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Svo, 538 pp., 148.

History of Intellectual Development

ON THE LINES OF MODERN EVOLUTION.

VOL. I. — Gi'eek and Hindoo Thought ; GrtLco-Koman I'aganism ;
.Judaism; and Christianity down to the Closing of the Schools
of Athens by Justinian, 52!) a.i>.

Hy JOHN BEATTIE CROZIKR

(,4uthoro1 "Civilization arcl rroRrcss").

EXTRACTS l-ROM PRESS NOTICES:-

The Atlieiueniii says: "Of Mr. Crozier's masterly insight into
the true bearing of grtat intellectual systems, and of their
relation one to another, it is ditticult to speak too highly, and yet
the skill with which 5ie has marsliHlled his facts, and the unfal-
tering precision and lucidi;y of his laiit;uiige, always dignified and
often eloquent, are no less f.dmiiable ... If the first volume of this
scliemo may i)e accepted as a fair specimen of what the whole is to
be, the Enf,iish philosophical literature will be the richer by a
work of rare ability."

The S2)ect<itor says; "Wo do not know elsewhere in the English
ton^'ue such a succinct and brilliant conspectus, in concentrated
form and in non-technical language, of the intellectual and spiritual
movement of the early world which culminated in the victory of
Christianity. Nor do we know of any other work on an equal
scale and of the same scope in which the movement of thought is
so clearly treated from the point of view of development."

The Rkv. Marcus Dods, D.D., says in the Boolmaii : Vast and
complicated as is the subject which Dr. Crozier handles, there is
nothing crude and nothing dims in its presentation. On tlie
contrary, his work upon any special department of thought will
stand comparison with that of experts. He has a genius for
seizing upon the essential points, and for eliminating all that is
accidental or mere excrescence. He has also a genius for exposition,
concealing all that is ponderous, and brightening his pages as well
as aiding his reader by felicitous illustration. His work is one
of the most considerable additions recently made to philosophical
literature, and is so devoid of technicalities that it should find a
public beyond the schools .... There is no part of his work which
is not fruitful. The development of the idea of God among the
Jews has never been more lucidly or succinctly presented even by a
specialist. The nie:;sianic idea, its growth and Culmination in
Jesus, will be better understood from the few pages in which
Mr. Crozier hides an immense amount of thoroughly digested
reading than from many ponderous volumes. The book is sure
to receive the attention of all thoughtful persons."

Longmans, Gheen, A- Co., Paternoster Row, EC.

( I )

CIVILIZATION AND PKOGRESS.

PRESS NOTICES.

"The book of a very able man .... The testimony which
we are compelled to give to the high nbility of this ambitiouB
work in completely impartial .... Wo can have no doubt as
to ihe great ability of the book, nor as to vhe literary power with
which the thoughts it contains are often expressed .... Full
of ori{,'inal criticism .... Great literary faculty ....
It will rectify much that is faulty in the vie'vs of his predecessors
A book far less superficial thin Mr. Buclde's." —
Spectator.

" The ability of Mr. Crozier consists in a remarkable clearness
of detail vision .... Fine critical observation ....
singular acumen of distinction — the power, so to speak, of seeing
through millstones, of being in a manner cUiimoyant ....
This accurate and subtle thinker."— .-IcY/f/c/i;//.

" This is a work of real ability. It is full of thought, and its
style is both forcible and clear. The reader is borne on a stream
of strong thinking from point to point, until at last, when he pauses
to get a little mental breath, he finds that he baa been doing almost
as much thinking as the author himself, so stimulating and
suggestive is the book, and bo full is it of discriminiitin;.'. \igorous,
and subtle ideas .... This rich and su^'gestive book." —
Inquirtr.

"There can be no doubt, we think, that Mr. Crozier has put his
finger upon the weak point in the speculations of previous writers,
and that he has himself laid hold of the right method for the
adequate treatment of hit subject .... The work is one of
real and pre-eminent merit, and will deservedly take a high place
in the class of literature to which it bclontis." — Scottish Review.

LoNOMASs, Grf.ev, (t Co., Patomostcr Row, E.C.

( 2 )

MY INNER LIFE

MY INKER LIFE

BKING A CIIAPTKR IN

Personal Evolution and
Autobiography.

JOHN BEATTIE CKOZIER.

Author of

'History of Intellectual Development:
' Civilization and Prof/resn,' dr., dte.

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON "'
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY

1898

^-^sammw^^msF^mv^m^^^m^

CT
/)3

147230

MMAimtAAillM)

MY WIFE,

vrithout whose loyal and untiring co-operation
and encouragement continued through twenty-
one years of a happy married life, my books
could not have been .vritten

i dedicate
This Volume.

PREFACE.

IT would liivvc heon inoro ai)|)n.i)niito ;iiul hocoinincr, perhaps,
liiul this Aut(>l)i()oi-„p!,y, if p„hlish(Ml at all, boon defemMl
to a iatei- po.iod of my life, hut a threatonod fiiiluro of oyosijrht
luiH loft 1.10 no altoraativo. In tlio uiK-ertahity as to my hJn^r
al)l(! to (!ontinue the i-csearoh necossaiy for tlio remaining?
volnuios of my ' History of Jntollectnal Development,' I felt
that the central ci.apters of this work in which I trace the
evohition of Modern Thought down to the in-escnt day, would
sufficiently represent my views of tliis portion of the subject to
give some kind of unity to the wliole, in case the lar<rer work
were not completed. I am not without hope however,"tliat the
progress of the <lisease may be so far ai-rcsted that 1 may still
he able to complete my larger history in detail. In tlu!
meantime the present book will serve to draw together more
tightly than woul.l be possible in the larger work, views on
the World-Problem and on Life which lie scattered tlirou"li
earlier volumes. *'

In the Chapter entitled 'Autobiography' in Book III.
I'art II. of this work, I have entered in detail into the reasons
which induced me to urite an Autobiography at all. For the
rest, I may say that for those who are interested in personal
experiences, I have endeavoured as far as possible faithfully to
record the passages of my outer life which preceded or attended
the various stages of thought and feeling through which I have
passed, an.l which are here detailed, as far as my memory
serves me, in their orderly sequence and evohition.

SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS.

PART I.-CANADA.
BOOK I.-BOYHOOD.

CHAPTER I.

The Twilight of Memouv.

Birth and Parentage — My Mother — Idyllic — The ' Old Cow, ' .

PAGES

;i-12

CHAPTER II.

SL'MMKI!.

Swimming— Cricket — Fishing— A Negro Expert. . 1;;.19

CHAPTER HI.

WiNTKi:.

Winter So. les— Snow-balling— Old Offenders— Hand -sleighs— A Home-
made one — Sleigh-racing. .... 2()-;!U

CHAPTER IV.

A Canadian Sabhath.

Village Puritanism— Sunday Gloom— Church-going— The Minister— Tlie
Singing— The Sermon— The Congregation— Effect of Sabbath on
my Mother. ..... ;'.l-42

CHAl I'ER V.
OiR Neighbours.

The ' Old Captain ' and his young Cavaliers — The Effect on my Motlior
—A Sepaiuto Code of Morals— My Astonishment— Other Neigiibour*
— Friendship of the 'Old Captt\in.' . . . 4:\AH

X. SUMMARY OF CHAPTE15S.

(IIAPTKR VI.

Pains and Plkasuuks.

Our Poverty — Hunt for Old ("opper — A Frog-eating Episode — A Sugar
Harrel, Hoys ! ' . , . . , 49-:)7

CHAPTER VH.

A RuL'BAHii Taut.

The Picnic — My ( 'ontribution — Sensitiveness — The Day Spoiled. .";8-(t.'!

CHAPTER VIII.

Fun and Misciukf.

lioyisl) Tricks — The Negro Electing — Tiie River of Jordan — Revival
-Meetings — Excitemeut of Prayers — Penitents' Rench — The Hot
Stove-pipe — Fainting Fits — Telling • Experiences' — Red Pepper on
the Stove. ..... <i4-74

CHAPTER IX.

Cocks and Pkje(jns.

Tlie (Janie-coek — How I Trained It — 'I'iie Fight at the ' Old Ca|>taiirs'
— My Love of Pigeons. .... 7.")-79

CHAPTER X.

A ^IiDNUiiiT Camtaion.

The Old ' Red-wing ' Fantail — News of Fancy Pigeons — How were they
to be had ? — Plan of Attack — I'he Start — In the Harn — An
Accident — Panic — Return — The 0»vner — My Mother's Horror —
A Breach of Honour. . . ' . . 8<)-9;t

CHAPTER XI.

M\ UxcLi-: Jamks.

His Arrival in the Village — Acconi]ilishnients — I'ridein ' tlie Mathematics'

— Effect of Drink — Enthusiasm for Newton — Boasting.

94-101

He leaves us — My Mother's Anxiety — My Uncle at the Public House —
He discusses Colenso — • Not a Single Glass.' . . 101-10<I

111.

His Return— My Mothers Indignation — My Sister and 1 — He Sings a
Song — Regrets and Recollections. . . . 100 110

SU.M.MAUY OF CHAPTERS. xi.

CJIAFl'KIl Xl.-Mv Uxcu: Jamks— (to///,/).

IV.

.Strniiffe ICffccts of Drink— My AstonislmuTit- ^t'n the Devil"— My
-Motlier Locks Him Out— 'J"he Tapping ut the Door — He SigDS the

. llu-llo

i'le<]go— Mis Death.

CHAPTER Xil.

The (jRammak School.

Dr. Tassie— The 'Old Veterans'— The 'J wo Recreants— Imperturbability
—Pleasantries— A Snub— My Stinted Vocabulary— Knthusiasni for
Matheniatics - Our Library— Thackeray, 'Punch,' Dickens—
A.lniiration for Newton— Smiles' 'Self Help ' —Prepare for
Universitj Scholarship— I Fall 111— • And so thin too ! ' . 11 (]-l;i;5

PART l.-BOOK il.-EARLY SPECULATIONS.
CHAPTER I.

PuiiEXOLOCiV.

I leave the University— Idleness becomes Oppressive— A fy Lack of the
Organ of • Causality '—The 'Professor' of Phrenology— His Lecture
— We E.xamine Heads— The Barber's Shop— The Barber's Head—
Kxtonuations-Our Pose as Plirenologu.ts-Shakspear.> and
^'^'■•^"°^"gy V.'u.hlH

CHAPTER H.

Tin; >L\\ WITH Tin; Bout-jack.

.My Fear of Him— Our First .fleeting— A Strange .Malady-My Visit to
Ihs Hermitage— His Ingenuity in the Defence of Phienoloiry— His
hne Influence on ile— How Concjuer Vanity'/ . . Vj!)-].-,7

1 had P. 'I'll no Visions— Old

Harabbas like no other robbe

CHAPTER HI.
Religion.
ssocialious of Sundav-

-Bible Repelleil Me

i.")K-h;2

( HAPTER IV.

Pal'se
What was Evolution to me '/-Phrenology and Metaphysics-Ban

of Phrenology

enness

KJ.'MOG

pf.

Xll. SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER V.

A Revivai- Episodk.

Amenities of Revival Preachers — ' Conversion ' of the Old ' Elder " — I
Remained Unmoved 1 — My Priend's ' Conversion ' — I Question Hint
— Brain or Holy Ghost V — ^ly Friend's Doubts— ' Look at the Cross'
— Loss again of Belief . .... 1G7-17.')

CHAPTER Vr.

Evolution not to be Jumped.

Butler's Analogy— Buckle, no effect on me. Why?— Mill on Sir W.
Hamilton— Could not Understand Carlyle's 'Sartor,' nor Emerson
— The Country Parson suited me !— Different Kinds of Insight-
Henry Ward Beecher's Sermons. . . . 17G-I84

CHAPTER YII.

A Change ok Method.

Books never my Mainstay — The Inmr Consciousness my Standi)oint —
Reading Characters at the Engineering ^V^orks I — My Different
Method; its Importance. .... 186-18H

CHAPTER Via.

A Law ok the Mind — What is it?

Comparison with Law of Physical Nature — Threads of Relation between
Feelings — Why Metaphysics and Phrenology cannot give it — What
Constitutes a Law of the Mind— Othello's sudden I'lansitious —
Comi»arison with Balance of Body by Muscles — Only to be tletermined
horn within — My Standpoint and Method. . . I'.H'-IIH)

CHAPTER IX.

The Bueakdown of Phkenology.

I leave my Phrenological Friends behind— My Visit to the New York
Phrenologist — Why 1 treat of Phrenology here — What ' Causality '
really depends on — A Form of ' Observation ' merely — \\'liat
' Language ' dei)ends on — What Comparison de[)end8 on — Relation
between Thought and Feeling. . . . 2UU-'J0H

SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS.

xm.

CHAPTER X.

The Powek of Language.

y\y New ^lethod of lavestigation-^Deficiency in Knowledge of Wonls—
Why Study ot Classics had not Remedied it— How we Plodded
through Horacj and Cicero — Tiie Way History was Taught —
(Hooray Winter's noo awa'— I read Addison — Washington Irving—
Pickwick delights me—' Old Uncle Ned '— ' Crabbe's Synonyms.'

209-218

CHAPTER XI.

Mv Uncle again.

Not so Interesting when Sober — ' Hen-pecked-you-all ' — ' Vast,'
'Profound' ' Genius '—Dr. Chalmers' ' ( )ratory '— His disgust at
my waste of time — Why not go into Medicine? . . 219-22:1

CHAPTER XI l.

TiiK University.

The Medical School— The Professors— Tlie Lectures— Teaching of
Anatomy—' Like Corpses on a Battlefield '—Tlie Students— Literary
Set; four all told— My most intimate friend M.— How the
' Personal Equation ' came in— Fate and Us. , . 224-2;);>

CHAPTER XIIL

PUOFESSOUS.

Shaksi)eare Analyzed— A 'Metaphor,' 'a Simile '—Kant's Critique of
Pure Reason — A Carding Machine. . . . 2;54-2;)8

CHAPTER XIV.

A New Horizon.

Effect of New Environment— Passion for Light on Problem of the NN'orld
—'Vestiges of Creation '—Darwin's ' Origin of Species"—' Natural
Selectioa' not enough — Huxley's Lay Sermons and Addresses—
Sl>encer'8 ' First Principles '—His Picture of the Evolution of the
Universe — The Persistence of Force — Reconciliation between
Religion and Science — His ' Principles of Psychology ' upsets this
reconcilir.tion— Two effects on me— Why I determined to come to
London. ..... 2;}9-248

XIV.

SUMMARY OF CIIAPTEUS.

li '

PART II.-ENGLAND.

BOOK I.-THE LOST IDEAL

CHAPTKR I.

IlKUBKItT Sl'EXCKR.

r start for England — My search for the Irleal — A Cloud — The wreck of
tlie Ideal — Why Spencer's Doctrine killed the Ideal — Sumni; • ■ of
iiis explanation of Origin of Mind — Two Special Points — Wliat I
was not prepared to admit — Difference l>etween UUjh and low requires
no Deity — S|)encer's Natural J)efect8 — His Greatness — His Mcthotf
the Secret of his Fallacies. .... 251-20:5

CHAPTET? H.

AUISTOCKACY AND I)KMOfl!ACV.

I laud in Glasgow — My Surprise at Coldness of Fellow Students —
Characteristics of Democracies — What Aristocracies pride themselves
on— ^' Damned Intellect' despised — The 'Gentleman' their Ideal —
Counting the Potatoes — English \v'^orking-man suprised me — 'I'aking
'tips' — Immortality of Soul — The Negro. . . 2(U-i'7.'>

CIIAPTElt III.

Mkdicine.

My mind beat on the practical — Medicine compared with Philosophy —
New generalizations few and far between — I refuse a Consulting
Practice — Interested in plinsiof/iiomi/ of disease— Old and youDg
idiysiciaus — The Baconian method — The scientific army and its
generals — Medicine no use for the mind in heallli — Fine mental
discipline — Dependence of thought on physical states — Elfect of
medicine on Ideal — Beauty under the microscope— Gloom — I start
practice ....... 27f!-2)S.S

PART Il.-BOOK Il.-THE SEARCH FOR THE LOST IDEAL.

CHAPTER I.

MACAtLAY.

lay siege to the problem of Life — The Essayists — Macaulay and
Mystery— His lack of the higher sympathies — His estimate o^ Bacon
— Platitudes — Strange theory — Style comjiared with Shakspeare.
Carlyle, Emerson — Want of shatling — His trumpet ])fals — My
favourite passages — The mind makes its own world . 291-.")fl.'»

SUMMARY OK ClIAPTKltS, XV.

CHAPTER II.

A Falsi; Staut.

I)e Qiiincey com]tare(l with iMui-aulay— Hazlitt as a critio— Liiiiitiition
of interest affects style— Introduces me to Elizal)ethan Dramatists

Favourite quotations— lieaumont and Fletcher — Shaksjieare -I

turn to the Historians— No unity— Xo help from the I'oets or
Novelists :;(i4-:;i5

CHAPTEK III.

AxciiixT i'lin.osoi'iiv.

I study the ancient Syatems—Why I jwhs over the ' Middle Ages ' —
Head the Moderns — Ski)» Comte, Schopenhauer, and Hejfel--riato"s
Cosmogony — Relation Itetween Scheme of the World and our
jiractical beliefs — The Catholic Ciiureh : its ^losaic founilation,
I'latonic dome, and Slirine — Tiie figure of Plato — Scientific dis-
coveries — Fall of Platonic Cosmogony — Use of Relics— Philosophy
has to loan on Church . . . . . .">1 ()-:!:>;>

CIIAPTEPv IV.

SoMi; (Ienkkai, Coxsidkraiions.

How our Ideals are determined — Literary criticism and Word-mongering
— Pathos of Shakspeare and of Carlyle — Sublimity and intensity of
Milton and Dante— Importance of Cosmogony — Can Modern
Philosophy furnish foothold for Ideal V — Ajiologists on 'evidences'
— Philoso]>hers in search of the Ideal — Repelled by the • tone " of
tiie Apologists ...... ;)iM-;);i(>

CIIAPTEi: V.

MODKRX MKTArilYSICS.

Tile search for the Ideal— The Faculty of Knowledge — How Descartes,
(ieuliux. and Malebranche demonstrated the existence of (iod —
Spinoza falls into Atheism— The Metaphysicians take up the Problem
— The two Schools — Leibnitz — His spiritual 'monads' — Ea.sy for
Idealists to find (Jod in the ^lind — Materialists and the Church —
Soul and Immortality gone — Kant finds Ood in the Conscience —
Fichte loses Kant's new-found Ideal — Jacolii stumbles on important
truths— He scandalizes orthodox School — Resume — Schelling diffeis
from Ficlite and Kant — How he failed to explain his Ai)solute
Being — Hegel t^ikes up the problem — Takes his stand on the Self-
consciousness — Difference from Kant — ' The Xotion ' — ' A state of
being' — His system and Herbert Spencer's — Hegel's Trinity— 1 1 is
Deity — ^The Materialists |)ull it all down again — Sj)encer and rwe
utility — Church ami Philoso])hy a pair of cripples— Hume and tlie

XVI. SUMMARY OF CHAl'TBRS.

lUuminati — A curious result of iuetaj)hy8ical speculation — High
qualities merely /«»•«« of low — False method — Schopenhauer's stand-
j)oint — Nearly a Poetic Thinker— Schopenhauer's Will and its
instiuments — Ideal a mere beggar's banijuet — To rid oneself of tlie
world — Sink into Nirvana — Von llartinann — Metaphysical Specula-
lation reaches its end ..... ;{.'Jl-.'504

(JIIAFlKll VI.

Criticisms and Conci.isioxs.

Why the Metaphysicians disappointed me — Like boys picking a watch to
pieces— Their analysis of reverence, love, and beauty— They
construct a false eye — A central truth which they ignore — Easy for
>ietivphysicians to pass from Real to Ideal — Hegel tries to throw a
bridge across — Why I set aside the Metaphysicians — What definite
coiK'lusions I had come to : Mind as a whole the true organon— How
to find the ideal : 1 turn to the Poetic Thinkers . . ;!(!5-;575

CIIAPTEIl VII.

A VISIT TO Carlyle.

Effect on mo as a Colonial, of I^atter Day Pamjihlets — Carlyle's
denunciations of the Political Economists — His Style repels me —
His moral stiindpoint too high for me — How he found the lost Ideal
— My difficulty a different one — I decide to go and see him — His
portraits not like him— His conversation astonishes me— His opinions
of Mill, Buckle, Spencer — His remarks on Christianity — The true
Carlyle — Origin of his diatribes — On ages of transition . ;!7()-;i!);!

CHAPTER VIII.

The Personal Equation.

Study of Emerson — Key to his system— Why Emerson suited ine better
than C'arlyle — Goethe's special doctrine — Why neither Carlyle nor
I'hnerson could appropriate it— His realism disgusts me — Bacon as
a Poetif' Thinker — Newman's piety rei)el8 me — My ' j)er8onal
equation ' . . . . ... . .■)y4-410

E
s

CHAPTER IX.

The Poetic Thinkers.

Can man explain Universe ? — Neither Spencer nor Hegel can find the
key— Poetic thinkers do not attempt it (Bacon, Goethe, Carlyle,
Emerson, Newman) — The mind as a whole as organon — ' Personal
equation ' of these thinkers . . . .411 -4:^0

SUMMARY Of riIAl»T£RS. XVU.

CHAPTER X.
My CoNTRinuTiON.
Poetic Tl.inkers fail to give me a practiml solution of World- problem—
I heir view of the mind-I at last find the Ideal in the mind-The
' beale in the Mind '--No room for Atheism— My six truths not to
l.e known by Science— Science not the orjfanon— How Hnd the Ideal
in the m>rW?-Evil miah..olHtc~^ Natural Selection.' Romanes and
Natural Selection— Ascendin- tendencies of the World and of the
Mmd-Unity of Plan-How I find the Z)/r/nr-Hegel, Goethe,
Emerson, and Carlyle's conception of the Deity— My conception-
Hegel's jump from material to mental categories— My own life's-
^"^"^ 427-457

PART Il.-BOOK Ill.-LITERARY EXPERIENCES.

CHAPTER I.

Mv FiHST Attempt.

Scotland-The I^Mitor's Box-Carlyle's advice— The Magazines— ]VIy
round of men of eminence— Their bewilderment !— God or Force—
At last I get it published— Represent*itive thinkers— What 1 learned
by failure in getting a hearing— My essay on • Constitution of the
World —Essays on Herbert Spencer, Carlyle, and Emerson- The
right time for a new standpoint -Martineau, Huxley, Tyudall,
Emerson, Carlyle, Darwin— Disappointment . . 461-478

CHAPTER II.

Civilization.

Differences between Carlyle and Emerson on Civilization— My Equip-
ment for the problem— Aristocracy and Democracy compared as
forwarding Civilization— Canada and England—To find tiie
evolving factors— Comte and Positivists' Society—' Civilization and
^'»"«g''«««' 479-485

CHAPTER III.

Stylk.

AVas my style the cause of my failure V— I start to remedy the defect—
Addison's ' Spectator '—The style of the future— Prose or Poetry ?
—What does literary power consist inV— Kinds of pictorial power
—Confusion in literary criticism .... 4«6.49y

A I

xvin.

SUMMARY OF CIlAl'TKIiS.

ClIArTKIf iV.

A POIJTIC'AL InSIANCK.

A|ii»eariin('c of Lord Uaiidolpli Churchill — 'I'he way the (jchIus of the
\V'orl(l jfotM itH fiuls — Democracy tiiid Aristocracy coiiiiiarcd -Doi'h
Aristocracy winnow reputations V — Rise of the Demajjogue— Rise
of reputations — Effect of C'arlyle's Edinhuiyh Address — Kffect on
his wife — Value of i'ress recognition — Kffect of advertisement on
popularity of [ireatdiers — On actors — Un young poet — How
Press hypnotized Pulilie —How Pultli(^ coirced Press — My pre-
diction-Rise to power of Lord Randolph — Aly Ijook on his
rise . . . . . . . . 494-501

CHAITKR V.

TiiK Dakmonic Elemkkt.

My l)ook too • original' — Its ahaliby api)earance — No reviews — 'The
Thirty-nine ' — Refusal of space for a short review— Review in
'Spectator' at last — Mrs. Lynn l^inton's advice — A cheap edition
issued — A ' record ' experience in books . . . 502-508

CHAPTER VI.

Political Econo.mv.

Publishers' projjosal — I read ninety volumes I — Adam .Smith — Mill's
• Economic Man ' — .It^vons on the ' margin of cultivation " — Ruskin :
Why pay sixpence only? — Karl Marx's shibboleths — I am attracted
to Henry (ieorgc — Roehm-Rawerk's criticism on Ceorge — (iluts of
shirts and • bare backs ' in streets — Gunton on Distrioution—
Mununery and Hobson — The work is taken out of my hands —
Products should circulate like food — Mallock . . 509-517

CHAPTER VII.

AlTOniOtiKAl'HV.

Why I write my autobiography— The ' personal equation ' — • Shultle the
cards' ....... 518-620

CHAPTER VIII.

Intkustitial Thinkkiis.

Arnold on ' Culture' — The 'gentlemanly' style in literature — His con-
tempt for Aliddle Class * Philistines '—His criti'usni of Comte — His
want of insight in Riblical Criticism — Huxley compared with
Arnold — His Biblical studies — Ilutton of the • Spectator ' — ' The

SirMJIAUY OF C1IAPTEU8. xiX.

|«.inl .,f a necllo ' Literary critioi8mK-J„|,„ Morli-y His lifnirv
pe. .Kree-Comtc. Mill, and Murke^Wlu-re he .lifforn fro... Colale
^-L.l.t.. y a.,d oon.i..-.,...i.s..- IIiHto,-i,.a] studios -U-hUc. Stcpl.e.. •

Culylos v,ow ot |,„n Jol„. Sh.a.t Mill: His ,,u,itv-Not C(.,..

pl^Ztiv^"' r^T'"" ""•";'"' '^''"^^^ f'"-.--W..nt of IIistori.-al
puspixtive-A colossus with „„,■ foot o.i Ol.l World and o,.e on

. 5i' I -,-);;«

CM A ITER IX.

lS0LA>'i0N AND DEI'ltlOSSIOX.

Iht Mod.cal Councd-rntdk..tual Isolatio., --.My oninio.,8-

■ as p,.,hc .nterest in sorions literature .leclinedylrnsLces--

epre.s8,o.. - A V sion of Death - Success of ...y History _-

Kecogu,t.o,. l.y the Treasury-My eyesight . ^ tv^r.^

PART I.

CANADA

MY INNER LIFE,

IJKINO A CIIAPTEll IN

PERSONAL EVOLUTION AND
AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

TAUT I.-CANADA.

liOOK I. — BOY II GOD.

the twilight of mkmokv.
su:mmer.

WINTEIl.

A CANADIAN SAIUJATII.
OUR NEIGIIHOIKS.
PAINS AND PLEASUWKS.

A UIIUBAIJU TAPvT.
FUN AND MISCHIEF.
COCKS AND PIGEONS.
A MIDNIGHT CAMPAIGN.
MY UNCLE .lAMES.
THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.

CHAPTER I.

THE TWILIGHT OP MEMORY.

I "^tltl^T'l '" ?\"' V'"'"'" '■" "'" '"'■ >™" °f Ca„.d. on
earii. eft" h ' 1 ^"'l^ ''*'■ ^"^ ?-""« '""• ■' fe- years

xrf T ;:,"'"'■ ■" """'^ °™«"-"^ -'"' ■- "■« '»«-!'

th O "^ V n ?"""' "-'-^-""l fro... tl,„ .h„,.c.s ,,1
ho ( 1,1 VVoH, .0 l,et,o,- then- fortunes i„ tho Now. My

t^'tl-'; tanuly l,„d boon .ott!ed in an,I around tl.o B„„, ,. fe

' Elliots and Armstrongs
Nixon s and Croziers
Raid thieves a' '

"f 'l-.«^ anclon, ,,udo,-« who by thoh- fonds and f„n,v, h,d

"" "Inch , boy sot out for America. Af.o,- a Ion. and L™v
-yago tboy ..oaohed ti.o sho... „f Canada in ^ " y Zal

■"'-..>. "f tho o„„„t..y„t las, brought then, .„ ftdt, at that

:otc,i sottloment only i-ocentiv ro,.l„i,„„,l t

ation

time
th

or fo.n.T , , , ^°»ta,na„g a population probably of three
o. four hundred souls. After takin.. u» th.;rnl..i„

ig up their abode for a time

4 THE TWILIOIIT OF MKMOUY.

in SI little log cabin on the margin of the pine woods where the
howling of the wolves alone broke the silence of the night, and
shifting thence to other the like quartan's as necessity or
convenience determined, my father at last was able as his affairs
became more prosperous to build for himself a home in the
village — a low, one storied house, making up in length for what
it lost in height, and with stone walls as thick sis a citadel — and
in this house nine years after their first arrival in the country
I had the good or evil fortune to be born. I was the youngest
of five children all of whom except an elder sister died in
infancy and before my birth. While I was still a child my father
was seized with consumption, and the fell disease after lingering
for a time in uncertainty, at last hastened its ravages and before
I was three and a half years of age it had snatched him from
our household, leaving my mother to face the world with my
sister and myself dependent on her, and with no means of
subsistence but the few |)ounds saved by my father, together
with the house and a small plot of ground.

My Mother, although over fifty years of age at the time of
which I am writing, was a woman of magnificent physique and
extraordinary physical vitality, erect and columnar as a statue
of Minerva, her head, hands and feet small, but with neck and
shoulders massive and finely ijroportioned. In mind she was
simple and guileless as a child, her whole aim in life being to
keep free from debt, to save intact the little capital which my
father had left her, and to bring u[) her (children in the fear and
ac^.nonition of the Lord. Her one book was the Bible, her one
place of resort the Kirk, her one object of reverence the
Minister, her one object of awe the Kirk-Elder. She mixed little
with her neighbours, and amidst the varied dialects of the
colonists among whom she had lived for so many years she still
reverted in moments of excitement to the broad accent of her
native land. For many years she was my sole companion (niy
sister wlio was some years my senior having interests and com-
panions of her own), but owing to my rcgardlessncss as she called

THE TAVILIOHT OF MEMORY.

it, my tlisobediencc, lovt »f mischief, and general pagan absorption
in tlic things of this workl, I must during all those years have
grieved her good heart more than enough. We were always
<]uarrelling and making it up again ; but with it all, the fear of
losing her in one of the attaeks of palpitation to which she was
subject, was the standing anxiety of my boyhood.

Of the few reminiscences of my childhood, the sweetest and
most rose-coloured are of the visits which in summer time I
made with her to friends living in the little houses and farm-
steads surrounding the village. On these occasions we usually
started out in the early afternoon after dinner, returning in the
(;ool of the evening and carrying with us baskets or cans which
we brought home laden with flowers, fruit, new milk, and the
like. These little outings were all more or less alike in character
but there was one which especially delighted me and which
stamped itself on my imagination with an impress which I still
retain. This Avas our annual visit to my aunt — my mother's
sister — who since her husband's death had been living all alone
in a little log cabin by the road-side in the middle of the dense
[)iiie forest surrounding the village. A few years before my
j)arents' arrival in the country, the wliole region of country
round about was one dense forest of pine and maple and elm
shelving down the hills on either side to the margin of the river
that ran thrt)ugh the centre of the valley on which the village
afterwards stood, and peopled only by Indian trappers and
hunters, to whom in early days it had been granted as a reser-
vation by the Crown. When I was a boy, nearly all that
portion of the forest that lay in the valley flanking the river on
either side had been cut down as the village grew, but it still
reached forward to the brow of the surrounding hills where its
tall (lark pines continued in my boyhood to frown over the
village in the evening twilight like dour and dusky sentinels.
On the side of the river on which my aunt lived, however, the
wood had been cut back from the l)r<)w of the hill for a distance
of about hftlf a mile, and was marked off from the portion

6 THE TWILIGHT OF MEMOUY.

intervening and now under cultivation by a sharp clean cut
margin, standing out against it, as one approached, like tlie uncut
portion of a field of corn. It was on the side of the road leading
through this wood, and about half a mile from where it entered
the forest, that the little log cottage in which my aunt lived lay
embosomed aniong tlic surrounding pines. I still remember our
setting out from home on the sultry summer afternoons beneath
the burning sun, — I cleanly and neatly dressed in loose tartnn
jacket with belt and big brass buckle on which a bear or wolf's
head was embossed ; my mother with her parasol, black bonnet,
and dress of some thin black shiny material spotted and inter-
spersed here and there with white. We usually proceeded
leisurely and by easy stages on foot, wending our way up the
hill side and onwards along the road to the wood ; my mother
with her parasol up, and keeping close to the shadow of the high
board fence, while I trotted along by her side or scampered off
in front of her. Occasionally she would sit down to rest awhile
in the shade of the fence, while I disdainful of the sun ranged
about ahead of her looking out for nests or watching the move-
ments of the birds and scjuirrels. When at last we came up to
the entrance to the wood and passed within its grateful shade,
we would usually sit down a second tiujc to rest ; my mother's
conversation Avhicli up to this ])oint had been strictly mono-
syllabic, now becoming more free and unrestrained, although still
preserving its neutral character and confined to the heat, the flies,
the prospect of rain, and the like ; or witli pathetic reference
perhaps to the good firewood in the shape of fallen branches
lying scattered around and going to waste and decay I As avc sat
there I can still see the caloric rising in shinnncrinjj wavelets
from the burning road along which we had just [)assed, and
the long-tailed squirrel oppressed by the breathless heat hop})ing
lazily along tlie top of some irregular rail-fence bounding a
distant coi'nfield. And as I listened to the pine tops waving in
the clear blue sky above me, to the confused hununing of innu-
merable insects from the wood, to the solitary ta[)i)ing of the

THE TWILKJIIT OF MEMOllY.

lonely woodpecker on the trunk of some distant tree, or peered
into the dai'kening recesses of the forest enveloped in gloom
even at noonday, a feeling of far off intangible beanty strangely
mingled with awe, would come over me as 1 sat by my mother's
side ; a feeling which has ever since remained with me, and which
I can still in imagination in a measure reproduce. As we walked
uj) the gentle ascent of the road through the wood and ncared
the cottage, my aunt pleased and surprised at our approach
would come out to meet us, her face beaming with a mild delight ;
and throwing aside the work she happened to have in hand,
\k'ould at once make preparations for tea ; while I went prying
about in the little garden adjoining the house, picking and eating
apples and currants and pears, listening to the cawing of the
rooks, or peei'ing through the fence in conscious security into
the wood beyond, which however 1 was too frightened to enter
alone. We usually remained till late in the afternoon, and when
the high pines had ceased to throw their shadows across the
glowing road, and the dusky evening had settled on the woods,
we would start again on our homeward journey ; my aunt
accompanying us a little way down the descent from the cottage.
When we parted from her and got farther along our winding
way, my bright wonder of the afternoon would be all exchanged
for a vague chilly fear; instead of skipjjing in front of my
mother I would draw close to her side, holding by her dress,
castiny; half friijhtened ijhiuces into the ji^loomv darkness of the
wood now all hushed on each side of us, but in which bears and
wolves were occasionally still to be found, and conjuring up
vague images of unknown terrors which pressed on my young*
heart until we got into the open again. These vague and
unpleasant feelings would still continue more or less to
accompany me as I went chattering along the road by my
mother's side until we arrived at the brow of the hill overlook-
ing the village, when the cheerful laughing voices of the boys
playing on the village green below, would bring back the lively
and comforting sense of eompani(mship with the world again —

I i n fc Ki HIJ M

I I

THE TWILKJHT OF AlEMOUV.

a feeling wliich romaiiiod with me till we reached home and the
gentle twilight passed softly and not without a vague sense of
infinitude into tiie peaeeful night.

It was on one of tluise occasions as we were neariiijr home
that I have a vivid remembrance of the sky changing, the wind
beginning to rise, the lightning playing on the hills at the back
of the house, and eveiything giving signs of a coming storm.
When we arrived my mother went into the garden at the back
to see fhat all was right for the night, and on returning
HMuarked ominously in her broad Scotch vernacular and as if
<!on8cious of some impending evil, ' She'll be in again to-night.
Its lightning at the l)ack. She kens as weel as a body I' The
she in question of whom we had had such disastrous experience,
and whom to affect not to know would have been an insult to
my mother, was none else than an old cow — an old red hornless
cow — who for years had been in the habit of breaking into our
jrarden in the middle of the night, eatino; such vegetables as
were planted there — cauliflower, lettuce, cabbage and the like —
and departing cpiietly before daybreak leaving wide ruin and
desolation behind her. This cow was at once the despair and
desperation of my mother, and all methods to keep her out of
the garden had hitherto proved unavailing. The way in which
the cow entered was by a gate at the bottom of the garden,
which was secured in the summer months both by latch and
rope ; and it always remained a mystery to the last, how the
cow, especially as she was without horns, could undo the latch
jind unfasten the rope. My mother who firmly believed that
all the movements of the animal were the results of deep
deliberation and reflection, affirmed that she selected just such
windy and rainy nights as best ministered to her nefarious
designs, bringing to the task all the ingenuity, subtlety, ami
resource of the most experienced house-breaker. Whether my
mother's hypothesis were right, that the cow selected these
particular nights beciuise she thought that in the whistling of the
wind, the rattling of the rain, and the creaking of doors and

Tin: TWILUillT OF MK.MOUY.

hinges she could pass through the gate undetected hy her (for
my mother always figured the old cow as watching her with
the same suspicion tliat she watched the cow I) I cannot pretend
to say, but certain it was that the cow almost always selected
these windy rainy nights for her operations, and so far ad(lc(l
the weight of positive testimony to a hyi)othesis which, as we
shall see, my mother had arrived at from a priori sj)cculations
on the innate nature of the cow herself. On such nights as
the one I am describing we would all retire to bed uneasily,
my mother giving evidence by her general silence of the weight
that hung over her mind. When we got to bed it was usuul
with me to go oft" to sleep at once regardless of cow or cabbages,
but my mother would lie awake listening intently between the
gusts of Avind for sounds of the enemy's approach. And sure
enough as she had predicted, I would be roused in the middle
of the night by my mother getting quickly out of bed, and on
my inquiring in a startled manner as to what was the matter,
she would reply in an excited undertone, as if the old cow
might hear her before she could compass her revenge, — ' She's
in ! ' These mystic monosyllables were sufficient ; I under-
stood it all, and as my mother after throwing on hurriedly souk^
light superficial covering, sallied forth taking with her a long
thick maple pole with which we used to poke up the logwood
fire, I would sit up in bed to listen to the coming fray with a
light frivolity and, I fear, secret delight, which in a matter so
serious, had my mother known it, would have cost me dear.
I had not long to wait however, for pi'cscntly 1 would hear the
nuiffled thuds reverberating from the sullen ribs of the old
marauder, until at last a strain and crash as the cow forced
her distended bulk through the too narrow gate and fell on the
slippery boarding underneath, woidd reach my car ; when all
would be silent again except the whistling winds. A few
moments later my mother after refastening the gate would
reappear in the bedroom muttering exas[)eration, or dejectedly
murnmring as if she saw no end to these encounters but the

THE TWILIGHT OF MEMORY.

•^•rjivc ' She's given me iny death of cold again to-night,*
a(hling liovvever with that touch of solf-gratnlation which the
••((n.scioiiMnesa of the summary justice she had executed on the
hriite inspired, ' I've given her such a drilHng, liovvever, that
she'll not dare be ba(!k again to-night, I'll promise her,' — after
which |)artial consolation and relief to her feelings she would
rcjturn to bed and sleep without further anxiety until the

monung.

^11^

So ])eriodlcal, indeed, did these visitations year after year
become, that I grew up to I'cgard them as part of the established
order of things, and as being no more extraordinary than the
return of the seasons or the regulated changes of the moon.
IJut as 1 grew older and began to think for myself, it occurred
to mc that instead of accepting them with the Hindoo passivity
and resignation of my mother, they might be prevented in a
groat measure at least by complaining to the owner, or if that
failed by appealing to the authorities themselves. Accordingly
on the morning after one of these midnight encounters, when
my mother seemed deeply depressed, I ventured to suggest this
as ii reasonable course to follow inider the circumstances ; but
instead of receiving it as a happy thought it seemed to strike
her with amazement, and with a confused cry of ' Hush ! ' in
which fear and surprise curiously mingled, she subsided into
silence. The reason of this show of alarm which she seemed so
anxious to hide, I afterwards discovered to be that she regarded
the owner of the cow — a woman living at the head of the street
— with even more dread if possible than the cow herself !
This old ' mischief maker,' as she was in the habit of desig-
nating the owner, used to stand during the greater part of the
day in the gateway in front of her house with arms akimbo,
her thick frame in short skirts almost blocking the entrance,
and her hair twisted menacingly and as if for an encounter
around the back of her short thick neck and thick square head ;
and from this <;atewav everv now and again she would issue
and range up and down the street in front of her house with a

THE TWILIGHT OK MKMOKV.

slow iind deliberate but trcad-on-tlic-tiiil-of-iny-coiit attitude
and mien, seizinj; sucb ()[»j)ortunities as adorded tbemselves for
picking a quarrel (as for exanii)l(! when a neighbour'.s boy luul
had a row with one of her boyw) and when hIic liad at last
suceeeded, falling on her opponent with such j)recipitation and
show of violence as to have bcconie the terror of the whole
surrounding neighbourhood. This it was which accounted for
my mother's refusal to comply with my suggestion, and for her
startled cry of ' hush ' when J ventured to bring it before
her. The fact was, the old cow and her owner had evidently
become so associated or even identified in nature and attribute
in my mother's mind, that she could not contemplate them
apart. When she saw the cow she thought of her owner, and
when she saw the owner she thought of the cow I But you
could see that although not given to contemplation, Avhen she
took time to consider the matter, her real opinion was that the
qualities of the cow were really not so much original in her as
in some mysterious way dei'ived from her owner. The in-
tellectual acuteness and subtlety which in unfastening I'opes
and opening latches she so nnich feared and admired, she
seemed to regard as due rather to a moral depravity, and the
moral depravity again she fully believed to be directly due
in some occult way (analogous to witchcraft I often thought
she figured it !) to the malignant disposition of the owner. And
I verily believe that could the cow have been sold to a different
owner or in any other way been taken beyond the I'cach of the
malign influence of her own mistress, my mother would have
had a vague but real hope of her reformation, liut this was
not to be. The cow remained with her original owner, and f(»r
some years longer her nocturnal depredations continued as
before. At last however as the cow grew ohler, and the arrange-
ments about the gate had been completely altered, these forays
ceased alto<;cther or orrew nuich more intermittent : and finallv
after I had grown to be quite a big lad, the old cow herself was
scut to her long and last account by a stroke of lightning on

* 1

■I

THE TWII.KIIIT OF MKMOItY.

tlie toj) of tli(! hill overlook in<^ tlio vllliigc. I heard the news
from sonic of the hoys, iuul on proccccling to the spot to
ascertain the truth for myself, 1 eame on the swollen carcase of
the old hriite still warm and lying on its side, with a scathed
and hlackened streak passing from the spine over the distended
rihs ; and (!an well remeniher my mingled feelings as I realized
that the old general had actuallv been brought to the ground
at last. 1 rushed home full of the glad event, and when I
announced the welcome news to my mother she at first looked
incredulous as If it wen; too good to be true, but on my detail-
ing the time, [dace, and occasion with all circumstantiality, she
paused, and as the memories and vicissitudes of their long
struggles came over her mind she turned aside, and in a tone of
mingled ])athos and relief murmiMHul audibly ' the auld sorrow !
She's w eel gane ! she's weel ujane I

4 J

CHAPTEK II.

SUMMER.

''piIE o-ames juul iunuscmeuts of my boyhood included nearly
all those in vo<^ue in England at the present time —
marbles, tops, swimming, boating, cricket, skating, foot-ball
and the like — together with others altogether unknown here, or
from the nature of the climate practised under different
conditions.

In the early days of the settlement a great dam had been
built across the river at the head of the village, in order that
its water might be diverted into canals which had been du"'
Itarallel with it on either side, and so afford the power
necessary to run the various woollen, flour, and other mills which
then or afterwards were built along the line of its banks. At
the junction of this dam with the bank of the river on the
side on which I lived, a great rock shelved down in horizontal
strata to within three or four feet of the water; and around it
as around a promontory the river flowed gently over the fall of
the dam. From off this rock I got my first lesson in swinnning,
having been thrown from it into the deep dark waters one
evening by one of the elder boys who innuediately plunged in
after me before I had time to sink, and getting bel;ind me
ui)held me while I splashed and spluttered my way back as best
1 could to the shore.

But our principal summer amusement was Cricket. During

l-i 1

Hl'.MMKU.

the loiiii^ vaciition iiiid hi tlic iiitervalrt of hiitliiii^, a miinher of
Uis boys luij^ht ho seen j^diu;? to (»tio or other of the open spaees
on the outskirts <»f th(! town, aiul there after plt(rhiiii( our
wieketH and ehoosing onr Hi^l(^s, pre[>aring to have a game. To
this <ranie I was intensely devoted, and expended on it more
time, energy, and persevcranee than I have since given to the
gravest pnrsnits; althoni;!) in my earlier years it liad to bo
played under the most )>rimitive and unfavourable eonditions.
Our wickets were made usually <»f broomstic'ks sawed into e(|ual
rcj;ulati()n lengths and sliar[)ened at the [)oints, their tops being
notched for the reception (»f little pieces of twig which we used
as ' bails.' The; l)alls were home-n>ade, consisting of a central
nucl(!us of cork around which were disposed various layers
of rags, strips of cotton, and old bits of twine, all cemented
together into a hard homogeneous rotundity by means of pitch,
tar, or the gummy distillations of the pine tr(!es. The ball
thus prepared was then taken to the local shoemaker to be
covered with leather, and was returned to us, hard, indeed,
and more or less round, but standing out at the seams like
mountain ranges, in iiigli embossed ridges without modesty or
attempt at concealment I The bats too were usually home-made,
each boy making his own for himself out of pine or beechwood,
in such style and configuration as most suited his fancy. They
were usually free from any attem[)t at artistic beauty, and rarely
had their surfaces planed, much less varnished or even covered
with a rough coating of paint; but when as sometimes
happened one of the boys would bring to the field a proper bat
made of willow, — light, flexible, beautifully varnished and with
handle nicely wound and corded, — it was passed around among
the rest of us for inspection, and handled with a species of
idolatry. The ground, too, on which we played had to be
sought for and found among and between the stumps that
(lotted the hills, connnons, and other vacant spaces of the
village. We would usually divide into parties of two on these
occasions, and would scour the country in all directions like so

SIMM Kit.

ies of
to be
3 tluit
■)f the
these
ike so

iiuuiy HurveyorH; liahiii^ here and there, iiml tiiiiiiii;'- to all
points of the eoinpass until we caiiie on a streteh of onxnid
between the stiunp.s sutfieiently level to justify us in pitching
the wickets.

In those days the great English Kleven had just visited the
Province, and the fame of their achievenients had spread far and
wide among the boys, ' Honnd-arin ' bowling, a** it was called,
was our great and»ition. and from the great difHculty of
pitt'hing the l)alls straight when delivered in that way, otiercd
to those who could compass it the shortest and most ccitain
cut to distinction. Like the rest of the boys 1 was fired with
the andjition of becoming a round arm bowler, and use<l to rise;
in the early morning before tlie «lew was oH' the grass, set up a
single wicket (of broomstick) at the bottom of the garden, and
with an adjoining fence and barn as back-stop beliind, bowl
uvvay at it by the hour together, liut in spite of incessant
and assiduous ])ractice continued over many years, and in s|(itc
of the speed with whii-h I could deliver the balls, I never
attained either in pitch or directness of aim to anything
beyond a rcspi'ctable proficiency. With my batting, too, I
was equally assiduous but not more siu'cessftd ; for although a
free hitter when the balls were off the wicket, and a diligent
observer and speculator as to the way in which the various
halls were best to be played, I was uncertain in my stop, and
was never able to place the balls in the field with any sureness
or satisfaction to myself.

When the weather Avas unfavourable for swinuniiig, cricket,
or kite-flying, I was usually to be found fi.->hiug ott' the rocks
that lined the banks of the river at ami below the dau> at the
head of the village. This sport too, like cricket, had to be
pursued with msiterials of a very primitive and rudimentary
kind. So far as I can remember, a fishing-rod in tlie proper
and accepted sense of that term, with its joints and sections
and reel, and its light, lithe, and elastic struetinv, was
unknown among the boys of the time. The rods; in use, or

SUMMER.

'polos' as they were culled, consisted originally of saplings of
elm, tamarack, and cedar which grew in the woods or douse
swamps in the neighbourhood of the village, and which were
selected because in proportion to their length they wore either
lighter and straightor, or thinner and tougher than any other
wood ; the cedar and tamarack being especially light and
straight, the elm and beech especially tough and thin. To
obt»'n those saplings we were in the habit of going to the
woods or swamps in parties of two or three, and after selecting
as many as we wanted, cutting them down, and removing the
smaller branches, wo would throw them over our shoulders and
start again on our way homewards. When we got home wo
would remove the bark and hang the poles up to dry for a
time in the open air, after which they w^ere ready for use ;
precautions having already been taken to remove a sufficient
portion of the thin and tapering top to ensure the strength
necessary to stand the dead weight and pull to which they
were afterwards to be subjected. The lines we used were tied
to a notch cut on the end of the ' pole,' and consisted of
cording of such sti'ength and thickness, that judiciously
expended from a proper reel they might have secured or
impeded the escape of some of the greatest monsters of the
deep I At the end of the line a hook, lai'gc, bare and ugly
looking, was attached, and above tlu^ hook a ' sinker ' made of
a piece of lead and welded to tlie lino, and of such size and
weight that when it was thrown into the water it was like the
heaving overboard of a small anchor ! The bait, too, was of
the most simple character. No gaudy flies of variegated
plumage, no hooks fantastically dressed with the softest tail
feathers of the eagle-owl — nothing but the simple garden worm
transHxed in a series of involutions by the bare and ruthless
hook (on which indeed it continued to wrijrerle after beinir
thrown into the water) and without further effort at conceal-
ment. The spot usually selected by us for fishing was the
comparatively still water which eddied back into the side of

SUMMER.

the bank just below the dam ; and here in the evening after
school hours some eight or ten of us might be seen sitting in
line, ' poles ' in hand, on the perpendicular rocks overhanging
the water, watching the old bottle-corks wiiich we used for
floats, with a keen and absorbing interest. Nor in the fishing
to which we were accustomed was it essential to success that
we should continually thrash the water with our lines as the
curi'ent carried them down ; on the contrary when once the
sinker was thrown in, it itself sought the bottom with such
directness and precipitation, and lay there with such an
evident determination not to move, that you could prop your
pole between a couple of stones and go away and leave it for
an hour or so, with the certainty of finding your line in
precisely the same spot on your return, unmoved by wind or
stream I The fish that haunted the river were freshwater fish
about the size of a sea trout or very small salmon ; and were
known by such homely or expressive epithets as ' suckers,*
' stone-carriers,' ' mullets,' and the like. These fish were all
very bony, '^specially the nuillets, a circumstance which gave
rise to the 1 pothesis by a local philosopher, that they were the
last fish the Ijord had made, and that he had thrown the bones
in by handfuls ! When once the bait was taken, no fine or
dextrous manipulation was necessary to land the fish, no
running them up and down the stream for half an hour at a
stretch playing out line and taking it in again, and the whole
executed with the greatest skill and caution. The line was so
thick that it would not break imdcr the most extreme strain
brought to bear on it (I have known one bear the strain of
three boys pulling at it with all their might, when it had got
stuck), and the ' poles ' although absolutely small, were
'•elatively to ai; ordinary rod as the mast of some great
admiral I The landing of a fish was in consequence a matter
purely of what 1 have heard characterized as ' main strength tind
ignorance ! ' It was raised out of the water by one long dead
heave, which lifted it high into the air over the shoulder of its

W !

SUMMEU.

captor and flung it foul against the rocks behind with such
ruthless violence, as to leave one under no necessity of after-
wards putting it to death. And so it went on, first one boy
and then another stolidly and without sense of humour flinging
the fish behind him on to the relentless rocks ; until the
evening closed around and one after another picking up his
own fish and slinging them on a line or piece of twig, took
each his several homeward way.

Personally I cared little at any time for fishing. I did not
like freshwater fish as an article of diet, nor did I care for the
sport in itself. When the fish were taking well and were
bein<>" flunj; into the air in flijrhts on all sides of me, it soon
became monotonous ; when they woirhl not take at all, it was
uninteresting. Besides I was restless md kept changing my
l)()sition too often, I was careless about my worms, or would
go away and leave my pole propped up between two stones for
too long together, and more than all when I did get a ' take '
I was so eager to secure it that I often cither missed it
altogether, or pulled the hook sheer through the creature's
mouth I The result as might be ex2)ected was that I was in
general unsuccessful. But as is so often seen even in the
smallest village, there was one boy among us who seemed to
tiie rest of us to have a kind of genius for fishing. He was a
negro boy who through lameness was obliged to walk with a
crutch, but a boy of great humour and sagacity, one of the best
scholars in the school, and much respected and even feared
(for he used his crutch with eff'ect) by the rest of the boys.
In order to try and divert the fish to our own hooks, we were
in the habit of getting to the river before him and taking our
seats in those favoured positions from which we had seen him
pull them out so brilliantly ; hoping thereby that some of his
luck misfht attend us. But it was of no avail. When he
came too late he would sit down anywhere, laying his crutch
down by his side and arranging his hooks and worms with the
greatest composure ; and after we had perhaps been waiting in

SUMMER.

vain ail tlie cvenino- fm- •^ ' k;+« ' i.^ n

nn,! • K • ' ''^ '^^"^^^ presently ^ throw in '

very eyes as ,f l,o l,ad bcon on I.i, own fovomcd spot, to our
.".nglcl cL,g„.t, ,u,,„i,.ati„„, a„d aosp.ir. The Jre of Z

o iiic uoctnne that a rollinjr stone o-ntlipva

bel.e,e, th.it ,t lay m a po,„t of disposition „,■ chan.otor and

va, „w,ng to ti,o fact that ho sat so ,,uie.Iy and let fnl'l the

•s„>kor' so gently that in spite of its pUe/tons si.e fish

were not fr.ghtencd or disturbed; while others, a-™ „• h

hat „ was beeause lus fa„,ily had nothing else to live upon i
l«v,ng been reported that in the sun.mer months fish ,va he
end .f not only article of food. But the truth was „ -I an
he as we bked to adnn't it, that his suecess was due o K
b tter know edge of the art-of how to adiust his worm o
where he fish were likely to be lying, and of'how best to h^ok
them when tliey had taken the bait.

tmmmm

m m

If!

CHAPTEE III.

WINTER.

'r\URING the long and frosty months of the Cunivclian
-^^^ winter, the face of the country was covered with a
continuous and unhroken sheeting of snow, all ajrricultural
operations had in consequence to be suspended, and beyond
the feeding of horses an<l cattle there was little for the fanners
to do. They accordingly seized the opportunity thus afforded
them, to bring into town for sale on their smoothly running
sleighs, great loads of the fire-wood which lay in the country
round in accumulating piles as the original forests were
cleared and the land brought under cultivation ; and which at
that time was almost tlie sole article of fuel. Corn also had to
be withdrawn from the l)ins and brought into town for the
supply of the local flour mills, and hay and straw for the horse*
and cows that were ke[)t by numbers of people of all classes.
The streets were thus kept alive and busy during the dreary
winter months by the appearance iv all quarters of the town of
farmers seated oa the tops of their loads of wood or corn, and
nmftled up to the cars with blankets and furs, through which
their beards projected hoary with frost or matted with the
icicles deposited from their condensed and steaming breath.
Besides farmers, there were also to be seen in the streets local
carriers wlio made their living by removing furniture, wood,,
and other odds and ends from place to place, as well as the

WINTER.

country
s were
hicli at
liad to
or the
liorsca
classes,
dreary
)wn of
rn, and
which
th tlie
)reatli.
8 local
wood^
as the

staff of permanent officials employed by the large manu-
facturers in carrying flour, hardware, machineiy and other
merchandize to and from the station. And as the evening
approached, light and ornamental sleighs — ' cutters ' they were
called — made their appearance in the leading thoroughfares,
drawn by fast-M-otting horses driven by opulent citizens out
for a drive, who with their wives and families enveloped in
muffs and furs reclined on bear or tiger skins, the margins of
which hung as ornament over the back and sides of the sleigh.
With this mingled stream of traffic the town was kej)t merry
all day long with the jingling of the sleigh-bells which ranged
through all the gamut of sound from the light merry tinkling
of the open sih'cr bells on the fast-stepping trotters, to the
dull heavy monotone of the round closed metal hung in rows
around the necks of the farmers' drays. One of our main
amusements on our way to and from the school was to jun»p
on these sleighs as they passed and repassed, ride with them
to the point at which they turned out of the main line of
traffic, and return with others passing in the opposite
direction, and so on up and down for hours togethex'.

Dui'ing the month of January a thaw usually set in, and the
greater part of the snow covering the face of the country almost
disappeared. This change in the weather lasting as it generally
did a week or more, was known as the ' January thaw,' and was
the only break in the long monotony of frost and snow that
covered the ground from the beginning of December to the
end of Mai'ch. At this period, and again in the Spring when
the snow was finally disappearing, the weather was so mild,
and the roads so sloppy, that there ceased to be the active
pleasure felt in hanging on sleighs that there was in the period
of keen and bracing frost. Skating being out of the question,
the only anuisement that remained open to us was snowballing,
a sport to which the very softness of the snow, and the ease
with which it could be made into balls, invited us. The
pleasure derived from this sport was greatly enhanced by tije

WINTER.

opportunity it afforded us of paying off some of the old scores
which had been gradually accumulating at compound interest
since the beginning of the season. As a species of warfare,
snowballing was carried on sometimes in an irregular guerilla
manner, each one skirmishing for his own hand from behind
fences and street-corners, and sometimes, especially when the
enemy was strong, in regular platoons drawn up in force and
drilled to harmonious and concerted action. In the latter case
wc were in the habit of selecting for our base of opemtions
certain positions in the various streets, which from their
situation and surroundings were peculiarly adapted for attack
or defence. The most favoiu'cd of these was connected with a
carrifigc-shop in one of the main thoroughfares, and consisted
of a permanent open plateau or platform some twenty feet
above the ground, supported on wooden pillars, and used for
the exposure of waggons and cari'iages previous to their being
finished in the adjoining work-rooms. To this spot we were in
the habit of repairing in numbers during the snow-balling
season, there to await such objects of our wantonness or
revenge as might chance to pass along the street and pave-
ments below. We were all as a rule good marksmen, it being
one of our chief amusements to go in the early summer
mornings to the surrounding hills, our pockets full of stones,
to chase the birds which were to be found there in great
numbers and which rose on all sides of us as we walked along.
There was therefore little hope of escape for any imhappy
wight who chanced to pass along, and on whom wc were
I'esolved to open fire. But we had to be very wary and
prudent in our selection of the objects of attack. For although
we were to a certain extent covered in our rear by various lofts
and lumber rooms to which we could retreat when pursued,
and although wc could escape by one staircase as our pursuer
came up the other, still we could not always depend on these
advantages when pressed by an enraged and determined foe.
In a general way therefore we were chary of meddling with

WINTER.

{ijreat

foot-passengers, especially those who if really aggravated could
give successful chase ; for when caught we were almost sure to
have our faces washed with snow, a punishment regarded by
the boys as more or less of a stigma and personal disgrace.
Women, too, of all ages and conditions were from a habitual
chivalry exempt from attack, as were also lawyers, constables,
schoolmasters, and others directly or remotely associated in
our minds with some form of retribution, and towards whom,
I remember, we stood in a secret and unavowcd but real and
habitual awe ! But the appearance of an uproarious inebriate
rolling along was always the signal for a universal fire, and
great was our excitement, while waiting until he came within
range, as we heard in imagination the snowballs squashing on
his back and sides, and figured to ourselves the look of helpless
impotence and rage with which he would I'egai'd us. One old
chronic and besotted, but silent and sullen toper, with face
purple and bloated as a London cabman, and who lived alone a
mile or two out of the town, used to pass regularly every day
all the year round on his way to the dram-shop for his daily
sujjply of whiskey (a quart it was said !), carrying under his
arm the old brown stone jar in which it was contained. This
old sot furnished to us boys all the conditions of an ideal
target, and his appearance in the distance was hailed with as
much excitement by us as a fox at covert ; for although we
rained snowballs on him from head to foot as he passed along,
he gave no sign of pause, shewed no emotion either of surprise
or fear, and except the muttered curses which were suspected
of escaping from him when the fire was at its height, he passed
through his heavy ordeal (holding fast to his whiskey bottle I) in
sullen silence. But our fixed and habitual victims were the
farmers, especially those who in the frosty weather had been
laying up long and unpaid scores by whipping us off their
sleighs. Their hour had at last come, and as they could not
leave their horses to give chase, they were completely at our
mercy : and besides in their cramped and confined positicms on

)rm

'24

WINTEK.

their sleighs they had not sufficient margin and freedom lo
<lo(lge or egcai)C the fire which we poured on them with
scathing and relentless severity. As they came gaily along in
the distance seated on the tops of their wood-piles or bags of
corn, capering and even lightly coruscating with their whips in
a pleasing self-complacency and unconscious of what was
awaiting them, w^e would squat down in line at a little distance
from the edge of the platform with a dozen or more snowballs
I'ach ready at our feet, like so many cannon balls, and when
they came within range, we would start up like the old Guard
at Waterloo, and rain such a concentrated fire on their unlucky
persons as to annihilate all emotions save that of instant and
unconditional escape. Others coming behind and witnessing
the fate of their predecessors, conscious too of their own un-
popularity, and seeing no alternative but to turn or push their
way thi'ougii, would cover their faces and heads with their
blankets, and putting the whij) to their horses, like old
Komans would sidnnit to their fate without a word ; while
•others again, guarding their heads as best they could with their
arms and furs, would good-humouredly run the gauntlet,
turning round when out of range and by impudent gestures
conveying to us their sense of defiance and contempt. But
the friends of the boys, the old farmers who had let us mount
their sleighs and climb up around them, and who seemed
assured of our good intentions towards them, would come
*!miling along in conscious security ; nor was their confidence
abused, for as they came sailing past us waving their hands
towards us in token of good will, we would drop our snowballs,
und giving them three lusty and rousing cheers as a mark of
oar esteem, would wave them on their journey God-speed.

Along both sides of the river-basin on which the town was
built, the hills rose perpendicularly from the bosom of the
valley, and the roads running out over them into the country
instead of passing directly up the steep ascent, which would
have made traffic almost im})ossible, followed a somewhat

WINTKH.

windinfj; and circuitous courssc ahm*^ tlio brow of the liill. There
were two or three of these roads on each side of the town, and
one of our principal anuisements in winter when there was no
skatin<^, consisted in riding and racing down them in ' hand
sleighs.' These sleighs were made of a pair of parallel runners
three or four feet in length turned up in front and shaped like
the runners of a skate ; the runners were fastened together by
two crossbars, and the whole (which stood about a foot abjve
the ground) covered by a smooth planed board, and painted
and ornamented according to the taste and fancy of the owner.
Jjike race-horses, these sleiglis had each its own name which was
painted on its upper surface, and, as with race-horses, these
names had their origin in associations of an accidental,
capricious, or appi'opriate character. I^ike race-horses, too, the
sleighs gradually worked themselves into the affections of their
owners, and were regarded often, especially if they were swift
coursers, with a species of fondness bordering on love. They
could be either bought ready-made at the shops or made
according to order at one or other of the carriage-works in the
town ; and when built of the best wood, shod with the best
iron, and ornamentally finished and painted, bore a higher price
than was within my reach. Among my earliest remembrances
is that of standing shivering on one of the hill-tops while the
boys were riding down on their sleighs, and soliciting a ride
first from one and then from another, in I'cturn for which I
would give them perhaj)S a piece of chewing-gum, or accompany
them on an errand, or help them with any odd jobs which
they had to do about their own homes. As was natural
1 longed painfully for a sleigh of my own, and importuned
those of the boys who had them, to exchange theirs
with me for any or all of the articles in my possession —
jack-knives, straps, old j)aii-s of skates and the like. But
all was in vain, for the whole inventory of my belongings
did not approach in value the poorest and meanest of these
sleighs, and my unsatisfied longings in consequence became in

i 'I

i t

i .!

2fi

WINTER.

tiuu! HO iK^ito 1111(1 intense that could I have stolen one without
tlie cliJinco of detection I must have (h)ne so. I was not to be
beaten, however, and findin<5 that I could yet one in noothci- way
I at last endeavoured to make one for myself. I got together
some ohl pinewood planks, rut them into proper lengths,
borrowed a plane and smoothed them, marked out the curve of
the runners with a pencil, and by means of knife, saw, and
plane, managed to rough-hew them into some sort of shape.
I then luiited them together with cross-bars, and covered the
whole with a simple unpainted board. It vvas, I nnist confess,
a I'ude and unpolished structure, but would have answered its
piu'posc sufficiently well, could I have had its runners shod with
the kind of iron necessary to give it speed ; for this was of
course the one absolute necessity in a sleigh, without which all
other cpialities counted for nothing. The iron required was
wronght-iron, half-round or flat, and of such thickness that the
heads of the screw-nails with which it was fastened to the
runner, could be sunk into it and so present a surface of polished
glassy smoothness to the snow. But to get this iron and to
have it fastened to the runners was quite beyond my jiower, as
it was perhajis the most expensive of the items that went to
make up the entire cost. I was obliged therefore to put up
sorrowfully with such inferior iron as I could find ; and after
some searching I at last came upon some old rusted sheet-iron
hoops among the debris of an old water-barrel which had fallen
to pieces and lay rotting on the ground at the bottom of our
garden. But my misery was only then beginning, for owing
to the thinness of these hoops you could neither sink the screw-
heads into their substance, nor could you file them down to the
level of the iron, without the danger of their slipping through
altogether. I was obliged therefore to let them project more
or less, thus impeding by their friction the movement of the
sleigh, and forever destroying its chance of becoming a racing-
star of the first or even the tenth magnitude. Nevertheless
such for a time was my fondness for this rude and misshapen

WINTER.

t to

lilt lip

iftcr

iron

'alien

our

•ougli
more
the

loing-
icless
lapen

offspring of my own labour, that like a mother with her
<leformcd and rickety child, I watched over it with an anxiety
and care that I could not have bestowed on the most beautiful
and highly-finiehcd production of the shops ! As nothing,
however, could make its appearance presentable, I concentrated
all my energies on endeavouring to make the irons as smooth
and bright as possible. I filed away at the projecting s(!rew-
heads, rounding off their edges as far as was possible without
filing them off altogether, rubbed the irons down daily with a
brick to get oft' all the rust, and seized every opportunity that
offered of attaching it to a horse-sleigli, and riding it a mile or
two into the country with the view of giving to the runners
the last degree of smoothness and polish of which they were
capable. So interested, indeed, was I in the ])rogress they
wore making, that after every ride down the hill I would turn
up the sleigh to see whether there was any difference in their
smoothness and brilliancy. One frosty moonlight night,
accordingly, on turning up the sleigh in this way in front of
our house, I fancied in the silverv lijfht that T noticed a "greater
degree of smoothness and brightness than usual, and proceeded
to run my finger along the runners to feel. 15ut not being able
to satisfy myself in this way, it occurred to me that the tongue
was a finer and more sensitive organ than either the eye or the
finger, and accordingly I stooped down and put my tongue to
the iron intending to run it along it as I had done my finger,
when to my horror I found it had stuck fast to the iron and
could not be removed ! Thereupon I set iij) such a yell that my
mother hearing me from within the house rushed out to see
what Avas the matter, and finding me on the ground fast in the
endiraces of the sleigh, breathed on the cruel and all too
tenacious steel at the point of its adhesion, and in a little while
succeeded in releasing me. In my struggles however I had
torn the leaders of my tongue, my mouth was full of blood, and
to this circumstance my mother always attributed a slight lisp
which remains with me to this day. As I grew older I began

'2»

WINTKIl.

to \o»e iiitcroat in and to 1)u uHliiiinccl of this old lioniu-nmde
wltiigh. It was so u<;ly iiml clumsy that the hoys wore eon-
stiuitly iimking fun of it ; its runners too being niiule of a full
broadside of wood instead of a light rim supported by uj)right
pillars, it roared as it ran down the hill like the noise in the
night-wind of some distant train ! But worse than all it hi
speed, and in spite of all the care I had lavished on it, mUh
distanced and left behind by the slowest laggard on the hill.
I accordingly broke it up at last in disgust, and used it for
firewood ; and after a time succeeded in acquiring (by exchange
as usual) another and properly made one, which from the colour
of the stripes painted on the seat became known to the boys as
the ' Hod White and lihie.' Tt belonged to a lame boy who
could not use it to advantage, but it had as I saw from the
first, all the points of a first-class racer ; and it was not long
before, with good jockeying, it came to be regarded in popular
phrase as ' the bully of the hill.'

Sleigh-racing was with us boys, as the reader will already
surmised, a source of the keenest and most intense excite,
and enjoyment. In the afternoon after school-hours and in the
moonlight evenings, groat droves of boys would congregate with
their sleighs from all parts of the town at the hill which was
known to be in the best condition, and once there, it was
inevitable that tlie sleigh-riding would sooner or later end in
racing. For this end the sleighs were taken back a little distance
from the brow of the hill, and handicapped according to their
reputed merits at various distances behind each othei' — the
slowest being stationed in front, the fastest at the farthest
point in the rear. At a given signal they all started, the boys
stooping down over their sleighs and pushing them with a run
to the edge of the hill, at which point they all jumped on and
went sailing along down the hill one after another at great speed,
the faster sleighs gradually coming up to and overtaking the
slower, until they reached the plain, when they gradually got
slower and slower until at last the- ;ame to a full stop at various

WINTKK.

2«.>

I>(>intfl(in hoiuc instances a fjimrtcr of a imIU;) from their startini;
point- — the fastest of course {^oiii;^ tjic farthest before it came
to rest. Tiic boys would tl>on all walk leismely up the hill
u^uin, (lra;,'jfiii<; their sleighs after them by ropes attached at
each end to tho runners, and when they reached the top, after
Bomc re-arran«feinent perhaps of the handi('appin<r, they would
start aj^ain on another race, and so on over and over aj^ain for
hours tnircther. Litth; episodes, too, wen; constantly occurrin<;
to •five variety and add excitement to the racinj;. Sometimes
one sleigh would run into another and tlu; two ^ettin^ hopelessly
entangled all would upset logcther; at other times a slei<;h
would <ifet off the beaten truck and runnin<; against a lump of
ice or stonc! would upset, and rider and sh^igh would go rolling
one over another in the snow ; or again, if the rider happened to
be a novice and did not know how to steer, the sleigh would
run away with him over an embankment, up against a stump,
or into a fence or stone wall ; but in ujost cases without, to my
recollection, any very sirious lamage to either rider or sleigh.

In sleigh-racing as in hoi -racing, success was almost as
nmch du(! to good jockeying u 'n the iii'crent cpialities of the
sleigh, the object being to know m each instance at what point
of the sleigh to throw the main weight of the body, and how
to distribi7t(> this weight over the whole surface so as to subject
the sleigh to the least possible amount of fricti(m from the snow.
If you threw your weight too fai* forwards the front of the
runner ran into the snow like a plough, if too far backwards,
the back ran into it like a brake. Thei-e were two methods of
riding, in the one the rider lay flat on his stomach and, as
with a pair of sculls, steered by touching the points of the toes
to the ground on each side as occasion required ; in the other he
sat u[)right on one hip, and steered by working the free foot
from side to side like a rudder, lioth methods were employed
in racing according to the choice of the rider, but the first
method was best for speed, as it offered less surface to the wind,
and you could more equitably distribute your weight over the

WINTER.

f ^

entire surface of the sleigh ; the second method, riding side-saddle
as it was called, was the only one that could be employed when
more than one person was seated on the sleigh, a circumstance
which was not unfrequent, the largest sleighs carrying sometimes
as many as five or six. In these cases you sat your comp^iiion on
the sleigh in front of you and let him hold the rope, as if it were
a rein, in his hands, at the same time keeping his head well on
one side that you might be able to see the direction in which
you ^v^ere steering. Little gix'ls came out frequently to the hill
either alone or with their brothers, and I well remember the little
internal flutter with which we would offer them a ride, the
gentleness with which we would put them on the sleigh, the
swelling pride and importance with which we would steer them
down the hill, and the gallantry with which instead of letting
them walk we would ourselves draw them up again.

CHAPTEE IV.

A CANADIAN SABBATH.

T TP to tins point in my history, my week-day life with its
^^ free and joyous absorption in the games and sports of
boyliood, had been, in spite of the restriction put on me at
home by our narrow means, a pure and undilutetl hap})ines.s —
throwing off gaily all obstructions froni its path, and con-
tracting no stain from its various and manifold activities. Bjit
the compensation and Nemesis came Avith the Sundays, into
which I was duly phmged as the weeks came round as into a
bath, but which, far from purifying me, left a trail over all my
boyhood, and produced lasting effects in after years. The
village in which 1 was brought up was dotted on all sides for
miles around with the homesteads of the farmers who in the
early days of the settlement had come from Scotland with
their wives and families, and hud taken up the land in freehold,
brin<>:ing with them the stern Calvinism of their native land
with all its harsh and gloomy traditions. The village itseif,
too, had been settled and filled in largely by peojile of the same
extraction, but included as well a number of English
Methodists from Devon and Cornwall, speaking with strong
provincial accents, and a sprinkling of Yankees ever on the
wing, but bringing with them the Puritan traditions of New
Kngland. The consequence was that the genius of Puritanism
everywhere reigned supreme, colouring more or less perceptibly
the everyday life and habits of the people, but setting its

mtmmm

■BMI

A CANADIAN SABHATII.

indelible seal and impress on what my mother ealled ' the
Sabbath Day.' On that day all labour even to the most
elementary operations of cooking was suspended or reduced to
a minimum ; no sound of traffic was anywhere to be heard ; the
streets were hushed and deserted ; tlie inhabitants remained
within doors between the hours of service as if divine judg-
ment were abroad ; and when they a})peared at church-time,
walked softly along with their Bibles under their arms ; while
the reverberation of the melancholy bells calling to one another
from hill to valley, seemed to announce an universal expiation.
On my mother's simple mind all this fell as naturally as the
return of morning and evening ; to her, Sundays were in
their essence holy days, and the ministers who held the key to
Scripture and were believed to gather up in themselves the
decrees and ordinances of God, were, like lirahmins, regarded
by her as sacred. ' They arc all good men ' she used mourn-
fully to say on the occasion of some revolt of mine ; and as the
accredited exponents of all that pertained to religion and
morals, they were believed by her to be in essential nature
superior to criticism ; the only freedom of connnent she per-
mitted either herself or me being such purely personal
preferences as might be felt for one of their number over
another. Accordingly when Sunday came round with its
silence and gloom, it already found her ready to follow all its
ordinances and submit to all its renunciations in a spirit of
pure and simple [)iety. With myself on the other hand the
eclipse of a day would under any circumstances at that time
have been a real luu'dship, but the peculiar gloom and solenuiity
of the special religious services through which 1 had to pass,
became more and more as time went on, a personal infliction
pure and xmredeenicd. The reader, therefore, will readily
understand that on waking on the sunny Sunday mornings
with the little birds twittcrinir on the lilac trees at the back of
the house, and the smell of the ai)ple-blossoms coming through
the partially opened windows, at the remembrance that it was

A CANADIAN SABIJATII.

per-
rsonal

over

I its
ivll its

•it of
kI the

time
imnity

ictiou
cadily
rnings
[ick of
rough
it was

Sunday tlic gloom as of souie great ordeal oppressed nic, and
iu that half-conscious state hetween sleej) and wake when all
sensations, but especially those of pain, are magnified, and fall,
as it were, raw on the soul, without those intervening cushions
which the whii-ling activities of life place between us and our
sorest troubles, a confused pain as of some troubled dream
would settle on my mind. When I rose and dressed, the
acuteness of this feeling would pass off somewhat, leaving
behind it only a general dcadness and depression as 1 realized
in imagination the dreary stretch of day before me. At the
breakfast-table my mother sat silent and reserved, and on her
face the full solemnity of the day on which we had entered
seemed to have settled with all its force. The expression she
wore was not so much that of severity or of sanctity as of
injury ; an expression which from long experience I knew well
how to interpret, and which was intended to plainly tell me
that on this day of reckoning she was feeling the weight not
so much of her own (for her life was pure and guileless) as of
my transgressions and sins! Accordingly whenever I ventured
to ask a question or make an observation however inoffensive
or neutral, she would answer me in monosyllables and in a tone
of calm but injured solemnity. Evei'ywhere the house had the
air as if some great expiation were going on, as if sin and guilt
clung to the dooi'-posts ; and to this impression, the words of
my sister as she sat rejjeating to herself aloud the lesson from
the shorter catechism in a monotonous sing-song, lent additional
emphasis. For this catechism, it may be necessary to inform
the reader, contained not only the Ten Commandments and
other plain precepts of morality, but abounded in definitions
and proofs from Sci'ipture of such high and abstruse themes as
the 'effectual calling,' 'justification by faith,' ' original sin ' and
the like ; and behind all these and the iron predestination that
hemmed them in, the presence of a frowning and angry Deity,
whom for a long time I remember figuring as some righteous
and incensed Kirk Elder, everywhere unpleasantly loomed !

A CANADIAN SAUHATII.

Tt) escape from an atmosphere so joyless and depressing, I
was glad to steal out into the shed at the baek of the house,
and there, beyond the eye of my mother, indulge my fantasy
in designs for kites, cricket-balls, or other materials of play,
wearying for the morrow to come to carry them into execution ;
or I would wander out into the garden, and climbing to the top
of the fence would look wistfully up and down the street to see
if anything were stirring, or any of my playfellows were abroad.
lUit the streets were usually as silent as the house, and my
schoolfellows, more trained to habits of obedience or subdued
to the genius of the day than myself, if seen at all would be
seen sitting reading at their windows, indifferent to the salutes
which I waved them from the distance.

But long before the Church bells began ringing, my mother
already dressed and prepared to start would call me in from
the garden, and in my very early days would take me by the
hand or allow me to hold on by her skirts, ever and again as I
dragged behind to look at the birds or the fruit trees on the
way, pulling me to her side as fi'om some evil and forbidden
thing. As I grew older, however, I was allowed to find my
own way to church, and this in itself proved a vast comfort,
and helped greatly to relieve the tedium and length of the
morning. For thus loosened from my moorings and mj'^
mother out of the way, I was free to roam about as I pleased,
and when at last after locking the front door and steulthilv
secreting the key behind the window sill, she sallied forth, I
would watch her unobserved from some street corner in the
distance until she passed out of sight. Onwards she would
saunter softly along the grass by the side of the street, her
parasol up, and in her best Sunday dress and shawl — a Paisley
one, I remember, Avhich she wore inside out the better to
preserve it ! — onwards and along beneath the overhanging trees
with their sweet-smelling blossoms imtil she turned the corner
of the mai'ket-place (I following at a distance) and was lost to
view. When she was once well out of the way, I was free to

A CANADIAN SABBATH.

llthily
•th, 1
II the

oiild
|, her

,isley
br to

trees
prner

it to

!e to

roam as I have said where I chose, until the chiu'ch bells began
to ring, amusing myself for tlie most i)art by looking for birds-
nests in the hollows of stumps or among the shrubs and
brushwood of tlie surrounding hills, or by pelting the frogs
in the mill-i)ond at the hiwk of the church.

This church, or 'meeting-house ' as my mother called it, was
a large and roomy wooden edifice built after the manner of an
English Dissenting Chapel, with the pulpit at one end, which
was approached by a double flight of stairs, and with galleries
running around its remaining sides. The pew which my
mother occupied was in the front row of the gallery near the
pulpit, and from this point of vantage the whole congregation,
with tlie exception of that part lying immediately beneath us,
lay stretched out around and beh)w us on all sides. To this
pew in the early siunmer morning and long before the church
bells began to ring or the dust from the morning's sweeping
had had time to settle, would my mother come, and taking her
seat in the silent and empty tabernacle would sit there calm
and motionless with an expression on her face of serene and
tranquil enjoyment, her tlioughts vmknown to me, but her
whole being seeming to derive some real though mysterious
satisfaction from the presence of the sanctuary.

When the church bells began to ring, I would enter and take
my seat by my mother's side, and a few minutes before they
ceased, the congregation, many of whom had been standing
outside in groups talking of the weather and the crops, would
begin to drop in one by one and moving softly along the
matted aisles take their seats in silence. They consisted
almost entirely of farmers from the country round, their wives,
and grown up sons and daughters — old men bent and tottering,
with heads grey, bald, and bedewed Avitli perspiration which
ever and again they wiped with their faded old-fashioned red
pocket-handkerchiefs ; young men and men of middle age in
homespun, sunburnt up to the ears, and with their coarse hair
cropped close and short and standing stiffly on end about the

3t>

A CANADIAN SABHATII.

crown like the surface of an upturned brush ; old grannies
shakey and lean, their mouths fallen in and faces wrinkled like
parchment ; and young women in wide circumambient crinoline,
wearing huge brooches and ear-rings, and with their well-oiled
hair brushed in wavy lines off the forehead in a style which
to-day is no longer anywhere to be seen. In they came one
after another in solemn silence, defiling as they went along
from the different aisles into their respective pews until the
whole church was filled. I'rescntly the door of the side aisle
would open and through it would enter the Cai*e-taker, carrying
the big Bible as solemnly as if it had been the Ark of the
Covenant, and after dei)ositing it on the pulpit desk with all
the regulated pomp and decorum of a court-usher, ho would
withdraw again, to be followed almost immediately by the
Minister himself who ascended the stairs with figure erect
enough, indeed, but head bent at that nice angle between
humility and sanctity which met with most acceptance from
the congregation. After a formal glance around the building

OCT ~ O

to see that all was well, he would at once proceed to open the
service by announcing and reading out the Psalm ; whereupon
the ' Precentor,' as he was called, who sat in a little box at the
base of the pulpit, and whom wc boys regarded as second only
in importance to the minister himself, would strike his tuning-
fork against the edge of the desk, and quickly running up the
gamut in an under-hum until he reached the note required,
would lead off the singing. An interval followed in which the
precentor's voice alone was heard, but the congregation
presently joined in, and in a few moments the sound rose in
jrreat volume from hundreds of harsh and untuned throats,
and rolled full against the concave roof. Many of the
congregation, you noticed, lingered on the notes with a
kind of desperate affection as if they could not let them
go, but falling far into the rear and threatening to be left
behind, they had to be brought up to time again by an
emi)hatic jerk of the psalm-book which the precentor held in

A CANADIAN S.VBUATU.

an
1(1 in

liis hands and which he used as a condncting rod. Now I
know not how others were affected by all this, although by
their appearance they seemed to enjoy it, but as for myself I
can truly say the higher and louder the volume swelled the
lower did my spirits fall. No funeral march in the long
|)rocession of the dead, no eclipse of the sun at noonday, no
moaning of the winter's wind, or wail of howling dogs in the
night watches ever in after years let down my soul to a pitch
so low as did these dreary melancholy psalms rising and falling
in their hai'sh and sullen monotony like the moan of some
distant midnight sea against a deserted shore ; and to this
hour whenever I hear them, they i)roduce the same di-eary and
depressing effect on my mind. Nothing indeed could better
express than these psalm tunes, the genius and spirit of the
institutions and creeds out of which they arose. The first two
liries (written generally with an abundance of fiats or in a
minor key), bare and harsh as the soul of Calvinism itself, and
which were always associated in my mind with the cries of
damned spirits or the groanr of hunted covenanters lifting
their voices to God for mercy, sufficiently expressed the
pi'cvailing feeling of abasement and contrition ; when, having
touched the lowest de})ths of all, in the third line, again, the
notes would rise in reaction in swelling strains of exultation
and triumph, until in the last line they died away into the old
wail of stricken humiliation. The names of one or two of the
more obnoxious of these old psalm tunes still abide in my
memory, one especially, called ' Coleshill,' which was dolefully
wailed and chanted, like the tom-tom in some Indian exorcism,
when sacrament was being administered, being my peculiar
bane ; and to this day I cannot hear them without the old
feeling of dreariness and pain.

After a jjrayer which for sheer length distanced all
subsequent parallels in my experience, the Minister, thawed in
utterance and full of zeal, would at once set out on the main
feat and business of the day, which Avas nothing less than the

A CANADIAN SAUHATII.

delivery of two sermons in succession with little or no intervul
between them ! lie was a North of Ireland man, of medium
stature, well-built, thick-set, and in the prime of life, with a
short-cut, brown, stubby beard, coarse, thi(;k and wiry, and
weai-in<^ his dark hair double-j)arted on the sides so that the
combined intervening locks, gathered and brought to a ridge at
the top, curled and broke to the one side like the crest of a
falling wave. A good man I verily believe, and true as steel to
his convictions, and in private life amiable, gentle, and
honourable to a degree — I still remember with ijratitude and
affection his kindly words when he met and spoke to me in
the street — but in public and at the (mly angle at which I was
accustomed to see him, he was stiff, unbending, and un-
conciliatory. His voice was rough, harsh, and without compass
or melody, and his delivery, unlike that of his southern country-
men, was constrained and jerky, and without fluency, facility or
grace. The pulpit style which he most affected was that of
the cold, argumentative, and severely logical theologian rather
than the persuasive winner of soul-^, but when warmed into
passion by the presence in his jiath of some invisible foe —
Catholic or Arminian — instead of sawing the air or beating
the i)ulpit with his fist, as was the manner of some of his
professional brethren, he would clap his arms tightly to his side,
and fall on his antagonists in a series of short energetic jerks of
the shoulder, each jerk an argument, much in the manner of the
principal performer in a Punch and Judy 8h()\v. As for the
text and ostensible motif of his sermon it mattered little ; he
would start anywhere, ranging freely and without apparent
preference tlu'ough all parts of the Old and New Testament,
but after a formal and merely comi)limentary glance at the
context and environment of his subject, he would be swiftly
drawn into the vortex of Calvinistic Theology and carried along
its rocky bed to its predestined end. No word of general
human interest, nor hint of any [jcrsonal experience of his own
or another's, no lively anecdote such as those with which the

A CANADIAN SAHIJATII.

fitrcet-preaclier interests or animatcH liis hearers, warmed these,
to me, dreary discourses, so far as I can remember, durin<]j all
those years ; indeed all such trivial personal matter he would
have regarded as beneath the dignity and sf)lemnity of his high
theme ; but the soul and centre of every discourse, the hinge on
which all turned was what he called the ' S(!heme of Salvation ; ' a
high and logical structure erected with vast labour and ex-
penditure of thought, and supported on two massive pillars, the
Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace, beneath whose
cold and lofty arches, indeed, the multiform concrete sins and
temptations of poor erring men and women might have walked
in and out ludiecded. Occasionally, but at rare intervals only,
some great name or incident from profane history, giving
pi'omise of a story, would lift its head in the midst of his
discourse — the name of IJyrou I remember was once mentioned
— and then all ears were pricked to hear what the upshot and
di'noument would be, but we were speedily disabused, for instead
of carrying the incident to its natural conclusion, he would
summarily cut it short at the point whei'o it began to be
interesting, leaving us with oidy that smallest section of it which
fitted into his theological design ; and the seductive personality
after turning up its shining side for a moment, would be swiftly
drawn down into the theoloijical maelstrom a<>'ain, never to

emerge.

The congrcgatitm, meanwhile, who had sat erect and attentive,
and to many of whom a theological dissertation was as fascinating
as a talc of fiction, even they Avould at last begin to show signs
of flagging, and here and there a head accustomed to the o[)en
air of the fields and oppressed by the sultry heat, would be seen
to fall back softly in slumber against the back of the pew,- initil
as it receded back fartlier and farther and the jaw in consequence
drojiped lower and lower, a sharp harsh snore, cut short in the
middle, would arrest the attention of the drowsy worshipper and
startle him into propriety again. My motlier who hehl out
heroicallv amiinst the combined eftects of the heat and the

A CANADIAN HAnBATII.

discoui'se, nerved to it alike by duty aiul piety, inaintiiincd a
fixed and rij^id attention throuj^hout, and, except when disturbed
by some fresh vagary of mine, accompanied the words of the
preacher by a mute movement of iier lips as if there were magic
in the sound. Hut in spite of tlie efforts I made to sit still, the
feelinir of restlessness and ennui bei^ame at last so intolerable
that I would begin to yawn and fidget, scratching the liible or
the seat with j)ins, scraping with my feet, or worse than all
<'ommitting that prime offence against decorum, the rolling of
my head from side to side on the <lesk in front of mc; when my
mother, who all the while sat calm and motionless but secretly keep-
ing her eye on mc, becoming inwardly more and more (ixasperated
by the attention I was drawing on myself, would, without word
of warning or other trace of visible emotion, reach out her hand
beneath the desk and fall on my leg or ribs with such precipi-
tati(m as to bring me swiftly to the perpendicular again; her
face the while remaining unruffled as before 1 So constant,
indeed, did these reminders become, and with such luifailing
punctuality were they administered, that I had long ceased to
resent or even to question them, and they finally took their place
in my experience as one more only of the many trials and
afflictions which on that day I had to endure. And all the
while the monotonous roll of dialectic and exposition proceeded,
' predestination,' ' original sin,' ' the potter and the wheel,' the
* Church militant and triumphant,' and other such phrases
ever and again falling on the car as they wheeled in and out
round the central theme of which they were the abutments and
outlying logical ai)pendage8 ; until the arena at last being cleared
of all heresies and unsoundnesses, and the minister havinjr laid
all the antagonists that rose in his path, the entire Scheme of
Salvation, jjcrfect and complete in all its parts, stood clear and
imassailable before us. A few words of ' application,' as the
minister phrased it, invariably followed, in which the whole
artillery of penalty which had never been entirely absent, but
whose low rumble you heard in the distance, and whose fire you

A CANADIAN SAHBATII.

saw brcaklnfjf dull imd fuliginous through the various openings
of the discourse, was concentrated and drawn up at the back of
the unbeliever, in the hope that shoidd the logic of the preacher
fail, the sinner nnght by this show of force be persuaded lo
enter the fold. With this the sermon closed, but only to be
succeeded, as I have said, by a second, which, starting it is true
from a different text, after a pass or two was drawn into the
same old vortex, and revolved around the same old theme; until
at the end of a prolonged sitting of two hours and a half, the
congregation, worn out by weariness and hunger, were at last
dismissed with the benediction to their homes.

Such is a faithful account of the service in which T was
inunersed Sunday after Sunday for many years, but it was only
on reaching home that the real effect of it all on my mother
began fully to manifest itself. On her simple nature the sermon,
with all the theological impedimenta it carried along with it,
instead of relieving seems only to have added to her mental
perplexity ; and accentuating as it did the contrast between that
doctrine of works in which she at bottom secretly believed and
trusted, and the fixed and iron predestination on which the
preachei" insisted, it seemed to act only as a source of pure
irritation ; chastising rather than cheering and consoling her,
and instead of allaying the injured feeling of the morning,
converting it into a sullen moi'oseness. The fixed expression of
her face, and the irritable look about the eye, as well as the
peculiar silence that came over her as we walked slowly home,
were a sufficient indication to me of her state of feeling, and
warned me of what, if I were not carefxd, I had to expect. Nor
was I mistaken, for the slightest levity, noise, or approach to a
worldly remark on the part either of myself or my sister, was
sufficient to ignite her, and brought down on us such a whirlwind
of pent-up wrath, such a raking up of all our past misdeeds,
ungodlinesses and sins, that we were glad to keep out of the way
for a time.

In the afternoon the same gloom and monotony fell over

A CANADIAN SAHnATII.

(!V(M"ytliintif within iind without tiio hoiiHC uh in tho niorninfj. My
mother wit usniilly in the rct't'«8 of tho window, r<'iulin<( throufjfh
hor spcctiicU's a chaptor of the Hible or Honu; rclipous tract, my
8iHt(M' cnf^nj^od in like manner ^at llrftlt'ssly apart, separated from
me hoth in feelinji; and in sympathy ; and in the eorner of the
room the ohl-fashioned eh)ck, inaudihh' in the din of the week-
(hiy, ticked out h)ud and oppressive in tlie silence. Forl)id(len
to <;o out of (h)ors I wouhl steal rpiietly out into the liaek ijarden
amonj^ the trees, and there, too, all was silent in the drowsy
heat except the ehirpinjf of the crickets in the jijrass. Peering
throuf^h between the fence rails into the street, all was silent
and deserted, and no playfellow was anywhere to he seen,
except, perha[)s, at some distant window reading or listlessly
ninking figures with his fingers on tlu; piines. Tlu; roll of
existence seemed to have ceased ; and in spite <tf the fierce glare
of the sun and the blue sky of the afternoon, a feeling would
often come over me, I can still rcmend)er, as if I were lost in
the woods; while the melancholy sound of the Sunday-school
bell i)roke in on the silence as if tolling the knell (.f some
dei)arting soul. lieturnin<>' a^aiu to the y-ardcn, and Iving down
on the grass in the shade of the apple trees in :i didl and listless
reverie, there would come to me from some distant cottage the
melancholy moan of one or other of the sanie old jisalm tunes of
the morning; and as the sound came wafted to me intenuittently
<m the wind iicross the intervening distance, it struck in on the
heart like the w^ailing of confined and restless spirits.

After tea the atmosphere of the house usually cleared
somewhat and seemed less ch)sely invested with gloom : it
seemed in the interval to have mellowed impcrceptih! . ..

be as the dift'erence between an evening and a iikhmM); '"

the back of the day seemed to have been \m ern

genius to be dissolving; and my mother's thou s, if on ould
judge by her air and expression, to be turning t(» the uorning
and the ordinarv work of the world again.

CIIAPTEli V.

OUR NEIGIinOUUS.

TX these early yenr8 there came to tli(^ villiijijc, to fill some
small oflficc in the Customs, an old Kii^lish officer who
took lip his residence in the laro;e stone house adjoiniuji- our
own, and there in a genteel kind of way with his wife and
daughters, strove to maintain some outward appearance of his
former state. This * old (captain,' as we called him, was an
aristocratic looking man with silvered locks, hut now fast
getting stooped and tottery, and although simple and genial in
his manners, had a temi)er of great irascihility and was, after
the manner of the * old school ' to which he hclouged, nmch
given to profane swearing. At almost any tinu; of the day you
might hear his oaths sputtering off like fireworks here and
there in and about the garden and the street: hut it was only
at night when his own dogs or his neigh])ours eats disturbed his
rest, that he reached his full range and compass. ( )n these
occasions he would appear in loose ih'xlinltillc on the balcony,
and would storm up and down it regardless of all human
presence, his full round oalhs booming and resounding like
minute guns in the peaceful silence of the evening, and borne
on the night winds far and wide. He was much addicted to
wine and wassail, too, as his blood-red face suflticiently attested,
and although of strict honour according to the code accepted
in military circles, report went that 1k^ was deei)ly in debt ;

OUll NEICilinOUKS.

• r

ll -

and while in tlie eye of liis neighbours maintaining a liigh
standard of hixury, living sumptuously and carousing freely,
was said to bo indifferent alike to the importunities, the
clamours, and the throats of his creditoi's. His sons were
already grown up, and only occasionally to be seen at home ;
but his daughters ! — I can see them still in their haughty grace
and gossamer-like beauty, as gliding from the verandah into the
street they swept athwart the line of sight, with their long
trains flowing softly behind them, their ])roud necks curved
like swans, and their feet but seeming to kiss the glowing
pavement o'er which they passed ; while I watched them from
our doorstep in the distance, with an idolatry which in its
pui'ity and devotion the Seraphim themselves might not have
despised. To j)ay court to these beautiful daughters, a number
of young officers were in the habit of coming to the village on
Saturday nights in the sunuuer months ; and on Sunday
afternoons after luncheon were to be seen sitting in the shade
of the open verandah, the old Captain himself in the midst of
them, smoking, drinking and guffawing loudly, like a [)arty of
dissolute Cavaliers among their Puritan surroundings.

Now the effect of this on my mother was j)eculiar. She had
always held fast to the liible as her sux'c defence and hope
as she groped her way through the vast unillumined night
by which she was encompasscil ; keeping its sacred lamp
perennially l)urning in her heart, to fright away the night-
spectres that glared in on her from the darkness ; much in the
same way as in her early days in Canada she had kept alive
her hearth-fire, to fright away the hungry wolves that prowled
around her little cabin in the wood, ' fearsome creatures ' as she
called them ; and whose eyeballs blazing like burning stars
encountered hers as she })eered out wistfully into the night.
To this Bible or Divine Word she clung tenaciously as to a
sacred ai'k : accepting i*: not criti(!ally and as distinguishing
between kernel and husk, essence and accident, or such like
refinements of later days, but traditionally and in the lump, in

OUIt NKIGIIIUH'US.

ill

u spirit of pure and simple belief, as one single divine dispensa-
tion and dej)osit — one single and entire whole, which with her
embraced not only Sunday and Kirk, but minister, jirecentor,
elders. Church-members and all; even the care-taker being
invested in her eyes, on Sundays at least, with a certain
distinct and peculiar odour of sanctity.

With these simple ideas as her beacon lights, it is evident
that the particular vices of the old Captain — his profanity,
sumptnosity, debt, and above all his Sunday desecration — could
not have been indifferent to her ; and yet to my surprise,
although fidly cognizant of them, she seemed disposed to pass
them over witliout that freedom of comment which in a like
case she would have permitted herself with her other
neighbours. But to me, always on the look-out for a precedent
with whicli to justify my own Sunday backslidings, this
conduct of the Captain came as a kind of godsend ; and I at
once seized on it as a weapon wherewith to extract from my
mother some mitigation of the sevei'e penance to which I was
subjected. I flattered myself I had got her in a dilemma from
which there was no escaping, and that she must eitl er condemn
the Ca[)tain outright, or grant me that relaxaiion of my
Sunday discipline on which my mind was really bent. In this,
however, 1 was mistaken ; for on citing in my own justification
the example of the old Captain and his train of young Cavaliers,
she eluded and outflanked me by a movement which in its
simplicity was as effective as if it had been the residt of the
most strategic combination ; — by declaring, viz, that the cases
were not at all parallel, and that what was done by military
folk was no rule at all for me. She seemed to regard thorn as
a different order of beings, whose movements were not to be
measured by the same moral categories as the ordinary 1 uman
creature; and conduct which she would have freely repri (bated
in her humbler neighbours, she was disposed to allow to then)
as natural and a thing of course ; nuich as one might allow a
plurality of wives to a Mahommedan or ISIormon. The truth

4i)

OUR NEIGHBOURS.

I'\

wiis, she still retained in lier simple wny the tnulitions she had
hrought with lier from her native hind ; the old associations of
the licen.se allowed to the military, lying side by side in her
mind with the antagonistic code of ordinary morality, not only
without ottence, but like those old cats and dogs which have
been brought up in the same family, even with a kind of
affection. On me however all this fell like a now revelation.
Born and brought up in a roaring democracy that had levelled
all distinctions to the ground, it was the first hint I had given
me that there did anywhere exist in this world human beings
who fell under special categories of moral judgment. And
although this, the first footprint of the Old World that I had
seen left on the sands of the New, was soon washed away by
the in-rolling tide of democracy that beat high against every
shore of thought and action, still for the time being it utterly
mixed and confounded my ideas of right and wrong, and made
jin indelible impression on my mind. Still, spite of this
Old World tradition of my mother's, against which 1 found it
hopeless to argue, I continued to fall back on the precedent
of the old Captain whenever my Sunday escapades brought
down on me the censure of the other neighbours.

These neighbours were a peculiar and miscellaneous assort-
ment of various shades and (jualitics, but all, like Carlyle's
pitcher of tame vipers, striving to get their heads above one
another ; and all, in consequence, with eyes armed like needles
for the pricking and detection of each other's transgressions.
AmonsT those of them whom I remember most vividiv, were a
pair of old widowed sisters of great sanctimoniousness and
piety, who lived in one of the houses in the rear of our own.
At the windows of the upper story of this house, these old
ladies were to be seen at all hours of the day, sitting sewing
with one eye on their needle and the other on the street ;
nothing that passed below escaping their censorious vigilance ;
especially if it in any way ministered to that secret love of
scandal wliich in spite of their piety was their chiefcst pleasure.

OUR NEIGirnOURS.

i-t-
s

;i
1(1
n.

Next door to them again lived the ohl wo nan wlioso cow had
wrought such depredation in our cabbage j arden, and between
whom and the beast my mother liad discc vered sucli strange
psychoh)gical affinities. Wlien we boys verc playing in the
evenings in front of her house, she, ever vi< ;ilant, would emerge
from the gate and range up and down the jiavement alongside
of us to keep us in awe ; her arms akimbc' and her tliick neck
set like an angry bull, sniffing the air for any commotion that
might arise among us in which her own boys were involved,
and in which she might intervene. Acre ss the way from us
auain, lived in easy circumstances an American familv of
Dutch descent Avhose boys, clumsy, ungainly, and of coiirse and
overgrown fibre, were much given to a rough kind of horse-|)lay,
and whose backwardness at school had named for them the
opprobrious appellation of dunces. The iiother, a woman of
delicate faded American mould, rarely a ipcared outside the
walls of her home, but sat for the most jiart in her own room
posing in her various hypochondrias as the graceful invalid,
and raying out at times in her slow-drawling way many curicsus
and pregnant sarcasms on her neighbours a; id the world around
he;-. Behind and beyond them lived a number of Methodists
of the English Puritan type, simple in their lives and habits
and nuich <2:lven to revivals in religion ; besides some neuro
families ; whih; here and there among the rest lived people of
drunken, worthless, and disreputable lives, who were slnmned
by their respectable neighbours, and with whom little or no
intercourse was j)0ssible.

With most of these neighbours my love of mischief and
absence of Puritanic affinities had made my rclavions some-
what strained, but with the old Captain it was ditFerent. With
liis old-fashioned code of honour he looked on tlu; strait-laced
morality of his ueighbours with good-humoured contempt ; auti
the various escapades and general paganism which so oH'ended
them in me, belonged precisely to the class of faults to which
he was most indifferent. My school reputation, on the other

OUR NKIGIIUOUUsi.

hiuul, which hml somehow rciichecl him, filled the good old man
with enthusiastic admiration; he nicknamed me 'the Doctor,'
and when he met me in the street on the way to or from school
and had had just sufficient wine to mellow him and soften the
edge of his irritability, he would stop me, his red face over-
flowing with kindness, and in his characteristic, abrupt, way
oi)en on me with ' By G — , Doctor, they tell me you're a
devilish clever fellow, what are you going in for, juy boy ?
The Army, the Bar, the Church? Eh?* To which, I replying
that I did not know, he would cheerily pat me on the shoulder
in parting, and with a phrase that had become quite a formula,
so often would he repeat it, say, ' Stick to your books my lad,
and you will become Attorney-General of Canada some day!'
though why specially this jjarticular position in the official
hierarchy I have never been able to divine.

CHAPTER VI.

PAINS AND PLEASURES.

^ j^IIE Ion;;' stretches of time which soinetimos intervcnetl
-^ between our games und sports, esj)eciiilly in the summer
vacation, were passed by us boys in the promiscuous life of the
streets, and were spent chiefly in the endeavour to gratify
those cravings of the senses and imaginatioii, of the eye and
the appetite, which are ever the most exorbitant with boys,
but which were for me especially difficult of realizati»ni. Huge
cakes of rock-candy, butter-scotch, or toffy might be sunning
themselves in the little sweet-sho]) windows, protected from
the predatory swarms of flies by old pieces of faded yellow
gauze ; baskets of peaches, plums, and strawl)erries might be
exposed in the open street; clowns might jest, wild beasts
roar, and fairy muslined acrobats witch the eye with wondrous
horsemanship behind the thin wall of circus-canvas ; l)ut from
all this, for want i)f the necessary money, 1 was inexorably shut
out, :md by a ring as impassable as ever was castle-moat across
which lover sighed. Most of my playfellows could conunand
from their parents the occasional penny for sweetmeats and
other delicacies, or even the sixpence which would admit them
to the wonders of the menagerie or circus, and in the matter of
fruits and sweets, which could bo divided, I remember with
pleasure the generosity with which they usually shared them
with those of us less fortunate than themselves. But it was

i i

TAINS AND PLEASURES.

not the same thing iis having a penny of one's own ; you still
felt yourself a pensioner, without power of individual initiative
or ehoice ; and that royal prerogative of exercising absolute
sovereignty on one's own account which boys so much love,
was wanting to our perfect felicity. Many, in consequence,
were the entreaties and strong and steady the pressure which I
brought to bear on my mother, for a penny of my own to do as
I liked with, but all in vain. Not the most vijrorous and
sustained importunity, or the most plausible and insidious
appeals, could move her from her fastness. At the very
mention of money her parsimony took fright, and the imagin-
ative horror she felt lest by concession she should establish a
precedent for the future, was sufficient to shut her purse
against all appeals. To baffle me she was equal to any
expedient, but for the most part entrenched herself within a
ring of stock phrases which she turned towards every point
and angle of attack. If I wanted the money for sweets — they
were ruinous to the teeth ; if for fruit — it would give mc
I'liolera or colic ; and as for the menagerie and circus, — the very
<levil himself was in them, and there was pollution in the very
sound !

Most of my play-fellows, as I have said, could command the
occasional penny necessary to keep life and imagination sweet
and active, but there were always a few who like myself seemed
condemned to a perpetual penury : and many in consequence
were the expedients to which we had recourse, and vast the
<lesigns we entertained to raise the wind ; but all with in-
adequate result. One old Irishman — ' old Paddy ' — who kept
a coal-yard near the station, had recently announced to the
public by the usual sign-boards, that he was j)repared to pay in
cash for all kinds of old iron, brass, copper, and the like, at so
much a pound respectively. Now although it took a consider-
able time to collect as much old iron as would sell for a penny,
and old brass or copper were only occasional finds, still in the
absence of any other mode of obtaining the tofty and rock-

11 :

PAINS AND PLKASUUES.

111

er-

the

ciintly for which we so longed, we were glad to avail ourselves
of this ; and entered on the search for these articles with
cliaracteristic energy and thoroughness. Laying out the
\ illage in sections, I remember, we ransacked every nook and
corner of it — scouring the railway track for old iron spikes,
searchinff the bed of the river beneath the bridge when the
water was low, overhauling the old rubbish heaps that lay on
the commons or at the backs of fences, and even overleaping
the fences themselves and trcs[)assing on the gardens of private
househo' ^ers. No vultures could irore surely find their way
by sor". mysterious instinct to the decaying carcass, or colony
of white ants to the dead branches of fallen trees, than we to
the most hidden object >av desire. Nothing escaped us.

AVas an old i)ot or b js ^ ,<dlestick buried beneath some dust-
heap ? Sooner or later it must yield itself up. Was an old tea-
kettle lying anywhere about neglected in the nooks or corners
of some back garden? It would be speedily noted, and
presently you would see one of us boys, then another, and
then a third, mount to the top of the fence, and after sitting
there a few moments in solemn conclave, like rooks on a tree,
surveying the field around, one of us would swoop down on it,
and climbing over the fence with it without more ado, would
consign it to the common receptacle. Private property as such
we always treated in these raids with punctilious respect, but
any neglect on the part of a householder to make the dividing
line between iiieiun and tnitin sufficiently clear and distinct, was
the signal for our taking the object into our own hands without
apology or remark. So long, for example, as a pewter pot,
say, stood erect on its own basis on a garden seat near the
house, scoured and cleaned as if it were carefully looked after,
it was safe, and had nothing to fear from us; and the rights of
its owner were in all cases religiously observed ; but should it
be found in an outlying part of the garden all battered in and
bespattered, or have rolled over on its side in the grass, or lain
down in the mud and become embedded there as if it intended

I'.VrXS AND TI,KASri!KS.

to remain, or in any other way given nh^ii of desertion or neglect,
Ave had no liesitation in taking it iinder our wing and protection,
and ])hicing it in safe custody in the common bag with the rest.
But as co2)per or brass were rare and uncertain finds, and as
it took days or perhaps weeks scavenging for old iron to make
a few pence, great was our exidtation when we iieard from one
of the boys, that a gentleman living in the village was i)r('pared
to buy the hind legs of frogs at the rate of a shilling a dozen.
Rumours, indeed, had for some time been floating about among
us boys, to the efTect that some of the more wealthy epicures
were in the habit of resorting under cover of u'\<x\\t to
one of the saloons or refreshment rooms off the main
street, and there secretly regaling themselves on a dish
which though evidently regarded by them as a delicacy, struck
us with as much horror and disgust as the rat-eating legends
reported of the Chinese. Still, as the frogs could be had by
the hundred at any tinje from the pond that lay by the
side of the railway-line on our way to school, these rumours
always excited a certain amount of interest in us boys, an
interest which died away again, however, wlicn no sufficient
authority coidd be found for them. But when word was
brought us which by its definiteness lent colour to these
rumours, such a Golconda was opened up in our dreams, as we
had not before known. The gentleman in question, who was to
purchase the frogs, was a well-known barrister of h)cal repute,
who lived in high and sumptuous state in a s[)acious mansion
situated on the brow of the hill. He was a man of enormous,
even portentous bulk, and so overgrown with fat, that at the
time of his death, as I was credibly informed, it stood out on his
ribs in solid mass to the depth of some four-and-a-half inches.
As he moved along he puffed and panted from this excess of
fat like an enormous porpoise ; and when on his way to his
office he entered that side of the bridge set apart for foot-
passengers, })ushing his great circumference before him through
the narrow straits, and larding its railings with liis distended

PAIX.S AM) I'LEASrUES.

sides, he filled the whole iivailahle space to the exclusion of the
other occupants of the bridj^e, who were ol)li<^cd to stand aside
till he passed. I^ike many men of this type, although
essentially generous and kind-hearted, he was bond)astic and
domineering in temper, with nuich Falstaffian bluster and
blasphemy which he took no pains to supj)ress ; and when put
out, which he aflfected easily to be, roared and stormed like an
angry sea. Even in ordinary conversation he spoke in tones so
loud that you were apprized of his approach long before he c.imc
in sight, and could hear every word distinctly at a distance of
some hundreds of paces. As he came along puffing and blowing
as I have described, he would stare through his spectacles at
eveiy object or person he met, as if to say ' well what business
have you here ! ' his face puckered into a peculiar grin from
the retraction oi the up[)er lip, and disclosing a row of teeth of
such length, size, and aggressiveness, that in the mounting sun
of the morning they shone in the distance as he approached, like
burnished ivory. When close to him you saw that he was a
man who was especMally well-kept ; not only his immaculate
white shirt and waistcoat, but the very brush of his grey
whiskers, the clean-shaven softness of the skin, as well as the
polished enamel of the teeth (less common at that time than
now), all gave the impression of a man to whom the finer
delicacies of the palate were as essential as its grosser delights.
It was doubtless due to the impression left imconsciously on us
boys by his personal appearance, that when the report once
took shape that ho was a frog-eater, so great seemed its inherent
probability, that although purely apocryphal as it afterwards
proved, it only required to be stated to command at once and
without further evidence our unhesitating and unqualified
assent ; — and we went to bed that night (jn the strength of it
with our heads full of the hap[)iest dreams. Next morning we
rose early and went to the frog-pond, making up our minds on
the way to catch only ii dozen at first by way of exiieriment.
The frogs lay sunning themselves by the score on the green

i'^i

I'AINS AND I'LKAHUUKS.

banks of the pond, or on tlio old fallen trnnks of trees that lay-
athwart it in every direction, and on our approach leapt into it
one after another, with a flop as they went under, like the
drawin<ij of reluctant corks. VVe soon caught a dozen without
much difficulty, and after cutting off their hind legs, skinning
them, and placing them in a pail of pure spring water from the
fountain, we started off to catch the old lawyer about the time
he arrived at his office. On our way it was voted by the other
boys, that I should be the one to take in the frogs and transact
the sale. Now although equal to any ordinary enterprise of
devilment or audacity, I was always morbidly shy in the
presence of others, es})ecially of strangers, and had a
preternatural horror of doing or saying anything foolish or
unusual that would expose me to ridicule or rebuff. This
feeling which was due, so far as I can analyze, to an unfortunate
combination of pride and sensitiveness, went so far as to make
it a matter of the greatest diffitndty for me to ask the simplest
question of a stranger in the street, or to enter a shop for
anything at all out of the way or of the exact technical name of
which I was ignorant ; and all for fear of calling forth some
snub or sneer on the face of the person addressed, which I
could not take up, and which I knew Avould cause me much
mortification. A direct insult I could always directly chiUlenge
by counter insolence or defiance, but those slight and peculiar
changes of ex[)rossion which mark the finer shades of derision or
scorn, but which at the same time are so subtle and
unsubstantial that they can neither be challenged nor ignored, —
these I never could face. To imagine, therefore, that I should
walk calmly into that lawyer's office in the face of all his clerks,
with a pail in my hand, and that [)ail containing, too, above all
thinirs frogs' hind legs dressed and skinned! When I fii>;ured
it to myself, and thought of all the latent quips and gibes which
it might draw forth at my expense in case we should have been
mistaken, — no money would have tempted me. As the other
boys, however, did nttt seem to feel any hesitation on that score —

PAINH AND n.KASUUKS,

ru>

a state of iniiid whidh I liavo alwayH looked on with envy and
admiration — one of them on my rcfu9in<if, took the pail from my
hand and wtart(!d across the street with it to the office door,
while the rest of us sat down in the shade of the fence opposite,
to await the issue so big with fortune to ourselves. What our
surprise and disgust were, therefore, what our descent from our
golden cloud-land, when the boy as suddenly emerged, looking
disappointed, crestfallen, and partly frightened ; and what our
laughter afterwards when we learned from him that on offering
the frogs the old lawyer looked at him, tiien stared, then in
horror roared at him, rising and threatening to stick his head in
the pail ; — ail this may best be left to the imagination of the
reader. Suffice it to say that when we got round the first
corner, where we could not be seen, avc incontinently Hung the
contents of the pail into the first gutter, and fallen from
the empyrean, betook ourselves to the common highway again.
Wiien all other resources failed and not a jjcnny could be
raised among the whole trooi) of us, we would fall back upon
our aboriginal instincts, and scouring the country round would
fall on the apple-trees in the farmers' (U'chards, or gather the
raspberries that grew wild along the railway track or on the
margin of tiie woods ; at the same time kee[)ing our eye on
whatever godsend chance miglit throw in our way in the* town
itself. Oni^ of tiie happiest of these chance prizes, and one
which could be calculated on witli a certain periodicity, was
the occasional sugar hogshead which after being emptied by
the grocer of its contents, would be thrown out into the
open yard that lay at the back of the shops lining the main
street. One or other of the boys was always on the watch in
the cajjacity of informal scout, to give notice to the rest of
us when a fresii hogshead appeared in the yard; and when he
chanced to come on one, after heli)ing himself liberally first,
he would come running to the mill-pond where we were most
likely bathing, and shouting out ' A sugar-barrel, boys! ' would
throw us into a state of excitement and exaltation as great as

£6

I'AINS AND I'MOASIKKS.

tljc unoxpoc^ttid iinnouncomont by our teacher of a school-treat
or holiday. Out of the water we would rush in hot hiiHtc, iiud
inakiii<:; tor tin' place where our clothes lay, would hurriedly
tlinjj; on our shirt and trousers, and snatchinjjf tlu^ rest up under
oiu" arms in the tear of heiuj; left behind, would start otl' in the
direction of oiu* ;^uide ; dressing as we went along. On we
went in a scattered line like a train of eager cani[)-foll()wers,
picking our way with our bare feet among the ston(!S and dead
tree-roots that rose above the level of the ground, our guide in
front, and the slower among us bringing up the rear in a kind
of easy trot ; onward and over the mill-race and aroimd by the
mill, to the entrance of the lane, and down the lane itself to
the particular j)lace where our prize lay.

In a few minutes from the first suuunons we would all be on
tlie spot, and on entering the yard, there, sure enough, would
be seen the huge hogshead lying rolled on its sidi; with its
mouth fronting us like the entrance to a tunnel, and a floor on
which, to our yoiuig imaginations, whole armies might have
encamped ! On our approaching it, great clouds of flies would
rise from it in buzzing swarms, darkening the air and filling the
whole yard as they dispersed with their drowsy sweetness.
Into the hogshead without further ado we would rush pell-mell,
without raid<, order, or precedence, (crowding in on one another
until the floor was packed ; the last comers waiting outside for
their turn, or impatiently reaching inwards for such of its
contents as they could secure from the outside. The golden
sugar still lay soft and luscious in the cracks and seams formed
by the im[)erfect junction of the staves on its huge circum-
ference, or where the sides made angle with the bottom ; and at
once we would set to work on it like a gang of labourers on a
building, picking out the rich seams of sugar from the over-
arching roof and sides with our pocket-knives, or failing these,
with bits of stick or shingle which we had picked up on the
way, and had wiped on our coat sleeves as we came along.
And there we would sit, eating until we were gorged and could

PAJNS AND I'r-KA81UEM.

go on no h.n-cr, each one m he en.er^re.I fiHd, .nakin^. ro,.n. for
those who were waitin- their turn ont«i.le, nntil all at last were
.satisfied ; what roniained in the hogshead being left for the
flies, or the next troop of hoys that chanecd to pass alon.r.

,1)1

CHAPTEK VII

A KIIUBARB TART.

^1^1 IE pains with wliicli the penury of my boyhood had so
-■- dasiied and intermingled its otherwise buoyant pleasiu'es,
\verc doubly aggravated by that constitutional sensitiveness to
which I have just refened, and which an unhallowed combination
of shvncss and pride seems to have fixed deeply in the roots of
my nature. For some months in the course of one summer, I
was in the habit of attending with my mother's sanction, and as a
welcome relief from the prison limits of our garden, a Sunday-
scliool whicii had recently been opened in connection with one
of the Methodist denominations of the village. One of the
leading men in the school, and a main pillar of the chapel to
which it was attached, was a Cornish immigrant who in the
early days of the settlement had taken up a portion of the
primitive forest, and by dint of hard labour had at the time of
which 1 am writinir, transformed it into a rich and beautiful
farm. Wisliing to give us children a treat, he had arranged for
a pic-nic to be held in one of the little clumps of wood that still
lay scattered here and there in primitive wildness among his rich
and waving cornfields. It was arranged that we should each
bring with us our own provisions — pies, tarts, jams, and the like —
and these after being brought to the chapel, were to be thrown
pi'oniiscuously into a common stock, of which all alike should
])artake. My mother who had at first looked askance at the

A KHUIJAUn TAUT.

.VJ

matter, had at last after some importunity consented to have
something prepared as my share in the general contribution ;
and accordingly on my returning from school at noon on the
day of the pic-nic, and asking her for it, she pointed with an air
of indifference to an object which lay on the far corner of the
table behind me, and whifh had escaped my notice on my first
entrance. It was a little rhubarb tart, which had been baked in
a coarse, blue, stone dish, and which wore on its Avizcned, pinched,
and wrinkled crust (in spite of being newly baked) that look of
age and poverty which could only have come from the absence
in its composition of any elements more generous than flour and
water. Through a hole or gash in the centre of this crust, a
thin aci'id-looking juice exuded, which coloured the parts around,
and still further heightened the disagreeable impression left by
its general appearance ; and at sight of it my spirits fell. 1 was
ashamed of it, and began loudly to proLest that a thing so
pinched and miserable, so sour and acrid-looking that pouiuls of
sugar would be lost on it, was not fit tcj be seen at a respectable
I)ic-nlc, and that I would have nothing to do with it, To all of
which my mother merely replied calmly, ' Jf you don't like it you
can leave it ; it will do well enough.' As tlu^re was no alternative,
therefore, but either to take It or deprive myself of a treat to
which 1 had been looking forward with nmch pleasure, I was
obliged to make the best of it; and wrapj)ing it up In a cloth
the better to conceal It, I started off with it at on(!e to the cha))el,
in the hope tliat if I could get there before the rest arrived, I
might deposit it among the other provisions without anyone
knowing it was mine; my mother i barging me strictly as I left
the house, to be sure and bring back the little blue dish with me
on my return. Arrived at the chapel I found the door ajar, and
walking in quietly, looked nervously ai>oiit me to see where I
was to put my contribution down. Within, all was silent and
empty, no human being was anywhere to be seen ; but crowded
on a side-table l)eneath one of the windows, lay the entire stock
of ])rovislons which had been brought there In the morning.

(50

A imUBAUH TAUT.

1. J 1 ! (

Tlicy were of every description and variety — immense pies with
their rich and yellow crusts puffed and raised into high embossed
mounds ; open tarts with their edges beautifully crimped, and
<'overed with thick layers of jam or pmnpkin, across which fine
strips of pastry ran as ornament ; cakes so light and brittle that
they seemed as if they would crumble at a toixch ; pots of jelly
and jani ; — and all giving off the most sweet and appetizing
odour. At the sight of this unexpected magnificence, my heart
sank still lower within me, and taking the little tart out of the
cloth in a state of Uijrvous trepidation, I deposited it as quickly
as 1 could among the rest, and hastened back to the door; and
once well outside again I inwardly resolved that I should disown
tiiat tart if challenged I

Presently the party arrived ; the boys and girls marshalled by
the teachers soon fell into line, and marched merrily along the
streets to the outskirts of the village ; then onward and along
by the side of the dusky ])ine woods to the gate of the farm
itself; the wagon <'ontaining the provisions bi'inging up the
rear amid clouds of dust. As we passed through the gate, the
green fields of the farm opened before us in all their summer
beauty, stretching downwards along a gentle declivity to the
margin of the fiat belt of wood where the pic-nic ^\as to be held.
Arrived on the spot we dispersed in groups and parties, and
scampered ofi' here and there in all directions through the wood ;
now playing hide and seek or throwing sticks at the acorns and
beech nuts ; now chasing the squirrels from tree to tree ; or
again joining with the girls in the excitement of 'kiss in the
ring ' and other games. The older pe(*i)le meanwhile were busy
spreading the table-cloth in a shady open space in the middle
of the wood, disposing the [)rovision8 around it with impartiality
on all sides, but with an eye as well to picturcsqueness and
beauty of 'jftect.

Now although entering into the games that were going on,
with the utjuost zest, and even entirely forgetting myself in
them for the time being, still ever and again I would be troubled

A UHUJJAUn TAUT.

(il

iiboiit my little tart, iind whenever I liiul an opportunity would
kecj) secretly returning- to the spot where tlu; table was being-
laid, eircling round it apparently only in i)lay, but really drawn
to it by a fascination as irresistible as if it had been the
scene of sonic crime. The greater part of the provisions had
already been set out on the table, but so far as 1 could see
from the single passing eye-glance I dare give them, the little
tart had not yet made its appearance ; and I can still remember
the feeling of shame and mortification tliat seized me, as the
conviction flashed on my mind, that to these peoi)le as to myself
the first sight of it had been enough, and that they had prudently
decided to leave it in veiled seclusion in the background. In
this, however, I was mistaken, for on the next stealthy circuit
1 made around the spot, it was Avith a feeling of real relief
that I saw that they had at last brought it forward, altliough
relegating it to an inconspicuous position on the fiank near the
bottom of the table.

Presently all was ready, and at a word from our host we
drew in on all sides from our games to the table, l)ut we had
hardly sat down before a second fear more absorl)ing than the
first, and one too which all along had i)een present in the back-
ground of my mind, took possession of me ; — the fear namely,
that now that the tart was in visible presence, it would to a
certainty attract attention to itself, and be made the i)utt for
the wit and gibes of the other boys. In order to be out of
the range of any shots of this kind that might be discharged at
it. and which had they reached my ears, I knew from my habit
of blushing on all occasions, would have put me to open shame,
I had instinctively taken my seat at the opposite end of the
table ; and while trying to disarm suspicion by an afi'ected
gaiety, still kept my eye furtively on the tart, which sat there
it seemed to me among its more august neighbours like a ijoor
relation in the society of purse-proud friends ! Around it on all
sides the liattle raged: hands thrust out, met and crossed one
another in their efforts to reach this or the other pampered

A RHUBARB TART.

(lelicaoy that lay around it ; vast pies were cut up, helped out
and passed rouud, until thev had all melted awav and
disapjieared ; but still the little tJirt sat there on the spotless
damask like a fiuled wall-flower, in cold neglect ! Had the
milky-blue dish, the aged and withered look, and the thin and
acrid juice that distilled and bubbled through its wrinkled
crust, stayed the hiinds of all who saw it ? 1, at least, had no
doubt of it, and the thought made mc hot within, and added a
new i)ang to my mortificiition. Whether it were being made
the butt for the young wit, whether any or what shafts and
gibes were being levelled at it, I could not tell ; as I could not
hear or distinguish clearly what passed, amid the din and
merriment that went on around the table ; but so acute were
my 8Usi)icions, that when I had for the moment forgotten it,
lost in the pleasure of some dainty morsel on my own plate,
any sudden outbreak of laughter coming to me from the other
i'lO.c of the table, would turn me hot with fear and shame ; and I
would raise my eyes, scared and furtive like another Macbeth,
in fidl expectation ihat m)w at last the ghost which had so
haunted me, would rise and confront me. But as the alarm
was apparently false, and nothing definite could be seen or
hoard, 1 was soon lost in the pleasures of the feast again ; and
felt a kind of pscudo-i-elief in the thought that at any rate I was
too far off for their gibes to reach me or those around me. Thcu
I would have a reaction of feeling, in which 1 Avould comfort
mj'^sclf with the assurance that I had so secretly deposited the
tart in the chi^pcl, that no one coidd possibly knou' it was
mine, as well as with the reiterated detennination that if the
worst came to tlie worst I v'ould disown it; when in the midst
of these heroic resolves another uust of lautyiiter would reach
my ears, and startle mc into shan\e and moitilication as before.
In this alternation between the solid enjoyment of the
provisions on the one hand, and the shame, fear, and moi'tifica-
tion (spite of an affected gaiety and nonchalance) on the other,
the afternoon wore itself away and the meal at last came to an

A ItHUBAUB TAUT.

end ; and the little tart which in my preternatuKil sensitiveness
I had so ignobly forsaken and disowned, was carried away
with the rest of the fragments to another part of the w(jod.
There on the rising ground at the foot of a great elm tree 1
saw it for the last time, resting on the crumpled table-cloth,
with a group of people around it claiming and sorting out from
the general dchrk the plates and dishes belonging to them.
But now more than ever it behoved me not to api)roach it,
knowing well, as 1 did, that when its ownership was asked for,'
my face would be sure to betray me, and feeling that having
escaped so far I must now be doubly careful to keep out ol"
the way. I gave it therefore a still wider berth than before,
and making pretence of amusing myself by looking for
squirrels among the distant trees, waited until the sorting of
dishes was over and the hour for our return home had arrfvcd.
As for the little dish which my mother had so strictly diai-ged
me to bring back with me, I had long ago determined to leave
it to its fate, for although knowing what I had to expect if I
returned without it, I woidd as soon have claimed relationship
with the Prince of Darkness himself as with it ! At last we all
started for home, the farmer and his wife accompanying us to
the gate, and it was not until I was well out on the highway, and
there was no longer any chance of my tart being identified oi-
my fears realized, that I recovered my usual light-heartedness
and gaiety again ; and so brought to its close a day which with
so many normal elements of pleasure in it, had tinough pure
sensitiveness alone, been for me so dashed and aningled with
pain.

