MENTAL LAWS ARE EITHER MORAL OR INTELLECTUAL. COMPARISON OF MORAL AND
INTELLECTUAL LAWS, AND INQUIRY INTO THE EFFECT PRODUCED BY EACH ON THE
PROGRESS OF SOCIETY.
In the preceding chapter, it has, I trust, been made apparent, that,
whatever may hereafter be the case, we, looking merely at the present
state of our knowledge, must pronounce the metaphysical method to be
unequal to the task, often imposed upon it, of discovering the laws
which regulate the movements of the human mind. We are, therefore,
driven to the only remaining method, according to which mental phenomena
are to be studied, not simply as they appear in the mind of the
individual observer, but as they appear in the actions of mankind at
large. The essential opposition between these two plans is very obvious:
but it may perhaps be well to bring forward further illustration of the
resources possessed by each for the investigation of truth; and for this
purpose, I will select a subject which, though still imperfectly
understood, supplies a beautiful instance of the regularity with which,
under the most conflicting circumstances, the great Laws of Nature are
able to hold their course.
The case to which I refer, is that of the proportion kept up in the
births of the sexes; a proportion which if it were to be greatly
disturbed in any country, even for a single generation, would throw
society into the most serious confusion, and would infallibly cause a
great increase in the vices of the people.[303] Now, it has always been
suspected that, on an average, the male and female births are tolerably
equal; but, until very recently, no one could tell whether or not they
are precisely equal, or, if unequal, on which side there is an
excess.[304] The births being the physical result of physical
antecedents, it was clearly seen that the laws of the births must be in
those antecedents; that is to say, that the causes of the proportion of
the sexes must reside in the parents themselves.[305] Under these
circumstances, the question arose, if it was not possible to elucidate
this difficulty by our knowledge of animal physiology; for it was
plausibly said, 'Since physiology is a study of the laws of the
body,[306] and since all births are products resulting from the body,
it follows that if we know the laws of the body, we shall know the laws
of the birth.' This was the view taken by physiologists of our
origin;[307] and this is precisely the view taken by metaphysicians of
our history. Both parties believed that it was possible at once to rise
to the cause of the phenomenon, and by studying its laws predict the
phenomenon itself. The physiologist said, 'By studying individual
bodies, and thus ascertaining the laws which regulate the union of the
parents, I will discover the proportion of the sexes, because the
proportion is merely the result to which the union gives rise.' Just in
the same way, the metaphysician says, 'By studying individual minds, I
will ascertain the laws which govern their movements; and in that way I
will predict the movements of mankind, which are obviously compounded of
the individual movements.'[308] These are the expectations which have
been confidently held out, by physiologists respecting the laws of the
sexes, and by metaphysicians respecting the laws of history. Towards the
fulfilment, however, of these promises the metaphysicians have done
absolutely nothing; nor have the physiologists been more successful,
although their views have the support of anatomy, which admits of the
employment of direct experiment, a resource unknown to metaphysics. But
towards settling the present question, all this availed them nothing;
and physiologists are not yet possessed of a single fact which throws
any light on this problem: Is the number of male births equal to female
births--is it greater, or is it less?
[303] Thus we find that the Crusades, by diminishing the proportion of
men to women in Europe, increased licentiousness. See a curious
passage in _Sprengel_, _Histoire de la Médecine_, vol. ii. p.
376. In Yucatan, there is generally a considerable excess of
women, and the result is prejudicial to morals. _Stephens's
Central America_, vol. iii. pp. 380, 429. On the other hand,
respecting the state of society produced by an excess of males,
see _Mallet's Northern Antiquities_, p. 259; _Journal of
Geographical Society_, vol. xv. p. 45, vol. xvi. p. 307;
_Southey's Commonplace Book_, third series, p. 579.
[304] On this question a variety of conflicting statements may be seen
in the old writers. Goodman, early in the seventeenth century,
supposed that more females were born than males. _Southey's
Commonplace Book_, third series, p. 696. Turgot (_[OE]uvres_,
vol. ii. p. 247) rightly says, 'il naît un peu plus d'hommes que
de femmes;' but the evidence was too incomplete to make this more
than a lucky guess; and I find that even Herder, writing in 1785,
takes for granted that the proportion was about equal: 'ein
ziemliches Gleichmass in den Geburten beider Geschlechter'
(_Ideen zur Geschichte_, vol. ii. p. 149), and was sometimes in
favour of girls, 'ja, die Nachrichten mehrerer Reisenden machen
es wahrscheinlich, dass in manchen dieser Gegenden wirklich mehr
Töchter als Söhne geboren werden.'
[305] A question, indeed, has been raised as to the influence exercised
by the state of the mind during the period of orgasm. But
whatever this influence may be, it can only affect the subsequent
birth through and by physical antecedents, which in every case
must be regarded as the proximate cause. If, therefore, the
influence were proved to exist, we should still have to search
for physical laws: though such laws would of course be considered
merely as secondary ones, resolvable into some higher
generalization.
[306] Some writers treat physiology as a study of the laws of life. But
this, looking at the subject as it now stands, is far too bold a
step, and several branches of knowledge will have to be raised
from their present empirical state, before the phenomena of life
can be scientifically investigated. The more rational mode seems
to be, to consider physiology and anatomy as correlative; the
first forming the dynamical, and the second forming the statical
part of the study of organic structure.
[307] 'Voulez-vous savoir de quoi dépend le sexe des enfants? Fernel
vous répond, sur la foi des anciens, qu'il dépend des qualités de
la semence du père et de la mère.' _Renouard_, _Histoire de la
Médecine_, Paris, 1846, vol. ii. p. 106; see also, at p. 185, the
opinion of Hippocrates, adopted by Galen; and similar views in
_Lepelletier_, _Physiologie Médicale_, vol. iv. p. 332, and
_Sprengel_, _Hist. de la Médecine_, vol. i. pp. 252, 10, vol. ii.
p. 115, vol. iv. p. 62. For further information as to the
opinions which have been held respecting the origin of sexes, see
_Beausobre_, _Histoire de Manichée_, vol. ii. p. 417; _Asiatic
Researches_, vol. iii. pp. 358, 361; _Vishnu Purana_, p. 349;
_Works of Sir William Jones_, vol. iii. p. 126; _Ritter's History
of Ancient Philosophy_, vol. iii. p. 191; _Denham and
Clapperton's Africa_, pp. 323, 324; _Maintenon_, _Lettres
Inédites_, vol. ii. p. 62; and the view of Hohl (_Burdach's
Physiologie_, vol. ii. p. 472), 'que les femmes chez lesquelles
prédomine le système artériel procréent des garçons, au lieu que
celles dont le système veineux a la prédominance mettent au monde
des filles.' According to Anaxagoras the question was extremely
simple: [Greek: kai arrena men apo tôn dexiôn, thêlea de apo tôn
aristerôn.] _Diog. Laert._ ii. 9, vol. i. p. 85.
[308] 'Le metaphysicien se voit comme la source de l'évidence et le
confident de la nature: Moi seul, dit-il, je puis généraliser les
idées, et découvrir le germe des événements qui se développent
journellement dans le monde physique et moral; et c'est par moi
seul que l'homme peut être éclairé.' _Helvetius_, _de l'Esprit_,
vol. i. p. 86. Compare _Herder_, _Ideen zur Geschichte der
Menschheit_, vol. ii. p. 105. Thus, too, M. Cousin (_Hist. de la
Philosophie_, II. série, vol. i. p. 131) says, 'Le fait de la
conscience transporté de l'individu dans l'espèce et dans
l'histoire, est la clef de tous les développements de
l'humanité.'
