GENERAL MORAL NOTIONS.
"Une différente coutume donnera d'autres principes naturels. Cela
se voit par expérience; et s'il y en a d'ineffaçables à la coutume,
il y en a aussi de la coutume ineffaçables à la nature."--PASCAL.
Next to the religion of a people, it is necessary to learn what are
their Ideas of Morals. In speaking of the popular notion of a Moral
Sense, it was mentioned that, so far from there being a general
agreement on the practice of morals, some things which are considered
eminently right in one age or country are considered eminently wrong in
another; while the people of each age or country, having grown up under
common influences, think and feel sufficiently alike to live together in
a general agreement as to right and wrong. It is the business of the
traveller to ascertain what this general agreement is in the society he
visits.
In one society, spiritual attainments will be the most highly honoured,
as in most religious communities. In another, the qualities attendant
upon intellectual eminence will be worshipped,--as now in countries
which are the most advanced in preparation for political
freedom,--France, Germany, and the United States. In others, the moral
qualities allied to physical or extrinsic power are chiefly
venerated,--as in all uncivilized countries, and all which lie under
feudal institutions.
The lower moral qualities which belong to the last class have been
characteristics of nations. The valour of the Spartans, the love of
glory of the Romans and the French, the pride of the Spaniards,--these
infantile moral qualities have belonged to a people as distinctly as to
an individual.--Those which are in alliance with intellectual eminence
are not so strikingly characteristic of entire nations; though we praise
the Athenians for their love of letters and honour of philosophy; the
Italians for their liberality towards art, and their worship of it while
a meaner glory was the fashion of the world; the Germans for their
speculative enterprise, and patience of research; and the Americans for
their reverence for intellect above military fame and the splendour of
wealth.--No high spiritual qualities have ever yet characterized a
nation, or even--in spite of much profession--any considerable
community. Hospitality and beneficence have distinguished some religious
societies: the non-resistance of Quakers, the industry of Moravians, and
of several kinds of people united on the principle of community of
property, may be cited: but this seems to be all. The enforced
temperance, piety, and chastity of monastic societies go for nothing in
this view; because, being enforced, they indicate nothing of the
sentiment subsequent to the taking of the vow. The people of the United
States have come the nearest to being characterized by lofty spiritual
qualities. The profession with which they set out was high,--a
circumstance greatly to their honour, though (as might have been
expected) they have not kept up to it. They are still actuated by
ambition of territory, and have not faith enough in moral force to rely
upon it, as they profess to do. The Swiss, in their unshaken and
singularly devoted love of freedom, seem to be spiritually distinguished
above other nations: but they have no other strong characteristic of
this highest class.
The truth is that, whatever may be the moral state of nations when the
human world emerges hereafter from its infancy, high spiritual qualities
are now matters of individual concern, as those of the intellectual
class were once; and their general prevalence is a matter of prospective
vision alone. Time was when the swampy earth resounded with the tramp
and splash of monstrous creatures, whom there was no reason present to
classify, and no language to name. Then, after a certain number of ages,
the earth grew drier; palm-groves and tropical thickets flourished where
Paris now stands; and the waters were collected into lakes in the
regions where the armies of Napoleon were of late encamped. Then came
the time when savage, animal man appeared, using his physical force like
the lower animals, and taught by the experience of its deficiency that
he was in possession of another kind of force. Still, for ages, the use
he made of reason was to overcome the physical force of others, and to
render available his own portion. On this principle, and for this
object, variously modified, and more or less refined, have societies
been formed to this day; though, as morals are the fruit of which
intellect is the blossom, spiritualism--faith in moral power--has
existed in individuals ever since the first free exercise of reason.
While all nations were ravaging one another as they had opportunity,
there were always parents who did not abuse their physical power over
their children. In the midst of a general worship of power, birth, and
wealth, the affections have wrought out in individual minds a preference
of obscurity and poverty for the sake of spiritual objects. Amidst the
supremacy of the worship of honour and social ease, there have always
been confessors who could endure disgrace for the truth, and martyrs who
could die for it.--Such individual cases have never been wanting: and,
in necessary connexion with this fact, there has always been a sympathy
in this pure moral taste,--an appreciation which could not but help its
diffusion. Thence arose the formation of communities for the fostering
of holiness,--projects which, however mistaken in their methods and
injurious in their consequences, have always commanded, and do still
command, sympathy, from the venerableness of their origin. Not all the
stories of the abuses of monastic institutions can destroy the respect
of every ingenuous mind for the spiritual preferences out of which they
arose. The Crusades are still holy, notwithstanding all their
defilements of vain-glory, superstition, and barbarism of various kinds.
The retreat of the Pilgrim Fathers to the forests of the New World
silences the ridicule of the thoughtless about the extravagances of
Puritanism in England.
Thus far has the race advanced; and, having thus advanced, there is
reason to anticipate that the age may come when the individual worship
of spiritual supremacy may expand into national; when a people may agree
to govern one another with the smallest possible application of physical
force; when goodness shall come to be naturally more honoured than
birth, wealth, or even intellect; when ambition of territory shall be
given up; when all thought of war shall be over; when the pursuit of the
necessaries and luxuries of external life shall be regarded as means to
an end; and when the common aim of exertion shall be self and mutual
perfection. It does not seem to be rash to anticipate such a state of
human affairs as this, when an aspiration like the following has been
received with sympathy by thousands of republicans united under a
constitution of ideas. "Talent and worth are the only eternal grounds of
distinction. To these the Almighty has affixed his everlasting patent of
nobility; and these it is which make the bright, 'the immortal names,'
to which our children may aspire, as well as others. It will be our own
fault if, in our land, society as well as government is not organized on
a new foundation."--"Knowledge and goodness,--these make degrees in
heaven, and they must be the graduating scale of a true democracy."[F]
Meantime, it is the traveller's business to learn what is the species of
Moral Sentiment which lies deepest in the hearts of the majority of the
people.
* * * * *
He will find no better place of study than the Cemetery,--no more
instructive teaching than Monumental Inscriptions. The brief language of
the dead will teach him more than the longest discourses of the living.