CHAPTEK VIII.

FUN AND MISCHIEF.

m i

/^NE of the most entrancing delights perhaps of those young
^-^ years, was the fun and niiscliief tliat went on at night in
the early frosts of autumn beneath the crystal October moon,
when great troops of us boys woidd collect around the market
place or at the street corner, and thence as from a conunon
rendezvous would go the round of the town on the maddest
and wildest escapades. Filling our pockets with sand or gravel
before starting, we would take the houses that came forward to
the street, and discharging volleys at the windows as we
passed, woidd enjoy the pursuit of the indignant householder
who often gave chase but whom we almost invariably baffled
by our doublings in and around the side streets, or by our
knowledge of the lofts, sheds, or timber yards that offered
places of concealment until the danger was passed. At othei-
times we would slip quietly along on tip-toe from the open
road, across the pavement, to the front door of a dwelling-
house, and setting up against it a round stick of wood just
hirge enough to startle without hurting, would knock loudly,
and then stealing away as quietly as we came, enjoy from a
distance the effect on the unlucky inmate of the in -falling of
the wood when the door was opened.

It was during one of these years of mischief that the negroes
who had already accunudated in considerable numbers in the

FLX AND MLSCIIIKF.

village, were enabled with a little outride !>ssi8tance to raise
sufficient funds to build for themselves a ehai)el. It was a
small, unpretentious building of lath and plaster, anij was
erected on a piece of vacant land fronting the open conunon
immediately in the rear of our house. Although services were
being held in it at the time of which I am writing, it was still
only partly finished, and for door-steps a number of round
cedar logs rolled side by side and piled on one another, formed
a kind of footway over which the congregation passed in and
out. Meetings were occasionally held during the week nights,
and when the windows were open the sound of the hymns
would come wafted to us across the intervening distance, as we
sat in the garden enjoying the evening breeze. Chancing to
pass along that way one dark night, a number of us boys who
were probably returning from some other devilment or mischief,
noticing that service was being held and .'5(?eing the cedar lo^is
that were doing duty for door-steps, it occurred to us that it
would l)e a rare piece of fun to remove those logs, and see what
would befall ! Taking hold of them at each end we soon
removed them out of the way, leaving a clear drop of two feet,
pcrhai)s, between the door and the ground below. This done,
we secreted ourselves in the darkness behind the stumps on the
conunon in front of the chapel, there to await results. The
meetings usually broke up with a hynin, which the congregation
continued to sing as they left the building, and on the [)articular
night I am describing, the hymn, I remen»ber, was the good old
Methodist one beginning

' When we cross the river of Jordan,

Happy ! Happy !
When we cross the river of Jonhiu,
Happy ill the Lord ! '

We had not long to wait, for presently from our places behind
the stumps we heard the hymn started within, and in a moment
or two after, the front door was thrown open, and we were all
on end with suppressed excitement. The doorway, at best a

(U)

FUN AND MISCHIEF.

I''

narrow one, was luatle still narrower by one fold of it being
kept fastened, so that only one person conld pass throuj^li the
opening at a time. The consequence was that when the door
was thrown open, although the chorus of voices within gave
forth only muffled and indistinct sounds, the one particular
voice that occui)ied the doorway rang out clear and strong,
every word distinctly audible in the dark and silent night.
Scarcely, however, had this voice time to burst on the ear witli

the words ' when we cross the river of ,' when it was as

suddenly extinguished, cut short in its rolling jubilation as by
the scissor3 of Fate itse'f! The unhappy possessor planting
his foot forward in conscious security without a thought, had
instead of resting on the old faniilar cedar logs, walked into
vacancy and gone over the edge of the precipice into what
;dth()ugh only two feet in depth, must have seemed, as to
Kent in ' Lear,' like a bottondess abyss. Following close in
the track of the first, and unconscious of his fate, came ii
woman, and as her figure in the door-way from the lights
behind stood out in distinctness in the darkness, her voice too
rang out sweet and clear into the summer night, but before she

had got to the end of the line ' Happy in the ,' the

inexorable shears cli})ped sliort her high refrain, and she, too.,
like her predecessor, went over into the abyss. By thi * time
the merriment of us boys behind the stumps was at its height,
the contrast between the high jubilation and the sudden
extinction, between the passage of the river of Jordan and the
})assagc from the doorway to the street, tickling our fancy
beyond measure. But still they came on one after another,
each singing out loud and triumphant as they advanced to the
<loor-way, and each stepping forward gaily and in all simplicity
as on to the solid adamant ; but one and all extinguished in a
moment, their voices punctual'y stopped at those various points
in the verse where the unkindly fates reaped them away ; until
some six or seven of them lay tumbled on one another like
heaps of slain, groaning and howling in the darkness. At last

FUN AND MISCHIEF.

the Imbhiil) outside became so <;ve!it that the crowd inside
hearin<; it be<;an to reeoil from the doorwav until the causer of
tlie disturbance was ascertained. When this was once known,
a kind of wild and universal execration arose ; shouts of ' Who
did it?' 'Where are they?' 'White trash!' ' Fetcli the
constable! ' and the like exclamations following, until we boys
bef^inninrr to fear lest someone mi<i;ht have been hurt, and that
if search wore made and we were discovered the consecjuences
were likely to be serious, decamped across the couunon under
cover of the darkness; each taking his several way home
before suspicion had time to fasten on him. No one was really
hurt, and althou^li next day there was some talk of information
havini; been laid before tlie maijjistrate, nothins; farther came of
it; and we escaped Avithout the punishment which we s(» richly
deserved.

Wlien the long auttunn nights had dcepenci^ into winter and
the snow lay thick on th(! ground, a favourite haunt of us boys
was one or other of the revival meetings that wore hehl in the
little chapels of the village. Attracted by the singing or the
noise of the prayers, we would step softly through the partially
opened door and take our seats quietly in one of tlic side pews
near the back, whence we coidd see all that was going on au<l
at the same time pass in and out without observation or
disturl)ance. The older people at the meeting were usuallv
pleased to see us come in, hoping perhaps that some chance
word or phrase might be dropped which would siuk into our
hearts and lead to our conversion ; still in s])ite of this I noted
that one or other of the care-takers felt it necessary to keep an
eye on us, and when our titter and merriment passed the
bounds of decorum to give iis plainly to under^tiuul that we
must <.'ither be ' quiet or leave the room. The meetings
generally opened with the singing of a hymn in Avhich we all
joined lustily, and when this was over the member presiding
would call on one of the congregation to eny-aiie in pi-aver.
At this announcement the whole assembly would sink down on

()S

FUN' AND MIMCIIIKI'.

their knees with their fiices to the hack of the pew-s uiul in
this ponition woukl reinnin without moving during the greater
part of the service. For the prayers, it may he necessary to
expliiin, when once started went on as it were of the-uselvea,
heing cauglit up by one member after another as the inward
fire leai)t from each to each, until all were exhausted. Accord-
ingly all being silent for a moment, the member called upon
would Ijcgin from below the level of the seat in a low voice
and in measured steady accents, with little or no excitement
f)r fervoui': I)Ut presently, as the sense of his own and others'
sins fell o'er his mind, and the thought of the burning pit where
fiends snatching at him had only just missed him, and from
which by grace alone he had been delivered, I'ose again before
his inward eye, he would raise his head from its lowly posture ;
his voice trembling witli emotion would rise in power and
compass; the cold sweat would stand on his brow; his words
Avould pour forth in frothing torrents — interjections, exclama-
tions, entreaties and appeals rolling and tumbling over one
another ]iell-mell in the throes of his great and awful agony —
imtil all the rounds and aspects of his life, all his inner hopes,
aspirations, and fears l)eing upturned and exhausted, he would
draw slowly to a close, or from sheer prostration sink forward
on to the seat. So violent indeed did the excitement some-
times l)c come, (especially when after one or two pmyers the
whole atmosphere of the meeting was surcharged with pent-uj)
emotion) that I remember an old man — a negro — who beginning
in a subdued and gentle voice at the end of the seat innncdiately
in front of tlie pulpl<^, would, to give himself freer play and
ex])ansion as his passion rose, first roll up one sleeve, then the
other, then strip off in turn, and all unconsciously, his coat,
waistcoiit, and neckcloth respectively, until^ the whirlwind of
emotion being at its height, in desperation he tore ofFhis collar
with both his hands, and bared his black shining breast to the
air ; then only gaining the freedom necessary to enable him to
sail along the coui'se of his inner rhapsody without let or

FUN AND MISCHIEF.

|vtely
and

the
;()at,
a of
loUiii*

the
In to
t or

obstruction ; — antl all the wliilc keeping time to the rhythm of
this rolling stream by a series of movements sideways on Jiis
knees, which ended by landing him at the end of the pew
opposite to that from which he started. Now all this fijie
fi'enzy, this tempestuous emotion, which so stirred the con-
gregation to its depths, and was regarded as ai» index and
measure of the divine afflatus and of the presence of the II«»ly
Spirit Himself, was to us boys a matter of entire inditfereni'C,
a mere spectacle without ulterior significance, a phenomenon
to which we had got accustomed; all our interest being reserved
for the various incidents that turned np during the evening,
and for which we kejjt an intent and eager eye.

At the foot of the pulpit and partially encircling it was placed a
plain wooden bench known to the people as the 'penitent's bench.'
At the beginningof the service it was usually empty, l)ut when
once the prayers were well underway, and the electric contagion
of the speakers had begun to take eftect, half stooped figures
would be seen gliding softly from seat to seat in the dindy-lighted
room, bending down to the ears of the kneeling men and women
among the unconverted, and whispering softly and gently to
them of their souls. As result of these confidences you would
presently see issuing from one of the pews into the side aisle
the form of some young maiden perhaps, who with hair down
her back and bended head would walk slowly forward, weeping,
to take her place at the penitent's bench, kneeling before it,
and burying her face in her hands. After a little interval a
young man, perhaps, from an opposite quarter of the room would
rise, and walking forward in the eanjc direction would softly
kneel beside her; then, perhaps, an old man ov woman, until
the whole bench was filled with a miscellaneous collection of all
ages; their row of rounded backs as they knelt being alone
visible to us as we rose in our seats to see. This exodus and
procession of figures from the pews to the penitent's bench,
unlike the mere ujn'oar of the prayers, had a great fascination
for us boys, and as the folk issued from the various quarters of

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Photographic

Sciences

Corporation

33 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580

(716) 372-4503

Ci^

«■

7.0

FUN AND MISCHIEF.

the room wc would count them faithfully, taking the liveliest
interest in their numbers, movements, and personalities, and
often whispering and talking so loudly to each other as to bring
down on us the threats of the care-taker. The prayers meanwhile
suffered no interruption by these movements, but on the contrary
rose ever higher and higher in their ecstasy, lashing the roof
and sides of the chapel in their gusty tempestuous violence ;
and the congregation who had hitherto been almost silent now
became deeply moved. At first only an occasional ' Amen ' had
at intervals risen from beneath the pews in response to the
Avords of the prayer, but as the air became more electric and
the vault re-echoed with the thunder of the appeals, a whole
orciiestral symphony of voices kept time and accompaniment to
the movements of its varying theme, running like the chorus
and evening calls of frogs in the village marshes througli all the
gamut of sound from the sharp emphatic ' Praised be God ! ' of
tlie recent convert, througli the quavering, bleating, ap])ealing
' Do, Lord ! ' of the still anxious penitent to the deep, guttural
' Amen I ' of the old and settled believer assured of his safety.

Up to this point, however, in spite of the underground swell
and roar, nothing was visible, so that when you swept your eye
across the waste expanse of pews and benches, save the rounded
backs of the penitents and the tempest-tost head of tlie member
engaged in prayer, no human soul was anywhere to be seen, and
all seemed a 8 deserted as the sea. Presently, however, certain
manifestations as in a spiritualistic seance began to make their
apjiearance here and there, and as the prayer mounted ever
higher and higlier in its rhapsody, first a pair of hands, perhaps,
clenched and rigid would be thrown above the general level of
the pews, arid after clasping each other in a spasm of agony
would be suddenly relaxed and drawn down again ; a heavy
groan marking the spot whence they arose. In another part of
the roc u a second pair would be seen grasping the back of the
seat and clinging on desperately as in that picture of the
' Rock of Ages,' till the knuckles were v/hite aad bloodless with

FUN AND MISCHIEF.

I'ill

intensity ; while ever and again at i*egular intervals the bi-oad
expansive face of an old woman in the corner, in an encircling
bonnet of straw, would I'ise like the moon above the horizon, and
alter opening its mouth and heaving a deep sepulchral groan
would sink under again without further sign. One old woman.
I remember, — an old milk-woman of the village — who sat
immediately imder the stove-pipe that ran along the centre of
the room, suddenly one evening in a fit of ecstasy, and to the
great excitement of us boys, jumj.ed up with a yell and clasped
the burning pipe in her arms, thinking it to be the very form
and presence of her Saviour HimseW ! and when next morning
she appeared at our door as usual with her milk can, except that
her hands and arms were wrapped in thick masses of cotton wool,
no reference was made in any way to her ordeal of the night
before.

In the midst .'^ ^h.cse manifestations, and above the din of
sobs and groans, bUC^iHij. a g'eat thud would be heard in the
neighbourhood of the p»jnitent"s bench, which would bring us
boys io our feet, craning our necks to see Avhat had happened.
It was usually one of the female penitents who as the prayer
proceeded, and the unconverted Avere being shaken in wrath
over the very mouth of the pit, had fallen backwards on the
floor in a hysterical faint, (' struck by the Holy Si)irit ' as these
good people admiringly phrased it), but except that the sound
of her fall served only to redouble the fervour of the prayer and
to swell and deepen the chorus of interjections and groans, it
had no other effect on the congregation. The prayer went on
as usual, no one rose in alarm from his place or appeared to
notice what had happened, but quietly and as a matter of course
two figures of men stepped noiselessly forward, and picking up
the fallen as on a battle-field, carried her to the rear, tliere to
give her fresh air and cool her wrists and temples with the siow.
Sometimes, but especially when the atmosphere was electric with
sympathy and the tide of emotion ran high, three or four females
would be tluis ' struck ' in the same evening and carried to the

"aB^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

^■■m

FUN AND MISCHIEF.

rear ; and although little was said, it was evident from the
increased fervour of the groans and sighs that this was regarded
by the people themselves as a peculiar and undeniable evidence
of the more intimate presence among them on that evening of
the Holy Spirit Himself.

The round of pmyers being at last exhausted the congregation
would rise from its knees, and after a hymn or two would begin
what was called the 'tolling of experiences' with which the
meetings closed. In this exercise old and young converts
alike joined, and while affording us boys only one more source
of amusement they were listened to by the more serious part of
the congregation with all attention and gravity; and as each
confessed in turn to the secret or open sins of which all alike
were conscious, the narration seemed to be received with a vague
and incommunicable delight. Many of these experiences were
told with a humility and candour most touching in their
simplicity, especially by the older converts who, long since
subdued from their first ecstasy, could look back at their past
lives with calmness and judgment ; but among the more recent
converts the lights and shades of the revelations they made were
80 deepened and intensified by new-born emotion as to present
contrasts and transiti«Mis at times astounding in their violence.
Some told of their previous drunken habits ; others (sailing often
perilously near the wind) of their carnal lusts ; others of the
hopeless deadness and enmii of their lives. Some, again, dwelt
on their brutality, their dishonesty, or their downright criminality,
and on how all this had been changed by the new spirit born
within them ; and with all of these the congregation testified its
sympathy by the usual running commentary of exclamations and
groans.

It was in the midst of scenes like these that one evening
two or three of what we called the * big boys ' — boys some
three or four years older than ourselves — unexpectedly entered
the chapel and sat down near the back, in the pew immediately
in front of where we were sitting. There was something in

FUN AND MISCHIEF.

their very presence at one of these meetings, as well a.8 in the
peculiar air and attitude with which they took their seats, that
made us younger boys suspect there was mischief in the wind.
What it was, however, we knew not, nor dared we ask (for
your big boy had always a royal gift of snubbing the smaller
ones) but presently while the roll of the prayers, with its
orchestral swell of sobs and groans was at its height, a sneezing
set in here and there from beneath the seats. Confined at
first to the neighbourhood of the front pews and those parts
of the building farthest away from the stove in the entrance, it
spread rapidly and soon attacked promiscuously all parts of the
congregation. The member engaged in prayer was the first to
siiiFer, his surging tide of words being rolled back again and
ever again with the violence of the seizures, while he still held
desperately on ; hex'e a groan was cut short in the middle as by
an explosion ; while there some exultant and happy soul who
had started out in the simple faith of being able to deliver
himself of his ' Praised be God ' in safety, would get no farther
than ' Praised be ' — when a paroxysm like a cannon ball would
blow his jubilation and his sentiment alike into extinction.
The old woman in the straw bonnet whose moon-like face rose
periodically in the corner, being seized as she rose, would be
blown under again without having time to emit her customary
groan ; hands thrown up in ecstasy would disappear as by
magic ; while all around, alternating with -the violence of the
paroxysms, the blowing of noses called to one another from
beneath the seats like trumpet-blasts ! All were seized, young
and old alike ; we boys as well as the rest, though unlike them
enjoying the fun of it amazingly. So persistent and violent,
indeed, did the paroxysms become when they had once fairly
set in, that in spite of the heroic efforts made to \old out, the
sneezing succeeded at last in entirely quenching the groans,
cooling the rapture, and damping tlie fire of rhapsody and
prayer. Groans, prayers, interjections, exclamations and
appeals all alike ceased ; the congregation rose spontaneously

wmm

FIN AND MI8CHIEl!\

as by a common impulse from their knees; all handkerchiefs
were put into requisition ; and for some time nothing was heard
but the violence of the convulsions and the blare of trumpet-
responses by which they were followed. Soon all was con-
fusion, dismay and disorder ; until at last one old bald-headed
gentleman unable to contain himself any longer, and niakino"
himself the mouthpiece of the general indignation, leapt nimbly
on to the window-sill, drew down the window to the bottom,
and then turning round and facing the meeting in fury
(sneezing, too, all the time !) offered to give five dollars from
his own pocket to anyone who would discover the offender.
But it was of no avail, the secret was inviolably kept, the
meeting broke up in confusion and dispersed in indignation ;
and except that it was generally believed to be the work of
one of the ' big boys ' who had stealthily placed some red
pepper on the stove when he entered, the special hand that
wrought the mischief remains, for aught I know, undivulged to
this day.

CHAPTER IX.

COCKS AND PICtEONS.

T^ROM my earliest years I had been very fond of domestic
animals — dogs, cats, fowls, pigeons, and pets of all kinds
— but in my boyhood this fondness attained almost to the
nature of a passion. For several years I lived more or less in
the thought of them, carrying them about with me in my
imagination wherever I went, wondering what they were doing
when I was out of the way, and hastening back from any
errand on which I was sent, to be again beside them.

After keeping a number of ordinary barnyard fowls for a
time, and then selling them off, my interest was one day
aroused by hearing that a German lad from a neighbouring
settlement, had brought to the village a pure bred silver grey
game-cock, and had sold it to one of our Jboys. So excited
was I on learning this, and so full was my imagination of the
thought of possessing it, that 1 at once hastened to see it, and
was so pleased with its appearance that I offered to give my
most valued possession, a little iron hand-sleigh, in exchange for
it. The offer was accepted and I brought the bird home with
me, lodging him for the time being in a little coop w^hich stood
at the bottom of the garden. He was a magnificent bird, with
great long neck and legs, and an eye w^liich on sight of an
enemy turned blood red and flashed like fire. But he had
grown rather fat and out of condition, and my first concern was

Mount Allison

COCKS AND PIOEON8.

to bring him into fighting form again. I put him in a bag to
which I had attached a long piece of rope, and getting high up
on the rafters of the shed, swung him from them backwards
and forwards like a pendulum. I also fed him on pieces of /aw
meat, hearing it was the right thing to do, and when 1 had
brought him into what I considered proper fighting form, the
desire of seeing how he would acquit himself in a pitched battle
grew so strong on me that I could not rest until I had gratified
it. Accordingly one day I took him under my arm, and
sallying forth on to the common at the back of our house,
whei'C a number of the neighbours' fowls roamed at large in the
day time, I dropped him down, and a fight at once began.
But scarcely had he time to show his prowess, when the head of
the old negress to whom the other bird belonged, appeared
over the fence at the bottom of her garden, threatening to
inform on me ; so that 1 was obliged to pick up my bilrd and
run. I then thought of the * old Captain ' viio lived next door
to us, and of whom I have already spoken. He kept a number
of fowls in the yard adjoining our garden, presided over by an
immense Cochin-China cock of about twice the size and weight
of my own bird. The awe in which I stood of the 'old
Captain ' had alone prevented me ere this from matching my
bird with his, but as I grew more and more restless under my
enforced inactivity I resolved one day to venture on it ; and
choosing a time when I thought no one was looking, I threw
my cock over the close-boarded fence that separated us, and
watched the ensuing fight through a knot-hole in the fence
imobserved. The old Cochin-China fought stoutly but
ineffectually, his great fat bulk and slow unwieldy movements
being but sport for the dashing spring and untrammelled flight
of my light-limbed Apollo ; and in a few moments his great
comb was all bleeding and torn. In the meantime an old
Turkey-cock that was feeding in the yard with the other fowls,
seeing what was going on approached the combatants and began
to take part with its own side against the intruder ; hovering

iipi

COCKS AND PIGEONS.

about the fight and (lashing in at my bird whenever it saw an
opening. My cock, however, was not the least daunted by this,
but held its own gaily between both its antagonists, dashing
first at one and then at the other ; when suddenly as bad luck
again would have it, the ' old Captain ' who was always fussing
about his premises, appei'.red at the end of the verandah over-
looking the yard, and seeing what was going on shouted out

in his loud resounding way, ' By G there's a strange cock

in the yai'd 1 * The next moment he had passed in high rage
through the gate, his stick held menacingly in front of him, and
swearing as he vrent. Fearing lest he might fall on my bird
with his stick, I jumped up from the knot-hole where I had been
watching the contest with bated breath, and throwing mvself
over the fence, ran forward to pick up the bird. But the sight
of me (who had always been a great favourite with the Captain^
acted on the old man like a sedative. Walking over to the
place where I was standing, while I was stanuncring out my
.apologies and excuses, instead of venting his rage on me as I
had expected, he fell into an outburst of enthusiasm, his face
beaming with admiration as he rehited to me as if it luid been
the charge of the Guards at Waterloo, how my bird had led on
the attack against each antagonist in turn, how it had dashed
and ducked and wheeled and parried, first one and then the
other, (all of which he described on the ground Avitii his stick)

and ending up with ' By (J Doctor, he's a noble binl, and

between ourselves he would have killed mine if he had had fair
play ; ' — and then in a whisper, tapjiing me on the shoulder
confidentially, and reverting to his first sensation by the gentlest
of hints, ' But get rid of him my lad, or he will get you into
trouble. '

Scarcely had my interest in fowls and game-cocks begun to
decline, when a new fancy, the love of pigeons, arose within
me, and so fired and fascinated my imagination, that for a year
or two they were the sole objects of my idolatry. Beginning
at first with a few pairs of the commonest sort, I gradually

rOCKH AND PIGEONS.

added to my stock by breeding or cxcliange, until in the end
I must have had two or three score or more. The shed in
whicli I kept them, and to which 1 have ah'eady referred, was
niider the same roof as our liouse itself, but was only j)artially
built in, and was used principally as a i)lace for the bestowal of
fircvvood. It had no ceiling, so that from floor to roof only
the great beams and rafters that rested on the stone-work and
stretched across it from side to side were to be seen. In the
nooks and angles of these rafters I had boarded-in little
triangular spaces for the pigeons to build their nests, besides
disposing a number of moveable cotes made out of old tea
boxes, here and there along tlie beams. My mother as usual
protested at first against my keci)ing the birds, but as I knew
that flying about on the rafters above they were as inaccessible
to her as if they had been on mountain peaks, I paid no heed
to her remonstrance. I myself, indeed, could only reach them
by first mounting on to the wood-pile, and from thence
climbing by means of a munber of uncertain and slippery foot-
holds which I had cut in the side of the wall. The pigeons in
consequence were allowed to x'cmain imdisturbed, and as they
flew from beam to beam, fighting and flapping and cooing and
making the rafters ring with their merry notes, I watched their
every movement from the doorstep below with feelings of
strange and intense delight. They had not been long settled,
however, before I began to weary for some new sensation, and
in my restless desire to see what they would do under different
conditions, I thought I would try the eff'ect of a new com-
bination. I pulled down the boarding from the places which
I had built in, and having removed the old tea-boxes from their
accustomed places as if they had been so many pieces on a
chess-board, set them up again in new positions on the beams.
The pigeons thus evicted from their prescriptive and accus-
tomed domains, and uncertain of their whereabouts in this
break-down and confusion of all their ancient landmarks, flew
about in aflfright from rafter to rafter without finding rest for

COCKS AM) no RONS.

their feet. Some followed their own tea-boxes to their new
positions, others in their uncertainty took refii<;c in the old
corners where tlieir cotes hud once been ; here a couple of
cocks findin<^ themselves in 8tran<i;e jjlaees would be seen
eyeing one another with an air of deprecation and apology,
there another couple, throwing away all ceremony, would bo
fighting for their own hands like old feudal barons ; and the
whole place was kept alive with the stir and confusion, until
having at last settled down in their new places, order was re-
established and the old routine went on as before. But hardly
had they begun to get accustomed to their new quarters, when
some fresh fancy would seize me, and once engendered,
between its conception and execution there was no pause. I
got tired, I remember, of seeing them sitting about listlessly
on their respective cotes or flying merely from rafter to rafter,
and thought how grand it would be to see them perched high
up against the very roof itself and flying down from these high
points as from some eagle's nest for food, or carrying up in
their beaks the straw with which to build their nests. No
sooner thought than executed. Once more the scaffolding
was removed, the spaces formed by the ridge of the roof were
boarded in, the old tea-chests, after having their corners sawn
off to fit them into the angles of the roof, were placed in their
new positions, and all being ready, the pigeons were caught
and shut up in their cotes until they had gf)t accustomed to
their new environment ; and my mind was once more at rest.

CHAPTER X.

A MIDNIGHT CAMPAIGN.

UIIS

rage for

pigeons having once pet in soon became
general among us boys, and cotea were set up on all
hands, on the tops of poles and sheds, in stables, outhouses,
and barns. In our spare time between and after school hours,
we would visit each other's yards to watch our rtjspective
birds, discussing freely their points of beauty or deformity,
devising new schemes of crossing and breeding, or bargaining
with one another for their sale or exchange. In all this our
young energies found free and abundant scope, but in our
quiet moments when our imaginations took a wider range, one
thing was felt by all to be wanting to our full content. Our
pigeons were all common birds, and although we discussed the
colour of a feather or turn of a wing with as nmch seriousness
and gravity as if they were the last refinements of the breeder's
art, we still longed for those fancy birds of which we were
never weary of talking, and of whose beauties we had heard so
much. But in all the village and country round none such
were to be found, our sole extant representative of birth and
breeding being an old half-bred cock fantail with red wings,
which in some way or other had come into the possession of
one of the boys. This bird had long been the centre of interest
to all those of vis who kept pigeons ; the yard in which he was
kept was seldom without one or more of us boys watching

A MIDNKillT CAM I' A KIN'.

I'O
JO

If
o

every movomcnt of hiw noek iind titil with Intense and iil)H()rl)in<r
lnter;;rtt ; while the fortunate owner earri(!(l ])ini»«elf with as
Piiu'h (lif^nity, and was invested hy th(! ref4t of us witli as much
injportanoe, as the greater nia<,'nates of the City or 'Change hy
the Ufsser hiethrcn of the guiUl. Unfortunately, however, for
want of a hen of the same rank with whieh to nmto our
favourite, he had to he paired with a eoninion pigeon ; and this
mi''K(dll(mct; whieh profoundly outraged our sense of the fitness
of things, was ua nuieh deplored by ua all sis if the bird had
been our own.

It was while thud deeply immersed in the subject of pigeons,
that suddenly one day word was brought to us by one of the
boys that a number of those far y birds for which we had so
often longed, were being kej)t by a large and wealthy manu-
facturer who lived in a fine mansion far out on the hill behind
the village. On the receipt of this news which ran from boy
to boy like a fiery cross, we locit no time in starting off in a
body to ascertain the truth for ourselves. And sure enough
when we reached the place, there, sunning themselves on the
roof of an old barn or shed before our entranced and delighted
eyes, were the pigeons in question in all their haughty beauty —
fantails of spotless white, whose curved and quivering necks
lay on their great fringed background of tail as on a cushion ;
great pouters with feathered feet, standing almost erect, with
their breasts blown out and wings clapped tiglitly to their sides
like old sentinels on guard ; nuns with head and wings tipped
with ebony ; and jacobins of richest chocolate, whose reversed
and upturned feathers encircled their dainty little heads and
necks like the ruffs of olden queens. The sight of these
radiant cx'catui'cs, falling like a gleam of the ideal athwart the
poor world of I'eality, struck us with envy and despair, leaving
behind it a sense of lonijinw and unsatisfied desire which
poisoned all our present possessions. On our return home oui*
own common pigeons once so lovely, now looked poor and
mean ; we lost all interest in them ; even the ' old red-wing '

A MIDNIGHT CAMPAIGN.

himself, whose half-bi*cd tail we had so much admired, fell

from fa\*.ar as a poor bedraggled impostor, and wc walked

c(mtemptuously by him as by a deposed king! And still the

vision of those beauteous birds burned within us like a new-born

love unquencliable ; and ever as we went to feast our eyes on

the glorious vision, we returned more desolate and dissatisfied

than before. But as our love and longing grew, so grew our

determination to possess them, and although at first they

seemed as inaccessible to us us that {golden fruit which hung on

the fabled tree, our determination was only whetted by the

4lifficulty, until it became our only object of thought. But

how to get them ? For the rights of the owner we had no

respect, or such only as some young gallant has for the old and

jiapless husband wiio stands between him and the young and

beauteous bride. What could he want with them, we felt

rather than definitely thought — he, whose withered aflfections

were too old and seared to appreciate his prize, and who had

no boys of his own to enjoy them ? Him, therefore, we set

uside as a disagreeable obstacle to be overcome, a piece of

obstruction merely ; and still the problem of how to get them

kept returning and swallowed up every other thought. We

first thought of trapping them, but it soon became evident that

they were too far off over the hill to come within the flight and

circuit of our own birds and be enticed by them to our homes,

and this scheme had to be abandoned. Next we thought of

buying one or more of them — a thing quite within the reach

of some of the boys, whose parents would gladly have supplied

the money — but we felt it unlikely that the owner would part

with them ; and the gruff reply of the gardener (to whom we

had sent a boy to ask) that they were not for sale, convinced

us that it was useless to proceed any farther in that direction.

There was nothing for it therefore but to make a descent on

them bodily and carry them ofl^ like Sabine brides ; and this

i'ourse once felt to be inevitable, we concentrated on it all our

energies, laying out our plan of campaign with all the wariness

A MIDNIGHT CAMTAIUN.

of old generals and the cool effrontery of the most hardened
and accomplished villains I We surveyed the ground in
couples, sending out scouts on all hands to ascertain whether
there were any dog about the premises, and if so where it was
kept; whether tlie old gardener slept in the house or was only
there in the daytime ; what were the best modes of approach,
and what the facilities of escape in case of a surprise, and so
on. These points being all accurately determined, an informal
council of wai' was held in which we all took pai't, each giving
his opinion with all the air and autliority of the most
experienced veteran ; and after discussing all the pi'obabilities,
such as whether with a fair start we could out-run either the
old gardener or the manufacturer himself, we soon matured
our plan of attac'" and now only awaited a favourable moment
for putting it into execution.

The out-house in which the pigeons were kept had at one
time been a barn or stable, and stood by itself in grounds
separated from the long garden immediately behind the
dwelling-house by a broad public lane, which from the
comparative absence of traffic still retained its primitive green-
ness. The barn itself was encircled by a grove of young pine
trees, and behind it, and stretching for a mile or more between
it and the village, was the great common of the hill, still
covered with the stumps of pines cut down at the opening up
of the settlement. The door of the barn was kept permanently
locked ; and the pigeons instead of finding their way into the
loft through the ordinary little pigeon-holes, entered by a small
window, the lower sash of wliich had I "en specially removed
for this purpose. From this window again, projected a large
foot-board for them to alight on, and I can still see them
walking majestically in and out as under a triumplial arch,
carrying their glorious tails above them like banners. Now as
this window was some eight or ten feet from the ground, and
the opening in it just large enough for us boys to crawl
through, the problem before us became simply how to reach

A MIDKIOHT CAMPAIGN.

tlic window. By a ladder of course, was the universal cry, but
as that was likely to expose us to observation at the outset, and
might prove highly inconvenient in the event of a hasty
retreat, it had to be set aside and some other means must be
devised. It was felt by us all, tiierefore, as a happy thought,
when one of the boys suggested that wc should construct a
special ladder for the purpose, one made of thin strips of pine
of just sufficient strength to bear our weight, and with a hinge
in the middle by which it could be folded on itself like u
carpenter's foot-rule, so that when covered with a piece of
baize or oil-cloth it could be carried under the arm like a
portfolio. Evidently just the thing, and at once avc set to
work on it with all our zeal; and long before its completion,
that love and longing for the pigeons which like the love for
Helen of Troy had been the immediate cause of the campaign,
was swallowed up and lost in the fun and excitement of the
adventure itself.

All at last being ready, we determined to wait until the
nights were moonless, and to meet at a pre-concerted hour after
our parents had gone to bed, at the corner of the cross road at
the top of our street. At the appointed time all were there,
some having stolen quietly out of their bedrooms when tlie
rest were aslsep, others having passed out through the back
doors, and others, again, who slept in the uj)per stories, liaving
let themselves dowi. from the window on to an adjoining shed,
and from thence on to the ground. There were six of us in
all, as far as I can now remember, and all animated with a
spirit so bold and full of adventure as in our swelling
estimation and conceit to be ready for the most dangerous and
desperate designs. Carrying the ladder with us folded up
under an old piece of oilcloth, we started oft' in high glee,
talking and swaggering and giggling as we passed along the
quiet street in which all the lights were now out, in a way that
threatened speedily to destroy all discipline, and to expose us
to the observation of our neighbours. Then as some yet

lere,
the
jack
ving
<liec1,
lis in
ith a
filing
and

"1>
lee,

the

that

se us

i yet

A MIDNIOHT CAMPAIGX.

louder or more meaningless titter than the rest broke out on
the night, one of us would call out in irritation ' for goodness'
sake make less noise or wc shall be seen,' when we would all
contract ourselves to a whisper ^gain; and thus in our loose
irregular way, now boisterous uud now subdued, we passed
bv.yond the open street and reached the foot of the hill.
Keeping straight along over its face and brow, wc soon found
ourselves on tlie wide expanse of open common on tiie top, and
as we picked our way among the stumps in the silent midnight
under the lonely moonless sky, the feeling of tension which up
to now had been noticeable only in our unwonted gaiety,
became more deeply accentuated. We began to dx'aw more
closely together and to lose somewhat of the careless easy
swagger with which we started ; we became less talkative, and
although still eager and aglow with excitement, kept our
thoughts more concentrated on the enterprize before us.
Moving forward in this way and threading our course carefully
among the stumps, our eyes and ears sharpened to acuteness,
we would presently be startled by one of our number stopping
and whispering excitedly, ' listen, boys, what's that noise ? '
Whereupon we would all draw up on the spot, and giving our
ears to the surrounding night, "iston intently ; then hearing
nothing, Avould dismiss it with a contemptuous ' Oh 1 it's
nothing,' and resume our interrupted way again. But we
would not have gone far when another fancying he saw some
suspicious figure in the distance, would stop, and with a 'look!
what's that ? ' again bring us to a halt, all eyes concentrated
in the direction in which he was looking; but on once more
finding it was nothing, or only a stump, we would all laugh at
his fears as a good jcke, and start on again as before. In this
way vvc had covered the greater part of our journey and had
reached the fence that led down to the barn. We now began
to advance more cautiously, keeping close to the fence and
moving forward in single file, holding our breath and speaking
in whispers; now stopping to listen, and again going forward

A MIDNIGHT CAMPAIGN.

on tiptoe, but cautiously and evci* more cautiously as wo went,—
till we caine to the end of the fence around the corner of
which was the barn in which our prize lay. Here we drew up,
our heads all gathered togetlier in a knot, and peered out from
around the corner up and down the la»\e, our ears all agleg and
our hearts (mine at least) beating violently against the ribs,
listening to every sound. But nothing was to be heard, the
lights in the windows of the dwelling had all gone out, and all
was silence around. After steadying ourselves for a moment
as for a plunge, we issued foi'th from the corner, and wi'h a
whisper of ' Now, boys, come on ! ' stei)ped across the interven-
ing space like old stage villains ; and hastily inicovering the
ladder, straightened it out and set it up beneath the window
in front of ihe barn. T went up first, I remember, with a box of
matches in my hand, and clambering on to the foot-board,
pushed my head and shoulders through the opening of the
window, and for a moment or two lay there flat on my stomach
with my head within and feet without. Inside all Avas dark as
night, and I could not feel sure whether there were a floor to
the loft or not, or whether I might really be gazing over the
edge of an abyss which had no bottom but the foundation
itself. Striking a light as I lay, I saw by its feeble glimmer a
plain boarded floor beneath me, with neither hay nor straw to
cover it, and around and in the angles made by the sides of the
building with the roof, the dim form of the pigeons, and
standing out among them in all their distinctness, the white
outlines of the fantails. Pulling myself through and getting
my feet on the floor, I. then put my head out of the window,
and whispering ' all right, boys ! ' gave them the signal to
ascend. In quick haste they followed me, ujounting one after
the other and crushing their way through the window, three of
them in all, the other two being left outside to mind the ladder
and keep watch on the country round.

Once well inside, we stood on the floor in the darkness
uncertain where to begin, and giggling nervously in oiu* per-

A MIDNKHIT CAMPAIOX.

(>\V,

to
ttcr
of
(Icr

plcxity ; for it was now appai'cnt that «all the fine coolness with
wliich we had planned the camjmign and in which we had
figured ourselves as sweeping the loft Avith as much sinig-frold
as if we were a party of hailiffs taking inventory of its con-
tents, was fast ebbing out at our fingers' ends. Indeed could
we have found any plausible excuse, I am sure we should have
bolted without striking a blow, but from this our pride withheld
us, and :ummoning all our courage, we lighted another match
to see where the pigeons lay, holding ourselves in readiness to
spring forward and inake one captive at least before we fled.
But scarcely had the match been lit, when the pigeons grown
wild from long neglect and imaccustomed to such midnight
visitations, flew distractedly about in every direction, striking
the sides and roof in the uncertain light and dropping heavily
on the floor, or hanging on by their feet and fanning the sides
of the wall with their wings. Disconcerted by this unexpected
departure, we were now still more anxious to finish our work,
and pulling ourselves together with a kind of desperate courage
and each fixing his eye on some one bird before the light went
out, we plunged forward into the darkness in the direction in
which we had last seen them or whence issued the sound of the
still-continued flapping of their wings. The boards of the floor
only loosely laid down, creaked and groaned and rattled at
every step as we stumbled and scuffled about in the darkness ;
here one boy having got hold of his bird by the wing only,
was trying to secure it while it flopped and fluttered on the
floor; there another having secured his first prize and put it
under his waistcoat, would while gro])ing about in corneriri
trying to get a second, come against the wall with his head,
getting a blow which dazed hiui ; while a third, baulked of
his prize and in fright at the noise we were making, increased
the turmoil by calling out to us to make less noise or we should
certainly be caught. By this tiiiie what with the dai'kness, the
noise of the birds, the rattling of the floor, and the time we
seemed to have been engaged (for although we had really not

• 1

A MIDNIGHT CAMPAIGN.

been in more than a minute or two it seemed to us an hour I )
we were getting thoroughly demoralized and confused ; the
panic which had seized the pigeons .had spread to us also ;
when just as we were beginning to feel that if we did not get
out we should to a certainty be caught, and were on the point
of retreating with what we had got, one of the boys who haO
followed the sound of a pigeon to the back of the loft, suddenly
went overboard through an unsuspected gap in the floor and
was precipitated into the manger below, uttering a cry of horror
as he fell I Paralyzed, bewildered, and utterly |.,inic-8tricken
by this catastrophe, we lay glued to the floor on our liands and
knees in the corners where we had been groping, afraid to
move for fear of jjitfalls within, and in terror of enemies with-
out, unwilling to leave our comrade to his fate, and yet fearing
to stay lest we should ourselves be caught. We were racked
with horror and uncertainty. The boy himself, meanwhile, had
no sooner gone overboard than struggling violently and
desperately in the darknoss, unconscious of his hux'ts, he came
on the horizontal bars that served as a ladder from the manger
to the loft, and was on the floor again before we had had time to
make up our minds. And now as by a common impulse, the
^pell which bound us being broken, we rushed in full course
pell-mell to the window, making a great clatter as we went, and
crushing through it one after another, our terror increased by
the delay, scrambled down the ladder and took to our heels, the
last boy being left to leave or take the ladder as he would.

The boys meanwhile who had been left outside to watch,
hearins: the noise and scuffle within and unable in their inaction
to bear the strain of the situation any longer, had deserted the
ladder and fled round the corner ; and as we rounded it after
them in full flight, their heels in the now rising moon could be
seen flung up behind them among the stumps ahead. Seeing
them flying, and never doubting but that they must have seen
something, we redoubled our speed, while they seeing us tearing
after them, felt sure we nmst be chased and flew like the wind.

be
iug
»en
ing
id.

A JIIDNKJIIT CA.MPAIGX.

Over tlio t'onnnon we went, sweeping the ground in a kind of
dead intensity of fear without looking behind, unconseious of
body or limb in our unfettered flight as if we had been
disembodied spirits ; taking the knolls and hollows of the ground
which we scarcely seemed to touch and which smoothed
themselves out before us like a carpet, with the ease and
lightness of antelopes. On and around the corner of the fence
in the rear of the barn we flew, and then along the hill among
the stumps for a quarter of a mile or more before we ventured
to look behind, and then drew up breathless and exhausted : the
boy with the ladder, who alone had kept his head and who had
been left far in the rear, now joining us in hot indignation.
' You're a fine lot of fellows to run away like that ! What were
you frightened of? ' he exclaimed contemptuously, and we
finding that the immediate danger was psissed, or indeed had
never existed, began heaping abuse and recrimination on one
anothei' in our turn. ' Pretty fellows you to leave the ladder in
that way,' said we to the two recreants from their post, ' did
you hear or see anything ? ' to which they seeking to justify
themselves would retort, ' you made noise and clatter enough
inside to raise the whole house, and we should soon all have
been caught. What did you run for? ' and so en until we had
exhausted our vein and recovered breath and temper.

Having come to ourselves again, we now began to recount
amid nuich fun and laughter .;he various incidents of the barn —
of our crushing through the window, our experiences on the
floor, of the falling through into the manger, and our feelings
thereupon — till after walking on together for some time with an
occasional glance behind to see that all was well, v/e at last
bethought us of the pigeons themselves, whom in our excitement
we had ahnost forgotten ; and taking them (mt from under our
waistcoats which had held them safely pressed against our breasts,
wc proceeded with much curiosity to inspect our prize. There
were only three birds in all, each of us with the exception of the
boy who fell through into the manger, having secured one; my

\H}

A MIDNIGHT CAMPAICJX.

partl(!ular capture, I remember, being one of the white fantails
tliat liad yo aroused my love and longing. Standing in a group
on the open hill under the silver midnight moon, we held them
in our hands stroking and caressing them, and I can still
remember how the great mass of tail which mine displayed, all
fringed at the ends, so different from the ' old red-wing,' and
still crumpled with the pressure it had undergone, agflin affected
me with the old feeling of its loveliness and beauty. But as we
walked along, the fact that although it was now mine it was yet
not mine, began to damp the pride I felt in the possession. I
began to think of the consequences, and to feel that the loss of
a creature so radiant as this, could no more be passed over
without raising the village, or the State for that matter, than if
it were the Koh-i-noor itself ! Thoughts of what I should do
with it, where I should j)ut it, what I should say about it, kept
shuttling in a most disagreeable way through tlie background
of my mind, dashed and interlaced with yet more painful
associations of the owner, the schoolmaster, the constable, and
even the lock-up itself. That this feeling was shared by the
other boys in a greater or less degree according to their varying
dispositions or temperaments, was soon evident ; for on the
question arising as to what we were now to do with the pigeons, we
each began secretly to try and shift the burden of responsibility
on to the others. ' Perhaps you had better keep them for a day
or two,' one would remark with apparent indifference ; ' No, you
had better take them,' the other would reply in the same tone ,
a third adding cai'clessly and as if without the least afterthought,
' My box is not large enough for them all ; ' and all giving more
or less plausible excuses for the disinclination which they dared
not avow. But the more we each perceived this disinclination
on the part of the rest, the more alarmed did we become, and
the more did the coil of consequences which threatened us grow
and gather until it overspread the whole field of thought. So
far indeed did it go, that as we were approaching the brow of
the hill and were soon about to separate, one of the more timid

A MIDNIOIIT CAMPAIOX.

of US suff'^csted that we should let tliem <;o, and tliev would flv
lioine again in the inorninj;. Hut having earried out our phm
so far apparently without observation or [nirsuit, this proposal
was resented bv the rest of us ; the beautv of the birds was too
much for us ; and fifter more deliberation and discussion, I at
last undertook to take them and keep them under a basket in a
dark and secluded part of our shed, until the danger had blown
over. All b.eing now arranged we separated each to his own
home, and I slipping quietly into the shed and putting the birds
under the basket for the night, lifted the latch and stole softly
ah)ng the passage to my bed-room and was soon fast asleep.

For a few days all went well, the pigeons were kept as
studiously secluded as nuns, my visits to them to feed or fondle
them being made with the greatest secrecy for fear of arousing
my mother's suspicions. When the other boys came to see
them and wc took them out into the light to have a good look
at them, we would speak in whispers, and at the sound of my
mother's footsteps hastily return them under the basket again.
All seemed serene as in a cloudlet's sky, no whisper of suspicion
Avas anywhere heard, and we were just beginning to feel that
all danger of discovery was now past, when suddenly on my
return from school one afternoon my mother met me in the
doorway in an agony of grief and rage, and broke out on me
violently with ' You've disgraced me ! you've disgraced me I ' I
saw it all and read it in her face, and with horrible visions of
the constable floating before me, awaited her indictment and
recital in dumb and petrified terror. One of the boys as it
afterwards appeared, had as usual confided the incidents of our
midnight campaign luider i)le(lge of deepest secrecy to a special
conu'ade of his own ; he in turn had told the old gardener ;
the gardener his master ; and the master had called at our
house to make enquiries, after I had gone to school in the
afternoon. When he announced the object of his visit, ujy
mother in her fear, anxiety, and shame, and to give him every
facility for his search, had lit the candle and conducted hiiu

A MIDNUillT CAMrAION.

tlirougli the nlicd, and there under the hasket in its darkest
recess h(! liad come on his pigeons and taken them away. Now
although struck diunh at the outset, my mind during n>y
mother's recital of what had taken phice had not been idle, and
before she had finished 1 was prejjared for her. Determining
to face it out I affe<!ted great surprise, protested that I knew
notlung whatever of the affair, and lying like a diplomatist,
assured her that 1 had got the pigeons from another boy, whom
I named, in exchange for some of my own, that he had bought
them from a third, and the third I was going to say had trapped
them, but not being able to stop at any one for fear of bringing
home guilt to that one, I had to keep ever on the wing, until
the series and chain of links and removes through which the
pigeons had come to me became as confusing as a genealogical
tree, losing itself in distan*- antiquity like a pedigree I — a
procedure of mine I may say, which had not my mother made
uj) her mind I was lying from the first, and had my own sense
of humour not lain crushed for the moment under my fears, must
infallibly have damned me. The owner had, it appears, on
leaving, thrown out some hints of the magistrate, which my
mother took care to emphasize, and for days after in my unrest
and uncertainty as to the consequences, the sight of the
constable in the distance was the signal for me to betake myself
d(;wn the first by-street and disappear from public view.
Nothing farther; however, was heard of the affair, and in a
short time we had all resumed our usual gaiety again and life
went on as before.

After the incident above narrated, my interest in pigeons
gradually began to decline ; I no longer cared for the common
birds as I had done before the vision of those fancy ones fired
my imagination ; and besides, the period during which any one
special hobby retains its hold over the Imagination of a growing
boy, was now appi'oaching its close. But I still continued to
keep them, rather from habit than from any active love ; until
an incident occurred which adding as it did the las^ straw to

A MIDNKillT CIAMi'AKJN.

my glowing iiulifFerciicc, determined me to part with them
altogether. One evening as we were sitting quietly at honie,
my mother hearing a noise in the shed, put down her knitting
and taking up the candle from the table, went out along the
passage to ascertain the cause. I followed her, and on oi)oning
the door into the shed, a figure scpiatting low on the wood-pile
and holding a pigeon in its hand, confronted us. It was the
boy who had fallen through the loft into the manger, and to
my infinite surprise here he now was, caught in the very act of
stealing my birds. Tutting the best face on it lie could, he
professed to have come to take away one of his own which ho
said he had seen flying at nightfall in the direction of our
house ; but as he was himself obliged to admit that the bird
he held in his hand was not his, but mine, his treachery was
only too manifest. So thoroughly shocked and disgusted was 1
with this breach of honour on the i)art of one of the boys of our
own set,— for the rest of us I am sure would as soon have
thought of shooting one another as of trapping or stealing each
other's birds— that I sold oft my whole collection; and so
brought to an end a chapter in my history which lingers in the
memory of those f.u-off years with peculiar vividness and
delight.

(mAPTEK XI.

MY UNCLE JAMES.

OOME time in the hot eiirly days of tliily there luij^ht be
^^ seen entering the vilhige in sueeesaive years, a well-
dressed, thiek-set, hut slijrhtiy round-shouldered man of about
fifty, black-browed, and clean-shaven as a priest, with a light
straw hat clapped down on the back of his head, and slunving
a spotless white waistcoat and high black stock luuler the light
nlpuca coat that he wore loosely as protection against the <lust
and heat. As he sauntered along the streets with his thin lips
tightly compressed, and his long, slightly upward-curving nose,
to which he ever and again gave snuti', carried before him as if
sniffing the air, his grey eyes looked out from luider their dark
eyebrows on the persons and objects passing, with the curious
but bewildered ex[)ression of a stranger, or of one who coming
from some alien world of speculatiim finds himself out of touch
with the currents of life and business around him. This man
was my Uncle James the schoolmaster — my mother's brother —
who had come to town to spend his sunnner vacation, and to
enter on one of those periodical drinking bouts that wrung my
mother's heart, but which by the enthusiasms thrown up in
the course of their eruptions, gave such stimulus to my
youthful dreanjs as to leave abiding traces in the coming years.
In his early days he had received a good education, and when
quite a youth had gone, his mother's pride, to Sweden as

Mv r.NTLK .r.\.Mi:s.

!»r)

Kii^UmIi tutor ill a Swedish t'niiiilv. Thorc he ri'iiiaiiii'd for ii
ivw ycur.H, iiiid af'^er atMiuirlii}^ during liin stay, from tli(! habit
of toaMtiiij; one aiKdhcr over tlu? tahlc, that lovo of Htroiijf (h'iiik
whii'h \\n» hif" hanc, he returned to Scotland a confirnKid
driinkard, to break Win mothers heart. After teaehiiij^ for a
wliile there, and doin<^ little jfood for iiiiUHelf, he wan ut last
jicnsuaded or coerced into eini<rratin<^ to Canada; and had now
ior many years jiast been engaf^ed as Hchoolniaster in one or
other of the country schools in the vicinity of our villa<^e.
These schools he again and aj^ain lost through his outbursts
of drunkenness, and again and again recoiitjuered, on |irobation
at least, by the kindly feeling which he everywhere ins^tircd
and the high general esteem in which he was held as a teacher,
liut although managing in a general way by desperate efforts
of self-restraint, to hold out against his enemy during the
terms, regularly as the vacation-time came round he would
aj)pear in the village with his salary in his pocket, and aftcsr
remaining ii night or two at my mother's house, would lie
swiftly drawn into the current of his tcnqitation ; and sitting
himself down in one of the taverns in the place, would not rise
again until his money was all s[)cnt, and he himself, reduced to
the last stage of degradation, was flung out liel[»less and head-
long into the street.

On his first arrival in the village he would call at our house,
and on my return from school in the afternoon, he would rise
to greet mo in a friendly way, but with the somewhat precise!
and formal manner of the iiedngogue, and after remarking on
how tall I liad grown since he last saw me, and making eiuiuiry
as to my progress in my various studies, he would sit down
again and resume his pipe. About \vs whole air and manner
there was the unmistakeable stamp of the old bachelor. lie
dyed his hair and disposed it with the greatest care, his chief
effort being, I remember, to keep it plastered down on the
temples in front of the ears ; and every now and again in the
course of the afternoon he would rise from his seat without

MY UNCLE JAMKiS.

speaking, and walking across to the mirror on the oppoeite
wall, would take a small comb from his pocket and looking at
himself first on one side then on the other, give the recalcitrant
and errant locks that extra touch necessary to give them
smoothness and bring them into line again ; and then woidd
resume his seat. But in this, as indeed in oil his movements,
there was something simple, inoffensive, and abstracted ; so
much so that my mother in her anxiety for him when he had
fallen into drink, always spoke of him pathetically as a j)()or
harndess creature with none to care for or look after him, and
who couldn't take care of himself. It was not, however, from
any want in either eyes or hands that he had this aloof and
abstracted air ; on the contrary he was master of a number of
the smaller practical accomplishments, of which when sober he
said little, but which when drunk he aired and ventilated in a
way that gave him great vogue and reputation among the
vulgar. He had been, for example, a great athlete in his
youth, was still excellent with the rod and gun, and knew all
qualities of bait and hook-dressing with a learrtod and
experienced eye. Then too he played the flute and guitar
well, sang readily by note, and could write a hand, as my
mother admiringly declared, that ' looked like copper-jilate.'
He would do you the Lord's Prayer in every variety of Old
English cl'uU'acter, and so artistically withal as to be thought
worthy of being framed by his admirers and hung up in
drawing-rooms ; and as for a Bank of England note, he could
execute it with pen and ink with such fidelity as in the opinion
of many to deceive the very elect. But more wonderful than
all to most of them and to me, he made wooden sun-dials with
his own hand, with mystic scraj^s of Latin around ilie edges,
doing the joining, painting, and lettering himself ; and more
mysterious still, could actually set them up in a garden in such
a position that they would tell the time of day ! It was not in
such matters then, that his simplicity and xmpracticality
appeared, but rather in his apparent want of interest in the

MY UXCLK .lAMKS.

ite.'
01(1
oht
) in
uuUl
ininn
tlmu
with
ilgos,
more
such
ot in
•ality
1 the

worUl around him, with its rour und bustle of ambitions, its
pushings and strivings and money-gettings, through all of
vvliich but especially through its trinuned and regulated
decorums, he picked his simple and harmless way without,
offence as throu<>;h some trindy-laid garden, absorbed apparently
in some far-off unworldly contemplation of his own. This as
you soon discovered was the great unsounded world of book or
school learning in which he was immersed, a world in which an
error, especially one of detail, was the primal sin, and ignorani-e
the sole object of censure. Indeed the only occasions, [)erhaps,
on which his usually even temper was ruffled, were when the;
authority of the vulgar was invoked in sup[)ort of some well-
worn fallacy or truism (it mattered little which) connected
with one or other ot those subjects which he regarded as
j)eculiarly his own. With an outburst of scornful laughter, his
face reddening as if he had suffered a personal affront, he
would close his lips tightly and burst out with ' the man is
utterly ignorant and can know nothing whatever about it,' then
shutting them again with the old emphasis, would silence all
further conference. His interest and delight in these themes
ran out in many directions, but his .•?[)ecial field and the one m
which he secretly most jjrided himself was ' the Mathematics '
as he called it, especially Astronomy, the vast reaches of which
had fascinated his simple and wondering imagination, and to
whose mysterious depths he alone among his own circle was
believed to hold the key. To pretend to a knowledge of this
high theme without tlu! special 'niipi-iinatar of a Universitv
degree, was an imp'jrtinence, almost a blasj)hemy ; and to be
ignorant of it, was at once and forever to condemn you to
shallowness and su[)erficiality.

After unpacking his trunk he would leave the house, ni}
mother in spite of the awe in which she stood of him when sober,
not being able to resist hinting timidly to him as he left, to
beware of temptation — a remark which always seemed to annoy
him. and to which he usually made no answer. From this time

MY UNCLE JAMKS.

iiotliing more would be seen of him until the evening, when as we
«at outside enjoying the cool night-breeze, he would be seen in
his white hat and waistcoat rounding the corner of the cross-street
and advancing quietly along the gentle ascent that led to our
house. And now all would be changed with him ; it was evident
that he had had just sufficient drink to stimulate and excite
without stui)efying him. His round, clean-shaven face, usually
somewhat heavy and solid, Avould now beam and glow with a
kind of inward illumination; tlie eyes, dull in impose, would
glisten in the rising moon like watery jewels ; and the stiffness
und reserve which usually cha^'acterized him, all thawed
nnd melted away in the generous wine, would have passed into
that genial unsuspecting good-fellowship in which all were
friends and brothers. Shaking hands with us all round as if he
had not seen us before, and sitting down beside us, it would not
be long before the real simplicity, the sense of wonder that lay
jit the root of his nature, would begin to show itself, and freed
jis it now was from its superincumbent folds of stiffness and
reserve, would bare itself to the stars and the night as if to
<lrink them in. Prompted by the inner dance and music that
the wine was making, he would by way of preliminary bx'eak out
into scraps of song ; but soon breaking off, by some sudden
transition of thought or feeling would be drawn aside into
[)oetry. His favourite passages, I remember, were Satan's
address to the Sun, in Milton, and Byron's lines in Don .Juan
<lescribing the shipwi-eck, beginning ' Then rose from sea to sky
the wild farewell.' l*ushing out boldly and hurrying over the
consonants as impediments which his short upper Hp found it
difficult to compass, he would be soon in full sail, his head
keeping time to the I'ccurring cadence of the lines, and waving
over them like some high tree-to{) rocked by the rising breeze.
When he had finished and had scaled his high delivery with an
emphatic closure of his mouth, he would pause, and after sufficient
time had elapsed to allow the echo of this organ peal to take
full effect on his imagination, would rise and with unaffected

MY UXCLE JAMES.

raving
l)reeze.
(itli un

icient
take

fected

rapture exclaim abruptly, ' Grand ! such language 1 such sub-
limity ! ' It was evident that he was now in the full tide of
enthusiikdm, the i)oetry serving but as whet and foretaste to the
grandeur of his great theme — Astronomy — on which he would
now embark. Rising and standing on the pavement in front of
us, the bareness of his well-rounded temides catching the rays
of the slanting moon, he would gaze into the starry heavens
around and above him, and as he gazed his sense of wonder
seemed to rise and sv.ell before the vast depths of their silent
orbs, as the tides on some inland stream. Standing there like
some rapt celibate of the olden time, he would begin by
expatiating on the ' sublimity ' of his high theme ; and on the
' profoxmd ' knowledge of the mathematics it required ; spoke of
the ' vast genius' of Newton, as if he saw it stretching athwart
the arch of heaven before him like a galaxy, and of his 'gravitation'
and ' method of fluxions ' as if they were the last ai)ocalypse ;
until the very night seemed hushed and my hair would creep
with admiration ! Then descending to particulars he would tell
of the calculations of eclipses, the very names of Avhich he
pronounced with awe, and of how by these high methods they
could ' be predicted to the very fraction of a minute; ' investing
ev3n figures in his ecstasy with as much majesty and importance
as if they Avere the poles on which the frame of things them-
selves revolved, and rolling out the exact distance in miles of the
moon from the earth, as triumphantly and with as much serious
solemnity as if he were announcing a now planet. Rising higher
and ever higher in his enthusiasm, he would continue in this
way until in his efforts to pluck at the stars and to ex])and to
the greatness which he conteinplatcd, like the crest of some
great mountain-wave reacdiing at the moon, he would at last
break and fall ; and in the alternation and recoil would be cai-riod
down into the troughs and lioUows of thought, whence after
falling into admiration of him-clf and his own perfections and
rocking himself in them for awhile, he would rise to a height
of boasting of his own achievements as colossal and sublime as

mmmmm

100

MV UNCLE .iAMIiS.

if he hiul himself given these sinning spheres their liiw and
harmony ! In this wiiy he would oontinne his harangue, now
losing himself in the grandeur of his theme, now falling into
admiration of himself and his own exploits, until I began to
think him a real Ileaven-Compellor and Trismegistus, and was
lost in admiration and wonder. It was not so much from what
he definitely said, as from the awe and rapture with which he
gave utterance to such magic phrases as ' sublime,' ' profound,'
' vast genius,' ' power of language,' and the rest, all of which
sovereign controllers of men's thoughts seemed to me as to
himself to partake rather of the nature of divine essences, than
as marking shades of distinction among merely human souls.
It was this that fascinated and enchained my imagination, and
not his facts, of which I as yet knew or understood little ; but
as I had already begun to make for myself a reputation at school
in the elementary mathematics, the tramp of these words and
phrases as they boomed and echoed through the brain like some
great wai'-^ry, soundeol the knell of all baser ambition;^, and
inflamed my imagination to the full. Presently I woidd ask him
whether he himself were good at ^lathematics ? At the sound
of the word his mood would instantly change, and with an
outburst of scornful laughter he would exclaim in a kind of
indignant surprise 'Good at the mathematics! Ila! I la I' then
giving his head that magnificent roll as if he saw in vision
before him his own excellence blazoned on the canopy, ' (Jood
at the Mathematicsl One of the very best I I have solved the most
diflScult problems in algebra, cubics, and the higher Mathe-
matics ! ' winding up witli a supreme touch and with great
emphasis ' No man in Canada can beat me ! '

Now all this was said with such reach and magnificence of
sweep, with so much emj)]iatic boldness, and serious solemnity
of tone, that I was deeply impressed by it and would perlia[)s
venture to ask, partly in good faith and partly to hear what he
would say, whether he were not pei'haps equal to the great
Newton himself ! But the mere mention of Newton's name,

MY i:\CLE JAMES.

101

30 of
inity
Imps
it ho
rcat
line,

us if there were magic in it, would sevid him off again into such
raptures of admiration, that his own humble achievements which
u moment before had filled his sky from the zenith to the sea,
now seemed to dwarf themselves into nothingness. ' Newton ! '
he would exclaim in indignant scorn of me for asking so absurd
a question, ' Sir — Isaac — Newton ! ' each word being se[)arately
repeated as if it were hallowed and belonged to a being of
another order, 'The boy's mad;' then falling into a kind of
reverie he would continue repeating to himself as if rapt in
wonder and admiration, ' Newton I Eh I me I such a genius !
such a dungeon of a mind I' After which, rousing himself to
particulars, he would with great gusto tell the story of how
Leibnitz the great French mathematician had sent a problem
across the Channel to Newton, thinking thereby to 'baffle'
him ; and how Newton had at once solved it ajid sent it back
to him the same night ; — and at the thought of this stroke of
genius, at once so imprecedented, so profound, and withal so
improvised, he would weep tears of admiration.

And so he would go on, throwing himself alternately into
ecstasy and tears by the mere mention not only of such high
and hallowed names as Newton and Laplace, but by such merely
abstract phrases as ' the binomial theorem,' ' the higher
ntathematics,' ' the calculus,' ' the method of fluxions,' ' the law
of gravitation,' and the like; — all of which seemed to him to
savour of the divine ; until the craving for di-ink becomins: so
overpowering that h fould no longer resist it, he would rise
and make his way back to the hotel again.

The ease and play of movement, the rapture and elevation
which the drink had given to his long-confined and costive
spirit, as well as the fire which it had started coui'sing through
his blood, made it evident to us all that nothing would now
arrest him, but that once entered on his downward course, he
would continue until lie had drained the cup of misery and

102

3IY UNCLE JAMES.

degradation to the lees. Accordingly in the morning and in
spite of my mother's entreaties to remain, he would leave the
house after breakfast, and sending for his trimk shortly after-
wards, would take up his quarters at one of the taverns, where
remote from my mother's eye he could drown at once his
reason and his cravings unrebuked. So long, indeed, as he
had remained in the house, my mother although with no real
substance of hope still snatched at its flattering shadow, and
comforted herself with the thought that if she could kcej) him
with her, he might be weaned from his temptation ; but now
that he had gone, and even this poor dream had vanished, she
gave herself up to unavailing sorrow, lie had been, as I have
said, his mother's pride, and the rising hope of the family when
they were young together, and the tradition and memory of
this early time undimmed by the fast-fading years, in spite of
the disastrous sequel, — this, together with the feeling that he
was now a poor helpless old bachelor with no one to care for
or look after him but herself, united to give her that active
anxietv and tenderness for him, which was so marked a feature
in her life. Now that he had gone, therefore, and had set out
delibei'ately, poor helpless wight, to stagger and plunge from
depth to depth of drunkenness, until he was at last flung out
on the rude world in hopeless degradation, she could not rest ;
but wandered about the house from morning to night, moaning
and sighing to herself, going ever and again to the door to look
Avistfully up and down the street, while her mind, whipped by
scorjjion thoughts, passed in its efforts to relieve itself, from
mood to mood in restless alternation. Now it was indignation,
as she thought of the disgrace he was brinjjing of his own free
will on himself and her; now disgust, as she saw in imagination
all his year's salary flung on the counter for drink ; next
moment it was rage against the publicans whom it seemed to
relieve her to figure as monsters lying in wait to entice him to
their dens, there to fleece him and then fling hiiii into the
streets ; and when all those had spent themselves, she would

i;J.J,

MY UNCLE JAMES.

108

■i

revert again to her first anxiety for himself, as she pictured
him wandering about, poor simple soul, from tavern to tavern,
a prey to passing kites, and rolling ever the deeper in dirt and
degradation. And worse than all, the conviction which as
time went on deepened into a certainty, that he would soon
return uptm her hands a drunken ruin on the verge of delirium,
his money all ..pent, and he himself a loathsome object, struck
terror to her heart. ' Have you seen anything of him { ' she
would anxiously ask of me every day on my return from school,
and if some days passed without my seeing or hearing anything.'
she would begin to beguile herself with the hope that perhaps
some one of the farmers among whom he had many friends
nught have weaned him from the drink and taken him with'
him to his own home. But when I at last returned to tell her
that on my way to school or at play I had seen him rounding
the corner of some public-house and making haste to enter i*^
by the side door as if ashamed, or had caught sight of his back
ns he ploughed his way in lines of uncertain straightness
between one tavern and another, his coat-tails flontin"- behind
Inin in the wind, then would come her fit again ; and rage and
grief, indignation and despair gnawing at her heart would wear
her almost to distraction.

In this way the days would pass, until unable at last to bear
the strain any longer, she would send me around to the taverns
with instructions to search him out, and after prayin^r the
landlords to give him no more drink, to beseech him for her
sake to come home with me. These were my first experiences of
bar-rooms, and I can well remember the shyness with which
I approached the fat and genial publicans wl... leaned over the
oar in their shirt-sleeves, and the peculiar «mile, sometimes
ironical, sometimes frank and sympathetic, with which they
listened to my message and gave it their assent. I would
perhaps have to go the round of two or three taverns before I
came upon him, but in the end I was sure to find him in one
or other of them, sitting usually on one of the wooden benches

!Sr?!rS!C5S5«S

104

MY I NCLK JA.MKS.

that lined tlio room, in tlic midst of a number of chronic or
occasional topers like himself, treatin<^ and being treated in turn.
There he sat among the 'ignorant herd' (as he called them)
whom when sober he most des[)ised, loosed from all sublunary
moorings and floatinj; hi<;h above it all in a kind of drunken
ecstasy ; liis straw hat all batti^red and torn at the seams, his
waistcoat all covered with snuft'and tebacco-ash, and the old alpaca
coat all crumpled and dirt-besoiled beyond recognition. His
<'lean-shaven face now covered with a short, grey stubble, and
bloated and inflamed to the eyes and roots of the hair, ran over
in weeping streams of maudlin good nature; all that peculiar
aloofness with which he held himself towards the crowd, had
melted and floated down from the high pedantic peak on which 't
usually cnsconsed itself and mingled in their turbid stream.
All his dignity, reserve, and self-respect were gone ; and at each
deliverance of himself or another, followed by a roar of drunken
laughter, he would slap his conu-ades on either side of him on
the back or legvS, with vile faniiliarity. It was clear that he was
now content and at peace with himself and all the world, and as
he puffed away at his pipe or spread himself out in long lines of
boasting, the attentive crowd would listen to his harangue in
silent deference, interrupted only by some vain or captious
interrogatory, or drunken hiccough of assent.

His theme on these occasions was as usual ' the mathematics '
and their dependencies, (for there was nothing low in his
conversation at any stage of his descent) but on the special
occasion that remains with me most vividly, his talk, I remember,
was of Colenso and the Pentateuch. His orthodoxy which had
up to this time been untainted, and which in after years I have
.seen to stand fronting the in-rolling tide of scepticism serene
nnd smiling as some mountain base, had for the moment been
sadly shaken by Colenso's book, which he had just been reading.
For althouLi'li insensible at all times to such hi<;hei' arguments
uixainst Revelation as miijht be drawn from the nature and
nction of the human mind, or a deeper insight into the world,

.MY I'NCLK .r.V.MKS.

lO.-)

ling.

II iiititlioniiitica Hrgumcnt or calculation alway-^ toudicd him
nearly, and at the one point where he was entirely vulncrahle ;
and about the time of which I am writing these arguments of
Colcnso had gone so far as almost to have wrecked Revelation,
and wrenched Scrijjture itself from its fixture. And although
when sober he had from j)rudence or policy kept his doubts to
himself, now that drink had overcome his circumspection he was
most voluble in their utterance ; and when I entered the bar-room
was just about sealing his demonstration, amid the boisterous
dissent and uproar of his auditors (whose orthodoxy, on the
contrary, drink had only iuHamed) by emphatically declaring,
as if the foundations of Religion itself had been rocked, that
* in this book it was proved by the most indisputable calculation
of mathematics, that the Ark could not have contained the
animals that were said to have entered it.'

I had already asked the landlord behind the bar to give him
no more drink, before my uncle noticed my entrance, but on
catching sight of mc as he rose to replenish his glass, instead
of regarding me as a disturber of his revels, he came forward in
his most smiling, beatific manner to shake hands with me, all
the cai'es and troubles of his life long since forgotten and lost in
his drunken dreams. Swaying backwards and forwards like
some tower about to fall, he poised himself before me, and as
the sense of my mother's real anxiety and concern for him which
had bnmght mc there, broke like the fleeting memory of some
forgotten love on his cf)nfused consciousness, with the tears in
his voice and eye he murmured to himself, 'Eh, Nan! poor thing !
poor thing ! ' Then glancing at the landlord and taking in
more clearly the object of my visit, he steadied himself against
the bar, and with as much solemnity as if on oath, and in the
tone of one suffering an injustice, exclaimed, ' But she's wrong !
quite wrong I I've not had a single glass ! not a solitary glass I '
Now this solemn and startling declaration which made the
landlord stare, was so familiar to me, it had become so habitual
a formula with him when accused or suspected of drinking,

III

..-U. II.

loi;

MY UNCLK JAMES.

(novin' viiryin*^ more tlmn from 'only a Hinglo f^lass' when ho
wjiH Htill in liis Honwos, to 'not a siiijrle frlass ' when \\v was no
loiiffor rc'Mj)onsil)I('), that I took no notico f»f it, hut went on
((uictly to Hny that my nutthcr had sent mo to ask him to como
homo with me. lint in his then state of mind, this ordinary
retjuest so tickhid him, and };rew into sueli a mountain of
humour or ahsurdity nn it made its way into his mind, that he
overflowed at last in a houudless outhurst of laughter, and pattinjij
me on the head afTeetionately, went on to tell me I was a 'ca|)ital
hoy,' a 'grand scholar,' then turning round to his comrades he
was ahout proudly to exhihit me and descant on my ' abilities '
as he called them, when I took the ojjportunity, his back being
turned, to steal quietly out of the door into tlie street again.
There, very generally, one or other of the old lidbiturx who was
lounging at the corner smoking, and who had been in and out
and caught snatches of my uncle's discourse, and been much
impressed like myself by his high-sounding epithets, would
beckon me aside, and I'emark in all sincerity, ' Extraordinary
clever man, your uncle ! What a pity it is ! flight have held
the first j)Ositions in Canada if he had liked! Great pity!*

III.

In this way he would continue staggering daily downward
through lower and lower depths, until his money being all s{)ent,
h(! was unable to pay for board and lodging any longer at the
tavern, and would be turned out into the street ; and as my
mother had predicted, obliged to fall back on her for shelter and
maintenance. It was usually about tea-time that he made his
rc-ai)pearance at our house, and my sister and myself as we sat
playing on the door-step in the sunnnor afternoon and saw his
stooped and heavy figure staggering in our direction, would
hasten within, our hearts beating high in expectation, to
await the scene that was about to follow. Presently his footsteps
would be heard outside, and next moment his face, now glowing
like a furnace with drink and boat, would appear in the doorway

MY UNCLK .lAMRS.

107

of the rnoin in which we were sittinj;. lien; he wt)ul(l puuHe for
a moment, ami 8milin<^ in on us apolojrctically with the fatuous,
f,niilty, and half-silly look of the old drunkard conscious of his
sins, wctuld with an effort at formal politeness, and as if
uneertain of the reception he was ahout to receive, stannner out
'How are you?' — each word beinjj; pronounced slowly and
separately, as if the situation were one of more than usual
p;ravity. Then takin<^ no further notice of us, hut closing- his
lips firmly, he woulci fix his eye on a chair that stood near the
fire-place, and piekin*^ his way across the room towards it,
stniff^linjf hard to keep up the ap[>carance of sobriety, would in
his efforts to sit down on it treat it as tenderly and carefully
as if it were made of <^lass ! Once securely seated, he would
take off his old torn and tattered hat, and sinkinj^ his chin into
his hand and laying his forefinger along the side of his nose as
if in thought, would fall into a kind of torpor, broken only by an
occasional emphatic 'aye! aye I ' as if in response to some
inwai'd soliloquy of his own.

Presently footsteps would be heard in the passage, and my
mother who had been bustling about in the garden or shed,
and was quite unconscious of his arrival, would come into the
room, and as she stood gazing at him in siu-prise without
speaking, he would rouse himself to turn routul. and with the
same guilty, half-silly smile with which he had greeted us,
would make bold to say ' How are you Nan ? ' But the sight of
his flushed and drunken face, daring thus with shameless
effrontery to confront her with 'How arc you ! ' added to the
(U!e{) indignation she felt at what she had predicted having now
c(»me true, was more than she could endure; and without
acknowledging his greeting she would step forward, and
contrary to her usual quiet and gentle maimer would break out
into a violent rage, ending up with ' You may go back to
where you came fi'om, for you will not come here to disgra(!e
my house, I assure you I ' Too far gone to make any effective
reply to this outbreak, he would fall back in defence as usual

108

MV UNTLK .r.VMKH.

oil IiiH old fnrmiilii, Mtaiiimcring out with difficMilty Imt witli nil
the cinpliiisis Ik! hud :it his cMinniiUHl, ' Von'n! wroiijf Nan I yoti'rc
<|iiito wroii^I I've not hud u kImi^Io "^lass ! not u Holitury jfluHs I '
Now hud my mother been |)os.MCrtHed of any sense of hnnuxir,
this astonishinjf remark must have eertainly outflanked her, and
shown her how futile^ it was to nr<^uo with hin> ; but in her
present «»utra<5ed mood, and althouirh she now heard it fV)r the
hundredth time, she still treated it as seriously as if it had
been made on oath for the first; and its barefacedncss only
served to inflame her the mon;. Openinjj^ her eyes wide in
amu/.eihent, und stundinjj; rooted to the spot us if entirely
unuble to do justice; to it, she would turn round to us
uppeulin/^ly, and say. ' Did you ever hear the like of that?'
then stridiiij^' towards him and bending over him would
point to his bloated face and general disreputable condition,
and exclaim indignantly, 'IIow dai'C you tell me you have
not been drinkin<;? Have vou not been sitting at old Yi — 's'
(the public-house in (piestion) 'for the last six weeks, until
}^ou have spent all your mcmey and been turned out at
last ignominiously into the street?' Then after a pause in
which there was no reply, gathering herself up and exclaiming
with reiterated emphasis, ' Hut you may go your way again, for
you'll not stop here,' she would sweep in a tumult of rage and
despair out again by the back door into the garden.

When she had gone, he would look round at us suspiciously,
as if we too were enemies, and in an aggressive manner would
rejjeat with the same tone of emphasis, ' She's quite wrong !
I've not had a single glass ! not a fraction of a glass ! '
and sink into silence again. But as we responded with
' Never mind Uncle, it's all right, it's all right ! ' the cheerful
and sympathetic tone of our words seemed to reassure him, that
in a moment he would become quite confidential, and with a
shake of the head and a ' poor Nan ' (as if nhe and not lie ought
to apologise I ) would then, glancing around at the door as if he
saw my mother's flaming figure re-entering, add in an excited

JIV I NCI.K .i.\.Mi;s.

1(V.>

- s

for
and

igl
a!'
ith
lerful
that
til a
light
f he
itod

iiiKUT-tonc, ahiioHt a wliiHpcr, ' Sh 1 — or who'll hear you.' All
hcing now romfortahlo between u.«, we would then jump on the
table and Heating ourselves then; as audience, ask hiiu to sing us
a song. This r('(|uest in the n)aiidlin state in which he then
was, and in which his moods could be turned on aud oil' like a
tap, seemed to please hiui greatly a-* a homage doue to his
abilities, and with a laugh of satisfaction, all his ciires forgotten,
he was soon well under way, his head loIling and face sufl"u>e<l
with inner ecstasy; while we tittering and giggling and pinching
one another in our delight, roared with laughter at tlu; fun.
Hut our boisterous hilarity was soon sunnnarily extinguished
by the re-entrance of my mother. She had been walking up
and down the shed in restless misery, all torn and fretted by
agitation and grief, when our hilarious laughter broke on h(;r
ear and bl(!w her troubled spirit into a flanu; (»f rage agnin. That
this 'old sorrow,' as it relieved her to call my uncle, sh(»ul(l
instead (»f hiding his disgrace and sitting in sackcloth and ashes
repenting of his sins, be so lost to all sense of shame as to dare
come to her house and turn it into ii very bar-room of n^n-oarious
mirth and laughter, weakening her discipline and destroying the
iiiortt/c of her home, and worse still that we her children instead
of frowning him ofl" in silent frigidity and disap[)roval, should
by our sympathy and encouragement gild and smooth over his
shame, was an aflront more than her nature could bear. Burst-
ing into the room in the middle of the song, she would rush first
at my sister and myself as the prime offenders in the disturl)ance ;
but we would already have read her intentit)n in her eye, and
jum|»ing off tin; table woukl be outside the door before she eoukl
reach us. Foiled with us, she would then turn round on my
uncle, and crying in her rage ' IIow dare you come here to turn
my house into a Bedlam ? ' would enter on a iletailed catalogue of
her grievances and his delinquencies, until she had unbosomed
herself of the weight of the indignation that was oppressing her,
and exhausted her last epithet of opprobrium and shame. But
as the poor inoffensive creature sat there hearing this recital

! /

110

MY unolp: ja:me8.

without a murmur, slie, now all upset at what she had said,
would in a sudden aocessof remorse fall from her hiffh indignation
into a ])Iaintive and pathetic lament. ' If instead of going to

old B 's,' she would continue, ' and staying there till all your

money was gone, and you were turned out into the street, you
had but come here and given it to me to keep for you, I'm sure
I would have been glad to take you in and to have made you
comfortable ; so that you could have gone back to your school
again and had something to put aside for yourself when you
were too old for work, lint now, all dirt and misery, you have
no clothes fit to wear; you'll have lost your school ; and have
none to take you in. Oh I if you would but drop that drink
which broke your mother's heart ! if you would but drop that
drink I ' These words of my mother's, the pathos in her voice,
and the essential love for him which thcv revealed, and
especially the mention of his mother's name, were sufHcient in
his druniicn mood, like the pull of a trigger, to set him off
weeping like a child. In an overflow of remorse, the tears
streaming down his bloated cheeks, the poor creature would sit
there in hel[)less misery, declaring that my mother was the best
of all his sisters, and sobbing out in broken ejaculations
'You're right Nan^ and I'm wrong! My poor mother I I'm
wrong, I'm wrong ! ' the tears continuing to flow with his
words, until my mother, her memory crowded with associations
of years gone by, which the scene had let loose, was unable to
bear it anv longer and left the room.

IV.

After a scene like this he would go back to the tavern, and
on his return would open the door gently, and passing through
the room in which I was sleeping, would, without lighting a
candle, grope his way through the darkness into a passage
leading to the back of the house. There, on a mattress which
my mother had spread for him on the floor, he would lay

MY UNCLE .TA^FES.

best

itions

I'm

his

itions

)le to

irougli
itiu"' a
mssage
which
hi hiy

himself down, clothes and ad, without a murmur, not dj rin^ to
come into my room in the face of my mother's indi<^iiation.
But at last, his money having long sin(;e run out, the publicans,
to my mother's great satisfaction, would refuse to serve him
with any more drink, and he would soon be quite sober again.
So great was her joy at this consununation, that she loaded
him with small attentions ; treating him with all her old
traditional respect, and even when in moments of ill-humour
the shadow of his misdemeanours happened to fall over her
mind, relieving herself of her irritation, not in the fre(! and
direct way we have seen, but by a mild and distant kind of
insinuation only, which amused me very much, but of which
he took no notice. And now it was that the deep effects of
his lonj; drinkinj; beijan to show themselves. He could not
sleep, and his hand, especially in the mornings, trembled so
violently that he had great difficulty in ligliting his pipe (»r
iiolding his cup of tea without spilling it. He mooned and
wandered up and down the house all day long, now going to
the door, now into the shed or garden, moving about as one
impelled from within by some haunting dream and luiabic to
rest. All of a sudden as he sat at table, he would draw his
arms up as if levelling a gun to shoot, then making motion as
if laying it by his side again would finish his meal in silence.
At other times he would rise from his scat in the middle of his
discourse, and going to the wall of the room immediately
op[)osite to where he sat, would s(piat like a crouching cat for
a moment, then springing suddenly u[), would sweep his hand
across the wall as if he were catching flies, and then resume his
vseat again. Now as he was cpiite sober at tlie time, and spoke
quietly and naturally, this extraordinary procedure so astounded
me that I took the first opportunity when he was (»ut of tlie
way to ask my mother what it all meant. IJut to this she
would only reply that it was all the drink, that she had often
seen him like it before, adding significantly, 'He'll have the
delirium tremens before long, you'll see.'

112

MY UNCLK JA.MKS.

My mother in the meantime would have washed and scrubbed
him into decency again, and now tliat he was sweet and
wholesome he was allowed to sleep with me. One night we had
gt)ne to bed early, leaving the big log fire burning brightly on
the hearth in fi'ont of us, but I had not been asleep long when
I was rudely wakened by his grasping my arm and in an excited
under-tone calling me by name. Starting up alarmed, I found
him sitting up beside me and gazing fixedly at the foot of the
bed. * Do you not see them ? ' he whispered excitedly when he
saw I was awake, and still keeping his eyes fixed on the bed ;
but except the ruddy glow of the dying embers suffusing the
walls of the room, and the loud ticking of the clock in the
silence, I saw or heard nothing. ' Mercy ! Do you not see
them ? ' he repeated siill more excitedly, and as if annoyed at
my stupidity, as in my gathering fears, now multiplied tenfold
by his voice and manner, I continued staring in the direction in
which he was looking. But before I had time to speak, shrinking
behind me as if seized by some preternatural terro., he called
out, * It's the devils ! Do you not see ? See ! they'i-e coming ! '
his eye still fastened in horrid fascination on the bed-cover, over
which legions of evil spirits in steady infernal file were trooping
with inexorable feet towards him. And when at last, the
seconds counting hoiu's with him, they were just about as he
thought to clutch him, with a horrid yell he leapt over the bed.
and sweeping through the doer, his night-shirt blown behind
him in the wind of his fiight, passed out into the shed. Without
pause or interval I leapt after him, distilled with fear, but
taking the opposite direction swept in a wide circuit around
the foot of the bed into my mother's room, and jjnnj)ed in
beside her. ' It's all the delirium ' was my mother's only
connnent, as in irritation she heard my story and tried t<i
persuade me to i-eturn to my own bed again; but it was of no
avail, 1 Avas not to be dislodged, and there I remained till the
morning, when nothing further was said of the matter and all
went on as before. In a few days one or other of his friends

MV UNCLE .lAMKS.

113

over

, the
ho
betl.
ihind
ithout
Imt
Iround
led in
only
h\ to

ofi
til

nd ill

liic

lul.-

ainonuf the farmers would in all probability call at the house and
take him with them into the country, to live with them until he
had quite recovered, and a school had a<»'ain been found for him.
But it was not always so easy to get him sober even when his
money had ail been sjjcnt, and sometimes, indeed, especially at
the Christmas holidays, the ditficulty was so great as to reduce
my mother almost to despair. The farmers from the country
round, many of whom were his friends, thronged the taverns in
festive jollity, spending their money freely, so that what with
borrowing from them or being treated by them in the daytime,
and the shelter our house afforded him at night, there seemed
no reason why his drinking-bout should not be })rolonged
indefinitely. This uncertain continuance of his <lrunkenness, by
foiling my mother's design of getting him cleaned up and in fit
state to return to his school again, so fretted a.id worried her
that at last in desperation she resolved to end it by locking him
f)ut altogether.

It was on a cold and frosty night about the New Year's time
1 remember, when about midnight 1 was wakened out of my
sleep by the sound as of a gentle tapping, and sitting up in bed
to listen, a lo\v and monotonous moan, as of somccmo weei)ing, was
borne in on us intermittently from the doorstep ; and presently
a voice like the far-off wail of some poor creature in distress,
moaned out plaintively, 'Nan, Nan! let me in I let me in!*
'It's that old sorrow come back again,' exclaimed my mother, as
she heard me sitting up in bed beside her to listen ; then
after a pause in which his multi[»lie(l ini(|uitics sc;emed to fall
thick upon her, she continued in a tone and voice as if the
roads to her heart were stopped to all pity, ' liut he may go
back to those who gave him the drink, he'll not stop here'
Now I was quite old emmgh at this time to feel that this habit
of his, of first spending all his money at the tavern, and then
falling back on my mother to keep him, was not right or fair
to her; and I tried to reinforce her in her good resolution.
Hut without paying any heed to me, or else telling me to hold

\u- 1

mmmmmmm

114

MY UNCLK JAMES.

my tongue, she oontinuecl hei* own course, going through her
^stereotyped round of denunciation in her own way, now in
soliloquy to herself, and now, after snubbing me, addressing
herself to me again as audience ; at one moment butti'essing
herself in high indignation, and again falling off into plaintive
lamentations, but still without showing any sign of wavering
ill her resolution ; when all of a sudden the sounds from the
doorstep ceased, and for some little time all without was as
silent as the m'ght. This interval of silence, in her present
high tension and imcertain mental ])oise, was sufficient to give
u new direction to her thoughts, as she seemed to see the poor
inoffensive creature lying there on the doorstep in this deadly
winter night, in a drunken sleep from which he might never
nwake ; and it was with a feeling of relief that a few minutes
afterwards we heard the tapping recommence, with the low
murmur as of someone weeping, in the pause and interval of
the sounds. Her good heart could bear it no longer, and,
jumping out of bed, she threw on her clothes, and murmuring
' T cannot leave him there to perish in the cold,' went to the
<loor and let him in. But scarcely had she done so and the
<loor had closed again behind them, Avhen I heard a confused
noise like the fall of some great tree, come from the neighbour-
hood of the door ! It was my uncle who had fallen in a
confused heap in the entrance when the door was opened for
him ; and once down he was unable to rise. There was nothing
for it thei'efore but for her to take him by the coat-collar and
without further ceremony to drag him along the floor to his
tnattress in the passage, and this owing to her magnificent
phjsiqne she was able easily to do ; and after all these years I
can still hear the sound of his heels as they scraped the floor,
niai'kinj; the course of the trail from stage to stag-c ! Leaving
him there for the night, she then returned to bed all breathless
and unstrung, to continue her laments, while I, now that the
excitement of the little drama was over, in the midst of it fell
fast asleep.

MY UNCI.E JAMES,

IIS

An «, ,t co„e,„„.,I on ,uul ,.ff W yea,,, nnt.I T g„„. ;„,„ ,.

I"g I. . , when ,„y „,K.le foiling nn.ler ,l,e inHnence of some

v,val,st.wi,„ l„„, v;,i.e,l ,l,e town, wa, ,„,,„ee,l .„ .-JX

pWko; and f,.on, that tin.e onvva,-,,,, until I left l,„,„e L ,. !

T o„.h the ,„fluon..o of hi, friend, a sehool wa, easily ^een™
tor n„ near the o„t,kirt, „f the town, he lodging with „, ,,
walk,ng to and fi-on, it night and nnn-ning. Oneo i,^ al e, e

wa,.,nitetheol,,go„t,en,a„ ag, d ^.ight be 1 t „

,n,nme,- evenn.g, .anntering along, hi, f^ee elean ,haven ad
-.ftugthean-withhi, long n„.ca,.ving nose, dre^ed ^ ™
».ca eo,at and ,t,aw hat, and ,howing underneath hi. ^potleZ
wht wa„teoatjn«t that degree of growing eorpnieney whiei

t d,gn,t.v an.l nnportanee to hi, flgn... „„t h/.i,, ..L„
l.e old l„aehel„,. ,n all hi, habit, and way, ; ,ti|| .-ose front W,
»eat every now and again to look at him,elf in the Mas" an
"lei."u«h eeasing to dye hi, hair, ,ti„ earried Wth 1 1™
snndl p„cket-eon,b with whieh when opportunity otferedt
save h„ seattered lock, that ,n,ooth„e„ of di,poL, ab , the
n„le,wl„eh he eo„,idered essential to his eLplete let
He dte,l shortly after I left Canada for England ! .and some

3 t ""^^,""" """ ""™"'«' "-y "- intervening

r!M le'h ir-'r;'- ■• '■? ''''-'"" '^'* ™ "-' *°

mmm

CHAPTER XII.

THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.

TN the open fields far back from the higliway and on the

extreme ridge of ground that rose above the dcej) waters

of the river, stood a small, plain, un})rctentiou8 stone building,

solitary among the wide expanse of stumps that surrounded it,

and showing its grey and dingy front to the passing traveller

as he journeyed northward along the road leading over the hill

from the village to the open country beyond. This rude and

primitive structure was the celebrated Grammar School of

Gait, which already in those years had Hung its shining beams

athwart the entire breadth of the Dominion, and had drawn to

itself pupils from the wide extent of territory lying between

the Great l^akes and the Atlantic shore. Hither as to some

great public school of the Middle Ages, attracted by the fame

of its Head Master, and the roll of distinguished pupils it had

sent to the Univex'sities, came in witigcd flights from far and

near the sons of the influential and well-to-do, as well as boys

from the village itself, and a small sprinkling of old veterans

who having been teachers themselves had come to acquire that

knowledge of Classics necessary to qualify them for higher

grades of responsibility in their own sphere. And here, too,

from (mt the fun ami mischief in which I had hitherto been

disporting myself, I was duly entered as a pupil in my

fourteenth year, Avithout ulterior or definite aim of any kind on

l.'!i

THE (SUAMMAIl SCHOOL.

Ughcr

|!, too,

been
li my
Bid on

my part, but the good fortune that had awarded mo the
scholarsMp wliich was open every other year to tlie most
advanced pupil in the viUage school. At the time of my
entrance there were some hundred and fifty pupils or more in
attendance, most of whom coming from a distance, boardc<l
with the Head Master, or in liouscs under his direct superin-
tendence ; the rest, cxt*ept those of us who lived at home in
the village, being (piartered at the homesteads of the farmers in
the country round.

The high reputation which the school enjoyed was ^\u(i
entirely to the iu\tiring energy of its Head Master, the great
Dr. Tassie, then a 15. A. of Dublin University, but afterwards
honoured for his services with the title of LL.I). — who
beginning some ten years before with only a dozen pupils, had
by his force of cliaracter and unique personality brought the
school up to its present high positicm, and to a condition of
working efHciency unexampled, jjcrhaps, among the institu-
tions of the time, lie was a stout thick-set man of about fifty
when I first came under his ferule, and although carrying with
him an easy rotundity and corpulence, still walked with firm,
elastic step, and bore himself with great stiffness, erectness, and
(lignity. In the sunny summer mornings a number of us boys
were! wont to congregate about the school-door awaiting his
arrival, and with that latent defiance of all constituted authority
which is ever ready to spring up in boys when they get together,
to beguile the time and snatch a momentary relief from the
deep awe with which we secretly regarded him, we would
profess to treat him as a good jest, nudiing jokes at his expense
and speaking of him lightly, and with easy braggiidocio as ' Old
Bill.' But when his inevitable ' white plug ' as someone
irreverently called the white top-hat he habitually wore, made
its appearance on the brow of the hill, and he moved towards
us over the dewy morning grass and among the stumps with a
tread steady and resolute as Fate, and especially when he
came near enough for us to see the great whites of his eyes as

mmn

118

THE UUAlMMAll SCHOOL.

ho threw them sideways ut us over his nose witliout moving his
head, like some ohl Field Miirshid, we involiintiirily composed
our features to a due decorum and resj)eot, as knowinj^ well
that the suspicion of a smile now would be (»ur doom. Onward
he would come, with the sternness and rij^our of the
disciplinarian in his whole carriapje and movement, and as if
conscious of his own footsteps ; h()ldin<r his stick poised in his
hand with a punctilious lightness as if it were for dignity
I'ather than use. His dark and sallow face, clean shaved with
the excejjtion of a pair of light tufts near the ears, was large,
square, and regular in outline, and although mounted and
embossed with a full, round, Roman nose sUidded over with
pores like a thimble, was decidedly handsome ; his whole
countenance, indeed, when in repose and with nothing to rutHe
it, falling into lines of great softness, and wearing by tlu^
confession of all, an expression of singular pleasantness and
courtesy. This expression, together with the soft, rich, tones
of his voice, which, however, had always a snap as of metal
somewhere in the rear of them, would by itself have misled the
unwary, had it not been for the iron dominion of his eye which
swept over us like a blast, and scorched and abashed all that it
looked upon. These formidable wea[)ons, before which the
oldest veterans trembled, were of light grey colour, and so
promine c as to show almost a disc of white around their small
central bull's-eve of grev : and had besides, that uncertain
scintillation and suggestion of the tinder-box about them,
which made you feel that they would strike fii-e at a scratch
and set all in a blaze. They come back to me now as nutre
like the eyes one sees in the portraits of Frederick the Great
than any others I remember tt> have seen, and when he raised
them on us (juite unconsciously and mechanically as he passed
us on his way towards the door, rebellion itself turned })ale and
nascent defiance withered and nielted away. Widking in
behind him in respectful silence, we would take (»ur seats, and
when the hand-bell had rung to call in the rest of the boys

TIIK (iUAMMAU SfUIOOl

11!>

the

liill

tain

nu,

itch

iioro

ITilt

(scd
and
in
and

who were phiyini? ahout in the flehl, after a short prayer whicl>
he read from a printed card, the work of tlie day wouUl bcj^in.

Ilififh on a raised platform at the up[)er end of the room, and
eommandinj; the whole of the o})en area between the row of
desks set apart for the senior boys on the one side, and tlie
lonj; row of benches linini; the wall crowded with juniors on the
«»ther, sat the Head Master hin>self in all his dijjjnlty and state:
bendinjf his car, book in hand, as he liistened to the lessons that
were being rehearsed to him by a select number of advanced
})upils, on a semi-circular wooden form before him. The rest of
the boys would be cither sitting in their seats waiting for their
turn to be heard, or standing at the bottom of the room reciting
their task to the assistant teacher; and for a time, except for
the shouts of 'silence' that rose ever and ajjain from the
Master, and rang like a trumpet over the rising hum, coercing it
into limits again, all woidd go smoothly and well. l»ut
presently some more flagrant misconduct on the part of one of
the elder boys, or excess of trifling in a junior, would arrest his
eye as he raised it casually from the lesson -book to take siu'vcy
of the rooni. In a moment his face would darken, and a
burning flush mounting to his brow, he woidd start from his scat,
and taking the ' tawse ' from the drawer beside him, would
descend from his platform to the arena below like some great
01ymi)ian ; his eyes all ablaze with passion, their great whites
rolling red with blood, and flushing, as was well said, literally
like a game-cock. Kee[)ing the tawse tightly in his hand
behind his back, he would move towards his victim with a tread
that shook the foundation and made the very windows tremble ;
and coining up to the culprit without further remark or word
of explanation than 'your hand, sir,' would lay on to it
ap})arently with all his force, but in reality with a self-restraint
so admirab'e and the stripes in number so nicely adjusted to the
gravity of the offence, that the punishment which seemed at first
like an eruption of Nature, might have been but the execution
of some unimpassioned decree. After which, turning round

I!,

120

TIIK (iKA.MMAU SC'ilOOL.

Avith u majesty aii<l (loiiiiiiion in his eye uihUm* which wo all sat
<'ovv('riii;r, lu; would move hacik to his scat ajfain with a tread
more tinu and resohitc than before. It was thirt steadiness ot
j^ait and movement when in the very lii<^h wind of passion, that
imitinji; witli the terror of liis eye, j^avc him that ahsohitc
4h>minion over our wills whicdi made us plastic in his hands.
Had lie Ix.'en Mustered, shricky, or hysterical in his violence, we
should at once have seen his weakness and revolted, (for the
mind even in boys must be first subdued) but this firm and even
tread, steady as tlu; tramp of a battalion, and keeping- time as
it seemed to some miifhty and invisible will, amiiliilated all
thou;^hts of resistance! ; and for the time bein<^ stood to us as tlu;
movin<r ima<;e of an overinasterinji; fate. Occasionally, on th((
occiu'rence of some more than usual a<^<rravation or stupidity, he
would lose his temper outri<^ht, and jumi)in<^ up book in hand,
would administer a series of (ruff's with it on the head of tlu;
offender, hissing out at the same time between his teeth, ' you
little <i;oat, you ! ' and following it uj) if necessary where he saw
signs of obduracy with ' I'll teach you, you little cross-grained
cat, you I ' (favourite expressions these of his botli, when f"rth('
moment he had lost his even balance), but it was only for a
moment, for in the next he would stalk back to his place again
■with great mnjesty, the very floor creaking under his iron heels,
as if in this high hour his sovereign will had 'stomach for us all.'
This inevitableness and rigour ran into all the appointments
of the s(diool, and by crushing out all ojjposing wills, made
evasion, opposition, or escape hopeless and impossible. On his
desk lay a slate, new-wiped each morning, and on it the names
of those who had missed their lessons were duly written down ;
and when noon came, and the list was read aloud in a voice
steady and remorseless as the roll-call of the doomed whom the
guillotine; mowed away, we knew all hope of dinner for that
day was at an end, and sidjmitted to the ominous vvonl
' confined ' that followed, as to some inevitable decree. When
the roll happened to be a long and aggravated one, he would

TIIK (JUA.M.MAK SCHOOL.

121

ds,

liiiiiself n'luain with uh, niul have his diiiner hroiiirht to him
hy one of tlie hoy« ; prcsidiuo- over the huriy-hdrly hiinsclt".
like Home iiiettniate spirit of order, — thrashint^, a(hiionishiiii>;
threateniuff, ac(juittiii^, — until in all thin<>;H the utmost syllable
of his will was done; and the day itself could n«)t close, luitil
the last name had hecn wiped from the slate.

When the culprit was too ohl to punish, he relied on the
terror of his frown, which was still more formidable. Anion<;'
the 'old veterans' who entered the school in my time, there
were three who in years at least, uuist have been the c<|uals of
the Master himself. Conung with the special object of
ac(|uiring a knowle(l<>e of Classics, they had been put into a
separate class by themselves ; and although sensible men all,
who had themselves held conunand as teachers, the ditticulty
they found in ac(|uiring and retaining without confusion the
most elementary forms of verbs, conjugations, or particles,
seemed to be almost insuperable ; and for sheer stupidity in
that line, the school had not their parallel. To bring them
forward more (juickly, tin; Master had taken them under his
own especial charge, and at a regular hour in the morning, they
might be seen standing in the middle of the open floor, await-
ing in fear and anxiety what should befall them. A more
singular and peculiar three, j)erhaps, or happier subjects for the
wit of boys, could nowhere have been found. There was old
(t — 'the single-barrelled,' with his one eye, and shock of red
hair, and a breath that would have scented the landscape;
old C — ' the silent,' who rarely spoke, but nuifHed up to his
eves in his rough and y:ri/zled beard was so deaf and harsh of
voice, that we used to amuse ourselves by mumbling to him
something he could not hear, for the express purpose of hearing
its rasp ; and lastly M — , younger than the rest and something
of a dandy, with his clean-shaved chin and flowing side-
whiskers trimmed with the greatest care, but with eye-lids red
and devoid of lashes as if they had been singed, and who
blushed like a maid when he missed his lessons and cauirht us

I i

lil!

I' ' .

122

THE aUAMMAU HCIIOOL.

Iioys ;;;i^^lln^' at liiiii from beliiiul our Ixtoks. There the tliree
stood, with UH hovH |)okin<j; ^encnil iiiul piirticiihir fun at them
ill a •rood-hiiiuounul way, all of which thcv took in excclli'iit
part, when preisently the Head Master wouM move maji'stically
down th(! room to where they were standin;^, and takiii^r the
hook from the hand of the nearest, would with <^reat di^fiiity
and a certain air of Huh-eonscir" cynieism, open tlie lesson
with 'Now Mr. C — proceed. .le exereisc for tin; day
would iKM'haps be the dc(*Iensioii of some simple (irreek noun,
hut C — would not have gone far in it before feeling himself
in a ina/e, he would begin to halt and stammer, and finally
getting the genders o» the noun and j)artiele hopelessly inter-
tvviiKjd. would l)e stopped short bv the ^^a8ter turning to M —
and calling out ' Tell him next." Hut AT — , already red to his
i'veballs as he saw us boys watching his confusion from our
seats, had hardly set out before he too would founder on the
same rock as C — , when the Master again looking over his
nose in despair at old (J — , ' the single-barrelled,' who was the hu;t
in the line, would with li[) coinpn hmI, and as if the case were
desjierate, say 'Now G — ,' at tl ne time raising the ball of

his toe and keeping it suspenut., iUere like an auctioneer's
hannner awaiting the inevitables colla[>se ; and when at last it
came the ball of the toe would fall, and with an ' P^nough I
gentlemen,' he would move oft" it, thrusting rather than
handing the book to them, and stalking back majestically to
his scat with a frown of scorn more withering than the lash,
would leave the ho[)eless three cowed, dmnbfoundered, and
speechless, to address themselves to their task again.

Among these older 2)upils, how^ever, there were two much
younger than the rest, whose progress in their studies had been
so rapid, that the Head Master feeling that they would do
honour both to the school and to himself, had taken special
pains to ])repare them for the University Matriculation. When
all was ready and they were within a week or two of the
examination, they suddenly changed their minds, and resolved

Tin: (ilJAMMAK SC'IIOOI,.

1211

lilll
t(»

ish,
iiid

t(» untcr iinothcr University iiiNtiituI, Hitiiuti'd in a distant [lait
of the Dominion, and in wliicli tlu> nniHtoi' for Home renHon or
other felt no interest or concern. lnstea«l, liowever, <if Htraijfhl-
forwardly ti llin^^ him of their intention, tliey chose rather, as
unable to meet tla; terror <»f his eye, to (|uietly al)sent theni-
Hclves from school, where (heir pn^scnee was no mori' seen. On
learnin<j^ tlu; cause of their al>s(;nee the master said nothing', l>nt
Ixiforc nainy days had elapsed he came upon one of them in the
open street of the viilaj^c, at a point wlicrc escape was im-
possible. Moving towards him with jj^reat statciliness, and a
countenance dark as nij;ht, he ad'ected not to sec him, and the
tr(!ml)lin<;" absconder was bej^imiinj^ to hope that he mij^lit pass
him by unheedetl. IJut jnst as they were alxtut to jiass (»ne
another, the master suddenly drew up, and layin<it the tiji of
his forefinger on the other's shoulder, called out in a voice of
command, 'Stop, Sir I" then bendin;^ over him with j^reat
dijjfnity, and lookinj^ past him but n(»t at him, delivered himself
with measured emphasis of this brief and lofty censure, ' Very
foolish course indeed, Sir! Very foolish course indeed I Must
foolish course I Enouj;h ! ' And with this word sealing' up
\^ ith laconic severity all o[)portunity of r(;[)ly, left him, and
sw'pt on his lordly way in triinnph.

Is<)W this imperial mien of his, joined to his fate-like steadi-
ness of movement and the terror which his eye inspired, woidd
of tlicmselves have been enou<;h to mesmerize our wills and
drive us flock-like before him as by the simple movement of a
wand; but to close up all outlets of license, or vents throuj'h
which doubts could be blown which mij^ht unsettle his |)resti<ic,
he further intrenched himself in the most impenetrable out-
works of condescension, dignity, and reserve, that 1 ever
remend)er to have seen. During all those years I never saw
him unbend, or appear in undress; on the contrary he was
lordly always, even the pleasantries in which lie occasionally,
but rarely, indulged, having all the stateliness of a court cere-
monial, A polished visor concealed his natural lineaments as

n't"' i

124

THE GItA.M.MAK SfllOOL.

ettcctivcly as an iron mask, and wlietlier he were not entirely
a mask ini<i;ht, bnt for the anger that shone througli this visor,
liave been an open qnestion. He had donbtless like the nu)on
other sides to his mind than those we saw, bnt like the moon,
the face lu^ kejjt turned towards ns wr i always the same. One
does not of course expect one's teacher to wear his heart
altogether on his sleeve, but during years of daily interct)urse,
one does expect to see some glimpses of natural predilection,
aHinity, or Innnour peering through. With him, however,
none such appeared. Whether he were fond of his office or
his boys, or had any preference for one boy over another ;
whether he; had any choice of friends or bookti ; any loves or
hatreds; any ulterior aims or ambitions beyond his own school;
any private griefs or sorrows, or iiuleed were subject to such
incidents of human life at all, nowhere couhl be seen; nothing
but the enamelled encasement with the great eyeballs glaring
through. Vou could never sur|)rise him in any ])lay of
thought, in any natural reaction of pity or of joy, never could
<'atch any emotion on the rise, unless indeed it were anger,
and whether that were altogether human or in large part pro-
fessional merely, could not be divined. It was shrewdly
suspected that his knowledge of classics, which was accurate
and thorough as far as it went, was limited to the requirements
of the University Matriculation examination, but if this were
s(t, we never got farther than mere suspicion, so cunnirgly did
he hedge himself with all the arts and infoldings of reserve.
Indeed from the easy assiu'ance with which like a c )nfident
swordsman, he took the book from you and asked you lo begin
anywhere, he might have been an Erasmus or a Bentley I When
wi^ sent in our Latin verses to be corrected, he was in the
habit of taking them honje with him at night under colour of
there being no time during school hours, but the hoarders
declared that it was in order to enable him to correct them
from the key which he kept l(»cked in his drawer. Occasionally
on some difficulty arising at the bottom of the class as to a

TIIK (ilJAMMAIt SCHOOL.

1 •>:>

\\y
lite
ents
ere
(lid
I've.

C'llt

l^in
icn
tlio
of

(M'S

iilly

oonjujiation or quiintity, a shade of uncertainty niijrht have
been .xeeii in Ids look and manner ; but he was not to be caught,
and turning promptly round to the head boy as if to test his
knowledge, but really, perhaps, to settle his own doubts, he
wouhl ask : ' Is he right '. " If the reply were in the attirniative
he would proceed as if nothing had happened ; but shouhl a
murmur of dissent arise anywhere on the ruling, he would at
once break up the class with a stern, 'Look it up. Sirs,' as if to
fix the correct answer more firndy in our memories. When the
dis[)ute had been settled by a reference to the Greek or Latin
liCxicon kept for that purpose in the cupboard, he would return
to his seat again, and picking up the book, would say with the
utmost .s«/(7-/V(m/ and indifterence, ' Well ? ' — and the correct
answer being given him, would proceed as if he had himself
known it all the while.

Even his pleasantries, as I liave said, had ab(»ut them all tlu;
air of a Court, and were guarded from familiarity by all the arts
with which majesty keeps unstaled its state. You were
expected, indeed, to respond to his faceiia>, but it must be only
by a simple yea or nay ; and to have ventured beyond this and
to hav(^ indulged in any slight pleasantry on your own account,
would have been at your instant })cril. For to his majestic
condescension he iniiteda facility, almost a pleasure in snubbing,
still more royal in its suddenness and rigour; and with a word,
a look, or even a movement of the head, he would smite you
without compunction to the earth. Sometimes during the
afternoon when the day had gone smoothly, and we were waiting
(piietly for the clock to strike the hour of our dismissal, he
would sit musing to himself in his chair of state overli>okin<>-
tlu; room, with that seductive graciousness in his countenance,
at once so sweet and yet so fatal, which his features wore when
in repose. Presently he would call one of the boys up to him,
a monitor p(!rhaps, and h»oking over his nose at him with an easy
nonchidance and something of archness in his smile, as if what
he was sibout to say were an exquisite [)leasantry, would remark

1 !

12()

TIIK (iKAMMAll SCHOOL.

i \

in the form of an intcrro<ratory, ' Do you tliink is ji gout ? '

(his synonym for a mixture of dunce and fool), and l)endinf]f
slijilitly towards liim and fi;ivin<]f liiin his ear ratlior than his eye,
he would await his reply. JJnt when the boy had answered yes
or no as the case might be, to sto]) further familiarity and to
forbid any suspicion he might have that he was being invited to
participate in the pleasantry, the Master would draw himself up
again, and with his emphatic ' enough ! ' would seal the
interview and dismiss him to his seat. 1 sometimes met him on
my way to school at a point where our two paths converged, but
as a rule he would jiass on before me without speaking or taking
any notice of me. On one occasion, on meeting him when he
was in specially good Inunoiu', he happened to make some
pleasant allusion to the weather, or the state of the ice on the
river below : to which I, [)r(mipted doubtless by the honour he
had done me, and the nervousness which made me feel that I must
say something to break the silence as we walked along, ventured
unthinkingly to add some opinion of my own as to the prospects
of the weather or the ice ; when without pause, in a tone most
smooth-tonifued but deadly, he snubbed me with a word, so that
my cheeks binned to the bone; and ever after, my dread of
meeting him, even when I was at the head of the school and
was being s[)ecially prepared by him for tlu; University, was so
great, that 1 would have gone miles out of my way to avoid him.
Many years afterwards, when I had long left the school and was
settled in London, he called on me when on a visit to England ;
and on my accompanying him afterwards to the station, I
happened unthinkingly to address him as Mr. Tassie, forgetting
for the moment that in the meantime he had had the degree of
IjL.D. conferred on him, when in a moment, as of yore, with
that look in his eye which I knew so well, he sl()p])ed me short,
and in a tone smooth as a razor and as cutting, said, ' I am
Dr. Tassie now;' and in spite of the years that had elapsed,
some ten or more, I felt as snubbed and humiliated as when a
boy.

THE GKAMMAU SCHOOL.

127

lilt

of
iiul

so
nil.

WilS

■ith

ort,
am
hmI,

My own progress in tlio scliool was rapid. The Head Master
heinjT mainly u classical scholar, Mathematics had hccn allowed
to fall into decay, and when I entered, had already been
releijated to an assistant master in an adjoining room. From
the first my knowledge of it, thanks to the excellent training F
had had, was more advanced than that of the rest of the hoys ;
and this among other things helped to give me that general
reputation for ability which I ah\ays hore, hut which was
<piite out of proportion to my real deserts. Indeed with the
exception perhaps of Mathematics, there was no single siil)ject
in which there were not scmie one or more boys, my natural
siijieriors. I had a qnick memory, and conld cram in great masses
of material in a short time, but it was wanting in tenacity, and
the knowledge thns speedily acquired was as speedily forgotten.
History I learned rapidly, but there were others who retained
it better; and as for Classics, although accurate enough in all
•details of conjugation, declension, and the like, there was still
some obstruction in my mind which made me construe badly,
and translate with difficulty. ^ly vocabulary, too, was stinted,
owing chiefly, I imagine, to my not having read any of the
ordinary story-books, where shades of thought and feeling
unknown in the talk of the play-ground find firm and definite
expression. 1 had, in conse(|uencc, great difficulty in finding
meanings, definitions, or synonyms for words hnpromptn ; in
turning verse into jirose, or prose into verse; and vvlieii for
exercise in English ('omposition, we were given such a theme,
for example, as * that the ages of man's life are like the seasons
<jf the year,' I can remember standing amazed at the fcrtilitv
and volume of imagination and fancy with which the other
boys illustrated and adorned the theme, while I, struck with
utter barrenness, had not a word to say. I had, besides, little
power of C(mtinuous effort, was better at a spurt than a steady
pull, had no toughness of mental fibre, and although resolute^ in
always returning to mv task, had the greatest difficiiltv in
keeping my mind from wandering perpetually from the page.

|(1

1 \-

128

THE (JUAMM.VIl SCHOOL.

I P

But it was only the smallest part of my conscious thought
that r ijavo to mv lessons, which were confined to the school
itself and the half hour or so before bedtime when the fun of
the day was over and my companions had all j^one home for
the night. For my whole mind was still centred on oiu* games
and play, on dogs and pigeons, on cricket and swinuning, and
on such miscellaneous mischief as raids on the farmers' orchards,
or the more dangerous enterprise of robbing the wild bees*
nests. Flitting fancies of future distinction as a scholar, some-
times rose before me, but they were quickly swallowed up in
j)lay again, and it was not until I had entered on the last of
the three years of my scholarship, that T began to seriously
entertain them. Stimulated at once by the successes of the
[)upils who had gone before me, by the high reputation I
myself enjoyed, by the flattering expectations of the blaster
and the boys, by my growing years and the necessities of the
nearing future, my thoughts turned vaguely, and almost
insensibly at first, to some kind of intellectual ambition; and
as Mathematics was the field in which 1 had won the most
flattering opinions, I naturally fixed on it as the aim and centre
of my hop(!s, and almost before T was aware of it, found
myself walking about encompassed with the most radiant and
"•lowine: fancies. I longed to become a great mathematician :
the very words had to my ears that grandeur and sublimity
that of themselves drew on the mind : and the rhapsodies of
my uncle, which had so often afforded me annisement, now
seemed all too inadequate for the great and glorious theme.
I would walk about the streets, solving jjroblems in algebra and
getmietrv as I went along, or w(»uld lie on the doorstep in the
evening or on the grass at noonday under the shade of the
sweet -smelling pines, and give myself up to reverie, the over-
arching canopy of my fancy flecked with golden dreams.

In the village, or town as it had now become, a Heading Room
had been opened some years before, and on its table lay the
choicest of the English and American periodicals. To this.

111(1
•lan ;
mity
(if
now
enio.
and
tlie
the
vcr-

THE GKAMMAI! SCIIOOF..

12D

Ueiidiiijf Koom n Library wtw attaclicd, coiitainiii!^ the best
known works in biograpliy, liistory, and fiction. It was here I
first came upon ' Punch,' and I can still reineinbcr how strange
and unintelligible to me were its cartoons and illustrations of
London life, where cabmen, boot-blacks, and crossing-sweepers
mingled and jostled in unknown dialects with squires and parsons
and footmen in cockades. Here, too, I first camo on the works of
Thackeray, and on dipping here and there into his conversations
and dialogues, with their subtle observances of place, priority,
and degree, and their modes of address all accurately shaded to
the rank and position of the various actors ; and all so foreign
to aiivthing 1 had known or seen: I again felt the same sense of
strangeness and bewilderment, lint it was not for this, or for any
curiosity as to the contents of journals, novels, or histories, that I
liauntod these rooms; it was to read the lives and achievements
of the Mathematicians. I soon came on what I wanted in an
old biographical Encyclopedia, where 1 devoured all ])articulars
of the lives and labour.-^ of such men as Newton, Pascal, and
liaplace ; brooding and dreaming over them as over some fairy-
talc of my childhood, and filled with a vague aml)ition that
when I became a man, I might be able to add to their labours
by some great discovery of my own. I was always filled, 1
remember, with a special joy when I found any point of
analogy or correspondence between the circumstances of their
boyhood and my own ; and coming one day on a portrait of
Newton in an old Magazine, — with his large, clean-shaven,
square-jawed, dreamy face, and his long hair fiowing softly like
a woman's over his ears, — and not finding any [)oint of
resemblance sufficiently to my satisfaction, I felt sad and
depressed. But when I went on to read the article itself, and
came on the famous saying attributed I think to Leibnitz, that
Newton ' seemed to him a celestial genius (piite disengaged
from Matter,' tlie picture raised in my mind by the phrase,
threw mo into such a transport of admiration, that I kept
re|>eiiting it over and over until T had woven it into the tissue of

■M

■PI

130

THE (illAMMAU S(!HOOL.

' I

my dreams. Hut a\\ this fine cxeess of adiniratinn was not mere
waste and evaporation ; on the contrary it was a real stinudus,
and left behind it a solid preciijitate of work ; for after giving;-
full rciin to my day-dream.* I would be so fanned and refreshed
by these currents which had blown throuj^h me like an April
breeze, that on my way home, recalled to reality again, I would
set to work on some problem that befox'c had baffled me, and
would not leave it until it was solved.

It was in this library, too, and at about this time that I
oame on the first book outside my school work that I can
really be said to have read. This was Smiles' ' Self Help,'
jind as I read in his [)agcs of how from among the waifs and
-strays of the gutter and the street, the poor, the sickly, and
the deformed, here and there some rarer spirit woidd like a
way-side flowei- venture from amid the garbage in which it
grew, to lift its petals to the sun like the children of the
iiappiest f'liines ; or of how from among those as little favoured
by fortune as myself, a few, more stiff-ribbed than the i-est,
had carved their way up to eminence and renown, I was all
nglow with youth and resolution and hope, and resolved that
one day I too should make a strike for distinction and fame I

Meanwhile the term of my scholarship was drawing to a
close, having but three months to run. I was now the head
boy in the school, and the next step would be to pre[)are to
gain a scholarship at the University ; but still the master
remained severely reticent and gave no indication of what he
intended to do with me. I began to feel very anxious and
uncomfortable, when one afternoon in the autumn he called me
up to him, and asked me if I were willing to prepare for the
University Examination of the succeeding year. It was what
1 had been so long waiting and hoping for, and so overjoyed
was I at the new [)r(»spc('r which o[)ened out before me, that
like another Ilaudet, from that moment I resolved to renounce
all fun and mischief, to wipe from my mind all trivial thoughts
of play and to let the University Scholarship shine alone in

TIIK GKAM.MAU SCHOOL.

131

to :i
lOiul
•0 t( >
:istcM-
at lie
and
(I inc
the
wliat

o\ ('(I

t hat
)i<ii('e

my sky like a fixed constclliitlon. 1 was now sixteen years of
age, and except for the thorough grinding I had liad in the
rudiments and groundwork of Chissics, the entire woi'k of the
curriculiiiu was new to me. It was therefore with more than
usual energy and determination that I set to work on it, under
the perso/ial supervision of the Master. The Iionour and pass-
work togetlier, inchuh^d certain books of Homer, Virgil, Livy,
Horace, Cicero, Xenophon, Ovid, Lucian, and Sallust ; but
wliat with the radiant fancies and dreams of ambition with
which I walked encompassed, and which threatened at times to
push from my mind the very means by which they were to be
achieved, the work itself; what with the tendency 1 had to
keep chasing all kinds of meteoric fancies ; what with the
difficulty of keeping my mind steadily down to my work. — what
with all tliis, together with the want of toughness in my
mental fibre, and the nervous exhaustion which attended any
sustained mental exertion, it was only by a series of swooi)s
and sallies, ever leaving the work and ever again returning
to it, that I made any progress. Hesides, in s])ite of my
renunciation of sport, I was still too young for so heroic a
resolve, and lost nuich of my time at play. But in the interim
it too had changed with the silent revolutions of my mind, and
was not to me what it had been before. It was now rather as
a casual outsider that I took [)art in the games, than as an
active participant : so that wiiereas formerly })lay was the ideal
world which encomj)assed the hard and earthy work of the
scdiool like a gilded firmanu'ut, now it had become a mere
relaxation, into which the romance of scholarships and
examinations dipjicd and playtnl, softly folding it in, and
lending ti) it the greater part of its sweetness.

In this way the moving year crept on apace, and on it the
web of my little life with its mingled tissue of wf)rk and play,
all shot throuirh and throuuh with ijolden threads of gossamer

O O Cj CD

and dreams, stretched ami unfoldeil itself as on a loom; when
suddenly about a fortnight l)efore the time of my going up for

:ii

! i

TIIK (illAMMAi: SCMOOK.

uxaininiitiun, I was taken ill. It wius m)tliiii;ji,-, ;i inci'c passiii}^
disorder, hut eatcliinji; my 8[)iritM at their el)h, it raised iti my
imagination a haunting fear of consumption whieh I could not
shake off; and I could neither eat nor sleep. The nmster,
prom|)te(l at once hy real kindness and the fear lest 1 might be
unable to go up for examination, Inid ordered to be sent to the
house a basket laden with the richest soups and meats, together
with a bottle of wine, with instructi(»ns that when empty it
should be returned to be replenished. Feeling better, 1 set
out myself for his house after nightfall, with the basket on my
arm, and on knocking, the door was opened by the Master's
wife — a very tall Irish lady, with a si)ontaneous kindness of
heart in her voice and manner — who at one(^ in a kind of mild
surprise ccmfronted me with 'Arc you Crozier?' On my
replying in the affirmative, she stood silent si moment and
surveyed me from head to foot, then opening her eyes wide in
ji fine Irish surprise, spontaneously exclaimed as if in soliloquy,
' And so thin too ! ' After which sympathetic outburst, she took
the basket from me and hastened away to refill it ; and returning
with it laden, placed it in my hand with as nmch sympathy and
kindness in her voice and manner as if I had l)een her own
boy ; and sent me forth on my way again. JUit as I walked
down the hill by the winding path from the house, her words
' and so thin too,' which at the time had struck ji momentary
chill through me, now came over me under the mild Scptend)ei"
moon with all their force, and I seemed to know that I was going
to die. It was the first sensation of that nature that I luul ever
experienced, and its association with the basket which I carried,
and the soft autumnal moonlight, together with the peculiar
unearthly feeling that came over me as I saw myself struck by
a mortal disease gradually wasting away, made an impression
on my mind which time has not effaced. Hut my speedy
restoration to health soon blew all these vapours from my head,
and on the eve of the examination, after a few parting words of
instruction from the Master, I started off for the University,

TIIK (J HAM MA II SmOOL.

hnn<rm<r bar-k with „„,' wl„,n I roturno.l the solu.Iarship which
for m lonir had !,<,.„ the i.„.ne<linte pri.o .,f ,„y a.nbiticn ; and
so hro.ight t., a dose my ,,cTi,.d of hoyhoo.l prope.N-f.-on.
which time forth my life entered on another sta-e.

PART I.

CANADA.

BOOK II.

I'll

MY TNNEll LIFE,

BKINO A CHAI'TKIt IN

PEltSON.VL EVOLUTION AJSl)
AlJTOBIOGKAPHY.

PART I.— CANADA.

i I

UOOK II.-EARLY SPECULATIONS.

I'HI!K\OL()(JV.

THK MAX WITH TIIK IJOOT-JACK.

HKLKilOX.

PAUSE.

A KKVIVAI. Kl'JSODE.

EVOLUTION NOT TO BE JUMPED.

A CHANCE OF METHOD.

A LAW OF THE MIND— WHAT IS IT?

THE MItK.VK-DOWN OF PHRENOLOGY.

THE POWER OF LANGUAGE.

M\ UNCLE AGAIN.

THE UNIVERSITY.

PKOIESSORS.

