arbitrarily, but with the several items all set down, so that I might
have verified them for myself, had I been mathematically gifted. “The
whole sum and number of years from the beginning of the world unto
the present year of our Lord 1815 is 5789 years, six months, and the
said odd ten days.” I have no prejudice in favor of retaining that
chronology as far as the thousands are concerned. Five thousand years
is one way of saying it was a very long time. If the geologists prefer
to convey the same idea by calling it millions, I am content; but I
should hate to give up the “said odd ten days.”
From the same Table of Offices and Conditions I imbibed my earliest
philosophical prejudices; for there I learned the difference between
the Stoics and the Epicureans.
The Stoics were described succinctly as “those who denied the liberty
of the will.” Just what this might mean was not clear, but it had an
ugly sound. The Stoics were evidently contentious persons. On the other
hand, all that was revealed concerning the Epicureans was that they
“placed all happiness in pleasure.” This seemed an eminently sensible
idea. I could not but be favorably disposed toward people who managed
to get happiness out of their pleasures.
To the excessive brevity of these definitions I doubtless owe an
erroneous impression concerning that ancient, and now almost extinct
people, the Samaritans. The name has had to me a suggestion of a
sinister kind of scholarship, as if the Samaritans had been connected
with some of the black arts. Yet I know nothing in their history to
justify this impression. The source of the error was revealed when I
turned again to the “Table of Offices and Conditions of Men” and read
once more, “Samaritans, mongrel professors, half heathen and half Jew.”
How was I to know that the reference was to professors of religion, and
not to professors of the arts and sciences?
As there are prejudices which begin in verbal misunderstandings, so
there are those which are nourished by the accidental collocation of
words. A noun is known by the adjectives it keeps. When we hear of dull
conservatism, rabid radicalism, selfish culture, timid piety, smug
respectability, we receive unfavorable impressions. We do not always
stop to consider that all that is objectionable really inheres in the
qualifying words. In a well-regulated mind, after every such verbal
turn there should be a call to change partners. Let every noun take a
new adjective, and every verb a new adverb.
Clever Bohemians, having heard so much of “smug respectability,” take
a dislike to respectability. But some of the smuggest persons are not
respectable at all,--far from it! Serenely satisfied with their own
irresponsibility, they look patronizingly upon the struggling world
that owes them a living. I remember a visit from one of these gentry.
He called to indicate his willingness to gratify my charitable impulses
by accepting from me a small loan. If I did not believe the story of
his frequent incarcerations I might consult the chaplain of the House
of Correction. He evidently considered that he had a mission. He went
about offering his hard and impenitent heart as a stone on which the
philanthropists might whet their zeal. Smug respectability, forsooth!
From force of habit we speak of the “earnest” reformer, and we are
apt to be intolerant of his lighter moods. Wilberforce encountered
this prejudice when he enlivened one of his speeches with a little
mirth. His opponent seized the opportunity to speak scornfully of the
honorable gentleman’s “religious facetiousness.” Wilberforce replied
very justly that “a religious man might sometimes be facetious, seeing
that the irreligious did not always escape being dull.”
An instance of the growth of a verbal prejudice is that which in
certain circles resulted in the preaching against what was called
“mere morality.” What the preachers had in mind was true enough. They
objected to _mere_ morality, as one might say, “Mere life is not enough
to satisfy us, we must have something to live on.” They would have more
than a bare morality. It should be clothed with befitting spiritual
raiment. But the parson’s zeal tended to outrun his discretion, and
forgetting that the true object of his attack was the mereness and
not the morality, he gave the impression that the Moral Man was the
great enemy of the faith. At last the parishioner would turn upon his
accuser. “You need not point the finger of scorn at me. What if I have
done my duty to the best of my ability! You should not twit on facts.
If it comes to that, you are not in a position to throw stones. If I am
a moral man, you’re another.”
