2.--THE WAY OF THE REASON
_We should teach children, also, not to lean (too confidently)
unto their own understanding because the function of reason is
to give logical demonstration of (a) mathematical truth and (b)
of initial ideas accepted by the will. In the former case reason
is, perhaps, an infallible guide but in the latter is not always
a safe one, for whether the initial idea be right or wrong reason
will confirm it by irrefragable proofs._
_Therefore children should be taught as they become mature enough
to understand such teaching that the chief responsibility which
rests upon them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of
ideas presented to them. To help them in this choice we should
afford them principles of conduct and a wide range of fitting
knowledge._
Every child, every man, who comes to a sudden halt watching the
action of his own reason, is another Columbus, the discoverer of
a new world. Commonly we let reason do its work without attention
on our part, but there come moments when we stand in startled
admiration and watch the unfolding before us point by point of a
score of arguments in favour of this carpet as against that, this
route in preference to the other, our chosen chum as against Bob
Brown; because every _pro_ suggested by our reason is opposed
to some _con_ in the background. How else should it happen that
there is no single point upon which two persons may reason,--food,
dress, games, education, politics, religion,--but the two may take
opposite sides, and each will bring forward infallible proofs
which must convince the other were it not that he too is already
convinced by stronger proofs to strengthen his own argument. Every
character in history or fiction supports this thesis; and probably
we cannot give a better training in right reasoning than by
letting children work out the arguments in favour of this or that
conclusion.
Thus, Macbeth, a great general, returns after a brilliant victory,
head and heart are inflated, what can he not achieve? Could he not
govern a country as well as rule an army? Reason unfolds the steps
by which he might do great things; great things, ay, but are they
lawful, these possible exploits? And then in the nick of time he
comes across the ‘weird Sisters,’ as we are all apt to take refuge
in fatalism when conscience no longer supports us. He shall be
Thane of Cawdor, and, behold, confirmation arrives on the spot. He
shall also be king. Well, if this is decreed, what can he do? He
is no longer a free agent. And a score of valid arguments unfold
themselves showing how Scotland, the world, his wife, himself,
would be enhanced, would flourish and be blessed if he had the
opportunity to do what was in him. Opportunity? The thing was
decreed! It rested with him to find the means, the tools. He was
not without imagination, had a poetic mind and shrank before the
horrors he vaguely foresaw. But reason came to his aid and step by
step the whole bloody tragedy was wrought out before his prescient
mind. When we first meet with Macbeth he is rich in honours, troops
of friends, the generous confidence of his king. The change is
sudden and complete, and, we may believe, reason justified him at
every point. But reason did not begin it. The will played upon by
ambition had already admitted the notion of towering greatness or
ever the ‘weird Sisters’ gave shape to his desire. Had it not been
for this countenance afforded by the will, the forecasts of fate
would have influenced his conduct no more than they did that of
Banquo.
But it must not be supposed that reason is malign, the furtherer
of ill counsels only. Nurse Cavell, Jack Cornwell, Lord Roberts,
General Gordon, Madame Curie, leave hints enough to enable us
to follow the trains of thought which issued in glorious deeds.
We know how Florence Nightingale received, welcomed, reasoned
out the notion of pity which obsessed her, and how through many
difficulties her great project for the saving of the sick and
suffering of her country’s army worked itself out; how she was able
to convey to those in power the same convincing arguments which
moved herself. That was a happy thought of the mediæval Church
which represented the leading idea of each of the seven Liberal
Arts by a chosen exponent able to convince others by the arguments
which his own reason brought forward. So Priscian taught the world
Grammar; Pythagoras, Arithmetic; and the name of Euclid still
stands for the science which appealed to his reason. But it is not
only great intellectual advances and discoveries or world-shaping
events for good or evil, that exhibit the persuasive power of
reason. There is no object in use, great or small, upon which
some man’s reason has not worked exhaustively. A sofa, a chest of
drawers, a ship, a box of toy soldiers, have all been thought out
step by step, and the inventor has not only considered the _pros_
but has so far overcome the _cons_ that his invention is there,
ready for use; and only here and there does anyone take the trouble
to consider how the useful, or, perhaps, beautiful article came
into existence. It is worth while to ask a child, How did you think
of it? when he comes to tell you of a new game he has invented, a
new country of the imagination he has named, peopled and governed.
