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Cornell UnlveriKy Library 
 
 arV133 
 
 Social and literary papers. 
 
 3 1924 031 166 287 
 
SOCIAL AND LITERARY PAPERS 
 
SOCIAL 
 
 AND 
 
 LITERARY PAPERS 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES CHAUNCY SHACKFORD 
 
 Emeritus Professor in Cornell University 
 
 0- 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS 
 
 1892 
 
 f> 
 Els 
 
Copyright, 189Z, 
 B y ppf ERTS Brothers . 
 
 ^cornelil\ 
 universjty 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 The Essays contained in this volume were pre- 
 pared for and read before various literary clubs 
 and societies, mostly in Boston and its vicinity. 
 Their printing was begun but a short time previous 
 to the death of the Author, the proofs of less than 
 one hundred pages having passed under his scru- 
 tiny. The work of editorial supervision was then 
 committed to the hands of Mr. A. W. Stevens of 
 the University Press, who, in prosecuting the task, 
 has been studiously regardful of what he believes 
 would have been both the wish and the deed of the 
 Author. 
 
 In closing his work, the Editor cannot refrain 
 from expressing his hearty appreciation of the 
 great value and timeliness of many of the dis- 
 cussions carried on in these pages. 
 
 A. W. S. 
 April, 1892. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. ^SCHYLUS ON SOME MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS 9 
 
 II. A Satirist in the Second Century ... 31 
 
 III. A Sceptic in the Eighteenth Century . . 61 
 
 IV. Nemesis in Greek Tragedy 89 
 
 V. The Pope in "The Ring and the Book" . 108 
 
 VI. Browning's "In a Balcony" 116 
 
 VII. The Greek Comedy of Manners .... 126 
 
 VIII. Plato's Republic 144 
 
 IX. Aristotle's "Politics" 160 
 
 X. Social Progress 180 
 
 XI. Social Plans and Problems ...... 198 
 
 XII. Social Tendencies 220 
 
 XIII. The Nation as an Organism in Shaksfeare. 242 
 
 XIV. The Common Reason in Social Reforms . 260 
 XV. History as Development 283 
 
SOCIAL AND LITERARY PAPERS. 
 
 I. 
 
 .^CHYLUS ON SOME MODERN SOCIAL 
 PROBLEMS. 
 
 ./EscHYLUs, the founder of the Greek lyric drama, 
 possessed a soul severely grand like that of Milton, 
 austerely just like that of Dante; and, like these 
 poets, he too was drawn toward the religious, 
 moral, and social problems of his time and of all 
 time. These great masters of poetry are driven 
 by a mighty wind ; they are the voices of an un- 
 counted multitude ; and so must it be with all the 
 great bards of the world's great literature. 
 
 No deeper problems occupy now the thought of 
 mankind than those which make the contents of 
 the " Prometheus " of ^schylus. There remains 
 to us only one of the parts of this trilogy, — the 
 second, or middle one, — and the structure can be 
 completed only by inference ; but what we have is 
 enough to show the groundwork of the whole. 
 
 In the " Prometheus " is symbolized the progress 
 of the human race; and under this statement we 
 have a representation of the poet's view of man's 
 relation to the universe, of the advance of culture 
 
lO MSCHYLUS ON 
 
 and civilization, and of those problems of might 
 and right, of justice and equality, of those eternal 
 laws of progressive change for good, which it is 
 the work to-day of science to establish for the 
 satisfaction of man's reason and intellect. 
 
 According to the appearance that Nature pre- 
 sents to the first men, ignorant of any means of 
 protection, of defence, — "what is its aspect ? Evi- 
 dently, that of a hostile, tyrannical, merciless be- 
 ing, — now blasting with burning heat, now crys- 
 tallizing with icy cold, now sending, according to 
 his pleasure, the deadly arrows of pestilence, now 
 sapping the strength by old age, and extinguishing 
 all by death. In social life also are found might 
 of arm and cunning of brain, securing to them- 
 selves wealth and power, and then plunged into 
 the lowest wretchedness, — the ruler of a people 
 begging his bread; the dweller in palaces an out- 
 cast in the desert, glad to find shelter in a cave, 
 and share with the wild beast its prey. Man 
 seems despised and hated by some higher powers. 
 The gods envy his too great prosperity : they are 
 indifferent to his good. Everywhere is the spec- 
 tacle of triumphant might, — and of man, feeble, 
 ignorant, suffering under numberless ills, dying 
 from generation to generation, yet engaged in a 
 hand-to-hand struggle with this seemingly irre- 
 sistible force. 
 
 What must first free him? Knowledge, fore- 
 sight, the divine spark within of aspiration and 
 unconquerable will ; the never-resting desire to 
 
SOME MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 1 1 
 
 better his condition, to find out all secrets, and 
 use for himself every divine force, every hidden 
 power. Whatever furthers this tendency to free 
 and help humanity is man's friend, man's bene- 
 factor, man's divine protector and champion. 
 
 With a different theory of the origin arid pro- 
 gress of civilization from that which looked back 
 to an age of gold, and laid its paradise in some 
 far-off period of blessed innocence and of happy 
 contentment with the gods, jEschylus describes 
 the early condition of the human race as but just 
 removed from that of brutes : — 
 
 " They dwelt 
 In hollowed holes, like swarms of tiny ants 
 In sunless depths of caverns ; and they had 
 No certain signs of winter, nor of spring 
 Flower-laden, nor of summer with her fruits. 
 
 And in another place he says, — 
 
 " I, poor I, through giving 
 Great gifts to mortal men, am prisoner made 
 In these fast fetters ; yea, in fennel stalk 
 I snatched the hidden spring of stolen fire, 
 Which is to men a teacher of all arts. 
 Their chief resource." 
 
 In Prometheus, then, is represented that grand 
 idea of a progressive culture, under the sym- 
 bolic form of a Titanic contest with the Ruler 
 of the world, the Power that has seated itself by 
 mere force on the throne, and who hates the hu- 
 man race, so that he is willing to see it perish, 
 that its place may be supplied by creatures of his 
 
12 MSCHYLUS ON 
 
 own. In the view of .^schylus, Zeus himself was 
 subject to a power which he must acknowledge, or 
 himself in turn be overthrown. This power, more- 
 over, was not the mere blank, rigid fate which is 
 often spoken of, — not the blind, irresistible chance 
 for which no one could account, and before which 
 each one must quake and tremble; but this power 
 was the Eternal Justice, the law of right, the ever- 
 lasting balance, harmony, and proportion of all 
 things human and divine, which raised up the low 
 and cast down the high, which visited arrogance with 
 humiliation, which levelled every excess, and filled 
 up every hole and cranny of the universe with the 
 needed supply. Prometheus boldly contended for 
 right against might, for the suffering against his 
 potent oppressor, for the vile worm against him 
 who trampled it in the dust. He identified him- . 
 self with the race of men, was their champion and 
 savior ; and therefore he suffered. 
 
 r. For the poet recognized the fundamental law 
 of all human growth and progress, — the law of 
 martyrdom, — and has embodied it in that godlike 
 form spiked to the bare Caucasus : — 
 
 " Behold me bound, a god to evil doomed, 
 The foe of Zeus, and held 
 In hatred by all gods 
 Who tread the courts of Zeus : 
 And this for my great love, 
 Too great for mortal men." 
 
 This law of martyrdom is seen in the very con- 
 stitution of the natural world. Each successive 
 
SOME MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 1 3 
 
 step of ascending life is gained by the rendering 
 up Of life in that which precedes; growth comes 
 out of decay, life out of death. The earth is fertile 
 because innumerable forms have lived and died. 
 The solidest rock is crumbled into finest, impalpa- 
 ble powder ; the hardest mineral renders, up its 
 form, and, equally with the tenderest moss disinte- 
 grating at the touch, it becomes dissolved into dust ; 
 plants springing from these inhale the atmosphere 
 and rains of heaven and ministering juices of the 
 soil, and then give themselves up in turn to animal 
 and man. Each higher form lives by the martyrdom 
 of some lower, and death is everywhere the price 
 of life. Is it any different in the moral and social 
 spheres.' Is not the present civilization of the 
 world — its knowledge, art, comfort, well-being — 
 the result of innumerable sorrows and deaths .' Is 
 not every stone of the foundation and every joint of 
 the rising superstructure cemented by blood of the 
 body, blood of the mind, blood of the very heart 
 and soul of the noblest of the race in every age 
 and among every people, from the earliest moment 
 until this very hour in which we breathe our little 
 lives .' Not alone upon the battle-field, the gibbet, 
 the cross, — not alone in dungeons and filthy pris- 
 on-cells, have martyrs struggled and suffered for 
 the good of man ; but on sea and in the wilderness, 
 in the workshop and the study, the pioneer of truth 
 has swung his axe, has gazed into the heavens, has 
 pored over the annals of the past, has delved and 
 toiled, has despaired and hoped again, has seen the 
 
14 jEschylus on 
 
 stars rise and set, the sun pursue his daily course, 
 and seasons come and go, — still eager for the com- 
 ing truth, watching for the new day, looking through 
 tearful eyes for a light that no mortal eye has ever 
 seen, a good that his own soul whispers shall one 
 day be the heritage of all his fellow-men. 
 - This law of life Fichte has thus enunciated: 
 
 " Nothing individual can live in itself or for itself, but 
 all live in the whole ; and this whole unceasingly dies for 
 itself in unspeakable love, that it may rise again in new 
 life. This is the spiritual law : all that comes into being 
 falls a sacrifice to an eternally increasing and ascending 
 life ; and this law constantly rules over all, without waiting 
 for the consent of any. Here alone lies the distinction, — 
 whether man allow himself to be led, with the halter round 
 his neck, like a beast to the slaughter, or freely and nobly 
 brings his life a gift to the altar of the eternal life, in the full 
 fore-enjoyment of thelife which is to arise from its ashes." 
 
 Does a man, then, really want to do good to 
 man? What must he look for.' Martyrdom, — 
 that is, he must himself share in the suffering 
 that he would relieve ; he must himself take upon 
 his own shoulders the burden he would remove. 
 The depth of his suffering must be in proportion 
 to the wretchedness he alleviates. The cup of 
 human woe, who can drink it off.? Yet it must 
 be drunk off; and because it must, Zeus was called 
 tyrant, usurper, regardless of the welfare of the 
 race of men. So he seemed to the earliest rude 
 view; but this view recedes, and, as man sees the 
 real blessedness of the law, it is the law not of 
 
SOME MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 1 5 
 
 death, but of life. ^Eschylus himself, in another 
 drama, "The Suppliants," says, — 
 
 " All that God works is effortless and calm ; 
 Seated on loftiest throne, 
 Thence, though we know not how, 
 He works his perfect will." 
 
 Again, the poet addresses him as " blest above all 
 blessed ones," as — 
 
 " Our Father, author of our life, 
 Directing all his plans, — 
 The great Master workman, Zeus." 
 
 All the great legends of mythology recognize 
 this law, and thus show its universality. The 
 hero, to save his country, must leap into the 
 yawning chasm. The serpent cannot be slain 
 unless its slayer receives a fatal hurt. The be- 
 leagured city can be taken, but the price of vic- 
 tory is the death of the beloved chief. To benefit 
 man, the gods themselves must be incarnate, and 
 share his daily life. 
 
 But more significant than all is this story of 
 Prometheus, the god-descended lover of the mis- 
 erable race of men, who brings to them fire, the 
 arts, the gifts, which ennoble and bless humanity. 
 But the price must be paid. His heart is devoured 
 only to be perpetually renewed. The thunderbolt 
 sinks him to Hades. He sinks, crying out, — 
 
 " O Mother venerable ! 
 O JSXhex ! rolling round, 
 The common light of all, 
 See ye what wrongs I bear? " 
 
1 6 MSCHYLUS ON 
 
 Have we any solution to this problem of the 
 ages ? Can we do good on any other terms ? Be a 
 reformer, if you will ; but nothing will be reformed 
 unless you bear in your own heart and mind and 
 soul the evil you would remove. Work for the 
 sorrowing, the debased, the oppressed, under any 
 form, and the good will be in proportion to the 
 bitter ingredients that fill one's own cup. By no 
 high road of science have we yet escaped the 
 operation of this universal necessity. The an- 
 swer to the problem is found only in the higher 
 law of love, which transforms the external pain 
 into the highest spiritual blessedness. 
 
 In Prometheus the poet has symbolized human- 
 ity endowed with a divine spark of intelligence, 
 raised by this above the brute, eager for all 
 knowledge, resisting all demands that he shall 
 unconditionally submit and bow himself in hu- 
 mility before the crushing might of Nature and 
 natural forces, — believing, against all the threats 
 of pain and all the wretchedness hurled upon his 
 head, that he shall yet triumph and be blessed. 
 Prometheus trusts in the prophetic utterance of 
 his mother, Themis; that is, in righteous Order, 
 holy Justice, harmonious Law. 
 
 The tender-hearted ocean-nymphs tell him he 
 has sinned, though "a mist of fear and full of 
 tears comes o'er their eyes." The rough but 
 friendly Oceanus comes to advise him "to know 
 himself and fit himself to words full new," to 
 "humble himself and recognize in his suffering 
 
SOME MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS. ly 
 
 the punishment of his over-lofty speech." The 
 facile Hermes, messenger of Zeus, bids him "be 
 wise, and not to think that self-willed pride shall 
 ever prove better than good counsel. " The chorus, 
 too, chants the beauty of implicit obedience to the 
 enthroned power that rules by might, and not by 
 right: — 
 
 " Sweet is it ia strong hope 
 
 To spend long years of life, 
 
 With bright and cheering joy 
 
 Our heart's thoughts nourishing. 
 
 I shudder, seeing thee 
 
 Thus vexed and harassed sore 
 
 By twice ten thousand woes ; 
 
 For thou in pride of heart, 
 
 Having no fear of Zeus, 
 
 In thine own obstinacy, 
 
 Dost show for mortal men 
 
 Affection over-great, 
 
 Prometheus, — yea, too great." 
 
 An eminent commentator, the Rev. Edward H. 
 Plumptre, adds his voice to that of these poor 
 comforters of the mighty sufferer, saying that 
 .^schylus here embodied " the truth that the first 
 result of the possession and the consciousness 
 of enlarged powers is a new self-assertion, the 
 spirit of independence and rebellion against the 
 control of a divine order, the 'many inventions ' 
 that tend to evil, an outburst of impiety and law- 
 lessness, needing the discipline of punishment be- 
 fore it can be brought round again into a nobler 
 harmony." 
 
 How completely does this utterance chime with 
 
1 8 ^SCHYLUS ON 
 
 the words put into the mouth of the chorus ! " Re- 
 bellion against a divine order," "self-assertion, 
 many inventions tending to evil," says the Eng- 
 lish clergyman. "Pride of heart, having no fear 
 of Zeus," sang the temporizing chorus. How 
 much easier and sweeter to conform, to sign the 
 accepted creed, to enjoy what goods the present 
 ruling gods vouchsafe, than to follow the highest 
 inspiration, to do the good deed and speak the 
 protesting word that leads to social martyrdom! 
 "Rebellion against the control of a divine order." 
 Not such is the representation of .^Eschylus, whose 
 Zeus, in the " Prometheus," was only a divine order 
 in the making, not the father and maintainer of the 
 harmonious order of the world, whom he elsewhere 
 presents. The Greek god was in a process of evo- 
 lution, as well as the Greek world and the Greek 
 man. Out of primeval chaos and night, out of the 
 contending powers of Nature and the fierce ten- 
 dencies of men, was to be finally established that 
 law of which "no less is acknowleged than that 
 her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the har- 
 mony of the world, to whom all things in heaven 
 and earth do homage, the very least as feeling her 
 care, and the greatest as not exempted from her 
 power, — all, with uniform consent, admiring her 
 as the mother of their peace and joy." 
 
 Many, many ages were to pass away before this 
 could be established in the mind and heart of 
 the race. Meanwhile, humanity must suffer, and 
 could only be redeemed by "self-assertion," by 
 
SOME MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 19 
 
 protest against unjust might, against every form 
 of evil and wrong ; by the suffering of those 
 content to renounce "bright and cheering joys," 
 and in what friends often, as well as foes, pro- 
 nounce a spirit of rebellion, maintaining unflinch- 
 ingly their own independence, their own deepest 
 inspiration. 
 
 What does that leader of all conservatism — the 
 Papal power — say to-day of the progress-of science, 
 the speculations of the intellect, and the investi- 
 gations into Nature's laws? "It is an ungodly 
 spirit of rebellion against the control of a divine 
 order;" it is "a restless spirit of dissatisfaction 
 that seeks out 'many inventions;'" it is "that 
 unholy curiosity which would be wise above what 
 is written, and which is leading men — a deceptive 
 will-o'-the-wisp — into the swamps of worldliness 
 and utter despair." The divine spark is not in 
 humanity, but in the Church. The inspiration of 
 God is not in the hearts of men, but in an estab- 
 lished organization. The salvation is not in knowl- 
 edge, but in faith. The praiseworthy act is not to 
 seek the well-being and happiness of man, but to 
 acquiesce, without murmuring, in the commands of 
 the mighty Zeus. 
 
