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diff --git a/39517.txt b/39517.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6f58bfc --- /dev/null +++ b/39517.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8969 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, +November 1879, by Various + +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/license + + +Title: The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, November 1879 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: April 23, 2012 [EBook #39517] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Nigel Blower and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +[Transcriber's Notes: + +The first part of this volume (September 1879) was produced as Project +Gutenberg Ebook #30048. The relevant part of the table of contents has +been extracted from that document, and a brief title page added. + +_Italic words_ have been enclosed in underscores. *Gesperrt* (spaced) +letters have been enclosed in asterisks. Greek letters have been +transliterated and enclosed in equals signs, e.g. =schole=. Symbols such +as hieroglyphics or script letters have been represented using braces, +e.g. {symbol}. As the oe ligature cannot be included in this format, it +has been replaced with the separate letters, e.g. "Phoenician". + +A few minor typographical errors have been silently corrected. Some +inconsistent hyphenation and accents have been retained.] + + + + + THE + CONTEMPORARY + REVIEW + + VOLUME XXXVI. NOVEMBER, 1879 + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + NOVEMBER, 1879. + PAGE + On Freedom. By Professor Max Muller 369 + + Mr. Gladstone: Two Studies suggested by his "Gleanings of Past + Years." I. By a Liberal.--II. By a Conservative 398 + + The Ancien Regime and the Revolution in France. By Professor + von Sybel 432 + + What is the Actual Condition of Ireland? By Edward Stanley + Robertson 451 + + The Deluge: Its Traditions in Ancient Nations. By Francois + Lenormant 465 + + Suspended Animation. By Richard A. Proctor 501 + + John Stuart Mill's Philosophy Tested. IV.--Utilitarianism. + By Professor W. Stanley Jevons 521 + + + + +ON FREEDOM.[1] + + +Not more than twenty years have passed since John Stuart Mill sent forth +his plea for Liberty.[2] + +If there is one among the leaders of thought in England who, by the +elevation of his character and the calm composure of his mind, deserved +the so often misplaced title of Serene Highness, it was, I think, John +Stuart Mill. + +But in his Essay "On Liberty," Mill for once becomes passionate. In +presenting his Bill of Rights, in stepping forward as the champion of +individual liberty, a new spirit seems to have taken possession of him. +He speaks like a martyr, or the defender of martyrs. The individual +human soul, with its unfathomable endowments, and its capacity of +growing to something undreamt of in our philosophy, becomes in his eyes +a sacred thing, and every encroachment on its world-wide domain is +treated as sacrilege. Society, the arch-enemy of the rights of +individuality, is represented like an evil spirit, whom it behoves every +true man to resist with might and main, and whose demands, as they +cannot be altogether ignored, must be reduced at all hazards to the +lowest level. + +I doubt whether any of the principles for which Mill pleaded so warmly +and strenuously in his Essay "On Liberty" would at the present day be +challenged or resisted, even by the most illiberal of philosophers, or +the most conservative of politicians. Mill's demands sound very humble +to _our_ ears. They amount to no more than this, "that the individual is +not accountable to society for his actions so far as they concern the +interests of no person but himself, and that he may be subjected to +social or legal punishments for such actions only as are prejudicial to +the interests of others." + +Is there any one here present who doubts the justice of that principle, +or who would wish to reduce the freedom of the individual to a smaller +measure? Whatever social tyranny may have existed twenty years ago, when +it wrung that fiery protest from the lips of John Stuart Mill, can we +imagine a state of society, not totally Utopian, in which the individual +man need be less ashamed of his social fetters, in which he could more +freely utter all his honest convictions, more boldly propound all his +theories, more fearlessly agitate for their speedy realization; in +which, in fact, each man can be so entirely himself as the society of +England, such as it now is, such as generations of hard-thinking and +hard-working Englishmen have made it, and left it as the most sacred +inheritance to their sons and daughters? + +Look through the whole of history, not excepting the brightest days of +republican freedom at Athens and Rome, and I know you will not find one +single period in which the measure of Liberty accorded to each +individual was larger than it is at present, at least in England. And if +you wish to realize the full blessings of the time in which we live, +compare Mill's plea for Liberty with another written not much more than +two hundred years ago, and by a thinker not inferior either in power or +boldness to Mill himself. According to Hobbes, the only freedom which an +individual in his ideal state has a right to claim is what he calls +"freedom of thought," and that freedom of thought consists in our being +able to think what we like--so long as we keep it to ourselves. Surely, +such freedom of thought existed even in the days of the Inquisition, and +we should never call thought free, if it had to be kept a prisoner in +solitary and silent confinement. By freedom of thought we mean freedom +of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of action, whether individual +or associated, and of that freedom the present generation, as compared +with all former generations, the English nation, as compared with all +other nations, enjoys, there can be no doubt, a good measure, pressed +down, and shaken together, and sometimes running over. + +It may be said that some dogmas still remain in politics, in religion, +and in morality; but those who defend them claim no longer any +infallibility, and those who attack them, however small their minority, +need fear no violence, nay, may reckon on an impartial and even +sympathetic hearing, as soon as people discover in their pleadings the +true ring of honest conviction and the warmth inspired by an unselfish +love of truth. + +It has seemed strange therefore to many readers of Mill, particularly on +the Continent, that this cry for Liberty, this demand for freedom for +every individual to be what he is, and to develop all the germs of his +nature, should have come from what is known as the freest of all +countries, England. We might well understand such a cry of indignation +if it had reached us from Russia; but why should English philosophers, +of all others, have to protest against the tyranny of society? It is +true, nevertheless, that in countries governed despotically, the +individual, unless he is obnoxious to the Government, enjoys far greater +freedom, or rather licence, than in a country like England, which +governs itself. Russian society, for instance, is extremely indulgent. +It tolerates in its rulers and statesmen a haughty defiance of the +simplest rules of social propriety, and it seems amused rather than +astonished or indignant at the vagaries, the frenzies, and outrages, of +those who in brilliant drawing-rooms or lecture-rooms preach the +doctrines of what is called Nihilism or Individualism,[3]--viz., "that +society must be regenerated by a struggle for existence and the survival +of the strongest, processes which Nature has sanctioned, and which have +proved successful among wild animals." If there is danger in these +doctrines the Government is expected to see to it. It may place watchmen +at the doors of every house and at the corner of every street, but it +must not count on the better classes coming forward to enrol themselves +as special constables, or even on the co-operation of public opinion +which in England would annihilate that kind of Nihilism with one glance +of scorn and pity. + +In a self-governed country like England, the resistance which society, +if it likes, can oppose to the individual in the assertion of his +rights, is far more compact and powerful than in Russia, or even in +Germany. Even where it does not employ the arm of the law, society knows +how to use that softer, but more crushing pressure, that calm, but +Gorgon-like look which only the bravest and stoutest hearts know how to +resist. + +It is rather against that indirect repression which a well-organized +society exercises, both through its male and female representatives, +that Mill's demand for Liberty seems directed. He does not stand up for +unlimited licence; on the contrary, he would have been the most +strenuous defender of that balance of power between the weak and the +strong on which all social life depends. But he resents those smaller +penalties which society will always inflict on those who disturb its +dignified peace and comfort:--avoidance, exclusion, a cold look, a +stinging remark. Had Mill any right to complain of these social +penalties? Would it not rather amount to an interference with individual +liberty to wish to deprive any individual or any number of individuals +of those weapons of self-defence? Those who themselves think and speak +freely, have hardly a right to complain, if others claim the same +privilege. Mill himself called the Conservative party the stupid party +_par excellence_, and he took great pains to explain that it was so, not +by accident, but by necessity. Need he wonder if those whom he whipped +and scourged used their own whips and scourges against so merciless a +critic? + +Freethinkers, and I use that name as a title of honour for all who, like +Mill, claim for every individual the fullest freedom in thought, word, +or deed, compatible with the freedom of others, are apt to make one +mistake. Conscious of their own honest intentions, they cannot bear to +be mistrusted or slighted. They expect society to submit to their often +very painful operations as a patient submits to the knife of the +surgeon. That is not in human nature. The enemy of abuses is always +abused by his enemies. Society will never yield one inch without +resistance, and few reformers live long enough to receive the thanks of +those whom they have reformed. Mill's unsolicited election to Parliament +was a triumph not often shared by social reformers; it was as +exceptional as Bright's admission to a seat in the Cabinet, or Stanley's +appointment as Dean of Westminster. Such anomalies will happen in a +country fortunately so full of anomalies as England; but, as a rule, a +political reformer must not be angry if he passes through life without +the title of Right Honourable; nor should a man, if he will always speak +the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, be disappointed +if he dies a martyr rather than a Bishop. + +But granting even that in Mill's time there existed some traces of +social tyranny, where are they now? Look at the newspapers and the +journals. Is there any theory too wild, any reform too violent, to be +openly defended? Look at the drawing-rooms or the meetings of learned +societies. Are not the most eccentric talkers the spoiled children of +the fashionable world? When young lords begin to discuss the propriety +of limiting the rights of inheritance, and young tutors are not afraid +to propose curtailing the long vacation, surely we need not complain of +the intolerance of English society. + +Whenever I state these facts to my German and French and Italian +friends, who from reading Mill's Essay "On Liberty" have derived the +impression that, however large an amount of political liberty England +may enjoy, it enjoys but little of intellectual freedom, they are +generally willing to be converted so far as London, or other great +cities, are concerned. But look at your Universities, they say, the +nurseries of English thought! Can you compare their mediaeval spirit, +their monastic institutions, their scholastic philosophy, with the +freshness and freedom of the Continental Universities? Strong as these +prejudices about Oxford and Cambridge have always been, they have become +still more intense since Professor Helmholtz, in an inaugural address +which he delivered at his installation as Rector of the University of +Berlin, lent the authority of his great name to these misconceptions. +"The tutors," he says,[4] "in the English Universities cannot deviate +by a hair's-breadth from the dogmatic system of the English Church, +without exposing themselves to the censure of their Archbishops and +losing their pupils." In German Universities, on the contrary, we are +told that the extreme conclusions of materialistic metaphysics, the +boldest speculations within the sphere of Darwin's theory of evolution, +may be propounded without let or hindrance, quite as much as the highest +apotheosis of Papal infallibility. + +Here the facts on which Professor Helmholtz relies are entirely wrong, +and the writings of some of our most eminent tutors supply a more than +sufficient refutation of his statements. Archbishops have no official +position whatsoever in English Universities, and their censure of an +Oxford tutor would be resented as impertinent by the whole University. +Nor does the University, as such, exercise any very strict control over +the tutors, even when they lecture not to their own College only. Each +Master of Arts at Oxford claims now the right to lecture (_venia +docendi_), and I doubt whether they would ever submit to those +restrictions which, in Germany, the Faculty imposes on every +_Privat-docent_. _Privat-docents_ in German Universities have been +rejected by the Faculty for incompetence, and silenced for +insubordination. I know of no such cases at Oxford during my residence +of more than thirty years, nor can I think it likely that they should +ever occur. + +As to the extreme conclusions of materialistic metaphysics, there are +Oxford tutors who have grappled with the systems of such giants as +Hobbes, Locke, or Hume, and who are not likely to be frightened by +Buchner and Vogt. + +I know comparisons are odious, and I am the last man who would wish to +draw comparisons between English and German Universities unfavourable to +the latter. But with regard to freedom of thought, of speech, and +action, Professor Helmholtz, if he would spend but a few weeks at +Oxford, would find that we enjoy a fuller measure of freedom here than +the Professors and _Privat-docents_ in any Continental University. The +publications of some of our professors and tutors ought at least to have +convinced him that if there is less of brave words and turbulent talk in +their writings, they display throughout a determination to speak the +truth, which may be matched, but could not easily be excelled, by the +leaders of thought in France, Germany, or Italy. + +The real difference between English and Continental Universities is that +the former govern themselves, the latter are governed. Self-government +entails responsibilities, sometimes restraints and reticences. I may +here be allowed to quote the words of another eminent Professor of the +University of Berlin, Du Bois Reymond, who, in addressing his +colleagues, ventured to tell them,[5] "We have still to learn from the +English how the greatest independence of the individual is compatible +with willing submission to salutary, though irksome, statutes." That is +particularly true when the statutes are self-imposed. In Germany, as +Professor Helmholtz tells us himself, the last decision in almost all +the more important affairs of the Universities rests with the +Government, and he does not deny that in times of political and +ecclesiastical tension, a most inconsiderate use has been made of that +power. There are, besides, the less important matters, such as raising +of salaries, leave of absence, scientific missions, even titles and +decorations, all of which enable a clever Minister of Instruction to +assert his personal influence among the less independent members of the +University. In Oxford the University does not know the Ministry, nor the +Ministry the University. The acts of the Government, be it Liberal or +Conservative, are freely discussed, and often powerfully resisted by the +academic constituencies, and the personal dislike of a Minister or +Ministerial Councillor could as little injure a professor or tutor as +his favour could add one penny to his salary. + +But these are minor matters. What gives their own peculiar character to +the English Universities is a sense of power and responsibility: power, +because they are the most respected among the numerous corporations in +the country; responsibility, because the higher education of the whole +country has been committed to their charge. Their only master is public +opinion as represented in Parliament, their only incentive their own +sense of duty. There is no country in Europe where Universities hold so +exalted a position, and where those who have the honour to belong to +them may say with greater truth, _Noblesse oblige_. + +I know the dangers of self-government, particularly where higher and +more ideal interests are concerned, and there are probably few who wish +for a real reform in schools and Universities who have not occasionally +yielded to the desire for a Dictator, of a Bismarck or a Falk. But such +a desire springs only from a momentary weakness and despondency; and no +one who knows the difference between being governed and governing +oneself, would ever wish to descend from that higher though dangerous +position to a lower one, however safe and comfortable it might seem. No +one who has tasted freedom would ever wish to exchange it for anything +else. Public opinion is sometimes a hard task-master, and majorities can +be great tyrants to those who want to be honest to their own +convictions. But in the struggle of all against all, each individual +feels that he has his rightful place, and that he may exercise his +rightful influence. If he is beaten, he is beaten in fair fight; if he +conquers, he has no one else to thank. No doubt despotic Governments +have often exercised the most beneficial patronage in encouraging and +rewarding poets, artists, and men of science. But men of genius who have +conquered the love and admiration of a whole nation are greater than +those who have gained the favour of the most brilliant Courts; and we +know how some of the fairest reputations have been wrecked on the +patronage which they had to accept at the hands of powerful Ministers or +ambitious Sovereigns. + +But to return to Mill and his plea for Liberty. Though I can hardly +believe that, were he still among us, he would claim a larger measure of +freedom for the individual than is now accorded to every one of us in +the society in which we move, yet the chief cause on which he founded +his plea for Liberty, the chief evil which he thought could be remedied +only if society would allow more elbow-room to individual genius, exists +in the same degree as in his time--aye, even in a higher degree. The +principle of Individuality has suffered more at present than perhaps at +any former period of history. The world is becoming more and more +gregarious, and what the French call our _nature moutonniere_, "our +mutton-like nature," our tendency to leap where any bell-wether has +leapt before, becomes more and more prevalent in politics, in religion, +in art, and even in science. M. de Tocqueville expressed his surprise +how much more Frenchmen of the present day resemble one another than did +those of the last generation. The same remark, adds John Stuart Mill, +might be made of England in a greater degree. "The modern _regime_ of +public opinion," he writes, "is in an unorganized form what the Chinese +educational and political systems are in an organized; and unless +individuality shall be able successfully to assert itself against this +yoke, Europe, notwithstanding its noble antecedents and its professed +Christianity, will tend to become another China." + +I fully agree with Mill in recognizing the dangers of uniformity, but I +doubt whether what he calls the _regime_ of public opinion is alone, or +even chiefly, answerable for it. No doubt there are some people in whose +eyes uniformity seems an advantage rather than a disadvantage. If all +were equally strong, equally educated, equally honest, equally rich, +equally tall, or equally small, society would seem to them to have +reached the highest ideal. The same people admire an old French garden, +with its clipped yew-trees, forming artificial walls and towers and +pyramids, far more than the giant yews which, like large serpents, clasp +the soil with their coiling roots, and overshadow with their dark green +branches the white chalk cliffs of the Thames. But those French gardens, +unless they are constantly clipped and prevented from growing, soon fall +into decay. As in nature, so in society, uniformity means but too often +stagnation, while variety is the surest sign of health and vigour. The +deepest secret of nature is its love of continued novelty. Its tendency, +if unrestrained, is towards constantly creating new varieties, which, if +they fulfil their purpose, become fixed for a time, or, it may be, for +ever; while others, after they have fulfilled their purpose, vanish to +make room for new and stronger types. + +The same is the secret of human society. It consists and lives in +individuals, each being meant to be different from all the others, and +to contribute his own peculiar share to the common wealth. As no tree is +like any other tree, and no leaf on the same tree like any other leaf, +no human being is exactly like any other human being, nor is it meant to +be. It is in this endless, and to us inconceivable, variety of human +souls that the deepest purpose of human life is to be realized; and the +more society fulfils that purpose, the more it allows free scope for the +development of every individual germ, the richer will be the harvest in +no distant future. Such is the mystery of individuality that I do not +wonder if even those philosophers who, like Mill, reduce the meaning of +the word _sacred_ to the very smallest compass, see in each individual +soul something sacred, something to be revered, even where we cannot +understand it, something to be protected against all vulgar violence. + +Where I differ from Mill and his school is on the question as to the +quarter from whence the epidemic of uniformity springs which threatens +the free development of modern society. Mill points to the society in +which we move; to those who are in front of us, to our contemporaries. I +feel convinced that our real enemies are at our back, and that the +heaviest chains which are fastened on us are those made, not by the +present, but by past generations--by our ancestors, not by our +contemporaries. + +It is on this point, on the trammels of individual freedom with which we +may almost be said to be born into the world, and on the means by which +we may shake off these old chains, or at all events carry them more +lightly and gracefully, that I wish to speak to you this evening. + +You need not be afraid that I am going to enter upon the much discussed +subject of heredity, whether in its physiological or psychological +aspects. It is a favourite subject just now, and the most curious facts +have been brought together of late to illustrate the working of what is +called heredity. But the more we know of these facts, the less we seem +able to comprehend the underlying principle. Inheritance is one of those +numerous words which by their very simplicity and clearness are so apt +to darken our counsel. If a father has blue eyes and the son has blue +eyes, what can be clearer than that he inherited them? If the father +stammers and the son stammers, who can doubt but that it came by +inheritance? If the father is a musician and the son a musician, we say +very glibly that the talent was inherited. But what does _inherited_ +mean? In no case does it mean what _inherited_ usually means--something +external, like money, collected by a father, and, after his death, +secured by law to his son. Whatever else inherited may mean, it does not +mean that. But unfortunately the word is there, it seems almost pedantic +to challenge its meaning, and people are always grateful if an easy word +saves them the trouble of hard thought. + +Another apparent advantage of the theory of heredity is that it never +fails. If the son has blue, and the father black, eyes, all is right +again, for either the mother, or the grandmother, or some historic or +prehistoric ancestor, may have had blue eyes, and atavism, we know, will +assert itself after hundreds and thousands of years. + +Do not suppose that I deny the broad facts of what is called by the name +of heredity. What I deny is that the name of heredity offers any +scientific solution of a most difficult problem. It is a name, a +metaphor, quite as bad as the old metaphor of _innate ideas_; for there +is hardly a single point of similarity between the process by which a +son may share the black eyes, the stammering, or the musical talent of +his father, and that by which, after his father's death, the law secures +to the son the possession of the pounds, shillings, and pence which his +father held in the Funds. + +But whatever the true meaning of heredity may be, certain it is that +every individual comes into the world heavy-laden. Nowhere has the +consciousness of the burden which rests on each generation as it enters +on its journey through life found stronger expression than among the +Buddhists. What other people call by various names, "fate or +providence," "tradition or inheritance," "circumstances or environment," +they call _Karman_, deed--what has been done, whether by ourselves or by +others, the accumulated work of all who have come before us, the +consequences of which we have to bear, both for good and for evil. +Originally this _Karman_ seems to have been conceived as personal, as +the work which we ourselves have done in former existences. But, as +personally we are not conscious of having done such work in former ages, +that kind of _Karman_, too, might be said to be impersonal. To the +question how _Karman_ began, the accumulation of what forms the +condition of all that exists at present, Buddhism has no answer to give, +any more than any other system of religion or philosophy. The Buddhists +say it began with _avidya_, and _avidya_ means ignorance.[6] They are +much more deeply interested in the question how _Karman_ may be +annihilated, how each man may free himself from the influence of +_Karman_, and Nirvana, the highest object of all their dreams, is often +defined by Buddhist philosophers as "freedom from _Karman_."[7] + +What the Buddhists call by the general name of _Karman_, comprehends all +influences which the past exercises on the present, both physically and +mentally.[8] It is not my object to examine or even to name all these +influences, though I confess nothing is more interesting than to look +upon the surface of our modern life as we look on a geological map, and +to see the most ancient formations cropping out everywhere under our +feet. Difficult as it is to colour a geological map of England, it would +be still more difficult to find a sufficient variety of colours to mark +the different ingredients of the intellectual surface of this island. + +That all of us, whether we speak English or German, or French or +Russian, are really speaking an ancient Oriental tongue, incredible as +it would have sounded a hundred years ago, is now admitted by everybody. +Though the various dialects now spoken in Europe have been separated +many thousands of years from the Sanskrit, the ancient classical +language of India, yet so unbroken is the bond that holds the West and +East together that in many cases an intelligent Englishman might still +guess the meaning of a Sanskrit word. How little difference is there +between Sanskrit _sunu_ and English _son_, between Sanskrit _duhitar_ +and English _daughter_, between Sanskrit _vid_, to know, and English _to +wit_, between Sanskrit _vaksh_, to grow, and English _to wax_! Think how +we value a Saxon urn, or a Roman coin, or a Celtic weapon! how we dig +for them, clean them, label them, and carefully deposit them in our +museums! Yet what is their antiquity compared with the antiquity of such +words as _son_ or _daughter_, _father_ and _mother_? There are no +monuments older than those collected in the handy volumes which we call +Dictionaries, and those who know how to interpret those English +antiquities--as you may see them interpreted, for instance, in Grimm's +Dictionary of the German, in Littre's Dictionary of the French, or in +Professor Skeats' Etymological Dictionary of the English Language--will +learn more of the real growth of the human mind than by studying many +volumes on logic and psychology. + +And as by our language we belong to the Aryan stratum, we belong through +our letters to the Hamitic. We still write English in hieroglyphics; and +in spite of all the vicissitudes through which the ancient hieroglyphics +have passed in their journey from Egypt to Phoenicia, from Phoenicia +to Greece, from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England, when we +write a capital F {script F}, when we draw the top line and the +smaller line through the middle of the letter, we really draw the two +horns of the cerastes, the horned serpent which the ancient Egyptians +used for representing the sound of f. They write the name of the king +whom the Greeks called _Cheops_, and they themselves _Chu-fu_, like +this:[9] + +[Illustration: + + +---------+ + | sieve | chu + | serpent | fu + | bird | u + +---------+ +] + +Here the first sign, the sieve, is to be pronounced _chu_; the second, +the horned serpent, _fu_, and the little bird, again, _u_. In the more +cursive or Hieratic writing the horned serpent appears as +{symbol}; in the later Demotic as {symbol} and +{symbol}. The Phoenicians, who borrowed their letters from the +Hieratic Egyptian, wrote {symbol} and {symbol}. The +Greeks, who took their letters from the Phoenicians, wrote +{symbol}. When the Greeks, instead of writing like the +Phoenicians from right to left, began to write from left to right, +they turned each letter, and as {symbol} became K, our k, so +{symbol}, vau, became F, the Greek so-called Digamma, the Latin +F. + +The first letter in _Chu-fu_, too, still exists in our alphabet, and in +the transverse line of our H we must recognize the last remnant of the +lines which divide the sieve. The sieve appears in Hieratic as +{symbol}, in Phoenician as {symbol}, in ancient Greek +as {symbol}, which occurs on an inscription found at Mycenae and +elsewhere as the sign of the spiritus asper, while in Latin it is known +to us as the letter H.[10] In the same manner the undulating line of our +capital {script L} still recalls very strikingly the bent back of +the crouching lion, which in the later hieroglyphic inscriptions +represents the sound of L. + +If thus in our language we are Aryan, in our letters Egyptian, we have +only to look at our watches to see that we are Babylonian. Why is our +hour divided into sixty minutes, our minutes into sixty seconds? Would +not a division of the hour into ten, or fifty, or a hundred minutes have +been more natural? We have sixty divisions on the dials of our watches +simply because the Greek astronomer Hipparchus, who lived in the second +century B.C., accepted the Babylonian system of reckoning time, that +system being sexagesimal. The Babylonians knew the decimal system, but +for practical purposes they counted by _sossi_ and _sari_, the _sossos_ +representing 60, the _saros_ 60 × 60, or 3600. From Hipparchus that +system found its way into the works of Ptolemy, about 150 A.D., and +thence it was carried down the stream of civilization, finding its last +resting-place on the dial-plates of our clocks. + +And why are there twenty shillings to our sovereign? Again the real +reason lies in Babylon. The Greeks learnt from the Babylonians the art +of dividing gold and silver for the purpose of trade. It has been proved +that the current gold piece of Western Asia was exactly the sixtieth +part of a Babylonian _mna_, or _mina_. It was nearly equal to our +sovereign. The difficult problem of the relative value of gold and +silver in a bi-monetary currency had been solved to a certain extent in +the ancient Mesopotamian kingdom, the proportion between gold and silver +being fixed at 1 to 13-1/3. The silver shekel current in Babylon was +heavier than the gold shekel in the proportion of 13-1/3 to 10, and had +therefore the value of one-tenth of a gold shekel; and the half silver +shekel, called by the Greeks a drachma, was worth one-twentieth of a +gold shekel. The drachma, or half silver shekel, may therefore be looked +upon as the most ancient type of our own silver shilling in its relation +of one-twentieth of our gold sovereign.[11] + +I shall mention only one more of the most essential tools of our mental +life--namely, our _figures_, which we call Arabic, because we received +them from the Arabs, but which the Arabs called Indian, because they +received them from the Indians--in order to show you how this nineteenth +century of ours is under the sway of centuries long past and forgotten; +how we are what we are, not by ourselves, but by those who came before +us, and how the intellectual ground on which we stand is made up of the +detritus of thoughts which were first thought, not on these isles nor in +Europe, but on the shores of the Oxus, the Nile, the Euphrates, and the +Indus. + +Now you may well ask _Quorsum haec omnia?_--What has all this to do with +freedom and with the free development of individuality? Because a man is +born the heir of all the ages, can it be said that he is not free to +grow and to expand, and to develop all the faculties of his mind? Are +those who came before him, and who left him this goodly inheritance, to +be called his enemies? Is that chain of tradition which connects him +with the past really a galling fetter, and not rather the +leading-strings without which he would never learn to walk straight? + +Let us look at the matter more closely. No one would venture to say that +every individual should begin life as a young savage, and be left to +form his own language, and invent his own letters, numerals, and coins. +On the contrary, if we comprehend all this and a great deal more, such +as religion, morality, and secular knowledge, under the general name of +_education_, even the most advanced defenders of individualism would +hold that no child should enter society without submitting, or rather +without being submitted, to education. Most of us would even go further, +and make it criminal for parents or even for communities to allow +children to grow up uneducated. The excuse of worthless parents that +they are at liberty to do with their children as they like, has at last +been blown to the winds. I still remember the time when pseudo-Liberals +were not ashamed to say that, whatever other nations, such as the +Germans, might do, England would never submit to compulsory education. +That wicked sophistry, too, has at last been silenced, and among the +principal advocates of compulsory education, and of the necessity of +curtailing the freedom of savage parents of savage children, have been +Mill and his friends, the apostles of liberty and individualism.[12] A +new era may be said to date in the history of every nation from the day +on which "compulsory education" becomes part of their statute-book; and +I may congratulate the most Liberal town in England on having proved +itself the most inexorable tyrant in carrying out the principle of +compulsory education. + +But do not let us imagine that compulsory education is without its +dangers. Like a powerful engine, it must be carefully watched, if it is +not to produce, what all compulsion will produce, a slavish receptivity, +and, what all machines do produce, monotonous uniformity. + +We know that all education must in the beginning be purely dogmatic. +Children are taught language, religion, morality, patriotism, and +afterwards at school, history, literature, mathematics, and all the +rest, long before they are able to question, to judge, or choose for +themselves, and there is hardly anything that a child will not believe +if it comes from those in whom the child believes. + +Reading, writing, and arithmetic, no doubt, must be taught dogmatically, +and they take up an enormous amount of time, particularly in English +schools. English spelling is a national misfortune, and in the keen +international race between all the countries of Europe, it handicaps the +English child to a degree that seems incredible till we look at +statistics. I know the difficulties of a Spelling Reform, I know what +people mean when they call it impossible; but I also know that personal +and national virtue consists in doing so-called impossible things, and +that no nation has done, and has still to do, so many impossible things +as the English. + +But, granted that reading, writing, and arithmetic occupy nearly the +whole school-time and absorb the best powers of the pupils, cannot +something be done in play-hours? Is there not some work that can be +turned into play, and some play that can be turned into work? Cannot the +powers of observation be called out in a child while collecting flowers, +or stones, or butterflies? Cannot his judgment be strengthened either in +gymnastic exercises, or in measuring the area of a field or the height +of a tower? Might not all this be done without a view to examinations or +payment by results, simply for the sake of filling the little dull minds +with one sunbeam of joy, such sunbeams being more likely hereafter to +call hidden precious germs into life than the deadening weight of such +lessons as, for instance, that _th-ough_ is though, _thr-ough_ is +through, _en-ough_ is enough. A child who believes that will hereafter +believe anything. Those who wish to see Natural Science introduced into +elementary schools frighten schoolmasters by the very name of Natural +Science. But surely every schoolmaster who is worth his salt should be +able to teach children a love of Nature, a wondering at Nature, a +curiosity to pry into the secrets of Nature, an acquisitiveness for some +of the treasures of Nature, and all this acquired in the fresh air of +the field and the forest, where, better than in frouzy lecture-rooms, +the edge of the senses can be sharpened, the chest be widened, and that +freedom of thought fostered which made England what it was even before +the days of compulsory education. + +But in addressing you here to-night it was my intention to speak of the +higher rather than of elementary education. + +All education, as it now exists in most countries of Europe, may be +divided into three stages--_elementary_, _scholastic_, and _academical_; +or call it _primary_, _secondary_, and _tertiary_. + +Elementary education has at last been made compulsory in most civilized +countries. Unfortunately, however, it seems impossible to include under +compulsory education anything beyond the very elements of knowledge--at +least for the present; though, with proper management, I know from +experience that a well-conducted elementary school can afford to provide +instruction in extra subjects--such as natural science, modern +languages, and political economy--and yet, with the present system of +Government grants, be self-supporting.[13] + +The next stage above the elementary is _scholastic_ education, as it is +supplied in grammar schools, whether public or private. According as +the pupils are intended either to go on to a university, or to enter at +once on leaving school on the practical work of life, these schools are +divided into two classes. In the one class, which in Germany are called +_Real-schulen_, less Latin is taught, and no Greek, but more of +mathematics, modern languages, and physical science; in the other, +called _Gymnasia_ on the Continent, classics form the chief staple of +instruction. + +It is during this stage that education, whether at private or public +schools, exercises its strongest levelling influence. Little attention +can be paid at large schools to individual tastes or talents. In +Germany, even more perhaps than in England, it is the chief object of a +good and conscientious master to have his class as uniform as possible +at the end of the year; and he receives far more credit from the +official examiner if his whole class marches well and keeps pace +together, than if he can parade a few brilliant and forward boys, +followed by a number of straggling laggards. + +And as to the character of the teaching at school, how can it be +otherwise than authoritative or dogmatic? The Socratic method is very +good if we can find the _viri Socratici_ and leisure for discussion. But +at school, which now may seem to be called almost in mockery =schole=, +or leisure, the true method is, after all, that patronized by the great +educators of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Boys at school +must turn their mind into a row of pigeon-holes, filling as many as they +can with useful notes, and never forgetting how many are empty. There is +an immense amount of positive knowledge to be acquired between the ages +of ten and eighteen--rules of grammar, strings of vocables, dates, names +of towns, rivers, and mountains, mathematical formulas, &c. All depends +here on the receptive and retentive powers of the mind. The memory has +to be strengthened, without being overtaxed, till it acts almost +mechanically. Learning by heart, I believe, cannot be too strongly +recommended during the years spent at school. There may have been too +much of it when, as the Rev. H. C. Adams informs us in his "Wykehamica" +(p. 357), boys used to say by heart 13,000 and 14,000 lines, when one +repeated the whole of Virgil, nay, when another was able to say the +whole of the English Bible by rote:--"Put him on where you would, he +would go fluently on, as long as any one would listen." + +No intellectual investment, I feel certain, bears such ample and such +regular interest as gems of English, Latin, or Greek literature +deposited in our memory during our childhood and youth, and taken up +from time to time in the happy hours of our solitude. + +One fault I have to find with most schools, both in England and on the +Continent. Boys do not read enough of the Greek and Roman classics. The +majority of our masters are scholars by profession, and they are apt to +lay undue stress on what they call accurate and minute scholarship, and +to neglect wide and cursory reading. I know the arguments for minute +accuracy, but I also know the mischief that is done by an exclusive +devotion to critical scholarship before we have acquired a real +familiarity with the principal works of classical literature. The time +spent in our schools in learning the rules of grammar and syntax, +writing exercises, and composing verses, is too large. Look only at our +Greek and Latin grammars, with all their rules and exceptions, and +exceptions on exceptions! It is too heavy a weight for any boy to carry; +and no wonder that when one of the thousand small rules which they have +learnt by heart is really wanted, it is seldom forthcoming. The end of +classical teaching at school should be to make our boys acquainted not +only with the language, but with the literature and history, the ancient +thought of the ancient world. Rules of grammar, syntax, or metre, are +but means towards that end; they must never be mistaken for the end +itself. A young man of eighteen, who has probably spent on an average +ten years in learning Greek and Latin, ought to be able to read any of +the ordinary Greek or Latin classics without much difficulty; nay, with +a certain amount of pleasure. He might have to consult his dictionary +now and then, or guess the meaning of certain words; he might also feel +doubtful sometimes whether certain forms came from =hiemi=, I send, or +=eimi=, I go, or =eimi=, I am, particularly if preceded by prepositions. +In these matters the best scholars are least inclined to be pharisaical; +and whenever I meet in the controversies of classical scholars the +favourite phrase, "Every schoolboy knows, or ought to know, this," I +generally say to myself, "No, he ought not." Anyhow, those who wish to +see the study of Greek and Latin retained in our public schools ought to +feel convinced that it will certainly not be retained much longer, if it +can be said with any truth that young men who leave school at eighteen +are in many cases unable to read or to enjoy a classical text, unless +they have seen it before. + +Classical teaching, and all purely scholastic teaching, ought to be +finished at school. When a young man goes to University, unless he means +to make scholarship his profession, he ought to be free to enter upon a +new career. If he has not learnt by that time so much of Greek and Latin +as is absolutely necessary in after-life for a lawyer, or a student of +physical science, or even a clergyman, either he or his school is to +blame. I do not mean to say that it would not be most desirable for +every one during his University career to attend some lectures on +classical literature, on ancient history, philosophy, or art. What is to +be deprecated is, that the University should have to do the work which +belongs properly to the school. + +The best colleges at Oxford and Cambridge have shown by their +matriculation examinations what the standard of classical knowledge +ought to be at eighteen or nineteen. That standard can be reached by +boys while still at school, as has been proved both by the so-called +local examinations, and by the examinations of schools held under the +Delegates appointed by the Universities. If, therefore, the University +would reassert her old right, and make the first examination, called at +Oxford Responsions, a general matriculation examination for admission to +the University, not only would the public schools be stimulated to +greater efforts, but the teaching of the University might assume, from +the very beginning, that academic character which ought to distinguish +it from mere schoolboy work. + +Academic teaching ought to be not merely a continuation, but in one +sense a correction of scholastic teaching. While at school instruction +must be chiefly dogmatic, at University it is to be Socratic, for I find +no better name for that method which is to set a man free from the +burden of purely traditional knowledge; to make him feel that the words +which he uses are often empty, that the concepts he employs are, for the +most part, mere bundles picked up at random; that even where he knows +facts, he does not know their evidence; and where he expresses opinions, +they are mostly mere dogmas, adopted by him without examination. + +But for the Universities, I should indeed fear that Mill's prophecies +might come true, and that the intellect of Europe might drift into +dreary monotony. The Universities always have been, and, unless they are +diverted from their original purpose, always will be, the guardians of +the freedom of thought, the protectors of individual spontaneity; and it +was owing, I believe, to Mill's ignorance of true academic teaching that +he took so desponding a view of the generation growing up under his +eyes. + +When we leave school, our heads are naturally brimful of dogma, that is, +of knowledge and opinions at second-hand. Such dead knowledge is +extremely dangerous, unless it is sooner or later revived by the spirit +of free inquiry. It does not matter whether our scholastic dogmas be +true or false. The danger is the same. And why? Because to place either +truth or error above the reach of argument is certain to weaken truth +and to strengthen error. Secondly, because to hold as true on the +authority of others anything which concerns us deeply, and which we +could prove ourselves, produces feebleness, if not dishonesty. And, +thirdly, because to feel unwilling or unable to meet objections by +argument is generally the first step towards violence and persecution. + +I do not think of religious dogmas only. They are generally the first to +rouse inquiry, even during our schoolboy days, and they are by no means +the most difficult to deal with. Dogma often rages where we least expect +it. Among scientific men the theory of evolution is at present becoming, +or has become, a dogma. What is the result? No objections are listened +to, no difficulties recognized, and a man like Virchow, himself the +strongest supporter of evolution, who has the moral courage to say that +the descent of man from any ape whatsoever is, as yet, before the +tribunal of scientific zoology, "not proven," is howled down in Germany +in a manner worthy of Ephesians and Galatians. But at present I am +thinking not so much of any special dogmas, but rather of that dogmatic +state of mind which is the almost inevitable result of the teaching at +school. I think of the whole intellect, what has been called the +_intellectus sibi permissus_, and I maintain that it is the object of +academic teaching to rouse that intellect out of its slumber by +questions not less startling than when Galileo asked the world whether +the sun was really moving and the earth stood still; or when Kant asked +whether time and space were objects, or necessary forms of our sensuous +intuition. Till our opinions have thus been tested and stood the test, +we can hardly call them our own. + +How true this is with regard to religion has been boldly expressed by +Bishop Beveridge. + + "Being conscious to myself," he writes in his "Private Thoughts on + Religion," "how great an ascendant Christianity holds over me beyond + the rest, as being that religion whereinto I was born and baptized; + that which the supreme authority has enjoined and my parents + educated me in; that which every one I meet withal highly approves + of, and which I myself have, by a long-continued profession, made + almost natural to me: I am resolved to be more jealous and + suspicious of this religion than of the rest, and be sure not to + entertain it any longer without being convinced, by solid and + substantial arguments, of the truth and certainty of it." + +This is bold and manly language from a Bishop nearly two hundred years +ago, and I certainly think that the time has come when some of the +divinity lecturers at Oxford and Cambridge might well be employed in +placing a knowledge of the sacred books of other religions within the +reach of undergraduates. Many of the difficulties--most of them of our +own making--with regard to the origin, the handing down, the later +corruptions and misinterpretations of sacred texts, would find their +natural solution, if it was shown how exactly the same difficulties +arose and had to be dealt with by theologians of other creeds. If +some--ay, if many--of the doctrines of Christianity were met with in +other religions also, surely that would not affect their value, or +diminish their truth; while nothing, I feel certain, would more +effectually secure to the pure and simple teaching of Christ its true +place in the historical development of the human mind than to place it +side by side with the other religions of the world. In the series of +translations of the "Sacred Books of the East," of which the first three +volumes have just appeared,[14] I wished myself to include a new +translation of the Old and New Testaments; and when that series is +finished it will, I believe, be admitted that nowhere would these two +books have had a grander setting, or have shone with a brighter light, +than surrounded by the Veda, the Zendavesta, the Buddhist Tripi_t_aka, +and the Qur'an. + +But as I said before, I was not thinking of religious dogmas only, or +even chiefly, when I maintained that the character of academic teaching +must be Socratic, not dogmatic. The evil of dogmatic teaching lies much +deeper, and spreads much further. + +Think only of language, the work of other people, not of ourselves, +which we pick up at random in our race through life. Does not every word +we use require careful examination and revision? It is not enough to say +that language assists our thoughts or colours them, or possibly obscures +them. No, we know now that language and thought are indivisible. It was +not from poverty of expression that the Greek called reason and language +by the same word, =logos=. It was because they knew that, though we may +distinguish between thought and speech, as we distinguish between body +and soul, it is as impossible to tear the one by violence away from the +other as it is to separate the concave side of a lens from its convex +side. This is something to learn and to understand, for, if properly +understood, it will supply the key to most of our intellectual puzzles, +and serve as the safest thread through the whole labyrinth of +philosophy. + +"It is evident," as Hobbes remarks,[15] "that truth and falsity have no +place but amongst such living creatures as use speech. For though some +brute creatures, looking upon the image of a man in a glass, may be +affected with it, as if it were the man himself, and for this reason +fear it or fawn upon it in vain; yet they do not apprehend it as true or +false, but only as like; and in this they are not deceived. Wherefore, +as men owe all their true ratiocination to the right understanding of +speech, so also they owe their errors to the misunderstanding of the +same; and as all the ornaments of philosophy proceed only from man, so +from man also is derived the ugly absurdity of false opinion. For speech +has something in it like to a spider's web (as it was said of old of +Solon's laws), for by contexture of words tender and delicate wits are +ensnared or stopped, but strong wits break easily through them." + +Let me illustrate my meaning by at least one instance. + +Among the words which have proved spider's webs, ensnaring even the +greatest intellects of the world from Aristotle down to Leibniz, the +terms _genus_, _species_, and _individual_ occupy a very prominent +place. The opposition of Aristotle to Plato, of the Nominalists to the +Realists, of Leibniz to Locke, of Herbart to Hegel, turns on the true +meaning of these words. At school, of course, all we can do is to teach +the received meaning of _genus_ and _species_; and if a boy can trace +these terms back to Aristotle's =genos= and =eidos=, and show in what +sense that philosopher used them, every examiner would be satisfied. + +But the time comes when we have to act as our own examiners, and when we +have to give an account to ourselves of such words as _genus_ and +_species_. Some people write, indeed, as if they had seen a _species_ +and a _genus_ walking about in broad daylight; but a little +consideration will show us that these words express subjective concepts, +and that, if the whole world were silent, there would never have been a +thought of a _genus_ or a _species_. There are languages in which we +look in vain for corresponding words; and if we had been born in such a +language, these terms and thoughts would not exist for us. They came to +us, directly or indirectly, from Aristotle. But Aristotle did not invent +them, he only defined them in his own way, so that, for instance, +according to him, all living beings would constitute a _genus_, men a +_species_, and Socrates an _individual_. + +No one would say that Aristotle had not a perfect right to define these +terms, if those who use them in his sense would only always remember +that they are thinking the thoughts of Aristotle, and not their own. The +true way to shake off the fetters of old words, and to learn to think +our own thoughts, is to follow them up from century to century, to watch +their development, and in the end to bring ourselves face to face with +those who first found and framed both words and thoughts. If we do this +with _genus_ and _species_, we shall find that the words which Aristotle +defined--viz., =genos= and =eidos=--had originally a very different and +far more useful application than that which he gave to them. =Genos=, +_genus_, meant generation, and comprehended such living beings only as +were known to have a common origin, however they might differ in outward +appearance, as, for instance, the spaniel and the bloodhound, or, +according to Darwin, the ape and the man. =Eidos= or species, on the +contrary, meant appearance, and comprehended all such things as had the +same form or appearance, whether they had a common origin or not, as if +we were to speak of a species of four-footed, two-footed, horned, +winged, or blue animals. + +That two such concepts, as we have here explained, had a natural +justification we may best learn from the fact that exactly the same +thoughts found expression in Sanskrit. There, too, we find *_g_ati*, +generation, used in the sense of _genus_, and opposed to *ak_ri_ti*, +appearance, used in the sense of _species_. + +So long as these two words or thoughts were used independently (much as +we now speak of a genealogical as independent of a morphological +classification) no harm could accrue. A family, for instance, might be +called a =genos=, the _gens_ or clan was a =genos=, the nation (gnatio) +was a =genos=, the whole human kith and kin was a =genos=; in fact, all +that was descended from common ancestors was a true =genos=. There is no +obscurity of thought in this. + +On the other side, taking =eidos= or species in its original sense, one +man might be said to be like another in his =eidos= or appearance. An +ape, too, might quite truly be said to have the same =eidos= or species +or appearance as a man, without any prejudice as to their common origin. +People might also speak of different =eide= or forms or classes of +things, such as different kinds of metals, or tools, or armour, without +committing themselves in the least to any opinion as to their common +descent. + +Often it would happen that things belonging to the same =genos=, such as +the white man and the negro, differed in their =eidos= or appearance; +often also that things belonging to the same =eidos=, such as eatables, +differed in their =genos=, as, for instance, meat and vegetables. + +All this is clear and simple. The confusion began when these two terms, +instead of being co-ordinate, were subordinated to each other by the +philosophers of Greece, so that what from one point of view was called a +_genus_, might from another be called a species, and _vice versa_. Human +beings, for instance, were now called a _species_, all living beings a +_genus_, which may be true in logic, but is utterly false in what is +older than logic--viz., language, thought, or fact. According to +language, according to reason, and according to Nature, all human beings +constitute a =genos=, or generation, so long as they are supposed to +have common ancestors; but with regard to all living beings we can only +say that they form an =eidos=--that is, agree in certain appearances, +until it has been proved that even Mr. Darwin was too modest in +admitting at least four or five different ancestors for the whole animal +world.[16] + +In tracing the history of these two words, =genos= and =eidos=, you may +see passing before your eyes almost the whole panorama of philosophy, +from Plato's ideas down to Hegel's _Idee_. The question of _genera_, +their origin and subdivision, occupied chiefly the attention of natural +philosophers, who, after long controversies about the origin and +classification of _genera_ and _species_, seem at last, thanks to the +clear sight of Darwin, to have arrived at the old truth which was +prefigured in language--namely, that Nature knows nothing but _genera_, +or generations, to be traced back to a limited number of ancestors, and +that the so-called _species_ are only _genera_, whose genealogical +descent is _as yet_ more or less obscure. + +But the question as to the nature of the =eidos= became a vital question +in every system of philosophy. Granting, for instance, that women in +every clime and country formed one species, it was soon asked what +constituted a species? If all women shared a common form, what was that +form? Where was it? So long as it was supposed that all women descended +from Eve, the difficulty might be slurred over by the name of heredity. +But the more thoughtful would ask even then how it was that, while all +individual women came and went and vanished, the form in which they were +cast remained the same? + +Here you see how philosophical mythology springs up. The very question +what =eidos= or species or form was, and where these things were kept, +changed those words from predicates into subjects. =Eidos= was conceived +as something independent and substantial, something within or above the +individuals participating in it, something unchangeable and eternal. +Soon there arose as many =eide= or forms or types as there were general +concepts. They were considered the only true realities of which the +phenomenal world is only as a shadow that soon passeth away. Here we +have, in fact, the origin of Plato's ideas, and of the various systems +of idealism which followed his lead, while the opposite opinions that +ideas have no independent existence, and that the one is nowhere found +except in the many (=to hen para ta polla=), was strenuously defended by +Aristotle and his followers.