aside, we read, as everybody read, philosophical histories, in which the
progress of society was presented; we read of the old times, when the
chieftain, whatever his title, dwelt in the castle on the steep, while
his retainers were housed in a cluster of dwellings under the shadow of
his protection. We read of the indispensable function of the Priest, in
the castle, and of the rise of his order; and then of the Lawyer and
_his_ order. We read of the origin of Commerce, beginning in monopoly;
and then of the gradual admission of more and more parties to the
privileges of trade, and their settling themselves in situations
favourable for the purpose, and apart from the head monopolists. We read
of the indispensable function of the Merchant, and the rise of _his_
order. We read of the feuds and wars of the aristocratic orders, which,
while fatally weakening them, left leisure for the middle and lower
classes to rise and grow, and strengthen themselves, till the forces of
society were shifted, and its destinies presented a new aspect. We read
of the sure, though sometimes intermitting, advance of popular
interests, and reduction of aristocratic power and privileges,
throughout the general field of civilisation. We read of all these
things, and assented to what seemed so very clear--so distinct an
interpretation of what had happened up to our own day. At the same
time, busy and involved as we were in the interests of the day, how
little use did we make of the philosophic retrospect, which might and
should have been prophetic! You, I think, dreaded in every popular
movement a whirlwind of destruction--in every popular success a sentence
of the dissolution of society. You believed that such a man, or such a
set of men, could give stability to our condition, and fix us, for an
unassignable time, at the point of the last settlement, or what you
assumed to be the latest. I, meanwhile, believed that our safety or
peril, for a term, depended on the event of this or that movement, the
carrying of this or that question. I was not guilty of fearing political
ruin. I did with constancy believe in the certain advance of popular
interests, and demolition of all injurious power held by the few; but I
believed that more depended on single questions than was really involved
in such, and that separate measures would be more comprehensive and
complete than a dispassionate observer thinks possible. In the midst of
all this, you and I were taken apart; and have not our eyes been opened
to perceive, in the action of society, the continuation of the history
we read so long ago? I need scarcely allude to the progress of popular
interests, and the unequalled rapidity with which some great questions
are approaching to a settlement. We have a stronger tendency to
speculate on the movements of the minds engaged in the transaction of
affairs, than on the rate of advance of the affairs themselves. With
much that is mortifying and sad, and something that is amusing, how much
is there instructive! And how clear, as in a bird’s-eye view of a
battle, or as in the analysis of a wise speculative philosopher, is the
process!
We see everybody that is busy doing what we did--overrating the
immediate object. There is no sin in this, and no harm, however it
proves incessantly the fallibility of human judgments. It is ordered by
Him who constituted our minds and our duties, that our business of the
hour should be magnified by the operation of our powers upon it. Without
this, nothing would ever be done; for every man’s energy is no more than
sufficient for his task; and there would be a fatal abatement of energy,
if a man saw his present employment in the proportion in which it must
afterwards appear to other affairs,--the limitation and weakness of our
powers causing us to apprehend feebly the details of what we see, when
we endeavour to be comprehensive in our views. The truth seems to lie in
a point of view different from either. I doubt whether it is possible
for us to overrate the positive importance of what we are doing, though
we are continually exaggerating its value in relation to other objects
of our own, while it seems pretty certain that we entertain an
inadequate estimate of interests that we have dismissed, to make room
for new ones.
Next, we see the present operation of old liberalising causes so strong
as to be irresistible; men of all parties--or, at least, reasonable men
of all parties--so carried along by the current of events, that it is
scarcely now a question with any one what is the point towards which the
vessel of the State is to be carried next, but how she is to be most
safely steered amidst the perils which beset an ordained course. One
party mourns that no great political hero rises up to retard the speed
to a rate of safety; and another party mourns that no great political
hero presents himself to increase while guiding our speed by the
inspiration of his genius; while there are a few tranquil observers who
believe that, glorious as would be the advent of a great political hero
at any time, we could never better get on without one, because never
before were principles so clearly and strongly compelling their own
adoption, and working out their own results. They are now the masters,
and not the servants, of Statesmen; and inestimable as would be the boon
of a great individual will, which should work in absolute congeniality
with these powers, we may trust, for our safety and progress, in their
dominion over all lesser wills.
Next, we perceive, (and we ask whether some others can be as blind to it
as they appear to be,) that a great change has taken place in the
morals--at least, in the conventional morals, of Statesmanship.
