science will remain the sole guides of sane | - conscience and concupiscence; * the and educated men. Churchmen and laws of universal reason, or what Promoral philosophers represent the old and fessor Huxley calls "the laws of comfort." ... dying world, and we, the men of science, represent the new."* And similarly, Mr. Herbert Spencer assures us that "the establishment of the rules of right conduct upon a scientific basis is a pressing need." † The "men of science" are agreed in anathematizing the transcendental. Their method is purely physical. They conceive of man merely as "ein geniessendes Thier," an animal whose motive principle is what they call "happiness;" who, in Bentham's phrase, "has been placed by nature under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure." Such are the foundations of the new independent morality. Let us now follow it out in some of its details. Now let us inquire what is the substitute for "the present crude and vulgar notions regarding morality" proposed to the world by "men of science," as physicists modestly call themselves, in disdainful ignorance of all sciences except their own. The inquiry is of much pith and And first let us learn of one concerning moment for this among other reasons, that whom a well-informed writer recently testhe public order reposes upon the idea of tified that "in this country and America right. Social relations can be explained he is the philosopher," and whose works, and justified only by moral relations. Of if less implicitly received as oracles in course there is diversity of operation in France and Germany, have done much to the attempts at ethical reconstruction. shape and color current speculation in But in all worketh one and the self-same those countries. I need hardly say that I spirit. They all aim at presenting the speak of Mr. Herbert Spencer. The docworld with "an independent morality," by trine unfolded at such great length by this which they mean a morality deduced patient and perspicuous thinker appears merely from physical law, grounded solely to me to amount to this, in the last resort : on what they call "experience," and on that all the actions of society are deteranalysis of and deduction from experience; mined by the actions of the individual; holding only of the positive sciences and that all the actions of the individual are rejecting all pure reason, all philosophy in regulated by the laws of life; and that all the true sense of the word. They all in- the laws of life are purely physical. Turn sist that there is no essential difference we to another eminent teacher, hardly less between the moral and the physical order; influential. Consider the following acthat the world of ideas is but a develop- count of human nature which Professor ment of the world of phenomena. They Huxley sets before us in his "Lay Serall agree in the negation of primary and mons," enforcing it by an epigram of of final causes, of the soul and of free- Goethe: "All the multifarious and comwill. Instead of finality, they tell us, ne- plicated activities of men all, rememcessity reigns; mechanical perhaps, or it ber, without exception - "are compremay be dynamical, but issuing practically hended under three categories. Either in the elimination of moral liberty as a they are directed towards the maintenance useless spring in the machinery of matter. I venture to say that in the long run there are only two schools of ethics - the hedonistic and the transcendental. There are only two sides from which we can approach a question of right and wrong the physical and the spiritual. There are only two possible foundations of morality and development of the body, or they effect transitory changes in the relative • Quoted by Professor Davis in his artic'e, "The Moral Aspects of Vivisection," in the North American Review for March, 1885. † Data of Ethics, Pref. IV. * I use the word in its proper philosophical sense: "a certain power and motion of the mind, whereby men are driven to desire pleasant things that they do not possess." Listen in this connection to Professor Huxley's dogmatic utterance: "I say that natural knowledge, seeking to satisfy natural wants, has found the idea which alone can still spiritual cravings. I say that natural knowledge, in desiring to ascertain the law of comfort, has been driven to discover the laws of conduct, and to lay the foundations of a new morality" (Lay Sermons, p. 11). "A new morality" based ultimately on "the law of comfort"! Glad tidings of great joy, indeed, to a benighted nineteenth century. positions of the body, or they tend towards knowledged facts. It cannot depend upon the continuance of the species. Even a subjective consciousness unable to man those manifestations of intellect, of feeling, of wit, which we rightly name the higher faculties, are not excluded from this classification, inasmuch as, to every one but the subject of them, they are known only as transitory changes in the relative position of parts of the body. Speech, gesture, and every other form of human action are, in the long run, resolvable into muscular