Be not dismayed, kind reader,--I have no intention of impressing you for
a tiresome cruise in the high and dangerous latitudes of German
metaphysics; nor do I wish to set myself up as a critic of pure reason.
In spite of Noah Webster and his inquisitorial publishers, I still
cherish a partiality for correct orthography; and I would not be
understood as referring in the caption of this article to the celebrated
founder of the transcendental school of philosophy. I cannot but respect
Emmanuel Kant as a remarkable intellectual man; and I hope to be
pardoned for saying that his surname might properly be anglicized, by
spelling it with a C instead of a K. Neither did I allude to the useful
art of saying "No" opportunely, which an excellent friend of mine (whose
numerous virtues are neutralized by his propensity to fabricate puns in
season and out of season) insists upon denominating the "philosophy of
can't." That faculty which is, in more senses than one, a negative
virtue, is unhappily a much harder thing to find than the vice of which
I have a few words to say.
I do not mean cant in the worse sense of the word, as exemplified in the
characters of Pecksniff, Stiggins, Chadband, and Aminadab Sleek, nor
even in those of that large school of worshippers of propriety and
bond-servants of popular opinion, who reverse the crowning glory of the
character of Porcius Cato, and prefer to seem, rather than to be, good.
The cant I allude to is the technical phraseology of the various
virtues, which some people appear to think is the same thing as virtue
itself. They do not remember that a greasy bank-note is valueless save
as the representative of a given quantity of bullion, and that pious and
virtuous language is of no account except its full value be found in the
pure gold of virtue stored away in the treasure-chambers of the heart.
For such cant as this I have less respect than for downright hypocrisy;
for there is something positive about the character of your genuine
villain, which certainly does not repel me so strongly as the
milk-and-watery characteristics of that numerous class of every-day
people who (not being good enough to serve as examples, nor bad enough
to be held up as warnings) are of no use whatever in their day and
generation. What possible solace can he who deals in the set phrases of
consolation administer to the afflicted spirit in that hour, when (even
among the closest friends) "speech is silver, but silence is golden"?
There is scarcely a subject upon which men converse, in which this
species of cant does not play its part; but there are some matters in
which it makes itself so conspicuous that I cannot resist the temptation
to pay particular attention to them. And, as the subject is rather an
extensive one, I will parley no longer in its vestibule, but pull off my
overcoat, and make myself at home in its front parlour. I wish to make a
few observations on cant as it manifests itself in regard to morality,
philanthropy, religion, liberty, and progress. My notions will excite
the sneers of some of my younger readers, I doubt not, and perchance of
some older ones; but, while I claim the privilege of age in speaking out
my mind, I shall try to avoid the testiness which senility too often
manifests towards those who do not respect its opinions. Convinced that
mine are true, I can afford to emulate "Messire de Mauprat" in his
patience, and wait to see my fellow-men pass their fortieth birthday,
and, leaving their folly and enthusiasm behind them, come round to my
position.
The cant of Morality is so common that it is mistaken by many excellent
people for morality itself. To leave unnoticed the people who consider
it very iniquitous to go to the theatre, but perfectly allowable to
laugh at Mr. Warren on the stage of the Museum; who enjoy backgammon,
but shrink from whist with holy horror; and who hold up their hands and
cry out against the innocent Sunday recreations of continental Europe,
yet think themselves justified in reading their Sunday newspapers and
the popular magazines, or talking of the style of the new bonnets which
made their first appearance at the morning service,--to say nothing
about the moralists of this school, I am afraid that the prevailing
notions on matters of greater import than mere amusement are not such as
would stand a very severe moral test. When I see so much circumspection
with regard to external propriety, joined with such an evident want of
principle, it seems to me as if the Ten Commandments of the Old Law had
been superseded by an eleventh: _Thou shalt not be found out_. When I
see people of education in a city like Boston, dignifying lust under the
title of a spiritual affinity, and characterizing divorce as obedience
to the highest natural law,--and still more, when I see how little
surprise the enunciation of such doctrines occasions,--I no longer
wonder at infidelity, for I am myself tempted to ask whether there is
any such thing as abstract right or abstract wrong, and to question
whether morality may not be an antiquated institution, which humanity is
now sufficiently advanced to dispense with. It is a blessed thing that
we have not the power to read one another's hearts. To pass by the
unhappiness it would cause us, what changes it would occasion in our
moral classifications! How many men, clad in picturesque and variegated
costumes, are labouring in the public workshops of Charlestown, or Sing
Sing, or Pentonville, who, if the heart were seen, would be found
worthier by far than some of those ornaments of society who are always
at the head of their pews, and whose names are found alike on false
invoices and subscription lists for evangelizing some undiscovered
continent! What a different balance would be struck between so-called
respectability in its costly silks and its comparative immunity from
actual temptation, and needy wantonness displaying its rouge and
Attleborough jewelry all the more boldly because it feels that the ban
of society is upon it!