These are questions to which all the resources of physiologists, from
Aristotle down to our own time, afford no means of reply.[309] And yet
at the present day we, by the employment of what now seems a very
natural method, are possessed of a truth which the united abilities of a
long series of eminent men failed to discover. By the simple experiment
of registering the number of births and their sexes; by extending this
registration over several years, in different countries,--we have been
able to eliminate all casual disturbances, and ascertain the existence
of a law which, expressed in round numbers, is, that for every twenty
girls there are born twenty-one boys: and we may confidently say, that
although the operations of this law are of course liable to constant
aberrations, the law itself is so powerful, that we know of no country
in which during a single year the male births have not been greater than
the female ones.[310]
[309] Considering the very long period during which physiology has been
studied, it is remarkable how little the physiologists have
contributed towards the great and final object of all science,
namely, the power of predicting events. To me it appears that the
two principal causes of this are, the backwardness of chemistry,
and the still extremely imperfect state of the microscope, which
even now is so inaccurate an instrument, that when a high power
is employed, little confidence can be placed in it; and the
examination, for instance, of the spermatozoa has led to the most
contradictory results. In regard to chemistry, MM. Robin and
Verdeil, in their recent great work, have ably proved what
manifold relations there are between it and the further progress
of our knowledge of the animal frame; though I venture to think
that these eminent writers have shown occasionally an undue
disposition to limit the application of chemical laws to
physiological phenomena. See _Robin et Verdeil_, _Chimie
Anatomique et Physiologique_, Paris, 1853, vol. i. pp. 20, 34,
167, 337, 338, 437, 661, vol. ii. pp. 136, 137, 508, vol. iii.
pp. 135, 144, 183, 281, 283, 351, 547. The increasing tendency of
chemistry to bring under its control what are often supposed to
be purely organic phenomena, is noticed cautiously in _Turner's
Chemistry_, vol. ii. p. 1308, London, 1847; and boldly in
_Liebig's Letters on Chemistry_, 1851, pp. 250, 251. The
connexion between chemistry and physiology is touched on rather
too hastily in _Bouilland_, _Philosophie Médicale_, pp. 160, 257;
_Broussais_, _Examen des Doctrines Médicales_, vol. iii. p. 166;
_Brodie's Lectures on Pathology_, p. 48; _Henle_, _Traité
d'Anatomie_, vol. i. pp. 25, 26; _Feuchtersleben's Medical
Psychology_, p. 88; but better in _Holland's Medical Notes_,
1839, p. 270, a thoughtful and suggestive work. On the necessity
of chemistry for increasing our knowledge of embryology, compare
_Wagner's Physiology_, pp. 131, 132 note, with _Burdach_, _Traité
de Physiologie_, vol. iv. pp. 59, 168.
[310] It used to be supposed that some of the eastern countries formed
an exception to this; but more precise observations have
contradicted the loose statements of the earlier travellers, and
in no part of the world, so far as our knowledge extends, are
more girls born than boys; while in every part of the world for
which we have statistical returns, there is a slight excess on
the side of male births. Compare _Marsden's History of Sumatra_,
p. 234; _Raffles' History of Java_, vol. i. pp. 81, 82; _Sykes on
the Statistics of the Deccan_, in _Reports of British
Association_, vol. vi. pp. 246, 261, 262; _Niebuhr_, _Description
de l'Arabie_, p. 63; _Humboldt_, _Nouv. Espagne_, vol. i. p. 139;
_McWilliam_, _Medical History of Expedition to the Niger_, p.
113; _Elliotson's Human Physiology_, p. 795; _Thomson's Hist. of
Royal Society_, p. 531; _Sadler's Law of Population_, vol. i. pp.
507, 511, vol. ii. pp. 324, 335; _Paris and Fonblanque's Medical
Jurisprudence_, vol. i. p. 259; _Journal of Statist. Soc._ vol.
iii. pp. 263, 264, vol. xvii. pp. 46, 123; _Journal of
Geographical Soc._ vol. xx. p. 17; _Fourth Report of British
Association_, pp. 687, 689, _Report for_ 1842, pp. 144, 145;
_Transac. of Sections for_ 1840, p. 174, _for_ 1847, p. 96, _for_
1849, p. 87; _Dufau_, _Traité de Statistique_, pp. 24, 209, 210;
_Burdach_, _Traité de Physiologie_, vol. ii. pp. 56, 57, 273,
274, 281, vol. v. p. 373; _Hawkins's Medical Statistics_, pp.
221, 222.
The importance and the beautiful regularity of this law make us regret
that it still remains an empirical truth, not having yet been connected
with the physical phenomena by which its operations are caused.[311]
But this is immaterial to my present purpose, which is only to notice
the method by which the discovery has been made. For this method is
obviously analogous to that by which I propose to investigate the
operations of the human mind; while the old and unsuccessful method is
analogous to that employed by the metaphysicians. As long as
physiologists attempted to ascertain the laws of the proportion of sexes
by individual experiments, they effected absolutely nothing towards the
end they hoped to achieve. But when men became dissatisfied with these
individual experiments, and instead of them, began to collect
observations less minute, but more comprehensive, then it was that the
great law of nature, for which during many centuries they had vainly
searched, first became unfolded to their view. Precisely in the same
way, as long as the human mind is only studied according to the narrow
and contracted method of metaphysicians, we have every reason for
thinking that the laws which regulate its movements will remain unknown.
If, therefore, we wish to effect anything of real moment, it becomes
necessary that we should discard those old schemes, the insufficiency of
which is demonstrated by experience as well as by reason; and that we
should substitute in their place such a comprehensive survey of facts as
will enable us to eliminate those disturbances which, owing to the
impossibility of experiment, we shall never be able to isolate.
[311] In _Müller's Physiology_, vol. ii. p. 1657, a work of great
authority, it is said, that 'the causes which determine the sex
of the embryo are unknown, although it appears that the relative
age of the parents has some influence over the sex of the
offspring.' That the relative age of the parents does affect the
sex of their children, may, from the immense amount of evidence
now collected, be considered almost certain; but M. Müller,
instead of referring to physiological writers, ought to have
mentioned that the statisticians, and not the physiologists, were
the first to make this discovery. On this curious question, see
_Carpenter's Human Physiology_, p. 746; _Sadler's Law of
Population_, vol. ii. pp. 333, 336, 342; _Journal of Statistical
Society_, vol. iii. pp. 263, 264. In regard to animals below man,
we find from numerous experiments, that among sheep and horses
the age of the parents 'has a very great general influence upon
the sex' of the offspring. _Elliotson's Physiology_, pp. 708,
709; and see _Cuvier_, _Progrès des Sciences Naturelles_, vol.
ii. p. 406. As to the relation between the origin of sex and the
laws of arrested development, compare _Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire_,
_Hist. des Anomalies de l'Organisation_, vol. ii. pp. 33, 34, 73,
vol. iii. p. 278, with _Lindley's Botany_, vol. ii. p. 81. In
_Esquirol_, _Maladies Mentales_, vol. i. p. 302, there is a
singular case recorded by Lamotte, which would seem to connect
this question with pathological phenomena, though it is uncertain
whether the epilepsy was an effect or a cognate symptom.
The desire that I feel to make the preliminary views of this
Introduction perfectly clear, is my sole apology for having introduced a
digression which, though adding nothing to the strength of the argument,
may be found useful as illustrating it, and will at all events enable
ordinary readers to appreciate the value of the proposed method. It now
remains for us to ascertain the manner in which, by the application of
this method, the laws of mental progress may be most easily discovered.