[17] + +The same red thread runs through the whole philosophy of the Middle +Ages. Men were cited before councils and condemned as heretics because +they declared that _animal_, _man_, or _woman_ were mere names, and that +they could not bring themselves to believe in an ideal animal, an ideal +man, an ideal woman as the invisible, supernatural, or metaphysical +types of the ordinary animal, the individual man, the single woman. +Those philosophers, called _Nominalists_, in opposition to the +_Realists_, declared that all general terms were _names only_, and that +nothing could claim reality but the individual. + +We cannot follow this controversy further, as it turns up again between +Locke and Leibniz, between Herbart and Hegel. Suffice it to say that the +knot, as it was tied by language, can be untied by the science of +language alone, which teaches us that there is and can be no such thing +as "a name only." That phrase ought to be banished from all works on +philosophy. A name is and always has been the subjective side of our +knowledge, but that subjective side is as impossible without an +objective side as a key is without a lock. It is useless to ask which of +the two is the more real, for they are real only by being, not two, but +one. Realism is as one-sided as Nominalism. But there is a higher +Nominalism, which might better be called the Science of Language, and +which teaches us that, apart from sensuous perception, all human +knowledge is by names and by names only, and that the object of names is +always the general. + +This is but one out of hundreds and thousands of cases to show how names +and concepts which come to us by tradition must be submitted to very +careful snuffing before they will yield a pure light. What I mean by +academic teaching and academic study is exactly this process of +snuffing, this changing of traditional words into living words, this +tracing of modern thought back to ancient primitive thought, this +living, as it were, once more, so far as it concerns us, the whole +history of human thought ourselves, till we are as little afraid to +differ from Plato or Aristotle as from Comte or Darwin. + +Plato and Aristotle are, no doubt, great names; every schoolboy is awed +by them, even though he may have read very little of their writings. +This, too, is a kind of dogmatism that requires correction. Now, at +University, a young student might hear the following, by no means +respectful, remarks about Aristotle, which I copy from one of the +greatest English scholars and philosophers:--"There is nothing so absurd +that the old philosophers, as Cicero saith, who was one of them, have +not some of them maintained; and I believe that scarce anything can be +more absurdly said in natural philosophy than that which now is called +Aristotle's Metaphysics; or more repugnant to government than much of +that he hath said in his Politics; nor more ignorantly than a great part +of his Ethics." I am far from approving this judgment, but I think that +the shock which a young scholar receives on seeing his idols so +mercilessly broken is salutary. It throws him back on his own resources; +it makes him honest to himself. If he thinks the criticism thus passed +on Aristotle unfair, he will begin to read his works with new eyes. He +will not only construe his words, but try to reconstruct in his own mind +the thoughts so carefully elaborated by that ancient philosopher. He +will judge of their truth without being swayed by the authority of a +great name, and probably in the end value what is valuable in Aristotle, +or Plato, or any other great philosopher far more highly and honestly +than if he had never seen them trodden under foot. + +But do not suppose that I look upon the Universities as purely +iconoclastic, as chiefly intended to teach us how to break the idols of +the schools. Far from it! But I do look upon them as meant to freshen +the atmosphere which we breathe at school, and to shake our mind to its +very roots, as a storm shakes the young oaks, not to throw them down, +but to make them grasp all the more firmly the hard soil of fact and +truth! "_Stand upright on thy feet_" ought to be written over the gate +of every college, if the epidemic of uniformity and sequacity which Mill +saw approaching from China, and which since his time has made such rapid +progress Westward, is ever to be stayed. + +Academic freedom is not without its dangers; but there are dangers which +it is safer to face than to avoid. In Germany--so far as my own +experience goes--students are often left too much to themselves, and it +is only the cleverest among them, or those who are personally +recommended, who receive from the professors that personal guidance and +encouragement which should and could be easily extended to all. + +There is too much time given in the German Universities to mere +lecturing, and often in simply retailing to a class what each student +might read in books often in a far more perfect form. Lectures are +useful if they teach us how to teach ourselves; if they stimulate; if +they excite sympathy and curiosity; if they give advice that springs +from personal experience; if they warn against wrong roads; if, in fact, +they have less the character of a show-window than of a workshop. Half +an hour's conversation with a tutor or a professor often does more than +a whole course of lectures in giving the right direction and the right +spirit to a young man's studies. Here I may quote the words of Professor +Helmholtz, in full agreement with him. "When I recall the memory of my +own University life," he writes, "and the impression which a man like +Johannes Muller, the professor of physiology, made on us, I must set the +highest value on the personal intercourse with teachers from whom one +learns how thought works on independent heads. Whoever has come in +contact but once with one or several first-class men will find his +intellectual standard changed for life." + +In English Universities, on the contrary, there is too little of +academic freedom. There is not only guidance, but far too much of +constant personal control. It is often thought that English +undergraduates could not be trusted with that amount of academic freedom +which is granted to German students, and that most of them, if left to +choose their own work, their own time, their own books, and their own +teachers, would simply do nothing. This seems to me unfair and untrue. +Most horses, if you take them to the water, will drink; and the best way +to make them drink is to leave them alone. I have lived long enough in +English and in German Universities to know that the intellectual fibre +is as strong and sound in the English as in the German youth. But if you +supply a man, who wishes to learn swimming, with bladders--nay, if you +insist on his using them--he will use them, but he will probably never +learn to swim. Take them away, on the contrary, and depend on it, after +a few aimless strokes and a few painful gulps, he will use his arms and +his legs, and he will swim. If young men do not learn to use their arms, +their legs, their muscles, their senses, their brain, and their heart +too, during the bright years of their University life, when are they to +learn it? True, there are thousands who never learn it, and who float +happily on through life buoyed up on mere bladders. The worst that can +happen to them is that some day the bladders may burst, and they may be +left stranded or drowned. But these are not the men whom England wants +to fight her battles. It has often been pointed out of late that many of +those who, during this century, have borne the brunt of the battle in +the intellectual warfare in England, have not been trained at our +Universities, while others who have been at Oxford and Cambridge, and +have distinguished themselves in after-life, have openly declared that +they attended hardly any lectures in college, or that they derived no +benefit from them. What can be the ground of that? Not that there is +less work done at Oxford than at Leipzig, but that the work is done in a +different spirit. It is free in Germany; it has now become almost +compulsory in England. Though an old professor myself, I like to attend, +when I can, some of the professorial lectures in Germany; for it is a +real pleasure to see hundreds of young faces listening to a teacher on +the history of art, on modern history, on the science of language, or on +philosophy, without any view to examinations, simply from love of the +subject or of the teacher. No one who knows what the real joy of +learning is, how it lightens all drudgery and draws away the mind from +mean pursuits, can see without indignation that what ought to be the +freest and happiest years in a man's life should often be spent between +cramming and examinations. + +And here I have at last mentioned the word, which to many friends of +academic freedom, to many who dread the baneful increase of uniformity, +may seem the cause of all mischief, the most powerful engine for +intellectual levelling--_Examination_. + +There is a strong feeling springing up everywhere against the tyranny of +examinations, against the cramping and withering influence which they +are supposed to exercise on the youth of England. I cannot join in that +outcry. I well remember that the first letters which I ventured to +address to the _Times_, in very imperfect English, were in favour of +examinations. They were signed _La Carriere ouverte_, and were written +long before the days of the Civil Service Commission! I well remember, +too, that the first time I ventured to speak, or rather to stammer, in +public, was in favour of examinations. That was in 1857, at Exeter, when +the first experiment was made, under the auspices of Sir T. Acland, in +establishing the Oxford and Cambridge Local Examinations. I have been an +examiner myself for many years, I have watched the growth of that system +in England from year to year, and in spite of all that has been said and +written of late against examinations, I confess I do not see how it +would be possible to abolish them, and return to the old system of +appointment by patronage. + +But though I have not lost my faith in examinations, I cannot conceal +the fact that I am frightened by the manner in which they are conducted, +and by the results which they produce. As you are interested yourselves +at this Midland Institute, in the successful working of examinations, +you will perhaps allow me in conclusion to add a few remarks on the +safeguards necessary for the efficient working of examinations. + +All examinations are a means to ascertain how pupils have been taught; +they ought never to be allowed to become the end for which pupils are +taught. + +Teaching with a view to examinations lowers the teacher in the eyes of +his pupils; learning with a view to examinations is apt to produce +shallowness and dishonesty. + +Whatever attractions learning possesses in itself, and whatever efforts +were formerly made by boys at school from a sense of duty, all this is +lost if they once imagine that the highest object of all learning is +gaining marks in examinations. + +In order to maintain the proper relation between teacher and pupil, all +pupils should be made to look to their teachers as their natural +examiners and fairest judges, and therefore in every examination the +report of the teacher ought to carry the greatest weight. This is the +principle followed abroad in all examinations of candidates at public +schools; and even in their examination on leaving school, which gives +them the right to enter the University, they know that their success +depends far more on the work which they have done during the years at +school, than on the work done on the few days of their examination. +There are outside examiners appointed by Government to check the work +done at schools and during the examinations; but the cases in which they +have to modify or reverse the award of the master are extremely rare, +and they are felt to reflect seriously on the competency or impartiality +of the school authorities. + +To leave examinations entirely to strangers reduces them to the level of +lotteries, and fosters a cleverness in teachers and taught often akin to +dishonesty. An examiner may find out what a candidate knows _not_, he +can hardly ever find out all he knows; and even if he succeeds in +finding out _how much_ a candidate knows, he can never find out _how_ he +knows it. On these points the opinion of the masters who have watched +their pupils for years is indispensable for the sake of the examiner, +for the sake of the pupils, and for the sake of their teachers. + +I know I shall be told that it would be impossible to trust the masters, +and to be guided by their opinion, because they are interested parties. +Now, first of all, there are far more honest men in the world than +dishonest, and it does not answer to legislate as if all schoolmasters +were rogues. It is enough that they should know that their reports would +be scrutinized, to keep even the most reprobate of teachers from bearing +false witness in favour of their pupils. + +Secondly, I believe that unnecessary temptation is now being placed +before all parties concerned in examinations. The proper reward for a +good examination should be honour, not pounds, shillings, and pence. The +mischief done by pecuniary rewards offered in the shape of scholarships +and exhibitions at school and University, begins to be recognized very +widely. To train a boy of twelve for a race against all England is +generally to overstrain his faculties, and often to impair his +usefulness in later life; but to make him feel that by his failure he +will entail on his father the loss of a hundred a year, and on his +teacher the loss of pupils, is simply cruel at that early age. + +It is always said that these scholarships and exhibitions enable the +sons of poor parents to enjoy the privilege of the best education in +England, from which they would otherwise be debarred by the excessive +costliness of our public schools. But even this argument, strong as it +seems, can hardly stand, for I believe it could be shown that the +majority of those who are successful in obtaining scholarships and +exhibitions at school or at University are boys whose parents have been +able to pay the highest price for their children's previous education. +If all these prizes were abolished, and the funds thus set free used to +lessen the price of education at school and in college, I believe that +the sons of poor parents would be far more benefited than by the present +system. It might also be desirable to lower the school-fees in the case +of the sons of poor parents, who were doing well at school from year to +year; and, in order to guard against favouritism, an examination, +particularly _viva voce_, before all the masters of a school, possibly +even with some outside examiner, might be useful. But the present system +bids fair to degenerate into mere horse-racing, and I shall not wonder +if, sooner or later, the two-year olds entered for the race have to be +watched by their trainer that they may not be overfed or drugged against +the day of the race. It has come to this, that schools are bidding for +clever boys in order to run them in the races, and in France, I read, +that parents actually extort money from schools by threatening to take +away the young racers that are likely to win the Derby.[18] + +If we turn from the schools to the Universities we find here, too, the +same complaints against over-examination. Now it seems to me that every +University, in order to maintain its position, has a perfect right to +demand two examinations, but no more: one for admission, the other for a +degree. Various attempts have been made in Germany, in Russia, in +France, and in England to change and improve the old academic tradition, +but in the end the original, and, as it would seem, the natural system, +has generally proved its wisdom and reasserted its right. + +If a University surrenders the right of examining those who wish to be +admitted, the tutors will often have to do the work of schoolmasters, +and the professors can never know how high or how low they should aim in +their public lectures. Besides this, it is almost inevitable, if the +Universities surrender the right of a matriculation-examination, that +they should lower, not only their own standard, but likewise the +standard of public schools. Some Universities, on the contrary, like +over-anxious mothers, have multiplied examinations so as to make quite +sure, at the end of each term or each year that the pupils confided to +them have done at least some work. This kind of forced labour may do +some good to the incorrigibly idle, but it does the greatest harm to all +the rest. If there is an examination at the end of each year, there can +be no freedom left for any independent work. Both teachers and taught +will be guided by the same pole-star--examinations; no deviation from +the beaten track will be considered safe, and all the pleasure derived +from work done for its own sake, and all the just pride and joy, which +those only know who have ever ventured out by themselves on the open sea +of knowledge, must be lost. + +We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the brilliant show of +examination papers. + +It is certainly marvellous what an amount of knowledge candidates will +produce before their examiners; but those who have been both examined +and examiners know best how fleeting that knowledge is, and how +different from that other knowledge which has been acquired slowly and +quietly, for its own sake, for our own sake, without a thought as to +whether it would ever pay at examinations or not. A candidate, after +giving most glibly the dates and the titles of the principal works of +Cobbett, Gibbon, Burke, Adam Smith, and David Hume, was asked whether he +had ever seen any of their writings, and he had to answer, No. Another, +who was asked which of the works of Pheidias he had seen, replied that +he had only read the first two books. That is the kind of dishonest +knowledge which is fostered by too frequent examinations. There are two +kinds of knowledge, the one that enters into our very blood, the other +which we carry about in our pockets. Those who read for examinations +have generally their pockets cram full; those who work on quietly and +have their whole heart in their work are often discouraged at the small +amount of their knowledge, at the little life-blood they have made. But +what they have learnt has really become their own, has invigorated their +whole frame, and in the end they have often proved the strongest and +happiest men in the battle of life. + +Omniscience is at present the bane of all our knowledge. From the day he +leaves school and enters the University a man ought to make up his mind +that in many things he must remain either altogether ignorant, or be +satisfied with knowledge at second-hand. Thus only can he clear the deck +for action. And the sooner he finds out what his own work is to be, the +more useful and delightful will be his life at University and later. +There are few men who have a passion for all knowledge, there is hardly +one who has not a hobby of his own. Those so-called hobbies ought to be +utilized, and not, as they are now, discouraged, if we wish our +Universities to produce more men like Faraday, Carlyle, Grote, or +Darwin. I do not say that in an examination for a University degree a +minimum of what is now called general culture should not be insisted on; +but in addition to that, far more freedom ought to be given to the +examiner to let each candidate produce his own individual work. This is +done to a far greater extent in Continental than in English +Universities, and the examinations are therefore mostly confided to the +members of the _Senatus Academicus_, consisting of the most experienced +teachers, and the most eminent representatives of the different branches +of knowledge in the University. Their object is not to find out how many +marks each candidate may gain by answering a larger or smaller number of +questions, and then to place them in order before the world like so many +organ pipes. They want to find out whether a man, by the work he has +done during his three or four years at University, has acquired that +vigour of thought, that maturity of judgment, and that special +knowledge, which fairly entitle him to an academic status, to a degree, +with or without special honours. Such a degree confers no material +advantages;[19] it does not entitle its holder to any employment in +Church or State; it does not vouch even for his being a fit person to be +made an Archbishop or Prime Minister. All this is left to the later +struggle for life; and in that struggle it seems as if those who, after +having surveyed the vast field of human knowledge, have settled on a few +acres of their own and cultivated them as they were never cultivated +before, who have worked hard and have tasted the true joy and happiness +of hard work, who have gladly listened to others, but always depended on +themselves, were, after all, the men whom great nations delighted to +follow as their royal leaders in their onward march towards greater +enlightenment, greater happiness, and greater freedom. + +To sum up. No one can read Mill's Essay "On Liberty" at the present +moment without feeling that even during the short period of the last +twenty years the cause which he advocated so strongly and passionately, +the cause of individual freedom, has made rapid progress, aye, has +carried the day. In no country _may_ a man be so entirely himself, so +true to himself and yet loyal to society, as in England. + +But, although the enemy whose encroachments Mill feared most and +resented most has been driven back and forced to keep within his own +bounds,--though such names as Dissent and Nonconformity, which were +formerly used in society as fatal darts, seem to have lost all the +poison which they once contained,--Mill's principal fears have +nevertheless not been belied, and the blight of uniformity which he saw +approaching with its attendant evils of feebleness, indifference, and +sequacity, has been spreading more widely than ever in his days. + +It has even been maintained that the very freedom which every individual +now enjoys has been detrimental to the growth of individuality; that you +must have an Inquisition if you want to see martyrs; that you must have +despotism and tyranny to call forth heroes. The very measures which Mill +and his friends advocated so warmly, compulsory education and +competitive examinations, are pointed out as having chiefly contributed +to produce that large array of pass-men, that dead level of +uninteresting excellence, which is the _beau ideal_ of a Chinese +Mandarin, while it frightened and disheartened such men as Humboldt, +Tocqueville, and John Stuart Mill. + +There may be some truth in all this, but it is certainly not the whole +truth. Education, as it has to be carried on, whether in elementary or +in public schools, is no doubt a heavy weight which might well press +down the most independent spirit; it is, in fact, neither more nor less +than placing, in a systematized form, on the shoulders of every +generation the ever-increasing mass of knowledge, experience, custom, +and tradition that has been accumulated by former generations. We need +not wonder, therefore, if in some schools all spring, all vigour, all +joyousness of work is crushed out under that load of names and dates, of +anomalous verbs and syntactic rules, of mathematical formulas and +geometrical axioms, which boys are expected to bring up for competitive +examinations. + +But a remedy has been provided, and we are ourselves to blame if we do +not avail ourselves of it to the fullest extent. Europe erected its +Universities, and called them the homes of the Liberal Arts, and +determined that between the slavery of the school and the routine of +practical life every man should have at least three years of freedom. +What Socrates and his great pupil Plato had done for the youth of +Greece,[20] these new academies were to do for the youth of Italy, +France, England, Spain, and Germany; and, though with varying success, +they have done it. The mediaeval and modern Universities have been from +century to century the homes of free thought. Here the most eminent men +have spent their lives, not merely in retailing traditional knowledge, +as at school, but in extending the frontiers of science in all +directions. Here, in close intercourse with their teachers, or under +their immediate guidance, generation after generation of boys, fresh +from school, have grown up into men during the three years of their +academic life. Here, for the first time, each man has been encouraged to +dare to be himself, to follow his own tastes, to depend on his own +judgment, to try the wings of his mind, and, lo, like young eagles +thrown out of their nest, they could fly. Here the old knowledge +accumulated at school was tested, and new knowledge acquired straight +from the fountain-head. Here knowledge ceased to be a mere burden, and +became a power invigorating the whole mind, like snow which during +winter lies cold and heavy on the meadows, but when it is touched by the +sun of spring melts away, and fructifies the ground for a rich harvest. + +That was the original purpose of the Universities; and the more they +continue to fulfil that purpose the more will they secure to us that +real freedom from tradition, from custom, from mere opinion and +superstition, which can be gained by independent study only; the more +will they foster that "human development in its richest diversity" which +Mill, like Humboldt, considered as the highest object of all society. + +Such academic teaching need not be confined to the old Universities. +There is many a great University that sprang from smaller beginnings +than your Midland Institute. Nor is it necessary, in order to secure the +real benefits of academic teaching, to have all the paraphernalia of a +University, its colleges and fellowships, its caps and gowns. What is +really wanted are men who have done good work in their life, and who are +willing to teach others how to work for themselves, how to think for +themselves, how to judge for themselves. That is the true academic stage +in every man's life, when he learns to work, not to please others, be +they schoolmasters or examiners, but to please himself, when he works +from sheer love of work, and for the highest of all purposes, the +conquest of truth. Those only who have passed through that stage know +the real blessings of work. To the world at large they may seem mere +drudges--but the world does not know the triumphant joy with which the +true mountaineer, high above clouds and mountain walls that once seemed +unsurpassable, drinks in the fresh air of the High Alps, and away from +the fumes, the dust, and the noises of the city, revels alone, in +freedom of thought, in freedom of feeling, and in the freedom of the +highest faith. + + F. MAX MULLER. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] An Address delivered on the 20th October, before the Birmingham and +Midland Institute. + +[2] Mill tells us that his Essay "On Liberty" was planned and written +down in 1854. It was in mounting the steps of the Capitol in January, +1855, that the thought first arose of converting it into a volume, and +it was not published till 1859. The author, who in his Autobiography +speaks with exquisite modesty of all his literary performances, allows +himself one single exception when speaking of his Essay "On Liberty." +"None of my writings," he says, "have been either so carefully composed +or so sedulously corrected as this." Its final revision was to have been +the work of the winter of 1858 to 1859 which he and his wife had +arranged to pass in the South of Europe, a hope which was frustrated by +his wife's death. "The 'Liberty,'" he writes, "is likely to survive +longer than anything else that I have written (with the possible +exception of the 'Logic'), because the conjunction of her mind with mine +has rendered it a kind of philosophic textbook of a single truth, which +the changes progressively taking place in modern society tend to bring +out into stronger relief: the importance, to man and society, of a large +variety of character, and of giving full freedom to human nature to +expand itself in innumerable and conflicting directions." + +[3] Herzen defined Nihilism as "the most perfect freedom from all +settled concepts, from all inherited restraints and impediments which +hamper the progress of the Occidental intellect with the historical drag +tied to its foot." + +[4] Ueber die Akademische Freiheit der Deutschen Universitaten, Rede +beim Antritt des Rectorats an der Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat in +Berlin, am 15 October 1877, gehalten von Dr. H. Helmholtz. + +[5] Ueber eine Akademie der Deutschen Sprache, p. 34. Another keen +observer of English life, Dr. K. Hillebrand, in an article in the +October number of the _Nineteenth Century_, remarks: "Nowhere is there +greater individual liberty than in England, and nowhere do people +renounce it more readily of their own accord." + +[6] Spencer Hardy, "Manual of Buddhism," p. 391. + +[7] _Ibid._, p. 39. + +[8] "As one generation dies and gives way to another, the heir of the +consequences of all its virtues and all its vices, the exact result of +pre-existent causes, so each individual, in the long chain of life, +inherits all, of good or evil, which all its predecessors have done or +been; and takes up the struggle towards enlightenment precisely there +where they left it."--Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, p. 104. + +[9] Bunsen, "Egypt," ii., pp. 77, 150. + +[10] Memoire sur l'Origine Egyptienne de l'Alphabet Phenicien, par E. de +Rouge, Paris, 1874. + +[11] See Brandis, "Das Munzwesen." + +[12] "Is it not almost a self-evident axiom, that the State should +require and compel the education, up to a certain standard, of every +human being who is born its citizen? Yet who is there that is not afraid +to recognize and assert this truth?"--_On Liberty_, p. 188. + +[13] _Times_, January 25, 1879. + +[14] "Sacred Books of the East," edited by M. M., vols. i., ii., iii.; +Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1879. + +[15] "Computation or Logic," t. iii., viii., p. 36. + +[16] Lectures on Mr. Darwin's "Philosophy of Language," _Fraser's +Magazine_, June, 1873, p. 26. + +[17] Prantl, "Geschichte der Logik," vol. i. p. 121. + +[18] L. Noire, "Padagogisches Skizzenbuch," p. 157; "Todtes Wissen." + +[19] Mill, "On Liberty," p. 193. + +[20] Zeller, "Ueber den wissenschaftlichen Unterricht bei den Griechen," +1878, p. 9. + + + + +MR. GLADSTONE. + +TWO STUDIES SUGGESTED BY HIS "GLEANINGS OF PAST YEARS." + + _Gleanings of Past Years: 1843-1878._ By the Right Hon. W. E. + GLADSTONE, M.P. Seven vols. London: John Murray. + + +I. + +Lord Beaconsfield and his party are still holding on. All the +over-praised Disraelian craft has dwindled somehow to this merely +muscular operation. An attempt is, indeed, made to disguise the attitude +by keeping strict silence, and arranging the facial expression of the +Cabinet, if not of the Party, in a way not agreeing with the strain; but +the country is fast finding out that the real posture of the +Conservatives at this moment is that of clutching at office, and nothing +more. However, no amount of not talking about the elections will put +them off finally. In his most efficient days Lord Beaconsfield was +hardly clever enough to operate upon the almanack, and a certain +terrible date is approaching upon him with increasing swiftness. It will +be rather humiliating at last for a Premier to be brought up by the day +of the month, and to be reminded by the great officials of Parliament +what year of Our Lord it is. But these latter personages are partly paid +for watching the efflux of time, and no doubt they will do their duty. +It may be unpleasant for them to have to tell Lord Beaconsfield that +dates make it impossible for him to go on any longer, but they must get +what consolation they can from the remembrance that it is the first time +they ever had to say this to a Minister. Several Parliaments in our +history have been nicknamed rather uglily, but it is likely that the +Beaconsfield House of Commons will be known under a description more +humiliating than any, because so inescapeably accurate. It will +literally be the run-to-the-last-dregs Parliament, and when, on there +not being another moment left, the dissolution has necessarily to be +ordered, the not-any-longer-to-be-put-off elections will take place. + +When that unpostponeable day comes, it is very well known beforehand +whose will be the most towering figure on the hustings, whose the form +towards which all eyes must turn. It will be that of him whose name is +written at the head of this paper--Mr. Gladstone. Most Englishmen will +at first feel a crick in the neck in having to look behind them so far +north as Midlothian. But Liberals and Conservatives alike understand +that wherever Mr. Gladstone chooses to take up his position that becomes +the centre of the fight. If he stood for the Orkneys, he would still be +too near for his opponents; and, as for his friends, they remember that +with Ulysses' bow it did not greatly signify whether the hero was a few +yards further off or nearer. The bolts will reach. It is, indeed, not +unlikely that Mr. Gladstone may force on the conflict, and, after the +speech at Chester, the other side cannot say that they were left without +warning. The Conservative leaders have, in fact, a nearer date to +calculate than the final one of the Parliamentary calendar--that, +namely, of Mr. Gladstone's appearance in Midlothian. It may be supposed +that they are already anxiously counting the days of the dwindling +interval. Whenever he gives instructions for his hustings to be put up, +the Conservatives will have to send for their own carpenters, and order +planks. + +The present moment, while he is temporarily absent, and just before he +again necessarily reappears in the very front of the public stage, may +not be an ill time for taking a hasty review of him and his career. It +is, in fact, a favourable chance. Mr. Gladstone, by stress of glorious +hard work and sheer public efficiency, has so unceasingly filled the +passing hour, always being fully occupied himself in dealing with a +special matter, and enforcing the attention of the nation to it, that he +has left people very little at leisure to take in a retrospect of him. +The result is, that there is great inadequacy in the public appreciation +of the dimensions of his career; it stretches back further, expands +wider, rises higher than most of us commonly keep in our minds. Lately, +it is true, Mr. Gladstone has taken great pains to remind the country of +his years; he has rather ostentatiously postured as an old man. But +without meaning to impugn his veracity, or to dispute the register, we +may say that he has scarcely got anybody to believe it. He has gone on +felling trees, writing letters and articles, and publishing volumes, +with utterances of more and better speeches between than anybody else +can make, in a way which has led not a few to congratulate themselves +that he was not any younger. In particular, his opponents, so soon as +they found out that his announcement of retirement into ease meant that +he was going to take the truest rest of all, to work a little harder in +another kind of way, positively made an outcry as if he had pledged +himself to gratify them by doing nothing. They seem rather to complain +that he has retired into greater publicity; but there is something to be +said about that matter. The implied bargain on Mr. Gladstone's side at +the time obviously was that the Conservatives were themselves not to do +anything in particular. It was to be a time of stagnation, and they have +not kept to that understanding; no sooner had he turned his back than +they began to swagger up and down the world as Imperialists. They have +risked the highest interests of the empire and have made England figure +on the wrong side, arrayed against the oppressed and blustering for war. +Mr. Gladstone could only keep quiet by foregoing all patriotism. It was +too much to ask from an old-fashioned English statesman, who had always +himself stood on the side of freedom and peace, and had grown accustomed +to seeing his country ranged there too. However, we will speak again a +little later on this point of his announced retirement. + +It is nearly superfluous to remind any one that there is no statesman +now before the public with an official record which can in any way be +set beside Mr. Gladstone's even in the mere matters of length of time +and diversity of parts. There are a number of men in the House of +Commons older than Mr. Gladstone; there are some, though not many, who +have had a seat in it longer than he has; but there is no one whose +Ministerial life goes back nearly so far. He held office forty-five +years ago. Nearly a score of years had to pass after his first +appointment to a post before Mr. Disraeli joined a Ministry, and then he +stepped into the place which had been refused by Mr. Gladstone. The +latter's range of official experience excels others in breadth even more +than in length. Before he became Prime Minister he had been +Under-Secretary for the Colonies, Vice-President of the Board of Trade +and Master of the Mint, President of the Board of Trade, full Secretary +for the Colonies, and Chancellor of the Exchequer more than once. There +is no other journeyman politician with a stroke of work left in him who +has anything like this list of credentials of apprenticeship to show. +Mr. Gladstone learnt his craft under Peel, Aberdeen, Palmerston, +Russell; and then himself became the selecter and instructor of a group +of younger men for whom renewed office is only biding a not very distant +date. It is an honour alike to name the men he served under and those +whom he commanded; including in the association with him some whom he +attracted, and to whom the latter phrase might scarcely fully apply; for +Mr. Cobden worked with him without an office, and Mr. Bright in one. +These latter were achievements of personal influence which may fairly +rank a trifle higher than merely taking precedence of a Duke in a +Cabinet. If we go on to consider what has happened in his time in the +way of legislation and social reform, and his connection with it, it may +be said, speaking generally, that he has witnessed the political and +economical remoulding of this kingdom; and, taking all things together, +has helped it forward in more ways than anybody else who still survives. +If while Mr. Bright lives his name must always have the honour of first +mention when the Repeal of the Corn Laws is spoken of, it was Mr. +Gladstone who wrought out all the details of Peel's fiscal reforms. He +too it was who, much later, gave effect to Cobden's negotiation of the +French Commercial Treaty; and also, again, made the best bargain that +could be made when that first international arrangement lapsed. Every +amelioration bearing on taxation and trade in our time has been +naturally fated in some way to touch the hands of Mr. Gladstone. So, +too, it was his conversion, or rather his progress, on the question of +the Franchise--proved by his bringing in of the Russell measure--which +made the immediate granting of the vote certain, and challenged the Tory +trick of the last Reform Bill. The Ballot Act, without which the vote +was but a sinister gift, came from his Ministry. But let us turn from +England to the sister country. If Ireland is ever pacified, it will be +then seen that it was Mr. Gladstone who, by the Disestablishment of the +Irish Church and by his Land Act, laid the foundations of the peace. If +the Roman Catholics get a University now, they will only get what he +offered them years ago. The prosperity of Ireland is, indeed, sure some +day to give to Mr. Gladstone's memory a splendid revenge for the +ingratitude she showed to the man who brought legislating for Ireland +into vogue. If we shift our regard to diplomacy, the future is still +clearly with him in several of the chiefest international arrangements +this generation has witnessed. When the Berlin Treaty is cobwebbed, and +forgotten by everybody but historians and bookworms, the Treaty of +Washington will be a living, ruling precedent between the mighty +English-speaking nations on both sides of the Atlantic; and on the day +that the Turks are thrust out of Europe, and the peoples of those +regions are settling the Eastern Question finally for themselves, the +then British Government, in begging somebody to take Cyprus off our +hands, will hear a larger Greece gratefully couple Mr. Gladstone's name +with the cession of the Ionian Islands. + +In every one of these matters Mr. Gladstone gets his good fortune with +posterity, as we believe, from having acted on Liberal principles. It is +the merit of those principles that, to borrow a phrase of his own, they +put Time on a man's side. He has trusted himself to the popular +impulses, which are the breezes blowing towards the future, giving +auspicious omens by the very working out of the world's events. But if, +apart from Liberalism, he would have had not much more significance for +the coming generations than Lord Beaconsfield will have when his foreign +policy has once been undone and set aside, Mr. Gladstone must not be +defrauded of a tittle of his due credit. He who has done all this was +once a Conservative, and, to make it still more wonderful, a Peelite. Of +that pale group of a Parliamentary section, which never could be a +party, he is the only one who escaped from the vain middle region of +ineffectiveness. For a man who was once a Peelite and has never ceased +to be a High Churchman to have gained supreme power in this country is a +political miracle. It was worked by sheer mental force. Mr. Gladstone's +greatest feat, making all the rest possible, was the slowly but +ever-ripeningly turning himself into a good, sound, robust Liberal; but +he not only had the wit to appreciate the inevitableness of popular +progress, he made himself a shaper and a helper of it in ways which +showed a willing adoption of its cause. For we may scrutinize his career +more closely than in the above rapid sketch, may look down lower than +these great pictorial incidents we have been recapitulating; and, if we +do so, we shall see a set of administrative reforms, less showy, but +very hard to carry, and which exhibit genuine Liberalism in the grain of +every one of them. It was under his auspices that the Civil Service was +thrown open to unlimited competition; he, in spite of the Lords, with +Earl Derby at their head, took the duty off paper, giving us cheap +newspapers; he consolidated the Law Courts, doing away a whole web of +legal artificialities; it was as his colleague that Mr. Forster gave to +the country its first national educational scheme; but for him Mr. +Cardwell would never have succeeded in altering the principle of our +military organization from long-period enlistments to the short-term +service; while Mr. Gladstone's opponents are willing to thrust upon him +the whole honour of abolishing purchase in the army, because they think +the issue of the Royal Warrant which, thanks to their resistance of the +reform, was the only means of effecting it, lends itself to a taunt. Add +to this list, the fact that although he, at first, for easily seen +reasons of mere habit of mind, going back to the earlier days when he +was Conservative, did not favour University Reform, yet he finally lent +himself fully to it, and it is not difficult to understand the +successive outcries raised against him in the higher social quarters. He +gave all the "interests" splendidly sufficient reasons for their +dislike, since wherever there was an abuse Mr. Gladstone was as certain +in the end to confront it as he is to appear, axe on his shoulder, +before any tree in Hawarden woods which has lived past its time. + +But there is another way, more compendious still, of summing up his +political chronicle. His opponents at times exult over the fact of his +having often changed his constituencies. It is true, but it was always +for his growing Liberalism. Certainly, there are those who once +ensconced in a shire--say, in Buckinghamshire--remain there as long as +they need a seat. They never offend any one by progress of view. Mr. +Gladstone has not acted by that rule; he has got himself turned out of +constituency after constituency; but, we repeat, it was always for the +same reason--he became too big for them. Among his highest distinctions +are these,--he is the resigner of Newark, the rejected of Oxford, the +loser of South Lancashire. The thing has occurred too often to admit of +a casual explanation. It was not for Liberalism, as it is now +understood, that he, when still in his youth, offended the mighty Duke +of Newcastle and had to give up Newark, but it was for reasoned-out +consistency which gave hope of Liberalism. He would not stultify his +intellect by voting for Peel's proposed increase of the Maynooth Grant +in contradiction of his own book on Church and State. But all the world +knows that it was for Liberalism somewhat developed that he quitted +Oxford; and the cause of his defeat in Lancashire was that he had for +years been too busy in pushing forward reforms on all hands. It was a +noble vanquishment for him, whatever it was for his party, for +Lancashire, or for the country. Test his career how we will, the result +still comes out to his honour. He, for conscience' sake, offended the +great patron on whom his whole prospects then depended, remaining out of +Parliament for a time; later, he went over with Peel, knowing that it +meant an ineffective hanging between two parties for an indefinite time, +sharing the hopes and chances of neither; when Lord Derby came into +power, he refused office on its being offered. In a word, he has +evidenced his sincerity and proved his patriotism in every way for which +it is allowed to other men to claim honour. When a man has risked +personal prospects, refused place, held office in all its kinds, left +one lagging constituency after another behind him, and finally, by sheer +insisting on rapid progress, temporarily wearied the weak and lazy of +his countrymen throughout the whole nation, as the last general election +showed that he had, what more is there left for him to do for his +country? Only one thing remained: the sacrificing his retirement after +the formal announcement of the close of his career, and, afresh taking +up his old post in the front of the battle as if he were still young and +had place and public life to secure, striving his hardest a last time +for the sake of his principles and his party. It is this final +possibility of sacrificing ease and renewing labour which Mr. Gladstone +undertakes in the Midlothian campaign now so very soon to be opened by +him. + +The above is the merest bird's-eye glance at his career, but it seemed +to us a retrospect which all Liberals should have in their minds more +completely than is common when he again draws to him the national gaze, +as he of necessity will do. + +But on reading back, how inadequate does the above record seem for Mr. +Gladstone! It is simply the background of the picture; a field of +industry and achievements, on which the portraiture of the man himself +needs yet making to stand out. We have been speaking of the ex-Premier, +for instance, just as we might talk of any politician, and Mr. +Gladstone, though our chiefest politician, has throughout been so much +more than that. It is perfectly true that there is no public man among +us who has projected less of a special atmosphere of personality than he +has through which his doings are to be beheld. He has been too busy with +his work to think of any attitudinizing or trick in doing it. Mr. +Gladstone's only mannerism has been that of superior excellence of +thinking, speaking, and doing. Anybody else might have done and said +what he has uttered and effected, if only they had had the same ability +and industry. His one comprehensive distinction, summing up all the +others, lies in his having developed more of these two simple, +old-fashioned things than his best contemporaries. He has invented no +mysteries, traded in no artificialities, given us no pyrotechnics; only +a plain common air lies along his track, in which, if we perhaps except +two or three points where a little mist hangs, everything can be clearly +seen in white light, without exaggeration or distortion. His whole style +has been the old traditionary English one, accentuated only by Scotch +earnestness and seriousness of religious feeling. If Mr. Gladstone, +however, has not made any eccentric or theatrical impression on the +public mind, he has done something larger and better. He has kept all +the three kingdoms continuously aware of him as an element in our +general thinking, as well as being a power in our practical affairs. If +we put aside Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Mill, and Mr. Ruskin, scarcely any one has +had so much to do with the general mental activity of the last two +generations as Mr. Gladstone. The result is what we have just pointed +out,--that if we sketch him as a statesman only, everybody sees that the +canvas is not big enough. It is a sufficiently full description of most +men who have been politicians to ascribe to them statesmanship; but in +Mr. Gladstone's case we want a yet larger phrase; his business has not +been politics merely, it has been patriotism; and he has made time, +nobody quite knows how, to do nearly as much work outside Parliament as +within it. We may cut a scholar able to adorn a university out of Mr. +Gladstone, and then carve from him a fine student and reverencer of Art; +next mark off a reviewer and general _litterateur_ whom professed +authors will respectfully make room for in their ranks; and not only is +there still left, solid and firm, the great Parliamentary Minister, but +of the scattered fragments a couple of Bishops might easily be made, +with, if nothing at all is to be wasted, several preachers for the +denominations. The latter would be derived from a morsel or two of +material which Mr. Gladstone himself is not fully aware of as being in +his composition. It is not very easy to give a complete impression +offhand of such a multiform personage as this. We must take him a little +simpler. The general effect of it all has been, as we said above, that +the mental activity of the community in all matters relating to politics +and practical affairs has had to take its rate and much of its scale +largely from him, and he has been thinking with the speed, not of the +old jog-trot political life, but with the rapidity of ethical and +religious cogitation, and has insisted on giving thought to everything. +In fact, the ultimate impression which Mr. Gladstone has made upon the +community has been that of an intellect weaponed with a perfectly fluent +tongue, and a hand holding the quickest of pens, occupying the very +highest national posts, ceaselessly going on reasoning, insisting upon +doing it, whether the reasoning might occasionally go wrong or not, just +as if thinking, speaking, and writing were man's right employment. His +chief opponents would, perhaps, hesitate in flatly saying that they were +not; but, at any rate, they have continually been wanting him to stop. +Nearly all the complaint that was ever made of Mr. Gladstone resolves +itself into a charge that he has thought and spoken and written too +much. The accusation is one which it would task a great many men to lay +themselves open to; it is never thought of in the case of the bulk of +us. Above all, he has kept on thinking; he would use his mind. Possibly +the other side might have forgiven it, if only he had not done it so +well; if only this promptest, quickest ratiocination on the part of a +practical politician in our times had not, as it progressed, brought him +ever nearer to the conclusions of Liberalism. He has, we are, however, +rather ashamed to admit, had to suffer from his own party for this +unusualness of mental activity. Our practical politics for generations +past had been carried on upon such shallow reasoning, on such a +hand-to-mouth principle of mere party expediency, that even some +Liberals were surprised when he brought a little subtlety of intellect +into public life. It was enough to make a smaller man despair of his +countrymen's sanity when he found that for years many of them could not +distinguish between an Anglican High Churchman and an admirer of Rome. + +To speak plainly, there was never such a humiliating spectacle of public +stolidity as that which for so long a time was witnessed in the popular +mystification as to Mr. Gladstone's religious position. It went for +nothing that his first critical Parliamentary step was to give up his +seat rather than vote more money to Maynooth; nobody seemed to bear in +mind that as far back as 1852 he both predicted and publicly hoped for +the downfall of the temporal power of the Papacy, and that ten years +later Sir George Bowyer openly attacked him on that very point in +Parliament; it did not avail that he it was who paved the way for the +unification of Italy by dragging into the light before all Europe the +prison secrets of Neapolitan tyranny. Because he had the good sense to +oppose the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, and the loyalty to remain on +terms of friendship with the companions of his youth after they became +Puseyites, and avowed that he held the same views as to Church doctrine +which some of the greatest Church of England divines taught, he was +called on to explain, every month or so, that he was not a Jesuit. Not +until he published his pamphlet on the Vatican Decrees, and by so doing +threw all the Roman Catholics in England and elsewhere into a white heat +of rage, was the silliness quite exploded. It is true that the dull +public might plead that a real profession of religiousness on the part +of a leading politician was such a novelty that it might be excused +being a little puzzled, and believing the worst in its perplexity. Worst +or best, Mr. Gladstone has gone on speaking and writing about his +religion just as if a man's ethics and faith ought to have some +connection with his politics, and, as time has passed, people appear to +think it less strange. This non-reticence on the score of religion has +made more serious the impression Mr. Gladstone has produced upon the +public mind; but in reality it is no specialty in his mode of public +thinking, but only a necessary part of it. He tracks his commonest +politics to their fundamental principles, and makes of them a system. He +has always in his reasoning to go back to history, and this has delayed +his advance in comparison with men who dispense with that; but there +never yet was a public man who explained so fully as Mr. Gladstone the +reasons of his changes. All the progress of his mind is to be traced in +speeches, articles, pamphlets, volumes. He has given too much +explanation, not too little, for his mind has an insatiability for +reasons. Most people are content when they get hold of a good one; but +he wants three or four--in fact, all that can be got by searching for; +and if it be true, as it certainly is, that he likes the last to have a +little subtlety about it, long-sustained thinking cannot take people too +deep in politics, whatever it may do now and then in religion. For +instance, on the question of Reform Mr. Gladstone has certainly +exhausted the process, having at last got at the final ideal argument. +It turns out, as he stated it to Mr. Lowe, to be this,--that, apart +from, or rather in addition to, all the hard reasons of justice and +safety that Mr. Bright can urge for extending the franchise, the vote +ought to be given because it has an educative power, and will make our +humbler fellow-countrymen better citizens. It is open to any one, who is +stupid enough, to call that argument subtle, but no one can deny that it +is truly Liberal. There is not a man among us to-day who keeps the main +Liberal issues so broad and clear as Mr. Gladstone does, and this simply +because he will get to a principle. He adds a tremendous multiplicity of +ideas in the way of side issues, but, as we above put it, they are all +reasons in addition. There is a very simple test of it,--he has never +recanted a single article of his Liberal progress, never gone back a +single step. This hardly can be said of either Mr. Lowe or a few others +who might be named. It could not even be said of so thorough a Liberal +as Earl Russell. Mr. Gladstone's alleged over-refining has ended in +placing and keeping him in the practical lead of his party, at a time of +life when many born in the faith grow faint-hearted. Even the one bit of +mysticism which his political feeling has developed--namely, the belief +that the popular judgment is truest of all in very large matters--is +only the full flowering of the popular trust which every Liberal +professes to have. The bulk of the nation will forgive him that excess +of political belief, if it be an excess, for it is the last compliment a +statesman can pay them, and they have but to merit it, and it then turns +to Mr. Gladstone's praise as well as theirs. But, at any rate, it will +not do for Liberals to set out to argue the point with Mr. Gladstone, or +they will quickly find themselves tripped up by a principle; for it is +no sentimentality in him which underlies the view, but completed logic +and wide recollection of historical instances. + +Indeed, although it was necessary in trying to reproduce the general +impression Mr. Gladstone has made upon his contemporaries to speak of +this alleged over-refining, what is meant by it has been after all a +kind of superfluity of mental operation. His intricacy of thinking has +never hindered his activity; least of all living men has Mr. Gladstone +been a dreamer. He stands in history as a reviser of fiscal policies; an +introducer of new administrative modes; a widener of the boundaries of +political rights; a ceaseless overthrower of public abuses. From first +to last he has been, as the hatred of his opponents has too well +witnessed, a man of practice. You may add to this that he reasons too +minutely, if you like; but it was not by a transcendental casuistry of +politics that he wearied the country: it was by his enormous energy in +ceaselessly proposing wide sweeping measures. The casuistry was all in +addition. The over-refining of Mr. Gladstone has, in fact, been of a +wholly different kind from what is common among men; it has consisted in +finding justifications afterwards for very prompt vigorous doing. +Examine, if any one thinks it worth while at this time of day, the +Ewelme Rectory case, or the issue of the Royal Warrant on Purchase, or +the Collier appointment, and it will appear that it was for bold +decision in taking a practical step that he was arraigned as much as for +subsequently finding too many reasons for it. For ourselves, as we have +not set out to apologize for Mr. Gladstone (men of his dimensions must +be taken as they are), but simply to put down hints recalling more fully +than is usual the great features of his career, there is no need for our +not saying that we wish he had in some cases dispensed with these +arguments in excess of the conclusion. In some instances it is as wise +after all, though not so clever, to be satisfied with urging one good +reason, and not to confuse ordinary people by adding five or six more +not so good, the risk being that there will be a bad one among them. But +the fact remains that Mr. Gladstone has not busied himself in tying +mental knots for the purpose of entanglement; he has indulged in no such +waste of time. The mental puzzle has always referred to some practical +doing. Owing to this, his opponents have had to admit his mental +sincerity, while accusing him of over-subtlety. It nearly all turned, in +fact, into the psychological question of whether Mr. Gladstone's mind +had not at one part of its machinery a twist, and in the meantime while +this point was being discussed he went on carrying his measures. If +there were Liberals who did not quite follow him in his defence of the +issue of the Royal Warrant, when he drew distinctions between +prerogative and statutory power, they had not the least doubt that in +abolishing purchase he had effected a capital Liberal reform, and they +might hope that his reasoning as well as his practice was right. Is Mr. +Gladstone to be the only one to whose idiosyncrasy nothing is to be +allowed? The hullabaloo which was raised when somebody could say that he +had broken through a technicality seemed very like, after all, as though +from this one politician perfection was expected, which was not an ill +compliment at bottom; and any admirers who may admit that perfection was +not always got, do not, in granting that, depreciate him much as this +world goes, and may still think him the most upright of our public men. +His mental machinery is complicated, whilst there is no apparatus like +it for rapidity, and once set going he himself cannot always stop it; +his mind, as we have said, riots in ratiocination, and will multiply +arguments to the last shred of the material which any case in hand +affords. But, to return to the main point,--it never leaves go of the +real business. Even what has seemed to some persons his off-work, his +voluminous writing, has, with the one exception of his classical +studies, been no mere leisurely literature, but persistent advocacy of +special objects. These productions have been meant to frame public +opinion, and to give him openings for legislation, if that became +possible. He has used the press because it had become the hugest +instrument of the time he lived in; but it was not for the purpose of +multiplying books that Mr. Gladstone wrote, but with a view to +practically influencing men. + +This relentless subordination of everything to practical ends--this iron +determination to keep doing, even while ready frankly to depend upon his +power of speaking and writing to produce conviction and popular +persuasion as the means for effecting his objects, gives as the final +imprint of Mr. Gladstone on one's mind that he was always meant for a +Liberal. A man of this kind might be born a Conservative; it might take +him time to break fully with old ties; but for him to stay finally in +the ranks where thought was allowed to remain muddled, where abuses were +looked on with toleration, and ease was enjoyed at the cost of others, +was an impossibility. Mr. Gladstone, if only from the fact that he was a +born financier and an inveterate thinker, and a man with a passion for +publicly talking, belonged to the Liberals from the first. His whole +life, too, has consistently lent itself to that style. If it has had in +it a touch of austerity, that excellently befitted the social condition +of the masses of our people. His gaze has been fixed too much upon them +to be attracted by the glitter of the narrow upper circle, which so +foolishly persists, amidst its gaudy splendour, in believing itself the +nation. That silliness was not for Mr. Gladstone. He has been subjected +to some tests. If his family was not highly placed, his father was a +baronet, and he himself was educated at Eton and Oxford. Nobles have +been among his friends at all periods of his life, as well as his +official subordinates more than once in it. But he has passed the whole +of his long career without a sparkle of the glitter of adventitious +display: that proudest title of all, which it is not in the power of the +Crown to bestow but only to take away--"the Great Commoner"--has +descended upon him, and is still his. Then he has fenced himself off +with no stiffness of manner; the only dignity he has assumed has been +the natural seriousness of ardent sincerity, warning off triflers only. +To everybody else he has been accessible; any person could impose on him +the trouble of a written reply. His post-cards were known to be public +property. But putting aside that joke, which is now worn bare, scarcely +has any one so fully and ungrudgingly accepted the responsibilities of +his position. He has been the public's faithful, ready servant in every +particular. Nor has it been mere complaisance, or a drudging of +mechanical industry; he has exhibited a real faculty of interesting +himself in all that anybody has been doing actively and well. To say +that he is the only statesman who, while clinging to the Church of +England, has commanded the sympathies of the Dissenters, might provoke +an enemy, embittered by the fact, to reply that he had tactical reasons +for trying to do that; but it could have been nothing else than real +width of mind and a robust versatility which enabled this High Churchman +largely to divide impartial admiration between the Evangelical party and +the Romanists, pointing out fully and exactly what is to be praised in +each. Any one who wishes it can find the estimates set out in detail in +the third and seventh volumes of "The Gleanings." This wide range of +intellectual appreciation is really as much a characteristic of Mr. +Gladstone as has been his unyielding tenacity and doctrinal hold within +the limits of his personal confession of belief. He, a firm acceptor of +the tenets of sacramental efficacy, apostolical succession, and the +authority of the Church in her own sphere, could take up the +semi-rationalistic book "Ecce Homo," and turn it round-and-round +admiringly as a most curious and valuable mental production. Nothing in +which thought was really shown has escaped his notice, or failed to +arouse his interest. He has bent his look on Secularism, as a scientific +inquirer might scrutinize a new species, and he has stooped to quote Mr. +Bradlaugh. In one place you will find him, very likely on the page after +giving a passage from Isaiah or the Psalms, citing the old poet Dunbar, +or speaking of Rowe or Swift, or alluding to Rousseau; while long before +it became a fashion he had words of sympathizing praise for Shelley, +selecting, of all other places, _The Quarterly Review_ to print them in. +But, perhaps, the clearest proof of all, alike of his power to bear +testimony in spite of personal disliking, and his standing hard and fast +upon a principle when he has reached it, is that he, whom Macaulay +nearly half a century ago described as "a young man of unblemished +character," and whom his Lordship, if he were now alive, would speak of +as "the old man with personal fame unspotted," could step aside in one +of his articles to recognize the public debt due to Jack Wilkes as a +helper forward of our freedom. Wherever a national service has been +done, Mr. Gladstone's eulogy always has been ready. + +Down to this point we have not spared so much as a hint to his +magnificent oratory, his unsurpassed debating skill, his not infrequent +successes in literary style. These were not the things that anybody +needed reminding of, and that necessity was the prescribed limit of our +self-imposed task. Who has forgotten when the expounding of the Budget +was the greatest intellectual treat of the Session, when sugar and +railway duties and tea became natural themes for eloquence, and the +unfolding of the surplus was breathlessly waited for like the +_denouement_ of a novelist's plot? Those scenes are long past, it is +true, but the echoes of them can still be heard, for each year since has +brought a disappointing reminder to awaken them. But the matchless +vigour and splendour of his debating fence has never slackened, never +weakened; the only privilege of the older generation in respect of it, +is that they can boast to have witnessed more of it, not to have seen +better displays. As to his writings, there least of all is any reminder +wanted, for he presents the public with an improving specimen each +month. If any one laid themselves out to find fault with Mr. Gladstone's +literature, the very worst thing they could discover to say of it, would +be that it still was oratory, only written down. + +This is the man who, after a few weeks of leisure, reappears next month +in Midlothian; first in the field, as if that appearance was his by +right of custom. How well he compares with the rest of our older party +leaders! Mr. Bright, grown a little pursy, though also stricken by +domestic misfortune, rests rather inertly on his laurels, which +certainly are plentiful enough to invite repose; Mr. Forster has never +succeeded in quite finding his way out of the clauses of his own +Education Act, where he sees himself confronted with the Church of +England at the end of so many vistas, that he is lost in admiration of +its architecture; Mr. Goschen, by some strange weakness (which, let us +hope, is only temporary) has got a scare from meeting the County +Franchise wearing Joseph Arch's coat and hat; while Mr. Lowe is riding +hobbies, bicycle-wise, in and out before the very select constituency of +the London University, with readers of _The Fortnightly Review_ for +outside spectators, just by way of showing off his little feats of +mental gymnastic. In the meanwhile, Mr. Gladstone, the veteran of them +all, is putting on his harness for a fresh contest, a riper, better +Liberal to-day than on any previous day of fight. It is for the younger +men to rally round him. + +But, before taking our leave of Mr. Gladstone, we have finally to +enlarge our view of him. Early in these remarks it seemed well to give a +very hasty summary of his whole career; but there remains to be +attempted an exact sketch of his actual position in respect of opinions +and practical relations at the moment when he ceased to be Minister. Let +us, first of all, at this moment when a Brummagem Imperialism is only +yet half-faded, recall what was Mr. Gladstone's opinion of the historic +position and natural function of England among the nations; for it has +been craftily made to appear that he was willing, and indeed anxious, +for this country to efface itself. In 1870, when he was still at the +height of power, he published in _The Edinburgh Review_ his article on +"Germany, France, and England," and the following was the view he then +put forward of the international obligations and duties of his country, +in spite of the sea dividing us from other lands:-- + +"Yet we are not isolated.... With vast multitudes of persons in each of +the Continental countries we have constant relations, both of personal +and commercial intercourse, which grow from year to year; and as, +happily, we have no conflict of interests, real or supposed, nor scope +for evil passions afforded by our peaceful rivalry, there is nothing to +hinder the self-acting growth of concord.... So far from this implying +either a condition or a policy of isolation, it marks out England as the +appropriate object of the general confidence.... All that is wanted is +that she should discharge the functions, which are likely more and more +to accrue to her, modestly, kindly, impartially.... But in order that +she may act fully up to a part of such high distinction, the kingdom of +Queen Victoria must be in all things worthy of it. The world-wide cares +and responsibilities with which the British people have charged +themselves are really beyond the ordinary measure of human strength; and +until a recent period it seemed the opinion of our rulers that we could +not do better than extend them yet further, wherever an opening could +easily, or even decently, be found. With this avidity for material +extension was joined a preternatural and morbid sensibility. Russia at +the Amoor, America at the Fee-jee or the Sandwich Islands, France in New +Caledonia or Cochin China--all these, and the like, were held to be good +reasons for a feverish excitement lest other nations should do for +themselves but the fiftieth part of what we have done for ourselves.... +The secret of strength lies in keeping some proportion between the +burden and the back." + +Is it necessary to ask whether this is a policy combining dignified +patriotism and prudently-restrained common sense? Compare it for a +moment with the gewgaw skimble-skamble diplomatic sensationalism with +which we have been presented since. But let us go a little more into +detail as to Mr. Gladstone's standing with reference to international +relations. This present Government has perhaps forgotten that there is +such a nation in the world as the United States of America; but Mr. +Gladstone kept it well in mind, and we suppose every one will admit that +he, of all statesmen, stands well with that people of our own blood, who +very shortly will be the most powerful community upon the earth, and the +one with whom we shall, for all time, have most to do. However, we will +keep within the bounds of Europe. It is the fashion now to give +precedence to Germany. Well, Mr. Gladstone was among the first to +predict the success of Prussia, and she is not likely to forget who it +was who preserved neutrality at a moment most critical to her. Is it +France that he is not on good relations with? Why this Minister, who +invited her wine trade, and strove unceasingly to increase commerce to +and fro across the Channel, and who is for giving further and further +political rights to his countrymen, is the only English statesman whom +the bulk of Frenchmen can understand. To them our Tories must be as +antiquated as their own Royalists. Italy is a growing Power in the +European comity, and who is there among our statesmen who can in her +fair cities arouse half the enthusiasm he can? He is, literally, the +only English politician they familiarly know. With Austria, it is true, +he during the recent war lost patience for a moment, but her conduct +since has told that her rulers must at the time have known that he had +good reasons for it; and no one has more fully appreciated the +difficulties of Austria's position than he has done, or was more early +in giving her, years ago, the very counsel which she has since proved +was the wisest for her. There remains one other great Power to be +named--Russia; the State with whom we shall have directly of necessity +to stand face to face in the far East, and with whom terms will in the +end have somehow to be made. It is urged against Mr. Gladstone that he +has not rendered himself obnoxious enough to this remaining Power--that +is, that he did not incapacitate himself for negotiating with her, and, +having postponed defiance of her, might make some peaceful arrangement. +Can any friend of peace think this a very grievous accusation? Mr. +Gladstone has gained this position of goodwill all round at what +cost?