 Such, under modified forms, is everywhere the 
 same warning of a timorous conservatism. Who- 
 ever distrusts human reason; whoever fears the 
 advance of humanity in all that relates to the 
 principles of equality, justice, and truth; whoever 
 believes that man must be forever kept down by 
 
20 MSCHYLUS ON 
 
 authority, by appeals to fear, and by manacles of ■ 
 restraint, — whoever he may be, and under what- 
 soever name he may intrench himself, he belongs 
 to that class who would say to Prometheus in the 
 words of the shifty Hermes, — 
 
 " Search well, be wise, nor think that self-willed pride 
 Shall ever better prove than counsel good. 
 
 2. In -(Eschylus further is to be found that 
 principle of which we hear so much at the present 
 day, — the law of heredity; a law as absolute as 
 fate, destiny, irresistible necessity. The doom 
 hovers over a race. The terrible and avenging 
 Furies cannot be escaped, because not merely the 
 ancient crime, but the ancient tendency to crime, 
 survives, and at last works out the final retribu- 
 tion, — the purification of the evil stain from the 
 earth. The evil-doer fills up the cup of sin; and 
 not until he does fill this up freely, and from the 
 groundwork of his own self-determined will, does 
 the fearful vengeance descend upon his head. 
 Thus the chorus chants in the Oresteia: — 
 
 " Because of blood that mother earth has drunk. 
 The guilt of slaughter that will vengeance work 
 Is fixed indelibly; 
 And Ate, working grief, 
 Permits awhile the guilty one to wait. 
 That so he may be full and overflow 
 With all-devouring ill." 
 
 No! with him there is no background of cause- 
 less fatality from which there is no escape, and 
 
SOME MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 21 
 
 which works at random with its fearful hurling of 
 the thunderbolt at a venture. 
 
 Neither does he give that older view of the gods 
 as envying the too great prosperity of a mortal 
 man, whom therefore they thrust down from his 
 lofty pinnacle of happiness. Only as riches and 
 power brought with them arrogance and lawless 
 freedom in evil, only as presumptuous insolence 
 followed upon unmeasured prosperity, did the un- 
 sleeping eye of a righteous justice strike down and 
 annihilate the offender. What can be clearer in 
 statement than the choral strophe, — 
 
 " There lives a saying, framed in olden days, 
 In memories of men, that high estate 
 Full grown brings forth its young, nor childless dies ; 
 And that from great success 
 Springs to the race a woe insatiable. 
 But I, apart from all, 
 Hold this my creed alone : 
 That impious act it is that offspring breeds. 
 Like to their parent stock ; 
 For still in every house 
 That loves the right, their fate for evermore 
 Hath issue good and fair." 
 
 Yes; man inherits the tendencies to vice, to 
 evil-doing, to insanity, to drunkenness, to folly, 
 as well as tendencies to virtue, to right-doing and 
 right -feeling, to purity and moral strength. The 
 old poet has not misinterpreted or misapplied the 
 great social law that lies at the basis of much of 
 the philanthropic effort of to-day. He has echoed 
 and re-echoed its fearful truth ; and so much of a 
 
22 jESCHYLUS on- 
 
 remorseless fate as lurks in the assertion of the 
 modern philanthropist, the modern scientific sta- 
 tist, so much and no more pervades his stately- 
 verse. No more of a fate, blind and resistless, 
 hovers with black wings over his rhythmical page 
 than over that of Shakspeare. In both we can 
 clearly read the law of heredity, and the overrul- 
 ing powers of justice and of right. In both are 
 presented the same essential facts; but they are 
 presented from different sides, — in yEschylus from 
 the divine, and in Shakspeare from the human side ; 
 but in both is the working out of the same har- 
 monious order, the restoring of the same equal 
 balance of unerring retribution. In neither can 
 any hopeful struggle be made against the higher 
 decrees of wisdom, order, justice, and truth. In 
 Shakspeare we see that no man can flee from 
 himself ; in .^Eschylus, that no man can flee from 
 Zeus : — 
 
 " Hard are these things to judge : 
 The spoiler shall be spoiled, 
 The slayer pay his debt ; 
 Yea, while Zeus liveth through the ages, this 
 Lives also, — that the doer bear his deed ; 
 For this is Heaven's decree. 
 Who now can drive from out the kingly house 
 The brood of curses d^rk ? 
 The house to Ate cleaves." 
 
 That is why she cannot be driven out, because 
 the house cleaves to her, and not because she 
 cleaves to the house. 
 
 Matthew Arnold, quoting this passage from 
 
SOME MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 23 
 
 Davison, " Conscience and the present constitution 
 of things are not corresponding terms: it is con- 
 science and the issue of things which go together," 
 remarks : — 
 
 " It is so ; and this is what makes the spectacle of hu- 
 man affairs so edifying and so sublime. The world goes 
 on, nations and men arrive and depart with varying for- 
 tune, as it appears, with time and chance happening unto 
 all. Look a little deeper, and you will see that one strain 
 runs through it all : nations and men, whoever is ship- 
 wrecked is shipwrecked on conduct. It is the God of 
 Israel steadily and irresistibly asserting himself, — the 
 Eternal that loveth righteousness." 
 
 What is this but another expression of the Greek 
 poet's view: "While Zeus liveth through the ages, 
 this lives also, — that the doer bear his deed " ? 
 What but an echo, from a different summit, of 
 that strain which runs through all humanity, be- 
 cause in humanity there is one inspiring life.' 
 
 3. To-day, again, we have the problem dis- 
 cussed of the accumulation and distribution of 
 wealth; but it is not new. The particular form 
 under which it comes is adapted to our age; but 
 the instability of that wealth gained by unjust 
 means, by means that disturbed the harmonjs of 
 the social order, was loudly proclaimed by our 
 poet, making the burden of many a . chorus. He 
 speaks of the vision of truth which is manifest to 
 the children 
 
 " Of those who, overbold, 
 Breathed raging war beyond the bounds of right ; 
 
24 ^SCHYLUS ON 
 
 Their houses (jwrfiUed with precious store 
 
 Above the golden mean. 
 
 For still there is no bulwark strong in wealth 
 
 Against destruction's doom, 
 
 To one who, in the pride of wantonness, 
 
 Spurns the great altar of the Right and Just." 
 
 Ah, well! there are other means to-day of ac- 
 cumulating unjust wealth, of towering above the 
 golden mean, besides laying under contribution 
 friendly cities, and sacking the rich strongholds 
 of neighboring allies. There are unjust monopo- 
 lies, grinding oppressions of capital and machin- 
 ery, vast, legalized means of sucking up the life- 
 blood of the community, by which millions upon 
 millions are piled up for the few, while the great 
 mass is sunk in poverty, vice, and ignorance. Oh 
 for some .(Eschylus to thunder out in his majestic 
 chorus, — 
 
 " And the dark-robed Erinnys, in due time, 
 By adverse chance of life, 
 
 Place him who prospers through unrighteousness 
 In gloom obscure ; and once among the unseen, 
 There is no help for him. 
 Fame in excess is but a perilous thing; 
 For on men's quivering eyes 
 Is hurled by Zeus the blinding thunderbolt. 
 I praise the good success 
 That rouses not God's wrath." 
 
 The children find out. Yes ! Is not that true of 
 thousands of our richest men, whose children pass 
 miserable lives of selfish egoism, cynical in their 
 excess of idle luxury, killing time as they can in 
 amateur nothings, — weary of themselves, weary of 
 
SOME MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 2$ 
 
 the world, even if not steeped in drunkenness and 
 vice ? Alas for the children of those whose houses 
 are " overfiWed with precious store ahove the golden 
 mean," — that golden mean which, through a wise 
 and just distribution by means of a true science of 
 economy and an organization of industry and all 
 social appliances, might be the heritage of all. 
 Another age, looking through a purer medium, 
 shall brand many of our present arrangements and 
 institutions as unrighteous as were those Athenian 
 military expeditions, — so honorable then, so en- 
 riching to those who signalized themselves by cun- 
 ning stratagem, by valorous deed, by a marvellous 
 success. 
 
 4. Again, the social science of to-day busies 
 itself with the question of health. The poet 
 propounds the same problem: — 
 
 " Of high, o'erflowing health 
 There is no limit fixed that satisfies ; 
 For evermore disease, as neighbor close 
 Whom but a wall divides, 
 Upon it presses ; and man's prosperous state 
 Moves on its course and strikes 
 Upon an unseen rock." 
 
 This unseen rock science would get the sound- 
 ings of, and mark its place upon the chart, even if 
 it cannot, by means of gunpowder or yet more 
 explosive substance, blow it to atoms. Chance, 
 fate, necessity, no more rules there than it does 
 in the lives and fortunes of men. But this the 
 poet did not see. How many see it now? How 
 many recognize health as the normal state, the 
 
26 yESCHYLUS ON 
 
 possible possession of all, and disease as the self- 
 imposed burden of ignorance and sin, — that in- 
 herited curse which shall last only so long as the 
 house cleaves to Ate ; only so long as man, by his 
 own wilful folly and voluntary transgression, in- 
 vites the company of the avenging Fates? 
 
 S. Again, among the problems of to-day there 
 is none more striking than that of the union of 
 those who think themselves suffering great social 
 wrongs, and who in their union find solace and 
 strength. The great law of human fellowship, of 
 like experience and a common destiny, binds them 
 together. The fact itself is a significant sign; 
 and the occasional excesses of a new-found strength 
 should not blind us to the real importance and the 
 essential necessity, in an advancing civilization, of 
 this brotherhood of the suffering, this voicing of 
 their complaints. Where is their hope, if not in 
 themselves.'' It is, too, for the advantage of all 
 that every wrong shall be righted, every evil re- 
 moved ; that every faculty of every human being for 
 enjoyment and improvement shall be unfolded to 
 its full capacity and its utmost extent. Grudge 
 not, then, this fellowship of suffering, aspiration, 
 and effort. The ancient poet, by the intuition of 
 genius, brings together from remote parts of the 
 earth the two colossal sufferers by the tyranny of 
 Zeus, — the frenzy-smitten lo and the tortured 
 Prometheus. By an unconscious and invisible at- 
 traction, lo is brought to the rock to which the 
 indomitable sufferer is nailed, and exclaims, — 
 
SOAfE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 2/ 
 
 " Ah, who of all that suffer, born to woe, 
 Have trouble like the pain that I endure ? 
 But thou make clear to me 
 What yet for me remains, — 
 What remedy, what healing, for my pangs. 
 Show me, if thou dost know ; 
 Speak out and tell to me, 
 The maid by wanderings vexed." 
 
 Prometheus unfolds the future to her by pro- 
 phetic insight, and describes to her the course and 
 ending of her untold torments, urging her to un- 
 fold "the tale of her great woe," saying, — 
 
 " To bewail and moan one's evil chance 
 Here where one trusts to gain a pitying tear. 
 From those who hear, — this is not labor lost." 
 
 It is a human touch which might, one would think, 
 justify itself even to those purblind critics who 
 call this an episode, and who would, had they been 
 consulted, have created a better poem than that of 
 .^schylus! But it needs no justification as an 
 integral and vital part of the perfect fabric. It 
 is the symbolic cry of the human heart for some 
 sympathy with its woes, of that suffering in com- 
 mon which makes the whole world kin. 
 
 By the same sympathetic bond the strong Titan 
 is drawn towards other sufferers. In the midst 
 of his own pangs, he says: — 
 
 " Lp ! my mind is wearied with the grief 
 Of that my kinsman, — Atlas, — who doth stand 
 In the far west, supporting on his shoulders 
 The pillars of the earth and heaven, — a burden 
 
28 ^SCHYLUS ON 
 
 His arms can ill but hold. I pity, too, 
 
 The giant dweller of Kilikian caves, 
 
 A helpless, powerless carcase, near the strait 
 
 Of the great sea, fast pressed beneath the roots 
 
 Of ancient ^Etna." 
 
 Yes: towards all these whom "the unsleeping 
 thunder-bolt of Zeus " has struck down he is drawn 
 with tenderest pity. So, on the bare heath, with 
 the thunder bursting around him, and amidst the 
 flashings of lightning and the tempest, the crazed 
 Lear, before he accepts the shelter of the miser- 
 able hovel, expresses the new feeling of sympathy 
 with the wretched : — 
 
 " Poor, naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are 
 That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm. 
 How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, 
 Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you 
 From seasons such as these ? Oh, I have ta'en 
 Too little care of this. Take physic, Pomp ! 
 Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, 
 That thou may'st shake the superflux to them. 
 And show the heavens more just." 
 
 The heavens more just } Are the bountiful heavens 
 to- blame "i Is not the earth fertile, and the means 
 of good sufficient for all .? When the superflux shall 
 be wisely distributed, will that dumb sorrow which 
 pains so many hearts be turned into gladness, and 
 those muttered curses that well up from so many 
 quivering souls be changed into benedictions. 
 
 6. The last problem brought under our view is 
 that of labor, — by many, indeed, regarded as the 
 
SOME MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 29 
 
 question which transcends all others, and which 
 concerns more immediately and more intimately 
 the well-being of humanity. What has ^schylus 
 to do with that ? Is that embraced under his grand, 
 symbolic picture? Why not? His theme in the 
 " Prometheus " is the godlike element in man, — 
 its protests, its struggles, and its final triumph; 
 and how could it be that this force, labor, the ap- 
 plication of man's strength of arm, of his power 
 to work, of the employment of muscular vigor and 
 all his bodily energies, — that this great necessity 
 should not enter into his view? Humanity, or 
 Prometheus with his unbending will, his far-reach- 
 ing intelligence, his reckless love, is freed from 
 the bird of Jove that daily feeds upon his liver by 
 Hercules, whose heroic title was the labor of his 
 own strong arm, his broad chest, his brawny mus- 
 cles, his thick neck. He slays the ravaging lion, 
 the venomous hydra, the savage wild boar, the 
 death-dealing birds, the carnivorous monsters; 
 cleanses the Augean stables, and finally brings 
 up from hell itself its fearful guardian. Intelli- 
 gence by itself alone is fettered, is powerless ; but 
 intellect and labor combined are the essentials of 
 human progress. And how was this labor-hero, 
 this god of work, equipped foi: his task ? He re- 
 ceived his helmet from Minerva, his sword from 
 Mercury, his horse from Neptune, his arrows from 
 Apollo, and his golden cuirass from Vulcan. That 
 is, labor — endowed, equipped, furnished with the 
 gifts, the graces, the appliances of art, of commerce, 
 
30 SOME MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 of intelligent skill — frees humanity from its evils 
 and its foes in the air above and on the earth, and 
 even from the hell under the earth. 
 
 In the concluding part of the dramatic trilogy of 
 "Prometheus," the heroic Titan, after thousands of 
 years, becomes reconciled with a reconciled Zeus, 
 and sits down with the Olympian gods at a grand 
 marriage feast in the abode of the Immortals, — the 
 highest symbol thai the inspired imagination can 
 set forth of the glory and blessedness of a race 
 redeemed by knowledge, redeemed by labor ; every 
 faculty, every aspiration, every work, made blessed 
 and divine. 
 
II. 
 
 A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 LuciAN lived in the age of the Antonines, in the 
 second century of our era, — an age which Gibbon 
 has pronounced to be the one that he should select 
 as the most prosperous and happy of all the his- 
 torical ages of the world. On the surface it looks 
 so. It was a time of external order, of general, 
 peaceful intercourse, and of great cities in the 
 East and the West, — from Egypt to Gaul, — with 
 schools of philosophy and art, where letters were 
 cultivated, and refinement was the fashion. 
 
 Among the literary men of that age, none stands 
 more proniinent than Lucian of Samosata, the capi- 
 tal of the northern province of Syria, on the west- 
 ern side of the river Euphrates, whose inhabitants 
 spoke the Grecian language. Lucian, an accom- 
 plished scholar, wrote almost pure classic Greek. 
 Educated to the law, in his mature years he 
 accumulated a large fortune by his lectures on 
 philosophy, literature, and religion. A genuine 
 product of his times, he reveals them to us better 
 than could any historical essay. He shows that 
 it was a period of general dissolution of the old 
 religions, and that the soil was ready to receive a 
 new positive faith, — that Christianity required no 
 
32 A SATIJilST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 miracles to make it flourish, but found everywhere 
 congenial helps. 
 
 Lucian was the great satirist of his time; he 
 laughed at religion, at philosophy of every sect 
 and kind. He believe'd neither in God nor phi- 
 losophers, and covers every sacred rite, every 
 philosophical school, every tradition of the gods, 
 and every theoretical speculation in regard to a 
 divine existence and future life with unrestrained 
 ridicule. He has been called the Voltaire of his 
 age; but he is rather the Robert Ingersol raised 
 to the «th power. 
 
 Let us transport ourselves into the Roman prov- 
 ince of Syria, about the year 13S of our Christian 
 era. An inhabitant of the city of Samosata is hold- 
 ing a family council to see what shall be done with 
 a smart, lively, and promising boy, about fifteen 
 years of age, who has received the usual elementary 
 education, and must now be turned to something 
 which shall give him a living. It was a trouble- 
 some question then, as it is now, what to do with 
 an irrepressible young fellow; but it was finally 
 concluded to put this one to some mechanical 
 trade. But what trade.' Most of the common 
 occupations were filled by slaves, and this was a 
 freeman's son. He had already shown some dex- 
 terity in shaping figures out of wax, — for which 
 his schoolmaster had often boxed his ears; and 
 so the father, turning to the maternal ^incle of the 
 boy, a stone-cutter and sculptor, said : " It would 
 be affronting you to give the preference to any 
 
A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 33 
 
 other art ; so take the boy, and do the best you can 
 with him." 
 