If, in the first place, we ask what this progress is, the answer seems
very simple: that it is a two-fold progress, Moral and Intellectual; the
first having more immediate relation to our duties, the second to our
knowledge. This is a classification which has been frequently laid down,
and with which most persons are familiar. And so far as history is a
narration of results, there can be no doubt that the division is
perfectly accurate. There can be no doubt that a people are not really
advancing, if, on the one hand, their increasing ability is accompanied
by increasing vice, or if, on the other hand, while they are becoming
more virtuous, they likewise become more ignorant. This double
movement, moral and intellectual, is essential to the very idea of
civilization, and includes the entire theory of mental progress. To be
willing to perform our duty is the moral part; to know how to perform it
is the intellectual part: while the closer these two parts are knit
together, the greater the harmony with which they work; and the more
accurately the means are adapted to the end, the more completely will
the scheme of our life be accomplished, and the more securely shall we
lay a foundation for the further advancement of mankind.
A question, therefore, now arises of great moment: namely, which of
these two parts or elements of mental progress is the most important.
For the progress itself being the result of their united action, it
becomes necessary to ascertain which of them works more powerfully, in
order that we may subordinate the inferior element to the laws of the
superior one. If the advance of civilization, and the general happiness
of mankind, depend more on their moral feelings than on their
intellectual knowledge, we must of course measure the progress of
society by those feelings; while if, on the other hand, it depends
principally on their knowledge, we must take as our standard the amount
and success of their intellectual activity. As soon as we know the
relative energy of these two components, we shall treat them according
to the usual plan for investigating truth; that is to say, we shall look
at the product of their joint action as obeying the laws of the more
powerful agent, whose operations are casually disturbed by the inferior
laws of the minor agent.
In entering into this inquiry, we are met by a preliminary difficulty,
arising from the loose and careless manner in which ordinary language is
employed on subjects that require the greatest nicety and precision. For
the expression, Moral and Intellectual Progress, is suggestive of a
serious fallacy. In the manner in which it is generally used, it conveys
an idea that the moral and intellectual faculties of men are, in the
advance of civilization, naturally more acute and more trustworthy than
they were formerly. But this, though it may possibly be true, has never
been proved. It may be that, owing to some physical causes still
unknown, the average capacity of the brain is, if we compare long
periods of time, becoming gradually greater; and that therefore the
mind, which acts through the brain, is, even independently of education,
increasing in aptitude and in the general competence of its views.[312]
Such, however, is still our ignorance of physical laws, and so
completely are we in the dark as to the circumstances which regulate the
hereditary transmission of character, temperament,[313] and other
personal peculiarities, that we must consider this alleged progress as
a very doubtful point; and, in the present state of our knowledge, we
cannot safely assume that there has been any permanent improvement in
the moral or intellectual faculties of man, nor have we any decisive
ground for saying that those faculties are likely to be greater in an
infant born in the most civilized part of Europe, than in one born in
the wildest region of a barbarous country.[314]
[312] That the natural powers of the human brain are improving because
they are capable of transmission, is a favourite doctrine with
the followers of Gall, and is adopted by M. A. Comte
(_Philosophie Positive_, vol. iv. pp. 384, 385); who, whoever,
admits that it has never been sufficiently verified: 'sans que
toutefois l'expérience ait encore suffisamment prononcé.' Dr.
Prichard, whose habits of thought were very different, seems,
nevertheless, inclined to lean in this direction; for his
comparison of skulls led him to the conclusion, that the present
inhabitants of Britain, 'either as the _result of many ages of
greater intellectual cultivation_, or from some other cause,
have, as I am persuaded, much more capacious braincases than
their forefathers.' _Prichard's Physical History of Mankind_,
vol. i. p. 305. Even if this were certain, it would not prove
that the contents of the crania were altered, though it might
create a presumption; and the general question must, I think,
remain unsettled until the researches begun by Blumenbach, and
recently continued by Morton, are carried out upon a scale far
more comprehensive than has hitherto been attempted. Compare
_Burdach_, _Traité de Physiologie_, vol. ii. p. 253; where,
however, the question is not stated with sufficient caution.
[313] None of the laws of hereditary descent connected with the
formation of character, have yet been generalized; nor is our
knowledge much more advanced respecting the theory of
temperaments, which still remains the principal obstacle in the
way of the phrenologists. The difficulties attending the study of
temperaments, and the obscurity in which this important subject
is shrouded, may be estimated by whoever will compare what has
been said upon it by the following writers: _Müller's
Physiology_, vol. ii. pp. 1406-1410; _Elliotson's Human
Physiology_, pp. 1059-1062; _Blainville_, _Physiologie Générale
et Comparée_, vol. i. pp. 168, 264, 265, vol. ii. pp. 43, 130,
214, 328, 329, vol. iii. pp. 54, 74, 118, 148, 149, 284, 285;
_Williams's Principles of Medicine_, pp. 16, 17, 112, 113;
_Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire_, _Anomalies de l'Organisation_, vol. i.
pp. 186, 190; _Broussais_, _Examen des Doctrines Médicales_, vol.
i. pp. 204, 205, vol. iii. p. 276; _Renouard_, _Hist. de la
Médecine_, vol. i. p. 326; _Sprengel_, _Hist. de la Médecine_,
vol. i. p. 380, vol. ii. p. 408, vol. iii. p. 21, vol. v. p. 325,
vol. vi. p. 492; _Esquirol_, _Maladies Mentales_, vol. i. pp. 39,
226, 429, 594, vol. ii. p. 29; _Lepelletier_, _Physiol.
Médicale_, vol. i. pp. 139, 281, vol. iii. pp. 372-429, vol. iv.
pp. 93, 123, 133, 143, 148, 177; _Henle_, _Anatomie Générale_,
vol. i. p. 474, vol. ii. pp. 288, 289, 316; _Bichat_, _Anatomie
Générale_, vol. i. p. 207, vol. ii. p. 444, vol. iii. pp. 310,
507, vol. iv. pp. 281, 399, 400, 504; _Bichat sur la Vie_, pp.
80, 81, 234, 235; _Phillips on Scrofula_, p. 9; _Feuchtersleben's
Medical Psychology_, pp. 143-145; _[OE]uvres de Fontenelle_,
Paris, 1766, vol. v. p. 110; _Cullen's Works_, Edinb. 1827, vol.
i. pp. 214-221; _Cabanis_, _Rapports du Physique et du Moral_,
pp. 76-83, 229-261, 520-533; _Noble on the Brain_, pp. 370-376;
_Combe's North America_, vol. i. pp. 126-128. Latterly, attention
has been paid to the chemistry of the blood as it varies in the
various temperaments; and this seems a more satisfactory method
than the old plan of merely describing the obvious symptoms of
the temperament. _Clark on Animal Physiology_, in _Fourth Report
of the British Association_, p. 126; _Simon's Animal Chemistry_,
vol. i. p. 236; _Wagner's Physiology_, p. 262.
[314] We often hear of hereditary talents, hereditary vices, and
hereditary virtues; but whoever will critically examine the
evidence will find that we have no proof of their existence. The
way in which they are commonly proved is in the highest degree
illogical; the usual course being for writers to collect
instances of some mental peculiarity found in a parent and in his
child, and then to infer that the peculiarity was bequeathed. By
this mode of reasoning we might demonstrate any proposition;
since in all large fields of inquiry there are a sufficient
number of empirical coincidences to make a plausible case in
favour of whatever view a man chooses to advocate. But this is
not the way in which truth is discovered; and we ought to inquire
not only how many instances there are of hereditary talents, &c.
but how many instances there are of such qualities not being
hereditary. Until something of this sort is attempted, we can
know nothing about the matter inductively: while, until
physiology and chemistry are much more advanced, we can know
nothing about it deductively.
