiness is a condition of Mind and not adisposition of circumstances, and one of the most common of errors isthat of confusing happiness with the means of happiness, sacrificing thefirst for the attainment of the second. It is the error of the miser, who begins by seeking money for the enjoyment it procures and ends bymaking the mere acquisition of money his sole object, pursuing it to thesacrifice of all rational ends and pleasures. Circumstances andCharacter both contribute to Happiness, but the proportionate attentionpaid to one or other of these great departments not only varies largelywith different individuals, but also with different nations and indifferent ages. Thus Religion acts mainly in the formation ofdispositions, and it is especially in this field that its bearing onhuman happiness should be judged. It influences, it is true, vastly andvariously the external circumstances of life, but its chief power ofcomforting and supporting lies in its direct and immediate action uponthe human soul. The same thing is true of some systems of philosophy ofwhich Stoicism is the most conspicuous. The paradox of the Stoic thatgood and evil are so entirely from within that to a wise man allexternal circumstances are indifferent, represents this view of life inits extreme form. Its more moderate form can hardly be better expressedthan in the saying of Dugald Stewart that 'the great secret ofhappiness is to study to accommodate our own minds to things externalrather than to accommodate things external to ourselves. '[2] It iseminently the characteristic of Eastern nations to place their idealsmainly in states of mind or feeling rather than in changes ofcircumstances, and in such nations men are much less desirous than inEuropean countries of altering the permanent conditions of their lives. On the other hand, the tendency of those philosophies which treatman--his opinions and his character--essentially as the result ofcircumstances, and which aggrandise the influence of the external worldupon mankind, is in the opposite direction. All the sensationalphilosophies from Bacon and Locke to our own day tend to concentrateattention on the external circumstances and conditions of happiness. Andthe same tendency will be naturally found in the most active, industrialand progressive nations; where life is very full and busy; where itscompetitions are most keen; where scientific discoveries are rapidlymultiplying pleasures or diminishing pains; where town life with itsconstant hurry and change is the most prominent. In such spheres mennaturally incline to seek happiness from without rather than fromwithin, or, in other words, to seek it much less by acting directly onthe mind and character than through the indirect method of improvedcircumstances. English character on both sides of the Atlantic is an eminentlyobjective one--a character in which thoughts, interests and emotionsare most habitually thrown on that which is without. Introspection andself-analysis are not congenial to it. No one can compare English lifewith life even in the Continental nations which occupy the same rank incivilisation without perceiving how much less Englishmen are accustomedeither to dwell upon their emotions or to give free latitude to theirexpression. Reticence and self-restraint are the lessons most constantlyinculcated. The whole tone of society favours it. In times of greatsorrow a degree of shame is attached to demonstrations of grief which inother countries would be deemed perfectly natural. The disposition todilate upon and perpetuate an old grief by protracted mournings, bycarefully observed anniversaries, by long periods of retirement from theworld, is much less common than on the Continent and it is certainlydiminishing. The English tendency is to turn away speedily from thepast, and to seek consolation in new fields of activity. Emotionstranslate themselves speedily into action, and they lose something oftheir intensity by the transformation. Philanthropy is nowhere moreactive and more practical, and religion has in few countries a greaterhold on the national life, but English Protestantism reflects veryclearly the national characteristics. It, no doubt, like all religions, lays down rules for the government of thought and feeling, but these areof a very general character. Preeminently a regulator of conduct, itlays comparatively little stress upon the inner life. It discourages, orat least neglects that minutely introspective habit of thought which theconfessional is so much calculated to promote, which appears soprominently in the writings of the Catholic Saints, and which finds itsspecial representation in the mystics and the religious contemplativeorders. Improved conduct and improved circumstances are to an Englishmind the chief and almost the only measures of progress. That this tendency is on the whole a healthy one, I, at least, firmlybelieve, but it brings with it certain manifest limitations and somewhatincapacitates men from judging other types of character and happiness. The part that circumstances play in the formation of our characters isindeed very manifest, and it is a humiliating truth that among thesecircumstances mere bodily conditions which we share with the animalshold a foremost place. In the long run and to the great majority of menhealth is probably the most important of all the elements of happiness. Acute physical suffering or shattered health will more thancounterbalance the best gifts of fortune, and the bias of our nature andeven the processes of our reasoning are largely influenced by physicalconditions. Hume has spoken of that 'disposition to see the favourablerather than the unfavourable side of things which it is more happinessto possess than to be heir to an estate of 10, 000_l. _ a year;' but thisgift of a happy temperament is very evidently greatly due to bodilyconditions. On the other hand, it is well known how speedily and howpowerfully bodily ailments react upon our moral natures. Every one isaware of the morbid irritability that is produced by certain maladies ofthe nerves or of the brain; of the deep constitutional depression whichoften follows diseases of the liver, or prolonged sleeplessness andother hypochondriacal maladies, and which not only deprives men of mostof their capacity of enjoyment, but also infallibly gives a colour and abias to their reasonings on life; of the manner in which animal passionsas well as animal spirits are affected by certain well-known conditionsof age and health. In spite of the 'coelum non animum mutant' ofHorace, few men fail to experience how different is the range of spiritsin the limbo-like atmosphere of a London winter and beneath the gloriesof an Italian sky or in the keen bracing atmosphere of the mountainside, and it is equally apparent how differently we judge the world whenwe are jaded by a long spell of excessive work or refreshed after anight of tranquil sleep. Poetry and Painting are probably not wrong inassociating a certain bilious temperament with a predisposition to envy, or an anæmic or lymphatic temperament with a saintly life, and there arewell-attested cases in which an acute illness has fundamentally alteredcharacters, sometimes replacing an habitual gloom by buoyancy andlight. [3] That invaluable gift which enables some men to cast asidetrouble and turn their thoughts and energies swiftly and decisively intonew channels can be largely strengthened by the action of the will, butaccording to some physiologists it has a well-ascertained physicalantecedent in the greater or less contractile power of the blood-vesselswhich feed the brain causing the flow of blood into it to be stronger orless rapid. If it be true that 'a healthy mind in a healthy body' is thesupreme condition of happiness, it is also true that the healthy minddepends more closely than we like to own on the healthy body. These are but a few obvious instances of the manner in which the bodyacts upon happiness. They do not mean that the will is powerless in theface of bodily conditions, but that in the management of character ithas certain very definite predispositions to encounter. In reasonings onlife, even more than on other things, a good reasoner will consider notonly the force of the opposing arguments, but also the bias to which hisown mind is subject. To raise the level of national health is one of thesurest ways of raising the level of national happiness, and inestimating the value of different pleasures many which, considered inthemselves, might appear to rank low upon the scale, will rank high, ifin addition to the immediate and transient enjoyment they procure, theycontribute to form a strong and healthy body. No branch of legislationis more really valuable than that which is occupied with the health ofthe people, whether it takes the form of encouraging the means by whichremedies may be discovered and diffused, or of extirpating by combinedefforts particular diseases, or of securing that the mass of labour inthe community should as far as possible be carried on under soundsanitary conditions. Fashion also can do much, both for good and ill. Itexercises over great multitudes an almost absolute empire, regulatingtheir dress, their education, their hours, their amusements, their food, their scale of expenditure; determining the qualities to which theyprincipally aspire, the work in which they may engage, and even the formof beauty which they most cultivate. It is happy for a nation when thismighty influence is employed in encouraging habits of life which arebeneficial or at least not gravely prejudicial to health. Nor is anyform of individual education more really valuable than that whichteaches the main conditions of a healthy life and forms those habits oftemperance and self-restraint that are most likely to attain it. With its great recuperative powers Youth can do with apparent impunitymany things which in later life bring a speedy Nemesis; but on the otherhand Youth is pre-eminently the period when habits and tastes areformed, and the yoke which is then lightly, willingly, wantonly assumedwill in after years acquire a crushing weight. Few things are morestriking than the levity of the motives, the feebleness of the impulsesunder which in youth fatal steps are taken which bring with them aweakened life and often an early grave. Smoking in manhood, whenpractised in moderation, is a very innocent and probably beneficentpractice, but it is well known how deleterious it is to young boys, andhow many of them have taken to it through no other motive than a desireto appear older than they are--that surest of all signs that we are veryyoung. How often have the far more pernicious habits of drinking, orgambling, or frequenting corrupt society been acquired through a similarmotive, or through the mere desire to enjoy the charm of a forbiddenpleasure or to stand well with some dissipated companions! How large aproportion of lifelong female debility is due to an early habit of tightlacing, springing only from the silliest vanity! How many lives havebeen sacrificed through the careless recklessness which refused to takethe trouble of changing wet clothes! How many have been shattered andshortened by excess in things which in moderation are harmless, useful, or praiseworthy, --by the broken blood-vessel, due to excess in somehealthy athletic exercise or game; by the ruined brain overstrained inorder to win some paltry prize! It is melancholy to observe how manylives have been broken down, ruined or corrupted in attempts to realisesome supreme and unattainable desire; through the impulse ofovermastering passion, of powerful and perhaps irresistible temptation. It is still sadder to observe how large a proportion of the failures oflife may be ultimately traced to the most insignificant causes and mighthave been avoided without any serious effort either of intellect orwill. The success with which medicine and sanitary science have laboured toprolong life, to extirpate or diminish different forms of disease and toalleviate their consequences is abundantly proved. In all civilisedcountries the average of life has been raised, and there is good reasonto believe that not only old age but also active, useful, enjoyable oldage has become much more frequent. It is true that the gain to humanhappiness is not quite as great as might at first sight be imagined. Death is least sad when it comes in infancy or in extreme old age, andthe increased average of life is largely due to the great diminution ininfant mortality, which is in truth a very doubtful blessing. If extremeold age is a thing to be desired, it is perhaps chiefly because itusually implies a constitution which gives many earlier years of robustand healthy life. But with all deductions the triumphs of sanitaryreform as well as of medical science are perhaps the brightest page inthe history of our century. Some of the measures which have proved mostuseful can only be effected at some sacrifice of individual freedom andby widespread coercive sanitary regulations, and are thus more akin todespotism than to free government. How different would have been thecondition of the world, and how far greater would have been thepopularity of strong monarchy if at the time when such a form ofgovernment generally prevailed rulers had had the intelligence to putbefore them the improvement of the health and the prolongation of thelives of their subjects as the main object of their policy rather thanmilitary glory or the acquisition of territory or mere ostentatious andselfish display! There is, however, some reason to believe that the diminution of diseaseand the prolongation of average human life are not necessarily or evengenerally accompanied by a corresponding improvement in general health. 'Acute diseases, ' says an excellent judge, 'which are eminently fatal, prevail, on the contrary, in a population where the standard of healthis high. .. . Thus a high rate of mortality may often be observed in acommunity where the number of persons affected with disease is small, and on the other hand general physical depression may concur with theprevalence of chronic maladies and yet be unattended with a greatproportion of deaths. '[4] An anæmic population, free from severeillness, but living habitually at a low level of health and with thedepressed spirits and feeble capacity of enjoyment which such acondition produces, is far from an ideal state, and there is much reasonto fear that this type is an increasing one. Many things in modern life, among which ill-judged philanthropy and ill-judged legislation have nosmall part, contribute to produce it, but two causes probably dominateover all others. The one is to be found in sanitary science itself, which enables great numbers of constitutionally weak children who inother days would have died in infancy to grow up and marry and propagatea feeble offspring. The other is the steady movement of population fromthe country to the towns, which is one of the most conspicuous featuresof modern civilisation. These two influences inevitably and powerfullytend to depress the vitality of a nation, and by doing so to lower thelevel of animal spirits which is one of the most essential elements ofhappiness. Whether our improved standards of living and our much greaterknowledge of sanitary conditions altogether counteract them is verydoubtful. In this as in most questions affecting life there are opposite dangersto be avoided, and wisdom lies mainly in a just sense of proportion anddegree. That sanitary reform, promoted by governments, has on the wholebeen a great blessing seems to me scarcely open to reasonable question, but many of the best judges are of opinion that it may easily be pushedto dangerous extremes. Pew things are more curious than to observe howrapidly during the past generation the love of individual liberty hasdeclined; how contentedly the English race are submitting greatdepartments of their lives to a web of regulations restricting andencircling them. Each individual case must be considered on its merits, and few persons will now deny that the right of adult men and women toregulate the conditions of their own work and to determine the risksthat they will assume may be wisely infringed in more cases than theManchester School would have admitted. At the same time the markedtendency of this generation to extend the stringency and area ofcoercive legislation in the fields of industry and sanitary reform isone that should be carefully watched. Its exaggerations may in more waysthan one greatly injure the very classes it is intended to benefit. A somewhat corresponding statement may be made about individual sanitaryeducation. It is, as I have said, a matter of the most vital importancethat we should acquire in youth the knowledge and the habits that leadto a healthy life. The main articles of the sanitary creed are few andsimple. Moderation and self-restraint in all things--an abundance ofexercise, of fresh air, and of cold water--a sufficiency of steady worknot carried to excess--occasional change of habits and abstinence from afew things which are manifestly injurious to health, are the cardinalrules to be observed. In the great lottery of life, men who haveobserved them all may be doomed to illness, weak vitality, and earlydeath, but they at least add enormously to the chances of a strong andfull life. The parent will need further knowledge for the care of hischildren, but for self-guidance little more is required, and with earlyhabits an observance of the rules of health becomes almost instinctiveand unconscious. But while no kind of education is more transcendentlyimportant than this, it is not unfrequently carried to an extreme whichdefeats its own purpose. The habit that so often grows upon men withslight chronic maladies, or feeble temperament, or idle lives, of makingtheir own health and their own ailments the constant subject of theirthoughts soon becomes a disease very fatal to happiness and positivelyinjurious to health. It is well known how in an epidemic thepanic-stricken are most liable to the contagion, and the life of thehabitual valetudinarian tends promptly to depress the nerve energy whichprovides the true stamina of health. In the words of an eminentphysician, 'It is not by being anxious in an inordinate or unduly fussyfashion that men can hope to live long and well. The best way to livewell is to work well. Good work is the daily test and safeguard ofpersonal health. .. . The practical aim should be to live an orderly andnatural life. We were not intended to pick our way through the worldtrembling at every step. .. . It is worse than vain, for it encourages andincreases the evil it attempts to relieve. .. . I firmly believe one halfof the confirmed invalids of the day could be cured of their maladies ifthey were compelled to live busy and active lives and had no time tofret over their miseries. .. . One of the most seductive and mischievousof errors in self-management is the practice of giving way to inertia, weakness and depression. .. . Those who desire to live should settle thiswell in their minds, that nerve power is the force of life and that thewill has a wondrously strong and direct influence over the body throughthe brain and the nervous system. '[5] FOOTNOTES: [2] _Active and Moral Powers_, ii. 312. [3] Much curious information on this subject will be found in Cabanis'_Rapports du physique et du moral de l'homme_. [4] Kay's _Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes_, p. 75. [5] Mortimer Granville's _How to Make the Best of Life_. CHAPTER III Before entering into a more particular account of the chief elements ofa happy life it may be useful to devote a few pages to some generalconsiderations on the subject. One of the first and most clearly recognised rules to be observed isthat happiness is most likely to be attained when it is not the directobject of pursuit. In early youth we are accustomed to divide lifebroadly into work and play, regarding the first as duty or necessity andthe second as pleasure. One of the great differences between childhoodand manhood is that we come to like our work more than our play. Itbecomes to us, if not the chief pleasure, at least the chief interest ofour lives, and even when it is not this, an essential condition of ourhappiness. Few lives produce so little happiness as those that areaimless and unoccupied. Apart from all considerations of right andwrong, one of the first conditions of a happy life is that it should bea full and busy one, directed to the attainment of aims outsideourselves. Anxiety and Ennui are the Scylla and Charybdis on which thebark of human happiness is most commonly wrecked. If a life of luxuriousidleness and selfish ease in some measure saves men from the firstdanger, it seldom fails to bring with it the second. No change of scene, no multiplicity of selfish pleasures will in the long run enable themto escape it. As Carlyle says, 'The restless, gnawing ennui which, likea dark, dim, ocean flood, communicating with the Phlegethons and Stygiandeeps, begirdles every human life so guided--is it not the painful cryeven of that imprisoned heroism?. .. You ask for happiness. "Oh give mehappiness, " and they hand you ever new varieties of covering for theskin, ever new kinds of supply for the digestive apparatus. .. . Well, rejoice in your upholsteries and cookeries if so be they will make you"happy. " Let the varieties of them be continual and innumerable. In allthings let perpetual change, if that is a perpetual blessing to you, beyour portion instead of mine. Incur the prophet's curse and in allthings in this sublunary world "make yourselves like unto a wheel. "Mount into your railways; whirl from place to place at the rate of fiftyor, if you like, of five hundred miles an hour; you cannot escape fromthat inexorable, all-encircling ocean moan of ennui. No; if you couldmount to the stars and do yacht voyages under the belts of Jupiter orstalk deer on the ring of Saturn it would still begirdle you. You cannotescape from it; you can but change your place in it without solacementexcept one moment's. That prophetic Sermon from the Deeps will continuewith you till you wisely interpret it and do it or else till the Crackof Doom swallow it and you. '[6] It needs but a few years of life experience to realise the profoundtruth of this passage. An ideal life would be furnished with abundantwork of a kind that is congenial both to our intellects and ourcharacters and that brings with it much interest and little anxiety. Fewof us can command this. Most men's work is largely determined for themby circumstances, though in the guidance of life there are manyalternatives and much room for skilful pilotage. But the first greatrule is that we must do something--that life must have a purpose and anaim--that work should be not merely occasional and spasmodic, but steadyand continuous. Pleasure is a jewel which will only retain its lustrewhen it is in a setting of work, and a vacant life is one of the worstof pains, though the islands of leisure that stud a crowded, well-occupied life may be among the things to which we look back withthe greatest delight. Another great truth is conveyed in the saying of Aristotle that a wiseman will make it his aim rather to avoid suffering than to attainpleasure. Men can in reality do very little to mitigate the force of thegreat bereavements and the other graver calamities of life. All oursystems of philosophy and reasoning are vain when confronted with them. Innate temperament which we cannot greatly change determines whether wesink crushed beneath the blow or possess the buoyancy that can restorehealth to our natures. The conscious and deliberate pursuit of pleasureis attended by many deceptions and illusions, and rarely leads tolasting happiness. But we can do very much by prudence, self-restraintand intelligent regulation so to manage life as to avoid a largeproportion of its calamities and at the same time, by preserving theaffections pure and undimmed, by diversifying interests and formingactive habits, to combat its tedium and despondency. Another truth is that both the greatest pleasures and the keenest painsof life lie much more in those humbler spheres which are accessible toall than on the rare pinnacles to which only the most gifted or the mostfortunate can attain. It would probably be found upon examination thatmost men who have devoted their lives successfully to great labours andambitions, and who have received the most splendid gifts from Fortune, have nevertheless found their chief pleasure in things unconnected withtheir main pursuits and generally within the reach of common men. Domestic pleasures, pleasures of scenery, pleasures of reading, pleasures of travel or of sport have been the highest enjoyment of menof great ambition, intellect, wealth and position. There is a curiouspassage in Lord Althorp's Life in which that most popular and successfulstatesman, towards the close of his long parliamentary life, expressedhis emphatic conviction that 'the thing that gave him the greatestpleasure in the world' was 'to see sporting dogs hunt. '[7] I can myselfrecollect going over a country place with an old member of Parliamentwho had sat in the House of Commons for nearly fifty years of the mostmomentous period of modern English history. If questioned he could tellabout the stirring scenes of the great Reform Bill of 1832, but it wascurious to observe how speedily and inevitably he passed from suchmatters to the history of the trees on his estate which he had plantedand watched at every stage of their growth, and how evidently in theretrospect of life it was to these things and not to the incidents of along parliamentary career that his affections naturally turned. I onceasked an illustrious public man who had served his country withbrilliant success in many lands, and who was spending the evening of hislife as an active country gentleman in a place which he dearly loved, whether he did not find this sphere too contracted for his happiness. 'Never for a day, ' he answered; 'and in every country where I have been, in every post which I have filled, the thought of this place has alwaysbeen at the back of my mind. ' A great writer who had devoted almost hiswhole life to one gigantic work, and to his own surprise brought it atlast to a successful end, sadly observed that amid the congratulationsthat poured in to him from every side he could not help feeling, when heanalysed his own emotions, how tepid was the satisfaction which such atriumph could give him, and what much more vivid gratification he hadcome to take in hearing the approaching steps of some little childrenwhom he had taught to love him. It is one of the paradoxes of human nature that the things that are moststruggled for and the things that are most envied are not those whichgive either the most intense or the most unmixed joy. Ambition is theluxury of the happy. It is sometimes, but more rarely, the consolationand distraction of the wretched; but most of those who have trodden itspaths, if they deal honestly with themselves, will acknowledge that thegravest disappointments of public life dwindle into insignificancecompared with the poignancy of suffering endured at the deathbed of awife or of a child, and that within the small circle of a family lifethey have found more real happiness than the applause of nations couldever give. Look down, look down from your glittering heights, And tell us, ye sons of glory, The joys and the pangs of your eagle flights, The triumph that crowned the story, The rapture that thrilled when the goal was won, The goal of a life's desire; And a voice replied from the setting sun, Nay, the dearest and best lies nigher. How oft in such hours our fond thoughts stray To the dream of two idle lovers; To the young wife's kiss; to the child at play; Or the grave which the long grass covers! And little we'd reck of power or gold, And of all life's vain endeavour, If the heart could glow as it glowed of old, And if youth could abide for ever. Another consideration in the cultivation of happiness is the importanceof acquiring the habit of realising our blessings while they last. It isone of the saddest facts of human nature that we commonly only learntheir value by their loss. This, as I have already noticed, is veryevidently the case with health. By the laws of our being we are almostunconscious of the action of our bodily organs as long as they areworking well. It is only when they are deranged, obstructed or impairedthat our attention becomes concentrated upon them. In consequence ofthis a state of perfect health is rarely fully appreciated until it islost and during a short period after it has been regained. Gray hasdescribed the new sensation of pleasure which convalescence gives inwell-known lines: See the wretch who long has tost On the thorny bed of pain, At length repair his vigour lost And breathe and walk again; The meanest floweret of the vale, The simplest note that swells the gale, The common sun, the air, the skies, To him are opening Paradise. And what is true of health is true of other things. It is only when somecalamity breaks the calm tenor of our ways and deprives us of some giftof fortune we have long enjoyed that we feel how great was the value ofwhat we have lost. There are times in the lives of most of us when wewould have given all the world to be as we were but yesterday, thoughthat yesterday had passed over us unappreciated and unenjoyed. Sometimes, indeed, our perception of this contrast brings with it alasting and salutary result. In the medicine of Nature a chronic andabiding disquietude or morbidness of temperament is often cured by somekeen though more transient sorrow which violently changes the current ofour thoughts and imaginations. The difference between knowledge and realisation is one of the facts ofour nature that are most worthy of our attention. Every human mindcontains great masses of inert, passive, undisputed knowledge whichexercise no real influence on thought or character till something occurswhich touches our imagination and quickens this knowledge intoactivity. Very few things contribute so much to the happiness of life asa constant realisation of the blessings we enjoy. The difference betweena naturally contented and a naturally discontented nature is one of themarked differences of innate temperament, but we can do much tocultivate that habit of dwelling on the benefits of our lot whichconverts acquiescence into a more positive enjoyment. Religion in thisfield does much, for it inculcates thanksgiving as well as prayer, gratitude for the present and the past as well as hope for the future. Among secular influences, contrast and comparison have the greatestvalue. Some minds are always looking on the fortunes that are above themand comparing their own penury with the opulence of others. A wisenature will take an opposite course and will cultivate the habit oflooking rather at the round of the ladder of fortune which is below ourown and realising the countless points in which our lot is better thanthat of others. As Dr. Johnson says, 'Few are placed in a situation sogloomy and distressful as not to see every day beings yet more forlornand miserable from whom they may learn to rejoice in their own lot. ' The consolation men derive amid their misfortunes from reflecting uponthe still greater misfortunes of others and thus lightening their own bycontrast is a topic which must be delicately used, but when so used itis not wrong and it often proves very efficacious. Perhaps the pleasureLa Rochefoucauld pretends that men take in the misfortunes of their bestfriends, if it is a real thing, is partly due to this consideration, asthe feeling of pity which is inspired by some sudden death or greattrouble falling on others is certainly not wholly unconnected with therealisation that such calamities might fall upon ourselves. It is worthyof notice, however, that while all moralists recognise content as one ofthe chief ingredients of happiness, some of the strongest influences ofmodern industrial civilisation are antagonistic to it. The whole theoryof progress as taught by Political Economy rests upon the importance ofcreating wants and desires as a stimulus to exertion. There arecountries, especially in southern climates, where the wants of men arevery few, and where, as long as those wants are satisfied, men will livea careless and contented life, enjoying the present, thinking verylittle of the future. Whether the sum of enjoyment in such a populationis really less than in our more advanced civilisation is at least opento question. It is a remark of Schopenhauer that the Idyll, which is theonly form of poetry specially devoted to the description of humanfelicity, always paints life in its simplest and least elaborated form, and he sees in this an illustration of his doctrine that the greatesthappiness will be found in the simplest and even most uniform lifeprovided it escapes the evil of ennui. The political economist, however, will pronounce the condition of such a people as I have described adeplorable one, and in order to raise them his first task will be toinfuse into them some discontent with their lot, to persuade them tomultiply their wants and to aspire to a higher standard of comfort, to afuller and a larger existence. A discontent with existing circumstancesis the chief source of a desire to improve them, and this desire is themainspring of progress. In this theory of life, happiness is sought, not in content, but in improved circumstances, in the development of newcapacities of enjoyment, in the pleasure which active existencenaturally gives. To maintain in their due proportion in our nature thespirit of content and the desire to improve, to combine a realisedappreciation of the blessings we enjoy with a healthy and well-regulatedambition, is no easy thing, but it is the problem which all who aspireto a perfect life should set before themselves. _In medio tutissimusibis_ is eminently true of the cultivation of character, and some of itsbest elements become pernicious in their extremes. Thus prudentforethought, which is one of the first conditions of a successful life, may easily degenerate into that most miserable state of mind in whichmen are perpetually anticipating and dwelling upon the uncertain dangersand evils of an uncertain future. How much indeed of the happiness andmisery of men may be included under those two words, realisation andanticipation! There is no such thing as a Eudæmometer measuring with accuracy thedegrees of happiness realised by men in different ages, under differentcircumstances, and with different characters. Perhaps if such a thingexisted it might tend to discourage us by showing that diversities andimprovements of circumstances affect real happiness in a smaller degreethan we are accustomed to imagine. Our nature accommodates itselfspeedily to improved circumstances, and they cease to give positivepleasure while their loss is acutely painful. Advanced civilisationbrings with it countless and inestimable benefits, but it also bringswith it many forms of suffering from which a ruder existence is exempt. There is some reason to believe that it is usually accompanied with alower range of animal spirits, and it is certainly accompanied with anincreased sensitiveness to pain. Some philosophers have contended thatthis is the best of all possible worlds. It is difficult to believe so, as the whole object of human effort is to make it a better one. But thesuccess of that effort is more apparent in the many terrible forms ofhuman suffering which it has abolished or diminished than in the higherlevel of positive happiness that has been attained. FOOTNOTES: [6] _Latter-day Pamphlets:_ 'Jesuitism. ' [7] Le Marchant's _Life of Althorp_, p. 143. CHAPTER IV Though the close relationship that subsists between morals and happinessis universally acknowledged, I do not belong to the school whichbelieves that pleasure and pain, either actual or anticipated, are theonly motives by which the human will can be governed; that virtueresolves itself ultimately into well-considered interest and finds itsultimate reason in the happiness of those who practise it; that 'all ourvirtues, ' as La Rochefoucauld has said, 'end in self-love as the riversin the sea. ' Such a proverb as 'Honesty is the best policy' representsno doubt a great truth, though it has been well said that no man isreally honest who is only honest through this motive, and though it isvery evident that it is by no means an universal truth but dependslargely upon changing and precarious conditions of laws, police, publicopinion, and individual circumstances. But in the higher realms ofmorals the coincidence of happiness and virtue is far more doubtful. Itis certainly not true that the highest nature is necessarily or evennaturally the happiest. Paganism has produced no more perfect type thanthe profoundly pathetic figure of Marcus Aurelius, while Christianityfinds its ideal in one who was known as the 'Man of Sorrows. ' Theconscience of Mankind has ever recognised self-sacrifice as the supremeelement of virtue, and self-sacrifice is never real when it is only theexchange of a less happiness for a greater one. No moral chemistry cantransmute the worship of Sorrow, which Goethe described as the essenceof Christianity, into the worship of happiness, and probably with mostmen health and temperament play a far larger part in the real happinessof their lives than any of the higher virtues. The satisfaction ofaccomplished duty which some moralists place among the chief pleasuresof life is a real thing in so far as it saves men from internalreproaches, but it is probable that it is among the worst men that pangsof conscience are least dreaded, and it is certainly not among the bestmen that they are least felt. Conscience, indeed, when it is verysensitive and very lofty, is far more an element of suffering than thereverse. It aims at an ideal higher than we can attain. It takes thelowest view of our own achievements. It suffers keenly from the manyshortcomings of which it is acutely sensible. Far from indulging in thepleasurable retrospect of a well-spent life, it urges men to constant, painful, and often unsuccessful effort. A nature that is strung to thesaintly or the heroic level will find itself placed in a jarring world, will provoke much friction and opposition, and will be pained by manythings in which a lower nature would placidly acquiesce. The highestform of intellectual virtue is that love of truth for its own sake whichbreaks up prejudices, tempers enthusiasm by the full admission ofopposing arguments and qualifying circumstances, and places in thesphere of possibility or probability many things which we would gladlyaccept as certainties. Candour and impartiality are in a large degreevirtues of temperament; but no one who has any real knowledge of humannature can doubt how much more pleasurable it is to most men to liveunder the empire of invincible prejudice, deliberately shutting outevery consideration that could shake or qualify cherished beliefs. 'God, ' says Emerson, 'offers to every mind its choice between truth andrepose. Take which you please. You can never have both. ' One of thestrongest arguments of natural religion rests upon the fact that virtueso often fails to bring its reward; upon the belief that is so deeplyimplanted in human nature that this is essentially unjust and must insome future state be remedied. For such reasons as these I believe it to be impossible to identifyvirtue with happiness, and the views of the opposite school seem to mechiefly to rest upon an unnatural and deceptive use of words. Even whenthe connection between virtue and pleasure is most close, it is true, asthe old Stoics said, that though virtue gives pleasure, this is not thereason why a good man will practise it; that pleasure is the companionand not the guide of his life; that he does not love virtue because itgives pleasure, but it gives pleasure because he loves it. [8] A trueaccount of human nature will recognise that it has the power of aimingat something which is different from happiness and something which maybe intelligibly described as higher, and that on the predominance ofthis loftier aim the nobility of life essentially depends. It is noteven true that the end of man should be to find peace at the last. Itshould be to do his duty and tell the truth. But while this great truth of the existence of a higher aim thanhappiness should be always maintained, the relations between morals andhappiness are close and intimate and well worthy of investigation. Asfar as the lower or more commonplace virtues are concerned there can beno mistake. It is very evident that a healthy, long and prosperous lifeis more likely to be attained by industry, moderation and purity than bythe opposite courses. It is very evident that drunkenness and sensualityruin health and shorten life; that idleness, gambling and disorderlyhabits ruin prosperity; that ill-temper, selfishness and envy killfriendship and provoke animosities and dislike; that in everywell-regulated society there is at least a general coincidence betweenthe path of duty and the path of prosperity; dishonesty, violence anddisregard for the rights of others naturally and usually bringing theirpunishment either from law or from public opinion or from both. BishopButler has argued that the general tendency of virtue to lead tohappiness and the general tendency of vice to lead to unhappiness provethat even in its present state there is a moral government of the world, and whatever controversy may be raised about the inference there can atleast be no doubt about the substantial truth of the facts. Happiness, as I have already said, is best attained when it is not the direct or atleast the main object that is aimed at. A wasted and inactive life notonly palls in itself but deprives men of the very real and definitepleasure that naturally arises from the healthful activity of all ourpowers, while a life of egotism excludes the pleasures of sympathy whichplay so large a part in human happiness. One of the lessons whichexperience most clearly teaches is that work, duty and the discipline ofcharacter are essential elements of lasting happiness. The pleasures ofvice are often real, but they are commonly transient and they leavelegacies of suffering, weakness, or care behind them. The noblerpleasures for the most part grow and strengthen with advancing years. The passions of youth, when duly regulated, gradually transformthemselves into habits, interests and steady affections, and it is inthe long forecasts of life that the superiority of virtue as an elementof happiness becomes most apparent. It has been truly said that such words as 'pastime' and 'diversion'applied to our pleasures are among the most melancholy in the language, for they are the confession of human nature that it cannot findhappiness in itself, but must seek for something that will fill up time, will cover the void which it feels, and divert men's thoughts from theconditions and prospects of their own lives. How much of the pleasure ofSociety, and indeed of all amusements, depends on their power of makingus forget ourselves! The substratum of life is sad, and few men whoreflect on the dangers and uncertainties that surround it can find iteven tolerable without much extraneous aid. The first and most vital ofthese aids is to be found in the creation of strong interests. It is oneof the laws of our being that by seeking interests rather than byseeking pleasures we can best encounter the gloom of life. But thoseonly have the highest efficiency which are of an unselfish nature. Bythrowing their whole nature into the interests of others men mosteffectually escape the melancholy of introspection; the horizon of lifeis enlarged; the development of the moral and sympathetic feelingschases egotistic cares, and by the same paradox that we have seen inother parts of human nature men best attain their own happiness byabsorbing themselves in the pursuit of the happiness of others. The aims and perspective of a well-regulated life have never, I think, been better described than in one of the letters of Burke to the Duke ofRichmond. 'It is wise indeed, considering the many positive vexationsand the innumerable bitter disappointments of pleasure in the world, tohave as many resources of satisfaction as possible within one's power. Whenever we concentre the mind on one sole object, that object and lifeitself must go together. But though it is right to have reserves ofemployment, still some one object must be kept principal; greatly andeminently so; and the other masses and figures must preserve their duesubordination, to make out the grand composition of an importantlife. '[9] It is equally true that among these objects the disinterestedand the unselfish should hold a predominant place. With some this sideof their activity is restricted to the narrow circle of home or to theisolated duties and charities of their own neighbourhood. With others ittakes the form of large public interests, of a keen participation insocial, philanthropic, political or religious enterprises. Characterplays a larger part than intellect in the happiness of life, and thecultivation of the unselfish part of our nature is not only one of thefirst lessons of morals but also of wisdom. Like most other things its difficulties lie at the beginning, and it isby steady practice that it passes into a second and instinctive nature. The power of man to change organically his character is a very limitedone, but on the whole the improvement of character is probably morewithin his reach than intellectual development. Time and Opportunity arewanting to most men for any considerable intellectual study, and evenwere it otherwise every man will find large tracts of knowledge andthought wholly external to his tastes, aptitudes and comprehension. Butevery one can in some measure learn the lesson of self-sacrifice, practise what is right, correct or at least mitigate his dominantfaults. What fine examples of self-sacrifice, quiet courage, resignationin misfortune, patient performance of painful duty, magnanimity andforgiveness under injury may be often found among those who areintellectually the most commonplace! The insidious growth of selfishness is a disease against which menshould be most on their guard; but it is a grave though a common errorto suppose that the unselfish instincts may be gratified withoutrestraint. There is here, however, one important distinction to benoted. The many and great evils that have sprung from lavish andill-considered charities do not always or perhaps generally spring fromany excess or extravagance of the charitable feeling. They are much morecommonly due to its defect. The rich man who never cares to inquire intothe details of the cases that are brought before him or to give anyserious thought to the ulterior consequences of his acts, but who isready to give money at any solicitation and who considers that by sodoing he has discharged his duty, is far more likely to do harm in thisway than the man who devotes himself to patient, plodding, house tohouse work among the poor. The many men and the probably still largernumber of women who give up great portions of their lives to such worksoon learn to trace with considerable accuracy the consequences of theircharities and to discriminate between the worthy and the unworthy. Thatsuch persons often become exclusive and one-sided, and acquire a kind ofprofessional bent which induces them to subordinate all nationalconsiderations to their own subject and lose sight of the trueproportion of things, is undoubtedly true, but it will probably not befound with the best workers that such a life tends to unduly intensifyemotion. As Bishop Butler has said with profound truth, active habitsare strengthened and passive impressions weakened by repetition, and alife spent in active charitable work is quite compatible with muchsobriety and even coldness of judgment in estimating each case as itarises. It is not the surgeon who is continually employed in operationsfor the cure of his patients who is most moved at the sight ofsuffering. This is, I believe, on the whole true, but it is also true that thereare grave diseases which attach themselves peculiarly to the unselfishside of our nature, and they are peculiarly dangerous because men, feeling that the unselfish is the virtuous and nobler side of theirbeing, are apt to suffer these tendencies to operate without supervisionor control. Yet it is hardly possible to exaggerate the calamities thathave sprung from misjudged unselfish actions. The whole history ofreligious persecution abundantly illustrates it, for there can belittle question that a large proportion of the persecutors weresincerely seeking what they believed to be the highest good of mankind. And if this dark page of human history is now almost closed, there arestill many other ways in which a similar evil is displayed. Crotchets, sentimentalities and fanaticisms cluster especially around the unselfishside of our nature, and they work evil in many curious and subtle ways. Few things have done more harm in the world than disproportionedcompassion. It is a law of our being that we are only deeply moved bysufferings we distinctly realise, and the degrees in which differentkinds of suffering appeal to the imagination bear no proportion to theirreal magnitude. The most benevolent man will read of an earthquake inJapan or a plague in South America with a callousness he would neverdisplay towards some untimely death or some painful accident in hisimmediate neighbourhood, and in general the suffering of a prominent andisolated individual strikes us much more forcibly than that of anundistinguished multitude. Few deaths are so prominent, and thereforefew produce such widespread compassion, as those of conspicuouscriminals. It is no exaggeration to say that the death of an'interesting' murderer will often arouse much stronger feelings thanwere ever excited by the death of his victim; or by the deaths of bravesoldiers who perished by disease or by the sword in some obscureexpedition in a remote country. This mode of judgment acts promptly uponconduct. The humanitarian spirit which mitigates the penal code andmakes the reclamation of the criminal a main object is a perfectlyright thing as long as it does not so far diminish the deterrent powerof punishment as to increase crime, and as long as it does not place thecriminal in a better position of comfort than the blameless poor, butwhen these conditions are not fulfilled it is much more an evil than agood. The remote, indirect and unrealised consequences of our acts areoften far more important than those which are manifest and direct, andit continually happens that in extirpating some concentrated andobtrusive evil, men increase or engender a diffused malady whichoperates over a far wider area. How few, for example, who share theprevailing tendency to deal with every evil that appears in Society bycoercive legislation adequately realise the danger of weakening therobust, self-reliant, resourceful habits on which the happiness ofSociety so largely depends, and at the same time, by multiplying thefunctions and therefore increasing the expenses of government, throwingnew and crushing burdens on struggling industry! How often havephilanthropists, through a genuine interest for some suffering class orpeople, advocated measures which by kindling, prolonging, or enlarging agreat war would infallibly create calamities far greater than thosewhich they would redress! How often might great outbursts of savagecrime or grave and lasting disorders in the State, or internationalconflicts that have cost thousands of lives, have been averted by aprompt and unflinching severity from which an ill-judged humanityrecoiled! If in the February of 1848 Louis Philippe had permittedMarshal Bugeaud to fire on the Revolutionary mob at a time when therewas no real and widespread desire for revolution in France, how manybloody pages of French and European history might have been spared! Measures guaranteeing men, and still more women, from excessive labour, and surrounding them with costly sanitary precautions, may easily, ifthey are injudiciously framed, so handicap a sex or a people in thecompetition of industry as to drive them out of great fields ofindustry, restrict their means of livelihood, lower their standard ofwages and comfort, and thus seriously diminish the happiness of theirlives. Injudicious suppressions of amusements that are not wholly good, but which afford keen enjoyment to great masses, seldom fail to give animpulse to other pleasures more secret and probably more vicious. Injudicious charities, or an extravagant and too indulgent poor lawadministration, inevitably discourage industry and thrift, and usuallyincrease the poverty they were intended to cure. The parent who shrinksfrom inflicting any suffering on his child, or withholding from him anypleasure that he desires, is not laying the foundation of a happy life, and the benevolence which counteracts or obscures the law of nature thatextravagance, improvidence and vice lead naturally to ruin, is no realkindness either to the upright man who has resisted temptation or to theweak man whose virtue is trembling doubtfully in the balance. Nor is itin the long run for the benefit of the world that superior ability orsuperior energy or industry should be handicapped in the race of life, forbidden to encounter exceptional risks for the sake of exceptionalrewards, reduced by regulations to measures of work and gain intendedfor the benefit of inferior characters or powers. The fatal vice of ill-considered benevolence is that it looks only toproximate and immediate results without considering either alternativesor distant and indirect consequences. A large and highly respectableform of benevolence is that connected with the animal world, and inEngland it is carried in some respects to a point which is unknown onthe Continent. But what a strange form of compassion is that which longmade it impossible to establish a Pasteur Institute in England, obligingpatients threatened with one of the most horrible diseases that canafflict mankind to go--as they are always ready to do--to Paris, inorder to undergo a treatment which what is called the humane sentimentof Englishmen forbid them to receive at home! What a strange form ofbenevolence is that which in a country where field sports are thehabitual amusement of the higher ranks of Society denounces as criminaleven the most carefully limited and supervised experiments on livinganimals, and would thus close the best hope of finding remedies for someof the worst forms of human suffering, the one sure method of testingsupposed remedies which may be fatal or which may be of incalculablebenefit to mankind! Foreign critics, indeed, often go much further andbelieve that in other forms connected with this subject public opinionin England is strangely capricious and inconsistent. They compare withastonishment the sentences that are sometimes passed for theill-treatment of a woman and for the ill-treatment of a cat; they askwhether the real sufferings caused by many things that are in Englandpunished by law or reprobated by opinion are greater than those causedby sports which are constantly practised without reproach; and they areapt to find much that is exaggerated or even fantastic in the greatpopularity and elaboration of some animal charities. [10] At the sametime in our own country the more recognised field sports greatly troublemany benevolent natures. I will here only say that while the positivebenefits they produce are great and manifest, those who condemn themconstantly forget what would be the fate of the animals that areslaughtered if such sports did not exist, and how little the balance ofsuffering is increased or altered by the destruction of beings whichthemselves live by destroying. As a poet says-- The fish exult whene'er the seagull dies, The salmon's death preserves a thousand flies. On most of these questions the effect on human character is a moreimportant consideration than the effect on animal happiness. The bestthing that legislation can do for wild animals is to extend as far aspossible to harmless classes a close time, securing them immunity whilethey are producing and supporting their young. This is the truestkindness, and on quite other grounds it is peculiarly needed, as theimprovement of firearms and the increase of population have completelyaltered, as far as man is concerned, the old balance between productionand destruction, and threaten, if unchecked, to lead to an almostcomplete extirpation of great classes of the animal world. It ismelancholy to observe how often sensitive women who object to fieldsports and who denounce all experiments on living animals will be foundsupporting with perfect callousness fashions that are leading to thewholesale destruction of some of the most beautiful species of birds, and are in some cases dependent upon acts of very aggravated cruelty. FOOTNOTES: [8] Seneca, _De Vita Beata_. [9] Burke's _Correspondence_, i. 376, 377. [10] As I am writing these pages I find the following paragraph in anewspaper which may illustrate my meaning:--'DOGS' NURSING. A case washeard at the Brompton County Court on Friday in which some suggestiveevidence was given of the medical treatment of dogs. The proprietor of adogs' infirmary at Tattersall's Corner sued Mr. Harding Cox for theboard and lodging of seven dogs, and the _régime_ was explained. Theyare fed on essence of meat, washed down with port wine, and have as adigestive eggs beaten up in milk and arrowroot. Medicated baths andtonics are also supplied, and occasionally the animals are treated to aday in the country. This course of hygiene necessitated an expenditureof ten shillings a week. The defendant pleaded that the charges wereexcessive, but the judge awarded the plaintiff £25. How many hospitalpatients receive such treatment?'--_Daily Express_, February 16, 1897. CHAPTER V The illustrations given in the last chapter will be sufficient to showthe danger of permitting the unselfish side of human nature to run wildwithout serious control by the reason and by the will. To see things intheir true proportion, to escape the magnifying influence of a morbidimagination, should be one of the chief aims of life, and in no fieldsis it more needed than in those we have been reviewing. At the same timeevery age has its own ideal moral type towards which the strongest andbest influences of the time converge. The history of morals isessentially a history of the changes that take place not so much in ourconception of what is right and wrong as in the proportionate place andprominence we assign to different virtues and vices. There are largegroups of moral qualities which in some ages of the world's history havebeen regarded as of supreme importance, while in other ages they arethrown into the background, and there are corresponding groups of viceswhich are treated in some periods as very serious and in others as verytrivial. The heroic type of Paganism and the saintly type ofChristianity in its purest form, consist largely of the same elements, but the proportions in which they are mixed are altogether different. There are ages when the military and civic virtues--the qualities thatmake good soldiers and patriotic citizens--dominate over all others. Theself-sacrifice of the best men flows habitually in these channels. Insuch an age integrity in business relations and the domestic virtueswhich maintain the purity of the family may be highly valued, but theyare chiefly valued because they are essential to the well-being of theState. The soldier who has attained to the highest degree the bestqualities of his profession, the patriot who sacrifices to the servicesof the State his comforts, his ambitions and his life, is the suprememodel, and the estimation in which he is held is but little lowered eventhough he may have been guilty, like Cato, of atrocious cruelty to hisslaves, or, like some of the heroes of ancient times, of scandalousforms of private profligacy. There are other ages in which military life is looked upon by moralistswith disfavour, and in which patriotism ranks very low in the scale ofvirtues, while charity, gentleness, self-abnegation, devotional habits, and purity in thought, word and act are pre-eminently inculcated. Theintellectual virtues, again, which deal with truth and falsehood, form adistinct group. The habit of mind which makes men love truth for its ownsake as the supreme ideal, and which turns aside from all falsehood, exaggeration, party or sectarian misrepresentation and invention, is inno age a common one, but there are some ages in which it is recognisedand inculcated as virtue, while there are others in which it is noexaggeration to say that the whole tendency of religious teaching hasbeen to discourage it. During many centuries the ascetic and purelyecclesiastical standard of virtue completely dominated. The domesticvirtues, though clearly recognised, held altogether a subordinate placeto what were deemed the higher virtues of the ascetic celibate. Charity, though nobly cultivated and practised, was regarded mainlythrough a dogmatic medium and practised less for the benefit of therecipient than for the spiritual welfare of the donor. In the eyes of multitudes the highest conception of a saintly lifeconsisted largely if not mainly in complete detachment from secularinterests and affections. No type was more admired, and no type was evermore completely severed from all active duties and all human relationsthan that of the saint of the desert or of the monk of one of thecontemplative orders. To die to the world; to become indifferent to itsaims, interests and pleasures; to measure all things by a standardwholly different from human happiness, to live habitually for anotherlife was the constant teaching of the saints. In the stress laid on thecultivation of the spiritual life the whole sphere of active duties sankinto a lower plane; and the eye of the mind was turned upwards andinwards and but little on the world around. 