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diff --git a/17437.txt b/17437.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc5cc00 --- /dev/null +++ b/17437.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9423 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Health and Education, by Charles Kingsley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Health and Education + + +Author: Charles Kingsley + + + +Release Date: December 31, 2005 [eBook #17437] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEALTH AND EDUCATION*** + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1874 W. Isbister & Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +HEALTH AND EDUCATION + + +BY THE +REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY, F.L.S., F.G.S. +CANON OF WESTMINSTER + +W. ISBISTER & CO. +56, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON +1874 + +[_All rights reserved_] + + + + +THE SCIENCE OF HEALTH + + +Whether the British race is improving or degenerating? What, if it seem +probably degenerating, are the causes of so great an evil? How they can +be, if not destroyed, at least arrested?--These are questions worthy the +attention, not of statesmen only and medical men, but of every father and +mother in these isles. I shall say somewhat about them in this Essay; +and say it in a form which ought to be intelligible to fathers and +mothers of every class, from the highest to the lowest, in hopes of +convincing some of them at least that the science of health, now so +utterly neglected in our curriculum of so-called education, ought to be +taught--the rudiments of it at least--in every school, college, and +university. + +We talk of our hardy forefathers; and rightly. But they were hardy, just +as the savage is usually hardy, because none but the hardy lived. They +may have been able to say of themselves--as they do in a state paper of +1515, now well known through the pages of Mr. Froude--"What comyn folk of +all the world may compare with the comyns of England, in riches, freedom, +liberty, welfare, and all prosperity? What comyn folk is so mighty, and +so strong in the felde, as the comyns of England?" They may have been +fed on "great shins of beef," till they became, as Benvenuto Cellini +calls them, "the English wild beasts." But they increased in numbers +slowly, if at all, for centuries. Those terrible laws of natural +selection, which issue in "the survival of the fittest," cleared off the +less fit, in every generation, principally by infantile disease, often by +wholesale famine and pestilence; and left, on the whole, only those of +the strongest constitutions to perpetuate a hardy, valiant, and +enterprising race. + +At last came a sudden and unprecedented change. In the first years of +the century, steam and commerce produced an enormous increase in the +population. Millions of fresh human beings found employment, married, +brought up children who found employment in their turn, and learnt to +live more or less civilised lives. An event, doubtless, for which God is +to be thanked. A quite new phase of humanity, bringing with it new vices +and new dangers: but bringing, also, not merely new comforts, but new +noblenesses, new generosities, new conceptions of duty, and of how that +duty should be done. It is childish to regret the old times, when our +soot-grimed manufacturing districts were green with lonely farms. To +murmur at the transformation would be, I believe, to murmur at the will +of Him without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground. + + "The old order changeth, yielding place to the new, + And God fulfils himself in many ways, + Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." + +Our duty is, instead of longing for the good old custom, to take care of +the good new custom, lest it should corrupt the world in like wise. And +it may do so thus:-- + +The rapid increase of population during the first half of this century +began at a moment when the British stock was specially exhausted; namely, +about the end of the long French war. There may have been periods of +exhaustion, at least in England, before that. There may have been one +here, as there seems to have been on the Continent, after the Crusades; +and another after the Wars of the Roses. There was certainly a period of +severe exhaustion at the end of Elizabeth's reign, due both to the long +Spanish and Irish wars and to the terrible endemics introduced from +abroad; an exhaustion which may have caused, in part, the national +weakness which hung upon us during the reign of the Stuarts. But after +none of these did the survival of the less fit suddenly become more easy; +or the discovery of steam power, and the acquisition of a colonial +empire, create at once a fresh demand for human beings and a fresh supply +of food for them. Britain, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, +was in an altogether new social situation. + +At the beginning of the great French war; and, indeed, ever since the +beginning of the war with Spain in 1739--often snubbed as the "war about +Jenkins's ear"--but which was, as I hold, one of the most just, as it was +one of the most popular, of all our wars; after, too, the once famous +"forty fine harvests" of the eighteenth century, the British people, from +the gentleman who led to the soldier or sailor who followed, were one of +the mightiest and most capable races which the world has ever seen, +comparable best to the old Roman, at his mightiest and most capable +period. That, at least, their works testify. They created--as far as +man can be said to create anything--the British Empire. They won for us +our colonies, our commerce, the mastery of the seas of all the world. But +at what a cost-- + + "Their bones are scattered far and wide, + By mount, and stream, and sea." + +Year after year, till the final triumph of Waterloo, not battle only, but +worse destroyers than shot and shell--fatigue and disease--had been +carrying off our stoutest, ablest, healthiest young men, each of whom +represented, alas! a maiden left unmarried at home, or married, in +default, to a less able man. The strongest went to the war; each who +fell left a weaklier man to continue the race; while of those who did not +fall, too many returned with tainted and weakened constitutions, to +injure, it may be, generations yet unborn. The middle classes, being +mostly engaged in peaceful pursuits, suffered less of this decimation of +their finest young men; and to that fact I attribute much of their +increasing preponderance, social, political, and intellectual, to this +very day. One cannot walk the streets of any of our great commercial +cities without seeing plenty of men, young and middle-aged, whose whole +bearing and stature shows that the manly vigour of our middle class is +anything but exhausted. In Liverpool, especially, I have been much +struck not only with the vigorous countenance, but with the bodily size +of the mercantile men on 'Change. But it must be remembered always, +first, that these men are the very elite of their class; the cleverest +men; the men capable of doing most work; and next, that they are, almost +all of them, from the great merchant who has his villa out of town, and +perhaps his moor in the Highlands, down to the sturdy young volunteer who +serves in the haberdasher's shop, country-bred men; and that the question +is, not what they are like now, but what their children and +grand-children, especially the fine young volunteer's, will be like? And +a very serious question I hold that to be; and for this reason: + +War is, without doubt, the most hideous physical curse which fallen man +inflicts upon himself; and for this simple reason, that it reverses the +very laws of nature, and is more cruel even than pestilence. For instead +of issuing in the survival of the fittest, it issues in the survival of +the less fit: and therefore, if protracted, must deteriorate generations +yet unborn. And yet a peace such as we now enjoy, prosperous, civilised, +humane, is fraught, though to a less degree, with the very same ill +effect. + +In the first place, tens of thousands--Who knows it not?--lead sedentary +and unwholesome lives, stooping, asphyxiated, employing as small a +fraction of their bodies as of their minds. And all this in dwellings, +workshops, what not?--the influences, the very atmosphere of which tend +not to health, but to unhealth, and to drunkenness as a solace under the +feeling of unhealth and depression. And that such a life must tell upon +their offspring, and if their offspring grow up under similar +circumstances, upon their offspring's offspring, till a whole population +may become permanently degraded, who does not know? For who that walks +through the by-streets of any great city does not see? Moreover, and +this is one of the most fearful problems with which modern civilisation +has to deal--we interfere with natural selection by our conscientious +care of life, as surely as does war itself. If war kills the most fit to +live, we save alive those who--looking at them from a merely physical +point of view--are most fit to die. Everything which makes it more easy +to live; every sanatory reform, prevention of pestilence, medical +discovery, amelioration of climate, drainage of soil, improvement in +dwelling-houses, workhouses, gaols; every reformatory school, every +hospital, every cure of drunkenness, every influence, in short, which +has--so I am told--increased the average length of life in these islands, +by nearly one-third, since the first establishment of life insurances, +one hundred and fifty years ago; every influence of this kind, I say, +saves persons alive who would otherwise have died; and the great majority +of these will be, even in surgical and zymotic cases, those of least +resisting power; who are thus preserved to produce in time a still less +powerful progeny. + +Do I say that we ought not to save these people, if we can? God forbid. +The weakly, the diseased, whether infant or adult, is here on earth; a +British citizen; no more responsible for his own weakness than for his +own existence. Society, that is, in plain English, we and our ancestors, +are responsible for both; and we must fulfil the duty, and keep him in +life; and, if we can, heal, strengthen, develop him to the utmost; and +make the best of that which "fate and our own deservings" have given us +to deal with. I do not speak of higher motives still; motives which to +every minister of religion must be paramount and awful. I speak merely +of physical and social motives, such as appeal to the conscience of every +man--the instinct which bids every human-hearted man or woman to save +life, alleviate pain, like Him who causes His sun to shine on the evil +and on the good, and His rain to fall on the just and on the unjust. + +But it is palpable, that in so doing we must, year by year, preserve a +large percentage of weakly persons, who, marrying freely in their own +class, must produce weaklier children, and they weaklier children still. +Must, did I say? There are those who are of opinion--and I, after +watching and comparing the histories of many families, indeed, of every +one with whom I have come in contact for now five-and-thirty years, in +town and country, can only fear that their opinion is but too well +founded on fact--that in the great majority of cases, in all classes +whatsoever, the children are not equal to their parents, nor they, again, +to their grandparents of the beginning of the century; and that this +degrading process goes on most surely, and most rapidly, in our large +towns, and in proportion to the antiquity of those towns, and therefore +in proportion to the number of generations during which the degrading +influences have been at work. + +This and cognate dangers have been felt more and more deeply, as the +years have rolled on, by students of human society. To ward them off, +theory after theory has been put on paper, especially in France, which +deserve high praise for their ingenuity, less for their morality, and, I +fear, still less for their common-sense. For the theorist in his closet +is certain to ignore, as inconvenient to the construction of his Utopia, +certain of those broad facts of human nature which every active parish +priest, medical man, or poor-law guardian has to face every day of his +life. + +Society and British human nature are what they have become by the +indirect influences of long ages, and we can no more reconstruct the one +than we can change the other. We can no more mend men by theories than +we can by coercion--to which, by the by, almost all these theorists look +longingly as their final hope and mainstay. We must teach men to mend +their own matters, of their own reason, and their own free-will. We must +teach them that they are the arbiters of their own destinies; and, to a +fearfully great degree, of their children's destinies after them. We +must teach them not merely that they ought to be free, but that they are +free, whether they know it or not, for good and for evil. And we must do +that in this case, by teaching them sound practical science; the science +of physiology, as applied to health. So, and so only, can we check--I do +not say stop entirely--though I believe even that to be ideally possible; +but at least check the process of degradation which I believe to be +surely going on, not merely in these islands, but in every civilised +country in the world, in proportion to its civilisation. + +It is still a question whether science has fully discovered those laws of +hereditary health, the disregard of which causes so many marriages +disastrous to generations yet unborn. But much valuable light has been +thrown on this most mysterious and most important subject during the last +few years. That light--and I thank God for it--is widening and deepening +rapidly. And I doubt not that, in a generation or two more, enough will +be known to be thrown into the shape of practical and proveable rules; +and that, if not a public opinion, yet at least, what is more useful far, +a wide-spread private opinion, will grow up, especially among educated +women, which will prevent many a tragedy and save many a life. + +But, as to the laws of personal health: enough, and more than enough, is +known already, to be applied safely and easily by any adults, however +unlearned, to the preservation not only of their own health, but of that +of their children. + +The value of healthy habitations, of personal cleanliness, of pure air +and pure water, of various kinds of food, according as each tends to make +bone, fat, or muscle, provided only--provided only--that the food be +unadulterated; the value of various kinds of clothing, and physical +exercise, of a free and equal development of the brain-power, without +undue overstrain in any one direction; in one word, the method of +producing, as far as possible, the mentem sanam in corpore sano, and the +wonderful and blessed effects of such obedience to those laws of nature, +which are nothing but the good will of God expressed in facts--their +wonderful and blessed tendency, I say, to eliminate the germs of +hereditary disease, and to actually regenerate the human system--all this +is known; known as fully and clearly as any human knowledge need be +known; it is written in dozens of popular books and pamphlets. And why +should this divine voice, which cries to man, tending to sink into +effeminate barbarism through his own hasty and partial civilisation,--"It +is not too late. For your bodies, as for your spirits, there is an +upward, as well as a downward path. You, or if not you, at least the +children whom you have brought into the world, for whom you toil, for +whom you hoard, for whom you pray, for whom you would give your +lives,--they still may be healthy, strong, it may be beautiful, and have +all the intellectual and social, as well as the physical advantages, +which health, strength, and beauty give."--Ah, why is this divine voice +now, as of old, Wisdom crying in the streets, and no man regarding her? I +appeal to women, who are initiated, as we men can never be, into the +stern mysteries of pain, and sorrow, and self-sacrifice;--they who bring +forth children, weep over children, slave for children, and, if they have +none of their own, then slave, with the holy instinct of the sexless bee, +for the children of others--Let them say, shall this thing be? + +Let my readers pardon me if I seem to write too earnestly. That I speak +neither more nor less than the truth, every medical man knows full well. +Not only as a very humble student of physiology, but as a parish priest +of thirty years' standing, I have seen so much unnecessary misery; and I +have in other cases seen similar misery so simply avoided; that the sense +of the vastness of the evil is intensified by my sense of the easiness of +the cure. + +Why, then--to come to practical suggestions--should there not be opened +in every great town in these realms a public school of health? It might +connect itself with--I hold that it should form an integral part of--some +existing educational institute. But it should at least give practical +lectures, for fees small enough to put them within the reach of any +respectable man or woman, however poor. I cannot but hope that such +schools of health, if opened in the great manufacturing towns of England +and Scotland, and, indeed, in such an Irish town as Belfast, would obtain +pupils in plenty, and pupils who would thoroughly profit by what they +hear. The people of these towns are, most of them, specially accustomed +by their own trades to the application of scientific laws. To them, +therefore, the application of any fresh physical laws to a fresh set of +facts, would have nothing strange in it. They have already something of +that inductive habit of mind which is the groundwork of all rational +understanding or action. They would not turn the deaf and contemptuous +ear with which the savage and the superstitious receive the revelation of +nature's mysteries. Why should not, with so hopeful an audience, the +experiment be tried far and wide, of giving lectures on health, as +supplementary to those lectures on animal physiology which are, I am +happy to say, becoming more and more common? Why should not people be +taught--they are already being taught at Birmingham--something about the +tissues of the body, their structure and uses, the circulation of the +blood, respiration, chemical changes in the air respired, amount +breathed, digestion, nature of food, absorption, secretion, structure of +the nervous system,--in fact, be taught something of how their own bodies +are made and how they work? Teaching of this kind ought to, and will, in +some more civilised age and country, be held a necessary element in the +school-course of every child, just as necessary as reading, writing, and +arithmetic; for it is after all the most necessary branch of that +"technical education" of which we hear so much just now, namely, the +technic, or art, of keeping oneself alive and well. + +But we can hardly stop there. After we have taught the condition of +health, we must teach also the condition of disease; of those diseases +specially which tend to lessen wholesale the health of townsfolk, exposed +to an artificial mode of life. Surely young men and women should be +taught something of the causes of zymotic disease, and of scrofula, +consumption, rickets, dipsomania, cerebral derangement, and such like. +They should be shown the practical value of pure air, pure water, +unadulterated food, sweet and dry dwellings. Is there one of them, man +or woman, who would not be the safer and happier, and the more useful to +his or her neighbours, if they had acquired some sound notions about +those questions of drainage on which their own lives and the lives of +their children may every day depend? I say--women as well as men. I +should have said women rather than men. For it is the women who have the +ordering of the household, the bringing up of the children; the women who +bide at home, while the men are away, it may be at the other end of the +earth. + +And if any say, as they have a right to say--"But these are subjects +which can hardly be taught to young women in public lectures;" I +rejoin,--Of course not, unless they are taught by women,--by women, of +course, duly educated and legally qualified. Let such teach to women, +what every woman ought to know, and what her parents will very properly +object to her hearing from almost any man. This is one of the main +reasons why I have, for twenty years past, advocated the training of +women for the medical profession; and one which countervails, in my mind, +all possible objections to such a movement. And now, thank God, I am +seeing the common sense of Great Britain, and indeed of every civilised +nation, gradually coming round to that which seemed to me, when I first +conceived of it, a dream too chimerical to be cherished save in +secret--the restoring woman to her natural share in that sacred office of +healer, which she held in the Middle Ages, and from which she was thrust +out during the sixteenth century. + +I am most happy to see, for instance, that the National Health Society, +{15} which I earnestly recommend to the attention of my readers, +announces a "Course of Lectures for Ladies on Elementary Physiology and +Hygiene, by Miss Chessar," to which I am also most happy to see, +governesses are admitted at half-fees. Alas! how much misery, disease, +and even death, might have been prevented, had governesses been taught +such matters thirty years ago, I, for one, know too well. May the day +soon come when there will be educated women enough to give such lectures +throughout these realms, to rich as well as poor,--for the rich, strange +to say, need them often as much as the poor do,--and that we may live to +see, in every great town, health classes for women as well as for men, +sending forth year by year more young women and young men taught, not +only to take care of themselves and of their families, but to exercise +moral influence over their fellow-citizens, as champions in the battle +against dirt and drunkenness, disease and death. + +There may be those who would answer--or rather, there would certainly +have been those who would have so answered thirty years ago, before the +so-called materialism of advanced science had taught us some practical +wisdom about education, and reminded people that they have bodies as well +as minds and souls--"You say, we are likely to grow weaklier, +unhealthier. And if it were so, what matter? Mind makes the man, not +body. We do not want our children to be stupid giants and bravos; but +clever, able, highly educated, however weakly Providence or the laws of +nature may have chosen to make them. Let them overstrain their brains a +little; let them contract their chests, and injure their digestion and +their eyesight, by sitting at desks, poring over books. Intellect is +what we want. Intellect makes money. Intellect makes the world. We +would rather see our son a genius than an athlete." Well: and so would +I. But what if intellect alone does not even make money, save as Messrs. +Dodson & Fogg, Sampson Brass, and Montagu Tigg were wont to make it, +unless backed by an able, enduring, healthy physique, such as I have +seen, almost without exception, in those successful men of business whom +I have had the honour and the pleasure of knowing? What if intellect, or +what is now called intellect, did not make the world, or the smallest +wheel or cog of it? What if, for want of obeying the laws of nature, +parents bred up neither a genius nor an athlete, but only an incapable +unhappy personage, with a huge upright forehead, like that of a Byzantine +Greek, filled with some sort of pap instead of brains, and tempted +alternately to fanaticism and strong drink? We must, in the great +majority of cases have the corpus sanem if we want the mentem sanem; and +healthy bodies are the only trustworthy organs for healthy minds. Which +is cause and which is effect, I shall not stay to debate here. But +wherever we find a population generally weakly, stunted, scrofulous, we +find in them a corresponding type of brain, which cannot be trusted to do +good work; which is capable more or less of madness, whether solitary or +epidemic. It may be very active; it may be very quick at catching at new +and grand ideas--all the more quick, perhaps, on account of its own +secret _malaise_ and self-discontent: but it will be irritable, +spasmodic, hysterical. It will be apt to mistake capacity of talk for +capacity of action, excitement for earnestness, virulence for force, and, +too often, cruelty for justice. It will lose manful independence, +individuality, originality; and when men act, they will act, from the +consciousness of personal weakness, like sheep rushing over a hedge, +leaning against each other, exhorting each other to be brave, and swaying +about in mobs and masses. These were the intellectual weaknesses which, +as I read history, followed on physical degradation in Imperial Rome, in +Alexandria, in Byzantium. Have we not seen them reappear, under fearful +forms, in Paris but the other day? + +I do not blame; I do not judge. My theory, which I hold, and shall hold, +to be fairly founded on a wide induction, forbids me to blame and to +judge: because it tells me that these defects are mainly physical; that +those who exhibit them are mainly to be pitied, as victims of the sins or +ignorance of their forefathers. But it tells me too, that those who, +professing to be educated men, and therefore bound to know better, treat +these physical phenomena as spiritual, healthy, and praiseworthy; who +even exasperate them, that they may make capital out of the weaknesses of +fallen man, are the most contemptible and yet the most dangerous of +public enemies, let them cloak their quackery under whatsoever patriotic, +or scientific, or even sacred words. + +There are those again honest, kindly, sensible, practical men, many of +them; men whom I have no wish to offend; whom I had rather ask to teach +me some of their own experience and common sense, which has learned to +discern, like good statesmen, not only what ought to be done, but what +can be done--there are those, I say, who would sooner see this whole +question let alone. Their feeling, as far as I can analyse it, seems to +be, that the evils of which I have been complaining, are on the whole +inevitable: or, if not, that we can mend so very little of them, that it +is wisest to leave them alone altogether, lest, like certain sewers, "the +more you stir them, the more they smell." They fear lest we should +unsettle the minds of the many for whom these evils will never be mended; +lest we make them discontented; discontented with their houses, their +occupations, their food, their whole social arrangements; and all in +vain. + +I should answer, in all courtesy and humility--for I sympathise deeply +with such men and women, and respect them deeply likewise--But are not +people discontented already, from the lowest to the highest? And ought a +man, in such a piecemeal, foolish, greedy, sinful world as this is, and +always has been, to be anything but discontented? If he thinks that +things are going all right, must he not have a most beggarly conception +of what going right means? And if things are not going right, can it be +anything but good for him to see that they are not going right? Can +truth and fact harm any human being? I shall not believe so, as long as +I have a Bible wherein to believe. For my part, I should like to make +every man, woman, and child whom I meet discontented with themselves, +even as I am discontented with myself. I should like to awaken in them, +about their physical, their intellectual, their moral condition, that +divine discontent which is the parent, first of upward aspiration and +then of self-control, thought, effort to fulfil that aspiration even in +part. For to be discontented with the divine discontent, and to be +ashamed with the noble shame, is the very germ and first upgrowth of all +virtue. Men begin at first, as boys begin when they grumble at their +school and their schoolmasters, to lay the blame on others; to be +discontented with their circumstances--the things which stand around +them; and to cry, "Oh that I had this!" "Oh that I had that!" But that +way no deliverance lies. That discontent only ends in revolt and +rebellion, social or political; and that, again, still in the same +worship of circumstances--but this time desperate--which ends, let it +disguise itself under what fine names it will, in what the old Greeks +called a tyranny; in which--as in the Spanish republics of America, and +in France more than once--all have become the voluntary slaves of one +man, because each man fancies that the one man can improve his +circumstances for him. + +But the wise man will learn, like Epictetus the heroic slave, the slave +of Epaphroditus, Nero's minion--and in what baser and uglier +circumstances could human being find himself?--to find out the secret of +being truly free; namely, to be discontented with no man and no thing +save himself. To say not--"Oh that I had this and that!" but "Oh that I +were this and that!" Then, by God's help--and that heroic slave, heathen +though he was, believed and trusted in God's help--"I will make myself +that which God has shown me that I ought to be and can be." + +Ten thousand a-year, or ten million a-year, as Epictetus saw full well, +cannot mend that vulgar discontent with circumstances, which he had +felt--and who with more right?--and conquered, and despised. For that is +the discontent of children, wanting always more holidays and more sweets. +But I wish my readers to have, and to cherish, the discontent of men and +women. + +Therefore I would make men and women discontented, with the divine and +wholesome discontent, at their own physical frame, and at that of their +children. I would accustom their eyes to those precious heirlooms of the +human race, the statues of the old Greeks; to their tender grandeur, +their chaste healthfulness, their unconscious, because perfect, might: +and say--There; these are tokens to you, and to all generations yet +unborn, of what man could be once; of what he can be again if he will +obey those laws of nature which are the voice of God. I would make them +discontented with the ugliness and closeness of their dwellings; I would +make the men discontented with the fashion of their garments, and still +more just now the women, of all ranks, with the fashion of theirs; and +with everything around them which they have the power of improving, if it +be at all ungraceful, superfluous, tawdry, ridiculous, unwholesome. I +would make them discontented with what they call their education, and say +to them--You call the three Royal R's education? They are not education: +no more is the knowledge which would enable you to take the highest +prizes given by the Society of Arts, or any other body. They are not +education: they are only instruction; a necessary groundwork, in an age +like this, for making practical use of your education: but not the +education itself. + +And if they asked me, What then education meant? I should point them, +first, I think, to noble old Lilly's noble old 'Euphues,' of three +hundred years ago, and ask them to consider what it says about education, +and especially this passage concerning that mere knowledge which is now-a- +days strangely miscalled education. "There are two principal and +peculiar gifts in the nature of man, knowledge and reason. The one"--that +is reason--"commandeth, and the other"--that is knowledge--"obeyeth. +These things neither the whirling wheel of fortune can change, nor the +deceitful cavillings of worldlings separate, neither sickness abate, nor +age abolish." And next I should point them to those pages in Mr. +Gladstone's 'Juventus Mundi,' where he describes the ideal training of a +Greek youth in Homer's days; and say,--There: that is an education fit +for a really civilised man, even though he never saw a book in his life; +the full, proportionate, harmonious educing--that is, bringing out and +developing--of all the faculties of his body, mind, and heart, till he +becomes at once a reverent yet a self-assured, a graceful and yet a +valiant, an able and yet an eloquent personage. + +And if any should say to me--"But what has this to do with science? +Homer's Greeks knew no science;" I should rejoin--But they had, +pre-eminently above all ancient races which we know, the scientific +instinct; the teachableness and modesty; the clear eye and quick ear; the +hearty reverence for fact and nature, and for the human body, and mind, +and spirit; for human nature, in a word, in its completeness, as the +highest fact upon this earth. Therefore they became in after years, not +only the great colonisers and the great civilisers of the old world--the +most practical people, I hold, which the world ever saw; but the parents +of all sound physics as well as of all sound metaphysics. Their very +religion, in spite of its imperfections, helped forward their education, +not in spite of, but by means of, that anthropomorphism which we +sometimes too hastily decry. As Mr. Gladstone says in a passage which I +must quote at length--"As regarded all other functions of our nature, +outside the domain of the life to Godward--all those functions which are +summed up in what St. Paul calls the flesh and the mind, the psychic and +bodily life, the tendency of the system was to exalt the human element, +by proposing a model of beauty, strength, and wisdom, in all their +combinations, so elevated that the effort to attain them required a +continual upward strain. It made divinity attainable; and thus it +effectually directed the thought and aim of man + + 'Along the line of limitless desires.' + +Such a scheme of religion, though failing grossly in the government of +the passions, and in upholding the standard of moral duties, tended +powerfully to produce a lofty self-respect, and a large, free, and varied +conception of humanity. It incorporated itself in schemes of notable +discipline for mind and body, indeed of a lifelong education; and these +habits of mind and action had their marked results (to omit many other +greatnesses) in a philosophy, literature, and art, which remain to this +day unrivalled or unsurpassed." + +So much those old Greeks did for their own education, without science and +without Christianity. We who have both: what might we not do, if we +would be true to our advantages, and to ourselves? + + + + +THE TWO BREATHS. A LECTURE DELIVERED AT WINCHESTER, MAY 31, 1869. + + +Ladies,--I have been honoured by a second invitation to address you here, +from the lady to whose public spirit the establishment of these lectures +is due. I dare not refuse it: because it gives me an opportunity of +speaking on a matter, knowledge and ignorance about which may seriously +affect your health and happiness, and that of the children with whom you +may have to do. I must apologize if I say many things which are well +known to many persons in this room: they ought to be well known to all; +and it is generally best to assume total ignorance in one's hearers, and +to begin from the beginning. + +I shall try to be as simple as possible; to trouble you as little as +possible with scientific terms; to be practical; and at the same time, if +possible, interesting. + +I should wish to call this lecture "The Two Breaths:" not merely "The +Breath;" and for this reason: every time you breathe, you breathe two +different breaths; you take in one, you give out another. The +composition of those two breaths is different. Their effects are +different. The breath which has been breathed out must not be breathed +in again. To tell you why it must not would lead me into anatomical +details, not quite in place here as yet: though the day will come, I +trust, when every woman entrusted with the care of children will be +expected to know something about them. But this I may say--Those who +habitually take in fresh breath will probably grow up large, strong, +ruddy, cheerful, active, clear-headed, fit for their work. Those who +habitually take in the breath which has been breathed out by themselves, +or any other living creature, will certainly grow up, if they grow up at +all, small, weak, pale, nervous, depressed, unfit for work, and tempted +continually to resort to stimulants, and become drunkards. + +If you want to see how different the breath breathed out is from the +breath taken in, you have only to try a somewhat cruel experiment, but +one which people too often try upon themselves, their children, and their +work-people. If you take any small animal with lungs like your own--a +mouse, for instance--and force it to breathe no air but what you have +breathed already; if you put it in a close box, and while you take in +breath from the outer air, send out your breath through a tube, into that +box, the animal will soon faint; if you go on long with this process, it +will die. + +Take a second instance, which I beg to press most seriously on the notice +of mothers, governesses, and nurses: If you allow a child to get into the +habit of sleeping with its head under the bed-clothes, and thereby +breathing its own breath over and over again, that child will assuredly +grow pale, weak, and ill. Medical men have cases on record of scrofula +appearing in children previously healthy, which could only be accounted +for from this habit, and which ceased when the habit stopped. Let me +again entreat your attention to this undoubted fact. + +Take another instance, which is only too common: If you are in a crowded +room, with plenty of fire and lights and company, doors and windows all +shut tight, how often you feel faint--so faint, that you may require +smelling-salts or some other stimulant. The cause of your faintness is +just the same as that of the mouse's fainting in the box: you and your +friends, and, as I shall show you presently, the fire and the candles +likewise, having been all breathing each other's breaths, over and over +again, till the air has become unfit to support life. You are doing your +best to enact over again the Highland tragedy, of which Sir James Simpson +tells in his lectures to the working-classes of Edinburgh, when at a +Christmas meeting thirty-six persons danced all night in a small room +with a low ceiling, keeping the doors and windows shut. The atmosphere +of the room was noxious beyond description; and the effect was, that +seven of the party were soon after seized with typhus fever, of which two +died. You are inflicting on yourselves the torments of the poor dog, who +is kept at the Grotto del Cane, near Naples, to be stupified, for the +amusement of visitors, by the carbonic acid gas of the Grotto, and +brought to life again by being dragged into the fresh air; nay, you are +inflicting upon yourselves the torments of the famous Black Hole of +Calcutta; and, if there was no chimney in the room, by which some fresh +air could enter, the candles would soon burn blue--as they do, you know, +when ghosts appear; your brains become disturbed; and you yourselves run +the risk of becoming ghosts, and the candles of actually going out. + +Of this last fact there is no doubt; for if, instead of putting a mouse +into the box, you will put a lighted candle, and breathe into the tube, +as before, however gently, you will in a short time put the candle out. + +Now, how is this? First, what is the difference between the breath you +take in and the breath you give out? And next, why has it a similar +effect on animal life and a lighted candle? + +The difference is this. The breath which you take in is, or ought to be, +pure air, composed, on the whole, of oxygen and nitrogen, with a minute +portion of carbonic acid. + +The breath which you give out is an impure air, to which has been added, +among other matters which will not support life, an excess of carbonic +acid. + +That this is the fact you can prove for yourselves by a simple +experiment. Get a little lime water at the chemist's, and breathe into +it through a glass tube; your breath will at once make the lime-water +milky. The carbonic acid of your breath has laid hold of the lime, and +made it visible as white carbonate of lime--in plain English, as common +chalk. + +Now, I do not wish, as I said, to load your memories with scientific +terms: but I beseech you to remember at least these two--oxygen gas and +carbonic acid gas; and to remember that, as surely as oxygen feeds the +fire of life, so surely does carbonic acid put it out. + +I say, "the fire of life." In that expression lies the answer to our +second question: Why does our breath produce a similar effect upon the +mouse and the lighted candle? Every one of us is, as it were, a living +fire. Were we not, how could we be always warmer than the air outside +us? There is a process going on perpetually in each of us, similar to +that by which coals are burnt in the fire, oil in a lamp, wax in a +candle, and the earth itself in a volcano. To keep each of those fires +alight, oxygen is needed; and the products of combustion, as they are +called, are more or less the same in each case--carbonic acid and steam. + +These facts justify the expression I just made use of--which may have +seemed to some of you fantastical--that the fire and the candles in the +crowded room were breathing the same breath as you were. It is but too +true. An average fire in the grate requires, to keep it burning, as much +oxygen as several human beings do; each candle or lamp must have its +share of oxygen likewise, and that a very considerable one; and an +average gas-burner--pray attend to this, you who live in rooms lighted +with gas--consumes as much oxygen as several candles. All alike are +making carbonic acid. The carbonic acid of the fire happily escapes up +the chimney in the smoke: but the carbonic acid from the human beings and +the candles remains to poison the room, unless it be ventilated. + +Now, I think you may understand one of the simplest, and yet most +terrible, cases of want of ventilation--death by the fumes of charcoal. A +human being shut up in a room, of which every crack is closed, with a pan +of burning charcoal, falls asleep, never to wake again. His inward fire +is competing with the fire of the charcoal for the oxygen of the room; +both are making carbonic acid out of it: but the charcoal, being the +stronger of the two, gets all the oxygen to itself, and leaves the human +being nothing to inhale but the carbonic acid which it has made. The +human being, being the weaker, dies first: but the charcoal dies also. +When it has exhausted all the oxygen of the room, it cools, goes out, and +is found in the morning half-consumed beside its victim. If you put a +giant or an elephant, I should conceive, into that room, instead of a +human being, the case would be reversed for a time: the elephant would +put out the burning charcoal by the carbonic acid from his mighty lungs; +and then, when he had exhausted all the air in the room, die likewise of +his own carbonic acid. + +* * * * * + +Now, I think, we may see what ventilation means, and why it is needed. + +Ventilation means simply letting out the foul air, and letting in the +fresh air; letting out the air which has been breathed by men or by +candles, and letting in the air which has not. To understand how to do +that, we must remember a most simple chemical law, that a gas as it is +warmed expands, and therefore becomes lighter; as it cools, it contracts, +and becomes heavier. + +Now the carbonic acid in the breath which comes out of our mouth is warm, +lighter than the air, and rises to the ceiling; and therefore in any +unventilated room full of people, there is a layer of foul air along the +ceiling. You might soon test that for yourselves, if you could mount a +ladder and put your heads there aloft. You do test it for yourselves +when you sit in the galleries of churches and theatres, where the air is +palpably more foul, and therefore more injurious, than down below. + +Where, again, work-people are employed in a crowded house of many +storeys, the health of those who work on the upper floors always suffers +most. + +In the old monkey-house of the Zoological Gardens, when the cages were on +the old plan, tier upon tier, the poor little fellows in the uppermost +tier--so I have been told--always died first of the monkey's +constitutional complaint, consumption, simply from breathing the warm +breath of their friends below. But since the cages have been altered, +and made to range side by side from top to bottom, consumption--I +understand--has vastly diminished among them. + +The first question in ventilation, therefore, is to get this carbonic +acid safe out of the room, while it is warm and light and close to the +ceiling; for if you do not, this happens--The carbonic acid gas cools and +becomes heavier; for carbonic acid, at the same temperature as common +air, is so much heavier than common air, that you may actually--if you +are handy enough--turn it from one vessel to another, and pour out for +your enemy a glass of invisible poison. So down to the floor this heavy +carbonic acid comes, and lies along it, just as it lies often in the +bottom of old wells, or old brewers' vats, as a stratum of poison, +killing occasionally the men who descend into it. Hence, as foolish a +practice as I know is that of sleeping on the floor; for towards the +small hours, when the room gets cold, the sleeper on the floor is +breathing carbonic acid. + +And here one word to those ladies who interest themselves with the poor. +The poor are too apt in times of distress to pawn their bedsteads and +keep their beds. Never, if you have influence, let that happen. Keep +the bedstead, whatever else may go, to save the sleeper from the carbonic +acid on the floor. + +How, then, shall we get rid of the foul air at the top of the room? After +all that has been written and tried on ventilation, I know no simpler +method than putting into the chimney one of Arnott's ventilators, which +may be bought and fixed for a few shillings; always remembering that it +must be fixed into the chimney as near the ceiling as possible. I can +speak of these ventilators from twenty-five years' experience. Living in +a house with low ceilings, liable to become overcharged with carbonic +acid, which produces sleepiness in the evening, I have found that these +ventilators keep the air fresh and pure; and I consider the presence of +one of these ventilators in a room more valuable than three or four feet +additional height of ceiling. I have found, too, that their working +proves how necessary they are, from this simple fact:--You would suppose +that, as the ventilator opens freely into the chimney, the smoke would be +blown down through it in high winds, and blacken the ceiling: but this is +just what does not happen. If the ventilator be at all properly poised, +so as to shut with a violent gust of wind, it will at all other moments +keep itself permanently open; proving thereby that there is an up-draught +of heated air continually escaping from the ceiling up the chimney. +Another very simple method of ventilation is employed in those excellent +cottages which Her Majesty has built for her labourers round Windsor. +Over each door a sheet of perforated zinc, some 18 inches square, is +fixed; allowing the foul air to escape into the passage; and in the +ceiling of the passage a similar sheet of zinc, allowing it to escape +into the roof. Fresh air, meanwhile, should be obtained from outside, by +piercing the windows, or otherwise. And here let me give one hint to all +builders of houses. If possible, let bedroom windows open at the top as +well as at the bottom. + +Let me impress the necessity of using some such contrivances, not only on +parents and educators, but on those who employ work-people, and above all +on those who employ young women in shops or in work-rooms. What their +condition may be in this city I know not; but most painful it has been to +me in other places, when passing through warehouses or work-rooms, to see +the pale, sodden, and, as the French would say "etiolated" countenances +of the girls who were passing the greater part of the day in them; and +painful, also, to breathe an atmosphere of which habit had, alas! made +them unconscious, but which to one coming out of the open air was +altogether noxious, and shocking also; for it was fostering the seeds of +death, not only in the present but in future generations. + +Why should this be? Every one will agree that good ventilation is +necessary in a hospital, because people cannot get well without fresh +air. Do they not see that by the same reasoning good ventilation is +necessary everywhere, because people cannot remain well without fresh +air? Let me entreat those who employ women in work-rooms, if they have +no time to read through such books as Dr. Andrew Combe's 'Physiology +applied to Health and Education,' and Madame de Wahl's 'Practical Hints +on the Moral, Mental, and Physical Training of Girls,' to procure certain +tracts published by Messrs. Jarrold, Paternoster Row, for the Ladies' +Sanitary Association; especially one which bears on this subject, 'The +Black-Hole in our own Bedrooms;' Dr. Lankester's 'School Manual of +Health;' or a manual on ventilation, published by the Metropolitan +Working Classes Association for the Improvement of Public Health. + +I look forward--I say it openly--to some period of higher civilisation, +when the Acts of Parliament for the ventilation of factories and +workshops shall be largely extended, and made far more stringent; when +officers of public health shall be empowered to enforce the ventilation +of every room in which persons are employed for hire; and empowered also +to demand a proper system of ventilation for every new house, whether in +country or in town. To that, I believe, we must come: but I had sooner +far see these improvements carried out, as befits the citizens of a free +country, in the spirit of the Gospel rather than in that of the Law; +carried out, not compulsorily and from fear of fines, but voluntarily, +from a sense of duty, honour, and humanity. I appeal, therefore, to the +good feeling of all whom it may concern, whether the health of those whom +they employ, and therefore the supply of fresh air which they absolutely +need, are not matters for which they are not, more or less, responsible +to their country and their God. + +And if any excellent person of the old school should answer me--"Why make +all this fuss about ventilation? Our forefathers got on very well +without it"--I must answer that, begging their pardons, our ancestors did +nothing of the kind. Our ancestors got on usually very ill in these +matters: and when they got on well, it was because they had good +ventilation in spite of themselves. + +First. They got on very ill. To quote a few remarkable instances of +longevity, or to tell me that men were larger and stronger on the average +in old times, is to yield to the old fallacy of fancying that savages +were peculiarly healthy, because those who were seen were active and +strong. The simple answer is, that the strong alone survived, while the +majority died from the severity of the training. Savages do not increase +in number; and our ancestors increased but very slowly for many +centuries. I am not going to disgust my audience with statistics of +disease: but knowing something, as I happen to do, of the social state +and of the health of the Middle and Elizabethan Ages, I have no +hesitation in saying that the average of disease and death was far +greater then than it is now. Epidemics of many kinds, typhus, ague, +plague--all diseases which were caused more or less by bad air--devastated +this land and Europe in those days with a horrible intensity, to which +even the choleras of our times are mild. The back streets, the +hospitals, the gaols, the barracks, the camps--every place in which any +large number of persons congregated, were so many nests of pestilence, +engendered by uncleanliness, which denied alike the water which was drunk +and the air which was breathed; and as a single fact, of which the tables +of insurance companies assure us, the average of human life in England +has increased twenty-five per cent. since the reign of George I., owing +simply to our more rational and cleanly habits of life. + +But secondly, I said that when our ancestors got on well, they did so +because they got ventilation in spite of themselves. Luckily for them, +their houses were ill-built; their doors and windows would not shut. They +had lattice-windowed houses, too; to live in one of which, as I can +testify from long experience, is as thoroughly ventilating as living in a +lantern with the horn broken out. It was because their houses were full +of draughts, and still more, in the early middle age, because they had no +glass, and stopped out the air only by a shutter at night, that they +sought for shelter rather than for fresh air, of which they sometimes had +too much; and, to escape the wind, built their houses in holes, such as +that in which the old city of Winchester stands. Shelter, I believe, as +much as the desire to be near fish in Lent, and to occupy the rich +alluvium of the valleys, made the monks of Old England choose the river- +banks for the sites of their abbeys. They made a mistake therein, which, +like most mistakes, did not go unpunished. These low situations, +especially while the forests were yet thick on the hills around, were the +perennial haunts of fever and ague, produced by subtle vegetable poisons, +carried in the carbonic acid given off by rotting vegetation. So there, +again, they fell in with man's old enemy--bad air. + +Still, as long as the doors and windows did not shut, some free +circulation of air remained. But now, our doors and windows shut only +too tight. We have plate-glass instead of lattices; and we have replaced +the draughty and smoky, but really wholesome open chimney, with its wide +corners and settles, by narrow registers, and even by stoves. We have +done all we can, in fact, to seal ourselves up hermetically from the +outer air, and to breathe our own breaths over and over again; and we pay +the penalty of it in a thousand ways unknown to our ancestors, through +whose rooms all the winds of heaven whistled, and who were glad enough to +shelter themselves from draughts in the sitting-room by the high screen +round the fire, and in the sleeping-room by the thick curtains of the +four-post bedstead, which is now rapidly disappearing before a higher +civilisation. We therefore absolutely require to make for ourselves the +very ventilation from which our ancestors tried to escape. + +But, ladies, there is an old and true proverb, that you may bring a horse +to the water, but you cannot make him drink. And in like wise it is too +true, that you may bring people to the fresh air, but you cannot make +them breathe it. Their own folly, or the folly of their parents and +educators, prevents their lungs being duly filled and duly emptied. +Therefore, the blood is not duly oxygenated, and the whole system goes +wrong. + +Paleness, weakness, consumption, scrofula, and too many other ailments, +are the consequences of ill-filled lungs. For without well-filled lungs, +robust health is impossible. + +And if any one shall answer--"We do not want robust health so much as +intellectual attainment. The mortal body, being the lower organ, must +take its chance, and be even sacrificed, if need be, to the higher +organ--the immortal mind:"--To such I reply, You cannot do it. The laws +of nature, which are the express will of God, laugh such attempts to +scorn. Every organ of the body is formed out of the blood; and if the +blood be vitiated, every organ suffers in proportion to its delicacy; and +the brain, being the most delicate and highly specialised of all organs, +suffers most of all and soonest of all, as every one knows who has tried +to work his brain when his digestion was the least out of order. Nay, +the very morals will suffer. From ill-filled lungs, which signify ill- +repaired blood, arise year by year an amount not merely of disease, but +of folly, temper, laziness, intemperance, madness, and, let me tell you +fairly, crime--the sum of which will never be known till that great day +when men shall be called to account for all deeds done in the body, +whether they be good or evil. + +I must refer you on this subject again to Andrew Combe's 'Physiology,' +especially chapters iv. and vii.; and also to chapter x. of Madame de +Wahl's excellent book. I will only say this shortly, that the three most +common causes of ill-filled lungs, in children and in young ladies, are +stillness, silence, and stays. + +First, stillness; a sedentary life, and want of exercise. A girl is kept +for hours sitting on a form writing or reading, to do which she must lean +forward; and if her schoolmistress cruelly attempts to make her sit +upright, and thereby keep the spine in an attitude for which Nature did +not intend it, she is thereby doing her best to bring on that disease, so +fearfully common in girls' schools, lateral curvature of the spine. But +practically the girl will stoop forward. And what happens? The lower +ribs are pressed into the body, thereby displacing more or less something +inside. The diaphragm in the meantime, which is the very bellows of the +lungs, remains loose; the lungs are never properly filled or emptied; and +an excess of carbonic acid accumulates at the bottom of them. What +follows? Frequent sighing to get rid of it; heaviness of head; +depression of the whole nervous system under the influence of the poison +of the lungs; and when the poor child gets up from her weary work, what +is the first thing she probably does? She lifts up her chest, stretches, +yawns, and breathes deeply--Nature's voice, Nature's instinctive cure, +which is probably regarded as ungraceful, as what is called "lolling" is. +As if sitting upright was not an attitude in itself essentially +ungraceful, and such as no artist would care to draw. As if "lolling," +which means putting the body in the attitude of the most perfect ease +compatible with a fully expanded chest, was not in itself essentially +graceful, and to be seen in every reposing figure in Greek bas-reliefs +and vases; graceful, and like all graceful actions, healthful at the same +time. The only tolerably wholesome attitude of repose, which I see +allowed in average school-rooms, is lying on the back on the floor, or on +a sloping board, in which case the lungs must be fully expanded. But +even so, a pillow, or some equivalent, ought to be placed under the small +of the back: or the spine will be strained at its very weakest point. + +I now go on to the second mistake--enforced silence. Moderate reading +aloud is good: but where there is any tendency to irritability of throat +or lungs, too much moderation cannot be used. You may as well try to +cure a diseased lung by working it, as to cure a lame horse by galloping +him. But where the breathing organs are of average health, let it be +said once and for all, that children and young people cannot make too +much noise. The parents who cannot bear the noise of their children have +no right to have brought them into the world. The schoolmistress who +enforces silence on her pupils is committing--unintentionally no doubt, +but still committing--an offence against reason, worthy only of a +convent. Every shout, every burst of laughter, every song--nay, in the +case of infants, as physiologists well know, every moderate fit of +crying--conduces to health, by rapidly filling and emptying the lung, and +changing the blood more rapidly from black to red, that is, from death to +life. Andrew Combe tells a story of a large charity school, in which the +young girls were, for the sake of their health, shut up in the hall and +school-room during play hours, from November till March, and no romping +or noise allowed. The natural consequences were, the great majority of +them fell ill; and I am afraid that a great deal of illness has been from +time to time contracted in certain school-rooms, simply through this one +cause of enforced silence. Some cause or other there must be for the +amount of ill-health and weakliness which prevails especially among girls +of the middle classes in towns, who have not, poor things, the +opportunities which richer girls have, of keeping themselves in strong +health by riding, skating, archery--that last quite an admirable exercise +for the chest and lungs, and far preferable to croquet, which involves +too much unwholesome stooping.--Even playing at ball, if milliners and +shop-girls had room to indulge in one after their sedentary work, might +bring fresh spirits to many a heart, and fresh colour to many a cheek. I +spoke just now of the Greeks. I suppose you will all allow that the +Greeks were, as far as we know, the most beautiful race which the world +ever saw. Every educated man knows that they were also the cleverest of +all races; and, next to his Bible, thanks God for Greek literature. + +Now, these people had made physical as well as intellectual education a +science as well as a study. Their women practised graceful, and in some +cases even athletic, exercises. They developed, by a free and healthy +life, those figures which remain everlasting and unapproachable models of +human beauty: but--to come to my third point--they wore no stays. The +first mention of stays that I have ever found is in the letters of dear +old Synesius, Bishop of Cyrene, on the Greek coast of Africa, about four +hundred years after the Christian era. He tells us how, when he was +shipwrecked on a remote part of the coast, and he and the rest of the +passengers were starving on cockles and limpets, there was among them a +slave girl out of the far East, who had a pinched wasp-waist, such as you +may see on the old Hindoo sculptures, and such as you may see in any +street in a British town. And when the Greek ladies of the neighbourhood +found her out, they sent for her from house to house, to behold, with +astonishment and laughter, this new and prodigious waist, with which it +seemed to them it was impossible for a human being to breathe or live; +and they petted the poor girl, and fed her, as they might a dwarf or a +giantess, till she got quite fat and comfortable, while her owners had +not enough to eat. So strange and ridiculous seemed our present fashion +to the descendants of those who, centuries before, had imagined, because +they had seen living and moving, those glorious statues which we pretend +to admire, but refuse to imitate. + +It seems to me that a few centuries hence, when mankind has learnt to +fear God more, and therefore to obey more strictly those laws of nature +and of science which are the will of God--it seems to me, I say, that in +those days the present fashion of tight lacing will be looked back upon +as a contemptible and barbarous superstition, denoting a very low level +of civilisation in the peoples which have practised it. That for +generations past women should have been in the habit--not to please men, +who do not care about the matter as a point of beauty--but simply to vie +with each other in obedience to something called fashion--that they +should, I say, have been in the habit of deliberately crushing that part +of the body which should be specially left free, contracting and +displacing their lungs, their heart, and all the most vital and important +organs, and entailing thereby disease, not only on themselves but on +their children after them; that for forty years past physicians should +have been telling them of the folly of what they have been doing: and +that they should as yet, in the great majority of cases, not only turn a +deaf ear to all warnings, but actually deny the offence, of which one +glance of the physician or the sculptor, who know what shape the human +body ought to be, brings them in guilty: this, I say, is an instance +of--what shall I call it?--which deserves at once the lash, not merely of +the satirist, but of any theologian who really believes that God made the +physical universe. Let me, I pray you, appeal to your common sense for a +moment. When any one chooses a horse or a dog, whether for strength, for +speed, or for any other useful purpose, the first thing almost to be +looked at is the girth round the ribs; the room for heart and lungs. +Exactly in proportion to that will be the animal's general healthiness, +power of endurance, and value in many other ways. If you will look at +eminent lawyers and famous orators, who have attained a healthy old age, +you will see that in every case they are men, like the late Lord +Palmerston, and others whom I could mention, of remarkable size, not +merely in the upper, but in the lower part of the chest; men who had, +therefore, a peculiar power of using the diaphragm to fill and to clear +the lungs, and therefore to oxygenate the blood of the whole body. Now, +it is just these lower ribs, across which the diaphragm is stretched like +the head of a drum, which stays contract to a minimum. If you advised +owners of horses and hounds to put their horses or their hounds into +stays, and lace them up tight, in order to increase their beauty, you +would receive, I doubt not, a very courteous, but certainly a very +decided, refusal to do that which would spoil not merely the animals +themselves, but the whole stud or the whole kennel for years to come. And +if you advised an orator to put himself into tight stays, he, no doubt, +again would give a courteous answer; but he would reply--if he was a +really educated man--that to comply with your request would involve his +giving up public work, under the probable penalty of being dead within +the twelvemonth. + +And how much work of every kind, intellectual as well as physical, is +spoiled or hindered; how many deaths occur from consumption and other +complaints which are the result of this habit of tight lacing, is known +partly to the medical men, who lift up their voices in vain, and known +fully to Him who will not interfere with the least of His own physical +laws to save human beings from the consequences of their own wilful +folly. + +And now--to end this lecture with more pleasing thoughts--What becomes of +this breath which passes from your lips? Is it merely harmful; merely +waste? God forbid! God has forbidden that anything should be merely +harmful or merely waste in this so wise and well-made world. The +carbonic acid which passes from your lips at every breath--ay, even that +which oozes from the volcano crater when the eruption is past--is a +precious boon to thousands of things of which you have daily need. Indeed +there is a sort of hint at physical truth in the old fairy tale of the +girl, from whose lips, as she spoke, fell pearls and diamonds; for the +carbonic acid of your breath may help hereafter to make the pure +carbonate of lime of a pearl, or the still purer carbon of a diamond. +Nay, it may go--in such a world of transformations do we live--to make +atoms of coal strata, which shall lie buried for ages beneath deep seas, +shall be upheaved in continents which are yet unborn, and there be burnt +for the use of a future race of men, and resolved into their original +elements. Coal, wise men tell us, is on the whole breath and sunlight; +the breath of living creatures who have lived in the vast swamps and +forests of some primaeval world, and the sunlight which transmuted that +breath into the leaves and stems of trees, magically locked up for ages +in that black stone, to become, when it is burnt at last, light and +carbonic acid, as it was at first. For though you must not breathe your +breath again, you may at least eat your breath, if you will allow the sun +to transmute it for you into vegetables; or you may enjoy its fragrance +and its colour in the shape of a lily or a rose. When you walk in a +sunlit garden, every word you speak, every breath you breathe, is feeding +the plants and flowers around. The delicate surface of the green leaves +absorbs the carbonic acid, and parts it into its elements, retaining the +carbon to make woody fibre, and courteously returning you the oxygen to +mingle with the fresh air, and be inhaled by your lungs once more. Thus +do you feed the plants; just as the plants feed you; while the great life- +giving sun feeds both; and the geranium standing in the sick child's +window does not merely rejoice his eye and mind by its beauty and +freshness, but repays honestly the trouble spent on it; absorbing the +breath which the child needs not, and giving to him the breath which he +needs. + +So are the services of all things constituted according to a Divine and +wonderful order, and knit together in mutual dependence and mutual +helpfulness.