The vitality of a fallacy is incalculable. Although the Drawer has been
going many years, there are still remaining people who believe that
“things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.” This
mathematical axiom, which is well enough in its place, has been extended
into the field of morals and social life, confused the perception of
human relations, and raised “hob,” as the saying is, in political
economy. We theorize and legislate as if people were things. Most of the
schemes of social reorganization are based on this fallacy. It always
breaks down in experience. A has two friends, B and C--to state it
mathematically. A is equal to B, and A is equal to C. A has for B and
also for C the most cordial admiration and affection, and B and C have
reciprocally the same feeling for A. Such is the harmony that A cannot
tell which he is more fond of, B or C. And B and C are sure that A is the
best friend of each. This harmony, however, is not triangular. A makes
the mistake of supposing that it is--having a notion that things which
are equal to the same thing are equal to each other--and he brings B and
C together. The result is disastrous. B and C cannot get on with each
other. Regard for A restrains their animosity, and they hypocritically
pretend to like each other, but both wonder what A finds so congenial in
the other. The truth is that this personal equation, as we call it, in
each cannot be made the subject of mathematical calculation. Human
relations will not bend to it. And yet we keep blundering along as if
they would. We are always sure, in our letter of introduction, that this
friend will be congenial to the other, because we are fond of both.
Sometimes this happens, but half the time we should be more successful in
bringing people into accord if we gave a letter of introduction to a
person we do not know, to be delivered to one we have never seen. On the
face of it this is as absurd as it is for a politician to indorse the
application of a person he does not know for an office the duties of
which he is unacquainted with; but it is scarcely less absurd than the
expectation that men and women can be treated like mathematical units and
equivalents. Upon the theory that they can, rest the present grotesque
schemes of Nationalism.
In saying all this the Drawer is well aware that it subjects itself to
the charge of being commonplace, but it is precisely the commonplace that
this essay seeks to defend. Great is the power of the commonplace. “My
friends,” says the preacher, in an impressive manner, “Alexander died;
Napoleon died; you will all die!” This profound remark, so true, so
thoughtful, creates a deep sensation. It is deepened by the statement
that “man is a moral being.” The profundity of such startling assertions
cows the spirit; they appeal to the universal consciousness, and we bow
to the genius that delivers them. “How true!” we exclaim, and go away
with an enlarged sense of our own capacity for the comprehension of deep
thought. Our conceit is flattered. Do we not like the books that raise us
to the great level of the commonplace, whereon we move with a sense of
power? Did not Mr. Tupper, that sweet, melodious shepherd of the
undisputed, lead about vast flocks of sheep over the satisfying plain of
mediocrity? Was there ever a greater exhibition of power, while it
lasted? How long did “The Country Parson” feed an eager world with
rhetorical statements of that which it already knew? The thinner this
sort of thing is spread out, the more surface it covers, of course. What
is so captivating and popular as a book of essays which gathers together
and arranges a lot of facts out of histories and cyclopaedias, set forth
in the form of conversations that any one could have taken part in? Is
not this book pleasing because it is commonplace? And is this because we
do not like to be insulted with originality, or because in our experience
it is only the commonly accepted which is true? The statesman or the poet
who launches out unmindful of these conditions will be likely to come to
grief in her generation. Will not the wise novelist seek to encounter the
least intellectual resistance?
Should one take a cynical view of mankind because he perceives this great
power of the commonplace? Not at all. He should recognize and respect
this power. He may even say that it is this power that makes the world go
on as smoothly and contentedly as it does, on the whole. Woe to us, is
the thought of Carlyle, when a thinker is let loose in this world! He
becomes a cause of uneasiness, and a source of rage very often. But his
power is limited. He filters through a few minds, until gradually his
ideas become commonplace enough to be powerful. We draw our supply of
water from reservoirs, not from torrents. Probably the man who first said
that the line of rectitude corresponds with the line of enjoyment was
disliked as well as disbelieved. But how impressive now is the idea that
virtue and happiness are twins!
Perhaps it is true that the commonplace needs no defense, since everybody
takes it in as naturally as milk, and thrives on it. Beloved and read and
followed is the writer or the preacher of commonplace. But is not the
sunshine common, and the bloom of May? Why struggle with these things in
literature and in life? Why not settle down upon the formula that to be
platitudinous is to be happy?