contraction." * I do not overlook the words " to every one but the subject of them." And most certainly I have no desire to force upon Mr. Huxley's language a meaning which it does not logically convey. But surely he will agree with me that knowledge which is confined to one's inner consciousness, and can never become the property of another, cannot have much effect upon society at large. It may be dismissed by any philosopher aiming at the practical, which assuredly is Professor Huxley's aim. A man, dwelling in the depths of his own consciousness, he tells us, may think, if he pleases, in terms of spirit. But the moment that man attempts to influence another, he must put away everything that is not muscular contraction. "Weiter bringt es kein Mensch," says the incomparable genius who, in three lines, reduces human life to an affair of feeding oneself, begetting children, and doing one's best to feed them. I know it may be answered, "Well, but the professor leaves us the unknown and unknowable subject, beyond the limits of consciousness as of physical science." What of that? Pray what has ifest itself intellectually. Professor Huxley, like Mr. Spencer, really treats ethics as a branch of physics. And this is in truth the doctrine - whether explicitly avowed or not - of the whole Positivist and experimental school. Further, right, they will have it, is not absolute but relative, a matter of calculation and reasoning; it is nothing but the accord of the individual instinct with the social instinct; the momentary harmony of the need manifested in me, and of the exigences of the species to which I belong. In like manner wrong is the absence of such accord, the want of such harmony; "a natural phenomenon like any other, but a phenomenon that at a given moment is found to be in opposition to the eventual good of the race." And this agrees with Bentham's doctrine that what we call a crime is really a miscalculation, an error in arithmetic. The old conception of conscience as the formal principle of ethics, the internal witness of the Supreme Judge, "a prophet in its informations, a monarch in its peremptoriness, a priest in its blessings and anathemas," is put aside as outworn rhetoric. The moral sense, we are assured, is not primitive, not innate, but a mere empirical fact transformed and established by heredity; a "phenomenon " (so they call it) variable and varying with the exigences of the race. General utility, the good of the species is, then, the only scientific and experimental criterion of human action, the sole rule of right and wrong; and morality consists in the ap morality to do with the unknown and un- prehension of that principle, and in conknowable? "Nihil volitum quin præcog-formity with it. And so Mr. John Morley, nitum" is indeed a mediæval axiom, and in his book on "Compromise," dogmatiso, as I fear mindful of a former con- cally affirms, "Moral principles, when they troversy in this review - may be "sus- are true, are only registered generalizapect" to Professor Huxley. But although tions from experience." Human society, mediæval, it is unquestionably true. On in the view of this sage, is not an organism morality, the unknown and unknowable but a machine - just as the individual can have only a nominal influence. The men of whom it is composed are ma real influence is left to the teaching which sees in the exercise of our highest faculties only "muscular contraction." Public morality must be founded on publicly ac chines; * a kind of company, as some one has happily expressed it, which insures against risks by applying the principles of * Page 122. * "The good man is a machine whose springs are adapted so to fulfil their functions as to produce beneficial results." Morley's Diderot, vol. ii., p. 178. people. The shop-fronts are of wondrous a fairy palace. High walls shut in the carved wood; highly gilded signs hang forbidden city; a moat surrounds them; out into the street; wonderful beams with and then there are the glistening yellow curved ends project across the roadway, tiles, the roofs built by the old Mongols and strings from which dangle red feath- in imitation of their tents. Then there is ers. But I must say that the last thing I the green hill with its trees, and palace am struck with is the magnificence of the roofs climbing up it. The entrances are scene. The shops are pleasant enough. of deep blue, bright green, golden-draOne goes into a back-parlor set out like a goned, with here and there a touch of verminiature museum; through that a court- milion. The sky is blue above, the sun yard; then an inner sanctum not over- shines; and there in the roadway sits a crowded with pretty things, and with child stark naked, its face so dirty that it plenty of chairs. But the prices of the is impossible to see what it is like, its curios are exorbitant; so that one can only head misshapen with disease. No wonbe glad that Peking shopkeepers bow and der the present emperor never cares to smile as politely on non-buyers as on cus- come outside, and is supposed never to tomers. Indeed, it is customary for them have