--A fact to be remembered with hope and comfort; but also +with awe and fear. For as in that which is above nature, so in nature +itself; he that breaks one physical law is guilty of all. The whole +universe, as it were, takes up arms against him; and all nature, with her +numberless and unseen powers, is ready to avenge herself on him, and on +his children after him, he knows not when nor where. He, on the other +hand, who obeys the laws of nature with his whole heart and mind, will +find all things working together to him for good. He is at peace with +the physical universe. He is helped and befriended alike by the sun +above his head and the dust beneath his feet: because he is obeying the +will and mind of Him who made sun, and dust, and all things; and who has +given them a law which cannot be broken. + + + + +THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE. + + +The more I have contemplated that ancient story of the Fall, the more it +has seemed to me within the range of probability, and even of experience. +It must have happened somewhere for the first time; for it has happened +only too many times since. It has happened, as far as I can ascertain, +in every race, and every age, and every grade of civilisation. It is +happening round us now in every region of the globe. Always and +everywhere, it seems to me, have poor human beings been tempted to eat of +some "tree of knowledge," that they may be, even for an hour, as gods; +wise, but with a false wisdom; careless, but with a frantic carelessness; +and happy, but with a happiness which, when the excitement is past, +leaves too often--as with that hapless pair in Eden--depression, shame, +and fear. Everywhere, and in all ages, as far as I can ascertain, has +man been inventing stimulants and narcotics to supply that want of +vitality of which he is so painfully aware; and has asked nature, and not +God, to clear the dull brain, and comfort the weary spirit. + +This has been, and will be perhaps for many a century to come, almost the +most fearful failing of this poor, exceptional, over-organised, diseased, +and truly fallen being called man, who is in doubt daily whether he be a +god or an ape; and in trying wildly to become the former, ends but too +often in becoming the latter. + +For man, whether savage or civilised, feels, and has felt in every age, +that there is something wrong with him. He usually confesses this +fact--as is to be expected--of his fellow-men, rather than of himself; +and shows his sense that there is something wrong with them by +complaining of, hating, and killing them. But he cannot always conceal +from himself the fact that he, too, is wrong, as well as they; and as he +will not usually kill himself, he tries wild ways to make himself at +least feel--if not to be--somewhat "better." Philosophers may bid him be +content; and tell him that he is what he ought to be, and what nature has +made him. But he cares nothing for the philosophers. He knows, usually, +that he is not what he ought to be; that he carries about with him, in +most cases, a body more or less diseased and decrepit, incapable of doing +all the work which he feels that he himself could do, or expressing all +the emotions which he himself longs to express; a dull brain and dull +senses, which cramp the eager infinity within him; as--so Goethe once +said with pity--the horse's single hoof cramps the fine intelligence and +generosity of his nature, and forbids him even to grasp an object, like +the more stupid cat, and baser monkey. And man has a self, too, within, +from which he longs too often to escape, as from a household ghost; who +pulls out, at unfortunately rude and unwelcome hours, the ledger of +memory. And so when the tempter--be he who he may--says to him "Take +this, and you will 'feel better'--Take this, and you shall be as gods, +knowing good and evil:" then, if the temptation was, as the old story +says, too much for man while healthy and unfallen, what must it be for +his unhealthy and fallen children? In vain we say to man-- + + "'Tis life, not death, for which you pant; + 'Tis life, whereof your nerves are scant; + More life, and fuller, that you want." + +And your tree of knowledge is not the tree of life: it is, in every case, +the tree of death; of decrepitude, madness, misery. He prefers the voice +of the tempter--"Thou shalt not surely die." Nay, he will say at +last,--"Better be as gods awhile, and die: than be the crawling, +insufficient thing I am; and live." + +He--did I say? Alas! I must say she likewise. The sacred story is only +too true to fact, when it represents the woman as falling, not merely at +the same time as the man, but before the man. Only let us remember that +it represents the woman as tempted; tempted, seemingly, by a rational +being, of lower race, and yet of superior cunning; who must, therefore, +have fallen before the woman. Who or what the being was, who is called +the Serpent in our translation of Genesis, it is not for me to say. We +have absolutely, I think, no facts from which to judge; and Rabbinical +traditions need trouble no man much. But I fancy that a missionary, +preaching on this story to Negroes; telling them plainly that the +"Serpent" meant the first Obeah man; and then comparing the experiences +of that hapless pair in Eden, with their own after certain orgies not yet +extinct in Africa and elsewhere, would be only too well understood: so +well, indeed, that he might run some risk of eating himself, not of the +tree of life, but of that of death. The sorcerer or sorceress tempting +the woman; and then the woman tempting the man; this seems to be, +certainly among savage peoples, and, alas! too often among civilised +peoples also, the usual course of the world-wide tragedy. + +But--paradoxical as it may seem--the woman's yielding before the man is +not altogether to her dishonour, as those old monks used to allege who +hated, and too often tortured, the sex whom they could not enjoy. It is +not to the woman's dishonour, if she felt, before her husband, higher +aspirations than those after mere animal pleasure. To be as gods, +knowing good and evil, is a vain and foolish, but not a base and brutal, +wish. She proved herself thereby--though at an awful cost--a woman, and +not an animal. And indeed the woman's more delicate organisation, her +more vivid emotions, her more voluble fancy, as well as her mere physical +weakness and weariness, have been to her, in all ages, a special source +of temptation which it is to her honour that she has resisted so much +better than the physically stronger, and therefore more culpable, man. + +As for what the tree of knowledge was, there really is no need for us to +waste our time in guessing. If it was not one plant, then it was +another. It may have been something which has long since perished off +the earth. It may have been--as some learned men have guessed--the +sacred Soma, or Homa, of the early Brahmin race; and that may have been a +still existing narcotic species of Asclepias. It certainly was not the +vine. The language of the Hebrew Scripture concerning it, and the sacred +use to which it is consecrated in the Gospels, forbid that notion +utterly; at least to those who know enough of antiquity to pass by, with +a smile, the theory that the wines mentioned in Scripture were not +intoxicating. And yet--as a fresh corroboration of what I am trying to +say--how fearfully has that noble gift to man been abused for the same +end as a hundred other vegetable products, ever since those mythic days +when Dionusos brought the vine from the far East, amid troops of human +Maenads and half-human Satyrs; and the Bacchae tore Pentheus in pieces on +Cithaeron, for daring to intrude upon their sacred rites; and since those +historic days, too, when, less than two hundred years before the +Christian era, the Bacchic rites spread from Southern Italy into Etruria, +and thence to the matrons of Rome; and under the guidance of Poenia +Annia, a Campanian lady, took at last shapes of which no man must speak, +but which had to be put down with terrible but just severity, by the +Consuls and the Senate. + +But it matters little, I say, what this same tree of knowledge was. Was +every vine on earth destroyed to-morrow, and every vegetable also from +which alcohol is now distilled, man would soon discover something else +wherewith to satisfy the insatiate craving. Has he not done so already? +Has not almost every people had its tree of knowledge, often more deadly +than any distilled liquor, from the absinthe of the cultivated Frenchman, +and the opium of the cultivated Chinese, down to the bush-poisons +wherewith the tropic sorcerer initiates his dupes into the knowledge of +good and evil, and the fungus from which the Samoiede extracts in autumn +a few days of brutal happiness, before the setting in of the long six +months' night? God grant that modern science may not bring to light +fresh substitutes for alcohol, opium, and the rest; and give the white +races, in that state of effeminate and godless quasi-civilisation which I +sometimes fear is creeping upon them, fresh means of destroying +themselves delicately and pleasantly off the face of the earth. + +It is said by some that drunkenness is on the increase in this island. I +have no trusty proof of it: but I can believe it possible; for every +cause of drunkenness seems on the increase. Overwork of body and mind; +circumstances which depress health; temptation to drink, and drink again, +at every corner of the streets; and finally, money, and ever more money, +in the hands of uneducated people, who have not the desire, and too often +not the means, of spending it in any save the lowest pleasures. These, +it seems to me, are the true causes of drunkenness, increasing or not. +And if we wish to become a more temperate nation, we must lessen them, if +we cannot eradicate them. + +First, overwork. We all live too fast, and work too hard. "All things +are full of labour, man cannot utter it." In the heavy struggle for +existence which goes on all around us, each man is tasked more and +more--if he be really worth buying and using--to the utmost of his powers +all day long. The weak have to compete on equal terms with the strong; +and crave, in consequence, for artificial strength. How we shall stop +that I know not, while every man is "making haste to be rich, and +piercing himself through with many sorrows, and falling into foolish and +hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition." How we +shall stop that, I say, I know not. The old prophet may have been right +when he said, "Surely it is not of the Lord that the people shall labour +in the very fire, and weary themselves for very vanity;" and in some +juster, wiser, more sober system of society--somewhat more like the +Kingdom of The Father come on earth--it may be that poor human beings +will not need to toil so hard, and to keep themselves up to their work by +stimulants, but will have time to sit down, and look around them, and +think of God, and of God's quiet universe, with something of quiet in +themselves; something of rational leisure, and manful sobriety of mind, +as well as of body. + +But it seems to me also, that in such a state of society, when--as it was +once well put--"every one has stopped running about like rats:"--that +those who work hard, whether with muscle or with brain, would not be +surrounded, as now, with every circumstance which tempts toward drink; by +every circumstance which depresses the vital energies, and leaves them an +easy prey to pestilence itself; by bad light, bad air, bad food, bad +water, bad smells, bad occupations, which weaken the muscles, cramp the +chest, disorder the digestion. Let any rational man, fresh from the +country--in which I presume God, having made it, meant all men, more or +less, to live--go through the back streets of any city, or through whole +districts of the "black countries" of England: and then ask himself--Is +it the will of God that His human children should live and toil in such +dens, such deserts, such dark places of the earth? Let him ask +himself--Can they live and toil there without contracting a probably +diseased habit of body; without contracting a certainly dull, weary, +sordid habit of mind, which craves for any pleasure, however brutal, to +escape from its own stupidity and emptiness? When I run through, by +rail, certain parts of the iron-producing country--streets of furnaces, +collieries, slag heaps, mud, slop, brick house-rows, smoke, dirt--and +that is all; and when I am told, whether truly or falsely, that the main +thing which the well-paid and well-fed men of those abominable wastes +care for is--good fighting-dogs: I can only answer, that I am not +surprised. + +I say--as I have said elsewhere, and shall do my best to say again--that +the craving for drink and narcotics, especially that engendered in our +great cities, is not a disease, but a symptom of disease; of a far deeper +disease than any which drunkenness can produce; namely, of the growing +degeneracy of a population striving in vain by stimulants and narcotics +to fight against those slow poisons with which our greedy barbarism, +miscalled civilisation, has surrounded them from the cradle to the grave. +I may be answered that the old German, Angle, Dane, drank heavily. I +know it: but why did they drink, save for the same reason that the fenman +drank, and his wife took opium, at least till the fens were drained? why +but to keep off the depressing effects of the malaria of swamps and new +clearings, which told on them--who always settled in the lowest +grounds--in the shape of fever and ague? Here it may be answered again, +that stimulants have been, during the memory of man, the destruction of +the Red Indian race in America. I reply boldly, that I do not believe +it. There is evidence enough in Jaques Cartier's 'Voyages to the Rivers +of Canada;' and evidence more than enough in Strachey's 'Travaile in +Virginia'--to quote only two authorities out of many--to prove that the +Red Indians, when the white man first met with them, were, in North and +South alike, a diseased, decaying, and, as all their traditions confess, +decreasing race. Such a race would naturally crave for "the water of +life," the "usque-bagh," or whisky, as we have contracted the old name +now. But I should have thought that the white man, by introducing among +these poor creatures iron, fire-arms, blankets, and above all horses +wherewith to follow the buffalo-herds which they could never follow on +foot, must have done ten times more towards keeping them alive, than he +has done towards destroying them by giving them the chance of a week's +drunkenness twice a year, when they came in to his forts to sell the +skins which, without his gifts, they would never have got. + +Such a race would, of course, if wanting vitality, crave for stimulants. +But if the stimulants, and not the original want of vitality, combined +with morals utterly detestable, and worthy only of the gallows--and here +I know what I say, and dare not tell what I know, from eye-witnesses--have +been the cause of the Red Indians' extinction: then how is it, let me +ask, that the Irishman and the Scotsman have, often to their great harm, +been drinking as much whisky--and usually very bad whisky--not merely +twice a year, but as often as they could get it, during the whole "iron +age;" and, for aught any one can tell, during the "bronze age," and the +"stone age" before that: and yet are still the most healthy, able, +valiant, and prolific races in Europe? Had they drunk less whisky they +would, doubtless, have been more healthy, able, valiant, and perhaps even +more prolific, than they are now. They show no sign, however, as yet, of +going the way of the Red Indian. + +But if the craving for stimulants and narcotics is a token of deficient +vitality: then the deadliest foe of that craving, and all its miserable +results, is surely the Sanatory Reformer; the man who preaches, and--as +far as ignorance and vested interests will allow him, procures--for the +masses, pure air, pure sunlight, pure water, pure dwelling-houses, pure +food. Not merely every fresh drinking-fountain: but every fresh public +bath and wash-house, every fresh open space, every fresh growing tree, +every fresh open window, every fresh flower in that window--each of these +is so much, as the old Persians would have said, conquered for Ormuzd, +the god of light and life, out of the dominion of Ahriman, the king of +darkness and of death; so much taken from the causes of drunkenness and +disease, and added to the causes of sobriety and health. + +Meanwhile one thing is clear: that if this present barbarism and anarchy +of covetousness, miscalled modern civilisation, were tamed and drilled +into something more like a Kingdom of God on earth: then we should not +see the reckless and needless multiplication of liquor shops, which +disgraces this country now. + +As a single instance: in one country parish of nine hundred inhabitants, +in which the population has increased only one-ninth in the last fifty +years, there are now practically eight public-houses, where fifty years +ago there were but two. One, that is, for every hundred and ten--or +rather, omitting children, farmers, shopkeepers, gentlemen, and their +households, one for every fifty of the inhabitants. In the face of the +allurements, often of the basest kind, which these dens offer, the +clergyman and the schoolmaster struggle in vain to keep up night-schools +and young men's clubs, and to inculcate habits of providence. + +The young labourers over a great part of the south and east, at least, of +England,--though never so well off, for several generations, as they are +now--are growing up thriftless, shiftless; inferior, it seems to me, to +their grandfathers in everything, save that they can usually read and +write, and their grandfathers could not; and that they wear smart cheap +cloth clothes, instead of their grandfathers' smock-frocks. + +And if it be so in the country: how must it be in towns? There must come +a thorough change in the present licensing system, in spite of all the +"pressure" which certain powerful vested interests may bring to bear on +governments. And it is the duty of every good citizen, who cares for his +countrymen, and for their children after them, to help in bringing about +that change as speedily as possible. + +Again: I said just now that a probable cause of increasing drunkenness +was the increasing material prosperity of thousands who knew no +recreation beyond low animal pleasure. If I am right--and I believe that +I am right--I must urge on those who wish drunkenness to decrease, the +necessity of providing more, and more refined recreation for the people. + +Men drink, and women too, remember, not merely to supply exhaustion; not +merely to drive away care: but often simply to drive away dulness. They +have nothing to do save to think over what they have done in the day, or +what they expect to do to-morrow; and they escape from that dreary round +of business thought, in liquor or narcotics. There are still those, by +no means of the hand-working class, but absorbed all day by business, who +drink heavily at night in their own comfortable homes, simply to recreate +their overburdened minds. Such cases, doubtless, are far less common +than they were fifty years ago: but why? Is not the decrease of drinking +among the richer classes certainly due to the increased refinement and +variety of their tastes and occupations? In cultivating the aesthetic +side of man's nature; in engaging him with the beautiful, the pure, the +wonderful, the truly natural; with painting, poetry, music, horticulture, +physical science--in all this lies recreation, in the true and literal +sense of that word, namely, the recreating and mending of the exhausted +mind and feelings, such as no rational man will now neglect, either for +himself, his children, or his work-people. + +But how little of all this is open to the masses, all should know but too +well. How little opportunity the average hand-worker, or his wife, has +of eating of any tree of knowledge, save of the very basest kind, is but +too palpable. We are mending, thank God, in this respect. Free +libraries and museums have sprung up of late in other cities beside +London. God's blessing rest upon them all. And the Crystal Palace, and +still later, the Bethnal Green Museum, have been, I believe, of far more +use than many average sermons and lectures from many average orators. + +But are we not still far behind the old Greeks, and the Romans of the +Empire likewise, in the amount of amusement and instruction, and even of +shelter, which we provide for the people? Recollect the--to +me--disgraceful fact; that there is not, as far as I am aware, throughout +the whole of London, a single portico or other covered place, in which +the people can take refuge during a shower: and this in the climate of +England! Where they do take refuge on a wet day the publican knows but +too well; as he knows also where thousands of the lower classes, simply +for want of any other place to be in, save their own sordid dwellings, +spend as much as they are permitted of the Sabbath day. Let us put down +"Sunday drinking" by all means, if we can. But let us remember that by +closing the public-house on Sunday, we prevent no man or woman from +carrying home as much poison as they choose on Saturday night, to +brutalise themselves therewith, perhaps for eight-and-forty hours. And +let us see--in the name of Him who said that He had made the Sabbath for +man, and not man for the Sabbath--let us see, I say, if we cannot do +something to prevent the townsman's Sabbath being, not a day of rest, but +a day of mere idleness; the day of most temptation, because of most +dulness, of the whole seven. + +And here, perhaps, some sweet soul may look up reprovingly and say--He +talks of rest. Does he forget, and would he have the working man forget, +that all these outward palliatives will never touch the seat of the +disease, the unrest of the soul within? Does he forget, and would he +have the working man forget, who it was who said--who only has the right +to say--"Come unto Me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will +give you rest"? Ah no, sweet soul. I know your words are true. I know +that what we all want is inward rest; rest of heart and brain; the calm, +strong, self-contained, self-denying character; which needs no +stimulants, for it has no fits of depression; which needs no narcotics, +for it has no fits of excitement; which needs no ascetic restraints, for +it is strong enough to use God's gifts without abusing them; the +character, in a word, which is truly temperate, not in drink or food +merely, but in all desires, thoughts, and actions; freed from the wild +lusts and ambitions to which that old Adam yielded, and, seeking for +light and life by means forbidden, found thereby disease and death. Yes; +I know that; and know, too, that that rest is found, only where you have +already found it. + +And yet: in such a world as this; governed by a Being who has made +sunshine, and flowers, and green grass, and the song of birds, and happy +human smiles; and who would educate by them--if we would let Him--His +human children from the cradle to the grave; in such a world as this, +will you grudge any particle of that education, even any harmless +substitute for it, to those spirits in prison, whose surroundings too +often tempt them, from the cradle to the grave, to fancy that the world +is composed of bricks and iron, and governed by inspectors and policemen? +Preach to those spirits in prison, as you know far better than we parsons +how to preach: but let them have besides some glimpses of the splendid +fact, that outside their prison-house is a world which God, not man, has +made; wherein grows everywhere that tree of knowledge which is likewise +the tree of life; and that they have a right to some small share of its +beauty, and its wonder, and its rest, for their own health of soul and +body, and for the health of their children after them. + + + + +NAUSICAA IN LONDON: OR, THE LOWER EDUCATION OF WOMAN. + + +Fresh from the Marbles of the British Museum, I went my way through +London streets. My brain was still full of fair and grand forms; the +forms of men and women whose every limb and attitude betokened perfect +health, and grace, and power, and a self-possession and self-restraint so +habitual and complete that it had become unconscious, and +undistinguishable from the native freedom of the savage. For I had been +up and down the corridors of those Greek sculptures, which remain as a +perpetual sermon to rich and poor, amid our artificial, unwholesome, and +it may be decaying pseudo-civilisation; saying with looks more expressive +than all words--Such men and women can be; for such they have been; and +such you may be yet, if you will use that science of which you too often +only boast. Above all, I had been pondering over the awful and yet +tender beauty of the maiden figures from the Parthenon and its kindred +temples. And these, or such as these, I thought to myself, were the +sisters of the men who fought at Marathon and Salamis; the mothers of +many a man among the ten thousand whom Xenophon led back from Babylon to +the Black Sea shore; the ancestresses of many a man who conquered the +East in Alexander's host, and fought with Porus in the far Punjab. And +were these women mere dolls? These men mere gladiators? Were they not +the parents of philosophy, science, poetry, the plastic arts? We talk of +education now. Are we more educated than were the ancient Greeks? Do we +know anything about education, physical, intellectual, or aesthetic, and +I may say moral likewise--religious education, of course, in our sense of +the word, they had none--but do we know anything about education of which +they have not taught us at least the rudiments? Are there not some +branches of education which they perfected, once and for ever; leaving us +northern barbarians to follow, or else not to follow, their example? To +produce health, that is, harmony and sympathy, proportion and grace, in +every faculty of mind and body--that was their notion of education. To +produce that, the text-book of their childhood was the poetry of Homer, +and not of--But I am treading on dangerous ground. It was for this that +the seafaring Greek lad was taught to find his ideal in Ulysses; while +his sister at home found hers, it may be, in Nausicaa. It was for this, +that when perhaps the most complete and exquisite of all the Greeks, +Sophocles the good, beloved by gods and men, represented on the Athenian +stage his drama of Nausicaa, and, as usual, could not--for he had no +voice--himself take a speaking part, he was content to do one thing in +which he specially excelled; and dressed and masked as a girl, to play at +ball amid the chorus of Nausicaa's maidens. + +That drama of Nausicaa is lost; and if I dare say so of any play of +Sophocles', I scarce regret it. It is well, perhaps, that we have no +second conception of the scene, to interfere with the simplicity, so +grand, and yet so tender, of Homer's idyllic episode. + +Nausicaa, it must be remembered, is the daughter of a king. But not of a +king in the exclusive modern European or old Eastern sense. Her father, +Alcinous, is simply "primus inter pares" among a community of merchants, +who are called "kings" likewise; and Mayor for life--so to speak--of a +new trading city, a nascent Genoa or Venice, on the shore of the +Mediterranean. But the girl Nausicaa, as she sleeps in her "carved +chamber," is "like the immortals in form and face;" and two handmaidens +who sleep on each side of the polished door "have beauty from the +Graces." + +To her there enters, in the shape of some maiden friend, none less than +Pallas Athene herself, intent on saving worthily her favourite, the +shipwrecked Ulysses; and bids her in a dream go forth--and wash the +clothes. {72} + + "Nausicaa, wherefore doth thy mother bear + Child so forgetful? This long time doth rest, + Like lumber in the house, much raiment fair. + Soon must thou wed, and be thyself well-drest, + And find thy bridegroom raiment of the best. + These are the things whence good repute is born, + And praises that make glad a parent's breast. + Come, let us both go washing with the morn; + So shalt thou have clothes becoming to be worn. + + "Know that thy maidenhood is not for long, + Whom the Phoeacian chiefs already woo, + Lords of the land whence thou thyself art sprung. + Soon as the shining dawn comes forth anew, + For wain and mules thy noble father sue, + Which to the place of washing shall convey + Girdles and shawls and rugs of splendid hue. + This for thyself were better than essay + Thither to walk: the place is distant a long way." + +Startled by her dream, Nausicaa awakes, and goes to find her parents-- + + "One by the hearth sat, with the maids around, + And on the skeins of yarn, sea-purpled, spent + Her morning toil. Him to the council bound, + Called by the honoured kings, just going forth she found." + +And calling him, as she might now, "Pappa phile," Dear Papa, asks for the +mule waggon: but it is her father's and her five brothers' clothes she +fain would wash,-- + + "Ashamed to name her marriage to her father dear." + +But he understood all--and she goes forth in the mule waggon, with the +clothes, after her mother has put in "a chest of all kinds of delicate +food, and meat, and wine in a goatskin;" and last but not least, the +indispensable cruse of oil for anointing after the bath, to which both +Jews, Greeks, and Romans owed so much health and beauty. And then we +read in the simple verse of a poet too refined, like the rest of his +race, to see anything mean or ridiculous in that which was not ugly and +unnatural, how she and her maids got into the "polished waggon," "with +good wheels," and she "took the whip and the studded reins," and "beat +them till they started;" and how the mules "rattled" away, and "pulled +against each other," till + + "When they came to the fair flowing river + Which feeds good lavatories all the year, + Fitted to cleanse all sullied robes soever, + They from the wain the mules unharnessed there, + And chased them free, to crop their juicy fare + By the swift river, on the margin green; + Then to the waters dashed the clothes they bare + And in the stream-filled trenches stamped them clean. + + "Which, having washed and cleansed, they spread before + The sunbeams, on the beach, where most did lie + Thick pebbles, by the sea-wave washed ashore. + So, having left them in the heat to dry, + They to the bath went down, and by-and-by, + Rubbed with rich oil, their midday meal essay, + Couched in green turf, the river rolling nigh. + Then, throwing off their veils, at ball they play, + While the white-armed Nausicaa leads the choral lay." + +The mere beauty of this scene all will feel, who have the sense of beauty +in them. Yet it is not on that aspect which I wish to dwell, but on its +healthfulness. Exercise is taken, in measured time, to the sound of +song, as a duty almost, as well as an amusement. For this game of ball, +which is here mentioned for the first time in human literature, nearly +three thousand years ago, was held by the Greeks and by the Romans after +them, to be an almost necessary part of a liberal education; principally, +doubtless, from the development which it produced in the upper half of +the body, not merely to the arms, but to the chest, by raising and +expanding the ribs, and to all the muscles of the torso, whether +perpendicular or oblique. The elasticity and grace which it was believed +to give were so much prized, that a room for ball-play, and a teacher of +the art, were integral parts of every gymnasium; and the Athenians went +so far as to bestow on one famous ballplayer, Aristonicus of Carystia, a +statue and the rights of citizenship. The rough and hardy young +Spartans, when passing from boyhood into manhood, received the title of +ball-players, seemingly from the game which it was then their special +duty to learn. In the case of Nausicaa and her maidens, the game would +just bring into their right places all that is liable to be contracted +and weakened in women, so many of whose occupations must needs be +sedentary and stooping; while the song which accompanied the game at once +filled the lungs regularly and rhythmically, and prevented violent +motion, or unseemly attitude. We, the civilised, need physiologists to +remind us of these simple facts, and even then do not act on them. Those +old half-barbarous Greeks had found them out for themselves, and, +moreover, acted on them. + +But fair Nausicaa must have been--some will say--surely a mere child of +nature, and an uncultivated person? + +So far from it, that her whole demeanour and speech show culture of the +very highest sort, full of "sweetness and light."--Intelligent and +fearless, quick to perceive the bearings of her strange and sudden +adventure, quick to perceive the character of Ulysses, quick to answer +his lofty and refined pleading by words as lofty and refined, and pious +withal;--for it is she who speaks to her handmaids the once so famous +words: + + "Strangers and poor men all are sent from Zeus; + And alms, though small, are sweet" + +Clear of intellect, prompt of action, modest of demeanour, shrinking from +the slightest breath of scandal; while she is not ashamed, when Ulysses, +bathed and dressed, looks himself again, to whisper to her maidens her +wish that the Gods might send her such a spouse.--This is Nausicaa as +Homer draws her; and as many a scholar and poet since Homer has accepted +her for the ideal of noble maidenhood. I ask my readers to study for +themselves her interview with Ulysses, in Mr. Worsley's translation, or +rather in the grand simplicity of the original Greek, {76} and judge +whether Nausicaa is not as perfect a lady as the poet who imagined +her--or, it may be, drew her from life--must have been a perfect +gentleman; both complete in those "manners" which, says the old proverb, +"make the man:" but which are the woman herself; because with her--who +acts more by emotion than by calculation--manners are the outward and +visible tokens of her inward and spiritual grace, or disgrace; and flow +instinctively, whether good or bad, from the instincts of her inner +nature. + +True, Nausicaa could neither read nor write. No more, most probably, +could the author of the Odyssey. No more, for that matter, could +Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, though they were plainly, both in mind and +manners, most highly-cultivated men. Reading and writing, of course, +have now become necessaries of humanity; and are to be given to every +human being, that he may start fair in the race of life. But I am not +aware that Greek women improved much, either in manners, morals, or +happiness, by acquiring them in after centuries. A wise man would sooner +see his daughter a Nausicaa than a Sappho, an Aspasia, a Cleopatra, or +even an Hypatia. + +Full of such thoughts, I went through London streets, among the Nausicaas +of the present day; the girls of the period; the daughters and hereafter +mothers of our future rulers, the great Demos or commercial middle class +of the greatest mercantile city in the world: and noted what I had noted +with fear and sorrow, many a day, for many a year; a type, and an +increasing type, of young women who certainly had not had the +"advantages," "educational" and other, of that Greek Nausicaa of old. + +Of course, in such a city as London, to which the best of everything, +physical and other, gravitates, I could not but pass, now and then, +beautiful persons, who made me proud of those "grandes Anglaises aux +joues rouges," whom the Parisiennes ridicule--and envy. But I could not +help suspecting that their looks showed them to be either country-bred, +or born of country parents; and this suspicion was strengthened by the +fact, that when compared with their mothers, the mother's physique was, +in the majority of cases, superior to the daughters'. Painful it was, to +one accustomed to the ruddy well-grown peasant girl, stalwart, even when, +as often, squat and plain, to remark the exceedingly small size of the +average young woman; by which I do not mean mere want of height--that is +a little matter--but want of breadth likewise; a general want of those +large frames, which indicate usually a power of keeping strong and +healthy not merely the muscles, but the brain itself. + +Poor little things. I passed hundreds--I pass hundreds every day--trying +to hide their littleness by the nasty mass of false hair--or what does +duty for it; and by the ugly and useless hat which is stuck upon it, +making the head thereby look ridiculously large and heavy; and by the +high heels on which they totter onward, having forgotten, or never +learnt, the simple art of walking; their bodies tilted forward in that +ungraceful attitude which is called--why that name of all others?--a +"Grecian bend;" seemingly kept on their feet, and kept together at all, +in that strange attitude, by tight stays which prevented all graceful and +healthy motion of the hips or sides; their raiment, meanwhile, being +purposely misshapen in this direction and in that, to hide--it must be +presumed--deficiencies of form. If that chignon and those heels had been +taken off, the figure which would have remained would have been that too +often of a puny girl of sixteen. And yet there was no doubt that these +women were not only full grown, but some of them, alas! wives and +mothers. + +Poor little things.--And this they have gained by so-called civilisation: +the power of aping the "fashions" by which the worn-out Parisienne hides +her own personal defects; and of making themselves, by innate want of +that taste which the Parisienne possesses, only the cause of something +like a sneer from many a cultivated man; and of something like a sneer, +too, from yonder gipsy woman who passes by, with bold bright face, and +swinging hip, and footstep stately and elastic; far better dressed, +according to all true canons of taste, than most town-girls; and thanking +her fate that she and her "Rom" are no house-dwellers and +gaslight-sightseers, but fatten on free air upon the open moor. + +But the face which is beneath that chignon and that hat? Well--it is +sometimes pretty: but how seldom handsome, which is a higher quality by +far. It is not, strange to say, a well-fed face. Plenty of money, and +perhaps too much, is spent on those fine clothes. It had been better, to +judge from the complexion, if some of that money had been spent in solid +wholesome food. She looks as if she lived--as she too often does, I +hear--on tea and bread-and-butter, or rather on bread with the minimum of +butter. For as the want of bone indicates a deficiency of phosphatic +food, so does the want of flesh about the cheeks indicate a deficiency of +hydrocarbon. Poor little Nausicaa:--that is not her fault. Our boasted +civilisation has not even taught her what to eat, as it certainly has not +increased her appetite; and she knows not--what every country fellow +knows--that without plenty of butter and other fatty matters, she is not +likely to keep even warm. Better to eat nasty fat bacon now, than to +supply the want of it some few years hence by nastier cod-liver oil. But +there is no one yet to tell her that, and a dozen other equally simple +facts, for her own sake, and for the sake of that coming Demos which she +is to bring into the world; a Demos which, if we can only keep it healthy +in body and brain, has before it so splendid a future: but which, if body +and brain degrade beneath the influence of modern barbarism, is but too +likely to follow the Demos of ancient Byzantium, or of modern Paris. + +Ay, but her intellect. She is so clever, and she reads so much, and she +is going to be taught to read so much more. + +Ah, well--there was once a science called physiognomy. The Greeks, from +what I can learn, knew more of it than any people since: though the +Italian painters and sculptors must have known much; far more than we. In +a more scientific civilisation there will be such a science once more: +but its laws, though still in the empiric stage, are not altogether +forgotten by some. Little children have often a fine and clear instinct +of them. Many cultivated and experienced women have a fine and clear +instinct of them likewise. And some such would tell us that there is +intellect in plenty in the modern Nausicaa: but not of the quality which +they desire for their country's future good. Self-consciousness, +eagerness, volubility, petulance, in countenance, in gesture, and in +voice--which last is too often most harsh and artificial, the breath +being sent forth through the closed teeth, and almost entirely at the +corners of the mouth--and, with all this, a weariness often about the +wrinkling forehead and the drooping lids;--all these, which are growing +too common, not among the Demos only, nor only in the towns, are signs, +they think, of the unrest of unhealth, physical, intellectual, spiritual. +At least they are as different as two types of physiognomy in the same +race can be, from the expression both of face and gesture, in those old +Greek sculptures, and in the old Italian painters; and, it must be said, +in the portraits of Reynolds, and Gainsborough, Copley, and Romney. Not +such, one thinks, must have been the mothers of Britain during the latter +half of the last century and the beginning of the present; when their +sons, at times, were holding half the world at bay. + +And if Nausicaa has become such in town: what is she when she goes to the +seaside, not to wash the clothes in fresh-water, but herself in salt--the +very salt-water, laden with decaying organisms, from which, though not +polluted further by a dozen sewers, Ulysses had to cleanse himself, +anointing, too, with oil, ere he was fit to appear in the company of +Nausicaa of Greece? She dirties herself with the dirty salt-water; and +probably chills and tires herself by walking thither and back, and +staying in too long; and then flaunts on the pier, bedizened in garments +which, for monstrosity of form and disharmony of colours, would have set +that Greek Nausicaa's teeth on edge, or those of any average Hindoo woman +now. Or, even sadder still, she sits on chairs and benches all the weary +afternoon, her head drooped on her chest, over some novel from the +"Library;" and then returns to tea and shrimps, and lodgings of which the +fragrance is not unsuggestive, sometimes not unproductive, of typhoid +fever. Ah, poor Nausicaa of England! That is a sad sight to some who +think about the present, and have read about the past. It is not a sad +sight to see your old father--tradesman, or clerk, or what not--who has +done good work in his day, and hopes to do some more, sitting by your old +mother, who has done good work in her day--among the rest, that heaviest +work of all, the bringing you into the world and keeping you in it till +now--honest, kindly, cheerful folk enough, and not inefficient in their +own calling; though an average Northumbrian, or Highlander, or Irish +Easterling, beside carrying a brain of five times the intellectual force, +could drive five such men over the cliff with his bare hands. It is not +a sad sight, I say, to see them sitting about upon those seaside benches, +looking out listlessly at the water, and the ships, and the sunlight, and +enjoying, like so many flies upon a wall, the novel act of doing nothing. +It is not the old for whom wise men are sad: but for you. Where is your +vitality? Where is your "Lebensgluckseligkeit," your enjoyment of +superfluous life and power? Why can you not even dance and sing, till +now and then, at night, perhaps, when you ought to be safe in bed, but +when the weak brain, after receiving the day's nourishment, has roused +itself a second time into a false excitement of gaslight pleasure? What +there is left of it is all going into that foolish book, which the +womanly element in you, still healthy and alive, delights in; because it +places you in fancy in situations in which you will never stand, and +inspires you with emotions, some of which, it may be, you had better +never feel. Poor Nausicaa--old, some men think, before you have been +ever young. + +And now they are going to "develop" you; and let you have your share in +"the higher education of women," by making you read more books, and do +more sums, and pass examinations, and stoop over desks at night after +stooping over some other employment all day; and to teach you Latin, and +even Greek. + +Well, we will gladly teach you Greek, if you learn thereby to read the +history of Nausicaa of old, and what manner of maiden she was, and what +was her education. You will admire her, doubtless. But do not let your +admiration limit itself to drawing a meagre half-mediaevalized design of +her--as she never looked. Copy in your own person; and even if you do +not descend as low--or rise as high--as washing the household clothes, at +least learn to play at ball; and sing, in the open air and sunshine, not +in theatres and concert-rooms by gaslight; and take decent care of your +own health; and dress not like a "Parisienne"--nor, of course, like +Nausicaa of old, for that is to ask too much:--but somewhat more like an +average Highland lassie; and try to look like her, and be like her, of +whom Wordsworth sang-- + + "A mien and face + In which full plainly I can trace + Benignity and home-bred sense, + Ripening in perfect innocence. + Here scattered, like a random seed, + Remote from men, thou dost not need + The embarrassed look of shy distress + And maidenly shamefacedness. + Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear + The freedom of a mountaineer. + A face with gladness overspread, + Soft smiles, by human kindness bred, + And seemliness complete, that sways + Thy courtesies, about thee plays. + With no restraint, save such as springs + From quick and eager visitings + Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach + Of thy few words of English speech. + A bondage sweetly brooked, a strife + That gives thy gestures grace and life." + +Ah, yet unspoilt Nausicaa of the North; descendant of the dark tender- +hearted Celtic girl, and the fair deep-hearted Scandinavian Viking, thank +God for thy heather and fresh air, and the kine thou tendest, and the +wool thou spinnest; and come not to seek thy fortune, child, in wicked +London town; nor import, as they tell me thou art doing fast, the ugly +fashions of that London town, clumsy copies of Parisian cockneydom, into +thy Highland home; nor give up the healthful and graceful, free and +modest dress of thy mother and thy mother's mother, to disfigure the +little kirk on Sabbath days with crinoline and corset, high-heeled boots, +and other women's hair. + +It is proposed, just now, to assimilate the education of girls more and +more to that of boys. If that means that girls are merely to learn more +lessons, and to study what their brothers are taught, in addition to what +their mothers were taught; then it is to be hoped, at least by +physiologists and patriots, that the scheme will sink into that limbo +whither, in a free and tolerably rational country, all imperfect and ill- +considered schemes are sure to gravitate. But if the proposal be a bona +fide one: then it must be borne in mind that in the public schools of +England, and in all private schools, I presume, which take their tone +from them, cricket and football are more or less compulsory, being +considered integral parts of an Englishman's education; and that they are +likely to remain so, in spite of all reclamations: because masters and +boys alike know that games do not, in the long run, interfere with a +boy's work; that the same boy will very often excel in both; that the +games keep him in health for his work; that the spirit with which he +takes to his games when in the lower school, is a fair test of the spirit +with which he will take to his work when he rises into the higher school; +and that nothing is worse for a boy than to fall into that loafing, tuck- +shop-haunting set, who neither play hard nor work hard, and are usually +extravagant, and often vicious. Moreover, they know well that games +conduce, not merely to physical, but to moral health; that in the playing- +field boys acquire virtues which no books can give them; not merely +daring and endurance, but, better still, temper, self-restraint, +fairness, honour, unenvious approbation of another's success, and all +that "give and take" of life which stand a man in such good stead when he +goes forth into the world, and without which, indeed, his success is +always maimed and partial. + +Now: if the promoters of higher education for women will compel girls to +any training analogous to our public school games; if, for instance, they +will insist on that most natural and wholesome of all exercises, dancing, +in order to develop the lower half of the body; on singing, to expand the +lungs and regulate the breath; and on some games--ball or what not--which +will ensure that raised chest, and upright carriage, and general strength +of the upper torso, without which full oxygenation of the blood, and +therefore general health, is impossible; if they will sternly forbid +tight stays, high heels, and all which interferes with free growth and +free motion; if they will consider carefully all which has been written +on the "half-time system" by Mr. Chadwick and others; and accept the +certain physical law that, in order to renovate the brain day by day, the +growing creature must have plenty of fresh air and play, and that the +child who learns for four hours and plays for four hours, will learn +more, and learn it more easily, than the child who learns for the whole +eight hours; if, in short, they will teach girls not merely to understand +the Greek tongue, but to copy somewhat of the Greek physical training, of +that "music and gymnastic" which helped to make the cleverest race of the +old world the ablest race likewise: then they will earn the gratitude of +the patriot and the physiologist, by doing their best to stay the +downward tendencies of the physique, and therefore ultimately of the +morale, in the coming generation of English women. + +I am sorry to say that, as yet, I hear of but one movement in this +direction among the promoters of the "higher education of women." {88} I +trust that the subject will be taken up methodically by those gifted +ladies; who have acquainted themselves, and are labouring to acquaint +other women, with the first principles of health; and that they may avail +to prevent the coming generations, under the unwholesome stimulant of +competitive examinations, and so forth, from "developing" into so many +Chinese-dwarfs--or idiots. + + + + +THE AIR-MOTHERS. + + + "Die Natur ist die Bewegung." + +Who are these who follow us softly over the moor in the autumn eve? Their +wings brush and rustle in the fir-boughs, and they whisper before us and +behind, as if they called gently to each other, like birds flocking +homeward to their nests. + +The woodpecker on the pine-stems knows them, and laughs aloud for joy as +they pass. The rooks above the pasture know them, and wheel round and +tumble in their play. The brown leaves on the oak trees know them, and +flutter faintly, and beckon as they pass. And in the chattering of the +dry leaves there is a meaning, and a cry of weary things which long for +rest. + +"Take us home, take us home, you soft air-mothers, now our fathers the +sunbeams are grown dull. Our green summer beauty is all draggled, and +our faces are grown wan and wan; and the buds, the children whom we +nourished, thrust us off, ungrateful, from our seats. Waft us down, you +soft air-mothers, upon your wings to the quiet earth, that we may go to +our home, as all things go, and become air and sunlight once again." + +And the bold young fir-seeds know them, and rattle impatient in their +cones. "Blow stronger, blow fiercer, slow air-mothers, and shake us from +our prisons of dead wood, that we may fly and spin away north-eastward, +each on his horny wing. Help us but to touch the moorland yonder, and we +will take good care of ourselves henceforth; we will dive like arrows +through the heather, and drive our sharp beaks into the soil, and rise +again as green trees toward the sunlight, and spread out lusty boughs." + +They never think, bold fools, of what is coming, to bring them low in the +midst of their pride; of the reckless axe which will fell them, and the +saw which will shape them into logs; and the trains which will roar and +rattle over them, as they lie buried in the gravel of the way, till they +are ground and rotted into powder, and dug up and flung upon the fire, +that they too may return home, like all things, and become air and +sunlight once again. + +And the air-mothers hear their prayers, and do their bidding: but +faintly; for they themselves are tired and sad. + +Tired and sad are the air-mothers, and their garments rent and wan. Look +at them as they stream over the black forest, before the dim +south-western sun; long lines and wreaths of melancholy grey, stained +with dull yellow or dead dun. They have come far across the seas, and +done many a wild deed upon their way; and now that they have reached the +land, like shipwrecked sailors, they will lie down and weep till they can +weep no more. + +Ah, how different were those soft air-mothers when, invisible to mortal +eyes, they started on their long sky-journey, five thousand miles across +the sea! Out of the blazing caldron which lies between the two New +Worlds, they leapt up when the great sun called them, in whirls and +spouts of clear hot steam; and rushed of their own passion to the +northward, while the whirling earth-ball whirled them east. So north- +eastward they rushed aloft, across the gay West Indian isles, leaving +below the glitter of the flying-fish, and the sidelong eyes of cruel +sharks; above the cane-fields and the plaintain-gardens, and the cocoa- +groves which fringe the shores; above the rocks which throbbed with +earthquakes, and the peaks of old volcanoes, cinder-strewn; while, far +beneath, the ghosts of their dead sisters hurried home upon the north- +east breeze. + +Wild deeds they did as they rushed onward, and struggled and fought among +themselves, up and down, and round and backward, in the fury of their +blind hot youth. They heeded not the tree as they snapped it, nor the +ship as they whelmed it in the waves; nor the cry of the sinking sailor, +nor the need of his little ones on shore; hasty and selfish even as +children, and, like children, tamed by their own rage. For they tired +themselves by struggling with each other, and by tearing the heavy water +into waves; and their wings grew clogged with sea-spray, and soaked more +and more with steam. But at last the sea grew cold beneath them, and +their clear steam shrank to mist; and they saw themselves and each other +wrapped in dull rain-laden clouds. They then drew their white +cloud-garments round them, and veiled themselves for very shame; and +said, "We have been wild and wayward: and, alas! our pure bright youth is +gone. But we will do one good deed yet ere we die, and so we shall not +have lived in vain. We will glide onward to the land, and weep there; +and refresh all things with soft warm rain; and make the grass grow, the +buds burst; quench the thirst of man and beast, and wash the soiled world +clean." + +So they are wandering past us, the air-mothers, to weep the leaves into +their graves; to weep the seeds into their seed-beds, and weep the soil +into the plains; to get the rich earth ready for the winter, and then +creep northward to the ice-world, and there die. + +Weary, and still more weary, slowly, and more slowly still, they will +journey on far northward, across fast-chilling seas. For a doom is laid +upon them, never to be still again, till they rest at the North Pole +itself, the still axle of the spinning world; and sink in death around +it, and become white snow-clad ghosts. + +But will they live again, those chilled air-mothers? Yes, they must live +again. For all things move for ever; and not even ghosts can rest. So +the corpses of their sisters, piling on them from above, press them +outward, press them southward toward the sun once more; across the floes +and round the icebergs, weeping tears of snow and sleet, while men hate +their wild harsh voices, and shrink before their bitter breath. They +know not that the cold bleak snow-storms, as they hurtle from the black +north-east, bear back the ghosts of the soft air-mothers, as penitents, +to their father, the great sun. + +But as they fly southwards, warm life thrills them, and they drop their +loads of sleet and snow; and meet their young live sisters from the +south, and greet them with flash and thunder-peal. And, please God, +before many weeks are over, as we run Westward Ho, we shall overtake the +ghosts of these air-mothers, hurrying back toward their father, the great +sun. Fresh and bright under the fresh bright heaven, they will race with +us toward our home, to gain new heat, new life, new power, and set forth +about their work once more. Men call them the south-west wind, those air- +mothers; and their ghosts the north-east trade; and value them, and +rightly, because they bear the traders out and home across the sea. But +wise men, and little children, should look on them with more seeing eyes; +and say, "May not these winds be living creatures? They, too, are +thoughts of God, to whom all live." + +For is not our life like their life? Do we not come and go as they? Out +of God's boundless bosom, the fount of life, we came; through selfish, +stormy youth, and contrite tears--just not too late; through manhood not +altogether useless; through slow and chill old age, we return from Whence +we came; to the Bosom of God once more--to go forth again, it may be, +with fresh knowledge, and fresh powers, to nobler work. Amen. + +* * * * * + +Such was the prophecy which I learnt, or seemed to learn, from the south- +western wind off the Atlantic, on a certain delectable evening. And it +was fulfilled at night, as far as the gentle air-mothers could fulfil it, +for foolish man. + + "There was a roaring in the woods all night; + The rain came heavily and fell in floods; + But now the sun is rising calm and bright, + The birds are singing in the distant woods; + Over his own sweet voice the stock-dove broods, + The jay makes answer as the magpie chatters, + And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters" + +But was I a gloomy and distempered man, if, upon such a morn as that, I +stood on the little bridge across a certain brook, and watched the water +run, with something of a sigh? Or if, when the schoolboy beside me +lamented that the floods would surely be out, and his day's fishing +spoiled, I said to him--"Ah, my boy, that is a little matter. Look at +what you are seeing now, and understand what barbarism and waste mean. +Look at all that beautiful water which God has sent us hither off the +Atlantic, without trouble or expense to us. Thousands, and tens of +thousands, of gallons will run under this bridge to-day; and what shall +we do with it? Nothing. And yet: think only of the mills which that +water would have turned. Think how it might have kept up health and +cleanliness in poor creatures packed away in the back streets of the +nearest town, or even in London itself. Think even how country folk, in +many parts of England, in three months' time, may be crying out for rain, +and afraid of short crops, and fever, and scarlatina, and cattle-plague, +for want of the very water which we are now letting run back, wasted, +into the sea from whence it came. And yet we call ourselves a civilised +people." + +It is not wise, I know, to preach to boys. And yet, sometimes, a man +must speak his heart; even, like Midas' slave, to the reeds by the river +side. And I had so often, fishing up and down full many a stream, +whispered my story to those same river-reeds; and told them that my Lord +the Sovereign Demos had, like old Midas, asses' ears in spite of all his +gold, that I thought I might for once tell it the boy likewise, in hope +that he might help his generation to mend that which my own generation +does not seem like to mend. + +I might have said more to him: but did not. For it is not well to +destroy too early the child's illusion, that people must be wise because +they are grown up, and have votes, and rule--or think they rule--the +world. The child will find out how true that is soon enough for himself. +If the truth be forced on him by the hot words of those with whom he +lives, it is apt to breed in him that contempt, stormful and therefore +barren, which makes revolutions; and not that pity, calm and therefore +helpful, which makes reforms. + +So I might have said to him, but did not-- + +And then men pray for rain: + +My boy, did you ever hear the old Eastern legend about the Gipsies? How +they were such good musicians, that some great Indian Sultan sent for the +whole tribe, and planted them near his palace, and gave them land, and +ploughs to break it up, and seed to sow it, that they might dwell there, +and play and sing to him. + +But when the winter arrived, the Gipsies all came to the Sultan, and +cried that they were starving. "But what have you done with the seed- +corn which I gave you?" "O Light of the Age, we ate it in the summer." +"And what have you done with the ploughs which I gave you?" "O Glory of +the Universe, we burnt them to bake the corn withal." + +Then said that great Sultan--"Like the butterflies you have lived; and +like the butterflies you shall wander." So he drove them out. And that +is how the Gipsies came hither from the East. + +Now suppose that the Sultan of all Sultans, who sends the rain, should +make a like answer to us foolish human beings, when we prayed for rain: +"But what have you done with the rain which I gave you six months since?" +"We have let it run into the sea." "Then, ere you ask for more rain, +make places wherein you can keep it when you have it." "But that would +be, in most cases, too expensive. We can employ our capital more +profitably in other directions." + +It is not for me to say what answer might be made to such an excuse. I +think a child's still unsophisticated sense of right and wrong would soon +supply one; and probably one--considering the complexity, and difficulty, +and novelty, of the whole question--somewhat too harsh; as children's +judgments are wont to be. + +But would it not be well if our children, without being taught to blame +anyone for what is past, were taught something about what ought to be +done now, what must be done soon, with the rainfall of these islands; and +about other and kindred health-questions, on the solution of which +depends, and will depend more and more, the life of millions? One would +have thought that those public schools and colleges which desire to +monopolise the education of the owners of the soil; of the great +employers of labour; of the clergy; and of all, indeed, who ought to be +acquainted with the duties of property, the conditions of public health, +and, in a word, with the general laws of what is now called Social +Science--one would have thought, I say, that these public schools and +colleges would have taught their scholars somewhat at least about such +matters, that they might go forth into life with at least some rough +notions of the causes which make people healthy or unhealthy, rich or +poor, comfortable or wretched, useful or dangerous to the State. But as +long as our great educational institutions, safe, or fancying themselves +safe, in some enchanted castle, shut out by ancient magic from the living +world, put a premium on Latin and Greek verses: a wise father will, +during the holidays, talk now and then, I hope, somewhat after this +fashion:-- + +You must understand, my boy, that all the water in the country comes out +of the sky, and from nowhere else; and that, therefore, to save and store +the water when it falls is a question of life and death to crops, and +man, and beast; for with or without water is life or death. If I took, +for instance, the water from the moors above and turned it over yonder +field, I could double, and more than double, the crops in that field +henceforth. + +Then why do I not do it? + +Only because the field lies higher than the house; and if--now here is +one thing which you and every civilised man should know--if you have +water-meadows, or any "irrigated" land, as it is called, above a house, +or even on a level with it, it is certain to breed not merely cold and +damp, but fever or ague. Our forefathers did not understand this; and +they built their houses, as this is built, in the lowest places they +could find: sometimes because they wished to be near ponds, from whence +they could get fish in Lent; but more often, I think, because they wanted +to be sheltered from the wind. They had no glass, as we have, in their +windows; or, at least, only latticed casements, which let in the wind and +cold; and they shrank from high and exposed, and therefore really +healthy, spots. But now that we have good glass, and sash windows, and +doors that will shut tight, we can build warm houses where we like. And +if you ever have to do with the building of cottages, remember that it is +your duty to the people who will live in them, and therefore to the +State, to see that they stand high and dry, where no water can drain down +into their foundations, and where fog, and the poisonous gases which are +given out by rotting vegetables, cannot drain down either. You will +learn more about all that when you learn, as every civilised lad should +in these days, something about chemistry, and the laws of fluids and +gases. But you know already that flowers are cut off by frost in the low +grounds sooner than in the high; and that the fog at night always lies +along the brooks; and that the sour moor-smell which warns us to shut our +windows at sunset, comes down from the hill, and not up from the valley. +Now all these things are caused by one and the same law; that cold air is +heavier than warm; and, therefore, like so much water, must run down +hill. + +But what about the rainfall? + +Well, I have wandered a little from the rainfall: though not as far as +you fancy; for fever and ague and rheumatism usually mean--rain in the +wrong place. But if you knew how much illness, and torturing pain, and +death, and sorrow arise, even to this very day, from ignorance of these +simple laws, then you would bear them carefully in mind, and wish to know +more about them. But now for water being life to the beasts. Do you +remember--though you are hardly old enough--the cattle-plague? How the +beasts died, or had to be killed and buried, by tens of thousands; and +how misery and ruin fell on hundreds of honest men and women over many of +the richest counties of England: but how we in this vale had no cattle- +plague; and how there was none--as far as I recollect--in the uplands of +Devon and Cornwall, nor of Wales, nor of the Scotch Highlands? Now, do +you know why that was? Simply because we here, like those other +uplanders, are in such a country as Palestine was before the foolish Jews +cut down all their timber, and so destroyed their own rainfall--a "land +of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys +and hills." There is hardly a field here that has not, thank God, its +running brook, or its sweet spring, from which our cattle were drinking +their health and life, while in the clay-lands of Cheshire, and in the +Cambridgeshire fens--which were drained utterly dry--the poor things +drank no water, too often, save that of the very same putrid ponds in +which they had been standing all day long, to cool themselves, and to +keep off the flies. I do not say, of course, that bad water caused the +cattle-plague. It came by infection from the East of Europe. But I say +that bad water made the cattle ready to take it, and made it spread over +the country; and when you are old enough I will give you plenty of +proof--some from the herds of your own kinsmen--that what I say is true. + +And as for pure water being life to human beings: why have we never fever +here, and scarcely ever diseases like fever--zymotics, as the doctors +call them? Or, if a case comes into our parish from outside, why does +the fever never spread? For the very same reason that we had no cattle- +plague. Because we have more pure water close to every cottage than we +need. And this I tell you: that the only two outbreaks of deadly disease +which we have had here for thirty years, were both of them, as far as I +could see, to be traced to filthy water having got into the poor folk's +wells. Water, you must remember, just as it is life when pure, is death +when foul. For it can carry, unseen to the eye, and even when it looks +clear and sparkling, and tastes soft and sweet, poisons which have +perhaps killed more human beings than ever were killed in battle. You +have read, perhaps, how the Athenians, when they were dying of the +plague, accused the Lacedaemonians outside the walls of poisoning their +wells; or how, in some of the pestilences of the middle ages, the common +people used to accuse the poor harmless Jews of poisoning the wells, and +set upon them and murdered them horribly. They were right, I do not +doubt, in their notion that the well-water was giving them the +pestilence: but they had not sense to see that they were poisoning the +wells themselves by their dirt and carelessness; or, in the case of poor +besieged Athens, probably by mere overcrowding, which has cost many a +life ere now, and will cost more. And I am sorry to tell you, my little +man, that even now too many people have no more sense than they had, and +die in consequence. If you could see a battle-field, and men shot down, +writhing and dying in hundreds by shell and bullet, would not that seem +to you a horrid sight? Then--I do not wish to make you sad too early, +but this is a fact which everyone should know--that more people, and not +strong men only, but women and little children too, are killed and +wounded in Great Britain every year by bad water and want of water +together, than were killed and wounded in any battle which has been +fought since you were born. Medical men know this well. And when you +are older, you may see it for yourself in the Registrar-General's +reports, blue-books, pamphlets, and so on, without end. + +But why do not people stop such a horrible loss of life? + +Well, my dear boy, the true causes of it have only been known for the +last thirty or forty years; and we English are, as good King Alfred found +us to his sorrow a thousand years ago, very slow to move, even when we +see a thing ought to be done. Let us hope that in this matter--we have +been so in most matters as yet--we shall be like the tortoise in the +fable, and not the hare; and by moving slowly, but surely, win the race +at last. But now think for yourself: and see what you would do to save +these people from being poisoned by bad water. Remember that the plain +question is this--The rainwater comes down from