There are prejudices which are the result of excessive fluency of
speech. The flood of words sweeps away all the natural distinctions
of thought. All things are conceived of under two categories,--the
Good and the Bad. If one ill is admitted, it is assumed that all the
rest follow in its train. There are persons who cannot mention “the
poor” without adding, “the weak, the wretched, the oppressed, the
downtrodden, the suffering, the sick, the sinful, the erring,” and so
on to the end of the catalogue. This is very disconcerting to a young
fellow who, while in the best of health and spirits, is conscious that
he is rather poor. He would willingly admit his poverty were it not
for the fear of being smothered under the wet blanket of universal
commiseration.
When the category of the Good is adopted with the same undiscriminating
ardor the results are equally unfortunate. We are prejudiced against
certain persons whom we have never met. We have heard nothing but
good of them, and we have heard altogether too much of that. Their
characters have been painted in glaring virtues that swear at one
another. We are sure that we should not like such a combination of
unmitigated excellencies, for human nature abhors a paragon. And yet
the too highly commended person may, in reality, not be a paragon at
all, but a very decent fellow. He would quickly rise in our regard were
it not for the eulogies which hang like millstones around his neck.
It is no easy thing to praise another in such a way as to leave a
good impression on the mind of the hearer. A virtue is not for all
times. When a writer is too highly commended for being laborious and
conscientious we are not inclined to buy his book. His conscience doth
make cowards of us all. It may be proper to recommend a candidate for a
vacant pulpit as indefatigable in his pastoral labors; but were you to
add, in the goodness of your heart, that he was equally indefatigable
as a preacher, he would say, “An enemy hath done this.” For the
congregation would suspect that his freedom from fatigue in the pulpit
was likely to be gained at their expense.
The prejudices which arise from verbal association are potent in
preventing any impartial judgment of men whose names have become
household words. The man whose name has become the designation of a
party or a theory is the helpless victim of his own reputation. Who
takes the trouble to pry into the personal opinions of John Calvin? Of
course they were Calvinistic. When we hear of the Malthusian doctrine
about population, we picture its author as a cold-blooded, economical
Herod, who would gladly have ordered a massacre of the innocents.
Let no one tell us that the Reverend Richard Malthus was an amiable
clergyman, who was greatly beloved by the small parish to which he
ministered. In spite of all his church wardens might say, we would not
trust our children in the hands of a man who had suggested that there
might be too many people in the world. But in such cases we should
remember that a man’s theories do not always throw light upon his
character. When a distinguished physician has a disease named after
him, it is understood that the disease is the one he discovered, and
not the one he died of.
When the Darwinian hypothesis startled the world, many pious
imaginations conceived definite pictures of the author of it. These
pictures had but one thing in common,--their striking unlikeness
to the quiet gentleman who had made all this stir. By the way,
Darwin was the innocent victim of two totally disconnected lines of
prejudice. After he had outlived the disfavor of the theologians,
he incurred the contempt of the apostles of Culture; all because of
his modest confession that he did not enjoy poetry as much as he
once did. Unfortunately, his scientific habit of mind led him to say
that he suspected that he might be suffering from atrophy of the
imaginative faculty. Instantly every literal-minded reader and reviewer
exclaimed, “How dreadful! What a judgment on him!” Yet, when we stop
to think about it, the affliction is not so uncommon as to call for
astonishment. Many persons suffer from it who are not addicted to
science.
* * * * *
After all, these are harmless prejudices. They are content with their
own little spheres; they ask only to live and let live. There are
others, however, that are militantly imperialistic. They are ambitious
to become world powers. Such are those which grow out of differences in
politics, in religion, and in race.
Political animosities have doubtless been mitigated by freer social
intercourse, which gives more opportunities for meeting on neutral
ground. It is only during a heated campaign that we think of all of the
opposing party as rascals. There is time between elections to make the
necessary exceptions. It is customary to make allowance for a certain
amount of partisan bias, just as the college faculty allows a student a
certain number of “cuts.” It is a just recognition of human weakness.