And this brings me to the cant of Philanthropy. That excellent word has
been so shamefully abused of late years, by being applied to the
empirical schemes of adventurers and social disorganizers, that you
cannot now say a much worse thing of a man than that he is a
"philanthropist." That term ought to designate one of the noblest
representatives of the unselfish side of human nature; but to my mind,
it describes a sallow, long-haired, whining fellow, who has taken up
with the profession of loving all men in general, that he may better
enjoy the satisfaction of hating all men in particular, and may the more
effectually prey upon his immediate neighbours; a monomaniac, yet with
sufficient "method in his madness" to make it pay a handsome profit; a
knave whose telescopic vision magnifies the spiritual destitution of
Tching-tou, and can see nothing wanting to complete our Christian
civilization but a willingness to contribute to the "great and good
work," and whose commissions for disbursing the funds are frightfully
disproportionate to the amount collected and the work done. But there is
a great deal of the cant of philanthropy passing current even among
those who have no respect for the professional philanthropist. With all
possible regard for the spirit of the age, I do not believe that modern
philanthropy can ever be made to take the place of old-fashioned
Christian charity. Far be it from me to underrate the benevolent efforts
which are made in this community; but I cannot help seeing that while
thousands are spent in alms, we lack that blessed spirit of charity
which imparted such a charm to the benevolent institutions of the middle
ages. They seemed to labour among the poor on the principle which Sir
Thomas Browne laid down for his charities--"I give no alms to satisfy
the hunger of my brother, but to fulfil and accomplish the will and
command of my God; I draw not my purse for his sake that demands it, but
His that enjoined it." We irreverent moderns have tried to improve upon
this, and the result is seen in legal enactments against mendicancy, in
palatial prisons for criminals, and in poorhouses where the needy are
obliged to associate with the vicious and depraved. The "dark ages" (as
the times which witnessed the foundation of the greatest universities,
hospitals, and asylums the world ever saw, are sometimes called) were
not dark enough for that.
Do what we may to remedy this defect in our solicitude for the suffering
classes, the legal view of the matter will still predominate. We may
imitate the kindliness of the ancient times, but we cannot disguise the
fact that pauperism is regarded not only as a great social evil, but as
an offence against our laws. While this is so, we shall labour in vain
to catch the tone of the days when poverty was ennobled by the virtues
of the apostolic Francis of Assisi and the heroic souls that
relinquished wealth and power to share his humble lot. The voice of our
philanthropy may be the voice of Jacob, but the hand will be the hand of
Esau. That true gentleman and kind-hearted knight whom I have already
quoted, had no patience with this contempt for poverty which was just
growing into sight in his time, but is now so common; and he
administered to it a rebuke which has lost none of its force by the
lapse of more than two hundred years: "Statists that labour to contrive
a commonwealth without poverty, take away the object of charity, not
understanding only the commonwealth of a Christian, but forgetting the
prophecy of Christ."
In making any allusion to religious cant, I am sensible that I tread on
very dangerous ground. Still, in an essay on such a subject as the
present, revivalism ought not to go unnoticed. God forbid that a man at
my time of life should pen a light word against any thing that may draw
men from their worldliness to a more intimate union with their Creator.