'Happy, ' said one saint, 'isthe mind which sees but two objects, God and self, one of whichconceptions fills it with a sovereign delight and the other abases it tothe extremest dejection. '[11] 'As much love as we give to creatures, 'said another saint, 'just so much we steal from the Creator. '[12] 'Twothings only do I ask, ' said a third, [13] 'to suffer and to die. ''Forsake all, ' said Thomas à Kempis, 'and thou shalt find all. Leavedesire and thou shalt find rest. ' 'Unless a man be disengaged from theaffection of all creatures he cannot with freedom of mind attend untoDivine things. ' The gradual, silent and half-unconscious modification in the type ofMorals which took place after the Reformation was certainly not theleast important of its results. If it may be traced in some degree tothe distinctive theology of the Protestant Churches, it was perhapsstill more due to the abolition of clerical celibacy which placed thereligious teachers in the centre of domestic life and in close contactwith a large circle of social duties. There is even now a distinctdifference between the morals of a sincerely Catholic and a sincerelyProtestant country, and this difference is not so much, ascontroversialists would tell us, in the greater and the less as in themoral type, or, in other words, in the different degrees of importanceattached to different virtues and vices. Probably nowhere in the worldcan more beautiful and more reverent types be found than in some of theCatholic countries of Europe which are but little touched by theintellectual movements of the age, but no good observer can fail tonotice how much larger is the place given to duties which rest wholly ontheological considerations, and how largely even the natural duties arebased on such considerations and governed, limited, and sometimes evensuperseded by them. The ecclesiastics who at the Council of Constanceinduced Sigismund to violate the safe-conduct he had given, and, inspite of his solemn promise, to condemn Huss to a death of fire, [14] andthe ecclesiastics who at the Diet of Worms vainly tried to induceCharles V. To act with a similar perfidy towards Luther, represent aconception of morals which is abundantly prevalent in our day. It is noexaggeration to say that in Catholic countries the obligation oftruthfulness in cases in which it conflicts with the interests of theChurch rests wholly on the basis of honour, and not at all on the basisof religion. In the estimates of Catholic rulers no impartial observercan fail to notice how their attitude towards the interest of the Churchdominates over all considerations of public and private morals. In past ages this was much more the case. The Church filled in the mindsof men a place at least equal to that of the State in the RomanRepublic. Men who had made great sacrifices for it and rendered greatservices to it were deemed, beyond all others, the good men, and inthose men things which we should regard as grossly criminal appearedmere venial frailties. Let any one who doubts this study the lives ofthe early Catholic saints, and the still more instructive pages in whichGregory of Tours and other ecclesiastical annalists have described thecharacters and acts of the more prominent figures in the secular historyof their times, and he will soon feel that he has passed into a moralatmosphere and is dealing with moral measurements and perspectiveswholly unlike those of our own day. [15] In highly civilised ages the same spirit may be clearly traced. Bossuetwas certainly no hypocrite or sycophant, but a man of austere virtue andundoubted courage. He did not hesitate to rebuke the gross profligacyof the life of Louis XIV. , and although neither he nor any of the otherCatholic divines of his age seriously protested against the wars of pureegotism and ostentation which made that sovereign the scourge of Europeand brought down upon his people calamities immeasurably greater thanthe faults of his private life--although, indeed, he has spoken of thosewars in language of rapturous and unqualified eulogy[16]--he had atleast the grace to devote a chapter of his 'Politique tirée del'Écriture Sainte' to the theme that 'God does not love war. ' But in theeyes of Bossuet the dominant fact in the life of Louis XIV. Was theRevocation of the Edict of Nantes and the savage persecution of theHuguenots, and this was sufficient to place him among the best ofsovereigns. [17] To those who will candidly consider the subject there is nothing in thiswhich need excite surprise. The doctrine that the Catholic Church is theinspired guide, representing the voice of the Divinity on earth anddeciding with absolute authority all questions of right and wrong, verynaturally led to the conviction that nothing which was conducive to itsinterests could be really criminal, and in all departments of morals itregulated the degrees of praise and blame. The doctrine which is stillso widely professed but now so faintly realised, that the firstessential to salvation is orthodox belief, placed conduct on a lowerplane of importance than dogma, while the conviction that it is in thepower of man to obtain absolute certainty in religious belief, thaterroneous belief is in the eyes of the Almighty a crime bringing with iteternal damnation, and that the teacher of heresy is the greatest enemyof mankind, at once justified in the eyes of the believer acts which nowseem the gravest moral aberrations. Many baser motives and elements nodoubt mingled with the long and hideous history of the religiouspersecutions of Christendom, but in the eyes of countless conscientiousmen this teaching seemed amply sufficient to justify them and to stifleall feeling of compassion for the victims. Much the same considerationsexplain the absolute indifference with which so many good men witnessedthose witch persecutions which consigned thousands of old, feeble andinnocent women to torture and to death. Other illustrations of a less tragical kind might be given. Thus incases of child-birth the physician is sometimes placed in thealternative of sacrificing the life of the mother or of the unbornchild. In such cases a Protestant or freethinking physician would nothesitate to save the adult life as by far the most valuable. TheCatholic doctrine is that under such circumstances the first duty of thephysician is to save the life of the unbaptized child. [18] Large numbersof commercial transactions which are now universally acknowledged to beperfectly innocent and useful would during a long period have beenprohibited on account of the Catholic doctrine of usury which condemnedas sinful even the most moderate interest on money if it was exacted asthe price of the loan. [19] Every religious and indeed every philosophical system that has played agreat part in the history of the world has a tendency either to form orto assimilate with a particular moral type, and in the eyes of a largeand growing number it is upon the excellency of this type, and upon itssuccess in producing it, that its superiority mainly depends. Thesuperstructure or scaffolding of belief around which it is formedappears to them of comparatively little moment, and it is not uncommonto find men ardently devoted to a particular type long after they havediscarded the tenets with which it was once connected. Carlyle, forexample, sometimes spoke of himself as a Calvinist, and used languageboth in public and private as if there was no important differencebetween himself and the most orthodox Puritans, yet it is very evidentthat he disbelieved nearly all the articles of their creed. What hemeant was that Calvinism had produced in all countries in which itreally dominated a definite type of character and conception of moralswhich was in his eyes the noblest that had yet appeared in the world. '_Above all things_, my brethren, swear not. ' If, as is generallyassumed, this refers to the custom of using profane oaths in commonconversation, how remote from modern ideas is the place assigned tothis vice, which perhaps affects human happiness as little as any otherthat can be mentioned, in the scale of criminality, and how curiouslycharacteristic is the fact that the vice to which this supremacy ofenormity is attributed continued to be prevalent during the ages whentheological influences were most powerful, and has in all good societyfaded away in simple obedience to a turn of fashion which proscribes itas ungentlemanly! For a long period Acts condemning it were read atstated periods in the churches, [20] and one of these described it aslikely, by provoking God's wrath, to 'increase the many calamities thesenations now labour under. ' How curiously characteristic is therestriction in common usage of the term 'immoral' to a single vice, sothat a man who is untruthful, selfish, cruel, or intemperate might stillbe said to have led 'a moral life' because he was blameless in therelations of the sexes! In the estimates of the character of public menthe same disproportionate judgment may be constantly found in thecomparative stress placed upon private faults and the most giganticpublic crimes. Errors of judgment are not errors of morals, but anypublic man who, through selfish, ambitious, or party motives, plunges orhelps to plunge his country into an unrighteous or unnecessary war, subordinates public interest to his personal ambition, employs himselfin stimulating class, national, or provincial hatreds, lowers the moralstandard of public life, or supports a legislation which he knows totend to or facilitate dishonesty, is committing a crime before which, ifit be measured by its consequences, the gravest acts of mere privateimmorality dwindle into insignificance. Yet how differently in the caseof brilliant and successful politicians are such things treated in thejudgment of contemporaries, and sometimes even in the judgments ofhistory! It is, I think, a peculiarity of modern times that the chief moralinfluences are much more various and complex than in the past. There isno such absolute empire as that which was exercised over character bythe State in some periods of Pagan antiquity and by the Church duringthe Middle Ages. Our civilisation is more than anything else anindustrial civilisation, and industrial habits are probably thestrongest in forming the moral type to which public opinion aspires. Slavery, which threw a deep discredit on industry and on the qualitiesit fosters, has passed away. The feudal system, which placed industry inan inferior position, has been abolished, and the strong modern tendencyto diminish both the privileges and the exclusiveness of rank and toincrease the importance of wealth is in the same direction. Anindustrial society has its special vices and failings, but it naturallybrings into the boldest relief the moral qualities which industry ismost fitted to foster and on which it most largely depends, and it alsogives the whole tone of moral thinking a utilitarian character. It isnot Christianity but Industrialism that has brought into the world thatstrong sense of the moral value of thrift, steady industry, punctualityin observing engagements, constant forethought with a view to providingfor the contingencies of the future, which is now so characteristic ofthe moral type of the most civilised nations. Many other influences, however, have contributed to intensify, qualify, or impair the industrial type. Protestantism has disengaged primitiveChristian ethics from a crowd of superstitious and artificial dutieswhich had overlaid them, and a similar process has been going on inCatholic countries under the influence of the rationalising andsceptical spirit. The influence of dogmatic theology on Morals hasdeclined. Out of the vast and complex religious systems of the past, aneclectic spirit is bringing into special and ever-increasing prominencethose Christian virtues which are most manifestly in accordance withnatural religion and most clearly conducive to the well-being of menupon the earth. Philanthropy or charity, which forms the centre of thesystem, has also been immensely intensified by increased knowledge andrealisation of the wants and sorrows of others; by the sensitiveness topain, by the softening of manners and the more humane and refined tastesand habits which a highly elaborated intellectual civilisation naturallyproduces. The sense of duty plays a great part in modern philanthropy, and lower motives of ostentation or custom mingle largely with thegenuine kindliness of feeling that inspires it; but on the whole it isprobable that men in our day, in doing good to others, look much moreexclusively than in the past to the benefit of the recipient and muchless to some reward for their acts in a future world. As long, too, asthis benefit is attained, they will gladly diminish as much as possiblethe self-sacrifice it entails. An eminently characteristic feature ofmodern philanthropy is its close connection with amusements. There was atime when a great philanthropic work would be naturally supported by anissue of indulgences promising specific advantages in another world toall who took part in it. In our own generation balls, bazaars, theatrical or other amusements given for the benefit of the charity, occupy an almost corresponding place. At the same time increasing knowledge, and especially the kind ofknowledge which science gives, has in other ways largely affected ourjudgments of right and wrong. The mental discipline, the habits of soundand accurate reasoning, the distrust of mere authority and of untestedassertions and traditions that science tends to produce, all stimulatethe intellectual virtues, and science has done much to rectify the chartof life, pointing out more clearly the true conditions of humanwell-being and disclosing much baselessness and many errors in theteaching of the past. It cannot, however, be said that the civic or themilitary influences have declined. If the State does not hold altogetherthe same place as in Pagan antiquity, it is at least certain that in ademocratic age public interests are enormously prominent in the lives ofmen, and there is a growing and dangerous tendency to aggrandise theinfluence of the State over the individual, while modern militarism isdrawing the flower of Continental Europe into its circle and makingmilitary education one of the most powerful influences in the formationof characters and ideals. I do not believe that the world will ever greatly differ about theessential elements of right and wrong. These things lie deep in humannature and in the fundamental conditions of human life. The changes thatare taking place, and which seem likely to strengthen in the future, liechiefly in the importance attached to different qualities. What seems to be useless self-sacrifice and unnecessary suffering is asmuch as possible avoided. The strain of sentiment which valued sufferingin itself as an expiatory thing, as a mode of following the Man ofSorrows, as a thing to be for its own sake embraced and dwelt upon, andprolonged, bears a very great part in some of the most beautifulChristian lives, and especially in those which were formed under theinfluence of the Catholic Church. An old legend tells how Christ onceappeared as a Man of Sorrows to a Catholic Saint, and asked him whatboon he would most desire. 'Lord, ' was the reply, 'that I might suffermost. ' This strain runs deeply through the whole ascetic literature andthe whole monastic system of Catholicism, and outside Catholicism it hasbeen sometimes shown by a reluctance to accept the aid of anæsthetics, which partially or wholly removed suffering supposed to have been sentby Providence. The history of the use of chloroform furnishes strikingillustrations of this. Many of my readers may remember the French monkswho devoted themselves to cultivating one of the most pestilential spotsin the Roman Campagna, which was associated with an ecclesiasticallegend, and who quite unnecessarily insisted on remaining there duringthe season when such a residence meant little less than a slow suicide. They had, as they were accustomed to say, their purgatory upon earth, and they remained till their constitutions were hopelessly shattered andthey were sent to die in their own land. Touching examples might befound in modern times of men who, in the last extremes of disease orsuffering, scrupled, through religious motives, about availingthemselves of the simplest alleviations, [21] and something of the samefeeling is shown in the desire to prolong to the last possible momenthopeless and agonising disease. All this is manifestly and rapidlydisappearing. To endure with patience and resignation inevitablesuffering; to encounter courageously dangers and suffering for someworthy and useful end, ranks, indeed, as high as it ever did in theethics of the century, but suffering for its own sake is no longervalued, and it is deemed one of the first objects of a wise life torestrict and diminish it. No one, I think, has seen more clearly or described more vividly thanGoethe the direction in which in modern times the current of morals isflowing. His philosophy is a terrestrial philosophy, and the oldtheologians would have said that it allowed the second Table of the Lawaltogether to supersede or eclipse the first. It was said of him withmuch truth that 'repugnance to the supernatural was an inherent part ofhis mind. ' To turn away from useless and barren speculations; topersistently withdraw our thoughts from the unknowable, the inevitable, and the irreparable; to concentrate them on the immediate present and onthe nearest duty; to waste no moral energy on excessive introspection orself-abasement or self-reproach, but to make the cultivation and thewise use of all our powers the supreme ideal and end of our lives; tooppose labour and study to affliction and regret; to keep at a distancegloomy thoughts and exaggerated anxieties; 'to see the individual inconnection and co-operation with the whole, ' and to look upon effort andaction as the main elements both of duty and happiness, was the lessonwhich he continually taught. 'The mind endowed with active powers, andkeeping with a practical object to the task that lies nearest, is theworthiest there is on earth. ' 'Character consists in a man steadilypursuing the things of which he feels himself capable. ' 'Try to do yourduty and you will know what you are worth. ' 'Piety is not an end but ameans; a means of attaining the highest culture by the puresttranquillity of soul. ' 'We are not born to solve the problems of theworld, but to find out where the problem begins and then to keep withinthe limits of what we can grasp. ' To cultivate sincere love of truth and clear and definite conceptions, and divest ourselves as much as possible from prejudices, fanaticisms, superstitions, and exaggeration; to take wide, sound, tolerant, many-sided views of life, stands in his eyes in the forefront of ethics. 'Let it be your earnest endeavour to use words coinciding as closely aspossible with what we feel, see, think, experience, imagine, andreason;' 'remove by plain and honest purpose false, irrelevant andfutile ideas. ' 'The truest liberality is appreciation. ' 'Love of truthshows itself in this, that a man knows how to find and value the good ineverything. '[22] In the eyes of this school of thought one of the great vices of the oldtheological type of ethics was that it was unduly negative. It thoughtmuch more of the avoidance of sin than of the performance of duty. Themore we advance in knowledge the more we shall come to judge men in thespirit of the parable of the talents; that is by the net result of theirlives, by their essential unselfishness, by the degree in which theyemploy and the objects to which they direct their capacities andopportunities. The staple of moral life becomes much less a matter ofsmall scruples, of minute self-examination, of extreme stress laid uponflaws of character and conduct that have little or no bearing uponactive life. A life of idleness will be regarded with much lesstolerance than at present. Men will grow less introspective and moreobjective, and useful action will become more and more the guidingprinciple of morals. In theory this will probably be readily admitted, but every goodobserver will find that it involves a considerable change in the pointof view. A life of habitual languor and idleness, with no facultiesreally cultivated, and with no result that makes a man missed when hehas passed away, may be spent without any act which the world callsvicious, and is quite compatible with much charm of temper and demeanourand with a complete freedom from violent and aggressive selfishness. Such a life, in the eyes of many moralists, would rank much higher thana life of constant, honourable self-sacrificing labour for the good ofothers which was at the same time flawed by some positive vice. Yet thelife which seems to be comparatively blameless has in truth whollymissed, while the other life, in spite of all its defects, has largelyattained what should be the main object of a human life, the fulldevelopment and useful employment of whatever powers we possess. Thereare men, indeed, in whom an over-sensitive conscience is even aparalysing thing, which by suggesting constant petty and ingeniousscruples holds them back from useful action. It is a moral infirmitycorresponding to that exaggerated intellectual fastidiousness which sooften makes an intellectual life almost wholly barren, or to thatexcessive tendency to look on all sides of a question and to realise thedangers and drawbacks of any course which not unfrequently in moments ofdifficulty paralyses the actions of public men. Sometimes, under thestrange and subtle bias of the will, this excessive conscientiousnesswill be unconsciously fostered in inert and sluggish natures which areconstitutionally disinclined to effort. The main lines of duty in thegreat relations of life are sufficiently obvious, and the casuistrywhich multiplies cases of conscience and invents unreal and factitiousduties is apt to be rather an impediment than a furtherance to a noblelife. It is probable that as the world goes on morals will move more and morein the direction I have described. There will be at the same time asteadily increasing tendency to judge moral qualities and courses ofconduct mainly by the degree in which they promote or diminish humanhappiness. Enthusiasm and self-sacrifice for some object which has noreal bearing on the welfare of man will become rarer and will be lessrespected, and the condemnation that is passed on acts that arerecognised as wrong will be much more proportioned than at present tothe injury they inflict. Some things, such as excessive luxury ofexpenditure and the improvidence of bringing into the world children forwhom no provision has been made, which can now scarcely be said to enterinto the teaching of moralists, or at least of churches, may one day belooked upon as graver offences than some that are in the penal code. FOOTNOTES: [11] St. Francis de Sales. [12] St. Philip Neri. [13] St. Teresa. [14] 'Cum dictus Johannes Hus fidem orthodoxam pertinaciter impugnans, se ab omni con ductu et privilegio reddiderit alienum, nec aliqua sibifides aut promissio de jure naturali divino vel humano, fuerit inpræjudicium Catholicæ fidei observanda. ' Declaration of the Council ofConstance. See Creighton's _History of the Papacy_, ii. 32. [15] I have collected some illustrations of this in my _History ofEuropean Morals_, ii. 235-242. [16] See, e. G. His funeral oration on Marie Thérèse d'Autriche. [17] See the enthusiastic eulogy of the persecution of the Huguenots inhis funeral oration on Michel le Tellier. It concludes: 'Épanchons noscoeurs sur la piété de Louis; poussons jusqu'au ciel nos acclamations, et disons à ce nouveau Constantin, à ce nouveau Théodose, à ce nouveauMarcien, à ce nouveau Charlemagne ce que les six cent trente Pèresdirent autrefois dans le Concile de Chalcédoine: "Vous avez affermi lafoi; vous avez exterminé les hérétiques; c'est le digne ouvrage de votrerègne; c'en est le propre caractère. Par vous l'hérésie n'est plus, Dieuseul a pu faire cette merveille. Roi du ciel, conservez le roi de laterre; c'est le voeu, des Églises; c'est le voeu des Évêques. "' [18] See Migne, _Encyclopédie Théologique_, 'Dict. De Cas deConscience, ' art. _Avortement_. [19] See on this subject my _History of Rationalism_, ii. 250-270, andmy _Democracy and Liberty_, ii. , ch. Viii. [20] 21 James I. C. 20; 19 Geo. II. C. 21. The penalties, however, werefines, the pillory, or short periods of imprisonment. The obligation ofreading the statute in churches was abolished in 1823, but the customhad before fallen into desuetude. In 1772 a vicar was (as an act ofprivate vengeance) prosecuted and fined for having neglected to read it. (_Annual Register_, 1772, p. 115. ) [21] The following beautiful passage from a funeral sermon by Newman isan example: 'One should have thought that a life so innocent, so active, so holy, I might say so faultless from first to last, might have beenspared the visitation of any long and severe penance to bring it to anend; but in order doubtless to show us how vile and miserable the bestof us are in ourselves . .. And moreover to give us a pattern how to bearsuffering ourselves, and to increase the merits and to hasten andbrighten the crown of this faithful servant of his Lord, it pleasedAlmighty God to send upon him a disorder which during the last six yearsfought with him, mastered him, and at length has destroyed him, so far, that is, as death now has power to destroy. .. . It is for those who camenear him year after year to store up the many words and deeds ofresignation, love and humility which that long penance elicited. Thesemeritorious acts are written in the Book of Life, and they have followedhim whither he is gone. They multiplied and grew in strength andperfection as his trial proceeded; and they were never so striking as atits close. When a friend visited him in the last week, he found he hadscrupled at allowing his temples to be moistened with some refreshingwaters, and had with difficulty been brought to give his consent; hesaid he feared it was too great a luxury. When the same friend offeredhim some liquid to allay his distressing thirst his answer was thesame. '--Sermon at the funeral of the Right Rev. Henry Weedall, pp. 19, 20. [22] See the excellent little book of Mr. Bailey Saunders, called _TheMaxims and Reflections of Goethe_. CHAPTER VI The tendency to regard morals rather in their positive than theirnegative aspects, and to estimate men by the good they do in the world, is a healthy element in modern life. A strong sense of the obligation ofa full, active, and useful life is the best safeguard both of individualand national morals at a time when the dissolution or enfeeblement oftheological beliefs is disturbing the foundations on which most currentmoral teaching has been based. In the field of morals action holds amuch larger place than reasoning--a larger place even in elucidating ourdifficulties and illuminating the path on which we should go. It is bythe active pursuit of an immediate duty that the vista of future dutiesbecomes most clear, and those who are most immersed in active duties areusually little troubled with the perplexities of life, or with minuteand paralysing scruples. A public opinion which discourages idleness andplaces high the standard of public duty is especially valuable in an agewhen the tendency to value wealth, and to measure dignity by wealth, hasgreatly increased, and when wealth in some of its most important formshas become wholly dissociated from special duties. The duties of thelandlord who is surrounded by a poor and in some measure dependenttenantry, the duties of the head of a great factory or shop who has alarge number of workmen or dependents in his employment, aresufficiently obvious, though even in these spheres the tie of duty hasbeen greatly relaxed by the growing spirit of independence, which makeseach class increasingly jealous of the interference of others, and bythe growing tendency of legislation to regulate all relations ofbusiness and contracts by definite law instead of leaving them, as inthe past, to voluntary action. But there are large classes of fortuneswhich are wholly, or almost wholly, dissociated from special anddefinite duties. The vast and ever-increasing multitude whose incomesare derived from national, or provincial, or municipal debts, or who areshareholders or debenture-holders in great commercial and industrialundertakings, have little or no practical control over, or interest in, those from whom their fortunes are derived. The multiplication of suchfortunes is one of the great characteristics of our time, and it bringswith it grave dangers. Such fortunes give unrivalled opportunities ofluxurious idleness, and as in themselves they bring little or no socialinfluence or position, those who possess them are peculiarly tempted toseek such a position by an ostentation of wealth and luxury which has aprofoundly vulgarising and demoralising influence upon Society. Thetendency of idleness to lead to immorality has long been a commonplaceof moralists. Perhaps our own age has seen more clearly than those thatpreceded it that complete and habitual idleness _is_ immorality, andthat when the circumstances of his life do not assign to a man adefinite sphere of work it is his first duty to find it for himself. Ithas been happily said that in the beginning of the reign of QueenVictoria young men in England who were really busy affected idleness, and at the close of the reign young men who are really idle pretend tobe busy. In my own opinion, a disproportionate amount of English energytakes political forms, and there is a dangerous exaggeration in theprevailing tendency to combat all social and moral abuses by Acts ofParliament. But there are multitudes of other and less obtrusive spheresof work adapted to all grades of intellect and to many types ofcharacter, in which men who possess the inestimable boon of leisure canfind abundant and useful fields for the exercise of their powers. The rectification of moral judgments is one of the most importantelements of civilisation; it is upon this that the possibility of moralprogress on a large scale chiefly depends. Few things pervert men morethan the habit of regarding as enviable persons or qualities injuriousto Society. The most obvious example is the passionate admirationbestowed on a brilliant conqueror, which is often quite irrespective ofthe justice of his wars and of the motives that actuated him. This falsemoral feeling has acquired such a strength that overwhelming militarypower almost certainly leads to a career of ambition. Perverted publicopinion is the main cause. Glory, not interest, is the lure, or at leastthe latter would be powerless if it were not accompanied by theformer--if the execration of mankind naturally followed unscrupulousaggression. Another and scarcely less flagrant instance of the worship of falseideals is to be found in the fierce competition of luxury andostentation which characterises the more wealthy cities of Europe andAmerica. It is no exaggeration to say that in a single festival inLondon or New York sums are often expended in the idlest and mostephemeral ostentation which might have revived industry, or extinguishedpauperism, or alleviated suffering over a vast area. The question ofexpenditure on luxuries is no doubt a question of degree which cannot bereduced to strict rule, and there are many who will try to justify themost ostentatious expenditure on the ground of the employment it givesand of other incidental advantages it is supposed to produce. Butnothing in political economy is more certain than that the vast andever-increasing expenditure on the luxury of ostentation in modernsocieties, by withdrawing great masses of capital from productivelabour, is a grave economical evil, and there is probably no other formof expenditure which, in proportion to its amount, gives so little realpleasure and confers so little real good. Its evil in setting upmaterial and base standards of excellence, in stimulating the worstpassions that grow out of an immoderate love of wealth, in ruining manywho are tempted into a competition which they are unable to support, canhardly be overrated. It is felt in every rank in raising the standard ofconventional expenses, excluding from much social intercourse many whoare admirably fitted to adorn it, and introducing into all society alower and more material tone. Nor are these its only consequences. Wealth which is expended in multiplying and elaborating real comforts, or even in pleasures which produce enjoyment at all proportionate totheir cost, will never excite serious indignation. It is the colossalwaste of the means of human happiness in the most selfish and mostvulgar forms of social advertisement and competition that gives a forceand almost a justification to anarchical passions which menace thewhole future of our civilisation. It is such things that stimulate classhatreds and deepen class divisions, and if the law of opinion does notinterfere to check them they will one day bring down upon the societythat encourages them a signal and well-merited retribution. A more recognised, though probably not really more pernicious example offalse ideals, is to be found in the glorification of the _demi-monde_, which is so conspicuous in some societies and literatures. In a healthystate of opinion, the public, ostentatious appearance of such persons, without any concealment of their character, in the great concourse offashion and among the notabilities of the State, would appear anintolerable scandal, and it becomes much worse when they give the toneto fashion and become the centres and the models of large and by nomeans undistinguished sections of Society. The evils springing from thispublic glorification of the class are immeasurably greater than theevils arising from its existence. The standard of popular morals isdebased. Temptation in its most seductive form is forced uponinflammable natures, and the most pernicious of all lessons is taught topoor, honest, hard-working women. It is indeed wonderful that insocieties where this evil prevails so much virtue should still existamong graceful, attractive women of the shopkeeping and servant classwhen they continually see before them members of their own class, bypreferring vice to virtue, rising at once to wealth, luxury andidleness, and even held up as objects of admiration or imitation. In judging wisely the characters of men, one of the first things to bedone is to understand their ideals. Try to find out what kind of men orof life; what qualities, what positions seem to them the most desirable. Men do not always fully recognise their own ideals, for education andthe conventionalities of Society oblige them to assert a preference forthat which may really have no root in their minds. But by a carefulexamination it is usually possible to ascertain what persons orqualities or circumstances or gifts exercise a genuine, spontaneous, magnetic power over them--whether they really value supremely rank orposition, or money, or beauty, or intellect, or superiority ofcharacter. If you know the ideal of a man you have obtained a true keyto his nature. The broad lines of his character, the permanenttendencies of his imagination, his essential nobility or meanness, arethus disclosed more effectually than by any other means. A man with highideals, who admires wisely and nobly, is never wholly base though he mayfall into great vices. A man who worships the baser elements is in truthan idolater though he may have never bowed before an image of stone. The human mind has much more power of distinguishing between right andwrong, and between true and false, than of estimating with accuracy thecomparative gravity of opposite evils. It is nearly always right injudging between right and wrong. It is generally wrong in estimatingdegrees of guilt, and the root of its error lies in the extremedifficulty of putting ourselves into the place of those whose charactersor circumstances are radically different from our own. This want ofimagination acts widely on our judgment of what is good as well as ofwhat is bad. Few men have enough imagination to realise types ofexcellence altogether differing from their own. It is this, much morethan vanity, that leads them to esteem the types of excellence to whichthey themselves approximate as the best, and tastes and habits that arealtogether incongruous with their own as futile and contemptible. It is, perhaps, most difficult of all to realise the difference of characterand especially of moral sensibility produced by a profound difference ofcircumstances. This difficulty largely falsifies our judgments of thepast, and it is the reason why a powerful imagination enabling us torealise very various characters and very remote circumstances is one ofthe first necessities of a great historian. Historians rarely makesufficient allowance for the degree in which the judgments anddispositions even of the best men are coloured by the moral tone of thetime, society and profession in which they lived. Yet it is probablethat on the whole we estimate more justly the characters of the pastthan of the present. No one would judge the actions of Charlemagne or ofhis contemporaries by the strict rules of nineteenth-century ethics. Wefeel that though they committed undoubted crimes, these crimes are atleast indefinitely less heinous than they would have been under thewholly different circumstances and moral atmosphere of our own day. Yetwe seldom apply this method of reasoning to the different strata of thesame society. Men who have been themselves brought up amid all thecomforts and all the moralising and restraining influences of a refinedsociety, will often judge the crimes of the wretched pariahs ofcivilisation as if their acts were in no degree palliated by theirposition. They say to themselves 'How guilty should I have been if Ihad done this thing, ' and their verdict is quite just according to thisstatement of the case. They realise the nature of the act. They utterlyfail to realise the character and circumstances of the actor. And yet it is scarcely possible to exaggerate the difference between theposition of such a critic and that of the children of drunken, ignorantand profligate parents, born to abject poverty in the slums of our greatcities. From their earliest childhood drunkenness, blasphemy, dishonesty, prostitution, indecency of every form are their mostfamiliar experiences. All the social influences, such as they are, areinfluences of vice. As they grow up Life seems to them to present littlemore than the alternative of hard, ill-paid, and at the same timeprecarious labour, probably ending in the poor-house, or crime with itslarger and swifter gains, and its intervals of coarse pleasure probably, though not certainly, followed by the prison or an early death. They seeindeed, like figures in a dream, or like beings of another world, thewealthy and the luxurious spending their wealth and their time in manykinds of enjoyment, but to the very poor pleasure scarcely comes exceptin the form of the gin palace or perhaps the low music hall. And in manycases they have come into this reeking atmosphere of temptation and vicewith natures debased and enfeebled by a long succession of vicioushereditary influences, with weak wills, with no faculties of mind orcharacter that can respond to any healthy ambition; with powerful inbornpredispositions to evil. The very mould of their features, the veryshape of their skulls, marks them out as destined members of thecriminal class. Even here, no doubt, there is a difference between rightand wrong; there is scope for the action of free will; there are justcauses of praise and blame, and Society rightly protects itself bysevere penalties against the crimes that are most natural; but whathuman judge can duly measure the scale of moral guilt? or whatcomparison can there be between the crimes that are engendered by suchcircumstances and those which spring up in the homes of refined andwell-regulated comfort? Nor indeed even in this latter case is a really accurate judgmentpossible. Men are born into the world with both wills and passions ofvarying strength, though in mature life the strength or weakness of eachis largely due to their own conduct. With different characters the sametemptation, operating under the same external circumstances, hasenormously different strength, and very few men can fully realise thestrength of a passion which they have never themselves experienced. Torepeat an illustration I have already used, how difficult is it for aconstitutionally sober man to form in his own mind an adequateconception of the force of the temptation of drink to a dipsomaniac, orfor a passionless man to conceive rightly the temptations of aprofoundly sensual nature! I have spoken in a former chapter of theforce with which bodily conditions act upon happiness. Their influenceon morals is not less terrible. There are diseases well known tophysicians which make the most placid temper habitually irritable;give a morbid turn to the healthiest disposition; fill the purestmind with unholy thoughts. There are others which destroy the forceof the strongest will and take from character all balance andself-control. [23] It often happens that we have long been blaming a manfor manifest faults of character till at last suicide, or the disclosureof some grave bodily or mental disease which has long been workingunperceived, explains his faults and turns our blame into pity. Inmadness the whole moral character is sometimes reversed, and tendencieswhich have been in sane life dormant or repressed become suddenlysupreme. In such cases we all acknowledge that there is no moralresponsibility, but madness, with its illusions and irresistibleimpulses, and idiocy with its complete suspension of the will and of thejudgment, are neither of them, as lawyers would pretend, clearly definedstates, marked out by sharp and well-cut boundaries, wholly distinctfrom sanity. There are incipient stages; there are gradualapproximations; there are twilight states between sanity and insanitywhich are clearly recognised not only by experts but by all sagaciousmen of the world. There are many who are not sufficiently mad to be shutup, or to be deprived of the management of their properties, or to beexempted from punishment if they have committed a crime, but who, in thecommon expressive phrase, 'are not all there'--whose eccentricities, illusions and caprices are on the verge of madness, whose judgments arehopelessly disordered; whose wills, though not completely atrophied, aremanifestly diseased. In questions of property, in questions of crime, inquestions of family arrangements, such persons cause the gravestperplexity, nor will any wise man judge them by the same moral standardas well-balanced and well-developed natures. The inference to be drawn from such facts is certainly not that there isno such thing as free will and personal responsibility, nor yet that wehave no power of judging the acts of others and distinguishing among ourfellowmen between the good and the bad. The true lesson is the extremefallibility of our moral judgments whenever we attempt to measuredegrees of guilt. Sometimes men are even unjust to their own past fromtheir incapacity in age of realising the force of the temptations theyhad experienced in youth. On the other hand, increased knowledge of theworld tends to make us more sensible of the vast differences between themoral circumstances of men, and therefore less confident and moreindulgent in our judgments of others. There are men whose cards in lifeare so bad, whose temptations to vice, either from circumstances orinborn character, seem so overwhelming, that, though we may punish, andin a certain sense blame, we can scarcely look on them as moreresponsible than some noxious wild beast. Among the terrible facts oflife none is indeed more terrible than this. Every believer in the wisegovernment of the world must have sometimes realised with a crushing orat least a staggering force the appalling injustices of life as shown inthe enormous differences in the distribution of unmerited happiness andmisery. But the disparity of moral circumstances is not less. It hasshaken the faith of many. It has even led some to dream of a possibleHeaven for the vicious where those who are born into the world with aphysical constitution rendering them fierce or cruel, or sensual, orcowardly, may be freed from the nature which was the cause of theirvice and their suffering upon earth; where due allowance may be made forthe differences of circumstances which have plunged one man deeper andever deeper into crime, and enabled another, who was not really betteror worse, to pass through life with no serious blemish, and to risehigher and higher in the moral scale. Imperfect, however, as is our power of judging others, it is a power weare all obliged to exercise. It is impossible to exclude theconsiderations of moral guilt and of palliating or aggravatingcircumstances from the penal code, and from the administration ofjustice, though it cannot be too clearly maintained that the criminalcode is not coextensive with the moral code, and that many things whichare profoundly immoral lie beyond its scope. On the whole it should beas much as possible confined to acts by which men directly injureothers. In the case of adult men, private vices, vices by which no oneis directly affected, except by his own free will, and in which theelements of force or fraud are not present, should not be brought withinits range. This ideal, it is true, cannot be fully attained. Thelegislator must take into account the strong pressure of public opinion. It is sometimes true that a penal law may arrest, restrict, or preventthe revival of some private vice without producing any countervailingevil. But the presumption is against all laws which punish the voluntaryacts of adult men when those acts injure no one except themselves. Thesocial censure, or the judgment of opinion, rightly extends muchfurther, though it is often based on very imperfect knowledge orrealisation. It is probable that, on the whole, opinion judges tooseverely the crimes of passion and of drink, as well as those whichspring from the pressure of great poverty and are accompanied by greatignorance. The causes of domestic anarchy are usually of such anintimate nature and involve so many unknown or imperfectly realisedelements of aggravation or palliation that in most cases the less menattempt to judge them the better. On the other hand, public opinion isusually far too lenient in judging crimes of ambition, cupidity, envy, malevolence, and callous selfishness; the crimes of ill-gotten andill-used wealth, especially in the many cases in which those crimes areunpunished by law. It is a mere commonplace of morals that in the path of evil it is thefirst step that costs the most. The shame, the repugnance, and theremorse which attend the first crime speedily fade, and on everyrepetition the habit of evil grows stronger. A process of the same kindpasses over our judgments. Few things are more curious than to observehow the eye accommodates itself to a new fashion of dress, howeverunbecoming; how speedily men, or at least women, will adopt a new andartificial standard and instinctively and unconsciously admire or blameaccording to this standard and not according to any genuine sense ofbeauty or the reverse. Few persons, however pure may be their naturaltaste, can live long amid vulgar and vulgarising surroundings withoutlosing something of the delicacy of their taste and learning toaccept--if not with pleasure, at least with acquiescence--things fromwhich under other circumstances they would have recoiled. In the sameway, both individuals and societies accommodate themselves but tooreadily to lower moral levels, and a constant vigilance is needed todetect the forms or directions in which individual and nationalcharacter insensibly deteriorate. FOOTNOTE: [23] See Ribot, _Les Maladies de la Volonté_, pp. 92, 116-119. CHAPTER VII It is impossible for a physician to prescribe a rational regimen for apatient unless he has formed some clear conception of the nature of hisconstitution and of the morbid influences to which it is inclined; andin judging the wisdom of various proposals for the management ofcharacter we are at once met by the initial controversy about thegoodness or the depravity of human nature. It is a subject on whichextreme exaggerations have prevailed. The school of Rousseau, whichdominated on the Continent in the last half of the eighteenth century, represented mankind as a being who comes into existence essentiallygood, and it attributed all the moral evils of the world, not to anyinnate tendencies to vice, but to superstition, vicious institutions, misleading education, a badly organised society. It is an obviouscriticism that if human nature had been as good as such writersimagined, these corrupt and corrupting influences could never have grownup, or at least could never have obtained a controlling influence, andthis philosophy became greatly discredited when the French Revolution, which it did so much to produce, ended in the unspeakable horrors of theReign of Terror and in the gigantic carnage of the Napoleonic wars. Onthe other hand, there are large schools of theologians who represent manas utterly and fundamentally depraved, 'born in corruption, inclined toevil, incapable by himself of doing good;' totally wrecked and ruinedas a moral being by the catastrophe in Eden. There are also moralphilosophers--usually very unconnected with theology--who deny orexplain away all unselfish elements in human nature, represent man assimply governed by self-interest, and maintain that the whole art ofeducation and government consists of a judicious arrangement of selfishmotives, making the interests of the individual coincident with those ofhis neighbours. It is not too much to say that Society never could havesubsisted if this view of human nature had been a just one. The worldwould have been like a cage-full of wild beasts, and mankind would havesoon perished in constant internecine war. It is indeed one of the plainest facts of human nature that such a viewof mankind is an untrue one. Jealousy, envy, animosities and selfishnessno doubt play a great part in life and disguise themselves under manyspecious forms, and the cynical moralist was not wholly wrong when hedeclared that 'Virtue would not go so far if Vanity did not keep hercompany, ' and that not only our crimes but even many of what are deemedour best acts may be traced to selfish motives. But he must have had astrangely unfortunate experience of the world who does not recognise theenormous exaggeration of the pictures of human nature that are conveyedin some of the maxims of La Rochefoucauld and Schopenhauer. They tell usthat friendship is a mere exchange of interests in which each man onlyseeks to gain something from the other; that most women are only purebecause they are untempted and regret that the temptation does not come;that if we acknowledge some faults it is in order to persuade ourselvesthat we have no greater ones, or in order, by our confession, to regainthe good opinion of our neighbours; that if we praise another it ismerely that we may ourselves in turn be praised; that the tears we shedover a deathbed, if they are not hypocritical tears intended only toimpress our neighbours, are only due to our conviction that we haveourselves lost a source of pleasure or of gain; that envy sopredominates in the world that it is only men of inferior intellect orwomen of inferior beauty who are sincerely liked by those about them;that all virtue is an egotistic calculation, conscious or unconscious. Such views are at least as far removed from truth as the roseatepictures of Rousseau and St. Pierre. No one can look with an unjaundicedeye upon the world without perceiving the enormous amount ofdisinterested, self-sacrificing benevolence that pervades it; thecountless lives that are spent not only harmlessly and inoffensively butalso in the constant discharge of duties; in constant and often painfullabour for the good of others. The better section of the Utilitarianschool has fully recognised the truth that human nature is soconstituted that a great proportion of its enjoyment depends onsympathy; or, in other words, on the power we possess of entering intoand sharing the happiness of others. The spectacle of sufferingnaturally elicits compassion. Kindness naturally produces gratitude. Thesympathies of men naturally move on the side of the good rather than ofthe bad. This is true not only of the things that immediately concernus, but also in the perfectly disinterested judgments we form of theevents of history or of the characters in fiction and poetry. Greatexhibitions of heroism and self-sacrifice touch a genuine chord ofenthusiasm. The affections of the domestic circle are the rule and notthe exception; patriotism can elicit great outbursts of purely unselfishgenerosity and induce multitudes to risk or sacrifice their lives forcauses which are quite other than their own selfish interests. Humannature indeed has its moral as well as its physical needs, and naturallyand instinctively seeks some object of interest and enthusiasm outsideitself. If we look again into the vice and sin that undoubtedly disfigure theworld we shall find much reason to believe that what is exceptional inhuman nature is not the evil tendency but the restraining conscience, and that it is chiefly the weakness of the distinctively human qualitythat is the origin of the evil. It is impossible indeed, with theknowledge we now possess, to deny to animals some measure both of reasonand of the moral sense. In addition to the higher instincts of parentalaffection and devotion which are so clearly developed we find among someanimals undoubted signs of remorse, gratitude, affection, self-sacrifice. Even the point of honour which attaches shame to somethings and pride to others may be clearly distinguished. No one who haswatched the more intelligent dog can question this, and many willmaintain that in some animals, though both good and bad qualities areless widely developed than in man, the proportion of the good to theevil is more favourable in the animal than in the man. At the same timein the animal world desire is usually followed without any otherrestraint than fear, while in man it is largely though no doubt veryimperfectly limited by moral self-control. Most crimes spring not fromanything wrong in the original and primal desire but from theimperfection of this higher, distinct or superadded element in ournature. The crimes of dishonesty and envy, when duly analysed, have attheir basis simply a desire for the desirable--a natural and inevitablefeeling. What is absent is the restraint which makes men refrain fromtaking or trying to take desirable things that belong to another. Sensual faults spring from a perfectly natural impulse, but therestraint which confines the action of that impulse to definedcircumstances is wanting. Much, too, of the insensibility and hardnessof the world is due to a simple want of imagination which prevents usfrom adequately realising the sufferings of others. The predatory, envious and ferocious feelings that disturb mankind operate unrestrainedthrough the animal world, though man's superior intelligence gives hisdesires a special character and a greatly increased scope, andintroduces them into spheres inconceivable to the animal. Immoderate anduncontrolled desires are the root of most human crimes, but at the sametime the self-restraint that limits desire, or self-seeking, by therights of others, seems to be mainly, though not wholly, the prerogativeof man. Considerations of this kind are sufficient to remedy the extremeexaggeration of human corruption that may often be heard, but they arenot inconsistent with the truth that human nature is so far depravedthat it can never be safely left to develop unimpeded without stronglegal and social restraint. It is not necessary to seek examples of itsdepravity within the precincts of a prison or in the many instancesthat may be found outside the criminal population of morbid moral taintswhich are often as clearly marked as physical disease. On a large scaleand in the actions of great bodies of men the melancholy truth isabundantly displayed. On the whole Christianity has been far moresuccessful in influencing individuals than societies. The mere spectacleof a battle-field with the appalling mass of hideous sufferingdeliberately and ingeniously inflicted by man upon man should besufficient to scatter all idyllic pictures of human nature. It was oncethe custom of a large school of writers to attribute unjust wars solelyto the rulers of the world, who for their own selfish ambitionsremorselessly sacrificed the lives of tens of thousands of theirsubjects. Their guilt has been very great, but they would never havepursued the course of ambitious conquest if the applause of nations hadnot followed and encouraged them, and there are no signs that democracy, which has enthroned the masses, has any real tendency to diminish war. In modern times the danger of war lies less in the intrigues ofstatesmen than in deeply seated international jealousies andantipathies; in sudden, volcanic outbursts of popular passion. Aftereighteen hundred years' profession of the creed of peace, Christendom isan armed camp. Never, or hardly ever, in times of peace had the merepreparations of war absorbed so large a proportion of its population andresources, and very seldom has so large an amount of its ability beenmainly employed in inventing and in perfecting instruments ofdestruction. Those who will look on the world without illusion will becompelled to admit that the chief guarantees for its peace are to befound much less in moral than in purely selfish motives. The financialembarrassments of the great nations; their profound distrust of oneanother; the vast cost of modern war; the gigantic commercial disastersit inevitably entails; the extreme uncertainty of its issue; the utterruin that may follow defeat--these are the real influences that restrainthe tiger passions and the avaricious cravings of mankind. It is alsoone of the advantages that accompany the many evils of universalservice, that great citizen armies who in time of war are drawn fromtheir homes, their families, and their peaceful occupations have not thesame thirst for battle that grows up among purely professional soldiers, voluntarily enlisted and making a military life their whole career. Yet, in spite of all this, what trust could be placed in the forbearance ofChristian nations if the path of aggression was at once easy, lucrativeand safe? The judgments of nations in dealing with the aggressions oftheir neighbours are, it is true, very different from those which theyform of aggressions by their own statesmen or for their own benefit. Butno great nation is blameless, and there is probably no nation that couldnot speedily catch the infection of the warlike spirit if a conquerorand a few splendid victories obscured, as they nearly always do, themoral issues of the contest. War, it is true, is not always or wholly evil. Sometimes it isjustifiable and necessary. Sometimes it is professedly and in partreally due to some strong wave of philanthropic feeling produced bygreat acts of wrong, though of all forms of philanthropy it is thatwhich most naturally defeats itself. Even when unjustifiable, it callsinto action splendid qualities of courage, self-sacrifice, andendurance which cast a dazzling and deceptive glamour over its horrorsand its criminality. It appeals too, beyond all other things, to thatcraving for excitement, adventure, and danger which is an essential andimperious element in human nature, and which, while it is in itselfneither a virtue nor a vice, blends powerfully with some of the best aswell as with some of the worst actions of mankind. It is indeed astrange thing to observe how many men in every age have been ready torisk or sacrifice their lives for causes which they have never clearlyunderstood and which they would find it difficult in plain words todescribe. But the amount of pure and almost spontaneous malevolence in the worldis probably far greater than we at first imagine. In public life theworkings of this side of human nature are at once disclosed andmagnified, like the figures thrown by a magic lantern on a screen, to ascale which it is impossible to overlook. No one, for example, can studythe anonymous press without perceiving how large a part of it isemployed systematically, persistently and deliberately in fosteringclass, or race, or international hatreds, and often in circulatingfalsehoods to attain this end. Many newspapers notoriously depend fortheir existence on such appeals, and more than any other instrumentsthey inflame and perpetuate those permanent animosities which mostendanger the peace of mankind. The fact that such newspapers arebecoming in many countries the main and almost exclusive reading of thepoor forms the most serious deduction from the value of populareducation. How many books have attained popularity, how many seats inParliament have been won, how many posts of influence and profit havebeen attained, how many party victories have been achieved, by appealingto such passions! Often they disguise themselves under the lofty namesof patriotism and nationality, and men whose whole lives have been spentin sowing class hatreds and dividing kindred nations may be foundmasquerading under the name of patriots, and have played no small parton the stage of politics. The deep-seated sedition, the fierce class andnational hatreds that run through European life would have a verydifferent intensity from what they now unfortunately have if they hadnot been artificially stimulated and fostered through purely selfishmotives by demagogues, political adventurers and public writers. Some of the very worst acts of which man can be guilty are acts whichare commonly untouched by law and only faintly censured by opinion. Political crimes which a false and sickly sentiment so readily condonesare conspicuous among them. Men who have been gambling for wealth andpower with the lives and fortunes of multitudes; men who for their ownpersonal ambition are prepared to sacrifice the most vital interests oftheir country; men who in time of great national danger and excitementdeliberately launch falsehood after falsehood in the public press in thewell-founded conviction that they will do their evil work before theycan be contradicted, may be met shameless, and almost uncensured, inParliaments and drawing-rooms. The amount of false statement in theworld which cannot be attributed to mere carelessness, inaccuracy, orexaggeration, but which is plainly both deliberate and malevolent, canhardly be overrated. Sometimes it is due to a mere desire to create alucrative sensation, or to gratify a personal dislike, or even to anunprovoked malevolence which takes pleasure in inflicting pain. Very often it is intended for purposes of stockjobbing. The financialworld is percolated with it. It is the common method of raising ordepreciating securities, attracting investors, preying upon the ignorantand credulous, and enabling dishonest men to rise rapidly to fortune. When the prospect of speedy wealth is in sight, there are always numberswho are perfectly prepared to pursue courses involving the utter ruin ofmultitudes, endangering the most serious international interests, perhaps bringing down upon the world all the calamities of war. It is nodoubt true that such men are only a minority, though it is less certainthat they would be a minority if the opportunity of obtaining suddenriches by immoral means was open to all, and it is no small minority whoare accustomed to condone these crimes when they have succeeded. It ismuch to be questioned whether the greatest criminals are to be foundwithin the walls of prisons. Dishonesty on a small scale nearly alwaysfinds its punishment. Dishonesty on a gigantic scale continuallyescapes. The pickpocket and the burglar seldom fail to meet with theirmerited punishment, but in the management of companies, in the greatfields of industrial enterprise and speculation, gigantic fortunes areacquired by the ruin of multitudes and by methods which, though theyevade legal penalties, are essentially fraudulent. In the majority ofcases these crimes are perpetrated by educated men who are in possessionof all the necessaries, of most of the comforts, and of many of theluxuries of life, and some of the worst of them are powerfully favouredby the conditions of modern civilisation. There is no greater scandal ormoral evil in our time than the readiness with which public opinionexcuses them, and the influence and social position it accords to merewealth, even when it has been acquired by notorious dishonesty or whenit is expended with absolute selfishness or in ways that are positivelydemoralising. In many respects the moral progress of mankind seems to meincontestable, but it is extremely doubtful whether in this respectsocial morality, especially in England and America, has not seriouslyretrograded. In truth, while it is a gross libel upon human nature to deny the vastamount of genuine kindness, self-sacrifice and even heroism that existsin the world, it is equally idle to deny the deplorable weakness ofself-restraint, the great force and the widespread influence of purelyevil passions in the affairs of men. The distrust of human characterwhich the experience of life tends to produce is one great cause of theConservatism which so commonly strengthens with age. It is more and morefelt that all the restraints of law, custom, and religion are essentialto hold together in peaceful co-operation the elements of society, andmen learn to look with increasing tolerance on both institutions andopinions which cannot stand the test of pure reason and may be largelymixed with delusions if only they deepen the better habits and give anadditional strength to moral restraints. They learn also to appreciatethe danger of pitching their ideals too high, and endeavouring toenforce lines of conduct greatly above the average level of humangoodness. Such attempts, when they take the form of coercive action, seldom fail to produce a recoil which is very detrimental to morals. Inthis, as in all other spheres, the importance of compromise in practicallife is one of the great lessons which experience teaches. CHAPTER VIII The phrase Moral Compromise has an evil sound, and it opens outquestions of practical ethics which are very difficult and verydangerous, but they are questions with which, consciously orunconsciously, every one is obliged to deal. The contrasts between therigidity of theological formulæ and actual life are on this subject verygreat, though in practice, and by the many ingenious subtleties thatconstitute the science of casuistry, many theologians have attempted toevade them. A striking passage from the pen of Cardinal Newman willbring these contrasts into the clearest light. 'The Church holds, ' hewrites, 'that it were better for sun and moon to drop from heaven, forthe earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it to dieof starvation in extremest agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say should be lost, but should commit onesingle venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, though it harmed noone, or steal one poor farthing without excuse. '[24] It is certainly no exaggeration to say that such a doctrine would leadto consequences absolutely incompatible with any life outside ahermitage or a monastery. It would strike at the root of allcivilisation, and although many may be prepared to give it their formalassent, no human being actually believes it with the kind of beliefthat becomes a guiding influence in life. I have dwelt on this subjectin another book, and may here repeat a few lines which I then wrote. If'an undoubted sin, even the most trivial, is a thing in its essence andits consequences so unspeakably dreadful that rather than it should becommitted it would be better that any amount of calamity which did notbring with it sin should be endured, even that the whole human raceshould perish in agonies, it is manifest that the supreme object ofhumanity should be sinlessness, and it is equally manifest that themeans to this end is the absolute suppression of the desires. To expandthe circle of wants is necessarily to multiply temptations and thereforeto increase the number of sins. ' No material and intellectualadvantages, no increase of human happiness, no mitigation of thesuffering or dreariness of human life can, according to this theory, beother than an evil if it adds even in the smallest degree or in the mostincidental manner to the sins that are committed. 