 This decision strikes the youth favorably, for he 
 thinks it will be a very fine thing to carve little 
 gods and goddesses for himself and his playmates. 
 His uncle puts a chisel into his hand and sets him 
 to work on a slab of marble, which he soon suc- 
 ceeds in breaking, and receives therefor a sound 
 whipping. Smarting with pain and boiling over 
 with rage, the boy goes for comfort to his mother, 
 and under her soothing influence he falls asleep. 
 He dreams that two forms, one of whom is Stat- 
 uary and the other Learning, appear and quarrel 
 for the mastery of his person. Each presents her 
 case ; and after the first has depicted the solid ad- 
 vantages of a life of labor. Learning thus speaks : 
 
 " You already know my countenance, but much is still 
 wanting to complete the acquaintance. If you follow this 
 low person, you will be nothing more than a mechanic, be 
 paid little better than a day-laborer, low and narrow in 
 your views, an insignificant personage in the common- 
 wealth, a mere handicraftsman, — one of the vulgar herd, 
 bowing and cringing to his superiors, adopting the opin- 
 ion of every speaker, and living the life of a timid hare. 
 Follow me, and I will make you acquainted with all the 
 admirable characters of antiquity, and give you a com- 
 plete knowledge of aU things human and divine. You, 
 the poor lad now standing before me, the son of a com- 
 mon man who would bring you up to such an ignoble 
 trade, will shortly b^. envied by every one ; for you will 
 be commended, honored, and esteemed as a man of ex- 
 
 3 
 
34 A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 cellent talents. You will be dressed as you see me here, 
 and every one who sees you will jog his neighbor, point 
 to you and say : ' There he goes ! that is the famous 
 Lucian ! ' Think of that great Demosthenes, whose son 
 he was, and what a man I made of him ! Was not Eschi- 
 nes the son of a woman who played on a kettle-drum ? 
 Socrates was brought up to statuary, but he soon made a 
 better choice ; and you know how much he has been 
 magnified by all men. And would you reject all this to 
 go sneaking about in a coarse canvas frock, always hand- 
 ling iron tools, and poring over your work with both 
 body and mind pinned fast to the 'ground ? " 
 
 Such was the substance of a public lecture which 
 Lucian delivered to his townsmen many years after- 
 ward, when he returned to his native place with 
 a splendid retinue, after he had amassed a for- 
 tune in the practice of the law, and had visited 
 many cities of the vast Roman empire as a lec- 
 turer on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. Most of 
 his writings are in the form of dialogue, — a form 
 which Plato sanctioned, and which became very 
 common. 
 
 The mythological dialogues exhibit the absurdi- 
 ties of the popular beliefs in a lively and a gro- 
 tesque way, attacking no one's faith, and yet cov- 
 ering the entire Olympus with ridicule. The 
 stories of the gods were received as literal facts 
 by all except a few allegorizing philosophers: as 
 literal facts they are dealt with on Lucian's part, 
 and a sorry figure enough do the gods cut. They 
 enact over again in the author's page their most 
 
A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 35 
 
 vulgar and licentious parts; they exhibit all the 
 low passions that the lowest human beings could 
 in performing the same actions ; they scold and lie ; 
 they slander and ridicule; they reproach and jeer; 
 they flatter and betray one another in the most 
 bare-faced manner, and not a shred of what is sa- 
 cred or venerable remains for the motley crew. 
 
 In the mythologic story, Jupiter has abducted 
 the beautiful boy Ganymede, and borne him to 
 Olympus, where, according to Lucian, this con- 
 versation takes place between them: — 
 
 Jupiter. Now, my dear Ganymede, we are come to 
 our journey's end. Kiss me, you fine little fellow ! There, 
 you see I have no crooked beak now, no sharp claws and 
 no wings, as you thought I had, when I looked like a 
 bird. 
 
 Ganymede. How ! You surely were not the eagle 
 that came flying down, and bore me away from my flock? 
 Where did you get your wings, and what makes you look 
 so different now? 
 
 Jupiter. Oh, my fine boy, I am neither a man nor an 
 eagle. I' am the king of the gods, who took the form of 
 an eagle to carry out my design. 
 
 Ganymede. What! You are Pan, then? But where 's 
 your pipe, and your horns and your goat's feet ? 
 
 Jupiter. Do you think there are no gods except him? 
 
 Ganymede. In our village we don't know any other, 
 and we sacrifice a whole he-goat before the cave where 
 his image stands. Perhaps you are one of those bad men 
 who steal people and sell them into slavery ! 
 
 Jupiter. Do tell me if you have never heard of Jupiter, 
 
36 A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 and never seen on the top of Ida the altar of the god who 
 sends rain, lightning, and thunder? 
 
 Ganymede. It was you then who lately pelted us so 
 fiercely with hail-stones, and who made such a clattering 
 up among the clouds, and to whom my father sacrificed 
 a ram ! But what have you flown off with me for? My 
 sheep will run wild, and be torn to pieces by the wolves. 
 
 Jupiter. Why should you bother yourself about the silly 
 sheep? You are now immortal, and will stay with us. 
 
 Ganymede. What ! shall I not be taken back to Ida 
 to-day? 
 
 Jupiter. Of course not. What did I turn myself from 
 a god into an eagle for ? 
 
 Ganymede. But my father will be angry, and I shall be 
 beaten for having left my sheep. 
 
 Jupiter. He shall not see you again. 
 
 Ganymede. I will go home ! If you '11 carry me back, 
 I promise that he shall sacrifice to you another ram, — the 
 big three-year old that always goes at the head of the flock. 
 
 Jupiter. How simple-minded and ingenuous the boy 
 is ! My dear Ganymede, you must think no more of 
 such things. You shall be my cup-bearer, and instead 
 of milk and cheese, eat ambrosia and drink nectar. You 
 shall be an immortal, and a star with your name shall 
 sparkle in the sky. In short, you shall be very happy. 
 
 Ganymede. But who will play with me? I used to 
 have many playfellows on Mt. Ida. 
 
 Jupiter. Oh, I will give you heaps of playthings, and 
 Cupid shall be your play-fellow. So cheer up, and don't 
 fret about things below. 
 
 Thus it goes on. 
 
A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 37 
 
 As having many points of resemblance to what 
 has taken place in our own day, the account which 
 Lucian, in the second century, gives us of one 
 Alexander of Abonoteichos is full of interest. 
 Alexander was a handsome youth, with command- 
 ing figure, bright eyes, and a musical gift, and 
 at the same time noted for his many licentious 
 adventures, — so that when a travelling physician 
 and conjurer came around who wanted an assist- 
 ant, this same prepossessing youth seemed made 
 specially to his hand. His master soon died, and 
 Alexander set up in business for himself, choos- 
 ing for the beginning of his career the city of 
 Chalcedon, where he buried in an old dilapi- 
 dated temple of Apollo two brass plates, on which 
 was inscribed: "^sculapius will shortly come with 
 his father Apollo into Pontus, and fix his abode 
 at Abonoteichos." Of course the tablets were 
 found in due time; and the prepossessing Alex- 
 ander, with flowing ringlets, white vest striped 
 with purple, a long white mantle, and holding a 
 scimitar in his right hand, d. la Perseus, — for he 
 claimed to be directly descended by his mother's 
 side from that hero, — appeared in the market- 
 place. All the population turned out for the 
 show. After foaming at the mouth, and uttering 
 a rhapsody in which the names of Apollo and 
 .(Esculapius were frequently heard, Alexander sud- 
 denly started for the temple ; went to the fountain, 
 and there took up an egg, out of which crept a 
 little snake, that the people all hailed as the god 
 
38 A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 ^sculapius. The entire country was stirred up; 
 and Alexander, with a fine, large, tame snake in 
 his bosom, made an almost triumphal progress 
 through the land. What a prodigious miracle 
 was here ! ' What a crowding and squeezing into 
 the little room where Alexander in his grand at- 
 tire fondled the newly manifested god! Medals 
 were struck off, brass and silver figures of the 
 new divinity were distributed, to whom the name 
 Glycon was given by express command. 
 
 It was given out now that the god would deliver 
 oracles and make prophecies, and a day was set 
 when people should bring their scrolls carefully 
 sealed into the temple, when the prophet would 
 hand them back with an answer in metrical form to 
 each. The people all said, " How could this man 
 know what was inside the scrolls unless he were a 
 god !" The throngs increased, the gains were im- 
 mense. After a while, some opposition beginning 
 to show itself, the prophet denounced the unbe- 
 lievers as atheists. Christians, and Epicureans. 
 Greater wonders are contrived ; the head of the ser- 
 pent speaks. The renown of the oracle extends to 
 Rome, and the most eager to consult it were peo- 
 ple of rank and wealth. Rutillianus, a man in high 
 command, consults the prophet in regard to the 
 education of his son, and to the question who 
 shall be his tutors receives this answer: "Pytha- 
 goras and the greatest bard of warriors." The boy 
 died suddenly a few days after this, and the father 
 saw herein the fulfilment of the oracle, — which 
 
A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 39 
 
 had evidently recommended, not any living tutor, 
 but Homer and Pythagoras, whose instructions he 
 could now receive. The old Rutillianus now con- 
 sults the oracle in regard to marrying again, and 
 is told to take "Alexander's and Selene's daugh- 
 ter for his wife." This the prophet interprets as 
 meaning his own daughter, whose descent he traced 
 from Selene, or the moon; and Rutillianus cele- 
 brates the espousals in splendid style. 
 
 The prophet is now resorted to from every part 
 of the Roman empire. He institutes mysteries 
 with torch bearers, processions, priests, etc. ; and 
 by public proclamation all atheists, Christians, 
 and Epicureans are warned to keep away. The 
 atheists of course would despise them, the Chris- 
 tians abhor them as the work of evil spirits, and 
 the Epicureans laugh at them as morbid fancies 
 and foolish trickeries. In these mysteries were 
 represented the birth of Apollo and iEsculapius, 
 the loves of Luna and the new Endymion, and the 
 birth of Glycon. In the mystical torch-dance the 
 prophet figured, and as his dress flew open there 
 was visible a golden thigh. Beautiful young girls 
 of noble birth came to chant hymns to the newly 
 manifested god. Those women whom the prophet 
 honored with a kiss were thought to be specially 
 blest. Lucian says that he himself consulted the 
 oracle, proposing, in a billet sealed up in such a 
 way that it could not be opened without detection, 
 the following weighty question: "Is Alexander 
 bald?" The answer received the next night was 
 
40 A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 this: "Atlis was a different king from Sbardala- 
 chus. " Another time the sceptic asked what coun- 
 try Homer belonged to; and having instructed 
 his servant to hint that his master wished for a 
 remedy for a pain in his side, the answer came 
 in due form : " Anoint thee with citmis and La- 
 tona's dew." Another time he asked the same 
 question, hinting to his servant that it was about 
 an intended journey to Italy; and the response 
 was: "Beware of the sea, travel only by land." 
 Lucian came near paying very dear for his un- 
 masking of the impostor, as this model spiritualist 
 bribed the crew of a vessel in which Lucian took 
 passage to throw him into the sea; and this in- 
 tended disposition of the unbeliever was thwart- 
 ed only by the resistance of the captain. But 
 Alexander had influence enough at court to prO' 
 cure a decree of the emperor that a new coin 
 should be struck, having on one side the serpent 
 of .iEsculapius, with the inscription, " Abonoteichi- 
 ton Glukon ; " and on the other, " lonopoleiton 
 Glukon," with the inscription, "Luc. verus." He 
 had prophesied that he should live to be one 
 hundred and fifty years old, and be struck by 
 lightning; but he died before he was seventy, of 
 a horrible gangrene. After his death there was a 
 lively contest who should be his successor; but 
 Rutillianus decided that the deceased did not ab- 
 dicate by his death his prophetic office. 
 
 What a light is here thrown upon the surging 
 of that human heart of the second century! " Hu- 
 
A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 41 
 
 man weakness and credulity ! " some one exclaims. 
 But what a longing for something beyond what 
 time and sense can give! The sacred longings, 
 the divine instincts, are imposed upon and misled; 
 but what a capacity it argues in man that he can 
 be thus deceived, thus mocked, ttius put off with 
 the semblance of the true food, and ever hope on 
 for that light to come from above, and that word 
 to be spoken, which shall cause him to bend in 
 reverential awe! We see here a glimpse of that 
 spiritual capacity, which, once set free from poly- 
 theistic superstition, would accept the substance 
 of Christian truth under modified forms, adapted, 
 indeed, to its low mental and moral state. But 
 humanity is not left wholly without God in the 
 world; it subsides neither into atheistic materi- 
 alism, nor epicurean carelessness and ease. 
 
 In another work, a jolly fellow, Menippus, flying 
 with the wings of an eagle and a vulture, takes his 
 station far above the earth, upon which he looks 
 down and moralizes. Wearied with the contra- 
 dictory explanations of the philosophers, the bold 
 Menippus determines to find out by actual inspec- 
 tion the condition of other worlds ; but his atten- 
 tion is chiefly fixed upon this earth. From his 
 elevation all Greece appeared to be about four 
 fingers in breadth, and the territories for which 
 thousands of brave men were fighting no bigger 
 than an Eygptian bean. The cities were like ant- 
 hills, where there was nothing but bustle, running 
 
42 A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 round, posting in and out, hurrying and scudding, 
 one with a bean and another with a barley-corn in 
 his mouth. 
 
 Menippus pays a visit to Jupiter, with whom he 
 goes to the place where the god listened to the 
 prayers of mankind. There were apertures, like 
 well-mouths, provided with covers, and by the 
 side of each a golden chair of state. Jupiter seated 
 himself and lifted up the cover, and Menippus 
 stooped down so that he could hear also. Vari- 
 ous were the prayers : — 
 
 " O Jupiter, let me be king ! " 
 
 " O Jupiter, make my onions and garlic thrive ! " 
 
 " O Jupiter, help me get rid of my wife ! " 
 
 " Give success to my law-suit ! " 
 
 " Crown me at Olympia ! " 
 
 One sailor prays for a north wind, another for 
 a south; a farmer asks for rain, and a fuller for 
 sunshine. Jupiter heard them all, and deposited 
 some requests on the right hand, and others he 
 puffed away. In regard to one only was he puz- 
 zled, and that was where two persons presented 
 exactly opposite petitions, promising precisely the 
 same sacrifices. Here he was forced to suspend 
 his judgment, simply remarking, "We shall see." 
 Menippus is entertained with the best of fare, 
 and finally falls asleep wondering how Apollo 
 could live to be as old as he was and have no 
 beard, and how it could be night in heaven since 
 the sun was there carousing with them. Early 
 
A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 43 
 
 in the morning Jupiter summons a council of the 
 gods, to consult them about the philosophers, — 
 " a mere set of declaimers, who, if they were asked 
 what they were good for, what they contributed to 
 the general welfare, each would be obliged to say, 
 'Although I neither till the ground, nor carry on 
 trade, nor perform military service, nor exercise 
 any profession, yet I find fault with everybody, 
 live sordidly, bathe in cold water, go barefoot in 
 winter, and carp at the doings of everybody else. ' " 
 The assembly cries out with one voice that they 
 must be exterminated, and Jupiter promises that 
 they shall be gored to death on the horns of their 
 own dilemmas. After a while Menippus's wings 
 are clipped, and he is set down upon the earth. 
 
 In Lucian are to be found the originals of many 
 of those burlesque and gigantesque stories which 
 supply so much amusement to us as youthful read- 
 ers, and which have so many sharp points of satire 
 that we are luckily blind to, until knowledge of 
 the evil itself has made us wiser if not happier. 
 Such a piece is the Dream of Micillus, or the 
 Cock. The poor cobbler Micillus is awakened 
 before light from a dream of riches by the crow- 
 ing of a cock. He threatens to kill the creature 
 as soon as he can see ; but to his utter amazement 
 the bird addresses him. Micillus expresses his 
 surprise; but the cock asks whether that is such 
 a mighty miracle, — whether Achilles's horse did 
 not declaim a great number of hexameters ; if the 
 
44 A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 ship Argo did not talk, the famous beech of Do- 
 dona's grove deliver oracles, and the oxen of the 
 sun low after they were roasted? The cock de- 
 clares that he had passed through many transmigra- 
 tions, and had once been Pythagoras. He recounts 
 the various experiences he had been through as a 
 rich man and as a king, with all their annoyances, 
 vexations, conspiracies, hatreds, and reverses, — 
 "favorites out of humor, mistresses false, con- 
 spiracies hatched, and, worst of all, not being able 
 to trust one's bosom friend and nearest relatives." 
 The cobbler is sufficiently cured of his hankering 
 after wealth, to exclaim, "Enough! enough! If 
 all this is true, I 'd rather break my back in stoop- 
 ing over my lap stone, and cut leather into strips, 
 than drink poison out of a golden goblet. The 
 worst that can happen to me is to cut my finger 
 with a paring-knife, and I can cure that with a 
 cobweb. " 
 
 But the poor cobbler cannot get wholly rid of 
 the desire to be rich. Especially is his envy ex- 
 cited by one Simon, a man now rolling in luxury, 
 who was once as poor as himself. The cock has 
 been endowed by Mercury with the power of open- 
 ing any door, and seeing without being seen ; and 
 so they visit — like "le diable boiteux," of Le 
 Sage — a great many dwellings, where the inmates 
 think themselves safe and sound from observation. 
 First to the envious Simon's, whom they find sit- 
 ting wide awake and poring over his accounts. 
 He soliloquizes: "Those seventy talents I have 
 
A SA Tin 1ST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 45 
 
 hidden safe under my bed; but I am afraid that 
 Sosylus saw me hide those sixteen behind the 
 manger. My plate is not safe in this cupboard. 
 I have a great many enviers and enemies; espe- 
 cially, I have no faith in Micillus, that neighbor 
 of mine. I will go round the house and see if 
 all's safe." He now stumbles against a statue, 
 but on striking it perceives his mistake; he counts 
 his_ gold again, and is startled out of his wits by 
 some fancied noise. The cobbler says that on 
 these conditions he would be willing to have all 
 his enemies rich. Other houses are visited, and 
 the cobbler comes to the conclusion that he would 
 rather starve than be like these persons whom he 
 had so greatly envied. 
 