A NEW HORf ' •

CHAPTEK I,

PIIHEXOLOGY

J WAS l,t.nv(.(Mi seventoc. and ci^^htccn yours of acre when F
entered the rnivrrsity, l,ut I had not been tluTO more tl.nt.
u W(!ck or two, when to the ann(,yan(X' of my family and tl.e
disjrust (,f my old Afaster, I threw np the career on which I
liad entered with so mnch promise, and retnrned to my nativ.'
town. For now that the examinati(,n was over, and the
honours for which I had been strivin- were duly won, a,
reaction set in; and I had scarcely entered on my new course
of studies when [ lonj-ed to get h.mie a-ain. In\his curious,
:ind to me rpn'te unexpected revulsion of feelin-, a nund.cr of
strands of various complexion seem by a kind of unhapj.y
conjunction to have intertwincMl and knotted themselv(.s
together. Among other things, I had not yet recovered fron.
the nervous strain incident on the long and severe preparation
for the examination; and the presence of some triHi....-
.symptoms of b(,dily <Iisorder was sufficient to engender in mc
the settled conviction that I had not long to live. It was the
first time, too, that I had been from home, and in my low an.l
morbid humour the students with whom I lived, nearly all of
whom were strangers to me, seemed to wear a cold unfriendly
look, as if sei)arated from me by some infinite distance ; and as
I walked to and from the college a feeling of loneliness and
desolation attended mo, which only deepened the more as the

f i

13«

PHRENOLOGY

days piKsscd on. And worse than all, if I must confess it, T
had fallen desperately in love some months before leaving home,
and the sickening sense of longing that arose in me when I
ventured to look athwart the interval of time and distance that
separated me from the loved one, was the most operative,
perhaps, of all the causes leading to my return. But besides
all this I was tired of the class-room, and the barren exercita-
tions of the Matiiematics and Classics on which I had been fed
so long ; and was thirsting for some more inunediate contact
with the world and human life ; and as the prospect of having
to spend four years more, grinding in the same old mill, came
over my mind, it was more than 1 could bear. Accordingly
with a feeling of secret shame at the step I was taking, and
without acquainting anyone with my intentions, I suddenly
took leave of the University and reappeared at home.

IjOw and morbid in humour, oppressed with desolate fore-
bodings of ill-health, and with my heart all in a ferment of
confused passions and desires, it was natural that for some
time at least I should have sufficient to occupy my thoughts ;
but as time went on, with nothing to do, I began to feel the
want of sonje more [)urely intellectual .lim, such as 1 had had
in my long preparation for college, partly as refuge from and
partly as alternative or counterpoise to these harassing doubts
and fears. I had nevei' been a great reader of books, as
indeed my school work had left me little time for such
recreation, and niv iniajiination naturallv foiuid more delight
in the games and amusements of the playground than m
reading, and was luore stinudated by the characters, fortunes,
and achievements of the boys, and by observing the life going
on around me, than by books. In my later days at school
when my heart was set for the time on academic honours, it is
true 1 had conceived a great admirati(»n for intellectual
ability, and having won for myself some little distinction in
Mathematics, 1 was naturally led to regard the illustrious
name of Newton, for instance, as the svud)ol and ideal of

rHUEN()I.()(!Y.

139

intollectiial greatness, liut now tlitit 1 had abandoned all
these aeadeniic ambitions, and was an-iving at an age when
the very uprising of new desires of itself leads the mind to
wider interests and horizons, this admiration for intelleetual
ability continued, indeed, but gradually and insensibly began to
ehangc its foi'm and to centre around the more practical tyj)es
of greatness, such as men of the world and affiiirs, and the
great thinkers on the world and human life. Accordingly
after a prolonged holiday, when the lull and pause in
intellectual activity was becoming oppressive, I began to cast
round me in the hope of discovering iconic study or subject of
interest, that would again give scope, activity, and direction to
the more purely intellectual powers.

It was not long before this desire was to be gratified bv the
arrival in town of an itinerant Phrenologist, who in lofty and
high-sounding terms and with much assurance, announced his
ability to read the minds and characters of men by the
elevations and depressions on their skulls. A friend of my
own age with whom I was intimate, had gone to the opening
lecture, and on our meeting as usual next day, dilated on the
new-fangled philosophy with all the enthusiasm of a devotee.
I knew little or nothing of the subject myself, and had no idea
whatever as to ics truth or falsehood, but as he unfolded before
mc a chart or map of the faculties which he had brought ivith
him from the lecture, and went on to illustrate its meaning by
a comparis(m of his own head and mine, much to my dis-
advantage I remend)er, and on a point, too, which touched me
nearly, I began to feel decidedly scc[)tical and hostile I For it
so chanced tliat in the jargon of the phienologists there was
one ormin or facultv which loomed so high above tiie rest, and
carried itself with so imperious and mighty a port, that without
it all the environing faculties and powers were condennied
to feebleness, shallowness, and superficiality. This was the
great organ of Causality as it was called, the organ that
penetrated to causes and effects, the (u-gan of philosophy.

140

IMIUKNOLOOY.

of profundity, of ujcnliis. [ts sent was the top and sides
of tlu; forclu'iid, and by the reverence paid to it l)y tlie
|)ln"enoIoj4ists I was led to figure it when largely developed as
some frowning keep in whose inner reeesses were great dungeons
of thought of vast depth and inunensity. Now my friend had
this organ largely developed, as he was careful to point out to
nie, and so proud was he of his endowment, that he was in the
hahit of hrushing iiis hair «vell back from his forehead in order
to bring it into greater ])rominenee. My head, on the contrary,
had none of this obtrnsiveness, but was modestly and even
poorly developed in this region, and my friend in consequence
was inclined to assume a. cpiite royal air of iutcllcctual
superiority which my vanity was by nu means disposed to
allow. For I had. be it remembered, but recently acquired a
great rej)utation in Mathematics, and associating as 1 did
superiority in this branch of study with the great name of
Xewton, and Newt<m's name being everywhere synonymous
with profundity, I natm'ally enough plumed myself on the
possession of some small portion of that same gi'eat quality,
and was nuich picpied that my friend who had always been
backward, if not dull, at school, should give hiinseif such airs
of superiority on a basis so shadowy. Not that he was unaware
of my reputation or disposed to dispute it, but Phrenology had
taught him to make little of the pretensions of Mathematics,
which indeed it had relegated to a small organ above the outer
angle of tlu; eye — the organ of Calculation namely — as a thing
(»f no mark or circumstance, an organ which when compared
with the great organ of Causality overlooking the whole field
of thought with sovereign eye, was held in as little esteem as
was tlu! playing of the flute by Themistocles ! Hence it was
that on finding this organ of Calculation sufficiently developed
in me to account for my mathematical reputation, he felt
himself free to range at large over the rest of my head and to
label and pigeon-hole me and my capabilities in a manner l)y
no means to my taste. Hence, too, the distrust, suspicion,

rUKKNOLOliY

siiul hostility with which I regarded this new iuid |)retentioiis
science. But I had ground^^ more relative than this of
wounded vanity for my 8cci)ticisni. For while my friend was
so complacently summing me up, I was quietly running over in
my mind the heads of the boys whom I had hut recently left
behind me at school, and on comparing them with the various
powers of memory, music, calculation, language, and the like,
which they were well known to possess, I could find no corres-
pondence. It was with but languid interest therefore, in spite
of my friend's enthusiasm, and with nuich misgiving as to th(>
value of anything I was likely to get from it, that 1 consented
to accompany him to the lecture on the same evening.

The Professor, as he was pleased to style himself, was a
huge immeasurable mass of fat ; dew-lapi)ed, double-chinned,
and of middle age; dressed in black like a dissenting preacher,
and with face livid and congested as if he had ccmuc up in a
diving-'>ell from the deep sea! It was studded and embossed,
too, with carbuncles like a shield, and on every side widened
and expanded into such a desert waste, as to blur all the
ordinary lines of character and blast all the ordinary cnteriu
of judgment. But in spite of his great bulk, he was active,
even i-apid, in his movements ; and as \\v. walked to and fro
around and in front of the table, expatiating with unctuous
fluency on his great theme, his trousers wide and straight as
bags, and many inches too short, swished and swirled around
his legs lik(! breakers around a pier I .Vround the room and
c<»vering great ex[)anses of the wall on each side of him, were
hung rough portraits in black-and-white of the great, the
notorious, the infamous of all ages — the poets, philanthropists,
philosophers, and murderers — each in a group by themselves :
and as he illustrated his subject from these diagrams, pointing
now to the high and massive foreheads of a Shakspi'are, a Bacon,
or a Buonaparte, and comparing them witii the pinched and
stinted brows of the idiots; now to tlu; low and squat foreheads
of tin' villains compared with the high and sunny tops of

I'/l

142

I'lIIJKNOLOGY.

tlu; philanthropists ; or again to the small occiputs and necks
of the saints, with the thick hnll-nccks of the criminals, — some
of thcni with ears standin*^ out from their heads like sails,
others with them lying close and flat against the head like
cronchinir tijicrs, — the room was roused to hursts of admiration
and aitplause. After the lecture the audience were invited to
send up to the platform two or more of their numher to have
tiu'ir heads examined ; and when the Professor with one eye
on the audience and the other on the suhject he was manipu-
lating, groped his way among the bumps with his fat and
greasy fingers, and one by one picked out those peculiarities
of character or ability in his subject which everyone at once
recognized, the room rang loud with wonder and delight. I
was myself nmch im[)ressed with the truth of these readings,
and although still sceptical for the reasons I have given, was
so far carried away by the skill of the Professor and the
i'ontagious enthusiasm of my friend, as to throw myself into
the subject with all the ardour with which at school I had set
to work on some new and engaging problem. My friend was
convinced already, but to master the subject completely we
obtained a copy of Cond^e's Phrenology — the classical text-
book on the subject — and went through it over and ovci* again
with the gi'eatcst care, discussing with nnich animation and
heat the metaphysical questions (such as the distinction
between wit and humour, for exann)le), which like impalpable
gossamer arose here and there out of a text v/here for the most
part character and genius were ladled out by the pound ;is
from a grocer's scales ! In these discussions my friend whose
head the science flattered so highly, supported usually the
<loctrines laid down in the text, while 1, still smarting from
wounded vanity and with my old difficulties still unresolved,
for tl most part found myself in o[)position.

We vven^ not content, however, with mere reading, but set
(o work at the same time to investigate the subject by the true
iiaconian method of observation and comparison. Of the boys

m
ul
)ii

PlIUENOLOGl'.

143

Vrt

in the town most were known to us intimately and j)ers()nally,
and of the grown men and old ])eople nearly all were known hy
reputation or report. On meeting any of the boys in the street,
especially if there were anything [)eculiar about them, we
would be seized with the eager desire of seeing whether
the head corresponded with the known character, and the
nianceuvres we employed for this end were characterized alike
by wariness and boldness. The hats of the smaller boys we
would snatch off ruthlessly and without apohigy or remark, as
we [)assed them, while the bigger boys we would crimp or
impress by violence, and if necessary lay them down on their
backs like sheep, until we had made the necessary inspection
and examination I Hut with the boys of our own age we had
more difficulty. They had to be apjiroached by the more
circuitous routes of Hattery and persuasion, and to be made to
feel that consequences of great moment hung on the exact
configuration of a certain portion of their cranium ; while the
old men, again, like patients conscious of being the subject of
:*ome mahidy unusually interesting to the faculty, were usually
with a little coaxing easily Hattered into acquiescence. So far,
indeed, did we carry our curiosity, that no head could anywhere
raise itself uncovered in church, or street, or public meeting in
our presence, but we would instantly pounce on it like American
interviewers, and noting down its (diaracteristic features, store
them away in memory for future use. And so strong and
accurate did our memory of faces and forms become by this
exercise, that even after great lapses of time scarcely a hair
<'ould be displaced from its former position without our instantly
<letectincj it !

But the main field of our observation was the Harlx-r's shop
in the chief thoroughfare of the town. Ilcrc in th<^ cvenin<;
were in the habit of congregating, us in the Florence of
* Homola,' the h)cal jwliticians who had di'oppcd in to read the
newspapers or talk with the barber on the afliiirs (»f the country;
the weather-prophets ; the tradesmen intent on prices and

^m.

144

I'lIUKNOLOr.V.

prospects; nnd yonnji^ men reposinnj on the luxurious lounjijcs
juul \vaitin<]f their turn to have a * brush up ' before goinjij out
for the niglit. After our iisual evenin<>; walk we would look in
iis we passed, and take our seats anioniif tlu; rest ; and as each
customer in turn took off his hat and defiled along the passage
to the barber's chair, we would exchanjxe significant gla.a'es at
one another from behind the newspapers which we onlyurtected
to read, or if we were sitting together, would whisper into each
other's ears as if by a common impulse at the same moment,
' great Causality,' ' large Observation,' or if the head were a bald
one so that we could see the top, 'want of Finnness,' ' no Self-
esteem,' ' low Keverence,' or the like. Occasionally some
stranger would enter, and on taking his seat in the barber's
chair would exhibit such a boldness, breadth, and capaciousness
of forehead that we were constrained to believe that here at
least was a genius of sublime and heaven-born intellect and
powers ! As he rose to go, we would seize the opportunity of
starting a conversation with him with the object of drawing
foith these wonderful gifts ; but when as generally happened
we got no more for our pains than did Coleridge from the
bumpkin who sat ojjjjosite to him at table, and whom, for a like
reason, he mistook for a philos( ^^ihcr, we v'cre not in the least
daunted or disconcerted, but made our exit airily from the
situation by one of those numerous backstairs which, as we
shall see, Phrenology so libtn-ally provided for awkward and
inconvenient facts. The poor victims of this curiosity of ours,
guiltless of the genius thrust on them, were usually quite
unconscious of the homage that was being paid them, but some
(if the more vain among them, apprised like Malvolio <f a
greatness in themselves which they had never suspected, would
become suddenly self-conscious, and pushing back their hats
or brushing back their hair, would strut about with much

satistaction

! C

onsi

i<j these latter was the Barber

<]ucuous amon<
eves dusky and steep as a mountain cliff', and frowned o'er its

^elf.

I luisfe null

forehead that rose above hi;-

rilUKNOLOOY.

145

hilts
Inuch
larbei-
his

n' its

base like ii great sea-wall ! This nohle and capacious front wo
were in the habit of comparing with the massive head of tlie
great Daniel Webster himself, — always a kind of Olympian
Jove among the phrenologists, — and before the soul that lay
behind it, we bent in undisguised admiration and reverence,
listening to the lightest word that fell from the oracle, as if it
were from the mouth of son>e ancient sai^e. But the barber
like other oracles was much too wary to be entrapped into
giving himself away, and with a prudence and caution equal to
his vanity, was dumb for the most part, looked wise, and if
pressed too hard would end the discussion by emi>hatic mono-
syllables merely. So flattered was he by our admiration and
the sweet oblations which we heaped upon him, that as he
looked down from his height on the meaner heads of the
customers he was mani[)ulating, he would curl his lip iu
scorn, and to draw our attention privately to the marked
contrast between his own head and theirs, would look over at
us and vink most knowingly !

Now in all these investigations it was curious lutw well the
shape of the head really corresponded to such rough general
t' lits oi' character as self-conceit, vanity, conibativeness,
ocwretiveness, conscientiousness, firmness, and the like. Wheth(;r
this were due like the predictions of Zadkiel to a 1'ivv striking
coincidences, the exceptions being slighted, overlooked, or
forgotten; or whether, dominated by a pre-established harmony,
we unconsciously moulded the character to the head, as we
undoubtedly had a tendency to do with stranger^-i ; or whether
the heads of men, like their faces, have a physiognomy that in a
manner represents the character, as one sees in animals, witiiout
the necessity of assuming as the phrenologists did that the
shajie was caused by the pressure of the brain substance
unmediately underncpth ; whether for one or all or none of
these reasons I cannot say, but certainly at the time the
correspondence seemed to me to be established. ^Vith the
purely intellectual qualities, however, it was ([uite different ;

ii;

I'llUKNOLOtJY,

they could l)o ln<)u<^lit into corrcvspoudcMU'e with the organs in
the iorchcad only by ii series of cxttMHiations and ((iialilicationg
tliat woid'! have done honour to the apologists of miracles or
tlie resurrection ! For every difKculty, as I iuive said, there wiis
a hack door (»t" escape. If a head were very lariic and there
were notinnj^ in it, the fault nujst he in the (inality of its
hrain-texture ; if small and l)etrayin<j^ innnistakahle sijrns of
power, then its quality nuist bo correspondingly good to make
up for the deficiency in size. If a special organ were enormously
<levelo})ed, and yet the man gave no sign, his temperament
nuist be Habby, or the convolutions of the brain shallow and
shaken out, or the blood-supply poor in quality or com[)()sition,
or the brain itself may not have matured; or if all else failed,
perhaps the man, like the hackneyed ' Paddy's jjarrot ' thought
more than he said ! But these shifts instead of rendering nie
more sceptical, fell oft' my mind like dew, and it was evident
that from being sceptical, suspicious, and hostile, as at first, I
had jum[)cd to the point of fixed and absolute conviction ; and
the whole process by which this took place, and by which the
mingled mass of truth and falsehood was kept togetlier and
prevented from splitting and wrecking itself in contradictiim,
has always seemed to me to be a fine illustration and epitome of
the ojjinions and beliefs of men. A few instances so striking as
to seem more than mere coinciilenccs, generate a belief more
absolute than a wider induction of facts would have warranted ;
and this belief, or 'assent' as Cardinal Newman would have called
it, being once for all stamped on the mind as on a coin, becomes
in turn itself a despot, coercing all the recalcitrant, exce[)tional,
or fiatly contradictory facts into the image of itself , or huddling
them away in some dark box over which oblivion is allowed to
settle until such time as the system from inherent weakness,
<'hange of attitude, or convicted inadequacy, begins to crack
and split of itself, its top and sides fall in, and the obnoxious
facts, like disimprisoned genii, are once more set free again.
Be this as it may, certain it is that we were now both

PIIUi:\()L()(iY

147

conviiu'od tliat wo wen; in possession of truths tliat by their
v(!ry excess of Ii<>lit struck all the past of the world into
darkness; and the etU-ct of this on ourselves soon began to
manifest itself. Althouf^h sharing as usual in the sports, the
frivolities, the ])astiines of the other boys — in dances and
parties and ]>icnics, in skating and swinnning and cricketing
and wrestling — we n(!verthelesa in all matters of opinion or
belief, held ourselves high aloof, not so much with any
obtrusive insolence or overt affectation of personal su[)eriority,
as with a sensitive pride and lofty reserve, like high-caste
Iirahmins, shrinking from contact Avith the ojjinions of the
vulgar, with whom to taste the pleasures of thought in connnon
were a kind of degradation ! We walked much alone and in
couples like young curates, holding ourselves as a peculiar
priesthood, and keeping ourselves, spiritually at least, unspotted
from the world. Our sole book and gospel was Combe's
Phrenology, a work we held in much the same reverence as the
Kaliph Omar did the Koran when he said of it that all the
lil)raries of the world might be burnt, for their value was in
that book. As for the world of thought and speculation before
Phrenology, to us it was wrapped in as nuicli darkness as
Astronomy before Copernicus or Newton ; and the genius of
its great men seemed to us as different in (piality from that of
the foinulers of Phrenology, as in the old Calvinistic theology
natural goodness was from ' prevenient grace'! And this
disrespect for the wisdom of the ages, far from seeking to
extenuate or deny, with the characteristic thoroughness of boys
we carried to a contempt quite royal in its sublimity. In the
course of our examination of the pcu'traits and heads of great
men, we had been often struck with the prominence in the
head of Shakespeare of what the Plu'cnologists called the organ
of ' Human Nature,' as indicated by the great height and
prominence (rather than breadth) of forehead in the middle
line running up over the brow. That he was supposed to be
one of the greatest men that ever lived we knew, and that

148

I'lIKKNOLOOV.

his <freiitiios.s wiis supposed to li(! cliietly in tliis very knowledge
of huiiiiin iiiitiii'o we hiul <»ften lieiinl, hut wo liiul nc^ver rejid
liis works. We resolved, iu'eordin<^ly, to put these hiyh
pretensions of his to the test, and procurin<( a eopy from the
library, took it with us one beautiful summer afternoon to the
high ground above the I'iver's baid< ; and there in the shade of
the sweet-smelling pines, opened at the i)lay of 'the Tempest.*
I can still remember how impressed we were at the very opening
of the first seene, by his command of nautical [)hrasc()logy, and
of our wondering whether it were not in this sort of thing that
his greatness lay ; and how struck, too, wo won! as we read
along, with his unexampled power of language; but as to his
so-called knowledge of human nature, — we wore by no means so
certain I We had expected to find the distinguisiiing traits of
the various characters clearly cut out like Chinese figures, and
labelled each with its api)roi)riate s[)ecification ; and moreover,
to be told in plain terms after the manner of the phrenologists,
what relative proportions of vanity, pride, ideality, destructive-
ness and the rest, these Ariels and Calibans and other characters
bad in their composition. But not finding this, we were nuich
disa[)p()intcd, and thought that in this boasted knowledge of
human nature we ourselves could have easily given him a })oint
or two I lint then, what could you expect, wo reflected, from
one who lived before Phrenology? As we read on, however,
and came at last to the j)assage where Caliban speaks of
himself aiul his companions as being ' turned into barnacles and
apes with foreheads viUainous low,' gn^at was our admiration
and delight. What an anticipation of Phrenology, we thought !
And what a tcstiniDuy to the truth of our favourite study!
And what vuitutorcd powers of observation, too, did it not
reveal ! We were chiu-mod. AVas it any wonder that ho should
have had the organ of Human Nature in such ami)Iitude as all
his portraits showed? And if such powers of observation could
exist in the green tree, what would they not have been in the
dry? Would tliat he had uot lived before Phrenology !

i{ I

Iii^h

CITAPTEK II.

THE MAN WITH THE ROOT-JACK.

JT w.-i,. wl.ilo this enchiintinent m-.-xs at its height, and the
pretentions of Phrenology were hlown so higli as to fill the
whole intellectual sky, that there appeared on the scene a fi-uro
who by hi. assiduous care and nursin- kept the bubble a while
longer from bursting in my hands ; and who besides, by the lofti-
ness of his n.oral ideal and the stinudus he gave to all that was
purest in my own intellectual aims, left abiding traces on my after
years. Tliis Avas the ' Man with the Boot-jack,' as he was calh;.!,
ii njysterious fi;rure who suffered from some obscure aff-ection of
the brain, whic'i caused him to wear under his chin for su])port
to his head, a piece of board cut in the shape of a boot-jack, and
who at the tim'3 of which I am writing was living solitary
and alone some few miles from the town in a little unused
cottage in one of the outlying clearings reclaimed by the early
settlers from the primitive woods. J had never seen him u.yself,
but had often hea-d of him as being deeply learned in many
things, but especially in the mysteries of Phrenology, to whose
innermost secrets ho alone in all that region was 'said to hol.l
the key ; but in my o>vn private imagination I had ahvays vaguely
figured him as some long-bearded, white-haired, old hermirwho
liad gone wrong in his mind, and who had hanging about him,
hke another Faust, an uncanny taint of the Devil and the Black
Arts ! With fancies like these in my mind, it so chanced that one

150

Tin: MAN WITH TIIK MOOT-.I Af'K.

li' ,

(lay iiH I was walkiu<j al()ii<^ thv Ilij^li Street, I t^aw approacliing
mo (III tilt! (ttlicr side of the way a tall, wtraii^iit, and aliiio.st
Htalwart fij^un,', in niiid-lx'Hpattered boots us if he had just come
in from the country, and stalkiii;; alon;;' with Muich animation
and vi<,'our. He was dressed in a roundaltont coat of coarse
{^rey twcjed, which him<; loosely on his raw square shoulders as
on a Hcreen ; and as he approached, 1 observed that his chin
rested on a hoard, and the board a^^ain on his breast, the whole
formin<j; a structure as solid as the beards on(( sees on the statues
of old E;^'yptiaii kin<;8 ! This nuist be th(! 'Man with the Hoot-
jack' I thouj^ht to myself, as I conjured u|) all I had heard ; and
at the thouji;ht a tremor passed over me, and my heart bej^an
to beat as violently as if I had come on the fiy;ure of 'Nick of
the Woods ' himself ! It was with some sense of relief, however,
that instead of the old, decrei)it, and lon<^-bear(led hermit of my
ima<;ination, 1 saw a man of middle life with a thick, brown,
short-cut beard, and walking with a step free and elastic as my
own ; but as he came nearer and I could see his jialc and hag;^ard
face, and especially when from abov(t their dark and hollow caves
he cast his <^reat eye-balls, round and whit(! and unearthly, as I
thoujiht, across the street at me, there came over me the same
uncanny feeling as before.

It was not long after this, that one afternoon as I was
standing in the book-shop looking along the shelves, the same
figure entered, and seeing me, walked straight up to me, and
without further ])reliminary held out bis hand, saying simply,
' I want to make your acrpiaintanee.' His voice and ujaimer
were so frank and natural that befon; I had time to think who
was addressing me, I was put completely at my case ; and when
a moment or two later he suggested that we should take a walk
together, I was williny; and even ea<>er to ""o. As we sauntered
along he continued chatting in the most free and agrecalile way,
now and then stopping to shift his boot-jack and ease its pressure
on his chin ; his manner altogether being so simple, direct, and
sincere, so free from all trace of afFectatictn or egotism, that I

TIIK MAX WITH TflK lU )()T-.IA(!K.

l.M

waa cliiirnicd. But wimt dclijflitcd and llattcnMl inc most,
IKM'Iiaps, pci'Honally was tho way in wliii!li lio allowed me to fix
the theme and <flvc the cue to the 8id)j('ct of our eonversation,
while he f<tc|)|)ln^ hchind, as it were, and Usteniiij; with
sympathy imd attention to what I had to say, instead of directly
contradicting me when he disajjjreed, would wind round the
suhject circuitously, and float it {gently oiY its <ild
moorin;;s, expandiuiij and enrichin<^ it at the same time on all
sides with the ahundance of his own knowledf^e and experience.
In all that he had to say 1 was struck with his clear intelli<fenc(!,
and the admirable appropriateness and conunon-sense f his
remarks on the casual topics that turned up; hut espcci-iily l>v
his <>;reat and artistic powers of ex[)ression, the richnc-s tvu]
fluency of his s[)eech, which moved spontanc.'ouslv to its
predestined end without pause or luisitation, with the measiured
and even tread of a stately and studied harangue; and was
decorat(!d all ah)ng its way, hut not overlaid, with various and
pertinent analogies and nu-taphors drawn from the trees, the
fields, and the flowers. Suddeidy when the conversation was at
its height and was becoming most interesting, he stojjped short,
and without having shown any ju'cvious sign of fatigue, said he
nnist not go any farther as the strain of conversation was
beginning to affect his head. On seeing a look of wonder
mingled with my expressions of sympathy, Ik; went on to
explain (touching his boot-jack by way of token; that he
suil'ered from some obscure afli'ction of the brain whicdi had
puzzled and ItafHed all the faculty ; and that it was owing to this
that he had been obliged for many years to give up all reading,
and that even conversation when it had passed a certain point,
fatigued and distr(!s.sed him. The sensation, he said, was as if
a band of iron were being bound round his head and pressed
further and further into his temples. Besides he was particularly
sensitive to all outward impressions ; the mere presence of a
person in his room when he was aslcej) being suflicicuit to awake
him, and even when awake, to exercise a distinct influence over

I-!

ir)2

THE MAN WITH THE BOOT-JACK.

iil

liim ; some people, he explained, affecting him in his hody
chiefly, others in his head, and others again (he went on to say
to my amazement, 'yourself for instance') in hoth body and
mind ! I was more perplexed than ever at this, and began to
feel a return of the old uncanny feeling, but he not noticing it,
went on to say further that this sensibility to impressions was
very marked in the case of sounds, and that he was obliged to
have all tlie crat^ks of the doors and windows stuffed with wool
to keep out the niiinnur of the mill-stream that ran by his
cottage door: antl that instead of sleeping on a bed like other
people, he was obliged to lie on the floor in order to k(!ep off
that fear of falling down through infinite space, which Inumted
liim when in bed. As I listened with wonder to this strange
recital of symptoms which I had never heard of before, I
suppose my face must have betrayed some slight shade of
incredulity, for he quickly changed his tone, and by a suildcn
transition l)egan to complain bitterly of the doctors who
persisted in treating him as a hypochondriac, and his sym])toms
as a delusion; and of his neighbours, some of whom thought
that the ' boot-jack' was a device of his to escape from woi'k,
and others thiit his symptoms were the dreams of a disordered
imagination merely. And with these explanations he shook
hands and turned back, leaving me to my own meditations on
the stranjje thiniis I had seen and heard.

After this oiw first meeting, he was in the habit of coming
into town on Saturday afternoons in the sununer nionihs to
see me, and that we might have a walk and talk together.
On these occasions we retired for the most ])art to the high
ii^round above the bank of the river, or to the hills that skirted
the valley on either side, and which were still, at the time of
which I am writing, more or less dotted with the pines left
standing from the original clearings. Her ( lying on the grassy
slopes, with the birds and grasshoppers ingmg and chir})ing
around us, or pacing slowly backwards and forwards in some
.secluded walk under the trees, he would listen with interest

;. i

TIIIC MAX WITH TIIK HOOT-JACK.

i:>:\

iind syinpatliy to my own outpourinjis, imafrininjj^s, and dreams,
or wonld liiniselt" discctnrso to nio in strains which to my youn<f
ears seemed suhlimc as those of I'lato in the irroves of Academe.
Scarcely a knoll, or houkler-stone, or trunk of fallen tree
around the wide circuit of the hills but remained in after years
as memorial of some enlarmu'r view of the; world which he had
opened out before me there, or was jissociated with di-eams and
and)itions of my own, alas ! long since dei)arted. Once and
once only di 1 1 make a i)ilgrima<2;e out to his hermitage to see
him, and this by his own express desire. It was a bright
sunnner morning, I remcnd)er, when filling my case with cigars
1 started oil' to do the distance on foot — some six or seven
miles perhaps — and after a long and dusty journey on the open
highway, following the instructions I had received, 1 plunged
into a little [)athway leading through the woods, to find myself
at the end of it looking out into an open clearing where far in
the distance lay the little log cabin of my friend, nestling in
its solitud(! among the trees. It was past mid-day before I
arrived, but he was still in bed, and after knocking htudly once
or twice I sat down on the (Utorstep to await his ap[(earance.
Presently the door opened, and there stood before me, an<l
strct(diingout his hand to welcome me, th(> philoso|)her himself,
without his 'boot-jack,' and with his hair and beard all I'oughand
unkempt as if he had just got out of bed. (ilanciug around
the room as he was dressing, I noticed that the doors and cranks
and chinks were, as he had said, all stuffed and barricaded with
wool ; and in the inner room beyond, the mattress on which he
slept lay stretched on th" Hoor itself to [)revent the horrible
feeling of Tailing through infinite space, whii-li haunted him
when he was in bed. After breakfast which he prepared him-
self, frying the bacon and making uuv tea with hi;< own hand,
wc retired to the old saw-mill that lay some yai'ds from his
door, and there, protected from the sun Ijy the roof, and with
the soft summer breezes blowing fresh and cool through the
gaps in its ruined sides, we sat and smoked and talked and read

1 :)i

THE MAN AVITH TIIK llOOT-JACK.

until toii-time, when we rose and went into tlie house again.
It was after sunset before I started for lionic, wlien he
aeconipanied nie througli tl»e wood to the highway and for a
mile or two along the road, before he left nie to return ;
making the very night air sweet for the rest of my journey
with the lingering aroma of his discoui'se, and leaving the
memory of that day in after years as a [lUre and ilelicious
<lream.

During the earlier period of our acquaintance, our conversation
as was natural from my enthusiasm for the subject, turned
chiefly on Phrenology ; and as I led him over the old familiar
ground, he would follow with that kindly acquiescence and
deference to my inclinations, which had so charmed and flattered
me on our first meeting. His own knowledge of the subject
was extensive and of long standing, and his belief in it had been
and from first to last remained entire and unclouded. He was
familiar, therefore, with all those (jualifications and extenuations
by which, as we saw in the last chapter, the want of parallc;lism
between the chai'acter and the cranium was to be smoothed and
explained away ; and when, as often happened, I would j)ut to
him a case familiar to us both, where the breach between the two
was so great as to pull me up i ad give me sudden [)ausc, he
wonld look at the difficulty for a moment, and witliout a ui.'.scle
muving would take it with the utmost coolness and < ase ;
leaving me, if not always ([uit(! satisfied, still lost in mute
astonishment at his powers. Indeed for dexterity, ingenuity,
and lightness of touch in difficult situations of this nature, he
was without a parallel, and as an honest casuist, might have
taken rank with a bishop ! Had it not been for him, the whole
system would have cracked and fallen to pieces for me long
before it did, but thanks to his skill in propping its falling
tind)ers and bnttressing its tottering sides, it continued yet a,
little longer to hold itself together.

One of my chief debts to this strange and in many ways
admirable charucter, was the stin)uhis he gave to all that was

THE MAN AVITH THE BOOT-JAf'K.

1.5;-)

'■.

pure and liif^li in my own intellectual aims. His own life was
^<im^)le and unalloyed with worldly emulations and ambitions,
and durin<f the few yeax's of our intercourse wc met and walked
and talked as if there were to be no past or future but all was
to-day. No allusion so far as I remember was ever made to
private or |)ersonal a<lvancemcnt, to trade, to money, to
business, or any of the baser ambitions of the world, none to his
fortunes or mine, to what I was j2;oin<^ to be or to follow; but
embowered and enfolded in an atmosphere of sweet and j)ure
contemplation, and fed on angels' food, life was to be one lon<^
holiday, one lon<^ sweet dream.

Hut his moral influence was not less beneficent. For below
all this fine serenity and repose of intellectual enjoyment, my
heart had long- been troubled with a confused turmoil of
distracting emotions. The little love-e[)isode that had helped
to bring me home from College, and which had begun so bright
and sunny, had since then sunk through lowering clouds of
jealousy and gloom, and was now staggering down to its final
collapse. The young co(piette to whom I had given my heart
had sought to rejjay my constancy (which in spite of my
gen(!ral light-heartedness was all too deep and serious in atVairs
of the heart) with a light capi'icious vanity and flii'tation by
no means to my taste ; and moved to it by Hattery and self-
love, was beginning to welcome each new face with a [in, fusion
of (lini[)lcs and smiles ever more seductive and sweet ; while 1,
blown on alternately by love and jeah)usy, and swept by hot
irregular gusts of indignation and passion, now in high access
of hope, now in melancholy despair, lay stretched in the giip
as on a I'ack, until I had the strenuth to cut the tvrannous
chain, and was free again. Now in all thi> 1 had made my
friend my confidant, and at each new accession of jealousy was
temjjted to some momentary act (jf (hep desperation as I
imaginc'l it: but on it all he spriid<lcd cool patience, reason,
and a high morality, for which, though disagreeable to my then
tem|)cr as a first cold plunge, I cannot be too thankful. Like

(:(l

15()

THE MAN WITH TUK IJOOT-JACK.

Socrates of old he ever kept his eye not on thv; outward and
visible effects of actions whatever they mi<rht he, hut on the
ruinous recoil on the mind tliat follows on any deviation from
the straight hut narrow path ; and when I had (ionjnred up,
for exam})le, some scheme for bafHing a liated rival, wliich had
lectured itself to my e<>otism and self-love as a piece of sweet
poetic justice ; and had hastened to meet him on his arrival in
town to pour it into his sympathetic ear ; he would listen to my
recital, and like a pro|)het <if old lift up his hand against it
unmoved through all the clouds of sophistry by whi(!h I sought
to win his consent, until my fit was past and I >vas myself
again.

To him, too, 1 owe my first serious attempt to subjugate the
vanity and conceit which were now at their fimvering time
with me, and \vhich I already felt to be rej)tiles throwing a
trail of slime and baseness over all of good that I thought or
did. Of all the- feelings of the mind, this of vanity was the
su'n'eme olyect of his animadversion, and the theme of his
constant censure ; and I can remember in one of our titlks his
telling me a propo,^ of his ' boot-jack ' 1 think, that when lie was
at my age he was himself particularly under the dominion of
this hated weakness, but that now he had succeeded in almost
completely eradicating it; and yet not entirely, for on his bud
days as he called them, Avhen his head was more than' usually
affected, lie was aware of being more self-conscious and
sensitive to other people's opinion than was good or right, and
more alive to the impression lie was producing on others than
was consistent either witii dignity or erectness of mind. It
was the absence of all trace of vanity, so far as 1 (!ould see,
tf)gether with the generous and nii-ble disregard of himself
which it gave him, when compared with my own self-conscious-
ness and conceit (always looking in their own glass as it wei*e),
that first won my admiration anil esteem : and now that he had
definitively admitted that he had succeeiled in van-juishing a
passion tf which he ha<l, once been the slave, I too was resolved

THE :\rAN WITH TIIK ISOOT-JACK.

157

t(» make the attempt, and ke[)t constantly asking him, I
remember, liow he liacl set about its subjiijrration. But beyond
the vague general fact that it had been with him almost entirely
a matter of time, I could learn nothing definitely of his secret,
and after several inertectual attemi)t& to eradicate the vice by
the direct method of declaring forcibly and repeatedly to
myself that 1 would no longer submit to its yoke, I gave up
the task as hopeless and awaited a more propitious day.

• -HI

CHAPTEK III.

RELIGION.

A ND yet in hplte of the iictlvc fonnent of tliouglit :iii(l ciiiotion
-^ tliiit was ji;oing on witliin nic, tills was intellect nally,
|»erhaps, the happiest time of my life. There was in the very
narrowness of my views, a fullness, completeness and even
harmony, that like the beatific visions of the saints enwrapped me
in supremest peace. My faith in Phrenology as the snnunit and
last expression of human wisdom was as yet, thanks to the careful
nursing of my friend, entire and unshaken. I had no inune-
diately pressing wants, and like most boys nndcM" twenty was
too young for the thought of the future to giTC me even a
passing care.

For I was still in the bright and joyous morning-tide of life,
splas'.iing and refreshing myself gaily in its shining waters — its
games and sports and young ambitions — inuncrsed and abscjrbed
in its glittering baidjles around which all the lustres {dayed :
still in that golden time when the world over-arched with hope
was a resplendent vision along whose vistas no horizon was
visible, and in which imagination, insatiate and unbaulked, and
ever on the wing in search of fresh delight, found infinite scope
wherein to l)'ay. Unruffled as yet by the cares of life, unworn
by its sorrow, and si[)ping its dew and foam at every point, the
Present was to me an infinite content ; while the Future hung
aloof in the far ott" sky like a resplendent moon, before as yet

H '

UELKilON.

io'.t

the creeping and Inevitable yeurs hiul rounded in its glories to a
span, or presaging experience, i»iercing the mask of distance,
had unveiled behind its shining face an airless rocky globe. I
liad as yet heard no voices, seen no visions to make the solid
all-confiding earth yawn and (jnake beneath nie, and 1 was
altogetlier too young to have liad any such experience as that
which befell St. i*aul on his way to I)anias(!us. Of Salvation,
therefore, in any sense of tlie term realizable by me, that is to
say of the necessity there is of some haven of harmony and rest,
some al)i(ling rock on which to cling in this wild-eiigul[»hing
whirlpool of existence, I felt no neetl ; and without the sense of
need, the fine logic of the remedy as unfohhid by St. Paul in
what our preaclier called the 'Scheme of Salvation,' and from
whicli human souls for so many ages had drawn strength and
sustenance, fell off my mind as from some revolving wheel.
As for the shadowy realm of Religion therefore, that other
concern of mortal men on which so many noble spirits have been
dashed and broken, 1 can neither be said to have bcli(!ved in it,
nor strictly to have disl)elieved it; but with the whole field of
sentiment in which it lives already occupied with the little loves,
jealousies, and ambitions of the hour, had no room for it, and in
consequence practically ignored it or was entirely indifi'erent to
it. It rarely crossed my mind, therefore, and w'hen it did, it
brought with it only dreary reminiscences of the days when oui-
old Calvinistic divine, in sermons two hours hjng, built up anew
befin'c us Sunday after Sunday what he called the great Scheme
of Salvation, reared on its two mighty pillars the Covenant of
^Yorks and tlu! Covenant of Grace, between whose high and
.massy portals the world of human souls driven by inexorable
decree, were seen passing onwards to Heaven or to Hell.
The conserpience was that not oidy did the recollection of
Sunday repel me by its gloom, its stillness, and its enforced
renunciations, but the Bible itself, linked as it was to it by
association antl doctrine, was drawn like an accomj)lice into the
currents of my aversion, and carried down along with it in one

KKLKJION.

; t

condoiniiiition. Its lii^li and l)i!iuitifiil poetry and symholisni,
wrung from the stricken or exultant souls of lonely proijliots,
fell on my young unheeding ears like sounding hrass, and
employed as they were for th(! most part in bodying forth the
majesty, might, or wrath of .lehovah (whose voice I seemed to
hear rumbling and echoing from peak to peak like the noise of
distant thunder), they struck cold rather than comfort to the
heart ; while the whole impersonation of God, associating itself
almost inevitably with the figure of the old Kirk Elder beneath
whose irate and frowning brows we youngsters cowered, instead
of attracting, left behind a vague sense of uneasiness or fear.
But in spite of all this I have often thought that had the genius
and spirit of the Bible been distilled from its connected story,
and presented so as to link itself on in a natm-al human way
with the life I saw around me, I shoidd have freely indjibed
and assimilated it. As it was, 1 had too little ])leasure in its
Sunday associations, and was too much inunersed in the games
and sports of the passing hour, to take the trouble to read it for
myself, and was left in conseciuence to the mercy of such isolated
and disconnected cha[)ters as turned uj) in tlu; reading lesson,
to fragments of historical narrative, and to texts. And here
again everything in the mode of presenting the fa(!ts was
calculated to })revent their spirit and essential meaning from
reaching me. Clothed in an old-world phraseology so diH'erent
from the accustomed vernacuhir of the school and the street,
the chapters divided into separate verses, each of which like
independent sovereigns within their own territory ju'onudgated
its oracles and decrees independent of its neighbours ; each too
associated with its special pulpit-voice of supplication or
contrition, or eye deprecating, ui)turned, or solicitous ; the whole
became, in consequence, so magnetized and changed by these
currents of emotion which were passed through and over it, so
smooth-worn and enamelled by re[»etition and use, as to lose all
its own natural beauty, sense, or significance. Nowhere did the
words, phrases, or sentences «o metamorj)hosed catch on to the

KKLKJION.

ICl

reality us 1 know it witliin me or uround me, but all liiin^ in an
enchanted dicaniland between heaven and earth where I oould
not touch them, as in some ' Arabian Nijjfhts '; and after a few
pai^ses from the preacher, the mesmeri(5 sleep that fell on the
text reached inwards t(j the characters and actors themselves.
I'ontius Pilate was never real to me in the sense in which any
other Roman governor was real, nor was IJarabbaseven like any
other robber. The ilews and Samaritans were not like any
other nations of profane history, and the disciples, if fishermen
at all, were fishermen only in the merest IMckwickian sense ;
for althougli like the gods of Homer they mingled freely in the
affairs of men and partook of their good or evil fortunes, they
nevertheless were separated from them by that dia[)honous,
spirit-like transparency which marked them as beings of another
order, bearing the same relation to real men and women as one
can imagine the Elijah translated and transfigured to the Elijah
of flesh and blood. The very atrocities of the Old Testament,
which otherwise would have poisoned the healthy moral sense,
had about them the same unreal, spectral, and supernal
character which mocked all attempts to catch and range them
in the category of ordinary human crime ; and so, like the tales
of giant conibats set on by the gods, slipi)ed of!" the surface of
the mind without so nnich as rippling its re[)ose. Even the
soft and gentle figure of Christ Himself, walking serene and
majestic by the shores of Galilee with his train of adoring
disciples, and sliedding his beneficent radiance on sickness,
sorrow, and death, had always the golden halo of the old
niasters around its brow, and was ever the God to me rather
than the man. The conse({uence was that the fine contagion of
example which streams in on us from beings constituted in all
respects like ourselves, was prevented from reaching me by
invisil)le barriers of demarcation not to be transgressed, and as
with that pervading sense of inequality which prevented the
high-born manners of the feudal lord from reaching even his
attendant serfs, was lost for purposes of life. And the end and

11 i:

"1{ i i

1G2

ItKLKJION.

^h f

• it !

upshot of it all was, that touching my own conscious life in no
])ni't of it.'' circinufcronce, those old-world chanicters and events
with th(! miracles tliev l)roiiy:ht in their train, hun<r for vears in
conscious m(!mory like tij^urcs mci-ely, and were carried still
clinjring to mc as I grew into maturity, until at last the hleak
and nipping frosts of scepticism detached them from their
precarious tenure on the tree ; and so, without any transitional
period of doubt or uncertainty like that through which so many
arc condenmed to pass, they fell silent and unobserved : and
from that time until I started on my ' History of Intellectual
Development,' with the exception of un occasional glance; to
verify some (piotation, I have never looked into the Hook again.
And yet in s[)ite of the dust that has settled on its pages, and
the gloom with which in those early days it was invested, it still
linjjcrs in mv meniorv with a soft and sombre radiance not
untinged with melancholy, now that the receding years with
their mellowing hand have interposed to soften its asperities,
and the figures with whom it was associated in my boyhood
have one by one departed.

CHAPTEK IV.

PAUSE.

I^IIE tn.tl, is that at tl.o ti.no ,.f uhich I an, writing, I was
eon.pletoly inunorserl in the present I.our, an.I hi tl.at
^nccrested only in the n.in<ls an.I charaetcr. of n.en ; as to the'
past or future it ha.l no existence. The old men seeuie.l to me
never to Imve been young, the michlle-aoed to have heen the
^ame ever since I had known them. The town and church the
nver and n.arket-place still oc-npied tlieir ohl positions,'and
even the old constable who use.l to chase us when we were
boys, was still the san.e. And In a country of equal frccdon,
where no one stood between you and high Heaven, no inter-
posing hand of despot or priest came in to disturb the even
monotony of the days and years. The idea of Evolution in
<-onsequence, or of things having been different from what they
nro, never crossed the mind ; but all alike struck out at a sincde
<'ast, seen.ed like the sun and n.oon and other ordinances'^of
Mature, to have been there from all eternitv. Hence it was
that a 1 the really intellectual problen.s of tlu^world, dealinc. as
they ,h. with the growth, the progress, and the decline of men
and nations, of philosophies and religions and moralities, lav
quite beyond the range either of my experience or mv undei--
standing. What were the laws of Nature and of development
the evoh.tion of philosophies and religions, of societies and
e.vil.zations to mc, who saw no change even in individuals'^

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164

PAUSE.

Or the flux of time, Avhcn I was not yet old enough to feel it?
Or all the varied beauty and pathos of the world, its wonder
and awe, the how, whence, and whither of man with his little
life emerging out of the silent void, and passing on to the
everlasting night— what was all this to one who had only just
begun to live ? Besides, what did it matter how the world of
men got here, was it not enough that they were here, and that
I carried in my pocket the tape and calipers that would search
and sound them to the bottom? And in fine, what could
history, metaphysics, science, psychology, an'l all the varied
learning of the world do, but lead up to this, their final flower
and consummation ? Was it not natural, therefore, that I
should regard with peculiar complacency and satisfaction this
knowledge of Phrenology which was to me the finest index
and measure of human intellect ?

Little, however, as I could have imagined it at the time, it
was nevertheless quite impossible that I should continue long
in this mood, unless, indeed, I were always to remain a boy, or
to develop into one of those intellectual dilettanti who are
more interested in discussing the relative position and status of
nieu of eminence, than in acquiring the knowledge itself which
has given them their fame. On the contrary it was inevitable
that as the years passed on, the growing mind pushed on like
an opening flower by t!ie emerging desire for knowledge, should
tire of this barren rock of Phrenology on which like another
Crusoe I was for the time enisled, on which no flowers grew nor
fruit ripened ; it was impossible that I should continue ti>
remain content with such barren husks, for example, as that
this or that individual had or had not this or that faculty or
power which I could survey with a tape or a pair of compasses j
on the contrary, with the mind just opening to the mystery of
the world, it was inevitable that I should be iuipolled to ask
what these faculties had to teach or I'cport of the great world
in which they found themselves, and of that human mind of
which they were the chess-pieces with which tne real game of

PAUSE.

165

thought was played. And here in passing it may be proper to
remark that in this barrenness of fruit, Phrenoloffv bears a
striking likeness to the Metaphyt^ics of tlie Schools, through
•which I was afterwards compelled to wade, and that it was
owing to this analogy and to the use I shall hereafter make of
it, th.at I have dwelt on this exploded system of Phrenology
at what must seem to many a disproportionate length. For
the aim and end of the teaching of both is to prove that the
mind of man is made up of a number of faculties variously
sorted, divided, compounded, and named, according to the
particular system in vogue. But these faculties and organs
iirc not the mind, but the tools only with which the mind
works, the instruments and plummets by which it takes survey
and sounding of the world. If this be so, what we want to
know is not how little or how much of the organ of the
j)hilos'^'^hei', the poet, or the mathematician, you arc gifted
with, k af .. I ^ truths these powers have to reveal when their
edge and qualuy are tested and broken on the rugged surf- ce
of the world with its ;nisleading refractions, and the illusoiy
lustres that play around it ; what laws of the mind they will
bring up in their soundings of human life where the rinds and
wrappages of custom, tradition, and opinion, are so dense and
impervious as to obscure and conceal the truth. Now not to
<lwell here on the central error in these early speculations, the
full bearing of which will only be api)arent when we come to
the higher regions of thought, the error namely, thiit
Phrenology if true, was really a knowledge of the laws
of the human mind, instead of being but a mere catalogue
of faculties, it will be sufficient to remark here that it was not
•even a true account of the mental operations which it professed
to reveal. And yet had I attempted to prove its falsity by its
own method of the calipers and the tape, it would with its
•endless loop-holes of evasion and e«cape have held its ground
to this day. But when I took to observing the world for myself,
iind to watching the processes involved in the observation of

166

PAUSE.

different orders of fact, and tlieir elaboration and conversion
into tliouglit, I saw that Phrenology even as a tenable scheme
of the division of the human faculties, was incredible. Like
the cranks and wheels of those engines which work so smoothly
and easily in the air, but which when applied to the rails refuse
tc move, this little scheme of the mind, seemingly so round
and complete in itself, when applied to the world which is its-
natural counterpart, refused to work, and finally fell to piece»
from internal incoherence and decay. Indeed its essential
barrenness and uselessness for aid in the actual processes of
thought became so manifest when I turned my attention to the
world, that it was practically forgotten and laid aside long
before its final collapse.

CHAPTER y.

A REVIVAL EPISODE.

^PHE first incident that occurred to divert my thoughts from
tlieir exclusive devotion to Phrenology, to break its
enchantment, and to fix my mind on the great outside world
ot thought and speculation which was to be to me the grave
of it and of all other metaphysical systems, was the arrival in
town of a couple of Revivalist preachers, who by the excite-
ment they caused and the passions they aroused, split the town
into hostile camps, and left behind them bitter memories for
many years. They had begun their campaign by preaching
in the open air from a pile of old scaffolding in one of the
vacant spaces, but it was not long before, gaining the friendly
sympathy of one of the leading preachers, they were invited by
him to make use of his pulpit in the large church in the centre
of the town. Once securely entrenched there, and with a
large congregation to listen to their words, they began a
vigorous and systematic attack on the ministers of the out-
lying churches, whom they denounced for their cold-blooded,
dead, and barren formalism, characterizing their religion as
'filthy rags,' and themselves as 'wolves in ^'eep's clothing who
were leading their flocks to Hell.' To umenities like thele the
outraged preachers were net slow in responding from their
pulpits on the neighbouring hills, but wakened from their
long sleep by the falling shell, hastened to open fire on the

f> III {.

iH 1

BBR^

1(58

A REVIVAL EPISODE.

intruders ; a general bombardment ensued ; and presently tlie
whole town was ablaze with the fire and rockets from the circle
of the surrounding battei'ies. The inhabitants themselves who
felt each his pastor's insult us his own, now joined in the fray ;
the ordinary subjects of interest and conversation were for
the time suspended ; excited groups stood at street corners
discussing the last phases of the controversy, and at times the
hot blood ran so high that, as in an old Italian city of the
Middle Ages, there was difficulty in keeping the peace. The
individual members of the various congregations, meantime,
who had sat enchanted or asleep in the same old church an<l
in the same old pews from the earliest times, awakened into lift;
by the rising heat, began like chemical compounds loosened
from their old combinations, to form new affinities, and to pass
from one clnu'ch to another ; leaving the ' old lights ' and join-
ing the ' new ' or vice versa according to the seci'et promptings
of their temper or heart. The guiding principle in these
movements was not one of family, but was purely a personal
one, and might best be seen in the answer given to this one
question, — Have you or have you not experienced that change
of heart known as * conversion ? ' If you had, you were
silently attracted from the outlying churches to the revival
camp in the centre ; if not, shocked by the outrage done to
your sensibilities by imputations so offensive and gross as
those of the Revivalists, you fled for refuge and sympathy to
your friends on the frontier. In this way family Avas divided
against family, father-in-law against son-in-law, mother-in-law
against daughter-in-law, till it became literally and painfully
true that a man's foes were those of his own household.

Not less strange anci remarkable were the sudden curves and
turnings taken by the same persons during the course of the
campaign. One old 'elder' belonging to the central church, I
remember, and a most upright, pious, and worthy man, was so
shocked by the terms in which the regular ministers had been
characterized, that he went about loudly proclaiming that

val
to

A KEVIVAL EPISODE.

169

insolence like tliis was not to be borne, and that the offensive
intruders sliould bo altogether forbidder. the use of the pulpit
which they had so fouled and disgraced. But not finding a
sufficient number of sympathizers to suppoi't him, he was about
to shake the dust off his feet and remove with his household
gods to one of the outlying congregations, when just aa he was
gathering up his skirts to depart, he was arrested on the threshold
by a stray shot from the biu'ning repertoire of the revivalist, and
brought to the earth, ' converted ' on the spot and in a moment,
ns he said, like St. Paul on the way to Damascus. Henceforward
with the terror of the man who has just put foot on the solid
€arth to find that the log over which he has crossed the raging
stream, has been swept aAvay behind him by the flood, he seemed
«o horror-stricken at the thought of the danger he had escaped,
that he went about proclaiming that the words of the Revivalists,
which but yesterday he had declared to be blasphemous, were in
reality but the words of truth and soberness, and that ho would
have sat there in his sins, trusting to his piety, his respectability,
and his 'good works' until lie had gone down to perdition, but
for the .arrival in town of these men.

Now of all this I was a silent but not inattentive spectator.
From my early boyhood I had taken a lively interest in these
revival meetings, and when one had broken out anyAvhere, I was
usually to be found hovering about the doors and side aisles,
looking and listening to what was going on. Tliis was mainlv
out of curiosity, especially when the excitement ran high, and
men and women ' struck ' to the ground were carried out fainting
^nd s})eechless ; but as I grew older there was mingled with it a
thin film or thread of another order, which appeared and
reappeared for many years. Night after night I had seen boys
4ind girls of my own age, as well as full-beardod men, melted
into tears under the burning words of the preachei', and with
■drooping heads passing along the aisles to the ' penitents' bench '
to make confession of their sins, while I remained unmoved.
Was there, then, something wanting in me that I was deaf to

1 1

■ff

170

A llEVIVAL EI'ISODE.

1 i
i i

such appeals? Was it possible that I who so much felt the
need of hunian sympathy, should be for ever condemned to walk
a[)art in lonely isolation, unable to refresh my mind by mingling
it in the common human sti'cam ^ I could not tell, but tlie haunting
suspicion that it was so, came ovex* my mind whenever I entered
these meetings, like an ominous bird ; hence the fascination
with which I kept returning to them again and again, as a man
to an object he partly dreads, in order to test myself and see
whether I should still remain unmoved.

And 60, when the particular revival of which I am writing
broke out, I was to be found as usual among the curious-
listeners who hung about iU out-skirts without taking any
direct part in its proceedings. I was usually accompanied by
the young friend of whom I have already spoken, with whom 1
began the study of phrenology, and our custom was to drop in
at the service after our evening walk, and to discuss on our
way home the phenomena we had seen and heard, from what
we regarded as our superior stand-point as philosophers. My
friend especially, I remember, gave himself great airs of
superiority, and made himself very merry over the poor dupes,,
as he called them, who imagined that these manifesta«^ions and
sudden conversions were due to the workings of the Holy
Spirit ; comparing them in their ignorance to those wha
thought that the phenomena of epilepsy were due to possession
by the Devil. What therefore was my surprise when on my
return after being absent a few evenings, I saw^ him kneeling
in his pew when 1 entered the church ; and my amazement
when he told me as we walked home, that he was a new man,
and that he had undergone the change of heart known as-
' conversion.' Of the reality of this change and of his sincerity
and earnestness I could have no doubt. He disappeared from
his old haunts and from the ball-rooms and parties where he
had been so prominent and welcome a figure, and was to be
seen nowhere but at these meetings. He gave up smoking
and drinking, cut himself apart from all his old companion*

A IJEVIVAI, KPISODE.

171

t'xcept myself, and cxliibited an excess of 8cnij)ulosity in trifles
which I liad iKtt before remarked in him. Jle spoke in low
an<l subdued tones instead of in his usual hi<;h and manlv kev,
Wing hymns unwcariedly all day long, and on one occasion
when walking with nie and talking to me seriously of his new-
found j(jy, on my lightly dropping some strong expression
savouring of profanity he actually burst into tears. From all
this it was clear to me at least that he had undergone some
remarkable change, and hojicless myself of being able to share
his joy, I resolved if possible to get to the bottom of it.

After his conversion he had been in the habit of calling on
me in the evenings with the view of making a convert of me,
but all his eflbrts in this direction proving unavailing, he
gradually reconciled himself to talking the matter over
|)hiloso{)liically, as it were, and as a piece of experience ; and
was (juite prepared to explain to n>e as truly as he could, the
nature of the curious change which had come over him, and in
which I was so anxious if not at first hand then imaginatively
or at second hand, to participate.

The first question, then, to which I sought an answer, was
whether the personal experience called ' conversion ' was due
as the lievivalists taught, to the direct action of the Holy
Spirit on the open and receptive heart, or not ? Now
Phrenology like all materialistic philosophies, making as it did
all the emotions of the mind to spring directly from the
activity of certain portions of the brain, was unable to allow of
any supernatural or extraneous influences whatever ; and I was
anxious therefore to know from mv friend whether he could
detect in the strange mental experience of his conversion, any
foreign element not to be accounted for by the normal activity of
the human mind when acted on by a sufficient natural stinudus.
Of a keenly analytic turn of mind, he had evidently been
pondering this very point, for his reply was prompt and
unhesitating. There was nothing supernatural about it what-
ever, he said, but as far and as truly as he could analyze it, it

li'i

172

A KRVIVAL EPISODK.

was due merely to the nntnnd ertect on lii.s better nature, of
what he believed to be a fact, — but a fact the profound
sij^nificanee of whiidi, he liad only now realized for the first
time, — the fact namely, that .Tesu.s Chriwt the Son of God had
actually and Utemlly died for him, for him personally and
individually, that he might be saved. That was all. On my
venturing to suggest that this explanation was not one that tht
Revivalists, or indeed the body of Christians generally, would
be disposed to accejit, he rejilicd that he could not help it, that
he had himself undergone the experience, and that ho could
assure me that the character and quality of the feeling in this
change of heart or ' conversion,' were precisely what they
would have been had some friend died for him, and that its
greater intensity was simply owing to the fact that it was no
mere man who had done this for him, but the Son of God
Himself. Now this, harmonizing as it did with all my own
beliefs, I had no difficulty in accepting; indeed it seemed to
me at once the most simple and natural explanation of
Christian experience that I had yet heard ; an explanation, too,
without a trace of metaphysics, scholasticism or supcrnaturalism
in it, and at the time (1 was then about nineteen) it made a
deep impressicm on my mind. If then I could only believe
that Jesus Chi-ist really did die for me, I thought. What then ?
My next concern, accordingly, was to ascertain from my
friend what new fact or facts, what new combination or new
presentation of them had been made to him, to have engendered
in hiin that new and peculiar form of belief or assent which
was previously wanting in him, and which was known by the
name of ' faith.' 1 had already been going over in my own
mind the style and substance of the arguments used at these
meetings as well as I could, but could think of nothing new
that could have been presented to him there, beyond what we
had before heard over and over again. My own explanation
therefore was that just as the senses, the lower centres, and
the higher centres of the brain, if I may use an illustration.

A UEVIVAI. El'ISODK.

17»

arc insei)uml)le in tlic ordiimiy acts of life, iind all work
toj^cthcr as parts of one organic whole or chain known us the
human intelligence, hut can each he artificially cut oft' from the
rest, as in hypnotism, with the curious results we all liave seen;
so in the excitement and fervour, the din and uproar of these
meetings, tlu; image of Christ, with his death and resurrection^
cut oft' for the moment as in a dream from its base in the real
world, had hecn so hurnt into his mind in all its awfulness and
beauty, that it had led his inr gination captive, as nuich so-
indeed as if it had been enacted in bodily form i)of()re him;
and further and more important still, that it was the love and
gratitude, the self-abnegation and the free expansion of mind
and heart that arose naturally on this vision of Christ dying
for him, that by their very blessedness, sacredness, and beauty,
(the highest emotions of the soul) became of themselves,
evidence and guarantee for the truth of the doctrine. A
natural conclusion, I felt, but one involving a capital fallacy in
thought — the fallacy namely, that because the highest emotions
of the soul are at once a proof and guarantee that their exercise-
is the true end of our being, therefore their presence proves tlie
objective truth of any particular set of facts, Christian,.
Mahonnnedan, Buddhist or other, which for the time being
happens to call them forth — a beautiful fallacy 1 said to myself,
but a fallacy nevertheless, and I resolved to put it to him at

our next nieetmg.

Accordingly one Sunday morning on our return from church,
as wc stood in front of our house talking of these high matters
in the falling snow, I ventured to suggest the explanation
of his case which I have just given, and to ask hinj if it were
not the true one. He answered I know not what now, and we
soon parted, I little thinking of the consequences of my words,
for it was not long liefore they dissolved the spell which had
enchanted him, and in the end made shipwreck of his faith.
For a week or more I saw nothing of him, and it was not until,
our next meeting that I learned with a kind of horror the ajjonies.

: X '•

II
111

i V

174

A llEVIVAL KI'ISODR.

ho had uiidcrj^o.ic, and the mental torment my qnostion had
caused him. Unahle to think, as he afterwards toUl me, of any
new ar<funu'nt or proof for his faith other than he had always
liad, racked with (hmht in consequence, and more than
suspeetinj^ that >ny words were true, he liad ^one ahout like one
<listraujj;iit — restless, sleepless, tearless, unal)le to work, unalilc
to eat, and with awei<^ht like a stone at his heart which notliin^
would remove. He had kept his misery to himself, and tried in
every way to concjuer it, hy readin;^ his liihle, hy avoidini^j
fiociety, hy a closer attendance at the services, and hy prayer,
but all in vain ; whi[)ped hy his own scarchinj^ doubts and fears
he had walked over the fair earth as over burning maH, alone,
and without a home ; and his mind was made like imto a wheel.
At last one day he chanced to go into t'lc barber's sho[), and in
his despair laid his state of mind before the barber himself.
The old barber whom we have already seen, he of the portentous
brow, was in the habit of preaching every Sunday to a little
negro flock of his own, and had evidently at some tinie or of iiei*
forded the same stream and known its deeper waters, for
on hearing my friend's story he at once put his finger on the
nature and seat of the malady, and pre8cril)od its cure. 'You
are looking too much at yourself and your own doubts,' ho said.
* Never mind them, but look at the Cross.' Look at the Cross I
He had not thought of that, but the words now came like a new
revelation to his torn and distracted heart, and forthwitli the
stone rolled away from it, and he was at peace. And then at
last after keeping away from me so long, he returned to detail
the misery he had suffered, and the gulfs and depths he had
sounded, weeping with joy as he told me of the happiness he had
ao'ain found: while I filljd with horror at the thoui^ht of what 1
had caused, listened, but with heart dry as summer's dust, my own
mind a confused whirlwind of conflicting thoughts and desires :
and was unable to speak. And then it was that there came
over me with a pregnancy and power that I had not before
known, the old feeling of which I have spoken, that there was

A »KVIVAI, Kl'ISODK.

1 " *

U.I

sonuithlii^ \viuitlu{jj in me, tliiit I sliould be forever doomed to
walk the hlcH.Med earth imhlest, and that hapjiiiies.s like his, I
sliould never know. I felt that I never could believe, thdl 1 wan
incapable of belief, and that the Gospel, even were it true, must
forever fall on a parched and withered soil from which no
living waters spring.

Months passed on without any apparent change in my
fncnd, but as the first excitement of these meetings spent
itself, and their fires began to burn low on the hearth, the seeds
of doubt which I had implanted in him, and which the good
barber had so promptly eradicated, began to grow again,
spreading their roots far'' er and wider until they had over-
spread the whftle field. There was no sudden backsliding, no
acute crisis of suffering, no violent alternations of feeling as
before, but a gradual shrinking and loss of bloom, as in those
autumnal fruits that still cling to their withered stems till the
Avinter's wind shakes them from their frail tenure on the tree.
I saw with I'cal sorrow the work going on, but was [)owerless to
stay it, or to give him either comfort or help. He spoke little
of himself or his beliefs, avoided the subject rather, but little
by little you saw the old world re-asserting its sway.

lie reappeared in his old haunts, joined the society of his
old comrades, was seen again in the ball-room and in the field,
and his voice once more mingled with ours in our joyous
evening songs. And when all was over, and a year or two later
we sat together in the ball-room restinj; ourselves awhile and
watching the dreamy mazes of the dance before us, I chanced
to ask him if he I'emembered the time when he had put away
all these things, and in their stead went about praying and
singing hymns, and trying to win souls to God ; he was
thoughtful for awhile, and then said with a ])athctic melancholy
that sank deep into my heart, ' If I could believe now as I did
then, I should do the same now as I did then.'

i!-!:

t .

CHAPTEE YI.

EVOLUTION NOT TO BE JUMPED.

"VXT'lTH the little episode just iiiirrated began my interest
' * in the great world of life outside the barren region of
niei'e phrenological speculation, a world which I was now to
try and reap in enlarging swathes and circles, and which was
to occupy my best thoughts for many years. From Phrenology
I had broujj-ht with me one doctrine at least in which I reallv
believed, and which had with me all the force and indisputability
of an axiom, the doctrine namely, that all the sentiments,
l)assions, emotions and desires of which the human mind was
the subject, were due entirely to the direct action of the brain
wttrking after its own proper laws, and not to any extraneous
cause whatever, Devil or Holy (xhost. But as with the
evangelists and revivalists everywhere the opposite doctrine
was maintained, and it was everywhere assumed that the
particular state of mind known as 'conversion' was due to the
direct workings of the Holy Spirit, — an assumption which
they seemed to think was tested and proven by the blessed
state of mind which accompanied it, and which they imagined
naturally enough, could not be the result of any cause less than
imujediiitely divine, — it was not surprising that when these two
doctrines came into collision, as they had done in my friend's
mind, they should in the end, as we have seen, have made
shipwreck of his faith. And it was owing to the pain with

EVOLUTION NOT TO BE JUMPED.

177

which 1 saw this process accomplishing itself in him, as well as
to the suspicion that there was something wanting in me which
made me constitutionally deaf to these emotional appeals, that
I began to wonder whether Religion after all might not perhaps
still be justified on higher and more philosophical grounds tlian
what I regarded as but the poor though natural illusions of the
ignorant and uncultivated. It was while 1 was revolving this
in my mind, that I heard or read somewhere that Butler's
Analogy was one of the deepest and most strongly entrenched
bulwarks of lleligion that had ever been written, and that
propped on its many pile? like some everlasting city of the
sea, Christianity might forever defy the inrolling breakers of
scepticism that washed and broke against it in vain. I
accordingly got the book, and set to work upon it at once
with all attention, and with every faculty of the mind in full
strain. It was one of the toughest pieces of retiding that 1 had
yet encountered, and taxed my crude powers of speculation to
the utmost, but I was determined not to let it go until it had
yielded uj) its secret, or :it least such parts of its drift and aim,
as bore on my own perplexities. Of its special contents I can
now remember little or nothing, for I have not seen it since
that time ; even its general drift has become dim and shadowy
to me in the lapse of years ; but I distinctly remember tliat
at the time I thought its arguments acute and subtle rather
than deep and convincing, its extenuations and apologies
ingenious and labc.ured rather than direct and natural, and that
nowhere in it could I walk with any confidence or surencss of
foot. I felt that however well it may have been adapted to
meet tlic arguments of the sceptics of the eighteenth century,
who believed in a natural but not a revealed religion, and
however cojiclusively it may have shown that the dithcultics of
I'evealed religion were matched and [)aralleled by the same or
at least equal ditticulties in Natural Keligion, (and this if I
remember rightly was its main drift) it did not meet the
difficulties of the Nineteenth Century, difficulties which

■ !

mmmm

•J I

178

EVOLUTION NOT TO BE JUMPED.

were in tl»e very air, and which were all summed up for
me in my one favourite doctrine of the absolute dependence
of the mind on the molecular action of the brain, with all
that this involved. And so, this great oracle having spoken
without effect, and his message having proved but the echo
from a dry and deserted well rather than a living spring of
truth, I threw him aside as unable to give me any help; and
with the feeling that all further enquiries in this direction
would be unavailing, and hugging to myself wy favourite
formula all the more tightly, i*elapsed into my old indift'erence
to the things of reliy-ion — an indifference which there was
nothing either in my experience or surroundings to disturb.
For, as I have said, 1 had known no miracles, heard no voices,
seen no visions ; I was conscious of no Devil but my own
passions, no Holy Spirit but the promptings of my own better
nature ; and felt rather than distinctly thought, that any
message from the other life that should concern me or other
souls, must be for ever blazoned on the high tops of the Avorld
for all men to see, and not be torn from tortured texts, or
exhumed in tattered fragments of tradition from the dusty
sei)ulchres of the dead.

Religion, therefore, I put aside for the time, and with the
Problem of the World thus freed from its enshrouding mysteries
and superstitions, as I thought them, and the decks cleared for
action, I was now ready with light heart and nothing daunted,
and with all the banners of youth and hope floating gaily in
the breeze, to take the high seas of speculation, and to advance
to the subjugation of the world of thought by the purely
intellectual road that lay through the great laws of the World
and the Human ^lind ; consoling mvself witli the reflection that
as Heliirion after all was onlv our idea of the Cause of Thinijs
and our relation to that Cause, whatever truth there might be
in it must disclose itself and be taken in on the way.

Hut how to set iiJjout the conciuest of the intellectual world I
Where to begin i and how to proceed? These were the questions

EVOLUTION NOT TO HK .U Ml'El).

171)

nngs
It be

it ions

tliat engaged me. For I liad no one to guide nie, to tell me
what to read or to avoid, and in my choice of hooks was left
entirely to hearsay, to conversation, or to such works as I had
seen mentioned in the newspajjcrs. Practically, however, my
choice was restricted t( ''.e contents of the prthlic library in the
town, where I wandered up and down at random, dipping and
tasting here and there ; and exce[)t that in a general way I wanted
to know straight oft' hand all about the laws of the World and
of Human Life, not knowing very specially what it was I did
want I And yet it was curious to notice with what promptness
the mind as if by a ki.id of instinct, dro[)pe(l, ignored, or put
aside, all that was extraneous to its own but ])artially conscious
aims, or that covered fields of thought for whicli it was not yet
ripe ; only such books as lay near enough to me, as it vvere, to
have organic connection with my then stage of dcvel<»pment,
taking any permanent hold on me. For I was just emerging
from Phrenology, and was still absorbed in studying the laws of
the individual mind ; around this my thoughts revolved in
incessant activity, and unless the books I read and the excursions
I made into wider fields of thought could help me in this, they
fell off my mind again, leaving scarcely a trace behind.

Among authors read by me at this time and who were too
advanced for me, the mo.i!t interesting perhaj)s, was liuckle, who
in his 'History of Civilization ' which I had come upon in the
library, greatly charmed and impressed me by the rolling vigour
of his style, the pomp of his generali/ations, and the high
confidence with which he stepped along, driving whole ages and
nations before him in flocks, and like some great general,
disposing of his vast miscellany of fact and inference with
consummate ease. I had scarcely opened the book before I
became so interested that I could not leave it, and can still
remember the pleasure with which I retailed its arguments and
conclusicms to m^' friend with the ' boot-jack ' when he paid me
his usual visit from the country on the following Saturday. And
yet in spite of the pleasure it gave me, it had little or no

iff!

!.-

Ill

ISO

p:volltion xot to uk jiJirKi).

influence on tlie course of my mental evolution, and with the
exception of leavin<^ some vague general ideas behind it, was
soon forgotten. The reason was that Jiuckle dealt almost
entirely with the laws that regulate the hu-ger movements of
societies and nations, with the laws of men in the iiikhs, while I
was still inunersed in the laws of man as an indivhlnal and in
his relation to other men. His arguments and conclusions
therefore passed oft' my mind without leaving a trace behind
them, and had all to be taken up agiiin and considered anew at
a future stage.

The same result followed the reading of Stuart ^lill's
metaphysical work on Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosoj)hy, but
tor a different reason. Dealing as it did with discussions as to
the analysis of our faculties, and tiieir decomi)osition into, and
reconstruction out of simpler states, it exhibited 1 doubt not
with much clearness, what a percej)tion was, wliat a judgment
was, what a cause was, and the like, but I had already had
enoun:li of this sort of thing in I'hrenologv, and Avliat I now
wanted to know was not what a judgment, a perception, or a
cause was, but what judgments 1 was to form of this complex
and various world, what things 1 was to perceive in it, and
what the causes were of its nuiltiplex and ever-shifting
phenomena — (piite another matter. The consequence was that
this book of Stuart Mill's too [)roved useless for my present
aims, iind passed off" the mind without in any way affecting the
natural evolution of my thought.

More striking still, perhaps, as illustrating how impossible it
is for the mind to overleap the limite<l range of thought in
Avhich at any given time it is insulated and entrenched, how
impossible it is for it, like a dark lantern, to illuminate anything
beyond the focus of its own rays, was the difficulty I had in
understanding Carlyleand Emerson. It was some two or three
years, perhaps, after (.'arlyle's address to the Edinburgh
students on the occasion of his being pjade Lord Kector, tiiat
the echo of his name reached me in the far interior of Canada ;

EVOLUTFOX NOT TO IlK .TU.MI'KI).

181

Hible it
iht in
how
'tiling
|i:ul in
three
Iburgh
1-, that
liiKuhi ;

niid not long aftor, a copy of the cheap edition of his ' Sartor'
chanced to find its way into our public library. I inunediatcly set
ti) work on it with the earnest desire to master its contents, but
beyond the autobiographical portions I cannot remember to
Jiavo really understood a single sentence. The reason was that
it dealt, in the difficult parts at least, not so nnich with the
relations in which individual men stand to each other, that is
to say with the laws f)f the individual mind as such, as with
the relations of Man to the Universe, to which I had not yet
given any thought ; Carlyle expressly figuring mankind in that
work, as a number of shadowy ghosts emerging from Eternity,
and stalking across this Time-shadow of a world, to plunge into
the Inane again ! He dealt, in a word, with the deep illusions
of the world, while I was lost in its ordinary platitudes and
superficial ap[)earances. The thought, indeed, that anything
<'ould be an illusion, and that things were not what they seemed,
had never occurred to me. On the contrary everything to me
was most serious and real, — the boys, the girls, the school, the
market, the h)ves, the jealousies, the quarrels, the enuilations, —
and in a democratic state of opinion where the comings and
goings of the artizan were reported in the newspapers with as
much seriousness as the movements of rovaltv itself, each man
stood on his own feet as an individual of nuu'h consequence in
my eyes. And as it would have surprised me much to have
been told that mencouhl be lumped together and generalized as
' the herd,' ' the masses,' and the like, and that their actions
could be predicted with as nuu'h regularity and certainty as
those of sheep, so I was still more amazed when 1 found Carlyle
speaking of them as shadows emerging from the Inane, stalking
like astonished ghosts across the world of Time, and plunging
back into the Inane again. To reach conchisions like these
Avoidd have required as complete a change in my point of view,
as the Copernicau Astrononiy which regarded the Sim as the
centre did, from the old Ptoleinaic Astronomy which it dis-
placed ; and the gap could no more be s})anned from my

m
III

R n

t l!

^mmmt

III I

1«2

EVOLUTiON NOT TO UK .TOIPED.

1'^

supcrficiiil <,a'noriiHzation8 of human life, tliiin tlio ' Principia '
of Newton could from the ck'ments of Euclid. It required,
ill ii word, ii liiniier (^lIculus of Thought to reiich it, sind for this
1 wsus not yet ready.

It was nnieh the same with Emerson. Not only were hia
' E.ssays ' (juite beyond my comprehension, but su 'i com-
paratively simple studies even as his chapter on Napoleon in
his ' Kepresentative Men ' were quite beyond me, and that, too,
at a time when I could read Mill and IJuckle with comparative
ease. The reason was, that even when ne was dealinii' with
those laws of the individual mind which it was my main object
to explore, he sank his shafts into strata so deep as to be
entirely cut off from the shallow field of my own exph>rations ;
and his generalizations and laws, in consequence, having no
luiiting links with those that I had already reached, were quite
unintelligible to me. Like Carlyle, therefore, he too had ta
be rei)laced on the shelves again to await a riper time. The
truth was that neither my years, my experience of life, nor the
conditions of evolution itself, Avould enable me thus lightly to
jump out of my own skin, as it were, without undergoing the
common lot of jdodding laboriously through all the intervening
stages of thought, and I could no more pnetermit any one of
these stages in normal evolution, than could a chick in its
i)assaffe from the eg<i: to the full grown fowl. I was entirelv
inuuersed, as I have said, in the discovery of the laws of the
nature of men in their capacity as individuals, and as was
inevitable from my years, in only the most suj)ei'ficial of these ;
and whether the author into whom I dipped, was one who like
Jiuckle dealt with the laws of men in the mass (rather than as
individuals) or like Carlyle with the relations of Man to the
Universe (rather than to his fellow-man) or like Emerson with
laws so wide and deep as to be out of touch with the superficial
web of relations in which my mind dwelt ; in all, the result was
the same ; tliev were all alike shed off the mind as off a water-
proof, and my normal evolution went on undisturbed as before.

]

KVOLUTIOX NOT TO UK .TIAIPED.

183

the

WtM'C there then no books at once so level with my capacity
and so suited to \ny stage of development as to yield nic entire

icni,

satisfaction and deli<>ht? Yes; and chief amon;^
perhaps, was the ' Kecrcations of a Country Parson ' which
ha<l recently fallen into my hands, and which <;ave me
precisely the grade and staj^o of platitude I re((uired. For I
had arrived at just that point of mental evolution where the
range and illustration usual in sermons of the better cpiality
taxed my intellectual grasp to the utmost, and completely
filled up the measure of my intellectual powers. The insight
displayed may be described as a kind of insight lying some-
where midway in depth between the ordinary common sense of
the man of the world, and that deej) wisdom of life, that deep
knowledge of the laws of the human mind which at once
explains and illuminates vast tracts of human action, and which
is so marked in men like Bacon, Emerson, and 8haksi)earc ;
a kind of insight that may be sufficiently seen in the ordinary
method of the popular preacher, who taking some old
scriptural character, some Nicodemus or Zaechaeus perhaps,
will make the going to Christ bv night of the one, and the
climbing up a tree of the other, the occasion for endless
subtleties and distinctions, and for the most ingenious
dissertations on human nature and action ; dissertations which
in those days when every thread of connexion among
human things, however supeificial, was essential to the
web of laws and principles I was weaving for myself, quite
charmed and delighted nie. Now of this class of teacher,
Henry Ward Beecher the great New York [)reacher was the
supreme type; and for years his printed serincns were the
main source of my instruction and delight. I lis range and
variety in all that kind of observation and subtlety of which
I have just spoken; his width of sympathy; his natural and
spontaneous pathos; the wealth of illustration and metaphor
with which his sermons were adorned, and which were drawn
chiefly from natural objects, from his orchard, his farm, his

til

1 I

- f

' i^!

PI.

■m

184

EVOI.UTION NOT TO BE JUMI'KD.

<,!udeii, ii8 well as from inucliinery niul from all kinds (if natural
l)rocessc8 ; his natiu'allsni and absence of theological bias ; his
knowledge of average men and their ways of looking at things;
in a word his general fertility of thought, filling up as it did
the full horizon of my mind, and running over and beyond it
on all sides, so that wherever I looked he had been there before
me, — all this delighted and enchanted me, and made him for
some years my ideal of intellectual greatness ; and I looked
forward to the Saturdays on which his weekly sermon reached
me, witli longing and a jnire joy.

CHAPTER VII.

A CHANG?: OF METHOD.

JT would almost seem from tlic foregoing cl.aptor that in setting
out to discover the great laws of the world and of human lif("
I had purposed making books my ehief if not my sole mainstay:
and that even when mistaken in the choice of them, takin- Jip
now one and now another at random and without ordel- or
sequcnce-now swallowed up ina IJrobdignagdian hat nn.ch too
hirge for me and which 1 had to lay aside again, as was the case
with Buckle, Emerson, and Carlyle ; now provided by IJeecher, the
'Country Parson,' and others with a better and more suitable fit-
still it was on the right books, if I could only come across them,
that I placed my main reliance. Now at no period of mv life was
this true, not even at the time when I thought Combe's Phrenology
the hist and only Apocalypse ; on the contrary I had ahvavs
trusted for my beliefs (as distinct from my mere opinions) "to
first-hand observation and inspection of things themselves, and
only in a secondary way to booivs. These 1 had always read
rather as furnishing points of suggestion to be accepted or
rejected as experience and observation should determine, than as
Scriptures to be received on authority alone ; and had used
rather as sign-boards to direct me to the point of observation,
than as guide-books to tell me beforehand what I should see
Avhen I got there. But while thus making observation and not
books my mainstay in the task I had before me, it was curious

i It t

1«(5

A rii.\\(;i', (»K MF/nioi).

tlmt tlioiijfii still bolifvinii; in I'linniology, theoretically at h ast,
1 slioiild <niite inseiisihly and unconsciously iiavo slippcMl away
f'l'oni its old nietliod of the tape and the calipers; and that not
only tlic kind of things I now observed, l»ut my method of
interpretiu";' them, had un(lerjij()nea('on)plt!t(!clianj;e. Instead of
l(»okinj; as formerly merely at the configuration of the head and the
general character of the temperament, I now tri(,'d t<t take in as
far as possible the whole circumstance and environment of men;
instead of intcrpretinjf tlu.'ir actions and motives by a comparison
of the relative size and prominenc(! of the organs «»n their skulls, I
now looked within myself, into my own mind (after puttinj;' myself
as it were in their place) for the law and cause of their proceihu-e.
That is to say, instead of trying to exphiin the eom|)lex web of
Juunan nature and action by any outside balancing or cond)ination
of faculties, any addition or sid)traction of them; 1 now took
as my standpoint of interjjretation my own iiinev consciousness,
and the relations and connexions I found existing there betweea
its various states — its opinions, passions, sentiments, and desires.
And as this change of method was perhaps the most important
feature in my mental evolution u[) to the time of which I am
writing, all the more so because it was so unconscious; and as
a similar change of method had to be undergone at each successive
plane or stage of my mental evolution before 1 could make any
further advance, it is important that I should furnish the reader
at this point with some rough general outline at least, of its
nature and import. The first trace of this change had already
shown itself when I was still in the v(!ry heyday of phrenological
enthusiasm. It was about a year after my return from the
University, when tired of doing nothing, and still uncertain as to
the profession I should choose, 1 seized the chance that happened
to otter of enteriu"' the ottice of one of the ijreat en<>ineering woi'ks
in the town, and which then, as now, was one of the largest
establishments of the kind in the whole Dominion. With little to
do, and with nnich spare time on my hands, I was with rare
indulgence allowed to loiter about the work-shops by the hour

A riiANiii: or mi/iiiom.

1H7

t(t<"('tli('r. tiilkiii"' t(t tlic iiicii as tlicv wi-iit on with tliiMr work,
Mild ('isciisslnji' with those of tlu'iu who were inttTCHtcd, wiich
sul)j('('ts iis i»hr('noh»jiV, literatim', poetry, ami tiie various
relijrioiis and philosophical (piestions to which the fijreat Kevival
I liave already descrihed had jiiven a new life. In the course
ot" these conversations, and of my {goings in and out ainon<>' the
men. I naturally saw and heard much of the relations existinj^
hetween tlicin and the foremen of the dift'erent shops, relations
which were nearly always strained, and vorv <>;eiierullv bordering
on a state of open antaj^onism. In some shops the men, wild,
inouhordinatc, and as difficult to manajfe as Mexican nui8tan<:fs,
were constantly gettin<( out of hand ; work was in consequence
iK'jLi'lcctcd, and thiii<fs j^oin^' from had to worse there was
nothing;' for it hut to try what a change of foreman would do in
the way of restorin<>; discipline, Accordinj;ly when a fresh man
was app(jinted, speculation was rife as to the chances of his
success, and all were eaji'cr and interested in casting his horo-
scope. I usually gave my o[)inion like the rest, and on two or
three of these occasions was so fortunate as to make some
hai)[)y |)redictions both as to the length of time the new men
were likely to retain their situations, and as to the special causes
which would ultimately (!ventuate in their downfall. These
forecasts I connnunlcated at the time to the confidential clerk,
wli»t had already been nmch im[»ressed by my knowledge of
phreiKtlogy and by the accuiaey with which, as he expressed it,
I had read his character ; and by him they were passed on to
the heads of the firm ; so that from this time onwards, when-
ever a new foreman was wanted, it was customary for them to
take me int(» their counsels, on the understanding that while
they were to judge of the technical (pialifications of those who
applied, I was to give my opinion on their special (jualifications
to manage the men. Accordingly on the morning of the day
when the applicants were expected to arrive, some of them
from distant parts of the Dominion, a note would be left on my
<lesk by one of the firm, informing me that a certain number

i*\\

1H8

A riFANdK or MKTIIOI).

■were expected <liii-in;>' the e(>iii>e of tlic day, and that it woidd
be nc('e(»sarv for me to keep v\nnv- to the office^ to avoid nuM^inir
uny of them; and askin<^ me at tiie same time to ' look thcni
over carefully.' As I was not iiiore than eif^hteen or nineteen
years of a^(^ at the time, I natnraily entered into the humour
of a situation in which I was to sit in judj^inent on heanh-il
men, witli nmch <;usto and sense of fun. Presently the trains
Itearin;^ the applicants would Ix'^in to arrive from dift'erent
parts of the country, and the men would drop into the
otKce one after another — :i miscclhuieous assortnu'Ut truly, ot
old and younj;-, rou^h and smooth, tidy and unkempt, fierce
und <^entle, open and reserved — and would take their seats hy
tlie stove in the ante-room where I sat writing-, to await their
audience with the principals. This was n\y opportunity, and
walkin;^' over from my desk to where they were sittiu^Ti I would
take up the poker with the pretence of stirrin<4" u[) the fire, as
an excuse for startin<f a conversation with them. Heninniuii'
with the weather or other indifferent matter, 1 would ji'radually
learn from then) where they had been, the positions they had
held, the experience tiiey had had in the management of men,
and the like, and in the course of the conversation, kee|)inii'
clearly before my eye the characteristics and ])eculiarities of
tem[)er ami disposition of eacli of the men over ^vhom they
Avere to rule, had t<t make u[) my mind as to whether they were
likely to succeed or no. When they had all come and gone,
and 1 had heard all they had to say, my re[)ort was sent in, and
after being considered in connexion with their other purely
technical (pndifications, the selection was made in due form.

Xow in forming my judgment in these instances, I had
really renounced the old phrenological nu!thod which had once
been my main reliance in e«timating character and capacity,
and liad adopted a new on 3 founded on intuitive perceptions
drawn from within myself, — founded that is to say not on the
size and prominence of the organs on the cranium, nor even on
this taken into considerati(m with the general character of the

A CIIANi;!: OF MKTIIOI).

1S'>

nd
■ly

ICO

lis
lie
on

tCMii]i(>nnn(>iif, I ut on tin- lout t'useinli/e of the neisoimllty — on
niaiiiier, iippearance, expre^ftion, teniperainent, opinion, pliy«i-
ofj^noniy, i^ait, and tlic luiiiilrt'il and one leaser indications
which on account of thi-ir diversity <'an never he coinhiiied
under any i.rfenud princij)ie, hut which can derive their sense
and incaniii"!; onlv from ^itnic ihuli' connexion of thou<jht and
teehn;? which is only to he u'ot at throu<4'h a knowledge! of yoiu*
own iiiiniK In other words my method of arriving;' ill a
l\nowlcd;i,'e of the human mind had chan<;'ed from an external
to an internal interpretation ; from comhinations existinj;
outside of the mind, to comhinations \vithiii it. It is true that
I still ji'lanced at the old phrenolo<;ical oryans in passiiio-, Imt
like; those preachers who still refer to texts of Scripture long^
after they hav(! lost for them their orij^inal divine authority, it
was more as a matter of old hahit, than as placing any real
(le|ieiidence on them.

^>ow if this instinctive chan<i,e of method was so marked
when I was still immersed in the individual, it hecame still
more so when I had ceated to take my old interest in the mere
peculiarities of mind or character of any one individual man,
and was on the look-out rather for the <>reat laws of the World
and of the Human Mind, it was a true instinct which impelled
me to this chanuc, ami to justify it I shall now endeavour
to show that neither IMirenol<»uy (even if true) nor yet
Metaphysics and I'sycholony, althou/^h all of them dealing
with the mind, are hy their own methods iihle to discover a
Idiv of the mind. Should 1 succeed in doing this satisfactorily,
it will throw much light on the later stages of my mental
grow th and evolution ; — but first to explain precisely .vluit
it is I mean by a ' law of the human mind.'

if'

lie

CHAPTER VIIT

A LAW OF THE MIND— WHAT 18 IT?

npiIOSE of my readers who liave done me tlie lionour to read
my book on ' Civilization and Progress ' will per]ia])s
remember that in seeking for some new method of interpreting
the great movements of civilization, I took my stand (aftei
throwing out successively History, Metaphysics, Psychology
and Physical Science, as unable to give me what I wanted) on
what I called the Laws of the Human Mind ; and that in doing so
I at the same time announced that whatever new truths, if any,
should chance to come to the surface in the course of the work,
should in all fairness be credited to this new method of
interpretation rather than to myself. It was with some surprise
therefore, that after having explained in various ways and as
•clearly as I could, ^vhat I meant, I was told by two of our well-
known thinkers — the one a scientific writer of wide culture and
broad and catholic sympathies, the other a metaphysician of ihc
purest water — that although agreeing with many of the results
at which 1 had arrived, they still felt themselves unalde to grasp
clearly what it was I specially meant by a law of the human
mind ; and that, too, although nearly the whole of the work was
but conunentary, illustration, and variation on a few of these laws.
Now this inability of theirs was I doubt not partly due to mv
not having made myself sufficiently clear, but I am convinced
that it was in a large measure owing to the fact that neither the

A LAAV OF THE AIIXI) — WHAT IS IT?

191

l-asp
i;in

|\VilS

Iws.
I my
LmI
Itl.c

Physical Sciences, nor yet the Metapliysics or Pssycliology of
Avliich these men were the accredited representatives, can b^
tlicir own methods reach to what I have called a law of the
human mind, and on which I have made so much to depend.
But of this anon; for the present, not to anticipate but to keep
tc) the staple of evolution 1 had then reached, it is necessary that
1 should now show why it was that Phrenoloijy, even if true,
could not discover those laws of the mind of which I was in search.
To make clear theti what it is I mean by a law of the human
mind, it will be best for my present purpose, perhaps, to com-
pare it with a law of jihysical Nature, which merely expresses
the tendenci/ things have to unite or divide, to separate or
come together, so that when one ai)pears the other may be pre-
dicted to follow; unless, indeed, some other law or tendency
interferes to prevent it. It always therefore expresses a move-
ment between two things, either t)ne that shall bring them
together if they are separated, or sej)arate them if they are
together, either a movement, that is, of attraction or a move-
ment of repulsion. The law of gravitation, for example,
expresses the tendency which all bodies in the mass have to
api)roximate to each other, the law of chemical affinity, the
tcndenc}' which their particles have to do the same, and so
with all other i)hysical laws ; so that in thinking of a law of
Nature you can always roughly figure it as made up of two
points with a line uniting them, whereby when one ])oint is
known the other may be predicted. It is clear therefore that
the greater number of points wiiich you can connect by such
lines of rehition, the greater Avill be your knowledge of the
laws of NatiJ.o, the greater your power of predicting that
when any one thing is present, some other thing will follow.
Now precisely this, and nothing more, is what I mean when 1
speak of a law of the human mind. The mind may be said to
be made up of a nund)er of powers, sentiments, propensities,
passions, and the like, to which such names have been given as
love, revenge, reverence, lust, love of life, memory, imagination,

kit

! .;

ll»2

A LAW OF TIIK MINI) — WHAT IS IT ?

conscience, hope, etc., names whicli correspond to definite
feelings and affections, and whidi arc understood by all men.
Now these faculties and powers are all bound together by
invisible threads of relation into that concrete unity which is
known as the human mind. And as each of these feelings is a
definite affection of the ntind, and has a distinct, independent,
and conscious existence of its own, so that however often or
seldom it is aroused, Avhen it does arise it is always recognized
as the same ; the laws of the mind arc simply the different
lines of connexion that can be dr*\wn between any one of these
feelings and the rest, so that when any one feeling arises in the
mind, others or another may be predicted to follow it, or (as
th(;re arc laws of repulsion as well as of attraction) to ba
extinguished or driven out by it. This, in a word, is what I
mean by a law of the hiunan mind, and it is evident that if wc
were to icpresent these various sentiments, proijcnsitics, and
powers, as so many spots ai'ound the circumference of a
globe, the greater number of lines we could draw uniting eacli
of these with the rest, the greater would be the number of laws
of human nature we perceived, and the greater the number of
actions we could predict. These laws would of course have
every degree of v:duc according to their range and de[)th, and
to the riuinl)er of ap})arently unrelated sentiments and actions
which they would cx[)lain ; from the ordinary [)latitude which
may be figured as a connexion between points lying so close
together that no one could miss them ; to the better order of
lecture and pulpit exposition connecting points more remote
from eacli other, and where the line must pass some distance
beneath the surface ; till we come to those great underlying
laws which connect the most widely sundered thoughts and
sentiments, and which covering and explaining as they do vast
fields of human life, may be represented by lines that have to
run through great tracts of underground territory in order to
connect zones and belts of thought and fecliny; that seem
sejiaratcd by entire hemispheres.

A LAW OF THE MIND — AVHAT IS IT?

193

llci- of
nuote
ttance
I'lying
and
Is vat<t
Ive to
ller to
soeui

And now witli this conception of what a law (»f the human
mind is, we are in a position to see why it Avas that insensibly
am almost unconsciously I had renounced Phrenology as a
method of arrivintj at the laws of the mind, lony; before I had
theoretically discarded it, and why it is that Metaphysics also
although dealing with the mind, should give us no insight into
those laws of the mind by which alone we can anticipate or
predict the actions of men. For in Phrenology, and metaphoi-i-
cally speaking in Metai)hysics also, the faculties of the mind
may be figured as lying side by side on the surface of the
cranium, like a number of billiard balls large and small on a
table ; they are entirely unrelated to each other by any lines
of internal connexion, their only relations being those of
merely external contact, so that if they should happen to roll
against each other, as, for example, if so much hope should
come against so much caution, so much imagination against so
much fear, so much reverence against so much lust, the actiA ity
or strength of the faculties in question, and therefore of the
resulting action, would to that extent be fortified, diluted, or
neutralized, as the case might be ; much in the same way as if
so much water had been added to one's spirit, or sugar to one's
tea. But this union of the mental elements, although super-
ficially it looks as if it were a relation between two things, is
really only the diluting or strengthening of one. It is not a
cvmhination of two elements, such as in chemistry out of oxygen
and hydrogen would give us water (a new thing that can be
predicted to ap[)car), but is a mixture or solution rather, like
that which out of oxygen and nitrogen produces air (not a
new thing, but only a diluted oxygen), or out of salt and
water gives us only salt and water, or diluted salt. It furnishes
us therefore with only one pole or term of a relation, and not
with the two which as we have seen are necessary to constitute
either a law of Nature or a law of the human mind. In a
word, it is not a relation wherebv when one term is known,
another and uidvnown one can be predicted, or a process

'i'-SS

l\\

'■m

mm.

194

A LAW OF TIIF: .MINI) — WHAT IS IT i

wliereby when you put in one thing an entirely new tiling
comes out, but a process rather in wliich you bring out only
what you liave already put in. There is therefore no addition
to knowledge. For just as from a mixture of spirit and water
you get only a diluted spirit, so from a Phrenological or
Metaphysical mixture of prudence or caution with imagination
or hope, you can only get a chastened imagination, or a
tempered hope. With a true law of the mind it is just the;
opposite, as for example when you bring suspicion into relation
with love, you produce jealousy — quite a new thing, and one
you will observe that could never be surmised or predicted by
any manipulation of the two things on a phrenological or
metaphysical chart, but only by looking into our own minds.
A phrenological or metaphysical arrangement of the faculties
therefore, even if true, could give us no insight into the laws
of the human mind.

O^'hat this is so, may be still further seen if we remember
that in the idea of a law of the mind, as of a law of physical
Nature, a se([uence is always involved, a relalion of antece-
dent and consequent, a movement in Time between one
point and another, between one state of feeling and another,
so that due regard being had to circumstances, you can
predict the feeling that will follow out of the existent
one. In j)hrenological and metaphysical relations on the
contrary, where the contents of one feeling are merely mingled
with those of another, strenji'theninj; or dilutiiifj it as the case
may be, the united two count only as one term of the relation
necessary to ccmstitute a hiw, and in the absence of the second
term, the emotion or mental state which will next arise cannot,
it is evident, be known. B^or the feelings and emotions of the
mind are not like a row of sentry-boxes between which thought
when once aroused, will of itself march mechanically first to
the one next it, then on to the next again, and so on till it
has completed the entire circuit. On the contrary, like forked
lightning it takes the most unexpected cuts and turns, forwards

A LAW OF THE MINI) WHAT IS IT :

15)5

Ifirst to
h till it
I forked
irwjirds

and backwards, zigzao', orosswa^'s, and in all directions from
one to the otlier ; now accumulating at fixed points like
electricity, iinon discharging itself and heaping itself up on its
opposite, in a manner to which neither Meta[)hysics nor
]*hrenology can give us any clue. The i-elative natural
strengths of the various passions, although affecting the amount
of feeling evolved at any given ])oint, can tell us nothing about
the Ihie of direction that thought will take as it cuts across the
feelings. This can be known only from within our own minds,
i.e. from a knowledge of the laws of the mind. And it is just
the relafioii between one emotion and another, one sentiment
and another, whereby when one is given the other may be
})redicted, that constitutes a law of tlie mind. To see this
knowledge of the laws of the mind exemplified on the grand
scale, you have only to take down the i)hiy of Othello, and
mark the series of effects on the broad unsuspecting mind of
the Moor, of the drop of poisoned suspicion instilled into it
by lago. First or last, it is true, the jealousy aroused does
indeed travel the full round of the mind, and draw in one after
another all or nearly all of the leading passions and desires ;
but it does not touch each of these keys in turn one after
another in any mechanical way as a piano-tuner might do, or
in any sequence that could be determined by estimating the
original strengths of the various passions involved (though this
too is a factor in the completed result), but flies backwards
and forwards among the keys after the manner of the great
virtuoso, and in an order that dcfjcnds on the secret connexions
between the Aarious p..sions, and can be known only by the
mind itself when observing the sequences and connexions of
its own states. The sudden turns which the passion takes in
the ])lay, its rapid transitions from (me extreme to another, its
movement first from sus|)icion to doubt, then from doubt to
indignation, and from indignation back again to trust ; the
return again of doubt, and the agony of despair which accom-
panies it, followed by the brutal assault on lago in whom the

'<:

U',

■ 'Ar-T -J

[

196

A LAW OF TIIK MIND — WHAT IS IT f

^[oor still believes ; tlicn the sense of uncertainty deepening
into the probability of j^^uilt, the vnvs of vengeance, and the
ascent of passion to a height where for a moment it balances
itself on calm extended wing, circling around itself like an
eagle before its swoop ; the return again of doubt as to
Dcsdemona's real guilt, but on the proof of it, revenge fixed
and deep, which in its recoil, however, still continues to
alternate and rock itself amid momentary and conflicting gusts
of love, of pathos, of anger, of pity ; till hardening itself again
it settles finally into a fixed frenzy of revenge which j^svssing
on to action swallows up its victim, ending at last in despair
and death ; and all this following, as it does, the deep laws of
the human mind so closely, that with insight enough, and due
allowance being made for the attendant circumstances, each
movement might in a njanner be seen to be the effect of all
that preceded, and the cause of all that followed it. And in
fine, in all this it is evident that this jagged, uncertain, and
zigzag line of passion, leaping like living fire from peak to peak,
coiUd never be determined by any external phrenological or
metaphysical com[)ounding of suspicion, fear, jealousy, pity,
pathos, or revenge, but only from those internal connexions or
laws which the mind discovers by looking into itself.

The same conclusions will be strengthened if we take a still
more general survey of the field. In a broad and general way
it may be affirmed that the mind of man stands up against the
circumstances that would subdue it, as the body of man keeps
its erect posture against the forces of Nature that would bring
it to the ground ; and that the play of thought and emotion
that is set up in the mind when anything occurs to
disturb its equanimity, is analagous to the action of the
muscles of the body when anything occurs to upset the
balance. And as the object of the action of the nuiscles is to
restore the hodihi e([uilibrium, so the object of the play of
thought and passion is to bring the mind back to its original
equanimity ; as is well seen in the play of Othello to which we

A LAW OF THE AIINI) — WHAT IS IT?

107

Still

way
St the

Ibrlng

lotion

Irs to

the

is to

jiy of

loinal

111 we

liave just referred, wlierc it is evident that the whole strugjyle
in the mind of tlie Moor, — his violent upheavals and the
to-and-fro-('onf1ictin<5 outbursts of passion, — is to get back to his
old conij)osure, to ' that sweet sleep which he owed yesterday,'
even althougli that sleep could in the nature of the case bo none
other than the sleep of death. And one may go still farther
and affirm that just as the slightest deflection of the trunk may
ill certain positions of the body, throw into action muscles so
remote even as those of the foot or heel before it can be brought
back to the per[)endicular ; or, to vary the metaphor, just as in
an orchestral symphony the spirit and harmony of the whole
can perhaps only be maintained by the recurrent intrusion
from the rear into the stream of sound, of some deep bassoon
with its perplexed and troubled note ; so the smallest seed of
suspicion dropped into the ml.yl, may set in motion thoughts
and passions the most distant and ajjparently unrelated, before
its equilibrium can be restored. Nor is this all. For just as
the movements of the muscles necessary to restore the body to
its erect posture, follow one another according to laws of
correlation fixed deep in the sj)inal cord ; and the order,
combination, and sequence of instruments in an orchestra are
determined by the deep laws of hiirmony in the composer's
mind ; so the movements of tliought and passion which must
intervene before tranquillity can be restored to the distracted
mind, are determined by laws that lie deep in the mind itself.
The inference therefore is obvious ; — that just as the muscles of
the body can be separated, numbered, and set down in position
in an anatomical chart, and yet the particular muscles that
would have to be put in motion to restore the balance after any
departure from the equilibrium, could never by reason of their
complexity (as can be f^een in cases of locomotor ataxia) be known
by any outward balancing of their sizes, positions, or functions,
but only by the co-ordination of centres of the greatest delicacy
and poise, in the spinal cord, — co-ordinations which if the cord
were conscious and could think, could be written out as laws of

t f

,i lip!

''If

198

A LAW <»F TIIK MIX!) — WHAT IS IT?

iiiusculiir iU'tion; so in tlie siiine way you may have accurately
analyzed, numbered, and set down in your chart of tlie mind,
l)hrcnolo<4i('al or other, all the faculties, [)assi()ns, and sentiment8
of the mind in their relative sizes and strentrths, and yet the
way in which they would follow and relate themselves to each
other in the face of any complex combination of circumstances
from without tending to upset the mind's trancpiillity (in other
words the laws of the mind thoy wonld follow), could never be
determined from without, by any observation however complete
and accurate of their relative sizes or strengths, but only from
witlnii, by observing their seipiences and connexions in our own
minds.

And now if l)y means of these various illustrations and
analogies 1 have succeeded in making clear to the reader what
it is I mean by the laws of the human mind, and how we are to
set about discovering them, be will at once perceive how it was
that insensibly and unconsciously, as i have said, 1 had
practically abandoned the old method of Phrenology long before
I had theoretically discarded its philosophical basis. lie will
see too that my only alternative after rejecting the oittside
method of Phrenology was, after putting myself in the place as
it were of the person or persons whose conduct or action I
wished to ex[)lain or account for, to search in my own mind for
the relations and comiexions of thou<>ht and feeling that wonld
be likely (due allowance being made for circumstances) to
produce the same result in myself ; and if, besides, I found that
the same principles seemed adequate to ex{)lain the like conduct
or action in other men under similar circumstances, I shoidd
consider that I had discovered not only the true explanation of
the particular conduct or action in question, but a true law of the
human mind as well. Instead therefore of looking at the bunq»s
on the head or forehead for the explanation of the actions of
j)articular individuals, or at their relations on the chart for the
laws of the human mind in general, my method was to take as
my standpoint of intcfpn-tniion my own mind with the se(iuences

A LAW or TJIK MIND— wifAT IS IT '

19$)

a.Kl relations between the tl.on.hts, sontin.ents, an.l passions
"hich 1 fonnd there; an,l as n.y ,uetho,l of hnr./i.uflo, the
...mute and carefnl observation and study of th.. facts then.selves.
Ihat ,s to say, internal observation was n.y stan.lnoint of
...te.-,,retat.on, external observation ...y n.eans of investigation
nierely. °

How this n.ethod was abandoned for a ti..„. when F ea...e to
the great Proble... of the Wo.-hl as distin.-t fVon. the laws of the
n"".H.i M,n.l, and how f was obliged to take it np agai.i befo.-e
I conld advanee a step, will be seen i.. fntn.-e chapters as the
course of this evolution pi-oeeeds.

■I;

I PI

CHAPTER IX

THE BREAKDOWN OF PHRENOLOGY.

~lT"riIILE 1 was tliiis silently ami unconsciously driftinj^
* * from my old moorin«rs, and was descrtin}^ J'hrenology
as unable by its method to give me any further help, the
comrades who had set out with me and accompanied me thua
far on my way, still remained loyal to their old allegiance, and
refusing to move, continued contentedly sitting around the old
embers that had warmed and comforted them so long. The
younger of the two, my friend of the ' Revival ' episode,
although active, encpiiring, and full of intellectual energy, was
natimdly averse to opening his eyes too widely to the Haws of
a system which so flattered his own personal pretensions, and
which by the large [)ower8 of Causality it endowed him with,
ffave him so nmch distinction and radiance in his own imajjina-
tion ; while the elder, he of the ' Boot-jack,' had so long
nourished his s(ml on it in solitude, that he was now too old to
change ; and with the affection of some old Arab of the desert
for the good camel that had served him so well, striking his
spear into the earth, was prepax'ed to take up his everlasting
rest beside it. Accordingly 1 had to leave them behind, and
go forward alone ; but I cannot remember that my movements
gave them the least curiosity or concern. For I was but
modestly endowed as I have said, with that sovereign organ or
' bump ' of Causality which was so conspicuous in the heads of

THK UKKAKDOWN OK I'HKKNOLOd Y.

201

hntli tliose friends ; and tlu' consequence was that when I
returned to them from my various excursions, hrin<^in<^ with
me tlie j;leanin<fs of mv own (thservation and reflection — and
wiiich consisted for tlie most part of sucli li<^liter hvws and
threads of connexion as served to stitch toj^ether those tliouf^hts
and fcelinfjs wliich Phrenoloyv had left isolated and unrelated,
— it was rather with a kind of mild surprise than with any
<lecpei' interest in my speculations, that they regarded me; —
as nuich as to say, ' Is it really possihlc that yon could have
discovered this?' So strong a pre-conception indeed had they
formed of my inability to trace the relations of cause and effect
from the mere configuration of my head, that to escape
allowing me this capacity they wen; willing to credit me with
the possession of any nund)er of subsidiary or auxiliary faculties
and powers ; my young friend being disposed to attribute my
successes chiefly to a power of observation which he thought
he saw in me, and of which ' bump ' indeed, be allowed that I
had a sufficiency ; wdiile my old friend of the ' Hoot-jack ' was
inclined rather to refer them to what he was pleased to call my
' nervous temperament,' and which you were to figure as a kind
of machine which made more revolutions a minute than was
usual, and so made up in velocity for what it lost in power !
Now I must confess that this indisposition of theirs to give me
credit for the work I was doing, sincere doubtless as it was,
for a time piqued my pride and vanity not a little; the more
so as I flattered myself that by my new method I was reducing
large tracts of the more superficial aspects of life and nature
luider their true laws and causes, while they in my judgment
were wastinj"- their time revolvinn- round the same old theme
and dreaming over the excellence of their own powers. I soon
became accustomed to this attitude of theirs however, and
despairing of altering it, ceased after a time to take further
notice of it, but went on my own way unheeding.

Meanwhile having thrown oft' the methods of Phrenology, and
so blown awav the haze with which affection and enthusiasm

■

202

Till', MUKAKnoW.V OT I'HItKNOLOC V.

had for ii tiiiic invostccl it, I was cnaMcd t(> sec in irroiitor
>iliar|»ii('S8 of outliiu' the Haws and ffi\)x in its sti iictiUT ; and all
tli(! (dd uniTHolved cases whicli when my entlinsiasni was iit its
liei;,dit had been siientiv Iii(hh'ii iiway as in a box, nnder lock
and key, now revived in all their force. lint hesicU-s these ohl
instances, new ones were constantly arisinj;- in whitdi tin; f^aps
between the character and the craniinn were so wide, that not
all th(! injifeiuiity of niy friend of the ' lloot-jacdv ' could bridj^o
them, not even his ever niady extenuations and distinc^tions
eonld be stretched so as to cover them without crackiiifj^. And
yet so gradual is the process of uncoiling oneself fn»m the folds
of a belief whi(di one has once deeply entertained, that my
incredulity for some tinu; was kept within very definite limits.
For, so far, I had never doubted that these orj^ans of the
Phrenoloffists were the true and scientific! divisions of the human
mind, and that such so-called intellectual faculties us ()l)servation.
Causality, Comparison, Lanj^uaj^c, and tlu; rest, were (puto
distinct and independent powers. What I doubted was merely
whether these faculties had been assigned in all instances to
their proper positions on the cranium. Hut I was now to see
that not t)nly were tliey not true divisions of the mind at all,
but that they could not have distinct and independent existences
of their own ; and therefore that they could not have occupied
the i)ositions assigned them.

Not haviuii' been well for some time I had g-one to New York
for a (!ourse of sea-bathing, when as I sauntered along the street
<me afternoon I chanced to find my way into Barnum'snmseum ;
and there among other wonders and surprises I found that in a
little ante-room at the toj) of the main staircase, a Phrenologist
liad opened his sanctum, and was prepared to furnish the pu))lic
with the fullest particulars on all points of ability or character,
oral or written. Prompted mainly by curiosity I sat down on
his chair to have my head mani[)ulated, and in the course of the
conversation that ensued, was interested to learn from him that
he had discovered and developed an entirely new system, in

TIIK niJKAKhOWN <»K IMFIiKNor,* KiV.

20.1

wlilcli wliilo SOUK! new ormiuw woro addcil, iiiiiiiv nf the old onc«»
liiul cliiin^cd their pd^^ilioiiH, and not ii lew had h<!cn diHcanh'd
altopfcthcr I Of the partiiMilarM of this now Hysteni, I Inive now
hilt a nioHt imperfect reeoUeetion, hnt .>-neh a snchh'n «hiftin<;
iind tninsforniiition of th(> very foniKhitions of the seieneo, wat*
suffieient in my sceptieal Innnoiu'to s( i nie e(»nsi(U'rin<'' whether,
aft(M' all, tliese intellectual faculties about which my friends
wei'C! .-(» enthusiastic, had really any independent existence at
all ; and the (juestion once raised, it was not lon<;' before I found
that under analysis they nearly all melted away into n)ero
forms (»f otlu-r sympathies, atleetions, and desires : and so as
independent entities had no existence. If, therefore. I should
ask the reader to follow me in this demonstration, it is not
hecause 1 feel it necessary to resurrect for dissection an old and
(exploded system like l*hreu(tlo<iy, hut because the subject
itself has an importance far lieyond the special speculations out
of which it i^rew, and has most imjtortant bearin;;,s, as we shall
sei', even on the latest and most developed forms of Modern
Scientific I'svcholojxv.

In I'hronology as I have said, the various faculties, sentiments,
and propensities of the mind lie around the circumference of
tlii> cranium like a number of billiard balls {^rcat or small on a
table, each beinji* as separate and distinct from the rest as if it
were an Emperor in its own rijiiit. And not only was each
individual fa<'tdty separate and distinct from the rest, so that it
might be large while they were small or rice rersd, but each of
the groiipK of faculties — the intellectual, the moral, the aesthetic,
the animal. — was erpially distini't and independent of its
neighbours, iiut what I wish specially to note here is that tlu;
intellectual grou[) on the foreheatl, consisting as it did (tf
Observation, Memory, Causality, ('omi)arison. Language, and
the vest, was entirely cut ofl' from all connexion with the
sentiments, affections, and propensities which lay on the top,
sides, and back of the head respectively. Now on taking up
Causality, the first organ to which I happened to direct my

!i,:^:

'i:i'

204

THE ]lKEAKDOWN OF niUENOLOGY.

1 ii;

attention, and in tliinking over what was involved in the
discovery of the law or cause of any circumstance or set of facts
in tlie natural world, I at once perceived that in essence it
depended mainly on the breadth and subtlety, the minuteness
and accuracy of our ohsen'ntion of the sequence and connexion
of thini^s ; and that then the law or cause, which was but the
element common to all the facts, could be skimmed off them by a
process of abstraction or generalization as formal and mechanical
as that by whi^-h the cream is 8ei)arated from the milk. That
is to say, the cxsenceoi Causality lay in the power of observation,
and its forta only, in the process of generalization or
abstraction. Jiut as the Phrenologists had already a separate
organ of Observation to wliich they had assigned a distinct
l)lace among the other intellectual powers, the consequence was
that you had two organs ])ractically performing one and the
same function — which was absurd. IJut when on going still
farther back, I asked myself on what this power of observation
itself in turn depended 1 saw that it depended on the number,
comi)lexity, and fineness of our affinities, sympathies, and points
of sensibility ; or in other words on Feeling. For whether your
power of observation be confined to ^fan or Nature, to Sf)ciety
or the Individual, to Politics or Trade, to Animals or Men, to
]*nl)lic Oitinion, Dress, Form, Feature, or Manners; or whether
it include or embrace them all; it will be found (the mere
bodily eyesight being supposed to ))e connnon to all) to be always
set in motion by, and to have its roots (h^ej) down either in
sympathy, affection, desire, or in your natural affinity with the
class of ()l)jects observed ; — whether it be the (Vosire which
gives the fox his eye for the goose, the thief for the money-
chest, the cabman for his fare, the rook for the jjigeon, the
politician for a vote, the alderman for respectability and signs of
solvency, the practical man for a new oi)ening or investment, or
moile of transport or comnnuiication, the scientist for a new
biicillus or cell, the dramatist and novelist for character, situation,
or plot, the poet and artist for beauty in form or colour, in

THK IJIiEAKDOWN OF I'IIl^EN()L()(iV

205

liuulsciipe or in human lift'. That is to say, your power of
ohservation will dci)en(l either on such low and selish .•<fiiiiuli
as the love of money or of power, on pride, vanity, or self-love ;
on such mixed and neutral im[)ulses at< those of enter[)rise,
ambition, distinction, emulition ; or on such high and noble
loves as those of beauty, goodness, or truth. The greatest
all-round observer therefore will be he who like; Shakspeare has
the greatest number, complexity, and fineness of points of
sympathy, affection, and sensibility ; or in other words, the
greatest variety, range, height, and del'^acy of feeling. But
these feelings — moral, sentimental, a'sthetic, animal, — are placed
by the Phrenologists as I have said, in grou[)s by themselves,
distinct and separate from the intellectual powers. If Causality,
therefore, is practically only another name for breadth and
subtlety, range and accuracy of observation ; and observation
has its root deep down in the symj)athies, sentiments, and
attinities by which it is prom|)tcd and out of which it springs ;
it is evident that Causality should have its seat among the
Feelings rather than among the Intellectual Powers, Either
way therefore, it is an illusion. P\)r either it is only a form of
Observation, in which case you have two distinct organs
performing practically the same function ; or it has its root in
the impulses, sentiments, and desires, in which case it should
have had its place among the feelings, and not among those
intellectual powers — such for example as the various kinds of
memory — which can have in a great measure, a distinct and
independent existence of their own.

The Keader will readily imagine tiie sense of triumph with
which I returned to retail the above arguments to those connades
who had so long ignored my speculations on the ground of my
deficiency in that very organ of Causality which had now broken
in my hands; — and the surjjrise with which they received them.
My young friend was pal[>ably impressed by them, but the
ehlcr, he of the ' boot-jack,' after listening, considering for a
while, and finding himself unable to stretch his ingenuity enough

!:(

'11

if ^

ill'

.I-''

msm

206

THE IJUEAKDOWX OF riUlEXOLOGY.

! *'

to cover them, turned over on his side again ; and some months
later on my return from the University to whicli I had gone a
second time, I found him still sitting unchanged heside the old
camp fire. He was joined to his idols, and I let him alone ; and
during the short time that I was to be with him before I left home
for England, the subject was never again discussed between lis.

But it was not only CiUisality as a separate and independent
entity that melted away under analysis ; all the higher intellectual
])owers shared the same fate. Take Language, for example,
wliich is i)laced by the ]*hrenologist8 as a sei)arate faculty among
the other intellectual powers. Now as the mere names of things
may be assumed as practically connnon to all educated and
cultured people, it is evident that the web and pattern into
which words shall be woven in expressing our thoughts, will
depend not on the ;nere knowledge of words as such, but on the
number of things tint make the same impress? jn on our
sensibilities, and which therefore can be used as words or images
by which to paint out our meaning; and this again will dei)end
on the number, complexity, and fineness of oin* points of affinity,
sympathy, and sensibility ; so that whether your language shall
l)e hard, barren constrained, and suggestive of nothing beyond
the most gross and tangible aspect of your thought ; or on the
other hand shall be rich, various, and running over with subtle
allusions which shall bring out its finest shading, glancing and
s[)arkling from it as from the facets of a gem ; will depend not
on your knowledge of words as such, not on your mere power of
language as such, but on the richness, fineness and complexity
of your syn)j)athies and sensibilities ; in a Avord, on Feeling.
Language therefore, like Causality and Observation, can have
no independent intellectual existence of its own, but like them,
has its roots deep down among the symi)athies, feelings, and
moral affinities.

The same result would folhjw on an analysis of the organ of
C()mi)arison, the organ which discovers likenesses, and gives to
those endowed with it the jjower of analogy, of metajjhor, of

THE IIUKAKDOWN OF PIIRENOI.OGY.

207

^\ity

1 1 ])<>•.

u'ln,
and

illustration. Fov cither tlic objects which we compare have
an external likeness, or they make an identical impression on
oiu' sensibilities. In the first case the jiower of analogy will
depend on our power of retaining in our mind the exact like-
ness of things, that is to say, on the memory of forms, — an
organ which has a separate place assigned it among the
intellectual faculties ; in the second case it will depend like the
others, on the number, comi)lcxIty, and fineness of our points
of sensibility, that is to say on Feeling, and can have no place
therefore among the intellectunl faculties. Bnt enough I trust
has been said to show that the higher (pialities of the intellect
have their core and root deej) down among the feelings, and
depend for their fullness or ])0verty on the richness, fineness,
and comi)lexity of these feelings ; and that any system therefore
that would di\orce Intellect from Feeling by putting them
into separate categories, as if they ground out their special
products independently of each other, is ct nvicted of shallow-
ness, superficiality, and absurdity.

IJiJt if further proof were Avanting that the higher (jualities
of intellect have their roots in the deeper regions of the mind,
and not in any mere overgrown organ, it may be seen in such
well-known facts as that the grwit rhymesters and improvisatori
are not the great poets ; the lightning calculators, not the
great mathematicians ; those best endowed with physical
eyesight, not the great observers ; the great mcmorists of form,
not the great painters ; or of tune, the great composers.

So fell Phrenology, but from its wreck and break-down one
real and i)ositive result had emerged, a relation namely, between
two separate and apparently unrelated facts of our nature,
between Thought and Feeling, between Intellect and the
emotional sympathies. Hut although I saw this implicitly, I
had neither the boldness nor the clearness at the time, to
formulate it in a definite principle ; and being soon afterwards
drawn away from the subject by the current of my thoughts
having turned to the larger jjroblcm of the World, it was not

: i

iin

mmmm

208

THE BUKAKDOWN OF IMIIIENOLOGY.

until two or three years had elapsed that I found it had been
formulated by Carlyle in his well-known doctrine that * the
Intellectual and the Moral are one ;' and that 1 discovered that
on this single principle as basis, the whole series of his historical,
literary, and biographical portraits without exception — his
IJurns, Johnson, Voltaire, Schiller, Scott, Goethe, Mirabeau,
Sterling, Frederick, Cromwell and the rest — were avowedly
and consciously constructed. With what avidity I seized this
doctrine when once I found that another mind had already
seen it and given it expression; and how I went about painting
with it until I be<>an t(» see that it would have to be more
carefully defined before it could be available for general use,
and must be united with other laws equally important before
it could explain the nature of any given individual mind — all
this will be seen more fully in a subsequent chapter.

CHAPTEJi X.

THE POWEK OF LANGUAGE.

JN tl,i» b™.k.„p „f Phrenology „,,;,,,, |,„| „„„ .^.^^^

be„c,,tl. mc, I w„. „.„i„ loft .,,.ift:„„ „„ „,^ ' ^
spec„la.,o„, f,„. f,.„,„ ,i,,,,e „f ,„„,, /„,, J - f

.n.."0J.e,l ,„ tl,o discovery of tl,e law« of H,e i vi,,„„l ,

.md a though „„ .1,0 right t™k, h.l „„t yet attained to nv
™ftic,ent .„s,ght into then, to modify n,y Wow,, of U^ "I
whole. A, for ,|,e ,„„, „f .,,„ u„i,„,., „,, ^^^ - J^

^atnre they were .till beyond „.y range of specniation O
Uplace 8 theory of the forn.ation „f the Universe a,nl of I
suns were eonden.,ed fron, dimmed nebulae, p:;!, '.',:
»i"l satellites fron, planet,, I had not yet even ho„-,l ■ ,'

las yet the lea,, i„tere.,t in the subieet -T . f '

^e ana had too little of b .„ iC'n' irt:r::r' t

w.as the san,e, too, with .Spenee,''s l'l,il„,„nhv of ^^ , . ■
a»cl >ntb Darwin, explanation of the evob, J,, ^^^Zi
■nm,al.s by t he proe,. s of .spontanoon, variation,' "t,

w ;::,;:;;''' xr ''""■'■™' -' "-- ««-^'-i.'..-:-fwhi

l.aa J e cul rbe eonseqnence wa, that bavins ar,-ive,l at no
"."e.y e,thor ,„ ,„y view of the Wn-ld or of tbo Hnn,, V „7
n.ad no new basi, for a change in ,„y views of 1 el ' o '

l"c.b ,ndced had slept nndistnrbed f,;n, the d, , w
I ;..l«-'. Analogy failed to wean ,ne fro.n that liv . tt' i"

"' '-'"'-' ""™^'™- -=-."e.-oa ■• e b/th':;:,:::::,!;;:;,';

u' i'

K^l

■n

210

THE POWER OF LANG LAG E.

doctrine of the (lej)en(lence of tlie emotions and activities of
the mind, on states of the brain.

Still, although land was nowhere in sight, either in the form
of a Philosophy of Nature or a Theory of Keligion, I was not
as I have ^aid without a rudder of my own with which to
ilirect my course. For underneath the old shell and husk of
Phrenology, whose methods I had now entirely cast off, the
new method which I have already described had taken firm and
abiding root. This method, to re|)eat it again, consisted in
taking as my standpoint for the interpretation of human life,
the laws of the mind which I discovered in myself, that is to
say, those fixed connexions between its various sentiments,
emotions, and desires, whereby when any one was given, some
other could be jjredicted to follow or attend it ; and going out
into the world with these laws, to seek to enforce, modify, or
^ivc greater clearness to them, as the case might be, by
observing the extent to which they held true of other minds.
In this way 1 gradually wove for myself a web of laws of the
mind, which however superficial they might be at first, had as
prime virtue the capacity of growth and increase with time,
and so gradually spread, twined themselves together, and
pushed their roots deeper and deeper into the soil ; thus
preparing the way for those profounder laws of the mind on
which as we shall see in the sequel, the solution of the great
problems of Life and lieligion idtimately dejiend.

With this quiet and gradual evolution of my own thought,
undisturbed by any intrusion into it from without, I was for
the time-being content. I was in truth in a transition state
between the breakdown of one system, IMirenology, which 1
had outgrown, and the uprise of another, Spencer's Philosophy
of Evolution, which was just on the horizon ; and in the lull
and pause between them I had leisure to look round me and
take stock of the deficiencies in my own intellectual outfit.
The first thing that struck me as standing in need of repair,
was a want in the power of expression. Of this I was first

THE I'OWEIt OF LANGUAGE.