He will learn what are the prevalent views of death; and when he knows
what is the common view of death, he knows also what is the aspect of
life to no small number;--that is, he will have penetrated into the
interior of their morals.--If it should ever be fully determined that
the pyramids of Egypt were designed solely as places of sepulture, they
will cease to be the mute witness they have been for ages. They will
tell at least that death was not regarded as the great leveller,--that
kings and peasants were not to sleep side by side in death, any more
than in life. How they contrast with the Moravian burial-grounds, where
all are laid in rows as they happen to be brought to the grave, and
where memorial is forbidden!--The dead of Constantinople are cast out
from among the living in waste, stillness, and solitude. The cemeteries
lie beyond the walls, where no hum from the city is heard, and where the
dark cypresses overhanging the white marble tombs give an air of
mourning and desolation to the scene. In contrast with these are the
church-yards of English cities, whose dead thus lie in full view of the
living; the school-boy trundles his hoop among them, and the news of the
day is discussed above their place of rest. This fact of where the dead
are laid is an important one. If out of sight, death and religion may or
may not be connected in the general sentiment; if within or near the
places of worship, they certainly are so connected. In the cemeteries of
Persia, the ashes of the dead are ranged in niches of the walls: in
Egypt we have the most striking example of affection to the body, shown
in the extraordinary care to preserve it; while some half-civilized
people seem to be satisfied with putting their dead out of sight, by
summarily sinking them in water, or hiding them in the sand; and the
Caffres throw their dead to the hyenas,--impelled to this, however, not
so much by disregard of the dead, as by a superstitious fear of death
taking place in their habitations, which causes them to remove the
dying, and expose them in this state to beasts of prey. The burial of
the dead by the road-side by some of the ancients, seems to have brought
death into the closest relation with life; and when the place chosen is
taken in connexion with the inscriptions on the tombs,--words addressed
to the wayfarer as from him who lies within,--from the pilgrim now at
rest to the pilgrim still on his way, they give plain indications of the
views of death and life entertained by those who placed them.
Much may be learned from the monumental inscriptions of all nations. The
first epitaph is supposed to be traced back to the year of the world
2700, when the scholars of Linus, the Theban poet, bewailed their master
in verses which were inscribed upon his tomb. From that day to this,
wherever there have been letters, there have been epitaphs; and, where
letters have been wanting, there have been symbols. Mysterious symbolic
arrangements are traced in the monumental mounds in the interior of the
American continent, where a race of whom we know nothing else flourished
before the Red man opened his eyes upon the light. One common rule,
drawn from a universal sentiment, has presided at the framing of all
epitaphs for some thousands of years. "De mortuis nil nisi bonum" is the
universal agreement of mourners.[G] It follows that epitaphs must
everywhere indicate what is there considered good.
The observer must give his attention to this. Among a people "whose
merchants are princes," the praise of the departed will be in a
different strain from that which will be found among a warlike nation,
or a community of agriculturists. Here one may find monumental homage to
public spirit, in the form of active citizenship; there to domestic
virtue as the highest honour. The glory of eminent station, of ancient
family, of warlike deeds, and of courtly privileges may be conspicuously
exhibited in one district; while in another the dead are honoured in
proportion to their contempt of human greatness, even when won by
achievements; to their having lived with a sole regard "to things unseen
and eternal." An inscription which breathes the pride of a noble family
in telling that "all the sons were brave, and all the daughters chaste,"
presents a summary of the morals of the age and class to which it
belongs. It tells that the supreme honour of men was to be brave, and of
women to be chaste; excluding the supposition of each sharing the virtue
of the other: whereas, when courage and purity shall be understood in
their full signification, it will have become essential to the honour of
a noble family that all the sons should be also pure, and all the
daughters brave. Then bravery will signify moral rather than physical
courage, and purity of mind will be considered no attribute of sex.
Even the nature of the public services commemorated, where public
service is considered the highest praise, may indicate much. It is a
fact of no small significance whether a man is honoured after death for
having made a road, or for having founded a monastery, or endowed a
school; whether he introduced a new commodity, or erected a church;
whether he marched adventurously in the pursuit of conquest, or fought
bravely among his native mountains to guard the homes of his countrymen
from aggression. The German, the French, the Swiss monuments of the
present century all tell the common tale that men have lived and died:
but with what various objects did they live! and in what a variety of
hope and heroism did they die! All were proud of their respective
differences while they lived; and, now that their contests are at an
end, they afford materials of speculation to the stranger who ponders
upon their tombs.
A variety, perhaps a contrariety of praise, may be found in the epitaphs
of a country, a city, or a single cemetery. Where this diversity is
found, it testifies to the diversity of views held, and therefore to the
freedom of the prevailing religious sentiment. Everywhere, however,
there is an affection and esteem for certain virtues. Disinterestedness,
fidelity, and love are themes of praise everywhere. Some may have no
sympathy for the deeds of the warrior, and others for the discoveries of
the philosopher and the adventurer; but the honoured parent, the devoted
child, the philanthropic citizen, are sure of their tribute from all
hearts.
Even if there were a variety of praise proportioned to the diversity of
hearts and minds that utter it, the inscriptions of a cemetery cannot
but breathe a spirit which must animate, more or less, the morals of the
society. For instance, the cemetery of Père la Chaise utters, from end
to end, one wail. It is all mourning, and no hope. Every expression of
grief, from tender regret to blank despair, is to be found there; but
not a hint of consolation, except from memory. All is over, and the
future is vacant. A remarkable contrast to this is seen in the cemetery
of Mount Auburn, Massachusetts. The religious spirit of New England is
that which has hope for one of its largest elements, and which was
believed by the Puritan fathers to forbid the expression of sorrow. One
of those fathers made an entry in his journal, in the early days of the
colony, that it had pleased God to take from him by an accident his
beloved son Henry, whom he committed to the Lord's mercy;--and this was
all. In a similar spirit are the epitaphs at Mount Auburn framed. There
is a religious silence about the sorrows of the living, and every
expression of joy, thanksgiving, and hope for the dead. One who had
never heard of death, might take this for the seed-field of life; for
the oratory of the happy; for the heaven of the hopeful. Parents invite
their children from the grave to follow them. Children remind their
parents that the term of separation will be short; and all repose their
hopes together on an authority which is to them as stable and
comprehensive as the blue sky which is over all.--What a contrast is
here! and how eloquent as to the moral views of the respective nations!
There is not a domestic attachment or social relation which is not
necessarily modified, elevated, or depressed by the conviction of its
being transient or immortal,--an end or means to a higher end. Though
human hearts are so far alike as that there must be a hope of reunion,
more or less defined and assured, in all who love, and a practical
falling below the elevation of this hope in those even who enjoy the
strongest assurance,--yet the moral notions of any society must be very
different where the ground of hope is taken for granted, and where it is
kept wholly out of sight.
* * * * *
The observer may obtain further light upon the moral ideas of a people
by noting the degree of their Attachment to Kindred and Birth-place.
