STUDIES
NEW AND OLD
OF
ETHICAL AND SOCIAL SUBJECTS.
BY
FRANCES POWER COBBE.
BOSTON:
WILLIAM V. SPENCER.
1866.








PREFACE.
THE Essays in the present volume have been
composed at intervals during the last three years.
Though of a somewhat miscellaneous character,
they are all, strictly speaking, ethical studies, developments in various directions of the views of
morals advocated in the author's earlier works.
F. P. C.
London, May, 1865.




CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST      3
(Reprinted from the Theological Review.)
BELF-DEVELOPMENT AND SELF-ABNEGATION..   49
(Now first published.)
THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS..   89
(Now first published.)
THE PHILOSOPHY OP THE POOR-LAWS...  147
(Reprinted from Fraser's Magazine.)
THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES   211
(Reprinted from Fraser's Magazine.)
THE MORALS OF LITERATURE..... 261
(Reprinted from Fraser's Magazine.)
THE HIERARCHY OF ART.......               289
(Reprinted from Fraser's Magazine.)
DECEMNOVENARIANISM.....   359
(Reprinted from Fraser's Magazine.)
HADES...........        397
(Reprinted from Fraser's Magazine.)




CHRISTIAN ETHICS
AND
THE ETHICS OF CHRIST.
Reprinted from the Theological. Review, Sept. 1864.








THE fundamental truths of morality and religion
can never be traced to individual original teachers.
Intuitions of them dawn faintly in the mind of the
savage, and become gradually brighter as civilization
advances, till at last they shine out clearly in the
words of power spoken by the foremost men of each
successive age. Even in physical science we all
know there is rarely any absolutely new and original discovery. Each truth has been for some time
vaguely apprehended or suspected before the hour
arrive when some investigator, more fortunate or
more gifted than his fellows, actually digs out the
precious ore from the mountain-side, and calls aloud,
" Behold, here is gold!"-and then thousands rush
to share the treasure. But in each case of a new
truth, moral or physical, it is to him that has so discovered, so uttered it, that all mankind may profit
thereby, that our gratitude is due. It is not to
Plato who dreamed the Atlantis, nor to the wild
Vikings who first reached the western shore, but to
Columbus who added a new world to the old, that
we owe America.
And in like manner it is to the moral teachers
who have given to the light of day and the common
1 *




4                   STUDIES.
consciousness of mankind the principles vaguely
believed or half remembered before, that we justly
attribute their revelation; even though we may be
able to trace out each of their precepts in the lessons
of earlier prophets whose words have lain in the
earth as seeds never germinating.
Among the truths which a great moral teacher
brings to light, it is not impossible to distinguish
two classes. The first class consists of such as are
already current in his age and country, of which he
has merely made a selection, guided by his own
moral taste. The second consists of such as are
different from those of his age, and which he has
either caught from the sheen of some far-off tradi.
tions in the past, or else worked out altogether
from his own inner life and experience. The truths
of this second class are in a peculiar sense his
own. They are the intuitions of his deepest con,
sciousness, his "original revelation."  And when
the teacher's moral lessons are so pure and divine
that we rightly attribute them to the inspiration of
God, it is peculiarly these intuitive truths to which
we turn as the manifestations of such inspiration.
What was common to his age and country we con.
elude him to have learned by the external teaching
of his parents or masters. What was peculiar to
himself, what he was enabled to see was true in
spite of contending prejudices, that we conclude
him to have learned from the Spirit of God en.
lightening his soul,




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 5
Thus if we could separate the precepts of any
moral teacher into the two classes, and eliminating
all which was common to his time and country,
reserve only what was peculiar to himself, we should
arrive at conclusions interesting in a double point
of view. We should have on the human side a
transcript of the man himself, a portrait of his
spiritual physiognomy-not indeed as he may have
been in deed and word while "wrapped in this
muddy vesture of decay" and obeying falteringly
the law within, but as he ought to have been, as his
own soul required him to be. We should have
before us the photograph, not of the outer, but of
the "inner man."   And on the divine side we
should have the nearest approach attainable to a
record of the inspiration granted to him.. We
should see brought together the sum of his share
of the great lessons of the Divine Master whereby
the human race has been training since creation.
His rank in the hierarchy of prophets would be
determined by the fulness and importance of such
inspiration. Such a task as this is manifestly beyond our power in the case of most of the great
moral teachers of antiquity. We can rarely obtain
their genuine precepts with any completeness, and
still less often can we form a just estimate of the
current morals of their countrymen, so as to discriminate what in their teaching was common fo their
contemporaries, from what was peculiar to themselves. Half-shadowy prophets like Menu and Thoth




.6                  STUDIES.
and Zoroaster and Buddha, and even historical
philosophers like Pythagoras and Confucius and
Socrates and Zeno, are mostly too far beyond our
reach to enable us to treat their recorded precepts
by any such process as we have imagined; and in
later times, when the teacher's own doctrines might
be better ascertained, the share of them truly to be
called original would be still more impossible to
discriminate. Ancient moralists were properly Prophets of Morals; but modern ones have had little
else to do than to frame intellectual systems in
which their precepts should be properly fitted in
scientific order.
There is, however, one instance in which it would
seem that we actually possess materials for forming a
tolerably trustworthy estimate of the current morals
of the age and country in which the greatest of moral
teachers lived, and consequently of eliminating
them from his recorded precepts, retaining a residue
which shall truly represent his peculiar and proper
morality. The Old Testament prophets, the treatise
of Philo on the Essenes, the histories of Josephus,
and the Jerusalem and Babylonish Talmuds (cer?
tainly preserving the precepts of ante-christian
schools of rabbins), afford us a very large insight
into the state of thought on moral subjects in
Palestine in the first century. The careful study
and collation of these books with the Gospel parables
and precepts, as partially accomplished by German
scholars, at once reveals the identity between a




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 7
large share of Christian. doctrines and those which
were taught habitually (although with many puerile.
additions) in the Rabbinical schools of the same
period,*
* For example, as quoted by Hennell:-Targum, Hierosol.,
Genes. xxxviii. 26: Judah speaks thus, "It is better for me that'
I should be burned in this world with a little fire, than that I
should be burned in the world to come with a devouring flame.'
Debarim Rabba, sect. 7: Rabbi Simeon ben Chelpatha said, "He
who hath learned the words of the law and doeth them not, is
more guilty than he who has learned nothing. A certain king
sent two gardeners into his garden. The one planted trees, but
afterwards cut them down. The other planted nothing, and cut
down nothing. With which of these was the king wrath?"
Mechilta, fol. 32, 1: "He who created the day, created also the
food thereof. Whosoever hath whereof to eat to-day, and saith,
But shall I eat to-morrow? he is of little faith." Schabbath
(tract of the Mishna), fol, 131: "Whosoever hath mercy on
men, on him will God have mercy; but he who showeth no mercy
to men, neither to him will God show mercy." Schabbath, fol.
883: Our rabbins deliver to us, "They who receive scorn but
scorn no man, who bear reproaches and return them not, who
show love to men and rejoice in tribulations, of them the Scripture saith, They shall love Him and be as the sun going forth in
his might." Aboth R. Nathan, c. 23: " He is a hero who maketh
his enemy his friend."  Sanhedrin, fol. 48: " Suffer thyself to be
cursed, but do not thou curse others."  Synopsis, Sohar; "A
man ought every night to forgive the fault of him that offendeth
him."  Sohar, fol. 4: "Whosoever lendeth to any one in public,
with him God dealeth according to justice; but he who does it
secretly, with him rests the blessing." Sanhedrin (Mishna), fol.
43: Rabbi Jehuda ben Levi said, "Whilst the temple stood, if
any man offered a holocaust, he obtained the reward of a holocaust; if an oblation, the reward of an oblation. But if a man be
of an humble spirit, the Scriptures consider him as having offered
all sacrifices."




8                   STUDIES.
But beyond these precepts common in his age
-precepts which the Founder of Christianity no
more despised-because they were common. than he
despised the lilies which carpeted the hills of Galilee,.
and served to illustrate his lessons of truth and love
-beyond these Jewish-Christian precepts, there is
another series of moral doctrines to be found in the
Gospels of a character quite sui generis and peculiar.
These latter precepts we may justly consider to be
essentially and in a special sense Christ's own
lessons, the moral ideas which he gave to the world.
It would be superfluous to point out how valuable would be the work which should adequately
perform'the task of thus collating the ethics of
Christ with those of his contemporaries, and throwing into full relief for our study the residue
of doctrines which belong peculiarly to himself.
We should obtain by such a process'a view of
the character, or (as we may say) of the moral
physiognomy and individuality of the great Teacher,
hardly to be gained by any other method. And we
should at the same time arrive at a system of morals
differing, it is to be believed, very essentially
in many particulars from  such as are habitually
foisted upon us by modern moralists under the name
of "Christian," but which are in truth far more
nearly related to the schools of Pharisees, Sadducees,
or Essenes, Stoics, Epicureans, or Cyrenaics, than
to that of the great Prophet of Nazareth.. Hoping
that some man of learning adequate to such a task,




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 9
and of moral taste high and pure enough to treat it
worthily, may at some future time undertake the
work and carry it to full completion, I have thought
it might be of interest to sketch (necessarily very
briefly and imperfectly) some of the results which
it appears that such a research might obtain, What'
ever view our special theology may lead us to take
of the degree of authority pertaining to the dicta of
Christ-whether we consider him as laying down
the law of the universe as a God, or revealing it as
the most inspired of men, or even simply as uttering
the fallible opinion of a Galilean peasant whom
Christendom has adored for eighteen centuries-in
any and every case, a transcendent interest must
attach to the question, " What was the verdict of
this great Teacher regarding the moral controversies
which had divided the instructors of mankind?"
Perhaps also in the answer to this question may
be found the best defence of those who (like the
writer) reject the claim of his Divinity, yet hold
Christ to have been the "man who best fulfilled the
conditions under which God grants His inspiration.'
A merely popular acquaintance with contemporary
morals (to which alone I can lay claim) may suffice
to indicate generally whether in these controversies
Christ agreed with the teachers of his age or diverged from them' altogether. In the latter case,
having constated the peculiar doctrines; of Christ,
it becomes a matter of vast practical interest
to compare them   with the teaching on moral




10                  STUDIES.
subjects common in our own age, and especially
with such as professes to be pre-eminently
Christian,-the teaching of men who are understood and believe themselves to be in a special
sense the disciples of Christ. If it should appear
that in numerous instances the morals ordinarily
accepted among us are not those which Christ
taught,-nay, are even those which he diametrically
contradicted and opposed,-it will surely be time
to introduce a change in our method of treating
these subjects. It will surely be time to rebuke the
presumption wherewith the morals of Jews and
Heathens are continually foisted upon us under the
sanction of Christ's name. It will be time to distinguish once for all the so-called "Christian ethics"
of modern teachers from the genuine and altogether
different "ethics of Christ'"
1. One of the broadest distinctions between
different schools of moralists is that which concerns
the positive or negative character they attribute to
duty. In nearly all cases the earliest teachers con,
fine themselves to negative precepts, "Do no murder," " Do not steal," and the like. Virtue in their
eyes consists in abstaining from unlawful actions
and passions. The affirmative duties, if any such
there be, in their systems, are mostly of a ceremo.
nial nature, such as offering sacrifices and performing ablutions. Quite a new and different aspect is
given to ethics when some teacher arises to declare




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST.       11
that right is a positive thing, and wrong only its
negation, wrung from     the right.   Virtue is then
seen to consist in affirmative goodness, in love of
God and service to man, not merely in abstaining
from idolatry and injustice. It is the same advance
in morals as it is in physical science to perceive
that heat and light are positives, and cold and dark.
ness merely their negations. We can no more attain to virtue by merely abstaining from offence,
than we can construct a true theory of nature by
treating caloric and light as the mere negations of
cold and darkness.
But this step of progress is slowly reached. It
is clear enough it was not attained by the Jews at
the Christian era. The Decalogue (a series of negations*) and the Rabbinical law, so far as it is known
to us, consisted in precepts all tending to forbid
offence, but rarely enforcing positive duty except
*The Buddhists have a Decalogue (strangely resembling the
Mosaic second table) given in the Mahawanse: "1. Do not kill.
2. Do not steal. 3. Do not commit adultery. 4. Do not lie.
5. Do not slander. 6. Do not call ill names. 7. Do not speak
words which are to no.purpose but harm. 8. Do not covet the
property of others. 9. Do not envy. 10. Do not err in the
faith or think it false." The Brahmins, on the contrary, seem at
a very early age to have grasped the idea of positive law. In the
Institutes of Menu (supposed to date about 1200 B. C.), chap,
6, v. 92, there is this singular arrangement of ten duties: Content, Returning good for evil, Resistance to sepsual appetites,
Abstinence from illicit gain, Purification, Chastity, Knowledge of
Scripture, Knowledge of the Supreme Spirit, Veracity, and Freedom from wrath,




12                    STUDIES.
in matters of ceremony.   The whole spirit of it was
summed up (if we may believe a tradition in the
Talmud) by the celebrated Rabbi Hillel, one of the
princes of the Jews in Babylon.    "A  fellow went
to the Rabbi and said,' Can you teach me the whole
law during the time I am able to stand on one foot?''Yes,' answered the Rabbi mildly;' the whole law
is contained in this one rule, Whatever you would
not wish your neighbour to do to you, do it not to
him. This is the law; the rest is only an exposition of it.'" *
One of the most prominent features in the morality taught by Christ is the introduction of the
idea of the positive character of duty. He transposes the Golden Rule just quoted from the Rabbi's
negative to the affirmative form (Matt. vi. 12):
" Therefore whatsoever ye would that men should
do unto you, do ye even so unto them, for this is
the law and the prophets."   He sums up the Decalogue's negatives in two positive commandments,
expressed with every possible force of affirmation:
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
* The same aphorism is used literally by Isocrates (in
Nicoc.): "Do not do to others what you would not they should
do to you;" and (what is most remarkable) in both its negative
and positive form by Confucius: "Do to another what you would
he should do to you, and do not unto another what you would
not should be done unto you. Thou only needest this law alone;
it is the foundation and principle of all the rest."-Confucius,
Maxim 24, Yun Lu.




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 13
strength; and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy.
self."  And after laying down by precept and
showing by example a life of active beneficence as
the life of virtue, he proceeds to the length of re,
presenting men as condemned hereafter for faults,
for the mere neglect of positive duties, without any
infraction of negative commandments. Dives is
sent to "torment" (for all that we can see) only
for neglecting to aid Lazarus and his compeers,
The man who hides his talent in a napkin is cast
into outer darkness merely for burying it, Finally,
in the descriptions of the last judgment, it is said
that those who have not fed the hungry or clothed
the naked or visited the prisoner, shall "depart
into everlasting fire." Whatever sense may be
given to these words, it is clear that Christ meant
to convey the idea that the greatest of all condemnations might be incurred by men who are accused
of no positive crime, murder or adultery or theft or
lying,-men whose creed was correct, for they called
him "Lord, Lord! " and did wonderful works in
his name, but who simply did not benefit their
fellow-creatures,
Of the infinite value and importance of this
transformation of a negative into a positive law, it
is needless here to speak; the whole spirit of morality is altered thereby, The standard of right is
fixed, and we are henceforth able to perceive that
all divergence from it is wrong, Virtue is given a
spirit and life it could never possess while con,




14                 STUDIES.
templated as a mere innocence of harm. " Being
good and doing good" are aims to place before the
Soul worthy to stir the ambition of an archangel,
while the warning not to commit offence can hardly
touch one of the nobler chords of the human heart.
We have passed from death to life when we believe
that human virtue is a reality, not a negation; and
that there reigns on the eternal throne the Impersonation of Goodness absolute, affirmative, Divine.
i' The universe has a Sun of light and warmth. It
has no sun whose rays are darkness and frost."
But of this glorious reformation, introduced by
Christ into the morals of Judaism, what traces are
to be found in modern Christian ethics? Have we
all quite clearly understood that it is not enough to
refrain from evil, and lead harmless lives, and hold
correct views about the office of Christ? Does the
preaching of our churches tend altogether to set
forth this truth, that a mere timorous conscience,
carefulness of wrong-doing, and devotion in words
and feelings without corresponding deeds, is of no
sort of avail? Surely, on the contrary, we are perpetually led to understand that scrupulousness of
conscience and a correct faith go together to make
up the idea of a Christian, and that men and women
may depart in " sure and certain hope " of immediate entrance into the kingdom of heaven, who
have done no great offence, and who have said,
"Lord, Lord," with unwavering confidence at the
last.




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 1.
2. All teachers of ethics necessarily reiterate
the various canons of the immutable moral law.
They differ, however, from one another in nothing
more remarkably than in the relative value they
assign to these principles of natural morality and to
the precepts connected with the religious worship of
their country. In the eyes of some moralists, mala
in se and mala prohibits are almost of equal guilti
In those of others, they are altogether and utterly
different. Herein will usually appear the result of
the original distinction at the bottom of the minds of
the two orders of teachers-those to whom morality
is a part of religion, and those to whom religion is
a part of morality. To the former class, as all
moral laws appear simply as expressions of the will
of God, it will frequently happen to confound together offences against the ceremonial and the
natural law, both being believed by them to be
equally divine commandments. Thus those moralists
who are primarily religious instructors are continually led'into a style of teaching which has its
climax of absurdity in the Institutes of Menu,
where reading the Vedas is alleged to purify alike
"' the crimes of him who has eaten with unwashed
hands, and of him who has killed the inhabitants of
the three worlds." *  On the other hand, the
teachers who are primarily moralists, and who regard the moral law as the ultimate principle of
* Institutes of Menu, Book xi,.v. 264.




16                   STUDIES,
right, impersonated in that, holiest Will whereby
the universe is ruled, yet not (according to the
heresy of Ockham) the mere arbitrary result of that
divine Will,-by these teachers the gulf between
mnala prohibita and mala in se is felt to be wide as
the poles. Their lessons will commonly be found
to include depreciatory remarks and even invectives
on ceremonial observances of all kinds, whereby
they throw into higher relief the inherent sanctity
of the eternal law. They say with all the prophets,
r' Of what avail the multitude of your sacrifices?
Your new moons and sabbaths are an abomination.
Cease to do evil. Learn to do well."
Again: There is not only this great difference
between two schools of moralists which it behoves
us to recognize when we seek to ascertain the
characteristic doctrines of Christ, There are also
two classes to be remarked among all religious
minds,-the class to whom ceremonies are naturally
valuable, and the class to whom they are rather
stumbling-blocks than assistances.*   It would be
most desirable for us to recognize more than we
have hitherto done this constitutional difference,
and, giving to each order our share of respect,
cease to strive by argument or force to change the
instincts of the one for those of the other.t  By
* This distinction the writer has endeavoured to delineate
more fully in "Broken Lights," chaps. iii. and iv.
t We have heard of endless cases where this has been done,
and always to the injury of those whose benefit was desired. A




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 17
ignoring this second class of minds, with its need
of extempore prayers and entire simplicity of cultus,
the great Church of England, with all its liberality
of feeling and breadth of doctrine, has never been
able to include in its fold thousands of pious souls
whose theological divergencies from it are altogether
trifling. Again, on the other hand, by neglecting
the solemnities of worship and ignoring the benefit
which the first class of minds naturally receives
from the accessories of art, Protestant churches
generally (up to very late years) have abnegated
much of the power possessed by the Church of
Rome in virtue of its impressive cultus. And those
among us who as individuals have stood aloof and
" Counted reason ripe
In resting on the law within,"
who have striven, "forsaking the landmark, to
march by the star," how often have they become
experimentally aware how the neglect of stated
periods and formal observances of worship entails
with it dangers so formidable that, while rejecting
external laws, they are driven "to be a law to
themselves," no less stringent and rigorous?
clergyman of the English Church striving once to induce his
semi-Methodist parishioners to attend evening service in church
instead of at prayer-meetings, received the astounding replies,
" Why, sir, we would go to church to please your reverence, but
you see we go to the chapel to pray!" and, " Sir, if we were to go
to church both times on Sundays, what would become of our means
of grace?"
2




18                     STUDIES.
In a large way these two orders of minds may
be designated as those of the Priests and their disciples and the Prophets and their disciples. In all
ages the Priestly order has insisted on the value of
ceremonial observances, and has looked with distrust and disfavour on all religious fervour displayed
outside such regulations. And from the first of the
Prophets and Apostles to the last, the same burden
has been repeated.      "Behold, to obey is better
than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
What doth God desire of thee, O man, but to do
justice, and love mercy, and walk humbly with thy
God?   Pure religion and undefiled before God and
the Father is this-to visit the fatherless and widows
in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted
from the world."* In all creeds probably, could
we reach their inner history, the same oppositions
of orders of minds, and the same progress by the
antagonism of the two, would be observed. The
most formal and ceremonial religion in the world,
the Hindoo, yet contains in its sacred writings such
lessons as this: "A     wise man should constantly
* See likewise 1 Sam. xv. 22; Ps. li. 16, and xl. 6-8; Hosea
vi. 6; Amos v. 21-24; Micah.vi. 6-8; Isa. 1. 14-17; lviii. 6;
Ezek. xviii. 5, 9, 20, 28. This is to the prophets "as constant a
topic as the most peculiar and favourite doctrine of any eccentric
sect or party is in the mouths of the preachers of such a sect at
the present day, and it is rendered more forcible by the form
which it takes of a constant protest against the sacrificial system
of the Levitical ritual in comparison with the moral law."Stanley's Jewish Church.




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST.        19
perform all the moral duties, though he perform
not constantly the ceremonies of religion." * " He
who purifies himself in the river of a subdued spirit,
the waters of which are truth, its waves compassion,
and its shores holy temper, will be liberated from
this world; but liberation cannot be obtained by
any outward observance."
In England, in our time, the two orders are of
course mainly represented, the priestly mind by the
Anglican party, and the prophetical by the Evangelical.  But, in one singular instance, the Lowchurchmen exceed their. High-church brethren in
regard for a ceremonial observance.       The sabbath
stands alone in this respect, doubtless from     causes
traceable to. an historic origin.t The sabbath alone
* Inst. Menu, 4, 204.
- Beside the many passages commonly quoted from the Fathers to prove that the sabbath was altogether suffered to lapse
into abeyance in the primitive ages (the Sunday being a day of
prayer but not of rest, as the Moslem Friday is now), there are
two which, so far as we are aware, have hitherto failed to attract
the attention they deserve. The greatest Fathers of the Eastern
and Western churches have recorded their opinions in these
words:
"' For what purpose, then, I ask, did he add a reason respecting the sabbath, and did not do so as regards murder? Because
this commandment was not one of the leading ones (rov 7rponlyovptvwv). It was not one of those which are accurately defined of
our consciences, but a kind of partial and temporary one. And
for this reason it was ABOLISHED AFTERWARDS (icarEXvOI yuera
ravra)."  St Chrysostom, Homil. 12.
"Of all the ten commandments, only that of the sabbath is
enjoined to be observed figuratively, which figure we have received
2*




20                  STUDIES,
of Church observances could be invested with Scriptural authority, and it was to Scriptural authority
that the Reformers turned for anchorage when they
had cast themselves adrift from the Church of
Rome.
As the Reformation developed into Puritanism,
the theocratic idea of Judaism served to supply the
blank to which it was impossible for men at once to
accustom themselves. Thus a ceremonial observance
which could be enforced out of the Bible (however
illogically dissevered from the rest of the abolished
Mosaic law) became at once a rallying-point, magnified into importance by its very isolation. That
terrible and almost unendurable sense of personal
responsibility which weighs on all who let go the
guiding hand which has directed and supported
them and their fathers, was mitigated doubtless in
no slight degree when it could be believed that, after
leaving the Church of Rome or even the Anglican
Church, men had still not only a divine infallible
guide to all true doctrine in their Bibles, but also a
grand ceremonial observance ordained by God himself for their practice. Once more the sabbath became the "token of a covenant" between Jehovah
and a new chosen people.
These remarks have been offered for the purpose
of clearing the way to an understanding of the relation between the peculiar morals of Christ and
to be understood, not to be still celebrated by the rest of the
body."-St Augustine, Ep. 55, c. 22.




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 21
those commonly entertained by the stricter members
of Christian churches.
Modern Christians of extreme views either belong
to the priestly order and attach extreme importance
to ceremonial observances, or else to the prophetic
order, when they disdain ceremonialism generally)
making an unique exception in favour of the
sabbath. The mistake of the priestly order lies
not in valuing observances as important "means of
grace " for such minds as they are fitted to help, but
in setting them up as things sacred in themselves,
and obligatory on those to whom they are no "means
of grace," but only hindrances. The mistake of the
prophetical order lies in decrying absolutely what is
of partial use, and, in their sole exception, attaching
the guilt only due to such nzala in se as theft or
falsehood, to the mclum prohibitum of sabbathbreaking. Let us observe the attitude which Christ's
peculiar moral teaching bears to these two orders
and their mistakes.
In the first place, if there be anything clear in
the Gospels, it is that Christ did not attach any very
great importance to the ceremonial observances of
the Jewish Church. The lawyers and rabbins had
laid down in the succession of ages a complete
code, traceable more or less to the primitive
Mosaic law; but whenever these observances are
mentioned by Christ, it is invariably in a depre-;ciatory and never in a laudatory manner., Washing
the hands before meat, making clean the cup and




22                 STUDIES.
platter, giving tithes of mint, anise, and cummin,
making broad phylacteries, praying in the temple or
on Gerizim,-all these matters he treated as of no
importance or value whatever. Though he kept the
great festivals of Judaism with the rest of his
countrymen, there is never a word in his teaching to
raise such observances to any high importance; and
while he issued precepts for the uttermost religious
devotion, for selling all and giving to the poor, and
for leading a life of apostleship, it never once happens that he includes in his descriptions of sudh,consecrated lives the slightest reference to sabbathkeeping or temple worship, or ceremonial observance
of any kind. In his representations of future judgment, all such matters are utterly ignored. And,
above all, in his lessons and examples of worship,
there is not one word to make it appear he thought
men could better pray in synagogues and temples,.or with the pomp of a liturgy, than without it. He
says, "Enter thy closet and shut thy door," or
"say" (apparently at any time or place), "Our
Father which art in heaven."   When he prays
himself, it is on the mountain or beneath the
olive-trees of Gethsemane no less than in the
Temple. Thus it would seem that, without actually
setting them  at naught, he could hardly have
shown less reverence for the ordinances of the
established church. If he had thought of them as
-things in themselves sacred, how often his lessons
must have included precepts concerning attendance




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 23
at the Passover and Feast of Weeks, purification,
and going to the synagogue every sabbath, and
uncovering the feet before prayer, and making the
Levites (and the Levites only) offer due sacrifices of
pigeons and lambs on all proper occasions! Had
the Gospels been really designed to teach such
ceremonialism, how different, how widely different,
would those Gospels be! Or if we suppose that the
approaching end of the Mosaic dispensation might
have excluded the ratification of such observances,
still the same principle (if entertained by Christ)
must have shown itself in providing for the ceremonial of the future Christian church. There would
have been chapters devoted to the spiritual powers
of priests and bishops, to sacraments which should
replace sacrifices, and to holy days of Christmas and
Easter which should command the same reverence
as Purim and the Passover. And finally, in the representations of the Last Judgment, the observance
of ceremonial ordinances would never have been
omitted, but we should hear the admission to heaven
granted not only to those who had fed the hungry
and clothed the naked and visited the sick and imprisoned, but to those also who had kept all the
ordinances of the church blamelessly, and had never
failed to worship in the right time and place and
attitude, to partake of sacraments and reverently
obey all priestly guidance.
Surely we have a right to conclude from these
facts that Christ gave no sanction to any system




24                 STUDIES'.
whereby such observances are placed on a level
with moral obligations? Here, as in so many other
instances, we do not find him merely falling in with
the morals of his age. He definitely opposed them.
The current ethics of Judea in the first century
were essentially ceremonial.  As St Pacian describes them —With Moses and the ancients, those
guilty of even the least sin were immersed in the
same sestuary of misery, as well those who had
broken the sabbath as those who had touched what.
was unclean, who had taken forbidden food, or who
murmured, or who had entered the temple of the
Most High King when their wall was leprous or
their garment defiled, or when under this defilement
had touched the altar with their hand or with their
garment come in contact with it. So that it were
easier to ascend into heaven or better to die than
to have to keep the whole of the commandments."*
In finding Christ treat as trifles all such matters,
we are discovering his own peculiar morality-the
Christian doctrine as opposed to the Judaic. Doubtless, if we might paraphrase his view of the subject,
it would amount to this: "The Levitical law was
good in its place, and has had its use in building
up the Jewish nationality. I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil, by bringing a higher
and more spiritual law.  But all this cumbrous
ritual of Rabbinism, instead of a help to men's
* Parvenesis S. Pacian.




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 25
souls, has become a hindrance. They give tithes
of mint and anise and cummin, and neglect justice
and mercy and truth. This is grievous error. On
love to God and love to man hang all the law and
the prophets."*
And, on the other hand, how stands Christ's
teaching as regards the sabbath? Did he also, like
the prophetic party of our day, make a grand exception in favour of that most ancient and venerable
of all ceremonial laws? The teachers of his time,
and even many of the elder prophets, laid immense
stress on its observance.    Did   his special and
peculiar morality leave the matter where he found
it? The case is far otherwise. The question of
the sabbath came before him many times, according
to the history, but invariably he treated it with the
same slight regard. The Pharisees condemned him
for healing on the sabbath on three distinct occasions-the man with the withered hand, the woman
with an infirmity, and the man with the dropsy
(Luke vi. 9, xiii. 15, xiv. 3); and on each occasion
he justified himself, calling them hypocrites for their
remonstrance. And again, when they upbraided
* Assuredly no teacher disposed to elevate the priestly office
very highly would have given utterance to such a parable as the
Good Samaritan, where a priest and Levite neglect the act of
humanity which a heretic performs. Many teachers in our time
would have described the philanthropist of the road to Jericho as
running after the priest to obtain the "sanction of the church'
before he poured oil and wine into the wounds of the poor victim
who "fell among thieves."




26                 STUDIES.
him with allowing his disciples to pluck the ears of
corn on the sabbath, he defended them by the
example of David (Luke vi. 3), and gave utterance
to the noble aphorism, which may be understood
to sum up his view of the whole subject, "The
sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
sabbath" (Mark ii. 23). This and all other ceremonial laws are means, not ends, of sanctification.
If we could divest ourselves of preconceived
notions and judge simply what result such treatment of a moral question by such a Teacher ought
to have on the minds of his disciples, we should be
startled to find, after all, how little weight his words
have possessed. Let us imagine our late Japanese
visitors struck with the phenomenon of an English
Sunday. The roaring streets stilled into silence,
and the crowds of well-dressed persons hurrying to
the churches, would doubtless impress them reverently. But when they proceeded further to observe
that the lower working classes, who had toiled
through the week like cattle, and were on that day
alone free to cultivate their human intellectual
powers, to expand their minds and hearts by the
sight of the beauties of flowers and trees, of painting and sculpture, were on that day only strictly debarred from entering the public gardens, museums,
palaces, and galleries, wherein such culture might
be obtained, it would be natural for the observant
strangers to inquire by what precepts of the Christian religion were these people thus virtually ex.




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 27
Cluded from such elevating influences. If we sup.
pose the interpreter of the embassy to have sought
to gratify their curiosity by reading to them the
words of the Founder of Christianity, explaining to
them at the same time that he was regarded by the
whole nation as nothing less than a divine Buddha,
whose authority was absolutely final, we must needs
imagine the perplexity of the Japanese to be very
considerable. Perhaps also this perplexity would
not be removed by receiving the further information, that the real authority for the sabbatical observance lay in certain commands issued by much
lesser teachers long before the time of Christ, to
another nation than the English, to keep another
day than Sunday as a peculiar covenant between
that other nation and Jehovah.
Here again, as in the whole case of ceremonialism, the same mistake has been repeated. Ordinances good, wise and useful as means, have been
transformed into ends, and upheld even when they
not only ceased to be the means fit to produce their
original end, but manifestly become hindrances
thereto. The sabbath has not been enforced upon
its real grounds,-because it is the most precious
institution which has floated down to us upon the
stream of time, the most suitable to the natural
wants of humanity, the most venerable from the
long sanctity of three thousand years. It is enforced as a law equal in authority to the eternal
and immutable principles of morals, and which is to




28                  STUDIES.
be blindly adhered to in all times and ages and
under all states of society, whatever may be its
results upon the condition of mankind. In a word,
it is precisely taught that the Rabbins were right
and Christ was wrong,-that "man wasp made for
the sabbath, and not the sabbath for man."
3. A third great difference between moralists
may be traced in their varied treatment of the two
orders of human offences, or what we may call the
fiend-like and the brute-like sins. The one order
leads frequently to the other, and the most hideous
of all conceivable horrors is that combination of the
two in mingled cruelty and lust, of whose possibility
many a page of history bears witness. But in their
origin, and most commonly in their development1
the two are widely apart. There are the sins which
men commit under the influence of the animal pas.
sions-sins of unchastity, drunkenness, gluttonyand these rob them of their manhood's crown of
moral self-control, and sink them for the time to
the level of the brutes; and there are the sins which
men commit under the influence of self-interest,
hatred and all the anti-social passions-sins ef
cruelty, perfidy, malice-and these do more than
sink men to the level of the unmoral brutes; they
degrade them to the likeness of devils. As God
is love, so is His- antithesis hatred: and as man
rises to the god-like through love, so he falls
to the fiend-like by hatred.. He is not merely




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 29
losing his higher life, dormant to the joy and glory
of his birthright, as when he lies sunk in the slough
of the passions which he shares with the dog and the
swine; he is placing himself in antagonism to God
and goodness; he is turning his back on Heaven,
and going further from it every step he treads,
Dividing, then, these two orders of sins, the
brutal and the fiendish, we find Christ's treatment
of the first to be in this wise. A woman was
brought to him taken in adultery, and after bringing her accusers to the judgment of their own consciences, he set her free, saying, "Neither do I
condemn thee; go and sin no more" (John viii.).
To another woman of sinful life whom he met by
the well of Samaria, he entered into converse, spoke
of her actions without scorn, and then went on to
open to her simple mind the very highest doctrines
of theology (John iv.). Again, another woman
"who was a sinner," of the last, lowest order of
woman's fallen state, came to him as he sat in the
house of Simon and wept over his feet. How does
he treat her?  He excuses her strong display of
devotion with a tender reference to his own death,
and assures her that her sins are forgiven, " for she
hath loved much" (Mark xiv. and Matt. xxvi.).
So far from shrinking from such offenders, he sits
down to meat with " many publicans and sinners,"
and formally justifies himself in doing so. And
perhaps the most remarkable fact of all is, that he
had gone so far in this direction that it became




30                 STUDIES.
possible for his enemies to give currency to the
calumny that he was "a gluttonous man and a
wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners."
Assuredly no one ever dreamed of calling him a
cruel man or a vindictive, the friend of the malicious or the deceitful! He deliberately contrasts
on two occasions the spiritual condition of professed
sinners with that of those who "devoured widows'
houses and for a pretence made long prayers;" and
on each occasion gives an unquestionable verdict for
the avowed sinner against the cruel hypocrite. The
publican's prayer in the temple is accepted rather
than that of the Pharisee; and the publicans and
harlots are said to " go into the kingdom of heaven"
before the Pharisees, with all their ceremonial observances and (as we may presume) strictness of
life. In a word, whenever sins of the brute-like
order are in question, they are treated with almost
startling leniency. Not one word implies any hopeless condemnation of them.   They are grievous
sins, needing forgiveness; nay, their guilt may be
incurred by impure looks and wishes, and to escape
them (as the passages are generally understood) a
man should pluck out his right eye or cut off his
right hand. But always, while recognizing their
guilt, Christ treats them with a grave divine pity
and compassion, which perhaps, more than all besides in his teaching, has invested him with the
grateful love of the human heart. He always holds
out the prospect of forgiveness. No offence of th6




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST.,31
whole class,'is threatened with the final condemnation denounced so frequently and freely against the
uncharitable and the cruel.
And on the other hand, in the treatment of the
fiend-like order of sins,, every case which comes up
is judged with a severity quite inconsistent with
the popular view of its relative guilt to that of the
sins of the flesh. Whosoever is angry with his
brother without a cause, is in danger of the judgment; and he who calls opprobrious names, of the
council and of hell-fire. Reconciliation with an enemy
is a duty having precedence of divine worship. All
injuries are to be forgiven till seventy times seven,
and no retaliation made for blows or robbery. Men
who do not forgive their debtors as God has forgiven their greater debts will be cast into outer
darkness. Those who neglect to feed the hungry
and clothe the naked,. or who see Lazarus in want
and do not relieve him, will all be condemned to
"everlasting fire."  Whatever weight we may attach to such words, they can only bear the meaning
that Christ considered such mere omissions of
charity as more hopeless than the sins of the brutelike order, for which he always held out prospect of
pardon. His whole teaching in the matter may be
summed up in the two cases:-To the woman taken
in adultery he says, " Neither will I condemn thee;
go and sin no more." To the men who " devoured
widows' houses," he says, "How shall ye escape
the damnation of hell? 




32                  STUDIES,
The contrast is, to say the least of it, very remarkable, and it becomes all the more so when we
observe that in this, as in so many other cases,
Christ set himself in opposition to the current
morality of his countrymen. The hard lex talionis
has always been the favourite principle of Jewish
ethics. " An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,"
was the old Mosaic rule; and the rabbins had added
doctrines such as these: "But for men who commit injuries and never return with benefits, it is nowise forbidden to be avenged of them and to keep
anger against them." * Rabbi Isaac said, " Show
not benevolence nor mercy to Gentiles." t  Rabbi
Samuel ben Isaac says, from the mouth of Raf, that
(' it is allowed to hate him in whom one observes a
base action." $ And, on the other hand, the brutelike order of sins was held in special condemnation.
To the Jews, according to the best historians of
ethics, the duty of chastity is indebted for the high
place it holds in our modern conceptions of virtue,
-a place quite unparalleled in the noblest ethical
systems of Greece and Rome. The subject would
lead us too far for present investigation, but a
remarkable instance enables us to perceive how, in
judging the character of their greatest hero, they
recognized offences of this class as a sin, while ig,
* Rabbi Elijahu in addereth, quoted by Triglandius, p. 167.
t Midrasch Jehillim, fol. 26.
+ Pesachim, tract of the Mishna (all quoted by Hennell, p.
459).




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 33
noring the guilt of actions against which Christ
would assuredly have pronounced a far deeper condemnation. David's adultery with Bathsheba, and
not his perfidy to Achish, his inhuman tortures of
the Ammonites, or his implacable resentment at the
last against Joab and Shimei, was supposed to have
been his great and sole transgression. "He sinned not, save in the matter of Uriah the Hittite"
(1 Kings xv.).
If, then,'the summary of the peculiar morals of
Christ must be admitted to place the fiend-like
class of sins in the lowest category of condemnation,
and the brute-like sins in another and far less hopeless one, what shall we say to the position these two
classes take in the estimation of the stricter Christians of modern days? Do we find among them
the utmost horror, as of the worst of sins, of vindictiveness,' malice, and hatred-of calling our brother, "fool "-of slander-of a selfish, self-centred
life? Do we find preachers condemning, as the
most soul-destroying errors, evil words and unkind
actions and bitter feelings, and pretences of being
better and more strict than our neighbours? When
they speak of the sins of the flesh and make appeals
for Penitentiaries or give Temperance lectures, do
they ever remind their hearers sitting complacently
in their well-cushioned pews, that they may be in a
much worse spiritual condition, for all their wellordered lives, their correct creed, their sacramental
privileges, and right views about "justification by
3




34                   STUDIES.
faith," than the poor "lost souls" for whom their
charity is implored; and that Christ has assured us
that "harlots" " go into the kingdom  of heaven "
before Pharisees?  Do they in their invectives
against intoxication put always forward the truth,
that the madness of hate and spite is devil-like, and
the madness of wine only bestial; and that Christ
used and blessed the "fruit of the vine," while he
bade his disciples "beware of the leaven of malice
and uncharitableness "? We should need to reconstruct half the ethics of the churches if we should
harmonize them in this great matter with the morals
of Jesus, and in our estimate of the sanctity of various classes of society, the "first" would henceforth be "last, and the last first."  How deep and
far such a change would go, it is startling to contemplate. Fraternities binding themselves to speak
or write no bitter words, societies for the reconciliation of enemies, and agapce for the preservation of
friendship among discordant sects, might then spring
up beside Temperance Leagues and Refuge Unions
and meetings of clergy and bishops to denounce
heretical books and throw stones at heretics. And
each of us, in the solemn courts of conscience,Each before the judgment throne
Of his own awful soul,would look back with shame indeed and regret
upon the scenes wherein he had
Profaned his spirit, sunk his brow,
And revelled in gross joys of earth,




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 35
resolving, with God's help, to "go and sin no
more."  But he would shed more bitter tears over
the memory of cruelty —of the careless or vindictive infliction of moral or physical pain-of slanderous words-of implacable feelings-of hardness
of judgment-of refusal of help implored-of those
cutting words and unkind looks which make up
often the sum of a miserable life to husbaind, wife,
parent, or child, who is their object. The prudent,
well-ordered life, with its sabbath-keepings and
church-goings and prayers night and morning and
avoidance of all "dissipation," would then be often
stripped of its cloak of respectability and revealed
to sight as a life of utter selfishness-mean, dull,
morose, and envious-abominable to God and worse
than useless to man. God will forgive us, in this
life or the life to come, for repented sins of the
flesh: shall we ever quite forgive ourselves through
our immortality for the anguish we have caused to
good and patient hearts, or for the neglect of means
once in our power to produce the happiness of those
around us, now passed away from our reach for
ever?
We must pass more rapidly over some of the
minor points of peculiarity in Christ's doctrine, and
the strange fatality by which they have been neglected, while the lessons of Moses and Paul have
been remembered.
4. Christ insists peculiarly on reserve and secrecy
3 *




36                 STUDIES.
in the matters of the soul. If we pray, we are to
"enter into our closet and shut the door "-if we
fast, to " anoint the head and wash the face, that we
appear not unto men to fast "-if we give alms, to
"take heed that the left hand should not know what
the right hand doeth." A strange comment on this
would be the immense importance attached in
Christendom generally to public over private worship, and the pomp and clang of bells and pretentiousness of dress wherewith our public worship is
heralded-the admiration in so many sects for a
" mortified " aspect and solemn demeanour, in preference to a happy face and cheerful manner*-and,
lastly, the principle, of which we have heard so
much of late, that if women desire to devote themselves to works of charity, they ought to relinquish
the usual costume of their class, and adopt a "modest
garb and veil" of black or grey which shall announce,-not only to the left hand, but all down the
street,-what their right hand is going to do!
5. Christ rebukes as heathenish making long
prayers and thinking a man will be heard for his
much speaking. Yet nearly all the churches stretch
their prayers to the most inordinate length, and the
very Prayer which Christ taught us for the purpose
of avoiding " vain repetitions," is itself three times
repeated in the English service, in consequence of
* The writer once heard a pious young woman remark that a
certain clergyman "must have been such a good man-nobody
could laugh in the room where his picture was hung!"




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 37
the lumping together of the three services in one,
and the obstinate refusal of the "religious world"'
to allow them to be separated again.
6. Again, one of the most remarkable histories in
the life of Christ is that beautiful one to which we
have already alluded, his treatment of the woman
taken in adultery. The sentence he passed was,
" Let him that is without sin among you first cast a
stone at her." What new principle of morality was
this?  Because a man has sinned in some way or
other against the strict law of chastity, is he therefore to throw no stones at a woman taken in adultery? Who ever heard anything like this before-or
since? *
Would to God that this Christ-like doctrine
might ever become the received Christian doctrine
-that the sin of the man does not differ from that of
the woman-that all pretences of such differences
vanish before the solemn appeal of conscience!
7. The last great characteristic of Christ's peculiar morality to which we shall draw attention was
his conception of a perfect life. Among his contemporaries there were extant apparently three typical
ideas on the subject. There were the Sadducees;
who occupied themselves with practical affairs, guided
by the noble principle of Antigonus of Socho (the
disciple of their founder, Sadok), that "right must
* The internal evidence of this beautiful story may, I think,
suffice for the present argument, albeit the external evidence be
against its authenticity.




38                   STUDIES.
be done for its own sake and not for sake of reward,"
-a sect which seems to have lacked spiritual aspiration and future hope, and to have thought of no
higher perfection than an honest worldly life. There
were also the Pharisees, who aimed at what they
esteemed perfection through minute observances,
wearing phylacteries of texts and prayers on their
garments and door-posts, washing their persons and
cups and platters with scrupulous care, and giving
tithes of even the smallest of their possessions.
There were, lastly, the Essenes, who wholly devoted
themselves to the attainment of a high degree of
sanctity by living apart from the world in monastic
seclusion and the practice of self-austerities.
To none of these types can we assimilate in any
shape the ideal of perfection set forth by Christ. As
for his example, it is needless to repeat what has
been so often shown by Christian divines, that he
was the reverse of an ascetic Essene, no less than of
a Sadducean worldling or Pharisaic formalist. Had
there been anything in his personal habits resembling those so common among religious teachers, of
contempt and disregard of the body and its wants,
we should inevitably have found his disciples recording tales like those of Romish saints, of garments
worn unchanged for years,* of the unkempt beard
* One of the seven ways in which wisdom is manifested (according to the Eastern mind) is " the habit of wearing worn-out
clothes "! (Solwan, by Ibn Zaffer.) It is remarkable that the
histories both of Zoroaster and of Gautama Buddha represent




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 39
and hair of the Nazarite, and of penances and macerations without end. But, except the long wandering in the wilderness with which he commenced
his prophet's life, we read of nothing of the kind.
Such traditions as have reached us all point the
other way, to dignity and beauty of person and demeanour, and we are bound to believe that he gave
the example as well as the precept "to anoint the
head and wash the face," to conceal any vestige of
self-discipline.
Further, he was not only far removed from the
Stylites or Dervish type of sanctity, he was eminently
social in his habits of life. He seems to have accepted
the hospitalities of every class of persons-Pharisees,
rulers of synagogues, publicans, and private friends
like the family of Bethany-in fact, so far as we
know, of every one who invited him. To the house
of Zaccheus he invited himself frankly. He objected
nothing when "many publicans and sinners sat at
meat with him." At the marriage feast of Cana
he is asserted to have aided the conviviality of
the banquet by fresh supplies of wine when men
"had already well drunk," and at his own Last
Supper may be said not only to have sanctioned, but
to have consecrated, the use of the fruit of the vine.
He excused Mary Magdalene for expending her
them as wandering and fasting in the desert and the forest before
commencing their ministries. Ahrimanes appeared to Zoroaster
to tempt him astray, and Gautama, after a night of prayer, suddenly " attained the wisdom by which he became Buddha."




40                  STUDIES.
"exceeding precious ointment of spikenard" on his
feet, speaking with infinite tenderness of her demonstrations of grief and gratitude. He reproached his
entertainer on the same occasion for neglecting to
give him the kiss of welcome and the offer of
water to wash his feet; and this latter gentle
courtesy he himself afterwards practised towards all
his own disciples. Such was his example; and his
teaching is in full accordance therewith. He always
assumed that social pleasures are right and fit.
Throughout his parables there is perpetual reference
to feasts and guests; nor does he hesitate to do what
would amount to blasphemy were such things less
than perfectly right and good in his estimation,-he
continually represents God himself as the Giver of
the feast. For the returning Prodigal He "slays the
fatted calf;" and at another time "gives a great supper and bids many;" and again He gives a marriage
feast, where wedding garments must be worn. Finally, Christ represents such pleasures as having their
archetypes in heaven: "I shall no more drink of the
fruit of the vine till I drink it new with you in my
Father's kingdom." He tells his disciples, " when
they are bidden to a feast" (not by any means to
stay away, but) "to take the lowest room."  And
when they give a feast (which he assumes they are
sure to do), to invite the poor, the halt, and the
blind. There is never one word to the purpose'that
it is holier to dine alone on herbs and water, than
in a large company on meat and wine.




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 41
Again, in his precepts concerning the perfection
of virtue there is nothing resembling the inculcation of seclusion or a contemplative or ascetic life.
Though the forms in which he described a life of
beneficence were of an Eastern type, belonging to
an era of convulsion, and different from those our
modern political economy would point out as most
suitable to the end in view, yet they were always
forms of social, never of ascetic, self-sacrifice. He
who prayed so often never told men that prayer was
enough by itself, or that they might shut themselves
up and fulfil all duty to their neighbours by imploring God to favour them. Those who said, " Be
ye warmed and fed, and gave not those things that
were needed," were simply hypocrites in his eyes.
To the young man who asked what he lacked of
perfection, he said, " Go and sell all thou hast, and
give to the poor, and come and follow me." To
his disciples he prescribed a life of self-abnegation,
that they should journey perpetually preaching the
"good tidings of the kingdom."  And, lastly, in
the most remarkable passage of all, he describes
"being perfect as our Father in heaven," as being,
like Him, kind to the evil and the unthankful. It
is always the same, even in the picture of the final
judgment. Nobody is represented as saved by any
ascetic privations or religious practices. The prayers
he had counselled as " means of grace " in this life,
are "counted as righteousness " to nobody in the
life to come. Fasting and watching are not taken




42                    STUDIES.
into the account, and saying, Lord! Lord! is of no
sort of avail. The accepted souls are those who
have actually served the poor and miserable, and the
condemned ones are those who have neglected to do
so.* Everything is in keeping-examples, parables,
precepts, and representations of the principles which
shall determine future trial. Asceticism   and solitary virtue has no merit, and is a delusion. Goodness consists in active love to God and man.
Having gained this insight into Christ's idea of
perfection-Christ's peculiar idea, be it noted, differing from that of all his contemporaries-must we
not pause and ask, how far the moral systems of
modern Christians have embodied this idea? Are
there no supposed disciples of Christ who are in
fact aiming at Essene asceticism, or Sadducean
worldly uprightness, or Pharisaic formalism, as in
each case their goal of perfection? It needs, alas!
a very small acquaintance with either what is called
the religious world or religious literature, to be
aware that in this matter Christ's lessons and example are the rarest of all to be followed. How do
"truly pious" people regard those who, like Christ,
* It is noticeable as another instance how Christian morals
differ from the morals of Christ, that we continually hear, as if of
a specially meritorious thing, of "seeing Christ" in the poor.
But Christ himself represents the blessed as being extremely surprised when he identifies himself with the poor. " Lord, when
saw we thee an hungred P" &c. These "blessed of the Father "
had manifestly helped the poor for the poor's sake, not for any
other's sake.




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 43
accept invitations to social pleasures freely, and
"c sit at meat " and drink wine with men of all characters, including " publicans and sinners"? How
do other pious people of a different persuasion regard those who neglect such small ceremonies of
the modern church as are equivalent to the washing
of pots and tithing of herbs of the Pharisees of old?
Place together the three elements of Christ's lesson
-the acceptance of social pleasures, the disregard
of ceremonies, and the devotion of life to purposes
of true human love and beneficence-and how few
do we find who even recognize that such was the
perfection he would have enjoined!
And, last of all, it would seem that Christ conceived there was one point in which human virtue
could rise above the level of mortal perfection, and
actually imitate and share the infinite perfectness of
God. It was, THE LOVE OF THE UNLOVELY. To love
those who love us and who are pleasing to us, that
is a small thing..To pass over all moral and physical deformities, and wrongs and insults against
ourselves, and to see in every soul which God has
made, what His eye also beholds, the germ of that
immortal goodness which must bloom at last in His
paradise, perchance millenniums hence-that is the
great and beautiful thing-that is the culmination
of human virtue, where it meets and blends with
the infinite holiness of God. To see this germ of
goodness under all the clay beneath which it may
lie-to have faith in it-to love it-to bear all




44                     STUDIES.
things, forgive all things, hope all things, for its
sake-is the highest perfection of humanity.        The
one only thing in the universe which the creature.
can do even as the Creator, is, to "love his enemies,
to bless them that curse him, and do good to those
who hate him."      Thus man becomes the child of
HIim who "makes His sun to rise on the evil and
on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and
unjust."   Thus he becomes "perfect even as his
Father who is in heaven is perfect."
How far the Rabbins or the Stoics of old ever
grasped this idea, is a matter of speculative interest.*
How far modern Christians who perpetually extol it
in theory ever work it out practically to its logical
conclusions, is a very     different matter.   Let us
suppose for a moment what the world would be if
* The Rabbins had perceived how divine was this sending of
rain on the just and unjust. "Rabbi Afhu said,'The day on
which rain is sent is greater than the resurrection of the dead, for
this pertains to the just alone, but rain to the just and unjust.' " —Jaanith. fol. 71. Mishna.
" The highest of all characters, in my estimation, is his who
is as ready to pardon the errors of mankind as if he were every
day guilty of some himself, and at the same time as cautious of
committing a fault as if he never forgave one." (Pliny, Ep. 22.)
"It does not divert the Almighty from being still gracious,
though we proceed daily in the abuse of his bounties..... What
then should we do but that very thing which is done by God himself-that is to say, give to the ignorant and persevere to the
wicked." (Seneca, c. 14.) "Oh blessed Ormusd, pardon my
offences against thee, even as I pardon those committed against
myself." (Vendidad Sade, Zend Avesta.) "By forgiveness of injuries the wise are purified." (Institutes of Menu, 107.)




CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CHRIST. 45
in daily life as well as in the pulpit it was the received belief that we should despise no one, dislike
no one, despair of no one, if meanness and depravity and (what is more to the purpose) vulgarity
were to give us no excuses for reprobating anybody, if shrinking from contact with those below
us, morally or socially, were recognized as being
not a proof of higher taste and more exalted feeling,
but of altogether a wrong and imperfect moral condition, if conquering fastidiousness and forgetting
insults and overlooking slights were characteristics
honoured, instead of despised, by the Christian
world at large,-how different, how widely different,
would be that Christian world from that which we
behold it! Let us at least gather thus much from
this brief glance at the peculiar morals of Christ.
When men speak as if Christian virtue consisted in
doing no harm and believing correctly-when men
insist upon ceremonial observances and sabbathkeepings as things in themselves holy and imperative, whether useful or the reverse-when men treat
sins of passion as unpardonable, and sins of malice
and hatred as venial-when men proclaim the advantages of ostentatious example-setting in churchgoing and charity, and of conventual dress for
philanthropic work-when men rank long and reiterated prayers and services as duties peculiarly
pleasing to God-when men treat female unchastity
as altogether a different offence from masculine profligacy-and, finally, when men set up as their model




46                  STUDIES.
of perfection formalists, or worldlings, or ascetics,
or persons whose virtue consists in care for their
own souls, not in love and faith and tenderness for
their fellow-creatures,-when men do this, let us at
least take courage to reply: Your doctrines and
views may be true or they may be false, but you
have no right to claim for them the sanction of that
Prophet who taught precisely the reverse,-your
"Christian ethics" are not the " ethics of Christ."




SELF- DEVELOPMENT,
AND
SELF-ABNEGATION.