 Another work by Lucian is entitled "The True 
 History," intended as a match for all the wonder- 
 ful stories of travellers and mythologists, which 
 were undoubtedly so rife in that unhistorical and 
 credulous time. He proposes to cure those who 
 are rabid by giving them a hair of the very dog 
 that bit them, outdoing the adventures of the 
 wandering Ulysses. 
 
 The narrator setting out in a vessel from 
 Cadiz, with fifty companions, after having been 
 driven before the wind for eighty days, came to 
 pillars inscribed: "Thus far came Bacchus and 
 Hercules." Then, going farther on by land, they 
 came to a large navigable river, which ran wine 
 instead of water, — a striking confirmation of the 
 
46 A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 fact that Bacchus had visited that region. They 
 also saw women whose fingers and hair terminated 
 in vines and bunches of grapes. They returned 
 to the ship, which was taken up by a whirlwind 
 and carried along above the clouds, until they 
 came to a large, shining, circular island, to which 
 they moored the vessel. Here they were seized 
 by some men riding on huge vultures, and carried 
 before the king, who was no other than Endy- 
 mion. This lunar king was at war with Phaeton, 
 the solar king, and the strangers accompany their 
 host the next day to the battle. Such troops 
 an unbridled imagination never collected before! 
 Falstaff himself would have been outfaced by 
 such a regiment ! — eighty thousand on huge vul- 
 tures, and twenty thousand on birds, who were 
 thickly grown over with cabbages instead of feath- 
 ers, with wings of lettuce-leaves-; archers mounted 
 on fleas three times as large as elephants; and 
 wind-coursers, who wore long gowns, which they 
 tucked up and used as sails. The horse-cranes 
 and other terrible troops which were to come he 
 cannot describe, for he did not see them, — as 
 they never came. Some spiders in the moon, the 
 smallest of which was larger than the biggest of 
 the Cyclades, were ordered to fill up the whole 
 tract between the moon and the morning star 
 with a web, which made a solid footing for the 
 six hundred millions of the foot-soldiery. Phaeton 
 had an equally formidable force of gnat-riders, 
 slingers from the milky way, cloud-centaurs, etc. 
 
A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 47 
 
 Phaeton's defeat was decisive; the clouds were 
 even tinged with blood, and some drops fell to 
 the earth, — which may account, Lucian thinks, for 
 the shower of blood which Homer says Jupiter 
 rained down at Sarpedon's death. Two trophies 
 of victory were erected, — one on the cobweb, and 
 the other on the clouds. But they were too soon 
 in their rejoicing. While they were thus dis- 
 persed and unprepared, the cloud- centaurs came 
 up, headed by Sagittarius from the zodiac. It 
 was a terrific sight, — these half -men, half -horse 
 creatures; the human part as large as the upper 
 half of the Colossus at Rhodes, and the horse-half 
 as large as a ship, and their number so prodigious 
 that the narrator declines to state it lest he should 
 not be believed ! The narrator and his companions 
 are taken prisoners and carried to the sun. En- 
 dymion was besieged in his capital, and a great 
 wall built up to deprive him of the light. He is 
 brought to terms, and peace is happily concluded. 
 The Selenites do not die, but vanish like smoke 
 into the air. They snuff up the effluvia of what 
 they roast, instead of eating the meat itself; and 
 for drink they squeeze moisture out of the air. 
 They esteem a bald head a beauty, while on the 
 comets curly hair is the fashion. Their eyes they 
 can take outsat pleasure and put them in their 
 pockets. In the king's palace is a wonderful 
 looking-glass, and any one who looks into it can 
 see all that is happening on the earth. " If any 
 one disbelieves this," adds the author, "if he ever 
 
48 A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 goes thither he may convince himself with his 
 own eyes that the whole is true." 
 
 The travellers have many other adventures in the 
 celestial regions, but are infinitely rejoiced at last 
 to find themselves sailing again on their own watery 
 element. But a great whale, three hundred miles 
 long, came towards them and swallowed ship 
 and all at one gulp. They entered a cavity of 
 vast extent, where were bones, cargoes of ships, 
 sails, anchors, and a small island with trees and 
 hills, — some floating island which the monster 
 had swallowed. In the trees were various birds, 
 and the dejected crew made themselves as com- 
 fortable as they could. They find in the interior a 
 temple dedicated to Neptune, and a man and a boy 
 who had been enclosed, also, in that living, mov- 
 ing tomb. The man tells his story : he had been 
 there twenty-seven years, and could be very com- 
 fortable were it not for the horrid monsters of all 
 sorts that inhabited the interior of their abode, 
 and were divided into different races which were at 
 war with one another. The old man, living among 
 the Psettopydes, or lobster-footed race, remarkable 
 for their swiftness, paid them an annual tribute 
 of five hundred oysters. As their only weapons 
 were fish-bones, it was determined to fight them 
 at once. Half the crew were placed .in ambush, 
 and fell upon the rear of the advancing host, who 
 were defeated with great slaughter, while only one 
 of the crew was killed. Fresh enemies came up, 
 but were sent packing, and driven out of the 
 whale's jaws into the sea. 
 
A SATIRIST IN' THE SECOND CENTURY. 49 
 
 After staying a year and eight months in the 
 whale's belly, the unlucky travellers began to con- 
 trive some way of exit. After digging till they 
 were tired, they concluded to set fire to the forests, 
 beginning at the extremity near his tail. After 
 eleven days the fire began to tell on the monster, 
 and his strength declined, so that they were able to 
 prop his mouth open with an immense beam, haul 
 out their vessel, and put to sea again. They now 
 sailed through seas of milk, got frozen up, saw men 
 walking on the sea, who were like themselves in 
 every respect except that they had cork feet. Then 
 our travellers came to the Islands of the Blessed ; 
 fragrant breezes of the lily, violet, and vine were 
 wafted toward them, enchanting zephyrs whispered 
 around, and harmonious strains resounded from the 
 groves ; they heard also singing, and the music of 
 instruments. Upon going ashore, they found that 
 Rhadamanthus the Cretan was the sovereign. The 
 city was of gold, surrounded by walls of emeralds ; 
 the pavement was of ivory, the houses of beryl, and 
 the altars of amethyst. Round the city flowed a 
 stream of fragrant oil-of-roses ; the baths were of 
 crystal, and filled with warm dew. The inhabitants 
 had no bodies of flesh and bone, but were souls 
 with a semblance of body wrapped about them, — 
 upright shadows, as it were, which, instead of 
 being black, had the natural color of bodies, and 
 looked so natural that one had to touch them to 
 be convinced that they were not corporeal forms. 
 They never grew old, and enjoyed a perpetual 
 
 4 
 
50 A SATIRIST IN- THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 spring. Their drinking-glasses bloomed on trees 
 of transparent glass, and flocks of nightingales 
 brought chaplets and dropped them on their heads. 
 At the table songs and poems were chanted, and 
 before they sat down they drank at the fountains 
 of mirth and laughter. The Epicureans were 
 here held in highest esteem ; the Stoics were not 
 present, being still engaged in climbing their hill 
 of virtue; the Academics stood hesitating, and 
 doubting whether to enter or not. The narrator 
 found there the old heroes; and when he left the 
 island, Ulysses drew him aside and gave him a 
 letter to Calypso, which Penelope was to know 
 nothing about. The travellers now passed some 
 islands which were as offensive as the others were 
 delightful, and at last came to the land of dreams, 
 where they tarried thirty days. Calypso enter- 
 tained them magnificently on her island, and put 
 several questions to them in regard to Penelope, — 
 how she looked, and whether she was really such 
 a model of virtue as Ulysses had boasted. After 
 leaving Calypso they sailed past a wonderful hal- 
 cyon's nest, and strange prodigies happened: the 
 goose on their prow began to cackle, the steers- 
 man's bald pate became covered with fine hair, 
 and the masts began to sprout out with figs and 
 clusters of grapes. Other wonderful adventures 
 are related in the soberest way as facts, until the 
 navigators return to their native land. 
 
 Here are Rabelais, Munchausen, and Gulliver 
 combined. 
 
A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 51 
 
 Great, indeed, must have been the demoralization 
 of the popular belief in polytheism for Lucian to 
 have written his " Council of the Gods. " The ques- 
 tion under consideration among the Deities is the 
 abuses that have crept into their general assembly, 
 and the undue increase in the number of those who 
 occupy celestial seats. Jupiter calls a council to de- 
 bate upon the matter, and opens the meeting thus : 
 
 " Ye Gods ! stop this grumbling between your teeth, 
 this whispering in comers, about so many who are un- 
 worthy of the honor of sitting down at table. Let every 
 one speak his mind freely. Mercury, perform your office. 
 
 Mercury. Ho ! Silence ! Every deity of full age is 
 privileged to speak. 
 
 Momus. I say it is abominable that so many, not con- 
 tent with being made gods out of men, imagine that their 
 new dignity gives them a right to put their train of follow- 
 ers into the same class with us, to bring their pot-compan- 
 ions with them into heaven, and get them enrolled in our 
 register by stealth j so that these upstarts and intruders 
 now partake in all the gifts and sacrifices, and receive an 
 equal portion with us, though they never once think of 
 paying their protection fees. 
 
 Jupiter. Speak with more directness, Momus, and give 
 us the names of those you have , reference to. Use the 
 frankness that you plume yourself so much upon." 
 
 Momus does speak frankly about Bacchus and 
 his drunken troop of followers ; Silenus and Pan, 
 — the one an old bald-pate with a flat nose, and 
 generally riding on an ass, except when he is sc 
 drunk that he cannot hold on ; and the other with 
 
52 A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 horns and beard and goat's feet. He also has some- 
 thing to say. against Jupiter himself, who turned 
 himself into so many forms and filled the assembly 
 with such an illegitimate crowd, — declaring that 
 the gods often feared lest, in the course of his mas- 
 querading, he might sometime or other be seized 
 as a bull and slaughtered, or fall into a goldsmith's 
 hand and be melted up into a bracelet or ear-ring. 
 
 " And you Egyptian dog's face ! " Momus continues, 
 " how came you to think you may bark among the gods? 
 And what means that pied bull of Memphis, with his oracles 
 and prophets, — and the storks and apes and goats and other 
 preposterous deities that have been foisted into heaven ? 
 And how you, Jupiter, can endure to have a pair of ram's 
 horns clapped on your head is past my comprehension. 
 
 Jupiter. It is really infamous ! However, in most of 
 these objects there lies at bottom a mystical meaning, 
 which one who is not initiated should not presume to 
 deride. 
 
 Momus. But, after all, we have no need of mysteries in 
 order to know that gods are gods, and dog's heads dog's 
 heads. 
 
 Jupiter. Let these matters alone, and proceed, if you 
 have any more objections to offer." 
 
 Momus proceeds in the same vein, and finally 
 reads the following decree, drawn up in due form : 
 
 "At a general council of the gods, beneath the aus- 
 pices of Jupiter, under the presidency of Neptune, on the 
 motion of Apollo, Momus the son of Night has drawn 
 up this decree, to which Sleep has given his approval: 
 
A SA7VRISr IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 53 
 
 Whereas, a great number of foreigners, Greeks as well as 
 Barbarians, have clandestinely got themselves enrolled in 
 our register, and have so crowded heaven that our table 
 is overstocked with a tumultuous rabble, and" thence has 
 ensued such a deficiency of nectar and ambrosia that we 
 are obliged to pay twelve ounces of silver for a pint of 
 nectar ; And whereas, these intruders have insolently pre- 
 sumed to shove out the ancient and true deities from the 
 first seats, — be it Resolved by this Council, that, on the 
 next winter solstice, a general council shall be held, and 
 a committee composed of seven of the gods shall be ap- 
 pointed, three of whom shall be taken from the old coun- 
 cil under Saturn, and four elected from the twelve deities 
 of Olympus, whereof Jupiter is to be one. The said com- 
 mittee shall first be required to take a solemn oath by 
 St)Tc, and Mercury shall officially summon all who think 
 that they have a right to assist in the divine councils, and 
 they shall bring their sworn witnesses and records before 
 the said committee, and shall be either declared true 
 gods or sent back to their family vaults ; and if any of 
 those rejected shall ever again dare to look into or set 
 foot in heaven, they shall be hurled down to Tartarus. 
 And further be it ordained, that every deity shall mind 
 his own business, and neither Minerva meddle with heal- 
 ing, nor Esculapius with fortune-telling; and let Apollo 
 select one profession, and be either a fortune-teller, a 
 fiddler, or a physician; and furthermore, let the altars, 
 images, and temples of the rejected be demolished. 
 Whoever disobeys this decree, or refuses to appear be- 
 fore the committee, shall be condemned for contumacy 
 without further process. Such is our decree. 
 Jupiter. It could not be better. So many as are in 
 
54 ^ SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 favor of it will hold up their hands. Or, rather, let it 
 be ratified without any show of hands ; for there are too 
 many that will not vote the right way, for very good rea- 
 sons of their own. Now, Gods, you may go. But when 
 Mercury summons you, let every one bring his patent of 
 godship, the name of his father and mother, and how he 
 came to be a god, and of what stock he is. If any one 
 cannot produce these legal documents, no matter how 
 magnificent a temple he may have on earth, the com- 
 mittee will pay no regard to it." 
 
 How like a modern document this paper sounds, 
 though written in the second century ; and what a 
 satire upon the polytheism of the ancient world, 
 crumbling to pieces, while out of its d6bris was 
 springing up a purer and more universal faith! 
 
 Another popular superstition that Lucian un- 
 masked with all his powers of biting drollery was 
 the belief in ghosts, spirits, and demonic posses- 
 sions. From the many passages that relate to 
 this recurring theme, and that give us the very 
 body and pressure of this period of miracles and 
 spiritual wonders, one transcription will suffice : 
 
 " While we were thus conversing, in came Arignotus the 
 Pythogorean, of a grave and venerable aspect, renowned 
 for his wisdom, and by many styled the holy Arignotus. 
 I felt cheered to see him, for I thought he would stop 
 the mouths of these miracle-mongers. He began by ask- 
 ing, 'Have )fou not been philosophizing?' Said Dino- 
 machus, ' I have been trying to convince this unbelieving 
 man that there are such things as ghosts and spectres, 
 
A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 55 
 
 and that the souls of the dead roam about the earth and 
 become visible when they please.' 'Perhaps/ replied 
 Arignotus, ' it is his opinion that the souls only of those 
 who have died a violent death wander to and fro. If this 
 is his belief, he may not be greatly in the wrong.' ' No, 
 by Jove ! ' cried Dinomachus, ' he denies everything of the 
 kind, absolutely and entirely, and thinks that it is utterly 
 impossible.' ' How ! ' said Arignotus, looking sternly at 
 raej 'you deny the reality of what the whole human 
 race bears witness to?' 'The accusation of unbelief 
 justifies me,' I replied ; ' I do not believe, because I am 
 the only one who does not see anything of the kind. 
 Had I seen, I should doubtless believe as well as you.' 
 ' If you should ever go to Corinth,' said Arignotus, ' ask for 
 the house of Eubatides ; and when you go in, tell the por- 
 ter you would like to see the place from which Arignotus 
 expelled the evil spirit.' 'Tell us about it, Arignotus.' 
 ' Well,' replied he, ' whoever entered the house was sure 
 to be frightened by a horrid apparition. The house be- 
 came uninhabited and almost fell to ruin. I resolved to 
 stay there one night, in spite of all entreaties to the con- 
 trary. A rough and shaggy demon appeared, turning him- 
 self into a dog, then a bull, and then a lion ; but I made 
 use of most fearful imprecations and incantations in the 
 Egyptian tongue, and the spectre vanished. I marked 
 the spot where it disappeared, and ordering the ground 
 to be dug up we found there a skeleton. We buried it 
 with proper sacred rites, and no ghost has ever been seen 
 there since.' " 
 
 But this was not just the evidence that would 
 satisfy Lucian, however satisfactory it may have 
 been to Arignotus himself. 
 
56 A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 The philosophers of the time are as little spared 
 by the satirist as are the devotees of superstition. 
 He gives the history of one Peregrinus, who finally 
 burned himself alive. On the road home from the 
 spectacle, Lucian meets several persons hurrying 
 along, who are too late to witness it. He gravely 
 tells some of the gaping simpletons who question 
 him about the event, that as soon as Peregrinus 
 jumped into the flames the earth began to quake, 
 and a vulture flew up to heaven and uttered these 
 words : " Soaring above the earth, I ascend to 
 Olympus." Shuddering with awe, the poor peo- 
 ple breathe a prayer to the new demi-god, and ask 
 whether the vulture flew toward the east or to- 
 ward the west. Afterward, he hears an old man 
 recounting in the public market-place how he 
 himself had seen, but a few moments before, the 
 burnt -philosopher walking in the sacred grove in 
 white raiment and with an olive wreath on his 
 brow; and that he had beheld the vulture with 
 his own eyes fly up from the fire. "What mi- 
 raculous things will hereafter be related of this 
 man ! " says Lucian. 
 