heaven as water, and +nothing but water. Rainwater is the only pure water, after all. How +would you save that for the poor people who have none? There; run away +and hunt rabbits on the moor: but look, meanwhile, how you would save +some of this beautiful and precious water which is roaring away into the +sea. + +* * * * * + +Well? What would you do? Make ponds, you say, like the old monks' +ponds, now all broken down. Dam all the glens across their mouths, and +turn them into reservoirs. + +"Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings"--Well, that will have to be +done. That is being done more and more, more or less well. The good +people of Glasgow did it first, I think; and now the good people of +Manchester, and of other northern towns, have done it, and have saved +many a human life thereby already. But it must be done, some day, all +over England and Wales, and great part of Scotland. For the mountain +tops and moors, my boy, by a beautiful law of nature, compensate for +their own poverty by yielding a wealth which the rich lowlands cannot +yield. You do not understand? Then see. Yon moor above can grow +neither corn nor grass. But one thing it can grow, and does grow, +without which we should have no corn nor grass, and that is--water. Not +only does far more rain fall up there than falls here down below, but +even in drought the high moors condense the moisture into dew, and so +yield some water, even when the lowlands are burnt up with drought. The +reason of that you must learn hereafter. That it is so, you should know +yourself. For on the high chalk downs, you know, where farmers make a +sheep-pond, they never, if they are wise, make it in a valley or on a +hill-side, but on the bleakest top of the very highest down; and there, +if they can once get it filled with snow and rain in winter, the blessed +dews of night will keep some water in it all the summer through, while +the ponds below are utterly dried up. And even so it is, as I know, with +this very moor. Corn and grass it will not grow, because there is too +little "staple," that is, soluble minerals, in the sandy soil. But how +much water it might grow, you may judge roughly for yourself, by +remembering how many brooks like this are running off it now to carry +mere dirt into the river, and then into the sea. + +But why should we not make dams at once; and save the water? + +Because we cannot afford it. No one would buy the water when we had +stored it. The rich in town and country will always take care--and quite +right they are--to have water enough for themselves, and for their +servants too, whatever it may cost them. But the poorer people are--and +therefore usually, alas! the more ignorant--the less water they get; and +the less they care to have water; and the less they are inclined to pay +for it; and the more, I am sorry to say, they waste what little they do +get; and I am still more sorry to say, spoil, and even steal and sell--in +London at least--the stop-cocks and lead-pipes which bring the water into +their houses. So that keeping a water-shop is a very troublesome and +uncertain business; and one which is not likely to pay us or any one +round here. + +But why not let some company manage it, as they manage railways, and gas, +and other things? + +Ah--you have been overhearing a good deal about companies of late, I see. +But this I will tell you; that when you grow up, and have a vote and +influence, it will be your duty, if you intend to be a good citizen, not +only not to put the water-supply of England into the hands of fresh +companies, but to help to take out of their hands what water-supply they +manage already, especially in London; and likewise the gas-supply; and +the railroads; and everything else, in a word, which everybody uses, and +must use. For you must understand--at least as soon as you can--that +though the men who make up companies are no worse than other men, and +some of them, as you ought to know, very good men; yet what they have to +look to is their profits; and the less water they supply, and the worse +it is, the more profit they make. For most water, I am sorry to say, is +fouled before the water companies can get to it, as this water which runs +past us will be, and as the Thames water above London is. Therefore it +has to be cleansed, or partly cleansed, at a very great expense. So +water companies have to be inspected--in plain English, watched--at a +very heavy expense to the nation, by government officers; and compelled +to do their best, and take their utmost care. And so it has come to pass +that the London water is not now nearly as bad as some of it was thirty +years ago, when it was no more fit to drink than that in the cattle yard +tank. But still we must have more water, and better, in London; for it +is growing year by year. There are more than three millions of people +already in what we call London; and ere you are an old man there may be +between four and five millions. Now to supply all these people with +water is a duty which we must not leave to any private companies. It +must be done by a public authority, as is fit and proper in a free self- +governing country. In this matter, as in all others, we will try to do +what the Royal Commission told us four years ago we ought to do. I hope +that you will see, though I may not, the day when what we call London, +but which is really, nine-tenths of it, only a great nest of separate +villages huddled together, will be divided into three great +self-governing cities, London, Westminster, and Southwark; each with its +own corporation, like that of the venerable and well-governed City of +London; each managing its own water-supply, gas-supply, and sewage, and +other matters besides; and managing them, like Dublin, Glasgow, +Manchester, Liverpool, and other great northern towns, far more cheaply +and far better than any companies can do it for them. + +But where shall we get water enough for all these millions of people? +There are no mountains near London. But we might give them the water off +our moors. + +No, no, my boy. + + "He that will not when he may, + When he will, he shall have nay." + +Some fifteen years ago the Londoners might have had water from us; and I +was one of those who did my best to get it for them: but the water +companies did not choose to take it; and now this part of England is +growing so populous and so valuable that it wants all its little rainfall +for itself. So there is another leaf torn out of the Sibylline books for +the poor old water companies. You do not understand: you will some day. +But you may comfort yourself about London. For it happens to be, I +think, the luckiest city in the world; and if it had not been, we should +have had pestilence on pestilence in it, as terrible as the great plague +of Charles II.'s time. The old Britons, without knowing in the least +what they were doing, settled old London city in the very centre of the +most wonderful natural reservoir in this island, or perhaps in all +Europe; which reaches from Kent into Wiltshire, and round again into +Suffolk; and that is, the dear old chalk downs. + +Why, they are always dry. + +Yes. But the turf on them never burns up, and the streams which flow +through them never run dry, and seldom or never flood either. Do you not +know, from Winchester, that that is true? Then where is all the rain and +snow gone, which falls on them year by year, but into the chalk itself, +and into the greensands, too, below the chalk? There it is, soaked up as +by a sponge, in quantity incalculable; enough, some think, to supply +London, let it grow as huge as it may. I wish I too were sure of that. +But the Commission has shown itself so wise and fair, and brave +likewise--too brave, I am sorry to say, for some who might have supported +them--that it is not for me to gainsay their opinion. + +But if there was not water enough in the chalk, are not the Londoners +rich enough to bring it from any distance? + +My boy, in this also we will agree with the Commission--that we ought not +to rob Peter to pay Paul, and take water to a distance which other people +close at hand may want. Look at the map of England and southern +Scotland; and see for yourself what is just, according to geography and +nature. There are four mountain-ranges; four great water-fields. First, +the hills of the Border. Their rainfall ought to be stored for the +Lothians and the extreme north of England. Then the Yorkshire and +Derbyshire hills--the central chine of England. Their rainfall is being +stored already, to the honour of the shrewd northern men, for the +manufacturing counties east and west of the hills. Then come the lake +mountains--the finest water-field of all, because more rain by far falls +there than in any place in England. But they will be wanted to supply +Lancashire, and some day Liverpool itself; for Liverpool is now using +rain which belongs more justly to other towns; and besides, there are +plenty of counties and towns, down into Cheshire, which would be glad of +what water Lancashire does not want. And last come the Snowdon +mountains, a noble water-field, which I know well; for an old dream of +mine has been, that ere I died I should see all the rain of the Carnedds, +and the Glyders, and Siabod, and Snowdon itself, carried across the +Conway river to feed the mining districts of North Wales, where the +streams are now all foul with oil and lead; and then on into the western +coal and iron fields, to Wolverhampton and Birmingham itself: and if I +were the engineer who got that done, I should be happier--prouder I dare +not say--than if I had painted nobler pictures than Raffaelle, or written +nobler plays than Shakespeare. I say that, boy, in most deliberate +earnest. But meanwhile, do you not see that in districts where coal and +iron may be found, and fresh manufactures may spring up any day in any +place, each district has a right to claim the nearest rainfall for +itself? And now, when we have got the water into its proper place, let +us see what we shall do with it. + +But why do you say we? Can you and I do all this? + +My boy, are not you and I free citizens; part of the people, the +Commons--as the good old word runs--of this country? And are we not--or +ought we not to be in time--beside that, educated men? By the people, +remember, I mean, not only the hand-working man who has just got a vote; +I mean the clergy of all denominations; and the gentlemen of the press; +and last, but not least, the scientific men. If those four classes +together were to tell every government--"Free water we will have, and as +much as we reasonably choose;" and tell every candidate for the House of +Commons,--"Unless you promise to get us as much free water as we +reasonably choose, we will not return you to Parliament:" then, I think, +we four should put such a "pressure" on government as no water companies, +or other vested interests, could long resist. And if any of those four +classes should hang back, and waste their time and influence over matters +far less important and less pressing, the other three must laugh at them, +and more than laugh at them; and ask them--"Why have you education, why +have you influence, why have you votes, why are you freemen and not +slaves, if not to preserve the comfort, the decency, the health, the +lives of men, women, and children--most of those latter your own wives +and your own children?" + +But what shall we do with the water? + +Well, after all, that is a more practical matter than speculations +grounded on the supposition that all classes will do their duty. But the +first thing we will do will be to give to the very poorest houses a +constant supply, at high pressure; so that everybody may take as much +water as he likes, instead of having to keep the water in little +cisterns, where it gets foul and putrid only too often. + +But will they not waste it then? + +So far from it, wherever the water has been laid on at high pressure, the +waste, which is terrible now--some say that in London one-third of the +water is wasted--begins to lessen; and both water and expense are saved. +If you will only think, you will see one reason why. If a woman leaves a +high-pressure tap running, she will flood her place and her neighbour's +too. She will be like the magician's servant, who called up the demon to +draw water for him; and so he did: but when he had begun he would not +stop, and if the magician had not come home, man and house would have +been washed away. + +But if it saves money, why do not the water companies do it? + +Because--and really here there are many excuses for the poor old water +companies, when so many of them swerve and gib at the very mention of +constant water-supply, like a poor horse set to draw a load which he +feels is too heavy for him--because, to keep everything in order among +dirty, careless, and often drunken people, there must be officers with +lawful authority--water-policemen we will call them--who can enter +people's houses when they will, and if they find anything wrong with the +water, set it to rights with a high hand, and even summon the people who +have set it wrong. And that is a power which, in a free country, must +never be given to the servants of any private company, but only to the +officers of a corporation or of the government. + +And what shall we do with the rest of the water? + +Well, we shall have, I believe, so much to spare that we may at least do +this--In each district of each city, and the centre of each town, we may +build public baths and lavatories, where poor men and women may get their +warm baths when they will; for now they usually never bathe at all, +because they will not--and ought not, if they be hard-worked folk--bathe +in cold water during nine months of the year. And there they shall wash +their clothes, and dry them by steam; instead of washing them as now, at +home, either under back sheds, where they catch cold and rheumatism, or +too often, alas! in their own living rooms, in an atmosphere of foul +vapour, which drives the father to the public-house and the children into +the streets; and which not only prevents the clothes from being +thoroughly dried again, but is, my dear boy, as you will know when you +are older, a very hot-bed of disease. And they shall have other +comforts, and even luxuries, these public lavatories; and be made, in +time, graceful and refining, as well as merely useful. Nay, we will +even, I think, have in front of each of them a real fountain; not like +the drinking-fountains--though they are great and needful boons--which +you see here and there about the streets, with a tiny dribble of water to +a great deal of expensive stone: but real fountains, which shall leap, +and sparkle, and plash, and gurgle; and fill the place with life, and +light, and coolness; and sing in the people's ears the sweetest of all +earthly songs--save the song of a mother over her child--the song of "The +Laughing Water." + +But will not that be a waste? + +Yes, my boy. And for that very reason, I think we, the people, will have +our fountains; if it be but to make our governments, and corporations, +and all public bodies and officers, remember that they all--save Her +Majesty the Queen--are our servants; and not we theirs; and that we +choose to have water, not only to wash with, but to play with, if we +like. And I believe--for the world, as you will find, is full not only +of just but of generous souls--that if the water-supply were set really +right, there would be found, in many a city, many a generous man who, +over and above his compulsory water-rate, would give his poor +fellow-townsmen such a real fountain as those which ennoble the great +square at Carcasonne and the great square at Nismes; to be "a thing of +beauty and a joy for ever." + +And now, if you want to go back to your Latin and Greek, you shall +translate for me into Latin--I do not expect you to do it into Greek, +though it would turn very well into Greek, for the Greeks knew all about +the matter long before the Romans--what follows here; and you shall +verify the facts and the names, &c., in it from your dictionaries of +antiquity and biography, that you may remember all the better what it +says. And by that time, I think, you will have learnt something more +useful to yourself, and, I hope, to your country hereafter, than if you +had learnt to patch together the neatest Greek and Latin verses which +have appeared since the days of Mr. Canning. + +* * * * * + +I have often amused myself, by fancying one question which an old Roman +emperor would ask, were he to rise from his grave and visit the sights of +London under the guidance of some minister of state. The august shade +would, doubtless, admire, our railroads and bridges, our cathedrals and +our public parks, and much more of which we need not be ashamed. But +after a while, I think, he would look round, whether in London or in most +of our great cities, inquiringly and in vain, for one class of buildings, +which in his empire were wont to be almost as conspicuous and as +splendid, because, in public opinion, almost as necessary, as the +basilicas and temples--"And where," he would ask, "are your public +baths?" And if the minister of state who was his guide should answer--"O +great Caesar, I really do not know. I believe there are some somewhere +at the back of that ugly building which we call the National Gallery; and +I think there have been some meetings lately in the East End, and an +amateur concert at the Albert Hall, for restoring, by private +subscriptions, some baths and wash-houses in Bethnal Green, which had +fallen to decay. And there may be two or three more about the +metropolis; for parish vestries have powers by Act of Parliament to +establish such places, if they think fit, and choose to pay for them out +of the rates:"--Then, I think, the august shade might well make +answer--"We used to call you, in old Rome, northern barbarians. It seems +that you have not lost all your barbarian habits. Are you aware that, in +every city in the Roman empire, there were, as a matter of course, public +baths open, not only to the poorest freeman, but to the slave, usually +for the payment of the smallest current coin, and often gratuitously? Are +you aware that in Rome itself, millionaire after millionaire, emperor +after emperor, from Menenius Agrippa and Nero down to Diocletian and +Constantine, built baths, and yet more baths; and connected with them +gymnasia for exercise, lecture-rooms, libraries, and porticos, wherein +the people might have shade and shelter, and rest?--I remark, by-the-by, +that I have not seen in all your London a single covered place in which +the people may take shelter during a shower--Are you aware that these +baths were of the most magnificent architecture, decorated with marbles, +paintings, sculptures, fountains, what not? And yet I had heard, in +Hades down below, that you prided yourselves here on the study of the +learned languages; and, indeed, taught little but Greek and Latin at your +public schools?" + +Then, if the minister should make reply--"Oh yes, we know all this. Even +since the revival of letters in the end of the fifteenth century a whole +literature has been written--a great deal of it, I fear, by pedants who +seldom washed even their hands and faces--about your Greek and Roman +baths. We visit their colossal ruins in Italy and elsewhere with awe and +admiration; and the discovery of a new Roman bath in any old city of our +isles sets all our antiquaries buzzing with interest." + +"Then why," the shade might ask, "do you not copy an example which you so +much admire? Surely England must be much in want, either of water, or of +fuel to heat it with?" + +"On the contrary, our rainfall is almost too great; our soil so damp that +we have had to invent a whole art of subsoil drainage unknown to you; +while, as for fuel, our coal-mines make us the great fuel-exporting +people of the world." + +What a quiet sneer might curl the lip of a Constantine as he replied--"Not +in vain, as I said, did we call you, some fifteen hundred years ago, the +barbarians of the north. But tell me, good barbarian, whom I know to be +both brave and wise--for the fame of your young British empire has +reached us even in the realms below, and we recognise in you, with all +respect, a people more like us Romans than any which has appeared on +earth for many centuries--how is it you have forgotten that sacred duty +of keeping the people clean, which you surely at one time learnt from us? +When your ancestors entered our armies, and rose, some of them, to be +great generals, and even emperors, like those two Teuton peasants, Justin +and Justinian, who, long after my days, reigned in my own Constantinople: +then, at least, you saw baths, and used them; and felt, after the bath, +that you were civilised men, and not 'sordidi ac foetentes,' as we used +to call you when fresh out of your bullock-waggons and cattle-pens. How +is it that you have forgotten that lesson?" + +The minister, I fear, would have to answer that our ancestors were +barbarous enough, not only to destroy the Roman cities, and temples, and +basilicas, and statues, but the Roman baths likewise; and then retired, +each man to his own freehold in the country, to live a life not much more +cleanly or more graceful than that of the swine which were his favourite +food. But he would have a right to plead, as an excuse, that not only in +England, but throughout the whole of the conquered Latin empire, the +Latin priesthood, who, in some respects, were--to their honour--the +representatives of Roman civilisation and the protectors of its remnants, +were the determined enemies of its cleanliness; that they looked on +personal dirt--like the old hermits of the Thebaid--as a sign of +sanctity; and discouraged--as they are said to do still in some of the +Romance countries of Europe--the use of the bath, as not only luxurious, +but also indecent. + +At which answer, it seems to me, another sneer might curl the lip of the +august shade, as he said to himself--"This, at least, I did not expect, +when I made Christianity the state religion of my empire. But you, good +barbarian, look clean enough. You do not look on dirt as a sign of +sanctity?" + +"On the contrary, sire, the upper classes of our empire boast of being +the cleanliest--perhaps the only perfectly cleanly--people in the world: +except, of course, the savages of the South Seas. And dirt is so far +from being a thing which we admire, that our scientific men--than whom +the world has never seen wiser--have proved to us, for a whole generation +past, that dirt is the fertile cause of disease and drunkenness, misery +and recklessness." + +"And, therefore," replies the shade, ere he disappears, "of discontent +and revolution; followed by a tyranny endured, as in Rome and many +another place, by men once free; because tyranny will at least do for +them what they are too lazy, and cowardly, and greedy to do for +themselves. Farewell, and prosper; as you seem likely to prosper, on the +whole. But if you wish me to consider you a civilised nation: let me +hear that you have brought a great river from the depths of the earth, be +they a thousand fathoms deep, or from your nearest mountains, be they +five hundred miles away; and have washed out London's dirt--and your own +shame. Till then, abstain from judging too harshly a Constantine, or +even a Caracalla; for they, whatever were their sins, built baths, and +kept their people clean. But do your gymnasia--your schools and +universities, teach your youth nought about all this?" + + + + +THRIFT. A LECTURE DELIVERED AT WINCHESTER, MARCH 17, 1869. + + +Ladies,--I have chosen for the title of this lecture a practical and +prosaic word, because I intend the lecture itself to be as practical and +prosaic as I can make it, without becoming altogether dull. + +The question of the better or worse education of women is one far too +important for vague sentiment, wild aspirations, or Utopian dreams. + +It is a practical question, on which depends not merely money or comfort, +but too often health and life, as the consequences of a good education, +or disease and death--I know too well of what I speak--as the +consequences of a bad one. + +I beg you, therefore, to put out of your minds at the outset any fancy +that I wish for a social revolution in the position of women; or that I +wish to see them educated by exactly the same methods, and in exactly the +same subjects, as men. British lads, on an average, are far too +ill-taught still, in spite of all recent improvements, for me to wish +that British girls should be taught in the same way. + +Moreover, whatever defects there may have been--and defects there must be +in all things human--in the past education of British women, it has been +most certainly a splendid moral success. It has made, by the grace of +God, British women the best wives, mothers, daughters, aunts, sisters, +that the world, as far as I can discover, has yet seen. + +Let those who will sneer at the women of England. We who have to do the +work and to fight the battle of life know the inspiration which we derive +from their virtue, their counsel, their tenderness, and--but too +often--from their compassion and their forgiveness. There is, I doubt +not, still left in England many a man with chivalry and patriotism enough +to challenge the world to show so perfect a specimen of humanity as a +cultivated British woman. + +But just because a cultivated British woman is so perfect a personage; +therefore I wish to see all British women cultivated. Because the +womanhood of England is so precious a treasure; I wish to see none of it +wasted. It is an invaluable capital, or material, out of which the +greatest possible profit to the nation must be made. And that can only +be done by thrift; and that, again, can only be attained by knowledge. + +Consider that word thrift. If you will look at Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, +or if you know your Shakespeare, you will see that thrift signified +originally profits, gain, riches gotten--in a word, the marks of a man's +thriving. + +How, then, did the word thrift get to mean parsimony, frugality, the +opposite of waste? Just in the same way as economy--which first, of +course, meant the management of a household--got to mean also the +opposite of waste. + +It was found that in commerce, in husbandry, in any process, in fact, men +throve in proportion as they saved their capital, their material, their +force. + +Now this is a great law which runs through life; one of those laws of +nature--call them, rather, laws of God--which apply not merely to +political economy, to commerce, and to mechanics; but to physiology, to +society; to the intellect, to the heart, of every person in this room. + +The secret of thriving is thrift; saving of force; to get as much work as +possible done with the least expenditure of power, the least jar and +obstruction, the least wear and tear. + +And the secret of thrift is knowledge. In proportion as you know the +laws and nature of a subject, you will be able to work at it easily, +surely, rapidly, successfully; instead of wasting your money or your +energies in mistaken schemes, irregular efforts, which end in +disappointment and exhaustion. + +The secret of thrift, I say, is knowledge. The more you know, the more +you can save yourself and that which belongs to you; and can do more work +with less effort. + +A knowledge of the laws of commercial credit, we all know, saves capital, +enabling a less capital to do the work of a greater. Knowledge of the +electric telegraph saves time; knowledge of writing saves human speech +and locomotion; knowledge of domestic economy saves income; knowledge of +sanitary laws saves health and life; knowledge of the laws of the +intellect saves wear and tear of brain; and knowledge of the laws of the +spirit--what does it not save? + +A well-educated moral sense, a well-regulated character, saves from +idleness and ennui, alternating with sentimentality and excitement, those +tenderer emotions, those deeper passions, those nobler aspirations of +humanity, which are the heritage of the woman far more than of the man; +and which are potent in her, for evil or for good, in proportion as they +are left to run wild and undisciplined, or are trained and developed into +graceful, harmonious, self-restraining strength, beautiful in themselves, +and a blessing to all who come under their influence. + +What, therefore, I recommend to ladies in this lecture is thrift; thrift +of themselves and of their own powers: and knowledge as the parent of +thrift. + +And because it is well to begin with the lower applications of thrift, +and to work up to the higher, I am much pleased to hear that the first +course of the proposed lectures to women in this place will be one on +domestic economy. + +I presume that the learned gentleman who will deliver these lectures will +be the last to mean by that term the mere saving of money; that he will +tell you, as--being a German--he will have good reason to know, that the +young lady who learns thrift in domestic economy is also learning thrift +of the very highest faculties of her immortal spirit. He will tell you, +I doubt not--for he must know--how you may see in Germany young ladies +living in what we more luxurious British would consider something like +poverty; cooking, waiting at table, and performing many a household +office which would be here considered menial; and yet finding time for a +cultivation of the intellect, which is, unfortunately, too rare in Great +Britain. + +The truth is, that we British are too wealthy. We make money, if not too +rapidly for the good of the nation at large, yet too rapidly, I fear, for +the good of the daughters of those who make it. Their temptation--I do +not, of course, say they all yield to it--but their temptation is, to +waste of the very simplest--I had almost said, if I may be pardoned the +expression, of the most barbaric--kind; to an oriental waste of money, +and waste of time; to a fondness for mere finery, pardonable enough, but +still a waste; and to the mistaken fancy that it is the mark of a lady to +sit idle and let servants do everything for her. + +Such women may well take a lesson by contrast from the pure and noble, +useful and cultivated thrift of an average German young lady--for ladies +these German women are, in every possible sense of the word. + +But it is not of this sort of waste of which I wish to speak to-day. I +only mention the matter in passing, to show that high intellectual +culture is not incompatible with the performance of homely household +duties, and that the moral success of which I spoke just now need not be +injured, any more than it is in Germany, by intellectual success +likewise. I trust that these words may reassure those parents, if any +such there be here, who may fear that these lectures will withdraw women +from their existing sphere of interest and activity. That they should +entertain such a fear is not surprising, after the extravagant opinions +and schemes which have been lately broached in various quarters. + +The programme to these lectures expressly disclaims any such intentions; +and I, as a husband and a father, expressly disclaim any such intention +likewise. + +"To fit women for the more enlightened performance of their special +duties;" to help them towards learning how to do better what we doubt not +they are already doing well; is, I honestly believe, the only object of +the promoters of this scheme. + +Let us see now how some of these special duties can be better performed +by help of a little enlightenment as to the laws which regulate them. + +Now, no man will deny--certainly no man who is past forty-five, and whose +digestion is beginning to quail before the lumps of beef and mutton which +are the boast of a British kitchen, and to prefer, with Justice Shallow, +and, I presume, Sir John Falstaff also, "any pretty little tiny +kickshaws"--no man, I say, who has reached that age, but will feel it a +practical comfort to him to know that the young ladies of his family are +at all events good cooks; and understand, as the French do, thrift in the +matter of food. + +Neither will any parent who wishes, naturally enough, that his daughters +should cost him as little as possible; and wishes, naturally enough also, +that they should be as well dressed as possible, deny that it would be a +good thing for them to be practical milliners and mantua-makers; and, by +making their own clothes gracefully and well, exercise thrift in +clothing. + +But, beside this thrift in clothing, I am not alone, I believe, in +wishing for some thrift in the energy which produces it. Labour +misapplied, you will agree, is labour wasted; and as dress, I presume, is +intended to adorn the person of the wearer, the making a dress which only +disfigures her may be considered as a plain case of waste. It would be +impertinent in me to go into any details: but it is impossible to walk +about the streets now without passing young people who must be under a +deep delusion as to the success of their own toilette. Instead of +graceful and noble simplicity of form, instead of combinations of colour +at once rich and delicate, because in accordance with the chromatic laws +of nature, one meets with phenomena more and more painful to the eye, and +startling to common sense, till one would be hardly more astonished, and +certainly hardly more shocked, if in a year or two one should pass some +one going about like a Chinese lady, with pinched feet, or like a savage +of the Amazons, with a wooden bung through her lower lip. It is easy to +complain of these monstrosities: but impossible to cure them, it seems to +me, without an education of the taste, an education in those laws of +nature which produce beauty in form and beauty in colour. For that the +cause of these failures lies in want of education is patent. They are +most common in--I had almost said they are confined to--those classes of +well-to-do persons who are the least educated; who have no standard of +taste of their own; and who do not acquire any from cultivated friends +and relations: who, in consequence, dress themselves blindly according to +what they conceive to be the Paris fashions, conveyed at third-hand +through an equally uneducated dressmaker; in innocent ignorance of the +fact--for fact I believe it to be--that Paris fashions are invented now +not in the least for the sake of beauty, but for the sake of producing, +through variety, increased expenditure, and thereby increased employment; +according to the strange system which now prevails in France of +compelling, if not prosperity, at least the signs of it; and like +schoolboys before a holiday, nailing up the head of the weather glass to +insure fine weather. + +Let British ladies educate themselves in those laws of beauty which are +as eternal as any other of nature's laws; which may be seen fulfilled, as +Mr. Ruskin tells us, so eloquently in every flower and every leaf, in +every sweeping down and rippling wave: and they will be able to invent +graceful and economical dresses for themselves, without importing tawdry +and expensive ugliness from France. + +Let me now go a step further, and ask you to consider this.--There are in +England now a vast number, and an increasing number, of young women who, +from various circumstances which we all know, must in after life be +either the mistresses of their own fortunes, or the earners of their own +bread. And, to do that wisely and well, they must be more or less women +of business; and to be women of business, they must know something of the +meaning of the words capital, profit, price, value, labour, wages, and of +the relation between those two last. In a word, they must know a little +political economy. Nay, I sometimes think that the mistress of every +household might find, not only thrift of money, but thrift of brain; +freedom from mistakes, anxieties, worries of many kinds, all of which eat +out the health as well as the heart, by a little sound knowledge of the +principles of political economy. + +When we consider that every mistress of a household is continually +buying, if not selling; that she is continually hiring and employing +labour in the form of servants; and very often, into the bargain, keeping +her husband's accounts: I cannot but think that her hard-worked brain +might be clearer, and her hard-tried desire to do her duty by every +subject in her little kingdom, might be more easily satisfied, had she +read something of what Mr. John Stuart Mill has written, especially on +the duties of employer and employed. A capitalist, a commercialist, an +employer of labour, and an accountant--every mistress of a household is +all these, whether she likes it or not; and it would be surely well for +her, in so very complicated a state of society as this, not to trust +merely to that mother-wit, that intuitive sagacity and innate power of +ruling her fellow-creatures, which carries women so nobly through their +work in simpler and less civilised societies. + +And here I stop to answer those who may say--as I have heard it said--That +a woman's intellect is not fit for business; that when a woman takes to +business, she is apt to do it ill, and unpleasantly likewise; to be more +suspicious, more irritable, more grasping, more unreasonable, than +regular men of business would be; that--as I have heard it put--"a woman +does not fight fair." The answer is simple. That a woman's intellect is +eminently fitted for business is proved by the enormous amount of +business she gets through without any special training for it: but those +faults in a woman of which some men complain are simply the results of +her not having had a special training. She does not know the laws of +business. She does not know the rules of the game she is playing; and +therefore she is playing it in the dark, in fear and suspicion, apt to +judge of questions on personal grounds, often offending those with whom +she has to do, and oftener still making herself miserable over matters of +law or of business, on which a little sound knowledge would set her head +and her heart at rest. + +When I have seen widows, having the care of children, of a great +household, of a great estate, of a great business, struggling heroically, +and yet often mistakenly; blamed severely for selfishness and ambition, +while they were really sacrificing themselves with the divine instinct of +a mother for their children's interest: I have stood by with mingled +admiration and pity, and said to myself--"How nobly she is doing the work +without teaching! How much more nobly would she have done it had she +been taught! She is now doing the work at the most enormous waste of +energy and of virtue: had she had knowledge, thrift would have followed +it; she would have done more work with far less trouble. She will +probably kill herself if she goes on: sound knowledge would have saved +her health, saved her heart, saved her friends, and helped the very loved +ones for whom she labours, not always with success." + +A little political economy, therefore, will at least do no harm to a +woman; especially if she have to take care of herself in after life; +neither, I think, will she be much harmed by some sound knowledge of +another subject, which I see promised in these lectures,--"Natural +philosophy, in its various branches, such as the chemistry of common +life, light, heat, electricity, &c., &c." + +A little knowledge of the laws of light, for instance, would teach many +women that by shutting themselves up day after day, week after week, in +darkened rooms, they are as certainly committing a waste of health, +destroying their vital energy, and diseasing their brains, as if they +were taking so much poison the whole time. + +A little knowledge of the laws of heat would teach women not to clothe +themselves and their children after foolish and insufficient fashions, +which in this climate sow the seeds of a dozen different diseases, and +have to be atoned for by perpetual anxieties, and by perpetual doctors' +bills; and as for a little knowledge of the laws of electricity, one +thrift I am sure it would produce--thrift to us men, of having to answer +continual inquiries as to what the weather is going to be, when a slight +knowledge of the barometer, or of the form of the clouds and the +direction of the wind, would enable many a lady to judge for herself, and +not, after inquiry on inquiry, disregard all warnings, go out on the +first appearance of a strip of blue sky, and come home wet through, with +what she calls "only a chill," but which really means a nail driven into +her coffin--a probable shortening, though it may be a very small one, of +her mortal life; because the food of the next twenty-four hours, which +should have gone to keep the vital heat at its normal standard, will have +to be wasted in raising it up to that standard, from which it has fallen +by a chill. + +Ladies; these are subjects on which I must beg to speak a little more at +length, premising them by one statement, which may seem jest, but is +solemn earnest--that, if the medical men of this or any other city were +what the world now calls "alive to their own interests"--that is, to the +mere making of money; instead of being, what medical men are, the most +generous, disinterested, and high-minded class in these realms, then they +would oppose by all means in their power the delivery of lectures on +natural philosophy to women. For if women act upon what they learn in +those lectures--and having women's hearts, they will act upon it--there +ought to follow a decrease of sickness and an increase of health, +especially among children; a thrift of life, and a thrift of expense +besides, which would very seriously affect the income of medical men. + +For let me ask you, ladies, with all courtesy, but with all +earnestness--Are you aware of certain facts, of which every one of those +excellent medical men is too well aware? Are you aware that more human +beings are killed in England every year by unnecessary and preventable +diseases than were killed at Waterloo or at Sadowa? Are you aware that +the great majority of those victims are children? Are you aware that the +diseases which carry them off are for the most part such as ought to be +specially under the control of the women who love them, pet them, educate +them, and would in many cases, if need be, lay down their lives for them? +Are you aware, again, of the vast amount of disease which, so both wise +mothers and wise doctors assure me, is engendered in the sleeping-room +from simple ignorance of the laws of ventilation, and in the school-room +likewise, from simple ignorance of the laws of physiology? from an +ignorance of which I shall mention no other case here save one--that too +often from ignorance of signs of approaching disease, a child is punished +for what is called idleness, listlessness, wilfulness, sulkiness; and +punished, too, in the unwisest way--by an increase of tasks and +confinement to the house, thus overtasking still more a brain already +overtasked, and depressing still more, by robbing it of oxygen and of +exercise, a system already depressed? Are you aware, I ask again, of all +this? I speak earnestly upon this point, because I speak with +experience. As a single instance: a medical man, a friend of mine, +passing by his own school-room, heard one of his own little girls +screaming and crying, and went in. The governess, an excellent woman, +but wholly ignorant of the laws of physiology, complained that the child +had of late become obstinate and would not learn; and that therefore she +must punish her by keeping her indoors over the unlearnt lessons. The +father, who knew that the child was usually a very good one, looked at +her carefully for a little while; sent her out of the school-room; and +then said, "That child must not open a book for a month." "If I had not +acted so," he said to me, "I should have had that child dead of brain- +disease within the year." + +Now, in the face of such facts as these, is it too much to ask of +mothers, sisters, aunts, nurses, governesses--all who may be occupied in +the care of children, especially of girls--that they should study thrift +of human health and human life, by studying somewhat the laws of life and +health? There are books--I may say a whole literature of books--written +by scientific doctors on these matters, which are in my mind far more +important to the school-room than half the trashy accomplishments, so- +called, which are expected to be known by governesses. But are they +bought? Are they even to be bought, from most country booksellers? Ah, +for a little knowledge of the laws to the neglect of which is owing so +much fearful disease, which, if it does not produce immediate death, too +often leaves the constitution impaired for years to come. Ah the waste +of health and strength in the young; the waste, too, of anxiety and +misery in those who love and tend them. How much of it might be saved by +a little rational education in those laws of nature which are the will of +God about the welfare of our bodies, and which, therefore, we are as much +bound to know and to obey, as we are bound to know and obey the spiritual +laws whereon depends the welfare of our souls. + +Pardon me, ladies, if I have given a moment's pain to any one here: but I +appeal to every medical man in the room whether I have not spoken the +truth; and having such an opportunity as this, I felt that I must speak +for the sake of children, and of women likewise, or else for ever +hereafter hold my peace. + +Let me pass on from this painful subject--for painful it has been to me +for many years--to a question of intellectual thrift--by which I mean +just now thrift of words; thrift of truth; restraint of the tongue; +accuracy and modesty in statement. + +Mothers complain to me that girls are apt to be--not intentionally +untruthful--but exaggerative, prejudiced, incorrect, in repeating a +conversation or describing an event; and that from this fault arise, as +is to be expected, misunderstandings, quarrels, rumours, slanders, +scandals, and what not. + +Now, for this waste of words there is but one cure: and if I be told that +it is a natural fault of women; that they cannot take the calm judicial +view of matters which men boast, and often boast most wrongly, that they +can take; that under the influence of hope, fear, delicate antipathy, +honest moral indignation, they will let their eyes and ears be governed +by their feelings; and see and hear only what they wish to see and hear: +I answer, that it is not for me as a man to start such a theory; but that +if it be true, it is an additional argument for some education which will +correct this supposed natural defect. And I say deliberately that there +is but one sort of education which will correct it; one which will teach +young women to observe facts accurately, judge them calmly, and describe +them carefully, without adding or distorting: and that is, some training +in natural science. + +I beg you not to be startled: but if you are, then test the truth of my +theory by playing to-night at the game called "Russian Scandal;" in which +a story, repeated in secret by one player to the other, comes out at the +end of the game, owing to the inaccurate and--forgive me if I say +it--uneducated brains through which it has passed, utterly unlike its +original; not only ludicrously maimed and distorted, but often with the +most fantastic additions of events, details, names, dates, places, which +each player will aver that he received from the player before him. I am +afraid that too much of the average gossip of every city, town, and +village is little more than a game of "Russian Scandal;" with this +difference, that while one is but a game, the other is but too +mischievous earnest. + +But now, if among your party there shall be an average lawyer, medical +man, or man of science, you will find that he, and perhaps he alone, will +be able to retail accurately the story which has been told him. And why? +Simply because his mind has been trained to deal with facts; to ascertain +exactly what he does see or hear, and to imprint its leading features +strongly and clearly on his memory. + +Now, you certainly cannot make young ladies barristers or attorneys; nor +employ their brains in getting up cases, civil or criminal; and as for +chemistry, they and their parents may have a reasonable antipathy to +smells, blackened fingers, and occasional explosions and poisonings. But +you may make them something of botanists, zoologists, geologists. + +I could say much on this point: allow me at least to say this: I verily +believe that any young lady who would employ some of her leisure time in +collecting wild flowers, carefully examining them, verifying them, and +arranging them; or who would in her summer trip to the sea-coast do the +same by the common objects of the shore, instead of wasting her holiday, +as one sees hundreds doing, in lounging on benches on the esplanade, +reading worthless novels, and criticizing dresses--that such a young +lady, I say, would not only open her own mind to a world of wonder, +beauty, and wisdom, which, if it did not make her a more reverent and +pious soul, she cannot be the woman which I take for granted she is; but +would save herself from the habit--I had almost said the necessity--of +gossip; because she would have things to think of and not merely persons; +facts instead of fancies; while she would acquire something of accuracy, +of patience, of methodical observation and judgment, which would stand +her in good stead in the events of daily life, and increase her power of +bridling her tongue and her imagination. "God is in heaven, and thou +upon earth; therefore let thy words be few;" is the lesson which those +are learning all day long who study the works of God with reverent +accuracy, lest by misrepresenting them they should be tempted to say that +God has done that which He has not; and in that wholesome discipline I +long that women as well as men should share. + +And now I come to a thrift of the highest kind, as contrasted with a +waste the most deplorable and ruinous of all; thrift of those faculties +which connect us with the unseen and spiritual world; with humanity, with +Christ, with God; thrift of the immortal spirit. I am not going now to +give you a sermon on duty. You hear such, I doubt not, in church every +Sunday, far better than I can preach to you. I am going to speak rather +of thrift of the heart, thrift of the emotions. How they are wasted in +these days in reading what are called sensation novels, all know but too +well; how British literature--all that the best hearts and intellects +among our forefathers have bequeathed to us--is neglected for light +fiction, the reading of which is, as a lady well said, "the worst form of +intemperance--dram-drinking and opium-eating, intellectual and moral." + +I know that the young will delight--they have delighted in all ages, and +will to the end of time--in fictions which deal with that "oldest tale +which is for ever new." Novels will be read: but that is all the more +reason why women should be trained, by the perusal of a higher, broader, +deeper literature, to distinguish the good novel from the bad, the moral +from the immoral, the noble from the base, the true work of art from the +sham which hides its shallowness and vulgarity under a tangled plot and +melodramatic situations. She should learn--and that she can only learn +by cultivation--to discern with joy, and drink in with reverence, the +good, the beautiful, and the true; and to turn with the fine scorn of a +pure and strong womanhood from the bad, the ugly, and the false. + +And if any parent should be inclined to reply--"Why lay so much stress +upon educating a girl in British literature? Is it not far more +important to make our daughters read religious books?" I answer--Of +course it is. I take for granted that that is done in a Christian land. +But I beg you to recollect that there are books and books; and that in +these days of a free press it is impossible, in the long run, to prevent +girls reading books of very different shades of opinion, and very +different religious worth. It may be, therefore, of the very highest +importance to a girl to have her intellect, her taste, her emotions, her +moral sense, in a word, her whole womanhood, so cultivated and regulated +that she shall herself be able to discern the true from the false, the +orthodox from the unorthodox, the truly devout from the merely +sentimental, the Gospel from its counterfeits. + +I should have thought that there never had been in Britain, since the +Reformation, a crisis at which young Englishwomen required more careful +cultivation on these matters; if at least they are to be saved from +making themselves and their families miserable; and from ending--as I +have known too many end--with broken hearts, broken brains, broken +health, and an early grave. + +Take warning by what you see abroad. In every country where the women +are uneducated, unoccupied; where their only literature is French novels +or translations of them--in every one of those countries the women, even +to the highest, are the slaves of superstition, and the puppets of +priests. In proportion as, in certain other countries--notably, I will +say, in Scotland--the women are highly educated, family life and family +secrets are sacred, and the woman owns allegiance and devotion to no +confessor or director, but to her own husband or to her own family. + +I say plainly, that if any parents wish their daughters to succumb at +last to some quackery or superstition, whether calling itself scientific, +or calling itself religious--and there are too many of both just now--they +cannot more certainly effect their purpose than by allowing her to grow +up ignorant, frivolous, luxurious, vain; with her emotions excited, but +not satisfied, by the reading of foolish and even immoral novels. + +In such a case the more delicate and graceful the organization, the more +noble and earnest the nature, which has been neglected, the more certain +it is--I know too well what I am saying--to go astray. + +The time of depression, disappointment, vacuity, all but despair, must +come. The immortal spirit, finding no healthy satisfaction for its +highest aspirations, is but too likely to betake itself to an unhealthy +and exciting superstition. Ashamed of its own long self-indulgence, it +is but too likely to flee from itself into a morbid asceticism. Not +having been taught its God-given and natural duties in the world, it is +but too likely to betake itself, from the mere craving for action, to +self-invented and unnatural duties out of the world. Ignorant of true +science, yet craving to understand the wonders of nature and of spirit, +it is but too likely to betake itself to nonscience--nonsense as it is +usually called--whether of spirit-rapping and mesmerism, or of miraculous +relics and winking pictures. Longing for guidance and teaching, and +never having been taught to guide and teach itself, it is but too likely +to deliver itself up in self-despair to the guidance and teaching of +those who, whether they be quacks or fanatics, look on uneducated women +as their natural prey. + +You will see, I am sure, from what I have said, that it is not my wish +that you should become mere learned women; mere female pedants, as +useless and unpleasing as male pedants are wont to be. The education +which I set before you is not to be got by mere hearing lectures or +reading books: for it is an education of your whole character; a self- +education; which really means a committing of yourself to God, that He +may educate you. Hearing lectures is good, for it will teach you how +much there is to be known, and how little you know. Reading books is +good, for it will give you habits of regular and diligent study. And +therefore I urge on you strongly private study, especially in case a +library should be formed here of books on those most practical subjects +of which I have been speaking. But, after all, both lectures and books +are good, mainly in as far as they furnish matter for reflection: while +the desire to reflect and the ability to reflect must come, as I believe, +from above. The honest craving after light and power, after knowledge, +wisdom, active usefulness, must come--and may it come to you--by the +inspiration of the Spirit of God. + +One word more, and I have done. Let me ask women to educate themselves, +not for their own sakes merely, but for the sake of others. For, whether +they will or not, they must educate others. I do not speak merely of +those who may be engaged in the work of direct teaching; that they ought +to be well taught themselves, who can doubt? I speak of those--and in so +doing I speak of every woman, young and old--who exercises as wife, as +mother, as aunt, as sister, or as friend, an influence, indirect it may +be, and unconscious, but still potent and practical, on the minds and +characters of those about them, especially of men. How potent and +practical that influence is, those know best who know most of the world +and most of human nature. There are those who consider--and I agree with +them--that the education of boys under the age of twelve years ought to +be entrusted as much as possible to women. Let me ask--of what period of +youth and of manhood does not the same hold true? I pity the ignorance +and conceit of the man who fancies that he has nothing left to learn from +cultivated women. I should have thought that the very mission of woman +was to be, in the highest sense, the educator of man from infancy to old +age; that that was the work towards which all the God-given capacities of +women pointed; for which they were to be educated to the highest pitch. I +should have thought that it was the glory of woman that she was sent into +the world to live for others, rather than for herself; and therefore I +should say--Let her smallest rights be respected, her smallest wrongs +redressed: but let her never be persuaded to forget that she is sent into +the world to teach man--what, I believe, she has been teaching him all +along, even in the savage state--namely, that there is something more +necessary than the claiming of rights, and that is, the performing of +duties; to teach him specially, in these so-called intellectual days, +that there is something more than intellect, and that is--purity and +virtue. Let her never be persuaded to forget that her calling is not the +lower and more earthly one of self-assertion, but the higher and the +diviner calling of self-sacrifice; and let her never desert that higher +life, which lives in others and for others, like her Redeemer and her +Lord. + +And if any should answer that this doctrine would keep woman a dependant +and a slave, I rejoin--Not so: it would keep her what she should be--the +mistress of all around her, because mistress of herself. And more, I +should express a fear that those who made that answer had not yet seen +into the mystery of true greatness and true strength; that they did not +yet understand the true magnanimity, the true royalty of that spirit, by +which the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and +to give His life a ransom for many. + +Surely that is woman's calling--to teach man: and to teach him what? To +teach him, after all, that his calling is the same as hers, if he will +but see the things which belong to his peace. To temper his fiercer, +coarser, more self-assertive nature, by the contact of her gentleness, +purity, self-sacrifice. To make him see that not by blare of trumpets, +not by noise, wrath, greed, ambition, intrigue, puffery, is good and +lasting work to be done on earth: but by wise self-distrust, by silent +labour, by lofty self-control, by that charity which hopeth all things, +believeth all things, endureth all things; by such an example, in short, +as women now in tens of thousands set to those around them; such as they +will show more and more, the more their whole womanhood is educated to +employ its powers without waste and without haste in harmonious unity. +Let the woman begin in girlhood, if such be her happy lot--to quote the +words of a great poet, a great philosopher, and a great Churchman, +William Wordsworth--let her begin, I say-- + + "With all things round about her drawn + From May-time and the cheerful dawn; + A dancing shape, an image gay, + To haunt, to startle, and waylay." + +Let her develop onwards-- + + "A spirit, yet a woman too, + With household motions light and free, + And steps of virgin liberty. + A countenance in which shall meet + Sweet records, promises as sweet; + A creature not too bright and good + For human nature's daily food; + For transient sorrows, simple wiles, + Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. + +But let her highest and her final development be that which not nature, +but self-education alone can bring--that which makes her once and for +ever-- + + "A being breathing thoughtful breath; + A traveller betwixt life and death. + With reason firm, with temperate will, + Endurance, foresight, strength and skill. + A perfect woman, nobly planned, + To warn, to comfort and command. + And yet a spirit still and bright + With something of an angel light." + + + + +THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. +A LECTURE DELIVERED TO THE OFFICERS OF THE ROYAL ARTILLERY, WOOLWICH. + + +Gentlemen:--When I accepted the honour of lecturing here, I took for +granted that so select an audience would expect from me not mere +amusement, but somewhat of instruction; or, if that be too ambitious a +word for me to use, at least some fresh hint--if I were able to give +one--as to how they should fulfil the ideal of military men in such an +age as this. + +To touch on military matters, even had I been conversant with them, +seemed to me an impertinence. I am bound to take for granted that every +man knows his own business best; and I incline more and more to the +opinion that military men should be left to work out the problems of +their art for themselves, without the advice or criticism of civilians. +But I hold--and I am sure that you will agree with me--that if the +soldier is to be thus trusted by the nation, and left to himself to do +his own work his own way, he must be educated in all practical matters as +highly as the average of educated civilians. He must know all that they +know, and his own art beside. Just as a clergyman, being a man plus a +priest, is bound to be a man, and a good man, over and above his +priesthood, so is the soldier bound to be a civilian, and a +highly-educated civilian, plus his soldierly qualities and acquirements. + +It seemed to me, therefore, that I might, without impertinence, ask you +to consider a branch of knowledge which is becoming yearly more and more +important in the eyes of well-educated civilians; of which, therefore, +the soldier ought at least to know something, in order to put him on a +par with the general intelligence of the nation. I do not say that he is +to devote much time to it, or to follow it up into specialities: but that +he ought to be well grounded in its principles and methods; that he ought +to be aware of its importance and its usefulness; that so, if he comes +into contact--as he will more and more--with scientific men, he may +understand them, respect them, befriend them, and be befriended by them +in turn; and how desirable this last result is, I shall tell you +hereafter. + +There are those, I doubt not, among my audience who do not need the +advice which I shall presume to give to-night; who belong to that fast +increasing class among officers of whom I have often said--and I have +found scientific men cordially agree with me--that they are the most +modest and the most teachable of men. But even in their case there can +be no harm in going over deliberately a question of such importance; in +putting it, as it were, into shape; and insisting on arguments which may +perhaps not have occurred to some of them. + +Let me, in the first place, reassure those--if any such there be--who may +suppose, from the title of my lecture, that I am only going to recommend +them to collect weeds and butterflies, "rats and mice, and such small +deer." Far from it. The honourable title of Natural History has, and +unwisely, been restricted too much of late years to the mere study of +plants and animals. I desire to restore the words to their original and +proper meaning--the History of Nature; that is, of all that is born, and +grows in time; in short, of all natural objects. + +If anyone shall say--By that definition you make not only geology and +chemistry branches of natural history, but meteorology and astronomy +likewise--I cannot deny it. They deal, each of them, with realms of +Nature. Geology is, literally, the natural history of soils and lands; +chemistry the natural history of compounds, organic and inorganic; +meteorology the natural history of climates; astronomy the natural +history of planetary and solar bodies. And more, you cannot now study +deeply any branch of what is popularly called Natural History--that is, +plants and animals--without finding it necessary to learn something, and +more and more as you go deeper, of those very sciences. As the +marvellous interdependence of all natural objects and forces unfolds +itself more and more, so the once separate sciences, which treated of +different classes of natural objects, are forced to interpenetrate, as it +were; and to supplement themselves by knowledge borrowed from each other. +Thus--to give a single instance--no man can now be a first-rate botanist +unless he be also no mean meteorologist, no mean geologist, and--as Mr. +Darwin has shown in his extraordinary discoveries about the fertilisation +of plants by insects--no mean entomologist likewise. + +It is difficult, therefore, and indeed somewhat unwise and unfair, to put +any limit to the term Natural History, save that it shall deal only with +nature and with matter; and shall not pretend--as some would have it to +do just now--to go out of its own sphere to meddle with moral and +spiritual matters. But, for practical purposes, we may define the +natural history of any given spot as the history of the causes which have +made it what it is, and filled it with the natural objects which it +holds. And if anyone would know how to study the natural history of a +place, and how to write it, let him read--and if he has read its +delightful pages in youth, read once again--that hitherto unrivalled +little monograph, White's 'Natural History of Selborne;' and let him then +try, by the light of improved science, to do for any district where he +may be stationed, what White did for Selborne nearly one hundred years +ago. Let him study its plants, its animals, its soils and rocks; and +last, but not least, its scenery, as the total outcome of what the soils, +and plants, and animals have made it. I say, have made it. How far the +nature of the soils and the rocks will affect the scenery of a district +may be well learnt from a very clever and interesting little book of +Professor Geikie's, on 'The Scenery of Scotland, as affected by its +Geological Structure.' How far the plants and trees affect not merely +the general beauty, the richness or barrenness of a country, but also its +very shape; the rate at which the hills are destroyed and washed into the +lowland; the rate at which the seaboard is being removed by the action of +waves--all these are branches of study which is becoming more and more +important. + +And even in the study of animals and their effects on the vegetation, +questions of really deep interest will arise. You will find that certain +plants and trees cannot thrive in a district, while others can, because +the former are browsed down by cattle, or their seeds eaten by birds, and +the latter are not; that certain seeds are carried in the coats of +animals, or wafted abroad by winds--others are not; certain trees +destroyed wholesale by insects, while others are not; that in a hundred +ways the animal and vegetable life of a district act and react upon each +other, and that the climate, the average temperature, the maximum and +minimum temperatures, the rainfall, act on them, and in the case of the +vegetation, are reacted on again by them. The diminution of rainfall by +the destruction of forests, its increase by replanting them, and the +effect of both on the healthiness or unhealthiness of a place--as in the +case of the Mauritius, where a once healthy island has become +pestilential, seemingly from the clearing away of the vegetation on the +banks of streams--all this, though to study it deeply requires a fair +knowledge of meteorology, and even of a science or two more, is surely +well worth the attention of any educated man who is put in charge of the +health and lives of human beings. + +You will surely agree with me that the habit of mind required for such a +study as this, is the very same as is required for successful military +study. In fact, I should say that the same intellect which would develop +into a great military man, would develop also into a great naturalist. I +say, intellect. The military man would require--what the naturalist +would not--over and above his intellect, a special force of will, in +order to translate his theories into fact, and make his campaigns in the +field and not merely on paper. But I am speaking only of the habit of +mind required for study; of that inductive habit of mind which works, +steadily and by rule, from the known to the unknown; that habit of mind +of which it has been said:--"The habit of seeing; the habit of knowing +what we see; the habit of discerning differences and likenesses; the +habit of classifying accordingly; the habit of searching for hypotheses +which shall connect and explain those classified facts; the habit of +verifying these hypotheses by applying them to fresh facts; the habit of +throwing them away bravely if they will not fit; the habit of general +patience, diligence, accuracy, reverence for facts for their own sake, +and love of truth for its own sake; in one word, the habit of reverent +and implicit obedience to the laws of Nature, whatever they may be--these +are not merely intellectual, but also moral habits, which will stand men +in practical good stead in every affair of life, and in every question, +even the most awful, which may come before them as rational and social +beings." And specially valuable are they, surely, to the military man, +the very essence of whose study, to be successful, lies first in +continuous and accurate observation, and then in calm and judicious +arrangement. + +Therefore it is that I hold, and hold strongly, that the study of +physical science, far from interfering with an officer's studies, much +less unfitting for them, must assist him in them, by keeping his mind +always in the very attitude and the very temper which they require. If +any smile at this theory of mine, let them recollect one curious fact: +that perhaps the greatest captain of the old world was trained by perhaps +the greatest philosopher of the old world--the father of Natural History; +that Aristotle was the tutor of Alexander of Macedon. I do not fancy, of +course, that Aristotle taught Alexander any Natural History. But this we +know, that he taught him to use those very faculties by which Aristotle +became a natural historian, and many things beside; that he called out in +his pupil somewhat of his own extraordinary powers of observation, +extraordinary powers of arrangement. He helped to make him a great +general: but he helped to make him more--a great politician, coloniser, +discoverer. He instilled into him such a sense of the importance of +Natural History, that Alexander helped him nobly in his researches; and, +if Athenaeus is to be believed, gave him 800 talents towards perfecting +his history of animals. Surely it is not too much to say that this close +friendship between the natural philosopher and the soldier has changed +the whole course of civilisation to this very day. Do not consider me +Utopian when I tell you, that I should like to see the study of physical +science an integral part of the curriculum of every military school. I +would train the mind of the lad who was to become hereafter an officer in +the army--and in the navy like wise--by accustoming him to careful +observation of, and sound thought about, the face of nature; of the +commonest objects under his feet, just as much as of the stars above his +head; provided always that he learnt, not at second-hand from books, but +where alone he can really learn either war or nature--in the field; by +actual observation, actual experiment. A laboratory for chemical +experiment is a good thing, it is true, as far as it goes; but I should +prefer to the laboratory a naturalists' field club, such as are +prospering now at several of the best public schools, certain that the +boys would get more of sound inductive habits of mind, as well as more +health, manliness, and cheerfulness, amid scenes to remember which will +be a joy for ever, than they ever can by bending over retorts and +crucibles, amid smells even to remember which is a pain for ever. + +But I would, whether a field club existed or not, require of every young +man entering the army or navy--indeed of every young man entering any +liberal profession whatsoever--a fair knowledge, such as would enable him +to pass an examination, in what the Germans call +_Erd-kunde_--earth-lore--in that knowledge of the face of the earth and +of its products, for which we English have as yet cared so little that we +have actually no English name for it, save the clumsy and questionable +one of physical geography; and, I am sorry to say, hardly any readable +school books about it, save Keith Johnston's 'Physical Atlas'--an +acquaintance with which last I should certainly require of young men. + +It does seem most strange--or rather will seem most strange 100 years +hence--that we, the nation of colonists, the nation of sailors, the +nation of foreign commerce, the nation of foreign military stations, the +nation of travellers for travelling's sake, the nation of which one man +here and another there--as Schleiden sets forth in his book, 'The Plant,' +in a charming ideal conversation at the Travellers' Club--has seen and +enjoyed more of the wonders and beauties of this planet than the men of +any nation, not even excepting the Germans--that this nation, I say, +should as yet have done nothing, or all but nothing, to teach in her +schools a knowledge of that planet, of which she needs to know more, and +can if she will know more, than any other nation upon it. + +As for the practical utility of such studies to a soldier, I only need, I +trust, to hint at it to such an assembly as this. All must see of what +advantage a rough knowledge of the botany of a district would be to an +officer leading an exploring party, or engaged in bush warfare. To know +what plants are poisonous; what plants, too, are eatable--and many more +are eatable than is usually supposed; what plants yield oleaginous +substances, whether for food or for other uses; what plants yield +vegetable acids, as preventives of scurvy; what timbers are available for +each of many different purposes; what will resist wet, salt-water, and +the attacks of insects; what, again, can be used, at a pinch, for +medicine or for styptics--and be sure, as a wise West Indian doctor once +said to me, that there is more good medicine wild in the bush than there +is in all the druggists' shops--surely all this is a knowledge not +beneath the notice of any enterprising officer, above all of an officer +of engineers. I only ask anyone who thinks that I may be in the right, +to glance through the lists of useful vegetable products given in +Lindley's 'Vegetable Kingdom'--a miracle of learning--and see the vast +field open still to a thoughtful and observant man, even while on +service; and not to forget that such knowledge, if he should hereafter +leave the service and settle, as many do, in a distant land, may be a +solid help to his future prosperity. So strongly do I feel on this +matter, that I should like to see some knowledge at least of Dr. Oliver's +excellent little 'First Book of Indian Botany' required of all officers +going to our Indian Empire: but as that will not be, at least for many a +year to come, I recommend any gentlemen going to India to get that book, +and wile away the hours of the outward voyage by acquiring knowledge +which will be a continual source of interest, and it may be now and then +of profit, to them during their stay abroad. + +And for geology, again. As I do not expect you all, or perhaps any of +you, to become such botanists as General Monro, whose recent 'Monograph +of the Bamboos' is an honour to British botanists, and a proof of the +scientific power which is to be found here and there among British +officers: so I do not expect you to become such geologists as Sir +Roderick Murchison, or even to add such a grand chapter to the history of +extinct animals as Major Cautley did by his discoveries in the Sewalik +Hills. Nevertheless, you can learn--and I should earnestly advise you to +learn--geology and mineralogy enough to be of great use to you in your +profession, and of use, too, should you relinquish your profession +hereafter. It must be profitable for any man, and specially for you, to +know how and where to find good limestone, building stone, road metal; it +must be good to be able to distinguish ores and mineral products; it must +be good to know--as a geologist will usually know, even in a country +which he sees for the first time--where water is likely to be found, and +at what probable depth; it must be good to know whether the water is fit +for drinking or not, whether it is unwholesome or merely muddy; it must +be good to know what spots are likely to be healthy, and what unhealthy, +for encamping. The two last questions depend, doubtless, on +meteorological as well as geological accidents: but the answers to them +will be most surely found out by the scientific man, because the facts +connected with them are, like all other facts, determined by natural +laws. After what one has heard, in past years, of barracks built in +spots plainly pestilential; of soldiers encamped in ruined cities, +reeking with the dirt and poison of centuries; of--but it is not my place +to find fault; all I will say is, that the wise and humane officer, when +once his eyes are opened to the practical value of physical science, will +surely try to acquaint himself somewhat with those laws of drainage and +of climate, geological, meteorological, chemical, which influence, often +with terrible suddenness and fury, the health of whole armies. He will +not find it beyond his province to ascertain the amount and period of +rainfalls, the maxima of heat and of cold which his troops may have to +endure, and many another point on which their health and efficiency--nay, +their very life may depend, but which are now too exclusively delegated +to the doctor, to whose province they do not really belong. For cure, I +take the liberty of believing, is the duty of the medical officer; +prevention, that of the military. + +Thus much I can say just now--and there is much more to be said--on the +practical uses of the study of Natural History. But let me remind you, +on the other side, if Natural History will help you, you in return can +help her; and would, I doubt not, help her, and help scientific men at +home, if once you looked fairly and steadily at the immense importance of +Natural History--of the knowledge of the "face of the earth." I believe +that all will one day feel, more or less, that to know the earth _on_ +which we live, and the laws of it _by_ which we live, is a sacred duty to +ourselves, to our children after us, and to all whom we may have to +command and to influence; aye, and a duty to God likewise. For is it not +a duty of common reverence and faith towards Him, if He has put us into a +beautiful and wonderful place, and given us faculties by which we can +see, and enjoy, and use that place--is it not a duty of reverence and +faith towards Him to use these faculties, and to learn the lessons which +He has laid open for us? If you feel that, as I think you all will some +day feel, then you will surely feel likewise that it will be a good +deed--I do not say a necessary duty, but still a good deed and +praiseworthy--to help physical science forward; and to add your +contributions, however small, to our general knowledge of the earth. And +how much may be done for science by British officers, especially on +foreign stations, I need not point out. I know that much has been done, +chivalrously and well, by officers; and that men of science owe them, and +give them, hearty thanks for their labours. But I should like, I +confess, to see more done still. I should like to see every foreign +station, what one or two highly-educated officers might easily make it, +an advanced post of physical science, in regular communication with our +scientific societies at home, sending to them accurate and methodic +details of the natural history of each district--details 99/100ths of +which might seem worthless in the eyes of the public, but which would all +be precious in the eyes of scientific men, who know that no fact is +really unimportant; and more, that while plodding patiently through +seemingly unimportant facts, you may stumble on one of infinite +importance, both scientific and practical. For the student of nature, +gentlemen, if he will be but patient, diligent, methodical, is liable at +any moment to the same good fortune as befel Saul of old, when he went +out to seek his father's asses, and found a kingdom. + +There are those, lastly, who have neither time nor taste for the +technicalities, and nice distinctions, of formal Natural History; who +enjoy Nature, but as artists or as sportsmen, and not as men of science. +Let them follow their bent freely: but let them not suppose that in +following it they can do nothing towards enlarging our knowledge of +Nature, especially when on foreign stations. So far from it, drawings +ought always to be valuable, whether of plants, animals, or scenery, +provided only they are accurate; and the more spirited and full of genius +they are, the more accurate they are certain to be; for Nature being +alive, a lifeless copy of her is necessarily an untrue copy. Most +thankful to any officer for a mere sight of sketches will be the closet +botanist, who, to his own sorrow, knows three-fourths of his plants only +from dried specimens; or the closet zoologist, who knows his animals from +skins and bones. And if anyone answers--But I cannot draw. I rejoin, +You can at least photograph. If a young officer, going out to foreign +parts, and knowing nothing at all about physical science, did me the +honour to ask me what he could do for science, I should tell him--Learn +to photograph; take photographs of every strange bit of rock-formation +which strikes your fancy, and of every widely extended view which may +give a notion of the general lie of the country. Append, if you can, a +note or two, saying whether a plain is rich or barren; whether the rock +is sandstone, limestone, granitic, metamorphic, or volcanic lava; and if +there be more rocks than one, which of them lies on the other; and send +them to be exhibited at a meeting of the Geological Society. I doubt not +that the learned gentlemen there will find in your photographs a valuable +hint or two, for which they will be much obliged. I learnt, for +instance, what seemed to me most valuable geological lessons, from mere +glances at drawings--I believe from photographs--of the Abyssinian ranges +about Magdala. + +Or again, let a man, if he knows nothing of botany, not trouble himself +with collecting and drying specimens; let him simply photograph every +strange and new tree or plant he sees, to give a general notion of its +species, its look; let him append, where he can, a photograph of its +leafage, flower, fruit; and send them to Dr. Hooker, or any distinguished +botanist: and he will find that, though he may know nothing of botany, he +will have pretty certainly increased the knowledge of those who do know. + +The sportsman, again--I mean the sportsman of that type which seems +peculiar to these islands, who loves toil and danger for their own sakes; +he surely is a naturalist, ipso facto, though he knows it not. He has +those very habits of keen observation on which all sound knowledge of +nature is based; and he, if he will--as he may do without interfering +with his sport--can study the habits of the animals among whom he spends +wholesome and exciting days. You have only to look over such good old +books as Williams's 'Wild Sports of the East,' Campbell's 'Old Forest +Ranger,' Lloyd's 'Scandinavian Adventures,' and last, but not least, +Waterton's 'Wanderings,' to see what valuable additions to true +zoology--the knowledge of live creatures, not merely dead ones--British +sportsmen have made, and still can make. And as for the employment of +time, which often hangs so heavily on a soldier's hands, really I am +ready to say, if you are neither men of science, nor draughtsmen, nor +sportsmen, why go and collect beetles. It is not very dignified, I know, +nor exciting: but it will be something to do. It cannot harm you, if you +take, as beetle-hunters do, an india-rubber sheet to lie on; and it will +certainly benefit science. Moreover, there will be a noble humility in +the act. You will confess to the public that you consider yourself only +fit to catch beetles; by which very confession you will prove yourself +fit for much finer things than catching beetles: and meanwhile, as I said +before, you will be at least out of harm's way. At a foreign barrack +once, the happiest officer I met, because the most regularly employed, +was one who spent his time in collecting butterflies. He knew nothing +about them scientifically--not even their names. He took them simply for +their wonderful beauty and variety; and in the hope, too--in which he was +really scientific--that if he carefully kept every form which he saw, his +collection might be of use some day to entomologists at home. A most +pleasant gentleman he was; and, I doubt not, none the worse soldier for +his butterfly catching. Commendable, also, in my eyes, was another +officer--whom I have not the pleasure of knowing--who, on a remote +foreign station, used wisely to escape from the temptations of the world +into an entirely original and most pleasant hermitage. For finding--so +the story went--that many of the finest insects kept to the tree-tops, +and never came to ground at all, he used to settle himself among the +boughs of some tree in the tropic forests, with a long-handled net and +plenty of cigars, and pass his hours in that airy flower garden, making +dashes every now and then at some splendid monster as it fluttered round +his head. His example need not be followed by everyone; but it must be +allowed that--at least as long as he was in his tree--he was neither +dawdling, grumbling, spending money, nor otherwise harming himself, and +perhaps his fellow creatures, from sheer want of employment. + +One word more, and I have done. If I was allowed to give one special +piece of advice to a young officer, whether of the army or navy, I would +say--Respect scientific men; associate with them; learn from them; find +them to be, as you will usually, the most pleasant and instructive of +companions: but always respect them. Allow them chivalrously, you who +have an acknowledged rank, their yet unacknowledged rank; and treat them +as all the world will treat them, in a higher and truer state of +civilisation. They do not yet wear the Queen's uniform; they are not yet +accepted servants of the State; as they will be in some more perfectly +organised and civilised land: but they are soldiers nevertheless, and +good soldiers and chivalrous, fighting their nation's battle, often on +even less pay than you,--and with still less chance of promotion and of +fame, against most real and fatal enemies--against ignorance of the laws +of this planet, and all the miseries which that ignorance begets. Honour +them for their work; sympathise in it; give them a helping hand in it +whenever you have an opportunity--and what opportunities you have, I have +been trying to sketch for you to-night; and more, work at it yourselves +whenever and wherever you can. Show them that the spirit which animates +them--the hatred of ignorance and disorder, and of their bestial +consequences--animates you likewise; show them that the habit of mind +which they value in themselves--the habit of accurate observation and +careful judgment--is your habit likewise; show them that you value +science, not merely because it gives better weapons of destruction and of +defence, but because it helps you to become clear-headed, large-minded, +able to take a just and accurate view of any subject which comes before +you, and to cast away every old prejudice and every hasty judgment in the +face of truth and of duty: and it will be better for you and for them. + +But why? What need for the soldier and the man of science to fraternise +just now? This need:--The two classes which will have an increasing, it +may be a preponderating, influence on the fate of the human race for some +time, will be the pupils of Aristotle and those of Alexander--the men of +science and the soldiers. In spite of all appearances, and all +declamations to the contrary, that is my firm conviction. They, and they +alone, will be left to rule; because they alone, each in his own sphere, +have learnt to obey. It is therefore most needful for the welfare of +society that they should pull with, and not against each other; that they +should understand each other, respect each other, take counsel with each +other, supplement each other's defects, bring out each other's higher +tendencies, counteract each other's lower ones. The scientific man has +something to learn of you, gentlemen, which I doubt not that he will +learn in good time. You, again, have--as I have been hinting to you to- +night--something to learn of him, which you, I doubt not, will learn in +good time likewise. Repeat, each of you according to his powers, the old +friendship between Aristotle and Alexander; and so, from the sympathy and +co-operation of you two, a class of thinkers and actors may yet arise +which can save this nation, and the other civilised nations of the world, +from that of which I had rather not speak; and wish that I did not think, +too often and too earnestly. + +I may be a dreamer: and I may consider, in my turn, as wilder dreamers +than myself, certain persons who fancy that their only business in life +is to make money, the scientific man's only business is to show them how +to make money, and the soldier's only business to guard their money for +them. Be that as it may, the finest type of civilised man which we are +likely to see for some generations to come, will be produced by a +combination of the truly military with the truly scientific man. I say--I +may be a dreamer: but you at least, as well as my scientific friends, +will bear with me; for my dream is to your honour. + + + + +ON BIO-GEOLOGY. +AN ADDRESS GIVEN TO THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY OF WINCHESTER. + + +I am not sure that the subject of my address is rightly chosen. I am not +sure that I ought not to have postponed a question of mere natural +history, to speak to you, as scientific men, on the questions of life and +death, which have been forced upon us by the awful warning of an +illustrious personage's illness; of preventible disease, its frightful +prevalency; of the 200,000 persons who are said to have died of fever +alone since the Prince Consort's death, ten years ago; of the remedies; +of drainage; of sewage disinfection and utilisation; and of the +assistance which you, as a body of scientific men, can give to any effort +towards saving the lives and health of our fellow-citizens from those +unseen poisons which lurk like wild beasts couched in the jungle, ready +to spring at any moment on the unsuspecting, the innocent, the helpless. +Of all this I longed to speak: but I thought it best only to hint at it, +and leave the question to your common sense and your humanity; taking for +granted that your minds, like the minds of all right-minded Englishmen, +have been of late painfully awakened to its importance. It seemed to me +almost an impertinence to say more in a city of whose local circumstances +I know little or nothing. As an old sanitary reformer, practical, as +well as theoretical, I am but too well aware of the difficulties which +beset any complete scheme of drainage, especially in an ancient city like +this; where men are paying the penalty of their predecessors' ignorance; +and dwelling, whether they choose or not, over fifteen centuries of +accumulated dirt. + +And, therefore, taking for granted that there is energy and intellect +enough in Winchester to conquer these difficulties in due time, I go on +to ask you to consider, for a time, a subject which is growing more and +more important and interesting, a subject the study of which will do much +towards raising the field naturalist from a mere collector of +specimens--as he was twenty years ago--to a philosopher elucidating some +of the grandest problems. I mean the infant science of Bio-geology--the +science which treats of the distribution of plants and animals over the +globe, and the causes of that distribution. + +I doubt not that there are many here who know far more about the subject +than I; who are far better read than I am in the works of Forbes, Darwin, +Wallace, Hooker, Moritz Wagner, and the other illustrious men who have +written on it. But I may, perhaps, give a few hints which will be of use +to the younger members of this Society, and will point out to them how to +get a new relish for the pursuit of field science. + +Bio-geology, then, begins with asking every plant or animal you meet, +large or small, not merely--What is your name? That is the collector and +classifier's duty; and a most necessary duty it is, and one to be +performed with the most conscientious patience and accuracy, so that a +sound foundation may be built for future speculations. But young +naturalists should act not merely as Nature's registrars and +census-takers, but as her policemen and gamekeepers; and ask everything +they meet--How did you get here? By what road did you come? What was +your last place of abode? And now you are here, how do you get your +living? Are you and your children thriving, like decent people who can +take care of themselves, or growing pauperised and degraded, and dying +out? Not that we have a fear of your becoming a dangerous class. Madam +Nature allows no dangerous classes, in the modern sense. She has, +doubtless for some wise reason, no mercy for the weak. She rewards each +organism according to its works; and if anything grows too weak or stupid +to take care of itself, she gives it its due deserts by letting it die +and disappear. So, you plant or you animal, are you among the strong, +the successful, the multiplying, the colonising? Or are you among the +weak, the failing, the dwindling, the doomed? + +These questions may seem somewhat rude: but you may comfort yourself by +the thought that plants and animals, though they deserve all kindness, +all admiration, deserve no courtesy--at least in this respect. For they +are, one and all, wherever you find them, vagrants and landloupers, +intruders and conquerors, who have got where they happen to be simply by +the law of the strongest--generally not without a little robbery and +murder. They have no right save that of possession; the same by which +the puffin turns out the old rabbits, eats the young ones, and then lays +her eggs in the rabbit burrow--simply because she can. + +Now, you will see at once that such a course of questioning will call out +a great many curious and interesting answers, if you can only get the +things to tell you their story; as you always may, if you will +cross-examine them long enough; and will lead you into many subjects +beside mere botany or entomology. So various, indeed, are the subjects +which you will thus start, that I can only hint at them now in the most +cursory fashion. + +At the outset you will soon find yourself involved in chemical and +meteorological questions: as, for instance, when you ask--How is it that +I find one flora on the sea-shore, another on the sandstone, another on +the chalk, and another on the peat-making gravelly strata? The usual +answer would be, I presume--if we could work it out by twenty years' +experiment, such as Mr. Lawes, of Rothampsted, has been making on the +growth of grasses and leguminous plants in different soils and under +different manures--the usual answer, I say, would be--Because we plants +want such and such mineral constituents in our woody fibre; again, +because we want a certain amount of moisture at a certain period of the +year: or, perhaps, simply because the mechanical arrangement of the +particles of a certain soil happens to suit the shape of our roots and of +their stomata. Sometimes you will get an answer quickly enough; +sometimes not. If you ask, for instance, _Asplenium viride_ how it +contrives to grow plentifully in the Craven of Yorkshire down to 600 or +800 feet above the sea, while in Snowdon it dislikes growing lower than +2000 feet, and is not plentiful even there?--it will reply--Because in +the Craven I can get as much carbonic acid as I want from the decomposing +limestone: while on the Snowdon Silurian I get very little; and I have to +make it up by clinging to the mountain tops, for the sake of the greater +rainfall. But if you ask _Polopodium calcareum_--How is it you choose +only to grow on limestone, while _Polypodium Dryopteris_, of which, I +suspect, you are only a variety, is ready to grow anywhere?--_Polypodium +calcareum_ will refuse, as yet, to answer a word. + +Again--I can only give you the merest string of hints--you will find in +your questionings that many plants and animals have no reason at all to +show why they should be in one place and not in another, save the very +sound reason for the latter which was suggested to me once by a great +naturalist. I was asking--Why don't I find such and such a species in my +parish, while it is plentiful a few miles off in exactly the same +soil?--and he answered--For the same reason that you are not in America. +Because you have not got there. Which answer threw to me a flood of +light on this whole science. Things are often where they are, simply +because they happen to have got there, and not elsewhere. But they must +have got there by some means: and those means I want young naturalists to +discover; at least to guess at. + +A species, for instance--and I suspect it is a common case with +insects--may abound in a single spot, simply because, long years ago, a +single brood of eggs happened to hatch at a time when eggs of other +species, who would have competed against them for food, did not hatch; +and they may remain confined to that spot, though there is plenty of good +food for them outside it, simply because they do not increase fast enough +to require to spread out in search of more food. Thus I should explain a +case which I heard of lately of _Anthocera trifolii_, abundant for years +in one corner of a certain field, and only there; while there was just as +much trefoil all round for its larvae as there was in the selected spot. +I can, I say, only give hints: but they will suffice, I hope, to show the +path of thought into which I want young naturalists to turn their minds. + +Or, again, you will have to inquire whether the species has not been +prevented from spreading by some natural barrier. Mr. Wallace, whom you +all of course know, has shown in his 'Malay Archipelago' that a strait of +deep sea can act as such a barrier between species. Moritz Wagner has +shown that, in the case of insects, a moderately broad river may divide +two closely allied species of beetles, or a very narrow snow-range two +closely allied species of moths. + +Again, another cause, and a most common one is: that the plants cannot +spread because they find the ground beyond them already occupied by other +plants, who will not tolerate a fresh mouth, having only just enough to +feed themselves. Take the case of _Saxifraga hypnoides_ and _S. +umbrosa_, "London pride." They are two especially strong species. They +show that, _S. hypnoides_ especially, by their power of sporting, of +diverging into varieties; they show it equally by their power of thriving +anywhere, if they can only get there. They will both grow in my sandy +garden, under a rainfall of only 23 inches, more luxuriantly than in +their native mountains under a rainfall of 50 or 60 inches. Then how is +it that _S. hypnoides_ cannot get down off the mountains; and that _S. +umbrosa_, though in Kerry it has got off the mountains and down to the +sea level, exterminating, I suspect, many species in its progress, yet +cannot get across county Cork? The only answer is, I believe: that both +species are continually trying to go ahead; but that the other plants +already in front of them are too strong for them, and massacre their +infants as soon as born. + +And this brings us to another curious question: the sudden and abundant +appearance of plants, like the foxglove and _Epilobium angustifolium_, in +spots where they have never been seen before. Are their seeds, as some +think, dormant in the ground; or are the seeds which have germinated +fresh ones wafted thither by wind or otherwise, and only able to +germinate in that one spot, because there the soil is clear? General +Monro, now famous for his unequalled memoir on the bamboos, holds to the +latter theory. He pointed out to me that the _Epilobium_ seeds, being +feathered, could travel with the wind; that the plant always made its +appearance first on new banks, landslips, clearings, where it had nothing +to compete against; and that the foxglove did the same. True, and most +painfully true, in the case of thistles and groundsels: but foxglove +seeds, though minute, would hardly be carried by the wind any more than +those of the white clover, which comes up so abundantly in drained fens. +Adhuc sub judice lis est, and I wish some young naturalists would work +carefully at the solution; by experiment, which is the most sure way to +find out anything. + +But in researches in this direction they will find puzzles enough. I +will give them one which I shall be most thankful to hear they have +solved within the next seven years--How is it that we find certain +plants, namely, the thrift and the scurvy grass, abundant on the +sea-shore and common on certain mountain-tops, but nowhere between the +two? Answer me that. For I have looked at the fact for years--before, +behind, sideways, upside down, and inside out--and I cannot understand +it. + +But all these questions, and specially, I suspect, that last one, ought +to lead the young student up to the great and complex question--How were +these islands re-peopled with plants and animals, after the long and +wholesale catastrophe of the glacial epoch? + +I presume you all know, and will agree, that the whole of these islands, +north of the Thames, save certain ice-clad mountain-tops, were buried for +long ages under an icy sea. From whence did vegetable and animal life +crawl back to the land, as it rose again; and cover its mantle of glacial +drift with fresh life and verdure? + +Now let me give you a few prolegomena on this matter. You must study the +plants of course, species by species. Take Watson's 'Cybele Britannica,' +and Moore's 'Cybele Hibernica;' and let--as Mr. Matthew Arnold would +say--"your thought play freely about them." Look carefully, too, in the +case of each species, at the note on its distribution, which you will +find appended in Bentham's 'Handbook,' and in Hooker's 'Student's Flora.' +Get all the help you can, if you wish to work the subject out, from +foreign botanists, both European and American; and I think that, on the +whole, you will come to some such theory as this for a general starting +platform. We do not owe our flora--I must keep to the flora just now--to +so many different regions, or types, as Mr. Watson conceives, but to +three, namely: an European or Germanic flora, from the south-east; an +Atlantic flora, from the south-west; a Northern flora from the north. +These three invaded us after the glacial epoch; and our general flora is +their result. + +But this will cause you much trouble. Before you go a step further you +will have to eliminate from all your calculations most of the plants +which Watson calls glareal, _i.e_. found in cultivated ground about +habitations. And what their limit may be I think we never shall know. +But of this we may be sure; that just as invading armies always bring +with them, in forage or otherwise, some plants from their own +country--just as the Cossacks, in 1815, brought more than one Russian +plant through Germany into France--just as you have already a crop of +North German plants upon the battle-fields of France--thus do conquering +races bring new plants. The Romans, during their 300 or 400 years of +occupation and civilisation, must have brought more species, I believe, +than I dare mention. I suspect them of having brought, not merely the +common hedge elm of the south, not merely the three species of nettle, +but all our red poppies, and a great number of the weeds which are common +in our cornfields; and when we add to them the plants which may have been +brought by returning crusaders and pilgrims; by monks from every part of +Europe, by Flemings or other dealers in foreign wool; we have to cut a +huge cantle out of our indigenous flora: only, having no records, we +hardly know where and what to cut out; and can only, we elder ones, +recommend the subject to the notice of the younger botanists, that they +may work it out after our work is done. + +Of course these plants introduced by man, if they are cut out, must be +cut out of only one of the floras, namely, the European; for they, +probably, came from the south-east, by whatever means they came. + +That European flora invaded us, I presume, immediately after the glacial +epoch, at a time when France and England were united, and the German +Ocean a mere network of rivers, which emptied into the deep sea between +Scotland and Scandinavia. And here I must add, that endless questions of +interest will arise to those who will study, not merely the invasion of +that truly European flora, but the invasion of reptiles, insects, and +birds, especially birds of passage, which must have followed it as soon +as the land was sufficiently covered with vegetation to support life. +Whole volumes remain to be written on this subject. I trust that some of +your younger members may live to write one of them. The way to begin +will be: to compare the flora and fauna of this part of England very +carefully with that of the southern and eastern counties; and then to +compare them again with the fauna and flora of France, Belgium, and +Holland. + +As for the Atlantic flora, you will have to decide for yourselves whether +you accept or not the theory of a sunken Atlantic continent. I confess +that all objections to that theory, however astounding it may seem, are +outweighed in my mind by a host of facts which I can explain by no other +theory. But you must judge for yourselves; and to do so you must study +carefully the distribution of heaths, both in Europe and at the Cape; and +their non-appearance beyond the Ural Mountains, and in America, save in +Labrador, where the common ling, an older and less specialised form, +exists. You must consider, too, the plants common to the Azores, +Portugal, the West of England, Ireland, and the Western Hebrides. In so +doing young naturalists will at least find proofs of a change in the +distribution of land and water, which will utterly astound them when they +face it for the first time. + +As for the Northern flora, the question whence it came is puzzling +enough. It seems difficult to conceive how any plants could have +survived when Scotland was an archipelago in the same ice-covered +condition as Greenland is now; and we have no proof that there existed +after the glacial epoch any northern continent from which the plants and +animals could have come back to us. The species of plants and animals +common to Britain, Scandinavia, and North America, must have spread in +pre-glacial times, when a continent joining them did exist. + +But some light has been thrown on this question by an article, as +charming as it is able, on "The Physics of the Arctic Ice," by Dr. Brown, +of Campster. You will find it in the 'Quarterly Journal of the +Geological Society' for February 1870. He shows there that even in +Greenland peaks and crags are left free enough from ice to support a +vegetation of between 300 or 400 species of flowering plants; and, +therefore, he well says, we must be careful to avoid concluding that the +plant and animal life on the dreary shores or mountain-tops of the old +glacial Scotland was poor. The same would hold good of our mountains; +and, if so, we may look with respect, even with awe, on the Alpine plants +of Wales, Scotland, and the Lake mountains, as organisms stunted, it may +be, and even degraded, by their long battle with the elements; but +venerable from their age, historic from their endurance. Relics of an +older temperate world, they have lived through thousands of centuries of +frost and fog, to sun themselves in a temperate climate once more. I can +never pick one of them without a tinge of shame; and to exterminate one +of them is to destroy for the mere pleasure of collecting the last of a +family which God has taken the trouble to preserve for thousands of +centuries. + +I trust that these hints--for I can call them nothing more--will at least +awaken any young naturalist who has hitherto only collected natural +objects, to study the really important and interesting question--How did +these things get here? + +Now hence arise questions which may puzzle the mind of a Hampshire +naturalist. You have in this neighbourhood, as you well know, two, or +rather three, soils, each carrying its peculiar vegetation. First, you +have the clay lying on the chalk, and carrying vast woodlands, seemingly +primeval. Next, you have the chalk, with its peculiar, delicate, and +often fragrant crop of lime-loving plants; and next you have the poor +sands and clays of the New Forest basin, saturated with iron, and +therefore carrying a moorland or peat-loving vegetation, in many respects +quite different from the others. And this moorland soil, and this +vegetation, with a few singular exceptions, repeats itself, as I daresay +you know, in the north of the county, in the Bagshot basin, as it is +called--the moors of Aldershot, Hartford Bridge, and Windsor Forest. + +Now what a variety of interesting questions are opened up by these simple +facts. How did these three floras get each to its present place? Where +did each come from? How did it get past or through the other, till each +set of plants, after long internecine competition, settled itself down in +the sheet of land most congenial to it? And when did each come hither? +Which is the oldest? Will any one tell me whether the heathy flora of +the moors, or the thymy flora of the chalk downs, were the earlier +inhabitants of these isles? To these questions I cannot get any answer; +and they cannot be answered without first--a very careful study of the +range of each species of plant on the continent of Europe; and next, +without careful study of those stupendous changes in the shape of this +island which have taken place at a very late geological epoch. The +composition of the flora of our moorlands is as yet to me an utter +puzzle. We have Lycopodiums--three species--enormously ancient forms +which have survived the age of ice: but did they crawl downward hither +from the northern mountains, or upward hither from the Pyrenees? We have +the beautiful bog asphodel again--an enormously ancient form; for it is, +strange to say, common to North America and to Northern Europe, but does +not enter Asia--almost an unique instance. It must, surely, have come +from the north; and points--as do many species of plants and animals--to +the time when North Europe and North America were joined. We have, +sparingly, in North Hampshire, though, strangely, not on the Bagshot +moors, the Common or Northern Butterwort (_Pinguicula vulgaris_); and +also, in the south, the New Forest part of the county, the delicate +little _Pinguicula lusitanica_, the only species now found in Devon and +Cornwall, marking the New Forest as the extreme eastern limit of the +Atlantic flora. We have again the heaths, which, as I have just said, +are found neither in America nor in Asia, and must, I believe, have come +from some south-western land long since submerged beneath the sea. But +more, we have in the New Forest two plants which are members of the South +Europe, or properly, the Atlantic flora; which must have come from the +south and south-east; and which are found in no other spots in these +islands. I mean the lovely _Gladiolus_, which grows abundantly under the +ferns near Lyndhurst, certainly wild but it does not approach England +elsewhere nearer than the Loire and the Rhine; and next, that delicate +orchid, the _Spiranthes aestivalis_, which is known only in a bog near +Lyndhurst and in the Channel Islands, while on the Continent it extends +from southern Europe all through France. Now, what do these two plants +mark? They give us a point in botany, though not in time, to determine +when the south of England was parted from the opposite shores of France; +and whenever that was, it was just after the Gladiolus and Spiranthes got +hither. Two little colonies of these lovely flowers arrived just before +their retreat was cut off. They found the country already occupied with +other plants; and, not being reinforced by fresh colonists from the +south, have not been able to spread farther north than Lyndhurst. Thus, +in the New Forest, and, I may say, in the Bagshot moors, you find plants +which you do not expect, and do not find plants which you do expect; and +you are, or ought to be, puzzled, and I hope also interested, and stirred +up to find out more. + +I spoke just now of the time when England was joined to France, as +bearing on Hampshire botany. It bears no less on Hampshire zoology. In +insects, for instance, the presence of the purple emperor and the white +admiral in our Hampshire woods, as well as the abundance of the great +stag-beetle, point to a time when the two countries were joined, at +least, as far west as Hampshire; while the absence of these insects +farther to the westward shows that the countries, if ever joined, were +already parted; and that those insects have not yet had time to spread +westward. The presence of these two butterflies, and partly of the stag- +beetle, along the south-east coast of England as far as the primeval +forests of South Lincolnshire, points--as do a hundred other facts--to a +time when the Straits of Dover either did not exist, or were the bed of a +river running from the west; and when, as I told you just now, all the +rivers which now run into the German Ocean, from the Humber on the west +to the Elbe on the east, discharged themselves into the sea between +Scotland and Norway, after wandering through a vast lowland, covered with +countless herds of mammoth, rhinoceros, gigantic ox, and other mammals +now extinct; while the birds, as far as we know; the insects; the fresh- +water fish; and even, as my friend Mr. Brady has proved, the +_Entomostraca_ of the rivers, were the same in what is now Holland as in +what is now our Eastern counties. I could dwell long on this matter. I +could talk long about how certain species of _Lepidoptera_--moths and +butterflies--like _Papilio Machaon_ and _P. Podalirius_, swarm through +France, reach up to the British Channel, and have not crossed it; with +the exception of one colony of _Machaon_ in the Cambridgeshire fens. I +could talk long about a similar phenomenon in the case of our migratory +and singing birds: how many exquisite species--notably those two glorious +songsters, the Orphean Warbler and Hippolais, which delight our ears +everywhere on the other side of the Channel--follow our nightingales, +blackcaps, and warblers northward every spring almost to the Straits of +Dover: but dare not cross, simply because they have been, as it were, +created since the gulf was opened, and have never learnt from their +parents how to fly over it. + +In the case of fishes, again, I might say much on the curious fact that +the Cyprinidae, or white fish--carp, &c.--and their natural enemy, the +pike, are indigenous, I believe, only to the rivers, English or +continental, on the eastern side of the Straits of Dover; while the +rivers on the western side were originally tenanted, like our Hampshire +streams, as now, almost entirely by trout, their only Cyprinoid being the +minnow--if it, too, be not an interloper; and I might ask you to consider +the bearing of this curious fact on the former junction of England and +France. + +But I have only time to point out to you a few curious facts with regard +to reptiles, which should be specially interesting to a Hampshire bio- +geologist. You know, of course, that in Ireland there are no reptiles, +save the little common lizard, _Lacerta agilis_, and a few frogs on the +mountain-tops--how they got there I cannot conceive. And you will, of +course, guess, and rightly, that the reason of the absence of reptiles +is: that Ireland was parted off from England before the creatures, which +certainly spread from southern and warmer climates, had time to get +there. You know, of course, that we have a few reptiles in England. But +you may not be aware that, as soon as you cross the Channel, you find +many more species of reptiles than here, as well as those which you find +here. The magnificent green lizard which rattles about like a rabbit in +a French forest, is never found here; simply because it had not worked +northward till after the Channel was formed. But there are three +reptiles peculiar to this part of England which should be most +interesting to a Hampshire zoologist. The one is the sand lizard (_L. +stirpium_), found on Bourne-heath, and, I suspect, in the South Hampshire +moors likewise--a North European and French species. Another, the +_Coronella laevis_, a harmless French and Austrian snake, which has been +found about me, in North Hants and South Berks, now about fifteen or +twenty times. I have had three specimens from my own parish. I believe +it not to be uncommon; and most probably to be found, by those who will +look, both in the New Forest and Woolmer. The third is the Natterjack, +or running toad (_Bufo Rubeta_), a most beautifully spotted animal, with +a yellow stripe down his back, which is common with me at Eversley, and +common also in many moorlands of Hants and Surrey; and, according to +Fleming, on heaths near London, and as far north-east as Lincolnshire; in +which case it will belong to the Germanic fauna. Now, here again we have +cases of animals which have just been able to get hither before the +severance of England and France; and which, not being reinforced from the +rear, have been forced to stop, in small and probably decreasing +colonies, on the spots nearest the coast which were fit for them. + +I trust that I have not kept you too long over these details. What I +wish to impress upon you is that Hampshire is a county specially fitted +for the study of important bio-geological questions. + +To work them out, you must trace the geology of Hampshire, and, indeed, +of East Dorset. You must try to form a conception of how the land was +shaped in miocene times, before that tremendous upheaval which reared the +chalk cliffs at Freshwater upright, lifting the tertiary beds upon their +northern slopes. You must ask--Was there not land to the south of the +Isle of Wight in those ages, and for ages after; and what was its extent +and shape? You must ask--When was the gap between the Isle of Wight and +the Isle of Purbeck sawn through, leaving the Needles as remnants on one +side, and Old Harry on the opposite? And was it sawn asunder merely by +the age-long gnawing of the waves? You must ask--Where did the great +river which ran from the west, where Poole Harbour is now, and probably +through what is now the Solent, depositing brackish water-beds right and +left--where, I say, did it run into the sea? Where the Straits of Dover +are now? Or, if not there, where? What, too, is become of the land to +the Westward, composed of ancient metamorphic rocks, out of which it ran, +and deposited on what are now the Haggerstone Moors of Poole, vast beds +of grit? What was the climate on its banks when it washed down the +delicate leaves of broad-leaved trees, akin to our modern English ones, +which are found in the fine mud-sand strata of Bournemouth? When, +finally, did it dwindle down to the brook which now runs through Wareham +town? Was its bed sea, or dry land, or under an ice sheet, during the +long ages of the glacial epoch? And if you say--Who is sufficient for +these things?--Who can answer these questions? I answer--Who but you, or +your pupils after you, if you will but try? + +And if any shall reply--And what use if I do try? What use, if I do try? +What use if I succeed in answering every question which you have +propounded to-night? Shall I be the happier for it? Shall I be the +wiser? + +My friends, whether you will be the happier for it, or for any knowledge +of physical science, or for any other knowledge whatsoever, I cannot +tell: that lies in the decision of a Higher Power than I; and, indeed, to +speak honestly, I do not think that bio-geology or any other branch of +physical science is likely, at first at least, to make you happy. Neither +is the study of your fellow-men. Neither is religion itself. We were +not sent into the world to be happy, but to be right; at least, poor +creatures that we are, as right as we can be; and we must be content with +being right, and not happy. For I fear, or rather I hope, that most of +us are not capable of carrying out Talleyrand's recipe for perfect +happiness on earth--namely, a hard heart and a good digestion. Therefore, +as our hearts are, happily, not always hard, and our digestions, +unhappily, not always good, we will be content to be made wise by +physical science, even though we be not made happy. + +And we shall be made truly wise if we be made content; content, too, not +only with what we can understand, but, content with what we do not +understand--the habit of mind which theologians call--and rightly--faith +in God; the true and solid faith, which comes often out of sadness, and +out of doubt, such as bio-geology may well stir in us at first sight. For +our first feeling will be--I know mine was when I began to look into +these matters--one somewhat of dread and of horror. + +Here were all these creatures, animal and vegetable, competing against +each other. And their competition was so earnest and complete, that it +did not mean--as it does among honest shopkeepers in a civilised +country--I will make a little more money than you; but--I will crush you, +enslave you, exterminate you, eat you up. "Woe to the weak," seems to be +Nature's watchword. The Psalmist says, "The righteous shall inherit the +land." If you go to a tropical forest, or, indeed, if you observe +carefully a square acre of any English land, cultivated or uncultivated, +you will find that Nature's text at first sight looks a very different +one. She seems to say--Not the righteous, but the strong, shall inherit +the land. Plant, insect, bird, what not--Find a weaker plant, insect, +bird, than yourself, and kill it, and take possession of its little +vineyard, and no Naboth's curse shall follow you: but you shall inherit, +and thrive therein, you, and your children after you, if they will be +only as strong and as cruel as you are. That is Nature's law: and is it +not at first sight a fearful law? Internecine competition, ruthless +selfishness, so internecine and so ruthless that, as I have wandered in +tropic forests, where this temper is shown more quickly and fiercely, +though not in the least more evilly, than in our slow and cold temperate +one, I have said--Really these trees and plants are as wicked as so many +human beings. + +Throughout the great republic of the organic world, the motto of the +majority is, and always has been as far back as we can see, what it is, +and always has been, with the majority of human beings, "Every one for +himself, and the devil take the hindmost." Over-reaching tyranny; the +temper which fawns, and clings, and plays the parasite as long as it is +down, and when it has risen, fattens on its patron's blood and +life--these, and the other works of the flesh, are the works of average +plants and animals, as far as they can practise them. At least, so says +at first sight the science of bio-geology; till the naturalist, if he be +also human and humane, is glad to escape from the confusion and darkness +of the universal battle-field of selfishness into the order and light of +Christmas-tide. + +For then there comes to him the thought--And are these all the facts? And +is this all which the facts mean? That mutual competition is one law of +Nature, we see too plainly. But is there not, besides that law, a law of +mutual help? True it is, as the wise man has said, that the very hyssop +on the wall grows there because all the forces of the universe could not +prevent its growing. All honour to the hyssop. A brave plant, it has +fought a brave fight, and has its just deserts--as everything in Nature +has--and so has won. But did all the powers of the universe combine to +prevent it growing? Is not that a one-sided statement of facts? Did not +all the powers of the universe also combine to make it grow, if only it +had valour and worth wherewith to grow? Did not the rains feed it, the +very mortar in the wall give lime to its roots? Were not electricity, +gravitation, and I know not what of chemical and mechanical forces, busy +about the little plant, and every cell of it, kindly and patiently ready +to help it, if it would only help itself? Surely this is true; true of +every organic thing, animal and vegetable, and mineral, too, for aught I +know: and so we must soften our sadness at the sight of the universal +mutual war by the sight of an equally universal mutual help. + +But more. It is true--too true if you will--that all things live on each +other. But is it not, therefore, equally true that all things live for +each other?--that self-sacrifice, and not selfishness, is at the bottom +the law of Nature, as it is the law of Grace; and the law of bio-geology, +as it is the law of all religion and virtue worthy of the name? Is it +not true that everything has to help something else to live, whether it +knows it or not?--that not a plant or an animal can turn again to its +dust without giving food and existence to other plants, other +animals?--that the very tiger, seemingly the most useless tyrant of all +tyrants, is still of use, when, after sending out of the world suddenly, +and all but painlessly, many an animal which would without him have +starved in misery through a diseased old age, he himself dies, and, in +dying, gives, by his own carcase, the means of life and of enjoyment to a +thousandfold more living creatures than ever his paws destroyed? + +And so, the longer one watches the great struggle for existence, the more +charitable, the more hopeful, one becomes; as one sees that, consciously +or unconsciously, the law of Nature is, after all, self-sacrifice; +unconscious in plants and animals, as far as we know; save always those +magnificent instances of true self-sacrifice shown by the social insects, +by ants, bees, and others, which put to shame by a civilization truly +noble--why should I not say divine, for God ordained it?--the selfishness +and barbarism of man. But be that as it may, in man the law of +self-sacrifice--whether unconscious or not in the animals--rises into +consciousness just as far as he is a man; and the crowning lesson of bio- +geology may be, when we have worked it out, after all, the lesson of +Christmas-tide--of the infinite self-sacrifice of God for man; and Nature +as well as religion may say to us-- + + "Ah, could you crush that ever craving lust + For bliss, which kills all bliss, and lose your life, + Your barren unit life, to find again + A thousand times in those for whom you die-- + So were you men and women, and should hold + Your rightful rank in God's great universe, + Wherein, in heaven or earth, by will or nature, + Naught lives for self. All, all, from crown to base-- + The Lamb, before the world's foundation slain-- + The angels, ministers to God's elect-- + The sun, who only shines to light the worlds-- + The clouds, whose glory is to die in showers-- + The fleeting streams, who in their ocean graves + Flee the decay of stagnant self-content-- + The oak, ennobled by the shipwright's axe-- + The soil, which yields its marrow to the flower-- + The flower, which feeds a thousand velvet worms + Born only to be prey to every bird-- + All spend themselves on others: and shall man, + Whose two-fold being is the mystic knot + Which couples earth with heaven, doubly bound, + As being both worm and angel, to that service + By which both worms and angels hold their life, + Shall he, whose every breath is debt on debt, + Refuse, forsooth, to be what God has made him? + No; let him show himself the creatures' Lord + By free-will gift of that self-sacrifice + Which they, perforce, by Nature's laws endure." + +My friends, scientific and others, if the study of bio-geology shall help +to teach you this, or anything like this; I think that though it may not +make you more happy, it may yet make you more wise; and, therefore, what +is better than being more happy, namely, more blessed. + + + + +HEROISM + + +It is an open question whether the policeman is not demoralizing us; and +that in proportion as he does his duty well; whether the perfection of +justice and safety, the complete "preservation of body and goods," may +not reduce the educated and comfortable classes into that lap-dog +condition in which not conscience, but comfort, doth make cowards of us +all. Our forefathers had, on the whole, to take care of themselves; we +find it more convenient to hire people to take care of us. So much the +better for us, in some respects: but, it may be, so much the worse in +others. So much the better; because, as usually results from the +division of labour, these people, having little or nothing to do save to +take care of us, do so far better than we could; and so prevent a vast +amount of violence and wrong, and therefore of misery, especially to the +weak: for which last reason we will acquiesce in the existence of +policemen and lawyers, as we do in the results of arbitration, as the +lesser of two evils. The odds in war are in favour of the bigger bully; +in arbitration, in favour of the bigger rogue; and it is a question +whether the lion or the fox be the safer guardian of human interests. But +arbitration prevents war: and that, in three cases out of four, is full +reason for employing it. + +On the other hand, the lap-dog condition, whether in dogs or in men, is +certainly unfavourable to the growth of the higher virtues. Safety and +comfort are good, indeed, for the good; for the brave, the +self-originating, the earnest. They give to such a clear stage and no +favour wherein to work unhindered for their fellow-men. But for the +majority, who are neither brave, self-originating, nor earnest, but the +mere puppets of circumstance, safety and comfort may, and actually do, +merely make their lives mean and petty, effeminate and dull. Therefore +their hearts must be awakened, as often as possible, to take exercise +enough for health; and they must be reminded, perpetually and +importunately, of what a certain great philosopher called "whatsoever +things are true, honourable, just, pure, lovely, and of good report;" "if +there be any manhood, and any just praise, to think of such things." + +This pettiness and dulness of our modern life is just what keeps alive +our stage, to which people go to see something a little less petty, a +little less dull, than what they see at home. It is, too, the cause of--I +had almost said the excuse for--the modern rage for sensational novels. +Those who read them so greedily are conscious, poor souls, of capacities +in themselves of passion and action, for good and evil, for which their +frivolous humdrum daily life gives no room, no vent. They know too well +that human nature can be more fertile, whether in weeds and poisons, or +in flowers and fruits, than it is usually in the streets and houses of a +well-ordered and tolerably sober city. And because the study of human +nature is, after all, that which is nearest to every one and most +interesting to every one, therefore they go to fiction, since they cannot +go to fact, to see what they themselves might be had they the chance; to +see what fantastic tricks before high heaven men and women like +themselves can play; and how they play them. + +Well: it is not for me to judge, for me to blame. I will only say that +there are those who cannot read sensational novels, or, indeed, any +novels at all, just because they see so many sensational novels being +enacted round them in painful facts of sinful flesh and blood. There are +those, too, who have looked in the mirror too often to wish to see their +own disfigured visage in it any more; who are too tired of themselves and +ashamed of themselves to want to hear of people like themselves; who want +to hear of people utterly unlike themselves, more noble, and able, and +just, and sweet, and pure; who long to hear of heroism and to converse +with heroes; and who, if by chance they meet with an heroic act, bathe +their spirits in that, as in May-dew, and feel themselves thereby, if but +for an hour, more fair. + +If any such shall chance to see these words, let me ask them to consider +with me that one word Hero, and what it means. + +Hero; Heroic; Heroism. These words point to a phase of human nature, the +capacity for which we all have in ourselves, which is as startling and as +interesting in its manifestations as any, and which is always beautiful, +always ennobling, and therefore always attractive to those whose hearts +are not yet seared by the world or brutalized by self-indulgence. + +But let us first be sure what the words mean. There is no use talking +about a word till we have got at its meaning. We may use it as a cant +phrase, as a party cry on platforms; we may even hate and persecute our +fellow-men for the sake of it: but till we have clearly settled in our +own minds what a word means, it will do for fighting with, but not for +working with. Socrates of old used to tell the young Athenians that the +ground of all sound knowledge was--to understand the true meaning of the +words which were in their mouths all day long; and Socrates was a wiser +man than we shall ever see. So, instead of beginning an oration in +praise of heroism, I shall ask my readers to think with me what heroism +is. + +Now, we shall always get most surely at the meaning of a word by getting +at its etymology--that is, at what it meant at first. And if heroism +means behaving like a hero, we must find out, it seems to me, not merely +what a hero may happen to mean just now, but what it meant in the +earliest human speech in which we find it. + +A hero or a heroine, then, among the old Homeric Greeks, meant a man or +woman who was like the gods; and who, from that likeness, stood superior +to his or her fellow-creatures. Gods, heroes, and men, is a threefold +division of rational beings, with which we meet more than once or twice. +Those grand old Greeks felt deeply the truth of the poet's saying-- + + "Unless above himself he can + Exalt himself, how poor a thing is man." + +But more: the Greeks supposed these heroes to be, in some way or other, +partakers of a divine nature; akin to the gods; usually, either they, or +some ancestor of theirs, descended from a god or goddess. Those who have +read Mr. Gladstone's 'Juventus Mundi' will remember the section (cap. ix. +section 6) on the modes of the approximation between the divine and the +human natures; and whether or not they agree with the author altogether, +all will agree, I think, that the first idea of a hero or a heroine was a +godlike man or godlike woman. + +A godlike man. What varied, what infinite forms of nobleness that word +might include, ever increasing, as men's notions of the gods became purer +and loftier, or, alas! decreasing, as their notions became degraded. The +old Greeks, with that intense admiration of beauty which made them, in +after ages, the master sculptors and draughtsmen of their own, and, +indeed, of any age, would, of course, require in their hero, their +godlike man, beauty and strength, manners, too, and eloquence, and all +outward perfections of humanity, and neglect his moral qualities. +Neglect, I say, but not ignore. The hero, by virtue of his kindred with +the gods, was always expected to be a better man than common men, as +virtue was then understood. And how better? Let us see. + +The hero was at least expected to be more reverent than other men to +those divine beings of whose nature he partook, whose society he might +enjoy even here on earth. He might be unfaithful to his own high +lineage; he might misuse his gifts by selfishness and self-will; he +might, like Ajax, rage with mere jealousy and wounded pride till his rage +ended in shameful madness and suicide. He might rebel against the very +gods, and all laws of right and wrong, till he perished in his [Greek +text], + + "Smitten down, blind in his pride, for a sign and a terror to + mortals." + +But he ought to have, he must have, to be true to his name of Hero, +justice, self-restraint, and [Greek text]--that highest form of modesty, +for which we have, alas! no name in the English tongue; that perfect +respect for the feelings of others which springs out of perfect +self-respect. And he must have, too--if he were to be a hero of the +highest type--the instinct of helpfulness; the instinct that, if he were +a kinsman of the gods, he must fight on their side, through toil and +danger, against all that was unlike them, and therefore hateful to them. +Who loves not the old legends, unsurpassed for beauty in the literature +of any race, in which the hero stands out as the deliverer, the destroyer +of evil? Theseus ridding the land of robbers, and delivering it from the +yearly tribute of boys and maidens to be devoured by the Minotaur; +Perseus slaying the Gorgon, and rescuing Andromeda from the sea-beast; +Heracles with his twelve famous labours against giants and monsters; and +all the rest-- + + "Who dared, in the god-given might of their manhood + Greatly to do and to suffer, and far in the fens and the forests + Smite the devourers of men, heaven-hated, brood of the giants; + Transformed, strange, without like, who obey not the golden-haired + rulers"-- + +These are figures whose divine moral beauty has sunk into the hearts, not +merely of poets or of artists, but of men and women who suffered and who +feared; the memory of them, fables though they may have been, ennobled +the old Greek heart; they ennobled the heart of Europe in the fifteenth +century, at the rediscovery of Greek literature. So far from +contradicting the Christian ideal, they harmonised with--I had almost +said they supplemented--that more tender and saintly ideal of heroism +which had sprung up during the earlier Middle Ages. They justified, and +actually gave a new life to, the old noblenesses of chivalry, which had +grown up in the later Middle Ages as a necessary supplement of active and +manly virtue to the passive and feminine virtue of the cloister. They +inspired, mingling with these two other elements, a literature, both in +England, France, and Italy, in which the three elements, the saintly, the +chivalrous, and the Greek heroic, have become one and undistinguishable, +because all three are human, and all three divine; a literature which +developed itself in Ariosto, in Tasso, in the Hypnerotomachia, the +Arcadia, the Euphues, and other forms, sometimes fantastic, sometimes +questionable, but which reached its perfection in our own Spenser's +'Fairy Queen'--perhaps the most admirable poem which has ever been penned +by mortal man. + +And why? What has made these old Greek myths live, myths though they be, +and fables, and fair dreams? What, though they have no body, and, +perhaps, never had, has given them an immortal soul, which can speak to +the immortal souls of all generations to come? + +What but this, that in them--dim it may be and undeveloped, but still +there--lies the divine idea of self-sacrifice as the perfection of +heroism; of self-sacrifice, as the highest duty and the highest joy of +him who claims a kindred with the gods? + +Let us say, then, that true heroism must involve self-sacrifice. Those +stories certainly involve it, whether ancient or modern, which the +hearts, not of philosophers merely, or poets, but of the poorest and the +most ignorant, have accepted instinctively as the highest form of moral +beauty--the highest form, and yet one possible to all. + +Grace Darling rowing out into the storm toward the wreck.