These considerations ought to prevent us from receiving
statements (_Taylor's Medical Jurisprudence_, pp. 644, 678, and
many other books) which positively affirm the existence of
hereditary madness and hereditary suicide; and the same remark
applies to hereditary disease (on which see some admirable
observations in _Phillips on Scrofula_, pp. 101-120, London,
1846); and with still greater force does it apply to hereditary
vices and hereditary virtues; inasmuch as ethical phenomena have
not been registered as carefully as physiological ones, and
therefore our conclusions respecting them are even more
precarious.
Whatever, therefore, the moral and intellectual progress of men may be,
it resolves itself not into a progress of natural capacity,[315] but
into a progress, if I may so say, of opportunity; that is, an
improvement in the circumstances under which that capacity after birth
comes into play. Here, then, lies the gist of the whole matter. The
progress is one, not of internal power, but of external advantage. The
child born in a civilized land is not likely, as such, to be superior to
one born among barbarians; and the difference which ensues between the
acts of the two children will be caused, so far as we know, solely by
the pressure of external circumstances; by which I mean the surrounding
opinions, knowledge, associations; in a word, the entire mental
atmosphere in which the two children are respectively nurtured.
[315] To what has been already stated, I will add the opinions of two of
the most profound among modern thinkers. 'Men, I think, have been
much the same for natural endowments in all times.' _Conduct of
the Understanding_, in _Locke's Works_, vol. ii. p. 361. 'Les
dispositions primitives agissent également chez les peuples
barbares et chez les peuples policés; ils sont vraisemblablement
les mêmes dans tous les lieux et dans tous les tems.... Plus il
y aura d'hommes, et plus vous aurez de grands hommes ou d'hommes
propres à devenir grands.' _Progrès de l'Esprit Humain_, in
_[OE]uvres de Turgot_, vol. ii. p. 264. The remarks of Dr. Brown
(_Lectures on the Mind_, p. 57), if I rightly understand his
rhetorical language, apply not to natural capacity, but to that
which is acquired: see the end of his ninth Lecture.
On this account it is evident, that if we look at mankind in the
aggregate, their moral and intellectual conduct is regulated by the
moral and intellectual notions prevalent in their own time. There are,
of course, many persons who will rise above those notions, and many
others who will sink below them. But such cases are exceptional, and
form a very small proportion of the total amount of those who are nowise
remarkable either for good or for evil. An immense majority of men must
always remain in a middle state, neither very foolish nor very able,
neither very virtuous nor very vicious, but slumbering on in a peaceful
and decent mediocrity, adopting without much difficulty the current
opinions of the day, making no inquiry, exciting no scandal, causing no
wonder, just holding themselves on a level with their generation, and
noiselessly conforming to the standard of morals and of knowledge common
to the age and country in which they live.
Now, it requires but a superficial acquaintance with history to be aware
that this standard is constantly changing, and that it is never
precisely the same even in the most similar countries, or in two
successive generations in the same country. The opinions which are
popular in any nation vary in many respects almost from year to year;
and what in one period is attacked as a paradox or a heresy, is in
another period welcomed as a sober truth; which, however, in its turn is
replaced by some subsequent novelty. This extreme mutability in the
ordinary standard of human actions shows that the conditions on which
the standard depends must themselves be very mutable; and those
conditions, whatever they may be, are evidently the originators of the
moral and intellectual conduct of the great average of mankind.
Here, then, we have a basis on which we can safely proceed. We know that
the main cause of human actions is extremely variable; we have only,
therefore, to apply this test to any set of circumstances which are
supposed to be the cause, and if we find that such circumstances are not
very variable, we must infer that they are not the cause we are
attempting to discover.
Applying this test to moral motives, or to the dictates of what is
called moral instinct, we shall at once see how extremely small is the
influence those motives have exercised over the progress of
civilization. For there is, unquestionably, nothing to be found in the
world which has undergone so little change as those great dogmas of
which moral systems are composed. To do good to others; to sacrifice for
their benefit your own wishes; to love your neighbour as yourself; to
forgive your enemies; to restrain your passions; to honour your parents;
to respect those who are set over you: these, and a few others, are the
sole essentials of morals; but they have been known for thousands of
years, and not one jot or tittle has been added to them by all the
sermons, homilies, and text-books which moralists and theologians have
been able to produce.[316]
[316] That the system of morals propounded in the New Testament
contained no maxim which had not been previously enunciated, and
that some of the most beautiful passages in the Apostolic
writings are quotations from pagan authors, is well known to
every scholar; and so far from supplying, as some suppose, an
objection against Christianity, it is a strong recommendation of
it, as indicating the intimate relation between the doctrines of
Christ and the moral sympathies of mankind in different ages. But
to assert that Christianity communicated to man moral truths
previously unknown, argues, on the part of the assertor, either
gross ignorance or else wilful fraud. For evidence of the
knowledge of moral truths possessed by barbarous nations,
independently of Christianity, and for the most part previous to
its promulgation, compare _Mackay's Religious Development_, vol.
ii. pp. 376-380; _Mure's Hist. of Greek Literature_, vol. ii. p.
398, vol. iii. p. 380; _Prescott's History of Mexico_, vol. i. p.
31; _Elphinstone's History of India_, p. 47; _Works of Sir W.
Jones_, vol. i. pp. 87, 168, vol. iii. pp. 105, 114; _Mill's
History of India_, vol. i. p. 419; _Bohlen_, _das alte Indien_,
vol. i. pp. 364-366; _Beausobre_, _Histoire de Manichée_, vol. i.
pp. 318, 319; _Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus_, p. 193;
_Transac. of Soc. of Bombay_, vol. iii. p. 198; _Transac. of
Asiatic Society_, vol. i. p. 5, vol. iii. pp. 283, 284; _Asiatic
Researches_, vol. vi. p. 271, vol. vii. p. 40, vol. xvi. pp. 130,
277, vol. xx. pp. 460, 461; _The Dabistan_, vol. i. pp. 328, 338;
_Catlin's North-American Indians_, vol. ii. p. 243; _Syme's
Embassy to Ava_, vol. ii. p. 389; _Davis's Chinese_, vol. i. p.
196, vol. ii. pp. 136, 233; _Journal Asiatique_, I. série, vol.
iv. p. 77, Paris, 1824.
But, if we contrast this stationary aspect of moral truths with the
progressive aspect of intellectual truths, the difference is indeed
startling.[317] All the great moral systems which have exercised much
influence have been fundamentally the same; all the great intellectual
systems have been fundamentally different. In reference to our moral
conduct, there is not a single principle now known to the most
cultivated Europeans, which was not likewise known to the ancients. In
reference to the conduct of our intellect, the moderns have not only
made the most important additions to every department of knowledge that
the ancients ever attempted to study, but besides this, they have upset
and revolutionized the old methods of inquiry; they have consolidated
into one great scheme all those resources of induction which Aristotle
alone dimly perceived; and they have created sciences, the faintest idea
of which never entered the mind of the boldest thinker antiquity
produced.