 This Peregrinus, changing from one philosophi- 
 cal sect to another, at last joins the sect of Chris- 
 tians, and is thrown into prison. In his wretched- 
 ness, his fellow-believers come from far distant 
 cities to be his advocates, and to assist and com- 
 fort him, — for these people, in all such cases, are 
 inconceivably alert and active, sparing neither 
 trouble nor expense. Large presents were made 
 
A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 57 
 
 to Peregrinus; "for these poor people," he says, 
 " have taken it into their heads that they shall be 
 immortal, both body and soul, and live to all eter- 
 nity; and so they despise death, and even run into 
 his clutches. Besides, their law-giver taught them 
 that they were all brothers after they had once re- 
 nounced the Grecian deities, bent the knee to the 
 great Sophist, and lived in obedience to his laws. 
 All things else they look upon as worthless and 
 vain ; and whenever any cunning impostor applies 
 to them, who understands the proper trick, he finds 
 it an easy matter to lead these simple people by 
 the nose, and very soon to become rich at their 
 expense." 
 
 What an involuntary testimony is here borne 
 to the character of those early Christians, — their 
 simplicity, their faith, their mutual love, and their 
 heroic contempt of danger and of death! Could 
 not the enlightened speculator on human nature 
 and human affairs discern this seemingly feeble 
 germ? His work was to topple down the old tem- 
 ples, to cover the remnants of old superstitions 
 with laughter and contempt, and bury out of sight 
 the hideous forms of licentious and unreasoning 
 idolatry. His sweeping scythe could not dis- 
 criminate, and in its broad sweep cut down this- 
 tle, white-weed, and clover alike ; but thereby free 
 space and air were given for the tender germs of 
 a purer faith to' grow up, to be for long ages the 
 sustenance of humanity. 
 
S8 A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 Thus in Lucian's page there pass before us the 
 scenes of that long-vanished age, — the shifting 
 scenes of kings and beggars, parasites and slaves ; 
 wealthy blockheads displaying affectedly the pur- 
 ple borders of their garments, spreading their 
 fingers that their rings may be seen, and saluting 
 by proxy their acquaintances in the street ; people 
 besieging the door of their patrons before it is 
 light; men of reverend years hanging about the 
 rich man's table; philosophers with their long 
 beards and mantles mingling among the attend- 
 ants and fawning sycophants of the great, preach- 
 ing contempt of riches and yet selling their wares 
 to the highest bidders; wealthy people, still so 
 enamoured of their preposterous vanities as to or- 
 der in their wills that their best valuables should 
 be burned on their funeral piles, and that their 
 slaves should keep perpetual watch at their sep- 
 ulchres and decorate their tombs with flowers; 
 believers in spirit communications and rappings, 
 in ghosts, in auguries, in oracles and divinations, 
 so that sometimes we seem to be reading some 
 "Banner of Light," of the present day. 
 
 "You know, how much I loved my dear, departed wife," 
 says one. " I have shown it by burning with her all her 
 jewels and the dress she most delighted in. Seven days 
 after her death I was lying on this couch, trying to con- 
 sole myself, and reading Plato on the immortality of 
 the soul. All at once I beheld my Demeneta sitting 
 where that boy now is. (Here he pointed to his young- 
 est son, who had begun to turn pale at his father's recital,. 
 
A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 59 
 
 and was now quite ghastly.) I embraced her, and she 
 wept like a child. She complained that I, who used to 
 do everything to please her, had neglected to burn with 
 her one of her golden sandals. She said that it had fallen 
 down behind a clothes- chest, — that was the reason I 
 could not find it. My little dog began now to bark, and 
 she immediately vanished. The sandal was afterward 
 found behind the clothes-chest, and on the following day 
 it was burned." 
 
 Is it of the second or the nineteenth century that 
 we are reading in this recital ? 
 
 But we must bid farewell to this more than 
 ghostly re-appearance of the vanished century. 
 As a picture of the life and manners of a great 
 part of the civilized world in a peroid of decay- 
 ing beliefs and crumbling forms of philosophy 
 and religion, — a period of external peace but of 
 inward corruption; a period when all the vices, 
 the licentious superstitions, the sensual extrava- 
 gances, the idolatries, the humbugs, the seething 
 and fermenting pretentions and lies of long ages 
 of delusion met in the world's great capital and 
 mingled in one great maelstrom, whose fierce 
 whirl was felt to the remotest lands, — as a pic- 
 ture of this, as a culminating expression of the 
 life of polytheistic Greece and Rome, from which 
 all earnest belief had forever fled, — as one of the 
 heralds of a higher and a fairer doctrine of God, 
 of duty, and of immortality, this writer is worthy 
 of our passing attention. But it is a hollow laugh 
 that echoes mournfully through these desolate 
 
6o A SATIRIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 vaults. We ask for something more, — something 
 that shall feed our souls with faith and love and 
 reverence; something that shall lift us into a 
 more holy sphere and help us to believe, to be 
 strong, and to hope, while the years flit by as a 
 passing dream, and the centuries are folded up as 
 a written scroll. 
 
III. 
 
 A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH 
 CENTURY. 
 
 Edgar Quinet calls the eighteenth century "the 
 migration of the modern world from one form of 
 society into another," and speaks of Voltaire as 
 "the spiritual director of this epoch," as seated 
 upon that spiritual throne which was held by the 
 Papacy in the Middle Age. 
 
 Voltaire's real name was Frangois Marie Arouet. 
 Born in 1694, he was early sent to a Jesuit college, 
 frequented by the sons of the haute noblesse. He 
 received the nickname among his mates of the 
 " little wilful, " and was a prodigy of vivacious quick- 
 wittedness, mischief, and boyish audacity. " Keep 
 out of the way! " the precocious sceptic as well as 
 wit said to one of his comrades who intercepted 
 the heat of the fireplace, — "keep out of the way, 
 or I'll send you to Pluto's realms." "Why not 
 say hell.? That 's warmer yet," said his comrade. 
 "How do you know that.'" rejoined Voltaire; 
 "there's no better warrant for the one than for 
 the other." At another time, when one said to 
 him that "he was too wicked ever to go to heaven," 
 he replied, "Heaven! heaven! that's nothing but 
 a great dormitory for the world." 
 
62 A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 To sneer at religion among these aristocratic 
 youths was the mark of a high spirit. The me- 
 moirs of that time reveal a fearful state of cor- 
 ruption in the entire social atmosphere. The 
 shameful profligacy of the court was only equalled 
 by its superstitious formality, and by the austere 
 bigotry of devotees, who compounded with the 
 Celestial Powers for their sins by the orthodoxy 
 of their creed, and by the fierceness of their zeal 
 against all forms of heresy. When Voltaire was 
 only twelve years old, one of his reverend tutors 
 prophesied that he would become the " Corypheus 
 of Deism in France." But, as Lord Brougham 
 well says,, "Whoever doubted the real presence, 
 or questioned the power of absolution, was at once 
 set down for an infidel in those times ; " and a 
 trifle of wit mingled with the argument would 
 readily brand one as a blasphemer. In Voltaire's 
 case, neither the wit nor the will was wanting. 
 In one respect, the youth of the juvenile scape- 
 grace was not the father of the man; for in his 
 manhood he was prudent in money matters, and 
 accumulated an immense fortune, so that he be- 
 came the creditor of many a nobleman, and was 
 noted for his shrewdness and his sharp eye to the 
 main chance. In his youthful days he had occa- 
 sion to make a visit to a money-lender; and he 
 gives the following narration of his experience : 
 
 "I found on the usurer's table two crucifixes, and I 
 asked him whether they had been left to pawn. He said 
 no ; but that he never made any bargain without having 
 
A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. &l 
 
 those crucifixes near. I said that I thought one would 
 do, and my advice was to place that one between two 
 thieves. He said I was an impious fellow, and he would 
 not loan me a cent; but he did let me have money at 
 twenty per cent interest, on security worth five times 
 the sum, — deducting the interest in advance, and finally 
 decamping with my securities in his pocket." 
 
 It was, indeed, a horrible religious atmosphere 
 for a young man to breathe, not too well endowed 
 with reverence and spiritual insight. Religion 
 was a part of the State machinery, and only as it 
 persecuted heretics did it show signs of being 
 alive. JTo be a Protestant was to be an outlaw; 
 to be a Papist was to possess the right of tramp- 
 ling upon every individual conviction and all 
 venerable and instinctive moralities. No period 
 of the world presents a more gruesome and loath- 
 some spectacle of religious immorality and of 
 immoral religion. The court was austerely de- 
 vout; polite society was ostentatiously vicious, 
 and bigotedly unbigoted in its licentiousness and 
 unbelief. The court formed itself upon Madame 
 de Maintenon, and "good society" upon Ninon 
 de I'Enclos. Madame endeavored to bribe the 
 wonderful coquette to become a devotee; but 
 she replied that she had no need either of a 
 fortune or a mask. 
 
 To Ninon, Voltaire was early introduced by his 
 godfather, the Abbd Chiteauneuf, as a desirable 
 acquaintance. She was then eighty years old; 
 and when she died she left to Voltaire, by will, 
 
64 A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 two thousand francs for the purchase of books. 
 One of his first purchases from this fund was 
 Bayle's "Philosophical Dictionary," — the great 
 mine from which the doubters of the eighteenth 
 century forged their pointed shafts of criticism 
 and raillery. 
 
 Being suspected of having written a satire which 
 seemed to cast some severe reflections upon the 
 memory of Louis XIV. , Voltaire was sent to the 
 Bastile when twenty-two years of age, and again, 
 a few years afterward, for some personal quarrel 
 with a courtier who was entirely in the wrong. 
 In the Bastile he wrote the "Henriade," whose 
 hero was the great advocate of religious tolera- 
 tion, and who was as good at a bon mot in its be- 
 half as Voltaire himself. When set free from the 
 Bastile by the regent, Philip of Orleans, the poet 
 went to the Palais Royal to pay his respects to 
 his patron, and was kept waiting in the ante- 
 chamber longer than suited his impatient spirit. 
 While waiting, a terrible thunder-storm broke over 
 their heads; and the fuming youth exclaimed in 
 the hearing of those about him, "Things could n't 
 go on worse if they were managed up above there 
 by a regency." On presenting him, the Marquis 
 de Noce reported the speech, saying, "Monseign- 
 eur, this is the young Arouet whom you have 
 just taken out of the Bastile, and whom you will 
 do well to send back again immediately." The 
 regent, laughing, offered Voltaire a pension. His 
 response to this offer was, " I thank his Royal 
 
A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 65 
 
 Highness for wishing to provide for my food; but 
 I humbly entreat that he will not be very anxious 
 to provide for my lodging. " 
 
 When ordered to leave Paris, on his release from 
 his second imprisonment in the Bastile, Voltaire 
 went to England ; and here was, undoubtedly, the 
 turning-point of his entire future career. English 
 freedom and English thought were just beginning 
 to influence the thinking minds of his countrymen. 
 French literature and French science were almost 
 extinguished under the combined influences of 
 arbitrary power and priestly intolerance. Books 
 were burned and authors imprisoned at the pleas- 
 ure of a bigoted ecclesiasticism and a superstitious 
 civil rule; and when educated men became ac- 
 quainted with the literature and laws of England, 
 the contrast of its freedom in thought, freedom in 
 worship, its government of constitutional law and 
 guaranteed rights, with their helpless subjection 
 to absolute and priestly rule, awakened the deep- 
 est desire to study yet more intimately English 
 literature, English science, and English political 
 institutions. 
 
 Into the midst of these institutions, this com- 
 paratively wonderful and admirable freedom of life 
 and thought, Voltaire was thrown by the operation 
 of arbitrary power. He was brought under such 
 influences as that of Newton in physical science, 
 of Locke in mental philosophy, of Shakspeare in 
 poetry, of Shaftesbury and the English Deists in 
 religion. Cousin says, "Before Voltaire knew 
 
 S 
 
66 A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 England he was not Voltaire ; and the eighteenth 
 century was yet looking for its king. " Everywhere 
 in his writings he dwells with enthusiasm on the 
 popular freedom of England, on its steady mainte- 
 nance of human rights against oppressors in Church 
 and State. " How I love," he cries out," the Eng- 
 lish boldness ! How I love those who speak out 
 what they think !" This was not possible in France, 
 where, as Buckle says, " if a list were drawn up of 
 all the literary men who wrote during the seventy 
 years succeeding the death of Louis XIV., it would 
 be found that at least nine out of every ten had 
 suffered some grievous injury from the govern- 
 ment, and that a majority of them had been actu- 
 ally thrown into prison. Among those authors who 
 were punished, I find the name of nearly every 
 Frenchman whose writings have survived the age 
 in which they were produced. " 
 
 Voltaire thoroughly learns in England how to 
 say what he thinks. But if he likes the English 
 freedom, he dislikes the English gloom of tem- 
 perament, which he attributes to the fogginess of 
 the climate and the prevalence of the east wind. 
 He meets some gentlemen who were in admirable 
 spirits the day before, but who now are all gloomy 
 and depressed. He ventures to ask one what is 
 the matter, and gets for a reply that the wind is 
 east. " At that instant, a gentleman comes in and 
 says, with unconcern, that Molly's lover had found 
 her dead, with a bloody razor by her side. No one 
 raised an eyebrow at the news, one of the friends 
 
A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 67 
 
 only asking, ' What became of the lover?' 'Oh,' 
 coldly replied one of the company, 'he afterward 
 purchased the razor.' I could not, on my part, re- 
 frain from inquiring into the cause of the fright- 
 ful catastrophe ; and they simply replied, 'The 
 wind was east.' And a famous physician after- 
 ward told me that when Charles I. was beheaded, 
 and James II. dethroned, the wind was east." M. 
 Taine has thoroughly worked up this east wind 
 in his criticism of English literature. 
 
 When Voltaire returned to France and attempted 
 to publish a book on England, he was again sent 
 to the Bastile. Thus he was made to feel the 
 annoyances of petty despotism and ecclesiastical 
 hate. They are the objects of his ever-bubbling 
 denunciation ; but they do not wholly pervert his 
 judgment. When some one asserted that the Jesu- 
 its had a settled design to corrupt the morals of 
 mankind, he maintained that "no sect and no so- 
 ciety ever had, or ever could have, such a design." 
 From first to last, he protested against what Bun- 
 sen called "a theological system which had re- 
 nounced both reason and science." He protested 
 in bitter words and with scornful laughter against 
 the hollow mockeries of a superstition which called 
 itself by the sacred name of Christ, and stood in 
 che way of all progress in knowledge, all real faith 
 in God, and in the universe as the creation of his 
 universal love. 
 
 Voltaire always theoretically protested against 
 atheism. " There is no religion, " he says, " in which 
 
68 A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 we do not find a supreme God over all ; and there 
 is no one which was not originally established in 
 order to make men less vicious. " While the other 
 writers of the Encyclopaedia were pronounced athe- 
 ists and materialists, calling virtue " a wisely un- 
 derstood selfishness," religion "a gaseous effusion 
 of the brain," and God "a creation of superstition 
 and fear," Voltaire and Rousseau protested against 
 these extremes, and became the butt of ridicule 
 among their compeers. Grimm says sneeringly 
 of the former, "The patriarch can't get rid of his 
 remunerating avenger. " 
 
 In 1752 Voltaire began the " Dictionnaire Phi- 
 losophique." The idea was first broached at one 
 of King Frederick's philosophic suppers. But of 
 all men Voltaire least deserves the title of a 
 philosopher; and his treatment of great topics, 
 not methodically, but alphabetically, well typifies 
 the prevailing want of all method in thought, and 
 the overthrow of what may be- called true philo- 
 sophic thinking. But the Dictionary enabled him 
 to treat of such subjects as he pleased, in the man- 
 ner he pleased. Wherever the opportunity offers, 
 he improves it to probe superstitions, stab ecclesi- 
 astical nonsense, and ridicule received dogmas. 
 Thus, under the title "Abb6," he writes: — 
 
 " I hear the abb^s of Italy, Germany, Flanders, Bur- 
 gundy, saying : ' Why should not we accumulate riches 
 and honors? Why should not we be princes like the 
 bishops? They were originally poor as we; they have 
 become rich and exalted; one of them has become 
 
A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 6g 
 
 superior to kings : let us imitate them as well as 
 we can.' You are right, gentlemen. Seize upon the 
 earth : it belongs to the strong or the able, who may take 
 possession of it. You have made good use of the times 
 of ignorance, of superstition, of folly, to despoil us of our 
 inheritance and to trample us under your feet, and fatten 
 yourselves on the substance of the wretched. Tremble 
 lest the day -of reason shall come ! " 
 
 He ends his article on " Democracy " by saying : 
 
 " Every day the question is asked whether a republican 
 government be preferable to that of a king. The discus- 
 sion always ends by agreeing that it is a very difficult 
 thing to govern men. The Jews had God himself for a 
 master, and see what has happened to them : they have 
 been almost always conquered and enslaved ; and do you 
 not think that to-day they cut a very fine figure ? " 
 
 Again, under "Abraham," he writes: — 
 
 " Certainly, if one looks upon this account as natural, 
 he must have an understanding very different from what 
 we have to-day, or he must consider each detail as mirac- 
 ulous, or believe that the whole is an allegory ; but what- 
 ever theory is adopted, it is very embarrassing." 
 