--that of having fallen into disfavour with the Turks. That is his +one terrible disqualification for affairs; or, if you wish to be +precisely exhaustive, and at the same time to elicit the absurdity +fully, you may add to it that he has irritated the Bourbons. It is quite +true, and we, indeed, wish to put it clearly forward, that he was for +abating a little of our national swagger, and was prepared to see, and +to welcome, advancement in other nations. But every well-grounded +Liberal knows that it is only on those two conditions that England can +permanently pursue her own paths of industrial development, and the +world make progress. Mr. Gladstone's single sin in reference to our +external relations was his readiness to favour those two results. + +But how does he show when a last view is taken of him from within our +politics? Here, again, first look to the circumference. In dealing with +the colonies, he was for all being put in possession of a free autonomy, +and then urging them to self-reliance--in those ways welding them into +the integrity of the empire; and as to India, he insisted that we should +strive more and more to realize what he termed the generous conception +of a moral trusteeship, to be administered for the benefit of those over +whom we rule. Here, once more, we get the true ring of a sound +Liberalism, for those are the only principles, we venture to affirm, on +which such an empire as this of ours can ever be made permanent. +Treating the colonies as babies and biting the thumb at Russia, even +from the most scientific frontier India can furnish, though you shout +"Empress" from it as loudly as you will, has nothing truly English about +it. Empire is not kept in such a mawkish, artificial manner. + +But now narrow the gaze within our own home limits. The chief domestic +questions for the British public are these,--extension of the County +Franchise, the Redistribution of Seats, the Disestablishment of the +Church, and Retrenchment of Expenditure. The Land Question will yet have +to grow, and may not ripen in his time. But on three of the above +pending matters Mr. Gladstone stands at the very front. He is for making +our field cultivators citizens no less than our artizans; he is for +re-allotting members in a manner which will give us a Parliament truly +representative; and it is hardly necessary to speak of economical +benefits in connection with the Minister who used the nation to +reduction of taxation and surpluses arriving together, and whose last +promise under that head was the total abolition of the Income Tax. On +the other of these great domestic matters, that which stands third in +the above list, the Disestablishment of the Church, it has seemed to +advanced Liberals that Mr. Gladstone has lagged. But the lively fear of +his opponents on this very matter is full of hope. Since he last +dissented from Mr. Miall's motion, he has written a very significant +phrase in an article in this Review. In treating of "The Courses of +Religious Thought," when reviewing the churches of the United States and +of the British Colonies he spoke of their vigorous growth, "far from the +possibly chilling shadow of National Establishments of Religion." In +that phrase, for a man so practical as is Mr. Gladstone, +Disestablishment seems to cast its shadow before, and not a few persons +on the other side of the question shivered from the chilliness it made. +But these topics of the first class do not depend upon any one +statesman; the biggest of men have these capital problems thrust upon +them; all that you can do is to take note how a leader stands in +reference to them. And the above is Mr. Gladstone's standing. But there +was another class of legislative reforms which he was the man to have +gone in search of. In one of his most recent articles he has given us a +hint of a dream of this kind which was in his mind. He stated it +thus:--"Our currency, our local government, our liquor laws, portions +even of our taxation, remain in a state either positively disgraceful, +or at the least inviting and demanding improvement." That programme of +the further benefits which we should have owed to Mr. Gladstone was put +aside by the giddiness of twenty-five or thirty constituencies at the +last elections, but it will fittingly serve to give the finishing touch +to our presentation of him in this paper. Liberals have, in fact, to +thank him for offering more of reform and of benefit than the country +would let him give it. Splendid as his achievements have been, he really +had others in reserve. + +Is it too late? is the question that naturally arises. Certainly there +is no hope of having the five years of administration by him which we +have lost since 1874. That is irretrievable; and if Mr. Gladstone felt +then his growing years, and had a wish to finish other tasks apart from +politics, he is no younger now; while the aims of his purposed leisure +must have been greatly interfered with by his partial recall to affairs +owing to the dangers to which freedom in Bulgaria and our own national +credit were exposed. It is wholly a matter for Mr. Gladstone to decide. +If the next elections go in favour of the Liberals, all the world knows +that office is there for him to take or to leave. Earl Granville, the +Duke of Argyll, Lord Hartington would, we need not say, be among the +first even to urge it as far as it was right to do so, and the whole +party would welcome him back to power with a shout of joy. Who knows? +Mr. Gladstone's patriotism is great, and our financial muddle will, +also, be very great about that time. Between the two he might be +tempted; he may yet do us the final service of putting the national +finances right again. It is, we repeat, wholly for him to say. Earlier +in this paper a further word was promised on the subject of his +retirement; but, upon second thoughts, it scarcely seems necessary. Mr. +Gladstone was too experienced in Parliamentary doings not to know that +the Conservatives would take care to keep enough of their majority until +time itself forced them back to the unwished-for hustings. He did his +party not an atom of practical injury by retiring; rather, it was a good +opportunity for giving a younger leader practice. It would be quite +idle, on the other hand, to argue with his opponents for complaining +that he did not retire enough. He has made speeches, they say; he has +written articles in every organ there is; he has even republished +previous writings. As we before said, they have themselves to blame for +it in great measure: if they wanted Mr. Gladstone to stay in retirement, +they should have carefully kept quiet. Instead of that they made a noise +before his door, disturbing him in his studies. What more natural than +that he should come out? He did so, and found that, disguised like +harlequins in the flimsy bedizenment which they call Imperialism, they +were playing high jinks with Britain's reputation and the chances of +freedom for the oppressed in the East. It was too much for him; but if +they complain of the number of the weapons he attacked them with, we +know that it would have been impossible for him to please them there. +They never have been satisfied on that score. What they really find +fault with are the blows they got. + +And there are more to come. Directly we shall have them complaining that +he has chosen a constituency so far away as Scotland; the real fact +being that they wish he had gone much farther still. They never are +sincere with Mr. Gladstone; he cannot please them. We leave them +anxiously listening for his approach again unto these shores, knowing +very well that to their thinking they will hear his voice all too soon. + + A LIBERAL. + + +II. + +Description is said to be only possible by comparing, and when one is +asked to sketch Mr. Gladstone, how is it to be set about? His admirers +will have it that he has been a very great Minister, so that if we adopt +the comparative method, we ought to look high for standards. Shall we +match him alongside Bismarck or Cavour? The latter, to give him +precedence, stands renowned for building up his country in evil days, +when every omen was against her. But Mr. Gladstone, succeeding to power +when England was in the full tide of prosperity and at the height of +fame, gave up her prospects, and would have acquiesced in her decadence. +There is no likeness whatever between him and Cavour. Then take +Bismarck. The great German Chancellor shares with the Italian Minister +the glory of having widened the bounds and raised the position of his +land, and he stands now head and shoulders above all in the midst of the +diplomatic world a very Colossus. But Mr. Gladstone is and has always +been outside that world altogether. Prince Bismarck has his hand on all +the springs of action, and will let pass no chance of exalting his +country. Mr. Gladstone, we repeat, never made the slightest impression +in the regions of diplomacy; Courts did not know him, foreign statesmen +left him out of their reckoning of the men that had to be dealt with. +The great international achievements for which he has alone been talked +of have been the surrender of British territory and the paying down of +English money lavishly to another State for preposterous claims. But it +will be said that it is not fair to Mr. Gladstone to compare him to +Prince Bismarck and Count Cavour, for they were men who found their +country in unusual circumstances. Look, then, to names in our own +history. Pitt must not be spoken of for the reasons just allowed in the +other cases; but there are Canning and Palmerston. How does Mr. +Gladstone look alongside them? He has himself more than once alluded to +Canning, as if not unwilling to be thought to have received his mantle. +It was, however, always only in connection with Greece that he spoke of +Canning; but that Minister looked much farther than the Mediterranean. +One would have thought that so fine a rhetorician as Mr. Gladstone would +not have forgotten the famous phrase in which Canning claimed to have +called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old. +Lord Palmerston was without any such fine phrases, but in foreign +affairs he acted boldly, though he had to fall back on a musty Latin +quotation to describe it. Every Englishman, however, understood Latin +when their Minister said, _Civis Romanus sum_. Yet neither of these +Ministers at any part of their career lived in times more stirring than +Mr. Gladstone has done, nor when the interests of England were more +endangered. He has still later had magnificent opportunities, but he did +worse than lose them. + +From all this, it would seem that, whether we look abroad or at home, +there is no possibility of describing Mr. Gladstone by hints of +comparison with these historical personages. What is said in that way +appears, in fact, to turn into contrast; which is, also, itself a mode +of delineation, though not usually of the kind the chief object of it +wishes. We can find no Minister to couple along with him as having +deliberately despaired of his country. However, Mr. Gladstone is +certainly great in some way, for although other nations while we were +under his sway were gradually losing sight of England herself as well as +of him, he was making plenty of noise all the time at home. If it should +turn out, as we go on, that he was not a great Minister but a great +orator, that would seem to account for both the things. If Bismarck and +Cavour have made affairs, Mr. Gladstone has made speeches, beating them +as much in that as they did him in the other respect. But it is not +exactly the same thing to the countries the men represent. + +It is, therefore, under a humbler, more domestic aspect than that of +this high supreme style of Minister which we have first tried that we +must begin Mr. Gladstone's portraiture. The task may be divided into two +portions. There is the opinion which we Conservatives hold of the +general influence and effect he has had upon our national interests, in +which we may be credited with at least trying to estimate his acts and +measures on their merits; and, besides that, there is a judgment of him +from a narrower party view, arising out of his historic relation to +ourselves. We will take the latter first. + +To hear Liberals talk, one might suppose that Conservatives had always +cherished a special hatred against Mr. Gladstone simply for ceasing to +be a Tory and becoming a Radical. That the Conservatives rather late in +his career came to show much irritation against Mr. Gladstone is +perfectly correct; but it was, as I hope to show as I go on, for very +different reasons than simply because he had made one Conservative less +and one Liberal more. A great political party has no such immortal +animosities as that supposes: party feeling is not based on merely +sentimental grounds. Both sides are used to losing men. It is the common +fate of Parliamentary warfare. Now and then, some rather idle person who +has time to waste in going back a long way in his recollections bethinks +himself that Lord Beaconsfield was not always a Conservative; but we +never yet heard of any one among the party challenging sympathy for him +on the score that he had been hunted by the Liberals through half a +century or so for having deserted them. Yet it will be admitted that +Lord Beaconsfield has injured the Liberals more than ever Mr. Gladstone +has done the Conservatives. What is the reason, then, of this difference +of alleged treatment in the two cases? The answer may be given in half a +sentence,--Lord Beaconsfield, alike when he was Mr. Disraeli and since, +has always fought fair. That is enough in politics to make your +opponents acquiesce in your being such; but Mr. Gladstone as his career +developed surprised and puzzled everybody, his own friends included; and +those who blame the Conservatives for, in the end, losing temper and +showing exasperation, should bear in mind that he finally produced the +very same effect upon the country at large. + +It is worth while following this point a little further, for it would +not be of much use attempting to sketch Mr. Gladstone if we are supposed +to dislike him from some mere party instinct. Will anybody be good +enough to tell us when this inscrutable emotion of hatred of Mr. +Gladstone arose? Liberals are not supposed to be strong in history, but +they have very short memories indeed if they have forgotten both their +own career and his. Why, in 1852--that is, in the twentieth year of Mr. +Gladstone's Parliamentary life--the Conservatives were offering him +office, which was not refused by him with over-much promptness. For +nearly fourteen years after that he was retained as the representative +of the University of Oxford. It is, in fact, not yet very much more +than a dozen years since this victim of political persecution, and +present champion of the Radicals, was quietly ensconced in a seat for +what is sometimes spoken of as the head-quarters of Toryism. He has +roved a good deal among the constituencies since, but he was then +willing to have gone on remaining at Oxford, if his constituents had +also been willing to have been made laughing-stocks by letting him +remain. Surely a man who represented Tory electors until he was getting +fast on for sixty could scarcely up to that point have been much hunted +and worried for Liberal principles. To speak plainly, there never was so +late a conversion made of so much histrionic use as this of Mr. +Gladstone's. But though it has suited both his and his present party's +ends, it rather puzzles plain people who have kept their recollections a +little trim to think that if he lives on into senatorial decrepitude, he +will never have sat for Radical constituencies anything like so long a +time as he did for Conservative ones. For between thirty and forty years +this Liberal ex-Premier was a Tory member. + +In fact, a glance at the right honourable gentleman's wonderfully +prosperous career will show that in the list of our public men he has of +all others made the fewest, the briefest, the least sacrifices either +for principle or party. There are very simple ways of testing it; Mr. +Gladstone has not been out of office long enough for a man who was +innocent of business prudence in his career. He has, in fact, reaped the +official spoils of two parties, if not of three. The dates and +appointments are on record for anybody to trace out. On the very face of +it, a man who has served under Peel, Aberdeen, Palmerston, and Russell, +and then come out as a full-blown Liberal Prime Minister himself, must +of necessity be said to offer rather a miscellaneous career. His warmest +admirer must admit that he has been either the most fortunate or else +the most prudent of men; and, as we do not wish to be stingy in our +recognition of his skill, we prefer to compliment him by attributing his +great prosperity throughout so many years and under so many different +chiefs to his prudence. + +If this very hasty review of Mr. Gladstone's chronicle does not agree +with the impression of him which is the prevailing one on the Liberal +side, it is the one which the bare facts of his career would produce on +every side if they could be seen without the misleading effect of his +very fine words and exceedingly solemn attitudes. Very fortunately for +him it is only the Conservatives who have a full and accurate +recollection of Mr. Gladstone. They have necessarily observed him +continuously from their own unshifting party position, and so have been +able to perceive in a way that hardly was practicable to the Liberals, +who were always shifting and struggling among themselves, how invariably +and consistently his announcements of change of view have hit with the +opportunities for improvement of his Parliamentary position. On every +occasion, to the very moment, so soon as a Liberal question had fully +ripened, Mr. Gladstone presented himself to pluck it. It was so with +Reform, it was so with Church Rates, it was so with University Reform, +it was so with the Ballot, it was so with the spoliation of the Irish +Church and the unsettling of the Irish landowners, and it is so with the +County Franchise, and it will be so once more, if the Liberals ever get +into power again, with the English Church and the English Land Laws. Mr. +Bright, Mr. Miall, and all the Radicals have drudged for many a year for +Mr. Gladstone, who, when all the outdoor work has been done, has always +allowed himself to be persuaded to bring in the Measure just in the nick +of time, and, by expounding it in a very fine speech, has robbed its +actual originators of two-thirds of the credit of making it possible. + +Luckily for the Conservatives, though he never had the courage to attack +a question of the very first class himself in the way of initiative, he +had an insatiable ambition for meddling with smaller ones, and by making +vents in these ways for his restlessness and his ambition, he finally +ruined all that his skilful prudence in the larger affairs had gained +him, disgusting the country till it determined to get him off its hands +at any price. Still, that is not just now the point in question. + +Mr. Gladstone's so slowly passing through all the stages from +Conservatism to Radicalism has had this effect,--that while all other +public men of his standing have grown more or less antiquated in steady +loyal service to their party, and by presenting a fixed if monotonous +aspect to the public, this one Parliamentary personage kept a perennial +freshness, simply by skilfully dividing his prolonged career into +distinct periods and going on changing. Some political section has been +always welcoming Mr. Gladstone newly into its ranks and to its spoils, +for, as we have said, the two things unfailingly went together; and the +shouts with which he was received were always strengthened by fainter +murmurs of applause from other sections more advanced along the line, +who hoped to receive him themselves later on. They did so. Really to +each one of them he was a recruit from the last party. To the +Palmerstonians he ought at the most to have been only a Peelite; to the +Liberals at worst only a Palmerstonian. But by a surprising adroitness, +it was always made to appear that in all his migrations from party to +party, he joined each successive group as a new retreater from the +Tories. It certainly was true in one sense; he was always going further +away from them. But for all party purposes and reckoning, he had as much +left them when he joined Palmerston as when he shook hands with Mr. +Bright and took his place in front of the Radicals. + +These are only a first handful of specimens of a certain unfairness in +Mr. Gladstone's position and career from first to last, from which he +has largely profited, and which very naturally irked his opponents, who +have had to suffer its inconveniences. He has posed as a sort of +political orphan left lonely in the Parliamentary world at the death of +Peel, who has been persecuted by wicked Tories from one Chancellorship +of the Exchequer to another, until they finally drove him into the +Premiership, but all this time he was successfully seceding from them, +though they continued in pursuit. It must have been Mr. Gladstone's +portentous earnestness of demeanour which has covered up from the +general public a joke so huge and prolonged as this, preventing +everybody from seeing that such a tale did not agree with his +unprecedented prosperity. But if in these ways he has kept himself +interesting to the country, and fresh and surprising for every group he +has in rotation joined, both he and his changes have long been stale to +the Conservatives. They are able to look along his whole track, and +seeing him from behind, know him as a Peelite, a follower of Aberdeen, a +Palmerstonian, a Russellite, and a Radical. They are debarred from +applying his own name to the last stage, and calling him a Gladstonian. +Strangely enough, and indeed very significantly, that term has never +taken root in our politics. There really have never been any +Gladstonians: no one ever was or ever will be called by that title. Mr. +Gladstone will end his days and depart without founding any school; he +will stand recorded only as the acceptor of office from those who did +so, and the passer of other people's measures. But in political life a +man who attains the first rank of conspicuousness without founding a +line may fairly be suspected. It will be found that he has been too busy +in a narrower way,--looking after not questions but himself. To that +very small party, numerically reckoned, consisting of only one member, +Mr. Gladstone has been consistently and untiringly faithful. He has +challenged for it sympathy in all the ways to which his very fine +oratory has lent itself, and he has not neglected the humbler art of +perpetual advertisement, keeping it by means of the press and the +platform ever before the public eye. But when he finally leaves us it is +certain to vanish entirely. + +Very likely some ardent Radical, whose mind is so full of having got Mr. +Gladstone at last that he forgets, or perhaps never knew, how many +grades and shades of politicians have in succession enjoyed him before, +will say that in all this we are only railing at Mr. Gladstone's +success. His success! In order to describe Mr. Gladstone, we had first +to write retrospectively, take in his earlier phases, and to look +generally at his whole history. In that retrospect, down to a late point +in it, he was exceedingly prosperous; but we never meant to say that he +had been very successful since the beginning of 1874. There is not the +slightest need for any Conservative to feel bitter against Mr. Gladstone +now on any grounds of personal envy. He has done them the greatest +service of any public man for three generations; and at any time he +might have individually prospered as much as he liked for them, if it +had been possible for him to do it without injuring his country. It is +to this more serious examination of his career that we now go. + +Not that we propose to entangle ourselves in the minute details of it, +for that is in no way necessary. We have already in part explained why +we may, in such a sketch as this, drop out many years of his political +life. For a great length of time Mr. Gladstone was only a Budget-maker. +It is true he made them for Governments that were not Conservative, but +he still was considered nearly a Conservative outside his financial +handicraft. And here, again, part of the explanation we earlier gave +applies. There is not the slightest reason why any Conservative should +pause long to consider Mr. Gladstone as the passer of the Ballot, or +even as the disestablisher of the Irish Church and the interferer with +the rights of landed property in Ireland. The only thing special to be +said about him in connection with these things as distinguishing him +from the ruck of Liberals would be, that he was a very late ex-Tory, and +at the time a professed High Churchman. He somehow got the Liberals to +let him write his name across every one of those measures so soon as it +was seen that they would pass, and he has made the legislation in that +way seem to be his; but the Conservatives know with whom they had really +to deal in the inception and the pushing forward of those movements, and +it was not Mr. Gladstone. The real men were Mr. Bright, Mr. Dillwyn, Mr. +Miall, and those who for many a year worked with them while Mr. +Gladstone was never heard of, never thought of, in connection with the +matters they had always matured before he had anything to do with them. + +Nor was it on account of these affairs that Mr. Gladstone's fall +occurred when it came, which is another reason why it would be waste of +time to discuss them in connection with him. Who is proposing to alter +these things now that they have been fought out between the great +parties of the State and decided? As a supplement to his Irish Land +Bill, we now have the Irish peasants refusing to pay any rent at all: +but in these days when a thing is done in our Parliament it is done. The +Conservatives, in spite of the majority at their back, have never put +forward a finger to touch those settlements, nor do they mean to do so; +and yet not only our own country, but all Europe, and indeed realms +farther away still, have been keenly aware that the Beaconsfield +Ministry has been very busy for years undoing something that Mr. +Gladstone had done. + +What was this gigantic task, which was not the repealing of legislation, +or the passing of statutes of any kind, but which required courage and +effort more arduous than those things? There must have been some cause +for the bursts of applause which have again and again echoed on our +shores from all parts of the civilized globe at something that was going +on. It was, we hasten to answer, the rehabilitation of England in the +eyes of the world,--the restoration of her ancient power as a factor in +the enforcement and administration of public right among the nations. +Somehow, coincidently with Mr. Gladstone's prosperity as a Minister, +England, his country, had sunk, and in exactly answering ratio, and was +sinking lower and lower still daily. He was very famous, or at least +very notorious, at home, but the renown of Britain abroad was clouding; +and our people never will bear that, as history had shown before. This +man, who at heart was but a financier, and who ought in the fitness of +things never to have risen higher in office than a Chancellor of the +Exchequer, whose function it should have been to find funds for some one +else as a Prime Minister capable of a policy in the higher international +politics befitting an Empire, was conducting our foreign affairs in the +spirit of a commercial traveller; willing to effect a little saving by +giving up a group of islands in one part or a bit of territory in +another, and to effect an economy at another time by backing out of a +treaty. Though, at the same time, if anybody insisted, and there loomed, +however distantly, a possibility of war, he would pay the money down in +a hurry by millions, as he did in the Alabama case. We should have had +all the world insisting very soon, making peace more costly than war +itself, besides the shame of unjustifiable surrender. + +But we were spared all this; though the undoing of the humiliation, as +far as it had gone, has fully occupied Mr. Gladstone's successors ever +since. + +This is the great accusation which the Conservatives have to bring +against Mr. Gladstone--that of having degraded the position of his +country; and an arraignment more fatal than this cannot be made in the +case of a chief Minister. It is not alone the Conservatives who make it. +Did not Earl Russell, Liberal though he was, find enough English blood +in his aged veins when writing his last book, to say that Mr. Gladstone +had dragged the name of England through the mire? But it would not be +quite accurate to put this forward as the full explanation of Mr. +Gladstone's sudden tumble from office; for it was not until after that +occurred that the bulk of people quite knew the whole extent of the +injury he had worked in this respect. The Conservative leaders guessed +it, but they knew more about foreign affairs than the rank and file of +the nation. Everybody, of course, high and low, was aware that he had +unasked given up the Ionian Islands because of some literary reasons +which he had come upon in writing books about Homer, that he had +surrendered territory in the San Juan Boundary Question, and that he had +quietly gone to Geneva and paid America, not indeed all she asked,--for +even with Britain's wealth the whole of the first modest request would +only have been found with difficulty,--but he had counted down a sum +that made Brother Jonathan's shrewd eyes twinkle with joy. The country, +from these events following one another, had come to have a very uneasy +feeling that somehow under his auspices everything was going against us +abroad. Still it was only later that it was made fully apparent how +completely England was effaced; not until the three Emperors had begun +to settle the rearrangement of Eastern Europe, without so much as saying +to Great Britain, "By your leave." There is difficulty when looking back +now to prevent oneself from suffering some illusion in this respect; but +it is a fact, and we may be glad of it, that Englishmen did not until it +was roughly forced upon them suppose beforehand that their position had +dwindled to quite so low an ebb. + +At the elections of 1874, there was no distinct foreign policy before +the public, for though there were many on the Conservative side who +sympathized with France in her adversity, and saw clearly that Germany's +mutilation of her territory meant trouble in time to come, not a voice +was raised in deprecation of our neutrality. But, for the matter of +that, it may be just as correctly said that there was no matured +domestic question before the country, for it will not be supposed that +there was a single Tory any more than a Liberal who wished the Income +Tax to be retained on his shoulders. It was hardly for proposing to do +away with that impost that everybody voted so unanimously against Mr. +Gladstone; they only did so at the polling-booths in spite of his +proposing it, which somehow seems rather mysterious. If his opponents +were not proposing to recall any of the recent legislation, and if there +was no special question of foreign affairs pending, and if nobody had +any desire not to be lightened of taxation, how was it, pray, that Mr. +Gladstone was so ignominiously hurled from power? In reality, there is +not the slightest difficulty about it--Mr. Gladstone was decisively +rejected by his countrymen, not on any question of policy, either home +or foreign, but because of the _personal impression_ he had slowly but +surely imprinted on their minds. The real issue before the country was +whether it would have any more of Mr. Gladstone, and it said No. + +It is a common artifice on the part of his apologisers to insinuate that +he had wearied the nation by offering it too many things for its good. +But neither individuals nor communities are much in the habit of +refusing gifts; it is the one thing, and nearly the only thing, in this +world for which there is an excellent reason whenever so strange a +proceeding happens. There is another way of representing the matter, one +much less complimentary but far more true--the country was sick of Mr. +Gladstone. Even the sight of Mr. Lowe standing at his side with four +millions of surplus in his hands was not enough to tempt them. The +promise to abolish the Income Tax was the most tremendous bribe ever +offered to the constituencies, but, to their credit, it did not corrupt +them. They would not accept Mr. Gladstone any longer at any price +whatever. The believers in democracy, and Mr. Gladstone in particular, +according to some of his very latest reasonings, ought to have accepted +this universal disgust as being a popular inspiration. However, they +have done nothing of the kind, but avow that it was a public delusion, +which they at first hinted would be temporary; but if the public is +liable to delusions, and to fits of them which continue for seven or +eight years at a stretch, for that is now the duration of this one, what +becomes of these very radical gentlemen's democracy? For it is not +really open to them to plead, though they will go on doing it, that the +people's eyes were dazzled by a glitter of diplomatic success, and their +blood infuriated by a skilfully aroused anti-Russian feeling. It is not +open to them for a simple reason, but a very conclusive one: the +elections came before anything of this could have happened; and the +elections themselves arrived with the suddenness they did owing to +something which had preceded them--namely, a steady run of Ministerial +defeats in the by-contests, wherever a vacancy occurred in a +constituency. Mr. Gladstone avowed all this in the address with which he +startled the Greenwich electors and the whole country, though he and his +friends have never mentioned the fact since. It was for the purpose of +putting all things right that the elections which put them all more +wrong still were so unexpectedly ordered. It was not because of being +intoxicated by the diplomatic triumph of Lord Beaconsfield and Lord +Salisbury at Berlin--which did not occur till years after--that the +constituencies rejected Mr. Gladstone. We have no wish to be +unnecessarily impolite, but the true reason for it was that which we +have named already--they had come not to like Mr. Gladstone. If we trace +that fact backwards in a natural way, we shall find that one cause of it +was that they felt the honour and the interest of England were not safe +in his hands; but this was only one among other causes. It swelled +afterwards into the biggest reason of all, and now practically includes +all the others; but, at the moment, it was not actually known that the +safety of England was about to be imperilled. + +The voters were affected by other reasons. What were those other +reasons? The public must have known them pretty clearly at the time, +since it acted so promptly and decidedly upon them, and it, therefore, +ought not to need very much recalling of them now, for the time, after +all, is not so very long ago. But it may be as well to go into them a +little, since it was through the incidents furnishing them that the +general public was led to form the very same estimate of Mr. Gladstone +which the Conservatives had held for about a score of years before. At +last the popular judgment coincided with that of his Parliamentary +opponents, and he fell from power. But any one who will give a moment's +consideration to the cases of the Collier appointment, the Ewelme +Rectory affair, and the issue of the Royal Warrant on purchase in the +army, will see that we are right in affirming that Mr. Gladstone's +ignominious expulsion from office was owing to moral rather than +political causes. It stands recorded that this Minister, who had put +religious professions in the front of his politics in a way novel to +public life, had to defend his conduct over and over again in the House +of Commons by quoting the mere letter of the law. Parliament became not +unlike the Old Bailey when a legal wrangle is going on over the +technicalities of an indictment; and the unwonted spectacle of Lord +Chief Justices accusing a theological Premier of having somehow evaded a +statute was not made any less unedifying by Mr. Gladstone showing great +skill in being his own attorney. Everybody must admit that he certainly +did that. + +It is possible to recall each of the cases in very few words. An Act of +Parliament had been passed with a view to strengthening the Judicial +Committee of the Privy Council, and, as this Court was one of Appeal, it +stood to reason that those appointed to it to revise other Judges' +decisions should have had judicial experience themselves. It was +expressly provided in the Act that those to be raised to this Court +should be already Judges. To the surprise of the whole country, Sir +Robert Collier, well known as Mr. Gladstone's Attorney-General, and, +therefore, conspicuously only a waiter for a judgeship, not a judge +already, was announced as the filler of one of these vacancies, before +half the readers of the newspapers knew that he had ceased to be +Attorney-General. It turned out, however, that he was in reality a judge +at the moment, and that he had been one for some few moments previously, +having, in fact, sat on the bench of the Common Pleas for just two days. +There is not space to follow Mr. Gladstone's wonderful reasoning, but it +chiefly turned on a point so fine as this, that what the Act meant to +stipulate was not experience, but _status_. In other words, that a man +should be made a judge of one kind for five minutes, in order to be +turned into one of another kind, just for the say of the thing. Amazed +members of the Legislature which had passed the enactment protested that +they were not so foolishly subtle as this, and that they had never, +before Mr. Gladstone mentioned it, thought of any such distinction as +that between _status_ and experience. + +But this was not the only instance in which he has told people what they +had intended better than they knew, and all differently. In the Ewelme +Rectory business he would have it that when a statute said Oxford it +meant Cambridge, or at least that its specifying Oxford did not signify, +or that it included Cambridge, or, in fact, might be construed to +prescribe anything else which it did not say and which was contrary to +what everybody had thought of it before. However, here, again, as the +lawyers would otherwise have been troublesome, the technicality was +found to have been formally complied with. The words of the enactment +did really require that the man who was to be made rector of Ewelme +parish should be a member of Oxford Convocation, and Mr. Harvey, Mr. +Gladstone's friend, who had been educated at Cambridge, and who, until +that living became vacant, had never dreamed of connection with Oxford, +was made a member of the Convocation, in order to receive the living. Of +course, Mr. Gladstone argued that Mr. Harvey's being a Master of Arts +was enough, though the statute said nothing of that, and everybody else +had thought it expressly stated a certain University where the Master of +Arts was to come from. + +But let us go on to the third case, that of the issue of the Royal +Warrant abolishing purchase. Not a few of the Liberals who exulted at +the success of the party measure had a misgiving at the way in which it +was secured. It was felt to be a victory which could not be repeated, +and one of a style which, if they who snatched it had been +Conservatives, would have thrown the country into a convulsion. The most +violent act in the name of the Crown which the oldest man living in +England has witnessed, was counselled by Mr. Gladstone. Because the +Lords, in the exercise of the power which the Constitution gives them, +were not willing instantly to pass his Bill for giving an entirely new +social aspect to the army, he caused the Queen to do nothing short of +superseding them entirely, and practically reduced the Constitution at a +stroke to the Commons and the Crown. It is just now part of the tactics +of the Liberals to protest against some imagined wish to bring in +"personal rule." If any such preposterous design existed, it would be +Mr. Gladstone's own act which would be fallen back upon for the +precedent. The feeling which has best enabled the most thoughtful among +Englishmen to understand the kind of shock which foreigners experience +on the occurrence of one of the political earthquakes which they call on +the Continent by the name _coup d'etat_, was that which ran through the +country when Mr. Gladstone announced that there was nothing for the +Lords to discuss, that he had advised the Queen to issue a Royal +Warrant. We had lost all recollection of the particular sensation, but +he brought back just a twinge of it. Mr. Gladstone, however, can do +Radical acts and then explain them historically. Once more we found +ourselves all inextricably entangled in his casuistry. He now argued +that the Royal Warrant had not been issued by exercise of prerogative, +but in strict pursuance of statutory power, there being some Act of the +Georges to that effect, which ordinary people had forgotten. It is not +necessary to follow the thing further. In the end, Mr. Gladstone became +too clever for the country. Even the dullest began to perceive that Mr. +Gladstone could conscientiously do whatever he liked. The more subtly he +argued, the more plain John Bull got puzzled. + +It may, at first sight, seem tasking the public memory too much to ask +people if they remember the tension there was in the political +atmosphere towards the end of Mr. Gladstone's career. But a very great +many will not have forgotten it. The political weather is so far like +the other sort that it is only borne in mind for its badness; that, +however, was a terrible season. At the last, Mr. Gladstone seemed to +have got into the air, and he did not improve the climate. He may urge, +certainly, that Mr. Lowe had made himself very obnoxious, that Mr. +Ayrton had been found to be intolerable, and that the great trade of the +publicans, with all its supporters, was in arms against Mr. Bruce. That +is all true; the country disliked each one of these his chief +colleagues. But neither Mr. Lowe's hard cynicism, nor Mr. Ayrton's +dogmatic inaestheticism, nor Mr. Bruce's stolid mechanical interference, +stirred the large keen dissatisfaction which Mr. Gladstone's own +incomprehensibility in the end did. He gave men's consciences a shock, +and none of the others affected to feel so deeply as that: it was only +he who had stood forward as a political moralist, and then set everybody +by the ears discussing his conduct. It was the same outside Parliament +and within it. Everybody was arguing Mr. Gladstone; nobody could make +him out, nobody felt safe, or could imagine what was coming next. If the +atmosphere had but been charged a little more with him, England would +not have been worth living in. Luckily the elections came, and the air +was cleared. + +But if in the more exaggerated instances we have above spoken of, the +general public became aware of a certain obliquity, an unreliability, a +dissatisfied restlessness, an imperiousness in Mr. Gladstone, the +Conservatives had been more or less continuously aware of those +qualities for many years. They, as we said earlier, have had to observe +the right hon. gentleman closer, more continuously, and it would be easy +for any one of them who is of middle age to give from his own memory a +string of instances, just the same in kind as those above, though not so +broadly striking, beginning much earlier in his career, and coming down +much later. Very recently, Lord Salisbury at Manchester recalled Mr. +Gladstone's dealings with his Oxford constituents in reference to the +disestablishment of the Irish Church. But his lordship courteously +spared his opponent the details. Has the world forgotten the famous +letter to Dr. Hannah, bearing the date of June, 1865, written, as Mr. +Gladstone himself with unlooked-for _naivete_ admits in his "Chapter of +Autobiography," for the appeasing of doubts? He in it asserted, first of +all, that the question was "remote and apparently out of all bearing on +the practical politics of the day;" second, he avowed that he was +probably going "to be silent" on the topic; third, he said that "he +scarcely expected ever to be called on to share in such a measure;" and, +as his finishing words, spoke of it as "a question lying at a distance +he could not measure." These were far too many causes for not doing a +thing, and the Conservatives accordingly began to look out. In 1869, Mr. +Gladstone disestablished the Irish Church. The "remoteness" and the +"distance which was not measurable" somehow came to be packed within +these two dates,--1865-9. What had so hurried matters? Well, one can +only recall what had happened in the interim, and among the events there +had been these two occurrences--he had been expelled from Oxford and +rejected by South Lancashire. The like suddenness attended his +conversion on the subject of the Ballot. After half a lifetime of +opposition, he one fine morning announced that it must pass, hardly a +hint of warning having been given beforehand. + +But his whole career has shown this suddenness of advance, at distinct +periods, which, as we have said, always coincided with the brightening +of the prospects of the respective agitations. It is true, as is earlier +pointed out, that he took something like a quarter of a century to +travel the ground between the Conservative starting-point and the +Radical position, but the length of time was not owing to his creeping +between the bounds; he has traversed it at successive leaps, standing +still between, and, at the places where he remained stationary, there +was always the warm shelter of office. This style of progress has +characterized him down to the present moment. As late as 1874 he told a +deputation that he did not consider the question of the County Franchise +ripe. There has been a good deal of very indifferent weather since then; +but whether or not the field crops have matured, it seems now that the +agricultural labourer has been growing fast. Mr. Joseph Arch has been +the sun that has shone upon him, and Mr. Gladstone, as usual, is quite +ready to reap the harvest. Examples might be multiplied manifold. Take +the boasted case of the Liberal surplus, of which we have never ceased +to hear--just as if Mr. Lowe and Mr. Gladstone had between them coined +the money. Its history, stated in three words, was this: Mr. Lowe had +mulcted the public in an unnecessary twopence of Income Tax, and, +instead of shamefully confessing the incompetency it showed in a +Chancellor of the Exchequer, presented himself before the +constituencies, on the eve of the elections, with his hands full of +gold, and with the air of presenting it to them. + +Mr. Gladstone, great financier as he is, was not above profiting by his +subordinate's miscalculation. Instead of administering a rebuke, as a +good journeyman might have been expected to do to a bad apprentice, he +patted Mr. Lowe on the back. Indeed, in the Greenwich address, when he +so magniloquently spoke of the money being given back in the shape of +abolishing the Income Tax, he seemed to take some credit to himself. + +It will be beginning, perforce, to dawn upon the reader that this was a +Minister very difficult to be dealt with by an Opposition. If we had +space in this paper, a part of the task of sketching Mr. Gladstone would +be to point out how injuriously he has confused the demarcation of +parties; how unscrupulous he has been in seeking allies which on no +principle of fair classification belonged to him. It may be nothing that +he can half apologize for Irish Obstructionists--the Liberals have +always exploited Irish members. But this very high Churchman, who clings +to a tenet so ridiculous in the eyes of Dissenters as apostolical +succession, can figure in Dr. Joseph Parker's chapel, and betray a close +and not uncomplimentary knowledge of the trust-deed of the Rev. Newman +Hall's congregation. This austere gentleman, who, when inquiring into +the "Theses of Erastus" (see his article), finds out that moral offences +are at the root and source of all heresy, has a kindly word for such +free-thinkers as happen to be also political leaders of the working +men--Mr. Bradlaugh, for example. This objector to divorce, on such +stupendously elevated grounds as that we are all members of a mystical +body, and who cannot bring himself to allow more than a civil marriage +to a deceased wife's sister, mingles in the ruck of Radicals. But if he +has what they must think ecclesiastical crotchets, he always manages +them with most skilful prudence. If he has to satisfy his most private +feelings by bringing in no fewer than six resolutions in more or less +opposition to the Public Worship Bill, he can withdraw them again. But +was this the gentleman to champion Radicals and Dissenters? An +Opposition which had to keep its own consistent lines, and which was +closely restricted as to its allies, was at a perpetual disadvantage +with one whose own opinions, subtle and complicated as they might be, +cut him off from nobody who could be of aid. + +Fortunately the country itself, at a certain rather tardy point, rallied +its patriotism in that spontaneous way which always practically +reinforces the Conservative party. The "Alabama" claims gave those who +did not meddle much in politics their first shock, while for more +thoughtful persons it brought back a reminiscence of the surrender of +the Ionian Islands; and when, later, the public saw him stand tamely by +while Russia tore up the Black Sea clauses of the Treaty of Paris, every +student of our history knew that Mr. Gladstone's fate was sealed. The +nation, stirred by arousings of the deeper instincts of the English +character, at last reckoned with him on general grounds--dislike of his +personal demeanour, and dread of what he was bringing on the country. It +refused to be won either by the finest oratory or the prospect of +reduced taxation. + +The Conservatives came into power on the highest tide of popular feeling +which living Englishmen have witnessed. But the change was too late to +prevent mischief; Russia, encouraged by England's effacement during Mr. +Gladstone's sway, had matured her further plans, and had already put her +secret intrigues into motion. The Treaty of San Stefano showed plainly +what her plan was, and just as clearly does everybody not blinded by +party feeling now know that to Russia's amazement, and amidst the +surprised and grateful admiration of the whole civilized globe, the +present Ministry have thwarted that plan and made England again safe and +famous. It would be a waste of time to retrace the details: a summary of +them is to be found in Lord Salisbury's Manchester speech. What alone +further concerns us here is the manner in which Mr. Gladstone has borne +himself in Opposition. We have already seen how he did so as a Minister. +It was understood, indeed, that he had retired, with something which was +meant to pass for dignity, though to the eyes of the nation there was +never anything which was not sulk which had so much the look of it. +However, on the plea that something had happened in the world, he was +quickly back again in front, elbowing Lord Hartington aside. Speeches, +in Parliament and out, articles in every magazine, republication in +pamphlet and volume, letters to everybody, which, practically, meant to +all the newspapers: there never was such an active resuscitation of one +who had so publicly become politically defunct. It is, however, not for +coming to life again that we find fault with Mr. Gladstone, for, in +truth, we always expected it. + +Our complaint is simply this, that if such a style of opposition as he +has resorted to became habitual, the government of the country would be +made impossible. No means were left untried to make Russia hope, and +other nations fear, that Lord Beaconsfield had not the nation at his +back, and, when owing to this encouragement, Russia showed obstinacy, +and it was necessary to risk something by exhibiting boldness, that very +necessity was sought to be turned into a reproach. Mr. Gladstone's own +tactics made it imperative that in the matter of Cyprus, and some other +negotiations, secrecy should be observed, and the Government was charged +with acting unconstitutionally, as if constitutional usage imposed no +limits on the Opposition, or as if those limits had not been +transgressed. Just so, again, in the Afghan war. If Lord Northbrook had +acted with spirit years before, that war would never have been +necessary; but that trifling fact Mr. Gladstone overlooked, he and the +Duke of Argyll making it appear that Lord Lytton had been at great pains +to get himself and his Government into a difficulty. Why Mr. Gladstone +has had so little to say about the Cape war is a mystery, which may be +explained some day; all that can now be said of it is that it shows a +striking inconsistency. Luckily his efforts, though his industry was +gigantic, have failed, and even he must be now aware that his renewal of +them, though we suppose it must go on, having been arranged so long and +announced so pompously, is a trifle late, with the Cape war ended, our +troops in Cabul, those of Austria at Novi Bazar, and checkmated, +scolding Russia gnashing her teeth at Germany. However, no doubt we +shall have some very fine speeches, proving that nothing of this ought +to have happened, or that it won't last long, or that the Beaconsfield +Administration did not bring it about, or any thing else, just as +reasonable, for fine words can be arranged in many different ways by a +practised orator. + +What, then, we may finally ask, was the secret of Mr. Gladstone's +success so long as he was prosperous, and what was the explanation of +his fall when it so suddenly arrived? The thrifty skill of calculation +in estimating the growth of questions which his whole career so +irresistibly points to was spoken of early in this sketch; but a man, no +matter how judicious in the management of his own approaches to a party, +cannot impose himself upon it. The Liberals, on the successive +occasions, welcomed Mr. Gladstone, and did so gladly, never making his +very late conversions a reproach. Its leaders were more vociferous in +hailing him at each renewed arrival one stage farther on than were the +rank and file, though some of them, as the thing was repeated, must have +been struck with the unfailing punctuality of his approach. Not that we +are professing to sympathize with these gentlemen. If it satisfied them +that whenever they had upset a Government, be it that of Aberdeen or of +Palmerston, the inevitable Mr. Gladstone always emerged out of the +wreck, just a little more Liberal than the day before, ready to take the +first pick of places in the new Cabinet, all well and good. But the fact +was that his arrival always was a convenience, for, no matter how the +sections differed among themselves, the rallying round Mr. Gladstone as +a further seceder from Toryism was a proceeding in which they could all +join, and it gave them, again and again, an appearance of unanimity and +cohesion. This was, in fact, his great function, and in it he has been +very valuable to the party. Besides, though so late and seemingly slow +in politics, he had from the first been great, and at the outset even +precocious, in finance; and, further, he was a wonderful orator, even +quicker in debating than Mr. Bright. Such a personage, so largely +prudent and so highly gifted, was sure to succeed, and to do so for a +long time; but he was also certain to fail in the end, and that +completely. + +His temperament made that nearly certain. He was always too busy making +speeches, or writing for the press, or answering letters, to be any +power in social life. A strange kind of semi-recluse, but combining with +bookworm habits a passion for speechifying and for using the penny post, +was not likely to conciliate London, and he never did. By-and-by he was +railing at the Clubs, because they did not agree with him; and then he +had next to appeal from the metropolitan journals to the superior +politicians and brighter wits who preside over the provincial +newspapers. All this prognosticated failure. Even his special gifts and +the kind of successes which fell to him turned into the means of helping +it. His turn for figures not unnaturally made immediate economy his +great object, forgetful of the larger connection in such a land as ours +between an imperial position in the world and the preservation of our +commerce, and overlooking also the costliness of reasserting our +position when a crisis came; while his ready eloquence, having no longer +open to it the old patriotic themes, had to expend itself in the +adornment of British abnegation, and the excited applause given to his +rhetoric was mistaken by him for assent to his views, till he was amazed +to find himself suddenly quite out of accord with the nation, and +falling, he knew not why, headlong from power. + +Even to this hour he seems never to have had the least misgiving that +the man who could speak with such complacency of the trading supremacy +of the world passing to America (see his article on "Kin Beyond the +Sea"), and who could urge as a reason for our not caring to interfere in +Egypt that it would be the egg of a North African empire (see his +article on "Aggression on Egypt and Freedom in the East"), was not the +man to be England's Minister. But the country had found it out even +before he wrote those articles; his threatening his countrymen with the +calamity of finding another empire on their hands, in the only part of +the world yet remaining to be explored and civilized, has only proved +that they were right, and will not terrify Englishmen. + +But a fluent orator has always left to him a kind of gambler's hope of +retrieving everything by talking. Mr. Gladstone is going to alter +everything by making a dozen or two of speeches in Scotland. Are these +Midlothian harangues to be longer than that made at Greenwich, or more +numerous than those uttered in Lancashire? They may be as fine as they +will for anything it signifies to Conservatives, if the result is only +again the same as on the other occasions, and it is hardly likely that +he will persuade Englishmen now amidst their returning renown to despair +of the future of England. + + A CONSERVATIVE. + + + + +THE ANCIEN REGIME AND THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. + + _Histoire de l'Ancien Regime_, par HENRI TAINE. Paris. + _Histoire de la Revolution francaise_, par HENRI TAINE. Paris. + + +When De Tocqueville,in his celebrated work upon the Ancien Regime and +the Revolution, had described the downfall of the Bourbon monarchy, he +ended with these words:--"I have now reached the threshold of the great +Revolution; on this occasion I shall not cross it, but perhaps I may +soon be in a position to do so, and then I shall no longer consider its +causes, but its nature, and shall finally venture to pass judgment on +the society that has proceeded from it." + +Death prevented this admirable inquirer from accomplishing his purpose, +a loss to the historical literature of Europe for ever to be regretted, +and certainly not least by the author who has now undertaken to fill up +the blank, and complete De Tocqueville's projected task--the +description, namely, of modern France as the outcome of the immense +transformation which the Revolution brought upon the Old French State. +The fundamental principles which appear so clearly and sharply in +Tocqueville's development are prominent in Taine's; the activity of the +earlier author prepared the ground for the later to build on. But we +must admit that Taine's work is pre-eminently independent, and his +descriptions more striking, broad, and richly coloured than those of his +precursor, while the material contents of his work are often different. +But what, in spite of this, constitutes the resemblance between the two +men is, their having for basis a common conception both of the State and +what it presupposes, and of the historian and his task. It is the very +opposite of the manner of thinking entertained in the eighteenth century +which, without any heed to the peculiar character of the necessities of +a given people, was bent on constructing, according to simple rules of +reason and natural law, the best State for all time. Taine, in a very +striking manner, declares himself free from such an error. "In 1849," he +observes, "I was an elector, and had to take part in the naming of a +large number of Deputies. Therefore it was necessary not only to decide +as to persons, but as to theories as well; I was required to be Royalist +or Republican, Democrat or Conservative, Socialist or Bonapartist, and I +was nothing of the kind--nay, I was nothing at all, and envied those who +had the luck to be something. These worthy men built a constitution as +they would a house, on the most ornamental, most new, or most simple +plan; a row of models stood ready for choice, a baronial castle, a +burgher's house, a workshop, a barrack, a phalanstery, a cottage, and +each said of his favourite model: 'That is the only proper dwelling, the +only one a rational man would inhabit.' To me this seemed an utter +mistake. A people, as I thought, may indeed be able to say what house +they admire, but some experience is needed to teach them what house they +need, whether it be commodious and lasting, stands the weather well, and +harmonizes with the customs, occupations, and fancy of its occupant. We +here in France have never been content with our political erections; in +the course of eighty years we have pulled them down and rebuilt them +thirteen times. Other nations have acted differently, and found their +advantage in so doing. They have preserved an old, substantial building, +enlarged, built around, and beautified it according to their needs, but +never attempted to build an ideal house at one stroke, according to the +rules of pure reason. It would therefore appear that the sudden +invention of an entirely new, and at the same time suitable and durable +constitution is an undertaking that transcends human capacity. The +political and social form which a people permanently assumes is no +matter of choice, but fixed by its character and its past. It must be +suited to its idiosyncrasy, even in the minutest points, or it will +crack and fall. Therefore we must know ourselves before we can discover +what the proper constitution for us is. We must invert the accustomed +method, and first form to ourselves a picture of the nation before we +sketch a constitution. At the same time this is a far harder and wider +task than the one hitherto in favour. What inquiries into past and +present, what labour in all domains of thought and action, are needed to +understand with precision and completeness the nature and growth of a +great people through centuries! But it is the only way to avoid putting +out first empty discussions and then incoherent constructions; and, as +regards myself, I shall not think of a political opinion until I have +learnt to know France." + +From this rejection of the rationalistic State theory, it follows, of +course, that the author declines the style of historical writing that +corresponds with it. We all know how parties who contended in the course +of the Revolution have gone on attempting to justify their historical +representation of it--Emigrants and Feuillans, Girondists and +Montagnards, Bonapartists and Communists. They all knew exactly at the +beginning of their historical labours what the conclusions arrived at +would be. Their own party had the