Consistency was once, and not long ago, a primary virtue in a
Statesman,--consistency, not only in general principle and aims, through
a whole public life, but in views of particular questions. Now it has
become far otherwise. The incurable bigots of political society are the
only living politicians, except a very small number of so-called
ultra-liberals, who can boast of unchanged views. Perhaps every public
man of sense and honour has changed his opinions, on more or fewer
questions, since he entered public life. It cannot be otherwise in a
period of transition, in a monarchy where the popular element is rising,
and the rulers are selected from the privileged classes alone. The
virtue of such functionaries now is, not that their opinions remain
stationary, and that their views remain consistent through a whole life,
but that they can live and learn.
And there are two ways of doing this--two kinds of men who do it. One
kind of man has all his life believed that certain popular principles
are for the good of society; he now learns to extend this faith to
measures which he once thought ultra and dangerous, and embraces these
measures with an earnest heart, for their own value. Another sort of man
has predilections opposed to these measures, laments their occurrence,
and wishes the old state of affairs could have been preserved; but he
sees that it is impossible,--he sees the strength of the national will,
and the tendency of events so united with these measures, that there is
peril in resistance. He thinks it a duty to make a timely proposal and
grant of them, rather than endanger the general allegiance and
tranquillity by delay, refusal, or conflict.
Now, though we may have our preferences in regard to such public men,
we cannot impute guilt to either kind. We see that it is unjust to
impute moral or political sin in either case. The great point of
interest to you and me is to observe how such new necessities and
methods work in society.
The incurables of the privileged classes of course act after their kind.
They are full of astonishment and feeble rage. The very small number of
really philosophical liberals--once ultras, but now nearly overtaken by
the times--- see tranquilly the fulfilment of their anticipations, and
anticipate still--how wisely, time will show. Of the two intermediate
parties, the question is, which appears most able to live and learn?
From the start the liberals had originally, it would seem that they must
hold the more dignified position of the two. But, judging them out of
their own mouths, what can we think and say?
To us it appears a noble thing to apprehend truth early, not merely as a
guess, but as a ground of opinion and action. A man who is capable of
this is secure that his opinions will be embraced by more and more
minds, till they become the universal belief of men. It is natural to
him to feel satisfaction as the fellowship spreads--both because
fellowship is pleasant to himself, and because the hour thereby draws
nearer and nearer for society to be fully blessed with the truth which
was early apparent to him. When this truth becomes indisputable and
generally diffused, and its related action takes place, his satisfaction
should be complete.
What an exception to this natural process, this healthy enjoyment, do we
witness in the political transactions of the time! Whatever may be
thought of the consistency of the most rapidly progressive party, what
can be said of the philosophy of the more early liberal? At every
advance of their former opponents, they are exasperated. They fight for
every tardily-apprehended political truth as for a private property.
They not only complain--“You thought the contrary in such a year!” “Here
are the words you spoke in such a year; the reverse of what you say
now!” but they cry, on every declaration of conversion to one of their
long-avowed opinions, “Hands off! that is _my_ truth; I got it so many
years ago, and you shan’t touch it!” To you and me (to whom it is much
the same thing to look back and to look abroad), it irresistibly occurs
to ask whether it was thus in former transition-states of society;
whether, for instance, assured and long-avowed Christians exclaimed, on
occasion of the conversion of enlightened heathens--“You extolled
Jupiter in such a year, and now you disparage him.” “Remember what you
said of Diana no longer ago than such a year!” “Do you think we shall
admit you to our Christ? He is ours these ten years!” Those of us who
believe and feel that the development of moral science (of which
political is one department) is as progressive as that of physical,
cannot but glance at the aspect of such conduct in relation to the
discovery of a new chemical agency, or important heavenly body; and
then.... But enough of such illustration. Nobody doubts the absurdity,
when fairly set down; though the number of grown men who have, within
three years, committed it daily in newspapers, clubs, markets, and the
Houses of Parliament, is so great as to be astonishing, till we discern
the causes, proximate and final, of such unphilosophical discourse and
demeanour.
While in this conflict grave and responsible leaders grow
factious--while men of purpose forget their march onward in
side-skirmishes--while reformers lose sight of the imperishable quality
of their cause, and talk of hopeless corruption and inevitable
destruction--how do affairs appear to us, in virtue merely of our being
out of the strife?