211

ight,
s for
state
ich I
3ophy
lull
e and
)utfit.

first

made aware in my conversations with my friend of the ' IJoot-
ja(!k.' The oas^e and Huidity of his discourse, the copiousness,
flexibility, and appropriateness of tlie language he used when
compared with my own stinted and barren utterance, impressed
me dee})ly, and I was anxious if possible to correct my own
deficiency. And when I observed further the multitudes that
flocked to hear the popular jireachcrs and platform orators who
oecasionsdly visited the town, and the admiration with which
their performances were regarded, I felt doubly determined
that come what would, I must aecpiire this facility. For my
deficiency, to })ut it definitely, was not so much in the power
of translating tiioughts and ideas into pictures, for this in a
manner was natural to me; nor in the power of striking out
images and likenesses, for in this exercise my mind was fairly
fertile ; but was simply a want of knowledge of words, of the
names of things. This deficiency was due perhaps to my
excessive devotion to sj)orts and outdoor anuisements during
the whole period of my boyhood ; to my entire want of interest
in anything that had to do with business, or politics, or trade,
and to the consequent absence of a large stock of words or
phrases in ordinary use, taken from these pursuits ; but more
than all perhaps to my never having read any of the ordinary
story books and tales of adventure, where shades of thought
and feeling unknown in the talk of the playground, find
abundant and accurate expression.

And yet 1 had been educated at one of the best schools of
the time ; at this school I had spent the greater part of four
years in almost exclusive devotion to Classical studies, and at
the end of that time had taken high honours in these subjects
at the University Examination. The reader therefcjre may
feel interested to know how it was that with such training 1
should have left the school, not only without any of those
felicities of thought aid expression for which the Classics ai"e
supposed to be so admirable an exercise, but without even an
ordinary commuud of words, the greater number of which were

212

THE POWER OF LANdLAOE.

(lei'ived from those very liiiigim<''e8 ! The Jiiihwer to this will
not only throw light on the nnu^h-tlehiited question us to the
value of ii classical education as a discipline of the mind, and
as to the best mode of hn[>arting it, but will in a measure serve
also to explain the particular deficiency in myself which I am
now c<m8idering. The fact was that during the three or four
years of my attendance at school, we were given only such
portions of Homer, Virgil, Horace, Livy, Cicero, Ovid,
Sallust, and Lucian, as were set down in tlie University
Curriculum ; and when we had learned to translate them
literally, to read and scan them without false quantity, to kncjw
all about iambics, choriambics, dactyls, spcmdees, and the
ctusura ; when we had learned the genealogy of the gods and
demigods, the exploits of the heroes, the speeches they had
delivered, or the battles they had htst or won, together with
the mythological allusions that lay scattered everywhere up
and down the page, our outfit was considered conq)lete; and
according to the extent and accuracy of this knowledge, did
we take rank and position in the school. Into this mould we
were all methodically pressed, any branching luxuriances or
offshoots of thought being incontinently lopped off, as incon-
gruous with the end in view. Indeed to have endeavoured to
catch from some rising ground a glimpse of the beauteous
fields of i)oesy that lay on either side of the dusty highway
along which we were driven, and to which these pedantries
were but the entrance and doorway ; to have askecl wherein
the odes of Horace or speeches of Cicero were specially
beautiful or great ; or why this which was said or done was
specially api)roi)riate to the occasion, would have been resented
by the Master as an impertinence. Jiut of this indeed there
was little danger, for as we staggered along under the heavy
load of pedantry we had to bear, gro})ing our way among the
rocks aud briars, front word to word and sentence to sentence
as if for very life, we had neither the time, inclination, nor
power to discern the poetic beauties of the landscape, to us

TIFR POWKIl OF LANfiUAOE.

213

on-
l to

iway
tries
leiii
ally
was
iited
»ero
iiivy
the
ence
nor
us

inviHible ; and all oversiirht of the field as a whole, hi which
idone intellifi^ent apprehension consists, was impossihlc. Of
any such poetic or rhetorical (graces or feruuties we were
neither expected nor re(iuired to know anythin<jf ; nor did our
teacher jrive ua any the slij^htcst indication that he himself
either knew or canid. On the other hand, not to know the
various labours of Hercules, the names and numbers of the
Fates, the Furies, and the Winds, and the seven cities that
ctmtended for the honour of beiii*; the birthplace of Homer,
that indeed was a fault on which he was inexorable! The
conse([uence to us was, that the languaj:;e of Homer in so far
as it was a discipline or exercise of the taste and understand inf)^,
stood on precisely the same level as the lanj^ua^e of tiie
Maories or Hottentots, and a knowledge of his heroes as a
knowledge of their chiefs.

It was the same with History. No attempt was anywhcn;
made to winnow the record, to separate the chafty and merely
imposing jiarts from the significant and far-reaching ; to
exhibit the roots and stems of events in geographical situation
and surroundings, or in economic or political necessity.
Nothing of all this was vouchsafed us, but we were set instead
to batten on a ban-en and wintry inventory of battles, dates,
and kings, without intellectual connexion or cohesion, and as
useless for real culture as an inventory of the old turnpikes and
tavern-signs on a road long since closed, and on whi(di the
world was never again to travel. In a word, there was nothing
human in his mode of teaching, nothing to show us that real
identity in human nature which links those olden times to the
familiar life of to-day ; the conserpience being that the o'er-
frcighted memory, worn out with the efTort to retain this dead
heap of facts, without continuous string of connection to
thread them on, hastened, when the examination was past, to
let them fall into oblivion. The truth was, the Head Mast((r
made no pretence of teachiug in any genuine sense of that term,
but only of hearing our lessons. He made no comments of his

'i M

i f'l

\ '''111

t il

214

THE rOWEU OF LANGUACJK.

own ns wo went along ; neither expatiating on, nor seeking to
develop the immediate theme, nor in any way attempting to
unite the particular verse, sentenee, or chapter with what went
before or after, so as to present a continuous chain of tliought
or sentiment along whicli the young mind groping its way t(»
clearness, could creep from link to link. During all those years,
indeed, I can recall but one solitary comnumt f»f his, which in
any way helped to give resiuTcction and life to that antique
world, or to rescue it from the cerements of pedantry in which
it lay entombed, uniting it for the nnmient with the j)resent,
the familiar, and the known ; and the peculiar sensation it gave
me, made an impression on me which remains to this day. T
was reading Horace at the time, alone with the Master,
l)rcparatory to the University Jjxamination, and when we came
to the ode which tells how severe winter was melting away
under the genial influence of spring, and I was groping my
way through the first line or two, piecing the words together
with as little sense of their beauty, or indeed of their meaning,
as if I had been engaged in making out an acrostic, he suddenly
stop})ed me, and moved apparently by souio passing reminiscence,
looked over his nose at me facetiously and said, parajdn-asing the
line, ' Gloomy Winter's noo awa'. ' Sxu'prised that the old
Roman poet could have meant anything so simple, natural, and
intelligible as this, I paused a moment looking u[) at him, when
he asked me if I knew whose the line was, and on my answering
at a venture ' IJurns,' he said in his lofty way ' No, Tannahill,'
and went on with the task as before. This was the first and
last indication I ever had from him, that anything we heard or
read within the walls of the school, could possibly have any
analogy with, or bearing however remote on the world in which
I lived and moved, or the thoughts and feelings Avith which I
was familiar.

From all this it will be apparent to the reader that the
deficiencies in my vocabulary due to the causes I have
mentioned, Avere not likel}' to be repaired by the Classical

THR rOWKU OF LANOTAOE.

215

tniiiiiii<f I liiul received — n tnnuinj^ in which tnin.shition wiis
confined entirely to the literal and dictionary meaninf; of the
words, and in which a free rendering; which niijiht have
strengthened one's choice of words, Avas forbidden, lint how
to set about repairin;^; this deficiency ! This was now the
<luestion with me.

I reniend)ered havinj^ heard (h* read somewhere that Addison
was the j^reat master of pnre and classic Eji<rlish. but on
gettinjf a (sopy of the Spcchttor, his many Ixjanties and felicities
of diction as well as his ex(jui8ite humour, diffused as a sid)tlo
essence over whole pas^i'ires rather than concentrated in single
sentences, were quite lost on me. The truth was I was not on
the look-out for cither fine humour or felicity of expression ;
what T really wanted was words, high-sounding, many-syllabled
words, and the more of them the better ! and 1 soon began to
feel that I might have to plod through whole volumes of this
simple diction, before 1 came on the style of phrase of which I
was in search. I could do this sort of thing myself, I thought,
and i)utting aside the volume, turned to the Avorks of
Washington Irving whom I had seen bracketed somewhere
with Addison as a master of English Prose. But he too, like
his great predecessor, although his thoughts were enveloped in
a wanner, softer, and more sunny atmosphere, and were
pervaded with a gentler and more pathetic melancholy, was too
pure and simple in expression for my purposes, and had to be
laid aside. And then I came casually across a copy of liurns'
letters which pleased me better. Their stilted sentiments
and high-Hown expressions of compliment and adulation, like
the stock models in the ' polite letter writer,' seemed to me
very fine indeed ; and I can remember copying out some of
the more striking of them, as models for myself in letters of
the same kind which I had in contemijlation! But these too
had the same fault as the essays of Addison ; there were
too few of the ' purple patches ' in a given space ; and I
next betook me to the public library where years before 1

li;

* ,

m
111

2n;

TIIK I'OWKIt OF LANGLAOK.

rciiiciiiIxTcd Imviiiij jrlauccd into tlu; workn of DickoiiH.
With liiiii I wiiM not disappointed, for besides his huntoiir, I
found in him a style of plirasc; and epithet which jj;ave ine
nuieh satisfaction. When, for exainj>le, he (h!S(!rihes an old-
<d()thcfl shop 118 "one of those convenient emporiums where
•j^enthMuc^n's new and second-hand eh)thes are provided, and
the troid)Iesomc and ineonvetiient ility of measurement

dispensed with," or in speaking oi *!phyr in the debtor's
prison remarks that "Mr. Pickwick struck the Zephyr so smart
a Idow on the chest as to iU'prive liim of a con8i(U,'ral»lo portion
of the connnodity vvhicli Hometimes bears his name," or in
depietin;:: the dispute at IJob Sawyer's party says that " one
individual expressed his (hu-ided unwillingness to accept any
'sauce' on gratuitous terms either from the irascible young
gentleman with the scorbutic countenance or any other person
who was ornamented with a head," 1 was charmed, and
thought it wonderfully clever, and the power of language it
exhibited quit(; unicpie I But passages so suitable to my
purpose as these, occurred only at ce " lerable intervals; and
in my state of word-hunger by no s satisfied me. Full

fruition, however, was not long in conung, for just about this
time, one of the daily papers for the entertainment of its
readers, tof)k to dressing up the Police Reports in a style
of mingled bombast and high-flown grandeur which was
precisely to my mind, and in a form too, compact enough
to satisfy my utmost demands for concentration. The news-
paper was taken in at the Harber's Shop — the conunon
rendezvous for gossip of all classes — and it was understood
that the customer or lounger who should first secure the
paper, should read the reports aloud to the rest of the company.
The result was inunediate and decisive ; with one accord we all
declared them to be productions of the I'arest and purest genius !
The style of these productions it is somewhat difficult to
reprf)duce, but it was nnich after the manner of the passages I
have Just quotedfrom Dickens, but with still more exaggeration of

TIIK I'OWKIt Ol' L.VN(M:.\(IK.

■21

<'|»itli('t and phrase; and I caiiiKit pcrliaps licttcr illiiHtratc i than
by thi! ('hrirtty MiiiHtrcl vcrsicin (wlii<'h I have used in anotlicr
phice) of the (tid nej^ro l)allad of 'Old Uncle Ned,' vvlicie the
lines 'He Imd no hair on the top of his head, just the piaei;
wlicre the hair (»n<j;ht to <ri-o\v ' arc rendered hy 'lie had no
oai.illar}' substam^e on the snnnnit of his perieraniinn, jnst in
the |)osition where the capillary snhstance on<(ht to vejj;etat(! I '
or by tlic hi<rh-8onndin^ phras(!olo<jfy of the old Spellin<j^-n( >;
exercise, — ' It is aninsin*; to conceive the harasslnj^ and
nnparallelcd perplexity of a paraly/cd |)edlar j^anf^inji; the
synnnetry of a pear peeled for a pony ! ' Now in all this the trick,
for trick it was, consisted merely in the snbstitntinf]f of lonjf,
hijjfh-sonndinii; words of (rrcek or Latin orijfin f(»r their
eciuivalcnts in [)lain Anj^lo-Saxon ; and not in any addition to
the many-sidedness, complexity, or Inminonsness of the ima^fcs
raised, in which indeed jjfreat power of ex{)res8ion, (as we shall
see farther on when we come to the qnestiim of style) really
consists. And yet I am bonnd to confess that in sucli trash as
this, I fancied I saw more jjjenins than in the works of the
^reat -t masters of thonj^ht and expression. Nor was I alone
in till for 1 am convinced that had a vote been taken, the
majority f the room wonld have shared my opinion. After a
year or more, these reports having lost their freshness and
Havour, or the writer of them having exhausted his invention,
ceased altogether to appear, to my great regret ; but in tin;
meantime they had so whetted my appetite for words, that not
getting enough of them in the ordinary way, 1 boldly threw
away all pretence of reading either for the humour, the pathos,
or the invention of the work in hand, earing for its words onl} ,
and did not rest satisfied until I had m)t h(dd of Crabbe's book
of Synonyms and set to work on it as I would on a dictionary :
beginning at the beginning and learning the words by heart
straight through to the end! It had to come to this, and
nothing less would satisfy me, and for six months or mon; 1
glutted and gorged myself on nouns and adjectives and synonyms,

218

THE POWKU OF LANOTAOl

until r thought I had the command of a sufficient number for
ordinary purposes of expression ; after which I returned to my
old studies which if not entirely neglected, had in the interval
been pushed into the background of thought.

for
my
rval

CHAPTER XI.

MY UNCLE AGAIN.

TN this way I n.ight have gone on speculating and dreaniirig
and pliil()soj)hizlng for ever, mingling freely with the tide
of human life on the side of its lighter amusements, its cricket-
ing and dancing and love-making, without care for the morrow
or its interests of business and money getting, had I not been
shaken out of it and my life turned into a new channel by the
arrival on the scene, of one who in my earlier years had given
me that high regard for things of the mind which I still
retained. This was my Uncle .lames the old bachelor, who after
some yciirs' absence had returned ({uite reformed and weaniid
from his old enemy, to live with us again for awhile. Hut
unfortunately I had to confess to myself that robbed of thc^
lustres which played about him when under the influence of
drink, he no longer interested me as he had done before. He
no longer lost himself in raptures over his high themes, flinging
himself at them like some great geyser spouting against the
sky ; but Hke a bubbling (cauldron now grown cold, contracted
himself into a stiffish, pedantic reserve, holding his eye and
tongue in readiness rather for a slip or a gibe, than for
enthusiasms and admirations as of vore. He was no longer
the great Trismegistus and Encyclopaedist of my earlier years ;
fcr with my own increase in knowledge, the vaunted learning
which had so excited mv awe and aihniration now showed in its

ilji:

-Ti't'-'-

220

:my tncle again.

true jM'oportions ; the canopy which had seemed so vast and
ull-enihracinjf, sliowing its rim and borders, and the web, its
loose ends and inner linings ; and he had to take his place
among the rank and fde of ordinary })edants. His knowledge
of Mathematics which had loomed so large when he was in
drink, he now modestly enough confessed to be bounded
within the limits of Colenso's Al";ebra and the Geometry of
Euclid ! And although he had pushed his private excursions
into tin; outlvin<>; fields of Triffoncmietrv, it was only to take
from thence a Pisy-ah view of those hijjjher mathematics which
he was not destined to enter. Of his favourite Astronomy he
knew little beyond the ordinaiy text-books and Sir .lohn
llerschell's lectures, — a knowledge which consisted rather in
the belief that eclipses could be predicted ' to the fraction of a
minute ' than in the power of so predicting them himself.
His literature was confined to certain selected passages from
Stilton and Byron whom he admired for what he called
their ' power of language,* giving me I remember as instance
of the hitter's poetry, his feat in Don Juan of making
intellectual rhyme with ' hen-pecked-you-all ! ' In a word, he
was a pedant not only in the narrower but in the wider sense
of that term. With a certain simplicity of nature, and love
for the vast and sublime, which with other endowments com-
mensiu'ate inight have carried him far, he was deficient in
intellect proper ; and instead of expanding to the dimensions
of Truth, and moving easily and lightly into the higher air of
thought, he was hooked and impaled on the merest twigs and
phrases, from which like a balloon grappled by some scrubby
tree, he could not detach himself, but hung there enchanted
from youth to age. An idolator of all that bore the name of
' intellectual,' like a gold-stick in waiting he was impressed
rather with the trappings and pose, the casings and clothes in
which thought was contained, than with the things themselves;
and like a miser hugged these poor coins and counters as if
they were the very bread of life. He was not open to new

ove
oin-

iii
ions

oF
and
jby
ited

..f
■jsed
s in
I'os;

if
lew

MY LNCLK A(JAIX.

221

tlioii<;lit, or indeed to thought at all, but continued to fish in
the ohl pools where he so long had puddled, thrashing the
waters only to land sueh fish as had previously been put on his
hook by hearsay and public oj)inion, and which he thought were
his own. Encompassed thus in a galaxy of phrases like a
religion, he lived in them as in an ideal world, doing reverence
and worship to them daily, and finding their fragrance so sweet
and satisfying as to enable him to dispense with all more
intimate knowledge. It was the word ' vast ' when apjjlied to
the Heavens, the word ' sublimity ' applied to Astronomy, the
word ' profound ' ai)plicd to mathematics, which enchained and
delighted his imagination, and not the things themselves. It
was the epithet ' classical ' whitdi he had read or heard applied
to Sir tlohn IlerscheH's lectures, that called forth his en-
thusiasm, and not their particular contents; the ' oratory ' of
Dr. Chalmers, of which he often s[)oke as if it existed as a thing
apart, and not what was specially said ; and as for the way in
which he rolled out the 'genius' of Newton, it was as if he
conceived it to be a mighty reservoir of mystic unknown force,
quite independent of the trains of thought which his special
problems involved. Nevertheless the stinndus which these
phrases had given me in my earlier days, long out-lived my
disillusion in regard to himself, and in my rising ambitions
played a most potent part for many years to come.

And now having returned to live with us, he was deeply
mortified to learn that I had suddenly hsft the University some
years before without having taken my degree. I had lost my
chance of ever doing anything or Ijcconiing anything, he went
on to say, and had thrown away the golden opportunity of
being abh; to write the mystic letters B.A. after my name, —
an honour in his opinion second to none. And when he had
ascertained further that I had s[)ent the intervening jears
dawdling about an engineer's office doing practically nothing,
but busying myself with such fruitless speculations as the
Problem of the World and the Iliunan Mind — speculations

i . 5':

i [ •

• 'J

222

MY UNCLE A(JAIN.

these which were closed and sealetl to liiin l»y orthodox
Christian doctrine and which none might rashly venture to
reo[)en — and worse than all when he learnt that for the greater
I)art of the time I had been occupying myself with such cheap
trash as Phrenology, he was enraged and disgusted beyond
measure, and closing his lips with much emphasis declared that
it was a disgrace to me and to all concerned in allowinj; it.
So deeply disappointed was he with the course I had taken,
that he could not let the matter drop, but kept returning to it
again day after day. I was now twenty years of age lie
reminded me, and having lost my one great opportunity of a
degree in Arts, there was nothing for it but that I should at
once and without further loss of time, prejjare for one of the
' learned professions ' as he called them, closing his lips as he
j)r<)nounced each word separately, and rolling the whole under
his tongue with nuich gusto. Now 1 had already been
thinking of some such course myself, but the delight 1 found
in philosophizing and dreaming and anuising myself generally,
had practically put my good intentions among the category of
[jerpetual postponements. Besides, I felt no inward call to
either of these professions ; not to the Church, by reason of my
disposition and o[)inions ; not to Law, from an imaginative
aversion to what I now recognize to be a most important and
interesting study ; not to Medicine, because of my pre-occupa-
tion with those other i)hilosophical studies between which and
medicine I did not then know that there was any connexion.
It was to a great extent, therefore, a matter of indiH'erence to
me as to which of them 1 should enter, but pressed as I was by
my uncle daily, 1 felt compelled at last to make a choice which
in the end was determined by the merest chance. Ila})pening
(me day to meet one of our local medical men in the street, he
asked me what I was going to do, and on my answering that I
did not know, he said ' Why not go in for medicine .' ' adding
that if I liked I could read with him in his oHice preparatory
to going up to the medical school in connexion with the

:MY UXOLK AGAIX.

i'1'6

Lnivers,ty. Why not? I thought to myself, u.ul Inn-nnMIy
ussentecl ,uu before 1 ha.l ti.ne to propc-ly .-.dizo wh.t 1 had
one he had vvntten for a skeleton fron. which I was to stucly
hc bones (and which 1 scented with attar of roses I ren.e.nber
to my sorrow !) and a list of the books I was to read. In this
way I dnfted into a profession without conscious forethought
and fron> the mere in.possibih'ty of choice among a nund^e.- oi'
indifFercnt oppos.tes ; and in the following Autunu. -t.^iin
at.ad..nny.^ to the Medical Departn.ent :f the Z^^;
which I had left so suddenly Just four years before. '

1 1' t,!

I 1 •

lii

CHAPTEll XII

THE UNIVERSITY.

'IP
f,ii

r'l'^IIE Medical Scliool in which I was now to punsue niv studies,
-■- wiis a large stone building embosomed among the trees
of the public ]>ark, and situated but a few hundred yards from
the College to which it was affiliated. For a little while at
first I felt somewhat strange and uncomfortable in my new
surroundings. The figures of the students moving here and
there solitary or in groups among the trees or athwart the lawns,
on their way to and from the University lectures, and looking
in their caps and gowns like beings of another order ; the
coldness, aloofness, and even contemi)tuousness, as I thought,
with which we freshmen were regarded by the elder students ;
the old janitor hunself who was coeval with the i)lace, and who
made a point of snubbing us mechanically and as a matter of
form on our first entrance, so that we might afterwards know
how to keep our places ; even the very smell of the building
itself through which the tainted atniosphere of the dissecting
room at all times faintly diffused itself; all helped to affect me
strangely and more or less unpleasantly. It was not long,
however, before I felt myself quite at home in my new
environment, mingling freely with the other boys and entering
into all their sports and pranks with much ardour and
enthusiasm. But in steady application to the work of the
School I vva^ sadly deficient, owing partly to the manner in

TIIR L'NIVKKSITV.

225

urn

iim

liew

Bind

III

which the suhjocts wore tiui/^^ht tliero, Imt eliicfly pcrliaps ta
thiit pre-oc'cnipation with literature and [ihilo^ophy which 1 hud
brought wltli me from home.

The Professors as a body were of the ordinary type and were
average specimens of their class. In pi'ivate life and among
their own friends they were men, I doubt not, of many and
various accomplishments, but in their official capacity as
lecturers, they turned like the moon but one face towards ns, and
once ensconced in their professorial chairs, rayed out from these
high and sunless peaks mere cold and darkness, without
enthusiasm, humour, or human geniality. Some of them were
pompous and fusoy, others deprecating and solicitous of our
good opinion ; some were shy, sensitive, and so easily oH'eiided
that on the slightest noise or sign of inattention they would
Hush with indignation as if they had met with a personal affront ;
others were callous and indifferent, and coming in generally
late, would mount the [ilatform and unrolling their inanuscriiit,
gallop through its contents as through a catalogue, then rolling
it up again would bow stiffly and hasten from the room ; while
others, again, were so nice, and overscruiiulous that they would
walk u}) to their desks as to an execution, their brows freighted
and over-hung with the gravity of the message tliey liad to
deliver, and would proceed to dilate with so much scrii|)ulosity
and exactitude on the precise way in which we were to tie a
string or support a back, that at the thought of ever being
called upon to perform operations at once so delicate and
momentous, we grew pale in our seats as we sat !

As to the matter of the lectures it was perhaps all that could
be fixpected in the absence of cases and specimens on which to
base a sure and firm opinion, and consisted for the most part, of
the ordinary contents of the text books, interspersed here and
there with extracts culled from a wider range of authorities,
especially on points of dispute; the whole being Hung at us
[lell-mcU without word of guidance, and leaving us standing
helpless, bewildered, and starved in the midst o^ what seemed a

::t

i 'i-i

m ¥^

[

226

THE UNIVEKSITV.

fiuperabiindancc of wcaltli. No effort was inadi; to correlate or
co-orilinate the si<rn.s and symptoms of disease, to marslial tlicin
in the hierarchy of their importance, or to anu'lt out the variable
and unessential elements from the cardinal and significant, hut
all alike were spread out before ns as on an open stall from which
we wer(> to pick and choose as we pleased. Occasionally a
question would arise which threatened to be interesting and
illuminating, but it would s[)eedily degenerate into a fruitless
skirmish on the mere frontiers and outskirts of the subject, the
battle being fought out and waxing hottest on the most poor
and idle pedantries. The consequence was that we got no
picture of the eimctiihle of disease, no image of the relations and
connexions of symptoms and signs as they present themselves
in reality, and 1 can truthfully say that it was not until I had
been some years in practice for myself, that I had the slightest
idea of what to look for, what questions to ask, or how to
interpret the various signs and symptoms of the cases that came
before me. One alone of all the professors made an effort by
means of specimens and diagrams to put us in his place, as it
were, at the bed-side of the patient, and to bring home to us the
fruits of his own experience, but this method thongh fruitful,
was so slow and fragmentary that at the end of the session more
than half of his subject remained still unexplored.

It was the sanu? with the teaching of Anatomy and Physiology.
For although we had here tluj advantage of subjects and
specimens, the demonstrations ended as they began in the
analysis and dissection merely of the dead organs and tissues of
the body down even to the minutest twig of artery and nerve,
but with no attempt at their recomposition and synthesis as
parts of an organic whole. There was no exhibition of the
beauties and ingenuities of structure and mechanism that are
everywhere present in the body — levers, pulleys, balances an<l
the like, — or of those contrivances by which space is economized
and the greatest strength given at the least expense of bulk ;
no explanation of the way in which the various structures are

THE UNIVEHSITY.

227

K>gy-

and
the
)S of
^u've,
is as
the
are
and
iized
|ulk ;
are

related to one iinotlierand to the <^roat environment of the world
in whieh they have to work ; and more than all, no eoin|)ari.<on
of the various structures and organs with their analogues iu the
lower animals, with the view of exhihiting the way in which
differences of fun(!tion or environment liave necessitated the
differences of structure observed ; — nttthing of all this, without
whieh, indeed, intcilligent understanding of the body of man is
impossible. In truth, so far as I can remember no hint was
ever {jiven us that man had such a thinrr as an environment at
all, or if he had, tiiat it had anything whatever to do with the
t(^aching of anatomy ov physiology ; ami had it not been for the
visible presence before ns on the dissecting table of the human
body itself, it might (for anything distinctive that was taught
us) have been the body of a fish, a reptile, or a monkey. On
the other hand each little detail of structure or composition, as
tor example the nundjer of little holes in the bones for the passage
of blood-vessels, or of the bosses and ridges on their surface to
which muscles wei'c attached, was dwelt on at length and witli
much satisfaction, even enthusiasm. The consequence was that
the students who were going up for honours or scholarships,
feeling that they only got from the lectures what they couhl
read up as well at home and with nuich less trouble, came in
late and hurried away again as soon as possible ; and after putting
in the regulation nundjer of compulsory lectures, ceas(;d to attend
altogether As for the rest of us who took matters more leisurely
and easily, we yawned away the time lying listlessly al)out the
seats, and paying little attention to whiit was said (except perhaps
where the lecturers were also examiners and then we took copious
notesi); and particularly diu'ing the evening lectures we might !)e
seen dozing and snoring on the floor of the open plateau alxtve
the level of the am[)liitheitre, so that a stranger entering by the
upper door in the shaded light, might have stumbled over body
after body of us as we lay strewn about like corpses on a
battlefield !

As to the students themselves, although of every variety of

13!

lit

liij

■;i

, i

228

THE UNIVERSITY.

type iiulivldiiiilly, they might all in so far as I was affected I)y
them, l)e reduced under two or three (jategories. There were
first the readers who were going up for scholarships, and who
to avoid tiie h)8s of time incident on attendance at the lectures,
rarely, as I have said, put in an appearance at the School. As
a body they were steady and hard-working, hut with no aims
beyond the scholarships which lay innnediately ahead of them,
and to which, indeed, they were ready for the moment to
sacrifice even their real professional interests, shirking the
j)ractical work at the Hospital no less than the lectures at the
School, Personally they were uninteresting men for the most
part, and had as a rule no gifts beyond tenacious memories and
steady powers of ap})lication. Having little in conunon with
them therefore, either in tastes or in aims, 1 naturally saw little
of them and wiis more attracted by the second set, namely the
great mass of oi-dinary students. These were mostly what one
may call good fellows, men who had sufficient range and
variety of human interests to resist being altogether absorbed
in the cranuning necessary to pass the honours examinaticnis.
They were not so steady as the readers, it is true, nor so
ascetic as some of my philosophic friends, but they had a
rough geniality, a fondness for games and jjraiiks and enjoy-
ment generally, which united easily with the life I had left
l)ehind me at lumie. Always ready to take a night out at the
theatre or opera, or even at the minstrels or variety entertain-
ments that were going on, their genial optimism and joyous
minj>:ling with the actual currents of the world, deliiihted me,
and when at the close of the session the school went down
town in a body for a night's revels — escapades, rather, which
generally brought us into confiict witii the police before the
night was over I — I was usually to be found in the crowd
amono; them. Hut as a rule thev had no aims or interests
higher than that of making money by their profession ; and
although, therefore, on the most friendly terms with them as a
body, 1 formed with a few exception.'.-, no intimate friendships

I !l

mi-
nis

>\vn
ich
the

W(l

osts
[111(1

IS Jl

lips

THE UNIVEKSITV.

22fl

with thcni pcrsoiiiilly. These I reserved for tlie little circle
thiit ccdistituted whiit I may call the Litenuy Set. There
were only four of lis, all told, and in spite of wide ditlercnces in
t(!iiipcrani(nit and disposition we were all united in one coininon
devotion to Literature and Philosophy as the goal of culture;
and in rc[)ii(liatin<i money-getting as the supreme ohject in life,
regarding it rather as a hateful expedient, a disagreeable
necessity. We had (tarly found one another out, as by a kind
of instinct, after the opening of the session; and our friendship
and intercourse once begun, (unitinued unbroken throughoiit the
wliol(! of our c(»IIege course. And althoujih since then, all-
divorcing Time has flung us far and wide athwart the world,
their figures as they rise before me in those far off years still
haunt my memory with a delicious sweetness. Little, indeed,
did we dream in those joyous happy days, as we walked about
encompassed with star^ and with the very sky above us flecked
with golden dn^ams, little did we think of the Future, and of
the varying fortunes that lay hid in it, or of the distant isles
on which it would enwaft us. There was A — , the apostle of
temperance in the set, huge in bulk and good-nature, and of
great volubility, loving the theatre, the poems of liyron, the
opera, and wrapjied u}> in literary, theological, and [ihilosophical
controversy, but who after a short period of practice in the
country succumbed to temptation, and died ultimately of the
vice which he had so long and so eloquently denounced. Then
there was the buoyant, the ever-genial, ever-hopeful C — ,
flaccid of purse but careless of the morrow and easy-going to a
fault, yet with a high honour and sensitive pride that resented
a rudeness as a stain, and to whom poetry, literature, and
philosophy were as his daily bread. Cheerful and iiglit-bearted
as the morning in the society of his friends, he had when alone
a deep vein of pathetic inclanchol}' which led him to ask in
imagination of everyone he passed in the street, ' I wonder
are you happy t ' and if he decided not, to picture to himstiif
their condition, and rehearse in imagination the circumstances

23U

THK UNIVKIlsrrV.

of their livcH witli a rail mid unf('i<fii(!(l Miiipiilliy. Hut for
liini a Iiappior dcHtiny was resorvt'd, f'oi- lie is now tlie kind
father, the jfenial host, the prosjicrous physician ; still nitaininjf
undinnned thron<;h the lapse of years all his old love for tlu;
thin<>s of the sjdrit

The last of ou • set and tin; one with whom as a fellow
hoardcfr I was thrown in(»st intimately into (contact was M — .
now a Professor himself and well known in th(( world of
Science, between whom and myself in spite of an ahorij^inal
difterenee in mental constitution almost polar in itH anta<;onism,
there existed the stronjrest points of affinity ; so that while we
were forever hcinj^' repelled hy the diflerences in our sympathies,
we were ever united a<>ain by our ('(>nununity of id(!als and
aims. lie was a long, gaunt, and hollow figin-e, with pah;
emaciated face, but with an expression in his smile and in the
soft tones of his voi(;e, in which you read at once all the
modesty, truthfulness, and childlike simplicity of his nature.
Hut deep down in the core of his being was an ascetic, jiuritanic
strain, a tendency when judging not only of men and things
but of himself, to dig down bel<Av the conventional code of
morality which the ordinary worldling finds it suffi(;ient to
follow and observe, to a deeper stratum ; and to apply to tluim
ii, more delicate and sensitive reajjent— :i reaji'cut which
should search the very soul itself to find its hidden spots and
drag them forth. With me, on the other hand, it was (|uit(!
different. I had never had the slightest tcnchMuy to this kind
of moral introspection, this searching of the heart as if it wen;
some old truid<, with the object of turning out any (juestionable
motives that might be suspected there, but borne along on the
tide of life, lived in the pass' lioit memory or

remorse, and with no higher f'O*' than wasconnnon

among the average you a tin The consequence

was that while 1 could igic wl the v^asy -going, pleasure-
loving, theatre-haunting, wine-bi'bing throng of good fellows,
entering into their revels and loNoig imaginatively to realize in

TIIK INIVKUsrrV.

231

lie

iiivsrlt' tlicir spiril, aiins, and pdiiit (»f vi(nv ; and \v\\\U'. In tliin
(■uni|):ini()ns|ii|), too, I could lind food tor luy own thou^^litH
and idnals, oxtractinf; from it those laws of the mind of wliirli
I WHS always in search, and <j;athcrin<if from it wis(h)m and
exi)erien(H; with whicii to compose my picture of the world, my
friend in spit(^ of Ids openness of mind and his real desire to
unite Jiimsi'lf morally and sympathetically with his fellows (lur
often used to say he envied me the ease with which I min<fled
with the avera<;;«! sensuous man), was repelled hy some inner
barrier not to he transi^resscid, and would have felt, with his
nior(( sensitive conscience, any more intimate contact as a stain.
In s[»ite, however, of these diHerenees in feermjf and sympathy,
we were united hy a hond ecpially stronj^ in our common
indiffer(;nce to the worldly ambitions of money, of social, and
even of j)rofes8ional success ; and in our livin<;- in an ideal
world of biii'li aims, where Truth for its own sake was our
only object, in the pursuit and discovery of which, all
our merely personal and)itions, and they were stronj^ enou;:rh
too, were to find their home and arena. And yet no sooner
did w(! conu! to th(! question of what the truth was in any
particular instance, than the dee[) cleavai^e in otn* sympathies
and moral estimates at once bc<ran to make itself felt. Especially
was this the case in all (piestions of human life as distinct
from abstract speculations merely ; — those concrete questions
in which the good and evil that pertain to all mortal things
are so subtly and inextricably blended. (Questions like these,
in our little circle, were constantly arising out of the fixed
ideas or personal predilections of one or another of us, — such
questions, for example, as Teetotalisni, the poetry of liyron,
the influence of the Theatre, the relations of the Sexes,
and the great question of Human Liberty. On all these the
views of my friend and myself were more or less at variance,
but especially was this the case on the last, as lying at
the base of all the rest. The whole enii)hasis of my mind
and the set of all its currents — its aspirations, its pride.

232

THE UNIVERSITY,

Its sensitiveness, its hatred of control, — ran in the diroptinn
<tf niakin<j^ tlie expansion and elevation of the individual
mind the end and aim of human life. Liberty, therefore, in its
widest sense was my ideal, and although I had as yet thought
little, or indeed not at all, on forms of government or politics, I
naturally gave my full sympathy to such institutions and
urrangcnicnts of society as favoured this end, ignoring or making
hut little of the tendency which an uncontrolled liberty has, to
pass in individual instances into license or immorality. My
friend, on the Cfmtrary, making a high personal morality his aim
und ideal, and moral order rather than individual expansion the
supreme end of society ; and o])serving moreover, how the
rowdyism of the world increases as you descend to its lower
.strata; had naturally more sympathy with those milder
despotisms which would if possible compel men to be good and
respectable, than with that democratic spirit which in ])ermitting
them to expand, at the same time opened the door to personal
immorality and grossness. The consequence was that each
taking quite unconsciously the [)remises of his argument from
his own s[)ecial sympathies, affinities, repulsions, and moral
ideals (to which, indeed, he gave an inordinate degree of
importance) could not understand how it w-s that (m ajjplying
them to the question in hand with a logic that seemed so
irrefragable, the other should fail to be convinced ; and in the
rising heat of discussion would at last begin to suspect and
even to hint that he was being unfairly dealt with, 1 accusing
my friend, I remcnd)er, of shuffling, he, me of sophistry, until
the altercation rising higher and higher \vc were only kept from
n dowiu'ight rupture by our companion throwing oil on the
troubled waters; after which all would go on again as before.
It was a pretty comedy or even pui)i)et show all this, with
Fate [)ulling smilingly at the wires, and yet when I think
of how deadly in earnest we both were in our opinions, it
was not without a pathetic significance as an end)l(!m of
human life. Like a skilful hypnotist. Fate overlooking the

TIIK i:XIVKI!SITV

23;^

wliolo field of life witli her controlling eye, takes this natnral
illnsion of onrs by which we turn our own special syni[»athies
and moral predilections into criteria of eternal truth ; and playing
on it, uses it as the means to work out !icr own great ends.
There is perhaps no deeper secret of the world than this whereby
mortal natures like coral-builders are made the instruments ot
working out designs more deep and complex than those they
know% and more spacious than can he grasped within the
contracted compass of their souls ; and by which to keep us to
our work, wc arc armed with these partialities of antagonism or
of sympathy which although deciduous as the forest leave;?, and
fugitive as the generations of mortal life, we, poor creatures of
the hour, identify with the Ideal and Eternally True. I was
not as oM then as I am now, and did not then see what, indeed,
the succeeding years have taught me in all its fullness, namely,
that in all things human as distinct from things mathematical
or abstract, not only the cut and colour of our opinions but
even their very skeleton and framework, in their most general
contiguration and as[)ect, are mouhled, fashioned, and determined
l)y our moral sympathies, and by the desires and atl'ections of
the heart. And although neither I nor another shall in our
thinking succeed in altogether jumping this necessity imposed
on us by what is called our ' personal erpiation,' I trust if not
proof against it, at least never again to be unmindful of it, and
while marking its influence on the various Thinkers and
J'hilosophers whom I am about to })ass in review, am well aware
that the reader will have ample opportunity of discounting its
influence in reference to myself.

1 ■ tv

' .1 I

I :

CHAPTEli XIII

PliOFESbiOKS.

Y^T^IIILE these discussions were going on so merrily in our
little literary coterie, and our minds were so full of
poeti-y, the theatre, Byron, and literary and philosophical
(|uestions generally, it was suggested by one of our number
that as we had some spare time on our hands, we should take the
fourth year courses in English Literature and Metaphysics
which were being delivei'ed in the Arts department of the
College, only a few hundred yards from the Medical School.
Xow having been but recently so deeply concerned in repairing
the <leficion<'ies in my voc;d)idary and in my command of
language generally, I readily assented to this, but remembering
the barrenness of the old academic teaching at the Gi'ainmar
School, it was not, I confess, without some misgiving as to the
result. Tl'.c subject of the particular lectures on English
Literature which we were most anxious to hear was the second
part of Shakspeare's play of Tlenry the Fourth, and it so
chanced that we made our entrance into the class-room when
th(! lecturer had reached that part of the play where the rebels
are debatinu' among themselves as to whether thev are strony;
enough to meet the forces of the king, and at the point where
Lord Bardolph in a long speech compares the folly of their
going to war before they had accurately ascertained the amount
of assistance they were to I'eceive from Northumberland, to the

▼

rUOFESSOISS.

235

folly of the man who should begin to huild a hous^e before lie had
first ascertained its cost, and who, in conse(iuencc, njiffht he
compelled to stop the work for want of means to carry it on ;
and so leave, as he says, ' his part-created cost a naked subject
to the weeping clouds, and waste for churlish winter's tyranny.'
This looked promising enough, and although with no definite
idea as to what I was to expect from these lectures, I still
entertained the hope that the great superiority of Shakspeare
over all other writers, of which I had read and heard so much,
should now be demonstrated and made clear to me, either in his
knowledge of the human mind, as exemplified in the sequence
and connexion of thought and feeling in his dialogues, or in his
power of expression and command over the keys of language ;
instances of either of which su[)eriorities were to be found on
almost every page. But instead of this, the Professor, who has
always remained with me as perhaps the most perfect ty[)e of tlu;
academic b(<ok-worm whom I remember to have seen, — ^a tall,
cranc-necKcd, skin-dried figure in spectacles, with small, wizened
face, and nose with which he sniffed the air as he moved
through the Park on his way to and from the College, his hair
streaming behind him like a comet, — instead of [)icking out
phrases and sentences with the view of exhibiting their special
beauty or a])i)ro})riateness, broke them up into particles and
fragments like a grannnarian, to show us the i)arts of speech
they were made up of! ' What figure (»f speech, Mr. IJrowu,"
he would say, addressing one of the students, ' does Shakspean;
use in this line?' 'A metaphor, Sir!' ' (^uite right. And
you, Mr. Smith, what in the next line ^ ' 'A simile.' ' \'ery
•"•ood,' and so on throuijhout the whole lecture. And this sort
of thing, which might have been in [)lace in the higher
standards of a Board School, was what in the University
coiispectuK of the lectures was called 'an analysis of the play!'
W'c were all grievously disappointed, but thinking j)erhaps that
this ex(piisite trifiiug might have been only an accidental or
subsidiary part of tlie scheme, wc resolved to [lersevere for a

Mi'

23(;

rUOFES.SORS.

whilo longer, only to find, however, that the same tliinj; was
repeated from day to day until we could stand it no longer, and
<'eased altogether to attend.

Di.sip|)(jinted and even disgusted witli these lectures on
rOn<>li.sh Literature, one or two of us resolved to trv the course
on Metaphysics to see if it would yield us anything more fruitful
and satisfactory ; and took our seats accordingly among the
fourth year students who were preparing to take their degree.
The ])rofessor, in this case a simple, open-minded man of much
metaphysical subtlety and acuteness, and whom I gn^atly
esteemed for the modesty and gentleness of his demeanour, was
at the time of our entrance, lecturing on the Philosophy of Sir
William Hamilton. He had got to that part of the discourse
where Hamilton is ex[)laining the difference between a perception
an<l a sensation, and in labouring to make this distinction clear
to us, nearly the whole time of the lecture was taken up. We
are going to be fed on the husks again, I thought to myself,
remembering our professor of Literature and his anxiety that
we should understand the precise difference between a metaphor
and a simile ; and as I reflect(!d that this analysis and distinction
between a sensation, a perception, and the like, was merely a
part of the granunar of thought, I felt that it could have no
more influence on the production of thought, in which alone I
was interested, than the mere gi'ammar of sentences has on the
formation of style. In a word, it was purely negative, pedantic,
and barren, and long before the lecture was over I had ceased to
take the sli<>htest interest in it. In the next and succeeding
le(!tiU'os, however, the subject was changed, and the Professor was
endeavouring to explain to us the ' Critique of Pui'e Heason ' of
Emanuel Kant, which soon interested me like a puzzle by the
difficulties of its phraseology, difficulties which had already
brought the most advanced students to a stand-still. The
problem f the ' Criti(|ue ' was to exi)lain how our minds which
are contained within the circle of their own sensations, as it
were, can bv aiiv i»ossibilitv ijet out of themselves so as to j^et

PUOFESSOItS.

237

a knowlodjfe of things which lie quite outside of them; or in
other words, liow our minds which iU'C conscious only of ii series
of sensations passing across them like scenes in a panorama,
each one swallowing and l)eing swallowed up in turn, can ever
arrive at such a continuous, definite, and abiding impression as is
involved in the idea of an external object ; and in listening to
the patient attempts of the lecturer to make the process
clear to us, I was as much at sea, I confess, as the rest
of the students. And there, indeed, I should have remained,
had I not taken to piecing the parts together for myself,
and at last managed to picture the whole process under
tlie fi<fiU'e of one of those cardinji' machines in a woollen
factory, where the separate scraps of wool which are put in at
one end, come out a definite and continuous thread of yarn at
the other! The raw wool corresponded to the raw material
of sensation received by our various senses of sight, touch,
hearing, and the like ; this was then passed through a coujjIc of
grooves or rollers, — Time and Space, — belonging to the mind
and called ' the forms of sense,' which impressed their shape on
the raw material much in the same wav as a sausage machine
does on the meat that passes through it ; this done, the larger
cords and strands thus produced were next passed up through
another but finer series of grooves and rollers, also belonging
to the mind, called the ' categories,' by which another set of
attributes, such as ' causation,' ' reciprocity,' ' modality,' and
the like were added, until at last all these various unlike
strands were brought into one by being [)assed through what was
called the 'unity of self-consciousness;' and so at last issued
in that definite judgment or piece of knowledge, continuous
amid the fleeting sensations, which corresponded in the
carding-machine to the definite thread of yarn I This was but
a suj)erHcial view of the ' Crititjue ' as a whole, 1 am aware,
but by enabling me to translate the several [)arts of the picture
back into the corresponding phraseology of Kant, it was of
iireat service to me in those class examinations at the end of

, I

i I

238

rUOFESSOHS.

tlic week, in which the teachiiifj;' of tlie ])rcvi()us (hiys \v;is
suniined iij) and recapituluted. Hut '.vitii it all, I FcU still what
1 liad folt years before when reading .lohn Stuart Mill, that if
this were Metaphysic!?!, it was only, after all, an attempt more
or less successful to define what a sensation was, a perception
was, a judgment was, a cause was, and the like, or in Oiher
words to tell us in what the act of knowing consisted, when
my mind was hungering and thirsting for the knowledge itself
of what specially I was to feel, what to judge, what to believe
of this gr(!at and various world around me. 1 soon l)egan to
think it all a bore and sheer waste of time, in a world where
there was so nuich that it concerned one to know, and so
short a span of life to know it in ; and in no long time ceased
altogether to attend these metaphysical classes as 1 had previously
done the literary ones. With these specimens of College
teaching, and with the added conviction of how little 1 had
really lost in not going on with the Arts course on which 1
had entered some time before, I rLlurned to my old studies,
uninfluenced in any way in the evolution of my thought by the
experiences through which I had passed.

CHAPTER XIV.

A NEW HORIZON.

j)^T (I,e outset of these early speculations I was eiii-at-v,! it
may bo nMnenibcred in the attempt to got at a knowledge
of the mind from the outside, as it were, by the phrenologic^d
method of taking measurement and survey of tlie bumps "arid
organs on tie cranium, and this plan proving barren and
un<ivailingr I then tried the opposite one of getting- at it fn^m
the inside, that is to say by observing the connexion and
relationship of thoughts and feelings within myself; working
in this way gradually from the most simple ami superH<-ia"l
phititudes of thought, through such successive strata as were
reflected in lectures, sc.mons, and other the like dissertM^ions
on human life, and so on down to the deeper and more rocn-
ditelaws; with the feeling, implicit rather than definitively
formulated, that if 1 could but sound the laws of the mind u,
the bottom, in so doing I .should in some way or other, I knew
not precisely how, come to UTidcrstand also that World of
Nature in which as yet I had taken but little interest, as well
as solve the perplexing problem oi Religion which from want
of fresh material had lain in abeyance from the time when the
fadure of Butler's Analogy to give me satisfaction, had banished
the subject from my mind. Time meanwhile had been softly
passing on, and new thoughts and ideas outside the range o^f
merely human life, were beginning to awaken in me and to

I'lfl

I' • "

msp"i

mggm^'mimm

240

A XKW II()I!I/()X.

(loiuiind satisfaction for tlioinsolvos ; and T had not been long
at the University, l)efore stiniuhited hy the new life about nie
and by the discussions in our little literary coterii', the great
problems of life and of human destiny, of the whence, why,
and whither, of mortal things, arose in me and took possession
of Mie with all their force. Hut this new environment which
in eomiexion with my growing years had awakened and
quickened in me these new [)roblems, had so far done little or
nothing towards solving them. The greater experience of men
which I had got from the more intimate knowledge of the
characters and modes of life of so many students, had served
only to widen my knowledge of the laws of the Mind, but not
of the laws of Nature or of the World, and therefore threw no
new light on the problem of Human Destiny ; and the
discussions in our literary set although awakening and
stinudating, had added nothing of sufficient weight or origin-
ality to modify either my opinions, my methoil, or my i)oint
of view. And as this plan of mine of attacking the Problem
of the World from within, that is to say from a widening
knowledge of the laws of the human mind, h.jvd so far thrown
no light on the new problems that were agitating me, and
seemed in my impatience to I)e very slow in its o[)eration, I
was just in that state of mind in which, like a chemical
solution, I was ready to crystallize around the first great
exterind principle or generalization (the law of evolution or what
not), which while doing no violence to these laws of the mind
I had so long been gathering (and which had a scientific
validity in themselves independent of any or all theories of the
AVorld), would give satisfaction to this newly awakened passion
for light on the great problems of Religion, of Xature, and of
Human Destiny.

I had but recently come across a little anonymous work —
'The Vestiges of Creation' — which had deeply interested
me by the boldness with which it attempted to show that the
ureat variety and diversitv of animal antl vegetable life on the

A NEW IIOniZON.

241

■al

•eat

lilt

uiul

ific

the

'ion

?ted
tlie
the

f^Iohe, had ivrl«cii by a process of natural evohition, tlie lowest
forms having themselves sprunji^ from the inorf^anic world under
favouring conditions of the environment. Now havinj; for a
long time doubted the truth of the doctrine of ' special creations '
as revealed in Genesis, I was (juite prepared to accept some sjich
theory as this ; but owing to the crudeness with which it was
worked out in detail, beyond a vague idea of evohition in general,
I got little from it of permanent value ; and the book itself as a
whole had little infiuence on the course of my speculations.

I next came across Darwin's great work on the ' Oriirin of
Species,' and can still remember how impressed I was with the
evidences it furnished of the a priori poxslfnlifi/ of Evolution,
(h-awn from the great organic; changes that can be wrouuht in
the various l^reeds of dogs and pigeons, by the simi)le process
of artificial selection ; as well as of the friifJi of Evolution by
the fact of the existence in certain animals of aliorted or
rudiuKiutary organs, — teeth, tails, and tlie like, — organs which
could serve no useful function in the existing s])ecies, and are
explicable only on the hy[)otliesis that they have been derived
from ancestors in whom they existed in full and normal
development. But as the ' Vestiges of Creation ' had already
prepared ni'i to accept the general doctrine of Evolution, and
as 1 was not specially cpialified to judge of the value of nuich
of the scientific evidence adduced by Darwin in its supi)ort, I
was not so dee[)ly imi)ressed with the discovery of the great
principles of 'Natural Selection' and the 'Survival of the
Fittest ' as the Scientific Worhl in general had l)eeu ; and can
remember feeling vaguely that although both ' Natural
Selection' and the 'Survival of the Fittest' were doubtless
factors of great and even cardinal importance, there was some-
thing more in this steady ascent of the world U[)wards to a
greater fullness, harmony, and perfection of life, unbaulked as
it had all along been either by Time or accident, than could b(i
fully accounted for by this mere wind-swept winnowing of
things by a blind, undiscriminating, unregarding Fate.

"" \\

ifi:

242

A NEW HOUIZON.

Following olope on tli(! ' Ori<ijin of Species' eanic Huxley's
* Lay Sermons and Addresses,' then recently published, which
not only added j^^rcatly to my knowledf]fe of the special subjects
passed under review, and deepened my belief in the general
doctrine of Evolution by the fresh evidences of its truth which
they furnished, but delighted me also by the boldness and
vigour of their attacks on the old theological strongholds of
su[)er8tition, and by the support which they gave to my old
belief in the intimate and even exact correspondence of all
mental manifestations whatever, with physical conditions of
the brain and nervous system, liut what charmed me still
more in these discourses was the clearness, trenchancy, and
brilliance of their style, and I can still remember the admiring
deliy-ht with which I rejiardcd the followinii; sentence in o.ie of
the addresses, summing up as it did in the small(!St compass all
the trenchancy, [)i(^turesqueness, and anti-theological aninuis
of the author's manner; — 'Extinguished theologiiins lie about
the cradle of every science like the strangled snakes around
that of Hercules' — a sentence which fixed itself in my memory
for many a day, and to which as a model of expression I kept
reverting with admiring despair.

It was n(»t, however, until 1 returned home for the vacation,
that I came across the book which by putting this theory of
Evolution once for all on a deep philosophic basis, filled up the
gaps in my theory of the World, revolutionized my method of
thought, and for a time solved for me the great problems of
Life, of Nature, and of Human Destiny. This was Herbert
Spencer's ' B^irst Prin('i[)les,' the first volume of his great
system of Evolutionary Philosophy, a book that fell on the
orderlv line of mv mental evolution like a sliell, blastin<>- and
wrecking it, and which even when it ultimately failed to satisfy
me, yet left me with a foundation s(j solid for the super-
structure of Idealism which I was afterwards to erect upon it,
that it has remained unshaken to this day. For here, on a
,mind blank as a sheet of white paper, as it were, and with no

A NKW HOUIZON.

243

cept

ion,
of

tilt!

of
s of
)ert
•eat
the
iuul
tisry
)er-
ti it,
n a
1 no

iiutoccdciit tli(!(»ri('s to Ix' wiped awiiy, was sketeluMl as at a
ein<i;le Miltin"^ in all its complexity, and with hiit a inininunn of
tronble, too, on my part, a complete pictnre of the Univerao ;
of the Stars, of the Solar System, of Natnre, of the formation
of the Earth and the changes it had undergone, its oceans
and I'ivers, its mountains and valleys, its rocks and soils, its
plants and animals in all their variety from the lowest up to
man himself, the races of men, and the structure of the societies
they have huilt for themselves; and all followiuj^ th(! same!
order and course of development, all alike both in their
<!>is('nihli; and in their parts jiassiuj;- Iik(! an e<^^' from the simple
to the complex, from the incoherent to the coherent, from the
indefinite to the dt^finite. And not only this, but better still,
the reason why everything ])assed through this partictdar order
and coxu'se of (hsvelopment and not another, was clearly set
forth ; and it was demonstrated tiiat the whole process was but
the mathematical and physical corollary of a simple universal
fact, — a fact taken for granted as an axiom in all argument, all
reasoning, all proof — the fact namely that the Universe is made
up of a Jived rpiantity of force existing under the antagonisti<'
forms of attraction and repulsion, or if you will, of a ji.ced
<|uantity of Matter. And just as the water in some great
but strictly limited reservoir far up on the mountains, when
the flood-gates an; opened moves downwards towards the sea,
rollin<>; and tundjlin"- and bubbling and hissinj;, until when it
reaches the plain it spreads itself softly outwards on all sides,
breaking on its outtnost rim and confines into the most varied
and beautiful scintillations of fringe and foam, and yet at each
stage in its journey the whole mass remains in quantity the
same as that which first burst from its mountain home; so
when Creation opens and the forces imprisoned in the
homogeneous cloud-wrapt Matter of the World are left free to
play, the whole gathers itself together and rolls and concen-
trates itself into great balls and svstems and suns, roarinj:; and
howling through the vacant depths of Time until on this its

\'\

ill

244

A XKW llOltlZO.N.

niitinost wave \vc sc<' it softiv ixilsatiiiy: and Itrcahin;; into all tlio
(leautifiil pnimisciiity ut" laud and .sea; of rock and crystal, of
Howcrand animal and tree; l)iit all the while and through all itn
tdian^'cs the orij^inal wtore of (Mierj(y and power remaining in
(jiiantity the same. And furthermore aecoriling to Spencer it
was precisidy heeausc; the ((uantity of Force was fixed, and
existed in these antagonistic forms of attraction and repulsion^
that the hall was first set a rolling and afterwards contiiuied in
its evolution, until at last it hroke into this vast miscellany and
<liversity of forces, these shining individual existences; all alike
[Kissing by a matlnunatical and physical necessity from the simple
to the complex, from the incoherent to the coherent, from the
iiuU'finit(; to the definite. Or to put the (jssence of the theory
in another way: — (Jiven a fixed (piantity ot' Force existing in
the antagonistic forms of attraction and repulsion, or what ho
calls the ' Persisten(!e of Force,' you could [)redict befor(;hand
that the mass would and must hy a uu-rc mechanical and
physical necessity evolve into just such a I'niversc, just such
a Solar System, just such a world of Nature and Life, just
such types and variety of tree and animal and fiower as those
we know; and had (tne an intellect capacious as a god's
to grasp the entire movement in all its com[)lexity, not a hair
on a nettle, or vein on a leaf hut could have been anticipatt'd
and foreseen. It was a ma<>niHcent <>eneraIi/ation, carefullv
wrought out in all its j)arts ; and in its conteniplatiou 1 was lost
ill wonder and admiration. For some time I had been anxious
for light on the great I'niversc of planets and stars, and here
it was ; for some theory of the world more credible and assured
than the six days Creation of Genesis, some theory of the
origin and significance of the great variety of animal life about
me, a theory which if not solving, nuist by the analogies it
would afford, largely influence one's view of the great problem
of human destiny : and here it was. 1 was delighted, and
whirled away for the time by the splendour of these great
generalizations of the ^Vorld and Xature, entirely lost my own

A m:\v ii(>i[I/()\.

245

<^entr(' of j^nivify innl livvd in u kind of (IcIicioiiH intcllcctuiil

Now had the Ixiok done iiofliiii^j^ in(»n> than tliis for nic, it
wonhl merely have filled up tlu^ ;j['i|)s in my kii()\vled«i;e of tho
world of outward Nature, and at most have ^iven hut <;roater
Hcientifio precision or a deeper philosophical hasis to views
which I had already r(M'eiv(!(l from the ' \'estiir(!8 of Creation"
jiiid the ' ()ri<rin of Species,' Ihit it did more. It reconciled
for tho first time (hy ovcr-andiinj; the hreach hetwcen thei.i,
and showin;^ that at hottom they hoth rested on the same hasis,
namely, the I*ersist(Mice of Force), Ivclij^ioii and Science, which
1 had always felt instinctively to he antaji^onistic hoth in th( ir
methods and their aims; in this way fiUMiishin;^ me with a
solution of that i^reat prol)lem of ReIi<«;ion whi<di for want uf
material had lain s(» Ioul^ in al)eyance. ft was this part of tiio
hook that inten^sted me more than any other. The whole
demonstration, which we shall see in its proper place farther on,
was so clear, so connected, so lo<;'ical, that I was forced to yield
my assent: and as my anxiety on the sul)ject of Relii^'iou was
rather that of one who wishes for somethinj^ that will
harmonizes his views of the world with tho high ich'als an<l
aspirations of tlu' heart, than of one who is looking out for
some ohject of devotion or worship, I was for tlie time heing
siitisfied. It was not until ahout a year after, when I came to
the ' Principles of Psychology,' that I hogaii to feel how
hollow was this pret(Mi(led n'conciliation of lieligion and
Science, how materialistic was its method in spite of all
])rotestations to the contrary, and how surely the theory when
stripped of its disguises, instead of harmonizing with (he high
ideals of the lu'art, cut sliecr into their very core. Hut of .dl
this, and the mental misery it entailed on me tor tlie next few
years; of my efforts, for a long tinu; unavailing, to put my
finger on the secret fallacy which I felt to he lurking some-
where in these calm, closely-reasoned and unimpii-sioned
pages ; of my finding it at last and the release it gave to my

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A NEW HOKIZOK.

imprisoned spirit ; of all this wo shall sec more iinon. Mean-
while it is sufficient here to say that a new horizon had been
opened u[) hefore me ; an entirely new system of thou<>;lit had
been flunj:; into the midst of my speculations, the first effect of
which was to wean nic entirely from my old concentration on
the individual mind, on physiognomy, on human nature, on the
diagnosis of individual character, and the like, and to centre
my intellectual interest for years to come on the great proldem
of Life and the NVor!*!. Its second (sff'ect was to change my
subjective u'cthod for an objective one, that is to say instead
of trvin<)j to get at the Problem of the World from within, by
a study of the laws of the human mind and the nature of the
soul, I was made to look without, to some external jjliysical
principle such as the fixed quantity of Force in antagonistic
forms, or in otln'r words the 'Persiitence of Force,' for my
solution of the enigmas of life.

Accordingly, when the session opened, I hastened to pour
into the ear of the friend and fellow-student with whom I had
already hud so many discussions, the principles of the new
Philoso[)hy which had so enthralled nu; ; dilating on them,
p(»inting out their range and depth and scope, and (Iwclling
especially on the splendid ilemonstration by which at last
Kcjligiou and Science hu! been reconciled. But to my
annoyance and sur[)rise he turned a deaf car to my new found
theory as if he scented some taint of materialism about it,
talked vaguely of having found something more real and soid-
eatisfvin"' in Carlvle. but admitted at the same timi; that he was
not precisely prepared to put his finger on what was wrong,,
aliiiouiih feelinn' that it did not fill ui) the necessities of his
heart. He was right, as we shall sec anon ; but meantime in
spite of his j)rotests my belief in the system wa> entire and
unshaken, and I went about among the member>; of our little
philoso})hical party jis an undisguised pro; agandist. I
introduced the book to the notice of the fourth year
mctajiliysical students at the College, to whom it was up to

A NEW IIOKIZON.

247

I lily*'

that time unknown : and instead (jf attondlnj; as I should have
done to my medical studies, spent most of my time in conver-
sations and discussions on the new Philosophy.

Meanwhile time was mo\ing on, and the final examination for
my medical degree was already in sight. Although my mind
during the whole period of my college course had been more
inuneised in Ijiteraturc and I'hilo.sophy than in Medicine, 1
had nevertheless been fairly regular in my attendance at
lectures, and ha'^ managed in (jne way or another to pick uj)
without nmcli reading, sufficient knowledge to justify me in
going up for ui}- degree. But as the days of examination drew
nearer, my thoughts turned more and more to the future.
Was I to settle down to the humdrum life of a country doctor,
or should I remain in the city where I could condune the
])ursuits of Literature with the practice of medicine ! I could
not decide, and at bottom liked neither alternative. I was
determined if [)()ssible not to take a country practice, and on
the other hand I ccmld not very well sec how my literaiy
desio-ns were to be furthered bv remainiiiii' in the city. For
in our literary set, we had noticed and often remarked that
nearly all our text-books, as well as books on Literature and
Philosophy, were of foreign im[)ortation, American or English;
and that such of our Canadian aspirants as had ventured on
publication were not likely, from the tone in which they were
spoken of by the students, to be accorded much honour in their
own country. It was this, perhaps, more than anything else
that finally determined me to come to London, where after
taking my dii)loma I could start practice, and at tl'.e same time
have the advantage of the great j)ublic libraries in which to
pursue my favoiu-ite stiulies in the intervals of nork— studies,
which if they ever saw the light, would start with no
disadvantage either from their ])lace of [)iibli('ation, or from the
country of my birth. The more I thought of this course the
more determined I was to carry it through ; and accordingly
after passing my examination and getting my degree, I bade

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A NEW IIORIZOX.

farewell to ,uy old fVicn.l., and in the following week embarke.!
for England ; resolved in my youthful .Ireanis to conquer, if
ai)plieation and study could do it, vlie great world of Literature
and Philosophy !

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PART II.

ENGLA^^D

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MY INNEE LIFE,

BEING A CHAI'TEU IN

PERSONAL EA^OLUTION ANI>
AUTOBIOG HAPHY.

PART J I. -ENGL AND.
BOOK I.-TIIE LOST IDEAL.

lIEiaiEUT Sl'EKCElJ.
ARISTOCKACr AM) DEMOCUACV.
MEDICINE.

CHAPTER I.

KERBEKT SPENCER.

\ CCORDINGLY one sunny afternoon in May, lij^lit of
liciirt iuul nothing <lonI)tin<>', I onibiirkctl on unknown
waters for an unknown shore, with sucli poor equi})nicnt unci
outfit of acconi])lishnients for my enterjjrise as tlie reader may
imagine, and witli no otlier possessions but tliose of youth and
liope ; and for quest, not gokl nor any merely material or
sensuous prosperity, hut tlic Ideal itself, wliich burnt within
me witli an intense and steady glow, and which as I lay idly
dreaming on the deck, seemed to ride before me in the sky
blazoned above the masts high over the wind and sea. This
ideal it was that in years gone by had weaned me from the
games and s[)orts of my boyhood and kindled in me the desire
fen- mathematical distinction; which had superseded this in
time bv th'i longing for a broader and more genial ran<>'e of
thought and culture ; and which now in opening up before me
still wider intellectual problems, and stinndating me to still
higher ambitions, Avas impelling me over the seas to a land
where better o])portunities, as I thought, existed for their
solution and realization. The special ])roblem in which 1 was
now immersed and the one into which all particulai- rills of
thought, begin where I would, evcntuallv flowed, was the

obleni of problems, the great Pi'oblem of the AVorld and of
Human Existence, of the end and aim, the meaning and destiny

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of mortal things ; and to find sf)nie solution of it that while
meeting all the demands and tests of truth should at the same
time satisfy the h.igh ideals of the heart, was now the increasing
ohjeet of my thoughts. For in sjiite of the load of smaller
scei)ticisnis as to revelation, inspiration, miraeles, and the like,
that I carried ahout with me, my helief in the dignity of the
human mind and the high destiny of the world and the human
soul was still unclouded. Not indeed that I was in search of
any supernatural object in which to find satisfaction for the
ordinary religious feelings of awe, and worship, and prayer;
f(»r the fi"ures of the old kirk elders of my hovhood as thev
rose before me lifting their harsh and untuned voices in
supplication to a Jehovah harsh and inexorable as themselves,
Avould have effectually ])oisone(l tliese springs of emotion if
indeed they had ever existed in me ; rather the object of my
search was some Spirit or Soul of Truth and IJeauty in Things,
which should give sui)])ort and guarantee to the Ideal which I
felt working within myself, and which I instinctively felt must
somewhere in the wide world have its home; a Sj)irit or Soul in
the discovery and exhibition of which my purely personal and
selfish ambitions, far from being extinguished, should find
their field of exercise, their object and their goal.

But I had not been many days at sea, before a cloud scarcely
larger than a man's hand appeared on the horizon of my dreams,
and gradually overspreading the sky, deepened and darkened
until it settled at last into absolute night: and behind it for a
time all the ideals in which I lived, all the aims and andntions
which I held most dear, wasted as in disastrous eclipse. This
strange and to me most unexpected result arose on ilie perusal
of Spencer's ' Princi[)les of Psychology' — the fourth volume
in his System of JMiiloso^jhy — which I had begun before leaving
home and had now just finished, especially of those portions
where he explains the precise relation he conceives to exist
between ^lind and Brain, and between both and the great
general laws of ^Latter, Motion, and Force. A rough outline of

lIKKHKliT SI«ENCE1I.

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lu8 doctriiu' on tlici^o iniportant (lucsti'ons, was indeed contained
in the volume on 'First Principles ' over wliieli I had grown so
enthusiastic at College, hut embedded as it was ainiil so many
new and startlinjj; <>enerali/ations of other orders, it had for the
time being (juite escaped my notiee, the more so indeed as in
general outline it was practically identical with a doctrine I had
myself long held, namely, of the intimate dependence of the
mind on the molecular activity of the l)rain and nervous system.
Hut th(! chief reason perhaps, why the outline of Spencer's
doctrine in 'First Principles' matle so little iin[>ression on nu;,
was that in that work he had by a subtle but contradictory and
shifting use of the term ' Persistence of Force,' managed to
underprop all the [ihenomena of the world both mental and
physical with what he called an L iiknown Power — a kind of
background of IJeing which was to be the object of Iveligion,
and in a way to take the place of our ordinary ('onceiitioii of
(fod, and which therefore instead of destroying the high ideals
of the mind, would givi' them rather, 1 imagined a certain basis
and support. Put when I arrived at the volume in the
'J'rinciples of Psychology' where the whole subject of the
origin, genesis, and development of mind in its relation to tiie
genesis and growth of the nervous system was worked out in
detail, and epecially where the relation borne by the higher and
nobler emotions of the mind to its baser and unworthier
elements, was brought clearlv into view, then it was that the
ideal within me struck to the heart, shrivelled and collapsed,
and all the flowers that had sprung u[) in the mind under the
licnial iiiriuence of vouth and hope, faded and withered. To
exiiibit this doctrine of Spencer's in sufficient detail, and to
ex[)laiii how it was tiiat the ideals which had wiived and
bloomed unheeding over the materialism of my early speculations,
and in spite of it, should at the touch of his hand have hiin for
many a day crushed and cold and dead as if a glacier had passed
over them, shall be the aim of the present chapter.

The enthusiasm aroused in me by the perusal of 'First

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254

IIRRHEUT SPKNCKH.

Principles,' was cliicfiy owing to the splenilid attompt made in
that work hy Spencer to show that tlie whole procession of
plienoniena in tlic Universe, tlie vast miscelhiny of nebnhi and
star, of snn and planet, of earth and air, of land and sea, of
crystal, Hower, animal and tree, were deducihle as a physical
and mathematical corollary from the simple fact thut t/ie (jnatititi/
of Force in the Universe is fixed and unchan(j!ng, and, tliat it e.cists
under the antagonistic forms of attraction and repulsion. Now the
•way in which Mr. Spencer showed that the ([nantity of force is
fixed and nnclianj^ing, was by pointing out that this fact was
taken for granted in all knowledge, and that on the assum[)tion
of its truth all our reasoning was based. For if Force were not
always a fixed ami unchanging quantity, but could come into
existence or go out of it capriciously and without a cause, no
reliance could be i)laccd from hour to hour on the weights and
measures, the scales and other instruments by which in the last
resort our reasonin^-s and conclusions arc tested. Thouiiht, in
consequence, or the establishment of definite relations between
things, could not exist, and all knowledge would be rendered
im[)Ossil)le. That the quantity of Force in the Universe
therefore is fixed and unchanging, is not so nuich a proposition
to be pi'ored, in the ordinary sense of the term, as an absolute
necessity of thought involved in all proof, and the Ijasis of all
proof. And that this Force exists everywhere under the two
antagonistic and polar forms of attraction and repulsion, may be
seen in every particle of Matter, which will equally resist you
whether you try to compress it together or pull it apart.

Now starting from this sim[)le principle of the fixed and
unchanging (pumtity of Force in antagonistic forms — the
greatest contribution to philoso])hy in my judgment since the
time of Kant, and the one with the widest range of ajjplicability
and implication, — Spencer deduces at once from it as its
corollaries some of the nu)st important laws of Physics, as for
example that Force follows the line of least resistance or of
greatest traction, that all motion is rhythmical, and the like, as

Its
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IIEUHKUT SPKNC'EU.

255

•wt'll as tlio <jjreiit scientific doctrine of our age, namely, that the
laws of Nature arc unifonu. and athuit of no variability or
sliadow of diangc — propositions all of them which were first
establisjicd by sc[)arate scientific; inductions on their own account,
but which, like the laws of Kepler after the discovery of
gravitation, were at once perceived to be necessary corollaries
from a fixed (piantity of Force in antagonistic forms, when once
that great doctrine had been enunciated ; the proof that they
are corollaries being, in a word, and without going farther into
it here, that to deny any one of them would involve the
consequence that Force might ai)pear without cause or disaj)pear
without result, and this would be to deny the very datum of all
thought, namely the fixity and persistence of Force.

If we permit Spencer therefore to start with his fixed rpiantity
of force in antagonistic forms, and to assume this force to be in
that diffuse, homogeneous condition, or mist, which modern
Astronomy renders probable, he has little difficulty in sliowing
that this homogeneous mass being differently conditioned at
tlu' centre and at the circumference respectively, nnist by reason
of the antagonistic traction of its opposing forces, begin to move,
then to revolve, and condensing as it revolves, to throw oft from
its circumference portions of itself as balls and suns, the suns in
their turn planets, and the planets, moons ; and that coming down
to our own system, the earth gradually cooling and contracting
nuist separate into hill and dale, land and water, and in the end,
like some sreat sea breaking in multitudinous waves on the
])ebbly shores of the world, must by reason of the infinite
(•omplexity of its forces, sjilif on its rim and confines into the
infinite multiplicity of individual forms with which we are
familiar, plant and crystal, animal and flower, and tree.

But the World consists of !Mind as well as Matter, of thought
and feeling as well as of earth and crystal, of animal, and flower,
and tree. .Vccordingly in the ' Principles of Psychology,' at
which I had now' arrived, Spencer makes an attempt to show how
Mind can be so brou<i;ht into relation with material thinas, that

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like li*iflit, liciit, electricity and other inode.s or miinifestations of
Mutter and Motion, it, too, may be seen to be a necessary
deduction from the fixity and persistence of Force. To do this
he has first to find some matrix or material out of which Mind
may develop itself, and bej^ins accordingly by pointing out that
among the infinite nuiltiplicity of chemical substances into
which by reason of its collisions and repulsions, its affinities and
attractions, the original homogeneous mass of flatter in the
world splits itself, you at last come on one of highly (u^mplcx
composition, and, in consc(pience, of a high degree of chemical
instability. This substance instead of exploding outright like
gunpowder, on the im])a{;t of any incident force, and so
disa[)pearing into other forms, expends the energy conununicated
to it, on the contrary, in transformations of its own substance,
in waves, tremors, or rhythms which pass through Its mass, but
leave it in the end practically the same as before. Such a
substance is albumen, or the protoplasmic specks of jelly of
which the lowest organisms are composed. Now whether we
consider that such a substance is imi)elled by some inner
prompting to seize its prey or escape from its enemies, or whether,
with S[)en('cr, we prefer to think that it has some molecular
aftinity with or rej)ulsion from its prey and enemies rcs[)cctively,
whereby when they approach it too nearly, like a magnetic
needle it turns its head as it were to the one and tail to the otluir,
it is evident that any incident force or disturbance falling on an
organism so sensitive, as for example the shadow of a passing
enemy, the commotion it makes in the water, or the (piality
communicated to the water l)y particles of food floating by, or
what pot, will set up a molecular movement in the mass, a move-
ment which like the splasli of water falling on the ground, will
propagate itself at first indefinitely in any or all directions, but
which on sufficient repetition will, like the same water continuing
to run, tend to follow a definite line, the line of all motion, namely
the line of least resistance ; say from the point where force is
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food, to the point where it is expended in moving' the or;;;iinisiii
out of the way of dan<fer in the one caao, or in cnahlinfif it tocloH(^
around its prey in the other; the .special niolecides lyinj; in the
lino alon<^ whicdi the vihration.s pass, heconiin<if converted, like
iron that has had a niajfuetitr <!urrent passed throu<ih it, into a
specially modified kind of tissue known as nerve tissue or nerve.
Ilavinjj^ <^ot this special kind of vihriitinj;' tissue, S[)encer sees
little dirticulty in explainin<f how the rudiments of mind arise.
For just as a mere sound or ordinary noi.se will if repeated with
sufHcient freciuency, say sixteen times to the second, or there-
abouts, give rise to somethin<>; so apparently different in nature
as what wo call a nuisical tone, so what is at first a mere hlow
or nervous shock, will, he says, when it jjasses into vihi-ations
of sutticient fiocpiency, become a sensation or feeling.

Having in this way bridged the gulf between Mind and
Matter, (and this after all is the very nodus of th<' probUnn to
be solved) and having got out of his protoplasmic and
albuminoid substance, not only nerves but vibrations of these
nerves in the shape of sensations and feelings, Spencer has
henceforward little dirticulty in showing how they both go
on developing together as life becomes more complex and
difiicult ; and that just as a cricketer to meet the wide range
of velocity, pitch, direction, and distance of the ball, nmst
have an equally wide range of nervous adjustment betweei)
eye, hand, muscle and limb, so to cope with enemies coining in
all directicms, and of all shapes, sizes, colours, velocities and
(lisguises, or to seize prey under the like difficulties, an animal
nmst have a complex nervous system in which lines of nerve
shall run in all directions through its body, and connect all its
parts together. And just as in some great j)ostal system,
besides the smaller out-lying office's there are larger and larger
central ones where letters and messages arc brought to be
sorted and re-dispatched to the points for which they are
inteiuled, so in man and the higher animals nerve centres of
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IIEUHKUT Sl'ENCER.

itself, receive Jind re-iuljuist the impressions l)r<nifi;lit to them
from nil parts of the organism, and send out responses to meet
tliem, in the shape of thought and action. In this way
;iccording to Spencer, Mind arises from the vihrations of
nervous molecules ; the great variety of thoughts and feelings
thus set vihratini; to the touch or suggestion of outer things,
or from their own inner activity, being but the com})Ounding
and i*e-compounding in more complex centres, of the vibrations
of that simple original blow or shock which is the primitive
unit of consciousness.

Now the points in the above explanation which 1 most
specially wish to emphasize, either as being the most im])ortant
in themselves philosophically and in their bearing on the beliefs
und opinions of men, or as having had the deepest influence on
myself personally at the time are,

First, — That thought, feeling, and sensation, or in a word
Mind, arise out of the molecular vibrations of Matter of
one species of chemical composition, namely nerve-
substance, in the same Avay as light, heat, and electricity
do out of the vibrations of another, as for example iron,
copper, .Mid the like ; and that both alike are but
transformations taking place in the cotu'se of evolution
in that fixed and imchanging quantity of force in
antagonistic forms, from which all things proceed.
Second, — That the only difference in essential nature
between one feeling and another, between the lowest
animal sensation, for example, and the highest, purest,
and noblest emotion, is merely the number and com-
plexity of the molecular vibrations of which they are
composed.
Now the first of these doctrines, namely that Mind arises out
of the vibrations of the molecules of the bi'ain and nervous
system, I already implicitly believed, but only in a very general
way, partly as a heritage from my old phrenological days, and
partly from the accounts constantly to be met with, of the

IIP^KHKIJT SI'KXCKIf.

259

effects on consciousness of injiincs to the liojul, depression of
the skull, and the like, and of how th(! ensuing coma or h)S8 of
consciousness was at once relieved by the sini[)le operation of
raising the depressed portion of bone ; all of which facts
seemed to show that there was a real causal connexion between
the activity of the brain and the manifestations of thought and
intelligence. What Spencer did was to give this doctrine its
complete scientific proof and expression, so that to doubt that
Mind was bo'.ind up with the molecular motions of the brain
down to the last fibre of thought and the remotest and most
evanescent flutter of sensation, was for the future rendered for-
ever impossible. It was without any feeling of surprise
therefore, that I learned from Spencer that just as a piece of
iron, cold and dead, can be made to glow with light and heat
when its molecules are thrown into vibi-ation by the passage of
-.1. . u ont of electricity through it, so the nerves and nerve-
centres of ."-he body and brain, cold and uncon;- jious when
asleep or at rest, can by a stimuli' From within or without, — a
vision of beauty, a ha[)py thouglit, a sweet smile, a poetic
landscape, — be set aglow with thought, emotion, and passion.
Nor was I disposed to deny the counterpart of this doctrine,
namely that no idea or emotion whatever can arise without the
expenditure of some physical force ; or that other proposition
of Spencer, that light, heat, and chemical affinivy are as trans-
formable into sensation, emotion, and thought, as they are
transformable into each other. All this I was prepared to
admit, nor did it disturb me the least to be told that the
higher and nobler emotions and sentiments are subject like the
lower when under the influence of disease or fatigue, of
stimulants, narcotics, or drugs, to fluctuations of rise and fall,
to I'cvival or stupefaction, to alternation or eclipse, or indeed
to any other consequence that might at first seem to be a
derogation from the high dominion of the mind, and its
inalienable freedom as a pure iuunortal spirit. Nothing of all this
touched me, and I was already prepared to admit it all or more.

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HERIIEUT SPENCEK.

But what 1 was not j)rej)arc(l to admit was that between the
liigh and the low, the noble and the base, the false and the
true, there was no other ditterence in essential nature than the
number and complexity of the molecular vibrations of which
they were composed. For however much one might be
disposed to admit that the higher sentiments and emotions
are, like the lower, subject to injury or disease, to exhaustion,
or to wine, one still felt instinctively that iu essential nature
between the two there was a great gulf fixed, a toto coslo
difference in kind and qnallfi/, which no mere difference in the
number of molecular vibrations out of which they arose, could
either explain or explain away. Now, in the old jjhrenological
materialism of my earlier days, this difficulty had not
arisen, for although all the faculties and emotions
alike, the higher as well as the lower, depended for their
manifestation on the size and activity of the corresponding
portions of the brain, yet such higher faculties as veneration,
benevolence, conscientiousness, and the like, were regarded as
quite distinct in essential nature from low ones like revenge,
lust, vanity, cowardice and conceit, which they had to control
and keep in awe, and one could still vaguely feel that some-
where in the circuit of the Universe there must exist some
Essence, or Spirit, or what you will, some Power in which
they were realized, and which should be tlicir support and
guarantee, and be, as it were, the soul and inner reason of their
high claims.

With Spencer, on the contrary, all this was changed, for with
him all the faculties alike, tlie high and the low, the noble and
the base, the heroic and the self-indulgent, lay on a dead level
of moral and spiritual equality, without hierarchy, ranking, or
difference, and with no other distinction among themselves save
the number and complexity of the molecular vibrations out of
which they arose. iVnd just as the differences between light
and heat, which are mere differences of molecular vibration in
one kind of matter, require no Deity to explain them ; neither

IIEUHEUT SPENCEU.

2G1

do differences l)etwcen tlie \\\^\\ and low, tlic noble and base,
which are but differences in tlie molecular vibi'ations of anotlier
kind of matter ; all alike beinjif explainable as but transformations
arising in the coune of evolution, of that original fixed and
unchanging (Miantity of Force in antagonistic forms, of which
the Universe is composed.

Here indeed was Materialism jiure and undiluted, I thought
to myself, all alike, the high and the low, the noble and the base,
being but vil.rations, vibrations, vibrations, nothing more ; and
at sight of it my spirits fell. Its first and indeed chief effect
was to blot out of my life the Ideal itself in which up to that
time t had lived, that Ideal whose very existence depends on
the distinction which the mind itself makes between the higli
and the low, the noble and the base, the infinite and the finite,
the narrow and confined and the boundless and free, and which
gives to life in consequence all that it has of glory and elevation,
of richness, of pathos, and of beauty. But now that the mast
was shivered whose to[) it crowned, and over which its banner
had so gaily waved, the dethroned Ideal fell prone and headlong
on the dock, like a false and usurping spirit ; and my mind
bereaved of that which had been its life, settled into a deep,
and what for a year or two threatened to be a permanent
intellectual gloom.

For it all seemed so true, so irrefragable ; and the argument
washing on its way th(> extremest shores of Nature, and drawing
to itself all the riches they contained, moved to its consummation
steadily but irresistibly like some deep ocean stream. One felt
it was no mere logical castle this, built of air, and definitions, and
assuming in its premises, like the sysl. is of the metaphysicians,
the very difficulties to be explained ; .»ut a great granite pile
sunk deep on the bed-rock of the world, and standing there in
its completeness, so h'lni, so regular, so harmonious, each stone
a scientific truth, and all so compacted, dovetailed, and joined
together, that nowhere in its well-knit structure could so much
as a ])in-point be inserted on which a serious demurrer could be

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IIKUBEUT SI'ENCKK.

liiing. rndeed on <rIanoing tliroufijli those works ii^ain tlio other
(hiv to refresh my iiieinory of those ohleu times, I was as much
inij)resse<l as before with the amazin<r fertility, originality, anil
breadth of scientific generalization they disj)Iayed ; with the
great wariness of the mind that a[)j)eared througli them, and
wliieh was as subtle and ingenious as it was broad and
C(»mprehensive ; as well as with the evidences they afforded
of an accuracy, a sugg<!stiveness, and a [)0wer of physicral
observation, which if they had not made Spencer the j)rince of
Scientific Thinkers, must have niadc him the most eminent of
scientific S|)ecialists.

With an imagination restricted almost entirely to the
relations of material things and forces, or to such aspects
of human life as can in any way be reducible into them or
construed in tonus of them (his theory of literary style even is
practically that of Force following the lines of least resistance
and taking the shortest cut to its end !), h<! is apparently
almost insensible to those higher and finer intuitions of the
mind, which though as fixed and constant in their laws as the
material forces, are nevertheless so subtle, so many-glancing,
and so evanescent, that when attempted to be roughly seized
they es(%ape through the hand, and can only be apprehended
by the finest poetic sensibility. Jiut in spite of these natural
defects, like those great chess players whose far-sighted com-
binations of movement and positioii amaze and perplex the
ordinary professors of the game, he has always seemed to mc
to be in his own line, of all thinkers ancient or modern, the
one whose power of analyzing and decomposing, and combining
the complex v^ch of Matter, Motion, and Force, is the most
incontestable and assured ; so that wei'O the l*roblem of the
World an affair merely of Matter, Motion, and Force, and did
the solution of its riddle demand merely the unravelling of
their infinite com[)lexities, here indeed were the Philosopher
would give it us.

As it is, he has in my judgment rendered forever obsolete

HRUHKUT SPENCKU.

2(;3

and iiiitiquated the systems of those Miiterialistic Thinkers who
troni the days of Deniocritiis and Epicurus downwiu'ds, liavo
hased their specuktions on the imperfect conceptions of their
tinu! as to the natux'e and rehitions of Matter, Motion, and
Force, as well as of those Idealists who have figured the spiritual
world in imajjjes and analogies drawn from these conceptions ;
and to those whose time is valuable, both alike, except as
ancient history, may, like the old theories of physiolo<ry and
(chemistry, be wiped from the tables of tlu^ memory as but
hindrances and obstructions to truth. And as for the .Spiritual
Philosophies of the future, they must, in my jud<rment, for
many years to come, either consent to build themtolves on these
scientific s[)eculation8 of Spencer as a foundation (or on
somethin<>; akin to them), or be as if they had never been. As
for niyself, indeed, neither at the time of which I am writing-
no" for years afterwards, in spite of the havoc it made of my
ideal of the world and of human life, could I detect any
essentially weak or imperfect link in the great web of scientilic
thought and s})cculation of which these volumes were composed.
And it was not until my mind was directed to the (juestion of
Spencer's Philosophic Method as distinct from his particular
oj)inions, and especially as to the bearing of this method on the
great [)roblems of Religion, that I got my eye on the central
fallacies by which his philosophy as a whole was pervaded, and
by which in the end, and as a complete Philosophy of Life, it
must inevitably fall, — all of which will be exhibited in their
proper place as the course of this evolution proceeds.

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CHAPTER II.

ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY.

^f^IIE .shock whicli on the voyiige my youthful ideals ha<l
-*- sustained by the perusal of Mr. Spencer's writings, was
not lightened on my landing in Glasgow, for here I was
confronted with what T had never before seen, the spectacle of
women crowding the gin-shops swearing and blaspheming, and of
men, dirty, ragged and unkempt, walking boldly barefoot in the
open streets. Nor were matters any better in London where in
the twilight dimness of the winter fogs on my way to and from
thv. hospitals, th(! figures of women in old l)lack shawls, blue
and besotted with gin and cold, were to be seen making their
way from public-house to public-house like lost and belated
spirits. It was not that sights like these were unknown in the
great cities of America and the Colonies, but only that I had not
myself seen them ; for in the town where I was born and
brought up, pauperism was unknown, and my only experience of
the tramp was the a[)pearance once in sc^'cral years, perhaps, of
some peripatetic and swarthy Italian with monkey and hand-
organ, [jlaying for pence and bread from door to door; while
<luring my residence at the University, living faraway from the
.slums and back-streets of the <Mty, if tramps and paupers were
to be seen there, I was unawai'c of their existence.

Hut in London other experiences ot an equally unexpected
but less tangible kind awaited me. On my arriv.al alone and

AUISTOCUACV AND DK^IO^RACV.

2(ir)

without fi'lends I saw little of English life for some time,
coining into oontact jji-actically only with my landlady and the
young men with whom I walked the hospitals; hut even
through these narnnv chinks I soon hecanie aware that 1 had
come to a land whi^n; the aims and ideals of men, their categories
of moral judgment, and their views as to the relations in
which the different classes of society stood to each other, were
diametrically opposed to those I had left behind me at home.
For the students with whom I came into contact and with
whom I tried to enter into friendly relations, though polite and
courteous enough, wen; cold and reserved in manner : and
conversation with them, after a pass or two, had a tendency
suddenly to collapse int() monosyllables ; any attempt to carry
it outside flu; limits of a certain conventional (arcuit, to
heighten its pitch, or to give it either a personal or abstract
tone, being nipped as by a sudden frost; the echoof yoiu' voice
being returned to you from these hard and frigid exteriors as
from marble vaults. Students without enthusiasm or ideals,
sensuous and unaspiring natures, I had indeed left behind me bv
the score, but here I felt was a something palpably different, and
of which at the time I could give no explanation. And still
more surprised was I to hear in the outside departments of the
hospital, patients spoken to by the young physicians and their
assistants in a tone of unconscious /lantfur and authority that
would have raised an insurrection at home ; and what was still
more amazing to me, to find that to these words of conu«iand,
delivered as they were in tones of the most perfect cahnness, the;
patients moved as if they were automata. It was in reality the
tone and manner of men brought up in an aristocratic state of
society with which I had now come for the first time in contact,
and it filled me with as nuich bewilderment and surprise as if I
had been suddenly let down into a community of Chinamen or
Hindoos.

In democnitic communities like America and the Colonies,
which arc founded on the principle of a common humanity,

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iuul of t\w ul)H(>l(ito equality of lujin as iimii, tlio mind rclcasiul
froju all .suspicion or fear of HUperiority, gives itself up to that
g(;uial «>;oo(l-fellows]iip and craving for Hvuipatliy with other
minds, which when once all hope of personal domination is
ahsolutely shut out, is the most immediate and pressing desire
(»f the heart. Accordingly as we might expect in so congenial
an atmosphere, all the infinite variety of men's moods, feelings,
iind desires, arc invited and even encouraged to come out and
sun themselves, like the fanna of some tropical clime; all alike
as thi'.y happen to arise, without regard to rank or distinction,
and without selection, repression, or reserve. The C()nse([uence
is that in conversation men give themselves up to the expression
and interchange of their hopes and fears, their husiness or
pleasiu'c, their private humours, personal curiosity, bodily
ailments, what they have eaten and how they have slept, with
(■(|ual iKureU; and impartiality ; the only limitation put on this
wide range of promiscuity, being the ordinary decencies, the
sacred reserves of life ; and even these, the good ^yalt
Whitman ])ushing the democratic instinct to its farthest
expression, but with perfect purity of intent, would throw
open without after-thought, affectation or shame. And further,
in the absence of any even the shadow of sujjeriority to coerce
or chasten, this wide license of expression is apt to run into all
the appointments of life, which as we see among Americans
have all this motlev variegated character, — their dress, their
furniture, their ornaments, their dinner-tables, and more
espec^ially their language, which loose, irregular, and uncon-
ventional as the variety of angles at which their slouch hats
are tilted, has that personal and peculiar flavour which is so
characteristic ; made up as it is of slang, hyperbole, and
picturesque metaphor drawn from the familiar and popular
exi)eriences of the race-course and card-table, the minstrel-
trou[)e, the nuisic-hall, and the streets. Now in communities
like these, where all the moods, sentiments, and feelings of the
mind have an equal i-ight to expression, and where the attemjjt

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2(5

is iiijitlo 80 to coerce them down mikI run tlieiii all tn^^ctlier that
thoy shall confer no distinction, hut like a conunon highway
thouf^h o|)en to all shall he the preroj^ativc; of none, it is natural
that no ofK'Uce should he more severely punished hy puhlic
opinion, than any attempt to 'i|)set this democratic hasis hy the
a.- sumption of airs of su[)eriority founded on pcu'sonal pride; or
reserve, on tone, attitu("ie, speech, or manners, in a word on the
|)runin<^ and trinnuin<r of the st^ntiments and hehaxiour. Ihit
us in every man the love of distinction and superiority is as
stronjf when once his equality is assured, as is his love of
ecpiality while he himself is kept down ; and as all attempts to
ohtain distinction or superiority hy the cultivation of a
particular manner, tone, attitude, or form of speech, an; alike;
d(;precated hy public sentiment and opinion, as savouring of
old aristocratic pretentions, it is evident that the ])as,sion for
ine(piality or distinction must seek satisfaction in the only
other way ()[)en to it, namely in superiority of knowledj^c, skill,
in<renuity, that is to say in sup.eriority of Intellect as distinct
from superiority of Sentiment or Form. And accordingly as
we see, in democracies the utmost latituole is allowed for tiie
exhibition and demonstration of individual talent; whether it
be physical, mechanical, or [irofessional skill, 'smartness' and
success in money-making, or eminence in music, literature, the
drama, oratory, or art. But as among such a wide sea of heads
all on a level of e([uality, with no division into classes rising
above one another like the seats in an amphitheatre, whereby
the rank and quality of each may be clearly seen, every man is
so s'.iouldered in amono- his neij^hbours as to be in danji-er of
losing his importance and individuality altogether unless hy
strenuous self-assertion, each one accordingly is permitted to
shout aloud and call attention to his talents, as to the wares of
his shop, with the entire sympatiiy and good-will of the
bystanders.

Such then are the characteristics of young democracies that
have not been grafted on old aristocratic stocks, namely, the

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AUIHTOniACV AM) DKMorilAOY.

free oxprcssioii and intcrcliiin^c! in conversiitlon of nil f('('lin<;H,
moods, 1111(1 scntiiiH'iits alike; tlic iiiakiii<; of intellect and
kiiowledjjje supreme in public estiniatiou ; and the free scope
<^iven to personal self-iissertion ; all of tliem chal•aeteri^•t^eH of the
democratic society in which my own early years were paused ;
and to these the spirit of aristocracy, as I was soon to discover,
opposed itself i)oint to point.

In old aristocracies like Knjjland for exampl(>, where society
was orijfinally founded on force and on the serfdom :)f the
masses, the inecpi-ility of rank that naturally j^rew out of this
inef|uality of conditions, was perpetuated hv tradition and
sentiiiKnit, l<)n<^ after the ori<;;inal power on which it rested had
decayed. And as the lov(! of powcM' and domination is always
Htronj^fer in the human heart when it has a chance to cxcvt itself,
than the feeling of sympathy with those who arc regarded as
inferiors, instead of the universal sympathy with all white men
which characterizes democracies, the nding-class(!8 in aristocracies
have a tendency to restrict their sympathies to their own order,
and have no desire, hut an aversion rather, to interchange
feelings and exj)erien(!es with their inferiors, or to mingle their
sentiments in the common human stream. On the contrary
they seek by every artifice to set up barriers against such
interchanji'e, and in order to distinirnish themselves from the
masses whom they allow to revel in the free and miscellaneous
interchange of whatever mood, sentiment, or feeling chances to
arise, surround themselves with an atmosphere of prid(! and
reserve, of clioice and selected sentiments, language, and
behavioiu'. For on whatever finalities aristocracies were
originally founded, whether on intellectual or spiritual
superiority as with the Brahmins and Chinese Mandarins, on
industry and money as with the mediiVival Italian aristocracies,
or on force and land with the concomitants of rank and
title as with the existing remnants of feudal ai'istf»cracy in
Europe, they can only maintain themselves (so long, that is,
as the institution of the family lasts as an independent social

AU18T()(!UA(;V AM) l»K.MOCKA(! V.

20i)

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factor), by personal tone, manner, attitiidi', and speocli, or

what 18 known as 'fornr or hrccdin;^-, that is to lay hy

the artistic, fiilture of the seiitiineiits and fi^elinjxs. And

this for various reasons. In the first phiee that (|iiality

in men which a cch.'hratcid politician once contemptuously

sp(»ke of as '(huiined intellect" is always tho pr(;n)j^ative of

individuals not of families or classes, and to those who share his

sentiments the prospect of a motley herd of intellec-tual tailors,

shoe-makers, or other artisans, of needy philosoplu^rs, or <»f

broken down Uttrrateurxoi <fenius installed in the seats of honour

and consideration, would .' deed be • to rock the settled calm of

States (|uite from its fixture ' ! IJesides, the social order arisinj^

as it did oriyinally out of a [)olitical order in which command on

the OIK' hand, and obedience on the other, were the habitual

mental states, a certain aloofness, constraint, and reserve had to

be put on the outward manifestations of the feeli.igs in order to

preserve discipline ; as even the most democratic of modern

conimunities still find necessary in the army in the relations

between officers and men. And this again has its root in the

still more profound truth, that Just as we saw in a previous

cha[>ter that all high intellectual sii[)eriority rests not on

over-gr(»wn special ' organs,' or on trains of logic, but on the

width, dej)th, and fineness of sympathy and seiisil)ility, that is

to say on oiu; kind of feeling ; so personal superiority as distinct

from merely intellectual, rests for the great masses of men on

superiority of tone and sentimeut, that is on another kind of

feeling. This need not necessarily be a purely spiritual or

moral superiority, as we shall see, but rather an artistic or

lesthetic one, in which refined and cultured forms of conduct

and behaviour whether innate or ac(juired, shall be habitually

turned towards the beholder, t(t the exclusion or sui)i)ression of

all that is vulgar, common, or low.

Now this artistic culture of the sentiments, this selection,
trimming and i)runing, or if you will, even galvanizing of them
into fixed attitudes, this art and skill in knowing what you are

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AUISTOCHACV VXD DEMOCRACY.

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to do or avoid, to tliink or to feel, to say or refrain from sayiiifif
on all the occasions of life, is not left to the waywardness of
individual caprice, hut has always been moulded on one
reeoj^nised pattern-figure, the figure which in all European
countries is known as the ' gentleman.' This is by no means
an ideal figure, all of a piece, and an embodiment of all the
virtues, holding on high the Ten Commandments like some
ascetic of old ; fur the aristocracy have always permitted to
then: selves a greater license in affairs of gallantry and the like,
than they have allowed to the common herd, and have been
little scru})ulous in many of the ordinary moralities not
essential to thoir own preservation as a class ; but rather a
Nebuchadnezzar image, partly of gold and partly of clay, and
rising no higher in purity than to the level of the stage of
civilization in which it is found ; the whole operating on the
minds of men not through the inculcation of the Decalogue,
but rather by the power of an artistic and interesting per-
sonality, in which honour, esprit, and elevation of sentiment
are artistically combined with the suppression of all that is
vulgar, common, or eccentric in manners, or personal and
l)oastful in conversation. If then, as we have seen, in
<lemocracies intellectual skill, * smartness,' knowledge and
ability are the points of distinction, the ideal, and object
of admiration among men ; in aristocracies on the contrary,
the ideal and point of distinction is the 'gentleman' v/ith all
that the term implies ; and all attempts to establish a claim to
superiority on merely intellectual grounds, are resisted and
contennted as contrary to their essential spirit. So that we
have this curious result, that while in democracies public
opinion is tolerant of all kinds of intellectual distinction, but
not of that which dei)ends on the culture of the sentiments
and feelings, in aristocracies on the contrary it is tolerant of
all distinctions arising out of rank and birth, or founded on
sentiment and feeling, but not of those founded on knowledge,
skill, or intellect. A gentleman, as with Charles I., is supj)osed

ARISTOCRACY AND DKMOCUACY.

271

to know as muoli only as is necessary for a gentloinaii ; the
good taste and common-sense in rriHes which is so marked
and essential an in<>redient in his composition, hcini^ csteomed
not so much as intellectual j)roducts (which they in a sense
are), as artistic featu'"^s necessary to the conception and very
existence of the figure. The consequence is that t(» minds
thus moving through a certain fixed and definite numher of
constclhitions, any wide-ranging enthusiasm for iiitclloctual
ideals or abstract culture, for new horizons of moral or spiritual
expansion, however much it may be entertained in the private
heart (and indeed this nuist be so in a community which
comprises a large Professional and Middle-Class founded on
intellect and character as its basis), nuist not too torcibly
intrude itself into general conversation ; and if it does, will Ik;
met by a certain air of coldness and reserve. E\en in those;
aristocratic groups that are attempting to arise and uoiu'ish
themselves on a democratic soil, as in some of the American
cities like lioston for example, the artistic cultivation of the
sentiments and feelings is at bottom made the real point of
social distinction, and not mere intellectual superiority as one
would have imagined ; but owing to the absence of material on
which to operate in the shape of 'lower oi-dors' and the like;,
they have none of the genial character of the older aristocracies,
but can exist only by keeping themselves unspotted from tlu;
world, or in other words, by coldness, esiclusion,, negation, and
reserve.

Now it was on these characteristics of an aristocratic society
that I struck, as on a bed-rock, when in my attempts at conver-
sation with the students at the hospital my youthful enthusiasms
were met with so much unaccountable frigidity; and in my
friendless isolatiim in a great city, coming as it did on the blows
which my ideal had just recently received from the S|)encerian
philosophy, it still further depressed my spirits. [ felt that the
whole tone of sentiment and opinion, the entire; way of looking
at men and things, was in some way essentially antagonistic to

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2(2 AllISTOCUACV AND DKMOCUAC V.

that to which I liad been accustomed, but a!< to the reason of it
1 couhl form no conjecture. Of the same race and religion and
with a common hmguage and ancestry, I coukl have no conception
that there coukl possibly be any difference in sentiment and
opinion between the colonies and the Mother Country ; and in
my depressed and sensitive humour began to imagine that the
fault must be personal to myself ; when suddenly one day on my
return from the hospital I got my first inkling of how the matter
stood, by the entrance into my room of my landlady who with
much knowingness an<l show of contem})t, confided in me that
one of the lodgers who was in the habit of giving himself great
airs of superiority about the house, was no gentleman, as he had
actually been guilty of counting his potatos ! Now in my time
in Canada the word Gentleman was rarely if over used, and to
say that a man was not a gentleman implied that he had been
guilty not of ' bad form,' or some breach of conventional propriety,
but of positive immorality. But on my best reflection (for my
own withers being unwrung in this matter of the potatos, I was
able to give myself up to the contemi)lati()n of the incident
with calmness and impartiality), I could not ior the life of me
understand why ji man's counting his own [)otatos should make
him no gentleman ; when suddenly it began to dawn on me that
the word nuist be used in some special and esoteric sense to
which I had not yet found the key ; and this sense, as I afterwards
discovered, was that of the trinnned and cidtured personality
we have just seen, whose artistic and refined manner and
behaviour were the hall-mark that distinguished him from the
vulgar throng, who, on the other hand, by rolling and (Hsporting
themselves in the expression and exhibition of every sentiment
that happened to come to the surface of their minds, cut
themselves off from grace as by inevitable decree.

Associated with this aristocratic s[)!rit, partly as direct effect
and partly as historic survival from an earlier time, was another
phenomenon of society which cut still more directly into the
inexperienced ideals of my youth, already so deeply scarred and

ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY.

273

trenched by the philosophic scepticism of Spencer ; and this was
the condition and outlook of the Working Man. In the Colonies,
where deinctcratic sentiment covered the whole field of human
activity, and where ^ men alike were free and equal, the working-
man after his day's work was done, was in nt) way to be
disfcinguished from the general bodv of citizens, but moving
freely among tlnm, took part in all the attairs of the community
with perfect equality, in no way marked off from the rest of his
fellows in dress, manners, dialect, or personal dignity. ]5ut in
London I was confronted with the spectacle of working men
appearing in the street, in public places, at their clubs, and at
lectures in their ordinary working clothes, speaking a different
dialect from the other classes of soeiety, and instead (jf mingling
freely with them, separated off from them as it were in special
compartments, in railways, restaurants, theatres and other places
of public resort; and more than all, so subdued apparently by
the ti'aditions in which they had been brought up, and by their
own belief in the inherent superiority of th<^ classes above them,
that in token of the same they were to be seen touching their
hats and taking 'ti|)s' in open day and without .shame. Now
all this was to me so new, so strange, so unaccountable, that
appearing as it did in men whom I soou recognized to be
otherwise so rol)ust, manly and brave, it fell on my mind like a
stain; and living as I did entirely in the high ideals of the
mind, and not in the calculations of any merely {)eeimiary or
sensuous gocnl, it was as if the human mind itself had suffered
some inherent de<>ra(lation. Ihit long before I could iilve anv
satisfactory explanation of it to myself, it had protluced a (juite
peculiar speculative effect (»n a subject no less remote from the
sublunary concern out of which it grew, than that of the
inunortality of the soul.

Vor in America and the Colonies generally, whei'e all men
alike are equal, independent, and free, the bright and unfettered
dominion of the mind, its free elevation and expansion, which
result from there beino; nothinjj between it and high heaven

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ARISTOf'ltACy AND DEMOCRACY.

to crush or subdue the sph'it, give to every man the iippciirance
of an illimitable nature to which no boundaries are visible.
That such a nature should be immortal was readily conceivable
without any breach of continuity, and whatever difficulties
in consequence the doctrine of the immortality of the soul
might meet with from the physical or material side, it could
meet with none from the nature of man himself, lint in
England where men were distributed into classes whose opinions
and prejudices and the circuit of thought and sentiment in
which they moved, and beyond which like rooted trees they
could not pass, were easily survoyable on all sides, the nature
of man seemed to lose its illimitable character ; and I kept
saving to myself as I went along, these are not immortal
spirits, there is no innnortality of the soul I It was a strange
conclusion, I admit, to have arisen out of an environment
so foreiii'n to itself as the relations in which the different
classes of a particular country stood to dcli other ; but from
the first real glimpse which I got that the nature of man was
not, as I had thought, illimitable and free, it followed of
necessity, sinking into my mind and still further depressing
Euy ideal of life, and curiously colouring the course of my
general speculations during the i'nniediately succeeding years.

It is true that in Canada we had the negro, but for the time
1 had quite forgotten him ; for he was regarded by us young-
men at least as something so j)eculiar and apart, that we took
Jitlle or no thought of him • and when we did, we vaguely felt
rthat if immortality were vo he his lot, it would be in some
;s^'pai\ate comi)artment of heaven, as it had already been on
■earth! From which it is evident that we were as much tlie
■creatures of tradition and ojjinion in the Colonies as in England,
the only difference being that in the Colonies public opinion
Ijeing a universal and homogeneous element, ])ressed so evenly
on all sides of us that like the air we breathe or the water in
which the fishes swim, we were almost unconscious of its
existence. For my part it was not until I had been transported

AUISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY.

27/5

to the quite different and as we liave seen, quite antagonistic
social order of England, that I got a second point of view
outside of myself fn.in which to see myself, and so became
aware of my former slavery. But when once I got my eye on
it, then dissolved for ever like a transformation scene, that
fond illusion, not only of youth, but of the unreflecting, the
uncultivated, and the untravelled everywhere, the ilhision,
namely, that all the settled arrangements and' institutions of
society— its Churcli and State, its hierarchies, authorities, and
powers, as well a,s the creeds, beliefs, and prejudices in which
men are brought up,— have their roots in eternal nature and
have been there from all time; and in its place arose the
perception (of so much importance, as we shall see, in political,
and social speculation), that all these are fugitive and temporary!
have had their causes and origins and vvill have their decease,'
and that having arisen originally out of a few simple elements
of character and environment, they are as predicable, so long
af. these last, as are the n)ovements of sheep before the
shepherd; all individual prejudices, sentiments, and beliefs
being driven before these, their life and soul, as snow-flakes
before the wind. But this is to anticipate, and I must return.

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CHAPTER III.

MEDICINE.

TT^OR some yeai's after my arrival in London, with the view
■*" of supplementing the mere book knowledge in whieh we
Canadian students were more than usually proficient, by the
medical knowledge of the bedside. I was in the habit of
walking the h'sjiitals daily ; not attaching myself to any one
in particular, but moving freely to and fro among them all ;
now giving myself up unreservedly to some distinguished
clinical teacher here, now to some distinguished therapeutist
there, now listening to the bedside talks of Sir William Jenner
at University College, now attending the operations of Sir
William Ferguson at King's ; at one time, and for long i)eriods
together, taking courses on special subjects such as diseases of
the heart or lungs, diseases peculiar to women and children,
and the like, and then returning again to the wards of the
general hospitals to take survey of the whole field. But in all
these activities it was entirely in the practical that my
thoughts were bout, on what was solid, demonstrable, and if
possible predicable in Medicine and disease, and not on what
was still in the air and in the region of hypothesis merely.
For Medicine as an Art, that is to say, in so far as it was a
practically limited body of principles which remained stationary
over any one decade or generation, and which were to be
applied day after day to the same or similar cases in wearisome

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routine, I liiul no inclination ; for from the time when my mind
was first fired with the ambition for literary and phil()80[)hic
distinction, the thought of having to spend my life either in
threshing aw.ay at the same old straw of theological dogma like
the preachers, or ringing the changes on the same old stock ,)f
motives involved in crime like the lawyers, or like the doctors
feeling pulses and looking at tongues from youth to age, came
over my mind with a special and peculiar horror. I had been
taken possession of for the time being, I may remind the
readex*, by a i-apacious and exorbitant ideal which would be
satisfied with no theme that did not give infinite scope for
speculation and thought. And although one might have
imagined that in Medicine the wide penumbra of misty and
unproven hypothesis which surrounds its small nucleus of fixed
and definite truth, might have afforded me a wide enough field,
yet this in reality was not what I wanted. For with the ideal
within me bruised and crushed by the Spencerian materialism
which now lay on my spirits like the night, and with the great
world of Nature and Human Life lying around me and waiting
to be explored, if haply by some tleeper perception of its
workings I might shift and dislodge the incubus that was
pressing on my heart, I had not the time to give to mere
speculations on the origin and nature of disease, which even if
reduced to truth, could in no way affect the solution of the
great problems that were uppermost in my mind. Neither
could I consent to devote myself to the long and patient
investigation necessary if one would hel}) on the advance of
Medicine as a Science in even the smallest of its many
branches and subdivisions. For what in my youthful ardour 1
most desired, was some problem or theme which would engage
the whole mind, with all its armoury of intellectual and spiritual
weapons — analogy, observation, penetration, intuition, — and
which would allow it to move along these from point to
point in endless perspective, weaving its own web as it went
along ; some theme that would admit of a free unimpeded

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MKDICINE.

fli<i;ht down the wind of tlumjilit, unolo^jjjud by ctirthly details,
and exempt fron» the necestfity of wiiitin<>' for a full and
complete exj)hination of physical Nature, before it could begin ;
some problem in a word, which .'ihouhl allow of its secrets
being penetrated from the side of the mind and its laws — those
laws in which I was immersed when the Philosophy of Spencer
fell on me out of the blue sky, dashing my ideal, and breaking
up for the time being the ordered continuity of my thought.
And such a theme was the great Problem of the World and of
Human Life, and in my then mood and temper nothing less
would content me as worthy to claim the devotion of a life.

Now Medicine in so far as it is a department of Physical
iScience, has to do with the human body as a part of Nature
merely, and like all Physical Science has to deal with an
infinite complex of forces, — physical, chemical, mechanical,
electrical, vital, — the laws of whose action can never be anti-
cipated or known beforehand by any combination of mere
thought however subtle or far-reaching, but on the contrary
must await the slow and dilatory results of observation and
experiment ; in this respect differing entirely from Poetry and
Philosophy which on the self-same basis of physical Nature,
can rear, as has so often been seen, vast pyran>ids of truth by
the combinations of individual genius alone. In other words,
while in Philosophy a single mind of sufficient power can, like
a great chess-player, by new combinations of the same old
pieces make vast advances in thought; in Physical Science
and Medicine on the other hand, the smallest general advance
can only be made by an innumerable body of workers
stretching athwart the field like an army, and under the
guidance and inspiration of some great general principle to
direct their labours — Gravitation, the .Vtomic theory, Natural
Selection, the Germ theory, Evolution, and the like — breaking
up the soil in every quarter of the field, and so gradually
reducing the recalcitrant phenomena of Nature to order and
law. But as it is not once in a generation or perhaps in a

MEDICINE.

27{>

century even, tliiit the existin<>; stage of scientifii' itrnoresH is
ripe for the new gencriUi/ation of a Newton, a Darwin, or a
Pasteur, it is evident that in tliese scientific hihonrs Speculation
can have no unimpeded flight ah)ng the mental lines of analogy,
intuition, and poetic interpretation, hut on the contrary, con-
fronted at every turn with unconquered facts whose laws and
causes have still to he explored, must, like the snake in (Hoethc's
'Tale,' ever hend itself to the earth again before it can make
the smallest advance. And hence it is that not only in
Medicine but in all the Physical Seiences yon have the
spectacle of thousands of diligent and conscientious workers
spending their lives in observing and reporting each some
small section of the vast and unexhausted field, and with their
mici'oseopes, teleacopes, stethoscopes, spectroscopes, and the
rest, moving athwart the broad expanse of Nature like an army
of locusts (beneficent and not destructive), analyzing, decom-
posing, separating, and breaking up the gross concreteness of
things into their elemental forms; content to spend their lives in
this [)ursuit, if so be they may add some genuine contribution
however small, to that common stock of knowledge which is
necessary before the next great generid advance is possible :
but of whom the most alas ! are condenuacd to die before the
[)romise(l land is in sight. But in spite of my natural love of
reality, and the fascination which Nature and her ])rocesses had
always exercised over my mind, I coidd not reconcile myself
to making any one or other of the departments of StMcnce or
Medicine, the object of my life's devotion. What with the
great Problem of Life to which I had already dedicated
myself, lying still unsolved before me, and with the Spencerian
Philosophy pressing on me like a nightmare ; Avhat with the
limited scope that any special department of Science permits
fo)' the free exercise of the whole range of mental faculties,
and with an exorbitant ideal which would be satisfied with
nothing less as its province than the whole interests of Man ;
what with the fact that I had taken as the basis and ground-

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work of my thinkin*^, the doctrine of Evolution which was not
to be utrected in any of its p-eater implications by any minor
scientifir discovery ; what with all these, and other 8ul)ordinate
considerations, it was impossible that I should give the full
allef>;iance of my mind to Medicine. And accordinj^ly when
one of our most distinj^uished physicians made me the offer of
<'ollaboratin{ij with him in certain scientific investigations, the
ri'sults of which were to be published under our conjoint
names, and assured me at the same time that if I accepted his
oUcr it would lead almost to a certainty in a year or two to a
chair as lecturer in one or other of the medical schools, I felt
obliged to decline the kind and all too generous proposal.
That it was the parting of the ways, and would decide the
entire course of my after years I was well aware, but in spite
of the material and professional advantages that would have
accrued to me from my acceptance of it, it was without hesi-
tation or afterthought that I deliberately chose Philosophy as
my bride, content to endure with her whatever in the future;
might befall.

Hut while neither Medicine as an art, requiring the
ajjplication of a limited set of principles to the endless details
of practice, nor Medicine as a science, involving the patient and
laborious work of adding to these principles in some one or
more sections of its wide field, could in my then state of mind
secure my full and free allegiance, I was nevertheless deeply
interested, as I have already said, in all those truths which Averc
inunediately practical, which had stood the test of time and
were no longer in the region of hypothesis ; or in other words,
in Medicine in so far as it was a system of truths capable of
demonstration, prediction, and verification. I was not slow,
therefore, to avail myself of the labours of others, and not only
tried to make myself master of the grosser symptoms and
signs of disease, but looked out eagerly for those finer ininut'nf
of distinction among symptoms, which pointed to subtler
shades of disorder, and which were not to be had from books.

MKDK'INE.

2H1

And as tlio jjn'iit (lifticiilty was to got a giMsp of tlu; liiorarchy
of symptoms, or in otln'i' words to dctcniiinc out of a long
<'atal<tgiie, which won^ the significant and wliich the unimportant.
I was greatly interested in what I may call the [)liysiognouiy of
disease. For just as individual character i« to he read, not hy
any mere inventory or catalogue of features however accurate
or complete, l)ut hy the ensemfde of features, out of whicdi a Hue
intuitive perception is always ahle to pick the one or more that
gives the key to the character, so among a great complication of
symptoms, some of them perhaps apparently mutually ccuHicting,
to decide which are the significant and im|)ortant, and which
the suhsidiary or nnimportant, re<|uires in achlition to the
knowledge of the grosser elements, an intuitive perception of
those indefinable elements which constitute what may he cidled
the physiognomy of disease. To attain this knowledgt; whicdi
is the last refinement of the ])hysician's art, I niiule a point of
assiduously attending the post-mortem examination of patients
I had seen in the wards, with the view of ascertaining
accurately the exact nature of the disease from which they had
been suffering, in order that I might connect it with the
symptoms, physiognomy, and general appearance in life. I also
went from hospital to hospital to attach myself to those
physicians who either from th''ir special knowledge or exceptional
insight, were most likely to give me what I wanted. These
were usually the older heads in the profession, men who dealt
little in mere theory, but whose knowledge was of that wary,
intuitive, unwritten, and scarcely communicable kind which
only long experience can give, and which therefore was not
so common amona: the younuer men. The difference between
the two cannot perhaps be better conveyed to the reader, than
by the reply of an old physician to a freshling who with all the
latest theories and newest I'emcdies at his finger-ends, was
inclined banteringly to rc[)roach the elder with being an old
fogey who had lost touch somewhat, and was just a little behind
the times. ' These new things ' replied the other ' which you

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MEDICINE.

know l)iit of wliicli I am i^iutniiil. you have only to tell mc,
and I sliall then know thcni as well as yon, but tlui thinj^s that
I know and of wliicli you are ijjnorant, it would tako nuj yiNirs
to teach, and you yvAivs to learn,'

Of the present Method of Medicine, that is to say of the way
in whieh it sets out to discover the laws and eauso.s of disease,
one cannot speak too hiy-hlv. Discardinii' alike all those old
<V y)rt(>/'t conceptions under which it at one tini(! worked, such for
example as the hom(eo|)athic and allopathic shihholeths, the
doctrine of ' vital spirits ' and the belief in the beneficent or
malign intluenees of certain orj^aus. as the liver, spleen, heart,
(all of whi(!h meta[)hysical or semi-theolojrical conceptions
served like concealed may:nets to deHe(^t the mind from it*
native allinitv to truth) it has thrown itself onc(( for all entirelv
and unreservedly on observation and experiment alone; workinjj;
on true liaconian lines in all its (h'i)artments, mental as well as
physical ; now by crucial experiment distinu:uishin<? real causes
from mi;re coincidcaices ; now by the method of (sxcludion
reducinj;' what is va^^ue and hypothetical to ureater definiteness
and certainty; now isolating organs and functions with the
view of keeping their separate inliuenees distinct and apart ; and
now by comparison, classification, an<l generalization, bringing
all this knowledge to a point, and so rearing still higher the
pyramid of truth ; and at each point in the process surrounded
and ministered to by a whole armoury of instruments —
microscopes, stethoscopes, ophthalmoscopes, and the rest —
which are fitted to penetrate and lay bare the secrets of the
most hidcU'u parts. And if the progress of Medicine is impeded,
and the ze;d of its votarici- restrained for the time being, in
these islands, by the rescrictions put on the practice of
vivisection — a practice by the way, which by the op[)ortunities
it gives for free ex{>erim€ntation, and for the application of the
liaconian method to creatures allied physically to ourselves, is
of all instruments of research the most potent for the discovery
of those deeper causes of disease which lie immediately before

MKIUCINK.

2H3

u« — it", ill our (Mulciivours to put rcMtrlctions on tlic iilni>i' of
this prncticj'. we liavc porlmps ovcrsliot tin; iiiiirk mid put
iTstrictions on its Ic'i^itiiiiiitc use, it still njot'storwurd ncvcMtlielcss
in otluM* laiuls (ho iiiinioral in Niitun^ when she hiis h"r own
ends to attain), lands wIkm'c owiiij? partly to race, and partly to
the traditions of despotism out of wliieh their peoples have
rtcarecly yot onierged, there are wantinjf those finer sentinu-nts
of hinnanity and pity which are a harrier to its practictt here.

But while the melhod of Medicine equally with that of
Physical Science jienerally, is the true one, and the results
attained, like the Pyramids or coral-reefs, «j;reat and endnritij;',
the mental syminetry of the vast army of workers hy wlimn
the {^rcat edifice is l)ein<^ reared, is (as Darwin himself pointed
out), like the hacks of the old E«^yptian slaves, sacrificed to it ;
and their culture in consecpience rendercil one-sided iiml
incomplete. It is not in every jjeneration or even century, as
I have said, that an all-embracing law like Evolution or Gravi-
tation is ripe for discovery ; and in the meantime aecordinnly,
the rank and file of the scientific army stretchin<j^ athwart the
field of Nature, and movinj;' forward under the comniiind of
their captains to the beat and inspiration of the last j^iCiit
.scientific conce[)tion, are engaged each -".vith the iniinitia' of his
own special work, auiilyzing, dividing, combining, and breaking
up the soil on which he is occupied, for the better exhibition
of its constituents and laws; the very air above them thick
with the mist and smoke of liy])othcsis arising during the
progress of the work, which ever again collecting, the winds of
each new day are for ever blowing away. And hence it is
that each man with the exception of the greater geiuirals of
division, being confined to his own nari'ow plot, there is little
scope for those great general views without which culture must
ever be partial and incomplete ; such generalizations as chance
to be turned up by each in the course of his labours, covering
rather his own special mole-hill of thought like a night-cap,
than like a canopy over-arching the whole field. And when at

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last thc>JC imlividual contributions piled up iilong the line of
niarcli, begin to unite their borders smd to inter-penetnite,
fertilize, and throw light on each other, some great general
like Newton, or Spencer, or Pasteur, easting his eye along the
line, announces the new law of gravitation, evolution, the germ
theory, or what not, to which all the facts are seen to conform ;
the old banner is then taken down, the new one is hoisted in
its place, and under its fresh inspiraticm the vast army led by
its generals and its greater officers of division, moves onwards
as before.

But the violence done to the cultui'e of the individual workers
in Medicine or Science involved in this com[)arative restriction
of their field of vision, is quite miutrali/.ed and compensated
by the wonder and sense of illumination that attends the
observation and discoverv of even the smallest of Nature's real
oper.'itions, as well as by the endless artifices and ingenuities to
which recourse must be had before the smallest new truth can
be «lragged from its hiding place. And in spite of the
limitation of its subject-matter to what is purely physicui and
material, or to Avhat can only be got at through the medium of
physical and material organization, Medicine, like Physical
Science, has its compensations in the training it gives to the
mind in habits of accurate observation, in patience, in the
f iippression of personal bias, and the elimination of the personal
equation, in the keeping, in a word, the wheels of the mind, in
Baccm's phrase, concentric with the wheels of Nature. Put its
chief merit at the present time is the healthy scepticism it
engenders in reference to a state of opinicm in which the
operations of Nature arc still encumbered by a whole
metaphysical and theological over-growth of divine inter-
positions, special providences, six days' creations, metaphysical
entities, and other the like sufjerstitions of the vulgar, which
serve only to pervert and obscure the truth.

The effect on my mind of all this study of medicine, was
still farther to deepen the ^faterialism which the Spencerian

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285

Philosophy hiul fastened on me, and to choke outright those
few reniiiining avenues and approaclies to the Ideal, whic^h that
philo.<()phy had still left open. If I had ever had any doubts
as to the intimate and entire dependence of all mental states
whatever on conditions of the brain and uer\'ous system, they
had long since been dissipated by my experiences of the hospital
wards and post-mortem rooms ; and as I walked to and fro
between the hos})itals, meditating on the bearings of all this
medical knowledge on the great Problem of Life on which I
was engaged, I kept saying to myself, if we are ever again to
have a high Spiritual Philosophy of the World which shall
give satisfaction alike to the deeper intuitions of the mind and
heart, it nmst be by a I'nink acceptance once for all, of this
dependence of all thought and emotion whatever on physical
states, and iwt by seeking to contradict, dodge, or ignore this
truth ; it nmst be reared, in a word, on ^fatiirialisni as its
gro'uidwork and basis; must be seen to grow out ot
Materialism as the flower from its root, and not apart from and
independent of it. At this period of my lil'e, however, I was
far indeed from dreaming that such a S})iritual Pliilosopin
would ever afjtiin dawn on me. The habit of lookiu"' ou
human beings as bodies merely, which the constant familiarity
with illness and disease had a tendency in my then mood to
induce in me, still further depressed my spirits; ior this
attitude of the hospital I carried with me into the street, and
the men and women whom I passed or with whom I conversed,
became to me but a series of medical cases, healthy or diseased,
of mater.d substances merely, in better oi- worse repair. This
materialistic way of looking at human beings, following closely
as it did, on the blows whi(di my mind had but nicentlv
sustained from the Spenccrian Philoso[)hy. wiped and blotted
out from my life for the time being, the last lingering traces (»f
the Ideal which had survived there: and in the ensuiuix fflooi; .
unirradiated by any star, my spirit falling, falling, touched at
last the bottommost deep of unbelief and despair. Search

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MEDICINE.

wljcre I would, nowhere was the lost Idciil to be found. If I
looked out into the Universe, there a fixed quantity of Force
hreakini"; on its confines into individual conscious existences
not by any Divine decree but by the cold inhuman pull of
oppojiing forces merely, moved throu<;h the dark abyss of Space
as tlirough the waste and enipt} uight, and reigned as in
Eternal Silence without a God. If I looked into the human
mind, thei'c the noblest and divinest emotions of the soul were
no more than the rhythm or explosions of nervous forces
making their way through the higher nerve-centres of the
iirain along lines of least resistance, and the like ; and dying
away again when these explosions out of which they arose,
had spent themselves. If I looked into society around me,
there too, human beings separated from each other as by
Egy2)t(an castes, like beings of different splieres, looked
honelesslv throuo-h the intervenin<>- distance at one another
from behind the barriers of fixed ideas in which, like the lost
souls in Dante, their spirits were confined, and around whicli
as in great cages they continued foi'cver to turn, like slowly
revolving wheels. If I looked into the streets, there too
the most engaging personalities lost their charm, and men
and women having like njyself lost their souls, walked about
like material corpses merely; even the beauty of woman, to
Avhich 1 had idways been most susceptible, turning its wrong
side out as I looked at it, and under the blight of an eye from
which the ideal had departed, losing its bloom and fading as at
the touch of some devilish and invisible hand. Wherever I
looked the bright landscaj)e of life turned itself into a desert,
iiroiuid and about which I wandered as in a dream, ever and
again to wake up and ask myself, in a moan of bereavement and
<lespair, where now is that bright ideal of life which encompassed
me in the days when with my philosophic friend I walked
radiant beneath the sweet-smelling pines by the river's bank, as
in the groves of Academe ? Where now that promise, believed
in as the love of plighted hearts, which both Nature and my

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287

own soul gave me, and which I took so seriously, that promise
vhich music and heroic story foretold when the blood was
thrilled, and which like the rainbow, more jflorious than the
world it spanned, the more it receded the more it was pursued ?
Where was it now t Gone, as Desdcmona'f, love to OtheUo's
mind, and I was abused ; and with it all the beauty and glory
of the world it presaged. Gone now, and some of them forever
gone, those illusions that played like glancing lights around
the personalities and interests, the toys and anil)itions of the
world, and which lent them all or mostly all their charm. Did
a vision of beauty rise before me, I innuediately turned it 'nto
dust and worms, or thought of how its glov.-ing eye or cheek
would show luider the microscope. Of Intellect, — I at once
thought of the ditlerence in number, size, and activity of the
nervous cells that alone constituted its distinction from dullness
and stupidity. Of Heroism, — I figured it as for the most part
but duller nerves merely, or livelier bubbhs in the blood. Of
Virtue, Honour, Duty — pshaw ! they were either phantasms,
words, or false impositions, as with Falstaff, or but cunningly
devised fables of man's invention for the furtherance of his own
selfish designs, but having in them no touch or effluence of the
Divine. AVhatever, in a word, of greatness, goodness, or beauty
my eye looked upon, was j)oisoned by my own mind l)efore I
<>ould touch it, or taste it, or enjoy it. For years I can
truthfully say I never rose from a book without a sense of ])ain
and desolation, however eagerly while reading it I may have
enjoyed it ; and in all this undertone of misery the ground note
was ever the same — the worthlessness of life and the vanity ot
mortal things. Cui bono? what is the good? was the ever-renewed
refrain that with its sullen monotone of despair rounded in the
close of every train of thought, every new-sprouting ambition,
every resolve. That I hud these resolves and ambitions was
true, in spite of the general undertone of gloom ; for my mind
was young then, and ideal or no ideal, would start more hares
of speculation and fancy in a night than it coidd run down in a

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f I

lifetime ; so light and irrepressiblu iire youth and vanity !
With a teini)oranient naturally buoyant, little of all this gloom
a[)peared in society or conversation, but when I was alone, in
those solitary hours of contemplation and study in wliich our
best thoughts and aspirations take their rise, I h)oked out on
this wilderness of blasted ideals, and was confronted with this
vacant night in which there were no stars.