'A sovereign, whencalculating the consequences of a war, should reflect that a single sinoccasioned by that war, a single blasphemy of a wounded soldier, therobbery of a single hen-coop, the violation of the purity of a singlewoman is a greater calamity than the ruin of the entire commerce of hisnation, the loss of her most precious provinces, the destruction of allher power. He must believe that the evil of the increase of unchastitywhich invariably results from the formation of an army is animmeasurably greater calamity than any national or political disastersthat army can possibly avert. He must believe that the most fearfulplagues and famines that desolate his land should be regarded as amatter of rejoicing if they have but the feeblest and most transientinfluence in repressing vice. He must believe that if the agglomerationof his people in great cities adds but one to the number of their sins, no possible intellectual or material advantages can prevent theconstruction of cities being a fearful calamity. According to thisprinciple every elaboration of life, every amusement that bringsmultitudes together, almost every art, every accession of wealth, thatawakens or stimulates desires is an evil, for all these become thesources of some sins, and their advantages are for the most part purelyterrestrial. ' Considerations of this kind, if duly realised, bring out clearly theinsincerity and the unreality of much of our professed belief. Hardlyany sane man would desire to suppress Bank Holidays simply because theyare the occasion of a considerable number of cases of drunkenness whichwould not otherwise have taken place. No humane legislator wouldhesitate to suppress them if they produced an equal number of deaths orother great physical calamities. This manner of measuring the relativeimportance of things is not incompatible with a general acknowledgmentof the fact that there are many amusements which produce an amount ofmoral evil that overbalances their advantages as sources of pleasure, orof the great truth that the moral is the higher and ought to be theruling part of our being. But the realities of life cannot be measuredby rigid theological formulæ. Life is a scene in which different kindsof interest not only blend but also modify and in some degreecounterbalance one another, and it can only be carried on by constantcompromises in which the lines of definition are seldom very clearlymarked, and in which even the highest interest must not altogetherabsorb or override the others. We have to deal with good principles thatcannot be pushed to their full logical results; with varying standardswhich cannot be brought under inflexible law. Take, for example, the many untruths which the conventional courtesiesof Society prescribe. Some of these are so purely matter of phraseologythat they deceive no one. Others chiefly serve the purpose of courteousconcealment, as when they enable us to refuse a request or to decline aninvitation or a visit without disclosing whether disinclination orinability is the cause. Then there are falsehoods for useful purposes. Few men would shrink from a falsehood which was the only means of savinga patient from a shock which would probably produce his death. No one, Isuppose, would hesitate to deceive a criminal if by no other means hecould prevent him from accomplishing a crime. There are also cases ofthe suppression of what we believe to be true, and of tacit or openacquiescence in what we believe to be false, when a full and truthfuldisclosure of our own beliefs might destroy the happiness of others, orsubvert beliefs which are plainly necessary for their moral well-being. Cases of this kind will continually occur in life, and a good man whodeals with each case as it arises will probably find no great difficultyin steering his course. But the vague and fluctuating lines of moralcompromise cannot without grave moral danger be reduced to fixed rulesto be carried out to their full logical consequences. The immortal pagesof Pascal are sufficient to show to what extremes of immorality thedoctrine that the end justifies the means has been pushed by thecasuists of the Church of which Cardinal Newman was so great anornament. A large and difficult field of moral compromise is opened out in thecase of war, which necessarily involves a complete suspension of greatportions of the moral law. This is not merely the case in unjust wars;it applies also, though in a less degree, to those which are mostnecessary and most righteous. War is not, and never can be, a merepassionless discharge of a painful duty. It is in its essence, and it isa main condition of its success, to kindle into fierce exercise amonggreat masses of men the destructive and combative passions--passions asfierce and as malevolent as that with which the hound hunts the fox toits death or the tiger springs upon its prey. Destruction is one of itschief ends. Deception is one of its chief means, and one of the greatarts of skilful generalship is to deceive in order to destroy. Whateverother elements may mingle with and dignify war, this at least is neverabsent; and however reluctantly men may enter into war, howeverconscientiously they may endeavour to avoid it, they must know that whenthe scene of carnage has once opened these things must be not onlyaccepted and condoned, but stimulated, encouraged and applauded. Itwould be difficult to conceive a disposition more remote from the moralsof ordinary life, not to speak of Christian ideals, than that with whichthe soldiers most animated with the fire and passion that lead tovictory rush forward to bayonet the foe. War indeed, which is absolutely indispensable in our present stage ofcivilisation, has its own morals which are very different from those ofpeaceful life. Yet there are few fields in which, through the stress ofmoral motives, greater changes have been effected. In the early stagesof human history it was simply a question of power. There was nodistinction between piracy and regular war, and incursions into aneighbouring State without provocation and with the sole purpose ofplunder brought with them no moral blame. To carry the inhabitants of aconquered country into slavery; to slaughter the whole population of abesieged town; to destroy over vast tracts every town, village andhouse, and to put to death every prisoner, were among the ordinaryincidents of war. These things were done without reproach in the bestperiods of Greek and Roman civilisation. In many cases neither age norsex was spared![25] In Rome the conquered general was strangled orstarved to death in the Mamertine prison. Tens of thousands of captiveswere condemned to perish in gladiatorial shows. Julius Cæsar, whoseclemency has been so greatly extolled, 'executed the whole senate of theVeneti; permitted a massacre of the Usipetes and Tencteri; sold asslaves 40, 000 natives of Genabum; and cut off the right hands of all thebrave men whose only crime was that they held to the last against himtheir town of Uxellodunum. '[26] No slaughter in history is more terriblethan that which took place at Jerusalem under the general who wascalled 'the delight of the human race, ' and when the last spasm ofresistance had ceased, Titus sent Jewish captives, both male and female, by thousands to the provincial amphitheatres to be devoured by wildbeasts or slaughtered as gladiators. Yet from a very early period lines were drawn forming a clear thoughsomewhat arbitrary code of military morals. In Greece a broaddistinction was made between wars with Greek States and with Barbarians, the latter being regarded as almost outside the pale of moralconsideration. It is a distinction which in reality was not very widelydifferent from that which Christian nations have in practice continuallymade between wars within the borders of Christendom, and wars withsavage or pagan nations. Greek, and perhaps still more Roman, moralistshave written much on the just causes of war. Many of them condemn allunjust, aggressive, or even unnecessary wars. Some of them insist on theduty of States always endeavouring by conferences, or even byarbitration, to avert war, and although these precepts, like thecorresponding precepts of Christian divines, were often violated, theywere certainly not without some influence on affairs. It is probably nottoo much to say that in this respect Roman wars do not compareunfavourably with those of Christian periods. It is remarkable how largea part of the best Christian works on the ethics of war is based on theprecepts of pagan moralists, and although in antiquity as in moderntimes the real cause of war was often very different from the pretexts, the sense of justice in war was as clearly marked in Roman as in mostChristian periods. [27] Great stress was laid upon the duty of a formal declaration of warpreceding hostilities. Polybius mentions the reprobation that wasattached in Greece to the Ætolians for having neglected this custom. Itwas universal in Roman times, and during the mediæval period the customof sending a challenge to the hostile power was carefully observed. Inmodern times formal declaration of war has fallen greatly intodesuetude. The hostilities between England and Spain under Elizabeth, and the invasion of Germany by Gustavus Adolphus, were begun without anysuch declaration, and there have been numerous instances in latertimes. [28] The treatment of prisoners has been profoundly modified. Quarter, it istrue, has been very often refused in modern wars to rebels, to soldiersin mutiny, to revolted slaves, to savages who themselves give noquarter. It has been often--perhaps generally--refused to irregularsoldiers like the French Francs-tireurs in the War of 1870, who withoutuniforms endeavoured to defend their homes against invasion. It was longrefused to soldiers who, having rejected terms of surrender, continuedto defend an indefensible place, but this severity during the last threecenturies has been generally condemned. But, on the whole, the treatmentof the conquered soldier has steadily improved. At one time he waskilled. At another he was preserved as a slave. Then he was permitted tofree himself by payment of a ransom; now he is simply kept in custodytill he is exchanged or released on parole, or till the termination ofthe war. In the latter half of the present century many elaborate andbeneficent regulations for the preservation of hospitals and the goodtreatment of the wounded have been sanctioned by internationalagreement. The distinction between the civil population and combatantshas been increasingly observed. As a general rule non-combatants, ifthey do not obstruct the enemy, are subjected to no further injury thanthat of paying war contributions and in other ways providing for thesubsistence of the invaders. The wanton destruction of private propertyhas been more and more avoided. Such an act as the devastation of thePalatinate under Louis XIV. Would now in a European war be universallycondemned, though the wholesale destruction of villages in our ownIndian frontier wars and the methods employed on both sides in the civilwar in Cuba appear to have borne much resemblance to it. In thetreatment of merchants the rule of reciprocity which was laid down inMagna Charta is largely observed, and the Conference of Brussels in 1874pronounced it to be contrary to the laws of war to bombard anunfortified town. The great Civil War in America probably contributednot a little to raise the standard of humanity in war; for while fewlong wars have been fought with such determination or at the cost of somany lives, very few have been conducted with such a scrupulousabstinence from acts of wanton barbarity. Many restrictive rules also have been accepted tending in a small degreeto mitigate the actual operations of war, and they have had some realinfluence in this direction, though it is not possible to justify themilitary code on any clear principle either of ethics or logic. Assassination and the encouragement of assassination; the use of poisonor poisoned weapons; the violation of parole; the deceptive use of aflag of truce or of the red cross; the slaughter of the wounded; theinfringement of terms of surrender or of other distinct agreements, areabsolutely forbidden, and in 1868 the Representatives of the EuropeanPowers assembled at St. Petersburg agreed to abolish the use in war ofexplosive bullets below the weight of 14 ounces, and to forbid thepropagation in an enemy's country of contagious disease as an instrumentof war. It laid down the general principle that the object of war isconfined to disabling the enemy, and that weapons calculated to inflictunnecessary suffering, beyond what is required for attaining thatobject, should be prohibited. At the same time explosive shells, concealed mines, torpedoes and ambuscades lie fully within the permittedagencies of war. Starvation may be employed, and the cutting off of thesupply of water, or the destruction of that supply by mixing with itsomething not absolutely poisonous which renders it undrinkable. It isallowable to deceive an enemy by fabricated despatches purporting tocome from his own side; by tampering with telegraph messages; byspreading false intelligence in newspapers; by sending pretended spiesand deserters to give him untrue reports of the numbers or movements ofthe troops; by employing false signals to lure him into an ambuscade. Onthe use of the flag and uniform of an enemy for purposes of deceptionthere has been some controversy, but it is supported by high militaryauthority. [29] The use of spies is fully authorised, but the spy, ifdiscovered, is excluded from the rights of war and liable to anignominious death. Apart from the questions I have discussed there is another class ofquestions connected with war which present great difficulty. It is theright of men to abdicate their private judgment by entering into themilitary profession. In small nations this question is not of muchimportance, for in them wars are of very rare occurrence and are usuallyfor self-defence. In a great empire it is wholly different. Hardly anyone will be so confident of the virtue of his rulers as to believe thatevery war which his country wages in every part of its dominions, withuncivilised as well as civilised populations, is just and necessary, andit is certainly _primâ facie_ not in accordance with an ideal moralitythat men should bind themselves absolutely for life or for a term ofyears to kill without question, at the command of their superiors, thosewho have personally done them no wrong. Yet this unquestioning obedienceis the very essence of military discipline, and without it theefficiency of armies and the safety of nations would be hopelesslydestroyed. It is necessary to the great interests of society, andtherefore it is maintained, strengthened by the obligation of an oathand still more efficaciously by a code of honour which is one of thestrongest binding influences by which men can be governed. It is not, however, altogether absolute, and a variety of distinctionsand compromises have been made. There is a difference between the manwho enlists in the army of his own country and a man who enlists inforeign service either permanently or for the duration of a single war. If a man unnecessarily takes an active part in a struggle between twocountries other than his own, it may at least be demanded that he shouldbe actuated, not by a mere spirit of adventure or personal ambition, butby a strong and reasoned conviction that the cause which he issupporting is a righteous one. The conduct of a man who enlists in aforeign army which may possibly be used against his own country, and whoat least binds himself to obey absolutely chiefs who have no naturalauthority over him, has been much condemned, but even here specialcircumstances must be taken into account. Few persons I suppose wouldseriously blame the Irish Catholics of the eighteenth century who filledthe armies of France, Austria, Spain and Naples at a time whendisqualifying laws excluded them, on account of their religion, from theBritish army and from almost every path of ambition at home. There isalso perhaps some distinction between the position of a soldier who isobliged to serve, and a soldier in a country where enlisting isvoluntary, and also between the position of an officer who can throw uphis commission without infringing the law, and a private who cannotabandon his flag without committing a grave legal offence. At thebeginning of the war of the American Revolution some English officersleft the army rather than serve in a cause which they believed to beunrighteous. It was in their full power to do so, but probably none ofthem would have desired that private soldiers who had no legal choice inthe matter should have followed their example and become deserters fromthe ranks. There are, however, extreme cases in which the violation of the militaryoath and disobedience to military discipline are justified. More thanonce in French history an usurper or his agent has ordered soldiers tocoerce or fire upon the representatives of the nation. In such cases ithas been said 'the conscience of the soldier is the liberty of thepeople, ' and the refusal of private soldiers to obey a plainly illegalorder will be generally though not universally applauded. In all suchcases, however, there is much obscurity and inconsistency of judgment. The rule that the moral responsibility falls exclusively on the personwho gives the order, and that the private has no voice orresponsibility, will even here be maintained by some. Ought a privatesoldier to have refused to take part in such an execution as that of theDuc d'Enghien, or in the _Coup d'État_ of Napoleon III. ? Ought he torefuse to fire on a mob if he doubts the legality of the order of hissuperior officer? In such cases there is sometimes a direct conflictbetween the civil and the military law, and there have been instances inwhich a soldier might be punishable before the first for acts which wereabsolutely enforced by the second. [30] Perhaps the strongest case of justifiable disobedience that can bealleged is when a soldier is ordered to do something which involvesapostasy from his faith, though even here it would be difficult to show, in the light of pure reason, that this is a graver thing than to killinnocent men in an unrighteous cause. In the Early Church there weresome soldier martyrs who suffered death because they believed itinconsistent with their faith to bear arms, or because they were askedto do some acts which savoured of idolatry. The story of the Thebæanlegion which was said to have been martyred under Diocletian rests on notrustworthy authority, but it illustrates the feeling of the Church onthe subject. Josephus tells how Jewish soldiers refused in spite of allpunishments to bring earth with the other soldiers for the reparation ofthe Temple of Belus at Babylon. Conflicts between military duty andreligious duty must have not unfrequently arisen during the religiouswars of the sixteenth century, and in our own century and in our ownarmy there have been instances of soldiers refusing through religiousmotives to escort or protect idolatrous processions in India, or topresent arms in Catholic countries when the Host was passing. Quakeropinions about war are absolutely inconsistent with the compulsoryservice which prevails in nearly all European countries, and religiousscruples about conscription have been among the motives that havebrought the Russian Raskolniks into collision with the civil power. One of the most serious instances of the collision of duties in our timeis furnished by the great Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. From the days of Clive, Sepoy soldiers have served under the British flag with an admirablefidelity, and the Mutiny of Vellore in 1806, which was the oneexception, was due, like that of 1857, to a belief that the BritishGovernment were interfering with their faith. Few things in the historyof the great Mutiny are so touching as the profound belief of theEnglish commanders of the Sepoy regiments in the unalterable loyalty oftheir soldiers. Many of them lost their lives through this belief, refusing even to the last moment and in spite of all evidence to abandonit. They were deceived, and, in the fierce outburst of indignation thatfollowed, the conduct of the Sepoy soldiers was branded as the blackestand the most unprovoked treachery. Yet assuredly no charge was less true. Agitators for their own selfishpurposes had indeed acted upon the troops, but recent researches havefully proved that the real as well as the ostensible cause of the Mutinywas the greased cartridges. It was believed that the cartridges whichhad been recently issued for the Sepoy regiments were smeared with amixture of cow's fat and pig's fat, one of these ingredients beingutterly impure in the eyes of the Hindoo, and the other in the eyes ofthe Mussulman. To bite these cartridges would destroy the caste of theHindoo and carry with it the loss of everything that was most dear andmost sacred to him both in this world and in the next. In the eyes bothof the Moslem and the Hindoo it was the gravest and the most irreparableof crimes, destroying all hopes in a future world, and yet this crime, in their belief, was imposed upon them as a matter of military duty bytheir officers. It was as if the Puritan soldiers of the seventeenthcentury had been ordered by their commanders to abjure their hopes ofsalvation and to repudiate and insult the Christian faith. It is true that the existence of these obnoxious ingredients in the newcartridges was solemnly denied, but the sincerity of the Sepoy belief isincontestable, and General Anson, the commander-in-chief, havingexamined the cartridges, was compelled to admit that it was veryplausible. [31] 'I am not so much surprised, ' he wrote to Lord Canning, 'at their objections to the cartridges, having seen them. I had no ideathey contained, or rather are smeared with such a quantity of grease, which looks exactly like fat. After ramming down the ball, the muzzle ofthe musket is covered with it. ' Unfortunately this is not a complete statement of the case. It is ashameful and terrible truth that, as far as the fact was concerned, theSepoys were perfectly right in their belief. In the words of LordRoberts, 'The recent researches of Mr. Forrest in the records of theGovernment of India prove that the lubricating mixture used in preparingthe cartridges was actually composed of the objectionable ingredients, cow's fat and lard, and that incredible disregard of the soldiers'religious prejudices was displayed in the manufacture of thesecartridges. '[32] This was certainly not due, as the Sepoys imagined, toany desire on the part of the British authorities to destroy caste or toprepare the way for the conversion of the Sepoys to Christianity. It wassimply a glaring instance of the indifference, ignorance and incapacitytoo often shown by British administrators in dealing with beliefs andtypes of character wholly unlike their own. They were unable to realisethat a belief which seemed to them so childish could have any depth, andthey accordingly produced a Mutiny that for a time shook the Englishpower in India to its very foundation. The horrors of Cawnpore--which were due to a single man--soon took awayfrom the British public all power of sanely judging the conflict, and astruggle in which no quarter was given was naturally marked by extremesavageness; but in looking back upon it, English writers mustacknowledge with humiliation that, if mutiny is ever justifiable, nostronger justification could be given than that of the Sepoy troops. Many of my readers will remember an exquisite little poem called 'TheForced Recruit, ' in which Mrs. Browning has described a young Venetiansoldier who was forced by the conscription to serve against hisfellow-countrymen in the Austrian army at Solferino, and who advancedcheerfully to die by the Italian guns, holding a musket that had neverbeen loaded in his hand. Such a figure, such a violation of militarylaw, will claim the sympathy of all, but a very different judgmentshould be passed upon those who, having voluntarily entered an army, betray their trust and their oath in the name of patriotism. In theFenian movement in Ireland, one of the chief objects of the conspiratorswas to corrupt the Irish soldiers and break down that high sense ofmilitary honour for which in all times and in many armies the Irishpeople have been conspicuous. 'The epidemic' [of disaffection], boastsa writer who was much mixed in the conspiracies of those times, 'was notan affair of individuals, but of companies and of whole regiments. Toattempt to impeach all the military Fenians before courts martial wouldhave been to throw England into a panic, if not to precipitate anappalling mutiny and invite foreign invasion. '[33] I do not quote these words as a true statement. They are, I believe, agross exaggeration and a gross calumny on the Irish soldiers, nor do Idoubt that most, if not all, the soldiers who may have been induced overa glass of whiskey, or through the persuasions of some cunning agitator, to take the Fenian oath would, if an actual conflict had arisen, haveproved perfectly faithful soldiers of the Queen. The perversion ofmorals, however, which looks on such violations of military duty aspraiseworthy, has not been confined to writers of the stamp of Mr. O'Brien. A striking instance of it is furnished by a recent Americanbiography. Among the early Fenian conspirators was a young man namedJohn Boyle O'Reilly. He was a genuine enthusiast, with a real vein ofliterary talent; in the closing years of his life he won the affectionand admiration of very honourable men, and I should certainly have nowish to look too harshly on youthful errors which were the result of amisguided enthusiasm if they had been acknowledged as such. As a matterof fact, however, he began his career by an act which, according toevery sound principle of morality, religion, and secular honour, was inthe highest degree culpable. Being a sworn Fenian, he entered a regimentof hussars, assumed the uniform of the Queen, and took the oath ofallegiance for the express purpose of betraying his trust and seducingthe soldiers of his regiment. He was detected and condemned to penalservitude, and he at last escaped to America, where he took an activepart in the Fenian movement. After his death his biography was writtenin a strain of unqualified eulogy, but the biographer has honestly andfully disclosed the facts which I have related. This book has anintroduction written by Cardinal Gibbons, one of the most prominentCatholic divines in the United States. The reader may be curious to seehow the act of aggravated treachery and perjury which it revealed wasjudged by a personage who occupies all but the highest position in aChurch which professes to be the supreme and inspired teacher of morals. Not a word in this Introduction implies that O'Reilly had done any actfor which he should be ashamed. He is described as 'a great and goodman, ' and the only allusion to his crime is in the following terms: 'Inyouth his heart agonises over that saddest and strangest romance in allhistory--the wrongs and woes of his motherland--that Niobe of theNations. In manhood, because he dared to wish her free, he finds himselfa doomed felon, an exiled convict, in what he calls himself the NetherWorld. .. . The Divine faith implanted in his soul in childhood flourishedthere undyingly, pervaded his whole being with its blessed influences, furnished his noblest ideals of thought and conduct. .. . The country ofhis adoption vies with the land of his birth in testifying to theuprightness of his life. .. . With all these voices I blend my own, and intheir name I say that the world is brighter for having possessedhim. '[34] FOOTNOTES: [24] Newman's _Anglican Difficulties_, p. 190. [25] See Grotius, _de Jure_, book iii. Ch. Iv. On the Jewish notions onthis subject, see Deut. Ii. 34; vii. 2, 16; xx. 10-16; Psalm cxxxvii. 9;1 Sam. Xv. 3. I have collected some additional facts on this subject inmy _History of European Morals_. [26] Tyrrell and Purser's _Correspondence of Cicero_, vol. V. P. Xlvii. [27] See Grotius, _de Jure Belli et Pacis_. [28] Much information on this subject will be found in a remarkablepamphlet (said to have been corrected by Pitt) called 'An Enquiry intothe Manner in which the different wars in Europe have commenced duringthe last two centuries, by the Author of the History and Foundation ofthe Law of Nations in Europe' (1805). [29] See Tovey's _Martial Law and the Custom of War_, part 2, pp. 13, 29. A striking instance of the deceptive use of a flag occurred in 1781, when the English, having captured St. Eustatius from the Dutch, allowedthe Dutch flag still to float over its harbour in order that Dutch, French, Spanish and American ships which were ignorant of the capturemight be decoyed into the harbour and seized as prizes. Some writers onmilitary law maintain that this was within the rights of war. [30] See Fitzjames Stephen's _History of the Criminal Law_, i. 205. [31] Lord Roberts' _Forty-one Years in India_, i. 94. [32] _Ibid. _ p. 431. [33] _Contemporary Review_, May 1897. Article by William O'Brien, 'WasFenianism ever Formidable?' [34] Roche's _Life of John Boyle O'Reilly_, with introduction byCardinal Gibbons. Since the publication of this book Cardinal Gibbonshas written a letter to the _Tablet_ (Dec. 2, 1899), in which he says:'I feel it due to myself and the interests of truth to declare that tillI read Mr. Lecky's criticism I did not know that Mr. O'Reilly had everbeen a Fenian or a British soldier, or that he had tried to seduce othersoldiers from their allegiance. In fact, up to this moment, I have neverread a line of the biography for which I wrote the introduction. .. . Myonly acquaintance with Mr. O'Reilly's history before he came to Americawas the vague information I had that, for some political offence, theexact nature of which I did not learn, he had been exiled from hisnative land to a penal colony, from which he afterwards escaped. ' I gladly accept this assurance of Cardinal Gibbons, though I amsurprised that he should not have even glanced at the book which heintroduced, and that he should have been absolutely ignorant of the mostconspicuous event of the life which, from early youth, he held up tounqualified admiration. I regret, too, that he has not taken theopportunity of this letter to reprobate a form of moral perversion whichis widely spread among his Irish co-religionists, and which his ownwords are only too likely to strengthen. It is but a short time since anIrish Nationalist Member of Parliament, being accused of once havingserved the Queen as a Volunteer, justified himself by saying that he hadonly worn the coat which was worn by Lord Edward Fitzgerald and BoyleO'Reilly; while another Irish Nationalist Member of Parliament, at apublic meeting in Dublin, and amid the cheers of his audience, expressedhis hope that in the South African war the Irish soldiers under theBritish flag would fire on the English instead of on the Boers. CHAPTER IX The foregoing chapter will have shown sufficiently how largely in onegreat and necessary profession the element of moral compromise mustenter, and will show the nature of some of the moral difficulties thatattend it. We find illustrations of much the same kind in the professionof an advocate. In the interests of the proper administration of justiceit is of the utmost importance that every cause, however defective, andevery criminal, however bad, should be fully defended, and it istherefore indispensable that there should be a class of men entrustedwith this duty. It is the business of the judge and of the jury todecide on the merits of the case, but in order that they shoulddischarge this function it is necessary that the arguments on both sidesshould be laid before them in the strongest form. The clear interest ofsociety requires this, and a standard of professional honour andetiquette is formed for the purpose of regulating the action of theadvocate. Misstatements of facts or of law; misquotations of documents;strong expressions of personal opinion, and some other devices by whichverdicts may be won, are condemned; there are cases which an honourablelawyer will not adopt, and there are rare cases in which, in the courseof a trial, he will find it his duty to throw up his brief. But necessary and honourable as the profession may be, there are sidesof it which are far from being in accordance with an austere code ofideal morals. It is idle to suppose that a master of the art of advocacywill merely confine himself to a calm, dispassionate statement of thefacts and arguments of his side. He will inevitably use all his powersof rhetoric and persuasion to make the cause for which he holds a briefappear true, though he knows it to be false; he will affect a warmthwhich he does not feel and a conviction which he does not hold; he willskilfully avail himself of any mistake or omission of his opponent; ofany technical rule that can exclude damaging evidence; of all theresources that legal subtlety and severe cross-examination can furnishto confuse dangerous issues, to obscure or minimise inconvenient facts, to discredit hostile witnesses. He will appeal to every prejudice thatcan help his cause; he will for the time so completely identify himselfwith it that he will make its success his supreme and all-absorbingobject; and he will hardly fail to feel some thrill of triumph if by theforce of ingenious and eloquent pleading he has saved the guilty fromhis punishment or snatched a verdict in defiance of evidence. It is not surprising that a profession which inevitably leads to suchthings should have excited scruples among many good men. Swift veryroughly described lawyers as 'a society of men bred from their youth inthe art of proving by words, multiplied for the purpose, that white isblack and black is white, according as they are paid. ' Dr. Arnold hasmore than once expressed his dislike, and indeed abhorrence, of theprofession of an advocate. It inevitably, he maintained, leads to moralperversion, involving, as it does, the indiscriminate defence of rightand wrong, and in many cases the knowing suppression of truth. Macaulay, who can hardly be regarded as addicted to the refinements of anover-fastidious morality, reviewing the professional rules that arerecognised in England, asks 'whether it be right that not merelybelieving, but knowing a statement to be true, he should do all that canbe done by sophistry, by rhetoric, by solemn asseveration, by indignantexclamation, by gesture, by play of features, by terrifying one honestwitness, by perplexing another, to cause a jury to think that statementfalse. ' Bentham denounced in even stronger language the habitual methodof 'the hireling lawyer' in cross-examining an honest but adversewitness, and he declared that there is a code of morality current inWestminster Hall generically different from the code of ordinary life, and directly calculated to destroy the love of veracity and justice. Onthe other hand, Paley recognised among falsehoods that are not liesbecause they deceive no one, the statement of 'an advocate asserting thejustice or his belief of the justice of his client's cause. ' Dr. Johnson, in reply to some objections of Boswell, argues at length, but, I think, with some sophistry, in favour of the profession. 'You arenot, ' he says, 'to deceive your client with false representations ofyour opinion. You are not to tell lies to the judge, but you need haveno scruple about taking up a case which you believe to be bad, oraffecting a warmth which you do not feel. You do not know your cause tobe bad till the judge determines it. .. . An argument which does notconvince yourself may convince the judge, and, if it does convince him, you are wrong and he is right. .. . Everybody knows you are paid foraffecting warmth for your client, and it is therefore properly nodissimulation. ' Basil Montagu, in an excellent treatise on the subject, urges that an advocate is simply an officer assisting in theadministration of justice under the impression that truth is bestelicited, and that difficulties are most effectually disentangled, bythe opposite statements of able men. He is an indispensable part of amachine which in its net result is acting in the real interests oftruth, although he 'may profess feelings which he does not feel and maysupport a cause which he knows to be wrong, ' and although his advocacyis 'a species of acting without an avowal that it is acting. ' It is, of course, possible to adopt the principles of the Quaker and tocondemn as unchristian all participation in the law courts, and althoughthe Catholic Church has never adopted this extreme, it seems to haveinstinctively recognised some incompatibility between the profession ofan advocate and the saintly character. Renan notices the significantfact that St. Yves, a saint of Brittany, appears to be the only advocatewho has found a place in its hagiology, and the worshippers wereaccustomed to sing on his festival 'Advocatus et non latro--Res mirandapopulo. ' It is indeed evident that a good deal of moral compromise mustenter into this field, and the standards of right and wrong that havebeen adopted have varied greatly. How far, for example, may a lawyersupport a cause which he believes to be wrong? In some ancientlegislations advocates were compelled to swear that they would notdefend causes which they thought or discovered to be unjust. [35] St. Thomas Aquinas has laid down in emphatic terms that any lawyer whoundertakes the defence of an unjust cause is committing a grievous sin. It is unlawful, he contends, to co-operate with any one who is doingwrong, and an advocate clearly counsels and assists him whose cause heundertakes. Modern Catholic casuists have dealt with the subject in thesame spirit. They admit, indeed, that an advocate may undertake thedefence of a criminal whom he knows to be guilty, in order to bring tolight all extenuating circumstances, but they contend that no advocateshould undertake a civil cause unless by a previous and carefulexamination he has convinced himself that it is a just one; that noadvocate can without sin undertake a cause which he knows or stronglybelieves to be unjust; that if he has done so he is himself bound inconscience to make restitution to the party that has been injured by hisadvocacy; that if in the course of a trial he discovers that a causewhich he had believed to be just is unjust he must try to persuade hisclient to desist, and if he fails in this must himself abandon thecause, though without informing the opposite party of the conclusion atwhich he had arrived; that in conducting his case he must abstain fromwounding the reputation of his neighbour or endeavouring to influencethe judges by bringing before them misdeeds of his opponent which arenot connected with and are not essential to the case. [36] As lately as1886 an order was issued from Rome, with the express approbation of thePope, forbidding any Catholic, mayor or judge, to take part in adivorce case, as divorce is absolutely condemned by the Church. [37] There have been, and perhaps still are, instances of lawyersendeavouring to limit their practice to cases which they believed to bejust. Sir Matthew Hale is a conspicuous example, but he acknowledgedthat he considerably relaxed his rule on the subject, having found intwo instances that cases which at the first blush seemed very worthlesswere in truth well founded. As a general rule English lawyers make nodiscrimination on this ground in accepting briefs unless the injusticeis very flagrant, nor will they, except in very extreme cases, do theirclient the great injury of throwing up a brief which they have onceaccepted. They contend that by acting in this way the administration ofjustice in the long run is best served, and in this fact they find itsjustification. In the conduct of a case there are rules analogous to those whichdistinguish between honourable and dishonourable war, but they are lessclearly defined and less universally accepted. In criminal prosecutionsa remarkable though very explicable distinction is drawn between theprosecutor and the defender. It is the etiquette of the profession thatthe former is bound to aim only at truth, neither straining any pointagainst the prisoner nor keeping back any fact which is favourable tohim, nor using any argument which he does not himself believe to bejust. The defender, however, is not bound, according to professionaletiquette, by such rules. He may use arguments which he knows to bebad, conceal or shut out by technical objections facts that will tellagainst his clients, and, subject to some wide and vague restrictions, he must make the acquittal of his client his first object. [38] Sometimes cases of extreme difficulty arise. Probably the best known isthe case of Courvoisier, the Swiss valet, who murdered Lord WilliamRussell in 1840. In the course of the trial Courvoisier informed hisadvocate, Phillips, that he was guilty of the murder, but at the sametime directed Phillips to continue to defend him to the last extremity. As there was overwhelming evidence that the murder must have beencommitted by some one who slept in the house, the only possible defencewas that an equal amount of suspicion attached to the housemaid and cookwho were its other occupants. On the first day of the trial, before heknew the guilt of his client from his own lips, Phillips hadcross-examined the housemaid, who first discovered the murder, withgreat severity and with the evident object of throwing suspicion uponher. What course ought he now to pursue? It happened that an eminentjudge was sitting on the bench with the judge who was to try the case, and Phillips took this judge into his confidence, stated privately tohim the facts that had arisen, and asked for his advice. The judgedeclared that Phillips was bound to continue to defend the prisoner, whose case would have been hopeless if his own counsel abandoned him, and in defending him he was bound to use all fair arguments arising outof the evidence. The speech of Phillips was a masterpiece of eloquenceunder circumstances of extraordinary difficulty. Much of it was devotedto impugning the veracity of the witnesses for the prosecution. Hesolemnly declared that it was not his business to say who committed themurder, and that he had no desire to throw any imputation on the otherservants in the house, and he abstained scrupulously from giving anypersonal opinion on the matter; but the drift of his argument was thatCourvoisier was the victim of a conspiracy, the police having concealedcompromising articles among his clothes, and that there was no clearcircumstance distinguishing the suspicion against him from that againstthe other servants. [39] The conduct of Phillips in this case has, I believe, been justified bythe preponderance of professional opinion, though when the facts wereknown public opinion outside the profession generally condemned it. Somelawyers have pushed the duty of defence to a point which has arousedmuch protest even in their own profession. 'The Advocate, ' said LordBrougham in his great speech before the House of Lords in defence ofQueen Caroline, 'by the sacred duty which he owes his client, knows inthe discharge of that office but one person in the world--that clientand none other. To save that client by all expedient means, to protectthat client at all hazards and costs to all others, and among others tohimself, is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties; and he mustnot regard the alarm, the suffering, the torment, the destruction whichhe may bring upon any other. Nay, separating even the duties of apatriot from those of an advocate, and casting them, if need be, to thewind, he must go on, reckless of consequences, if his fate it shouldunhappily be to involve his country in confusion for his client'sprotection. ' This doctrine has been emphatically repudiated by some eminent Englishlawyers, but both in practice and theory the profession have differedwidely in different courts, times and countries. How far, for example, is it permissible in cross-examination to browbeat or confuse an honestbut timid and unskilful witness; to attempt to discredit the evidence ofa witness on a plain matter of fact about which he had no interest inconcealment by exhuming against him some moral scandal of early youthwhich was totally unconnected with the subject of the trial; or, bypursuing such a line of cross-examination, to keep out of thewitness-box material witnesses who are conscious that their past livesare not beyond reproach? How far is it right or permissible to presslegal technicalities as opposed to substantial justice? Probably mostlawyers, if they are perfectly candid, will agree that these things arein some measure inevitable in their profession, and that the realquestion is one of degree, and therefore not susceptible of positivedefinition. There is a kind of mind that grows so enamoured with thesubtleties and technicalities of the law that it delights in theunexpected and unintended results to which they may lead. I have heardan English judge say of another long deceased that he had through thisfeeling a positive pleasure in injustice, and one lawyer, not of thiscountry, once confessed to me the amusement he derived from breaking theconvictions of criminals in his state by discovering technical flaws intheir indictments. There is a class of mind that delights in such casesas that of the legal document which was invalidated because the lettersA. D. Were put before the date instead of the formula 'in the year of OurLord, ' or that of a swindler who was suffered to escape with his bootybecause, in the writ that was issued for his arrest, by a copyist'serror the word 'sheriff' was written instead of 'sheriffs, ' or that of alady who was deprived of an estate of £14, 000 a year because by a meremistake of the conveyancer one material word was omitted from the will, although the clearest possible evidence was offered showing the wishesof the testator. [40] Such lawyers argue that in will cases 'the truequestion is not what the testator intended to do, but what is themeaning of the words of the will, ' and that the balance of advantages isin favour of a strict adherence to the construction of the sentence andthe technicalities of the law, even though in particular cases it maylead to grave injustice. It must indeed be acknowledged that up to a period extending far intothe nineteenth century those lawyers who adopted the most technical viewof their profession were acting fully in accordance with its spirit. Few, if any, departments of English legislation and administration weretill near the middle of this century so scandalously bad as thoseconnected with the administration of the civil and the criminal law, andespecially with the Court of Chancery. The whole field was covered witha network of obscure, intricate, archaic technicalities; useless exceptfor the purpose of piling up costs, procrastinating decisions, placingthe simplest legal processes wholly beyond the competence of any buttrained experts, giving endless facilities for fraud and for the evasionor defeat of justice, turning a law case into a game in which chance andskill had often vastly greater influence than substantial merits. LordBrougham probably in no degree exaggerated when he described greatportions of the English law as 'a two-edged sword in the hands of craftand of oppression, ' and a great authority on chancery law declared in1839 that 'no man, as things now stand, can enter into a chancery suitwith any reasonable hope of being alive at its termination if he has adetermined adversary. '[41] The moral difficulties of administering such a system were very great, and in many cases English juries, in dealing with it, adopted a roughand ready code of morals of their own. Though they had sworn to decideevery case according to the law as it was stated to them, and accordingto the evidence that was laid before them, they frequently refused tofollow legal technicalities which would lead to substantial injustice, and they still more frequently refused to bring in verdicts according toevidence when by doing so they would consign a prisoner to a savage, excessive, or unjust punishment. Some of the worst abuses of the Englishlaw were mitigated by the perjuries of juries who refused to put them inforce. The great legal reforms of the past half-century have removed most ofthese abuses, and have at the same time introduced a wider and justerspirit into the practical administration of the law. Yet even nowdifferent judges sometimes differ widely in the importance they attachto substantial justice and to legal technicalities; and even now one ofthe advantages of trial by jury is that it brings the masculine commonsense and the unsophisticated sense of justice of unprofessional meninto fields that would otherwise be often distorted by ingenioussubtleties. It is, however, far less in the position of the judge thanin the position of an advocate that the most difficult moral questionsof the legal profession arise. The difference between an unscrupulousadvocate and an advocate who is governed by a high sense of honour andmorality is very manifest, but at best there must be many things in theprofession from which a very sensitive conscience would recoil, andthings must be said and done which can hardly be justified except on theground that the existence of this profession and the prescribed methodsof its action are in the long run indispensable to the honestadministration of justice. The same method of reasoning applies to other great departments oflife. In politics it is especially needed. In free countries partygovernment is the best if not the only way of conducting public affairs, but it is impossible to conduct it without a large amount of moralcompromise; without a frequent surrender of private judgment and will. Agood man will choose his party through disinterested motives, and with afirm and honest conviction that it represents the cast of policy mostbeneficial to the country. He will on grave occasions assert hisindependence of party, but in the large majority of cases he must actwith his party even if they are pursuing courses in some degree contraryto his own judgment. Every one who is actively engaged in politics--every one especially whois a member of the House of Commons--must soon learn that if theabsolute independence of individual judgment were pushed to its extreme, political anarchy would ensue. The complete concurrence of a largenumber of independent judgments in a complicated measure is impossible. If party government is to be carried on, there must be, both in theCabinet and in Parliament, perpetual compromise. The first condition ofits success is that the Government should have a stable, permanent, disciplined support behind it, and in order that this should be attainedthe individual member must in most cases vote with his party. Sometimeshe must support a measure which he knows to be bad, because itsrejection would involve a change of government which he believes wouldbe a still greater evil than its acceptance, and in order to preventthis evil he may have to vote a direct negative to some resolutioncontaining a statement which he believes to be true. At the same time, if he is an honest man, he will not be a mere slave of party. Sometimesa question arises which he considers so supremely important that he willbreak away from his party and endeavour at all hazards to carry or todefeat it. Much more frequently he will either abstain from voting, orwill vote against the Government on a particular question, but only whenhe knows that by taking this course he is simply making a protest whichwill produce no serious political complication. On most great measuresthere is a dissentient minority in the Government party, and it oftenexercises a most useful influence in representing independent opinion, and bringing into the measure modifications and compromises which allayopposition, gratify minorities, and soften differences. But the actionof that party will be governed by many motives other than a simpleconsideration of the merits of the case. It is not sufficient to saythat they must vote for every resolution which they believe to be true, for every bill or clause of a bill which they believe to be right, andmust vote against every bill or clause or resolution about which theyform an opposite judgment. Sometimes they will try in private to preventthe introduction of a measure, but when it is introduced they will feelit their duty either positively to support it or at least to abstainfrom protesting against it. Sometimes they will either vote against itor abstain from voting at all, but only when the majority is so largethat it is sure to be carried. Sometimes their conduct will be theresult of a bargain--they will vote for one portion of a bill of whichthey disapprove because they have obtained from the Government aconcession on another which they think more important. The nature oftheir opposition will depend largely upon the strength or weakness ofthe Government, upon the size of the majority, upon the degree in whicha change of ministry would affect the general policy of the country, upon the probability of the measure they object to being finallyextinguished, or returning in another year either in an improved or in amore dangerous form. Questions of proportion and degree and ulteriorconsequences will continually sway them. Measures are often opposed, noton their own intrinsic merits, but on account of precedents they mightestablish; of other measures which might grow out of them or bejustified by them. Not unfrequently it happens that a section of the dominant party isprofoundly discontented with the policy of the Government on somequestion which they deem of great importance. They find themselvesincapable of offering any direct and successful opposition, but theirdiscontent will show itself on some other Government measure on whichvotes are more evenly divided. Possibly they may oppose that measure. More probably they will fail to attend regularly at the divisions, orwill exercise their independent judgments on its clauses in a mannerthey would not have done if their party allegiance had been unshaken. And this conduct is not mere revenge. It is a method of putting pressureon the Government in order to obtain concessions on matters which theydeem of paramount importance. In the same way they will seek to gainsupporters by political alliances. Few things in parliamentarygovernment are more dangerous or more apt to lead to corruption thanthe bargains which the Americans call log-rolling; but it is inevitablethat a member who has received from a colleague, or perhaps from anopponent, assistance on a question which he believes to be of thehighest importance, will be disposed to return that assistance in somecase in which his own feelings and opinions are not strongly enlisted. Then, too, we have to consider the great place which obstruction playsin parliamentary government. It constantly happens that a measure towhich scarcely any one objects is debated at inordinate length for noother reason than to prevent a measure which is much objected to frombeing discussed. Measures may be opposed by hostile votes, but they areoften much more efficaciously opposed by calculated delays, bymultiplied amendments or speeches, by some of the many devices that canbe employed to clog the legislative machine. There are large classes ofmeasures on which governments or parliaments think it desirable to giveno opinion, or at least no immediate opinion, though they cannot preventtheir introduction, and many methods are employed with the real, thoughnot avowed and ostensible object of preventing a vote or even aministerial declaration upon them. Sometimes Parliament is quite readyto acknowledge the abstract justice of a proposal, but does not think itripe for legislation. In such cases the second reading of the bill willprobably be accepted, but, to the indignation and astonishment of itssupporters outside the House, it will be obstructed, delayed or defeatedin committee with the acquiescence, or connivance, or even actualassistance of some of those who had voted for it. Some measures in theeyes of some members involve questions of principle so sacred that theywill admit of no compromise of expediency, but most measures are deemedopen to compromise and are accepted, rejected, or modified under some ofthe many motives I have described. All this curious and indispensable mechanism of party government iscompatible with a high and genuine sense of public duty, and unless sucha sense at the last resort dominates over all other considerations, political life will inevitably decline. At the same time it is obviousthat many things have to be done from which a very rigid and austerenature would recoil. To support a Government when he believes it to bewrong, or to oppose a measure which he believes to be right; to conniveat evasions which are mere pretexts, and at delays which rest upongrounds that are not openly avowed, --is sometimes, and indeed notunfrequently, a parliamentary duty. A member of Parliament must oftenfeel himself in the position of a private in an army, or a player in agame, or an advocate in a law case. On many questions each partyrepresents and defends the special interests of some particular classesin the country. When there are two plausible alternative courses to bepursued which divide public opinion, the Opposition is almost bound byits position to enforce the merits of the course opposed to that adoptedby the Government. In theory nothing could seem more absurd than asystem of government in which, as it has been said, the ablest men inParliament are divided into two classes, one side being charged with theduty of carrying on the government and the other with that ofobstructing and opposing them in their task, and in which, on a vastmultitude of unconnected questions, these two great bodies of verycompetent men, with the same facts and arguments before them, habituallygo into opposite lobbies. In practice, however, parliamentary governmentby great parties, in countries where it is fully understood andpractised, is found to be admirably efficacious in representing everyvariety of political opinion; in securing a constant supervision andcriticism of men and measures; and in forming a safety valve throughwhich the dangerous humours of society can expand without evil to thecommunity. This, however, is only accomplished by constant compromises which areseldom successfully carried out without a long national experience. Party must exist. It must be maintained as an essential condition ofgood government, but it must be subordinated to the public interests, and in the public interests it must be in many cases suspended. Thereare subjects which cannot be introduced without the gravest danger intothe arena of party controversy. Indian politics are a conspicuousexample, and, although foreign policy cannot be kept wholly outside it, the dangers connected with its party treatment are extremely great. Manymeasures of a different kind are conducted with the concurrence of thetwo front benches. A cordial union on large classes of questions betweenthe heads of the rival parties is one of the first conditions ofsuccessful parliamentary government. The Opposition leader must have avoice in the conduct of business, on the questions that should bebrought forward, and on the questions that it is for the public interestto keep back. He is the official leader of systematic, organisedopposition to the Government, yet he is on a large number of questionstheir most powerful ally. He must frequently have confidential relationswith them, and one of his most useful functions is to prevent sectionsof his party from endeavouring to snatch party advantages by courseswhich might endanger public interests. If the country is to be wellgoverned there must be a large amount of continuity in its policy;certain conditions and principles of administration must be inflexiblymaintained, and in great national emergencies all parties must unite. In questions which lie at the heart of party politics, also some amountof compromise is usually effected. Debate not only elicits opinions butalso suggests alternatives and compromises, and very few measures arecarried by a majority which do not bear clear traces of the action ofthe minority. The line is constantly deflected now on one side and nowon the other, and (usually without much regard to logical consistency)various and opposing sentiments are in some measure gratified. If thelines of party are drawn with an inflexible rigidity; and if themajority insist on the full exercise of their powers, parliamentarygovernment may become a despotism as crushing as the worst autocracy--adespotism which is perhaps even more dangerous as the sense ofresponsibility is diminished by being divided. If, on the other hand, the latitude conceded to individual opinion is excessive, Parliamentinevitably breaks into groups, and parliamentary government loses muchof its virtue. When coalitions of minorities can at any time overthrow aministry, the whole force of Government is lost. The temptation tocorrupt bargains with particular sections is enormously increased, andthe declining control of the two front benches will be speedily followedby a diminished sense of responsibility, and by the increased influenceof violent, eccentric, exaggerated opinions. It is of the utmost momentthat the policy of an Opposition should be guided by its most importantmen, and especially by men who have had the experience and theresponsibility of office, and who know that they may have thatresponsibility again. But the healthy latitude of individual opinion andexpression in a party is like most of those things we are nowconsidering, a question of degree, and not susceptible of clear andsharp definition. Other questions of a somewhat different nature, but involving gravemoral considerations, arise out of the relations between a member andhis constituents. In the days when small boroughs were openly bought inthe market, this was sometimes defended on the ground of the completeindependence of judgment which it gave to the purchasing member. Romillyand Henry Flood are said to have both purchased their seats with theexpress object of securing such independence. In the politicalphilosophy of Burke, no doctrine is more emphatically enforced than thata member of Parliament is a representative but not a delegate; that heowes to his constituents not only his time and his services, but alsothe exercise of his independent and unfettered judgment; that, whilereflecting the general cast of their politics, he must never sufferhimself to be reduced to a mere mouthpiece, or accept bindinginstructions prescribing on each particular measure the course he maypursue; that after his election he must consider himself a member of anImperial Parliament rather than the representative of a particularlocality, and must subordinate local and special interests to the widerand more general interests of the whole nation. The conditions of modern political life have greatly narrowed thisliberty of judgment. In most constituencies a member can only enterParliament fettered by many pledges relating to specific measures, andin every turn of policy sections of his constituents will attempt todictate his course of action. Certain large and general pledgesnaturally and properly precede his election. He is chosen as a supporteror opponent of the Government; he avows himself an adherent of certainbroad lines of policy, and he also represents in a special degree theinterests and the distinctive type of opinion of the class or industrywhich is dominant in his constituency. But even at the time of electionhe often finds that on some particular question in which his electorsare much interested he differs from them, though they consent, in spiteof it, to elect him; and, in the course of a long Parliament, others arevery apt unexpectedly to arise. Political changes take place which bringinto the foreground matters which at the time of the election seemedvery remote, or produce new questions, or give rise to unforeseen partycombinations, developments, and tendencies. It will often happen that onthese occasions a member will think differently from the majority of hiselectors, and he must meet the question how far he must sacrifice hisjudgment to theirs, and how far he may use the influence which theirvotes have given him to act in opposition to their wishes and perhapseven to their interests. Burke, for example, found himself in thisposition when, being member for Bristol, he considered it his duty tosupport the concession of Free-trade to Ireland, although hisconstituents had, or thought they had, a strong interest in commercialrestrictions and monopoly. In our own day it has happened that membersrepresenting manufacturing districts of Lancashire have found themselvesunexpectedly called upon to vote upon some measure for crippling orextending rival manufactures in India; for opening new markets by somevery dubious aggression in a distant land; or for limiting the childlabour employed in the local manufacture; and these members have oftenbelieved that the right course was a course which was exceedinglyrepugnant to great sections of their electors. Sometimes, too, a member is elected on purely secular issues, but in thecourse of the Parliament one of those fierce, sudden storms of religioussentiment, to which England is occasionally liable, sweeps over theland, and he finds himself wholly out of sympathy with a great portionof his constituency. In other cases the party which he enteredParliament to support, pursues, on some grave question, a line of policywhich he believes to be seriously wrong, and he goes into partial oreven complete and bitter opposition. Differences of this kind havefrequently arisen when there is no question of any interested motivehaving influenced the member. Sometimes in such cases he has resignedhis seat and gone to his electors for re-election. In other cases heremains in Parliament till the next election. Each case, however, mustbe left to individual judgment, and no clear, definite, unwavering moralline can be drawn. The member will consider the magnitude of thedisputed question, both in his own eyes and in the eyes of those whom herepresents; its permanent or transitory character, the amount andimportance of the majority opposed to his views, the length of time thatis likely to elapse before a dissolution will bring him face to facewith his constituents. In matters which he does not consider very urgentor important, he will probably sacrifice his own judgment to that of hiselectors, at least so far as to abstain from voting or from pressing hisown views. In graver matters it is his duty boldly to face unpopularity, or perhaps even take the extreme step of resigning his seat. The cases in which a member of Parliament finds it his duty to support ameasure which he believes to be positively bad, on the ground thatgreater evils would follow its rejection, are happily not very numerous. He can extricate himself from many moral difficulties by sometimesabstaining from voting or from the expression of his real opinions, andmost measures are of a composite character in which good and evilelements combine, and may in some degree be separated. In such measuresit is often possible to accept the general principle while opposingparticular details, and there is considerable scope for compromise andmodification. But the cases in which a member of Parliament is compelledto vote for measures about which he has no real knowledge or convictionare very many. Crowds of measures of a highly complex and technicalcharacter, affecting departments of life with which he has had noexperience, relating to the multitudinous industries, interests andconditions of a great people, are brought before him at very shortnotice; and no intellect, however powerful, no industry, however great, can master them. It is utterly impossible that mere extemporisedknowledge, the listening to a short debate, the brief study which amember of Parliament can give to a new subject, can place him on a reallevel of competence with those who can bring to it a lifelong knowledgeor experience. A member of Parliament will soon find that he must select a class ofsubjects which he can himself master, while on many others he must voteblindly with his party. The two or three capital measures in a sessionare debated with such a fulness that both the House and the countrybecome thoroughly competent to judge them, and in those cases thepreponderance of argument will have great weight. A powerful ministryand a strongly organised party may carry such a measure in spite of it, but they will be obliged to accept amendments and modifications, and ifthey persist in their policy their position both in the House and in thecountry will sooner or later be inevitably changed. But a large numberof measures have a more restricted interest, and are far less widelyunderstood. The House of Commons is rich in expert knowledge, and fewsubjects are brought before it which some of its members do notthoroughly understand; but in a vast number of cases the majority whodecide the question are obliged to do so on the most superficialknowledge. Very often it is physically impossible for a member to obtainthe knowledge he requires. The most important and detailed investigationhas taken place in a committee upstairs to which he did not belong, orhe is detained elsewhere on important parliamentary business while thedebate is going on. Even when this is not the case, scarcely any onehas the physical or mental power which would enable him to sitintelligently through all the debates. Every member of Parliament isfamiliar with the scene, when, after a debate, carried on before nearlyempty benches, the division bell rings, and the members stream in todecide the issue. There is a moment of uncertainty. The questions 'Whichside are we?' 'What is it about?' may be heard again and again. Then theSpeaker rises, and with one magical sentence clears the situation. It isthe sentence in which he announces that the tellers for the Ayes orNoes, as the case may be, are the Government whips. It is not argument, it is not eloquence, it is this single sentence which in countless casesdetermines the result and moulds the legislation of the country. Manymembers, it is true, are not present in the division lobby, but they areusually paired--that is to say, they have taken their sides before thediscussion began; perhaps without even knowing what subject is to bediscussed, perhaps for all the many foreseen and unforeseen questionsthat may arise during long periods of the session. It is a strange process, and to a new member who has been endeavouringthrough his life to weigh arguments and evidence with scrupulous care, and treat the formation and expression of opinions as a matter ofserious duty, it is at first very painful. He finds that he is requiredagain and again to give an effective voice in the great council of thenation, on questions of grave importance, with a levity of convictionupon which he would not act in the most trivial affairs of private life. No doctor would prescribe for the slightest malady; no lawyer wouldadvise in the easiest case; no wise man would act in the simplesttransactions of private business, or would even give an opinion to hisneighbour at a dinner party without more knowledge of the subject thanthat on which a member of Parliament is often obliged to vote. But hesoon finds that for good or evil this system is absolutely indispensableto the working of the machine. If no one voted except on matters hereally understood and cared for, four-fifths of the questions that aredetermined by the House of Commons would be determined by mere fractionsof its members, and in that case parliamentary government under theparty system would be impossible. The stable, disciplined majoritieswithout which it can never be efficiently conducted would be at an end. Those who refuse to accept the conditions of parliamentary life shouldabstain from entering into it. It is obvious that the one justification of this system is to be foundin the belief that parliamentary government, as it is worked in England, is on the whole a good thing, and that this is the indispensablecondition of its existence. Probably also with most men it strengthensthe disposition to support the Government on matters which they do notunderstand and in which grave party issues are not involved. They knowthat these minor questions have at least been carefully examined ontheir merits by responsible men, and with the assistance of the bestavailable expert knowledge. This fact goes far to reconcile us to the tendency to give governmentsan almost complete monopoly in the initiation of legislation which is soevident in modern parliamentary life. Much useful legislation in thepast has been due to private and independent members, but the chance ofbills introduced by such members ever becoming law is steadilydiminishing. This is not due to any recognised constitutional change, but to the constantly increasing pressure of government business on thetime of the House, and especially to what is called the twelve o'clockrule, terminating debates at midnight. It is a rule which is manifestly wise, for it limits on ordinaryoccasions the hours of parliamentary work to a period within thestrength of an average man. Parliamentary government has many dubiousaspects, but it never appears worse than in the cases which may stillsometimes be seen when a Government thinks fit to force through animportant measure by all-night sittings, and when a weary and irritatedHouse which has been sitting since three or four in the afternoon iscalled upon at a corresponding hour of the early morning to pronounceupon grave and difficult questions of principle, and to deal with theserious interests of large classes. The utter and most naturalincapacity of the House at such an hour for sustained argument; itsanxiety that each successive amendment should be despatched in fiveminutes; the readiness with which in that tired, feverish atmosphere, surprises and coalitions may be effected and solutions accepted, towhich the House in its normal state would scarcely have listened, mustbe evident to every observer. Scenes of this kind are among the greatestscandals of Parliament, and the rule which makes them impossible exceptin the closing weeks of the Session has been one of the greatestimprovements in modern parliamentary work. But its drawback is that ithas greatly limited the possibility of private member legislation. It isin late and rapid sittings that most measures of this kind passedthrough their final stages, and since the twelve o'clock rule has beenadopted a much smaller number of bills introduced by private membersfind their way to the statute book. FOOTNOTES: [35] O'Brien, _The Lawyer_, pp. 169, 170. [36] _Dictionnaire de Cas de Conscience_, Art. 