ideal of the only healthy State cut +and dry, and hence the sentence upon companions, allies, and enemies was +pronounced beforehand. The desirable aspects of the Revolution were +owing to the activity of that party, the undesirable to the +worthlessness of its adversaries. The study of isolated facts only awoke +real interest in so far as it sharpened the perception of the main +point--our party is right, all others are wrong. To this disposition of +mind more than to any other hindrances we may attribute the small +advance made, up to the middle of our century, in the knowledge of +facts, in the history of the Revolution; this is what explains the else +inexplicable phenomenon that, spite of the large interest felt in the +period, no history of Louis XVI. drawn from authentic documents has as +yet been written. For that even the books of De Tocqueville and Taine, +spite of the strength of their authors' intellect and the wealth of +their material, have not afforded us this, we shall soon convincingly +see. + +Both these works, however, are invaluable preparations for the writing +of such a history. With firm and decided political principles of their +own, both authors have determined to serve no party, but knowledge only. +Both desire to know men and circumstances before they judge of the +political experiments made. Both are full of the spirit of the old +saying: "Human affairs are neither to be wept over nor laughed at, but +to be understood." It is only when we know the soil and the seed from +which the Revolution sprang that we can understand its nature and +working, and only from the understanding of the whole can we pronounce +upon the details with which factions have hitherto concerned themselves +in endless and unprofitable debate. We will illustrate our meaning by a +contrary procedure. I have not unfrequently heard the question: "How can +Taine, whose first volume reveals more fully than any previous work the +utter corruption of the Ancien Regime, place the Revolution in his +second in an equally unfavourable light? If the old state were so +completely good for nothing, the French were perfectly right in utterly +destroying it." Accordingly, there has been no want of critics who, +after the appearance of the first volume, declared the author to be a +thorough Liberal, and, after the second, in deep disappointment, +proclaimed him a thoroughly reactionary politician. There are, indeed, +certain passages that might lead to such a conclusion, certain +inconsistencies do appear, but on the whole it is self-evident, from an +historical standpoint, that out of so evil a condition as the first +volume paints the dark pictures of the second must needs grow. Rather +should we have had cause to wonder if from a diseased root there had +sprung a healthy tree. The men of the Revolution had grown up on no +other soil and in no other atmosphere than that of the Ancien Regime; it +was under it that their notions had arisen, their passions been +fostered, and their ideal formed; it was there that their nature had +received its stamp and their strivings their direction; and if all +relations were dislocated, political feeling perverted, all portions of +the people filled with bitter hatred against the State and each other, +how should pupils in such a school amidst the final shock of +catastrophes show themselves men of ripe experience, practical wisdom, +and determined energy? He who has once taken in this simple truth will +be much inclined to a mild judgment of individual men and parties; at +all events, he will not be able abruptly to take sides either for or +against the Ancien Regime or the Revolution. For one thing will have +grown clear to him, that the Revolution was not the destroyer alone, but +the undeniable offspring, of the old condition of things. + +That a work of Henri Taine's displays literary ability of the first +order there is no need to say. His representation of events is grounded +on most industrious study; unpublished documents of all kinds are cited, +as well as printed works, and among the latter we have not only French, +but foreign authorities--English more especially--while German are +hardly so much as noticed. At all events, the mass of thoroughly +explored material is enormous, and our historical knowledge is +frequently extended, rectified, and cleared thereby. We shall attempt to +follow the general line of thought running through the book, and now and +then to controvert it on certain points. + +It will be remembered to what pregnant results Tocqueville's inquiries +led. The centralized government of France is by no means a creation of +our century, but a production of the Ancien Regime. Since the days of +Richelieu, ministers of finance and their intendants and delegates had +taken the exclusive charge of police of every kind, public works and +plans, the economic and spiritual welfare of the people. The elementary +principles of political liberty and parliamentary constitution, of +independent local administration and commercial freedom, were destroyed +thereby. Spiritual and temporal magnates had been almost sovereigns in +the districts in which they fulfilled the duties of government, +preserved internal and external peace, protected local interests, and +consequently imposed taxes and corvees upon their dependents, while +often successfully resisting royal aggression--all these magnates were +now as unconditionally as the mass of the people subjected to the royal +bureaucracy and forced out of all political activity--thenceforth, as +hated parasites, they had to live at the cost of the working people. The +King, therefore, assembled them at his Court, where, in compensation for +their loss of liberty and honour, pensions and presents--always at the +cost of the people--were heaped upon them. Thus the popular hatred went +on intensifying with every generation, and was at length the source and +essential element of the great Revolution. + +It is on this thesis that Taine bases his representation of the subject. +Privileges were once the reward of political service done by the heads +and leaders of the people in their own territories. Then, the landlord +lived in the midst of his dependents--his own interest was identical +with their welfare, he was linked with them by natural and traditional +ties, and appeared as their powerful advocate whenever the State +attempted any arbitrary and oppressive measure. Now bureaucratic +government divided the landowners from the people, and by the +unjustified continuance of their privileges set the two henceforth in +opposition. For because the nobleman paid no taxes, the burgher and +farmer had to make up the deficit. Because he retained the right of +chase, his game had to be fed on the crops of his tenants. If a not +inconsiderable number of the higher middle classes gained the special +privileges of nobility, the burthens of the rest of the people were only +increased thereby. The author has rendered us praiseworthy service by +exposing the extent of privileges and feudal rights on one hand, and of +the increase of taxes and duties on the other, more fully and precisely +than any other writer has done. Thorough investigation has brought out a +still more appalling condition than had been imagined. After the State, +the Church, and the landlord had received their rates, the share of the +farmer in the proceeds of his land never amounted to more than a half, +and often his taxes rose to eighty per cent. of his income. On the other +hand, the privileged classes paid at least a fifth less than the just +proportion, and knew how to obtain on a yearly average at least a +hundred millions in the shape of presents, pensions, &c. With +increasingly few exceptions, there was no more thought of any care to be +taken of the lower classes by the higher. Prelates and magnates streamed +towards Versailles; all that the peasants knew of them was from their +unmerciful agents coming for rent and taxes. Thus France fell asunder +into two worlds without, unfortunately, any reciprocal knowledge or +common interest, divided by contempt and hatred--worlds that lived on +side by side, the smaller in wealth, enjoyment, elegance, and luxury, +and, above all, brilliant idleness; the larger in poverty, wretchedness, +ignorance, savagery, and, above all, in ever-growing and devouring +bitterness of heart--a condition such as no other nation of Christian +Europe had ever before come to. + +Now all this is perfectly correct, and Taine proves it by a mass of +authentic testimony: nevertheless it may be observed that it is only a +part of the truth, and by this one-sidedness the author has been led +into error. + +I am now alluding to the first part of this exposition, that which +treats of the centralization of the government in the hands of royal +officials as the deepest root of all this mischief. The worst side of +this centralization had been incontrovertibly exposed by De Tocqueville, +but none the less his representation was unfair and unjust, because it +made no mention of the brighter side. No one can contest that the +political inactivity of men of all positions in a system that referred +the general interests of France to a bureaucracy, demoralized the higher +classes and left the lower ignorant and inexperienced. Still the +historian should not forget the actual achievements of this great +bureaucracy. Under Colbert's guidance it created the civic order and +economical beginnings of modern France. It, for the first time in +France, rendered throughout a century a burghers' war an impossible +thing, and it stimulated internal traffic by roads and canals, which +gave rise to countless industrial and commercial undertakings. Later, +under Turgot and Necker, it waged, on behalf of the people, war against +the pressure of privileges, thought primarily of reform and progress, +and saw with bitter regret the defeat of its popular efforts by the +opposition of the nobles. Tocqueville himself tells how the Liberal +parties before the Revolution thought more of reforms than +liberties--that is to say, they expected the improvement of their +condition from a further strengthening of the Monarchy. It came to a +Revolution first, however. The Monarchy, wielded by the feeble hand of +Louis XVI., was unequal to the task; then privileges fell for ever, but +after ten years monarchical centralization arose anew in order a second +time to satisfy the needs and inclinations of the French people +throughout three generations. It seems therefore a mistake to paint this +institution so out and out black. We may lament that it has not merely +done nothing to educate the French in political liberty, but has as much +as possible stifled liberty and the very sense of it among them. But how +without it, under the circumstances that succeeded to the religious wars +and the Fronde, anything like a positive constitution ever could have +arisen in France, De Tocqueville does not say. We are indeed amazed when +Taine, in his enumeration of the privileged classes as those luxurious +idlers, those once political servants who had now renounced all +political influence, numbers, as third with the clergy and nobility, the +King--the head of that Government, which was only too zealous in +working, and thereby drew all the power of the State to itself and +excluded all others from care for the common weal. Here there is an +evident contradiction, nor is it any way cleared up by the circumstance +that personally Louis XV. vied in indolence and debauchery with the +worst of his courtiers, or that his unfortunate successor spent much of +his time and energy in Court etiquette and the chase. For the reign of +Louis XVI. was from first to last spent in efforts, by the setting aside +of feudal privileges, alike to strengthen the Crown and promote the good +of the people, and in no case can it be more incorrect to look upon the +Crown as a devouring parasitical growth upon the body of the State. This +brings me back to my former remark: had Taine instead of or by the side +of his picture of society under the Ancien Regime written the history of +its last monarch, most assuredly he would have avoided this +misconception. + +But he admirably describes how the brilliant and empty position of the +higher class led step by step to ruin. These distinguished personages +had no earnest and strenuous activity; to be civil officials appeared to +the majority of them below their dignity. They adopted the army as a +mere sphere of chivalrous adventure, for even there, there was no +question for them of rigid discipline; they left the drilling and care +of their troops to subalterns and sergeants. Bishops and abbots drew +immense revenues, and gallantly offered their devotion to fair dames, +but as to divine services and cure of souls, they were the affair of +needy priests and hungry vicars. The only field for their ambition and +interest was the Court, the salon, good society. To shine there was the +object of their distinguished lives. And as the French people have ever +been largely endowed with grace and _esprit_, these efforts resulted in +a perfection of personal appearance, a virtuoso-ship of social +intercourse, a fixed and yet highly elastic code of _bon ton_, such as +the world never saw before or since. Until then the first class of a +great nation had never been known to make the formation of an exquisite +society its highest, nay, its only life-purpose, to subordinate and +sacrifice mental activity, moral strength, and individuality of +character to the promotion and claims of this cultus. Here the final end +of existence was enjoyment in all imaginable degrees, and thought and +action were rigidly directed to it. That the greatest part of life +should be spent in society was the most pressing requirement of +politeness, the reciprocal recognition without which all society becomes +unendurable. The conventional forms in which this recognition clothed +itself became the law of this great world, and the consequences were +felt on all sides. Any appearance of individual peculiarity or opinion +came to be held unfitting; to be other or better than the rest was an +offence against manners. Equally forbidden was the manifestation of any +strong passion, a thing by its very nature opposed to the sway of +conventionality. Vice therefore was excused if it presented itself +gracefully, and almost honoured if it brought a startling and exciting +variety into the monotony of daily life. Mental enjoyments were as +welcome as sensual, provided they could be had without trouble or +labour, for the aim was not to be informed, but amused, and so any kind +of knowledge was good, with the exception of the tedious. Hence it +followed that all mental acquirement was estimated not by the worth of +its content but the excellence of its form: abstract intelligence in the +service of enjoyment, such was the motto of this society. Genial +originality, unconscious creative power, native vigour, were thoroughly +antipathetic there, or only tolerated in so far as they made themselves +subservient to the ruling mood. + +A further consideration of how essentially these characteristics of good +society tended to strengthen and sharpen the revolutionary theories of +its deadly foes, here becomes instructive. The development of this +process may indeed be looked upon as the salient point in Taine's work, +for often as the French literature and philosophy of the eighteenth +century have been treated of, I know of no earlier author who with such +extensive material and penetrating insight has clearly brought out the +continuous reciprocal action of circumstances and theories, and thus +gained an unalterable scale for the measurement of both by history. +Taine begins, as is just, with the mighty impetus given to natural +science since the middle of the seventeenth century throughout Europe, +by which a way was opened for an utterly new view of the world and of +men, in opposition to the speculative and theological conceptions of the +Middle Ages. + +Next comes under consideration the prevalence of the inductive method, +the rejection of all dogmatic assumption, the repugnance to all +intuitive ideas, the proclamation of observation and experiment as the +only sources of verifiable knowledge. These principles having been at +once unconditionally acknowledged in the sphere of natural science, the +next step was to apply the tone of thought they had engendered to the +phenomena of spiritual and social life, and here also to demand thorough +investigation by the one true authority--criticism. Whatever the +consequence of this investigation might in particular cases be, the very +fact that it had been demanded, that the right of the existing, _as +such_, was denied, that the authority of tradition was subjected to that +of critical reason--this betokened a new epoch in the world's history, +and opened out possibilities of hitherto undreamed-of progress in +politics and religion, State and Church, material and spiritual culture. +It is now plain that if the inductive method can lead to such positive +results, its application should be thorough and universal. No naturalist +delivers a general law as to the life of an organism before he has +considered its origin, existence, and decay in all their stages, +compared it with its like, separated it from its unlike; for it is just +through the discovery and recognition of the eminently special that +analysis leads him to the comprehension of universal truth. And +according to this same rule, in order to arrive at a just and +practicable idea of reform for any State, a great mass of special +observations by technically practised and prepared eyes would have been +required; legal, economical, and historical inquiries made; the +peculiarities of individuals and peoples, of the epoch and stage of +culture, must have been known; the not merely personal but collective +functions of human nature in their bases and action investigated: for +only when all this had been accomplished could it be asserted that the +organism of the State and its laws had been dealt with after the manner +of a genuine naturalist, and that we were now in a condition to judge of +single actualities according to these laws. + +How came it that in the France of the eighteenth century the very +opposite occurred--that politicians, stimulated by young natural +science, should from the very first turn their backs upon the inductive +method, and evolve the future State rationalistically, according to a +few abstract principles? + +Taine convincingly shows the reason of this: it was chiefly the +influence of fashionable society upon literature which led to this fatal +tendency. + +The highest circles in Paris and Versailles, in their brilliant but idle +existence, were, as we have seen, as intent upon mental as sensual +excitement, and therefore prepared to open their doors to every +litterateur who could satisfy this demand. Now, owing to the actual +structure of society in France, the writer who did not choose merely to +devote himself to a few professional subjects had no other public than +this distinguished class. They and they alone were in a position to +secure him praise, honours, and a certain income, therefore it was most +natural that the writer should conform to requirements upon the +satisfaction of which his literary career was so absolutely dependent. +We have now to inquire what were the characteristics of the prevalent +tone of thought among the highest class. First a horror of all +thoroughness, all enduring and laborious perseverance, all deep +earnestness and spiritual recollection. For all this was the very +opposite of enjoyment and diversion, it was a falling into the deadly +sin of tediousness. It was desirable, indeed, to have much and varied +knowledge, but rapidly and lightly, by vivid and pungent discussion, to +reach the quintessence of the most interesting points and conclusions. +Consequently the author's productions became restless, many-sided, and +superficial. The mass of information in every department of knowledge +which Voltaire, for instance, had at his disposal was immense; but the +working out and application of it were strongly hasty, aphoristic, and +frivolous. To this was added the dislike the public of the time had to +any individual peculiarity, its tendency to force all personalities into +one conventional form--an effort equally fatal to poetic creation and to +the historical sense. For such men as these the world was comprehended +in what they called the great world; they had lost the power of +imagining that there was or ever had been an existence outside of it and +absolutely unlike it; or if in any particular case the astounding fact +could not be entirely concealed, it was understood that among cultivated +persons it could never be given any importance. Even on the stage it was +no longer considered becoming that peasants or labourers, a Peruvian or +Iroquois, should speak in their own natural manner; they were all alike +rendered polite, sententious, and fluent as their distinguished +audience. Each local and individual tone was rubbed away, every person +of the drama was but a mouthpiece for the eighteenth-century eloquence +of the author. As with the drama, so with other literature. Taine +correctly observes that if we read an English romance of the period, we +have before our eyes a section of the English people; but a French one, +though widely varying in garb, contains invariably a picture of a French +salon, and that only. In presence of so universal a mood as this, how +could any one come to the study of the State by means of difficult and +distant researches on historical ground? Montesquieu did it, but he +remained solitary among his contemporaries, won much celebrity, but +exercised very little influence. The other reformers used quickly to +turn over the pages of histories in order to find piquant quotations for +some ready-made theory; as, for instance, the ambition of priests, the +falsehood of diplomatists, the insatiability of princely greed. As to +the complicated task of judging any individual State and its +constitution according to its climatic and geographic conditions and its +historical antecedents, with the exception of Montesquieu, no man dreamt +of that. The public, with whom the decision lay, did not require +anything of the kind, nay, would have repaid the severe toil with +disapproval. It placed, as we have before said, far more stress on a +pleasant form than an instructive purpose, cared but little for any +subject in itself, but only as affording material for the most +intelligent, yet at the same time most comprehensible and exciting +conversation. In debate no trace of previous knowledge won by personal +effort was pre-supposed; all that was needed was never to be +commonplace, and in every case to bring forward new and amazing truths. +Accordingly speech and style strove neither for fulness nor depth, but +so much the more for clearness and conclusiveness. In exposition, the +progress was regular from syllogism to syllogism, great care being taken +never to skip over a middle term. In order to be impressive the speaker +became rhetorical, in order to convince he endeavoured to reduce every +subject to one universal and easily inculcated proposition. Good society +was delighted to be thus agreeably put in possession of the most +advanced views of the world; but literature thus allowed itself to +deviate from real knowledge into the way of empty abstraction. + +That the literature thus fostered and guided should from the beginning +of the eighteenth century have been in opposition, that since the middle +of it it should have undermined with savage impetuosity all the +foundations of existing conditions, this gave not the least shock to +distinguished society. Disgust at their own impotence and the +omnipotence of royal officials, dislike to an intolerant orthodoxy, +vexation at some personal neglect at Court,--altogether there was cause +enough for malicious satisfaction when philosophers, by biting +criticisms, made clear the standpoint of burdensome potentates. And when +an ever-growing and strengthening Materialism taught the doctrine of +physical enjoyment and judicious selfishness as the guiding principle of +human conduct, it only spoke out what had half-unconsciously been the +sum of all the motives and activities of high society. But above all, +theories were but theories, merely conversation, excitement, pastime. +The nobles declaimed against obsolete abuses, but naturally each meant +to keep his own rightful possessions, and among these were privileges +and feudal rights. They felt conscious of a fresh superiority to the +ignorant masses, because they professed humanitarianism and liberalism, +and spoke against superstition and subordination. That these +much-admired theories might by-and-by become common to the whole +community, and then bring about horrible explosions--of this they had +not the remotest suspicion. Any one who had in 1780 prophesied such a +thing to the ladies of Versailles, would have been looked upon as we +should look upon a prophet nowadays, who told us that in the next +century cats and dogs, instead of men, were to be lords of creation. + +This, then, was the public in whose atmosphere and with whose +co-operation the philosophy of revolutionary enlightenment sprung up. It +was here that it learned its rapid and superficial mode of study, its +rejection of an historical spirit in favour of multitudinous present +actualities, its taste for rhetorically adorned formulae and +commonplaces. When the construction of the best State was to be set +about, common characteristics were collected from the natural history +of mankind, such as the dislike to pain, the impulse towards pleasure, +the capacity of forming, from sensations, representations and +conclusions. These characteristics were merely put together as the +concept man, and from this abstract man were deduced, as in a +mathematical formula, the laws of politics, morals, and rights. Since +all men had the same natural impulse towards happiness, the State must +render it possible for them all to reach that aim. Since all had a +natural capacity to form concepts and conclusions, they would be sure to +employ the right means to that end so soon as their hands were left +free, or in case of a momentary mistake these right means logically +pointed out to them. That passion is, in point of fact, in the great +majority of men, stronger than reason, and desire more impetuous than +thought, was disregarded by these admirers of abstract reason; the fact +that each man had the faculty of drawing a logical conclusion appeared +to them to insure his conforming his conduct to the requirements of that +conclusion. If a logically formulated proof of the excellence of one of +the Constitutions they had sketched could be arrived at, they fancied +that the security and durability of its construction was perfectly +guaranteed. On the other hand, that the preservation of constitutional +order required other forces besides logical discussions, this was +altogether outside their range of thought. + +But logic knows no limits beyond the evolution of its own conceptions. +The existing condition of things lent itself to being ground to powder. +Before the critical assault of the new teaching no defence of the hoary +unrighteousness of the Old Regime could make a stand; the pity was that, +according to its own principles, the former found it impossible to +attain to a firm and enduring constitution of any sort or colour. + +But, if possible, the theories afloat set in against the existing +ecclesiastical system even more strongly than against the political +constitution. The natural science of the day afforded far more material +for battle on that ground than the other. Astronomy, physiology, and +anthropology joined with the efforts of philosophy to demonstrate that +miracle was a delusion, revelation unthinkable, and an extra-mundane God +unverifiable. Soon numerous voices exalted negation into the positive +statement that every idea of God should be rejected, and that the +so-called soul in man was only the highest function of organized matter. +True, Voltaire remained through life a Deist, and Rousseau declared his +faith in God and in the immortality of the soul; but the one all the +more resolutely contended against the divine institution of the Church, +and the other against the fundamental Christian doctrines of Sin and +Justification. However different each may have been from the other, they +waged in common a war for life and death against the Church, the war of +utterly opposed principles. Tocqueville was wrong in saying that the +Revolution was only inimical to the Church as a feudal and aristocratic +institution; that after it had lost its wealth and privileges, +democratic society recognized how strong a democratic momentum the +Church itself contained, and accordingly gave itself up with increased +warmth to religious feelings. Here there is no doubt Taine's record is +the more correct one. The Revolution knew well that it desired not the +wealth only, but the fall of the Church; and not the partisans of the +Revolution, but its adversaries, whose numbers were largely swelled by +the cruelties of the Terror, have brought about the elevation of the +Church in our own century. + +If we now contemplate somewhat more narrowly the Constitutional theory +of the illumination, we shall discern two characteristic and prominent +features, which, on the one hand, show its descent from the innermost +core of the Ancien Regime, and, on the other, very energetically +determined the whole course of the Revolution. The ideal state deduced +from the universal characteristics of mankind was as cosmopolitan as +levelling. Just as on the stage of the period, Frenchman and savage, +ancient Greek and modern Parisian, spoke the same language,--that of the +salons of Versailles,--so political theories recognized neither +Frenchman nor Englishman, Catholic nor Protestant, educated nor +uneducated, only Man in general. They never considered what institutions +would be adequate, in France, to the needs and capacities of the +educated ranks and uneducated masses, or how far the habits and opinions +of their nation would render the adoption of a foreign institution +practicable or injurious; rather they formulated the rights of men, of +abstract instead of actually existing men, and were convinced that a +constitution based thereupon was for all men, and consequently for all +peoples, the only good, and therefore the only lawful one. And just as +clear as the equality of nations under the new political law, appeared +the equality of all men in the new State, by which was meant not merely +a claim to equal protection by law, or equal facility in obtaining one's +rights, but a demand for the realization of an inborn and material +equality of rights. This, as is well known, was the point on which +Rousseau took his stand, and gave the last and decisive direction to the +impending democratic revolution. Taine justly observes how frequently, +in spite of their common principles, Rousseau's character and way of +life led him to take different views from those of Voltaire and the +Encyclopaedists. The deepest and most unqualified indignation of these +last was inspired by what they called superstition, stupidity, and +priestcraft, the transformation of the old State being with them more an +affair of the intellect than the feelings, a conclusion drawn from their +universal theory and an ideal requirement of philanthropy. It was +generosity that led them to appear as the advocates of the poor and +their woes, while they themselves were high in the approval and favour +of the best society. Rousseau, on the other hand, had himself led the +life of the proletaire; in the nervous excitability and measureless +vanity which made him almost prouder of his weaknesses and vices than of +the greatness and strength of his talents he--poor, often hungry, not +seldom degraded and reviled--had filled himself with burning wrath +against the favoured of earthly fortune, the noble and the rich, the +revellers in idleness and luxury. This growing hatred he transferred to +the State and the laws which had produced so unrighteous a contrast +between man and man. Men, he maintained, were in their original +condition good, because equal. It was the State, culture, society, that +first introduced inequality, and vice and crime thereby. The existing +order was not merely incompetent, as the Encyclopaedists asserted, but +hurtful, poisonous, deadly. And, in contrast to it, he sketches a +picture of the true human State. + +Equal and good men assemble in their natural condition to think on the +basis of their future State. Each endows the new community with all +liberty and property, in order to receive back an equal share of the +management and the possessions of the whole. But this whole is +omnipotent. No laws bind its will, for its will is the source of all +law. No king, no official, no superior rules over it; each individual is +only empowered to act, so far and so long as he upholds the plenipotence +of the sovereign mass. It is not the upper classes who command the +people, but the people which require obedience from its officers and +throws them away when they no longer please it. For individual liberty +there is here no place; but owing to the equality of all, the free will +of the masses joyously and harmoniously prevails. + +For a season these doctrines only served to afford a welcome mental +stimulant to the minds, if not of the nobility, of the cultivated and +property-possessing classes. The higher, and soon the lower, bourgeoisie +inflated themselves with these views. At this period they shared certain +of the privileges of the nobles, filled numerous and prominent offices +in the State, gave to the nation its largest number of famous thinkers +and poets, promoted industry and commerce, and daily increased in +wealth, while the nobles, by their extravagance, ruined themselves +financially. The former were, therefore, full of the consciousness of +their own dignity, and found the continued precedence claimed by the +nobles to be unendurable. They believed with inward satisfaction in this +doctrine of the equality of all men and the sovereignty of the whole. +For, instead of the privileged, it seemed to them self-evident that +owing to their culture they, the hitherto unprivileged, ought to stand +out prominently among the people as leaders of that governing whole. +Thus the state of freedom and equality would be the state of pure reason +as well, and, therefore, the leading position could not fail to fall to +them, the masters of reasonable discussion. Meanwhile the mass of the +poor, wholly cut off from the sources of culture and the mental +movements of their country, for long years knew nothing of this absolute +governing power which, according to the new discoveries, inalienably +belonged to it, and was so surprisingly soon to fall into its lap. The +only change in their condition, and thus the only preparation for their +future sovereignty, was an increase of outward distress and of inward +confusion and embitterment; and then came the time when the small circle +to which education and enjoyment were limited, and the State power they +wielded, fell into internal demoralization, strife of factions, and +financial embarrassments, till the very Crown itself was obliged to +summon popular forces to war against the privileged. All the springs of +State machinery refused to work, coffers were empty, authorities and +classes at bitter internecine strife, the army unreliable and +undisciplined. It was under circumstances like these that the mass of +the people in towns and villages heard from their candidates, advocates, +and demagogues, what in truth their rights were. In their ignorance and +want, their rudeness and embitterment, they suddenly learnt that for +them--as sovereign--limits, obligations, authority no longer existed, +that the old corruption and slavish condition was to be thoroughly got +rid of, and that then everything would belong to them. They listened +with greedy ears, and rushed forward to trample under foot whatever +sought to contest these rights of theirs. + +The highest and noblest aims lured the century on, and animated the +hearts of countless worthy men: liberty, well-being, and culture for +all, no difference between man and man but that of talent and virtue, +fraternity among all citizens in the State and all nations on the earth; +these were the ideals that 1780 proclaimed to the world and the future, +and therefore the French still love to speak of the deathless principles +and fair days of this first epoch of the Revolution. All this, Thiers +tells us, would have been admirably realized had not evil-hearted +emigrants and foreign Powers by their malignant attacks, driven the most +humane of all Revolutions into desperation, a fight for existence, and +bloodshed. All would have gone well, says Louis Blanc, had not the +wicked Thermidorians, on the occasion of Robespierre's fall, brought in +a policy of vice and self-seeking instead of one of virtue and brotherly +love. Probably, on the other side the Vosges, eighty men out of every +hundred adopt one or other of these views, and so it is easily +intelligible that the merciless facts by which Taine shatters these fair +pictures should be received with repugnance and surprise by his +countrymen. The contrast between such a reality and such an ideal is +indeed enormous; fair days, or so much even as one fair day in the +course of the Revolution, can no longer be spoken of; in the very hour +when absolute monarchy collapsed, a wild, rude, and cruel anarchy +covered the land, filling France with violence and crime of every kind +for a decade, and lastly causing an unparalleled despotism to appear to +the French people salvation and deliverance. The conclusion is +unavoidable, either the ideal was good for nothing, and the Coblentz +emigrants had right on their side against the nation, or the French +people had set about their high task in a quite impracticable way, and +their historical fame has this time to be limited to the motto, _In +magnis voluisse sat est_. Neither of these alternatives will have a +pleasing sound in the ears of a Liberal Frenchman. + +But, pleasing or not, the facts are indisputable, and up to the present +time each new investigation of authentic documents has only served to +give them a wider range and a more assured basis. We have seen the end +of the Ancien Regime. The nobles of the former State were unnerved by +idleness, debilitated by enjoyment, degraded by immorality; never had +the aristocracy of a great nation fallen and been brushed away from the +soil of their country, making so feeble a resistance. The leaders of the +movement followed a political teaching based on a most one-sided and +therefore radically false conception of human nature, and had no idea of +the real nature of their fellow-citizens, or of the principles and needs +of genuine political life. Finally the masses were unmoved by any +political thought whatever, but were darkly conscious of their own +wretched state up to the present time, and their hatred of those who +had, or were supposed to have, occasioned it, were credulous and +impressionable, and penetrated with the rightfulness of their wildest +passions and desires. With such materials as these it is possible indeed +to blow up an old and half-useless house, but not to construct on its +ruins a well-planned and lasting new one. + +Thus Taine shows by details from documents contemporaneous with the +events, how, even before the opening of the National Assembly, the +condition of things was out of joint at a hundred points. Tumults and +plunder, disobedience to authorities, and maltreatment of obnoxious +persons, were the order of the day; public officials were spiritless, +and dared not command the already murmuring troops to restore order. The +first weeks of the Assembly brought hot discussions as to the union of +the three orders, attempts at reactionary State measures, and the taking +of the Bastille. Excitement grew from day to day; the suspense +throughout the country was tremendous. With the Parisian catastrophes +the whole Ancien Regime rocked and gave way from side to side; and not +merely privileges and feudal rights, but all State authorities vanished +at one blow, or at the first threat from an armed mob resigned their +functions. The French nation had positively no government, no laws, no +police, no taxation. In place of these they had journals, clubs, +societies, popular songs, and Lynch law; security for person and +property no longer existed; every one did according to his heart's +desire till a stronger than he preferred the opposite and knocked him +down. This state of anarchy actually went on thus till the culmination +of the Reign of Terror; every now and then it quieted down here or +there, to burst out the following day at some other point with redoubled +fury. In the midst of the omnipresent turmoil and confusion, the King, a +powerless prisoner, sat in the Tuileries. The only quarter which +afforded a possibility of the restoration of the State was the National +Assembly, which was sufficiently respected and popular both with the +people and the National Guard, to have enforced obedience had it set +about it the right way. But there were two reasons which forbade the +adoption of that way. One was that the Assembly was deprived of free +action by the ruling theory of the Rights of Man, Liberty and Equality. +This included the rights of resistance against oppression, and +accordingly every citizen might at any moment consider himself oppressed +and authorized in resisting. It had been borne in upon these sovereign +citizens that the will of the sovereign people stood higher than that of +its representatives, and that the people was at any time capable of +re-entering upon the direct exercise of its sovereignty. It is plain +that under the influence of theories such as these any control over +street-riots and local deeds of violence was a difficult, if not +hopeless task. And, on the same ground, it was impracticable to attempt +any control or regulation of press or clubs, which looked upon their +boundless activity as the highest expression and most precious jewel of +revolutionary liberty. As, according to theory, State officials were to +be, not the lords, but the servants of the sovereign people, it became +expedient that they should not be named by the Central Government, but +chosen, and that only for a short time, by the citizens. In the same +spirit the affairs of Government were entrusted not to individual +officials, but to deliberating colleagues; while, as to the passing of +laws, the principle of equality rendered impossible the formation of an +Upper House, or any finally decisive action on the part of the King. +Thus the Government remained powerless, legislation was hasty and +uncertain, the lower classes unmanageable, and on very many occasions it +was plain that club orators and journalists who knew how to flatter the +demands of the masses bent both Government and National Assembly beneath +their sway. More than once there arose indignation in the Assembly at so +unworthy and dangerous a condition; but at each attempt to grapple with +and remove it, the fear of a monarchical or aristocratic reaction fell +upon it and paralyzed its action. + +In order to control the anarchical wilfulness of demagogues and +proletaires there was but one thing to be done, to strengthen the +authority of the executive. This meant restoration of discipline in the +army, and energetic organization of Government, extensive powers +conferred on the police officials, sharp punishments, and swift justice. +But how then? If power were thus conferred upon the Government to +restrain proletaires and rioters, who could guarantee liberty and the +National Assembly against the head of the reinforced Government, against +the King, who had hitherto been by these chronic riots kept in +defenceless subjection? This dilemma led to the revolutionary spirit +invariably triumphing at the National Assembly. The present fear of the +violence of the crowd attendant at the sittings combined with the +apprehension of a future monarchical reaction. When, some years later, +at the organization of the Republican Government, the weakness of +authority was again felt, more than one orator freely declared the +existing arrangements to be undoubtedly bad throughout, and to be +amended as soon as possible; owned that this had, indeed, been perfectly +known at the time of their creation in 1790, but that they were +intentionally framed thus, in the interests of liberty, to prevent the +King from exercising any power. Enough--the Constitutional Assembly did +nothing to surround personal safety and political order with any +inviolable defence; on the contrary, they did much to open the door wide +to the passionate and arbitrary action of the masses. We may say that +they thoughtlessly sowed the seeds of all the horrors of the Terror, and +had the sad beginnings of that development before their eyes, without +even an attempt to avert them. This is true, most especially in the +economical department: the colossal transformation of the laws of +property in France, which brought half the soil into new hands, and +irresistibly threw the population at large into communistic paths, was +out and out the work of the Constituent Assembly. + +For more than twenty years I have, in my "History of the Revolution +Period," established these circumstances from authentic documents, and +thus given repeated offence to the French public. I may therefore be +permitted to feel all the greater satisfaction at such a distinguished +investigator as Taine, after drawing forth numberless documents from +Parisian archives, coming to absolutely the same conclusion. All I have +heard in the way of objection to his statements is utterly unimportant. +As it is not possible to drive the facts he has proved from original +documents out of existence, the observation is made that though his +information may be true, it is one-sided; that while he never wearies of +describing revolts and misdeeds, he does not sufficiently point out in +how many places the Civil Guard bravely and loyally upheld civil order. +Taine would be the last to dispute this fact; had it not been so there +would have been no longer any France left in the nineteenth century. But +he would venture to inquire whether praise be deserved by an Assembly +which, as ruler of a great State, surrendered without resistance now the +third of it, now the half, during three years, to a bloody anarchy; +whether we can speak of "fair days" or "humane Revolution," when in this +short period six horrible Jacqueries laid the land waste, when countless +political murders remained unpunished, and military _emeutes_ and +ecclesiastical brawls thrust the weapons of civil war into the hands of +the masses. We are told of a pure and ideal inspiration then filling +millions of liberty-loving and patriotic spirits; and well may we call +that a fair time in which noble aims and infinite hopes set all pulses +beating higher, and stimulate a whole people to youthful efforts, and +fill it with fresh and energetic life. Yes, there were moments of golden +dreams and illusions like these. Only they should have lasted longer. It +is not through their feelings, speeches, wishes, but their deeds, that +nations assume their historical position and receive their historical +sentence. Taine writes the last, indeed, with an incisive pen, and often +with glaring colours, but essentially he gives nothing but what follows +by indissoluble sequence from the facts of the Revolution. + +On certain points, indeed, one may notice a few omissions in his work, +or raise a few objections, though they do not affect it as a whole. +Space does not permit me to dwell on all particular instances; I must be +satisfied with pointing out a few. While during the first months of the +Revolution the agitation of the lower classes was identical in town and +country, and the lawless violence of artisans and peasants pursued the +same ends by the same means, one of the most prominent features of the +later phase, the Terror, was the gradual introduction of a war of +interest between the people of the capital and the villages. The more +the power of the Mountain and the Parisian Commune increased, the more +absolutely the booty of the Revolution fell to the share of the town +proletaires, at the cost not only of the great landed proprietors, but +the small farmers as well. Our first impression at the aspect of this +rivalry is the selfishness and greed of the Parisian demagogues; but we +may easily convince ourselves that these could never have attained to so +extended an activity if existing circumstances had not offered the +possibility of a class war. But for any disquisition on this subject, or +allusion to the causes that, in the first years of the Revolution, +prepared its way, we look through Taine's pages in vain. Again, in the +representation of the Ancien Regime, his attention is pre-eminently +turned to social relations connected with the land. Had he with an +equally comprehensive and minute care studied the different strata, the +interests and wants of the town population, the problem alluded to would +have solved itself. + +It is with admirable insight and incontrovertible reasoning that Taine +shows the logical untenableness and practical mischief of the theory of +equality, both in the writings of Rousseau and the action of the +Constituent Assembly. He proves the contradiction between this equality +and the very nature of man, and how, consequently, pure democracy +rendered the development of political liberty unattainable. In perfect +agreement with Tocqueville, he points to the absolute necessity, under +the circumstances of the time, of aristocratic institutions, for the +creation and preservation of a free State, and explains how deeply +seated these are in the needs and claims of human nature. This portion +of his work is indeed masterly; and the more widely extended the +equalitarian superstition among the Liberal parties of our day, the more +one could desire Taine's views to exercise a strong and wide-spread +influence. But, on the other hand, it appears to me that by this very +conception of political institutions, our author has been led to show +himself something more than just in the sentence he passes on the +representatives of this period, the nobles and prelates of 1789. This is +one of the few incongruities already alluded to between the first and +second volume. After reading of the luxury, artificiality, and idleness +of aristocratic society in the former, and coming with the author to the +conviction that terrible consequences must attend such a condition, one +is surprised to find in the latter that these privileged ones were the +best, the most discerning and patriotic portion of the nation, whose +annihilation or exile brought about the same injurious results that the +expulsion of the Huguenots had done. This contradiction is not cleared +up by the fact that in the years immediately preceding the Revolution, +and chiefly through the influence of Rousseau, a sentimental humanity +had prevailed in high circles, that here, too, it was the fashion to +speak of a return to an idyllic life of nature, of universal brotherly +love, and of the relief of every form of distress. For these +transformations remained, in point of fact, only fanciful phrases of the +salons. When Louis XVI., Turgot, and Calonne, really desired to set +about such philanthropic reforms in good earnest, it was, as we have +already seen, these sentimental nobles themselves who hindered their +effort, and by nullifying reform brought about the Revolution. When the +catastrophe came, many of them had sufficient insight into the new +position of affairs to make haste and repudiate those privileges which +throughout the land had been already trampled under foot by an unchained +people. The horrible persecution to which they were subjected, in utter +disregard of all existing rights and all human feeling, with +bloodthirsty cruelty and shameless greed, must ever insure for the +victims the compassion and sympathy of every right-minded observer; and +in order fully to justify revolutionary laws against emigrants, one +would be driven to advance sophisms only, not arguments. But all this +does not affect the question, whether, as Taine assumes, these +persecuted ones did hold a distinguished place in the nation for +political virtue, intellectual culture, and capacity for action. +Neighbouring nations, so far as I know, without exception took at the +time an entirely different view. Doubtless, there were among the +emigrants many who won respect and regard in the regions whither their +flight had led them. But the great majority, by their thoughtless +arrogance, mutual bickerings, and shameless frivolity, left behind them +a bad reputation; whereas a hundred years before the exiled Huguenots, +by their unity, earnestness, and industry, won, wherever they went, the +respect and gratitude of their new countrymen. + + HEINRICH VON SYBEL. + + + + +WHAT IS THE ACTUAL CONDITION OF IRELAND? + + +Returning to settle in Ireland after an absence that began more than +twenty years ago, I found two things strongly claiming my attention. +One, was the very great advance in material well-being which my country +appeared to have made. The other, was the fact that both Englishmen and +Irishmen appeared resolutely to ignore this progress. Nearly all who +write and speak about Ireland, either dwell upon her grievances or +assume poverty as her normal condition. I know not of any who have +attempted to record her returning prosperity. Yet there are few facts in +modern history better worthy of notice than the advance in material +wealth which has taken place in Ireland during the thirty years between +1846 and 1876. + +The year 1879 marks the close of just one-third of a century from the +great famine. The first thirty years of this period, 1846-76, were years +of continual advance in well-being. From 1877 and down to the present +year a reaction has been going on, which is largely connected with a +general depression of trade all over the world. For reasons which will +appear hereafter, I do not hold that this reaction is likely to be +permanent. + +It is true that at the beginning of that period the country was in the +very lowest depths of poverty and depression. The starting-point +therefore was a very backward one: and the wonder is that so much +advance should have been made, considering not only the backwardness of +the starting-point but the difficulties of the road. + +I shall not attempt to depict the state of things which prevailed at the +close of the great potato famine. The condition of the country is well +known; the facts are in the recollection of many persons now living; and +the evidence is within the reach of all inquirers. I may safely assume +that Ireland then was among the very poorest of all the countries in +Europe. What is her position now? + +In discussing the social condition of any country, the population +question naturally comes to the front. Is the population pressing unduly +on the means of subsistence? then there is something wrong, and until +this is set right progress is impossible. On the other hand, if the +population is so sparse as to leave the resources of the country +undeveloped, there is also something wrong, though in this case the evil +is far less. The population, such as it is, may be prosperous and +advancing, though it is not producing all it might. + +The former was notoriously the state of things in Ireland before +1847.[21] In 1845 (the year immediately preceding the famine) the +population was at the highest point it attained during the present +century, and probably the highest it ever reached. It was estimated at +8,295,061. In 1847, the year when the famine was at its height, the +numbers are given as 8,025,274. In 1875, just thirty years after the +maximum, the numbers had fallen to 5,309,494. In 1877 they were +estimated at 5,338,906, showing an increase over 1875 of 29,412. + +It is a familiar fact that the population of 1845 and 1847 was +excessive. Whether the present population may not be defective in regard +of productive power is a question not without importance, but not +immediately relevant. What we are now dealing with is the material +welfare of the existing population; and it is clear that five millions +can live where eight cannot. But are the five millions better off in +some proportion to the price the country has paid for the decrease in +population? And is there a real advance in the condition of the people, +not a mere rise out of beggary and starvation? + +In attempting an answer to a question of this nature, one looks +naturally to the rate of wages first. But this test is an imperfect one: +partly because local variations are still considerable; partly because +money payments in many places and among large classes are more or less +supplemented by subsistence drawn directly from the land. Besides, a +mere increase in money wages may mean little or nothing, unless the +increased wages possess increased purchasing power, and there be at the +same time an upward tendency in the standard of living. Putting aside +the wages question accordingly (to be discussed hereafter), let us try +to find other indications of the extent and nature of the changes in the +people's condition since the famine. A test of some value, though not +absolutely conclusive by itself, will be afforded by changes in the area +of farms. It is notorious that one of the causes which most contributed +to bring about the famine and its miseries was the small size of +holdings. Now the census returns show that from 1851, very shortly after +the famine, there has been a steady decrease in the number of farms +under fifteen acres, and a steady increase in the number of farms +between fifteen and thirty acres, as well as in farms exceeding thirty +acres in area. Up to 1861 the number of holdings not exceeding fifteen +acres had declined fifty-five per cent., while those above fifteen acres +had increased 133 per cent. The number of farms between fifteen and +thirty acres was in 1861 double what it had been in 1841, and the farms +above thirty acres amounted in 1861 to 157,833, against 48,625, which +had been their number twenty years before. Between 1861 and 1871 farms +under fifteen acres decreased by 12,548, and farms above thirty acres +increased by 1470. According to the latest returns (1875) the farms not +exceeding one acre in area were 51,459; those of one to five acres were +69,098; those of five to fifteen acres, 166,959; fifteen to thirty +acres, 137,669; the total above thirty acres being 160,298 holdings. + +This distribution of the land seems to indicate a considerable +improvement compared with the state of things prevailing before the +famine. Unfortunately the increase in the size of holdings has not been +attended by a corresponding decrease in the number held on an insecure +tenure. Tenancy at will continues to be the rule, and permanency the +exception, in our land tenure. I have made an attempt to estimate +roughly the classes of landholders. The "Domesday" list of proprietors +of land gives the number of owners of one acre and under ten as 6892, +holding 28,968 acres, or an average of a little over four acres each: +between ten acres and fifty there are 7746 owners, holding 195,525 +acres, or an average a little over twenty-six acres: between fifty acres +and a hundred there are 3479 owners, holding 250,147 acres, or an +average of just under seventy-two acres. These make up a body of small +proprietors, owning from one to a hundred acres, numbering 18,117. +_Eason's Almanac_ for 1879, which has been published while I write, +estimates the number of "proprietors in fee" of agricultural holdings at +20,217. The same authority gives the number of leaseholders in +perpetuity as 10,298; for terms of years exceeding thirty-one as 13,712; +for thirty-one years and under, 47,623 (many of which may be short +leases); and of leases for lives, or lives and years alternative, as +63,759. The number of tenancies at will is 526,628, or 77.2 per cent, of +the whole number of holdings. These statistics were collected in 1870, +and they have doubtless been in some degree modified by the working of +the Church Act and the Land Act. I have omitted from my extracts from +the Domesday list the proprietors of under one acre. These are given in +_Thom's Directory_ as 36,144, holding 9065 acres; but their holdings do +not affect the present question, as they are mostly non-agricultural. +The estimate in _Eason's Almanac_ purports to relate wholly to +agricultural holdings. Domesday includes all classes. + +Another index of the condition of a people may be found in the way they +are housed. Mean and comfortless dwellings imply not only a low standard +of comfort, but often a low morality. Let us see how this matter has +stood in Ireland. The Census Commissioners of 1841 divided the dwellings +of the people into four classes. The fourth, or lowest, comprised all +mud cabins having only one room. Of this class there were in all +Ireland, according to the 1841 census, 491,278. In the last census, +1871, the number had fallen to 155,675. The third-class dwellings were +also built of mud, but contained three or four rooms, with windows; the +latter convenience being by no means universally present in the +one-roomed cabin of the fourth class. Of the third class the census of +1841 enumerated 533,297; by 1871 this number had fallen to 357,126. The +second class are described as good farmhouses, and in towns, houses +having from five to nine rooms. Of this class in 1841 there were +264,184; and in 1871 the number had increased to 387,660. The first +class of houses increased during the same period from 40,080 to 60,919. +Let us see now in what way the population has been distributed in the +different classes of houses. In 1841 the number of families occupying +first-class houses was 31,333. In 1871 the number had risen to 49,693. +During the same period the number of families in second-class houses +rose from 241,664 to 357,752. On the other hand, the families in +third-class houses decreased from 574,386 to 432,774; and those in the +fourth-class, or one-roomed cabins, from 625,356 to 227,379. By a +curious coincidence, the _proportion_ of families to houses was the same +in 1841 and in 1871--one hundred and eleven families to one hundred +houses. In this way the very great shifting in the _classes_ is all the +more clearly proved to indicate a real rise in the condition of the +people. + +In connection with this part of my subject, I may now proceed to discuss +the wages question and the condition of the labouring population. Of the +actual number of this class I can find no accurate return. But we have +already seen that the number of families inhabiting the lowest class of +houses (and these may be assumed all to belong to the lowest class of +labourers) was about 227,400. As the census of 1871 gave the average +number of a family as 5.07, or 507 persons to 100 families, we may +estimate the number of this class at 2274 multiplied by 507, or +1,152,918. Those who inhabit a better class of house may be safely +assumed on the whole to be better off in other respects. Now the money +wages of the ordinary agricultural labourer are 1_s._ 6_d._ a day in the +most remote and backward places. This is the minimum, and in harvest +time the labourers earn 2_s._ 6_d._ a day. A great many labourers have +small holdings; but as these are not rent-free they do not count +directly as an element in wages. The way in which they do count is that +the people are not so overworked but that the labourer and his family +can attend to the holding, grow their own potatoes, feed the pig, +&c.--thereby eking out the actual money payment. + +The diet of these labourers (I am still referring to the most backward +and remote parts of Ireland) is tea and bread for breakfast, potatoes +and a little bacon for dinner, and oatmeal porridge for supper. The +people have quite risen out of the "potatoes and point" stage of +feeding. Of course, on Fridays and other fast-days, Roman Catholics +abstain from flesh meat; but there are few places so remote from the sea +that fresh herrings are not to be had, and at any rate salt ones are +always available. On the other hand, on Sundays and holidays many of the +labouring families contrive to have butcher's meat; and I am told that +in certain districts there is one day in the year when every family +among the peasantry makes an invariable rule to eat a dinner of fresh +meat, some animal (often a fowl) being killed on purpose to furnish this +meal. This is probably some relic of a sacrificial observance. + +The condition of the people being such as I have described, one would +naturally expect not to find pauperism very prevalent. As a matter of +fact it is not. The average daily number of paupers in the workhouses +throughout 1876 was 43,235, and of recipients of out-door relief 31,600: +bringing up the total to 74,835. The average of persons in receipt of +relief was 140.6 in 10,000 of population. This daily average represents +the current subsisting mass of pauperism, and is in a considerable +measure made up of the old, infirm, and sick. Of able-bodied paupers, +the males were only 1697 in the daily average of workhouse inmates, and +the females were 4130. There were 10,134 healthy children under fifteen +in the workhouses, and the other inmates were either sick in hospital or +permanently unable to work. These figures seem to be the very reverse of +alarming. Permanent pauperism is not a very virulent social disorder +when only two able-bodied persons to every five hundred of the +population are in receipt of in-door relief, and when the whole +permanent pauper population barely exceeds fourteen in a thousand. But +though permanent pauperism may be well in hand, casual pauperism may be +at a high pitch. Let us see how this matter has stood. I shall first +take the statistics of 1876, and then try to modify my conclusions by +such later figures as may be available. In 1876 the population of +England and Wales stood at 24,244,000, and the total of paupers in +receipt of relief, in-door and out-door, on the 1st of January of that +year, was 752,887; Scotland, with a population of 3,527,000, had a total +pauper population on the 1st of January, 1876, of 66,733. In Ireland, on +the same date, the total population being 5,321,600, the paupers +amounted to 77,913. In other words, at a rough estimate, on the 1st of +January, 1876, about one person in every thirty-three in England and +Wales was in receipt of relief as a pauper; in Scotland, about one in +every fifty-three; while in Ireland the proportion was only one in +sixty-eight. A similar proportion appears in the incidence of the +poor-rate. In 1876 England and Wales paid at the rate of 6_s._ 0-3/4_d._ +per head of population; Scotland 5_s_. 