He will probably tell you what first ‘put it into his head’ and
then how the reasons one after another came to him. After,--How
did _you_ think of it?--the next question that will occur to a
child is,--How did _he_ think of it?--and he will distinguish
between the first notion that has ‘put it into his head’ and the
reasoned steps which have gone to the completion of an object,
the discovery of a planet, the making of a law. Sometimes a child
should be taken into the psychology of crime, and he will see that
reason brings infallible proofs of the rightness of the criminal
act. From Cain to the latest great offender every criminal act has
been justified by reasoned arguments which come of their own accord
to the criminal. We know the arguments before which Eve fell when
the Serpent played the part of the ‘weird Sisters.’ It is pleasant
to the eye; it is good for food; it shall make you wise in the
knowledge of good and evil--good and convincing arguments, specious
enough to overbear the counter-pleadings of Obedience. Children
should know that such things are before them also; that whenever
they want to do wrong capital reasons for doing the wrong thing
will occur to them. But, happily, when they want to do right no
less cogent reasons for right doing will appear.
After abundant practice in reasoning and tracing out the reasons of
others, whether in fact or fiction, children may readily be brought
to the conclusions that reasonable and right are not synonymous
terms; that reason is their servant, not their ruler,--one of those
servants which help Mansoul in the governance of his kingdom. But
no more than appetite, ambition, or the love of ease, is reason to
be trusted with the government of a man, much less that of a state;
because well-reasoned arguments are brought into play for a wrong
course as for a right. He will see that reason works involuntarily;
that all the beautiful steps follow one another in his mind without
any activity or intention on his own part; but he need never
suppose that he was hurried along into evil by thoughts which he
could not help, because reason never begins it. It is only when he
chooses to think about some course or plan, as Eve standing before
the apples, that reason comes into play; so, if he chooses to think
about a purpose that is good, many excellent reasons will hurry
up to support him; but, alas, if he choose to entertain a wrong
notion, he, as it were, rings the bell for reason, which enforces
his wrong intention with a score of arguments proving that wrong is
right.
A due recognition of the function of reason should be an enormous
help to us all in days when the air is full of fallacies, and
when our personal modesty, that becoming respect for other people
which is proper to well-ordered natures whether young or old,
makes us willing to accept conclusions duly supported by public
opinion or by those whose opinions we value. Nevertheless, it is
something to recognise that probably no wrong thing has ever been
done or said, no crime committed, but has been justified to the
perpetrator by arguments coming to him involuntarily and produced
with cumulative force by his own reason. Is Shakespeare ever wrong?
And, if so, may we think that a Richard III who gloats over his
own villainy as villainy, who is in fact no hypocrite, in the
sense of acting, to himself--is hardly true to human nature? Great
is Shakespeare! So perhaps Richard was the exception to the rule
which makes a man go out and hang himself when at last he sees his
incomparable villainy, and does not Richard say in the end,--“I
myself find in myself no pity for myself”? For ourselves and our
children it is enough to know that reason will put a good face on
any matter we propose; and, that we can prove ourselves to be in
the right is no justification for there is absolutely no theory
we may receive, no action we may contemplate, which our reason
will not affirm. Of course we know by many infallible proofs that
Bacon wrote Shakespeare, and an ingenious person has worked out
a chain of arguments proving that Dr. Johnson wrote the Bible!
Why not? For a nation of logical thinkers, the French made an
extraordinary _faux-pas_ when they elected the Goddess of Reason to
divine honours. But, indeed, perhaps they did it because they are a
logical nation; for logic gives us the very formula of reason, and
that which is logically proved is not necessarily right. We need
no longer wonder that two men equally upright, equally virtuous,
selected out of any company, will hold opposite views on almost any
question; and each will support his views by logical argument. So
we are at the mercy of the _doctrinaire_ in religion, the demagogue
in politics, and, dare we say, of the dreamer in science; and we
think to save our souls by being in the front rank of opinion
in one or the other. But not if we have grown up cognisant of
the beauty and wonder of the act of reasoning, and also, of the
limitations which attend it.
We must be able to answer the arguments in the air, not so much by
counter reasons as by exposing the fallacies in such arguments and
proving on our own part the opposite position. For example, “that
very lovable, very exasperating but essentially real, though often
wrong-headed enthusiast,” Karl Marx, dominates the socialistic
thought of to-day. Point by point, for good or for evil, the
Marxian Manifesto of 1848 is coming into force. “For the most
advanced countries,” we are told, “the following measures might
come into very general application.”