'Avocat;' Migne, _Encyclopédie Théologique_, i. Serie, tome xviii. [37] _Revue de Droit International_, xxi. 615. [38] See Sir James Stephen's _General View of the Criminal Law ofEngland_, pp. 167, 168. [39] Phillips's defence of his own conduct will be found in a pamphletcalled 'Correspondence of S. Warren and C. Phillips relating to theCourvoisier trial. ' It has often been said that Phillips had asserted inhis speech his full belief in the innocence of his client, but this isdisproved by the statement of C. J. Tindal, who tried the case, and ofBaron Parke, who sat on the bench. C. J. Denman also pronouncedPhillips's speech to be unexceptionable. An able and interesting articleon this case by Mr. Atlay will be found in the _Cornhill Magazine_, May, 1897. [40] See these cases in Warren's _Social and Professional Duties of anAttorney_, pp. 128-133, 195, 196. [41] See the admirable article by Lord Justice Bowen on 'TheAdministration of the Law' in Ward's _Reign of Queen Victoria_, vol. I. CHAPTER X It is obvious from the considerations that have been adduced in the lastchapter that the moral limitations and conditions under which anordinary member of Parliament is compelled to work are far from ideal. An upright man will try conscientiously, under these conditions, to dohis best for the cause of honesty and for the benefit of his country, but he cannot essentially alter them, and they present many temptationsand tend in many ways to blur the outlines separating good from evil. Hewill find himself practically pledged to support his party in measureswhich he has never seen and in policies that are not yet developed; tovote in some cases contrary to his genuine belief and in many caseswithout real knowledge; to act throughout his political career on manymotives other than a reasoned conviction of the substantial merits ofthe question at issue. I have dwelt on the difficult questions which arise when the wishes ofhis constituents are at variance with his own genuine opinions. Anotherand a wider question is how far he is bound to make what he considersthe interests of the nation his guiding light, and how far he shouldsubordinate what he believes to be their interests to their prejudicesand wishes. One of the first lessons that every active politician has tolearn is that he is a trustee bound to act for men whose opinions, aims, desires and ideals are often very different from his own. No manwho holds the position of member of Parliament should divest himself ofthis consideration, though it applies to different classes of members indifferent degrees. A private member should not forget it, but at thesame time, being elected primarily and specially to represent oneparticular element in the national life, he will concentrate hisattention more exclusively on a narrow circle, though he has at the sametime more latitude of expressing unpopular opinions and pushing unripeand unpopular causes than a member who is taking a large and officialpart in the government of the nation. The opposition front benchoccupies a somewhat different position. They are the special andorganised representatives of a particular party and its ideas, but thefact that they may be called upon at any time to undertake thegovernment of the nation as a whole, and that even while in oppositionthey take a great part in moulding its general policy, imposes on themlimitations and restrictions from which a mere private member is in agreat degree exempt. When a party comes into power its position is againslightly altered. Its leaders are certainly not detached from the partypolicy they had advocated in opposition. One of the main objects ofparty is to incorporate certain political opinions and the interests ofcertain sections of the community in an organised body which will be asteady and permanent force in politics. It is by this means thatpolitical opinions are most likely to triumph; that class interests aremost effectually protected. But a Government cannot govern merely in theinterests of a party. It is a trustee for the whole nation, and one ofits first duties is to ascertain and respect as far as possible thewishes as well as the interests of all sections. Concrete examples may perhaps show more clearly than abstract statementsthe kind of difficulties that I am describing. Take, for example, thelarge class of proposals for limiting the sale of strong drink by suchmethods as local veto or Sunday closing of public-houses. One class ofpoliticians take up the position of uncompromising opponents of thedrink trade. They argue that strong drink is beyond all question inEngland the chief source of the misery, the vice, the degradation of thepoor; that it not only directly ruins tens of thousands, body and soul, but also brings a mass of wretchedness that it is difficult to overrateon their innocent families; that the drunkard's craving for drink oftenreproduces itself as an hereditary disease in his children; and that alegislator can have no higher object and no plainer duty than by allavailable means to put down the chief obstacle to the moral and materialwell-being of the people. The principle of compulsion, as they trulysay, is more and more pervading all departments of industry. It is idleto contend that the State which, while prohibiting other forms of Sundaytrading, gives a special privilege to the most pernicious of all, hasnot the right to limit or to withdraw it, and the legislature whichlevies vast sums upon the whole community for the maintenance of thepolice as well as for poor-houses, prisons and criminal administration, ought surely, in the interests of the whole community, to do all that isin its power to suppress the main cause of pauperism, disorder andcrime. Another class of politicians approach the question from a whollydifferent point of view. They emphatically object to imposing upongrown-up men a system of moral restriction which is very properlyimposed upon children. They contend that adult men who have assumed allthe duties and responsibilities of life, and have even a voice in thegovernment of the country, should regulate their own conduct, as far asthey do not directly interfere with their neighbours, without legalrestraint, bearing themselves the consequences of their mistakes orexcesses. This, they say, is the first principle of freedom, the firstcondition in the formation of strong and manly characters. A poor man, who desires on his Sunday excursion to obtain moderate refreshment suchas he likes for himself or his family, and who goes to thepublic-house--probably in most cases to meet his friends and discuss thevillage gossip over a glass of beer--is in no degree interfering withthe liberty of his neighbours. He is doing nothing that is wrong;nothing that he has not a perfect right to do. No one denies the richman access to his club on Sunday, and it should be remembered that thepoor man has neither the private cellars nor the comfortable and roomyhomes of the rich, and has infinitely fewer opportunities of recreation. Because some men abuse this right and are unable to drink alcohol inmoderation, are all men to be prevented from drinking it at all, or atleast from drinking it on Sunday? Because two men agree not to drink it, have they a right to impose the same obligation on an unwilling third?Have those who never enter a public-house, and by their position in lifenever need to enter it, a right, if they are in a majority, to closeits doors against those who use it? On such grounds these politicianslook with extreme disfavour on all this restrictive legislation asunjust, partial and inconsistent with freedom. Very few, however, would carry either set of arguments to their fulllogical consequences. Not many men who have had any practical experiencein the management of men would advocate a complete suppression of thedrink trade, and still fewer would put it on the basis of complete freetrade, altogether exempt from special legislative restriction. Toresponsible politicians the course to be pursued will depend mainly onfluctuating conditions of public opinion. Restrictions will be imposed, but only when and as far as they are supported by a genuine publicopinion. It must not be a mere majority, but a large majority; a steadymajority; a genuine majority representing a real and earnest desire, andespecially in the classes who are most directly affected; not a merefactitious majority such as is often created by skilful organisation andagitation; by the enthusiasm of the few confronting the indifference ofthe many. In free and democratic States one of the most necessary butalso one of the most difficult arts of statesmanship is that of testingpublic opinion, discriminating between what is real, growing andpermanent and what is transient, artificial and declining. As a Frenchwriter has said, 'The great art in politics consists not in hearingthose who speak, but in hearing those who are silent. ' On such questionsas those I have mentioned we may find the same statesman without anyreal inconsistency supporting the same measures in one part of thekingdom and opposing them in another; supporting them at one timebecause public opinion runs strongly in their favour; opposing them atanother because that public opinion has grown weak. One of the worst moral evils that grow up in democratic countries is theexcessive tendency to time-serving and popularity hunting, and thedanger is all the greater because in a certain sense both of thesethings are a necessity and even a duty. Their moral quality dependsmainly on their motive. The question to be asked is whether a politicianis acting from personal or merely party objects or from honourablepublic ones. Every statesman must form in his own mind a conceptionwhether a prevailing tendency is favourable or opposed to the realinterests of the country. It will depend upon this judgment whether hewill endeavour to accelerate or retard it; whether he will yield slowlyor readily to its pressure, and there are cases in which, at all hazardsof popularity and influence, he should inexorably oppose it. But in thelong run, under free governments, political systems and measures must beadjusted to the wishes of the various sections of the people, and thisadjustment is the great work of statesmanship. In judging a proposedmeasure a statesman must continually ask himself whether the country isripe for it--whether its introduction, however desirable it might be, would not be premature, as public opinion is not yet prepared forit?--whether, even though it be a bad measure, it is not on the wholebetter to vote for it, as the nation manifestly desires it? The same kind of reasoning applies to the difficult question ofeducation, and especially of religious education. Every one who isinterested in the subject has his own conviction about the kind ofeducation which is in itself the best for the people, and also the bestfor the Government to undertake. He may prefer that the State shouldconfine itself to purely secular education, leaving all religiousteaching to voluntary agencies; or he may approve of the kind ofundenominational religious teaching of the English School Board; or hemay be a strong partisan of one of the many forms of distinctlyaccentuated denominational education. But when he comes to act as aresponsible legislator, he should feel that the question is not merelywhat _he_ considers the best, but also what the parents of the childrenmost desire. It is true that the authority of parents is not absolutelyrecognised. The conviction that certain things are essential to thechildren, and to the well-being and vigour of the State, and theconviction that parents are often by no means the best judges of this, make legislators, on some important subjects, override the wishes of theparents. The severe restrictions imposed on child labour; themeasure--unhappily now greatly relaxed--providing for children'svaccination; and the legislation protecting children from ill treatmentby their parents, are illustrations, and the most extensive andfar-reaching of all exceptions is education. After much misgiving, bothparties in the State have arrived at the conclusion that it is essentialto the future of the children, and essential also to the maintenance ofthe relative position of England in the great competition of nations, that at least the rudiments of education should be made universal, andthey are also convinced that this is one of the truths which perfectlyignorant parents are least competent to understand. Hence the systemwhich of late years has so rapidly extended of compulsory education. Many nations have gone further, and have claimed for the State the rightof prescribing absolutely the kind of education that should bepermitted, or at least the kind of education which shall be exclusivelysupported by State funds. In England this is not the case. A greatvariety of forms of education corresponding to the wishes and opinionsof different classes of parents receive assistance from the State, subject to the conditions of submitting to certain tests of educationalefficiency, and to a conscience clause protecting minorities frominterference with their faith. A case which once caused much moral heart-burning among good men was theendowment, by the State, of Maynooth College, which is absolutely underthe control of the Roman Catholic priesthood, and intended to educatetheir Divinity students in the Roman Catholic faith. The endowment datedfrom the period of the old Irish Protestant Parliament; and when, on theDisestablishment of the Irish Church, it came to an end, it was replacedby a large capital grant from the Irish Church Fund, and it is upon theinterest of that grant that the College is still supported. This grantwas denounced by many excellent men on the ground that the State wasProtestant; that it had a definite religious belief upon which it wasbound in conscience to act; and that it was a sinful apostasy to endowout of the public purse the teaching of what all Protestants believe tobe superstition, and what many Protestants believe to be idolatrous andsoul-destroying error. The strength of this kind of feeling in Englandis shown by the extreme difficulty there has been in persuading publicopinion to acquiesce in any form of that concurrent endowment ofreligions which exists so widely and works so well upon the Continent. Many, again, who have no objection to the policy of assisting by Statesubsidies the theological education of the priests are of opinion thatit is extremely injurious both to the State and to the young that thesecular education--and especially the higher secular education--of theIrish Catholic population should be placed under their complete control, and that, through their influence, the Irish Catholics should bestrictly separated during the period of their education from theirfellow-countrymen of other religions. No belief, in my own opinion, isbetter founded than this. If, however, those who hold it find that thereis a great body of Catholic parents who persistently desire this controland separation; who will not be satisfied with any removal ofdisabilities and sectarian influence in systems of common education; whoobject to all mixed and undenominational education on the ground thattheir priests have condemned it, and that they are bound in conscienceto follow the orders of their priests, and who are in consequencewithholding from their children the education they would otherwise havegiven them, such men will in my opinion be quite justified in modifyingtheir policy. As a matter of expediency they will argue that it isbetter that these Catholics should receive an indifferent universityeducation than none at all; and that it is exceedingly desirable thatwhat is felt to be a grievance by many honest, upright and loyal menshould be removed. As a matter of principle, they contend that in acountry where higher education is largely and variously endowed frompublic sources, it is a real grievance that there should be one largebody of the people who can derive little or no benefit from thoseendowments. It is no sufficient answer to say that the objection of theCatholic parents is in most cases not spontaneous, but is due to theorders of their priests, since we are dealing with men who believe it tobe a matter of conscience on such questions to obey their priests. Noris it, I think, sufficient to argue--as very many enlightened men willdo--that everything that could be in the smallest degree repugnant tothe faith of a Catholic has been eliminated from the education which isimposed on them in existing universities; that every post of honour, emolument and power has been thrown open to them; that for generationsthey gladly followed the courses of Dublin University, and are even nowpermitted by their ecclesiastics to follow those of Oxford andCambridge; that, the nation having adopted the broad principle ofunsectarian education open to all, no single sect has a right toexceptional treatment, though every sect has an undoubted right to setup at its own expense such education as it pleases. The answer is thatthe objection of a certain class of Roman Catholics in Ireland is not toany abuses that may take place under the system of mixed andundenominational education, but to the system itself, and that theparticular type of education of which alone one considerable class oftaxpayers can conscientiously avail themselves has only been set up byvoluntary effort, and is only inadequately and indirectly endowed bythe State. [42] Slowly and very reluctantly governments in Englandhave come to recognise the fact that the trend of Catholic opinionin Ireland is as clearly in the direction of denominationalism asthe trend of Nonconformist English opinion is in the direction ofundenominationalism, and that it is impossible to carry on the educationof a priest-ridden Catholic people on the same lines as a Protestantone. Primary education has become almost absolutely denominational, and, directly or indirectly, a crowd of endowments are given to exclusivelyCatholic institutions. On such grounds, many who entertain the strongestantipathy to the priestly control of higher education are prepared toadvocate an increased endowment of some university or college which isdistinctly sacerdotal, while strenuously upholding side by side with itthe undenominational institutions which they believe to be incomparablybetter, and which are at present resorted to not only by allProtestants, but also by a not inconsiderable body of Irish Catholics. Many of my readers will probably come to an opposite conclusion on thisvery difficult question. The object of what I have written is simply toshow the process by which a politician may conscientiously advocate theestablishment and endowment of a thing which he believes to beintrinsically bad. It is said to have been a saying of Sir RobertInglis--an excellent representative of an old school of extreme but mostconscientious Toryism--that 'he would never vote one penny of publicmoney for any purpose which he did not think right and good. ' Theimpossibility of carrying out such a principle must be obvious to anyone who has truly grasped the nature of representative government andthe duty of a member of Parliament to act as a trustee for all classesin the community. In the exercise of this function every conscientiousmember is obliged continually to vote money for purposes which hedislikes. In the particular instance I have just given, the process ofreasoning I have described is purely disinterested, but of course it isnot by such a process of pure reasoning that such a question will bedetermined. English and Scotch members will have to consider the effectsof their vote on their own constituencies, where there are generallylarge sections of electors with very little knowledge of the specialcircumstances of Irish education, but very strong feelings about theRoman Catholic Church. Statesmen will have to consider the ulterior andvarious ways in which their policy may affect the whole social andpolitical condition of Ireland, while the overwhelming majority of theIrish members are elected by small farmers and agricultural labourerswho could never avail themselves of University education, and who on allmatters relating to education act blindly at the dictation of theirpriests. Inconsistency is no necessary condemnation of a politician, and partiesas well as individual statesmen have abundantly shown it. It would leadme too far in a book in which the moral difficulties of politics formonly one subdivision, to enter into the history of English parties; butthose who will do so will easily convince themselves that there ishardly a principle of political action that has not in party historybeen abandoned, and that not unfrequently parties have come to advocateat one period of their history the very measures which at another periodthey most strenuously resisted. Changed circumstances, the growth ordecline of intellectual tendencies, party strategy, individualinfluence, have all contributed to these mutations, and most of themhave been due to very blended motives of patriotism and self-interest. In judging the moral quality of the changes of party leaders, theelement of time will usually be of capital importance. Violent andsudden reversals of policy are never effected by a party without a greatloss of moral weight; though there are circumstances under which theyhave been imperatively required. No one will now dispute the integrityof the motives that induced the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peelto carry Catholic Emancipation in 1829, when the Clare election hadbrought Ireland to the verge of revolution; and the conduct of SirRobert Peel in carrying the repeal of the Corn Laws was certainly notdue to any motive either of personal or party ambition, though it may beurged with force that at a time when he was still the leader of theProtectionist party his mind had been manifestly moving in the directionof Free trade, and that the Irish famine, though not a mere pretext, wasnot wholly the cause of the surrender. In each of these cases a ministrypledged to resist a particular measure introduced and carried it, anddid so without any appeal to the electors. The justification was thatthe measure in their eyes had become absolutely necessary to the publicwelfare, and that the condition of politics made it impossible for themeither to carry it by a dissolution or to resign the task into otherhands. Had Sir Robert Peel either resigned office or dissolvedParliament after the Clare election in 1828, it is highly probable thatthe measure of Catholic Emancipation could not have been carried, andits postponement, in his belief, would have thrown Ireland into adangerous rebellion. Few greater misfortunes have befallen partygovernment than the failure of the Whigs to form a ministry in 1845. Hadthey done so the abolition of the Corn Laws would have been carried bystatesmen who were in some measure supported by the Free-trade party, and not by statesmen who had obtained their power as the specialrepresentatives of the agricultural interests. Another case which in a party point of view was more successful, butwhich should in my opinion be much more severely judged, was the ReformBill of 1867. The Conservative party, under the guidance of Mr. Disraeli, defeated Mr. Gladstone's Reform Bill mainly on the ground thatit was an excessive step in the direction of Democracy. The victoryplaced them in office, and they then declared that, as the question hadbeen raised, they must deal with it themselves. They introduced a billcarrying the suffrage to a much lower point than that which the lateGovernment had proposed, but they surrounded it with a number ofprovisions securing additional representation for particular classes andinterests which would have materially modified its democraticcharacter. But for these safeguarding provisions the party would certainly not havetolerated the introduction of such a measure, yet in the face ofopposition their leader dropped them one by one as of no capitalimportance, and, by a leadership which was a masterpiece of unscrupulousadroitness, succeeded in inducing his party to carry a measure far moredemocratic than that which they had a few months before denounced anddefeated. It was argued that the question must be settled; that it mustbe placed on a permanent and lasting basis; that it must no longer besuffered to be a weapon in the hands of the Whigs, and that the ToryReform Bill, though it was acknowledged to be a 'leap in the dark, ' hadat least the result of 'dishing the Whigs. ' There is little doubt thatit was in accordance with the genuine convictions of Disraeli. Hebelonged to a school of politics of which Bolingbroke, Carteret andShelburne, and, in some periods of his career, Chatham, were earlierrepresentatives who had no real sympathy with the preponderance of thearistocratic element in the old Tory party, who had a decideddisposition to appeal frankly to democratic support, and who believedthat a strong executive resting on a broad democratic basis was the truefuture of Toryism. He anticipated to a remarkable degree the school ofpolitical thought which has triumphed in our own day, though he did notlive to witness its triumph. At the same time it cannot be denied thatthe Reform Bill of 1867 in the form in which it was ultimately carriedwas as far as possible from the wishes and policy of his party in thebeginning of the session, and as inconsistent as any policy could bewith their language and conduct in the session that preceded it. A parliamentary government chosen on the party system is, as we haveseen, at once the trustee of the whole nation, bound as such to make thewelfare of the whole its supreme end, and also the specialrepresentative of particular classes, the special guardian of theirinterests, aims, wishes, and principles. The two points of view are notthe same, and grave difficulties, both ethical and political, have oftento be encountered in endeavouring to harmonise them. It is, of course, not true that a party object is merely a matter of place or power, andnaturally a different thing from a patriotic object. The very meaning ofparty is that public men consider certain principles of government, certain lines of policy, the protection and development of particularinterests, of capital importance to the nation, and they are thereforeon purely public grounds fully justified in making it a main object toplace the government of the country in the hands of their party. Theimportance, however, of maintaining a particular party in power variesgreatly. In many, probably in most, periods of English history a changeof government means no violent or far-reaching alteration in policy. Itmeans only that one set of tendencies in legislation will for a time besomewhat relaxed, and another set somewhat intensified; that theinterests of one class will be somewhat more and those of another classsomewhat less attended to; that the rate of progress or change will beslightly accelerated or retarded. Sometimes it means even less thanthis. Opinions on the two front benches are so nearly assimilated thata change of government principally means the removal for a time fromoffice of ministers who have made some isolated administrative blundersor incurred some individual unpopularity quite apart from their partypolitics. It means that ministers who are jaded and somewhat worn out byseveral years' continuous work, and of whom the country had grown tired, are replaced by men who can bring fresher minds and energies to thetask; that patronage in all its branches having for some years gonemainly to one party, the other party are now to have their turn. Thereare periods when the country is well satisfied with the general policyof a government but not with the men who carry it on. Ministers ofexcellent principles prove inefficient, tactless, or unfortunate, orquarrels and jealousies arise among them, or difficult negotiations aregoing on with foreign nations which can be best brought to a successfultermination if they are placed in the hands of fresh men, unpledged andunentangled by their past. The country wants a change of government butnot a change of policy, and under such circumstances the task of avictorious opposition is much less to march in new directions than tomark time, to carry on the affairs of the nation on the same lines, butwith greater administrative skill. In such periods the importance ofparty objects is much diminished and a policy which is intended merelyto keep a party in power should be severely condemned. Sometimes, however, it happens that a party has committed itself to aparticular measure which its opponents believe to be in a high degreedangerous or even ruinous to the country. In that case it becomes amatter of supreme importance to keep this party out of office, or, ifthey are in office, to keep them in a position of permanent debilitytill this dangerous project is abandoned. Under such circumstancesstatesmen are justified in carrying party objects and purely partylegislation much further than in other periods. To strengthen their ownparty; to gain for it the largest amount of popularity; to win thesupport of different factions of the House of Commons, become a greatpublic object; and, in order to carry it out, sacrifices of policy andin some degree of principle, the acceptance of measures which the partyhad once opposed, and the adjournment or abandonment of measures towhich it had been pledged, which would once have been very properlycondemned, become justifiable. The supreme interest of the State is theend and the justification of their policy, and alliances are formedwhich under less pressing circumstances would have been impossible, andwhich, once established, sometimes profoundly change the permanentcharacter of party politics. Here, as in nearly all political matters, an attention to proportion and degree, the sacrifice of the less for theattainment of the greater, mark the path both of wisdom and of duty. The temptations of party politicians are of many kinds and vary greatlywith different stages of political development. The worst is thetemptation to war. War undertaken without necessity, or at least withoutserious justification, is, according to all sound ethics, the gravest ofcrimes, and among its causes motives of the kind I have indicated may beoften detected. Many wars have been begun or have been prolonged inorder to consolidate a dynasty or a party; in order to give itpopularity or at least to save it from unpopularity; in order to divertthe minds of men from internal questions which had become dangerous orembarrassing, or to efface the memory of past quarrels, mistakes orcrimes. [43] Experience unfortunately shows only too clearly how easilythe combative passions of nations can be aroused and how much popularitymay be gained by a successful war. Even in this case, it is true, warusually impoverishes the country that wages it, but there are largeclasses to whom it is by no means a calamity. The high level ofagricultural prices; the brilliant careers opened to the military andnaval professions; the many special industries which are immediatelystimulated; the rise in the rate of interest; the opportunities ofwealth that spring from violent fluctuations on the Stock Exchange; eventhe increased attractiveness of the newspapers, --all tend to giveparticular classes an interest in its continuance. Sometimes it isclosely connected with party sympathies. During the French wars of Anne, the facts that Marlborough was a Whig, and that the Elector of Hanover, who was the hope of the Whig party, was in favour of the war, contributed very materially to retard the peace. A state of greatinternal disquietude is often a temptation to war, not because it leadsto it directly, but because rulers find a foreign war the best means ofturning dangerous and disturbing energies into new channels, and at thesame time of strengthening the military and authoritative elements inthe community. The successful transformation of the anarchy of the greatFrench Revolution into a career of conquest is a typical example. In aristocratic governments such as existed in England during theeighteenth century, temptations to corruption were especially strong. Tobuild up a vast system of parliamentary influence by rotten boroughs, and, by systematically bestowing honours on those who could controlthem, to win the support of great corporations and professions byfurthering their interests and abstaining from all efforts to reformthem, was a chief part of the statecraft of the time. Class privilegesin many forms were created, extended and maintained, and in somecountries--though much less in England than on the Continent--the burdenof taxation was most inequitably distributed, falling mainly on thepoor. In democratic governments the temptations are of a different kind. Popularity is there the chief source of power, and the supreme tribunalconsists of numbers counted by the head. The well-being of the greatmass of the people is the true end of politics, but it does notnecessarily follow that the opinion of the least instructed majority isthe best guide to obtaining it. In dwelling upon the temptations ofpoliticians under such a system I do not now refer merely to theunscrupulous agitator or demagogue who seeks power, notoriety orpopularity by exciting class envies and animosities, by setting the pooragainst the rich and preaching the gospel of public plunder; nor wouldI dilate upon the methods so largely employed in the United States ofaccumulating, by skilfully devised electoral machinery, great masses ofvoting power drawn from the most ignorant voters, and making use of themfor purposes of corruption. I would dwell rather on the bias whichalmost inevitably obliges the party leader to measure legislation mainlyby its immediate popularity, and its consequent success in adding to hisvoting strength. In some countries this tendency shows itself in lavishexpenditure on public works which provide employment for great masses ofworkmen and give a great immediate popularity in a constituency, leavingto posterity a heavy burden of accumulated debt. Much of the financialembarrassment of Europe is due to this source, and in most countriesextravagance in government expenditure is more popular than economy. Sometimes it shows itself in a legislation which regards only proximateor immediate effects, and wholly neglects those which are distant andobscure. A far-sighted policy sacrificing the present to a distantfuture becomes more difficult; measures involving new principles, butmeeting present embarrassments or securing immediate popularity, arestarted with little consideration for the precedents they areestablishing and for the more extensive changes that may follow in theirtrain. The conditions of labour are altered for the benefit of theexisting workmen, perhaps at the cost of diverting capital from somegreat form of industry, making it impossible to resist foreigncompetition, and thus in the long run restricting employment andseriously injuring the very class who were to have been benefited. When one party has introduced a measure of this kind the other is underthe strongest temptation to outbid it, and under the stress ofcompetition and through the fear of being distanced in the race ofpopularity both parties often end by going much further than either hadoriginally intended. When the rights of the few are opposed to theinterests of the many there is a constant tendency to prefer the latter. It may be that the few are those who have built up an industry; who haveborne all the risk and cost, who have by far the largest interest in itssuccess. The mere fact that they are the few determines the bias of thelegislators. There is a constant disposition to tamper with even clearlydefined and guaranteed rights if by doing so some large class of voterscan be conciliated. Parliamentary life has many merits, but it has a manifest tendency toencourage short views. The immediate party interest becomes so absorbingthat men find it difficult to look greatly beyond it. The desire of askilful debater to use the topics that will most influence the audiencebefore him, or the desire of a party leader to pursue the course mostlikely to be successful in an immediately impending contest, will oftenoverride all other considerations, and the whole tendency ofparliamentary life is to concentrate attention on landmarks which arenot very distant, thinking little of what is beyond. One great cause of the inconsistency of parties lies in the absolutenecessity of assimilating legislation. Many, for example, are of opinionthat the existing tendency to introduce government regulations andinterferences into all departments is at least greatly exaggerated, andthat it would be far better if a larger sphere were left to individualaction and free contract. But if large departments of industry have beenbrought under the system of regulation, it is practically impossible toleave analogous industries under a different system, and the men whomost dislike the tendency are often themselves obliged to extend it. They cannot resist the contention that certain legislative protectionsor other special favours have been granted to one class of workmen, andthat there is no real ground for distinguishing their case from that ofothers. The dominant tendency will thus naturally extend itself, andevery considerable legislative movement carries others irresistibly inits train. The pressure of this consideration is most painfully felt in the case oflegislation which appears not simply inexpedient and unwise, butdistinctly dishonest. In legislation relating to contracts there is aclear ethical distinction to be drawn. It is fully within the moralright of legislators to regulate the conditions of future contracts. Itis a very different thing to break existing contracts, or to take thestill more extreme step of altering their conditions to the benefit ofone party without the assent of the other, leaving that other partybound by their restrictions. In the American Constitution there is a special clause making itimpossible for any State to pass any law violating contracts. InEngland, unfortunately, no such provision exists. The most glaring andundoubted instance of this kind is to be found in the Irish landlegislation which was begun by the Ministry of Mr. Gladstone, but whichhas been largely extended by the party that originally most strenuouslyopposed it. Much may no doubt be said to palliate it: agriculturaldepression; the excessive demand for land; the fact that improvementswere in Ireland usually made by the tenants (who, however, wereperfectly aware of the conditions under which they made them, and whoserents were proportionately lower); the prevalence in some parts ofIreland of land customs unsanctioned by law; the existence of a greatrevolutionary movement which had brought the country into a condition ofdisgraceful anarchy. But when all this has been admitted, it remainsindisputable to every clear and honest mind that English law has takenaway without compensation unquestionably legal property and brokenunquestionably legal contracts. A landlord placed a tenant on his farmon a yearly tenancy, but if he desired to exercise his plain legal rightof resuming it at the termination of the year, he was compelled to pay acompensation 'for disturbance, ' which might amount to seven times theyearly rent. A landlord let his land to a farmer for a longer periodunder a clear written contract bearing the government stamp, and thiscontract defined the rent to be paid, the conditions under which thefarm was to be held, and the number of years during which it was to bealienated from its owner. The fundamental clause of the lease distinctlystipulated that at the end of the assigned term the tenant must handback that farm to the owner from whom he received it. The law hasinterposed, and determined that the rent which this farmer hadundertaken to pay shall be reduced by a government tribunal without theassent of the owner, and without giving the owner the option ofdissolving the contract and seeking a new tenant. It has gone further, and provided that at the termination of the lease the tenant shall nothand back the land to the owner according to the terms of his contract, but shall remain for all future time the occupier, subject only to arent fixed and periodically revised, irrespective of the wishes of thelandlord, by an independent tribunal. Vast masses of property in Irelandhad been sold under the Incumbered Estates Act by a government tribunalacting as the representative of the Imperial Parliament, and eachpurchaser obtained from this tribunal a parliamentary title making himabsolute owner of the soil and of every building upon it, subject onlyto the existing tenancies in the schedule. No accounts of the earlierhistory of the property were handed to him, for except under the termsof the leases which had not yet expired he had no liability for anythingin the past. The title he received was deemed so indefeasible that inone memorable case, where by mistake a portion of the property of oneman had been included in the sale of the property of another man, theCourt of Appeal decided that the injustice could not be remedied, as itwas impossible, except in the case of intentional fraud, to go behindparliamentary titles. [44] In cases in which the land was let at lowrents, and in cases where tenants held under leases which would soonexpire, the facility of raising the rents was constantly specified bythe authority of the Court as an inducement to purchasers. What has become of this parliamentary title? Improvements, if they hadbeen made, or were presumed to have been made by tenants anterior to thesale, have ceased to be the property of the purchaser, and he has at thesame time been deprived of some of the plainest and most inseparablerights of property. He has lost the power of disposing of his farms inthe open market, of regulating the terms and conditions on which he letsthem, of removing a tenant whom he considers unsuitable, of taking theland back into his own hands when the specified term of a tenancy hadexpired, of availing himself of the enhanced value which a war or aperiod of great prosperity, or some other exceptional circumstance, mayhave given to his property. He has become a simple rent-charger on theland which by inheritance or purchase was incontestably his own, and theamount of his rent-charge is settled and periodically revised by atribunal in which he has no voice, and which has been given an absolutepower over his estate. He bought or inherited an exclusive right. Thelaw has turned it into a dual ownership. A tenant right which, when heobtained his property, was wholly unknown to the law, and was onlygenerally recognised by custom in one province, has been carved out ofit. The tenant who happened to be in occupation when the law was passedcan, without the consent of the owner, sell to another the right ofoccupying the farm at the existing rent. In numerous cases this tenantright is more valuable than the fee simple of the farm. In many cases afarmer who had eagerly begged to be a tenant at a specified rent hasafterwards gone into the land court and had that rent reduced, and hasthen proceeded to sell the tenant right for a sum much more thanequivalent to the difference between the two rents. In many cases thishas happened where there could be no possible question of improvementsby the tenant. The tenant right of the smaller farms has steadily risenin proportion as the rent has been reduced. In many cases, no doubt, theexcessive price of tenant right may be attributed to the land hunger orpassion for land speculation so common in Ireland, or to someexceptional cause inducing a farmer to give an extravagant price for thetenant right of a particular farm. But although in such instances theprice of tenant right is a deceptive test, the movement, when it is ageneral one, is a clear proof that the reduction of rent did notrepresent an equivalent decline in the marketable value of the land, butwas simply a gratuitous transfer, by the State, of property from oneperson to another. Having in the first place turned the exclusiveownership of the landlord into a simple partnership, the tribunalproceeded, in defiance of all equity, to throw the whole burden of theagricultural depression on one of the two partners. The law did, it istrue, reserve to the landlord the right of pre-emption, or in otherwords the right of purchasing the tenant right when it was for sale, ata price to be determined by the Court, and thus becoming once more theabsolute owner of his farm. The sum specified by the Court was usuallyabout sixteen years' purchase of the judicial rent. By the payment ofthis large sum he may regain the property which a few years ago wasincontestably his own, which was held by him under the most secure titleknown to English law, and which was taken from him, not by any processof honest purchase, but by an act of simple legislative confiscation. Whatever palliations of expediency may be alleged, the true nature ofthis legislation cannot reasonably be questioned, and it has establisheda precedent which is certain to grow. The point, however, on which Iwould especially dwell is that the very party which most stronglyopposed it, and which most clearly exposed its gross and essentialdishonesty, have found themselves, or believed themselves to be, boundnot only to accept it but to extend it. They have contended that, as amatter of practical politics, it is impossible to grant such privilegesto one class of agricultural tenants and to withhold it from others. Thechief pretext for this legislation in its first stages was that it wasfor the benefit of very poor tenants who were incapable of making theirown bargains, and that the fixity of tenure which the law gave to yearlytenants as long as they paid their rents had been very generallyvoluntarily given them by good landlords. But the measure was soonextended by a Unionist government to the leaseholders, who are thelargest and most independent class of farmers, and who held their landfor a definite time and under a distinct written contract. It is intruth much more the shrewder and wealthier farmers than the poor andhelpless ones that this legislation has chiefly benefited. Instances of this kind, in which strong expediency or an absolutepolitical necessity is in apparent conflict with elementary principlesof right and wrong, are among the most difficult with which a politicianhas to deal. He must govern the country and preserve it in a conditionof tolerable order, and he sometimes persuades himself that without acapitulation to anarchy, without attacks on property and violations ofcontract, this is impossible. Whether the necessity is as absolute orthe expediency as rightly calculated as he supposed, may indeed be opento much question, but there can be no doubt that most of the Englishstatesmen who carried the Irish agrarian legislation sincerely believedit, and some of them imagined that they were giving a security andfinality to the property which was left, that would indemnify theplundered landlords. Perhaps, under such circumstances, the most thatcan be said is that wise legislators will endeavour, by encouragingpurchase on a large scale, gradually to restore the absolute ownershipand the validity of contract which have been destroyed, and at the sametime to compensate indirectly--if they cannot do it directly--the formerowners for that portion of their losses which is not due to merelyeconomical causes, but to acts of the legislature that were plainlyfraudulent. There are other temptations of a different kind with which party leadershave to deal. One of the most serious is the tendency to force questionsfor which there is no genuine desire, in order to restore the unity orthe zeal of a divided or dispirited party. As all politicians know, thedesire for an attractive programme and a popular election cry is one ofthe strongest in politics, and, as they also know well, there is such athing as manufactured public opinion and artificially stimulatedagitation. Questions are raised and pushed, not because they are for theadvantage of the country, but simply for the purposes of party. Theleaders have often little or no power of resistance. The pressure oftheir followers, or of a section of their followers, becomesirresistible; ill-considered hopes are held out; rash pledges areextorted, and the party as a whole is committed. Much premature andmischievous legislation may be traced to such causes. Another very difficult question is the manner in which governmentsshould deal with the acts of public servants which are intended for thepublic service, but which in some of their parts are morallyindefensible. Very few of the great acquisitions of nations have beenmade by means that were absolutely blameless, and in a great empirewhich has to deal with uncivilised or semi-civilised populations acts ofviolence are certain to be not infrequent. Neither in our judgments ofhistory nor in our judgments of contemporaries is it possible to applythe full stringency of private morals to the cases of men acting inposts of great responsibility and danger amid the storms of revolution, or panic, or civil war. With the vast interests confided to their care, and the terrible dangers that surround them, measures must often betaken which cannot be wholly or at least legally justified. On the otherhand, men in such circumstances are only too ready to accept theprinciple of Macchiavelli and of Napoleon, and to treat politics as ifthey had absolutely no connection with morals. Cases of this kind must be considered separately and with a carefulexamination of the motives of the actor and of the magnitude of thedangers he had to encounter. Allowances must be made for the moralatmosphere in which he moved, and his career must be considered as awhole, and not only in its peccant parts. In the trial of WarrenHastings, and in the judgments which historians have passed on thelives of the other great adventurers who have built up the Empire, questions of this kind continually arise. In our own day also they have been very frequent. The _Coup d'état_ ofthe 2nd of December, 1851, is an extreme example. Louis Napoleon hadsworn to observe and to defend the Constitution of the French Republic, which had been established in 1848, and that Constitution, among otherarticles, pronounced the persons of the representatives of the people tobe inviolable; declared every act of the President which dissolved theAssembly or prorogued it, or in any way trammelled it in the exercise ofits functions, to be high treason, and guaranteed the fullest liberty ofwriting and discussion. 'The oath which I have just taken, ' said thePresident, addressing the Assembly, 'commands my future conduct. My dutyis clear; I will fulfil it as a man of honour. I shall regard as enemiesof the country all those who endeavour to change by illegal means whatall France has established. ' In more than one subsequent speech hereiterated the same sentiments and endeavoured to persuade the countrythat under no possible circumstances would he break his oath or violatehis conscience, or overstep the limits of his constitutional powers. What he did is well known. Before daybreak on December 2, some of themost eminent statesmen in France, including eighteen members of theChamber, were, by his orders, arrested in their beds and sent to prison, and many of them afterwards to exile. The Chamber was occupied bysoldiers, and its members, who assembled in another place, were marchedto prison. The High Court of Justice was dissolved by force. Martiallaw was proclaimed. Orders were given that all who resisted theusurpation in the streets were at once, and without trial, to be shot. All liberty of the press, all liberty of public meeting or discussion, were absolutely destroyed. About one hundred newspapers were suppressedand great numbers of their editors transported to Cayenne. Nothing wasallowed to be published without Government authority. In order todeceive the people as to the amount of support behind the President, a'Consultative Commission' was announced and the names were placarded inParis. Fully half the persons whose names were placed on this listrefused to serve, but in spite of their protests their names were keptthere in order that they might appear to have approved of what wasdone. [45] Orders were issued immediately after the _Coup d'état_ thatevery public functionary who did not instantly give in writing hisadhesion to the new Government should be dismissed. The Préfets weregiven the right to arrest in their departments whoever they pleased. Byan _ex post facto_ decree, issued on December 8, the Executive wereenabled without trial to send to Cayenne, or to the penal settlements inAfrica, any persons who had in any past time belonged to a 'secretsociety, ' and this order placed all the numerous members of politicalclubs at the mercy of the Government. Parliament, when it was sufferedto reassemble, was so organised and shackled that every vestige of freediscussion for many years disappeared, and a despotism of almostAsiatic severity was established in France. It may be fully conceded that the tragedy of December 4, when for morethan a quarter of an hour some 3, 000 French soldiers deliberately firedvolley after volley without return upon the unoffending spectators onthe Boulevards, broke into the houses and killed multitudes, not only ofmen but of women and children, till the Boulevards, in the words of anEnglish eye-witness, were 'at some points a perfect shambles, ' and theblood lay in pools round the trees that fringed them, was not ordered bythe President, though it remained absolutely unpunished and uncensuredby him. There is conflicting evidence on this point, but it is probablethat some stray shots had been fired from the houses, and it is certainthat a wild and sanguinary panic had fallen upon the soldiers. It ispossible too, and not improbable, that the stories so generally believedin Paris that large batches of prisoners, who had been arrested, werebrought out of prison in the dead hours of the night and deliberatelyshot by bodies of soldiers, may have been exaggerated or untrue. Maupas, who was Préfet of Police, and who must have known the truth, positivelydenied it; but the question what credence should be attached to a man ofhis antecedents who boasted that he had been from the first a leadingagent in the whole conspiracy may be reasonably asked. [46] Evidence ofthese things, as has been truly said, could scarcely be obtained, forthe press was absolutely gagged and all possibility of investigation wasprevented. For the number of those who were transported or forciblyexpelled within the few weeks after December 2, we may perhaps rely uponthe historian and panegyrist of the Empire. He computes them at theenormous number of 26, 500. [47] After the Plébiscite new measures ofproscription were taken, and, according to Émile Ollivier, one of themost enthusiastic and skilful eulogists of the _Coup d'état_, in thefirst months of 1852 there were from 15, 000 to 20, 000 politicalprisoners in the French prisons. [48] It was by such means that LouisNapoleon attained the empire which had been the dream of his life. Like many, however, of the great crimes of history, this was not withoutits palliations, and a more detailed investigation will show that thosepalliations were not inconsiderable. Napoleon had been elected to thepresidency by 5, 434, 226 votes out of 7, 317, 344 which were given, andwith his name, his antecedents, and his well-known aspirations, thisoverwhelming majority clearly showed what were the real wishes of thepeople. His power rested on universal suffrage; it was independent ofthe Chamber. It gave him the direction of the army, though he could notcommand it in person, and from the very beginning he assumed anindependent and almost regal position. In the first review that tookplace after his election he was greeted by the soldiers with cries of'Vive Napoléon! Vive l'Empereur!' It was soon proved that theConstitution of 1848 was exceedingly unworkable. In the words of LordPalmerston: 'There were two great powers, each deriving its existencefrom the same source, almost sure to disagree, but with no umpire todecide between them, and neither able by any legal means to get rid ofthe other. ' The President could not dissolve the Chamber, but he couldimpose upon it any ministry he chose. He was himself elected for onlyfour years, and he could not be re-elected, while by a most fatuousprovision the powers of the President and the Chamber were to expire in1852 at the same time, leaving France without a government and exposedto the gravest danger of anarchy. The Legislative Assembly, which was elected in May, 1849, was, it istrue, far from being a revolutionary one. It contained a minority ofdesperate Socialists, it was broken into many factions, and like mostdemocratic French Chambers it showed much weakness and inconsistency;but the vast majority of its members were Conservatives who had no kindof sympathy with revolution, and its conduct towards the President, iffairly judged, was on the whole very moderate. He soon treated it withcontempt, and it was quite evident that there was no national enthusiasmbehind it. The Socialist party was growing rapidly in the great towns;in June, 1849, there was an abortive Socialist insurrection in Paris, and a somewhat more formidable one at Lyons. They were easily put down, but the Socialists captured a great part of the representation of Paris, and they succeeded in producing a wild panic throughout the country. Itled to several reactionary measures, the most important being a lawwhich by imposing new conditions of residence very considerably limitedthe suffrage. This law was presented to the Chamber by the Ministers ofthe President and with his assent, though he subsequently demanded thereestablishment of universal suffrage, and made a decree effecting thisone of the chief justifications of his _Coup d'état_. The restrictivelaw was carried through the Chamber on May 31, 1850, by an immensemajority, but it was denounced with great eloquence by some of itsleading members, and it added seriously to the unpopularity of theAssembly, and greatly lowered its authority in contending with aPresident whose authority rested on direct universal suffrage. More thanonce he exercised his power of dismissing and appointing ministriesabsolutely irrespective of its votes and wishes, and in each case inorder to fill all posts of power with creatures of his own. Thenewspapers supporting him continually inveighed against the Chamber, anddwelt upon the danger of anarchy to which France would be exposed in1852 and upon the absolute necessity of 'a Saviour of Society. ' Inrepeated journeys through France, and in more than one military review, the President gave the occasion of demonstrations in which the cries of'Vive l'Empereur!' were often heard, and which were manifestly intendedto strengthen him in his conflict with the Chamber. The man from whom he had most to fear was Changarnier, who since theclose of 1848 had been commander of the troops in Paris, and whose name, though far less popular than that of Napoleon, had much weight with thearmy. He was a man with strong leanings to authority, and was muchcourted by the monarchical parties, but was for some time in decidedsympathy with Napoleon, from whom, however, in spite of large offersthat had been made him, he gradually diverged. He issued peremptoryorders to the troops under his command, forbidding all party cries atreviews. He declared in the Chamber that these cries had been 'not onlyencouraged but provoked, ' and when the intention of the President toprolong his presidency became apparent, he assured Odilon Barrot that hewas prepared, if ordered by the minister and authorised by the Presidentof the Chamber, to anticipate the _Coup d'état_ by seizing andimprisoning Louis Napoleon. [49] The President succeeded in removing himfrom his command, and in placing a creature of his own at the head ofthe Paris troops; but though Changarnier acquiesced without resistancein his dismissal, he remained an important member of the Assembly; heopenly declared that his sword was at its service, and if an armedconflict broke out it was tolerably certain that he would be itsrepresentative. The President had an official salary of 48, 000_l_. --nearly five times as much as the President of the United States. The Chamber refused to increase it, though they consented by a verysmall majority, and at the request of Changarnier, to pay his debts. The demand for a revision of the Constitution, making it possible forthe President to be re-elected, was rising rapidly through the country, and there can be but little doubt that this was generally looked forwardto as the only peaceful solution, and that it represented the real wishof the great majority of the people. Petitions in favour of it, bearingan enormous number of signatures, were presented to the Chamber, and theoverwhelming majority of the Conseils Généraux of which the Deputiesgenerally formed part voted for revision. The President did not so muchpetition for it as demand it. In a message he sent to the Chamber, hedeclared that if they did not vote Revision the people would, in 1852, solemnly manifest their wishes. In a speech at Dijon, June 1, 1851, hedeclared that France from end to end demanded it; that he would followthe wishes of the nation, and that France would not perish in his hands. In the same speech he accused the Chamber of never seconding his wishesto ameliorate the lot of the people. He at the same time lost noopportunity of showing that his special sympathy and trust lay with thearmy, and he singled out with marked favour the colonels of theregiments which had shown themselves at the reviews most prominent indemonstrations in his favour. [50] The meaning of all this was hardlydoubtful. Changarnier took up the gauntlet, and at a time when thequestion of Revision was before the Chamber he declared that no soldierwould ever be induced to move against the law and the Assembly, and hecalled upon the Deputies to deliberate in peace. The Revision was voted in the Chamber by 446 votes to 278, but amajority of three-fourths was required for a constitutional change, andthis majority was not obtained, and in the disintegrated condition ofFrench parties it seemed scarcely likely to be obtained. The Chamberwas soon after prorogued for about two months, leaving the situationunchanged, and the tension and panic were extreme. Out of eighty-fiveConseils Généraux in France, eighty passed votes in favour of Revision, three abstained, two only opposed. The President had now fully resolved upon a _Coup d'état_, and beforethe Chamber reassembled a new ministry was constituted, St. -Arnaud beingat the head of the army, and Maupas at the head of the police. His firststep was to summon the Chamber to repeal the law of May 31 whichabolished universal suffrage. The Chamber, after much hesitation, refused, but only by two votes. The belief that the question could onlybe solved by force was becoming universal, and the bolder spirits in theChamber clearly saw that if no new measure was taken they were likely tobe helpless before the military party. By a decree of 1848 the Presidentof the Chamber had a right, if necessary, to call for troops for itsprotection independently of the Minister of War, and a motion was nowmade that he should be able to select a general to whom he mightdelegate this power. Such a measure, dividing the military command andenabling the Chamber to have its own general and its own army, mighthave proved very efficacious, but it would probably have involved Francein civil war, and the President was resolved that, if the Chamber votedit, the _Coup d'état_ should immediately take place. The vote was takenon November 17, 1851. St. -Arnaud, as Minister of War, opposed themeasure on constitutional grounds, dilating on the danger of a dividedmilitary command, but during the discussion Maupas and Magnan were inthe gallery of the Chamber, waiting to give orders to St. -Arnaud to callout the troops and to surround and dissolve the Chamber if theproposition was carried. It was, however, rejected by a majority of 108, and a few troubled daysof conspiracy and panic still remained before the blow was struck. Thestate of the public securities and the testimony of the best judges ofall parties showed the genuineness of the alarm. It was not true, as thePresident stated in the proclamation issued when the _Coup d'état_ wasaccomplished, that the Chamber had become a mere nest of conspiracies, and there was a strange audacity in his assertion that he made the _Coupd'état_ for the purpose of maintaining the Republic against monarchicalplots; but it was quite true that the conviction was general that forcehad become inevitable; that the chief doubt was whether the first blowwould be struck by Napoleon or Changarnier, and that while the evidentdesire of the majority of the people was to re-elect Napoleon, there wasa design among some members of the Chamber to seize him by force and toelect in his place some member of the House of Orleans. [51] On December2 the curtain fell, and Napoleon accompanied his _Coup d'état_ by adecree dissolving the Chamber, restoring by his own authority universalsuffrage, abolishing the law of May 31, establishing a state of siege, and calling on the French people to judge his action by their vote. It was certainly not an appeal upon which great confidence could beplaced. Immediately after the _Coup d'état_, the army, which was whollyon his side, voted separately and openly in order that France mightclearly know that the armed forces were with the President and might beable to predict the consequences of a verdict unfavourable to hispretensions. When, nearly three weeks later, the civilian Plébiscitetook place, martial law was in force. Public meetings of every kind wereforbidden. No newspaper hostile to the new authority was permitted. Noelectioneering paper or placard could be circulated which had not beensanctioned by Government officials. The terrible decree that all who hadever belonged to a secret society might be sent to die in the fevers ofAfrica was interpreted in the widest sense, and every political societyor organisation was included in it. All the functionaries of a highlycentralised country were turned into ardent electioneering agents, andthe question was so put that the voters had no alternative except for oragainst the President, a negative vote leaving the country with nogovernment and an almost certain prospect of anarchy and civil war. Under these circumstances 7, 500, 000 votes were given for the Presidentand 500, 000 against him. But after all deductions have been made there can be no real doubt thatthe majority of Frenchmen acquiesced in the new _régime_. The terror ofSocialism was abroad, and it brought with it an ardent desire for stronggovernment. The probabilities of a period of sanguinary anarchy were sogreat that multitudes were glad to be secured from it at almost anycost. Parliamentarism was profoundly discredited. The peasantproprietary had never cared for it, and the bourgeois class, among whomit had once been popular, were now thoroughly scared. Nothing in thecontemporary accounts of the period is more striking than theindifference, the almost amused cynicism, or the sense of relief withwhich the great mass of Frenchmen seem to have witnessed the destructionof their Constitution and the gross insults inflicted upon a Chamberwhich included so many of the most illustrious of their countrymen. We can hardly have a better authority on this point than Tocqueville. Noone felt more profoundly or more bitterly the iniquity of what had beendone; but he was under no illusion about the sentiments of the people. The Constitution, he says, was thoroughly unpopular. 'Louis Napoleon hadthe merit or the luck to discover what few suspected--the latentBonapartism of the nation. .. . The memory of the Emperor, vague andundefined, but therefore the more imposing, still dwelt like an heroiclegend in the imaginations of the people. ' All the educated, in theopinion of Tocqueville, condemned and repudiated the _Coup d'état_. 