0-1/2_d._; Ireland only 3_s._ +4_d._ + +Of course these figures must undergo modification in view of the altered +circumstances of the present time. The statistics of 1876 are not an +accurate guide to the facts of 1879. During the last three years there +has been considerable depression of trade; and it may very well be that +the returns of this year will indicate an ebb in the tide of prosperity. +But, unless I am very much mistaken, after making all allowances, it +will probably be found that Ireland is the part of the United Kingdom +least affected by the present prolonged commercial crisis.[22] + +The figures and facts recorded above will probably astonish the +considerable class of persons to whom the word "Irish" has an air of +wanting something, unless it is followed by "pauper." A smaller but +perhaps not less intelligent class--that of English travellers in +Ireland--will promptly jump to the conclusion that the figures are +cooked; they will argue, "We have travelled in Ireland, and have been +beset with beggars; how, then, can the country be so free from +pauperism? Surely the true state of the case is that the people keep out +of the workhouses merely in order to live on public charity in another +form?" It cannot, I regret to say, be denied that mendicancy is very +common in Ireland; so common as to be little less than a national +scandal. There is, however, something to be said in mitigation of +judgment, though perhaps not in defence. It is a matter in which figures +are of little use; for no one could, by any possibility, estimate how +many persons live wholly by begging. That there are in every community +some persons who do may be taken as certain. That their number is larger +in proportion to the bulk of the population in a Roman Catholic than in +a Protestant community, is antecedently probable. The theory of the +Roman Catholic religion positively encourages mendicancy. It is held to +be no sin to live on alms, and to be a positive merit to give alms. +_Never turn away thy face from any poor man_, is a text acted on by +devout Romanists in its most literal acceptation. The result is not +difficult to foresee. It must, however, be recorded to the credit of the +Irish Catholic clergy, that they are beginning to see the folly of +indiscriminate almsgiving; and though they are hampered in no small +degree by the traditions of their Church, they have made many successful +efforts in the direction of the organization of charity. Another +influence, which largely contributes to the existence of the mendicancy +that scandalizes the traveller, is the tradition of recent poverty. The +habits of centuries are not effaced in a generation. Not much more than +twenty years ago, begging was a recognized necessity in the life of the +Irish poor. But now, when times are moderately prosperous, begging is +limited almost wholly to old people who hang about the doors of Catholic +chapels, and about places frequented by tourists. On the roads leading +to such "show places," also, the tourist will be often beset by little +knots of children clamouring for half-pence; but these are no more +professional beggars than a gentleman who amuses himself with pheasant +shooting is a professional dealer in game. It is a form of excitement +with them; not a very high one to be sure, but not meaner or more +vicious than baccarat or rouge-et-noir. + +Still, when all is said, there is more mendicancy in Ireland than would +exist if things were in a healthier state; and where mendicancy is +common, pauperism must fluctuate largely. In more prosperous times, a +larger number of mendicants can find support from a more copious supply +of alms. When evil times curtail the fund whence alms are supplied, the +mendicant must fall back on legal relief. From this point of view the +small increase of six in ten thousand, already referred to,[23] seems to +show that the commercial depression of 1877 has not largely touched the +revenues of the Irish mendicant! + +An account of the condition of the Irish people would be incomplete +without some reference to the statistics of drunkenness and crime. Here +we shall find some results of a rather surprising kind. Thus, in England +and Wales in 1876, the population being 24,244,000, the number of +drunkards brought before magistrates was 205,567; being, at an +approximate estimate, one in every 118 of the population. In Scotland, +the population being 3,527,800, the drunkards arrested numbered 26,209, +or about one in 134. In Ireland, the population being 5,321,600, the +drunkards brought before magistrates were 112,253; showing the enormous +proportion of one in every 47 of the people. Of course these figures in +all three kingdoms include very many cases of repeated conviction, so +that it would not be fair to say that one man in every 118 in England, +still less in every 47 in Ireland, is actually a drunkard. All the same, +this comparison is sufficiently alarming as well as perplexing. It is +rather paradoxical to find Scotland showing a smaller proportion of +apparent drunkards than either of the other kingdoms; and some people +might be ill-natured enough to hint that this result depended mainly on +greater skill in keeping out of the hands of the police. On the other +hand, a patriotic Irishman might, without any very flagrant paradox, +argue that the fact of so many Irish being arrested for being drunk +proves that they are actually a more sober people. It takes less to make +an Irishman drunk, partly because he is more excitable in temperament, +and partly because he drinks but seldom. The habitually temperate man, +when he does casually exceed, shows his condition very promptly; the +habitual toper can dissemble it far longer. Another reason that may be +given for the state of things here indicated, is that the police force +is more numerous in Ireland in proportion to the population than in +England or Scotland;[24] and as, for reasons which will be hereafter +seen, the police have actually less to do, they are able to expend a +quantity of surplus energy in arresting drunkards whom the busier +constables of England and Scotland would allow to stagger quietly home. +That some or all these causes are in operation to bring about the +startling excess of apparent drunkenness in Ireland, is manifest when we +come to discuss the statistics of crime. The connection of crime with +drink is a commonplace of moralists; but, like most other commonplaces, +it requires to be seriously tested by the light of facts. + +The crimes with which drink is most closely connected are naturally +those which come under the class of offences against the person. Drink +may, indeed, prompt offences against property; but chiefly in an +indirect fashion. A drunkard is very likely to be in want of things +which he may seek to obtain by theft; but drink is not the sole cause of +poverty, and professional thieves are not habitual drunkards. Referring +then to the class of offences against the person, we find that in 1876 +only four persons were sentenced to death in all Ireland. The number +sentenced in England was 32. Here is already a considerable discrepancy; +for the population of England is to that of Ireland in the proportion of +only about four and two-fifths to one, and the death sentences in +England were eight times as numerous as in Ireland.[25] But this is not +all. Nearly all the murders in Ireland are agrarian, and with these +drink is only casually if at all connected. On the other hand, nearly +every murder in England is committed more or less under the influence of +intoxication. Turning to the secondary punishments, we find twelve +sentences of penal servitude for life in England, while there were none +in Ireland. Ten of these twelve ought perhaps to be discounted, as +representing ten commutations of capital punishment, for of the +thirty-two persons sentenced to death in England only twenty-two were +executed. But the most remarkable discrepancy is seen when we come to +sentences of penal servitude for terms of years. Of these there were +only fifty in Ireland against 280 in England. In the absence of returns +of crime actually committed (including undetected offences), it is not +easy to pronounce an opinion of much value; but from the statistics of +conviction it would appear that violent crimes against the person are +much less prevalent in proportion to the population in Ireland than in +England. These results are by no means contrary to reasonable +expectation, when we consider the vast congestion of population in +London and other cities in England, to which there is no parallel +anywhere in Ireland. But, such as they are, they seem to show that the +apparent addiction of Irishmen to strong drink is not attended by a +proportionate addiction to the more serious forms of crime. On the other +hand (and this must be recorded for whatever it may be worth), we have +1078 sentences of imprisonment and other minor penalties inflicted in +Ireland, against only 1533 similar sentences in England. + +Turning now to the class of offences against property with violence, we +find two sentences of penal servitude for life in England, against none +in Ireland; 271 sentences for terms of years in England, against 26 in +Ireland; 898 sentences of minor terms of imprisonment against only 69 in +Ireland. In cases of this nature one might naturally expect drink to be +a considerable predisposing cause. On the other hand, there is no +assignable connection between drink and crime unaccompanied by violence, +except in so far as poverty is an effect of drink and a cause for crime. +Even here, however, the proportion fails; for the convictions for minor +offences against property in Ireland were only 798, against 10,674 in +England: and of these only 104 suffered penal servitude for terms of +years, against 1063 in England. + +All this, it may be said, simply shows that there must be a great deal +of undetected crime in Ireland. To a certain extent, no doubt, this is +true; but the remark applies chiefly to some of the more serious crimes, +especially agrarian murder. There is not the same motive for concealing +minor forms of crime, nor perhaps would even the Ribbon organization +make such concealment practicable. To be sure it may be urged that, +though minor crime is not purposely concealed, the police are too busy +keeping the peace and looking after Fenians and Ribbonmen to have time +for detecting ordinary thefts. This fact may, indeed, have something to +do with the apparent scarcity of petty crime in Ireland; but this is +certainly not the aspect of the case usually dwelt upon, by Judges of +Assizes, for instance, when a Grand Jury sends up a pair of white gloves +instead of a sheaf of criminal indictments. However this may be, I +merely record the facts as I find them; leaving readers, for the most +part, to draw what inferences the facts seem to suggest. One inference +they suggest to me is, that Irishmen are not such very drunken animals +after all; or else that they are somehow or other an exception to the +rule which connects drink and crime. The undeniable blot on the Irish +character--agrarian outrage--is not to be accounted for by drink. The +true explanation is familiar to all who really know the country. The +Irish peasant is very largely dependent on the soil for his support, and +believes himself to be wholly so. He also believes himself to have a +moral and a historical right to the possession of the soil; a belief +which contains a considerable admixture of truth, provided it be stated +with the proper limitations. Unluckily, the Irish peasant holds it +without any limitation at all; and herein lies the secret of his +hostility to the law. The peasant ejected, or in fear of ejectment, +looks on himself as a ruined man (which he need not be), and as a +wronged man (which he is only very partially). Men ruined and wronged +have always been raw material for brigands; and the Ribbonman is simply +a brigand in a frieze coat. + +I have no desire to compose an Essay on the Land Question; but it is +absolutely impracticable to discuss Irish social economy without finding +the Land Question in one's way. It is the question which most closely +concerns the industrial classes; for the land is the mainstay of Irish +industry. It is the pivot upon which all Irish politics turn; for +although priestly influence counts for a great deal, that influence +itself depends in great measure on the land hunger of the peasantry. I +feel that I should be leaving Hamlet out of the play if I did not say a +few words on the matter. As I have already hinted, the Irish peasant has +three reasons for his desire to be "rooted in the soil." One is a +traditional reason. He thinks that his forefathers were unjustly ousted +by foreign conquerors. His belief rests on an utterly distorted view of +history. It is true that eight hundred years ago a few of the ancestors +of a few of the existing peasantry might in a sort of sense have been +called landowners. But so far as the Gaelic race survives, it would be +equally true to say that the ancestors of the existing peasantry had +been the serfs or the slaves of barbarous chieftains. The old Gaelic +tribal ownership, if left to itself, might or might not have ripened +into a peasant proprietary; but the only real grievance which the +existing Gaelic peasantry can allege, is that the English conquest +forcibly interrupted the natural process of evolution. Moreover, a large +number of the existing peasants are no true Gael at all, but the +descendants of Danes, Normans, and the various waves of Saxon settlers +from Elizabeth to William of Orange. In parts of Ireland there are even +to be found the descendants of French Huguenots, of Scotch fugitives +involved in the Stuart insurrections, and of refugees of 1793. That such +a _colluvies gentium_ should claim to be the heirs of Septs which +occupied the land + + "Ere the emerald gem of the Western world + Had been set in the crown of a stranger," + +is simply a proof of profound ignorance of history. Such, however, is +the vague traditional belief; and it is complicated with a moral +sentiment, that he who tills the land has a right to live by the land. +The sentiment is open to no objection, provided it be understood that +the land is an instrument of production in which the whole community is +interested. The cultivator has the same right to live by the land as the +artisan to live by his handicraft, and no more--that is, both peasant +and artisan have a right to expect that the social system shall be so +adjusted that neither shall be unjustly deprived of the fruit of his +labour. But neither peasant nor artisan can claim that any instrument of +production shall be used for the sole sake of the producer. Hence, even +if peasant proprietorship were undeniably the best thing for the +peasant, it does not follow that he has a moral right to it, unless it +be good for the whole community as well. This consideration is too +often neglected by the thorough-going advocates of peasant +proprietorship. They assume that the interests of the peasants are the +only interests to be considered. In Ireland, indeed, they are not far +wrong; for the peasantry _are_ very nearly the whole community. This, +however, only raises the previous question, whether peasant +proprietorship would be a success in Ireland--of which hereafter. The +last and most practical of the agrarian arguments is that a tenant +evicted is a man ruined. Even this is only partially true, and at most +is only an argument against capricious eviction. It is conclusive as +against the system of tenancy at will, or any of those short tenures +which are, in fact, a standing notice to quit. It holds good in favour +of peasant proprietorship to this extent--that the ruin of a peasant +proprietor can only occur through his own fault or misfortune, and not +through the caprice of a landlord. In short, the discontent of the Irish +peasantry proves that the Anglo-Irish system of tenure is about the +worst of all possible systems; but it proves little or nothing in favour +of peasant ownership. + +My own opinion (_valeat quantum_) is that the soil and climate of +Ireland render the country utterly unfit to maintain a considerable body +of peasant proprietors; but that, nevertheless, it would be wise and +politic to establish peasant properties as widely as may be practicable. +The climate is notoriously damp, and variable in the extreme. Grain +crops are inferior and precarious--root crops are not much better--even +meadows are untrustworthy, because of the difficulty of haymaking--but +Irish pasture is perhaps the best in the world. Natural conditions mark +out Ireland as a pastoral and cattle-breeding country; and such a +country is the destined home of _latifundia_. It is not merely that +cattle require large spaces of pasture; but the trade in cattle requires +capital, and requires the power of staying through seasons of adversity. +An attempt to breed or deal in cattle by a class of peasant proprietors, +acting singly, could only end in ruin; a ruin even more complete than +bad seasons would bring upon unsuccessful cultivators of grain. Another +product for which Ireland is eminently fitted is timber.[26] This also +obviously requires spaces of land, and intervals of idle capital, +utterly incompatible with any system of small holdings. Nature would +seem to have marked out Ireland as a country to be thinly populated; +historical accident once made her one of the most populous of countries, +and we all know what came of it. The people were dependent on a single +kind of food; it failed, and misery ensued such as modern Europe had +never beheld. The scenes of 1847 we may devoutly hope will never be +witnessed again; but such a season as 1878-79 would be a trial that few +peasant proprietors could stand. Why then do I say that a peasant +proprietary ought to be created? Because I believe that in the +experiment is to be found the sole method of convincing the Irish +peasants that their true interest lies in quite another direction. The +peasant now believes that all he wants in order to be prosperous is to +be "rooted in the soil." It is of no use to appeal to abstract +reasoning. He knows that he has to pay rent, and that he is liable to +eviction for non-payment. Carefully as recent legislation has guarded +him against capricious eviction, he knows that if his landlord chooses +to pay for turning him out, out he must go. The few of his neighbours +who do acquire freeholds, he perceives to be comparatively prosperous. +He does not take into account that the prosperity of the freeholder is +maintained by precisely the same exceptional energy and thrift which in +the first instance enabled him to secure the freehold. Besides, it is +undeniable that _caeteris paribus_ a man who holds rent-free is likely to +be better off than one who pays rent; and so long as rent is the rule +and freehold the exception, the few freeholders will seem at least to +possess an advantage over the many rentpayers. In short, the peasant +farmer will never cease to believe ownership a panacea for all his ills, +until he shall have tried it, and failed. Of course it does not +absolutely follow that the experiment of creating a peasant proprietary +must needs fail. It may succeed; and then the Irish land problem is +solved. For the reasons given above, however, I think it would fail. If +all the holdings of fifteen acres and under (there are 285,000[27] of +them, or nearly half the whole number of farms in Ireland) were turned +into peasant properties tomorrow, I believe they would in thirty, or at +most in fifty, years be recast into large cattle farms, owned probably +for the most part by joint-stock companies. The process of consolidation +would be partly the buying out of ruined peasants after some such +seasons as we are now undergoing; partly a voluntary union of the +residue, who would find association desirable in order to secure a +sufficiency of land and capital. But those who might be compelled to +part with their lands could no longer ascribe their ruin to the tenure +by which they held. It would be made clear to them and to all concerned +that it is the laws of Nature and not the laws of England which hinder +Ireland from maintaining a dense agricultural population. + +It may be urged against what I have here said, that it is hardly worth +while engaging in a social revolution merely in order that the last +state of things may turn out on the whole very similar to the first. I +cannot deny the force of this remark; though I may suggest, in my turn, +that perhaps it is worth while to make some sacrifice for the sake of +attaining stable equilibrium in the social system. I am persuaded that +the one great difficulty in Irish affairs is to convince the peasant +that the law is a power not hostile but friendly to him. This is no easy +task. It is not so very long since the law actually was the hard master +it is still supposed to be. Nor is the peasant's own attitude of mind a +very easy one to deal with. He clamours loudly to be "rooted in the +soil," or, in other words, to be made absolute owner of his farm; but he +clamours not less loudly against the absenteeship of his landlord. He +utterly fails to perceive the inconsistency of his position. He cannot +eat his cake and have his cake. He cannot be at one and the same time +tenant to a resident lord of the manor, and owner in fee-simple of his +own holding. Absolute peasant ownership is _prima facie_ incompatible +with the very existence of a landed aristocracy; and it may be some +perception of this that induces certain of the land agitators to propose +fixity of tenure at a quit-rent rather than absolute peasant +proprietorship. But it is clear that this is a mere evasion of the +difficulty. A landlord, who is merely a rent-charger, has no more motive +to reside on his estate than if he sold it and lived on the interest of +the purchase-money. There is no doubt a sense in which the two things +are not absolutely incompatible. Peasant properties might be intermixed +with large estates owned by resident landlords. And this would certainly +constitute a state of things by no means undesirable; in fact, it is +what might possibly emerge from the experiment I have mentioned above. I +think it more than probable that a great deal of the land, after such an +experiment, would fall into the hands of joint-stock companies; but a +considerable portion might also be bought up by individuals, who might +choose to become resident landlords. It must, however, be remembered +that there are many things besides agrarian agitation which tempt Irish +landlords to become absentees. Residence in Ireland is attended with +many drawbacks and discomforts, even when a landlord is on the best of +terms with his tenantry. Absenteeism is no new complaint; Adam Smith +discussed proposals for an absentee-tax. Its prevalence is not +uncommonly ascribed to the Union, but it might as well be ascribed to +the Deluge. The most potent causes of absenteeism in the latter half of +the nineteenth century are the City of Dublin Steam Navigation Company, +and the London and North-Western Railway. These, and kindred +institutions, are also the channels which conduct a vast deal of wealth +into Ireland; and if absenteeism constitutes a perennial drain on her +resources, the facilities of locomotion cause the drain to return +ten-fold.[28] If these facilities did not exist, it does not follow that +the landlords who remained at home would necessarily be of much use to +the community. The squires and _squireens_ in Lever's and Maxwell's +novels are very amusing to read about; but they are a race that nobody +at the present day would seriously wish to revive. However this may be, +there is little inducement for the existing landlords to remain resident +in a country where they are continually threatened, and occasionally +shot. I cannot help thinking that in the tendency to absenteeism, +courageous statesmanship might find the means of solving the Land +problem. There should be little difficulty, one would imagine, in +persuading a number of existing Irish landlords to part with their +estates for a reasonable compensation.[29] The Church Surplus is at hand +to provide the purchase-money. After deducting the sums to be paid to +the Intermediate Education Board, and to the National School Teachers' +Pension Fund, there will remain nearly four millions in the hands of the +Temporalities Commission. This money judiciously advanced to tenant +farmers would enable a considerable number of them to acquire the +freehold of their farms, and thus the foundations of a peasant +proprietary might be laid without any confiscation or disturbance of +vested rights. The Royal Commission on Agriculture would perhaps be a +good medium for acquiring information on this subject. They might +include in the scope of their inquiry the best method of carrying out +some such scheme as has been here indicated. + +Having set out with no intention beyond that of offering a general view +of a few leading facts and figures relating to Irish affairs, I find +myself insensibly gliding into a political discussion. So far as I have +any excuse for this, it must be found in the irrepressible character of +the Land problem; which, as I before remarked, can by no possibility be +evaded by any one who writes on Irish social economy. Yet this problem +itself is in one aspect simply a phase of the struggle going on all over +the world between, labour and capital. Side by side with this there is +yet another struggle going on, which is also a phase of a world-wide +conflict. It is the old story of Priesthood against Free Thought; but in +Ireland, like nearly all things Irish, it bears a peculiar aspect of its +own. Many a man here would be amazed to be told that he is fighting on +the side of the priests; yet the Irish Orange Tory, and to some extent +even the Irish Evangelical clergyman, is really and truly (though of +course unconsciously) helping the policy of the Roman Church. But it +would extend my essay beyond all reasonable limits to discuss this +matter; and besides, I set out to write on statistics, and not on +politics.[30] + + EDWARD STANLEY ROBERTSON. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[21] The statistics in this Essay are chiefly taken from _Thom's Almanac +and Official Directory for 1878_. The tables given in that Almanac are +for the most part brought down no later than 1876. It so happens, +however, that 1876 is a very convenient date for the purpose of this +paper. It marks the conclusion of a period of just thirty years from the +worst crisis of the Potato Famine; and it marks also the conclusion of a +cycle of commercial inflation, some of whose results were strongly felt +in Ireland. + +I have, of course, consulted other authorities besides _Thom's +Directory_, but I shall specify these as occasion arises. When no +special reference is given, my authority is Thom. + +[22] While I write _Eason's Almanac for 1879_ has been published. This +authority gives the total average of paupers daily in receipt of relief +through 1877 as 78,223, or 146.5 in 10,000 of the population. An +increase of less than six in ten thousand is not very alarming, and the +fact seems in some measure to justify the opinion I have ventured to +express in the text, that Ireland will be found to suffer less from the +present crisis than other parts of the United Kingdom. It must, however, +be taken into consideration that the present year (1879) threatens a +very poor harvest: and this circumstance is absolutely certain to +enhance whatever distress already exists. + +[23] See note on previous page. + +[24] The 24-1/4 millions in England and Wales are kept in order by a +police force of 29,689. In Scotland 3-1/2 millions of population have +only 3356 policemen. In Ireland, with a population well under 5-1/2 +millions, there are 12,081 policemen. And yet, as will appear presently, +there is far less crime in Ireland relatively than in either of the +other kingdoms. + +[25] It is only just to admit that the death sentences are not a fair +test. Too many murders remain undetected, owing to the existence of +agrarian conspiracy. The number of murders known to have been committed +is unluckily not to be found in the returns to which I have access. But +the very fact of their remaining undetected is a proof that they are not +directly connected with intoxication, for it shows that they are for the +most part agrarian. + +[26] It has been calculated, apparently on trustworthy data, that an +acre of land planted with larch or fir, at an expense of about £20, +would be worth £2000 at the end of forty years, besides the intermediate +yield from clearings of young timber, game cover, and so forth. This is +a very high return for a small outlay; but it is completely beyond the +means of any peasant proprietor. + +[27] _Eason's Almanac_, 1879. The actual number is 285,464. The total of +agricultural holdings is 581,963. + +[28] I have unfortunately been unable to obtain any statistics of the +cross-channel trade. I find it stated in _Thom's Directory_ that the +trade of Belfast alone was valued in the year 1866 at £24,332,000--viz., +£12,417,000 imports and £11,915,000 exports. The year 1866 was a bad +year: so it may be assumed that these figures represent a low average. I +find no means of estimating the import and export trade of Cork and +Dublin. + +I may mention here that one cause of interruption in the composition of +this paper was an unsuccessful search for complete trade statistics. + +[29] A few of the Home Rule M.P.'s who are now stumping the country on +the Land grievance are themselves landlords. It has been suggested that +they should introduce fixity of tenure on their estates, in one or other +of its various forms. Mr. Errington (who is _not_ one of the stump +orators of the party) has, I am told, notified his intention to give +long leases to his tenantry. In a case like this the _argumentum ad +hominem_, though a perfectly fair one, is a perfectly useless one. + +[30] I have referred above (note, p. 463) to my failure to obtain trade +statistics. This circumstance has caused me to fail also in fully +carrying out the original plan of this paper. I had intended not only to +give a general view of the recent condition of the Irish people, but to +enter somewhat fully into its causes, and discuss the probabilities of +the future. The great revival in prosperity, which I have imperfectly +sketched, was closely connected with the cross-channel trade. At +present, affairs look sufficiently gloomy both here and in England; and +the forecast of the future depends mainly upon the prospect of revival +in English trade. + + + + +THE DELUGE: + +ITS TRADITIONS IN ANCIENT NATIONS. + + +Of all traditions relating to the history of primitive humanity, by far +the most universal is that of the Deluge. Our present purpose is to pass +under review the principal versions of it extant among the leading races +of men. The concordance of these with the Biblical narrative will bring +out their primary unity, and we shall thus be able to recognize the fact +of this tradition being one of those which date before the dispersion of +peoples, go back to the very dawn of the civilized world, and can only +refer to a real and definite event. + +But we have previously to get rid of certain legendary recollections +erroneously associated with the Biblical Deluge, their essential +features forbidding sound criticism to assimilate them therewith. We +allude to such as refer to local phenomena, and are of historic and +comparatively recent date. Doubtless the tradition of the great +primitive cataclysm may have been confused with these, and thus have led +to an exaggeration of their importance; but the characteristic points of +the narrative admitted into the Book of Genesis are wanting, and even +under the legendary form it has assumed these events retain a decidedly +special and restricted character. To group recollections of this nature +with those that really relate to the Deluge would be to invalidate, +rather than confirm, the consequences we are entitled to draw from the +latter. + +Take, for instance, the great inundation placed by the historic books of +China in the reign of Yao. This has no real relation, or even +resemblance, to the Biblical Deluge; it is a purely local event, the +date of which, spite of the uncertainty of Chinese chronology previous +to the eighth century B.C., we may yet determine as long subsequent to +the fully historic periods of Egypt and Babylon.[31] Chinese authors +describe Yu, minister and engineer of the day, as restoring the course +of rivers, raising dykes, digging canals, and regulating the taxation of +every province throughout China. A learned Sinologist, Edouard Biot, has +proved, in a treatise on the changes of the lower course of the +Hoang-ho, that it was to one of its frequent inundations the above +catastrophe was due, and that the early Chinese settlements on its banks +had had much to suffer from this cause. These works of Yu were but the +beginning of embankments necessary to contain its waters, carried on +further in following ages. A celebrated inscription graven on the rocky +face of one of the mountain peaks of Ho-nan passes for contemporaneous +with these works, and is consequently the most ancient specimen of +Chinese epigraphy extant. This inscription appears to present an +intrinsically authentic character, sufficient to dispel the doubts +suggested by Mr. Legge, although there is this rather suspicious fact +connected with it, that we are only acquainted with it through ancient +copies, and that for many centuries past the minutest research has +failed to re-discover the original. + +Nor is the character of a mere local event less conspicuous in the +legend of Botchica, such as we have it reported by the Muyscas, the +ancient inhabitants of the province of Cundinamarca, in South America, +although here mythological fable is mingled much more largely with the +fundamental historic element. + +Huythaca, the wife of a divine man, or rather a god, called Botchica, +having practised abominable witchcraft in order to make the river Funzha +leave its bed, the whole plain of Bogota is devastated by its waters; +men and beasts perish in the inundation, and only a few escape by flight +to the loftiest mountains. The tradition adds that Botchica broke +asunder the rocks inclosing the valley of Canoas and Tequendama, in +order to facilitate the escape of the waters, next reassembled the +dispersed remnant of the Muyscas, taught them Sun-worship, and went up +to heaven, after having lived 500 years in Cundinamarca. + + +I. + +_Chaldean and Biblical Narratives._--Of the traditions relating to the +great cataclysm the most curious, no doubt, is that of the Chaldeans. +Its influence has stamped itself in an unmistakable manner on the +tradition of India; and, of all the accounts of the Deluge, it comes +nearest to that in Genesis. To whoever compares the two it becomes +evident that they must have been one and the same up to the time when +Terah and his family left Ur of the Chaldees to go into Palestine. + +We have two versions of the Chaldean story--unequally developed indeed, +but exhibiting a remarkable agreement. The one most anciently known, and +also the shorter, is that which Berosus took from the sacred books of +Babylon and introduced into the history that he wrote for the use of +the Greeks.[32] After speaking of the last nine antediluvian kings, the +Chaldean priest continues thus:-- + + "Obartes Elbaratutu being dead, his son Xisuthros (Khasisatra) + reigned eighteen sares (64,800 years). It was under him that the + Great Deluge took place, the history of which is told in the sacred + documents as follows:--Cronos (Ea) appeared to him in his sleep, and + announced that on the fifteenth of the month of Daisios (the + Assyrian month Sivan--a little before the summer solstice), all men + should perish by a flood. He therefore commanded him to take the + beginning, the middle, and the end of whatever was consigned to + writing,[33] and to bury it in the City of the Sun, at Sippara; then + to build a vessel, and to enter into it with his family and dearest + friends; to place in this vessel provisions to eat and drink, and to + cause animals, birds, and quadrupeds to enter it; lastly, to prepare + everything for navigation. And when Xisuthros inquired in what + direction he should steer his bark, he was answered, 'towards the + gods,' and enjoined to pray that good might come of it for men. + + "Xisuthros obeyed, and constructed a vessel five stadia long and + five broad; he collected all that had been prescribed to him, and + embarked his wife, his children, and his intimate friends. + + "The Deluge having come, and soon going down, Xisuthros loosed some + of the birds. These finding no food nor place to alight on returned + to the ship. A few days later Xisuthros again let them free, but + they returned again to the vessel, their feet full of mud. Finally, + loosed the third time the birds came no more back. Then Xisuthros + understood that the earth was bare. He made an opening in the roof + of the ship, and saw that it had grounded on the top of a mountain. + He then descended with his wife, his daughter, and his pilot, + worshipped the earth, raised an altar, and there sacrificed to the + gods; at the same moment he vanished with those who accompanied him. + + "Meanwhile those who had remained in the vessel not seeing Xisuthros + return, descended too and began to seek him, calling him by his + name. They saw Xisuthros no more; but a voice from heaven was heard + commanding them piety towards the gods; that he, indeed, was + receiving the reward of his piety in being carried away to dwell + thenceforth in the midst of the gods, and that his wife, his + daughter, and the pilot of the ship shared the same honour. The + voice further said that they were to return to Babylon, and + conformably to the decrees of fate, disinter the writings buried at + Sippara in order to transmit them to men. It added that the country + in which they found themselves was Armenia. These, then, having + heard the voice, sacrificed to the gods and returned on foot to + Babylon. Of the vessel of Xisuthros, which had finally landed in + Armenia, a portion is still to be found in the Gordyan Mountains in + Armenia, and pilgrims bring thence asphalte that they have scraped + from its fragments. It is used to keep off the influence of + witchcraft. As to the companions of Xisuthros, they came to Babylon, + disinterred the writings left at Sippara, founded numerous cities, + built temples, and restored Babylon." + +By the side of this version, which, interesting though it be, is, after +all, second hand, we are now able to place an original +Chaldeo-Babylonian edition, which the lamented George Smith was the +first to decipher on the cuneiform tablets exhumed at Nineveh and now in +the British Museum. Here the narrative of the Deluge appears as an +episode in the eleventh tablet, or eleventh chaunt of the great epic of +the town of Uruk. The hero of this poem, a kind of Hercules, whose name +has not as yet been made out with certainty,[34] being attacked by +disease (a kind of leprosy), goes, with a view to its cure, to consult +the patriarch saved from the Deluge, Khasisatra, in the distant land to +which the gods have transported him, there to enjoy eternal felicity. He +asks Khasisatra to reveal the secret of the events which led to his +obtaining the privilege of immortality, and thus the patriarch is +induced to relate the cataclysm. + +By a comparison of the three copies of the poem that the library of the +palace of Nineveh contained, it has been possible to restore the +narrative with hardly any breaks.[35] These three copies were, by order +of the King of Assyria, Asshurbanabal, made in the eighth century B.C., +from a very ancient specimen in the sacerdotal library of the town of +Uruk, founded by the monarchs of the first Chaldean empire. It is +difficult precisely to fix the date of the original, copied by Assyrian +scribes, but it certainly goes back to the ancient empire, seventeen +centuries, at least, before our era, and even probably beyond; it was +therefore much anterior to Moses, and nearly contemporaneous with +Abraham. The variations presented by the three existing copies prove +that the original was in the primitive mode of writing called the +_hieratic_, a character which must have already become difficult to +decipher in the eighth century B.C., as the copyists have differed as to +the interpretation to be given to certain signs, and in other cases have +simply reproduced exactly the forms of such as they did not understand. +Finally, it results from a comparison of these variations, that the +original, transcribed by order of Asshurbanabal, must itself have been a +copy of some still more ancient manuscript, in which the original text +had already received interlinear comments. Some of the copyists have +introduced these into their text, others have omitted them. With these +preliminary observations I proceed to give integrally the narrative +ascribed in the poem to Khasisatra:-- + + "I will reveal to thee, O Izdhubar, the history of my + preservation--and tell to thee the decision of the gods. + + "The town of Shurippak, a town which thou knowest, is situated on + the Euphrates--it was ancient and in it [men did not honour] the + gods. [I alone, I was] their servant, to the great gods--[The gods + took counsel on the appeal of] Anu--[a deluge was proposed by] + Bel--[and approved by Nabon, Nergal and] Adar. + + "And the god [Ea] the immutable lord,--repeated this command in a + dream.--I listened to the decree of fate that he announced, and he + said to me:--'Man of Shiruppak, son of Ubaratutu--thou, build a + vessel and finish it [quickly].--[By a deluge] I will destroy + substance and life.--Cause thou to go up into the vessel the + substance of all that has life.--The vessel thou shall build--600 + cubits shall be the measure of its length--and 60 cubits the amount + of its breadth and of its height.--[Launch it] thus on the ocean and + cover it with a roof.'--I understood, and I said to Ea, my + lord:--'[The vessel] that thou commandest me to build thus--[when] I + shall do it,--young and old [shall laugh at me.]'--[Ea opened his + mouth and] spoke.--He said to me, his servant:--'[If they laugh at + thee] thou shalt say to them: [shall be punished] he who has + insulted me, [for the protection of the gods] is over me.-- ... like + to caverns ... ---- ... I will exercise my judgment on that which is + on high and that which is below ... ---- ... Close the vessel ... + ---- ... At a given moment that I shall cause thee to know,--enter + into it and draw the door of the ship towards thee.--Within it, thy + grains, thy furniture, thy provisions,--thy riches, thy + men-servants, and thy maid-servants, and thy young people--the + cattle of the field and the wild beasts of the plain that I will + assemble--and that I will send thee, shall be kept behind thy + door.'--Khasisatra opened his mouth and spoke;--he said to Ea, his + lord:--'No one has made [such a] ship.--On the prow I will + fix....--I shall see ... and the vessel ...--the vessel thou + commandest me to build [thus]--which in....[36] + + "On the fifth day [the two sides of the bark] were raised.--In its + covering fourteen in all were its rafters--fourteen in all did it + count above.--I placed its roof and I covered it.--I embarked in it + on the sixth day; I divided its floors on the seventh;--I divided + the interior compartments on the eighth. I stopped up the chinks + through which the water entered in;--I visited the chinks and added + what was wanting.--I poured on the exterior three times 3,600 + measures of asphalte,--and three times 3,600 measures of asphalte + within.--Three times 3,600 men, porters, brought on their heads the + chests of provisions.--I kept 3,600 chests for the nourishment of my + family,--and the mariners divided among themselves twice 3,600 + chests.--For [provisioning] I had oxen slain;--I instituted + [rations] for each day.--In [anticipation of the need of] drinks, of + barrels and of wine--[I collected in quantity] like to the waters of + a river, [of provisions] in quantity like to the dust of the + earth.--[To arrange them in] the chests I set my hand to.-- ... of + the sun ... the vessel was completed.-- ... strong and--I had + carried above and below the furniture of the ship.--[This lading + filled the two-thirds.] + + "All that I possessed I gathered together; all I possessed of silver + I gathered together; all that I possessed of gold I gathered--all + that I possessed of the substance of life of every kind I gathered + together.--I made all ascend into the vessel; my servants male and + female,--the cattle of the fields, the wild beasts of the plains, + and the sons of the people, I made them all ascend." + + "Shamash (the sun) made the moment determined and----he announced it + in these terms: 'In the evening I will cause it to rain abundantly + from heaven; enter into the vessel and close the door.'----The fixed + moment had arrived, which he announced in these terms: 'In the + evening I will cause it to rain abundantly from heaven.'----When the + evening of that day arrived, I was afraid,----I entered into the + vessel and shut my door.----In shutting the vessel, to + Buzur-shadi-rabi, the pilot----I confided this dwelling, with all + that it contained. + + "Mu-sheri-ina-namari[37]--rose from the foundations of heaven in a + black cloud;--Ramman[38] thundered in the midst of the cloud--and + Nabon and Sharru marched before;--they marched, devastating the + mountain and the plain;--Nergal[39] the powerful, dragged + chastisements after him;--Adar[40] advanced, overthrowing before + him;--the Archangels of the abyss brought destruction--in their + terrors they agitated the earth.--The inundation of Ramman swelled + up to the sky--and [the earth] became without lustre, was changed + into a desert. + + "They broke ... of the surface of the earth like ...;--[they + destroyed] the living beings of the surface of the earth.--The + terrible [Deluge] on men swelled up to [heaven].--The brother no + longer saw his brother; men no longer knew each other. In + heaven--the gods became afraid of the water-spout, and--sought a + refuge; they mounted up to the heaven of Anu.[41]--The gods were + stretched out motionless, pressing one against another like + dogs.--Ishtar wailed like a child,--the great goddess pronounced her + discourse:--'Here is humanity returned into mud, and--this is the + misfortune that I have announced in the presence of the gods.--So I + announced the misfortune in the presence of the gods,--for the evil + I announced the terrible [chastisement] of men who are mine.--I am + the mother who gave birth to men, and--like to the race of fishes, + there they are filling the sea;--and the gods by reason of + that--which the archangels of the abyss are doing, weep with + me.'--The gods on their seats were seated in tears--and they held + their lips closed, [revolving] future things. + + "Six days and as many nights passed; the wind, the water-spout, and + the diluvian rain were in all their strength. At the approach of the + seventh day the diluvian rain grew weaker, the terrible + water-spout--which had assailed after the fashion of an + earthquake--grew calm, the sea inclined to dry up, and the wind and + the water-spout came to an end. I looked at the sea, attentively + observing--and the whole of humanity had returned to mud; like unto + seaweeds the corpses floated. I opened the window, and the light + smote on my face. I was seized with sadness; I sat down and I + wept;--and my tears came over my face. + + "I looked at the regions bounding the sea; towards the twelve points + of the horizon; not any continent.--The vessel was borne above the + land of Nizir--the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did + not permit it to pass over.--A day and a second day the mountain of + Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over;--the + third and fourth day the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and + did not permit it to pass over;--the fifth and sixth day the + mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass + over.--At the approach of the seventh day, I sent out and loosed a + dove. The dove went, turned, and--found no place to light on, and it + came back. I sent out and loosed a swallow; the swallow went, + turned, and--found no place to light on, and it came back. I sent + out and loosed a raven; the raven went and saw the corpses on the + waters; it ate, rested, turned and came not back. + + "I then sent out (what was in the vessel) towards the four winds, + and I offered a sacrifice. I raised the pile of my burnt offering on + the peak of the mountain; seven by seven I disposed the measured + vases,[42]--and beneath I spread rushes, cedar, and juniper wood. + The gods were seized with the desire of it--the gods were seized + with a benevolent desire of it;--and the gods assembled like flies + above the master of the sacrifice. From afar, in approaching, the + great goddess raised the great zones that Anu has made for their + glory (the gods).[43] These gods, luminous crystal before me, I will + never leave them; in that day I prayed that I might never leave + them. 'Let the gods come to my sacrificial pile!--but never may Bel + come to my sacrificial pile! for he did not master himself, and he + has made the water-spout for the Deluge, and he has numbered my men + for the pit.' + + "From far, in drawing near, Bel--saw the vessel, and Bel + stopped;--he was filled with anger against the gods and the + celestial archangels:-- + + "'No one shall come out alive! No man shall be preserved from the + abyss!'--Adar opened his mouth and said; he said to the warrior + Bel:--'What other than Ea should have formed this resolution?--for + Ea possesses knowledge and [he foresees] all.'--Ea opened his mouth + and spake; he said to the warrior Bel:--'O thou, herald of the gods, + warrior,--as thou didst not master thyself, thou hast made the + water-spout of the deluge.--Let the sinner carry the weight of his + sins, the blasphemer the weight of his blasphemy.--Please thyself + with this good pleasure and it shall never be infringed; faith in it + never [shall be violated.]--Instead of thy making a new deluge, let + lions appear and reduce the number of men; instead of thy making a + new deluge, let hyenas appear and reduce the number of men;--instead + of thy making a new deluge, let there be famine and let the earth be + [devastated];--instead of thy making a new deluge, let Dibbara[44] + appear, and let men be [mown down]. I have not revealed the decision + of the great gods;--it is Khasisatra who interpreted a dream and + comprehended what the gods had decided.' + + "Then, when his resolve was arrested, Bel entered into the + vessel.--He took my hand and made me rise.--He made my wife rise and + made her place herself at my side.--He turned around us and stopped + short; he approached our group.--'Until now Khasisatra has made part + of perishable humanity;--but lo, now, Khasisatra and his wife are + going to be carried away to live like the gods,--and Khasisatra will + reside afar at the mouth of the rivers.'--They carried me away and + established me in a remote place at the mouth of the streams." + +This narrative follows with great exactness the same course as that, or +rather as those of Genesis, and the analogies are on both sides +striking. It is well known, and has long been critically demonstrated, +that chapters vi., vii., viii. and ix. of Genesis contain two different +narratives of the Deluge, the one taken from the Elohist document, the +other from the Jehovist, both being skilfully combined by the final +editor. Reverencing their text, which he evidently considered sacred, he +omitted no fact given by either, so that we have the whole story twice +narrated in different terms; and, in spite of the way the verses are +mixed up, it is easy so to disentangle the two versions as that each +should form a continuous and unbroken narrative. Some critics have +recently pretended that, with regard to the stories of the Creation and +Deluge, both cuneiform documents disproved the distinction between the +two sources of Genesis, and proved the primitive unity of its +composition; that the same repetitions, in effect, were to be found +there. This was a premature conclusion, drawn from translations very +imperfect as yet, and requiring thorough revision; and, indeed, +confining ourselves to the story of the Deluge, such revision, carried +on according to strict philological principles, does away with the +arguments that had been based on the version of George Smith. None of +the repetitions of the final text of Genesis are observable in the +Chaldean poem; which, on the contrary, decisively confirms the +distinction made between the two narratives, the Elohist and Jehovist, +interwoven by the last compiler of the Pentateuch. It is with each of +these separately--when disentangled and compared--that the Chaldean +narrative coincides in its order--it is not with the result of their +combination. And nothing could be easier than to demonstrate this by a +synoptic table, in which the three narratives were collated. + +Such a table would at once show their agreement and their difference, +what the three records have in common, and what each has added of its +own to the primitive outline. They are certainly three versions of the +same traditional history, and with the Chaldeo-Babylonians on the one +hand, and the Hebrews on the other, we have two parallel streams +proceeding from one source. Nevertheless, we must note on both sides +divergences of certain importance which prove the bifurcation of the two +traditions to have taken place at a very remote era, and the one of +which the Bible affords us the expression to be not merely an edition of +that preserved by the Chaldean priesthood, expurgated from a severely +monotheistic point of view. + +The Biblical narrative bears the impress of an inland people, ignorant +of navigation. In Genesis, the name of the ark, _tebah_, signifies +"coffer," and not "vessel." Nothing is said about the launching of the +ark; there is no mention made of the sea, or of navigation; there is no +pilot. In the Epic of Uruk, on the contrary, everything shows it to have +been composed amidst a maritime population; every circumstance bears a +reflex of the manners and customs of people living on the shore of the +Persian Gulf. Khasisatra enters a vessel, properly so called; it is +launched, undergoes a trial trip, all its seams are caulked with +bitumen, it is entrusted to a pilot. + +The Chaldeo-Babylonian narrative represents Khasisatra as a king, who +goes up into the ship surrounded by a whole population of servants and +companions; in the Bible, we have only Noah and his family who are +saved; the new human race has no other source than the patriarch's three +sons. Nor is there any trace in the Chaldean poem of the distinction (in +the Bible peculiar indeed only to the Jehovist) between clean and +unclean beasts, and of each kind of the former being numbered by sevens, +although in Babylonia the number seven had a specially sacramental +character. + +As to the dimensions of the ark, we find a disagreement not only between +the Bible and the tablet copied by order of Asshurbanabal, but between +the latter and Berosus. Both Genesis and the cuneiform documents measure +the ark's dimensions by cubits, Berosus by stadia. Genesis states its +length and breadth to have been in the proportion of 6 to 1, Berosus of +5 to 2, the tablet in the British Museum of 10 to 1. On the other hand, +the fragments of Berosus do not treat of the relative dimensions of +height and breadth, and the tablet gives them as equal, while the Bible +speaks of thirty cubits of height and fifty of breadth. But these +differences as to figures have but a secondary importance; nothing so +liable to alterations and variations in different editions of the same +narrative. We may observe, however, that in Genesis it is only the +Elohist--always much addicted to figures--who gives the dimensions of +the ark. And, on the other hand, it is the Jehovist alone who tells of +the sending forth of the birds, which occupies a considerable place in +the Chaldean tradition. As to the variations here between the Biblical +story and that in the poem of Uruk, the latter adding the swallow to +the dove and the raven, and not attributing to the dove the part of a +messenger of good tidings, I do not think they go for much. The +agreement as to the main point is, in my eyes, of far more importance. + +But what is, on the contrary, of very decided importance, is the +absolute disagreement as to the duration of the Deluge between the +Elohist and Jehovist, as well as between the two and the +Chaldeo-Babylonian narrator. Here we have a manifest trace of different +systems applying to the ancient tradition calendrical conceptions, +dissimilar in each record, and yet all seeming to have proceeded from +Chaldea. + +By the Elohist the periods of the Deluge are indicated by the ordinal +numbers of the months, but these ordinal numbers relate to a lunar year, +beginning on the 1st of Tishri (September-October), at the autumnal +equinox. This is admitted by Josephus, and by the Author of the Targum +of the pseudo-Jonathan, as well as by Rashi and Kimchi, among the Jewish +commentators of the Middle Ages; and proved, as I conceive, by Michaelis +among the moderns. The rain begins to fall, and Noah enters into the ark +the 17th day of the second month--_i.e._, Marcheshvan. The great force +of the waters lasts 150 days, and the 17th of the seventh month--_i.e._, +Nisan (March-April)--the ark grounds on Mount Ararat. The 1st day of the +tenth month, or Tammuz (June-July), about the summer solstice, the +mountains are laid bare. The 1st day of the first month of the following +year--that is, of Tishri, at the autumnal equinox--the waters have +completely retired, and Noah leaves the ark on the 27th of the second +month. Thus the Deluge lasted a whole lunar year, plus eleven days--that +is to say, as Ewald well remarks, a solar year of 365 days. Now, under +the climatic conditions of Babylonia and Assyria, the rains of late +autumn begin towards the end of November, and at once the level of the +Euphrates and Tigris rises. The periodic overflow of the two rivers +occurs in the middle of March, and culminates at the end of May, from +which time the waters go down. At the end of June they have left the +plains, and from August to November are at their lowest level. Now the +dates of the Deluge, given by the Elohist, and re-stated as we have been +doing according to Michaelis and Knobel, accord perfectly with these +phases of the rising and falling of the two Mesopotamian rivers. They +accord even better in the primitive system which served for +starting-point to that of the Elohist, and which has been so ingeniously +restored by M. Schraeder,[45] a system attributing to the Deluge 300 days +in all, or a ten months' duration: 150 days for its greatest height and +150 for its decrease. According to this system, the leaving of the ark +must have taken place on the first day of the 601st year of Noah's +life--that is to say, on the 1st of Tishri, at the autumnal equinox. +Thus the deliverance of the father of the new humanity, as well as the +Covenant made by God with him and his race, were fixed on the very day +to which an ancient opinion which has maintained itself among the Jews +assigned the creation of the world. As to the beginning of the Deluge, +it occurred, according to the same system, on the 1st day of the third +month--that is to say, at the commencement of the lunation whose end +coincided with the Sun's entry into Capricorn, when the conjunction of +planets brought about periodic deluges according to an astrological +conception of Chaldean origin, which does not indeed appear a very +ancient one; but must have been based on data adopted by some of the +sacerdotal schools of Babylonia as to the epoch of the cataclysm. + +It is also with the winter rains, and not with the swelling of the +Euphrates and Tigris in spring, that the calendrical construction, +according to which the antediluvian kings or patriarchs have been placed +in relation with solar mansions (a construction followed in Uruk's Epic +poem), causes the commencement of the Deluge to coincide. It connects, +in point of fact, the tradition of the cataclysm with the month of +Shabut (January-February), and with the sign of Aquarius. Accordingly, I +find great difficulty in admitting the exactness of the date, 15th of +Daisios, given in the extract of Alexander Polybister, as that assigned +by Berosus to the Deluge, for this would make the event occur in the +middle of the Assyrian month Sivan, at the beginning of July, in a +season of complete drought, when the rivers have reached their lowest +level. I hold this to be an evident error, due not to the author of the +Chaldean History himself, but to his transcriber. Berosus must have +written =menos ogdou; pempte kai dekate= the 15th of the eighth month, +translating into Greek the Assyrian name of the Arakh-Shanina. And by a +readily explicable error Cornelius Alexander must have turned it into +Daisios, which was the eighth month of the Syro-Macedonian Calendar, +forgetting the difference between the initial point of its year and that +of the Chaldeo-Assyrian. In reality, then, the date given by Berosus +only differed by two days from that adopted by the Elohist compiler of +Genesis. Besides, as Knobel rightly insists, in placing the commencement +of the Deluge at the 15th or 17th of a month, we place it always at the +full moon, for it is also with this phase of the light that lights the +night that popular belief in Egypt and Mesopotamia links the periodic +rise of Nile or Tigris. + +The system of the Jehovist is quite a different one. According to him, +Jahveh announces the Deluge to Noah only seven days beforehand. The +waters are at their height for forty days, and decrease during forty +more. After these eighty days Noah sends out the three birds at +intervals of seven days, and thus it is on the 21st day after he has +opened the window of the ark for the first time that he, too, goes out +of the ark and offers his sacrifice to the Lord. Here the phases of the +cataclysm are evidently calculated on those of the annual spring outflow +of the Euphrates and Tigris, so that we need not hesitate to assign the +origin of the very form of the tradition received by the Jehovist +writer, to the cradle of the race of the Terahites in Chaldea. The +overflow of the two rivers of Mesopotamia lasts, in fact, for an average +of seventy-five days from the middle of March to the end of May; and +twenty-six days later--that is, at the end of the 101 in all (80 + 21 = +75 + 26 = 101), when the Jehovist makes Noah leave the ark--the lands +which have been inundated become once more practicable. + +What, moreover, in the Jehovist narrative bears a very marked impress of +Chaldean origin is the part played in it by septennial periods; seven +days intervening between the announcement and the beginning of the +Deluge, seven between each sending forth of the birds. That religious +and mystic importance attached to the heptade which gave rise to the +conception of the seven days of creation, and to the invention of the +week, is an essentially Chaldean idea. It is among the +Chaldeo-Babylonians that we discover its origin and find its most +numerous applications. The story of Khasisatra, in the poem of Uruk, +invariably proceeds hebdomadally. The violence of the Deluge lasts seven +days, and so does the stay of the vessel on Mount Nizir when the waters +begin to go down. It is true, indeed, that the building of the vessel +occupies eight instead of seven days; but we must add the time necessary +for the embarkation of provisions, animals, passengers, and this will +enable us to calculate the whole duration of Khasisatra's preparations +between the vision sent him by Ea and the moment when he closes the +vessel at the approach of the rain, as consisting of fourteen days or +two hebdomades. This being granted, if the poem does not state precisely +the intervals at which the three birds were sent forth, we are justified +in applying here the figures used by the Jehovist in Genesis, and +counting seven days between the first and second sending forth, seven +between the second and third, and seven, lastly, between the departure +of the bird which does not return, and the leaving the vessel. The whole +interval, then, between the warning of Ea and the sacrifice of +Khasisatra, amounts to seven hebdomades--plainly a number intentionally +assigned. And the whole duration of the Deluge is doubled by the sacred +writer, who was the author of the Jehovist document, 7 × 2 × 7, instead +of 7 × 7; that is, fourteen weeks with just three days over, owing to +the writer having employed the round numbers 40 + 40 = 80 days, instead +of the precise number seventy-seven days or eleven hebdomades (7 + 4 × +7), to indicate the interval between the beginning of the diluvian rain +and the sending forth of the first bird. And now, if we keep count of +the time between the announcing of the cataclysm by Jahveh and its +commencement, the figures of the Jehovist are in all 7 × 2 × 7 + 7 days, +and those of the system of the Chaldean poem 7 × 7. But they are on both +sides combinations of seven. + +Where the Chaldeo-Babylonian narrative and that of the Bible absolutely +diverge, is in their statement of what, after the Deluge, befell the +righteous man saved from it. According to the figures of the Elohist, +Noah lives on among his descendants for 350 years, and dies at the age +of 950. Khasisatra receives the privilege of immortality; is carried +away "to live like the gods," and transported into "a distant place," +where the hero of Uruk goes to visit him in order to learn the secrets +of life and death. But in the Bible we have something of the same kind +told us of Noah's great-grandfather Enoch, who "walked with God, and was +not, because God took him." We see, then, that the Babylonian tradition +united in the person of Khasisatra facts which the Bible distributes +between Enoch and Noah, the two whom Holy Scripture equally +characterizes as having "walked with God." + +The author of the treatise "On the Syrian Goddess," erroneously +attributed to Lucian, acquaints us with the diluvian tradition of the +Arameans, directly derived from that of Chaldea, as it was narrated in +the celebrated Sanctuary of Hierapolis or Bambyce. + + "The generality of people, he says, tell us that the founder of the + temple was Deucalion Sisythes, that Deucalion in whose time the + great inundation occurred. I have also heard the account given by + the Greeks themselves of Deucalion; the myth runs thus:--The actual + race of men is not the first, for there was a previous one, all the + members of which perished. We belong to a second race, descended + from Deucalion, and multiplied in the course of time. As to the + former men, they are said to have been full of insolence and pride, + committing many crimes, disregarding their oath, neglecting the + rights of hospitality, unsparing to suppliants, accordingly they + were punished by an immense disaster. All on a sudden enormous + volumes of water issued from the earth, and rains of extraordinary + abundance began to fall; the rivers left their beds, and the sea + overflowed its shores; the whole earth was covered with water, and + all men perished. Deucalion alone, because of his virtue and piety, + was preserved alive to give birth to a new race. This is how he was + saved:--He placed himself, his children, and his wives in a great + coffer that he had, in which pigs, horses, lions, serpents, and all + other terrestrial animals came to seek refuge with him. He received + them all, and while they were in the coffer Zeus inspired them with + reciprocal amity which prevented their devouring one another. In + this manner, shut up within one single coffer, they floated as long + as the waters remained in force. Such is the account given by the + Greeks of Deucalion. + + "But to this which they equally tell, the people of Hierapolis add a + marvellous narrative:--That in their country a great chasm opened, + into which all the waters of the deluge poured. Then Deucalion + raised an altar and dedicated a temple to Hera (Atargatis) close to + this very chasm. I have seen it; it is very narrow, and situated + under the temple. Whether it was once large and has now shrunk, I do + not know; but I have seen it, and it is quite small. In memory of + the event the following is the rite accomplished:--Twice a year sea + water is brought to the temple. This is not only done by the + priests, but numerous pilgrims come from the whole of Syria and + Arabia, and even from beyond the Euphrates, bringing water. It is + poured out in the temple and goes into the cleft which, narrow as it + is, swallows up a considerable quantity. This is said to be in + virtue of a religious law instituted by Deucalion to preserve the + memory of the catastrophe and of the benefits that he received from + the gods. Such is the ancient tradition of the temple." + +It appears to me difficult not to recognize an echo of fables popular +in all Semitic countries about this chasm of Hierapolis, and the part it +played in the Deluge,--in the enigmatic expressions of the Koran +respecting the oven _tannur_ which began to bubble and disgorge water +all around at the commencement of the Deluge. We know that this _tannur_ +has been the occasion of most grotesque imaginings of Mussulman +commentators, who had lost the tradition of the story to which Mahomet +made allusion. And, moreover, the Koran formally states that the waters +of the Deluge were absorbed in the bosom of the earth. + + +II. + +_Indian Traditions._--India, in its turn, affords us an account of the +Deluge, which by its poverty strikingly contrasts with that of the Bible +and the Chaldeans. Its most simple and ancient form is found in the +_Catapatha Brahmana_ of the Rig-Veda. It has been translated for the +first time by M. Max Muller. + + "One morning water for washing was brought to Manu, and when he had + washed himself a fish remained in his hands. And it addressed these + words to him:--'Protect me and I will save thee.' 