(1) “Expropriation of landed property and application of rent
to State Expenditure.” We have not space to examine the Marxian
proposition in detail but let us consider a single fallacy. It
is assumed that the rent of landed property is for the sole use,
enrichment and enjoyment of the owner. Now the schedule of the Duke
of Bedford, for example, published recently, shows that the income
derived from park property is inadequate to its upkeep and to the
taxes imposed upon the owner. Again, landowners are not only large
employers of labour, generally under favourable conditions, but
they keep up a very important benefaction; most of the extensive
landowners make of their places _public_ parks kept in beautiful
order at their _private_ expense.
(2) “Heavy progressive taxation.” The fallacy lies in the fact
that the proletariat in whose interest the Manifesto was issued
must necessarily on account of their numbers be large taxpayers.
Therefore it is upon them that heavy progressive taxation will
press--as we have all seen in Russia--to the point of their
extinction.
(3) “Abolition of inheritance.” A measure designed to reduce all
persons to the same level. As we know, the abolition of class is
the main object of socialism. But the underlying fallacy is the
assumption that class is stable and is not in a state of continual
flux, the continual upward and downward movement as of watery
particles in the ocean. The man at the bottom to-day may be at the
top to-morrow, as we see, not only in Soviet Russia, but in most
civilised countries. Attempts to control this natural movement are
as vain as King Canute’s command to the ocean.
(4) “Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.”
Assumed authority must be supported by tyranny, that worst tyranny
which requires all men to think to order, as they must in a Soviet
State, or be penalised to make them powerless. The fallacy lies in
a misconception of human nature. There is nothing that men will
not sacrifice for an idea, for such an idea as that of freedom of
thought and of movement.
(5), (6), (7), deal with centralisation, credit, of transport,
of factories, of instruments of production in the hands of the
State,--the State, that is, Everyman,--the Proletariat, in
fact,--in whose hands all wealth and means of obtaining wealth
shall be lodged.
Here we have a logically thought-out preparation for the
government of the people, by the people, for the people; but the
underlying fallacy is that it makes for revolution which effects no
change but a mere change of rulers, better or worse as may be. In
the Soviet Republic, according to the law of perpetual social flux,
new rulers would come to the top, arbitrary and tyrannical, because
not hemmed in by precedent and custom; and children will be at no
loss to show how the last state of a nation so governed is worse
than the first.
(8) “Compulsory obligation of labour upon all.” The initial idea
of a Soviet State is that it shall afford due liberty and equal
conditions for all. But even in the contemplation of such a State
it was necessary to postulate for everybody conscription and the
discipline of an army.
(9) “Joint prosecution for Agriculture and Manufacture.” The aim
being the gradual removal of the distinction of town and country.
Here is a point in the Manifesto which we should all like to see in
practice but--is it possible?
(10) “Public and gratuitous education for all children.” This
happily we have seen carried out with the proviso, ‘for whom
it may be necessary or desirable.’ The difficulty lies in the
conception of education formed by a Soviet community; and the
plea for free education is a specious blind, the intention being
such an education as shall train the coming generation in rabid
revolutionary principles.
To continue our examination of the Tenth Maxim; the next clause
(_b_) requires “abolition of children’s labour in factories in its
present form.” So far so good. Happily we have lived to see this
abolition; there may be a sinister reading of the clause but on the
surface it carries the assent of all good citizens.
(_c_) “Union of education with material production.” Here from
motives of economy we are going the way of the Communists in our
Continuation Schools; but a fallacy underlies the maxim which may
well frustrate our efforts towards the better education of the
people. The assumption is that the boy who learns, say, certain
manufacturing processes, _pari passu_ with his intellectual
education does better in the future than he who gives the full
period to education. There is no consensus of the opinion of
employers to prove that this is the case. On the contrary, given a
likely boy, and a manufacturer will be satisfied that he will soon
learn his business in the ‘works.’ But the function of education is
not to give technical skill but to develop a person; the more of a
person, the better the work of whatever kind; and as I have said
before, the idea of the Continuation School is, or should be, a
University course in the ‘humanities’; not in what have been called
the ‘best humanities,’ _i.e._, the Classics, though whether these
are in any sense ‘best’ is a moot question, but in the singularly
rich ‘humanities’ which the English tongue affords.