'Thirty-seven years of liberty have made a free press and freeparliamentary discussion necessary to us. ' But the bulk of the nationwas not with them. The new Government, he predicted, 'will last until itis unpopular with the mass of the people. At present the disapprobationis confined to the educated classes. ' 'The reaction against democracyand even against liberty is irresistible. '[52] There is no doubt some exaggeration on both sides of this statement. The appalling magnitude of the deportations and imprisonments by the newGovernment seems to show that the hatred went deeper than Tocquevillesupposed, and on the other hand it can hardly be said that the educatedclasses wholly repudiated what had been done when we remember that theFrench Funds at once rose from 91 to 102, that nearly all branches ofFrench commerce made a similar spring, [53] that some twenty generalswere actively engaged in the conspiracy, and that the great body of thepriests were delighted at its success. The truth seems to be that theproperty of France saw in the success of the _Coup d'état_ an escapefrom a great danger, while two powerful professions, the army and theChurch, were strongly in favour of the President. Over the army the nameof Napoleon exercised a magical influence, and the expedition to Romeand the probability that the new government would be under clericalguidance were, in the eyes of the Church party, quite sufficient tojustify what had been done. Nothing, indeed, in this strange history is more significant than theattitude assumed by the special leaders and representatives of theChurch which teaches that 'it were better for the sun and moon to dropfrom heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all of the many millionsupon it to die of starvation in extremest agony, so far as temporalaffliction goes, than that one soul . .. Should commit one venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth. '[54] Three illustrious churchmen--Lacordaire, Ravignan and Dupanloup--totheir immortal honour refused to give any approbation to the _Coupd'état_ or to express any confidence in its author. But the latestpanegyrist of the Empire boasts that they were almost alone in theirprofession. By the advice of the Papal Nuncio and of the leading Frenchbishops, the clergy lost no time in presenting their felicitations. Veuillot, who more than any other man represented and influenced thevast majority of the French priesthood, wrote on what had been done withundisguised and unqualified exultation and delight. Even Montalembertrallied to the Government on the morrow of the _Coup d'état_. Hedescribed Louis Napoleon as a Prince 'who had shown a more efficaciousand intelligent devotion to religious interests than any of those whohad governed France during sixty years;' and it was universally admittedthat the great body of the clergy, with Archbishop Sibour at their head, were in this critical moment ardent supporters of the newgovernment. [55] Kinglake, in a page of immortal beauty, has describedthe scene when, thirty days after the _Coup d'état_, Louis Napoleonappeared in Notre Dame to receive, amid all the pomp that Catholicceremonial could give, the solemn blessing of the Church, and to listento the Te Deum thanking the Almighty for what had been accomplished. Thetime came, it is true, when the policy of the priests was changed, forthey found that Louis Napoleon was more liberal and less clerical thanthey imagined; but in estimating the feelings with which FrenchLiberals judge the Church, its attitude towards the perjury and violenceof December 2 should never be forgotten. To those who judge the political ethics of the Roman Catholic Church notfrom the deceptive pages of such writers as Newman, but from anexamination of its actual conduct in the different periods of itshistory, it will appear in no degree inconsistent. It is but anotherinstance added to many of the manner in which it regards all acts whichappear conducive to its interests. It was the same spirit that led aPope to offer public thanks for the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and toorder Vasari to paint the murder of Coligny on the walls of the Vaticanamong the triumphs of the Church. No Christian sovereign of modern timeshas left a worse memory behind him than Ferdinand II. Of Naples, whoreceived the Pope when he fled to Gaëta in 1848. He was the sovereignwhose government was described by Gladstone as 'a negation of God. ' Henot only destroyed the Constitution he had sworn to observe, but threwinto a loathsome dungeon the Liberal ministers who had trusted him. Butin the eyes of the Pope his services to the Church far outweighed alldefects, and the monument erected to this 'most pious prince' may beseen in one of the chapels of St. Peter's. Every visitor to Paris maysee the fresco in the Madeleine in which Napoleon I. Appears seatedtriumphant on the clouds and surrounded by an admiring priesthood, themost prominent and glorified figure in a picture representing thehistory of French Christianity, with Christ above, blessing the work. It is indeed a most significant fact that in Catholic countries thehighest moral level in public life is now rarely to be found among thosewho specially represent the spirit and teaching of their Church, andmuch more frequently among men who are unconnected with it, and oftenwith all dogmatic theology. How seldom has the distinctively Catholicpress seriously censured unjust wars, unscrupulous alliances, violationsof constitutional obligations, unprovoked aggressions, great outburstsof intolerance and fanaticism! It is, indeed, not too much to say thatsome of the worst moral perversions of modern times have been supportedand stimulated by a great body of genuinely Catholic opinion both in thepriesthood and in the press. The anti-Semite movement, the shamefulindifference to justice shown in France in the Dreyfus case, and thecountless frauds, outrages and oppressions that accompanied thedomination of the Irish Land League are recent and conspicuous examples. Among secular-minded laymen the _Coup d'état_ of Louis Napoleon was, asI have said, differently judged. Few things in French history are morehonourable than the determination with which so many men who were thevery flower of the French nation refused to take the oath or give theiradhesion to the new Government. Great statesmen and a few distinguishedsoldiers, with a splendid past behind them and with the prospect of anillustrious career before them; men of genius who in their professorialchairs had been the centres of the intellectual life of France;functionaries who had by laborious and persevering industry climbed thesteps of their profession and depended for their livelihood on itsemoluments, accepted poverty, exile and the long eclipse of the mosthonourable ambitions rather than take an oath which seemed to justifythe usurpation. At the same time, some statesmen of unquestionablehonour did not wholly and in all its parts condemn it. Lord Palmerstonwas conspicuous among them. Without expressing approval of all that hadbeen done, he always maintained that the condition of France was suchthat a violent subversion of an unworkable Constitution and theestablishment of a strong government had become absolutely necessary;that the _Coup d'état_ saved France from the gravest and most imminentdanger of anarchy and civil war, and that this fact was itsjustification. If it had not been for the acts of ferocious tyrannywhich immediately followed it, his opinion would have been more largelyshared. It is probable that the moral character of _Coups d'état_ may in thefuture not unfrequently come into discussion in Europe, as it has oftendone in South America. As the best observers are more and moreperceiving, parliamentary government worked upon party lines is by nomeans an easy thing, and it seldom attains perfection without longexperience and without qualities of mind and character which are veryunequally distributed among the nations of the world. It requires aspirit of compromise, patience and moderation; the kind of mind whichcan distinguish the solid, the practical and the well meaning, from thebrilliant, the plausible and the ambitious, which cares more for usefulresults and for the conciliation of many interests and opinions than forany rigid uniformity and consistency of principle; which, whilepursuing personal ambitions and party aims, can subordinate them ongreat occasions to public interests. It needs a combination ofindependence and discipline which is not common, and where it does notexist parliaments speedily degenerate either into an assemblage ofpuppets in the hands of party leaders or into disintegrated, demoralised, insubordinate groups. Some of the foremost nations of theworld--nations distinguished for noble and brilliant intellect; forsplendid heroism; for great achievements in peace and war--have in thisform of government conspicuously failed. In England it has grown withour growth and strengthened with our strength. We have practised it inmany phases. Its traditions have taken deep root and are in full harmonywith the national character. But in the present century this kind ofgovernment has been adopted by many nations which are wholly unfit forit, and they have usually adopted it in the most difficult of allforms--that of an uncontrolled democracy resting upon universalsuffrage. It is becoming very evident that in many countries suchassemblies are wholly incompetent to take the foremost place ingovernment, but they are so fenced round by oaths and otherconstitutional forms that nothing short of violence can take from them apower which they are never likely voluntarily to relinquish. In suchcountries democracy tends much less naturally to the parliamentarysystem than to some form of dictatorship, to some despotism resting onand justified by a plébiscite. It is probable that many transitions inthis direction will take place. They will seldom be carried out throughpurely public motives or without perjury and violence. But publicopinion will judge each case on its own merits, and where it can beshown that its results are beneficial and that large sections of thepeople have desired it, such an act will not be severely condemned. Cases of conflicting ethical judgments of another kind may be easilycited. One of the best known was that of Governor Eyre at the time ofthe Jamaica insurrection of 1865. In this case there was no question ofpersonal interest or ambition. The Governor was a man of stainlesshonour, who in a moment of extreme difficulty and danger had rendered agreat service to his country. By his prompt and courageous action anegro insurrection was quickly suppressed, which, if it had been allowedto extend, must have brought untold horrors upon Jamaica. But themartial law which he had proclaimed was certainly continued longer thanwas necessary, it was exercised with excessive severity, and those whowere tried under it were not merely men who had been taken in arms. Oneconspicuous civilian agitator, who had contributed greatly to stimulatethe insurrection, and had been, in the opinion of the Governor, its'chief cause and origin, ' but who, like most men of his kind, had merelyincited others without taking any direct part himself, was arrested in apart of the island in which martial law was not proclaimed, and wastried and hanged by orders of a military tribunal in a way which thebest legal authorities in England pronounced wholly unwarranted by law. If this act had been considered apart from the general conditions of theisland it would have deserved severe punishment. If the services of theGovernor had been considered apart from this act they would havedeserved high honours from the Crown. In Jamaica the Governor was fullysupported by the Legislative Council and the Assembly, but at homepublic opinion was fiercely divided, and the fact that the chiefliterary and scientific men in England took sides on the question addedgreatly to its interest. Carlyle took a leading part in the defence ofGovernor Eyre. John Stuart Mill was the chairman of a committee whoregarded him as a simple criminal, and who for more than two yearspursued him with a persistent vindictiveness. As might have beenexpected the one side dwelt solely on his services and the other side onhis misdeeds. Governor Eyre received no reward for the great service hehad rendered, and he was involved by his enemies in a ruinous legalexpenditure, which, however, was subsequently paid by the Government;but those who desired to bring him to trial for murder were baffled, forthe Old Bailey Grand Jury threw out the bill. Public opinion, I think, on the whole, approved of what they had done. Most moderate men had cometo the conclusion that Governor Eyre was a brave and honourable man whohad rendered great services to the State and had saved countless lives, but who, through no unworthy motive and in a time of extreme danger andpanic, had committed a serious mistake which had been very amplyexpiated. The more recent events connected with the Jameson raid into theTransvaal may also be cited. Of the raid itself there is little to besaid. It was, in truth, one of the most discreditable as well asmischievous events in recent colonial history, and its character wasentirely unrelieved by any gleam either of heroism or of skill. Thosewho took a direct part in it were duly tried and duly punished. Asection of English society adopted on this question a disgracefulattitude, but it must at least be said in palliation that they had beengrossly deceived, one of the chief and usually most trustworthy organsof opinion having been made use of as an organ of the conspirators. A more difficult question arose in the case of the statesman who hadprepared and organized the expedition against the Transvaal. It iscertain that the actual raid had taken place without his knowledge orconsent, though when it was brought to his knowledge he abstained fromtaking any step to stop it. It may be conceded also that there were realgrievances to be complained of. By a strange irony of fate some of thelargest gold mines of the world had fallen to the possession of perhapsthe only people who did not desire them; of a race of hunters andfarmers intensely hostile to modern ideas, who had twice abandoned theirhomes and made long journeys into distant lands in search of solitudeand space and of a home where they could live their primitive, pastorallives, undisturbed by any foreign element. These men now found theircountry the centre of a vast stream of foreign immigration, and of thatmost undesirable kind of immigration which gold mines invariablypromote. Their laws were very backward, but the part which was mostoppressive was that connected with the gold-mining industry which wasalmost entirely in the hands of the immigrants, and it was this whichmade it a main object to overthrow their government. The trail offinance runs over the whole story, but it may be acknowledged that, although Mr. Rhodes had made an enormous fortune by mining speculations, and although he was largely interested as a financier in overturning thesystem of government at Johannesburg, he was not a man likely to beactuated by mere love of money, and that political ambition closelyconnected with the opening and the civilisation of Africa largelyactuated him. Whether the motives of his co-conspirators were of thesame kind may be open to question. What, however, he did has been veryclearly established. When holding the highly confidential position ofPrime Minister of the Cape Colony, and being at the same time a PrivyCouncillor of the Queen, he engaged in a conspiracy for the overthrow ofthe government of a neighbouring and friendly State. In order to carryout this design he deceived the High Commissioner whose Prime Ministerhe was. He deceived his own colleagues in the Ministry. He collectedunder false pretences a force which was intended to co-operate with aninsurrection in Johannesburg. Being a Director of the Chartered Companyhe made use of that position, without the knowledge of his colleagues, to further the conspiracy. He took an active and secret part insmuggling great quantities of arms into the Transvaal, which wereintended to be used in the rebellion; and at a time when his organs inthe press were representing Johannesburg as seething with spontaneousindignation against an oppressive government, he, with anothermillionaire, was secretly expending many thousands of pounds in thattown in stimulating and subsidising the rising. He was also directlyconnected with the shabbiest incident in the whole affair, theconcoction of a letter from the Johannesburg conspirators absurdlyrepresenting English women and children at Johannesburg as in danger ofbeing shot down by the Boers, and urging the British to come at once tosave them. It was a letter drawn up with the sanction of Mr. Rhodes manyweeks before the raid, and before any disturbance had arisen, and keptin reserve to be dated and used in the last moment for the purpose ofinducing the young soldiers in South Africa to join in the raid, and ofsubsequently justifying their conduct before the War Office, and alsofor the purpose of being published in the English press at the same timeas the first news of the raid, in order to work upon English publicopinion and persuade the English people that the raid, thoughtechnically wrong, was morally justifiable. [56] Mr. Rhodes is a man of great genius and influence, and in the past hehas rendered great services to the Empire. At the same time noreasonable judge can question that in these transactions he was moreblamable than those who were actually punished by the law for takingpart in the raid--far more blamable than those young officers who were, in truth, the most severely punished, and who had been induced to takepart in it under a false representation of the wishes of the Governmentat home, and a grossly false representation of the state of things atJohannesburg. The failure of the raid, and his undoubted complicitywith its design, obliged Mr. Rhodes to resign the post of Prime Ministerand his directorship of the Chartered Company, and, for a time at least, eclipsed his influence in Africa; but the question confronted theMinisters whether these resignations alone constituted a sufficientpunishment for what he had done. The question was indeed one of great difficulty. The Government, in myopinion, were right in not attempting a prosecution which, in the faceof the fact that the actual raid had certainly been undertaken withoutthe knowledge of Mr. Rhodes, and that the evidence against him waschiefly drawn from his own voluntary admissions before the committee ofinquiry, would inevitably have proved abortive. They were, perhaps, right in not taking from him the dignity of Privy Councillor, which hadbeen bestowed on him as a reward for great services in the past, andwhich had never in the present reign been taken from anyone on whom ithad been bestowed. They were right also, I believe, in urging that aftera long and elaborate inquiry into the circumstances of the raid, andafter a report in which Mr. Rhodes's conduct had been fully examined andseverely censured, it was most important for the peace and goodgovernment of South Africa that the matter should as soon as possible beallowed to drop, and the raid and the party animosities it had arousedto subside. But what can be thought of the language of a Minister whovolunteered to assure the House of Commons that in all the transactionsI have described, Mr. Rhodes, though he had made 'a gigantic mistake, ' amistake perhaps as great as a statesman could make, had done nothingaffecting his personal honour?[57] The foregoing examples will serve to illustrate the kind of difficultywhich every statesman has to encounter in dealing with politicalmisdeeds, and the impossibility of treating them by the clearly definedlines and standards that are applicable to the morals of a private life. Whatever conclusions men may arrive at in the seclusion of theirstudies, when they take part in active political life they will find itnecessary to make large allowances for motives, tendencies, pastservices, pressing dangers, overwhelming expediencies, opposinginterests. Every statesman who is worthy of the name has a strongpredisposition to support the public servants who are under him when heknows that they have acted with a sincere desire to benefit the Empire. This is, indeed, a characteristic of all really great statesmen, and itgives a confidence and energy to the public service which in times ofdifficulty and danger are of supreme importance. In such times amistaken decision is usually a less evil than timid, vacillating, orprocrastinated action, and a wise Minister will go far to defend hissubordinates if they have acted promptly and with substantial justice inthe way they believed to be best, even though they may have madeconsiderable mistakes, and though the results of their action may haveproved unfortunate. But of all forms of prestige, moral prestige is the most valuable, andno statesman should forget that one of the chief elements of Britishpower is the moral weight that is behind it. It is the conviction thatBritish policy is essentially honourable and straightforward, that theword and honour of its statesmen and diplomatists may be implicitlytrusted, and that intrigues and deceptions are wholly alien to theirnature. The statesman must steer his way between rival fanaticisms--thefanaticism of those who pardon everything if it is crowned by successand conduces to the greatness of the Empire, and who act as if weakPowers and savage nations had no moral rights; and the fanaticism ofthose who always seem to have a leaning against their own country, andwho imagine that in times of war, anarchy, or rebellion, and in dealingswith savage or half-savage military populations, it is possible to actwith the same respect for the technicalities of law, and the sameinvariably high standard of moral scrupulousness, as in a peaceful ageand a highly civilised country. In the affairs of private life thedistinction between right and wrong is usually very clear, but it is notso in public affairs. Even the moral aspects of political acts canseldom be rightly estimated without the exercise of a large, judicial, and comprehensive judgment, and the spirit which should actuate astatesman should be rather that of a high-minded and honourable man ofthe world than that of a theologian, or a lawyer, or an abstractmoralist. In some respects the standard of political morality has undoubtedlyrisen in modern times; but it is by no means certain that ininternational politics this is the case. A true history of the wars ofthe last half of the nineteenth century may well lead us to doubt it, and recent disclosures have shown us that in the most terrible ofthem--the Franco-German War of 1870--the blame must be much more equallydivided than we had been accustomed to believe. Very few massacres inhistory have been more gigantic or more clearly traced to the action ofa government than those perpetrated by Turkish soldiers in ourgeneration, and few signs of the low level of public feeling inChristendom are more impressive than the general indifference with whichthese massacres were contemplated in most countries. It was made evidentthat a Power which retains its military strength, and which is thereforesought as an ally and feared as an enemy, may do things with impunity, and even with very little censure, which in the case of a weak nationwould produce a swift retribution. Among the minor episodes ofnineteenth-century history the historian will not forget how soon afterthe savage Armenian massacres the sovereign of one of the greatest andmost civilised of Christian nations hastened to Constantinople to claspthe hand which was so deeply dyed with Christian blood, and then, having, as he thought, sufficiently strengthened his popularity andinfluence in that quarter, proceeded to the Mount of Olives, where, amidscenes that are consecrated by the most sacred of all memories, and mostfitted to humble the pride of power and dispel the dreams of ambition, he proclaimed himself with melodramatic piety the champion and thepatron of the Christian faith! How many instances may be culled fromvery modern history of the deliberate falsehood of statesmen; ofdistinct treaty engagements and obligations simply set aside becausethey were inconvenient to one Power, and could be repudiated withimpunity; of weak nations annexed or plundered without a semblance ofreal provocation! The safety of the weak in the presence of the strongis the best test of international morality. Can it be said that, ifmeasured by this test, the public morality of our time ranks very high?No one can fail to notice with what levity the causes of war withbarbarous or semi-civilised nations are scrutinised if only those warsare crowned with success; how strongly the present commercial policy ofEurope is stimulating the passion for aggression; how warmly that policyis in all great nations supported by public opinion and by the Press. The questions of morality arising out of these things are many andcomplicated, and they cannot be disposed of by short and simple formulæ. How far is a statesman who sees, or thinks he sees, some crushing dangerfrom an aggressive foreign Power impending over his country, justifiedin anticipating that danger, and at a convenient moment and without anyimmediate provocation forcing on a war? How far is it his right or hisduty to sacrifice the lives of his people through humanitarian motives, for the redress of some flagrant wrong with which he is under no treatyobligation to interfere? How far, if several Powers agree to guaranteethe integrity of a small Power, is one Power bound at great risk tointerfere in isolation if its co-partners refuse to do so or are evenaccomplices in a policy of plunder? How far, if the aggression of otherPowers places his nation at a commercial or other disadvantage in thecompetition of nations, may a statesman take measures which, underother circumstances, would be plainly unjustifiable, to guard againstsuch disadvantage? With what degrees of punctiliousness, at what cost oftreasure and of life, ought a nation to resent insults directed againstits dignity, its subjects and its flag? What is the meaning and what arethe limits of national egotism and national unselfishness? There is sucha thing as the comity of nations, and even apart from treaty obligationsno great nation can pursue a policy of complete isolation, disregardingcrimes and aggressions beyond its border. On the other hand, the primaryduty of every statesman is to his own country. His task is to secure formany millions of the human race the highest possible amount of peace andprosperity, and a selfishness is at least not a narrow one which, whileabstaining from injuring others, restricts itself to promoting thehappiness of a vast section of the human race. Sacrifices and dangerswhich a good man would think it his clear duty to accept if they fell onhimself alone wear another aspect if he is acting as trustee for a greatnation and for the interests of generations who are yet unborn. Nothingis more calamitous than the divorce of politics from morals, but inpractical politics public and private morals will never absolutelycorrespond. The public opinion of the nation will inevitably inspire andcontrol its statesmen. It creates in all countries an ethical code whichwith greater or less perfection marks out for them the path of duty, andthough a great statesman may do something to raise its level, he cannever wholly escape its influence. In different nations it is higher orlower--in truthfulness and sincerity of diplomacy the variations arevery great--but it will never be the exact code on which men act inprivate life. It is certainly widely different from the Sermon on theMount. There is one belief, half unconscious, half avowed, which in ourgeneration is passing widely over the world and is practically acceptedin a very large measure by the English-speaking nations. It is that toreclaim savage tribes to civilisation, and to place the outlyingdominions of civilised countries which are anarchical or grosslymisgoverned in the hands of rulers who govern wisely and uprightly, aresufficient justification for aggression and conquest. Many who, as ageneral rule, would severely censure an unjust and unprovoked war, carried on for the purpose of annexation by a strong Power against aweak one, will excuse or scarcely condemn such a war if it is directedagainst a country which has shown itself incapable of good government. To place the world in the hands of those who can best govern it islooked upon as a supreme end. Wars are not really undertaken for thisend. The philanthropy of nations when it takes the form of war andconquest is seldom or never unmixed with selfishness, though stronggusts of humanitarian enthusiasm often give an impulse, a pretext, or asupport to the calculated actions of statesmen. But when wars, howeverselfish and unprovoked, contribute to enlarge the boundaries ofcivilisation, to stimulate real progress, to put an end to savagecustoms, to oppression or to anarchy, they are now very indulgentlyjudged even in the many cases in which the inhabitants of the conqueredPower do not desire the change and resist it strenuously in the field. In domestic as in foreign politics the maintenance of a high moralstandard in statesmanship is impossible unless the public opinion of thecountry is in harmony with it. Moral declension in a nation is veryswiftly followed by a corresponding decadence among its public men, andit will indeed be generally found that the standard of public men is aptto be somewhat lower than that of the better section of the publicoutside. They are exposed to very special temptations, some of which Ihave already indicated. The constant habit of regarding questions with a view to partyadvantage, to proximate issues, to immediate popularity, which isinseparable from parliamentary government, can hardly fail to give someply to the most honest intellect. Most questions have to be treated moreor less in the way of compromise; and alliances and coalitions not veryconducive to a severe standard of political morals are frequent. InEngland the leading men of the opposing parties have happily usuallybeen able to respect one another. The same standard of honour will befound on both sides of the House, but every parliament contains itsnotorious agitators, intriguers and self-seekers, men who have beenconnected with acts which may or may not have been brought within thereach of the criminal law, but have at least been sufficient to stamptheir character in the eyes of honest men. Such men cannot be neglectedin party combinations. Political leaders must co-operate with them inthe daily intercourse and business of parliamentary life--must sometimesask them favours--must treat them with deference and respect. Men who onsome subjects and at some times have acted with glaring profligacy, onothers act with judgment, moderation and even patriotism, and becomeuseful supporters or formidable opponents. Combinations are in this wayformed which are in no degree wrong, but which tend to dull the edge ofmoral perception and imperceptibly to lower the standard of moraljudgment. In the swift changes of the party kaleidoscope the bygone issoon forgotten. The enemy of yesterday is the ally of to-day; theservices of the present soon obscure the misdeeds of the past; and meninsensibly grow very tolerant not only of diversities of opinion, butalso of gross aberrations of conduct. The constant watchfulness ofexternal opinion is very necessary to keep up a high standard ofpolitical morality. Public opinion, it is true, is by no means impeccable. The tendency tobelieve that crimes cease to be crimes when they have a politicalobject, and that a popular vote can absolve the worst crimes, is onlytoo common; there are few political misdeeds which wealth, rank, geniusor success will not induce large sections of English society to pardon, and nations even in their best moments will not judge acts which aregreatly for their own advantage with the severity of judgment that theywould apply to similar acts of other nations. But when all this isadmitted, it still remains true that there is a large body of publicopinion in England which carries into all politics a sound moral senseand which places a just and righteous policy higher than any mere partyinterest. It is on the power and pressure of this opinion that the highcharacter of English government must ultimately depend. FOOTNOTES: [42] This sentence may appear obscure to English readers. Theexplanation is, that by an ingenious arrangement, devised by LordBeaconsfield, the professors of the Jesuit College in Stephen's Greenare nearly all made Fellows of the Royal University, those of the ArtsFaculty receiving 400_l. _ a year, and three Medical Fellows 150_l. _each. By this device the Catholic college has in reality a Stateendowment to the amount of between 6, 000_l. _ and 7, 000_l. _ a year. Thisfact considerably reduces the grievance. [43] See e. G. The death-bed counsels of Henry IV. To his son:-- 'Therefore, my Harry, Be it thy course to busy giddy minds With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out, May waste the memory of the former days. ' _Henry IV_. Part II. Act IV. Sc. 4. [44] Lord Lanesborough _v. _ Reilly. [45] See Tocqueville's _Memoirs_ (English trans. ), ii. 189, Letter tothe _Times_. [46] See Maupas, _Mémoires sur le Second Empire_, i. 511, 512. It issaid that, contrary to the orders of St. -Arnaud, the soldiers, insteadof immediately shooting all persons in the street who were found witharms or constructing or defending a barricade, made many prisoners, andit is not clear what became of them. Granier de Cassagnac, however, altogether denies the executions on the Champ de Mars (ii. 433). [47] Granier de Cassagnac, ii. 438. [48] _L'Empire Libéral_, ii. 526. [49] _Mémoires d'Odilon Barrot_, iv. 59-61. [50] _Mémoires d'Odilon Barrot_, iv. 56, 57. [51] See Lord Palmerston's statements on this subject in Ashley's _Lifeof Palmerston_, ii. 200-211. Tocqueville, however, utterly denies thatthe majority of the Assembly had any sympathy with these views(Tocqueville's _Memoirs_ (Eng. Trans. ), ii. 177). Maupas, in his_Mémoires_, gives a very detailed account of the conspiracy on theBonapartist side. It appears that the 'homme de confiance' ofChangarnier was in his pay. [52] Tocqueville's _Memoirs_, ii. [53] Ashley's _Life of Palmerston_, ii. 208. [54] Newman. [55] See Ollivier, _L'Empire Libéral_, i. 510-512. [56] _Second Report of the Select Committee on British South Africa_(July, 1897). [57] _Parliamentary Debates_, July 26, 1897, 1169, 1170. CHAPTER XI The necessities for moral compromise I have traced in the army, in thelaw, and in the fields of politics may be found in another form not lessconspicuously in the Church. The members, and still more the ministers, of an ancient Church bound to formularies and creeds that were drawn upin long bygone centuries, are continually met by the difficulties ofreconciling these forms with the changed conditions of human knowledge, and there are periods when the pressure of these difficulties is feltwith more than common force. Such, for example, were the periods of theRenaissance and the Reformation, when changes in the intellectualcondition of Europe produced a widespread conviction of the vast amountof imposture and delusion which had received the sanction of a Churchthat claimed to be infallible, the result being in some countries asilent evanescence of all religious belief among the educated class, even including a large number of the leaders of the Church, and in othercountries a great outburst of religious zeal aiming at the restorationof Christianity to its primitive form and a repudiation of theaccretions of superstition that had gathered around it. The Copernicantheory proving that our world is not, as was long believed, the centreof the universe, but a single planet moving with many others around acentral sun, and the discovery, by the instrumentality of thetelescope, of the infinitesimally small place which our globe occupiesin the universe, altered men's measure of probability and affectedwidely, though indirectly, their theological beliefs. A similar change was gradually produced by the Newtonian discovery thatthe whole system of the universe was pervaded by one great law, and bythe steady growth of scientific knowledge, proving that vast numbers ofphenomena which were once attributed to isolated and capricious acts ofspiritual intervention were regulated by invariable, inexorable, all-pervasive law. Many of the formularies by which we still express ourreligious beliefs date from periods when comets and eclipses werebelieved to have been sent to portend calamity; when every greatmeteorological change was attributed to some isolated spiritual agency;when witchcraft and diabolical possession, supernatural diseases, andsupernatural cures were deemed indubitable facts: and when accounts ofcontemporary miracles, Divine or Satanic, carried with them no sense ofstrangeness or improbability. It is scarcely surprising that theseformularies sometimes seem incongruous with an age when the scientificspirit has introduced very different conceptions of the government ofthe universe, and when the miraculous, if it is not absolutelydiscredited, is, at least in the eyes of most educated men, relegated toa distant past. The present century has seen some powerful reactions towards olderreligious beliefs, but it has also been to an unusual extent fertile inthe kind of changes that most deeply affect them. Not many years havepassed since the whole drama of the world's history was believed tohave been comprised in the framework of 'Paradise Lost' and 'ParadiseRegained. ' Man appeared in the universe a faultless being in a faultlessworld, but he soon fell from his first estate, and his fall entailedworld-wide consequences. It introduced into our globe sin, death, suffering, disease, imperfection and decay; all the mischievous andferocious instincts and tendencies of man and beast; all themultitudinous forms of struggle, terror, anxiety and grief; all thatmakes life bitter to any living being, and, even as the Fathers wereaccustomed to say, the briars and weeds and sterility of the earth. Paradise Regained was believed to be indissolubly connected withParadise Lost. The one was the explanation of the other. The oneintroduced the disease, the other provided the remedy. It is idle to deny that the main outlines of this picture have beenwholly changed. First came the discovery that the existence of our globestretches far beyond the period once assigned to the Creation, and thatfor countless ages before the time when Adam was believed to have lostParadise, death had been its most familiar fact and its inexorable law;that the animals who inhabited it preyed upon and devoured each other asat present, their claws and teeth being specially adapted for thatpurpose. Even their half-digested remains have been preserved in fossil. 'Death, ' wrote a Pagan philosopher, in sharp contrast to the teaching ofthe Church, 'is a law and not a punishment, ' and geology has fullyjustified his assertion. Then came decisive evidence showing that for many thousands of yearsbefore his supposed origin man had lived and died upon our globe--abeing, as far as can be judged from the remains that have beenpreserved, not superior but greatly inferior to ourselves, whose almostonly art was the manufacture of rude instruments for killing, whoappears in structure and in life to have approximated closely to thelowest existing forms of savage life. Then came the Darwinian theory maintaining that the whole history of theliving world is a history of slow and continuous evolution, chiefly bymeans of incessant strife, from lower to higher forms; that man himselfhad in this way gradually emerged from the humblest forms of the animalworld; that most of the moral deflections which were attributed to theapple in Eden are the remains and traditions of the earlier and lowerstages of his existence. The theory of continuous ascent from a lower toa higher stage took the place of the theory of the Fall as theexplanation of human history. It is a doctrine which is certainly notwithout hope for the human race. It gives no explanation of the ultimateorigin of things, and it is in no degree inconsistent with the beliefeither in a Divine and Creative origin or in a settled and Providentialplan. But it is as far as possible removed from the conception of humanhistory and human nature which Christendom during eighteen centuriesaccepted as fundamental truth. With these things have come influences of another kind. ComparativeMythology has accumulated a vast amount of evidence, showing how mythsand miracles are the natural product of certain stages of humanhistory, of certain primitive misconceptions of the course of nature;how legends essentially of the same kind, though with some varieties ofdetail, have sprung up in many different quarters, and how they havemigrated and interacted on each other. Biblical criticism has at thesame time decomposed and analysed the Jewish writings, assigning to themdates and degrees of authority very different from those recognised bythe Church. It has certainly not impaired their significance as recordsof successive developments of religious and moral progress, nor has itdiminished their value as expressions of the loftiest and most enduringreligious sentiments of mankind; but in the eyes of a great section ofthe educated world it has deprived them of the authoritative andinfallible character that was once attributed to them. At the same timehistorical criticism has brought with it severer standards of proof, more efficient means of distinguishing the historical from the fabulous. It has traced the phases and variations of religions, and the influencesthat governed them, with a fulness of knowledge and an independence ofjudgment unknown in the past, and it has led its votaries to regard inthese matters a sceptical and hesitating spirit as a virtue, andcredulity and easiness of belief as a vice. This is not a book of theology, and I have no intention of dilating onthese things. It must, however, be manifest to all who are acquaintedwith contemporary thought how largely these influences have displacedtheological beliefs among great numbers of educated men; how many thingsthat were once widely believed have become absolutely incredible; howmany that were once supposed to rest on the plane of certainty have nowsunk to the lower plane of mere probability or perhaps possibility. Fromthe time of Galileo downwards, these changes have been denounced asincompatible with the whole structure of Christian belief. No less anapologist than Bishop Berkeley declared that the belief that the date ofthe existence of the world was approximately that which could be deducedfrom the book of Genesis was one of the fundamental beliefs which couldnot be given up. [58] When the traveller Brydone published his travels inSicily in 1773, conjecturing, from the deposits of lava, that the worldmust be much older than the Mosaic cosmogony admitted, his work wasdenounced as subverting the foundations of the Christian faith. The samecharges were brought against the earlier geologists, and in our own dayagainst the early supporters of the Darwinian theory; and many nowliving can remember the outbursts of indignation against those who firstintroduced the principles of German criticism into English thought, andwho impugned the historical character and the assumed authorship of thePentateuch. It is not surprising or unreasonable that it should have been so, for itis impossible to deny that these changes have profoundly altered largeportions of the beliefs that were once regarded as essential. One mainobject of a religion was believed to have been to furnish what may becalled a theory of the universe--to explain its origin, its destiny, andthe strange contradictions and imperfections it presents. The Jewishtheory was a very clear and definite one, but it is certainly not thatof modern science. Yet few things are more remarkable than the facility with which thesesuccessive changes have gradually found their places within theEstablished Church, and how little that Church has been shaken by thisfact. Even the Darwinian theory, though it has not yet passed into thecircle of fully established truth, is in its main lines constantlymentioned with approbation by the clergy of the Church. The theory ofevolution largely pervades their teaching. The doctrine that the Biblewas never intended to teach science or scientific facts, and also themain facts and conclusions of modern Biblical criticism, have beenlargely accepted among the most educated clergy. Very few of them wouldnow deny the antiquity of the world, the antiquity of man, or theantiquity of death, or would maintain that the Mosaic cosmogony was atrue and literal account of the origin of the globe and of man, or wouldvery strenuously argue either for the Mosaic authorship or theinfallibility of the Pentateuch. And while changes of this kind have been going on in one direction, another great movement has been taking place in an opposite one. TheChurch of England was essentially a Protestant Church; though, beingconstructed more than most other Churches under political influences, bysuccessive stages of progress, and with a view to including large andvarying sections of opinion in its fold, it retained, more than otherChurches, formularies and tenets derived from the Church it superseded. The earnest Protestant and Puritan party which dominated in Scotlandand in the Continental Reformation, and which refused all compromisewith Rome, had not become powerful in English public opinion till sometime after the framework of the Church was established. The spirit ofcompromise and conservatism which already characterised the Englishpeople; the great part which kings and lawyers played in the formationof the Church; their desire to maintain in England a single body, comprising men who had broken away from the Papacy but who had in otherrespects no great objection to Roman Catholic forms and doctrines, andalso men seriously imbued with the strong Protestant feeling of Germanyand Switzerland; the strange ductility of belief and conduct thatinduced the great majority of the English clergy to retain theirpreferments and avoid persecution during the successive changes of HenryVIII. , Edward VI. , Mary, and Elizabeth, all assisted in forming a Churchof a very composite character. Two distinct theories found their placewithin it. According to one school it was simply the pre-ReformationChurch purified from certain abuses that had gathered around it, organically united with it through a divinely appointed episcopacy, resting on an authoritative and ecclesiastical basis, and forming one ofthe three great branches of the Catholic Church. According to the otherschool it was one of several Protestant Churches, retaining indeed suchportions of the old ecclesiastical organisation as might be justifiedfrom Scripture, but not regarding them as among the essentials ofChristianity; agreeing with other Protestant bodies in what wasfundamental, and differing from them mainly on points which werenon-essential; accepting cordially the principle that 'the Bible andthe Bible alone is the religion of Protestants, ' and at the same timeseparated by the gravest and most vital differences from what theydeemed the great apostasy of Rome. It was argued on the one hand that in its ecclesiastical and legalorganisation the Church in England was identical with the Church in thereign of Henry VII. ; that there had been no breach of continuity; thatbishops, and often the same bishops, sat in the same sees before andafter the Reformation; that the great majority of the parochial clergywere unchanged, holding their endowments by the same titles and tenures, subject to the same courts, and meeting in Convocation in the samemanner as their predecessors; that the old Catholic services were merelytranslated and revised, and that although Roman usurpations which hadnever been completely acquiesced in had been decisively rejected, andalthough many superstitious novelties had been removed, the Church ofEngland was still the Church of St. Augustine; that it had never, evenin the darkest period, lost its distinct existence, and thatsupernatural graces and sacerdotal powers denied to all schismatics haddescended to it through the Episcopacy in an unbroken stream. On theother hand it was argued that the essential of a true Church lay in theaccordance of its doctrines with the language of Scripture and not inthe methods of Church government, and that whatever might be the case ina legal point of view, the theory of the unity of the Church before andafter the Reformation was in a theological sense a delusion. The Churchunder Henry VII. Was emphatically a theocracy or ecclesiasticalmonarchy, the Pope, as the supposed successor of the supposed prince ofthe Apostles, being the very keystone of the spiritual arch. Under HenryVIII. And Elizabeth the Church of England had become a kind ofaristocracy of bishops, governed very really as well as theoretically bythe Crown, totally cut off from what called itself the Chair of Peter, and placed under completely new relations with the Catholic Church ofChristendom. In this space of time Anglican Christianity had discardednot only the Papacy but also great part of what for centuries before thechange had been deemed vitally and incontestably necessary both in itstheology and in its devotions. Though much of the old organisation andmany of the old formularies had been retained, its articles, itshomilies, the constant teaching of its founders, breathed a spirit ofunquestionable Protestantism. The Church which remained attached toRome, and which held the same doctrines, practised the same devotions, and performed the same ceremonies as the English Church under HenryVII. , professed to be infallible, and it utterly repudiated allconnection with the new Church of England, and regarded it as nothingmore than a Protestant schism; while the Church of England in herauthorised formularies branded some of the central beliefs and devotionsof the Roman Church as blasphemous, idolatrous, superstitious anddeceitful, and was long accustomed to regard that Church as the Churchof Antichrist; the Harlot of the Apocalypse, drunk with the blood of theSaints. Each Church during long periods and to the full measure of itspowers suppressed or persecuted the other. In the eyes of the Erastian and also in the eyes of the Puritan thetheory of the spiritual unity of these two bodies, and the varioussacerdotal consequences that were inferred from it, seemed incredible, nor did the first generation of our reformers shrink from communion, sympathy and co-operation with the non-episcopal Protestants of theContinent. Although they laid great stress on patristic authority, andconsented--chiefly through political motives--to leave in thePrayer-book many things derived from the older Church, yet the HighChurch theory of Anglicanism is much more the product of theseventeenth-century divines than of the reformers, just as RomanCatholicism is much more akin to the later fathers than to primitiveChristianity. No one could doubt on what side were the sympathies andwhat were the opinions of Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Jewell and Hooper, and what spirit pervades the articles and the homilies. A Church whichdoes not claim to be infallible; which owes its special form chiefly tothe sagacity of statesmen; in which the supreme tribunal, deciding whatdoctrines may be taught by the clergy, is a secular law court; in whichthe bands of conformity are so loose that the tendencies and sentimentsof the nation give the complexion to the Church, appears in the eyes ofmen of these schools to have no possible right to claim or share theauthority of the Church of Rome. It rests on another basis. It must bejustified on other grounds. These two distinct schools, however, have subsisted in the Church. Eachof them can find some support in the Prayer-book, and the old orthodoxHigh Church school which was chiefly elaborated and which chieflyflourished under the Stuarts, has produced a great part of the mostlearned theology of Christendom, and had in its early days little or notendency to Rome. It was exclusive and repellent on the side ofNonconformity, and it placed Church authority very high; but the immensemajority of its members were intensely loyal to the Anglican Church, andlived and died contentedly within its pale. There were, however, alwaysin that Church men of another kind whose true ideal lay beyond itsborder. Falkland, in a remarkable speech, delivered in 1640, speaks ofthem with much bitterness. 'Some, ' he says, 'have so industriouslylaboured to deduce themselves from Rome that they have given greatsuspicion that in gratitude they desire to return thither, or at leastto meet it half way. Some have evidently laboured to bring in an Englishthough not a Roman Popery; I mean not only the outside and dress of it, but equally absolute. .. . Nay, common fame is more than ordinarily falseif none of them have found a way to reconcile the opinions of Rome tothe preferments of England, and be so absolutely, directly and cordiallyPapists that it is all that 1, 500_l. _ a year can do to keep them fromconfessing it. '[59] No wide secession to Rome, however, followed the development of thisseventeenth-century school, though it played a large part in thenonjuror schism, and with the decay of that schism and under thelatitudinarian tendencies of the eighteenth century it greatly dwindled. Since, however, the Tractarian movement, which carried so many leadersof the English Church to Rome, men of Roman sympathies and Roman idealshave multiplied within the Church to an extraordinary degree. They havenot only carried their theological pretensions in the direction of Romemuch further than the nonjurors; they have also in many cases sotransformed the old and simple Anglican service by vestments andcandles, and banners and incense, and genuflexions and whisperedprayers, that a stranger might well imagine that he was in a RomanCatholic church. They have put forward sacerdotal pretensions little, ifat all, inferior to those of Rome. The whole tendency of theirdevotional literature and thought flows in the Roman channel, and evenin the most insignificant matters of ceremony and dress they areaccustomed to pay the greater Church the homage of constant imitation. It would be unjust to deny that there are some real differences. Theabsolute authority and infallibility of the Pope are sincerelyrepudiated as an usurpation, the ritualist theory only conceding to hima primacy among bishops. The discipline and submission to ecclesiasticalauthority also, which so eminently distinguish the Roman Church, arewholly wanting in many of its Anglican imitators, and at the same timethe English sense of truth has proved sufficient to save the party fromthe tolerance and propagation of false miracles and of grosslysuperstitious practices so common in Roman Catholic countries. In thislast respect, however, it is probable that English and American RomanCatholics are almost equally distinguished from Catholics in theSouthern States of Europe and of America. Still, when all this isadmitted, it can hardly be denied that there has grown up in a greatsection of the English Church a sympathy with Rome and an antipathy toProtestantism and to Protestant types of thought and character utterlyalien to the spirit of the Reformers and to the doctrinal formularies ofthe Church of England. It is not very easy to form a just estimate of the extent and depth ofthis movement. There are wide variations in the High Church party; theextreme men are not the most numerous and certainly very far from theablest, and many influences other than convinced belief have tended tostrengthen the party. It has been, indeed, unlike the Tractarian partywhich preceded it, remarkably destitute of literary or theologicalability, and has added singularly little to the large and nobletheological literature of the English Church. The mere charm of novelty, which is always especially powerful in the field of religion, draws manyto the ritualistic channel, and thousands who care very little forritualistic doctrines are attracted by the music, the pageantry, thepictorial beauty of the ritualistic services. Æsthetic tastes have oflate years greatly increased in England, and the closing of places ofamusement on Sunday probably strengthens the craving for more attractiveservices. The extreme High Church party has chiefly fostered and chieflybenefited by this desire, but it has extended much more widely. It hastouched even puritanical and non-episcopal bodies, and it is sometimescombined with extremely latitudinarian opinions. There is, indeed, atype of mind which finds in such services a happy anodyne forhalf-suppressed doubt. Petitions which in their poignant humiliation andprofound emotion no longer correspond to the genuine feelings of theworshipper, seem attenuated and transformed when they are intoned, andcreeds which when plainly read shock the understanding and theconscience are readily accepted as parts of a musical performance. Scepticism as well as belief sometimes fills churches. Large classes whohave no wish to cut themselves off from religious services have lost allinterest in the theological distinctions which once were deemedsupremely important and all strong belief in great parts of dogmaticsystems, and such men naturally prefer services which by music andornament gratify their tastes and exercise a soothing or stimulatinginfluence over the imagination. The extreme High Church party has, however, other elements ofattraction. Much of its power is due to the new springs of realspiritual life and the new forms of real usefulness and charity thatgrew out of its highly developed sacerdotal system and out of thesemi-monastic confraternities which at once foster and encourage andorganise an active zeal. The power of the party in acting not only onthe cultivated classes but also on the poor is very manifest, and it hasdone much to give the Church of England a democratic character which inpast generations it did not possess, and which in the conditions ofmodern life is supremely important. The multiplication not only ofreligious services but of communicants, and the great increase in theinterest taken in Church life in quarters where the Ritualist partyprevail, cannot reasonably be questioned. Its highly ornate servicesdraw many into the churches who never entered them before, and they areoften combined with a familiar and at the same time impassioned style ofpreaching, something like that of a Franciscan friar or a Methodistpreacher, which is excellently fitted to act upon the ignorant. If itsclergy have been distinguished for their insubordination to theirbishops, if they have displayed in no dubious manner a keen desire toaggrandise their own position and authority, it is also but just to addthat they have been prominent for the zeal and self-sacrifice with whichthey have multiplied services, created confraternities, and penetratedinto the worst and most obscure haunts of poverty and vice. The result, however, of all this is that the conflicting tendencieswhich have always been present in the Church have been greatly deepened. There are to be found within it men whose opinions can hardly bedistinguished from simple Deism or Unitarianism, and men who abjure thename of Protestant and are only divided by the thinnest of partitionsfrom the Roman Church. And this diversity exists in a Church which isheld together by articles and formularies of the sixteenth century. It might, perhaps, _a priori_ have been imagined that a Church with somuch diversity of opinion and of spirit was an enfeebled anddisintegrated Church, but no candid man will attribute such a characterto the Church of England. All the signs of corporate vitality areabundantly displayed, and it is impossible to deny that it is playing anactive, powerful, and most useful part in English life. Looking at itfirst of all from the intellectual side, it is plain how large aproportion of the best intellect of the country is contented, not onlyto live within it, but to take an active part in its ministrations. Compare the amount of higher literature which proceeds from clergymen ofthe Established Church with the amount which proceeds from the vastlygreater body of Catholic priests scattered over the world; compare theplace which the English clergy, or laymen deeply imbued with theteaching of the Church, hold in English literature with the place whichCatholic priests, or sincere Catholic laymen, hold in the literature ofFrance, --and the contrast will appear sufficiently evident. There ishardly a branch of serious English literature in which Anglican clergyare not conspicuous. There is nothing in a false and superstitious creedincompatible with some forms of literature. It may easily ally itselfwith the genius of a poet or with great beauty of style either hortatoryor narrative. But in the Church of England literary achievement iscertainly not restricted to these forms. In the fields of physicalscience, in the fields of moral philosophy, metaphysics, social and evenpolitical philosophy, and perhaps still more in the fields of history, its clergy have won places in the foremost rank. It is notorious that alarge proportion of the most serious criticism, of the best periodicalwriting in England, is the work of Anglican clergymen. No one, inenumerating the leading historians of the present century, would omitsuch names as Milman, Thirlwall and Merivale, in the generation whichhas just passed away, or Creighton and Stubbs among contemporaries, andthese are only eminent examples of a kind of literature to which theChurch has very largely contributed. Their histories are not speciallyconspicuous for beauty of style, and not only conspicuous for theirprofound learning; they are marked to an eminent degree by judgment, criticism, impartiality, a desire for truth, a skill in separating theproved from the false or the merely probable. Compare them with thechief histories that have been written by Catholic priests. In past agessome of the greatest works of patient, lifelong industry in all literaryhistory were due to the Catholic priesthood, and especially to membersof the monastic orders; even in modern times they have produced someworks of great learning, of great dialectic skill, and of great beautyof style; but with scarcely an exception these works bear upon them thestamp of an advocate and are written for the purpose of proving a point, concealing or explaining away the faults on one side, and bringing intodisproportioned relief those of the other. No one would look in them fora candid estimate of the merits of an opponent or for a full statementof a hostile case. Döllinger, who would probably once have been cited asthe greatest historian the Catholic priesthood had produced in thenineteenth century, died under the anathema of his Church; and how largea proportion of the best writing in modern English Catholicism has comefrom writers who have been brought up in Protestant universities and whohave learnt their skill in the Anglican Church! It is at least one great test of a living Church that the best intellectof the country can enter into its ministry, that it contains men who innearly all branches of literature are looked upon by lay scholars withrespect or admiration. It is said that the number of young men ofability who take orders is diminishing, and that this is due, not merelyto the agricultural depression which has made the Church much lessdesirable as a profession, and indeed in many cases almost impossiblefor those who have not some private fortune; not merely to thecompetitive examination system, which has opened out vast and attractivefields of ambition to the ablest laymen, --but also to the widedivergence of men of the best intellect from the doctrines of theChurch, and the conviction that they cannot honestly subscribe itsarticles and recite its formularies. But although this is, I believe, true, it is also true that there is no other Church which has shownitself so capable of attracting and retaining the services of men ofgeneral learning, criticism and ability. One of the most importantfeatures of the English ecclesiastical system has been the education ofthose who are intended for the Church, in common with other students inthe great national universities. Other systems of education may producea clergy of greater professional learning and more intense and exclusivezeal, but no other system of education is so efficacious in maintaininga general harmony of thought and tendency between the Church and theaverage educated opinion of the nation. Take another test. Compare the _Guardian_, which represents better thanany other paper the opinions of moderate Churchmen, with the paperswhich are most read by the French priesthood and have most influence ontheir opinions. Certainly few English journalists have equalled inability Louis Veuillot, and few papers have exercised so great aninfluence over the clergy of the Church as the _Univers_ at the timewhen he directed it; but no one who read those savagely scurrilous andintolerant pages, burning with an impotent hatred of all the progressiveand liberal tendencies of the time, shrinking from no misrepresentationof fact and from no apology for crime if it was in the interest of theChurch, could fail to perceive how utterly out of harmony it was withthe best lay thought of France. English religious journalism hassometimes, though in a very mitigated degree, exhibited some of thesecharacteristics, but no one who reads the _Guardian_, which I supposeappeals to a larger clerical public than any other paper, can fail torealise the contrast. It is not merely that it is habitually written inthe style and temper of a gentleman, but that it reflects most clearlyin its criticism, its impartiality, its tone of thought, the bestintellectual influences of the time. Men may agree or differ about itspolitics or its theology, but no one who reads it can fail to admit thatit is thoroughly in touch with cultivated lay opinion, and it is in facta favourite paper of many who care only for its secular aspects. The intellectual ability, however, included among the ministers of aChurch, though one test, is by no means a decisive and infallible one ofits religious life. During the period of the Renaissance, when genuinebelief in the Catholic Church had sunk to nearly its lowest point, mostmen of literary tastes and talents were either members of the priesthoodor of the monastic orders. This was not due to any fervour of belief, but simply to the fact that the Church at that time furnished almost theonly sphere in which a literary life could be pursued with comfort, without molestation, and with some adequate reward. Much of the literaryability found in the English Church is unquestionably due to theattraction it offers and the facilities it gives to those who simplywish for a studious life. The abolition of many clerical sinecures, andthe greatly increased activity of clerical duty imposed by contemporaryopinion, have no doubt rendered the profession less desirable from thispoint of view; but even now there is no other profession outside theuniversities which lends itself so readily to a literary life, and agreat proportion of the most eminent thinkers and writers in the Churchof England are eminent in fields that have little or no connection withtheology. Other tests of a flourishing Church are needed, but they can easily befound. Political power is one test, though it is a very coarse and verydeceptive one. Perhaps it is not too much to say that the mostsuperstitious creeds are often those which exercise the greatestpolitical influence, for they are those in which the priesthood acquiresthe most absolute authority. Nor does the decline of superstition amongthe educated classes always bring with it a corresponding decline inecclesiastical influence. There have been instances, both in Pagan andChristian times, of a sceptical and highly educated ruling classsupporting and allying themselves with a superstitious Church as thebest means of governing or moralising the masses. Such Churches, bytheir skilful organisation, by their ascendency over individual rulers, or by their political alliances, have long exercised an enormousinfluence, and in a democratic age the preponderance of political poweris steadily passing from the most educated classes. At the same time, ina highly civilised and perfectly free country, in which all laws ofreligious disqualification and coercion have disappeared, and allquestions of religion are submitted to perpetual discussion, thepolitical power which the Church of England retains at least proves thatshe has a vast weight of genuine and earnest opinion behind her. Nopolitician will deny the strength with which the united or greatlypreponderating influence of the Church can support or oppose a party. Ithas been said by a cynical observer that the three things outside theirown families that average Englishmen value the most are rank, money, andthe Church of England, and certainly no good observer will form a lowestimate of the strength or earnestness of the Church feeling in everysection of the English people. Still less can it be denied that the Church retains in a high degree itseducational influence. For a long period national education was almostwholly in its hands, and, since all disqualifications and mostprivileges have been abolished, it still exercises a part in Englisheducation which excites the alarm of some and the admiration of others. It has thrown itself heartily into the new political conditions, and thevast number of voluntary schools established under clerical influence, and the immense sums that are annually raised for clerical purposes, show beyond all doubt the amount of support and enthusiasm behind it. Inevery branch of higher education its clergy are conspicuous, and theirinfluence in training the nation is not confined to the pulpit, theuniversity, or the school. No candid observer of English life willdoubt the immense effect of the parochial system in sustaining the morallevel both of principle and practice, and the multitude, activity, andvalue of the philanthropic and moralising agencies which are wholly orlargely due to the Anglican Church. Nor can it be reasonably doubted that the Church has been veryefficacious in promoting that spiritual life which, whatever opinion menmay form of its origin and meaning, is at least one of the greatrealities of human nature. The power of a religion is not to be solelyor mainly judged by its corporate action; by the institutions itcreates; by the part which it plays in the government of the world. Itis to be found much more in its action on the individual soul, andespecially in those times and circumstances when man is most isolatedfrom society. It is in furnishing the ideals and motives of individuallife; in guiding and purifying the emotions; in promoting habits ofthought and feeling that rise above the things of earth; in the comfortit can give in age, sorrow, disappointment and bereavement; in theseasons of sickness, weakness, declining faculties, and approachingdeath, that its power is most felt. No one creed or Church has themonopoly of this power, though each has often tried to identify it withsomething peculiar to itself. It maybe found in the Catholic and in theQuaker, in the High Anglican who attributes it to his sacramentalsystem, and in the Evangelical in whose eyes that system holds only avery subordinate place. All that need here be said is that no one whostudies the devotional literature of the English Church, or who haswatched the lives of its more devout members, will doubt that this lifecan largely exist and flourish within its pale. The attitude which men who have been born within that Church, but whohave come to dissent from large portions of its theology, should bear tothis great instrument of good, is certainly not less perplexing than thequestions we have been considering in the preceding chapters. The mostdifficult position is, of course, that of those who are its actualministers and who have subscribed its formularies. Each man so situatedmust judge in the light of his own conscience. There is a greatdifference between the case of men who accept such a position in theChurch though they differ fundamentally from its tenets, and the case ofmen who, having engaged in its service, find their old convictionsmodified or shaken, perhaps very gradually, by the advance of science orby more matured thought and study. The stringency of the old form ofsubscription has been much mitigated by an Act of 1865 which substituteda general declaration that the subscriber believed in the doctrine ofthe Church as a whole, for a declaration that he believed 'all andeverything' in the Articles and the Prayer-book. The Church of Englanddoes not profess to be an infallible Church; it does profess to be aNational Church representing and including great bodies of more or lessdivergent opinion, and the whole tendency of legal decisions since theGorham case has been to enlarge the circle of permissible opinion. Thepossibility of the National Church remaining in touch with the moreinstructed and intellectual portions of the community depends mainly onthe latitude of opinion that is accorded to its clergy, and on theirpower of welcoming and adopting new knowledge, and it may reasonably bemaintained that few greater calamities can befall a nation than theseverance of its higher intelligence from religious influences. It should be remembered, too, that on the latitudinarian side thechanges that take place in the teaching of the Church consist much lessin the open repudiation of old doctrines than in their silentevanescence. They drop out of the exhortations of the pulpit. Therelative importance of different portions of the religious teaching ischanged. Dogma sinks into the background. Narratives which are no longerseriously believed become texts for moral disquisitions. Theintrospective habits and the stress laid on purely ecclesiastical dutieswhich once preponderated disappear. The teaching of the pulpit tendsrather to the formation of active, useful and unselfish lives; to aclearer insight into the great masses of remediable suffering and needthat still exist in the world; to the duty of carrying into all thewalks of secular life a nobler and more unselfish spirit; to a habit ofjudging men and Churches mainly by their fruits and very little by theirbeliefs. The disintegration or decadence of old religious beliefs whichhad long been closely associated with moral teaching always brings withit grave moral dangers, but those dangers are greatly diminished whenthe change of belief is effected by a gradual transition, without anyviolent convulsion or disruption severing men from their old religiousobservances. Such a transition has silently taken place in Englandamong great numbers of educated men, and in some measure under theinfluence of the clergy. Nor has it, I think, weakened the Church. Thestandard of duty among such men has not sunk, but has in mostdepartments perceptibly risen: their zeal has not diminished, though itflows rather in philanthropic than in purely ecclesiastical channels. The conviction that the special dogmas which divided other Protestantbodies from the Establishment rested on no substantial basis and have noreal importance tells in favour of the larger and the more liberalChurch, and the comprehensiveness which allows highly accentuatedsacerdotalism and latitudinarianism in the same Church is in the eyes ofmany of them rather an element of strength than of weakness. Few men have watched the religious tendencies of the time with a keenereye than Cardinal Newman, and no man hated with a more intense hatredthe latitudinarian tendencies which he witnessed. His judgment of theireffect on the Establishment is very remarkable. In a letter to hisfriend Isaac Williams he says: 'Everything I hear makes me fear thatlatitudinarian opinions are spreading furiously in the Church ofEngland. I grieve deeply at it. The Anglican Church has been a mostuseful breakwater against Scepticism. The time might come when you, aswell as I, might expect that it would be said above, "Why cumbereth itthe ground?" but at present it upholds far more truth in England thanany other form of religion would, and than the Catholic Roman Churchcould. But what I fear is that it is _tending_ to a powerfulEstablishment teaching direct error, and more powerful than it has everbeen; thrice powerful because it does teach error. '[60] It is, however, of course, evident that the latitude of opinion whichmay be reasonably claimed by the clergy of a Church encumbered with manyarticles and doctrinal formularies is not unlimited, and each man mustfor himself draw the line. The fact, too, that the Church is anEstablished Church imposes some special obligations on its ministers. Itis their first duty to celebrate public worship in such a form that allmembers of the Church of England may be able to join in it. Whateverinterpretations may be placed upon the ceremonies of the Church, thoseceremonies, at least, should be substantially the same. A stranger whoenters a church which he has never before seen should be able to feelthat he is certain of finding public worship intelligibly and decentlyperformed, as in past generations it has been celebrated in all sectionsof the Established Church. It has, in my opinion, been a gross scandal, following a gross neglect of duty, that this primary obligation has beendefied, and that services are held in English churches which would havebeen almost unrecognisable by the churchmen of a former generation, andwhich are manifest attempts to turn the English public worship into animitation of the Romish Mass. Men have a perfect right, within thewidest limits, to perform what religious services and to preach whatreligious doctrines they please, but they have not a right to do so inan Established Church. The censorship of opinions is another thing, and in the conditions ofEnglish life it has never been very effectively maintained. The latitudeof opinion granted in an Established Church is, and ought to be, verygreat, but it is, I think, obvious that on some topics a greater degreeof reticence of expression should be observed by a clergyman addressinga miscellaneous audience from the pulpit of an Established Church thanneed be required of him in private life or even in his published books. The attitude of laymen whose opinions have come to diverge widely fromthe Church formularies is less perplexing, and except in as far as therecent revival of sacerdotal pretensions has produced a reaction, therehas, if I mistake not, of late years been a decided tendency in the bestand most cultivated lay opinion of this kind to look with increasingfavour on the Established Church. The complete abolition of thereligious and political disqualifications which once placed itsmaintenance in antagonism with the interests of large sections of thepeople; the abolition of the indelibility of orders which excludedclergymen who changed their views from all other means of livelihood;the greater elasticity of opinion permitted within its pale; and theelimination from the statute-book of nearly all penalties andrestrictions resting solely upon ecclesiastical grounds, --have alltended to diminish with such men the objections to the Church. It is aChurch which does not injure those who are external to it, or interferewith those who are mere nominal adherents. It is more and more lookedupon as a machine of well-organised beneficence, discharging efficientlyand without corruption functions of supreme utility, and constitutingone of the main sources of spiritual and moral life in the community. None of the modern influences of society can be said to have supersededit. Modern experience has furnished much evidence of the insufficiencyof mere intellectual education if it is unaccompanied by the educationof character, and it is on this side that modern education is mostdefective. While it undoubtedly makes men far more keenly sensible thanin the past to the vast inequalities of human lots, the habit ofconstantly holding out material prizes as its immediate objects, and thedisappearance of those coercive methods of education which oncedisciplined the will, make it perhaps less efficient as an instrument ofmoral amelioration. Some habits of thought also, that have grown rapidly among educated men, have tended powerfully in the same direction. The sharp contrastsbetween true and false in matters of theology have been considerablyattenuated. The point of view has changed. It is believed that in thehistory of the world gross and material conceptions of religion havebeen not only natural, but indispensable, and that it is only by agradual process of intellectual evolution that the masses of men becomeprepared for higher and purer conceptions. Superstition and illusionplay no small part in holding together the great fabric of society. 