IT happened last year to the writer to witness
a scene of singular beauty from the terrace of an
old villa on  Bellosguardo, once the abode of
Machiavelli. The atmosphere was in a condition
unusual in Italy, being soft and hazy.  The full
moon had risen an hour or more above the snowy
ridges of the Apennines over Vallombrosa, and
was shining broad and bright, with the golden glow
of southern moonlight, against the huge old Michelozzi Tower which crowned the olive slopes to the
left and stood out with its machicolated roof clear
and sharp against the sky, even as when the
" starry Galileo'" made it his home ere he " descried
new worlds"
At evening from the top of Fiesole."
Below, far down the vineyards and the cypresses,
lay a soft dim sea of mist, filling the whole valley of
the Arno, and reflecting the moonlight like a fleecy
cloud. Of all the busy city of the day which slept
beneath, no house or wall or even roof might be
seen. Only out of the haze rose into the radiance,
of the upper air Giotto's Campanile, and San' Lorenzo, and the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, and
4




50                STUDIES,
the marble Duomo sublime and solemn over all, and
Santa Croce,
" In whose holy precincts lie
The dust which makes them holier:"
Michael Angelo's grave, and Galileo's and Alfieri's
and Machiavel's-and Dante's empty cenotaph.
The City of a Dream it seemed, and not an earthly
town. Or rather was it not the City of Memory,
since here, as in human remembrance, all things
poor and mean-were blotted out, and only the beautiful and the grand remained, and were lifted- up in
a purer and more lovely light than that of common day?
Strange was it to look down and consider that
in that hollow of the hills under the mist lay the
cradle of such great and various genius, that our
world would be other than it is had FLORENCE never
existed. And strange too to reflect that, many as
have been her gifted sons, far more by thousands
have been they who, for centuries back, passed
within those crumbling battlements, lives low and
poor and ignoble, and sunk one after another
under the shrouding mists of oblivion, leaving only
to tower on high into the light of history the
splendid memories of the mighty dead, while they
slept, for ever forgotten, at their feet.
Is glory, then, and earthly immortality truly a
thing worthy of human ambition?  Was the old
heathen hero right in its ardent pursuit, or the
Christian saint in its contemptuous rejection? In




SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION.  51
the vast balance of eternity where all souls are
measured, will genius still wear his starry crown
after all earthly honours are over?  Or will the
value of each immortal spirit, in right alone of its
divine sonship, place the philosopher and the savage,
the poet and the boor, upon a level for ever? Like
every other question which surges up concerning
that unseen world, the same reply comes back-We
know not, we cannot know.
"Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death,
Or lifteth the veil of what is to come,
Or paiuteth the shadows which lie beneath
The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?"
Yet some conclusion as to the actual value of
mental greatness, viewed even in the reflected light
of our faint idea of immortality, is not without its
purpose. Transferred in thought to that higher
sphere, the aspect of all things is changed. Earthly
power and noble race, and wealth and beauty
and renown,-all have vanished. Even Learning's
treasures must have a somewhat altered value
there; their chief preciousness the largeness of
the soul they have built up and strengthened. Of
human things Love must live ever, and Joy in the
beauty and the wisdom of the Father's works. But
will Genius survive also? Will the great painter,
poet, sculptor, musician, philosopher, be great still
among the blessed? On the answer which might
come to this question would depend even somewhat of the practical purposes of life. If the de4 *




52                 STUDIES.
velopment of such gifts as; we may inherit will
determine not only our career here, but the standing'point where we must be placed on our entry
into the future world, then indeed to cultivate each
germ of power to the uttermost, to devote life with
unwavering purpose to whatever pursuit may seem
the highest within our reach, that only can be the
course worthy of reason. If, on the other hand, the
most glorious gifts of the thinker or the artist will
all be effaced in, another life, and the only inequalities there be purely moral and religious, then
indeed the cultivation of such gifts on earth must
be a matter of altogether secondary importance,
a thing to be considered as without bearing on the
durable interests of existence.
It would seem as if this question, like many
others, had been lying unrecognized under the
habitual modes of thought of different classes of
mankind. Such questions are not distinctly contemplated at all by one in a thousand, but an idea
which would form an answer to them is adopted by
each, and thenceforth the matter is, settled, as if
such an idea were an indisputable principle. Thus,
it appears, that among the old Greeks and among
most of those men and women who, in our time,
inherit the Greek. aesthetic nature, there is a conviction that Self-development is the grand purpose
of life,-an idea, be it observed, which must either
admit the result of such self-development to be
eternal, or ignore the eternal aspects of life alto,




SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION.  53
gether. Agaian, among those who throughout the
East and West, but more especially among the more
ardent sects of Christians, have given religion a
paramount place in all their interests, there is a
latent idea that Self-abnegation is a far nobler and
more meritorious thing than self-development; an
idea obviously resting on the conception that the
type of virtue produced by such abnegation is the
type which shall hereafter "inherit eternal life."'
It appears to me that an inquiry into the full
meaning and value of these apparently conflicting
principles will not be without interest. At every
turn of life'they confront us, sometimes leading to
great good, sometimes productive of immense evil.
As a general rule men follow the principle of selfdevelopment; and often by so doing grievously
neglect the claims which' should have bound them
to an opposite course; and women follow the principle of self-abnegation; and frequently by so
doing narrow their natures and renounce the use of
great powers committed to them by the Creator for'
the benefit of mankind. As, Parker said, "Most
men fail of their moral growth by the attempt to
extend their own self too far, most women by
attempting to contract it' too much." Let us attempt to define the two courses as clearly as may
be, with their good and ill results.
Self-development may be described as a principle whereby a man, contemplating life as a whole,
resolves to make it his first care to use to the best




54                 STUDIES-,
and uttermost whatever powers the Creator may
have bestowed on him. Such a man will naturally
rank the social and domestic claims on his attention
as secondary to the great purpose of his life. For
example, a man adopting this principle and believing himself qualified to become a useful politician, a profound metaphysician, or a successful
artist, would devote himself to seeking the proper
training for such work; and would pursue his labours as a statesman, thinker, painter, or sculptor
with a perseverance to which he would suffer the
claims of his parents, wife, children, or other dependents to offer little interruption.  If their
imperative wants enforced his attention, he would,
at all events, disregard their mere wishes and
inclinations; even as he would deny himself his
personal gratifications for the furtherance of his
great purpose. Such a man, if religiously disposed4
would attach to his pursuit the sanctity of a path
of life designed for him by his Creator. He would
consider his labours therein as the fulfilment of the
task given him in this world, and he would naturally
consider that by fulfilling it he had pleased his
Maker and fitted himself for a still higher task in
the world to come. He would practise much self.
denial although no self-abnegation.
Self-abnegation, on the other hand, is a principle
whereby a man resolves to give up all his faculties
to meet the claims which are nearest to him. Whosoever comes first with such claims carries him in




SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION.  55
the direction of his requirements; and his own
private pursuits and purposes are abandoned for
such service, whether the sacrifice be, or be not,
imperatively demanded by any pressing need of
the claimant. He starts with the inquiry, "Who
claims me first?" and not with the inquiry, " What
can I best do?"  For example; such a man may
imagine he has gifts fitted to render him serviceable
to science, literature, or general philanthropy. But
the pursuit'of any one of these things is constantly
barred to him by some want, wish, or request of
his parents, his wife, or his friends.  His father
desires him to undertake an uncongenial profession;
his wife implores him to live where she can be near
her family; his neighbours call for his services at
so many public and private meetings, and come so
constantly to consult him, that he has not an hour
left for his study. In matters great and small his
personal domain of freedom is invaded and his
energies absorbed.  He denies himself his own
pleasures and also the pursuit he deems best fitted
to make him useful in a large sphere; and in doing
this on the principle of self-abnegation he conceives that he best obeys the will of God; that Will
being (as he supposes) marked out in.each case by
the natural and proximate claims made upon him.
Thus he deems that he fits himself by self-sacrifice
for a purer world. He practises both Self-denial
and Self-abnegation.
It is surely time that we should carefully weigh




56                 STUDIES.
the claims of these two principles. The first is
commonly looked upon by religious persons as a
somewhat heathen idea, and the other as a peculiarly Christian one. The first is often adopted by
men against their theories of duty, simply because
the force of their natures drives them to such assertion of their powers. The second is nearly always.
preached to women, and usually conscientiously
adopted by them as if all other principles of action
were immoral and irreligious. But, after all, the
steady devotion of life to a high and worthy end is
not a principle we can afford to scoff at as " heathen;"
and to yield passively to the impulse of every wave
of circumstance till we are stranded at last as useless wrecks upon the shore of life, is a very strange
reading of the lessons of Christ. Heroism  and
heathenism, quietism and Christianity, are not, we
presume, convertible terms. Let us strive to see
light through this contradiction of principles, each
good and each evil under different aspects. It appears that Self-development is right under certain
conditions and Self-abnegation right under others.
What may these conditions be?
It cannot be too often repeated that all that is
noble in human nature springs from the centrifugal
force of Love-disinterested feeling, whereby we are
carried out of, and above, our own paltry individual
aims in pure devotion to God or man-to the good,
the beautiful, or the true. To love God because He
is supremely love-worthy, not because He can send




SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION.  57
us to heaven or hell; to strive to make man happy
and virtuous, because he is a creature capable of
happiness and virtue, and not because he will serve
us in return; to pursue the good, the beautiful,
the true, because the good is good, and beauty is
beautiful, and truth is true, and not because philanthropy will redound to our honour, or art bring us:
wealth and fame,-or science forward our interests —
this is right, this is noble and holy. And. all that
is poor and'base in human nature springs from
the centripetal force of Selfism, whereby we are
chained down to our own interests and pleasures
in pitiful care for them, even when we appear to
devote ourselves to higher aims. To be religious for
the rewards of heaven; moral, because "Honesty
is the best policy;" benevolent, that we may be
"seen of men;" to pursue art, science, literature,
because through them we may obtain worldly aggrandizement-this is wrong, this is base and
miserable.
But if these things be so, it is clear what must
be the conditions under which either self-development or self-abnegation must be good or evil. Both
must be good when they spring from Love. Both
must be evil when they spring from Selfism. Selfdevelopment must be a noble thing when it is inspired by love, by the pure love of God leading a
man to strive to lift up his soul to nearer communion
with Him through virtuous effort and extended
knowledge,. or by the love of his fellows leading a




58                 STUDIES,
man to endeavour to serve them by whatever task
his powers best qualified him to fulfil. Self-develop.
ment, on the contrary, must be a base thing when it is
inspired by Selfism, by the personal ambition, vanity,
covetousness, or thirst of private happiness, which
makes a man seek his own welfare before all things,
and build up his own "pyramid" for the dwelling.
place, nay, rather, for the sepulchre of his own loves
less soul.
And Self-abnegation may likewise be noble or
likewise base. It is noble when its sacrifice is in.
spired by the conviction that thereby God's work
may best be done and man's wants best supplied.
It is base when it springs from cowardice; from indolence; from a readiness to make spiritual capital
out of the selfishness of others whom it encourages
in a soul-destroying vice, while it tries to build itself
up in a celestial virtue; from an immoral acceptance
of the principle of passive endurance, which relieves
the mind from the agony of strife or the solemn:
weight of responsibility.
Theoretically, then, the solution of the problem
is clear enough. Each man's duty is to develope or
to abnegate himself, precisely as by doing one or
the other he conscientiously believes he can best
serve God and man. Does he think by the development and careful culture of the powers he possesses
he can do good as a statesman, mechanician, au.
thor, artist; and that such good will outweigh the
benefit he might render to those about him by




SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION,  59
keeping himself at their beck and call? Then assuredly it is his duty to devote himself to the development of those powers calculated so to benefit
mankind. Does he, on the contrary, think that
nothing he is likely to be able to do will be so serviceable as holding himself constantly at the disposition of his neighbours? then equally clearly it is his
duty to postpone all larger personal schemes to the
daily performance of the kindnesses in his reach.
One great class of cases alone will be removed out
of reach of these decisions. The imperative claims
of the nearest domestic ties can leave no space for
option regarding their fulfilment. Whatever a man
may think of his own faculties for exalted utility, if
his parent, wife, or child really require his aid, there
can be no liberty left him to choose what other good
he will achieve. The moral obligation is inevitableto assist before all others those who have such claims
of affinity or gratitude upon us. The discussions
which have been sometimes raised (as, for instance,
a very remarkable one detailed in Follen's "Life "
between Follen and Channing) on the problem
" Whether a man in case of shipwreck ought to save
his own father or the greatest benefactor to mankind," all ignore the fundamental canons of morality.
We are not left in the dark to guess whom we ought
to aid in such cases, for our duty is plainly laid out
for us-to aid those nearest to us, and to whom we
owe the debt of gratitude. As well might a man
turn from his creditor to give alms to a beggar, as




60                  STUDIES.
refuse to save his own father that he might save
another man.
Thus the theory of Self-development and Selfabnegation seems clear enough. Supposing no imperative claims to exist against us, we are called on
to develope, or to abnegate ourselves, precisely as
by doing one or the other it appears that we can best
serve God and man.
Practically, however, the case presents some of
the most difficult problems which beset the course'
of life. How is each individual to judge what he
might do; or to decide whether he may fairly postpone, for any end however seemingly great, the
little daily acts of kindness and service whose result
is apparently certain, while the larger end is problematical? The more tender conscience a man has,
the more difficulty he will find in deciding in favour
of the larger future, over the smaller present, duty;
and yet in a thousand cases, if that larger good is
ever to be done by any man, it must be done by the
steady resolution to place it before the daily calls
which beset us all.
There is a story of a French tradesman, who
early in life was struck with the want his native
town suffered of a good hospital for the sick.: For
long years he laboured on, secretly purposing to
accumulate a fortune which might suffice to endow
such an institution. To effect this, he refused to
give the smallest assistance either to his poorer
relatives or to the mendicants who thronged the




SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION.  61
town, and he denied himself almost the necessaries
of food and clothing. His neighbours, observing
his trade,to flourish, while he lived in the most
penurious manner, and refused the smallest alms
to solicitations alike of priest and beggar, soon
gave him the character of a miser. He was first
shunned by those whose social life he would not indulge himself by sharing, and by degrees more and
more distrusted and disliked, till the children hooted
him as the Avare in the streets. At last, when the
years were over in which he might have enjoyed the
pleasures of existence and the comforts of home and
domestic affections, the old man in his threadbare
coat, whom all the town knew as the selfish miser,
suddenly realized his property, built a magnificent
hospital, and endowed it with the whole of his
fortune. The purpose of his life, for which he had
toiled for half a century, was fulfilled, and every
honour and reparation his fellow-citizens could offer
surrounded his remaining years. Whether he was
satisfied with his course, satisfied that he had been
right for fifty years to pass by every appeal for
mercy, that he might accomplish at last a work of
vast and durable beneficence, the history sayeth not.
This story (which I have somewhere read as that
of the true origin of one of the great charities of
Southern France) is precisely a case in point. The
philanthropist debarred himself from all the daily
charities of life, that he might effect a great good
otherwise unattainable. Assuming (as we have a




62                 STUDIES.
right to do) that there were no natural claims of
filial duty disregarded, we must admit the action
was absolutely justifiable and laudable. No man
may serve God or mankind by " saying to his father
or his mother, Corban; it is a gift, by whatsoever
thou mightest be profited by me," and leaving them
to want what he gives elsewhere. But he is certainly at liberty to dispense with the claims of the
ordinary poor, when he may far more effectually
serve mankind otherwise.
But the adjustment of the duties of Self-de.
velopment and Self-abnegation, if thus practicable
upon paper, is, alas! in actual life a task of ex.
tremest difficulty. There are those among us to
whom, let reason ever so loudly demand Self-development, are yet by their gentle and yielding
natures continually driven to Self-abnegation; and
there are those who are called to Self-abnegation by
clearest conditions of life, to whom Self-development is, as it were, a primary instinct of the soul.
Let us study these two classes a little; and the last
first.
All human beings have a certain principle within them which we may call Self-Assertion. The rational free agent, be it man, woman, or even little
child, recalcitrates from the very depths of its na.
ture at any attempt to reduce it to a mere unit in a
sum. It demands to be recognized as what it is-a
human being, an individual. This being denied, its
nature rises in disorder. Kindness, even rich in



SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION.  63
dulgence, will not pacify it. It wants to be recognized as human, not indulged as a brute. The instinct of this truth has made judges, more severe
than wise, attempt to obliterate the individuality of
convicts by forcing them to bear a number instead
of a human name, and the result is to create, a new
cause of rebellious spirit. In large schools the
same thing in another way is done to children, and
the mischief thence ensuing is only palliated by the
boy or girl remembering that there is at home a
fond mother to whom "James" or "I Mary" is a
most thoroughly recognized individual, and no mere
unit in class three, or class five. Only in our workhouses where the poor young souls have no such
blessed refuges of comfortable memory, is the evil
pure and unmixed, and the result-what we behold.
Having at one time occasion to see much of a
number of female criminal children in a Reformatory, I was struck by the observation of the benevolent lady to whose noble labours England
iiefly owes these institutions, that she found her
girls always struggling to be individually noticed.
If at times, desiring to repress vanity, she failed to
show that she recognized their efforts to do well,
very soon they tried by conduct of another sort to
force attention. Some showed the sentiment more
strongly than others, but every one, even to tho
most stupid and wretched little ragged pickpocket
of ten years old, displayed it sooner or later in some
degree. If not noticed for good, they would be




64                 STUDIES.
noticed for evil. Needless to say, that in the wealth
of that good lady's heart they all found that recognition of their human souls for which they craved,
and that by individual care and love their reformation was always sought, and often achieved.
We cannot descend, then, anywhere so low as
to be beneath the natural sentiment of self-assertion.
Nay, nor may we ever rise so high as to be above it.
Can any of us endure that conception of the relation
of creature to Creator which would represent us as
a herd of human cattle, and He as the great Master,
who could stoop to no individual recognition of one
member or another, —who cared for the race alone,
not the units thereof; and fed us in His wide pastures of earth with as little personal heed as a king
might give to the deer of his park? Can we be
satisfied with this idea-be it never so cleverly
brought forward to explain the mysteries of the
world? Will the most bounteous Providence suffice
for us, if that Providence deign not to recognize us,
each as we are, moral entities in the universe of
souls? From the depths of our hearts comes the
answer "No!"   We ask for individual love,-and
without it all the deepest part of religion is for ever
closed to us. Blessed be God that we know and
feel that such individual love is actually given, and
that He, the Source of all love, cannot be defective
in that which His poor creatures have displayedthe divinest thing in humanity.
But this ineradicable self-assertion of our nature,




SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION.  65
though it might seem to do so, does not determine
us either to develope our powers or abnegate them
for the sake of others. It only affords a ground
of unassailable individualism, which may in the one
case serve for basis for the structure of self-development, and, in the other, cause the abnegation
to be a real moral action, and not such a mere
effacement as an animal undergoes in complete surrender to a man.
The spring of these opposite instincts seems to
lie elsewhere,-in the propensity to make-in the
one case an abstraction, in the other a person the
centre of our interests. Putting morality aside, we
have all a natural bias to make our chief object
in life either an abstract aim of some sort (e. g.
honour, wealth, pleasure, philanthropy, art, literature), or else personal (e. g. a certain relative or
friend or succession of friends). As a general rule,
the most masculine characters instinctively make an
abstract aim their centre, the main purport of their
existences; and though they may love at intervals,
warmly and even passionately, they are not moved
save temporarily from the grand purpose of their
lives. The death of no human being altogether
disturbs their equilibrium. Though they may grieve
for it with bitterest tears, they still press on to
their own goal, with heavier hearts, perhaps, but
unrelaxing will. The most feminine characters, on
the contrary, nearly always attach their souls to
some human anchorage, some husband, parent,
5




66                  STUDIES.
child, sister, brother, friend, and become utterly
wrecked when that hold upon existence is lost.
Though they may have seemingly pursued with
ardour some aim of another sort, it becomes clear
when the love is lost that it was only a secondary
purpose, and that, uncheered by love, they have no
energy to follow it more. Either life closes for
them, or they in time find a new human being on
whose affection to depend. In a word, the two
classes were designated by the line of Byron —
" Man's love is of his life a thing apart;'Tis woman's whole existence."
That is to say, it is so of the typical man and
woman. Practically, there are thousands of men
whose love and life are not apart, and thousands
of women whose existence is not wrapped up in
love at all, but who centre their interests upon
other aims, ambition, pleasure, art, philanthropy,
quite as completely as any man. But the type of
man who lives only in the object of his affectionswife, child, friend-is never a thoroughly masculine
character, but one in many ways morbid. And the
woman who lives for ambition or pleasure, for art,
sciende, literature, or even purest philanthropy,
and not for individual love, is always in a very
singular way repellent to the other sex, as if she
had transgressed her natural type and failed in her
proper disposition.
Now it is clear that to the character which
instinctively centres life on any abstract aim such




SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION.  67
as those we have been speaking of, self-development
is the natural course, and self-abnegation a very
hard and uncongenial one. On the other hand, to
the character which centres life on personal affection, self-development is the difficulty, and selfabnegation is spontaneous. The two forms of duty
are respectively attractive or distasteful, according
to the idiosyncrasy of the individual who has to
perform them.
Yet it is no less manifestly clear that the moral
obligation of either course is not determined by
any such circumstance as its congeniality or uncongeniality, but by the fact of it being the
course by which the individual can best serve God
and man.   Of course the strength which urges
self-development and the tenderness which urges
self-abnegation are both in a certain measure indicative of the probable utility of one or other
course.  But this can at most form   only one
element of decision. Because we are strong it does
not follow that no one has claims on our self-abnegation, nor because we are tender and yielding
that no such claims exist to detain us from larger
pursuits. An impartial consideration of the whole
bearings of our own capacities and the demands of
our neighbours can alone morally justify one course
or the other. The evils attendant on a wrong line
of action in these matters are very grievous both
to the individual and to society, yet rarely, perhaps,
are they traced to their proper source and set down
5 *




68                  STUDIES.
as derived from  the primary false principle. It
cannot be useless briefly to indicate these results.
Let us suppose that a man or woman resolutely
pursue the course of self-development when called
on by duty rather to practise self-abnegation.
The man says in effect, "I will become a writer,
statesman, soldier;" the woman, "I will be an
artist, a sister of charity, a student;" albeit in each
case a blind father or poverty-stricken mother or
helpless and untaught child call for the relinquishment of such schemes, and for a life of humble industry or home cares and nursing. The evil, so
far as the immediate sufferers are concerned, is plain
enough. In Victor Hugo's marvellous romance,
when poor Valjean in his old age is gradually
deserted and forgotten by the happy Cosette for
whom he had toiled and suffered so much, we are
admitted (for the first time perhaps in fiction) to a
whole class of sorrows which the heart aches to think
upon. Of the thousands of parents,-and men and
women who have taken the place of parents,-who
are left deserted in sad and lonely age, by children
not wicked, not wholly thankless, but ambitious or
selfishly engrossed in newer and more pleasurable
affections, who shall tell? The sons who make
homes and incur new charges on themselves when
their parents' wants are beyond their means to
supply,-the daughters who leave blind or helpless
fathers or lonely mothers, to enter convents or
to marry men who carry them to the ends of the




SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION.  69
earth, what bitter tears have they not brought from
fading eyes? Or if it be not a parent but a child
who is neglected, what has not that child, and often
the world through him, to suffer, for the lack of the
care and love to which each young soul is entitled
from those who bring it into life? No achievement assuredly which the writer, artist, statesman, or
philanthropist is likely to accomplish can outweigh
the failure to do that good which he, and he alone,
was bound to do to the parent and the child.
And are men's own natures really ennobled by
self-development practised under such circumstances?  Do they advance thereby to heights
otherwise unattainable, and which we may look
upon as among the eternal glories of the soul to
be perpetuated in the life to come? Surely it is
not so. The highest achievement of the statesman's policy, the finest book, the grandest picture, the largest philanthropic institution in the
world, are all tarnished and spoiled viewed in the
white light of conscience, when the policy, the
book, the picture, the institution have been wrought
out at the cost of the most sacred duties,-when the
man has achieved them with time and money he
owed elsewhere,-has given the world an alms of
that which belonged to his parents as a debt. In our
moments of deepest insight we all feel the same,
that under any conditions the triumphs of art,
science, and even philanthropy, lack somewhat of
the sanctity which overshadows the humbler tasks of




70                 STUDIES.
natural duty,-the training of a young child's lips to
pray, or the support of a mother's tottering steps.
We feel that when such holy duties are over or are
denied us, every other labour of life, however good
and even sacred, is in comparison colder and less
beautiful than those which we chose not for ourselves but which God appointed. How then, under
the conditions which we have supposed of the natural duties being spurned and voluntarily neglected, shall we. retain honour for the achievements of
self-developed genius? How shall we grant to
them any place in the glory of that world of realities of which our purest consciousness here is but
the foregleam?
Again, let us suppose, on the contrary, that a
man or woman choose the course of self-abnegation
when in truth their duty lay in the exercise of the
larger powers entrusted to them by Providence.
What evil is here! what loss to the individual, to
those for whom he makes his mistaken sacrifice,
and to the race! Suppose a parent, husband, wife,
brother, or sister absorb the time and care of a man
or woman not really needing it, but only liking
such attention, and therefore selfishly claiming it
through their influence over the affections or their
power over the destiny of their victim.  Here is
one of the very commonest tragedies of daily life,
and I must be pardoned if I dwell on it somewhat
lengthily, and appeal against the wrong it involves,
especially as a woman,-not indeed one who has in




SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION.  71
any way suffered under it personally, but who has
met it in almost every social circle, poisoning the
lives which under a juster treatment would be both
useful and full of happiness. Of course women are
selfish as well as men, in some ways they are more
selfish and exigeantes; and many is the kind, selfsacrificing father, husband, brother, who has a right
to complain bitterly that his labours through days
and years of toil for his family are met by no corresponding love and care for his happiness. But if
this be so in many shameful cases, there is, on the
other hand, a type of selfishness which is not common, save in men, a type which especially developes
itself in the strength of that false self-abnegation
which we are endeavouring to define, and which
therefore may here be fitly marked out as one of
the evils of our social system which it behoves us
all to strive to check through the force of public
opinion.
To describe this form of selfishness I shall take
the commonest case of all, that of a father with his
grown-up daughters. Probably every one of my
readers will know of more than single instances
such as the following to be found at this moment
among their acquaintance. The father is not a bad
man, not intentionally unkind or cruel, only selfish
and systematically despotic. While his daughter
is young he keeps her from following out studies
which might have enlarged her mind and given her
the noblest pleasures. And why? Simply because,




72                 STUDIES.
forsooth, he has no interest in them and " dislikes a
learned woman."  He checks the warm friendships
she would have formed with other women, because
he "disapproves of female friendship."  He debars her, in a measure, from those forms of social
enjoyment in which she would have probably formed
the natural ties of human existence, because he
"has had enough of society long ago," and also,
perhaps, though he does not say so, because he secretly deprecates her quitting her post beside him
for any home of her own. He breaks up her whole
time into small attentions to his comfort, giving her
neither the leisure nor freedom of money to undertake any plans of usefulness or literary or artistic
pursuits. Her life is narrowed into the smallest
mill-round of little cares, not one of which is dignified by any real use. It is a tread-mill, not a mill
to grind any bread of life. As her youth passes
away and the woman ought to grow in breadth
of thought and power of nature, and learn to
perform her part in life to her own happiness and
the good of others, she is cramped into the same
bounds which fitted her as a school-girl, with no
greater freedom to travel, to see friends, to obtain
books, to help the poor; and the result is either
torpid inanity or bitter restlessness. All this
many a father brings on his daughters even
when himself in full vigour of life and health,
and having perhaps a wife and three or four of
these unhappy ones all absorbed by his selfishness.




SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION.  73
When he grows aged and falls into ill health
the case becomes worse, the selfishness so long indulged becomes utterly tyrannical. Every consideration for his child's physical health is forgotten now
as that for her mental health was neglected long
ago; and close and heated rooms and incessant attendance (which he refuses shall be relieved by any
friend or servant, because he likes best his daughter's service) leave her at his death with broken
health and shattered nerves, to pass the rest of her
life as best she may, having never been allowed to
form either the ties of marriage or even of such
strong friendships as might supply its place. Rarely
does it happen that even in return for such self-abnegation as this has the father endeavoured to secure for the daughter's solitary age the full competence which might have supplied her at least with
worldly comforts in default of home affections. The
same father who has absorbed all her bright days
will unconcernedly leave her dark ones to be supported by a mere pittance, which he has never denied himself a single gratification to enlarge.
I have drawn out this sketch to a length perhaps unwarranted, but the case is both a typical
one of the evil of mistaken self-abnegation, and also
a fair picture of a most common and grievous wrong
which calls loudly for such public condemnation as
may awaken the consciences of the offenders. For,
be it noticed, this great and shameful injury (done
often to most loving and innocent hearts only too




74                    STUDIES.
ready to sacrifice themselves) is a thing not only
unchecked, but actually sanctioned by the false
morals constantly inculcated respecting the rights
of parents and duties of children.
The very man who will have gone on for forty
years in this course of unrelenting selfishness is
often not only professedly, but in his own estimation, a good man and a devout Christian, and he
will as deliberately with self-approval thus crush
out the very life of his unfortunate daughter as he
would take the services of his horse or his dog.*
He has been taught to believe it is fit and right for
a man and a parent thus to demand the whole
existence of a woman.     Nay, if argued with, he
will, perhaps, have the effrontery to affirm that by
such a life-long oblation of herself to him he has
secured for. her the highest moral and religious
condition! As to her happiness-while the wrinkles
gather on her once smiling face, and the lips become
thin and hard, and the voice becomes shrill, and
the laugh more and more rare,-the father will go
on complacently assuring himself she is perfectly
content, that all her nature is satisfied by being,not a good man's daughter, friend, companion, aid,but the poor drudge of an egotist who has no love
* An eminent physician, who has had unusual opportunities
of witnessing the interior politics of innumerable families, once
remarked to me, " I hear old people often talk of the selfishness
of the young. All my experience goes to prove the inordinate
selfishness of parents and the amazing self-sacrifice of their
children."




SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION.  75
to give or take, and might supply all she can do for
him by the paid services of a menial.  Surely,
surely, it is high time that an offence like this,
instead of being sheltered by public opinion, should
meet the opprobrium it deserves, and that every
friend and relative and neighbour of the selfish
parent should endeavour to bring home to his dull
conscience the truth that he is not exercising a
"divine right," but committing a cruel and most
odious wrong!
But to turn from the selfish father to the selfabnegating daughter. What shall we say to her
duty in the matter?  Is she'(as many tell us)
performing an act of saintly virtue in yielding
unresistingly to all her father's invasions? Is she
right to let him for his selfish indulgence take
her whole life and devour it as he might a fruit
from his garden, leaving only the dry husk when
he has drank up all its juices? I can hardly think
so. Only to describe such conduct is to condemn
it, to point it out as a great and frightful sil: one
of those slowly-wrought and long-extended sins
which undoubtedly rust and ruin the soul as much
or more than even the worst hot deeds of passion.
How, then, is it the part of any one connected with
the offender, to indulge him in his offence? How
can the daughter herself be morally absolved for
encouraging such a course of wrong? Suppose
that it were a high discipline for her own soul
(which is more than doubtful) to yield to such self



76                  STUDIES.
ishness, how can she lawfully accept such spiritual
gain for herself at such direful loss to another?
True filial duty, as well as every other form of
social duty, requires us to seek the highest good of
its object, first, to conduce to his virtue, secondly,
to produce his happiness. Hatred and malevolence
themselves could do no more than to foster in another human soul the corroding vice of selfishness
while we outwardly contributed to physical comfort
and enjoyment. The debt of special benevolence
due from a child to a parent must needs involve
(as soon as the child is of an age to judge of
it), at least, the care not to suffer a great visible
moral defect to grow up in the parent's heart as
the result of any conduct of the child. As one
invasion after another of the daughter's natural
sphere of liberty goes on establishing the precedent
of parental selfishness, till at last it is erected into
a sort of habitual principle, she is assuredly bound
to pause and make a stand in behalf, not only of
justice to her own soul and to the other claims
upon her, but actually for her father's own sake, and
in most imperative duty towards him.
The motives which blind women to these truths
are of various kinds. Some are altogether evil.
The chief of these is cowardice, and the next
indolence. Girls are often cowed in early youth
into hopeless moral pusillanimity. The strong will
of a man overbears their feeble volitions, even as
hi~ loud voice drowns their puling remonstrances.




SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION.  77
They simply dare not resist father or husband by
any open opposition, albeit deception (the natural
resource of cowardice) will often make them
counteract his desires. Such poor, wretched women
deserve our uttermost pity; but hard as it may
seem, their moral salvation depends on their being
able to rise above their hound-like fears, and assume
the dignity of a human being in their relations to
the tyrants who have thus beaten them down. Indolence, again, is a great besetting sin of all whose
lives are narrowed and hopeless. A moral lethargy
falls on the will, and the idea of contending for any
point, however important, is dreaded just as an immense exertion of physical strength is feared by a
weak and tired man. In the case of mothers, there
commonly exists a care for their children's interests
strong enough to bear down both indolence and
cowardice, and, like timid animals made brave and
resolute by love of their young, they speak and act
with courage and decision. But a single woman
has no such spur, and a tyrannical parent (unless
her nature be unusually powerful) has an easy task
to reduce her to most helpless subjection. But the
source of false self-abnegation, which chiefly concerns us here to trace, is not the visible defects of
cowardice and indolence, but the erroneous principle, conscientiously followed, that it is the duty of
a child to yield implicitly to the demands of a
parent be they never so obviously unjustifiable.
This is the error which lies at the root of the whole




78                 STUDIES.
evil, beneath which cowardice and indolence shelter
themselves, and in whose shade offenders are blinded to the turpitude of their selfishness.
The subject is one of so great importance, and
the principles involved cover so much larger a
field than the special case of fathers and daughters
which I have selected as the most obvious, that I
hope I shall be pardoned for pursuing it yet a little
further, and endeavouring to elucidate as far as
possible the true morality of the whole matter. To
do this we must ascend a little to the general principles of all social duty.
We owe benevolence to all our fellow-creatures,
that is, we are bound to desire for all, and to seek
for so many as we may, the highest good they can
receive. For the merely sentiertt being we desire to
bestow happiness; for the being who is both moral
and sentient we desire, first, to conduce to his
virtue, and, secondly, to produce his happiness. This
is the great canon of social duty. Secondly, among
those to whose virtue we may conduce or whose
happiness we may produce, there is a precedence
due to such as have special claims upon us, of either
proximity of blood, gratitude, contract, or neighbourhood. Of these special claims those of parents
over their children are manifestly the first, always
resting on proximity and generally including gratitude also. Next to them come the reciprocal claims
of husband and wife, resting on a contract or vow
of special mutual benevolence. Now if, as we have




SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION.  79
said, an ordinary claim of benevolence requires us
to seek the virtue and happiness of its object, the
special claim calls on us to seek those ends primarily, i. e. before the virtue or happiness of any other
claimant. We are not permitted to pass over the
person holding them to aid any one else. It is the
first and highest of all social duties to display to
them this true benevolence. That is Filial Duty,
neither more nor less. To what does it practically
amount? The way in which we can best produce
the happiness of those holding to us such a relation
as a parent, will usually be by attending to their
wants and wishes in the way they may themselves
desire, their superior age making it a presumption
that they can best judge for themselves what will
make them happy. These desires of theirs they
will naturally express in the form either of request,
or (retaining the phrases which properly applied to
childhood alone) of directions and commands. These
requests, directions, or commands, in as far as they
indicate the parent's wish in matters belonging to
his own happiness, become morally imperative upon
us, as expressing the precise form assumed at the
moment by the parent's special claims on our benevolence. Filial duty consists mainly in attention
to such parental desires, limited only in the case of
the thing desired being either immoral, or visibly
and unmistakeably qualified to injure instead of
benefiting the parent who asks it.
But when these personal desires of the parent




80                  STUDIES.
are fulfilled by the child, has the parent a further
right to. dictate to the child in matters not concerning his (the parent's) welfare? Assuredly such a
right, held provisionally during childhood, stops
altogether when the son or'daughter attains to full
adult moral life.  It must do so, for there is no
ethical ground on which it can be further maintained, and its prolongation would nullify the
primary postulate of all morality, which is the freedom of the individual will and its responsibility to
God alone. If the parent were to decide for the
son the questions of duty which arise in his life, the
whole responsibility of the son's conscience would
rest on the father, and the great purpose of human
life be destroyed. As the son owes it to God in all
cases to do as seems to his own conscience right, it is
impossible he can also owe it to his father to do
what his conscience may decide to be so.
Here then lies the grand distinction. Those commands of a parent which refer to his own happiness
the child is bound to obey. Those commands (if
he issue any) which refer to the child's own affairs
he is not bound to obey, nay, he is bound to disobey
whenever they clash with the decisions of his own
conscience.
Of course all this reasoning regarding filial duty
applies a fortiori to conjugal duty, which, resting
upon a voluntary contract of special benevolence,
can in no case attain to the same stringency of
obligation as the filial duty which rests both on




SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION.  81
natural proximity and on a debt of gratitude
incurred long prior to marriage. The two con.
tracting parties in marriage mutually engage
themselves to special benevolence, and the woman
may further engage herself also to "obedience,"
i. e. to peculiar regard for her husband's desires
respecting his own or the joint affairs of both.
But more than this she cannot lawfully engage to
do, and any vow implying it would be immoral.
She is bound, as much as the daughter whose case
we have supposed, to check her husband's selfishness and to disobey him whenever his injunctions
clash with the mandates of her own conscience.
Does this expression strike the reader as strange?
Is the phrase "the duty of disobedience" somewhat startling? Assuredly we have all wandered
far from a true and healthful morality if so it should
be. The very fact that there is such a thing as a
duty of Obedience implies that there must exist a
duty of Disobedience also. Obedience to a rightful
lord must involve disobedience to any one who
usurps his authority. Loyalty to conscience can only
exist by the repudiation of all interference with its
sacred behests. To " obey God rather than man" is
to obey God against man in all the thousand instances wherein human wills oppose the Divine.
Strange would it be to trace how the errors of the
ascetics of the early Christian church, and after.
wards of dreamy mystics and Quietists, have per..
verted the ethics of Christ, teaching that servile
6




82                  STUDIES.
obedience of son, daughter, wife, servant, subject,
constitutes exalted virtue,-even while the whole
Bible of humanity, Hebrew, Greek, Roman, and
Teuton, is one great psalm of honour to the heroes
and saints, the prophets and martyrs, who have
defied the aggressions of the invaders of their
personal or political freedom; who have chosen to
obey Conscience rather than any mortal guide; and
who have carried out even in blood and flames that
same solemn " duty of disobedience."
If every son and daughter, every husband and
wife, took solemnly to heart as a duty the obligation
of checking, instead of encouraging, the selfishness
of those most near and dear to them, there would
assuredly be far fewer miserable, selfish men and
women in the world. The omission of such a duty
cannot be blameless. Shakespeare was right to say,
"Self-love, my lord, is not so vile a sin
As self-neglecting."
But how is selfishness to be checked? How is such
a father or husband as we have described-or, alas!
such a mother or wife as we might (though as a less
common experience) describe also-to be arrested
in his or her course of invasions? Assuredly not
by the resisting party being themselves selfish, and
reducing existence to the ugly and pitiful struggle
between two contending wills! Rather must it
be done by an unselfishness far more complete than
that which pusillanimously yields to wrong,-an unselfishness which shall both abnegate and develope




SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION.  83
self, precisely when and how, after the gravest consideration, the interest of others seem to require.
The line once drawn and plainly announced between
the filial and conjugal services which are accepted
obligations, and the obedience which will be refused
to invasive commands, the task will not be so difficult. The time must surely come, if not in this
life, then in the next, in which the parent, husband,
or wife, prone to selfishness and love of dictation,
will thank the child or wife or husband who steadily
and tenderly places a limit on exactions and despotism, and saves him or her from the great sin and
misery of a selfish old age.
It is needless to analyze other types of mistaken
self-development or self-abnegation. Enough has
been said, it is hoped, to indicate where the error in
each case may lie, and on what high and solemn
moral grounds the decision in one case or the other
ought to be made. But turning fromfalse choices and
their deplorable results, how fair a sight is that of
a true one, when man or woman rightfully pursues
the course either of self-development or self-abnegation! How noble a thing it is to see a youth
struggling bravely onward with one high aim before him, borne down perhaps often by the tide of
circumstance, yet ever rising again undismayed, till
he " grapples with his evil star," and the battle is
gained,-the ignorant man has become learned, the
soldier has won his laurels, the artist has created a
great work, the writer has touched the heart of his
6 *




84                 STUDIES.
nation, the statesman has achieved a wide and
deep reform, the philosopher has discovered some
grand eternal truth and "thought again the thoughts
of God! " A glorious and ravishing sight truly; I
know but one nobler. It is when the man who
might have been the scholar, soldier, artist, statesman, author, or discoverer, who had it in his mind's
grasp and his soul's resolute will to be so, has
closed his eyes to the dazzling crown and turned
aside, mournfully perhaps, but with unswerving resolve, to humbler tasks which could win no human
glory, but which were DUTIES laid on him by his
Maker. Such a life in its simplicity of allegiance
to the holiest law, is the grandest sight which our
eyes, were they truly illumined, could see in all
the world. The man who leads it is as much
greater than the successful scholar, statesman, philosopher, as the moral is higher than the intellectual,
the aesthetic, or the animal nature. What he might
have been, however great, is poor and small beside
what he is. We may not be able to see this,; we
cannot fathom either the gifts that were latent in
him, or the holy sense of duty (or of that love which
is duty perfected and completed) which has made
him abnegate their use. But in the world of Realities it must need be that we all shall perceive,
what perhaps God alone sees now, the supreme
transcendant glory of true self-sacrificing goodness.
In that high world it may well be that Genius shall
still wear his starry crown and joy in his divinely




SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND SELF-ABNEGATION.  85
given powers. But it must needs be that a yet
purer blessedness must belong to such Virtue as
we have contemplated, and that in that " Kingdom
of the Father" the Righteous shall " shine forth as
the sun."








THE SACRED BOOKS
OF THE
ZOROASTRIANS.








A CRITICAL study of the various religions of the
world is one of the many features which distinguish
modern scholarship from  that of earlier times.
Three hundred years ago the foremost minds in
England, who composed her noble liturgy, wrote
the collect which intercedes for " Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics,"-very obviously confounding' Turks": with Mahometans, and considering the
six or seven hundred millions of Heathen in the
world too inconsiderable to be included in any category. A century later, the Renaissance had done
its work, and made men perfectly familiar with
Greek and Roman Polytheism, yet leaving them still
almost entirely ignorant of other- creeds, insomuch
that divines disported themselves at pleasure in
comparisons between Mosaic doctrines and those of
Roman paganism, as if no higher type of Gentile
faith were to be found. Again another century
arrived, and the dawning knowledge of the great
religions of the East, obtained through travellers
and students) suggested to the free-thinkers of
France the brilliant idea of setting up Buddha,
Menu, Confucius, Zoroaster, and Mahomet, as rivals
to the prophets and apostles of Christianity. For




90                 STUDIES.
that time "les Chinois et les Brachmanes" were
credited with the possession of every exalted doctrine
and every moral excellence-it must be confessed,
on the slenderest evidence imaginable. The disenchantment of Voltaire, had he visited the court of
Pekin, would probably have far exceeded even that
which he experienced at Potsdam. Yet again a
new era has come, and the religions of the East are
subjected to a thoroughly searching inquiry, unwarped by any inclination to seek premises for
either of the foregone conclusions of earlier timesthat they are utterly base and bad, mere foils to
Christianity; or that, on the other hand, they are
equally pure and noble with the highest faith of
Europe. The present state of Islam, Brahminism,
Buddhism, and Parseeism; the popular doctrines believed by each great sect; its ecclesiastical arrangements, ceremonies, and forms of worship, are now
all known to us tolerably well through personal
experience, or the experience of thousands of our
countrymen. The still more interesting problem of
the original character of these creeds, when each
was in its zenith of prosperity, is daily in process of
solution, as one after another the sacred books of
each are subjected to the microscope of modern
criticism, examined, compared, commentated, and
published in the original, and in translations in all
the principal European tongues. As the geologist
lays bare the long-buried archives of creation, so do
the critics engaged in this great work open up the




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS.  91
strata of human thought and faith, revealing, as they
descend into the depths of the ages, simpler and
ruder forms of religious life, but finding life always
and everywhere. There are no azoic rocks in the
geology of man's religion.
Of the five great creeds of Asia-Islam, Buddhism, Brahminism, the Confucian and Zoroastrian
systems,-the last, albeit numbering in our time
comparatively a mere handful of adherents, has
perhaps the strongest of all claims on our interest.
Mahometanism is, after all, only a great offset of Ju.
daism; Confucius taught rather a morality than a
Religion; and Buddhism and Brahminism deal with
conceptions of Life and Deity and futurity so amazingly different from our own, that we feel, in studying them, as if we had passed into another planet,
where the conditions of time and space, of the material and the spiritual, were altered. The Parsee or
Zoroastrian faith, on the other hand, meets us, as if
composed of ideas all familiar to us,-all open, if not
to acceptance, yet at least to recognition as normal
products of human speculation, on the world such as
we find it. Nay, so much is there in this old creed
of Persia in harmony with our popular belief to-day,
that we inevitably learn to regard it with a sort of
hereditary interest, as a step in the pedigree of
thought much more direct in our mental ancestry
than the actual faith of our Odin-worshipping forefathers according to the flesh. Maimonides says
that the Jews "derived all their knowledge of the




92                  STUDIES.
angels from the Persians at the Captivity," and
truly a perusal of the Zend Avesta affords the best
explanation of that mass of ideas concerning good
and evil spirits, current so long in Christendom, and
yet supported by such slender authorization from
the canonical writings of either Testament.
A brief and merely popular account of the
results of recent investigations concerning the
history of Zoroastrianism and the contents of the
Zoroastrian  sacred  books will perhaps prove
acceptable to readers whose knowledge of the
subject stopped short at the point left by the discoveries of Anquetil du Perron in the last century,
on which no important advance was made till
very recently.
The first fact brought to light by modern Oriental scholars concerning the ancient faith of Persia
is a startling one enough. It appears there was a
time when Brahminism and Zoroastrianism were
undivided, when the two great branches of the
Aryan race which have since adopted those creeds
dwelt together in unity and worshipped at the same
altars.  The schism  which broke this primeval
unity was the starting-point of the religious history
of half the world.
At first sight it might appear that a fact like
this, averred to have occurred before historic times,
and not once clearly recorded or even alluded to in
any ancient book, could never be satisfactorily established. Nevertheless, the evidence of its truth is




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS.  93
quite incontestable. The subject is so curious that
I shall be pardoned for condensing this evidence
into a brief statement.
In the Brahmin religion Deva is the common
title of all divine beings, and Asura of evil spirits,
In the Zoroastrian religion and sacred books from
first to last, Deva is the name of evil spirits, and
Ahura (or Asura) of divine ones. Ahura-Mazda
(Ormuzd) is Zoroaster's peculiar title for God,
Thus we arrive at the presumption that at some
period there was a revolution in which the gods of
one party became the devils of the other.*  But
we advance a step further in the search when we
find that the Zoroastrian Ahura or Asura was not
always a demon to the Brahmin. The word is used
in an evil sense only in the ages of the Puranas and
later Vedas. In the Rig Veda Samhita in numberless
places the word Asura is used in a good sense, and
applied to the very highest gods-Indra, Varuna,
Agni, Seeva, &c.,-the sense being "living" or
" spiritual being." t  Again, in the Yajur Veda
there are certain parts in particular metres, distinguished by the epithet Asuri, and these metres
(unique in the Vedas) are precisely those of the
Zoroastrian Gathas, or most ancient sacred songs of
the religion of Ahura-Mazda. Again, a number of
* This strange exchange was first noticed a few years ago by
Lassen.
t Haug quotes in support of this, Rig Veda, 1. 54.3; 1.24. 14;
4.2.5; 723; 1.35.7; 5.42.11, &c.




94                 STUDIES.
the Vedic deities are found, some as good, some as
evil, beings in the Zoroastrian books,-Indra, god
of the sky, becomes the second of the devils; Soeva,
under his name Sharva, is another devil.   The
Sanscrit Deva Mitra becomes the angel Mithra,
and so on. A further. evidence is found in the
similarity of original rites, wherein the Zoroastrian
religion seems to have copied (and purified of all
sanguinary character) the Brahmin ceremonies
and sacrifices. The sacramental Soma juice is but
slightly changed for the Homa; the investiture of
the sacred thread whereby a man becomes either a
Brahmin or Parsee belong to both religions alike.
Thus an original unity and subsequent schism
between the two creeds may be held to be established.  But when did this schism take place?
It must have taken place at the time when Indra
was the chief god of the Brahmins and before the
Trimourtiwas introducedinto their religion —a trinity
of which no traces can be found in Zoroastrianism.
This is the period of the earlier Vedas,,before the
Brahmins had immigrated into Hindoostan, and when
Asura was still a Brahmin name for a good god. At
that remote period it is plausibly conjectured, the
Aryan tribes having wandered from their northern
home (described in the first Fargard of the Vendidad
as a cold country, with ten months of winter), began
to divide themselves into two great branches,-the
Iranians who addicted themselves to agriculture in
Bactria and its vicinity; and the Brahminic tribes




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS.          95
who persisted in nomade habits for some centuries
later, till they penetrated into India. The contest
between the agriculturists and the nomades, and the
forays of the latter on the lands of the former, would
naturally engender the strife of creeds which
followed.
This great schism, which M. Ernest de Bunsen
ingeniously suggests may be the fact embodied in the
myth of Cain and Abel, is assuredly a turning-point
of immense importance in history. Asia then fell
morally asunder. The eastern half of the Aryan race
thenceforth diverged further and further from the
simple creed of the earlier Vedas, and multiplied
objects of worship, cosmical dreams, senseless
ceremonies, and degrading and immoral superstitions without end, till Brahminism could boast of
its three million gods for its three hundred millions
of votaries.*   The Western race, on the contrary,
The depth of pollution to which Hindooism may descend has
been fearfully revealed of late in an "Account of the Sect of
Maharajahs of Western India" (Triibner, 1865). A religion
whose rites are orgies and whose heaven is an eternal pollution,
is a spectacle before which the mind stands aghast. We ask, out
of what tree of evil can such a corrupt branch have grown? What
could be that Vedic faith which after four millenniums has borne
such poison-fruit? Yet perhaps even this perversion of the religious sentiment of humanity is not the worst the world has
seen. A creed immeasurably holier than India has ever known
has borne fruit even more unlike itself. He who would judge of
the Gospel by the light of an auto-da-fe would surely form an
idea of it no less wide of the mark! See the summary of Christian persecutions in Lecky's Rationalism. Vol. ii.




96                    STUDIES.
began in that remote primeval movement, a course
wherein   the moral part of religion, recognized
from  the first in its due ascendency, worked it's
way through millenniums, giving to the creed
which embodied it a dignity and power unmatched
elsewhere, till it leavened the thought of the mighty
Hebrew race, and, through the Hebrews, of Christendom itself.
In one of the grandest stanzas in Childe Harold
Byron says,
"And if, as holiest men have deem'd, there be
A land of souls beyond that sable shore
To shame the doctrine of the Sadducee,
And sophists madly vain of dubious lore,
How sweet it were in concert to adore
With those who made our mortal labours light;
To hear each voice we fear'd to hear no more,
Behold each mighty shade reveal'd to sight,
The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the right."
Should we indeed in a future world be permitted
to hold high converse with the great departed, it
may chance that in that " Bactrian sage," who lived
and taught almost before the dawn of history, we
may find the spiritual patriarch to whose lessons we
have owed such a portion of our intellectual inheritance, that we might hardly conceive what human
belief would be now had Zoroaster never existed.
At the period when the breach took place between the Aryan tribes, it appears that the Iranians
already possessed a priesthood, the Soshyantos, or
Priests of Fire. They are spoken of with reverence




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS.  97
in the earliest parts of the Zend Avesta, and to them
a certain share in the work of forming the creed
then in process of growth may be attributed. To
Zoroaster himself, however, must be given the honour of being the true founder of the religion of Ahura
Mazda; the prophet who raised a vague Natureworship into a definite and noble Theism. The
question is a profoundly interesting one, What can
we know of this great teacher? What reliable
record remains of his life and actions? The answer
is very brief.
The name which the Romans called Zoroaster,
the Greeks Zarastrades, and the modern Persians
Zerdoscht, is, in the ancient Zend, Zarathustra, and
signifies a Chief or Elder. The title was applied
generally to the Magian high-priests, whence naturally arose the mistake of the Greek historians, who
asserted that there had been several Zoroasters,
prophets of different ages. The great Zoroaster is
distinguished in the Zend Avesta as Zaracthustra
Spitarma-the latter word being, perhaps, a title
implying sanctity, or, possibly, a patronymic. His
father's name (according to the Vendidad and
Yasna) was Pouraschaspa, and his mother's (according to the Bundehesch), Dogdo. We also learn
that he had sons, and a daughter;-proving him
to have been no member of the order of celibate
prophets. His home was doubtless in the locality
where tradition has uniformly placed it, in Bactria,
near the old cradle of the Aryan race; that "Aryana
7




98                 STUDIES.
Vaejo," " the ancient home," so often spoken of in
early Eastern books: Zoroaster indeed is especially
entitled in the Zend Avesta "the celebrated in
Aryana Vaejo."  His office was that of one of the
Soshyantos; and as such he is represented as
standing before the sacred fire and announcing
the faith of Ahura-Mazda, in the Githas, or sacred
songs of the Yasna. These Gathas, which the researches of Haug have proved to have very high
claims to be considered the actual compositions
of Zoroaster and his immediate disciples, afford us
the most reliable evidence which remains as to his
real character and doctrine. In these he calls himself (or the composer speaking in his name calls him)
a "Reciter of Mautras," a "Messenger of Ahura
Mazda," a " Listener to the sacred words revealed by
God."
As specimens of these original words of Zoroaster,
showing somewhat of his theology and ethics, we
may quote the following passages:
"I will believe in Thee, Mazda! the powerful
holy God! With Thine helpful hand Thou givest
to the pious man and to the impious, by means of
the heat which strengtheneth all things. Thus I
believe in Thee, Thou Wise and Living God, because I behold Thee to be the primal cause'of life
to Thy creation. To the evil Thou hast apportioned
evil,-to the good the true good. I will believe in
Thee, Thou glorious God, even to the last period of
existence. At whatever time I have trusted in Thee,




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS.  99
Thou Wise and Living God! in that Thou camest
unto me..   To those who honour Thee, Armaiti
(the Spirit of Piety) will teach Thy Laws which
none may abolish.. May the number of the
worshippers of the Liar (Ahrimanes) diminish!...
Thus prays Zarathustra.".. Gtha Ustavaiti (II.
Gatha), Yasna 43, v. 4, et seq.
The following is styled the Inaugural Speech of
Zoroaster, and is believed by Haug to have been
used by the prophet at the opening of his mission,
standing before the sacred fire in solemn assembly.
"I will now declare unto you who are gathered
here the wise sayings of the Most Wise, the praises
of the Living God.. Every one, both man and
woman, ought this day to choose his faith... In the
beginning there were twins-the Good and the
Base, in thought, word, and deed. Choose one
of those two spirits! Be good, not base. Ye
cannot belong to both of them. Ye must choose
one, either the originator of the worst actions or
the true holy spirit. Some may choose the hardest
lot. Others adore Ahura -Mazda by means of
faithful actions."*  (Gatha Ahunavaiti, Yasna 30.)
These fragments, and the few more belonging to
the same Gthas, if really the words of Zoroaster,
* The four translations before me of these passages-two in
English by Spiegel and Haug, one in Latin and one in German
by Haug, all differ so considerably, and in those professedly Eng.
lish the grammar is so defective, that I have only ventured to
give such phrases as in all bore somewhat of the same sense,
7 *




100                STUDIES.
afford a very interesting glimpse of the character of
his instructions. The clear moral note prominent
through the whole cycle of Zoroastrian religion, has
here been struck. The "Choice of Scipio" was
offered to the old Iranians by their prophet 3000
years ago, even as it is offered to us all to-day.
"Choose one of the two spirits. Be good, not
base!"
Of the Life and actions of Zoroaster independently of his teachings, very little can be known with
certainty. In the Bzudehesch there is indeed his
complete biography. We are told of his miraculous
birth, his retirement into the wilderness, and his
temptation by Ahrimanes, who offers him all power
and prosperity on condition he will admit him to be
God; whereto Zoroaster replies: "Evil Glory! It
is for thee and thy race that Douzakh (hell) is
prepared. As for me I will serve Ormuzd!"  We
are further told how he introduced himself by
miracles to the notice of King Gushtasp; and
becoming the monarch's friend and counsellor,
established the true Mazdayasnan faith through his
dominions. The age of the Bundehesch, however,
though undoubtedly prior to the Christian era
(a circumstance which renders some of its legends
specially noticeable), is still so many centuries later
than that of Zoroaster himself, that we can attach
little or no value to its information.  All that
we can fairly rely upon amounts to this,-that
he was, as already stated, a Soshyanto, or Priest




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 101
of fire, at the period of the final schism between
the Brachman and Iranian branches of the Aryan
race; and that to him was mainly due the definite form which the religion of the latter then
assumed. The invariable process by which the
great prophets and heroes of humanity become
wrapped in a halo of supernatural glory, and removed out of the sphere of the manhood they
honoured, has not been wanting in the case of
Zoroaster. In the later books of the Zend Avesta
(the younger Yasna and Vendidad) we find him
already raised to superhuman rank,-the Teacher of
Monotheism has become a demi-god, elevated above
the archangels. He is "the Abyss of all wisdom
and truth, the Master and Head of the whole living
creation." *
As to the date at which Zoroaster flourished,
the utmost uncertainty prevails among critics. The
belief of the modern Parsees (adopted by Anquetil
du Perron) has been exploded, viz. that the Kava
Vistaspa of the Zend Avesta is the Hystaspes, father
of Darius of the Greeks, and that, consequently, his
contemporary, Zoroaster, lived about 550 B.C. A
much higher antiquity than this is required, if only
to leave space for the growth of the whole cycle of
Zend literature, which began with the prophet's
songs and was complete in 400 B.C. The Greeks
attributed to him various remote dates. Xanthus
* Haug's Essays, p. 252.




102                    STUDIES.
of Lydia (writing circ. 470 B.c.) says that he lived
about 600 years before the Trojan war, or in 1800
B.C.  Aristotle places him 6000 years before Plato,
and Berosus makes him reign over Babylon, 2200
B.C. On reviewing all arguments, Haug determines
his date as at the latest 1000 B.C., and probably
three centuries higher.*
The religion which Zoroaster taught was undoubtedly a pure Monotheism. It degenerated
in time into a partial Dualism      combined with a
remnant of the old Nature-worship,-or rather such
degeneration took place in one sect called the
Zendiks, adherents of the Zend (commentary on
the Avesta), while another sect, the Magian, remained true to the purer ancient Theism.       During
the period of the greatness of the first Persian
Empire, of which Cyrus is the central figure, the
Zoroastrian religion was the universal faith of the
nation, and the Jewish captives then learned from it
their science of the angelic and demoniac spirits. t
* In his Introduction to the Aitareya Brahmanam (Bombay,
1863), Haug seems to have reached the conclusion that the
date of Zoroaster is still higher than that which he assigned to it
in 1862. He argues that the Brahmanas cannot be later than
B.C. 1200, and that they describe the great schism of Iranians
and Brahmans under legendary forms of Asuras and Devas in a
manner proving an immense lapse of time since the actual event.
Zoroaster certainly lived while the contest was carried on.
t "Dixit Rabbi Simeon Ben Lakis-nomina angelorum et
mensium ascenderunt in domum Israelis ex Babylone." Rosch
Haschanah, tract of the Mischna. Maimonides asserts the same
fact.




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS.        103
The cuneiform inscriptions of Darius bear singular
testimony to the importance attached by that monarch to his religion, every announcement of con.
quest and sovereignty being accompanied by the.phrase "Ahura-Mazda helped me.          By the grace
of Ahura-Mazda I am king.".*       From the conquest
of Alexander, B.C. 331, till A.D. 226, Persia submitted to the sway of Greeks and Parthians, who
seem not to have persecuted the national religion,
but rather to have superseded it by their own forms
of worship. The accession of the Sassanian dynasty
to the throne in A.D. 226 was the signal for a great
revival of the Zoroastrian faith.      At that period
the whole of the yast region from     the Red Sea to
* Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 10. The phrase
in the Latin translation reads curiously, like the inscriptions on
our coins to this day, " Gratia Ahura Mazda ego rex sum." In
Spiegel's German translation of the whole collection of cuneiform inscriptions, from  Cyrus to Artaxerxes Ochus, found
at Behistan, Persepolis, &c., the religious element almost
seems to outweigh the historical, and we are reminded of the
singular decree of Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel that
"all nations should worship his god," rather than of any ordinary imperial ukase. The inscription of Alvend begins thus:
"A great God is Auramazda, who created this earth and the
heavens, who created mankind, and made them for blessedness?
who made Darius the king." The inscription of Persepolis begins thus: "'The great Aura Mazda, who is greater than all
gods, has made Darius king... O men! The will of Aura.
mazda is this-think no evil; leave not the right way! "  Xerxes
begins his inscriptions in the same way: "A great God is
Auramazda, who made earth and heaven, and made Xerxes king,"
&c.-Die Altpersischen Keilinschriften, von F. Spiegel. Leipzig,
1862, p. 45, et seq.




104                STUDIES.
the Indus, and from the Phasis to the Mediterranean,
formed the empire of kings who inscribed on their
coins " Mazdiesn" as their highest title, placing on
the obverse the fire-altar as the emblem of their
creed.  Ardeshir Babeghan, the founder of the'
dynasty, summoned the priests to collect the sacred
writings of their religion, and thus formed the Canon
of the Zend Avesta. The ancient Avestan language
being even then completely obsolete, we may safely
assume the works written in it to be real relics of
remote antiquity, and not productions of contemporary priests.
In the 7th century the reign of the Sassanidse
ended, after a gallant struggle, with the fall of Yezdegird III., and the Moslem conquerors of Persia set
themselves to extirpate the ancient religion. In a
short time the Zoroastrians were reduced to a small
and persecuted sect, whose traditions served only
for a basis for the great epic poem-the Shahnameh-of the victorious race; and the adherents
of the ancient faith who remained in Persia from
that period continued to dwindle in numbers and
condition, till at present they exist as a mere remnant equally poor and despised. When visited by
Westergaard in 1843 at their chief seats, Kerman
and Yezd, he found them utterly debased and ignorant. In a few years more the Guebres (as the
members of the sect dwelling in Persia are called)
will soon be lost among their Mahometan conquerors.
By a singular fatality however the Zoroastrian faith




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 105
has survived its extinction in its original country,
and promises to enjoy some centuries more of life in
anotherland. When-the Moslem persecutions were
at their height in the 9th century A.D. a band of
Persians (called Parsees by the Indians) fled into
Beloochistan, thence to the Isle of Ormuzd, and
thence, after other migrations, finally to Surat. In
this western corner of India they were hospitably
received by the Hindoos, and here they have continued to dwell, and prosper notwithstanding both
the Mahometan or English conquests of the country. At this moment they form a large community
of wealthy and beneficent merchants, still retaining
their ancient faith and peculiar rites; and to their
munificence we are chiefly indebted for the most
valuable recent editions and translations of their
sacred books.
Very worthy of attentive study is assuredly the
condition of a people possessing such a history.
The Jewish race, existing in banishment for eighteen
centuries, has been continually pointed at as a
" standing miracle." But, not to speak of the Gipsies, the Parsees of India offer a still more singular
spectacle, inasmuch as their numbers have always
been a mere handful compared to the Jews; and
during the ages of exile in which they have sustained their nationality they have exhibited a spirit
of concession towards the customs of their neigh.
bours, which has left the actual dogmas of their
religion the sole bond of their national integrity.




106                STUDIES.
They worshipped the One good God under the law of
Zoroaster —three, four, perchance five —millennium$
ago; and they worship Him still, although a mere
remnant of a race, dwelling in the midst of idolaters,
and having no distinctive rites, like circumcision; no
haughty disdain of "Gentile" nations; no belief in a
restoration to their own land on earth, or to exclusive
salvation in the world to come. Their priests have
been illiterate and despised; their sacred books
have twice become obsolete in language and incomprehensible both to clergy and laity; their Prophet
has faded away almost into an abstraction;-.but the
faith in Ahura-Mazda, the "Wise Creator," the
Rich in Love," remains as clear to-day as when it
shone upon the Bactrian plains in the morning of the
world. Nay more. The special moral virtues which
are found inculcated in the earliest fragments of the
Zend Avesta, and which Greek historians 2000
years ago remarked as especially characteristic of
the Persians of the age of Cyrus, are even now
markedly exhibited by the remnant of their descendants. These virtues, namely, truth, chastity, industry, and universal beneficence, are as notoriously
deficient among the.Hindoos with whom they have
been mixed so long, as they are common among the
Parsees. The adherence to truth and purity in the
three forms to which their prayers and confessions
always refer " of thought, of word, of deed," is really
the practice of the race. Monogamy has been their
law from the earliest times. " An unchaste woman is




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 107
almost unknown among them;"* and it is a curious
evidence of the confidence of their enemies in the
virtue of the conquered race, that, in the gardens adjoining the harem of the Shah of Persia, Zoroastrians
alone are permitted to labour, and are sought out
among the poor remnant of Guebres for that employment. As to Industry, also, the lessons of Zoroaster
have proved no less ineffaceable. " Centuries of
contact with a weak and idle race have not exercised
any perceptible influence upon the habits for which
the ancestors of the Parsees were remarkable. The
Zoroastrian is taught by his religion to earn his
bread in the sweat of his brow, whereas the Moslem (and Hindoo) is taught to believe that he will
be the favoured of God by becoming a fakir and
living on alms." Even the physical result of such
good training is stereotyped. "Centuries of oppression have not been able to destroy the strong, muscular, and hardy appearance of the Zoroastrian. He
is greatly superior in strength to the modern effeminate and luxurious Persian." t Even as we write,
the Times newspaper is recording the rich harvests
of Parsee industry and commerce.  Out of the
150,000 souls whom the community at the utmost
can number (including the miserably oppressed
Guebres of Persia), the Times avers there are five
or six Parsees actual millionnaires, and many more
possessed of enormous wealth. Such a thing as a
* The Parsees, by Dosabhoy Framjee,  t Ibid.




108                  STUDIES.
Parsee pauper is unknown in Bombay. Finally as
to Beneficence; the splendid charities of the Parsees
probably outvie those of any people in the world.
In the vast accession of wealth now flowing to their
coffers through the cotton trade, we are told, immense sums are always set apart for charity.
Even Mr Peabody's donation of ~100,000 to the
London poor (the largest, so far as we know, ever
made in Christendom by a private person in his
lifetime) looks small beside the ~700,000 given away
by Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy in charities of every
kind, to men of every race and religion.*
The customs of the Parsees are singular, but not
in any degree offensive or immoral like those of the
Hindoos. The services of their fire temples are solemn and harmless, if they have become unmeaning.
The ceremonies of purification, if extravagant, and,
to our thinking, rather tending against cleanliness
and delicacy than in their favour, are at least no
worse than those of other Eastern nations, and are
also rapidly falling into desuetude. Their practice
of placing the dead in Towers of Silence apart from
their cities, where the birds of prey devour the
corpses in a few hours and remove all chance of
noxious effluvia, may be defended on more grounds
than one. Too early marriages and too close inter* The Committee of the Bombay District Benevolent Society
in one of their Reports say, "Not one beggar of the Parsee caste
has ever applied to his Society, for relief, nor is a Parsee pauper
ever to be seen in our streets."




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 109
marriages seem to be the chief errors among their
practices, and these are rapidly giving way before
the influence of English ideas, to which the Parsees,
more than any other people, show themselves accessible. On the whole, we may truly say that no nation
deserve better that we should regard their religion
with respect, and examine its sacred literature with
interest, than the 120,000 Parsees of India,-the
remnant of the once imperial race of Cyrus and
Darius.
The manner in which our knowledge of the
Parsee religion and of the books of the Zend Avesta
has been obtained is not a little singular. A very
brief sketch of the story must suffice.
In A.D. 1700 Hyde published his book " Veterum Persarum et Magorum Religionis Historica."
He drew his information from all available Classical
resources, but though possessing Zend MSS. which
had been brought some time previously to England,
he was unable to decipher them. One such MS.,
however, falling, in 1754, into the hands of a young
Frenchman, named Anquetil du Perron, he formed
the heroic resolution of travelling to India to acquire both the language and the complete MSS. of
the Zend Avesta. He actually enlisted as a private
soldier in the Indian service on purpose to be conveyed to the scene of his intended labours, which he
had no other means to reach. The French government, however, touched by his enthusiasm, set him
free'and gave him passage to India, with a pension




110                STUDIES.
of 500 francs. Du Perron returned to Paris in 1762,
and deposited in the Royal Library a complete set of
Zend MSS., with a multitude of notes and translations, still known there as "les brouillons d'Anquetil." In 1771 he published in French, in three
quarto vols., a translation of the entire Zend Avesta
and Bundehesch, together with a memoir of his discoveries.
This great work, so gallantly achieved, had its
faults. Very imperfectly did the Parsee priests who
taught Anquetil understand their own records;
the more ancient and valuable they were the less
they understood them. Neither Anquetil nor his
instructors seem to have had any knowledge of the
grammar of the language, and therefore at best
translated very vaguely and by guess-work. Still,
so far as in him lay, he accomplished his task with
entire honesty of purpose. But that a Frenchman
should have achieved such a task, and should have
presumed also to sneer at Oxford scholars for
possessing MSS. they could not decipher, was a
matter not to be tolerated by English 18th-century
feelings. Accordingly a chorus of abuse fell on du
Perron,-Sir William Jones being the corypheus,
and proving to his own satisfaction and that of
his countrymen that the Zend Avesta of Anquetil
was not the Zend Avesta at all, but an impudent
forgery! German critics were not so short-sighted.
Still they, and alt European scholars, had made up
their minds that in the writings of Zoroaster the




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 111
deepest of all human wisdom would be found (they
had not yet emerged from the superstition that
the ages of light are behind us, and not before), and
universal disappointment with the Zend Avesta was
the result, Immanuel Kant settled its claims to
attention by observing that there was not "the
slightest trace of a philosophical idea in it from
beginning to end I " The hope that the distinction
between Reason and Understanding, the doctrine
of intuitions a priori, "categoric imperatives," and
the distinction of the "Homo noumenon," and the
"' Homo phenomenon," might have been found in a
book dating 1000 B.C., was somewhat chimerical
indeed. Perhaps had he gone to the study with
different expectations he would have found ideas
both moral and theological not unworthy of his
respect.
Since the days of Anquetil a series of scholars
have applied themselves to the study of Zend
and its literature. Chief among them stands Eugene Burnouf, the real founder of Zend philology.*
After him followed Olshausen, Bopp, Muller, Brockhaus, Westergaard, Spiegel, Lassen, and Haug, all
of whom have contributed to bring our knowledge
of the subject to a point very far in advance of that
in which it was left by the brave but incomplete
effort of Anquetil du Perron. We now possess,
* He laboured from 1829 to 1852. His " Commentaire sur le
Yasna," 4to, Paris, 1833, is the foundation of all accurate Zend
studies.