It was not surprising therefore that in this peculiar mood
and humour, my outward and merely worldly fortunes should
liave ijiven me little concern. 1 had now been walkin<; the
liospitals regularly for a year or two, taking little or no thought
of the morrow, when my originally small stock of capital began
to show signs of giving out, and I was compelled at last to
bestir myself. Accordingly, taking rooms with a friend in
the West End, I began the practice of medicine on my own
i ccount ; but after fruitlessly waiting for another year or two,
during which time I continued assiduously my work at the
liospitalfi, my means became so exhausted that but for the
temporary assistance of my friend I should have been seriously
embarrassed. While I was engrossed in my piulosophical
dreams the keel of my little bark had actually grazed the
bottom, and was threatening to stick hopelessly fast there,
when all at once fortune, in the op[)ortuiie, but, to one so
young, (juite unusual shape of a handsome legacy from a
grateful patient, came to my assistance and set me on my feet
again ; thus enabling me to hold out in the struggle both with
external circumstances and with my own mind, for some years
to come.

J* ART TI.

EJS GLAND.

IJOOK II.

-fix . -^r^^^mmi^mm

MY INNEE LIFE,

BEING A CHArXKU IN

PERSONAL EVOLUTION AND
AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

PART II.— ENGLAND.

liOOK II.— THE SEARCH FOR THE LOST H)EAL.

MACAULAY.

A FALSE START.

ANCIENT PHILOSOl'llY.

SOME OENEUAL COiVSIDEKATIONS.

MODERN METAPHYSICS.

CRITICISMS AND CONCLUSIONS.

A VISIT TO CARLYLE.

THE PERSONAL E(iUATION.

POETIC THINKERS.

MY CONTRIBUTION.

CHAPTER I.

MA(\VULAY.

!P'

;al.

OITTING one bciiiitiful sunny morning in Spring- beneatli
^^ the ancient elms that led up from the liighway to the ohl
coiuitry-liouse in Kent where for the time I was residing, there
suddenly came over my mind a resolve v/hich doubtless had for
some time been silently maturing itself there, the resolvi;,
namely, that now that my duties to my ])atient would leave me
ample time for meditation and study, I would instead (»t
wandering aimlessly about the intellectual world, concentrate
my whole mind on the one supreme object of removing if
possible by some deeper insight than I had yet attained, the
manifold spiritual burdens and contradictions that were
oppressing me, burdens and contradictions under which I
imay;ined manv others besides myself must of necessity be
lying. It was now two years or more since I first made
uc(piaintance with the Spencerian Philosophy, and so far I had
not been able to detect any inaccuracy in its facts, any fallacy
in its reasoning, any rent or breach in the seams of its compact
and well-built structure. And yet I felt that there was
something wrong with it somewhere, and my hope was tiiat
even if I could not dispose of its separate facts and reasonings,
I might still by some new way of looking at them, some new
arrangement or combination of them, some fresh turn given to
them, bring back that harmony and concoi'd to tlie mind, which

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I had lost. Surely. I wuid to inysolt", the constitution of things
must have some sutisfncttory answer to give to the questions which
that very constitution lias raised; and if so, then the Ideal which
lay crushed within nie, and which on any theory of Evolution had
been bred and nurtured l)y the environment, nmst by a dee[)er
reading of that environment find again the spirit or soul
Avhich produced it, anil wlii(di in the theory of Mr. Spencer it
had lost. It was with a kind of white intensity of earnestness
therefore, that I sat myself down to lay siege to the problem
before me, resolved not to rise from it, so long at least as my
means held out, until I had conquered it.

But where to begin ^ where to make a fresh start t I coidd
no longer in my per[)lexity fall back on the old wea[)ons of the
orthodox creed, for was not one of the first effects of the
Spencerian IMiilosophy to kill outright for me any renniant of
value or credibility that may still have attached to that creed '
Nor was I at all inclined to seek assistance from the ^letaphysics
or Phil()SOi)hy of the Schools ; for with the remembrance of
Locke and Descartes, of Hamilton and Mill, in my mind, 1 had
a shrewd suspicion, justified as we shall see farther on, that all
these pre-Darwinian philosoi)hers, great and admirable though
they were, were swallowed up and superseded by Spencer
himself. And as for the more recent seers, Coleridge, Carlyle,
and Emerson, mv remembrance of the difficultv I had had in
understanding the ' Sartor IJesartus ' of the one, and the
'Representative Men' of the other, was sufficient to deter me
from turning to them for help for some time to come. Where
then was 1 to turn? To first-hand observation of Nature and
of men my own inclination prompted me, but as this is not
always available, but only in glimpses and at long intervals, I
was glad in the meantime to sui)plement the paucity of direct
observation by the more concentrated and accessible treasures
of books ; and accordingly without further delay embarked on
a voyage of intellectual dis(!overy, on a circumnavigation of the
world of thouuiit.

MAOALLAV.

203

I bcfrun, 1 roinoinl)or witli the H^sjiyists, partly in sciirch
of (lofiiiite points of insight, partly on account of their
(liscursivencss and the variety of toi)ics with which they dealt,
winch enabled me to pick out what most interested me without
the fear of j)rotraeted boredom, but chieHy, perhaps, because I
imagined they would serve as finji^er-posts to <Hrect me to those
•Greater names of the past who were most likely to give me
what I r('(piired.

The first of the Essayists 1 chanced to take up was Macaulay,
and although 1 found him powerless to help nie to the solution
of the great problems of tlu! world that were oppressing me,
nevertheless o[)en him where I would I was speedily drawn
within the currents of his attraction, and swept down ahmg
with him to the end. Every page was ablaze with the jewelled
troi)es that as we went along turned up their gleaming sides to
the light in the fierce noon-tide glare under which all was
ex])osed, and as I sat amid it all dazzled and enchanted, 1 was
content to be borne along without effort on a stream which
carried on its bosom a vaster freightage of literary and
historical erudition than any I had yet known ; and which in
a wav carried all before it. In the higher ranges of thought
he was, indeed, sadly limited, more limited perhaps than any
other writer who has climbed so high and cnjoyetl so long and
universal a popularity. On all those great problems of the
world and of human life which for the last hundred years have
been agitating and perplexing the minds of men, problems
which at the time when he began to write had idready emerged
on the horizon and stood around him confronting him like
sphinxes, he has uttered no word, and either has no solution to
offer or has fallen back on his early creed. The great mysteries
of existence, of good and evil, of life and death, of time and
eternity seem to have awakened no echo in his soul ; and in the
presence of that great emi)ire of silence, immensity, and night,
with which our little islet of knowdedge is surrounded, and in
which it lies embosomed, instead of bending before it in awe-

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i^ti'icken Immility liUe Pasciil ami Cmi'IvIc, Ik; walks abroad
amid it all, hat on head, viuwiii^ it with unciiihai'iasst'd
coiuplafoncy as if with it ho had no concern. Nowhere in his
writings so far as I renicniher, is there any hint that ho had
ever felt the pathos of hninan life, the 'sense of tears in mortal
things'; nowhere does he dis(dosc any poetic melancholy, any
tenderness of imagination, any dreamy mooidight fancy, any
depth or elevation of sentiment, any of those e.\(piisite aromas
of the imagination, in a word, which like tlu^ honcptets of the
choicest wines, an; iinanaly/ahle and incommunicable; and
which exhale fronj the writings not only of \mvts like;
Shakspeare, Milton, Shelley, Wordsworth, and Keats, but ot
prose writers like I'uskin, Emerson, Carlyle, Pascal, Senancour,
Loti, giving to each his characteristic and ])eculiar charm.
With gaps like these not only in the range and depth but in
the fineness and delicacy of his sensibilities, one would expect
to find corresponding limitations in his general powers of
thought. For it mu>it never be fory-otten that these highest
sympathies and sensibilities in which he was so lacking, are not
as he would have us believe, mere feelings of the mind,
sublimated and refined perhaps by culture but bred and
begotten of vulgar hopes, superstitions and fears ; mere pctetic
dreams which with the advance of Science and enlightenment
must wither and fade away ; but are, rather, real higher senses
which emerging on the outermost rim of evolution, are the
standpoint of interpretation and key to all the lower faculties
of the human mind, as these in turn are to those of the brutes ;
they arc real inner lights, inner senses wo may call them, which by
the subtle alchemy of Nature have been distilled from lower
forms and constitute what is called genius, giving to their
possessors a power of penetrating the secrets of the spcicial
sides of Nature to which they are allied, which is beyond th(!
reach of any combinations of the understanding, however
ingenious or profound.

It is little wonder therefore, that this deficiency of Macaulay

MACAULAY.

2\)r>

in the liijfhor soiisiltilitics of the inind, hij^Iior souses wo iimy
• •all tlicin, should ho so(!n in all his porformaiuHJS, — his
|)hih)so|)hy, his poetry, his history, his critioisin and his stylo.
Nowhero, indeed, in his philosophy <h>es he rise ahovo tlio
region of eonunonsensi; and eoinnionplaee. For althoii<4'h Ik^
had ransacked the holts of thouj^ht from the etpiator to tlu;
p<»les. and alilioufili his prodigious nionjory had laid all the
riches of literature and poetry at his foot, to he used as occasion
re(piired, for pro(redent, for ar<>;unjent, for analo<,'y, for illustra-
tion, for ornament, still in his own innermost thou<rhts he lived
and moved iiahitually in that comparatively n-u-row helt of
intellectual interest, that tem|. orate zone of jjractic'^d activity
in which si'cular pr(»j;Tess and material prosperity are the en<ls»
political machinery the means, and |)uhlic and private virtue
and liherty the rewm'd. Accordin<>ly, when stripped of the
rhetoric, tlio historical and literary allusion and metaphor
whii'h his over-laden memory sheds around him as he j^oes
alon^i', and which j^ive liis thou<;'hts a kind of meretricious
splendour, you find beneath it all, the figure of the slashin<>;
politici'l leader-writer, the slashing literary reviewer, u kind of
first-class House of Conunons debater, a Philistine (of culture
indeed) who from out of the dust of anti(pie archives will
interest and detain ycm by the hour together in |)roving to you
that Charles I. was not the sainted martyr he was su[)posed to
be, that Bacon though a great philosopher, was a moan man,
and that the times of Charles II. were the most disgratx'ful in
our annals. And accordingly when Hacon, whose magnificent
genius he celebrates Un- pointing the way to the realization of
those secular dreams which ho had so nnich at heart, when
Hacon, I say, gives evidence of his real genius for speculation
b\- ascending to the very fountain head of IMiilosophy itself,
and pausing there for a moment, proceeds to amiounce the
subtle laws which play through this high region of the
sympathies and sensibilities, and which unite them by a deep
inner unity to the ordinary laws of physics, chemistry, morals

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smd society (ii unity which the most ordiniiiy rciMh-r of
Spencer can now liiid (h-iuoiistnited tor him), Macaidiiy opens
his cyos on it all as on so nmch moonshine, attrihnteK it to an
inia<;°in!ition wliich in its excess has heconie diseased, and
Mtallxin^ over it as over a llower-l>ed with hrutal inthh'ssness,
Innnples it down and <lisposes oi it ail witli a comphicent
cocksnren{!ss which would have heen intolerable had it not
J)ecn so evid(!ntly honest and sincere.

And yet when his own philosophy peopa out Iierc and there

alonji" his piiiics, we find him d(!votin^" lonjj; para<>rnphs to the

vlahoration of such platitudes and commonplaces for example,

as that tlu' advance ot lihcirty is not a st(!ady and continuous

iuovement hut lik(! tli(! incomin<x tid(! is an altei-ni.tc one of

jidvanct! and retro<i,ression ; or this, that men nmst he gradually

<'ducate(l to liberty as the l)aiidajL^ed eye nnist be; to light ; or

that other strange doctrine! of his, tliat as the judgment

strengthens the fancy and imagination deeny, and that, in

<'onse(pience, with the advaiuM! of science iiiul enlightenment

Poetry must Hrst decline and th(!n [)ass away. In working cait

this curious theory which is |)erhaps the main article of his

literary creesd, reapiienring as it does in almost the same form

in the essays on Milton. Dryden, and Hacon, one sees at once

that he r(!gar(ls poetry not as an exhibition of the connexion

;ind interplay of the higher sensibilities among themselves, nor

of their connexion with the lower passions of the soul, not, that

is to say, as a higher kind of judgment or criticism of life, but

rather, as we have already seen, as a mass of mingled hopes,

superstitions and fears, bred in the (hirkness and in the infancy

<tf knowledge, but which on the dawn of Science shall like the

ghost in Ilandet melt and fade away. Now it is no doubt true

that with the decay of (Jreek Mythology there will be no more

Iliads, with the downfall of Satan no more Paradise Losts, or of

Mediieval Catholicism no more Infernos, but to dream that when

Science shall have killed all these as well as the Jack the

Ciiant-Killers of our (diildhood, to dream, I say, that those

MACAl I.AV

'2\)1

mystic fiiculties ot" the soul which j^ivc hirlh \<> [micJit niid of
which thcso superstitions iirc hut iiii early hiiitajj^c, shall
theiuselvcs disappear, is itselt', perhaps, the most siiijiiilar
superstition in the history of Ii'ttcrs. Vs well ima<i;in(; that tJic
lite of the tn!e must jljo with the fruitaj:;e of tlie si'ason, and of
the vine with the vintage of the year, a> that the poetry of
Othello must die with the helief in the maific virtues of the
handkerchief, or ot Ilandet and Macbeth with that of their
i^hosts and witches I Hut one can scarcely do justice to views
like these, and it only shows us how nuich Mucaulay has lost in
losinj; those higher sensihilities of the mind. Foi' althouj:;h he
is a niaster of pause ami cadence, of smoothness, terseness and
vi<(our, and althouirh lik(! all men of cultiuo ho knows a suhlime
image; or pathetic touch when he sees it (as even the most
Hinty -hearted of men may know the significance of tears), still
he has not strength enough in the higher sympathies and
sensihilities to maintain himself [)ermanently in their egion, to
share their life an<l become part, as it were, of their being, and
80 in his own writings to give oft' their peculiar fragrance and
})erfunie. And in his criticism of the jjoetry of others although
his excellent conmumscnse makes him (juick to detect such
grosser forms of bad workmanship as slovenly or involved lines,
faulty metre, vulgar or tawdry metaphors, ridiculous atl'ectations
or ctmceits, and although too, his inunens.e memory at once
enables him to detect tlu; most remote susi)icion or shadow of
plagiarism ; still, having little or no sense of the Ideal in himself,
he dwells rather on the mechanical differences of the images
used — as for instance as to whether they are vague and shadowy
like those of Milton, or [)ictorial and j)recise like tlu)se of Dant'',
— than on those delicate aromas, those exquisite and elusive
charms which characterize the poetry of Shelley or Keats, or
those deeper, more complex, more elevated syujpathies and
passions which distinguish the great ones of all time.

The popular effectiveness of Macaulay therefore, is neither
to be found in his poetry nor in the depth or range of his

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tli()u<;l»t, l)ut ratlier in tliose rhetorioiil arts wliicli ho carried to
so liio-li a perfection, fed and nourished as they were by a
nioniory the most capacious and accin-atc perhaps, as he himself
said of Sir James Macintosli, tliat was ever given to mortal.
Considering^ the serious nature of the subjects with which he
deals, and his serious manner of dcalinji^ with them — a manner by
the way which does not allow of raillery or the more delicate
forms of humour, in all of which he is naturally deficient, — there
is not a woaj)on in the whole armoury of rhetoric which he has
not employed Avith a skill which has rarely been equalled, and
so far as I know never been surpassed. Indeed in turning to
his pages again as I write, and judging him from a relative
and not an absolute standard of perfection, I feel a sense of
r(!proa(di in the face of such brilliant and various excellence, in
having offered him even the show of detrartion. Clearness,
ra])idity. polished epigram, antithesis, metaphor, precedent and
analogy drawn from literature, history, and fairy-tale; climax and
anti-climax, the repetition of clauses, the cumulation of effects,
abstract qualities turned into concrete instances, concrete
instances compressed again into abstiactions, are all in turn
brought into play as occasion re([uires with the greatest felicity
and case, keeping the mind in per[)etual exhilaration: while to
give heat and passion to it all, he has i-ecourse to those arts of
the nu'lodramatist and orator which are most efl'ectivc with the
less cultured minds — the avoidance of all d licate nuances, and
the hei<>btcnin<>- bv means of gorgeous colouring, of the lights
and shades of his picture, of virtue and \ ice, of greatness and
meanness, ha[)piness and misery, glory and shame.

And yet to deal strictly with liiiu one is obliged to confess
tiiat in the highest regions of style, neither his rhetoric, his
historic pageantry, nor his literary allusions have availed him
anything. For although he has great rapidity, terseness, and
viii'our, and moves from sentence to sentence with liiibtness
a..d ease, and although between his longer paragrai)hs the
transitions are effected with spontaneity, sinqtiicity, and grace,

MACALLAY,

'>d\>

still no single sentence exhibits iiny richnes? or pictorial
complexity, any distinctive iwoniii or organic vitality, hut each
like the individual soldier in a corps whose general nioveuuMits
and evolutions are easy and graceful, has a certain artificial
and mechanical stiffness about it, and when made to step out
from the ranks for inspection, gives out on tai)ping, not a soft
and mellow but a hard nu'tallic ring. With no true [)oetic fire
to smelt the treasures which his ()\er-f'reighted inen:ory brings
him, he cannot work them into the f^'»re of his sentences as ho
goes along; he cannot, like Turner, by the dashing and inter-
mixing of a hundred shades get a conij)lex pictorial unit in
every s(piarc inch of canvas, nor like Hhakspeare a single
complex image in every line, out of the glancing fjicets
and crosslights of words; but gets his effects rather by
accunuilation and addition than by transnuitation, by drawing his
treasures out in single file and in successive sentences or clauses
like beads cm a string, rather than by distillation and compression.
Not that his sentences are slovenly or involved, on the contrary
they are clipped and trinnned like Dutch Yew-trees, and fitted
to the figure like the uniforms of the Guards; are as balanced
and easy in their antithetic swing as the movement of a
pendulum, and as fresh and pellucid as a running stream. Hut
thcv have no organic life of their own, if you cut them they
will n(»t bleed, but each hanging on by the skirts of its neigh-
bour for support, gets all its virtue from the whole paragraph
of which it forms a part ; all its effectiveness from the rapidity,
l)iil!iancy, and sparkle of the whole. His style in a word, to
borrow a tei'ni from the [jhysicists, has u dynamical rather
tlmn a statical excellence, an excellence of moveiujut rather
than of separate and particular beauty. I low (iirteri'nt from
Sliakspearc, Carlyle, Emerson, and tliosc other great masters
of cxpi'cssion whom one should always keep near one as standai'ds
and ideals. These great writers are characterized by the
richness and vitality of their .si'/xindr sentences ; and this they
get by biinging the radiance of the w/iali' mind with all its

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MACAULAY.

higher syin])!ithio.s iind senses fused and at a wliitc licat, full
and complete on cacli point as it were, as one brings the wliole
eye in its complex organic integrity on each object, in order
to unite its different parts into one single definite image. But
Macaulay, wanting in those higher inner senses and sensibilities
\vhi(!h lie affected to despise, has no vvholeness of eye or mind
to l)ring to his object, but has to build up his pictures by
a catalogue of particulars, like the fciitures of a man seen
through a hole in a cardboard, rather than by flashes ; by
accumulation and addition rather than by a single impression.
So that if in the end he does succeed in convincing us of the
truth of his characterizations, it is rather, as in a (juestion of
(lisputc(l identity, by an accunudation of unrelated particulars,
a scar on the brow, a mole on the check, the loss of a tooth
or finger, than as in a living body by the coherence and
connexion of all the parts as members of one organic whole.

And at what a sacrifice has all his brilliancy been attained.
To get the c[)igranis, the antitheses, the precedents, the
parallels, tii(! light and shade necessary to give 'go' and
interest to the narrative and to carry the reader along with
him, his materials have all to be torn and wrenched from the
soil in which they naturally and spontaneously grow : —
historical precedents from the circumstances of the time in
which they arose, special ([ualities from the whole chai'acter,
the whole! character from the general ends for which it works,
single motives from the complex web in which they lie, crude
sentiment from the subtlety of shading necessary to give it
truth, — and all for what '? To establish some new or striking-
estimate of Charles, of Bacon, of Cromwell, of Hastings, of
T(!mpli', or (»f Clivc. And when all is done and the facts and
argumcMits so maimed have been teazed and disentan<>lcd from
th(Mr complexities, have been trinnned and cut to pattern,
marshalled in logical file and adorned with cut fiowcrs of
rhetoric of every variety and hue, and are then set spinning
across the landscape before us like a railway train; the whole,

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301

while coininuniciitlng' to tlic onlooker ii woiiderfiil .sense of
exliiliiration and delight, yet having no root in the soil over
which it moves, leaves no abiding trace in tluj memory. Since
those eai'ly days I must at one time or another have read these
Essays of Macaulay lialf a dozen times or more, hut beyond
their general drift, the details though always read with e(|ual
freshness as at first, pass over the mind like a dream, and are
forgotten.

And yet in my then depression I was deeply indebt(!d to
Macaulay for I'ousing me, even if for moments only, out of the
tor[)or into which 1 had fallen, by his praise of litei-ature and
culture, by the trumpet-peals of his rhetoric, by the clash of
arms and gleams of steel, and bv tlie IjIows whi(;li he made
rattle like hail on the heads of the ungodly ; as for exani[)le in
his essay on ^lilton, where characterizing the reign of Charles II.
he begins, 'Then came those days never to be I'ccallcd without
a blush, the days of servitude without loyalty and sensuality
without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices, the
paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age of
the coward, the bigot, and the slave.' Splendid I i said to
myself, and its high rhetorical indignation made tlie blood
thrill along my veins in sympathetic resjionse. Then there
was the eloquence of the su})erHcial but highly coloured
antithesis in his description of the Puritans, ' If they were
unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they
were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were
not found in the registers of heralds, they were recorded in
the Book of Life. If their steps were nijt accompanied by
a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had
charge over them. Tluur palaces were houses not made with
hands ; their diadems crowns of glory which should never
fade away.' — and so on, all of which I thought very line. lUit
he did more for me. For in the teeth of my broken ideals
and at a time when all greatness of soul seemed to me a
figment of the imagination which the Speucerian philosophy

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Imd for L'vor dispelled, and wlion all distiiK'tions of cliaractor
and intellect, depciidinj^ as they did on the activity of brain-
cells which in themselves eould have no jxradation in rankinu-
or degree, seemed to nie an illusion, these highly charged
portraits of Macaulay, rousing me for the moment to the old
belief in greatness, came like trumpet peals ; and all the more
so by reason of that contrast of light and shade which like the
vices of the chivalrous and fascinating highwayman, served
rather to set off their s})lendour than to dim it, to intensify
and inflame the imagination, rather than to cool it. The
passages of this kind on which I most loved to dwell in my
habitual torpor of spirit, were such for example as where he
says of Strafford, ' IJut Wentworth, — who ever names him
without thinking of those harsh dark features, ennobled by
their expression into more than the majesty of an antique
.fupiter; of that brow, that eye, that cheek, that lip, wherein,
as in a chnmicle, are written the events of many stormy and
disastrous years, high enterprise accomplished, frightful dangers
braved, power unsparingly exercised, suft'ering unshriidvingly
borne; of that fixed look, so full of severity, of mournful
anxiety, of deep thought, of d?uintless resolution, which seems
at once to forebode and to defy a terrible fate, as it lowers on
us from the living canvas of Vandyke ! Even at this day the
hauglity Earl overawes posterity as he overawed his contem-
])oraries, and excites the same interest when arraigiied before
the tribunal of history, which he excited at :he bar of tlie
House of Lords.' Or of Swift, 'In the front of the opjjosite
ranks ap[)eared a darker and fiercer spirit, the apostate
politician, the ribald priest, the [)erjured lover, a heart burning
with hatred against the whole human race, a mind richly stored
with images from the (buighill and the lazar-iiouse." And
again his really beautiful panegyric on tlu; intellect of Hacon,
' With great nunuteness of observation, he had an amplitude
of comprehension such as has never yet been vouchsafed to any
other human being.' 'His understandiuii' resembled the tent

JfACAUI-AY.

Jjoa

which the fairy Purihiinou <rjivc to Prince Ahmed. Fohl it :
and it seemed n toy for the hand of a hidy. Spread it; and
the armies of powerfid Snltans mi«>ht repose heneatli its shade.'
liut even more than all, liis (jnotation of IJeu tlonson's euh)<i,y
on Bacon, 'My conceit of his person was never increased
towards liim by his place or honours; but I have and do
reverence him for the <»;reatness that was only proper to
himself ; in that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the
•greatest men and most worthy of admiration, that had been
in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would
give him strength ; for greatness he could not want.'

From all of which it would seem that the depression from
which I was suffering was not so i)rofound as at the time I
imagined it to be, that it rather overhung the other activities
of the mind like a cloud than dyed and interpenetrated them
wivh its own gloom, so that no sooner was the weight of the
philosophical doubt which held them down, for a moment
removed, than they sprang up under the influence of youtli
and hope with all the old enthusiasm and delight. So true,
indeed, is it that however nuich circumstances may in tlie
long run be said to shape and mould our minds, still, at any
given point of time, the dominant mood selects like a magnet
from the [)assing world only what is the coimterpart to itself,
letting all the rest pass by unheeded ; and so, in a word and in
strict truth may be said to jiiake its own world as a bird builds
its own nest.

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.• I

CHAPTER II.

A FALSE START.

I II AVE dv.'clt nt greater length on the characteristics of
Mncauhiy's style and manner than I should have done had
it not been that like a broadly-marked foot-i'ule they serve as
an easy standard of comparison by which to measure the
excellences and defects of other men. The fix'st to whom 1
a])[)liod this standard of comparison was Dc Quincey who was
the next of the Essayists that chanced to fall in my way and
was almost tlic exact antithesis to Macaiday in style, matter and
treatment. His mind had a much wider range, was richer in
its contents, and dwelt habitually in a higher I'egion of thought
and contemplation. His works in consequence had a much
greater interest for me, they carried a nuich more precious
cargo, and left behind them a richer deposit of thought.
Instead of dealing mainly with History, Criticism, and Politics,
they ranged over almost every subject of human interest —
Phih)S()phy, Poetry, Metaphysics, Religion, Political Economy,
Criticism, and Style. His history of the Caesars, his theory of
the Greek Drama, his account of the Pagan Oracles, of the
Essenes, of the Roman Meals, his new estimate of Herodotu!?,
his dissertations on Style, and on the difference between what
he calls the litenitiu'e of kxowh'diu' and the literature of poicer^
the charming literary illustrations of his Political Economy, his
peculiar humour as seen in his ' Murder as a Fine Art,' w^liich
reminds you now of Swift, now of Charles Lamb, and now of
tiean Paul; his critical estimates of Pope, Wordsworth,

t—

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the

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A FALSK STAKT.

305

Coleridge, and other of his literary conteinponiries ; and the
out-of-the-way anecdotes and erudition with which he adorns it
all, were for a month or two a perpetual feast to me ; and to this
day I know of no body of literary work at once more intd'csting
and instructive, more rich in suggestion or more stimulating to
the young aspiring mind. And with this greater richness
and variety, it was interesting to note the corresponding
chai-acteristit's of his style and manner of treatment. Macaulay,
whose main end it is to convince you on some one more or less
narrow and limited issue, seizes on what he conceives to be the
central truth of his subject at the outset, and proceeds to cut
his way out to the circumference by as straight a course and with
as nmch rapidity as the obstacles in his path will permit. De
Quincey on the other hand, equally desirous of exhibiting to the
reader his treasures of curious and out-of-the-way learning as of
convincing him of his main contention, prefers to begin leisurely
iit the circumference, and drawing a cordon of preliminaiy
hypothesis around it, to move inward as in a siege, tightening
the line as he advances, until he closes at last full on the truth
in the centre. And hence it is that while Macaulay in his haste
has to snatch as it were his flowers of rhetoric from their stems
in passing, and is obliged to leave behind him in the soil the
rlciiness and beauty of the whole plant, De Quincey on the other
hand, by means of the large circuit he has to occupy before
reaching the centre, is enabled to transplant entire from the bye
fields of learning, great masses of curious and interesting
knowledge, all clustered and disposed in circlets of easy and
iiniceful digression around the central truth. And accordinj^h'
instead of the rapid movement of Macaulay, dazzling your eye
by his bright metallic gleam, and keeping up your interest to
the end by the very wind and sweep of his motion, as well as by
the variety and colour of the paper flowers of rhetoric which
storm in on you in showers as you are whirled along, De
(Juincey moves slowly and leisiu-ely to his end in sentences of
high-swelling ciulence and richly involuted phrase, turning n(>w

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A lALSK STAltr

to this .side, now to that, in endlessly interesting digression, and
yet iunid it all j)i('king his steps with a pedantic fastidionsness,
a kind of old-i'ashioned gentility and concern for the skirts of
his rohes, which is qnite spinster-like in its solicitude. Avid yet
in spite of his encyclo])a'dic knowledge, his keen [)owers of
analysis, his metaphysical suhtlety and precision, this Dryasdust
and Encyelopa'dist of genius, has like Macanlay neither depth
nor [)enetration enough to fuse his separate essays into unity,
neither co-ordinating powei* nor originality enough to carry
them up to a single higher principle ; but on the contrary leaves
them standing around the field in separate tents, eaeh infolded
in its own peculiar c(nnpleteness, but without relation to the
<leeper problems of the world as a whole. Even his style, when
compared with that of the great masters of expression, is in its
lower levels at least, so loaded with many-syllabled epithets and
adjectives, runs into such verbosity, circumstantiality, and
afTectation of precision, as to become ])Ositively heavy ; while in
its more ambitious flights, in the opium dreams for example, it
gets its hraviu-a effects by piling mountain on mountain and
turret on turret of grandilo([uent imageiy, pathetic or sublime,
Imt hazy and indistinct in outline as cloud phantasmagory, and
wanting in real coherence and complexity of internal structure.
It has not, in a word, that high pictorial intensity which scorches
words, as by flame of fire, into images burning and luiforgettable.
Him, too, therefore like Macaulay I found unable to forward
me on my own special journey, and after enjoying for a season
the rich spoil with which he had supplied me, I turned to that
other of the great Essayists of the first (piarterof the century —
a man in many respects so different from them both — the
much-abused but admirable Ilazlitt.

To begin with, Ilazlitt has neither the wealth of erudition of
Macaulay, nor the range of intellectual interest of De Quincey.
His philosophy is concerned almost entirely with the nature of
men as he saw them around him, and not with German
metaphysics and the history of Speculation ; his politics, with

A FALSI". SlAllT.

307

ion oi

irinan
with

the siotiuil condition of peoples in his own time, tind not. with
their historical evolution ; his litcniture, with the hroud higli-
way open to all, and what is of wide human import, and not
with it< ont-of-the-way nooks and corners nr sidjtlctics of
eruditi(m and scholarship. Hut to make amends for this
limitation in the extent of his knowledge, he has njreater
penetration than either, deeper insi<;ht into the world of men
and things than De (^uincey with all his Metaphysics, finer
literary delicacy and sensitiveness than Macaulay with all his
superahundant memory and power of ({notation. To take for
example the niain doctrine that lies at the hottom of all his
critical j)hilosophy, namely that the finest insight, whether in
matters of ordinary judgment or in works of genius, is derived
from intuition and feeling rather than from trains of conscious
logic, and that in conse(pience, men's higher sensibilities and
sympathies are real inner senses, real intellectual faculties, the
range, delicacy, and strength of which are the true measure of
intellectual power. This doctrine in itself, I say, is worth
whole volumes of ordinary metaphysics, and gave Ilazlitt this
great advantage as a critic, that it put him at the outset at the
i-ight angle and focus foi- judging of poetry and woi'ks of ai"t,
inasmuch as these springing as they do from the depths of
feeling and of passion can only be rightly approached and
interpreted through the same medium, and not through any
estimates of the mere mechanical understanding. And it was
])recisely this justness of view which when united with his fine
natural delicacy and sensibility, gave him that levelness of
<'ritical judgment, that fine palate for differences in lit(!rary
riavours, that keen sense of propriety in all that concerns
sentiment, dialogue, and the fluctuation of passion, which have
made his lectures on poetry and on the characters in Shaks-
jieare's plays, the finest body of poetic and dramatic criticism
in my opinion that as yet exists in our language.

Now with the limitation of Ilazlitt's intellectual interests to
things as they are, rather than to their history ; to their present

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\ FAI-Si: STAHT

condition, ratliei" than to their evolution in the past ; to whiit

is t'(»inpleto in itself and can be turned round and surveyed on

all .sides like a wheel, rather than to what like a snowball grows

under your hand and changes from moment to moment ; to the

statical in a word rather than the dynamical aspect of things;

with this limitation, I say, it is interesting to observe a similar

limitaticm in the subject, method, and style. He takes for

examples such separate themes and studies of life as ' on living

to oneself,' ' on people with one idea," ' on paradox and common-

[)laco/ 'on vulgarity and attectation,' "on patronage and

putting,' 'on thought and action,' and the like, or such artistic

subjects as 'on genius and commonsensc,' ' on the picturescpu^

and the ideal,' on ' familiarity of style,' and so on ; and turning

each in its completeness round its own axle like a many-sid(!<l

wheel, proceeds to note and comment on every part and angle

of its circumference as it comes under his eye, in a number of

shrewd observations, of acute but isolated splinters of reflection,

rather than in a coherent web of evervwhere connected thoujjht.

And corresponding to this, his style has little or no movement

in it, has neither the rapidity and animation of Macaulay, nor

the undulating swell of De Quincey, but breaks itself into

single scintillations and })oints of light, often of much sparkle or

brilliancy, rather than diffusing itself in a single continuous ray.

But in spite of his insight into those ideal regions of the mind

where art and poetry dwell, as well as into the lower haunts of

vulgarity, v.inity, and pride; in spite of the ease and sureness

with which he refers all the productions of genius and art U*

their correct categories in the human mind ; and in spite, too,

of the delicacy of his literary sensibilities; he had neither the

capaciousness to gather up his refi'actoiy materials into unity,

the i)ictorial intensity to make them live of themselves, nor the

elevation of feeling necessary to burn them indelibly into the

heart. So that his images and metaphors, often brilliant,

served rather to point out his meaning into greater precision,

than to lend to it any distinction, colour, or flavour of its own.

A FALSK START.

»09

And hence wliile enjoyin;^ to the full his shrewd obHerviition
and felicity of phrase, he neither stimulated nie by rlietoricid
appeal like Alacaulay, nor led nio through wayward and
delightful jtaatures like De Quincey, nor yet did he minister
<lirectly to those trains of melancholy reflection in which in my
(lepression 1 habitually livetl — on the mystery of life, the flight
of time, the pathos of mortal things, the tnigedy of human
affection and of love. But indirectly he did much more for me.
lie introduced me in liis (juotations from the Elizabethiin
Dramatists to the bci'Uties of Shakspeare, to whom as yet J hiid
not thought of turning, feeling as I did that as a poet engaged
in representing the characters of men, he would not l)e likely to
forward me nnich in solving the problem of the World. Hut in
these quotaticms 1 found what more than gave echo to my mcjod,
and body to my particular griefs, soothing them like a lullaby
or accompanying them like a requiem. Among these my
favourite in the grand style was that splendid panegyric in
Beaumont and Pletcher, where Ca\«<ar In sublime disdain of the
pretensions of even the Egyptian pyramids to be mausoleum Kt
for the great soul of Pompey, Is made to say : —

• No. brood of Xilus !
Notliiiiy can cover liis hiyh fame but lieaveii ;
No pyramids set off Ins memories
IJiit the eternal subst^ince of his greatness,
To which I leave him.'

Or again, those beautiful lines in Cymbeline where Aviragus
bringing in the body of Imogen whom he supposes to be dead,
proceeds in tones sweet and tender as the flowers with which he
would bestrew her grave : —

1 . ■' l'

I'.

' With fairest flowers
Whilst Sunnner lasts, and I live here Fidele.
I '11 sweeten thy sad grave ; thou shalt not lack
'J'he flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor
The assured harebell, like thy veins ; no, nor
The leaf of Eglantine, which not to slander
Out-sweetened not thy breath.'

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A IAl>i: STAIiT.

Ah hiHtanci' njrniii of that liljili plctnrlal power whicli cannot
HM I lijivc sai«l 1)0 jfot by any addition »»r accunudation (»f' detail
Iiowever accumte or |trolon«i:ed, but only by tbe mind at white-
beat fnHin«j its materials as by li;ihtnin<f. there was that
magnifi(U'nt description of tlie storm at sea in OtheUo, where
tiie spectator in <>Iowin;i' iiyperbole ms,

' Do but stnnil upon the foaining shore

The chidden billow sc'ms to pelt the clouds

The wind-sliak'd surf^c with iiiyii lunl inoiistrous uinne

Seems to ciist water on the burning l)ear

And (|Uencli tlu> guards of the ever-fixed pole.

I never did liite uioU'statioii view

On the enchated tiood.'

Or ajfiiin tlie excpiisite pathos of th(> scene that foUowed close
upon it. where Othello in liindinj^' after the storm, finds
Desdcnuina tiwaitin;; him, iind wluu'e in his ecstasy of iov there
comes over him ms he embraces her, that fateful sense of
foreboding which sidxliies his mind f'^ awe and Polemnity, as if
in thie brief life such pure iind dute pciice eoiild never

again be vouchsafed him,

• If it were no\s to ilie
T'were now to bo most Imppy ; tor I fear
My soul hath her content so absolute
That not another cunifoit like to tiiis
Succeeds in unknown fate.'

where the very sound and fall of the words have in them a kind
of foretiiste and fiir-ott' echo of doom.

IJut more than all, I loved to dwell on the death-scenes of the
leading characters in his great tragedies ; whether of the old,
broken with ingratitude or care, or of those in the; morning of
life, so noble, so perplexed, so misunderstood, where whiit \ nuiy
call the note of woi-ld-pathos everywhere arises like ii purified
soul out of the body of their [)artieular sorrows — a form of
pathos I may add, whi<di from that time disappeared almost
entirely from our literature, until its nttte was again hesu'd in oiu'
own day in the writings of Kuskin iind Carlyle. Listen to it

\ IAI.>i: MAKT.

«n

ill L(!iir, where the <>()(m1 Kent (Icprcciitcs all further utte.npts
to revive his weiirv lieai-t-l)n)ken master,

- \'ux not his ;;h()Ht. () let liiin pa.sH: lic> hiitcH him niucli
Tliiit wouM upon tlio nick of tliis loiijfli worlil
Strctcli liiin out loiijfcr. '

Or in the <lyin<>; wordh (if Hotspur to yoinij;" IViuce Hurry, who
has kilhul him in hattle and now heiids (»ver his pntstrate hody
to eiiteli his last expirin<r accents,

• < ) Hurry tlioii hast r(>l)lpc(l iiu- of my youth
I bitter hrottk the Iohh of brittle life

Than thoHc proiul titleH thou bust won of nie

They wound my tliou;,'htH worse than thy sword my flesh.

I$ut thoufflitK the slave of life, and life time's fool.

And time that takes survey of all the world

.Must have a stop. — ()! I could prophesy

Hut that the earthy and cold hand of death

Lies on my tonffue. No. I'ercy. thou art dust

And food for

(The I'rince)

For worms, brave Penjy. fare thee well. <;reat heart." etc.

Or he jiarting words of Tiiiion to the .Vthenian Senators

wiio h; " come o'lt to his cave t(t persuacU; lilin to return to

Athens,

• {!ome not to me af;aiii. hut say to Athens
Timon hath made his everlastinji: mansion
Upon the beacned verge of the salt flood
Who onee a day with his embossed froth
Tli(! turbulent sur<re shall cover ; thither come
And let my grave-stoni' be vour oracle."

Oi the moving soliloquy of Alcihiades wiien he reads the copy
of Timon's ejiitaph wiiich has heen brought to him,

• These well ex[)ress in thee thy latter spirits
Though thou abhorrd'st in us oui' human griefs
Seornd'st our brains flow and those our droplets which
From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceits

Taught thee to make vast Xeptune weep for aye
On thy low grave, on faults forgiven."

Or more pathetic than all, the dying words of Hamlet to

I At-

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312

A FALSK STAllT.

Horatio when after snatching the poisoned cup from liim, there
conies over his mind in the mid'st of the carnival of blood that
surrounds him, the wounds his good name must sustain, with
his cause unknown, himself misunderstood, and men's minds
unsatisfied : —

' O good Horatio what a wounded name,

Things standing thus unknown shall live behind me

If ever thou did'st hold me in thy heart

Absent thee from felicity awhile

And in this harsii world draw thy breath in pain

To tell my story. '

These and the like extracts from Shakspeare first taught nic
what great writing really was, — the combination of high pictorial
concentration and complexity in the phrasing, with such subtlety
of movement and fall in the rhythm of the sentences as shall
express shades and (sombinations of thought and feeling, — of
tenderness, pathos, indignation, pride, and the like — beyond
the reach of the mere words thcnisclves ; — and from that hour 1
have never been quite satisfied with any other. But time was
speeding on, and while I could have still gone on reading this
miscellaneous writing with delight, I now began to feel that it
was not advancing me in the main object of my quest, — the
solution of the Problem of the World. The fa(!t was these
Essayists — Macaulay, De Quinoey, Ilazlitt and the rest —
belonged to that older school of writers beginning with Addison
and Steele, who confined themselves to isolated points of
knowledge, whether of human life or manners, of literature or
history, but without connecting their special opinions with their
views of the world as a whole, religious or [)hilosoi)hical. Vov
whether they held to the old creed with more or less tenacity
like Macaulay and l)e Quincey, or fnmkly denied it like Ilazlitt,
they never dreamt of carrying their sj)e('ulations on life or books
up to those higher fountains of thought to be vivified and
interj)enetrated thence by their life-giving or thought-
compelling streams. And it was not until the influx of German

A lALSK STAUT.

.'US

tliought into Enj^land with Colerid<i;e and Carlyle, that a new
era began which has since changed the entire face of English
J^iter.iture. But it was some time yet before I made practical
ac(|uaintance with these great writers, and in the meantime,
(h'opping the Essayists with as much haste as I had taken them
u|), by a sudden wheel of caprice I turned to the Historians.

1 began, I remember with Herodotus, the sweetly-moving
siu)ple minded Herodotus, and passing on from liiuj to the cold
but sagacious Tluu^ydides, went swiftly along through Livy,
Suetonius, Tacitus and the other historians of ancient times, till
I came to the monumental (iibbon with his pompous tread,
and descending with him in his stately and triumphant march
across the vale of the Dark ^Vges, emerged again on the
hither-side into the; full light of ^lodern Civilization, to be
conducted thence by the careful and judicious Hallam, the
philosophical Hume, the fair-minilcd Robertson, the brilliant
Macaulay and the rest, down to our own time. Now in all these
without exception, the narrative j)ortions of their histories are
interspersed with philosophical and other reticctions which serve
as ('(mnecting link to the order and sequence ot events. l>ut
instead of attaching suj)reme importance to the general material
and social conditions of their respective times — whether intel-
lectual, moral, geographical, or political, — and making the
greatness of Emperors and Kings depend on the clearness with
which they saw, and the readiness with which they fell in line
with this tjeneral march and trend of thin«>s, thev on the
contrary have everywhere given the first place t(t the capricious
wills of these Emperors and Kings, and have cither entirely cut
them off from, or but intermittently connected then with, those
material and social conditions in the evolution of which alone is
any general law of progress to be seen. The conse(|uenc(! was
that in the works of these men no such unity was discoverable
in the nKtvement of ages and nations as might have given me a
<'lue to the general plan of the World; and except therefore for
the delectation which their works gave to a mind at once

. ( :

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814

A KAI-SK STAltT,

liiinoering for knowledge and intent on understanding the nature
of things, tliey left ine in njuch the same position as they found
me; and I turned not Avithout douht, hut still with a glimmering
of hope, to some of the more recent of our Poets and Novelists —
to Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, (Jeorge Pjliot, Charlotte Hrontr
and others of less title to fame.

I had already di[)ped into these writers here and there at odd
moments, and had gathered enough from their contents to
convince me that they also like myself had suffered from the
manifold spiritual hurdens and perplexities of the time ; and
I now hf)ped that a more careful study of their works, hy
exhibiting the process by which they had emerged from their
difticulties, would lujlp me in some measure to the solution of
my own. 15ut to my disapi)ointment I found that instead of
making these difticulties the fore-C(mrt or vestibule by which,
as I had ho[)ed, I was to enter into their solution, they were
used rather as themes on which to ring the changes of poetic
regret, or as foils for the loves or aversions of the maidens and
heroes of their story. And admirable as is their knowledge of
human nature within the limits tliey have marked out for
themselves, their flight nevertheless stops short on the confines
of that higher region of the mind which we may call the region
of the Ideal. They get their acceptance from their insight
into the workings of the ordinary [)assions and interests of our
nature, and like meteors whicli can give no light in the upper
regions of the ether but only when they strike tlu^ denser
medium of our atmosphere, they continue to revolve within
that narrower circle of relations of which love, jealousy,
revenge, or some other tangible human feeling is the centre,
rather than illuminating like suns those laws of the spiritual
and ideal nature of man, which alone when contemplated in
all their bearings can throw light in the Problem of the World.

All alike therefore, Essayists and Historians, Poets and
Novelists, in whose various felicities of style or of thought
I had found so nuich temporary solace and delight, but from.

1
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A FAr.SIC STAKT,

;ji5

whom, fcolino- tliat they were not really advancing me on my
iourney, I never rose without pain ; all had to be dropped in
turn, and in despair I reluctantly turned to the great World-
Thinkers of the Past, and oi)encd, I remeniher, with Plato.

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C H A P T i: 11 III

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

T WAS channed with Plato, iiiul with every aspect of him ;
-*■ charmed with his massive, imposing, and cathedral-like
architecture of the Universe ; with his delicii j, and lightness
of touch, his perfection of culture, and his exquisite refinement
«nd sensibility : and in later yeaivs dwelt on his works lovingly
and long. But as at the time of which 1 am writing he had
no answer to give to the j)articular perplexities from which 1
was suffering, no bahn for my wounded spirit, nor power of
restoring to me my lost ideal, I was obliged to (juickly pass
him by ; and ran in rapid succession through the various
systems of the Aristotelians, the Stoics, the Sceptics, the
Epicureans, and the Neo-Platonists; concentrating in particular
on the later writers, Cicero, Lucr(>tius, Seneca, Philo,
Plutarch and Marcus Aurelius ; and skipping altogether not
only the early Church Fathers — TertuUian, Athana^^ius, Origen,
and Augustine — but the great Catholic Theologians — Thomas
A(|uinas, Duns Scotus and the rest — with the feeling mainly
that however profound, subtle, and coherent they iuight be
(and some of them like Augustine and Afjuinas as I afterwards
found, behmg to the imperial race of Thinkers), their systems
tdtiiouijh havincr all the harmonv and elaborateness of
orchestral symphonies, could after all be but expansions of
the Gospel ' Scheme of Salvation ' which from temper, training,

ANTIKXT I'Hir-OSOI'HY.

and the painful associations of my boyhood, I had Ion<]f since
rejected. Having passed thus h'ghtly over the entire Middle
Ages, I plunged again with much ardour into the modern
Philosophies beginning with Descartes, under the impression
that as they were nearer to me in point of time than the
Ancients, they were more likely to give me Avhat I wanted.
Accordingly liaving gone in succession through Malebmnche,
Spinoza, liockc, Hume, Berkeley, Leil)nitz, Kant, Fichte, and
SchelHng, and not found an answer to my difficulties, I turned
to the English and Scotch Schools, to Dugald Stewart, Rcsid,
IJrown, etc., and did not rest imtil I had come down to our
own time, finishing with the works of Hamilton, Mansell, and
Mill. Unfoitunately the three Thinkers who would have been
of use to me, and who as we shall see farther on influenced my
course of thought in later years in not a few important particulars,
namely Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Comte, were entirely
passed over by me, either from misapprehension, misunder-
standing, or prejudice ; Hegel, because of some unfavourable
impression I had received of him in earlier days, on taking up
l)v chance a copy of Hutchinson Stirling's book on the 'Secret
of Hegel'; Schopenhauer, because of his re[)utation for
pessimism from which in my then humour I shrank with
aversion ; and Comte, because of the inifavourable impression I
had received of him from Spencer's essay on the ' Classificati(»u
of the Sciences,' the impression, namely, that his whole
system rested on a basis of false and cx[)loded s<Mentific
concepticms with which it would be a waste of time to ('(mccrn
myself. With the exception then of these three whom I did
not read, one and all of the great Philosophers of the Ancient
and Modern World whom I have mentioned, were uncere-
moniously put aside by me as unable to help me out of the
difficulties which had been flung into Philosopiiy, not to speak
of Theology, by the ' Origin of Species,' and by the great
generalizations which Spencer had founded on the most recent
results of Physical Science.

i !

;5is

AXCIKNT I'llILOSOI'MV.

Now, thiit I wii!< not csipricious oi* fi-ivolous in <li.s[(()sin<^ thus
li<>litly and witli .«iicli wisy iioncfiahmce, of thinkers wlio in tlicir
i\*^i' ami time were anioii^- the niastei' spirits of the worhl, bnt
that on the contrary I proceeded on dcl'nite and what api)eared
to nie substantial grounds, a few iUustrations will make
manifest. Anionj;* the Aneient Philosophers, for example, I
found that l*lat() regarded the fixed stars not as incandescent
masses of flatter as we now know tlioni to he, but as real gods,
pure and in)mortal natures ([uiring like angels their everlasting
harmonies around the throne of the Eternal Beautv, which they
contemplated with perennial delight. I found too that he
regarded even the planets, including the s»m and moon, as
gods, though gods of more earthy, impure, and mixed natures
than the fixed stars ; and sincerely believed their function to
be that of time-kcsepers for the I'est of the Universe, as well as
the instruments of Fate foi- men ; controlling as they did the
destinies, and marking out by their revolutions and con-
juncti<nis, the years and the hours for mortal souls. Nor were
his Chemistry and Physics any more satisfactory. Fire, Air,
Earth, and Water, he conceived as made u[) of little triangles ;
the ditterence in the nature and proi)erties of these elements
being due, he thought, to the way in which tlie little triangles
were combmed into larger figures ; Fire with its sharp,
penetrating, and stinging (piality, because they were built up
into the form of sharp-i)ointed j)yrauuds : Earth with its
<lullness, grossness, and density, because they were compacted
into solid cubes, and so on. His Physiology and Psychology,
too, were little better. The Soul, or at least the mortal part
of it, or what we should call the ' vital principle,' was conceived
by him as having extension, and as pervading the body like an
ether, as a finer form of Matter, in short ; the sentiments and
passions having their scats in se})arate parts or organs of the
body ; courage in the breast, and the darker and grosser
passions in the liver, spleen, and other abdominal viscera ;
while he represented disease as resulting either from the cold

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ANCIENT I'HILOiSOIMIV.

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freezing the material fluids, the fluids soaking and swelling the
solids, or the heat pricking the various internal organs with its
little needle-pointed triangles, and inflaming them, and so
on. Aristotle, again, although making a great advance in
Physiology and Zoology, was in his astronomical e()iicej)tions
almost as crude as I'lato. Like him, he helieved the P^arth to
he the centre ot" the Universe, and to he flxed and rooted in
eternal rest; while all motion whether on the earth or in the
heavens, was derived from a vast i-eservoir of ether, whi(!h he
flgured as surrounding all things and <listril)utiiig motion to
them as requi''cu ; nnieh as a mill-dam supplies the water
which gives motion to the mill-wheel. What then could one
do with philosophies like these ! What hut reject them, in
sj)ite of the profound observations they contained on human
life, on morals, on society, on })olitics, on i)oetrv, on art,
observations as true to-day as when they were written, and
good, many of them, for all time. For it cannot be overhtoked
that the answers which we shall giAc to the great and e\ er-
])ressing problems of the nature and d(^>5tiny of man and of his
place in the Universe, of the nature of (Jod and of the iunnan
soul, of inmiortality, and so on, nmst if not absolutely (kipend
on, still bo greatly mollified l)y. the answers wi' giv(! to
|)recisely these astrononu'cal, physical, chemical, physiological,
and psychological problems. l)o(!s it make no difl^'erence. for
example, to what we are ])repared to believe as to the destiny
of man and his jilace in the Universe, whether on the onc(
hand we regard our earth as the centre of the Universe, and
man as the centre of the earth, for whom all things on it exist;
or whether on the other hand we regard the earth as but an
insignificant planet among billions of migiity const(>llations,
and man as but one species of animal among many others, all
alike engaged in the struggle for existence, and existing not
for the sake of man but for themselves alone ? Again does it
make no ditference as to what we shall believe on the disput(>d
question of the immortality of the soul, whether with Plato we

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AXCrKNT I'lIlI.OSOl'UV.

i*efi«rd each soul as an immortal oxistcnrc separately fashioned
l)y the gods and let down from heaven for a season to hv,
imprisoned in a mortal body, from which when released hy
death it retiu'ns to its home ajjiiin ainon<>" the stars; or whether
with Spencer we believe it to be but a transient product of
the molecular motion of the brain, in the same way as heat is
the transient product of the molecular motion in a bar of iron,
each alike being active when the mole(!ular motion is intense,
but absent or dead when the molecular motion slackens or
ceases to be .' And when we remember that down to the
advent of Modern Science the entire fabric both of Philosophy
and Theology reposed on these doctrines of Plato and Aristotle,
variously modified in detail indeed, and supplemented in the
case of Theology by the Mosaic C'osmogony, what could one
do l)ut reject them t To reject Christianity because the
Mosaic Cosmogony ran counter to Modern Science, and then
to fall down before Plato and Aristotle, mere nuuidane
philosophers whose systems were in their scientific aspect
equally primitive and crude, would indeed have been an
incongruity and absurdity. As well go back to the Ptolemaic
Astronomy at (mce.

My reasons for rejecting the Modern School of Metaphysicians,
although dirt'erent in kind were quite as definite in character,
but to make these clear some preliminary observations are
necessary. In a genei*al way we may say that at the period
inunediately following the Revival of Ijcarning and before the
full tide of Modern Thought had fairly set in, two systems of
Thought or Doctrine stood confronting one another, in each (»f
which, though in dift'erent ways, the ideals of the heart might
still find a home. The one was the Catholic (^hurch of tlu;
Middle Ages, the other was the great system of Platonic
Philosophy. The former which had been slowly rising through
the ages like some vast cathedral over the simple shrine of
tlesus, was a composite structure of great complexity, and had
taxed the genius, the speculation, and the organizing power of

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AXCIKNT IMIILOSOIMIV.

321

fifteen centnrie.s to brinjf it to its present state of eliihorate anil
harmonious con»i»leteness. It hud for foundation and outer
ahutinents the Mosaic Cosiuo<^ony, witli tlio six days Creation,
the Fall of Man, Original Sin, and the like; for dome, the
(Todhead hcqueathcd as a legacy from .Judaism, hut shaped hy
the (umning hand of Platonism into a Trinity of Persons, each
with His api»ropriate office and function, and yet all constituting
hut One (jrod ; and for internal organization and \vorshi[), an
elahorate and complex ritual and hierarchy modelled on the
Roman Imperial System, informed with the spirit of Roman
Law, and wrought into a harmonious whole hy priiunples drawn
from the Philosophy of the Stoics and Aristotle. When the
Reformation came, all this elaborate internal organization, with
its bishops and priests^ its altars, its masses and its penances,
its saints and images, its fasts and pilgrimages, together with
the grossness by which of late their original i)urity had Ijecomo
defiled, was swept away as by an inundation ; but there still
remained untouched the Mosaic foundation, the Platonic dome,
and the simjjle shrine around which men we[)t and loved and
prayed ; while through the wide-o[)en portals the simple and
devout of all ages and ccjiulitions could walk in and out, and
still find satisfaction somewhere along its echoing aisles for
every ideal and longing of the heart, could still find there a
Gotl, a Heaven, a hope of Salvation, and an Immortality,

For the cultured, again, there stood side by side with the
Church, and in all its original s[)len(lour, the colossal figure of
Plato, newly resurrected by the lienaiftxancc from the earth in
which it had been burieil for a thousand years, and now again
set on its pedestal for the admiration and despair of mankind.
There he stood in his pure and exquisite symmetry and
completeness, in his severe and silent majesty and beauty, over-
looking the nijjht of the Middle Ajjes which he had left itchind
him, like those Egyptian colofid that still overlook the desert ;
and making music in this sunrise of the worhl like the fabled
statue of ^lemnon. And around him clustered the cultured,

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AXCIKXT IMIILOSOIMIY.

the ei'iulite, the scepticiil, the (lisilluHioncd, nil thosi; who (toiiM
find no home in the Church and who souj;ht in the harmony,
proportion, and eompleteness of his jfreiit soheme of the World,
ii plane for (heir starved ideals — for their sense of heauty, of
the hi<^h destinies of the soul, and of innnortality.

But suddenly and without a note of warning there fell on
the world like a suoeession of homhs, a seri(!s of scientifie
discoveries which hurst both on tiie Chureh and on ancient
Philosopliy with dania_ij;infi^, and in the ease of IMatonism with
immediately disastrous effect. The first of these discoveries
was the Copernican Astronomy, which strikin<f the colossal
system of Plato in its most vital part, namely its Cosmofrony,
brought it in a confused heap to the earth, when; to this hour,
like the giant figure of Kamases outside the ruins of Thebes,
it lies prostrate, and from which, except in its spirit and soul
v/hich are immortal, it can never rise. For in tliis system it
was the planets and fixed stars, it will be reniend)ered, that
were the immortal gods; it was these that fasiiioned the
inunortal souls of men and placed them in their inuuortal
bodies; it was by these that the ideals of men were implanted
in their S(mls ; and it was to these that the soul retmned when
it had left the body, to enjoy with them a blissful innnortality.
And with the fall of Platonism fell once and for all Ancient
Philosophy itself ; and in its ruins were crushed as at a blow
the ideals of all those whom the Church had ex|)atriated, and
who unless they could return again to her bosom were without
a home, without a God, a soul, or an innnortality. But the
Church itself had been badly struck by the same shells that
had brought to ruin Ancient Philosophy ; and although the
blow was not at once mortal (for the Christian 'Scheme of
Salvation ' could more easily survive the destruction of the
Mosaic Cosmogony with which it was bound up, than could
Plato's doctrine of the soul and immortality survive the
Platonic Cosmogony), still in the long run and when the
discoveries of Copernicus were followed up by those of Galileo,

ANCIFNT PIIILOSOI'IIV,

:V2:\

Kepler, and Newton, its iiltiiuivte downfall was hut a matter of
time. For hy de^radin^- Man from his proud [tosition as the
centre of the Universe and the cynosure of jjods and anuels, to
the position of a poor hewildered spectator on its confines
merely, who neither knew where he was nor whither he was
<4'oin<^; with the world all turned upside down, and with
neither an (i/>i)ve for Heaven nor a beloiv for Hell; — with all
this, these discoveries by luulermining the foundations of the
Churehand makinj^ is^ips in her walls, had left her a standin*^
mark for the missiles of her enemies, liut the magnificent
dome of the Godhead still rose clear and flawless in the
morning sunlight, untouched by the falling shells ; and within
was still the little shrine of Jesus, around which the faithful
could watch and i)ray as of yore. For although these without
the Mosaic Creation nnd the Fall of Man which were their
foundation, were hut like decapitated heads severed fronj their
now worthless trunks, or like flower and fruit which cut from
their roots needs nmst wither; still, like those; bones and relics
of the saints and martyrs which kept the devotions of the
simjde as much alive and aglow as the saints themselves in the
Hcsh could have done, these relics of Christianity served for
numy ages to stave off" from the souls, and therefore from the
ideals of men, putrefaction and death ; and from them Modern
Philosojdiy now orphaned of its ideals by the death of Ancient
Thougiit, had to hel[) itself at a pinch, as we shall now sec,
wlien in the alternations of its successive systems it fell
periodically into Atheism, Pessimism, and Scepticism.

Hi'

CHAP T J^: R IV.

' ! 1 '

SOMK GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.

X?H()M tlu! iibovo iinpcrfcot sketch we !^Ii(»ul(l sconi justified

in eoiicludinjj; tliat if Philosophy iind Reiiuion :ire ever

au;iiin to frive life mid soul to our ideals as they did in the Past.

they must find for themselves some ('omprehensiv(( Scheme of

the World in \vhi<'h tiiese ideals may find their appropriate

settin*;, and on which they can ho engrafted as easily and

naturally as they once were on Platonism and Mcdia'val

(Jatholicism, before the Copernican Astronomy had shattered

the houi^lis on which they hung as the golden fruit. For it

cannot be too often repeated that it is from our mode of

regarding the World as n whole and our relation to it, that our

ideals arc in the long run determined, and at no time perhaps,

has this trutli reiiuired a more frecjuent restatement and

rc-enforccnient than at the present. Many of our modern critics

would have us believe that the iiifiuenc(!of Carlyle, for example,

was due to his power of personal characterization, or to the

plcturescpieness of liia literal liuskin, to his beauty

of language, or his ! i'di :esthetic morality ; of

Emerson, to his eh xjnii f mind, to his practical

shrewdness, or to tl, timuhi nich ue gave to men to live in

the Siiirit; forgetting all t',.- while that these men by their

own cxpx'css a<lmission wounl not have taken off their coats,

metaphorically speaking, to write either the 'Frei Revolution,'

SOMK (iKNRUAI, flONSIDKItATIONS.

;ii>-.

tlu! ' Mndcvn I'aintcrs,' or the ' KMHiiys,' were it not that
thev fouiid ill thcs(! the host mei/id for cnfoiTiiiu: those frrcat
coiiccptioiis of the World uh u whoh? and (»f man's ivliition t(»
it, in which tlicy hahitually lived. Kven a man like Cardinal
Nownian j^cts his importance! in tiie eyes of many critics from
his bcinj^'a master of prose styh; ' as they call it, ^a niatter
ahont which it would seem he was (|uitt' indiU'ercnt) rather
than from his intellecttial penetration and sid>tlety, and from
those fine constructive speculations hy which he soufjht to
connect the Catholic Church with that unseen world on which
his heart and soul were ever fixtid. It were as reasonable to
ima<>ine that his intellectual j)osition was due to his violin-
playing, an exercise in which, as in his manipulation of laii<iiia;:;e,
he is said to have attained to a high dejijiee of proficieiK^y.
Hut this tendency to divorce literary criticism from all issues
larj^er than that of mere word-monj^erinj;, is nowhen; better
seen jjcrhaps, than in the case of the late Walter Pater, who
wrote a hook on IMato to show that his great system of
lMriloso[)hy which illuminated the minds (»f men for twenty
centuries, was after all a mei-e incident and eircunistance hi
his activity, hut that his really great and abiding excellence
was his literary felicity and charm. Literary fiddlesticks I one
is tempted to excslaiin ; for if we consider it, literary exjjression
is not to be brought to perfection, like flowers in hothouses,
by artificial cultivation merely, however assiduous or prolonged;
on the contrary its higher ranges of excellence whether in prose
or in verse, can no more be had except from those whose
thoughts have their roots deep down in the subsoil of the
world and of human life, or in some wide general aspect of
these, than can the spreading foliage of an oak be got from a
gardener's flower-pot. Where, for exam|)le, can we find ])athos
to compare with the World-pathos of writers like Shakspeaie
and Carlyle, who habitually saw men as ghosts mistaking
themselves in their (h-eains for realities, fighting, cursing,
hating, and loving, 'their little lives rounded with a sleep ^ '

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SOME GEXERAL C'OXSIDERATIONS.

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Where, iifTjiin, can you find sublimity to conipiire with the
World-sublimity of Milton, who seeing the Fall of Man and
the Gospel Scheme of Salvation ])ainted on the walls of
Ktornity, lived in them, and with awe-struck solenmity walked
in the sight of them ' as ever in his great Task-master's eye t '
What picturesquenes* of expression can be compared with that
of Shaksj)eare again, who with an eye for the world as wide
and open as the morn, brings all its radiances, riches, and
glancing beauties to a focus, as it were, on each and every
point he is describing? Or what pictorial intensity with that
of Dante, whose heart torn and on fire with the tragedy of the
world, burnt its sorrows into his page with furrows as deep as
those by which they had ploughed his own soul, and whom
men ])()inted to as he walked along as the man who had been in
Hell? If this be true, and if the merely outward qualities of
literary expression get all their value and vitality from the
deep wells of thought and feeling by which they are watered,
how much more true nuist it be that the ideals bv which men
live and work, nuist flourish or wither according as they can or
cannot be grafted on some large general scheme of the ^Vorld
ami of Human Life. It was because Plato's doctrine of the
nature and <lestiny of the soul was, as wc have seen, the
natural corollary and outcome of his general Cosmogony or
Scheme of the World, that he claimed validity for those ideals
of life which naturally grow out of this conception of the soul,
and that these ideals continued to sway the lives and thoughts
of men for a thousand years. It is because the Christian
'Scheme of Redonption' had its natural roots in a Cosihogony
in which the Earth was the centre of the Universe, man the
centre of the Earth, and the Devil the author of all evil and
discord, that Christianity in its turn has ruled the beliefs of
men, and given basis and support to their ideals for so many
ages. Without such Cosmogony, indeed, the (Jospel ' Scheme
of Salvation ' could not have arisen at all, uuich less grown and
overspread the world: and without the (Jospcl Scheme, what

SOME GENEUAL CONSIDERATIONS.

327

would have become of the higli ethical ])recepts of Jesus,
which it was the mission of Chi-istianity t<' propagate i Why
this, that without a Church founde'l on this Scheme of
Salvation as suitable soil in which to grow and jjropagate
themselves, these attempts as being in themselves but the
personal sentiments of a highly gifted nature, would long since
ha\e been washed away in the great Pagan stream.

If this be true, we have now to ask whether Modern
IM'.ilosophy beginning with Bacon and Descartes, was likely
to find for itself a Cosmogony or general Scheme of the World
which should furnish as natural and harmonious a framework
and setting for men's ideals, as was formerly found for them in
Platonism and Mediaeval Catholicism respectively. And to
ask the (piestion is already to have gone a long way towards
answering it. For, to begin with, it is only within living
memory that the separate sciences necessary for a complete
Cosmogony have been so perfected, so marshalled and brought up
into line, as it were, that from their harmonious conil)ination
any great scheme of the W^orld which should either
support men's ideals on the one hand, or bar them out on the
other, has been possible at all. Scientific Astronomy with its
Law of Gravitation has been with us, it is true, since the days
of Newton ; but then the orderly movements of tiie Universe
which it disclosed, could be ap[)ealed to either to support our
ideals or to negative them; to sujjport them if looked at in
one way, as pointing to a Providence which had made so
ex<iuisitc a provision for the order of tlie Universe as a whole ;
to negative them if looked at in another, as demonstrating that
the afl'airs of men arc at the mercy of a j)urely mechanical and
all-end)ra(!ing Fate. As for the other sciences again, which
like Chemistry, PhiIog')i)hy. Biology, and Psychology, bear
directly on the questions of the existence of a Soul, a Frec-
Will, and an Immortality, they had scarcely attained to the
dignity of sciences until our own time ; and so far as they go,
the conclusiims to which on their own plane they jjoint, would

m ^ ':•

wmmsBKOKsm

rtm

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It-

328

SO.MK (iKNKKAL COXSIDEIIATIOXS.

Ji9 we havo seen from Spencer, rule out from tlie |)urvie\v of
otir liopcs and dreams not only the existenre of (iod, but of
the Soul, of Frec-Will, and of luimortality. It is evident,
therefore, that Modern Philosophy since the time of Descartes,
could not afford the same universal support for the ideals of men,
that they had had in Platonism and (Jatholicism respectively.
For Astronomy havi%g been ruled out as affording no
sure or definite support either way ; and the other sciences
\vbi(;b bear directly on the existence and reality of our ideals,
not yet having come into existence, any supi)ort which these
ideals could find, could have been but a thing of shreds and
patches merely, made up of those parts of (Jatholicism and
Ancient Philosophy which the Copcrnican and Newtonian
Astronomy had left untouched, supplemented by sucli new
'finds' as had come from regions which both Ancient
Philosophy and (Jatholicism had left unexplored. These latter
might be summed up on the one hand as the deductions which
were legitimately to be drawn from the operations of Nature
on our own planet, and on the other as deductions which were
to be drawn from the results of the analysis of the powers and
faculties of the lunnan mind. And accordingly, as we shall
now sec, it was on out; or other of these that both the Modern
Apoh)gists and the Modern Philosophers pitched as the field
of their operations : the Apologists taking as was natural, the
more popular and easily ap[)reliended std)jects as their province;
the i)hilosophers the more abstruse and difficult ones. Some-
times it was on the evidences of design in nature, that the
Apologists and Natural Theologians [titclu-d as the best
supports of Christianity and of the ideals that Christianity
carried with it ; these evidences being maiidy drawn from the
excjuisite adaptation of creatures to their environment, or from
the ingenuities of mechanism in the structure of animals and
plants, and the like. Sometimes it was on what was called the
Providence of (Iod in History, as seen in the rise and fall of
Empires and States, in the history of Judaism, and in the

SOMK OKNKUAL CONSIDKKATIOXS.

329

conquest of tlie world by ii hiindfiil of (TJililciiu fisliernien ;
soinotimt's ajjain, it was on the ffuidini; liand of ProvidtMice as
exemplified in the lives and fortunes of individuals, the triumphs
of the <i"o()d, the confusion of the wi(;ked, and so on; and
sometimes on a i^eneral survey of the whole. The; Philosophers
on the other hand, not having at their connnand a sufficient hody
of scientific truth on which to construct a new and harmonious
(yosniogony of their own, as Spencer has recently done, and
havinti; resijrned the justification of the wavs of God to Man, for
the most part, into the hands of the Apologists and Natural
Theologians, had nothing left them as their special and peculiar
province, but the Human Mind itself. And accordingly, just
as the older physiologists and physicians when they had given
up all hope of explaining the phenomena of disease by the old
hyj)othesis of demoniacal agency and the like, at last set to
work on the human body itself, to see if by dissecting it they
could not find out the real causes at work ; so the Philosophers
when they had given uj) all hope of any longer finding their
ideals, as formerly, in the Church or Ancient Philosophy, set
to work on the human mind itself, to see if by analysis and
dissection of it thev could not find them there : now settlinix
on the faculty of Intelligence and the phenomena of knowledge,
now on the Conscience, and now on the Heart. Hence they
are known as the Modern Metaj)hysicians, inasnuich as most of
ther.i deal mainly with the human mind, and not like the
Ancient Philosophers with the World as a Whole.

As for the Apologists, the compilers of the works on Natural
Theology, and the long line of Theologians stretching from
IJutler and Paley to the liampton and other University
Lecturers of our own day, with these I gave myself at the
time of which I am writinu; little or no concern. Cominyf to
them, as I did, fresh from the si)eculations of Darwin and of
Spencer, and from the most recent discoveries in science, I
regarded their works as a series of exploded fallacies, and with
my youthful conti-mpt for Christianity as an old and decaying

I \

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330

SOME (HCNEUAI, COXSIDKUATIOXS.

.superstition, still strong upon me, I resented tlie idea of being"
asked to consider seriously at this time of day, what 1 regarded
as the bad science, the forced interpretation, and the arbitrary
conclusions of these so-called * Evidences of Christianity.'
For I was in deadly earnest in this business, and having lost
my own ideals I was not to be put off with what I regarded
as the dap-trap of the Tiieologians, any more than with the
popular clap-trap of the pulpit, but insisted that all th<jse with
wh(»in I should have any dealings in these matters should come
to the facts as I ima<rined mvself to have done, with minds as
frei; and disengaged from all bias o. prejudice whatever, as if
they h;>(l been let down from another planet. And hence it
was that I was repelled by what 1 imagined to be the
professional bias, the sleek and well-paid advocacy of these high-
placed divines, but especially by the tone of their Apologies when
considering the dealings of (Jod with man. which in my then
revolutionary tem[)er seemed to me like the tone of those who
w<iuld whitewash the worst and vilest scoundrelisms of the
gicat and powerful, until they looked like positive virtues !
And so with a bias and prejudice, perhaps, as great as that
which I denounced, 1 ruled thom one and all from out the
scope of my speculations, and turned to the Metaphysicians
properly so called.

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AIODEKN METAIMIVSICS.

V I

4 MONG the other fraginent.s of I'latonism and Mcdiaival
Catholicism that had heeii bequeathed by Modern
Philosophy, was the belief In tiie existence of the Soul as an
entity distinct from and lnde[)endent of the body ; and from
this l)eHef to the belief In Its immortality as a s[)lrltual and
presumably therefore Indestructible entity, was but a step.
Hence it was that when the Meta[)hysicians of the Modern
World settled on the human mind as the field of their
o[»eratlons, and sought by analysis to discover in it some more
certain evidence of the existence of (Jod, Inmiortallty, and the
Ideal, than that of mere traditional belief or sunnise, their main
concern was not so much to demonstrate the existence of Free
Will and Inunortality (for these as I have said W(!re almost
(•orollarles from its spiritual essence), but rather to demonstrate
the existence of God — without which indeed, in those days at
least, non(! of the high ideals of the mind could have any I'cai
root at all. They began their operations, as it chanced, by
fastening on the Intellectual Faculty, the Facmlty of Knowledge,
as the field of their activity, ami particularly on the problem of
how it comes about that we can have any knowledge of a
world existing outside of ourselves ; and it was in the analysis
of this process of knowledge, that the three first of these great
Metaphysicians — Descartes, Geullnx, and Malebranche, —

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found their main proof for the existence of God, For inasnuicli
us the ohjccts in tlu; world iiround, as well as our own hodies,
are characterized by the |)ro})erties of extension, materiality,
and (livi.sil)ility, whereas our minds have neither extension,
materiality, nor divisibility, it was argued that it wa> .t natural
impossibility that material ami extemled thin«^s shoidd make
an imj>ression on an immaterial unextended thing like Mind,
so as to produce in it what we call knowledge ; while on the
other hand it was considered etinall}' impossible that our minds
should so act on our bodies, as to move them (»r the objects
around us. The two things were believed to be as absolutely
incompatible as oil and water, and it was contended that it was
us hopeless to get any knowledge or increase of knowledge by
i)ringing them together, as it would be by bringing together
a colour and a sound. But as it was admitted that
knowdedge did in point of fact actually pass to and fro
between them and was increased in the passage, some
bridge it was evident there nuist be. .Vnd if not a natural
bridge, then it nuist be a supernatural one ; and if so what
could it be but (lod .' This reasoning seemed absolutely valid
to Descartes, who had already convinced himself on indepen-
dent grounds that the existence of an all-powerful, all-[(erfect
Being was as much involved in the consciousness of our own
imperfections and limitati(ms, as \\ij other member of a \y.ur of
oppositcs is in the other, as black is in white, as good in b-id,
and the like ; and had therefore the same certainty as oui- own
existence. And he argued further that if the outer world does
not really exist, either God who has put the belief of its
existence into our minds is a liar, or our knowledge of it, owing
to the impossibility of oin- minds getting across to it, nnist be
a dream.

(ieulinx and Malebranch^ 'ook up practically the sunu;
position in regard to knowledge as Descartes, and maintained
like him, the im])Ossibility without the help of God, of our
kn(.wing anything beyond the fact of our own existence and

MODEUX ^lET.VrilVMCS.

333

His ; owlrif^ to tlio impossibility of a inatcM'ial thinj;' acting on an
immaterial one like Mind ; the only difference between tlicin
being that whereas Descartes figured the union as effected by
God Himself standing in the breach, as it were, with one foot on
the external world and the other on Mind, and so bridging over
the gulf between them ; Geulinx figured (Jod as intervening,
rather, after the manner of a watch-maker who occasionally
interposes to set one watch to keep tinu^ with the other; while
Malebranchc, who imagined that even if material things could
make an impi'Gssion on the mind, these iin[)ressions must cancel
and obliiorate each other like posters i)laced on the top of each
other on a hoarding, figured ^lind and Matter as like two men
tied bad: t) back, who although thcv cannot catch siy-ht of each
other dh'('ct/i/, can nevertheless manage to d<t so xideirniis^ as it
were, ii" tliey are reflected in the mirror of another mind which
can eoiiidly reflect them both ; and that mirror is God.

To these philosophers who had thus demonstrated the
existence of God and the Ideal World to their own satisfaction,
succeeded Si)inoza, that rare and beautiful spirit, who during
the progress of the controversy had become so fascinated with
the [H'oblem of knowledge for its own sake, that in his
endeavour to free it from the [)erpetual interposiu>ii of God
deemed necessary to exjdain it, he unwillingly, Hkc .. man so
intent on star-gazing that he falls int(» the water, fell into a species
of Atheism; and so practically lost sight of the Ideal altogether!
P^or to get rid of tliis per[)etual miracle aganist which his
comuKm sense revolted, he fiui.rcd Mind and Matter (aUliouLrh
like his predecessors he I'cgarded them as absolutely distinct and
unbridgeable) as the two correlated sides or as[)ects of one and
the same Thing, Cause, or Substance: which Substance, again
as he called it, included not only them as its attributes, but
ininimerable other attributes or forms of existence as well, of
which our minds can have no knowledge : muci\ in the same way
as there is a fourth dimension in Space with which the higher
Mathematics deals, but of which in (»in- present life, conditioncil

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MODKIi.N METAPHYSICS.

si8 it is l)y S|i!U'(! of tlirco dimonsions only, wo cnii liiivo no
knowUMljrc orifxpcriciicc. lii this way, Sjjinozii l)y m:ikiii<>; Mind
and Matter the two pandhil and correspondinj;- sides of one and
the same ()ri<:,inal Snbstance, found a solution for tlie diffieulty
of so uniting; the material and the immaterial as to produce
kn()\vled<i;e, without the necessity of a God to accomi)lis]i tlie
feat. It was only when lie came to the consideration of what
was to he done with the particular aspects of Mind, such as
reason, imagination, sense, enioti(ni, sentiment, and passion, tliat
in the course of his reHections he fell into a practical Atheism.
For these he rci^arded as only special modes or forms of the
oeneral attribntf Mind, in the same way as a horse, a tree, a
mountain, or a tahle, are only s[)ecial forms of the attrihute
Matter; and he considered that it would he as ahsurd to endow
the oriijjinal Suhstance, or Cause, with these special <pialities of
Mind, as it would he to endow it with the s[)ecial (pialitiea
pertaininjjj to a lutrse, a tree, a mountain, or a tahle. All these
mental (pialities he regarded as but the necessary splinters into
which the attrihute Mind or Thought is broken as it makes its
entrance into the World of Time, like the sputter and foam into
which the waters of a placid mountain stream ai'c broken on its
ed«'e and confines, when it descends to the plain. They are but
the evanescent bubl)les thrown up without will or choice of their
own, but of inevitable necessity, from the obstructions they meet
with from each other; coming into being and ceasing to be;
while the One Eternal Substance, with its eternal attributes of
Thought and Extension, alone abides. And thus it was that
Spino/a with this conception of the World and of Human Life
as but the outcome of a fixed and inexorable Fate, fell in his
large and massive; way into a kind of unconscious but not
ignoble Atheism, and so in his dreams lost sight of our jjctty
human ideals altogether; and when he at last awoke and
bethought himself, the most that lie could recover of them, like
a King who had dreamed away his crown, was, as with the
Stoics, the poor human joy and serenity, the absence of pining,

MODKUX -METAPHYSICS.

335

'l.iAN

discontent, and misgivin<j;, which the spectacle of this Infinite,
Eternal, and Inexliau><tihle Knerj^y, leaving no loop-hole for
freedom save in resij^^ned obedience, was calcniated to eiii>»'iid('i'
in the philosophic spirit, and which he in his [)nrity and
simplicity imagined was all that was needful or right that man
should attain.

The attempt to get (xod, Immortality, and the Ideal, out of

the Intelligence, by the analysis of the mechanism of knowledge,

having failed ; and philosophy having run itself on these lines

in the hands of Spinoza, into a practical Atheism, and the

annihilation of our ideals; two courses were now open to the

Metaphysicians. They could either continue still further the

analysis of the Intelligence, and see what would come of it, or

they conid shift their tents to some other region of the mind.

with the chances of a better fortune for the Ideal in tlie new

Held. On consideration it was resolved that Spinoza's

conception of Mind and Matter as two sides or aspects of the

same thing, was premature ; that it was too generalized ; and in

fact that there was no scientific proof of it. For it must be

borne in mind that the intimate connexion between the

manifestations of mind and the physical condition of the brain

and nervous system, which to-day is almost an axiom of scientific

thought, was then unknown. The suspicion naturally then

suggested itself as to whether instead of Mind and Matter, as

with Spinoza, being regarded as parallel and corresponding sides

of a connnon cause, one of them might not rather be found on

further ^inalysis to be the cause of the other. The iirst of the

two alternatives open to the Meta])hysicians was accdrdingly

chosen, and a still more minute and thorough analysis of the

Intelliuenee I was resolved upon, and two new Seliools of

Philosophy at once arose; the first, represented by Loeke,

regarding the outer world of Matter as the real source and origin

of all our ideas, of all that can [)roperly be called ^[ind : the

second, represented by Berkeley and Leibnitz, regarding the

Mind as the soiure of all those ai)pearances known to us as the

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MODKKN MRTAIMIYSIGS.

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outer world, the world of Matter. And the disciiHsiou of the
problem of ktiowleilj^e onee entered upon, the rival wehools
beeanie lik(! Spinoza so absorbed in it, that they quite forj^ot
for the time bein^ tlic real question whlcli the world was
waitinj^ to have solved for it, namely as to the existence or not
of surtieient grounds for its belief in (lod, Inuuortality, and the
Ideal, a (piestion which the philosophers were ai)[)arently
disposed, until pricked to it by the Church and cultured opinion,
to leave to the chances of war I

Leibnitz was the first of the <rreat philosophers to enter the
field on the side of the Idealists, that is to say on the side of
those who believed that the Mind was the real cause of Matter,
and that the outer world, inconsequence, was but an appearance
or after effect of Mind. lie conceived the world of men and
thinnjs to be made up of an infinite number of infinitely small
spiritual substances or monads, as he called them, little minds
or souls, as it were, of which God was only one among the
rest, — nuu'h in the same way as the Materialists of anti([uity
regarded it, and as the Scientists of our own time still regard it,
as made up of an infinite niunber of material atoms or molecules;
— and he considered that the difierence of ijitelHgence amon<j
creatures (and, in consequence, of what image or representation
they would form to themselves of the world), was due entirely
to the degree of clearness or cloudiness with which these little
irrideseent monads refiected each other ; in the same way as in
the great Vcdanta Philosophy of the Hindoo sages, the amount
of Truth which men can see Avill depend upon the number of
' veils of illusion,' as they call them, or coloured spectacles, as it
were, which are interposed between the soul and the reality of
things: but with this difierence, that whereas in Hindoo
Philoso[)hy, owing to its making a diffused Unconscious Soul its
sujjreme object of contemi)lation, the mind that shall come
nearest to the sight of this Supreme Reality, is the one that like
an Oriental Beauty lies in a soft dreamless sleep in which only
the thinnest gauze, as it were, conceals its infinite loveliness

MODERN M ETX IM I YSK S.

337

and clmnn ; in Eur()[)o:ui Pliilosnpliy on the contrary, and with
Loihnit/ MMionj;' tlio rest, tlic Supremo Reality licinj; tin; most
clcar-eycd Conscious Intollij^cnce, the mind that shall oomc
u(Mirost to tlu! sif^ht of it is the one that is the most widc-auakc
and clotlu'd with powers of perception as in open day. And
accordinjfly he represented the mineral kinii'dom as the condition
of those monads who were in a dreaniless sleep or swoon ; the
ve<retal)l(^ kin<;(l(>m as the condition of those who were heginnin^-
to stir and show si<;iis of life ; the animal kinfjdom as the
condition of those who were alive hut in a dream; the human
world as the condition of those who were fully awake and
self-cons('i()ns ; and God as the monad of monads, the one that
roHected all thinifs with the most crystal clearness, and thcn-eforc
with the most omniscient and omnij)resent intelliycnee. And
the way in which these airy spirits, the dull and the hrii>;lit. the
stn])id and the intelligent, are made to keep true to the heautifnl
harmony of the worhl, of inner to (^^ter, of Mind to ^Tatter, is
represented not as in Geulinx, hy (iod interposing like a
watch-maker at every turn to set them so that they shall keep
time together, nor as in ^lalcbranche, by God being Himself
the omnipresent mirror in which they can all see themselves at
one and the same time, but by a ' pi'c-established harmony,' as
he called it, so ])erfcct in its meelianism from the outset, that
each in perfect independence of the rest, shall keep time to the
nuisic of the Divine Will.

But Leibnitz in this curious and nniciuc system of his, had not
(piite reached the haven of pure Idealism. For these little
spiritual monads had, it will be observed, an independent
(existence ontmJe of one another, and so were in reality an outer
world to each other. And accordingly the next move necessary
to bi'ing it to pure Idealism was taken by Berkeley, who made
not only the external world but all other minds as well, the pure
creation of the individual mind. Not that the world outside of
ourselves had no real existence anyu'liere, but only this, that on
the old principle that no object whatever having extension and

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MODKUN MKTAI'HYSICS.

miitoi'iiility, be it aii^^cl, iiiiimiil, or iimii, can make an impression
on a purely iinniaterial siibstaneo like Mind, the outer worl«l
can liave existenee in the Mind of (Jod alone, who in turn
eonuiuuiicates, as with Descartes and Malehranchc!, this
knowledj^e to us.

Now as far as the Jch'al was eoneerned, it is evident tliat
these I(U'alists were ahle to score an easy victory in its support.
For bejjjiiniin^" with Mind as an inde8tructil)le, inunaterial, and
indivisible entity, inuuttrtality was a natural coroUary, and (Jod
in eonsecpience, as a spiritual inunatcu-ia! nein<f also, was but the
natural Cause in whicdi these minds us in a mirror reflected
themselves.

The opposite School headed by Tiookc and Condillac, kept
also mainly to the problem of Knowhulge, and <;ot over the
difficulty by making Matter and the sensations it jiroduces on
our organs of sense, the cause and origin of all our ideas, and
therefore of what we call the mind, which these Thinkers figured
as a sheet of white paper, absolutely blank until Matter and the
sensations it causes in us scribbled their impressions and ideas
on it, or as a room, dark and empty until the light of the outer
world is gradually let into it. And so with notiiing in the mind
but what comes through the senses, their ingemiity was
severely taxed to get out of it either a God or an Ideal World ;
and in their perplexity, when pressed, they were obliged to fall
back on the Church, and on the stock arguments of its
Theologians and Apologists, for their belief in a (Jod and in a
Future Life. But when the doctrines of this School were
carried to their logical extreme by Hume, and by the French
IMiilosophers of the Illumination — by Ilelvetius, D'llolbach,
Ijii Mettrie, and others — nothing was left in the mind but an
onward Hux of sensations, with no order, coherence, or
<:onnexion, no law or cause beyond such chance associations as
liabit or custom may for the time being have given them.
With the soul gone, immortality went also ; and with the belief
in necessary causation gone, went the belief in God, until at the

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331)

end of the period of tlio Fieiicli Illuiiiiiiiition, God, the Soul,
and Iiniiiortality liad boon wiped out as with a wponijc from the
purview of men; the [)hilosopli('rs themselves hein;; left with
nnthiii",' to coiiHoIe them but that love of Truth for its own
sake, wlii<'h is the hist flower of the ideal that ('(Uitinues to
l)l(»om after all else is faded.

In the Iidl and pause which ensuetl before a new School of
Philosophy shoidd arise which could restore to men iheir lost
ideals, the world had to draw on the Church for them, on that
old Church which hardiv beset itself, still bunji; out its old flaj;
of ' Verbal Inspiration' from its belea<fuered citadel, initil help
from without should come. Nor iiad it long to wait. For
tlu^ Metaphysicians who had started out so gaily with Descartes,
fondly imagining that they had found a trimn[)hant proof
of the existence of God and the Ideal World in what lay
latent but unexpressed in tlie mysterious act of Knowledge,
now found to their diseouditure that in the speculations
of Ilumc and the Materialists of the French Illumination,
IMiilosophy had shifted its bearings and veered round to
the opposite point of the compass; and instead of i)ointing
the way to God and Inunortality as its pole star, pointed
on the contrary straight to Atheism. They were obliged,
accordingly to give up the analysis of the Intelligence
and of the act of Knowledge as worthless for theii- purpose,
and to shifi tlieir tents elsewhere. Aceordiiigiy in their
perplexity they pitched on the Conscience, or the Moi'al
Sense, as the new field of their operations, in the hope that they
might there recover the ineals they had lost, and perchance
even bring help as well to the Church, and their endeavours
seemed at first to be crowned with entire success. The man
who wrought this deliverance both for Philosophy and Religion
was that prince of INtetaphysical Thinkers, Emanuel Kant.

Like his predecessors, Kant had begun by an aui'lysis of
what constitutes Knowledge and makes it possible, but he had
not gone far before he discovered that no God was to be got

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out of the tiiuilyi^is ot tliiit finu'tioii of the mind. He soon
perceived that tlie mind was no hhmk, abstract, immaterial
entity facin<^ its opposite but unabk; to cross over to unite v'\th
it in the production of knowledj^e except by an act of (;ou;
but that on tlie contrary it was itself a concrete, complex
organism made u[) of various functions and [)o\vcrs, like u
machine with a comjdex system of wheels and rollers — Time
and .Si)ace, Cai'.se and Effect, Necessity and Contingency, and
the rest, — throuuh which when the raw material of sensation
from outer objects is passed in like separate bits of wool at
one end, it comes cjut like a continuous thread of yain or web
of cloth in the shape of organized human knowledge at the
other. And he argued that as neither God, the Soul, Free-
Will, nor Immortality were to be found in tlie raw material of
Nature which had to be passed through these rollers of the
mind, so by no ingenuity could they be got out of it as part
of the warp and woof of knowledge. What then was to be
done? It looked as if our 'deals would have to be resigned
after all. But no, stay a moment, said Kant. Those ideas
of God and the Soul arc intuitive and ineradicable beliefs of
the mind, and are besides necessities of thought, as it were,
without which our knowledge woidd be a chaos of impressions
and ideas without end, aim, or reason, For even if particuhir
phenomena are to be satisfactorily explained by referring them
to their antecedent causes, as is our custom now-a-days, still
the world as a whole w-ould remain to be explained, and to
what can it be referred but to that something beyond it and
transcending it to which we have aiven the name of God .'
Again, without a Soul as penuancnt and abiding basis for the
impressions and ideas of the mind which come and go and
chase one another across the field of "bought, without this
Soul as a single self to which our id( as adhei: , and which
gives them luiity, what could these ideas be but a distracted
raob or multitude of impressions, emotions, and sensations
without relation or belongings, without meaning, reason or

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M ( ) I ) R UN M ET.Vrn YSICS.

341

significance? But as wo cannot get any knowledge or proof
of the existence of (iod or the Soul tiirough the ordinary
avenues of the senses and understanding, is it not evident,
says Kant, tliat if we look carefully enough we shall find the
justification of our belief in their existence and reality, in some
other quarter of the mind? It seemed, indeed, most pr()l)able ;
and accordingly after some search Kant announced that he
had discc'cred such justification in the Conscience or Moral
Sense in man, which he declared would be found to point
like a fixed finger steadily to the Ideal World — to God and
the Soul, to Frec-Will and Immortality. For, said he, when
Conscience like an Emperor says to a man ' You inuNt do so
and so,' at the very time perhaps when his natural inclinations
all tend in the opposite direction, does that not prove that he
c<(n obey the command if he choose ? for to give an order
without the means of executing it, were a stultification. And
if this be so, does it not prove that you have ii/rce-irill which
can act apart from and in spite of your natural inclinations and
desires? And if a free-will then a .•<oiil independent of the
body on the one hand, and of the successive mental states that
])ass across it and are affections of it on the other ? And if this,
again, be true, and if further the commands of this Conscience
or Moral-Sense are always universal connnands, that is to
say commands which if carried out would l)enefit humanity
at large, or others as well as yourself, does not that prove that
these commands must have issued from a Being who has e(jual
care for all His creatures, and therefore in a word, iVom the
Being we call God? And if further, our indisposition to obey
these connnands is due to our being like a half-awakened
sleeper, hampered and restrained by the drowsy inclinations of
desire, is it not evident, says Kant, that as God is the author
both of the connnands to virtm; and the desin^ for iiappiness,
and, in consequence, must wish tiic moral man to be ha[)i)y and
the hap])y man to be moral ; is it not evident that if th.is con-
junction of virtue and happiness is not to be had in the present

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342

3IODERN ^lETAPIIYSICS.

life, a future life (if His will is not to be frustnited) must be
provided to realize it in i In tliis way, then, Ksint proposed to
restore to men those great ideals of the mind which demanded
a God, Soul, Free-AVill, and Immortality as their basis and
support, but which in the hands of his predecessors had been
up-rooted by Atheism and Materialism. AVitli the succour
thus brought to them in their perplexity the Church and
lleligion were overjoyed, and the echo of their jubilation has
continued to be heard almost to our own time. But the
Metaphysicians could not let well enough alone, as it were, and
scarcely had Kant's doctrines had time to become generally
diffused when his followers put a damper on the new-born
hopes of men, by pushing his [)hilosophy to a i)oint where the
Ideal so hardly won, had to be renounced again.

Fichte was the first of the followers of Kant to so modify
the views of his master as to lose again the ground which that
gi'eat thinker had re-conrpiered for the Ideal. He began by
takingf the floral Consciousness and Free-AVill which Kant
had walled oft', as it were, in a separate compartment of the
mind from the faculty of knowledge, and proposed to bring
unity into the kingdom thus divided, by demonstrating that
the separate parts of the faculty of Knowledge (the wheels
and rollers of our machine) could be deduced in an orderly
evolution one after another out of this Moral-Sense or
Conscience which he now made the Personal Ego, and in
which as corollaries, these categories he contended lay latent,
waiting to be evolved. This he did by assuming at the outset
that there was in the essence of this Self-consciousness itself,
this Personal Ego, a negative or obstructive element, which
when the energy of the Ego or Free- Will encountered it, would
itself make in its successive rebounds these very categories of
Kant, through which when the raw material of the outer world
was passed in the form of sensations, there came out the forms
of what we call our organized knowledge of the outer world ;
much in the same way as in Hindoo Philosophy the various

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(lUS

MODEUN MKTArilYSIC'S.

343

kinds of knowledge in its different grades, conic from the
obstructions and diffractions wliicli tlic j»ure white liglit of the
Soul suffers when it has to pass through the different *■ veils of
illusion,' or coloured spectacles, which are successively put up
i)efore it ; these veils being in the order of th.eir fineness and
transparency, first the finest and highest intuitions, then the
higher sentiments, then the nobler passions, then the appetites,
then the senses, and lastly the gross material body itself ; the
ifrcat difference being that wdicreas in Hindoo Thouijht these
veils or si)ectucles are not parts of the Soul itself, but are rather
foreign substances that come before it to obscure it, in Fichte
they are inherent in the very constitution of the Soul or Ego
itself. And the consequence is that when with P'icditc (he
energy of the Soul encounters this obstruction in its(!lf, it
suffers by the limitation lo which its free activity is subjected,
a kind of affection of itself whicli it imafjines to be somethin<>-
coming from the outside, and which like a man under a
hallucination, it imagines it sees as something existing in a
world outside of itself. And as at each revolution on itself it
encounters, as it Avere, a fresh obstruction made up of the new
added to tl;c last and to all that preceded it, it imagines it sees
some new kind of thing or property of things in the external
world, corresponding to this fresh obstruction ; in the same
way as when white light is pa.^sed through a number of coloured
glasses |)ut up successively one behind the othei% it produces a.
new colour each time, formed of the complex of all the old
with the newest and last. Now these successive colours or
affections which the Soul ov Kgo suffers in its successive
i-evolutions, Fichte undertakes to prove to be precisely those
very ' forms of sense' (Time and Space) and 'categories of the
understanding ' ((piantity and (piality, relations of cause and
effect, of substance and accident, of reciprocal action, of existence
and non-existence, necessity and contingency, and the rest)
into which Kant has decomposed the faculty of understanding
or Knowledge ; but with this ditlerence. that wlicrcas Kant

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MODEUN METAPHYSICS.

III)

I I

1 1

had picked them up hap-liazard, as it were, and flimn- them
<lown in an isolated and independent way without (Connexion
or evohition, Fi(dite undertook to show that tliey coidd be
deduced froiii one another in a regular order of succession as
stages and landing-places in an ascending staircase of evolution,
and all from the constitution of the Ego itself Avhen from the
obstructions it meets with it begins to turn on itself, lie
undertakes, in a word, to demonstrate that Matter itself, Time
and Sj)ace, and all the (jnalities of Matter, Mind, and the
External World, are reall}'^ the products of eacli individual's
(;wu mind. The consequence was that as he could not find
anything anywhere that had not its f)rigin within the circuit
and confines of our own skulls, he could find no place outside
of himself either for u God or for an Inunortality, and so was
obliged to confess that the Moral Consciousness from which
in his opinion all oiu* categories of knowledge can be deduced
and evolved as by a mathematical necessity, was the only
Divinity he knew. And hence it was that he lost again among
the meshes of his anal^'sis, all those ideals of the mind whicli
Kant had w ith so much patience and labour re -conquered and
restored to men.

But the ideals wdiich Fichte liad lost, .Tacf^bi another of
Kant's disciples recovered, (;nly for u moment however, a? it
were, and as a passing divijrsiou froiu the ordinary coiu'so of
^letaphysical Thought. Like Socrates who by throwing
over-board most of tlie stock inquiries of the Greek
Philosophers, stumbled by happy accident almost <ni to
Christian Theism and its argument from Design bit'oi-e its
tinu! ; so Jacobi by brushing away many of the njetaphysical
cobwebs and subJeties with which his contemporaries [)erplexed
themselves, came on some important truths almost without
knowing it. and long before the ground had l)een fully ])repared
for them ; nmch in the same Avay as some old Greek, dissatisfied
with the 3*tolemaic Astronomy, might by the mere inq)ulse to
counter-assertion have struck on the truth that tlu; earth

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revolved {irouiid tlie sun and not vice-versa, long l)efore the true
;j;round8 for this belief could have come within the focus of
iidviincing' thought. For having accepted from Kant the
doctrine tiiat neither (iod nor the Soul nor Free-Will can be
proved through the ordinary avenues ov by the ordinary
l)roces8es by which knowledge is acquired, but only as necessary
postulates demanded by the moral sense in man, ilacobi boldly
asserted that the existence of God, the iSoul, and Free-Will,
were as much intuitive beliefs of the mind and had as much
validity, as the belief in the existence of Time, Space, and the
Fxtei'nal World was an intuitive belief [)Ostulated by the
demands of our ordinary outer senses. They are all alike,
dacobi conteiuled, matters of belu'f leather than of knowkihje,
that is to say they are the bases on which all knowledge and
experience nuist rest, and cannot therefore be proven by the
ordinary processes of knowledge and experience, lie contended,
a<'cordingly, that Time and Space had a real objective reality,
and were not as Kant had contended merely 'forms' of our
own sensations, moulds of the mind, at it were, tlu-oiigh which
the impressions from the external world had to pass before
we could see that world, ■ n- imagine ourselves to see it, as a
world existing in Space and Time. lie might have added that
when the mind of man is so constituted as to sec and l)elieve
and to act on and be justified in tlie belii'f that the world of
space and time exists outside of us : to imagine that l)y any
ingenious hocus-pocus of metaphysical subtlety you are going
to prove to men that it really is Ijiku/c of them as ' forms of
sense ' only, is gratuitous. I>ut as he was at bottom a meta-
piiysician like the rest (although he had kicked over the
metaphysical traces for the moment), and went about like
tliem with his sounding-rod which he dipped into the mind
lu!rc' and there in the hope that he might bring up the Ideal in
his soundings, this was perhaps too nmch to cx[)ect. And
accoi'dingly after this irregular improvisation of .lacobi, which
scandalized the metaphysicians as much m'^ the onrly scientific

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scoptics scandalized tlie orthodox believers in the j)ossil)ility
of perpetual motion, Metapliysies continued on its own proper
course as hefore.

On Ficlite and tiacobi, aecordinj^ly, followed in due time
Schelling, wlio incontinently threw .lacobi out of his piu'view on
account of his liercsy in the matter of belief (much in the same
way as the orthodox schools of Greek Philosophy threw out
Socrates), and continued instead in the course marked out for
him by the lonj^Iine of his orthodox predecessors from Descartes
and S|)inoza to Kant and Fichte. And althouiih in his
|)hil<)soi)hizing he went throujjjh as many staj^es and transfor-
mations as a grub does before it becomes a butterfly, Ik-
nevertheless by the thoughts he added in his prime, pushed the
solution of the problems of Metaphysics a stage further on tlie
course which they were destined to follow before they reached
their goal. IJut the precise contribution which he made to the
problem will be better seen perhaps if we again cast a hurried
retrospective glance over the main steps which had been taken
by his })redecessors to lead up to it. It will be rememl)ered,
then, that Descartes, Malebrauche, and the earlier Meta-
l)hysicians had figured the Woi'kl as in its ultimate essence
made up of two primordial substances, Mind and flatter,
Thought and Extension, which stood facing each other in l)laid<
abstraction and isolation like a i)air of sphinxes, each unable to
cross over and connnunicate with the other so as to produce
what we call Knowledge, without the intermediation of a Deity
who stood over theni both and interpreted them to each other.
Spinoza who followed, imagined he had got over the difficulty
by making Mind and Matter, or Thought and Extension, in their
ultimate essence but two sides of the stniw thing or substance,
and requiring therefore no God to put them in communication.
After some intermediate })reliminary skirmishing by other
philosophers to clear the foregrouml of the problem of minor
comi)lications, Kant appeared on the scene and at once separated
the two walls of ^lind and Matter which Spinoza had brought

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MODERN MKTA PHYSICS.

347

together, and k(t[)t them apart again. lie left Matter, what he
called ' the Thing in itself,' standing in its ultimate essence
stark and naked as before (its properties being skimmed off by
the categories) but on the other hand he endowed the mind
with an elaborate mechanism of grooves, ' forms and categories,'
as he called them, wiiich when the outer world of Mattei in its
concrete form was passed through them, gave to things all those
properties, qualities, and relations which we call the ' knowledge '
of the object or thing. When Fichte in turn followed on Kant,
his first step was to get rid of the blank wall of ^Fatter which
Kant had left standing outmle of the mind, by withdrawing it
inside into the mind itself, where now as integral part of the
mind it stood as a kind of negative pole or background, a kind
of obstruction or cho})ping-block against which when the Ego
or Soul beat and im})inge(l, it was thrown back on itself, as it
were, in the form of some definite quality or categox'y of thought,
which it now by a hallucination imagined it saw as a quality in
Nature; in the same way as light is as black as darkness
while travelling through the inter-planetary spaces, and it is
only when it strikes the atmospliere of our earth that it is
broken into the beautiful blue of the sky. And so the soul
continuing to strike against this polar opposite which had been
incorporated with it as its unwilling bride, formed at each
impact a new category which it applied to Nature, and as these
activities were confined within the circuit of the mind itself, the
categories which grew out of one another were forced upwards
like an ascending spiral, fiight on fiight, each turn of the spiral
disclosing (as when a landscajjc is seen from higher and higher
windows) new and wider vistas, qualities, and relations, which
we fondly imagine in our dreams to exist as realities in the
outer world of Nature herself. And accordingly when Schclling
came to review the ground traversed by Fichte, he saw that
althoujih Fichte was riijht in belicvinij the mind to be in its
essence really a bi-polar thing, and not the mere blank wall or
abstraction which the earlier Metaphysicians had figured it,

1 1

34.S

AIOIIEKX MiyiAI'lFYHICS.

<'oiitiiiniiiii;, aa it (lid, the negative i)ole necessary for the active
side of tlio soul to hreak itself aj>'ainst if it were; to splinter
itself into the (jiialitics constitutive (»f Xatiin; jumI Thought:
yet this negative element could not he the blank wall of Matter
which Fichte had brought from the outside and set up in the
niiud itself. On the contrary he maintained that tin; outei
world was too much in evidence to be thus lightly disposed of,
and that let Metaphysics t<ay what it would, Matter and Nature
liad still an independent existence apart from and separate from
the mind. It occurred to liim, accordingly, that if he could
j)rove that this Matter too, was in its ultimate constitution no
mere blank wall or abstraction as Kant had left it. but in reality
a bi-polar thing like the mind ; (and this he had uo ditticulty in
doing ; for the centripetal and centrifugal motions of Astronomy;
tiie action and reaction, attraction and repulsion, j)(>sitive and
negative, in I'hysics, Chemistry, and Electricity ; the sensory
and motor reactions of animal life, and the like, all proclaimed
it) ; and if fm'tl.er it could be thus shown that the laws of
Matter and the laws of ^lind were identical, would this not
prove that both the Soul and Nature, Mind and Matter were the
offspring of (me and the same Supreme Cause, and that that
Cause must in its nature be bi-polar also, — a Being constituted
of ^lind and Matter indifferently, who constructed the Woi'ld
out of His own inner being, but mixed the elements of His own
essence in different proportions in Mind and Matter respectively ;
putting an excess of Mind, as it were, into the mental side of
things, but with just sufficient dash of Matter in it to form that
negative or obstructive element in Mind which is so necessary,
as we have seen, to evolve its categories, and so to give us an
ordered world of objects ; and an excess of Matter into tlie
pliysical and material side of things, but with mind enough in
tli(! sliape of laws of Nature, to make it instinct with thought
and reason.

With the conception of the World as made up of Mind and
Matter which faced each other not as two blank al)stract

MoDKliX MKTAIMIYSICS.

310

(!ntities, but as two liii^hly ooiicrcto hl-polar suhstanoos undcr-
pr()|)]t('(l I»y an absolute I>i'iii_n', also hi-polar, as their Cause,
S('li('llin<!;'s contribution to the solution of the problems of
nietai)hysical [)hiIosophy, practically ends, — his later work
faliin;^ out (»f the main tnnid of evolution and running into the
sands of Mysticism and Noo-l*latonism. But these two sides of
the World although built on the same I)i-[)olar plan, and
arguing therefore a comnjon bi-polar (.^uise. were still left
confronting each other as isolated and sejjarate existences. To
unify them and knit them together in the same way as they
had each been separately unified and knit together
out of the l)i-polar elements of which tlu'v were
respectively composed, it was not enough merely to under-
prop them with an Absolute Jieing to whom was ascribed
a bi-polar nature like their own. That would no more have
been a genuine exi)lanation of them than it would be a genuine
explanation of the phenomena of life to say that they are due to
the ' vital princi[)l{'.' AVhat was necessary was to trace them
back to some Being, and to show that both their bi-polarity
and their diflerence in nature would be the //ft't'.s.svuv/ result at a
certain stage of their evolution, of j)rinciples inherent in that
Being : in the same way as our [)resent Solar System with its sun
and planets and moon, would be said to be truly explained if it
could be shown to be the necessary result in Time of the evolution
of a primordial homogeneous Force fixed in quantity and
existing in the antagonistic forms of attraction and repulsion, as
Spencer in ado[)ting the Nebular IIy[)othesis has conceived it to
be. But Schelling attempted nothing of the kind. On the
contrary, as Ilcgel said, he shot his Absolute Being out of his
bi-polar World of ^[ind and ^Matter as out of a jjistol, (as if he
had said that the cause of the loss of hair was baldness), instead
of deducing this bi-polar world as the necessary co'isecpience of
the principles latent in the Original Cause. Now this last step
necessary to knit together the world of Mind and Matter so that
they should form a unity, in the same way as Schelling had

a.-.o

MODERN METAI'HYSIC'S.

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alrnuly knit toffctlitM- tho two polos of each s(>p:iratc'ly, was
taken l)y IIo^cl; and t Ik; reason in;jj l)y wliieli lie accomplished
the feat, althou^di it has always been a stiinihlinjf-hloek and
rock of oH'enee to the non-nietaphysieal reader, may after what
hiis heen already said, he i idicated in a {general way with
snHicient clearness to tlie intellij^ihlc.

What Ile^el, then, practically saw was this, that the world
of ^lind and Matter could actually he seen in the process of
hcin^ knit toj^ether and unified every hour of our lives, in what
we call the act of Jotowleihje ; and that the reason why
])recedin<;- thinkers had been unsuccessful in their attempts to
solve the Worhl-problem, was because they did not see (lee[)ly
enough into the mechanism of this process of knowledge.
With the earlier Metaphysicians — Descartes, Malebranehe, and
the others — knowledge, as we have seen, was oidy regarded as
])ossible through the continuous mediation and intervention of
(jod. With Kant all the phenomenal or outside ai)[)earanccs
of things were passed like heads of corn through the categories
of the mind as through the rcdlers of a machine, and so came
out in the form of knowledge ; but their real root and stalk,
the ' Thing-in-itself/ as he called it, was left standing outside,
unknown, and was not to be brouglit within the ordinary
processes of knowledge. Fichte, on the other hand, got his
eye so far on the true method of knowledge as to perceive that
the mind or Ego had in itself a negative or passive element,
against which when it broke it was turned back ou itself in
the form of new categories, which in this way it successively
evolved from itself, as it were. And so having gathereil all
the qualities and properties of Nature into itself, it left Nature,
the shadow of itself, standing out there as the mere phantom
or dream of its own workiny;. Dut Schclliu"- saw that the
human mind were it dilated to ten times its bulk, could no
more swallow and dispose of Nature thus easily than a mere
crocodile could ; and so he left Nature with her bi-polar laws,
standing as an independent entity obstinately confronting

MODKUN MKT.Vl'IIYSira.

351

Mind with her hi-pohir categories, and refusing to he disponed
of. It was at this pouit that Hegel took up the prol>h.'ni. He
licgiin hy reproaching Kant tor his faint-heartechiess in
deserting the field of Knowledge, and pitehing his tent over the
(/onseienee as the sphere of his operations for solving the
problem of the Woild and the (piestion of the existence or
non-existence of the Ideal-World ; contending that if we
eoidd once understand the true mechanism hy which know-
ledge is aecpiired, all we should have to do would he to project
(ids process like a lantern image on to the great screen of the
world, in order to bring the whole realm of Nature with the
l)i-|)olar opposites of Mind and Matter which Scjicliing hud
left standing in unresolved antagonism, within the sweep and
circuit of its evcjlving coils. Now what, according to Hegel,
is the true process and mechanism of knowledge? To Ijegin
with, if we take it as it is seen in its most perfect example,
namely the self-consciousness of man, we shall lind that it
consists essentially in the three-fold movement I»y which the
mind starting from a given point anywhere, goes out of itself,
as it were, to observe the world around, and retiu'us again to
itself enriehevl like a bee with what it has gathered ; then
starting afrcsJi with the new knowledge and experience thus
ac<iuired, goes out again in search of more minute particulars
bearinji' on the subiect it is considering, to return anain still
further enriched with new knowledge and experience, and so
on. And now if we look minutely into this process of self-
conscious knowledge, with the view of ascertaining in what it
consists, what do we discern t First, we have the consciousness
of our own minds and of the inner knowleelge and experience
with which we start ; second, we have the consciousness of the
World and Nature outside and around us ; and thirtl, we have
the consciousness of the something known to us as the Self-
consciousness, which by being conscious at once of ourselves
and of the world without, is the agent, as it were, which brings
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MODKIJN :MKT A PHYSICS.

into what we call knowledge, without the aid of any super-
natural machinery whatever. Now it is true that Kant also
had declared that knowledge is possible only when the outei-
and inner world are brought together in the unity of Self-
Consciousness ; but the difference between them was this :
that whereas the Self-Consciousness of Ilegel is a triple-h(!aded
thing, a kind of Trinity in Unity as it were, which moving
upwards like the spiral of an asctMidIng staircase leads to ever
higher and higher reahns of knowledge, or like a torch whicli
by every fresh addition of light it thus receives is enabled to
irradiate more fully the chinks and ci'annies of the darkness
which still lies before it ; the Self-Consciousness of Kant is
but a point, as it were, a merely formal unity which has no
other function than that of forming, like the apex of a triangle,
the meeting point of the outer and inner experiences that
successively lead up to it ; and so gives us assurance that they
are tlie experiences of one and the same mind or person and
not of two or more. In a word, while the Self-Consciousness
of Kant is like a pit or well, the common rece2)tacle of all that
is thrown into it but from which nothing comes forth ; the
Self-Consciousness of Ilcgel is like a Hank in which all that is
received into it is at once re-invested as accumulated capital
for the opening up of fresh fields of enterprise and knowledge.
Having shown in this way that !Mind and Matter, the Outer
and the Inner World, arc progressively unified in the pi'ocess
of knowledge with its organized triplicity of movement and
relations known as the Self-Conciousness, all you have to do,
says Ilegel, if you would see how the Universe of Mind and
Matter as a ivhole has been unified and evolved, is to take the
movement of self-consciousness that constitutes Knowledge,
strip it of all that is personal, particular, or concrete, and
project it into the Universe a.> its organizing and informing
principle ; nuich in the same way as if you wished to solve a
practical problem involving the higher mathematics, you would
strip it of everything concrete and [)articular, and reduce it to

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Mf)l)KI{\ MBTAIMIYSICS.

353

the relations of ideal lines, cui'ves, symbols, and so forth. And
now if we take self-consciousness as we see it in the act of
knowledge, starting from itself, going out of itself, and
returning again to itself enriched with new knowledge and
experience, and strip it of all that is personal or particular, in
the same way as we might detach the polar forces of a magn(^t
from the magnet itself, what have we got ? A unity in triplicity,
as it were, of essence and movement which Hegel calls ' the
Notion,' and which he conceives to be the agency at work
wherever in the Universe Mind and Matter are to be united.
It is on this triplicity in unity of essence with its spiral
movement of going out of itself and I'cturning to itself in
ascending knowledge that Hegcl makes the whole framework
of things revolve ; it is this that is the invisible strand, the
' diamond net-work " around which the Woi'Id, like a huge
ma^ ut ! "". Cijr:tallized and taken shape, solidity, and flesh-
and-bloo^ . alitj • and it is by this that all things are held
together in their polar opposition at once of attraction and
rc[)ulsion.

Hut the world as wo know it, with its bi-polar constitution of
self-conscious Mind on the one hand, and its bi-polar
constitution of Nature and her laws on the other, which it was
left for Ilegel to unify, is not, it is to be remembered, the earliest
but rather the latest stage in tlie process of evolution ; in the same
way as the moon as it now stands confronting the earth, with its
own separate identity, its own separate and independent move-
ments, belongs to the latest and not to the earliest stage in the
evolution of the Solar System. To get the starting point,
accordingly, from which to apply his triplicity of movement
and essence, Hegel was obliged to begin at the beginning,
namely with simple, pure, undifferentiated Heing or Existence ;
in the same way as in the Nebular Hypothesis we begin with
simple, pure, undifferentiated t orce, to which we apply the
polarizing forces of attraction and repulsion. Starting then
from this point, the movement of Hegel's principle carries,

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354

>roi)El{N METAPHYSICS.

pure Being, (the positive magnetic-pole as it were within the

magnet itself), to Non-being, its polar opposite, from which it

returns again into itself, but this time holding both Being and

Non-being in solution as it were. This is called by Kegel a

becoming, and when arrested at any given point this coming t<.

be or ceasing to be constitutes what he calls a state of being, and

when this definite state again separates itself in thought from

everything but itself, it becomes a limited state, or what for the

first time the ordinary mortal would call a realiti/, a definite

something, the actual magnet of our analogy. If then we

sepanite this something from everything else, and divide it in its

relations to itself into still further and further distinctions, we

get such categories of existence as those which are known to us

as inner and outer, essence and forin, substance and accident,

force and manifestation, cause and effect, action and re-action,

soul and body, and that interdependence of each part on every

other which is the note of organic bodies. And lastly we get

that which we set out to explain, namely Mind and Matter in

the form of a bi-polar Self-consciousness in man (with its

triplicity in unity of movement) on the one hand, and a bi-polar

world of Matter on the other ; eacli standing in apparently but

not really absolute antagon'sm to the other ; the whole process

being analagous to that of the evolution of the Solar System, in

which beginning with a blank, undifferentiated and

homoireneous Force existins; in the antagonistic forms of

attraction and repulsion, you have the whole integrating and

condensing, through the play of these opposite forces, into

what we call Matter; which in turn throws off' the [)lancts, and

the planets moons, each repeating the movements of its {)aroiits

as it were ; and all alike, though seeming to be separate,

independent existences, being in reality but tiie necessary and

correlated effects following in Time from the primitive,

homogeneous and diffused Force in its antagonistic pedes of

attraction and repulsion. The truth is, this system of Hegel's

and the system of Herbert Spencer are practically one and the

:\rODEllN AlETAIMlYSirS.

355

ssime, only seen from the opposite stand-pjints, the one of
Mind, the other of ^Matter. Spencer's definition of Knowledj^e
ji8 ii continuous process of differentiation and inte«i;ration, is
practically the same as Ilegcrs description of it as the snlf-
consciousneas going out of itself to break itself into a
multiplicity of particulars, from which it returns to itself
enriched by thoir re-integration. Spencer, again, evolves the
Universe from a simple, homogeneous, unditt'erentiated Force,
by applying to it the mechanical categories of attraction and
rei)ulsion, Hegel evolves it from pure Being, by applying to it
the polar categories involved in self-consciousness or the
*• notion.' With neither Sju-ncer nor Kegel are Mind and
Matter the absolute opposites they are generally conceived to be,
but only relative opposites ; otherwise they could not be united
in the process of knowledge, With neither llegcl nor S[)encer
is the logic which deals with the World as a whole the same as
tlic ordinary logic which deals with the relaticms to each other
of the separate things in the world ; for while in the latter A
excludes 15 absolutely as it were, in the former A and 13 being
both effects or products of a common Substance, both })arts of
one world, nmst have something in common, and so not only
exclude each other but involve each other as well. Again,
both Hegel and Spencer have attem])ted to deduce Mind and
Matter from some common ground that shall include both ;
but it will be found on close inspection that they have really
<leduced each from the other ; Hegel deducing Matter from the
processes of Mind, Spencer Mind from the jirocesses of Matter.
Hut both have failed, because in the attempt to bridge the gulf
that separates Mind from Matter each has been obliged to
snuiggle into the process the very proo 'ct which it was the
object of his demonstration to evolve /Vo/h it.

And thus it was that Hc-cl claimed to have discovered a
princi[»le which should account in a natural way for the bi-[)artite
division of Nature into a bi-polar self-conscious Mind and
bi-polar laws of Matter, separate and yet united, and without

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MODKUN .METArHYSICS.

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invoking the aid of the Deity to explain it, as was found
necessary by Descartes, Malebranche, and the earlier Meta-
physicians ; a principle wiiich would account for the categories
of the Mind and the phenomenal appearances of Nature as with
Ksuit, as well as for the laws of Mind and the laws of Nature
as with Fichte and Schelling respectively. It vvus for these
reasons, as well as for the affinity which his principle with its
triplicity in unity had with the Trinity in Unity of Christianity,
that Hegel acquired that influence over metaphysical and
theological thinkers which he still enjoys.

Hut to return to our point of departure, we have still to ask
how this system of Hegel stands in reference to the ideals of
men — to God, the Soul, Immortality — with which in th(!su
chapters we are mainly concerned? To begin with, it is evident
from what we have said, that just as the whole life and work of
an individual from youth to age is the product not of one fixed
xmchangeable mind, but of a gi'owing and developing one, so the
evolution of Nature in Time with its living Present and its dead
and fossil Past, is in the j)hilosophy of Hegel the product not
of a fixed and unchanging Deity, but of a growing and developing
Deity rather. And hence it is that when a self-conscious being
like Man ai'ises in Nature in the course of evolution, this fact
itself is a guarantee that the Deity has Himself become
self-conscious. And so, too, when Compassion and Morality
emerge in Man, it is the sign that the Deity Himself is just and
merciful. So that at each point in the progress of created
existences, the Deity will be found to embrace, support, and reflect
the ideals which at that time have arisen. Now this mode of con-
ceiving the Deity as a process or growth, has the advantage over
the God of Pantheism, that it represents God as existing apart from
and transcending the Universe which He has created ; it has the
advantage over the God of Philosophical Theism again, in this,
that by making Nature a fluid, evolving process ivithin the bosom
of the Infinite, it enables us to conceive the relation of the
Infinite to the Finite in a way impossible in a doctrine in which

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these stand to each other in tlie relation of stolid and independent
opposites.

But hardly had the old ideals l)een set on their pedestals ngain
by Kant, and in a less degree by Hegel, who had to strain his
system to get a personal innnortality out of it ; hardly had
(Jonsciencc and the Moral Law been so planted as to point with
fixed finger steadily towards these ideals, than a succession of
thinkers sprang up on all hands who were prepared to show^ that
this much-vaunted Moml-sense with its categorical imperative,
far fi'om Deing the everlasting rocik on which Religion an«l the
Ideal were forever to rest secure, was at bottom only a form of
Self-interest variously disguised. Some, like Helvetius, declared
it to be only a more subtle form of self-love ; others like Hume
and Adam Smith, that it was a kind of inverted sympathy ;
others again, like Diderot, that it was a form of selfishness
nlthongh one which made for the general good ; while in later
times men like Bentham and the Mills declared that it was only
a form of expediency and enlightened self-interest. And so it was
decomposed by one after another of these Materialist Thinkers
until in our own time Spencer gave to the analysis its most
complete scientific form by treating it from the so(!ial nither
than from the individual stand-point, and by making it a matter
of race utility rather than of personal or private utility or
expediency. In the same way when Beauty, Jiove, Keverence,
Pity, and the rest were |)laced under the microscope by these
remorseless iinalysts, they wen; made to forfeit all their ancit-nt
lustre, <|uality, and dignity, and were all alike declared to be
impostors, with [)lebian pedigrees at the first or second remove.
Beauty was resolved into the pleasure merely that comes, through
the power of association, from objects whose rougher corners
have been fined down in the imagination, or memory by time
or distance ; or from functions that have ceased to be given to
work and are now devoted to play, and so on; while Love was
decomposed into a csomplex of qualities, with lust as its chief
ingredient ; and lieverence into fear, with its margins sufficiently

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coiicealed to prevent it from being altdgcther contemptible and
degrading".

And thus it was that the (Mmrch and Pliiios )phy both alike
undermined by scepticism, could oidy keep themselves erect,
as it were, like a couple of crippled paralytics, by leaning one
against the (»thcr I IJoth w(Mr wanting in any general
Cosmogony into which as framework their do(rtrines could fit
harmoniously ; and in consequence the Church continued to
hold on desperately to the Mosaic account of Creation and t()
the Verbal Inspiration, which were to be her bane ; acce[)ting
with gratitude the arm of the Kantian Phih)sophy as a
temporary support in her per[»lexity, while the Metaphysicians
leant on the Church in turn, and were grateful for a crumb of
comfort from her, when their own leaders fell from time to time
into Materialism or Atheism.

And thus it was too that Modern Metaphysics, which unlike
(Ireek Philoso[»hy and Mediaeval Catholicism had no large
general scheme of Cosmogonv in which as in a framework the
ideals of the mind should have their natural and harmonious
sotting, was reduced to the necessity of taking the mind to
pieces and ransacking it as if it were some old dust-bin, in the
hope that justification for one or other or all of these ideals
might be found there — with such shifting, uncertain, and un-
satisfactory results as we have just seen. The weapons which
Avere forged by the earlier Metaphysicians, Descartes and
^lalebranche, out of the process of knowledge, and which were
to be used with deadly execution against the deniers of God
and the Ideal, were by the later metaphysicians, by Hume and
the Illuminati of the French 8chot)l, turned like bayonet points
into their own entrails : while the Conscience which Kant had
so poised as to point to the stars — to Clod, Free-will, and
Inmiortality — was so reversed by the Materialists as to point
to the earth rather, and to their own stomachs mainly. And
what else, indeed, could we expect ? To attempt to demon-
strate by the uua.^sisted human reason that the same human

MODKISN MKTAIMIVHirS.