These Ten Marxian Maxims give us ample ground for discussion not
for lectures or for oral lessons, but for following for a few
minutes any opening suggested by ‘current events,’ a feature in
the children’s programme of work. But they must follow arguments
and detect fallacies for themselves. Reason like the other powers
of the mind, requires material to work upon whether embalmed in
history and literature, or afloat with the news of a strike or
uprising. It is madness to let children face a debatable world with
only, say, a mathematical preparation. If our business were to
train their power of reasoning, such a training would no doubt be
of service; but the power is there already, and only wants material
to work upon.
This caution must be borne in mind. Reason, like all other
properties of a person, is subject to habit and works upon the
material it is accustomed to handle. Plato formed a just judgment
on this matter, too,[25] and perceived that mathematics afford no
clue to the labyrinth of affairs whether public or private.
We have seen that their reading and the affairs of the day should
afford scope and opportunity for the delight in ratiocination
proper to children. The fallacies they themselves perpetrate when
exposed make them the readier to detect fallacies elsewhere.
What are we to do? Are we to waste time in discussing with children
every idle and blasphemous proposition that comes their way? Surely
not. But we may help them to principles which should enable them to
discern these two characters for themselves. A proposition is idle
when it rests on nothing and leads to nothing. Again, blasphemy is
a sin, the sin of being impudent towards Almighty God, Whom we all
know, without any telling, and know Him to be fearful, wonderful,
loving, just and good, as certainly as we know that the sun
shines or the wind blows. Children should be brought up, too, to
perceive that a miracle is not less a miracle because it occurs so
constantly and regularly that we call it a law; that sap rises in a
tree, that a boy is born with his uncle’s eyes, that an answer that
we can perceive comes to our serious prayers; these things are not
the less miracles because they happen frequently or invariably, and
because we have ceased to wonder about them. No doubt so did the
people of Jerusalem when our Lord performed many miracles in their
streets.
When children perceive that,--“My Father worketh hitherto and I
work”--is the law which orders nations and individuals: that “My
spirit shall not always strive with man,” is an awful warning
to every people and every person; that to hinder the mis-doing,
encourage the well-doing of men and nations is incessant labour,
the work of the Father and the Son:--to a child who perceives
these things miracles will not be matters of supreme moment because
all life will be for him matter for wonder and adoration.
Again, if we wish children to keep clear of all the religious
clamours in the air, we must help them to understand what religion
is.--[26]
“Will religion guarantee me my private and personal happiness? To
this on the whole I think we must answer, No; and if we approach
it with a view to such happiness, then most certainly and
absolutely No.”
Here is a final and emphatic answer to the quasi religious offers
which are being clamourously pressed upon hesitating souls. Ease
of body is offered to these, relief of mind, reparation of loss,
even of the final loss when those they love pass away. We may
call upon mediums, converse through table-rappings, be healed by
faith,--faith, that is, in the power of a Healer who manipulates
us. Sin is not for us, nor sorrow for sin. We may live in continual
odious self-complacency, remote from the anxious struggling souls
about us, because, forsooth, there is no sin, sorrow, anxiety or
pain, if we _will_ that these things shall not be. That is to say,
religion will “guarantee me my private and personal happiness,”
will make me immune from every distress and misery of life; and
this happy immunity is all a matter within the power of my own
will; the person that matters in my religion is myself only.
The office of religion for me in such a case is to remove all
uneasiness, bodily and spiritual, and to float me into a Nirvana
of undisturbed self-complacency. But we must answer with Professor
Bosanquet, “absolutely NO.” True religion will not do this for me
because the final form of the religion that will do these things is
idolatry, self-worship, with no intention beyond self.
To go on with our quotation,--
“Well, but if not that then what? We esteem the thing as good
and great, but if it simply does nothing for us, how is it to be
anything to us? But the answer was the answer to the question and
it might be that to a question sounding but slightly different,
a very different answer would be returned. We might ask, for
instance,--‘does it make my life more worth living?’ And the
answer to this might be,--‘It is the only thing that makes life
worth living at all.’”
In a word, “I want, am made for and must have a God.”
No doubt through the sweetness of their faith and love children
have immediate access to God, and what more would we have? ‘Gentle
Jesus’ is about their path and about their bed; angels minister
to them; they enjoy all the immunities of the Kingdom. But we may
not forget that reason is as active in them as the affections.