112                STUDIES.
as the result of their labours, editions and translations of all parts of the Zend Avesta, with
learned dissertations on the language, grammar,
theology, and ceremonies of the Parsees. It is
however greatly to be regretted that of these
later translations, those professedly made in English
are written by Germans whose acquaintance with
our language is so imperfect that, between the
original obscurity of the text, and the utter confusion of the construction of the English sentences,
it is barely possible often to extract the sense of
any passage for a page together. As to receiving
any impression of sublimity from such writing it is
wholly out of question.
The name Zend Avesta applied to the sacred
writings of the Zoroastrians involves a little obscurity, arising partly from a popular misconception
by which the word "Zend" has been commonly
applied to the language in which they are composed. The AVESTA, in fact, signifies the most
ancient and venerable texts, and to them and the
original language in which they are still extant the
word " Avestan " (as Prof. Whitney remarks) ought,
if possible, to be confined. The term ZEND properly
means a Commentary or Interpretation, and it appears that at a very early period this was added
(doubtless in the original language) to the Avesta.
Again, the priests, at the great revival of the Sassanian period, translated this Zend or Commentary
into Pehlevi, a language which till lately was sup




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 113
posed to have been at that period the vernacular of
Persia, but which recent scholarship seems to prove
a wholly fictitious tongue, curiously compounded
from the Arabic and other sources, by the priests
who used it as a secret medium for their instructions. This Pehlevi translation of the Zend or
Commentary, we now possess. Lastly, portions of
the Scriptures, still deemed canonical, are entitled
Pa-zend, being the Interpretation of the Interpretation. These are in a more modern but still archaic
language called the Parst. A period of a thousand
years, from. B.C. 1300 to B.C. 300, is believed to
have elapsed between the opening of the Zoroastrian canon and its close.
The original Zoroastrian books were very numerous, consisting of 21 Nosks, each containing text
and commentary. Of these Nosks the names and
subjects are all that is preserved, save the one
entitled Vendidad, and possibly (though this is
uncertain) some of the other books now recognized
in the Canon under different names. Among these
latter canonical writings are two books, the Izeschne
or Yasna, and Visparad, the former being of higher
antiquity and greater authority than any other of
the sacred writings, and bearing to them about the
same relation which the Vedas do to the Shastras
and Puranas, and the Pentateuch, in the opinion of
the Jews, to the later prophets and the Talmud.*
* See Haug's Essays, p. 128.
8




114                STUDIES.
The existing Zoroastrian books are as follows:
1. The YASNA or Izeschne, divided into two main
parts, and into 72 Has, or Sections. The second
and elder part is the most ancient and venerable
portion of the whole Zoroastrian canon, and contains the five Gathas, or Songs in metre in the old
Avestan language, plausibly attributed by Haug to
Zoroaster himself and his immediate disciples. The
name " Yasna" signifies " offering," and the character of the book generally, is that of a Ritual corresponding to the earliest Vedic hymns. Both the
succeeding sacred books, the Visparad and Vendidad, speak of the Gathas in the Yasna as the most
venerable prayers; thus affording evidence that, at
the still remote period of the latter compositions, the
Gathas possessed the rank of sacred antiquity.
2. The VISPARAD, containing 23 Kardes, or sections. The word Visparad is variously interpreted
by Haug, Spiegel, and Whitney, as "all heads,"
C" all Lords," or "Dispersed," the meaning being
understood to be invocations, or a collection of
prayers in chapters. The Visparad is a short book
much resembling the latter part of the Yasna.
3. The VENDIDAD, consisting of 22 Fargards, or
chapters. This book was the 20th among the 21
Nosks of the ancient Zend Avesta, and is the only
one which has been preserved entire. It forms the
religious and civil code of the ancient Zoroastrians,
and evidently has been the growth of many centuries, beginning, perhaps, at the age of the prophet




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 115
himself, and descending to the Sassanian period.
The regular series of Avesta, Zend, and Pa-zend
(or text, interpretation, and interpretation of interpretation) may be traced throughout the work.
These three books, the Yasna, Visparad, and
Vendidad, are joined together to form the VENDIDAD
SADE, or Liturgy-the chapters of each of the three
books being interlarded in a certain fixed manner,
and the whole being a sort of breviary which the
priests are supposed to repeat every 24 hours, and
which they are especially required to use at all the
sacred ceremonies of their religion.
4. The YASHTS, or 24 hymns in praise of as
many beings, honoured in the Zoroastrian theology.
"They are," says Haug, "to be traced to the songs
of the Median bards mentioned by Greek historians,
and are the primary sources of the legends of the
Shahnameh. The word Yasht signifies "prayers"
-worship. These, with the succeeding books, form
what is called the Khordah Avesta, or Little Avesta,
especially designed for the laity.
5. NYAYISH, five prayers and praises to be repeated every day by each Parsee.
6. AFRIGANS, blessings to be recited by the
priests over certain feasts in honour of the dead or
the angels.
7. GAHS or GATHAS. These are the five most
ancient and sacred pieces already mentioned as
embodied in the Yasna.
8. SIROZAH. A species of calendar enumerating
8*




116                STUDIES.
the 30 divine beings presiding over the 30 days of
the month.
9. PATET. These are confessions of sin, written
in Parsee, with occasional passages of Zend. They
are probably more modern than the other books,
but in a religious point of view are perhaps the
most remarkable of all.
10. NIKAH. The marriage service of the Parsees.
11. AFERINS. Two invocations to.Ormuzd and
the Amshaspands.
12. Prayers on various occasions.
These books together form the whole Zend
Avesta. There are, however, two other books belonging to the Parsee sacred literature, though not
to the Canon. The first and most interesting is the
BUNDEHESCH or Cosmogony of the Zoroastrians, a
work to which Haug (Essays, p. 29) attributes an
antiquity as high as the 4th century B.C. The
resemblance of the legends in this book, as translated by Anquetil du Perron, to the earliest Hebrew histories of the Fall and the accounts of the
Temptation in the wilderness, is most remarkable.
Westergaard has published an edition of the work
in the original Pehlevi for the advantage of scholars,
and Haug has added an Essay, " Ueber die Pehlewi
sprache, und der Bundehesch." The last book of
all is the MINOKHIRED, a small theological treatise of
no great account, in the Parsi language.
Regarding the MSS. of the Zoroastrian books
from which modern scholars have derived their




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 117
texts, the amplest information is supplied in the
Preface to Westergaard's "Zend Avesta."    He
says in conclusion, "It will appear that I suppose,
firstly, that the most essential part of the Zend
Avesta dates from an age anterior to the Achaemenians; secondly, that at the time of the first
Sassanians, the then extant remains were collected
with fairness and honesty as they were found, and
digested into the different writings which still exist, and perhaps in others now lost; thirdly, that
though the existing copies are modern, yet their
transcribers have sought faithfully to re-produce
their original, and that all our copies come to us
from Eastern Persia, and descend through different
lines from the same archetype, a transcript of the
Sassanian codex." *
The contents of these books, venerable at once
from their antiquity and from the share they have
had in perpetuating a religion of high moral excellence, is at first sight,somewhat disappointing.
If, as Whitney remarks,t we were to study the
records of primeval thought and culture, to learn
religion or philosophy, or to have our hearts
touched and swayed by the power of poetic
fancies, we should find little in the Zend Avesta
to meet our purpose. Such however is not the
point of view from which the value of the reco* Westergaard's Zend Avesta, vol. i., Preface, p. 22.
t Essay on the Avesta in Journal of the American Oriental
Society.




118                STUDIES.
very of these books can be estimated. We go to
them to read the early history of the human race;
to trace out the efforts of man to comprehend the
universe; nay, we may rather say, to behold with
reverence some of the first rays of the Light which
lighteth every man that is born into the world, one
of the dawning gleams of that eternal revelation
"which shineth more and more unto the perfect
day."
It would be vain in a brief article like the present
to attempt to give any satisfactory summary of the
contents of the Zend Avesta; I shall only cite as
specimens a few passages which for moral or theological reasons may be considered most interesting.
Beside these, and passages of the same class, there
is an immense portion of the Canon. occupied by repetitions of formulae of praise, and by ceremonial
legislation of a kind similar to that of Leviticus and
Deuteronomy; the laws concerning women, purification, and clean and unclean food, being indeed nearly
identical in the Jewish and Zoroastrian Scriptures. Many of these repetitions are wearisome and
childish, and whole chapters would probably appear
to the last degree tedious, even if we possessed
them in the clearest and best language. Distorted as
they actually are by Haug and by Spiegel's translator, Bleeck, into the most crabbed English imaginable, the reader is to be pardoned if he throw down
the book in disgust and treat the existence of elo



THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 119
quence and wisdom in the Zend Avesta as an invention of enthusiastic students. Nevertheless, the
few passages I shall now proceed to quote are fair
specimens of no inconsiderable portion of the work.
It will be understood that in selecting them I have
been guided partly by their intrinsic merit, but
chiefly by their use as forming together a general
outline of Zoroastrian theology.
The Parsee "Confession of Faith" in its simple
shape is to be found in the last chapter of the Khordah Avesta (lxvi.). It is almost as concise as the
famous symbol of Islam.
"The good, true, and righteous religion which
the Lord has sent to His creatures is that which
Zarathustra has brought. That religion is the religion of Ahura-Mazda given to Zarathustra."
Ahura-Mazda (Ormuzd), the God of this faith, is
thus described in the Ormuzd-yasht in the Khordah
Avesta.
"Then spake Zarathustra.  Tell me then the
name, O pure Ahura-Mazda, which is Thy greatest,
best, and fairest name?
"Then answered Ahura-Mazda: My name is
He who may be questioned: the Gatherer of the
people: the Most Pure: He who takes account of
the actions of men. My name is God (Ahura), my
name is the Great Wise One (Mazda). I am the Allbeholding, the Desirer of Good for my creatures;
He who cannot be deceived; the Protector, the




120                 STUDIES.
Tormentor of tormentors; He who smiteth once;
the Creator of all."
In other passages God is described as "the
Omniscient, the Lord over all lords, the Forgiving,
the Rich in Love." (Khordah Avesta, vii.) I cannot discover any passage in which the noblest of
all His titles, "Father," is attributed to God, but
His character is conceived of as completely paternal, beneficent, and forgiving. No images of Him
or of any of His ministering spirits have ever been
used by Zoroastrians, who treat idolatry as a heinous
crime. Nevertheless, the sun and fire (as is well
known) are reckoned by them in a peculiar sense
His emblems,-a sense defined in one remarkable
passage of the Zend Avesta, where Ahura-Mazda is
represented as saying, "My light is hidden under
all that shines."
Beside Ahura-Mazda the Zoroastrian creed admits of no God, although it ordains a worship of
dulia, very similar to Romish hagiolatry, towards a
number of beings conceived of as the archangels
and ministers of God presiding over various departments of creation. It is however a very interesting
discovery, that in the early ages of the religion and
under the teaching of Zoroaster himself, the subordinate ministers who occupy a place in the later
theology were only described as various forms of
action of Ahura-Mazda himself.   In the G&tha
Spenta-Mainyus (Yasna 47) there is a passage
which clearly proves this fact, and, by a happy coin



THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 121
cidence,'bears internal evidence at the same time to
its own extreme antiquity. The passage can only
have been composed at the period of the primeval
Aryan schism when the agriculturist Zoroastrians were
still vexed by the inroads of the nomad Brahmins,
and when the use of the Brahminic intoxicating
Soma was the object of Zoroaster's denunciations.
The passages are very obscure, but may be thus read:
(47, 1), "Ahura-Mazda gives by His holy spirit,
through good thought, good word, and good deed,health and immortality, prosperity and piety, to the
world. From Ahura-Mazda's holiest spirit all good
has sprung, from the words of Vohumano, and the
works wrought by Armaiti. He who in His wisdom
created both the Good and the Negative mind, rewards His obedient followers. Art thou not He, O
Mazda, in whom the last cause of both minds is hidden?" (48, 4), "When will appear, thou wise God!
the men of courage to pollute that intoxicating
liquor which makes proud the priests of the idols?
Such men as cause mischief to the farmers, and are
devoid of all good works, produce the devas by the
means of their pernicious thoughts."
In the first of these verses the words translated
Health and Immortality, Prosperity and Piety, are
respectively Haurvatat and Ameretat, Khshathra and
Armaiti. They are all among the seven great Amshaspands or archangels, who became the Lons of
the Gnostics; the "seven spirits" of the Apocalypse.
The precise character of the two first seems to vary




122                STUDIES.
considerably, as sometimes they are represented as
the presiding angels of the waters and the woods, and
sometimes as " those two great powers " Health and
Immortality. Armaiti, again, is sometimes the Spirit
of the earth; sometimes Piety; sometimes Wisdom
the daughter of God,-in a word, the Sophia of the
Solomonic books and primitive Christians. Vohuimano, the Good Mind, is a most singular metaphysical
conception. In each rational being, from AhuraMazda down to men, there is, according to Zoroaster
(andwe mayadd, no less according toEmanuelKant!),
a good and holy Will, a positive will of righteousness.
The shadow of this good mind is its negation, the
naught (or negative) mind, as Haug quaintly translates
it,-the Homo phenomenon, as Kant would have it, the
Lower Nature blindly following its instincts and incapable of moral choice. In the earliest stage of Zoroastrianism, whose relics we are now considering in
the Gathas, these positive and negative poles of the
moral world were both included in the idea of Deity,
without apparently producing any difficulty in the
conception of the absolute goodness of Ahura-Mazda.
In later ages the Naught mind, Angro-Mainyus (Ahrimanes) became a positively evil being, introducing all
pain and sin into the world in opposition to AhuraMazda, whose servants were called on to oppose the
demon and destroy his works and creatures with all
their strength, and thereby hasten the final consummation when Angro-Mainyus should be subdued
and reconciled. When this idea of the personality




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 123
of Ahriman and his independence, had been followed
out to the utmost, the discrepancy of such a doctrine
with pure Monotheism was perceived, and an effort
was made, at the Sassanian Revival, by one party
of Zoroastrians to repair the breach by introducing
the doctrine of an eternal Being (Zeruane AkereneTime-without-Bounds), as the First Cause of both
Ormuzd and Ahrimanes. Modern Parsee Dustoors
still explain some passages of the Zend Avesta as
teaching the existence of Zeruane Akerene, but the
European scholars, who have at last reduced the
Zend grammar to some degree of clearness, have
demonstrated that the whole idea is founded on a
mistake in the case of the name, and is essentially
foreign to the theology of the Zoroastrian Scriptures.
Ahura-Mazda exists in boundless time. No eternal
existence is imagined beside and above AhuraMazda.
A doctrine logically connected with the conception of evil as the negative power in all minds is
that which may be traced in the last of the verses
quoted above (Yasna 48, 4). The Brahminic marauders " devoid of all good works " are said to "produce the devas by their pernicious thoughts." In later
passages of the Zend Avesta evil-doers are continually described as'f nourishing devas" and becoming
themselves devas after death. Such a doctrine is
obviously of a higher moral and philosophic character
than that of the existence of beings "created evil,
for evil only good," luring by their wiles innocent




124                STUDIES.
souls to perdition. VohAman8, the Good Mind, and
Akomano, the Negative Mind, indifferent to good,
leading men through passion and interest down to
one evil after another till they become apparently all
evil, and Vohimano's higher influence seems lostis a picture of the moral life hardly to be called mythical. It is, rather, as clear a description of the actual
fact as language may permit. When the system of
angels and demons became developed in Zoroastrianism, Ak6man6 was made the second of the
seven Arch-demons (Angro-Mainyus, Ahrimanes,
being the first), which corresponded with the seven
Amshaspands or Archangels. But in Zoroaster's
own theology, and even so far as may be traced
down to the period of the cuneiform inscriptions of
Darius, Evil was not thus definitely personified, but
described as Drukhs, "destruction," "falsehood,"
against which Ormuzd and all good men contend.
The service of Ahura-Mazda consists essentiallyin
good works, in the cheerful and industrious performance of duty; in purity, truth,beneficence,-in aword,
in all possible contributions to the welfare and happiness of His creatures. The Zoroastrian is required to
practise agriculture or some other useful art. He is
to marry but one wife only,-if possible a near relation. The girl who at eighteen refuses to marry is
threatened with an abode in Dotzakh (hell) till the
resurrection! Fasting is forbidden as a culpable
weakening of "the powers entrusted to a man for the
service of Ormuzd."  He must be kind and merciful




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 125
to all good animals, who are the creatures of Ormuzd;
but noxious beasts and insects are creatures of
Ahrimanes, and he performs a good act in destroying
them; indeed, by such means can expiate some of his
own sins.*
* The laws concerning dogs in the Vendidad are most curious,
and, as Spiegel remarks, instead of deserving the scorn of Sir
William Jones, serve to prove the extreme antiquity of the Zend
Avesta and the care taken by the wise legislator to protect animals whose domestication was the indispensable prelude to agricultural civilization.  In the 13th Fargard of the Vendidad,
wounds to dogs of various degrees of value are ordered to be
atoned for by lashes varying from 500 to 800, and giving bad food
to such dogs by lashes from 50 to 200. The tenderness of the
lawgiver is illustrated very quaintly by the following passage: v.
75. Ahura-Mazda says, "For in the corporeal world decay most
swiftly approaches those creatures, the dogs, O holy Zarathustra,
who find themselves along with those who eat without receiving
anything to eat! Before the dogs.who watch and nothing comes,
shall they place milk and fat along with meat, as the proper
nourishment for a dog. The dog have I made, O Zarathustra,
with his own clothing and his own shoes, with keen scent and
sharp teeth, faithful to men as a protection to folds,-for I have
made the dog, I who am Ahura-Mazda." A dog has eight characters: one like an Athrava, one like a warrior, one like a husbandman, one like a villager, one like a thief, one like a wild
beast, one like a courtesan, one like a child. " Creator (Zarathustra inquires), when a dot dies where does his spirit go? Then
answered Ahura-Mazda, To the dwelling in the water goes he, O
holy Zarathustra. There come together to him two water-dogs,
which consist of a thousand male and a thousand female dogs."
(This refers to an extraordinary idea that the Udra, translated
" water-dog,"-perhaps the otter or beaver,-is the incarnation of
a thousand dogs.) For killing an Udra the expiation appointed
in the 14th Fargard is too enormous to be ever fulfilled, so the




126                  STUDIES.
The observation has been frequently made that
the existence of a peculiarly rich vocabulary touching a particular subject in any language, is evidence
of that subject having held a prominent place in the
life of the nation using such language.. Judging by
this principle, the importance of morals among the
Zoroastrians is very evident. In no other tongue
(so far as we know) have all the different classes of
human sins been similarly catalogued and named;
nearly every shade of guilt having its peculiar title
in the list of offences. We read, for instance,
in the Patet Aderbat in the Khordah Avesta
(written in Parsl), confessions for "the sins which
burden the conscience, the sin Handrakhta, the
sin Agereft, the sin Avoirist, the sin Yatu," and a
dozen more which are explained to signify the sin of
"seeing evil and not warning him who does it," the
sin of teaching lying and doubts of the good, the sin
of not giving alms, the sin of turning from repentance,
the sin of afflicting a good man, the sin of saying
there is no God, &c. Throughout these classifications also it is remarkable how large a place is taken
by sins of omission, many of which are accounted as
"the sin Margerzan," i. e. "worthy of death."  The
sins called "sins of the bridge," i. e. sins which hinder souls.guilty of them from passing over the bridge
Chinavat on the way to Paradise, are all sins of omissoul of the slayer is hopelessly consigned to Douzakh! It is
curious that the name of an otter in Welsh is Y Dwfr-gi (Durgy,
a water-dog).




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 127
sion. Again, there is in the same liturgical service
an enumeration of sins described according to the
persons against whom they have been committed.
"Of the sins against father, mother, brother, sister,
wife, child, against neighbours, fellow-townsmen,
superiors, equals, servants,-of these sins I repent
with thought, words, and works. Pardon them, 0
Lord, according to my repentance." In a further
part of the same prayer there is an immense enumeration of possible  transgressions, including
"Pride, covetousness of goods, covetousness of
another's wife, slandering the dead, anger, envy,
discontent with the arrangements of God, sloth,
scorn, false-witness," &c. &c.
It is impossible to read this remarkable Confession without being struck by its moral excellence.
We find indeed occasional intrusions of the ceremonial spirit,-as when the omission to wear the
sacred girdle, or the neglect of the midday prayer,
is numbered along with the gravest transgressions.
The share of these observances in Zoroastrian ethics
is however probably inferior to that which they held
in any other religion of antiquity. In the Hindoo
law  (Institutes of Menu), eating with unwashed
hands and "slaying the inhabitants of the three
worlds" are two sins of equal magnitude; and even
Mosaism made the breach of the sabbath an offence
legally punishable with death. But among the Zoroastrians, homicide seems to be too tremendous an
offence to be expiated, and the omission of the




128                STUDIES.
great midday prayer and use of the distinctive
girdle of religious membership (equivalent to Jewish sabbath-breaking and neglect of circumcision)
are almost the only ceremonial faults among the
hundred moral transgressions signalized.
It wvould be hard to imagine a more comprehensive form of confession than the following: "That
which was the wish of Ahura-Mazda and I ought to
have thought and havenot thought, that which I ought
to have spoken and have not spoken, that which I
ought to have done and have not done,-of these sins
I repent with thoughts, words, and works, corporeal
as well as spiritual, earthly as well as heavenly. Pardon me, O Lord; I repent of my sins. That which
was the wish of Ahrimanes and I ought not to have
thought and yet have thought, that which I ought
not to have spoken and yet have spoken, that which
I ought not to have done and yet have done,-of
these sins I repent with thoughts, words, and works,
corporeal as well as spiritual, earthly as well as
heavenly. Pardon me, O Lord; I repent of my sins."
With these confessions are joined always resolutions of virtue of a singularly healthful sort: "I remain standing fast in the statutes of the law which
Ormuzd gave to Zarathustra. As long as life endures I will stand fast in good thoughts in my soul,
in good words in my speech, in good deeds in my
actions. With all good am I in agreement, with
all evil am I at variance. With the punishments
(of the future life) am I contented and satisfied. I




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 129
have taken hold of good thoughts, words, and works.
I have renounced evil thoughts, words, and works.
May the power of Ahriman be broken! may the
reign of Ahura-Mazda increase! " (Patet Aderbat).
Again in Patet Erani (Khordah Avesta, xlvii.):
"I am steadfast in this faith (in the pure Mazdayasnian law), and turn myself not away from it, for the
sake of a happy life, or for the sake of a longer life,
nor for power, nor for a kingdom. If I must give
up my body for the sake of my soul I give it contentedly. I believe steadfastly in the good Mazdayasnian faith; in the Resurrection; in the bridge of
souls; in the invariable reward of good deeds and
punishment of bad deeds, in the everlasting continuance of paradise and the annihilation of hell;
and I believe that at the last Ahura-Mazda will be
victorious, and Ahrimanes will perish with the Devs
and all the children of darkness."... "I am full
of hope that I may attain to paradise and the shining Garathoman where all majesty dwelleth.  I
make this confession in the hope that I may hereafter become more zealous to accomplish good
works and keep myself more from sin; and that my
good deeds may serve for the lessening evil and the
increase of good till the resurrection."
In this last passage, as in many others of the
Zend Avesta, we find traces of the noble doctrine
that individual virtue is not alone the gain of the
soul which possesses it, but an addition to the
whole power of good in the universe. In the Zoro9




130                 STUDIES.
astrian creed all beings are ranged on the side
either of Ahura-Mazda or Ahrimanes; the good of
one is the good of all, the sin of one the source of
evil to all. There is a universal soliditary of souls.
Perhaps it would be hard to overrate the value of
this doctrine in a moral point of view. The old
Rabbins said, " Prayers which say nothing concerning the Kingdom do not deserve the name of
prayers; * and truly till a man rises to a general
love and desire for the reign of Goodness transcending the limits of his own personal spiritual interests,
he is as yet but on the threshold of religion. To
desire, to strive, to pray that Right should be for
ever victorious; that truth and justice and purity
should prevail over the earth, and " love at length
be Lord of all;" to contemplate God as the King of
Righteousness, under whose banner we fight in all
the inner and outer battles of the soul, and to care
for victory in that dread warfare not merely for our
own moral progress or happiness, but for the simple
good itself, and that Right should be done rather
than Wrong,-this and this alone is religion. The
man who really feels the aspiration after such universal righteousness, and labours to further it in the
world, is religious in the highest sense, even if he
display far less direct devotion than another who
acts and prays for his own salvation only. "Thy
Kingdom come" is the prayer of every true Son of
* R. Jehuda and R. Scira. Sanhedrim, fol. 28. 2.




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 131
God. That the old Zoroastrian could daily say,
" May Ahura-Mazda increase! Broken be the power
of Ahrimanes! " is no small evidence how far on the
right way his faith had led him.
Beside the personal and social duties inculcated
as the service of Ahura-Mazda, the Zoroastrian
creed also requires the performance of direct religious duties, of prayer and praise, forming a cultus
of no small importance. The Dustoors and Mobeds
(bishops and priests) are required to read the whole
liturgy of the Vendidad Sade in these services and
to go through various rites of a sacramental character, in which the Barsom-branch and Homa-juice
figure as well as the sacred Fire. The laity for
whose use the Kkordah Avesta is assigned, repeat
certain prayers at appointed seasons (including the
confessions already quoted), wear a woven girdle
called Kosti as a sign of religious membership, and
are exhorted to address Ahura-Mazda with entreaties
for help on all occasions, and to praise the angelic
spirits and invoke speedy ruin on Ahrimanes and
all his works. Phrases equivalent to "Thy kingdom  come," —or "May Ahura-Mazda increase!
Broken be Ahrimanes,"-begin nearly every action
of the pious Zoroastrian's life. Among the prayers
so ordered are some frequently mentioned in the
earliest books of the Zend Avesta, perpetually repeated in the ritual and assigned by tradition to the
direct teaching of Ahura-Mazda to Zoroaster. The
first of these (hardly to be called a prayer so much
9 




132                 STUDIES.
as a moral aphorism) is the Ashem-vohA- or Asha
Vahista. It is very obscure from its immense antiquity, but seems to mean somewhat as follows:
"Purity is the highest good,
Happiness is for him whose purity is most pure."
The second great prayer is the Yathh ah
Vairyo, or Ahuna Vairya:
"The will of the Lord the pure Ruler:
He who doeth the works of Ahura-Mazda shall receive the
gift of Vohumano,
And the kingdom we give to Ahura-Mazda when we offer
succour to the poor."
If this latter prayer be truly rendered, the
meaning is indeed sublime. Vohumano,-the mens
conscia recti, the joy of a virtuous mind,-belongs
to him who doeth the will of God, and this will is,
that we succour the poor whereby His kingdom
may more swiftly come.
Of other noble prayers of a later date we may
quote the following:
(Khordah Avesta vii., Qarset, Nyayis (Spiegel,
p. 6.)  "In the name of God I praise and exalt
Thee, the Creator Ormuzd, the Brilliant, Majestic,
Omniscient, the Perfecter of deeds, the Lord of
lords, the Prince over all princes, the Protector,
the Creator of all created beings, the Giver of daily
food, the Powerful, the Good, the Strong, the Ancient, the Forgiving, the Rich in Love, Mighty and
Wise, the Upholder of Purity. May Thy right rule
be without ceasing, 0 Ormuzd, King! Of all my




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 133
sins I repent with contrition. For all evil thoughts,
words, and works, which I have thought, spoken,
and done in the world, which I have committed,
which cleave to my nature, for all sinful thoughts,
words, and works, bodily or mental, I pray, O Lord,
for forgiveness, and repent of them." (XI.): "Purify
me, O God! Give me strength through Armaiti
(the spirit of piety). Holiest, heavenly Mazda!
give me in Thy goodness at my prayer, strong
power and fulness of blessings; through Vohumano.
Give me certainty that I may teach afar Thy joy,
and the blessings of Thy kingdom." (XIV.): "In
the name of God the Giver and Forgiver, Rich
in Love, praise be to Ahura-Mazda, the God with
the name:'Who always was, always is, and always
will be.' Ahura-Mazda the Wise, the Creator, the
Over-seeing God, pure, good, and just! With all
strength bring I thank-offerings and praise to the
Lord, the completer of good works, who made men
greater than all earthly beings, and through the gift
of speech created them to rule over the creatures and
to war against the evil spirits. Praise to the omniscience of God who hath sent through the holy
Zarathustra, peace and knowledge of the law. All
good do I accept at thy command, O God, and think,
speak, and do it. I believe in the pure law, and by
every good work I seek forgiveness for sins. I
keep pure the six powers, —thought, speech, act,
memory, reason, and understanding.  According
to Thy will am I able to fulfil (these resolutions),




134                STUDIES.
0 Accomplisher of good, to Thy honour, even good
thoughts, good words, and good works. I enter
on the shining way to paradise. May the fearful
terror of hell not overcome me! May I pass the
bridge Chinavat and attain to paradise, the bright
and odoriferous, where are all joys. Praise to the
Lord who rewards those who accomplish good deeds
according to His will, who purifies the obedient, and
at last purifies even the wicked in hell. All praise
be to the Creator, Ahura-Mazda, the All-wise, the
Mighty, the Rich in Love."
The idea of the value of prayer is beautifully set
forth in a fragment of the Khordah Avesta, xxxvii.
(Spiegel, p. 135). Zoroaster asks Ahura-Mazda in
succession which is the prayer which in greatness
outweighs a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand
other prayers. Ahura-Mazda names the prayer
"Ashem," used after eating the sacramental HIom,
the prayer "which a man stretched out for sleep
speaks waking, praising the good thoughts, words,
and works, removing evil thoughts, words, works;
and the prayer which a man at the latter end of
his life prays with purity." Finally, Zoroaster asks
which is the prayer "which in greatness, goodness,
and beauty is worth all that is between heaven and
earth, and this world, and those lights, and all good
things created? "  Ahura-Mazda answered, "That
prayer, O pure Zarathustra, when a man renounces
all evil thoughts, words, and works."
This sublime conception of the highest prayer,




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 135
as the renunciation of all evil, the resolution of all
good,-in a word, of perfect moral unity with the
Holiest Will, is traceable through many portions of
the Zend Avesta. Its most remarkable expression,
perhaps, is that which occurs in the 56th Ha of the
Yasna, "To arrive at prayer is to arrive at a perfect
conscience. The good seed of prayer is virtuous
conscience, virtuous words, and virtuous deeds." *
A considerable portion of the Yasna is taken up
by what may be termed "Psalms of Praise," bearing a strong analogy to the " Song of the Three
Children "-all nature and angelic beings being
called into the act of adoration.  The difference
between the Hebrew and Zoroastrian hymns is,
that the Hebrew calls on all things to praise God,
the Zoroastrian praises all things good and beautiful
as the works -of God. Poetical impersonation is
higher in the Hebrew mind, since inanimate things
are directly invoked to " magnify the Lord." The
Zoroastrian attempts no such figure of rhetoric, but
frequently addresses the Spirit or Angel of the thing
praised,-these ideal spirits being sometimes singularly metaphysical conceptions, as the Fravashis,
or archetypes of souls, Armaiti, the spirit of piety,
and so on. As a specimen of a Zoroastrian Psalm,
we may take the 17th Ha of the Yasna, briefly
compressed.
* Nothing resembling this passage is to be found in Spiegel's
translation of the 56th Ha; I quote it from "(The Parsee Religion," by DADABHOI NAOROJI.




136                    STUDIES.
Ahura-Mazda, the Lord of Purity, praise we.
Zarathustra the Pure, praise we.
The Zoroastrian Law, praise we.
The good Spenta-Armaiti, praise we.
Ahura-Mazda the Creator, praise we.
The Fire, son of Ahura-Mazda, praise we.
The pure Waters, created by Ahura-Mazda, praise we.
The Sun with swift horses, praise we.
The Moon, praise we.
The star Tistrya, the shining, the majestic, praise we.
Ahura-Mazda the Creator, praise we.
The Eternal Lights, praise we.
The brilliant deeds of purity, praise we:
At which the souls of the dead rejoice:
Milk and food, the running water and the growing trees,
praise we.
We praise all good men, we praise all good women.
Allura-Mazda, lord of purity, praise we," &c. &e.
This psalm, with its species of refrain alternating
every five or six verses the praise of Ormuzd, may
well be in the original a sublime composition not
wholly unworthy of comparison with the 148th
Psalm.   In the Gatha Ustavaiti, again (Yasna 43,
46), which Haug holds to be "the most important
piece of the whole, Zend Avesta," containing the
words of Zoroaster himself-there are passages
bearing a striking similitude to portions of Job.
It is impossible, however, to gain an idea of
poetical sublimity from any thoughts clothed in
the grotesque phrases which Bleeck and Haug
print as the English language.      I shall endeavour




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 137
to  translate   their signification  into  words    less
strangely distorted.*
(Ycsna 44, 3).   "That which I ask of Thee, tell
me Thou aright, O living God!         Who was in the
beginning the Father and Creator of Truth? Who
made the way of the sun and the stars?            Who
causeth the moon to wax and wane?
"4. That which I ask of Thee, tell me Thou
aright, O living God!     Who upholdeth the earth,
and the unsupported heavens so that they fall not?
Who made the waters and the trees of the forest?
* As an instance both of the absurdity of this pseudo-English and also of the variations of the two translations, the following parallel of the first verses of this Gatha may be taken as
a specimen:
Haug, p. 14.     Spiegel, translation by Bleeck,
Haug, p. 147.                   p 100.
p. 100.
1. Blessed is he, blessed are  "1. Hail to him who suffices
all men to whom the living wise for happiness to each! May
God of his own command should  Ahura create, ruling after his
grant those two everlasting pow- own wish! May power and
ers-wholesomeness and im- strength (the "wholesomeness"
mortality." (In another passage  and "immortality" of Haug!)
Haug translates "wholesome- come to me according to Thy
ness, or integrity" / evidently  will.
confounding moral "wholeness"
with "wholesomeness.")
" 2. I believe Thee to be the  "2. To the man full of brightbest being of all, the source of ness may brightness, which is
light for the world; everybody  the best of all, be given. Manishall choose as the source of fest thyself, oh holiest, heavenly
light,Thee, holiest spirit Mazda."  Mazda."




138'STUDIES.
Who driveth the winds and the storms that they so
quickly run?
"5. That which I ask of Thee, tell me Thou
aright, O living God! Who made the beneficent
light and the darkness? Who made the blessedness of sleep and of awaking? Who made the
dawn and the noon and the night, recalling man to
his prayer? "*
A Parsee having diligently performed his natural duties and offered to Ahura-Mazda the prayers,
praises, and confessions of the Zend Avesta, has
nothing to fear in the future life. No religion,
perhaps, has given an idea of that unseen world so
calculated to meet the requirements alike of the
moral sense, which demands that eternal justice
shall there be done, and of the heart which longs
for the final restoration and reconciliation of all
God's creatures. For ordinary sins committed in
this life, the Zend Avesta, as we have seen, appoints
various forms of expiation and penance, and in one
remarkable passage (Vendidad, Fargard viii.) holds
out to the believer a promise of universal "justification by faith," even for sins not thus atoneable.
"For the law will take away these sins from those
who praise the Mazdayasnian law; if they, here* Haug reads, "reminding always the priest of his duties."
In the next verse to this, among other excellent things of creation, Bleeck enumerates the "going-cow, Thy gracious gift!"
"the locomotive-cow" would not have been more absurd!




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 139
after, do not again commit wicked deeds. For this
Mazdayasnian law, O holy Zarathustra, takes away
the bonds from the man who praises it. It takes
away deceit. It takes away murder. It takes away
the unatoneable sin. It takes away all sins that man
commits. Similarly, O holy Zarathustra, does the
Mazdayasnian law take away all evil thoughts, words,
and works as the strong swift wind clears the sky."
(Spiegel, 73.)
Entering the future life under such conditions,
the soul of the faithful Mazdayasnian is believed to
pass to paradise unfailingly. The description of
the journey is told with curious Eastern simplicity
in chap. xxxviii. of the Khordah Avesta (Spiegel,
Part 2, p. 136). "Zarathustra asked Ahura-Mazda,
Heavenly, Holiest Creator! when a pure man
dies where does his soul dwell during the first
night? Then answered Ahura-Mazda: Near his head
it sits down, praying. On this night the soul sees
as much joy as the whole living world possesses. On
the second night, near his head, it sits down praying.
On the third night, near his head, &c."  (Verse 7):
"When the lapse of the third night turns itself to
light, then the soul of the pure man goes forward.
A wind blows to meet it from the south, more
sweet than other winds. In that wind there comes
to meet him his own law in the figure of a maiden
beautiful and shining, as fair as the fairest of the
creatures. The soul of the pure man takes the first
step and arrives in the paradise Humata; he takes




140                STUDIES.
the second, and arrives at the paradise HCLkhta; he
takes the third, and arrives at the paradise Hvarsta.
The soul of the pure man then takes the fourth step
and arrives at the Eternal Lights. Then speaks a
pure one deceased before, How art thou, oh pure
deceased, come from the perishable world hither
to the imperishable? Then speaks Ahura Mazda,
Ask him not, for he is come on the fearful trembling
way, the separation of soul and body. Bring him
hither of the food of the full fatness that is the food
for a youth who thinks, speaks, and does goodthat is, the food for the woman who thinks good,
speaks good, does good-the pure after death."
Precisely the converse of all this is told of the
*icked soul, who meets a hideous woman and the
ill-smelling wind, and who Ahrimanes receives and
supplies with poison.
This same doctrine of the resurrection after
three days appears in the 19th Fargard of Vendidad,
verses 27- 32.
"Creator of the fenced estates (quere paradises?) with living beings, Thou True! what happens
when a. man gives up his soul in this world of
existence? (Ver. 28): Then Ahura-Mazda replied,
When a man is dead, then after the third night, at
daybreak he reaches Mithra, rising above the mountains resplendent with their own spotless lustre."
On more than one account this description of the
"Soul's Exodus" is worthy of attention. The notion
of a progressive advance to the " eternal lights;" of




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 141
the welcome received from the blessed, and from the
gentle words of Ahura-Mazda Himself; the conducting Angel who represents the man's own earthly
faith and life (like Bunyan's " Mr Good Conscience "
meeting old Honesty beside the River of Death),all these are beautiful thoughts. In the peculiar
idea of the " three nights" during which the soul
sits happily by the head of the corpse, arising at
" day-break," or "when the lapse of the third night
turns itself to light," may possibly be found the
origin of an Essene doctrine concerning the Resurrection, whose results have taken the place of
one of the great dogmas of Christianity.
While the future of the good Zarathustrians is
thus laid out in a swift passage to the eternal lights
of Garothoman, in the paradise of majesty and purity
-the immediate presence of Ahura-Mazda,-the
course of the wicked soul, as we have seen, is precisely
in the converse direction, to Douzakh, the dark and
noisome dwelling of Angro-Mainyus and all the evil
Devs. There the sinner expiates his offences in torment proportioned to their enormity, till the general
day of resurrection. Three nights, often referred to as
of tremendous suffering, are then endured by all who
have not fully atoned for their earthly transgressions;
and it is a part of every confession taught the Parsee
to contemplate this punishment as a just and righteous expiation. He says in each act of contrition,
" If there be sins I have not atoned for before I die,
I submit myself to the chastisement of the three




142                   STUDIES.
nights." During this period, the Blessed, beholding
the pains of the wicked, will feel grief and infinite
pity, which will cause them to shed tears of compassion until the three terrible days are over. Then
the heat shall melt the solid mountains of the world,
and streams of liquid gold shall flow down wherein
the righteous and the wicked shall alike receive a
baptism of regeneration. " There shall be no more
curse." Ahrimanes and his angels shall be converted; Hell shall be swallowed up. All created
beings shall join in the worship of Ahura-Mazda,
and the "universe shall remain pure       for evermore." *
This brief and popular account of recent researches
in Zoroastrian lore may, I hope, induce some readers
to undertake the study of the original for themselves.
It will be still more fortunate if it serve to arouse
some scholar competent to the task of translating
it into an English version sufficiently simple and
grammatical to allow its merits to be perceived.
The result of such studies of the Zend Avesta will
assuredly not be that of placing the book, in the
estimation of any, on the same level with the great
classics of Greece, far less with that most precious
heir-loom of humanity,-the sacred literature of
* Zemyad Yasht. According to some passages of the Zend
Avesta it would appear that Ahrimanes is to be annihilated, not
reclaimed. It would rather seem however, on the collation of all
the passages referring to the resurrection, that it is only evil itself which is to be destroyed. The restoration of all spirits is
frequently foretold.




THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE ZOROASTRIANS. 143
Palestine. It may however serve another and a
nobler purpose; it may afford fresh confirmation of
the truth, that the moral sense and the religious
sentiment of man are in all lands and ages essentially the same, and therefore are no anere results of
local or temporary conditions or instructions, but
prove themselves the uniform Voice of One who
speaks in all the hearts He has made, and is the
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, the "Wise
Creator," the " Rich in Love."








THE PHILOSOPHY
OF
THE    POOR-LAWS.
Reprinted from Fraser's Magazine, Sept. 1864.








THE Poor-Laws constitute an apparent anomaly
in our national legislation. Other laws concern
themselves solely with the class of obligations distinguished by the old moralists as Duties of Debt.
They forbid offence against person and property,
and provide for the fulfilment of legal contracts.
All taxes, also,.which are imposed (exclusive of
poor-rates), are matters of debt-the debt understood to be owed by the taxpayer to the State, for
protection and other benefits.
In the Poor-Laws, on the contrary, we find Duties
of Merit erected into civil obligations and enforced
by legal penalties. The individual it not only bound
to abstain from offence against his neighbour's person and property, and forced to fulfil his legal contracts; he is called upon also to provide for his
neighbour's maintenance. The taxes imposed under
the poor-laws are not understood to be paid for the
taxpayer's protection or benefit of any kind. but
exclusively for another man's advantage.
At a hasty glance it might seem that this
anomaly was an invasion by the Civil Law of a province properly belonging to the Moral Law. The
10 *




148                STUDIES.
concern of civil and criminal law is to forbid offence;
that of the moral law, to ordain beneficent action.
The civil law cannot punish a man for not being
virtuous: it can only punish him for committing a
crime. It cannot punish him for withholding his
hand to save a drowning man: it can only punish
him for thrusting him into the water. The moral
law alone covers the whole field of duty, by commanding the good action, and, by such command,
leaving to condemnation both the fault of not performing it, and the offence of committing the opposite evil. Thus, then, to require of a man to give
alms might appear to be a matter beyond the true
sphere of the civil law, and rather to be a generous
homage paid by a Christian country to sentiments
of humanity, than a logically defensible principle of
legislation. In this light the poor-laws are probably commonly regarded; and the popular idea of
them might be interpreted to be, "We are very
charitable in thus providing against the starvation
of any man in our country." A deeper insight into
the foundations of civil rights would, however, reveal a different state of the case. Grotius's Justitia
Attributrix of such a "Duty of Merit" as we are
discussing, is as much the province of the civil law
as the Justitia Ex1pletrix of the simplest " Duties of
Debt." The grounds on which the rights of life are
founded is one thing; the grounds on which the
rights of property, another. When the right to life
comes into collision with the right to property, there




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR-LAWS.  149
is found no basis of morals to support property
against life. A civil law which should attempt to
do so, would offend against the ultimate principles.of justice. To hinder the starvation of one member
of the State, the property of another may lawfully
be mulcted, inasmuch as his whole claim to possess
any property at all is subsidiary to the starving man's
right to life. If no State existed, the starving man
would have the natural right of self-preservation to
seize his neighbour's food,-a right only limited by
his neighbour's right to keep himself also from
starvation. Where the State exists, it is its duty to
intervene and secure that the starving man be fed
by such taxation of his neighbour as shall invade as
little as possible the right of the latter to his property.
Such is the fundamental principle on which the
Poor-Laws rest, so far as they may be considered as
a system of enforced taxation of the rich to supply
the wants of the poor. Having admitted the right
of such taxation, we next proceed to inquire into
the application of the money thus procured. It will
be seen, from the principle of the case as above
stated, that poor-rates strictly are available to relieve the absolute wants of the pauper, and nothing
more. To go beyond such wants, and supply him
with superfluities of any kind, would be manifest
injustice to the ratepayer, forced to supply such
superfluities from his own property, to which he has
the better right. The question, what are wants,




150                STUDIES.
and what are superfluities? is, of course, a difficult
one. Practically, the justice of the case may be met
by the rule that nothing which the poorer ratepayers may be commonly obliged from poverty to
dispense with, can be fairly supplied to the pauper
with their money. His condition ought to be distinctly inferior to theirs.
Another great principle of legislation here comes
into view, and very happily harmonizes and completes the abstract view of rights we have been
considering. Among the benefits for which the
State lawfully taxes its citizens, is not only that of
civil and -military protection, but the general security and well-being of the community. A large
share of its revenues is employed in the prevention
of crime and reformation of criminals. In a similar
manner it engages properly in the effort to correct
an evil only second in mischief to crime itselfnamely, Pauperism. The repression of pauperism
is as clearly the duty of the State as the repression
of crime, seeing that pauperism is the seed-bed of
crime, and is itself one of the worst evils of the social body-a plaie saignante, as the French politicians have well named it, which must needs be
healed before souhd health can be established.
The two principles of the duty of the State to
enforce the supply of the wants of the poor out of
the property of the rich, and of the duty of the State
to repress pauperism, fortunately coincide precisely.
Pauperism can no doubt best be repressed by ex



THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR-LAWS.  1.51
actly supplying the wants of the pauper, while withholding all superfluities, and making his condition
undesirable, by making it inferior to that of the
humblest ratepayer.
The special practical applications, then, of these
two harmonious principles, are our concern. Are
the wants of the pauper really supplied-and is
pauperism actually in process of repression-by our
existing poor-laws and their local applications in the
various Unions in the country?' The question is:a
most grave one, and has for some time occupied a
share of public attention. For three sessions of
Parliament, Committees have sat to inquire into the
working of the poor-laws, and their report has just
been published in a Bluebook of unusual clearness
and interest. Whether the results to which the
Committee have therein given their voices were the
legitimate ones to be drawn from the evidence
placed before them, we shall not here venture to inquire. It is at least startling to find that they dismissed the testimony of three such witnessess as
Miss Carpenter, Miss Louisa Twining, and the Hon.
Mrs Way, with the observation that, "although
they expressed opinions very strongly opposed to
the system of educating children in workhouses,
your Committee cannot report that these opinions
were supported by facts, either authenticated, or, if
they had been authenticated, sufficiently numerous
to justify the conclusions founded upon ther."
(Report, p. 78.)  The evidence of Mr Carleton




152                STUDIES.
Tufnell, an inspector, is put aside as similarly unworthy of attention. The reader naturally asks if
these persons-,ladies of the highest judgment and
ability, entirely devoted to the cause of the poor,
and a gentleman appointed by Government to inspect pauper-schools,-if these are witnesses whose
opinions are to be passed over, along with the Committee of Education, what grounds of reliance are
left to us in the selection of persons who should be
more competent to offer us their testimony? We
shall at present, however, merely take a general review of the existing workhouse system in England,
proceeding on facts known to all who have practically interested themselves in the matter, and then,
in each department, quote the observations made in
the Parliamentary Report, and leave it to the reader
to draw his own conclusions as to whether the reforms recommended appear in any way sufficient to
cope with the evil to be remedied. Our attention
will be exclusively directed to the English and Irish
poor-laws, and not to the Scotch. In Scotland the
old poor-law had no existence, and the abuses attending it having never arisen, it has not been
found necessary to have recourse to the same severity
of test of destitution either, as in England, where
these abuses were excessive, or, as in Ireland, where
mendicancy was rife. In Scotland, we believe, ablebodied men have no claim on relief, and children
are placed out first for nursing and then for schooling. Out-door relief is given in the agricultural




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR-LAWS.   153
districts much more freely than in England; and
the arrangements of the hospitals are so far better,
at all events, that the doctor's salary and his medicines are not lumped together.
To return to England. The modern system of
division of labour is certainly nowhere so little exemplified in this country as in the workhouse.
Elsewhere, health and disease, youth and age, virtue
and vice, education and ignorance, manhood and
womanhood, sanity and insanity, form classifications
which are rarely practically transgressed.  But
poverty, as the old proverb avers, seems to "make
acquainted" every form of human sorrow and sin.
Every large workhouse combines the following institutions:
1. A workhouse proper, or place of labour for
able-bodied paupers, males.
2. Ditto for females.
3. A temporary asylum, or casual ward, for
pauper travellers, males.
4. Ditto for females.
5. A hospital for the sick, curable and incurable,
males.
6. Ditto for females.
7. An asylum for aged and infirm males.
8. Ditto for females;
9. A blind asylum for males.
10. Ditto for females.
11. A deaf and dumb asylum for males.
12. Ditto for females.




154                     STUDIES.
13. A lunatic asylum, males.
14. Ditto for females.
15. An asylum for idiots and epileptics, males.
16. Ditto for females.
17. A boys' school.
18. A girls' school.
19. An infant school.
20. A nursery for infants.
21. A lying-in hospital.
22. A Penitentiary (Black ward).*
Twenty-two institutions amalgamated in one,
* The following is an analysis of the inmates of a London
workhouse, not divided as above, but giving an idea of the pooportions of some of the classes
Persons above 90 years of age......  2
Ditto between 80 and 90...... 43
Ditto between 70 and 80......147
Ditto between 60 and 70..... 152
Idiotic..........17
Infants under 16....... 33
Blind.........10
Deaf and Dumb........   3
Persons under 60, sick or maimed.... 56
Ditto under 60,'subject to fits...  32
Mothers nursing their children..     11
Persons under 60 of such habits or character as to
preclude permanent employment..,.. 32
Persons under 60 who might possibly earn their
living........     48
Total 586
The law requires all violent lunatics to be sent to the county
asylum within a fortnight, but the harmless remain in the workhouses, where their cost is less by half than in the asylums.




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR-LAWS.  155
and regulated by a single board! If such a thing
were heard of for the first time, and only five or six
of these heterogeneous charities were lumped together, what should we think of it?-say a Boys'
school, a Hospital, a Lunatic Asylum, and a Penitentiary? How absurd it would seem! How we
should ask why purposes all dissimilar should be
carried on under one roof, when each one of them
by such an arrangement was liable to be counteracted by the others? How we should marvel at
the self-confidence of the Committee who felt themselves sufficiently instructed in each department to
regulate at once the instruction of the young, the
ordering of an hospital, the nursing of babies, and
the management of the idle and vicious! Does the
undertaking, which would be so obviously monstrous if it concerned the class of persons who frequent our other hospitals and asylums and schools,
become immediately easy and practicable when it
refers to.paupers? or is a task which the most experienced philanthropist, entirely devoted to such
work, would decline as utterly unmanageable, to be
performed satisfactorily by busy shopkeepers and
farmers, meeting for a few hours once a week, in
the not very solemn conclave of the Board-room.
Elsewhere it is admitted that it is dangerous for
children, who are to be trained to virtue and industry, to be brought into proximity with vice and
idleness; for the sane to behold constantly the
spectacle of insanity; for the healthy to be brought




156                STUDIES.
near the diseased and fever-stricken; for innocent
girls to hear and see continually the miserable servants of sin. But, because all these conditions of
humanity are, in the workhouse, lost in the one great
condition of pauperism, it is thought well to jumble
them all together within the same walls, whose minor
partitions of wards and departments permit a tainted
atmosphere, both moral and physical, to pass from
one to another.  Each Board, therefore, has not
only the stupendous task of regulating twenty-two
different kinds of charitable institutions, it. has the
further work of obviating the complications and
needless difficulties which, in each department, are
produced by the neighbourhood of the others. As
in the old fable, the man has not only to carry
his property across the ford, but to provide that
the fox, the fowl, and the corn are not left together.
Endless rules, endless iron-barred windows and
padlocked gates, endless assimilations to that which,
above all, a workhouse should not resemble, i. e., a
jail, are obliged to be used for the purpose of keeping asunder the classes who have been first senselessly brought together. And with what success
are they kept asunder? Probably that the sick
either watch the insane in their sad yards, or are
distracted by the sounds of the labours of the ablebodied paupers; that any epidemic which breaks
out in the hospital goes through the schools; that
the decent and honest ruined tradesman or governess has to spend the last years of life beside the




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR-LAWS.           157
drunkard and the profligate; and, worst of all, that
the young grow up with the visible memorials of
sin constantly before their eyes, and the alternative
presented to their imaginations of a life of vice outside the workhouse, and a life of interminable ennui
and restriction within it.*
In the case of pauper children, this evil has be* All these "probabilities " have been realized in the writer's
experience. There is a workhouse in London she has visited
where the sick could not have their windows open all the summer
because carpets were beaten by the paupers in the yard below, as
their regular work; another, where a smith's forge just under
them made speech nearly inaudible; another (in the country),
where they could never look out without seeing the insane; another (in London), where a young woman occasionally, but rarely,
afflicted by fits, was shut up for life with jabbering idiots; another (in Ireland), where 400 young girls were kept together,
the mothers of many of them taking them out every summer to
lives of profligacy, and then sending them back to associate freely
with the rest. The following is a memorandum from the writer's
notes taken in another workhouse:"Miss M. A. K. spent all her life in England and France as a
teacher of languages, but had had the misfortune to be born in
Dublin, of Irish parents, long since dead. In the decline of life
her sight and health failed her. She struggled on in her little
lodging, translating French books when she could obtain such
employment, and selling her remaining property bit by bit, till
every resource was exhausted. Finally she applied to HUnion for relief, and before she well understood what was going to
be done, she was sent to Ireland, according to the Law of Settlement. I saw her among a crowd of miserable paupers, and was
struck at the piteous contrast of the delicate face and figure of
the poor old lady, and the degrading dress she wore. I found
she was not only obliged to live, but to share her bed, with the
very lowest of the community."




158                STUDIES.
come so manifest, that for some years the system
of District Schools, apart from the workhouse, has
been in action; and the evils, again, attendant on
the massing together of the numbers sent to these
schools, has occupied philanthropists to discover
means of more effectively effacing the pauper brand,
and cutting off the entail of pauper degradation.
But, in various degrees, the same arguments apply
to every department of the workhouse, except its
original central one —of a place of shelter and
labour for able-bodied poor unable to find employment elsewhere. As a hospital, as an infirmary, as
a blind, deaf and dumb, insane, and idiot asylum,
as a penitentiary and lying-in hospital, there are
almost insuperable objections to institutions governed as workhouses are governed, and arranged
as (in a degree) workhouses must be arranged.
These are grave assertions. We shall endeavour
to make them good by briefly reviewing, seriatim,
the different departments of which we have
spoken.
1st. The Hospital. It may be considered by
some economists as a doubtful question, whether
free hospitals are, in any case, institutions calculated to benefit the community; whether it be desirable to obviate for the working classes the ne.
cessity for making provision for the casualty of
illness, and, at the same time, to separate families
under the precise circumstances wherein family affections are most drawn forth and strengthened.




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR-LAWS.  159
Thisl may, we say, be considered by some as an
open question, albeit the common judgment of
mankind has decided that such evils are subordinate to the great benefits, sanitary and economic,
obtained by such institutions. No question at all,
however, can exist on the further proposition, that
if free hospitals be desirable in the abstract, it is
desirable that they be good hospitals, i. e., calculated to fulfil their proper objects-recovery from
disease, and alleviation of suffering. It would be
absurd to inquire whether we ought to encourage
the poor to rely on an asylum open to them in sickness, and to accustom families to place their members in such asylums, while, at the same time, no
counterbalancing benefits of recovery or relief were
likely to be obtained thereby. Nevertheless, so
strangely have we ordered these matters in England, that two-thirds of the free hospitals in the
country are wholly defective in such appliances for
recovery and relief, as have been admitted on all
hands, and adopted by the remaining third, as absolutely needful for'such purpose.
There are in all 245 hospitals and infirmaries
supported by voluntary endowments and contribu.
tions in England and Wales.
There are 664 workhouses supported by enforced rates; each containing sick, surgical, and
infirm wards, constituting hospitals where the poor
are admitted free of cost.. In the 245 hospitals supported by voluntary aid,




160                STUDIES.
there are nearly invariably surgeons and physicians
of eminence attending and consulting; there are
trained and paid nurses, except where there are
Sisters of Charity; there is an ample supply of
drugs;'there are dietaries calculated for the use of
the patients in various stages of sickness.  The
wards are usually built with all desirable arrangements for ventilation, light, and cleanliness. The
beds and other'furniture are provided with a direct
reference to the requirements of the sick.
If these be the fitting preparations for a Hospital,
let us ask how many of them are to be found in the
Workhouses?
In the first place, workhouses have usually one
surgeon, and no visiting physicians; the surgeon
receiving so low a salary that only a man at the
outset of his profession will accept the office. 2.
They have very rarely any nurses for the sick ex-'cept paupers; and pauper nurses must inevitably
labour under either some grievous physical or
moral defect (else they would be able to obtain remunerative employment elsewhere); consequently,
such nurses are nearly always either women of bad
character, drunkards, half-deaf or half-blind, or incurably stupid. They have never been trained to
their task; their patients, as they know, cannot
pay them for their services, while they can readily
punish their patients for complaints; and their
usual remuneration consists in rations of beer or
gin, which serve to complete the measure of their




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.    161
unfitness for their task.*  3. The supply of drugs
in workhouses, in all save a very few Unions, is included in the surgeon's scanty salary, thereby practically excluding the use of all costly tonics and
anodynes, which are precisely the medicines needed
by the half-starved younger patients, and the miserable sufferers from rheumatism and cancer. 4. The
dietaries in workhouses, though variable at the
surgeon's order, are usually all very ill-suited to
the sick, infirm, and superannuated. The staple in
all cases is boiled beef, which their stomachs cannot
digest; and in many workhouse kitchens there is
no possibility (even if the surgeon should desire it)
of dressing meat in a more wholesome way. 5. The
sick wards are commonly allotted with the smallest
consideration for their suitability as to light, ventilation, and warmth; some being insufferably close,
and others full of draughts, causing torture to the
rheumatic and consumptive patients.t The workhouses themselves being usually built in the worst
districts in the towns, and the lowest and most undesirable plots in the country, the diseased have, in
any case, less chance of recovery in them than elsewhere. 6. The furniture of the sick wards is commonly altogether defective. The beds are mostly
the same allotted to the able-bodied paupers, and
* In 1854, out of 570 nurses in the London Unions, only 70
were paid, and 500 paupers.
t The ward in St Giles's, where Gibson died, was by no means
the worst the writer has seen.
11




162                   STUDIES.
are miserably small, hard, and cold for those who
must lie in them for months and years together.
Being usually formed of a bag of straw or flock,*
the bolster (if such exists) only keeps the patient's
head on a level with his chest; and he has no means
of sitting in a less distressing position. Frequently
the heads of the beds are drawn away from the wall,
to prevent the hair of the patients from soiling the
whitewash. Besides the beds there is rarely any
other furniture suitable to the wants of- the sickoften not a chair in which it is possible for them to
sit. 7. Lastly, the one great curative agent in
disease-mental cheerfulness-is most effectually
debarred from   the workhouse sick-ward by the
gloom of the place, the absence of all books or
prints, the stringent, regulations against visitors,
and, too frequently also, by the harshness and
rudeness of the officials. Such are the conditions
of the workhouse as a hospital, as regards the
surgeon, the nurses, the drugs, the diet, the wards,
the furniture, and the moral state of the patients.
Now, if this statement of the case be verified,
the logic of our existing workhouse arrangements
will appear somewhat questionable. We expend
vast sums in our hospitals supported by voluntary
* Miss Nightingale tells us that straw should never be used
as a bed for the sick. "In some cases," she says, " the abstraction of heat from the spine lowers the patient's vital energy to a
degree which does not leave him a chance of recovery."-Notes
on Nursing.




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.  163
contributions, assuming that it is needful that the
patients be treated in such and such ways, and,
of course, limiting narrowly the number of such
patients by the costliness of such arrangements.
Then, when we come to determine the manner in
which hospitals supported by enforced rates are to
be administered, we at once assume that half the
provisions of the other hospitals for cure and relief
of suffering are altogether superfluous, and that
the sick can be cured and relieved quite as well
without them. There is no escape from this position, save by arguing that the pauper, when sick,
ought not to be so rapidly cured or so much relieved from suffering as another patient-an argument, I presume, neither economy nor humanity
can admit.
The sick in workhouses are of two classes:1st, the curable patients, who, if restored to
health, will mostly leave the house, and support
themselves for the future by their own labour. No
doubt can exist of the saving to the rates which is
effected by hastening and securing the recovery of
these patients by all reasonable means. An unskilful surgeon, or one who yields to the temptation of
withholding the costly drugs (whose price perhaps
might employ half or all his scanty salary), is manifestly the cause of immense charge to the Union.
Suppose that out of a couple of hundred patients,
he keeps twenty or thirty in bed in the workhouse,
when with proper treatment they might have left it
11 *




164                    STUDIES.
to earn their living at home. The cost of those
patients, amounting to some ~300 or ~400 a year,
must be set against the economy of a surgeon with
drugs included in his salary of ~80, or ~100, or
~150 a year.*     Of the humanity of thus keeping
poor creatures in the pangs of disease and misery of
helplessness, when we might restore them to the
joys of health and strength, it is needless to
speak.
2ndly, the Incurables.    Public attention has at
last begun to be turned towards this most piteous
class of the community, but as yet the aid offered
is but a drop in the ocean of their wants. Two
hospitals in England are opened, which perhaps may
hold two or three hundred incurables. There are
also two small hospitals for them in Scotland, and
one large and very old one in Dublin. The other
245 free hospitals in this country admit no incurable
patient, and nearly always dismiss those whose cases
become hopeless. Thus there is provision for about
500 in the United Kingdom at the utmost. There
* One case, precisely in point, came under the writer's
knowledge very lately. She had visited a poor man, for years in
B —     workhouse, believing him to be a hopeless sufferer from an
internal disease. He frequently complained of the diet disagreeing with him, and that a "house pill," which did him more
harm than good, was the only medicine the surgeon ever gave him.
Another lady, having described the case to an eminent physician,
determined to obtain his admittance into a regular hospital-of
course a difficult task. Her trouble was well rewarded; three
months afterwards the writer saw the poor man plying his trade
(that of a tailor) in fully recovered health and independence.