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reason ciinnot be <i:ot to act at all l)Ut by tlu- perpetual
assistance of the Deity, is not this a curious result of meta-
physical speculation i Is it a whit less absurd than Carlyle's
Irish Saint who j)roposed to swim the Channel carrying his
head l)etwcen his teeth, or than the man who tried to lift
himself by his own boots? Again, is not the attempt to so
manipulate what the universal consciousness of mankind
regards as the /r/V/A qualities of love, beauty, reverence, right,
duty, and the like, that they shall turn out to be mere forms of
the loiv ones of expediency, lust, fear, utility, and so on, — is
this not to utterly stultify and confound alike the common-
sense, the judgment, and the ordinary conversation of mankind,
wliich turn peri)etually on precisely this dljf'erence between
what is high and what is low, what is noble and what is base
in the thoughts, words, and actions of men? Is not this
attempt of the Aletaphysicians to box off certain faculties of
the mind from the rest, and to treat them as isolated, inde-
pendent entities on which to found conclusions as to the
constitution of the world, is this not as bad in its way as the
delusions of those [)er[)etual-motion cscheniers who imagined
that by the ingenious device of boxing off one half of a wheel
from tlic influence of gravitation, they would gain their end by
its continual pull on the other half i And is it surprising
that after all this, the entire method of the Metaphysicians
should seem to me utterly false and illusory, and that when
put forward seriously as the right method for solving the
Problem of the World, it should seem superficial, hollow, and
absurd? But as the future both of Religion and Philosophy
must largely depend on the answer we give as to the valitlity
or not of these methods of Meta[)hysical Speculation for the
solution of the Problem of Existence, I am compelled to
pursue the matter still further in the next Chapter.

But before doinjj so I shoidd like to sav a word or two of a
Thinker who can neither be placed exclusively under the
category of the Metaphysical Thinkers nor yet of the Poetic

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Thinkers with whom we have next to deal, but who from the
peculiar point of view he took up, was enabled to exhibit many
of the beet qualities of both. I allude to Schopenhauer. The
Metaphysicians under Hejifel h.aving exhausted the Intclligenc^e
or Understanding of all the i)ure ore that was to be found in
it for pux'poses of a World-theory, and having enunciated what
by many is regarded as the true law of the movement of
Thought as Thought ; and having under Kant exhausted the
significance of the Conscience in its bearing on the existence
of God, Free-Will, and Immortality ; the only part of the
mind which still remained virgin soil from which to extract
material for a new point of view, was the region of the
emotions, sentiments, and passions. And although as a
miscellaneous collection they were too contradictory, shifting,
and imcertain to afford a steady and definite standpoint for
the thinker, they nevertheless in their combined action as
character, could be fairly rej>rescntcd by the Will as their
practical resultant and outcome. On the Will, accordingly,
Schopenhauer took his stand as the central point for his
explanation of the phenomena of the World and of Human Life,
sind succeeded in so turning the wcu'ld around this will as its
axis as to give birth to an entirely new system of Metaphysical
Philosophy. It is true that all lleligions and Theologies had
made the will their central point, either the will of the gods,
of God, or of deified men and ancestors, but it was always a
will, be it observed, that was directed and informed by the
Intelligence. With Schopenhauer on the contrary, the Will
is the blind, chaotic, tumultuous and unregulated will of the
passions, emotions, and desires, a will which far from being
directed by the intelligence, uses the intelligence as its slave.
Indeed instead of the will and the intelligence acting together
as a unity, as they do in the noimal human mind, they are
systematically walled off from each other by Schopenhauer,
and as natural enemies, kept in separate compartments of the
mind. And it is because he has thus split the mind into these

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<Hftbrent iUvisions and faouIticH with .scpamtc aiiil imlopeiuleiit
functions and })o\vcrf<, and so rovcr8e<l their a(!tit>n tliat tliey
cannot be brought into a unity, as is tlone by the Poetic
Thinkers, that I have sot him (h)\vn as belonging essentially to
the category of the Metaphysicians. And yet, inasnuicli as
the sentiments, passions, appetites, jind desires, on which
through their representative the Will he took his stand, are not
only the root and staple of human character but the secret
springs of hiunan action and <!onduct also, his philosophy
dealing as it does with the relations between these, exhibits
as we sliould expect from a man of his natural powers, an
insight into human life and character, a penetration, subtlety,
und comprehensiveness of view, which are only to be found in
men like Bacon, Shakespeare, Goethe, and the other great
Poetic Thinkers of the world. And although, owing to the
pessimism into which his metajjliysical scheme (and perhaps
his own nature and temper) drove him, he has lost much of the
serenity, surniness, and wholeness of view of these givat
masters of hmnan thought, nevertheless he exhibits in his
writings a wisdom of life, a j)ovver of observation, a pene-
tration into human action and motive, and a fund of wit and
humour, which can only be paralleled in their works, and to
which the writings of the purely Metaphysical Thinkers are
for the most part strangers.

His main position, then, is that the AVoi'ld is the product
not of an Intelligent \Vill as with the lleli<;ious Thinkers and
Theologians, nor of a purely Mechanical Force as with the
Materialists, nor yet of a Spirit realizing itself, as with Ilegol
und the Metaphysicians, but of a blind Force or AVill which
like some heaving primanal chaos swarms with broods of
appetites, passions, and desii-es, all struggling like Carlyle's
pitcher of tamed vipers, to get on to the stage of existence : and
once arrived, all animated with the single purpose of continuing
and perpetuating themselves there. For this purpose they
make for themselves organs or instruments of self-preservation

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MOUEUN IMKTArilYHirs.

iintl rcproiUuition ; in plants, Iciivi'w iind Howcth that contmot
and expand, open or shut, and respond to their appropriate
stiundi in various ways ; ui aniuiais, the l)niin, with the ey*-'s,
ears, nose, mouth, hands and feet, horns, hoofs, ckws, teeth,
and other tlie like or<^ans for the apprehension of food or the
escape from (enemies : while in Man, the self-conscious
int(!lH<^ence which is his j^lory and pr«'ro<>'ative, with its frcoater
ranj^e, delicacy, Hexihility and subtlety, has |)rimarily the
function nterely of enabling him the better to minister t(» these
desires. Like u mass of people casually collected in a crowded
thoroujjjhfare, the World as a whole with the Will by rthich it
is animated ha.-s no end, aim, ov reason in itself; it is only the
individuals comi)osing" it, that have intelligences given them by
which to realize their own particidar ends with the greatest
directness and ease. But the whole being without end, aim, or
reason, what can it all mean for tlu^ individual but sutlering,
disappointment, misery, sorrow, decay, and inevitable death,
tempered for the lower creatures by the ephemeral pleasures of
the hour, and for the higher, by the brief illusory vision of the
Ideal wlu(;h still haunts the mind, but which as it can never be
realized, in the end but adds to the disenchantment and sorrow.
Th(!se ideals, which are the subject of ab Art, and which
correspond to those perfect and eternal types of things which
Plato saw peopling the stars and making music among the
spheres, before they were let down into their earthly vestures
of decay — these pictures of the Ideal, which cannot be got by
any process of addition or subtraction but only by an intuition
of the imagination, and which by their aloofness and pei^fection
calm and subdue the spirit, have no more real significance
ac(!ording to Schopenhauer, than has the sight of a well-spread
bancjuet to beggars; being but the perfect I'ealization of
desires which owing to the obstructions and imperfections of
the actual world, can never be fully realized.

And what then, according to Schopenhauer, is to be done '{
Existence having its essence and root in a blind chaos of

MODKIJV MKTAI'IIYHirs.

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tiniiultuuiis I'.iul (•oiiHictin^- piiMMions mid dewircs lumped t<)<;('tli<T
under the ;i;encral desij^niitiou ot" the Will, (heliind wli'cli
however there is no (f()d),iind hiinj^ out hefore the soid like the
'eils of illusion in Hindoo IMiilos()|ihy to deetiive it, what on;jflit
I'hilos«»i)hy to do hut to seareh (lili<^«'utly for the s[ieedie8t and
most effective means of riddiu;;' us of this world, and brinjiin^
it to an end? And when we ask how this is to he done,
Schopenhauer replies, l»y turnini'' the will a<;iiiust itself as it
were: and this he proposes to accomplish hy means of Intellect
which l)e<;!nuin<jj as a slave yoked to the service of the will ami
its passions, at last when it -^.tains to fidl self-consciousness in
Man and sees that tin; master of whom it has heen the dupe is
n(» legitimate sovereign, hut a besotted slave Hkc itsiilf, tiu'us on
it and rends it. This it does on the one hand by withdrawing
the mind from the iimnediate iiiHuence of the passions, hy the
calming influence which comes from the contemplation of pure
works of Art: and on the other by the mortification of the
body and its desires by all the devices of Hindoo asceticism,
and bv the cultivation of that good-will to others which, as in
Ihuldhism. would help others rather than exploi*^ them, would
pity them rather than be revenged on them. In this way the
Intellect having cleared the soul of the delusions by which it is
enthralled, and having tiu'ued the will and its passions against
thenjselves to jjroduce extinction, like those rays of light wlu»se
ethereal waves when they strike their opposites, produce dark-
ness; the Intellect huving thus done its work, can then sink
into Nirvana its haven of eternal rest, like those seeds which in
the beautiful meta])hor of the great Hindoo sage, after clearing
the water in the pitcher of its nuid, having done their w(»rk,
themselves sink to the bottom.

Now it is evident that such a system as this could have no
future in European Thought, where the Intellect is always
regarded as the master and director of the M'ill and never, as in
Oriental Thought, its slave. It is true that Von Ilartmann,
living closer to Darwinian times, and perceiving the evidences

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MOUKUN METAl'HYSICS.

in Nature ami Iliiinan Life of a more continuous and unbroken
evolution than did Schopenhauer, — who for each species and
variety of thin<>; would have a separate Platonic Idea or Tyi)e
of Will as its cause, like those old Theoloj^ians who in like case
demanded a separate act of creation or interposition of God —
sought to correct this defect of his master by arming the blind
Will with the intelligent princi])le of evolution of Hegel — the
ascending spiral movement of the Idea which we have already
seen — so as to give it ('(mtinuity, meaning, and a definite aim.
But as all ended as with Schopenhauer in disappointment,
delusion, and sorrow, there was nothing for it but like him to
turn the will against itself by means of the Intelligence, and so
bring all to extinction again, and to the silence of the
Unconscious, as he calls it, from which it originally arose.
With this apotheosis of the blind Will as the central principle
of Thought, Metaphysical Speculation properly so called ran its
full course and came to an end. It had taken its stand as we
have seen, successively on the Intelligence, the Conscience and
the Will with its passions and desires, and no part of the mind
was now left as fresh standpoint for a new theory of the Woi-Jd
and of Human Life. And accordingly since then it has
reverted largely to the position occupied by Hegel, and all that
is left of the laborious structure of Schopenhauer, is the ring of
beautiful jewels of wit and wisdom into which, like the snake
in Goethe's ' Tale,' it dissolved when its outer metaphysical
husk and framework had decayed.

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CHAPTER YI.

OEITICISMS AND CONCLUSIONS.

^T^HE iiiaiu reason, perhaps, why the Modern Meta})hysician.v
-*- both repelled and disappointed me, was that on all sides
of their industry and activity they stoi)ped short just at the
point where my interest was ready tc begin. In tlie intellectual
region, the categories with which they dealt — Time, Space,
quality, quantity, cause and effect, and the like, — were of the
cheapest and most elementary character, and cf)uld as little be
said to represent the subtlety and complexity of the intellectual
world, as the foundations of Westminster Abbey can be
said to rep>'esent the elaborate harmonies and beauties of \t»
superstructure. How indeed, could so shabby an assortment as
these, all of which are common to the very brutes, represent the
infinite complexity and subtlety, the endless variety and
beauty of Nature and the Human Mind? And how could
the explanation of them be scrioush put forward as an
explanation either of the WorM or of the Human Mind ? It
was an explanation of the substance of things not of their flavour,
of their likeness or diflbrence not of their quality, rank, or
degree, of their physics not their vital chemistry, of their botany
not their beauty. Tt was the same when leaving the intellectual
region, the Metaphysicians set to work to decompose the other
aftections and activities of the mind ; for after splitting these
with much ingenuity and show of subtlety into their component

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f/.f.

elements, as one might a house into its separate bricks or stones,
they contentedly rested here as if their work were complete,
without attempting to re-unite them by means of the laws and
relations that exist between them, into that living whole known
as the organized human mind. It was as if hoys after taking a
watch to pieces and putting its separate wheels and pinions
into different compartments duly labelled, but unable to put
them together again so that the watch should go, should yet
persist in calling this a knowledge of the watch ; or as if a
butcher after laying out the different parts of a carcass in their
respective places on his stall, should call this a knowledge of
the animal. Now what I wanted was not so nnich the
decomposition of the mind into its elements, as the re-
composition of these elements by means of their relations and
connexions, into a living whole again ; so that on one emotion
or sensation arising in the mind, the others that foUow on it or
out of it might be foreseen. This alone can be pr()i)erly called
a scientific knowledge of the human mind, and may be seen
abundantly on every page of Bacon, Shakspeare, (ioethe,
Emerson, Carlyle, and the other great observers of human life,
but rarely in the works of the Metaphysicians properly so called.
I Avas repelled too, by what 1 felt to be the intellectual
i'owiplacency of tlie men who coidd seriously imagine that the
infinite delicacy and subtlety of the web or tissue known as the
mind, and which had taken countless ages of evolution to weave,
could be ade(piately sampled and represented by the few cheap
and shabby threads which they had drawn out from its meshes.
And after all, with what result? Why, with this, that all that
is express and admirable in the human spirit was squeezed out
of it by this disintegrating process by which they flattered
themselves they were getting its real essence ; so that when you
read their definitions of what love is, of what reverence is, of
what heroism is, of what beauty, truth, and right are, all
the associations by which they are endeared to us, all the
perfume and delicacy which they carry with them and which as

CniTICISMS AND CONCLUSIONS.

;5()7

their real and true essence they exhale, were driven oflP them as
if they had heen j)assed throuj^h a chemical retort, and the very
words love, beauty, justice, now that their virtue was all sucked
out of them, afflicted you when they fell on your ear, or when
you came across them on .ae printed page, as if they were so
many old shrivelled and empty grape-skins. And as for the
analysis itself, if it came to that, all this had already been done
for me, and with nuicn more thoroughness, by men like Bain.
Spencer, and the Modern School of Psychologists, and by means
too of distinctions which so far as they go, have a real basis
and warrant in the Scientific Physiology and Psychology of the
))rcscnt day. Put the worst offence of all in my eyes |)erhaps,
Avas that out of these little se})aratc bits of coloured glass into
which they had bi'oken down the faculties and affections of the
organized human mind, they proceeded to (Compose what they
would seriously have us take for a real eye or lens through which
we were to see and interpret the phenomena of the world,
instead of through the natural eye that has been provided us,
the organized human mind as it is. — a crowning absurdity. I
missed, too, as 1 have said, in those Metaphysicians, that insight
into the concrete world of human life, that wisdom of the world,
and knowledge of men and things, win<;h had been my absorbing
iiucrest since my old phrenological days, and which 1 demanded
as a kind of })reliminary testimonial and guarantee from all those
who should seek to win my confidence for a deeper })lunge into
more abstruse regions of thought and speculation ; on the
principle, I sui)pose, expressed by Goethe, that it is tJie man
who sees farthest into the present finite world, who is the most
likely to see farthest into the world of the infinite and unseen.

Hnt my main reason, perhaps, for ultimately rejecting the
long line of Metaphysical Thinkers stretching from Descartes
to llcgcl, was that none of them for want of sufhcicnt s(!ientif!c
proof, had properly grasjied and laid to heart the great (h)ctrine
of Modern Scientific Psychology — the doctrine namely of the
intimate and exact dependence of every thought, impulse, and

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CIJITICISMS AND CONCLUSIONS.

emotion of the mind on the physical structure and condition,
the molecular activity, of the brain and nervous system ; and
I felt that it would be as absurd to ignore this central truth in
any great scheme of the World, as it would be to ignore in
daily life the effect of the wine a man had drunk on the
momentary expression of his feelings, or the effect of the
opium he had taken on the quality and texture of his dreams.
For I saw that with an entity like the mind as it is conceived
by the Metaphysicians, an entity, that is to say, which Is
independent of all time, space, or matter, ..nd which in
consequence can pervade the Universe like an ether or pass
through stone walls like a Mahatma, with an entity like this it
was as easy a task to get across from the Ileal tt) the Ideal —
lo get a God, a Soul, a Free-will, and an Immortality — as it is
f(»r boys at school to scale inaccessible fortresses or to construct
impossible bridges over yawning cha><ms by means of ideal
constructions and diagmms on their slates. For from the
entity known us the Soul, thus disengaged from body, Immor-
tality was an easy and natural sequence, while the idea of a
God was but a natural and obvious inference. But to bridge
the gulf between the Real and the Ideal by a real structure of
wood and stone, by a mind, thi't is to say, with a nervous
system yoked to it and ready by its gravity at any moment to
precipitate the whole structure into the abyss below, — that was
quite another matter and one by no means so easy of accom-
plishment. Hegel, I am aware, is believed by his followers to
have accomplished the feat by the happy expedient of beginning
from both ends at once, but he too, as we have seen, failed like
the rest ; the only difference between him and his predecessors
being that while they imagined they had got across it on the
back of their abstract entity called the Intelligence, or (as in
the case of Kant), the Conscience, at a single bound as it were,
(like the men who in Goethe's ' Tale ' got across it on the back
of the Giant's Shadow), Hegel professed to have got across by
creeping cautiously from both ends at once, throwing out

cniTicrsMs and conclusions.

•dC^f*

bastions and girders before him as he went, until they should
meet in the centre. But it was found that the Real and the
Ideal, Mind and Matter, although apparently bridged, had
actually as deep a rift between them as before ; although it had
been ciuuiingly concealed by the canopy of phrases which
Hegel had thrown over the points of junction.

Now in a work of this kind, whose aim prinuirily is to indicate
as succinctly and conscientiously as possible the successive
stages through which I travelled in my mental evolution, with
just sufHcient illustration to make its course intelligible to the
general reader, the full and detailed proof of all the [jositions
taken up in these chapters cannot of course be ex[)ected, and
must be reserved for its proper place in my 'History of
Intellectual Development.' Enough, however, will 1 trust
have been said to show that with this great bouUler of the
dependence of mind on the physical conditions of the brain
and nervous system, which the Metaphysicians had neglected,
standing in my way and blocking the ordinary even course of
the philosophic stream, all hope of regrining my lost ideal
through the analytic labours of these Metaphysicians, would
have to be resigned. And accordinglv, after two or three
years spent in these studies, with my health permanently
nijured by the overstrain incident on the thought and labour
they entailed ; with my ideal still unfound and my mind
bereaved as of a lost love, I was obliged to set them aside and
to turn elsewhere. Not that I came altogether empty away
from the study of the writings of these thinkers ; on the
contrary, and especially in tlie case of Kant and Hegel, I was
enriched by the acquisition of many precious jewels which they
had let fall by the way. ^ly only com[)laint was that they had
not solved for me the particular per[)lexitics created by the
scientific discoveries and ueueralizations which had arisen since
they had completed their labours. Not that they were iKjt
justified in making Mind rather than Matter their staud[)oirit for
the interpretation of the phenomena of the \Yorld and of Human

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c;niTiciSMS and conclusions.

Life; (on tlie contrary in making Matter and t\\o liiuvs of Matter,
primary, as Spencer has done, no solution of the World-problem,
jiswe shall see fui'ther on, is possible at all); but only this, that in
taking as their standpoint an abstract entity called the mind,
independent i,i its connexion with the brain and nervous
system, they scored at best but a cheap and easy vicLory, and
one having in it none of the elements necessary for a j)ermanent
and abiding peace. And yet, before completing this period of
my mental histoiy, I almost feel as if son apology were due to
the reader for the apparently summary way in which in this
narrative I have disposed of these, in many ways the master-
spirits of the world, the great playei's in the game of thought,
my only excuse (and I trust it will be regnrdcd as a sntticient
one) must be, that had they lived in our own time, and with the
immense acquisitions of knowledge which recent science has
[)laced at our command, they would not have wished it otlier-
wise ; they wo'dd no more have thought as they did, or
constructed their systems on the principles they did, than would
Plato, Aristotle, or Ptolemy.

But once emerged from this thicket of metaphysical subtlety
into the ojjcn again, I found myself in possession of certain
definite conclusions as to how the World-problem is to be
approached, and the method to be employed in its solution,
which J had not seen before but which had gradually been
impressed on me during the course of these wanderings in
search of the Lost Ideal, and which may be set down liert; as
follows, —

To begin with, I saw that just as no subtlety of liuman
penetration or analysis can ever, as Bacon says, exhaust tlu;
infinite subtlety of Nature and the midtiplicity of causes and
agencies at work there, so no analysis of the human mind can
exhaust the complexity of its secret mechanism, or the vast
and multitudinous chain of causes that have been concerned in
its evolution and develoj)ment, and that in consecpicnce, how-
ever useful the results of such analysis may be as inHtrntnentx

ciMTinsMs AND coxn.rsioxs.

871

or oiji'iitH for minor enquiries, tliev cannot either se| finitely or
in combination be made tlie xtainljioiht of interpretatlmi for the
phenomena of the VVorhl as a whole. For just as the relations
of a landscape can be got only through the human eye as an
organic whole, however much scientists may ditt'er as to the
I'elative parts played in the function of sight by the cornea, the
lens, and the retina, respectively ; so insight into the World-
problem (so far that is to say as it is practically permitted na
to see,) can be got oidy from the standpoint of the human
mind as an organized whole, however much Metaphysicians
and Psychologists may difter as to the ultimate comp(»sition of
its various faculties, affections, and powers. lndee<l the farther
I went the more clearly 1 perceived that making every allow-
ance fm" the endless extension of knowledge in the future from
the appearance or development of new and higher powers in
man ; for the present at least, and for practical pur[)oses of
lif(!, no adequate representation of the World is to be had
except by bringing the mind cik an orfjmiizcd whole with all its
complex radiances, subtleties, poetic intuitions, and so forth,
fused into a pure whit(! light, to bear on each and every ])oint
as it were ; at the same time that we use as instruments of
investigation such of its elements as are appropriate in ear;h
case for the purpose of focussing the object; in the same way
as in ordinary sight the eye as a whole uses now this muscle,
now that, to bring the object into view; now contracts the
IHipil, now dilates it ; now swells the lens, now elongates it, as
occasion requires, in order to give the object its true iigure.
projjortion, and perspective in the landscape.

In the second place, I saw that if I were ever to attain to
such a harmonit)US view of the AVoi-ld as should restore to me
my lost ideals, (not necessarily the old theological ones,) it
rtould have to be reached neither from the stand[)oint of the
mind as such alone, nor from the standpoint of the brain and
nervous sj^stem alone, with their laws of molecular acti\ ity. but
fi'om a combination of both as it were. Not from the mind

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372

CRiTinsiNis AM) c;()Nt;i<usi()Xs.

iilonu !i8 !in iil).striict entity iiidi-poiKk'nt of and unc(»nnecte<l
with tlio nervous system, us witli tlie Metaphyslciiins ; for with
an instrument of such etliereality and suhtlety, any feat of
legenlemaiH in the way of cuttinji; (Jordian knots and I)ridging
abysses between the lieal and the I(h!al wouhl, as we have
seen, be jiossiblo. Not, on the othcn' hand, from the brain and
nervous system alone or tlie bnvs of molecular motion which
they obey, as with Spencer and the Materialists and Psycholo-
<>Msts ; for could these molecular motions be calculated in
number, direction, and velocity, to a fraction of mathematical
exactitude for each separate act ov reflection of the mind, no
idea of what feelinj;- was hi<>h or what was l(»w, what was
honourable, what base in the human spirit could be got out of
them, any more than the tjiKilIti/ of colours could be got from
the number of the ethereal vibrations which impinge on the
retina of the eye. 1 saw, in a word, that if I was ever to get
an adequate pictui'c; of the \^^)rld, and one that should give
support to the ideals which I had h)st, it would have to come
from the double standpoint at once of mind and of the matter
of the brain and nervous system. Not from the standpoint of
Mind and Matter as two sides of one and the same thing, in
which neither side has its distinctive function but each may be
used interchangeably with the other, as in Spinoza; but from
such a division of functions that while the molecular condition
of the bniin and nervous system shall be our standi)oint for
determining and explaining the variations in the relative
strength and activity of the different mental powers, their
faintness or vividness, their sh)wness or rapidity, their mode of
jjrocession and the like ; the mind itself as mind, its own
goldstick in waiting, shall be our standpoint for regulating and
determining their relative dignity, precedence, and importance
among themselves ; shall itself settle the relative weight that is
to be attached to reverence or fear, to heroism or self-
indulgence, to justice or expediency, to love or lust, iind the
like.

Ill

CRITinSMS AND rONTLrSIONS.

373

idginj;
) liHve

And liistly and most important conclusion of all, I .«aw that
if I was ever to find the Ideal I had lost, it was a nuitter of
inipossihility that I should find it by the method of the
Metaphysicians. As well ho|)e to find beauty in a face by
jilanting your microscope in succession over every scpiare inch
of its siu'face, as to find the Ideal in the mind by the successive
analysis and dissection of its separate elements or powers.
Like V-rtuc, or Ijcauty, or Heroism, the Ideal exists only in
relsition to its opposite, and you can no more get it without a
Real to oppose to it than you can get Good without Evil,
Beauty without Ugliness, and so forth ; in the same way as
if everything in the Universe wen; dark, there were nothing
to distinguish it from light, if all were negative, there were
nothing to distinguish it from positive, so if all were Matter,
there were nothing to distinguish it from Spirit, if all were
Keal, there were nothing to distinguisli it from the Ideal, and
vice vevKa. And so it followed of necessitv that if there were
to be any solution of the World-problem at all which should
find rf)()m for the Ideal, it could only be had from taking our
stiuid on the miiul as a tohoh; where all these opjiosites exist
together at once and where alone they can find their proper
lanking and precedence, and not from taking our stand on the
separate analysis of its faculties, and where you can no more
find the ideal than you can find rank in a king independently
of his relation to his subjects, or than you can find the
j)roperties peculiar to a line by any manipulation of the separate
and successive points of which it is composed.

These various considerations seemed to me final as to the
advantages which at tin; present day were to be got out of the
study of Metaphysics proper, and from that time onward I |)ut
it away from me for good, and except for si)ecial purposes as
in the case of Ilegsl and Schopenhauer, 1 never returned to it
again.

Hut was such a system of Philosoi)hy anywhere to be found,
the reader will ask, as one which should fulfil all the conditions

:i 2

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374

CUITICISMS AND CONrLUSION.S.

involv(3(l in the above criticism of the works of the Metu-
phywicians and pHychologiats? None, so far as 1 am aware,
that fiilfilliul all the conditions, for none had been confronted
with the complications introduced by the discoveries of Darwin
and by the "generalizations of Ilerl)ert Spencer; but in my
forced march throuj^h tiie phih)so|)hies of the centuries 1 cauj^ht
^'lin)pses of such a philosophy here and there in tlie works of
thinkers who either from tiieir own spontaneous genius, or from
the intellectual necessities of the times in which they lived
(usually at the end and break-uj) of a world-period of thought),
returned in their thiid<ing to something of the wholeness, the
freshness, and the simplicity of the Ancients again. Such men
were as the reader may have surmised, Hacon and Shakespeare
in the earlier time ; Goethe, Comte, and to a certain extent
Schojjeidiauer and llegel in the intervening period ; and in our
own time a few on whom the spirit of Goethe had descended,
or who by their own genius had caught the new sjjirit of the
time. Of these were Carlyle, Emerson, Kuskin, and strange
as it may seem at first sight, Cardinal Newman. On these,
for reasons which will ai)i)ear in a succeeding chapter, 1 fastened
with a lifo-and-death intensity and tenacity of gri[), resolved if
[)ossible not to let them go until 1 had won from them the
secrets they had to impart to me. And although none of them
succeeded in altogether removing the special per[)lexities and
difficulties under which 1 was labouring (as indeed most of
them had done their life-work before the ' Origin of Species '
and Spencer's ' IMiiiosophy of Evolution ' had disturbed the
placid current of philosophical speculation), they nevertheless
besitles the de[)th and riches of their s[)ecial views on men and
things, many of which are good for all time, left me with
suggestions as to points of view, and hints as to philosophical
method, which were of inestimable value to me. 1 have called
them the Poetic Thinkers to distinguish them from the
Metafdiysical Thinkers whom 1 have just ])assed undor review.
How 1 fared with them at this period of my life, what I got

CRITICISMS AND CONCLUSIONS.

375

from tliL'in, and wlmt from difference in tempcnimcnt and in
the ' perfioiiid ('(luation ' ns it is called, I wus unable fully to
appreciate in tliem— all this I nhall endeavour faithfully to
record in a future chapter.

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1, 1
1 1

CHAPTER VII.

A VISIT TO CARLYLE.

1 1

' 1

FT was shortly before the end of my studios of the;
Metiipliysieiil Thinkers wliom I Imvo passed tinder revi(!\v,
tlint owiiiffto my j^rowin<^ dissiitisfiu'tion both witli their method
jiiid results I was drawn by the <^reat reputation of (,^arlyle then
at th(! hei_i>;ht of his fume, to the writinj^s of that distini>iii.>he(l
Thinker, after havin<j^ laid them aside some years earli(!r, as the
reader may remember, on account of the difficulty I experieneed
in understandin<r his 'Sartor Resartus.' liut for sonu; time
this second attempt seemed likely to prove as unsuccessful as
the first. On this occasion T started with his writings on
So(!ial topics, owing to some comments made at the time on his
theori(!s by tlu? I'l'ess, and took up his ' Latter Day l*an»phlets,'
op(!nin<>' I remember with the paper on the 'Negro (Question'
which was prefixeil to them, and passing rapidly but with
increasing amazement and perplexity through the various i)a})ers
<m 'Model-prisons,' 'Downing Street,' 'Hudson's Statues,"

* flesuitism,' and the rest, until I reached the end. liut if his

* Sartor' had repelled me by its obscurity and difficulty, these
j)apers although easily enough understood, repelled me still
more, not only by the viewf^, they inculcated but by the proi)hetic
form of their utterance, and the peculiar language in which they
were expressed. As a Colonial I was deeply imbued with
notions of personal liberty ; and these pictures of Carlyle's ideal

A VISIT TO CAIfLYI.i:.

377

Sfiito with its ciili^lifciKMl despot uh Kiiij;. ami tlu; rcsl of
society miir('liiii;jf siiliiiiisHivcIy to his orders, like those pipe-
(dayed soldim-s whom lie so much luhnired in the Park: witli
his rc<(iments of the poor and uncniploye(l packed ott' with spa(h!
and pi(d<ax<! to Salishury I'hiin, there to earn their livinj; under
the sin'v<'iliaiice of 'Captains of Industry' wlio with military
ri;;our were t(» first caution them, then if they disoheyed orders,
to whip theui,aiul in the end if they proved incorri<^il)le to shoot
them! — all this with his views of the ' Ne<^ro (Question' where
you SCI! the whip ot tluf heneficent slave-owner d(!scendiiiu'
on the hare hack of ' IJIack (^uashec ' as he sits idlinji; and
muiu'hin}:^ his piuupkiiis in the sun; and witli his concepti<»n of
a Nineteenth Ceuturv Cromwell marching; his dra^joons into
St. Stephens and hrutally upsettin<jf the hallot-hoxes and the
rest of the complicated nia<'hincry of the Suffrage, — its 'one
man one vote,' its 'rej)rc"'._'ntation by population ' and the otiier
ingenious devices for the protection of (mr liberties wiiicli
(Hir forefathers had with much labour and sweat won from the
iiard hand of despotism — all this ran full tilt against my inujost
natiu'cand the traditions in which 1 had been brought up. And
although there was much in these diatribes with which I
sympathized, as with liis righteous indignation when he thinks
of tlutse Model prisons with their spacious corridors up and
down which th(! scomulrels of society paced at their ease,
while the hou(!st poor in their cobbler's stalls outside, or in their
little shops 'with tb(! herrings and cross-pipes in the window,'
strove hard to kt^ep iiody and soul together and to i)ay the rates
and taxes necessary to keep these scoundrels in their luxury;
or where ho warns the 'idle classes' who think they have 'rights
but not duties,' that outside their chamber windows there were
' mere iron-pikes and the; law of gravitation ; ' or again where he
pictures the 'patent treacle philanthr()[)y ' of Kxetcr Hall as at
last being di'unnued out ignominiously by a disgusted nation,
'the very populace Hinging dead cats at it;' — although all this
was calculat(!d to arnist the attention of the thoughtful and <rivc

A VISIT TO CAKLYLE.

tliciii piuise, siill it wiis not sufficient to compensate with me for
the attiicks on personal liberty which lay at its root — that
|)ersonal independence which intrenched as it was strong in
sentiiiient and tradition in the mother country, burned as I have
said in the (.-olonies, and especially in the backwoods and
outskirts of civilization where 1 was brouf^ht up, with the
fienienessof a passion. With his attacks on l*olitical Economy,
aj^ain, with its <(ospel of laixsez /aire, its 'supply and demand,'
its 'cash the sole nexus,' and ' Devil take the hindmost,' I was
concerned only in so far as I conceived them to be another form
of his <feiieral attack on personal liberty; for at that time I luul
yivcn little or no thought to these questions. Still as he
(!Xprcssly declared that he had in his time been condemned
for his sins to read ' barrowfuls ' (»f works on these subjects,
I was prepared and even anxious to give to what he
had to say the most careful attention and consideration,
liut the wearisome iteration and repetition of such phrases as 1
have mentioned, and the wholesale denunciation of the principles
expressed by them without any attempt at a formal scicntifL
refutation or proof, was sufficient with me to turn the scale
agaiuftt him, and to deter me from prosecuting the subject any
farther on these lines. I felt that however wrong the orthodox
doctrines of the Economists might be, these views of his, at least,
were (juite imi)racticable. Then again his style was to me a real
infliction. With its perpetual rei)etition of the same thoughts
in almost identical language, with its catchwords, its metaplun's
drawn for the most part from a few stereotyped images — tlie
stars, Hell, the dunghill, chaos, or the bogs, — and re[)eated ad
nmiKeain ; with his vague a[)pcals to the Innnensities and
Eternities, his tone of querulousness, and the monotony of his
diatribes, so long drawn out as to lose except in a few isolated
passages all their felicity, [)()int,'or vigour, while the sentences
were so ct)nstructed that in their fall they continually outraged
the ear by their uncouthness and abruptness, — all this in spite
(if the uncpiestionable tone of authority that ran through these

A VISIT TO ^A^•^YLE.

•M\)

iittcriuiccs, produced on me the siuue peculiar and unpleasant
I'cclin};' that is produced by the entrance into a society of cultured
and well-bred people of a harsh and aggressive boor. Nor did
his assumption of the prophet's mantle, with cries and screaujs
and (execrations in the place of argument in the treatment of
(puistions which of all others recpiire to ensure conviction the
most passionless and logical exposition and illustration, impress
me much; while the tone of authority which ran through these
disc(»urses, weakened as it was by the endless repetitions, the
fpicrulousness, and the impatience which mingled with it all
Mild which was so unbefitting the temper of a philoso[)her, instead
of impressing me offended me, rather, by the violence done to
my own pride in so unceremoniously pushing me along a road
on which if I were to go at all, I should have to be led and not
di'iven. lUit if the tone and form and the opinions expressed in
these pamphlets of Carlyle alike repelled me, even the high
moral i)oint of view assumed throughout with its fierce
(sarncstness and sincerity, served rather to damp and chill than
to animate and inspire ?ne. I felt that it was pitched altogether
too high for me ; and 1 was by no means prepared for the [)eculiar
sacrifices which it required, and which seemed to demand as
their preliminary the fiinging oneself down at the feet of some
man who slumld assign to each the precise niche he was to
oc('ui»y in the social structure, without will or choice of his own
— and all for the benefit of some vague abstraction known as the
general good. Now I had been in the habit of feeling that no
one could be trusted to know what was in a man, and to bring
it out, so well IS the man himself; in the same way as with all
it> drawbacks each man can on the whole best be trusted lo
<'h(»o.-;e his own wife ; and having besides no faith in Carlyles
fabled 'saviours of society,' or excess of reverence fen* them, 1
(•<»nld not consent to have my life and fortunes thus suuunarily
disposed of by some poor creature like myself. Besides I am
afraid my ambition was largely a [)crsonal one, and consisted
rat her in the desire to realise some meat ideal with which I

l]rl

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A VISIT TO f AKLYI.E.

i ■•!

sliould be personally identified, than to sacrifice jnysclf in the
rcalizjitioii of otiier people's, or for that vague abstraction the
* public u^ood.' The fact is that at that time T had never given
a thought to the public good, and so far as I can remember, it
never entered into my calculations at all ; the utmost that I
contemplated as regarded other people in the eflfbrt of carving my
way through the obstructions which I must necessarily encounter
in realizing my own ideals, being to interfere as little as possible
with them, to be tolerant and respectful, and to make amend,-" for
mv own shortcominjis bv not being too critical of the failings of
others. Farther than this I was not prepared to go. The
consequence was that all this high morality of Carlyle's,
with the prison drill by which it was to be realized, afflicted
me as with a kind of nightn)are. I imagined I could hear the
doors of ny [)rison-house ch)sing behind me, and instead of
tending to exalt and expand my particular nature, it served
only to depress and benumh it. I felt that however good it
might ho for others, for Society as a whole, or for the mass of
scoundrelism that has at all times by forcible means to be
repressed, it would not suit me ; and thanking ( jod that there
was no chance of his ideas being carried into effect in my time
I was about to drop Carlyle once and for all, wlu;n a copy of
the ' Sartor Kesartus ' again fell into my hands. Du opening
it casually at the autobiographical sections I was surprised and
interested to find that he too had suffered deeply in bis early
years from the decay of belief, and from the Materialism and
Utilitarianism which had set in, as we have seen, on the
break-up of the Kantian doctrine of the Conscienco, and its
decomposition into a mere form of self-interest or ex|)ediency ;
and further that after long wanderings in the wihUu'uess in his
search for the lost ideal, he had at last found it and been
delivercil from his doubt and nn'sery mainly through the
infiuence of (ioethe. I was deeply interested in his solution
which ran somewhat as follows: — that our nnhappiness arises
from the fact that in this limited world our desires, which

"""

A VISIT TO CAULVLE.

381

unlike those of the lower iininuiLs are iin/lntUed \n their range
and ,'ariety, never can be fully satisfied ; — no, not if our poor
earth were as big: as the Universe even : — but we shall still be
longing for something beyond; and that this being so, if
instead of dwelling on oiu' own wants we were once for all to
renounce th(!in, and think instead of how best we could minister
to the wants of others, we should find in this self-renuneiati(m
a blessedness more sweet than any poor happiness we can
possibly get out of what must forever be the incomplete
satisfaction (jf our own longings. And this feeling of blessed-
ness it is on which Carlyle relies to prove that self-renunciation
is the true law of life for man, and that it was put into his
heart by God for this purpose. ' Feel it in thy heart ' he says
* and then say whether it is of God.' So that if the Ideal is
not to be found in the confused vortices of the World, it at
any rate, according to Carlyle, is to be found in the human
soul itself, and can be brought out thence to shape and guide
the life and work of every day to ideal ends. Now all this
was very true, but what I Avanted was to find evidence of it in
the World ; and the reasons why this Goethe-Carlyle solution
did not meet my own i)eculiiir difficulties were as follows. — In
the first place, 1 did not in point of fact specially complain of
unha[)[)iness as such ; on the contrary in a world where the
Ideal if it exist at all, must be wrought out l)y the exertions of
individuals each of whom being born to die, must in the
struggle to realize that ideal be subject to the chances of Time
and Fate, — in such a world uidiai)piness of some kind is a
necessity : and I was not prej)ared to condemn the ground-plan
on which the Universe is constructed, merely because 1 was
unhii[)py. My difficulty was rather tiiis, that if — as was
taught by Spencer and the^Iaterialists — intellect, virtue, genius,
justice, hei'oism, and the rest are but molecular motions in the
brain substiuice, in the same way as heat is molecular motion in
a l)ar of iron ; and are only forms of self-interest and expediencv
variously disguised, all alike to end in dust and ashes; if this

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A VISIT TO CAULYLE.

I !

' '«

t \

l)c so, then nothing f:;rcat or ideal exists in the \v(»rhl at all,
nothing worthy of a life's devotion, or, if you will, of a life's
ambition, not even of an honest vanity or pride ; and the
blessedness, in consequence, which was to be got out oi self-
sacrifice, and of which so much was made by Carlyle and
(ioethe, instead of demonstrating the existence of an idcid in
the mind, only went so far as to jirovc that the mind could be
so manipulated as to get satisfacti(m out of what was at best
essentially but a bad business; much in the same way as a man
can be hypnotized and made to feel ha])py in circumstances or
situations where he neither is nor ou<rht to be ha[)py at all.
And as I had neither a desire to live to make money, nor for tlu;
pleasures of the table, nor yet to gain vulgar applause for some
hollow or chea[) achievement, my feeling was that if there were
no Ideal in the world, and no Being in the Universe higher and
gi'ej-tcr than man, and if in consequence thei'e woi-e n»» more
significance in the glorious emotion of self-renunciation than in
the vulgar emotion say, which Socrates felt on scratching his
leg after his jirison chains had been removed ; then indeed life
were not worth living at all : and instead of renouncin<>- it
piecemeal, as it were, in small daily sacrifices which had no
end. aim, or reason in them, it were more logical to sacrifice it
altogether and once for all. I was aware, of course, that a man
might sit so long revolving round himself and his own sensations,
that in time he would become so hyper-sensitive and ultra-
particular that common life, connnon ambition, and common
success would not be good enough for him: that he would want
better bread than is made of flour: and for this mood, which
was partly my own, the true regimen to be i)rescribe(l would
doubtless be to be thrust into the common human stream where
(me would have to take one's place in healthy action in the
service of others. But I still felt that though this was a good
working rule it did not solve my difHculty, for if the question was
to prove that the world had in it an Ideal towards which it was
steadily working, the means of demonstrating its existence to

A VISIT TO CAIILYLE.

38;i

tliose who (loubteil it, ouglit to be ancessiblc to the natural human
faculties ; otherwise how, once in doubt, are you to u;et rid of the
haunting suspicion, so paralyzing to all groat action, whetlicr in
all you are doing for otiiers you are not merely plougliing th(!
sands .' 1 was not satisfied therefore with Carlyle's solution in
the ' Sartor,' as feeling that it did not precisely meet my case,
and it occurred to me that he might not take it amiss if I were
to write to him explaining my difficulty, with the view t(» :i
possible interview on the subject. This he readily granted,
though strictly stipulating that it should not exceed ten minutes
in duration. When I arrived at his house in Chelsea, the street
outside was lined with carriages for some distance from the door,
and inside in the waiting room a group of men and women all of
whom were apparently acquainted with each other, stood
discussing or i-ecounting what Carlyle had said to them, or were
waiting their turn to go upstairs to see him. WIumi my tiUMi
came and 1 entered the room, I saw sitting in the middle of it
at a little table, an old man with grey beard and a thick moj* of
iron-grey hair, his spare figure encased in a long brownish-yellow
overcoat which extended to his feet and answered the purpost;
of a dressin<j-gown. In his hand Avhich was shakinu: with a kind
of palsy he held a paper-cutter, and as he rose to receive nu;
with dce})ly-bent back and tottering gait, I noticed that his face
and cheeks had still a rich healthy bloom upon them, and that
his eyes (although the lower lids were slightly turned down from
age, and showed the red lining) were of a hawk-like clearness
and penetration. This appearance of the eye with its everted
lids 1 may observe in passing, together with the high cheek-l)(Mics
and the deep red of the face, gave when he contracted liis Ijiows,
which he habitually did, the impression of great irascil)ilit\ .
When he resumed his seat, and the light from the window
behind fell aslant the back of his head and the side of lii?; face,
I observed as a jieculiarity that the upper eye-laslu;s were so
curled upwards that the light which passed over his brow and
fell on them, lit up their tips like a fringe. But the unforgettable

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A VISIT TO CAIM.VLK.

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feature of tlie faee was the lower jaw wliieli was so lonj^" as to be
out of all jiroportion to the rest of the features, [>rojectin<^ so far
forward at the chin as to give him the appearance of being
underhung, and was so massive in structure that when he worked
it in conversation it moved backwards and f(»rwards like a beam.
Not a handsome face by any means, nor witli the exception of
the eyes a remarkable one ; the best re[)rescntations of him at
the time of which I am writing (he nnist have been close on
eighty years of age) being the statue by I>oehni. and the picture
by Whistler; the worst perhaps, except for its look of irascibility,
the ])icture by AVatts in the National Portrait (Jallery. 'No,'
he began abruptly in allusion to the contents of my letter,
' neither you nor I have had as bad a time as Goethe, lie was
so depressed by the loss of his ideal as a young man, that he at
last determined to end it all by suicide, and feeling that the
passive forms of self-destruction, such as letting yourself fall ott'
precipices, or falling on your sword, were ignoble, and that the
only manly way was that of the Emperor Otho who with his
own hand plunged the dagger into his breast, he procured a
weapon, but after trying night after night to execute tiie deed
on himself and not being able to screw his courage to the stickimj;
point, threw away the dagger, and resolved to go on living and
to make the best of it.' ' And now my man ' he continued ' you
will just have to do the same; you nuist just go on in the best
way you can, in the sure belief that the seeds of the Ideal that
ai"C planted by God in every honest mind, will bear fruit, and
you will in time find the work in which you can labour with
satisfaction to yourself and to the world.' All this was delivered
in a high key and in a sing-song style as a kind of soliloquy,
with his brows knit, and his eyes fixed not so nuich on me as
on some imaginary point on the floor; and then turning and
looking sharply at me, he asked ' Uut what may ye be? ' 1 told
him I was a medical man and that I had just started in practice
in London, but that I had come from Canada mainly with the
view of going in for Literature ; — and was just going on to add

A VISIT TO CAULVLK

SS,-)

tliat the do|)roRsi()n of iniiul into wliich f had fallen nrule me

feel that nothin<T was worth trouhlin*;' al)ont, when he t^topped

ine and said in a hard irritahle tone, ' Na, na, that winna d(».

Ye'd better 8ti(;k to your profession, youn^' man. It's time

enough to think of Literature when yc've cleared your own

mind and have something worth saying. Medieine is a noble

calling.' I felt rebuked, and was in(»st uncomfortable, bui

without noticing me he continued, * yes, it is a noble

profession, but sadly fallen into ([uackery in these flays. The

least known men in it are often the best. The best doctor

1 ever knew was a village practitioner in Sc-otland. Man, he

could look you through by a kind of intuition in an instant ;

but the great London doctors that come about me here, drive

up in their carriages and are ofi' again (after hooking at their

watches mainly,' he added satirically) leaving neither me n(»r

themselves better or worse than before ; ' winding n\i in a

derisive almost bitter tone with ' the public is a great ass I ' I

knew these doctors who [jrofesscd to see through your imier-

most vitals by an eye-glance, and was not impressed by the

remark ; but he continuing, by a sudden transition and as

another instance of the general wrong-headedness of the public

in its estimate of men, said, ' Do you know (ieorge III. was not

the fool he is taken fori In fact he was one of the clearest

headed men of his time.' I was indeed surprised, and my

opinion of his judgment and penetration was not gaining

ground, but he went on ' Yes, there's no doubt about it. When

1 WHS writing 'Frederick," and could got the book or map I

wanted nowhere else, 1 was sure to find it in his library in the

British Museum,' adding impressively, ' And I believe he

superintended the selection himself.' Having exhausted this vein,

he suddenly turned to me as if remembering something, and said

sympathetically, 'And which of our authors have ye been

reading that ye have been brought into this frame of mind ? *

alluding again to the C(mtcnts of my letter. I began to

enumerate them in a haphazard way, and had got as far as Mill

II;

:^«6

A VISIT TO CAULYI.K

tind Mncklo iind Dnrwin — and was alioiit to add Herbert
Spencer — when he broke in with 'Oh I Aye I Poor Mill! lie
used to eonie to nie hen; with his Henthanii.sni, iiis Radicralisni,
his 'greatest hapjjiness of the <;reatest nund)er,' and a' that
nonsense, hut 1 liad at hist to tell him it was n' moonshine, —
;ind lie didna' like it. But he was a thin, wire-drawn,
sawdiistish, logic-chopping kind of body was poor Mill I When
his book on ' Liberty ' came out he sent me a copy of it to read,
but I just had to tell him that I didn't agree with a single word
of it from beginning to end. He was ofTended and never came
back to me ; and when T wrote to him to ask him to meet some
Americans who had come over, he never answered my letter and
never came, and 1 never saw him again.' liut as the memory of
their early friendship came over his mind, he seemed lost in
thought f(H' a moment, and then added with a sigh and as if in
*iolilo(piy with himself, 'Aye! but he was a pure-minded man,
.lohn Mill!' And then after a pause, and as if he could not
refrain from expressing his last thought on the subject, ' lint I
will tell you what, — his father, .lames Mill, a great, big, burly
fellow whom I used to see at the India House, w.is essentially
by far the greater man of the two.' My traditional estimates
of men were by this time so shaken up that I must have looked
<piite blank as he said this, but he was now in full sail, and with
his brow knit and his eyes bright and intense as those of a bird
of prey, he continued his soliloquy in his high sing-song voi(!e,
looking straight before him as at some object he was bent on
rending, his head waving from side to side and his jaw working
with tremendous vigour, every now and then being shot forward
to emphasize his words, and fixed there until he drew in a long-
breath and released it again. ' But of all the blockheads,' he
went on. 'by whom this bewildered generation has been deluded,
that man IJnckle you have just mentioned, was the greatest ! '
and at the thought of him he raised a laugh so loud that it
would have startled all Tattersall's, as he says of Teufelsdrock ;
iind then went on as if in an ecstasy of enjoyment of his own

A VISIT TO CAULVLE.

387

simlonic huinour, ' Pcopk' had kopt postonii}; me to rend lu«
hook, juid iit last I .sat (h)\vii to it in tlie j^ardon witli my pipe,
d<.'t(M'mincMl t(» irlvc a wlioio (hiv to it. IJiit a more loiij^-wiiuled
conceited hlookliead, and one more full of harren empty
formulas ahout the progress of the species, progress of this,
progress of tliat, and especially of tlie progress of Science, I
never came across. A j)()or creature that could he of service to
no mortal ! I would sooner meet a mad hull in the street ! '
And then coming down to the conversational tone again he went
on, ' He had plenty of money I helieve, and lived down by the
Thames, and had never been heard of before he wrote his book.
Hut the onlv ijood thin"' 1 ever heard of him Avas his affection
for his mother.' I was now so dumbfoundcred and amazed at
these estimates of men at whose feet 1 had sat, that not
knowing the point of view from which they were delivered, nor
allowing for his habitual exaggeration of expression, I began to
feel that the unfavourable impression T had formed of him from
the ' Latter Day I'amiddets ' was the right one, and that he was
{)ig-headed, narrow-minded, and no longer open to the rece|)tion
of new ideas, but so fixed in his opinions that nothing could move
him ; and to this his whole appearance and manner such as I
have described it, corresponded — the bitter querulous tone, the
sing-song delivery as if unconscious of the presence of a listener,
and especially the under-jaw, which when shot forward to give
emphasis to his words, and fixed there, made one feel that it would
require a crow-bar to shift it I 1 was on the point of asking
him what he thought of Herbert Spencer, with the view of
brinjiinir him back to a consideration of the difficulties I had
mentioned in my letter, but the fear that he might say some-
thing unworthy of the distinguished Thinker by whom I had
been so deei)ly influenced, held me back. Carlyle in the
meantime had gone off on to the account of his own early life,
relating with entire simplicity and absence of pose, and with a
singular transparency of nature whidi was very charming,
incidents of his home life and his life in Edinburgh as a student,

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A \ ISIT TO CAUr.VI.K.

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ti|

j(()iri{jf oil" into roars of liiii<;liti!r as lie (IcscrilHul witli iiiliiiito
zest and sonso of litunotir the various paM.sa^cs tliat had Ixifallcii
him there; and then ho turned to the suhjocit of Koiij^iou.
Anioni; other thinj^H, he said that when in Edinl>ur<;h ho had
noticed that manvof the inteMoetual liylits of the time absented
tliemselves from church; and f^oinj;' on from that, \w worked
himself u|> into a riotous humour, exphxlinj;' in peals of jauj^hter
when lie thought of the colossal imposture of the (Jimreh whieh
could gravely state, as set down by Gihhon, that on a certain
day by the merits of some; saint or other, so many thousand
souls had been raised from the dead I * Up to that time ' he
said gravely, ' I was a nominal Christian, but from that hour 1
saw that the accepted dogmas of (Christianity were not true.'
' As for .lesus Christ himself,' he went on ' he was a good
young man disgusted with the shams and hypocrisies of his
time which his soul could not abide ; and venturing with calm
indirt'erenee as to his fate into the lion's den of the Chief
Priests and Scribes at Jerusalem, nobly mcit his death, as
indeed such as he in all times and [jlaces have to do.' " But
now,' he added in a tone of bitter irony, ' we have reached the
comfortable conclusion that (lod is a myth, that the soul is a
gas, and the next world a coffin ; and have no longer any need
in consecjuencc, of such heroic souls.' N(»w this was just the
opportunity for which 1 had been waiting, and before he had
the chance of getting away from the subject I abruptly burst
in with ' Yes, Herbert S[)encer has shown that mind is merely
a molecular motion in brain substance as heat is in iron ; and
that is just my difficulty, and why I felt that your explanation
in the 'Sartor' did not quite' — 'meet my case ' I was going
to say, when he contracted his brows like a hawk, and shrieked
'Spencer! shewn!' and went oHinto a peal of derisive laughter
that almost raised the roof, as he thought of him ; and after a
pause, and in allusion perhaps to the extent of Spencer's
writings, he exclaimed contemptuously, ' An immeasurable ass !'
Then after another explosion over Cabanis, who taught that

A VISIT TO CAllLYLE.

3fti)

thonj^ht was scoroted l)v tin; hniin as bile is by the liver, lio
went on ' And so ye hav(! Ixhmi ni(ul(Ilin<r with Speneor have
yo? He was bronj>'lit to uw, by Lowes, and a more conceitod
voiinij man I tlioii<j;lit I liad never seen. II(? eecMnod to think
liimselt' just a perteet Owl of Minerva for Knowledge?' And
tlien looking fiercely at uu) ' yci'll get little good (»ut of him,
yonng man I ' With this, my diseomflture, irritation, and
disapitointment were (romplete. Ibit the ten miimtes had long
elapsed, and looking at the clock he rose and with great
eordiality, and as if w(! had had the most jdeasant time
imaginable, expressed th<^ hope that he might hear from mo
again, and saw me to the door. As I walked home the im-
l)ressions left on me by this strange interview were very
mixed ; the preponderating one being that he was a very over-
rated man ; that he was qncrnlous, eantankerons, and altogether
too critical and (jxacting for ordinary hnnianity ; and that he
was so wrapped np in his own opinions as to be no longer
capable of new ideas. And yet the simplicity, naturalness,
and charm with which he had related the incidents of his early
lif<', as well as his world-wide reputation which I felt eonid not
have been got for nothing, gave me pause ; and when I
renuMubered the power and pathos of many of his descriptions
in the ' Sartor,' I resolved, especially as he had not answercMl my
(juestions, that I would now get and study those works of his
(hat were written in his ])rime, and before [)overty and dyspepsia
and disappointment had soured his temper, and a naturally
exacting and (pierulous «lisposition, condjined with a I'uritanic
severity of moral judgnu nt in all things, had put him out of
sympathy with the men, measures, and institutions of his
time.

I started this time, I remember, with his ' Life of Sterling,'
which to my surprise I found had been written after and not
before the ' J matter Day Pamphlets.' I was charmed with the
softness and loving gentleness of tone which ])ervaded it, (so
different from the roughness of the Pamphlets) ; with its

300

A VISIT TO (!.\UI.YI,K.

.Ji'

tolrniiicc, its .syinpiitliy, it.s almost |iiitci'i)!il iiKliil^rencc and
gciiciosiiy (»t' cstiinatc, and witli its (•\(|nisit(' patlios — all ot"
which showed the other side f»f Carlylc's nature, and ulnKtst
atoni^l to mc for the harshness and l)rutidity of his conversation.
From this hook I j)assed on to liis early Essays, those iHthle
prodnctions which marked the advent of a new spirit and pov/er
in En^flish Literature, with their critical sanity and s(tl»riety,
their stronj? eonnnon-sense, their moral elevation and sincerity,
their intellectual penetrati<m antl eath(»lieity of culture, and the
ahsenee of all mere smartness, — of epi;;ram, pun. or other petty
iiti'rary artifice; works which took serious literature out of the
hands of the mere li/frndenr who had played the clown too lonj;,
and made it the moral force it is to-<lav. These essavs, to<>('thcr
with the ' Sartor,' were my chief literary food for months and
even years, and it was owing- lar<;ely to the nohle panej^yrics
on great literature scattered through them, that I was kept
steady to my own ))oor task through years of disappointment
and failure. And then it was that I saw that the Carlyle of the
i'amphlets, the hitter, querulous, exacting and fault-finding
Carlyle was not the only or, indeed, the real Carlyle, but was
the Carlyle of neglect and disap[)ointment, and of that isolation
which hefalls the man who is placed in a society and environ-
ment with whose aims and methods he has no sympathy, and
which has tiu'ned a deaf ear to all the convictions that lie
nearest his heart.

Now among these Essays there were two in which Carlyle's
mode of viewing the world of the Past and the Present were
practically sununed up ; as indeed they were the works hy
which he had attracted the attention of Mill, Emerson, and the
other rising young thinkers of England and America. These
were his essay on the 'Signs of the Times' and his essav on
' Characteristics ' and from them when carefully ri:ad, the
secret of his dissatisfaction with all modern institutions
political and social, and, in consequence, of the diatribes and
denunciations with which his ' Latter Day IVunphlets,' his

A VISIT TO C!ARLVr,K.

391

llKS

• I'iisi imd IVcHont,' his ' French Kijvohitloii,' and liis
' Fic(h rick the; Ciiciit' mo filled, is clciirlv visihh-. IJioadlv
hpciikiii^f wc may my that tlie <)hj(>ct «»t the ' Sij^ns (»t" tlur
Times' was to show that the great and I'niittid a^es <»f th(-
world were those in which men acted in a body, from some one
or other ot" the <^reat primary paHsions or emotions of thi;
heart — from Jiove, or Hate, or Fear, or Admiration, or Kcli^ion,
as in the rise of Christianity and Mahonnneihinism, in tlit'
Crnsadcs, in th(! lieformation, and in th(! French Uevohition.
In these ages he shows that the aim of the society and the aim
of each of its members being the same, the mind of man acts
as a siiigh- nndivichid force, with all its powers yoked to the
service of the dominant emotion (»r passion of the time,
and therefore works as nneonscionsly and smoothly as a
wheel in a large and well-oiled machine : every side of its
nature being in full activity, and every ideal being already
[)rovided for in the dominant aim, emotion, or |)assion of the
society itself. From these ages, whatever tlu; innn "diate
results may be, the world emerges transformed and raised to a
higher social or moral plane.

In the transitionary or unfniitfid ages of the world, on the
contrary, in which society merely marks time as it were,
awaiting the next move that is to raise it to a higher stage,
men act not from any great ])assion or enuttion citmmon to all
the members of the community or society, but from passions
and emotions private and peculiar to themselves, and not,
therefore, at one with those of their neighbours, but antagonistic
to them rather. The consequence is that as they have neither
a connnon political, nor social, nor religious goal to unite tluMu,
they can only be kept from preying on each other by the
policeman, or by such mec^hanical devici's as the ballot-box,
representation by population, universal suffrage, and the like ;
each one liavin<>" to find out bv bis own thought and analvsis,
his religion, philosophy, or social and political creed and ideals
for himself. In the essay on ' Characteristics,' Carlyle traces

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til

392

A VISIT TO OAULYLE.

the biilcfiil consequences of this conscious analysis of Reh'gion
and Philosophy and of all things human and divine into their
elements with the view of finding out the truth for oneself, (as
contrasted with the unconscicms activities of the mind when
these ideals are ready-made for us) with masterly penetration
and force ; and from a point of view so central and conunand-
ing that the essay is as fruitful and nourishing to-day as it was
at the time it was written. In both of these essays as well as
tlie 'Sartor llesartus ' and in his interpretation of (ioethe's
'Tale,' iie sees and traces with luiusual clearness and depth as
well as witli philosophical sobriety and calm, the parts played
in Modern Civilization by Religion, Philosophy, Science,
Metaphysics, and Material and Social Conditions. As a result
of his survey he concdudes that the j)rcsent age is an age of
transition, an age of ^lachinery ; and throwing as he did from
nature, temperament, and training, so much more weight on
Religion and Morality than on Science, Politics, and the Arts
of Ijifo, h(! was led as he grew older to so disparage the latter,
that although in his early writings he had proved that the ages
in whicii machinery and the calculations of political and social
expedi(!iuty were predominant, as at present, were l)oth
necessary and inevitable stages in the evolution of Society, he
arrived at last at the point where he would allow them no value
at all. Hence the exaggerations and denunciations of his later
writings, his apotheosis of tyrants, and his panegyrics on the
methods of brute force — all of which by mixing, and con-
founding the roles of projjhet and preacher with those of poet
and thinker, have weakened his influence and destroyed his
philosophical fame. And yet when I consider all that his
writings did for me, my conviction is that until he took up the
!>creaming role of prophet and preacher, no intellect more
original (jr penetrating, more comprehensive or subtle has
appeared in England since the days of Bacon and Shakspeare.

In the next (diapter when I come to compare his work with
that of the other Poetical Thinkei's with whom I have classed

-\ VISIT TO OARLYLE.

:',03

liim, I shiill ondoiivonr t(» let the reader see prcci^'l- wliat it
was he (lid for me in the hi<>:her re<^ions of Tli()u-j;!,t. In the
meantinie I have only to add that it was by his writinjis that
I was naturally led to the writings of Emerson,— a Thinker hy
whom I was even more intlueneed than by Carlyle,— and from
them both to the writings of their common master, (jroethe.

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CHAPTER VIII.

THE PERSONAL EQUATION.

I WAS led, as I have said, from tlic study of Carlyle to the
study of Eniei'son, who has always l)eoii so intimately
associated with him in the i)ubli(' mind; and 1 still retain a
vivid recollection of the despair into which I fell when I
attempted to read him for the second time, having [)ut him
jiside, as I had Carlyle, some years before, owing to the ditticulty
I found in understanding his little book on ' Re[)resentative
Men.* T began this time, I remember, with his Essays, starting
with the first of the series, that on ' History.' I read the first
sent(Mice : it was an enigma ; I passed on to tiie second ; it was
still more so; then to the third and fourth with increasing
l)cwiidcnnent and mystification, until when I reached the end
of the first paragraph I was fain to confess ;is he himself some-
where says of Life in general, ' All is riddle, and the key to one
riddle is another I " I started a secojid time, bending all my
powers of speculation with redoubled concentraticm and attention
on these mystic utterances, but again could make nothing of
them. It then occurred to me that the concrete illustrations
might lielp me, and 1 dipped in here and there among them,
picking them out one by one; but they tin-ned out to be
almost as mysterious as the run of abstractions at the beginning,
and it was not until after some time and trouble that 1 began to
get an inkling of what it was all about. At last by shuttling

THK I'EUSOXAr. lU^UATIOX.

395

backwards and forwards and tryint; each of the illustrations in
turn to see if it would fit one or other of the abstractions as its
key, I succeeded in getting a pretty fair idea of the drift of the
Essay as a whole. But at what a cost ! And the worst of it
was that the same diflficulty had to be encountered with each of
the essays in turn ; the reason being that Emerson had every-
where withheld the principle that was the key to the particular
essay, or had wrapped it in such a mystic form of words that it
passed the ordinary comprehension to undei'stand it. It was a
mistake, as I now think, and must have cost him thousands of
the best readers; and yet do wbat he wouhl, the essays could
never have been made altogether easy reading. For the sei)arate
sentences being the result of separate acts of insight or
obsci'vation, are not to be apprehended like a train of physical
or niathematical reasoning where each proposition hangs on to
the skirts of the one before it, and so can be followed by the
ordinary intelligent schoolboy : they are rather se[)arate aspects
or sides, as it were, of some conunon spiritual principle which
they illustrate, and around which as their conunon centre, like
signs of the Zodiac, they lie without connexion among them-
selves, and so can be seen oidy by those who have had a wide
experience of life, and are ])ossessed of natural gifts of insight
and observation. And hence I have always regarded these
essays of Emerson as a kind of touchstone of intellectual power
and penetration. But of them all the one that gave me most
trouble and was most dilhcult to follow, was the essay on
' Experience' In it the leading ideas of most of the other
essays exist in combination, and I nuist have spent moi'c time in
trying to unravel it than on any other |)iece of writing of equal
length whatever, with the excei)tion, perhaps, of some parts of
Hegel. And as in my judgment it is, perhaps, the greatest
essav on human life that has ever been digested within the
e(>m[)ass of so few pages, it may not be out of })lace if I venture
to offer some suggestions that may help the reader to an under-
standing of the ground-plan of an essay which Emerson has

) 4

:\\n\

rUK I'KWSONAf, K<M'ATI()N'.

inlaid with such precious mosiucs of thought. Tf then we bo_<i:iii
l)y fif>;iirin<i; the Imniuii mind on the one hand, and the world
tlirou_i!;h wliich it passes from youth to age on the otlier, as two
cylinders whicli ar(> in contact with eadi other and which roll
continuiilly on each other, each turninf]f on its own axis ; and if
we fiu'thcr rc|»resent the mind which in eacli person starts with
a special bias, temperament, or tendency, known as the nature
of the individual, as the smooth, hard, outer surface of the one
cylinder, it is evident, is it not, that if there were no holes or
openings in this cylinder, it might roll for ever against its
(({jposite cylinder the world, and like the lower animals, would
gain nothing from experience, hut would go on doing and
thinkini>- the sanu; things over and over ajjain for ever. Jiut,
savs Emerson, howev(.'r much the minds of men mav he shut
up within themselves, as it were, by the hard rind of
tem])erament and natural bias, there are always openings
in them through which the l^niversal Spirit or Soul of
the World has entrance to our souls. The consequence
is that as we pass through life, when one of these ojyenings
in the mind, falls opposit(! some new or strange fact or
experience in the world, that fact or experience will suddenly
and when least expected Ix; found to have entered through the
opening and slipped magically into the mind, there like a seed,
to germinate and grow. Sometimes it is a casual remark
drojjpcd by a friend in an open or sei'ious hour, sometimes an
incident of the waysides or in the street, sometimes an excep-
tional natural fact that arrests attention, or a winged and
magic word in a book ; sometimes it is the death of friends or
children, the reverses of fortune, disappointed hopes, loves, or
ambitions, or the satieties of society and the world. And hence
it is with men as with barrel-organs, it is the particular pins in
the one cylinder which happen to gain entrance through the
openings in the other, that determine what each man's moral
and spiritual experience shall be, and in consequence, the tunc
his life shall play ; and hence it is too, that unlike the lower

TllK I'KliSONAl, K(,)l ATION,

iuiimuls, no two timcvs arc ({iiite tlic .sauK'. Now in thisi !sini[)le
framework (wliioh however, as wo yliall see, J myself by no
means accept) Emerson lias contrived to work in tlionghts on
human life more central and connnandin^, more ultimate and
final, and of more universal application than are to be found
within the same com})ass in the literature of any age or time,
thoughts which rise to the mind as naturally and s[)ontaneously
when the deeper secrets of life are in question, as proverbs do
in its more obvious and superficial as[)ects. For penetration
and depth Bacon is cheap and superficial in comparison. Let
the reader who has been baulked by the difficulty of the Essay
on 'Experience' try it again with tiie sim{)le key I have given
him, and say whether this is not so. What a fine piece of
insight, for example, is the following, ' A man is like a bit of
Labrador spar, which has no lustre as you turn it in your hand
until you come to a particular angle, and then it shows deep
and beautiful colours. There is no universal adaptation or
applicability in men, but each has his special talent, and the
mastery of successful men consists in adroitly keeping them-
selves where and when that turn shall oftcnest have to be
practised.' But every essay is full of such gems. Take for
instance the following, in reference to the illusion by which
men have a tendency to attribute to the men whom they
admire for particular traits, an all-round completeness and
excellence, 'On seeing the smallest arc we complete the circle.*
Or this, as a definition of character, ' Character is nioi-al order as
seen through the medium of an individual nature.' Or again,
in reference to the way in which we are dominated by general
ideas or abstractions, by mere phrases or names, such as king,
nobleman, clergyman, policeman, etc., in the teeth of advex'se
facts, ' General ideas are essences, they are our gods.' Or
lastly, this on self-reliance, which was a great stinmhis to me
personally, ' Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it
their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which liOcke,
which Bacon, have given ; forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and

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THE PEHSONAL HQUATIOX.

Bacon were only younji; men in libniiiofi when they wrote
thes^c books.' Nowhere in(U;cil, will you find greater penetra-
tion and profundity, or greater reKnenient and <lelicacy than in
these essays, so much so that whenever I come across ii thought
of more than usual penetration or distinction among recent
writers, as in Stevenson, or Ibsen, or ^leredith, or in some of
the work of Olive Schreiner, I am at once reminded of
Emerson ; and rarely do you come on a remark of universal
application anywhere, but it can be paralleled and matched
by one of similar im[)ort in his works. I have only just read
again for purposes of this cha])ter, after a lapse of ten or fifteen
years, the essay on ' Experience ' of which I have just s))oken,
and I am bound to confess that my opinion of its merits
remains the same as before. No increase of experience or
reflection during the intervening years, has enabled me to add
or suggest aught by way of connncntary on these great and
penetrating observations on human life, that is not either ntorc
superficial or less true. It is not that I do not differ profoundly
from him as to the truth of the general framework which 1
have already described, and which he has inlaid with such
precious gems of thought ; 1 refer, rather, to his isolated
observations and reflections on all that concerns human life and
the laws and operations of the human mind and heart. But
unfortiuiatelv these writings are robbed of half their value
owing to the difficulty of understanding them. 1 trust some
day to make them more accessible, by furnishing the readei-
with such a preliminary account of the })rinciples involved in
each essay, as will make the understanding of them as easv
to the intelligent student of thirty, as a })age of Macaulay or
a colunni of the ' Times.' For until Emerson is understctod,
no observer of human life making any [>retension to originalitv
can, in my judgment, consider his reputation safe, or his work
free from the danger of being undermined by this great master
of human thought.

From this panegyric which I have for years been longing to

THE VEUSONAL EQUATION*.

:\w

utter, tlie reader will already have guessed that in my
sympathies and hent of mind 1 have much greater attinity with
Emerson than with Carlyle ; and so it is. For although as we
shall see farther on, their intellectual mode of viewing the
Universe as a whole and in its largest eonstruetion was
practically the same ; in all that concerns conduct and action
and in the estimate they put on things, they were almost
diametrically opposed. And hence it was liat while Carlyle;
ran counter to my Cohmial passion for personal independence,
and damped my youthful ardour to do something on my
own account by tlie exaggerated imj)ortance he attached to
our each finding some high-handed despot to fall down
before; Emerson stimulated me by his more iianly doctrine (»f
Self-lleliance, and by the way in which he opened up to men all
the avenues of intellectual, moral, or social power, according to
the measure of their genius or virtue. Jf Carlyle, again,
offended what I may be pardoned for calling my sense of
intellectual dignity, by the brutal way in which he j)roposed to
thrust his political and social dogmas down the throats of all
and sundry, without distinction ; Emerson, on the contrary,
caressed and flattered the self-respect of his readers by tlu;
deference with which he ap[)roached them, and by his oH'er to
throw down the keys of his castle to whatever son of Adam
should legitimately claim them by vix'tue of the possession of
new and higher truths. Then again, if Carlyle outraged my ear
by the uncouthness and barbarism of his later writings, and my
sense of form and measure as well as of philosophic decency, bv
his shrieks and groans ; Emerson drew me on by the simplicity
and dignity of his utterances, by their urbanity, serenity, and
freedom from exaggeration and personal abuse. And lastly, if
Carlyle depressed me by preaching an ideal of political and
social morality and self-abnegation (piite beyond the i)o\v('r <»t
my })oor unregenerate nature to attain ; Emerson comforted mc?
by the assurance that 1 could give to personal ambition its
fullest rein — provided always, that it was on a moral basis.

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TIIK I'EUSOXAr, K(;l Al ION.

itiid lliiil I wiis willing to pay the cdf-t in spirit iiality which ail
undue worhlly activity entails. For althouj^li his writings
everywhere exhale the highest morality as their essence, his
attitude, nevertheless, is always that of tlu! ])hilosopher, never
liiat of the preacher or professional ni(»ralist. And not having
j)itched iiis morality too high for the present world, as Carlyle
did, he is nowhere led into empty demuiciations of the worhl
because it has not yet reached the Jdeal, hut contents himself,
as he says of Goethe, with (piietly placing a ray of light
hehind the dark, tortuous, and recalcitrant facts of life, in the
helief that when men see what the truth is, those whom it
concerns will themselves take stei)s to realize it, without being
goaded to it either by the whip of the des[)ot or the shrieks of
the philanthropist or moralist. He saw, in a w<n'd, that
morality depended so much on environing conditions, that the
standing iniquities of the world were not to be blown down like
the walls of tiericho, merely by trumpet- blasts of denunciation.
And yet I must confess that after a time I more or less ch)yed
of so much intellectual sweetness and serenity, of this ujajestic
calm so ajjproaching to moral indifference (in ai)i)earance at
least) in the face of the scarlet inicpnties of the world, and
began at last to long tor a little more of C'arlyle's fiery
vehemence and righteous indignation. 1 felt somewhat like
Sir David Dundas who Avlien Lord Kea exclaimed at the sight
of the innnoralities of the time 'Well, (rod mend all I ' replied
'Nay, by (jod ! Donald, we nuist hel}) Ilim to mend themi'
Otherwise, Emerson, along with Goethe, has ever been for me,
and still is, in temper, tone, and point of view, the ideal
philosopher.

From the study of Emerson and Oai'lyle I was naturally led
to the study of Goethe. But I soon found, that like the
Will-o"-the-Wisps who in the marvellous ' Tale ' to which I
have so often referred, contrived to lick out all the veins of gold
from the colossal figure of the Composite King, these thinkers
had alreadv licked out most of the veins of wisdom from the

THR I'KKSONAL K<iUATI()\.

401

gi'cat and many-sidod works ot" their master, and so liad left ino
comparatively little hard readiiij^ to do. The conseciuenee was
that with the exception, perhaps, of parts of ' Faust,' and
' Wilhelm Meister,' the 'Tale,' and his eolle(!tioii of ' Maxims,'
my readin<^ of him at that time was rai)id, and in a measure
perfunctory. But I found in him all the wisdom, ])enetration,
and many-sidedness which I had been led by Carlyle and
Emerson to expect ; and I found besides, re[)eated in him in
ever-varyinj:; application to the matter in hand, the solution of
the practical [jroblem of life which I had <i;(tt from the ' Sartor,'
namely that we were to waste no time over insoluble problems
cither as to this world or the next, but for all doubt, uncertainty,
or irresolution, whether practical or s[)eculative, we were to
find the remedy in Work and Action, and In cheerfully
renouncinijf ourselves for the benefit of others ; that we were to
apply the Ideal which exists in us all, to the connnon life of
every day and to the task or duty that lies nearest us, in order
that we might impress on the transient, tleetinj^, and imperfect
Present, somethinji; of the stability, the permanence, and the
beauty, of Eternity ; and for the rest, we were to leave all to
the Hijrher Powers. But there was one doctrine that I found
in Goethe, whicli I did not find in Carlyle or Emerson, and
which for reasons we shall presently see, they were not abh;
fully to approjiriate. It was the doctrine that all the higher
powers and sentiments proper to man, such as Reverence,
Gratitude, Chastity, love of Truth, of Justice, and so on, arc
really not natural [)roducts at all, but like the fancy breeds of
dogs and birds, are artificial rather, being the result of centuries
of cultivation under the constant pressure of force or (»f public
opinion ; and arc only to be kejjt from relapsing again to the
wild stock, as fancy breeds continually tend to do, by an
incessant and unremitting attention and (;are. And hence it
was that he preached as the gospel of salvation for all, an all-
round and never-to-be-relaxcd Culture. Kcverence, for example,
is regarded by him as an artificial product reared by constant

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o.iiltiviition tlu'oiijjjh long agoH from the vul/jjur cleinont of Fear,
and which, as beuig necessary for the progress (»f mankind, is
none the less natnral and inevitable in the selionje of things,
because it has been delegated and entrusted to men to develop
for themselves under the guidance and example of certain highly
favoured individuals. And accordingly, in ' Wilhelm Meister '
we find him advising the training of youths from their earliest
years in the practice of it, by suitable exercises of act, sign, and
symbol, — I'cverencc for what is above them, reverence for their
equals, and more than all, revercn(!e for what is beneath them —
that ' Worship of Sorrow ' which it was the mission of iFesus
Christ to introduce into the world, and which once here, <;an
never, Goethe thinks, be suffered again to pass away. Gratitude,
again, Goethe tells us is an artificial product, which he set
himself sedulously to cultivate in himself by recalling at stated
intervals the benefits he had received from othex-s, and the
kindnesses that had been done him, by dwelling on these
kindnesses and setting them before his imagination in their
most ap{)ropriatc and agreeable light. The love of Truth, again,
which he himself cultivated so laboriously during his long life,
is not, he tells us, natural to man as the love of error is ; for
instead of flattering us like error, with the sense of our
imlimited powers, it on the contrary places limits on us on all
sides. Chastity, too, falls under the same category, as not
natural to the human animal ; for as Renau says, thousands
of women had to be stoned to death before the seventh
<!ommandment could be recognized as sacred and binding on all.
And so too with the love of Justice, and the rest.

Now all this which is profoundly true, and which runs in
harmony with the most certain facts of modern evolution,
coidd neither be recognized nor assimilated either by Carlyle
or Emerson. Not by Carlyle ; for he did not believe, for
reasons that will afterwards appear, that the higher attributes
of man were delegated to him by successive increments, in the
gradual process of Evolution ; but Puritan as he was by temper

THE PERSONAL EQUATION.

103

F t'oar,
ind, IS

tllilJL(S,

Ic'velop
hi<,'lily
eister '
iirlicst
,ni, and
r their
licm —
•lesus
re, can
ititude,
he set
stated
nd the
tliesc
In their

for

and hrccdin;^, he l)elieved them to have been implanted Uy tlie
Creator entire and complete from the he<^innin;j;; and that the
<li(reren('(!H between men in regard to them were due (futirely
to perverrtions of the will ; to disobedience, in short, which was
to l)e eradicated not by the slow and gradnal cnlture of the
race, bnt by the beneficent despot and his whip. Nor conld
this (hxrtrine of (loethe's be appropriated by Emerson ; for he,
a*»ain, beli(!ved that man lay open on one side of his nature to
the entire mind of God, which rolled in and out of him like the
ocean tides in some inland stream ; that reverence, justice,
j^ratitnde, truth, and so on, were the influxes from thence,
casual and intermittent in the ordinary course of life (through
the lioles of the cylinder in our former analogy), but in full
tide in the eminent instances of ' conversion,' of ' ilhunination,'
of ' vision,' etc., as with Paul, with Boehme, and with Svveden-
borg. So that when the tide is in, as he Avould say, we become
saints, or geniuses, or heroes ; when it is out, we become sinners
and dullards and cowards ; or as he somewhere expresses it,
' we are now gods in nature, now weeds by the wall.' To a
man holding such a doctrine, Goethe's belief in the growth of
Virtue, Reverence, Truth, Chastity, and Humanity, only by the
slow process of assiduous cultivation, must have been an offence,
and could neither be appropriated, nor woven into his own
system of thought.

Now although 1 felt this doctrine of Goethe to be true, and
his prescription of an all-round Culture reasonable in oonsa-
(pience, it nevertheless fell off my mind at the time without
producing any result. For nothing was farther from my
thought then, than the wish to so prune and trim and restrict
myself on all sides as to make myself moi'c like what a man
should be, and what, if the world is ever to be made worthier
of the ideal in the mind, he must become. No, what I wanted
was not to make mynelf approach nearer to the ideal of what a
man should be, (and that, I take it, is the highest task a man
can impose on himself), but first as we have seen, to ascertain

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TIIK I'i:riS()N.\I, K(;l ATIOV.

whothor tli(! idt'iil itsolf Imd iiiiy real existence or not; iind if it
hud, tlion iostc'iid of tryiiij; to trim uiynelf um fur us nii;;lit l»e tn
tho [luttt'rii of tliirt ideal, to rioar a h|)ucc for inyHcIf ratluir, in
wliioh my nature hucIi as it was should have' room to disport
and spread itself, — ideals, amhitions, eccentricities, (crudities,
vuljj^arities, and all I And accorilin<j;ly I was iuclincsd at (irst to
vote (Joethe an ex((uisite and soniethiuj , i)ore. I did not

see that however necessary it may he ft,, tin; world, that the
<i;r(!at masses of men slutuld thus, as Emerson thinks, push their
individualities to the utmost, tho endeavour of Go(!the to so
prune, restrict, or stimulate all the sides of his natunt as to
hriuj;- them up to a jfcneral rotundity, was the first duty of one
aspirinji to the role of a philosopher. Nor did I then see how
nuu'h more virtue it requires in a man to thus severely discipline
himself, than it docs to stru<;gle merely to <!;ain for himself a
vautajre ground on which his crudities, vulj^arities, sensualities,
pieties, and idiosyncracies ^^enerally, may like a <;arden of
o\ erurown cahbaues have the whole field to themselves I But
besides this, there were other pcculiarit' 'i Goethe which at
the time of which I am writing lent t.. Jves to my some-
what indifferent feeling in regard to him. There was a certain
softness and absence of back-bone, 1 felt, in some of his
writings, a want of snap and 'go' in his characters, a certain
undue emi)hasis laid on trifles, on eating, drinking, and love-
making, which after the severity of Carlyle and Emerson, went
fur to my mind to justify .letf'rey in the charge of insipidity
and even vulgarity which he brought against him. And then,
again, 1 was to a certain extent out of patience, as Carlyle was,
with what I thought were his dHettautism!< and with the large
tract of his writings in which jesthetic standards — art for art's
sake and the like — are set up. For like those young painters
who used to regard no subject less magnificent than some great
historic theme as worthy of their brush, so nothing less than
some monumental History or System of Philosophy or Politics
seemed to me at that time to be worthy the dignity of

TIIK rKItSONAL K<MATION.

to:)

Literature, iiiid 1 eiiii remember iilwayH feelinj; a shade of
contempt come over mc when I thouj^ht of Thackeray with liin
h\<r, I'lirly, manly frame, sjjendinu: hirt life in writinj; love-
Htories. It was cnou'^h for mv that eatinjjj and drinkin;;: mikI
fallinfif in and ont of love had, like the measles, to he nnder^one
and endured, l)nt to el(!vate a description of it all into literature,
imder the; pretence of d('lineatin<^ what is called human nature,
seemed to me a de<^radation. It had not then, I admit, heen
carried as far as ii has heen since hy Z(»la and Flaubert or even
by Tolstoi who in one of his boctks makes each [)articnlar'
couj^h and (fxpcetoration of one of his characters who is suffering
from consumption, call for a separate conunent ; i»ut the
|»hiland(!rings and vulj^arities of Wilhelm, I'hilina, and the rest
carried throu<i;h volumes with the minuteness of a catalo<:;ue,
afHictcd nie nmch as (ieorj^e Eliot's characters in the ' Mill on
the Floss ' did Ruskin, who declared that their conversations
were about as important and worthy of record as the ' sweepinj^s
of a Penfonville onniibus.' I did not see then as I do now,
fhat the 1 mdlinj^ is all, or as Carlyle has it, ' NVhat matters
what the ii terial is, so that the form thou give it be poetic ? '
and that In xuietration and insight, and skill in the art of
presentation, the deepest truths can often be got out of the
j)oorest and siini)lest mat"rials. And it was only when I
perceiv(!d that these cheaj) and uninteresting figures which
throng the pages of Goethe and occupy so apparently
dispro{)()rtionate an amount of his time and attention, were but
means to his great end of a universal culture, that 1 became
reconciiled to them. Ikit in his handling (»f great themes he
was always supreme. The ease and naturalness with which Ik;
gives all things their true focus so as to bring out their hidden
bearings, reliitions, and proportions; the niassiveness, serenity,
and repose of his judgment ; his intellectual intuition and
clairvoyance, as seen in the ' Tale ' for example, — all made me
feel before I left him that we had in him the supreme legislator
of souls in the modern world as Plato was in the Ancient.

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THE PER80NAL EQUATION.

Bacon I Imd already read when occupied with the Meta-
physical Thinkers, and was charmed with the contrast he offered
to them, both in his method and aims. Indeed in him the
whole difFeren('e in these respects between the Metaphysical and
Poetic Thinkers may be seen as in a ^^das«, and I cannot refrain
from taking an occasion so opportune for bringing it out. In
the first place then, instead of trying to explain the world by
the evolution of some single principle, physical or metaphysical,
as Ilegcl and Herbert Spencer do, he contents himself with
referring it in the most general way to some Supreme Cause,
without reference at all to the ways and means by which it is
brought al>out, and which he regards as beyond the reach of the
human faculties ; or to the Final Ends or Causes for which
things exist, which he feels to be useless for human purposes,
comparing them in his beautiful way to those Vestal Virgins
who ' barren of fruit were dedicated to God.' Then again,
instead of analyzing the intellect into such shabby and
pinchbeck categories as we have seen in Kant and Hegel, and
then interpreting the woi-ld through them, as if you should
break uj) the pure white light iiito its sei)arate colours ; and
taking a few of them should insist on looking at the world
through them, instead of this he seeks rather to clear the
intellect of the illusions that come from the diffracting vicdia
of the emotions, and obscure its sight, those idols of the den,
the theatre, and the market-[)lace, as he calls them, so that it
may accurately mirror and represent the world. Again,
instead of exercising himself like the metaj)hysicians, as to
whether love after all is not a form of lust, reverence of fear,
justice of expediency, and the like, (as if one were to take one
pole of a battery and insist that it must be after all only a form
of the other pole,) he ignores the whole controversy as
irrelevant, and boldly points out that look where you will
throughout Nature and Human Life you will find provision
made at once for the interests of the individual and the interests
of the species, of the particular and the general, of man and of

THE PEKSONAL EQUATIOX.

407

God, of the selfish and of the unselfisli interests, of the private
and of the public <roo(l. This broad division of all things into
two opposite poles he calls ilic'ir pricate and their public nature
respectively, and it no more concerns him that he cannot get
right or justice or elevation out of the individual by himself,
than it does that he cannot get music out of half-a-dozen notes
picked out of an oratorio, or a character out of a few actions cut
out of a man's life, or cause and effect out of a single isolated
sequence, or the like. On the contrary he sees that to get the
harmonies of the world you must so focus vour mind as to brinj;
it to hear on what may be called a natural whole ; and in this
case the natural whole is not a man isolated, but man in society;
so that if you cannot get justice or right out of men by thorn-
selves, you will get it out of them by the pressure put on them
by their fellows either through force, law, or public opinion.
It was by the massiveness, simplicity, and naturalness of
generalizations like those, that he charmed mo — •those strokes that
cut Nature down the middle and laid its method bare at a single
sweep, as it were ; instead of doing as the metaphysicians did,
namely boring holes here and there into the mind, which they
call the analysis of it but which close over again leaving you no
wiser than before.

Rut while admiring the intellectual 8wee[) which enabled
him thus to overlook the whole field of thought, and to point
out to men of science the way in which they nuist walk if their
labours were to bear fruit in the discovery of truth, I was
repelled rather than otherwise by the excess of worldly wisdom
with which his essays abound. For although any deficiency in
this is to be dejirccated, still these essays of his on ' cere-
monies,' on ' reputation,' on ' negotiating,' on ' simulation and
dissimulation,' on ' envy,' on ' cunning,' on • counsel,' on
'suspicion,' on 'suitors,' on ' and)iti()n,' and tiie rest, those
instructions to princes, nobles, and rulers — who alone were of
consc(iuence in his time — as to the manner in which they are to
hold and conduct themselves for their own advancement in

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408

THE l-KUSONAL EQUATION.

l)eivs()n or estate, or as to tlic wiles by wliieli they are to over-
reach each oth(n' or afjiiraiulize tliemselves at each otliers
expense, or as to tlie best liaiid of cards to hohl in these
<'nco«uiters and liow best to play them. All this I must
confess seemed to me to indi(!ate a mind wanting in dignity
and self-respect, and worthy rather of some foxy detective
watching the rat-holes of life, than of a great and sovereign
spirit.

It was at about the time of which I am writing, that owing
to a c(mtroversy which had been started by Gladstone on the
l)olitical influence of the ' Vatican Decrees,' then but recently
pronudgated, 1 was first led to the writings of Cardinal
Newman who had taken up the challenge which Gladstone had
thrown down. Hut nothing, indeed, could have been fai'ther
from my expectations at that time than that I should get any
access of insight or intellectual help from a Theoh)gian of any
school, much less from a Theologian of the Catholic Church
which I identified with the very spirit and genius of reaction
itself. Hut I had not gone far in the [)erusal of his writings
before I discovered that he too beh)nged to the sovereiu'n race
of Poetic Thiidvcrs from whom stinudus and suiXi^estiou at
least were always to be looked for, however nuich the con-
elusions of the author might differ from one's own. For in
Newman I came unexpectedly on an intellect of the highest
order, — subtlety, delicacy, penetration, clearness, compre-
hensiveness, serenicy, knowhulge of the world and of human
life, being visible on every i)age, — and one, besides, occupying
an intellectual point of view (as was to be expected from a
thinker who had in middle life embraced a creed alien to his
traditions) more conunanding than the particular creed to
which he had given his adhesion, thougii in this creed he
found the best expression and end)odiment of his ideal of life,
and in the Chtu'ch to which it was attached all that was best
in him found for itself a home. Indeed he expressly tells us
that it was by reason of certain large, general, intellectual

THE PERSONAL EQUATION.

409

views, wliich we shall see in the next chapter, that he was led
to the Catholic Church as the institution which best met and
harmonized with them. And if in the end I was actually less
influenced by him in the particular conclusions at which 1
arrived than by the other j^reat Poetic Thinkers whom I have
])assed in review, it was due rather to differences in what I
have called ' tin,' personal equation,' that is to say in orijjjlnal
disposition and temperament, in moral and emotional afhnity,
than in intellectual affinity properly so called. For if with all
my general sympathy with the Poetic Thinkers I was never-
theless repelled in ])oints by peculiarities in them with which I
was not (owing to this personal erjnation) in sympathy : in
Carlyle, by what to me was his excess of puritanic morality,
his querulousness and fault finding, and by his absence of
form ; in Emerson and Goethe, by their absence of vehemence,
indignation, and fire ; in Bacon, by his over worldliness and
absence of personal pride; I was repelled still more in Newman
by a piety, devoutness, and unworldliness with which I hud no
natural sympathy, a lack whi(^h far from extenuating, I desire
to apologize for as a regrettable deficiency in my own natin-e,
much as the absence of an ear for music would be, but which
if Goethe's dictum that a man's philosophy is often the supple-
ment of his character be true, nmst have made it imj)ossibl(! for
us to unite in our moral estimates, in our estimates of the value
of institutions, or indeed in the approval of almost any given
coiu'se of action or conduct, however mucii we might agree
from the most abstract and purely intellectual point of view.

With these preliminaries which I have entered into mainly
with the view of giving the reader some hint of the personal
bias, the ' personal equation ' which I brought to the solution
of the question of the Problem of Life, and which it is
necessaiy to be in possession of if allowance is to be made tor
whatever in one's nature is calcuhited to deflect his mind from
the pure dry light of truth, I am now in a })osition to return to
the Poetic Thinkers just named, with the view of indicating in

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THE PERSONAL EQUATION.

whiit particulars I was helped and supported by them in my
sear<!li for the lost Ideal, and what under the new intellectual
conditions thrown into the Problem by Darwin and Herbert
Spencer, was left for me to do for myself if I was to recover
again this Ideal fi'om out of the intellectual confusion, the
materialism, and the scepticism of the time.

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CHAPTER IX

THE POETIC THINKERS.

A LTHOUGH the Philosopliers whom we have just passed
•"^^ in review are in many ways so widely different, I have
classed them all under the one head of Poetic Thinkers,
ina3much as they all agree in those particular modes of
regarding the world, which as the outcome of our study of
the Metaphysical Thinkers proper, we saw to he a necessity
if the highest truth accessible to man in his present stage of
development, is to be attained.

In the first place they one and all perceived the absurdity
of attempting to explain either the World or the Human Mind
by any j)rincii)le or combination of princii)lcs, by any law or
combination of laws which the human mind with its limited
number of senses, has up to the present time discovered or is
likely to discover, as, for example, the Persistence of Force
and the laws of mechanical motion deducible from it, by which
Spencer explains them, or the triple movement of Spirit (or
the ' Notion ') by which Hegel contends that all things have
been evolved. Not that the natural man by himself, — a poor
ephemeral and palpably intermediate product, — would have
dreamed of the possibility of explaining this shoreless Universe
from whoso depths he has been cast up, and on which he
swims, were it not for the intellectual inflation which has been
produced in him by the discovery of the law of gravitation,

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THK I'OiyrU- TIIINKEUS.

a law whioh as being eoextcnsivo with the infinitely vast and
.^nperficial, flattered his poor intellect that the same or a like
law might he made to explain the infinitely small as well; that
hecriinse it had explained the movements (>f the mass, it might
he made to explain the workings of the; partiele and of the
utmost particle — (juite a different matter. Indeed to imagine
that a being like man, who but the day before yesterday
emerged from the slime and yesterday from the kingdom of the
brutes, should with an eternity before him in whieb to develop
into a hiy-her form of beini; with new and hi<>her faculties
superaddcMl, possibly have drawn all the threads of Nature and
Life to within the circuit of his own small brain, so as to
anticipate what in all probability can only be known in its
entirety to the intelligence deveh)pcd at the cjk/ of the
evolutionary process ; to imagine this, I say, and then to go
farther and aggressively declare as S[)encer and Hegel do, that
they have found the key to it all, is arrogance and presumption
of spirit rather than intellectual insight and jtenetration. One
would almost as soon believe that the problem of existence can
be solved by manipulating and combining such })rinciples as
are open to the intelligence of the anthropoid apes, as that it
can be solved by man at his present stage of development and
culture.

The law of the evolution of spirit again (or of 'the Notion,'
as 1 have elsewhere descrilicd it) which Hegel id(!ntifies with
the evolution of the Universe both physical and spiritual, is at
best only an evolution of the categories of the Logical Under-
standing, namely (piantity, tpiality, cause and effect, organic
unity, self-C(nisciousness, and the like, not the categories of
the Sentiments, Lnagination, or Heart. For the problem of the
World it nmst be remembered concerns not merely the abstract
fact of quantity, but quantity of what ? not of quality, but
(luality of what i not of self-consciousness, but self-conscious-
ness of what ! It is a problem not of the framework, but of
the contents, not of the casket, but of the jewels, not of the

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THE I'Oinif; TIIINKKUS.

413

form, hut of tlie inner nature, not of tlio forces involved, but
of tlieir function, colour, and life. And it is evident that a
law which j)rofesses to explain only the abstract categories of
(juantity, quality, relation, self-consciousness, and so on,
cannot explain a difference which is part of the content
of self-consciousness and which gets all its emphasis from
self-consciousness, the difference namely which the soul makes
between selfishness and unselfishness, between heroism and
self-indulgence, between love and lust, between what is Idgli.
and what is low in motive or intention. And yet the whole of
life turns practically on these distinctions. Ilegel's law can
only assume them, it cannot explain them or deduce them from
the other categories, and so is but an imperfect solution of the
Problem of the World, getting any aj)pearance of completeness
it may have, by leaving out the Prince of Denmark in the Play
of Ilandet.

Now the Poetic Thinkers have seen all this from the
beginning, and have avoided it as a deadly pitfall. Bacon struck
the key-note when he said that Nature was more subtle than
the mind of man, by which he meant to convey that at no point
of time can the scientific laws discovered by the human
mind with its limited five senses, equal the subtlety and
complexity of the web of Nature which it has taken countless
ages of evolution to weave, and which these laws are called on to
exnlain, but that in her last recesses Nature must for ever elude
our search,

Goethe follows Bacon in this, and is constantly repeating
that the origin and the original principles of all things are
incomprehensible to us ; and far from imagining that any one
principle or law or method will e.rplain the world, he confesses
that if he is to find any harmony in it, he must occupy not one
l)hysical or metaphysical standpoint but several, nnist use not
one method only but many, not one part of the mind, the
imderstanding proper, but the imagination and heart as well.
And hence he declares that while as a Scientist he is obliged to-

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THE POETIC TIIIxVKEKS.

I)(' !i Miiterialist, as a Poet lie must become a Pantlieist, and as a
Kclij^loiis Thinker a Theist.

(Jarlylc, again, is never weaiy of denouncing those who
imagine tliat they can fully explain the Universe by the few
threads which up to now man has succeeded in driiwing out
from the great mesh or web of laws of which it is constituted ;
and contemptuously compares such thinkers to those minnows
who while they have a very complete knowledge of the pebbles
and the nooks of their little inland stream, can have no
knowledge at all of the great ocean tides, the trade-winds and
monsoons by which their little home is liable from time to time
to be upset. For while admitting that a knowledge of the
Physical Laws of Nature is of the utmost value in enabling us
to control the world around us for our own use and comfort, and
while admitting further that it is of even greater value in
ui)sctting those superannuated superstitions and retrograde
religious Cosmogonies which have hitherto been accepted as the
explanation of things, he declares that when these [)hy sical laws
are elevated into the sole instruments for explaining the mystery
of existence, they become at once pernicious and even
poisonous.

Emerson, too, is of the same opinion, and in order to escape
from the limitations which our beggarly five senses impose on
our understandings, and which restrict so greatly the number of
the laws of Nature which we can possibly discover, as well as
forbid us to understand the nature of the forces engaged, (in the
same way as a dog seeing a man looking through a telescope,
might understand his movements but not their motive), is
constantly looking out for the appearance of some Seer or
Mahatma as the Theosophists would say, who by the possession
of some extra or additional sense or faculty, shall tell him the
inner meaning antl nature of it all.

Newman, too, is so strongly convinced of the impossibility of
getting aught but blank Atheism out of the world by the
exercise of our natural faculties when left to themselves, that he

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THE POKTIC TIIlNKKItS.

4ir>

even

is obliged to fall back on Reveliition to liclp Iiim out. Hut
instead of looking forward, as Kinerson does, to tlie advent of
some new prophet who by the possession of higlter powers will
be armed witli the authority needful to sliow us th(! hithlcn
powers and processes of Nature, he still thinks tliat all that is
necessary for us to know beyond what our natural powers can
teach us, can be had from the old revelation of the truth by
Jesus Christ, as expounded by the Catholic Churcli and its
Supi'eme Head.

Now altliough one and all of these Poetic Thinkers have tlius
resigned all hope of satisfactorily expliiining the World by any
principle or combination of principles which it is open to man
in his present stage to discover, and so have cut themselves
off entirely from the Materialistic and Metapli ysical Schools ;
and although by doing so they have avoided the danger of
ruining their representation of the World by cutting it down
so as to make it fit these poor and imperfect principles they
nevertheless all agree that the visible and tangible worhl of
Nature stands in some relation to an invisible world behind it,
and that relation they conceive to be to represent or symbolize
the Spiritual World which is its Cause; and so to teach us
things of deepest import in reference to it.

Bacon, of course, appearing as he did before Modern Science
had made serious inroads into those vitals of tlie faith wliicli
were bound up with the Mosaic Cosmogony, frankly accepted
the prevailing view that the world and all it contains was made
by God, and that the most essential part of wliat we ought to
know was contained in lievelation. IJut that the world
throughout was the manifestation of Spiritual Power generally,
was otherwise evidenced to liim by the fact tliat as the
multiplicity of the world is traced back further and further,
things disclose behind their phijHical unlikenesses .yiirUwil
affinities which the finer eye of the Poetic Thinker detects, and
which cause things that have no outer resemblance that
Physical Science can take hold of, to leave an id<mtical

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THE TORTK' THINK RItS.

iinprcssidii on the iiiiiid ; tliiis provin*; to Itiiii that physical and
niati-rial thiny-s must have their ssourec! and on<;in in the unity
of some Invisible and Spiritual Power.

GoetJK!, again, waa so saturated with the conception of the
,s[)iritual nature of things, that he wrote the 'Elective Affinities'
to show that the attractions and repulsions of the chemical
elements are paralleled and rejiroduced for self-conscious beings
in the attractions and repulsions of the sexes ; thus showing
how Nature speaks to us as one spirit to another, the great
I'oets and Poetic Thinkers acting as interpreters, and catching
her meaning without the medium of language.

As for Carlyle again, his ' Sartor ' is one long illustration of
the truth that all visible, material things exist to express and
represent spiritual realities, and like the uniforms of soldiers
and policemen, the robes of magistrates and judges, and the flags
of the nations, stand for ideas, and are as nuich their expression
as language itself could be, in the same way as our bodies are
tiie clothing of our minds, and with their movements and
gestures exist to represent us to each other and to ex})res8 our
thoughts and feelings. The material and visible, that is to say,
exists to represent the spiritual and give it expression. He
recognizes of coui'se as clearly as the Materialist that this
clothing or vesture which we call Nature and Man, can
doubtless be accounted for by scientific laws, did we only know
them, but like Bacon he still c(mtends that no mei'ely human
faculty is equal to the full or complete inventory of these laws.
It is enough, he thinks, that these scientific laws should be
sought for the practical j)urposes of life, for health, for digestion,
for locomotion, for comfort, for food, for everything in short
except, as we have said, for the Mystery of Existence, to which
they are unccpial and for which there is nothing for mortals but
reverence and wonder. And it is because he regards our
present knowledge of these laws, and our little lives lived in
accordance with them, as but a little briirht sun-lit isle of liirht
swinuning on an infinite unsounded sea of mystery, that he feels

THE POETIC THINKEKS.

'117

feels

timt the utmost man can do is to try and paint or reproHcnt
some small section of Natnn; <tr Ilistctry, l>nt by no means to
imagine that he has fnliy ex|)laine(l it. And henc(! it was that
he himself, jfreat philosopher as he was or mij^ht have bcciome,
dedicated his life to ^ivin;;- us Kend)ran(lt-like pictures of the
world and of human hcin^s here and there, histories, biographies,
and so on, hut not a systematic l*hih)s()phy aiming at a full
ex[)lanatioii either of the External World, of Man, of Society, or
of the Human Mind; while the dark l)ack<;round of mystery
behind and beyond it all, his Puritanic temper led him to
represent as a hack<^round of <j;loom, not to b(( penetrated, but.
to be referred to vaguely and with awe-strieken solemnity as
the region of ' the Inunensities and tiu; Eternities.'

With Emerson, too, as with the rest of the Poetic. Thinkers,
the visible world is the clothing, garment, mirror and outward
expression of the invisible world of S[)irit, or say rather its very
life, as the leaves and blossoms of a tree are the outward
expression of its life, and exists not merely t<» feed and clothe
us but to discipline and teach us what we are to think and
believe, do or avoid. It is there to give us the images which
in turn give us the language by which we teach one another ;
and to show us, as Goethe says first love does, that there is
Beauty at the heart of things ; as well as to teach us by its
reactions and compensations that it is bi-polar and double-
edged, and so that the Soul of the World is just. And finsdly
Nature, by the way in which she responds to our moods and
takes their hue and impress, teaches us that we all have
precisely the world that coi'responds to our own souls, and that
as we drink deeper of the divine springs she lierself will appear
more beautiful and ennobled, until at last should we ever again
come to the primitive state of ])urity and iiuiocence fabled of
man before the Fall, the evil we now sec will disappear, and
to our hypnotized eyes and soul all will seem ' very good ; ' the
snakes, the spiders, and beetles which now repel us will seem
to us when we are no longer afraid of their bites or stings, as

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418

TIIK r'OKTIC Til INK Kits.

tlu'y dill t(» tlu' Kli'Ht Man, or iih tlicy tciul f() do now to the
eye of tlic (miIhiiu'cmI plivKlolofrist, hciiiitifiil ndiiptutioiis merely,
mid lutt evil at. all. .\iid hence Ik; eonelnderf thiit all we have
to do to make fV.r onrwelves a Heaven her(% is to purity onr
own 8ouls. And in tliiH way ho anticipates the man that is to
he, and ex[)resfleH not what was trne of iVdain in Paradise, hut
what shall he true of our descendants in remote aj^es of
o volution.

Newman, too, holds by the same general ideas and lives in
the sanu' great thought ; hut Christian Theologian as he is, he
gives the facts an altf)gctlier diflercmt comjdexion. In his
'Apologia" he tells us he carried about with him habitually the
impression that uumi and things as we see them around us,
were but half real, that they were but spirits walking, the
synd)ols and incarnation of spiritual realities and verities ; not
however of the powers of (lood, but as in bondage to the
powers of Evil ; that they seemed veiled and wee|)ing as if
bemoaning their lost Eden and bewailing the Fall, and as if
awaiting another incarnation of the Good to restore to them
their innocence and i)uritv ajjain. Cominj; to Nature not
as Emerson did from the (irreek statulpoint of a joyous and
unsuspicious innocence and purity, but from the Hebraic
conception of disobedience, all things seemed to him to speak
of Sin and of the necessity of another incarnation, of another
.Spirit made Hesh, who should bring forgiveness and reconcilia-
tion with him ; thus supporting Emerson in his doctrine that
we make our own world of Nature and liife, accordinu" to the
bias and complexion of our own souls.

Now not only did these Poetic Tlnnkev- H avoid the first
great ernn- into which wr Iim \\ Materialists and

Metaphysicians have fal i upting to explain

the Universe of Mind Mai i by cping to the safe

o-ronnd of showing that tli. «»ne vv the expresnion of the other ;
but as a consequence of this th< were enabled to avoid the
second great error of these Materialists and Meta] ' vsicians,

THK I'OKTIC THINK Kits.

419

iniiiicly iif milking out ol" tlif lew |>riiici|)I(!rt hy which they
piolVssfd to ex|)laiii thv, Worhl, an iirfificiiil eye, aixl tlien
hrin<i,'in<]^ thi^ to the ohscrvatiou iiiul oxpliiiiatioii of iiHlivldiial
thiii<i;M ; in thiw way Hceinj^ ail tliin<^s t'alHoly and out of foouH,
piTspcotivc, and proportion. luMtoad of (loin»j; this tlu; I'oetic
Tliinkcrs, on the (M)ntrary, liavo reganU'd the Mind a.i an
onjanlzed whole as tlie natural eye through wliicli alont' tilings
fan 1k! sficn in their true hearings, and have u.<ed the separate
faculties of the mind as instruments merely.

Hacon, we saw concerning himself (before making his
o!>serviitions on Life and Nature) rather with clearing the
natural intellectual eye to keep it free from fog and illusion,
than with attempting to replace it hy any artificial eye whatever,
of what principles soever composed; and (loethe never for a
moment neglects to keep sej)arate intellectmd instruments of
truth ; using, as we have seen, the understanding for purely
sc'ieiitific purposes, the sympathies and sensibilities for poetic
and religious, and the mind as a whole for (!o-ordinating them
all and giving them their true bearings and relations.

So, too, Carlyle in the 'Sartor' is constantly reiterating in
one form or another that to look at the World with the view
of interpretinii it through the laws of Phvsical Science oiilv,
is like looking at it through a pair of spectacles beliiml wiiieh
there is no eye ; and compares such an instrument to tlie
Doctor's head in the Arabian tale, wliich if set in a basin to
kee[) it alive would answer quite as well and would go on
grinding out such laws for ever, without the shadow of a
heart.

Emerson, too, is firm on the same point. lie insists that
the World as a whole cannot be properly explained by any
addition (U- subtraction or combination of IMiysical or
Psychological laws, as particular things (^r processes like the
phenomena of digestion or of a disease of the brain can be ;
but only by bringing the whole mind, as it w'cre, with all its
s[)ecial [)owers and faculties in free and vigorous exercise, full

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TIIK rOKTlC THINKEUS.

on every point ; lis one can only get tlie relative bearings of
objects in the lan(l.sca[)e by bringing to each and every point
of it the complex unity of the organized human eye.

Newman, again, in his ' Grannnar of Assent,' it may be
remembered, makes the mind as an organic whole, with its
sentiments, intuitions and all, compacted into a unity, his
organon for the discovery of truth, under the name of the
' Illative Sense.' Hut his error lay, I think, in his carrying
this organon Avhich was so true for the world as a whole, into
those sj)ccial problems of life and society where purely scientific
methods and instruments are alone in place, or where in the
event of a conflict of evidence, the decision shoidd rest with
them ; the diftcrence in this respect between him and the
Scientific Materialists being that whereas they fell into error
by using an instrument suitable only for special dopartments of
research, for the [)rol)lem of the world as a whole, he used an
instrument proper to the problem of the world as a whole, for
the solution of problems falling under special departments of
Physical Science and Psychology. And indeed if we consider
it well, to employ anything less than the whole human mind
in the interpretation of the world as a ..hole, would be to
stultify the entire ground-plan of Evolution which proceeds
on the assum[)tion that the organ or instrument which it has
taken ages to evolve, is the fittest organ or instrument for tlio
work which it hart to perform. It would be as absuxnl to
expect to get a harmonious view of the World as a whole by
cutting oft' any power, function, or fatudty of the organized
human mind, as it would be to expect to get a harmonious and
all-round impression of an external object by cutting ofl^ the
evidence of one or more of the senses.

Now the consequence of this use by the Poetic Thinkers of
the mind as an organic whole in all their studies of Life and
Nature, was such a number of profound observations of the
world and of life as is not to be matched in the writings of any
other body of men, and as you would in vain look for in the

THE POETIC THINKERS.

421

writings of theThoolo<Tians,tlie Mctiiphysiriiins,tlie Miiterialists,
or the Psycliologists. Tlic works of these Poetic Thinkers one
and all are distinguished for this wisdom of life, tliis insight into
human nature and motive, this knowledge of th' ways of men, this
l)ro[)hetic iiisiglit into the drift and trend of events; JJacon and
Goethe proverbially so ; Emerson and Carlyle scarcely less so ;
while none understancis better than the Theologian Newman, the
motives and principles of action of the men of the world and
politicians, or the ])oints of view of the average sensuous man of
the market and the street ; or has better characterized and
described them.

It is only when we come to the practical i)r()blem of what we
are to do and to whom or what we are to look for guidance in
this world, that we find these Poetic Thinkers differing widely
among themselves. They all agree, as we have seen, that the
world of Nature and of Human Life exists for our guidance, is
here to i"e[)resent a spiritual Reality, and to teach us what we
ai'e to do and to believe. But the world of Nature and of
Human Life is a large and varied area from which to make
choice of our counsellors and guides ; and it is mainly on
differences in tcm|)er and personal bias, that the differences of
choice in this respect among these thinkers will be found to
depend.

Bacon, of course, accepted Revelation [)ure and simple as his
guide for the higher things of the spirit; trusting to knowledge
of the human mind (mainly on the shady side) for government,
state-craft, and policy; and to the Physical Science of the
future, for all progress in the arts and comforts of life.

Goethe here as elsewhere is the most many-sided and free
from theory or personal bias of any kind, and uses with ecpial
indiflference every instrument that comes to his hand, for his
great end of Culture — Science, Nature, Art, Books, Men,
History and Biography, Action and Contem|>lation, Religion,
Self-Remmciation, and the practice of a moderate and regulated
Asceticism. It is only wiien wc come to Carlyle, Emerson, and

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THE POKTIC THINK KUS.

Newman, that the offectis of special trainin<>", of personal bias,
and of certain elements of theory, in restricting this e((ual and
all-round sympathy of (locthe, are seen.

Carlyle's position is the logical outcome of a mixture of all
three, of special theory, of a particular training, and of [)ersonal
bias. To begin with he has a theory that Society, like the
"^^'orhl in general, althoug'i always changing never advances.
He sees that all things work together, and that the results of
one generation are transmitted to the next by tradition, but he
believes that like Nature, Society swings backwards and
forwards in perpetual flux of ebb and flow of moral and spiritual
activity, and swims like Nature herself, in an luiknown direction
over luiknown seas of mystery and darkness. The conscijuence
is that as he can find no definite line of tendency along which
Society as a whole is advancing, which may furnish him with a
guide to Action, he is obliged to fall back on individuals, and
the (piestion becomes on whom t To answer this he starts
with the assumption that the great masses of men are incapable
cither of culture or morality, and if left to themselves without
guidance, would soon relapse int(t barbarism ; and accordingly
he has to look out for appropriate leaders armed with the
re([uisite power and authority. And on enquiring as to what
the power is by which men are willingly led, he answers, by the
power of their own imaginations, that is to say by what they
imagine they see behind the outward and visible clothing of
men, l)ehind their personal api)carance, their manners, tiieir
words, and their actions; iuul he concludes that as the words
and deeds of Great ^fen have ever been the most calculated to
im[)ress and enchain tlie imaginations of men, (as indeed they
maybe said to l)e the best ' clothed ' intellectually, morally,
and physically) so it is but right and natural that the (Jreat
Men of each age or generation should be chosen as its guides,
counsellors, law-givers, and leaders. Whether the Hero shall
be military or political, prophet, priest, or philosopher, will, he
thinks, be determined by tlu; particular form which the Age

THE POETIC TIIINKEUS.

423

Age

iuo.st requires ; and ho gets over the diffieulty tliat a multiplicity
of heroes of variously different kinds may he recfuired at one
and the same time, by another theory on which he lays the
greatest stress. It is that the intellectual, the spiritual, the
moral, are all sides of one and the same power, and are inter-
changeahle. Now this theory although perhaps true abstractly
or in tendency, is not so in actual practical fact, and is in
consequence a broken reed on which to lean in the afftiirs of
life. But Carlyle, nothing daunted, pushes it home to its
utmost cimclusion and boldly declares that the Hero who is
great in one direction is potentially so in all, that he can turn
his hand to any kind of work if required, can be prophet,
priest, philo8o|)her, or king, according as the exigencies of the
time demand. IIcro-worshi[), accordingly, is his univei'sal
panacea for the necessities of each and every age. Uut when
he goes on to (;onsider practically in what form among so many,
his hero s'-all appear, his personal bias begins to show itself.
Holding as ho very justly did, that without morality society
cannot hold together at all, the excess of emphasis wiiich his
Puritan temper laid on religion and morals, caused him to lop
off" from the all-round requisites which (ioctlie demanded in
his fully-equipped man, most of the scientific, and j)ractically
all the artistic and icstlietic (culture, and to restrict the equip-
ments of his Hero to two mainly, namely Religion and Action.
The Hero, accordingly, in his capacity at onc'c of Prophet and
King was the leader who in the eyes of Carlyle was required
for the necessities of society not only in our own but in all
times.

Emerson, on the contrary, can scarcely be said to have
restricted on any side the synqiathy and tolerance of his mind,
which was as many-sidod almost as that of (loethe; but even he
had his theory which derogated from his general illriu('llC(^
although not interfering, as we have seen, with his practical
penetration. Agreeing, as Ik; does, with Carlyle that the world
of visible Nature exists as the representative and ex[)onent of

424

THE POETIC TII1^'KERS,

the Deity, lie (leni(!s tliat nny one species of excellence, even the
(Ircjit Miin himself, i,s worthy to constitute itself I lis repre-
i<entiitive, but believes that as it takes the whole landscape to
<ijivc us the jioetry, so it takes the whole of sf)ciety to give us the
excellence which our ideal demands. lie declares that each
individual has his peculiar <[uality of excellence which is
inalienable and not to be a[)propriated by another; that each
man has sonicthiuii^ to learn from all, and all from each; and
that in consc<juence, as the Avelfare of society consists not in the
Ji.^grandizement of one person but in a general excellence, each
man should rely on himself, and ma. 2 the most of his own
])arti('ular gift, Innnbly submitting himself for the result to the
Divine Will. And lastly, as each, in his theory, lies open, as
wo have seen, on one or other of his sides to the whole mind of
(lod, as the waters of a bay do to the ocean, so in the last resort
he can fall Itax'k on that Divine mind and be fed by it as from
an inexhaustible fountain, without other exti'aneous aid ; neither
Hero, nor Church, nor Society, being necessary to hin>, but only
that Divine Voice with which he is ever in communication, and
from which if he listens in all humility, he will hear the right
word.

With Newman, too, as with the other Poetic Thinkers, the
visible world of Nature and of Life exists as the representative
and exponent of Spiritual Realities, but pai'ticipating, as it does,
in Adam's Fall, it stands there as the representative and
embodiment of Evil rather than of Good. Instead, therefore,
of Nature and Life being our teachers and guides as to what we
are to do and to follow, they are witnesses rather of our guilt,
and warnings as to what we arc to avoid. Since the Fall, and
until the advent of Jesus Christ, God had, he thinks, with the
ex( iti(m of certain Prophet.-' sent for s[)ecial purposes, no
visible representatives of Himself in the world of Nature or of
Iluniiin Lit\'. iVnil since the Advent of Christ, no series of
merely (Jreat Men appearing from age to age wcr(> to be
recognized as our guides, as with Carlyle ; nor was the infinite

THE POETIC THINKERS.

425

iinfathoined sea of Spirit to wliich our souls have access aud on
which they can draw at will, to be our monitor as with
Emerson ; but .Fesus Christ alone. But as the lifc-in-the-Hcsh
of Jesus as of other mortals, was but a transient phenomenon, it
is evident, says Newman, that if His tea('hin<^ and influence
were to be endurin;>; he must leave behind him some visil)le
representative of Himself. Not a mere Hook, for that must
either be so literal and inelastic as to be useless as a g\iide for
any a<;^e but that for which it was written, or so spiritual and
elastic as to be able to support any doctrine or course of conduct
that is found to brinj^ spiritual comfort to the soul ; nor yet a
scries of isolated men in every [)lace and time grounding them-
selves on the Book, for owing to the infinite diversity of
temperament, personal bias, or spiritual affinity, they wouhl
soon he found to split themselves into infinite differences of
opinion as to what the liook x'cquired under every fresh
condjinatiou of circumstances that arose, were it not, indeed,
that the simple Cross of Christ and the tendency men have to
go in grou[)s, wen; constantly knitting them together again.
But the siinj)le ('ross of Christ is of use only for the temper of
mind it prodnces and for the comfort it brings to the private
heart, not for guidance and direction in the com[)lex and ever-
varying situations of practical life. And for this, besides tiie
Civil Power, nothing less than some Institution founded on tlu;
life and teaching of .Jesus, armed with his authority, and made
infallible by the direct and constant conununication of his Spirit,
could avail — an Institution in which the transient individual,
however great, is absorbed and lost, and that abides while all
else dc<!ays, an Institurion that is sacred through aud through,
and that like the hem of Christ's ganncnt, radiates the irrac(!
originally conunuuicated to it by its Founder, not merely from
its priests, its martyrs, and its saints, but from the meanest
utensils consecrated in its service.

Such an Institution did Ncwnian with his personal piety, his
Hebraic temper (deeply conscious as he was of sin and of the

!;'■

1 .

'I'

42(>

THK rOETIC THINKERS.

need of reconciliation and forgiveness), demand for the
satisfaction of his nature ; and believing, as he did, that
material and visible things were not only the symboU and
expression of Divine things, but that they were the instrwnenfx
of coinnuniicating them as well, so that images and relics ^ud
all else to which grace had been conuuunicated by contact,
C(»uld by contact conununicate it in turn to others in faith ; he
found that a consensus of probabilities sufficient for certitude
pointed to the Catholic Church with its sacraments, its
hierar(!hics, its mysteries, as his true guide, and which after
long and weary wandering brought him to his home at last.

CHAPTEH X.

MY CONTKIHUTION.

1>UT in spite of my agreement in method and point of view
with these Poetic Thinicers, thew mii.stcr-spiiits of the
Mode; . I AVorhl, who represented each in his way the height not
only of the mental power l»nt of the eulture of his time, there
was no one of them whose practical solntion of the World-
prohlem jireoisely met the particular difficulties with which 1 was
confronted. From the time of mv readin"; of the Metaphysical
Tliinkcrs I saw that although the faculties of man were ecpial
to all the }irol)lems of practical life that were likely to arise
from his situation and en\ ironmen., it was ho[)eless to attem[»t
to explain either the World or the Human Mind by any hiw or
cond)ination of laws open to him in his present stage of
dcNclopment, with his limitetl number of special senses and a
range of mentality which unless all evolution is at fault, can
only he on tin; way to higher stages of thought and existence.
I saw, too, the absurdity of making an intellectual eye of tiiese
few laws, and then insisting on reading the history of Man and
Nature through the eye so made, as was done by Darwin,
Spencer, and Hegel, although at the same time 1 fidly admitted
the value of the widest generalizations as preliminary hypotheses
for suggestion, for tlu; opening up of new fields of research,
and for brinirin"; as wide a tract of territory as possible imder
the dominion of natural law: and I couhl onlv conclude that

:'•>

:"l|

\ >

.:1!

-i

42><

MY roXTRinUTION.

the niintl ns an ()r<>;iinizecl wliole, uwiiif^ it8 separate parts aa
instriiinonts for special purposes, was tlie one true Orj^anon or
niotluxl for a just insij^ht into the World as a whole. And
lastly, r saw that although you could neither exj)lain Mind by
the inoveuKints of Matter, as Spencer attempted to do, nor
Nfatter hy the movements of Mind or Spirit, as Hegel did, you
could as a matter of fact indicate the relation existinj; h(!tween
the two ; and that you were on the safe ground of observed
fact in declaring with the Poetic Thinkers, that Spirit or Mind
is primary, and that (on any hypothesis as to liuw they were
specially connected) Matter and all visible and tangible things
exist to represent these spiritual things and to body them forth,
for our instruction, guidance, and discipline.

Hut agreeing, as I did, with the Poetic Thinkers in their great
general principles, I found myself, as I have said, unable to
accept their practical solutions of the Problem of the World,
owing mainly to two great difficidties. In the first [)lace, like
the Metaphysicians they all, with the exception, perhaps, of
Goethe, represent the mind as an entity existing ajiart from and
independent of the mechanism of the brain and nervous system,
thus ijriiorino- a doctrine which has been j2;rowin<>: in favour,
indeed, for the last hundred years, but which has only been
put on a scientific basis since their time, chieHy through the
works of Spencer and the Physiologists and Psychologists.
Jiacon and Newman, as Christian Thinkers, accepted as was
natural, the doctrine of the separate and independent existence
of a soul a[)art from the body; so too, did Carlyle and Emerson;
Carlyle regarding the body, in tlu; ' Sartor,' as a garment of
which the mind couhl as easily divest itself, as the body itself can
of its clothes ; while Emerson so scouts the idea of the state of
the brain being any bar to thought, tliat he figures man, as we
have seen, as having an inlet to a Universal Soul on which he
can draw at will ; thought and emotion depending not on the
condition, state, or quality of the brain, but on the height to
which this Universal Soul rises in the individual, as the

I 1

MV OONTKIHUTION.

421>

mercury rises in a tliermoineter. With an ocean of soul on
whicli to draw, it is coinjiaratively easy to find the ideal,
whether it be of God or Inunortaiity ; indeed by takinj^ a
sufficient draught of it you can, as we saw Emerson doing, get
rid of Evil altogether.

If the Poetic Thinkers had thus like the Metaphysicians an
easy task in finding their Ideal in the mind, by ignoring the
main dilliculty with which 1 was confronted, namely the
de[)endence of mental })henomena on physical and material
conditions of the brain and nervous system, they failed mo
altogether in my main desire which was to find the Ideal in
the world. For they one and all regarded the world as con-
stantly chaiujlwj, indeed, but not advancing, as changing its
vices from age to age rather than making steady ])rogress in
virtue and morality. From which it followed that as Evil had
always been in the world to cast doubt on the existence and
reality of the Ideal, so it always would continue to be ; and I
saw that unless I could show that the world was continually
advancing, continually throwing oft' its own evils and
impurities, and that things were slowly but surely ascending
towards the heights where the Ideal reigned, — towards .Justice,
lieauty. Goodness and Truth, — there would be in the absence of
a future state of perfection and bliss, no chance of finding the
Ideal either in this world or the next, and no reason for
believinji; that there was a Divine Mind behind things at all.
And if there were no Ideal in the world, then I saw that the
Goethe-Carlyle solutioii of the Problem of Life by Self-
renunciation, was good only for those persons who wanted to
know how they could be blessed while li\iiig in this world, of
which they had to make the best as of a ba<l bargain, but not
for me or for those like me whose main concern was whether
there were anywhere in this world or another, any Ideal in
whose service or in the contemplation of whose excellences
life could be made worth living at all.

Accordingly when I took up the problem on my own

,. W

1' S^

1^1

430

MY CONTUIIJUTION.

account, iiiid iindfir the new conditions imposed on it by tlie
iMatcriidists and l*sv(dioIogi.sts, I had to find the; Ideal anew
huth in tlie mind and in the worhl. I had to find it, not as
the I'oetii; Thinkers and Metaphysicians had done in a mind
exiHtin<> in(h'p(Midently of external ecmditions, hnt in a mind
chained to and dependent on the material organization oF the
brain and nervous system, that is to say on Matter, in wliich
no I(U;al can be found. Not only so, but I had to find it in a
mind in which not only the old stand-bye of Conscience or the
Moral Sense, but Reverence and Love also had been reduced
by the Metaphysicians and I'sychologists into forms of self-
interest or selfishness merely, variously disguised.