Towards the end of the last century people had a straight and easy
way of giving a reasonable foundation to a child’s belief. All the
articles of the Christian Faith were supported by a sort of little
catechism of ‘Scripture Proofs’; and this method was not without
its uses. But, to-day, we have to prove the Scriptures if we rely
upon Scripture proofs and we must change our point of attack.
Children must know that we cannot prove any of the great things of
life, not even that we ourselves live; but we must rely upon that
which we know without demonstration. We know, too, and this other
certainty must be pressed home to them, that reason, so far from
being infallible, is most exceedingly fallible, persuadable, open
to influence on this side and that; but is all the same a faithful
servant, able to prove whatsoever notion is received by the will.
Once we are convinced of the fallibility of our own reason we are
able to detect the fallacies in the reasoning of our opponents and
are not liable to be carried away by every wind of doctrine. Every
mother knows how intensely reasonable a child is and how difficult
it is to answer his quite logical and foolishly wrong conclusions.
So we need not be deterred from dealing with serious matters with
these young neophytes, but only as the occasion occurs; we may not
run the risk of boring them with the great questions of life while
it is our business to send them forth assured.
We find that, while children are tiresome in arguing about trifling
things, often for the mere pleasure of employing their reasoning
power, a great many of them are averse to those studies which
should, we suppose, give free play to a power that is in them, even
if they do not strengthen and develop this power. Yet few children
take pleasure in Grammar, especially in English Grammar, which
depends so little on inflexion. Arithmetic, again, Mathematics,
appeal only to a small percentage of a class or school, and, for
the rest, however intelligent, its problems are baffling to the
end, though they may take delight in reasoning out problems of
life in literature or history. Perhaps we should accept this tacit
vote of the majority and cease to put undue pressure upon studies
which would be invaluable did the reasoning power of a child wait
upon our training, but are on a different footing when we perceive
that children come endowed to the full as much with reason as with
love; that our business is to provide abundant material upon which
this supreme power should work; and that whatever development
occurs comes with practice in _congenial fields of thought_. At
the same time we may not let children neglect either of these
delightful studies. The time will come when they will delight in
words, the beauty and propriety of words; when they will see that
words are consecrated as the vehicle of truth and are not to be
carelessly tampered with in statement or mutilated in form; and
we must prepare them for these later studies. Perhaps we should
postpone parsing, for instance, until a child is accustomed to
weigh sentences for their sense, should let them dally with figures
of speech before we attempt minute analysis of sentences, and
should reduce our grammatical nomenclature to a minimum. The fact
is that children do not generalise, they gather particulars with
amazing industry, but hold their impressions fluid, as it were;
and we may not hurry them to formulate. If the use of words be
a law unto itself, how much more so the language of figures and
lines! We remember how instructive and impressive Ruskin is on the
thesis that ‘two and two make four’ and cannot by any possibility
that the universe affords be made to make five or three. From
this point of view, of immutable law, children should approach
Mathematics; they should see how impressive is Euclid’s ‘Which is
absurd,’ just as absurd as would be the statements of a man who
said that his apples always fell upwards, and for the same reason.
The behaviour of figures and lines is like the fall of an apple,
fixed by immutable laws, and it is a great thing to begin to see
these laws even in their lowliest application. The child whose
approaches to Arithmetic are so many discoveries of the laws which
regulate number will not divide fifteen pence among five people
and give them each sixpence or ninepence; ‘which is absurd’ will
convict him, and in time he will perceive that ‘answers’ are not
purely arbitrary but are to be come at by a little boy’s reason.
Mathematics are delightful to the mind of man which revels in the
perception of law, which may even go forth guessing at a new law
until it discover that law; but not every boy can be a champion
prize-fighter, nor can every boy ‘stand up’ to Mathematics.
Therefore perhaps the business of teachers is to open as many doors
as possible in the belief that Mathematics is one out of many
studies which make for education, a study by no means accessible
to everyone. Therefore it should not monopolise undue time, nor
should persons be hindered from useful careers by the fact that
they show no great proficiency in studies which are in favour with
examiners, no doubt, because solutions are final, and work can be
adjudged without the tiresome hesitancy and fear of being unjust
which beset the examiners’ path in other studies.
We would send forth children informed by “the reason firm, the
temperate will, endurance, foresight, strength and skill,” but we
must add resolution to our good intentions and may not expect to
produce a reasonable soul of fine polish from the steady friction,
say, of mathematical studies only.