THE PHILOSOPHt OF THE POOR LAWS.      165
are, however, 80,000 persons who die every year
among us of three only out of the many forms of
incurable disease, namely, consumption, dropsy, and
cancer. Out of these 80,000 at least 30,000 belong
to those poorer working classes to whom prolonged
and hopeless illness is inevitably equivalent to ruin
and destitution. Deduct the 500 who may find
admittance into the hospitals-deduct some thousands who may have friends able and willing to
endure the charge of supporting and nursing them,
or who may be so happy as to die with unusual
suddenness after first succumbing to diseasededuct, say, 10,000 of these, and there will remain
some 20,000 who linger out a year, or two or three
years, of pain and agony and hopelessness in the
workhouse. It would be something worse than bad
economy to question whether we should open an
asylum to these piteous sufferers (often enduring the
worst pangs to which our human nature is liable),
and then leave them to want any mitigations which
anodynes, or soothing drinks, or comfortable beds,
might afford to their long agonies.*
* The plan suggested for the relief of these destitute incurables by Miss Elliot, daughter of the Dean of Bristol, has been
tried in some unions with entire success, and it is much to be
wished that it could be generally adopted. It is simply that
these patients be (wherever practicable) placed in wards apart,
and that private charity be freely admitted and invited to visit
them, and supply them with such comforts as they may need,
subject to the discretion of the surgeon. No irregularity could
arise in the workhouse from this plan, the wards being separate,
and professedly for a separate class; nor could any unfair advant



1.66                  STUDIES.
Again, then, we say-both as regards curable
patients and incurable-if it be proper to have such
things as free hospitals at all, either supported by
voluntary contributions   or enforced rates, it is
proper also to make them effective for their ostensible purposes-the cure of disease and the relief of
suffering.  With showy ornaments or handsome
architecture, such as has been lavished on many
workhouses, we have nothing to do.     Such things
are obnoxious and impertinent in an edifice whose
cost is defrayed by taxes levied, like the poor-rates,
partly on the poorer classes of the community.
But with all that concerns the efficacy of the hospital as a hospital, all that facilitates recovery and
relieves suffering, we have an interest. It is imperatively demanded by humanity, by economy, and
by justice.
It may be alleged, in answer to this statement,
that, even granting it to be desirable to introduce
such improvements as would assimilate the workhouse with other hospitals, the thing is impossible.
Such improvements would be beyond the resources
of a vast number of Unions. To raise the rates
sufficiently to meet such expense would be to paun
perize the lower strata of rate-payers.
age be taken of it, as no one could feign the diseases which
would warrant admission. (See for full accounts of the plan and
its approval by 100 of the most eminent London physicians,
Remarks on Incurables in Workhouses. Nisbet & Co., 1865.
Price 2d. —and Destitute Incurables. Nisbet, 1865. Second
Edition. Price 2d.)




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.  167
To this we reply, that if the case be so, in truth,
then, the equalization of the rates over large areas
becomes imperative. The principle on which the
whole poor-law system is grounded compels the
State to secure that the wants of its citizens be
supplied. If these wants cannot be supplied by
other citizens a mile off, they must be supplied by
those 100 or 500 miles off. The local arrangements
of unions and parishes were matters of convenience.
They must needs be revised if it be found that they
militate against the fundamental principles of the
law itself.
What (we now ask) are the suggestions made
by the Parliamentary Committee with reference
to this whole subject of the medical department
of the workhouses? Passing by the observations
in their Report concerning out-door medical reliefwhich does not here concern us-we find they arrive at these conclusions. (Report, p. 16): —" That
there are no sufficient grounds for materially interfering with the present system of medical relief..
Your Committee, however, recommend that in
future cod-liver oil, quinine, and other expensive
medicines, shall be provided at the expense of the
Guardians." This solitary recommendation (due to
the urgent representations of the excellent Dr
Rogers, of the Strand Union) is actually the only
reform proposed. Surely, taking into consideration
the barest outline of the facts of workhouse hospital
management, such as has been given above, and




168                STUDIES.
making every concession to the humanity with
which such a system may be applied, it remains
clear that, unless our Philosophy of the Poor-laws
be utterly false, the case is one requiring to be
treated in a very different manner from that of the
gift of a little quinine and cod-liver oil! The reader
is as competent to form a judgment on this matter
for himself, after one visit to any large workhouse,
as the committee man who may have listened to the
pleasing testimony of twenty officials.  Are the
medical counsels, the nurses, the furniture, the drugs,
the food of a workhouse hospital similar to those
which have been deemed indispensable to procure
recovery and relieve suffering in other hospitals?
If they are not so, all the complacent calculations
of increasing expenditure and accounts of " satisfactory evidence" are simply impertinent. We are
either doing our best to cure and to relieve the sick
poor, or we are not doing so-judged by the standard of medical science of our time. To do it, is our
plain duty. To fail to do so, is equally bad economy
and bad humanity.
2nd and 3rd. Workhouses are Blind asylums
and institutions for the Deaf and Dumb. In nearly
all the larger ones may be found three or four blind
and two or three deaf and dumb-just too few to
have any arrangements made for their benefit. Very
rarely are they taught anything; for there is no one
to teach the blind to read, nor any books for them
if they could use them-nor any one able to instruct




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.   169
the deaf and dumb, who are treated by the other
paupers as idiots, and grow up little better. Basketmaking, mat-making, &c., would be opening a trade
on a scale too small for the Board to admit on' their
accounts. The poor creatures, therefore, who might
be employed, taught, and made moral and religious
beings in the institutions devoted to relieve their
infirmities, spend their dreary lives in the workhouse in utter idleness and ignorance.
4th. Workhouses are Lunatic Asylums for all
except violent cases. Many of them contain scores
of insane patients. Here a totally different order of
things comes in view. The Commissioners mercifully intervene in favour of these poor souls, and
compel the guardians to treat them in a manner
superior to those of the other inmates in many respects. The appearance of their wards, decently
furnished, and often adorned with prints, and supplied with objects for their amusement, is at first a
surprise to the workhouse visitor. Most right and
fit is all this; but we must ask, further-are there
any means taken not only to alleviate their condition,
but to cure this saddest of human maladies? Everyday experience proves more and more the possibility
of restoring mental disease; but it is with the utmost
care, gentleness, and prudence, and with all appliances at command. Probably less than in any other
disease does nature effect a cure here; certainly
least of all under the conditions of confinement in
one close ward and dreary yard, guarded by its




170                STUDIES.
frieze of iron spikes; among hapless fellow-sufferers.
Yet, except the house surgeon, who visit them when
ill, the insane in workhouses have no medical care
whatever. All the chance of recovering from their
grievous affliction, which they might have in asylums
specially devoted to them, are altogether relinquished. They leave the insane pauper ward only for the
pauper's grave. The cost of their maintenance in
an asylum being double that in the workhouse, it is
always with reluctance that the guardians now
dismiss them when too violent to be kept in the
Union.
5th. Workhouses are also Idiot asylums and
Epileptic hospitals. Little is to be said respecting
the treatment of the poor idiots in the workhouse,
which is probably as good as may be deemed fitting.
The evil is as regards the epileptic patients. These
are,.in a multitude of workhouses, classed with the
imbecile, even when the recurrence of their seizures
is still distant enough to allow long intervals of
perfect sanity. The mental condition of these unhappy men and women-seeing constantly before
them the spectacle of the condition to which they
most dread to approximate, and debarred from
intercourse with sounder minds-is deplorable indeed. Some of them (as we have known) suffer
extreme misery from such a position. Yet the other
sick in the workhouse would hardly be less injured
by their presence than they are by that of the idiot.
In workhouses where they are mixed with the sick




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.   171
or infirm, we have known great misery produced by
the sight of their seizures.
6th. Workhouses are Boys' Schools. It is a
profound truth that-on which Miss Carpenter has
so often insisted-there is no such thing as a Pauper
Child; and our classing children with paupers is a
mistake fraught with evils. A pauper is one who
has fallen through his own faults or misfortunes into
a condition of unnatural dependence. Every child
is naturally dependent-the king's son no less than
the beggar's. Whatever faults or misfortunes of
the parent may have left the child unprovided for,
he cannot morally be made to bear the stigma of
pauperism. Nay, our special duty is to secure him
from receiving such a brand, and as completely as
possible to cut off the entail of pauper degradation,
and save him from adding another to the ranks who
bear it. Ascending to the original principles of
politics, each child born in the State is, as a future
citizen of the State; entitled to certain privileges,
and subject to certain claims. The old Spartans,
who took him almost wholly from his parents, exaggerated these claims; the modern Prussians, who
insist upon his receiving education, whether with or
without their consent, probably enforce them with
the nearest approach to justice.* In all civilized
countries the existence of some State-rights over
the children of'citizens are admitted. Correspond* Enforced vaccination is a singular use of these rights of the
State in England.




172                STUDIES.
ing to these rights must be duties; and the most
obvious of duties must be the support and education
of such children as are left destitute either by the
death or pauperism of their parents. So long as
the parent lives, and is able to support his child, on
him naturally falls the duty. -But he has it only in
the first place. Failing the parents there is the
State, which represents the sum'of all the responsibilities of the other members of the community. As
we started by observing; the right to life is supreme over the right to property, and the office of
the State is to secure that right of life (most of all
the right of the weak and helpless) at the cost of the
property of such as have it. Nor is it mere life the
State must guarantee to the child. Another principle comes in-that of the public welfare. For the
good not only of the child himself, but of the whole
community of which he is to become a member, it
must educate him for his future duties. Briefly, in
fact, when the parent dies, or becomes a pauper, the
duties of the parent devolve on the State. The
question is; Ought the State to rear its children as
paupers?
Of course we are here met by the bugbear of all
enlightened policy towards the poor and the criminal: Would you make the condition of the children
of paupers better than that which honest and industrious men are able to secure for their offspring?
Will you hold out a bonus to idle and improvident
parents? Will you tax the poor ratepayer A, who




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.   173
works day and night to educate his own children
decently, that the children of B, who has never
worked at all, may be educated as well or better
than they? There are both truths and fallacies here.
The fallacies are,-that idle and imprudent parents
will consider it any bonus to have their children well
educated, or be the less or more idle and improvident
on that account;-and also that any expenditure
of the State can equalize the condition of its adopted
children with that of the children of honest and industrious parents trained in love and goodness at
home. The truth of the argument is this-that it is
not on the poor Ratepayer, as such, that the weight
of the education of the children of the State ought to
fall. That is a matter of the general expenditure of
the nation, to be classed with the salaries of the
officers of State, the army, navy, and public works
of all kinds. The support of the child (as of the
adult pauper) is all with which the poor-rates ought
rightly to be charged. The property of the ratepayer is lawfully taxed for that only. He should
pay for the child's education, as he pays for other
matters of public welfare, by other taxes. We shall
see presently how such an arrangement would not
onlybe feasible, but would directlyfall in with any true
method of removing the workhouse taint-namely,
the separation of the child from pauper associations.
The boys' schools attached to the workhouses
are usually good, as regards instruction: the District
schools (combining those of several Unions, and




174                 STUDIES.
separated from the workhouses), better still. In
nearly all cases, indeed, children boarded in these
schools are in advance, as regards book-learning, of
those who attend only by day, with the usual irregularity of the poor. In a few workhouse schools,
also, the moral and physical training of the boys is
excellent-in fact, there is little to be wished for,
save that so much care and cost to effect the elevation of the pupils should be systematically rendered
nugatory by the exclusive companionship of paupers,
and the perpetual livery of pauperism. These are
the best cases: very different ones are the Unions
where the boys grow up under hard and tyrannical
masters, with penurious guardians, and, from childhood to manhood, never know an hour of boyish
sport or freedom, or one influence to soften their
hearts to human sympathies or divine love. That a
youth educated thus should grow up a cheerful, affectionate, self-respecting, and religious man, would
be one of those moral miracles of which there are
few examples.
The case of the Girls is far worse than the Boys,
as all the conditions of workhouse management fall
with peculiar evil on their natures. To mass boys
together in large numbers, with no home influence
or habits, and no attempt to draw out their affections, is dangerous. To do the same to girls, is
fatal. Among all the endless paradoxes of female
treatment, one of the worst and most absurd is that
which, while eternally proclaiming "home" to be the




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.  175
only sphere of a woman, systematically educates all
the female children of the State without attempting
to give them even an idea of what a home might be.
Girls want affection, want personal care, want
household duties, want everything which can train
them to honour the bodies, and keep pure the souls
which God has given them. To effect this, we mass
them by hundreds where they have no affection, no
personal care, nay, hardly a personal existence at
all, save as units in a herd, no household duties;
and as much degradation as hideous uniform and
cropped hair, and shoes which change the natural
lightness of step of youth to the shuffle of age, can
possibly achieve. The result is at last becoming so
palpable that none may shut their eyes, The poor
girls so trained, go out into the humbler class of
service, where their ignorance of the simplest household duties, their want of self-control and hopeless
stupidity, too often provoke the harshness of their
employers. In their errands in the streets at all
hours, the secret of another and all too easy livelihood is revealed to them. No mother or friendly
teacher is there to save them; no house to which to
go, when dismissed from service, save the weary
workhouse again. Before they return thither, they
try that dread alternative. Out of a single workhouse in London, inquiry was instituted two years
ago concerning eighty girls who had left it and gone
to service. It was found that every one of them was
on the streets.




176                STUDIES.
In a minor degree the evils of the boys' and girls'
schools apply also to the Infant Schools, which likewise are contained in the workhouses.
What does our Parliamentary Committee (which
has passed over the case of the blind, deaf and
dumb, insane and idiotic) say to that of the children
in the workhouse? The Report begins by admitting
the importance of the matter, and traces a gradual
improvement in the system, especially since 1847-8,
when workhouse schools were placed under the inspection of the Committee of Council on Education,
and a grant of ~30,000 per annum placed at the disposal of the Poor-law Board for the payment of
workhouse teachers. After this we are told that
"the witnesses, Miss Carpenter, Miss Twining, and
the Hon. Mrs Way, expressed opinions very strongly
opposed to the education of children in workhouses,
the inevitable result of which, they consider, is to
demoralize the children and confirm them in habits;
of pauperism."  The Committee, however, attach
more importance to the Report of the Royal Commission on Education, which contains these "conclusions."
1. That pauperism is hereditary; and that children born and bred as members of that class, furnish
the great mass of the pauper and criminal population.
2. That the best prospect of a permanent diminution of pauperism and crime, is to be found in.
the proper education of such children,.




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.  177
3. That district and separate schools give an
education to the children contained in them, which
effectually tends to emancipate them from pauperism.
4. That the workhouse schools are generally so
managed, that the children contained in them learn
from infancy to regard the workhouses as their
homes, and associate with grown-up paupers, whose
influence destroys their moral character, and prevents the growth of independence.
5. That the arrangements of workhouses are
unavoidably such as to make it extremely difficult
to procure or retain competent teachers.
The inference from these premises is, that the
only means of improving the condition of pauper
education, is to compel by law, the general establishment of district and separate schools; and that
this remedy is efficient, the experience of the district
and separate schools already established, proves
conclusively. (Report, p. 27.)
All these conclusions of the Commissioners of
Education, however, the Committee of Inquiry into
Poor Relief found of small value, on analyzing the
method by which the late lamented Mr N. W.
Senior, who drew up the document, had arrived at
his convictions. Large examination of other witnesses proved to their satisfaction (what nobody
ever questioned), that the intellectual education of
workhouse children is good, and that a certain industrial training is also afforded to them. The case
12




178                 STUDIES.
of the girls, and the total impossibility of affording
them, in a workhouse, any preparation for domestic
life, was, as usual, passed over; and their "occasional " intercourse with the prostitutes in the
workhouse, treated as of no great consequence.
Mr Tufnell, formerly Poor-law Commissioner, and,
during the last fifteen years, Inspector of Poor-law
Schools in the Metropolitan district, gave his
opinion in favour of district schools for boys, and
private industrial training-schools for girls, like the
Brockham Home; and Mr Farnall, Poor-law Inspector of the London district, gave similar judgment.   The whole' conclusions, however, of the
Parliamentary Committee were these:"' That making reasonable allowance for the low
condition, physical, moral, and mental, of a large
proportion of the children when they first enter
workhouses, and for the necessarily frequent changes
in their admission and discharge, the state of workhouse education is upon the whole satisfactory in
its character and result.
"The Committee think that it would be inexpedient, and in many cases impracticable, to enforce
the general establishment of district or separate
schools; but they are of opinion that schools entirely distinct from the workhouse should continue
to be encouraged as being attended with beneficial
results to the children, and affording the most effectual means of separating them from the other classes
of paupers."




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.   179
The idea of what constitutes a " satisfactory result," in the minds of the members of the Committee, must, apparently, be somewhat different
from that which the "Philosopher of the Poorlaws" would lead us to predicate!
7. Workhouses are Nurseries for Infants. Two
or three small wards, in most workhouses in England and Ireland, are devoted to the care of poor
little babies, whose mothers (when they have any
forthcoming), come in at stated times to feed them,
and who, at other hours, or having no mothers, are
in the hands of paupers unfit for other work, and
commonly infirm and miserable enough on their
own account, to have small patience to spare for
the puling infants-heritors, in two cases out of
three, of scrofulous disease.*
In Scotland these poor babies are sent out to
be nursed by respectable peasant women, under
proper inspection. How wise and benevolent such
an arrangement is, may be judged from the simplest
observation of the condition of those reared in the
workhouses. Just as the moral entail of pauperism needs to be cut off by removing the boy or girl
from all degrading influences before they are old
enough to be susceptible of them, so the physical
entail of poverty's diseases needs to be cut off by
taking the infant, from the first attainable moment,
into the healthiest conditions we can assign it.
* Hawthorne's terrible picture of the workhouse infant, in
Our Old Home, will be fresh in many reader's minds.
12 *




180                STUDIES.
That a baby should be in a workhouse, is presumption enough that its mother has been living in want
or sin for months before its birth, and is in distress
when she has given it its first nutriment. Often it
has a double pedigree, on father's and mother's side,
of profligacy, drunkenness, and want, whose consequences the hapless infant brings with it into the
world. If this poor little creature is to be saved
from a life of ill-health and helplessness-from a
pauper life, in fact-it can only be by giving it the
healthiest nurse, the freshest air, and, by-and-by,
the wholesomest country food and exercise we can
obtain. In the great hospital of San Spirito, in
Rome, where more than 1000 foundlings are placed
every year, and more than 503 of them die, we have
thought the most piteous spectacle the civilized
world could show was that of the pining little atoms
of babies, two and three in a crib; and two, three,
or four fed (or rather starved) by one single wetnurse, unable to still their ceaseless wails for food.
Such poor, weak cries as they were! such piteous
little faces! It was too miserable to watch: and
yet we have thought that to let them die thus, all
save the strongest, by sheer want, was more merciful in the end than to give them, as we do, food
enough, and let them grow up the inevitable heritors
of disease.
Probably nothing we could do could make a
class of workhouse orphans look like a class of
thriving labourers' children. But all we could do




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.  181
ought surely to be tried,-and would be tried, but
for this monstrous amalgamation of 22 institutions
under one roof, and controlled by one Board. The
simple idea of a committee of men undertaking the
management of babies would be thought absurd
enough elsewhere. Of course we are told they
"rely on the matron,"-which is equivalent to saying that it is not a committee at all, much less a
qualified committee of ladies, or a lady inspector,
who regulates this department; but, singly and
irresponsibly, the salaried matron. Do the gentlemen
of the Board imagine they can superintend and
check the proceedings of this supreme authority?
We have heard the most experienced philanthropist
of the age lay it down as a principle, " There never
yet existed a gentleman, or a Board of gentlemen,
whom the matron of an institution could not perfectly bamboozle respecting every department under
her charge! "
8th. Again, workhouses are lying-in hospitals
(another department for exclusive masculine surveillance!); and, lastly, they are penitentiaries.
Both these portions of the institution are mainly
defective in a moral point of view. A great, and
often an only opportunity is offered for the reclaiming of women who have fallen into sin when they
pass through the purifying ordeal of childbirth, or
are compelled for a time to relinquish their evil
courses from poverty or sickness. To seize such an
opportunity has been the desire of many benevolent




182                STUDIES.
persons, and ought surely to be an aim of the heads
of whatever institution they may make their temporary refuge. But we have never heard any but
the same story of disappointment. The conditions
of a workhouse-the evil company, the low nurses,
the whole tone of the place-forbids almost always
the entrance of moral or religious influences. Even
if (as we have known) a death or other striking incident serve to touch them for a time, before any
permament good can be effected the evil influences
of the place are sure to prevail. The workhouse is
no place for repentance. It would be a miracle if it
were 
In somma, then, as the Italians say, what are
the results of this huge agglomeration of charitable
institutions in our workhouses-male and female
Hospitals; male and female Infirmaries; male and
female Blind, Deaf and Dumb, Insane, and Idiot asylums; Boys', Girls', and Infants' Schools; Nurseries;
Lying-in Hospitals; and Penitentiaries? Simply
what might have been expected-that every one is
more or less a failure; that it is-not merely inferior to similar institutions under other management in point of splendour or luxury, for this would
be only right and fit-but that it is inferior to them
in fulfilling the purposes for which it exists; in
some cases failing to fulfil these purposes altogether. These partial or complete failures are often
accidental and remediable. The worst defects we
have signalized are not known in the many Unions




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.  183
presided over by humane and intelligent guardians.
But other evils are inherent in the principle itself of
a huge omnium gatherum of human want, vice, folly,
and disease. No sagacity can obviate them, or
make the condition of the blind, or deaf mutes, or
children, or fallen women, in such places what it is
in institutions devoted to their sole use. Can these
things be remedied?
If the public were once persuaded of the fact
that one house cannot well be the receptacle for
every misfortune, nor one Board of Guardians the
fit regulators of 22 widely-varied institutions, the
remedy might apparently be found readily enough;
in fact, it is often found by Unions disposed to
seek it.
Let us first suppose that the blind, the deaf and
dumb, the insane, and the idiots be in every case
sent by their Unions to the county asylums-the
Unions paying for their support to the asylums.
Where such asylums do not exist, or do not possess
sufficient accommodation, they should be enlarged,
or those of an adjoining county employed. If it
were thought needful for the ratepayers' protection
against overcharge, Committees of Guardians could
annually inspect such asylums and their accounts.
As they are all designed for the lowest working
classes, there is (or ought to be) nothing in the
arrangement of such county asylums other than is
fitting for the pauper blind, deaf, dumb, insane,
and idiotic-i. e., than that which is calculated to




184                 STUDIES.
relieve or cure their afflictions in the most economical manner. The plan is so often exceptionally
followed, from motives of convenience or humanity,
that it is singular it should not yet be recognized
as the only fit rule of treatment for the classes to
which it applies. In particular, as regards the
Insane, the law which compels the sending of the
violent patients only into the asylums, and leaves
the harmless in the workhouses, simply amounts to
the consignment of the latter to hopeless aberration,
without chance afforded of recovery. What should
we think of similar treatment of the sufferers by
any of the thousand other maladies far less terrible
than that of the brain? Ieaf and dumb children,
again, growing up without the peculiar education
suited to their defects, are almost consigned to
idiotcy-certainly to the obfuscation of all that
moral and religious element which elevates men
above the brutes. The case of the Epileptics is a
peculiarly difficult one. Oscillating between reason
and a condition worse than imbecility, it seems
alternately a cruelty to them and to their companions to class them  either with the sound or
unsound in intellect. Nor do there exist institutions outside the workhouse generally suitable for
them. It would seem as if here, at all events, outdoor relief sufficient for their maintenance might
be safely given wherever the sufferers have friends
willing to keep them in their homes. Failing such




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.   185
friends, the infirm, not idiotic, wards seem their
proper place.
For the Infants, the Scotch have demonstrated
the excellence of the system of putting them out to
nurse with respectable poor women, who bring
them up with the nearest approach to family affection and healthful sanitary conditions attainable for
them. No excuse remains for the English plan of
close wards and indifferent (and commonly unhealthy) nurses, presided over by a board of gentlemen possessed of all the knowledge of their sex
concerning babies' wants and ailments. For the
lying-in wards, and wards for fallen women, — hich
ought to be Penitentiaries, and are rather indcuratories,-we are in grievous want of a revision of
the whole system now in action, not only as regards
workhouses, but the penitentiaries supported by
private charity. It is not in a brief article like
the present that this great subject can be discussed.
Very valuable suggestions have been lately made
regarding institutions which should combine lyingin hospitals for the class of women in question, and
penitentiaries, and towards whose cost the fathers
of children born in them should be compelled to
contribute.* Could some scheme of this sort become
legalized, and all the unfortunate women driven
to seek for relief from the poor-rates be admitted
* See " A New Form of Magdalen Reformatory Home," by
Miss Solly.




186                 STUDIES.
to them instead of to our present "Black wards,"
something might yet be done towards restoration,
as well as towards the far more hopeful aim of
prevention of sin.* In such institutions the payments of the guilty men, enforced by law, would
fitly relieve the ratepayers, and form a most desirable check to vice. At the same time, regulations which such legally-established refuges might
be qualified to make, requiring a notice of some
weeks or months from   the inmates before their
departure, would vastly aid the feeble resolutions
of the poor souls to persevere long enough in
steady courses for reformation. The power of immediately procuring a discharge from the workhouse, at the first spur of weariness or temptation,
has been, to the writer's experience, the ruin of
many not unhopeful girls.
For the Schools of Boys and Girls, we have
already pointed out how the principles of justice
require that the support of a Pauper, and the education of a Child dependent on the State, should be
separated as widely as possible. As a matter of
right, no child ought to bear the stigma of pauperism; and, as a matter of public interest for the
future of the community, every dependent child
ought to be separated and removed as far as by
any means may be possible from pauper moral in* The not very numerous cases of married women coming for
confinement to the workhouse, would be met by one ward attached to the ordinary hospital.




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.  187
fluences and pauper physical and social degradation.
Instead of keeping our poor children in the workhouses, separating them from all other children,
and clothing them in the hideous pauper uniform,
our whole effort ought to be to take them miles
away from any workhouse, to mix them completely
with other children both in their schoolrooms and
playgrounds, and obliterate in every possible way
the difference between them. Practically, how can
such a change be effected in the most radical manner? Two plans are open to us, either of which, it
would seem, must attain the end in view.
The first plan would be to follow the Scotch
system completely, both as regards boys and girls
as well as infants; and to send the children out
first to be nursed, and then boarded, by respectable
poor families, under proper inspection. As they
reach the age for going to school, the persons who
have charge of the children being obliged to send
them to the one in the neighbourhood chosen by
the inspector, and to produce certificates from the
teacher of the child's attendance, the desired end
of education is fully attained, and with the immense
advantage of it being an education in common with
non-pauper children. The following account of the
success of Cdis scheme, given 6y the Clerk of Ahe
Edinburgh Parochial Board, is in the highest degree satisfactory:"In answer to your inquiries as to our mode of
boarding out children here, I beg to state that the




188               STUDIES.
pauper children belonging to this parish were
formerly maintained in an institution along with
the children now in the Orphan Hospital, but so
dissatisfied was this board with the results that,
18 years ago, they resolved to board the children
with families in the country: and this plan has
since been followed by almost all the large parishes
in Scotland, the number sent out at present by the
parishes of Edinburgh and Leith being upwards of
700; by Glasgow somewhat more; and by Dundee,
Aberdeen, and other towns in proportion to their
population.
" 1st. The total cost of each child thus boarded
out by the parish, for the last year, was ~8 13s. 10d.
The allowance of 2s. 6d. a week to the nurse pays
for board, lodging, washing, and mending clothes.
We supply the clothing in addition.
"2nd and 4th. I have an assistant, whose sole
duty it is to superintend the children boarded out,
both boys and girls, and to find good nurses for
them. We board them with tradespeople and cottagers, and not with people who make the care of
them their only task. We prefer people of good
character, who have a steady income apart from the
children, who will receive them, and treat them
exactly as members of their own family; and we
find, when the children are sent out young, they
learn to call the parties to whom they are sent,
father and mother. They acquire towards them
the feelings of children, and the result generally




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.  189
is, that the nurses acquire for them a parental
affection. When any one applies for children, my
assistant, before granting the request, visits them,
and inquires in the neighbourhood as to their
character, inspects the house, as to its accommodation, dryness, ventilation; ascertains if there is a
well-taught school in the neighbourhood; and,
after being satisfied on all these points, children
are sent out. He afterwards visits the nurse, as
well as the school, at least eight times a year,
satisfies himself that the children are healthy, sufficiently fed, cleanly kept, and their education attended to. We generally get superior people to
take charge of the children; but, should we get
inferior ones, our own close superintendence prevents them  doing injustice.  Should we in any
case, however, find neglect, the children are at
once removed; but, although we have had 300
boarded out, and some years ago had 400, I have
only had occasion to remove children for neglect
on three or four occasions during a period of five
years. The localities we select are generally small
villages, at a distance of 10, 15, or 20 miles from
Edinburgh, and of convenient access by railway.
"3rd. We never send more than four children
to one family.
" 5th. In consequence of our requiring the regular attendance of the children at school, the teacher
having to fill up a schedule showing each day's ab.
sence, our children generally are the best scholars,




190                STUDIES.
and carry' off a large share of the school prizes;
and when sent out to service prove as good servants
as the children of the cottagers or workpeople not
dependent on the rates usually do-certainly not
inferior-and many of them rise to positions of
trust.
C 6th. It is a rare thing for a boy or girl who has
been brought up in this way to become chargeable
to the parish in after-life; and I may add that,
where the children were brought up in the hospital
or school here, which was apart from the poorhouse, they very frequently became chargeable in
after-life. We avoid crowding many in one locality,
and have them not only in Edinburghshire, but in
Fife, Haddington, and Lanarkshire.
"G. GREY,
Clerk to the Edinburgh Parochial Board."
If, for any'local reasons, this plan be found
impracticable, then there remains another, which,
though less good, would yet surely be a great improvement upon the present system. 1st. To place
the children in schools which should be also dayschools for other children-e. g., those of the national schools. 2nd. To charge the poor-rates only
for their support, and defray their education from
national grants for educational purposes. 3rd. To
give Poor-law Guardians only such right of inspection as shall correspond with the payment of such
rates for support of the children-i. e., as shall




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.   191
secure for the ratepayers that their rates actually
supply the physical wants of the children, and no
more. 4th. -To place the management of the schools
under the Board of Education, where, it may be
hoped, the theory of paideutics will be better understood than by the farmers and small shopkeepers,
who carry the votes at the Boards of Guardians.
5th. That the boys in these schools wear semimilitary or naval dresses, and be trained to such
exercises as may best suit them for those professions wherein they can effectually serve the country
and efface all pauper associations. Under, such
circumstances, it is to be believed a vast majority
of boys would joyfully enter the army, navy, or
merchant service, and make families for themselves
in their ships and regiments. 6th. That the girls
in these schools be separated as much as possible
in small schools and certified training-houses, where
they can be taught household labours, and be fitted
for domestic life.
Of course all these plans are beset with difficulties of a practical sort-especially those connected with girls. Yet we would fain hope that
these difficulties cannot be insurmountable, while
the cutting off by such means of the main source
of hereditary pauperism in the country would hold
out a promise worthy of every exertion.
Should such views as these ever be adopted, the
result would be to remove from the workhouses
boys, girls, infants, lying-in-women, fallen women,




192                 STUDIES.
the blind, the deaf and dumb, the insane, and the
idiotic. There would remain only two departments
-that of the workhouse properly so called, for
able-bodied paupers; and the sick-wards for all
classes of disease and infirmity of age. Could these
latter also be removed?
It does not appear that it would be practicable
to open hospitals* which by any arrangement could
contain all the sick in the workhouses, or even any
important class of them.   The incurables alone
would cost (supposing house-room provided already)
not less than ~900,000 per annum, at the usual rate
of hospital expense. It would need about treble
our existing hospital accommodation in England to
empty the workhouse sick-wards. Such schemes
are not to be contemplated as either advantageous
or otherwise. There remains only the practicable
alterations in the present workhouse hospital arrangements, which shall as much as possible obviate the evils we have signalized. Keeping in
mind the principle that the purpose of an hospital
is to cure the sick who are yet curable as surely and
as quickly as possible, and to relieve the sufferings
of all patients, curable and incurable, we find that
the task before us is to assimilate the workhouse
hospitals to those free hospitals where these ends
* There are already, according to the census of 1861, 10,414
persons in hospitals in England, and 125,722 poor and sick in
workhouses. How many of the latter are among the sick is not
known.




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.  193
are obtained at the smallest cost. There must, on
the one hand, be no sacrifice of either end to the
cost,-for this is at once inhuman and impolitic;
and, on the other hand, no superfluous cost,-for
this is injustice to the rate-payer.  To ascertain
precisely what are these arrangements best for the
sick and cheapest for the ratepayer, what is it we
require? Surely not the opinion of a couple of
dozen laymen (none of whom perhaps ever entered
a hospital in his life), and of one young surgeon,
their nominee and dependent? We want the very
largest experience and highest medical judgment
we can obtain. We want surgeons and physicians
who are acquainted with the last improvements in
hospitals, the last discoveries respecting the results
of temperature, diet, and medicine, and who are in
a position to speak with authority as to what shall
or shall not be done independently of the guardians'
prejudices. Where does this point?
Surely to this-that special Medical Inspectors
of Workhouse Hospitals are absolutely needed to
make these hospitals properly effective. Already
in the Inspectors for Lunatics and for Schools
we have the plan in operation. A  Commission
given to three or four of the leading physicians
and surgeons of the day to make a first general
Inspection and Report of the workhouse hospitals
in the kingdom would, we are convinced, produce
very admirable results. Such a first inspection,
under the highest authority, would result:-,
13




194                 STUDIES.
1st, In the reform of bad sanitary arrangements
of the wards and the introduction of proper
furniture. 2nd, The revisal of the dietaries. 3rd,
The appointment of proper nurses. 4th, The revisal of the medical books and accounts, whereby it
would become manifest whether the surgeon was
enabled to supply the patients with such drugs as
science admits to be beneficial; and the guardians
would be compelled to allot (not out of the surgeon's
salary, but from a separate fund) the usual average
cost of drugs for each patient in ordinary hospitals.
All these most grievously needed reforms might be
effected by a single visit of such a commission as
we have supposed. The further regular rounds of
ordinary inspectors of sufficient medical eminence
would suffice to prevent a relapse into the present
state of things. That the workhouse surgeon should
also be encouraged and directed to call into consultation the leading physicians or surgeons of the
neighbourhood for difficult cases, would also be
needful to assimilate in any way the workhouse
with the other hospitals.
The Aged and Infirm wards would share
the benefits of these changesso far as the
inmates could be considered as apatients. There
are, however, in every workhouse, a large number of persons advanced in years far enough to
be beyond work, and yet not requiring hospital
treatment of any kind. The treatment of these,
the healthy aged paupers, is one of the most diffi.




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.  195
cult of all the problems presented by the poor-laws.
On the one hand there is our natural tenderness
and respect for age, urging us to indulgence and
to the permission of such little luxuries as have
become habitual, and such free intercourse between
husbands and wives as can be easily arranged. On
the other hand we have the fatal experience that
the idea of ending life in the workhouse not only
may become, but has become, all too familiar to
the English labourer, to the great injury of his
independence and the misapplication of the poorrates.  Even with the existing regulations, the
separating of families, and the withholding of all
luxuries, it has grown into a settled notion with the
humblest class, in some districts, that they have a
right to " come on the parish" in old age, and that
to relinquish such a right would be an extravagance
-much the same as for a lady or gentleman to
refrain from drawing their dividends or using their
box at the opera! Their own savings, if they had
any; or their sons' and daughters' earnings, would
be sadly thrown away in supporting them at home
when there is this provision absolutely waiting for
them at the workhouse.   How mischievous this
idea is, and how prevalent; how it degrades our
peasantry, parents and children both; how it coun.
teracts the whole principle of the poor-laws, need
not now be told. In the face of such experience,
can we propose to make the condition of the healthy
aged paupers better than it is? We fear it is im13 *




196                   STUDIES.
possible. Rather is it some further deterrent that
is wanted-such as charges to be paid by ablebodied sons who allow their parents to go to the
workhouse. It would be impossible, without cruelty,
to lower the actual condition of the paupers; but
by such a tax on their relations who ought to support them, and by very arduously striving to bring
public opinion to make it disgraceful for them to
allow them to go to the workhouse, something
might perhaps be done to check the evil. Only
when it is checked, and the idea of "exercising a
right" in going into the workhouse is changed
among all classes, for that of submitting to a misfortune, will it be possible to extend greater indulgence to these poor old creatures.*
Casual wards appear in the country Unions to
fulfil their purpose well enough. In London, however, it is otherwise. The average 12,000 " tramps"
of the metropolis, swelled by the distress of the
winters of 1860-61, when the whole pauperism rose
from 96,752 to 135,389, became a source of universal
distress, as accounts of their inability to find shelter
in the workhouses were published day by day. Of
the vast efforts made by private charity to come to
* Even the benevolent attempts to reunite husbands and
wives seems to have proved a failure; not so much by encouraging them to go to the workhouse, but as failing to make them
more happy therein. The chairman of a Union wherein it was
tried, assured me the married couples were always more discontented than the others, and generally after a few months required
to be separated.




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.   197
their aid, we have no need here to tell. The Committee of Inquiry into the Poor-laws, which we are
now considering, originated in the anxiety felt on all
sides to remedy this great evil; and their labours
seem in this particular respect to have arrived at a
satisfactory-albeit somewhat illogical-result. They
say (Report, p. 10)"That with respect to the extraordinary prevalence of distress in the metropolis in the winter
of 1860-61, to which the attention of your Committee was particularly directed, they received strong
evidence that such distress could have been relieved
by the poor-law authorities, inasmuch as the legal
machinery of administration was sufficient, and the
guardians possessed the requisite powers for raising
the necessary funds for the purpose; but the legal
charge would have pressed very heavily on some
parishes within the metropolis."
Nevertheless they finally decide (p. 41)"That in order to secure sufficient and convenient means for the relief of the casual and houseless poor within the metropolis, as defined by the
Metropolitan Local Management Act, it is expedient
that the charges incurred for the support of such
poor should be paid out of a rate assessed on the
annual rateable value of the whole of the said metropolis.
" That, in the opinion of this Committee,
the machinery adopted under the Metropolitan
Local Management Act might be made available




198                STUDIES.
for raising the amount of such charge, and your
Committee recommend that authority be given
to the Metropolitan Board of Works for such
purpose.
"That the Poor-law Board be empowered to
prescribe and enforce all necessary arrangements
for providing the requisite accommodation in the
several Unions and parishes, and otherwise carrying the foregoing resolutions into effect."
Finally, the Able-bodied paupers. What ought
to be done with them?
Visiting one day the Lusk Intermediate Prison,
in company with the late Sir Joshua Jebb, he remarked to us-"This is precisely what we want
our workhouses to be. The difficulty is to draw
the distinction between the treatment of criminals
and of paupers, which shall punish the one and not
the other, and be healthy morally and physically for
both." On reflection, it did not seem as if the
difficulty were so very great after all. The admirrable system of Sir Walter Crofton, whereby crime
has been so wonderfully repressed in Ireland, begins
with imprisonment of a penal kind, and then proceeds through regular steps towards the preparation of the convict for liberty and an honest future
life. There is nothing in the nature of the case to
make the latter steps of this progress inapplicable
to the condition of the able-bodied pauper-save
the fact that the "marks" for his good conduct
and industrious work would not represent the cur



THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.  199
tailing of his detention, but the permission of indulgences, and the accumulation of such small per
centage of his earnings, as might enable him eventually to leave the workhouse with means to emigrate or start afresh in industry. The modification
of such details would be by no means difficult;
and the reformatory aspect a system of the kind
would give to workhouses, would be every way
desirable rather than the contrary as regards the
class in question, i. e., the able-bodied paupers,
who, except under rare calamity, are brought to
such a state by vice or idleness. That everything
beyond the barest necessaries should be earned by
such persons by hard labour-that at every turn
they should find steadiness, sobriety, and industry
their sole means of obtaining any share of comfort
or liberty-would be the very greatest benefit
which could be conferred on them. At the same
time, for the better sort, whom misfortune may
have driven to the workhouse, the possibility of
earning and laying by somewhat, if ever so little,
towards future restoration to freedom, would be the
most desirable stimulus.  The ratepayers themselves would benefit by the spur thus given to both
classes of paupers to perform their allotted labours,
and then profit by extra tasks; and the whole
workhouse would be changed from a place where
the idle become more idle and the degraded more
degraded, to one where the faults which brought
men there would meet their fittest punishment and




200                    STUDIES.
cure, and where new habits of temperance and industry might be formed even for the most apparently hopeless characters.*
The modifications which we have here ventured
to suggest concerning the whole arrangements of
workhouses may be thus resumed:1, 2. The workhouse proper (or place of labour
for male and female paupers) to be reformed by the
introduction of a system of marks and fractional
payment of labour.
3, 4. The casual wards in poor districts of London to be enlarged.
5, 6. The hospital for curable and incurable male
and female patients to be reformed under a commission of physicians, and afterwards regularly inspected.
7, 8. The asylum for the aged supported in all
possible cases by charges on the relatives who could
maintain the inmates.
9-16. The male and female blind, deaf and
* In the splendid workhouse of Monte Domini, in Florence, I
have seen the inmates engaged in all manner of trades: blacksmith work, iron-bed making, weaving, carpentering, cabinet
making, locksmith's work, book binding, wood carving, mattress
making, boot and shoe making of all kinds, and artificial flower
making. In every case the workmen or workwomen received a
certain share of the remuneration of their labour; and no heartier
scene of work I ever witnessed anywhere. The director assured
me that there were no complaints of interference with other
tradesmen in the town, nor any jealousy of the boys being taught
as much as possible.




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.  201
dumb, insane, and idiot asylums all emptied, and
their inmates sent to the county asylums for their
respective afflictions, and supported therein at the
cost of the rates.
17-20. The boys', girls', and infants' schools,
and the nursery also emptied; the children being
placed out in families from infancy, and educated
in ordinary day-schools with other children; the
rates paying their nurses and guardians under
proper inspection, and the educational fund their
schooling.
21, 22. The lying-in hospital and penitentiary
to be transferred to such institutions as are above
described.
These plans would inyolve in some cases more,
in others less, expense than the present system.
The reformed workhouse, we believe, would in the
end be an economy as effecting a repression of
pauperism. The reformed hospital would involve
considerable outlay, which might or might not be
balanced by the speedier cure of patients. The
blind, deaf and dumb, insane, and idiotic would
cost more, boarded in the county asylums, their
wants being better supplied. The infants might
perhaps cost more out at nurse than in the
workhouse; the boys and girls boarded out as
proposed, would cost less, and (by far less often
returning as paupers) would vastly lighten the
rates. The lying-in hospital and penitentiary for
fallen women, transferred to such an institution




202                STUDIES.
as has been suggested, would be nearly by half
taken from the ratepayers and laid upon male
offenders.
On the whole perhaps, therefore, we may consider the results of such changes would be to leave
the rates much as they find them. As in some
cases, however, they might involve considerable
extra cost, the question of the equalization of rates
over large areas would doubtless need to be con.
sidered. The palpable injustice, however, of the
present system-the rich parishes in London paying
next to nothing, and the poor being overwhelmed
with their rates-renders it certain that ere long
some such changes must be effected; and with such
equalization the universal. benefit of any scheme
tending to the general repression of pauperism
would inevitably be experienced. The Parliamentary inquiry on this subject is more satisfactory in
its results on this point than on any other. The
Committee report (p. 44)" That much evidence was adduced showing the
unequal pressure of the charge for the relief of the
poor in different parts of the metropolitan district;
and various plans were submitted to your Committee for the equalization of the poor-rate; and
your Committee recommend the general question
of extending the area of rating to the further consideration of the House; but the circumstances of
the metropolis are so peculiar, that in any legislation to extend the area of charge or management,




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.   203
it would be necessary to have regard to those circumstances." *
On the subject of the law of Settlement, nearly
connected as it is with the equalization of rates, we
shall not attempt to enter. Complaints from all
parts of the kingdom of the evil results on the
working classes of the present state of the law, are
making themselves heard-and, we may be assured,
will eventually obtain redress; whilst the history
of the Bills proposed and rejected, the Reports and
Committees concerned in the question since the
Ninth Report of the Commissioners in 1843, is
proof of the extreme intricacy and difficulty of the
question. The existing law, resulting from a series
of Acts of Parliament passed and amended from
the origin of the Poor-laws in 1601 to 1662, 1685,
1691, 1697, 1795, 1834, and 1847, is a mass of entanglement whose most obvious result is to shackle
the unhappy labourer, and to make it the interest
of every landholder to prevent him from enjoying
the comforts of a separate cottage. If he have resided three years uninterruptedly in one parish, it
is on the rates of the Union in which that parish is
situated that he is chargeable. If he have not resided three years in the parish in which he becomes
a pauper, he is sent back (except under peculiar
circumstances of a ~10 holding or an apprentice* A Bill was introduced by Messrs Ayrton and John Locke,
as early as 1859, for the equalization of poor-rates in the metropolitan districts. It failed, however, to obtain a second reading.




204                 STUDIES.
ship) to any parish where he did so reside; or failing such, to any parish where his father or grandfather so resided; or to the parish where he or his
father or grandfather were born. How few even
of educated people understand this complicated law!
How few poor labouring men and women can know
how to regulate their conduct thereby, so as, amid
all their hard struggles for existence, to combine
the obtaining of employment and the avoiding of
some unlucky movement which will bring on them,
in their old age, a sentence almost equivalent to a
penal transportation! Still worse is the evil which
arises from the temptation thus held out to landholders and farmers to keep their parishes clear of
all resident labourers who might in time come upon
them for support. All England has been lately
roused to indignation at the accounts of the hovels
used by the poor in Norfolk and elsewhere; and
philanthropists are seeking earnestly the means to
correct the evil, and discover the true economical
principle by which decent cottages for workmen
may be a fair investment of capital. But till the
Law of Settlement is altered there can be but partial
benefit from any such'schemes. The landlord's
interest is not to have labourers' cottages on his
land at all, even supposing they paid him six or
eight per cent. for their cost of erection. Half-adozen paupers chargeable on his rates would swallow
up such profit on a score of cottages. If we suppose
an entire parish to belong to a single squire, or to




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.   205
ten farmers, then, if the squire or the farmers can
contrive (as they may easily do) to prevent any
working man from acquiring his three years' right
of settlement on their parish, they keep themselves
free of the greater part of the burden of the poorrates-an exemption cheaply gained at the inconvenience (to them very small, to the poor labourer
very great) of obliging him to, walk every day to
and from his work two or three miles to the nearest
village. In this village, which is his sole resource,
of course the rates are disproportionately high, the
dwellings crowded, and the whole vile system of
poor lodgings in full play. Why is all this wrong
and wretchedness, and all the sanitary and moral
evils thence derived? Simply because the law of
settlement has so bungled in its original good intention of making it the interest of every parish to
repress pauperism in its own bounds, that it has
actually created a fictitious and monstrous interest
in the whole class of landholders to drive the
labourer off their property into villages, where
every condition of difficulty of work, high price of
lodging, and bad sanitary arrangement, tends to
force him to those vices wherein pauperism has its
origin.
The remedy urged before now seems surely
simple enough: that for the existing cumbrous
legislation should be substituted a short and simple
Act of Parliament, making the support of the
pauper chargeable not on the parish in which he




206                   STUDIES.
has resided, but on that in which he has workedf
either last before he comes on the rates, or last for
any stipulated and easily-remembered term of years.
Thus the interest of the landholder to keep the
labourer far off would be changed for one to keep
him as close as possible to his work (thus obtaining
from him a better day's labour); seeing that in any
case, if he become chargeable on the. rates, he will
equally be obliged to contribute to his support.
And for the labourer himself, he will be freed at
once from all harassing anxiety and doubt respecting his future relief, should he be driven to seek
for it.
The further step of making such charges common to large areas,* would remove the remaining
source of evil-the interest of landlords to turn
their lands to grass, and employ as few hands as
possible in their farming operations.       It would
also permit, by the added rates thus levied on
richer ratepayers, who have hitherto escaped most
* In the country, probably, the Unions now existing would
suffice for the purpose above stated. In towns, where there is
nearly always a rich quarter and a poor quarter, rich Unions and
poor Unions, the whole town ought assuredly to be placed under
some common system of taxation. No anomaly can be more absurd than that which now obtains in all the large cities of England, where the poor support the whole weight of the poor, and
the rich support nothing at all. Permission to bring in a Bill to
substitute Union for parish rating was asked in the House by Mr
Bernard, February 17th of the present year; but being opposed
on the ground of the expected Report of the Committee of In.
quiry, was not insisted on by the proposer.




THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE POOR LAWS.           207
easily, the introduction of those improvements in
the whole system of workhouse management, the
necessity of which we hope we have in some measure
demonstrated in the preceding pages.*
* I am happy to state that since this article was written, a
Bill has been passed, laying a charge upon the district of the Metropolitan Board of Works to provide for all the casual poor up
to the 1st April next-the Poor-Law Guardians to supply refuges
and relief, and the Metropolitan Board of Works to levy a rate
on the whole Metropolis to defray the cost. Thus we are provided at all events against a repetition of the terrible scenes of
last winter.
March, 1865. Mr Villiers' Bill for the substitution of Union
for parish rating is now before the House, and; if passed, will
doubtless be a great step in the right direction. The law for the
relief of casual poor has also been re-enacted.








THE RIGHTS OF MAN
AND
THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES.
Reprinted from Fraser's Magazine, November, 1863.
14








THERE is a beautiful Eastern story to this pur.
pose:-A mighty king of old built for himself the
most magnificent city the world ever saw. The
towers of the city were of marble, and the walls of
eternal granite, with an hundred gates of brass;
and in the centre of the city, by the side of an
ever-flowing river, stood the palace of the king,
which dazzled the eyes of the beholder with its
beauty, and in whose garden there was a tree whose
leaves were of emeralds and whose fruit of rubies.
But the king and his people, of whose power and
riches there were no end, were wicked exceedingly,
and given up to cruelty and iniquity. Therefore
Allah sent a drought upon their land, and for seven
years there rained no rain; and the river was dried
up, and the fountains failed, and the cattle perished;
and the women wailed in the streets, and the hearts
of the young men failed them utterly. Then said
the wise men and the elders unto the king: " Send
now, we pray thee, unto the prophet who dwelleth
in the land of Israel, in the cave under the mountain
of Carmel, and behold he will procure us rain from
the Lord." Then the king hearkened unto his wise
men, and sent messengers with precious gifts unto
14 *




212                STUDIES.
the prophet,ithat he should send them rain. And the
messengers went up out of the glorious city, and
travelled even unto Carmel, and came to the cave
wherein the prophet dwelt; and they fell down at
his feet and offered him gifts, saying unto him, " 0
my lord, send us rain! " Then the prophet caused
three great clouds to rise up out of the sea, even the
sea of Tarshish, whereby he dwelt;- and the first
cloud was white as the fleece of the lamb, and the
second cloud was red like blood, and the third cloud
was black as night. And when the messengers saw
the third cloud they cried with a loud voice, "0 my
lord, give us the black cloud."  Then the prophet said, " Be it unto you as you have desired, ye
sons of Belial." And the messengers marvelled at
him, and saluted him, and returned unto their
king.
Then the king and all his wise men and his
mighty men, and all the city, both great and small,
went out to meet the messengers;. and the messengers fell down on their faces before the king and
said, "  king, we have seen the prophet of Israel
that dwelleth in Carmel, by the sea, and he offered
unto us three clouds to go over our land-a white
cloud, a red cloud, and a black cloud; and we chose
the black cloud, to the end that the rain might fall,
even the heavy rain, upon the earth." Then the
king, and all the wise men, and the mighty men,
and all the people, both small and great, shouted
for joy, and said, "Ye choose well, O messengers.




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 213
The black cloud-let the black cloud come over our
land!"
And behold, while they yet shouted, there arose
afar off, from the way of the sea, a mighty cloud,
and it was black even as the night when the moon
shineth not nor any star; and as the cloud arose the
face of the sun was hid, and the darkness overspread
the earth, and the birds flew to the thick branches,
and the wild beasts came forth, till the roar of the
lion was heard even by the people of the mighty
city. And the king, and his wise men, and his men
of war, and all the multitude, both small and great,
fell on their faces and lifted up their hands to
the cloud and cried, " The rain! the rain! "
Then the cloud opened over the city and over all
the people, and out of it came the SARSAR, the icecold Wind of Death; and it smote the king, and his
wise men, and his men of war, and all the people,
both small and great, and they died. There they
died even as they lay upon the earth, with their
hands lifted to the cloud, and the words in their
mouths-" The rain!-give us the rain!"
And of that king and nation no man remembered
anything, nor could the city be found any more; but
the land became a desert, and the wild beasts made
their dens in the cedar chambers, and the reeds
rustled where the river had rolled, and the birds of
the air lodged in the tree of emeralds, and plucked
at the ruby fruit.
But there dwelt one man alone in that city-he




214                STUDIES.
only was left when the king, and his wise men, and
his men of war, and all the people perished; and he
dwelt there alone, and gave himself to prayer, and
heeded not the gold, nor the marble palaces, nor the
precious stones, but prayed night and day. And
the years passed away, and the generations of mankind changed, and still he dwelt there alone; and
his beard and hair were white as snow, and his eyes
were glittering like a sword, but his strength failed
not, nor lacked he anything, but prayed seven times
a day and seven times every night to Allah the
Gracious and Merciful for forgiveness of his sins.
Then after a thousand years, when the river had
changed its course, and the granite walls of the city
had fallen down, and the thick trees grew in the
courts of the palaces, and the owls and the hyenas
lodged in the holy places of the temple, there came
a servant of God, whose eyes were opened that he
might find the city, and he entered in through the
broken gates of brass, and came unto the fig-tree by
the fountain, where dwelt the man of prayer-the
solitary man; and the solitary man lifted up his
eyes, and when he saw the servant of God he fell on
his face, and returned thanks that he had seen again
the countenance of a man. Then the servant of
God wept for pity, and said, "0 my brother, how
camest thou to dwell here alone? " And the solitary
man, the man of prayer, answered and said, " 0 servant of God, in a fortunate hour art thou come unto
me; and blessed be He that sent thee, for now may




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 215
I die, and my sins be forgiven. Behold, I was one
of the wickedmen of this city, sons of Belial were
we all, and thought not of God, but only of our own
lusts, and our palaces, and our high feasts, and our
beautiful women; and my brethren were cruel also,
and scourged their slaves oftentimes, and tortured
their prisoners of war, and put their cattle to death
with evil treatment. And it came to pass that I saw
a camel bound upon my father's grave, and left to
perish with hunger; and she knew me, and looked
me in the face and groaned, and strove to lick my
hands. Then was I moved with compassion, and
loosened her and let her go free, and drove her into
the rich pastures. And for this that I showed
mercy to the camel hath the Lord showed mercy
unto me; and when all my brethren went down to
destruction in the day of His wrath, when the Sarsar
came forth out of the black cloud and slew them all,
then was I saved, to the end that I might repent.
Lo! a thousand years have I prayed in solitude, till
the bones of my brethren are dust, and the thick
trees grow in their palaces, and the roar of the lion
is heard in their chambers of cedar; and no voice
of man have I heard nor human face have I seen till
thou hast visited me. And now know I that I have
not prayed in vain, but that my sins are forgiven,
and that I may die in peace. Therefore, I pray thee,
lay thine hand upon me, and let me feel the hand of
a man, and say for me the prayer of departure, and
let me die."  And the servant of God did as the




216                STUDIES.
solitary man desired, and blessed him; and the
shadows of death came over him like the twilight,
and his eyes ceased to shine brightly, and he laid
him down with his hand in the hand of the servant
of God, and blessed God with a few words, and died
in peace. And the servant of God buried him there
under the fig-tree by the fountain, and wept over
him, and went out of the city through the broken
gates of brass, and returned not, neither looked back.
And no man from that day forth has beheld it, neither entered there, nor knoweth any man where that
city is to found; but the wilderness hath swallowed
it up, and the wild beasts have made it their home,
because of the wickedness of the people and their
oppressions upon man and upon beast in the sight
of the Lord.
There is a Western story, not quite so beautiful
and with a somewhat different moral-a story which
may be found by the diligent reader in the Times
and other journals for the months of July and August,
in the year of Grace one thousand eight hundred
and sixty-three. This Western apologue runs somewhat to the following purpose:There was a certain great and lordly city whose
prince was among the powerful of the earth, and for
whose nod whole nations waited obediently. And
this city, which had aforetime been a great and vast
city, was by this prince still further exalted and
adorned, till it was wonderful to behold. And there




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 217
were in that city royal palaces, with pictures and
statues innumerable, and gardens wherein were all
manner of beasts of the field and fowls of the air;
and temples were there, all bedaubed with gold,
whereof the chief were dedicated, not to Allah the
Gracious, the Merciful, but to two women, whose
names were Miriam of Nazareth and Miriam of
Magdala. And of the streets of that great city
there were no end, for they were all made by the
power of the prince; and every poor man's house
was pulled down, and every rich man's house destroyed, so that those great streets might traverse the
city, which became even as the cities of old under
their tyrants-like unto Babylon, and unto Persepolis, and Tadmor of the Waste, Then men boasted
of that great and wonderful city, and said it was the
centre of the world, and that the buildings thereof
were all on one great plan, even as the world which
Allah has made. But they who made this boast were
blind and fallible; for in the world of Allah nought
is uniform or monotonous, nor does one tree resemble another tree, nor one mountain another
mountain, but the great plan of them all is endless
variety, and the unity thereof is the opposite of uniformity. But the works of men, the tyrants and the
priests, who have built cities and temples, and made
laws, and established false religions, these all have
wrought to produce uniformity without variety;
and these are they whose labours this great city resembles, rather than the blessed creations of Allah,




218                 STUDIES.
And in this city dwelt many wise men and learned,
among the most learned of the earth: and there
were delicate women, and men who wore soft raiment, and fared sumptuously every day. And all
the people of the city believed that they were the
most learned, and delicate, and refined people in all
the world; and that elsewhere men were brutal and
stupid, and women coarse and evil entreated; and
that save in their city there was no civilization.
Now it came to pass that in that city a strange
thing was found. Amid all the proud palaces, and
delicious gardens, and halls for feasting, and places
for singing men and singing women, and for dancing
and all manner of luxurious delights-and among
the gilded temples dedicated to Miriam of Nazareth
and Miriam  of Magdala —among all these places
there were certain buildings set apart for a purpose
of another kind. Many wise men assembled there,
and many learned men, and men adorned with tokens
of the favour of the great prince, and with the ensigns of a noble order called that of Honour; and
these men, with their disciples (who also were youths
of the better sort, and habited ever in well-ordered
garments), employed themselves in these public
buildings* at frequent intervals, week after week, and
year after year, in the form and manner following:
They took a number of tame and inoffensive animals
— but principally those noblest and most sensitive
* Videlicet The School of Medicine, the College of France,
the Faculty of Sciences, and the Veterinary College at Allfort.




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 219
animals, horses —and having bound them carefully for
their own safety, proceeded to cut, hew, saw, gouge,
bore, and lacerate the flesh, bones, marrow, heart,
and brains of the creatures groaning helpless at their
feet. And in so orderly and perfect a fashion was
this accomplished, that these wise men, and learned
men, and honourable men discovered that a horse
could be made to suffer for ten hours, and to undergo
sixty-four different modes of torture before he died.
Wherefore to this uttermost limit permitted by the
Creator did they regularly push their cutting and
hacking, delivering each horse into the hands of
eight inexperienced students to practise upon him
in turn during the ten hours.*  This, therefore,
they did in that great city, not deigning to relieve
the pains they were inflicting by the beneficial fluid
whereby all suffering may be alleviated, and not
even heeding to put out of their agonies at the last
the poor mangled remnants of creatures on which
they had expended their tortures three score and
four.
And the people of this city still boasted anid
said, "Behold, we are the most wise, and the most
brave, and the most polished people on the face of
the earth, and our city is the centre of civilization
and of humanity."
These Eastern and Western tales have a stranger
ly-different character assuredly. The state of men's
* The 1imes, Sept. Sth (or 6th), 1863.




220                STUDIES.
minds, when they could imagine that a single act of
mercy to a brute would procure the salvation of the
doer in the midst of the destruction of his city, is
curiously contrasted with that other state when they
can calmly contemplate hideous tortures perpetrated
regularly, and as a matter of business, upon hundreds of animals every year, and continue to uphold
the torturers in esteem, and in high public functions,
as the instructors of youth. We do not seem to
have advanced much over the Moslem, by our
eighteen centuries of Christianity, so far as this
matter is concerned.
The question, however, of Cruelty to the Brutes
is one not to be hastily dismissed, nor can the recitalof any barbarities be admitted to determine it
in all its bearings. In quoting the above Eastern
apologue, and recording the terrible fact of contemporary Parisian manners, we beg to disclaim all
intention of treating the subject by that method of
mere appeal to the feelings by which nearly every
question of morals can be distorted and prejudiced.
The infliction of pain is a thing naturally so revolting to the cultivated mind, that any description of
it inevitably arouses strong sentiments of dislike, if
not of horror; and were we to proceed no further
to explain the motives and causes of such inflictions,
vivid pictures of all penal-and even of all surgical —
treatment might easily be drawn, so as to call forth
reprobation upon the heads of the greatest benefactors of humanity. In the following pages we




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 221
shall endeavour to reach the ground of the whole
controversy by arriving at some answer to the fundamental question, "What is Cruelty to Animals?
What are the duties of man as regards, the welfare
of the brutes, and how are they to be ranked in
comparison with the duties he owes to his human
fellow-creatures? " The search for the solution of
these problems will fortunately absolve us from the
painful task of entering into any description of the
cruelties committed against animals either in France
or England, or discussing special acts of public
lecturers or private students of physiology. In all
such cases it is the vagueness of popular moral
opinion in which evil finds its great defence; and so
long as cruel experiments are only rebuked by the
denunciations of excited sentiment, so long will the
perpetrators pass by contemptuously the ignorant
blame of those who " understand nothing of the necessities of the case, or of the interests of science,"
or (at the best) will draw a veil of secresy over the
disgusting mysteries of their operating tables. A
different result would be obtained if society in
general could be brought to form a sound and clear
opinion of the limits wherein the sufferings of animals may lawfully be inflicted for the benefit of
mankind, and could then pronounce with calm and
dispassionate judgment its severest censure and
condemnation upon every act which should transgress these limits, and therefore deserve the opprobrium of "cruelty."




222                STUDIES.
The world owes to Bishop Butler the exposition
of that ultimate ground of moral obligation on
whose broad basis stand our duties to all living
beings, rational and irrational  He says that if any
creature be sentient-i. e., capable of suffering pain
or enjoying pleasure —it is cause sufficient why we
should refrain from inflicting pain, and should bestow on it pleasure when we may. That is enough,
We need go no further to seek for a primary ground
of obligation for mercy and kindness. Many other
motives may, and do, come in to enhance and modify this obligation; but, standing by itself, it is sufficient. If we could divest ourselves of every other
idea, and even admit the dreadful hypothesis that
neither man nor brute had any Creator, but came
into existence by some concourse of unconscious
forces; yet even then —in a sunless, hopeless, Fatherless world-there would still remain the same duty,
if the creature could feel pain, to avoid inflicting it;
if it could feel pleasure, to bestow it. We cannot
get below this principle. It is an ultimate canon of
natural law-a necessary moral law (in metaphysical
parlance) —since we cannot even conceive the con.
trary, nor figure to our imaginations a world or a
condition of things wherein the obligation could
be suspended or reversed.
Let us endeavour to arrive at a clear analysis of
such natural obligations:
First. In the case of rational, moral beings.what are our necessary obligations towards them?