'Every falsehood, ' it has been said, 'is reduced to a certainmalleability by an alloy of truth, ' and, on the other hand, truths ofthe utmost moment are, in certain stages of the world's history, onlyoperative when they are clothed with a vesture of superstition. TheDivine Spirit filters down to the human heart through a gross andmaterial medium. And what is true of different stages of human historyis not less true of different contemporary strata of knowledge andintelligence. In spite of democratic declamation about the equality ofman, it is more and more felt that the same kind of teaching is not goodfor everyone. Truth, when undiluted, is too strong a medicine for manyminds. Some things which a highly cultivated intellect would probablydiscard, and discard without danger, are essential to the moral being ofmultitudes. There is in all great religious systems something that istransitory and something that is eternal. Theological interpretations ofthe phenomena of outward nature which surround and influence us, andmythological narratives which have been handed down to us from a remote, uncritical and superstitious past, may be transformed or discredited;but there are elements in religion which have their roots much less inthe reason of man than in his sorrows and his affections, and are theexpression of wants, moral appetites and aspirations which are anessential, indestructible part of his nature. No one, I think, can doubt that this way of thinking, whether it beright or wrong, has very widely spread through educated Europe, and itis a habit of thought which commonly strengthens with age. Young mendiscuss religious questions simply as questions of truth or falsehood. In later life they more frequently accept their creed as a workinghypothesis of life; as a consolation in innumerable calamities; as theone supposition under which life is not a melancholy anti-climax; asthe indispensable sanction of moral obligation; as the gratification andreflection of needs, instincts and longings which are planted in thedeepest recesses of human nature; as one of the chief pillars on whichsociety rests. The proselytising, the aggressive, the critical spiritdiminishes. Very often they deliberately turn away their thoughts fromquestions which appear to them to lead only to endless controversy or tomere negative conclusions, and base their moral life on some strongunselfish interest for the benefit of their kind. In active, useful andunselfish work they find the best refuge from the perplexities of beliefand the best field for the cultivation of their moral nature, and workdone for the benefit of others seldom fails to react powerfully on theirown happiness. Nor is it always those who have most completely abandoneddogmatic systems who are the least sensible to the moral beauty whichhas grown up around them. The music of the village church, which soundsso harsh and commonplace to the worshipper within, sometimes fills withtears the eyes of the stranger who sits without, listening among thetombs. It is difficult to say how far the partial truce which has now fallen inEngland over the great antagonisms of belief is likely to be permanent. No one who knows the world can be insensible to the fact that a largeand growing proportion of those who habitually attend our religiousservices have come to diverge very widely, though in many differentdegrees, from the beliefs which are expressed or implied in theformularies they use. Custom, fashion, the charm of old associations, the cravings of their own moral or spiritual nature, a desire tosupport a useful system of moral training, to set a good example totheir children, their household, or their neighbours, keep them in theirold place when the beliefs which they profess with their lips have in agreat measure ebbed away. I do not undertake to blame or to judge them. Individual conscience and character and particular circumstances have, in these matters, a decisive voice. But there are times when thedifference between professed belief and real belief is too great forendurance, and when insincerity and half-belief affect seriously themoral character of a nation. 'The deepest, nay, the only theme of theworld's history, to which all others are subordinate, ' said Goethe, 'isthe conflict of faith and unbelief. The epochs in which faith, inwhatever form it may be, prevails, are the marked epochs in humanhistory, full of heart-stirring memories and of substantial gains forall after times. The epochs in which unbelief, in whatever form it maybe, prevails, even when for the moment they put on the semblance ofglory and success, inevitably sink into insignificance in the eyes ofposterity, which will not waste its thoughts on things barren andunfruitful. ' Many of my readers have probably felt the force of such considerationsand the moral problems which they suggest, and there have been perhapsmoments when they have asked themselves the question of the poet-- Tell me, my soul, what is thy creed? Is it a faith or only a need? They will reflect, however, that a need, if it be universally felt whenhuman nature is in its highest and purest state, furnishes some basisof belief, and also that no man can venture to assign limits to thetransformations which religion may undergo without losing its essence orits power. Even in the field of morals these have been very great, though universal custom makes us insensible to the extent to which wehave diverged from a literal observance of Evangelical precepts. Weshould hardly write over the Savings Bank, 'Take no thought for themorrow, for the morrow will take thought for itself, ' or over the Bankof England, 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, ' 'Howhardly shall a rich man enter into the Kingdom of God, ' or over theForeign Office, or the Law Court, or the prison, 'Resist not evil, ' 'Hethat smiteth thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other also, ' 'Hethat taketh away thy coat let him have thy cloak also. ' Can it be saidthat the whole force and meaning of such words are represented by anindustrial society in which the formation of habits of constantprovidence with the object of averting poverty or increasing comfort isdeemed one of the first of duties and a main element and measure ofsocial progress; in which the indiscriminate charity which encouragesmendicancy and discourages habits of forethought and thrift is far moreseriously condemned than an industrial system based on the keenest, themost deadly, and often the most malevolent competition; in which wealthis universally sought, and universally esteemed a good and not an evil, provided only it is honestly obtained and wisely and generously used; inwhich, although wanton aggression and a violent and quarrelsome temperare no doubt condemned, it is esteemed the duty of every good citizento protect his rights whenever they are unjustly infringed; in which warand the preparation for war kindle the most passionate enthusiasm andabsorb a vast proportion of the energies of Christendom, and in which noGovernment could remain a week in power if it did not promptly resentthe smallest insult to the national flag? It is a question of a different kind whether the sacerdotal spirit whichhas of late years so largely spread in the English Church can extendwithout producing a violent disruption. To cut the tap roots ofpriestcraft was one of the main aims and objects of the Reformation, and, for reasons I have already stated, I do not believe that the partywhich would re-establish it has by any means the strength that has beenattributed to it. It is true that the Broad Church party, though itreflects faithfully the views of large numbers of educated laymen, hasnever exercised an influence in active Church life at all proportionateto the eminence of its leading representatives. It is true also that theEvangelical party has in a very remarkable degree lost its old place inthe Anglican pulpit and in religious literature, though its tenets stillform the staple of the preaching of the Salvation Army and of most otherstreet preachers who exercise a real and widespread influence over thepoor. But the middle and lower sections of English society are, Ibelieve, at bottom, profoundly hostile to priestcraft; and although thedread of Popery has diminished, they are very far from being ready toacquiesce in any attempt to restore the dominion which their fathersdiscarded. In one respect, indeed, sacerdotalism in the Anglican Church is a worsething than in the Roman Church, for it is undisciplined and unregulated. The history of the Church abundantly shows the dangers that have sprungfrom the Confessional, though the Roman Catholic will maintain that itshabitually restraining and moralising influence greatly outweighs theseoccasional abuses. But in the Roman Church the practice of confession iscarried on under the most severe ecclesiastical supervision anddiscipline. Confession can only be made to a celibate priest of matureage, who is bound to secrecy by the most solemn oath; who, except incases of grave illness, confesses only in an open church; and who hasgone through a long course of careful education specially and skilfullydesigned to fit him for the duty. None of these conditions are observedin Anglican Confession. In other respects, indeed, the sacerdotal spirit is never likely to bequite the same as in the Roman Church. A married clergy, who have mixedin all the lay influences of an English university, and who still takepart in the pursuits, studies, social intercourse and amusements oflaymen, are not likely to form a separate caste or to constitute a veryformidable priesthood. It is perhaps a little difficult to treat theirpretensions with becoming gravity, and the atmosphere of unlimiteddiscussion which envelops Englishmen through their whole lives haseffectually destroyed the danger of coercive and restrictive lawsdirected against opinion. Moral coercion and the tendency to interfereby law on moral grounds with the habits of men, even when those habitsin no degree interfere with others, have increased. It is one of themarked tendencies of Anglo-Saxon democracy, and it is very far frombeing peculiar to, or even specially prominent in, any one Church. Butthe desire to repress the expression of opinions by force, which for somany centuries marked with blood and fire the power of mediævalsacerdotalism, is wholly alien to modern English nature. Amid all thefanaticisms, exaggerations, and superstitions of belief, this kind ofcoercion, at least, is never likely to be formidable, nor do I believethat in the most extreme section of the sacerdotal clergy there is anydesire for it. There has been one significant contrast between thehistory of Catholicism and Anglicanism in the present century. In theCatholic Church the Ultramontane element has steadily dominated, restricting liberty of opinion, and important tenets which were onceundefined by the Church, and on which sincere Catholics had somelatitude of opinion, have been brought under the iron yoke. This is nodoubt largely due to the growth of scepticism and indifference, whichhave made the great body of educated laymen hostile or indifferent tothe Church, and have thrown its management mainly into the hands of thepriesthood and the more bigoted, ignorant and narrow-minded laymen. Butin the Anglican Church educated laymen are much less alienated fromChurch life, and a tribunal which is mainly lay exercises the supremeauthority. As a consequence of these conditions, although the sacerdotalelement has greatly increased, the latitude of opinion within the Churchhas steadily grown. At the same time, it is difficult to believe that serious dangers do notawait the Church if the unprotestantising influences that have spreadwithin it continue to extend. It is not likely that the nation willcontinue to give its support to the Church if that Church in its maintendencies cuts itself off from the Reformation. The conversions toCatholicism in England, though probably much exaggerated, have been verynumerous, and it is certainly not surprising that it should be so. Ifthe Church of Rome permitted Protestantism to be constantly taught inher pulpits, and Protestant types of worship and character to behabitually held up to admiration, there can be little doubt that many ofher worshippers would be shaken. If the Church of England becomes ingeneral what it already is in some of its churches, it is not likelythat English public opinion will permanently acquiesce in its privilegedposition in the State. If it ceases to be a Protestant Church, it willnot long remain an established one, and its disestablishment wouldprobably be followed by a disruption in which opinions would be moresharply defined, and the latitude of belief and the spirit of compromisethat now characterise our English religious life might be seriouslyimpaired. FOOTNOTES: [58] _Alciphron_, 6th Dialogue. [59] Nalsons's _Collections_, i. 769, February 9, 1640. [60] _Autobiography of Isaac Williams_, p. 132. This letter was writtenin 1863. CHAPTER XII THE MANAGEMENT OF CHARACTER Of all the tasks which are set before man in life, the education andmanagement of his character is the most important, and, in order that itshould be successfully pursued, it is necessary that he should make acalm and careful survey of his own tendencies, unblinded either by theself-deception which conceals errors and magnifies excellences, or bythe indiscriminate pessimism which refuses to recognise his powers forgood. He must avoid the fatalism which would persuade him that he has nopower over his nature, and he must also clearly recognise that thispower is not unlimited. Man is like a card-player who receives fromNature his cards--his disposition, his circumstances, the strength orweakness of his will, of his mind, and of his body. The game of life isone of blended chance and skill. The best player will be defeated if hehas hopelessly bad cards, but in the long run the skill of the playerwill not fail to tell. The power of man over his character bears muchresemblance to his power over his body. Men come into the world withbodies very unequal in their health and strength; with hereditarydispositions to disease; with organs varying greatly in their normalcondition. At the same time a temperate or intemperate life, skilful orunskilful regimen, physical exercises well adapted to strengthen theweaker parts, physical apathy, vicious indulgence, misdirected orexcessive effort, will all in their different ways alter his bodilycondition and increase or diminish his chances of disease and prematuredeath. The power of will over character is, however, stronger, or, atleast, wider than its power over the body. There are organs which liewholly beyond its influence; there are diseases over which it canexercise no possible influence, but there is no part of our moralconstitution which we cannot in some degree influence or modify. It has often seemed to me that diversities of taste throw much light onthe basis of character. Why is it that the same dish gives one man keenpleasure and to another is loathsome and repulsive? To this simplequestion no real answer can be given. It is a fact of our nature thatone fruit, or meat, or drink will give pleasure to one palate and nonewhatever to another. At the same time, while the original and naturaldifference is undoubted, there are many differences which are wholly orlargely due to particular and often transitory causes. Dishes have anattraction or the reverse because they are associated with oldrecollections or habits. Habit will make a Frenchman like his melon withsalt, while an Englishman prefers it with sugar. An old association ofideas will make an Englishman shrink from eating a frog or a snail, though he would probably like each if he ate it without knowing it, andhe could easily learn to do so. The kind of cookery which one age or onenation generally likes, another age or another nation finds distasteful. The eye often governs the taste, and a dish which, when seen, excitesintense repulsion, would have no such repulsion to a blind man. Everyone who has moved much about the world, and especially in uncivilisedcountries, will get rid of many old antipathies, will lose thefastidiousness of his taste, and will acquire new and genuine tastes. The original innate difference is not wholly destroyed, but it isprofoundly and variously modified. These changes of taste are very analogous to what takes place in ourmoral dispositions. They are for the most part in themselves simplyexternal to morals, though there is at least one conspicuous exception. Many--it is to be hoped most--men might spend their lives with fullaccess to intoxicating liquors without even the temptation of gettingdrunk. Apart from all considerations of religion, morals, social, physical, or intellectual consequences, they abstain from doing sosimply as a matter of taste. With other men the pleasure of excessivedrinking is such that it requires an heroic effort of the will to resistit. There are men who not only are so constituted that it is theirgreatest pleasure, but who are even born with a craving for drink. In noform is the terrible fact of heredity more clearly or more tragicallydisplayed. Many, too, who had originally no such craving graduallyacquire it: sometimes by mere social influence, which makes excessivedrinking the habit of their circle; more frequently through depressionor sorrow, which gives men a longing for some keen pleasure in whichthey can forget themselves; or through the jaded habit of mind and bodywhich excessive work produces, or through the dreary, colourless, joyless surroundings of sordid poverty. Drink and the sensual pleasures, if viciously indulged, produce (doubtless through physical causes) anintense craving for their gratification. This, however, is not the casewith all our pleasures. Many are keenly enjoyed when present, yet notseriously missed when absent. Sometimes, too, the effect ofover-indulgence is to vitiate and deaden the palate, so that what wasonce pleasing ceases altogether to be an object of desire. This, too, has its analogue in other things. We have a familiar example in theexcessive novel-reader, who begins with a kind of mental intoxication, and who ends with such a weariness that he finds it a serious effort toread the books which were once his strongest temptation. Tastes of the palate also naturally change with age and with theaccompanying changes of the body. The schoolboy who bitterly repinesbecause the smallness of his allowance restricts his power of buyingtarts and sweetmeats will probably grow into a man who, with manyshillings in his pocket, daily passes the confectioner's shop withoutthe smallest desire to enter it. It is evident that there is a close analogy between these things andthat collection of likes and dislikes, moral and intellectual, whichforms the primal base of character, and which mainly determines thecomplexion of our lives. As Marcus Aurelius said: 'Who can change thedesires of man?' That which gives the strongest habitual pleasure, whether it be innate or acquired, will in the great majority of casesultimately dominate. Certain things will always be intenselypleasurable, and certain other things indifferent or repellent, and thismagnetism is the true basis of character, and with the majority of menit mainly determines conduct. By the associations of youth and by othercauses these natural likings and dislikings may be somewhat modified, but even in youth our power is very limited, and in later life it ismuch less. No real believer in free-will will hold that man is anabsolute slave to his desires. No man who knows the world will deny thatwith average man the strongest passion or desire will prevail--happywhen that desire is not a vice. Passions weaken, but habits strengthen, with age, and it is the greattask of youth to set the current of habit and to form the tastes whichare most productive of happiness in life. Here, as in most other things, opposite exaggerations are to be avoided. There is such a thing aslooking forward too rigidly and too exclusively to the future--to afuture that may never arrive. This is the great fault of theover-educationist, who makes early life a burden and a toil, and also ofthose who try to impose on youth the tastes and pleasures of the man. Youth has its own pleasures, which will always give it most enjoyment, and a happy youth is in itself an end. It is the time when the power ofenjoyment is most keen, and it is often accompanied by such extremesensitiveness that the sufferings of the child for what seem the mosttrivial causes probably at least equal in acuteness, though not indurability, the sufferings of a man. Many a parent standing by thecoffin of his child has felt with bitterness how much of the measure ofenjoyment that short life might have known has been cut off by aninjudicious education. And even if adult life is attained, the evils ofan unhappy childhood are seldom wholly compensated. The pleasures ofretrospect are among the most real we possess, and it is around ourchildish days that our fondest associations naturally cluster. An earlyover-strain of our powers often leaves behind it lasting distortion orweakness, and a sad childhood introduces into the character elements ofmorbidness and bitterness that will not disappear. The first great rule in judging of pleasures is that so well expressedby Seneca: 'Sic præsentibus utaris voluptatibus ut futuris nonnoceas'--so to use present pleasures as not to impair future ones. Drunkenness, sensuality, gambling, habitual extravagance andself-indulgence, if they become the pleasures of youth, will almostinfallibly lead to the ruin of a life. Pleasures that are in themselvesinnocent lose their power of pleasing if they become the sole or mainobject of pursuit. In starting in life we are apt to attach a disproportionate value totastes, pleasures, and ideals that can only be even approximatelysatisfied in youth, health, and strength. We have, I think, an exampleof this in the immense place which athletic games and out-of-door sportshave taken in modern English life. They are certainly not things to becondemned. They have the direct effect of giving a large amount ofintense and innocent pleasure, and they have indirect effects which arestill more important. In so far as they raise the level of physicalstrength and health, and dispel the morbidness of temperament which isso apt to accompany a sedentary life and a diseased or inert frame, theycontribute powerfully to lasting happiness. They play a considerablepart in the formation of friendships which is one of the best fruits ofthe period between boyhood and mature manhood. Some of them give lessonsof courage, perseverance, energy, self-restraint, and cheerfulacquiescence in disappointment and defeat that are of no small value inthe formation of character, and when they are not associated withgambling they have often the inestimable advantage of turning young menaway from vicious pleasures. At the same time it can hardly be doubtedthat they hold an exaggerated prominence in the lives of youngEnglishmen of the present generation. It is not too much to say thatamong large sections of the students at our Universities, and at a timewhen intellectual ambition ought to be most strong and when theacquisition of knowledge is most important, proficiency in cricket orboating or football is more prized than any intellectual achievement. Ihave heard a good judge, who had long been associated with EnglishUniversity life, express his opinion that during the last forty or fiftyyears the relative intellectual position of the upper and middle classesin England has been materially changed, owing to the disproportionedplace which outdoor amusements have assumed in the lives of the former. It is the impression of very competent judges that a genuine love, reverence and enthusiasm for intellectual things is less common amongthe young men of the present day than it was in the days of theirfathers. The predominance of the critical spirit which chillsenthusiasm, and still more the cram system which teaches young men tolook on the prizes that are to be won by competitive examinations as thesupreme end of knowledge, no doubt largely account for this, but muchis also due to the extravagant glorification of athletic games. If we compare the class of pleasures I have described with the taste forreading and kindred intellectual pleasures, the superiority of thelatter is very manifest. To most young men, it is true, a game willprobably give at least as much pleasure as a book. Nor must we measurethe pleasure of reading altogether by the language of the genuinescholar. It is not every one who could say, like Gibbon, that he wouldnot exchange his love of reading for all the wealth of the Indies. Verymany would agree with him; but Gibbon was a man with an intense naturallove of knowledge, and the weak health of his early life intensifiedthis predominant passion. But while the tastes which require physicalstrength decline or pass with age, that for reading steadily grows. Itis illimitable in the vistas of pleasure it opens; it is one of the mosteasily satisfied, one of the cheapest, one of the least dependent onage, seasons, and the varying conditions of life. It cheers the invalidthrough years of weakness and confinement; illuminates the dreary hoursof the sleepless night; stores the mind with pleasant thoughts, banishesennui, fills up the unoccupied interstices and enforced leisures of anactive life; makes men for a time at least forget their anxieties andsorrows, and if it is judiciously managed it is one of the most powerfulmeans of training character and disciplining and elevating thought. Itis eminently a pleasure which is not only good in itself but enhancesmany others. By extending the range of our knowledge, by enlarging ourpowers of sympathy and appreciation, it adds incalculably to thepleasures of society, to the pleasures of travel, to the pleasures ofart, to the interest we take in the vast variety of events which formthe great world-drama around us. To acquire this taste in early youth is one of the best fruits ofeducation, and it is especially useful when the taste for readingbecomes a taste for knowledge, and when it is accompanied by somespecialisation and concentration and by some exercise of the powers ofobservation. 'Many tastes and one hobby' is no bad ideal to be aimed at. The boy who learns to collect and classify fossils, or flowers, orinsects, who has acquired a love for chemical experiments, who has begunto form a taste for some particular kind or department of knowledge, haslaid the foundation of much happiness in life. In the selection of pleasures and the cultivation of tastes much wisdomis shown in choosing in such a way that each should form a complement tothe others; that different pleasures should not clash, but rather coverdifferent areas and seasons of life; that each should tend to correctfaults or deficiencies of character which the others may possiblyproduce. The young man who starts in life with keen literary tastes andalso with a keen love of out-of-door sports, and who possesses the meansof gratifying each, has perhaps provided himself with as many elementsof happiness as mere amusements can ever furnish. One set of pleasures, however, often kills the capacity for enjoying others, and some which inthemselves are absolutely innocent, by blunting the enjoyment of betterthings, exercise an injurious influence on character. Habitualnovel-reading, for example, often destroys the taste for seriousliterature, and few things tend so much to impair a sound literaryperception and to vulgarise the character as the habit of constantlysaturating the mind with inferior literature, even when that literatureis in no degree immoral. Sometimes an opposite evil may be produced. Excessive fastidiousness greatly limits our enjoyments, and theinestimable gift of extreme concentration is often dearly bought. Thewell-known confession of Darwin that his intense addiction to sciencehad destroyed his power of enjoying even the noblest imaginativeliterature represents a danger to which many men who have achieved muchin the higher and severer forms of scientific thought are subject. Suchmen are usually by their original temperament, and become still more byacquired habit, men of strong, narrow, concentrated natures, whosethoughts, like a deep and rapid stream confined in a restricted channel, flow with resistless energy in one direction. It is by the sacrifice ofversatility that they do so much, and the result is amply sufficient tojustify it. But it is a real sacrifice, depriving them of many formsboth of capacity and of enjoyment. The same pleasures act differently on different characters, especiallyon the differences of character that accompany difference of sex. I havemyself no doubt that the movement which in modern times has so widelyopened to women amusements that were once almost wholly reserved for menhas been on the whole a good one. It has produced a higher level ofhealth, stronger nerves, and less morbid characters, and it has givenkeen and innocent enjoyment to many who from their circumstances andsurroundings once found their lives very dreary and insipid. Yet mostgood observers will agree that amusements which have no kind of evileffect on men often in some degree impair the graces or characters ofwomen, and that it is not quite with impunity that one sex tries to livethe life of the other. Some pleasures, too, exercise a much largerinfluence than others on the general habits of life. It is not too muchto say that the invention of the bicycle, bringing with it an immenseincrease of outdoor life, of active exercise, and of independent habits, has revolutionised the course of many lives. Some amusements which mayin themselves be but little valued are wisely cultivated as helping mento move more easily in different spheres of society, or as providing aresource for old age. Talleyrand was not wholly wrong in his reproach toa man who had never learned to play whist: 'What an unhappy old age youare preparing for yourself!' I have already mentioned the differences that may be found in differentcountries and ages, in the relative importance attached to externalcircumstances and to dispositions of mind as means of happiness, and thetendency in the more progressive nations to seek their happiness mainlyin improved circumstances. Another great line of distinction is betweeneducation that acts specially upon the desires, and that which actsspecially upon the will. The great perfection of modern systems ofeducation is chiefly of the former kind. Its object is to make knowledgeand virtue attractive, and therefore an object of desire. It does sopartly by presenting them in the most alluring forms, partly byconnecting them as closely as possible with rewards. The great principleof modern moral education is to multiply innocent and beneficentinterests, tastes, and ambitions. It is to make the path of virtue thenatural, the easy, the pleasing one; to form a social atmospherefavourable to its development, making duty and interest as far aspossible coincident. Vicious pleasures are combated by themultiplication of healthy ones, and by a clearer insight into theconsequences of each. An idle or inert character is stimulated byholding up worthy objects of interest and ambition, and it is the aimalike of the teacher and the legislator to make the grooves and channelsof life such as tend naturally and easily towards good. But theeducation of the will--the power of breasting the current of the desiresand doing for long periods what is distasteful and painful--is much lesscultivated than in some periods of the past. Many things contribute to this. The rush and hurry of modern existenceand the incalculable multitude and variety of fleeting impressions thatin the great centres of civilisation pass over the mind are veryunfavourable to concentration, and perhaps still more to the directcultivation of mental states. Amusements, and the appetite foramusements, have greatly extended. Life has become more full. The longleisures, the introspective habits, the _vita contemplativa_ soconspicuous in the old Catholic discipline, grow very rare. Thoughts andinterests are more thrown on the external; and the comfort, the luxury, the softness, the humanity of modern life, and especially of moderneducation, make men less inclined to face the disagreeable and endurethe painful. The starting-point of education is thus silently changing. Perhaps theextent of the change is best shown by the old Catholic ascetic training. Its supreme object was to discipline and strengthen the will: toaccustom men habitually to repudiate the pleasurable and accept thepainful; to mortify the most natural tastes and affections; to narrowand weaken the empire of the desires; to make men wholly independent ofoutward circumstances; to preach self-renunciation as itself an end. Men will always differ about the merits of this system. In my ownopinion it is difficult to believe that in the period of Catholicascendency the moral standard was, on the whole and in its broad lines, higher than our own. The repression of the sensual instincts was thecentral fact in ascetic morals; but, even tested by this test, it is atleast very doubtful whether it did not fail. The withdrawal from secularsociety of the best men did much to restrict the influences for good, and the habit of aiming at an unnatural ideal was not favourable tocommon, everyday, domestic virtue. The history of sacerdotal andmonastic celibacy abundantly shows how much vice that might easily havebeen avoided grew out of the adoption of an unnatural standard, and howoften it led in those who had attained it to grave distortions ofcharacter. Affections and impulses which were denied their healthy andnatural vent either became wholly atrophied or took other and morbidforms, and the hard, cruel, self-righteous fanatic, equally ready toendure or to inflict suffering, was a not unnatural result. Butwhatever may have been its failures and its exaggerations, Catholicasceticism was at least a great school for disciplining andstrengthening the will, and the strength and discipline of the will formone of the first elements of virtue and of happiness. In the grave and noble type of character which prevailed in English andAmerican life during the seventeenth century, the strength of will wasconspicuously apparent. Life was harder, simpler, more serious, and lessdesultory than at present, and strong convictions shaped and fortifiedthe character. 'It was an age, ' says a great American writer, 'when whatwe call talent had far less consideration than now, but the massivematerials which produce stability and dignity of character a great dealmore. The people possessed by hereditary right the quality of reverence, which, in their descendants, if it survive at all, exists in smallerproportion and with a vastly diminished force in the selection andestimate of public men. The change may be for good or ill, and ispartly, perhaps, for both. In that old day the English settler on theserude shores, having left king, nobles, and all degrees of awful rankbehind, while still the faculty and necessity of reverence were strongin him, bestowed it on the white hair and venerable brow of age; onlong-tried integrity; on solid wisdom and sad-coloured experience; onendowments of that grave and weighty order which give the idea ofpermanence and come under the general definition of respectability. These primitive statesmen, therefore, --Bradstreet, Endicott, Dudley, Bellingham, and their compeers, --who were elevated to power by theearly choice of the people, seem to have been not often brilliant, butdistinguished by a ponderous sobriety rather than activity of intellect. They had fortitude and self-reliance, and in time of difficulty or perilstood up for the welfare of the State like a line of cliffs against atempestuous tide. '[61] The power of the will, however, even when it exists in great strength, is often curiously capricious. History is full of examples of men who ingreat trials and emergencies have acted with admirable and perseveringheroism, yet who readily succumbed to private vices or passions. Thewill is not the same as the desires, but the connection between them isvery close. A love for a distant end; a dominating ambition or passion, will call forth long perseverance in wholly distasteful work in menwhose will in other fields of life is lamentably feeble. Every one whohas embarked with real earnestness in some extended literary enterprisewhich as a whole represents the genuine bent of his talent and characterwill be struck with his exceptional power of traversing perseveringlylong sections of this enterprise for which he has no natural aptitudeand in which he takes no pleasure. Military courage is with most menchiefly a matter of temperament and impulse, but there have beenconspicuous instances of great soldiers and sailors who have franklyacknowledged that they never lost in battle an intense constitutionalshrinking from danger, though by the force of a strong will they neversuffered this timidity to govern or to weaken them. With men of veryvivid imagination there is a natural tendency to timidity as theyrealise more than ordinary men danger and suffering. On the other handit has often been noticed how calmly the callous, semi-torpidtemperament that characterises many of the worst criminals enables themto meet death upon the gallows. In courage itself, too, there are many varieties. The courage of thesoldier and the courage of the martyr are not the same, and it by nomeans follows that either would possess that of the other. Not a few menwho are capable of leading a forlorn hope, and who never shrink from thebayonet and the cannon, have shown themselves incapable of bearing theburden of responsibility, enduring long-continued suspense, takingdecisions which might expose them to censure or unpopularity. The activecourage that encounters and delights in danger is often found in men whoshow no courage in bearing suffering, misfortune, or disease. In passivecourage the woman often excels the man as much as in active courage theman exceeds the woman. Even in active courage familiarity does much;sympathy and enthusiasm play great and often very various parts, andcurious anomalies may be found. The Teutonic and the Latin races areprobably equally distinguished for their military courage, but there isa clear difference between them in the nature of that courage and in thecircumstances or conditions under which it is usually most splendidlydisplayed. The danger incurred by the gladiator was far greater thanthat which was encountered by the soldier, but Tacitus[62] mentionsthat when some of the bravest gladiators were employed in the Romanarmy they were found wholly inefficient, as they were much less capablethan the ordinary soldiers of military courage. The circumstances of life are the great school for forming andstrengthening the will, and in the excessive competition and struggle ofmodern industrialism this school is not wanting. But in ethical andeducational systems the value of its cultivation is often insufficientlyfelt. Yet nothing which is learned in youth is so really valuable as thepower and the habit of self-restraint, of self-sacrifice, of energetic, continuous and concentrated effort. In the best of us evil tendenciesare always strong and the path of duty is often distasteful. With themost favourable wind and tide the bark will never arrive at the harbourif it has ceased to obey the rudder. A weak nature which is naturallykindly, affectionate and pure, which floats through life under theimpulse of the feelings, with no real power of self-restraint, is indeednot without its charm, and in a well-organised society, with goodsurroundings and few temptations, it may attain a high degree of beauty;but its besetting failings will steadily grow; without fortitude, perseverance and principle, it has no recuperative energy, and it willoften end in a moral catastrophe which natures in other respects muchless happily compounded would easily avoid. Nothing can permanentlysecure our moral being in the absence of a restraining will basingitself upon a strong sense of the difference between right and wrong, upon the firm groundwork of principle and honour. Experience abundantly shows how powerfully the steady action of such awill can operate upon innate defects, converting the constitutionalidler into the indefatigably industrious, checking, limiting andsometimes almost destroying constitutional irritability and viciouspassions. The natural power of the will in different men differsgreatly, but there is no part of our nature which is more strengthenedby exercise or more weakened by disuse. The minor faults of character itcan usually correct; but when a character is once formed, and when itstendencies are essentially vicious, radical cure or even considerableamelioration is very rare. Sometimes the strong influence of religioneffects it. Sometimes it is effected by an illness, a great misfortune, or the total change of associations that follows emigration. Marriageperhaps more frequently than any other ordinary agency in early lifetransforms or deeply modifies the character, for it puts an end topowerful temptations and brings with it a profound change of habits andmotives, associations and desires. But we have all of us encountered inlife depraved natures in which vicious self-indulgence had attained sucha strength, and the recuperating and moralising elements were so fatallyweak, that we clearly perceive the disease to be incurable, and that itis hardly possible that any change of circumstances could even seriouslymitigate it. In what proportion this is the fault or the calamity of thepatient no human judgment can accurately tell. Few things are sadder than to observe how frequently the inheritance ofgreat wealth or even of easy competence proves the utter and speedy ruinof a young man, except when the administration of a large property, orthe necessity of carrying on a great business, or some other propitiouscircumstance provides him with a clearly defined sphere of work. Themajority of men will gladly discard distasteful work which theircircumstances do not require; and in the absence of steady work, and inthe possession of all the means of gratification, temptations assume anoverwhelming strength, and the springs of moral life are fatallyimpaired. It can hardly be doubted that the average longevity in thissmall class is far less than in that of common men, and that even whennatural capacity is considerable it is more rarely displayed. To a manwith a real desire for work such circumstances are indeed of inestimablevalue, giving him the leisure and the opportunities of applying himselfwithout distraction and from early manhood to the kind of work that ismost suited to him. Sometimes this takes place, but much more frequentlyvicious tastes or a simply idle or purposeless life are the result. Sometimes, indeed, a large amount of desultory and unregulated energyremains, but the serious labour of concentration is shunned and no realresult is attained. The stream is there, but it turns no mill. Most men escape this danger through the circumstances of life which makeserious and steady work necessary to their livelihood, and in themajority of cases the kind of work is so clearly marked out that theyhave little choice. When some choice exists, the rule which I havealready laid down should not be forgotten. Men should choose their worknot only according to their talents and their opportunities, but also, as far as possible, according to their characters. They should selectthe kinds which are most fitted to bring their best qualities intoexercise, or should at least avoid those which have a special tendencyto develop or encourage their dominant defects. On the whole it will befound that men's characters are much more deeply influenced by theirpursuits than by their opinions. The choice of work is one of the great agencies for the management ofcharacter in youth. The choice of friends is another. In the words ofBurke, 'The law of opinion . .. Is the strongest principle in thecomposition of the frame of the human mind, and more of the happinessand unhappiness of man reside in that inward principle than in allexternal circumstances put together. '[63] This is true of the greatpublic opinion of an age or country which envelops us like anatmosphere, and by its silent pressure steadily and almost insensiblyshapes or influences the whole texture of our lives. It is still moretrue of the smaller circle of our intimacies which will do more thanalmost any other thing to make the path of virtue easy or difficult. Howlarge a proportion of the incentives to a noble ambition, or of thefirst temptations to evil, may be traced to an early friendship, and itis often in the little circle that gathers round a college table thatthe measure of life is first taken, and ideals and enthusiasms areformed which give a colour to all succeeding years. To admire stronglyand to admire wisely is, indeed, one of the best means of moralimprovement. Very much, however, of the management of character can only beaccomplished by the individual himself acting in complete isolation uponhis own nature and in the chamber of his own mind. The discipline ofthought; the establishment of an ascendency of the will over our coursesof thinking; the power of casting away morbid trains of reflection andturning resolutely to other subjects or aspects of life; the power ofconcentrating the mind vigorously on a serious subject and pursuingcontinuous trains of thought, --form perhaps the best fruits of judiciousself-education. Its importance, indeed, is manifold. In the higher walksof intellect this power of mental concentration is of supreme value. Newton is said to have ascribed mainly to an unusual amount of it hisachievements in philosophy, and it is probable that the same might besaid by most other great thinkers. In the pursuit of happiness hardlyanything in external circumstances is so really valuable as the power ofcasting off worry, turning in times of sorrow to healthy work, takinghabitually the brighter view of things. It is in such exercises of willthat we chiefly realise the truth of the lines of Tennyson: Oh, well for him whose will is strong, He suffers, but he will not suffer long. In moral culture it is not less important to acquire the power ofdiscarding the demoralising thoughts and imaginations that haunt somany, and meeting temptation by calling up purer, higher and restrainingthoughts. The faculty we possess of alternating and intensifying our ownmotives by bringing certain thoughts, or images, or subjects into theforeground and throwing others into the background, is one of our chiefmeans of moral progress. The cultivation of this power is a far wiserthing than the cultivation of that introspective habit of mind which isperpetually occupied with self-analysis or self-examination, and whichis constantly and remorsefully dwelling upon past faults or upon themorbid elements in our nature. In the morals which are called minor, though they affect deeply the happiness of mankind, the importance ofthe government of thought is not less apparent. The secret of good orbad temper is our habitual tendency to dwell upon or to fly from theirritating and the inevitable. Content or discontent, amiability or thereverse, depend mainly upon the disposition of our minds to turnspecially to the good or to the evil sides of our own lot, to the meritsor to the defects of those about us. A power of turning our thoughtsfrom a given subject, though not the sole element in self-control, is atleast one of its most important ingredients. This power of the will over the thoughts is one in which men differenormously. Thus--to take the most familiar instance--the capacity forworry, with all the exaggerations and distortions of sentiment itimplies, is very evidently a constitutional thing, and where it existsto a high degree neither reason nor will can effectually cure it. Such aman may have the clearest possible intellectual perception of itsuselessness and its folly. Yet it will often banish sleep from hispillow, follow him with an habitual depression in all the walks of life, and make his measure of happiness much less than that of others who withfar less propitious circumstances are endued by nature with the gift oflightly throwing off the past and looking forward with a sanguine andcheerful spirit to the future. It is hardly possible to exaggerate thedifferent degrees of suffering the same trouble will produce indifferent men, and it is probable that the happiness of a life dependsmuch less on the amount of pleasurable or painful things that areencountered, than upon the turn of thought which dwells chiefly on oneor on the other. It is very evident that buoyancy of temperament is nota thing that increases with civilisation or education. It is mainlyphysical. It is greatly influenced by climate and by health, and whereno very clear explanation of this kind can be given it is a thing inwhich different nations differ greatly. Few good observers will denythat persistent and concentrated will is more common in Great Britainthan in Ireland, but that the gift of a buoyant temperament is morecommon among Irishmen than among Englishmen. Yet it co-exists in thenational character with a strong vein of very genuine melancholy, and itis often accompanied by keen sensitiveness to suffering. Thiscombination is a very common one. Every one who has often stood by adeathbed knows how frequently it will be found that the mourner who isutterly prostrated by grief, and whose tears flow in torrents, casts offher grief much more completely and much sooner than one whose tearsrefuse to flow and who never for a moment loses her self-command. But though natural temperament enables one man to do without effort whatanother man with the utmost effort fails to accomplish, there are someavailable remedies that can palliate the disease. Society, travel andother amusements can do something, and such words as 'diversion' and'distraction' embalm the truth that the chief virtue of many pleasuresis to divert or distract our minds from painful thoughts. Pascalconsidered this a sign of the misery and the baseness of our nature, andhe describes as a deplorable spectacle a man who rose from his bedweighed down with anxiety and grave sorrow, and who could for a timeforget it all in the passionate excitement of the chase. But, in truth, the possession of such a power--weak and transient though it be--is oneof the great alleviations of the lot of man. Religion, with its powerfulmotives and its wide range of consolatory and soothing thoughts andimages, has much power in this sphere when it does not take a morbidform and intensify instead of alleviating sorrow; and the steadyexercise of the will gives us some real and increasing, thoughimperfect, control over the current of our feelings as well as of ourideas. Often the power of dreaming comes to our aid. When we cannot turn fromsome painfully pressing thought to serious thinking of another kind, wecan give the reins to our imaginations and soon lose ourselves in idealscenes. There are men who live so habitually in a world of imaginationthat it becomes to them a second life, and their strongest temptationsand their keenest pleasures belong to it. To them 'common life seemstapestried with dreams. ' Not unfrequently they derive a pleasure fromimagined or remembered enjoyments which the realities themselves wouldfail to give. They select in imagination certain aspects or portions, throw others into the shade, intensify or attenuate impressions, transform and beautify the reality of things. The power of filling theirexistence with happy day-dreams is their most precious luxury. They feelthe full force of the pathetic lines of an Irish poet:[64] Sweet thoughts, bright dreams my comfort be, I have no joy beside; Oh, throng around and be to me Power, country, fame and bride. To train this side of our nature is no small part of the management ofcharacter. There is a great sphere of happiness and misery which isalmost or altogether unconnected with surrounding circumstances, anddepends upon the thoughts, images, hopes and fears on which our mindsare chiefly concentrated. The exercise of this form of imagination hasoften a great influence, both intellectually and morally. In childhood, as every teacher knows, it is often a distracting influence, and withmen also it is sometimes an obstacle to concentrated reasoning andobservation, turning the mind away from sober and difficult thought; butthere is a kind of dreaming which is eminently conducive to productivethought. It enables a man to place himself so completely in otherconditions of thought and life that the ideas connected with thoseconditions rise spontaneously in the mind. A true and vivid realisationof characters and circumstances unlike his own is acquired. The merefact of placing himself in other circumstances and investing himselfwith imaginary powers and functions sometimes suggests possible remediesfor great human ills, and gives clearer views of the proportions, difficulties and conditions of governments and societies. Much discoveryin science has been due to this power of the imagination to realiseconditions that are unseen, and the habit or faculty of living otherlives than our own is scarcely less valuable to the historian, and evento the statesman, than to the poet or the novelist or the dramatist. Itgives the magic touch which changes mere lifeless knowledge intorealisation. Its effect upon character also is great and various. No one can fail torecognise the depraving influence of a corrupt imagination; and thecorruption may spring, not only from suggestions from without, but fromthose which rise spontaneously in our minds. Nor is even the imaginationwhich is wholly pure absolutely without its dangers. It is a well-knownlaw of our nature that an excessive indulgence in emotion that does notend in action tends rather to deaden than to stimulate the moral nerve. It has been often noticed that the exaggerated sentimentality whichsheds passionate tears over the fictitious sorrows of a novel or a playis no certain sign of a benevolent and unselfish nature, and is quitecompatible with much indifference to real sorrows and much indispositionto make efforts for their alleviation. It is, however, no less true, asDugald Stewart says, that the apparent coldness and selfishness of menare often simply due to a want of that kind of imagination which enablesus to realise sufferings with which we have never been brought intodirect contact, and that once this power of realisation is acquired, thecoldness is speedily dispelled. Nor can it be doubted that in themanagement of thought, the dream power often plays a most important partin alleviating human suffering; illuminating cheerless and gloomy lives, and breaking the chain of evil or distressing thoughts. The immense place which the literature of fiction holds in the worldshows how widely some measure of it is diffused, and how large an amountof time and talent is devoted to its cultivation. It is probable, however, that it is really stronger in the earlier and uncultivated thanin the later stages of humanity, as it is more vivid in childhood and inyouth than in mature life. 'A child, ' as an American writer[65] has wellsaid, 'can afford to sleep without dreaming; he has plenty of dreamswithout sleep. ' The childhood of the world is also eminently an age ofdreams. There are stages of civilisation in which the dream world blendsso closely with the world of realities, in which the imagination sohabitually and so spontaneously transfigures or distorts, that menbecome almost incapable of distinguishing between the real and thefictitious. This is the true age of myths and legends; and there arestrata in contemporary society in which something of the same conditionsis reproduced. 