Our British cousins go farther, and provide means for the harmless
gratification of natural prejudices. There are certain questions on
which persons are expected to express themselves with considerable
fervor, and without troubling themselves as to the reasonableness of
their contention. In a volume of published letters I was pleased to
read one from a member of the aristocracy. He had been indulging in
trivial personalities, when suddenly he broke off with “Now I must go
to work on the Wife’s Sister’s Question; I intend to make a good stout
protest against that rascally bill!” There is no such exercise for the
moral nature as a good stout protest. We Americans take our exercise
spasmodically. Instead of going about it regularly, we wait for some
extraordinary occasion. We make it a point of sportsmanship to shoot
our grievance on the wing, and we are nervously anxious lest it get out
of range before we have time to take aim.
Not so the protesting Briton. He approves of the answer of Jonah when
he was asked, “Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?” Jonah,
without any waste of words, replied, “I do well to be angry.” When
the Englishman feels that it is well for him to be angry, he finds
constitutional means provided. Parliament furnishes a number of
permanent objects for his disapproval. Whenever he feels disposed he
can make a good stout protest, feeling assured that his indignation
is well bestowed. He has such satisfaction as that which came to Mr.
Micawber in reading his protest against the villainies of Uriah Heep:
“Much afflicted but still intensely enjoying himself, Mr. Micawber
folded up the letter and handed it with a bow to my aunt, as something
she might like to keep.”
These stout-hearted people have learned not only how to take their
pleasures sadly, but, what is more to the purpose, how to take their
sadnesses pleasantly. We Americans have, here, something to learn. We
should get along better if we had a number of argument-proof questions
like that in regard to marriage with the deceased wife’s sister which
could be warranted to recur at regular intervals. They could be set
apart as a sort of public playground for the prejudices. It would at
least keep the prejudices out of mischief.
Religious prejudice has an air of singularity. The singular thing is
that there should be such a variety. If we identify religion with the
wisdom that is from above, and which is “first pure, then peaceable,
easy to be entreated, without partiality,” it is hard to see where
the prejudice comes in. Religious prejudice is a compound of religion
and several decidedly earthly passions. The combination produces a
peculiarly dangerous explosive. The religious element has the same part
in it that the innocent glycerine has in nitro-glycerine. This latter,
we are told, is “a compound produced by the action of a mixture of
strong nitric and sulphuric acids on glycerine at low temperatures.” It
is observable that in the making of religious prejudice the religion is
kept at a very low temperature, indeed.
We are at present in an era of good feeling. Not only is there an
interchange of kindly offices between members of different churches,
but one may detect a tendency to extend the same tolerance to the
opposing party in the same church. This is a real advance, for it
is always more difficult to do justice to those who differ from us
slightly than to those whose divergence is fundamental. To love our
friends is a work of nature, to love our enemies is a work of grace;
the troublesome thing is to get on with those who are “betwixt and
between.” In such a case we are likely to fall between nature and grace
as between two stools. Almost any one can be magnanimous in great
affairs, but to be magnanimous in trifles is like trying to use a large
screw-driver to turn a small screw.
In a recently published correspondence between dignitaries of the
Church of England I find many encouraging symptoms. The writers
exhibit a desire to do justice not only to the moral, but also to the
intellectual, gifts of those who differ from them even slightly. There
is, of course, enough of the old Adam remaining to make their judgments
on one another interesting reading. It is pleasant to see brethren
dwelling together in unity,--a pleasure seldom prolonged to the point
of satiety. Thus the Dean of Norwich writes to the Dean of Durham in
regard to Dean Stanley. Alluding to an opinion, in a previous letter,
in regard to Archbishop Tait, the writer says: “I confess I shouldn’t
have ranked him among the great men of the day. Of our contemporaries
I should have assigned that rank, without hesitation, to little Stan,
though I quite think he did more mischief in our church and to religion
than most men have it in them to do. Still I should say that little
Stan was a great man in his way.” There you may see a mind that has,
with considerable difficulty, uprooted a prejudice, though you may
still perceive the place where the prejudice used to be.