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 223
We have'seen that as they are sentient beings, we
are bound to avoid their pain and seek their pleasure; but as they are more than sentient, and also
rational and moral beings, other and higher obligations are added to those which concern their pain
and pleasure. The highest end of a merely sentient
being is enjoyment of pleasure and freedom from
pain, i e., Happiness; but the highest end of a rational and moral being is Virtue.. Thus, as we are
bound to seek the sentient being's happiness because he is capable of happiness, so we are bound
toseek the mloral being's virtue because he is capable of virtue. Here, also, we have reached an ulti.
mate obligation. And inasmuch as virtue immeasutrably transcends happiness, so must moral interests
transcend sentient interests; and the being who is
both moral and sentient, demands that his moral
interests be primarily consulted, and his sentient
interests secondarily; and the being who is only
sentient and not m9ral is placed altogether subordinately, and can only claim that his interests
be regarded after those of the moral being have
been fulfilled. To this simple obligation, to seek
the virtue of all beings capable of virtue, there
are, of course, added many religious and fraternal
mnotives of the greatest force and sanctity in enhancing our duty of aiding our fellow men, But
the original ground (as in the former case) is sufficient of itself. Were there no Divine Author of
virtue, no immortality of blessedness for the virtn



224                STUDIES.
ous soul, yet still the fact that a being could attain
to virtue would constitute an obligation to seek his
virtue.
The great ends, then, of the obligation of man
to his rational fellow-creature is, in the first place,
to seek his Virtue, and in the second place his
Happiness. To the virtue he can conduce, and the
happiness he can produce-both in limited degrees,
which degrees are the sole bounds (theoretically) of
his obligations.
But, practically, the powers of any human being,
either to conduce to the virtue or produce the happiness of mankind, are limited, not only by the influence he can exercise on any one, but by the numbers on whom he can, in his narrow sphere, exercise
any influence at all. Secondary moral obligations
here come into play, requiring that in that necessarily narrow sphere of his labours there shall be
precedence in his benevolence given to certain persons above others. If a man's powers permitted
him to aid the virtue and happiness of all mankind
-of all equally-he would be bound to do so. As
this is impossible, he must partition his benevolent
cares on certain obvious principles of selectionpropinquity of blood, contract of marriage, debts of
gratitude, &c. Roughly speaking, these secondary
obligations may be described as regulating that
benevolence be first shown to those nearest to us,
and afterwards to those more remote. They cannot
be lawfully interpreted to abolish the claims of more




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 225
remote objects of benevolence, but only to subordinate them; that is, when any degree of equality
exists between the wants of the nearer and further
claimants, the nearer has the precedence and preference. But when the want of the nearest claimant
is altogether trifling, and the want of the remoter
claimant urgent and vital, the prior claims of the
first cannot be held to supersede those of the second,
which would in effect amount to their entire abolition.
These (we fear, somewhat tedious) analyses of
principles, lead us to the right point for considering
the obligations owed by man to the lower animals.
The brutes are sentient, but not moral creatures,
therefore our concern is solely with their happiness.
To what does this claim amount? If we had absolute power we should desire to relieve all animals
from all pain and want, and we should bestow on
them such pleasures as their humble natures can
receive. Obviously we can practically do little more
than meet these obligations towards the animals
with whom we come in contact by refraining from
causing them suffering, and supplying those which
belong to us with proper food and shelter. The life
of a brute, having no moral purpose, can best be
understood ethically as representing the sum of its
pleasures; and the obligation, therefore, of producing the pleasures of sentient creatures must be
reduced, in their case, to the abstinence from unnecessary destruction of life. Such, then, are our
15




226                STUDIES.
duties towards the brute, simply considered, without
reference to the human race.
But the claims of the brutes on us for happiness must necessarily be subordinated not only to
human claims for moral aid, but for human claims
for happiness also. First, the happiness of animals
is a vastly lower and smaller thing than the happiness of man; secondly, as all the interests of man
touch upon moral grounds, they assume higher
importance than those of un-moral beings; and
lastly, that race of man to which we belong must
have over us claims of precedence superior to any
other race, were it even angelic, which should be
more remote. So clear and so wide is this line of
demarcation between our duties to man and to the
brutes that it appears almost an impertinence thus
to analyze it; and we may doubtless safely proceed
in our argument, assuming it as granted on all hands
that there is an absolute subordination between
the claims of the animal and those of man. The
whole lower creation is for ever and utterly subordinated to the higher.
What then remains of the obligation to consider
the pain and pleasure of the sentient but un-moral
animals? Is there any space left for it in the crowd
of human duties?  Surely there is a little space.
Claims which are subordinated to higher claims are
not (as we have already said) therefore abolished.
Here is an error common both to our views of the
relative claims of'ifferent human beings, and of the




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 227
relative claims of brutes and men. There is in both
cases a point where the rights of the secondary claimant come into the field, else were there in morals
the anomaly of moral obligations which should never
oblige any one. Where is this point to be found?
We have already said that in regulating the precedency of human claims, the point is found where
there ceases to be any kind of equality between the
wants of the two claimants. Where the wants are
equal (or anything like equal) the nearest comes first,
the remoter afterwards. If a father need bread to
save him from starvation, and a friend need it also
for the same purpose, the father's claims must come
first. But if the father need it only to amuse himself by throwing it to fowls on the river, and the
friend need it to save him from death, then the
father's claims go to the ground, and the friend's
become paramount. This principle is continually
neglected in human affairs, and the neglect causes
great moral errors. The parent, husband, wife, or
child whom affection and duty both direct to make
their nearest and dearest the object of their "precedency of benevolence," continually fall under the
temptation to make them their exclusive objects, and
evade other obligations under the delusion that they
are all merged in the one primary obligation. The
same thing takes place in the case of animals. Men
say, " Human obligations come before all obligations
to the brutes. Let us wait till all human beings are
virtuous and happy, and then it will be time to
15 *




228                STUDIES.
attend to the brutes." But we are no more morally
justified in the one case than in the other, neither in
merging all human duties in duties to one individual,
nor in waiting to consider our obligations to the
animals to those Greek kalends when all human
wants will be abundantly supplied.
The point where the inferior claim of the brute, as
of the man, must come into the field, can only be in
each casewhere there ceases to be anykind of equality
between the superior and inferior claims. We must
consider carefully what can constitute the relative
claims of beings of such different rank. Passing below the last human claimant on our benevolence, we
find a " great gulf fixed."  With the rationality and
moral freedom of the agent, life itself has so far altered
its value that we no longer recognize in it any of the
sanctity which pertained to the life of a man; nor
can the creature's comfort or enjoyment of any kind
be put in the balance. We can in no case say that
the claim of life for the brute is the same thing as
the claim of life for a man; nay, even of security,
or food, or comfort of any kind for the man. Everything which could be fairly interpreted to be a want
for the man must have precedence over even the life
of the animal. But here we must stop. Those cruel
impulses of destruction, which we may call wantonness in a man, have no claims to be weighed against
the brute's life and welfare. His gluttonous tastes,
his caprices, his indolence, have no claims. Here
the claims of the brute come on the field. Our




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 229
obligations to consider its humble happiness must
appear here or nowhere. They are postponed utterly to man's wants. They stand good against
his wantonness. Practically, where does the principle lead us? Simply to this-that we may slay
cattle for food, and take the fowls of the air and the
fish of the sea to supply our table; but that we may
not (for example) torture calves to produce white
meat, nor slash living salmon to make them more
delicate, nor nail fowls to the fireside to give them
diseased livers. We may use horses and asses in our
ploughs and our carriages, but we have no right to
starve and torture our poor brute servants for our
avarice or malignity. We may clear every inhabited country of wild beasts and noxious reptiles and
insects whose existence would imperil our security
or militate against our health or cleanliness, or who
would devour our own proper food; but we have no
right to go into untrodden deserts to take away the
lives of creatures who there have their proper home,
nor to kill in our own country harmless things like
sea-gulls and frogs for the mere gratification of our
destructive propensities.
And further. Besides these limits to the taking
of life, there are limits to the infliction of pain.
Here, again, if the pain be necessary, if the life
demanded by human wants cannot be taken without
the infliction of some degree of pain; or if (without killing a brute) we are obliged to put it to some
suffering, to fetter it for our security, or for any




230                 STUDIES.
similiar reason, here, also, we may be justified. But
though we may thus inflict pain for our want, we are
no more justified in inflicting it than in taking life
for our wantonness. If from the odious delight in
witnessing suffering, or from furious tempers, or
parsimony, or idle curiosity, we put an animal to
needless torture, we stand condemned; we have
offended against the law requiring us to refrain from
inflicting pain on any being which, by its sentient
nature, is sensible to pain.
These views are surely almost self-evident. To
affirm the contrary and maintain that we have a
right to take animal life in mere wantonness, or to
inflict needless torture upon animals, is to deny that
a sentient being has any claims whatever, or that his
capacity for suffering pain and enjoying pleasure
ought to determine in any way our conduct towards
him. For if that capacity for enjoyment is not to
protect his life (i. e., the whole sum of his pleasures)
against our wanton destruction, nor his capacity for
pain protect his nervous frame from our infliction of
needless torture, there is nothing left to be imagined
of occasion wherein his claims could be valid.
The line then which we are seeking must be
drawn here or nowhere. Animal's lives (i. e., their
whole sum of pleasures) may be taken for man's
wants, even if those wants be ever so small, but not
for his wantonness; nor may they be taken in any
case with needless infliction of pain.
We shall assume that the reader will concede




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 231
this principle. It remains to test its application to
the controversy which concerns us at present-the
right of men to put animals to torture for the sake
of (what they claim to be) the interests of Science.
We must endeavour to discuss this question very
calmly, and not allow ourselves to be carried away
by the natural indignation caused by pictures of
agony. Almost similar pictures of human agony
might be drawn from the scenes in any military
hospital, and yet would argue nothing against the
goodness of the operator.
" Science" is a great and sacred word. When
we are called on to consider its "interests" we are
considering the cause of that Truth which is one of
the three great portals whereby man may enter the
temple of God. Physical science, the knowledge of
God's material creation, is in its highest sense a
holy thing-the revelation of God's power, wisdom,
love, through the universe of inorganic matter and
organic life. The love of Truth for its own sake,
irrespective of the utility of its applications, has
here one of its noblest fields; and no love of the
Beautiful by the artist, nor of the Good by the phi,
lanthropist, can surpass it in sanctity, or claim, on
moral grounds, a larger liberty.
Where then are we to rank "the interests of
science," among human wants?-or wantonnesses?
Surely among the wants deserving of fullest privilege. Man, in his highest capacity as a rational
being, hungers for truth as the food of his soul,




232                STUDIES.
even as he hungers for meat for his body; and the
wants of the soul must ever be placed in higher
rank than those of the body. He has a right to
seek truth as he has a right to seek natural food,
and may obtain it equally lawfully by the same
measures. Thus we arrive at the conclusion that
man has a right to take animal life for the purposes
of science as he would take it for food, or security,
or health. And this, be it remembered, is strictly
for science, as science, apart from the contingent
utility which may result from any discovered truths.
When men go about explaining the probable use
which may be derived from a scientific experiment,
they are employing supererogatory argument. The
scientific truth, as a truth, is an end in itself: the
derivable utility affords another and supplementary
argument.
Of course, when it happens, as in the case of
anatomical researches, that every discovered truth
is likely in a high degree to contribute to the restoration of human health and the salvation, of human life, then the supplementary argument hence
derived for the prosecution of such researches is
proportioned to the whole value of human health
and life, and deserves the highest recognition. For
all purposes of reasoning, however, we may carry
with us the full admission that the interests of
science alone, as science, are enough to justify a
man in taking away the life of any animal.
We may take animal life (that is, the whole




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 233
sum of the animal's pleasures) for the interests of
science; but we must take it with "no needless infliction of pain." Now, unhappily, until lately,
nearly all experiments of science were inevitably
accompanied by the infliction of torture. It was
not so much the creature's life which the experimenter required as its endurance of all manner of
lacerations and "vivisections."  It must be owned
that here was a trying problem. Should science
(it was asked) turn aside in her royal progress and
forego her claims for the sake of some miserable
brute or reptile-say of the frog, which Marshall
Hall dared to call " God's gift to the physiologist"?
Or should the torture of a thousand animals be held
as nothing in the balance against the supreme interests of man? It would seem that in such a conflict, such an "antinomy of duties," as Kant would
have named it, our sympathies would have been
with the man who relinquished his experiment at
the instigations of mercy; but that, at the same
time, we could not presume to censure the man
who pursued it unrelentingly. Be it remembered,
however, that here and everywhere it can only be in
the true interests of science that such sacrifices can
be justified at all. Of this we shall say more anon.
But this whole phase of the question may now be
put aside for ever. The most beneficent discovery
of ages-the discovery for which the sages of old
would have offered hecatombs, and yet for which
no Te Deum has ascended from the churches of




234                 STUDIES.
Christendom as for many a bloody victory-the
great discovery of perfect anaesthetics, has altered
the whole condition of the case between the man of
science and the brutes. It is at the option of the
physiologist, by the use of chloroform, to perform
nearly every experiment he can desire without the
infliction of any pain whatever. With the exception
of the problems connected with the nerves of sensation, he can test at will any scientific truth at the
cost, perhaps, of life, but never of torture.
How stands the case now? Surely that such
experiments as may be required by science at the
cost of animal life may be freely made at such cost;
and that the experiments which require processes
naturally involving torture, may be freely performed
with the use of anesthetics and consequent avoid.
ance of torture,-but not otherwise. Here is the line
which Providence has drawn for us in these latter
days as clear as daylight. There is in our hands
the means of obviating the torture while reserving
the interests of science; and we are inexcusable if
from indolence, parsimony, or any other motive, we
fail to use it. The experiment then becomes unlawful to us, and falls under the condemnation of
wanton cruelty. Let us see precisely what these
two conditions involve; firstly, that the life we are
going to take is really demanded by science; secondly, that the pain of the experiment shall be
removed by anesthetics.
For animal life to be really demanded by science




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 235
we must conclude that it is wanted either, firstly, for
the discovery of some new truth; or, secondly, for the
establishment of some questionable fact; or, thirdly,
for general instruction. Thus an anatomist may kill a
bird or beast to discover or ascertain the facts of its
structure, and the natural historian may kill it to affix
its place in zoology or ornithology, or the toxicologist may kill it to preserve it in a museum for general instruction. All these reasons for taking the
lives of animals must be held valid. But, where
there is no anticipation of discovering a new truth,
where there is no questionable fact to be ascertained,
and where general instruction can be obtained perfectly without the sacrifice of fresh life, then there
remains no justification for the act. It passes under
the censure of wanton destruction.
Secondly, that we may consider the conditions
for the justification of torturing experiments fulfilled, we must demand that in every case in
which the production of severe pain is involved,
the experimenter shall employ chloroform or some
other anesthetic with such sufficient care as to obviate the pain. No excuse of trouble or expense
can be admitted; for if the individual or Society be
unwilling, or unable, to undergo such needful trouble
and expense, they are disqualified from undertaking
experiments which cannot lawfully be performed
save under such conditions. Here then stands the
case against the vivisectionists. Have they done
that which in itself is lawful under lawful condi



236                STUDIES.
tions? Have they taken the lives of brutes only
when the interests of science really demanded them?
and have they performed painful experiments always
under the influence of anesthetics? If they have
observed these conditions, they must stand morally
exempt from blame, and the popular outcry against
them deserves to be disregarded as ignorant and
futile. If they have transgressed these conditions,
then they must stand morally convicted of the heinous offence of Cruelty, and the indignation and
disgust of mankind would be amply justified against
them.
We cannot pretend to bring forward evidence of
the infraction of these conditions by the societies
and individuals who have been accused of cruelty
in vivisection. The subject has been discussed in
all the leading journals of the country, and facts
have been alleged of sufficient gravity and supported
by ample authority to justify in full the anxious investigation of the case by men of humanity. Viewing the evidence before us, it appears impossible to
doubt that in France, for years back, a vast number
of horses and dogs have been dissected alive and
submitted to every conceivable operation for the
instruction of pupils in anatomy and veterinary
surgery, and that no chloroform has been in use on
these occasions. On the other hand, in England,
it is affirmed, seemingly on good authority, that
vivisections are comparatively rare, and are performed only by scientific men for the ascertainment




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 237
of physiologic facts, and usually with the exhibition
of chloroform.
If these facts be so, it appears beyond question
that the French system has terribly transgressed
the limits of morality in this matter. Dead horses
and dogs would have served the purpose of instruction to the pupils in anatomy as well as living ones;
and the whole mass of torture involved in their
living dissection might have been spared. If for
the purpose of instructing their pupils in the surgery of the living fibre, it may have been necessary
to perform some operations on animals before death,
yet of those actually performed daily at Allfort
(64 on each horse) the great majority are (like the
removal of the hoof) wholly useless, and present no
kind of compensating benefit for the acute torture
they inflict, inasmuch as the operations cannot be
copied in the human subject, nor would they ever
be used by any owner in the case of a horse. As to
the primary motives justifying such taking of life
for purposes of science, they cannot be alleged in
the case at all; for there is no attempt at discovering any new fact, or ascertaining any doubtful
one, ever propounded. These points have been
clearly demonstrated in the French Academy;
and in the Se'ance of August 25, 1863, M. Dubois
proposed a motion, whereby the evils in question
would have thenceforth been forbidden, the pupils
instructed on dead bodies, and the dissection of
living animals confined to special cases of the dis



238                STUDIES.
covery or verification of new facts. He proposed
that three replies should be made to the questions
asked by Government on the subject, to the following effect:" 1. The Academy, without dwelling on the injurious form of the documents that have been submitted to it, acknowledges that abuses have been
introduced into the practice of vivisection.
"2..To prevent these abuses, the Academy expresses the wish that, henceforward, vivisections
may be exclusively reserved to the research of new
facts or the verification of doubtful ones; and that,
consequently, they may be no more practised in the
public or private courses (of lectures) for the de.
monstration of facts already established by science.
(3. The Academy equally expresses the wish
that the pupils at the schools of veterinary medicine
may henceforward be exercised in the practice of
operations on dead bodies, and no more on living
horses."
As this Report was negatived by a majority in
the Academy, and the Report actually adopted evaded
the questions presented, and left the whole matter
in its original condition, we are under the painful
necessity of still leaving at the door of the men of
science in France the terrible charge of perpetrating
and sanctioning the agonizing deaths of multitudes
of highly sensitive animals, wholly without justification from the real interests of science.
Further, the condition on which painful experi



THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 239
ments can be lawfully made (namely, the use of
anesthetics) being, to all appearance, altogether rejected in the case of the French vivisections, the
last justification is withdrawn, and the case stands
as an exemplification of the greatest possible offence
to be committed towards the animals, without any
extenuating circumstances. The most highly organized and most friendly creatures are put to the
death of uttermost and most prolonged agony, entirely without justification, and with the habitual
neglect of that precaution by which all their sufferings might have been obviated. When we say that
this great moral offence has been committed for
years, and is still committed, in defiance of remonstrance, by the splendidly-endowed scientific associations of one of the most civilized countries in the
world, we seem to have reached the last term of
condemnation which useless, wanton, deliberate,
and exquisite cruelty can incur.
In the preceding pages we have endeavoured to
examine this question from the purely moral side, and
as a problem of Ethics separable both from religious
considerations, and from natural sentiments of pity or
disgust. Solely as a matter of moral duty, imperative
on us as rational free agents, we have (it is hoped)
demonstrated that the claims of animals must be
regarded so far as to cause us to respect their lives
when no human want, but only wantonness, asks
their destruction; and also that the infliction of




240                   STtIDIES.
torturing experiments upon them can only be justified when accompanied by the use of anesthetics.
Offences against these principles we have condemned
on purely ethical grounds, and as infractions of the
immutable laws of morality.
But it is impossible to regard a subject of this
kind solely from the bare stand-point of ethics. Man
is something else beside the agent of a "categoric
imperative."   He is also a creature of affections
and sympathies; and, above all, he is a religious
being, whose acts and feelings bear a certain relation to his Creator.
Now, as to the affections and sympathies of man,
there are many species of animals on which they
are naturally bestowed in a greater or less degree,
and to kill or torture such animals is not only an
offence against the laws of morality, but against the
instincts of humanity and the feelings of the heart.
So strongly has this been felt, that a great philosopher has actually asserted that the ground of our
duty of mercy to the animals was not founded on
their sentient nature, but on our sensibilities; and
that cruelty was forbidden, not because it tortured
the animal, but because it brutalized the man.*
Here, however, he committed (as Bentham        well
showed) an enormous error, and ignored the true
* This sentence is a paraphrase of Macaulay's excellent epigram; that the Puritans forbade bear-baiting, "not because it
caused pain to the brute, but because it caused pleasure to the
mian.")




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 241
principle laid down by Butler. Such a doctrine, if
admitted, would introduce the same hateful system
of morals towards the brutes as that which has too
often polluted human charity,-causing it to be performed, not for the benefit of the receiver, but the
moral and spiritual interest of the giver. Each
duty must be done for its own sake, not for the
sake of any other object, however desirable; nay,
in truth, no duty can be fulfilled truly (in both
sentiment and action) save disinterestedly. The
attempt to produce our own moral culture out of
our humanity or beneficence is, by the hypothesis,
absurd. Only disinterested and single-hearted actions really warm and enlarge the soul, not selfregardful ones. We are bound to consider the
welfare of the brutes for their sakes, not ours, and
because they are so constituted as to suffer and enjoy.
That is the moral principle of the case.
Humane feelings, however, towards the brutes,
though not the ground of our obligations towards
them, form a natural tie which cannot be rudely
broken without doing violence to many of the finer
attributes of our nature. If a man be condemned
in the court of morality for selling a faithful horse
or dog to the vivisectionists, he would surely also
be condemned for that act in the sentiments of
every man of refined feelings. There is a story
extant, so hideous that we hesitate to tell it, of a
certain man of science who performed on his dog
what he was pleased to term une experience morale.
16




242                STUDIES.
lHe tortured it for days in a peculiarly horrible
manner, to try when the animal's affection would
be overcome by his cruelty.  The result proved
that the dog died without ceasing to show his
humble devotion to the man (or monster, we should
say) who put him to such a test. The indignation
which this fiendish act arouses in our minds is not
solely a moral reprobation: it partakes also of the
bitterness provoked by an outrage upon the affections.
The sentiment of tenderness to the brutes is of
course not only inferior in sacredness to the moral
principle, but also unlike it in being a very variable
matter. Different nations and different individuals
have it in very diverse degrees. The inquiry into
its extent and influence would doubtless afford an
interesting chapter in the study of human nature.
We should find, as a rule, the more highly cultivated
nations feeling the sentiment most vividly; but to
this rule there would be many exceptions. The
Arab's care for horses, the Turk's care for cats, are
probably unparalleled elsewhere. But on the other
hand, we find the Greeks, even in Homer's time,
able to relish the sweet tale of Argus; while the
whole magnificent literature of the Hebrews contains
no passage, save in the story of Tobit, to imply any
friendly feelings towards the animals. The singular
commands in the Pentateuch, not to' muzzle the
ox which treadeth out the corn," and not to " seethe
a kid in its mother's milk," suggests rather the




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 243
design of the legislator to soften the hard natures
of the Israelites than to protect the animals from
suffering, inasmuch as neither of the acts forbidden
involved any real cruelty. In Hindoo literature,
again, there appear to be perpetual tender references to the lower creatures. In the Mahabharata,
in particular, there is an exquisite story of the hero
who insisted on the admission of his faithful dog
along with himself into heaven, and refused to
accept the offers of Indra to conduct him there
without it.  At last the dog transforms himself
into Yamen, god of Death, who has followed the
hero's steps through the world, and now leaves him
with a blessing to enter Paradise, free from the
penalty of mortality.*  As might naturally be expected, the condition of animals is much modified
in countries where any of them are either supposed to be Divine beings, or else the abodes of
human souls undergoing metempsychosis.    This
latter doctrine, involving such low and ludicrous
circumstances as the transmigration (represented
in a Theban tomb) of the gluttonous man into the
pig, has perhaps met on that account with more
contempt among us than its moral character deserves. Among the multitudinous superstitions of
mankind, and fantastic dreams concerning the " undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveller
returns," not by any means the worst is that which
* See the resume of the poem in Mrs Spiers' (now Mrs
Manning's) admirable book, Ancient India.
16 *




244                 STUDIES.
would represent the future punishment for sinking
our human nature in cruelty, sensuality, or sloth,
to be the loss of that human nature for a time, and
the incarnation of the sinful soul in some cruel, or
sensual, or slothful brute. Between this idea (combined, as it always is, with the prospect of final
restoration) and the doctrine of a burning cave of
everlasting blasphemy and despair, it may be thought
that the notions of Pythagoras and the originators
of the Egyptian and Hindoo theologies do not
suffer by comparison. Probably, however, the
results of neither doctrine concerning the future
would have essentially conduced to human virtue;
and as to the influence of that of the metempsychosis
on the conduct of men towards the brutes, its
humanizing effects have doubtless been counterbalanced by the introduction of vegetarian errors,
and consequent discouragement of animal life; and
also by inducing a degree of care for some favoured
brutes, infringing monstrously upon the rights of
mankind. The writer's father was witness, during
the old Mahratta wars, of various revolting scenes
of famine, wherein the sacred cows of the Hindoo
temples were standing gorged to repletion beside
huge vessels of rice devoted to their use, while the
starving population lay dying and dead of hunger
all around.
Turning from nations to classes, we find
as a rule that the most cultivated are the most
merciful. But here also there are exceptions. In




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 245
England it is the half-brutalized and sottish carter,
or the degraded and filthy dealer in " marine stores,"
who is brought up before the magistrate for furiously
flogging his stubborn horse, or skinning alive some
miserable cat. In France, alas! it is men of science
-men belonging to the learned professions-who
disembowel living horses and open the brains of
dogs.
In the case of individuals, the presence or
absence of tenderness for animals appears to constitute a very curious test of character. Its connection with benevolence towards mankind is of the
inverse sort in too many instances. Few earnest
philanthropists care at all for animals, or have any
special sympathies with favourite dogs, horses, or
birds; and they often seem to resent the care of
others for such creatures as a defrauding of human
claims. When the proposal was made for opening
that very unassuming little institution in Islington *
for the shelter of Lost Dogs, the outcry raised on
the part of human charity was greater than has
ever greeted the erection of one of the gin-palaces,
or casinos, or other conservatories of vice in the
kingdom.   The objectors did not recognize the
great law of human nature by which mercy begets
mercy, even as "revenge and wrong bring forth
their kind," and that the "merciful man" may not
seldom have become merciful by beginning with
* Now at Hollingsworth Street, Holloway-well deserving of
a visit.




246                STUDIES.
mercy to "his beast." If it had no result whatever
on human feelings, it would be hard to say that
keeping a kennel for a few starving brutes was a
much worse expenditure of money than sundry
others with which the rich gentlemen of England
indulge themselves.
But if the strong feelings of philanthropists for
human claimants are somewhat chill as regards the
animals, there is, on the other hand, a more deplorable inclination among all who have a tendency
to misanthropy to bestow on animals an amount of
affection very visibly distorted from its rightful
human channels. Every Timon in the world has
his dog; every embittered old maid her cat, or parrot. They do not love these creatures so much because the dog, cat, or parrot fills up the measure of
their affections, as because they have withdrawn
their affections from humanity, and pour them out
on the brutes in the place of better objects. This
kind of love for animals has in it somewhat truly
painful to witness. It cannot be defended in any
manner, yet our pity may fairly be given to a condition of heart which reveals a past of intense suffering, and is in itself a state of disease of the affections. We are inclined to feel contemptuous, or
perhaps a little resentful, when in a world full of
human woes and wants, a vast amount of tenderness
and compassion is lavished upon some over-fed
spaniel, dying of the results of excessive indulgence;
or a legacy, which might have afforded education to




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 247
a child, is devoted to the maintenance of a parrot.
We are disgusted when we hear of a lady comforting a mother on the death of her only daughter, by
saying, "C I felt just the same when my Fido died."
But resentment and contempt are no right sentiments for such sorrowful exhibitions of moral malady
any more than for the depraved appetite of physical
disease. Probably the worst form of this distortion
of the affections, and one for which no excuse can
be made, is to be found when the pride of the overindulged men and women of wealth and rank keeps
them aloof from their human fellow-creatures, and
leads them to lavish on their animal favourites the
care and tenderness they would disdain to display
to a human being. The lady of fashion, who leaves
her child unvisited for days in its nursery, under
the care of menials, while she watches the feeding
of her spaniel, and covers it with caresses,-is about
as odious a specimen of humanity as may easily be
found.
On the other hand, there are cases of intense
love for animals in persons obliged to lead a solitary
life which are among the most affecting incidents in
the world. In Le Mattre's beautiful story of Le
Lepreux de la Cite d'Aoste (founded entirely on facts
verified on the spot to the present day), the outcast
leper and his sister are recorded to have dwelt in
the ruined tower outside the city for many years of
their suffering lives, utterly cut off from human
intercourse. One day a poor little cur, starving and




24 8                STUDIES.
homeless, wandered into their secluded garden. They
received it with delight, and the sister fed it, and
made it her constant companion and favourite. After
some years the sister died, and the leper was left
utterly and for ever alone, save for the presence of
the little dog, which gave him the only semblance
of affection left for him to hope for in the world;
and by its caresses and intelligence served to
beguile his days and nights of ceaseless suffering.
One day the poor animal strayed out of his garden
towards the town. It was recognized as the leper's
dog, and the people were seized with the alarm that
it would carry the infection of his disease into the
town. Fear is the most cruel of all things. They
stoned and beat the poor creature till it only escaped
from them at last to crawl back to its master and
expire at his feet. He who would not sympathize
with the leper's grief, must have a heart hardened
indeed.
Again, there is a most remarkable story (recorded, we believe, a few years ago, in a paper in the
Quarterly Review) of a French convict who was long
the terror of the prison authorities by his violence
and audacity. Time after time he had broken out and
made savage assaults on his jailers. Stripes and
chains had been multiplied year after year; and he
was habitually confined in an underground cell, from
whence he was only taken to work with his fellowconvicts in the prison yard: but his ferocity long
remained untamed. At last it was observed that he




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 249
grew rather more calm and docile, without apparent
cause for the change, till one day, when he was working with his comrades, a large rat suddenly leaped
from the breast of his coat and ran across the yard.
Naturally the cry was raised to kill the rat, and the
men were preparing to throw stones at it, when the
convict, hitherto so ferocious, with a sudden outburst of feeling implored them to desist, and allow
him to recover his strange favourite. The prison
officials for once were guided by a happy compassion,
and suffered him to call back his rat, which came to
his voice, and nestled back in his dress. The con.
vict's gratitude was as strong as his rebellious disposition had hitherto proved, and from that day he
proved submissive and orderly. After some years
he became the trusted assistant of the jailers, and
finally the poor fellow was killed in defending them
against a mutiny of the other convicts. The love
of that humblest creature finding a place in his
rough heart had changed his whole character. Who
shall limit the miracles to be wrought by affection,
when the love of a rat could transform a man?
But whatever result a general review might give
us of the amount of tenderness of nations and classes
of men for animals, there can be little doubt that it
would prove to be a real characteristic of humanity,
and possessed of a definite place among the sentiments of our nature. On the other hand, the
affection and devotion of many species of animals
for man are matters of too great notoriety to need




250                 STUDIES.
more than passing reference. The dog, horse, elephant, cat, seal, and many species of birds, show
these feelings in the most unmistakable manner; in
some cases marking their love by truly heroic selfsacrifice, or by dying of grief for the loss of their
masters. Probably many other species of beasts
and birds would prove capable, on experiment, of
similar attachment. The tie established in such
instances between a man and the brute who gives
him his unbounded devotion, is unquestionably one
of great tenderness. The poor dog's love is a thing
so beautiful that to despise it is to do violence to
every softer instinct. The man is in so far below
the brute if the brute can give him a pure, disinterested, devoted love, and he can give back no
tenderness and pity in return. Cowper said well" I would not have that man to be my friend
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm."
The human affections of one who could feel no
emotions of pity for the animal which attached itself
to him must be of little worth, and partake largely
of egotism or mere selfish passion. Woe to the
woman or the child who should depend on such a
man.
To choose for objects of cruel experiments animals endowed with the wondrous power of love, is
not then only a moral offence, viewed in the light
of a needless torture of sentient creatures; it is also
a sin against all the instincts of tenderness and
pure sentiment. We are justified not only in con



THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 251
demning it on moral grounds, but in revolting
against it in the name of the common heart of humanity.
There remains one grave and solemn side of this
question which we have some hesitation in approaching. Man and brutes are not mere creatures of
chance. Sentiments of pity are not matters of arbitrary taste. Moral laws do not alone bind us with
a sacred obligation of mercy. The MAKER of man is
also the Maker of all the tribes of earth and air and
waters. Our Lord is their Lord also. We rule the
animal creation, not as irresponsible sovereigns, but
as the vicegerents of God.
The position of the brutes in the scale of creation
would appear to be that of the complement of the
mighty whole. We cannot suppose that the material universe of suns and planets was created for
irrational and unmoral beings, but rather to be the
habitation of various orders of intelligences endowed
with that moral freedom by which they may attain
to virtue and approach to God in ever-growing likeness and love. If we may presume to speculate on
the awful designs of the Supreme Architect, we
almost inevitably come to this conclusion, that these
world-houses were all built to be, sooner or later,
in the million millenniums of their existence, the
abodes of living souls. Be this as it may regarding
the other worlds in the universe, we must at least
believe that here (where such beings actually exist)




252                 STUDIES.
their palace-home of plains and hills and woods and
waters, with all its libraries of wisdom, its galleries
of beauty, has been built for them, and not for their
humble fellow-lodgers, the brutes and the fowls,
the insects and the fish. They are, we must conclude, the complement and filling-up of the great
design. Some of them are the servants appointed
for our use; all of them are made to be happy-to
fill the world with their innocent delight. We cannot think that any of them, any sentient creature,
was made primarily for another creature's benefit,
but first for its own happiness, and then afterwards
to " second too some other use." Thus we believe
the world was made for Man,-the end of whose creation is Virtue and eternal union with God; and the
complement of the plan are the Brutes,-whose end
is such Happiness as their natures may permit.
If this be so, our relation to the whole animal
creation is simply that of fellow-creatures, of a rank
so much higher, that our interests must always have
precedence. But to some orders of animals we are
in a much nearer relation, for these are the servants
given us expressly by God, and fitted with powers
and instincts precisely suiting them to meet our
wants. The camel, horse, ass, elephant, the cow,
sheep, goat, dog, cat, and many species of fowls, are
all so constituted as to supply us with what we need
in the way of services, food, clothing, and protection.
Our use or misuse of these servants is a matter in
which it is impossible to conceive that we are irre



THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 253
sponsible, or that we do not offend the merciful
Creator when, instead of profiting by His gifts, we
use our superior power to torture and destroy the
creatures He has made both to serve us, and to be
happy also. If there be one moral offence which more
than another seems directly an offence against God,
it is this wanton infliction of pain upon His creatures.
He, the Good One, has made them to be happy, but
leaves us our awful gift of freedom to use or to misuse towards them. In a word, He places them absolutely in our charge. If we break this trust, and
torture them, what is our posture towards Him?
Surely as sins of the flesh sink man below humanity,
so sins of cruelty throw him into the very converse
and antagonism of Deity; he becomes not a mere
Brute, but a Fiend.
These would seem to be the simple facts of our
relation to the animals, viewed from the religious
point of view, on the hypothesis that our usual ideas
concerning the lower creation are correct, that
brutes have no germ of a moral nature, no prospect
of immortality, and that between us and them there
are no other ties but those of fellow-creaturehood.
It may be that a more advanced mental philosophy,
and further researches in science, may modify these
ideas. It may be that we shall come to see that
sentient life and consciousness and self-consciousness
are mysterious powers working upward through all
the orders of organic existence; that there are rudiments in the sagacious elephant and the affectionate




254                STUDIES.
dog of moral faculties which we need not consign
hopelessly to annihilation. It may be that we shall
find that man himself, in all the glory of his reason,
has sprung, in the far-off ages of the primeval world,
not from the "clod of the valley" any more than
from Deucalion's stones, but from some yet-undiscovered creature which once roamed the forests of
the elder world, and through whom he stands allied
in blood to all the beasts of the field. It may be
we shall find all these things; and finding them we
shall not degrade man, but only elevate the brute.
By such ideas, should science ever ratify them, we
shall certainly arrive at new and vivid interests in
the animal creation, and the brutes will receive at.our hands (we must needs believe) some more tender consideration. But these are, as yet, all doubtful speculations, and we do not need to rest a
feather's weight of argument upon them to prove
that as religious beings we are bound to show mercy
to all God's creatures.
God has made all the domestic animals with
special adaptations to our use; but there is one
species whose purpose is manifestly so peculiarly
beneficent, that we cannot pass over it in forming
an estimate of our relation to the lower creatures.
Many beasts and birds are capable of attaching
themselves to man, but the dog is endowed with
a capacity for loving his master with a devotion
whose parallel we must seek only in the records of
the purest human friendship. There is no pheno



THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 255
menon in all the wondrous field of natural history
more marvellous than this; and the beaver's architecture, the bee's geometry, may justly be ranked
second to the exquisite instinct by which the dog
has been rendered capable of such quick and vivid
sympathy, such disinterested and self-sacrificing devotion. Nowhere, would it seem, do we come on
clearer traces of the tender mercies of the Universal
Father, and of His thoughtful provision (if we may
so express it) for His children's wants, than in these
instincts given to the dog, to make him the friend of
man, and enable his humble companionship to soothe
the aching and cheer the solitary heart. In the
various vicissitudes of human life, Providence has
found it needful to allot to thousands years of loneliness, and days filled with the anguish of bereaved,
or separated, or deceived affection. At the best,
numbers of us must lack (amid, perhaps, much true
friendship) that special tenderness of unquestioning
and caressing love which children might supply.
But even here that same Providence has, in a measure, supplied and forestalled the want of our hearts
even as it supplies the wants of our physical nature
for food and rest. As a mother might give to her
child a toy to replace some unsuitable companion, so
has the dog been given to us, and fitted to be our
gentle play-fellow. How does he so marvellously
understand our happy moods, and bound beside us
with his joyful gambols? And how does he, in a
moment, comprehend when we are sad-he who




256                 STUDIES.
sheds no tears, nor shows any of our marks of grief
-and try to lick the listless hand, and nestle to our
side, as if to prove to us that his humble devotion
will never fail us? How does it come to pass that
his affection for his own species, and attachment to
his home, and care for his food and safety, are all
secondary with him to the love of his master; and
that he leaves his companions and his abode without
a sign of regret, and flings himself into any danger
of robbers, or angry seas, to save him; and, finally,
will often refuse all food, and die of starvation upon
his grave? These are wondrous instincts-wondrous
powers of pure disinterested love, whose existence
in a creature so suitable in other ways to be the
companion and guardian of man, is surely as much
an evidence of the Creator's goodness as almost any
other in the range of natural theology.
Nor is it some costly animal, whose support only
the rich man could afford, or some delicate one, unable to live in different climates, to which such instincts have been given. Over all the globe, from
north to south, the canine race can live where man
can live, from the Esquimaux's hut to the kraal of
the Hottentot; nor are there many so poor but
that they may enjoy its possession. From the king
who distrusts the friendship of his venal courtiers,
to the blind beggar in his uttermost desolation,
there are few whose deceived or lonely hearts cannot
find some humble comfort in the true attachment of
a dog.




THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES. 257
Nay, may we go yet a step further? May we
say that in these dumb companions God has placed
beside us, in some sense, the emblems of what our
own devotion might be to Him who is our Master;
on whom we depend for all things; and from whose
hand we also ought to take our joys and chastisement with the same unwavering faith and grateful
love? It may be so; and we, the oft-offending
children of that great Father, may look on the
blameless and loving servants He has given usservants who obey us so readily, and trust us so unreservedly-and find in them more than companions,
even monitors also.
But we must not pursue these themes. Still less
can we turn now to argue as to the right of men to
subject creatures like these to hideous experiments
and agonizing tortures. God help us not only to
have mercy on His creatures, but to love them also
in their place, and bless Him for their service to us,
and for the happiness which He, the Lord of all, has
not disdained to bestow upon them. We shall be
the nearer to Him for doing so; for well did
Coleridge say:"He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man, and bird, and beast;
He prayeth best who loveth best
All creatures great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He makes and loves them all."
17








THE MORALS OF LITERATURE.
Reprinted from Fraser's Magazine, July, 1864,
17'








THERE are many questions which present themselves from time to time concerning the Morals of
Literature-questions of great interest, but not
always of easy solution. We are not speaking of
such literary misdemeanors as plagiarism, calumny,
blasphemy, indecency -things which must have
been recognized as offences ever since literature
existed. Rather do we refer to modes of writing
whose ethical character is sometimes doubtful, or
which, at all events, has not yet been branded
with the opprobrium which delinquency against the
principles of justice, truth, delicacy, or charity
would deserve. The ever-increasing depth and fulness of the stream of books and periodicals in our
time, carrries us more and more frequently against
these dubious shoals and quicksands of literature;
and it would seem in every way desirable that they
should be duly surveyed, and marked down in our
charts as dangerous or otherwise.  On the one
hand, it is to be wished that actions really infringing the principles of morality, should meet with
universal condemnation-a condemnation for which
no commercial success of the offending works should
compensate. On the other hand, it is no less to be




262                STUDIES.
wished, that the fear of transgressing, where there
is no true cause for blame, should not fetter the
author, or prevent him from giving to the world
whatever he may have to teach.
The due discussion and settlemeht of these
questions would be a work of great magnitude and
of signal utility, Without any pretension to attempt
its achievement, we propose only, in this paper, to
throw out a few suggestive questions which may
indicate briefly the nature of the task we desire to
see performed.
1. In Biography. Where are the limits to the
proper exposure to the public of the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the subject of the biography,
and of those with whom he was connected 
We shall all allow, in generalities, that, if architecture should have its " seven lamps " for illumination, literature should be guided at least by the five
holy ones of Truth, Purity, Simplicity, Loving-Kindness, and Reverence. But, practically, the claims
of Truth are in continual collision with those of at
least two of the rest: with Kindness, as regards the
revelation of error and wrong; and with Reverence,
as regards the violation of the sanctities of the inner
life. In many cases the biographer may most justly
feel at a loss to decide which guide he is to followthe principle of such abstract truth as should require
him to tell (so far as he knows it) "the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth," concerning
his subject and all connected with him; or the prin



THE MORALS OF LITERATURE.      263
ciple of kindness which shall adopt the rule, "de
mortuis nil nisi bonum;" or, lastly, the principle of
reverence, which shall warn him from dealing with
whole departments of life most essential for a thorough
comprehension of character. We 11 know how deplorably many biographers have erred in their solution of this problem. We have "Lives" which
"'lie like an epitaph," and are mere eulogies, as
inane as the portraits of Queen Elizabeth, without a
shadow in her face. These are written on behalf of
kindness, and at the expense of truth. They are
utterly useless; tending rather to nauseate the
reader of the over-sweetened subject; and only misleading us in the great science of humanity, of
which each separate biography ought to be what a
rock is to the geologist, and an elementary substance to the chemist. The onlyexcuse for them is
when they arise from that hero-worship, whose law
it is to dazzle the mental eye and render, not only
spots but huge stains and blurs invisible, or transformed to radiant stars. Such biographies, written
With sound vision, would be altogether unpardonable.
Again we have "Lives" (but they are more
rare), wherein all the errors and offences of the subject are stated plainly enough; and if truth be infringed, it is on the side of severity, not mercy.
Nearly always such biographies sin against charity,
being dictated by active hate; and the reader's
spirit of justice calls out for the champion (who




264                STUDIES.
sooner or later is sure to appear), to defend the
helpless dead from the attacks of his calumniator.
In our day it seems as if every character in history,
who had been held up to opprobrium, is thus obtaining honourable rehabilitation. The literary pillory is always'succeeded by the literary wreath. If
there should be Comtistes in the twentieth century,
their Calendar of heroes and saints will be at least
half filled with the damned of history, till we have
the month of Judas, the week of Nero, and the day
of St Guy Fawkes.
Again,-and this is what concerns us most just
now,-we have "Lives" written with the manifest
desire to do every justice to the subject; to set
forth alike the virtues and the defects, in a manner
at once true and kindly. But another great law is
broken-the law of reverence. The man's most
secret life, his most private memoranda, his letters,
written in the heat of passion or remorse, to his
closest intimates-are violated and thrown open to
the world. The public have got the truth; but
they have lost something almost equally preciousthe sense of the sanctity of the heart and soul's
secrets. Or rather, we may say, that a special and
individual truth has been insured by the sacrifice of
the universal principle of truthfulness and confidence
between man and man, whereby we trust each other
with things sacred. The injury done by such a
biography cannot easily be measured. There is
first the rude violence done to the common feeling of




THE MORALS OF LITERATURE.      265
the sacredness of the inner life-a violence which
destroys its delicate beauty, like a blow on a woman's face. Then there is the loss of confidence in
the security of all written and spoken confessions of
feeling, whereby many a heart may be led to hide a
wound which might have been healed by the hands
of wiser friendship. Lastly, and worst, the most
secret outpourings of the heart become entangled
in a web of self-consciousness in youth, and in later
life are utterly checked and arrested. The young man
or woman who has read one of these biographies,
can hardly write a diary touching on the inward life
(a task otherwise most useful for self-knowledge),
without a poisonous under-current of reflections as
to the effect it would produce if hereafter published;
like the one which he has perused, and which was
equally, no doubt, intended by the writer to be
kept secret. Even a child (as we have known) may
be thus instructed in miserable double-mindedness
and vanity.' One who had been duly indoctrinated
in the juvenile forms of this pernicious literature,
asked of her guardian (an acquaintance of the
writer), the ominous question, "Auntie, don't you
think I am good enough to be put in a tract?"
What is a biographer to do to avoid splitting on
these rocks?-to be at once true, kind, and reverent
of inner sanctities? Must biography be reduced
to a mere dry statement of the most ordinary and
public facts of life; such a resume as a newspaperwriter holds in his bureau, ready to print the day




266                  STUDIES.
any man of note expires, and telling the world only
of his birth, marriage, and death, his battles,
speeches, books, honours, and last will and testament? This would be to cut off from us something
more than a delightful branch of literature. It
would be (to use our former simile), to forbid the
geologist to examine below the surface of his rock;
the chemist to analyze his element.  (The noblest
study of mankind" would hereby for ever be arrested.  Such a sacrifice can hardly be demanded.
If we could consult the departed as to how they
would desire the records of their earthly career to
be written, we may feel assured they would not ask
of us to eliminate from them aught which might
really guide or help the living; any
" Footsteps which perchance another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and fainting brother,
Seeing, may take heart again."
But the question is just in this one point: What
is good for the living to read? No man, we believe
firmly, was ever the better, morally, for any knowledge gained at the cost of the violation of any real
sanctity in the heart of his brother, be that brother
still in the flesh, or long since gone home to God.
We do not accomplish any good for the world by
sacrificing either our own or others' secrets in this
way. When the things "spoken in the ear" of
faithful and tender friendship, or confided to pages
never meant but for the writer's eye alone, come to




THE MORALS OF LITERATURE.      267' be proclaimed upon the housetops " of the public
press,-it is a portent of moral ruin, not a process of
reformation; be those things never so good and so
profound.
Perhaps we may find some clue to the right
principle of biographical reticence, by ascending to
some larger generalities of literature. All literature
should be guided by truth —a certain kind of artistic
and moral truth even in fiction, a more literal and
material veracity in history, description, science,
and biography. What do we mean by such veracity
of the latter class? Surely it is the simple rule of
all truth —THE JUST EXPRESSION OF OUR IMPRESSION.
Our impression may be more or less nearly identical with absolute objective fact, but the faithful
rendering of such impression in the manner we conceive best calculated to convey it to another is our
truth-that which each of us " troweth."  Now in
describing a person, place, or event, in literature as
well as in common speech, it is clear our duty is to
strive to render our impression of such person,
place, or event, thus faithfully or honestly. We are
not called upon to tell everything we know, to describe every detail of feature and character, or of
scenery or action; but only so to write as that the
whole of our description, be it short or long, shall
be the just expression of the sum of impressions the
person, place, or event has made upon us. Nothing
is implied in the ordinary engagements of the
author to the reader, more or less than this. Of




268                 STUDIES.
course, cases may arise when a further engagement
may be formally or tacitly given to insert every
detail; but this must always be exceptional, or else
literature would be reduced to a proces verbal, or a
catalogue. It is, in fact, the same principle which
prevails in art, and makes a portrait by Titian
something different from a gigantic painted photograph. What is it which'the true artist, the painter
or sculptor, really seeks to accomplish? Is it not
"the just expression of his impression?"  He does
not seek to give a mere literal transcript of the
object before him, but to take it, as it were, whole
and entire, and cast it afresh in the crucible of his
own mind. Either this, ahd this alone, must be
the supreme aim and achievement of art, or else, if
it be not so, a mirror (could its images be made
durable) would be better than any portraits of
Raphael's or Titian's; and Madame Tussaud's waxworks superior to a statue of Phidias. There is no
third excellence conceivable. Art is either mere
imitation-and then the meanest imitation, so that
it be accurate, is the best art-or else it is something beyond imitation, and is the "just expression " of the artist's fullest and most perfect "impression."
How does all this apply to literature?  Surely
in this way: that the pen no more than the pencil
should aim at a mere reproduction of material fact;
but should render that-and something more. A
fine landscape-painter gathers up all the features of




THE MORALS OF LITERATURE.      269
his scene in his mind, and throws them on his
canvas glorified and individualized; so that as he
saw that mountain or forest, others may see it
henceforth for ever. As we all know, this is produced by no servile copying of every rock or tree,
every blade of the grass, every leaf of the wood.
When modern artists, honestly seeking truth, have
laboriously accomplished such servile copies, they
have missed their aim, and made something which
is no " expression of their impression " at all, something less like their impression than a few free
touches of a master's brush would have produced.
All this must apply to the author as to the painter.
His business is first to obtain a vivid and true impression, and then so to express it as shall best
convey the same to the reader. Is this to be done
best by a record of sensations and ideas produced
by the scene, or by a dry literal catalogue of objects
aftd facts? Shall, for instance, the present writer
describe the view before her eyes, by telling of
gardens sloping down through grassy glades to the
sea, the deep shadows of the ilex lying heavy on
the ground, and the stone-pines standing out in
lovely outlines against the sky and dazzling waters,
and palms and oranges and cypresses blending with
the blossoming apricot and almond in masses of
glorious colouring; of the fountain playing close
by, as fountains only play in Italy; the birds singing in the joy of opening spring, and the calm and
soft Mediterranean beating gently like the pulsations




270                  STUDIES.
of a peaceful heart against the low, tideless shore?
No words can convey perfectly the richness and the
softness of the scene; but would an accurate and
minute account of each tree and clump and shelving
bank do any better?  Ought w,e to say "there are
first 369 orange trees in a garden of half an acre,
then a jet d'eau six feet high, then 500.yards of
slope, descending at the incline of two feet in a
hundred, on a lime-stone soil; the grass is unfitted
for hay, the trees of no value as timber, but worth
somewhat as fuel?" It is quite clear that the
latter class of description may be desirable, if we
want to purchase the house and garden to which it
refers; but it is not literature, but business —a
surveyor's or valuators report, not a piece of
literary or artistic composition. In like manner, if
we should need to go to law about anything, we
may desire a sworn information, or proces verbals
describing it minutely. But all these are necessities
extraneous to literature, and true literature should
make no pretence to fulfil their requirements. The
veracity of the writer is engaged to this, and this
only, —that his impression be reproduced in his work.
Of course, according to the nature of the case, there
may be a moral obligation involved in the care
taken to make that impression co-ordinate with the
facts; but this is another matter to literary veracity,
To apply all this to biography. It seems clear
(if the principles above-stated be true), that the
biographer's office is to render justly his impression




THE MORALS OF LITERATURE.      271
of his subject's life and character, in the way of
Art-not in the way of a Report of the one, or a
sworn Information of the other. He is then under
no obligation to enter upon details which motives
of kindness or of reverence may induce him to pass
over in silence, provided always that the impression
he has derived from any such details known to him,
be fairly rendered by his general description of his
subject. He must make his hero neither better
nor worse than such facts prove him to have been.
This principle would, we apprehend, relieve
biographers of one class of their difficulties, —the
impression, namely, that they are called upon when
they undertake a biography, to share with the publie all they know concerning their subject, and to
reproduce the material facts, in crude literature, on
which their judgment has been formed. When all
is done, however, it must; be avowed that other and
great difficulties will often remain, with which no.
thing but consummate good taste can enable an
author to deal. If publicity given to things which
ought to be kept secret is a great evil and mischief,
on the other hand the concealment of things calcu.
lated to afford deep insight into human nature, to
warn or to encourage, is no less truly a great loss
and injury to the world.
One of the many sorrows of youth, to which
later life brings comfort, is the impression that we
are alone in our struggles, our trials, and our sins,
Sometimes it is a morbid vanity which makes us




272                 STUDIES.
hug the idea of our lot being quite unparalleled.
More often, perhaps, it is a very innocent and
natural ignorance of the inner circle of other homes
and other lives which makes us feel we are differently constituted from our kind. Then comes a
real danger from an imaginary fact. "It is not
good for man to be alone" (even in fancy) in
the world. Everything becomes unhealthy-the
greatest truths seem unreal, as the isolated consciousness works without its natural aid of sympathy
from other minds possessed of similar consciousness.
Struggles seem hopeless when we do not know that
any other soul has ever striven and conquered in
the same fight. Above all, sins assume sometimes
the most portentous and giant shapes, before which
we stand paralyzed with fear and shame, abandoning, perhaps, all hope and effort for our own recovery, till in some blessed moment we learn that
one who has since become a saint on earth or an
angel in heaven, fell once under the same Apollyon
who has crushed us, and then rose up and slew him,
and passed on "singing softly," on the celestial
way. Then the demon who seemed to hide the
whole horizon of our lives, and blot out the very
sun with his shadow, shrinks to a tangible hideous
fact-bad and black enough, Heaven knows! but a
fact which, with God's great help, we will drive off
our path for evermore. It cannot be doubted that
books revealing deep moral and religious experiences are in these ways of immense utility. Espe



THE MORALS OF LITERATURE.      273
cially are they so to us, to whom the guiding (and
also contaminating and self-desecrating) practice of
the confessional is unknown, and especially also in
our day, when new phases of intellectual creed disturb the spiritual life in a thousand ways, and make
half the thoughtful youth of the land pass through
a stage wherein (as their teachers inform them) they
have no right to claim the sympathy of the good
now alive, or to appropriate the experience of the
pious of old. How the few books which appeared
twenty years ago-Arnold's Life, Sterling's Life,
Blanco White's Life, and told us that good and
sincere men had felt our doubts, and struggled
through our trials; how they poured light and
comfort into our hearts!  How many men and
women, now calm and happy in rational faith, may
be thankful for having had the intolerable solitude
of their hearts in youth dissipated for ever by books
like these! It is quite clear that whatever may be
demanded of us, the sacrifice of that which gives its
value to books of this class cannot be required.
Their subjects would be the last to desire it. Here
then, in fact, lies the test of the biographer's capacity for his work. Can he retain what he ought
to retain, and exclude what he ought to exclude,
with regard at once to the interests of the living
and the sacredness of the dead?
Besides these religious sanctities of life, there
are the domestic and friendly ones, whose violation
is hardly a less offence. Of course the consent of
18




274                 STUDIES.
the parties in question is usually the test of justifiable publicity here; but what is to be done when
the exculpation of one is the blame of another?
There are difficult dilemmas here also.
2. Fiction has a veracity of its own to preserve.
How far is it lawful, for instance, in fiction, to introduce real persons known to the writer, draw the
portrait sufficiently exact to make them recognizable, and then add purely imaginary features of
character or actions or opinions, which the reader
shall henceforth inextricably associate with the real
person? We are all ready to condemn such a
practice utterly, when plainly described; but it is
done every day, in fact, and that by writers of high
reputation.  In what the Germans call Tendenz
novels (novels with a purpose), it is, in fact, the
regular custom to take for the type of some opinion
to be preached up or preached down, somebody who
may be fairly identified therewith, and then having
duly labelled and ticketed his unhappy specimen,
the novelist,-inasmuch as he is a novelist and not a
biographer,-proceeds to draw from his imagination
facts and adventures and ideas, to be attributed to
the specimen in his story, and woven in as neatly
as may be with the description drawn from actual
life. We have seen one of these, wherein it was
intended to demolish a certain too hardy thinker,
and wherein he was accordingly first identified
unmistakeably with a certain character in the book,
and then that character was made responsible for




THE MORALS OF LITERATURE.      275
the opinions of a totally different and antagonistic
thinker, and (in that capacity) easily and triumphantly annihilated! These things remind us continually of Archbishop Whately's excellent simile
between the practices of ancient heathens towards
Christian martyrs, and those of modern theological
critics to their subjects-"they both dress their
victims in the skins of wild beasts, so as completely
to disguise them, and then set the dogs to tear
them to pieces."
Again: Fiction may avoid the sin of thus misrepresenting individuals, but is it jtstified in maligning human nature itself? Reading certain classes
of literature, very popular in England just now, it
would seem as if nobody were offended at pictures
of life which would make us all a set of crawling
worms unfit to be suffered to exist, much less to be
made subjects of a work of art. If men be all mean
and interested and worldly-minded, then it is no
more proper to make them subjects of fiction than
wasps, toads, and maggots. It is a. marvellous
thing how the admiration for the mere savoir faire
of the clever writer, painter, sculptor, blinds men
to the question whether their art is exercised on a
fitting or an unfitting subject-i. e., whether it is
worth something or nothing at all. The more
people become amateurs of style, cognoscenti, or
even practical artists themselves, so much greater
seems the danger of their forgetting the whole
scope and meaning of art in their criticism of the
18 *




276                 STUDIES,
more or less successful way in which the effort is
made to render any meaning whatever.
In Shelley's Essay in Defence of Poetry there
is an admirable distinction- between the different
sorts of utility. There is an utility of the higher
and of the lower kind; an ultimate and absolute
utility, and a secondary and subordinate utilityi
The first concerns the great final ends of our
existence, the second the temporary purposes of
our present condition. The first utility promotes
our welfare as men and women, immortal and rational moral agents; the second supplies our needs,
and aids our prosperity as merchants, soldiers,
sailors, bricklayers, and seamstresses, wanting food,
clothing, shelter, wealth, health, pleasure, power,
fame, or any other earthly good, Of course, that
which aids the higher and moral part of us, also in
a certain way elevates and aids the lower; and of
course, all which aids the lower to its natural and
true well-being, serves to afford a sounder basis for
the higher. But the classification is a real and most
valuable one, affording us a clue to many laby.
rinthine problems of social science, and reconciling
the eternal quarrel between the Thinkers and the
Workers, the Aurora Leighs of the world and the
practical philanthropists. In like manner in art
(the arts of writing, painting, sculpture, architecture), there are two utilities, the lower utility of
giving expression to the thought, and the higher
utility which lies in the thought itself. The first is




THE MORALS OF LITERATURE.      277
very needful —just as the support of our animal life,
and supply of our lower wants, is needful for all
higher purposes. The body must be cared for first,
and then the soul. But the reason why the body
itself exists is, we humbly believe, to afford a basis
and scaffolding for the higher life of the soul; and
assuredly art exists only to afford expression to
thought. Thus, then, in every work of art there
are two things to be measured: the expression,
which may be good, bad, or indifferent; and the
thought expressed, which also may be good, bad,
or indifferent. Clearly the best art is the best
thought best expressed; but when this cannot be
attained, what is the next best thing? Is it a bad
or indifferent thought well expressed, or a good
thought badly or indifferently expressed? Reason
says, "C The good, beautiful, noble thought, however
imperfectly expressed." Popular judgment would
seem to say the bad, vulgar, commonplace thought
well expressed. Thus, in Painting and Sculpture
we continually hear cried up as marvels the clever
representation of subjects essentially base, and even
gross; and in Literature we find enormous value
attached to the sharp delineation of meanness, or
the bold portraiture of vice. Surely the sound
estimate of such works would rather lead us to
deplore that the power of forcible expression had
been attained by those who have no thoughts which
ought to be expressed at all? All power misused is
a sorrowful sight; the greater the power the more




278                STUDIES.
sorrowful. Lucifer is only the ideal of archangelic
genius and might, applying his strength to work
evil, and by his insight turning all human woe and
sin into the sport of his Mephistophelic sneers.
Great art, applied to degrade and libel humanity, is
not Divine, but devilish. If we regard mankind
with specially illumined eyes, we must do so either
more like God, with a greater than human pity and
tenderness and sympathy, or more like a demon,
with greater than human scorn and cruelty and
contempt. Viewed calmly there is something infinitely horrible in this latter character. We have
a right to judge the man whose genius raises him
above us,-but whose lovelessness sinks him below
the humblest affectionate child,-as men may here.
after judge some giant creature born of human race,
but yet no human being; a creature stronger and
wiser than we, as we are stronger and wiser than our
unknown progenitors, half-men, half-brutes, who
roamed the forest of the primeval world with the cavebear and the mastodon-a creature whose power and
skill should be guided by no justice, tempered by
no pity; who should vivisect our living hearts as
wretches now vivisect the noble horse and loving
dog, for mere scientific curiosity, and should pride
himself in the art wherewith he laid bare every
quivering nerve and throbbing vein. Such a crea.
ture would strike us with horror and hate. Why
are we to regard a great writer with adoring admir.
ation, because he can with his pen tear open all




THE MORALS OF LITERATURE.      279
the wounds, expose all the diseases of humanitynot only untouched by compassion, unmoved to any
effort to heal or save, but glorying in his own
mighty gifts, and busy only to "build up the pyramid " of his own self-worshipped personality? Genius so employed is not human, far less is it Divine.
"Is it not then competent to art to seize on
every subject, every phase of existence, and bring,
it out into the light under its magic glasses?"
"No," we answer fearlessly, it is not competent
to art to choose subjects base or gross. The office of
art is to express thought; but it must be good and
noble thought, or the art is prostituted. Men first
fall into the delusion that all that is real is a subject
of art, and then that nothing is real except the ugly
and the mean.
Of course, so long as nature is in questioninanimate nature, brute nature, or human nature
which is really nature at all,-there can be nothing
unfit or beneath art. It is the distortion of the
natural into the artificial which makes a thing or a
person an unfit subject for art, whether of the pen
or the pencil.
Writing down individuals is pretty generally
admitted to be wrong; writing down classes or
nations, though less condemned, is yet hardly defended; but writing down the human race generally,
seems to escape all blame. To describe society as
nothing better than a mass-meeting of knaves and
fools-of corrupters and corrupted-this is con



280                STUDIES.
sidered as witty and profound as it would be
thought silly and wicked to describe the inhabitants of a special village in such a way. To paint
human life without its background of immortality,
or its sunlight of religion, is deemed as just and
proper as it would be said to be profane and false to.
assert that a single individual had died beyond hope
of heaven, or lived without a ray of God's love.
What result can authors expect from books written
with such views of existence as these? Surely, at
best, to call forth a few bitter and joyless laughs,
and then to leave behind them that sense of distrust and contempt for our brother men, which is
about the greatest curse any unfortunate heart can
carry through the world.
3. In Criticism. What is the duty of the critic
towards the author he reviews? Is he at liberty to
make a book a mere peg, which he may cut and fit
at his discretion, to enable him to hang thereon
more conveniently his own ideas?
It would seem that the critic bears to the author
very much the relation which the merchant bears to
the farmer or the manufacturer. He is the medium
between the producer and the consumer, and is
bound to act fairly towards both parties.  Of
course, when he is a gifted man, the critic does
more than this, and himself produces a high branch
literature: but he is bound never to do less. The
task for which he makes himself responsible is to do
justice to both sides; to give the reader a really




THE MORALS OF LITERATURE.      281
fair idea of what the writer says. It is a simple
question of honesty, whether he fulfils this duty or
not. He is a juryman, sworn to bring in a true.
verdict; and if he say' guilty," when in his con.
science he thinks the author not guilty, or vice
versa, he is forsworn. The same principle of truth
laid down before, applies here also. The critic is
bound by literary veracity to give the "just expression of his impression." The correctness of
the impression is what makes him  more or less
intellectually fit for his office. The fairness of the
expression of that impression is what makes him.
morally honest or otherwise in the discharge of it.
Now, what shall we say to the literary morality
of our time in respect to this matter? Of the multitude of criticisms which issue every week from the
periodical press, how many are conscientiously written? how many are the "just expression of the
writer's impression" of the books reviewed? Of
course, thank Heaven! the majority are meant, in a
certain but not very strict way, to fulfil this principle. There is a common justice and fairness here
in the world, as elsewhere; and no one imagines
reviewers to be a peculiarly unrighteous order of the
community. But is such justice universally done?
If, indeed, a book have no particular tendency at all,
whether religious, poetical, or social; if the writer
have managed to escape touching any of the dozen
red-hot ploughshares which lie for ordeal in every
path of literature, then, indeed, he may be tolerably




282                STUprIES.
sure of a just review. But how does it happen that
when we read a book which is not of this colourless
sort-which has some definite principles, and aims
at some definite purpose-how does it happen, we
repeat, that we know beforehand with such singular
foresight, that the said book will be praised in such
and such a Review, and pulled to pieces in such
another? The phenomenon is inexplicable, if we
maintain the perfect judicial fairness of the critical
press. It betrays our profound convictions that, in
the long run, prejudice always conquers truth; for
some cause (one side or the other) must needs be
sound, and supported by sound arguments; and
yet we feel assured beforehand that no arguments will make it go down with its opponents.
Happily, however, a very great change is taking
place in the whole tone of such criticism. The
higher journals are manifestly swayed by a desire
to exercise, if not the impartiality of a judge, yet at
least the consideration of a gentleman even for an
enemy or an inferior. To look back on the old reviews in Blackwood or the Quarterly, where an "infidel " like Shelley, or a radical like Godwin, was to
be annihilated, is like passing from a field of civilized warfare, where cannon and bayonets do the work,
and where, when the fight is over, the wounded are
cared for and the slain decently buried,-to the onslaught of Choctaws and Ojibbeways, tearing and
screaming, and striking their foes with poisoned
arrows and clubs and stones, and finally marching




THE MORALS OF LITERATURE.      283
off, brandishing their scalps, and performing a wardance to their own entire satisfaction.
"Nous avons change tout cela."  Critics can
rarely now be charged before the court-martial of
literature with " conduct unbecoming an officer and a
gentleman." They are fair and worthy soldiers, if,
not all Bayards and Du Guesclins. But there is yet
one trick of unlawful warfare common among them.
They do not abuse, or vilify, or use personalities
against an author of whom they disapprove; but
they persist in seeing in his book what they think
ought to be in it,-by no means what he has really
put there. A species of traditional natural history
has long been current, in which the Tory, the Democrat, the High-Churchman, the Freethinker, the
Strong-minded Woman, the sentimental Philanthropist, and many other beasts and beastesses, assume
recognized forms, much like the heraldic two-headed
eagle, the fork-tailed lion, the pelican wounding
itself to feed its young with its blood, and other
equally veracious creatures. Regular modes of treatment of these animals have long been established,
and'constitute a most convenient art-somewhat
conventional, indeed, but saving a world of trouble
and study. Thus, when a man wants to paint a
carriage-panel, or engrave a seal, he does not go to
the Zoological Gardens, and copy a real eagle or lion
or pelican,' but sketches quite happily, out of his
moral consciousness, the two heads and the forked
tail and the sharp beak and bleeding breast. So the




284                STUDIES.
reviewer, laving briefly ascertained by a glance with
what sort of beast he has to do, proteeds to write
his critique currente calamo, describing his Tory
eagle, or Infidel roaring lion, or Philanthropic pelican, without any further notice of the poor animals
who are screaming in their cages for better recognition-" I have not got two heads!-nor I two tails!
nor do I ever pick myself to pieces I "
To judge a book fairly, a critic is assuredly bound
to try first really to understand what the author
mehns, and then, having understood him, he may,
if he can, refute and expose the fallacy of his arguments. But how high a tone of criticism does this
involve?-how much candour, and self-denial, and
intelligence in the critic! Yet no man has a right
to undertake the office at all, who is not morally and
intellectually prepared to fulfil it in such a spirit.
To make his own article brilliant and readable; to
launch a few sharp sayings at an opponent; to perform, in the two or three pages allotted for his critique, a set of literary tours deforce, with epigrams
for pirouettes, and sarcasms for wit, may be all very
natural and excusable; but a reviewer is engaged,
before all this, to do justice both to the author he
reviews and the reader who will learn from him of
his book; and he has no right to perform his pas
seul before the audience till he has done that duty.
What would the old Israelites have said to their
" spies" if, instead of bringing back the grapes of
Eshkol, they had returned with specimens of the




THE MORALS OF LITERATURE.      285
centipedes of the wilderness of Marsaba, the tail of
a panther from Ajalon, and some apples of Sodom
from the Dead Sea shore? This is, after all, the sort
of report many a reviewer gives of the books he undertakes to examine. He finds the centipede, and the
panther, and the fruit of ashes. They are all really
in the work; but to discover them he passes by
many a vineyard and oliveyard and cornfield and
flowery plain, and gives, in effect, though not in
literal words, an absolutely false impression of what
may be, after all, "a land flowing with milk and
honey."
Not less unjust is the practice which is the con.
verse of this dispraise of inimical books, namely, the
over-praise of those which are on the critic's side of
politics or religion; or the works of his private
friends. How arguments, poor and false, are pronounced sound and forcible; how low sentiments
and garbled quotations, and all the other literary
sins, are condoned by partial confessors of this class,
there is no need to tell. Moses told us it was wrong
to bear false witness against our neighbour; but
after three millenniums, very few of us think it harm
to bear witness, just a little bit untrue, in his favour.
Such are a few of the more obvious questions
which recur every day concerning literary morality.
The subject may, perhaps, be resumed in a future
article, and other problems discussed which seem no
less to require adjustment.