[317] Sir James Mackintosh was so struck by the stationary character of
moral principles, that he denies the possibility of their
advance, and boldly affirms that no further discoveries can be
made in morals: 'Morality admits no discoveries.... More than
three thousand years have elapsed since the composition of the
Pentateuch; and let any man, if he is able, tell me in what
important respect the rule of life has varied since that distant
period. Let the Institutes of Menu be explored with the same
view; we shall arrive at the same conclusion. Let the books of
false religion be opened; it will be found that their moral
system is, in all its grand features, the same.... The fact is
evident that no improvements have been made in practical
morality.... The facts which lead to the formation of moral
rules are as accessible, and must be as obvious, to the simplest
barbarian as to the most enlightened philosopher.... The case of
the physical and speculative sciences is directly opposite. There
the facts are remote and scarcely accessible.... From the
countless variety of the facts with which they are conversant, it
is impossible to prescribe any bounds to their future
improvement. It is otherwise with morals. They have hitherto been
stationary; and, in my opinion, they are likely for ever to
continue so.' _Life of Mackintosh, edited by his Son_, London,
1835, vol. i. pp. 119-122. Condorcet (_Vie de Turgot_, p. 180)
says, 'La morale de toutes les nations a été la même;' and Kant
(_Logik_, in _Kant's Werke_, vol. i. p. 356), 'In der
Moral-philosophie sind wir nicht weiter gekommen, als die Alten.'
These are, to every educated man, recognized and notorious facts; and
the inference to be drawn from them is immediately obvious. Since
civilization is the product of moral and intellectual agencies, and
since that product is constantly changing, it evidently cannot be
regulated by the stationary agent; because, when surrounding
circumstances are unchanged, a stationary agent can only produce a
stationary effect. The only other agent is the intellectual one; and
that this is the real mover may be proved in two distinct ways: first,
because being, as we have already seen, either moral or intellectual,
and being, as we have also seen, not moral, it must be intellectual;
and, secondly, because the intellectual principle has an activity and a
capacity for adaptation, which, as I undertake to show, is quite
sufficient to account for the extraordinary progress that, during
several centuries, Europe has continued to make.
Such are the main arguments by which my view is supported; but there are
also other and collateral circumstances which are well worthy of
consideration. The first is, that the intellectual principle is not only
far more progressive than the moral principle, but is also far more
permanent in its results. The acquisitions made by the intellect are, in
every civilized country, carefully preserved, registered in certain
well-understood formulas, and protected by the use of technical and
scientific language; they are easily handed down from one generation to
another, and thus assuming an accessible, or, as it were, a tangible
form, they often influence the most distant posterity, they become the
heirlooms of mankind, the immortal bequest of the genius to which they
owe their birth. But the good deeds effected by our moral faculties are
less capable of transmission; they are of a more private and retiring
character; while, as the motives to which they owe their origin are
generally the result of self-discipline and of self-sacrifice, they have
to be worked out by every man for himself; and thus, begun by each anew,
they derive little benefit from the maxims of preceding experience, nor
can they well be stored up for the use of future moralists. The
consequence is, that although moral excellence is more amiable, and to
most persons more attractive, than intellectual excellence, still, it
must be confessed that, looking at ulterior results, it is far less
active, less permanent, and, as I shall presently prove, less productive
of real good. Indeed, if we examine the effects of the most active
philanthropy, and of the largest and most disinterested kindness, we
shall find that those effects are, comparatively speaking, short-lived;
that there is only a small number of individuals they come in contact
with and benefit; that they rarely survive the generation which
witnessed their commencement; and that, when they take the more durable
form of founding great public charities, such institutions invariably
fall, first into abuse, then into decay, and after a time are either
destroyed, or perverted from their original intention, mocking the
effort by which it is vainly attempted to perpetuate the memory even of
the purest and most energetic benevolence.
These conclusions are no doubt very unpalatable; and what makes them
peculiarly offensive is, that it is impossible to refute them. For the
deeper we penetrate into this question, the more clearly shall we see
the superiority of intellectual acquisitions over moral feeling.[318]
There is no instance on record of an ignorant man who, having good
intentions, and supreme power to enforce them, has not done far more
evil than good. And whenever the intentions have been very eager, and
the power very extensive, the evil has been enormous. But if you can
diminish the sincerity of that man, if you can mix some alloy with his
motives, you will likewise diminish the evil which he works. If he is
selfish as well as ignorant, it will often happen that you may play off
his vice against his ignorance, and by exciting his fears restrain his
mischief. If, however, he has no fear, if he is entirely unselfish, if
his sole object is the good of others, if he pursues that object with
enthusiasm, upon a large scale, and with disinterested zeal, then it is
that you have no check upon him, you have no means of preventing the
calamities which, in an ignorant age, an ignorant man will be sure to
inflict. How entirely this is verified by experience, we may see in
studying the history of religious persecution. To punish even a single
man for his religious tenets, is assuredly a crime of the deepest dye;
but to punish a large body of men, to persecute an entire sect, to
attempt to extirpate opinions, which, growing out of the state of
society in which they arise, are themselves a manifestation of the
marvellous and luxuriant fertility of the human mind,--to do this is not
only one of the most pernicious, but one of the most foolish acts that
can possibly be conceived. Nevertheless, it is an undoubted fact that an
overwhelming majority of religious persecutors have been men of the
purest intentions, of the most admirable and unsullied morals. It is
impossible that this should be otherwise. For they are not
bad-intentioned men, who seek to enforce opinions which they believe to
be good. Still less are they bad men, who are so regardless of temporal
considerations as to employ all the resources of their power, not for
their own benefit, but for the purpose of propagating a religion which
they think necessary to the future happiness of mankind. Such men as
these are not bad, they are only ignorant; ignorant of the nature of
truth, ignorant of the consequences of their own acts. But, in a moral
point of view, their motives are unimpeachable. Indeed, it is the very
ardour of their sincerity which warms them into persecution. It is the
holy zeal by which they are fired that quickens their fanaticism into a
deadly activity. If you can impress any man with an absorbing conviction
of the supreme importance of some moral or religious doctrine; if you
can make him believe that those who reject that doctrine are doomed to
eternal perdition; if you then give that man power, and by means of his
ignorance blind him to the ulterior consequences of his own act,--he
will infallibly persecute those who deny his doctrine; and the extent
of his persecution will be regulated by the extent of his sincerity.
Diminish the sincerity, and you will diminish the persecution: in other
words, by weakening the virtue you may check the evil. This is a truth
of which history furnishes such innumerable examples, that to deny it
would be not only to reject the plainest and most conclusive arguments,
but to refuse the concurrent testimony of every age. I will merely
select two cases, which, from the entire difference in their
circumstances, are very apposite as illustrations: the first being from
the history of Paganism, the other from the history of Christianity; and
both proving the inability of moral feelings to control religious
persecution.
[318] One part of the argument is well stated by Cuvier, who says, 'Le
bien que l'on fait aux hommes, quelque grand qu'il soit, est
toujours passager; les vérités qu'on leur laisse sont
éternelles.' _Cuvier_, _Eloges Historiques_, vol. ii. p. 304.
I. The Roman emperors, as is well known, subjected the early Christians
to persecutions, which, though they have been exaggerated, were frequent
and very grievous. But what to some persons must appear extremely
strange, is, that among the active authors of these cruelties, we find
the names of the best men who ever sat on the throne; while the worst
and most infamous princes were precisely those who spared the
Christians, and took no heed of their increase. The two most thoroughly
depraved of all the emperors were certainly Commodus and Elagabalus;
neither of whom persecuted the new religion, or indeed adopted any
measures against it. They were too reckless of the future, too selfish,
too absorbed in their own infamous pleasures, to mind whether truth or
error prevailed; and being thus indifferent to the welfare of their
subjects, they cared nothing about the progress of a creed, which they,
as Pagan emperors, were bound to regard as a fatal and impious delusion.
They, therefore, allowed Christianity to run its course, unchecked by
those penal laws which more honest, but more mistaken, rulers would
assuredly have enacted.[319] We find, accordingly, that the great enemy
of Christianity was Marcus Aurelius: a man of kindly temper, and of
fearless, unflinching honesty, but whose reign was characterized by a
persecution from which he would have refrained had he been less in
earnest about the religion of his fathers.[320] And to complete the
argument, it may be added, that the last and one of the most strenuous
of the opponents of Christianity, who occupied the throne of the Cæsars,
was Julian: a prince of eminent probity, whose opinions are often
attacked, but against whose moral conduct even calumny itself has hardly
breathed a suspicion.[321]
[319] 'The first year of Commodus must be the epocha of the toleration.