But the revival extravagances which last year made the profane laugh and
the devout grieve, merit the deprecation of every person who does not
wish to see religion itself brought into contempt. I do not believe in
the application of the high-pressure system to the spiritual life. Some
persons seem to regard a religious excitement as an evidence of a
healthy spiritual state. As well might they consider a fever induced by
previous irregularity to be a proof of returning bodily health. As the
physician of the body would endeavour to restore the patient to his
normal state, so too the true physician of the soul would labour to
banish the religious fever from the mind of his patient, and to plant
therein the sure principles of spiritual health--a clearly-defined
dogmatic belief, and a deep conviction of the sinfulness of sin. We all
need to be from time to time reminded that true religion is not a mere
effervescence, not a vain blaze, but a reality which reflects something
of the unchangeable glory of its divine Author. It is not a volcano,
treasuring within its bosom a fierce, destructive element, sullenly
smouldering and smoking for years, and making intermittent exhibitions
of a power as terrible as it is sublime. No; it is rather a majestic and
deep-flowing river, taking its rise amid lofty mountains whose snowy
crags and peaks are pure from the defilement of our lower world, fed
from heaven, bearing in its broad current beauty, and fertility, and
refreshment, to regions which would else be sterile and joyless, and
emptying at last into a shoreless and untroubled sea, whose bright
surface mirrors eternally the splendour of the skies.
That the cant of Liberty should be popular with the American tongue is
not, perhaps, to be wondered at. A young nation,--which has achieved its
own independence in a contest with one of the most powerful governments
in the world,--which has grown in territory, population, and wealth
beyond all historical precedent,--and which has a new country for its
field of action, so that its progress is unimpeded by the relics of
ancient civilization or the ruins of dead empires,--could not reasonably
be expected to resist all temptations to self-glorification. The
American eagle is no mere barnyard fowl--content with a secure roost and
what may be picked up within sight of the same. He is the most
insatiable of birds. His fierce eye and bending beak look covetous, and
his whole aspect is one of angry anxiety lest his prey should be
snatched from him, or his dominion should be called in question. In this
regard he differs greatly from his French relative, who squats with such
a conscious air of superiority on the tops of the regimental
standard-poles of the imperial army, and surveys the forest of bayonets
in which he makes his nest as if he felt that his power was undisputed.
And we Americans are not less uneasy and wild than the bird we have
chosen for our national emblem, and appear to think that the essential
part of liberty consists in keeping up an endless talk about it. Our
cant of freedom needs to be reminded of Tom Hood's observation
concerning religious cant:--
"'Tis not so plain as the old hill of Howth,
A man has got his bellyful of meat,
Because he talks with victuals in his mouth!"
With all our howling about liberty, we Americans are abject slaves to a
theory of government which we feel bound to defend under all
circumstances, and to propagate even in countries which are entirely
unfitted for it. This constitutional theory is a fine thing to talk
about; few topics afford so wide a range to the imaginative powers of a
young orator. It is not therefore to be wondered at, that the subject
should be so often forced upon us, and that so many startling contrasts
should be drawn between our governmental experiment and the
thousand-years-old monarchies of Europe. These comparisons (which some
people who make republicanism such an article of faith, that they must
find it hard to repeat the clause of the Lord's prayer, "Thy _kingdom_
come,"--are so fond of drawing) remind me of the question that was
discussed in the Milesian debating society--"Which was the greatest man,
St. Patrick or the Fourth of July?" and the conclusions drawn from them
are very like the result of that momentous debate, which was decided in
the affirmative.
For my own part, I have got past the age when eloquence and poetry are
of much account in matters of such vital importance as government. When
I buy a pair of overshoes, my first object is to get something that is
water-proof. So, too, in the matter of government, I only wish to know
whether the purposes for which government is instituted--the protection
of the life, property, and personal liberty of its subjects--are
answered; and, if they are, I am ready to swear allegiance to it, not
caring a splinter of a ballot-box whether it be founded on hereditary
succession or a roll of parchment, or whether its executive authority be
vested in a president, a king, or an emperor. That is the best
government which is best administered; it makes little difference what
you call it, or on what theory it is built. I love my country dearly,
and yield to no one in my loyalty to her government and laws; but
(pardon me for being so matter-of-fact, and seemingly unpatriotic) I
would willingly part with some of this boasted liberty of ours, to
secure a little more wisdom in making laws, and a good deal more
strength in executing them. I count the privilege of talking politics
and of choosing between the various political adventurers who aspire to
be my rulers, as a very insignificant affair compared with a sense of
security against popular violence and the dishonesty of dealers in the
necessaries of life. And I cannot help thinking, that for the
inhabitants of a country where there is little reverence for authority
or willing obedience to law, where the better class of the citizens
refuse to take any part in politics, and where the legislative power is
enthroned, not in the Senate, nor in the House of Representatives, but
in the Lobby,--for the inhabitants of such a country to boast of their
liberty aloud, is the most absurd of all the cants in this canting
world.