done so. The world inside must be to send their wares on inspection to the far more delightful, if it matches with different houses day after day. "Num- those glittering fairy roofs. Report does ber one thing! six dollars," say they. not speak well of the young emperor. He Reply unwarily with "Half a dollar," and is described as unwilling to learn, sickly, it is yours; whereupon you feel sure at and froward - very ready to fling things once the thing is no real curio at all and at people's heads if displeased, and altoworth nothing. This bargaining is a great gether cut out to commit some great folly amusement each day after breakfast. Pe- if he ever becomes really the ruler of king furs are lovely; and there are lovely China. He receives the high officers of white, feather-like Thibetan sheepskins, the empire kneeling on their knees, he red-backed Mongolian squirrels, and, most fascinating of all, cinnamon or creamcolored fox-skins, so soft that they could almost be passed through the traditional ring. The great sights of Peking are behind closed gates at present. Sometimes some are open; others never. We go to the clock-tower; a wattle fence is hurriedly erected across the opening as we approach. We go to the Examination Hall sometimes open, but shut to-day. Of course you can go again, if you liked the smells last time. It is adjoining the Observatory; where the carved bronze supports of the instruments - weird dragons chained to mountains lest they should escape, redundant foliage, etc., deserve to be one of the wonders of the world. I am glad to have seen them; I should like to see them again. But, oh dear! the smells! and the man with loathsome sores and the hideous voice, who wants to try gentlemen's cigars for them and to touch ladies' dresses, and who fights with strangers for a larger tip when he has had more than enough already. That man is of a piece with Peking. But he did not touch my dress. I have invented a way of swinging my parasol round me as I walk that effectually clears the way. It looks like madness, but it is the merest discretion. The outside of the emperor's palace all that any European has ever seen of it since the days of Marco Polo-is ideal, alone sitting in state; but behind a curtain sits the reigning empress, hearing all, and really ruling China. The Lazarist Fathers and the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, who alone of Christian missions have for centuries nestled under the palace walls, and who of late years built themselves a church to whose high towers the empress strongly objected, are now moving into other quarters; and it is said the empress intends to occupy the fathers' house, and to use the church as an audience hall in which to receive foreigners. If this last bit of gossip be true, Peking may shortly see great changes. She has particularly asked for the organ to be left and the high towers, from which, if not as now walled up, you could inspect the palace garden. She says now that she has always been fortunate since they were built. What will become of Père Aumand David's beautiful collection of Chinese birds, for which she has also asked, is not known. Fortunately there are counterparts at Paris, and, I think, in London. The wise fathers! To the collection of Chinese birds they added brilliant-plumaged birds from Australia and America, that the Chinese might see how much more favored other regions are in the matter of coloring. This little incident may perhaps illustrate the Chinese state of mind. The Chinese minister lately accredited to a leading European court was taking leave of a very eminent Englishman; and, pitying him that his wife had gone to England for the education of their children, said: "You must be very lonely. But of course you have a number two." "I tried to explain to him," said the Englishman, "that that was quite out of the question. My wife would be in a great rage if I took a second wife, and my government would punish me severely.' The Chinese diplomatist was astonished; but after a pause he said, "You Europeans have so much more intercourse with China now, that we may hope you will soon become sufficiently civilized to act as we do." In this spirit the Chinese diplomatist started for Europe, and in this spirit he will probably return. Yesterday we went to the doors of the Temple of Heaven, which were quickly closed as we approached. It is too holy for foreign foot to enter; but all round about it the filth, the indecencies, the open sewers or drains, through which our mercifully sure-footed donkeys guided their steps, were such as no town in Italy or France could equal in its most neg. lected districts; and here they extended right up to the sacred portals. The Summer Palace is not to be seen just now, not even its ruins; indeed, none of the sights of Peking are on view at present. But the road to Peking is; the roads of Peking are. There is a raised roadway in the middle; a sort of ditch on either side into which the middle part may drain; in either ditch rows of booths. Then at either side there is a sort of footway; but donkeys go