While the methods of the exact sciences have had a discouraging effect
on partisan and sectarian prejudices, they seem, for the moment, to
have given new strength to those which are the result of differences
in race. Time was when Anti-Semitism derived its power from religious
rancor. The cradle hymn which the Puritan mother sang began sweetly,--
Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber!
Holy angels guard thy bed!
But after a while the mother thinks of the wickedness of the Jews:--
Yet to read the shameful story
How the Jews abused their King,
How they served the Lord of Glory,
Makes me angry while I sing.
In these days, the Anti-Semites are not so likely to be angry while
they sing, as while they cast up their accounts.
* * * * *
The natural sciences discriminate between classes rather than between
individuals. Sociology deals with groups, and not with persons.
Anthropology acquaints us with the aboriginal and unmoralized man. It
emphasizes the solidarity of the clan and the persistence of the cult.
Experimental psychology is at present interested in the sub-conscious
and instinctive life. For its purpose it treats a man as a series of
nervous reactions. Human history is being rewritten as a branch of
Natural History. Eliminating the part played by personal will, it
exhibits an age-long warfare between nations and races.
This is all very well so long as we remember what it is that we are
studying. Races, cults, and social groups exist and have their history.
There is no harm in defining the salient characteristics of a race,
and saying that, on the whole, one race is inferior to another. The
difficulty comes when this rough average is made the dead line beyond
which an individual is not allowed to pass.
In our Comedy of Errors, which is always slipping into tragedy, there
are two Dromios on the stage,--the Race and the Individual. The Race
is an abstraction which can bear any amount of punishment without
flinching. You may say anything you please about it and not go far
wrong. It is like criticising a composite photograph. There is nothing
personal about it. Who is offended at the caricatures of Brother
Jonathan or of John Bull? We recognize certain persistent national
traits, but we also recognize the element of good-humored exaggeration.
The Jew, the Slav, the Celt, the Anglo-Saxon have existed for ages.
Each has admired himself, and been correspondingly disliked by others.
Even the Negro as a racial abstraction is not sensitive. You may, if
you will, take up the text, so much quoted a generation ago, “Cursed
be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be.... God shall enlarge
Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall
be his servant.” Dromio Africanus listens unmoved to the exegesis
of Petroleum V. Nasby and his compeers at the Crossroads: “God cust
Canaan, and sed he shood be a servant forever. Did he mean us to pay
him wages? Not eny: for ef he hed he wood hev ordered our tastes and
habits so es we shood hev hed the wherewithal to do it.”
The impassive Genius of Africa answers the Anglo-Saxon: “If it pleases
you to think that your prejudice against me came out of the Ark, so
be it. If you find it agreeable to identify yourself with Japheth who
shall providentially be enlarged, I may as well be Canaan.”
So long as the doctrinaires of the Crossroads are dealing only with
highly generalized conceptions no harm is done. But now another Dromio
appears. He is not a race; he is a person. He has never come that way
before, and he is bewildered by what he sees and hears. Immediately he
is beset by those who accuse him of crimes which some one who looks
like him has committed. He is beaten because he does not know his
place; how can he know it, stumbling as he does upon a situation for
which he is altogether unprepared? It is an awkward predicament, this
of being born into the world as a living soul. Under the most favorable
conditions it is hard for the new arrival to find himself, and adjust
himself to his environment. But this victim of mistaken identity finds
that he has been judged and condemned already. When he innocently tries
to make the most of himself a great uproar is created. What right has
he to interfere with the preconceived opinions of his betters? They
understand him, for have they not known him for many generations?
Poor man Dromio! Whether he have a black skin or a yellow, and whatever
be the racial type which his features suggest, the trouble is the same.