From all these authorities, it appears beyond exception, that
Commodus put a stop to the persecution in the first year of his
reign.... Not one writer, either heathen or Christian, makes
Commodus a persecutor.' _Letters concerning the Thundering
Legion_, in _Moyle's Works_, vol. ii. p. 266, London, 1726.
'Heliogabalus also, though in other respects the most infamous of
all princes, and perhaps the most odious of all mortals, showed
no marks of bitterness or aversion to the disciples of Jesus.'
_Mosheim's Eccl. History_, vol. i. p. 66: see also _Milman's
Hist. of Christianity_, London, 1840, vol. ii. p. 225.
[320] Dr. Milman (_History of Christianity_, 1840, vol. ii. p. 159)
says, 'A blameless disciple in the severest school of philosophic
morality, the austerity of Marcus rivalled that of the Christians
in its contempt of the follies and diversions of life; yet his
native kindliness of disposition was not hardened or embittered
by the severity or the pride of his philosophy. With Aurelius,
nevertheless, Christianity found not only a fair and high-minded
competitor for the command of the human mind; not only a rival in
the exaltation of the soul of man to higher views and more
dignified motives; but a violent and intolerant persecutor.' M.
Guizot compares him with Louis IX. of France; and certainly there
was in both an evident connexion between sincerity and
persecution: 'Marc Auréle et saint Louis sont peut-être les deux
seuls princes qui, en toute occasion, aient fait de leurs
croyances morales la première règle de leur conduite: Marc
Auréle, stoicien; saint Louis, chrétien.' _Guizot_, _Civilisation
en France_, vol. iv. p. 142. Even Duplessis Mornay (_Mém._ vol.
iv. p. 374) calls him 'le meilleur des empereurs payens;' and
Ritter (_Hist. of Philos._ vol. iv. p. 222), 'the virtuous and
noble emperor.'
[321] Neander (_History of the Church_, vol. i. p. 122) observes, that
the best emperors opposed Christianity, and that the worst ones
were indifferent to its encroachments. The same remark, in regard
to Marcus and Commodus, is made by Gibbon (_Decline and Fall_,
chap. xvi. p. 220, Lond. 1836). Another writer, of a very
different character, ascribes this peculiarity to the wiles of
the devil: 'In the primitive times, it is observed that the best
emperors were some of them stirred up by Satan to be the
bitterest persecutors of the Church.' _Memoirs of Colonel
Hutchinson_, p. 85.
II. The second illustration is supplied by Spain; a country of which it
must be confessed, that in no other have religious feelings exercised
such sway over the affairs of men. No other European nation has produced
so many ardent and disinterested missionaries, zealous self-denying
martyrs, who have cheerfully sacrificed their lives in order to
propagate truths which they thought necessary to be known. Nowhere else
have the spiritual classes been so long in the ascendant; nowhere else
are the people so devout, the churches so crowded, the clergy so
numerous. But the sincerity and the honesty of purpose by which the
Spanish people, taken as a whole, have always been marked, have not only
been unable to prevent religious persecution, but have proved the means
of encouraging it. If the nation had been more lukewarm, it would have
been more tolerant. As it was, the preservation of the faith became the
first consideration; and everything being sacrificed to this one object,
it naturally happened that zeal begat cruelty, and the soil was prepared
in which the Inquisition took root and flourished. The supporters of
that barbarous institution were not hypocrites, but enthusiasts.
Hypocrites are for the most part too supple to be cruel. For cruelty is
a stern and unbending passion; while hypocrisy is a fawning and flexible
art, which accommodates itself to human feelings, and flatters the
weakness of men in order that it may gain its own ends. In Spain, the
earnestness of the nation, being concentrated on a single topic, carried
everything before it; and hatred of heresy becoming a habit, persecution
of heresy was thought a duty. The conscientious energy with which that
duty was fulfilled is seen in the history of the Spanish Church. Indeed,
that the inquisitors were remarkable for an undeviating and
incorruptible integrity, may be proved in a variety of ways, and from
different and independent sources of evidence. This is a question to
which I shall hereafter return; but there are two testimonies which I
cannot omit, because, from the circumstances attending them, they are
peculiarly unimpeachable. Llorente, the great historian of the
Inquisition, and its bitter enemy, had access to its private papers; and
yet, with the fullest means of information, he does not even insinuate a
charge against the moral character of the inquisitors; but while
execrating the cruelty of their conduct, he cannot deny the purity of
their intentions.[322] Thirty years earlier, Townsend, a clergyman of
the Church of England, published his valuable work on Spain;[323] and
though, as a Protestant and an Englishman, he had every reason to be
prejudiced against the infamous system which he describes, he also can
bring no charge against those who upheld it; but having occasion to
mention its establishment at Barcelona, one of its most important
branches, he makes the remarkable admission, that all its members are
men of worth, and that most of them are of distinguished humanity.[324]
[322] By which, indeed, he is sorely puzzled. 'On reconnaîtra mon
impartialité dans quelques circonstances où je fais remarquer
chez les inquisiteurs des dispositions généreuses; ce qui me
porte à croire que les atroces sentences rendues par le
Saint-Office, sont plutôt une conséquence de ses lois organiques,
qu'un effet du caractère particulier de ses membres.' _Llorente_,
_Histoire Critique de l'Inquisition d'Espagne_, vol. i. p.
xxiii.: compare vol. ii. pp. 267, 268, vol. iv. p. 153.
[323] Highly spoken of by the late Blanco White, a most competent judge.
See _Doblado's Letters from Spain_, p. 5.
[324] 'It is, however, universally acknowledged, for the credit of the
corps at Barcelona, that all its members are men of worth, and
most of them distinguished for humanity.' _Townsend's Journey
through Spain, in 1786 and 1787_, vol. i. p. 122, Lond. 1792.
These facts, startling as they are, form a very small part of that vast
mass of evidence which history contains, and which decisively proves the
utter inability of moral feelings to diminish religious persecution. The
way in which the diminution has been really effected by the mere
progress of intellectual acquirements, will be pointed out in another
part of this volume; when we shall see that the great antagonist of
intolerance is not humanity, but knowledge. It is to the diffusion of
knowledge, and to that alone, that we owe the comparative cessation of
what is unquestionably the greatest evil men have ever inflicted on
their own species. For that religious persecution is a greater evil than
any other, is apparent, not so much from the enormous and almost
incredible number of its known victims,[325] as from the fact that the
unknown must be far more numerous, and that history gives no account of
those who have been spared in the body, in order that they might suffer
in the mind. We hear much of martyrs and confessors--of those who were
slain by the sword, or consumed in the fire; but we know little of that
still larger number who, by the mere threat of persecution, have been
driven into an outward abandonment of their real opinions; and who, thus
forced into an apostasy the heart abhors, have passed the remainder of
their life in the practice of a constant and humiliating hypocrisy. It
is this which is the real curse of religious persecution. For in this
way, men being constrained to mask their thoughts, there arises a habit
of securing safety by falsehood, and of purchasing impunity with deceit.
In this way fraud becomes a necessary of life; insincerity is made a
daily custom; the whole tone of public feeling is vitiated, and the
gross amount of vice and of error fearfully increased. Surely, then, we
have reason to say, that, compared to this, all other crimes are of
small account; and we may well be grateful for that increase of
intellectual pursuits which has destroyed an evil that some among us
would even now willingly restore.