upon it, and I think carts. Camels do not. The roads are so wide that a hundred camels can lie down in circles of a dozen or so round their baggage without blocking the traffic. China and curios are laid flat on the dust of the road; carts stick in the ruts. I saw three at once under a single city gateway yesterday. The little ponies and mules were so tired with struggling to get them out, that they were all resting as I came up. People say the poor do not suffer that they are light-hearted. So were the negro slaves. I asked the Sisters of St. Vincent if the poverty and suffering here were greater than they had seen in France. They answered, so incompara bly greater that there could be no comparison. And how can it be otherwise when Peking produces nothing, and everything has to come by cart from Tientsin, or in the somewhat easier way we came by boat from Tientsin up the Peiho to Tungchow, towed by men, or poled, or some times sailing? We had very favorable winds, and the journey took three days and a half. Then came thirteen miles by road, to be accomplished by cart. Those thir teen miles took six hours. I held on with both hands and so escaped actual concussion of the brain, though three times my head was dashed against the side. In the end I got out and walked. For the road was made by the Ming dynasty, before the Mantchus conquered the long-suffering Chinese. It was laid down with huge blocks of stone, some of which are worn away, others altogether gone. The road has never been repaired since the Mantchus got the management of things. And along this stony road tenderly walk long strings of camels carrying brick tea to Mongolia. The quantity of hard physical labor that has gone to the conveying of that tea, even before it reaches Tungchow and is committed to the camels, is stupendous. From The English Illustrated Magazine. PHILOLOGISTS VERSUS CRITICS. As it does not seem advisable to me to thrust a walking-stick into a hornet's nest as a way of diversifying a country stroll, I would rather not say much in these peaceful pages about a subject which has some interest for me I mean the academical controversy concerning the teaching of English literature. The pot of dispute, I see, is bubbling away as merrily as ever at Oxford, and occasionally, in moments of peculiar ebullience, spurting a jet into the newspapers and reviews. Some Swift ought to write a new battle, not of the books, but of the bookmen. The quarrel so innocently stirred up by Sir William Temple was not more remarkable for violent prejudice on both sides. The philologists can see nothing in the bellelettrists but a coterie of fribbles, and the belle-lettrists refuse to see anything in the philologists but a congregation of dry-as-dusts. To the "literary "disputant it seems impossible to admit that his learned adversary can possess the slightest taste or feeling for the aesthetic side of language; while the man of linguistic erudition finds it inconceivable that the "æsthetic criticism" of literature should be anything but a convenient excuse for the encouragement of a frivolous preciosity. The situation is full of comedy, and only wants its Aristophanes. Even the conflict between just and unjust discourse in the "Clouds," which the late Dean Mansel imitated so happily in his "Phron- | Our pupils his genius through each of its tisterion," is hardly more full of dramatic contrast than is the opposition of these two schools. Imagine each of them represented by a chorus in the style of the Athenian old comedy, and advocating their respective claims before their common academical mother. The Chorus of Critics might begin somewhat in this style: Mother of Students! "Alma" hight, Awake! arise! Set to thine hand! phases Shall trace by our guidance, and roam Through delectable mazes of exquisite phrases, Until it is time to go home. Now would be the turn of the C. of P. And they might set forth their rival claims after this wise: We are the thinkers of accurate thought, No one else has been taught how to think as he ought Save only the Philologist. Nay more, we may say, we're in private agreed To which, no doubt, the Chorus of Philol- Nor can language be ever known thoroughly ogists would reply : while 'Tis believed to bear blossom and fruits, And we hear with a smile about flowers of style, For we recognize nothing but roots. Well-armed with these missiles we think we can scatter That coterie vanity-born, Whose frivolous chatter on flimsiest matter Will bring English letters to scorn. Whereupon probably the amœbæan contest would assume an even more closely hand-to-hand form: C. of C. Detestable pedants! Contemptible fribbles! What sounds of strife are these? Methinks Both. Ye gods! shall the care of our litera To discourse of poetical truths, Or to skim off the cream of some poet supreme | Aristophanic imitator may incline to. For a band of ingenuous youths. and so forth, and so forth, Alma Mater of course intervening just at the turningpoint of the fray, and deciding for - well, whichever party the taste and fancy of the H. D. TRAILL. With our richly exuberant prose. |