He is sacrificed on the altar of our stupidity. He suffers because of
our mental color-blindness, which prevents our distinguishing persons.
We see only groups, and pride ourselves on our defective vision. By
and by we may learn to be a little ashamed of our crudely ambitious
generalizations. A finer gift is the ability to know a man when we see
him. It may be that Nature is “careful of the type,” and “careless of
the single life.” If that be so, it may be the part of wisdom for us to
give up some of our anxieties about the type, knowing that Nature will
take care of that. Such relief from excessive cosmic responsibility
will give us much more time for our proper work, which is to deal
justly with each single life.
HOW TO KNOW THE FALLACIES
[Illustration]
My friend Scholasticus was in a bad way. He had been educated before
the elective system came in, and he had a pathetic veneration for the
old curriculum. It was to him the sacred ark, now, alas, carried away
into the land of the Philistines. He cherished it as a sort of creed
containing the things surely to be learned by a gentleman, and whoso
hath not learned these things, let him be anathema. In meeting the
present-day undergraduates, it was hard to say which amazed him most,
the things they knew or the things they did not know. Perhaps the new
knowledge seemed to him the more uncouth.
“The intellectual world,” he would say, “is topsy-turvy. What is to
be expected of a generation that learns to write before it learns to
read, and learns to read before it learns to spell,--or rather which
never does learn to spell. Everything begins wrong end foremost. In
my day small children were supposed to be ‘pleased with a rattle,
tickled with a straw,’ until such time as they were old enough to be
put to stiff work on the First Reader. Nowadays, the babes begin with
the esoteric doctrine of their playthings. Even the classics of infancy
are rationalized. I was about to buy a copy of ‘Mother Hubbard and her
Dog’ for a dear young friend, when I discovered that it was a revised
version. The most stirring incident was given thus,--
She went to the baker’s to buy some bread,
And when she came back the dog looked dead.
That wasn’t the way the tale was told to me. I was told that the poor
dog was dead, and I believed it. That didn’t prevent my believing
a little while after that the doggie was dancing a jig. I took it
for granted that that was the way dogs did in Mother Hubbard’s day.
Nowadays, the critics in bib and tucker insist that the story must
conform to what they have prematurely learned about the invariable laws
of nature.
“I shouldn’t mind this if they kept on reasoning. But it’s a false
start. After the wide generalizations of infancy have been forgotten,
the youth begins to specialize. He takes a small slice of a subject,
ignoring its more obvious features and its broader outlines. He has a
contempt for general ideas. What we studied, he takes for granted. He’s
very observing, but he doesn’t put two and two together. There they
stand in his mind, two separate ideas, politely ignoring one another,
because they have not been properly introduced. The result of all this
is evident enough. How many people do you come across with whom it is
a pleasure to hold an argument? Not many! They don’t know the rules
of the game. You can’t enter a drawing-room without hearing questions
discussed in a way possible only to those whose early education in the
art of reasoning had been neglected. The chances are that every one of
the fallacies we learned about in Whately could appear in good society
without anybody being able to call them by their Latin names.
“‘Doesn’t this follow from that?’ the facile talker asks, as if that
were all that is necessary to constitute a valid argument. Of course it
follows; his assertions follow one another like a flock of sheep. But
what short work our old Professor would have made with these plausible
sequences!
“What a keen scent the old man had for fallacies! Even when the
conclusion was obviously sound, he insisted that we should come by it
honestly. He would never admit that in such matters the end justifies
the means. I remember his merciless exposure of the means by which
some unscrupulous metaphysicians accumulated their intellectual
property. His feeling about the ‘Undistributed Middle’ was much the
same as that of Henry George about the ‘Unearned Increment.’ How he
used to get after the moonshiners who were distilling arguments by the
illicit process of the major term! In these days the illicit process
goes on openly. The growth of the real sciences does not in the least
discourage the pseudo-sciences. It rather seems to stimulate them.