This species of attachment is so natural, that none are absolutely
without it; but it varies in degree, according as the moral taste of the
people goes to enhance or to subdue it. The Swiss and the American
parent both send their children abroad; but with what different feelings
and views! The Swiss father dismisses his daughter to teach in a school
at Paris or London, and his sons to commerce or war. He resigns himself
to a hard necessity, and supports them with suggestions of the honour of
virtuous independence, and of the delight of returning when it is
achieved. They, in their exile, can never see a purple shade upon a
mountain side, a gleaming sheet of water, or a nestling village, without
a throb of the heart, and a sickening longing for home.--The New
England mother, with her tribe of children around her on her hill-side
farm, nourishes them with tales of the noble extent of their
country,--how its boundary is ever shifting westwards, and what a wild
life it is there in the forest, with the Red men for neighbours, and
inexhaustible wealth in the soil, ready for the hand which shall have
enterprise to work for it. She tells of one and another, but lately boys
like her children, who are now judges and legislators,--founders of
towns, or having counties named after them. As her young people grow up,
they part off eagerly from the old farm,--one into a southern city,
another into the western forest, a third to a prairie in a new
territory; and the daughters marry, and go over the mountains too. The
mother may have sighs to conceal, but she does conceal them; and the
sons, so far from lingering,--are impatient till they are gone. Their
idea of national honour,--both their patriotic and their personal
ambition,--is concerned; and they welcome the hour of dispersion as the
first step towards the great objects of their life. Some return to the
old neighbourhood to take a wife; but they do not think of passing their
second childhood where they spent their first,--any more than the Greek
colonists who swarmed from their narrow native districts. The settlers
of the west go there, not to obtain a certain amount of personal
property, but land, station, and power.--How different again are the
Scotch--the people of the strongest family attachments! In the modified
and elevated feudalism of clanship, pride and love of kindred constitute
the animating social principle. Their clan-music is to them what the
Ranz de Vaches is to the Swiss: the one echoing the harmonics of social
intercourses, as the other revives the melodies of mountain life.
Through the love of kindred, the love of birth-place flourishes among
the Scotch. The Highland emigrants in Canada not only clasp hands when
they hear played the march of their clan, but wept when they found that
heather would not grow in their newly-adopted soil.
* * * * *
The traveller must talk with Old People, and see what is the character
of the garrulity of age. He must talk with Children, and mark the
character of the aspirations of childhood. He will thus learn what is
good in the eyes of those who have passed through the society he
studies, and in the hopes of those who have yet to enter upon it. Is it
the aged mother's pride that her sons are all unstained in honour, and
her daughters safe in happy homes? or does she boast that one is a
priest, and another a peeress? Does the grandmother relate that all her
descendants who are of age are "received church-members"? or that her
favourite grandchild has been noticed by the emperor? Do the old men
prose of a single happy love, or of exploits of gallantry? or of
commercial success, or of political failure? What is the section of life
to which the greatest number of ancient memories cling? Is it to
struggles for a prince in disguise, or to a revolutionary conflict? Is
it to the removal of a social oppression, or to a season of domestic
trial, or to an accession of personal consequence? Is it the having
acquired an office or a title? or the having assisted in the abolition
of slavery? or the having conversed with a great author? or the having
received a nod from a prince, or a curtsey from a queen? or have you to
listen to details of the year of the scarcity, or the season of the
plague?--What are the children's minds full of? The little West Indian
will not talk of choosing a profession, any more than the infant
Portuguese will ask for books. One nation of children will tell of the
last saint's day, and another will refer every thing to the emperor.
Elsewhere you will be treated with legends without end; or you will be
instructed about bargains and wages; or the boys will ask you why a
king's son should be king whether the people like him or not; and the
girls will whisper something to you about their brother being President
some day. As the minds of the young are formed, generally speaking, to
an adaptation to the objects presented to them, their preference of
warlike to commercial, or literary to political honour, is an eloquent
circumstance: and so of their sense of greatness in any
direction,--whether it be of the physical order, or the intellectual, or
the spiritual.
* * * * *
From this, the transition is natural to the study of the character of
the Pride of each nation. Learn what people glory in, and you learn much
of both the theory and practice of their morals. All nations, like all
individuals, have pride, sooner or later, in one thing or another. It is
a stage through which they have to pass in their moral progression, and
out of which the most civilized have not yet advanced, nor discerned
that they will have to advance, though the passion becomes moderated at
each remove from barbarism. It is by no means clear that the essential
absurdity of each is relieved by its dilution. Hereafter, the most
modern pride of the most civilized people may appear as ridiculous in
its nature as the grossest conceit of utter barbarians now appears to
us; but, still, the direction taken by the general pride must show what
class of objects is held in most esteem.
The Chinese have no doubt that all other countries are created for the
benefit of theirs; they call their own "the central empire," as certain
philosophers once called our earth the centre round which everything
else was to revolve. They call it the Celestial Empire, of which their
ruler is the Sun: "they profess to rule barbarians by misrule, like
beasts, and not like native subjects." Here we have the extreme of
national pride, which must involve various moral qualities;--all the bad
ones which are the consequence of ignorance, subservience to domestic
despotism, and contempt of the race of man; and the good ones which are
the consequence of national seclusion,--cheerful industry, social
complacency, quietness, and order.--The Arab pride bears a resemblance
to the Chinese, but is somewhat refined and spiritualized. The Arabs
believe that the earth, "spread out like a bed," and upheld by a
gigantic angel (the angel standing upon a rock, and the rock upon a
bull, and the bull upon a fish, and the fish floating upon water, and
the water upon darkness,)--that the earth, thus upheld, is surrounded by
the Circumambient Ocean; that the inhabited part of the earth is to the
rest but as a tent in the desert; and that in the very centre of this
inhabited part is--Mecca. Their exclusive faith makes a part of their
nationality, and their insolence shows itself eminently in their
devotions. Their spiritual supremacy is their strong point; and they can
afford to be somewhat less outwardly contemptuous to the race at large,
from the certainty they have that all will be made plain and
indisputable at last, when the followers of the Prophet alone will be
admitted to bliss, and the punishments of the future world will be
eternal to all but wicked Mahomedans. There will be found among the
Arabs, in accordance with this pride, a strong mutual fidelity; and,
among the best class of believers, a real devotion and a kindly
compassion towards outcasts; while, among lower orders of minds, we may
expect to witness the extreme exasperation of vindictiveness, insult,
and rapacity.--We may pass over the pride of caste in India, of royal
race in Africa, and the wild notions of Caribbean and Esquimaux dignity,
which are almost as painful to contemplate as the freaks of pride in
Bedlam. There is quite enough to look upon in the most civilized parts
of the earth.--The whole national character of the Spaniards might be
inferred from their particularly notorious pride; the quarterings of
German barons are a popular joke; the French pride of military glory is
an index to the national morals of France; while, in the United States,
the pride of Washington and of territory is oddly combined and
contrasted. Nothing can be more indicative of the true moral state of
the Americans; they hang between the past and the future, with many of
the feudal prepossessions of the past, mingled with the democratic
aspirations which relate to the future. The ambition and pride of
territory belong to the first, and their pride in the leader of their
revolution to the last: he is their personification of that moral power
to which they profess allegiance. The consequences of this arbitrary
union of two kinds of national pride may be foreseen. The Americans
unite some of the low qualities of feudalism with some of the highest of
a more equal social organization. Without the first, slavery, cupidity,
and ostentation could not exist to any great extent; without the others,
there could not be the splendid moral conflict which we now see going on
in opposition to slavery, nor the reverence for man which is the
loveliest feature of American morals and manners.