We see that large principles are more extensively agreed upon than ever
before--more manifest to all eyes, from the very absence of a hero to
work them, since they are every hour showing how irresistibly they are
making their own way. We see that the tale of the multitude is told as
it never was told before--their health, their minds and morals, pleaded
for in a tone perfectly new in the world. We see that the dreadful sins
and woes of society are the results of old causes, and that our
generation has the honour of being responsible for their relief, while
the disgrace of their existence belongs, certainly not to our time, and
perhaps to none. We see that no spot of earth ever before contained such
an amount of infallible resources as our own country at this day; so
much knowledge, so much sense, so much vigour, foresight, and
benevolence, or such an amount of external means. We see the progress of
amelioration, silent but sure, as the shepherd on the upland sees in the
valley the advance of a gush of sunshine from between two hills. He
observes what the people below are too busy to mark: how the light
attains now this object and now that--how it now embellishes yonder
copse, and now gilds that stream, and now glances upon the roofs of the
far-off hamlet--the signs and sounds of life quickening along its
course. When we remember that this is the same sun that guided the first
vessels of commerce over the sea--the same by whose light Magna Charta
was signed in Runnymede--that shone in the eyes of Cromwell after Naseby
fight--that rose on 800,000 free blacks in the West Indies on a certain
August morning--and is now shining down into the dreariest recesses of
the coal-mine, the prison, and the cellar--how can we doubt that
darkness is to be chased away, and God’s sunshine to vivify, at last,
the whole of our world?
Is it necessary, some may ask, to be sick, and apart, to see and believe
these things? Events seem to show that for some--for many--sequestration
from affairs is necessary to this end; for there are not a few who, in
the hubbub of party, have let go their faith, and have not to this
moment found it again. If there are some in the throng who can at once
act and anticipate faithfully, we may thank God for the blessing. But
they are sadly few.
I have said how clearly appears to us the fact and the reason of every
man’s exaggerating at the moment the importance of the work under his
hand. Not less clear is the ordination, as old and as continuous as
human action, by which men fail, more or less, of obtaining their
express objects, while all manner of unexpected good arises in a
collateral way. It is usual to speak of the results of the labours of
alchemists in this view, everybody seeing that while we still pick out
our gold from the ground, we owe much to the alchemists that they never
thought of. But the same is true of almost every object of human
pursuit, and even of belief. No doubt we invalids keep up our likeness
to our kind, in this respect, as far as we are able to act at all; but
we have more time than others to contemplate the working of the plan on
a large scale. Look at the projects, the discoveries, the quackeries of
the day!
With regard to the projects, however, I am at present disposed to make
one partial exception--to acknowledge, as far as I can at present see,
one case of singularity. I mean with regard to the New Postage. The
general rule proves true in one half of it, that many great and yet
unascertained benefits are arising, of which the projector did not
dream; so that a volume might be filled with anecdotes, curious to the
spectator and delightful to the benevolent. But, thus far, it does not
appear that any fallacy has mixed itself with the express expectations
of the projector. I do not speak of the failure of his efforts to get
his whole plan adopted. That will soon be a matter of small account--a
disappointment and vexation gone by--a temporary trial of patience,
forgotten except by the record. I mean that he has advanced no
propositions which he does not seem perfectly able to prove, uttered no
promises which do not appear certain to be fulfilled. This project is
perhaps the noblest afloat in our country and time, considering the
moral interests it involves. It is, perhaps, scarcely possible to
exaggerate the force and extent of its civilising and humanising
influences, especially in regard to its spreading the spirit of Home
over all the occupations and interests of life, in defiance of the
separating powers of distance and poverty; and it will be curious if
this enterprise, besides keeping the school-child at his mother’s bosom,
the apprentice, the governess, and the maid-servant, at their father’s
hearth--and us sick or aged people entertained daily with the flowers,
music, books, sentiment and news of the world we have left--should prove
an exception to all others in performing all its express promises. At
present, I own, this appears no matter of doubt.
As for the discoveries or quackeries of the time, (and who will
undertake to say in what instances they are not, sooner or later,
compounded?) how clear is the collateral good, whatever may be the
express failure? Those who receive all the sayings of the Coryphæus of
the phrenologists, and those who laugh at his maps of the mind and his
so-called ethics, must both admit that much knowledge of the structure
of the brain, much wise care of human health and faculties, has issued
from the pursuit, for the benefit of man. This Mesmerism again: who
believes that it could be revived, again and again, at intervals of
centuries, if there were not something in it? Who looks back upon the
mass of strange but authenticated historical narratives, which might be
explained by this agent, and looks, at the same time, into our dense
ignorance of the structure and functions of the nervous system, and will
dare to say that there is nothing in it? Whatever quackery and
imposture may be connected with it, however its pretensions may be
falsified, it seems impossible but that some new insight must be
obtained by its means, into the powers of our mysterious frame--some
fixing down under actual cognizance, of flying and floating notions,
full of awe, which have exercised the belief and courage of many wise,
for many centuries.