Little as I respect the cant of liberty, I care even less for the cant
of Progress. I never had much patience with this worship of the natural
sciences, which is rapidly getting to be almost the only religion among
certain cultivated people in this quarter. I remember in my boyhood
startling by my scientific apathy a precocious companion who used to
bother his brains about the solar system, and one useless ology and
another, in the precious hours which ought to have been devoted to
Robinson Crusoe and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. He had been
labouring hard to explain to me the law of gravitation, and concluded
with the bold statement that, were it not for that law, an apple, with
which he had been illustrating his theory, instead of falling to the
earth, might roll off the unprotected side of this sublunary sphere into
the abyss of space,--or something to that effect. He could not conceal
his contempt for my want of scientific ardour, when I asked him whether
he should really care if it did roll off, so long as there was a plenty
left! I did wrong to joke him, for he was a good fellow, in spite of his
weakness. It is many years since he figured himself out of this
unsatisfactory world, into a state of existence where vision is clearer
even than mathematical demonstration, and where _x_ does not "equal the
unknown quantity."
Pardon this digression: in complaining of the vaunted progress of this
rapid age, I am making little progress myself. It appears to me that the
people who laud this age so highly either do not know what true progress
is, or suffer themselves to mistake the means for the end. Your cotton
mills, and steam engines, and clipper ships, and electric telegraphs, do
not constitute progress; they are means by which it may be attained. If
gunpowder, immediately after its invention, had been devoted to the
indiscriminate destruction of mankind, could such an invention have
justly been termed progress? If the press were used only to perpetuate
the blasphemies and indecencies of Mazzini and Eugene Sue, who would
esteem Gutenberg and Fust as benefactors, or promoters of true progress?
And if the increased facilities for travel, and the other inventions on
which this age prides itself, only tend to make men's minds narrower by
absorbing them in material interests, and their souls more mean by
giving them the idol of prosperity to worship, then is this nineteenth
century a century of progress indeed, but in the wrong direction. And if
our mode of education only augments the ratio of crime among the lower
class, and makes superficial pretenders of the higher orders of society,
it is not a matter which will justify our setting ourselves quite so
high above past ages and the rest of the world.
I cannot see what need nor what excuse there is for all this bragging. A
great many strong men lived before Agamemnon,--and after him. We indeed
do some things that would astonish our forefathers; but how are we
superior to them on that account? We enslave the lightnings of heaven to
be our messengers, and compel the sun to take our portraits; but if our
electric wires are prostituted to the chicanery of trade or politics,
and the faces which the sun portrays are expressive of nothing nobler
than mercantile shrewdness and the price of cotton, the less we boast of
our achievements, the better. Thucydides never had his works puffed in a
newspaper, Virgil and Horace never poetized or lectured for a lyceum;
Charlemagne never saw a locomotive, nor did St. Thomas Aquinas ever use
a friction match. Yet this unexampled age possesses, I apprehend, few
historians who would not shrink from being compared with the famous
Greek annalist, few poets worthy to wear the crowns of the friends of
the great Augustus, few rulers more sagacious and firm than the first
Emperor of the West, and few scholars who would not consider it a
privilege to be taught by the Angelic Doctor.
True progress is something superior to your puffing engines and clicking
telegraphs, and independent of them. It is the advancement of humanity
in the knowledge of its frailty and dependence; the elevation of the
mind above its own limited acquirements, to the infinite source of
knowledge; the cleansing of the heart of its selfishness and
uncleanness; in fact, it is any thing whatever that tends to assimilate
man more closely to the divine Exemplar of perfect manhood.
*THE END.*