From the aristocratic pride of the English the stranger might draw
inferences no less correct. If it is found that there is scarcely a
gamekeeper or a tradesman among us who is not stiffened with prejudices
about rank; that gossips can tell what noblemen pay, and which do not
pay, their tradesmen's bills; that persons who have never seen a lord
can furnish all information about the genealogy and intermarriages of
noble families; that every class is emulating the manners of the one
above it; and that democratic principles are held chiefly in the
manufacturing districts, or, if in country regions, among the tenantry
of landlords of liberal politics;--the moral condition of such a people
lies, as it were, mapped out beneath the eye of the observer. They must
be orderly, eminently industrious, munificent in their grants to rulers,
and mechanically oppressive to the lowest class of the ruled; nationally
complacent, while wanting in individual self-respect; reverentially
inclined towards the lofty minority, and contemptuously disposed
towards the lowly majority of their race; a generous devotion being
advantageously mingled, however, with the select reverence, and a kindly
spirit of protection with the gross contempt. Such, to the eye of an
observer, are the qualities involved in English pride. Upon this moral
material, everywhere diffused, should the traveller observe and reflect.
* * * * *
Man-worship is as universal a practice as that of the higher sort of
religion. As men everywhere adore some supposed agents of unseen things,
they are, in like manner, disposed to do homage to what is venerable
when it is presented to their eyes in the actions of a living man. This
man-worship is one of the most honourable and one of the most hopeful
circumstances in the mind of the race. An individual here and there may
scoff at the credulity of others, and profess unbelief in human virtue;
but no society has ever yet wanted faith in man. Every community has its
saints, its heroes, its sages,--whose tombs are visited, whose deeds are
celebrated, whose words have become the rules by which men live.
Now, the moral taste of a people is nowhere more clearly shown than in
its choice of idols. Of these idols there are two kinds;--those whose
divinity is confirmed by the lapse of time, like Gustavus Adolphus among
the Swedes, Tell in Switzerland, Henri IV. among the French, and
Washington among the Americans; and those who are still living, and upon
whose daily doings a multitude of eyes are fixed.
Those of the first class reign singly; their uncontested sway is over
national character, as well as the affections of individual minds; and
from their character may that of the whole people be, in certain
respects, inferred. Who supposes that the Swiss would have been the same
as they are, if Tell's character and deeds could have been hidden in
oblivion from the moment those deeds were done? What would the Americans
have been now if every impression of Washington could have been effaced
from their minds fifty years ago? This is not the place in which to
enlarge on the power--the greatest power we know of--which man exercises
over men through their affections; but it is a fact which the observer
should keep ever in view. The existence of a great man is one of those
gigantic circumstances,--one of those national influences,--which have
before been mentioned as modifying the conscience--the feelings about
right and wrong--in a whole people. The pursuits of a nation for ever
may be determined by the fact of the great man of five centuries being a
poet, a warrior, a statesman, or a maritime adventurer. The morals of a
nation are influenced to all eternity by the great man's being ambitious
or moderate, passionate or philosophical, licentious or self-governed.
Certain lofty qualities he must have, or he could not have attained
greatness,--energy, perseverance, faith, and consequently earnestness.
These are essential to his immortality; upon the others depends the
quality of his influence; and upon these must the observer of the
present generation reflect.
It is not by dogmas that Christianity has permanently influenced the
mind of Christendom. No creeds are answerable for the moral revolution
by which physical has been made to succumb to moral force; by which
unfortunates are cherished by virtue of their misfortunes; by which the
pursuit of speculative truth has become an object worthy of
self-sacrifice. It is the character of Jesus of Nazareth which has
wrought to these purposes. Notwithstanding all the obscuration and
defilement which that character has sustained from superstition and
other corruption, it has availed to these purposes, and must prevail
more and more now that it is no longer possible to misrepresent his
sayings and conceal his deeds, as was done in the dark ages. In all
advancing time, as corruption is surmounted, there are more and more who
vividly feel that life does not consist in the abundance that a man
possesses, but in energy of spirit, and in a power and habit of
self-sacrifice: there are perpetually more and more who discern and live
by the persuasion that the pursuit of worldly power and ease is a matter
totally apart from the function of Christianity; and this persuasion has
not been wrought into activity by declarations of doctrine in any form,
but by the spectacle, vivid before the eye of the mind, of the Holy One
who declined the sword and the crown, lived without property, and
devoted himself to die by violence, in an unparalleled simplicity of
duty. The being himself is the mover here; and every great man is, in a
similar manner, however inferior may be the degree, a spring by which
spirits are moved. By the study of them may much of the consequent
movement be understood. The observer of British morals should gather up
the names of their idols; he will hear of Hampden, Bacon, Shakspeare,
Newton, Howard, and Wesley. In Scotland, he will hear of Bruce and
Knox. What a flood of light do these names shed on our _morale_! It is
the same with the Englishman abroad when his attention is referred in
France to Henri IV, Richelieu, Turenne, and Napoleon, to Bossuet and
Fenelon, to Voltaire, and their glorious list of natural philosophers:
in Italy, to Lorenzo de' Medici, Galileo, and their constellations of
poets and artists: in Germany, to Charles V, Luther, Schwartz, Göthe,
Copernicus, Handel, and Mozart. There is in every nation a succession of
throned gods, each of whom is the creator of some region of the national
mind, and has formed men into more or less of his own likeness.
The other kind of idols are those who are still living, and whose
influence upon morals and manners is strong, but may or may not be
distinguishably permanent. These afford a less faithful evidence,--but
yet an evidence which is not to be neglected. The spirit of the times is
seen in the character of the idols of the day, however the nation may be
divided in its choice of idols, and however many sects there may be in
the man-worship of the generation. In our own day, for instance, how
plainly is the movement of society discerned, from the fact of the
eminence of philanthropists in many countries! Whether they presently
sink, or continue to rise, they testify to a prevailing feeling in
society. Père Enfantin in France, Wilberforce in England, Garrison in
America,--these are watchmen set on a pinnacle (whoever may object to
their being there) who can tell us "what of the night," and how a new
morning is breaking. Whether they may be most cause or effect, whether
they have more or less decidedly originated the interest of which they
are the head, it is clear that there is a certain adaptation between
themselves and the general mind, without which they could not have risen
to be what they are.--Every society has always its idols. If there are
none by merit, at any moment, station is received as a qualification.