After smiling over old books all our lives, on meeting with quaint
assumptions of the Humoral pathology as true, while we supposed it
exploded--behold it arising again! One cannot open a newspaper, scarcely
a letter, without seeing something about the Water-cure; and grave
doctors, who will listen to nothing the laity can say of anything new,
(any more than they would tolerate the mention of the circulation of the
blood in Harvey’s day,) now intimate that the profession are disposed to
believe that there is more in the humoral pathology than was thought
thirty years ago, though not so much as the water-curers presume. Is it
not pretty certain, then, that something will come of this rage for the
water-cure, (something more than ablution, temperance, and exercise,)
though its professors must be embalmed as quacks in the literature of
the time? Is there not still another operation of the same principle
involved in the case? Are we not growing sensibly more merciful, more
wisely humane towards empirics themselves, when they cease to be our
oracles? Are we not learning, from their jumbled discoveries and
failures, that empiricism itself is a social function, indispensable,
made so by God, however ready we may be to bestow our cheap laughter
upon it? To us retired observers of life there is too much of this easy
mockery for our taste, or for the morals of society. Ours seems to be an
age when it is to the credit of others, besides statesmen, that they can
live and learn; and there is no getting on in our learning without
empiricism. It is less wise than easy to ridicule its connection with
non-essential modes and appearances prescribed or suggested by the
passions, needs, or follies of the time. It is most wise, and should be
easy, to have faith that the determining conditions of all experimental
discovery will be ascertained in due season. If, meanwhile, we can
obtain from the magnetisers any light as to any function of the nervous
system, we may excuse them from the performance of some promised feats.
If the Homœopathists can help us to any new principle of natural
antagonism to disease, they may well abide the laugh which I am not
aware that the serious of their number have ever provoked by any extreme
and unsupported pretensions.
* * * * *
But at this rate, occupying this scope, I shall never have done. I might
write on for every day of my life, and be no nearer the end of our
speculations. Let what I have said go for specimens of our observation
of life in two or three particulars. When I think of what I have seen
with my own eyes from one back window, in the few years of my illness;
of how indescribably clear to me are many truths of life from my
observation of the doings of the tenants of a single row of houses; it
seems to me scarcely necessary to see more than the smallest sample, in
order to analyse life in its entireness. I could fill a volume--and an
interesting one too--with a simple detail of what I have witnessed, as I
said, from one back-window. But I must tell, nothing. These two or three
little courts and gardens ought to be as sacred as any interior. Nothing
of the spy shall mix itself with my relation to neighbours who have
ever been kind to me. Suffice it, that if I saw no further into the
world with the mental than with the bodily eye, I should be kept in a
state of perpetual wonder, (of pleasing wonder, on the whole,) at the
operation of the human heart and mind, in its most ordinary
circumstances. Nothing can be more ordinary than the modes of life which
I overlook, yet am I kept wide awake in my watch by ever new instances
of the fulness of pleasure derivable from the scantiest sources; of the
vividness of emotion excitable by the most trifling incidents; of the
wonderful power pride has of pampering itself upon the most meagre food;
and, above all, of the infinite ingenuity of human love. Nothing,
perhaps, has impressed me so deeply as the clear view I have of almost
all, if not quite the whole, of the suffering I have witnessed being the
consequence of vice or ignorance. But when my heart has sickened at the
sight, and at the thought of so much gratuitous pain, it has grown
strong again in the reflection that, if unnecessary, this misery is
temporary,--that the true ground of mourning would be if the pain were
not from causes which are remediable. Then I cannot but look forward to
the time when the bad training of children,--the petulancies of
neighbours--the errors of the ménage--the irksome superstitions, and the
seductions of intemperance, shall all have been annihilated by the
spread of intelligence, while the mirth at the minutest jokes--the proud
plucking of nosegays--the little neighbourly gifts, (less amusing
hereafter, perhaps, in their taste)--the festal observances--the
disinterested and refined acts of self-sacrifice and love, will remain
as long as the human heart has mirth in it, or a humane complacency and
self-respect,--as long as its essence is what it has ever been, “but a
little lower than the angels.”
* * * * *
How is it possible to give an idea of what the gradual disclosure of the
fates of individuals is to us? In reading chronicles, and the lighter
kinds of history, we have all found ourselves eagerly watching the
course of love and domestic life, and pausing over the winding up, at
death, of the lot of personages whose mere names were all the interest
we began with. To us, in the monotony of our lives, it seems as if other
people’s lives slipped away with the rapidity with which we read a
book, while the interest we feel is that of personal knowledge. It is as
if Time himself were present unseen, whispering to us of a new kindled
love,--of marriage, with all its details of “pomp and circumstance;” and
then comes the deeper social interest,--the opening of a glimpse into
the vista of new generations, while all around the other interests of
life are transacting, and the children we knew at their parents’ knees
are abroad in the world, acting for themselves, and putting a hand to
the destinies of society.