 Among the works of Voltaire bearing directly 
 upon religion is a collection of sermons and homi- 
 lies, supposed to have- been delivered at different 
 places and times by persons of various nations and 
 creeds. He can thus view the phases of Christian 
 belief and practice from each religion as a central 
 point. The first sermon is delivered to an assem- 
 bly of fifty, who meet on Sunday, have prayers and 
 
70 A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 a sermon, then dine together, and take up a col- 
 lection for the poor. Each member is president 
 in turn, and conducts the religious services. The 
 first sermon begins thus : — 
 
 " My brothers, religion is the secret voice of God which 
 speaks to all men. It ought to unite them together, and 
 not to divide them. Every religion, therefore, which be- 
 longs exclusively to one nation must be false. Religion 
 ought to be universal, like morality; and every religion 
 which offends the moral law must surely be false." 
 
 Then the morality of the Scriptures is scruti- 
 nized, as follows : — 
 
 " You know, brethren, what horror has seized upon us 
 when we have read together the Hebrew books, and our 
 attention has been called to the violations of purity, good 
 faith, justice, charity, and universal reason, which are not 
 only there, but there in the name of God." 
 
 The examples of such violations are then speci- 
 fied in detail, and the discourse closes with the 
 prayer that men may become "more truly reli- 
 gious, adorers of the one God of justice and love, 
 and less the victims of ignorance and superstition. " 
 
 Another sermon is by a Jewish rabbi in Smyrna, 
 who takes for his theme the horrible executions 
 made by the savages of Lisbon, called an auto-da- 
 fd, or "act of faith," wherein two Mohammedans 
 and thirty-seven Jews were burned to death. 
 
 Another takes for its theme God and man : — 
 
 " They say that God's justice is not our justice. They 
 might as well say that twice two is four is not the same 
 
A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. J I 
 
 I 
 truth to God and man. There are not two different 
 kinds of truth. We can comprehend God's justice only 
 by the idea we have of justice in ourselves. God, as an 
 infinite being, must be infinitely just." 
 
 In another discourse, it is maintained — 
 
 " that no prophet or leader ever gained disciples by 
 preaching vice or crime. Jesus preached a universal 
 morality, — love to God and love to man. He never 
 intended to found this Christianity, which, as it has ex- 
 isted since the time of Constantine, has been further re- 
 moved from Jesus than from Zoroaster or Brahma. Jesus 
 has been made the pretext for our fantastic doctrines, our 
 persecutions, our crimes against religion ; but he was not 
 their author. The horrible calamities with which Chris- 
 tianity has inimdated countries where it has been intro- 
 duced afflict me, and make me shed tears ; and I despise 
 that heart of ice which is not moved when it considers the 
 religious troubles which have agitated England, Ireland, 
 and Scotland." 
 
 In another place he thus apostrophizes : — 
 
 " God of justice and of peace ! let us expiate by tolera- 
 tion the crimes which an execrable intolerance has caused 
 us to commit. Come to my house rational Socinian, 
 friendly Quaker, stri.ct Lutheran, gloomy Presbyterian, 
 indifferent Episcopalian, Mennonite, Millenarian, Metho- 
 dist, Pietist, — you, too, mad Papal slave, provided you 
 have no hidden poniard ! — let us bow together before the 
 Supreme Being, and thank him for having given us rea- 
 son to know him and hearts to love him ; let us eat joy- 
 fully together after giving him thanks." 
 
72 A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 We can but be sorry for that suggestion of 
 the possible dagger hidden under the robe of 
 the Catholic brother, and doubt if Voltaire had 
 arrived at perfect toleration. 
 
 As an historical writer, Voltaire was in advance 
 of his age. His speculative view, not narrowed 
 by partiality for church or sect, led him to write, 
 not so much the history of dynasties and special 
 institutions, as to unfold the great interests of 
 humanity and its advance from barbarism to civili- 
 zation. Where Bossuet saw only one little stream 
 of development through ecclesiastical channels, 
 Voltaire saw the great outspread ocean, into which 
 ran all the rivers from mountain and plain. The 
 principles of historical criticism he carried out 
 consistently, applying them to the Jewish as well 
 as to Greek and Roman narratives : — 
 
 " These books," he says, " are not judges in their own 
 cause. I do not believe Livy when he tells us that Ro- 
 mulus was son of the god Mars. I do not believe the 
 early English authors when they say that Vortiger was a 
 sorcerer. I do not believe the old historians of the 
 Franks when they refer their origin to Francus, the son 
 of Hector. And I ought not to beheve the Jews on their 
 own testimony alone, when they relate extraordinary 
 events." 
 
 The spirit of Voltaire, mocking, irreverent, bit- 
 ter, and relentless, found an ample field in which 
 to disport itself. He early learned to set little 
 value upon the hard names by which he was called. 
 
A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 73 
 
 He had heard Lord Shaftesbury everywhere de- 
 nounced by Roman Catholic writers as an atheist, 
 yet Lord Shaftesbury maintained that " perfection 
 of virtue was owing to a belief in God." He had 
 heard Jansenists denounce Jesuits, and Jesuits 
 accuse Jansenists as godless. Even pure and de- 
 vout men like Malebranche, Pascal, and Arnauld 
 did not escape. Those who spoke or wrote against 
 the follies of the convuLsionnaire mania, that seized 
 entire districts, were stigmatized as atheists ; and 
 it was gravely charged against an advocate of the 
 newly introduced discovery of inoculation for small- 
 pox, that he was " an atheist infected by the fol- 
 lies of the English." He heard Bayle universally 
 spoken of as an atheist, because he maintained as a 
 theoretical speculation that a community of athe- 
 ists might still be held together by moral and so- 
 cial bonds, — a proposition which Mill and many 
 others to-day have advanced with impunity. He 
 saw that it was called atheism merely to question 
 the sufficiency of any alleged proof of God's exist- 
 ence, or of any propositions dependent thereon. 
 
 But Voltaire had his little revanche, when the 
 good Dr. Wolfius, an innocent soul and a worthy 
 man, ventured to praise the morality of the Chi- 
 nese, whom the Jesuit missionaries had called a 
 nation of atheists, and was, in consequence, over- 
 whelmed with accusations of atheism. Now, when 
 extreme words are thus indiscriminately used, 
 it shows that they have los.t their meaning, have 
 become emptied of their real contents. He who 
 
74 ^ SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 truly believes in God shrinks from saying that any 
 one is an atheist; but he in whose inmost soul the 
 word 060? stands for little of moment will easily 
 put the privative letter before the word, and bran- 
 dish it about as lustily as an athlete his Indian 
 club. In one of his prefaces, Voltaire says that 
 the "odious and ridiculous practice of accusing 
 as atheists all who are not exactly of the same 
 sentiments with us, has contributed more than 
 any other cause whatever to render controversy 
 contemptible to all Europe." 
 
 Voltaire especially gloried in being a poet, — 
 one of the crowned kings of verse. Whatever the 
 great bards had done, he would do also ; and he es- 
 says the construction of an epic which should be 
 the Iliad of the French nation. He writes " La 
 Henriade." To us of to-day, Voltaire and poetry 
 seem incongruous enough. The poem, however, 
 on its publication was received with an immense 
 furor of praise; but it requires now a telescopic 
 lens of great magnifying power to bring it fairly 
 into view. Purely local in its subject, unfortunate 
 in taking for that subject the civil war in the time 
 of Henry IV. of France, it contains the most ab- 
 surd allegorical machinery, and is true neither to 
 ideal demands nor to historic fact. But the real 
 Voltaire, in the midst of extravagant exaggerations 
 and conventional imitations, shows himself in his 
 description of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
 at the anniversary of which he was said always 
 to have been feverishly excited; and not less he 
 
A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 75 
 
 shows himself in his description of the festival of 
 toleration celebrated in the heavenly regions. ^ 
 
 To Voltaire belongs the credit of widening the 
 range of tragic themes by stepping beyond the 
 charmed circle of classic subjects, and seizing 
 upon material drawn from China, from Babylon, 
 from Mecca, from Peru, and from French histori- 
 cal events. He sought for something to move 
 the fancy, something which would carry in itself 
 a striking effect upon the imagination. He be- 
 lieved in declamation, in phrases, and in melodra- 
 matic scenes, and his style imposes upon the im- 
 agination rather than meets its wants. During his 
 residence in England, he was deeply impressed 
 by the drama of Shakspeare ; but he never did, and 
 
 1 The measureless self-conceit and vanity of the man, and his in- 
 ability to estimate epic poetry, are to be seen in some verses which 
 
 he addressed to Madame " On the Epic Poets,'' of which <t 
 
 literal translation is as follows : " Full of beauties and defects, old 
 Homer has my respect. He is, like all heroes, a great gossip, but 
 sublime. Virgil gives more ornament to his matter, has more skill, 
 and as much harmony ; but he exhausts himself with Dido, and 
 makes a failure of Lavinia. False brilliants "and too much magic 
 put Tasso a notch lower ; but what will one not endure for Armida 
 and Hermione ? Milton, more sublime than they all, has less pleas- 
 ing beauties; he seems to sing for mad men, angels, and devils. 
 After Milton, after Tasso, it would be a little too much to speak of 
 myself; and I shall wait until after my death to learn what place 
 belongs to me" But the old wit, even after he was fourscore, could 
 turn a handsome compliment ; and he does it now, closing his verses 
 on the epic poets as follows : " You, Madame, have so much wit, so 
 much grace, and so much sweetness, if my place is in your heart, it 
 is the first place in the world." We may add that it is well for him 
 that his ambition was so easily satisfied. 
 
^6 A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 never could, comprehend the real genius of the 
 great dramatist, whose plays he called monstrous 
 farces, misnamed tragedies! He could not help 
 discerning the impressiveness of individual scenes, 
 but he had no idea of the dramatic art as a national 
 development. With him, the spectacle and the 
 declamation were all. He says: — 
 
 " It is far more diflScult to write well than to put upon the 
 stage ghosts, assassins, rakes, gibbets, and witches. Works 
 inverse must depend upon particular beauties ; and if Addi- 
 son's ' Cato ' is the masterpiece of English dramatic art, 
 it owes its place to nothing but to these." 
 
 Yes; Addison's "Cato," absolutely correct in 
 the unities, decorous and stately in language, ex- 
 ceedingly well -phrased, euphonious, and eloquent, 
 is simply the antipodes to Shakspeare in all that 
 concerns the real essence of dramatic art. Hence 
 it is, no doubt, genuine praise that Voltaire be- 
 stows upon it. Shakspeare is only a barbarian 
 and a hangman, who looks neither to style nor to 
 conventional unities, nor to proprieties before the 
 court and the nobility. Horrible, that his kings 
 should use the language of the canaille! Horri- 
 ble, that genuine emotion should be expressed in 
 genuine words of ordinary life! Horrible, that 
 men and women should do such a vulgar thing as 
 die in the presence of princes, and that princes 
 and kings should be simple, ordinary men! 
 
 It is only natural that Voltaire should fail to 
 detect the purely human character of Shakspeare's 
 
A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, yj 
 
 dramas. Quick he was to feel deeply and declaim 
 eloquently against injustice and wrong; but it was 
 only priestly injustice and ecclesiastical wrong that 
 filled him thus with bitterness, and thrilled through 
 every fibre of his being. The worth of man as 
 man, and the dreams of universal humanity never 
 dawned upon Voltaire, so versatile, so acute, so 
 inimical to corruptions, abuses, and shams. He 
 was a courtier and a sycophant. He had no be- 
 lief in the people, but an unlimited faith in the 
 regeneration of the world by philosophic kings. 
 He had a profound contempt for what was purely 
 natural, simple, unostentatious, and genuine; and 
 how could he discern the nice humanities of Shak- 
 speare's genius, the delicate forms throbbing with 
 their inner life, and true to the faintest breath of 
 natural passion and imaginative love! 
 
 Voltaire claims to have attained that quality 
 which was indispensable, — simplicity; and he 
 condescendingly exhorts English poets to soften 
 the rude manners of their savage Melpomene, and 
 labor for the approval of all times and all ages. 
 He would have them introduce a happy simpli- 
 city into their plays, so tainted with horrors, gib- 
 bets, and slaughter; to put into them more truth 
 and more noble images. A strange spectacle, — 
 Voltaire finding fault with Shakspeare for his want 
 of noble images, true simplicity, and tenderness in 
 love! We are not surprised, therefore, that he 
 calls Shakspeare's "Hamlet" "a gross and barbar- 
 ous play, which would not be endured by the vilest 
 
78 A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 populace of France or Italy." His standard of 
 taste was wholly conventional. To some one, 
 speaking of the natural force of that expression 
 in Shakspeare to indicate the undisturbed silence 
 of the watch, — "not a mouse stirring," — he re- 
 plied : " Yes, that is the way a soldier on guard 
 would speak; but that is not the way to express 
 one's self on the stage in the presence of the most 
 noble ladies of the nation, who express themselves 
 in noble style, and before whom noble expressions 
 ought also to be used." 
 
 What can we expect from such a point of view 
 as this ? Surely, nothing more than we find, — stiff 
 formality, cold elegance, attention to fine speeches 
 rather than dramatic unfoldings of character; strik- 
 ing points in situation instead of fidelity to na- 
 ture; effective declamation, not language spring- 
 ing from natural feeling and the necessities of the 
 situation, — in a word', a drama classical in form, 
 correct in style, and, above all, pre-eminently 
 genteel and courtly in air, conforming to the uni- 
 ties, and violating none of the received critical 
 dogmas. Such "was the drama of Voltaire, who 
 slavishly followed precedent here if , nowhere 
 else in life. 
 
 Sharp in intellect, indefatigable in industry, 
 with a vast memory and an ever-ready wit, Voltaire 
 composed a whole library of books, verses, epics, 
 plays, criticisms, letters, biographies, tales, and 
 histories, each related to the times, and each the 
 embodiment of his own personality in some promi- 
 
A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, yg 
 
 nent phase of its development. Principles he had 
 none; his own individual prejudices and likings 
 were his only rules. He obeyed the dominant 
 impulse of the moment, and without real passion 
 was the most passionate of men. He did not be- 
 long to the rijew age : he was the avenging Nemesis 
 of the old, and never shook off its poisonous folds. 
 The strenuous labors of Voltaire for those con- 
 demned and oppressed by the iniquitous laws, gave 
 him his great European reputation. This became 
 notoriety from the intercourse between Frederick 
 the Great and the renowned poet-philosopher, — 
 first by that friendship which received the com- 
 moner as an equal, and treated him as a brother 
 king; and then by that enmity which made Vol- 
 taire almost the central point of European gossip 
 in court and social circles. Frederick urged him 
 to come to Berlin in the following letter, blas- 
 phemous if it were not so fulsome and silly: 
 
 " There is a small company of persons who have set up 
 altars to the god whom they have not seen ; but you may 
 be sure that some heretics will set up altars to Baal if our 
 god does not show himself pretty soon. You will be re- 
 ceived as the Virgil of this century, and the gentleman-in- 
 ordinary of Louis XV. will give way, if he pleases, to the . 
 great poet. Adieu. May the swift steeds of Achilles 
 bear you on, and the highways be made plain before you ! 
 May the inns of Germany be changed into palaces to re- 
 ceive you ! May the winds of .^Eolus be shut up in their 
 caves, the rainy Orion disappear, and our pot-house 
 nymphs be transformed into goddesses, so that your 
 
80 A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 journey and reception may be worthy of the author of 
 'Henriade'!" 
 
 Here also is Voltaire's jubilate soon after his 
 arrival : — 
 
 " My marriage has taken place : will it be a happy one ? 
 My heart beats violently at the altar. It is the first time 
 that a king has governed without women and priests." 
 
 When at one of the philosophic suppers the 
 opinion of the king was first asked, Frederick 
 made no reply. "Why do you not respond.' " 
 some one asked. "The king," said he, "is not I: 
 he is Voltaire. When I am at the head of a hun- 
 dred thousand men, I am the king; but when I sup 
 with Voltaire, he is the king." 
 
 But after a while we hear a different tune. 
 The peace of the happy family is disturbed, and 
 Voltaire writes : — 
 
 "I must forget this three years' dream. I see very 
 well that the orange has been sucked, and all I can do 
 is to save the peel. I am going to make for my own in- 
 struction a little dictionary of kingly dialect. ' My friend ' 
 means • my slave.' ' My dear friend ' means ' You are more 
 than indifferent to me.' ' Sup with me this evening ' means 
 ' I am going to make fun of you this evening.' But I am 
 very sorrowful and very ill ; and to crown my misery, I 
 take supper with the king ! " 
 
 It seems to have been a real matrimonial tiff, 
 and a case of incompatible tempers. Of course 
 a divorce is possible, and the great poet-philoso- 
 
A SCEPTIC IN' THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 8 1 
 
 pher, under a feigned name, left Berlin secretly; 
 but he was arrested and thrown into prison on 
 the charge of stealing a manuscript of the great 
 Frederick's poems. 
 
