power for mischief. It is true that, by degrees, more and more decline
argument with them, and they cease to have any convincing power, because
it is seen that they themselves do not rest in permanent convictions;
but their disturbing power remains. They can destroy, though they cannot
build up. They can unsettle minds which yet they cannot lead. They can
distress and perplex the humble and narrowly-informed;--they can
startle, not only the slothful, (who will turn to sleep again, on the
plea of the foible of the awakener) but the nervous and feeble who need
repose; and, worse than all, they can irreparably injure the young, by
spreading before them wide fields of inquiry, and then hunting them out
of every corner in which they would be disposed to stay, and rest, and
think. Men of this kind of mind have a certain power of sympathy with
every species of opinion; and this good and attractive quality it is
which mainly causes their self-deception, and aggravates their power of
injury. They mistake it for candour, at the very moment that they
overflow with intolerance towards holders of opinions which they have
relinquished. The result in such cases is always the same,--intellectual
ruin, throughout the department of the understanding, however eminent
the dialectical powers may appear, through the constant practice which
has increased their original strength; and with the intellectual damage
must be combined great moral injury. Göthe’s method appears to be
dangerous; but the opposite one is fatal.
To us, the depositories of vast confidences on these matters, it appears
that there is no manner of necessity for either practice. We can avouch,
from what we witness, that there may be sympathy with every order of
understanding and every phase of opinion, without either hypocrisy, or
tendency to disputation, or a surrender of differing views. We see how
there may be an intrepid and continuous avowal of opinions, without
disturbance to the unlearned and the feeble. We can fully agree with
Göthe as to the unequalled mischief of endangering belief in that vast
majority of minds which have other work to do than to investigate
matters of opinion, without seeing it to be at all necessary to
countenance what we know or believe to be error. We can fully agree with
his practical antagonists as to the nobleness of candour, and the evils
which ensue from dogmatism; while, at the same time, we would sooner die
than dare to tempt one intellect to follow us, after one self-conviction
of such an instability as theirs. Where there is a habit of mutability,
there is intellectual infirmity, as is shown, with indescribable
clearness, to us gazers into the mirror of events. It is a singular
privilege granted to us, to witness the workings of the best method,--of
that “simplicity and godly sincerity” which is unconsciously adopted by
the wise to whom Truth is neither the spirit of rashness, nor “of fear,
but of power and of love, and of a sound mind.”
It has occurred to me, at times, that a second volume,--“On the
Formation and Publication of Opinions,”--less popularly useful perhaps
than the existing one, but deeper and more comprehensive, might be an
invaluable gift from the hands of some one in a retreat, (in a sick
retreat, as illness invites confidence,)--from the hands of some one who
would know how to use with equal discretion and intrepidity his singular
opportunities.
One of our most valuable discoveries is often made elsewhere, but is not
sufficiently acknowledged and acted upon. We find, after a trial of many
methods, that we learn to endure and achieve less by direct effort than
by putting ourselves under influences favourable to the state of mind
we seek. We have discovered the same thing before, in regard to mending
our faults. We have found that childhood and youth were the seasons of
resolution, and that, perhaps, we have not since cured ourselves of a
single fault by direct effort. I am persuaded that instances are
extremely rare of rectification by such means. I have myself amended
only one bad habit--and that a very trifling one--by express effort,
since I was twenty; and I could point out only two or three, of all my
acquaintance, that I know to be capable of self-improvement in that
direct manner; and I cannot but honour them in proportion to my sense of
the difficulty and rarity of this exercise of moral power. Yet, how
people go on expecting reformation in sinners from a mere conviction of
the reason actuating the will, as they suppose, infallibly! the
consequence of which foolish expectation is, that the true appliances
are neglected. Wordsworth has it--
“‘Resolve!’ the haughty moralist would say:
‘This single act is all that we demand.’
Alas! such wisdom bids a creature fly,
Whose very sorrow is that Time hath shorn
His natural wings!”
Instead of losing time, and practically invoking despair, by exhorting
to impossible flights, wise guardians will rather remove the sufferer
into an element of new enterprise, or one which may gradually exhaust
and destroy his parasitical foes of habit. We sufferers experimentally
ascertain this very soon. We find how little reason we have to trust to
efforts of resolution under circumstances which tend to enfeeble
resolution. We might be capable, as so many others are, of any amount of
effort on a single emergency; but when we have to deal with a permanent
infliction--to make the best of a difficult mode of life--we find that
we must put our trust in abiding influences, and not in a succession of
efforts. We therefore lay aside defiance; we submit ourselves--not to
our troubles--but to every kind of natural preventive, remedy, and
solace. We arrange our personal habits so as to husband our ease, and to
conceal our pain; and we place our minds under such influences,
intellectual and spiritual, as may best nourish our higher powers, and
occupy our energies, to the alleviation, if it may not be to the
exclusion, of the suffering, whose challenge we will neither entertain
nor defy.
Among other merits of this method, may be reckoned this--that it helps
to introduce us to a privilege which may be disregarded by many, but
which to us is inestimable--that of causing pleasure, rather than pain,
to those connected with us. It is the prerogative of the healthy and
happy to give pleasure wherever they go; it is the worst humiliation and
grievance of the suffering, that they cause suffering. To the far-seeing
invalid, who is aware not only of this immediate effect, but of its
remote consequences, this is the most afflicting feature of his
condition. If we can, by any management, evade this liability, we have
cause to be grateful indeed. If, by submitting ourselves to all
softening and ennobling influences, we can so nourish and educe the
immortal part of ourselves as to subdue our own conflicts, and present
our active and enjoying aspect to those who visit us, we are absolved
from the worst penalties of our state. If, as years pass on, we find
ourselves sought from the impulse of inclination, as well as from the
stringency of duty--if we are permitted to see faces light up from ours,
and hear the music of mirth succeed to the low serious tones of
sympathetic greeting--we may let our hearts bound with the assurance
that all is well with us. When we cannot refuse to see that children
come to us eagerly, and that our riper companions stay late by our sofa,
and come again and again, till nothing short of duty calls them away,
any one might envy us the feelings with which we lie down again in our
solitude. We are not proud, like the young beauty with her conquest over
hearts, or like the political or literary hero with his sway over the
passions or the reason; but we are elate--and not without cause--elate
in our privilege of annihilating the constraint and distaste inspired by
our condition, and of finding ourselves restored to something like an
equality of intercourse with the healthy in soul. The best and highest
must ever be selected from among the healthy and the happy--from among
those whose conditions of being are the most perfectly fulfilled; but,
without aspiring to their consummate privileges, we feel ourselves
abundantly blessed in such a partial emancipation as permits us, on
occasion, and without shame, to join their “glorious company.”
THE END.
LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
* * * * *
_April, 1844_
MR. MOXON
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