Now to find the [deal in a mind which on the one hand was
but a function of Matter, and on the other, if the Psychol')gists
Avere right, was but a subtle and comj)lex organ for the
furtherance of self-interest, or at most of race interests merely,
1 saw that several things »;ere necessary. In the first place I
saw that 1 should have to find something in, the mind that was
not ({/'the mind, if one may say so; in the second i)lace, that
I should have to find something that was not an organ, or
faculty, or sentiment, but that gave to the organs, faculties,
and sentiments their fixed relative positions and ranking ; and
lastly, something that was not, like the moral sense, decom-
posable into the form of some other function or faculty, but
that remained ever itself and unchangeable. What 1 wanted,
in a word, was something that would answer in a way to the
tludge in a court of law, who although in the court is, as it
were, not of it, but is the representative of a Power distinct
from each or all the parties to the suit; or, again, to a King
who confers on his subjects their respective ranks as nobles,
plebians, and the like ; or to a Light which proves its presence
by casting shadows from all objects not of the same nature as
itself.

Now that there is something in the mind that is not a
faculty or organ of the mind, was manifest to me from this,

.MY roNTUiniTIOX.

431

that tliose orf^iins and fiicultii's and .sentiments liav(! a Hxed
ravkuKj ainonjj; theinHelves, Monie of them bein^ classcid an low,
others as hi<rh. A miscellaneous collection of tacnlties or
powers could no more rank themselves without reference to
somcthlnj^ ontn>h; themselves, than men can make themselves
into a hierarchy without reference to some outside standard.
That this aomeidiin<jj was not of the mind was manifest to»)
fron) this, that while the ditlercnt or<vans of the mind have
different estimates put on them hy different people t»r at
different times, conscience, for example, being at one time or
by one class of thinkers regarded as a finger pointing to the
Divine, at another time or by another class, as a mere form (»f
expediency or self-interest ; it, the something of which I speak,
abides as an unchanging standard to which appeal is made, and
which while judging all, is itself judged by none ; in the same
way as the standard against which bo3-s measure themselves
and which determines their respective heights, i-eiuains fixed
und unchanging in spite of all di-pute. And lastly, that there
is something /// the mind, which is not ()/" the mind seemed
clear to me from the fact that while in animals all the functions
and faculties are exercised without rci)roach or shame, in man
all the lower apj)etites and passions and all that is ignoble or
base (!asts a shadow either of remorse, or shame, or reproach,
thus proving that a light has been introduced among them
from without ; the fact that some of the higher animals exhibit
the same phenomena although in a less degree, being only wiiat
we should expect since the doctrine of Evolution has shown us
that there is no such chasm between man and the animal as
was once supposed.

Now this something which is in the mind but not of it :
which is not a faculty but a judge of the faculties ; which is not
conscience, honour, beauty, reverence, or love, but which gives
them all their credentials ; which casts shadows from all that is
dark and low in motive or sentiment, but none from what is
Jiigh ; which has authority over all and gives rank to all : which

fj.i

432

M\ (X)NTUini;TI<)N.

approves or cenHurcs; — this Hoincthin^f \vlii(!li like; tlio poli; Hfar'iH
fix('(l and ahidin;;; while all else ('haii;i;es or is (li.sHolved, tluH is
the Ideal in the mind, of which I was in s((arch. It mattered
not whether it were the Divine itself in the mind, or only its
representative; whether it were immaterial like; spirit, or had a
material ormin as its seat, which wonid decav and dii; like the
rest of the individual; any more than it matters that a.ludj^e
is a man like those whom he jiidj^es, or that a Kinj^ has a
h(tus(! in which he dwells, as his suhjects have. Nor did it
make any diflerenee in the essential i)oint, whether as solo
sovereign like an Emperor it imposed its authority on its
8id)ject faeulties against their will, or like tlu! President of a
demoeratie State it was itself elected by a connnittee chosen
from among themselves; in either case it rejjresented and
implied a fixed standard of excellenc(! ont^'uh themselves, by
which all alike were to be bound. And if that standard, (as is
alleged (»f ()ne of the organs of the Ideal, namely the c(;nseience
or moral sense), is there only as the representative of the
interests of the family, or clan, or race, or nation as against the
interests of the individual, as the organs of generation re-
present the interests of the species as against those of the
individual, in the body ; this only shifts the Ideal from its
position in the mind to a similar position in the world at large.
For observe, it still stands as arbiter and judge between family
and family, clan and clan, nation and nation ; acrpiitting and
condemning, and casting its shadow athwart all in their
relations that is base and dishonourable, as it has already done
between individuals, and as indeed it nuist continue to do until
the whole world is conformed to its image and to its law. For
although circumstances make it more ditticult for nations to be
magnanimous and honourable, generous and just in their
relations with each other than is tlie case with individuals, still
these virtues arc none the less ai)plauded and revered when
cii'cumstanccs make it possible for them to be shown between
nations, than when they are shown between individuals and

MV CONTItimTION.

483

lily

»n(l

I'ir

»i»o

ntil

bo
10 ir
till
ion

0011

iind

this must contiiiiic, as we havo scon, until aiiion^^ the nations an
ainoii^ individuals, justice flows like u river and iiiorcy like u
ninnin<( Mtroain. And what is this hut, to hav(; thinuu hack
the Ith'ul tVoni the individual mind on to the world at lar<;e,
vvlioro after all it is of most iinporlanco timt it should he found.
Hut ti8 my conviotion is that it is |iriniarily the re|iresciitativ(?
in the mind of the l)ivine, and not like the conscience a mere
orjfan of the mind which represents (acc<irdin^' to tlu;
Materialists), the interests of the race, I shall liav(! a ditrerem

8eri(!s of proofs for its existence in the world, which we slia
consider further <»n.

In the ineantinie when I caiiie on this Idctal in the mind I
felt I had struck on a vein of purest <;(»ld that could neither Ix^
depreciated nor undermined, — whether limited in its manifesta-
tions, as I holieved, hy the (piality and condition of the hniin
through which it acted; whether virtue and honour were hut
forms of subtly disjj,iiisod selfishness ; or whether conscii'nc(^
were a cpiality bred out of the necesisity niidor which clans and
races and nations lie of protec-tiiij;' themselves in the stru<j,<>le
for oxistcneo; and in my first published work, a pamphlet
entitled '(Jod or Force?' the fortunes of which \\v. shall see iu
the next chapter, I called it for want of a hotter title 'The
Scale in the Mind.' It was the representative of the Divine
standin<^' in the mind and sliinin<>; there, castin<; a shadow (tii
all that was low, ij^noble, or base in thouiflit or feoli'.ii>-, and
jud<>ing men not so mucii from their actions as from the
motives and aims by which they are prom[)tod. To (piote ,
from the pamphlet I have mentioned —

' This is the deepest fact in tlie liuiimii consciousnesH, staiKh'iif;'
at the back of all our thoii^ilits, feelings, and inijmlsis, and jxivin;^
them tlieir relative dij^nities. It wi'l he best described, iiei'liaps,
by indicating the jiart it plays in our intelligence whicii is built up
and organized around it like crystals. 'I'lie havoc that would be
made of all our ideas if it were cut out of the mind, attests its
importance. Properly speaking, it is not a faculty, but is /ather
the measure of the faculties, giving them their relative subordina-
tions. By it Justice, (ioodness, 'truth, and Inauty are marked

l! I

4sL'\

434

MY CONTRinUTION.

/(///// ; wliilo tlie i)li3'sical sensations, appi'tites, and passions are
niaikc'd hiw. All jktsoiis and institutions inVv tlicir vaniiing from
it, and the iiieiarciiy in tiie world and in so(;iety is lint a better or
worse reflection of this hierardiy in the mind, and without it
would fall into chaos. It is perhaps tiie most im))ortant distinction
between man and the lowtr (creation. Animals have no scale.
With them, nothing is either high or low, noble or base. They
follow all their instincts imlifl'erontly, without compunction and
without choice. i5y the Scale, too, we gi't the idea of qnalitii as
distinguished from '/inni/il</. Ih-nce a spark of high virtue out-
weighs mou'itains of utility. The .Materialists attempt to show
that unselfishness springs from .selfishness, that reverence and
conscience spring from fear, and that beauty sjirings from an
aggregate of low pleasurable associations. Hut these respective
attributes as they range themselvi's along the Scale are seen to be
as u.fferent in their enncntud natures as a beautiful flower is
different from the unsightly root out of which it grows. It is the
Scale alone that puts the immense interval between force of mind
and fo<ce of gravitation ; and without it, God and Force were one.
It forever r<?pudiatcs tlie boasted victory of Science over Religion
by announcing that the essential truths of each lie on different
jjlanes. l{y it we are forced to believe th.it the First Cause of
things is not only more powerful, but also hi<jhir than ourselves.
By it we are made to feel that I'leasure is only a iiKdns, but that
elev.ation in the scale of Bein/r is the ciid of human existence. It
lias been remarked byCarlyle that there is nothing so interesting
to Tdan as Man, as is [)roved by the large element of iierauiKilili/ that
enters into nearly all conversation. I might add that in conversa-
tion resjiecting jiersons, there is nothing so interesting as tiiis
ranking of men and their procedure, as good, l;a<l, indiflferent, and
the like. The greater number of adjectives, perhaps, in every
language reflect in one form or another the Scale in the mind.
They express different slunles of quality and attribute, in positive,
comparative, aud su[)erlative degrees.'

And then 1 })roceed to ,>il)<>\v how fioui the nt'olect of tliis

Scale. Modern Scientific Matei ialism is convicted of inadecjuiicy

to solve the World-Problem. 'It professes,' 1 go on to say : —

' to account for the phenomena of life, mental as well as physical,
by pliysical laws alone ; that is to say by tlic knowledge which is
derived tiirough the Outer Senses. But to the Senses there is no
Scale. To the Senses there can be no differ nee in digi ' /between
the motions of the inattci which forms a c ystal, and the motions
of the nervous fluid which forms a thouglit. To the Senses there
can be no diflference in nature between the motions of the brain
which correspond to a feeling of magnanimity and self-sacrifice,

mi^r^

MY fONTUinUTION.

13,5

and tlie motions wliicli correspond to a feeling of self-love iirnl
selfislinesH. 'llie Materialist therefore cannot assume the Scale.
If he does assume it, it is only by abdicating his own standpoint
and working out his theories l)y the lu'lp of an intuition which lie
professes to discard. If he does not assume it, he is committed to
endless absurdities. For without it he cannot show that man is
superior to the vegetable; that self-sacriiice is higher than selfish-
ness ; duty than dishonesty ; reverence than fear. ^Ir. Spencer
the most wary and far-sighted of the Materialists, when he is
consistent with himself ignores tlie Scale, and we shall now see
what it reduces him to. lie gravely asks us to consider whether,
after all. there is much to choose between the force of iniml and
the force of heat ! Mind, he is willing to admit, can do some
things which heat cannot. For example it can invent a sun-glass
and bring the rays of the sun to a focu.s. IJut heat, in other
respects, has the advantage over mind, inasmuch as it can melt tlie
diamond which is phiced within that focus I This topay-turvydom
of all human categories comes of ignoring the Scale. But when
the absurdities to which his philosophy reduces him bt^gin to
thi<'ken around him. he is forced illegitimately to assume tlie Scale.
He then tells us that Life is /(////( in proportion to the complexity
anil extent of an animal's relations. For this reason a man is
higher than a beaver, a beaver than a iiolj'p. But unless the Scale
is assumed, why should the more complex organization be lilfiher
than the simple y Why not the simple be higher tiian the complex?
If he reply that the more complex can fulfil a icreater number of
ends than the simple, we have still to Jif-k why that sliould constitute
it a hl(jher thing; unless indeed the cmls are higher : and that would
still involve our assuming the Scale. Indeed, except by assuming
the Scale, it would be impossible to show the superiority of Mind
over the clod of Matter on which we tread.'

And 1 continue-

' Again, as Materialism cainiot (issumc the Scale, neither can it
account for it. It may point out the relation that ixi.sts between
the nervous structure of the brain and our ihouglits and feelings.
It may argue that difference in structure neces dtates difbrence in
function. Bui although in this way it may account tor dijju-tnctf
in our feelings, it is impossible to account for the fixed ividiiti/ of
them. Ft cannot be accounted for on any Kxpir'ence or Evolution
hypothesis. The Poetic Thinkers wiio accept the ivlidlt- Immdn
CvnscioiiKtiess an tlmir standpoint, can, of course, consistently assume
the Scale. But nowhere, as far as I am aware, have they brought
it into the foreground, and used it as I have done, as a philo-
sophical wea})on. '

I :':

I > i

If for the Scale in tl»e Mind in the above extracts \vc read

Z^i

43(5

!\iV CONTItllUTroN.

the Ideal, the ('((nsidt^riitions I hiive just advanced in its
support would he practically tlie same as I would ur<jje to-day.
It was my first contrihution to tlu; (piestion, put forward for
the consideration of tlie more advanced Thinkers of the School
of Materialism to which on one sicU- of my philosophy 1
belonjied.

My second contrihution was to show that even if it were
true, as I helieved, that the manifestations of Mind were
Hunted hy the condition and cpiality of the hrain and nervous
system, still Physical Science and the laws it discovered were
not the true standpoint for the interpretation of the Problem
of the World. And to show this I Ici'an by l)ackin<>- up the
contention of (loi'the, namely that different mental prohlems
require diti'crent mental instruments for their solution, hy the
followinii' ari>uinent in the same pamphlet : —

' Altli()ii;.'li till' faculties of tlic iiiiiid, liko the orj^ans of tlie hody.
arc mutually intfrdept'uik'nt and t'orin au orjj;anic unity; like the
organs of the body too tlioy liave each their own special and
appropriate functions. The Senses, for example, apprize us of the
vicinity of objects tiiat are to be sought or avoided, that are
beneiicial or injurious to us. 'i'he rndeistanding or jTL'iieralizinjf
faculty of the mind shows us the order and connexion of tiicse
objects, and shajx's i'.nd adjusts them to our necessities and use.
The Inner S))iritual Senses tind their sphere in the world of beauty,
beneficence, and omnipresent I'ower around us and jiay homage to
these in worshij), art, and self-renunciation. The Spiritual Senses
cease their function when they jiave supplied us with the raw
material of knowled<ie ; the Understanding when it lias given order
and connexion to this material ; to the Inner Si)iritual Senses alone
is the Soul that works tliroiiuh anil behind ;dl things, disclosed.
^^'e have many hints given us that tliese difTeri'nt instruments of
knowU'dge are limited in their laiigi'. and soon discover that, any
nustake in their aiiplication is pnnish(id by confusion of thought.
The eyes arc adapted only to a limiti'il range of vision ; the touch
to a limitt'd degree of fineness. \Vlien the mind (basing its
judgments on experience) ))asses tlie finite, it becdines self-
contradictory, and can neither conceive of Space without end, nor
of an end to Space. The beauty that is ap])arent to the iiakeil eye
vanishes under the microscope, and tlu' landscape jileases only
wIk ii seen from a distance where ugly details are lost to view.' ....
' 'i'he secret of harmonious insight lies in knowing, as Itaeon says,

i-'

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MV rONTUIBUTION.

437

•If

II II I-

inlv

when to contract tlio sirjlit and when to dilate it. To discover the
Pliysical and Organic Laws of Nature, tlie naked Senses alone do
not sullice. \Ve have to arm them with instriunents which like
the microscope increase their power and delicacy. Hut we must
dro]) these ijistrnments when we come to investigate the hroad
relations that exist bctweini one object and another. f>r l)etweon
the different parts of the .-ianie object. 'I'lie fnnetioii of the biceps
muscle, for exfimple, is as clearly to flex the fore-arm, as the
function of the eye is tr) enable us to s( e. Mnt it is evident that if
wo Were to decompose the muscle into the innumerable cells and
fibres which go to form it, and apply tlie microscope to each of
tliem in turn, we never could understand its functinn at till. In
the ,sanu) way, to see the harmony of the World as a whole, we
must take the higher faculties as our point of interpretation.
While in I'hyslcal Science we take our staml on the Outer Senses,
and use the microsc(ji)e as an instrument of research, in World-
insight w(; take our stand on the Spiritual Senses and use the
Outer Senses as instruments of research. Physicil Science by
itself can never see tlic harmony or the unity of the \\'(jrld. Its
generalizations uii; based on a lil.ciif.^'s which is palpable to the
Senses. I>ut the World is made up of ])henomena betwet'ii many
of which there is no such likeness; as, foi' example, i)etweou a
strain of music, a beautiful (lower, and a jioem. It is oidy when
we take our stand on the higher faculties and intuitions that the
sid)t]e spiritu;,! allinities wi.ich unite these unlike phenomena
become a]iparent. It was the perception of these affinities that
gave Iiacou that breadth an<l vastness of under>tan(ling for which
he is so justly renowncil. For Analogy, which is the weakest and
least significant of logical or scientific relations, is the most
powi'iful of spiritual ones. 'I'liere is variety at tin- cireumferenee
of the World, unity at tlu- centre. To the (juter Senses all things
are more or less unlike, less so to the Understanding or
generalizing faculty which shoves laws rumiing through them, until
to tlie Inner Spiritual Senses there is unity or sameness of
impression. The truth is. insight into the World is got in much
the same way as insight into the minds and characters of men.
For how couM I uiulerstiuul a man's mind or charact<'r except by
the reaction which his words or deeds leave on my own mind?
Or indeed how c<)uld i know that lie had what we call a mind at
all, except in the .same way Z ilis con.seious soul cannot be seen,
or in any way be made pal|iablc to the senses, and yet it can be so
manifested to me as to compi'l my belli/ in it. The /«//'/' in tJod
comes in the same way, by the reaeticjii of Nature on the mind.
As the j)hysical man is the mask that hides and yet reveals liis
spirit, so docs Xatuie hide, yet reveal, (iod. The impression that
Nature makes on the mind has the liii/lnsl reaction on the Scale
within us. Vhat more cotdd a visible, palpable (iod have?

438

MY CONTllIliUTIOX.

\'i

l! I

Scepticism (.un lieyiii only when God is embodied in a uiateiia)
and scnHuous form iind degraded. Otherwise tiiere in no room for
Atheism. '

Tlii.'^ WHS all very well as far as it went, but sis time went on
I f(!lt I wanted something still more radical to complete the
proof that the Pi-ohlem of the World coidd not he solved from
the standj)oint of Physical Science alone, and accordingly sonic
yeju's later I returned to the charge in nnother connexion in my
hook 'Civilization an<l Progress,' in a cha|)ter cntitl(Ml '•First
Principles; ' and to make my final position on this matter more
complete, I may, jierhaps. as well set it down hero. I was
engaged in the attempt to refute a doctrine of Comte's, namely
thiit there is no need to h'lii've in the Deity, because he cannot
be liiotni by Science, and in order to get this doctrine at an
angle at which it could be successfully met, I was obliged tO'
lay down at the outset that for human beings as at present
constituted, Truth could be only what will harmonize witli their
ntental constitution and with all other truths held by tliem.
I then went on to show that many of the fundamental truths on
which our ordinnrv intellioencc rests, although thev must he
heliei'dil cann<;t be known by Physical Science, and then
enumerated the following six as instances : —

' 1 . The belief in the existence of a ^^^)rld onhulc ourselves.
2. The belief in the existence of tnind'm our fellow-men.
;^. The belief in the superiority of mind to matter, of

heroism to self-indulgence, and so on.
4. The belief in the pevuLsfencc of Force.
T). The belief in the co-exutence of attractive and

repulsive /< rces.
(5. The belief in scientific Ca medio n.^

The first three after what we liave ahead} siiid will be ([uitc
evident. The Outer World could not be known to exist by
the methods of I'liysJcal Science, because all we scientilictilly
knoM' about it is certain affections of (»ur senses, that is to say
something in,side of ourselves not outmle. Nor am the

MY roxTitinuTiox.

439

any
tlu;

existence of mind in our fellow-men ; for that never could be
discovered by the Senses, or demonstrated by any instrument
of physical research whatever. Nor yet the Scale in the ^lind,
or the Ideal ; for the parts of the brain that give rise to a hi(j/i
motive or sentiment cannot possibly have any difference in
dignity from those that give I'ise to a low one so far as Physical
Science goes ; and yet all conversation, all literature, all our
categories of judgment of men and things, assume this
difference in rank and ([uality between one motive, action, or
sentiment, and another. But to make my demonstration
complete I still had to show that the very laws of Nature
themselves whicli Physical Science had discovered, depended
for their proof on something which Physical Science could nol
prove but had to asHiune; and that that something got all its
validity from a lielief oi the mind; and therefore that I'hysical
Science could bynj^ |)ossibility explain that human mind winch,
by the hypothesis, gives it its credentials. For the Laws of
Nature with which Physical Science deals, dej)end for the [)roof
of their truth on the fact that the quantity of force in the
Universe is fixed. For as Spencer says, ' if the amount of
force in the Universe varied, there could be no certainty that
the scales and other instruments by which you test the truth of
your scientific conclusions, might not vary from moment t()
moment, and so render all Scieuvc impossible.' In other words.
Physical Science itself rests on si bitHi'f o{ the mind, the belief
namely, that the amount of Force in the Universe is fixed, — a
belief which Science cannot ^)roiY', because it i>' the basis of all
scientific proof. There is no logical alternjitivc therefore, but
either to throw overboard all Physical Science as unproven,
or else to admit that irs truth depends on the mind, and that
therefore it is an impertinence to attem[)t to explain the mind
by it. But there was a still more striking instance of what
must be believed although it cannot be kitoicn or crplained by
Physical Science, in the fact of the co-existence of attractive
and x'ei)ulsivc forces ; for it passes the human understanding to

imi

■A ia

440

MV CONTUinLTIOX.

realizo liow one force ran attmct nnotluM- wliil(! rosipting it.
SpciH'cr liiiiLself admitrt thi« when lie says ' VVc cannot truly
represent one ultimate unit of Matter as (lrawin<>; another while
resistinii' it. NeverthelesH the licUpf is one we are compelled
to entertain.' It is the same, too, with Scientific Causation
itself. When we sec, for example, an etlect re})rescnted let lis
say by the numherfour, we hcRevc that two and two or three and
one, or some other eijiilvdloil, of four must have preceded it as
its cause. If we did not we should be tacitly denyin;^: the
|)ersistence of force; and as the persistence (or fixity in amount)
of force cannot be i;vplauii'.d by Science, althou<fh it nuist be
helieoed, so neither can the Law of Causation. And in summinjr
lip the whole arijjument I <>() on to sav : —

' Tlie al)uvi' instaiifcs of tlio truth that iiiueli that cannot bo
kmiivK liy Science must nevertheless be lii-lian/, are anionj^ tlie
foiiiidation stones on whicli the whole of our intelligem-e is built.
'l"o deny tlie truth of them would be to break uj) that little islet of
/idriiioiij/ known as tlie Human Keason, and to deconijtose and
phatter our organized inti'lligence to its base. To believe that
there were no world outside of ourselves ; that our fellow-
men were automata without minds; that .Matter n'as ecjual to
or sujii'dor to Mind, and that tiie Iiase and degrading things
of the world were as high as the noble and self-sacriticing; that
force was shifting and unsteady, so that we could not be sure
that a pound to day would weigh a pound to morrow ; that events
coulil be sprung on us without a cause ; to believe all this and to
act on it, would indeed be to bring chaos into the World and
madness nito the mind.'

In this way I threw out Physical Science as the Organon or
method for the solution of the i'roblem of Existence; thus
supporting- in detail whiit the I'oetic Thinkers had always seen
in a general way but had not fully demonstrated.

Antl so at last I had found the Ideal which 1 had lost, and
of which 1 had been so lony; in search : had found it in the
Mind, where neither the Psychologists nor the Physical
Scientists could find it because by their methods and instru-
ments it could not be brought within their field of observation.
But the most important part of my task lay still before me,

MX fONTimJl'TIOX.

•11-
)n.

iiiiinely to find it in the World also. And lu-rc! my old allic-
tlio Poetic Thinkers <\\\'\t<' hiileil nie. They all alike helieved
that althongh the world was ehan<^in<i', it was not advancinj^ ;
("arlyle openly sncerinn' at the ' progress of the Sjxicies,' and
declarin"; that Soeietv like Natnre swam on a sea ot" darkness
and mystery, swinging haekwards and forwards in ehh and
How, now an age of faith and reality, now one of nnbelief and
inipostnre ; Emerson believing that as man has always an inlet
to the rnivcrsal Sonl, tliei'e is no reason why ho shonld he
more moral in one age than in another, and o[)enly declaring
like Carlyle, that Society as a whole never advances: while
Newman, like the rest of the theologians, lielieved that the
elect are probably no greater in nnnd)er in one genciation than
another, ami that the flowering of the ideal will otily take
place in Heaven. I>nt I felt that nnless 1 conld show that the
Ideal existed in thc^n-esent world and that provision was made
for its progressive realization here, its mere existence in the
mind wonld be bnt a moc'.ery of onr hopes, and the Goethe-
Carlyle solntion of the I'robleni of the World by th<? blessed-
ness of self-rennnciation, bnt an illusion and a dream. My
first object, accordingly, was to get rid of Evil as a poxitive and
pei'manent quality demanding some Evil Power as its natural
explanation. This I attempted to do in a perfunctory way in
my pamphlet ' (Jod or Force .' ' but in more detail and on
other lines in my '-haijier entitled ' Su|)ernaturalism and
Science,' in ' Civilization and Progress.' What I there
endeavoured to show was that evil was merely an iiistriiiin'iif
or means of what I called the principle of Individuation : a
necessary instrument if the world was to I'each its goal
through the play and interaction of unJii'ldiial thinus and
not as a total entity, in the same way as the hand sui)serves its
own purposes and functions by means of separate fingers and
not as a single, individual stnm[). I urged that just as in
animals the horns, hoofs, claws, fangs, stings and other organs
of offence and defence are \\\v plnislrnl means by which these

412

.MV C;()\TKI1JI TION'.

'I;
II

I i

iiniinals arc prevented from hciu;;' uhsdrhod iiit(» ciicli other iind
nm toji'cthcr into a general promiscuity, so in the mind what
we know as evil, sin, envy, pi'ide, Jealousy, revenge, are really
the same instruments transformcMl into more refined weapons,
and carried to a higlicr plane. They are one and all means hy
which men defend themselves fi-om heing ahsorhed hy each
olh(;r, and hy which the original ground-plan of Nature,
namely Individuation, is preservech Even lying, stealing,
murder, adultery, and all thos(! 'sins in the; inmost meudjers '
which never eome to outward action, ai"e the same means hut
carried to e.rvcss ; the proof that they have not the ahsolute
(|ualily of evil attaching to them being that Society has
actually provided for their gratification within due limits,
so that, as I wrote, ' if your sensual passions are strong, you
can marry, not commit adultery ; if your desire for money, for
w(jridly goods and prosperities, is keen, you may work for them,
not steal them or he covetous of (he goods of others ; if you
have a high pride or ambition, a thirst for fame, you may attain
them by good services done or by the laudable exercise of your
talents, not by envy and detraction. If you wish to be ecpial
with the man who has wronged you, you can a])peal to the law,
not to murder or private revenge. And thus it is that the
very same thoughts, passions, and impulses which in e.fcesti have
the special and [jositive (piality of sin attached to them, and so
vv'ould seem to require a Devil to explain them; when exercised
in modai'dtion have no such positive cpiality and require no such
Deity.'

Having in this way got rid of Evil as an absultite essence
inconsistent with the existence of the Ideal in the world, 1 had
now to shov.- that the great Laws and Tendencies of the world
were all working slowly but surely for the final expulsion of
evil as a itiot on the fair face of this Ideal, so that in the end
the Ideal should be all in all. I had to show that if the world
was not in the image of the Ideal to day, it was steadily
working towards that end; that it was not only evolving and

Ii'ii;

MY C<)NTRIIUTK)N.

448

('Ii;m^in<;', l)ut iulvanciiif; and inovin<jf upwanln, ever workinj;
itself frcci- and freer from igiionmce, from uj^Iine.ss, from
impurity, and from iujustiee. I had to show that ju8t an a man's
nature is known by the end at whieh he aims, so the natiu'e of
the First Cause nmst he determined by the end towards whieh
He is seen to be workin<^ — however mueh at any jfiven point of
time the nmsins adapted to that end (and which are iiecM'ssitated
boti» bv tiie i'U;ment of Time and bv the yfround-phin of the
original design) may seem to negative it. Otiierwise one
might argue tliat there was no sucli thing as Keason in tiie
worhl, because at a given geological period th(!re were no
creatures in existence higher than the monsters of the deep.
But here I was confronted with a second difficulty, namely of
how to focus the vast multi|)licity of Nature and Life, so as to
bring out their real tendency and drift. I saw that here I
should have to deal not with indivi(huils as such, but with lines
of fixed tendency ; iuid only with such of these lines as should
show a i)rogressive hierarchy and chain of means and ends.
And here, [lerbaps, it may be as well to })ause for a moment to
consider in what relation such a definite chain of tendencies
would stand to the Darwinian IIy[)Othesis. To begin with 1
may remark that the present position of that hypothesis need
offer no barrier to any si)eculative construction from the point
of view of means and ends, (»f proximate or of final causes.
The original theory of Darwin— that of 'Natural Selection' —
by which the infinite iliversity of species both of [)lants and
animals, was referred to the operation of the struggle for
existence among them in selecting sucli chance specimens as
liapj)ened to arise and were best adapted to their environment,
and killing ott' the unfit ; has now been degraded by Darwin's
own disciples from its ])osition as a true cause, and relegated to
a quite suborilinate one, that namely of mere overseer and
scavenger, to carry off' on the one hand by starvadon or death
the weak and inefficient, the wrecks, and all the waifs and
strays that fall by the roadside, and on the other t(» keep those

' 1

ill

111

MY (•(•NTKIIUTION.

wild survive, close down to their task aiul iU'curiitcly tuliiptcd to
tlie speeiiil \vori\ tlicv liiive to perform. As the oriifiiiiitinu;
<!ini.s(! of spiH'ies, it has had to he ahandonod. Indeed, as
Romanes points ont, if Natui'al Selection were to h(! alone
operative, instead of the iniiniti variety of types of ereatinvs
which Natiu'e seems to have at heart, we shoidd have them all
lumped and af^iiTcjuated into a siiiiile type. To <:;et the infinite
variety of species, Natnn; not <»idy <j;ivca rise to ahnormal
variations, hut protects these variations from being swamped
aji'ain. hy initiating; independent vai'iations in the sexnal orj>;ans,
which shall prevent intercrossini;- with the parent or allie(l
species. And it is only when this has been done, that Natural
Selection can come in and operate, as it does, with the
happiest eilect. lint as the secret causes of these independent
variations both in ireneral sti'U(!ture and in the sexual ornans,
ar(! a(bnittedly unknown, the (piestion of the origin of Sp(!cies
still remains an oj)en prol)lem which specnlation is at liberty to
treat from a liigher point of vh-w. Natural Selection in
reference to peopling the earth, is like gravitation in walking,
<)!• the pressure of the atmospheic in breathing, oi' the beating
of the heart and the circulation of the blood in the eontimianee
of vitality. It is automatic and almost taken for grajited, and
one would no more look to it for an explanation of the finer
problems of species than oni; would look to gravitation and
pressure for an explanation of jtroblems of physiologv or

<hemistrv, or to the functions of the heart t(

)r an ex[»lanation

of the pur[)oses of life itself. True as far as it goes, to ercet
Natural Selection into the sole cause or even cause at all of

■•peeie!

is absurd. The fact of evolution is true

on any

hypothesis, l)ut Natural Selection is not necessarily tlie cause of

evo

hit
ly 1

ion.

It is true that it is evervwhere at work, but that

)ecanse animals have everywliere to be fitted to tluMr
environment as children have to be fitted with boots and shoes.
I had gone carefully into the (evidence adduced in its suj)port
tVom the beginning, and had long })ondered the subject, but

,r\i

MY CON 1 liim rioN.

445

witli tlic Ix.'.st will ill the world I wms never !il)le seriously to
look to it for the solution of any |)rol»leiu uliicli was nf
injjiortaneo in its hearin^js on life. It had to he home in mind
iind reckoned with, in tlu; same wuy as we hear in mind the fiiet
of <i,ravitation, hut that was all. When held up as a paper lantern
to illmninate the mystery of existence, one felt with Carlyle like
ki(d\iu<i- one's foot throuj;h it ; and that with all deference and
respect to the illustrious author himself who was as modest an<l
candid as he was yreat. I should as soon dream of phrenolojiv
liein<; an explanation of the human mind, as of Natural
Selection d/nni' heiny an explanation of the I'rohlem of
Existence. Hut to r(;turn.

To i^et the Laws or TendeiKues of the World ns a eiiain of
means and ends in an ascendinji' hierarchy in which the Ideal
can he seen at w1)rk, we have carefully to choose the
intellectual instruments for the work. AikI to Ixyin with w((
may say that as the (juestion is one of nutans and cuds, that is
to say o\' fitiirlioii, and not of xlmelxrc, IMiysieal Science can he
thrown out altoj^ethei-, for its laws only concern the structure
of thinifs and have no heariny; at all on their function. Jiut
how among' the countless functions of things are we to find the
hierarchy f)f those that are means and ends to each other?
This puz/l(!d me for a long time, hut at last I saw that just as
the liiuuan end)ryo passes in its stages through the euduyos of
all the li'reat divisions of the animal kingdom that lie beneath
it ami have j)receded it in Time ; so all the Forces and
Tendencies of the world have their condensed sunnnary and
e[»itome of general function in the hody and mind of man, and
there receive their interpretation. In the pamphlet ahove
referred to I thus deseril)e the way in which I conceived these
Tendencies to be inter-related and brought to a unity : —

•The mechunicdl forci'.s apiioar in the structure of tlio lii'iut and
in tiu' circulation of tlie blood ; the cheiiiicdl forces in the dis-
integration of the food 1)V the juices of the stomach, and its
cDinhustion in the body ; the tin/diiic forces, in the secretint;- organs
ami in the waste and repair of tissue : tlu' .■</iin'/ii(il forces in tlio

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446

>IY CONTKIBLTION.

mind. Now the pliysical, chi'inical. and c-ganic foici's art"
concerned only with strnclinr. and the fact that tlie functions
performed by these forces are iinrniiKcioiis and nnobtrusive. as it
were, proves that they are only subordinate instruments, and that the
Physical Science which tleals with tlicm is only an inslriimciil of
iiivrsl/'ijiition, not a Ktaridpoiut of iiiterpirtnlioii. The heart, luiiffs,
and stomach in their healthy state, give us no intimation of their
existence, theii action is attended by neithe." j)leasnre nor pain,
proving that they are the necessary but subordinate instruments
for higher ends. In the lower animals. Self-preservation and
Keproduction occupy the largest portion of ronscious existence, and
are accordinglv the highest functions. In man. they occupy but
a comparatively small portion, and leave room for the play and
expansion of intellect and character. If then, the pliysical and
organic forces are concerned only with structure, and witli
structures that are micuiiscion^ many of them, we may. in endeavour-
ing to show the ends to which th;; 'I endencies of tlu' World are
working, practically leave them out of account, and restrict
ourselves only to those tendencies which have emerged into
consciousness.

' The Tendencies to Self -prexciTat ion nuil Jicjiroilniiioii are tlie
most immediite and pressing. They are ministered to. not oidy
by the special senses, physical powers, and lower appetiti's. but bj
pride, envy, vanity, combHtiveness, and fear. They furnish the
Avarp into which Time has to weave iiis most variegated colours.
There must be this continuous web of I'xistence. for the Kternal to
work out Ills designs.

The Tendency to Ascension runs through all highly-organised
beings. Everything- looks upwards. With animals Migiit is the
test of Right. Physical Power is their highest distinction. The
strongest have the best chance to survive and propagate, and to
them the females are most strongly attracted. Women love the
heroic, strong, and wise ; and Beauty, in the last analysis, is only
Nature's representative of tiiose high (pialities. and always refers
to spiritual attributes. This tendency of tlie nice to as'!on<l on the
ground of sexual preference is secured to the individual by ids
mental constitution. Wo are all led by Ima/jimttiun, which invests
its object with a kind of infinitude, and Jeads us on to emulation.
The dullest are led by it. It is neither the gold itself, nor the
mere satisfaction of his physical wants, that dazzles the misers eye.
but the undefined region of delight that is opened up to his
imagination. This leading of the Imagination appears early in
life. The boy sees all the world in his games and youthful
contests, and works for the jtrize at the village school as if it were
a kingdom. The enamoured youth, sees the best of overytiung in
his maiden. The man falls into //< ni-n-orship. Our admiration is

MY CONTUIIJUTION.

447

tlie thing wo oursolves would wisli to be. and to which wo
enc.'eavour to eievato ourselves. What ii man in hl.'< heart admires
most, gives the clue to his cliaracter. His talents all minister to it,
and around it all his thoughts and feelings revolve, fi/nils are
only another )ihase of this ascending tendency. I'hey .uv' made
up of the complex Aveb of experience and imagination, and are the
stars by which we direct our course through life. Hiey lie, like
glittering points, on all sides of the horizon, and towards tliem the
busy world of men are seen making their way. The part played
by [inliviilmdhuti<)i> in the upward movement is no less important.
On the circumference of the World is the innnenso diveri-ity of
things, where the game seems to be, how to ring ♦he greatest
number of changes on a few fixed principles. 'These separate
ex'jtences reflect on each other their own special beauties, and
multiply tj infinity the objects of aspiration. The love (it
personality plays an imporUmt pivrt in our education. We digest
onr code of morals from it, and endeavour to embody in onrselvcj
the special virtues which we admire in others. Hence the charu
and stimulus of biography, history, and novels, compared witl
which all mere scholastic teaching, which does not sink into tll^
character, is trivial and superficial.

• But these ideals, when attained, do not fill up the heart. The
boy outgrows his sports ; the youth, his .naiden ; the man. his
idolatries. Wealth does not satisfy ; place and power, when
attained, lose tbe vaguoncsy and brilliancy which dazzled us and
drew us on, and shrink into littleness. The sensualist's path loads
to disgust. Special attainments and points of virtue, too, fail to
satisfy, and we learn at last that there is no rest but in (iod.
Thus these illusions instruct while they deceive. lUit unless the
mind is (juick and apprehensive, we do not run to the end of this
chain of deceptions, and so .stop short of the goal. As long as
our minds rest <n\ any of these proxitnato objects of pursuit, we
cannot dedicate ourselves to (Jod, for two opposite infinites
cannot possess the mind at once.

• There is another factor in Ascension whicli is too important to
be passed over without notice, viz., the aiilaiiotiixiu of the higher
and lower forces of Nature and Mind. For oxaniph'. the olistinacy
of earth, wood, iron, develo}) invention and mechanical skill ; the
necessities of life and the comiilexity of our surroundings call out
all cur resources ; and the control of the passions, so necessary to
social order, exercises and strengthens virtue.

•The foregoing tendencies exLst only in the mind, and if they
rested there {jrogress would (jease. How. then, is the world
benefited y vtb.^orve, first, as a connecting link, the tendency to
Unitij. Give a man time, and his mind will become a unity, and
everything he does will be significant. His actions will become
one with his feelings, and his feelings one with his thought. This

448

.^tY COXTKIIU TIOX.

tciiilcncy to unity makes pnssiblr the reiilii--iition of our ideals.
Without it, life would want difinitencss of aim. It concentrates
the powers of the mind for united effort, and counteracts that love
of variety, which, if persistently indulged in, confuses thought,
relaxes the character, and dissipates organised effort. To reach it
is the unceasing endeavour of the mind.

' Connected with this Tendency to Unity is the Tendency to
J'Jmboilinwnt. The World itself is the embodiment of S])irit ;
language, facial and bodily expression, are the embodiments of
thought and feeling, of which Literature and Art are the more
jjermanent forms. Cliaracter is the embodiment within ourselves
of Thought, slowly built up and consolidated. Action, too, is the
embodiment of Thought. In the pursuit of ideals, we pave eveiy
step with work, with action, and thus the world is benefited,
although the individual may be sacrificed.

' This Tendency to Embodiment is further assisted by the
Tendency to lidicf. Without this tendency, action wouhl be weak
and nerv>,lcss, not strong and direct. The belief we have in the
beneficence of Nature is very beautiful. Wa ^ive ourselves calndy
up to sleep, and rest without suspicion, expecting to awaken to
renewed life. We trust ourselves to the elements, to our food,
its safe pivssage into the stomach and subsei^uont changes in the
blood, and conversion into strength and beauty. AVe trust to the
continued beating of our hearts, and the continuance of life from
moment to moment ; to our continued sanity, although the chaos
of madness lies always near us. We trust to the rotation of
seasons, crops, and verdure, although the earth's surface is only a
beautiful skin, beneath which boils a cauldron of confused
elements. We trust that a man's character is truly represented by
his sensible motions, although his soul cannot be seen ; and to
the inunutability of God and Ilis laws, although He himself is
hidden from us.

' The Tendency to Cn-operatmi redoubles the force both of
Belief and Action, and still further assists in keeping the risihle
world following in the track of the iiicnl. We all need symp.athy.
The high thought would die out of us, did it not meet with
recognition from our fellow-man. Society, accordingly, is the
arena where our talents find room to expand. The bond of union
is always a common sentiment or idea. Friendshii)3 are founded
on identity of feeling. Associations of men have always some
dominant thought, around which they unite. Institutions are
the visible expressions of those thoughts. Church and Govern-
nu'ut correspond to the two most comprehensive divisions of
human interest — the welfare of the !<oul and the welfare of the
body Society, by providing for the lawful exercise of all our
impulses, diminishes the temj)tatious to crime. If the passions
are strong, you may marry ; if the desire for property is strong.

Mr CONTKIIJUTION.

449

you liny work, not stcuil. (Jovernmciit takes rotaliiition out of our
hands, and leaves no room for private revenge ; and by affording
protection to all, gives tiie higiier faculties of our nature a chance
to expand.

' iiut how are the accomplished results (jf human thought and
effort secured against Time and Change '/ By tlie Tendency to
tiie CoiiKcrvi/ioii of the Gnml. Time swallows all things but tlio
Good, which steadily works on, and .iccumulates from age to age.
Custom is one element in this tendency. The world is the slave
of custom, ro tii(' aspiring youth, Trutli itself seems powerlessi
against it. On our entrance into life we are ilressed in certain
customary modes of thought, feeling, and behaviour, and many of
us wear the same livery all our lives. We take our iireeds from
our fatiiers, and our morals as well as fasliions from Society, and
applaud or condemn as it dictates. These things are in tlie air we
breatiie, and tliis atmospheric education influences our conduct
more than any other. Conformity to custom meets with the
world's applausy. and in every drawing-room ap])ears in the form
of stock-sentiment. But custom subserves a good iiurjiose. It \n
the l)reak on the wheel of change. It follows thought, although
at a great distance, and keci)s institutions alive until the good that
was once in them has departed and entered into other forms.

' Observe, again, how the best modes of iilieviating physical
labour are transmitted from age to age. Manual labour i.s
superseded by machinery, and inferior machines are laid aside
only when better come into use. The accumulation of scientific
facts, the increJise both in the number and the delicacy of scientific
instruments, enlarge our knowledge of the physical laws. This
knowledge reacts, in turn, on the arts, and produces still further
improvements. These results are tlie .slow accumulations of the
ages which they have survived. In like manner there is a tendency
to preserve all good books and all good works of art. Homer and
Raphael still live to instruct the youth of the present ilay. History
preserves the memorable experiences of the world, and leaves its
daily trivialities to be forgotten. And thus the essence of the
past is distilled into the present.

' But there are false as well as true Ideals. These false ideals get
embodied, and have sometimes dominated whole ages, producing
endless confusion ; auu liic ([Ui'Stion is, what pnivents tiie world's
retrograding V

' Consider, first, the Tendency to Jitsticc. Intellect is the power
of disceru'-.ig the Tendencies of tiie World in their natural
subordinations. The observance of these laws is enforced by
Justice. All civil, moral, and social codes, are but better or worse
reflections of this dominating tendency. Nature has at heart the
coronation of ^'irtue, and takes a short cut to her end by making

F F

450

MY CONTRIBUTION.

Might the test of Right. This is the tune the nations have
marched to, and throughout all its variations (which we call
history) the original air is heard. The indivi<lual, too, if he sinks
his nobility of character, loses influence, becomes less in the scale
of being, and must submit to superior domination.

'Again, the Tendency to Aihiptiition puts a cushion between us
and the rougli corners of things that have been jostled from their
places. It enables us to float, when otherwise we should sink.
We gradually adapt ourselves to new climates, new countries, new
manners, new morals, and new modes of thought ; and die when
age makes us too rigid for new and wider conceptions. Then
there is the Tendency to Compassion, which breaks the force of
Fate to which we are all exposed, and cheers the heart for new
endeavours. The sympathy of our fellow-men redoubles the
strength of all our active ]iowers, invigorates the will, and gives
fresh courage to despair.

' The foregoing tendencies all unite to keep the world following
in the track of the great men who march in the van. And we
have seen that these men. after passing through all proximate
illusions, find their ideal in God, and their final rest in reliance on
Him alone. This is tlie consunanation of manhood. When
attained, it expresses itself in Heroism, Worship, and .vrt, which
are ends in themselves, and which correspond to the different sides
of our nature, its tendency to Action, Contcmplalion, and Ueaiilij.

• All things in Nature struggle towards Beauty ; and defonnity,
like evil, is the result of Necessity, and does not lie in the essence
of things. The artist stiives to restore this ideal beauty on canvas
or stone, and its pursuit is a source of pure enjoyment, when
cultivated in a religious spirit.

' Worship should be tlie flower of Culture, the harmonious
outcome of all our feelings, chastened and refined, and not a danb.
It should be in the grain, not a mere veneering, and is the
expression of inward pepce.

'The history of tiie world abounds in examples of Heroism.
These great souls, scattered througli distant ages and nations, and
quickened before their time, are tiie high-water marks of humanity,
and announce what, one day, will be universal. Tiiey reached tiie
point where the human melts into the divine.'

In this way by taking- the largest general Tendencies or
Laws of the Workl and tlie Unman Mind, 1 denionsti'ated to
my own satisfaction (and I trnst it may prove to that of others),
the existence and ])rogressive realization of the Idcid in the
world, as I had already done in the human mind, and although
it was my earliest piece of writing 1 do not think that in

rj*n

MY rOXTUiniTIOX.

451

iiinity,
d till-

lough
lilt in

cssontiiils I could add mucli to it to-day ; my later books being
concerned rather with demonstrating it in detail in the history
of Civilizations, Societies, and States. In a second pamphlet
entitled ' Considerations on the Constitution of the World,' in
which the influence of Emerson is clearly visible, I advanced a
stage farther and showed that these tendencies can be so
arranged as to lend support to the great Ijavv of T*ohirity on
which Spencer's ' Philosophy of Evolution ' is based, and which
runs through all Nature ; thus demonstrating that the same
Unity of Plan runs through the Moral and Spiritual World,
which he had exhibited in the Physical World, and from
which I argued the Unity of the Divine that was at the bottom
of it all. The follpwing is my summing up : —

' We h.ave seen, then, that the World is constituteil of a series
of balances, on an ascending^ scale. In physics, we fouml that
action and reaction were equal, that there was an equilibrium
in ebb and flow, centripetal and centrifugal motions, in the
compensating alternations of day and night, sleip and wake. We
found that "all mental action consisted of differentiations and
integrations of states of consciousnes'i." that the balance betweea
these two opposite states is necessary to healtii. insanity being
nothing but fixedness of thought without change, or incessant
change without rest. We have seen, too. that the perturbations
of the passions in nations or individuals, were balanced by natural
reactions; • swanneriea " of opinion, by insight ; and local
idolatries, by change of association. In the domain of Science we
saw that tlm immense variety of scientific facts was balanced by
the laws that underlie them. — individual facts, by generalisations,
and the widest generalisations, by unity. Rising still higher into
the region oi the Intuitions, we found that the moral sentiment
was the balance to selfishness; the puhlic nature in us to our
priratc interests ; benevolence to helplessness, and hope to fear.
And further, iii looking at the conversion of trutli into action, we
saw the same provision made. We found thiit the dangerous
nature of the elements was counteracted by science and art ; that
(Justoin balanced Innovation ; the Conservation of the (iood,
perpetual Change ; Conservatism, Reform ; Might, the resistance
of circumstances ; and the power of Adaptation, the changes of
the environment.

Such being tlie Constitution of the World, I wish now to point
out the Unity of Plan running through the whole, so that begin
where you will, you find the same principle at work. Take, for

452

MY CONTKIHUTION.

instance, our propress in culture. We observe a few fiictH, and
tiirow them into a general principle of l)elief. On this, we stand
and act, while acquiring i'uither experience. We then enlarge
our first principle to balance the increase of facts, throw the
whole into a general principle again, and so on, througliout tlie
whole of our education, which is only a repetition of the same
process carried upwards to higher and iiigher planes. Tlie
progress of society is the same. Certain ideas are in the air and
dominate >iu age, balancing its actiuired experience. 'Ihese
detennine the form of government, and on these it stands and
works. Succeeding generations, with wider knowledge and
increased power, finding themselves cramped by the institutions
of other days, either slowly stretch or violently rupture the bands,
and throw out institutions more in accord with present needs.
This process repeats itself through the successive stages of
Despotism. Monarchy, and Democracy. In religion, too, the
same process is seen in the progress of Fetishism and Man-worship,
up to the most refined forms of transcend ental Tlieism.

Again, if we take a general survey of the World, we shall see
that this Unity of plan is not fanciful or theoretical, but is worked
into the very texture of things. Take, for instance, the balance
that is everywhere kept between jinhlir and jirivalr interests. No
leaf is suffered to overshadow the plant, but in form and proportion
is chastened into harmony with the whole. Goethe said that
provision was made that no tree sliould grow into the sky.
Vegetable and animal life are so balanced, as to keep tiie
proportion of gases in the atmosphere constant. An animal
is furnished with powers of aggression and self-defence, but
subserves the harmony of the whole by being the prey to anotlier.
In man, the nature of this piihlic element is found to ))e Moral.
The Moral Sentiment in us compels us to respect the general good,
while pushing our individuality and self-interest to the farthest
point.

We have seen, then, that tlie world is an ascending scale of
balances, with Physical forces at the bottom. Moral at the top ;
a ladder with its foot on Earth, its summit in Heaven. We have
seen, too, the unity of plan running through the whole system of
things to the remotest fibre ; so that the most insignificant object,
even a grain of sand or blade of grass, is a microcosm, or mirror
of the Universe.

And tliG Divine to which it all referred itself, 1 characterized
as follows : —

And now, in concluding. I have to point out that, besides the
successive planes of equilibrated thought, there is also, in the
World and in the Human Mind, the Divine. This is the deep

MY rONTUIFlUTION.

453

irror

izecl

backjfround, the myatcrious incomprehensible I^ife that envelops
U8 ail; the Spirit, from which emanate the countless myriads of
creatures that bloom their little lives and fade away ; out of which
we have emerged for a moment, and into which we vanish ; a thing
of wonder, unspeakable, awful. Over its unfathomable depths,
the einlless procession of life glides like ripples over the deep sea.
Tt i.-^ the endless generator of things, the source of this perpetual
iKriimiiii/. Ft is the Pnhlic Niifmi- of the World, and Is seen less
in individual objects, than in the landscape ; in individual actions,
than in moral order; in special talents, than in genius. As it is in
the World, so it is in the Human Mind. It Is this, which we feel
to be the real balance power in the constitution. It is this that
gives Truth its power, Virtue its courage. Love its sacrifice, but is
itself no special point of truth, virtue, oi- love. It is this to
whicrh all men appeal for justice from oppression. It is this that
shines through all the fetishes, images, or doities, under which, in
different ages and stages of culture, men have sought to embody
the Divine Idea. It is this to which all men draw nigh to worship.
li, is this which is the infinite Ii"ii/.on of truth, which we for ever
approach and which for ever recedes. It is this which inspires
virtue, but before which each particular virtue fades, and which
lures us on to higher efforts. It rs this wiiich inspires success,
and tiien condemns it in the light of more glorious attempts. We
cannot define it or comprehend it, but • it exists, and will exist.'
To this Being we have j^iven the name of (jod.

Furtlier tliiiii this of the Divine in general terms I have never
considered myself justified in dogmatizing; as any attempt to
d(;fine the intimate nature of God, nr the dkhIus operandi, of His
relation to t\\o. World, has always seemed to me to he beyond
the reach of the human faculties. So far I am an Agnostic.
Nor did 1 consider that it mattered whether God were within
the World or outside of it, whether he were a personal and
distinct lieing or were ii pure, abstract Self-Consciousness.
But at the same time one was intuitively bound to assume
a Supreme Will, as the only kind of Supreme Being or
Unity which im[»licitly contains the notion of self-con.scioiis
intelligence, of motive and personality, and so best meets the
needs of all sides and aspects of the hiiman spirit. And to
myself as a philosopher this was still more imperative, for the
only real conception of cause is that of will, the so-called
scientific causes connecting things in this world, being but a

454

MV (;ONTianL TION.

HCi'lc's of ordevly ejf'ectH and not of real causes at all, a scries of
mathcinatleal equivalents wliich are causes only in the sense that
two and two may be said to be the cause of four. As to the
relation wliich exists between God and the World, about which
nothing can be known in the strict sense of the term by us, if
I were forced to make a choice I should prefer, |iM'ha|)8, the
form given to it by Hegel, namely the form in which God and
Nature are regarded as but the two opposite sides of a single
Absolute Self-Consciousness in which when God thinks of
Himself, if one may say so, He 's God proper, when He thinks
of the other ihan Himself He is what we know as Nature;
although even this when pressed, proves as we shall see, to be
illusory like the rest. I prefer this, however, to that of (xoethc
who with Spinoza liked to think of God as Absolute
Substance, and the world of Mind and Nature as necessary
modes of His attributes ; or to that of Emerson, where God is
figured as the life of the tree, and the Wt)rld its leaves and
blossoms; or of Carlyle, where God is the body and the \V orld
the ' clothing,' and so on ; inasinuch as these latter are all based
on categories lower than the category of self-consciousness
which is the category used by Hegel. But then it must be
borne in mind that while Hegel took his principle of the
evolution of the ' notion' or self-consciousness, srt'iously, and as
the real and tviic e.rplunatiou of the World; Goethe, Emerson,
and Carlyle were too wary to be t^-apped so easily, jind while
using the images of tree, of clothing, of substance, and so forth,
did so only as metaphors or allegories, seeing clearly and
declaiming uncompromisingly that the attempt to e.rj)lain the
World out and out was an impertinence, and was beyond the
reach of the human faculties. For to bridge the gulf between
Mind and Matter, which after all was the real problem, was as
impossible with Hegel from the side of Mind as it was with
Spencer from the side of Matter. Hegel attempted to doit by
trying to show that there was not that absolute difference
between Mind and Matter, which philosophers and the vulgar

MY CONTUIDUTION.

4.')->

cf|ually have imagined. lie ivrguos in this way, that just as
there is something common to all material things, Jiowevcr
unlike they may be, because they are all parts of oiif world of
Matter, so there is something common to Mind and Matter
because they can both be contained in one single act of self-
consciousness; and conchides that they cannot be uLsuliUi'lif
exclusive of one another but only relaticehi so. Hut this would
be to throw overboard the testimony of self-consciousness itself,
which declares them to be entirely opposite in nature and
attribute, in favour of the mere form of self-consciousness. For
just as tlie two poles of a magnet altliough covered by or
contained in the one magnet, need not thL'rel)v have anvthin<;:
in conunon, so mental and material things although covered by
or contained in the single self-consciousness which involves
them both, need not have anything in conimon by which it is
possible to bridge the gulf between them. They are contained
in one self-consciousness, Tt is true, but on examination it will
be found that this is purely metapiiorical and for purposes of
expression merely. At bottom it is a question of relations not
between Mind and Matter, but b(?tween mind and mind, or
matter and matter. When, f<tr example, we say 'tlohn is good,'
we do not mean to imply that the extended, material substance
John has anything in common with the immaterial mental
quality thought of as good, but only (if it is his body that is
in question) that it has some material (piality winch by a
metaphor we call good, otherwise it must be a mental quality
that is intended. Hut if, going beyond metaphor and purposes
of expression, we tiy to really affirm something mental of a
material substance, or something material of a mental one, we
shall find that self-consciousness will no uiore cover the two, in
the sense of proof that something in common must thereby
exist between them, than it will cover a white sound (»r a
sweet colour. It will eject them suimnarily as incom[)atibles.
Of course as mind and matter both exist together in the world,
self-consciousness must bring them toijet/ier in the mind, but to

450

MY rONTUIUI/TION.

1innf|;ino that hocmisc it can hriiij^ tlicin .m'kU; hy side, it lias
tliercforo really iriit(Ml them, is n drcaiii. And, accordinj^Iy, aH
we nhould expect, we rind that Ilegel when (hMhicinfjf the
oate<(ori(!s of things one from the other, jiunps as jauntily fn in
n mental to a material one as if it were the nioMt natural thing
In the world. At one moment we find him enj^aged with hucIi
cutegori(!rt us, say, ' foree and manifestation,' ' suhstanee and
4ieeident,' ' inner and out(!r,' etc., where hoth sides, it is
evident, an; matijrial in their nature, hut suddenly hefore we
know where we are, when our hack is turned, he will hy a
sleight of hand hring us out from under the hat such a
categ<ny as, say, ' soul and (ixpression,' ' idea and ohjeet,'
* Spirit and Nature,' and the like, where one limh of the pair
of opposites is palpahly n»ental, while the other is material.
Now when our senses shall without sleight of hand, find a
bridge between a colour and a sound, a sound and a taste, or
other incompatibles, I shall believe that logic will find it between
Mind and Matter, — but not before.

And so at last after long and weary wandering 1 had found
my lost Ideal ; and from that time onward the depression from
which I had been sufl'ering for four or five years, during which
time I had rarely risen •^rom a book without a sense of pain and
bereavement, passed completely away. And then I saw with
<ioethe and Carlyle, that for those who longed to live in the
Ideal there was practically a boundless field open and at hand ;
that there was no situation in which a man could be placed
that could not be idealized, be made more beautiful, more true,
more moral, more poetic, according to the side of the Ideal
to which he was more especially drawn ; — and all with the
eonvi<^tion that nothing could be lost ; that if the work itself
were destroyed, the thought and character from which it
sprang would not die, but would tmnsmit their virtue to
others ; for if the ai'k of God is to be carried by the men of
one generation to the point where it is taken up by the men of
the next, it seeujs r(!asonable that each one must hav^ his

MY CONTllIHUTION.

4r>7

nppo,nfo.l task. An.l l.oli.vin^., n. I did, with E,uors„„ tl.at
<''"l. ,na,. should k(,op a. far as i.os..hlo f,. that w.,rk which is
>".K^t (.„M^.,.nial to his wh.,I,. ,mtm-e, I rosolve.l that, my <,wn
<'<»Mrso should l,o first to n.ake known what I ha.l fonn.l to
<'th(.r8, and then for n.y life's task to labour in those parts of
the field of truth whi..h were still open, and n.ainly in the
nivest.-at.on of those laws of the World and of the Human
M.nd .n whieh I had hitherto been enga^e.l, and to the study
<»^ which, l,y nature I was most incline.l ; with the fe-lin.r that
a knowlclge of these would be the best alike for conduct and
morally , tor action and contemplation. And with this view [
resolve.1 to follow in the fo(,tsteps of Goethe, and to neglect
nothuig the study and contemplation of which would l.elp
me to my end,-neither Physical Science nor rsychol(,.ry
^.cu.logy. History, Politics, Religions, the lives of Great
Men, of Rehgi.,us Founders, of Men of Action, of >rvsti
of Men of the Worl.l, the Market-place, and the Street.

tics.

!'! m

'41

• :-

V-'

^mmmmsssi^smf.

fsta

n K

PART II.

ENGLAND.

BOOK III.

Ill

■I

MY INNER LIFE,

BEING A CH...PTER IN

PEliSONAL EVOLUTION AND
AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

TART II.— ENGLAND.

BOOK III. — LITERARY EXPERIENCES.

AIY FIltST ATTExMPT.

CIVILIZATION.

STYLE,

A POLITICAL INSTANCE.

THE DAEMONIC ELEMENT.

I'OLITICAL ECONOMY.

AUTOniOGRAPHY.

INTERSTITIAL THINKMRS.

ISOLATION AND DEPRESSION.

CHAPTER I.

MY FIRST ATTEMPT.

ES.

^LI. being ready, I had gone down to Scotland with mucli
trepidation with the object of writing out the small
contribution which as we saw in the la^t chapter I had made
towards the solution of the World-problem ; and after three
months hard work on it there, I had brought it back with me to
London, in the shape of a short essay of about twenty pages;
and was now looking about me for a publisher. Wheir in
Scotland I had been told by one who was reputed to know, that
if my essay possessed any originality at all, all that was
necessary to ensure its acceptance by a magazine, was to drop
it quietly into the Editor's box ! Very well, I thought, I will
answer for the originality I But the more 1 though of it on
my return, the more uncomfortable did I become at the idea
of dropping this precious document into the cold and remorseless
jaws of the Editorial letter-box, from whose dark and mysterious
recesses 1 feared I might never see it again I I must have
further advice on the point, 1 felt, before taking so rash a step;
and accordingly one fine spring morning in April I made my
way down to Chelsea to see Carlyle, who had asked me to come
and see him again when I was in any difficulty. On mentioning
the object of my visit a shade of disai)pointment fell over me I
remember, when instead of losing his composme at the
announcement of so important a piece of news as that at last I

462

MY FniST ATTEMPT.

had liiid my first «r()08e-egg, he took no notice of the
circumstance but went on quietly to observe that he ' had now
quite done with editors and folk of that kind,' .and referred me
to Mr. Harrison the late librarian of the London Library, than
whom he said he knew of no man of a more encyelopa;dic or
varied knowledge of all that pertained to bibliography, and
especially of all that bore on the commercial, editorial, soci.al,
and other concomitant aspects of literature. In less than an
hour I had found my way to the Library in St. James' Square,
MS. in pocket, and into the presence of the Librarian himself.
He was a man of medium stature, of genial expression, and
with a clean-shaven Uice that at the first blush reminded me
strongly of the portraits I had seen of Macaulay ; and I was at
once (by the association of ideas, I suppose,) pi'cpared to credit
him with all those encyclopaedic qualities of memory with
which Carlyle had so lavishly endowed him. He received me
pleasantly, listened attentively to what 1 had to say, but when
at lust I came to the point by asking him roundly which of the
editors — of the ' Nineteenth Century,' the ' Contemporary,' the
' Fortnightly,' or * Macmillan' — ought in his judgment to have the
honour of publishing my essay, he quite dashed my spirits for
the moment by rising from his seat, looking benignantly at me
over his spectacles and saying in his kindly way ' You won't
be discouraged, I hope, if you don't succeed. The editors in
these days of signed articles, you know, go so much by
establis/icd reputation, and this, I luiderstand, is your first
attempt.' I admitted that it was, but fortified with tlie sim{)le
idea of my Scotch friend as to the originality and the editorial
letter-box, I quickly recovered myself, and went on to ex[>lain
with much animation iuid naivete (and with as much insistence'
as if he denied it ! ) that my article was really vcrij original, and
that I had been given to understand that all that would be
necessary would bo for me to drop it without further ado into
the Editor's box ! He did not seem to be as much impressed
by my assurance of this as I could have wished, and in reply

MY FIUST ATTEMPT.

4«)3

1 ^1

rei)ly

only went so far by way of mitigating what T tliought to be the
un<bie rigour of his judgment, as to say that of course there
would be no harm in trying them one after another, that I ought
to send it to them in the regular way by post with return
prepaid in case it was not accepted, and that he hoped that one
or other of them might see his way to take it. Upon this I
thanked him and withdrew, somewhat disconcerted but
comforting myself when I got outside with the reflection that he
could not know anything of its contents as he had not read it, and
flattering myself how surprised lie would be if he only knew how
really original and important it was ! And then began for me the
long Avandering in the wilderness of literature, the weary roimd
of offers and refusals of MSS., which continued without a break
for more than twenty years — perhaps one of the longest on
'•ecord.

1 began with the 'Nineteenth Century,' I rememl)er. It
had only been started a few months, and owing to the support
which it had from the outset received from the members of the
Metaphysical Society which at that time contained the names
of all that was most illustrious in the thought and literature of
England, it was carrying all before it. It had been hinted to
me by the Librarian, that access to its columns would be more
diflficult perlijips than in the case of the other magazines, but
as it numbered among its most constant contributors Mr.
Mallock, then a young man like myself, I bruslied aside the
difficulty and l)ol(lly sent the essay in. It was returned
promptly and with thanks. 1 then tliought of s^ciiding it to
the * Fortnightly,' but was advised that the tone of the essay
which was anti-materialistic, would operate rather as a bar to
its acceptance than otherwise, and so sent it on to the
' Contemporary ' instead. In this I was wrong, for the
' F<n'tnightly ' was at that time under the conduct of .John
Morley. than whom no one would have been more prompt to
detect and to welcome any shade of originality or merit, let it
come from what (juarter it would. From the ' Contemporary,'

I ■ I

i\\\

464

MY FIRST ATTEMI'T.

too, it caine back, and 1 then sent it to ' Macinillan'.s ' witli the
same result. Further than these I did not go, for my pride
would not ])ermit me to send it to any organ but those of the
very first water. Some one suggested ' Mind,' but as this was
almost entirely a purely metaphy ia\ journal, and as it was
against all of the older systems of metaj)hysics that nuicli of
my after work was to be directed, 1 did not feel it becoming to
send it in. What then was to be done i Here, I said to
myself, is the outline oi ;i brand new system of philosophy, the
fi'uit of years of study and reflection ; original and convincing
too, 1 flattered myself, and jdl within the coinpass of twenty
pages, and to be had almost for the asking! I was disappointed
and not a little indignant, and resolved that I would call at
once on the various men of eminence whose published opinions
were most in harmony with my own, to see if I could not
interest them sufficiently in my new doctrines to obtain their
help with the editors. Accordingly having looked up their
addresses in the Directory, and mapi)e(l out in diagram the
different localities in which they lived, I resolved in order tliat
no time might be lost, to make a descent on them all in the
course of a single morning ! 1 started early on my round, MS.
in pocket, ready to draw it on them at a moment's notice if
they should give me the slightest encouragement ; the young
lady who was about to become my wife accompanying me, and
waiting for me in the neai'est confectioners' shops wliile I went
in. All received me most pleasantly, in spite of the gross
interruption to their work which a morning's visit must have
entailed, but of which at that time I was quite unconscious.

The first on whom I called was an illustrious philosopher
and theologian, of great age, authority, and dignity. Feeling
that time was precious I lost none in beating about the bush,
but i)lunged at once in medias res, and before he could stop me
had well nigh emptied the whole contents of my essay on his
revered and devoted head! He bore it in his gentle way
without a murmur or show of impatience, and when I at last

MY FIRST ATTKMI'T.

4(?:)

paused to emphasize a particular position wliicli I had taken up
in opposition to Spencer, and which I thought wouUl make him
prick up his ears, lie drew me on to my after confusion by
giving way in a weak moment to an expression of sympathy
witli my view. The point in question was one which I had
entitled in the essay, ' the Scale in the Mind ' ; and on my
explaining what I meant by this phrase, his face lighted uj)
into a glow and he exclaimed, 'Why that is precisely the
position in other words that I took up in my reply to Huxley
in a debate at the Metaphysical Society.' So overcome was I
at the discovery of this bond of sympathy between us in my
then state of tension and excitement, that before he had time
to steady himself and resume his gravity, I had drawn the MS.
from my pocket and presenting it at him like a pistol, asked
him if he would do me the honour to i*ead it I At this pew
turn his face froze instantly, and he proceeded at once gravely
but not unkindly to assure me that at his age Jind with his
time so much occupied, he must really decline ; and then
seeing my countenance fall, and feeling that perhaps he had
taken a sharper curve than he might have led me to expect, he
rose from his seat and walked round the room with me,
showing mo some now books which had been sent him and
which he advised me to read, chatting genially all the while,
and finally after expressing the hope that I would get the MS.
published and then send him a copy which he could read at
his leisure, he accompanied me to the door and with much
cordiality wished me good morning. When I got outside, I
was vexed with myself for my (lanc/ierle and indiscretion in
asking liim to read the MS., and blushed every time T thought
of it, and altogether felt very uncomfortable. I was
disappointed too ; but in a different way from what I had felt
when the MS. had been returned by the Editors. For in those
vouthful days a new idea was to me as meat and drink, and
often, indeed, had to do duty for the same ; and it was as
incomprehensible to me that anyone professing to live for

GC,

t;,'-

'if

..1'

]\S

4()«{

MV FIRST ATTK.MPT.

these great and sacred truths sliould be indilFerent to thom
when thrust under their very nose, as it were, as it would be to
a miser to see jrold thrown at the feet of one who was too
indifferent to pick it up. It outraged my ideal, and was a
great shock to me, and for a long time I could neither
understand it noi get over it. It did not occur to me then,
(what experience has abundantly taught me since), that
gifts so lightly proffered were more likely to be of imaginary
than real value, and that the chances that any truth both new
and important was likely to be lost by refusing it when thrown
at a man in this way, were very small indeed !

In the meantime I had started off for the house of my second
victim (my companion making desperate efforts to keep uj)
with me as in nn- excitement I stalked along!) and we soon
became so intent in speculating on what my luck would be on
my next visit, that I had quite forgotten the chagrin and
disappointment of the last. He was in his study under the
sky-lights, and received me pleasantly enough, apologising for
the length of staircase I had to tniverse before reaching liim,
and settling himself down to hear what I had to say. I did
not detain him long. For it had occurred to me as I came
along that the reason I had not succeeded better with the old
philosopher whom I had just left, was because I had emptied
almost the entire contents of my essay on him, so that the poor
man was quite exhausted. This time, I said to myself, I will
be brief, and keep to a^'few main points only. Now it so
happened that I had digested the critical parts of my essay
under four compendious headings which I accused the pure
Materialists of having neglected in their scheme of the World.
To these in their naked baldness 1 stuck grimly, telling them
over on my fingers one by one slowly and deliberately sis he
listened, and sternly repressing the almost uncontrollable
temptation I felt to let myself go and spread myself out before
him at large ! But to my surprise he did not budge, nor did his
face betray the least emotion one way or another at the recital :

MY FIK.ST ATTK.Ml'T.

4<;7

on the contrary it wore I'athcr n dazed and bewildered
expression, T tliought ! Nor do I now wonder at it, for when I
mention that tlic four points in question baldly stated, bore
such ('iii<;inati(' lejrends as the t'ollowinj;, some of which the
reader has ah'eady seen, — ' the Scale in th(! mind,' ' the looking
at the World from without instead of from within,' ' the
confusion in the choice of the instruments for ihe investigation
of Truth,' and the 'looking at the World with too micros(!opic
iin eye,' — it will be aj)parent to the reader that had he been
ten times the philosopher he was, they must have been as
mysterious to him as the hieroglyphics on Cleopatra's Needle I
No, but what annoyed me was that he did not even ask me
what I meant by them I Doubtless he saw by my eye that I
was dying to emj)ty the whole bucket on him, and so he
skilfully averted this danger by drawing me off from the
subject and contents of my essay, to the more practical issue of
what was to be done with it. 'Now, I'll tell you what to do,'
he said. ' You have sent it you say, to all these different
magazines and they have returned it. Well now, break it into
pieces (I thought of my four headings), watch your opportunity,
nnd when any subject turns up in the newspapers that will give
you a chance, write on it at once, and tack one or other of
your points on to the end of it as a moral ! ' At this j)oint I
began to feel a kind of despair creep over me, and was getting
bewildered myself, for I could not possibly imagine what
<!onceivable kind of newspaper in*(^dent could turn up that
would lend itself as illustration to either one or another of
these enigmatic and mystical philosophic abstractions of mine.
It was evident that though in himself one of the most
apprehensive of men, he had not taken in the meaning of
what I had said. But I let him continue, and when he went
on to say 'the 'Echo' would be just the paper for it, it contains
some very serious, solid articles, you know, and you could tack
■on your points in a short article there very nicely. It is what
I did myself,' — the humour of the thing tickled me so that I

V. 1

I 1

4(;n

MV I'llfST ATTKMI'T.

could hardly restrain myself. I thought I ."iiw the little article
under the sensational heading — ' Chihl Murder,' 'a Dynamite
Con^ipiracy,' 'a City Fire,' 'a Change of Government,* 'a
Political Cave,' ' Another Local Veto Hill,' or ' Engineers'
Strike ' — and the face of the reader when he got to tha hottonj
to read, ' all this, Mr. Editor, proves what 1 hold to be a great
truth, and one which caimot be too often reiterated, namidy
that the Scale in the Mind is ' etc. ; or ' that the looking at the
VV^orld from without is by no means the same thing as looking
at it from within,' or ' that you cannot be too carefid in how
you handle your intellectual edge-tools, or as to which one you
pick up,' etc., and ' that you must not [)ut on your spectacles
to look at the moon, or take up your telescope to investigate
the feet of a fly ! ' It was like the patent-[>ill advertisement at
the bottom of a column of newsj)aper sensation ; and when I
got out I laughed aloud. The advice was most kindly given,
and was in itself not only a most feasible but a most practical
suggestion, had it been some new moral, political, c»r social
truth for which I was anxious to get a hearing ; but for these
high philosophic abstractions on the idtimatc structure and
constitution of the \V(trld, — the idea of it kept me laughing
most of the way to the iiouse of the next on my list.

This time it was a lady of great prominence in the intellectual
and social movements of the time. I sent in my card, and was
shown up to a room on the first floor. She seemed at first
annoyed at the intrusicm, and looking at me without moving
a muscle of her head or face, said in a tone of military
severity ' To what, Sir, am I indebted for the honour of this
visit ! ' But when in a half frightened and subdued tone I
proceeded quite innocently to explain that I had come to see if
she could help me with her advice as to the publication of an
article, she was all geniality in a moment, and after listening
patiently to the points which I thought I had made good in it,
(by this time I had become quite calm, and w.as tiible to put
them quietly and without the danger of alarming my listener or

■

MY FIIIST ATT K MPT.

k;o

])uttin<^ her to Hi<j;ht!) nho entered syiupiithetically int(» all I
luul to say without hurry or show of impatience, and ended l)y
recommend iu}^ me to see, whom ? — the ohl theolojjfian who had
been the object of my first visit in the mornin*^ and who she
thought wouhl from the simihvrity of our views be most
interested in what I had just been saying. I was too aslianied
to confess that I had ah'eady scsen him that very morning, and
after thanking her for her sympathy and advice, vvith(b'ew. F
felt I liad had quite enough of it for one morning, and made up
my mind that nothing further was to come of this partiiudar
phin of campaign. My circle had suddenly got back to the
point from which it started ; the ;qt nation was becoming
serious; and I felt that if I did not look out, 1 should be
baulked at the outset in my lightly undertaken enterprise of
coming to England to conquer the philosophic world I I was
indignant, too, and having unbounded energy in those young
days, 1 felt much like that old Ram Dass of whonj Carlyle
writes, who declared of hin>self that ho 'had enou»h fire in
his belly to burn up the sins of the world ! ' But what was to
be done .' A happy thought struck me. Why not publish tlie
essay sis a pamphlet, and send copies of it to those
representative men in j)hilosophy, religion, and science, with
whose works I was familiar and who might quietly read it at
their leisure and pronounce on its merits .' A capital idea, I
thought, and no sooner conceived than 1 prepared to put it in
execution.

But just at this jun<'ture a friend of mine to whom I had i)oen
speaking of my bad luck, assiu'cd me she knew of a magazine
that would be glad to accept it — if 1 remember rightly even
before its contents were known I It was called the
' Chiu'chman's Shilling Magazine,' a religious publication, very
proper, but milk-and-watery I imagine, with little circulation
and no pay. It was a great come-down to my intellectual
pride to have to stoop to this ; worse even 1 thought than
tacking it on as a moral to the tail of an article in the Eo/io ;

3 ■

<, ^ i

470

MV riUST ATTR.MI"!

and at the HrHt Hujr^cHtioii of it, like Murk Twain with the
Conntuntinoplc Hauwagc, I rcfoivcd to 'paHi!<l* lint on nocoixl
thoii<(litH 1 agr(H!<l to u(;<!oj)t it. \VIiat docided nu' was firstly,
the weak youthfnl desire to sec my article in type at all costs
after all this struj^ji'lc, hut niaiidy that hcforc tlu? type was
hrok(>n nj), I was t<» have any innnher of copies I liked struck
oft' at the uierely nominal cost of the paper and hindiiiji'. The
essay appeared in dui' coin-sc in the niaj^azine, and for years the
copies I recciived as my share of the spoil, formed a stack under
my dres8in<i,-table, on which I rejxularly drew for shavin;^-papcrl
Only one review of it, if I rememher rii^htly, came into my
hands. It was from u Plymouth paper I thiidv, and the Kditor
who was apparently as much amazed by its appearance in the
pa<jjes of this nja/^azine as if it had been some escaped monster,
went on to inforui the reader that if he wanted a tough and
knotty piece of reading, and one whose digestion were |)resent
death, here indeed were the article that would give it him !

In due time the pamphlet a|)])eared as printed from the type
of the article, and some two hundred coi)ies or more were sent
by post to -^eai'ly all the representative thinkers, theologians,
professors, jireachers, kn'turers, writers of essays or books, in
Englaml, Scotland and Ireland ! It was nicely got up and
looked quite smart, I thought, in its smoothly-pressed slatcy-
blue cover; and I was quite proud of it. I had added to the
original title of ' God or Force?' the following sub-title, 'Being
an attempt to give a harmonious view of the world after
showini"- the limitations of scientific thought.' This I thought
sounded well, and I flattered myself it would be very effective ;
be-iides it described with sufficient accuracy what it was that
I had attempted in these pages.

The pamphlets, then, having been sent oft' in flights to Qvvvy
(juarter of the three kingdoms, I sat anxiously at home awaiting
the result. I had not to wait long, for almost immediately,
acknowledgements came back in shoals, most of them kindly but
formal, but a few which proved that the essay had been read

MV riKST ATTIvMI'T.

471

carefully hy soino oi the very men iiiul women whom I had mo»t
ilc.<*iretl to reach, One of them naid that I had got hold ot'
Home points which he ha<l heen teacliin<j; to hi(4 8tiidentM for
many years, hut which he had not yet puhliwhed : ancther
expressed himself as interested in the use I hud made of the idea
of ' tendency ' ; another in the considerations I had adduced to
sjjow tliat thi! complex tendencies of the W(»rld all lead up ti) the
ideal of l(»ve; and oiu', while j:;enerous and appreciative, rej^retted
that I sh(»uld seek to add another to the various tlieories of the
World, and was not suri)ris(!d that it should have heen rejected
hy the Editors when it was attempted to lie dijiested int<» twenty
paj^es I Hut when once all the acknowledj^eujents had come
in, everythin;;; fell into silence aj^ain.

Meanwhile I had heen j;raduallv hecominj; myself dissatisfied
with this crude and early producticm, over which 1 had spent so
nuich time and been so elate. Tt was mainly a critical w<u'k,
and although it contained constructive elements as we have seen,
its ertect as a whole was ratlu-r t<) pick holes in the Materialistic
iSystem of Herbert Spencer, than like him to reduce all the
complex (dements of Nature to a sin<>;le Law. Accordin<,jly I
now set to work with vi<;our to repair this deficiency, and after
a year or more's work n|)on it had mana<^ed to produce a
compact schenu! of my own, with a single law, too, ruiuiing
thntugh it all — what I (tailed the Law of Polarity, — and the hint
of which I had got from Emerson, as Spencer had got the hint
of his Law of Evolution from von liaer. The two hiws rested
ultimately on the same princii)le. niimely of a unity of Fon-i'
e\ erywhere existing in Nature in the opposite forms of attraction
and repulsion; but the advantage which 1 claimed for the Law
of Polarity over Spencer's elaborated law was this, that while
his law with its materialistic premises, did not make room for
the ascension of things but only for their lateral expansion and
dirterentiation on the flat as it were, as a stream that in overflowing
a meadow, breaks on its margin and circumference into endless
dirterentiation of eddy and foam but cannot rise higher than its

472

MY FIllST ATTEMPT.

source, my statement witli its spiritual implications, pcrmittetl,
like a spiral staircase, of the ascension of things from chaos up
to the organized forms of crystal, of vegetable, of animal, and
of man ; from man savage up to man civilized, and from that up
to the disembodied ideals of beauty, morality, and love.

This new essay I had again compressed into the compass of
a magazine article which 1 had entitled ' Considerations on tlie
Constitution of the World,' and was now prepared to make a
fresh assault on the close preserves of the higher magazines,
with the excepticm of the 'Fortnightly' for the reason I have
given above. But this time I was able, I thought, to approach
the Editors with some decided advantages in my favour over
those of my first attempt. B'or in the meantime I had written
to a few of those whom I have mentioned as having expressed
their interest in my first essay, to ask them if they could be of
assistance to me with the Editors in my next venture. They
all came promptly to my aid, some of them writing directly to
the Editors about me, otiiers writing notes of reconuneiidation
which I was to forward myself to the Luitors. Hut in spite
of these testimonials tlie M8. came back from eacli at the
appointed hour with the regularity of Noah's dove, but without
the olive leaf to show that land was at last in sight. Xot at
all daunted by this fresh failure, I determined again to reach
as many disinterested and competent judges as possible, whose
influence although unseen at the moment, would l)c ready to
appear when the time was ripe ; and so had j'ccourse again to
the medium of the pamphlet. As before, it was sunt to the
leading men in the three kingdoms, but without nuich result.
For although my original supporters remained firm in their
appreciation, their munber was not 1 think to any appreciable
extent increased. What then was tin; next move to be i The
situation which had been wettiu"" more and more grave, had
now I felt become desperate. 1 had used up practically the
whole stock of my original ideas in these two articles, and was
now left high and dry and exhausted. Time, although really

:MY FII!^T ATTKMPT.

473

young, was I felt most urgent and pressing ; I was now
twenty-nine years of age, I reflected, and was firmly convinced,
like Coningsby, that if I did not do sojr.ething liefore thirty, I
should not do it at all. My medical practice, too, was
practically nil, and the thousand pounds which I had received
from the grateful patient, and on which I had not only subsisted
the while, but married, was beginning to run 'ow. Ft seemed
to me more clear than ever that the one object to which I had
d(!<licated my life, was to be baulked after all on the threshold,
Itoth by want of means and by the impossibility of gaining a
foothold. I had determined never to go back to Canada and
o(mfess myself beaten, and so to disapjioint the hopes and good
wishes of those who had sped me on my way, but was resolved
to fight it out to the bitter end in London alone. Meantime
I had learned one or two things for my guidance in the future,
and as I still hold them, they may be of value to others who
may find th(unselves in a like predicament. The first is that
now that the signed article is in vogue in the leading magazines,
nn Editor although open to accept an article showing originality
iind merit, on some single aspect or point of philosophy or life,
from an unknown writer, is not likely to do so if the author,
however original, attempts some condensed scheme of the
World as a whole, and especially if he attempts it, as my critic
said, in the short space of twenty pages I The second is, that
it is always open to the beginner in the last extremity to have
his article or book i)rinted and sent to the best judges, with the
certaintv almost that one or other of tlu'i.i will see its merits,
and remember it when the time comes. The third is, that no
reconmiendation of an unknown writer's work bv any authority
however eminent, counts much Avith the editor in the days of
the signed article, unless the authority in cpicstion has t;ikcn
means at the same time to inform the [)ublic that a new writer
ha.» aftpeared, whom it would be well for it to hear. And
lastly, that the pamphlet as a literary medium is now dead, and
in all probability never again to be revived.

474

MV FIUST ATTEMPT.

At this juncture a new idea occurred to me. The Editors
iind the public, I reflected, although they look askance at the
abstract speculations of an unknown writer, may still be willing
to listen to compendious expositions of well-known ones. Now
up to that time the philosophers by whose writings my own
course of tliought had been mainly moulded were as we have
seen, Plato, IJacon, Goethe, Herbert Spencer, Emerson,
Newman and Carlyle. I had arrived at the conclusion that
Herbert Spencer had swallowed up, superseded, and embodied
in himself all that was true in those of his j)redecessors who
had materialistic leanings, and that Plato, Bacon, Goethe,
Emerson, and Carlyle had sunnned up all that could be said
for the spiritual or ideal side of things. I accord 'ngly had
pondered the doctrines of these great writers with more care
and over a greater period of time than those of any other
writers before or since — with the exception perhaps of Hegel
and Comte in later years. I selected, then, as subjects of my
exposition the works of Herbert; Spencer, Emei'son, and Carlyle,
as being at once the three most modern and perhaps the most
inHuential, and my plan was to present the reader with such an
epitome of their speculatioi!s, that the new standpoint which
1 myself had occupied might be clearly seen. I began with
Herbert Spencer, and my object was to draw his speculations
to the single point or focus from which they all alike radiated,
and having grasped this finnly, to so light it up that the great
central weakness of the scheme would be L-een at a glance by
the reader for himself. In this way I hoped to clear the way
before starting on (Jarlyle and Emerson, with whose bent of
thought and feeling my own nature had the most affinity, and
to whose speculations I was most inclined. 1 could then so work
in my own standpoint, 1 thought, that it would be seen to be
different from all three of them, and in a manner to be a
composite or unified synthesis of them all. For I had come to
these subjects as we have seen just at the time when the
tliscoveries and speculations of Darwin and Spencer had

>IV I'ritST ATTKAII'T.

475

■'■

revolutionized our views of the world and of life as nmcli as
the Copernican. Astronomy had done before them, and had
made a return to the old points of view forever impossible.
The effect of these new views on older Idealists like C'arlyle
and Emerson who had grown up under a different conception
(tf things, was to throw them into an attitude of almost \nnv
antagonism, without in any way modifying the views in which
they had been brought up. The Metaphysical Idealists of the
I'niversities on the other hand, who were practically all
followers of Hegel, had already reached such a point of aloofness
and remoteness from all things natural or scientific, human or
divine, that scientific discoveries and cataclysms sufficient to
call into existence whole new worlds, or species of being, or
races of men, would have passed before their eyes unheeded
and without rufHin"- even the fringe of their skirts! If thev
had stooped to notice them, it would only have been to |)oint
to them as but instancs of the law before which they bent
with religious solemnity, and which had to them a kind of
mystical or magical, and sacred efficacy, the law namely that
'a thing: must <>o out of itself and be different from itself in
order tliat by returning to itself it nught become all the nunc
itself ' etc. I Of the Theological Idealists, again, Dr. Martincaii,
like Carlyle and Emerson, had already received the bent of
his thought before Darwin and Spencer appeared, and although
no one more quickly and with more power and thoroughness
mastered their real drift and tendency, he had spent the
greater part of his life in clearing the ground before he was
confronted by the new elements which the Darwinian hypothesis
had thrown into s|)eculation : and it was not until a very
advanced period of his old age, that his great constructive
work appeared. The older Materialists, again, like Mill, were
altogether superseded: being insulated and fioated off" their
old base by the larger generalizations of Spencer; and so in
s|)ite of their great merits as transition stones, soon disapi)eared
from view ; while the early disciples of Darwin, like Huxley

f«v

%l!

^fT

47 1)

MY FIRST ATTEMPT.

and Tyiitlall, were so entranced by the new scientific
•generalizations of their Master, that they never thought of
seriously reconciling them with the idealism of their youth, —
until, indeed, in their old age, when they returned to the old
idealism ever the more fondly as to some long lost friendship
of their boyhood, but when it had alas I become too late. 80
that when I began to write, no work had yet appeared in which
an attempt was made to handle anew, and from the Idealist's
standpoint, the old World Problem, now rendered infinitely
more complex and difHcult by the Hinging into it of these
great unwieldy and unmanageable boulders of scientific
speculation and generalization. All sides of tlio [)roblem were
now there, and were fully elaborated, but their representatives
were, by reason of their contem})oranelty and the diverse streams
of- ti'adition from which they had drunk, at daggers drawn, and
incapable of either properly appreciating (jr of assimilating and
doing justice to each other. Carlyle was opposed to Spencer,
and Emerson to Darwin ; Huxley and Tyndall to Martineau ;
Martineau to (-arlyle, Darwin, and Sjiencer ; and all of them
more or less to Hegel and Comte. But from my boyhood my
room, like the Chapel of Alexander JSeverus, was hung round
with the pictures of them all, as of the greater gods, and to
them I came prepared to offer an equal homage and love.

Having finished tlie essay on Spencer from the point of view
at once of a disciple, and of one who at the same time regarded
the facts through the difierently coloured spectacles of the
Idealist, I sent it in to one of the Magazines, and was at once
surprised and overjoyed when a letter came announcing what I
considered to be its virtual acceptance by the Editor, — although
as afterwards appeared he liad only used tiie words that he
'hoped to insert it when the pressure on his space should have
cleared a little I' In the meantime I worked hard at the
j)arallel expositions of Carlyle and Emerson, especially of
Emerson, whose great scheme of World-Thought was as we
have seen, owing to the enigmatic form in which he had chosen

^r^

.MV FinST ATTEMrr.

i t

to cast it, and in spite of his serene practical wisdom and
splendid penetration and insight into life, still caviare to the
general mind. But as the months came and went, and n(» sign
of my article appeared in the magazine, 1 thought I would wait
on the Editor and learn from himself what the difficulty was
which was causing the delay. Accordingly one afternoon I
appeared at his office in the city, my heart beating violently as
was usual with me on such occasions. I was feeling indignant,
and was prepared to be severe. Hut he was a man of infinite
self-possession and quietness of manner, and after praying me
to be seated he began so quietly and pleasantly and with such
compliments to my article, went on so frankly and by such easy
transitions to the difficulties of his office, and the pressure on
his space from men of established reputation who could not well
be refused ; in a word, he so stroked me over and smoothed me
down with his exquisite ingenuity and elaboration of phrase,
that I began at last to consider myself the offender and him tlu;
martyr, and before I came away almost felt that 1 had made a
sincere and disinterested friend ! But once outside, I saw that
all hope from Editors, in my then literary position, nmst be
resigned ; and T practically made up my mind to try them no
more. And in this resolve I was finally fixed by a circumstance
which occurred soon after. It nuist have been just about this
time that ' Frazer's Magazine,' then on its last legs, passed into
the editorial hands of the late Principal Tulloch prior to its
final decease. As a mere off-chance 1 sent him the article on
Spencer, with the feeling that as a theologian he would probably
sympathize with my anti-materialistic point of view, and that
as the new editor of a decrepit magazine he would i»i'obai)ly
give Avelcome in its pages to fresh points of view from young
Avriters. The essay came back promptly howcner, but with a
note which still charms me bv its frankness and sim|)licitv. It
was just the article, he said, he should have liked to publish ;
my point of view was his own, and with most of n\y arguments
he was in agreement, but having just undertaken the conduct of

478

MY FIRST ATTKAIPT.

the Magazine he was obliged for the present ' to look ont for
big names and great reputations I ' From that time I felt the
game was up for me as a writer of philosophical articles for the
monthly magazines; and that there was nothing for it now,
unless I were to admit myself altogether beaten, but to collect
the essays together and to test the opinion of the great general
public by publishing them as a book. 1 finished up the essays
on Carlyle and Emerson, and on a wintry morning in the
Decembcrof 187!) I presented myself with a parcel under my arm
At the house of a well-known publisher who had recommended
himself to me some years before by going out of his way to read
for me and give me his advice in reference to my first essay,
before it appeared in pamphlet form. Having gone carefully
through the two pamphlets and the MSS. of the three other
■essays, he candidly told me he did not think that in the then
state of the market they would repay the expense of publication,
and that in consequence he must decline bringing them out at
liis own risk, but that if I cared to pay the expenses of production
he would be very glad to bring out the book. This was very
straightforward I thought, and as hope was almost the oidy
possession 1 still had left at the bottom of the basket, I
determined to try my luck. The book, consisting of the five
essays, and printed in the reverse order to that in which they
were written, was brought out in the spring of 1880 imder the
title of the ' Religion of the Future ' ; and with it the first stage
of my literary Avanderings ends. In the following pages I shall
recount as faithfully as I can, the ill-success that still pursued
me for so many years as a writer of books ; and shall endeavour
to show how through sheer bad luck and bad management on
my part, together perhaps with a greater amount of neglect
than was altogether deserved on the part of reviewers, as well
as the peculiar philosophic spirit and temper of the time which
was the cause and justification of that neglect, I was so long an
.alien and an outcast from the literary fold.

''i l

CHAPTEK II.

CJIVILIZATION.

TTAVING found at last my lost Ideal, both in the Human
-^ Mind and in the constitution of the World, and having
in my ' Religion of the Futui'e ' set foi'th in the most general
way the directions in which it was to be looked for, I next
turned to Human History, with the object of discovering
whether the Ideid was also to be found in the actual progress
of Civilization. Of this, however, I was by no means assured ;
for although you may convince yourself of the curve of the
earth's surface by astronomical and other i)r<»of on the lai-ge
scale, you may not be able to do it so easily by an acre to acre
siu'vey of a parish or county. But this 1 saw, that whether
Civilization were steadily advancing and ascending (as, indeed,
it would be if there were an Ideal behind it all) or whether it
were only marking time, as it were, on the Hat, could only be
determined after we had discovered the connexion and interj)lay
of the great factors of which it is composed — Religion,
Government, Science, and Material and Social Conditions, —
and had ascertained whether the net resultant of them all
were an upward, a level, or a descending line ; in the same way
as an engineer can only determine what the gradient of a
projected railway line will be, when he has reduced the irregular
outline of the hills and valleys and plains through which it is
to pass, to some definite mathematical line or curve. I saw, in

ii il

it!

!i.

4S()

riviLizA'rrox.

n word, that as indispensable preliminary to the demonstration
of the presence of the Ideal in the course of History, I nm»t
enter on an enquiry into the general Laws of Civilization.
Now this problem of Civilization, although it lay in the
natural line of evolution of my studies, was not taken up by me
on Jiny definite or predetermined plan ; but arose in my mind
when I was engaged on the essays on Carlyle, Emerson, and
Herbert Spencer, which formed part of my 'Religion of the
F"iiture.' For in these writers I was confronted with two
diametrically opposite views of society ; Carlyle so conceiving
it as to estimate the value and importance of all its arrangements
from the point of view of Order; Emerson and Spencer, on the
other hand, from the point of view of Expansion and Liberty.
Jiut to me their reasonings were all so much mei'c abstract
speculation : what I wanted was to have the problem presented
in such a shape that direct observation cotdd be brought to
bear on it, to have it brought down to particulars that is to say,
or in other words, to persons, who should be the object-lessons
in which the opposing principles could be seen imaged and
reflected. And first of all I wanted to ascertain wliat effects
the different forms of Government and the different social
systems had on the march of civilization, before considering to
what extent these effects, when luifavourable, could be
neutralized or thwarted by the higher factors of Religion and
Science ; in the same way as one would begin by considering
the effects of soil and temperature on the growth of jjlants,
before proceeding to the higher and more complicated problems
of intercrossinii' in their bearino;s on the characters of flower or
fruit. And for this I was peculiarly and happily situated. I
had been born and brought up in the extreme democracy of the
Colonial backwoods ; and on coming to England found myself
cast into the midst of a society ai'istocratic to the core, but one
where individual and personal liberty such as 1 had enjoyed in
Canada, had from a long chain of historical causes, become as
much respected as in a pure democracy. Nothing could have been

CIVILIZATION.

481

more favounible for my attempt ; for the problem had thus been
cleared of all confusing complications, and reduced to the single
question of the relative effects of Aristocracy and Democracy
on the minds and morals of men. But just here I was somewhat
hampered by my own personal bias, which went naturally and
strongly in the direction of the regime under which I was born
and brought up, a regime which had done so much for me
personally, and which had so smoothed the way for me, that so
far as my advancement was concerned, my outward situation
and environment were as little a barrier to me, as if I had been
born in the centre of an old civilization, or been heir to a
Principality. For I had been, as the reader has seen, at the tirst
Public School of the time, and at a University second to none,
had I been able or disposed to api)reciate its instructicms ;
and I had always held precisely the position in the school,
the playground, and the University which was my due so far
as merit went, neither better nor worse ; and there was no
position to which I could not have attained, had I had the
ability or the character to deserve it. I naturally looked
askance therefore on a form of society where, as I imagined,
invisible barriers of caste were erected at every turn, and
where men were labelled and distribiited in separate compart-
ments like sheep in their pens ; and I had not yet been long
enough in the country to learn that in England society is not
a close aristocmcy as it is in Austria for example, but on the
contrary is so happily blended with democratic elements, that
in it more than in any mere democmcy as such, culture and
manners and their natural accompaniments will serve as the
golden key to all that is best, most distinguished, and most
refined. In order therefore to clear my mind of this personal
bias of which I was only partially conscious at the time, and
being determined that in my role of philosopher I would allow
nothing to stand between nie and the truth of which I was in
search, I resolved on a course of first-hand observations of the
effects of the aristocratic regime in all kinds of individual

H H

:ii

G '

4«2

CIVILIZATION.

instances. I went everywhere, to country plac^es remote from
civilization, to the streets of large towns, to hotels, to theatres,
to music halls, to debating societies, to the private houses of
the different classes, to open-air meetings, to race meetings,
to Exeter Hall meetings, to East and West-end sporting
clubs, to political clubs ; and everywhere I foi'ud that after
making allo.k^ance for obscuring complications, the moral
standards, the customs, the unwritten codes of honour, and the
like, as accurately corresponded to the aristocratic conditions
of life and society out of which they grew, as did the corres-
ponding standards in Canada to the conditions of a democratic
State. And so I had found what I most wanted, namely the
controlling factor in civilization, the factor that is to say,
which prevents society at any given point from flying away
into the sky ; which limits the a(!tivities of all the other factors ;
and is the cause why things make their own morality in spite
of politician or priest ; and so is everywhere the break on the
wheel of Progress ; — and this factor I found in what may be
called the general Material and Social Conditions of the
particular age and time. But on going on to enquire how the
balance stood between Aristocracy and Democracy in their
power to push on Civilization to higher and higher stages, I
was hampei'cd by a vast ari-ay and complication of con-
siderations which detained me long and gave me much trouble
to resolve ; but in the Icmg run 1 ended by perceiving as I
have so often done in other lines of speculation, that what
actually has occurred in the world on a large scale in any given
epoch or period, was the best thing, the right thing, the thing
wanted there ; and that although Democracy would in a world
destined to stand still and become stereotyped, give greater
energy, range, and expansion to the spirit than Aristocracy,
which confines its finer sense of personal dignity, its more
refined culture and standard of manners^ to the few ; in a
world intended to advance, and with Progress as its end and
not stagnation, this need not be so, but on the contrary all

CIVILIZATION.

4«:i

the
their
ges, I
con-
ouble
as I
what

fnrniH of Government must be brought into requinition in turn
according to the necessities of the phice and hour, and the
obstructions that have to be cleared away — n<»w a military
despotism, now a limited monarchy, here an aristocratic, there
a democratic regime. I saw that for great ])olitical designs,
the concentration of power in a single hand or in the hands of
a few, may as in the Greek States of ^Vntiquity be more
important for the after civilization of the work than the
personal liberties or moral expansion for the time being of
innumerable masses of men. For just as in Nature the
individual is always sacrificed to the necessities of the species,
and the species of to-day to that which is to follow it to-morrow,
and as this must be so if the world is to advance ; so a whole
generation of men may have to be sacrificed to the designs of
a single great man, if his policy lies in the line of advancing
civilization ; and further, the effective support given to the
great men who initiate fresh advances in every quarter of the
field, may be as much cramped, it is important to observe, by
ji democracy, as the general expansion of the masses is in times
of repose, by an aristocracy. For while in a stationary world,
the expansion of the masses is the primary end ; in a
progrendve world, it is equally or more important tliat the
roads should be kept open for the free initiative of the original
and seminal minds, so that they shall not be choked and
blocked by dead masses of custom and hatred of change, as in
close aristocracies, or by the apotlieosis of the biggest
acceptable notoriety, as where the tyranny of the majority
prevails.

But at any rate Society as Carlyle saw is evolving, even if
it is not advancing ; and having found the controlling factor of
civilization in the Material and Social Conditions of an age, I
now had to determine the parts played by the progressive and
ecolving factors. liut here too all was chaos ; Keligion,
Science, and Government, each putting in its claim to priority,
Jiut after wandering about in this jungle for a while, I was

I i|

ill

; ''I

484

CIVIMZATION.

j^rcutly hcl|)e(l by the works of Comte which T now road for
the Hrst time. B'or in spite of his j^reut reputation, I h««l been
deterred aw I have naid from reading him, by the disparage-
ment cast on his work by Spencer and Huxley, in whose
writings the science of Comte was ma(h! to appear retrograde,
and his classification of the sciences superficial and unsatis-
factory. But happening to pass the rooms of the Positivist
Society in Mortimer Street one Sunday evening when a lecture
was being delivered by a distinguished member of that body,
I went in out of curiosity ; and was so interested in what I
heard, that I at once procured a copy of Comte's ' Positive
Philosophy,' and set eagerly to work ui)on it ; keeping up my
attendance the while at the lectures of the Society, in order to
saturate myself as far as possible with the working spirit of his
doctrines. And I was richly rewarded ; for I had not gone far
in my studies before I came on some large generalizations
which opened out to me a broad road through the thicket in
which I was entangled, and gave me the hint of a princi[)le
wliich seemed to me at once so central and conunanding, that
like the law of gravitation it had only to be judiciously
applied, to reduce large masses of disconnected and recalcitrant
facts to law and order. It was what I afterwai'ds fonnulated
as the ' Law of Wills and Causes ' ; and by its means I wa»
enabled to draw a line of relation between Religion and
Science, whereby the stage of evolution of the latter being
given, the movement of the former could be foreseen. And
from this I went on to Avork out the parts played by the other
factors in their cross-relations to each other and to the whole ;
until at last, as result of it all, having got the Material and
Social Conditions as the controlling or limiting factor, Science
as the pi'ogressive factor, and Religion as the conservative and
harmonizing factor; and Great Men everywhere as the
instruments and initiators of advance ; I felt that my general
skeleton and outline of the progress of Civilization was
sufficiently complete to justify me in working out the process

mmm

CIVILIZATION.

485

in detail. I had already written a short summary of tho
movement aw a ina^^azine article ; and this after heini,' refuse«l
by the leading nKmthlies, was i)ul)lished in a magazine now
defunct, called 'The Statesman,' of which a friend of mine had
the control, but without any innncdlate result. It now stands
as it was then written, as the hist chapter in my book on
Civilization ; and after some foin- years or more spent in
elaborating my theory in detail, and in which its relations to
the systems of Hegel, Comte, Buckle, and Spencer were
exhibited, and the whole brought into forms by means of the
organon which I had introduced for the solution of vho
problenjs that arose in its course, it was published in tho
Spring of 188.") under the title of '( rilization and J*ro<rrcss';
and now forms the first volume of the .•« ric^ which 1 afterwards
systematically planned, and of which ti- ' History of Intel-
lectual Development ' is the latest in8taliu,.;at.

Ifi

11 ]

CHAPTER III.

STYLE.

"I N tlie incantiine my little book ' The Ueligion of the Future '
which contained in condensed outline the contribution which
I had ventured to offer towards the solution of the World-
problem, had fallen dead from the Press ; and so far as I can
remember no notice was anywhere taken of it for a year or
more from the time of Its appearance. But my friends of the
pamphlet days stuck faithfully both by me and by it. One of
them was in the habit of energetically recomm .iding it in
private ; and another was good enough to take it under his aru),
as he told me, to the office of a friend who was editor of one of
the leading critical weekly reviews. But the editor in question
who was very sensitive on the point of orthodoxy, had on
looking it over, apparently not found it referable to any of the
particular forms of heterodoxy with which he was in the habit
of dealing, and not knowing precisely what to do with it or
where to place it, had handed it over to one of his subordinates
by whom it was relegated with a word or two of contemptuous
comment to the small-print notices at the end of the paper.
When I complained t(» my friend of the shabby treatment
which the book had received, he suggested that I should try
again but on a larger canvas, and with less concentration in the
style, and more illustration and exposition ; adding as he had
formerly done of one of the essays contained in the book, that

STYLE.

487

one could not expect mucli notice to be taken of a work in
which a brand new theory of tiie World was presented to the
reader in a couple of essays of twenty pages each ! Now I was
just starting to write my book on Civilization at the time, and
this opinion of his gave me pause. ' He is right,' I said to
myself as I speculated on the probable causes of the failure, ' it
must be the style.' The matter of the book 1 felt to be rigiit
enougli in its way, being, as we have seen in a former chapter,
the normal evoli..;ion of preceding Thought when regard wat*
had to the new difficulties of our time with respect to the
existence of the Ideal, whether in the Mind or in the World.
It could only have been its mode of presentation, I thought.
Besides I had had my suspicions as to the style from the
beginning. For before writing the first chapter on ' God or
Force,' with the exception of letters to friends, I had not
written a line in my life ; and as I had always been ver}-
backward in composition at school, my one fear all along was
that when I had got tlie ideas, I should not be able to express
them. Indeed I had considered the enterprise so momentous
that as the reader may remember, I had gone all the way to
Scotland to undertake it ! The consecpience was that like a
man trying to walk on the edge of a plank, I was so afraid of
diverging a hairbreadth to the right or left of the straight path
before me, that I had compressed and condensed and indrawn
mv exposition almost to obscurity. Not that I then felt this to
be a fault to be avoided, in the same way as I should now : on
the contrary in my youthful vanity I inwardly flattered myself
that it looked rather ('istinguished than otherwise I For I was
still largely under the dominion of Emerson ; and had he not
said that great Thinkers were in the habit of addressing each
other like Olympian deities each from his several peak, quite
careless as to whether vulgar mortals below understood them or
not .' And I secretly hoped that my own somewhat lorilly and
sententious manner in these essays might produce something of
the same impression ! But now that the ordinary reader would

■ »1

i ..:

I ; .

488

STYLE.

not buy the book, and the Olympians themselves had turned
their backs on it ; like a man who makes a joke at whicii nobody
laughs, I began to wonder whether there was not something the
matter ; and whether in the new work on Civilization on which
I was about to start, a little more expansion, elaboration and
illustration, a little more acconnnodation to the difficulties of the
general reader might not, as my friend had suggested, be an
advantage. And in this good resolution I was doubtless
strengthened by the refusal of the editors to have anything to
do witli my productions (a refusal, I argued, which meant that
there must be something wrong somewhere), as well as by the
remark of an American friend who on writing to me in reference
to the book said that if he might be permitted ' to drop a
thought ' as he called it, he would suggest that in future books
I should give more rein to fancy and invention, to the use of
metaphor and pictorial illustration tlian in the last. Tliis
decided me ; but on thinking over what lie had said I could not
SCO how, even had I been so disposed, the subject matter of my
book on ' the Religion of the Future ' could have admitted of
any of these fine Howers of rhetoric and fancy. ^^'ho, for
example, could become pathetic over 'the Scale in the Mind,' or
aught but serious over the conse(piences of ' looking at tlie
World with two microscopic an eye ' ! Still, I felt that he was
right ; and for some months my mind was entirely occu})icd
wltli the consideration of the important question of style. I
read copiously from the great Poets and Prose Writers, as mucli
for the purpose of diagnosing the excellences and defects of
each, as for imitating those I thought most i)raiseworthy. litit
as owing to some trouble connected with my eyes and head 1
was unable to read more than a few pages at a time, and these
very slowly, and so had tt> have most of my reading done for
nic, I was obliged to depend almost entirely on the ear for
detecting the subtler shades of distinction among them. I had
the sentences read to me in an even, measured voice ; and curiously
enougli I found that I could detect differences by the ear, whicli

STYLE.

48!)

the

T was unable to detect by the sight. This was peculiarly
marked, I remember, in reading the ' Spectator,' where the point
was to distinguish by the style, which of the essays were written
by Addison and which by Steele ; for after having some dozen
or more read aloud to me as specimens, I found myself able in
many cases to assign each to its real author when read to me,
but not when read by myself. There was something in the
sight of the stops and periods and words which seemed to
interfere with the purity and integrity of the total impression.
And accordingly after having gone the round of tlie great
writers in prose and verse in this way, and saturated myself with
the spirit of their respective styles, I had come to certain
conclusicms on the subject of Style to which I still on the whole
subscribe, and which it may not be altogether out of i)Iace
])erhaps, to briefly set down here.

In a general way I may say then, that I was of opinion tliat
for Narrative admitting of a varied play of sentiinent, emotion,
and logical continuity, the style of the future except in those
rare cases where tlie subject matter is of an unusually elevated
character either in itself or by reason of its associations, as in
' Paradise Lost ' for example, nuist if we are to avoid bombast,
unreality, or insincerity, be Prose ; but with such large
indulgence and license in the matter of granunatical con-
struction, as is usually accorded to verse. Indeed, except in
lyrics, sonnets, and the like, to which the poetic form is
peculiarly adapted, verse of all kinds has bcc-ome barely
tolerable ; even blank verse in the absence of any theme
elevated enough throughout to give it a sustained and con-
tinuous ap|)ro})riatcnes8, having become synonymous almost
with bombast and unreality, and when men are left to their
own initiative, being j)ractically unread. Indeed, with the
exception of the Elizabethan style of wit and hiunour, now
happily out of date, it is the blank verse of Shakspeare when
employed in the dead and prosaic i)assages of his historical
<lramas that is now most diHicult to read ; and were it not for

490

STYLE.

his great name which lias einbahned these passages, and for
the impossibility of cuttin{? them out without mutilating the
plays in which they are found, they would long since have
passed into oblivion. His prose on the other hand is in its
way as admirable as his finest blank verse ; and there is no
form of literary excellence exhibited in the one, which does
not appear in the other. Even in the greatest passages of his
greatest jilays where blank verse is used, it is noticeable that
when he wants to get the fall necessary to bring out the full
])atlios or beauty of a situation, as for example in the deaths of
Ilamlct and Lear, the foreboding of Othello, or the soliloquy
of Cleopatra on hearing of Anthony's death, he is obliged to
break the line of his iambics ; — and what is this but to desert
his verse at the point where the sentiment of the moment can
only find its full and perfect expression in a movement and
form of words where no predetermined length of line
intervenes between the author and his theme to violate the
simplicity and integrity of his thought. And why not? If
the elevation of the sentiment demands it, is there any reason
why as much of a sentence or a paragraph as is necessary,
should not assume the even, lofty tread of the iambic measure,
and so the absurd necessity be avoided of cutting these iambics
into lines of a given regulation length to begin with, and then
violating the metre the moment the fall of the sentence requires
it .' It is only in the more loose, flexible, and sinuous move-
ment of prose that you can get the freedom necessary to
ex[»ress the coarse and the refined, the bald and the elevated
sentiments ; always excepting of course lyrics and the rest, U*
M'hicli poetic rh^'thms are, as I have said, peculiarly appropriate.
So far I had gone in my reflections on Style, when I found
that I could get no farther until I had settled to my own satis-
faction in what it was that literary [>ower really consisted ;
for if we consider it, if mere ingenuities of metre were the
essence and not merely the appendage or accident of literary
power, then indeed were those old writers who would do you

8TYLK.

491

(inythinfij from a sonnet to a philosophical treatise in metres
cut in the shape of crosses, eggs, or yew-trees, greater than
Shakspeare himself I And the conclusion at which I arrived
was that the core and essence of literary power was pictorial
power in the highest sense of that term. Not the power of
building up an in>age by a mere linear addition of particulars,
as one might the image of a room by the inventory of its
contents in an auctioneer's catalogue ; for although this in the
form of the ehort sentence does indeed give us in the hand- of
Macaulay, for example, and notably in some (tf the great
French writers, jiictures of admirable clearness and vigour,
still it is at best a comparatively cheap and easy achievement,
a matter more of taste, labour, and time, than of genius, and
consisting rather in analysis and <lismemberment, as when the
girl in the fairy tale had to separate o\it the different skeins of
silk from the tangled ball, than in the compression and the
constructive combination of words and images. Nor airain
does true pictorial power consist in a haphazard aggregate
of higli-sounding words ; for this, as Macaulay said of
Montgomery's poems, although ha\ing like a Turkish carpet
all the colours necessary for a jjicture, may still present us
with the image neither of anything in the heavens above nor
in the earth beneath. Nor yet again does it consist in the
dance and jingle of the words as in so much of the Minor
Poetry of to-day ; for this although a virtue in Music;, can only
be attained in any higli degree in Literature by the sacrifice
of that perfect clearness of the sentiment or tiiought which it
is the first object of literature to convey. No, true pictorial
power consists not in any or all of these, but in the power
rather of bringing, as Emerson says of intellect generally,
all the radiances and elusive lustres of the world to a unity,
to a singleness and clearness of image at each and e\ery [>oint,
as it were ; as if the thoughts Averc to run from the point of a
diamond pen fed by the mingled distillations of the subtlest
essences in Nature as from a fountain. Now were this

49i

STYLE.

Ciirty of a('(M)niplishinent, we should all be Sliakspeares ; for it
is in this and in this alone that his purely literary as distinct
from his general intellectual and dramatic power really consists.
And yet so ini[)ortant is it that the lighter forms of poetry at
least, should lie enriched by new and lovely combinations of
rhythms and metres, that just as in the breeding of animals
where a total harmony and pei-fection is aimed at, the smallest
approach to the ideal in a feature in itself unimportant, as in
the form of the ear or tail, is seized on with avidity by the
fancier and loaded with prizes and honours far above its
intrinsic worth, until its beauties ai-e embodied in the breed ; so
new felicities of rhyme and rhythm, even when quite divorced
from the sentiments or thoughts they are intended to express,
may for a time be accorded such importance and prominence
by the critics, as to quite deflect the very conception of
literary power from its true nature. And hence it is that purely
litci-ary eminence (apart fi*om lyric gift which all would admit)
is conferred for a time on such wx'iters as Swinburne and
Rossetti for example, who give us complex and charming
word-orchestration without real images; or on prose writers
like Meredith, who has truth and thought indeed, but so little
pict(n'ial i)ower that to recover his meaning from out the wrecks
of his expression, costs as much labour as it would to recover
the image of ii ship from its splintered and stranded yards and
beams. For it cannot be overlooked, that just as an art is
enriched and raised to a higher power when it borrows the
fringe, as it were, of another art, as when Literature borrows
the movement and fall of Music to help it out in the clearness
and distinctness of the thought or sentiment it wishes to
express ; but is impoverished when the entire hody of the one
is substituted for the other, as for example when the accurate
images of painting are attempted to be transfeiTcd to music, or
the impressionism of Music to Painting ; so it is to wrench
Literature from its true purpose, when the peculiar methods of
Music are substituted bodily for its own, or when great unhewn

STYLK.

49S

boulders of wit or wisdom are fliin^ pell-mell into it without
expression, proportion, or form, liut this confusion in liternrv
criticism nuist continue, I presume, until writers shall arise
who combining in themselves the various excellences of tlu.uirht,
expression, and form in their right i)roi)ortions, shall briiit;
liitemturc back to its true model again; after which the
canonization of Jiese one-sided excellences (their ad Interim
function being over,) must decline and finally cease.

ill

CHAPTEK IV.

A POLITICAL INSTANCE.

IT wjis durinj^ tliese years that Lord Randolpli Churchill
appeared as a portent in the political ,sky, disturbing the
minds of men like a comet, but giving me just the object-
lesson I was looking for, to enable me to resolve certain
difficulties and perplexities connected with Politics on which
my mind at the time was working, but on whicli I had not
been able to come to any very definite conclusion. On one or
two points of general consideration I had reached a certain
degree of clearness and conviction. I saw for example that if
the world was destined to a continuous progress in civilization,
its Genius or Presiding Spirit was not going to make its way
to that end by such means only as should receive the im-
j}rtinatitr eiilxGi' oi a knot of 'superior persons,' a plebiscite of the
masses, a consensus of debating societies, or even a vote of the
House of Commons, any more than it is going to ' run ' tlic
Universe itself on the few cut-and-dried mechanical or spiritual
lines of Spencer or Hegel ; but that it will find its way to its
end, as it does to the cross-fertilization of flowers, by the most
unexpected methods, and by a greater complexity and ingenuity
than is likely to be foreseen by any single mind or combinati(jn
of minds ; and further, that it will if necessary resort again to
the old weapons of despotism and the guillotine, with as much
sang-froid and indifference as it will to the propaganda of

A POLITICAL INSTANCE.

495

Exeter Ilall and tlic Pe.icc Society. I oaw too that if Society
were to be arrested and stereotyped at any given point, and no
provision were intended to be made for a further advance, the
Democratic form of Government, which ttim« at givin<f each
man his 'fowl in liis pot,' his ' three acres and a row,' or what
not, and which affords ample room for each individual to expand
and spread himself out to the limit of his nature and powers,
whether he be cabbage or flowering aloe, must be our ideal ;
but that where on the contrary, room has to be made for
further advance, where complications loom ahead dark and
menacing, and where nations are everywhere encompasseil with
the chances and dangers of war, then no mere democratic form
of government as such can prevent an eflective autocracy from
being concealed soiiiewliere, if not inside the Constitution, then
outside of it ; as was seen in America in the days of Lincoln,
and is still to be seen in B^ ranee since her war with Germany.
All this I saw, but what I could not resolve to my satisfaction,
was the form of government and society which is best adapted
to meet the ends both of a stationary and a progressive state,
both of present and of future material and spiritual well-being,
in States not like France or Russia or Austria encompassed
with the chances of war, but in States like England and
.Vmerica which have no inunediate fears from hostile neiirh-
hours. On the one hand I saw that so far as England, for
example, was an aristocracy, there was a tendency to prevent
the expansion of the great masses of the peoi)le not admitted
to its privileges ; while in so far on the other hand as it was
a democracy there was always the fear of the demagogue, who
by echoing the wants rather than the true interests of the
people, like parents who encourage their children to eat up all
their cake to-day and so leave none for to-morrow, would
beguile them into drawing on the capital required for future
progress, as well as on the interest and heritage of the past ;
and I was inclined to think that if an Aristocracy could by
severely winnowing out false reputations prevent this, it would

41m;

A I'OMTirAL FNSTANCE.

lmv(! <r<mv ti hn\<f way towards ncutraHzing its own drawbacks,
(rreat therefore was my surprise, great my curiosity, and
greater still my indignation and disgust, when I found an old
aristocracy like England adding to its own particular vice of
repressing the energies and expansion of the masses (as
Matthew Arnold was so fond of pointing out), the p(!culiar vice
and curse of democracies in all ages, the vice namely of giving
encouragement to the Demagogue, as seen in the [)art it played
in the rise to power of Lord Randol[)h Churchill.

Now on looking about for some solid footing on which to
stand in approaching these political problems, f had made a
particular point of observing what may be called the rise of
reputations, in the belief that if I could convince myself that
democracies could manage always to place their best men at
the head of affairs, they had nothing to fear in their rivalry
with aristocracies or de8i)otisms. And once entered on this
study of the rise of reputations in its bearing on Politics, it
was not lont; before it had extended itself to the rise of
reputations in every department of life. And many of the
results at which I had arrived were to me most interesting.
In watching the rise of literary reputations, for example, T had
come to the conclusion that just as no social reputation can be
said to be firmly established imtil it has received the ///)-
piimatiir of the Court, so no literary reputation can be said to
have fully emerged so as to be reckoned with as a power in
moulding the opinions of men, until it has received the
imprimatnv of the Daily or Weekly Press. Carlyle it may be
remembered complained bitterly that after preaching to deaf
cars for forty years, a ti'ifling address of his to the Edinburgh
Students, which happened to be reported in the Press, and in
which he enunciated no idea which he had not reiterated ad
'iiansea)n for a life-time, gave him more reputation than all his
books; and for the first time in their married life made his
wife feel that she couM now present him to her friends and
say, ' You see I have married a success after all ! ' I saw

A I'OLrnr.vL instantk.

4«.I7

liiid

iin-

lid to

r in

the

• bt

deaf

jurgh

nd in
I ad

x\\ his
e his
and

L yaw

further that with the exception |a'rha|».s of eertaiii close
scientific soc-ietieti, there was littk; chance of a n)an receiving'
the recooiiition of his own inteMectual coiifrh-ex until he had
first attained the honour of reco<^nition by the I'ress, and still
further tiiat when once the li<;ht-skirniishers of literature had
j;ot the ear of the Press by their prominence on the Kailway
Stalls, they would soon find their way into the most sacred and
closely-barred haunts (»f the elect in clidj-laiid and elsewhere,
and would ])nsh the older and more orthodox literary re[)»ita-
tions from their stools. All this of the value of Press
recognition and advertisement had Ion<f Ix^en a connnonplacc
in professional and commercial circles, but literary distinctions
were still believed to bo quite beyond its reach ; and it was
anmsin<jf to note the na'ircte with which those whose own
reputations coidd be pal[)ably traced to tlu! time when sonu?
trifling incident had brought them into publicity, would cahuly
assume that if you could only succeed in convincing t/wni of
your merits, your own reputation would be at once assured I
One of the most interesting phenomena in connection witli
reputations thus made by publicity, was the length of time it
took to briuii" them down to their natural level ajrain. A
theologian, for example, who shoidd succeed in raising a
controversy in the Church, which should get into the Law
Courts and the Press, uiight count on a popularity and rejjuta-
tion of a decade or two before he came down to his natnral
position again ; while one who should sufficiently frighten the
public by his predictions of an immediately api)roaching^
Millennium, would become so dilated in l)ulk and proportion in
conse(iuence, that his professional brethren would step aside to
make way for him as he jjassed. A preacher whose rising
popularity would fill a good-sized chapel, would if some one
were unfortunate enough to be killed in the crush, and it got
into the papers, be able ever after to fill the Colosseum of
Home itself ! iVn actor who could throw a bone of contention
among the critics over which they could wrangle in the Press,

«H

4!)S

A I'OLITKAI. INSTANCE.

iu'i;j;l»t be uHHurcMl of ii continued populiirity of ii jjjoneriition or
ni(»re, while other imtors of equal promise perhaps, l)ut who had
not fjot the cur of the Press In time, wouhl, like; tlie man at the
Pool of Hethesda, jfrow old waiting in the outer courts for
theli ce. In politics the man who should jjjet the start of

his c. ajrues hy }^oln<^ on the f^rand tour throufjjh the country,
agltatinji; some popular duise, the details of which should be
rej)ortcd from «lay to day in the Press, would hv that fact
alone have hy the time of his return so distanced all those who
were his ecjuals when he set out, that they would not dream of
dlsputinjjj the palm with him, and his position as leader would
be from that time unshaken. A young poet whoso work had
lain for ten or fifteen years neglected, had the good fortune to
be ' discovered ' by an author who had the penetration to know
a good piece of work when he saw it, and the courage to say
so, and who lunucdlately devoted a whole article to him in one
of tl^ ^lonthly Reviews. From that time the reputation of
the vas made. At one time a word or two of conn mda-

tion from Mr. (Jladstone or Mr. IJrlght happening to g into
the Press, was enough to make the reputation of a poet r a
novelist, in many cases the individuals in question were
really worthy of all praise, and the incidents associated with
their rise only served to give them their proper chance, but
that was an accident of the situation merely, not its essence,
and as often as not., the recipients of the popularity were
* wind-bags ' only, of tlie cheapest ordei'.

Now it was wliile 1 was amusing myself with watching the
careers of these Press-made reputations, and was arguing
ominously for the future of Democracy from them, that Lord
Randolph Clun-chill appeared on the scene, and presented such
an object-lesson to the political thinker, that I felt it ought not
to be allowed to pass without some comment to point its moral.
Ills career was more than usually interesting to me, inasmuch
as it illustrated a somewhat different relation between the Press
and the Public than the one f have just described. In a

V— •••

A I'OLrTiCAI. INHTANCR.

4!M>

Lord

i such

Iht not

mors

Isinv

ich

Press
In a

Uciicnil wiiy tlic Prcsn, as wo luivo seen, gives flic Hijrniil wliicli
tin* I'uhlic lUTopts in good failli; iind when tlio Press begins to
Hag in its rcc(»gnition, the Puldic flags also. Hut in the ease of
Lord Han(h)l|>h Churehill, when tiio Press had nneonsciously
hypnotized the Pnhlie, it eouhl not undo the spell, and the
Pui)lie then turned round and eoereed the Press. The fact
was that the Press in this matter of the rise of Lord Randolph
was (piite taken ott' its guard. Vov in heedlessly recording his
vagaries every morning for the anuisement of its readers at
their breakfast tables, and in placarding his name in large type
on its sigidmards over the length and breadth of the land, it
did not dream that it was hypnotizing a large section of tlie
pid)lic as completely as if it had packed them in a room together
and made them fix their eyes as a mesmerist would, on a
dazzling light or a continuously revolving ball or wheel ; much
less did it dream that in this way it was fastening him as
securely on its own neck and on that of his party, as the
(ilirondins of the French Kevolution did Robespierre, when,
relying on their own strength in the Convention, they placed
him on the Conunittee of Public Safety. For during all the
early years of his rise, it may be remembered, the idea of his
ever becoming a serious force in politics, or other than a mere
' Political Puck,' as they called him, for the diveraon of the
House, was received with derison by the serious politicians both
of the Press and the Partv whenever it was mentioned. But
coming fresh from my observations on the rise of reputations, 1
thought difTcrently ; and in the chapter on ' the Demagogue '
in my book on Civilization, pointed to him as one who was
likely to go far. For a large section of the public were by this
time fast becoming hypnotized, and when at last they were
fully under the spell, they turned round and coerced the Press,
Avhich by this time had awakened to its mistake and was
showing signs of revolting. But the mischief was done ; and
between the two, Lord Randolph who had been watching hie
opportunity the while, coolly walked into power; the old watch-

. 'I

- -JO- J ^memt

mmtmrnmi

500

A POLITICAL INSTANCE.

dogs of Literature, who were in the liabit of C(»iiiiiig out of
their cavew periodically to air their Utopias or grievances, having
apparently gone to sleep with the rest. It was a strange story,
and when Lord Kandol[)h had arrived at last at his goal as
Leader of the House of Conunons, and quietly pi(tking the
' precious diadem off the shelf, had i)ut it in his pocket,' all that
was left the sensible men of the Party before bowing their necks
to the yoke, was to ])rotest and vituperate ; the leading organ
of the Pai'ty in the Press on the day of his ascendancy order-
ing him to begone as an impostor wlio had no more real
knowledge of politics than an overgrown schoolboy, and Wiis
too ignorant to know the full depths of his own ignorance !
But this was su[)erfluous, for it was not long after, that he
mined himself by his want of judgment, and so deceased from
the political stage ; re-appearing in after years, surrounded with
all the halo of romance, but leaving me with a fear of the
demagogue not only in democracies but in aristocracMcs also,
which I have not been able to banish from my mind.