 When he finally retired to Ferney, in Switzer- 
 land, Voltaire was more than sixty years old, hav- 
 ing in the mean time accumulated a large fortune 
 and become the central object of friends and foes. 
 To receive homage was the claim of this intel- 
 lectual king, — homage being as necessary to him 
 as to any earthly potentate. The place fixed upon 
 for his abode bordered upon four different coun- 
 tries, and he had now throngs of worshippers and 
 multitudes of readers. With indefatigable indus- 
 try he writes epistles, pamphlets, poems, flying 
 leaves of all sorts, to amuse and interest an ap- 
 plauding, a horror-stricken, a distracted Europe 
 hurrying to its judgment-day. He is absolutely 
 without any of the ordinary and accepted rever- 
 ences, fears, respects, or restraints; a devastating 
 fire seems to have swept over and through his soul. 
 Butlecclesiastical abuses and intolerant cruelty 
 touch a chord in him that never ceases to vibrate 
 and send forth notes of warning and protest. He 
 says what he likes, and does what a passing caprice 
 dictates. A church on his grounds intercepts a 
 fine view: he pulls it down and builds another, 
 over whose portals is the inscription in Latin, 
 Deo erexit /Voltaire, — " Erected to God by 
 Voltaire." He builds a watch mantjfactory and 
 a theatre, drains marshes, assists the poor, buys 
 
 6 
 
82 A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 books and pictures, and proposes to partake of the 
 communion like "any other Christian citizen." 
 But the bishop puts an injunction on this by or- 
 dering that no priest shall receive Voltaire's con- 
 fession or grant him absolution. Not to be balked 
 thus, the cunning old head pretends to be on his 
 death -bed, sends for a priest, from whom he re- 
 ceives absolution, and gets the fact duly attested 
 by the public notary. In return, moreover, for a 
 piece of profitable intercession, he receives the title 
 "temporal father of the Capuchins of Gex," which 
 he makes a matter of humorous boasting. 
 
 Voltaire's wit spares neither friend nor foe. A 
 provincial advocate in an eloquent address salut- 
 ing him as a light of the world, he called to his 
 niece, Madame Denis, "Madame, bring here the 
 snuffers ! " When he is past eighty, an enthusi- 
 astic young Englishwoman visits him, and thus 
 writes concerning her interview: — 
 
 "Never did the transports of Saint Theresa surpass 
 those which I experienced at the sight of this great man. 
 It seemed to me that I was in the presence of a god. My 
 heart beat with violence as I entered the courtyard of 
 this consecrated chateau. Voltaire soon came in, saying : 
 ' Where is she ? It is a soul that I am looking for.' I 
 repUed, ' This soul is all filled with you : if your books 
 were all burned, they would be found in me.' ' Revised 
 and corrected,' was his witty reply." 
 
 When taking leave, this devoted admirer asked 
 a blessing from the object of her adoration. At 
 
A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 83 
 
 first he seemed at a loss how to respond to the 
 request, but finally said : " I cannot bless you with 
 my fingers, like a priest. I would rather put 
 my arms around your neck." And this was his 
 benediction. 
 
 In his eighty-fifth year, when Voltaire went for 
 the last time to Paris, February, 1778, he was 
 asked the usual question at the customs-barrier, 
 whether he had anything contraband among his 
 luggage. "Gentlemen," he replied, "the only 
 contraband article I have is myself." But this 
 contraband received such an ovation as monarch 
 or conqueror rarely receives. The streets, the 
 academy, the theatre, all ages and conditions ex- 
 cept the court and the clergy, vied in paying him 
 homage. "Long live Voltaire, the persecuted of 
 fifty years ! " was the cry. It was his day of jubi- 
 lant success, and that all-absorbing love of fame 
 which he cherished seemed fully gratified. But 
 let it be recorded to his credit that no "sweet 
 voices " of the applauding thousands gave him so 
 much delight as the reply of the woman, who, 
 when asked who it was the crowd were shouting 
 after, said: "Do you not know that he is the 
 savior of Calas .' " ^ 
 
 Overwhelmed by the excitement of his trium- 
 phal visit, — "stifled with roses," as he himself 
 
 1 Jean Calas had been condemned at Toulouse, and broken on 
 the wheel, for a crime of which he was innocent, and his fan^ily had 
 been driven from the country. Through Voltaire's generous exer- 
 tions and untiring zeal, the sentence was annulled and the family of 
 Calas partially indemnified. 
 
84 ^ SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 expresses- it, — Voltaire died in Paris in 1778. In 
 1791 his coffin was borne to the Pantheon, and 
 deposited between that of Descartes and of Mira- 
 beau, — "an apotheosis," says Lamartine, in his 
 rhetorical phrase, of "intelligence entering in tri- 
 umph over the ruins of prejudice into the city of 
 Louis XIV." 
 
 But what of Voltaire's work ? Quinet compares 
 this with that of the angel of wrath pouring out 
 upon the condemned Cities of the Plain sulphur 
 and bitumen in the midst of the howling tempest : 
 " So the spirit of Voltaire walked over the face of 
 the divine city, and poured out gall, irony, and 
 ashes. His work was not that of a private indi- 
 vidual, but of an instrument of the vengeance of 
 God." There was surely scope enough for any 
 well-tempered instrument of this sort. As late as 
 the year 1763 a young man was sentenced to the 
 torture of the rack, to have his tongue torn out, 
 and then to be beheaded. For what .' For insult- 
 ing a crucifix placed upon a bridge! In 1762 a 
 Protestant father and mother were condemned to 
 death on the charge of having killed their own 
 daughter, who escaped from a convent and was 
 found drowned in a well. At about the same 
 time, five young men died on the scaffold for not 
 taking off their hats when they saw a priestly, 
 procession pass along at a distance of thirty paces. 
 Well may Voltaire say, in a letter to the Arch- 
 duchess Louisa, "Religion among us is preached 
 by executioners." Is it strange that Voltaire re- 
 
A PEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 8$ 
 
 taliated in the same spirit? Enfantin has rightly 
 characterized Voltaire as doing his work in the 
 spirit of an executioner, because " he struck with- 
 out sympathy for his victims." Yes, it was God's 
 century of judgment and destruction ; and Voltaire 
 was its chief apostle. 
 
 That Voltaire was not only the representative 
 but the child of his epoch, Strauss pleads as a bar 
 against personal criticism and individual condem- 
 nation. According to him, Voltaire's character is 
 the natural result of the spirit of the time, as well 
 as the only fitting instrument by which the faults of 
 that time could be made known and chastised. The 
 corrupt time itself produced the lash with which 
 it was scourged. Had there been only a pure, 
 calm, dispassionate temper in Voltaire's attack, it 
 would have availed nothing; for it would have 
 been like a flame within the wire network of the 
 safety-lamp, and no explosion would have taken 
 rplace in the poisonous and deadly gasses. Only 
 his sharp, bitter, cutting sarcasm and contempt 
 could pierce old abuses to the heart, and open 
 the way for higher truths. 
 
 In this respect, Voltaire was, indeed, the man for 
 the hour. He seemed denuded of all reverence and 
 all reserve; and contempt seemed his native air. 
 His faults of temper, his lack of conscience, his 
 bristling self-love and overweening conceit, served 
 him well. We will endeavor to be as grateful as 
 we can for the hail and the pitch, the brimstone 
 and the fire ; but they are hail and pitch and brim- 
 
86 A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 stone and fire still. We will do our best to ac- 
 knowledge that debt of gratitude we owe to him ; 
 for, according to Lord Brougham, " no one can be 
 named since the days of Luther to whom the spirit 
 of free inquiry — nay, the emancipation of the 
 human mind from spiritual tyranny — owes a more 
 lasting debt of gratitude. " 
 
 It is hard, however, for us to separate the work 
 done from the personal merit or demerit of the 
 instrument through which it was done; but that 
 separation must be made if any just verdict is to 
 be rendered in regard to the work itself. Mo- 
 tives, character, individual excellence or worth- 
 lessness, have no bearing upon this except as 
 furthering or detracting from the results brought 
 about. With the confident audacity of an un- 
 measured reliance upon his splendid talents, his 
 shrewd cunning, his perception of the vice, the in- 
 humanity, the weak points, of the assumptions of 
 the Roman Catholic Church, — everywhere hostile 
 to freedom of thought, to true nationality, to the 
 unity of the family and the State, to all advance in 
 science, all social changes not in the line of its 
 own ecclesiastic dogmas and claims to domina- 
 tion, — Voltaire led the attack against superstition; 
 the infamous foe, as he regarded it, of the hu- 
 man race. He was fettered by no scruples of con- 
 scientious care lest he should wound this tender 
 sentiment or that holy trust; for he was without 
 any conception of the meaning of those deep reli- 
 gious tendencies which pardon everything to that 
 
A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 87 
 
 which is associated with their rise and their 
 vivacity of impressiveness. He was carried by 
 no flight of genius into those higher visions which 
 belong to creative power; so that all he wrote 
 found ready ears and recipient response. So ob- 
 tuse was he to the noblest unfoldings of the genius 
 of religion and poetry in the past, that the Gothic 
 cathedral was to him but "a fantastic compound 
 of rudeness and filigree." This highest quality 
 of genius would have been a fatal obstacle to such 
 a work as Voltaire was the instrument in efifect- 
 ing, and would have incapacitated him from being 
 the successful leader in that forlorn hope of at- 
 tacking the stronghold of ecclesiastical absolutism 
 which banished, imprisoned, cursed, and tortured 
 wherever there was opposition to its claims. That 
 opposition was everywhere; for it was the rising 
 spirit of modern society seeking to establish itself 
 on the basis of humanity and common-sense. 
 
 That Voltaiie held only a secondary place among 
 the world's great leaders and representative men 
 was the chief factor in his success. Comte was 
 right in calling him " the most distinguished type 
 in history of the provisional laborers in intellectual 
 and social reform, — one who to the remotest pos- 
 terity will hold a position entirely unique, in whom 
 there was the most admirable combination, such as 
 may never again be found, of those various second- 
 ary qualities of mind which so often wear the se- 
 ductive guise of original genius." 
 
 Here is the key to that wonderful mastership, 
 
88 A SCEPTIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 that phenomenal greatness, of him who has been 
 called "Voltaire, the king." His work against 
 the mighty foe of human freedom, of independent 
 nationalities, of the sanctuary of conscience and 
 spiritual personality, has not yet come to an end ; 
 but it is in far different hands, and must be ac- 
 complished by far different methods. The mock- 
 ing laughter dies away ; the fire and the whirlwind 
 have cleared the atmosphere so that we can now 
 listen to the still, small voice that speaks within 
 the inmost soul, and cheers every sincere longing 
 "for God, freedom, and immortality." 
 
IV. 
 
 NEMESIS IN GREEK TRAGEDY. 
 
 "Crossing a bare common in snow-puddles at 
 twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in 
 my thoughts any occurrence of special good for- 
 tune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. Al- 
 most I fear to think how glad I am. " .Thus, from 
 his own relation to primitive nature, spoke Emer- 
 son, our modern seer. The gladness was too great 
 for the small mortal cup, and it seemed almost an 
 invitation to the tempest that should follow. 
 
 The old Greek felt the same trembling of the 
 balance between joy and fear, and Nemesis was 
 bom. With the generality of men the gladness 
 comes, not when wading through snow-puddles, 
 but in flowery meadows and grassy paths; not at 
 twilight and under a cloudy sky, but in the broad 
 sunshine and glow of day. The Greek saw that 
 nothing was stable, nothing permanent in the 
 heavens above or in the earth beneath ; and out of 
 his subjective experience he created an objective 
 character, exalting the human appearance into a 
 divine personification. It was not for man with 
 his limitations of state, nature, life, and means of 
 good, to be too prosperous, too knowing, too happy, 
 
go NEMESIS IN GREEK TRAGEDY. 
 
 too powerful. Says Herodotus: "The divinity, 
 having given a taste of the sweetness of life, is 
 found afterward to be envious of that happiness." 
 If man were completely-healed of disease, of course 
 Pluto would be robbed of his rightful prey; and 
 therefore Esculapius, the healer of the sick, is 
 stricken down by the thunderbolt of Jove. Pro- 
 metheus, who takes pity on the shivering, helpless 
 race of man and steals for him the spark of fire 
 from heaven, is chained and tortured. Solon tells 
 Croesus that "the divinity is always jealous, and 
 that time constrains men to see and to suffer many 
 things that they would not wi,llingly see and suf- 
 fer. " Amasis says to his friend Polycrates, " Your 
 too great good fortune does not please me, knowing 
 as I do that the divinity is jealous. I cannot 
 remember that I ever heard of any man, who, hav- 
 ing been continually successful, did not utterly 
 perish." Herodotus puts into the mouth of Ar- 
 tabanus, when discussing with Xerxes the expe- 
 diency of the war with Greece, these words, in 
 which the aspect of the deity toward man, or the 
 divine Nemesis, is clearly stated : — 
 
 " Do you not see how the deity always hurls his thun- 
 derbolts against the loftiest buildings and the highest 
 trees? For the deity strikes down everything that is 
 exalted too high; and a large army is often destroyed 
 by a small one, when the jealous deity strikes them with 
 panic or lightning, so that they perish unworthily, because 
 the deity will not suffer any one but himself to cherish 
 tofty thoughts." 
 
I\IEMESIS IN GREEK TRAGEDY. gx 
 
 So it is, that, transferring his own subjective 
 experience, his own standard of judgment, to the 
 government of the world, before he has recognized 
 the operation of essential laws working in himself 
 and in all human souls, man sees a deity envying 
 human prosperity, jealous of his own glory, crush- 
 ing out pride, abasing high thoughts, and bringing 
 the creature of a day to a sense of his nothingness 
 and his low estate. 
 
 There were set bounds, impassable to human 
 strength, skill, wisdom, enjoyment; and to go 
 beyond this bound in any respect was to brave 
 the higher, divine power, and to offend that ma- 
 jestic leveller, that equal distributor, — Nemesis. 
 The gods alone were the blessed ones, to whom 
 no decay or death came, and it was not for man 
 to rival the gods. Pindar prays that the victor, 
 whose success he celebrates, may not excite against 
 him the jealous Nemesis. 
 
 This is the language from a human point of view : 
 it is apparent, not absolute truth. But with the 
 growth of the Greek man comes also the growth of 
 the Greek gods. The Hellenic ideal is harmony, 
 proportion of parts ; nothing in excess, the golden 
 mean, moderation in all things ; no excess in feel- 
 ing, life, or art ; the keeping of due bounds in liv- 
 ing, in behavior, in utterance, in thought. Within 
 these bounds Nemesis was powerless ; but outside 
 of them there was no escape from her omnipotent 
 clutch. Aristotle, with his usual perspicacity, 
 calls Nemesis " the act of moral judgment awarding 
 
92 NEMESIS IN GREEK TRAGEDY. 
 
 what is due." The emotion felt in awarding this 
 judgment will derive its quality from the nature of 
 him who feels it. The malicious man rejoices at 
 the misfortunes of others ; the envious man grieves 
 at the prosperity of all but himself; while, holding 
 the mean between these extreipes, the just man, 
 inspired by Nemesis, grieves only at the prosperity 
 of the unworthy. Thus in Greek thought the fierce, 
 envious, malicious gods recede, and a divine power, 
 an all-adjusting righteous-, element, a divine Neme- 
 sis, presides over human destinies. 
 
 " Mountain tall and ocean deep 
 Trembling balance duly keep.'' 
 
 As Saint Victor* says of Zeus, that, before he 
 became condensed into the grand form of King 
 of Olympus, he wandered in the storms of air, — so 
 we may say of Nemesis, that, before she figured as 
 the celestial maiden with the right hand pointing 
 to the breast, the eyes cast down in reflective 
 meditation, and the left hand holding a bridle, or 
 a chalice carried with even hand so that no drop 
 was spilled, — before this crystallization into the 
 expression of a harmonious law of moral order 
 took place. Nemesis was the implacable Erinnys, 
 the stern Dice, the inexorable Adrasteia, raging 
 with envy at human success, striking down every 
 head as it emerged from the low mortal level; a 
 child of night or of Erebus, a formless dread im- 
 pending over what was great and beautiful and 
 strong. 
 
 1 P. DE Saint Victor : Les Deux Masques, vol. i. p. 96. 
 
NEMESIS IN GREEK TRAGEDY. 93 
 
 With an intuition into the moral order of things, 
 the poet Hesiod called Nemesis the daughter of 
 Night, just as he called Deceit and Discord and 
 crumbling Old Age daughters of Night; and in 
 the popular speech whatever injustice, overween- 
 ing presumption, or manifest excess of evil ten- 
 dency brought about punishment was called a 
 Nemesis, or divine retribution. An intense, per- 
 sonifying passion makes Electra, in Sophocles, 
 appeal to Nemesis as the avenging spirit of the 
 dead when Clytemnestra says that her husband 
 had been rightly slain: "Oh hear," Electra ex- 
 claims, believing her brother to lie dead, — "oh 
 hear, thou Nemesis of the but lately dead ! " 
 
 It was the Greek love of order and proportion, 
 the Greek intuition of a principle of righteousness 
 and moral harmony, which made Nemesis not so 
 much a mythologic personality, though sculptured 
 by the artist and appealed to as a deity, as a uni- 
 versally spread consciousness of an ever-present 
 spirit of beauty, which thrust away the deformed 
 and the vulgar; the spirit of majestic serenity 
 and repose, which quieted all stormy scenes and 
 all violent extremes; of an inward consciousness 
 of right, the voice of God inning in the flesh, and 
 man's sufficient consolation and strength. Soc- 
 rates, in the "Republic," when about to express an 
 opinion where he does not feel the absolute surety 
 of truth, invokes Adrasteia, or Nemesis, that he 
 may not say rashly and inconsiderately what a^^ouM 
 mislead himself and his friends, and so be worse 
 
"94 NEMESIS IN GREEK TRAGEDY. 
 
 than the homicide whom that implacable goddess 
 punished. ^ Not with impunity could the word 
 transgressing the boundary line of the eternal 
 realities, be uttered; and even involuntary error 
 could not go unscathed. 
 