THE HIERARCHY OF ART.
Reprinted from Fraser's Magazine, January and March, 1865.








THE sacred service of the Beautiful has three
orders in its priesthood. There are artists of the
first and highest rank-poets, architects, sculptors,
painters, composers of music. There are artists of
the secondary order, dramatic performers, translators, copyists of architecture, of sculpture, and of
painting; engravers, performers of music. There
are artists, lastly, of the third rank, who are merely
dilettanti.
Primary Art is creative, and is directly derived
from God's revelation of the Beautiful through His
works. It is original in the only sense applicable
to human things, and deserves the name of creative,
because its achievements, though only copies and
combinations of the works of God, are yet fresh
creations as Art. We call the works of God, however beautiful and truly artistic, Nature. We call
man's copy of them at first hand, Art. The man
has created Art out of what before was Nature.
The epithet Creator, Maker (7roL7rT7), is ancient as
Art itself, having from the first commended itself to
the deep intuitions of the Greeks; and we may still
retain it, while confessing that its meaning in the
primary sense, as applied to the Great First Cause,
19




290                 STUDIES.
recedes further and further from the reach of our
philosophy.
The value of creative Art is determined by two
conditions  1st, by the extent and fulness with
which the artist has received the Divine revelation
of Beauty in Nature; 2nd, by the faithfulness with
which he has recorded that which he has received.
He who has been permitted to pierce to the
inner secrets of Nature, and embrace with eagle
glance the wide horizon of her glory, and who
having thus enjoyed the Seer's privilege, can paint
his vision for the sight of other men,-that man
is the supreme creative artist, the high-priest of
Art. But he who only sits at Nature's feet and
gathers a single flower, and gives it again to his
fellows in its truth and beauty,'he also belongs
to the same order of primary artists. He is, in his
degree, also a true priest of the Beautiful.
Secondary Art is reproductive.  It does not
derive its inspiration directly from the Divine revelation of Beauty in the world of matter or the
world of man, but from the beautiful works of the
creator-artist. It occupies towards these primary
works of Art a position almost exactly analbgous to
that which they do to the original works of Nature.
Such Art is justly called secondary. All inspiration
which is not drawn directly from God's revelation
of the Beautiful in Nature, but only indirectly
through the medium of the primary artist's works,
is necessarily subordinate. It may be excellent of




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.        291
its kind, and deserving of high estimation-as when
it enables the secondary artist to take the gold of
the original artist's, thought, and cast it afresh
from the crucible of his own mind into an entirely
new form of beauty, (for example, when a great
actor reproduces the conception of the poet). Or
it may be very poor and humble, as when it merely
reaches to an accurate repetition of the original
artist's work, (for example, in the copies of statues
and pictures). But in every case it must remain in
a different order from primary Art, and ought not
to be confounded with, or judged beside it.
A difficulty of distinguishing the two orders
seems, at first sight, to arise in the case of that
large sphere of art which illustrates historical
events and characters. Such events and characters can only be known to the poet, sculptor, or
painter through testimony. Is he therefore to be
reckoned only of the secondary -order when he
illustrates these? Not so, assuredly, for the testimony from which he draws his knowledge is not Art,
but History, i. e., the recorded science of human
nature.  Even if it happen to be preserved in
artistic form (as in poetry), it is not as poetry, but
as history, that it has supplied his inspiration.
The case only becomes intricate and the line uncertain, where history blends with mythical and
wholly imaginative creations in supplying the artsubject. To determine the value of a reproductive
artist's work, three conditions are to be marked:
19 *




292                 STUDIES.
1st, the intrinsic excellence of the work he chooses
to reproduce; 2nd, the extent to which he has
reproduced in fresh form, and not merely copied,
the work in question; 3rd, by the perfection of his
own achievement, as itself a work of Art, judged
independently from the original.
Tertiary Art may be so denominated when it is
only receptive. It does not either create or reproduce, but merely passively receives inspiration,
either at first-hand from Nature's beauty, or at
second-hand from the creator-artist, or at thirdhand from the reproducer. The man who thus
receives beauty, even though he never give it forth
again in any form of Art, has his place in the temple
of the Beautiful; and his rank in the third order of
her priesthood is determined, 1st, by the excellence
of that beauty of Nature or Art whose inspiration
he is able to receive; 2nd, by the fulness of his
comprehension and the delicacy and subtlety of his
appreciation of such beauty of Nature or Art.
All these three orders of Art-service-primary,
secondary, and tertiary,-or creative, reproductive,
and receptive, have their corresponding failures and
errors resulting in the production of bad or untrue
Art.
Bad primary Art results either, 1st, from the
artist's choice of natural subjects which do not
reveal beauty; 2nd, from his failure to translate
real natural beauty into beautiful Art; 3rd, from
his taking his subject of primary Art, not from




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.         293
Nature, but from the inspiration of some original
artist before him.  This last is the offence of
plagiarism, or the pretence of making creative art,
where the art is only imitative and reproductive.
Bad secondary Art results either, 1st, from the
artist's choice of bad primary Art to reproduce;
2nd, from his failure to reproduce what he copies
in a work which shall both preserve the merits of
the original, and be itself a true work of art.
Bad tertiary Art results either, 1st, from mistake as to what is really beautiful in Nature or Art;
2nd, from incompleteness of esthetic sense, leading
to an over-valuation of the lesser beauty and an
under-valuation of the greater.
In a large and general way, regarding the two
first orders of Art, the primary and the secondary,
it may be affirmed that their value, if good, is
determined, 1st, by the beauty of the thing they
express; 2nd, by the perfection of the expression.
Perfect Art would be the most perfect expression
of the most beautiful thing. Imperfect Art is found
wherever there is either imperfection in expression
or defect of beauty in the thing expressed. Finally,
where the thing expressed is not beautiful, and
the expression also a failure, there is no Art at allthe work ceases to have pretensions to the title.
Such, in brief, are the relations of the three
orders of the hierarchy of the Beautiful, one to
another.  It will be of interest to pursue the
analysis of these relations in detail through the




294                STUDIES.
different branches of art in which they are developed. The classification of primary or original
arts need not detain us long in this undertaking,
except so far as it is needful to notice that poetry
stands in a double position towards all forms of
Art. It is an art-and, for many reasons, to be
ranked the first of arts; but it is also the pervading
spirit of all other arts, in which the element of
poetry has the largest and most important share.
Poetry expressed through the medium of language
(to which we rightly give the name par eminence,
because by language can it be most widely and
perfectly expressed), is only one form of poetry.
There is a poetry expressed in architecture, a poetry
expressed in sculpture, in painting, and in music;
and all these deserve; to be estimated according to
their value as poetry. Deduct the element of poetry
from any art, and a mere cacput mortuum-a body
without a soul-will remain. Of the three elements
needful to constitute a true work of Art, namely,
poetry, science, and mechanical skill, poetry is that
which gives the essential art-character to the other
two, which, without it, may achieve miracles of
handicraft, yet never make a true work of Art.
They form the body-poetry the spirit, of Art.
What, then, ill this sense, do we mean by poetry?
A few pages back the word was used in the profound signification which the marvellous insight of
the Greeks induced them to give it. The "poet"
was the maker —the Creator-artist. Does not this




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.         295
reach to the root of the matter? In so far as the
artist has done that which makes him a creator, i. e.,
in which he has received God's revelation of the
beautiful through Nature, and has faithfully transferred it to Art, in so far he is a poet. He is a
great poet if he have received this widely and recorded it powerfully; but he is still a true, albeit
lesser poet, if he have received even a single lesson
and recorded it faithfully. The element of poetry,
in all cases, is the element of Divine Beauty. God
-the Source of all goodness, truth, and beautyreveals Goodness to the conscience, Truth to the
intellect, and Beauty to the aesthetic nature of His
creatures. As a man becomes a saint in proportion
as he receives the revelation of goodness to his conscience, and reproduces it in his life,-as he becomes
a philosopher in proportion as he receives the reve.
lation of truth in his intellect, and reproduces it in
science,-so, likewise, he becomes a poet in pro.
portion as he receives the revelation of beauty to
his aesthetic nature, and reproduces it in Art. Just
in so far, and no further, than as a man has partaken
most deeply of that spirit of God revealed in the
beauty of Nature, just so far, and no further, are his
works high and true poetryW  All poetry is God's
poetry.
"God Himself is the great Poet,
And the Real is His song."
As man's inward ear receives the divine echoes
of that eternal psalm, and his lips learn to repeat




296                 STUDIES.
it in clear utterance for the'joy of his fellow-men, in
so far he is a poet.
To turn, however, from this grand universal
aspect of poetry, to its rank among the arts in the
restricted sense of poetry expressed in language.
Even here it is generally admitted to be the first of
arts, in right of its instrument, its scope, and its
durability. Language, as an instrument of art, is
superior to the marble of the architect and of the
sculptor, and the pigment of the painter, in being
immeasurably more delicate and of more varied
powers. It stands properly, indeed, as the medium
between mind and nature, and is itself half immaterial. It is the Logos whose father is spiritual,
and whose mother corporeal-the threads which the
soul draws out of itself to weave its web of thought.
Only with the notes of the musician can it suffer
comparison; and these, if even more delicate and
ethereally expressive than language (i. e., expressive
of thoughts too tenuous, evanescent, and transcendant for language), are, on the other hand, so inferior in respect of definitiveness and certainty, that
the balance may still be left with language, in its
high service as an instrument of poetry.
Again, the scope of poetry is far beyond the
narrow spheres to which the art of the architect,
sculptor, painter, and even musician are confined.
It is conterminous only with the necessary bonds of
all human things-namely, with the capacities of
the mind of man, To the utmost horizon of thought,




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.         297
in the highest empyrean of aspiration, poetry sustains her flight. Temples no builder could dream,
forms no sculptor could chisel, colours no limner
could paint, belong to her alone.  No Michael
Angelo has conceived such domes as Milton has
reared in imperishable verse; no Rembrandt has
painted with such lurid hues as those which shadow
Dante's " Hell; " no sculptor carved such opulent
form as that of Shakspeare's Cleopatra. The true
poet sees all history as one epic Odyssey of our humanity,-tempest-driven, spectre-haunted, Circetempted,-yet brought home at last; and to him
creation itself is a divine drama of Prometheus Unbound, with the immensity of space for its stage,
and eternal time for its hour of action.
And again, poetry is more durable than any
other of the arts. Architecture and sculpture alone
can vie with it in this respect; and the Theban
temples and the Sphinx may indeed overshadow us
from an antiquity higher' than that of Homer and
Job. But when every stone of Egypt's colossal
fanes and statues lies buried under the desert sands,
men will still read the tale of "Achilles' wrath,"
and, in some yet unborn tongue, will renew again
and yet again the wail of the Chaldaean patriarch.
True poetry is immortal. Once born into the
consciousness of the human race, it can never die
again; nay, it partakes in a manner of the omnipresence, as well as eternity, of its great first Author.
It is ubiquitous; and, while the temple, the statue,




298                 STUDIES.
the picture, can only be in one spot of earth; and
even music itself must depend for a voice on material aids (costly and laborious almost in the proportion of its power), poetry alone may gush from
every human lip, and spring in every human heart
a fresh fountain of ever-living joy. There is no
home so lonely, no wintry waste so desolate, no
dungeon-cell so dark, but poetry may therein speak
to the soul she loves, to cheer, to bless, and to ennoble.
Poetry, then, we may surely admit, is the most
perfect, the most comprehensive, and the most dur~
able of the Arts. A great poet-a true creatorartist in language-stands at the summit of the
hierarchy of art. There is no order above his own,
or equal to it. He is the supreme pontiff in the
temple of the Beautiful.
But, if poetry be the greatest of the original
arts, it follows that its various reproductions ought
to hold similar rank among the secondary artsthat is, so far as they are capable of being real reproductions, and not servile copies. We have therefore to consider next the three forms under which
poetry may be reproduced-namely, 1. Dramatic
acting, including operatic singing and expressive
dancing; 2. Recitation-singing, or vocal reading;
3. Translation. A few words must suffice for each.
Dramatic acting is the greatest of all reproductive arts; first (as above said) because it reproduces the greatest original art, i. e., poetry. Se



THE HIBRARCHY OF ART.        299
condly, because in accomplishing this purpose, it is
furthest from servile copying and nearest to an
original art. In this last respect, it is more justly
defined as an embodiment, in material form, of the
semi-spiritual -language of the poet, than as a similar
reproduction with the copies made of statues and
paintings. The creator-poet, indeed, brought into
being the character of his drama-the Hamlet or
the Macbeth. But he left it a purely mental eidolon,
a denizen of the world of souls, revealed to the
senses only through the medium of language. The
actor then took up the task-if not of creating, yet
of incarnating. The poet's disembodied thought
became the actor's living man. Nay, more, the
actor performs this work not by means of any material artistic instrument, marble or pigment, or
words or musical sounds. He makes himself his
instrument, and transforms himself, body and soul,
into the poet's creation. He takes the incorporeal
idea, and, by wondrous sorcery, clothes it in his
own flesh and blood. He is, for that high hour,
Hamlet or Macbeth.
In some ways acting may be considered rather as
a combination of arts, than a mere reproduction of
any one of them. Poetry, painting, and sculpture
are all joined together by a true dramatic actorand even music is added to the number by the
operatic performer, Campbell, in lines more philosophically analytic than befits poetry, yet singularly
elegant and accurate, defines the matter well:




300                  STUDIES.
"For ill can poetry express
Full many a train of thought sublime,
And painting, mute and motionless,
Steals but a glance from time.
But by the mighty actor brought
Illusion's perfect triumphs come,
Verse ceases to be voiceless thought,
And painting to be dumb."
Operatic singing-the actor singing his part as
well as acting it-includes, as we have just said,
again another art-namely, music. The operatic
singer, who is at the same time a good actor, stands
at once as reproducer of the musician and the poet.
Unhappily, in such combinations, the interests of
poetry being nearly always sacrificed to those of
music, the operatic singer, whose libretto is a mere
tissue of rhymes spun to suit the composer and
carry out the plot, can hardly be considered as
holding the place of reproducer to the poet, but
only to the musician. When the case is otherwise,
however, as in Oratorios founded on the sublime
poetry of the Bible, the art becomes truly magnificent.
No preacher has, probably, ever touched so many
hearts with such profound emotion as Madame Lind
Goldschmidt, interpreting at once Handel and Isaiah.
Again, the art of Dancing bears to other dramatic arts, a position which has been unjustly degraded, owing to the miserable modern substitution
of tours de force in the dancers for grace, and the
frequency with which it (more than perhaps any
other Art) has been misapplied to immoral ends,




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.        301
Taken in its true and right use, dancing may lay
claim to a rank very closely allied indeed to dramatic acting. It is not mere dumb-show and pantomime-acting seeking to express itself, as well as
it may, without the aid of words. As such it would
deserve small honour; for it is not the business of
art to achieve its purposes under self-constituted
difficulties, but to make each work as perfect as
possible with all the means in its power. Dancing
is rather poetry expressed in motion-emotions
having in them  the essential element of poetry,
finding utterance, not in vocal sounds, but in the
expression of the whole body, every limb and every
feature playing its part. Such dancing (as, for
example, that of Taglioni in the sweet prose-poem
of Uncdine) is truly a reproductive art, and a most
refined one. It is evanescent, like all the dramatic
arts, but, for the moment, vividly beautiful. If
poses plastiques be reproductions of sculpture, or
living sculptures; and tableaux vivants be reproductions of painting; dancing unites both of these,
and adds to them the poetry of motion. Within its
sphere-a narrow one, yet perhaps never yet fairly
filled,-it affords a combination varied as that of the
operatic singer; and to those numerous men and
women in whom the eye is more keenly awake to
grace than the ear to harmony, dancing is itself a
kind of music. The celestial " dance " of the planetary orbs, and the music of the spheres, are one
and the same.




302                STUDIES.
Dancing of course has other uses besides this
special one of reproducing a poetic thought or drama
upon the stage. Its simpler form, that of giving
expression to one or other natural human emotion,
joy, love, rage, victorious triumph, or the like, has
existed probably in every country in the world,
from the remotest time to our own. Sometimes it
hardly ascends to the rank of an art, however rude.
There is little of either poetry, science, or skill in it,
any more than in the sportive leapings of young
colts and kittens, or the angry rushing of a herd of
buffaloes. Such are the mere jumpings of children
and savages, and the war-dances of Red Indians
and the Amazons of Dahomey. At other times it
becomes an art, partaking much pf poetry, and
somewhat also of science and skill. Such was,
doubtless, the Pyrrhic dance of the graceful Greeks,
and such are now the national dances of Europe-the
Waltz, the Mazurka, the Tarantella, the Cachucha,
the Highland Fling, and many more, all of which
have doubtless some highly poetic idea at their
source, from which, in the lapse of ages, they have
developed appropriate expressive emotions, and then
become stereotyped in tradition. In this respect
they bear a complete resemblance to national tunes,
which, when really deserving the name, are (like
our own National Anthem) slowly developed as expressions of a popular feeling, and then permanently
fixed and adopted. The most singular line of sentiment for dancing to express, is undoubtedly the




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.         303
religious; and it is perhaps a proof of the deep root
in human nature whence the art of dancing springs,
that it should even have extended itself to the
sphere of the religious emotions. David dancing
before the sacred ark of Israel; the old heathen
dances in honour of the gods; and the existing
dances of the Moslem Dervishes, are all instances
of this fact. It has even been asserted (I know not
on what authority), that to this day solemn dances
by young acolytes form'a portion of the Catholic
service, on special festivities, in some cathedrals in
Spain. The Welsh Jumpers certainly make their
grotesque leaps into the air the distinctive ceremony
of their sect.  Into these details and their very
remote relation to art, it is not our business now
to enter.
To return.  The dramatic actor, or operatic
singer or dancer, is (as we have seen) enabled to
bear to the poet a relation which no other reproductive artist does to his original, and of course it is
only the dramatic poet who can receive such aid.
The epic poet can only be reproduced by a reciter
or vocal reader, and the lyric poet by a singer, reciter, or reader. Here we have inferior and more
distant relationships between the secondary and
primary artists. There is no longer a transformation of the whole man into the creation of the poet;
there is merely a rendering in voice what the poet
has left in written language, or it may be as first
himself recited aloud to the singer or second re



304                 STUDIES.
citer. Yet, though doubtless inferior to acting, the
reproducing of poetry by means of reading, reciting,
or singing, may be a very high form of secondary
art, embodying the thought of the poet so far as
may be accomplished by vocal sounds, in a manner
demanding real genius. When the results of such
readings, recitings, or singings, are extremely powerful impressions, we may argue that the performer
has need of even greater skill than the actor, since
he produces a similar impression with very much
less complete instrumentality. This is a principle,
however, which, applied in every case of art, can
only call for our recognition of the artist's personal
skill and ingenuity. The value of art, as such, can
never be estimated with reference to the special
mechanical difficulties overcome in each achievement, but'only according to the intrinsic beauty
and perfection of the work itself. A poem written
in an uncouth dialect, a statue carved directly from
the block without a clay model, a picture painted
with a man's foot instead of his hands, a piece of
music played on one string of a violin-all such
achievements as these may be more or less curious
or admirable, as instances of ingenuity. But their
value as art must simply depend on the fact of
whether the poem is good in itself, in spite of its
dialect; the statue, picture, music, intrinsically good
and correct, however they were carved, painted, or
performed.*
* It is curious that Galileo should have fallen into the fallacy




THE HIERARCHY OF ART,                305
Besides recitation, vocal reading, and singing,
poetry is reproduced by an entirely different process
of secondary Art, namely, by translation. Here is
perhaps the typical instance of Reproductive Art,
for there is no new art brought in, as in the case of
the dramatic performer; nor is the work a mere
copy, as in the case of merely imitative sculpture
and painting. True artistic translation requires the
secondary artist to take the thought of his original,
and cast it afresh in a new mould, i. e., in a different
language. The completeness with which this is
done, the perfection with which " the true thought,
of actually setting up a standard of perfection in art, by which it
should be valued in the ratio of the difficulties it overcomes-_
an error essentially vulgar and leading to all the absurd mis.
judgments we constantly hear of, such as the furore for Paganini's
one-string sonata, rather than for his really excellent ordinary
performance, and the popular value set on such tricks of marblecutting, as Veiled Women and the Pompeian Mother. The most
tasteless person can understand the conquest of a mechanical difficulty, which is of the same nature as the daily achievements of
the factory and the work-room applied to a different purpose;
but the creation of a real work of Art-a true revelation of the
Beautiful-is quite another matter, and out of the sphere of their
cognizance. In an original letter of Galileo's to Carlo Cigoli, recently published in a pamphlet "Nel Trecentesimo Natalizio di
Galileo," the great philosopher argues in this deplorable way:
"As to what sculptors argue that Nature moulds men but does
not paint them, I reply that she makes them not less by painting
than sculpture, because she both sculpts and colours; but that
is their (the sculptors') imperfection and a thing which detracts
from the value of sculpture; because the farther are the means
by which a thing is imitated from the thing itself, so much more
the imitation is marvellous."
20




806                STUDIES.
the whole thought, and nothing but the thought,"
are so rendered, and the perfection of his own poem
as itself a work of Art, constitute the merits of the
translator.
Language, we have already described as half
spiritual, half material, an efflux of the soul which it
makes its instrument of thought. Now, in strict
accuracy, there are as many languages in the world
as there are souls who speak in them. The same
vocal sound does not mean the same thing in the
mouth of two different persons. If it express even a
more material object, the idea of that object existing
in the mind of the child or clown, and of the man
who thoroughly understands its nature and properties, and its relation to other objects, is not alike. A
daisy to an infant means a little white thing out of
which chains can be made; a daisy to a botanist is
a flower of a certain class and order; a daisy to a
farmer is a weed, showing such and such conditions
of his ground; a daisy to a poet is a
Wee crimson-tipped flower,
from which he can draw the most exalted lessons of
philosophy. When we leave material objects, and
speak of sentiments and passions, the diversity between one word and another is still more marked.
The joy, grief, love, and fear of a hero and a coward,
of a great and wise man and a mean and vicious one,
are totally different things. Colours, sounds; tastes,
and odours, are certainly various to the senses of




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.        307
some persons-very probably are so to us all. It is
only in the most rough and imperfect manner that
the same words, then, can be said to convey to all
the same impression.  Much more wide is the
variance where language itself is changed, and we
have to seek for synonyms in words of another
tongue. Here the variance of individuals has become the diversity of race and nation, divided by
the furrow of centuries. As each word born of the
souls of one race bears with it the character of that
race; so each born of another bears another physiognomy. Could we thoroughly imbibe the genius
of twenty languages, we should find each of them
apart and individual, and the individuality of each
would bear direct relationship to the character of the
nation from whose lips it came. And though such
analysis as this is beyond our powers, yet, so much
of the distinction in question is patent and unmistakeable, that the most superficial acquaintance with
a second language reveals to the learner, always
with some surprise, a new conception of the genius
of the people by whom it is spoken. It may be
truly said that only by knowing their language it is
possible to gain a conception of that essential spirit
of a people, which, like the perfume of a flower, exhales through spoken words.
Now if this view of language be true, the task
of perfectly translating a poem, out of one language
into another, is obviously impossible. There are no
such things, in truth, as synonymous words —nor
20 *




308                STUDIES,
do any combination of the words of one language
produce a real synonym with those of another. Let
us take the commonest instance, and confine our
comparison to four modern European tongues. Will
anybody pretend that the tender and sentimental
German "Lieben," the deep, warm English "Love,"
the passionate Italian "Amare," and the frivolous
French "Aimer," are the same verbs? Is it the
same word which can only be applied, like our own,
to one of the great sentiments of humanity-to the
love of lovers, parents, friends; the love of nature,
or the love of God; and a word which, like the
French, is equally suitable to express approval of a
piquant sauce and a becoming bonnet?
The task of a translator of poetry may be likened
to that of a reproducer of painting, who executes
his work with a different kind of material from that
of the original. He has to turn oils into water.
colours, or body colour into chalks. No one colour
at his disposal is the equivalent of another in the
original work. He must create a similar effect with
a Mi]erent material an  min many respects) by a
different process, corresponding to the wholly different genius and construction of each language.
It must be owned that we have here a task of stu.
pendous difficulty, in which the highest reproductive
genius can hardly do more than approximately succeed. Where much of the beauty of the poet is
essentially verbal-i. e., when in the mysterious
sorcery of genius he makes the very sound of his




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.        309
words express, as music does, the thoughts in his
mind-then indeed the work of translation may seem
hopeless. In that region of shadowy evanescent feeling, where such poetry lifts us, amid gleams of irides.
cent light seeming to open up glimpses into unknown
worlds of glory and of agony-amid odours of Paradise, recalling what we might deem antenatal realms
of joy having no counterpart on earth-there the
true poet is the sole great sorcerer. The translator
is but a false wizard who waves his wand in mimicry,
but whom no " spirits from the vasty deep " of our
human nature will obey. We stand coldly and
britically by, and ask: "How came these words to
pass once over the souls of men like a rushing mighty
wind, bearing Pentecostal tongues of fire, henceforth
to speak from a thousand lips? We hear nothing
but dry, dead phrases. There is some delusion
here "
But when the poetry, though breathed through
fitting words, is essentially a poetry of thoughtabove all, when it has a form of rhythm immediately
related to thought (as in the case of Hebrew
poetry), then the task of the translator ceases to be
impracticable. His rendering of the same thoughts
in other, if still in fitting words, is also true poetry.
The power possessed over us by the original poet is
wielded again, with hardly diminished strength, by
the reproducer; and Job, and David, and Isaiah,
translated into the tongues of nations yet to be, will
still lift the souls of men, even as of yore they lifted




310                STUDIES.
them, on the old Chaldean plains, or amid the desert
hills of Palestine.
Such, very briefly sketched, is the great primary
art of Poetry; and such are the secondary arts of its
Reproduction in Dramatic performance, Reading or
Recitation, and Translation. It remains to speak of
the tertiary art connected with poetry, namely, the
Reception of Poetry, either through nature or
through art.
It is hard to believe that there are human beings
above infancy and cannibalism who have absolutely
no sense of poetry in Nature or Art;-men to whom
"the primrose on the river's brim" is a "yellow
primrose" and no more; and to whom Homer, and
Dante, and Shakespeare, and Byron, and Burns, and
Tennyson all speak as idle wind. Whether there be
any such men, in whom the aesthetic sense is aS
wholly wanting as intellect to the idiot, and eyesight
to the blind, it concerns us not to inquire closely.
One thing is certain —there do exist thousands in
whom that sense is so feebly developed, or so crushed
down by the weight of earthly pares and labours,
that it remains for all their lives almost as though
it were not. The joys and elevating influences it is
calculated to bring are to them unknown, as much
as the sweetness of the fields under the sky of spring
is unknown to one whose years have passed in the
black depths of the toilsome mine, They have been
saying, "What shall we eat, and what shall we
drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?.  till




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.        311
they have forgotten ever once to consider the lilies
of the field, or listen to the voice of the heavens
proclaiming the glory of God. Again, there are
happier men and women who intensely feel the
beauty of the world and the enchantment of art, al.
though they are unable to reproduce in any way
what they feel, or transmit their joy to another*
These last are the true receivers of Art-the ultimate
grade in the hierarchy of the Beautiful; and to them
the primary and secondary artists address themselves
as their proper audience. The wave of beauty which
began in a thought of God and successively passed
through the material world, and through the souls of
the poet and the reproducer, reaches their heart as
its strand, and there breaks and dies. Without their
sympathy and their comprehension, Art would be
the lonely play of the artist by himself, of which ere
long he needs must weary. For a brief space only
could Art so exist. Human sympathy —not fame, or
renown, or base earthy rewards, but the true fellow,
feeling and delight of kindred hearts-is to Art what
the rain and the dew are to the flower; and the
greatest and proudest artist the world has seen is dependent for his very inspiration, for the energy which
enabled him to carry out his grandest idea, to the
consciousness that there waited for him the humble
sympathies of those who themselves could never,write
a line of poetry, or chisel a block, or hold the brush
of a painter.
The more numerous and the more perfectly




$12                STUDIES.
trained are those who thus fill the third order of art,
the greater is the encouragement of the highest
forms of primary and secondary art; and for this
cause alone we might desire to extend the taste
qualifying men for such an office. In a still higher
sense, however, the same extension is to be earnestly
sought for the joy and elevation of those who themselves receive its benefits. Not for any ulterior
object whatever, not to make our children seem
well educated, or to teach the poor this or that good
moral or religious lesson to be learned through
verse, are we to strive to disseminate a love for
poetry. It is enough that poetry-the poetry of
Nature and the poetry of Art alike-are God's revelations of the Beautiful. As such they are holy: as
such they are good for the soul of every creature
He has made. When we have aided a man to acquire a high and pure taste for poetry, we may be
assured we have aided him to somewhat more than
a refined and blameless pleasure:-we have aided
him to receive a Revelation of God.
Having now briefly discussed the supreme art of
Poetry and its reproductions and receptions, it is
our next duty to consider that primary art which,
with its reproductions, may be considered to stand
next after poetry. The fair decision of the claims
of the various arts to this position would involve
considerable discussion, and carry us away from
Qur proper subject of the relation of the secondary




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.        313
to the primary arts. Architecture, Sculpture, and
Painting, each for various reasons, may be estimated
as next to poetry in excellence. It will be more
convenient, however, for the present, to place these
great arts in a later group by themselves, and to
consider next to Poetry, the art of Music, which is
far more nearly related to it than the others.
Music has for its medium, not language, but inar.
ticulate sounds-or at least, sounds which, if articulate, are so independently of music. The music in
them does not (as in the case of poetry) depend ontheir
articulation. With the seven notes of the scale and
all their varied gradations and combinations, the
musician expresses his thoughts even as the painter
expresses his by the seven colours and their gradations and combinations. But the musician's thought
is only a thought, or feeling-the ideas and impressions of a human soul-its joy, pain, love, or fury
under certain imagined conditions-which he strives
to express in his notes, and thus convey to the soul
of his auditor. The whole transaction belongs to
the psychical world, and barely descends to use as
the medium of mind and mind the most ethereal
and sublimated form of material force-namely, the
mere undulations of sound in the atmosphere. The
painter, on the contrary, save in ideal painting,
strives to reproduce an actual tangible reality, a
scene once beheld by bodily eyes; and his medium
of effecting this is a whole repertory of material
instruments-pigments, and brush, and canvas. It




814                STUDIES.
is in accordance with this far more tenuous and
ethereal nature of music, that it should be transitory
and evanescent, dying away with the undulations of
air which are its media, and only reproduced to die
again as soon. No one either could, or would, pro.
long the existence of a sound beyond a brief moment; and even the compositions of music which,
being suited for continual repetition, might seem to
claim an immortality like that of written poetry,
appear, by some well-befitting fatality, to have
always failed to secure it. An antiquity of some
centuries for a few simple tones, is all, I believe,
which can be allotted to any music now existing,
and we habitually speak of music as "old" at an
age, which for any other art would be comparatively
recent.
How does the fact that music is only the expression of a human thought or feeling-and not of any
material object in nature-correspond with the
assertion with which we began, namely, that all
true primary art is derived directly from "God's
revelation of the Beautiful through His works?"'
It corresponds perfectly, inasmuch as the thoughts
and feelings of man, which form the proper themes of
music, are all beautiful, all divine revelations. Music
cannot deal with ignoble, mean, or ugly thoughts
and sentiments, with petty cares, or base, rancorous,
or envious feelings, but only with what is noble or
sublime, or at least simple and uncorrupt. There
is a music of innocent gaiety, of joy, of gloom, of




THE HIERARCHY OF ART,        81S
grief, of love, of triumph, of divine aspiration, and
resignation. But there is no music of envy, of
worldliness, of cowardice, of spite, of all the base
and ugly things which grow in the neglected places
of our hearts. Music paints the flowers in those
gardens, from the rose and the lily to the frailest
blossom whose perishing beauty fades as it opens
in the evening air. But the weeds, the noxious and
poisonous parasites and fungi of the soul, the sting.
ing-nettles and toad-stools, she will not paint,:They are no subject for her art.
The more purely human is any feeling the more
fit it is for music. But what is this, but to say that
the more distinctly it is a "revelation of God,
through His works "-(that is, through His greatest
work-namely, man)-the more it is a subject for
the art of music? It must be divine, i. e., natural,
and it must be beautiful, i. e., noble, or, at least,
innocent, in that human world to which it belongs.
But to say that it must be divine and beautiful is to
say it must answer to our original definition of art;' the revelation of the beautiful by God through His
works."
The poet deals with both the world of matter
and the world of man. He may, if he please, write
whole poems of pure landscape with no human in,
terest introduced. Or he may write a poem which
shall begin and end with the study of a human soul.
The more there is of human in his work (provided
he be equal to the higher task), the loftier will be




316                STUDIES.
his achievement. But the musician deals exclusively
(as we have said) with human sentiment, aiming,
even when he touches on landscape, to express not
the landscape itself, but the impression such a land.
scape has made on a human mind. He does not
describe seas and mountains, and flowery vales, but
the feelings of awe, or wonder, or delight which
seas and mountains and valleys are qualified to pro.
duce in him who beholds them. This purely ideal
aim of the art assuredly lifts it into a most exalted
sphere. A great composer, such as Beethoven, or
Mozart, or Handel, is an artist whose subject is the
most transcendent-namely, all the higher phases
of human thought and passion-and whose medium
is the most ethereal and refined, namely, the
shadowy fluctuations of inarticulate sound. He sits
in his study, and there (in the strictest artistic
sense) creates in thought the whole storm of melody
which mortal ears have never yet heard, but which
by-and-by will roll over the world, bursting the
bars of a thousand hearts and bearing souls unnumbered "upon the seraph-wings of ecstacy."
Through that composer's soul the feelings and
thoughts of our humanity move as in some awful
procession, and one after another, he heralds them
and proclaims them afar. His power, of its kind, is
supreme and unique; no other artist may unlock
the treasure-home of memory, or open the graves
of long-buried sorrows, or throw back the portals of
heaven, with such a mighty hand as he.




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.         317
But the musician's power, great as it is, has
three fatal limitations. First, there are natural
limits to the things he can express. Second, there
are limits, natural and accidental, to the powers of
men to understand his form of expression even
when most perfect. Lastly, his power does not
rest entirely with himself, as do the powers of the
poet, the sculptor, and the painter. Even if he be
able to perform his own compositions, and thus add
the art of the reproducer to his own, it is a very
small matter in music; a few hours of his life, a
few hundreds or thousands of audience, and his
reproductive work reaches its bounds. His written
music, however sublime, must be dumb except
whenever it find a worthy interpreter.
The interpreter and Reproducer artist in music
is the Performer. His relation to his original is
very closely analogous to that of the vocal reader
to the poet; but the performer is indispensable to
the composer, while the vocal reader is not so to
the poet. Written music, before performance, is
comprehensible only to a most limited class among
receiver artists; and even to them conveys hardly
a share of the impression which it gives when
actually executed by the voice or instrument;
whereas written poetry not read aloud, conveys
almost its full impression to the millions who can
peruse it in print. The eye suffices for poetry, but
only most imperfectly for music. Thus the musical
performer stands to the composer in the position of




318                STTOIS.
an almost indispensable assistant and interpreter.
He is the Aaron who must give forth to the chosen
race the prophecies which Moses has received but
cannot utter. He is the medium between the soul
of the composer and the soul of his auditor. How
high and real an art is such reproductive music,
it is needless to describe. Grievous is it, then,
that, instead of being the chosen life-work of a few
who might fulfil it aright, and make music an enl
chanting influence, glorifying and elevating us at
due intervals, it has become the inevitable task of
every idle girl who would pretend to education;
and through whose perpetual bad performance,
music has been degraded and desecrated, till half
its noblest spells have for ever lost their power.
Music is peculiarly an art which cannot thus bear
to be vulgarized.. A poem, a statue, a painting is
not spoiled when we have read or beheld it a thousand times. But an air of music, however beautiful,
is for ever desecrated once it has become the spoil
of every strumming piano-player in our drawingrooms, and organ-grinder in the streets. It is a
positive injury to the world when good music is
badly played-a pain to those who are compelled
to listen to it, and whom it interrupts from other
pursuits, and a permanent deterioration of the power
of the same music for ever. No other bad art is
half so obnoxious and intrusive, nor half so injurious, as bad music; yet, in the deluded idea that
some sort of refinement is to be had out of it, we




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.        819
go on teaching our young women by thousands to
do that which it is certain not one in fifty will ever
do well; and allow our streets to be infested by
vagrants, whose office it is ruthlessly to murder all
the most beautiful new airs as fast as they are composed.
Tertiary art in music takes two very remarkably
different forms, according to the degree of aesthetic
feeling and culture in the matter possessed by the
individual.
A great work of music to him who really understands it, is a poem which he can read, as it were,
verse by verse, following out the guidance of the
composer through all his wondrous rhapsody of
playful fancies, and solemn dreams, and wild unearthly joys, and desolate outcries of despair. The
soul of the listener in such case is the real instrument over whose chords the musician's hand passes
slowly —now touching gently the lightest, now
sweeping mightily the strongest, till every string
vibrates in rapture and in passion.  The same
music to another hearer is no such defined poem:
only an influence vague and sweet like the calm of
a summer's evening or the odour of flowers, leaving
his natural course of thought unbroken, but by
some unknown spell, glorifying and deepening it
-making joy more glad, and sorrow more sorrowful, and memory more tender, and lifting the aspirations of faith. and love on billows of holy




320                 STUDIES.
melody to heaven. The soul of this listener is not
the instrument of the musician, only the mirror,
hitherto dimmed with dust and damp, over which
he passes his hand, rendering it for one brief hour
able to reflect all the gloom and the glory of
mortality.  Perchance, it is hardly a lesser boon
which music brings to him who thus receives it as
a glorifying and illuminating influence, than to him
who finds in it the grandest of legible poems. In
either case, and nearly to all men, music is capable,
under fit conditions, of conveying great and pure
pleasure, and a real ennobling influence. Shall we
not learn then, at last, to scout the vile parodies
which vulgarize it, as among the most offensive and
mischievous of all the derelictions into which false
and degraded art can fall?
ARCHITECTURE differs from the other four great
arts in one remarkable particular. Poetry, Music,
Sculpture, and Painting, can and ought always to
be exercised purely for their own sakes, and not for
any ulterior purpose. The rule of de'art pour Part
is clear and literal as regards them. When any
of these arts is practised principally with a view to
some other object beside art, their proper character
is deteriorated if not destroyed-be that other ob.
ject in itself never so good and laudable.  The
Beautiful is an end in itself, the real and only end
of Art. The Good, indeed, and the True are so
inseparably linked with the Beautiful that every




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.         821
work really attaining the Beautiful must partake of
Truth and Goodness. But it is not for the sake of
instilling Truth or preaching Goodness that the
Beautiful should be produced. When any artist
attempts to do so, and makes a poem or picture
whose main purpose is to develope scientific facts or
enforce moral lessons, the result is an inferior and
imperfect work of art.
But this great principle which holds good through
all the realms of art, and is of easy application as
regards poetry, music, sculpture, and painting, is
found hard to reconcile with the necessities of architecture. The number of buildings which are erected
mainly as works of art, must always be trifling compared to those constructed for definite utilitarian
purposes. We build houses, fortresses, churches,
that we may dwell in them, use them for military
operations, perform in them religious services; but
not mainly or primarily to create works of architectural art.  Indeed, the edifices which may be
considered purely artistic are not at first sight easily
discoverable. Almost every building (except such
a merely fantastic thing as a modern imitation
temple) has another purpose beside art. A man
makes a poem, a piece of music, a statue, or a picture, because he wishes to express something beautiful, and (if he be a true artist) for no other reason.
But very rarely indeed does any one erect an edifice, large or small, without having in view some
other purpose beside expressing beauty in the ab21




322                 STUDIES.
stract. Some want must be supplied, some event
recorded, some convenience attained, by almost
every building which men think of constructing.
Thus for architecture, the great rule of de Part
pour'art must, it appears, be taken with some modification. What may this modification be?
It would seem that the principle on which a
work of architecture must be admitted to rank as
pure art, or excluded from such claim, is thisWhen the purpose of a building is such that the
architect is free to consult Beauty before Utility,
then that building may be pure art. When the
purpose is such that the architect must consult
Utility before Beauty, then the building cannot be
pure art.  In the first case the purpose merely
designates the character of the work, leaving the
artist to the full development of whatever sense of
beauty he may possess. In the second case, the
purpose overrides the whole work, limiting in every
direction the artist's idea of beauty by considerations altogether apart from those of art. Only
those edifices.which belong to the first class are to
be criticised from the stand-point of pure architecture. And this class we must suppose to constitute not only true art, but the best art which
architecture can create. Fancy temples, even such
pretty ones as those in the Villa Reale, at Naples,
seem always to involve some degree of folly, if not
of impertinence. We intuitively expect a building
to have a purpose of utility (be it only that of a




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.        323
cenotaph), and are not contented to learn that it
exists only for its own sake as a beautiful object.
If we are told a building has no reason of existence
beyond its supposed beauty, we experience a sense
of being trifled with, and regard the work, however
graceful it may be, as in some way incongruous and
idle. On the other hand, again, the purpose for
which a work claiming to be architectural art is
destined, must needs be an elevated one.  The
lower forms of utility, even were they compatible
with beauty, would make high art ridiculous. A
grand building destined to be a shop or shambles
would have all its beauty of form nullified to the
imagination by its unbeautiful purpose. But buildings devoted to religion, justice, or the memory of
the mighty dead, have, in their noble purposes, elements of grandeur auxiliary in the highest degree
to the effect of any beauty they may possess. Thus
we arrive at the conclusion that the universal principle of all the arts, de Part pour'art, "Art for
art's sake, having no other purpose," must be modified as regards architecture-" Art having the end
of art (i. e., beauty) for its predominant purpose,
and some elevated utility for its subordinate purpose."
The buildings which may or may not be thus
classed as belonging to pure art, may now be sufr
ficiently easily defined. All kinds of human abodes
-palaces, castles, houses, cottages; all kinds of
business erections-factories, warehouses, shops,
21 *




324                STUDIES.
markets, schools, must necessarily be excluded.
The architect who designs such buildings is called
upon to consider first of all the utility of his work;
what the people who will inhabit his house or use
his school will require for their accommodation.
The walls, corridors, and chambers must be constructed of the size and form they will need, whether
by so doing they accord or disaccord with the ends
of art. He must make windows, not because the
beauty of his facade will be improved by them, but
because the inhabitants of his rooms will require
light. He must build chimneys, not because chimneys are beautiful, but because the people who are
to use his building will want warmth; and so on
through every department. In his whole design
beauty must be subordinate to use. If he transgress this principle, and endeavour to make art
paramount in an edifice designed for use; and, to
accomplish this end, insert much that is useless,
and omit much that would have been useful, out of
regard for art, he commits an egregious mistake-a
similar one to that of the poet or painter who makes
a poem or a picture the vehicle of moral lessons or
scientific information. He errs as to the very purpose of his work; and the inhabitant of the house
which has been made uncomfortable to make it
architectural, or the audience in a music-hall which
has been unfitted for music to suit the laws of proportion, have each a right to denounce the architect's work as a failure and an impertinence. His




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.         325
business was first to make a habitable house and,a
good hall, suited according to the principles of
acoustics for hearing music. Only when he had
secured comfortable habitability and unshattered
sound was he at liberty to think of architectural
beauty.
The scope of pure art in architecture being
narrowed by the exclusion of all such buildings as
we have considered, and of all those which must
obviously be classed along with them, there remain
only two descriptions of edifice whose position is to
be determined, namely, Religious Edifices and
Monuments. We will discuss these as carefully as
possible.
1st. Are religious edifices susceptible of becoming works of pure art? Two very different ideas
of what is a religious edifice may be traced among
mankind. To the old Greek a temple was a House
of the Gods, wherein the blessed and beautiful Immortals sojourned to receive the homage of men.
To the modern English Protestant a church is man's
place of prayer, whereto he resorts to perform exercises of devotion (more conveniently paid there than
elsewhere), addressed to a Being who is equally
present in all other places. Between these two
opposite conceptions lie a hundred shades of belief,
which have called into existence fanes intended for
every form of worship, ranging from the most material to the most spiritual.
When we conceive of a temple as a house for




326                 STUDIES.
such a being of beauty and power as one of the old
gods of Olympus, it is clear that the office of the
architect would be simply to design the most perfectly beautiful house he could imagine-an ideal
edifice uniting every element of grandeur and grace.
In doing this, the idea of beauty would be his primary idea, just as in the case of an architect building a modern mansion, the idea of utility would be
primary. Regard for convenience of worshippers
would be secondary to the Greek architect, just as
beauty would be secondary to the modern one.
Here, then, the Greek would work in the field of
pure art. His edifice would be as strictly a work
of art, ruled by the principle, de'art pour Part, as
that of any sculptor or painter.
On the other hand, when we conceive of a Protestant Church as a place for the performance of
human exercises of devotion, it is clear that the
office of the architect of such a church is before all
things to design a building calculated to fulfil that
purpose by such arrangements of size, shape, light,
sound, as shall best enable the congregation to go
through the offices therein to be performed. A
church in which the people cannot see or hear the
minister, or the minister conveniently perform his
rites, or in which the music is badly heard, or light,
or air, or warmth, or means of entrance and egress
deficient-a church with any such defects is a
failure, however beautiful its architecture may be.
True, the architect, after securing these objects,




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.        327
ought, if possible, to add further such beauty and
solemnity of style as may serve to impress the minds
of the congregation with sentiments befitting religious service. But although this secondary duty of
the architect might at first sight appear a primary
one (and would probably be so considered by minds
of the High-church type), it cannot strictly be so
accounted.  Protestants frequent their churches
not to undergo esthetic influences, but to join in
certain forms of worship and to listen to certain
predications. If they are all the time vainly struggling against adverse physical conditions, preventing
them from hearing their minister, *seeing their
prayer-books, assuming proper postures, or enjoying such an atmosphere as may leave their lungs
free from irritation, it is plain enough that the most
impressive architecture can do little to solemnize
their minds. The architect of such a church will
have made a gross mistake in building even the
most beautiful edifice with these defects. It may be
added that the special requirements of a northern
climate and of the more Calvinistic forms of Protestantism unite every possible difficulty and disadvantage in the way of sacred architecture, just as
the climate and simple sacrifices of Greece afforded
it every possible advantage and facility. A really
beautiful edifice, suited to evangelical worship on an
English winter's day, may be said to be an impossibility; and it is a fortunate coincidence that the
same minds which prefer such worship should be




328                STUDIES.
usually indifferent to architectural beauty. It is a
question not to be too contemptuously dismissed,
whether, after all, the supposed revival of church
architecture in England has not been a mistake,
and whether the much-abused square chapels and
churches of a century ago, with their direct and
simple suitability to the actual necessities of the
cultus to be performed in them, were not in
better taste (supposing them to be handsome and
grave of their kind) than all our recent mediaeval
imitations.
Catholic churches and cathedrals have a much
nearer claim to be works of pure art than Protestant
ones; and for this reason, that they resemble much
more in character the Greek temple than the Protestant place of prayer.' A Catholic church, in the
first place, always contains the Host-believed to
be a divine Presence specially located within the
building; commonly, also, it is the shrine of some
dead saint, over whose bones the edifice is a sacred
monument. Although prayers are used, the chief
religious service (namely the mass) hardly requires
any arrangement for the congregation; nor even
for the occasional sermon is preparation made beyond a pulpit fixed against some convenient column.
The processions, for which space is wanted, afford
rather scope for the architect's ideas of grandeur
than any check to his fancy. When we add to all
this, that in the lands where Romanism survives in
splendour, the climate exonerates the builder from




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.        329
all care for warmth and light, we have assuredly
found reasons enough why Catholic architecture has
been always a great and noble Art, and Protestant
architecture a very different thing.
Moslem Mosques, again, are simply places of
prayer; but the forms of prayer to be performed
therein are so simple, the climate of Mahometan
countries so inexacting, that in designing them the
architect is left almost wholly free to follow the
guidance of beauty. He has only to plan beautiful
courts, or shaded loggie, or great, lofty halls, where
the faithful may freely enter and depart at will,
finding therein ample space and perfect calm and
solemnity for private devotion, or for occasional
listening to some reader of the Koran. The strong
religious and artistic genius of the Arab race has
found accordingly in architecture the free field
denied to it in sculpture. A beautiful mosque is
not an ideal House of the Gods, but an ideal Outer
Court of Heaven-the most solemn and grand and
sacred place the architect could design.
It would detain us too long to glance at the
relation to pure art held by Egyptian temples,
Hindoo, Buddhist, and Guebre temples, Druid
circles, and that first, temple of Zion, whose
architecture, could we recover it, would probably
afford the most perfect instance of purely ideal
art, inspired by the highest veneration. A building which should bear in architecture the rank
which Isaiah bears in poetry would be a glorious fane




330                   STUDIES.
indeed! Probably, as regards Eastern heathen
temples, the architects were usually little trammelled
by such utilitarian considerations as disturb those
of our churches, and remained free to design as much
beauty as their artistic and scientific attainments
permitted them to conceive or execute.
Religious buildings, then, we conclude, may
either belong to the class of pure architectural art;
or have no right to aim at being works of art at all.
The Parthenon was a work of pure art. A London
church, designed to admit a thousand people to
" sit under" a fashionable preacher, only becomes
incongruous and ridiculous when it makes pretensions to being a work of art.
2. Monuments, whether actual tombs, or cenotaphs, or trophies, or memorials of any kind, are
obviously at present the purest form in which we
can practise architecture. Their purpose (even if
it include the inhumation of a corpse) leaves the
architect free to design whatever edifice may seem
to him most beautiful as representing the sentiment
of grief or triumph, which the monument is intended
to perpetuate.*
Thus, in conclusion, we find that to judge of
* It is a singular proof how little the true principles of these
matters are sought for amongst us, that it should have become a
fashion of late in England to make even monuments serve a double
purpose, and to attempt to combine adorning churches with
coloured glass windows, and recording the memory of some departed friend. The very idea of a Monument is nullified by this
ingenious device so much in favour with the clergy.




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.        331
architecture as art we must exclude from view the
great majority of buildings, and confine our attention to such temples, mosques, cathedrals, and
monuments of all kinds as may reveal the architect's
conception of beauty freely developed without regard to utilitarian aims.
How does the primary creative art of architecture
which remains after such elimination meet the definition with which we started, viz., that all primary
art is derived from God's revelation of the beautiful
through his works? Architecture does not copy
nature as poetry, sculpture, and painting do. How
cap we affirm it is derived from it at all?
It must be avowed that the relation between
architecture and nature is not quite of the same
kind as that between nature and the three great
arts we have named. True that a great deal of
architectural form is imitated from nature. Columns
were undoubtedly copied from the stems of trees,
which had originally in the primitive wooden buildings held the place of supports. The capitals were
copied by the Egyptians from palms and lotus; and
by the Greeks first from the simple bevelling of the
wood, as in Doric-from the horns of the sacrificial
rams, or the curling locks of women, in Ionic; and,
lastly, for the Corinthian (according to the familiar
legend told by Vitruvius of Callimachus) from the
basket of toys laid over a sprouting acanthus, by a
nurse mourning at a young girl's grave. Fanciful
resemblances for these orders have been drawn yet




332                 STUDIES.
further; and we are told (most erroneously) that
the Doric represents the proportions of a man, the
Ionic of a woman, and the Corinthian of the girl
from whose tomb it took its birth. In Gothic
architecture, again, the interlacing tracery of the
roof may well have been suggested by the crossing
branches of the forest-the columns being trunks
of stately trees, and the capitals bearing bunches of
grapes, nests of birds, human faces, or (as in Milan)
figures of saints and angels.  But these and all
other details of ornament, obviously copied from
natural objects, cannot be really said to prove
architecture a derivation from nature in the sense
in which sculpture and painting are so. Much of
what is most beautiful in architecture is also the
most remote from any transcript of natural beauty,
either literal or idealized. Rather is there a formal
repetition and conventional representation of such
objects as are copied, altogether adverse to nature.
The relation of architecture to nature must be quite
other than this, to give it the rank it actually holds
among the primary arts. What may this true relation be?
In discussing the subject of Music we arrived at
the conclusion that it represented nature inasmuch
as it represented human nature, the passions and
sentiments of the soul of man; and of these such
only as are beautiful-in other words, it was a true
primary art by being ". directly derived from God's
revelation through nature,"-the nature of His high



THE HIERARCHY OF ART.           333
est creature. Now, it would appear that architecture
is similarly thus derived from the Beautiful in human
nature only.  It represents a certain number of the
sentiments natural to man, which are beautiful in
themselves, and which find in it an expression, if
not similar to that they find in music, yet of parallel
power. The impression, for instance, of Religious
Awe conveyed by an oratorio of Handel, and the
same impression conveyed by the interior of Milan
Cathedral, are probably as nearly equivalent to the
individual susceptive of their respective influences,
as the power of any two arts well may be. It must
be noticed, however, that the sentiments capable of
being represented in architecture are exceedingly
restricted in number, compared to those at the
disposal of the musical composer; and that though
both are limited to beautiful sentiments, excluding
all things mean and base, the architect is compelled
to choose among beautiful feelings the few which
can be rendered by his art. Religious Awe, Solemnity, Praise, bright and fanciful Joy, Triumph,
Mourning, may be said nearly to exhaust the list of
the sentiments reproducible by architecture.*
* As examples of each we may instance the earlier Egyptian
temples, such Druid remains as Karnak and Stonehenge, and
such Christian churches as the Holy Sepulchre, San Lazaro at
Cyprus, San Lorenzo at Rome, Winchester, &c., as displaying
profound religious Awe. The mosques of Cairo and of India, the
Parthenon, the Psestum temples, the Pantheon, all partake of
both Solemnity and glorifying Praise, the latter sentiment being
altogether embodied in the majestic splendour of St Peter's, the




334                     STUDIES.
The primary art of Architecture, judged by the
foregoing principles, will in all cases have its value
determined, first, by the beauty and grandeur of
the natural human sentiment which the architect
has reproduced; secondly, by the power with which
such sentiment has been so embodied, and the extent to which the building will impress the spectator
with the same sentiment; thirdly, by the adherence
to those principles of proportion and balance which
obtain throughout nature, and being founded on
the laws of gravitation and dynamics, apply equally
to all works either of art or nature. The poetry of
church which is in Architecture what the Te Deum is in Music.
Again, the feeling of Joy, full of bright and playful fancy, was represented by graceful fanes like that of Vesta in Rome, or the
marvellous octagon at Baalbec, and perhaps by some of the
pagodas of the East. Triumph has had its arches, trophies, and
columns from the days of Sesostris to our own, the solemn prostyle
temple of Nemesis at Rhamnus (whose statue was formed of the
block Xerxes had brought to make his own trophy), being its
gravest type, and the airy little poem in marble to Apteral Victory on the Athenian Acropolis, its lightest fancy. For Mourning, alas! there is no age or land where death has not left his
mark, and where some grave-from the cairn and barrow of the
savage, to the Lycian Mausoleum or Egyptian Pyramid-does
not represent that ever-recurring sentiment of humanity.
Marvellous indeed is it that it should be within the power of
architecture to reproduce all these feelings through such means
as are at our disposal-the arrangement of walls and columns
and arches, the play of light and shade, and the interchange of
forms graceful or massive. Not more marvellous, however, than
the familiar magic of mtisic, which by quicker or slower movements of sharper or lower sounds, touches every chord of our
hearts.