'To those who do not read or write much, ' says an acuteobserver, 'even in our days, dreams are much more real than to those whoare continually exercising the imagination. .. . Since I have beenoccupied with literature my dreams have lost all vividness and are lessreal than the shadows of the trees; they do not deceive me even in mysleep. At every hour of the day I am accustomed to call up figures atwill before my eyes, which stand out well defined and coloured to thevery hue of their faces. .. . The less literary a people the more theybelieve in dreams; the disappearance of superstition is not due to thecultivation of reason or the spread of knowledge, but purely to themechanical effect of reading, which so perpetually puts figures andaërial shapes before the mental gaze that in time those that occurnaturally are thought no more of than those conjured into existence by abook. It is in far-away country places, where people read very little, that they see phantoms and consult the oracles of fate. Their dreams arereal. '[66] The last point I would notice in the management of character is theimportance of what may be called moral safety-valves. One of the mostfatal mistakes in education is the attempt which is so often made by theeducator to impose his own habits and tastes on natures that areessentially different. It is common for men of lymphatic temperaments, of studious, saintly, and retiring tastes, to endeavor to force ahigh-spirited young man starting in life into their own mould--toprescribe for him the cast of tastes and pursuits they find most suitedfor themselves, forgetting that such an ideal can never satisfy a whollydifferent nature, and that in aiming at it a kind of excellence whichmight easily have been attained is missed. This is one of the evilsthat very frequently arise when the education of boys after an early ageis left in the hands of women. It is the true explanation of the fact, which has so often been noticed, that children of clergymen, or at leastchildren educated on a rigidly austere, puritanical system, so often goconspicuously to the bad. Such an education, imposed on a nature that isunfit for it, generally begins by producing hypocrisy, and notunfrequently ends by a violent reaction into vice. There is no greatermistake in education than to associate virtue in early youth with gloomycolours and constant restrictions, and few people do more mischief inthe world than those who are perpetually inventing crimes. In circleswhere smoking, or field sports, or going to the play, or reading novels, or indulging in any boisterous games or in the most harmless Sundayamusements, are treated as if they were grave moral offences, young menconstantly grow up who end by looking on grave moral offences as notworse than these things. They lose all sense of proportion andperspective in morals, and those who are always straining at gnats areoften peculiarly apt to swallow camels. It is quite right that men whohave formed for themselves an ideal of life of the kind that I havedescribed should steadily pursue it, but it is another thing to imposeit upon others, and to prescribe it as of general application. Byteaching as absolutely wrong things that are in reality only culpable intheir abuse or their excess, they destroy the habit of moderate andrestrained enjoyment, and a period of absolute prohibition is oftenfollowed by a period of unrestrained license. The truth is there are elements in human nature which many moralistsmight wish to be absent, as they are very easily turned in the directionof vice, but which at the same time are inherent in our being, and, ifrightly understood, are essential elements of human progress. The loveof excitement and adventure; the fierce combative instinct that delightsin danger, in struggle, and even in destruction; the restless ambitionthat seeks with an insatiable longing to better its position and toclimb heights that are yet unscaled; the craving for some enjoymentwhich not merely gives pleasure but carries with it a thrill ofpassion, --all this lies deep in human nature and plays a great part inthat struggle for existence, in that harsh and painful process ofevolution by which civilisation is formed, faculty stimulated to itsfull development, and human progress secured. In the education of theindividual, as in the education of the race, the true policy in dealingwith these things is to find for them a healthy, useful, or at leastharmless sphere of action. In the chemistry of character they may allythemselves with the most heroic as well as with the worst parts of ournature, and the same passion for excitement which in one man will takethe form of ruinous vice, in another may lead to brilliant enterprise, while in a third it may be turned with no great difficulty into channelswhich are very innocent. Take, for example, the case to which I have already referred, of aperfectly commonplace boy who, on coming of age, finds himself with acompetence that saves him from the necessity of work; and who has noambition, literary or artistic taste, love of work, interest inpolitics, religious or philanthropic earnestness, or special talent. What will become of him? In probably the majority of cases ruin, disease, and an early death lie before him. He seeks only for amusementand excitement, and three fatal temptations await him--drink, gambling, and women. If he falls under the dominion of these, or even of one ofthem, he almost infallibly wrecks either his fortune or hisconstitution, or both. It is perfectly useless to set before him highmotives or ideals, or to incite him to lines of life for which he has noaptitude and which can give him no pleasure. What, then, can save him?Most frequently a happy marriage; but even if he is fortunate enough toattain this, it will probably only be after several years, and in thoseyears a fatal bias is likely to be given to his life which can never berecovered. Yet experience shows that in cases of this kind a keen loveof sport can often do much. With his gun and with his hunter he finds aninterest, an excitement, an employment which may not be particularlynoble, but which is at least sufficiently absorbing, and is notinjurious either to his morals, his health, or his fortune. It is nosmall gain if, in the competition of pleasures, country pleasures takethe place of those town pleasures which, in such cases as I havedescribed, usually mean pleasures of vice. Nor is it by any means only in such cases that field sports prove agreat moral safety-valve, scattering morbid tastes and giving harmlessand healthy vent to turns of character or feeling which might veryeasily be converted into vice. Among the influences that form thecharacter of the upper classes of Englishmen they have a great part, and in spite of the exaggerations and extravagances that often accompanythem, few good observers will doubt that they have an influence forgood. However much of the Philistine element there may be in the upperclasses in England, however manifest may be their limitations and theirdefects, there can be little doubt that on the whole the conditions ofEnglish life have in this sphere proved successful. There are few betterworking types within the reach of commonplace men than that of anEnglish gentleman with his conventional tastes, standard of honour, religion, sympathies, ideals, opinions and instincts. He is not likelyto be either a saint or a philosopher, but he is tolerably sure to beboth an honourable and a useful man, with a fair measure of good senseand moderation, and with some disposition towards public duties. A crowdof out-of-door amusements and interests do much to dispel his peccanthumours and to save him from the stagnation and the sensuality that havebeset many foreign aristocracies. County business stimulates hisactivity, mitigates his class prejudices, and forms his judgment: andhis standard of honour will keep him substantially right amid muchfluctuation of opinions. The reader, from his own experience of individual characters, willsupply other illustrations of the lines of thought I am enforcing. Sometemptations that beset us must be steadily faced and subdued. Others arebest met by flight--by avoiding the thoughts or scenes that call theminto activity; while other elements of character which we might wish tobe away are often better treated in the way of marriage--that is by ajudicious regulation and harmless application--than in the way ofasceticism or attempted suppression. It is possible for men--if not ineducating themselves, at least in educating others--to pitch theirstandard and their ideal too high. What they have to do is to recognisetheir own qualities and the qualities of those whom they influence asthey are, and endeavour to use these usually very imperfect materials tothe best advantage for the formation of useful, honourable and happylives. According to the doctrine of this book, man comes into the worldwith a free will. But his free will, though a real thing, acts in anarrower circle and with more numerous limitations than he usuallyimagines. He can, however, do much so to dispose, regulate and modifythe circumstances of his life as to diminish both his sufferings and histemptations, and to secure for himself the external conditions of ahappy and upright life, and he can do something by judicious andpersevering self-culture to improve those conditions of character onwhich, more than on any external circumstances, both happiness andvirtue depend. FOOTNOTES: [61] Hawthorne's _Scarlet Letter_, ch. Xxii. [62] _Hist. _ ii. 35. [63] Speech on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings. [64] Davis. [65] Cable. [66] Jefferies, _Field and Hedgerow_, p. 242. CHAPTER XIII MONEY I do not think that I can better introduce the few pages which I proposeto write on the relations of money to happiness and to character than bya pregnant passage from one of the essays[67] of Sir Henry Taylor. 'Somanifold are the bearings of money upon the lives and characters ofmankind, that an insight which should search out the life of a man inhis pecuniary relations would penetrate into almost every cranny of hisnature. He who knows like St. Paul both how to spare and how to aboundhas a great knowledge; for if we take account of all the virtues withwhich money is mixed up--honesty, justice, generosity, charity, frugality, forethought, self-sacrifice, and of their correlative vices, it is a knowledge which goes near to cover the length and breadth ofhumanity, and a right measure in getting, saving, spending, giving, taking, lending, borrowing and bequeathing would almost argue a perfectman. ' There are few subjects on which the contrast between the professed andthe real beliefs of men is greater than in the estimate of money. Morethan any other single thing it is the object and usually the lifelongobject of human effort, and any accession of wealth is hailed by theimmense majority of mankind as an unquestionable blessing. Yet if wewere to take literally much of the teaching we have all heard we shouldconclude that money, beyond what is required for the necessaries oflife, is far more a danger than a good; that it is the pre-eminentsource of evil and temptation; that one of the first duties of man is toemancipate himself from the love of it, which can only mean from anystrong desire for its increase. In this, as in so many other things, the question is largely one ofdegree. No one who knows what is meant by the abject poverty to which agreat proportion of the human race is condemned will doubt that at leastsuch an amount of money as raises them from this condition is one of thegreatest of human blessings. Extreme poverty means a lifelong strugglefor the bare means of living; it means a life spent in wretched hovels, with insufficient food, clothes and firing, in enforced and absoluteignorance; an existence almost purely animal, with nearly all the higherfaculties of man undeveloped. There is a far greater real difference inthe material elements of happiness between the condition of such men andthat of a moderately prosperous artizan in a civilised country thanthere is between the latter and the millionaire. Money, again, at least to such an amount as enables men to be in someconsiderable degree masters of their own course in life, is also on thewhole a great good. In this second degree it has less influence onhappiness than health, and probably than character and domesticrelations, but its influence is at least very great. Money is a goodthing because it can be transformed into many other things. It givesthe power of education which in itself does much to regulate thecharacter and opens out countless tastes and spheres of enjoyment. Itsaves its possessor from the fear of a destitute old age and of thedestitution of those he may leave behind, which is the harrowing care ofmultitudes who cannot be reckoned among the very poor. It enables him tointermit labour in times of sickness and sorrow and old age, and inthose extremes of heat and cold during which active labour is littleless than physical pain. It gives him and it gives those he lovesincreased chances of life and increased hope of recovery in sickness. Few of the pains of penury are more acute than those of a poor man whosees his wife or children withering away through disease, and who knowsor believes that better food or medical attendance, or a surgicaloperation, or a change of climate, might have saved them. Money, too, even when it does not dispense with work, at least gives a choice ofwork and longer intervals of leisure. For the very poor this choicehardly exists, or exists only within very narrow limits, and from wantof culture or want of leisure some of their most marked naturalaptitudes are never called into exercise. With the comparatively richthis is not the case. Money enables them to select the course of lifewhich is congenial to their tastes and most suited to their naturaltalents, or, if their strongest taste cannot become their work, money atleast gives them some leisure to cultivate it. The command of leisure, when it is fruitful leisure spent in congenial work, is to many, perhaps, the greatest boon it can bestow. 'Riches, ' said Charles Lamb, 'are chiefly good because they give us Time. ' 'All one's time tooneself! for which alone I rankle with envy at the rich. Books are goodand pictures are good, and money to buy them is therefore good--but tobuy time--in other words, life!' To some men money is chiefly valuable because it makes it possible forthem not to think of money. Except in the daily regulation of ordinarylife, it enables them to put aside cares which are to them bothharassing and distasteful, and to concentrate their thoughts andenergies on other objects. An assured competence also, however moderate, gives men the priceless blessing of independence. There are walks oflife, there are fields of ambition, there are classes of employments inwhich between inadequate remuneration and the pressure of want on theone side, and the facilities and temptations to illicit gain on theother, it is extremely difficult for a poor man to walk straight. Illicit gain does not merely mean gain that brings a man within therange of the criminal law. Many of its forms escape legal and perhapssocial censure, and may be even sanctioned by custom. A competence, whether small or large, is no sure preservative against that appetitefor gain which becomes one of the most powerful and insatiable ofpassions. But it at least diminishes temptation. It takes away thepressure of want under which so many natures that were oncesubstantially honest have broken down. In the expenditure of money there is usually a great deal of theconventional, the factitious, the purely ostentatious, but we are heredealing with the most serious realities of life. There are few or noelements of happiness and character more important than those I haveindicated, and a small competence conduces powerfully to them. Let noman therefore despise it, for if wisely used it is one of the most realblessings of life. It is of course only within the reach of a smallminority, but the number might easily be much larger than it is. Oftenwhen it is inherited in early youth it is scattered in one or two yearsof gambling and dissipation, followed by a lifetime of regret. In othercases it crumbles away in a generation, for it is made an excuse for alife of idleness, and when children multiply or misfortunes arrive, whatwas once a competence becomes nothing more than bare necessity. In astill larger number of cases many of its advantages are lost because menat once adopt a scale of living fully equal to their income. A man whowith one house would be a wealthy man, finds life with two houses aconstant struggle. A set of habits is acquired, a scale or standard ofluxury is adopted, which at once sweeps away the margin of superfluity. Riches or poverty depend not merely on the amount of our possessions, but quite as much on the regulation of our desires, and the fulladvantages of competence are only felt when men begin by settling theirscheme of life on a scale materially within their income. When the greatlines of expenditure are thus wisely and frugally established, they cancommand a wide latitude and much ease in dealing with the smaller ones. It is of course true that the power of a man thus to regulate hisexpenditure is by no means absolute. The position in society in which aman is born brings with it certain conventionalities and obligationsthat cannot be discarded. A great nobleman who has inherited a vastestate and a conspicuous social position will, through no fault of hisown, find himself involved in constant difficulties and struggles on anincome a tenth part of which would suffice to give a simple privategentleman every reasonable enjoyment in life. A poor clergyman who isobliged to keep up the position of a gentleman is in reality a muchpoorer man than a prosperous artizan, even though his actual income maybe somewhat larger. But within the bounds which the conventionalities ofsociety imperatively prescribe many scales of expenditure are possible, and the wise regulation of these is one of the chief forms of practicalwisdom. It may be observed, however, that not only men but nations differ widelyin this respect, and the difference is not merely that between prudenceand folly, between forethought and passion, but is also in a largedegree a difference of tastes and ideals. In general it will be foundthat in Continental nations a man of independent fortune will place hisexpenditure more below his means than in England, and a man who haspursued some lucrative employment will sooner be satisfied with thecompetence he has acquired and will gladly exchange his work for a lifeof leisure. The English character prefers a higher rate of expenditureand work continued to the end. It is probable that, so far as happiness depends on money, the happiestlot--though it is certainly not that which is most envied--is that of aman who possesses a realised fortune sufficient to save him from seriousmoney cares about the present and the future, but who at the same timecan only keep up the position in society he has chosen for himself, andprovide as he desires for his children, by adding to it a professionalincome. Work is necessary both to happiness and to character, andexperience shows that it most frequently attains its full concentrationand continuity when it is professional, or, in other words, money-making. Men work in traces as they will seldom work at liberty. The compulsory character, the steady habits, the constant emulation ofprofessional life mould and strengthen the will, and probably thehappiest lot is when this kind of work exists, but without the anxietyof those who depend solely on it. It is also a good thing when wealth tends to increase with age. 'Oldage, ' it has been said, 'is a very expensive thing. ' If the taste forpleasure diminishes, the necessity for comfort increases. Men becomemore dependent and more fastidious, and hardships that are indifferentto youth become acutely painful. Beside this, money cares are apt toweigh with an especial heaviness upon the old. Avarice, as has beenoften observed, is eminently an old-age vice, and in natures that are inno degree avaricious it will be found that real money anxieties are morefelt and have a greater haunting power in age than in youth. There isthen the sense of impotence which makes men feel that their earningpower has gone. On the other hand youth, and especially early marriedlife spent under the pressure of narrow circumstances, will often belooked back upon as both the happiest and the most fruitful period oflife. It is the best discipline of character. It is under suchcircumstances that men acquire habits of hard and steady work, frugality, order, forethought, punctuality, and simplicity of tastes. They acquire sympathies and realisations they would never have known inmore prosperous circumstances. They learn to take keen pleasure inlittle things, and to value rightly both money and time. If wealth andluxury afterwards come in overflowing measure, these lessons will not bewholly lost. The value of money as an element of happiness diminishes rapidly inproportion to its amount. In the case of the humbler fortunes, eachaccession brings with it a large increase of pleasure and comfort, andprobably a very considerable addition to real happiness. In the case ofrich men this is not the case, and of colossal fortunes only a verysmall fraction can be truly said to minister to the personal enjoymentof the owner. The disproportion in the world between pleasure and costis indeed almost ludicrous. The two or three shillings that gave us ourfirst Shakespeare would go but a small way towards providing one of theperhaps untasted dishes on the dessert table. The choicest masterpiecesof the human mind--the works of human genius that through the longcourse of centuries have done most to ennoble, console, brighten, anddirect the lives of men, might all be purchased--I do not say by thecost of a lady's necklace, but by that of one or two of the littlestones of which it is composed. Compare the relish with which the tiredpedestrian eats his bread and cheese with the appetites with which mensit down to some stately banquet; compare the level of spirits at thevillage dance with that of the great city ball whose lavish splendourfills the society papers with admiration; compare the charm ofconversation in the college common room with the weary faces that may beoften seen around the millionaire's dinner table, --and we may gain agood lesson of the vanity of riches. The transition from want to comfortbrings with it keen enjoyment and much lasting happiness. The transitionfrom mere comfort to luxury brings incomparably less and costsincomparably more. Let a man of enormous wealth analyse his life fromday to day and try to estimate what are the things or hours that haveafforded him real and vivid pleasure. In many cases he will probably saythat he has found it in his work--in others in the hour spent with hiscigar, his newspaper, or his book, or in his game of cricket, or in theexcitement of the hunting-field, or in his conversation with an oldfriend, or in hearing his daughters sing, or in welcoming his son on hisreturn from school. Let him look round the splendid adornments of hishome and ask how many of these things have ever given him a pleasure atall proportionate to their cost. Probably in many cases, if he dealshonestly with himself, he would confess that his armchair and hisbookshelves are almost the only exceptions. Steam, the printing press, the spread of education, and the greatmultiplication of public libraries, museums, picture galleries andexhibitions have brought the chief pleasures of life in a much largerdegree than in any previous age within the reach of what are called theworking classes, while in the conditions of modern life nearly all thegreat sources of real enjoyment that money can give are open to a manwho possesses a competent but not extraordinary fortune and someleisure. Intellectual tastes he may gratify to the full. Books, at allevents in the great centres of civilisation, are accessible far inexcess of his powers of reading. The pleasures of the theatre, thepleasures of society, the pleasures of music in most of its forms, thepleasures of travel with all its variety of interests, and many of thepleasures of sport, are abundantly at his disposal. The possession ofthe highest works of art has no doubt become more and more a monopoly ofthe very rich, but picture galleries and exhibitions and the facilitiesof travel have diffused the knowledge and enjoyment of art over a vastlywider area than in the past. The power of reproducing works of art hasbeen immensely increased and cheapened, and in one form at least thehighest art has been brought within the reach of a man of very moderatemeans. Photography can reproduce a drawing with such absolute perfectionthat he may cover his walls with works of Michael Angelo and Leonardo daVinci that are indistinguishable from the originals. The standard ofcomfort in mere material things is now so high in well-to-do householdsthat to a healthy nature the millionaire can add little to it. Perhapsamong the pleasures of wealth that which has the strongest influence isa country place, especially when it brings with it old remembrances, andassociations that appeal powerfully to the affections and theimagination. More than any other inanimate thing it throws its tendrilsround the human heart and becomes the object of a deep and lastingaffection. But even here it will be probably found that this pleasure ismore felt by the owner of one country place than by the greatproprietor whose life is spent alternately in several--by the owner of aplace of moderate dimensions than by the owner of those vast parks whichcan only be managed at great expense and trouble and by much delegatedsupervision, and which are usually thrown open with such liberality tothe public that they probably give more real pleasure to others than totheir owners. Among the special pleasures of the enormously rich the collectingpassion is conspicuous, and of course a very rich man can carry it intodepartments which men of moderate fortune can hardly touch. In the rarecase when the collector is a man of strong and genuine artistic tastethe possession of works of beauty is a thing of enduring pleasure, butin general the mere love of collecting, though it often becomes apassion almost amounting to a mania, bears very little proportion topecuniary value. The intelligent collector of fossils has as muchpleasure as the collector of gems--probably indeed more, as the formerpursuit brings with it a much greater variety of interest, and usuallydepends much more on the personal exertions of the collector. It ispleasant, in looking over a geological collection, to think that everystone we see has given a pleasure. A collector of Caxtons, a collectorof large printed or illustrated editions, a collector of first editionsof famous books, a collector of those editions that are so much prizedbecause an author has made in them some blunder which he afterwardscorrected; a collector of those unique books which have survived asrarities because no one thought it worth while to reprint them orbecause they are distinguished by some obsolete absurdity, willprobably not derive more pleasure, though he will spend vastly moremoney, than the mere literary man who, being interested in someparticular period or topic, loves to hunt up in old bookshops theobscure and forgotten literature relating to it. Much the same thing maybe said of other tastes. The gratification of a strong taste or hobbywill always give pleasure, and it makes little difference whether it isan expensive or an inexpensive one. The pleasures of acquisition, the pleasures of possession, and thepleasures of ostentation, are no doubt real things, though they act invery different degrees on different natures, and some of them much moreon one sex than on the other. In general, however, they tend to growpassive and inert. A state of luxury and splendour is little appreciatedby those who are born to it, though much if it follows a period ofstruggle and penury. Yet even then the circumstances and surroundings oflife soon become a second nature. Men become so habituated to them thatthey are accepted almost mechanically and cease to give positivepleasure, though a deprivation of them gives positive pain. The love ofpower, the love of society, and--what is not quite the same thing--thelove of social influence, are, however, much stronger and more enduring, and great wealth is largely valued because it helps to give them, thoughit does not give them invariably, and though there are other things thatgive them in an equal or greater degree. To many very rich men some formof field sports is probably the greatest pleasure that money affords. Itat least gives a genuine thrill of unmistakable enjoyment. Few of the special pleasures of the millionaire can be said to bepurely selfish, for few are concentrated altogether on himself. Hisgreat park is usually open to the public. His pictures are lent forexhibition or exhibited in his house. If he keeps a pack of houndsothers hunt with it. If he preserves game to an enormous extent heinvites many to shoot it, and at his great entertainments it will oftenbe found that no one derives less pleasure than the weary host. At the same time no thinking man can fail to be struck with the greatwaste of the means of enjoyment in a society in which such gigantic sumsare spent in mere conventional ostentation which gives little or nopleasure; in which the best London houses are those which are thelongest untenanted; in which some of the most enchanting gardens andparks are only seen by their owners for a few weeks in the year. Hamerton, in his Essay on Bohemianism, has very truly shown that therationale of a great deal of this is simply the attempt of men to obtainfrom social intercourse the largest amount of positive pleasure oramusement it can give by discarding the forms, the costlyconventionalities, the social restrictions that encumber and limit it. One of the worst tendencies of a very wealthy society is that by themere competition of ostentation the standard of conventional expense israised, and the intercourse of men limited by the introduction of anumber of new and costly luxuries which either give no pleasure or givepleasure that bears no kind of proportion to their cost. Examples maysometimes be seen of a very rich man who imagines that he can obtainfrom life real enjoyment in proportion to his wealth and who uses itfor purely selfish purposes. We may find this in the almost insaneextravagance of vulgar ostentation by which the parvenu millionairetries to gratify his vanity and dazzle his neighbours; in the wild roundof prodigal dissipation and vice by which so many young men who haveinherited enormous fortunes have wrecked their constitutions and found aspeedy path to an unhonoured grave. They sought from money what moneycannot give, and learned too late that in pursuing shadows they missedthe substance that was within their reach. To the intelligent millionaire, however, and especially to those who arebrought up to great possessions, wealth is looked on in a whollydifferent light. It is a possession and a trust carrying with it manyduties as well as many interests and accompanied by a great burden ofresponsibility. Mere pleasure-hunting plays but a small and whollysubsidiary part in such lives, and they are usually filled with muchuseful work. This man, for example, is a banker on a colossal scale. Follow his life, and you will find that for four days in the week he isengaged in his office as steadily, as unremittingly as any clerk in hisestablishment. He has made himself master not only of the details of hisown gigantic business but of the whole great subject of finance in allits international relations. He is a power in many lands. He isconsulted in every crisis of finance. He is an important influence in acrowd of enterprises, most of them useful as well as lucrative, some ofthem distinctively philanthropic. Saturday and Sunday he spends at hiscountry place, usually entertaining a number of guests. One other dayduring the hunting season he regularly devotes to his favourite sport. His holiday is the usual holiday of a professional man, with rather atendency to abridge than to lengthen it, as the natural bent of histhoughts is so strongly to his work that time soon begins to hangheavily when he is away from it. Another man is an ardent philanthropist, and his philanthropy probablyblends with much religious fervour, and he becomes in consequence aleader in the religious world. Such a life cannot fail to be abundantlyfilled. Religious meetings, committees, the various interests of themany institutions with which he is connected, the conflicting andcompeting claims of different religious societies, fully occupy his timeand thoughts, sometimes to the great neglect of his private affairs. Another man is of a different type. Shy, retiring, hating publicity, andnot much interested in politics, he is a gigantic landowner, and thework of his life is concentrated on the development of his own estate. He knows the circumstances of every village, almost of every farm. It ishis pride that no labourer on his estate is badly housed, that no partof it is slovenly or mismanaged or poverty-stricken. He endows churchesand hospitals, he erects public buildings, encourages every localindustry, makes in times of distress much larger remissions of rent thanwould be possible for a poorer man, superintends personally the manyinterests on his property, knows accurately the balance of receipts andexpenditure, takes a great interest in sanitation, in new improvementsand experiments in agriculture, in all the multifarious matters thataffect the prosperity of his numerous tenantry. He subscribes liberallyto great national undertakings, as he considers it one of the duties ofhis position, but his heart is not in such things, and the well-being ofhis own vast estate and of those who live upon it is the aim and thework of his life. For a few weeks of the year he exercises the splendidand lavish hospitality which is expected from a man in his position, andhe is always very glad when those weeks are over. He has, however, hisown expensive hobby, which gives him real pleasure--his yacht, hispicture gallery, his museum, his collection of wild animals, hishothouses or his racing establishment. One or more of these form thereal amusement of his active and useful life. A more common type in England is that of the active politician. Greatwealth and especially great landed property bring men easily intoParliament, and, if united with industry and some measure of ability, into official life, and public life thus becomes a profession and inmany cases a very laborious one. There are few better examples of awell-filled life and of the skilful management and economy of time thanare to be found in the lives of some great noblemen who take a leadingpart in politics and preside over important Government departmentswithout suffering their gigantic estates to fall into mismanagement, orneglecting the many social duties and local interests connected withthem. Most of their success is indeed due to the wise use of money ineconomising time by trustworthy and efficient delegation. Yet thesuperintending brain, the skilful choice, the personal control cannotbe dispensed with. In a life so fully occupied the few weeks of pleasurewhich may be spent on a Scotch moor or in a Continental watering-placewill surely not be condemned. The economy of time and the elasticity of brain and character such livesdevelop are, however, probably exceeded by another class. Nothing ismore remarkable in the social life of the present generation than thehigh pressure under which a large number of ladies in great positionshabitually live. It strikes every Continental observer, for there isnothing approaching it in any other European country, and it certainlyfar exceeds anything that existed in England in former generations. Pleasure-seeking, combined, however, on a large scale withpleasure-giving, holds a much more prominent place in these lives thanin those I have just described. With not a few women, indeed, of wealthand position, it is the all-in-all of life, and in general it isprobable that women obtain more pleasure from most forms of society thanmen, though it is also true that they bear a much larger share of itsburdens. There are, however, in this class, many who combine withsociety a truly surprising number and variety of serious interests. Notonly the management of a great house, not only the superintendence ofschools and charities and local enterprises connected with a greatestate, but also a crowd of philanthropic, artistic, political, andsometimes literary interests fill their lives. Few lives, indeed, in anystation are more full, more intense, more constantly and variouslyoccupied. Public life, which in most foreign countries is wholly outsidethe sphere of women, is eagerly followed. Public speaking, which in thememory of many now living was almost unknown among women of any stationin English society, has become the most ordinary accomplishment. Theirobject is to put into life from youth to old age as much as life cangive, and they go far to attain their end. A wonderful nimbleness andflexibility of intellect capable of turning swiftly from subject tosubject has been developed, and keeps them in touch with a very widerange both of interests and pleasures. There are no doubt grave drawbacks to all this. Many will say that thisexternal activity must be at the sacrifice of the duties of domesticlife, but on this subject there is, I think, at least much exaggeration. Education has now assumed such forms and attained such a standard thatusually for many hours in the day the education of the young in awealthy family is in the hands of accomplished specialists, and I do notthink that the most occupied lives are those in which the cares of ahome are most neglected. How far, however, this intense and constantstrain is compatible with physical well-being is a graver question, andmany have feared that it must bequeath weakened constitutions to thecoming generation. Nor is a life of incessant excitement in otherrespects beneficial. In both intellectual and moral hygiene the bestlife is that which follows nature and alternates periods of greatactivity with periods of rest. Retirement, quiet, steady reading, andthe silent thought which matures character and deepens impressions arethings that seem almost disappearing from many English lives. But livessuch as I have described are certainly not useless, undeveloped, orwholly selfish, and they in a large degree fulfil that great law ofhappiness, that it should be sought for rather in interests than inpleasures. I have already referred to the class who value money chiefly because itenables them to dismiss money thoughts and cares from their minds. Onthe whole, this end is probably more frequently attained by men ofmoderate but competent fortunes than by the very rich. This is at leastthe case when they are sufficiently rich to invest their money insecurities which are liable to no serious risk or fluctuation. Agigantic fortune is seldom of such a nature that it does not bring withit great cares of administration and require much thought and manydecisions. There is, however, one important exception. When there aremany children the task of providing for their future falls much morelightly on the very rich than on those of medium fortune. There is a class, however, who are the exact opposite of these and whomake the simple acquisition of money the chief interest and pleasure oftheir lives. Money-making in some form is the main occupation of thegreat majority of men, but it is usually as a means to an end. It is toacquire the means of livelihood, or the means of maintaining orimproving a social position, or the means of providing as they think fitfor the children who are to succeed them. Sometimes, however, with thevery rich and without any ulterior object, money-making for its own sakebecomes the absorbing interest. They can pursue it with great advantage;for, as has been often said, nothing makes money like money, and thepossession of an immense capital gives innumerable facilities forincreasing it. The collecting passion takes this form. They come to caremore for money than for anything money can purchase, though less formoney than for the interest and the excitement of getting it. Speculative enterprise, with its fluctuations, uncertainties andsurprises, becomes their strongest interest and their greatestamusement. When it is honestly conducted there is no real reason why it should becondemned. On these conditions a life so spent is, I think, usuallyuseful to the world, for it generally encourages works that are of realvalue. All that can be truly said is that it brings with it gravetemptations and is very apt to lower a man's moral being. Speculationeasily becomes a form of gambling so fierce in its excitement that, whencarried on incessantly and on a great scale, it kills all capacity forhigher and tranquil pleasures, strengthens incalculably the temptationsto unscrupulous gain, disturbs the whole balance of character, and ofteneven shortens life. With others the love of accumulation has a strangepower of materialising, narrowing and hardening. Habits ofmeanness--sometimes taking curious and inconsistent forms, and applyingonly to particular things or departments of life--steal insensibly overthem, and the love of money assumes something of the character of mania. Temptations connected with money are indeed among the most insidious andamong the most powerful to which we are exposed. They have probably awider empire than drink, and, unlike the temptations that spring fromanimal passion, they strengthen rather than diminish with age. In norespect is it more necessary for a man to keep watch over his owncharacter, taking care that the unselfish element does not diminish, andcorrecting the love of acquisition by generosity of expenditure. It is probable that the highest form of charity, involving real andserious self-denial, is much more common among the poor, and even thevery poor, than among the rich. I think most persons who have had muchpractical acquaintance with the dealings of the poor with one anotherwill confirm this. It is certainly far less common among those who areat the opposite pole of fortune. They have not had the same discipline, or indeed the same possibility of self-sacrifice, or the same means ofrealising the pains of poverty, and there is another reason which tendsnot unnaturally to check their benevolence. A man with the reputation ofgreat wealth soon finds himself beleaguered by countless forms ofmendicancy and imposture. He comes to feel that there is a generalconspiracy to plunder him, and he is naturally thrown into an attitudeof suspicion and self-defence. Often, though he may give largely andgenerously, he will do so under the veil of strict anonymity, in orderto avoid a reputation for generosity which will bring down upon himperpetual solicitations. If he is an intellectual man he will probablygeneralise from his own experience. He will be deeply impressed with theenormous evils that have sprung from ill-judged charity, and with thesuperiority even from a philanthropic point of view of a productiveexpenditure of money. And in truth it is difficult to overrate the evil effects of injudiciouscharities in discouraging thrift, industry, foresight and self-respect. They take many forms; some of them extremely obvious, while others canonly be rightly judged by a careful consideration of remoteconsequences. There are the idle tourists who break down, in a onceunsophisticated district, that sense of self-respect which is one of themost valuable lessons that early education can give, by flinging penceto be scrambled for among the children, or who teach the poor the fatallesson that mendicancy or something hardly distinguishable frommendicancy will bring greater gain than honest and continuous work. There is the impulsive, uninquiring charity that makes the trade of theskilful begging-letter writer a lucrative profession, and makes men andwomen who are rich, benevolent and weak, the habitual prey of greedyimpostors. There is the old-established charity for ministering tosimple poverty which draws to its centre all the pauperism of theneighbouring districts, depresses wages, and impoverishes the verydistrict or class it was intended to benefit. There are charities whichnot only largely diminish the sufferings that are the naturalconsequence and punishment of vice; but even make the lot of thecriminal and the vicious a better one than that of the hard-workingpoor. There are overlapping charities dealing with the same department, but kept up with lavish waste through the rivalry of different religiousdenominations, or in the interests of the officials connected with them;belated or superannuated charities formed to deal with circumstances orsufferings that have in a large degree passed away--useless, or almostuseless, charities established to carry out some silly fad or to gratifysome silly vanity; sectarian charities intended to further ends which, in the eyes of all but the members of one sect, are not only useless butmischievous; charities that encourage thriftless marriages, or make iteasy for men to neglect obvious duties, or keep a semi-pauper populationstationary in employments and on a soil where they can never prosper, orin other ways handicap, impede or divert the natural and healthy courseof industry. Illustrations of all these evils will occur to everycareful student of the subject. Unintelligent, thoughtless, purelyimpulsive charity, and charity which is inspired by some other motivethan a real desire to relieve suffering, will constantly go wrong, butevery intelligent man can find without difficulty vast fields on whichthe largest generosity may be expended with abundant fruit. Hospitals and kindred institutions for alleviating great unavoidablecalamities, and giving the sick poor something of the same chances ofrecovery as the rich, for the most part fall under this head. Money willseldom be wasted which is spent in promoting kinds of knowledge, enterprise or research that bring no certain remuneration proportionedto their value; in assisting poor young men of ability and industry todevelop their special talents; in encouraging in their many differentforms thrift, self-help and co-operation; in alleviating the inevitablesuffering that follows some great catastrophe on land or sea, or greattransitions of industry, or great fluctuations and depressions in classprosperity; in giving the means of healthy recreation or ennoblingpleasures to the denizens of a crowded town. The vast sphere ofeducation opens endless fields for generous expenditure, and everyreligious man will find objects which, in the opinion not only of men ofhis own persuasion, but also of many others, are transcendentlyimportant. Nor is it a right principle that charity should be denied toall calamities which are in some degree due to the fault of thesufferer, or which might have been averted by exceptional forethought orself-denial. Some economists write as if a far higher standard of willand morals should be expected among the poor and the uneducated than canbe found among the rich. Good sense and right feeling will here easilydraw the line, abstaining from charities that have a real influence inencouraging improvidence or vice, yet making due allowance for thenormal weaknesses of our nature. In all these ways the very rich can find ample opportunities for usefulbenevolence. It is the prerogative of great wealth that it can oftencure what others can only palliate, and can establish permanent sourcesof good which will continue long after the donors have passed away. Indealing with individual cases of distress, rich men who have neither thetime nor the inclination to investigate the special circumstances willdo well to rely largely on the recommendation of others. If they choosetrustworthy, competent and sensible advisers with as much judgment asthey commonly show in the management of their private affairs, they arenot likely to go astray. There never was a period when a larger amountof intelligent and disinterested labour was employed in careful anddetailed examination of the circumstances and needs of the poor. Theparish clergyman, the district visitor, the agents of the CharityOrganization Society which annually selects its special cases ofwell-ascertained need, will abundantly furnish them with the knowledgethey require. The advantage or disadvantage of the presence in a country of a largeclass of men possessing fortunes far exceeding anything that can reallyadminister to their enjoyment is a question which has greatly dividedboth political economists and moralists. The former were long accustomedto maintain somewhat exclusively that laws and institutions should beestablished with the object of furthering the greatest possibleaccumulation of wealth, and that a system of unrestricted competition, coupled with equal laws, giving each man the most complete security inthe possession and disposal of his property, was the best means ofattaining this end. They urged with great truth that, although undersuch a system the inequalities of fortune will be enormous, most of thewealth of the very rich will inevitably be distributed in the form ofwages, purchases, and industrial enterprises through the community atlarge, and that, other things being equal, the richest country will onthe whole be the happiest. They clearly saw the complete delusion of thecommon assertions that the more millionaires there are in a country themore paupers will multiply, and that society is dividing between theenormously rich and the abjectly poor. The great industrial communities, in which there are the largest number of very wealthy men, are also thecentres in which we find the most prosperous middle class, and thehighest and most progressive rates of wages and standards of comfortamong the poor. Great corruption in many forms no doubt exists in them, but it can scarcely be maintained with confidence that the standard ofintegrity is on the whole lower in these than in other countries, andthey at least escape what in many poor countries is one of the mostfruitful causes of corruption in all branches of administration--theinadequate pay of the servants of the Crown. The path of liberty in theeyes of economists of this school is the path of wisdom, and they wereprofoundly distrustful of all legislative attempts to restrict orinterfere with the course of industrial progress. In our own generation a somewhat different tendency has manifestlystrengthened. It has been said that past political economists paid toomuch attention to the accumulation and too little to the distribution ofwealth. Men have become more sensible to the high level of happiness andmoral well-being that has been attained in some of the smaller andsomewhat stagnant countries of Europe, where wealth is more generallyattained by thrift and steady industry than by great industrial orcommercial enterprise, in which there are few large fortunes but littleacute poverty, a low standard of luxury, but a high standard of realcomfort. The enormous evils that have grown up in wealthy countries, inthe form of company-mongering, excessive competition, extravagant andoften vicious luxury, and dishonest administration of public funds, aremore and more felt, and it is only too true that in these countriesthere are large and influential circles of society in which allconsiderations of character, intellect, or manners seem lost in anintense thirst for wealth and for the things that it can give. Sometimes we find vast fortunes in countries where there is but littleenterprise and a very low standard of comfort among the people, andwhere this is the case it is usually due to unequal laws or corruptadministration. In the free, democratic, and industrial communitiesgreat fluctuations and disparities of wealth are inevitable, and some ofthe most colossal fortunes have, no doubt, been made by the evil methodsI have described. They are, however, only a minority, and not a verylarge one. Like all the great successes of life, abnormal accumulationof wealth is usually due to the combination in different proportions ofability, character, and chance, and is not tainted with dishonesty. Onthe whole, the question that should be asked is not what a man has, buthow he obtained it and how he uses it. When wealth is honestly acquiredand wisely and generously used, the more rich men there are in a countrythe better. There has probably never been a period in the history of the world whenthe conditions of industry, assisted by the great gold discoveries inseveral parts of the globe, were so favourable to the formation ofenormous fortunes as at present, and when the race of millionaires wasso large. The majority belong to the English-speaking race; probablymost of their gigantic fortunes have been rapidly accumulated, and bringwith them none of the necessary, hereditary, and clearly definedobligations of a great landowner, while a considerable proportion ofthem have fallen to the lot of men who, through their education or earlyhabits, have not many cultivated or naturally expensive tastes. InEngland many of the new millionaires become great landowners and set upgreat establishments. In America, where country tastes are less markedand where the difficulties of domestic service are very great, this isless common. In both countries the number of men with immense fortunes, absolutely at their own disposal, has enormously increased, and thecharacter of their expenditure has become a matter of real nationalimportance. Much of it, no doubt, goes in simple luxury and ostentation, or in merespeculation, or in restoring old and dilapidated fortunes through themarriages of rank with money which are so characteristic of our time;but much also is devoted to charitable or philanthropic purposes. Inthis, as in most things, motives are often very blended. To men of suchfortunes, such expenditure, even on a large scale, means no realself-sacrifice, and the inducements to it are not always of the highestkind. To some men it is a matter of ambition--a legitimate and usefulambition--to obtain the enduring and honourable fame which attaches tothe founder of a great philanthropic or educational establishment. Others find that, in England at least, large philanthropic expenditureis one of the easiest and shortest paths to social success, bringing menand women of low extraction and bad manners into close and frequentconnection with the recognised leaders of society; while others againhave discovered that it is the quickest way of effacing the stigma whichstill in some degree attaches to wealth which has been acquired bydishonourable or dubious means. Fashion, social ambition, and socialrivalries are by no means unknown in the fields of charity. There aremany, however, in whose philanthropy the element of self has no place, and whose sole desire is to expend their money in forms that can be ofmost real and permanent benefit to others. Such men have great power, and, if their philanthropic expenditure iswisely guided, it may be of incalculable benefit. I have alreadyindicated many of the channels in which it may safely flow, but one ortwo additional hints on the subject may not be useless. Perhaps as ageneral rule these men will find that they can act most wisely bystrengthening and enlarging old charities which are really good, ratherthan by founding new ones. Competition is the soul of industry, butcertainly not of charity, and there is in England a deplorable waste ofmoney and machinery through the excessive multiplication of institutionsintended for the same objects. The kind of ambition to which I have justreferred tends to make men prefer new charities which can be identifiedwith their names; the paid officials connected with charities havebecome a large and powerful profession, and their influence is naturallyused in the same direction; the many different religious bodies in thecountry often refuse to combine, and each desires to have its owninstitutions; and there are fashions in charity which, while theygreatly stimulate generosity, have too often the effect of diverting itfrom the older and more unobtrusive forms. On the other hand, one of themost important facts in our present economical condition is that anextraordinary and almost unparalleled development of industrialprosperity has been accompanied by extreme and long-continuedagricultural depression and by a great fall in the rate of interest. Wealth in many forms is accumulating with wonderful rapidity, and theincreased rate of wages is diffusing prosperity among the workingclasses; but those who depend directly or indirectly on agriculturalrents or on interest of money invested in trust securities have beensuffering severely, and they comprise some of the most useful, blameless, and meritorious classes in the community. The same causesthat have injured them have fallen with crushing severity onold-established institutions which usually derive their income largelyor entirely from the rent of land or from money invested in the publicfunds. The bitter cry of distress that is rising from the hospitals andmany other ancient charities, from the universities, from the clergy ofthe Established Church, abundantly proves it. The preference, however, to be given to old charities rather than to newones is subject to very many exceptions. It does not apply to newcountries or to the many cases in which changes and developments ofindustry have planted vast agglomerations of population in districtswhich were once but thinly populated, and therefore but little providedwith charitable or educational institutions. Nor does it apply to themany cases in which the circumstances of modern life have called intoexistence new forms of charity, new wants, new dangers and evils to becombated, new departments of knowledge to be cultivated. One of thegreatest difficulties of the older universities is that of providing, out of their shrinking endowments, for the teaching of branches ofscience and knowledge which have only come into existence, or at leastinto prominence, long after these universities were established, andsome of which require not only trained teachers but costly apparatusand laboratories. Increasing international competition and enlargedscientific knowledge have rendered necessary an amount of technical andagricultural education never dreamed of by our ancestors; and the riseof the great provincial towns and the greater intensity of provinciallife and provincial patriotism, as well as the changes that have passedover the position both of the working and middle classes, have created agenuine demand for educational establishments of a different type fromthe older universities. The higher education of women is essentially anineteenth-century work, and it has been carried on without theassistance of old endowments and with very little help from modernParliaments. In the distribution of public funds a class which is whollyunrepresented in Parliament seldom gets its fair share; and highereducation, like most forms of science, like most of the higher forms ofliterature, and like many valuable forms of research, never can beself-supporting. There are great branches of knowledge which withoutestablished endowments must remain uncultivated, or be cultivated onlyby men of considerable private means. Some invaluable curative agencies, such as convalescent homes in different countries and climates and fordifferent diseases, have grown up in our own generation, as well as someof the most fruitful forms of medical research and some of the mostefficacious methods of giving healthy change and brightness to the livesthat are most monotonous and overstrained. Every great revolution inindustry, in population, and even in knowledge, brings with it new andspecial wants, and there are cases in which assisted emigration is oneof the best forms of charity. These are but a few illustrations of the directions in which the largesurplus funds which many of the very rich are prepared to expend onphilanthropic purposes may profitably go. There is a marked andincreasing tendency in our age to meet all the various exigencies ofSociety, as they arise, by State aid resting on compulsory taxation. Incountries where the levels of fortune are such that few men have incomesgreatly in excess of their real or factitious wants, this method willprobably be necessary; but many of the wants I have described can bebetter met by the old English method of intelligent private generosity, and in a country in which the number of the very rich is so great and soincreasing, this generosity should not be wanting. FOOTNOTE: [67] _Notes on Life. _ CHAPTER XIV MARRIAGE The beautiful saying of Newton, that he felt like a child who had beenpicking up a few pebbles on the shore of the great ocean of undiscoveredtruth, may well occur to any writer who attempts to say something on thevast subject of marriage. The infinite variety of circumstances andcharacters affects it in infinitely various ways, and all that can herebe done is to collect a few somewhat isolated and miscellaneous remarksupon it. Yet it is a subject which cannot be omitted in a book likethis. In numerous cases it is the great turning-point of a life, and inall cases when it takes place it is one of the most important of itsevents. Whatever else marriage may do or fail to do, it never leaves aman unchanged. His intellect, his character, his happiness, his way oflooking on the world, will all be influenced by it. If it does not raiseor strengthen him it will lower or weaken. If it does not deepenhappiness it will impair it. It brings with it duties, interests, habits, hopes, cares, sorrows, and joys that will penetrate into everyfissure of his nature and modify the whole course of his life. It is strange to think with how much levity and how little knowledge acontract which is so indissoluble and at the same time so momentous isconstantly assumed; sometimes under the influence of a blinding passionand at an age when life is still looked upon as a romance or an idyll;sometimes as a matter of mere ambition and calculation, through a desirefor wealth or title or position. Men and women rely on the force ofhabit and necessity to accommodate themselves to conditions they havenever really understood or realised. In most cases different motives combine, though in different degrees. Sometimes an overpowering affection for the person is the strongestmotive and eclipses all others. Sometimes the main motive to marriage isa desire to be married. It is to obtain a settled household andposition; to be relieved from the 'unchartered freedom' and the 'vaguedesires' of a lonely life; to find some object of affection; to acquirethe steady habits and the exemption from household cares which areessential to a career; to perpetuate a race; perhaps to escape fromfamily discomforts, or to introduce a new and happy influence into afamily. With these motives a real affection for a particular person isunited, but it is not of such a character as to preclude choice, judgment, comparison, and a consideration of worldly advantages. It is a wise saying of Swift that there would be fewer unhappy marriagesin the world if women thought less of making nets and more of makingcages. The qualities that attract, fascinate, and dazzle are oftenwidely different from those which are essential to a happy marriage. Sometimes they are distinctly hostile to it. More frequently theyconduce to it, but only in an inferior or subsidiary degree. The turn ofmind and character that makes the accomplished flirt is certainly notthat which promises best for the happiness of a married life; anddistinguished beauty, brilliant talents, and the heroic qualities thatplay a great part in the affairs of life, and shine conspicuously in thesocial sphere, sink into a minor place among the elements of marriedhappiness. In marriage the identification of two lives is so completethat it brings every faculty and gift into play, but in degrees andproportions very different from public life or casual intercourse andrelations. The most essential are often wanting in a brilliant life, andare largely developed in lives and characters that rise little, if atall, above the commonplace. In the words of a very shrewd man of theworld: 'Before marriage the shape, the figure, the complexion carry allbefore them; after marriage the mind and character unexpectedly claimtheir share, and that the largest, of importance. '[68] The relation is one of the closest intimacy and confidence, and if theidentity of interest between the two partners is not complete, each hasan almost immeasurable power of injuring the other. A moral basis ofsterling qualities is of capital importance. A true, honest, andtrustworthy nature, capable of self-sacrifice and self-restraint, shouldrank in the first line, and after that a kindly, equable, and contentedtemper, a power of sympathy, a habit of looking at the better andbrighter side of men and things. Of intellectual qualities, judgment, tact, and order are perhaps the most valuable. Above almost all things, men should seek in marriage perfect sanity, and dread everything likehysteria. Beauty will continue to be a delight, though with muchdiminished power, but grace and the charm of manner will retain theirfull attraction to the last. They brighten in innumerable ways thelittle things of life, and life is mainly made up of little things, exposed to petty frictions, and requiring small decisions and smallsacrifices. Wide interests and large appreciations are, in the marriagerelation, more important than any great constructive or creative talent, and the power to soothe, to sympathise, to counsel, and to endure, thanthe highest qualities of the hero or the saint. It is by these alonethat the married life attains its full measure of perfection. 