_THE DOGMATIST._
"I am Sir Oracle:
And when I ope my lips let no dog bark."
SHAKESPEARE.
This talker is one who sits in company as a king whose words are law; or
as a god whose communications are divine; or as a judge whose decisions
are unalterable. There is, however, this drawback to his supremacy--it
is only in his _own_ imagination. He is to himself an infallible
oracle--infallible in all points of theory and practice on which he
converses. He has surrounded himself with such fortifications of
strength, that to attack him with a view to gain a surrender on any
questions of dispute is like trying to break a rock with a bird's
feather, or taking Gibraltar with a merchant ship's gun. He is
invulnerable in everything. His words, like Jupiter's bolts, come down
upon you in such fury that your escape is as likely as that of a gnat
thrown into a caldron of flaming oil. Hercules crushing an infant in his
grasp is a difficult task compared to the ease with which this giant
talker grasps and crushes his opponent. In every mode of hostility he
meets you as Goliath met David--with lips of scorn and words of
contempt--to presume to stand before him in contradiction. Your logic is
weak; or you beg the question; or you see only one side; or you want
order of thought, breadth of view, clearness of perception; or you have
not studied philosophy, or psychology, or history, sufficiently to judge
of the question; or you are wrong altogether: you _must_ be so.
Thus his denunciations come down without mercy upon your poor soul; and
alas for you if you have not enough of mental stamina, independence, and
fortitude to stand up against them. If you are a lamb, you are torn to
pieces as in the jaws of a lion; if you are trembling and diffident, you
are overwhelmed as a dove in the claws of an eagle. He scathes with his
lightning and awes with his thunder. He sweeps everything before him,
and stands in the field as sole possessor. He is "Sir Ruler" of all
opinion. He is "Lord Guide" of all thought; and to have a thought or an
opinion of your own, contrary to his, is a presumption frowned upon with
sternest ire.
Another trait in this talker is, he has nothing good to say of any one,
or of anything that is of any one. He deals with others in the third
person as he deals with you in the second person. "What do you think of
so and so?" you ask: it may be of the highest personage in State or
Church, in literature or politics.
"O, he is narrow, or he is selfish; or he is mean; or he is vain; or he
is jealous; or he is little; or he is limited in his reading; or he is
something else, which unfits him to be where he is or what he is."
No one pleases him; nothing pleases him. Everybody is wrong; everything
is wrong. If there is a dark spot in the bright sky, he is sure to see
it; if a thorn on the rose, he is bound to run his hand in it; if a hole
in the garment, his finger will instinctively find its way there, and
make it larger.
I have met this talker in company more than once or twice; and I must
say that my conversation with him has been anything but pleasant or
satisfactory. I have thought every time that he has increased in his
idiosyncracy, that he has become more and more dogged, self-willed, and
obstinate. I have wished that he might see himself as others see him.
But to this he has been as blind as an owl in mid-day. Where is the
salve that would give him this power of vision? He see himself as others
see him! Can the blind be made to see, or the deaf to hear? Then may
this miracle be wrought. He sees no one in his mirror but himself, and
himself in full perfection. Should he, perchance, at any time see
another, it is in a manner that only enlarges the perception of his own
personal excellences, and strengthens his consciousness of
self-importance and self-satisfaction.
* * * * *
"Do you think, Mr. Jones, that Dr. Sharpe's views of the natural
immortality of the soul and the future condition of the wicked are
tenable by reason and Scripture?" asked Mr. Manly.
"There is neither reason nor Scripture in them," replied Mr. Jones, with
dogmatic emphasis. "He is hemmed in by your 'orthodoxy.' He is narrow in
his conceptions. He lacks breadth of thought. His logic is feeble. He is
deficient in true exegesis of Scripture. He has not looked into nature
to catch its unfettered inspirations. His arguments are as weak as an
infant's."
"But are you not forgetting the scholarship of the Doctor, underrating
his powers, and losing sight of the general favour with which his work
is received?" asked Mr. Manly.
"Forgetting his scholarship!" replied Jones, with a dogmatic sneer; "how
can I forget what he never had, and underrate powers which he never
possessed? And as for the favour with which his book has been received,
that is nothing to me. I think for myself: I speak for myself. I care
nothing for the opinion of others. I say, and when I say I mean what I
say, that there is no force in the Doctor's arguments."
"Yes, but, Mr. Jones, all that is mere dogmatism on your part, and no
argument," said Mr. Manly, calmly and firmly.
"You accuse me of dogmatism, do you?" roared Mr. Jones, "dogmatism
indeed! Who are you, to be so bold? No argument, either! If I do not
argue, who does? It is impudence on your part to say such a thing in my
presence."
Mr. Manly thought it wise to say no more about Dr. Sharpe's book. After
a brief pause Mr. Jones told a most marvellous account of two men in
South Africa, to which Mr. Manly observed,--
"That is a strange story, and hard to believe, Mr. Jones."
"_It is so_, whether you believe it or no: _I_ know it is true, and _it
is so_," replied Mr. Jones, positively.
"But your _ipse dixit_ does not make it true."
"My _ipse dixit_, indeed! Have not I read it? Do not I know it? Be it
true or false, I believe it; and I wonder at your impudence to call in
question anything that I say," said Jones, somewhat furiously.
"Do not excite yourself, Mr. Jones."
"Excite myself! isn't there enough to excite me? _I said so_, and that
ought to have been enough without your contradiction."