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.         335
the architecture will be determined by the first and
second conditions-the science and scill of the
architect by the third.
Secondary or Reproductive Architecture is of
far more difficult definition than any other form of
secondary art. The line between it and Primary or
Creative Architecture is exceedingly hard to draw,
for the questions might be equally asked: Is there
any architecture wholly original? and, is there any
architecture merely reproduced? So very large a
share of the art is engrossed by what we have just
described as its scientific as distinguished from its
poetic elements, and this scientific part is so necessarily traditional, that to ordinary eyes one building
may almost seem to have grown out of another, in a
sort of Darwinian succession, by "natural selection,"
in unbroken series since the first primates of our
race, half gorillas, half men, built themselves wigwams in the forests of a forgotten world. Each
style has been gradually developed-the Greek frqm
the Egyptian, the Saracenic from the Greek, the
Norman and early English from the Saracenic, and
from them again the decorated, perpendicular, and
Tudor, in regular succession-till the Palladian
(descending by another pedigree through the Roman
from the same Greek origin) met again the northern
line of tradition and completed, as it would seem,
the circle of our inventions, seeing that Europe has
been well-nigh barren of new architecture ever
since. Yet in each transition, and in each instance




836                STUDIES.
of each style, there was assuredly room for the true
artist, while using the science of his predecessors,
to embody fresh poetry in his work. The likeness
between buildings of the same country and age is
after all only the same kind of likeness which may
be found between the poems, paintings, or musical
airs of any one epoch and nation. It only betrays
the general taste then and there prevailing. Hence
primary architecture must be accounted such as
reveals some fresh poetical feeling-some new ideas
of beauty derived directly from the human sentiments in the architect's mind. The architect must
say something to the spectator-something which
has not been said in the same way before-something which is a revelation of a natural and beautiful human sentiment. He must make awe, joy,
praise, triumph, or mourning, express themselves
through his work as they have not hitherto been
expressed through any previous work of architecture. True secondary architecture must be such as
reproduces primary architecture, retaining all its
beauty, and repeating its expression of the same
sentiments. To effect such reproduction by servile
copying would manifestly merit small praise; and
the variances of position, materials, and climate, are
all so great that actual imitation in architecture is
less feasible than in any other art. A successful
reproduction of a fine edifice must needs involve a
very considerable share of taste and skill, or we find
in its stead such a caricature of a Greek temple as




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.         337
the Parisian Madeleine-the flowing and undulating
lines of the original changed for hard, sharp angles;
and the glistening white marble replaced by whitybrown columns, built up in pitiful little drums, like
a pile of pieces from a backgammon-table, and
making, with the flutings, a cross-bar like a tartan
plaid.
The merit of secondary architectural art of course
must be determined like other secondary arts; first
by the beauty of the original it reproduces; secondly,
by the perfection with which the poetry of the
original is translated and its science and skill successfully revealed.
Artists of the tertiary or Receptive order in
architecture are numerous enough, so far as a rudimentary sense of architectural grandeur may go;
but very few in the degree of a thoroughly culti.
vated sense of the art. Almost every one is susceptible of some influence from majestic buildings; but
the delicate appreciation of their special beauties is
a thing rarely to be found. Receptive art in architecture may be estimated, first, by the character
of the work whose impression is felt; secondly, by
the strength and fulness of the impression; thirdly,
by the technical knowledge of the science of architecture, and discrimination of taste in judging of its
application. This last condition (as happens in all
arts) continually is mistaken for the complete receptive sense itself; and those who can discuss fluently
the merits of the details of a structure, and the
22




338                STUDIES.
strict appropriateness of the decorations of the different styles, assume the position of connoisseurs in
architecture, when their minds and hearts remain
wholly unmoved by the poetry which speaks through
the entire edifice. Another not less common error
is that which discloses itself by the frequent observation, " I admire Classic architecture; I do not care
for Gothic," or vice versa. The different styles express different things-different beautiful human
sentiments.  The receptive sense of architecture
should make a man able to read and sympathize
with each varied expression, as with the grave and
gay moods of a poet, and to comprehend alike the
high Joy of the old Athenian, uttered through the
matchless symmetry and perfection of form of his
temples, between whose white columns the blue sky
of Greece and the dancing waves of Salamis are
gleaming; and the solemn Awe of the mediaeval
Christian, spoken through the vast, dim cathedrals
of uncertain form and overwhelming grandeur, whose
dull grey stones repeat the gloom of the cold and
cloudy North. Each is beautiful in its place; and
to'be dead to the impression of either is to lack
the power of receiving the art of architecture.
SCULPTURE holds among the great arts a position
easy to be defined, Its office is to reproduce the
Beauty revealed in nature through form. With this
alone it is concerned, and among such beautiful
forms its dignity demands that it should choose the




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.        339
highest only. The human form, supreme in beauty,
occupies it primarily; then such combinations as
fancy may create, by uniting the human and the
animal, as for example, in centaurs, fauns, satyrs,
angels, and sphinxes, and the human-headed bulls
and lions of the Assyrians. Lastly, in actual animals of the highest class, horses, lions, leopards, &c,
Below these (although the cow of Myron was greatly
admired by the ancients, and Alcibiades' dog and
the wild boar of the Mercato Nuovo of Florence by
ourselves), the beauty of the lower creatures is
hardly great enough to suffice for the lignity of
sculpture, except as accessories to the human
figure.
The beauty revealed through form by the sculp.
tor is not exclusively physical beauty. The beautiful or grand passions 4nd sentiments of human nature-and even those of animal nature-are also
his domain. The W.Oos (expression), as the old
Greeks called such revelation of passion or sentiment
either made through action, or traits of emotion on
the countenance of a statue,-is a large part of the
sculptor's art; indeed, no statue could be considered
a true work of Art which was deficient in such expression. But the limits of this expression are to
the sculptor exceedingly narrow as compared to
those of other artists. He is bounded far more than
the poet, musician, or painter, as to the passions or
sentiments he may attempt to represent at all: and
even among those which are at his option to use, he
22 *




340                 STUDIES.
is called upon to exercise the strictest reticence in
the representation, lest he transgress the limits, not
merely of the Beautiful, but of the Dignified. " Expression," says Winckelmann, "changes the features
of the face, and consequently alters those forms
which constitute beauty. The greater the change
the more unfavourable it is to beauty." Therefore
expression, instead of being driven as by the dramatist to the utmost verge of veracity, must by the
sculptor be confined to the very calmest and most
chastened indication.  Jupiter makes Olympus
tremble, but only, as Homer says, "by the bending
of his eyebrows." Apollo's wrath against the Python he slays is revealed only by the open, breathing
nostril, in the statue in the Vatican. Even Niobe's
maternal anguish only changes her to stony despair;
and Laocoon in his agony strives for self-control as
much as for relief.
As a means of reproducing his subjects, the
sculptor has at his disposal either the perfect Statue
"in the round;" or Relief, which may be so high as
to be nearly complete statuary, or of middle height,
or bas-relief, or again intaglio-rilevato, or perfect intaglio. For size he has no limit to his art from such
colossi as that of Rhodes and the Sphinx, and the
statue of Carlo Borromeo, to the tiniest coin or gem
on which his design can be executed. For material
he has clay, wax, wood, marble, stone, ivory, and
metal, and their imitations and substitutes. Here
we come on the great mechanical peculiarity of the




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.         341
art. Only through the means of a perfectly ductile
material (such as clay or wax) is it possible for the
sculptor to produce his most perfect forms at their
first creation. But these materials, which alone meet
the necessity of creation, are generally unfitted to be
permanently preserved. It is needful, therefore, to
copy the image into the durable material, in which
it is finally to be kept, and wherein its beauty can
be thoroughly displayed. The relation, then, of the
original model to the finished statue is unique
among the arts. It is the work of Art itself-the
sculptor's direct derivation from nature brought to
the highest perfection within his power. Yet it is not
this which the world beholds, but its copy, which the
sculptor may either execute himself, or may, if he so
please, confide to any one capable of thoroughly reproducing his model (if any such can be found).
The sculptor has done his task when he has realized
in form the beauty he designed. It may or may not
be desirable for him to be himself the marble-cutter,
and finish the completed statue with his own hands;
but if he do so, it will only make him the reproducer
and copyist of his own work-the marble will be the
replica by the master of the original model. Between
the architect who merely designs his edifice on
paper, and never touches stone or slate, and the
painter, who actually does his work with his own
brush, the sculptor thus holds a half-way position.
He shares accordingly with the architect, the poet,
and the musician the advantage that his work may




342                  STUDIES.
be indefinitely multiplied without his interference.
He shares with the painter, at his option, the actual
manipulation of his work.
Sculpture is truly creative and original when it
is directly derived from the beauty revealed through
Nature. It may belong to either of the two classes
-that of individual Portraiture, which professedly
aims to represent only a single real personage whose
lineaments are known to us,-or to that of Ideal arty
which aims to represent either a purely imaginary
being, or one whose actual features are unknown.
But the lines between these two classes of sculpture
are less far apart than is commonly conceived;
for there can be no gooi portrait which does not
partake of the ideal, nor any good ideal which has
not been faithfully derived in its parts from Nature.
The difference lies in this, that the portrait statue
should assemble the traits of the individual it represents in all his higher moods and sentiments, so that
it should serve as a likeness for him, not at one
special place or time, but everywhere and at all
times, and even (if we may speculate so far) bear a
resemblance to whatever form we can conceive his
spirit to wear in any future state of existence. The
ideal statue, on the other hand, should assemble the
traits, not of one person, but of many persons, in
whom the special character desired to be represented
should be peculiarly developed.*
* The selection of the most beautiful parts, and their harmonious union in one figure, produced ideal beauty, which is




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.              343
Even in the case of animal sculpture a certain
idealization is required-a selection of the finest
possible forms for each feature and limb. The
sculptor's duty is to see with illumined eyes the
beauty scattered it may be through many forms; or,
as in the case of the portrait statue, revealed in
gleams by one form, and then to collect all such
scattered rays into one focus. Be it noticed also that
in admitting the class of Portrait Statues to rank
as works of Art, it can only be under the restriction
that they should be portraits of persons, beautiful
either in form or expression. The one sole object
of pure Art being to create beauty, the admission of
any such aim as the recording of the features of an
indiviaual for the sake of affection or curiosity, can by
no means be recognized as contributing to a work
of Art.
As to the strict originality of a work of sculpture, it is clear that it must lie determined, as above
stated, strictly by the fact of the sculptor having
personally studied from Nature, and not by the fact
of any other sculptor having, or not having, studied
therefore no metaphysical abstraction; so that the ideal is not
found in every part of the human figure taken separately, but can
be ascribed to it only as a whole; for beauties as great as any of
those which art has ever produced can be found singly in Nature
-but in the entire figure Nature must yield to Art.... By
the Ideal is to be understood merely the highest possible beauty
of the whole figure, which can hardly exist in Nature in the
same high degree in which it appears in some statues.-Winckelmann's Hist. Ancient Art, chap. ii.




344                 STUDIES.
from the same Nature before him. No man's work
ceases to be original because he beholds in Nature
the same beauty which another beheld previously,
or because his insight leads him to find the supreme
excellence of that same particular natural beauty also
discovered to be best by past artists. Nothing, for
instance, can be more idle and ignorant than to reproach a modern sculptor with being merely an imitator of the Greeks, if at the same time it can be
shown that he only draws his inspiration from the
same ever fresh natural beauty which their consummate taste made them discover twenty ages ago to
be the highest of all. On the other hand, if a modern
sculptor, instead of seeking inspiration from Nature,
merely tries to obtain it at second-hand, either from
the Greeks or any other artists, he ceases to be a
creator, and becomes an imitator. The reproach
against him is justified.
The value of a work of sculpture will be de.
termined, first, by the inherent beauty of its subject,-in which consists the Poetry of the work;
secirliy; by the perfection with which such beauty
is rendered,-in which consist the Science and Skill
of the work. The best of all statues would be one
representing the highest beauty, with absolute accuracy as to anatomy, and absolute perfection as to
manipulation.
Secondary or Reproductive Sculpture is the
nearest allied to its primary of all secondary arts.
The original sculptor himself is commonly for half




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.        345
his time only a reproducer in marble of his own designs: and if he delegate that office to another who
shall finish for him the rough outline left by the
stone-cutters on the block into a perfect copy of the
model, that other must be, so far as science or skill
is concerned, in some degree a sculptor too. Even
for the poetry of his original he must have much
taste to execute his work to perfection. The difficulty of achieving such a task well is proved by the
facility with which real art-critics distinguish ancient copies of sculpture from originals-even when
the originals no longer exist for comparison. The
disproportion between the perfection of the design
and the incompleteness of the performance, with
the failures of details, at once demonstrates that
the copyist was unequal to the undertaking of really
producing the original.  Gem engraving, cameo
cutting, the making of coins and medals from the
designs of sculptors, are all forms of secondary or
reproductive sculpture of various artistic value.
Of all of them the merits must be determined,First, by the beauty of the original work which they
copy; secondly, bythe perfection with which they
reproduce its beauty; thirdly, by the degree in
which the reproduction differs from a mere copy,
and aspires to translate the original into a new
language of art.
Tertiary or Receptive Art is more rare in sculpture than in any other art; especially is it so in
England. Instead of judging statues by their re



346                 STUDIES.
semblance to beautiful human forms, we guess at
what human forms may be from the few statues
within our observation. And this ignorance (inevitable in our climate and with our civilization) by no
means stops short at the anatomical merits of sculpture. We are equally in the dark as to its Poetry.
At our International Exhibitions it is not a little
deplorable to behold jostling crowds gathered round
some second-rate work, and listen to the enthusiastic remarks they make-on what? On the feeling displayed? the beauty of the face or figure? or
life-like attitude? Nothing of the kind. On the
cleverness with which marble is made to look like a
crape veil, or a piece of lace, or a shower of pumice.
stones, or (in one notable instance) a rush-bottomed
chair! Oh, triumph of the majestic art of Phidias
and Praxiteles and Michael Angelo-a rush-bot.
tomed chair!   We have reached the bathos of
receptive sculpture, and can no further descend.
To see the beauty of the most beautiful statuesto feel all that the sculptor means us to feel, and
then appreciate the technical merits of his workthese are the conditions of true receptiveness in
sculpture. How far we are from a general enjoyment thereof it is needless to tell.
PAINTING is the last great Art-the embodiment
of the Beauty revealed in nature, both through Form
and Colour. The scope of this Art is far wider than
that of either of those we have been last consider.




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.        347
ing, inasmuch as it embraces, first, the Beautiful in
human nature-both the beauty of form and of
colour, and also of an expression ranging through
every sentiment.and passion which can partake of
beauty, and whose representation need not be
limited within such bounds of repose as those imposed by sculpture. Secondly, animal nature,-embracing not only the higher class of beasts, but all
creatures whatever which can be ranked as beautiful. Thirdly, inanimate nature,-embracing every
description of beautiful landscape and sea-scape,
and the buildings or ships which may enliven them;
sky-scenes, interiors, special natural objects, such
as trees, flowers, waterfalls-in a word, every conceivable thing which man may either see or imagine
he sees, and of which Beauty may be predicated.
Nay, even Beauty itself, the one great aim of all
Art, may, in painting, be understood in a larger and
less strict sense than elsewhere, and those humbler
charms which make up the Picturesque may suffice
for its requirements; although the supremest beauty
is not above its reach. Painting may also deal with
far larger groups and more complicated subjects
than sculpture; and, while the preservation of a
certain unity throughout every work of Art must
be a principle applicable to, all, the painter's unity
embraces a wider variety than that of either sculptor or architect.
Of the various materials at the disposal of the
painter, either to produce his thought in the full




$48                STUDIES.
glory of colour, or simply to delineate in drawing,
it is needless to speak. With the exception of
glass-painting, it is usually exclusively with his
own hand that he performs his work from commencement to completion-a speciality he holds
alone among artists.
Painting claims rightly to be original and creative when the painter derives his inspiration directly from Nature in any one of the forms which
we have indicated as within his scope. The beauty
of humanity, physical and moral; the beauty of
animals; the beauty of wood and wave, and sky
and flower-are each and all revelations, which by
truly receiving and faithfully reproducing, he becomes a creator of Art. That which before was
Nature (i.e., the Art of God), he reproduces in Art,
(the Art of man). All that has been said regarding
the ideal in sculpture applies equally to painting.
The painter may either make a portrait'of an individual, or a tree, or a landscape, or a professedly
ideal picture of man or angel, or forest or mountain. In the case of the portrait, he must assemble
all the characteristics of his subject which are fit for
painting from every different glimpse of them he
has obtained. In the case of the ideal work, he
must assemble.from all the sources at his disposal
the features of person or landscape suitable to afford
the most beautiful conception of the figure or place
he designs to create. Falling below this standard,
and making portraits possessing no beauty of form




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.        349
or expression, or ideal works not assembling beautiful or picturesque natural features, the painter falls
below real Art-his work, as Art, is worthless.
Beauty is revealed by the Creator of all things
in so transcendent a manner through the lovely
shapes, and rich and varied hues of nature, that we
are all accustomed to speak of beauty pre-eminently
as thus made known to us, and it is only by a sort
of metaphor that we speak Qf other and invisible
things being also beautiful; as, for instance, thp
tones of music, or the sentiments and actions of a
man. The Greeks thought differently, and to them,
who of all men best knew what beauty was, the
"beautiful " in form and the " noble " in action'and
feeling were one and the same. But, alas! those
human sentiments to which the term can apply are
too often blended with others far from beautiful,
and he who goes to them to satisfy his longing for
beauty must meet many a sore disappointment.
The beauty of form and colour, lesser in character
though they be, are ever to be found by those who
seek them, and in their enjoyment no regret or
bitterness can blend. Thus the painter holds to
Beauty, in the abstract, a relation more constant
than perhaps any other artist; and having the command in his Art of both form and colour, he can
record more phases of nature's charms than any
other, save the poet alone. So familiar is all this,
that when we speak of beauty we at once think of
form and colour, unless some other kind of beauty




350                 STUDIES.
is specially designated; and when we think of Art,
we think simply of painting, unless architecture, or
music, or sculpture be also named. Both from this
cause, and because painting is, next to music, the
most common of the Arts, we are accustomed to
call a Painter, an Artist, par eminence.
The value of original works of painting must be
determined, first, by the beauty of the subjectbeauty either of expression, form, colour, or light
and shade. Secondly, by the fidelity of the representation of such beauty. Infinite modifications of
merit, it will be seen, must exist, according to the
degrees in which each kind of beauty exists in the
subject, and is more or less scientifically and skilfully rendered in the painting.
Secondary or Reproductive Art in painting has
various branches. Engraving on steel, wood, or
copper; lithographing and copying, either in the
same style and material as the original, and the
same process, or in other materials, and by a different process (as when an oil painting is translated
into a water colour or pencil drawing, or vice versa).
The merits of this order of Art of course must be
determined, like those of the corresponding orders
of other Arts, first by the excellence of the original;
secondly by the perfection with which it is reproduced.
The remarks on bad art made in discussing musical performance, apply with much diminished force
to drawing and painting. Bad musical performance




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.         351
does no good to the performer, and is an offence and
interruption, not to say a source of pain and irritation, to those who hear it. It has only the excuse
of innocent uselessness in the rare cases wherein it
can be practised out of hearing of any sensitive ear.
But secondary Painting, even when it must be admitted to be indifferent art, when the painter has
neither gifts nor culture to make it better, is at
least innoxious to the community-inoffensive so
long as its results are not forced into conspicuousness-and for the individual himself a method of
obtaining correctness of eye and facility of expression useful in a thousand pursuits.
Finally, tertiary or Receptive Art in painting
implies a gift which happily is not among the rare
ones of the human race. The taste for pictures is
among one of the most ancient and most widely diffused of all the attributes of man. No country
offers us remains so ancient as to precede painting,
no savage tribe is so barbarous as to lack pleasure
in the sight of such rudimentary art as is within its
comprehension. True that in the earlier ages and
among half-civilized nations the same curious defect
of the pictorial art may always be traced as among
children. The first attempts at Art, instead of being,
as we might have supposed, always direct copies of
Nature, are, on the contrary, invariably composed
out of the artist's "moral consciousness " of what
men and trees and houses ought to look like in certain positions. Assyrian bas-reliefs, and Egyptian




352                STUDIES.
wall-paintings, and Chinese landscapes all show the
very same propensity which will make any child to
whom we give a pencil and a slate, draw rivers with
fish half as wide as the stream; profiles of men displaying the full breadth of their chests; kings twice
as tall as their subjects; and houses, gardens, and
people all dancing in the air in a perspective excelling
all that Hogarth could invent for absurdity. How
is this universal habit to be accounted for? Surely
only on the grounds that it is the impression made
on us, and not the thing which makes it, which (like
the musician) the painter first strives to represent;
only learning by long practice to go to Nature herself
for his model, and so, at last, to make on another the
same impression she has made on him.
The amount of pleasure is incalculable which is
given by the very humblest forms of the pictorial
art to thousands of human beings who else would
never know esthetic gratification at all. To the inhabitant of the wretched mud cabin in the bogs, the
rude coloured prints he fastens over his bed of straw;
to the child, the gaudy pictures of his first storybook; to the pauper in the sick-ward of the workhouse, the woodcut which breaks the blank wall, at
which he has stared so long, with some image from
the outer world of love and hope; to all of these,
and many thousands more, prints of the poorest sort
are sources of some of the best pleasures they experience. Each mechanical discovery which allows
pictures to be multiplied and made accessible to the




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.        353
poor should be reckoned a definite gain to the human
race of so much innocent enjoyment.
It is of course, however, in those who possess the
strongest aesthetic taste, and have been able to give
it the best cultivation, that the full measure of the
enjoyment to be derived from painting is to be
found. Among such persons the Receptive power
must be determined, first, by the character of the
beauty of the work they appreciate; secondly, by
the science and skill of the painter which they can
discriminate,-in other words, by their faculty for
judging the Poetry of art, and their culture in measuring its Science and Skill. As usual here, as in
other arts, the latter quality of criticism, i. e., the
criticism of science and skill, usurps alone the rank
of receptive art, regardless of the far loftier criticism
of the poetry thereof. A connoisseur or dilettante
is supposed to be a person who knows a great deal
of the technical merits of pictures, and can readily
name their authors. But in truth a full and deep
comprehension of the meaning of the painter, a
vivid delight in the beauty revealed through his
work, is a part of receptiveness far above all such
technical judgment.
From the beginning of this essay it has been
maintained that receptive Art is not limited to the
appreciation of human works of poetry, music,
architecture, sculpture, and painting, but extends
much further, even to the appreciation of the beauty
from which they are one and all derived, to be
23




354                 STUDIES.
found in Nature itself. He who only holds in the
Hierarchy of Art a place in this third order, cannot
indeed reproduce what he beholds, but he must also,
like the primary and secondary artists, see and appreciate and love that Beauty of Nature. It is he
who can best understand Art who is capable of most
thoroughly admiring Nature. Nay, one of the great
glories of Art is that it leads even the most ordinary
and ungifted mind, through interest in the poem,
the statue, or the picture, up to an interest in the
natural subjects whence their creators drew their
beauty. The same object which was passed by with
inattentive eyes in Nature, reappears in Art invested
with a new interest, by having been cast afresh in
the crucible of the artist's mind, and henceforth attracts the admiration it deserves. The original
artist, as the high-priest of Nature, introduces daily
fresh votaries to her temple. Here is the completion of the circle. God reveals that Beauty, which
is a part of His ineffable perfection, through the
beautiful forms and colours and expressions of
Nature. The primary artist beholds it with illumined
eyes, and creates it anew in some great work of
poetry, music, architecture, sculpture, or painting.
Then the secondary artist sees the beauty of that
work, and reproduces it-in dramatic acting, in
reading, in musical performances, in copy of the
building, the statue, or the picture. Lastly, the receiver is struck by the reproductive art-led up by
it to seek out and study and appreciate the original




THE HIERARCHY OF ART.         355
-then led higher still by that original up to Nature
-and, last of all, led "by Nature up to Nature's
God." Art is thus a golden chain of many links let
down from heaven to draw man up to heaven again.
The great Author of Beauty has willed that His
children should share'His own joy therein. No
mere adaptation of their senses to the outer world
has He provided for them in His goodness, but a
true filial sympathy in works, whose beauty they
know is spread no less richly where their eyes may
never behold it, even to the depths of the ocean.
All true Art is religious Art; it is religious in
proportion as it is true, and as it more perfectly reproduces the beauty revealed by God through
Nature. To ask that it shall specially occupy itself
by direct reproduction of subjects suggested by the
historical forms of religion, and to count it merely
secular and profane when it passes such subjects by,
and only reveals Nature in man, or Nature in a tree
or a mountain, is to mistake entirely the high office
of Art. It is by revealing BEAUTY that Art fulfils
its purpose. Nothing more and nothing less is to be
desired of it. Science may reveal Truth, and morality Goodness; but to Art alone it pertains to
bring to human hearts the sense of that Beauty
which is also divine. If it succeed in this aim it is
religious in a higher sense than if it presented to us
the loftiest subjects in the range of theology.
23 *








DECEMNOVENARIANISM.
Reprinted from Fraser's Magazine, April, 1864.








AT the close of his sixty-third year, the Spirit
of the Age has received the rite of baptism at the
hands of a certain distinguished philosopher, whose
connection with other " spirits," more or less apocryphal, renders the function peculiarly appropriate.
We have all heard much concerning this "Decemnovenarianism" for a long time before he received
his formidable cognomen. For good and evil he
has been a byword. While by one party a mere
reference to his numerals Anno Domini was supposed
sufficient to convict all ignorance and superstition of
utter anachronism and imposture; by another party
a keen sarcasm was understood to be conveyed
against the world at large by the hint that it has
the bad taste to exist in a century so low in the
chronologic scale, instead of in the artistic cinquecento, or those yet nobler "Ages of Faith," profanely termed the "Dark."  Perhaps it may not be
unprofitable to afford brief study to the question,
What is this Spirit of the Nineteenth Century?
How does it differ from that of other times? and is
it on the whole worthy of either the laudation or
disparagement with which it is commonly treated?
On the face of the matter appears a fact, which




360                STUDIES.
yet is often curiously overlooked both by eulogists
and depreciators. The Spirit of the Age is not
singular, but dual. We have had two generations
since the century began. There is Nineteenth Century Pere and Nineteenth Century Fils; and they
are as different from one another in principles,
opinions, manners, and costume as fathers and sons
usually contrive to be. Praise or blame addressed
vaguely to both, must usually be unjust to one or
the other. Let us try to draw the portraits of these
two characters, so as to mark such differences as
clearly as we may.
Men and women who enjoyed their youthful
prime in the first quarter of this century, must have
been as little imbued with what we commonly think
the Spirit of our Age, as any generation in history.
With the few exceptions of men, like Shelley, who
held ultra free opinions, and were socially outlawed
for holding them, the time was to the last degree
conservative.  The retreating wave of the great
French Revolution carried men's minds back further
than they had gone for long years towards Absolutism in politics and Traditionalism in religion.
The connection between Liberty and the Guillotine,
Free-thinking and a Reign of Terror presided over
by a Goddess of Reason, was fresh in all men's
minds. The equally intimate relation previously
existing between Despotism and the Bastile, Orthodoxy and Autos-da-fe, was sufficiently distant to be
forgotten. The Whig and Liberal of those days




DECEMNOVENARIANISM.         361
was more conservative than the Tory of our own;
and the Tory was a being of whom no living specimen remains, any more than of the Elephas Primigenius. His footsteps may be tracked in a few old
sand-coloured books, and his teeth lie embedded in
the lower strata of Blackwood and the Quarterly.
Nearly all which constitutes the most living life of
our time was then unknown. Scientific theories
and discoveries, and philanthropic schemes, occupied
no space compared to the theatre and the cardtable. Social Science, proper, was then unborn.
The principle of association, with all its machinery
(so familiar to us) of committees, patrons, secretaries, subscribers, meetings, and reports, was as
little known as the omnibus which each society resembles in purpose and noise, and which is as common as such societies now. There existed then the
"Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in
Foreign Parts," and the "Society for the Discountenancing of Vice and the Promotion of the Christian Religion and Virtue."  Who does not feel the
verbosity of these titles proof enough that they
belonged to the age when there was ample space in
the world for their swelling skirts to expand, and
time enough on men's hands to repeat six words
where two would suffice? It is needless to point
out the familiar changes wrought by Telegraphs,
Steam, Chloroform, the Penny Post, and Photo-:
graphy, which if we could deduct from our present
modes of existence, they would collapse like Nadar's




362                STUDIES.
balloon. These outward differences typified the in.
ward, between our fathers' lives and ours. They
were emphatically slow lives, in the cant sense, and
in all senses. People had Leisure in those days.
That constant sense of being driven-not precisely
like "dumb " cattle, but cattle who must read,
write, and talk more in twenty-four hours than
twenty-four hours will permit, can never have been
known to them, nor the curious sort of an ache,
somewhere between head, chest, and stomach, which
comes of such driving. People read Richardson
still in country parts, and Scott was the nearest
approach to "sensation"'known. They dined at
four o'clock so as to secure the loss of the best part
of every day, even if they were not too muddled
afterwards to attend to anything.  Cards were
played by grave ecclesiastics, and ladies of eminent
virtue and "parts," at ten in the forenoon, if the
day chanced to be rainy, and from six till midnight,
whether it rained or shone. Drives were taken
with four or even six horses, not for the purpose of
going the faster, but rather for that of slow dignity.
They danced minuets still in 1810: in fact life was
a minuet, only now and then breaking out into some
gavotte of masquerade or rout, or wild gambling
wherein human nature avenged itself. Was all this
dull to them as it seems to us? Was it really dull
at all? Were those old Tories and card-players so
far behind us intellectually and morally? Some
doubts may be entertained on the subject.




DECEMNOVENARINISM.           363
In the first place, life among all classes in the
last generation seems to have been much less a
struggle than it is with us. Perhaps in the highest
sense it lacked something of aspiration, something
of the longing which pervades all nobler hearts now,
to do some one thing, however small, towards
hastening God's kingdom in the world, and striking
one blow, however weak, in the battle for the Right
and the True. But on the other hand it was freer
far from low social ambitions and petty vanities.
As the classes were more marked, and there was
very little possibility of rising from one into the
other, so there was only rarely an effort to do so,
and all the ugly and pitiful toils and disappointments, and equally pitiful successes of what we denominate l'art de parvenir were saved to society.
The genus Snob was either then less numerous, or
like the Serpent before the Fall, had not taken to
eating dirt, and being conscious of his own meanness; adding the pretence of not caring for rank to
the folly of caring for it intensely. Just as now-adays every Englishman honours his Queen, and is
not ashamed to confess it; so in those times nearly
every man honoured those who in the quaint old
phrase of his catechism were his "betters," and
made no concealment of the matter. If there were
less struggles to rise into higher grades of society,
and less attempts to keep up the fictitious appearances, which always accompany such struggles, it is
clear that the greatest taint and misery of modern




364                STUDIES.
life must have been absent. Only to imagine what
it would be to banish all that comes of these base
efforts out of the present world is to see another
order of things. Real poverty, short of absolute
want, has no pain to be compared with the gnawings of these pitiful ambitions and the sacrifices
which are made for them, which no sense of duty or
honour alleviates or recompenses.
The principle which most largely actuated men
in the last generation in these matters, seems to
have been precisely the reverse of'art de parvenir.
It was the Art of Standing Still. Noblesse oblige
meant that a man's actions, habits, modes of life,
should be consistent with his birth; i. e., with a certain fact. The modern principle is that they should
be consistent with the station which he would like
to be supposed to hold; i. e., with something untrue. Even if the old notion had in it some absurdity, if it compelled its adherents to such imprudences as that of the Duke of Ormond giving away
his last ~40 in the world in vails to the household
of the friend he had visited-it had in it something
genuinely respectable. The new notion has no one
element of good sentiment to redeem it from utter
contemptibility. A man undergoing many privations for the old principles, could respect himself
and be happy and at peace, since no discovery could
involve him in disgrace. A man toiling and scheming on the new principle, must needs despise himself and live in constant fear of every chance dis



DECEMNOVENARIANISM.         365
closure which may throw down his hardly-erected
edifice of respectability like a house of cards.
The gentleman and lady of the last generation
not only led lives essentially different from oursthey stood themselves in widely different moral an4
mental positions. The ethics of 1800-1820, and of
] 840-1860, are opposed in their very sources,^so are
the theologies, so are the politics, so are the asthetics. Very briefly can we point out these contrasts.
The Morals of the last generation were all embued with the spirit of Paley, if not absolutely
founded on his miserable Moral Philosophy. Locke's
metaphysics were still dominant in England, though
Kant had revolutionized Germany. It was generally accepted that we knew right and wrong only
because an outward Revelation had commanded the
one and forbidden the other; or else (as Bentham
taught the more advanced minds) that a "lot of
pleasures" could only be judged to be good or evil
by their results on the " greatest happiness of the
greatest number."  There was "no higher law"
heard of, nor was there any theoretic admission of a
purely unselfish motive. It was considered quite a
liberal and enlightened thing to say, "It is not
the Fear of Hell, but the Hope of Heaven, which
ought to guide us." Virtue was, in Paley's phrase,
"doing good for the sake of eternal reward in
heaven."  Of course, human hearts were not really
cramped to such pitiful systems. The same clergyman whom the writer has heard teaching a class of




366                STUDIES.
scholars that it was wrong to commit murder, because the Sixth Commandment forbids homicide,
and scoffing at the suggestion that Conscience gave
the law of the case;-that clergyman acted probably
with as direct and simple adherence to his, own conscience on all moral questions, as any of those who
" count reason ripe by resting on the law within."
The same noble old soldier who said he acted always
from Hope of Heaven, probably never once in his
whole life thought whether he was increasing his
chances of going thither by being just, generous,
and brave. False theories assimilate with difficulty
in healthy human organizations, and, as the teetotallers say of alcohol, only run about the bloodvessels, and disorder the brains now and then,
without ever becoming a part of the individual's
own flesh and blood. Still these bad ethics were
bad things, and tended to lower the tone of sentiment. Selfish principles did not shock the ear as
they do now, for they were heard every Sunday,
attached to all holiest sentiments and duties. God
himself was said to have made man " for His own
glory;" and man was to love Him (as Waterland
said) because He is "more able to make us happy
than all beside."*  Small marvel was it then that
those who could use such a word as "love " in such
a sense misapplied it equally in human relationships.
Marriage was a thing understood to be properly
* Waterland's Sermon on the Nature and Kinds of Self-Love.




DECEMNOVENARIANISM.         367
contracted, if the man or woman had the means of
bestowing some benefits; and statecraft, war, philanthropy, science, and art might surely be pursued
by-any man, avowedly for his own Fame, when it
was taught that the creation of heaven and earth
had had no other aim, even with Him whose "glory"
could receive no increase from the hallelujahs of
the universe.
There seems to have been a sharper line drawn
in those days, also, than we now admit between the
higher and lower kinds of virtue. The Wesleyans
among the lower classes, and the friends of Lady
Huntingdon and the' Clapham Sect" among the
higher, were separated off from the " world " by the
renunciation of social pleasures, by sobriety of dress
in ai age of splendour, and by a general profession
of far stricter principles than were expected to regulate the behaviour of others. " Merely moral " men
and women might then do a good many things, and
neglect a great many duties, which in our day would
hardly leave them the character of "moral " at all.
Gentlemen might gamble a little, and drink a good
deal; and ladies might send their children away to
be nursed (visiting them once a month or so for the
first two years), and play cards all day and every
night; and yet obtain universal respect. In our
day religious people are not so strict, and people
with no profession of religion by no means so lax,
as in the last generation.
Then as to Theology. Broad ideas had not




368                STUDIES.
yet been broached, beyond the very small circle of
Coleridge. A man must be either a "Christian"
or an " Infidel." If he were a Christian and a Protestant he must hold all the doctrines of Wilberforce
and Hannah More; if he were not a Christian, in this
sense, then,-whether, like Priestley and Belsham,
he called himself so or not, was of no consequence,he was in the same boat with Tom Paine and Robespierre, and that boat had but one mooring. The
sensational school of metaphysics, leading men to
hold that only through the medium of the senses
can any truth be known to man, necessarily threw
the entire weight of spiritual reliance upon external
revelation, and of this revelation itself on the tangible book in which it was recorded. The " Literal
and Verbal" school of Scripturalists owes its existence in direct logical descent from Locke, albeit his
individual creed was of the widest, and rested
" miracle on doctrine, not doctrine on miracle." It
was natural for men who felt convinced that al
ground of faith was taken from us by a single
doubt, to treat with impatience all attempts to hold
fast one doctrine and let go another, and bring
reason to " sit in judgment," where (on their hypothesis) she could have no jurisdiction whatever. To
be offended with the cut-and-dried theology to be
found in those dreary gray and brown paper-covered
books, with rough edges, which appeared between
1800 and 1830, is only to show we have not nimble
imagination enough to climb down out of our pre



DECEMNOVENARIANISM.         369
sent position to the shelf where they inevitably had
their place.
Then for Politics. That was the age of real
Toryism, or rather of Conservatism, though the word
was then unknown. It may be doubted whether in
any previous period of English history men had
been so fond of standing still.  There had, of
course, always existed the old glorification of the
past at the expense of the present. Our charming
song of the "Fine old English Gentleman" is a
modernized paraphrase of one popular in the days
of James I., which compared disadvantageously
those very "reverend seigniors" in doublet and
trunk-hosen with their nobler predecessors of Queen
Elizabeth's court. Doubtless, could we go backward up the stream, we should find each generation
lauding the one before it, till Arthur and his chivalry should outshine all subsequent kings and
heroes, and perform feats like Ajax lifting the stone,
Which scarce ten men could raise;
Such men as live in these degenerate days.
After the "degenerate days" of Homer we may
console ourselves, perhaps, and take courage.
But though each age has boasted of the past, it
is not very clear that Englishmen ever very seriously wished to go back, or even to stand still, as
regarded political rights, till the terrors of the
French Revolution drove them into a phrensy of
Conservative feeling. Old Tories wanted to bring
back the Stuarts, old Royalists would have held
24




370                STUDIES.
Charles on the throne, partisans of Tudors and
Plantagenets, of Normans and Saxons, fought for
their respective dynasties. But a thoroughly Conservative policy, on the principle, " things are good
as they are-the English Constitution is perfect, and
unsusceptible of improvement," was surely never
adopted by any considerable party hitherto. The
first quarter of the Nineteenth Century (this Century of Progress!) was the precise period of the
whole national history, when men said, "Let us
stand still."
If it be a fair division of society which has been
sometimes made between the Have-Somethings and
the Have-Nothings, then might it be said that this
Conservative sentiment was essentially a sentiment
of the pocket. The ethics which, as we have seen, allowed a man to place his own Happiness as his " being's end and aim," allowed him also fairly to place the
happiness and well-being of his class before that of
all other classes. The landowner held by the Cornlaws, and by every other law which suited his own
interest and kept the power in his own hands; and
what was more, he acknowledged he did so, and
nobody said him nay. Arguments arose as to how
members of Parliament, engaged for special interests, were returned; but, perhaps, we have yet to
wait for the condemnation which ought to follow
the attempt to return them for any special interest
(as opposed to that of the whole body politic) whatsoever.




DECEMEOVENARIANISM.         371
The Whig of 1820 was a bold, brave man. His
desire of progress was about the same as that of the
Tory of 1860. Festina lente was the motto of both;
but the old Whig proposed to move, if it were but a
few inches, and that little movement has gone on
accelerating, till it has carried Tory, Whig, and
Radical away in the flood. Of course, like the religious reformer, he was confounded with the extremest section of his party. To propose to enlarge
the franchise by a pound-holding, and to desire to
cut off the heads of all kings, were one and the same.
We recollecthearing in a country-town of a -meeting
wherein some notable having proposed the King's
health, turned round courteously to a Whig gentleman of the utmost loyalty, and gravely apologized:
" No offence to you, I hope, Mr E —!" Anybody
who wanted change was a malcontent and a rebel,
and anybody who had religious doubts was an infidel. It was all clear-sailing. We must draw a
line somewhere.
Again, the AEsthetics of the past generation
were singularly different from our own. Classicism
appeared in a certain thin and ghostly shape in the
Style de l'Empire. All that made it beautiful of old
was gone-the originality, the breadth, the freedom,
the suitabilities of race and climate. There only
remained a certain puny imitation which, if Pericles
or Horace could have arisen and beheld, would have
driven them to hide their heads again under the
waters of Styx. Furniture was "classical" which
24 *




372                STUDIES.
had legs carved, and draperies hung as falsely and
as poorly as could be conceived. Houses were
" Grecian " which had a door in the middle, a window on each side, and three windows overhead.
Colours were "in good taste" which were either
fawn, or gray, or that peculiar blue made by mixing
black and white paint. Ladies had a "Grecian
bend " when they rounded their shoulders and poked
their heads.  Dresses were classical which had
waists under the arms and such scanty skirts as (in
a case known to us traditionally) compelled the
wearer to go out of the room and take it off before
she could sit down. That was the aesthetic taste of
1810. Refinement meant poorness, thinness-or, as
ladies' maids say, "skimpiness "-of dress and
habits of life. Tremaine was a refined book. Byron
was a "most refined creature" when he went to
dine with Rogers, and refused to eat anything but
potatoes and vinegar, and then stole off to a tavern,
and devoured a good plain dinner in private. We
ourselves remember having contemplated, as a child,
with awe and admiration, three young ladies who
visited the paternal abode, and never ate anything,
except perhaps the wing of a chicken, or a spoonful
of jelly, and a little wine and water. One day some
naughty schoolboys having laid a trap for these
ethereal beings, caught them all three surreptitiously in the luncheon-room-one was eating cheese,
another carving a round of beef, and the third (alas!
"the youngest and fairest she "), to save time, had




DECEMNOVENARIANISM.         3 73
applied a huge silver tankard of beer straight to her
delicate lips I
This last period of bad taste, however, is later
than can be fairly laid to the door of the generation
of which we have been speaking hitherto-the gen.
eration which was at its zenith in the first twenty
years of the century. The ladies and gentlemen of
that time were too truly such to descend often to
such affectations; they were proud rather than
either vain or conceited. Their manners were a
second nature, and no assumed piece of acting. Let
us try to recall what those manners-now passing
rapidly out of the world-actually were.
Our private illusions on the subject of clothes
were once dispelled somewhat unkindly by a charmingly-attired damsel, who remarked to us, " My dear,
it is not a question whether you dress ill or wellyou don't dress at all! " In like manner the present
generation would not, in the eyes of the last, have
good manners or bad, but simply no manners whatever. Manners were things half natural, half acquired by people who united good birth and good
breeding; like setter dogs, who must come of a
proper race, and then receive careful training. You
could not teach a mastiff to set, neither would the
best red spaniel pup do the business well without
thorough instruction, whatever good dispositions it
might show. Nature and art must combine, alike
to mark the partridge or to enter a drawing-room.
But the art acquired in childhood grew to the pos



874                 STUDIES.
sessor; the dignified and easy walk, the noble carriage of the head, the modulated voice, the unfailing
courtesy to all, the easy tact of ever ready and appropriate conversation, were as much a part of the
man himself, and at little an effort as to speak his own
language. Here was perhaps the greatest distinction between him and ourselves. Our manners are
either bad, or spontaneously good, or else affected
and artificial. His were never bad; and were neither
exactly spontaneous, nor yet artificial, but educated,
and (precisely speaking) polished.  The natural
substance, whatever it might be, had received the
highest possible finish. There was no veneering
which might rub off, or start with a little unwonted
heat. It was the wood itself brought to lustrous
perfection.
The difference between our fathers' manners and
ours was visible in every detail; but the essential
distinction seems to have lain in the art of conversation, as practised in their time and our own. If
the reader has known the happiness of associating
intimately with any man or woman who brought the
old system into our age, he can surely never cease
to regret that that exquisite tact and suavity is vanishing from society. How really delicious a thing
it was! How —when its atmosphere had once
wrapped us round-we felt ourselves expand in it,
as sea-anemones do in warm'and sheltered caves,
where there is no chance of a breaker ever disturbing the surface! " Nobody is going to say anything




DECEMNOVENARIANISM.          3 75
disagreeable to anybody! Everybody's small feelings and prejudices will be remembered. Kind
things will be sure to be dropped gently, calling for
no reply. The speaker will consider whether what
he has got to say can interest his audience, and will
never pour out his egotism irrespective of their feelings."  It is a vision of Paradise, like Mahomet's
promise to the blessed:-" Ye shall sit on seats opposite one another. All grudges shall be taken
away out of your hearts." And then this delightful
conversation (we talk now-we rarely converse),
with its careful give and take, its courteous drawing
forth of the most modest in the party, its sparkling
anecdotes and friendly discussion, all came to us
through such organs of speech-so soft, so full and
modulated! Where are those voices gone,-those
female voices of the last generation? We hear
sweet singers now; but hardly ever sweet talkers,
sweet laughers: We talk too loud, or else fall into
the atrocity of whispering to our next neighbour, so
that no third person hears us. In the days of good
manners, everybody talked for the whole circle, but
never raised a voice beyond the pitch of sweetness
and good breeding. Our words and sentences come
out gurgling and spluttering like bitter ale when
the cork is drawn; theirs flowed smoothly like rich
wine out of their own fine old silver claret jugs. Is
it not a pity that this art-which is everybody's art,
which fills up all the interstices of life, and is of tenfold more importance to human happiness than all the




376                STUDIES.
painting, music, and sculpture in the world-should
be allowed to sink into oblivion like those of making
Venetian glass, or the Tyrian dye? Shall we teach
children to chatter four languages and never teach
them not to interrupt people who are speaking one
of them? Shall we instruct young ladies to warble
like nightingales, and then leave them to scream
like cockatoos in small assemblies, and sit dumb as
owls in large ones? There are hundreds of well-bred
people now-people whom Nature has dowered with
such natural tact and dignity, that nothing can have
surpassed it. But for the great mass of society,
the want of an education of manners, the dying out
of the old traditional practice, is surely a deplorable
thing. We have got back hoops, and seem on the
way to get back powder. May the kind fates give
us one thing more-the manners of the people who
wore hoops and powder of old, and the memory of
whose suave courtesy comes to us like the odour of
their own marechale, or of a drawing-room full of
Eastern sandal-wood boxes and pot-pourri.
Lastly, there was one point in which we are ac.
customed to think that we have made vast advance
over our fathers, on which it is possible they might
have had something to put in as a plea per contra.
Their practice of duelling was barbarous, was immoral, was the source of great and useless misery.
But in despising it, as we have learned to do,
it may be asked, have we lost nothing of the
keen sense of honour which spurred them (however




DECEMNOVENARIANISM.         377
wrongly) to such measures? That sense of honour
was often exaggerated, often purely conventional;
and the duel, as a means of satisfying it, was always
imperfect, and often absurd. Still, the idea that
life itself was in a moment to be risked by every
gentleman, at the call even of a mistaken sense of
honour, that a man's truth, courage, probity, and
the reputation of every woman of his family, were
things infinitely more valuable than safety, and to
be defended in an instant at the peril of deaththese were ideas that had in them much that was ennobling to the age in which they were current. A
man imbued with them might have a hundred vices,
but he could hardly be wholly base or contemptible.
We have given them up, and we have done rightly;
nor can we suppose that in God's world the maintenance of any high moral quality really demands an
immoral practice.  True honour-that is, selfreverence for the humanity lodged in us, respect for
ourselves, independently of the world's opinioncan live and flourish, thank Heaven! without a pistol
or a rapier. But there is no small danger that in
first putting away from us, and taking on ourselves
to despise as barbarous, the practice which continually gave to such honour visible dominion over life
and limb, we should fall into the error of undervaluing the thing itself. Let the frequenters of
those clubs where the reputations of men are coolly
canvassed, and the names of women bandied about
in most unseemly sort, decide whether the disuse




378                  STUDIES.
of the much-abused duel is a wholly unmixed
benefit.
What is the result of this brief review of the
character of the past generation? Firstly this —
That in modes of life, in religion, in politics, in
aesthetic taste, in manners and social laws, it was
altogether different from ours, and in many respects
strangely contrasted with it. If either their spirit
or ours was " Decemnovenarianism," the other was
something else which ought to be called by a different name. Whether the one was better or worse
than the other, the Twentieth Century must decide.
While we cannot doubt that
Through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened by the process of the
suns,
it will not hurt us to bear in recollection, that with
narrower creeds, and poorer systems of ethics, our
fathers were, perhaps, practically as religious and
as faithful to duty (as they understood it) as any
men are now; that their politics, if selfish, have left
us a better legacy of national security than is enjoyed
by the heirs of any other race in the world; and
that if we may question their taste in dress and
furniture, they would unhesitatingly and utterly
condemn our manners and conversation.
The younger generation of the nineteenth century
-this generation of our own, which we are accustomed only to think of when we talk of the Spirit of
the Age-how shall we draw its distinctive qualities?




DECEMNOVENARIANISM.          379
What are the ideas which permeate it and make it
what it is? Are there in truth such ideas peculiar
to it, or is it any material progress which has produced the apparent change? Is it Steam which has
made "Decemnovenarianism," or { Decemnovenarianism" which has created Steam, and a hundred
other instruments whereby to rule over the world?
Among the most delicate of all Shelley's ethereal
conceptions, is that of a race of beings whose dwelling is in the minds of men,-who say to Prometheus"We breathe and sicken not
The atmosphere of human thoughtBe it dim and dank and grey,
Like a storm-extinguished day,
Traversed o'er by dying gleamsBe it bright as all between
Sunny skies and windless streams;
We make there our airy tent,
Voyaging cloudlike and unpent,
Through the liquid element."
It seems to us as if such beings would find the
" atmosphere of human thought " in our time and
forty years ago altogether different. There is considerably more oxygen in it just now-a tension
often extreme and injurious, and as widely different
from the milder air of the past as a Yorkshire moor
is from a Devonshire combe. The acceleration of
all modes of social and intellectual life must have'had great share in producing this change; but the
keener thought has again invented and applied inventions in a way no previous age ever did or could




380                 STUDIES.
have done.*  It is no part of our work now to go
over those stages of material progress of which
steam, telegraphs, penny posts, chloroform, gas,
photography, Armstrong guns, and the analysis of
the solar spectrum, are the most marvellous, but
perhaps hardly more widely effective than many
others by which our manufactures, agriculture, and
all arts of life have been revolutionized. The volume which should embody the briefest record of
these achievements during their generation would
be a portly tome itself. Our affair is with the ideas,
the mental coinage, current in the Victorian age.
Gold, and silver, and copper, what is it worth? and
what sort of image and superscription does it bear?
The Political ideas of our age would probably,
half a dozen years ago, have been pronounced by
every one eminently democratic. It was a commonly received opinion that the tendency of the times,
all over Europe, was in the direction of republicanism,
and that it was a question of time only when these
tendencies should culminate in overwhelming power.
Individual Dictators, it was thought, might acquire
despotic rule abroad, and our own constitutional
monarchs might long retain a nominal sovereignty
in England, but all aristocratic institutions were
in process of slow and certain dissolution. What
has become of that democratic Spirit of the Age? It
* e. g. Photography, which seems to have been discovered
and used in the last century and then suffered to fall into oblivion
again.




DECEMNOVENARIANISM.         381
would seem that it has certainly received a check.
The failure of Garibaldi and the Mazzinian party in
Italy has done something-the American war much
more. That war, although actually traceable to the
very failure of the Great Republic to be a real Democracy, and to give civil and political rights to all
the inhabitants of its territories, has yet been most
illogically accepted in Europe as evidence of the
failure of Democracy itself.
However this may be, and whatever other causes
have tended to modify popular sentiment, it seems
clear enough that it has been modified. We are not
" on the high road to universal Democracy," as
many averred, a few years ago, we surely were.
The English Royal House and the English House of
Lords will hold their places beyond any date now in
sight. Republics for Greece, or for Italy, are postponed sine die-perhaps till the klephts of Albania
and brigands of Calabria can read newspapers, and
honour Themis and Nemesis, as well as the Panagia
and Madonna! "Brave Swiss," are no longer
quoted by any tourists who have endured their ill
manners and extortions, as models for European
imitation; nor is there a general desire to see England parcelled out into cantons, and represented by
a Congress of Innkeepers. Have we for all this
swung back the pendulum of prejudice to the Toryism of our fathers? Not at all! Liberal politics, if
not democratic ones, are so universal that it may
fairly be questioned if a Conservative party, which




382                STUDIES.
twenty years since would have been recognized as
such, now exists at all. Everybody wants to go on,
and to go on pretty fast. It is only a question of
how the drag is to be applied to the engine. There
is no longer (as there was at the beginning of the,
century) a handful of violent Radicals to a nation of
Tories, nor-as there were a few years ago-two
balanced parties, one in favour of Progress and one
opposed to it. There are none so violent as the old
Reformers, none so pig-headed as the old Conservatives. Parties tend continually to efface themselves,
and ideas once peculiar to the Radicals now permeate all men's minds, and make England every day
more and more a country of Liberals-of Liberals
only.
Singularly parallel to the change in political
feeling is that in religious views in England during
the last few years. New sects do not arise, nor the
old freer ones ostensibly add to their numbers; but
the whole existing thought of the nation is gradually
leavening with free ideas which sooner or later must
tend to efface sects in religion like parties in politics. The process has by no means gone so far in
the one case as in the other. There is still a great
conservative religious party-a party with two-vast
separate aggregations, the High Church and the
Evangelical; but it would seem as if neither of these
stood as high as they did some years ago. They are
formed of men, few of whom hold a prominent place
in the intellectual life of the time, and none of whom




DECEMNOVENARIANISM.         383
hold out the promise of hereafter rising to higher
influence. The younger generation we might almost
compare to the sands pouring down the sides of the
loose hillocks on the shore and swelling the evergrowing mass of Broad opinion below. "Young
England" now is assuredly not Puseyite, still less
is it Calvinist. A small portion of it only belongs
to the Earlier Broad Church of Maurice and Kingsley. The far profounder school, of which the Oxford
Regius Professor of Greek is the head, probably
numbers at this moment more of the rising intellect
of the time-the intellect which shortly must take
the foremost place in politics and literature-than
any other in the land. The literature of the time
bears unmistakeable traces of this crumbling away
of definite traditional belief, this levelling process
going on in the opinions of all the most active and
cultivated minds. Few of the peculiar and distinctive doctrines of the older creeds, whose influence
might be traced in every line of the literature of
earlier ages, seem to have a place in the history, the
science, the fiction, or the higher periodical writings
of our day. A Moslem or Hindu, coming to England and studying our journals and our book-shelves,
would find there a Christian literature, in the sense
only of a wide humanity; of a reverent and somewhat
distant tone in all mention of the Divine Being; and
of a peculiar modern mode of paying a warm, brief
homage to the name of Christ, resemnbling the selfcrossing of a well-feeling Romanist at the sight of a




384                 STUDIES.
crucifix. Of the special doctrines "necessary to
salvation," of Athanasius, of Luther, or of Calvin —
of any recognition of either Church or Bible as a
final court of appeal for metaphysics, morals, history,
or physical science, he would find very little trace.
A book or a periodical which assumes the orthodox
doctrines, and applies them to the facts of life, is
thereby immediately marked as belonging to the
" religious world," and passes out of the sphere of
regular literature. Thus the members of the republic of letters, at all events, must needs be classed
as holding in religion the same position which
thinking men generally at present hold in politics.
They are Liberals, but not extreme Radicals. They
desire Reform, not Revolution; and their tone towards the past is tender, rather than inimical. In
so far then as literature must be held to be the
vane on our spire, we must judge thereby which
way the wind is blowing all around.
There is much of good, and somewhat of evil, in
this religious attitude of our generation. It is good
inasmuch as it is an attitude of reverence. Whatever
Englishmen believe or disbelieve now, there is
hardly a trace of Voltairian shallow and trivial contempt, or of the solemn sneer of that "lord of irony,"
Gibbon; neither are we indifferent to the whole
subject, in the deplorable manner of clever Frenchmen and Italians. Let an Englishman approach ever
so nearly to the dread gulf of atheism, he very seldom denies that he knows it is a gulf,' terrible and




DECEMNOVENARIANISM.         385
dark, and that he would fain turn round and escape
it. The self-conceited satisfaction in verbal quibbles,
whereby the shallower races of the South are content to shut out God and Heaven from human eyes,
are flimsy veils, rent asunder at once in the strong
grasp of the Saxon. Is there, or is there not, a
God? Is there, or is there not, a life to come?
These are questions, he may perhaps admit with
downcast eyes and aching heart, to be for the present beyond his solution; but he will never dismiss
them with a shrug, a quibble, and a smile. Huc
tells us that when a Chinese is asked his religion he
considers it an imperative duty of courtesy to depreciate it, and praise that of his interlocutor:" My
religion is the poor, and mean, and foolish religion
of Lao-Tze. It is not nearly so good a religion as
the high and exalted religion of Fo; but opinions
only vary: Truth is one. We are all brothers."
The difference between these Chinese and intelligent
men in Southern Europe seems to be that they all
equally despise the religions in whose forms they
aquiesce, and each professes a stupid and unmeaning
latitudinarianism. The Chinese alone speaks civilly
of another's faith, while the Frenchman and the
Italian insults both it and his own with absolute
impartiality!
English scepticism in our time is mostly of that
sort of which it may be saidThere lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
25




386                 STUDIES.
It is honest, serious, and arises in most cases from
the sincere interest taken in the subject. Along
with it (in whatever degree it may exist) there lives
a strong and high moral faith; an intense belief in
justice, truth, goodness, purity; higher standards
of virtue, higher conceptions of what life ought to
be made, nay, even a wholly new spirit of tenderness
for any genuine religious feeling in other creeds and
ages-these are symptoms full of largest promise.
Whatever revolution in opinion may be in store,
there can be no reason to fear for its ultimate results
while Scepticism itself assumes such shapes as
these.
On the other hand, there is an evil side to the
religious attitude of the age. It is the disposition
to accept as a finality that condition of hesitation and
uncertainty which, in the nature of things, should
be one of transition. There is an unavowed feeling
current through the higher minds of the age, that a
definite Faith is an unattainable good; that the
larger a man's mind, and the broader his grasp of
the great facts of life, so much the more cloudy
must be his creed, so much the feebler must glim.
mer for him the ray of Light Divine whereby Earth's
pathways are cheered for humbler souls. It is not
merely that men do not now hope to reduce all the
awful mysteries of theology to half a page of formularies. It is not merely that they have ceased to
look for celestial manna of infallible doctrines, rained
down by Book or Church, for mortals to gather up




DECEMNOVENABIANISM.        387
and be fed. They no longer hope to have any
theology at all. They no longer look with filial
confidence to the Father of Spirits for that bread of
life without which our souls must faint and perish.
Here is the real weak point of Faith, properly so called; not the faith in books or churches, but in the
ultimate intuitions of human nature; those intuitions
which tell us that the Creator cannot leave unsatisfied the greatest want of His noblest creature, while
He openeth His hand and fulfilleth the desire of
bird and brute;-those intuitions which tell us that
all which has glorified and hallowed the past, which
has exalted man into the martyr, and purified him
into the saint,-the Religion which has been the
source of everything most beautiful and everything
most holy, cannot be a dream and a mistake.
There is a great error current in our way of
viewing these things just now. Because we have
discovered that we cannot attain infallible truth, we
have leaped to the conclusion that we can dispense
with truth altogether. Because there is no miracu.
lous potable gold in the alchemy of the soul, we imagine we can live without natural food. In youth
we plant our. tree of faith in hot haste, and dig it up
by the roots, and plant again and again equally
fruitlessly; and then we sit down in despair, and
cross our hands and say, " We will plant no more.
Let the ground lie barren." But our duty is to
plant, to plant deeply and firmly, perchance with
much labour and many prayers, and then at last the
25 *




888                 STUDIES.
faith will strike its roots into our hearts and grow
and flourish year by year, warmed by the sun and
watered by the rains of heaven, till the feeble shoot
has become a mighty tree,-different from the
shoot, inasmuch as it is larger and more beautiful,
yet in truth the same, and developed from the same
firm-set root. Then we ourselves may look back on
the day of small things, when a blast of idle words
could have overthrown us, and rejoice that "neither
life, nor death, nor things present, nor things to
come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,"
can separate us from God, or cast our faith uprooted
on the ground.
In Morals, as well as in Politics and Religion, the
present generation is widely divided from the past.
Theoretically it holds different opinions, and, practically, it has established a very different standard
of virtue. The system of Paley and Bentham, modified and ennobled in the hands of John Stuart
Mill, represents even the Happiness-test theory in a
far better light; while, on the other hand, the opposite school of ethics, which sets forth virtue as the
end of creation, and intuition as our moral guide,
has gained ground so far that it may be said to
colour our literature, almost as Paley's doctrines did
those of the last generation. In particular, Divines
of nearly all varieties of theological opinion have
ceased to preach the miserable " Do good that you
may go to heaven " sermons we used to hear, and
sound a nobler note as to the motive of duty, even




DECEMNOVENARIANISM.          389
when their ideas concerning the. origin of our knowledge of it may be ever so confined. Kingsley's
apostrophe in the Saints' Tragedy has struck the
key-note of the newer and grander lesson:Is selfishness-for time a sinStretched out into eternity, celestial prudence?
People interest themselves little in theories of
morals, and contentedly listen to the most degrading
heresies on the subject, while they are ready to call
fire and flame over some infinitely small and obscure
error of theology. Yet among all the ignorance and
indifference on the subject, the progress towards a
higher system insensibly produces beneficial practical results. The nobler principle echoed about,
penetrates men's brains at last, and kindles a generous warmth in their hearts, which the meaner one
was unable to touch. The duties of the rich towards
the poor are assuredly understood in quite a different sense now from what they were formerly, when
careless alms or ostentatious Christmas benefactions
were supposed to fulfil them  sufficiently.  The
whole movement, of which the Social Science Association is the visible type, owes its existence to the
higher sense of responsibility, first to seek out and
discover, and then to remedy the misery of the
pauper and the criminal, the ignorant and the
vicious. For one "Man of Ross," one Hannah
More, or Mrs Fry, of the last age, there are thousands
of philanthropists now devoting themselves to doing
all that in their power may lie, to lift a little of the




390                STUDIES.
weight of the worldts burden from the shoulders of
the weak and the suffering. No sooner is a scheme
of beneficence started than aid flows in from every
quarter from unknown friends. A mere summary
of the work now doing of this sort in England would
fill a volume. Here is surely the " Spirit of the Age,"
in its very noblest development.
In many less obvious ways a change has
taken place in the general manner of regarding
questions of moral importance. Thirty years ago
the man who should have spoken of marriages
contracted for convenience as essentially immoral,
would have been laughed at for his pains. In
the upper classes the notion that such marriages
were fit and right, and that esteem was the
only thing needed to render a worldly alliance in
every way good and proper, was instilled into the
minds of young people as a matter of course. A
young lady who declined "advantageous" proposals
for the simple reason that she disliked the proposer,
was considered to deserve poverty and ridicule for
the rest of her life, unless in the rare case of her
being in a position to command other similarly advantageous alliances.  Even down to the present
time, a few belated writers of fiction make their
heroines do a noble action in marrying some man
they abhor, to obey their fathers or oblige their
mothers. All this miserable folly is going out of
fashion. We are beginning to see that the canon
that " marriage must hallow love " has a converse




DECEMNOVENAREINISM.         391
quite equally sacred, and that " love also must hallow marriage."
It is needless to point out the often-recognized
changes which have occurred in the social morals of
the century. Drunkenness, gambling, blasphemy,
these three giant vices, have been extruded in
uttermost disgrace from the circles where once they
blazed in full effrontery. It is too much to be feared,
however, that dishonesty and all the special sins of
trade have rather gained ground upon us than lost
it during the same period.
As to the AEsthetics of our age, who knows what
they are? Are we Romanticists or Classicists? Is
pre-Raphaelitism an accepted thing?  Ought our
buildings, public and private, to be Gothic, or
Greek, or Italian? or something jumbled of all? or
something wholly new? Should our furniture be
Tudor, or Renaissance, or Louis XIV., or Style de
l'Empire? When we ask these questions, we awake
to the curious fact, that every preceding generation
has had its style more or less marked and predominant, through all the works of the day. But our
generation has no such style. There is no one
thread of thought or taste running through the
multitudinous shapes or colours which our houses
within and without display. If a future painter
wishes to give "An Interior, Temp. Q. Victoria," or
a future novelist describe vividly an English house
in 1864, what can either of them do in the way of
architecture or furniture to give couleur locale to




392                STUDIES.
their sketches? The crinoline remains the sole
original feature of the epoch!
In manners, where are we? We will not
say, like the young midshipman, who was desired
by his father to take notes of the manners and
customs of the nations whom he visited, and who
simply appended to those of the Polynesians
"Manners, none; customs, beastly." We are
not at all "beastly."  Probably real refinement
and delicacy never reached so high a point before,
as among the middle and upper classes of England now. Certainly, we may doubt that cleanliness ever did so. If the conquest of India had
only availed to bring us back so many exquisitely
clean ladies and gentlemen, and to introduce the
supreme institution of the matutinal tub, then would
not the empire of Aurengzebe have fallen in vain!
Still for "manners," alas! for mode of address, for
conversation, for the minor courtesies of life which
make all the difference between jolting down the
road of life in a cart, and rolling over it in a wellswung carriage, it can hardly be denied there is a
grievous falling off from the days of our fathers.
Is this owing to women? A great change has certainly taken place in their position. A woman's lot
is a freer, happier thing by far than it was when
life's lottery offered her but the one prize of a congenial marriage, and all the rest of her chances
were miserable blanks of unhappy wedlock or dreary
maidenhood, pinned up in narrowest circles of con



DECEMNOVENARIANISM.         393
ventionality. Still further may these changes go.
But let us trust that however may hereafter be adjusted many questions opened now, it will never
cease to be women's aim to soften and refine the
manners of their time, and to claim from men that
gentle courtesy which it is equally a pleasure and
an honour to give and to receive. The fear that
they should do otherwise seems about as well
founded as that they should join in a league for the
general massacre of babies,-or anything else equally
congenial to their natures!
To resume. Nineteenth Century Pere was a
fine worthy gentleman in thick white cravat and
blue coat. He had the narrowest political and religious creed, and the worst esthetic taste possible.
But he was brave (as some fifty well-fought battles
by sea and land could testify), pious, and charitable,
according to his lights, and of supreme courtesy of
manners and chivalry of feeling. He left to his son
(notwithstanding his foolish opinions) the English
Constitution,-also a variety of hideous edifices and
public monuments, and a rather greater tendency to
gout than had been enjoyed by mankind before the
Treaty with Portugal.
Nineteenth Century Fils is a young gentleman
in tweed suit and wide-awake, with a cigar permanently growing out of his lips. He has the very
finest aspirations in all directions, but has no particular creed as yet, political, religious, moral, or
aesthetic, and no manners whatever, good, bad, or




394                 STUDIES.
indifferent. It is earnestly hoped by the friends of
this interesting youth that he may leave something
better to Twentieth Century than the heritage he
received from his own respected pregenitors.