'From what wilt + thou save me?' 'A deluge will sweep all creatures away; it is from + that I will save thee.' 'How shall I protect thee?' The fish + replied: 'While we are small we run great dangers, for fish swallow + fish. Keep me at first in a vase; when I become too large for it dig + a basin to put me into. When I shall have grown still more, throw me + into the ocean; then I shall be preserved from destruction.' Soon it + grew a large fish. It said to Manu, 'The very year I shall have + reached my full growth the Deluge will happen. Then build a vessel + and worship me. When the waters rise, enter the vessel and I will + save thee.' + + "After keeping him thus, Manu carried the fish to the sea. In the + year indicated Manu built a vessel and worshipped the fish. And when + the Deluge came he entered the vessel. Then the fish came swimming + up to him, and Manu fastened the cable of the ship to the horn of + the fish, by which means the latter made it pass over the mountain + of the North. The fish said, 'I have saved thee; fasten the vessel + to a tree that the water may not sweep it away while thou art on the + mountain; and in proportion as the waters decrease thou shalt + descend.' Manu descended with the waters, and this is what is called + the _descent of Manu_ on the mountain of the North. The deluge had + carried away all creatures, and Manu remained alone." + +Next in order of date and complication, which always goes on loading the +narrative more and more with fantastic and parasitical details, comes +the version in the enormous epic of _Mahabharata_. That of the poem +called _Bhagavata-Purana_ is still more recent and fabulous. Finally, +the same tradition forms the subject of an entire poem of very low date, +the _Matsya-Purana_, of which an analysis has been given by the great +Indian scholar, Wilson. + +In the preface to the third volume of his edition of _Bhagavata-Purana_, +Eugene Burnouf has carefully compared the three narratives known at the +time he wrote (that of the _Catapatha Brahmana_ has been since +discovered), with a view to clearing up the origin of the Indian +tradition of the Deluge. He points out in a discussion that deserves to +remain a model of erudition and subtle criticism, that it is absolutely +wanting in the Vedic hymns, where we only find distant allusions to it +that seem to belong to a different kind of legend altogether, and also +that this tradition was primitively foreign to the essentially Indian +system of _Manvantaras_, or periodic destructions of the world. He +thence concludes that it must have been imported into India subsequently +to the adoption of this system, which is, however, very ancient, being +common to Brahmanism and Buddhism, and therefore inclines to look upon +it as a Semitic importation that took place in historic times, not, +indeed, of Genesis, but more probably of the Babylonian tradition. + +The discovery of an original edition of the latter confirms the theory +of the French savant. The leading feature which distinguishes the Indian +narrative is the part assigned to a god who puts on the form of a fish, +in order to warn Manu, to guide his vessel and save him from the flood. +The nature of the metamorphosis is the only fundamental and primitive +point, for different versions vary as to the personality of the god who +assumes this form--the _Brahmana_ leaves it uncertain, the _Mahabharata_ +fixes on Brahma, and the compilers of the _Puranas_ on Vishnu. This is +the more remarkable that this metamorphosis into a fish _Matsyavatara_ +remains isolated in Indian mythology, is foreign to its habitual +symbolism, and gives rise to no ulterior developments: no trace being +found in India of that fish-worship which was so important and +widespread among other ancient people. Burnouf rightly saw in this a +sign of importation from without, and especially of its Babylonian +origin, for classic testimony, recently confirmed by native monuments, +shows us that in the religion of Babylon the conception of +ichthyomorphic gods held a more prominent place than elsewhere. The part +played by the divine fish with regard to Manu in the Indian legend, is +attributed both by the Epic of Uruk and by Berosus to the god Ea, who is +also designated Schalman, "the Saviour." Now this god, whose type of +representation we now know certainly from Assyrian and Babylonian +monuments, is essentially the ichthyomorphic god, and his image almost +invariably combines the forms of fish and man. In astronomical tables +frequent mention is made of the catasterism of the "fish of Ea," which +is indubitably our sign Pisces, since it presides over the month Adar. +It is to a connection of ideas based on the diluvian record, that we +must attribute the placing of Pisces--primarily of the "fish of +Ea"--next to Aquarius, whose relation to the history of the Deluge we +have already pointed out. Here we have an evident allusion to the part +of Saviour attributed by the people who invented the Zodiac, to the god +Ea in the flood, and to the idea of an ichthyomorphic nature especially +belonging to this aspect of his personality. Ea is, moreover, the +Oannes, lawgiver of the fragments of Berosus, half-man, half-fish, whose +form, answering to the description given by the Chaldean history, has +been discovered in the sculptures of Assyrian palaces and on cylinders, +the Euahanes of Hygin, and the Oes of Helladios.[46] + +Whenever we find among two different peoples one same legend, with as +_special_ a circumstance which does not spring _naturally_ and +_necessarily_ from the fundamental facts of the narrative, and when, +moreover, this circumstance is closely connected with the whole +religious conceptions of one of these peoples, and remains isolated and +alien from the customary symbolism of the other, criticism lays it down +as an absolute rule that we must conclude the legend to have been +transmitted from the one to the other in an already fixed form, to be a +foreign importation, superimposed, not fused with the national, and as +it were genial, traditions of the people, who have received, without +having created it. + +We must also remark that in the _Puranas_ it is no longer Manu Vaivasata +that the divine fish saves from the Deluge, but a different personage, +the King of the Dasas--_i.e._, fishers, Satyravata, "the man who loves +justice and truth," strikingly corresponding to the Chaldean Khasisatra. +Nor is the Puranic version of the Legend of the Deluge to be despised, +though it be of recent date and full of fantastic and often puerile +details. In certain aspects it is less Aryanized than that of _Brahmana_ +or than the _Mahabharata_, and above all it gives some circumstances +omitted in these earlier versions, which must yet have belonged to the +original foundation, since they appear in the Babylonian legend; a +circumstance preserved no doubt by the oral tradition--popular and not +Brahmanic--with which the _Puranas_ are so deeply imbued. This has been +already observed by Pictet, who lays due stress on the following passage +of the _Bhagavata-Purana_: "In _seven days_," said Vishnu to Satyravata, +"the three worlds shall be submerged." There is nothing like this in the +_Brahmana_ nor the _Mahabharata_, but in Genesis the Lord says to Noah, +"_Yet seven days_ and I will cause it to rain upon the earth;" and a +little further we read, "_After seven days_ the waters of the flood were +upon the earth." And we have just pointed out the parts played by +hebdomades as successive periods in that system of the duration of the +flood, adopted by the author of the Jehovist documents inserted in +Genesis, as well as by the compiler of the Chaldean Epic of Uruk. Nor +must we pay less attention to what the _Bhagavata-Purana_ says of the +directions given by the fish-god to Satyravata for the placing of the +sacred Scriptures in a safe place in order to preserve them from +Hayagriva, a marine horse dwelling in the abyss, and of the conflict of +the god with this Hayagriva, who had stolen the Vedas and thus produced +the cataclysm by disturbing the order of the world. This circumstance +too is wanting in the more ancient compositions, even in the +_Mahabharata_, but it is a most important one, and cannot be looked on +as a spontaneous product of Indian soil, for we recognize in it under +an Indian garb the very tradition of the interment of the sacred +writings at Sippara by Khasisatra, such as we have it in the fragments +of Berosus. + +It is the Chaldean form, then, of the tradition that the Indians have +adopted owing to communications which the commercial relations between +the countries render historically natural, and they afterwards amplified +it with the exuberance peculiar to their imagination. But they must have +adopted it all the more readily because it agreed with a tradition, +which under a somewhat different form had been brought by their +ancestors from the primitive cradle of the Aryan race. That the +recollection of the flood did indeed form part of the original +groundwork of the legends as to the origin of the world held by this +great race, is beyond all doubt. For if Indians have accepted the +Chaldean form of the story, so nearly allied to that of Genesis, all +other nations of Aryan descent show themselves possessed of entirely +original versions of the cataclysm which cannot be held to have been +borrowed either from Babylonian or Hebrew sources. + + +III. + +_Traditions of other Aryan Peoples._--Among the Iranians, in the sacred +books containing the fundamental Zoroastrian doctrines, and dating very +far back, we meet with a tradition which must assuredly be looked upon +as a variety of that of the Deluge, though possessing a special +character, and diverging in some essential particulars from those we +have been examining. It relates how Yima, who in the original and +primitive conception was the father of the human race, was warned by +Ahuramazda, the good deity, of the earth being about to be devastated by +a flood. The god ordered Yima to construct a refuge, a square garden, +_vara_, protected by an enclosure, and to cause the germs of men, +beasts, and plants to enter it, in order to escape annihilation. +Accordingly, when the inundation occurred, the garden of Yima with all +that it contained was alone spared, and the message of safety was +brought thither by the bird Karshipta, the envoy of Ahuramazda.[47] + +A comparison has also been made, but erroneously as I think, between the +Biblical and Chaldean Deluge and a story only found complete in the +_Bundahesh-pahlavi_;[48] though, as a few of the older books contain +allusions to some of its circumstances;[49] it must date further back +than this edition of it, which is recent. Ahuramazda determines to +destroy the Khafctras--_i.e._, the maleficent spirits created by +Angromainyus, the spirit of evil: Tistrya, the genius of the star +Sirius, descends at his command to earth, and, assuming the form of a +man, causes it to rain for ten days. The waters cover the earth, and all +maleficent beings are drowned. A violent wind dries the earth, but some +germs of the evil spirit's creation remain, and may reappear, therefore +Tistrya descends again under the form of a white horse, and produces a +second Deluge by another rainfall of ten days. To prevent him +accomplishing his task, the demon Apusha assumes the appearance of a +black horse, and engages in combat; but he is struck with lightning by +Ahuramazda, as well as the demon Cpendjaghra, who had come to his aid. +Finally, to bring about the complete destruction of evil, Tistrya +descends the third time under the form of a bull, and produces a third +Deluge by a third rainfall of ten days, after which the waters divide to +form the four great and the twenty-four small seas. Now all this relates +to a cosmogonic fact, anterior to the creation of man. The Khafctras, +from which Tistrya undertakes to purge the earth, are the hurtful and +venomous beasts created by Angromainyus which fervent Mazedans make it a +duty to destroy in our actual world--such as scorpions, lizards, toads, +serpents, rats, &c. There is no allusion here to humanity, or the +punishment of its sins. If we were bent on finding in our Bible any +parallel to this first rain falling on the surface of the earth--which +both destroys the hurtful creatures by which it was infested and renders +it productive of a fertile vegetation--we should turn, not to the +account of the Deluge, but to what is said in Gen. ii. 5, 6. + +The Greeks had two principal legends as to the cataclysm by which +primitive humanity was destroyed. The first was connected with the name +of Ogyges, the most ancient of the kings of Boeotia or Attica; a quite +mythical personage, lost in the night of ages, his very name seemingly +derived from one signifying deluge in Aryan idioms, in Sanscrit _Angha_. +It is said that in his time the whole land was covered by a flood, whose +waters reached the sky, and from which he, together with some +companions, escaped in a vessel. + +The second tradition is the Thessalian legend of Deucalion. Zeus having +worked to destroy the men of the age of bronze, with whose crimes he was +wroth, Deucalion, by the advice of Prometheus, his father, constructed a +coffer, in which he took refuge with his wife, Pyrrha. The Deluge came, +the chest or coffer floated at the mercy of the waves for nine days and +nine nights, and was finally stranded on Mount Parnassus. Deucalion and +Pyrrha leave it, offer sacrifice, and according to the command of Zeus +re-people the world by throwing behind them "the bones of the +earth"--namely, stones, which change into men. This Deluge of Deucalion +is in Grecian tradition what most resembles a universal Deluge. Many +authors affirm that it extended to the whole earth, and that the whole +human race perished. At Athens, in memory of the event, and to appease +the manes of its victims, a ceremony called _Hydrophoria_ was observed, +having so close a resemblance to that in use at Hierapolis in Syria, +that we can hardly fail to look upon it as a Syro-Phoenician +importation, and the result of an assimilation established in remote +antiquity between the Deluge of Deucalion and that of Khasisatra, as +described by the author of the treatise "On the Syrian Goddess."[50] +Close to the temple of the Olympian Zeus a fissure in the soil was +shown, in length but one cubit, through which it was said the waters of +the Deluge had been swallowed up. Thus, every year, on the third day of +the festival of the Anthesteria, a day of mourning consecrated to the +dead,--that is, on the thirteenth of the month of Anthesterion, towards +the beginning of March--it was customary, as at Bambyce, to pour water +into the fissure, together with flour mixed with honey, poured also into +the trench dug to the west of the tomb, in the funereal sacrifices of +the Athenians. + +Others, on the contrary, limit Deucalion's flood to Greece, even declare +that it only destroyed the larger portion of the community, a great many +men saving themselves on the highest mountains. Thus the Delphian legend +told how the inhabitants of that town, following the wolves in their +flight, had taken refuge in a cave on the summit of Parnassus, where +they built the town of Lycorea, whose foundation is, on the other hand, +attributed by the Chronicle of Paros to Deucalion, after the +reproduction by him of a new human race. Later mythographers necessarily +adopted this idea of several points of simultaneous escape from a desire +to reconcile the local legends of several places in Greece, which named +some other than Deucalion as the hero saved from the flood. For +instance, at Megara it was the eponym of the city Megaros, son of Zeus +and of one of the nymphs Sithnides, who, warned by the cry of cranes of +the imminence of the danger, took refuge on Mount Geranien. Again, there +was the Thessalian Cerambos, who was said to have escaped the flood by +rising into the air on wings given him by the nymphs, and it was +Perirrhoos, son of Eolus, that Zeus Naios had preserved at Dodona. For +the inhabitants of the Isle of Cos the hero of the Deluge was Merops, +son of Hyas, who there assembled under his rule the remnant of humanity +preserved with him. The traditions of Rhodes only supposed the +Telchines, those of Crete Jasion, to have escaped the cataclysm. In +Samothracia the same character was attributed to Saon, said to be the +son of Zeus or of Hermes; he seems only to have been a heroic form of +the Hermes Saos or Socos, the object of special worship in the island, a +divinity in whom M. Philippe Berges recognizes with good reason a +Phoenician importation, the Sakan of Canaan identified elsewhere with +Hermes Dardanos, supposed to have arrived in Samothracia immediately +after these events, being driven by the Deluge from Arcadia. + +In all these flood stories of Greece we cannot doubt that the tradition +of a cataclysm fatal to the whole of humanity--a tradition common to all +Aryan peoples--was mixed up, as Knobel rightly observes, more or less +precisely with local catastrophes produced by extraordinary overflows of +lakes or rivers, or the rupture of their natural embankments, the +sinking of some portions of the sea-coast, or tidal waves consequent +upon earthquakes or sudden upheavals of the ocean bed. Such events were +frequent in Greece, in the district between Egypt and Palestine, near +Pelusium and Mount Casius, as well as in the Cimbric Chersonese. The +Greeks used to relate how often their country had in primitive ages been +the theatre of such catastrophes. Istros numbered four of these, one of +which had opened the Straits of the Bosphorus and Hellespont, when the +waters of the Euxine, rushing into the Aegean, submerged the islands and +neighbouring coasts. This is evidently the Deluge of Samothracia; where +the inhabitants who succeeded in saving themselves did so only by +gaining the highest peak of the mountain that rises there; then, in +gratitude for their preservation, consecrated the whole island by +surrounding its shores with a belt of altars dedicated to the gods. In +like manner the tradition of the Deluge of Ogyges seems connected with +the recollection of an extraordinary rise of the Lake Capais, inundating +the whole of the great Boeotian Valley, a recollection amplified +later--as is ever the case with legends--by applying to the local +disaster all the details popularly told of the primitive Deluge which +had taken place before the separation of the ancestors of the two races, +Semitic and Aryan. It is also probable that some event that had occurred +in Thessaly, or rather in the region of Parnassus, determined the +localization of the legend of Deucalion. Nevertheless, it always +retained, as we have seen, a more general character than the others, +whether the Deluge be extended to the whole earth or limited to the +whole of Greece. + +Be that as it may, the different narratives were reconciled by admitting +three successive Deluges, those of Ogyges, Deucalion, and Dardanos. The +general opinion pronounced the former the most ancient, placing it 600 +or 250 years before that of Deucalion. But this chronology is far from +being universally accepted; and the inhabitants of Samothracia maintain +their Deluge to have been the earliest. Christian chronographers of the +third and fourth century, as, for instance, Julius Africanus and +Eusebius, adopted the Hellenic dates of the Deluges of Ogyges and +Deucalion, and inscribed them in their records as different events from +the Mosaic Deluge, which, for their part, they fixed at 1000 years +before that of Ogyges. + +In Phrygia the diluvian tradition was as natural as in Greece. The town +of Apamea derived thence its surname _Kibotos_, or ark, and claimed to +be the place where the Ark had stopped. Iconium had the like +pretensions. In the same way the people of Milyas, in Armenia, showed +the fragments of the Ark on the top of the mountain called Baris; and +these were also exhibited in early Christian times to pilgrims on +Ararat, as Berosus tells us that in his day the remnants of the vessel +of Khasisatra were visited on the Gordyan range. + +In the second and third centuries of our era, by means of the syncretic +infiltration of Jewish and Christian traditions even into minds still +attached to Paganism, the sacerdotal authorities of Apamea and Phrygia +had coins struck bearing an open ark, in which the patriarch and his +wife were seen receiving back the dove with the olive branch, and side +by side were the two same personages, having left the Ark to retake +possession of the earth. On the Ark is inscribed the name =NOE=, the +very form the name assumes in the Septuagint. Thus, at this time the +Pagan priesthood of the Phrygian city had, we see, adopted the Biblical +narrative, even down to its names, and had grafted it on the old native +tradition. They related that a short while before the Deluge there +reigned a holy man called Annacos, who had predicted it, and occupied +the throne more than 300 years, an evident reproduction of the Enoch of +the Bible, who walked with God for 365 years. + +As to the branch of the Celts--in the bardic poems of Wales, we have a +tradition of the Deluge, which, although recent under the concise form +of the Triads, is still deserving of attention. As usual, the legend is +localized in the country, and the Deluge counts among three terrible +catastrophes of the island of Prydain, or Britain, the other two +consisting of devastation by fire and by drought. + + "The first of these events," it is said, "was the irruption of + Llyn-llion, or 'the lake of waves,' and the inundation (_bawdd_) of + the whole country, by which all mankind was drowned with the + exception of Dwyfan and Dwyfach, who saved themselves in a vessel + without rigging, and it was by them that the island of Prydain was + re-peopled."[51] + +Pictet here observes-- + + "Although the triads in their actual form hardly date further than + the thirteenth or fourteenth century, some of them are undoubtedly + connected with very ancient traditions, and nothing here points to a + borrowing from Genesis. + + "But it is not so, perhaps, with another triad[52] speaking of the + vessel Nefydd-naf-Neifion, which at the time of the overflow of + Llyn-llion, bore a pair of all living creatures, and rather too much + resembles the ark of Noah. The very name of the patriarch may have + suggested this triple epithet, obscure as to its meaning, but + evidently formed on the principle of Cymric alliteration. In the + same triad we have the enigmatic story of the horned oxen (_ychain + bannog_) of Hu the mighty, who drew out of Llyn-llion the _avanc_ + (beaver or crocodile?) in order that the lake should not overflow. + The meaning of these enigmas could only be hoped from deciphering + the chaos of bardic monuments of the Welsh middle age; but meanwhile + we cannot doubt that the Cymri possessed an indigenous tradition of + the Deluge." + +We also find a vestige of the same tradition in the Scandinavian +Ealda.[53] But here the story is combined with a cosmogonic myth. The +three sons of Borr, Othin, Wili, and We, grandsons of Buri, the first +man, slay Ymir, the father of the Hrimthursar or Ice giants, and his +body serves them for the construction of the world. Blood flows from his +wounds in such abundance that all the race of giants is drowned in it, +except Bergelmir, who saves himself, with his wife, in a boat, and +reproduces the race. "Thus," Pictet again observes, "the myth only +belongs to the general tradition through these last features, by which, +however, we trace it up to a common source." + +Of all European peoples the Lithuanians were the last to embrace +Christianity, and their language remains nearest to the original Aryan. +They have a legend of the Deluge, the groundwork of which appears very +ancient, although it has assumed the simple character of a popular tale, +and some of its details may have been borrowed from Genesis at the time +of the first Christian missions. According to it[54] the god Pramzimras, +seeing the whole earth to be full of iniquity, sends two giants, Wandu +and Wejas (fire and wind), to lay it waste. These overthrew everything +in their fury, and only a few men saved themselves on a mountain. +Pramzimras, who was engaged in eating celestial walnuts, dropped a shell +near the mountain, and in it the men took refuge, the giants respecting +it. Having escaped from the calamity, they afterwards disperse, and only +one very aged couple remain in the country, greatly bewailing their +childless condition. Pramzimras, to console them, sends his rainbow and +bids them jump "on the bones of the earth," which curiously recalls the +oracle to Deucalion. The two old people jump nine times, and nine pairs +are the result, who became the ancestors of the nine Lithuanian tribes. + + +IV. + +_Egyptian Traditions._--While the tradition of the Deluge holds so +considerable a place in the legendary memories of all branches of the +Aryan race, the monuments and original texts of Egypt, with their many +cosmogonic speculations, have not afforded one, even distant, allusion +to this cataclysm. When the Greeks told the Egyptian priests of the +Deluge of Deucalion, their reply was that they had been preserved from +it as well as from the conflagration produced by Phaeton; they even +added that the Hellenes were childish in attaching so much importance to +that event, as there had been several other local catastrophes +resembling it. According to a passage in Manetho, much suspected, +however, of being an interpolation, Thoth or Hermes Trismegistus had +himself, before the cataclysm, inscribed on stelae in hieroglyphical and +sacred language the principles of all knowledge. After it the second +Thoth translated into the vulgar tongue the contents of these stelae. +This would be the only Egyptian mention of the Deluge, the same Manetho +not speaking of it in what remains to us of his "Dynasties," his only +complete authentic work. The silence of all other myths of the Pharaonic +religion on this head render it very likely that the above is merely a +foreign tradition, recently introduced, and no doubt of Asiatic and +Chaldean origin. "Thus," says M. Maury, "the Seriadic land, where the +passage in question places these hieroglyphic columns, might very well +be no other than Chaldea. This tradition, though not in the Bible, +existed as a popular legend among the Jews at the beginning of our era, +which confirms our supposition; as the Hebrews might have learnt it +during the Babylonian captivity. Josephus tells us that the patriarch +Seth, in order that wisdom and astronomical knowledge should not perish, +erected, in prevision of the double destruction by fire and water +predicted by Adam, two columns, the one in brick, the other in stone, on +which this knowledge was engraved, and which subsisted in the Seriadic +country." This history is evidently only a variety of the Chaldean +legend of the terra-cotta tables bearing the divine revelations, and the +principles of all sciences which Ea ordered Khasisatra to bury before +the Deluge, "in the city of the Sun at Sippara," as we have had it above +in the extracts from Berosus. + +Nevertheless, the Egyptians did admit a destruction by the gods of +primal men on account of their rebellion and their sins. This event was +related in a chapter of the sacred books of Thoth, those famous Hermetic +books of the Egyptian priesthood which are graven on the sides of one of +the inmost chambers of the funereal hypogeum of Seti the First at +Thebes. The text has been published and translated by M. Edouard +Naville.[55] + +The scene is laid at the close of the reign of the god Ra, the earliest +terrestrial reign, according to the system of the priests of Thebes, the +second, according to that of the priests of Memphis, which is the one +followed by Manetho, who placed at the very origin of things the reign +of Phtah, previous to that of Ra. Irritated by the impiety and crimes of +the men he has made, the god assembles the other gods to hold counsel +with them in profound secrecy, "so that men should not see it, nor their +heart be afraid." + + "Said by Ra to Nun:[56] 'Thou, the eldest of the gods, of whom I am + born, and ye ancient gods, here are the men who are born from + myself; they speak words against me, tell me what you would do in + the matter; lo, I have waited, and have not slain them before + hearing your words.' + + "Said by the Majesty of Nun: 'My son Ra, a greater god than he who + has made him and created him, I stand in great fear of thee; do thou + deliberate alone.' + + "Said by the Majesty of Ra: 'Lo, they take to flight through the + country, and their hearts are afraid....' + + "Said by the Gods: 'Let thy face permit, and let those men be + smitten who plot evil things, thine enemies, and let none [of them + remain.]'" + +A goddess, whose name has unfortunately disappeared, but who seems to +have been Tefnut, identified with Hathor and Sekhet, is then sent to +accomplish the sentence of destruction. + + "This goddess left, and slew the men upon the earth. + + "Said by the Majesty of this God: 'Come in peace, Hathor; thou hast + done [what was ordained thee.]' + + "Said by this Goddess: 'Thou art living; for I have been stronger + than men, and my heart is satisfied.' + + "Said by the Majesty of Ra: 'I am living, for I will rule over them + [and I will complete] their ruin.' + + "And lo, Sekhet, during several nights, trod their blood under-foot + as far as the town of Ha-klinen-su (Heracleopolis.)" + +But the massacre ended, the anger of Ra was appeased; he began to repent +of what he had done. A great expiatory sacrifice succeeded in finally +calming him. Fruits were gathered throughout Egypt, bruised, and their +juice mingled with human blood, 7000 pitchers being filled with it and +presented to the god. + + "And lo, the Majesty of Ra, the god of Upper and Lower Egypt, comes + with the gods in three days of sailing to see these vases of drink, + after he had ordered the goddess to slay men. + + "Said by the Majesty of Ra: 'This is well; I will protect men + because of it.' Said by Ra: 'I raise my hand concerning this, to say + that I will no more destroy men.' + + "The Majesty of Ra, the god of Upper and Lower Egypt, commanded in + the middle of the night to overthrow the liquid in the vases, and + the fields were completely filled with water by the will of this + god. The goddess arrived in the morning, and found the fields full + of water. Her face grew joyous, and she drank abundantly and went + away satisfied. She no more perceived any men. + + "Said by the Majesty of Ra to the goddess: 'Come in peace, gracious + goddess.' + + "And he caused the young priestesses of Amu to be born. + + "Said by the Majesty of Ra to this goddess: 'Libations shall be made + to her at each of the festivals of the new year, under the + superintendence of my priestesses.' + + "Hence it comes that libations are made under the superintendence of + the priestesses of Hathor by all men since the ancient days." + +Nevertheless, some men have escaped the destruction commanded by Ra, and +renewed the population of the earth. As for the solar god who reigns +over the world, he feels himself old, sick and weary; he has had enough +of living among men, whom he regrets not to have completely annihilated, +but has sworn henceforth to spare. + + "Said by the Majesty of Ra: 'There is a smarting pain that torments + me; what is it then that hurts me?' Said by the Majesty of Ra: 'I am + living, but my heart is weary of being with them [men], and I have + in no way destroyed them. That destruction is not one that I have + made myself.' + + "Said by the gods who accompany him: 'Away with lassitude, thou hast + obtained all thou didst desire.'" + +The god Ra decides, however, to accept the help of the men of the new +human race who offer themselves to him to combat his enemies, and a +great battle takes place, out of which they come victorious. But in +spite of this success the god, disgusted with earthly life, resolves to +quit it for ever, and has himself carried into heaven by the goddess +Nut, who takes the form of a cow. Then he creates a region of delight, +the fields of Aalu, the Elysium of Egyptian mythology, which he peoples +with stars. Entering into rest, he assigns to different gods the +government of different parts of the world. Shu, who is to succeed him +as king, is to administer celestial matters with Nut; Seb and Nun +receive the charge of the things of earth and water. Finally, Ra, a +sovereign who has voluntarily abdicated, goes to dwell with Thoth, his +favourite son, on whom he has bestowed the superintendence of the +under-world. + +Such is this strange narrative, "in which," as M. Naville has well said, +"in the midst of fantastic and often puerile inventions, we do +nevertheless find the two terms of existence as understood by the +ancient Egyptians. Ra begins with earth, and passing through heaven +stops in the region of profundity, Ament, in which he apparently wishes +to sojourn. This then is a symbolic and religious representation of +life, which for every Egyptian--and especially for a royal +conqueror--had to begin and end like the sun. This explains the chapter +being inscribed in a tomb." + +Hence it was the last portion of the narrative--which we can analyse but +very briefly--the abdication of Ra and his retreat, first, in heaven, +next in the Ament, a symbol of death which is to be followed by +resurrection as the setting of the sun by its rising--it is this which +constituted its interest in the conception of the doctrine of a future +life, illustrated in the decoration of the interior of the tomb of Seti +I. For our present purpose, on the contrary, it is the beginning of the +story which constitutes its importance, it is that destruction of primal +humanity by the gods of which no mention has been hitherto found +elsewhere. Although the means of destruction employed by Ra are quite +dissimilar, although he does not proceed by submersion but by a massacre +in which the lion-headed goddess Tefnut or Sekhet, the dreadful form of +Hathor, is the agent, the other sides of the story bear a sufficiently +striking analogy to that of the Mosaic or Chaldean Deluge to show that +it is the special and very individual form assumed in Egypt by that +tradition. In both we have human corruption exciting divine wrath, and +punished by a divinely ordained annihilation of the race, from which +there escapes but a very small number destined to give birth to a new +humanity. Finally, after the event an expiatory sacrifice appeases the +celestial anger, and a solemn covenant is made between men and the +deity, who swears never so to destroy them again. To me, the agreement +of these principal features outweighs the divergence in detail. And we +have also to observe how singularly akin is the part ascribed by the +Egyptian priest to Ra with that assigned in the epic poem of Uruk to the +god Bel, in the deluge of Khasisatra. The Egyptians believed, as did +other nations, in the destruction of mankind; but as inundation meant +for them prosperity and life, they changed the primitive tradition; the +human race, instead of perishing by water, was otherwise exterminated; +and the inundation--that crowning benefit to the valley of the +Nile--became in their eyes the sign that the wrath of Ra was appeased. + + +V. + +_American Stories of the Flood._ + + "It is a very remarkable fact," says M. Alfred Maury, "that we find + in America traditions of the Deluge coming infinitely nearer to that + of the Bible and the Chaldean religion than among any people of the + Old World. It is difficult to suppose that the emigration that + certainly took place from Asia into North America by the Kourile and + Aleutian islands, and still does so in our day, should have brought + in these memories, since no trace is found of them among those + Mongol or Siberian populations,[57] which were fused with the + natives of the New World.... No doubt certain American nations, the + Mexicans and Peruvians, had reached a very advanced social condition + at the time of the Spanish conquest, but this civilization had a + special character, and seems to have been developed on the soil + where it flourished. Many very simple inventions, such as the use of + weights, were unknown to these people, and this shows that their + knowledge was not derived from India or Japan. The attempts that + have been made to trace the origin of Mexican civilization to Asia + have not as yet led to any sufficiently conclusive facts. Besides, + had Buddhism, which we doubt, made its way into America, it could + not have introduced a myth not found in its own Scriptures.[58] The + cause of these similarities between the diluvian traditions of the + nations of the New World and that of the Bible remains therefore + unexplained." + +I have particular pleasure in quoting these words by a man of immense +erudition, because he does not belong to orthodox writers, and will not +therefore be thought biassed by a preconceived opinion. Others also, no +less rationalistic than he, have pointed out this likeness between +American traditions of the Deluge and those of the Bible and the +Chaldeans. + +The most important among the former are the Mexican, for they appear to +have been definitively fixed by symbolic and mnemonic paintings before +any contact with Europeans. According to these documents, the Noah of +the Mexican cataclysm was Coxcox, called by certain peoples Teocipactli +or Tezpi. He had saved himself, together with his wife Xochiquetzal, in +a bark, or, according to other traditions, on a raft, made of cypress +wood (_Cupressus disticha_). Paintings retracing the deluge of Coxcox +have been discovered among the Aztecs, Miztecs, Zapotecs, Tlascaltecs, +and Mechoacaneses. The tradition of the latter is still more strikingly +in conformity with the story as we have it in Genesis and in Chaldean +sources. It tells how Tezpi embarked in a spacious vessel with his wife, +his children, and several animals, and grain, whose preservation was +essential to the subsistence of the human race. When the great god +Tezcatlipoca decreed that the waters should retire, Tezpi sent a vulture +from the bark. The bird, feeding on the carcases with which the earth +was laden, did not return. Tezpi sent out other birds, of which the +humming-bird only came back with a leafy branch in its beak. Then Tezpi, +seeing that the country began to vegetate, left his bark on the mountain +of Colhuacan. + +The document, however, that gives the most valuable information as to +the cosmogony of the Mexicans is one known as "Codex Vaticanus," from +the library where it is preserved. It consists of four symbolic +pictures, representing the four ages of the world preceding the actual +one. They were copied at Chobula from a manuscript anterior to the +conquest, and accompanied by the explanatory commentary of Pedro de los +Rios, a Dominican monk, who in 1566, less than fifty years after the +arrival of Cortez, devoted himself to the research of indigenous +traditions as being necessary to his missionary work. + +The first age is marked with the cipher 13×400+6, or 5206, which +Alexander von Humboldt understands as giving the number of years of the +period, and Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg as the date of its commencement, +from a proleptic era going back from the period of the execution of the +manuscript. This age is called _Tlatonatiuh_, "Sun of Earth." It is that +of the giants, or Quinames, the earliest inhabitants of Anahuac, whose +end was destruction by famine. + +The number of the second age is 12×400+4, or 4804, and it is called +_Tlatonatiuh_, "Sun of Fire." It closes with the descent on Earth of +Xiuhteuchli, the god of fire. Mankind are all transformed into birds, +and only thus escape the conflagration. Nevertheless, one human pair +find refuge in a cave, and repeople the world. + +As to the third age, _Ehecatonatiuh_, "Sun of Wind," its number is +10×400+10, or 4010. Its final catastrophe is a terrible hurricane raised +by Quetzalcoatl, the "god of the air." With few exceptions, men are +metamorphosed into monkeys. + +Then comes the fourth age, _Atonatiuh_, "Sun of Water," whose number is +10×400+8, or 4008. It ends by a great inundation, a veritable deluge. +All mankind are changed into fish, with the exception of one man and his +wife, who save themselves in a bark made of the trunk of a cypress-tree. +The picture represents Matlalcueye, goddess of waters, and consort of +Tlaloc, god of rain, as darting down towards earth. Coxcox and +Xochiquetzal, the two human beings preserved, are seen seated on a +tree-trunk and floating in the midst of the waters. This flood is +represented as the last cataclysm that devastates the earth. + +All this is most important, as a mind of the order of Humboldt's did not +hesitate to acknowledge. However, M. Girard de Realle wrote quite +recently: + + "The myth of the deluge has been met with in several parts of + America, and Christian writers have not failed to see in it a + reminiscence of the Biblical tradition, nay, in connection with the + pyramid of Chobula, they have found traces of the Tower of Babel. We + shall not waste time in pointing out how out of a fish-god, Coxcox, + among the Chichimecs, Teocipactli among the Aztecs, and a goddess of + flowers, Xochiquetzal, it was easy to concoct the Mexican figures of + Noah and his wife by joining on to them the story of the ark and the + dove. It is enough to observe that all these legends have only been + collected and published at a relatively recent period.[59] The first + chroniclers, so cautious already despite their honest simplicity, + such as Sahagun, Mendieta, Olmos, and the Hispano-indigenous + authors, such as the Tezcucan Ixthilxochitl and the Tlascaltec + Camargo, never breathe a word of stories they could not have failed + to bring to light, had they existed in their days. Lastly, we find + in Mr. Bancroft's[60] work a criticism of these legends, due to Don + Jose Fernando Ramirez, keeper of the National Museum, which proves + incontestably that all these stories spring from all too ready and + tendency-fraught interpretations of old Mexican paintings, which + according to him only represent episodes in the migration of Aztecs + around the central lakes of the plateau of Anahuac." + +I much fear that the _tendency_ here is not on the side of writers who +are looked on as ground to powder by the epithet Christian; which, +indeed, be it said in passing, might well surprise a few among them. And +this tendency, when resolved at any cost to attack the Bible, is as +anti-scientific as when grasping at any uncritical argument in its +defence. No doubt the identical character of Xochiquetzal or +Maciulxochiquetzal, as goddess of the fertilizing rain and of +vegetation, with that of Chalchihuitlicue or Mallalcueye, is a +well-known fact, more certain even than the character of fish-god of +Coxcox or Teocipactli. But the transformation of gods into heroes is a +very common fact in all polytheisms, and most common in the kind of +unconscious euhemerism from which infant peoples never free themselves. +There is therefore nothing here to contradict the fact that these two +divine personages, contemplated as heroes, may be taken as the two +survivors of the Flood, and the ancestors of the new humanity. As to the +theory of Don Jose Ramirez, about the symbolic pictures that have been +interpreted as expressing the diluvian tradition, it is very ingenious +and scientifically presented, but not so absolutely proved as M. Girard +de Realle considers. But even granting its incontestability, it only +removes part of the evidence which may have been unintentionally forced +by those naturally disposed to see in it a parallel to Genesis; as for +instance, with regard to the sending out the birds by Tezpi. Still the +existence of the tradition among Mexican peoples would not be shaken, +for it rests upon a whole of indubitable testimony, confirming in a +striking manner the interpretation hitherto given of the "Codex +Vaticanus." + +The valuable work in the Aztec language, and in Latin letters, compiled +by a native, subsequently to the Spanish conquest, called _Codex +Chimalpopoca_ by Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, who gives an analysis and +partial translation of it in the first volume of his "Histoire des +Nations Civilisees du Mexique," contains in its third portion a history +of the suns, or successive ages of the world. Each takes its name from +the way in which humanity is destroyed at its close. The first is the +age of jaguars, who devour the primordial giants;[61] the second, the +age of wind; at its close men lost themselves, and were carried off by +the hurricane, and transformed themselves into monkeys. Houses, woods, +everything was swept away by the wind. Then comes the age of fire, whose +sun is called Tlalocan-Teuctli, "Lord of the lower regions," the usual +appellation of Mictlanteuctli, the Mexican Pluto, which seems to point +to the idea of an age of special volcanic activity. At its close, +mankind is destroyed by a rain of fire, and such as do not perish escape +under the form of birds. Finally, the fourth age is that of water, +which immediately precedes our present epoch, and closes with the +Deluge. + +Here is the narrative according to Abbe Brasseur's version, held correct +by Americanists:-- + + "This is the sun called _Nahui-atl_, '4 water.'[62] Now the water + was tranquil for forty years, plus twelve, and men lived for the + third and fourth times. When the sun _Nahui-atl_ came there had + passed away four hundred years, plus two ages, plus seventy-six + years. Then all mankind was lost and drowned and found themselves + changed into fish. The sky came nearer the water. In a single day + all was lost and the day _Nahui-xochitl_ '4 flower,' destroyed all + our flesh. + + "And that year was that of _ce-calli_, '1 house,'[63] and the day + _Nahui-atl_ all was lost. Even the mountains sank into the water, + and the water remained tranquil for fifty-two springs. + + "Now at the end of the year the god Titlacahuan had warned Nata and + his spouse Nena, saying: 'Make no more wine of Agave, but begin to + hollow out a great cypress, and you will enter into it when in the + month Tozontli the water approaches the sky.' + + "Then they entered in, and when the god had closed the door he said: + 'Thou shalt eat but one ear of maize and thy wife one also.' + + "But as soon as they had finished they went out, and the water + remained calm, for the wood no longer moved, and on opening it they + began to see fish. + + "Then they lit a fire, by rubbing together pieces of wood, and they + roasted fish. + + "The gods Citlallinicue and Citlalatonac instantly looking down + said: 'Divine Lord, what is that fire that is making there. Why do + they thus smoke the sky?' At once Titlacahuan-Tezcatlipoca + descended. He began to chide, saying, 'Who has made this fire here?' + And seizing hold of the fish he shaped their loins and heads, and + they were transformed into dogs (_chichime_)." + +This last touch is a satire on the Chichimecs, or "barbarians of the +North," founders of the kingdom of Tezcuco. It proves the decidedly +indigenous character of the story, and removes any such suspicion of a +Biblical imitation, as the date might have led to. + +The manuscript, written in Spanish by Motolina, who belonged to the +generation of the "conquistadores," has hitherto only been known by +extracts given from it by Abbe Brasseur in his "Recherches sur les +Ruines de Palenque," a work containing many useful documents, though +already pervaded by the delusions which towards the end of his career so +strangely misled this learned pioneer of Mexican antiquarianism. Here, +too, we find the theory of the four suns, or four ages, given in the +same order as by the author of the "Codex Chimalpopoca." + +The first is called "age of Tezcatlipoca," because that god had then +added on a half to the sun, which was only half luminous, or had "made +himself sun in its place." This was the age of the Quinames, or giants, +who were almost all exterminated by famine. After this, Quetzlcoatl, the +god of the air, having armed himself with a great stick, struck +Tezcatlipoca with it, threw him into the water, and "and made himself +sun in his place." The fallen god, transforming himself into a jaguar, +devoured such of the Quinames as had escaped from the famine. The +statements of the "Codex Vaticanus" and the "Codex Chimalpopoca" as to +the final catastrophe of the world's first age, are thus reconciled by +this last narrative. + +Motolina calls the two next ages those of wind and fire; they are closed +in the way we have seen. + +The fourth is the age of the "Sun of Water," placed under the patronage +of the goddess Chalchihuitlicue. The Deluge terminates it, and after +this last cataclysm, we enter upon our present era. + +We come next to the "History of the Chichimecs," by Don Fernando d'Alva +Ixtlilxochitl, descendant of the old pagan kings of Tezcuco, whose +pretended silence on the subject we have seen appealed to as disproving +the authenticity of these Mexican diluvian traditions. In the first +chapter of his first book, Ixtlilxochitl relates the story of the cosmic +ages according to the traditions of his native city. He only gives four +in all, including the actual period. The first is the _Atonatiuh_, or +"Sun of Waters," which begins with the creation, and ends with a +universal deluge. Then comes the _Thlachitonatiuh_, or "Sun of Earth," +when the giants called Quinametziu-Tzocuilhioxime lived, descendants of +the survivors of the first epoch. A frightful earthquake, overthrowing +the mountains, and destroying the greater part of the dwellers on earth, +closes this age. It is in the third age, _Ehecatonatiuh_, "Sun of Wind," +that Olmecs and Xicalanques came from the east to settle in the south of +Mexico. At first they were conquered by the remnant of the Quinames, but +ended by massacring these. Quetzalcoatl next appears as a religious +reformer, but is not listened to by men, whose indocility is punished by +the appalling hurricane during which such as escaped became monkeys. +Then begins the present age, _Tlatonatiuh_, or "Sun of Fire," thus +called because it is to end by a rain of fire. We see, therefore, that +Ixtlilxochitl was perfectly acquainted with the diluvian tradition, and +if he does not enter into its details, he assigns it an important place +in his series of ages. + +Therefore we must needs acknowledge the diluvian tradition to be really +indigenous in Mexico and not an invention of missionaries. We may doubt +as to some particulars in some of the versions, though this arises +chiefly from a preconceived idea, because they too much resemble the +story in Genesis; but as to the fundamental tradition it is +unassailable, and intimately connected with a conception not drawn from +the Bible--and universally admitted to have existed--that, namely, of +the four ages of the world. Between this conception, and that of the +four ages or Yugas of India, and of the _manvantaras_ where the +destruction of the world and the renewals of humanity alternate, there +is an analogy which appeared very significant to Humboldt, MacCulloch, +and M. Maury. It is one that justifies us in asking whether the Mexicans +devised it independently or borrowed it more or less directly from +India. The system of the four ages, inseparable in Mexico from that of +the diluvian tradition, confronts us with the problem--ever recurring +with regard to American civilization--of how far these are spontaneous +and how far derived from Asia through Buddhist or other missionaries. In +the present state of our knowledge we can as little solve this problem +negatively as affirmatively, and all attempts made to come to a positive +conclusion are premature and unproductive. Before discovering whence +American civilizations came, we must thoroughly know what they were, nor +attempt the arduous and obscure question of their origin till we frame a +real American archaeology on the same scientific basis and by the same +methods as other archaeologies. And in this respect Messrs. T. G. Muller +and Herbert Bancroft appear to me greatly in advance of their precursors +in this field of inquiry. + +For the present, all that can be done is, as I have attempted with Flood +stories, to determine facts without pretending to draw inferences. Hence +I should no longer boldly write, as I did eight years ago: "The Flood +stories of Mexico positively prove the tradition of the Deluge to be one +of the oldest held by humanity--a tradition so primitive as to be +anterior to the dispersion of human families and the final developments +of material civilization; which the Red race peopling America brought +from the common cradle of our species into their new home, at the same +time that the Semites, Chaldeans, and Aryans respectively carried it +into theirs."[64] The fact is that among American peoples this tradition +may not be primitive. We may indeed affirm that it was not borrowed from +the Bible after the arrival of the Spaniards, but we cannot be equally +confident that it was not the result of some previous foreign +importation, the precise date of which we have no means of fixing. + +Be that as it may, the doctrines of successive ages, and of the +destruction of the men of the first age by a Deluge, is also found in +the curious book of _Popol-vuh_ that collection of the mythological +traditions of Guatemala, written after the conquest in the native +tongue, by a secret adept of the old religion; discovered, copied, and +translated into Spanish in the beginning of the last century by the +Dominican Francisco Ximenez, cure of St. Thomas of Chiula. His Spanish +version has been published by M. Schelzer, the original text with a +French translation by Abbe Brasseur. Here we read that the gods, seeing +that animals were neither capable of speaking nor of adoring them, +determined to make men in their own image. They fashioned them at first +in clay. But those men had no consistency, could not turn their heads; +spoke, indeed, but understood nothing. The gods then destroyed their +imperfect work by a Deluge. Setting about it for the second time, they +made a man of wood and a woman of resin. These creatures were far +superior to the former; they moved and lived, but only like other +animals; they spoke, but unintelligibly; and gave no thought to the +gods. Then Hurakan, "the heart of heaven," the god of storm, caused a +rain of burning resin to fall, while the ground was shaken by a fearful +earthquake. All the descendants of the wood-and-resin pair perished, +with a few exceptions, who became monkeys of the forest. Finally, out of +white and yellow maize, the gods produced four perfect men: +Balam-Quitze, "the smiling jaguar;" Balam-agab, "the jaguar of the +night;" Mahuentah, "the distinguished name;" and Igi-Balam, "the jaguar +of the moon." They were tall and strong; saw and knew everything, and +rendered thanks to the gods. But the latter were alarmed at this their +final success, and feared for their supremacy: accordingly, they threw a +light veil, like a mist, over the vision of the four men, which became +like that of the men of to-day. While they slept the gods created for +them four wives of great beauty, and from three of these pairs the +Quiches were born--Igi-Balam and his wife Cakixaha having no children. +This series of awkward attempts at creation is sufficiently removed from +the Biblical narrative to do away with any suspicion of Christian +missionary influence over this indigenous quadrennial legend, where, as +usual, we find the belief in the destruction of primal mankind by a +great flood. + +We meet with it in Nicaragua as well. Oviedo relates that Pedsarias +Davila, governor of the province in 1538, charged F. Bobadilla, of the +Order of St. Dominic, to inquire into the spiritual condition of those +Indians whom his predecessors boasted of having converted in great +numbers to Catholicism, which he, Davila, with good reason, doubted. The +monk accordingly examined the natives, and Oviedo has transmitted +several dialogues which show us the creed of the Nicaraguans a few years +after the Spanish conquest. The following bears directly on our +subject:-- + + "_Question by Bobadilla._ Who has created heaven and earth, the + stars and moon, man and all else? + + "_Answer (by the Cacique Avogoaltegoan)._ Tamagastad and Cippatoval, + the one is a man, the other a woman. + + "_Q._ Who created that man and woman? + + "_A._ No one. On the contrary, all men and women descend from them. + + "_Q._ Did they create Christians? + + "_A._ I do not know, but the Indians descend from Tamagastad and + Cippatoval. + + "_Q._ Are there any gods greater than they? + + "_A._ No; we believe them to be the greatest. + + * * * * * + + "_Q._ Are they gods of flesh or wood, or any other substance? + + "_A._ They are of flesh; they are man and woman, brown in colour + like us Indians. They walked on earth dressed like us, and ate what + Indians eat. + + "_Q._ Who gave them to eat? + + "_A._ Everything belongs to them. + + "_Q._ Where are they now? + + "_A._ In heaven, according to what our ancestors have told us. + + "_Q._ How did they ascend thither? + + "_A._ I only know that it is their home. I do not know how they were + born, for they have no father nor mother. + + "_Q._ How do they live at present? + + "_A._ They eat what Indians eat, for maize and all food proceeds + from the place where dwell the _teotes_ (gods). + + "_Q._ Do you know, or have you heard tell, whether since the + _teotes_ created the world it has been destroyed? + + "_A._ Before the present race existed, the world was destroyed by + water and all became sea. + + "_Q._ How did that man and woman escape? + + "_A._ They were in heaven, for that was their dwelling, and + afterwards they came down to earth and re-made all things as they + now are, and we are their issue. + + "_Q._ You say the whole world was destroyed by water. Did not some + individuals save themselves in a canoe, or by some other way? + + "_A._ No. All the world was drowned, according to what my ancestors + told me." + +The great god Tamagastad, of whom mention is made in this dialogue, is +evidently the same as Thomagata, the awful-visaged spirit of fire, whose +cultus was anterior among a portion of the Muyscas at Tunga and Sogamosa +to that of Botchica. This, therefore, brings us back to the religious +and cosmogonic traditions of the very advanced civilization in the high +table-land of Cundinamarca, and we are led to recognize in the +Flood-legend of Botchica a certain echo of the so universally spread +tradition of the Deluge of early ages, mingled with the memory of a +local event, from which the ancestors of the Muyscas had suffered at the +time of their first settlement. Neither must we forget that Botchica and +his wicked spouse, who brought about the inundation of Cundinamarca, are +no other than personifications of the sun and moon, as were the pair +Manco-Capac and Mama-Oello in the empire of the Incas. "The moon of Peru +is gentle and beneficent," well observes M. Girard de Realle, "she helps +her brother and husband in the work of civilization; on the plateau of +Cundinamarca, on the contrary, she is a witch, a veritable deity of +night and of evil, worthily represented by the lugubrious owl." + +Some have believed themselves to have discovered the Flood-tradition +among the Peruvians, but careful criticism disproves this. For it only +arises from an unintelligent interpretation of the myth of Viracocha or +Con, god of waters, or more precisely, the personification of the +element, as shown by the legend which represents him as having no bones, +and yet stretching himself out afar, lowering the mountains and filling +up the valleys in his course. He was the chief god of the Aymaras, who, +according to them, had created the earth; and who, issuing from Lake +Titicaca, to manifest himself on earth, had assembled the earliest men +at Tiahuanaco. Later, the official cosmogony of the Incas led to his +undergoing an euhemeristic transformation diminishing his religious +importance; and he is represented as one of the sons of the Sun, come +upon earth to dwell among and civilize mankind, a younger brother of +Manco-Capac. Now it is under the government of Viracocha that the Deluge +is placed by the writers of very recent date, who mention this event, of +which the native tradition was unknown to the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, +to Montesinos, Balboa, Gomara, F. Oliva, and, in short, to all +authorities of any weight in Peruvian matters. MacCulloch does indeed +quote Acosta and Herrera, but these authors never speak of a Deluge +involving all humanity; they only say that Viracocha gave laws to the +earliest men at the close of a primordial period anterior to their +creation, when the whole surface of the earth had been under water. + +Numerous legends of the great inundation of earliest times have been +found among the savage tribes of America. But by their very nature these +leave room for doubt. They have not been committed to writing by the +natives, we only know them by intermediaries who may, in perfectly good +faith, have altered them considerably in an unconscious desire to +assimilate them to the Bible story. Besides, they have been only +collected very lately, when the tribes had been for a long time in +contact with Europeans, and had often had living among them more than +one adventurer who might well have introduced new elements into their +traditions. They are therefore very inferior in importance to those we +have found existing in Mexico, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, previous to the +arrival of the Spanish conquerors. + +The most remarkable of them, as excluding by its very form the idea of +European communication, is that of the Cherokees. It seems a childish +version of the Indian tradition, only that it is a dog instead of a fish +who plays the part of deliverer to the man who escapes the catastrophe; +but this brings us back to a myth special to America--that of the +transformation of fish into dogs, as we have seen in the Flood-story of +the "Codex Chimalpopoca." + + "The dog," says the legend of the Cherokees, "never ceased for + several days to run up and down the banks of the river, looking + fixedly at the water and howling as in distress. His master was + annoyed by his ways and roughly ordered him to go home, upon which + he began speaking and revealed the impending calamity, ending his + prediction by saying that the only way in which his master and his + family could escape was by throwing him at once into the water, for + he would become their deliverer by swimming to seek a boat, but that + there was not a moment to lose, for a terrible rain was at hand + which would lead to a general inundation in which everything would + perish. The man obeyed his dog, was saved with his family, and they + repeopled the earth." + +It is said that the Tamanakis, a Carib tribe on the banks of the +Orinoco, have a legend of the man and woman who escaped the flood by +reaching the summit of Mount Tapanacu. There they threw cocoa-nuts +behind them, from which sprung a new race of men and women. If the +report be true, which, however, we cannot affirm, this would be a very +singular agreement with one of the distinctive features of the Greek +story of Deucalion and Pyrrha. + +Russian explorers have reported a childlike narrative of the flood in +the Aleutian Islands, forming the geographical link between Asia and +North America, and at the extremity of the north-east of America among +the Kolosks. Henry the traveller gives the following tradition as +current among the Indians of the Great Lakes:-- + + "In former times the father of the Indian tribes dwelt towards the + rising sun. Having been warned in a dream that a deluge was coming + upon the earth, he built a raft, on which he saved himself with his + family and all the animals. He floated thus for several months. The + animals, who at that time spoke, loudly complained and murmured + against him. At last a new earth appeared, on which he landed with + all the animals, who from that time lost the power of speech as a + punishment for their murmurs against their deliverer." + +According to Father Charlevoix, the tribes of Canada and the valley of +the Mississippi relate in their rude legends that all mankind was +destroyed by a flood, and that the good spirit, to repeople the earth, +had changed animals into men. It is to J. S. Kohl we owe our +acquaintance with the version of the Chippeways--full of grotesque and +perplexing touches--in which the man saved from the deluge is called +Menaboshu.