Large numbers are always worshipping the heads of the aristocracy, of
whatever kind they may be; and there is rarely a long interval in which
there is not some warrior, some poet, artist, or philanthropist on whom
the multitude are flinging crowns and incense. The popularity of Byron
testified to the existence of a gloomy discontent in a multitude of
minds, as the adoration of De Béranger discloses the political feelings
of the French. Statesmen rarely command an overwhelming majority of
worshippers, because interest enters much more than sentiment into
politics: but every author, or other artist who can reach the general
mind,--every preacher, philanthropist, soldier, or discoverer, who has
risen into an atmosphere of worship in pursuit of a purpose, is a fresh
Peter the Hermit, meeting and stimulating the spirit of his time, and
exhibiting its temper to the observer,--foreign as to either clime or
century. The physical observer of a new region might as well shut his
eyes to the mountains, and omit to note which way the streams run, as
the moral observer pass by the idols of a nation with a heedless gaze.
* * * * *
Side by side with this lies the inquiry into the great Epochs of the
society visited. Find out what individuals and nations date from, and
you discover what events are most interesting to them. A child reckons
from his first journey, or his entrance upon school: a man from his
marriage, his beginning practice in his profession, or forming a fresh
partnership in trade; if he be a farmer, from the year of a good or bad
crop; if he be a merchant, from the season of a currency pressure; if he
be an operative, from the winter of the Strike: a matron dates from the
birth of her children; her nursemaid from her change of place. Nations,
too, date from what interests them most. It is important to learn what
this is. The major date of American citizens is the Revolution; their
minor dates are elections, and new admissions into the Union. The people
at Amsterdam date from the completion of the Stadt Huis; the Spaniards
from the achievement of Columbus; the Germans from the deed of Luther;
the Haytians from the abduction of Toussaint L'Ouverture; the Cherokees
from treaties with the Whites; the people of Pitcairn's Island from the
mutiny of the Bounty; the Turks, at present, from the massacre of the
Janissaries; the Russians from the founding of St. Petersburgh and the
deaths of its monarchs; the Irish (for nearer times than the battle of
the Boyne) by the year of the fever, the year of the rebellion, the year
of the famine. There is a world of instruction in this kind of fact; and
if a new species of epoch, of which there is a promise, should
arise,--if the highest works of men should come to be looked upon as the
clearest operations of Providence,--if Germany or Europe should date
from Göthe as the civilized world does from Columbus,--this sole test
might reveal almost the entire moral state of society.
* * * * *
The treatment of the Guilty is all-important as an index to the moral
notions of a society. This class of facts will hereafter yield
infallible inferences as to the principles and views of governments and
people upon vice, its causes and remedies. At present, such facts must
be used with great caution, because the societies of civilized countries
are in a state of transition from the old vindictiveness to a purer
moral philosophy. The ancient methods, utterly disgraceful as they are,
must subsist till society has fully agreed upon and prepared for better
ones; and it would be harsh to pronounce upon the humanity of the
English from their prisons, or the justice of the French from their
galley system. The degrees of reliance upon brute force and upon public
opinion are yet by no means proportioned to the civilization of
respective societies, as at first sight might be expected, and as must
be before punishments and prisons can be taken as indications of morals
and manners.
The treatment of the guilty in savage lands, and also in countries under
a despotism, indicates the morals of rulers only,--except in so far as
it points out the political subservience of the people. It is true that
the Burmese must needs be in a deplorable social state, if their king
can "spread out" his prime minister in the sun, as formerly described:
but the mercy or cruelty of his subjects can be inferred only from the
liberty they may have and may use to treat one another in the same
manner. In their case, we see that such a power is possessed and put to
use. The creditor exposes his debtor's wife, children, and slaves, to
the same noon-day sun which broils the prime minister. In Austria, it
would be harsh to suppose that subjects have any desire to treat one
another as the Emperor and his minister treat political offenders within
the walls of the castle of Spielburg. The Russians at large are not to
be made answerable for the transportation of coffles of nobles and
gentlemen to the silver mines of Siberia, and the regiments on the
frontier. It is only under a representative government that prisons, and
the treatment of criminals under the law, can be fairly considered a
test of the feelings of the majority.
It is too true, however, that punishments are almost everywhere
vindictive in their character; and have more relation to some supposed
principle of "not letting vice go unpunished," than either to the
security of society, or the reformation of the offender. The few
exceptions that exist are a far more conclusive testimony to an
advancing state of morals than the old methods are to the vindictiveness
of the mind of the society which they corrupt and deform. The
Philadelphia penitentiary is a proof of the thoughtful and laborious
humanity of those who instituted it; but Newgate cannot be regarded as
the expressed decision of the English people as to how criminals should
be guarded. Such a prison would not now be instituted by any civilized
nation. Its existence is to be interpreted, not as a token of the
cruelty and profligacy of the mind of society, but of its ignorance of
the case, or of its bigoted adherence to ancient methods, or of its
apathy in regard to improvements to which there is no peremptory call of
self-interest. Any one of these is enough, Heaven knows, for any
society to have to answer for; enough to yield, by contrast, surpassing
honour to the philanthropy which has pulled down the pillory, and is
labouring to supersede the hangman, and to convert every prison in the
civilized world into an hospital for the cure of moral disease. But the
reform has begun; the spirit of Howard is on its pilgrimage; and
barbarous as is still our treatment of the guilty, better days are in
prospect.
What the traveller has to observe then is, first, whether there has been
any amelioration of the treatment of criminals in countries where the
people have a voice upon it: and, in countries despotically ruled,
whether public sentiment is moved about the condition of state
criminals, and whether men treat one another vindictively in their
appeals to the laws of citizenship: whether there is a Burmese cruelty
in the exercise of the legal rights of the creditor; whether there is a
reluctance to plunge others into the woes of legal penalties; or whether
offenders are considered as beyond the pale of sympathy. It may thus
appear whether the people entertain the pernicious notion that there is
a line drawn for human conduct, on one side of which all is virtue, and
on the other all vice; or whether they are approximating to the more
philosophical and genial belief that all wickedness is weakness and woe,
and that therefore the guilty need more care and tenderness in the
arrangement of the circumstances under which they live than those who
enjoy greater strength against temptation, and an ease of mind which
criminals can never know. In some parts of the United States this
general persuasion is remarkably evident, and is an incontestable proof
of the advanced state of morals there. In some prisons of the United
States, as much care is bestowed on the arrangements by which the guilty
are preserved from contaminating one another, are exposed to good
influences and precluded from bad, as in any infirmary on the
ventilation of the wards, and the diet and nursing of the sick. In such
a region, vindictiveness in social punishments must be going out, and
Christ-like views of human guilt and infirmity beginning to prevail.
The same conclusions may be drawn from an observation of the methods of
legal punishment. Recklessness of human life is one of the surest
symptoms of barbarism, whether life is taken by law or by assassination.