[325] In 1546, the Venetian ambassador at the court of the Emperor
Charles V. stated, in an official report to his own government on
his return home, 'that in Holland and in Friesland, more than
30,000 persons have suffered death at the hands of justice for
Anabaptist errors.' _Correspondence of Charles V. and his
Ambassadors_, edited by William Bradford, Lond. 8vo, 1850, p.
471. In Spain, the Inquisition, during the eighteen years of
Torquemada's ministry, punished, according to the lowest
estimate, upwards of 105,000 persons, of whom 8,800 were burned.
_Prescott's History of Ferdinand and Isabella_, vol. i. p. 265.
In Andalusia alone, during a single year, the Inquisition put to
death 2,000 Jews, 'besides 17,000 who underwent some form of
punishment less severe than that of the stake.' _Ticknor's
History of Spanish Literature_, vol. i. p. 410. For other
statistical evidence on this horrible subject, see _Llorente_,
_Histoire de l'Inquisition_, vol. i. pp. 160, 229, 238, 239, 279,
280, 406, 407, 455, vol. ii. pp. 77, 116, 376, vol. iv. p. 31;
and, above all, the summary at pp. 242-273.
The principle I am advocating is of such immense importance in practice
as well as in theory, that I will give yet another instance of the
energy with which it works. The second greatest evil known to
mankind--the one by which, with the exception of religious persecution,
most suffering has been caused--is, unquestionably, the practice of war.
That this barbarous pursuit is, in the progress of society, steadily
declining, must be evident, even to the most hasty reader of European
history.[326] If we compare one country with another, we shall find that
for a very long period wars have been becoming less frequent; and now so
clearly is the movement marked, that, until the late commencement of
hostilities, we had remained at peace for nearly forty years: a
circumstance unparalleled, not only in our own country, but also in the
annals of every other country which has been important enough to play a
leading part in the affairs of the world.[327] The question arises, as
to what share our moral feelings have had in bringing about this great
improvement. And if this question is answered, not according to
preconceived opinions, but according to the evidence we possess, the
answer will certainly be, that those feelings have had no share at all.
For it surely will not be pretended that the moderns have made any
discoveries respecting the moral evils of war. On this head nothing is
now known that has not been known for many centuries. That defensive
wars are just, and that offensive wars are unjust, are the only two
principles which, on this subject, moralists are able to teach. These
two principles were as clearly laid down, as well understood, and as
universally admitted, in the Middle Ages, when there was never a week
without war, as they are at the present moment, when war is deemed a
rare and singular occurrence. Since, then, the actions of men respecting
war have been gradually changing, while their moral knowledge respecting
it has not been changing, it is palpably evident that the changeable
effect has not been produced by the unchangeable cause. It is impossible
to conceive an argument more decisive than this. If it can be proved
that, during the last thousand years, moralists or theologians have
pointed out a single evil caused by war, the existence of which was
unknown to their predecessors,--if this can be proved, I will abandon
the view for which I am contending. But if, as I most confidently
assert, this cannot be proved, then it must be conceded that, no
additions having been made on this subject to the stock of morals, no
additions can have been made to the result which the morals
produce.[328]
[326] On the diminished love of war, which is even more marked than the
actual diminution of war, see some interesting remarks in
_Comte_, _Philosophie Positive_, vol. iv. pp. 488, 713, vol. vi.
pp. 68, 424-436, where the antagonism between the military spirit
and the industrial spirit is, on the whole, well worked out;
though some of the leading phenomena have escaped the attention
of this eminent philosopher, from his want of acquaintance with
the history and present state of political economy.
[327] In _Pellew's Life of Sidmouth_, 1847, vol. iii. p. 137, this
prolonged peace is gravely ascribed to 'the wisdom of the
adjustment of 1815;' in other words, to the proceedings of the
Congress of Vienna!
[328] Unless more zeal has been displayed in the diffusion of moral and
religious principles; in which case it would be possible for the
principles to be stationary, and yet their effects be
progressive. But so far from this, it is certain that in the
Middle Ages there were, relatively to the population, more
churches than there are now; the spiritual classes were far more
numerous, the proselyting spirit far more eager, and there was a
much stronger determination to prevent purely scientific
inferences from encroaching on ethical ones. Indeed, during the
Middle Ages, the moral and religious literature outweighed all
the profane literature put together; and surpassed it, not only
in bulk, but also in the ability of its cultivators. Now,
however, the generalizations of moralists have ceased to control
the affairs of men, and have made way for the larger doctrine of
expediency, which includes all interests and all classes.
Systematic writers on morals reached their zenith in the
thirteenth century, fell off rapidly after that period, were, as
Coleridge well says, opposed by 'the genius of Protestantism:'
and, by the end of the seventeenth century, became extinct in the
most civilized countries; the _Ductor Dubitantium_ of Jeremy
Taylor being the last comprehensive attempt of a man of genius to
mould society solely according to the maxims of moralists.
Compare two interesting passages in _Mosheim's Ecclesiast.
Hist._, vol. i. p. 338, and _Coleridge's Friend_, vol. iii. p.
104.
Thus far as to the influence exercised by moral feelings in increasing
our distaste for war. But if, on the other hand, we turn to the human
intellect, in the narrowest sense of the term, we shall find that every
great increase in its activity has been a heavy blow to the warlike
spirit. The full evidence for this I shall hereafter detail at
considerable length; and in this Introduction I can only pretend to
bring forward a few of those prominent points, which, being on the
surface of history, will be at once understood.
Of these points, one of the most obvious is, that every important
addition made to knowledge increases the authority of the intellectual
classes, by increasing the resources which they have to wield. Now, the
antagonism between these classes and the military class is evident: it
is the antagonism between thought and action, between the internal and
the external, between argument and violence, between persuasion and
force; or, to sum up the whole, between men who live by the pursuits of
peace and those who live by the practice of war. Whatever, therefore, is
favourable to one class, is manifestly unfavourable to the other.
Supposing the remaining circumstances to be the same, it must happen,
that as the intellectual acquisitions of a people increase, their love
of war will diminish; and if their intellectual acquisitions are very
small, their love of war will be very great.[329] In perfectly barbarous
countries, there are no intellectual acquisitions; and the mind being a
blank and dreary waste, the only resource is external activity,[330] the
only merit personal courage. No account is made of any man, unless he
has killed an enemy; and the more he has killed, the greater the
reputation he enjoys.[331] This is the purely savage state; and it is
the state in which military glory is most esteemed, and military men
most respected.[332] From this frightful debasement, even up to the
summit of civilization, there is a long series of consecutive steps;
gradations, at each of which something is taken from the dominion of
force, and something given to the authority of thought. Slowly, and one
by one, the intellectual and pacific classes begin to arise; at first
held in great contempt by warriors, but nevertheless gradually gaining
ground, increasing in number and in power, and at each increase
weakening that old military spirit, in which all other tendencies had
formerly been absorbed. Trade, commerce, manufactures, law, diplomacy,
literature, science, philosophy,--all these things, originally unknown,
became organized into separate studies, each study having a separate
class, and each class insisting on the importance of its own pursuit. Of
these classes, some are, no doubt, less pacific than others; but even
those which are the least pacific, are, of course, more so than men
whose associations are entirely military, and who see in every fresh war
that chance of personal distinction, from which, during peace, they are
altogether debarred.[333]
[329] Herder boldly asserts that man originally, and by virtue of his
organization, is peaceably disposed; but this opinion is
decisively refuted by the immense additions which, since the time
of Herder, have been made to our knowledge of the feelings and
habits of savages. 'Indessen ist's wahr, dass der Bau des
Menschen vorzüglich auf die Vertheidigung, nicht auf den Angriff
gerichtet ist: in diesem muss ihm die Kunst zu Hülfe kommen, in
jener aber ist er von Natur das kräftigste Geschöpf der Erde.