'Tu mihi curarum requies, tu nocte vel atrâ Lumen, et in solis tu mihi turba locis. '[69] But while this is true of all marriages, it is obvious that differentprofessions and circumstances of life will demand different qualities. Ahard-working labouring man, or a man who, though not labouring with hishands, is living a life of poverty and struggle, will not seek inmarriage a type of character exactly the same as a man who is born to agreat position, and who has large social and administrative duties todischarge. The wife of a clergyman immersed in the many interests of aparish; the wife of a soldier or a merchant, who may have to live inmany lands, with long periods of separation from her husband, andperhaps amid many hardships; the wife of an active and ambitiouspolitician; the wife of a busy professional man incessantly occupiedoutside his home; the wife of a man whose health or business or habitskeep him constantly in his house, will each need some special qualities. There are few things in which both men and women naturally differ morethan in the elasticity and adaptiveness of their natures, in their powerof bearing monotony, in the place which habit, routine, and variety holdin their happiness; and in different kinds of life these things havevery different degrees of importance. Special family circumstances, suchas children by a former marriage, or difficult and delicate relationswith members of the family of one partner, will require the exercise ofspecial qualities. Such relations, indeed, are often one of the mostsearching and severe tests of the sterling qualities of femalecharacter. Probably, on the whole, the best presumption of a successful choice inmarriage will be found where the wife has not been educated incircumstances or ideas absolutely dissimilar from those of her marriedlife. Marriages of different races or colours are rarely happy, and thesame thing is true of marriages between persons of social levels thatare so different as to entail great differences of manners and habits. Other and minor disparities of circumstances between girl life andmarried life will have their effect, but they are less strong and lessinvariable. Some of the happiest marriages have been marriages ofemancipation, which removed a girl from uncongenial family surroundings, and placed her for the first time in an intellectual and moralatmosphere in which she could freely breathe. At the same time, in thechoice of a wife, the character, circumstances, habits, and tone of thefamily in which she has been brought up will always be an importantelement. There are qualities of race, there are pedigrees of character, which it is never prudent to neglect. Franklin quotes with approval theadvice of a wise man to choose a wife 'out of a bunch, ' as girls broughtup together improve each other by emulation, learn mutual self-sacrificeand forbearance, rub off their angularities, and are not suffered todevelop overweening self-conceit. A family where the ruling taste isvulgar, where the standard of honour is low, where extravagance andself-indulgence and want of order habitually prevail, creates anatmosphere which it needs a strong character altogether to escape. Thereis also the great question of physical health. A man should seek inmarriage rather to raise than to depress the physical level of hisfamily, and above all not to introduce into it grave, well-ascertainedhereditary disease. Of all forms of self-sacrifice hardly any is at onceso plainly right and so plainly useful as the celibacy of those who aretainted with such disease. There is no subject on which religious teachers have dwelt more thanupon marriage and the relation of the sexes, and it has been continuallyurged that the propagation of children is its first end. It is strange, however, to observe how almost absolutely in the popular ethics ofChristendom such considerations as that which I have last mentioned havebeen neglected. If one of the most responsible things that a man can dois to bring a human being into the world, one of his first and mostobvious duties is to do what he can to secure that it shall come intothe world with a sound body and a sane mind. This is the bestinheritance that parents can leave their children, and it is in a largedegree within their reach. Immature marriage, excessive child-bearing, marriages of near relations, and, above all, marriages with some gravehereditary physical or mental disease or some great natural defect, maybring happiness to the parents, but can scarcely fail to entail aterrible penalty upon their children. It is clearly recognised that oneof the first duties of parents to their children is to secure them inearly life not only good education, but also, as far as is within theirpower, the conditions of a healthy being. But the duty goes back to anearlier stage, and in marriage the prospects of the unborn should neverbe forgotten. This is one of the considerations which in the ethics ofthe future is likely to have a wholly different place from any that ithas occupied in the past. A kindred consideration, little less important and almost equallyneglected in popular teaching, is that it is a moral offence to bringchildren into the world with no prospect of being able to provide forthem. It is difficult to exaggerate the extent to which the neglect ofthese two duties has tended to the degradation and unhappiness of theworld. The greatly increased importance which the Darwinian theory has given toheredity should tend to make men more sensible of the first of theseduties. In marriage there are not only reciprocal duties between the twopartners; there are also, more than in any other act of life, plainduties to the race. The hereditary nature of insanity and of some formsof disease is an indisputable truth. The hereditary transmission ofcharacter has not, it is true, as yet acquired this position; and thereis a grave schism on the subject in the Darwinian school. But that itexists to some extent few close observers will doubt, and it is in ahigh degree probable that it is one of the most powerful mouldinginfluences of life. No more probable explanation has yet been given ofthe manner in which human nature has been built up, and of the variousinstincts and tastes with which we are born, than the doctrine thathabits and modes of thought and feeling indulged in and produced bycircumstances in former generations have gradually become innate in therace, and exhibit themselves spontaneously and instinctively and quiteindependently of the circumstances that originally produced them. According to this theory the same process is continually going on. Manhas slowly emerged from a degraded and bestial condition. The pressureof long-continued circumstances has moulded him into his special type;but new feelings and habits, or modifications of old feelings andhabits, are constantly passing not only into his life but into hisnature, taking root there, and in some degree at least reproducingthemselves by the force of heredity in the innate disposition of hisoffspring. If this be true, it gives a new and terrible importance bothto the duty of self-culture and to the duty of wise selection inmarriage. It means that children are likely to be influenced not only bywhat we do and by what we say, but also by what we are, and that thecharacters of the parents in different degrees and combinations willdescend even to a remote posterity. It throws a not less terrible light upon the miscalculations of thepast. On this hypothesis, as Mr. Galton has truly shown, it is scarcelypossible to exaggerate the evil which has been brought upon the world bythe religious glorification of celibacy and by the enormous developmentand encouragement of the monastic life. Generation after generation, century after century, and over the whole wide surface of Christendom, this conception of religion drew into a sterile celibacy nearly all whowere most gentle, most unselfish, most earnest, studious, and religious, most susceptible to moral and intellectual enthusiasm, and thusprevented them from transmitting to posterity the very qualities thatare most needed for the happiness and the moral progress of the race. Whenever the good and evil resulting from different religious systemscome to be impartially judged, this consideration is likely to weighheavily in the scale. [70] Returning, however, to the narrower sphere of particular marriages, itmay be observed that although full confidence, and, in one sense, complete identification of interests, are the characteristics of aperfect marriage, this does not by any means imply that one partnershould be a kind of duplicate of the other. Woman is not a mere weakerman; and the happiest marriages are often those in which, in tastes, character, and intellectual qualities, the wife is rather the complementthan the reflection of her husband. In intellectual things this isconstantly shown. The purely practical and prosaic intellect is unitedwith an intellect strongly tinged with poetry and romance; the man whosestrength is in facts, with the woman whose strength is in ideas; the manwho is wholly absorbed in science or politics or economical orindustrial problems and pursuits, with a woman who possesses the talentor at least the temperament of an artist or musician. In such cases onepartner brings sympathies or qualities, tastes or appreciations or kindsof knowledge in which the other is most defective; and by the close andconstant contact of two dissimilar types each is, often insensibly, butusually very effectually, improved. Men differ greatly in theirrequirements of intellectual sympathy. A perfectly commonplaceintellectual surrounding will usually do something to stunt or lower afine intelligence, but it by no means follows that each man finds thebest intellectual atmosphere to be that which is most in harmony withhis own special talent. To many, hard intellectual labour is an eminently isolated thing, andwhat they desire most in the family circle is to cast off all thought ofit. I have known two men who were in the first rank of science, intimatefriends, and both of them of very domestic characters. One of them wasaccustomed to do nearly all his work in the presence of his wife, and inthe closest possible co-operation with her. The other used tocongratulate himself that none of his family had his own scientifictastes, and that when he left his work and came into his family circlehe had the rest of finding himself in an atmosphere that was entirelydifferent. Some men of letters need in their work constant stimulus, interest, and sympathy. Others desire only to develop their talentuncontrolled, uninfluenced, and undisturbed, and with an atmosphere ofcheerful quiet around them. What is true of intellect is also in a large degree true of character. Two persons living constantly together should have many tastes andsympathies in common, and their characters will in most cases tend toassimilate. Yet great disparities of character may subsist in marriage, not only without evil but often with great advantage. This is especiallythe case where each supplies what is most needed in the other. Somenatures require sedatives and others tonics; and it will often be foundin a happy marriage that the union of two dissimilar natures stimulatesthe idle and inert, moderates the impetuous, gives generosity to theparsimonious and order to the extravagant, imparts the spirit of cautionor the spirit of enterprise which is most needed, and corrects, bycontact with a healthy and cheerful nature, the morbid and thedesponding. Marriage may also very easily have opposite effects. It is notunfrequently founded on the sympathy of a common weakness, and when thisis the case it can hardly fail to deepen the defect. On the whole, women, in some of the most valuable forms of strength--in the power ofendurance and in the power of perseverance--are at least the equals ofmen. But weak and tremulous nerves, excessive sensibility, and anexaggerated share of impulse and emotion, are indissolubly associatedwith certain charms, both of manner and character, which are intenselyfeminine, and to many men intensely attractive. When a nature of thiskind is wedded to a weak or a desponding man, the result will seldom behappiness to either party, but with a strong man such marriages areoften very happy. Strength may wed with weakness or with strength, butweakness should beware of mating itself with weakness. It needs the oakto support the ivy with impunity, and there are many who find theconstant contact of a happy and cheerful nature the first essential oftheir happiness. As it is not wise or right that either partner in marriage should losehis or her individuality, so it is right that each should have anindependent sphere of authority. It is assumed, of course, that there isthe perfect trust which should be the first condition of marriage andalso a reasonable judgment. Many marriages have been permanently marredbecause the woman has been given no independence in money matters and isobliged to come for each small thing to her husband. In general the lessthe husband meddles in household matters, or the wife in professionalones, the better. The education of very young children of both sexes, and of girls of a mature age, will fall almost exclusively to the wife. The education of the boys when they have emerged from childhood will berather governed by the judgment of the man. Many things will beregulated in common; but the larger interests of the family will usuallyfall chiefly to one partner, the smaller and more numerous ones to theother. On such matters, however, generalisations have little value, asexceptions are very numerous. Differences of character, age, experience, and judgment, and countless special circumstances, will modify thefamily type, and it is in discovering these differences that wisdom inmarriage mainly consists. The directions in which married life mayinfluence character are also very many; but in the large number of casesin which it brings with it a great weight of household cares and familyinterests it will usually be found with both partners, but especiallywith the woman, at once to strengthen and to narrow unselfishness. Shewill live very little for herself, but very exclusively for her family. On the intellectual side such marriages usually give a sounder judgmentand a wider knowledge of the world rather than purely intellectualtastes. It is a good thing when the education which precedes marriagenot only prepares for the duties of the married life, but also furnishesa fair share of the interests and tastes which that state will probablytend to weaken. The hard battle of life, and the anxieties and sorrowsthat a family seldom fails to bring, will naturally give an increaseddepth and seriousness to character. There are, however, natures which, though they may be tainted by no grave vice, are so incurably frivolousthat even this education will fail to influence them. As Emerson says, 'A fly is as untameable as a hyæna. ' The age that is most suited for marriage is also a matter which willdepend largely on individual circumstances. The ancients, as is wellknown, placed it, in the case of the man, far back, and they desired agreat difference of age between the man and the woman. Plato assignedbetween thirty and thirty-five, and Aristotle thirty-seven, as the bestage for a man to marry, while they would have the girls married ateighteen or twenty. [71] In their view, however, marriage was lookedupon very exclusively from the side of the man and of the State. Theylooked on it mainly as the means of producing healthy citizens, and itwas in their eyes almost wholly dissociated from the passion of love. Montaigne, in one of his essays, has expounded this view with thefrankest cynicism. [72] Yet few things are so important in marriage asthat the man should bring into it the freshness and the purity of anuntried nature, and that the early poetry and enthusiasm of life shouldat least in some degree blend with the married state. Nor is itdesirable that a relation in which the formation of habits plays solarge a part should be deferred until character has lost itsflexibility, and until habits have been irretrievably hardened. On the other hand there are invincible arguments against marriagesentered into at an age when neither partner has any real knowledge ofthe world and of men. Only too often they involve many illusions andleave many regrets. Some kinds of knowledge, such as that given byextended travel, are far more easily acquired before than aftermarriage. Usually very early marriages are improvident marriages, madewith no sufficient provision for the children, and often they areimmature marriages, bringing with them grave physical evils. In thosecases in which a great place or position is to be inherited, it isseldom a good thing that the interval of age between the owner and hisheir should be so small that inheritance will probably be postponed tillthe confines of old age. Marriages entered into in the decline of life stand somewhat apart fromothers, and are governed by other motives. What men chiefly seek in themis a guiding hand to lead them gently down the last descent of life. On this, as on most subjects connected with marriage, no general orinflexible rule can be laid down. Moralists have chiefly dilated on thedangers of deferred marriages; economists on the evils of improvidentmarriages. Each man's circumstances and disposition must determine hiscourse. On the whole, however, in most civilised countries theprevailing tendencies are in the direction of an increased postponementof marriage. Among the rich, the higher standard of luxury andrequirements, the comforts of club life, and also, I think, thediminished place which emotion is taking in life, all lead to this, while the spread of providence and industrial habits among the poor hasthe same tendency. A female pen is so much more competent than a masculine one for dealingwith marriage from the woman's point of view that I do not attempt toenter on that field. It is impossible, however, to overlook the markedtendency of nineteenth-century civilisation to give women, both marriedand unmarried, a degree of independence and self-reliance far exceedingthat of the past. The legislation of most civilised countries hasgranted them full protection for their property and their earnings, increased rights of guardianship over their children, a wider access toprofessional life, and even a very considerable voice in the managementof public affairs; and these influences have been strengthened by greatimprovement in female education, and by a change in the social tonewhich has greatly extended their latitude of independent action. For myown part, I have no doubt that this movement is, on the whole, beneficial, not only to those who have to fight a lonely battle in life, but also to those who are in the marriage state. Larger interests, widersympathies, a more disciplined judgment, and a greater power ofindependence and self-control naturally accompany it; and these thingscan never be wholly wasted. They will often be called into activeexercise by the many vicissitudes of the married life. They will, perhaps, be still more needed when the closest of human ties is severedby the great Divorce of Death. FOOTNOTES: [68] _Melbourne Papers_, p. 72. [69] Tibullus. [70] Galton's _Hereditary Genius_, pp. 357-8. It may be argued, on theother side, that the monasteries consigned to celibacy a greatproportion of the weaker physical natures, who would otherwise have leftsickly children behind them. This, and the much greater mortality ofweak infant life, must have strengthened the race in an age whensanitary science was unknown and when external conditions were veryunfavourable. [71] _Republic_, Book V. _Politics_, Book VII. [72] _Livre_ III. Ch. 5. CHAPTER XV SUCCESS One of the most important lessons that experience teaches is that on thewhole, and in the great majority of cases, success in life depends moreon character than on either intellect or fortune. Many brilliantexceptions, no doubt, tend to obscure the rule, and some of thequalities of character that succeed the best may be united with gravevices or defects; but on the whole the law is one that cannot bequestioned, and it becomes more and more apparent as civilisationadvances. Temperance, industry, integrity, frugality, self-reliance, andself-restraint are the means by which the great masses of men rise frompenury to comfort, and it is the nations in which these qualities aremost diffused that in the long run are the most prosperous. Chance andcircumstance may do much. A happy climate, a fortunate annexation, afavourable vicissitude in the course of commerce, may vastly influencethe prosperity of nations; anarchy, agitation, unjust laws, andfraudulent enterprise may offer many opportunities of individual or evenof class gains; but ultimately it will be found that the nations inwhich the solid industrial virtues are most diffused and most respectedpass all others in the race. The moral basis of character was the truefoundation of the greatness of ancient Rome, and when that foundationwas sapped the period of her decadence began. The solid, parsimonious, and industrious qualities of the French peasantry have given theircountry the recuperative force which has enabled its greatness tosurvive the countless follies and extravagances of its rulers. Character, it may be added, is especially pre-eminent in those kinds anddegrees of success that affect the greatest numbers of men and influencemost largely their real happiness--in the success which secures a highlevel of material comfort; which makes domestic life stable and happy;which wins for a man the respect and confidence of his neighbours. If wehave melancholy examples that very different qualities often gainsplendid prizes, it is still true that there are few walks in life inwhich a character that inspires complete confidence is not a leadingelement of success. In the paths of ambition that can only be pursued by the few, intellectual qualities bear a larger part, and there are, of course, many works of genius that are in their own nature essentiallyintellectual. Yet even the most splendid successes of life will often befound to be due much less to extraordinary intellectual gifts than to anextraordinary strength and tenacity of will, to the abnormal courage, perseverance, and work-power that spring from it, or to the tact andjudgment which make men skilful in seizing opportunities, and which, ofall intellectual qualities, are most closely allied with character. Strength of will and tact are not necessarily, perhaps not generally, conjoined, and often the first seems somewhat to impair the second. Thestrong passion, the intense conviction, the commanding and imperiousnature overriding obstacles and defying opposition, that often goes witha will of abnormal strength, does not naturally harmonise with thereticence of expression, the delicacy of touch and management thatcharacterise a man who possesses in a high degree the gift of tact. There are circumstances and times when each of these two things is moreimportant than the other, and the success of each man will mainly dependupon the suitability of his peculiar gift to the work he has to do. 'Thedaring pilot in extremity' is often by no means the best navigator in aquiet sea; and men who have shown themselves supremely great in momentsof crisis and appalling danger, who have built up mighty nations, subdued savage tribes, guided the bark of the State with skill andcourage amid the storms of revolution or civil war, and written theirnames in indelible letters on the page of history, have sometimes provedfar less successful than men of inferior powers in the art of managingassemblies, satisfying rival interests or assuaging by judiciouscompromise old hatreds and prejudices. We have had at least oneconspicuous example of the difference of these two types in our own dayin the life of the great founder of German Unity. Sometimes, however, men of great strength of will and purpose possessalso in a high degree the gift of tact; and when this is combined withsoundness of judgment it usually leads to a success in life out of allproportion to their purely intellectual qualities. In nearly alladministrative posts, in all the many fields of labour where the task ofman is to govern, manage, or influence others, to adjust or harmoniseantagonisms of race or interests or prejudices, to carry throughdifficult business without friction and by skilful co-operation, thiscombination of gifts is supremely valuable. It is much more valuablethan brilliancy, eloquence, or originality. I remember the comment of agood judge of men on the administration of a great governor who waspre-eminently remarkable for this combination. 'He always seemed to gainhis point, yet he never appeared to be in antagonism with anyone. ' Thesteady pressure of a firm and consistent will was scarcely felt when itwas accompanied by the ready recognition of everything that was good inthe argument of another, and by a charm of manner and of temper whichseldom failed to disarm opposition and win personal affection. The combination of qualities which, though not absolutely incompatible, are very usually disconnected, is the secret of many successful lives. Thus, to take one of the most homely, but one of the most useful andmost pleasing of all qualities--good-nature--it will too often be foundthat when it is the marked and leading feature of a character it isaccompanied by some want of firmness, energy, and judgment. Sometimes, however, this is not the case, and there are then few greater elementsof success. It is curious to observe the subtle, magnetic sympathy bywhich men feel whether their neighbour is a harsh or a kind judge ofothers, and how generally those who judge harshly are themselves harshlyjudged, while those who judge others rather by their merits than bytheir defects, and perhaps a little above their merits, win popularity. No one, indeed, can fail to notice the effect of good-nature inconciliating opposition, securing attachment, smoothing the variouspaths of life, and, it must be added, concealing grave faults. Laxitiesof conduct that might well blast the reputation of a man or a woman areconstantly forgotten, or at least forgiven, in those who lead a life oftactful good-nature, and in the eyes of the world this quality is morevalued than others of far higher and more solid worth. It is notunusual, for example, to see a lady in society, who is living wholly oralmost wholly for her pleasures, who has no high purpose in life, noreal sense of duty, no capacity for genuine and serious self-sacrifice, but who at the same time never says an unkind thing of her neighbours, sets up no severe standard of conduct either for herself or for others, and by an innate amiability of temperament tries, successfully andwithout effort, to make all around her cheerful and happy. She willprobably be more admired, she will almost certainly be more popular, than her neighbour whose whole life is one of self-denial for the goodof others, who sacrifices to her duties her dearest pleasures, her time, her money, and her talents, but who through some unhappy turn of temper, strengthened perhaps by a narrow and austere education, is a harsh andcensorious judge of the frailties of her fellows. It is also a curious thing to observe how often, when the saving gift oftact is wanting, the brilliant, the witty, the ambitious, and theenergetic are passed in the race of life by men who in intellectualqualities are greatly their inferiors. They dazzle, agitate, and in ameasure influence, and they easily win places in the second rank; butsomething in the very exercise of their talents continually trammelsthem, while judgment, tact, and good-nature, with comparatively littlebrilliancy, quietly and unobtrusively take the helm. There is theexcellent talker who, by his talents and his acquirements, is eminentlyfitted to delight and to instruct, yet he is so unable to repress someunseemly jest or some pointed sarcasm or some humorous paradox that hecontinually leaves a sting behind him, creates enemies, destroys hisreputation for sobriety of thought, and makes himself impossible inposts of administration and trust. There is the parliamentary speakerwho, amid shouts of applause, pursues his adversary with scathinginvective or merciless ridicule, and who all the time is accumulatinganimosities against himself, shutting the door against combinations thatwould be all important to his career, and destroying his chances ofparty leadership. There is the advocate who can state his case withconsummate power, but who, by an aggressive manner or a too evidentcontempt for his adversary, or by the over-statement of a good cause, habitually throws the minds of his hearers into an attitude ofopposition. There are the many men who, by ill-timed or too frequentlevity, lose all credit for their serious qualities, or who bypretentiousness or self-assertion or restless efforts to distinguishthemselves, make themselves universally disliked, or who by theiregotism or their repetitions or their persistence, or their incapacityof distinguishing essentials from details, or understanding thedispositions of others, or appreciating times and seasons, make theirwearied and exasperated hearers blind to the most substantial merits. Byfaults of tact men of really moderate opinions get the reputation ofextremists; men of substantially kindly natures sow animositieswherever they go; men of real patriotism are regarded as mere jesters orparty gamblers; men who possess great talents and have rendered greatservices to the world sink into inveterate bores and never obtain fromtheir contemporaries a tithe of the success which is their due. Tact isnot merely shown in saying the right thing at the right time and to theright people; it is shown quite as much in the many things that are leftunsaid and apparently unnoticed, or are only lightly and evasivelytouched. It is certainly not the highest of human endowments, but it is ascertainly one of the most valuable, for it is that which chiefly enablesa man to use his other gifts to advantage, and which most effectuallysupplies the place of those that are wanting. It lies on the borderlandof character and intellect. It implies self-restraint, good temper, quick and kindly sympathy with the feelings of others. It implies also aperception of the finer shadings of character and expression, theintellectual gift which enables a man to place himself in touch withgreat varieties of disposition, and to catch those more delicate notesof feeling to which a coarser nature is insensible. It is perhaps in most cases more developed among women than among men, and it does not necessarily imply any other remarkable gift. It issometimes found among both men and women of very small generalintellectual powers; and in numerous cases it serves only to add to thecharm of private life and to secure social success. Where it is unitedwith real talents it not only enables its possessor to use these talentsto the greatest advantage; it also often leads those about him greatlyto magnify their amount. The presence or absence of this gift is one ofthe chief causes why the relative value of different men is often sodifferently judged by contemporaries and by posterity; by those who havecome in direct personal contact with them, and by those who judge themfrom without, and by the broad results of their lives. Real tact, likegood manners, is or becomes a spontaneous and natural thing. The man ofperfectly refined manners does not consciously and deliberately on eachoccasion observe the courtesies and amenities of good society. They havebecome to him a second nature, and he observes them as by a kind ofinstinct, without thought or effort. In the same way true tact issomething wholly different from the elaborate and artificial attempts toconciliate and attract which may often be seen, and which usually bringwith them the impression of manoeuvre and insincerity. Though it may be found in men of very different characters and grades ofintellect, tact has its natural affinities. Seeking beyond all things toavoid unnecessary friction, and therefore with a strong leaning towardscompromise, it does not generally or naturally go with intenseconvictions, with strong enthusiasms, with an ardently impulsive oremotional temperament. Nor is it commonly found among men of deep andconcentrated genius, intensely absorbed in some special subject. Suchmen are often among the most unobservant of the social sides of life, and very bad judges of character, though there will frequently be foundamong them an almost childlike unworldliness and simplicity of nature, and an essential moderation of temperament which, combined with theirsuperiority of intellect, gives them a charm peculiarly their own. Tact, however, has a natural affinity to a calm, equable, andgood-natured temper. It allies itself with a quick sense of opportunity, proportion, and degree; with the power of distinguishing readily andtruly between the essential and the unimportant; with that soundness ofjudgment which not only guides men among the varied events of life, andin their estimate of those about them, but also enables them to take atrue measure of their own capacities, of the tasks that are most fittedfor them, of the objects of ambition that are and are not within theirreach. Though in its higher degrees it is essentially a natural gift, and issometimes conspicuous in perfectly uneducated men, it may be largelycultivated and improved; and in this respect the education of goodsociety is especially valuable. Such an education, whatever else it maydo, at least removes many jarring notes from the rhythm of life. Ittends to correct faults of manner, demeanour, or pronunciation whichtell against men to a degree altogether disproportioned to their realimportance, and on which, it is hardly too much to say, the casualjudgments of the world are mainly formed; and it also fosters moralqualities which are essentially of the nature of tact. We can hardly have a better picture of a really tactful man than in somesentences taken from the admirable pages in which Cardinal Newman haspainted the character of the perfect gentleman. 'It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one who neverinflicts pain. .. . He carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or a joltin the minds of those with whom he is cast--all clashing of opinion orcollision of feeling, all restraint or suspicion or gloom or resentment;his great concern being to make everyone at ease and at home. He has hiseyes on all his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentletowards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd; he can recollectto whom he is speaking; he guards against unreasonable allusions ortopics that may irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, andnever wearisome. He makes light of favours while he does them, and seemsto be receiving when he is conferring. He never speaks of himself exceptwhen compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort; he has no earsfor slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those whointerfere with him, and interprets everything for the best. He is nevermean or little in his disputes, never takes an unfair advantage, nevermistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuatesevil which he dare not say out. .. . He has too much good sense to beaffronted at insult; he is too busy to remember injuries, and tooindolent to bear malice. .. . If he engages in controversy of any kind hisdisciplined intellect preserves him from the blundering discourtesy ofbetter though less educated minds, who, like blunt weapons, tear andhack instead of cutting clean. .. . He may be right or wrong in hisopinion, but he is too clear-headed to be unjust; he is as simple as heis forcible, and as brief as he is decisive. Nowhere shall we findgreater candour, consideration, indulgence. He throws himself into theminds of his opponents, he accounts for their mistakes. He knows theweakness of human nature as well as its strength, its province, and itslimits. '[73] I have said at the beginning of this chapter that character bears, onthe whole, a larger part in promoting success than any other things, andthat a steady perseverance in the industrial virtues seldom fails tobring some reward in the directions that are most conducive to humanhappiness. At the same time it is only too evident that success in lifeis by no means measured by merit, either moral or intellectual. Life isa great lottery, in which chance and opportunity play an enormous part. The higher qualities are often less successful than the medium and thelower ones. They are often most successful when they are blended withother and inferior elements, and a large share of the great prizes fallto the unscrupulous, the selfish, and the cunning. Probably, however, the disparity between merit and success diminishes if we take the largeraverages, and the fortunes of nations correspond with their real worthmuch more nearly than the fortunes of individuals. Success, too, is farfrom being a synonym for happiness, and while the desire for happinessis inherent in all human nature, the desire for success--at least beyondwhat is needed for obtaining a fair share of the comforts of life--ismuch less universal. The force of habit, the desire for a tranquildomestic life, the love of country and of home, are often, among reallyable men, stronger than the impulse of ambition; and a distaste for thecompetitions and contentions of life, for the increasingresponsibilities of greatness, and for the envy and jealousies thatseldom fail to follow in its trail, may be found among men who, if theychose to enter the arena, seem to have every requisite for success. Thestrongest man is not always the most ardent climber, and the tranquilvalleys have to many a greater charm than the lofty pinnacles of life. FOOTNOTE: [73] Newman's _Scope and Nature of University Education_, Discourse IX. CHAPTER XVI TIME Considering the countless ages that man has lived upon this globe, itseems a strange thing that he has so little learned to acquiesce in thenormal conditions of humanity. How large a proportion of the melancholywhich is reflected in the poetry of all ages, and which is felt indifferent degrees in every human soul, is due not to any special orpeculiar misfortune, but to things that are common to the whole humanrace! The inexorable flight of time; the approach of old age and itsinfirmities; the shadow of death; the mystery that surrounds our being;the contrast between the depth of affection and the transitoriness anduncertainty of life; the spectacle of the broken lives and baffledaspirations and useless labours and misdirected talents and perniciousenergies and long-continued delusions that fill the path of humanhistory; the deep sense of vanity and aimlessness that must sometimescome over us as we contemplate a world in which chance is so oftenstronger than wisdom; in which desert and reward are so widelyseparated; in which living beings succeed each other in such a vast andbewildering redundance--eating, killing, suffering, and dying for nouseful discoverable purpose, --all these things belong to the normal lotor to the inevitable setting of human life. Nor can it be said thatscience, which has so largely extended our knowledge of the Universe, orcivilisation, which has so greatly multiplied our comforts andalleviated our pains, has in any degree diminished the sadness theybring. It seems, indeed, as if the more man is raised above a purelyanimal existence, and his mental and moral powers are developed, themore this kind of feeling increases. In few if any periods of the world's history has it been moreperceptible in literature than at present. Physical constitution andtemperament have a vast and a humiliating power of deepening orlightening it, and the strength or weakness of religious belief largelyaffects it, yet the best, the strongest, the most believing, and themost prosperous cannot wholly escape it. Sometimes it finds its trueexpression in the lines of Raleigh: Even such is time; which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have! And pays us nought but age and dust, Which in the dark and silent grave, When we have wandered all our ways, Shuts up the story of our days; And from which grave and earth and dust, The Lord shall raise me up, I trust. Sometimes it takes the tone of a lighter melancholy touched withcynicism: La vie est vaine: Un peu d'amour, Un peu de haine, Et puis--bon jour. La vie est brève, Un peu d'espoir, Un peu de rêve, Et puis--bon soir. [74] There are few sayings which deserve better to be brought continuallybefore our minds than that of Franklin: 'You value life; then do notsquander time, for time is the stuff of life. ' Of all the things thatare bestowed on men, none is more valuable, but none is more unequallyused, and the true measurement of life should be found less in itsduration than in the amount that is put into it. The waste of time isone of the oldest of commonplaces, but it is one of those which arenever really stale. How much of the precious 'stuff of life' is wastedby want of punctuality; by want of method involving superfluous andrepeated effort; by want of measure prolonging things that arepleasurable or profitable in moderation to the point of weariness, satiety, and extravagance; by want of selection dwelling too much on theuseless or the unimportant; by want of intensity, growing out of anature that is listless and apathetic both in work and pleasure. Timeis, in one sense, the most elastic of things. It is one of the commonestexperiences that the busiest men find most of it for exceptional work, and often a man who, under the strong stimulus of an active professionallife, repines bitterly that he finds so little time for pursuing somefavourite work or study, discovers, to his own surprise, that whencircumstances have placed all his time at his disposal he does less inthis field than in the hard-earned intervals of a crowded life. The artof wisely using the spare five minutes, the casual vacancies orintervals of life, is one of the most valuable we can acquire. There arelives in which the main preoccupation is to get through time. There areothers in which it is to find time for all that has to be got through, and most men, in different periods of their lives, are acquainted withboth extremes. With some, time is mere duration, a blank, featurelessthing, gliding swiftly and insensibly by. With others every day, andalmost every hour, seems to have its distinctive stamp and character, for good or ill, in work or pleasure. There are vast differences in thisrespect between different ages of history, and between differentgenerations in the same country, between town and country life, andbetween different countries. 'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycleof Cathay' is profoundly true, and no traveller can fail to beinsensible to the difference in the value of time in a Northern and in aSouthern country. The leisure of some nations seems busier than the workof others, and few things are more resting to an overwrought and jadedAnglo-Saxon nature than to pass for a short season into one of thosecountries where time seems almost without value. On the whole there can be little doubt that life in the more civilisednations has, in our own generation, largely increased. It is not simplythat its average duration is extended. This, in a large degree, is dueto the diminished amount of infant mortality. The improvement is shownmore conclusively in the increased commonness of vigorous and active oldage, in the multitude of new contrivances for economising and thereforeincreasing time, in the far greater intensity of life both in the formsof work and in the forms of pleasure. 'Life at high pressure' is notwithout its drawbacks and its evils, but it at least means life which islargely and fully used. All intermissions of work, however, even when they do not take the formof positive pleasure, are not waste of time. Overwork, in alldepartments of life, is commonly bad economy, not so much because itoften breaks down health--most of what is attributed to this cause isprobably rather due to anxiety than to work--as because it seldom failsto impair the quality of work. A great portion of our lives passes inthe unconsciousness of sleep, and perhaps no part is more usefullyspent. It not only brings with it the restoration of our physicalenergies, but it also gives a true and healthy tone to our moral nature. Of all earthly things sleep does the most to place things in their trueproportions, calming excited nerves and dispelling exaggerated cares. How many suicides have been averted, how many rash enterprises anddecisions have been prevented, how many dangerous quarrels have beenallayed, by the soothing influence of a few hours of steady sleep!'Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care' is, indeed, in acareworn world, one of the chief of blessings. Its healing andrestorative power is as much felt in the sicknesses of the mind as inthose of the body, and, in spite of the authority of Solomon, it isprobably a wise thing for men to take the full measure of it, whichundoctored nature demands. The true waste of time of the sluggard isnot in the amount of natural sleep he enjoys, but in the time idlyspent in bed when sleep has ceased, and in misplaced and mistimed sleep, which is not due to any genuine craving of the body for rest, but simplyto mental sluggishness, to lack of interest and attention. Some men have claimed for sleep even more than this. 'The night-time ofthe body, ' an ancient writer has said, 'is the day-time of the soul, 'and some, who do not absolutely hold the old belief that it is in thedreams of the night that the Divine Spirit most communicates with man, have, nevertheless, believed that the complete withdrawal of our mindsfrom those worldly cares which haunt our waking hours and do so much tomaterialise and harden our natures is one of the first conditions of ahigher life. 'In proportion, ' said Swedenborg, 'as the mind is capableof being withdrawn from things sensual and corporeal, in the sameproportion it is elevated into things celestial and spiritual. ' It hasbeen noticed that often thoughts and judgments, scattered and entangledin our evening hours, seem sifted, clarified, and arranged in sleep;that problems which seemed hopelessly confused when we lay down are atonce and easily solved when we awake, 'as though a reason more perfectthan reason had been at work when we were in our beds. ' Somethinganalogous to this, it has been contended, takes place in our moralnatures. 'A process is going on in us during those hours which is not, and cannot be, brought so effectually, if at all, at any other time, andwe are spiritually growing, developing, ripening more continuously whilethus shielded from the distracting influences of the phenomenal worldthan during the hours in which we are absorbed in them. .. . Is it notprecisely the function of sleep to give us for a portion of every day inour lives a respite from worldly influences which, uninterrupted, woulddeprive us of the instruction, of the spiritual reinforcements, necessary to qualify us to turn our waking experiences of the world tothe best account without being overcome by them? It is in these hoursthat the plans and ambitions of our external worldly life cease tointerfere with or obstruct the flow of the Divine life into thewill. '[75] Without, however, following this train of thought, it is at leastsufficiently clear that no small portion of the happiness of lifedepends upon our sleeping hours. Plato has exhorted men to observecarefully their dreams as indicating their natural dispositions, tendencies, and temptations, and--perhaps with more reason--Burton andFranklin have proposed 'the art of procuring pleasant dreams' as one ofthe great, though little recognised, branches of the science of life. This is, no doubt, mainly a question of diet, exercise, efficientventilation, and a wise distribution of hours, but it is also largelyinfluenced by moral causes. Somnia quæ mentes ludunt volitantibus umbris, Nec delubra deum, nec ab æthere numina mittunt, Sed sibi quisque facit. To appease the perturbations of the mind, to live a tranquil, upright, unremorseful life, to cultivate the power of governing by the will thecurrent of our thoughts, repressing unruly passions, exaggeratedanxieties, and unhealthy desires, is at least one great recipe forbanishing from our pillows those painful dreams that contribute not alittle to the unhappiness of many lives. An analogous branch of self-culture is that which seeks to provide somehealthy aliment for the waking hours of the night, when time seems sounnaturally prolonged, and when gloomy thoughts and exaggerated anddistempered views of the trials of life peculiarly prevail. Among theways in which education may conduce to the real happiness of man, itspower of supplying pleasant or soothing thoughts for those dreary hoursis not the least, though it is seldom or never noticed in books orspeeches. It is, perhaps, in this respect that the early habit ofcommitting poetry--and especially religious poetry--to memory is mostimportant. In estimating the value of those intermissions of labour which are notspent in active enjoyment one other consideration may be noted. Thereare times when the mind should lie fallow, and all who have lived theintellectual life with profit have perceived that it is often in thosetimes that it most regains the elasticity it may have lost and becomesmost prolific in spontaneous thought. Many periods of life which mightat first sight appear to be merely unused time are, in truth, among themost really valuable. We have all noticed the curious fact of the extreme apparentinequalities of time, though it is, in its essence, of all things themost uniform. Periods of pain or acute discomfort seem unnaturallylong, but this lengthening of time is fortunately not true of all themelancholy scenes of life, nor is it peculiar to things that arepainful. An invalid life with its almost unbroken monotony, and with thelarge measure of torpor that often accompanies it, usually flies veryquickly, and most persons must have observed how the first week oftravel, or of some other great change of habits and pursuits, thoughoften attended with keen enjoyment, appears disproportionately long. Routine shortens and variety lengthens time, and it is therefore in thepower of men to do something to regulate its pace. A life with manylandmarks, a life which is much subdivided when those subdivisions arenot of the same kind, and when new and diverse interests, impressions, and labours follow each other in swift and distinct succession, seemsthe most long, and youth, with its keen susceptibility to impressions, appears to move much more slowly than apathetic old age. How almostimmeasurably long to a young child seems the period from birthday tobirthday! How long to the schoolboy seems the interval between vacationand vacation! How rapid as we go on in life becomes the awful beat ofeach recurring year! When the feeling of novelty has grown rare, andwhen interests have lost their edge, time glides by with anever-increasing celerity. Campbell has justly noticed as a beneficentprovision of nature that it is in the period of life when enjoyments arefewest, and infirmities most numerous, that the march of time seems mostrapid. The more we live, more brief appear Our life's succeeding stages, A day to childhood seems a year, And years like passing ages. * * * * * When Joys have lost their bloom and breath, And life itself is vapid, Why as we reach the Falls of death Feel we its tide more rapid? * * * * * Heaven gives our years of fading strength Indemnifying fleetness; And those of youth a seeming length Proportioned to their sweetness. The shortness of life is one of the commonplaces of literature. Yetthough we may easily conceive beings with faculties both of mind andbody adapted to a far longer life than ours, it will usually be found, with our existing powers, that life, if not prematurely shortened, islong enough. In the case of men who have played a great part in publicaffairs, the best work is nearly always done before old age. It is aremarkable fact that although a Senate, by its very derivation, means anassembly of old men, and although in the Senate of Rome, which was thegreatest of all, the members sat for life, there was a special lawproviding that no Senator, after sixty, should be summoned to attend hisduty. [76] In the past centuries active septuagenarian statesmen werevery rare, and in parliamentary life almost unknown. In our own centurythere have been brilliant exceptions, but in most cases it will befound that the true glory of these statesmen rests on what they had donebefore old age, and sometimes the undue prolongation of their activelives has been a grave misfortune, not only to their own reputations, but also to the nations they influenced. Often, indeed, while facultiesdiminish, self-confidence, even in good men, increases. Moral andintellectual failings that had been formerly repressed take root andspread, and it is no small blessing that they have but a short time torun their course. In the case of men of great capacities the follies ofage are perhaps even more to be feared than the follies of youth. Whenmen have made a great reputation and acquired a great authority, whenthey become the objects of the flattery of nations, and when they can, with little trouble or thought or study, attract universal attention, anew set of temptations begins. Their heads are apt to be turned. Thefeeling of responsibility grows weaker; the old judgment, caution, deliberation, self-restraint, and timidity disappear. Obstinacy andprejudice strengthen, while at the same time the force of the reasoningwill diminishes. Sometimes, through a failing that is partlyintellectual, but partly also moral, they almost wholly lose the powerof realising or recognising new conditions, discoveries and necessities. They view with jealousy the rise of new reputations and of younger men, and the well-earned authority of an old man becomes the most formidableobstacle to improvement. In the field of politics, in the field ofscience, and in the field of military organisation, these truths mightbe abundantly illustrated. In the case of great but maleficent geniusthe shortness of life is a priceless blessing. Few greater curses couldbe imagined for the human race than the prolongation for centuries ofthe life of Napoleon. In literature also the same law may be detected. A writer's bestthoughts are usually expressed long before extreme old age, though thehabit and desire of production continue. The time of repetition, ofdiluted force, and of weakened judgment--the age when the mind has lostits flexibility and can no longer assimilate new ideas or keep pace withthe changing modes and tendencies of another generation--often sets inwhile physical life is but little enfeebled. In this case, it is true, the evil is not very great, for Time may be trusted to sift the chafffrom the wheat, and though it may not preserve the one it willinfallibly discard the other. 'While I live, ' Victor Hugo said with somegrandiloquence, but also with some justice, 'it is my duty to produce. It is the duty of the world to select, from what I produce, that whichis worth keeping. The world will discharge its duty. I shall dischargemine. ' At the same time, no one can have failed to observe how much inour own generation the long silence of Newman in his old age added tohis dignity and his reputation, and the same thing might have been saidof Carlyle if a beneficent fire had destroyed the unrevised manuscriptswhich he wrote or dictated when a very old man. We are here, however, dealing with great labours, and with men who arefilling a great place in the world's strife. The decay of faculty andwill, that impairs power in these cases, is often perceptible longbefore there is any real decay in the powers that are needed forordinary business or for the full enjoyment of life. But the time comeswhen children have grown into maturity, and when it becomes desirablethat a younger generation should take the government of the world, should inherit its wealth, its power, its dignities, its many means ofinfluence and enjoyment; and this cannot be fully done till the oldergeneration is laid to rest. Often, indeed, old age, when it is free fromgrave infirmities and from great trials and privations, is the mosthonoured, the most tranquil, and perhaps on the whole the happiestperiod of life. The struggles, passions, and ambitions of other dayshave passed. The mellowing touch of time has allayed animosities, subdued old asperities of character, given a larger and more tolerantjudgment, cured the morbid sensitiveness that most embitters life. Theold man's mind is stored with the memories of a well-filled andhonourable life. In the long leisures that now fall to his lot he isoften enabled to resume projects which in a crowded professional life hehad been obliged to adjourn; he finds (as Adam Smith has said) that oneof the greatest pleasures in life is reverting in old age to the studiesof youth, and he himself often feels something of the thrill of a secondyouth in his sympathy with the children who are around him. It is theSt. Martin's summer, lighting with a pale but beautiful gleam the briefNovember day. But the time must come when all the alternatives of lifeare sad, and the least sad is a speedy and painless end. When the eyehas ceased to see and the ear to hear, when the mind has failed and allthe friends of youth are gone, and the old man's life becomes a burdennot only to himself but to those about him, it is far better that heshould quit the scene. If a natural clinging to life, or a naturalshrinking from death, prevents him from clearly realising this, it is atleast fully seen by all others. Nor, indeed, does this love of life in most cases of extreme old agegreatly persist. Few things are sadder than to see the young, or thosein mature life, seeking, according to the current phrase, to find meansof "killing time. " But in extreme old age, when the power of work, thepower of reading, the pleasures of society, have gone, this phraseacquires a new significance. As Madame de Staël has beautifully said, 'On dépose fleur à fleur la couronne de la vie. ' An apathy steals overevery faculty, and rest--unbroken rest--becomes the chief desire. Iremember a touching epitaph in a German churchyard: 'I will arise, OChrist, when Thou callest me; but oh! let me rest awhile, for I am veryweary. ' After all that can be said, most men are reluctant to look Time in theface. The close of the year or a birthday is to them merely a time ofrevelry, into which they enter in order to turn away from depressingthought. They shrink from what seems to them the dreary truth, that theyare drifting to a dark abyss. To many the milestones along the path oflife are tombstones, every epoch being mainly associated in theirmemories with a death. To some, past time is nothing--a closed chapternever to be reopened. The past is nothing, and at last, The future can but be the past. To others, the thought of the work achieved in the vanished years is themost real and abiding of their possessions. They can feel the force ofthe noble lines of Dryden: Not Heaven itself upon the past has power, But what has been has been, and I have had my hour. He who would look Time in the face without illusion and without fearshould associate each year as it passes with new developments of hisnature; with duties accomplished, with work performed. To fill the timeallotted to us to the brim with action and with thought is the only wayin which we can learn to watch its passage with equanimity. FOOTNOTES: [74] Monte-Naken. [75] See _The Mystery of Sleep_, by John Bigelow. [76] Seneca, _de Brevitate Vitæ_, cap. XX. CHAPTER XVII 'THE END' It is easy to conceive circumstances not widely different from those ofactual life that would, if not altogether, at least very largely, takefrom death the gloom that commonly surrounds it. If all the members ofthe human race died either before two or after seventy; if death was inall cases the swift and painless thing that it is with many; and if theold man always left behind him children to perpetuate his name, hismemory, and his thoughts, Death, though it might still seem a sad thing, would certainly not excite the feelings it now so often produces. Of allthe events that befall us, it is that which owes most of its horror notto itself, but to its accessories, its associations, and to theimaginations that cluster around it. 'Death, ' indeed, as a great stoicalmoralist said, 'is the only evil that can never touch us. When we are, death is not. When death comes, we are not. ' The composition of treatises of consolation intended to accustom men tocontemplate death without terror was one of the favourite exercises ofthe philosophers in the Augustan and in the subsequent periods of PaganRome. The chapter which Cicero has devoted to this subject in histreatise on old age is a beautiful example of how it appeared to avirtuous pagan, who believed in a future life which would bring him intocommunion with those whom he had loved and lost on earth, but who at thesame time recognised this only as a probability, not a certainty. "Death, " he said, 'is an event either utterly to be disregarded if itextinguish the soul's existence, or much to be wished if it convey herto some region where she shall continue to exist for ever. One of thesetwo consequences must necessarily follow the disunion of soul and body;there is no other possible alternative. What then have I to fear ifafter death I shall either not be miserable or shall certainly behappy?' Vague notions, however, of a dim, twilight, shadowy world where theghosts of the dead lived a faint and joyless existence, and whence theysometimes returned to haunt the living in their dreams, were widelyspread through the popular imaginations, and it was as the extinction ofall superstitious fears that the school of Lucretius and Pliny welcomedthe belief that all things ended with death--'Post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil. ' Nor is it by any means certain that even in theschool of Plato the thought of another life had a great and operativeinfluence on minds and characters. Death was chiefly represented asrest; as the close of a banquet; as the universal law of nature whichbefalls all living beings, though the immense majority encounter it atan earlier period than man. It was thought of simply assleep--dreamless, undisturbed sleep--the final release from all thesorrows, sufferings, anxieties, labours, and longings of life. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. [77] The best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st Thy death, which is no more. [78] To die is landing on some silent shore Where billows never break, nor tempests roar. [79] It is a strange thing to observe to what a height not only of moralexcellence, but also of devotional fervour, men have arisen without anyassistance from the doctrine of a future life. Only the faintest andmost dubious glimmer of such a belief can be traced in the Psalms, inwhich countless generations of Christians have found the fullestexpression of their devotional feelings, or in the Meditations of MarcusAurelius, which are perhaps the purest product of pagan piety. As I have already said, I am endeavouring in this book to steer clear ofquestions of contested theologies; but it is impossible to avoidnoticing the great changes that have been introduced into the conceptionof death by some of the teaching which in different forms has grown upunder the name of Christianity, though much of it may be traced in germto earlier periods of human development. Death in itself was madeincomparably more terrible by the notion that it was not a law but apunishment; that sufferings inconceivably greater than those of Earthawaited the great masses of the human race beyond the grave; that anevent which was believed to have taken place ages before we were born, or small frailties such as the best of us cannot escape, were sufficientto bring men under this condemnation; that the only paths to safety wereto be found in ecclesiastical ceremonies; in the assistance of priests;in an accurate choice among competing theological doctrines. At the sametime the largest and most powerful of the Churches of Christendom has, during many centuries, done its utmost to intensify the natural fear ofdeath by associating it in the imaginations of men with loathsome imagesand appalling surroundings. There can be no greater contrast than thatbetween the Greek tomb with its garlands of flowers, its bright, youthful and restful imagery, and the mortuary chapels that may often befound in Catholic countries, with their ghastly pictures of the _saved_souls writhing in purgatorial flames, while the inscription above andthe moneybox below point out the one means of alleviating their lot. Fermati, O Passagiero, mira tormenti. Siamo abbandonati dai nostri parenti. Di noi abbiate pietà, o voi amici cari. This is one side of the picture. On the other hand it cannot bequestioned that the strong convictions and impressive ceremonies, evenof the most superstitious faith, have consoled and strengthenedmultitudes in their last moments, and in the purer and more enlightenedforms of Christianity death now wears a very different aspect from whatit did in the teaching of mediæval Catholicism, or of some of the sectsthat grew out of the Reformation. Human life ending in the weakness ofold age and in the corruption of the tomb will always seem a humiliatinganti-climax, and often a hideous injustice. The belief in the rightfulsupremacy of conscience, and in an eternal moral law redressing the manywrongs and injustices of life, and securing the ultimate triumph of goodover evil; the incapacity of earth and earthly things to satisfy ourcravings and ideals; the instinctive revolt of human nature against theidea of annihilation, and its capacity for affections and attachments, which seem by their intensity to transcend the limits of earth and carrywith them in moments of bereavement a persuasion or conviction ofsomething that endures beyond the grave, --all these things have found inChristian beliefs a sanction and a satisfaction that men had failed tofind in Socrates or Cicero, or in the vague Pantheism to whichunassisted reason naturally inclines. Looking, however, on death in its purely human aspects, the mournershould consider how often in a long illness he wished the dying mancould sleep; how consoling to his mind was the thought of every hour ofpeaceful rest; of every hour in which the patient was withdrawn fromconsciousness, insensible to suffering, removed for a time from themiseries of a dying life. He should ask himself whether these intervalsof insensibility were not on the whole the happiest in theillness--those which he would most have wished to multiply or toprolong. He should accustom himself, then, to think of death assleep--undisturbed sleep--the only sleep from which man never wakes topain. You find yourself in the presence of what is a far deeper and morepoignant trial than an old man's death--a young life cut off in itsprime; the eclipse of a sun before the evening has arrived. Accustomyourself to consider the life that has passed as a whole. A human beinghas been called into the world--has lived in it ten, twenty, thirtyyears. It seems to you an intolerable instance of the injustice of fatethat he is so early cut off. Estimate, then, that life as a whole, andask yourself whether, so judged, it has been a blessing or the reverse. Count up the years of happiness. Count up the days, or perhaps weeks, ofillness and of pain. Measure the happiness that this short life hasgiven to some who have passed away; who never lived to see its earlyclose. Balance the happiness which during its existence it gave to thosewho survived, with the poignancy and the duration of pain caused by theloss. Here, for example, is one who lived perhaps twenty-five years inhealth and vigour; whose life during that period was chequered by noserious misfortune; whose nature, though from time to time clouded bypetty anxieties and cares, was on the whole bright, buoyant, and happy;who had the capacity of vivid enjoyment and many opportunities ofattaining it; who felt all the thrill of health and friendship andecstatic pleasure. Then came a change, --a year or two with a crippledwing--life, though not abjectly wretched, on the whole a burden, andthen the end. You can easily conceive--you can ardently desire--a betterlot, but judge fairly the lights and shades of what has been. Does notthe happiness on the whole exceed the evil? Can you honestly say thatthis life has been a curse and not a blessing?--that it would have beenbetter if it had never been called out of nothingness?--that it wouldhave been better if the drama had never been played? It is over now. Asyou lay in his last home the object of so much love, ask yourselfwhether, even in a mere human point of view, this parenthesis betweentwo darknesses has not been on the whole productive of more happinessthan pain to him and to those around him. It was an ancient saying that 'he whom the gods love dies young, ' andmore than one legend representing speedy and painless death as thegreatest of blessings has descended to us from pagan antiquity; whileother legends, like that of Tithonus, anticipated the picture whichSwift has so powerfully but so repulsively drawn of the misery of oldage and its infirmities, if death did not come as a release. I haveelsewhere related an old Irish legend embodying this truth. 'In acertain lake in Munster, it is said, there were two islands; into thefirst death could never enter, but age and sickness, and the wearinessof life and the paroxysms of fearful suffering were all known there, andthey did their work till the inhabitants, tired of their immortality, learned to look upon the opposite island as upon a haven of repose. Theylaunched their barks upon its gloomy waters; they touched its shore, andthey were at rest. '[80] No one, however, can confidently say whether an early death is amisfortune, for no one can really know what calamities would havebefallen the dead man if his life had been prolonged. How often does ithappen that the children of a dead parent do things or suffer thingsthat would have broken his heart if he had lived to see them! How oftendo painful diseases lurk in germ in the body which would have producedunspeakable misery if an early and perhaps a painless death had notanticipated their development! How often do mistakes and misfortunescloud the evening and mar the beauty of a noble life, or moralinfirmities, unperceived in youth or early manhood, break out before theday is over! Who is there who has not often said to himself as he lookedback on a completed life, how much happier it would have been had itended sooner? 'Give us timely death' is in truth one of the best prayersthat man can pray. Pain, not Death, is the real enemy to be combated, and in this combat, at least, man can do much. Few men can have livedlong without realising how many things are worse than death, and howmany knots there are in life that Death alone can untie. Remember, above all, that whatever may lie beyond the tomb, the tombitself is nothing to you. The narrow prison-house, the gloomy pomp, thehideousness of decay, are known to the living and the living alone. By atoo common illusion of the imagination, men picture themselves asconsciously dead, --going through the process of corruption, and aware ofit; imprisoned with the knowledge of the fact in the most hideous ofdungeons. Endeavour earnestly to erase this illusion from your mind, forit lies at the root of the fear of death, and it is one of the worstsides of mediæval and of much modern teaching and art that it tends tostrengthen it. Nothing, if we truly realise it, is less real than thegrave. We should be no more concerned with the after fate of ourdiscarded bodies than with that of the hair which the hair-cutter hascut off. The sooner they are resolved into their primitive elements thebetter. The imagination should never be suffered to dwell upon theirdecay. Bacon has justly noticed that while death is often regarded as thesupreme evil, there is no human passion that does not become so powerfulas to lead men to despise it. It is not in the waning days of life, butin the full strength of youth, that men, through ambition or the merelove of excitement, fearlessly and joyously encounter its risk. Encountered in hot blood it is seldom feared, and innumerable accountsof shipwrecks and other accidents, and many episodes in every war, showconclusively how calmly honour, duty, and discipline can enable men ofno extraordinary characters, virtues, or attainments, to meet it evenwhen it comes before them suddenly, as an inevitable fact, and withoutany of that excitement which might blind their eyes. If we analyse ourown feelings on the death of those we love, we shall probably find that, except in cases where life is prematurely shortened and much promise cutoff, pity for the dead person is rarely a marked element. The feelingswhich had long been exclusively concentrated on the sufferings of thedying man take a new course when the moment of death arrives. It is thesudden blank; the separation from him who is dear to us; the cessationof the long reciprocity of love and pleasure, --in a word our ownloss, --that affects us then. 'A happy release' is perhaps the phrasemost frequently heard around a death-bed. And as we look back throughthe vista of a few years, and have learned to separate death moreclearly from the illness that preceded it, the sense of its essentialpeacefulness and naturalness grows upon us. A vanished life comes to belooked upon as a day that has past, but leaving many memories behind it. It is, I think, a healthy tendency that is leading men in our owngeneration to turn away as much as possible from the signs and thecontemplation of death. The pomp and elaboration of funerals; protractedmournings surrounding us with the gloom of an ostentatious andartificial sorrow; above all, the long suspension of those active habitswhich nature intended to be the chief medicine of grief, are thingswhich at least in the English-speaking world are manifestly declining. We should try to think of those who have passed away as they were attheir best, and not in sickness or in decay. True sorrow needs noostentation, and the gloom of death no artificial enhancement. Everygood man, knowing the certainty of death and the uncertainty of itshour, will make it one of his first duties to provide for those he loveswhen he has himself passed away, and to do all in his power to make theperiod of bereavement as easy as possible. This is the last service hecan render before the ranks are closed, and his place is taken, and thedays of forgetfulness set in. In careers of riot and of vice the thoughtof death may have a salutary restraining influence; but in a useful, busy, well-ordered life it should have little place. It was not theStoics alone who 'bestowed too much cost on death, and by theirpreparations made it more fearful. '[81] As Spinoza has taught, 'theproper study of a wise man is not how to die but how to live, ' and aslong as he is discharging this task aright he may leave the end to takecare of itself. The great guiding landmarks of a wise life are indeedfew and simple; to do our duty--to avoid useless sorrow--to acquiescepatiently in the inevitable. FOOTNOTES: [77] _The Tempest. _ [78] _Measure for Measure. _ [79] Garth. [80] _History of European Morals_, i. P. 203. The legend is related byCamden. [81] Bacon.