As men grow civilized, and learn to rate the spiritual higher and higher
above the physical life, human life grows sacred. The Turk orders off
the head of a slave almost without a serious thought. The New Zealanders
have murdered men by scores, to supply their dried and grinning heads to
English purchasers, who little imagined the cost at which they were
obtained. This is the way in which life is squandered in savage
societies. Up to a comparatively high point of civilization, the law
makes free with life, long after the private expenditure of it has been
checked or has ceased. Duels, brawls, assassinations, have nearly been
discontinued, and even war in some measure discountenanced, before the
law duly recognises the sacredness of human life. But the time comes.
One generation after another grows up with a still improving sense of
the majesty of life,--of the mystery of the existence of such a being as
man,--of the infinity of ideas and emotions in the mind of each, and of
the boundlessness of his social relations. These recognitions may not be
express; but they are sufficiently real to hold back the hand from
quenching life. The reluctance to destroy such a creation is found to be
on the increase. Men prefer suffering wrong to being accessary to so
fearful an act as what now appears a judicial murder: the law is left
unused,--is evaded,--and it becomes necessary to alter it. Capital
punishments are restricted,--are further restricted,--are abolished.
Such is the process. It is now all but completed in the United States:
it is advancing rapidly in England. During its progress further light is
thrown on the moral notions of a represented people by a change in the
character of other (called inferior) punishments. Bodily torments and
disfigurements go out. Torture and mutilation are discontinued, and
after a while the grosser mental inflictions. The pillory (as mere
ignominious exposure) was a great advance upon the maiming with which it
was once connected; but it is now discontinued as barbarous. All
ignominious exposure will ere long be considered equally
barbarous,--including capital punishment, of which such exposure is the
recommendatory principle. To refer once more to the Pennsylvania
case,--these notions of ignominious exposure are there so far outgrown,
that avoidance of it is the main principle of the management. Seclusion,
under the guardianship of the law, is there the method,--on the
principle of consideration to the weak, and of supreme regard to the
feeling of self-respect in the offender,--the feeling in which he is
necessarily most deficient. When we consider the brutalizing methods of
punishment in use in former times, and now in some foreign countries,
in contrast with the latest instituted and most successful, we cannot
avoid perceiving that such are indications of the moral notions of those
at whose will they exist, be they a council of despots, or an
association of nations. We cannot avoid perceiving from them what
barbarism is held to be justice in some ages and countries; and how that
which would then and there be condemned as culpable leniency, comes
elsewhere to be considered less than justice. The treatment of the
guilty is one of the strongest evidences as to the general moral notions
of society, when it is evidence at all; that is, when the guilty are in
the hands of society.
* * * * *
There is another species of evidence of which travellers are not in the
habit of making use, but which is well worth their attention,--the
Conversation of convicted Criminals. There are not many places in the
world where it is possible to obtain this, without a greater sacrifice
of comfort than the ordinary tourist is disposed to make. There is
little temptation to enter prisons where squalid wretches are crowded
together in dirt, noise, and utter profligacy; where no one of them
could speak seriously for fear of the ridicule of his comrades; where
the father sees his young son corrupted before his eyes, and the mother
utters cruel jests upon the frightened child that hides its face in her
apron. In scenes like these, there is nothing for the stranger to do and
to learn. The whole is one great falsehood, where the people are acting
falsely under false circumstances. It affords an enterprise for the
philanthropist, but no real knowledge for the observer. He may pass by
such places, knowing that they are pretty much alike in all countries
where they exist. Criminals herded together in virtue of their
criminality, and outraged into a diabolical hardihood, must present one
uniform aspect of disgust. What variety should there be in them? About
as much as in the leper settlements in the wildernesses of the world two
thousand years ago.
The traveller will not be permitted to see the state prisoners of any
despotic government; but wherever the subject of prison reform has been
entertained, (and Howard's spirit is at work in many countries of the
world,) there will probably be opportunity to converse with offenders in
a better way than by singling them out from the crowd, in a spirit of
condescension, and asking them a few questions, in the answers to which
you can place no confidence. If you can converse face to face with a
convict, as man with man, you can hardly fail to be instructed. If he
has been long deprived of equal conversation, his heart will be full;
his disposition will be to trust you; his impulse will be to confide to
you his offence, and all the details connected with it. By thus
conversing with a variety of offenders, you will be put in possession of
the causes of crime, of the views of society upon the relative gravity
of offences, and of the condition of hope or despair in which those are
left who have broken the laws, and are delivered over to shame.
Much light will also be thrown upon the seat of the disorders of
society. Putting political offences aside, as varying in number in
proportion to the nature of the government, almost all the rest are
offences against property. Nine out of ten convicts, perhaps, are
punished for taking the money or money's worth of another. Here is a
hint as to the respects in which society is most mistaken in its
principles, and weakest in its organization. Of the offences against the
person, some are occasioned by the bad habits which attend the practice
of depredation on property; thieves are drunkards, and drunkards are
brawlers:--but the greater number arise out of domestic miseries. Where
there are fewest assaults occasioned by conjugal injuries and domestic
troubles, the state of morals is the purest. Where they abound, it is
clear that the course of love does not run smooth; and that, from the
workings of some bad principles, domestic morals are in a low state. In
Austria and Prussia, state criminals abound; while in America such a
thing is rarely heard of. In America, a youthful and thriving country,
offences against property for the most part arise out of bad personal
habits, which again are occasioned by domestic misery of some kind; this
domestic misery, however, being itself less common than in an older
state of society. In England almost all the offences are against
property, and are so multitudinous as to warrant a stranger's conclusion
that the distribution of property among us must be extremely faulty, the
oppression of certain classes by others very severe, and our political
morals very low; in short, that the aristocratic spirit rules in
England. From the tales of convicts,--how they were reared, what was the
nature of the snares into which they fell, what opportunity of
retrieving themselves remained, and what was the character of the
influences which sank them into misery,--much cannot but be learned of
the moral atmosphere in which they were reared. From their present state
of mind,--whether they revert in affection to their homes, or to the
society from which they have been snatched,--whether they look forward
with hope or fear, or are incapable of looking forward at all,--it will
appear whether the justice and benevolence of the community have secured
the commonest blessings of moral life to these its lowest members, or
whether they have been utterly crushed by the selfishness of the society
into which they were born. To have criminals at all may in time come to
be a disgrace to a community; meantime, their number and quality are an
evidence as to its prevalent moral notions, which the intelligent
observer will not disregard.