--The "drunken +private of the Buffs," who, prisoner among the Chinese, and commanded to +prostrate himself and kotoo, refused in the name of his country's +honour--"He would not bow to any Chinaman on earth:" and so was knocked +on the head, and died surely a hero's death.--Those soldiers of the +'Birkenhead,' keeping their ranks to let the women and children escape, +while they watched the sharks who in a few minutes would be tearing them +limb from limb.--Or, to go across the Atlantic--for there are heroes in +the Far West--Mr. Bret Harte's "Flynn of Virginia," on the Central +Pacific Railway--the place is shown to travellers--who sacrificed his +life for his married comrade,-- + + "There, in the drift, + Back to the wall, + He held the timbers + Ready to fall. + Then in the darkness + I heard him call,-- + 'Run for your life, Jake! + Run for your wife's sake! + Don't wait for me.' + + "And that was all + Heard in the din-- + Heard of Tom Flynn, + Flynn of Virginia." + +Or the engineer, again, on the Mississippi, who, when the steamer caught +fire, held, as he had sworn he would, her bow against the bank till every +soul save he got safe on shore,-- + + "Through the hot black breath of the burning boat + Jim Bludso's voice was heard; + And they all had trust in his cussedness, + And knew he would keep his word. + And sure's you're born, they all got off + Afore the smokestacks fell,-- + And Bludso's ghost went up alone + In the smoke of the 'Prairie Belle.' + + "He weren't no saint--but at judgment + I'd run my chance with Jim + 'Longside of some pious gentlemen + That wouldn't shake hands with him. + He'd seen his duty--a dead sure thing-- + And went for it there and then; + And Christ is not going to be too hard + On a man that died for men." + +To which gallant poem of Colonel John Hay's--and he has written many +gallant and beautiful poems--I have but one demurrer: Jim Bludso did not +merely do his duty, but more than his duty. He did a voluntary deed, to +which he was bound by no code or contract, civil or moral; just as he who +introduced me to that poem won his Victoria Cross--as many a cross, +Victoria and other, has been won--by volunteering for a deed to which he, +too, was bound by no code or contract, military or moral. And it is of +the essence of self-sacrifice, and, therefore, of heroism, that it should +be voluntary; a work of supererogation, at least towards society and man: +an act to which the hero or heroine is not bound by duty, but which is +above though not against duty. + +Nay, on the strength of that same element of self-sacrifice, I will not +grudge the epithet heroic, which my revered friend Mr. Darwin justly +applies to the poor little monkey, who once in his life did that which +was above his duty; who lived in continual terror of the great baboon, +and yet, when the brute had sprung upon his friend the keeper, and was +tearing out his throat, conquered his fear by love, and, at the risk of +instant death, sprang in turn upon his dreaded enemy, and bit and +shrieked till help arrived. + +Some would now-a-days use that story merely to prove that the monkey's +nature and the man's nature are, after all, one and the same. Well: I, +at least, have never denied that there is a monkey-nature in man as there +is a peacock-nature, and a swine-nature, and a wolf-nature--of all which +four I see every day too much. The sharp and stern distinction between +men and animals, as far as their natures are concerned, is of a more +modern origin than people fancy. Of old the Assyrian took the eagle, the +ox, and the lion--and not unwisely--as the three highest types of human +capacity. The horses of Homer might be immortal, and weep for their +master's death. The animals and monsters of Greek myth--like the Ananzi +spider of Negro fable--glide insensibly into speech and reason. Birds--the +most wonderful of all animals in the eyes of a man of science or a +poet--are sometimes looked on as wiser, and nearer to the gods, than man. +The Norseman--the noblest and ablest human being, save the Greek, of whom +history can tell us--was not ashamed to say of the bear of his native +forests that he had "ten men's strength and eleven men's wisdom." How +could Reinecke Fuchs have gained immortality, in the Middle Ages and +since, save by the truth of its too solid and humiliating theorem--that +the actions of the world of men were, on the whole, guided by passions +but too exactly like those of the lower animals? I have said, and say +again, with good old Vaughan-- + + "Unless above himself he can + Exalt himself, how mean a thing is man." + +But I cannot forget that many an old Greek poet or sage, and many a +sixteenth and seventeenth century one, would have interpreted the +monkey's heroism from quite a different point of view; and would have +said that the poor little creature had been visited suddenly by some +"divine afflatus"--an expression quite as philosophical and quite as +intelligible as most philosophic formulas which I read now-a-days--and +had been thus raised for the moment above his abject selfish +monkey-nature, just as man requires to be raised above his. But that +theory belongs to a philosophy which is out of date and out of fashion, +and which will have to wait a century or two before it comes into fashion +again. + +And now: if self-sacrifice and heroism be, as I believe, identical, I +must protest against a use of the word sacrifice which is growing too +common in newspaper-columns, in which we are told of an "enormous +sacrifice of life;" an expression which means merely that a great many +poor wretches have been killed, quite against their own will, and for no +purpose whatsoever: no sacrifice at all, unless it be one to the demons +of ignorance, cupidity or mismanagement. + +The stout Whig undergraduate understood better the meaning of such words, +who, when asked, "In what sense might Charles the First be said to be a +martyr?" answered, "In the same sense that a man might be said to be a +martyr to the gout." + +And I must protest, in like wise, against a misuse of the words hero, +heroism, heroic, which is becoming too common, namely, applying them to +mere courage. We have borrowed the misuse, I believe, as we have more +than one beside, from the French press. I trust that we shall neither +accept it, nor the temper which inspires it. It may be convenient for +those who flatter their nation, and especially the military part of it, +into a ruinous self-conceit, to frame some such syllogism as +this--"Courage is heroism: every Frenchman is naturally courageous: +therefore every Frenchman is a hero." But we, who have been trained at +once in a sounder school of morals, and in a greater respect for facts, +and for language as the expression of facts, shall be careful, I hope, +not to trifle thus with that potent and awful engine--human speech. We +shall eschew likewise, I hope, a like abuse of the word moral, which has +crept from the French press now and then, not only into our own press, +but into the writings of some of our military men, who, as Englishmen, +should have known better. We were told again and again, during the late +war, that the moral effect of such a success had been great; that the +morale of the troops was excellent; or again, that the morale of the +troops had suffered, or even that they were somewhat demoralised. But +when one came to test what was really meant by these fine words, one +discovered that morals had nothing to do with the facts which they +expressed; that the troops were in the one case actuated simply by the +animal passion of hope, in the other simply by the animal passion of +fear. This abuse of the word moral has crossed, I am sorry to say, the +Atlantic; and a witty American, whom we must excuse, though we must not +imitate, when some one had been blazing away at him with a revolver, he +being unarmed, is said to have described his very natural emotions on the +occasion, by saying that he felt dreadfully demoralised. We, I hope, +shall confine the word demoralisation, as our generals of the last +century would have done, when applied to soldiers, to crime, including, +of course, the neglect of duty or of discipline; and we shall mean by the +word heroism in like manner, whether applied to a soldier or to any human +being, not mere courage; not the mere doing of duty: but the doing of +something beyond duty; something which is not in the bond; some +spontaneous and unexpected act of self-devotion. + +I am glad, but not surprised, to see that Miss Yonge has held to this +sound distinction in her golden little book of 'Golden Deeds;' and said, +"Obedience, at all costs and risks, is the very essence of a soldier's +life. It has the solid material, but it has hardly the exceptional +brightness, of a golden deed." + +I know that it is very difficult to draw the line between mere obedience +to duty and express heroism. I know also that it would be both invidious +and impertinent in an utterly unheroic personage like me, to try to draw +that line; and to sit at home at ease, analysing and criticising deeds +which I could not do myself: but--to give an instance or two of what I +mean-- + +To defend a post as long as it is tenable is not heroic. It is simple +duty. To defend it after it has become untenable, and even to die in so +doing, is not heroic, but a noble madness, unless an advantage is to be +gained thereby for one's own side. Then, indeed, it rises towards, if +not into, the heroism of self-sacrifice. + +Who, for example, will not endorse the verdict of all ages on the conduct +of those Spartans at Thermopylae, when they sat "combing their yellow +hair for death" on the sea-shore? They devoted themselves to hopeless +destruction: but why? They felt--I must believe that, for they behaved +as if they felt--that on them the destinies of the Western World might +hang; that they were in the forefront of the battle between civilisation +and barbarism, between freedom and despotism; and that they must teach +that vast mob of Persian slaves, whom the officers of the Great King were +driving with whips up to their lance-points, that the spirit of the old +heroes was not dead; and that the Greek, even in defeat and death, was a +mightier and a nobler man than they. And they did their work. They +produced, if you will, a "moral" effect, which has lasted even to this +very day. They struck terror into the heart, not only of the Persian +host, but of the whole Persian empire. They made the event of that war +certain, and the victories of Salamis and Plataea comparatively easy. +They made Alexander's conquest of the East, 150 years afterwards, not +only possible at all, but permanent when it came; and thus helped to +determine the future civilisation of the whole world. + +They did not, of course, foresee all this. No great or inspired man can +foresee all the consequences of his deeds: but these men were, as I hold, +inspired to see somewhat at least of the mighty stake for which they +played; and to count their lives worthless, if Sparta had sent them +thither to help in that great game. + +Or shall we refuse the name of heroic to those three German cavalry +regiments who, in the battle of Mars La Tour, were bidden to hurl +themselves upon the chassepots and mitrailleuses of the unbroken French +infantry, and went to almost certain death, over the corpses of their +comrades, on and in and through, reeling man over horse, horse over man, +and clung like bull-dogs to their work, and would hardly leave, even at +the bugle-call, till in one regiment thirteen officers out of nineteen +were killed or wounded? And why? + +Because the French army must be stopped, if it were but for a quarter of +an hour. A respite must be gained for the exhausted Third Corps. And +how much might be done, even in a quarter of an hour, by men who knew +when, and where, and why to die. Who will refuse the name of heroes to +these men? And yet they, probably, would have utterly declined the +honour. They had but done that which was in the bond. They were but +obeying orders after all. As Miss Yonge well says of all heroic +persons--"'I have but done that which it was my duty to do,' is the +natural answer of those capable of such actions. They have been +constrained to them by duty or pity; have never deemed it possible to act +otherwise; and did not once think of themselves in the matter at all." + +These last true words bring us to another element in heroism: its +simplicity. Whatsoever is not simple; whatsoever is affected, boastful, +wilful, covetous, tarnishes, even destroys, the heroic character of a +deed; because all these faults spring out of self. On the other hand, +wherever you find a perfectly simple, frank, unconscious character, there +you have the possibility, at least, of heroic action. For it is nobler +far to do the most commonplace duty in the household, or behind the +counter, with a single eye to duty, simply because it must be done--nobler +far, I say, than to go out of your way to attempt a brilliant deed, with +a double mind, and saying to yourself not only--"This will be a brilliant +deed," but also--"and it will pay me, or raise me, or set me off, into +the bargain." Heroism knows no "into the bargain." And therefore, +again, I must protest against applying the word heroic to any deeds, +however charitable, however toilsome, however dangerous, performed for +the sake of what certain French ladies, I am told, call "faire son +salut"--saving one's soul in the world to come. I do not mean to judge. +Other and quite unselfish motives may be, and doubtless often are, mixed +up with that selfish one: womanly pity and tenderness; love for, and +desire to imitate, a certain incarnate ideal of self-sacrifice, who is at +once human and divine. But that motive of saving the soul, which is too +often openly proposed and proffered, is utterly unheroic. The desire to +escape pains and penalties hereafter by pains and penalties here; the +balance of present loss against future gain--what is this but selfishness +extended out of this world into eternity? "Not worldliness," indeed, as +a satirist once said with bitter truth, "but other-worldliness." + +Moreover--and the young and the enthusiastic should also bear this in +mind--though heroism means the going beyond the limits of strict duty, it +never means the going out of the path of strict duty. If it is your duty +to go to London, go thither: you may go as much further as you choose +after that. But you must go to London first. Do your duty first; it +will be time after that to talk of being heroic. + +And therefore one must seriously warn the young, lest they mistake for +heroism and self-sacrifice what is merely pride and self-will, discontent +with the relations by which God has bound them, and the circumstances +which God has appointed for them. I have known girls think they were +doing a fine thing by leaving uncongenial parents or disagreeable +sisters, and cutting out for themselves, as they fancied, a more useful +and elevated line of life than that of mere home duties; while, after +all, poor things, they were only saying, with the Pharisees of old, +"Corban, it is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me;" +and in the name of God, neglecting the command of God to honour their +father and mother. + +There are men, too, who will neglect their households and leave their +children unprovided for, and even uneducated, while they are spending +their money on philanthropic or religious hobbies of their own. It is +ill to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs; or even to the +angels. It is ill, I say, trying to make God presents, before we have +tried to pay God our debts. The first duty of every man is to the wife +whom he has married, and to the children whom she has brought into the +world; and to neglect them is not heroism, but self-conceit; the conceit +that a man is so necessary to Almighty God, that God will actually allow +him to do wrong, if He can only thereby secure the man's invaluable +services. Be sure that every motive which comes not from the single eye; +every motive which springs from self; is by its very essence unheroic, +let it look as gaudy or as beneficent as it may. + +But I cannot go so far as to say the same of the love of approbation--the +desire for the love and respect of our fellow-men. + +That must not be excluded from the list of heroic motives. I know that +it is, or may be proved to be, by victorious analysis, an emotion common +to us and the lower animals. And yet no man excludes it less than that +true hero, St. Paul. If those brave Spartans, if those brave Germans, of +whom I spoke just now, knew that their memories would be wept over and +worshipped by brave men and fair women, and that their names would become +watchwords to children in their fatherland: what is that to us, save that +it should make us rejoice, if we be truly human, that they had that +thought with them in their last moments to make self-devotion more easy, +and death more sweet? + +And yet--and yet--is not the highest heroism that which is free even from +the approbation of our fellow-men, even from the approbation of the best +and wisest? The heroism which is known only to our Father who seeth in +secret? The Godlike deeds alone in the lonely chamber? The Godlike +lives lived in obscurity?--a heroism rare among us men, who live perforce +in the glare and noise of the outer world: more common among women; women +of whom the world never hears; who, if the world discovered them, would +only draw the veil more closely over their faces and their hearts, and +entreat to be left alone with God. True, they cannot always hide. They +must not always hide; or their fellow-creatures would lose the golden +lesson. But, nevertheless, it is of the essence of the perfect and +womanly heroism, in which, as in all spiritual forces, woman transcends +the man, that it would hide if it could. + +And it was a pleasant thought to me, when I glanced lately at the golden +deeds of woman in Miss Yonge's book--it was a pleasant thought to me, +that I could say to myself--Ah! yes. These heroines are known, and their +fame flies through the mouths of men. But if so, how many thousands of +heroines there must have been, how many thousands there may be now, of +whom we shall never know. But still they are there. They sow in secret +the seed of which we pluck the flower and eat the fruit, and know not +that we pass the sower daily in the street; perhaps some humble ill-drest +woman, earning painfully her own small sustenance. She who nurses a +bedridden mother, instead of sending her to the workhouse. She who +spends her heart and her money on a drunken father, a reckless brother, +on the orphans of a kinsman or a friend. She who--But why go on with the +long list of great little heroisms, with which a clergyman at least comes +in contact daily--and it is one of the most ennobling privileges of a +clergyman's high calling that he does come in contact with them--why go +on, I say, save to commemorate one more form of great little heroism--the +commonest, and yet the least remembered of all--namely, the heroism of an +average mother? Ah, when I think of that last broad fact, I gather hope +again for poor humanity; and this dark world looks bright, this diseased +world looks wholesome to me once more--because, whatever else it is or is +not full of, it is at least full of mothers. + +While the satirist only sneers, as at a stock butt for his ridicule, at +the managing mother trying to get her daughters married off her hands by +chicaneries and meannesses, which every novelist knows too well how to +draw--would to heaven he, or rather, alas! she, would find some more +chivalrous employment for his or her pen--for were they not, too, born of +woman?--I only say to myself--having had always a secret fondness for +poor Rebecca, though I love Esau more than Jacob--Let the poor thing +alone. With pain she brought these girls into the world. With pain she +educated them according to her light. With pain she is trying to obtain +for them the highest earthly blessing of which she can conceive, namely, +to be well married; and if in doing that last, she manoeuvres a little, +commits a few basenesses, even tells a few untruths, what does all that +come to, save this--that in the confused intensity of her motherly self- +sacrifice, she will sacrifice for her daughters even her own conscience +and her own credit? We may sneer, if we will, at such a poor hard-driven +soul when we meet her in society: our duty, both as Christians and ladies +and gentlemen, seems to me to be--to do for her something very different +indeed. + +But to return. Looking at the amount of great little heroisms, which are +being, as I assert, enacted around us every day, no one has a right to +say, what we are all tempted to say at times--"How can I be heroic? This +is no heroic age, setting me heroic examples. We are growing more and +more comfortable, frivolous, pleasure-seeking, money-making; more and +more utilitarian; more and more mercenary in our politics, in our morals, +in our religion; thinking less and less of honour and duty, and more and +more of loss and gain. I am born into an unheroic time. You must not +ask me to become heroic in it." + +I do not deny that it is more difficult to be heroic, while circumstances +are unheroic round us. We are all too apt to be the puppets of +circumstance; all too apt to follow the fashion; all too apt, like so +many minnows, to take our colour from the ground on which we lie, in +hopes, like them, of comfortable concealment, lest the new tyrant deity, +called public opinion, should spy us out, and, like Nebuchadnezzar of +old, cast us into a burning fiery furnace--which public opinion can make +very hot--for daring to worship any god or man save the will of the +temporary majority. + +Yes, it is difficult to be anything but poor, mean, insufficient, +imperfect people, as like each other as so many sheep; and, like so many +sheep, having no will or character of our own, but rushing altogether +blindly over the same gap, in foolish fear of the same dog, who, after +all, dare not bite us; and so it always was and always will be. + +For the third time I say,-- + + "Unless above himself he can + Exalt himself, how poor a thing is man." + +But, nevertheless, any man or woman who will, in any age and under any +circumstances, can live the heroic life and exercise heroic influences. + +If any ask proof of this, I shall ask them, in return, to read two +novels; novels, indeed, but, in their method and their moral, partaking +of that heroic and ideal element, which will make them live, I trust, +long after thousands of mere novels have returned to their native dust. I +mean Miss Muloch's 'John Halifax, Gentleman,' and Mr. Thackeray's +'Esmond,' two books which no man or woman ought to read without being the +nobler for them. + +'John Halifax, Gentleman,' is simply the history of a poor young clerk, +who rises to be a wealthy mill-owner in the manufacturing districts, in +the early part of this century. But he contrives to be an heroic and +ideal clerk, and an heroic and ideal mill-owner; and that without doing +anything which the world would call heroic or ideal, or in anywise +stepping out of his sphere, minding simply his own business, and doing +the duty which lies nearest him. And how? By getting into his head from +youth the strangest notion, that in whatever station or business he may +be, he can always be what he considers a gentleman; and that if he only +behaves like a gentleman, all must go right at last. A beautiful book. +As I said before, somewhat of an heroic and ideal book. A book which did +me good when first I read it; which ought to do any young man good who +will read it, and then try to be, like John Halifax, a gentleman, whether +in the shop, the counting-house, the bank, or the manufactory. + +The other--an even more striking instance of the possibility, at least, +of heroism anywhere and everywhere--is Mr. Thackeray's 'Esmond.' On the +meaning of that book I can speak with authority. For my dear and +regretted friend told me himself that my interpretation of it was the +true one; that this was the lesson which he meant men to learn therefrom. + +Esmond is a man of the first half of the eighteenth century; living in a +coarse, drunken, ignorant, profligate, and altogether unheroic age. He +is--and here the high art and the high morality of Mr. Thackeray's genius +is shown--altogether a man of his own age. He is not a sixteenth-century +or a nineteenth-century man born out of time. His information, his +politics, his religion, are no higher than of those round him. His +manners, his views of human life, his very prejudices and faults, are +those of his age. The temptations which he conquers are just those under +which the men around him fall. But how does he conquer them? By holding +fast throughout to honour, duty, virtue. Thus, and thus alone, he +becomes an ideal eighteenth-century gentleman, an eighteenth-century +hero. This was what Mr. Thackeray meant--for he told me so himself, I +say--that it was possible, even in England's lowest and foulest times, to +be a gentleman and a hero, if a man would but be true to the light within +him. + +But I will go further. I will go from ideal fiction to actual, and yet +ideal, fact; and say that, as I read history, the most unheroic age which +the civilized world ever saw was also the most heroic; that the spirit of +man triumphed most utterly over his circumstances, at the very moment +when those circumstances were most against him. + +How and why he did so is a question for philosophy in the highest sense +of that word. The fact of his having done so is matter of history. Shall +I solve my own riddle? + +Then, have we not heard of the early Christian martyrs? Is there a doubt +that they, unlettered men, slaves, weak women, even children, did +exhibit, under an infinite sense of duty, issuing in infinite +self-sacrifice, a heroism such as the world had never seen before; did +raise the ideal of human nobleness a whole stage--rather say, a whole +heaven--higher than before; and that wherever the tale of their great +deeds spread, men accepted, even if they did not copy, those martyrs as +ideal specimens of the human race, till they were actually worshipped by +succeeding generations, wrongly, it may be, but pardonably, as a choir of +lesser deities? + +But is there, on the other hand, a doubt that the age in which they were +heroic was the most unheroic of all ages; that they were bred, lived, and +died, under the most debasing of materialist tyrannies, with art, +literature, philosophy, family and national life dying or dead around +them, and in cities the corruption of which cannot be told for very +shame--cities, compared with which Paris is the abode of Arcadian +simplicity and innocence? When I read Petronius and Juvenal, and +recollect that they were the contemporaries of the Apostles; when--to +give an instance which scholars, and perhaps, happily, only scholars, can +appreciate--I glance once more at Trimalchio's feast, and remember that +within a mile of that feast St. Paul may have been preaching to a +Christian congregation, some of whom--for St. Paul makes no secret of +that strange fact--may have been, ere their conversion, partakers in just +such vulgar and bestial orgies as those which were going on in the rich +freedman's halls: after that, I say, I can put no limit to the +possibility of man's becoming heroic, even though he be surrounded by a +hell on earth; no limit to the capacities of any human being to form for +himself or herself a high and pure ideal of human character; and, without +"playing fantastic tricks before high heaven," to carry out that ideal in +every-day life; and in the most commonplace circumstances, and the most +menial occupations, to live worthy of--as I conceive--our heavenly +birthright, and to imitate the heroes, who were the kinsmen of the gods. + + + + +SUPERSTITION. A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION, LONDON. + + +Having accepted the very great honour of being allowed to deliver here +two lectures, I have chosen as my subject Superstition and Science. It +is with Superstition that this first lecture will deal. + +The subject seems to me especially fit for a clergyman; for he should, +more than other men, be able to avoid trenching on two subjects rightly +excluded from this Institution; namely, Theology--that is, the knowledge +of God; and Religion--that is, the knowledge of Duty. If he knows, as he +should, what is Theology, and what is Religion, then he should best know +what is not Theology, and what is not Religion. + +For my own part, I entreat you at the outset to keep in mind that these +lectures treat of matters entirely physical; which have in reality, and +ought to have in our minds, no more to do with Theology and Religion than +the proposition that theft is wrong, has to do with the proposition that +the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles. + +It is necessary to premise this, because many are of opinion that +superstition is a corruption of religion; and though they would agree +that as such, "corruptio optimi pessima," yet they would look on religion +as the state of spiritual health, and superstition as one of spiritual +disease. + +Others, again, holding the same notion, but not considering that +corruptio optimi pessima, have been in all ages somewhat inclined to be +merciful to superstition, as a child of reverence; as a mere accidental +misdirection of one of the noblest and most wholesome faculties of man. + +This is not the place wherein to argue with either of these parties; and +I shall simply say that superstition seems to me altogether a physical +affection, as thoroughly material and corporeal as those of eating or +sleeping, remembering or dreaming. + +After this, it will be necessary to define superstition, in order to have +some tolerably clear understanding of what we are talking about. I beg +leave to define it as--Fear of the unknown. + +Johnson, who was no dialectician, and, moreover, superstitious enough +himself, gives eight different definitions of the word; which is +equivalent to confessing his inability to define it at all:-- + +"1. Unnecessary fear or scruples in religion; observance of unnecessary +and uncommanded rites or practices; religion without morality. + +"2. False religion; reverence of beings not proper objects of reverence; +false worship. + +"3. Over nicety; exactness too scrupulous." + +Eight meanings; which, on the principle that eight eighths, or indeed +800, do not make one whole, may be considered as no definition. His +first thought, as often happens, is the best--"Unnecessary fear." But +after that he wanders. The root-meaning of the word is still to seek. +But, indeed, the popular meaning, thanks to popular common sense, will +generally be found to contain in itself the root-meaning. + +Let us go back to the Latin word Superstitio. Cicero says that the +superstitious element consists in "a certain empty dread of the gods"--a +purely physical affection, if you will remember three things:-- + +1. That dread is in itself a physical affection. + +2. That the gods who were dreaded were, with the vulgar, who alone +dreaded them, merely impersonations of the powers of nature. + +3. That it was physical injury which these gods were expected to +inflict. + +But he himself agrees with this theory of mine; for he says shortly +after, that not only philosophers, but even the ancient Romans, had +separated superstition from religion; and that the word was first applied +to those who prayed all day ut liberi sui sibi superstites essent--might +survive them. On the etymology no one will depend who knows the +remarkable absence of any etymological instinct in the ancients, in +consequence of their weak grasp of that sound inductive method which has +created modern criticism. But if it be correct, it is a natural and +pathetic form for superstition to take in the minds of men who saw their +children fade and die; probably the greater number of them beneath +diseases which mankind could neither comprehend nor cure. + +The best exemplification of what the ancients meant by superstition is to +be found in the lively and dramatic words of Aristotle's great pupil, +Theophrastus. + +The superstitious man, according to him, after having washed his hands +with lustral water--that is, water in which a torch from the altar had +been quenched, goes about with a laurel-leaf in his mouth, to keep off +evil influences, as the pigs in Devonshire used, in my youth, to go about +with a withe of mountain ash round their necks to keep off the evil eye. +If a weasel crosses his path, he stops, and either throws three pebbles +into the road, or, with the innate selfishness of fear, lets some one +else go before him, and attract to himself the harm which may ensue. He +has a similar dread of a screech-owl, whom he compliments in the name of +its mistress, Pallas Athene. If he finds a serpent in his house, he sets +up an altar to it. If he pass at a four-cross-way an anointed stone, he +pours oil on it, kneels down, and adores it. If a rat has nibbled one of +his sacks he takes it for a fearful portent--a superstition which Cicero +also mentions. He dare not sit on a tomb, because it would be assisting +at his own funeral. He purifies endlessly his house, saying that +Hecate--that is, the moon--has exercised some malign influence on it; and +many other purifications he observes, of which I shall only say that they +are by their nature plainly, like the last, meant as preservatives +against unseen malarias or contagions, possible or impossible. He +assists every month with his children at the mysteries of the Orphic +priests; and finally, whenever he sees an epileptic patient, he spits in +his own bosom to avert the evil omen. + +I have quoted, I believe, every fact given by Theophrastus; and you will +agree, I am sure, that the moving and inspiring element of such a +character is mere bodily fear of unknown evil. The only superstition +attributed to him which does not at first sight seem to have its root in +dread is that of the Orphic mysteries. But of them Muller says that the +Dionusos whom they worshipped "was an infernal deity, connected with +Hades, and was the personification, not merely of rapturous pleasure, but +of a deep sorrow for the miseries of human life." The Orphic societies +of Greece seem to have been peculiarly ascetic, taking no animal food +save raw flesh from the sacrificed ox of Dionusos. And Plato speaks of a +lower grade of Orphic priests, Orpheotelestai, "who used to come before +the doors of the rich, and promise, by sacrifices and expiatory songs, to +release them from their own sins, and those of their forefathers;" and +such would be but too likely to get a hearing from the man who was afraid +of a weasel or an owl. + +Now, this same bodily fear, I verily believe, will be found at the root +of all superstition whatsoever. + +But be it so. Fear is a natural passion, and a wholesome one. Without +the instinct of self-preservation, which causes the sea-anemone to +contract its tentacles, or the fish to dash into its hover, species would +be extermined wholesale by involuntary suicide. + +Yes; fear is wholesome enough, like all other faculties, as long as it is +controlled by reason. But what if the fear be not rational, but +irrational? What if it be, in plain homely English, blind fear; fear of +the unknown, simply because it is unknown? Is it not likely, then, to be +afraid of the wrong object? to be hurtful, ruinous to animals as well as +to man? Any one will confess that, who has ever seen a horse inflict on +himself mortal injuries, in his frantic attempts to escape from a quite +imaginary danger. I have good reasons for believing that not only +animals here and there, but whole flocks and swarms of them, are often +destroyed, even in the wild state, by mistaken fear; by such panics, for +instance, as cause a whole herd of buffalos to rush over a bluff, and be +dashed to pieces. And remark that this capacity of panic, fear--of +superstition, as I should call it--is greatest in those animals, the dog +and the horse for instance, which have the most rapid and vivid fancy. +Does not the unlettered Highlander say all that I want to say, when he +attributes to his dog and his horse, on the strength of these very +manifestations of fear, the capacity of seeing ghosts and fairies before +he can see them himself? + +But blind fear not only causes evil to the coward himself: it makes him a +source of evil to others; for it is the cruellest of all human states. It +transforms the man into the likeness of the cat, who, when she is caught +in a trap, or shut up in a room, has too low an intellect to understand +that you wish to release her; and, in the madness of terror, bites and +tears at the hand which tries to do her good. Yes; very cruel is blind +fear. When a man dreads he knows not what, he will do he cares not what. +When he dreads desperately, he will act desperately. When he dreads +beyond all reason, he will behave beyond all reason. He has no law of +guidance left, save the lowest selfishness. No law of guidance: and yet +his intellect, left unguided, may be rapid and acute enough to lead him +into terrible follies. Infinitely more imaginative than the lowest +animals, he is for that very reason capable of being infinitely more +foolish, more cowardly, more superstitious. He can--what the lower +animals, happily for them, cannot--organise his folly; erect his +superstitions into a science; and create a whole mythology out of his +blind fear of the unknown. And when he has done that--Woe to the weak! +For when he has reduced his superstition to a science, then he will +reduce his cruelty to a science likewise, and write books like the +Malleus Maleficarum, and the rest of the witch-literature of the +fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries; of which Mr. Lecky has +of late told the world so much, and told it most faithfully and most +fairly. + +But, fear of the unknown? Is not that fear of the unseen world? And is +not that fear of the spiritual world? Pardon me: a great deal of that +fear--all of it, indeed, which is superstition--is simply not fear of the +spiritual, but of the material; and of nothing else. + +The spiritual world--I beg you to fix this in your minds--is not merely +an invisible world which may become visible, but an invisible world which +is by its essence invisible; a moral world, a world of right and wrong. +And spiritual fear--which is one of the noblest of all affections, as +bodily fear is one of the basest--is, if properly defined, nothing less +or more than the fear of doing wrong; of becoming a worse man. + +But what has that to do with mere fear of the unseen? The fancy which +conceives the fear is physical, not spiritual. Think for yourselves. +What difference is there between a savage's fear of a demon, and a +hunter's fear of a fall? The hunter sees a fence. He does not know what +is on the other side: but he has seen fences like it with a great ditch +on the other side, and suspects one here likewise. He has seen horses +fall at such, and men hurt thereby. He pictures to himself his horse +falling at that fence, himself rolling in the ditch, with possibly a +broken limb; and he recoils from the picture he himself has made; and +perhaps with very good reason. His picture may have its counterpart in +fact; and he may break his leg. But his picture, like the previous +pictures from which it was compounded, is simply a physical impression on +the brain, just as much as those in dreams. + +Now, does the fact of the ditch, the fall, and the broken leg, being +unseen and unknown, make them a spiritual ditch, a spiritual fall, a +spiritual broken leg? And does the fact of the demon and his doings, +being as yet unseen and unknown, make them spiritual, or the harm that he +may do, a spiritual harm? What does the savage fear? Lest the demon +should appear; that is, become obvious to his physical senses, and +produce an unpleasant physical effect on them. He fears lest the fiend +should entice him into the bog, break the hand-bridge over the brook, +turn into a horse and ride away with him, or jump out from behind a tree +and wring his neck--tolerably hard physical facts, all of them; the +children of physical fancy, regarded with physical dread. Even if the +superstition proved true; even if the demon did appear; even if he wrung +the traveller's neck in sound earnest, there would be no more spiritual +agency or phenomenon in the whole tragedy than there is in the parlour +table, when spiritual somethings make spiritual raps upon spiritual wood; +and human beings, who are really spirits--and would to heaven they would +remember that fact, and what it means--believe that anything has happened +beyond a clumsy juggler's trick. + +You demur? Do you not see that the demon, by the mere fact of having +produced physical consequences, would have become himself a physical +agent, a member of physical Nature, and therefore to be explained, he and +his doings, by physical laws? If you do not see that conclusion at first +sight, think over it till you do. + +It may seem to some that I have founded my theory on a very narrow basis; +that I am building up an inverted pyramid; or that, considering the +numberless, complex, fantastic shapes which superstition has assumed, +bodily fear is too simple to explain them all. + +But if those persons will think a second time, they must agree that my +base is as broad as the phenomena which it explains; for every man is +capable of fear. And they will see, too, that the cause of superstition +must be something like fear, which is common to all men: for all, at +least as children, are capable of superstition; and that it must be +something which, like fear, is of a most simple, rudimentary, barbaric +kind; for the lowest savage, of whatever he is not capable, is still +superstitious, often to a very ugly degree. Superstition seems, indeed, +to be, next to the making of stone-weapons, the earliest method of +asserting his superiority to the brutes which has occurred to that +utterly abnormal and fantastic lusus naturae called man. + +Now let us put ourselves awhile, as far as we can, in the place of that +same savage; and try whether my theory will not justify itself; whether +or not superstition, with all its vagaries, may have been, indeed must +have been, the result of that ignorance and fear which he carried about +with him, every time he prowled for food through the primeval forest. + +A savage's first division of nature would be, I should say, into things +which he can eat, and things which can eat him; including, of course, his +most formidable enemy, and most savoury food--his fellow-man. In finding +out what he can eat, we must remember, he will have gone through much +experience which will have inspired him with a serious respect for the +hidden wrath of nature; like those Himalayan folk, of whom Hooker says, +that as they know every poisonous plant, they must have tried them +all--not always with impunity. + +So he gets at a third class of objects--things which he cannot eat, and +which will not eat him; but will only do him harm, as it seems to him, +out of pure malice, like poisonous plants and serpents. There are +natural accidents, too, which fall into the same category, stones, +floods, fires, avalanches. They hurt him or kill him, surely for ends of +their own. If a rock falls from the cliff above him, what more natural +than to suppose that there is some giant up there who threw it at him? If +he had been up there, and strong enough, and had seen a man walking +underneath, he would certainly have thrown the stone at him and killed +him. For first, he might have eaten the man after; and even if he were +not hungry, the man might have done him a mischief; and it was prudent to +prevent that, by doing him a mischief first. Besides, the man might have +a wife; and if he killed the man, then the wife would, by a very ancient +law common to man and animals, become the prize of the victor. Such is +the natural man, the carnal man, the soulish man, the [Greek text] of St. +Paul, with five tolerably acute senses, which are ruled by five very +acute animal passions--hunger, sex, rage, vanity, fear. It is with the +working of the last passion, fear, that this lecture has to do. + +So the savage concludes that there must be a giant living in the cliff, +who threw stones at him, with evil intent; and he concludes in like wise +concerning most other natural phenomena. There is something in them +which will hurt him, and therefore likes to hurt him: and if he cannot +destroy them, and so deliver himself, his fear of them grows quite +boundless. There are hundreds of natural objects on which he learns to +look with the same eyes as the little boys of Teneriffe look on the +useless and poisonous _Euphorbia canariensis_. It is to them--according +to Mr. Piazzi Smyth--a demon who would kill them, if it could only run +after them; but as it cannot, they shout Spanish curses at it, and pelt +it with volleys of stones, "screeching with elfin joy, and using worse +names than ever, when the poisonous milk spurts out from its bruised +stalks." + +And if such be the attitude of the uneducated man towards the permanent +terrors of nature, what will it be towards those which are sudden and +seemingly capricious?--towards storms, earthquakes, floods, blights, +pestilences? We know too well what it has been--one of blind, and +therefore often cruel, fear. How could it be otherwise? Was +Theophrastus's superstitious man so very foolish for pouring oil on every +round stone? I think there was a great deal to be said for him. This +worship of Baetyli was rational enough. They were aerolites, fallen from +heaven. Was it not as well to be civil to such messengers from above?--to +testify by homage to them due awe of the being who had thrown them at +men, and who though he had missed his shot that time, might not miss it +the next? I think if we, knowing nothing of either gunpowder, astronomy, +or Christianity, saw an Armstrong bolt fall within five miles of London, +we should be inclined to be very respectful to it indeed. So the +aerolites, or glacial boulders, or polished stone weapons of an extinct +race, which looked like aerolites, were the children of Ouranos the +heaven, and had souls in them. One, by one of those strange +transformations in which the logic of unreason indulges, the image of +Diana of the Ephesians, which fell down from Jupiter; another was the +Ancile, the holy shield which fell from the same place in the days of +Numa Pompilius, and was the guardian genius of Rome; and several more +became notable for ages. + +Why not? The uneducated man of genius, unacquainted alike with +metaphysics and with biology, sees, like a child, a personality in every +strange and sharply-defined object. A cloud like an angel may be an +angel; a bit of crooked root like a man may be a man turned into +wood--perhaps to be turned back again at its own will. An erratic block +has arrived where it is by strange unknown means. Is not that an +evidence of its personality? Either it has flown hither itself, or some +one has thrown it. In the former case, it has life, and is +proportionally formidable; in the latter, he who had thrown it is +formidable. + +I know two erratic blocks of porphyry--I believe there are three--in +Cornwall, lying one on serpentine, one, I think, on slate, which--so I +was always informed as a boy--were the stones which St. Kevern threw +after St. Just when the latter stole his host's chalice and paten, and +ran away with them to the Land's End. Why not? Before we knew anything +about the action of icebergs and glaciers, that is, until the last eighty +years, that was as good a story as any other; while how lifelike these +boulders are, let a great poet testify; for the fact has not escaped the +delicate eye of Wordsworth: + + "As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie + Couched on the bald top of an eminence; + Wonder to all who do the same espy, + By what means it could thither come, and whence, + So that it seems a thing endued with sense; + Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf + Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself." + +To the civilised poet, the fancy becomes a beautiful simile; to a savage +poet, it would have become a material and a very formidable fact. He +stands in the valley, and looks up at the boulder on the far-off fells. +He is puzzled by it. He fears it. At last he makes up his mind. It is +alive. As the shadows move over it, he sees it move. May it not sleep +there all day, and prowl for prey all night? He had been always afraid +of going up those fells; now he will never go. There is a monster there. + +Childish enough, no doubt. But remember that the savage is always a +child. So, indeed, are millions, as well clothed, housed, and policed as +ourselves--children from the cradle to the grave. But of them I do not +talk; because, happily for the world, their childishness is so overlaid +by the result of other men's manhood; by an atmosphere of civilisation +and Christianity which they have accepted at second-hand as the +conclusions of minds wiser than their own, that they do all manner of +reasonable things for bad reasons, or for no reason at all, save the +passion of imitation. Not in them, but in the savage, can we see man as +he is by nature, the puppet of his senses and his passions, the natural +slave of his own fears. + +But has the savage no other faculties, save his five senses and five +passions? I do not say that. I should be most unphilosophical if I said +it; for the history of mankind proves that he has infinitely more in him +than that. Yes: but in him that infinite more, which is not only the +noblest part of humanity; but, it may be, humanity itself, is not to be +counted as one of the roots of superstition. For in the savage man, in +whom superstition certainly originates, that infinite more is still +merely in him; inside him; a faculty: but not yet a fact. It has not +come out of him into consciousness, purpose, and act; and is to be +treated as non-existent: while what has come out, his passions and +senses, is enough to explain all the vagaries of superstition; a vera +causa for all its phenomena. And if we seem to have found a sufficient +explanation already, it is unphilosophical to look further, at least till +we have tried whether our explanation fits the facts. + +Nevertheless, there is another faculty in the savage, to which I have +already alluded, common to him and to at least the higher +vertebrates--fancy; the power of reproducing internal images of external +objects, whether in its waking form of physical memory--if, indeed, all +memory be not physical--or in its sleeping form of dreaming. Upon this +last, which has played so very important a part in superstition in all +ages, I beg you to think a moment. Recollect your own dreams during +childhood; and recollect again that the savage is always a child. +Recollect how difficult it was for you in childhood, how difficult it +must be always for the savage, to decide whether dreams are phantasms or +realities. To the savage, I doubt not, the food he eats, the foes he +grapples with, in dreams, are as real as any waking impressions. But, +moreover, these dreams will be very often, as children's dreams are wont +to be, of a painful and terrible kind. Perhaps they will be always +painful; perhaps his dull brain will never dream, save under the +influence of indigestion, or hunger, or an uncomfortable attitude. And +so, in addition to his waking experience of the terrors of nature, he +will have a whole dream-experience besides, of a still more terrific +kind. He walks by day past a black cavern mouth, and thinks, with a +shudder--Something ugly may live in that ugly hole: what if it jumped out +upon me? He broods over the thought with the intensity of a narrow and +unoccupied mind; and a few nights after, he has eaten--but let us draw a +veil before the larder of a savage--his chin is pinned down on his chest, +a slight congestion of the brain comes on; and behold he finds himself +again at that cavern's mouth, and something ugly does jump out upon him: +and the cavern is a haunted spot henceforth to him and to all his tribe. +It is in vain that his family tell him that he has been lying asleep at +home all the while. He has the evidence of his senses to prove the +contrary. He must have got out of himself, and gone into the woods. When +we remember that certain wise Greek philosophers could find no better +explanation of dreaming than that the soul left the body, and wandered +free, we cannot condemn the savage for his theory. Now, I submit that in +these simple facts we have a group of "true causes" which are the roots +of all the superstitions of the world. + +And if any one shall complain that I am talking materialism: I shall +answer, that I am doing exactly the opposite. I am trying to eliminate +and get rid of that which is material, animal, and base; in order that +that which is truly spiritual may stand out, distinct and clear, in its +divine and eternal beauty. + +To explain, and at the same time, as I think, to verify my hypothesis, +let me give you an example--fictitious, it is true, but probable fact +nevertheless; because it is patched up of many fragments of actual fact: +and let us see how, in following it out, we shall pass through almost +every possible form of superstition. + +Suppose a great hollow tree, in which the formidable wasps of the tropics +have built for ages. The average savage hurries past the spot in mere +bodily fear; for if they come out against him, they will sting him to +death; till at last there comes by a savage wiser than the rest, with +more observation, reflection, imagination, independence of will--the +genius of his tribe. + +The awful shade of the great tree, added to his terror of the wasps, +weighs on him, and excites his brain. Perhaps, too, he has had a wife or +a child stung to death by these same wasps. These wasps, so small, yet +so wise, far wiser than he: they fly, and they sting. Ah, if he could +fly and sting; how he would kill and eat, and live right merrily. They +build great towns; they rob far and wide; they never quarrel with each +other: they must have some one to teach them, to lead them--they must +have a king. And so he gets the fancy of a Wasp-King; as the western +Irish still believe in the Master Otter; as the Red Men believe in the +King of the Buffalos, and find the bones of his ancestors in the Mammoth +remains of Big-bone Lick; as the Philistines of Ekron--to quote a +notorious instance--actually worshipped Baal-zebub, lord of the flies. + +If they have a king, he must be inside that tree, of course. If he, the +savage, were a king, he would not work for his bread, but sit at home and +make others feed him; and so, no doubt, does the wasp-king. + +And when he goes home he will brood over this wonderful discovery of the +wasp-king; till, like a child, he can think of nothing else. He will go +to the tree, and watch for him to come out. The wasps will get +accustomed to his motionless figure, and leave him unhurt; till the new +fancy will rise in his mind that he is a favourite of this wasp-king: and +at last he will find himself grovelling before the tree, saying--"Oh +great wasp-king, pity me, and tell your children not to sting me, and I +will bring you honey, and fruit, and flowers to eat, and I will flatter +you, and worship you, and you shall be my king." + +And then he would gradually boast of his discovery; of the new mysterious +bond between him and the wasp-king; and his tribe would believe him, and +fear him; and fear him still more when he began to say, as he surely +would, not merely--"I can ask the wasp-king, and he will tell his +children not to sting you:" but--"I can ask the wasp-king, and he will +send his children, and sting you all to death." Vanity and ambition will +have prompted the threat: but it will not be altogether a lie. The man +will more than half believe his own words; he will quite believe them +when he has repeated them a dozen times. + +And so he will become a great man, and a king, under the protection of +the king of the wasps; and he will become, and it may be his children +after him, priest of the wasp-king, who will be their fetish, and the +fetish of their tribe. + +And they will prosper, under the protection of the wasp-king. The wasp +will become their moral ideal, whose virtues they must copy. The new +chief will preach to them wild eloquent words. They must sting like +wasps, revenge like wasps, hold all together like wasps, build like +wasps, work hard like wasps, rob like wasps; then, like the wasps, they +will be the terror of all around, and kill and eat all their enemies. +Soon they will call themselves The Wasps. They will boast that their +king's father or grandfather, and soon that the ancestor of the whole +tribe, was an actual wasp; and the wasp will become at once their eponym +hero, their deity, their ideal, their civiliser; who has taught them to +build a kraal of huts, as he taught his children to build a hive. + +Now, if there should come to any thinking man of this tribe, at this +epoch, the new thought--Who made the world? he will be sorely puzzled. +The conception of a world has never crossed his mind before. He never +pictured to himself anything beyond the nearest ridge of mountains; and +as for a Maker, that will be a greater puzzle still. What makers or +builders more cunning than those wasps of whom his foolish head is full? +Of course, he sees it now. A Wasp made the world; which to him entirely +new guess might become an integral part of his tribe's creed. That would +be their cosmogony. And if, a generation or two after, another savage +genius should guess that the world was a globe hanging in the heavens, he +would, if he had imagination enough to take the thought in at all, put it +to himself in a form suited to his previous knowledge and conceptions. It +would seem to him that The Wasp flew about the skies with the world in +his mouth, as he carries a bluebottle fly; and that would be the +astronomy of his tribe henceforth. Absurd enough; but--as every man who +is acquainted with old mythical cosmogonies must know--no more absurd +than twenty similar guesses on record. Try to imagine the gradual +genesis of such myths as the Egyptian scarabaeus and egg, or the Hindoo +theory that the world stood on an elephant, the elephant on a tortoise, +the tortoise on that infinite note of interrogation which, as some one +expresses it, underlies all physical speculations, and judge: must they +not have arisen in some such fashion as that which I have pointed out? + +This, I say, would be the culminating point of the wasp-worship, which +had sprung up out of bodily fear of being stung. + +But times might come for it in which it would go through various changes, +through which every superstition in the world, I suppose, has passed or +is doomed to pass. + +The wasp-men might be conquered, and possibly eaten, by a stronger tribe +than themselves. What would be the result? They would fight valiantly +at first, like wasps. But what if they began to fail? Was not the wasp- +king angry with them? Had not he deserted them? He must be appeased; he +must have his revenge. They would take a captive, and offer him to the +wasps. So did a North American tribe, in their need, some forty years +ago; when, because their maize-crops failed, they roasted alive a captive +girl, cut her to pieces, and sowed her with their corn. I would not tell +the story, for the horror of it, did it not bear with such fearful force +on my argument. What were those Red Men thinking of? What chain of +misreasoning had they in their heads when they hit on that as a device +for making the crops grow? Who can tell? Who can make the crooked +straight, or number that which is wanting? As said Solomon of old, so +must we--"The foolishness of fools is folly." One thing only we can say +of them, that they were horribly afraid of famine, and took that means of +ridding themselves of their fear. + +But what if the wasp-tribe had no captives? They would offer slaves. +What if the agony and death of slaves did not appease the wasps? They +would offer their fairest, their dearest, their sons and their daughters, +to the wasps; as the Carthaginians, in like strait, offered in one day +200 noble boys to Moloch, the volcano-god, whose worship they had brought +out of Syria; whose original meaning they had probably forgotten; of whom +they only knew that he was a dark and devouring being, who must be +appeased with the burning bodies of their sons and daughters. And so the +veil of fancy would be lifted again, and the whole superstition stand +forth revealed as the mere offspring of bodily fear. + +But more; the survivors of the conquest might, perhaps, escape, and carry +their wasp-fetish into a new land. But if they became poor and weakly, +their brains and imagination, degenerating with their bodies, would +degrade their wasp-worship till they knew not what it meant. Away from +the sacred tree, in a country the wasps of which were not so large or +formidable, they would require a remembrancer of the wasp-king; and they +would make one--a wasp of wood, or what not. After a while, according to +that strange law of fancy, the root of all idolatry, which you may see at +work in every child who plays with a doll, the symbol would become +identified with the thing symbolised; they would invest the wooden wasp +with all the terrible attributes which had belonged to the live wasps of +the tree; and after a few centuries, when all remembrance of the tree, +the wasp-prophet and chieftain, and his descent from the divine wasp--aye, +even of their defeat and flight--had vanished from their songs and +legends, they would be found bowing down in fear and trembling to a +little ancient wooden wasp, which came from they knew not whence, and +meant they knew not what, save that it was a very "old fetish," a "great +medicine," or some such other formula for expressing their own ignorance +and dread. Just so do the half-savage natives of Thibet, and the +Irishwomen of Kerry, by a strange coincidence--unless the ancient Irish +were Buddhists, like the Himalayans--tie just the same scraps of rag on +arise, and show men that they are not the puppets of Nature, but her +lords; and that they are to fear God, and fear naught else. + +And so ends my true myth of the wasp-tree. No, it need not end there; it +may develop into a yet darker and more hideous form of superstition, +which Europe has often seen; which is common now among the Negros; {256} +which, we may hope, will soon be exterminated. + +This might happen. For it, or something like it, has happened too many +times already. + +That to the ancient women who still kept up the irrational remnant of the +wasp-worship, beneath the sacred tree, other women might resort; not +merely from curiosity, or an excited imagination, but from jealousy and +revenge. Oppressed, as woman has always been under the reign of brute +force; beaten, outraged, deserted, at best married against her will, she +has too often gone for comfort and help--and those of the very darkest +kind--to the works of darkness; and there never were wanting--there are +not wanting, even now, in remote parts of these isles--wicked old women +who would, by help of the old superstitions, do for her what she wished. +Soon would follow mysterious deaths of rivals, of husbands, of babes; +then rumours of dark rites connected with the sacred tree, with poison, +with the wasp and his sting, with human sacrifices; lies mingled with +truth, more and more confused and frantic, the more they were +misinvestigated by men mad with fear: till there would arise one of those +witch-manias, which are too common still among the African Negros, which +were too common of old among the men of our race. + +I say, among the men. To comprehend a witch-mania, you must look at it +as--what the witch-literature confesses it unblushingly to be--man's +dread of Nature excited to its highest form, as dread of woman. + +She is to the barbarous man--she should be more and more to the civilised +man--not only the most beautiful and precious, but the most wonderful and +mysterious of all natural objects, if it be only as the author of his +physical being. She is to the savage a miracle to be alternately adored +and dreaded. He dreads her more delicate nervous organisation, which +often takes shapes to him demoniacal and miraculous; her quicker +instincts, her readier wit, which seem to him to have in them somewhat +prophetic and superhuman, which entangle him as in an invisible net, and +rule him against his will. He dreads her very tongue, more crushing than +his heaviest club, more keen than his poisoned arrows. He dreads those +habits of secresy and falsehood, the weapons of the weak, to which savage +and degraded woman always has recourse. He dreads the very medicinal +skill which she has learnt to exercise, as nurse, comforter, and slave. +He dreads those secret ceremonies, those mysterious initiations which no +man may witness, which he has permitted to her in all ages, in so many--if +not all--barbarous and semi-barbarous races, whether Negro, American, +Syrian, Greek, or Roman, as a homage to the mysterious importance of her +who brings him into the world. If she turn against him--she, with all +her unknown powers, she who is the sharer of his deepest secrets, who +prepares his very food day by day--what harm can she not, may she not do? +And that she has good reason to turn against him, he knows too well. What +deliverance is there from this mysterious house-fiend, save brute force? +Terror, torture, murder, must be the order of the day. Woman must be +crushed, at all price, by the blind fear of the man. + +I shall say no more. I shall draw a veil, for very pity and shame, over +the most important and most significant facts of this, the most hideous +of all human follies. I have, I think, given you hints enough to show +that it, like all other superstitions, is the child--the last born and +the ugliest child--of blind dread of the unknown. + + + + +SCIENCE: A lecture delivered at the Royal Institution. + + +I said, that Superstition was the child of Fear, and Fear the child of +Ignorance; and you might expect me to say antithetically, that Science +was the child of Courage, and Courage the child of Knowledge. + +But these genealogies--like most metaphors--do not fit exactly, as you +may see for yourselves. + +If fear be the child of ignorance, ignorance is also the child of fear; +the two react on, and produce each other. The more men dread Nature, the +less they wish to know about her. Why pry into her awful secrets? It is +dangerous; perhaps impious. She says to them, as in the Egyptian temple +of old--"I am Isis, and my veil no mortal yet hath lifted." And why +should they try or wish to lift it? If she will leave them in peace, +they will leave her in peace. It is enough that she does not destroy +them. So as ignorance bred fear, fear breeds fresh and willing +ignorance. + +And courage? We may say, and truly, that courage is the child of +knowledge. But we may say as truly, that knowledge is the child of +courage. Those Egyptian priests in the temple of Isis would have told +you that knowledge was the child of mystery, of special illumination, of +reverence, and what not; hiding under grand words their purpose of +keeping the masses ignorant, that they might be their slaves. Reverence? +I will yield to none in reverence for reverence. I will all but agree +with the wise man who said that reverence is the root of all virtues. But +which child reverences his father most? He who comes joyfully and +trustfully to meet him, that he may learn his father's mind, and do his +will: or he who at his father's coming runs away and hides, lest he +should be beaten for he knows not what? There is a scientific reverence, +a reverence of courage, which is surely one of the highest forms of +reverence. That, namely, which so reveres every fact, that it dare not +overlook or falsify it, seem it never so minute; which feels that because +it is a fact, it cannot be minute, cannot be unimportant; that it must be +a fact of God; a message from God; a voice of God, as Bacon has it, +revealed in things; and which therefore, just because it stands in solemn +awe of such paltry facts as the Scolopax feather in a snipe's pinion, or +the jagged leaves which appear capriciously in certain honeysuckles, +believes that there is likely to be some deep and wide secret underlying +them, which is worth years of thought to solve. That is reverence; a +reverence which is growing, thank God, more and more common; which will +produce, as it grows more common still, fruit which generations yet +unborn shall bless. + +But as for that other reverence, which shuts its eyes and ears in pious +awe--what is it but cowardice decked out in state robes, putting on the +sacred Urim and Thummim, not that men may ask counsel of the Deity, but +that they may not? What is it but cowardice, very pitiable when +unmasked; and what is its child but ignorance as pitiable, which would be +ludicrous were it not so injurious? If a man comes up to Nature as to a +parrot or a monkey, with this prevailing thought in his head--Will it +bite me?