1 had no personal dislike to Lord Kandol[)h Churchill, and
although I felt his want of personal pride to be no virtue, I
was nevertheless secretly delighted with his directness of mind
and his absence of conventional ])olitical cant ; what I could
not bear was tha*^^ it should be [)ossil)le for any man to rise to
power by vulgar vitujjeration and abuse, and by these alone.
But it was an object-lesson in politics which was not likely
soon to recur in quite the same ftu'iu, and 1 took advantage of
it to write a little book on the subject, entitled 'JionI
Randolph Cluu-chill, a study of English Democracy.' 1 had
the greatest difficulty in finding a publisher to bring out the
book on any terms, and when at last it did appear, an ominous
silence as of death fell upon it, and obli\ ion soon gathered it
to itself. It was written when Lord Kandol[)h was in the
heyday of power and prosperity, but owing to the difiicidty of
finding a publisher, it did not appear, nuich to my regret, until
after his fall from power. And now that the grave has closed

■F

nmnMPv

A POLITICAL INSTANCE.

-)01

over l„m also, and he has become a name of ron.anoe nuMely
to the younger min<ls ; when 1 think of the hann my book ,H«l
n.e at tl,e tin,e, the unkindest eut of all is when some old-
tash.oned politician who re.nembcns the incidents of those years
wntes to n.e to say that of all the books I have written, it was
the one calculated to do the ^.reatest anua.nt of practical <.ood

I lii

<. '

«p

i : ii!

CHAPTEK Y

THE DAEMONIC ELEMENT.

TN the meantime my book 'Civilization and Progress' had
followed in the wake of my little books on the 'Religion
of the Future ' and ' Lord Randolph Churchill,' and had gone
to the grave with them. But after lying unsold on the
publishers' shelves for more than three years, it was l)rought
to life again, contrary to all the traditions of the trade, by a
series of vicissitudes which in the history of books sounds like
a romance. From its very inception and birth, what Goethe
calls the ' daemonic element,' or that power in Nature whicli
causes the ' best laid schemes of men and mice to go so oft
aglee,' seems to have presided over its fortunes and to have
intervened at every turn to pi'cvent its success. And if 1 may
without incurring the imputation of taking either myself or it
too s(;riously, be permitted to give the reader a short outline
of its history, it may serve as a stimulus to younger writers not
to despair when things seem at their worst, but to treat this
same 'daemonic element ' with the indifference or contem[)t it
deserves. The book carried, as 1 have said, an ominous
shadow with it from its birth. The first publisher to whom it
was submitted, rejected it because it contained, as he said, too
many t)riginal ideas to be a success ! A strange reason, 1
thought ; and I could not help suspecting it was meant
ironically ; but on writing to him further on the point he told

THE DAEMONIC ELEMENT.

003

me quite frankly that it was so, and that it would tell against
its success with the public. Now although 1 was greatly
perplexed and disturbed by its rejection on this ground, still
that it should be hailed as an original work at all, even if to its
detriment, seemed to me too good to be true ; and 1 felt not a
little jubilant at that aspect of the matter. IJut not to be
published on that account I What could that mean ? and how
was 1 to meet this new complexion put on literary work ' when
1 suddenly bethought me that a work might bo original without
on that account being of much value, and then my complacency
abated somewhat, and I was left almost in des[)air. I had
spent four years in writing the book, and eight or ten in
collecting materials for it and thinking it out, and then for it
to be rt!Jected, and because it was too original I ^Vell, there
was nothing for it but to print it myself at my own expense,
and to take chances of the public taste. But do what I would
something always intervened to |)revent the public getting the
chance of appraising it. The first mischance was due to my
own stupidity ; for I had, to save expense, had it [)rinted on
paper, poor, thin, and blue, thus reducing its size to less than
half what it ought to have been to sustain the gravity and
importance of its title. Then again I had [)rovi(led it with
neither prefac.'c, index, nor table of contents ; and had withal
encumbered it with a sub-title so momentous that it would have
taken vt>lumes to have done it justice, being nothing less than
' the outlines of a new system of political, religious, and social
philosophy I' Now this at the best of times and under the
most favourable circumstances would hiive been a serious
undertaking for the ordinary reader ; but on the title-page of
a book with such a meagre and poverty-stricken appearance as
this — it was enou<>h to damn it on the threshold. And so it
was not surprising that the first public mention of it sliouid
have been in the 'Spectator' under the heading of ' Ijooks
Keeeived,' at the very end of that periodical. \\ lirst 1 was
deliiihted at this, thinking that it meant that the ixxik had

:ii

r)04

TIIK DAKMONIC ELEMENT.

been spociiilly marked out for tlie honour of a review, and as I
hoped ail early one ; wlieroas it meant only, as 1 afterwards
learned, that this was but a last farewell to it before pas.sinji; it
onward to oblivion. And after waiting long and im[)atiently to
see what the reviewer woidd have to say about it, and no
review appeai'ing, 1 became quite downhearted ; I felt that I
had mismanaged the whole thing, and could not be surprised
at the result ; but as that was not now to be remedied, I
resolved that I would again send copies to a few men of the
highest eminence in philosophy, theology, science, and history,
men whom I thought most capable of judging the work, and
who would not bo under the dominion of a[)pearances. I was
just about carrying this resolution into effect, when a letter
arrived from a gentleman on the staff of one of the evening
papers, asking me if I had written any other works, and if so,
would 1 give him their names, adding that he had just written
a review for the said paper, but that his editor had refused to
insert it, because it was too long and too eulogistic. lie had
given it a wliole colunm wlien the editor ex[)ected only a short
paragra])h ; the ' daemonic ' had intervened again, and I was
once more throvvii back on my own resources. I then sent out
the co|)ies to the eminent men above mentioned, — ' the thirty-
nine,' as I used to call them, from a strict audit I had made of
their number — with a letter to each in stereoty[»ed [jhrase,
ex[)laiiiing what 1 had attempted to do in the book, and
indicating the new positions which 1 had taken up. In every
instance without exception, if I remember rightly, the book
was kindly and courteously acknowledged ; and to my great
joy three or four of the number promised to give it reviews in
the various p(!riodicals to which they had access. It is going
to emerge at last, I thought to myself; and yet not without a
.•<hade of misgiving, for I was beginning to be suspicious of my
old friend ' the daemonic ' and was not disposed to be so
simpler and trustful as formerly. I was justified in my
j«uspicion, for no reviews appeared. The first of ' the thirty-

si i

Til

DAEMONIC ELEMENT.

505

great

nine ' liad written asking if lie might review the book in an
evening paper, Init tlic Editor was on tlie Continent at tlie
time and nothing more was heard of it. The seeond started
on the review, as J afterwards learned from him, but he found
on going into it that it would require an article to do justice to
the points of controversy raised, rather than the colunm merely
which was at his disposal, and so it too fell through. The
third, a friend of mine, wrote to me to say that he had just
arranged with the Editor of a philosophical magazine to give it
a long review of from ten to fifteen pages. I was delighted, and
really thought I was now assured of a review at last. lint
next day he received a note from the Editor saying that on
reconsidering it he found he could .ot allow him more than
four pages ; and this my friend declined, on the plea that he
could not even break ground on the subjecrt in that space, IJy
this time I had grown almost desperate with the tension of
these repeated hopes and disappointments; I would have
welcomed a single page, half a page, or indeed even a foot-
note I — and could have kicked my friend !

A year had now elapsed since the book appeared, and no
notice had been taken of it in any of the leading periodicals, or
indeed at all, with the exception of a short notice in the
'Scottish Review,' a longer one in the ' Inquirer,' and two or
three lines in one of the popular ' Monthlies ' intimating that
the book was so full of bombast, that without detriment to the
reader it might safely be ignored. ' It is all that starchy-blue
paper, and want of index!' I said to myself, and prepared to
resign myself to the inevitable. And then one of the literary
friends who had stuck to me throughout, suggested that I
should send a second copy of the book to the Editor of Jie
' Spectator ' with a note. I did so in a half-hearted, half-dosperate
kind of way, explaining that it had cost me many years of
labour, and after expressing my disgust at having to hawk
it about in forind jKiajwris in this way, asked him if he
would do me the favour to glance into it himself, adding that

,11.

)
i I

50()

THE DAEMONIC ELEMENT.

il I

t i

if lie then still felt it unworthy of a notiee, I would ^huUy
iihitlc by his decision. Not nmny days elapsed i)ofoiT 1 had a
note from him (\\pressinnf his sympathy with my disj^ust, and
ref^rct at his own oversight, and informing me that he had
done the best he eould for it. In the following nund)cr of
the ' Spe(!tator ' the review appeared, but although highly
appreciative in general, it was hostile to nearly all my S2)ecial
positi(»ns in detail, which, indeed, I was prepared for from the
Editor's well-known views ; and more than all (and here was
where the ' daemonic ' again came in) he misunderstood my drift
in the most unaccountable way in just those passages where I
coiuitcd on his full support, — in that part of my chapter on
' First Principles ' namely, where I show that there are six
distinct iirinciples that must be believed although they cannot
be scientifically knoioii. Now this as the reader will have seen
from a former chapter, was one of my contributions to the
solution of the World-problem, but by reading it as if I meant
by belief something less than knowledge, whereas 1 [)alpably
meant by it something deeper than all mere knowledge properly
so called, as on it all knowledge ultimately rests, he gave such
a twist to my argument as to completely stultify its character,
and so ncutralizetl all the good the review was calculated to do
me. ' Sheer bad luck again ! ' I said to myself, and now at last
I made up my mind that the ' daemonic ' and Fate together were
too nmch for me I

And then followed an interval of two years in which no more
was heard of the book ; the entire edition with the exception
of the l*ress-copics, a few casual sales, and the co[)ies sent to
• the thirty-nine,' slumbering peacefully the while in the
[)ublishcrs' vaults ; when suddenly one morning I received a
letter from the late Mrs. I^ynn Linton telling me that she had
read the book and had heard that it had fallen Hat ; but that
something must be d(me to revive it; would I call and see her
to talk the matter over? Her plan was that 1 should bring out
a choap edition of the copies in the publishers' hands ; have

THE DAEMONIC ELEMENT.

y()7

them new-bound ; a preface, index, and table of contents
added ; and the ])rice reduced from fourteen shillin^\s to five.
The publishers who also thought that something ought to be
done to revive the work if possible, agreed to the project but
could hold out little hope that the reduction of the price would
really make it a success, as it was contrary to the traditions of
the trade that a book of that nature once fallen dead could ever
be revived. I resolved to give the project a chance, however,
and the cheap edition with highly complimentary extracts from
the ' Spectator,' ' the Inquirer,' and t!ie ' Scottish Review,' as
well as a personal notice from Mrs. Lynn Linton herself, all
framed into an imposing advertisement, or ' signboard ' as I used
to call it, appeared in due C(mrse in the Spring of 18S8. 15ut
here my old enemy was again lurking around the corner f<»r
me. For one of ' the thirty-nine ' who on the re-emergence (jf
the book had written a eulogistic review in one of the evening
papers, found to his surprise after he had sent a co[)y of the
proof to me, that the subordinate in charge of the reviews, had
when the Editor was away from home, struck out almost every
word of [)raise, so that when the I'eview appeared it was so
colourless and insipid as to be barely complimentary. Dashed
again I I>ut not to be outflanked by the enemy in this way, I
asked permission of the writer of the review in question, to use
the [)arts struck out, as a jiersonal notice in his own name ; and
to this he assented. As he was on the staff of the paper, and
had never before had his contributions overhauled by the editor,
the whole thing, he said, was to him (piite incomprehensible'.
To me it was clear enough ; — the ' daemonic ' again I

The success of the project, however, was innnediate and
decisive. The book in its cheap edition with its cover changed
from a dark blue to a chocolate brown, with [)reface, index,
and table of contents added, and its size stufled out to
respectable proportions by the insertion of the publishers'
catalogue at the back, now presented outwardly at least a most
respectable a})pearance ; and in little more than u year the

'.OS

Tim DAEMONIC! RLKMENT.

\vli(»lc edition of" nearly a tliousand copies wiis sold out. Hut
now diffieidlies iinnu'diately arose in the wake of the former.
The last copy of the hook was sold out while the run on it was
at its heij^ht, hut it had not heen stereotyped ; and the
puhlishers eould neither advise the price of a new edition
hein<^ suddenly raised, nor could they see how the type of so
lar<>e a work could he set up afi;ain so as to he made to pay at
five shillin<rs. There was nothin<^ for it therefore, they said,
hut to let it <r() out of print alto<i;cther for a time, in the hope
that if the interest in it still continued, secondhand copies
would rise in value and he marked 'scarce' in the puhlishers'
catalo<<;ues, and that then, if they rose sufficiently high, we
iniiiht he justified in hrinj^iiit;" out a new edition in hotter style
at the orij>;inal price of fourteen shillings. They proved right
in their forecast ; the second-hand copies rose so high that 1
had myself to pay ten shillings for one for my own special use ;
and 1 was then advised hy tlu; puhlishers that the time was
ripe for a new edition. And so, after being out of print for
three years and a half, the hook was in the end of 1<S;)2, and
eight years after its first appearance, again ])rinted in the form
and style in which it now stands ; its success after such
history and fortunes, making a kind of record in the history of
literature.

CHAPTER VI

POLITKLVL ECONOMY.

gCARCEL\ hml ' Civilizutiou au.l Proo-ms.s ' gom out of
l)nnt, when n .snggcstiou wa.s made mo by mv publislieis
that 1 .sl.ould write them a Ix.ok on the Social Prohleiu,
inchKling- under that term Political Economy, the JVohlem of
Capital and Labour, and those other allied probk^ns which the
Social Democratic movement of the time had stirred into new
life and activity. To this proposal which rather surprised me
by the confidence which it seemed to imply in me at a time
when my other works had been so unfortunate, I assented with
hesitation, as feelin- that 1 had neither the knowledge recpiisite
for the enterprise, nor had I given that amount of "thouglit to
the subject which was necessary to do it justice. Hut having
at last agreed to undertake it, with the proviso that I should
be allowed to drop it if 1 found 1 could throw no new light on
its i)roblems, I set to work on it with all the industry j" could
connnaud; and during the year or more in which I was
engaged on it, I read or had read to me some ninety odd
volumes on the subje<-t, English and Foreign, beginning with
Adam Smith. And of these ninety it may be intcresling in
passing to remark that with the exception of a few statistical
works, what with the rei)etitions of each other, (,r trivial
variations from each other, and what with exploded theories
that no longer need claim the i-eader's attention, they

:)io

I'Or.ITICAL ECONOMY.

iiii^lit lor pi'iicticjil piirpos'js all be tliiiinod down to not
more tlian ii do/en oi- no. The rest, for any <:;oo(l they
were ever likely to do anyone, nii<;ht as w(dl liiive heen
allowed to sleep on their dusty shelves. The few writers on
whom I found it necessary to (concentrate, cither uh givinj^
some fresh turn to the subject or us treatin<>' its doctrines
from some new and orijrinal point of view, were (l)e<(inuin<jf
with Adam Smith), Kicardo, Mill, .levons, Huskin, Karl Marx,
Henry Georj^e, lioehm-lJawerk, (lunton, Mummery and
Jlobson, and Mallock. And these once mastered, I felt that
all the jiointa of view necessary to be kept in mind before one
could venture to enter on a new construction of one's own, had
been taken, and accordingly, after ruling the others out of my
purview except in so far as I bore away a general impression of
them in my memory, I concentrated on these alone.

Adam Smith, 1 found altogether charming. His delightfid
exciu'sions and leisurely meanderings over nearly every (juarter
of the field, the lai'ge amorphous mass of pregnant suggestion
and firsthand observation with which his work abounds, his
uniform eonunonsense, together with the number of isolated
remarks which can be culled from his writings to support
almost each iuid every School into which the Science has
since diflf'erentiated itself, made him most nutritive reading, and
a delight to return to even to-day. But the landscape of
Political Economy was almost a virgin forest when he set out
to clear it, and although he went over the greater part of the
ground since more systematically explored, still at the end of
his labours wide tracts of territ(>ry remained swampy and only
partially reclaimed, and it was reserved for Kicardo mainly,
and after him Mill and later members of the School like Cairns
and Marshall, to drain the diffused and somewhat undefined
doctrines of Smith into certain large clean-cut generalizations
whicli afterwards formed the staple of what is known as the
Orthodox Political Economy ; and in which the Science for
a jreneration or more was believed to have received its

I'OLITICAL ECONOMY.

:)ll

iited
pport
has
, and
le of
t out
f the
ml of
only
linly,
turns
fined
tions
! the
e tor
il its

Apoctilyijse, and the vohiinc of its Seripliin's to have liccn
elostid aj^ainst appeal. There was first tlie doctrine of tlie
' Keonoini(^ Man' as he was called, a mere nielodrainalic, sta^e
villain, a creatures like that Doctor in the Arabian Tale, of
whom Carlylc speaks, whose head when placed in a hiicket (»f
water would <fo on ;:,rindin<if out hy|)o(hese8 for ever, without
shadow of a heart. The doctrines which emanated from this

* F^couoinie Man,' and of which he was the soul and inspiration
— the Ivaw of I'opidation, of the Wa<j;es-Fun(l, of Waj^es paid
out of Capital, and the rest, — althou^j^h as dead and mechanical
as the piec«'s on a chess-hoard, still had their diU'crent parts to
play, and were hound hy Mill and his followers into a complete
and in their way harmonious whole.

On them followed Jevons, with his new departure
-transferrin"^ the prohlem of Supply and Demand from a
nu)venient of gross (piantities of dead matter nuning lik(; floods
in a railway train from one point of the coiiipass t(» another,
(and which had to halance themselves somehow like the sides
of an accountant's ledger), to a finer internal calculus of human
motives, wliich had as its fixed point what he calleil the

* marginal utility ' of things, or that point at which a fiu'ther
rise of price woidd ilestroy all inducement to huy : in the sanuf
way, for example, as a man might give a fcutune for a loaf o*^'
bread when he was starving, hut not a son for a second lo.ii' the
moment after; and so affiliated his theory of valiu; in a way
with the theory of Kent of the older School, which also took as
its fixed point, the cost at which produce coidd he raised on
land on the ' margin of cultivation ' as it is cidled, that is to say
at the point where the return is such as will no more than ntpay
the outlay on it at the ordinary profits on capital.

It was while these modifications were being made in the older
doctrines of the Science, that Ivuskin deserting Uw a moment
the studies of a life-time, entered the lists with characteristic
enthusiasm, like a knight-errant on a forlorn hope; and buckled
on his armour in defence of the doctrines of his master, Carl vie,

<'. ii

i>\-2

I'OLrriCAl, KCONOMY.

tiyiiiiist t lie |l^ott'll^*i()IlH (»!" the icijiiiiii^' ScIkhiI. Like Carlylo,
liis tr\v,\t nitii wiiM to inorallsi' tlie roliitioiiH ot" indiistrv, now
j^iven lip, as he fi^iiinMl it, to the jjodleH.s, iiiliiiinuii tnifHc of'
' Hii|)|»ly iiikI (U'iiiiukI,' where the IxxlieH aiul souls of nicn have
little Millie or luucli aeeoriliii}:," to the state of the niarket, and
men with 'the Devil take the hiii<liii(»st,' ns their motto, scal|»
one another like; ("hoetaws. His endeavour was to find some
reasonahle relation hetween a man's pay and the work he
performs, independently of what happens to he tlu' market-
supply of the plaee or hour, and some approximate standard of
//.*•/'/ remuneration, either in money, consideration, or re|)Ute,
whieii shall express that relation ; and he drew me up suddenly
by a.'kinjf the nre<^nant (piestion : — Why if two men present
themtielves at your factory <^ate for a job, yoti will j^ive the one
you si.'Ieet, say six|)ence an hour, when had he come alone you
would have given him, say ninepenee i — as if a man's
remuneration were to depend not on the work he did, hut on the
numbers who happened to want to do the work! Now 1 had
not thought of that way of lo<>king at it before, and it sunk
deeplv into my mind at the time, — and I have never felt quite
the same in regard to these matters since.

These vi(!ws of Carlyle and Kuskiu prepared me for the

Soeialism of Karl Marx, who was the next Economist 1 had set

down for serious study. 1 found, however, that his doctrines

of 'surplus labour,' of 'socially necessary labour-time,' and the

rest, were as nmeh the abstractions of a mei'e hocus-pocus of

logie-chopping on the one hand, as the old ' wage-fund,'

vvn from capital' shibboleths of the Orthodox

ere on the other ; and that his doctrine of

uut ion by time alone, was as much invented to

,tify ihe yokel who used the spade, in denjaiiding the
same remuneration as the inventor who in an equal time,
perha[)s, had added new aids to civilization and comforts to life,
as the old 'Wage.- iiwn from Capital' theory was, to justify
the capitalists in t i- exploitations. And as 1 had already seen

^iKIl

I'OI.rrifAl, KCONOMY,

51 a

l(j the

time,
lo Hie,
justify
seen

» wlicle <;en('riition of men Ictl by tlu- no^o by these ohl
iicinlciiilc tormuhis about 'capital and labour,' tlio * wa<;e-f uml,'
'. supply and (l(>iiianil,' and the like, in tlie teeth of the <fhitf< and
istarvalion which existed .side by side and stalked one another
over the field like <(houIs ; as I had seen them so hypnotized by
these phrijses and fornuilas passed before their eyes, that none
waH left wide enon*(h awake to jjrotest, save Carlylo ; and as I
had not yet recovered my self-respect for bein;; myself so
eheaplv taken in ; it was not likelv that I was <;oiny: to fall a
vietim to these eateh-words of Marx, whicli I saw to be as
hollow and as unsubstantial as the rest.

It was while I was standiuf; thus perplexed, that Henry
Cieor^e ap[)eared on the horizon like a Prophet of old, and
impressed me as he had done so many others, by his moral
fervrtur and elevation, his trans[)arent truthfulness and simplicity,
his clean-cut thinkin<>;, and his clear and beautiful style ; and
was the first to so shake the boufifhs of the Old P^conomy, that
its })inched and wn;ather-beaten fruits still clinjiing to the tree
l(»n<i' beyond their date, wen; shaken to the j>round. And
althou<>'h thev still continue their existence in the old Aeaulemic
haunts, long after their life has departed, and are even yet
ar<>:uable as elements of some lar<;er conception, they can never
auain be sacred and authoritative as of yore. And I have often
thouy-ht that had (leorj^e at that time been able to have <rone
farther, and to have united his ftn'ces with those of Marx on the
((uestion of Capital and Interest as well as on that of Land,
their united camp, in the then state of political and social
ferment amoniij the masses, would have gone far. Hut by
splitting with Marx on this (piestion of Interest on Capital, —
(leorge representing it as a product as natural and legitimate as
wages, and the Capitalist as a necessary and justifiable factor
in Industry, as nuich so, indeed, as the Working-Man himself :
while Marx regarded not only Interest, but the ' Wages of
Superintendence' (as the share falling to the Capitalist was
called), as u piece of exploitation and robbery pure and

^1%

H I

,514

rOLITICAL ECONOMY.

11 *

unredeemed, — the two niovemcnts neutralized each other,
and lost, in consequence, much of their authority with those
interested in their respective schemes. And when men began
to realize that while George would have expropriated the
Landowners without mercy, he would have still permitted the
Fund-holders, the Company-promoters, the fraudulent Directors,
the Sleeping-partners and other Hip van Winkles of trade, to
pile up their money-bags in their vaults without let or hindrance,
they saw that there nuist bo a huge fallacy lurking somewhei'C
in these prophetic strains, and one which it was now no longer
worth their troul)le to explore. In the meantime while rejecting
George's ])ractical proposals, I had become so enamoured of his
theory of Interest that after pondering it for some time and
coming to it from \arious angles and points of view, I was
finally inclined to accept it. This doctrine, [ may remark in
})assing, was based on the element of Time ; and ran to the
effect that as all things having value can be turned into money,
and money, again, into seed-corn or fruit-trees or timber-forests,
and as these, agiiin, yield an increase when planted, quite
independently -»f human exertion and depending entirely on the
element of Time, there is no reason why the money that was
borrowed to pay for theui should not also have its share in that
increase ; and that share is what wc call Interest. Now this
certainly looked feasible, and I was inclined to adopt it, as I
have said, when nochm-Hawerk's book on ' Capital and
Interest,' with its comprehensive survey of all the various
theories on the subject of Interest that have appeared in the
world, fell into my hands. And there among the rest was
George's theory, which had been put forward by a German
Economist named Strasburgcr, l)Ut which was now encompassed
by such a wilderness of alternative hypotheses, and so swilled
and washed on all hands by a sea of hostile criticism, that I no
longer felt so sure of its truth and stabilit} as formerly: and 1
put it aside for the time for more mature <'(msideration and for
further H<>:ht.

POLITICAL ECONOMY.

515

the

was

that

thiHi

us I

and

irious

in tlie

t was

ernuin

JilSSC'tl

wiiK-a

t 1 no

and I

ind fttr

By this time, however, I was beginning to feel that I had
ahnost all the threads of the subject in my handi^, and that I
was now ready to attempt some reconstruction of the Science
on my own account ; and tlie point, I I'emember, on which I
pitched as the centre from whi(!h all the older fallacies of the
Science had arisen, and as the rock on which they had split,
and from which I intended to work outwards until if }>ossil)le 1
should find the fallacy, was the phenomenon of ' gluts ' — gluts
of shirts in warehouses, with bare backs in the streets, which
they could not reach, gluts of wheat in granaries and of bread
in bakeries, with men and women starving at the doors. And
I was beginning vaguely to see that the difticidty nuist lie
somewhere in the relation of the distribution of products to
their production, and that the doctrine of the Orthodox School,
with its tendency to sacrifice everything to J^roduction.and to let
Distribution take cai'c of itself, would have to be n^placcd by
some doctrine in which Distributicm should be given the first
place, with Production as sequence or concomitant ; when a
little book on the subject by Gunton, an American author, the
title of which I have now forgotten, convinced me l)y the
number and pregnancy of its first-hand observations on the
subject, that I was right in my surmise, and that the wheels of
industry and prosperity can only be kopt going, when wages
are high enough to carry off the products of industry as fast as
they are })r()duccd. And it was not long before my table was
littered with diagrams in which 1 was trying to picture to
myself how the old ecor mic doctrines would have to be
modified to fit them into a scheme in wiiicli Distribution and
not Production shoidd I)e the centre and mainspring around
which all the wheels of industry revolved, when the little book
by ^lunnnery and Ilobson on ' the Physiology of Industry,'
fell in my way, and by doing for me once and for all, with
masterly insight and power, all that 1 had been so lamely and
with so much labour attempting to do for myself, took the
j)roblem for the time being quite out of my hands. These fine

\'i

516

POLITirAL ECONOMY.

Economists, I felt ut once, had begun witli the right metliod
and at the right end. They saw tliat before }()u coidd put
your finger on the disease from which Industry was suffering,
you must have, to begin with, a clear image of its normal
processes, — of Industry in a state of health, as it Averc, — the
processes, namely, by which the raw materials of wealth arc
culled and collected from the Avide domains of Nature, and
passed through the various processes of manufacture and retail,
until by exchange or otherwise they are i-eturned in other
forms to the people through whose hands they have just
passed, and who have been employed in their production,
manufactiu'c, or exchange ; and in such fiuantities and by a
mechanism so self-adjusting, that there shall be no block or
stoppage at any point in the transit, l)ut that on the contrary,
the whole shall continue to circulate in an endless wheel, as it
were, from the producer to the consumer and back again: in
the same way as in a healthy bcjdy the food taken in by the
mouth is passed through the various organs and processes of
chanifc and manufacture, until it reaches the ultimate cells and
tissues of bone and nuiscle whicli it has to renovate and
nourish ; and in such f(»rm and (juantity that the organism
shall 1)6 kept at that point of efficiencv where it can c(mtinue
working to produce the food which it has again to send <»n this
continuous round of change. The authors next with masterly
penetration, and an intimate knowledge of the subject to which
I could lay no claim, put their finger on th(; real cause of the
trouble, as the first step towards remedying it. They showed
that just as when Production was lielieved to be the vital
factor in Industry, savimj on the part of Capitalists and of
Society, was the master virtue, so when free Distribution is
made the vital factor, s/H'nding on the part of Capitalists, in its
economic form of high wages, is the reujcdy needed to keep
the wheels of industrv agoino-, or to start them aji'ain wlu'u
they have become clogged. The demonstration as an abstract
statement seemed to me complete; and on the strictly economic

I'OLITICAL ECONOMY. 5] 7

aspect of the question 1 felt I had really nothing .nore to add
And when shortly afterwards, Mallock brought out the hook
in wh,ch he demonstrated, ineontestably I think, against the
Socjahsts how much larger a proportion of the wealth of the
world as due to brains than to hands, 1 found all the positions
I had intended taking up already occupied ; and so, not
without a sense of disappointment and chagrin, was glad to
resign into hands abler than n.y own, the task whieh I had
undertaken and on whieh I had for a year or more been
engaged, hhoul.l I again return to the subject, it will be in
conneetion with my work on 'Intellectual Development,' and
should I be fortunate enough to see my way, I .shall attem,,t to
mchcate the du-eetion in which these doctrines of the new
School o Economists will have to be nu.dified in detail, to
enable then, to fit hanuoniously into the fran.ework of
Cmhzation m general,-in whieh Political Economy itself is
only one factor among many of equal importance.

CHAPTEE VII.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

TPvLTRINGr the time my hook ' Civilizution and Progress '
-*-^ was out of print, I was occupying myself by writing the
earlier parts of this present autobiography, mainly with the
idea that in a system of thought of any complexity, and in
which the reader is obliged to shift somewhat his accustomed
point of view, there is no way in which he can more easily he
led to an understanding of it than by a detailed account of the
successive steps by which it grew and took shape in the author's
mind, liesides, since it has become gen^^rally recognised that
there is no finality in Thought, but that more and more light
comes and must come to man as the ages move on, the most
important question, perhaps, in reference to an author is not so
nuich the amount of absolute truth of which he is the possessor
(for that can be but small at best), but the amount of truth
relafu'e to his age and time, and more especially the amount of
truth which can be affiliated on the deposit left him by his
predecessors in the direct line of evolution, thus leaving as
little as possible of surplusage for the future to cancel as
irrelevant or retrograde. I had always felt, too, that the most
interestin<j form of writins.': was that in which thoughts on tlic
World and on Life were presented not as mere abstract
propositions true for everybody or nobody, but as they
appeared when passed through the alembic of a single mind

AUTOniOGRAPHV.

519

most
not so
■isessor
truth
unt of
)y hi?»
intr as
cl as
most
)n the
struct
they
mind

Avhich liiid been variously modified l)y them in one direction or
smother, and had in turn reacted on tliem so as to colour or
change their complexion or form. Indeed it is this which
makes the novel so interestin"; as regards all that round of
thought and sentiment with which it deals ; it is evohition
within the limits of a single life, rather than continued through
a succession of lives, that is all. And lastly, there is no way
in which the personal bias that adhei'cs to every mind, and
which it ought to be a point of honour with the Thinker to
give the reader every opportunity of allowing for; there is no
way in whicdi this personal bias can be better exhibited, or
in which it will more surely .show itself, than in the evolution
of his mind under the stimulus of, or reaction from, ideas and
situations agreeable or alien to it.

As for the more personal reasons that induced me to enter
on a work of this kind, I felt that if my life-work were about
to be thwarted either by sheer bad luck (as at that time seemed
not unlikely), or by the indis[)()sition of the publi«' to consider
unfamiliar doctrines when put in a purely abstract and
impersonal way, it still might be possible to obtain consideration
for these doctrines if presented in a different form. At any
rate, like Sir Walter Scott, I felt that some fresh shuffle of the
cards was necessary, if my work were to go on at all ; and in
what other form than the autobiographical could I present my
ideas, unless indeed as a Novel, in which however for want of
s[)ace justice could only be done to a small division of the
subject? And once having satisfied myself on this point, I
felt that if the stages of mv mental evolution were to be
detailed at all. the work ought to be entered on before the
vividness of the original impressions had altogether faded —
and I was then in my forti(!th year. I set to work on it
accordingly, and with real enthusiasm, and l)ef()re I set it aside
again had written the chapters on my ' IJoyhood,' on my ' Early
Sl)eculations," and on the ' Lost Ideal.' And it was the number
of stasxes in mental evolution thronu'li which I had i)assed in

•)2()

AUTOBKMJltAPHY.

my search for this Lost Ideal, that first suggested to me the
idea of writing tlie systematic work on tlie 'History of
Intellectual Development ' o' which I then started, and the
first volume of which has sim-e appeared. And it was owing
to the clahorate preparation necessary for this undertaking that
I brought the chapters of the Autobiography at that time to a
close, — but not without reluctance and regret ; for begun as it
was at a time when my life-work seemed a failure, my health
broken, my hopes desperate, and my sky clouded by isolation
and gloom, it was and still remains like t';e ' David Copperfield'
of Dickens, the child of my heart.

CHAPTEli YIII.

INTERSTITIAL THINKERS.

"P\URING tlie interviil of work on my Autobiography I
"^-^ returned to the writings of some of those recent
Thinkers whom for some years I had neglected owing to my
absorption in tlie studies necessary and preparatory to my
book on Civilization, but who in the meantime had been carry-
ing tlieir own labours into wider and wider fields. I allude
more especially to the works of Matthew Ai-nold, Huxley,
Hutt(m, John Morley, Leslie S;ophen, and Ruskin. I have
called them interstitial Think< rs r.ot because of any necessary
inferiority in them to their respective masters, — on the
contrary, in some particulars they are their superiors — but
because their best work was done under the inspiration of, and
within the general circuit of thought marked out by these
masters ; and ccmsisted in filling in the gaps and interstices of
thought left vacant by them, so as to form a continuous web
applicable to nearly every side and aspect of Life: to History,
to Politics, to Philosophy, and to Religion.

Matthew Arnohl was the first I again took up. He was
practically a disciple of Goethe, and the bulk of his life's work
outside of his poetry, consisted in the endeavour to imj)regnate
our literature with those parts of the teaching of his master
which, for reasons given in a former chapter, could not be
appropriated by either Emerson or Carlyle ; and mainly with

522

INTERSTITIAL TIIINKKHS.

his great tloctrine of the necessity of hringing every side and
angle of onv nature by an assiduous and unremitting cultiva-
tion up to the ideal of a fidl and harmonious Culture : in
opposition to the English and American ideal, which is to begin
by giving each individual ample liberty to clear a space for
himself, within which he may then spread himself out at large
as in some unweeded garden, with his angularities, vulgarities,
liniitaticms, and eccentricities, all on end and bristling with
sensitiveness, in the full Hower and flush of life, thick upon
him. Indeed practically all the studies of Arnold are, in one
direction or another, but expansions of this single theme. It
is this which lies at the root of his preference for an Academy
of Lett(;rs somewhat after the model of the French Academy,
^vhi(•ll shall insist that no work shall take classic rank which
does not combine thought, sentiment, and style, matter and
form, in some true and just proportion : instead of this rank
being accorded as with us, to one-sided excellences and
eccentriciti<'s and left to j)rivate taste or individual caprice.
It is this, too, which accounts for his [)reforence for grace iind
form, over essential beauty and strength : for a general
harmony over particular excellences; for the classical models
in poetry, as Sophocles, over models like Shakspeare ; and
which is the main reason for his dislike not only of excess in
general, but even of excess of beauty or power, as is seen in
his disparagement of some of the most splendid poetical and
rhetorical passages of Shakspeare and Keats. It accounts too,
for his selection of French authors as his models of prose ; for
his exaggerated estimate of St. lieuve ; and in general for his
love of the ' gentlemanly ' in style, — of ease, flexibility, and a
kind of careless, well-bred grace, — rather than the hard, metallic,
and aggressive note of the literary mmveaa riclm like Macaulay,
with his air of having just come from an expensive course of
instruction under the most ajtproved masters.

It is this note of a trimmed and balanced culture that in
matters of Keligion and Philosophy accounts for his hatred of

■;

INTEUSriTFAI, THINKEUS.

.')23

:il

e unci
fjeneral
models
; siiul
CSS in
icon in
iind
iits too,
ic : for
for his
iind :i
L'tidlif,
ciiuliiy,
urse of

:hat in
trod of

cut-iuul-dried systems, or indeed of systems of any kind,
especially of German Metaphysics and Theolojiy. It accounts
too for liis preference for l*oetic Thinkers like (loethe and
Bacon, over Tiiinkers like Comte and llerhert Spencer; and
for Political Thinkers like Hurke, over Thinkers like Mill :
and in general for the impression he leaves, that a man should
have as much philosophy as is hefitting a man of culture and
no more. And hence it is tluit he is in love with such light
tea-tal)le thinkers as Senancour and Amiel, who in con-
templating the problem of the World resign themselves either
to a poetic melancholy or to a charming but ineflfectual '
moralizing over it ; rather than with those who have stripjied
oft' their coats and energetically set to work to bring it by slow
luuiring labour a stage nearer solution. So much so, indeed,
that in his excess of appreciation of the dignified and well-bred
utterances of Uishop Wilson, or the delicate and balanced
phrases of some of his P^-ench pmti'(jvs, he comes perilously near
falling into the patronage of platitude.

In the same way, too, as he [)refer8 an Academy in Literature
because it holds up for imitation only wha* is best and most
refined in matter and style, he would have in Government an
Executive that would represent the l)est sense of the connnunity,
and not the various party shibboleths and crazes, — Temperance,
the Deceased Wife's Sister's Bill, and the like — one that would
give us real and pressing ifei<i<leraf(i, as a good system of
Secon(huy Schools, and so on ; and that would preserve for us
in the Church, Establishment with its imiform standard of
University education for the Clergy, and reftecting the tone
and sentiment of men of culture, rather than Disestablishment
and Dissent, reftecting the thoughts and opinions of their
congregations merely. And hence too, his special aversion
to the huggcr-nuigger of democratic politics, especially in
Foreign Affairs, where the Cabinet takes its cue from the
shifting opinions and passions of the man in the street, rather
than from the fixed and continuous traditions of a bodv of

ii!i:

;)24

INTKI{STITIAL TIIINKEKS.

(

I i

sjK'ciiilly-traiiK'd ofHriiils, with whom tho idoas uf ' superior
perfsons' whose minds eiui phiy freely aroiiiul these <|iiesti()ns,
woiihl not be without influence. From the same cause, too,
arises his (rood-humoured contempt for the Middle Class
Philistines and all their works; his millery of their aims and
ideals, of their self-eomplacency in the contemplation of their
own vul<^arities, their hoastin;^, and their love of dwelling on
the coat of their wines and horses, their yachts and shooting-
b(»xes ; and his marked preference for the liarharians (as he
calls the Aristocracy) and the l^pper Middle Class, with their
quiet tone, simple manners, and absence of boasting, their
freedom from all allusion in society to money or expenditure,
and their ' cheery stoicism,' as Carlyle called it, in the face of
misfortune or of ruin.

Arnohl has, in a word, the same litemry tastes as his master,
(ioethe, the same personal bias, and the same ' sweetness and
light,' but has neither his breadth nor power, his insight nor
penetration. The consequence is that although with his
land)ent flame he has played gracefully around nearly all the
great problems of the world and of society, he has thrown no
new light on any. His division of the dift'erent classes in
English society into Harbarians, Philistines, and Populace, was
pointed and happy, but expressed distinctions which though
true, were more or less oi)vious ; and his just insight into the
tendency of Aristocracies to rej)ress the culture and expansicju
of the masses, was an easy deduction from it. Jiut his want of
real j)enetration is seen most clearly in his estimates of Thinkers
and Philosophers. It was a piece of literary im[)ertinence for
a light skirmisher like himself to characterize a man like Conite
us 'a grotescjue old French pedant ; ' and it accurately marked
the depth of his own soundings of Nature and Human Life
when he denied to Emerson the title of Philosopher, and
restricted his influence mainly to ' the stinudus which he has
given to men to live in the spirit,' — as if he were mei'ely some
modern Marcus Aurelius.

INTKUSTFTI.VI- THINK KKS.

A25

master,
ess Jind
y-ht nor
•ith his
ill! tlie
own no
sses in
|ice, was
though
nto the
p!insi(jn
vant of
liinkers
nee for
Cointe
marked
m Lite
ler, and
he has
V some

I lis works on Religion, too, show tlie same limitations in
[icnctration and power; and I am sorry t(t he ohiigcd to a(hl,
after all the luhoiu' he spent on them, have little or no real
value. Coming to him as I have since done, from the studies
in Bihiieal Critieism which were forced on me hy the luicessities
of my work on the 'History of Intelleetnal Development.' I
found his judgments crude, and his knowledge hoth of the Old
Testament and the New, <juite hehind the accepted criticism
even of his own time; while in his general reconstruction of
Heligion in the light of Modern Cidture in his ' Literature and
Dogma,' the want of insight displayed in his making the
Heligion of the Jews depend on Conduct and their experiences
of Moi'ality, — and so cutting it ort" entirely from its roots in the
coneeption they had formed to themselves of tlu^ nature of the
Personal Cause to wlutm such conduct is agrceahle or otherwise,
— was such a putting of the cart hefore the horse as to rule him
out of the catcijorv of safe and sure-footed thinkers. That he
fthould inuijiine that at a time when all codes (tf moralitv or
conduct whatever, were directly dependent on supernatural
sanctions, and got from them all their vitality and power — and
were not as now largely dependent on exjieriences of utility —
that he should imagine that the ,Iews alone should construct a
religion so fierce and intense as theirs, out of the mere eold-
hlooded ' experiences' of conduct or morality, was to exhihlt an
utter want botli of ])enetration and of historical perspective;,
and so not only to destroy his influence with Thinkers and
Scholars, hut to fail also in convincing the great general pui)lic
whouj it was his uiain object to reach. The one thought,
|)erhaps, in all his writings that struck me as most central, and
that often rises in my mind when political discussions are
going on, was his perception that the reason why the right and
Just thing which all men know and h)ve, is not done now and
here, but still lingers when all apparently are longing to see it
realized, is that under the circumstances of the place and time
its realization would do more harm than good, wonld cause more

;)2»5

INTKHSTITIAI, TIIINKKU8.

troubU' and iiiiscliicf than it displiu'cd; as, in lii.s pro/jjnaiit
aniilonjy, it would do, it" pla'usants wcmt madi; |»nvate property
like fowlH.

Iluxicv, with his direct iind c()ura<j;eous uttemnee, wtnick for
ine a more iiiaidy nutu than Ariiohl, and eharined nic by hiifi
<lownri<i;ht (;onnnon sense, his freedom from aft'eetati(»n, and by
ii literary style which if less chaste perhaps than that of Arnold,
is more brilliant, terse, and sinewy. It is as jfraccfnl and easy,
too, in its way as his, when re<>anl is had to the limits which
Huxley allowed himself for the expression of his ideas, and tlu;
necessity he always felt of j^rapplinLT with his subject withont
waste of space or loss of time. Like a French postin-c-master
bowinj; you in and out of a room, Arnold occupies s(» nuich time
in <>;raeefully skirmishinji' about and sparrin<>; for an openinfj; to
his subject; so nuieh, too, in endless repetitions of the same
thou<;ht and the same phrases ; that not only his sentences but
Avhole para<;raphs and evei\ whole essays, are as loose and lif^ht
in texture as jrauze; and with so much elbow-room for posturing
in, not to be easy and graceful would indeed have shown a lack
of literary power.

In the general lines of his thought, Huxley works within the
limits marked out by Darwin and Spencer ; but with less of
pedantry and cut-and-dried theory, especially in matters political
and social, than the latter, and with a widci* range of general
<'ultuve than the former. Hut both his Agnosticism and his
Idealism are retrograde and out of date. In the one, he goes
back to the position of Hume, in the other to that of Descartes,
while the one really great contribution of Spencer to Philosoi)hy
— his doctrine namely of the Persistence of Force, in its bearing
on Causation — is entirely missed by him. With Huxley as
with Hume, Causation is not a necessiti/ of thought, l)ut has
only that high degree of prohahUitii which the uniform absence
of any experience to the contrary has given it — nothing more.
Spencer on the other hand has shown, as we have seen, that
Scientific Causation is a direct deduction from the Persistence

(><tniint
•opcrty

lick for
by \m
and l)y
Arnold,
1(1 easy,
■i \vlii<'h

iliul till!

\vitli<»ut
■-master
icli time
LMiiii;;" to
he same
lu'es hut
nd lip;ht
ostiiriiii;'
11 a lack

tliin the
|i less of
political
"cneial
land his
I he goes
jscartes,
losoi)hy
hearing
lixley us
Ihiit has
absence
[g more,
len, that
Isistence

INTEIlHTITIAh THINKEIIH.

.■>27

4tf Force, and that the IVrsistence of Force is a ncn'sxitii of
thought, without which, indeed, the experience to which
Huxley n'fers Causation for <'onfirmation, could not have
existed at all. For without a bclit'f in the persistence of Fon^e,
not only could you not depend on your scales and measures
(without which scicntitic y<*w//'were impossible), but you would
not even be here; for without reliaiuw on the uniformity of
Nature, which is a necessary dedm'tioii *^ioin the Persistence of
Force, no animal from the beginning of Time up till now could
ever have learned how to adjust its motion.^ so as to catch its
prey ; and so we should not have been here at all I The
Hiblical Criticisms, too, in which in later years he was so fond
of indulging, are like those of Arnold of little or no value.
They were all taken u|) nd luijiltiii'hnn, and without sufficient
insight into the c()iiiplex web of circumstances that [nH-ccdcd
and attended the genesis and evolution of the doctrines or
incidents In- assails; and besides are so freighted with
theological (uiiiuuti, and viewed so entirely from the standpoint
of present-day thought, that although justifiable when used as
polemics against systems which still profess to rule the minds
of men, they are worthless for [lurposes of pure historical truth.
Ilutton, the late Edit(jr of the Spectator, was in his way as
good a critic as Arnold; he had less breadth and freedom from
personal bias, less tact and polish, perhaps, but more ingenuity
und subtlety ; and was besides, as strong a thinker within the
limits of the Orthodox Creed, as any man of his time. For
nlthough neither he nor his master, Maurice, added anything
new to the broad theological pctsitions of Newman, the skill and
ingenuity with which he handled and applied his theological
weapons in his controversies with his scientific opjionents, were
triumphs of dialectical subtlety worthy of a .lesuit. His mind,
in fact, was ingenious and subtle rather than massive and
comprehensive, and his critical faculty more acute than his
observation or penetration. For the microscopic dissection of
ii motive or a sentiment, he was without a iiarullel. 'I'he more

1 '

^f;

528

INTEKSTITIAL THIXKKRS.

ill

recondite and su])tle it was, indeed, the better he liked it ; and
hif* mind conid turn round in a smaller space than any writer I
know. His public function as editor helped to keep him, like
Gladstone, broad and sweet; otherwise, if left to himself he would
have ended by dancing theologically on the point of a needle !
But latterly the Higher Criticism was getting too stroni; for
him, and his articles in the ' Spectator ' bearing on it, were
marked by more hesitation and uncertainty than of yore. The
one theological position of his that seemed to me impregnable,
Avas his taking his stand on the turn of the will, if one may so
express it, as the point through whicii spiritual influences and
! suggestions of a supernatural kind can enter the mind without
interi'ering with its normal and regulated activity under the
domir/ion of natural law. It was a fine piece of theologic-J
strategy, and wa.s calculated to give his opj)onents nnich trouble
in dislodging him — so long at anv rate as the freedom of the
will remains an open question in metaphysical speculation.
For even if his hypothesis were not demonstrable, or even
l)robable, it always offered a safe passage to th.ose minds that
were intent on finding some kind of [und)ili('al cord by which to
attach themselves to, or nourish themselves vn, the Divine
Mind. But he lost his critical balance at last, and ended by
believiny: as he once wrote to me, that the attraction of one
piece of matter for another was due to the direct Will of (Jod.
His piu'ely literary criticisms, however, were of a very
high quality v hen allowance is . .ide for his personal bias,
which like that of Newman was characterized by a deep and
habitual piety, and which made him look at all things through
their bearings on morality and devotion. Indeed were it not
for this, it would be difficult to find in modern criticism better
estimates of Goethe, Wordsworth, Shelley. Hawtliorne, or
George Eliot. The distinction he drew between great novelists
like Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot, whose characters have
so much individuality thai they bend and mould their social
niedium or enviromnent to their own natures, and the ordinary

INTKItSTITIAL THINKKIiS.

529

may so
ces and
without
idcr the
:;oloj>;*u"-.l

I trouble

II of the
dilution.
(»r t'ven
nds tliut
which to

Divine
nded l)y
m of oni'
of (lod.
ii very
iial hias,
Uh'P and
tlu-ouii'h
c it not
ni hetter
orne, oi'
novelist!*
crs have
ir social
oidinaiy

run of novelists who "ive the jjencral soe^ial mllitni the first
place, and whose characters like ' walkinu; jicutleinen,' have
only just sufficient individuality not to violate its conventions,
is worth cart-loads of ordinary criticism.

Of all the thinkers whom we are here passinj^; under review,
.lohn Morley is |)erlia[)s the most of an iudependent force,
being- the otfsprinji; not of one master mainly, like; tlie others,
but of the cross-fertilization of two, who were so like and yet
so unlike tliat their union was calculated to pi'oduce the best
quality of fruit. lie lias, in a word, so modified the concep-
tions of hi^ ijreat constructive master, Cointe, by the critical
and analytical acumen of Mill, and has so v>atered and
nourished them both witii the practical sagacity of Ihirke, that
his own writings, as the product of this complex union, may b(^
said to rank almost as new creations ; and coining to him froni
my studies on Civilization, he was the writer who of all others
came nearest in my judgment to a true estimate of the relations
of all the factors concerned in that complex product. liiiu;
Comte he cares little for metaphysical speculations, whether
they be those of Mill or others; and like ('omte, too, ho sees
the absurditv of attempting to ex])lain the Universe In- any
single principle, iihysical or spiritual, as is done by Spencer
and Hegel. All such speculations he would, if not forbid, still
rule out as of (piitc; subordinate importance; and woiil<l confiiu^
himself to that narrow biilt of territory into which both
abstract l^hdosophy and Physical Science play indeed, but
where moralities and customs and traditions and so(dal systems
and races and classes of men, all jostle each other, and between
which as between the members of Hai'nunrs ' happy family ' of
cats and dogs, rats and monkeys, the greatest triumph of
intellect is to keep the peace. The Social I'roblem in a word
is his theme, as nlone being in the power of man to modify ;
and the social point of view the one to which all other j)oints
of view must be subordinated. Indeed with Morley, as with
Goethe and Schopenhauer, purely abstract 'ntelleetual

'i I

I I

si.

<f, I

:ri: 11-

o.-JO

INTKUSTITIAL THINKERS.

curiosity is not a natural jiroduct of the liuinan mind, Imt an
artificial one rather ; arisin<jj orij^inally as he helieves not from
the love of truth for its own sake, but as an instrument for tlie
realization of those complex desires of men which can only find
their full satisfaction in society, — luuiger, ambition, love of
power, fear, hope, and the rest — an instrument which when it
has enabled us to gnitify these desires, is relegated to its sub-
ordinate place again; the sphere of Intelligence being thus
limited for us, he considers, by the purposes and functions
which it originally subserved. .Vnd here it is that he parts
company with Comte. For although he agrees with him that
Intellect is but an instrument to guide us to our ends, he
recognizes that these ends themselves are not determined by
the Intelligence, but by a Social Ideal within us on the one
hand, and by the Material and Social Conditions of the age
iind time which prevent our realizing that Ideal, on the other.
The difference is vital, for while Comte fixing his eye on his
Social Ideal w(ndd call on the Intellect to realize it noiv and
here; and in consequence with as little chance of success as if
in building a bridge he should i)egin by adapting it to the
farther shore instead of to the shore on which he stands ;
Morley woidd begin by adapting his measures to the existing
conditions of society on which we stand and work, and would
go on adapting them to these conditions at each stage of his
progress, until he reaches the op[)Osite shore, the Social Ideal
itself. But just as in the bridge no one part of its giraors and
beams can be pushed forward until all its collateral su[»ports
■come fairly up into line ; or as no part of a flock of sheep can
be allowed to get too far forward or too far behind the rest if
the whole flock is to advance; so if society is to steadily
progress, no one or more of its com})lcx elements can be
greatly changed or pushed forward, until the rest also are
broiight up into line. It is clearly a problem of how to
harmonize a niunbcr of discordant elements and factors, rather
than of giving the primacy to one, or of aggrandizing some at

— WKllM It

"""^

INTEUSTITIAI. THINKKUS.

531

the uxponso of the rest ; and as these elenionts — these reh'^ions
and customs and classes and njoralities — arc all in continual Mux
like the waves of the sea, all pushing and struggling like the
sheep in a Hock, the (piestion with Morley is how are they best
to he handled so ns to secure a steady and continuous advance?
By giving them th(! fullest individual Liberty of Movement
compatible with the equal liberty of all, he replies, so that
when they do unite, it will be like chemical atoms by their own
affinities ; thus forming staple natural divisions witii which the
statesman can deal as if they were single and compact entities
or forces. And so he parts company with (\»mte, who with
the remote ideal rather than the next innnediate step in his
eye, would at once distribute men into rigid and formal
«livisions according to the j)attern of his dreams, — into castes
and hierarchies, which being more or less artificial and
premature, would like type that is boxed liefore the revised
' proof ' has come in. have all to be taken down again.

Society then, having been given the fullest liberty to group
itself into its natural divisions as when a ball-room prepares
itself for a dance by grouping itself into sets and figures,
something further is still necessary as preliminary; for the
gr<»ups with their })ushing and jostling have to be kept from
running each other to the wall, — and how is this to be done ?
liy Compromise, says Morley, or that give-and-take which
shall allow each to be kej)t in line, and shall pi'cvent any one
ilivision from over-riding or absorbing the rest. I>ut thit:
Compromise, it is to be remendjcred, is not a mere weak
acquiescence in, and tolerance of, all the elements that may
ha[)pcn to assert themselves; on the contrary it is restricted
only to those which are vital and [)ositive ; and so is consistent
with the vigorous repression of all that is negative, obstructive,
degenerate, or pernicious, — of rowdyisui, scoundrelism,
monopolism, organized parasitism, and all those retrogi'ade
institutions that have come down from earlier times, and are
still entrenched behind the barriers of law long after ])ublic

1.':

■'' I 'I? II

5152

rNTKWSTITIAIf, TriINKKUS.

1,1.

opinion Ii:is (((iidc'iimcd thcin. And it iti on the one liiuid in
detornjining what lias to he h)i)})ed oil' tis suporHiious or noxious,
and on tho otlior in iveeping all tho vital and po.sitive olenicnts
together, as a shepherd his sheep, so that they sliall move
forward luirnionioiisly ; no\v repressing the froward who would
break up this harmony, and now urging on the laggards who
threaten to fall oiit of lino, — it is in this, that in peaceful States
all Practical Statesmanship [)rc)perly so called consists ; and in
the endeavour to hring English Statesmanship hack to it, with
his watchwords of Liberty and Compromise, Morlcy is but
following in the footsteps of Burke, But in States that have
become ultra-democratic in constitution before their natural
time, or whcic pusiiing politicians making the ni'.tlon their
milcli-cow, iii.-tead of urging the lowest strata to ei;rn their
franchise before thev exercise il, as tlicv hi;ve to do their beer,
would throw it ojien to tlnMU and force it on them as thev do
their tap-rooms on election days: when j)oliti(!al brigands
re[u'esenting overgrown ambitions, Tory or Radical, — military
jingoism, anarchism, constitution-inongering, eight-hour
despotisms, and the like, — insro;ul of shepluu'ding the Hock,
vie with each other in swooping down on it to coerce or kidnap
it each ill his own special intiirest, and so instead of softening
and harmonizing the antagonisms of ditlerent classes and
interests, still further accentuate! them, — then will the higli
statesmanship of Burke go to the wall, and the reign of the
nemagogue will be near at hand. And if Morley fails as a
practical statesman, it will not Ix; ■ om want of penetration
into the nature of all the forces engaged, nor pei'haps from want
of a just insiglit into the measurcfi need(Ml for their harmonious
working, but bcc;ause in tho winged flights of electors to the
political utojjias and Klondikes which are held up before
them, there will not bo left a sutHcient munber of moderate
and sagiicious sui)i»ortcrs with tiie motto of ' Liberty and
Compronvise ' on their lips, to enable him to carry them
through..

IXTKUSTITIAL THINKKUS.

r)3a

^lorley's historical studios of the men and events precedini!;
the Frencli lievohition, — of Rousseau, Diderot, Voltaire, and
the rest, — are all written from the Social point of view, and are
dominated throughout by his conceijtion of the march of
Civilization in general and as a whole ; and in them all, the
influen(^e of (;omte is clearly seen, liut he corrects the
onc-sidedncss of Comte, by a finer insiifht into the part played
in Civilization by the general ^laterial anil Social conditions of
the age and time. He points out f»n' example that the F'rench
Revolution did not al)sorb the wliole propaganda of the great
intellectual movement that preceded it and helped to bring it
on, but only such elements of it as were demanded by the
grinding material, i)olitical, and social tyranny of the time ; in
the same way as in America, the watchwords of ' Liberty and
E(piality' wen; limited to tiie white population alone. His
study of Burke, which is marked throughout by much of the
political wisdom of the master himself, has always remained
Avith me as one of the finest studies of its kind in the language.

Leslie Stephen, again, acknowledges no particular master;
and his role has been mainly to sprinkle <'old water (m all
political, religious, or social enthusiasms, and on all literary
estimates when they get overheated or exaggerated. lie is
essentially a negative thinker, materialistic, agnostic, and
good-naturedly pessimistic, but with a line sanity and sense of
humoiu" that keej)s him in all things from exaggeration or
absurdity. His studies of the thinkers of preceding centuries,
although ahvavs acute and vi<>orous, have the common fault of
being dominated too much from the standpoint of to-day,
instead of beinu' exhibited assta<2fes in a continuous evolution of
thought — without which, indeed, all time spent on extinct and
exploded systems is practically wasted.

Ruskin (diarmed me as he did all the young writers of the
time by his style; but he left behind him l)esides, a solid deposit
of thought, in the original turn he gave to the current Political
Economy, especially in the pregnant question he put to tin?

ill

534

INTERSTITIAL THINKEKS.

1 '

oiiiitloyors of labour to which T have ah'oady referred, as well as
l)y his dcinonstnition of the nature and functions of the
Imagination in his ' Modern Painters,' a study marked by great
subtlety and penetration, and more level and ('(mvincing than
his judgments in my opinion usually are. As Carlylc (mce
remarked to me of him, ' He has a fine sense of beiiuty, but has
lived too much in the ideal to be quite level with the present
world.'

It may seem strange that in a survey of the seminal thiidvors
of the time, the illustrious name of John Stuart Mill should not
have been mentioned. The truth is that before I be<>an mv
studies, his points of view had been so taken up and end)odi(!d
in the larger generalizations of Spencer, and such an extension
had been given to them there, that it was no longer possible to
return to him. Besides, in spite of his fine and no'ole nature,
his love of truth, his beautiful unconscious simplicity, and his
natural affinity for all that was great and good ; in spite too of
his clearness and acuteness of mind ; there was something thin
in his intellectual views, something wire-drawn and metaphysical;
and jdthough his unusual scrupulosity and cai'c, and his openness
to all that could be said on every side of a ((uestion, gave you
the impression that the subject had been thoroughly thrashed
out and all its limitations and objections duly considered and
allowed for, still you were always left with the feeling that the
demonstration was not so nnich a living and hunianly-conviiiciiig
one, as a h)gical and dialectical one mainly ; and so you were
never quite satisfied. There was a want of the sense of mass, a
feeling as if the subject had beeji broken up in some artificial
way, so as not to be altogether free from the danger of fallacies
having crept in between the interstices of the logic, or at the
points of junction of the fragments : as if it were being dealt
with in threads rather than in the web. If the subject were
Political Economy, for example, it was torn, as Coiiito
complained, from the general web of Civilization in wh'u'h it
h>y, and presented by itself, as if it were indepenilenl of the

■■i

INTEUSTITIAr, TIIINKP.HS.

5:^5

great nicsh of custom, tratlition, political and social power, legal
status, anil so on, with which it was encomj)asseil and hound up.
For although his ' ccononiic man' was admittedly put forward
as an ahstraction to simplify the suhject, his argmnents and
deductions were never afterwards modified and supplemented hy
the considerations needed to hring this ' economic man' up to a
reality. lAiiin^ez-faire, again, which was originally advanced as
a temporary expedient to meet an excess of political interference,
is treated with as nmch respect as if it were an economic maxim
true for all time. If, again, it were a prohlem of Politics with
which he was dealing, not enough allowance was made for
tradition, custom, environment, balance of [)owers, historical
antecedents, compromise, and soon, hut all was too cut-and-dried,
too formal, too purely logical to reflcict tridy the tangled web of
human life ; and you never got the synthesis necessary to make
the demonstration correspond with the reality. Or if, again,
it were a Philosophical theme, his treatment of it was too
metaphysical, too abstract, too analytical ; while if it were the
human mind that was in question, he dealt too nmch with the
di^hris into which the faculties were analyzed and decomposed,
and which as having no separate existence of their own, could
not be treated as independent entities or powers with legitimate
values, and so could not be made the sul)jects of constructive
combinations or of scientific predication. If you wanted this
you would have to go elsewhere. Indeed with all his (dearness
and purity of intellect, there was something in the structure of
his mind which seemed to gravitate not so nmch to reality, as
to logical refinements and subtleties. And yet when I think of
all he did, I am not sure that these charac^teristics did not result
as much perhaps from the age and time in which he was cast,
from his philosophic antecedents, and from the s[)ecies of
questions that were thrust on him (and, in conse([uence, from
the marked absence in him of the sense of historical perspective,
or of any adequate concci)tion of evolution in the modern sense
of the term), as from his intellect itself. He was an ad interim

INTKKSTITIAL THINK KKS.

thinker, if I may so desij^niitc In'ni, stiindinf^ witli ono Icjij on tlie
old and tlu; otiier on tlic new, iind idtliou^h a Colossus in liis
way, was condcnnied to stand there nnahle to move. Indeed
liad he attempted to come (h)wn trom his pedestal to join with
the youiifijer men who walked onwards under his <(reat shadow,
h<' would have fallen to ))iec(!s. In Political Economy, one
foot rested on Individualism, tli(! other on Socialism; in
JMiilosophy, one foot on l^ockc and Hentham, the other on
Spencer; in S(»cioIo<;y, one foot on the Encyclopa'dists, the
other on Couite. He has in eonse(pience added nothin<( of
]»(!rmanent value to thouf^lit, and has left no School. Althouj^h
a Materialist, he was neither pre|iared to accept an unified
i'ouception of the Physical World like that of Spencer, nor a
jihysiolojfical basis of mind like that of Hain and the Modern
S(!hool of Psycholonfists. lie has in conse(pu;nce added nothinjf
new to our views of the Outer World like Spencer, nor to the
subtler laws of the Spiritual World like Emerson and Carlyle,
nor aji'ain to the laws of Society like Comte ; and so in spite of
his rare and beautifid philosophical temper and sj)irit, and the
sweet personal aroma he left behind him, he uuist remain only
as the most powerful of thos(! who smoothed the way and
bridged the gulf between the Old Metaphysical, and the New
i?cientific conceptions of the World.

\\\ '

tmi

CHAPTER rx

ISOLATION AND DEPRESSION.

T 1 AVINCJ c'xliil)iti'(l ill my work on Civili/utioii tli((
-'--'- connexion iind intci'itlay of the <rreat fiictor.s of iiinnan pi'o-
grcss, and the way in wliich tliey have [lUshed np the worhl stw^v.
by sta<>e throujjch an ascending series of terraces or platforms
towards the Ideal of a perfected Morality, I now entered on an
enqniry with the view of ascertaining whether if the investigation
were carried farther still into the minnter details of history and
civilization, this ascent of morality which showed like a sericis
of terraces from the distance might not on a closer view he
fonnd to rise in a continuous unbroken line : and if so whether
this continuous evolution upwards towards the Ideal was to be
referred to the normal action nf the luunau mind working after
its own proper laws, or whether the individual actcu's in the
drama, however prominent, were so unconscious of what they
were really doing, that like blind men struggling strenuously in
the darkness, their se|)arate actions had to be co-ordinated and
overruled by a Suiireme Mind presiding over all. And
accordingly in the autumn of 1S1>2, as soon as the re-printing of
'Civilization and Progress ' was oft' my hands, 1 set out in high
spirits on the new enter[)ride of writing a detailed history of
Intellectual I)evelo[)ment on the lines of Modern Evolution.
This, wliicdi I expected to fill two or three large volumes, and
which would perhaps occupy the greater part of my working

il !

53«

ISOLATIDN AM) DFU'KKSSION.

life, would it Wii8 evident re(|uir(' iiii iininciiHc ainoiiiit of liihonr
and rcscjurli ; and I accord inj;ly piovided myself as if for an
expeditittn, with a fonnidaMe array of hooks, Enj^Iish and
^*'orei;^n, needed for tlie enterprise, — historical, [)olitical,
theolo<fical, metaphysical, scientific, — and many of which 1 had
afterwards to confess, were for hore(h»m, triviality, rep(!tition,
h>n<r-winde(lness, and ahsenci! of human interest j^enerally,
without a parallel since the days when (Jarlyle descended into
the Serhonian bo<^s of the British Museum to fish up out of its
'shot ruhhish' if possible, sonu'thinj^ human, credihie, and
authentic ahout Frederick or Cromwell. Uut I had not
proceeded far on my way before 1 was overtakiju by a series of
disasters which well-ni<fh (uit short the enterprise at the outset,
and for some years left me a prey to nervous exhaustion and
des[>ondency. Some of them had been lowerinjjj in the sky for
some time, hut had kept up only a low nuitteriny^ and rund)lini^
along" the rim of the horizon ; but now they be<ran to creep
gradually upwards, until when they were (piite overhead, they
luiited their borders and descended on mc in torrents.

The first was the loss of a large i)art of the income on whicli
I depended for enabling me to contimu! mv literarv work. It
so happened that after setting aside the chances of a consulting
l»ractice as we saw in an earlier chapter, and ri'fusing the ofl'er
of a first-class general practice, I had with the view of getting
for myself as much free, unencumbered time as possible for my
writing, bought an easily worked practice within a short distance
of my own house ; and for ten or twelve years all went smoothly
and well. The neighbourhood was one of the Estates projec^ted
by the late Lord Shaftesbury. It was lai<l out in avenues lined
with plane-trees, and Hanked with hmg rows of houses, with
projecting porches and pointed arches overgrown with ivy
and creepers ; — and all most sweet, clean, and respectable.
Then^ were no public-houses allowed on the Estate ; and in
the school hours the streets with the exception of the vendors
<>f coal and vegetables, and the figures of curates, nurses,

■Ml'

^■»(

ISOLATION AND DKIMIKSSION.

')-M)

scriptiirc-reiulorM an<l doctors movin<f in and out iinioii^ the
liou.ses, were almost deserted ; and all was (|iiietness and jx^aee.
I enjoyed i^oinjj in and out ainoni? the j)eo[)Ie, and interesting?
myself in their occupations and lives ; and nothing could have;
been more conuenial or satisfactory than my work anion"- tlicni.
My in(!ome was sufficient, my consulting? hoiu's short, the
patients all lay close toj?etlier, and the visiting;' could he j^ot
throuj^^h in some six or seven hours each day without discomfort
or strain. I kept an assistant who did the ninht work and
dis[»ensiii<?, and so had uhuudant leisure for rcadin<; and study
without in any way interfering with my duties to my patients.
In the morning hetore my round of visits, I read and mad(!
notes from my books of reference ; in the afternoon I attended
the various special hospitals with the vi(!w of working u[)cert.:in
subjects — the nervous system, the eye, the skin, the heart, — in
whi(di 1 was more particularly intercst(Ml, and of keeping in
touch with the latest developments of Medical Science gi-ni-ndly ;
and after nine o'clock in the evening 1 was free to work in peace
and stillness far into the night. It was as 1 have said an ideal
practice in its way for a literary man. Hut gradually strange
figures going from door to door with note-books in their hands,
began to appear among the well known forms in tin; streets ; and
in a few years they had increased in mimber to such an extent
that the lunghbourhood literally swarmed with tliem. They
were tiie agents and advance scouts of various Medical fiisurance
and Medical Aid iSocieties, as they were called, which had been
started as commercial speculations, with the object of siij)plying
medical advice and medicine to all and sundry who cared to join
them, on the payment of a small siun weekly all the year round,
ill or well ; and naturally enough the poorer class neighI)ourhoo(ls
were the main centres of their activity and i>ropagan(la. They
had originally appeared in the Provinces, and after tightening
their coils around the neck of the profession theve with the
(connivance of the Medical Council, and leaving wide iniin and
des(»lation behind them in the homes of medical men, they had

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540

ISOLATION AND DEPUESSION.

iulvanced on London, which they had hiid out in distrif'ts for
their operations, and were now prepared to lay siege to in force.
Tlieir plan of eanij)aign was as subtle in conception as it was
simple and broadly effective in execution ; and consisted in
holding out to the young medical men who had just passed
their 'finals,' the prospect of an immediate cUentMe of patients
if they would consent to become the Medical Officers of the
Societies ; rcjjresenting to them that although the pay was
small, this was more than compensated for by the admirable
introduction it would give them to private practice. This
seemed feasible, and in many cases the bait was too tempting to
be refused ; and the consequence was that flights of young
freebooters fresh from the Medical Schools, in the absence of
any authority like that of the Incorporated Law Society to
safeguard the interests of the profession and to prevent the
lowering of its status, descended in flights on the practices of
the older-established men in the poorer districts ; and in their
capacity of Medical Officers to the Societies, carried them off
wholesale. In the meantime the Societies with their arniy of
agents and touts in the field and canvassing from door to door,
had continued extending their operations until whole districts
were drawn into their nets ; and with their war-cry of ' Why
pay doctors when you can join a club?' taken up by Church
and Chapel, had soon strangled the cries of the outraged
profession and reduced it to submission ; leaving the poor
deluded medical officers who were to capture remuner.uive
privale practices by their bargain with the Societies, standing
looking into each other's faces with nothing but club practices
on their hands (the private ones being now pi'actically all
absorbed) ; — and to imagine that by capturing these from each
other they were going to make a living, was as Utopian as were
the hopes of that coujniunity who were going to live by taking
in each other's washing ! And as each in turn ruined or
disgusted, threw up his connexion with the Societies, you had
the curious sj.'ectacle of households which had previously been

PW-<

ISOLATION AND DEPRESSION.

i41

c:i»ploying the [)rivate doctors of their choice, now hundetl over
in batches of fifties or Iiundrods at a time from one medical
man to another, until whole neighbourhoods, so far as the
possibility of making a living by the practice of your profession
was concerned, were as if an army of locusts had passed over
them. And in all this the Societies were aided and abetted by
the Medical Council as I have said, who after having with a fine
sense of humour taken our registration fees, not to defend us
against the Public but to defend the Public against us, when the
cry of the Profession went up to them from all parts of the
country praying for help against the tyranny of the Societies,—
and especially when tlie peculiarly aggravated case of a Liverpool
tea-nierc)uuit who was advertising the services of a medical
man grati.s to all those who bought a pound of tea, was brought
before it, — frankly told us that they were there in the interests
(:'^ il; ':)lic !ind not of the Profession; and winking knovvingly

at each o.hcr at the cleverness of that tradesman, passed on to
' the order of the day ! '

Now it was by the tightening of the cordon which these
Medical Aid Societies had been gradually drawing around the
neighbourhood in which my practice lay, that 1 was noosed ;
and in two or three years my practice togethev- with those of
most of the other medical men in the district, had fallen fifty
])er cent, in value; my more pui'cly personal practice which
was scattered here and there through all parts of London, not
being sufficient to enable me to bear the strain. The effect
of this on my mind was most disturbing. For up to this
time, what with the printing, reprinting, and advertising
of my books, I was some four hundred pounds out of
|)ocket after all n>y receipts from them had been allowed
for ; but as my income was sufficient, 1 had borne the strain
without serious inconvenience : but now that 1 had lost a
large part of my income, not only could I no longer afford to
spend money on my literary work, but as it was I was threatened
with ruin. I had been writing steadilv, or collecting

542

ISOLATION AND DEPRE.S.SION.

I!* I

materials for writing, for over twenty years, to the sacrifice
of all professional advancement, to the injury of my nervous
system and of my eyesight, and had received in return neither
honour, reputation, nor money ; but all this I had brushed
gaily aside in my enthusiasm for the work which X had set
myself to accomplish. And now in the middle of it all I saw
myself threatened with degradation and beggary. I who had
never owed a penny in my life, and to whom the face of a
hostile or importunate creditor would liave been an insult, now
saw in imagination the bailiffs at the door ; and the thought of
it fell on my mind like a stain. Not that I felt myself beaten ;
on the contrary I had not yet fought, nor had the chance of
fighting; but with my life-work yet imaccomplished, saw
myself like Swift left to wear my heai't out ' like a poisoned
rat in a hole.' The thought of it, together with the mental
strain incident on my attempt to hurry on the work on
' Intellectual Development ' before I was quite submerged ; all
this, with the death of my assistant by suicide after being with
me so many years, brought on an illness of exhaustion,
prostration, and nervous depression ; — from which, however, I
should doubtless soon have recovered but for two additional
causes which as being of a more intangible and immaterial
nature were more difficult to be combated.

The fh'st was the position of intellectual isolation into which
I was forced both by my actual opinions and by the particular
role which I had assumed lor myself. Not that this would
naturally have afi'ected my relationship with others. For so
little regard had I always had for what are called the opinions
of men (whether my own or others'), as distinct fi'om their
sentiments ; so deeply had 1 always felt how poor and
ineffectual were all our eft'orts in the discovery of truth ; that
the best were but a scratching of the surface ; and that it was
a case at most of beggars all ; that I could not imderstand Iiow
any mere difference of opinion as such, could cause a cleavage
in personal relationships. But I was aware that this was not

ISOLATION AND UKPUE88ION.

j4a

crificc
evvous
leithcv
vusheil
uvtl set
il I saw
^ho \vm\
ce of a
lit, now
)U«^ht of
beiiten ;
lance ot"
ie«l, wiw
poisonccl
e mcntul
work on
rgcd ; ivU
ping witli
:haustion,
owever, 1
idditionul
ninater'uil

necessarily the case with others, and as in my sclf-assmned rale
as philosopher there was no single school or ' cause ' with which
I could identify myself, and into which I could throw iny>'df
with entire devotion ; and as moreover I greatly disliked any-
thing that was not whole-souled and genuine ; 1 felt that I
must not be by my luke-warnmess, a wet blanket to others
more deeply involved in and dedicated to their respective
' causes ' than myself. The consequence was that I was left in
a kind of intellectual insolation, if 1 may so call it, and with no
single man or body of men with whom I coidd luiite myself.
This had always been a gi*eat deprivation to me, but aft(!r
twenty years or more of it, it began to eat into my spirits, and
helped insensibly to make me lose interest in my own work. I
longed to unite myself with somebody or some ' cause;,' but
as these ' causes ' were founded usually on precisely tho.fe
intellectual agreements in opinion for which I had so little
natural regard, there was nothing for it but to wander about
as in a kind of desert, with no companions but my own
thoughts — a poor equipment for a long and difficult campaign.
I could neither throw in my lot with Orthodox (Jhristianity,
deeply as I felt the moral beauty of its precepts, and conscious
as 1 was of the great work it had done in the world, for I could
not accept its dogmas in the sense in which they are accepted
by its followers ; nor could 1 throw in my lot with the
Materialists and Agnostics, in spite of my being one >vith
them, as we have seen, on an entire side of my intellectual
method r for 1 saw that as taught by their leading exponents
they were pledged to the denial of the definite existence in the
World and in the Human Mind of an l»l -d which stood as the
representative of a Power outside both ; while as for the old
dogmatic Atheism, it always seemed to me to be as great a
piece of intellectual ar-oganco and impertinence on the one
*<ide, as the claims of the Priesthood were on the other. And
yet at the same time I had a sympathy with men like Newman
who were convinced of the necessity of some kind of

ii \

ISOLATIOX AM) DKIMMCSSIOX.

Keveliitioii for poor luiinnn souls, jiltli'»u<;li it would have hccu
a mere hypocrisy for inc to profess to believe that the Bible
alone was that revelation, or that the Catholic ChiU'ch was its
sole interpreter. If I felt a shade of contempt at all (and this
was naturally foreign to nie), it was for the innumerable sects
who would split the world on a qiiesti(»n of baptism by
sprinkling" or baptism by immersion, or some other trivial
observance ; and yet even here, again, I was bound to respect
the intellectual basis of it all ; for so long as the great body of
Christendom professes to hold that the letter of the Bible is
inspired, men are right in refusing to iiave its liteitd interpreta-
tion whittled away by the first sci{;!ist who comes along, and
wh(t because he imagines that he or another has discovered that
the Fourth Gospel was not the work of the Apostle tFohn, or
that the second epistle of Peter was not a genuine production,
thinks that therefore the whole significance of Holy Writ mr
be resigned as worthless. On the other hand, again, I saw
that so long as the old Mosaic Cosmogony and its concomitants
and adjuncts were permitted to hold the field, the Cosmogony
of Science with all the truths it carried with it, would be
discredited, and Science itself degraded. Again, I had a
sympathy with those who t»-:ed to liberalize the Church and
its Theology while still remaining within its fohl, as well as
with those who held that if you did not fully accept its dogmas
you should go out of it. Indeed there was no side or aspect
of current thought or si)eculation with which I had not some
sympathy, and yet none which I could a(!cept whole-heartedly
and without limitations and reservations fatal to a closer union:
whether it were in Keligion, Politics, or Society. I was a
Theist, and yet not precisely a Bible Tlieist ; an Agnostic, and
yet not accepting the Agnostic point of view for the inU'r-
pretat'ion of the mystery of existence ; a believer in Revelation,
and yet not in the Gospel Revelation in its accepted sense, to
the exclusion of other forms ; a man of Faith, if I may say so,
and yet not ot any of the special faiths in vogue. In Politics,

urmm

ISOLATION AND DEPRESSION.

54ft

iive bi'i-n
;he Bible
h was its
(and this
ibl(! sects
ptism V)y
or trivial
o respect
it body of
e Bible is
nterpreta-
along, and
vcred tliat
e John, or
)roduction,
Writ mi'
ain, I saw
nconutants
josniogony
would be
1 had a
Inn-ch and
as well as
its dogmas
or aspect
not sonio
•-heartedly
scr union :
1 was !i
lostic, and
the intcr-
evelatioii,
sense, to
lay say so,
,n Politics

again, I was a Kadical, but averse to precipitating radical
changes before the time was ripe or all the collateral forces had
come up into line; a Conservative, and yet as seeing the
necessity of constant change and continuous progress : a
believer in most (»f the advanced ' causes,' — Temperance, the
elevation of Women, leisure for the Working-man, the
socialization of industries and of public functions, and the rest, —
and yet would not gi»e cft'ect to them until men had been
educated up to them :nul were prej)ared to appreciate them.
I was an Imperialist, and yet a Municipalist : a Cosmopolitan,
and yet a Patriot : a believer in Might being Right, and yet
that Kight and not Might wouhl ultimately prevail ; a believer
in Peace, and yet as seeing the ultimate necessity of War; an
ardent defender of Individual Liberty, and yet as seeing the
necessity of occasional Despotism. I believed in Preaching
and in Legislative Interference ; and yet saw that things them-
selves would make their own Morality and their own Laws, in
spite of Politicians or Priests.

With this incapacity for union with others there was evidently
nothing for it but to continue steadily on with the work which
I had mapped out for myself ; and yet this had now become
very irksome to me. Not that I was not interested in the work
itself ; on the contrary it bristled everywhere with just such
problems as those with which I had all along been accustomed
to deal ; and everywhere there was room for more adequate and
harmonious interpretations, as well as for fresh j)oints of view.
No, it was not the character of the work of which I was weary ;
what poisoned my mind and was my constant theme during the
greater part of the time in which I was engaged on the ' History
of Intellectual Development,' was the feeling which had now
become settled and habitual with me, namely, that nobody any
longer cared for any of these things ; and to this hour 1
cannot tell how much of this was true, and how much
of it was due to the isolation in which 1 found myself,

and to the depression under which 1 was labouring. My

M M

546

ISOLATION AND DEPRESSION.

litorary friends were for the most part novelists and journjdiats,
and their interests as was natural centred largely around eurrent
politics, the stage, or the latest works of fiction ; and I must
have seemed to most of them with the best will in the world, a
literary outsider, or a fossil of an extinct species. If I sent a
chapter of one of the hooks I was writing to a Monthly Review,
(and first or last I sent nearly every one that contained
anything novel cither in treatment or point of view), it was
invariably declined. Indeed it was not until just twenty years
after I had sent in my first paper ' God or Force ? ' that I had
an ai'ticle accepted, — my chapter on 'Jesus Christ ' —in the
'Fortnightly Keview ' for September IHIUJ. And as I had never
at any time had the least suspicion that the Editors had any
personal objection to me, what could I think but that there were
no longer a sufficient number of i-eaders interested in these
things ; — unless, indeed, it were (as one of the Editors expressed
it), that my writings were ' wanting both in point and lucidity.'
For years I had thrown all this gaily aside, and had put it down
to bad luck, or ' the daemonic,' as we have seen, but now that
I had fallen into a state of depression, I could only attribute my
persistent failure to a want of interest in serious subjects
generally ; and the original stock of energy and light-hearted
buoyancy which had never once flagged during nearly twenty
years of obscurity, isolation, and disappointment, received a
blow which it coidd not parry ; and which left abiding
traces on my mind. And yet I cannot feel .«ure whether
there ever was the interest in these subjects which in
my youthful enthusiasm I imagined ; or whether if there
were, it had really declined. But there were several reasons
outside my own personal feelings which seemed to suppoi*^ my-
conviction that there was now no longer the interest in these
matters that there was at the outset of my literary career. For
where now is the interest in Philosophy and Theology, in
Materialism, and Atheism and Agnosticism that there was in
my College days, and which made our discussions far into

apffijaasiRR

ISOLATION AND DEPRESSION.

547

nnliats,
[•urrent
I must
vorld, a
sent a
Ucview,
mtaineil
, it was
ty years
iit I had
—in the
ad never
had any
lere were
in these
expressed
lucidity.'
t it down
now that
•ibute my
8ubjects
-hearted
^y twenty
3ccived a
ibiding
whether
fhich in
if there
\\\ reasons
|ppoi^ n»y
these
For

m
Jeer.

lology.

[e was in
far into

tlie night, like tiie feasts of the gods ? (lone, I thought,
or declined in the public mind from the liigli severity of
doctrine and philosophy which then characterized these
discussions, to trivial disputes on the details of ritual and
Church ceremonial. Where now is the old interest in
Political Economy ! Gone, too, and its books except for
College and examination purposes unsaleable. How different
in the days when John Stuart Mill was king ! Where, too, is
now the old interest in abstract I^olitics, — in Socialism, the
Franchise, Popular Rights, the Ballot, Representation by-
Population, and the rest? Why, political clubs that once
would have been packed to hear a lecture on politics, can now,
I am assured, only be filled when the subject is something
popular and amusing ; while as for Sociology, it has come down
to the Sex-])roblem, and to as much only of that as can be
distilled into the public mind through the Novel or the columns
of the Press in the ' silly season." Even in History and the
more popular forms of serious literature, the interest seems to
me to have so palpably declined, that I have often thought that
had Carlyle, Ruskin, Macaulay, Buckle, Mill, Lecky, Spencer,
Morley, or Arnold started publishing their literary work to-day,
they would have been practically ignored ; and the Clubs that
were founded with the object of recognizing and representing
serious literature, and which hailed and heralded these writers
from the very outset of their careers, would to-day know them
no more. The only form of serious work which still flourishes
is the purely Scientific ; and this is because it embraces such
an immense number of workers that they form a public by
themselves separate from the general public — which no doubt
would have given them as short shrift as the rest, had they been
obliged to appeal to its suffrages.

Now in endeavouring to trace this decline in the interest in
serious thought and literature to its true cause, I have sometimes
thought that it was owing mainly to the dim and but vaguely
conscious acceptance in all ranks of cultured society of the great

548

ISOLATION AND nRPRRSSIO!^.

j (lootrlno of K'olution, wliicli like ii kind of- Fiito \t\ys hn iron
I hand on tlio slioiddcrs of llic individual worker, and keeps
him down to the aoeunuilatioii of facts, and of them only,
pcrmittinjj; Iiini no fVee initiative, or iinen(nnnbered Hi<i;hts of
speculation. And I have sometimes imajfined that it was this
that a(M'ounted for tiie excessive specialization of Science, and
for tl>e ahsence among all its army of workers, of any interest in
merely general views such as were so popular in pre- Darwinian
times ; and of the restriction of its honours and rewards to
specialists and to technicalities which are cavinre to the general.
It seemed to me too, to account for the comparative want of
interest among Historians, in histories mainly literary like those
of Macaulay or Fronde ; and in general for the precedence which
is given to the (irermans, with their industry and plodding care in
ever}' department of Science, History, Theology, and Philosophy,
over the same class of workers in either Kngland, France or
America ; in spite of the fact that nearly all the great seminal
ideas have been English and French, and not (xerinan. Even
literary criticism and questions of style are relegated now not
so much to men of general fineness of literary taste, as to
specialists of the different periods ; and as much on linguistic,
grannnatical, or etymological grounds as on purely literary ;
so that you have critics of special periods — Old English,
Elizabethan, Queen Anne, or Early \'ictorian — as you have
scientific specialists of the Glacial Peri(nl,of Fossil Fishes,.orof
the geology of the Cretaceous Forniations. Even the success
of popular papers like ' Tit IJits,' or of popular Monthlies like
the ' Strand ' Magazine, is due to the same desire to come at the
actual facts of human life, free from all theory or prepossession.
And lastly the belief in evolution accounts largely for the
practical al)sorption of all literature in the Novel, or of as much
at least as can be squeezed and compressed into it ; for as I have
already said, what is the novel but the evolution of the
individual uiind on certain only of its sides iuid aspects, and
mainly pn those that can be made of interest to the general

its iron
(1 keeps
in only,
lijrhts of
SV118 tins
nee, and
it crest in
txrwiniiin
ivards to

y;eiicral.

wiint of
ike those
ce which
ijjoare in
ilosophy,
'ranee or
t seminal

■pan

. Even
now not
e, as to
nguistic,
literary ;
[English,
Ion have
lies,. or of
b success
lilies like
ne at the
Issession.

for the
las much

IS I have
of the

|cts, and

I yfeneral

ISOLATION AND DEl'IlKHSION.

.•)4I)

reader ^ And it was chiefly due to n\y still hut partially
conscious perception that nothing now was interesting but
evolution in one or other of its forms, and to a large extent
that nothing was so really instructive, that I determined to
write my 'History (»f Intellectual Development' on strict
lines of evolution, with as few gaps and interstices in the
flowing web of events as possible, and with no general theory
of any kind, — except indeed such as should arise; naturally
out of the facts as their aroma or essence, and not be put
into them beforehand to colour theyi like a dye.

Now although this permeation of the public mind with the
doctrine of evolution was the first explanation that rose in my
mind when I thought of the decline of public interest in serious
literature, still I often wondered whether it might not be largely
rcsferable to a cause so different as the decline of religious belief,
and especially of the belief in a future of rewards and punish-
ments. For if, as Comtc and Schopenhauer thought, the
intellect exists only for the better realization of our desires,
and has no special love of knowledge for its own sake, the fear
of Hell must have been a most ])otent stimulus to intellectual
curiosity in reference to all things bearing on religion, whether
of a theological, philosophical, or historical nature, — as indeed
was seen in the wide extent of region exjjlored in the search
for the so-called ' Evidences of Christianity,' — and the decline
of that fear nuist it is evident have sooneror later been attendcil
by a considerable falling away of interest in all these things.
And the fact that a School-Iioard election should lately have
turneu, as it did, not on whether the moral precepts of
Christianity were to be taught or not, (for on that all parties vvere
agreed,) but on whether the old Mosaic Cosmogony with all its
incredibilities and historical adjuncts (in which no party really
believed), was to be taught or not, seemed to me to indicate a
want of seriousness on these matters, or in other words an
indifference to intellectual truth for its own sake, which could
not have existed twenty years ago.

.'550

ISOr.ATION AND DKIMIKSHFON.

But whether the <leeline of interest in seriouH thoijj^ht wiis duc!
to one or other of the ahovc! eaiiHeH, or wiicther it existed only
in my own iniajfiniition, ee:"tiiin it is timt the belief in it,
eonibined with the depression from which I was su(l'i;riM<:f, made
me quite h)se interest in my work, and I no h)nger eared to go
on with my * History ' as beff)r('. I had now, too, passed my
forty -fifth birthday, and had liki! ( 'hai .s Lamb for some vinu-
seen the * skirts of the departiiij^ years' with a kind of horror;
and now tiiat Hke Tolstoi I bej^an to feel that I was fi<rlitin<r on
a declining <lay, 1 had n« longiM- any wish to prcjtraot the
struggle any further. I had lived for an ideal in which no one;
now seemed to believe ; and I Wiis too old Ut embrace a second
love ; the best of life had becni driuik already, and like MaeOeth
there was now nothing lefi, but the lees to bmg of. I grew
restless ami dissatisfied, and the rounds of my medical practice
which had been so gveat a pleasure and relaxation to me, were
now as odious anil monotonous as the rounds of a [)rison-yard.
My first imi)ulse was to break through it all ; I often longed to
return to the wild life of my boyhood ; and when I heard of any
mischief afoot in the Cape or elsewhere, could I have had my
youth back again, and been free from family ties, I should have
embarked without delay. At times, and especially when
chased by the hell-hounds of fear, and when I imagined 1 saw
<lcgx"adation and ruin in the wind, there would come over me a
vision of death, soft and gentle and persuasive as sleep, and
bringing with it a composure and peace, if only for moments,
which were infinitely restful and refreshing to me — a vision
which seemed to enfold me in an atmosphere sweet as that
which exhaled from a statue of Love which used to stand
in my boyhood in an open glade at the entrance to a wood, and
which with the fallen autumnal leaves that mingled at its feet
seemed to breathe peace and rest on all who entered it ; — and
with Whitman I could have chanted an ode to Death.

In the meantime I was pushing on by day and by night my
* History of Intellectual Development,' which had now become

■^

ISOLATION AND DKPKESSIOX.

551

irksome to the point of niiusoa; fully (Icterinined that if tlic
first volume of it did not succeed, I would not <^o on with it.
liut the inuncdiiitc success of the work, and the assistance and
en(!oura<(ement {^iven me hy the Treasury, seemed to lift the
clouds that had so lonrr encompassed me, and I was soon myself
ajiain. I started at oncc' citllecrinj' materials for the second
volume, but a»^ain the strain l)e<(an to tell on me. This time,
I'owever, it was my sijjjht ; njists began to appear before my
eyes ; and 1 was advised that to arrest the progress of the disease
and give myself a chance of recovery, entire rest from reading
was necessary. It was then that to oiiploy myself I set to work
to finish this Autobiogiaphy.

Before closing this volume I had intended to attempt some
forecast of the probable direction of lieligious Thought in the
fjiture, now that a return to the older forms of Supernaturalism
is impossible, and Science is unable of itself to satisfy the souls
of men. Hut on second thoughts I have felt that it would be
better to reserve tliis for the last volume of my ' History of
Intellectual Development' where the whole course of evolution
that leads up to it, and on which the judgment is based, will be
before the reader.

' ''I

The End.

■MHnni^nP!

Uac

INDEX.

AddiHon. 'Spectator 'of...
Apologists, • evidences ' of
Aristocracies, characteristics of "
Aristotle, astronomical conceptions of
Arnold, Matthew...

tlie great doctrine of

on Shakspeare, Keats. St. jieuve, Macauiay
" preferences of ... -^

his estimates of Comte and En.erson ■""
on the religion of the Jews...
. •' a central thought of

Antolnography, why I wrote an ..'.' .";;

Uacon, .Alacaulay on

" ^Metaphysicians and

•• ^V^orldly wisdom of '"

.. on Nature...
method of...
,. on World-inol)lem

iJaer von, Herbert Spencer and'""
lialance.s, law of .

Jiawerk, Hoehm. ' Capitaland Int. rest"'

eccher, Henry Ward, preaching of

ehet, SIX instances of, not knowledge"'
lientham on moral sense...
Herkeley, theory of

Hil)le, early associations with

Bronte, CharJ-tte ...

r, , , " Hutton's estimate of

iJuckle

Butler's ' Analogy '

PAGK

:i28
■Jti8

;!19

522

52;J

524

525

526

518

... 295
... 40(j
■l<t7, 121
... 4i;{
406, 419
415, 421
... 471
... 451
... 514
... 18;{
... 4.38
... 3.57
... im
1.59-162

... :n4

... .528
... 179
... 177

^mmm

o54

INDEX.

PAGE

Cairns

Political Economy of

510

Carlyle

, ' Sartor' of

181

»>

' Latter Day Pamphlets ' of

377

Style of

;57«

Morality of

;i7!)

»>

on World -prol)lem

381

»»

visit to

383

t T

portraits of

384

on doctors

385

^ ,

on Mill and Buckle

380

»»

on his home life

387

on Christianity

388

t »

on Spencer

38»

t ♦

his ' Life of Sterling' ...

389

» •

Secret of diatiibes

390-392

J J

on ' Characteristics '

391

»t

on transition sges

391

1»

on age of machinery . . .

392

» »

method of

4ia

on ' Heroes'

423

» *

on Action

422

» »

God and Nature accordinfj to

4ri4

» »

I ask advice of, on publishing

462

»»

I select, and Emerson to write on

474

» »

address of, to Edinburgh Students

496

• •

Ruskin and, on Political Economy

512

Causality, or»aii of

139

» »

what, depends on

204

Cau.sation, Scientific, rests on fteZ»/

440

Cause,

Will as

453

Cliurcl

, Catholic, and Platonism

321

,, effect of Science on

322

„ leans on metaphysicians

358

,, Newman on

426

Cliurcl

ill. Lord Randolph

494, 496

, , the Press and

499

Civilizi

ition , 1 study problem of

48(t

Carlyle and Emerson on

480

factors in

482. 481

, ,

effect of fonns of Government on

482

' Civilization and Progress ' failure of

503

,, the ♦ Spectator' reviews...

506

Classical education

212, 214

Comte,

1 begin study of

484

INDEX.

5,55

PAGE
... 510

... 181

... 377

... ;$7«

... ;i7!)

... '.m

... :?HIJ

... mi

... ;i85

... mo

... mi

... 388

... ;589

... 389
390-392

... 391

... 392

... 419

... 423

... 422

... 4r)4

... 462

... 474

... 496

... 512

... 139

... 204

... 440

... 453

... 321

... 322

... 358

... 426
494, 496

... 499

... 480

... 480
482, 481

... 482

... 503

... 506
212, 214

... 484

Condillac, system of

( 'onscience as proof of God , etc.

>. Materialists on

' (>'^'"ntry Parson,' Recreations of a

Daemonic, the

Darwin, • Ori^rjn of Species ' of .'."' [[_
.. Xatural Selection of, degraded

Democracies, Characteristics of

Descartes, theory of

Dickens, works of

Diderot on iMoral .Sense ...
Divine, the

Dundas, Sir David

Kliot, Georire

~ •'• •»• ,.,

Ilutton's estimate of

Kmerson, difficulty of understanding .'"■ ■' "■
r^ on ' p]xperience '

Key to ' Experience '

quotations from

Carlyleand ...

Seer looked for by

World problem according to
.. on Action

.. ^'od and Nature according to
Essayists, style of, compared

Kvil as instrument of Individuation

Iwolutiou. effects of doctrine of, on pri.ent di;y lite;^.. .

417

PAOE

838
341
358
18»

... 502-
... 241
... 443
265-267
... 83:>
... 216
... 357
... 452
... 40O

314

528
394
... 395
... 3()(i
... 397
... 399
... 414
411), 424
... 424
... 454
304-308
... 441
... 548

18i

Keeling, comiexion of Oliservation
Power of Language and
,. Relation between Intellect
Feelings of the mind

Fichte, system of

M failure of ...
Flaubert, realism of
Force, i)ersisteDce of ..

ind
and

... 204

... 206

-^07, 294

... 192

42-344,

253-256.

347
350
405
527

H I

r)56

INDEX.

VMIV.

George Henry, Political Economy of r)I3

„ ,, theory of Interest of 514

Ociilinx, theory of ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 333

<ll(idatone, ' Vatican Decrees' and 408

(lod and Nature according to Hegel, Goethe, Emerson, and Carlyle 4.54

♦ God Of Force,' I publish, at last 470

Goethe, on problem of life ... ... ... ... ... ... 401

special doctrine of 401

,, Carlyle and Emerson could not assimilate ... 402

,, my attitude towards ... ... ... ... ... ... 404

great themes and ... ... .. ... ... ... 40.")

,, on practical problem ... ... ... ... ... ... 421

,, varied standpoints of ... ... 413,419

,, God and Nature according to 4.54

Gunton, Political Economy of ... ... ... ... ... ... 515

Hartnmnn, von

Haziitt, as critic

,, style of

Head Master

teaching of the ...

Hegel, system of ...

,, Spencer and, eorai)ared ...

,, conception of the Deity ...

,, on Ideals

., on Mind and Matter

,. Bacon compared with ...

,, on ' the Notion '

,, on God and Nature ...

,, aloofncHS of d'sciples of
Hell, fear of, effect on present day literature of
Ilelvetius on conscience ...
Historians, I read the

,, no help on World-Problem

History the way it was taught ...
Ilobson, Mummery and, the Political Economy of
Hume on moral sense "...
Ilutton as critic and thinker

,, his strongest theological standpoint ...

., his literary criticisms ...
Huxley, * Lay Sermons ' of

,, Scale in the Mind and

... 364

307

308

117

:ir.), 214
350-3.56
... 355

356

3.56

354, 308, 455

400

412

454

475

54!l

.357

313

... 313

213

515
357
527
528
528
242
4(i5

510.

ini)p:x.

:)i)i

513
514

:]33
408
454
470
401
401
402
404
405
421
3,419
454
515

.. 364

.. 307

.. 308

.. 117
13, 214
50-356

. . 355

.. 356

.. 356
[58, 455

.. 406

.. 412

.. 454

.. 475

.. 54;»

.. 357

.. 313

.. 213
10. 515

,.. 357

... 527

,.. 528

... 528

... 242

... 4(!5

Hnxli-y. Tyndall an.l. and Danvin's disciples ...
Miittlu-w xV mold and, compared
Aijnosticisni and Idealism of, retrograde

., on Cansation

liiblical Criticisms of ...

lilt'al. effect of Ilerhert Spencer on the

,. '"^lodern Pliiloso|iliy no support for
liow to fiiid

.. niy .serrcl) for the

.. how Poetic Thinkers found it in "the mind

.. to find the, in the mind

M to find the, in the World

M tl'o Scale in the Minil as the

.. when, is found

., the ascent to the

Meals, false \

rnimor^aiity, my belief in. shaken

I ■ "»r ,I"'''''^'"'''M'i'iid8 on theory of Soul
Irving, Washington

Isolation, rny intellectual ..^

Jacobi, system of

'h'vom, Political Econony of

Kant. -Critique of Pure Reason ' of

system of ...

criticism of

Haeon compared with
Knowledge, metaphysicians on ...
,, Hegel on

I-aw of the mind, to discover a

as standpoint of interpretation
compared with physical law
>» what I mean by a

PAGF!

476
526
526
526
527

2(;]

328

373

382

42!)

430. 4.3.3, 440
.. 432, 441

433

4.56

5.37

449

274

319

... 215
... 542

344
511

... -J-M',
■3;i9-;t42. .347

... ;;.")(>

... 4(16
33I-;{;M
... ;;5i

186, urn

186, 210

191, 194

... 192

:)58

INDEX.

I'AdE

liiiw of the mind, wliy nietaphysics cannot fjivc inwiglit into a ... I'.CJ
Law of Polarity, advantaj,'e of, over Spencer's law of Evolution ... 471

,, of Wills and Causes 484

Leibnitz, sclienie of 'XW

Linton, Mrs. Lynn, advice of 60<)

Locke, .schenie of ... ... .'{35, ;J38

Macaulay, liniitivtions of

293

,, curious theory of

29(5

,, ills criticisms

297

,, style of

298, 491

Malebranche, theory of ...

333, 337, 340

Mallock, Political Kconomy of

517

Alarshall, Political Economy of

510

Martineau, I)r

475

Marx Karl , Socialism of .. .

.. 512, 513

Material and Social Conditions

482

Materialists on Beauty, Love, etc

357

Medical Aid Societies

539

Medical Council

.. 5;{9, 541

Medical practice, my choice of a

538

Medicine, compared with Philosophy

.. 278

,, method of

282

,, effect on mind of

284

Meredith, George

492

Me^^aiihysics, no insight into laws of mind by

193

,, lectures on

23(i

Metaphysicians, modern, and the mind

329, 331-338

,, on Knowledge...

331-338

,, method of

359

,, criticism of method of

... 36()

,, weakness of scheme of

368

Mill, .John Stuart

180

,, Superseded by ,'>pencer

475

„ Political Economy of

51(1, 535

,, intellectual views of .. .

534

,, characteristics of

.535

, , i)08ition of

530

Mills the, on the moral sense

3.-)7

Mind, how can Matter act on V ...

... 332

,, Spinoza's attributes of

334

,, as cause of Matter

330, 337

,, Matter as cause of

.338

INDEX.

Miiifl, Fichtc on, and Matter

.. Schellin^r on, and Matter ...

• • Hegel on, and MatttT ... ..."

,, w/wfc, as stjindpoint ...

.. Ji'/'^'fe. needed to find Ideal

Morley, John, writings of ...

M differences between Conite and
.. on Compromise

as a practical statesman
'""storical studies of
Mummery and Ilol.son, Political Econoiny of"* .'.■.■

N
Nature, laws of, rest on helirf
Newman, Cardinal, a Poetic Thinker '.'.'.

wliy I was not in sympathy with

falls bacli on Revelation

" ' Apolof,'ia ' of

" ' Illative Sense ' of

method of interi)reting World of

method of, compared with Materialists"
on Catholic Church

v„ * ■' , '"^^^'''""''"''solutionof World-mohlom
Newton, my admiration of " w piooiem

I'AOK

;i42

;U8

;}«), 45r)

;J71, 42(», 43(>

.'!73

iy>\)

... ii.SO
... Ml
... M2

... 5;s.'i
fill*, sift

... 4;{9

... 4(IH

... 40!)

. 415

... 418

... 420

418, 424

... 420

... 425

... 424

... 130

Organon, Tliysical Science as
Othello ...

43(), 438, 440
195

Pater, Walter, on Plato

Personal Equation, the

effect of, in my own case.
" to let the reader see the .

Phrenology, discrepancies of

metaiihysics compared to ...
.. influence of ...

my forecasts of men by
my rejection of

Piety, my want of

Plato, why, useless for my purpose
„ effect of scheme of, ou Immorkility

... 325
... 232
409, 481
... 519
... 14(i
166, 193
... 17fi
... 187
... 198
. . 4()9
... 318
... ;!2f>

560

INDKX.

I'AdI'.

PlatoTiism, effect of Science on ... ... ;t22

Poetic Thinkers, mode of regarding' World of ... ... 411, U!)

,, consequence of Method of 421

,, ditferenees of, on //;v(r//(y(/ |)rol)lein ... ... 421

,, why tiiey could not solve the problem for nu; ... 428

,, Mind according to ... 428

on the Ideal in th(' World 429

Political Kcononiists to lie read! 510

Press-made reputations ... 497

,, ruhlic and the 499

Professors, teachini4' of the ... ... ... ... ... 226, 23.'i

I'unch, cartoons of ... 121)

<iuincey de, Macanlay and, compared 304

,, literary style of ;}0()

Quotations, my favourite .'509, .")12

Ilea, Lord ...

lleligion, my indifference to

■ the, of the Future ' I i)ul)lish
of tlie Jews, Matthew .Vrnold on
Hicardo
Itomanos on • Natural Selection '

llossetti ...

Iluskin on the • Mill on the Floss'

,, on Political l']conomy

,, Carlylo on

400

169,

178,

lot)

478

480

625

610

414

429

512

5;{4

Scale in the mind, the ...

,, Materialists cannot assume ...

,, Matoriiilists cannot account for

,, Spencer ignores

Schelling, system of

,, criticism of ...

Scliool Board Election and Mo.saic Cosmogony

Schopenhauer on the Will ...

,, .system of ...

,, on the Ideal

43!$
435
435
435
347
349
549
300
•Ml
3G2

hNDEX.

«elf-Cojif.{.iou8i.c88 as cniise of exteroiil world
»» Ile^'el on the

.. ,, „ , " 0*" ^^*^i^^^ 'i"d Kant coinpart'd ..

hi'lf Help, Smiles', effect on me of

Slmkspeare. Lectures on ...

I)liink verse of

., Alattliew Arnold on

Smith, Adam, on moral Hense

M Political Kcononiy of

-Spencer, Herbert, ' First Principles ' of ''. \[]

Pnnciples of Psychology ...
" on the moral sense ...

" ^^iicon and, con)|)ared

f'l' Scale in the :\Iind ignored i)v ...

law of Evolution of, compared with law
" why I wrote on

" "lyirticle on, almost accepted
"n the ' Persistence of Force '
opnioza, scheme of

Stephen, Leslie, as a Thinker

Students, my fellow

Style, literary

.. dependence of, on feeliiifr ...

It faults in m}'

M t'fforts to im])rove my

the, of the future ^ '

depends on pictorial power
,. I'orrows from other arts
Swinburne

5l\l

I'AOH

Sf)!

n.i-j

i;j(»

2;ii>

490

f)2->

;;57

olO

■Jl'J, 2bry

-JM

:u>7

4()H

4;{5

of Polarity 471

474

47(i

r)-jn

[>:]:',

2'J'J

■M4, 2!»7, :vj(i

487

488

iH'y

491

4!»2

41»2-

'^l>

Tas.sie, Dr.

Tendencies

Tennyson ...
Thackeray...

,. his love stories

Tolstoi, realism of
Tullocli Principal as Editor

•••

117

44i>

. 44i;

:!I4

•••

IL^!)

4(»r)

477

Unity of Plan

^'F

■lr>2

^62

IM)K.\.

Whitiimn, Walt

Will, Schoponliiiucr on tlic

,, we muHt aHSUine II Supremo

Wills and CauscH, law of

Working man, condition of the...

World, ConHtituti(m of the

,, the Divine in the ...

,, Public Nature of the

VVorid-problem, importance of answer to

,, modern i)hilo8()phy and

,, superficiality of man's knowledge of

,, Poetic Thinkers on 411,

,, what it concerns

,, (Joethe on

,, Carlyie on

,, Bacon on

,, Emerson on ...

,> differences between I'oetic Thinkers on

., standpoint of interpretation of

I'AdK

...

... 20(1
... .%(l

• . •

... i&:i

• ••

... 484

* * *

... 27i{

. . .

... 4ol

. . *

... 4o;{

... 46;{

;!i!i

, ;J24-:{26

...

... :i27

...

... 412

, 4ir,,

41«, 420

,,,

... 412

* . •

418, 41(1

414,

416, 41!»

• .•

41.-), 41<»

417,

41 !l, 424

,,,

... 421

:;7i,

420, 4;!(;

Zola, realism of

405

PAOK

800

46!{

484

. • •

27:5

• * •

451

45;{

* • •

451!

n24

-.•i2G

• • •

;{27

> * ■

412

418,

420

• ••

412

n:{

41(1

■tl6

41!)

415

419

4111

424

• *.

421

420

4;((;

405

Abbott (fc

(T. (

■ (E. /

Acland (A

Acton (El

Adeane (J

"fischylus

Ainger (A.

Albemarle

Allen (Gra

Allinghain

Amos (S.)

Andru (R.)

Anstey (F.)

Archer (W,

Aristophan

Aristotle -

Armstrong

Savage)

-— (E.I.S

Arnold (Sir

-— (Dr. T.

Ashbourne (

Ashby (H.)

Ashley (\V.

■■itflt'erilti L'\

of, . . ■

Ayre (Rev. J

Bacon

Baden-Powel
Bagehot (W.;

H Classificb Catalogue

OF WORKS IN

GENERAL LITERATURE

FUULISHKU HY

LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.

39 PATKRNOSTKR ROW, LONDON, E.G.

91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK, and ^2 HORNBY ROAD, BOMBAY.

CONTENTS.

BADMISTUN LIBRARY (THE). -
BIOGRAFHY, PERSONAL ME-
MOIRS, &c.

CHILDREN'S HOOKS

CLASSICAL LITERATURE TRANS-
LATIONS, ETC. . . . -

COOKERY, DOMESTIC MANAGE-
MENT, &c.

EVOLUTION, ANTHROPOLOGY,

fAOb
10

iH
28

FICTION, HUMOUR, Ac. - - - 21

FUR, FEATHER AM) FIX SERIES 12
HISTORY, POLITICS. POLITY,

POLITICAL MEMOIRS, &c. - - 3

LANGUAGE, HISTORY AND
SCIENCE OF 16

LOXOMASS- SERIES OF HOURS
FOR (URLS 26

MAXUALS OF CATHOLIC PHIL-
OSOPHY 16

ECO

MENTAL, MORAL, AND POLITICAL
PHILOSOPHY

MISCELLANEOUS AND CRITICAL
WORKS ....

MISCELLANEOUS THEOLOGICAL
WORKS ....

POETRY AND THE DRAMA

POLITICAL ECONOMY AND
NOMICS ....

POPULAR SCIENCE .

SILVER i.UiRARY (THE)

SPORT AND PASTIME .

STLDIES IX ECONOMICS AND

POLITICAL SCIENCE
TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE, THE

COLONIES, &c.
VETERINARY MEDICINE, &c.
WORKS OF REFERENCE -

14
29

27
10

8
10
25

INDEX

I'lig,'

Abbott (Evelyn)

3.>S

(T. K.) - -

(E. A.) -

Acland (A. H. U.) -

Acton (Eliza) -

AdeaneiJ. H.)-

il-schvlus

Ainger (A. C.) -

Albemarle (Earl of) -

Allen (Grant) -

Allinghain (E.)

Amos (S.)

Andre (R.)

Anstey (F.)

Archer (W.) -

Aristophanes -

Aristotle -

14, 18

Arrrstrong (G. F.

Savage)

■ (E.J. Savage) 7,

Arnold (Sir Edwin) -

it),zq

8, ig

(Dr. T.) - -

Ashbourne (Lord) -

.\shby iH.)

Ashley (W.J.) -

AMuriiuLys( Author

ofi-

Ayre '.Rev. J.) -

Bacon

7. 14

Baden-Powtll (B. H.)

Bagehot (\V.) - 7,

16, 29

OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS.

Bagwell (K.) - - 3

Bain (Alexander) - 14
Baker (Sir S. \V.) ■ 8, ro ;
Balfour (A. J.) - 11,31 ■

BalKlohnl - ■ 8i

(J.T.) - ■ 3:

Baring-Gould (Rev. 1

S.) ... 27, 29 I

Harraud iC. \V.) - ly
Baynes (T. S.) - - 29
BcaconsHeld (Earl of) ai
Beaufort (Duke of) - 10, ti
Becker (\V. A.) - 18

Beddard (F. H.) - 24
Bell (Mrs. Hugh) - ly

(Mrs. Arthur) ■ r

Bent (J. Theodore)
Besant (Sir Walter)
Bickerdyke (J.)
Bicknell (A. C.)
Bird (R.) -
Bland (Mrs. Hubert)
Boasc (Rev. C. W.)
Boedder (Rev. B.)
Bosanquet (B.) .,

Boyd (Rev. A. K. H.) 29, 32
Brassey (Lady) - 9

(Lord) 3,8,11,16

Bray (C. and Mrs.) - 14
Bright (Rev. J. F.) - 3
Broadfoot (Major W.) 10
Briigger (W. C ^ - 8

Browning (H. Ellen) 9
Buck (H. A.) - - n
Huckland (Jas.) - 25
Buckle (H. T.)- - 3
Huckton (C. M.) 2.S
Bull (T.) - - - 28
Burke (U. R.) - - 3
Burrows (Montagu) 4
Butler (E. A.) - - 24
(Samuel) - ■ 18,29

Cameron of Lochiel 12

Campbell (Rev. Lewis) 18

Camperdown(EarloO 7

Cannan (E.) - - 17

Channint; (F. A.) - if)

Chesney (Sir G.) - 3

Chisholm (G. G.) - 25
Cholmondeley-Pennell

(II.) ... II

Churchill (W.Spencer) 9

Cicero - - . 18

Clarke (Rev. R. F.) - 16

Clodd (Edward) ■ 17

Clutterbuck (W. J.)- 9

Coleridge (S. T.) - 19

Comparetti (D.) - 18

Comyn (L. N.) ■ 26

Conington (John) - 18

Conway (Sir W. M.) 11
Conybeare(Rev.W.J.)

& Howson (Dean) 27

I'age

Coolidfje (W. A. B.) 8

Corbett (Julian S.) - 3

Corder (Annie) - 19

Coutis (W.) • - 18

Coventry (A.) - - 11

I Cox (Harding) - 10

I Crake (Rev. A. D.) - 25

I Creiirhton (Bishop)- 3, 4

; Crozier (J. B.l - - 14

; Cuningham (G. C.) ■ 3

I Curzon of Kedleston

(Lord) ... 3

Custance (Col. H. - 12

Cutts (Rev. E. L.) . 4

Dallinger (I". W.) - 4

Davidson (W. L.) 14, 16, 32

Davies(J F.) - - 18

Del.-ind (Mrs ) . - 21, ■;.'.

Dent (C. T.) - . 11

Deploigc (S ) - . 17

De Salis (Mrs.) - a8, 39

De Tocqueville(A.) • 3

Devas (C. S.) - - 16

Dickinson (G. L.) - 4

Diderot - - - 21

Dougall (L.) - - 21

Douglas (Sir G.) - 19

Dowden (E.) - - 31

Doyle (A. Conan) - 21

Dreyfus (Irma) - 30

Du Bois (W. E. B.),- 4

I6, 2

21
10
12
12
21

4
II

.1"

1,21
24

17
4

12
20
12
13
14
32
21

INDEX OF

Page
Dufferin (Marquis of) 11
Dunbar (Mary F.) - 20

Eardley-Wilniot (Capt.

S.) - - - 8

Ebrington (Viscount) 12

Ellis (J. H.) - - 12

(R. L.) - - 14

Evans (Sir John) - 30

Farrar (Dean) -
Fitzwynram (Sir F.
Folkard (H. C.)
Ford (H.) -
Fowler (Edith H.) -
Foxcroft (H. C.)
Francis (Francis)
Freeman (Edward A.)
I-reshfield (D. \V.) -
Frothingham (A. L.)
Froude (James A.) 4, 7,
Furneaux (\V.)

Gallon (W. F.)
Gardiner (Samuel R.)
Gathorne-Hardy (Hon.

A. E.)
Gerard (Dorothea) -
Gibbons (I. S.)
Gibson (Hon. H.) -

(C. H.) -

(Hon. W.)

Gilkes (A. H.I -
Gleip (Rev. G. R.) -
Goethe
Gore-Booth (Eva) -

(Sir H. W.) -

Graham (P. A.) - 13,

(G. F.) -

Granby (Marquis of)
Grant (Sir A.) -
Graves (K. \'.) -
Green (T. Hill)
Greville (C. C. F.) -
Grey (Maria)
Grose (T. H.) -
Gross (C.)
Grove (F. C.) -

(Mrs. Lilly)

Gurdon (Ladv Camilla)
Gwilt (J.) - ' -

Haegard (H. Rider) 21, 22
Hake (O.) - - - 11
Halli\vell-l'hillipps(J.)
Hamlin (A. D. F.) -
Hammond (Mrs. J. H.)
Harding (S. B.)
Harte (Bret) -
Harting'J.E.)-
Hartwii; (G.) -
Hassall (A.) -
Haweis (Rev. H. R.)
Heath (D. D.) -
Heathcote (J. M.and

C. G.)
Helmholtz (Hermann

von) -
Henderson (Lieut-
Col. G. F.)
Henry (W.) -
Henty (G. A.) -
Herbert (Col. Kenney)
Hewins (W. A. S.) -
Hill (Svlvia M.)
Hillier (G. Lacy) -
Hime (Lieut. -Col. H.

\V. L.)
Hodgson (S'.iadworthH.) 14
Holroyd (Maria J.) -
Homer
Hope (Anthony)

AUTHORS AND

I Page

Hutchinson (Horace G.) 11

Ingelow (Jean - 19, a6

lames (W.) - - 14

Jefferies (Richard) - 30

Jerome (Jerome K.) - 22

lohnson (J. & J. H.) 30

Jones (H. Bence) - 2j

Jordan (W. L.) - i6

Jowett (Dr. B.) - 17

Joyce (P. W.) - 5, 22, 30

Justinian - - - 14

Kalisch (M. M.) ■ 32

Kant (I.) - - - 14

Kaye (Sir J. W.) - 5

Kerr (Rev. J.) - - 11

Killick(Rev. A.H.)- 14

Kingsley (Rose G.) - 30

Kitchin (Dr. G. VV.) 4
Knight (E. F.)
Kiistlin (J.)

- 9, 1 1
7

Horace

Hnrnung (E. VV.) -

Houston (D. F.)

Howell (Ci.) -

If)

Howitt (\V.> -

Hudson (W. H.) ■

Hullah (J.l

Hume (I'Javid) -

Hunt (Rev. W.)

(F. W.)

(G. H.) - -II,

Lowell (A. 1..) -

Lubbock (Sir John) -

Lucan

Lutoslawski (\V.) -

Lvall (Edna) -
: Lyttelton (Hon. R. H.)
. (Hon. A.) -

■ Lytton (Earl of)

' Ma' aulay (Lord) 5, (5,

■ MacCoU (Canon) -
Macdonald (G.)

(Dr. G.) - - 20,

Macfarren (Sir G. A.)
Mackail (J. W.)
Mackinnon (J.)
Macleod (H. D.)
Macphcson (Rev. H. A.
Madden (D. H.)
Maher (Rev. M.) -
Malleson(Col. G.B.)
Marbot (Baron de) -
Marquand i.\.) -
Marshman (j. C.)
Martineau (Dr. James)
Maskelyne (J. N.) -
Maunder (S.) -
Max Miiller (F.)

i 7, 15, 16, 30,

I (Mrs 1

Mav (Sir T. Erskine)

.Meade (1.. T.) -

Melville (G.j.Whvte)
\ Merivalc (Dean)
J Merrimi 1 H. S.) -
I Mill ( lames',

(John Stuart) - 15

MilnertG.)

MissMiillviAi.tlwro/)

Mo;tat (b.)

Molesworih (Mis.) -

MoncktW. H, S.) ■

Montague (F. C.) -

EDITORS

Page

12
as

"4
17

■7
7

Ladd (G. T.)

Lang (Andrew) 5, 10, 11, 13,
17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 26, 30, 32
Lascelles (Hon. G.)

10, 11,12
Laughton (I. K.) - 8

Laurence (f. W.) - 17
Lawley (Hon. F.) - 11
Layard (Nina F.) - 19 '
Leaf (Walter) - - 31
Lear (H. L. Sidney)- 29
Leckv (\V. E. H.) - 5, 19
Lees (J. A.) - - 9
Lejeune (Baron) - 7 1

Leslie (T. E. Cliffe) - 16
Lester (L. V.) - - 7

Levett-Veats (S.) - 12 '
Lillie (A.)- - - 13
Lindlev(j.) - - 25
Lodge'(H. C) - - 4

Loftie (Rev. \V. J.) - 4
Longman (C. J.) 10,12,30
13

12 ;
5'
17 ■
18

22
ICI
II
19

9
32
30
iS

6
16
)I2
13
16

32:

'3i
25;

-32!

26,
22

, 17

3'
26

■3
26

Montagu (Hon. John

Scott)
Moore (T.)

(Rev. Edward) -

Morgan (C. Lloyd) -
Morris (W.)

(Mowbray)

Mulhall (M. G.)
Munk (\V.)

Nansen (F.)
Nesbit (E.)
Nettleship (R. L.) -
Newdigate - Newde-

gateiLady) - 8
Newman (Cardinal) - 22

Ogle(\V.)- - - 18

Oliphant (Mrs.) - 22

Oliver (VV. D.) - 9

Onslow (Earl of) - 11

Orchard (T. N.) - 31

Osbourne (L) - - 23

Park(VV.) - - 13

Parr (Louisa) - - 26
Pavne-Gallwev (Sir

■ K.) - ' - - II, 13
Peek (Hedley) - - 11
Pembroke (Earl of) - 11
Phillipps-VVoUey (C.) 10,22
Pitman (C. M.) - 11
Pleydell-Bouverie (E. O.) 1 1

continued.

Smith (T. C.) - - 4

(W. P, Haskett) 9

SolovyofI (V . S.) - 31
Sophocles - - 18

-, Soulsby (Lucy H.) 26,31
20, 22, 31 Spedding (J.) - - 7, 14

II Stanley (Bishop) - 24
Steel (A. G.) - - 10

(J.H.) - - 10

Stephen (Leslie) - 9
Stephens (H. Morse) 6
Stevens (R. VV.) - 31
Stevenson (R. L.) - 23, 26
Stock (St. George) - 15
'Stonehenge' - - 10
Storr (F.) - - - 14
Stuart-VVortIi;y(A.J.)ii,i2

Pole (W ) -
Pollock (VV. H.)
Poole (VV.H. and Mrs.)
I'oore (G. V.) -
Potter (J.)

Prae^'er (S. Rosamond)
Prevost (C.)
Pritchett (R. T.) -
Proctor (K A.) 13, 24,

Quill (A. VV.) -

Raine (Rev. James) -
Ransome (Csril) - 3
Rauschenbusch-Clough

(Emma)
Rawiinson (Rev.

Canon)
Rhoai'fs(|.)
Rhoscomvl (O.)
Ribblesdale (Lord) -
Rich (A.) -
Richardson (C.)
Richman (I. B.)
Richmond (linnis) -
Richter (J. Paul) -
Rickaby (Rev. John)

(Rev. Joseph) -

Ridley (SirE.) -
Riley (J. VV.) -
Roget (Peter M.)
Rolfsen (N.) -
Romanes (G. J.)
8, 15

(Mrs.)

Ronalds (A.)
Roosevelt (T.) -
Rossetti (Vlaria Fran
cesca)

(VV. M.) -

Rowe (R. P. P.)
Russell (Bertrand) -

(.\lys) - -

(Rev, M.) -

Stubbs (J. VV.)-
Suffolk I'i Berkshire

(Earl of) -
Sullivan (Sir E.)

(J.F.) - -

Sully (James) -
Sutherland (.\. and G )

(Alex.)

Suttner (B. von)
Swinburne (A. J.) -
Symes (J. E.) -

Tacitus

Tavlor (Col. Meadows)
Tebbutt (C. G.)
Thornhill (\V. J.) -
Thornton (T. H.) -
Todd (A.) -
Toynbee (A.) -
Trevelyan (Sir G. O.)

(C. P.) - -

Trollope (Anthony) -
Tupper (J. L.) -
Turner (ri. G.)
TvndalKJ.)
TyrrelKR. Y.)-
Tyszkiewicz (M.) -

UptonC^.K.and Bertha)

Van D\ke (J. C.) -
Verney (Frances P.
and Slargaret M.,
Virgil

Vivekananda (Swami)
Vivian (Herbert)

II
26

'5
6

■ 15.31

I8
6
II

7.9

31
26

16
16

- 16, 25

17, 20, 32

17 1

Saintsburv (G.)
Sandars (t. C.)
Sari^ent lA. J.)-
Schrciner (S. C. Cron-

wright)
Seebohiu iF.i -
Sel()us(K. C.) -
Sewell (Elizabeth M.)
Shakespeare
Shand (A 1.) -
Sharpe (R. R.) -
Shearman (M.)
li Sinclair (A.) -
6 Smith (R. Bosworth)

Wakeman (H. O.) -
Walford (L. B.)
I Walker (jane H.) -

^J ' Wallas (Graham) -

^ ' Walpole (Sir Spencer)
Walrond (Col. H.) -
Walsingham (Lord) -
VVal'er(J.)

VVai ick (Countess of)
Watson (A. E.T.)

10, II, 12, i;
Webb (Mr. and Mrs.
Sidney)

(T. 1-:.) - - i.i,

Weber (A.)
Weir (Capt. R.>
VVevman (Stanley) -
VVhaiely(Archbishopl 14

(E.' jane) •

Whishaw (F.) -
White (VV. Hale)

''■ j Whitelaw (R.) -

-°l VVilcocks{J.C.)
' Wilkins (G.) -
VVillich(C. M)
Wills (Freem&n) ■''

VVitham (T. .M.l - :'
Wood (Rev. J. (}.) - ^i
Wood-Martin (VV. G.) (J
WoodsiMariiaret L") 23
Wordsworth (Elizabeth) J6

(William I- ■ -"

VVvatt(A.J.) - ■ -'*
WylicMj.H.) -

Vouatt (VV.) • • '

Zellfx(E.) • - '

12
14

6.8

23
20
12
6
10, II
II

■ 2C, 31
I,'
13

iS
2";

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