* * * * *
[H]"The SONGS of every nation must always be the most familiar and truly
popular part of its poetry. They are uniformly the first fruits of the
fancy and feeling of rude societies; and, even in the most civilized
times, are _the only_ poetry of the great body of the people. Their
influence, therefore, upon the character of a country has been
universally felt and acknowledged. Among rude tribes, it is evident that
their songs must, at first, take their tone from the prevailing
character of the people. But, even among them, it is to be observed
that, though generally expressive of the fiercest passions, they yet
represent them with some tincture of generosity and good feeling, and
may be regarded as the first lessons and memorials of savage virtue. An
Indian warrior, at the stake of torture, exults, in wild numbers, over
the enemies who have fallen by his tomahawk, and rejoices in the
anticipated vengeance of his tribe. But it is chiefly by giving
expression to the loftiest sentiments of invincible courage and
fortitude, that he seeks to support himself in the midst of his
torments. 'I am brave and intrepid!' he exclaims,--'I do not fear death
nor any kind of torture! He who fears them is a coward--he is less than
a woman. Death is nothing to him who has courage!' As it is thus the
very best parts of their actual character that are dwelt upon even in
the barbarous songs of savages, these songs must contribute essentially
to the progress of refinement, by fostering and cherishing every germ of
good feeling that is successively developed during the advancement of
society. When selfishness begins to give way to generosity,--when mere
animal courage is in some degree ennobled by feelings of patriotic
self-devotion,--and, above all, when sensual appetite begins to be
purified into love,--it is then that the popular songs, by acquiring a
higher character themselves, come to produce a still more powerful
reaction upon the character of the people. These songs, produced by the
most highly-gifted of the tribe,--by those who feel most strongly, and
express their feelings most happily,--convey ideas of greater elevation
and refinement than are as yet familiar; but not so far removed from the
ordinary habits of thinking as to be unintelligible. The hero who
devotes himself to death for the safety of his country, with a firmness
as yet almost without example in the actual history of the race,--and
the lover, who follows his mistress through every danger, and perhaps
dies for her sake,--become objects on which every one delights to dwell,
and models which the braver and nobler spirits are thus incited to
emulate. The songs of rude nations, accordingly, and those in which they
take most pleasure, are filled with the most romantic instances of
courage, fidelity, and generosity; and it cannot be supposed that such
delightful and elevating pictures of human nature can be constantly
before the eyes of any people, without producing a great effect on their
character. The same considerations are applicable to the effects of
popular ballads upon the most numerous classes of society, even in
civilized nations."
It appears that popular songs are both the cause and effect of general
morals: that they are first formed, and then react. In both points of
view they serve as an index of popular morals. The ballads of a people
present us, not only with vivid pictures of the common objects which are
before their eyes,--given with more familiarity than would suit any
other style of composition,--but they present also the most prevalent
feelings on subjects of the highest popular interest. If it were not so,
they would not have been popular songs. The traveller cannot be wrong in
concluding that he sees a faithful reflection of the mind of a people in
their ballads. When he possesses the popular songs of former centuries,
he holds the means of transporting himself back to the scenes of the
ancient world, and finds himself a spectator of its most active
proceedings. Wars are waged beneath his eye, and the events of the chase
grow to a grandeur which is not dreamed of now. Love, the passion of all
times, and the staple of all songs, varies in its expression among
every people and in every age, and appears still another and yet the
same. The lady of ballads is always worthy of love and song; but there
are instructive differences in the treatment she receives. Sometimes she
is oppressed by a harsh parent; sometimes wrongfully accused by a wicked
servant, or a false knight; sometimes her soft nature is exasperated
into revenge; sometimes she is represented as fallen, but always, in
that case, as enduring retribution. Upon the whole, the testimony is
strong in favour of bravery in men, and purity in women, and constancy
in both;--and this in the whole range of popular poetry, from ancient
Arabic effusions, through centuries of European song, up to the Indian
chants which may yet be heard on the shores of the wide western lakes.
The distinguishing attributes of great men bear a strong resemblance,
from the days when all Greece rang with the musical celebration of
Harmodius and Aristogiton, through the age of Charlemagne, up to the
triumphs of Bolivar: and women have been adored for the same qualities,
however variously set forth, from the virgin with gazelle eyes of three
thousand years ago, to the dames who witnessed the conflicts of the Holy
Land, and onwards to the squaw who calls upon her husband not to forget
her in the world of spirits, and to our Burns' Highland Mary.
What the traveller has to look to is, that he does not take one aspect
of the popular mind for the whole, or a temporary state of the popular
mind for a permanent one,--though, from the powerful action of national
song, this temporary state is likely to become a permanent one by its
means. As an instance of the first, the observer would be mistaken in
judging of more than a class of English from some of the best songs they
have,--Dibdin's sea songs. They are too fair a representation of the
single class to which they pertain, though they have done much to foster
and extend the spirit of generosity, simplicity, activity, gaiety, and
constant love, which they breathe. They have undoubtedly raised the
character of the British navy, and are to a great degree indicative of
the naval spirit with us: but they present only one aspect of the
national mind. In Spain, again, the songs with which the mountains are
ringing, and whose origin is too remote to be traced, are no picture of
the conventional mind of the aristocratic classes. As an instance of the
false conclusions which might be drawn from the popular songs of a brief
period, we may look to the revolutionary poetry of France. It would be
unfair to judge of the French people by their _ça ira_ or the
_Carmagnole_, however true an expression such songs may be of the spirit
of the hour. The nation had lived before under "une monarchie absolue
tempérée par des chansons;" the absolutism grew too galling; and then
the songs took the tone of fury which protracted oppression had bred. It
was not long before the tone was again changed. Napoleon was harassed on
his imperial throne by tokens of a secret understanding, unfriendly to
his interests: those tokens were songs ambiguously worded, or set to
airs which were used as signs; and treason, which he could not reach,
was perpetually spoken and acted within ear-shot and before his eyes.
When the royal family returned, the songs of De Béranger passed in like
manner from lip to lip, and the restored throne trembled to the echo. In
France, morals have for many years found their chief expression in
politics; and from the songs of Paris may the traveller learn the
political feelings of the time. Under representative governments, where
politics are the chief expression of morals, the songs of the people
cannot but be an instructive study to the observer; and scarcely less so
in countries where, politics being forbidden, the domestic and friendly
relations must be the topics through which the most general ideas and
feelings will flow out.
The rudest and the most advanced nations abound in songs. They are heard
under the plantain throughout Africa, as in the streets of Paris. The
boatmen on the Nile, and the children of Cairo on their way to school,
cheer the time with chants; as do the Germans in their vineyards, and in
the leisure hours of the university. The Negro sings of what he sees and
feels,--the storm coming over the woods, the smile of his wife, and the
coolness of the drink she gives him. The Frenchman sings the woes of the
state prisoner, and the shrewd self-cautionings of the citizen. The
songs of the Egyptian are amatory, and of the German varied as the
accomplishments of the nation,--but in their moral tone earnest and
pure. The more this mode of expression is looked into, the more
serviceable it will be found to the traveller's purposes of observation.
* * * * *
The subject of the Literature of nations, as a means of becoming
familiar with their moral ideas, is too vast to be enlarged on here. The
considerations connected with it are so obvious, too, that the traveller
to whom they would not occur can be but little qualified for the work
of observing.