HADE S.
Reprinted from Fraser's Magazine, March, 1864.








A SnULLAR test might be applied to the character
of different nations by examining the ideas current
among them concerning a future state, and noting
the precise nature of the paradise they desired, and
of the hell they feared. That "undiscovered country" of whose shores all our boasted science leaves
us as ignorant as the Chaldean patriarch of old, has
yet in all ages offered an irresistible attraction for
the human imagination, and the genius of each successive race has bequeathed to us a picture wherein
unconsciously it has reflected many of its own lights
and shadows. Those varied diglyphs of heaven and
hell preserved for us in history, form a gallery
wherein with great advantage we may study the
thoughts and feelings of the distant or bygone
families of man to whom they originally belonged.
We cannot obtain a better insight into any mind
than by the knowledge of the objects it most earnestly desires or vehemently deprecates. Hope and
Fear, the positive and the negative poles of the soul,
when we have once ascertained them, cannot fail
to teach us at least the bearings of its voyage over
the ocean of life.




398                  STUDIES.
In the present paper we do not hope to discuss
the subject with the learning which its due treatment would demand, and still less intend to raise
any theological debates concerning the veracity of
this or that particular doctrine. Our only ambition
will be to point out some of the obvious deductions
to be made concerning the character of a few of the
greater nations of the world from the ideas commonly
attributed to them concerning a future existence.
Perhaps the subject may be found sufficiently interesting for some one more qualified to deal with it,
to develope it more worthily hereafter. *
The first fact which strikes us in examining the
various ideas which have prevailed of a future life is
the great difference in the degree of interest wherewith the subject has been regarded. In some nations, as among the ancient Egyptians, it actually
appears to have assumed the foreground of thought.
Men and women seem to have lived constantly with
a view to the degree of honour which should be bestowed upon their mummies on earth, and to the
favour with which Osiris might correspondingly treat
their spirits in the interval between death and the
resurrection. The most stupendous of al the enor* Soon after the publication of this Essay a work appeared
fulfilling to the uttermost the author's desire —The Criical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life. By the Rev,. Alger. We
possess in this admirable treatise the complete Testimony of the
Human Race to the sense of Immortality. In the Appendix
Mr Abbot has added references to the entire existing literature
of the subject-a work of marvellous erudition.




BADES.                899
mous piles with which they loaded the valley of the
Nile, the oldest and the grandest of all human works,
was only a sepulchre-the great Pyramid of Ghiza.
On the other hand, among the Israelites, the whole
subject of another life was thrown completely into
the background for ages; and though in possession
of their whole matchless literature, we are left in
doubt whether the noblest minds among them even
believed that there was any future for the human
soul, or " any knowledge, or device, or wisdom in
the grave." The absence, or at the least the coldness of this faith, in a race so deep-hearted, so preeminently religious, has been at all times a phenomenon so difficult of explanation as to suggest even
such strange hypotheses as that of Bishop Warburton; and our surprise is further increased by the
discoveries of late Egyptian archeologists tending to
show how many details of their cultus the Israelites
adopted from their taskmasters, while this one foremost and all-pervading idea they seem to have utterly ignored. Even among nations kindred in race
and in creed, the difference concerning all things
relating to death and immortality have manifestly
been extreme. The Ninevites in all their various
monuments have left us no trace of their ideas concerning the dead, while their neighbours the Babylonians attached that care to the rites of sepulture,
which betokens strong belief in another life. To this
day the indifference, not to say levity, of the Italians
contrasts strangely with the tenderness and senti



400                STUDIES.
ment of the Germans, both Romanist and Protestant,
as displayed in their cemeteries.
As a general rule, we might perhaps affirm, even
in the presence of the striking exceptions above
named, that there exists a relation between the
greatness and civilization of each race and the
strength of its consciousness of an immortal life.
As we descend in the scale among half-civilized and
savage tribes, the belief seems to take less and less
place in their thoughts. We do not indeed reach
(unless in some semi-simious. race like the treedwellers of Ceylon) any creatures in human shape
who are utterly devoid of the belief that death is not
the " end-all" of a man. Short of conditions of degradation equivalent to idiotcy, there is always some
notion of future wants and future employments.
According to Lyell's most interesting statements
concerning the human remains found in the cavern
at St Acheul, even in the earliest dawn of humanity,
when the dwarf and narrow-fronted fathers of the
world lived in strange fraternity with the mammoth
and the cave-bear-in those far-off untold millenniums-even then the dead were buried with the
weapons and the food which the disembodied spirit
might desire-even then it was true that it was
"the creed of the human race that the soul of a man
never dies."
And as we advance onward in history, and turn
from the primeval tribes of the past, and the savage
races still lingering in Polynesian islands or Ameri



HADES,               401
can forests, to the nobler branches of the great
human family, we find continually the faith in immortality becoming clearer and more vivid as we
proceed. No better evidence for the universality of
that consciousness can be found than in the fact that
it was certainly experienced most strongly by the
three nations of antiquity whose respective types of
religion and civilization were most widely distinct,
and possessed the best claims to being indigenous
in their far distant localities. The Brahmins, the
Egyptians, and the Druidical Celts, each believed in
the life to come, —-and the vast literature of the Hindoos, saturated with the idea of future rewards and
punishments; the stupendous monuments of the
Egyptians, recording for all time their hopes of resurrection; and the testimony of their Roman conquerors to. the amazing faith in immortality which
nerved the disciples of the Druids, all remain to prove
the vigourwith which each grasped the common faith.
Yet that the Brahmin took it from the Egyptian, or
the Egyptian from the Druid, who will believe? Even
if we admit the unlikely assumption of a pre-historic
communication having existed between the races,
we shall find nothing to militate against the originality of the faith. Such communications have no
results when the natural consciousness of immortality
is feeble in the race which should receive instruction.
As we have already seen in the case of the Jews, a
people may live four hundred years in bondage to
the most deeply-believing nation, and may adopt
26




402                 STUDIES.
from it all manner of minor opinions and ceremonies,
and yet at the end remain, apparently, exceptions in
the whole human race by the absence of belief in immortality corresponding to their general mental and
religious development.
Among the causes which appear to affect the
vividness of the consciousness of a future existence,
one of the most powerful is the comparative strength
of the converse sentiment, namely, the consciousness
of the present life, with its enjoyments and sorrows.
When this latter consciousness is extremely intense,
it appears, if not to exclude the other, at least to
throw it into the shade. More precisely speaking,
if a man's consciousness of the present life be of that
external and sensuous kind which takes him much
out, of his own self-consciousness, then he will rarely
be inclined to push forward into the unseen future
any strong forecast of his own individuality. If, on
the other hand, his consciousness be of that profounder and more inward sort which leads to intense
self-consciousness, then he will vehemently and imperatively call for an eternal prolongation of his
individuality. In other words, the more the purely
human element of self-consciousness is developed
over and above the animal consciousness of mere
life, pain, or pleasure, in so far will the sense of immortality be developed also. In a large way this
principle is exemplified by the nations of northern
and southern Europe. As a general rule among
Europeans, the northern races are reflective and




HADES.                403
self-conscious, and consequently filled with a grave
and solemn conviction of a future life. The southern races, on the other hand, are outward-bent,
sensuous, and, even when highly intellectual, by no
means given to self-analysis and self-consciousness.
That sad and often morbid and ruinous thing selfanatomy,-that valetudinary habit of the soul which
keeps for ever the finger on the pulse of our own
emotions, till all their spontaneity and simplicity are
destroyed-this is a state utterly unknown to the
Greek or the Italian. Never in our lands would the
old sage have taught (and been reckoned among
the Seven Wise Men of the world for teaching) his
famous lesson, " yv&Or] (ravrov."  The self-examination which Pythagoras enjoined for triple use
every night to his disciples, he would rather have
forbidden to a Teuton or a Celt with the propensity
to exaggerate self-analysis into one of the most fatal
diseases of the soul. The old Greeks were of an
opposite temperament. To them the difficulty must
have been not to forget themselves, but to remember themselves. In their bright, radiant climate,
surrounded by transcendent beauty of nature and
art, with the whole world of philosophy and poetry
yet lying before them like a garden untrodden in the
morning dew, what had they to do with the gloomy
and solemn self-reflections which haunt us under
our cloudy skies and in our pent-up and darkened
libraries? The Greek lived in the open air-the pure,
transparent air of Greece. He sat in splendid mar26 *




404                STUDIES.
ble porticoes, or wandered through the light olivegroves of the Academe. He talked in his noble
tongue, with thoughts as free as the odours which
the breeze wafted from the AEgean waves or the
heather of Hymettus. There was no man to bid him
be silent-no solemn creed to command him to lay
his finger on his lips and bow before the awful Jehovah of the Hebrew. This life was to him intensely
delightful, intensely interesting, and bright, and
joyous. The consequence was that a future existence took in his mind the shape of a shadowy, dim,
and mournful thing. He did not disbelieve it; his
high and splendid intelligence could not lack such
an intuition. But he believed in it as a twilight
realm, not to be compared with this bright worlda land of shadows, if not, as Job thought, "a land
of darkness as darkness itself." This dim conception of Hades naturally resulted in the formation of
myths of Elysium and Tartarus, singularly colourless
as compared with the glowing pictures of future
joys and torments drawn by other races.
Turning from the notice of the degree of faith
in immortality held by different nations, to the
character of that faith itself, we find the Greek representations of the beatitude of the good and the
punishment of the wicked, in the one case that of a
world of very tame delights-in the other one of
rather childish horrors. The Elysium of the future
life seems to have been a place in no way glorified
beyond the actual Elysian Fields visited by every




HADES.                405
tourist to Naples, and offering an expanse of sufficiently fertile plain, with views of the lovely adjacent sea and islands. The souls of the blessed were
supposed to wander for ever in similar plains, amid
amaranths and asphodels; or rather we may believe
that the Greek of Athens actually placed his paradise in the beautiful regions of Magna Grsecia, of
which report had reached his ears from travellers.
Other reports from still more distant lands-perhaps
from the Balearic isles, perhaps from Madeira or the
Canaries-had suggested the idea of the Islands of
the Happy, the Fortunatae Insule of the Romans;
which we shall find again in the-mythology of the
pagan Irish, as Innis-na-Oge, the Isle of Youth;
and again, down to the sixteenth century, the common dream of all the Celtic tribes of Western
Europe, the Holy Isle of St Brandan in the midst
of the Atlantic. It was of these Happy Isles that
Proteus is made to speak in the Odyssey:For there in sooth man's life is easiest:
Nor snow, nor raging storm, nor rain is there,
But ever gently breathing gales of Zephyr
Oceanus sends up to gladden man.
Odyssey, iv. 565.
The penalties of Tartarus, on the other hand,
are almost ridiculous, nor can we doubt that they
owe their invention to the nightmares of the original mythologist, or (as he himself would have
described it) that "Ephialtes was the father of
Hell."  The forty-nine Danaides, hopelessly trying




406                 STUDIES.
to fill their vessel, full of holes; Ixion, for ever
rolling his wheel; Sisyphus, perpetually pushing up
the stone which as perpetually rolls back down the
mountain; and, above all, Tantalus, seeking to
satisfy his hunger with the fruit which for ever
swings beyond his reach, and to quench his thirst
from the stream which shrinks from his lips,-all
these are unmistakable dreams of the incubus sort,
wherein the sufferer struggles, as it seems for ages,
to accomplish some ever-failing aim. In the case
of Tantalus it is impossible not to suppose that
some over-indulgence in goblets of "Samian" or
" Chian" had suggested the penalty of his quenchless and "tantalized" thirst. But these punishments, absurd as they are, seem to have been
limited to the few enormous offenders specified, and
the common herd of mankind, both good and bad,
were condemned to dreary miseries with which their
moral deserts seem to have had no connection.
The fact of their corpses remaining unburied entailed worse penalty than their own crimes; and for
a reason for their sufferings on the banks of the Styx
and for the brutality of Charon we look in vain.
Such as it was, this mythology of Hades evidently
left the nation at large with merely a mournful anticipation of the future life. If they did not all say
with EuripidesBetter, though on the worst of terms, is life,
Than the most glorious death;
it is probable they would all have echoed the la



HADES.                407
mentations he puts into the mouth of Alcestis, that
she should no more "behold the sun," but descend
to the cold regions of eternal shade. There is not,
I believe, a single instance of the poets-even the
nobly moral Sophocles-ascribing to any hero or
heroine such expressions of hope or satisfaction as
would have befitted, according to our ideas, their
acts of patriotism or self-devotion. Antigone herself
has none, although in her he chose to impersonate
the very highest of moral truths and heroic selfdevotions. She, a woman, in a nation wherein
women were almost what they are in Persia and
Turkey now, he made the mouthpiece of that doctrine of the HIGHER LAW, which even to our day has
been denied and scoffed at among people who profess to honour Daniel and the Seven Children, and
the martyrs of the Twelve Persecutions. Antigone
buries her brother's corpse at the penalty of her
life, and then retorts on the tyrant who had forbidden his sepulture, that in disobeying him she
had only followed
The unwritten law Divine,
Immutable, eternal,-not like those of yesterday,
But made ere Time began.
We have here reached regions of truth which
twenty-two centuries have not served to make the
common property of mankind. We are yet debating whether the production of "the greatest
happiness to the greatest number" be not the final
test of all morality-a test which would leave poor




408                 STUDIES.
Antigone's self-sacrifice for the burial of her brother's corpse in the category of what Bentham, in
his Deontology, simply styles "folly."  We are yet
debating whether obedience to a wicked act of Congress, like the Fugitive Slave Law, or to an irreligious military regulation, such as requires homage
to idolatrous emblems, may not be the duty of a
Christian citizen or a Christian soldier-a principle
by which Antigone was a criminal and Creon justified in his tyranny. Nay, more. Since Antigone
had no hopes (or very dim and shadowy ones) of
eternal happiness to be gained for herself in heaven
by her heroism, her act was actually deprived, according to Paley, of all title to virtue-for virtue,
according to him, must be performed "for the sake
of everlasting happiness."  Nay, Waterland, that
great pillar of English orthodoxy, goes further, and
affirms that " to be just or grateful without future
prospects has as much of moral virtue in it as folly
or indiscretion has "-a doctrine fully endorsed by
Robert Hall in his sermon on "Modern Infidelity."
The very circumstance which in fact raised the
Grecian heroine's act to the purest pitch of disinterested martyrdom has thus been held by English
moralists to deprive her of all possibility of merit.
Truly we are tempted sometimes, in the face of such
perversity, to wish that some of the clouds which
hung between the soul of the old Greek and his
Elysium might so far pass before the minds of our
teachers as to enable them to look elsewhere for a




HADES.                409
motive of virtue than to this bait of paradise. To
exchange this worldliness for what Coleridge called
"other-worldliness " will hardly tend to make any
of us as magnanimous as Antigone.
The secondary nature of his hopes of a future
life must undoubtedly have rendered the virtue of
the ancient Greek and Roman peculiarly disinterested; free at all events from one of the motives
which may taint at times the sacrifices of others.
Indeed, when we contemplate some of their actions
-say, for instance, the voluntary martyrdom of
Regulus (if we may assume the veracity of the common history)-it is hardly possible to refrain from
a sense of astonishment at its transcendent ethical
sublimity. To give himself up from free choice to
the most agonizing death rather than break his
promise; and this under the belief that "better,
though on the worst of terms, is life than the most
glorious death," actually attains the climax of all
virtue; the motive the most purely disinterested,
the martyrdom the most complete and tremendous.
Perhaps another result of the dimness and gloom
of the Elysium of the classic nations may be found
in that desire, so common among them, and so exaggerated in our eyes, of perpetual Fame after death.
When the ideas of a personal future existence were
all obscure, it seems as if the innate "fond desire
and longing after immortality " found vent in the
hope of a prolonged reflected life in the memories of
other men. It supplied that element of infinity




410                STUDIES.
after which in such varied ways our souls are ever
craving. The same feeling which makes one man
yearn for immeasurable love, another for knowledge;
another for power unlimited, another for an immortality of beatitude-nay, the feeling which prompts
to the sin (otherwise so unaccountable) of blasphemy
and the use of infinite adjurations and imprecations
-that same feeling of craving after something endless, unbounded, infinite, lay doubtless at the bottom
of the Greek's and the Roman's thirst for eternal
fame. Baulked of its natural vent in the hope of
personal everlasting existence, it turned to this remaining ambition with (as it seems to us) a sickly
and morbid desire. Assuredly no man who believed
that he himself in his own individuality was the inheritor of an immortal life, could have said with
Pliny that " the happiest of all possible anticipations
is the secure expectation of an honourable and un.
dying renown." From our stand-point such a wish
becoming paramount would be evidence of a morbid
moral condition. Whether we stigmatize the thirst
for the admiration of our fellow-men as vanity, or
excuse it as a natural desire for extended sympathy
-in either case we must look on its assumption of
the foreground of our thoughts as a degrading
usurpation. To become indeed any way a motivepower over our actions, the love of approbation must
have assumed unlawful proportions; and to think of
it extended into eternity and become the grand ambition of life, is actually the apotheosis of vanity.




HADES.                 411
We have become so sensible of this that even the
poets, to whom till lately a sort of monopoly was
granted in the matter of acknowledging a desire for
fame, are now as far as other men from admitting
their possession of such a sentiment. With the
somewhat hypocritical modesty of our modern code
of proprieties, we all assume it as a matter of course
that we do not think our own deeds of any kind
worthy of renown, and are exceedingly surprised
and not particularly delighted when it comes home
to us. As to anticipating immortal fame as Pliny,
Cicero, Ovid, and so many others of the ancients
candidly acknowledged they did, we should pillory
directly with our ridicule any man, however great,
good, or gifted, who admitted entertaining such an
idea. But from the stand-point of the ancients the
matter might be viewed in a different light. There
was a side of touching human feeling in this ambition. We can comprehend it when we read the
mournful lament of Theocritus, complaining that the
humblest herbs have more hope than manAh, when the mallow in the croft dies down,
Or the pale parsley, or the crisped anise,
Again they rise-another year they flourish.
But we, the great, the valiant, and the wise,
Once covered over in the hollow earth,
Sleep a long, dreamless, unawakening sleep;
or Horace, noting that all things have a return of
vivid existence, while human life passes away into a
shadow



412                 STUDIES.
The moon renews her horn with growing light;
But when we fade into the depths of night,
Where all the good, the wise, the great are laid,
Our best remains are ashes and a shade.
There is something pathetic in the longing of men
who felt like this to be rememberedby their fellows
and honoured under the sun, while their pale and
fleshless ghosts should wander mournfully by the
shores of Acheron. The appeal to pause and recollect them, so common on their tombs, comes with
natural earnestness from such a state of sentiment.
In looking at the beautiful sepulchral bas-reliefs
now collected in the temple of Theseus, I have
imagined that this appeal was intended to be expressed in each group, where the dying man or
woman so tenderly clasps the hands of the survivors,
looking at them with a mute entreaty for remembrance, which after two thousand years yet speaks
to us from the marble. Assuredly the converse idea
to perpetual memory-that of immediate and absolute oblivion-is one against which every mind
shrinks with abhorrence. Cruelty never reached a
pitch of ingenuity greater than that described by
Procopius and quoted somewhere by Sir Thomas
Browne. It seems Justinian built a strong tower
in a prominent position in Byzantium, and there
incarcerated for life his most detested victims. Once
thrust within the gates they were never more heard
of; whether they died or lived no man knew.
Their wives, children, relations, were compelled to




HEADES.               413
renounce their names, which were also expunged or
effaced from every written memorial. Everything
they had possessed was destroyed. It was death to
utter their names. Truly, when we picture such a
punishment and imagine the feelings with which
loving eyes may have gazed over the glittering
Bosphorus and splendid Golden Horn, over the
gardens and the cypresses, the imperial palaces and
the domes of churches, to that dread Tower of Oblivion frowning over bright Byzantium, we seem to
see a torture more exquisite than that of which
knives or fagots could be the instruments. The
land in which such a tower was built might well be
the land also in which men desired above all things
the perpetual record of their names, the perpetual
affectionate remembrance of their genius or their
patriotism.
Turning from the current popular notions of the
Greeks concerning a future life to those held by the
philosophers, we seem to come on traces that even
here also there was less interest felt in the subject
than amongst us. It has often been remarked how
singularly Socrates seems to have postponed all instructions on the subject to his disciples till the last
hours of his life, after he had discussed with them
such a multitude of topics of minor interest. Unlesg
it be the art of Plato, falsifying the facts for rhetorical purposes, the whole band were uninformed of
their master's views on the matter, and only drew
them out by their questions in the final scene de



414.                   STUDIES.
tailed with such matchless perfection in the Phaidon.*
Among the Roman philosophers also the subject,
though not entirely neglected, does not seem to
have excited the interest it possesses for us. It was
not often disbelieved. Cicero speaks of those " who
had lately begun to assert that the soul also dies
with the body."t And there seems to have been
only the Epicurean school who summed up human
hopes and fears in the solemn lines of LucretiusThe worst which can befall thee-judged aright,
Is a sound slumber and a long good night.
But the discussion of the subject seems hardly
to have borne the stamp of their usual free and fearless inquiry and bold suggestions of hypotheses. It
* May I venture to suggest that the famous argument in this
dialogue (that as we can only think of a dead body and not of a
dead soul, therefore the soul cannot die) has been unjustly treated
too often by modern critics as a mere verbal quibble, and neglected
as a real argument in favour of immortality P According to Kantian
philosophy, a fact of which we cannot even imagine the reversal,
is a necessary truth, and known to us by the transcendental source
of knowledge. We say that grass is green and Rome a great city.
These are contingent truths, which we may imagine changed. But
when we say that a triangle contains two right angles, or that the
superficies of a sphere is equal to four great circles of the sphere,
we announce necessary truths which (once we have apprehended
them) we cannot ever imagine altered by any power whatever. If
the idea of a soul cannot admit the notion of death, then immortality is a necessary truth, and known to us intuitively. Plato
would doubtless have assumed the veracity of such intuitions as
an accepted principle.
t De Amicit. iii.




HADES.                415
was rather a continual attempt to proffer topics of
support and consolation, or rather to prove that
death under any aspect could be no real evil.
Seneca, Epictetus, and Antoninus are full of such
reflections, but not of inquiries into the probable or
possible forms of a future existence. A fact still
more remarkable is that when we descend to Christian times, and find the pious and magnanimous
Torquatus Boethius waiting in his dungeon for the
cord wherewith the cruel Theodoric crushed the
brain which contained the last wisdom of the Roman world-even then we find his Consolations of
Philosophy entirely derived from considerations
foreign to that of an approaching entrance into the
kingdom of heaven. There is no allusion to Christian hopes in the whole book of the martyr-philosopher.
Perhaps no better result of the thoughts of the
ancients concerning death can be found than in the
beautiful words of Marcus Aurelius: "Death is a
cessation of the impression through the senses, and
of the pulling of the strings which move the appetites, and of the discursive movements of the
thoughts, and of the service to the flesh" (vi. 28).
" Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou
livest-while it is in thy power-be good! Man!
thou hast been. a citizen of this great state-the
world.  What difference does it make to thee
whether it has been for five years or for three?




416                STUDIES.
Where is the hardship, if no tyrant or unjust judge
sends thee away from the state, but nature which
brought thee into it? It is the same as if a preetor
who has employed an actor dismisses him from the
stage.'But I have not finished the five acts, but
only three of them.' Thou sayest well, but in life
the three acts are the whole drama; for what shall
be a complete drama is determined by him who was
once the cause of its composition, and now of its
termination. Depart then, satisfied; for He also
who releases thee is satisfied."
In passing from the ideas of the Greeks and
Romans concerning the future life to those of the
Egyptians, we seem to have changed our whole atmosphere of thought. For some reason unknown
to us, the spirit of the Egyptian seems to have been
as grave as that of the Greek was bright and joyous.
All the memorials of his art that have descended to
us bear the same stamp of ponderous solemnity;
and to him it is clear that instead of life being vivid,
and the under-world a dream, this existence on
earth was merely a shadowy passage to the tremendous realities of the judgment-seat of Osiris. The
work of the greatest kings through the whole of
their reigns was the erection of their tombs. From
the wealthy priest and noble down to the mechanic,
whatever luxury could be spared was devoted to the
sepulchre and the coffin. At all feasts, and apparently at all times in the houses, the mummies yet
unburied were present; and for a description of all




HADES.                417
the elaborate processes and ceremonies of embalming and entombing a volume is required.
The privilege of being embalmed in the most
perfect manner was not, however, a mere empty
honour, but exceeding important for the welfare of
the individual. It is, I believe, the opinion of the
best Egyptologers that the object of preserving the
body in its mummied condition was to keep it ready
for the return of the soul after three thousand years
of such purgation or beatitude as Osiris might have
decreed. The doctrine of the " Resurrection of the
flesh" seems to have been either the origin of the
practice of embalming, or perhaps suggested by the
constant sight of the mummies which the tender
care of the survivors had found the means to preserve. In any case it was the great aim of the embalmers to render the corpse inaccessible for an
enormous period of time to the causes of decay.
And well did they perform their marvellous work.
It is not a little affecting to consider that for the
great mass of the mummies now lying in the tombs
of Egypt a period very remarkably tallying with
their three thousand years has actually elapsed.
Their hope and aim has been fulfilled-their corpses
are existing still, after that vast interval wherein lies
the whole cycle of human history. Where may the
souls be now whose hope it was to reassume those
poor, withered, and shrunken bodies? Do they
smile now, in the glorious forms of the radiant denizens of a larger and a grander world, at their once
27




418                STUDIES.
humble ambition? Is it not thus with us all, that
we are for ever desiring and labouring to return to
the dry bones of a withered past, while God, more
merciful than our wishes, bears us on to a nobler
and a holier future?
It is a piteous sight, travelling in Egypt, to see
how the remains of the dead are habitually violated,
and that not so much by barbarous Fellah Arabs
as by educated Europeans. It would seem as if
the respect for a human corpse which an Englishman or a Frenchman, with any shadow of good
feeling, could not be tempted to neglect elsewhere,
is completely annihilated when the dead body in
question happens to be a mummy. Ideas of the
ludicrous seem to replace all other considerations.
The very care which the surviving relations bestowed on the remains of their lost parent, brother,
husband, wife, or child, has exposed them to our
stupid contempt; and after the lapse of thirty centuries we drag them from their beautiful tombs and
tear them in pieces as ruthlessly as if no human
soul had ever dwelt in and hallowed for ever that
tenement of clay. Every one who has visited Egypt
must have seen, as I have done, the most frightful
instances of such desecration. In the sepulchres
crowded round the Sphinx I have entered grave
after grave and found each one had been not only
rifled but wantonly profaned-cere-cloths, bones,
and actual human limbs and flesh lying scattered
about the floors. It was not the Arabs who had




HADES.                419
done this, nor the wild beasts of the desert, the
hyzena I saw climbing the giant steps of the third
pyramid, nor the vulture I found preying on the
carcase of an ass in the ruined Cyclopian temple. It
was the work of polished European gentlemen pursuing their scientific researches.  Truly science
needs to be the noble thing it is to answer to so
many responsibilities as it is made to stand for just
now. Better let it pull dead mummies to pieces,
however, in Egypt, than dissect live horses and dogs
in the schools of Paris.
One idea of the Egyptians concerning a future
state is so remarkably beautiful that we cannot omit
referring to it. Among the various deities who all
(the best Egyptologers seem to agree) were but
personifications of the different attributes of the One
Supreme God-the God whom they supposed to be
the Judge of the Dead was Osiris. Osiris was the
representative, not of the Divine Justice, Power,
or Wisdom-but of the GOODNESS of God.    The
soul then went after death to be judged by Infinite
Goodness; it passed into a realm wherein presided
the very impersonation of Mercy! No marvel was
it that this same Osiris was the deity worshipped
most universally through the land, and that his
images are found by hundreds in the sepulchres of
the dead, and that the favourite amulet of the living
should have been the representations of his all-seeing Eye! With such a doctrine as this prominent
in its theology, we can have little space for suppos27 *




420                 STUDIES.
ing that the religion of ancient Egypt was a mere
gross polytheism and idolatry, even if we had not
the testimony in Iamblichus' book on the Mysteries
to the devout fervour of the higher minds of the
nation. Not many modern treatises contain deeper
words concerning prayer for spiritual benefits than
this book written by the high-priest of Egypt.
The doctrine of Metempsychosis, so prominent
in the Egyptian ideas of a future life, links together
in a singular manner the theologies of very different
nations. The Pythagorean sect in Magna Grsecia
doubtless derived the idea from Egypt; but the
Brahmins, we must needs suppose, held it in coeval
antiquity. The extent to which the latter carried
out the idea of retribution as inflicted in animal
forms, is a curious instance of the childlike minuteness of the Eastern mind. In the Institutes of
Menu at least thirty different creatures are named
in whose bodies malefactors are imprisoned, according to their crimes; the scale descending down to
such particulars as that he who stole perfumes
should be changed into a musk rat.  Having already touched on the subject of transmigration in
another article, I shall here only repeat the observation that our contempt for the doctrine may possibly
be a little excessive, and that foolish and unphilosophical as it must be held in a physiological point of
view, in a moral one it may bear comparison with
many of higher pretension.  It is very absurd and
even ridiculous to think of a human soul being




HADES.                421
changed (as in the bas-relief on the Theban tomb)
into a hog; but the idea was not a low one, that the
punishment for sensual sins in another life was the
loss of that human dignity which we had voluntarily
relinquished in this existence, and that a man who
had chosen to grovel in swinish vices here should
be compelled to wallow in them hereafter, conscious
of his degradation and yet compelled to endure it,
till by shame and repentance he has expiated his
offence, and is fitted once more to assume a human shape. The minds to which such a notion of
punishment could have occurred were assuredly
not far down in the moral scale, however monstrous
and childish we must admit the doctrine to be when
gravely stated as a theory of the future existence.
In countries where the doctrine prevails, animals
are usually treated with some tenderness, and their
lives must be estimated as on the whole sufficiently
happy. Thus the punishment of transmigration involved no threat of physical suffering, only of moral
and intellectual degradation. It is not a very low
people to whom such a threat holds out any salutary
terror. " Tortures vile" appeal to the fears of the
basest; but to dread degradation without suffering,
we must have a good deal of human nobility left
in us.
The Brahmin theology, beside the transmigration of souls, holds out also the punishment of Padalon, the tremendous hell, with its eight gates and
brazen beds of torture, so splendidly described by




422                 STUDIES.
Southey. This seems to be the abode of the Asuras,
or evil spirits, and also (like Tartarus) of the most
extraordinary criminals. It would, alas! however,
we fear, be sufficiently well filled (if we may judge
by the testimony of our Civil Service residents),
supposing the denunciation in the Institutes of
Menu to be carried into effect-" Headlong in utter
darkness shall the impious wretch tumble into hell,
who being interrogated on oath, in a court of justice,
shall answer one question falsely!"
There was a termination, however, eventuallyin the Brahmin system, as in all others of the heathen
world-to the future punishment of the wicked. The
length and degree of debasement, of transmigrations
or tortures, were apportioned to the guilt of the
offenders, but not infinitely prolonged. " When
the vital soul," say the Institutes of Menu, "has
gathered the fruit of sins, and when its taint has
been removed, it approaches again those two most
effulgent essences, the Intellectual Soul and the
Divine Spirit." (12-18).
Mount Meru —the abode of Indra, God of
Heaven-is the antipart of Padalon. Its geographical position is singularly mundane, since in the
Mahabharata, the hero, with his brothers and the
wife and dog of the family, set off to walk from this
weary world straight up to Mount Meru. Apparently the place was, according to the usual Eastern
idea of an original C paradise "-simply a park of
trees and waters, fruits and flowers, such as that




HADES.                  423
of Kubla-Khan, glorified in Coleridge's "Opium
Dream "
In Xanadu did Kubla-Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree,
Where Alf, the sacred river, ran,
In caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were fenced round.
And there were fountains bright, with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree.
And there were forests ancient as the hills,
Enclosing sunny spots of greenery.
Such a paradise, or "park," as the word signifies,
was in fact the original type of all blessed places
past or future, or placed in imaginary Utopias, like
the garden of Hesperides, till thb time when, as
Gibbon remarks,   a pastoral paradise was no longer
suited to the condition of men's minds in the artificial civilization of the Roman Empire, and cities
with gold and jewels took their place." At the end
of all, it may be doubted whether, as men can
imagine nothing absolutely, but only put together
and modify the objects they have actually beheld,
Martin was wrong to give us Milton's Eden for the
future heaven. Art can but represent the scene of
celestial joys, the soul must indicate their spiritual
character.  A garden of green pastures and still
waters would be as good a place to enjoy the supreme blessedness as any other we on earth can
know of. Conceived of without such blessedness of
divine communion, the paradise of Hindoo or Mos



424                STUDIES.
lem is a poor thing indeed. The vast Brahmin faith
however, with all its miserable errors, was by no
means able for so many millenniums to feed the
souls of hundreds of millions of men without some
salt of noblest principles partially to redeem it.
There were spiritual ideas of a future life taught in
the sacred books, which some of us would be none
the worse for occasionally calling to mind.
" A religious act proceeding from selfish views,
in this world or the next," say the Institutes of
Menu, "is declared to be concrete and interested;
but an act performed with the knowledge of God,
and without self-love, is called abstract and disinterested. He who frequently performs disinterested
acts of religion, he sacrifices his own spirit by fixing
it on the Spirit of God, and approaches the nature of
that sole Divinity who shines by his own effulgence"
(B. 12, v. 89). " He who purifies himself in the river
of a subdued spirit," says Vishnu Shurma, " will be
liberated; but liberation cannot be attained by any
outward observance." (Punchu Tuntru.)
The Brahmin ideas of a future state, whatever
we may be inclined to think of them, have manifestly exercised an immense influence over the lives
of men, and over the care to perform for the dead
such ceremonies (like incremation and the casting
into the Ganges) as are believed to benefit the
condition of their souls. There are no more amazing chapters in human history than the voluntary
tortures whereby the Hindoo devotee seeks to ob.




HADES.                425
tain special beatitude, by remaining for years in the
same painful attitude till his limbs wither-by hanging from iron hooks through his flesh-throwing
himself under the cars of idols, and similar torments. That our nature should be capable of such
sacrifices for lowest conceptions of God and duty,
and yet should so perpetually fail to meet the demands of a true faith and rational morality, is one
of the standing miracles of the world. The way in
which the Hindoo law assumes the readiness of
great offenders to inflict their own punishment, and
lays down the method by which they shall starve
and torment themselves to death in the solitude of
the woods, is something which transports us into
another state of things from any we can conceive
in Europe. It is said that these extraordinary regulations in the book of the Institutes of Menu,
treating " Of Expiations," are actually observed in
India; but even the assumption that they would
ever be so, is sufficiently surprising.
In any case, the prevalence of the Suttee system,
the willingness of the victims to continue it, even
when British influence would have protected them
against priestly tyranny, is proof of the vividness
with which the idea of future reward was seized by
the Hindoo. That the hope of being reunited to
their despotic husbands could have been so effective
is not the least singular part of the business from
our point of view. However, as the law decreed,
"a woman must be subject always during her life




426                STUDIES.
to her male relations-first to her father, then to
her husband, and after his death to her brother, or,
if her brother be dead, to her son," —it is possible
that the prospect of being "subject" to her own
child was not a pleasant alternative to the rule of
the husband! Colonel Sleeman gives an instance
from his own experience of the pertinacity with
which a widow persisted in undergoing suttee,
which seems one of the most curious facts of
psychology ever recorded. I quote the story from
memory; but the reader can refer to Colonel Sleeman's very interesting volumes.
On one occasion, when he held some command
in the country, a Brahmin gentleman died in the
neighbourhood, and a poor Soodra woman immediately afterwards sought an audience of Colonel
Sleeman. Her object was to obtain his official consent, which was needful, for her performance of the
suttee on the pyre of the deceased gentleman.
Colonel Sleeman, naturally much surprised, remonstrated with the woman, that she was not the wife
of the gentleman, and had a living husband of her
own caste. "That is true," she replied; "but the
gentleman was my husband in three previous lives,
and if I am now burnt with him I shall be his wife
in the next life."  "You must be mistaken," answered the bewildered Colonel, "for you are a
Soodra, and a Soodra cannot have been the wife of
a Brahmin."  "I was a Brahmin woman," she retorted; "but I was degraded in this life because




HADES.                427
of an offence I committed in my last existence. I
was standing in my husband's house one day, when
a holy man came to me and asked alms, and he
asked for sugar, but I gave him salt, and he cursed
me that I should be born a Soodra; and so, for
this life I have been degraded; but if you will
permit me to perform suttee on the Brahmin gentleman's pyre, then I shall be born again a Brahmin,
and shall marry him again." In vain Colonel Sleeman expended his rhetoric and his logic in trying
to persuade the woman to give up her delusion.
Finding all argument useless, he ended by forbidding peremptorily that the ceremony of suttee
should be performed in his jurisdiction. But the
woman was too resolute to be defeated in her intention. She made her sons build for her a pyre in a
lonely corner of the jungle, and there, on the day
of her imaginary husband's incremation, she was
privately burned by her real husband and children,
without any of the pomp, or noise, or intoxicating
drinks which usually serve to madden the poor victims of this hideous superstition. Whether we consider the extraordinary and precise nature of the
delusion which seized on this hapless creature, or
the firmness of faith and resolute courage which
induced her to endure martyrdom on its behalf, the
tale is equally worthy of remembrance.
The Adee Grunt'h, the sacred book of the Sikhs,
has a beautiful passage condemning such immolations:



428                 STUDIES.
They are not Suttees who perish in the flames, 0 Nanuk!
Suttees are they who die of a broken heart.
Turning from the Brahmin to the Buddhist religion, we come upon the doctrine which, above all
others, strikes the European mind as unaccountable
-the doctrine of Niwane, or Absorption into the
Deity. The ultimate summit of Buddhist hopes is
this final termination of personality. For all manner
of sins the future life contains conditions of expiation, long and terrible, but yet finite. "He who
has gone to the place of misery," say the Buddhist
authorities, "after he has suffered enough for his
miserable sins, it appears that he can become free."*
But when all expiations and changes of happiness
and suffering have been gone through, if the man
reaches the highest pitch of virtue, his reward is
this mysterious Niwane. It will be fresh in every
one's mind that the precise nature of this state was
disputed two or three years ago in the public papers
in England by the best Buddhist scholars, and that
at the end of the controversy it"appeared that various views of it might be entertained, according to
passages in different books, all of equal authority.
Niwane means simply "no thirst," and it may be
understood to signify the fulfilment of all " hungering and thirsting after righteousness," in full
spiritual union with God; or else the absolute and
entire sinking of the whole nature in the abyss of
* Buddhist tract, appended to the copy of the Mahawanse, in
the British Museum, p. 11.




HADES.,               429
Deity, whereby no separate consciousness of the
individual would remain. The latter view, though
the most surprising to us, seems at least to hold
good so far as that the hope of Niwane always implies a hope of the merging of personal existence,
more or less completely, in the One great All.
We have here reached our moral antipodes. To
our Anglo-Saxon feelings, personality is the thing
we crave should be saved from the wreck of the
grave. That inward and profound self-consciousness to which I have already referred, as distinguishing us from the sensuous dwellers in brighter
climes, comes out in its intensity when we figure to
ourselves the life hereafter. We cannot be satisfied
with the idea of parting with any portion of it, but
rather insist that it should be strengthened and
sharpened:-'Tis life, not death, for which we pant;
More life, and fuller that we want.
We are impatient if any tell us that even memory
may be lost or clouded of earthly things, and that,
for all the moral purposes of existence, it may be
left behind-that "a saddler remembers not every
stitch he took when he was an apprentice, but every
stitch helped to make him a saddler." The result
of our earthly labour seems not to satisfy us, unless
we are to be allowed to recollect the labours themselves. Still less can we endure the notion of losing
our self-consciousness even in the higher consciousness of the most blessed of Beings. Of course the




430                 STUDIES.
whole idea is above our grasp; but we do more than
ignore, we shrink from it with all the vehemence of
our natures-quite as much perhaps as from absolute annihilation. But the Buddhist state of mind
is the reverse of all this. Some four hundred millions of our fellow-creatures are at this moment
apparently perfectly indifferent to the idea of retaining their self-consciousness hereafter; nay, the
highest aspiration of the noblest souls in those lands
for some three thousand years seems to have been
to lose themselves in the infinite ocean of the Su-,
preme Spirit. They wish for immortality. We are
not to confound this doctrine of Niwane (close as it
seems to it) with the idea of the extinction of being.
It is the immersion of' the drop in the sea-the loss
of self-consciousness in one stupendous life-consciousness, filling eternity. Truly the differences
of nature leading to acquiescence in such a prospect are worthy of our study. This life, which to
the Englishman is so earnest as to force him to
project his personality into eternity, and which to
the ancient Greek was so joyous as to make him
look on his best Elysium in comparison as a world
of shadows-this same present life on earth must
be to the Buddhist a languid dream, wherein bodily
wants and even spiritual desires are wearisome impediments, and whose noblest outcome and termination would be a condition wherein "no thirst"
would ever more be felt, no intrusion of personal
sentiments of any kind, but a great final Peace



HADES.                431
holy, and still, and motionless for ever. We cannot
judge these things. Only Him... before whom ever lie bare
The abysmal depths of Personality,
can know of these feelings and their source in the
profoundest caverns of our nature. It seems but a
necessary sequel to a theology whose Deity, once
incarnate, has long ago ascended beyond human
call, that the future life of man should also be thus
impersonal. The wonder perhaps remains that the
Buddhist creed, with so litle to attract the hearts
or warm the hopes of its followers, should yet demand and obtain such sacrifices of devoted lives in
its vast monastic system, and maintain ethics often
of such extreme beauty. We know of few precepts of ancient or modern times more admirable
than the Buddhist one mentioned by Sir Emerson
Tennent,-that each man should every night wish
well in his heart to all mankind. If he find there
is any individual whom he cannot regard with this
benevolence, he must then resolve to perform some
act of kindness to that person, and then he will find
it easy to wish him well!
The doctrines of a future life attributed to Zoroaster, and at all events to be found in the ZendAvesta, and now believed by the Parsees, are exceedingly elevated. There is a hell, Douzatkh, the
abode of Ahrimanes and the Daroudj-of course a
realm of darkness; but this hell only exists till the
great day of resurrection. On that last day "death




432                STUDIES.
and hell give up their dead;-the good, who have
been happy, and the wicked, who have borne their
punishment, all meet together. Then follow three
tremendous days of expiation, during which sinners
must bear the final penalty of their offences in the
presence of the virtuous. But these latter (very far
from some notions of beatified spirits we have heard
of in Europe), at the sight of the sufferings of their
sinful fellow-creatures, weep for pity, and spend
three days in grief and prayer on their behalf.
Then comes the end. The fervent heat melts the
solid mountains of the world, and down their sides
roll rivers of molten gold, through which the evil
and the good alike must pass: that is the final
purification. All souls are redeemed. Even Ahrimanes himself, the great "Evil Glory," source of
all woe and sin, repents, and is forgiven. All
created beings join in one vast paean of praise to
Ormusd, the Lord of Good, and are happy for evermore in his paradise of Gorotman, the World of
Light.
That a nation should have framed such ideas as
this of the future world, it must needs have attained
a very high degree of ethical progress. Suffering
is contemplated directly as purifying and corrective,
and happiness is understood to consist in reconciliation with Ormusd, and eternal abode in a heaven
of which no other element is mentioned than light
and glory. The pity of the good for the sufferings
of the wicked, is a touch of Christian-like beauty,




HADES.                433
which it were much to be wished could be conveyed
into the theology of those who tell us that in that
future life the blessed will find no drawbacks to
their felicity in the knowledge that their nearest
and dearest earthly friends are enduring the torments of eternal perdition. But the superlative
excellence of the whole conception rests in the faith
that good will eventually triumph over all-even
over Ahrimanes himself-and evil be entirely vanquished and annihilated. It is no wonder that in
another part of the Zend-Avesta among the beautiful morning prayers commanded for the use of the
Parsee-after his resolutions of duty and prayers
for help to Ormusd, he is directed every day to repeat this all-inspiring announcement, "Hell shall
be destroyed at the resurrection." It is not easy
to doubt that such a doctrine would aid the man to
fight valiantly here in that battle against evil whose
end he foresaw would be in final triumph. Is it a
mistake to suppose that the heartiness with which
the Zoroastrian undertook that great battle, the
clearness with which he distinguished between good
and evil, and the earnestness with which he ranged
himself on the side of good, helped him to this faith
in its eventual victory. His was no dreamy, inactive, ascetic religion. It called on him to his utmost
to promote life and happiness on earth. He was
bound to work, to marry, to plant and sow, to give
in charity-even in the splendid manner the actual
Parsees do in India. As he was sententiously in28




434                 STUDIES.
formed in his sacred book, " There are those who
do not love to give. The.abode which awaits them
is below."  Fasting was forbidden to him as "a
culpable weakening of the powers entrusted to him
for good use."  Perhaps it was only a natural consequence of such ethics that he should deem Good
the dominant power in the universe. It is those
who worked hardest to make it so, who never see
evil or suffering but they strive to amend it; who
seem to gain most confidence in that truth-the last
word of our philosophy, the first of a really filial
religion,
That somehow good
Shall be the final goal of ill.
The ideas of the ancient Jews concerning a
future life, we shall not discuss in this place, as
touching too closely on the controversies of divines.
Whether " Sheol," the Pit, was or was not believed
before the Babylonish captivity, to be equivalent to
annihilation, is one of the vexed questions which
necessarily arise when dogmatic conclusions are
thought to be involved in points of criticism, otherwise sufficiently obvious. These "Bermoothes" of
divinity fortunately concern us not now. It is certainly a striking fact, however, that the deep-hearted
literature of the Hebrews contains expressions of
what, at least seems, hopelessness of immortality not
to be paralleled in any heathen writer in the world;
even as Christian creeds have embodied doctrines of




HADES.                435
the eternal perdition of the wicked, which no pagan
system ever announced. We look in vain elsewhere
for such words as those of David, Job, and Solomon:
"In death no man remembereth thee, and who shall
give thee thanks in the pit? " " If a man die, shall
he live again? " " I go whence I shall not return,
even to the land of darkness and the shadow of
death; a land of darkness as darkness itself, and of
the shadow of death without any order and where
the light is as darkness.  " For him that is joined
to all the living there is hope, for a living dog is
better than a dead lion. But the dead know not
anything. There is no work, nor knowledge, nor
device, nor wisdom, in the grave."
On any possible hypothesis it. must be admitted
that the Jews had infinitely less hope regarding the
future world than the surrounding nations-and
notably than their old Egyptian masters. What was
the cause of this phenomenon it is hard to conjecture.
We are almost driven to the conclusion that the
extraordinary vividness of their belief in a present
over-ruling Providence; the "theocratic pragmatism," as the German divines call it, which referred
everything immediately to God, and made this world
a complete drama of rewards and punishments-left
them without many of the motives for strong faith and
hope in the future which determine our anticipations.
Certainly, every-day experience proves that so far
from very vivid religious feelings, and very fervent
future hopes, being invariable correlatives, they
28 *




436                 STUDIES.
often exist almost in inverse ratios in different
minds. To some of the best and most spiritual of
men it happens, that " their heaven and hell are in
this world, where their God is present to smile or
frown."
Another explanation may be suggested in the
variety of the force of hopefulness in different individuals, and consequently, probably, in different
races. As phrenologists would say, the organ of
Hope is predominant in some mental constitutions,
and very feebly developed in others. It is not only
its direct antithesis, Fear, but a certain disregard of
all future good or evil, which distinguishes them.
Either from the want of imagination or from very
vivid present interests, the distance of a few years
places a veil before all objects, and they are incapable of being seriously earnest on the subject. I
know not how far this would apply generally to the
Jewish race. It has been said that to the present
day, although a future life has so long been a recognized article of their creed, they do not appear to
dwell upon the hopes so held out with any special
comfort. At least for their own nation, however,
such prospect of immortality should be one of unmixed happiness.  Calmet says that the Talmud
(Gemara Arabin) promises that all Jews should be
shortly released from their sufferings, at the intercession of Abraham. The paradise to which they
were exalted was denominated generally "Abraham's Bosom," separated (as the parable of Dives




HADES.                437
and Lazarus recalls) by a "great gulf" from the
world of torment.
Whether the Jews since their dispersion have,
however, cared much or little for their prospects of
personal immortality; or whether the hopes of
national restoration have superseded such aspirations
-they have at least displayed extraordinary interest
in the burial of their bodies so as to insure (as they
suppose) their speediest participation in the great
final consummation of Jewish glory. The efforts
they have made and the sufferings, losses, and humiliations they have borne for the purpose of obtaining
sepulture in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, form a singular feature in human history. No other nation
has ever thus struggled, not to live in their own
land; but to be suffered to lay their dust therein.
Many descriptions have been made of this marvellous
place; but I confess none of them ever afforded
me a notion of its actual appearance. Wandering
alone past the fountain of Siloam and by the arid
bed of Kedron, it suddenly opened on me a perfect
mountain of graves-a hill-side paved with sepulchral slabs. Each stone is small, so small as.to lead
to the conclusion that the bodies must be buried
perpendicularly. At all events, if the multitudes
there interred were simultaneously to arise, they
would form a crowd as dense and compact as it
would be enormous. Short Hebrew inscriptions
(some evidently of great age) are on all the stones;
and these are laid together with intervals only of a




438                 STUD1ES.
few inches, as in our oldest city churchyards. The
slabs are almost on the level of the ground, and of
equal height, so that it is literally one large pavement of Death. An appalling, almost an overwhelming sight.
Perhaps the least interesting of all ideas of immortality ever held in the world are those of Islam.
Doubtless the more spiritual among Mahometans
have striven to see in the descriptions of paradise,
parables of exalted moral pleasures, as the Song of
Solomon has been transformed into the most sublime religious poem. But the fact apparent to any
plain reader of the Koran, is that Mahomet employed his thoroughly Eastern imagination in devising
as many circumstances of pleasure for his heaven,
and of pain for his hell, as he had space to describe.
The houris, the lake, the Tooba-tree, the flowers,
the miraculous vine, are very little better than the
subterranean treasures of Alla-ed-deen. The bridge
of silk thread which passes over the abyss and
whereon only the good can tread, while the wicked
fall off, may be construed possibly in higher sense.
Hell itself, where "the skulls of the wicked shall
boil like a pot," is an idea possessing no sort of
recommendation-not even novelty. Probably Mahomet found some consolation in consigning thereto
all his enemies, including troublesome insects! The
exasperation of those small "plagues of Egypt" on
a hot summer's day, is surely recorded in his fierce




HADES.                439
denunciation, "1All flies shall be destroyed in hell
fire eicept the bee! "
Besides heaven and hell, Mahometanism has a
purgatory, El-Araf, for the benefit of true believers
only. Therein they are tormented for nine hundred
or for seven thousand years, according to their guilt;
or else for the period called Barzak-the interval
between death and the resurrection. Besides this
purgatory there is a hideous ceremony called Adhabal-cabor, or the Penalty of the Sepulchre. Soon
after burial, the corpse is called up by two terrific
examiners, called Monkir and Nekir, who make it
sit up and answer all their questions concerning its
former faith and practice. When these replies prove
unsatisfactory, Monkir and Nekir beat the corpse
with sticks till its howls of pain may be heard all
over the country. Terrible idea! One had almost
as well believe we might after death be obliged to
answer a medium, and rap out answers to impertinent
questions with the leg of a table! Islam was a Reformation, not an original product of the religious
sentiment. Its theology was like the columns of
the early mosques of Cairo, a mere patchwork of the
ruins of other churches. We have no right to expect from it any original ideas on such a matter as
the immortal life.
A very powerful engine, however, has the Moslem paradise proved as an incentive to military
devotion. The early history of Islam testifies amply




440                STUDIES.
to its influence. For such a purpose, indeed, it is
vain to imagine a more spiritual hope proving very
efficacious over wild hordes of warriors. The paradise of houris, and perfumes, and luxurious food,
promised to the dead, precisely afforded sufficient
counterpart to the pleasures remaining for the living
on the conquest of a wealthy city. Kaliph Omar
declined to enter Damascus lest the sight of it should
destroy his relish for the joys of paradise. The idea
of Mahomet in proposing such a reward for his followers after death, seems to have been carried out
with additional ingenuity by the singular character who comes like a Deus ex macchine into the
stories of the Crusaders. The "Old Man of the
Mountain," by supplying his soldiers with haschish,
and thereby causing them to dream the ecstatic
visions proper to the use of that drug, gave them
something more than a mere hope of a sensual paradise. Each man who had partaken of the haschish,
conceived that he had actually seen, felt, tasted the
joys of heaven, and was only impatient till the hour
should arrive for him to take final possession of his
inheritance. Thus the haschish-eater was either
ready to go forth as an" assassin P on the murderous
errands of his master, or (as we are told was actually done) to leap at his word of command from the
battlements of his castle in Lebanon into the abyss
below. Whether Mahomet's hell has exercised as
potent an influence as his paradise, we have no
means of knowing.




HADES.                441
On the whole, Islam, by its doctrine of the absolute unity and sovereignty of God, has always
been a solemn creed, impressing its disciples with
that profound reverence for spiritual things which
strikes so forcibly the traveller who passes from the
Churches of southern Christendom, with their gabbling priests and distraught worshippers, to the
stillness of the mosques of the East, and the solemn
prayers of their prostrate crowds. How far the
doctrine of punishment after death may add to such
religious awe, will probably be differently decided
according to our views of the force of such doctrines
generally on human nature. Curzon gives us a
curious instance of the small effect which equally
dreadful denunciations have, in comparison, upon
Greek Christians. He says that happening to remark to his Greek servant that throughout his
travels in Asia Minor and Armenia, he had never
once been deceived or robbed by a Moslem; the
Greek replied, "Oh no, wretched infidels! They
are afraid to lie or steal. Their religion forbids it
to them, the dogs! "
The most awful case of religious fear, which we
cannot regard as the result of any dogmas, but of
the natural terrors of an outraged conscience, is to
be found in the history of the Mogul Emperor Aurengzebe. At the termination of his long reign of
triumphant crime and splendour, he was seized with
horror at the prospect of approaching retribution.
As he lay dying in his palace he fell into the most




442                STUDIES.
abject state of terror, and continually repeated:
"Whenever I wake, I only see God! I cannot
escape from God, I am falling into the hands of
God! " The Lord of the East brought thus low by
the mere force of self-condemnation, must have been
a tremendous spectacle of moral realities asserting
themselves in the face of all pomp and power.
From the luxurious Orient to the wild fierce
North of old, what a change! And what a corresponding change in the hopes of men concerning
the unseen world! Valhalla, the reward of the
mighty warriors of Scandinavia, truly offers the
most perfect contrast conceivable with the Moslem
paradise of houris and flowers. Here, where only
heroes killed in battle could be admitted, the dead
went forth to battle every day, till the horn sounded
for the feast, and they returned to the Hall of Odin,
healed of the wounds of the fray, and ready to pledge
each other in celestial mead till close of night. This
was Heaven, the highest heaven conceived of by the
Goth. Those who had died peacefully-women, and
all less glorious souls-were debarred from Odin's
palace, and compelled to seek refuge in Freya's domain or in "IHela's iced abode," the original of our
hell. We have seen that the warriors of Islam
fought bravely in view of a paradise of repose and
luxury. The Goth fought no less fiercely in prospect
of a world of eternal strife. The inference seems
obvious that to the former sensual gratification was
the aim of his labours, while the latter loved war




HADES.                443
for war's sake, and could conceive of no happiness
in which it was not' to find a prominent place.
There was apparently nothing to be gained by the
daily battles of the heroes; they merely went forth
to hack and hew one another in no courteous tournament, but with sharp swords and blows altogether
in earnest; and then the pleasure for that day was
over. Perhaps it is not very wonderful that the
descendants of the race which fought for the Moslem's paradise, when they have come across the
descendants of the race who fought for Valhalla,
should invariably go to the ground. Assuredly the
process of converting the wild worshippers of Odin
to peaceful Christians sighing for an apocalyptic
New Jerusalem, with gates of pearl, must have been
one of no ordinary difficulty. We are not surprised
to hear of Olaf the Saint endeavouring to accomplish
it by the rough and ready method of placing all the
bards and priests of the ancient faith on whom he
could lay hand upon those rocky islets round the
coast of Norway, which to this day are called " Skerries of Shrieks," in memory of the victims left there
to be slowly engulfed by the tide.
The worst penalty of wickedness threatened by
the Odinist religion is one as widely diverse from
the always recurring fiery cave of the southern
imagination, as Valhalla is diverse from Paradise.
The description of it, as well as I can remember,
was quoted from the Prose Edda not long ago, and
runs as follows:




444                 STUDIES.
"On Na Strand (the shore of the dead) there is
a great hall and a bad! It is all built of adders'
backs, wattled together. And the adders' venom
runs on the floor of the hall to the height of a man's
breast; and in this venom the souls of the perfidious
and of murderers must wade for ever and ever! "
We must now draw these superficial observations
of a most curious subject to a close without noticing
more particularly the ideas of the remaining nations,
Many of these deserve, however, careful attention,
as for example, the Druid with his doctrine of eternal progress from Abred, the state of darkness and
ignorance, to Gwynwyd, the state of knowledge and
felicity; the Sabaean, with his four thousand years
of purgatory; the Peruvian, with his long ages of
wearisome labour (most dire of penalties to his indolent nature); the Aztec, with his hell ruled by
the terrific devil Tlateacolocotl, the Rational Owl;
and the Red-man, with his "Happy Hunting
Grounds," where
United in that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Perhaps of all the simple notions of futurity held
by uncivilized tribes, and revealing their humble
hopes and fears, the most noticeable is that of the
Greenlanders. If it happens, they say, that on the
day of a man's death the weather be stormy, it will




HADES.                445
be very dangerous for his soul, which is pale and
soft, and devoid of bones, to perform the difficult
journey through the rocks and chasms leading to
the under world. Should he be able, however, to
pass in safety, he will arrive at last at the paradise
which is under the sea. There he will never be cold
any more, for there will be fires all the year round,
as much as he could desire. Neither will he ever
be hungry again, for there is salt fish laid up in that
place which will supply him to all eternity!
Is this review of so many varied dreams of worlds
of joy and agony a melancholy one? Shall we leave
it with a sigh for hopes so contradictory, and fears
so vain? Surely it need not be so. The necessary
limitations of human nature make the imagination
of all details of another existence, on the hypothesis,
absurd. Because it is another and a different world
from this, our ideas of it are inevitably false; for
we can but re-combine and modify the conditions
we know of here, and there all things must be
changed. The one thing we can predicate of Heaven
is that it must be like nothing on earth. But the
universality of the belief that such a world exists,
the conviction common to all races that the soul of
a man never dies-that is not a melancholy subject
of reflection, but a blessed one. From the opposite
ends of the earth, from remotest time till now, from
the Brahmin to the Greenlander, from the contem



446                 STUDIES.
porary of the mammoth to the civilized man of today-all have borne the same testimony. The faith
in Immortality is written on the heart of humanity.
There is but One Hand which could have engraved
it there, and that Hand writes no falsehoods.
THE END.
JOHN CHILDS AND SON, PRINTERS.