Seine Gestalt selbst lehret ihn also Friedlichkeit, nicht
räuberische Mordverwüstung,--der Humanität erstes Merkmal.'
_Ideen zur Geschichte_, vol. i. p. 185.
[330] Hence, no doubt, that acuteness of the senses, natural, and indeed
necessary, to an early state of society, and which, being at the
expense of the reflecting faculties, assimilates man to the lower
animals. See _Carpenter's Human Physiology_, p. 404; and a fine
passage in _Herder's Ideen zur Geschichte_, vol. ii. p. 12: 'Das
abstehende thierische Ohr, das gleichsam immer lauscht und
horchet, das kleine scharfe Auge, das in der weitesten Ferne den
kleinsten Rauch oder Staub gewahr wird, der weisse
hervorbleckende, knochenbenagende Zahn, der dicke Hals und die
zurückgebogene Stellung ihres Kopfes auf demselben.' Compare
_Prichard's Physical Hist. of Mankind_, vol. i. pp. 292, 293;
_Azara_, _Amérique Méridionale_, vol. ii. p. 18; _Wrangel's Polar
Expedition_, p. 384; _Pallme's Travels in Kordofan_, pp. 132,
133.
[331] 'Among some Macedonian tribes, the man who had never slain an
enemy was marked by a degrading badge.' _Grote's History of
Greece_, vol. xi. p. 397. Among the Dyaks of Borneo, 'a man
cannot marry until he has procured a human head; and he that has
several may be distinguished by his proud and lofty bearing, for
it constitutes his patent of nobility.' _Earl's Account of
Borneo_, in _Journal of Asiatic Society_, vol. iv. p. 181. See
also _Crawfurd on Borneo_, in _Journal of Geog. Soc._, vol.
xxiii. pp. 77, 80. And for similar instances of this absorption
of all other ideas into warlike ones, compare _Journal of Geog.
Soc._, vol. x. p. 357; _Mallet's Northern Antiquities_, pp. 158,
159, 195; _Thirlwall's Hist. of Greece_, vol. i. pp. 226, 284,
vol. viii. p. 209; _Henderson's History of Brazil_, p. 475;
_Southey's History of Brazil_, vol. i. pp. 126, 248; _Asiatic
Researches_, vol. ii. p. 188, vol. vii. p. 193; _Transactions of
Bombay Society_, vol. ii. pp. 51, 52; _Hoskins's Travels in
Ethiopia_, p. 163; _Origines du Droit_, in _[OE]uvres de
Michelet_, vol. ii. pp. 333, 334 note. So also the Thracians:
[Greek: gês de ergatên atimotaton. to sên apo polemoi kai
lêistuos, kalliston.] _Herodotus_, book v. chap. 6, vol. iii. p.
10, edit. Baehr.
[332] Malcolm (_History of Persia_, vol. i. p. 204) says of the Tartars,
'There is only one path to eminence, that of military renown.'
Thus, too, in the _Institutes of Timour_, p. 269: 'He only is
equal to stations of power and dignity, who is well acquainted
with the military art, and with the various modes of breaking and
defeating hostile armies.' The same turn of mind is shown in the
frequency and evident delight with which Homer relates battles--a
peculiarity noticed in _Mure's Greek Literature_, vol. ii. pp.
63, 64, where an attempt is made to turn it into an argument to
prove that the Homeric poems are all by the same author; though
the more legitimate inference would be that the poems were all
composed in a barbarous age.
[333] To the prospect of personal distinction there was formerly added
that of wealth; and in Europe, during the Middle Ages, war was a
very lucrative profession, owing to the custom of exacting heavy
ransom for the liberty of prisoners. See Barrington's learned
work, _Observations on the Statutes_, pp. 390-393. In the reign
of Richard II. 'a war with France was esteemed as almost the only
method by which an English gentleman could become rich.' Compare
_Turner's Hist. of England_, vol. vi. p. 21. Sainte Palaye
(_Mémoires sur l'ancienne Chevalerie_, vol. i. p. 311) says, 'La
guerre enrichissoit alors par le butin, et par les rançons, celui
qui la faisoit avec le plus de valeur, de vigilance et
d'activité. La rançon étoit, ce semble, pour l'ordinaire, une
année des revenus du prisonnier.' For an analogy with this, see
_Rig Veda Sanhita_, vol. i. p. 208, sec. 3, and vol. ii. p. 265,
sec. 13. In Europe, the custom of paying a ransom for
prisoners-of-war survived the Middle Ages, and was only put an
end to by the peace of Munster, in 1648. _Manning's Commentaries
on the Law of Nations_, 1839, p. 162; and on the profits formerly
made, pp. 157, 158.
Thus it is that, as civilization advances, an equipoise is established,
and military ardour is balanced by motives which none but a cultivated
people can feel. But among a people whose intellect is not cultivated,
such a balance can never exist. Of this we see a good illustration in
the history of the present war.[334] For the peculiarity of the great
contest in which we are engaged is, that it was produced, not by the
conflicting interests of civilized countries, but by a rupture between
Russia and Turkey, the two most barbarous monarchies now remaining in
Europe. This is a very significant fact. It is highly characteristic of
the actual condition of society, that a peace of unexampled length
should have been broken, not, as former peaces were broken, by a quarrel
between two civilized nations, but by the encroachments of the
uncivilized Russians on the still more uncivilized Turks. At an earlier
period, the influence of intellectual, and therefore pacific, habits was
indeed constantly increasing, but was still too weak, even in the most
advanced countries, to control the old warlike habits: hence there arose
a desire for conquest, which often outweighed all other feelings, and
induced great nations like France and England to attack each other on
the slightest pretence, and seek every opportunity of gratifying the
vindictive hatred with which both contemplated the prosperity of their
neighbour. Such, however, is now the progress of affairs, that these two
nations, laying aside the peevish and irritable jealousy they once
entertained, are united in a common cause, and have drawn the sword, not
for selfish purposes, but to protect the civilized world against the
incursions of a barbarous foe.
[334] I wrote this in 1855.
This is the leading feature which distinguishes the present war from its
predecessors. That a peace should last for nearly forty years, and
should then be interrupted, not, as heretofore, by hostilities between
civilized states, but by the ambition of the only empire which is at
once powerful and uncivilized--is one of many proofs that a dislike to
war is a cultivated taste peculiar to an intellectual people. For no one
will pretend that the military predilections of Russia are caused by a
low state of morals, or by a disregard of religious duties. So far from
this, all the evidence we have shows that vicious habits are not more
common in Russia than in France or England;[335] and it is certain that
the Russians submit to the teachings of the church with a docility
greater than that displayed by their civilized opponents.[336] It is,
therefore, clear that Russia is a warlike country, not because the
inhabitants are immoral, but because they are unintellectual. The fault
is in the head, not in the heart. In Russia, the national intellect
being little cultivated, the intellectual classes lack influence; the
military class, therefore, is supreme. In this early stage of society,
there is as yet no middle rank,[337] and consequently the thoughtful and
pacific habits which spring from the middle ranks have no existence. The
minds of men, deprived of mental pursuits,[338] naturally turn to
warlike ones, as the only resource remaining to them. Hence it is that,
in Russia, all ability is estimated by a military standard. The army is
considered to be the greatest glory of the country: to win a battle, or
outwit an enemy, is valued as one of the noblest achievements of life;
and civilians, whatever their merits may be, are despised by this
barbarous people, as beings of an altogether inferior and subordinate
character.[339]