It is clear that we cannot know the mind of a nation, any more than of
an individual, by merely looking at it, without hearing any speech.
National literature is national speech. By this are its prevalent ideas
and feelings uttered. It is necessarily so; for books which do not meet
sympathy from numbers die immediately, and books which strike upon the
sympathies of all never die. Between the two extremes, of books which
command the sympathies of a class, and those which are the delight of
all, there is an extensive gradation, from which the careful observer
may almost frame for himself a scale of popular morals and manners. I
mean, of course, in countries where there is a copious classical, or a
growing modern literature. A people which happens to be without a
literature,--the Americans, for instance,--must be judged of, as
cautiously as may be, by such other means of utterance as they may
have,--the political institutions which the present generation has
formed or assented to,--their preferences in selection from the
literature of other countries; and so on. But there is a far greater
danger of their being misunderstood than there can ever be with regard
to a nation which speaks for itself through books. "A country which has
no national literature," writes a student of man, "or a literature too
insignificant to force its way abroad, must always be to its neighbours,
at least in every important spiritual respect, an unknown and
misestimated country. Its towns may figure on our maps; its revenues,
population, manufactures, political connexions, may be recorded in
statistical books: but the character of the people has no symbol and no
voice; we cannot know them by speech and discourse, but only by mere
sight and outward observation of their habits and procedure."[I]
The very fact of there being no literature in a nation may, however,
yield inferences as to its mental and moral state. There is a very
limited set of reasons why a people is without speech. They are
barbarous, or they are politically oppressed; or the nation is young,
and busy in providing and securing the means of national existence; or
it has the same language with another people, and therefore the full
advantage of its literature, as if it were not foreign. These seem to be
nearly all the reasons for national silence; and any one of them affords
some means of insight into the morals and manners of the dumb people.
As for those which have utterance, they either speak freshly from day to
day, or they show their principles and temper by the choice they make
from among their own classics. Whatever is most accordant with their
sympathies, they dwell upon; so that the selection is a sure indication
of what the popular sympathies are. The same may be said of the
comparative popularity of modern books; but they may reveal only a
temporary state of feeling, and the traveller has to separate this
species of evidence from the more important kind which testifies to the
permanent affections and convictions of a people. The revelling of the
French in Voltaire, of the Germans in Werter, and of the English in
Byron, was, in each case, a highly important revelation of popular
feeling; but it is not a circumstance from which to judge of the fixed
national character of any of the three. It was a sign of the times, and
not signs of nations. Voltaire pulled down certain erections which could
not stand any longer, and was worshipped as a denier of untruths,--the
popular mind being then ripe for the exploding of errors. But here ended
the vocation of Voltaire. The French are now busy, to the extent of
their energy, in doing what ought to follow upon the exposure of
errors;--they are searching after truth. Pretences having been
destroyed, they are now propounding and trying principles; and works
which propose new and sounder erections find favour in preference to
such as only expose and ridicule old sins and mistakes.--Werter was
popular because it expressed the universal restlessness and discontent
under which not only Germany, but Europe was suffering. Multitudes found
their uncomfortable feelings uttered for them; and Werter was, in fact,
the groan of a continent. Old superstitions, tyrannies, and ignorance
were becoming intolerable, and no way was seen out of them; and the
voice of complaint was hailed with universal sympathy. So it was with
the poetry of Byron, adopted and echoed as it was, and will for some
time continue to be, by the sufferers under an aristocratic constitution
of society, whether they be oppressed by force from without, or by
weariness, satiety, and disgust from within. The permanent state of the
English mind is not represented in Byron, and could not be guessed at
from his writings, except by inference from the woes of a particular
order of minds: but his popularity was an admirable sign of the times,
for such observers as were capable of interpreting it. Probably, in all
ages since the pen and the press began their work, literature has been
the expression of the popular mind; but it seems to have become
peculiarly forcible, as a general utterance, of late. Whatever truth
there may be in speculations about the growing infrequency of "immortal
works,"--about the age being past for the production of books which
shall become classics,--it appears that literature is assuming more and
more the character of letters written to those whom their subjects may
concern, and becoming more and more a familiar utterance of the general
mind of the day. In the popular modern works of Germany there is deep
and warm religious sentiment, while the most unflinching examination
into the philosophy and fact of revelation is widely encouraged. In
England, there is a growing taste for works which exhibit the life of
the lower orders of society, though all aristocratic prepossessions
appear in practice as strong as ever. This seems to indicate that our
philosophy has a democratic tendency under which a general opinion will
be formed, which will, in time, be expressed in practice. The French,
again, are devouring, at the rate of two new volumes every three days,
novels which are, in fact, letters to those whom they may concern on the
condition and prospects of men and women in society. The pictures are
something more than mere delineations. They carry with them principles
by which the position of the members of the community is to be tested.
The social position of Woman is a prominent topic. The first principles
of social organization are involved in the groundwork of the simplest
stories: and the universal reception of this product of literature shows
that those whom it concerns are all. What an enormous loss of knowledge
must the traveller sustain who omits to observe and reflect upon the
spirit of the fresh literature of a people, or of its preferences among
the literature of the past!
He must note whether a people has recent dramatic productions: if not,
whether and why the times are unfavourable to that kind of literature;
and if there is dramatic production, what are the pictures of life that
it presents.
He must obtain at least some general idea of what the mental philosophy
of the society is,--not so much because mental philosophy affects the
national mind, as because it emanates from it. Is it a gross material,
or a refined analytical, or a massy mystical philosophy? The first is
usually found in the sceptical stage of the mind of a nation; the last
in its healthy infancy; while the other is rarely to be found at all,
except as the product of an individual mind of a high order. Few
travellers will have occasion to give much attention to this part of
their task of observation; as, among all the nations of the earth, there
is not one in ten that has any mental philosophy at all.
All have Fiction (other than dramatic); and this must be one of the
observer's high points of view. There is no need to spend words upon
this proposition. It requires no proof that the popular fictions of a
people, representing them in their daily doings and common feelings,
must be a mirror of their moral sentiments and convictions, and of their
social habits and manners. The saying this is almost like offering an
identical proposition. The traveller should stock his carriage with the
most popular fictions, whether of the present day, or of a recent or
ancient time. He should fill up his leisure with them. He should
separate what they have that is congenial with his own habit of mind,
from that with which he can least sympathize, and search into the origin
of the latter. This will be something of a guide to him as to what is
permanent and universal in the sentiments and convictions of the people,
and what is to be regarded as a distinctive feature of the particular
society or time.
It is impossible but that, by the diligent use of these means, the
observer must learn much of the general moral notions of the people he
studies,--of what they approve and disapprove,--what they eschew and
what they seek,--what they love and hate, desire and fear;--of what, in
short, yields them most internal trouble or peace.