--will he not be pretty certain to make up his mind that it may +bite him, and had therefore best be left alone? It is only the man of +courage--few and far between--who will stand the chance of a first bite, +in the hope of teaching the parrot to talk, or the monkey to fire off a +gun. And it is only the man of courage--few and far between--who will +stand the chance of a first bite from Nature, which may kill him for +aught he knows--for her teeth, though clumsy, are very strong--in order +that he may tame her and break her in to his use by the very same method +by which that admirable inductive philosopher, Mr. Rarey, used to break +in his horses; first, by not being afraid of them; and next, by trying to +find out what they were thinking of. But after all, as with animals, so +with Nature; cowardice is dangerous. The surest method of getting bitten +by an animal is to be afraid of it; and the surest method of being +injured by Nature is to be afraid of it. Only as far as we understand +Nature are we safe from it; and those who in any age counsel mankind not +to pry into the secrets of the universe, counsel them not to provide for +their own life and well-being, or for their children after them. But how +few there have been in any age who have not been afraid of Nature. How +few have set themselves, like Rarey, to tame her by finding out what she +is thinking of. The mass are glad to have the results of science, as +they are to buy Mr. Rarey's horses after they are tamed: but for want of +courage or of wit, they had rather leave the taming process to some one +else. And therefore we may say that what knowledge of Nature we have--and +we have very little--we owe to the courage of those men--and they have +been very few--who have been inspired to face Nature boldly; and say--or, +what is better, act as if they were saying--"I find something in me which +I do not find in you; which gives me the hope that I can grow to +understand you, though you may not understand me; that I may become your +master, and not as now, you mine. And if not, I will know: or die in the +search." + +It is to those men, the few and far between, in a very few ages and very +few countries, who have thus risen in rebellion against Nature, and +looked it in the face with an unquailing glance, that we owe what we call +Physical Science. + +There have been four races--or rather a very few men of each four +races--who have faced Nature after this gallant wise. + +First, the old Jews. I speak of them, be it remembered, exclusively from +an historical, and not a religious point of view. + +These people, at a very remote epoch, emerged from a country highly +civilised, but sunk in the superstitions of nature-worship. They invaded +and mingled with tribes whose superstitions were even more debased, +silly, and foul than those of the Egyptians from whom they escaped. Their +own masses were for centuries given up to nature-worship. Now among +those Jews arose men--a very few--sages--prophets--call them what you +will, the men were inspired heroes and philosophers--who assumed towards +nature an attitude utterly different from the rest of their countrymen +and the rest of the then world; who denounced superstition and the dread +of nature as the parent of all manner of vice and misery; who for +themselves said boldly that they discerned in the universe an order, a +unity, a permanence of law, which gave them courage instead of fear. They +found delight and not dread in the thought that the universe obeyed a law +which could not be broken; that all things continued to that day +according to a certain ordinance. They took a view of Nature totally new +in that age; healthy, human, cheerful, loving, trustful, and yet +reverent--identical with that which happily is beginning to prevail in +our own day. They defied those very volcanic and meteoric phenomena of +their land, to which their countrymen were slaying their own children in +the clefts of the rocks, and, like Theophrastus' superstitious man, +pouring their drink-offerings on the smooth stones of the valley; and +declared that, for their part, they would not fear, though the earth was +moved, and though the hills were carried into the midst of the sea; +though the waters raged and swelled, and the mountains shook at the +tempest. + +The fact is indisputable. And you must pardon me if I express my belief +that these men, if they had felt it their business to found a school of +inductive physical science, would, owing to that temper of mind, have +achieved a very signal success. I ground that opinion on the remarkable, +but equally indisputable fact, that no nation has ever succeeded in +perpetuating a school of inductive physical science, save those whose +minds have been saturated with this same view of Nature, which they +have--as an historic fact--slowly but thoroughly learnt from the writings +of these Jewish sages. + +Such is the fact. The founders of inductive physical science were not +the Jews: but first the Chaldaeans, next the Greeks, next their pupils +the Romans--or rather a few sages among each race. But what success had +they? The Chaldaean astronomers made a few discoveries concerning the +motions of the heavenly bodies, which, rudimentary as they were, still +prove them to have been men of rare intellect. For a great and a patient +genius must he have been, who first distinguished the planets from the +fixed stars, or worked out the earliest astronomical calculation. But +they seem to have been crushed, as it were, by their own discoveries. +They stopped short. They gave way again to the primeval fear of Nature. +They sank into planet-worship. They invented, it would seem, that +fantastic pseudo-science of astrology, which lay for ages after as an +incubus on the human intellect and conscience. They became the magicians +and quacks of the old world; and mankind owed them thenceforth nothing +but evil. Among the Greeks and Romans, again, those sages who dared face +Nature like reasonable men, were accused by the superstitious mob as +irreverent, impious, atheists. The wisest of them all, Socrates, was +actually put to death on that charge; and finally, they failed. School +after school, in Greece and Rome, struggled to discover, and to get a +hearing for, some theory of the universe which was founded on something +like experience, reason, common sense. They were not allowed to +prosecute their attempt. The mud-ocean of ignorance and fear in which +they struggled so manfully was too strong for them; the mud-waves closed +over their heads finally, as the age of the Antonines expired; and the +last effort of Graeco-Roman thought to explain the universe was +Neoplatonism--the muddiest of the muddy--an attempt to apologise for, and +organise into a system, all the nature-dreading superstitions of the +Roman world. Porphyry, Plotinus, Proclus, poor Hypatia herself, and all +her school--they may have had themselves no bodily fear of Nature; for +they were noble souls. Yet they spent their time in justifying those who +had; in apologising for the superstitions of the very mob which they +despised: just as--it sometimes seems to me--some folk in these days are +like to end in doing; begging that the masses might be allowed to believe +in anything, however false, lest they should believe in nothing at all: +as if believing in lies could do anything but harm to any human being. +And so died the science of the old world, in a true second childhood, +just where it began. + +The Jewish sages, I hold, taught that science was probable; the Greeks +and Romans proved that it was possible. It remained for our race, under +the teaching of both, to bring science into act and fact. + +Many causes contributed to give them this power. They were a personally +courageous race. This earth has yet seen no braver men than the +forefathers of Christian Europe, whether Scandinavian or Teuton, Angle or +Frank. They were a practical hard-headed race, with a strong +appreciation of facts, and a strong determination to act on them. Their +laws, their society, their commerce, their colonisation, their migrations +by land and sea, proved that they were such. They were favoured, +moreover, by circumstances, or--as I should rather put it--by that divine +Providence which determined their times, and the bounds of their +habitation. They came in as the heritors of the decaying civilisation of +Greece and Rome; they colonised territories which gave to man special +fair play, but no more, in the struggle for existence, the battle with +the powers of Nature; tolerably fertile, tolerably temperate; with +boundless means of water communication; freer than most parts of the +world from those terrible natural phenomena, like the earthquake and the +hurricane, before which man lies helpless and astounded, a child beneath +the foot of a giant. Nature was to them not so inhospitable as to starve +their brains and limbs, as it has done for the Esquimaux or Fuegian; and +not so bountiful as to crush them by its very luxuriance, as it has +crushed the savages of the tropics. They saw enough of its strength to +respect it; not enough to cower before it: and they and it have fought it +out; and it seems to me, standing either on London Bridge or on a Holland +fen-dyke, that they are winning at last. But they had a sore battle: a +battle against their own fear of the unseen. They brought with them, out +of the heart of Asia, dark and sad nature-superstitions, some of which +linger among our peasantry till this day, of elves, trolls, nixes, and +what not. Their Thor and Odin were at first, probably, only the thunder +and the wind: but they had to be appeased in the dark marches of the +forest, where hung rotting on the sacred oaks, amid carcases of goat and +horse, the carcases of human victims. No one acquainted with the early +legends and ballads of our race, but must perceive throughout them all +the prevailing tone of fear and sadness. And to their own superstitions, +they added those of the Rome which they conquered. They dreaded the +Roman she-poisoners and witches, who, like Horace's Canidia, still +performed horrid rites in grave-yards and dark places of the earth. They +dreaded as magical the delicate images engraved on old Greek gems. They +dreaded the very Roman cities they had destroyed. They were the work of +enchanters. Like the ruins of St. Albans here in England, they were all +full of devils, guarding the treasures which the Romans had hidden. The +Caesars became to them magical man-gods. The poet Virgil became the +prince of necromancers. If the secrets of Nature were to be known, they +were to be known by unlawful means, by prying into the mysteries of the +old heathen magicians, or of the Mohammedan doctors of Cordova and +Seville; and those who dared to do so were respected and feared, and +often came to evil ends. It needed moral courage, then, to face and +interpret fact. Such brave men as Pope Gerbert, Roger Bacon, Galileo, +even Kepler, did not lead happy lives; some of them found themselves in +prison. All the medieval sages--even Albertus Magnus--were stigmatised +as magicians. One wonders that more of them did not imitate poor +Paracelsus, who, unable to get a hearing for his coarse common sense, +took--vain and sensual--to drinking the laudanum which he himself had +discovered, and vaunted as a priceless boon to men; and died as the fool +dieth, in spite of all his wisdom. For the "Romani nominis umbra," the +shadow of the mighty race whom they had conquered, lay heavy on our +forefathers for centuries. And their dread of the great heathens was +really a dread of Nature, and of the powers thereof. For when the +authority of great names has reigned unquestioned for many centuries, +those names become, to the human mind, integral and necessary parts of +Nature itself. They are, as it were, absorbed into it; they become its +laws, its canons, its demiurges, and guardian spirits; their words become +regarded as actual facts; in one word, they become a superstition, and +are feared as parts of the vast unknown; and to deny what they have said +is, in the minds of the many, not merely to fly in the face of reverent +wisdom, but to fly in the face of facts. During a great part of the +middle ages, for instance, it was impossible for an educated man to think +of Nature itself, without thinking first of what Aristotle had said of +her. Aristotle's dicta were Nature; and when Benedetti, at Venice, +opposed in 1585 Aristotle's opinions on violent and natural motion, there +were hundreds, perhaps, in the universities of Europe--as there certainly +were in the days of the immortal 'Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum'--who were +ready, in spite of all Benedetti's professed reverence for Aristotle, to +accuse him of outraging not only the father of philosophy, but Nature +itself and its palpable and notorious facts. For the restoration of +letters in the fifteenth century had not at first mended matters, so +strong was the dread of Nature in the minds of the masses. The minds of +men had sported forth, not toward any sound investigation of facts, but +toward an eclectic resuscitation of Neoplatonism; which endured, not +without a certain beauty and use--as let Spenser's 'Faery Queen' bear +witness--till the latter half of the seventeenth century. + +After that time a rapid change began. It is marked by--it has been +notably assisted by--the foundation of our own Royal Society. Its causes +I will not enter into; they are so inextricably mixed, I hold, with +theological questions, that they cannot be discussed here. I will only +point out to you these facts: that, from the latter part of the +seventeenth century, the noblest heads and the noblest hearts of Europe +concentrated themselves more and more on the brave and patient +investigation of physical facts, as the source of priceless future +blessings to mankind; that the eighteenth century, which it has been the +fashion of late to depreciate, did more for the welfare of mankind, in +every conceivable direction, than the whole fifteen centuries before it; +that it did this good work by boldly observing and analysing facts; that +this boldness toward facts increased in proportion as Europe became +indoctrinated with the Jewish literature; and that, notably, such men as +Kepler, Newton, Berkeley, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Descartes, in whatsoever +else they differed, agreed in this, that their attitude towards Nature +was derived from the teaching of the Jewish sages. I believe that we are +not yet fully aware how much we owe to the Jewish mind, in the gradual +emancipation of the human intellect. The connection may not, of course, +be one of cause and effect; it may be a mere coincidence. I believe it +to be a cause; one of course of very many causes: but still an integral +cause. At least the coincidence is too remarkable a fact not to be +worthy of investigation. + +I said, just now--The emancipation of the human intellect. I did not +say--Of science, or of the scientific intellect; and for this reason: + +That the emancipation of science is the emancipation of the common mind +of all men. All men can partake of the gains of free scientific thought, +not merely by enjoying its physical results, but by becoming more +scientific men themselves. + +Therefore it was, that though I began my first lecture by defining +superstition, I did not begin my second by defining its antagonist, +science. For the word science defines itself. It means simply +knowledge; that is, of course, right knowledge, or such an approximation +as can be obtained; knowledge of any natural object, its classification, +its causes, its effects; or in plain English, what it is, how it came +where it is, and what can be done with it. + +And scientific method, likewise, needs no definition; for it is simply +the exercise of common sense. It is not a peculiar, unique, +professional, or mysterious process of the understanding: but the same +which all men employ, from the cradle to the grave, in forming correct +conclusions. + +Every one who knows the philosophic writings of Mr. John Stuart Mill, +will be familiar with this opinion. But to those who have no leisure to +study him, I should recommend the reading of Professor Huxley's third +lecture on the origin of species. + +In that he shows, with great logical skill, as well as with some humour, +how the man who, on rising in the morning, finds the parlour window open, +the spoons and teapot gone, the mark of a dirty hand on the window-sill, +and that of a hob-nailed boot outside, and comes to the conclusion that +some one has broken open the window and stolen the plate, arrives at that +hypothesis--for it is nothing more--by a long and complex train of +inductions and deductions, of just the same kind as those which, +according to the Baconian philosophy, are to be used for investigating +the deepest secrets of Nature. + +This is true, even of those sciences which involve long mathematical +calculations. In fact, the stating of the problem to be solved is the +most important element in the calculation; and that is so thoroughly a +labour of common sense that an utterly uneducated man may, and often +does, state an abstruse problem clearly and correctly; seeing what ought +to be proved, and perhaps how to prove it, though he may be unable to +work the problem out, for want of mathematical knowledge. + +But that mathematical knowledge is not--as all Cambridge men are surely +aware--the result of any special gift. It is merely the development of +those conceptions of form and number which every human being possesses; +and any person of average intellect can make himself a fair mathematician +if he will only pay continuous attention; in plain English, think enough +about the subject. + +There are sciences, again, which do not involve mathematical calculation; +for instance, botany, zoology, geology, which are just now passing from +their old stage of classificatory sciences into the rank of organic ones. +These are, without doubt, altogether within the scope of the merest +common sense. Any man or woman of average intellect, if they will but +observe and think for themselves, freely, boldly, patiently, accurately, +may judge for themselves of the conclusions of these sciences, may add to +these conclusions fresh and important discoveries; and if I am asked for +a proof of what I assert, I point to 'Rain and Rivers,' written by no +professed scientific man, but by a colonel in the Guards, known to fame +only as one of the most perfect horsemen in the world. + +Let me illustrate my meaning by an example. A man--I do not say a +geologist, but simply a man, squire or ploughman--sees a small valley, +say one of the side-glens which open into the larger valleys in the +Windsor forest district. He wishes to ascertain its age. + +He has, at first sight, a very simple measure--that of denudation. He +sees that the glen is now being eaten out by a little stream, the product +of innumerable springs which arise along its sides, and which are fed +entirely by the rain on the moors above. He finds, on observation, that +this stream brings down some ten cubic yards of sand and gravel, on an +average, every year. The actual quantity of earth which has been removed +to make the glen may be several million cubic yards. Here is an easy sum +in arithmetic. At the rate of ten cubic yards a year, the stream has +taken several hundred thousand years to make the glen. + +You will observe that this result is obtained by mere common sense. He +has a right to assume that the stream originally began the glen, because +he finds it in the act of enlarging it; just as much right as he has to +assume, if he finds a hole in his pocket, and his last coin in the act of +falling through it, that the rest of his money has fallen through the +same hole. It is a sufficient cause, and the simplest. A number of +observations as to the present rate of denudation, and a sum which any +railroad contractor can do in his head, to determine the solid contents +of the valley, are all that are needed. The method is that of science: +but it is also that of simple common sense. You will remember, +therefore, that this is no mere theory or hypothesis, but a pretty fair +and simple conclusion from palpable facts; that the probability lies with +the belief that the glen is some hundreds of thousands of years old; that +it is not the observer's business to prove it further, but other persons' +to disprove it, if they can. + +But does the matter end here? No. And, for certain reasons, it is good +that it should not end here. + +The observer, if he be a cautious man, begins to see if he can disprove +his own conclusion; moreover, being human, he is probably somewhat awed, +if not appalled, by his own conclusion. Hundreds of thousands of years +spent in making that little glen! Common sense would say that the longer +it took to make, the less wonder there was in its being made at last: but +the instinctive human feeling is the opposite. There is in men, and +there remains in them, even after they are civilised, and all other forms +of the dread of Nature have died out in them, a dread of size, of vast +space, of vast time; that latter, mind, being always imagined as space, +as we confess when we speak instinctively of a space of time. They will +not understand that size is merely a relative, not an absolute term; that +if we were a thousand times larger than we are, the universe would be a +thousand times smaller than it is; that if we could think a thousand +times faster than we do, time would be a thousand times longer than it +is; that there is One in whom we live, and move, and have our being, to +whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. I +believe this dread of size to be merely, like all other superstitions, a +result of bodily fear; a development of the instinct which makes a little +dog run away from a big dog. Be that as it may, every observer has it; +and so the man's conclusion seems to him strange, doubtful: he will +reconsider it. + +Moreover, if he be an experienced man, he is well aware that first +guesses, first hypotheses, are not always the right ones; and if he be a +modest man, he will consider the fact that many thousands of thoughtful +men in all ages, and many thousands still, would say, that the glen can +only be a few thousand, or possibly a few hundred, years old. And he +will feel bound to consider their opinion; as far as it is, like his own, +drawn from facts, but no further. + +So he casts about for all other methods by which the glen may have been +produced, to see if any one of them will account for it in a shorter +time. + +1. Was it made by an earthquake? No; for the strata on both sides are +identical, at the same level, and in the same plane. + +2. Or by a mighty current? If so, the flood must have run in at the +upper end, before it ran out at the lower. But nothing has run in at the +upper end. All round above are the undisturbed gravel beds of the +horizontal moor, without channel or depression. + +3. Or by water draining off a vast flat as it was upheaved out of the +sea? That is a likely guess. The valley at its upper end spreads out +like the fingers of a hand, as the gullies in tide-muds do. + +But that hypothesis will not stand. There is no vast unbroken flat +behind the glen. Right and left of it are other similar glens, parted +from it by long narrow ridges: these also must be explained on the same +hypothesis; but they cannot. For there could not have been +surface-drainage to make them all, or a tenth of them. There are no +other possible hypotheses; and so he must fall back on the original +theory--the rain, the springs, the brook; they have done it all, even as +they are doing it this day. + +But is not that still a hasty assumption? May not their denuding power +have been far greater in old times than now? + +Why should it? Because there was more rain then than now? That he must +put out of court; there is no evidence of it whatsoever. + +Because the land was more friable originally? Well, there is a great +deal to be said for that. The experience of every countryman tells him +that bare or fallow land is more easily washed away than land under +vegetation. And no doubt, when these gravels and sands rose from the +sea, they were barren for hundreds of years. He has some measure of the +time required, because he can tell roughly how long it takes for sands +and shingles left by the sea to become covered with vegetation. But he +must allow that the friability of the land must have been originally much +greater than now, for hundreds of years. + +But again, does that fact really cut off any great space of time from his +hundreds of thousands of years? For when the land first rose from the +sea, that glen was not there. Some slight bay or bend in the shore +determined its site. That stream was not there. It was split up into a +million little springs, oozing side by side from the shore, and having +each a very minute denuding power, which kept continually increasing by +combination as the glen ate its way inwards, and the rainfall drained by +all these little springs was collected into the one central stream. So +that when the ground being bare was most liable to be denuded, the water +was least able to do it; and as the denuding power of the water +increased, the land, being covered with vegetation, became more and more +able to resist it. All this he has seen, going on at the present day, in +the similar gullies worn in the soft strata of the South Hampshire coast; +especially round Bournemouth. + +So the two disturbing elements in the calculation may be fairly set off +against each other, as making a difference of only a few thousands or +tens of thousands of years either way; and the age of the glen may fairly +be, if not a million years, yet such a length of years as mankind still +speak of with bated breath, as if forsooth it would do them some harm. + +I trust that every scientific man in this room will agree with me, that +the imaginary squire or ploughman would have been conducting his +investigation strictly according to the laws of the Baconian philosophy. +You will remark, meanwhile, that he has not used a single scientific +term, or referred to a single scientific investigation; and has observed +nothing and thought nothing which might not have been observed and +thought by any one who chose to use his common sense, and not to be +afraid. + +But because he has come round, after all this further investigation, to +something very like his first conclusion, was all that further +investigation useless? No--a thousand times, no. It is this very +verification of hypotheses which makes the sound ones safe, and destroys +the unsound. It is this struggle with all sorts of superstitions which +makes science strong and sure, and her march irresistible, winning ground +slowly, but never receding from it. It is this buffeting of adversity +which compels her not to rest dangerously upon the shallow sand of first +guesses, and single observations; but to strike her roots down, deep, +wide, and interlaced into the solid ground of actual facts. + +It is very necessary to insist on this point. For there have been men in +all past ages--I do not say whether there are any such now, but I am +inclined to think that there will be hereafter--men who have tried to +represent scientific method as something difficult, mysterious, peculiar, +unique, not to be attained by the unscientific mass; and this not for the +purpose of exalting science, but rather of discrediting her. For as long +as the masses, educated or uneducated, are ignorant of what scientific +method is, they will look on scientific men, as the middle age looked on +necromancers, as a privileged, but awful and uncanny caste, possessed of +mighty secrets; who may do them great good, but may also do them great +harm. + +Which belief on the part of the masses will enable these persons to +instal themselves as the critics of science, though not scientific men +themselves: and--as Shakespeare has it--to talk of Robin Hood, though +they never shot in his bow. Thus they become mediators to the masses +between the scientific and the unscientific worlds. They tell them--You +are not to trust the conclusions of men of science at first hand. You +are not fit judges of their facts or of their methods. It is we who +will, by a cautious eclecticism, choose out for you such of their +conclusions as are safe for you; and them we will advise you to believe. +To the scientific man, on the other hand, as often as anything is +discovered unpleasing to them, they will say, imperiously and e +cathedra--Your new theory contradicts the established facts of science. +For they will know well that whatever the men of science think of their +assertion, the masses will believe it; totally unaware that the speakers +are by their very terms showing their ignorance of science; and that what +they call established facts scientific men call merely provisional +conclusions, which they would throw away to-morrow without a pang were +the known facts explained better by a fresh theory, or did fresh facts +require one. + +This has happened too often. It is in the interest of superstition that +it should happen again; and the best way to prevent it surely is to tell +the masses--Scientific method is no peculiar mystery, requiring a +peculiar initiation. It is simply common sense, combined with uncommon +courage, which includes uncommon honesty and uncommon patience; and if +you will be brave, honest, patient, and rational, you will need no +mystagogues to tell you what in science to believe and what not to +believe; for you will be just as good judges of scientific facts and +theories as those who assume the right of guiding your convictions. You +are men and women: and more than that you need not be. + +And let me say that the man of our days whose writings exemplify most +thoroughly what I am going to say is the justly revered Mr. Thomas +Carlyle. + +As far as I know he has never written on any scientific subject. For +aught I am aware of, he may know nothing of mathematics or chemistry, of +comparative anatomy or geology. For aught I am aware of, he may know a +great deal about them all, and, like a wise man, hold his tongue, and +give the world merely the results in the form of general thought. But +this I know; that his writings are instinct with the very spirit of +science; that he has taught men, more than any living man, the meaning +and end of science; that he has taught men moral and intellectual +courage; to face facts boldly, while they confess the divineness of +facts; not to be afraid of Nature, and not to worship nature; to believe +that man can know truth; and that only in as far as he knows truth can he +live worthily on this earth. And thus he has vindicated, as no other man +in our days has done, at once the dignity of Nature and the dignity of +spirit. That he would have made a distinguished scientific man, we may +be as certain from his writings as we may be certain, when we see a fine +old horse of a certain stamp, that he would have made a first-class +hunter, though he has been unfortunately all his life in harness. +Therefore, did I try to train a young man of science to be true, devout, +and earnest, accurate and daring, I should say--Read what you will: but +at least read Carlyle. It is a small matter to me--and I doubt not to +him--whether you will agree with his special conclusions: but his +premises and his method are irrefragable; for they stand on the +"voluntatem Dei in rebus revelatam"--on fact and common sense. + +And Mr. Carlyle's writings, if I am correct in my estimate of them, will +afford a very sufficient answer to those who think that the scientific +habit of mind tends to irreverence. + +Doubtless this accusation will always be brought against science by those +who confound reverence with fear. For from blind fear of the unknown, +science does certainly deliver man. She does by man as he does by an +unbroken colt. The colt sees by the road side some quite new object--a +cast-away boot, an old kettle, or what not. What a fearful monster! What +unknown terrific powers may it not possess! And the colt shies across +the road, runs up the bank, rears on end; putting itself thereby, as many +a man does, in real danger. What cure is there? But one; experience. So +science takes us, as we should take the colt, gently by the halter; and +makes us simply smell at the new monster; till after a few trembling +sniffs, we discover, like the colt, that it is not a monster, but a +kettle. Yet I think, if we sum up the loss and gain, we shall find the +colt's character has gained, rather than lost, by being thus disabused. +He learns to substitute a very rational reverence for the man who is +breaking him in, for a totally irrational reverence for the kettle; and +becomes thereby a much wiser and more useful member of society, as does +the man when disabused of his superstitions. + +From which follows one result. That if science proposes--as she does--to +make men brave, wise, and independent, she must needs excite unpleasant +feelings in all who desire to keep men cowardly, ignorant, and slavish. +And that too many such persons have existed in all ages is but too +notorious. There have been from all time, goetai, quacks, powwow men, +rain-makers, and necromancers of various sorts, who having for their own +purposes set forth partial, ill-grounded, fantastic, and frightful +interpretations of nature, have no love for those who search after a +true, exact, brave, and hopeful one. And therefore it is to be feared, +or hoped, science and superstition will to the world's end remain +irreconcilable and internecine foes. + +Conceive the feelings of an old Lapland witch, who has had for the last +fifty years all the winds in a sealskin bag, and has been selling fair +breezes to northern skippers at so much a puff, asserting her powers so +often, poor old soul, that she has got to half believe them +herself,--conceive, I say, her feelings at seeing her customers watch the +Admiralty storm-signals, and con the weather reports in the 'Times.' +Conceive the feelings of Sir Samuel Baker's African friend, Katchiba, the +rain-making chief, who possessed a whole housefull of thunder and +lightning--though he did not, he confessed, keep it in a bottle as they +do in England--if Sir Samuel had had the means, and the will, of giving +to Katchiba's Negros a course of lectures on electricity, with +appropriate experiments, and a real bottle full of real lightning among +the foremost. + +It is clear that only two methods of self-defence would have been open to +the rain-maker: namely, either to kill Sir Samuel, or to buy his real +secret of bottling the lightning, that he might use it for his own ends. +The former method--that of killing the man of science--was found more +easy in ancient times; the latter in these modern ones. And there have +been always those who, too good-natured to kill the scientific man, have +patronised knowledge, not for its own sake, but for the use which may be +made of it; who would like to keep a tame man of science, as they would a +tame poet, or a tame parrot; who say--Let us have science by all means, +but not too much of it. It is a dangerous thing; to be doled out to the +world, like medicine, in small and cautious doses. You, the scientific +man, will of course freely discover what you choose. Only do not talk +too loudly about it: leave that to us. We understand the world, and are +meant to guide and govern it. So discover freely: and meanwhile hand +over your discoveries to us, that we may instruct and edify the populace +with so much of them as we think safe, while we keep our position +thereby, and in many cases make much money by your science. Do that, and +we will patronise you, applaud you, ask you to our houses; and you shall +be clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously with us every +day. I know not whether these latter are not the worst enemies which +science has. They are often such excellent, respectable, orderly, well- +meaning persons. They desire so sincerely that everyone should be wise: +only not too wise. They are so utterly unaware of the mischief they are +doing. They would recoil with horror if they were told they were so many +Iscariots, betraying Truth with a kiss. + +But science, as yet, has withstood both terrors and blandishments. In +old times, she endured being imprisoned and slain. She came to life +again. Perhaps it was the will of Him in whom all things live, that she +should live. Perhaps it was His spirit which gave her life. + +She can endure, too, being starved. Her votaries have not as yet cared +much for purple and fine linen, and sumptuous fare. There are a very few +among them who, joining brilliant talents to solid learning, have risen +to deserved popularity, to titles, and to wealth. But even their +labours, it seems to me, are never rewarded in any proportion to the time +and the intellect spent on them, nor to the benefits which they bring to +mankind; while the great majority, unpaid and unknown, toil on, and have +to find in science her own reward. Better, perhaps, that it should be +so. Better for science that she should be free, in holy poverty, to go +where she will and say what she knows, than that she should be hired out +at so much a year to say things pleasing to the many, and to those who +guide the many. And so, I verily believe, the majority of scientific men +think. There are those among them who have obeyed very faithfully St. +Paul's precept, "No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs +of this life." For they have discovered that they are engaged in a war--a +veritable war--against the rulers of darkness, against ignorance and its +twin children, fear and cruelty. Of that war they see neither the end +nor even the plan. But they are ready to go on; ready, with Socrates, +"to follow reason withersoever it leads;" and content, meanwhile, like +good soldiers in a campaign, if they can keep tolerably in line, and use +their weapons, and see a few yards ahead of them through the smoke and +the woods. They will come out somewhere at last; they know not where nor +when: but they will come out at last, into the daylight and the open +field; and be told then--perhaps to their own astonishment--as many a +gallant soldier has been told, that by simply walking straight on, and +doing the duty which lay nearest them, they have helped to win a great +battle, and slay great giants, earning the thanks of their country and of +mankind. + +And, meanwhile, if they get their shilling a day of fighting-pay, they +are content. I had almost said, they ought to be content. For science +is, I verily believe, like virtue, its own exceeding great reward. I can +conceive few human states more enviable than that of the man to whom, +panting in the foul laboratory, or watching for his life under the tropic +forest, Isis shall for a moment lift her sacred veil, and show him, once +and for ever, the thing he dreamed not of; some law, or even mere hint of +a law, explaining one fact; but explaining with it a thousand more, +connecting them all with each other and with the mighty whole, till order +and meaning shoots through some old Chaos of scattered observations. + +Is not that a joy, a prize, which wealth cannot give, nor poverty take +away? What it may lead to, he knows not. Of what use it may become, he +knows not. But this he knows, that somewhere it must lead; of some use +it will be. For it is a truth; and having found a truth, he has +exorcised one more of the ghosts which haunt humanity. He has left one +object less for man to fear; one object more for man to use. Yes, the +scientific man may have this comfort, that whatever he has done, he has +done good; that he is following a mistress who has never yet conferred +aught but benefits on the human race. + +What physical science may do hereafter I know not; but as yet she has +done this: + +She has enormously increased the wealth of the human race; and has +therefore given employment, food, existence, to millions who, without +science, would either have starved or have never been born. She has +shown that the dictum of the early political economists, that population +has a tendency to increase faster than the means of subsistence, is no +law of humanity, but merely a tendency of the barbaric and ignorant man, +which can be counteracted by increasing manifold by scientific means his +powers of producing food. She has taught men, during the last few years, +to foresee and elude the most destructive storms; and there is no reason +for doubting, and many reasons for hoping, that she will gradually teach +men to elude other terrific forces of nature, too powerful and too +seemingly capricious for them to conquer. She has discovered innumerable +remedies and alleviations for pains and disease. She has thrown such +light on the causes of epidemics, that we are able to say now that the +presence of cholera--and probably of all zymotic diseases--in any place, +is usually a sin and a shame, for which the owners and authorities of +that place ought to be punishable by law, as destroyers of their fellow- +men; while for the weak, for those who, in the barbarous and +semi-barbarous state--and out of that last we are only just emerging--how +much has she done; an earnest of much more which she will do? She has +delivered the insane--I may say by the scientific insight of one man, +more worthy of titles and pensions than nine-tenths of those who earn +them--I mean the great and good Pinel--from hopeless misery and torture +into comparative peace and comfort, and at least the possibility of cure. +For children, she has done much, or rather might do, would parents read +and perpend such books as Andrew Combe's and those of other writers on +physical education. We should not then see the children, even of the +rich, done to death piecemeal by improper food, improper clothes, neglect +of ventilation and the commonest measures for preserving health. We +should not see their intellects stunted by Procrustean attempts to teach +them all the same accomplishments, to the neglect, most often, of any +sound practical training of their faculties. We should not see slight +indigestion, or temporary rushes of blood to the head, condemned and +punished as sins against Him who took up little children in His arms and +blessed them. + +But we may have hope. When we compare education now with what it was +even forty years ago, much more with the stupid brutality of the monastic +system, we may hail for children, as well as for grown people, the advent +of the reign of common sense. + +And for woman--What might I not say on that point? But most of it would +be fitly discussed only among physicians and biologists: here I will say +only this--Science has exterminated, at least among civilised nations, +witch-manias. Women--at least white women--are no longer tortured or +burnt alive from man's blind fear of the unknown. If science had done no +more than that, she would deserve the perpetual thanks and the perpetual +trust, not only of the women whom she has preserved from agony, but the +men whom she has preserved from crime. + +These benefits have already accrued to civilised men, because they have +lately allowed a very few of their number peaceably to imitate Mr. Rarey, +and find out what nature--or rather, to speak at once reverently and +accurately, He who made nature--is thinking of; and obey the "voluntatem +Dei in rebus revelatam." This science has done, while yet in her +infancy. What she will do in her maturity, who dare predict? At least, +in the face of such facts as these, those who bid us fear, or restrain, +or mutilate science, bid us commit an act of folly, as well as of +ingratitude, which can only harm ourselves. For science has as yet done +nothing but good. Will any one tell me what harm it has ever done? When +any one will show me a single result of science, of the knowledge of and +use of physical facts, which has not tended directly to the benefit of +mankind, moral and spiritual, as well as physical and economic--then I +shall be tempted to believe that Solomon was wrong when he said that the +one thing to be sought after on earth, more precious than all treasure, +she who has length of days in her right hand, and in her left hand riches +and honour, whose ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are +peace, who is a tree of life to all who lay hold on her, and makes happy +every one who retains her, is--as you will see if you will yourselves +consult the passage--that very Wisdom--by which God has founded the +earth; and that very Understanding--by which He has established the +heavens. + + + + +GROTS AND GROVES + + +I wish this lecture to be suggestive, rather that didactic; to set you +thinking and inquiring for yourselves, rather than learning at second- +hand from me. Some among my audience, I doubt not, will neither need to +be taught by me, nor to be stirred up to inquiry for themselves. They +are already, probably, antiquarians; already better acquainted with the +subject than I am. They come hither, therefore, as critics; I trust not +as unkindly critics. They will, I hope, remember that I am trying to +excite a general interest in that very architecture in which they +delight, and so to make the public do justice to their labours. They +will therefore, I trust, + + "Be to my faults a little blind, + Be to my virtues very kind;" + +and if my architectural theories do not seem to them correct in all +details--well-founded I believe them myself to be--remember that it is a +slight matter to me, or to the audience, whether any special and pet +fancy of mine should be exactly true or not: but it is not a light matter +that my hearers should be awakened--and too many just now need an actual +awakening--to a right, pure, and wholesome judgment on questions of art, +especially when the soundness of that judgment depends, as in this case, +on sound judgments about human history, as well as about natural objects. + +Now, it befel me that, fresh from the Tropic forests, and with their +forms hanging always, as it were, in the background of my eye, I was +impressed more and more vividly the longer I looked, with the likeness of +those forest forms to the forms of our own Cathedral of Chester. The +grand and graceful Chapter-house transformed itself into one of those +green bowers, which, once seen, and never to be seen again, make one at +once richer and poorer for the rest of life. The fans of groining sprang +from the short columns, just as do the feathered boughs of the far more +beautiful Maximiliana palm, and just of the same size and shape: and met +overhead, as I have seen them meet, in aisles longer by far than our +cathedral nave. The free upright shafts, which give such strength, and +yet such lightness, to the mullions of each window, pierced upward +through those curving lines, as do the stems of young trees through the +fronds of palm; and, like them, carried the eye and the fancy up into the +infinite, and took off a sense of oppression and captivity which the +weight of the roof might have produced. In the nave, in the choir the +same vision of the Tropic forest haunted me. The fluted columns not only +resembled, but seemed copied from the fluted stems beneath which I had +ridden in the primeval woods; their bases, their capitals, seemed copied +from the bulgings at the collar of the root, and at the spring of the +boughs, produced by a check of the redundant sap; and were garlanded +often enough like the capitals of the columns, with delicate tracery of +parasite leaves and flowers; the mouldings of the arches seemed copied +from the parallel bundles of the curving bamboo shoots; and even the +flatter roof of the nave and transepts had its antitype in that highest +level of the forest aisles, where the trees, having climbed at last to +the light-food which they seek, care no longer to grow upward, but spread +out in huge limbs, almost horizontal, reminding the eye of the +four-centred arch which marks the period of Perpendicular Gothic. + +Nay, to this day there is one point in our cathedral which, to me, keeps +up the illusion still. As I enter the choir, and look upward toward the +left, I cannot help seeing, in the tabernacle work of the stalls, the +slender and aspiring forms of the "rastrajo;" the delicate second growth +which, as it were, rushes upward from the earth wherever the forest is +cleared; and above it, in the tall lines of the north-west pier of the +tower--even though defaced, along the inner face of the western arch, by +ugly and needless perpendicular panelling--I seem to see the stems of +huge Cedars, or Balatas, or Ceibas, curving over, as they would do, into +the great beams of the transept roof, some seventy feet above the ground. + +Nay, so far will the fancy lead, that I have seemed to see, in the +stained glass between the tracery of the windows, such gorgeous sheets of +colour as sometimes flash on the eye, when, far aloft, between high stems +and boughs, you catch sight of some great tree ablaze with flowers, +either its own or those of a parasite; yellow or crimson, white or +purple; and over them again the cloudless blue. + +Now, I know well that all these dreams are dreams; that the men who built +our northern cathedrals never saw these forest forms; and that the +likeness of their work to those of Tropic nature is at most only a +corroboration of Mr. Ruskin's dictum, that "the Gothic did not arise out +of, but developed itself into, a resemblance to vegetation. . . . It was +no chance suggestion of the form of an arch from the bending of a bough, +but the gradual and continual discovery of a beauty in natural forms +which could be more and more transferred into those of stone, which +influenced at once the hearts of the people and the form of the edifice." +So true is this, that by a pure and noble copying of the vegetable beauty +which they had seen in their own clime, the medieval craftsmen went so +far--as I have shown you--as to anticipate forms of vegetable beauty +peculiar to Tropic climes, which they had not seen: a fresh proof, if +proof were needed, that beauty is something absolute and independent of +man; and not, as some think, only relative, and what happens to be +pleasant to the eye of this man or that. + +But thinking over this matter, and reading over, too, that which Mr. +Ruskin has written thereon in his 'Stones of Venice,' vol. ii. cap. vi., +on the nature of Gothic, I came to certain further conclusions--or at +least surmises--which I put before you to-night, in hopes that if they +have no other effect on you, they will at least stir some of you up to +read Mr. Ruskin's works. + +Now Mr. Ruskin says, "That the original conception of Gothic architecture +has been derived from vegetation, from the symmetry of avenues and the +interlacing of branches, is a strange and vain supposition. It is a +theory which never could have existed for a moment in the mind of any +person acquainted with early Gothic: but, however idle as a theory, it is +most valuable as a testimony to the character of the perfected style." + +Doubtless so. But you must remember always that the subject of my +lecture is Grots and Groves; that I am speaking not of Gothic +architecture in general, but of Gothic ecclesiastical architecture; and +more, almost exclusively of the ecclesiastical architecture of the +Teutonic or northern nations; because in them, as I think, the +resemblance between the temple and the forest reached the fullest +exactness. + +Now the original idea of a Christian church was that of a grot; a cave. +That is a historic fact. The Christianity which was passed on to us +began to worship, hidden and persecuted, in the catacombs of Rome, it may +be often around the martyrs' tombs, by the dim light of candle or of +torch. The candles on the Roman altars, whatever they have been made to +symbolise since then, are the hereditary memorials of that fact. +Throughout the North, in these isles as much as in any land, the idea of +the grot was, in like wise, the idea of a church. The saint or hermit +built himself a cell; dark, massive, intended to exclude light as well as +weather; or took refuge in a cave. There he prayed and worshipped, and +gathered others to pray and worship round him, during his life. There +he, often enough, became an object of worship, in his turn, after his +death. In after ages his cave was ornamented, like that of the hermit of +Montmajour by Arles; or his cell-chapel enlarged, as those of the Scotch +and Irish saints have been, again and again; till at last a stately +minster rose above it. Still, the idea that the church was to be a grot +haunted the minds of builders. + +But side by side with the Christian grot there was throughout the North +another form of temple, dedicated to very different gods; namely, the +trees from whose mighty stems hung the heads of the victims of Odin or of +Thor, the horse, the goat, and in time of calamity or pestilence, of men. +Trees and not grots were the temples of our forefathers. + +Scholars know well--but they must excuse my quoting it for the sake of +those who are not scholars--the famous passage of Tacitus which tells how +our forefathers "held it beneath the dignity of the gods to coop them +within walls, or liken them to any human countenance: but consecrated +groves and woods, and called by the name of gods that mystery which they +held by faith alone;" and the equally famous passage of Claudian, about +"the vast silence of the Black Forest, and groves awful with ancient +superstition; and oaks, barbarian deities;" and Lucan's "groves inviolate +from all antiquity, and altars stained with human blood." + +To worship in such spots was an abomination to the early Christian. It +was as much a test of heathendom as the eating of horse-flesh, sacred to +Odin, and therefore unclean to Christian men. The Lombard laws and +others forbid expressly the lingering remnants of grove worship. St. +Boniface and other early missionaries hewed down in defiance the sacred +oaks, and paid sometimes for their valour with their lives. + +It is no wonder, then, if long centuries elapsed ere the likeness of +vegetable forms began to reappear in the Christian churches of the North. +And yet both grot and grove were equally the natural temples which the +religious instinct of all deep-hearted peoples, conscious of sin, and +conscious, too, of yearnings after a perfection not to be found on earth, +chooses from the earliest stage of awakening civilisation. In them, +alone, before he had strength and skill to build nobly for himself, could +man find darkness, the mother of mystery and awe, in which he is reminded +perforce of his own ignorance and weakness; in which he learns first to +remember unseen powers, sometimes to his comfort and elevation, sometimes +only to his terror and debasement; darkness; and with it silence and +solitude, in which he can collect himself, and shut out the noise and +glare, the meanness and the coarseness, of the world; and be alone a +while with his own thoughts, his own fancy, his own conscience, his own +soul. + +But for a while, as I have said, that darkness, solitude, and silence +were to be sought in the grot, not in the grove. + +Then Christianity conquered the Empire. It adapted, not merely its +architecture, but its very buildings, to its worship. The Roman Basilica +became the Christian church; a noble form of building enough, though one +in which was neither darkness, solitude, nor silence, but crowded +congregations, clapping--or otherwise--the popular preacher; or fighting +about the election of a bishop or a pope, till the holy place ran with +Christian blood. The deep-hearted Northern turned away, in weariness and +disgust, from those vast halls, fitted only for the feverish superstition +of a profligate and worn-out civilisation; and took himself, amid his own +rocks and forests, moors and shores, to a simpler and sterner +architecture, which should express a creed, sterner; and at heart far +simpler; though dogmatically the same. + +And this is, to my mind, the difference, and the noble difference, +between the so-called Norman architecture, which came hither about the +time of the Conquest; and that of Romanized Italy. + +But the Normans were a conquering race; and one which conquered, be it +always remembered, in England at least, in the name and by the authority +of Rome. Their ecclesiastics, like the ecclesiastics on the Continent, +were the representatives of Roman civilisation, of Rome's right, +intellectual and spiritual, to rule the world. + +Therefore their architecture, like their creed, was Roman. They took the +massive towering Roman forms, which expressed domination; and piled them +one on the other, to express the domination of Christian Rome over the +souls, as they had represented the domination of heathen Rome over the +bodies, of men. And so side by side with the towers of the Norman keep +rose the towers of the Norman cathedral--the two signs of a double +servitude. + +But, with the thirteenth century, there dawned an age in Northern Europe, +which I may boldly call an heroic age; heroic in its virtues and in its +crimes; an age of rich passionate youth, or rather of early manhood; full +of aspirations, of chivalry, of self-sacrifice as strange and terrible as +it was beautiful and noble, even when most misguided. The Teutonic +nations of Europe--our own forefathers most of all--having absorbed all +that heathen Rome could teach them, at least for the time being, began to +think for themselves; to have poets, philosophers, historians, +architects, of their own. The thirteenth century was especially an age +of aspiration; and its architects expressed, in buildings quite unlike +those of the preceding centuries, the aspirations of the time. + +The Pointed Arch had been introduced half a century before. It may be +that the Crusaders saw it in the East and brought it home. It may be +that it originated from the quadripartite vaulting of the Normans, the +segmental groins of which, crossing diagonally, produced to appearance +the pointed arch. It may be that it was derived from that mystical +figure of a pointed oval form, the vesica piscis. It may be, lastly, +that it was suggested simply by the intersection of semicircular arches, +so frequently found in ornamental arcades. The last cause may perhaps be +the true one: but it matters little whence the pointed arch came. It +matters much what it meant to those who introduced it. And at the +beginning of the Transition or semi-Norman period, it seems to have meant +nothing. It was not till the thirteenth century that it had gradually +received, as it were, a soul, and had become the exponent of a great +idea. As the Norman architecture and its forms had signified domination, +so the Early English, as we call it, signified aspiration; an idea which +was perfected, as far as it could be, in what we call the Decorated +style. + +There is an evident gap, I had almost said a gulf, between the +architectural mind of the eleventh and that of the thirteenth century. A +vertical tendency, a longing after lightness and freedom, appears; and +with them a longing to reproduce the graces of nature and art. And here +I ask you to look for yourselves at the buildings of this new era--there +is a beautiful specimen in yonder arcade {304}--and judge for yourselves +whether they, and even more than they the Decorated style into which they +developed, do not remind you of the forest shapes? + +And if they remind you: must they not have reminded those who shaped +them? Can it have been otherwise? We know that the men who built were +earnest. The carefulness, the reverence, of their work have given a +subject for some of Mr. Ruskin's noblest chapters, a text for some of his +noblest sermons. We know that they were students of vegetable form. That +is proved by the flowers, the leaves, even the birds, with which they +enwreathed their capitals and enriched their mouldings. Look up there, +and see. + +You cannot look at any good church-work from the thirteenth to the middle +of the fifteenth century, without seeing that leaves and flowers were +perpetually in the workman's mind. Do you fancy that stems and boughs +were never in his mind? He kept, doubtless, in remembrance the +fundamental idea, that the Christian church should symbolise a grot or +cave. He could do no less; while he again and again saw hermits around +him dwelling and worshipping in caves, as they had done ages before in +Egypt and Syria; while he fixed, again and again, the site of his convent +and his minster in some secluded valley guarded by cliffs and rocks, like +Vale Crucis in North Wales. But his minster stood often not among rocks +only, but amid trees; in some clearing in the primeval forest, as Vale +Crucis was then. At least he could not pass from minster to minster, +from town to town, without journeying through long miles of forest. Do +you think that the awful shapes and shadows of that forest never haunted +his imagination as he built? He would have cut down ruthlessly, as his +predecessors the early missionaries did, the sacred trees amid which Thor +and Odin had been worshipped by the heathen Saxons; amid which still +darker deities were still worshipped by the heathen tribes of Eastern +Europe. But he was the descendant of men who had worshipped in those +groves; and the glamour of them was upon him still. He peopled the wild +forest with demons and fairies: but that did not surely prevent his +feeling its ennobling grandeur, its chastening loneliness. His ancestors +had held the oaks for trees of God, even as the Jews held the Cedar, and +the Hindoos likewise; for the Deodara pine is not only, botanists tell +us, the same as the Cedar of Lebanon: but its very name--the +Deodara--signifies nought else but "The tree of God." + +His ancestors, I say, had held the oaks for trees of God. It may be that +as the monk sat beneath their shade with his Bible on his knee, like good +St. Boniface in the Fulda forest, he found that his ancestors were right. + +To understand what sort of trees they were from which he got his +inspiration: you must look, not at an average English wood, perpetually +thinned out as the trees arrive at middle age. Still less must you look +at the pines, oaks, beeches, of an English park, where each tree has had +space to develop itself freely into a more or less rounded form. You +must not even look at the tropic forests. For there, from the immense +diversity of forms, twenty varieties of tree will grow beneath each +other, forming a close-packed heap of boughs and leaves, from the ground +to a hundred feet and more aloft. + +You should look at the North American forests of social trees--especially +of pines and firs, where trees of one species, crowded together, and +competing with equal advantages for the air and light, form themselves +into one wilderness of straight smooth shafts, surmounted by a flat sheet +of foliage, held up by boughs like the ribs of a groined roof; while +underneath the ground is bare as a cathedral floor. + +You all know, surely, the Hemlock spruce of America; which, while growing +by itself in open ground, is the most wilful and fantastic, as well as +the most graceful, of all the firs; imitating the shape, not of its +kindred, but of an enormous tuft of fern. + +Yet if you look at the same tree, when it has struggled long for life +from its youth amid other trees of its own kind and its own age; you find +that the lower boughs have died off from want of light, leaving not a +scar behind. The upper boughs have reached at once the light, and their +natural term of years. They are content to live, and little more. The +central trunk no longer sends up each year a fresh perpendicular shoot to +aspire above the rest: but as weary of struggling ambition as they are, +is content to become more and more their equal as the years pass by. And +this is a law of social forest trees, which you must bear in mind, +whenever I speak of the influence of tree-forms on Gothic architecture. + +Such forms as these are rare enough in Europe now. I never understood +how possible, how common, they must have been in medieval Europe, till I +saw in the forest of Fontainebleau a few oaks like the oak of +Charlemagne, and the Bouquet du Roi, at whose age I dare not guess, but +whose size and shape showed them to have once formed part of a continuous +wood, the like whereof remains not in these isles--perhaps not east of +the Carpathian Mountains. In them a clear shaft of at least sixty, it +may be eighty feet, carries a flat head of boughs, each in itself a tree. +In such a grove, I thought, the heathen Gaul, even the heathen Frank, +worshipped, beneath "trees of God." Such trees, I thought, centuries +after, inspired the genius of every builder of Gothic aisles and roofs. + +Thus, at least, we can explain that rigidity, which Mr. Ruskin tells us, +"is a special element of Gothic architecture. Greek and Egyptian +buildings," he says--and I should have added, Roman buildings also, in +proportion to their age, _i.e_., to the amount of the Roman elements in +them--"stand for the most part, by their own weight and mass, one stone +passively incumbent on another: but in the Gothic vaults and traceries +there is a stiffness analogous to that of the bones of a limb, or fibres +of a tree; an elastic tension and communication of force from part to +part; and also a studious expression of this throughout every part of the +building." In a word, Gothic vaulting and tracery have been studiously +made like to boughs of trees. Were those boughs present to the mind of +the architect? Or is the coincidence merely fortuitous? You know +already how I should answer. The cusped arch, too, was it actually not +intended to imitate vegetation? Mr. Ruskin seems to think so. He says +that it is merely the special application to the arch of the great +ornamental system of foliation, which, "whether simple as in the cusped +arch, or complicated as in tracery, arose out of the love of leafage. Not +that the form of the arch is intended to imitate a leaf, but to be +invested with the same characters of beauty which the designer had +discovered in the leaf." Now I differ from Mr. Ruskin with extreme +hesitation. I agree that the cusped arch is not meant to imitate a leaf. +I think with Mr. Ruskin, that it was probably first adopted on account of +its superior strength; and that it afterwards took the form of a bough. +But I cannot as yet believe that it was not at last intended to imitate a +bough; a bough of a very common form, and one in which "active rigidity" +is peculiarly shown. I mean a bough which has forked. If the lower fork +has died off, for want of light, we obtain something like the simply +cusped arch. If it be still living--but short and stunted in comparison +with the higher fork--we obtain, it seems to me, something like the +foliated cusp; both likenesses being near enough to those of common +objects to make it possible that those objects may have suggested them. +And thus, more and more boldly, the mediaeval architect learnt to copy +boughs, stems, and, at last, the whole effect, as far always as stone +would allow, of a combination of rock and tree, of grot and grove. + +So he formed his minsters, as I believe, upon the model of those leafy +minsters in which he walked to meditate, amid the aisles which God, not +man, has built. He sent their columns aloft like the boles of ancient +trees. He wreathed their capitals, sometimes their very shafts, with +flowers and creeping shoots. He threw their arches out, and interwove +the groinings of their vaults, like the bough-roofage overhead. He +decked with foliage and fruit the bosses above and the corbels below. He +sent up out of those corbels upright shafts along the walls, in the +likeness of the trees which sprang out of the rocks above his head. He +raised those walls into great cliffs. He pierced them with the arches of +the triforium, as with hermits' cells. He represented in the horizontal +sills of his windows, and in his horizontal string-courses, the +horizontal strata of the rocks. He opened the windows into high and +lofty glades, broken, as in the forest, by the tracery of stems and +boughs, through which was seen, not merely the outer, but the upper +world. For he craved, as all true artists crave, for light and colour; +and had the sky above been one perpetual blue, he might have been content +with it, and left his glass transparent. But in that dark dank northern +clime, rain and snowstorm, black cloud and grey mist, were all that he +was like to see outside for nine months in the year. So he took such +light and colour as nature gave in her few gayer moods; and set aloft his +stained glass windows the hues of the noonday and the rainbow, and the +sunrise and the sunset, and the purple of the heather, and the gold of +the gorse, and the azure of the bugloss, and the crimson of the poppy; +and among them, in gorgeous robes, the angels and the saints of heaven, +and the memories of heroic virtues and heroic sufferings, that he might +lift up