[65] To know if the earth be drying he sends a bird, the +diver, out of his bark; then becomes the restorer of the human race and +the founder of existing society. Catlin relates a story, current among +the Mandans, of the earth being a great tortoise borne on the waters, +and that when one day, in digging the soil, a tribe of white men pierced +the shell of the tortoise, it sank, and the water covering it drowned +all men, with the exception of one, who saved himself in a boat; and +when the earth re-emerged, sent out a dove, who returned with a branch +of willow in its beak. Here we have Noah's dove, as in the story of +Tezpi and Menaboshu we have other birds substituted for it. But the +native originality of this detail, as of the whole diluvian tradition +among the Mandans, may well be doubted when we remember that the +physical peculiarities of this curious tribe on the banks of the +Missouri led Catlin to consider it of mixed blood, and partly white +origin. + +In the songs of the inhabitants of New California allusion was made to a +very remote period when the sea left its bed and covered the earth. The +whole race of men and animals perished in this deluge, sent by the +supreme god Chinigchinig, with the exception of a few who had taken +refuge on a high mountain which the water failed to reach. The +Commissioners of the United States who explored New Mexico before its +annexation, tell of the existence of a similar tradition among the +different native tribes of that vast territory. Other travellers give us +kindred narratives, more or less strikingly resembling the Bible record. +But for the most part they are too vaguely reported to be entirely +trusted. + + +VI. + +_Polynesian Traditions._--In Oceania even, and not among the Pelagian +negroes or Papoos,[66] but the Polynesian, racenatives of the +archipelago of Australasia, the diluvian tradition has been traced, +mingled with recollections of sudden rises of the sea, which are one of +the most frequent scourges of those islands. The most noted is that of +Tahiti, which has been specially referred to the primeval tradition. +Here it is as given by M. Gaussin,[67] who has published a translation +of it, as well as the Tahitian text, written by a native named Mare:-- + + "Two men had gone out to sea to fish with the line, Roo and Teahoroa + by name. They threw their hooks into the sea, which caught in the + hair of the god Ruahatu. They exclaimed, 'A fish!' They drew up the + line and saw that it was a man they had caught. At sight of the god + they bounded to the other end of their bark, and were half dead with + fear. Ruahatu asked them, 'What is this?' The two fishermen replied, + 'We came to fish, and we did not know that our hooks would catch + thee.' The god then said, 'Unfasten my hair;' and they did so. Then + Ruahatu asked, 'What are your names?' They replied, 'Roo and + Teahoroa.' Ruahatu next said, 'Return to the shore, and tell men + that the earth will be covered with water, and all the world will + perish. To-morrow morning repair to the islet called Toa-marama; it + will be a place of safety for you and your children.' + + "Ruahatu caused the sea to cover the lands. All were covered, and + all men perished except Roo, Teahoroa, and their families." + +This story, like all in this part of the world currently referred to the +memory of the Deluge, has assumed the childish character peculiar to +Polynesian legends, and moreover, as M. Maury justly observes, it may be +naturally explained by the recollection of one of those tidal waves so +common in Polynesia. The most essential feature of all traditions +properly called diluvian is wanting here. The island, observes M. Maury, +has no resemblance to the Ark.[68] It is true that one of the versions +of the Tahitian legend states that the two fishermen repaired to +Toa-marama, not only with their families, but with a pig, a dog, and a +couple of fowls, which recalls the entry of the animals into the Ark. On +the other hand, some details of a similar story among the Fijis, +especially one in which, for many years after the event, canoes were +kept ready in case of its repetition, far better fit a local phenomenon, +a tidal wave, than a universal deluge. + +However, if all these legends were exclusively related to local +catastrophes, it would be strange that they should appear and be almost +similar in a certain number of localities at a great distance from each +other, and only where the Polynesian race has taken root, or left +indubitable traces of its passage;--this race, indigenous in the Malay +Archipelago, not having migrated thence till about the fourth century of +the Christian era--_i.e._, at a time when, in consequence of the +communication between India and a portion of Malaysia,[69] the +Flood-tradition under its Indian form might well have entered in. +Without, therefore, deciding the question one way or other, we do not +think that that opinion can absolutely be condemned which finds in these +Polynesian legends an echo of the tradition of the Deluge, much +weakened, much changed, and more inextricably confused than anywhere +else with local disasters of recent date. + +The result, then, of this long review authorizes us to affirm the story +of the Deluge to be a universal tradition among all branches of the +human race, with the one exception, however, of the black. Now a +recollection thus precise and concordant cannot be a myth voluntarily +invented. No religious or cosmogonic myth presents this character of +universality. It must arise from the reminiscence of a real and terrible +event, so powerfully impressing the imagination of the first ancestors +of our race, as never to have been forgotten by their descendants. This +cataclysm must have occurred near the first cradle of mankind, and +before the dispersion of the families from which the principal races +were to spring; for it would be at once improbable and uncritical to +admit that at as many different points of the globe as we should have to +assume in order to explain the wide spread of these traditions--local +phenomena so exactly alike should have occurred, their memory having +assumed an identical form, and presenting circumstances that need not +necessarily have occurred to the mind in such cases. + +Let us observe, however, that probably the diluvian tradition is not +primitive but imported in America; that it undoubtedly wears the aspect +of an importation among the rare populations of the yellow race where it +is found; and lastly, that it is doubtful among the Polynesians of +Oceania. There will still remain three great races to which it is +undoubtedly peculiar, who have not borrowed it from each other, but +among whom the tradition is primitive, and goes back to the most ancient +times; and these three races are precisely the only ones of which the +Bible speaks as being descended from Noah, those of which it gives the +ethnic filiation in the tenth chapter of Genesis. This observation, +which I hold to be undeniable, attaches a singularly historic and exact +value to the tradition as recorded by the Sacred Book, even if, on the +other hand, it may lead to giving it a more limited geographical and +ethnological significance. In another paper I propose to inquire +whether, in the conception of the inspired writers, the Deluge really +was universal, in the sense customarily supposed. + +But as the case now stands, we do not hesitate to declare that, far from +being a myth, the Biblical Deluge is a real and historical fact, having, +to say the least, left its impress on the ancestors of three +races--Aryan or Indo-European, Semitic or Syro-Arabian, Chamitic or +Kushite--that is to say, on the three great civilized races of the +ancient world, those which constitute the higher humanity--before the +ancestors of those races had as yet separated, and in the part of Asia +they together inhabited. + + FRANCOIS LENORMANT. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] The date of the termination of the works undertaken by Yu, in order +to repair the damage done by this flood, lies between 2278 and 2062 B.C. +according to the chronological system adopted. + +[32] This work of Berosus was already out of existence in the fourth +century of our era, when Eusebius of Cesarea, to whom we owe such +fragments as we possess, wrote. Only two abridgments remained, due to +later polygraphers, Abydenus and Alexander Polybistor. Eusebius gives +the version of each editor, the one I quote is that of Alexander. + +[33] Abydenus says, "all that composed the scriptures." + +[34] He is provisionally called Izdhubar or Ghirdhubar, transcribing for +want of a more certain method, according to their phonetic value, the +characters composing the ideographic spelling of his name. + +[35] The text is published in "Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia," +vol. iv. pp. 50 and 51. The two principal translations hitherto given +are those of George Smith and M. Oppert. The one we now offer contains a +large share of personal work. We avail ourselves of the labours of our +illustrious precursors, but believe that we have also added some +important steps towards a precise understanding of the text. + +[36] Here several verses are wanting. + +[37] "The water of the twilight at break of day," one of the +personifications of rain. + +[38] The god of thunder. + +[39] The god of war and death. + +[40] The Chaldeo-Assyrian Hercules. + +[41] The superior heaven of the fixed stars. + +[42] Vases of the measure called in Hebrew _Seah_. This relates to a +detail of the ritualistic prescriptions for sacrifice. + +[43] These metaphorical expressions appear to designate the rainbow. + +[44] The god of epidemics. + +[45] _Studien zur Kritik und Erklarung der Biblischen Urgeschichte_, p. +150. + +[46] Oannes and Euahanes belong to an Accadian form: Ea-Khan, "Ea the +fish;" Oes to the simple Ea, as the Aos of Damascus. + +[47] _Vendidad_, ii. 46. + +[48] Chapter vii. + +[49] See especially _Yesht_ viii., 13 _Vendidad_, xix. 135. + +[50] It is in virtue of this assimilation that Plutarch (De Solert anim. +13) speaks of the dove sent out by Deucalion to see if the Deluge had +ceased, a circumstance mentioned by no other Greek mythographer. + +[51] "Myvyrian Archaeology of Wales," vol. ii. p. 50, triad 13. + +[52] _Ibid._ p. 71, triad 97. + +[53] Vafthrudnismal, st. 29. + +[54] Hanwsch, _Slawischer Mythus_, p. 234. + +[55] "Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology," vol. iv. pp. +1-19. + +[56] Personification of the primordial abyss. + +[57] Nevertheless, the Deluge holds an important place among the +cosmogonic traditions--decidedly original in character--which Reguly has +found among the Voguls. We also hear of a diluvian story among the +Eulets or Kalmuks, where it seems to have come in with Buddhism. + +[58] We must, however, observe that Buddhist missionaries appear to have +introduced the diluvian tradition of Judea into China. Gutzlaff, "On +Buddhism in China," in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1st +series, vol. xii. p. 78), affirms that he saw its principal episode +represented in a very fine painting of a temple to the goddess +Kivan-yin. + +[59] Recently published, not recently collected. The date of Pedro de +los Rios shows this. + +[60] "The Native Races of the Pacific States," vol. iii. p. 68. + +[61] By a singular alteration of the text it is said that the jaguars +"were devoured," instead of "they devoured." + +[62] From the day of the year when the final cataclysm was supposed to +have occurred. + +[63] This designation of the year accords with the system of Mexican +cycles, containing four groups of years, each named after some object or +animal. + +[64] "Essai de commentaire des fragments de Berose," p. 283. + +[65] This name looks like a corruption of that of the Indian Manu +Vaivasvata. + +[66] Except in the Fiji Islands, where the Polynesians have been for +some time settled among the Melanians, and have only been destroyed by +these after having infused into the population an element sufficiently +marked to render the Fijis a mixed rather than a purely black race. + +[67] Gaussin: "Du Dialecte de Tahiti et de la Langue polynesienne," p. +235. See also Ellis's "Polynesian Researches." + +[68] We may, however, observe that in the Iranian myth of Yima, which we +have reported above, a square enclosure (_vara_) miraculously preserved +from the deluge, holds the place of the Biblical Ark and of the vessel +of Chaldean tradition. + +[69] The date of the first establishment of Indian Brahmanists in Java +remains uncertain, but from the end of the second century B.C. the Greek +Iambulos (Diod. Sicul. ii. 57) very exactly described as the way of +writing in this island the syllabic system Kavi, borrowed from India. + + + + +SUSPENDED ANIMATION. + + +Some time since an article appeared in the _Times_, quoted from the +_Brisbane Courier_ (an Australian paper of good credit), stating that +one Signor Rotura had devised a plan by which animals might be congealed +for weeks or months without being actually deprived of life, so that +they might be shipped from Australia for English ports as dead meat, yet +on their arrival here be restored to full life and activity. Many +regarded this account as intended to be received seriously, though a few +days later an article appeared, the opening words of which implied that +only persons from north of the Tweed should have taken the article _au +grand serieux_. Of course it was a hoax; but it is worthy of notice that +the editor of the _Brisbane Courier_ had really been misled, as he +admitted a few weeks later, with a candour which did him credit.[70] + +This wonderful discovery, however, besides being worth publishing as a +joke (though rather a mischievous one, as will presently be shown), did +good service also by eliciting from a distinguished physician certain +statements respecting the possibility of suspending animation, which +otherwise might have remained for some time unpublished. I propose here +to consider these statements, and the strange possibilities which some +of them seem to suggest. In the first place, however, it may be worth +while to recall the chief statements in the clever Australian story, as +some of Dr. Richardson's statements refer specially to that narrative. I +shall take the opportunity of indicating certain curious features of +resemblance between the Australian story, which really had its origin in +America (I am assured that it was published a year earlier in a New York +paper), and an American hoax which acquired a wide celebrity some forty +years ago, the so-called Lunar Hoax. As it is certain that the two +stories came from different persons, the resemblance referred to seems +to suggest that the special mental qualities (defects, _bien entendu_) +which cause some to take delight in such inventions, are commonly +associated with a characteristic style of writing. If Buffon was right, +indeed, in saying, _Le style c'est de l'homme meme_, we can readily +understand that clever hoaxers should thus have a style peculiar to +themselves. + +It can hardly be considered essential to the right comprehension of +scientific experiments that a picturesque account should be given of the +place where the experiments were made. The history of the wonderful +Australian discovery opens nevertheless as follows:--"Many of the +readers of the _Brisbane Courier_ who know Sydney Harbour will remember +the long inlet opposite the heads known as Middle Harbour, which, in a +succession of land-locked reaches, stretches away like a chain of lakes +for over twenty miles. On one of these reaches, made more than +ordinarily picturesque by the bold headlands that drop almost sheer into +the water, stand, on about an acre of grassy flat, fringed by white +beach on which the clear waters of the harbour lap, two low brick +buildings. Here, in perfect seclusion, and with a careful avoidance of +publicity, is being conducted an experiment, the success of which, now +established beyond any doubt, must have a wider effect upon the future +prosperity of Australia than any project ever contemplated." It was +precisely in this tone that the author of the "Lunar Hoax"[71] opened +his account of those "recent discoveries in astronomy which will build +an imperishable monument to the age in which we live, and confer upon +the present generation of the human race a proud distinction through all +future time." "It has been poetically said," he remarks--though probably +he would have found some difficulty in saying where or by whom this had +been said,--"that the stars of heaven are the hereditary regalia of man, +as the intellectual sovereign of the animal creation; he may now fold +the zodiac around him with a loftier consciousness of his mental +supremacy" (a sublime idea, irresistibly suggestive of the description +which an American humourist gave of a certain actor's representation of +the death of Richard III., "he wrapped the star-spangled banner round +him, and died like the son of a hoss"). + +It next becomes necessary to describe the persons engaged in pursuing +the experiments by which the art of freezing animals alive is to be +attained. "The gentlemen engaged in this enterprise are Signor Rotura, +whose researches into the botany and natural history of South America +have rendered his name eminent; and Mr. James Grant, a pupil of the late +Mr. Nicolle, so long associated with Mr. Thomas Mort in his freezing +process. Next to the late Mr. Nicolle, Mr. James Grant can claim +pre-eminence of knowledge in the science of generating cold, and his +freezing chamber at Woolhara has long been known as the seat of valuable +experiments originated in his, Mr. Nicolle's, lifetime." Is it merely an +accident, by the way, or is it due to the circumstance that exceptional +powers of invention in general matters are often found in company with +singular poverty of invention as to details, that two of the names here +mentioned closely resemble names connected with the Lunar Hoax? It was +Nicollet who in reality devised the Lunar Hoax, though Richard Alton +Locke, the reputed author, probably gave to the story its final form; +and, again, the story purported to come from Dr. Grant, of Glasgow. In +the earlier narrative, again, as in the later, due care was taken to +impress readers with the belief that those who had made the discovery, +or taken part in the work, were worthy of all confidence. Sir W. +Herschel was the inventor of the optical device by which the inhabitants +of the moon were to be rendered visible, a plan which "evinced the most +profound research in optical science, and the most dexterous ingenuity +in mechanical contrivance. But his son, Sir John Herschel, nursed and +cradled in the observatory, and a practical astronomer from his boyhood, +determined upon testing it at whatever cost." Among his companions he +had "Dr. Andrew Grant, Lieutenant Drummond of the Royal Engineers, and a +large party of the best English mechanics." + +The accounts of preliminary researches, doubts, and difficulties are in +both cases very similar in tone. "It appears that five months ago," says +the narrator of the Australian hoax, "Signor Rotura called upon Mr. +Grant to invoke his assistance in a scheme for the transmission of live +stock to Europe. Signor Rotura averred that he had discovered a South +American vegetable poison, allied to the well-known _woolara_ (_sic_) +that had the power of perfectly suspending animation, and that the +trance thus produced continued until the application of another +vegetable essence caused the blood to resume its circulation and the +heart its functions. So perfect, moreover, was this suspension of life +that Signor Rotura had found in a warm climate decomposition set in at +the extremities after a week of this living death, and he imagined that +if the body in this inert state were reduced to a temperature +sufficiently low to arrest decomposition, the trance might be kept up +for months, possibly for years. He frankly owned that he had never tried +this preserving of the tissues by cold, and could not confidently speak +as to its effect upon the after-restoration of the animal operated on. +Before he left Mr. Grant he had turned that gentleman's doubts into +wondering curiosity by experimenting on his dog." The account of this +experiment I defer for a moment till I have shown how closely in several +respects this portion of the Australian hoax resembles the corresponding +part of the American story. It will be observed that the great discovery +is presented as simply a very surprising development of a process which +is strictly within the limits, not only of what is possible, but of what +is known. So also in the case of the Lunar Hoax, the amazing magnifying +power by which living creatures in the moon were said to have been +rendered visible, was presented as simply a very remarkable development +of the familiar properties of the telescope. In both cases, the +circumstances which in reality limit the possible extension of the +properties in question were kept conveniently concealed from view. In +both cases, doubts and difficulties were urged with an apparent +frankness intended to disarm suspicion. In both cases, also, the +inventor of the new method by which difficulties were to be overcome is +represented as in conference with a man of nearly equal skill, who urges +the doubts naturally suggested by the wonderful nature of the promised +achievements. In the Lunar Hoax, Sir John Herschel and Sir David +Brewster are thus represented in conference. Herschel asks whether the +difficulty arising from deficient illumination may not be overcome by +effecting a transfusion of artificial light through the focal image. +Brewster, startled at the novel thought, as he well might be, +hesitatingly refers "to the refrangibility of rays and the angle of +incidence," which is effective though glorious in its absurdity. (Yet it +has been gravely asserted that this nonsense deceived Arago.) "Sir John, +grown more confident, adduced the example of the Newtonian reflector, in +which the refrangibility was arrested by the second speculum and the +angle of incidence restored by the third" (a bewilderingly ridiculous +statement). "'And,' continued he, 'why cannot the illuminated +microscope, say the hydro-oxygen, be applied to render distinct, and if +necessary even to magnify, the focal object?' Sir David sprang from his +chair in an ecstasy of conviction, and leaping half-way to the ceiling" +(from which we may infer that he was somewhat more than _tete montee_), +"exclaimed, 'Thou art the man!'" + +The method devised in each case being once accepted as sound, the rest +of course readily follows. In the case of the Lunar Hoax a number of +discoveries are made which need not here be described[72] (though I +shall take occasion presently to quote some passages relating to them +which closely resemble in style certain passages in the Australian +narrative). In the later hoax, the illustrative experiments are +forthwith introduced. Signor Rotura, having so far persuaded Mr. Grant +of the validity of the plan as to induce him to allow a favourite dog to +be experimented upon, "injected two drops of his liquid, mixed with a +little glycerine, into a small puncture made in the dog's ear. In three +or four minutes the animal was perfectly rigid, the four legs stretched +backward, eyes wide open, pupils very much dilated, and exhibiting +symptoms very similar to those caused by strychnine, except that there +had been no previous struggle or pain. Begging his owner to have no +apprehension for the life of his favourite animal, Signor Rotura lifted +the dog carefully and placed him on a shelf in a cupboard, where he +begged he might be left till the following day, when he promised to call +at ten o'clock and revive the apparently dead brute. Mr. Grant +continually during that day and night visited the cupboard, and so +perfectly was life suspended in his favourite--no motion of the pulse or +heart giving any indication of the possibility of revival--that he +confesses he felt all the sharpest reproaches of remorse at having +sacrificed a faithful friend to a doubtful and dangerous experiment. The +temperature of the body, too, in the first four hours gradually lowered +to 25 degrees Fahrenheit below ordinary blood temperature, which +increased his fears as to the result; and by morning the body was as +cold as in natural death. At ten o'clock next morning, according to +promise, Signor Rotura presented himself, and laughing at Mr. Grant's +fears, requested a tub of warm water to be brought. He tested this with +the thermometer at 32 degrees Fahrenheit" (which, being the temperature +of freezing water, can hardly be called warm), "and in this laid the +dog, head under." In reply to Mr. Grant's objections Signor Rotura +assured him that, as animation must remain entirely suspended until the +administration of the antidote, no water could be drawn into the lungs, +and that the immersion of the body was simply to bring it again to a +blood-heat. After about ten minutes of this bath the body was taken out, +and another liquid injected in a puncture made in the neck. "Mr. Grant +tells me," proceeds the veracious narrator, "that the revival of Turk +was the most startling thing he ever witnessed; and having since seen +the experiment made upon a sheep, I can fully confirm his statement. The +dog first showed the return of life in the eye" (winking, doubtless, at +the joke), "and after five and a half minutes he drew a long breath, and +the rigidity left his limbs. In a few minutes more he commenced gently +wagging his tail, and then slowly got up, stretched himself, and trotted +off as though nothing had happened." From this moment Mr. Grant had full +faith in Signor Rotura's discovery, and promised him all the assistance +in his power. They next determined to try freezing the body. But the +first two experiments were not encouraging. Mr. Grant fortunately did +not allow his favourite dog to be experimented upon further, so a +strange dog was put into the freezing room at Mr. Grant's works for four +days, after having in the first place had his animation suspended by +Signor Rotura. Although this animal survived so far as to draw a long +breath, the vital energies appeared too exhausted for a complete rally, +and the animal died. So also did the next two animals experimented on, +a cat and a dog. "In the meantime, however, Dr. Barker had been taken +into their counsels, and at his suggestion respiration was encouraged, +as in the case of persons drowned, by artificial compression and +expansion of the lungs. Dr. Barker was of opinion that, as the heart in +every case began to beat, it was a want of vital force to set the lungs +in proper motion that caused death. The result showed his surmises to be +entirely correct. A number of animals whose lives had been sealed up in +this artificial death have been kept in the freezing chamber from one to +five weeks, and it is found that though the shock to the system from +this freezing is very great, it is not increased by duration of time." + +I need not follow the hoaxer's account of the buildings erected for the +further prosecution of these researches. One point, however, may be +mentioned illustrating the resemblance to which I have already referred +as existing between this Australian narrative and the Lunar Hoax. In +describing the works erected at Middle Harbour, the Australian account +carefully notes that the necessary funds were provided by Mr. +Christopher Newton, of Pitt Street. In like manner, in the Lunar Hoax we +are told that the plate-glass required for the optical arrangement +devised by Sir J. Herschel was "obtained, by consent be it observed, +from the shop-window of M. Desanges, the jeweller to his ex-majesty +Charles X., in High Street." + +Now comes the culminating experiment, the circumstances of which are the +more worthy of being carefully noted, because it is distinctly stated by +Dr. Richardson that none of the experiments described in this narrative, +apocryphal though they may really be, can be regarded as beyond the +range of scientific possibilities:--"Arrived at the works in Middle +Harbour, I was taken into the building that contains Mr. Grant's +apparatus for generating cold.... Attached to this is the freezing +chamber, a small, dark room, about eight feet by ten. Here were fourteen +sheep, four lambs, and three pigs, stacked on their sides in a heap, +_alive_, which Mr. Grant told me had been in their present position for +nineteen days, and were to remain there for another three months. +Selecting one of the lambs, Signor Rotura put it on his shoulder, and +carried it outside into the other building, where a number of shallow +cemented tanks were in the floor, having hot and cold water taps to each +tank, with a thermometer hanging alongside. One of these tanks was +quickly filled, and its temperature tested by the Signor, I meantime +examining with the greatest curiosity and wonder the nineteen-days-dead +lamb. The days of miracles truly seem to have come back to us, and many +of those stories discarded as absurdities seem to me less improbable +than this fact, witnessed by myself. There was the lamb, to all +appearance dead, and as hard almost as a stone, the only difference +perceptible to me between his condition and actual death being the +absence of dull glassiness about the eye, which still retained its +brilliant transparency. Indeed, this brilliancy of the eye, which is +heightened by the enlargement of the pupil, is very striking, and lends +a rather weird appearance to the bodies. The lamb was gently dropped +into the warm bath, and was allowed to remain in it about twenty-three +minutes, its head being raised above the water twice for the +introduction of the thermometer into its mouth, and then it was taken +out and placed on its side on the floor, Signor Rotura quickly dividing +the wool on its neck, and inserting the sharp point of a small silver +syringe under the skin and injecting the antidote. This was a pale green +liquid, and, as I believe, a decoction from the root of the +_Astracharlis_, found in South America. The lamb was then turned on its +back, Signor Rotura standing across it, gently compressing its ribs with +his knees and hands in such a manner as to imitate their natural +depression and expansion during breathing. In ten minutes the animal was +struggling to free itself, and when released skipped out through the +door and went gambolling and bleating over the little garden in front. +Nothing has ever impressed me so entirely with a sense of the +marvellous. One is almost tempted to ask, in the presence of such a +discovery, whether death itself may not ultimately be baffled by +scientific investigation." In the Lunar Hoax there is a passage +resembling in tone the lively account of the lamb's behaviour when +released. Herds of agile creatures like antelopes were seen in the moon, +"abounding in the acclivitous glades of the woods." "This beautiful +creature afforded us," says the narrator, "the most exquisite amusement. +The mimicry of its movements upon our white-painted canvas was as +faithful and luminous as that of animals within a few yards of the +_camera obscura_. Frequently, when attempting to put our fingers upon +its beard, it would suddenly bound away, as if conscious of our earthly +impertinence; but then others would appear, whom we could not prevent +nibbling the herbage, say or do to them what we would." And again, a +little further on, "We fairly laughed at the recognition of so familiar +an acquaintance as a sheep in so distant a land--a good large sheep, +which would not have disgraced the farms of Leicestershire or the +shambles of Leadenhall Market; presently they appeared in great numbers, +and on reducing the lenses we found them in flocks over a great part of +the valley. I need not say how desirous we were of finding shepherds to +these flocks, and even a man with blue apron and rolled-up sleeves would +have been a welcome sight to us, if not to the sheep; but they fed in +peace, lords of their own pastures, without either protector or +destroyer in human shape." + +Not less amusing, though more gravely written, is the account of the +benefits likely to follow from the use of the wonderful process for +freezing animals alive. Cargoes of live sheep can be readily sent from +Australia to Europe. Any that cannot be restored to life will still be +good meat; while the rest can be turned to pasture or driven alive to +market. With bullocks the case would not be quite so simple, because of +their greater size and weight, which would render them more difficult +to handle with safety. The carcass being rendered brittle by freezing, +they are so much the more liable to injury. "It sounded odd to hear Mr. +Grant and Signor Rotura laying stress upon the danger of breakage in a +long voyage." This one can readily imagine. + +Some of the remoter consequences of the discovery are touched on by the +narrator, though but lightly, as if he saw the necessity of keeping his +wonders within reasonable limits. Signor Rotura, "though he had never +attempted his experiment on a human being," which was considerate on his +part, "had no doubt at all as to its perfect safety." He had requested +Sir Henry Parkes to allow him to operate on the next felon under capital +sentence. This, by the way, was a compromising statement on our hoaxer's +part. It requires very little acquaintance with our laws to know that no +one could allow a felon condemned to death to be experimented on in this +or in any other manner. Such a man is condemned to die, and to die +without any preliminary tortures, bodily or mental, other than those +inseparable from the legally adopted method of bringing death about. He +can neither be allowed to remain alive after an experiment, and +necessarily free (because he has not been condemned to other punishment +than the death penalty), nor can he be first experimented upon and then +hanged. So that that single sentence in the narrative should have shown +every one that it was a hoax, even if the inherent absurdity of many +other parts of the story had not shown this very clearly. As to whether +a temporary suspension of the vital faculties would affect the longevity +of the patient, Signor Rotura expressed himself somewhat doubtful; he +believed, however, that the duration of life might in this way be +prolonged for years. "I was anxious," says the hoaxer, "to know if a +period of, say, five years of this inertness were submitted to, whether +it would be so much cut out of one's life, or if it would be simply five +years of unconscious existence tacked on to one's sentient life. Signor +Rotura could give no positive answer, but he believes, as no change +takes place or can take place while this frozen trance continues, no +consumption, destruction, or reparation of tissue being possible, it +would be so many unvalued and profitless years added to a lifetime." Of +some of the strange ideas suggested by this conception I shall take +occasion to speak further on; I must for the present turn, however, from +the consideration of this ingenious hoax to discuss the scientific +possibilities which underlie the narrative, or at least some parts of +the narrative. + +In the first place, it must be noticed that in the phenomena of +hibernation we have what at a first view seems closely to resemble the +results of Signor Rotura's apocryphal experiments. As was remarked in +the _Times_, the idea underlying the Australian story is that the +hibernation of animals can be artificially imitated and extended, so +that as certain animals lie in a state of torpor and insensibility +throughout the winter months, all animals also may perhaps be caused to +lie in such a state for an indefinite length of time, if only a suitable +degree of cold is maintained, and some special contrivance adopted to +prevent insensibility from passing into death. The phenomena of +hibernation are indeed so surprising, when rightly understood, that +inexperienced persons might well believe in almost any wonders resulting +from the artificial production (which, be it remembered, is altogether +possible) of the hibernating condition, and the artificial extension of +this condition to other animals than those which at present hibernate, +and to long periods of time. It has been justly said, that if +hibernation had only been noticed among cold-blooded animals, its +possibility in the case of mammals would have seemed inconceivable. The +first news that the bat and hedgehog pass into the state of complete +hibernation, would probably have bean received as either a daring hoax +or a very gross blunder. + +Let us consider what hibernation really is. When, as winter approaches +and their insect food disappears, the bat and the hedgehog resign +themselves to torpor, the processes which we are in the habit of +associating with vitality gradually diminish in activity. The breathing +becomes slower and slower, the heart beats more and more slowly, more +and more feebly. At last the breathing ceases altogether. The +circulation does not wholly cease, however. So far as is known, the life +of warm-blooded animals cannot continue after the circulation has +entirely ceased for more than a certain not very considerable length of +time.[73] The chemical changes on which animal heat depends, and without +which there can be no active vitality, cease with the cessation of +respiration. But dormant vitality is still maintained in hibernation, +because the heart's fibre, excited to contract by the carbonized blood, +continues to propel the blood through the torpid body. This slow +circulation of venous blood continues during the whole period of +hibernation. It is the only vital process which can be recognised; and +it is not easy to understand how the life of any warm-blooded animal can +be maintained in this way. The explanation usually offered is that the +material conveyed by the absorbents suffices to counterbalance the +process of waste occasioned by the slow circulation. But this does not +in reality touch the chief difficulty presented by the phenomena of +hibernation. So far as mere waste is concerned (as I have elsewhere +pointed out) the imagined Australian process is as effectual as +hibernation; in that process, of course the circulation would be as +completely checked as the respiration; thus there would be no waste, and +the absorbents (which would also be absolutely dormant) would not have +to do even that slight amount of work which they accomplish during +hibernation. Science can only say that the known cases of hibernation +among warm-blooded animals show that the vital forces may be reduced +much lower without destroying life, than but for them we should have +deemed conceivable. + +But next let us consider what science has to say as to the artificial +suspension of vitality. In Dr. Richardson's paper on this subject there +is much which seems almost as surprising as anything in the Australian +story. Indeed, he seems scarcely to have felt assured that that story +really was a hoax. "The statements," he says, "which, under the head of +'A Wonderful Discovery,' are copied from the _Brisbane Courier_, seem +greatly to have astonished the reading public. To what extent the +statements are true or untrue it is impossible to say. The whole may be +a cleverly-written fiction, and certain of the words and names used +seem, according to some readers, to suggest that view; but be this so or +not, I wish to indicate that some part at all events of what is stated +might be true, and is certainly within the range of possibility." "The +discovery," he proceeds, "which is described in the communication under +notice, is not in principle new; on the subject of suspension of +animation I have myself been making experimental inquiries for +twenty-five years at least, and have communicated to the scientific +world many essays, lectures, and demonstrations, relating to it. I have +twice read papers bearing on this inquiry to the Royal Society, once to +the British Association for the Advancement of Science, two or three +times in my lectures on Experimental and Practical Medicine, and +published one in _Nature_. In respect to the particular point of the +preservation of animal bodies for food, I dwelt on this topic in the +lectures delivered before the Society of Arts, in April and May of last +year (1878), explaining very definitely that the course of research in +the direction of preservation must ultimately lead to a process by which +we should keep the structures of animals in a form of suspended +molecular life." In other words, Dr. Richardson had indicated the +possibility of doing precisely that which would have constituted the +chief value of the Australian discovery, if this had been real. + +Let us next consider what is known respecting the possibility of +suspending a conscious and active life. This is first stated in general +terms by Dr. Richardson, as follows:--"If an animal perfectly free from +disease be subjected to the action of some chemical agents or physical +agencies which have the property of reducing to the extremest limit the +motor forces of the body, the muscular irritability, and the nervous +stimulus to muscular action, and if the suspension of the muscular +irritability and of the nervous excitation be made at once and equally, +the body even of a warm-blooded animal may be brought down to a +condition so closely resembling death, that the most careful examination +may fail to detect any signs of life." This general statement must be +carefully studied if the reader desires thoroughly to understand at once +the power and the limits of the power of science in this direction. The +motor forces, the muscular irritability, and the nervous stimulus to +muscular action, can be reduced to a certain extent without destroying +life, but not absolutely without destroying life. The reduction of the +muscular irritability must be made at once and equally; if the muscular +irritability is reduced to its lowest limit while the nervous +excitation remains unaltered, or is less reduced, death ensues; and +_vice versa_, if the nervous excitation is reduced to its lowest limits +while the muscular irritability remains unaltered, or is little reduced, +death equally follows. Then it is to be noticed that though when the +state of seeming death is brought about, the most careful examination +may fail to detect any signs of life, it does not follow that science +may not find perfectly sure means of detecting cases where life still +exists but is at its very lowest. Of course all the ordinary tests, in +which so many place complete reliance--a mirror placed close to the +mouth, a finger on the pulse, hand, or ear applied to the breast[74] +over the heart, and so forth--would be utterly inadequate, in such a +case, to reveal any signs of life. That doctors have been deceived by +cases of suspended vitality not artificially produced, but presenting +similar phenomena, is well known. A case in point may not be out of +place here, as illustrating well certain features of suspended +animation, and showing the possibility that in _some_ cases +consciousness may remain, even when the most careful examination detects +no traces of life. The case is described by Dr. Alexander Crichton, in +his "Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Mental Derangement." "A young +lady, who had seemed gradually to sink until she died, had been placed +in her coffin, careful scrutiny revealing no signs of vitality. On the +day appointed for her funeral, several hymns were sung before her door. +She was conscious of all that happened around her, and heard her friends +lamenting her death. She felt them put on the dead-clothes, and lay her +in the coffin, which produced an indescribable mental anxiety. She tried +to cry, but her mind was without power, and could not act on the body. +It was equally impossible to her to stretch out her arms or to open her +eyes or to cry, although she continually endeavoured to do so. The +internal anguish of her mind was, however, at its utmost height when the +funeral hymns began to be sung and when the lid of the coffin was about +to be nailed on. The thought that she was to be buried alive was the +first one which gave activity to her mind, and caused it to operate on +her corporeal frame. Just as the people were about to nail on the lid, +a kind of perspiration was observed to appear on the surface of the +body. It grew greater every moment, and at last a kind of convulsive +motion was observed in the hands and feet of the corpse. A few minutes +after, during which fresh signs of returning life appeared, she at once +opened her eyes, and uttered a most pitiable shriek." In this case it +was considered that the state of trance had been brought about by the +excessive contractile action of the nervous centres. St. Augustine, by +the way, remarks in his "De Civitate Dei" on the case of a certain +priest called Restitutus (appropriately enough), who could when he +wished withdraw himself from life in such sort that he did not feel when +twitched or stung, but might even be burned without suffering pain +except afterwards from the wound so produced. Not only did he not +struggle or even move, but like a dead person he did not breathe, yet +afterwards he said that he could hear the voices of those around him (if +they spoke loudly) as if from a great distance (_de longinquo_). + +To return, however, to Dr. Richardson's discussion of the artificial +suspension of active life. + +He recognises three degrees of muscular irritability, to which he has +given the names of active efficient, passive efficient, and +negative,--though doubtless he would recognize the probability that the +line separating the first from the second may not always be easily +traced, and that, though there is a most definite distinction between +the second and the third, the actual position of the boundary line has +not as yet been determined. In other words, so far as the first and +second states are concerned, there are not two degrees only, but many. +As regards the third or negative state, which is only another way of +describing death, there is, of course, only one degree, though the +evidence as to the existence of this state may be more or less complete +and obvious. Dr. Richardson defines the active efficient state of +muscular irritability as that "represented in the ordinary living muscle +in which the heart is working at full tension, and all parts of the body +are thoroughly supplied with blood, with perfection of consciousness in +waking hours, and, in a word, full life." The second, or passive +efficient state, "is represented in suspended animation, in which the +heart is working regularly but at low tension, supplying the muscles and +other parts with sufficient blood to maintain the molecular life, but no +more." The third of these states--the negative--"is represented when +there is no motion whatever of blood through the body, as in an animal +entirely frozen." + +With the first and third of these states I have in reality nothing to +do, unless indeed it could be shown that the third or negative state can +be produced without causing death. Perhaps in assuming, as I did above, +that this state is identical with the state of the dead, I was, in fact, +assuming what science has yet to demonstrate. I may at any rate, +however, say without fear of valid contradiction, that science has as +yet never succeeded in showing that this negative state may be attained +even for a moment without death ensuing; and the probability (almost +amounting to certainty) is that death and this change of state have in +every instance been simultaneous. Dr. Richardson speaks of the second +stage as that in which animation is _usually_ suspended; but he does not +show that the third stage can even possibly be attained without death. + +The second stage, or stage of passive efficiency, closely resembles the +third, "but differs from it in that, under favouring circumstances, the +whole of the phenomena of the active efficient stage may be perfectly +resumed, the heart suddenly enlarging in volume from its filling with +blood, and reanimating the whole organism by the force of its renewed +stroke in full tension. So far as we have yet proceeded," continues Dr. +Richardson, "the whole phenomena of restoration from death are +accomplished during this stage;" meaning, it would seem, that in all +instances of restoration the restoration has been from the second, never +from the third stage. "To those who are not accustomed to see them they +are no doubt very wonderful, looking like veritable restorations from +death. They surprise even medical men the first time they are witnessed +by them." He gives an interesting illustration. At a meeting of the +British Medical Association at Leeds, "a member of the Association was +showing to a large audience the action of nitrous oxide gas, using a +rabbit as the subject of his demonstration. The animal was removed from +the narcotizing chamber a little too late, for it had ceased to breathe, +and it was placed on the table to all appearance dead." "At this stage," +he proceeds, "I went to the table, and by use of a small pair of +double-acting bellows restored respiration. In about four minutes there +was revival of active irritability in the abdominal muscles, and two +minutes later the animal leaped again into life, as if it had merely +been asleep. There was nothing remarkable in the fact; but it excited, +even in so cultivated an audience as was then present, the liveliest +surprise." + +But when we learn the condition necessary that a body which has once +been reduced to the state of passive efficiency should be restored to +active life, we recognise that even when science has learned how to +reduce vitality to a minimum without destroying it, few will care to +risk the process, either in their own persons or in the case of those +dear to them. Besides the condition already indicated, that the muscular +irritability and the nervous excitation must be simultaneously and +equally reduced, it is essential that the blood, the muscular fluid, and +the nervous fluid should all three remain in what Dr. Richardson calls +the aqueous condition, and not become what he calls pectous, a word +which we must understand to bear the same relation to the word solid or +crystalline that the word "aqueous," as used by Dr. Richardson, bears to +the word watery. If all three fluids remain in the aqueous condition, +"the period during which life may be restored is left undefined. It may +be a very long period, including weeks, and possibly months, granting +that decomposition of the tissues is not established; and even after a +limited process of decomposition, there may be renewal of life in +cold-blooded animals. But if pectous change begins in any one of the +structures I have named, it extends like a crystallization quickly +through all the structures, and thereupon recovery is impossible, for +the change in one of the parts is sufficient to prevent the restoration +of all. Thus the heart may be beating, but the blood being pectous it +beats in vain; or the heart may beat and the blood may flow, but the +voluntary muscles being pectous the circulating action is vain; or the +heart may beat, the blood may flow, and the muscles may remain in the +aqueous condition, but the nerves being pectous the circulating action +is in vain; or sometimes the heart may come to rest, and the other parts +may remain susceptible, but the motion of the heart and blood not being +present to quicken them into activity, their life is in vain." Add to +this, that the restoration of the motor forces, of the muscular +irritability, and of the nervous excitation, must be as simultaneous and +as equal as their reduction had been, and we begin to recognise decided +objections to the too frequent suspension of animation, even when the +most perfect artificial means have been devised for bringing about that +interesting result. + +Although, however, we may not feel encouraged to believe that many will +care to have experiments tried on themselves in this direction, we may +still examine with interest the results of experimental research and +experience. These agree in showing that there are means by which active +life may be suspended, while at the same time the aqueous condition of +the fluids mentioned above (the blood, the muscular fluid, and the +nervous fluid, the two latter of which are for convenience called the +colloidal animal fluids, and are derived from the blood) is retained. + +The first and in some respects the most efficient of these means is +cold. The blood and the colloidal fluids remain in the aqueous condition +when the body is exposed to cold at freezing-point. "At this same point +all vital acts, excepting perhaps the motion of the heart" (it is Dr. +Richardson, be it remembered, who thus uses the significant word +"perhaps"), "may be temporarily arrested in an animal, and then some +animals may continue apparently dead for long intervals of time, and may +yet return to life under conditions favourable to recovery." Dr. +Richardson gives a singular illustration of this, describing an +experiment which must have appeared even more surprising to those who +witnessed it than that in which the rabbit was restored to life. "In one +of my lectures on death from cold," he says, "which I delivered in the +winter session of 1867, some fish which during a hard frost had been +frozen in a tank at Newcastle-on-Tyne, were sent up to me by rail. They +were produced in the completely frozen state at the lecture, and by +careful thawing many of them were restored to perfect life. At my +Croomian lecture on muscular irritability after systemic death, a +similar fact was illustrated from frogs." It would appear, indeed, that +so far as cold-blooded animals are concerned, there is no recognisable +limit to the time during which they may remain thus frozen yet +afterwards recover. But, even in their case, much skill is required to +make the recovery sure. "If in thawing them the utmost care is not taken +to thaw gradually, and at a temperature always below the natural +temperature of the living animal, the fluids will pass from the frozen +state through the aqueous into the pectous so rapidly that death from +pectous change will be pronounced without perceiving any intermediate or +life stage at all." Naturally it is much more difficult to restore life +in the case of warm-blooded animals. Indeed, Dr. Richardson remarks, +that in the case of the more complex and differently shielded organs of +warm-blooded animals, it is next to impossible to thaw equally and +simultaneously all the colloidal fluids. "In very young animals it can +be done. Young kittens, a day or two old, that have been drowned in +ice-cold water, will recover after two hours' immersion almost to a +certainty, if brought into dry air at a temperature of 98 degrees +Fahrenheit. The gentlest motion of the body will be sufficient to +re-start the respiration, and therewith the life." + +Remarking on such cases as these, Dr. Richardson notes that the nearest +natural approach to the stage of passive efficiency is seen in +hibernating animals. He states, however, that in hibernation the +complete state of passive efficiency is not produced. He does not accept +the opinion of those who consider that in true hibernation breathing +ceases as above described. A slow respiration continues, he believes, as +well as that low stage of active efficiency of circulation which we have +already indicated. "The hibernating animal sleeps only; and while +sleeping it consumes or wastes; and if the cold be prolonged it may die +from waking." More decisive, because surer, is the evidence derived from +the possibility of waking the hibernating animals by the common methods +used for waking a sleeper. This certainly seems to show that animation +is not positively suspended. + +He asks next the question whether an animal like a fish, frozen equally +through all its structures, is to be regarded as actually dead in the +strict sense of the word or not, seeing that if it be uniformly and +equally thawed it may recover from this perfectly frozen state. "In like +manner," he says, "it may be doubted whether a healthy warm-blooded +animal suddenly and equally frozen through all its parts is dead, +although it is not recoverable." If, as seems certainly to be the case, +the animal dies because in the very act of trying to restore it some +inequality in the process is almost sure to determine a fatal issue, +some vital centre passing into the pectous state, the animal could not +have been dead before restoration was attempted; for the dead cannot die +again. Albeit, the outlook is not encouraging, at any rate so far as the +use of cold alone for maintaining suspended animation in full-grown +warm-blooded animals is concerned. Cold will, however, for a long time +maintain ready for motion active organs locally subject to it Even after +death this effect of cold "may be locally demonstrated," Dr. Richardson +tells us, "and has sometimes been so demonstrated to the wonder of the +world." "For instance, on January 17, in the year 1803, Aldini, the +nephew of Galvani, created the greatest astonishment in London by a +series of experiments which he conducted on a malefactor, twenty-six +years old, named John Forster, who was executed at Newgate, and whose +body, an hour after execution, was delivered over to Mr. Keate, Master +of the College of Surgeons, for research. The body had been exposed for +an hour to an atmosphere two degrees below freezing-point,[75] and from +that cause, though Aldini does not seem to have recognised the fact, the +voluntary muscles retained their irritability to such a degree that when +Aldini began to pass voltaic currents through the body, some of the +bystanders seem to have concluded that the unfortunate malefactor had +come again to life. It is significant also that Aldini in his report +says that his object was not to produce reanimation, but to obtain a +practical knowledge how far galvanism might be employed as an auxiliary +to revive persons who were accidentally suffocated, _as though he +himself were in some doubt_,"--that is, not in doubt only about the +power of galvanism, but in doubt whether Forster had been restored to +life for a while, or not! Dr. Richardson has himself repeated, on lower +animals, these experiments of Aldini's, except that the animals on which +he has experimented have passed into death under chloroform, not through +suffocation. His object, in fact, was to determine the best treatment +for human beings who sink under chloroform and other anaesthetics. He +finds that in warm weather he fails to get the same results. Noticing +this, he says, "I experimented at and below the freezing-point, and then +found that both by the electrical discharge, and by injection of water +heated to 130 degrees" (again this terrible inexactness of expression) +"into the muscles through the arteries, active muscular movements could +be produced in warm-blooded animals many hours after death. Thus, for +lecture experiment, I have removed one muscle from the body of an animal +that had slept to death from chloroform, and putting the muscle in a +glass tube surrounded with ice and salt, I have kept it for several days +in a condition for its making a final muscular contraction, and, by +gently thawing it, have made it, in the act of final contraction, do +some mechanical work, such as moving a long needle on the face of a +dial, or discharging a pistol. In muscles so removed from the body and +preserved ready for motion there is, however, only one final act. For +as the blood and nervous supply are both cut off from it, there is +nothing left in it but the reserved something that was fixed by the +cold. But I do not see any reason why this should not be maintained in +reservation for weeks or months, as easily as for days, in a fixed cold +atmosphere." + +Cold being, however, obviously insufficient of itself for the suspension +of active life in warm-blooded animals, at least if such life is +eventually to be restored, let us next consider some of the agencies +which either alone or aided by cold may suspend without destroying life. + +The first known of all such agencies was mandragora. Dioscorides +describes a wine, called _morion_, which was made from the leaves and +the root of mandragora, and possessed properties resembling those of +chloral hydrate. That it must have been an effective narcotic is shown +by the circumstance that painful operations were performed on patients +subjected to its influence, without their suffering the least pain, or +even feeling. The sleep thus produced lasted several hours. Dr. +Richardson considers that the use of this agent was probably continued +until the twelfth or thirteenth century. "From the use of it doubtless +came," he says, "the Shaksperian legend of Juliet." He strangely omits +to notice that Shakspeare elsewhere speaks of this narcotic by name, +where Iago says of Othello: + + "Not poppy, nor mandragora, + Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, + Shall ever med'cine thee to that sweet sleep + Which thou own'dst yesterday." + +Probably the use of mandragora as a narcotic may have continued much +later than the thirteenth century. In earlier times it was certainly +used as opium is now used, not for medicinal purposes, but to produce +for a while an agreeable sensation of dreamy drowsiness. "There were +those," says Dr. Richardson, in his interesting article on Narcotics in +the CONTEMPORARY REVIEW for July last, "who drank of it for taste or +pleasure, and who were spoken of as 'mandragorites,' as we might speak +of 'alcoholists' or 'chloralists.' They passed into the land of sleep +and dream, and waking up in scare and alarm were the screaming mandrakes +of an ancient civilization." He has himself made the "morion" of the +ancients, dispensing the prescription of Dioscorides and Pliny. "The +same chemist, Mr. Hanbury," he says, "who first put chloral into my +hands for experiment, also procured for me the root of the true +mandragora. From that root I made the morion, tested it on myself, tried +its effects, and re-proved, after a lapse perhaps of four or five +centuries, that it had all the properties originally ascribed to it." + +The "deadly nightshade" has similar properties. (In fact, morion was +originally made from the _Atropa belladonna_, not from its ally the +_Atropa mandragora_.) In 1851, Dr. Richardson attended two children who +were poisoned for a time from eating the berries and chewing the leaves +of the nightshade, which they had gathered near Richmond. They were +brought home insensible, he says, "and they lay in a condition of +suspended life for seven hours, the greatest care being required to +detect either the respiration or the movements of the heart; they +nevertheless recovered." + +With the nitrite of amyl, Dr. Richardson has suspended the life of a +frog for nine days, yet the creature was then restored to full and +vigorous life. He has shown also that the same power of suspension, +though in less degree, "could be produced in warm-blooded animals, and +that the heart of a warm-blooded animal would contract for a period of +eighteen hours after apparent death." The action of nitrite of amyl +seems to resemble that of cold. In the pleasing language of the doctors, +"it prevents the pectous change of colloidal matter, and so prevents +_rigor mortis_, coagulation of blood, and solidification of nervous +centres and cords." So long as this change is prevented, active life can +be restored. But when in these experiments "the pectous change occurred, +all was over, and resolution into new forms of matter by putrefaction +was the result." From the analogy of some of the symptoms resulting from +the use of nitrite of amyl with the symptoms of catalepsy, Dr. +Richardson has "ventured to suggest that under some abnormal conditions +the human body itself, in its own chemistry, may produce an agent which +causes the suspended life observed during the cataleptic condition." The +suggestion has an interest apart from the question of the possibility of +safely suspending animation for considerable periods of time: it might +be possible to detect the nature of the agent thus produced by the +chemistry of the human body (if the theory is correct), and thus to +learn how its power might be counteracted. + +Chloral hydrate seems singularly efficient in producing the semblance of +death,--so completely, indeed, as to deceive even the elect. Dr. +Richardson states that at the meeting of the British Association at +Exeter, some pigeons which had been put to sleep by the needle injection +of a large dose of chloral, "fell into such complete resemblance of +death that they passed for dead among an audience containing many +physiologists and other men of science. For my own part," he proceeds, +"I could detect no sign of life in them, and they were laid in one of +the out-offices of the museum of the infirmary as dead. In this +condition they were left late at night, but in the following morning +they were found alive, and as well as if nothing hurtful had happened to +them." Similar effects seem to be produced by the deadly poisons +cyanogen gas and hydrocyanic acid, though in the following case, +narrated by Dr. Richardson, the animal experimented upon (not with the +idea of eventually restoring it to life) belonged to a race so specially +tenacious of life that some may consider only one of its proverbial nine +lives to have been affected. In the laboratory of a large drug +establishment a cat, "by request of its owner, was killed, as was +assumed, instantaneously and painlessly by a large dose of Scheele's +acid. The animal appeared to die without a pang, and, presenting every +appearance of death, was laid in a sink to be removed on the next +morning. At night the animal was lying still in form of death in the +tank beneath a tap. In the morning it was found alive and well, but with +the fur wet from the dropping of water from the tap." This fact was +communicated to Dr. Richardson by an eminent chemist under whose direct +observation it occurred, in corroboration of an observation of his own +similar in character. + +Our old friend alcohol (if friend it can be called) possesses the power +of suspending active vitality without destroying life, or at any rate +without depriving the muscles of their excitability. Dr. Richardson +records the case of a drunken man who, while on the ice at the Welsh +Harp lake, fell into the water through an opening in the ice, and was +for more than fifteen minutes completely immersed. He was extricated to +all appearance dead, but under artificial respiration was restored to +consciousness, though he did not survive for many hours. On the whole, +alcoholic suspension of life does not appear to be the best method +available. To test it, the patient must first get "very, very drunk," +and even then, like the soldiers in the old song, must go on drinking, +lest the experiment should terminate simply in the fiasco of a drunken +sleep. + +The last agent for suspending life referred to by Dr. Richardson is pure +oxygen. But he has not yet obtained such information on the power of +oxygen in this respect as he hopes to do. + +Summing up the results of the various experiments made with narcotics +and other agents for suspending life, Dr. Richardson remarks that much +is already known in the world of science in respect to the suspension of +animal life by artificial means: "cold as well as various chemical +agents has this power, and it is worthy of note that cold, together with +the agents named, is antiseptic, as though whatever suspended living +action, suspended also by some necessary and correlative influence the +process of putrefactive change." He points out that if the news from +Brisbane were reliable, it would be clear that what had been done had +been effected by the combination of one of the chemical agents above +named, or of a similar agent, with cold. The only question which would +remain as of moment is, not whether a new principle has been developed, +but whether in matter of detail a new product has been discovered which, +better than any of the agents we already possess, destroys and suspends +animation. "In organic chemistry," he proceeds, "there are, I doubt not, +hundreds of substances which, like mandragora and nitrite of amyl, would +suspend the vital process, and it may be a new experimenter has met with +such an agent. It is not incredible, indeed, that the Indian Fakirs +possess a vegetable extract or essence which possesses the same power, +and by means of which they perform their as yet unexplained feat of +prolonged living burial." But he is careful to note the weak points of +the Australian story--viz., first, the statement that the method used is +a secret, "for men of true science know no such word;" secondly, that +the experimenter has himself to go to America to procure more supplies +of his agents; and, thirdly, that he requires two agents, one of which +is an antidote to the other. As respects this third point, he asks very +pertinently how an antidote can be absorbed and enter into the +circulation in a body practically dead. + +It is, of course, now well known that the whole story was a hoax, and a +mischievous one. Several Australian farmers travelled long distances to +Sydney to make inquiries about a method which promised such important +results, only to find that there was not a particle of truth in the +story. + + RICHARD A. PROCTOR. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[70] Many fail to see a joke when it is gravely propounded in print, who +would at once recognise it as such, were it uttered verbally, with +however serious a countenance. Possibly this is due to the necessary +absence in the printed account of the indications by which we recognise +that a speaker is jesting--as a certain expression of countenance, or a +certain intonation of voice, by which the grave utterer of a spoken jest +conveys his real meaning. In a paper which recently appeared in the +_Gentleman's Magazine_, Mr. Foster (Thomas of that ilk) propounded very +gravely the theory that our Nursery Rhymes have in reality had their +origin in Nature Myths. He explained, for instance, that the rhymes +relating to Little Jack Horner were originally descriptive of sunrise in +winter: Little Jack is the sun in winter, the Christmas pie is the +cloud-covered sky; the thumb represents the sun's first ray piercing +through the clouds; and Jack's rejoicing means the brightness of full +sunlight. So also the rhymes beginning Hey Diddle Diddle are shown to be +of deep and solemn import, all in manifest burlesque of some recent +extravagant interpretations of certain ancient stories by Goldziher, +Steinthal, and others. Yet this fun was seriously criticized by more +than half the critics, by some approvingly, by some otherwise. + +[71] For a full account of this clever hoax the reader is referred to my +"Myths and Marvels of Astronomy." + +[72] The most curious are given in the ninth essay of my work referred +to in the preceding note. + +[73] Few probably are aware how long some animals may remain without +breathing and yet survive. Kittens and puppies have been brought to life +after being immersed in water for nearly three-quarters of an hour. + +[74] Objection has been taken to the italicized words in the following +passage from "No Thoroughfare" (one of the parts certainly written by +Dickens and not by Wilkie Collins): "The cry came up: 'His heart still +beats against mine. I warm him in my arms. I have cast off the rope, for +the ice melts under us, and the rope would separate me from him; but I +am not afraid.' ... The cry came up, 'We are sinking lower, but his +heart still beats against mine.' ... The cry came up, 'We are sinking +still, and we are deadly cold. _His heart no longer beats against mine._ +Let no one come down to add to our weight. Lower the rope only.' ... The +cry came up with a deathly silence, 'Raise! softly!' ... She broke from +them all and sank over him on his litter, with both her loving hands +upon _the heart that stood still_." It has been supposed that Dickens +wilfully departed here from truth, in order to leave the impression on +the reader that Vendale was assuredly dead. That he wished to convey +this impression is obvious. He often showed similar care to remove, if +possible, all hope from the anxious reader's mind (markedly so in his +latest and unfinished work, where nevertheless any one well acquainted +with Dickens's manner knows not only that Drood is alive, but that +disguised as Datchery he was to have watched Jasper to the end). But in +reality, it has happened more than once that persons have been restored +to life who have been found in snow-drifts not merely reduced to +complete insensibility, but without any recognisable heart-beat. Dickens +had probably heard of such cases when in Switzerland. + +[75] Dr. Richardson will certainly excite the contempt of the northern +professor who rebuked me recently for speaking of heat when I should +have said temperature. "An atmosphere two degrees below freezing-point" +is an expression as inadmissible, if we must be punctilious in such +matters, as the expressions "blood-heat," "a heat of ten degrees," and +so forth. Possibly, however, it is not desirable to be punctilious when +there is no possibility of being misunderstood, especially as it may be +noticed (the Edinburgh professor has often afforded striking +illustrations of the fact by errors of his own) that too great an effort +to be punctilious often results in very remarkable incorrectness of +expression. + + + + +JOHN STUART MILL'S PHILOSOPHY TESTED. + +IV.--UTILITARIANISM. + + +In some respects Mill's Essays, published under the title +"Utilitarianism," are among his best writings. They have, in the first +place, the excellence of brevity. Ninety-six pages, printed in handsome +type, make but a light task for the student who wishes to enter into the +intricacies of moral doctrine. Moreover, the last Essay consists of a +digression concerning the nature and origin of the idea of Justice, and +it occupies nearly one-third of the whole book. Thus Mill managed to +compress his discussion of so important a subject as the foundations of +Moral Right and Wrong into some sixty pleasant pages. + +And pleasant pages they certainly are, for they are written in Mill's +very best style. Now Mill, even when he is most prolix, when he is +pursuing the intricacies of the most involved points of logic and +philosophy, can seldom or never be charged with dulness and heaviness. +His language is too easy, polished, and apparently lucid. In these +Essays on Utilitarianism, he reaches his own highest standard of style. +There is hardly any other book in the range of philosophy, so far as my +reading has gone, which can be read with less effort. There is something +enticing in the easy flow of sentences and ideas, and without apparent +difficulty the reader finds himself agreeably borne into the midst of +the most profound questions of ethical philosophy, questions which have +been the battle-ground of the human intellect for two thousand five +hundred years. + +Partly to this excellence of style, partly to Mill's immense reputation, +acquired by other works and in other ways, must we attribute the +importance which has been generally attached to these ninety-six pages. +Probably no other modern work of the same small typographical extent has +been equally discussed, criticized, and admired, unless, indeed, it be +the Essay on Liberty of the same author. The result is, that Mill has +been generally regarded as the latest and best expounder of the great +Utilitarian Doctrine--that doctrine which is, by one and no doubt the +preponderating school, regarded as the foundation of all moral and +legislative progress. Many there are who think that, what Hume and Paley +and Jeremy Bentham began, Mill has carried nearly to perfection in these +agreeable Essays. + +Nothing can be more plain, too, than that Mill himself believed he was +dutifully expounding the doctrines of his father, of his father's +friend, the great Bentham, and of the other unquestionable Utilitarians +among whom he grew up. Mill seems to pride himself upon having been the +first, not indeed to invent, but to bring into general acceptance the +name of the school to which he supposed himself to belong. He says:[76] +"The author of this essay has reason for believing himself to be the +first person who brought the word utilitarian into use. He did not +invent it, but adopted it from a passing expression in Mr. Galt's +'Annals of the Parish.' After using it as a designation for several +years, he and others abandoned it from a growing dislike to anything +resembling a badge or watchword of sectarian distinction. But as a name +for one single opinion, not a set of opinions--to denote the recognition +of utility as a standard, not any particular way of applying it--the +term supplies a want in the language, and offers, in many cases, a +convenient mode of avoiding tiresome circumlocution." + +In the Autobiography (p. 79), Mill makes a statement to the same effect, +saying-- + + "I did not invent the word, but found it in one of Galt's novels, + the 'Annals of the Parish,' in which the Scotch clergyman, of whom + the book is a supposed autobiography, is represented as warning his + parishioners not to leave the Gospel and become utilitarians. With a + boy's fondness for a name and a banner I seized on the word, and for + some years called myself and others by it as a sectarian + appellation; and it came to be occasionally used by some others + holding the opinions it was intended to designate. As those opinions + attracted more notice, the term was repeated by strangers and + opponents, and got into rather common use just about the time when + those who had originally assumed it, laid down that along with other + sectarian characteristics." + +It is pointed out, however, by Mr. Sidgwick in his article on +Benthamism,[77] that Bentham himself suggested the name "Utilitarian," +in a letter to Dumont, as far back as June, 1802. + +Mill explicitly states that it was his purpose in these Essays on +Utilitarianism to expound a previously received doctrine of utility. +Towards the close of his first chapter, containing General Remarks, he +says (p. 6): "On the present occasion, I shall, without further +discussion of the other theories, attempt to contribute something +towards the understanding and appreciation of the Utilitarian or +Happiness theory, and towards such proof as it is susceptible of." He +proceeds to explain that a preliminary condition of the rational +acceptance or rejection of a doctrine is that its formula should be +correctly understood. The very imperfect notion ordinarily formed of the +Utilitarian formula was the chief obstacle which impeded its reception; +the main work to be done, therefore, by a Utilitarian writer was to +clear the doctrine from the grosser misconceptions. Thus the question +would be greatly simplified, and a large proportion of its difficulties +removed. His Essays purport throughout to be a defence and exposition of +the Utilitarian doctrine. + +But one characteristic of Mill's writings is that there is often a wide +gulf between what he intends and what he achieves. There is even a want +of security that what he is at any moment urging may not be the logical +contrary of what he thinks he is urging. This happens to be palpably the +case with the celebrated Essays before us. Mill explains and defends his +favourite doctrine with so much affection and so much candour that he +finally explains himself into the opposite doctrine. Yet with that +simplicity which is a pleasing feature of his personal character, Mill +continues to regard himself as a Utilitarian long after he has left the +grounds of Paley and Bentham. Lines of logical distinction and questions +of logical consistency are of little account to one who cannot +distinguish between fact and feeling, between sense and sentiment. It is +possible that no small part of the favour with which these Essays have +always been received by the general public is due to the happy way in +which Mill has combined the bitter and the sweet. The uncompromising +rigidity of the Benthamist formulas is softened and toned down. An +apparently scientific treatment is combined with so many noble +sentiments and high aspirations, that almost any one except a logician +may be disarmed. + +But nothing can endure if it be not logical. These Essays may be very +agreeable reading; they may make readers congratulate themselves on so +easily becoming moral philosophers; but they cannot really advance moral +science if they represent one thing as being another thing. I make it my +business therefore in this article to show that Mill was intellectually +unfitted to decide what was utilitarian and what was not. In removing +the obstacles to the reception of his favourite doctrine he removed its +landmarks too, and confused everything. It is true that I come rather +late in the day to show this. Some scores, if not hundreds, of critics +have shown the same fact more or less clearly. Eminent men of the most +different schools and tones of thought--such as the Rev. Dr. Martineau, +Mr. Sidgwick, Dr. Ward, Professor Birks, the late Professor Grote--have +criticized and refuted Mill time after time. + +Since commencing my analysis of Mill's Philosophy, I have been surprised +to find, too, that some who were supposed to support Mill's school +through thick and thin, have long since discovered the inconsistencies +which I would now expose, at such wearisome length as if they were new +discoveries. Such is the ground which my friend, Professor Croom +Robertson, takes in his quarterly review, _Mind_, which must be +considered our best authority on philosophical questions. As to this +matter of Utilitarianism, a very eminent author, formerly a friend of +Mill himself, assures me that the subject is quite threshed out, and +implies that there is no need for me to trouble the public any more +about it. In fact, it would seem to be allowed within philosophical +circles that Mill's works are often wrongheaded and unphilosophical. Yet +these works are supposed to have done so much good that obloquy attaches +to any one who would seek to diminish the respect paid to them by the +public at large. Philosophers, and teachers of the last generation at +least, have done their best to give Mill's groundless philosophy a hold +upon all the schools and all the press, and yet we of this generation +are to wait calmly until this influence dissolves of its own accord. We +are to do nothing to lessen the natural respect paid to the memory of +the dead, especially of the dead who have unquestionably laboured with +single-minded purpose for what they considered the good of their +fellow-creatures. But in nothing is it more true than in philosophy, +that "the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred +with their bones." Words and false arguments cannot be recalled. Throw a +stone into the surface of the still sea, and you are powerless to +prevent the circle of disturbance from spreading more and more widely. +True it is, that one disturbance may be overcome and apparently +obliterated by other deeper disturbances; but Mill's works and opinions +were disseminated by the immense former influence of the united band of +Benthamist philosophers. He is criticized and discussed and repeated, in +almost every philosophical work of the last thirty or forty years. He is +taken throughout the world as the representative of British philosophy, +and it is not sufficient for a few eminent thinkers in Oxford, or +Cambridge, or London, or Edinburgh, or Aberdeen, to acknowledge in a +tacit sort of way that this doctrine and that doctrine is wrong. +Eventually, no doubt, the opinion of the Lecture Halls and Combination +Rooms will guide the public opinion; but it may take a generation for +tacit opinions to permeate society. We must have them distinctly and +boldly expressed. It is especially to be remembered that the public +press throughout the English-speaking countries is mostly conducted by +men educated in the time when Mill's works were entirely predominant. +These men are now for the most part cut off, by geographical or +professional obstacles, from the direct influence of Oxford or +Cambridge. The circle of disturbance has spread beyond the immediate +reach of those centres of thought. To be brief, I do not believe that +Mill's immense philosophical influence, founded as it is on confusion of +thought, will readily collapse. I fear that it may remain as a permanent +obstacle in the way of sound thinking. _Citius emergit veritas ex +errore, quam ex confusione._ Had Mill simply erred as did Hobbes about +elementary geometry, and Berkeley about infinitesimals, it would be +necessary merely to point out the errors and consign them to merciful +oblivion. But it is not so easy to consign to oblivion ponderous works +so full of confusion of thought that every inexperienced and unwarned +reader is sure to lose his way in them, and to take for profound +philosophy that which is really a kind of kaleidoscopic presentation of +philosophic ideas and phrases, in a succession of various but usually +inconsistent combinations. To the public at large, Mill's works still +undoubtedly remain as the standard of accurate thinking, and the most +esteemed repertory of philosophy. I cannot therefore consider my +criticism superfluous, and at the risk of repeating much that has been +said by the eminent critics already mentioned, or by others, I must show +that Mill has thrown ethical philosophy into confusion as far as could +well be done in ninety-six pages. + +The nature of the Utilitarian doctrine is explained by Mill with +sufficient accuracy in pp. 9 and 10, where he says-- + + "The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or + the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in + proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to + produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, + and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of + pleasure. To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the + theory, much more requires to be said; in particular, what things it + includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure; and to what extent this + is left an open question. But these supplementary explanations do + not affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality is + grounded--namely, that pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only + things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which are + as numerous in the utilitarian as any other scheme) are desirable + either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the + promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain." + +Mill proceeds to say that such a theory of life excites inveterate +dislike in many minds, and among them some of the most estimable in +feeling and purpose. To hold forth no better end than pleasure is felt +to be utterly mean and grovelling--a doctrine worthy only of swine. Mill +accordingly proceeds to inquire whether there is anything really +grovelling in the doctrine--whether, on the contrary, we may not include +under pleasure, feelings and motives which are in the highest degree +noble and elevating. The whole inquiry turns upon this question--Do +pleasures differ in quality as well as in quantity? Can a small amount +of pleasure of very elevated character outweigh a large amount of +pleasure of low quality? We should never think of estimating pictures by +their size and number. The productions of West and Fuseli, which were +the wonder and admiration of our grandparents, can now be bought by the +square yard, to cover the bare walls of eating-houses and music-halls. +_Sic transit gloria mundi._ But a choice sketch by Turner sometimes +sells for many pounds per square inch. It is clear, then, that in the +opinion of connoisseurs, which must, for our present purpose, be +considered final, high art is almost wholly a matter of quality. Two +great pictures by West may be nearly twice as valuable as one; and two +equally choice sketches by Turner are twice as good as one; but it would +seem hardly possible in the present day for the disciple of "high art" +to bring West and Turner into the same category of thought. I suppose +that even Turner will presently begin to wane before "the higher +criticism." + +A corresponding difficulty lies at the very basis of the Utilitarian +theory of ethics. The tippler may esteem two pints of beer doubly as +much as one; the hero may feel double satisfaction in saving two lives +instead of one; but who shall weigh the pleasure of a pint of beer +against the pleasure of saving a fellow-creature's life. + +Paley, indeed, cut the Gordian knot of this difficulty in a summary +manner; he denied altogether that there is any difference between +pleasures, except in continuance and intensity. It must have required +some moral courage to write the paragraph to be next quoted; yet Paley, +however much he may be said to have temporized and equivocated about +oaths and subscription to Articles, cannot be accused of want of +explicitness in this passage. There is a directness and clear-hitting of +the point in Paley's writings which always charms me. + + "In strictness, any condition may be denominated happy, in which the + amount or aggregate of pleasure exceeds that of pain; and the degree + of happiness depends upon the quantity of this excess. And the + greatest quantity of it ordinarily attainable in human life, is what + we mean by happiness, when we inquire or pronounce what human + happiness consists in. In which inquiry I will omit much usual + declamation on the dignity and capacity of our nature; the + superiority of the soul to the body, of the rational to the animal + part of our constitution; upon the worthiness, refinement, and + delicacy of some satisfactions, or the meanness, grossness, and + sensuality of others; because I hold that pleasures differ in + nothing, but in continuance and intensity: from a just computation + of which, confirmed by what we observe of the apparent cheerfulness, + tranquillity, and contentment, of men of different tastes, tempers, + stations, and pursuits, every question concerning human happiness + must receive its decision."[78] + +Bentham, it need hardly be said, adopted the same idea as the basis of +his ethical and legislative theories. In his uncompromising style he +tells us[79] that + + "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign + masters, _pain_ and _pleasure_. It is for them alone to point out + what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On + the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain + of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us + in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can + make to throw off our subjection will serve but to demonstrate and + confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but + in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The + _principle of utility_ recognises this subjection, and assumes it + for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear + the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law. Systems + which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in + caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light." + +Elsewhere Bentham proceeds to show how we may estimate the _values_ of +pleasures and pains, meaning obviously by _values_ the quantities or +forces. As these feelings are both the ends and the instruments of the +moralist and legislator, it especially behoves us to learn how to +estimate these values aright, and Bentham tells us most distinctly.[80] + + To a person, he says, considered _by himself_, the value of a + pleasure or pain considered _by itself_, will be greater or less, + according to the four following circumstances. 1. Its _intensity_. + 2. Its _duration_. 3. Its _certainty_ or _uncertainty_. 4. Its + _propinquity_ or _remoteness_. But when the value of any pleasure or + pain is to be considered for the purpose of estimating the general + tendency of the act, we have to take into account also, 5. The + _fecundity_, or the chance it has of being followed by sensations of + the same kind, that is, pleasures, if it be a pleasure; pains, if it + be a pain. 6. Its _purity_, or the chance it has of _not_ being + followed by sensations of the _opposite_ kind: that is, pains, if it + be a pleasure; pleasures, if it be a pain. Finally, when we consider + the interests of a number of persons, we must also estimate a + pleasure or pain with reference to, 7. Its extent; that is the + number of persons to whom it extends, or who are affected by it. + +Thus did Bentham clearly and explicitly lay the foundations of the moral +and political sciences, and to impress these fundamental propositions on +the memory he framed the following curious mnemonic lines, which may be +quoted for the sake of their quaintness:-- + + "_Intense, long, certain, speedy, fruitful, pure_---- + Such marks in pleasures and in pains endure. + Such pleasures seek, if private be thy end: + If it be public, wide let them _extend_. + Such _pains_ avoid, whichever be thy view: + If pains _must_ come, let them _extend_ to few." + +In all that Bentham says about pleasure and pain, there is not a word +about the intrinsic superiority of one pleasure to another. He advocates +our seeking _pure_ pleasures; but with him a pure pleasure was clearly +defined as one not likely to be followed by feelings of the opposite +kind; the pleasure of opium-eating, for instance, would be called +impure, simply because it is likely to lead to bad health and consequent +pain; if not so followed by evil consequences, the pleasure would be as +pure as any other pleasure. With Bentham morality became, as it were, a +question of the ledger and the balance-sheet; all feelings were reduced +to the same denomination of value, and whenever we indulge in a little +enjoyment, or endure a pain, the consequences in regard to subsequent +enjoyment or suffering are to be inexorably scored for or against us, as +the case may be. Our conduct must be judged wise or foolish according +as, in the long-run, we find a favourable "hedonic" balance-sheet. + +What Mill in his earlier life thought about these foundations of the +utilitarian doctrine, and the elaborate structure reared therefrom by +Bentham, he has told us in his Autobiography, pp. 64 to 70. Subsequently +Mill revolted, as we all know, against the narrowness of the Benthamist +creed. While wishing to retain[81] the precision of expression, the +definiteness of meaning, the contempt of declamatory phrases and vague +generalities, which were so honourably characteristic both of Bentham +and of his own father, James Mill, John Stuart decided to give a wider +basis and a more free and "genial" character to the utilitarian +speculations. + +Let us consider how Mill proceeded to give this "genial" character to +the utilitarian philosophy. It must be admitted, he says,[82] that +utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental +over bodily pleasures _chiefly_ in the greater permanency, safety, +uncostliness, &c., of the former--that is, in their circumstantial +advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature. As regards Bentham, at +least, Mill might have omitted the word _chiefly_. But according to +Mill, there is no need why they should have taken such a ground. + + "They might have taken the other, and, as it may be called, higher + ground, with entire consistency. It is quite compatible with the + principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some _kinds_ of + pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would + be absurd, that while, in estimating all other things, quality is + considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should + be supposed to depend on quantity alone." + +Then Mill proceeds to point out, with all the persuasiveness of his best +style, that there are higher feelings which we would not sacrifice for +any quantity of a lower feeling. Few human creatures, he holds, would +consent to be changed into any of the lower animals for a promise of the +fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being +would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, +no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, and so +forth. Mill, in fact, treats us to a good deal of what Paley so +cynically called the "usual declamation," on the dignity and capacity of +our nature, and the worthiness of some satisfactions compared with the +grossness and sensuality of others. It must be allowed that Mill has the +best of it, at least with the majority of readers. Paley is simply +brutal as to the way in which he depresses everything to the same level +of apparent sensuality. Mill overflows with genial and noble +aspirations; he hardly deigns to count the lower pleasures as worth +putting in the scale; it is better, he thinks, to be a human being +dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied +than a fool satisfied. If the pig or the fool is of a different opinion, +it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other +party to the comparison knows both sides. In the pages which follow +there is much nobleness and elevation of thought. But where is the +logic? We are nothing if we are not logical. But does Mill, in the +fervour of his revolt against the cold, narrow restraints of the +Benthamist formulas, consider the consistency and stability of his +position? Let us examine in some detail the position to which he has +brought himself. + +It is plain, in the first place, that pleasure is with Mill the ultimate +purpose of existence; for the philosophy is that of utilitarianism, and +Mill distinctly assures us (Autobiography, p. 178) that he "never +ceased to be a utilitarian." We must, of course, distinguish between the +pleasure of the individual and the pleasure of other individuals of the +race, between Egoistic and Universalistic Hedonism, as Mr. Sidgwick +calls these very different doctrines. But the happiness of the race is, +of course, made up of the happiness of its units, so that unless most of +the individuals pursue a course ensuring happiness, the race cannot be +happy in the aggregate. Now, to acquire happiness the individual must, +of course, select that line of conduct which is likely to--that is, will +in the majority of cases--bring happiness. He must aim at something +which is capable of being reached. Mill tells us (p. 18) that if by +happiness be meant a continuity of highly pleasurable excitement, it is +evident enough that this is impossible to attain. + + "A state of exalted pleasure lasts only moments, or in some cases, + and with some intermissions, hours or days, and is the occasional + brilliant flash of enjoyment, not its permanent and steady flame. Of + this the philosophers who have taught that happiness is the end of + life were as fully aware as those who taunt them. The happiness + which they meant was not a life of rapture; but moments of such, in + an existence made up of few and transitory pains, many and various + pleasures, with a decided predominance of the actual over the + passive, and _having as the foundation of the whole, not to expect + more from life than it is capable of bestowing_.[83] A life thus + composed, to those who have been fortunate enough to obtain it, has + always appeared worthy of the name of happiness." + +Then Mill goes on to point out what he considers has been sufficient to +satisfy great numbers of mankind (p. 19): + + "The main constituents of a satisfied life appear to be two, either + of which by itself is often found sufficient for the purpose: + tranquillity, and excitement. With much tranquillity, many find that + they can be content with very little pleasure: with much excitement, + many can reconcile themselves to a considerable quantity of pain. + There is assuredly no inherent impossibility in enabling even the + mass of mankind to unite both." + +From these passages we must gather that at any rate the mass of mankind +will attain happiness if they are satisfied with these main +constituents, and we are especially told that the foundation of the +whole utilitarian philosophy (Mill does not specify the substantive to +which the adjective _whole_ applies in the above quotation, but it must +from the context be either "utilitarian philosophy," "search for +happiness," or some closely equivalent idea) is _not to expect from life +more than it is capable of bestowing_. + +The question, then, may fairly arise whether upon a fair calculation of +probabilities they are not wise, upon Mill's own showing, who aim at +moderate achievements in life, so that in accomplishing these they may +insure a satisfied life. This seems the more reasonable, if, as Mill +elsewhere tells us, the nobler feelings are very apt to be killed off by +the chilly realities of life. + + "Many," he says (p. 14), "who begin with youthful enthusiasm for + everything noble, as they advance in years sink into indolence and + selfishness. But I do not believe that those who undergo this very + common change, voluntarily choose the lower description of pleasure + in preference to the higher, I believe that before they devote + themselves exclusively to the one, they have already become + incapable of the other. Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most + natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile + influences, but by mere want of sustenance; and in the majority of + young persons it speedily dies away if the occupations to which + their position in life has devoted them, and the society into which + it has thrown them, are not favourable to keeping that higher + capacity in exercise. Men lose their high aspirations as they lose + their intellectual tastes, because they have not time or opportunity + for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior + pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because + they are either the only ones to which they have access, or the only + ones which they are any longer capable of enjoying. It may be + questioned whether any one who has remained equally susceptible to + both classes of pleasure, ever knowingly and calmly preferred the + lower; though many, in all ages, have broken down in an ineffectual + attempt to combine both." + +It would seem, then, that for the mass of mankind there is small +prospect indeed of achieving happiness through high aspirations. They +will not have time nor opportunity for indulging them. If they look for +happiness solely to such aspirations they must be disappointed, and +cannot have a satisfied life; if they attempt to combine the higher and +lower lives they are likely to "break down in the ineffectual attempt." +Now, I submit that, under these circumstances, it is folly, according to +Mill's scheme of morality, to aim high; it is equivalent to going into a +life-lottery, in which there are no doubt high prizes to be gained, but +few and far between. It is simply gambling with hedonic stakes; +preferring a small chance of high enjoyment to comparative certainty of +moderate pleasures. Mill clearly admits this when he says (p. 14), "It +is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low has +the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed +being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the +world is constituted, is imperfect." + +Although, then, "the foundation of the whole" is not to expect from life +more than it is capable of bestowing, we are actually to prefer becoming +highly endowed, although we cannot expect life to satisfy the +corresponding aspirations. That is to say, although seeking for +happiness, we are to prefer the course in which we are approximately +certain of not obtaining it. + +But Mill goes on to give some explanations. He says that the highly +endowed being can learn to bear the imperfections of his happiness, "if +they are at all bearable" (p. 14). This is small comfort if they happen +to be _not at all bearable_, an alternative which is not further pursued +by Mill. And will not this intolerable fate be most likely to befall +those whose aspirations have been pitched most highly? But Mill goes on: + + "They (that is, the imperfections of life or happiness?) will not + make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the + imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which + those imperfections qualify. It is better to be a human being + dissatisfied, than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates + dissatisfied, than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is + of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side + of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both + sides." + +Concerning this position of affairs the most apposite remark I can make +is contained in the somewhat trite and vulgar saying, "Where ignorance +is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." If Socrates is pretty sure to be +dissatisfied, and yet, owing to his wisdom, cannot help wishing to be +Socrates, he seems to have no chance of that individual happiness which +depends on being satisfied, and not expecting from life more than it is +capable of bestowing. The great majority of people who do not know what +it is like to be Socrates, are surely to be congratulated that they can, +without scruple or remorse, seek a prize of happiness which there is a +fair prospect of securing. But Mill tells us that those who choose the +lower life do so "because they only know their own side of the question. +The other party to the comparison knows both sides." Then Mill +introduces a paragraph, already partially quoted, in which he allows +that men often do, _from infirmity of character_, make their selection +for the nearer good, though they know it to be the less valuable. Many +who begin with youthful enthusiasm for everything noble, sink in later +years into indolence and selfishness. The capacity for the nobler +feelings is easily killed, and men lose their high aspirations because +they have not time and opportunity for indulging them. I submit that, +_from Mill's point of view_, these are all valid reasons why they should +_not_ choose the higher life. We are considering here, not those who +have always been devoid of the nobler feelings, but those who have in +earlier life been full of enthusiasm and high aspirations. If such men, +with few exceptions, decide eventually in favour of the lower life, they +are parties who _do_ know both sides of the comparison, and deliberately +choose not to be Socrates, with the prospect of the very imperfect +happiness (probably involving short rations) which is incident to the +life of Socrates. + +Mill, indeed, calmly assumes that the vote goes in his own and Socrates' +favour. He says (p. 15): + + "From this verdict of the only competent judges, I apprehend there + can be no appeal. On a question which is the best worth having of + two pleasures, or which of two modes of existence is the most + grateful to the feelings, apart from its moral attributes and from + its consequences, the judgment of those who are qualified by + knowledge of both, or, if they differ, that of the majority among + them, must be admitted as final. And there need be the less + hesitation to accept this judgment respecting the quality of + pleasures, since there is no other tribunal to be referred to, even + on the question of quantity. What means are there of determining + which is the acutest of two pains, or the intensest of two + pleasurable sensations, except the general suffrage of those who are + familiar with both?" + +Now, were we dealing with a writer of average logical accuracy there +would be considerable presumption that when he adduces evidence and +claims a result in his own favour in this confident way, there would be +some ground for the claim. But my scrutiny of Mill's "System of Logic" +has taught me caution in admitting such presumptions in respect of his +writings, and here is a case in point. He claims that the suffrage of +the majority is in favour of Socrates' life, although he has admitted +that the vast majority of men somehow or other elect not to be Socrates. +He assumes, indeed, that this is because their aspirations have been +first killed off by unfavourable circumstances; his only residuum of +fact is contained in this somewhat hesitating conclusion already +quoted:-- + + "It may be questioned whether any one who has remained equally + susceptible to both classes of pleasures, ever knowingly and calmly + preferred the lower; though many, in all ages, have broken down in + an ineffectual attempt to combine both." + +Although, then, millions and millions are continually deciding against +Socrates' life, for one reason or another (and many in all ages who make +the ineffectual attempt at a combination break down), Mill gratuitously +assumes that they are none of them competent witnesses, because they +must have lost their higher feelings before they could have descended to +the lower level; then the comparatively few who do choose the higher +life and succeed in attaining it are adduced as giving a large majority, +or even a unanimous vote in favour of their own choice. I submit that +this is a fallacy probably to be best classed as a _petitio principii_; +Mill entirely begs the question when he assumes that every witness +against him is an incapacitated witness, because he must have lost his +capacity for the nobler feelings before he could have decided in favour +of the lower. + +The verdict which Mill takes in favour of his high-quality pleasures is +entirely that of a packed jury. It is on a par with the verdict which +would be given by vegetarians in favour of a vegetable diet. No doubt, +those who call themselves vegetarians would almost unanimously say that +it is the best and highest diet; but then, all those who have tried such +diet and found it impracticable have disappeared from the jury, together +with all those whose common sense, or scientific knowledge, or weak +state of health, or other circumstances, have prevented them from +attempting the experiment. By the same method of decision, we might all +be required to get up at five o'clock in the morning and do four hours +of head-work before breakfast, because the few hard-headed and +hard-bodied individuals who do this sort of thing are unanimously of +opinion that it is a healthly and profitable way of beginning the day. + +Of course, it will be understood that I am not denying the moral +superiority of some pleasures and courses of life over others. I am only +showing that Mill's attempt to reconcile his ideas on the subject with +the Utilitarian theory hopelessly fails. The few pleasant pages in which +he makes this attempt (Utilitarianism, pp. 8-28), form, in fact, a most +notable piece of sophistical reasoning. Much of the interest of these +undoubtedly interesting passages arises from the kaleidoscopic way in +which the standing difficulties of ethical science are woven together, +as if they were logically coherent in Mill's mode of presentation. The +ideas involved are as old as Plato and Aristotle. The high aspirations +correspond to =to kalon= of Plato. The superior man who can judge both +sides of the question is the =beltistos aner= of Aristotle. The +Utilitarian doctrine is that of Epicurus. Now, Mill managed to persuade +himself that he could in twenty pages reconcile the controversies of +ages. + +Nor is it to be supposed that Bentham, in making his analysis of the +conditions of pleasure, overlooked the difference of high and low; he +did not overlook it at all--he analyzed it. A pleasure to be high must +have the marks of intensity, length, certainty, fruitfulness, and +purity, or of some of these at least; and when we take Altruism into +account, the feelings must be of wide extent--that is, fruitful of +pleasure and devoid of evil to great numbers of people. It is a higher +pleasure to build a Free Library than to establish a new Race Course; +not because there is a _Free-Library-building emotion_, which is +essentially better than a _Race-Course-establishing emotion_, each being +a simple unanalyzable feeling; but because we may, after the model of +inquiry given by Bentham, resolve into its elements the effect of one +action and the other upon the happiness of the community. Thus, we +should find that Mill proposed to give "geniality" to the Utilitarian +philosophy by throwing into confusion what it was the very merit of +Bentham to have distinguished and arranged scientifically. We must hold +to the dry old Jeremy, if we are to have any chance of progress in +Ethics. Mill, at some "crisis in his mental history," decided in favour +of a genial instead of a logical and scientific Ethics, and the result +is the mixture of sentiment and sophistry contained in the attractive +pages under review. + +In order to treat adequately of Mill's ethical doctrines it would no +doubt be necessary to go on to other parts of the Essays, and to inquire +how he treats other moral elements, such as the Social or Altruistic +Feelings. The existence of such feelings is admitted on p. 46, and, +indeed, insisted on as a basis of powerful natural sentiment, +constituting the strength of the Utilitarian morality. But it would be +an endless work to examine all phases of Mill's doctrines, and to show +whether or not they are logically consistent _inter se_. They are really +not worth the trouble. Just let us notice, however, how he treats the +question whether moral feelings are innate or not. On this point Mill +gives (p. 45) the following characteristic deliverance:--"If, as is my +own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are +not for that reason the less natural. It is natural to man to speak, to +reason, to build cities, to cultivate the ground, though these are +acquired faculties. The moral feelings are not indeed a part of our +nature, in the sense of being in any perceptible degree present in all +of us; but this, unhappily, is a fact admitted by those who believe the +most strenuously in their transcendental origin. Like the other acquired +capacities above referred to, the moral faculty, if not a part of our +nature, is a natural outgrowth from it; capable, like them, in a certain +small degree, of springing up spontaneously; and susceptible of being +brought by cultivation to a high degree of development." If life were +long enough, I should like, with the assistance of the "Methods of +Ethics," to analyze the ideas involved in this passage. I can merely +suggest the following questions:--If acquired capacities are equally +natural with those not acquired, what is the use of introducing a +distinction without a difference? If moral feelings can spring up +spontaneously, even in the smallest degree, and then be developed by +"natural outgrowths," how do any of our feelings differ from natural +ones? What does Mill mean, at the top of the next page, by speaking of +"moral associations which are wholly of artificial creation?" Are these +also not the less natural because they are of artificial creation? If +not, we should like to know how to draw the line between _acquired_ and +_artificial_ capacities. How, again, are we to interpret the use of the +word _natural_, on p. 50, where, speaking of the deeply-rooted +conception which every individual even now has of himself as a social +being, he says-- + + "This feeling in most individuals is much inferior in strength to + their selfish feelings, and is often wanting altogether. But to + those who have it, it possesses all the characters of a natural + feeling. It does not present itself to their minds as a superstition + of education," &c. + +Here a natural feeling is contrasted to the product of education, +although we were before told that acquired capacities, like speaking, +building, cultivating, were none the less natural. But I must candidly +confess that when Mill introduces the words _nature_ and _natural_, I am +completely baffled. I give it up. I can no longer find any logical marks +to assist me in tracking out his course of thought. The word _nature_ +may be Mill's key to a profound philosophy; but I rather think it is the +key to many of his fallacies. + +I often amuse myself by trying to imagine what Bentham would have said +of Benthamism expounded by Mill. Especially would it be interesting to +hear Bentham on Mill's use of the word "natural." No passage in which +Bentham analyzes the meaning of "nature," or "natural," occurs to me, +but the following is his treatment of the word "unnatural," as employed +in Ethics:-- + + "Unnatural, when it means anything, means unfrequent: and there it + means something; although nothing to the present purpose. But here + it means no such thing: for the frequency of such acts is perhaps + the great complaint. It therefore means nothing; nothing, I mean, + which there is in the act itself. All it can serve to express is, + the disposition of the person who is talking of it: the disposition + he is in to be angry at the thoughts of it."[84] + +Would that the grand old man, as he still sits benignly pondering in his +own proper bones and clothes, in the upper regions of a well-known +institution, could be got to deliver himself in like style about +feelings which are _not the less natural because they are acquired_. + +Before passing on, however, I must point out, in the extract from p. 45, +the characteristic habit which Mill has of _minimizing_ things which he +is obliged to admit. Instead of denying straightforwardly that we have +moral feelings, he says they are not present in all of us in any +"perceptible degree." The moral faculty is capable of springing up +spontaneously "in a certain small degree." This will remind every reader +of the way in which, in his "Essays on Religion," instead of flatly +adopting Atheism or Theism, which are clear logical negatives each of +the other, he concludes that though God is almost proved not to exist, +He may possibly exist, and we must "imagine" this chance to be as large +as we can, though it belongs only "to one of the lower degrees of +probability." Exactly the same manner of meeting a weighty question will +be discovered again in his demonstration of the non-existence of +necessary truths. I shall hope to examine carefully his treatment of +this important part of philosophy on a future occasion. We shall then +find, I believe, that his argument proves non-existence of such things +as necessary truths, because those truths which cannot be explained on +the association principle are very few indeed. I beg pardon for +introducing an incongruous illustration, but Mill's manner of minimizing +an all-important admission often irresistibly reminds me of the young +woman who, being taxed with having borne a child, replied that it was +only a very small one. + +Such are the intricacies and wide extent of ethical questions, that it +is not practicable to pursue the analysis of Mill's doctrine in at all a +full manner. We cannot detect the fallacious reasoning with the same +precision as in matters of geometric and logical science. This analysis +is the less needful too, because, since Mill's Essays appeared, Moral +Philosophy has undergone a revolution. I do not so much allude to the +reform effected by Mr. Sidgwick's "Methods of Ethics," though that is a +great one, introducing as it does a precision of thought and +nomenclature which was previously wanting. I allude, of course, to the +establishment of the Spencerian Theory of Morals, which has made a new +era in philosophy.[85] Mill has been singularly unfortunate from this +point of view. He might be defined as the last great philosophic writer +conspicuous for his ignorance of the principles of evolution. He brought +to confusion the philosophy of his master, Bentham; he ignored that +which was partly to replace, partly to complete it. + +I am aware that, in her Introductory Notice to the Essays on Religion +(p. viii.), Miss Helen Taylor apologizes for Mill having omitted any +references to the works of Mr. Darwin and Sir Henry Maine "in passages +where there is coincidence of thought with those writers, or where +subjects are treated which they have since discussed in a manner to +which the Author of these Essays would certainly have referred had their +works been published before these were written."[86] Here it is implied +that Mill anticipated the authors of the Evolution philosophy in some of +their thoughts, and it is a most amiable and pardonable bias which leads +Miss Taylor to find in the works of one so dear to her that which is not +there. The fact is that the whole tone of Mill's moral and political +writings is totally opposed to the teaching of Darwin and Spencer, +Taylor and Maine. Mill's idea of human nature was that we came into the +world like lumps of soft clay, to be shaped by the accidents of life, or +the care of those who educate us. Austin insisted on the evidence which +history and daily experience afford of "the extraordinary pliability of +human nature," and Mill borrowed the phrase from him.[87] No phrase +could better express the misapprehensions of human nature which, it is +to be hoped, will cease for ever with the last generation of writers. +Human nature is one of the last things which can be called "pliable." +Granite rocks can be more easily moulded than the poor savages that hide +among them. We are all of us full of deep springs of unconquerable +character, which education may in some degree soften or develop, but can +neither create nor destroy. The mind can be shaped about as much as the +body; it may be starved into feebleness, or fed and exercised into +vigour and fulness; but we start always with inherent hereditary powers +of growth. The non-recognition of this fact is the great defect in the +moral system of Bentham. The great Jeremy was accustomed to make short +work with the things which he did not understand, and it is thus he +disposes of "the pretended system" of a moral sense:[88] + + "One man says he has a thing made on purpose to tell him what is + right and what is wrong, and that it is called a _moral sense_; and + then he goes to his work at his ease, and says such a thing is right + and such a thing is wrong--Why? because my moral sense tells me it + is." + +Bentham then bluntly ignored the validity of innate feelings, but this +omission, though a great defect, did not much diminish the value of his +analysis of the good and bad effects of actions. Mill discarded the +admirable Benthamist analysis, but failed to introduce the true +Evolutionist principles; thus he falls between the two. It is to Herbert +Spencer we must look for a more truthful philosophy of morals than was +possible before his time. + +The publication of the first part of his Principles of Morality, under +the title "The Data of Ethics," gives us, in a definite form, and in his +form, what we could previously only infer from the general course of his +philosophy and from his brief letter on Utilitarianism addressed to +Mill. Although but fragments, these writings enable us to see that a +definite step has been made in a matter debated since the dawn of +intellect. The moral sense doctrine, so rudely treated by Bentham, is no +longer incapable of reconciliation with the greatest happiness +principle, only it now becomes a moving and developable moral sense. An +absolute and unalterable moral standard was opposed to the palpable fact +that customs and feelings differ widely, and Paley, on this ground, was +induced to reject it. Now we perceive that we all have a moral sense; +but the moral sense of one individual, and still more of one race, may +differ from that of another individual or race. Each is more or less +fitted to its circumstances, and the best is ascertained by _eventual +success_. + +At the tail end of an article it is, of course, impossible to discuss +the grounds or results of the Spencerian philosophy. To me it presents +itself, in its main features, as unquestionably true; indeed, it is +already difficult to look back and imagine how philosophers could have +denied of the human mind and actions what is so obviously true of the +animal races generally. As a reaction from the old views about innate +ideas, the philosophers of the eighteenth century wished to believe that +the human mind was a kind of _tabula rasa_, or _carte blanche_, upon +which education could impress any character. But if so, why not harness +the lion, and teach the sheep to drive away the wolf? If the moral, not +to speak of the physical characteristics of the lower animals, are so +distinct, why should there not be moral and mental differences among +ourselves, descending, as we obviously do, from different stocks with +different physical characteristics? Notice what Mr. Darwin says on this +point:-- + + "Mr. J. S. Mill speaks, in his celebrated work, 'Utilitarianism' + (1864, p. 46), of the social feelings as a 'powerful natural + sentiment,' and as 'the natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian + morality;' but on the previous page he says, 'if, as is my own + belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are + not for that reason less natural.' It is with hesitation that I + venture to differ from so profound a thinker, but it can hardly be + disputed that the social feelings are instinctive or innate in the + lower animals; and why should they not be so in man? Mr. Bain and + others believe that the moral sense is acquired by each individual + during his lifetime. On the general theory of evolution this is at + least extremely improbable."[89] + +Many persons may be inclined to like the philosophy of Spencer no better +than that of Mill. But, if the one be true and the other false, liking +and disliking have no place in the matter. There may be many things +which we cannot possibly like; but if they are, they are. It is possible +that the Principles of Evolution, as expounded by Mr. Herbert Spencer, +may seem as wanting in "geniality" as the formulas of Bentham. There is +nothing genial, it must be confessed, about the mollusca and other +cold-blooded organisms with which Mr. Spencer perpetually illustrates +his principles. Heaven forbid that any one should try to give geniality +to Mr. Spencer's views of ethics by any operation comparable to that +which Mill performed upon Benthamism. + +Nevertheless, I fully believe that all which is sinister and ungenial in +the Philosophy of Evolution is either the expression of unquestionable +facts, or else it is the outcome of misinterpretation. It is impossible +to see how Mr. Spencer, any more than other people, can explain away the +existence of pain and evil. Nobody has done this; perhaps nobody ever +shall do it; certainly systems of Theology will not do it. A true +philosopher will not expect to solve everything. But if we admit the +patent fact that pain exists, let us observe also the tendency which +Spencer and Darwin establish towards its _minimization_. Evolution is a +striving ever towards the better and the happier. There may be almost +infinite powers against us, but at least there is a deep-laid scheme +working towards goodness and happiness. So profound and wide-spread is +this confederacy of the powers of good, that no failure and no series of +failures can disconcert it. Let mankind be thrown back a hundred times, +and a hundred times the better tendencies of evolution will re-assert +themselves. Paley pointed out how many beautiful contrivances there are +in the human form, tending to our benefit. Spencer has pointed out that +the Universe is one deep-laid framework for the production of such +beneficent contrivances. Paley called upon us to admire such exquisite +inventions as a hand or an eye. Spencer calls upon us to admire a +machine which is the most comprehensive of all machines, because it is +ever engaged in inventing beneficial inventions _ad infinitum_. Such at +least is my way of regarding his Philosophy. + +Darwin, indeed, cautions us against supposing that natural selection +always leads towards the production of higher and happier types of life. +Retrogression may result as well as progression. But I apprehend that +retrogression can only occur where the environment of a living species +is altered to its detriment. Mankind degenerates when forced, like the +Esquimaux, to inhabit the Arctic regions. Still in retrograding, in a +sense, the being becomes more suited to its circumstances--more capable +therefore of happiness. The inventing machine of Evolution would be +working badly if it worked otherwise. But, however this may be, we must +accept the philosophy if it be true, and, for my part, I do so without +reluctance. + +According to Mill, we are little self-dependent gods, fighting with a +malignant and murderous power called Nature, sure, one would think, to +be worsted in the struggle. According to Spencer, as I venture to +interpret his theory, we are the latest manifestation of an +all-prevailing tendency towards the good--the happy. Creation is not yet +concluded, and there is no one of us who may not become conscious in his +heart that he is no Automaton, no mere lump of Protoplasm, but the +Creature of a Creator. + + W. STANLEY JEVONS. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[76] "Utilitarianism," fifth edition, p. 9, foot-note. Except where +otherwise specified, the references throughout this article will be to +the pages of the fifth edition of "Utilitarianism." + +[77] _Fortnightly Review_, May, 1877, vol. xxi. p. 648. + +[78] "The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy," Book I. chap. +vi. 2nd paragraph. + +[79] "An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation," p. +1. + +[80] "Principles," &c. chap. iv. sect. 2-5. The statement is not a +verbatim extract but an abridgment of the sections named. + +[81] "Autobiography," p. 214. + +[82] "Utilitarianism," p. 11. + +[83] Italicised by the present writer. + +[84] "Principles of Morals and Legislation," ed. 1823, vol. i. p. 31. + +[85] A very important article by Dr. E. L. Youmans upon Mr. Spencer's +philosophy has just appeared in the _North American Review_ for October, +1879. Dr. Youmans traces the history of the Evolution doctrines, and +proves the originality and independence of Mr. Spencer as regards the +closely related views of Mr. Darwin, Mr. Wallace, and Professor Huxley. +The eminent men in question are no doubt in perfect agreement; but Dr. +Youmans seems to think that readers in general do not properly +understand the singular originality and boldness of Mr. Spencer's vast +and partially accomplished enterprise in philosophy. + +[86] Mr. Morley does not seem to countenance any such claims. On the +contrary, he remarks in his "Critical Miscellanies," p. 324, that Mill's +Essays lose in interest by not dealing with the Darwinian hypothesis. + +[87] "Autobiography," p. 187. + +[88] "Principles of Morals," &c., p. 29. + +[89] "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex," 1871, vol. +i. p. 71. I cannot help thinking that Mr. Darwin felt the inconsistency +and confusion of ideas in the passages quoted, although he does not so +express himself. Otherwise, why does he quote from two pages? + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, +November 1879, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW *** + +***** This file should be named 39517.txt or 39517.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/5/1/39517/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Nigel Blower and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +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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