his own eyes and heart for ever out of the dark, dank, sad world +of the cold north, with all its coarsenesses and its crimes, toward a +realm of perpetual holiness, amid a perpetual summer of beauty and of +light; as one who--for he was true to nature, even in that--from between +the black jaws of a narrow glen, or from beneath the black shade of +gnarled trees, catches a glimpse of far lands gay with gardens and +cottages, and purple mountain ranges, and the far off sea, and the hazy +horizon melting into the hazy sky; and finds his heart carried out into +an infinite at once of freedom and of repose. + +And so out of the cliffs and the forests he shaped the inside of his +church. And how did he shape the outside? Look for yourselves, and +judge. But look: not at Chester, but at Salisbury. Look at those +churches which carry not mere towers, but spires, or at least pinnacled +towers approaching the pyrmidal form. The outside form of every Gothic +cathedral must be considered imperfect if it does not culminate in +something pyramidal. + +The especial want of all Greek and Roman buildings with which we are +acquainted is the absence--save in a few and unimportant cases--of the +pyramidal form. The Egyptians knew at least the worth of the obelisk: +but the Greeks and Romans hardly knew even that: their buildings are flat- +topped. Their builders were contented with the earth as it was. There +was a great truth involved in that; which I am the last to deny. But +religions which, like the Buddhist or the Christian, nurse a noble self- +discontent, are sure to adopt sooner or later an upward and aspiring form +of building. It is not merely that, fancying heaven to be above earth, +they point towards heaven. There is a deeper natural language in the +pyramidal form of a growing tree. It symbolises growth, or the desire of +growth. The Norman tower does nothing of the kind. It does not aspire +to grow. Look--I mention an instance with which I am most familiar--at +the Norman tower of Bury St. Edmund's. It is graceful--awful, if you +will--but there is no aspiration in it. It is stately: but self-content. +Its horizontal courses; circular arches; above all, its flat sky-line, +seem to have risen enough: and wish to rise no higher. For it has no +touch of that unrest of soul, which is expressed by the spire, and still +more by the compound spire, with its pinnacles, crockets, finials, which +are finials only in name; for they do not finish, and are really terminal +buds, as it were, longing to open and grow upward, even as the crockets +are bracts and leaves thrown off as the shoot has grown. + +You feel, surely, the truth of these last words. You cannot look at the +canopy work or the pinnacle work of this cathedral without seeing that +they do not merely suggest buds and leaves, but that the buds and leaves +are there carven before your eyes. I myself cannot look at the +tabernacle work of our stalls without being reminded of the young pine +forests which clothe the Hampshire moors. But if the details are copied +from vegetable forms, why not the whole? Is not a spire like a growing +tree, a tabernacle like a fir-tree, a compound spire like a group of +firs? And if we can see that: do you fancy that the man who planned the +spire did not see it as clearly as we do; and perhaps more clearly still? + +I am aware, of course, that Norman architecture had sometimes its +pinnacle, a mere conical or polygonal capping. I am aware that this +form, only more and more slender, lasted on in England during the +thirteenth and the early part of the fourteenth century; and on the +Continent, under many modifications, one English kind whereof is usually +called a "broach," of which you have a beautiful specimen in the new +church at Hoole. + +Now, no one will deny that that broach is beautiful. But it would be +difficult to prove that its form was taken from a North European tree. +The cypress was unknown, probably, to our northern architects. The +Lombardy poplar--which has wandered hither, I know not when, all the way +from Cashmere--had not wandered then, I believe, further than North +Italy. The form is rather that of mere stone; of the obelisk, or of the +mountain peak; and they, in fact, may have at first suggested the spire. +The grandeur of an isolated mountain, even of a dolmen or single upright +stone, is evident to all. + +But it is the grandeur, not of aspiration, but of defiance; not of the +Christian; not even of the Stoic: but rather of the Epicurean. It says--I +cannot rise. I do not care to rise. I will be contentedly and valiantly +that which I am; and face circumstances, though I cannot conquer them. +But it is defiance under defeat. The mountain-peak does not grow, but +only decays. Fretted by rains, peeled by frost, splintered by lightning, +it must down at last; and crumble into earth, were it as old, as hard, as +lofty as the Matterhorn itself. And while it stands, it wants not only +aspiration, it wants tenderness; it wants humility; it wants the unrest +which tenderness and humility must breed, and which Mr. Ruskin so clearly +recognises in the best Gothic art. And, meanwhile, it wants naturalness. +The mere smooth spire or broach--I had almost said, even the spire of +Salisbury--is like no tall or commanding object in Nature. It is merely +the caricature of one; it may be of the mountain-peak. The outline must +be broken, must be softened, before it can express the soul of a creed +which, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries far more than now, was +one of penitence as well as of aspiration, of passionate emotion as well +as of lofty faith. But a shape which will express that soul must be +sought, not among mineral, but among vegetable, forms. And remember +always, if we feel thus even now, how much more must those medieval men +of genius have felt thus, whose work we now dare only copy line by line? + +So--as it seems to me--they sought among vegetable forms for what they +needed: and they found it at once in the pine, or rather the fir,--the +spruce and silver firs of their own forests. They are not, of course, +indigenous to England. But they are so common through all the rest of +Europe, that not only would the form suggest itself to a Continental +architect, but to any English clerk who travelled, as all did who could, +across the Alps to Rome. The fir-tree, not growing on level ground, like +the oaks of Fontainebleau, into one flat roof of foliage, but clinging to +the hill-side and the crag, old above young, spire above spire, whorl +above whorl--for the young shoots of each whorl of boughs point upward in +the spring; and now and then a whole bough, breaking away, as it were, +into free space, turns upward altogether, and forms a secondary spire on +the same tree--this surely was the form which the mediaeval architect +seized, to clothe with it the sides and roof of the stone mountain which +he had built; piling up pinnacles and spires, each crocketed at the +angles; that, like a group of firs upon an isolated rock, every point of +the building might seem in act to grow toward heaven, till his idea +culminated in that glorious Minster of Cologne, which, if it ever be +completed, will be the likeness of one forest-clothed group of cliffs, +surmounted by three enormous pines. + +One feature of the Norman temple he could keep; for it was copied from +the same nature which he was trying to copy--namely, the high-pitched +roof and gables. Mr. Ruskin lays it down as a law, that the acute angle +in roofs, gables, spires, is the distinguishing mark of northern Gothic. +It was adopted, most probably, at first from domestic buildings. A +northern house or barn must have a high-pitched roof: or the snow will +not slip off it. But that fact was not discovered by man; it was copied +by him from the rocks around. He saw the mountain peak jut black and +bare above the snows of winter; he saw those snows slip down in sheets, +rush down in torrents under the sun, from the steep slabs of rock which +coped the hill-side; and he copied, in his roofs, the rocks above his +town. But as the love for decoration arose, he would deck his roofs as +nature had decked hers, till the grey sheets of the cathedral slates +should stand out amid pinnacles and turrets rich with foliage, as the +grey mountain sides stood out amid knolls of feathery birch and towering +pine. + +He failed, though he failed nobly. He never succeeded in attaining a +perfectly natural style. + +The medieval architects were crippled to the last by the tradition of +artificial Roman forms. They began improving them into naturalness, +without any clear notion of what they wanted; and when that notion became +clear, it was too late. Take, as an instance, the tracery of their +windows. It is true, as Mr. Ruskin says, that they began by piercing +holes in a wall of the form of a leaf, which developed, in the rose +window, into the form of a star inside, and of a flower outside. Look at +such aloft there. Then, by introducing mullions and traceries into the +lower part of the window, they added stem and bough forms to those flower +forms. But the two did not fit. Look at the west window of our choir, +and you will see what I mean. The upright mullions break off into bough +curves graceful enough: but these are cut short--as I hold, spoiled--by +circular and triangular forms of rose and trefoil resting on them as such +forms never rest in Nature; and the whole, though beautiful, is only half +beautiful. It is fragmentary, unmeaning, barbaric, because unnatural. + +They failed, too, it may be, from the very paucity of the vegetable forms +they could find to copy among the flora of this colder clime; and so, +stopped short in drawing from nature, ran off into mere purposeless +luxuriance. Had they been able to add to their stock of memories a +hundred forms which they would have seen in the Tropics, they might have +gone on for centuries copying Nature without exhausting her. + +And yet, did they exhaust even the few forms of beauty which they saw +around them? It must be confessed that they did not. I believe that +they could not, because they dared not. The unnaturalness of the creed +which they expressed always hampered them. It forbade them to look +Nature freely and lovingly in the face. It forbade them--as one glaring +example--to know anything truly of the most beautiful of all natural +objects--the human form. They were tempted perpetually to take Nature as +ornament, not as basis; and they yielded at last to the temptation; till, +in the age of Perpendicular architecture, their very ornament became +unnatural again; because conventional, untrue, meaningless. + +But the creed for which they worked was dying by that time, and therefore +the art which expressed it must needs die too. And even that death, or +rather the approach of it, was symbolised truly in the flatter roof, the +four-centred arch, the flat-topped tower of the fifteenth-century church. +The creed had ceased to aspire: so did the architecture. It had ceased +to grow: so did the temple. And the arch sank lower; and the rafters +grew more horizontal; and the likeness to the old tree, content to grow +no more, took the place of the likeness to the young tree struggling +toward the sky. + +And now--unless you are tired of listening to me--a few practical words. + +We are restoring our old cathedral stone by stone after its ancient +model. We are also trying to build a new church. We are building it--as +most new churches in England are now built--in a pure Gothic style. + +Are we doing right? I do not mean morally right. It is always morally +right to build a new church, if needed, whatever be its architecture. It +is always morally right to restore an old church, if it be beautiful and +noble, as an heirloom handed down to us by our ancestors, which we have +no right--I say, no right--for the sake of our children, and of our +children's children, to leave to ruin. + +But are we artistically, aesthetically right? Is the best Gothic fit for +our worship? Does it express our belief? Or shall we choose some other +style? + +I say that it is; and that it is so because it is a style which, if not +founded on Nature, has taken into itself more of Nature, of Nature +beautiful and healthy, than any other style. + +With greater knowledge of Nature, both geographical and scientific, fresh +styles of architecture may and will arise, as much more beautiful, and as +much more natural, than the Gothic, as Gothic is more beautiful and +natural than the Norman. Till then we must take the best models which we +have; use them; and, as it were, use them up and exhaust them. By that +time we may have learnt to improve on them; and to build churches more +Gothic than Gothic itself, more like grot and grove than even a northern +cathedral. + +That is the direction in which we must work. And if any shall say to us, +as it has been said ere now--"After all, your new Gothic churches are but +imitations, shams, borrowed symbols, which to you symbolise nothing. They +are Romish churches, meant to express Romish doctrine, built for a +Protestant creed which they do not express, and for a Protestant worship +which they will not fit." Then we shall answer--Not so. The objection +might be true if we built Norman or Romanesque churches; for we should +then be returning to that very foreign and unnatural style which Rome +taught our forefathers, and from which they escaped gradually into the +comparative freedom, the comparative naturalness of that true Gothic of +which Mr. Ruskin says so well:-- + + "It is gladdening to remember that, in its utmost nobleness, the very + temper which has been thought most averse to it, the Protestant temper + of self-dependence and inquiry, were expressed in every case. Faith + and aspiration there were in every Christian ecclesiastical building + from the first century to the fifteenth: but the moral habits to which + England in this age owes the kind of greatness which she has--the + habits of philosophical investigation, of accurate thought, of + domestic seclusion and independence, of stern self-reliance, and + sincere upright searching into religious truth,--were only traceable + in the features which were the distinctive creations of the Gothic + schools, in the varied foliage and thorny fretwork, and shadowy niche, + and buttressed pier, and fearless height of subtle pinnacle and + crested tower, sent 'like an unperplexed question up to heaven.'" + +So says Mr. Ruskin. I, for one, endorse his gallant words. And I think +that a strong proof of their truth is to be found in two facts, which +seem at first paradoxical. First, that the new Roman Catholic churches +on the Continent--I speak especially of France, which is the most highly +cultivated Romanist country--are, like those which the Jesuits built in +the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, less and less Gothic. The +former were sham-classic; the latter are rather of a new fantastic +Romanesque, or rather Byzantinesque style, which is a real retrogression +from Gothic towards earlier and less natural schools. Next, that the +Puritan communions, the Kirk of Scotland and the English Nonconformists, +as they are becoming more cultivated--and there are now many highly +cultivated men among them--are introducing Gothic architecture more and +more into their churches. There are elements in it, it seems, which do +not contradict their Puritanism; elements which they can adapt to their +own worship; namely, the very elements which Mr. Ruskin has discerned. + +But if they can do so, how much more can we of the Church of England? As +long as we go on where our medieval forefathers left off; as long as we +keep to the most perfect types of their work, in waiting for the day when +we shall be able to surpass them, by making our work even more +naturalistic than theirs, more truly expressive of the highest +aspirations of humanity: so long we are reverencing them, and that latent +Protestantism in them, which produced at last the Reformation. + +And if any should say--"Nevertheless, your Protestant Gothic church, +though you made it ten times more beautiful, and more symbolic, than +Cologne Minster itself, would still be a sham. For where would be your +images? And still more, where would be your Host? Do you not know that +in the medieval church the vistas of its arcades, the alternations of its +lights and shadows, the gradations of its colouring, and all its +carefully subordinated wealth of art, pointed to, were concentrated +round, one sacred spot, as a curve, however vast its sweep though space, +tends at every moment toward a single focus? And that spot, that focus, +was, and is still, in every Romish church, the body of God, present upon +the altar in the form of bread? Without Him, what is all your building? +Your church is empty: your altar bare; a throne without a king; an eye- +socket without an eye." + +My friends, if we be true children of those old worthies, whom Tacitus +saw worshipping beneath the German oaks; we shall have but one answer to +that scoff:-- + +We know it; and we glory in the fact. We glory in it, as the old Jews +gloried in it, when the Roman soldiers, bursting through the Temple, and +into the Holy of Holies itself, paused in wonder and in awe when they +beheld neither God, nor image of God, but blank yet all-suggestive--the +empty mercy-seat. + +Like theirs, our altar is an empty throne. For it symbolises our worship +of Him who dwelleth not in temples made with hands; whom the heaven and +the heaven of heavens cannot contain. Our eye-socket holds no eye. For +it symbolises our worship of that Eye which is over all the earth; which +is about our path, and about our bed, and spies out all our ways. We +need no artificial and material presence of Deity. For we believe in +That One Eternal and Universal Real Presence--of which it is written "He +is not far from any one of us; for in God we live, and move, and have our +being;" and again, "Lo, I am with you, even to the End of the World;" and +again--"Wheresoever two or three are gathered together in My Name, there +am I in the midst of them." + +He is the God of nature, as well as the God of grace. For ever He looks +down on all things which He has made: and behold, they are very good. +And, therefore, we dare offer to Him, in our churches, the most perfect +works of naturalistic art, and shape them into copies of whatever beauty +He has shown us, in man or woman, in cave or mountain peak, in tree or +flower, even in bird or butterfly. + +But Himself?--Who can see Him? Except the humble and the contrite heart, +to whom He reveals Himself as a Spirit to be worshipped in spirit and in +truth, and not in bread, nor wood, nor stone, nor gold, nor +quintessential diamond. + +So we shall obey the sound instinct of our Christian forefathers, when +they shaped their churches into forest aisles, and decked them with the +boughs of the woodland, and the flowers of the field: but we shall obey +too, that sounder instinct of theirs, which made them at last cast out of +their own temples, as misplaced and unnatural things, the idols which +they had inherited from Rome. + +So we shall obey the sound instinct of our heathen forefathers, when they +worshipped the unknown God beneath the oaks of the primeval forest: but +we shall obey, too, that sounder instinct of theirs, which taught them +this, at least, concerning God--That it was beneath His dignity to coop +Him within walls; and that the grandest forms of nature, as well as the +deepest consciousnesses of their own souls, revealed to them a mysterious +Being, who was to be beheld by faith alone. + + + + +GEORGE BUCHANAN, SCHOLAR + + +The scholar, in the sixteenth century, was a far more important personage +than now. The supply of learned men was very small, the demand for them +very great. During the whole of the fifteenth, and a great part of the +sixteenth century, the human mind turned more and more from the +scholastic philosophy of the Middle Ages to that of the Romans and the +Greeks; and found more and more in old Pagan Art an element which +Monastic Art had not, and which was yet necessary for the full +satisfaction of their craving after the Beautiful. At such a crisis of +thought and taste, it was natural that the classical scholar, the man who +knew old Rome, and still more old Greece, should usurp the place of the +monk, as teacher of mankind; and that scholars should form, for a while, +a new and powerful aristocracy, limited and privileged, and all the more +redoubtable, because its power lay in intellect, and had been won by +intellect alone. + +Those who, whether poor or rich, did not fear the monk and priest, at +least feared the "scholar," who held, so the vulgar believed, the keys of +that magic lore by which the old necromancers had built cities like Rome, +and worked marvels of mechanical and chemical skill, which the degenerate +modern could never equal. + +If the "scholar" stopped in a town, his hostess probably begged of him a +charm against toothache or rheumatism. The penniless knight discoursed +with him on alchemy, and the chances of retrieving his fortune by the art +of transmuting metals into gold. The queen or bishop worried him in +private about casting their nativities, and finding their fates among the +stars. But the statesman, who dealt with more practical matters, hired +him as an advocate and rhetorician, who could fight his master's enemies +with the weapons of Demosthenes and Cicero. Wherever the scholar's steps +were turned, he might be master of others, as long as he was master of +himself. The complaints which he so often uttered concerning the cruelty +of fortune, the fickleness of princes, and so forth, were probably no +more just then than such complaints are now. Then, as now, he got his +deserts; and the world bought him at his own price. If he chose to sell +himself to this patron and to that, he was used and thrown away: if he +chose to remain in honourable independence, he was courted and feared. + +Among the successful scholars of the sixteenth century, none surely is +more notable than George Buchanan. The poor Scotch widow's son, by force +of native wit, and, as I think, by force of native worth, fights his way +upward, through poverty and severest persecution, to become the +correspondent and friend of the greatest literary celebrities of the +Continent, comparable, in their opinion, to the best Latin poets of +antiquity; the preceptor of princes; the counsellor and spokesman of +Scotch statesmen in the most dangerous of times; and leaves behind him +political treatises, which have influenced not only the history of his +own country, but that of the civilised world. + +Such a success could not be attained without making enemies, perhaps +without making mistakes. But the more we study George Buchanan's +history, the less we shall be inclined to hunt out his failings, the more +inclined to admire his worth. A shrewd, sound-hearted, affectionate man, +with a strong love of right and scorn of wrong, and a humour withal which +saved him--except on really great occasions--from bitterness, and helped +him to laugh where narrower natures would have only snarled,--he is, in +many respects, a type of those Lowland Scots, who long preserved his +jokes, genuine or reputed, as a common household book. {328} A +schoolmaster by profession, and struggling for long years amid the +temptations which, in those days, degraded his class into cruel and +sordid pedants, he rose from the mere pedagogue to be, in the best sense +of the word, a courtier; "One," says Daniel Heinsius, "who seemed not +only born for a court, but born to amend it. He brought to his queen +that at which she could not wonder enough. For, by affecting a certain +liberty in censuring morals, he avoided all offence, under the cloak of +simplicity." Of him and his compeers, Turnebus, and Muretus, and their +friend Andrea Govea, Ronsard, the French court poet, said that they had +nothing of the pedagogue about them but the gown and cap. "Austere in +face, and rustic in his looks," says David Buchanan, "but most polished +in style and speech; and continually, even in serious conversation, +jesting most wittily." "Roughhewn, slovenly, and rude," says Peacham, in +his 'Compleat Gentleman,' speaking of him, probably, as he appeared in +old age, "in his person, behaviour, and fashion; seldom caring for a +better outside than a rugge-gown girt close about him: yet his inside and +conceipt in poesie was most rich, and his sweetness and facilitie in +verse most excellent." A typical Lowland Scot, as I said just now, he +seems to have absorbed all the best culture which France could afford +him, without losing the strength, honesty, and humour which he inherited +from his Stirlingshire kindred. + +The story of his life is easily traced. When an old man, he himself +wrote down the main events of it, at the request of his friends; and his +sketch has been filled out by commentators, if not always favourable, at +least erudite. Born in 1506, at the Moss, in Killearn--where an obelisk +to his memory, so one reads, has been erected in this century--of a +family "rather ancient than rich," his father dead in the prime of +manhood, his grandfather a spendthrift, he and his seven brothers and +sisters were brought up by a widowed mother, Agnes Heriot--of whom one +wishes to know more; for the rule that great sons have great mothers +probably holds good in her case. George gave signs, while at the village +school, of future scholarship; and when he was only fourteen, his uncle +James sent him to the University of Paris. Those were hard times; and +the youths, or rather boys, who meant to become scholars, had a cruel +life of it, cast desperately out on the wide world to beg and starve, +either into self-restraint and success, or into ruin of body and soul. +And a cruel life George had. Within two years he was down in a severe +illness, his uncle dead, his supplies stopped; and the boy of sixteen got +home, he does not tell how. Then he tried soldiering; and was with +Albany's French Auxiliaries at the ineffectual attack on Wark Castle. +Marching back through deep snow, he got a fresh illness, which kept him +in bed all winter. Then he and his brother were sent to St. Andrew's, +where he got his B.A. at nineteen. The next summer he went to France +once more; and "fell," he says, "into the flames of the Lutheran sect, +which was then spreading far and wide." Two years of penury followed; +and then three years of schoolmastering in the College of St. Barbe, +which he has immortalised--at least for the few who care to read modern +Latin poetry--in his elegy on 'The Miseries of a Parisian Teacher of the +Humanities.' The wretched regent master, pale and suffering, sits up all +night preparing his lecture, biting his nails, and thumping his desk; and +falls asleep for a few minutes, to start up at the sound of the four +o'clock bell, and be in school by five, his Virgil in one hand, and his +rod in the other, trying to do work on his own account at old +manuscripts, and bawling all the while at his wretched boys, who cheat +him, and pay each other to answer to truants' names. The class is all +wrong. "One is barefoot, another's shoe is burst, another cries, another +writes home. Then comes the rod, the sound of blows and howls; and the +day passes in tears." "Then mass, then another lesson, then more blows; +there is hardly time to eat."--I have no space to finish the picture of +the stupid misery which, Buchanan says, was ruining his intellect, while +it starved his body. However, happier days came. Gilbert Kennedy, Earl +of Cassilis, who seems to have been a noble young gentleman, took him as +his tutor for the next five years; and with him he went back to Scotland. + +But there his plain speaking got him, as it did more than once afterward, +into trouble. He took it into his head to write, in imitation of Dunbar, +a Latin poem, in which St. Francis asks him in a dream to become a Grey +Friar, and Buchanan answered in language which had the unpleasant fault +of being too clever, and--to judge from contemporary evidence--only too +true. The friars said nothing at first: but when King James made +Buchanan tutor to one of his natural sons, they, "men professing +meekness, took the matter somewhat more angrily than befitted men so +pious in the opinion of the people." So Buchanan himself puts it: but, +to do the poor friars justice, they must have been angels, not men, if +they did not writhe somewhat under the scourge which he had laid on them. +To be told that there was hardly a place in heaven for monks, was hard to +hear and bear. They accused him to the king of heresy: but not being +then in favour with James, they got no answer, and Buchanan was commanded +to repeat the castigation. Having found out that the friars were not to +be touched with impunity, he wrote, he says, a short and ambiguous poem. +But the king, who loved a joke, demanded something sharp and stinging, +and Buchanan obeyed by writing, but not publishing, the 'Franciscans,' a +long satire, compared to which the 'Somnium' was bland and merciful. The +storm rose. Cardinal Beaton, Buchanan says, wanted to buy him of the +king, and then, of course, burn him, as he had just burnt five poor +souls: so, knowing James's avarice, he fled to England, through +freebooters and pestilence. + +There he found, he says, "men of both factions being burned on the same +day and in the same fire"--a pardonable exaggeration--"by Henry VIII., in +his old age more intent on his own safety than on the purity of +religion." So to his beloved France he went again, to find his enemy +Beaton ambassador at Paris. The capital was too hot to hold him; and he +fled south to Bourdeaux, to Andrea Govea, the Portuguese principal of the +College of Gruienne. As Professor of Latin at Bourdeaux, we find him +presenting a Latin poem to Charles V.; and indulging that fancy of his +for Latin poetry which seems to us now-a-days a childish pedantry; which +was then--when Latin was the vernacular tongue of all scholars--a +serious, if not altogether a useful, pursuit. Of his tragedies, so +famous in their day--the 'Baptist,' the 'Medea,' the 'Jephtha,' and the +'Alcestis'--there is neither space nor need to speak here, save to notice +the bold declamations in the 'Baptist' against tyranny and priestcraft; +and to notice also that these tragedies gained for the poor Scotsman, in +the eyes of the best scholars of Europe, a credit amounting almost to +veneration. When he returned to Paris, he found occupation at once; +and--as his Scots biographers love to record--"three of the most learned +men in the world taught humanity in the same college," viz., Turnebus, +Muretus, and Buchanan. + +Then followed a strange episode in his life. A university had been +founded at Coimbra, in Portugal, and Andrea Govea had been invited to +bring thither what French savans he could collect. Buchanan went to +Portugal with his brother Patrick; two more Scotsmen, Dempster and +Ramsay: and a goodly company of French scholars, whose names and +histories may be read in the erudite pages of Dr. Irving, went likewise. +All prospered in the new Temple of the Muses for a year or so. Then its +high-priest, Govea, died; and, by a peripeteia too common in those days +and countries, Buchanan and two of his friends migrated, unwillingly, +from the Temple of the Muses for that of Moloch, and found themselves in +the Inquisition. + +Buchanan, it seems, had said that St. Augustine was more of a Lutheran +than a Catholic on the question of the mass. He and his friends had +eaten flesh in Lent; which, he says, almost everyone in Spain did. But +he was suspected, and with reason, as a heretic; the Grey Friars formed +but one brotherhood throughout Europe; and news among them travelled +surely if not fast: so that the story of the satire written in Scotland +had reached Portugal. The culprits were imprisoned, examined, +bullied--but not tortured--for a year and a half. At the end of that +time, the proofs of heresy, it seems, were insufficient; but lest--says +Buchanan with honest pride--"they should get the reputation of having +vainly tormented a man not altogether unknown," they sent him for some +months to a monastery, to be instructed by the monks. "The men," he +says, "were neither inhuman nor bad, but utterly ignorant of religion;" +and Buchanan solaced himself during the intervals of their instructions, +by beginning his Latin translation of the Psalms. + +At last he got free, and begged leave to return to France; but in vain. +Wearied out at last, he got on board a Candian ship at Lisbon, and +escaped to England. But England, he says, during the anarchy of Edward +VI.'s reign, was not a land which suited him; and he returned to his +beloved France, to fulfil the hopes which he had expressed in his +charming 'Desiderium Lutitiae,' and the still more charming, because more +simple, 'Adventus in Galliam,' in which he bids farewell, in most +melodious verse, to "the hungry moors of wretched Portugal, and her clods +fertile in naught but penury." + +Some seven years succeeded of schoolmastering and verse-writing:--The +Latin paraphrase of the Psalms; another of the 'Alcestis' of Euripides; +an Epithalamium on the marriage of poor Mary Stuart, noble and sincere, +however fantastic and pedantic, after the manner of the times; "Pomps," +too, for her wedding, and for other public ceremonies, in which all the +heathen gods and goddesses figure; epigrams, panegyrics, satires, much of +which latter productions he would have consigned to the dust-heap in his +old age, had not his too fond friends persuaded him to republish the +follies and coarsenesses of his youth. He was now one of the most famous +scholars in Europe, and the intimate friend of all the great literary +men. Was he to go on to the end, die, and no more? Was he to sink into +the mere pedant; or, if he could not do that, into the mere court +versifier? + +The wars of religion saved him, as they saved many another noble soul, +from that degradation. The events of 1560-1-2 forced Buchanan, as they +forced many a learned man besides, to choose whether he would be a child +of light or a child of darkness; whether he would be a dilettante +classicist, or a preacher--it might be a martyr--of the Gospel. Buchanan +may have left France in "the troubles" merely to enjoy in his own country +elegant and learned repose. He may have fancied that he had found it, +when he saw himself, in spite of his public profession of adherence to +the Reformed Kirk, reading Livy every afternoon with his exquisite young +sovereign; master, by her favour, of the temporalities of Crossraguel +Abbey, and by the favour of Murray, Principal of St. Leonard's College in +St. Andrew's. Perhaps he fancied at times that "to-morrow was to be as +to-day, and much more abundant;" that thenceforth he might read his +folio, and write his epigram, and joke his joke, as a lazy comfortable +pluralist, taking his morning stroll out to the corner where poor Wishart +had been burned, above the blue sea and the yellow sands, and looking up +to the castle tower from whence his enemy Beaton's corpse had been hung +out; with the comfortable reflection that quietier times had come, and +that whatever evil deeds Archbishop Hamilton might dare, he would not +dare to put the Principal of St. Leonard's into the "bottle dungeon." + +If such hopes ever crossed Geordie's keen fancy, they were disappointed +suddenly and fearfully. The fire which had been kindled in France was to +reach to Scotland likewise. "Revolutions are not made with rose-water;" +and the time was at hand when all good spirits in Scotland, and George +Buchanan among them, had to choose, once and for all, amid danger, +confusion, terror, whether they would serve God or Mammon; for to serve +both would be soon impossible. + +Which side, in that war of light and darkness, George Buchanan took, is +notorious. He saw then, as others have seen since, that the two men in +Scotland who were capable of being her captains in the strife were Knox +and Murray; and to them he gave in his allegiance heart and soul. + +This is the critical epoch in Buchanan's life. By his conduct to Queen +Mary he must stand or fall. It is my belief that he will stand. It is +not my intention to enter into the details of a matter so painful, so +shocking, so prodigious; and now that that question is finally set at +rest, by the writings both of Mr. Froude and Mr. Burton, there is no need +to allude to it further, save where Buchanan's name is concerned. One +may now have every sympathy with Mary Stuart; one may regard with awe a +figure so stately, so tragic, in one sense so heroic,--for she reminds +one rather of the heroine of an old Greek tragedy, swept to her doom by +some irresistible fate, than of a being of our own flesh and blood, and +of our modern and Christian times. One may sympathise with the great +womanhood which charmed so many while she was alive; which has charmed, +in later years, so many noble spirits who have believed in her innocence, +and have doubtless been elevated and purified by their devotion to one +who seemed to them an ideal being. So far from regarding her as a +hateful personage, one may feel oneself forbidden to hate a woman whom +God may have loved, and may have pardoned, to judge from the punishment +so swift, and yet so enduring, which He inflicted. At least, he must so +believe who holds that punishment is a sign of mercy; that the most +dreadful of all dooms is impunity. Nay, more, those "casket" letters and +sonnets may be a relief to the mind of one who believes in her guilt on +other grounds; a relief when one finds in them a tenderness, a sweetness, +a delicacy, a magnificent self-sacrifice, however hideously misplaced, +which shows what a womanly heart was there; a heart which, joined to that +queenly brain, might have made her a blessing and a glory to Scotland, +had not the whole character been warped and ruinate from childhood, by an +education so abominable, that any one who knows what words she must have +heard, what scenes she must have beheld in France, from her youth up, +will wonder that she sinned so little: not that she sinned so much. One +may feel, in a word, that there is every excuse for those who have +asserted Mary's innocence, because their own high-mindedness shrank from +believing her guilty: but yet Buchanan, in his own place and time, may +have felt as deeply that he could do no otherwise than he did. + +The charges against him, as all readers of Scotch literature know well, +may be reduced to two heads. 1st. The letters and sonnets were +forgeries. Maitland of Lethington may have forged the letters; Buchanan, +according to some, the sonnets. Whoever forged them, Buchanan made use +of them in his Detection, knowing them to be forged. 2nd. Whether Mary +was innocent or not, Buchanan acted a base and ungrateful part in putting +himself in the forefront amongst her accusers. He had been her tutor, +her pensioner. She had heaped him with favours; and, after all, she was +his queen, and a defenceless woman: and yet he returned her kindness, in +the hour of her fall, by invectives fit only for a rancorous and reckless +advocate, determined to force a verdict by the basest arts of oratory. + +Now as to the "casket" letters. I should have thought they bore in +themselves the best evidence of being genuine. I can add nothing to the +arguments of Mr. Froude and Mr. Burton, save this: that no one clever +enough to be a forger, would have put together documents so incoherent, +and so incomplete. For the evidence of guilt which they contain is, +after all, slight and indirect, and, moreover, superfluous altogether; +seeing that Mary's guilt was open and palpable, before the supposed +discovery of the letters, to every person at home and abroad who had any +knowledge of the facts. As for the alleged inconsistency of the letters +with proven facts: the answer is, that whosoever wrote the letters would +be more likely to know facts which were taking place around them than any +critic could be one hundred or three hundred years afterwards. But if +these mistakes as to facts actually exist in them, they are only a fresh +argument for their authenticity. Mary, writing in agony and confusion, +might easily make a mistake: forgers would only take too good care to +make none. + +But the strongest evidence in favour of the letters and sonnets, in spite +of the arguments of good Dr. Whittaker and other apologists for Mary, is +to be found in their tone. A forger in those coarse days would have made +Mary write in some Semiramis or Roxana vein, utterly alien to the +tenderness, the delicacy, the pitiful confusion of mind, the conscious +weakness, the imploring and most feminine trust which makes the letters, +to those who--as I do--believe in them, more pathetic than any fictitious +sorrows which poets could invent. More than one touch, indeed, of utter +self-abasement, in the second letter, is so unexpected, so subtle, and +yet so true to the heart of woman, that--as has been well said--if it was +invented there must have existed in Scotland an earlier Shakespeare; who +yet has died without leaving any other sign, for good or evil, of his +dramatic genius. + +As for the theory (totally unsupported) that Buchanan forged the poem +usually called the Sonnets; it is paying old Geordie's genius, however +versatile it may have been, too high a compliment to believe that he +could have written both them and the Detection; while it is paying his +shrewdness too low a compliment to believe that he could have put into +them, out of mere carelessness or stupidity, the well-known line, which +seems incompatible with the theory both of the letters and of his own +Detection; and which has ere now been brought forward as a fresh proof of +Mary's innocence. + +And, as with the letters, so with the sonnets: their delicacy, their +grace, their reticence, are so many arguments against their having been +forged by any Scot of the sixteenth century, and least of all by one in +whose character--whatever his other virtues may have been--delicacy was +by no means the strongest point. + +As for the complaint that Buchanan was ungrateful to Mary, it must be +said: That even if she, and not Murray, had bestowed on him the +temporalities of Crossraguel Abbey four years before, it was merely fair +pay for services fairly rendered; and I am not aware that payment, or +even favours, however gracious, bind any man's soul and conscience in +questions of highest morality and highest public importance. And the +importance of that question cannot be exaggerated. At a moment when +Scotland seemed struggling in death-throes of anarchy, civil and +religious, and was in danger of becoming a prey either to England or to +France, if there could not be formed out of the heart of her a people, +steadfast, trusty, united, strong politically because strong in the fear +of God and the desire of righteousness--at such a moment as this, a crime +had been committed, the like of which had not been heard in Europe since +the tragedy of Joan of Naples. All Europe stood aghast. The honour of +the Scottish nation was at stake. More than Mary or Bothwell were known +to be implicated in the deed; and--as Buchanan puts it in the opening of +his 'De Jure Regni'--"The fault of some few was charged upon all; and the +common hatred of a particular person did redound to the whole nation; so +that even such as were remote from any suspicion were inflamed by the +infamy of men's crimes." {343} + +To vindicate the national honour, and to punish the guilty, as well as to +save themselves from utter anarchy, the great majority of the Scotch +nation had taken measures against Mary which required explicit +justification in the sight of Europe, as Buchanan frankly confesses in +the opening of his "De Jure Regni." The chief authors of those measures +had been summoned, perhaps unwisely and unjustly, to answer for their +conduct to the Queen of England. Queen Elizabeth--a fact which was +notorious enough then, though it has been forgotten till the last few +years--was doing her utmost to shield Mary. Buchanan was deputed, it +seems, to speak out for the people of Scotland; and certainly never +people had an abler apologist. If he spoke fiercely, savagely, it must +be remembered that he spoke of a fierce and savage matter; if he used--and +it may be abused--all the arts of oratory, it must be remembered that he +was fighting for the honour, and it may be for the national life, of his +country, and striking--as men in such cases have a right to strike--as +hard as he could. If he makes no secret of his indignation, and even +contempt, it must be remembered that indignation and contempt may well +have been real with him, while they were real with the soundest part of +his countrymen; with that reforming middle class, comparatively untainted +by French profligacy, comparatively undebauched by feudal subservience, +which has been the leaven which has leavened the whole Scottish people in +the last three centuries with the elements of their greatness. If, +finally, he heaps up against the unhappy Queen charges which Mr. Burton +thinks incredible, it must be remembered that, as he well says, these +charges give the popular feeling about Queen Mary; and it must be +remembered also, that that popular feeling need not have been altogether +unfounded. Stories which are incredible, thank God, in these milder +days, were credible enough then, because, alas! they were so often true. +Things more ugly than any related of poor Mary, were possible enough--as +no one knew better than Buchanan--in that very French court in which Mary +had been brought up; things as ugly were possible in Scotland then, and +for at least a century later; and while we may hope that Buchanan has +overstated his case, we must not blame him too severely for yielding to a +temptation common to all men of genius when their creative power is +roused to its highest energy by a great cause and a great indignation. + +And that the genius was there, no man can doubt; one cannot read that +"hideously eloquent" description of Kirk o' Field, which Mr. Burton has +well chosen as a specimen of Buchanan's style, without seeing that we are +face to face with a genius of a very lofty order: not, indeed, of the +loftiest--for there is always in Buchanan's work, it seems to me, a want +of unconsciousness, and a want of tenderness--but still a genius worthy +to be placed beside those ancient writers from whom he took his manner. +Whether or not we agree with his contemporaries, who say that he equalled +Virgil in Latin poetry, we may place him fairly as a prose writer by the +side of Demosthenes, Cicero, or Tacitus. And so I pass from this painful +subject; only quoting--if I may be permitted to quote--Mr. Burton's wise +and gentle verdict on the whole. "Buchanan," he says, "though a zealous +Protestant, had a good deal of the Catholic and sceptical spirit of +Erasmus, and an admiring eye for everything that was great and beautiful. +Like the rest of his countrymen, he bowed himself in presence of the +lustre that surrounded the early career of his mistress. More than once +he expressed his pride and reverence in the inspiration of a genius +deemed by his contemporaries to be worthy of the theme. There is not, +perhaps, to be found elsewhere in literature so solemn a memorial of +shipwrecked hopes, of a sunny opening and a stormy end, as one finds in +turning the leaves of the volume which contains the beautiful epigram +'Nympha Caledoniae' in one part, the 'Detectio Mariae Reginae' in +another; and this contrast is, no doubt, a faithful parallel of the +reaction in the popular mind. This reaction seems to have been general, +and not limited to the Protestant party; for the conditions under which +it became almost a part of the creed of the Church of Rome to believe in +her innocence had not arisen." + +If Buchanan, as some of his detractors have thought, raised himself by +subserviency to the intrigues of the Regent Murray, the best heads in +Scotland seem to have been of a different opinion. The murder of Murray +did not involve Buchanan's fall. He had avenged it, as far as pen could +do it, by that 'Admonition Direct to the Trew Lordis,' in which he showed +himself as great a master of Scottish, as he was of Latin, prose. His +satire of the 'Chameleon,' though its publication was stopped by +Maitland, must have been read in manuscript by many of those same "True +Lords;" and though there were nobler instincts in Maitland than any +Buchanan gave him credit for, the satire breathed an honest indignation +against that wily turncoat's misdoings, which could not but recommend the +author to all honest men. Therefore it was, I presume, and not because +he was a rogue, and a hired literary spadassin, that to the best heads in +Scotland he seemed so useful, it may be so worthy, a man, that he be +provided with continually increasing employment. As tutor to James I.; +as director, for a short time, of the chancery; as keeper of the privy +seal, and privy councillor; as one of the commissioners for codifying the +laws, and again--for in the semi-anarchic state of Scotland, government +had to do everything in the way of organisation--in the committee for +promulgating a standard Latin grammar; in the committee for reforming the +University of St. Andrew's: in all these Buchanan's talents were again +and again called for; and always ready. The value of his work, +especially that for the reform of St. Andrew's, must be judged by +Scotchmen, rather than by an Englishman: but all that one knows of it +justifies Melville's sentence in the well-known passage in his memoirs, +wherein he describes the tutors and household of the young King. "Mr. +George was a Stoic philosopher, who looked not far before him;" in plain +words, a high-minded and right-minded man, bent on doing the duty which +lay nearest him. The worst that can be said against him during these +times is, that his name appears with the sum of 100 pounds against it, as +one of those "who were to be entertained in Scotland by pensions out of +England"; and Ruddiman, of course, comments on the fact by saying that +Buchanan "was at length to act under the threefold character of +malcontent, reformer, and pensioner:" but it gives no proof whatsoever +that Buchanan ever received any such bribe; and in the very month, +seemingly, in which that list was written--10th March, 1579--Buchanan had +given a proof to the world that he was not likely to be bribed or bought, +by publishing a book, as offensive probably to Queen Elizabeth as it was +to his own royal pupil; namely, his famous 'De Jure Regni apud Scotos,' +the very primer, according to many great thinkers, of constitutional +liberty. He dedicates that book to King James, "not only as his monitor, +but also an importunate and bold exactor, which in these his tender and +flexible years may conduct him in safety past the rocks of flattery." He +has complimented James already on his abhorrence of flattery, "his +inclination far above his years for undertaking all heroical and noble +attempts, his promptitude in obeying his instructors and governors, and +all who give him sound admonition, and his judgment and diligence in +examining affairs, so that no man's authority can have much weight with +him unless it be confirmed by probable reasons." Buchanan may have +thought that nine years of his stern rule had eradicated some of James's +ill conditions; the petulance which made him kill the Master of Mar's +sparrow, in trying to wrest it out of his hand; the carelessness with +which--if the story told by Chytraeus, on the authority of Buchanan's +nephew, be true--James signed away his crown to Buchanan for fifteen +days, and only discovered his mistake by seeing Buchanan act in open +court the character of King of Scots. Buchanan had at last made him a +scholar; he may have fancied that he had made him likewise a manful man: +yet he may have dreaded that, as James grew up, the old inclinations +would return in stronger and uglier shapes, and that flattery might be, +as it was after all, the cause of James's moral ruin. He at least will +be no flatterer. He opens the dialogue which he sends to the king, with +a calm but distinct assertion of his mother's guilt, and a justification +of the conduct of men who were now most of them past helping Buchanan, +for they were laid in their graves; and then goes on to argue fairly, but +to lay down firmly, in a sort of Socratic dialogue, those very principles +by loyalty to which the House of Hanover has reigned, and will reign, +over these realms. So with his History of Scotland; later antiquarian +researches have destroyed the value of the earlier portions of it: but +they have surely increased the value of those later portions, in which +Buchanan inserted so much which he had already spoken out in his +Detection of Mary. In that book also, "liberavit animam suam;" he spoke +his mind, fearless of consequences, in the face of a king who he must +have known--for Buchanan was no dullard--regarded him with deep dislike, +who might in a few years be able to work his ruin. + +But those few years were not given to Buchanan. He had all but done his +work, and he hastened to get it over before the night should come wherein +no man can work. One must be excused for telling--one would not tell it +in a book intended to be read only by Scotchmen, who know or ought to +know the tale already--how the two Melvilles and Buchanan's nephew Thomas +went to see him in Edinburgh, in September, 1581, hearing that he was +ill, and his History still in the press; and how they found the old sage, +true to his schoolmaster's instincts, teaching the Hornbook to his +servant-lad; and how he told them that doing that was "better than +stealing sheep, or sitting idle, which was as bad," and showed them that +dedication to James I., in which he holds up to his imitation as a hero +whose equal was hardly to be found in history, that very King David whose +liberality to the Romish Church provoked James's witticism that "David +was a sair saint for the crown." Andrew Melville, so James Melville +says, found fault with the style. Buchanan replied that he could do no +more for thinking of another thing, which was to die. They then went to +Arbuthnot's printing-house, and inspected the history, as far as that +terrible passage concerning Rizzio's burial, where Mary is represented as +"laying the miscreant almost in the arms of Maud de Valois, the late +queen." Alarmed, and not without reason, at such plain speaking, they +stopped the press, and went back to Buchanan's house. Buchanan was in +bed. "He was going," he said, "the way of welfare." They asked him to +soften the passage; the king might prohibit the whole work. "Tell me, +man," said Buchanan, "if I have told the truth." They could not, or +would not, deny it. "Then I will abide his feud, and all his kin's; +pray, pray to God for me, and let Him direct all." "So," says Melville, +"by the printing of his chronicle was ended, this most learned, wise, and +godly man ended his mortal life." + +Camden has a hearsay story--written, it must be remembered, in James I.'s +time--that Buchanan, on his death-bed repented of his harsh words against +Queen Mary; and an old Lady Rosyth is said to have said that when she was +young a certain David Buchanan recollected hearing some such words from +George Buchanan's own mouth. Those who will, may read what Ruddiman and +Love have said, and oversaid, on both sides of the question: whatever +conclusion they come to, it will probably not be that to which George +Chalmers comes in his life of Ruddiman: that "Buchanan, like other liars, +who by the repetition of falsehoods are induced to consider the fiction +as truth, had so often dwelt with complacency on the forgeries of his +Detections, and the figments of his History, that he at length regarded +his fictions and his forgeries as most authentic facts." + +At all events his fictions and his forgeries had not paid him in that +coin which base men generally consider the only coin worth having, +namely, the good things of this life. He left nothing behind him--if at +least Dr. Irving has rightly construed the "Testament Dative" which he +gives in his appendix--save arrears to the sum of 100_l_. of his +Crossraguel pension. We may believe as we choose the story in +Mackenzie's 'Scotch Writers,' that when he felt himself dying, he asked +his servant Young about the state of his funds, and finding he had not +enough to bury himself withal, ordered what he had to be given to the +poor, and said that if they did not choose to bury him they might let him +lie where he was, or cast him in a ditch, the matter was very little to +him. He was buried, it seems, at the expense of the city of Edinburgh, +in the Greyfriars' Churchyard--one says in a plain turf grave--among the +marble monuments which covered the bones of worse or meaner men; and +whether or not the "Throughstone" which, "sunk under the ground in the +Greyfriars," was raised and cleaned by the Council of Edinburgh in 1701, +was really George Buchanan's, the reigning powers troubled themselves +little for several generations where he lay. + +For Buchanan's politics were too advanced for his age. Not only Catholic +Scotsmen, like Blackwood, Winzet, and Ninian, but Protestants, like Sir +Thomas Craig and Sir John Wemyss, could not stomach the 'De Jure Regni.' +They may have had some reason on their side. In the then anarchic state +of Scotland, organisation and unity under a common head may have been +more important than the assertion of popular rights. Be that as it may, +in 1584, only two years after his death, the Scots Parliament condemned +his Dialogue and History as untrue, and commanded all possessors of +copies to deliver them up, that they might be purged of "the offensive +and extraordinary matters" which they contained. The 'De Jure Regni' was +again prohibited in Scotland, in 1664, even in manuscript; and in 1683, +the whole of Buchanan's political works had the honour of being burned by +the University of Oxford, in company with those of Milton, Languet, and +others, as "pernicious books, and damnable doctrines, destructive to the +sacred persons of Princes, their state and government, and of all human +society." And thus the seed which Buchanan had sown, and Milton had +watered--for the allegation that Milton borrowed from Buchanan is +probably true, and equally honourable to both--lay trampled into the +earth, and seemingly lifeless, till it tillered out, and blossomed, and +bore fruit to a good purpose, in the Revolution of 1688. + +To Buchanan's clear head and stout heart, Scotland owes, as England owes +likewise, much of her modern liberty. But Scotland's debt to him, it +seems to me, is even greater on the count of morality, public and +private. What the morality of the Scotch upper classes was like, in +Buchanan's early days, is too notorious; and there remains proof +enough--in the writings, for instance, of Sir David Lindsay--that the +morality of the populace which looked up to the nobles as its example and +its guide, was not a whit better. As anarchy increased, immorality was +likely to increase likewise; and Scotland was in serious danger of +falling into such a state as that into which Poland fell, to its ruin, +within a hundred and fifty years after; in which the savagery of +feudalism, without its order or its chivalry, would be varnished over by +a thin coating of French "civilisation," and, as in the case of Bothwell, +the vices of the court of Paris should be added to those of the Northern +freebooter. To deliver Scotland from that ruin, it was needed that she +should be united into one people, strong, not in mere political, but in +moral ideas; strong by the clear sense of right and wrong, by the belief +in the government and the judgments of a living God. And the tone which +Buchanan, like Knox, adopted concerning the great crimes of their day, +helped notably that national salvation. It gathered together, organised, +strengthened, the scattered and wavering elements of public morality. It +assured the hearts of all men who loved the right and hated the wrong; +and taught a whole nation to call acts by their just names, whoever might +be the doers of them. It appealed to the common conscience of men. It +proclaimed a universal and God-given morality, a bar at which all, from +the lowest to the highest, must alike be judged. + +The tone was stern: but there was need of sternness. Moral life and +death were in the balance. If the Scots people were to be told that the +crimes which roused their indignation were excusable, or beyond +punishment, or to be hushed up and slipped over in any way, there was an +end of morality among them. Every man, from the greatest to the least, +would go and do likewise, according to his powers of evil. That method +was being tried in France, and in Spain likewise, during those very +years. Notorious crimes were hushed up under pretence of loyalty; +excused as political necessities; smiled away as natural and pardonable +weaknesses. The result was the utter demoralisation, both of France and +Spain. Knox and Buchanan, the one from the stand-point of an old Hebrew +prophet, the other rather from that of a Juvenal or a Tacitus, tried the +other method, and called acts by their just names, appealing alike to +conscience and to God. The result was virtue and piety, and that manly +independence of soul which is thought compatible with hearty loyalty, in +a country labouring under heavy disadvantages, long divided almost into +two hostile camps, two rival races. + +And the good influence was soon manifest, not only in those who sided +with Buchanan and his friends, but in those who most opposed them. The +Roman Catholic preachers, who at first asserted Mary's right to impunity, +while they allowed her guilt, grew silent for shame, and set themselves +to assert her entire innocence; while the Scots who have followed their +example have, to their honour, taken up the same ground. They have +fought Buchanan on the ground of fact, not on the ground of morality: +they have alleged--as they had a fair right to do--the probability of +intrigue and forgery in an age so profligate: the improbability that a +Queen so gifted by nature and by fortune, and confessedly for a long +while so strong and so spotless, should as it were by a sudden insanity +have proved so untrue to herself. Their noblest and purest sympathies +have been enlisted--and who can blame them?--in loyalty to a Queen, +chivalry to a woman, pity for the unfortunate and--as they conceived--the +innocent; but whether they have been right or wrong in their view of +facts, the Scotch partisans of Mary have always--as far as I know--been +right in their view of morals; they have never deigned to admit Mary's +guilt, and then to palliate it by those sentimental, or rather sensual, +theories of human nature, too common in a certain school of French +literature,--too common, alas! in a certain school of modern English +novels. They have not said, "She did it; but after all, was the deed so +very inexcusable?" They have said, "The deed was inexcusable: but she +did not do it." And so the Scotch admirers of Mary, who have numbered +among them many a pure and noble, as well as many a gifted spirit, have +kept at least themselves unstained; and have shown, whether consciously +or not, that they too share in that sturdy Scotch moral sense which has +been so much strengthened--as I believe--by the plain speech of good old +George Buchanan. + + + + +RONDELET, THE HUGUENOT NATURALIST {358} + + +"Apollo, god of medicine, exiled from the rest of the earth, was straying +once across the Narbonnaise in Gaul, seeking to fix his abode there. +Driven from Asia, from Africa, and from the rest of Europe, he wandered +through all the towns of the province in search of a place propitious for +him and for his disciples. At last he perceived a new city, constructed +from the ruins of Maguelonne, of Lattes, and of Substantion. He +contemplated long its site, its aspect, its neighbourhood, and resolved +to establish on this hill of Montpellier a temple for himself and his +priests. All smiled on his desires. By the genius of the soil, by the +character of the inhabitants, no town is more fit for the culture of +letters, and above all of medicine. What site is more delicious and more +lovely? A heaven pure and smiling; a city built with magnificence; men +born for all the labours of the intellect. All around vast horizons and +enchanting sites--meadows, vines, olives, green champaigns; mountains and +hills, rivers, brooks, lagoons, and the sea. Everywhere a luxuriant +vegetation--everywhere the richest production of the land and the water. +Hail to thee, sweet and dear city! Hail, happy abode of Apollo, who +spreadest afar the light of the glory of thy name!" + +"This fine tirade," says Dr. Maurice Raynaud--from whose charming book on +the 'Doctors of the Time of Moliere' I quote--"is not, as one might +think, the translation of a piece of poetry. It is simply part of a +public oration by Francois Fanchon, one of the most illustrious +chancellors of the faculty of medicine of Montpellier in the seventeenth +century." "From time immemorial," he says, "'the faculty' of Montpellier +had made itself remarkable by a singular mixture of the sacred and the +profane. The theses which were sustained there began by an invocation to +God, the Blessed Virgin, and St. Luke, and ended by these words:--'This +thesis will be sustained in the sacred Temple of Apollo.'" + +But however extravagant Chancellor Fanchon's praises of his native city +may seem, they are really not exaggerated. The Narbonnaise, or +Languedoc, is perhaps the most charming district of charming France. In +the far north-east gleam the white Alps; in the far south-west the white +Pyrenees; and from the purple glens and yellow downs of the Cevennes on +the northwest, the Herault slopes gently down towards the "Etangs," or +great salt-water lagoons, and the vast alluvial flats of the Camargue, +the field of Caius Marius, where still run herds of half-wild horses, +descended from some ancient Roman stock; while beyond all glitters the +blue Mediterranean. The great almond orchards, each one sheet of rose- +colour in spring; the mulberry orchards, the oliveyards, the vineyards, +cover every foot of available upland soil: save where the rugged and arid +downs are sweet with a thousand odoriferous plants, from which the bees +extract the famous white honey of Narbonne. The native flowers and +shrubs, of a beauty and richness rather Eastern than European, have made +the 'Flora Monspeliensis,' and with it the names of Rondelet and his +disciples, famous among botanists; and the strange fish and shells upon +its shores afforded Rondelet materials for his immortal work upon the +'Animals of the Sea.' The innumerable wild fowl of the "Bouches du +Rhone;" the innumerable songsters and other birds of passage, many of +them unknown in these islands, and even in the north of France itself, +which haunt every copse of willow and aspen along the brook sides; the +gaudy and curious insects which thrive beneath that clear, fierce, and +yet bracing sunlight; all these have made the district of Montpellier a +home prepared by Nature for those who study and revere her. + +Neither was Chancellor Fanchon misled by patriotism, when he said the +pleasant people who inhabit that district are fit for all the labours of +the intellect. They are a very mixed race, and like most mixed races, +quick-witted, and handsome also. There is probably much Roman blood +among them, especially in the towns; for Languedoc, or Gallia +Narbonnensis, as it was called of old, was said to be more Roman than +Rome itself. The Roman remains are more perfect and more interesting--so +the late Dr. Whewell used to say--than any to be seen now in Italy; and +the old capital, Narbonne itself, was a complete museum of Roman +antiquities ere Francis I. destroyed it, in order to fortify the city +upon a modern system against the invading armies of Charles V. There +must be much Visigothic blood likewise in Languedoc; for the Visigothic +Kings held their courts there from the fifth century, until the time that +they were crushed by the invading Moors. Spanish blood, likewise, there +may be; for much of Languedoc was held in the early Middle Age by those +descendants of Eudes of Acquitaine who established themselves as kings of +Majorca and Arragon; and Languedoc did not become entirely French till +1349, when Philip le Bel bought Montpellier of those potentates. The +Moors, too, may have left some traces of their race behind. They held +the country from about A.D. 713 to 758, when they were finally expelled +by Charles Martel and Eudes. One sees to this day their towers of meagre +stone-work, perched on the grand Roman masonry of those old +amphitheatres, which they turned into fortresses. One may see, too--so +tradition holds--upon those very amphitheatres the stains of the fires +with which Charles Martel smoked them out; and one may see, too, or fancy +that one sees, in the aquiline features, the bright black eyes, the lithe +and graceful gestures, which are so common in Languedoc, some touch of +the old Mahommedan race, which passed like a flood over that Christian +land. + +Whether or not the Moors left behind any traces of their blood, they left +behind, at least, traces of their learning; for the university of +Montpellier claimed to have been founded by Moors at a date of altogether +abysmal antiquity. They looked upon the Arabian physicians of the Middle +Age, on Avicenna and Averrhoes, as modern innovators, and derived their +parentage from certain mythic doctors of Cordova, who, when the Moors +were expelled from Spain in the eighth century, fled to Montpellier, +bringing with them traditions of that primeval science which had been +revealed to Adam while still in Paradise; and founded Montpellier, the +mother of all the universities in Europe. Nay, some went further still, +and told of Bengessaus and Ferragius, the physicians of Charlemagne, and +of Marilephus, chief physician of King Chilperic, and even--if a letter +of St. Bernard's was to be believed--of a certain bishop who went as +early as the second century to consult the doctors of Montpellier; and it +would have been in vain to reply to them that in those days, and long +after them, Montpellier was not yet built. The facts are said to be: +that as early as the beginning of the thirteenth century Montpellier had +its schools of law, medicine, and arts, which were erected into a +university by Pope Nicholas IV. in 1289. + +The university of Montpellier, like--I believe--most foreign ones, +resembled more a Scotch than an English university. The students lived, +for the most part, not in colleges, but in private lodgings, and +constituted a republic of their own, ruled by an abbe of the scholars, +one of themselves, chosen by universal suffrage. A terror they were +often to the respectable burghers, for they had all the right to carry +arms; and a plague likewise, for, if they ran in debt, their creditors +were forbidden to seize their books, which, with their swords, were +generally all the property they possessed. If, moreover, any one set up +a noisy or unpleasant trade near their lodgings, the scholars could +compel the town authorities to turn him out. They were most of them, +probably, mere boys of from twelve to twenty, living poorly, working +hard, and--those at least of them who were in the colleges--cruelly +beaten daily, after the fashion of those times; but they seem to have +comforted themselves under their troubles by a good deal of wild life out +of school, by rambling into the country on the festivals of the saints, +and now and then by acting plays; notably, that famous one which Rabelais +wrote for them in 1531: "The moral comedy of the man who had a dumb +wife;" which "joyous patelinage" remains unto this day in the shape of a +well-known comic song. That comedy young Rondelet must have seen acted. +The son of a druggist, spicer, and grocer--the three trades were then +combined--in Montpellier, and born in 1507, he had been destined for the +cloister, being a sickly lad. His uncle, one of the canons of +Maguelonne, near by, had even given him the revenues of a small chapel--a +job of nepotism which was common enough in those days. But his heart was +in science and medicine. He set off, still a mere boy, to Paris to study +there; and returned to Montpellier, at the age of eighteen, to study +again. + +The next year, 1530, while still a scholar himself, he was appointed +procurator of the scholars--a post which brought him in a small fee on +each matriculation--and that year he took a fee, among others, from one +of the most remarkable men of that or of any age, Francois Rabelais +himself. + +And what shall I say of him?--who stands alone, like Shakespeare, in his +generation; possessed of colossal learning--of all science which could be +gathered in his days--of practical and statesmanlike wisdom--of knowledge +of languages, ancient and modern, beyond all his compeers--of eloquence, +which when he speaks of pure and noble things becomes heroic, and, as it +were, inspired--of scorn for meanness, hypocrisy, ignorance--of esteem, +genuine and earnest, for the Holy Scriptures, and for the more moderate +of the Reformers who were spreading the Scriptures in Europe,--and all +this great light wilfully hidden, not under a bushel, but under a +dunghill. He is somewhat like Socrates in face, and in character +likewise; in him, as in Socrates, the demigod and the satyr, the man and +the ape, are struggling for the mastery. In Socrates, the true man +conquers, and comes forth high and pure; in Rabelais, alas! the victor is +the ape, while the man himself sinks down in cynicism, sensuality, +practical jokes, foul talk. He returns to Paris, to live an idle, +luxurious life; to die--says the legend--saying, "I go to seek a great +perhaps," and to leave behind him little save a school of +Pantagruelists--careless young gentlemen, whose ideal was to laugh at +everything, to believe in nothing, and to gratify their five senses like +the brutes which perish. There are those who read his books to make them +laugh; the wise man, when he reads them, will be far more inclined to +weep. Let any young man who may see these words remember, that in him, +as in Rabelais, the ape and the man are struggling for the mastery. Let +him take warning by the fate of one who was to him as a giant to a pigmy; +and think of Tennyson's words:-- + + "Arise, and fly + The reeling faun, the sensual feast; + Strive upwards, working out the beast, + And let the ape and tiger die." + +But to return. Down among them there at Montpellier, like a brilliant +meteor, flashed this wonderful Rabelais, in the year 1530. He had fled, +some say, for his life. Like Erasmus, he had no mind to be a martyr, and +he had been terrified at the execution of poor Louis de Berquin, his +friend, and the friend of Erasmus likewise. This Louis de Berquin, a man +well known in those days, was a gallant young gentleman and scholar, +holding a place in the court of Francis I., who had translated into +French the works of Erasmus, Luther, and Melancthon, and had asserted +that it was heretical to invoke the Virgin Mary instead of the Holy +Spirit, or to call her our Hope and our Life, which titles--Berquin +averred--belonged alone to God. Twice had the doctors of the Sorbonne, +with that terrible persecutor, Noel Beda, at their head, seized poor +Berquin, and tried to burn his books and him; twice had that angel in +human form, Marguerite d'Angouleme, sister of Francis I., saved him from +their clutches; but when Francis--taken prisoner at the battle of +Pavia--at last returned from his captivity in Spain, the suppression of +heresy and the burning of heretics seemed to him and to his mother, +Louise of Savoy, a thank-offering so acceptable to God, that Louis +Berquin--who would not, in spite of the entreaties of Erasmus, purchase +his life by silence--was burnt at last on the Place de Greve, being first +strangled, because he was of gentle blood. + +Montpellier received its famous guest joyfully. Rabelais was now forty- +two years old, and a distinguished savant; so they excused him his three +years' undergraduate's career, and invested him at once with the red gown +of the bachelors. That red gown--or, rather, the ragged phantom of it--is +still shown at Montpellier, and must be worn by each bachelor when he +takes his degree. Unfortunately, antiquarians assure us that the +precious garment has been renewed again and again--the students having +clipped bits of it away for relics, and clipped as earnestly from the new +gowns as their predecessors had done from the authentic original. + +Doubtless the coming of such a man among them to lecture on the Aphorisms +of Hippocrates, and the Ars Parva of Galen, not from the Latin +translations then in use, "but from original Greek texts, with comments +and corrections of his own, must have had a great influence on the minds +of the Montpellier students; and still more influence--and that not +altogether a good one--must Rabelais' lighter talk have had, as he +lounged--so the story goes--in his dressing-gown upon the public place, +picking up quaint stories from the cattle-drivers off the Cevennes, and +the villagers who came in to sell their olives and their grapes, their +vinegar and their vine-twig faggots, as they do unto this day. To him +may be owing much of the sound respect for natural science, and much, +too, of the contempt for the superstition around them, which is notable +in that group of great naturalists who were boys in Montpellier at that +day. Rabelais seems to have liked Rondelet, and no wonder: he was a +cheery, lovable, honest little fellow, very fond of jokes, a great +musician and player on the violin, and who, when he grew rich, liked +nothing so well as to bring into his house any buffoon or strolling +player to make fun for him. Vivacious he was, hot-tempered, forgiving, +and with a power of learning and a power of work which were prodigious, +even in those hard-working days. Rabelais chaffs Rondelet, under the +name of Rondibilis; for, indeed, Rondelet grew up into a very round, fat, +little man; but Rabelais puts excellent sense into his mouth, cynical +enough, and too cynical, but both learned and humorous; and, if he laughs +at him for being shocked at the offer of a fee, and taking it, +nevertheless, kindly enough, Rondelet is not the first doctor who has +done that, neither will he be the last. + +Rondelet, in his turn, put on the red robe of the bachelor, and received, +on taking his degree, his due share of fisticuffs from his dearest +friends, according to the ancient custom of the University of +Montpellier. He then went off to practise medicine in a village at the +foot of the Alps, and, half-starved, to teach little children. Then he +found he must learn Greek; went off to Paris a second time, and +alleviated his poverty there somewhat by becoming tutor to a son of the +Viscomte de Turenne. There he met Gonthier of Andernach, who had taught +anatomy at Louvain to the great Vesalius, and learned from him to +dissect. We next find him setting up as a medical man amid the wild +volcanic hills of the Auvergne, struggling still with poverty, like +Erasmus, like George Buchanan, like almost every great scholar in those +days; for students then had to wander from place to place, generally on +foot, in search of new teachers, in search of books, in search of the +necessaries of life; undergoing such an amount of bodily and mental toil +as makes it wonderful that all of them did not--as some of them doubtless +did--die under the hard training, or, at best, desert the penurious Muses +for the paternal shop or plough. + +Rondelet got his doctorate in 1537, and next year fell in love with and +married a beautiful young girl called Jeanne Sandre, who seems to have +been as poor as he. + +But he had gained, meanwhile, a powerful patron and the patronage of the +great was then as necessary to men of letters as the patronage of the +public is now. Guillaume Pellicier, Bishop of Maguelonne--or rather then +of Montpellier itself, whither he had persuaded Paul II. to transfer the +ancient see--was a model of the literary gentleman of the sixteenth +century; a savant, a diplomat, a collector of books and manuscripts, +Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac, which formed the original nucleus of the +present library of the Louvre; a botanist, too, who loved to wander with +Rondelet collecting plants and flowers. He retired from public life to +peace and science at Montpellier, when to the evil days of his master, +Francis I., succeeded the still worse days of Henry II., and Diana of +Poitiers. That Jezebel of France could conceive no more natural or easy +way of atoning for her own sins than that of hunting down heretics, and +feasting her wicked eyes--so it is said--upon their dying torments. +Bishop Pellicier fell under suspicion of heresy: very probably with some +justice. He fell, too, under suspicion of leading a life unworthy of a +celibate churchman, a fault which--if it really existed--was, in those +days, pardonable enough in an orthodox prelate, but not so in one whose +orthodoxy was suspected. And for a while Pellicier was in prison. After +his release he gave himself up to science, with Rondelet, and the school +of disciples who were growing up around him. They rediscovered together +the Garum, that classic sauce, whose praises had been sung of old by +Horace, Martial, and Ausonius; and so childlike, superstitious if you +will, was the reverence in the sixteenth century for classic antiquity, +that when Pellicier and Rondelet discovered that the Garum was made from +the fish called Picarel--called Garon by the fishers of Antibes, and +Giroli at Venice, both these last names corruptions of the Latin +Gerres--then did the two fashionable poets of France, Etienne Dolet and +Clement Marot, think it not unworthy of their muse to sing the praises of +the sauce which Horace had sung of old. A proud day, too, was it for +Pellicier and Rondelet, when wandering somewhere in the marshes of the +Camargue, a scent of garlic caught the nostrils of the gentle bishop, and +in the lovely pink flowers of the water-germander he recognised the +Scordium of the ancients. "The discovery," says Professor Planchon, +"made almost as much noise as that of the famous Garum; for at that +moment of naive fervour on behalf of antiquity, to rediscover a plant of +Dioscorides or of Pliny was a good fortune and almost an event." + +I know not whether, after his death, the good bishop's bones reposed +beneath some gorgeous tomb, bedizened with the incongruous half-Pagan +statues of the Renaissance: but this, at least, is certain, that +Rondelet's disciples imagined for him a monument more enduring than of +marble or of brass, more graceful and more curiously wrought than all the +sculptures of Torrigiano or Cellini, Baccio Bandinelli or Michael Angelo +himself. For they named a lovely little lilac snapdragon, _Linaria +Domini Pellicerii_,--"Lord Pellicier's toad-flax;" and that name it will +keep, we may believe, as long as winter and summer shall endure. + +But to return. To this good patron--who was the Ambassador at Venice--the +newly-married Rondelet determined to apply for employment; and to Venice +he would have gone, leaving his bride behind, had he not been stayed by +one of those angels who sometimes walk the earth in women's shape. Jeanne +Sandre had an elder sister, Catherine, who had brought her up. She was +married to a wealthy man, but she had no children of her own. For four +years she and her good husband had let the Rondelets lodge with them, and +now she was a widow, and to part with them was more than she could bear. +She carried Rondelet off from the students who were seeing him safe out +of the city, brought him back, settled on him the same day half her +fortune, and soon after settled on him the whole, on the sole condition +that she should live with him and her sister. For years afterwards she +watched over the pretty young wife and her two girls and three boys--the +three boys, alas! all died young--and over Rondelet himself, who, +immersed in books and experiments, was utterly careless about money; and +was to them all a mother, advising, guiding, managing, and regarded by +Rondelet with genuine gratitude as his guardian angel. + +Honour and good fortune, in the worldly sense, now poured in upon the +druggist's son. Pellicier, his own bishop, stood godfather to his first- +born daughter. Montluc, Bishop of Valence, and that wise and learned +statesman, the Cardinal of Tournon, stood godfathers a few years later to +his twin boys; and what was of still more solid worth to him, Cardinal +Tournon took him to Antwerp, Bordeaux, Bayonne, and more than once to +Rome; and in these Italian journeys of his he collected many facts for +the great work of his life, that 'History of Fishes' which he dedicated, +naturally enough, to the cardinal. This book with its plates is, for the +time, a masterpiece of accuracy. Those who are best acquainted with the +subject say, that it is up to the present day a key to the whole +ichthyology of the Mediterranean. Two other men, Belon and Salviani, +were then at work on the same subject, and published their books almost +at the same time; a circumstance which caused, as was natural, a three- +cornered duel between the supporters of the three naturalists, each party +accusing the other of plagiarism. The simple fact seems to be that the +almost simultaneous appearance of the three books in 1554-5 is one of +those coincidences inevitable at moments when many minds are stirred in +the same direction by the same great thoughts--coincidences which have +happened in our own day on questions of geology, biology, and astronomy; +and which, when the facts have been carefully examined, and the first +flush of natural jealousy has cooled down, have proved only that there +were more wise men than one in the world at the same time. + +And this sixteenth century was an age in which the minds of men were +suddenly and strangely turned to examine the wonders of nature with an +earnestness, with a reverence, and therefore with an accuracy, with which +they had never been investigated before. "Nature," says Professor +Planchon, "long veiled in mysticism and scholasticism, was opening up +infinite vistas. A new superstition, the exaggerated worship of the +ancients, was nearly hindering this movement of thought towards facts. +Nevertheless learning did her work. She rediscovered, reconstructed, +purified, commented on the texts of ancient authors. Then came in +observation, which showed that more was to be seen in one blade of grass +than in any page of Pliny. Rondelet was in the middle of this crisis a +man of transition, while he was one of progress. He reflected the past; +he opened and prepared the future. If he commented on Dioscorides, if he +remained faithful to the theories of Galen, he founded in his 'History of +Fishes' a monument which our century respects. He is above all an +inspirer, an initiator; and if he wants one mark of the leader of a +school, the foundation of certain scientific doctrines, there is in his +speech what is better than all systems, the communicative power which +urges a generation of disciples along the path of independent research, +with Reason for guide, and Faith for aim." + +Around Rondelet, in those years, sometimes indeed in his house--for +professors in those days took private pupils as lodgers--worked the group +of botanists whom Linnaeus calls "the Fathers," the authors of the +descriptive botany of the sixteenth century. Their names, and those of +their disciples and their disciples again, are household words in the +mouth of every gardener, immortalised, like good Bishop Pellicier, in the +plants which have been named after them. The Lobelia commemorates Lobel, +one of Rondelet's most famous pupils, who wrote those 'Adversaria' which +contain so many curious sketches of Rondelet's botanical expeditions, and +who inherited his botanical (as Joubert his biographer inherited his +anatomical) manuscripts. The Magnolia commemorates the Magnols; the +Sarracenia, Sarrasin of Lyons; the Bauhinia, Jean Bauhin; the Fuchsia, +Bauhin's earlier German master, Leonard Fuchs; and the Clusia--the +received name of that terrible "Matapalo," or "Scotch attorney," of the +West Indies, which kills the hugest tree, to become as huge a tree +itself--immortalizes the great Clusius, Charles de l'Escluse, citizen of +Arras, who after studying civil law at Louvain, philosophy at Marburg, +and theology at Wittemberg under Melancthon, came to Montpellier in 1551, +to live in Rondelet's own house, and become the greatest botanist of his +age. + +These were Rondelet's palmy days. He had got a theatre of anatomy built +at Montpellier, where he himself dissected publicly. He had, says +tradition, a little botanic garden, such as were springing up then in +several universities, specially in Italy. He had a villa outside the +city, whose tower, near the modern railway station, still bears the name +of the "Mas de Rondelet." There, too, may be seen the remnants of the +great tanks, fed with water brought through earthen pipes from the +Fountain of Albe, wherein he kept the fish whose habits he observed. +Professor Planchon thinks that he had salt-water tanks likewise; and thus +he may have been the father of all "Aquariums." He had a large and +handsome house in the city itself, a large practice as physician in the +country round; money flowed in fast to him, and flowed out fast likewise. +He spent much upon building, pulling down, rebuilding, and sent the bills +in seemingly to his wife and to his guardian angel Catherine. He himself +had never a penny in his purse: but earned the money, and let his ladies +spend it; an equitable and pleasant division of labour which most married +men would do well to imitate. A generous, affectionate, careless little +man, he gave away, says his pupil and biographer, Joubert, his valuable +specimens to any savant who begged for them, or left them about to be +stolen by visitors, who, like too many collectors in all ages, possessed +light fingers and lighter consciences. So pacific was he meanwhile, and +so brave withal, that even in the fearful years of the troubles, he would +never carry sword, nor even tuck or dagger; but went about on the most +lonesome journeys as one who wore a charmed life, secure in God and in +his calling, which was to heal, and not to kill. + +These were the golden years of Rondelet's life; but trouble was coming on +him, and a stormy sunset after a brilliant day. He lost his sister-in- +law, to whom he owed all his fortunes, and who had watched ever since +over him and his wife like a mother; then he lost his wife herself under +most painful circumstances; then his best-beloved daughter. Then he +married again, and lost the son who was born to him; and then came, as to +many of the best in those days, even sorer trials, trials of the +conscience, trials of faith. + +For in the mean time Rondelet had become a Protestant, like many of the +wisest men round him; like, so it would seem from the event, the majority +of the university and the burghers of Montpellier. It is not to be +wondered at. Montpellier was a sort of half-way resting-place for +Protestant preachers, whether fugitive or not, who were passing from +Basle, Geneva, or Lyons, to Marguerite of Navarre's little Protestant +court at Pau or at Nerac, where all wise and good men, and now and then +some foolish and fanatical ones, found shelter and hospitality. Thither +Calvin himself had been, passing probably through Montpellier, and +leaving--as such a man was sure to leave--the mark of his foot behind +him. At Lyons, no great distance up the Rhone, Marguerite had helped to +establish an organised Protestant community; and when in 1536 she herself +had passed through Montpellier, to visit her brother at Valence, and +Montmorency's camp at Avignon, she took with her doubtless Protestant +chaplains of her own, who spoke wise words--it may be that she spoke wise +words herself--to the ardent and inquiring students of Montpellier. +Moreover, Rondelet and his disciples had been for years past in constant +communication with the Protestant savants of Switzerland and Germany, +among whom the knowledge of nature was progressing as it never had +progressed before. For--it is a fact always to be remembered--it was +only in the free air of Protestant countries the natural sciences could +grow and thrive. They sprung up, indeed, in Italy after the restoration +of Greek literature in the fifteenth century; but they withered there +again only too soon under the blighting upas shade of superstition. +Transplanted to the free air of Switzerland, of Germany, of Britain, and +of Montpellier, then half Protestant, they developed rapidly and surely, +simply because the air was free; to be checked again in France by the +return of superstition with despotism super-added, until the eve of the +great French Revolution. + +So Rondelet had been for some years Protestant. He had hidden in his +house for a long while a monk who had left his monastery. He had himself +written theological treatises: but when his Bishop Pellicier was +imprisoned on a charge of heresy, Rondelet burnt his manuscripts, and +kept his opinions to himself. Still he was a suspected heretic, at last +seemingly a notorious one; for only the year before his death, going to +visit patients at Perpignan, he was waylaid by the Spaniards, and had to +get home through bypasses of the Pyrenees, to avoid being thrown into the +Inquisition. + +And those were times in which it was necessary for a man to be careful, +unless he had made up his mind to be burned. For more than thirty years +of Rondelet's life the burning had gone on in his neighbourhood; +intermittently it is true: the spasms of superstitious fury being +succeeded, one may charitably hope, by pity and remorse: but still the +burnings had gone on. The Benedictine monk of St. Maur, who writes the +history of Languedoc, says, quite _en passant_, how some one was burnt at +Toulouse in 1553, luckily only in effigy, for he had escaped to Geneva: +but he adds, "next year they burned several heretics," it being not worth +while to mention their names. In 1556 they burned alive at Toulouse Jean +Escalle, a poor Franciscan monk, who had found his order intolerable; +while one Pierre de Lavaur, who dared preach Calvinism in the streets of +Nismes, was hanged and burnt. So had the score of judicial murders been +increasing year by year, till it had to be, as all evil scores have to be +in this world, paid off with interest, and paid off especially against +the ignorant and fanatic monks who for a whole generation, in every +university and school in France, had been howling down sound science, as +well as sound religion; and at Montpellier in 1560-1, their debt was paid +them in a very ugly way. News came down to the hot southerners of +Languedoc of the so-called conspiracy of Amboise.--How the Duc de Guise +and the Cardinal de Lorraine had butchered the best blood in France under +the pretence of a treasonable plot; how the King of Navarre and the +Prince de Conde had been arrested; then how Conde and Coligny were ready +to take up arms at the head of all the Huguenots of France, and try to +stop this lifelong torturing, by sharp shot and cold steel; then how in +six months' time the king would assemble a general council to settle the +question between Catholics and Huguenots. The Huguenots, guessing how +that would end, resolved to settle the question for themselves. They +rose in one city after another, sacked the churches, destroyed the +images, put down by main force superstitious processions and dances; and +did many things only to be excused by the exasperation caused by thirty +years of cruelty. At Montpellier there was hard fighting, murders--so +say the Catholic historians--of priests and monks, sack of the new +cathedral, destruction of the noble convents which lay in a ring round +Montpellier. The city and the university were in the hands of the +Huguenots, and Montpellier became Protestant on the spot. + +Next year came the counter blow. There were heavy battles with the +Catholics all round the neighbourhood, destruction of the suburbs, +threatened siege and sack, and years of misery and poverty for +Montpellier and all who were therein. + +Horrible was the state of France in those times of the wars of religion +which began in 1562; the times which are spoken of usually as "The +Troubles," as if men did not wish to allude to them too openly. Then, +and afterwards in the wars of the League, deeds were done for which +language has no name. The population decreased. The land lay untilled. +The fair face of France was blackened with burnt homesteads and ruined +towns. Ghastly corpses dangled in rows upon the trees, or floated down +the blood-stained streams. Law and order were at an end. Bands of +robbers prowled in open day, and bands of wolves likewise. But all +through the horrors of the troubles we catch sight of the little fat +doctor riding all unarmed to see his patients throughout Languedoc; going +vast distances, his biographers say, by means of regular relays of +horses, till he too broke down. Well for him, perhaps, that he broke +down when he did; for capture and recapture, massacre and pestilence, +were the fate of Montpellier and the surrounding country, till the better +times of Henry IV. and the Edict of Nantes in 1598, when liberty of +worship was given to the Protestants for a while. + +In the burning summer of 1566 Rondeletius went a long journey to +Toulouse, seemingly upon an errand of charity, to settle some law affairs +for his relations. The sanitary state of the southern cities is bad +enough still. It must have been horrible in those days of barbarism and +misrule. Dysentery was epidemic at Toulouse then, and Rondelet took it. +He knew from the first that he should die. He was worn out, it is said, +by over-exertion; by sorrow for the miseries of the land; by fruitless +struggles to keep the peace, and to strive for moderation in days when +men were all immoderate. But he rode away a day's journey--he took two +days over it, so weak he was--in the blazing July sun, to a friend's sick +wife at Realmont, and there took to his bed, and died a good man's death. +The details of his death and last illness were written and published by +his cousin Claude Formy; and well worth reading they are to any man who +wishes to know how to die. Rondelet would have no tidings of his illness +sent to Montpellier. He was happy, he said, in dying away from the tears +of his household, and "safe from insult." He dreaded, one may suppose, +lest priests and friars should force their way to his bedside, and try to +extort some recantation from the great savant, the honour and glory of +their city. So they sent for no priest to Realmont: but round his bed a +knot of Calvinist gentlemen and ministers read the Scriptures, and sang +David's psalms, and prayed; and Rondelet prayed with them through long +agonies, and so went home to God. + +The Benedictine monk-historian of Languedoc, in all his voluminous +folios, never mentions, as far as I can find, Rondelet's existence. Why +should he? The man was only a druggist's son and a heretic, who healed +diseases, and collected plants, and wrote a book on fish. But the +learned men of Montpellier, and of all Europe, had a very different +opinion of him. His body was buried at Realmont: but before the schools +of Toulouse they set up a white marble slab, and an inscription thereon +setting forth his learning and his virtues; and epitaphs on him were +composed by the learned throughout Europe, not only in French and Latin, +but in Greek, Hebrew, and even Chaldee. + +So lived and so died a noble man; more noble--to my mind--than many a +victorious warrior, or successful statesman, or canonised saint. To know +facts, and to heal diseases, were the two objects of his life. For them +he toiled, as few men have toiled; and he died in harness, at his +work--the best death any man can die. + + + + +VESALIUS THE ANATOMIST + + +I cannot begin a sketch of the life of this great man better than by +trying to describe a scene so picturesque, so tragic in the eyes of those +who are wont to mourn over human follies, so comic in the eyes of those +who prefer to laugh over them, that the reader will not be likely to +forget either it or the actors in it. + +It is a darkened chamber in the College of Alcala, in the year 1562, +where lies, probably in a huge four-post bed, shrouded in stifling +hangings, the heir-apparent of the greatest empire in the then world, Don +Carlos, only son of Philip II., and heir-apparent of Spain, the +Netherlands, and all the Indies. A short sickly boy of sixteen, with a +bull head, a crooked shoulder, a short leg, and a brutal temper, he will +not be missed by the world if he should die. His profligate career seems +to have brought its own punishment. To the scandal of his father, who +tolerated no one's vices save his own, as well as to the scandal of the +university authorities of Alcala, he has been scouring the streets at the +head of the most profligate students, insulting women, even ladies of +rank, and amenable only to his lovely young stepmother, Elizabeth of +Valois, Isabel de la Paz, as the Spaniards call her, the daughter of +Catherine de Medicis, and sister of the King of France. Don Carlos +should have married her, had not his worthy father found it more +advantageous for the crown of Spain, as well as more pleasant for him +Philip, to marry her himself. Whence came heart-burnings, rage, +jealousies, romances, calumnies, of which two last--in as far at least as +they concern poor Elizabeth--no wise man now believes a word. + +Going on some errand on which he had no business--there are two stories, +neither of them creditable nor necessary to repeat--Don Carlos has fallen +down stairs and broken his head. He comes, by his Portuguese mother's +side, of a house deeply tainted with insanity; and such an injury may +have serious consequences. However, for nine days the wound goes on +well, and Don Carlos, having had a wholesome fright, is, according to +Doctor Olivarez, the _medico de camara_, a very good lad, and lives on +chicken broth and dried plums. But on the tenth day comes on numbness of +the left side, acute pains in the head, and then gradually shivering, +high fever, erysipelas. His head and neck swell to an enormous size; +then comes raging delirium, then stupefaction, and Don Carlos lies as one +dead. + +A modern surgeon would, probably, thanks to that training of which +Vesalius may be almost called the father, have had little difficulty in +finding out what was the matter with the luckless lad, and little +difficulty in removing the evil, if it had not gone too far. But the +Spanish physicians were then, as many of them are said to be still, as +far behind the world in surgery as in other things; and indeed surgery +itself was then in its infancy, because men, ever since the early Greek +schools of Alexandria had died out, had been for centuries feeding their +minds with anything rather than with facts. Therefore the learned +morosophs who were gathered round Don Carlos's sick bed had become, +according to their own confession, utterly confused, terrified, and at +their wits' end. + +It is the 7th of May, the eighteenth day after the accident, according to +Olivarez' story: he and Dr. Vega have been bleeding the unhappy prince, +enlarging the wound twice, and torturing him seemingly on mere guesses. +"I believe," says Olivarez, "that all was done well: but as I have said, +in wounds in the head there are strange labyrinths." So on the 7th they +stand round the bed in despair. Don Garcia de Toledo, the prince's +faithful governor, is sitting by him, worn out with sleepless nights, and +trying to supply to the poor boy that mother's tenderness which he has +never known. Alva too is there, stern, self-compressed, most terrible, +and yet most beautiful. He has a God on earth, and that is Philip his +master; and though he has borne much from Don Carlos already, and will +have to bear more, yet the wretched lad is to him as a son of God, a +second deity, who will by right divine succeed to the inheritance of the +first; and he watches this lesser deity struggling between life and death +with an intensity of which we, in these less loyal days, can form no +notion. One would be glad to have a glimpse of what passed through that +mind, so subtle and so ruthless, so disciplined and so loyal withal: but +Alva was a man who was not given to speak his mind, but to act it. + +One would wish, too, for a glimpse of what was passing through the mind +of another man, who has been daily in that sick chamber, according to +Olivarez' statement, since the first of the month: but he is one who has +had, for some years past, even more reason than Alva for not speaking his +mind. What he looked like we know well, for Titian has painted him from +the life--a tall, bold, well-dressed man, with a noble brain, square and +yet lofty, short curling locks and beard, an eye which looks as though it +feared neither man nor fiend--and it has had good reason to fear both--and +features which would be exceeding handsome, but for the defiant +snub-nose. That is Andreas Vesalius, of Brussels, dreaded and hated by +the doctors of the old school--suspect, moreover, it would seem, to +inquisitors and theologians, possibly to Alva himself; for he has dared +to dissect human bodies; he has insulted the medievalists at Paris, +Padua, Bologna, Pisa, Venice, in open theatre; he has turned the heads of +all the young surgeons in Italy and France; he has written a great book, +with prints in it, designed, some say, by Titian--they were actually done +by another Netherlander, John of Calcar, near Cleves--in which he has +dared to prove that Galen's anatomy was at fault throughout, and that he +had been describing a monkey's inside when he had pretended to be +describing a man's; and thus, by impudence and quackery, he has wormed +himself--this Netherlander, a heretic at heart, as all Netherlanders are, +to God as well as to Galen--into the confidence of the late Emperor +Charles V., and gone campaigning with him as one of his physicians, +anatomising human bodies even on the battle-field, and defacing the +likeness of Deity; and worse than that, the most religious King Philip is +deceived by him likewise, and keeps him in Madrid in wealth and honour; +and now, in the prince's extreme danger, the king has actually sent for +him, and bidden him try his skill--a man who knows nothing save about +bones and muscles and the outside of the body, and is unworthy the name +of a true physician. + +One can conceive the rage of the old Spanish pedants at the +Netherlander's appearance, and still more at what followed, if we are to +believe Hugo Bloet of Delft, his countryman and contemporary. {390} +Vesalius, he says, saw that the surgeons had bound up the wound so tight +that an abscess had formed outside the skull, which could not break: he +asserted that the only hope lay in opening it; and did so, Philip having +given leave, "by two cross-cuts. Then the lad returned to himself, as if +awakened from a profound sleep, affirming that he owed his restoration to +life to the German doctor." + +Dionysius Daza, who was there with the other physicians and surgeons, +tells a different story: "The most learned, famous, and rare Baron +Vesalius," he says, advised that the skull should be trepanned; but his +advice was not followed. + +Olivarez' account agrees with that of Daza. They had opened the wounds, +he says, down to the skull before Vesalius came. Vesalius insisted that +the injury lay inside the skull, and wished to pierce it. Olivarez +spends much labour in proving that Vesalius had "no great foundation for +his opinion:" but confesses that he never changed that opinion to the +last, though all the Spanish doctors were against him. Then on the 6th, +he says, the Bachelor Torres came from Madrid, and advised that the skull +should be laid bare once more; and on the 7th, there being still doubt +whether the skull was not injured, the operation was performed--by whom +it is not said--but without any good result, or, according to Olivarez, +any discovery, save that Vesalius was wrong, and the skull uninjured. + +"Whether this second operation of the 7th of May was performed by +Vesalius, and whether it was that of which Bloet speaks, is an open +question. Olivarez' whole relation is apologetic, written to justify +himself and his seven Spanish colleagues, and to prove Vesalius in the +wrong. Public opinion, he confesses, had been very fierce against him. +The credit of Spanish medicine was at stake: and we are not bound to +believe implicitly a paper drawn up under such circumstances for Philip's +eye. This, at least, we gather: that Don Carlos was never trepanned, as +is commonly said; and this, also, that whichever of the two stories is +true, equally puts Vesalius into direct, and most unpleasant, antagonism +to the Spanish doctors. {392} + +But Don Carlos still lay senseless; and yielding to popular clamour, the +doctors called in the aid of a certain Moorish doctor, from Valencia, +named Priotarete, whose unguents, it was reported, had achieved many +miraculous cures. The unguent, however, to the horror of the doctors, +burned the skull till the bone was as black as the colour of ink; and +Olivarez declares he believes it to have been a preparation of pure +caustic. On the morning of the 9th of May, the Moor and his unguents +were sent away, "and went to Madrid, to send to heaven Hernando de Vega, +while the prince went back to our method of cure." + +Considering what happened on the morning of the 10th of May, we should +now presume that the second opening of the abscess, whether by Vesalius +or someone else, relieved the pressure on the brain; that a critical +period of exhaustion followed, probably prolonged by the Moor's premature +caustic, which stopped the suppuration: but that God's good handiwork, +called nature, triumphed at last; and that therefore it came to pass that +the prince was out of danger within three days of the operation. But he +was taught, it seems, to attribute his recovery to a very different +source from that of a German knife. For on the morning of the 9th, when +the Moor was gone, and Don Carlos lay seemingly lifeless, there descended +into his chamber a Deus e machina, or rather a whole pantheon of greater +or lesser deities, who were to effect that which medical skill seemed not +to have effected. Philip sent into the prince's chamber several of the +precious relics which he usually carried about with him. The miraculous +image of the Virgin of Atocha, in embroidering garments for whom, Spanish +royalty, male and female, has spent so many an hour ere now, was brought +in solemn procession and placed on an altar at the foot of the prince's +bed; and in the afternoon there entered, with a procession likewise, a +shrine containing the bones of a holy anchorite, one Fray Diego, "whose +life and miracles," says Olivarez, "are so notorious;" and the bones of +St. Justus and St. Pastor, the tutelar saints of the university of +Alcala. Amid solemn litanies the relics of Fray Diego were laid upon the +prince's pillow, and the sudarium, or mortuary cloth, which had covered +his face, was placed upon the prince's forehead. + +Modern science might object that the presence of so many personages, +however pious or well intentioned, in a sick chamber on a hot Spanish May +day, especially as the bath had been, for some generations past, held in +religious horror throughout Spain, as a sign of Moorish and Mussulman +tendencies, might have somewhat interfered with the chances of the poor +boy's recovery. Nevertheless the event seems to have satisfied Philip's +highest hopes; for that same night (so Don Carlos afterwards related) the +holy monk Diego appeared to him in a vision, wearing the habit of St. +Francis, and bearing in his hand a cross of reeds tied with a green band. +The prince stated that he first took the apparition to be that of the +blessed St. Francis; but not seeing the stigmata, he exclaimed, "How? +Dost thou not bear the marks of the wounds?" What he replied Don Carlos +did not recollect; save that he consoled him, and told him that he should +not die of that malady. + +Philip had returned to Madrid, and shut himself up in grief in the great +Jeronymite monastery. Elizabeth was praying for her step-son before the +miraculous images of the same city. During the night of the 9th of May +prayers went up for Don Carlos in all the churches of Toledo, Alcala, and +Madrid. Alva stood all that night at the bed's foot. Don Garcia de +Toledo sat in the arm-chair, where he had now sat night and day for more +than a fortnight. The good preceptor, Honorato Juan, afterwards Bishop +of Osma, wrestled in prayer for the lad the whole night through. His +prayer was answered: probably it had been answered already, without his +being aware of it. Be that as it may, about dawn Don Carlos' heavy +breathing ceased; he fell into a quiet sleep; and when he awoke all +perceived at once that he was saved. + +He did not recover his sight, seemingly on account of the erysipelas, for +a week more. He then opened his eyes upon the miraculous image of +Atocha, and vowed that, if he recovered, he would give to the Virgin, at +four different shrines in Spain, gold plate of four times his weight; and +silver plate of seven times his weight, when he should rise from his +couch. So on the 6th of June he rose, and was weighed in a fur coat and +a robe of damask, and his weight was three arrobas and one pound--seventy- +six pounds in all. On the 14th of June he went to visit his father at +the episcopal palace; then to all the churches and shrines in Alcala, and +of course to that of Fray Diego, whose body it is said he contemplated +for some time with edifying devotion. The next year saw Fray Diego +canonised as a saint, at the intercession of Philip and his son; and thus +Don Carlos re-entered the world, to be a terror and a torment to all +around him, and to die--not by Philip's cruelty, as his enemies reported +too hastily indeed, yet excusably, for they knew him to be capable of any +wickedness--but simply of constitutional insanity. + +And now let us go back to the history of "that most learned, famous, and +rare Baron Vesalius," who had stood by and seen all these things done; +and try if we cannot, after we have learned the history of his early +life, guess at some of his probable meditations on this celebrated +clinical case; and guess also how those meditations may have affected +seriously the events of his after life. + +Vesalius (as I said) was a Netherlander, born at Brussels in 1513 or +1514. His father and grandfather had been medical men of the highest +standing in a profession which then, as now, was commonly hereditary. His +real name was Wittag, an ancient family of Wesel, on the Rhine, from +which town either he or his father adopted the name of Vesalius, +according to the classicising fashion of those days. Young Vesalius was +sent to college at Louvain, where he learned rapidly. At sixteen or +seventeen he knew not only Latin, but Greek enough to correct the proofs +of Galen, and Arabic enough to become acquainted with the works of the +Mussulman physicians. He was a physicist, too, and a mathematician, +according to the knowledge of those times; but his passion--the study to +which he was destined to devote his life--was anatomy. + +Little or nothing (it must be understood) had been done in anatomy since +the days of Galen of Pergamos, in the second century after Christ, and +very little even by him. Dissection was all but forbidden among the +ancients. The Egyptians, Herodotus tells us, used to pursue with stones +and curses the embalmers as soon as they had performed their unpleasant +office; and though Herophilus and Erasistratus are said to have dissected +many subjects under the protection of Ptolemy Soter in Alexandria itself: +yet the public feeling of the Greeks as well as of the Romans continued +the same as that of the ancient Egyptians; and Galen was fain--as +Vesalius proved--to supplement his ignorance of the human frame by +describing that of an ape. Dissection was equally forbidden among the +Mussulmans; and the great Arabic physicians could do no more than comment +on Galen. The same prejudice extended through the middle age. Medical +men were all clerks, clerici, and as such forbidden to shed blood. The +only dissection, as far as I am aware, made during the middle age was one +by Mundinus in 1306; and his subsequent commentaries on Galen--for he +dare allow his own eyes to see no more than Galen had seen before +him--constituted the best anatomical manual in Europe till the middle of +the fifteenth century. + +Then, in Italy at least, the classic Renaissance gave fresh life to +anatomy as to all other sciences. Especially did the improvements in +painting and sculpture stir men up to a closer study of the human frame. +Leonardo da Vinci wrote a treatise on muscular anatomy: the artist and +the sculptor often worked together, and realised that sketch of Michael +Angelo's in which he himself is assisting Fallopius, Vesalius' famous +pupil, to dissect. Vesalius soon found that his thirst for facts could +not be slaked by the theories of the middle age; so in 1530 he went off +to Montpellier, where Francis I. had just founded a medical school, and +where the ancient laws of the city allowed the faculty each year the body +of a criminal. From thence, after becoming the fellow-pupil and the +friend of Rondelet, and probably also of Rabelais and those other +luminaries of Montpellier, of whom I spoke in my essay on Rondelet, he +returned to Paris to study under old Sylvius, whose real name was Jacques +Dubois, _alias_ Jock o' the Wood; and to learn less--as he complains +himself--in an anatomical theatre than a butcher might learn in his shop. + +Were it not that the whole question of dissection is one over which it is +right to draw a reverent veil, as a thing painful, however necessary and +however innocent, it would be easy to raise ghastly laughter in many a +reader by the stories which Vesalius himself tells of his struggles to +learn anatomy.--How old Sylvius tried to demonstrate the human frame from +a bit of a dog, fumbling in vain for muscles which he could not find, or +which ought to have been there, according to Galen, and were not; while +young Vesalius, as soon as the old pedant's back was turned, took his +place, and, to the delight of the students, found for him--provided it +were there--what he could not find himself;--how he went body-snatching +and gibbet-robbing, often at the danger of his life, as when he and his +friend were nearly torn to pieces by the cannibal dogs who haunted the +Butte de Montfaucon, or place of public execution;--how he acquired, by a +long and dangerous process, the only perfect skeleton then in the world, +and the hideous story of the robber to whom it had belonged--all these +horrors those who list may read for themselves elsewhere. I hasten past +them with this remark--that to have gone through the toils, dangers, and +disgusts which Vesalius faced, argued in a superstitious and cruel age +like his, no common physical and moral courage, and a deep conscience +that he was doing right, and must do it at all risks in the face of a +generation which, peculiarly reckless of human life and human agony, +allowed that frame which it called the image of God to be tortured, +maimed, desecrated in every way while alive; and yet--straining at the +gnat after having swallowed the camel--forbade it to be examined when +dead, though for the purpose of alleviating the miseries of mankind. + +The breaking out of war between Francis I. and Charles V. drove Vesalius +back to his native country and Louvain; and in 1535 we hear of him as a +surgeon in Charles V.'s army. He saw, most probably, the Emperor's +invasion of Provence, and the disastrous retreat from before +Montmorency's fortified camp at Avignon, through a country in which that +crafty general had destroyed every article of human food, except the half- +ripe grapes. He saw, perhaps, the Spanish soldiers, poisoned alike by +the sour fruit and by the blazing sun, falling in hundreds along the +white roads which led back into Savoy, murdered by the peasantry whose +homesteads had been destroyed, stifled by the weight of their own armour, +or desperately putting themselves, with their own hands, out of a world +which had become intolerable. Half the army perished. Two thousand +corpses lay festering between Aix and Frejus alone. If young Vesalius +needed "subjects," the ambition and the crime of man found enough for him +in those blazing September days. + +He went to Italy, probably with the remnants of the army. Where could he +have rather wished to find himself? He was at last in the country where +the human mind seemed to be growing young once more; the country of +revived arts, revived sciences, learning, languages; and--though, alas, +only for a while--of revived free thought, such as Europe had not seen +since the palmy days of Greece. Here at least he would be appreciated; +here at least he would be allowed to think and speak: and he was +appreciated. The Italian cities, who were then, like the Athenians of +old, "spending their time in nothing else save to hear or to tell +something new," welcomed the brave young Fleming and his novelties. +Within two years he was professor of anatomy at Padua, then the first +school in the world; then at Bologna and at Pisa at the same time; last +of all at Venice, where Titian painted that portrait of him which remains +unto this day. + +These years were for him a continual triumph; everywhere, as he +demonstrated on the human body, students crowded his theatre, or hung +round him as he walked the streets; professors left their own +chairs--their scholars having deserted them already--to go and listen +humbly or enviously to the man who could give them what all brave souls +throughout half Europe were craving for, and craving in vain: facts. And +so, year after year, was realised that scene which stands engraved in the +frontispiece of his great book--where, in the little quaint Cinquecento +theatre, saucy scholars, reverend doctors, gay gentlemen, and even cowled +monks, are crowding the floor, peeping over each other's shoulders, +hanging on the balustrades; while in the centre, over his "subject"--which +one of those same cowled monks knew but too well--stands young Vesalius, +upright, proud, almost defiant, as one who knows himself safe in the +impregnable citadel of fact; and in his hand the little blade of steel, +destined--because wielded in obedience to the laws of nature, which are +the laws of God--to work more benefit for the human race than all the +swords which were drawn in those days, or perhaps in any other, at the +bidding of most Catholic Emperors and most Christian Kings. + +Those were indeed days of triumph for Vesalius; of triumph deserved, +because earned by patient and accurate toil in a good cause: but +Vesalius, being but a mortal man, may have contracted in those same days +a temper of imperiousness and self-conceit, such as he showed afterwards +when his pupil Fallopius dared to add fresh discoveries to those of his +master. And yet, in spite of all Vesalius knew, how little he knew! How +humbling to his pride it would have been had he known then--perhaps he +does know now--that he had actually again and again walked, as it were, +round and round the true theory of the circulation of the blood, and yet +never seen it; that that discovery which, once made, is intelligible, as +far as any phenomenon is intelligible, to the merest peasant, was +reserved for another century, and for one of those Englishmen on whom +Vesalius would have looked as semi-barbarians. + +To make a long story short: three years after the publication of his +famous book, 'De Corporis Humani Fabrica,' he left Venice to cure Charles +V., at Regensburg, and became one of the great Emperor's physicians. + +This was the crisis of Vesalius' life. The medicine with which he had +worked the cure was China--Sarsaparilla, as we call it now--brought home +from the then newly-discovered banks of the Paraguay and Uruguay, where +its beds of tangled vine, they say, tinge the clear waters a dark brown +like that of peat, and convert whole streams into a healthful and +pleasant tonic. On the virtues of this China (then supposed to be a +root) Vesalius wrote a famous little book, into which he contrived to +interweave his opinions on things in general, as good Bishop Berkeley did +afterwards into his essay on the virtues of tar-water. Into this book, +however, Vesalius introduced--as Bishop Berkeley did not--much, and +perhaps too much, about himself; and much, though perhaps not too much, +about poor old Galen, and his substitution of an ape's inside for that of +a human being. The storm which had been long gathering burst upon him. +The old school, trembling for their time-honoured reign, bespattered, +with all that pedantry, ignorance, and envy could suggest, the man who +dared not only to revolutionise surgery, but to interfere with the +privileged mysteries of medicine; and, over and above, to become a +favourite at the court of the greatest of monarchs. While such as +Eustachius, himself an able discoverer, could join in the cry, it is no +wonder if a lower soul, like that of Sylvius, led it open-mouthed. He +was a mean, covetous, bad man, as George Buchanan well knew; and, +according to his nature, he wrote a furious book, 'Ad Vesani calumnias +depulsandas.' The punning change of Vesalius into Vesanus (madman) was +but a fair and gentle stroke for a polemic, in days in which those who +could not kill their enemies with steel or powder, held themselves +justified in doing so, if possible, by vituperation, culumny, and every +engine of moral torture. But a far more terrible weapon, and one which +made Vesalius rage, and it may be for once in his life tremble, was the +charge of impiety and heresy. The Inquisition was a very ugly place. It +was very easy to get into it, especially for a Netherlander: but not so +easy to get out. Indeed Vesalius must have trembled, when he saw his +master, Charles V., himself take fright, and actually call on the +theologians of Salamanca to decide whether it was lawful to dissect a +human body. The monks, to their honour, used their common sense, and +answered Yes. The deed was so plainly useful, that it must be lawful +likewise. But Vesalius did not feel that he had triumphed. He dreaded, +possibly, lest the storm should only have blown over for a time. He +fell, possibly, into hasty disgust at the folly of mankind, and despair +of arousing them to use their common sense, and acknowledge their true +interest and their true benefactors. At all events, he threw into the +fire--so it is said--all his unpublished manuscripts, the records of long +years of observation, and renounced science thenceforth. + +We hear of him after this at Brussels, and at Basle likewise--in which +latter city, in the company of physicians, naturalists, and Grecians, he +must have breathed awhile a freer air. But he seems to have returned +thence to his old master Charles V., and to have finally settled at +Madrid as a court surgeon to Philip II., who sent him, but too late, to +extract the lance splinters from the eye of the dying Henry II. + +He was now married to a lady of rank from Brussels, Anne van Hamme by +name; and their daughter married in time Philip II.'s grand falconer, who +was doubtless a personage of no small social rank. He was well off in +worldly things; somewhat fond, it is said, of good living and of luxury; +inclined, it may be, to say, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we +die," and to sink more and more into the mere worldling, unless some +shock awoke him from his lethargy. + +And the awakening shock did come. After eight years of court life, he +resolved early in the year 1564 to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. + +The reasons for so strange a determination are wrapped in mystery and +contradiction. The common story was that he had opened a corpse to +ascertain the cause of death, and that, to the horror of the bystanders, +the heart was still seen to beat; that his enemies accused him to the +Inquisition, and that he was condemned to death, a sentence which was +commuted to that of going on pilgrimage. But here, at the very outset, +accounts differ. One says that the victim was a nobleman, name not +given; another that it was a lady's maid, name not given. It is most +improbable, if not impossible, that Vesalius, of all men, should have +mistaken a living body for a dead one; while it is most probable, on the +other hand, that his medical enemies would gladly raise such a calumny +against him, when he was no longer in Spain to contradict it. Meanwhile +Llorente, the historian of the Inquisition, makes no mention of Vesalius +having been brought before its tribunal, while he does mention Vesalius' +residence at Madrid. Another story is, that he went abroad to escape the +bad temper of his wife; another that he wanted to enrich himself. Another +story--and that not an unlikely one--is, that he was jealous of the +rising reputation of his pupil Fallopius, then professor of anatomy at +Venice. This distinguished surgeon, as I said before, had written a +book, in which he had added to Vesalius' discoveries, and corrected +certain errors of his. Vesalius had answered him hastily and angrily, +quoting his anatomy from memory; for, as he himself complained, he could +not in Spain obtain a subject for dissection; not even, he said, a single +skull. He had sent his book to Venice to be published, and had heard, +seemingly, nothing of it. + +He may have felt that he was falling behind in the race of science, and +that it was impossible for him to carry on his studies in Madrid; and so, +angry with his own laziness and luxury, he may have felt the old sacred +fire flash up in him, and have determined to go to Italy and become a +student and a worker once more. + +The very day that he set out, Clusius of Arras, then probably the best +botanist in the world, arrived at Madrid; and, asking the reason of +Vesalius' departure, was told by their fellow-countryman, Charles de +Tisnacq, procurator for the affairs of the Netherlands, that Vesalius had +gone of his own free will, and with all facilities which Philip could +grant him, in performance of a vow which he had made during a dangerous +illness. Here, at least, we have a drop of information, which seems +taken from the stream sufficiently near to the fountain-head: but it must +be recollected that De Tisnacq lived in dangerous times, and may have +found it necessary to walk warily in them; that through him had been +sent, only the year before, that famous letter from William of Orange, +Horn, and Egmont, the fate whereof may be read in Mr. Motley's fourth +chapter; that the crisis of the Netherlands which sprung out of that +letter was coming fast; and that, as De Tisnacq was on friendly terms +with Egmont, he may have felt his head at times somewhat loose on his +shoulders; especially if he had heard Alva say, as he wrote, "that every +time he saw the despatches of those three senors, they moved his choler +so, that if he did not take much care to temper it, he would seem a +frenzied man." In such times, De Tisnacq may have thought good to return +a diplomatic answer to a fellow-countryman concerning a third +fellow-countryman, especially when that countryman, as a former pupil of +Melancthon at Wittemberg, might himself be under suspicion of heresy, and +therefore of possible treason. + +Be this as it may, one cannot but suspect some strain of truth in the +story about the Inquisition; perhaps in that, also, of his wife's +unkindness; for, whether or not Vesalius operated on Don Carlos, he had +seen with his own eyes that miraculous Virgin of Atocha at the bed's foot +of the prince. He had heard his recovery attributed, not to the +operation, but to the intercession of Fray, now Saint, Diego; {408} and +he must have had his thoughts thereon, and may, in an unguarded moment, +have spoken them. + +For he was, be it always remembered, a Netherlander. The crisis of his +country was just at hand. Rebellion was inevitable, and, with rebellion, +horrors unutterable; and, meanwhile, Don Carlos had set his mad brain on +having the command of the Netherlands. In his rage at not having it, as +all the world knows, he nearly killed Alva with his own hands, some two +years after. If it be true that Don Carlos felt a debt of gratitude to +Vesalius, he may (after his wont) have poured out to him some wild +confidence about the Netherlands, to have even heard which would be a +crime in Philip's eyes. And if this be but a fancy, still Vesalius was, +as I just said, a Netherlander, and one of a brain and a spirit to which +Philip's doings, and the air of the Spanish court, must have been growing +even more and more intolerable. Hundreds of his country folk, perhaps +men and women whom he had known, were being racked, burnt alive, buried +alive, at the bidding of a jocular ruffian, Peter Titelmann, the chief +inquisitor. The "day of the _mau-brulez_," and the wholesale massacre +which followed it, had happened but two years before; and, by all the +signs of the times, these murders and miseries were certain to increase. +And why were all these poor wretches suffering the extremity of horror, +but because they would not believe in miraculous images, and bones of +dead friars, and the rest of that science of unreason and unfact, against +which Vesalius had been fighting all his life, consciously or not, by +using reason and observing fact? What wonder if, in some burst of noble +indignation and just contempt, he forgot a moment that he had sold his +soul, and his love of science likewise, to be a luxurious, yet uneasy, +hanger-on at the tyrant's court; and spoke unadvisedly some word worthy +of a German man? + +As to the story of his unhappy quarrels with his wife, there may be a +grain of truth in it likewise. Vesalius' religion must have sat very +lightly on him. The man who had robbed churchyards and gibbets from his +youth was not likely to be much afraid of apparitions and demons. He had +handled too many human bones to care much for those of saints. He was +probably, like his friends of Basle, Montpellier, and Paris, somewhat of +a heretic at heart, probably somewhat of a pagan. His lady, Anne van +Hamme, was probably a strict Catholic, as her father, being a councillor +and master of the exchequer at Brussels, was bound to be; and +freethinking in the husband, crossed by superstition in the wife, may +have caused in them that wretched vie a part, that want of any true +communion of soul, too common to this day in Catholic countries. + +Be these things as they may--and the exact truth of them will now be +never known--Vesalius set out to Jerusalem in the spring of 1564. On his +way he visited his old friends at Venice to see about his book against +Fallopius. The Venetian republic received the great philosopher with +open arms. Fallopius was just dead; and the senate offered their guest +the vacant chair of anatomy. He accepted it: but went on to the East. + +He never occupied that chair; wrecked upon the Isle of Zante, as he was +sailing back from Palestine, he died miserably of fever and want, as +thousands of pilgrims returning from the Holy Land had died before him. A +goldsmith recognised him; buried him in a chapel of the Virgin; and put +up over him a simple stone, which remained till late years; and may +remain, for aught I know, even now. + +So perished, in the prime of life, "a martyr to his love of science," to +quote the words of M. Burggraeve of Ghent, his able biographer and +commentator, "the prodigious man, who created a science at an epoch when +everything was still an obstacle to his progress; a man whose whole life +was a long struggle of knowledge against ignorance, of truth against +lies." + +Plaudite: Exeat: with Rondelet and Buchanan. And whensoever this poor +foolish world needs three such men, may God of his great mercy send them. + + + + +Footnotes + + +{15} 9, Adam Street, Adelphi, London. + +{72} I quote from the translation of the late lamented Philip Stanhope +Worsley, of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. + +{76} Odyssey, book vi. 127-315; vol. i. pp. 143-150 of Mr. Worsley's +translation. + +{88} Since this essay was written, I have been sincerely delighted to +find that my wishes had been anticipated at Girton College, near +Cambridge, and previously at Hitchin, whence the college was removed: and +that the wise ladies who superintend that establishment propose also that +most excellent institution--a swimming bath. A paper, moreover, read +before the London Association of Schoolmistresses in 1866, on "Physical +Exercises and Recreation for Girls," deserves all attention. May those +who promote such things prosper as they deserve. + +{256} For an account of Sorcery and Fetishism among the African Negros, +see Burton's 'Lake Regions of Central Africa,' vol. ii. pp. 341-360. + +{304} An arcade in the King's School, Chester. + +{328} So says Dr. Irving, writing in 1817. I have, however, tried in +vain to get a sight of this book. I need not tell Scotch scholars how +much I am indebted throughout this article to Dr. David living's erudite +second edition of Buchanan's Life. + +{343} From the quaint old translation of 1721, by "A Person of Honour of +the Kingdom of Scotland." + +{358} A Life of Rondelet, by his pupil Laurent Joubert, is to be found +appended to his works; and with it an account of his illness and death, +by his cousin, Claude Formy, which is well worth the perusal of any man, +wise or foolish. Many interesting details beside, I owe to the courtesy +of Professor Planchon, of Montpellier, author of a discourse on 'Rondelet +et ses Disciples,' which appeared, with a learned and curious Appendice, +in the 'Montpellier Medical' for 1866. + +{390} I owe this account of Bloet's--which appears to me the only one +trustworthy--to the courtesy and erudition of Professor Henry Morley, who +finds it quoted from Bloet's 'Acroama,' in the 'Observationum Medicarum +Rariorum, lib. vii.,' of John Theodore Schenk. Those who wish to know +several curious passages of Vesalius' life, which I have not inserted in +this article, would do well to consult one by Professor Morley, 'Anatomy +in Long Clothes,' in 'Fraser's Magazine' for November, 1853. May I +express a hope, which I am sure will be shared by all who have read +Professor Morley's biographies of Jerome Cardan and of Cornelius Agrippa, +that he will find leisure to return to the study of Vesalius' life; and +will do for him what he has done for the two just-mentioned writers? + +{392} Olivarez' 'Relacion' is to be found in the Granvelle State Papers. +For the general account of Don Carlos' illness, and of the miraculous +agencies by which his cure was said to have been effected, the general +reader should consult Miss Frere's 'Biography of Elizabeth of Valois,' +vol. i. pp. 307-19. + +{408} In justice to poor Doctor Olivarez, it must be said, that while he +allows all force to the intercession of the Virgin and of Fray Diego, and +of "many just persons," he cannot allow that there was any "miracle +properly so called," because the prince was cured according to "natural +order," and by "experimented remedies" of the physicians. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEALTH AND EDUCATION*** + + +******* This file should be named 17437.txt or 17437.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/4/3/17437 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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