 Thus is developed in the Hellenic mind the, idea 
 of a moral law, pervading the world and immanent 
 in life, which restored every disturbed equilibrium, 
 bringing down everything to a truly human level, 
 and suffering no excess in height or measure be- 
 yond the real standard of a common humanity. 
 What the impartial conscience decreed, tJiat was 
 the verdict of Nemesis. That tendency of things 
 by which secret crimes were brought to light, by 
 which a violation of the unwritten laws against 
 the helpless, the dead, the innocent was avenged, 
 was a part of Nemesis. She was not so much a dis- 
 tinct deity with a definite form and attributes, as 
 a concrete word by which the moral harmony of 
 the world was indicated, — that tendency which 
 makes for righteouness in every sphere of being; 
 which will not let things be forever mismanaged, 
 or what is unjust and unfair forever prevail. 
 
 The genius of .^schylus was essentially poetic, 
 and he wrought out in massive sublimity, in grand 
 symbols, the fearful results of violated righteous- 
 ness. He dealt in colossal types of suffering and 
 woe, of struggles with the divine ordinances, of 
 efforts to resist the operating principles of eternal 
 justice, of mortal weakness contending with the 
 immortal and omnipotent Fates." With him poetry 
 
JVJSM£S/S 7JV CREEK TRAGEDY. 95 
 
 performed its true work of freeing and exalting 
 humanity. Too much has been made of Fate as 
 the overmastering idea in the drama of ^schylus. 
 No dramatic action can ever come from purely pas- 
 sive tools ; for unless the doer feels the re-bound 
 of his own voluntary acts, he is but a wire-pulled 
 puppet, and would be no more interesting than a 
 rock heaved up by the resistless wave. 
 
 The spectators of the dramas of ^schylus and 
 of Sophocles were present at scenes in which the 
 beings whom the people regarded as supernatural 
 powers, and whose guardian help they invoketl, 
 were represented. The destiny of the characters 
 in these dramas was unrolled before the specta- 
 tors, who were called upon to sympathize with 
 their sorrows and their struggles. Thus, as Sel- 
 lar says : " A highly idealized and profoundly 
 religious character was imparted to the tragic re- 
 presentation of human passion and destiny on the 
 Athenian stage. " ^ There, in the condensed epi- 
 tome of years and centuries before his eyes, was 
 the poet's reconciliation of the divine and human 
 in character, history, and life. It was to the Athe- 
 nian what at some j>eriods has been the inspired 
 preacher to the Christian church, — when the list- 
 ener found himself; discerned the higher meaning 
 of life; saw the light from supernal spheres let 
 in upon his soul, and found. for what was best and 
 noblest in himself inspiration and help. 
 
 No more effective presentation of the divine 
 
 1 Roman Poets of the Republic, p. 124. 
 
96 NEMESIS IN GREEK TRAGEDY. 
 
 Nemesis as apprehended in the higher Hellenic 
 consciousness could be given, than we have in the 
 " Persians " of ^schylus. How shall the poet deal 
 with this subject, the overthrow of the Persians, — 
 a subject so near to and so much a part of the 
 audience themselves, — in order to throw around 
 its details the haze of poetic illusion, and raise 
 it into the sphere of ideal grandeur and moral 
 beauty? He accomplishes this end by one simple 
 stroke: he transfers the scene of the drama to the 
 Persian capital and the Persian palace. That per- 
 spective which remoteness of time gives to deeds 
 of the past, is here furnished by distance of space 
 and the imaginative glories of a far-famed court, 
 of whose magnificence and power the recent inva- 
 sion had given the too-evideftt proof. This mighty 
 empire had been defeated, and the Athenian spec- 
 tators had themselves been the main agents of the 
 defeat. Athens was to be glorified, and yet with- 
 out awakening that overweening pride and self- 
 confidence so fatal to soberness of thought ; without 
 calling forth the latent demons of self-exulting 
 praise, or leading to barbarous peals of empty ex- 
 hilaration. The Athenian exploits are recounted ; 
 but throughout the entire drama there is the minor 
 key of sorrow, of pity, of deep humility, of intense 
 commiseration and a trembling human fear, which 
 will not suffer the triumph over the foe to be too 
 selfish or too pronounced. The chorus of reverend 
 men left to keep watch and ward over the king- 
 dom expresses its forebodings of ill. It exults in 
 
J\r£MES/S IN GREEK TRAGEDY. 97 
 
 the proud array of the kingly host, which, city- 
 destroying, marched across the sea paved with 
 planks and bound with cord and chain. But 
 there steals over this bright sunlight a creeping 
 mist ; it is the thought that the gods do not allow 
 unmingled prosperity: — 
 
 " But when the gods deceive, 
 
 Wiles which immortals weave 
 
 Who shall beware ? 
 
 Who, when their nets surround, 
 
 Breaks with a nimble bound 
 
 Out of their snare ? " 
 
 Urged by the same presentiment of ill, the aged 
 queen of Darius and mother of Xerxes comes to 
 consult these ancient, trusty Persian men in re- 
 gard to the dreams that have nightly disturbed her 
 rest since her son departed with the army to " bring 
 destruction on Attica." They advise her to sup- 
 plicate the gods — and especially the dread shade of 
 Darius, who had visited her in visions of the night 
 — to send blessings on her son. She then asks them 
 about Athens ; and the praise of Athens is put into 
 the mouth of the Persian chorus. Now enters a 
 messenger announcing the total destruction of the 
 Persian host; and the chorus responds with its 
 mournful wail, as one by one each feature of the 
 awful disaster is recounted. From the summoned 
 shade of Darius comes the counsel not to invade 
 Greece again ; and it utters the solemn moral, — 
 " Proud thoughts were never made for mortal man ; 
 
 A haughty spirit blossoming bears a crop 
 
 Of woe, and reaps a harvest of despair. 
 7 
 
98 NEMESIS IN GREEK TRAGEDY. 
 
 Jove is chastiser of high-vaunting thoughts. 
 And heavily falls his judgment on the proud." 
 
 Another scene, and the final one, brings to a 
 climax this solemn unfolding of the divine Neme- 
 sis. Xerxes himself enters, — a lonely fugitive, 
 bemoaning his fate; his regal robes rent, his voice 
 raised in agonizing wail over himself and his coun- 
 try, for whose loss and misery he is to blame. 
 Instead of triumphal shouts, we hear these wail- 
 ings of woe over the brave whose dead bodies are 
 washing up against the rocky cliffs of Greece, or 
 strewing its shores. The god on earth is trampled 
 in the dust; the god in heaven alone rules. The 
 chorus tears off its venerable beard, tears off its 
 folded robe, and with reiterated exclamations of 
 woeful lament, mingling its tears and wails with 
 those of the humiliated, weeping king, leaves in 
 solemn file the desolate stage. 
 
 How simple the means, how effective the results 
 of this ancient lyric tragedy ! For actors, a few aged 
 men as a chorus, a messenger, a widowed queen, a 
 ghostly shade from the tomb, a fugitive king. But 
 sit there with the Athenian upon his bench; see 
 with his eyes, and hear with his- ears. Listen to 
 the first distant thunder of mournful presentiment, 
 until the tempest bursts forth, and sky and earth are 
 enveloped in one sheet of elemental flame. Only 
 thus can one even faintly appreciate the effect of 
 such an acted poem of the divine Nemesis, with 
 all the accessories of fitting music and stately 
 dance, shrill cries and piercing strains of souls 
 
NEMESIS IN GREEK TRAGEDY. 99 
 
 abandoned to utmost sorrow, heads bare and bowed 
 down over torn bosoms, with streaming tears and 
 tottering steps, in the royal palace of the proud 
 monarch of all those vast realms of unimaginable 
 magnificence : truly a divine lesson, which left no 
 room for unseemly ebullition of personal exulta- 
 tion, for no overweening pride of victory. There 
 was the divine verdict against inordinate human 
 vanity and a too towering prosperity. There was 
 the warning, full of solemnity and pathos, to those 
 who should despise the great laws of equal justice 
 and of divine moderation : — 
 
 " Let no man, in his scorn of present fortune 
 And thirst for other, mar his good estate ; 
 Zeus is the avenger of o'erlofty thoughts, 
 A strict investigator." 
 
 But this grand national panorama is an excep- 
 tional subject in iEschylus. More in accordance 
 with the mythologic themes generally treated is 
 the "Oresteia," — that tale of fearful crime and 
 its retribution ; of the fury-driven avenger fleeing 
 from the altar, and of that merciful wisdom which 
 at last, with its sovereign grace, acquits the offen- 
 der and appeases the angry and avenging deities. 
 It is an exhibition terrible in its simplicity of an 
 avenging, implacable outside force which will not 
 let the offender rest quiet in his offence. The di- 
 alogue, the chorus, the entire action, conspire to 
 unfold the ideal germs of even-handed justice 
 contained in the shadowy and frowning myths of 
 
lOO NEMESIS IN GREEK TRAGEDY. 
 
 historic tradition. The furies of the father are 
 appeased only to awaken the more savage furies 
 of the mother against the son who had shed her 
 blood. In vain does Orestes appeal to the All- 
 seeing Sun to witness that he has justly stained 
 his hand in a mother's blood. He is not at peace; 
 he sees in the background the Furies with awful 
 faces, black garments, and terrible mien, with hair 
 of writhing snakes and scorpion whips, howling 
 for their prey. To the chorus it is but a vain 
 phantom, but to him they are " substantial horrors, 
 the infernal hounds " sent from his mother. They 
 swarm around him, they hunt him forth, and not 
 even at Loxias' altar can he be at rest. Only the se- 
 rene Goddess of Wisdom can give the casting vote 
 which releases him from the maddening avengers. 
 
 Here we have, in a series of connected tableaux, 
 the delineation of that process by which a right- 
 eous Nemesis secures its ends. 
 
 With Sophocles there are the same main inci- 
 dents of the story; but when Orestes avenges his 
 father's death he does a righteous act, which Apollo 
 has commanded and approves of, and the work of 
 Nemesis is completed. Brother and sister have 
 acted under the inspiration and guidance of Apollo, 
 the God of 'Light, the purifier, cleanser, and de- 
 stroyer of noxious things. The rays of the morn- 
 ing sun shine upon the righteous attempt, and the 
 chorus exults at the close that the descendants of 
 Atreus have, by its successful accomplishment, 
 wrought out their freedom. 
 
NEMESIS IN GREEK TRAGEDY. lOI 
 
 The presence of a divine force of Justice accom- 
 plishing its ends is everywhere confessed, though 
 no visible Furies scourge the offender; and in 
 one place there is the rare but curious mention 
 of Nemesis by name. The vile yEgisthus, seeing 
 the covered dead body of the queen, exults over 
 it, thinking that it is Orestes who has perished; 
 and he dares to say that it was through the dis- 
 pleasure of the gods. But even his hardened and 
 perverse soul is struck by the enormity of such an 
 assertion, and he hastens to add, " But if Nemesis 
 is listening, I recall my words." As if words, 
 winged with the thought, could ever be recalled! 
 No! Nemesis is by; Nemfesis is listening; Nemesis 
 is swifter than the word. The next moment he 
 exultingly strips off the covering, and knows his 
 doom. 
 
 Throughout all the dramas of ^schylus there is 
 the same central principle. In the " Seven against 
 Thebes," from the first stormy appeal to arms, 
 and the rebuke by Eteocles of the maiden cho- 
 rus, which humbly craves the help of protecting 
 and loving Powers ; his throwing to the winds all 
 counsels of prudence and moderation; his head- 
 long rashness, which cries out, — 
 
 " Since God so hotly urges on the thing, 
 Let all of Laios' race, whom Phoebus hates, 
 Drive with the wind upon Cokytos' wave ; " 
 
 his defiance of "the fierce and hot curse of CEdi- 
 pus," and of the gods who scorned his house of old, 
 and of the warning not to hurry to shed a brother's 
 
I02 NEMESIS IN GREEK TRAGEDY. 
 
 blood, — he rushes onward to slay and be slain, 
 to make good the blind father's curse, and lie 
 beneath — 
 
 " A boundless wealth of earth." 
 
 In the " Suppliants " the appeal is to revere the 
 friend of the suppliant, the guardian of the suf- 
 fering, stranger guest; to honor the daughter of 
 Zeus, — Dice, or apportioning Justice, whose wrath 
 cannot be appeased. The prayer to Zeus, the 
 possessor of blessedness, is to be free from v0pi<!, 
 or wanton arrogance, that pride which he sorely 
 hates. Upon this excess, destruction always waits. 
 
 Of the "Prometheus Bound," the only untreated 
 extant drama by ^schylus, it is impossible to say 
 what was the way in which the divine Nemesis 
 was unfolded. It is but a fragment, one of three 
 acts; and in this act Prometheus tells his own 
 story, and gives his own version of what he did 
 and why he suffered. He justifies himself, and 
 hurls defiance against his seemingly unjustifiable 
 oppressor. But the sympathizing chorus, which 
 yet elects to share his fate, hints at that audacious 
 recklessness which can never go unpunished, and 
 sings of that " harmony of Zeus " which can never 
 be disturbed by the vain counsel of mortal men. 
 Therefore it is impossible to believe that ^schylus 
 meant to represent, as Shelley says, Prometheus 
 to be "the type of the highest perfection of moral 
 and intellectual nature, impelled by the purest and 
 the truest motives to the best and noblest ends. " 
 
NEMESIS IN GREEK TRAGEDY. 103 
 
 All that we know of iEschylus forbids the supposi- 
 tion that he left, as the resultant impression of the 
 entire Trilogy, the feeling upon the ininds of the 
 spectators that Zeus was " the successful and per- 
 fidious adversary" of man and of man's champion. 
 Had they so understood the poet, they would have 
 stoned him on the spot. Such a view would have 
 been fatal to that ethical truth embodied in the 
 idea of Nemesis. The oppressive tyrant would 
 then have gone unscathed ; the Head of the Uni- 
 verse would have triumphed over its righteous 
 laws. No, it could have been no "feeble" recon- 
 ciliation which the poet brought about ; in it the 
 sovereign righteousness must have triumphed in 
 a way to satisfy the higher demands of a purely 
 moral consciousness. Even the self-will of the 
 mightiest Titan must be brought into harmony 
 with the order of the universe. 
 
 When .^schylus began his career as a dramatic 
 poet the superhuman, gigantic figures of the mytho- 
 logic age had not attained a human and every-day 
 form. He seizes upon a few simple, grand out- 
 lines, and with bold, unerring stroke depicts them 
 to the eye, without stopping to assign motives, to 
 reconcile inconsistencies, to multiply or explain 
 details. He deals with colossal figures, vast 
 masses of light and shade, and throws the light 
 of divine truths upon man from the outside with 
 a lens of demonic and prophetic power. 
 . But Sophocles — and ^Eschylus himself before 
 his death — began to use a finer art ; to discrimi- 
 
I04 NEMESIS IN GREEK TRAGEDY. 
 
 nate more nicely as to motive, impulse, purpose, and 
 character. This was in the natural course of dra- 
 matic evolution, as the epic and the lyric elements 
 became fused together into a higher synthetic 
 form. It was also in accordance with the politi- 
 cal and social development of Athens, where every- 
 thing was full of life, everything changing and 
 interworking to new issues and fresh solutions 
 of the eternal problems of morals and religion. 
 
 In Sophocles the harmonious, serene, all-recon- 
 ciling character of his poetry was the natural ex- 
 pression of the harmonious and serene, character 
 of the man. In his view no excess, no morbid con- 
 test of passions, no eccentric outburst of moods, 
 confused the rhythm of that eternal law which was 
 not outside but inside the soul of man. Antigone 
 can calmly violate the highest human authority, 
 but cannot sin against the supreme mandate of her 
 own soul. She can resign every earthly joy, she 
 can die : " to please the living is for a moment, to 
 please the dead is forever." Sophocles never pa- 
 rades the internal contests of the soul in order to 
 attain some sensational end; he unfolds them only 
 so far as is necessary for the attainment of purifi- 
 cation and repose. With him health must come 
 from elevation into a purer air; peace, from the 
 resolution of elemental discords into a central 
 harmony. The law in man punishes pride, re- 
 strains arrogance, discloses guilt, — that eternal 
 law "which no mortal established, and which no 
 old age can impair." The Furies themselves are 
 
NEMESIS IN GREEK TRAGEDY. 105 
 
 lulled to sleep by his song. Like .^schylus, he 
 was penetrated through and through with the 
 sacred character of his work; so that Landor is 
 right when he makes him say of himself : " I am 
 only the interpreter of the heroes and divinities 
 who are looking down upon me." 
 
 Nothing can be more misleading than the at- 
 tempt to make characterization a prominent fea- 
 ture of the Greek drama, as it is undoubtedly of 
 Shakspeare's plays. In .(Eschylus and Sophocles 
 there is no depicting of various and manifold traits 
 with delicate and subtile shadings of motive, im- 
 pulse, and tendency. The individualities are strong 
 and pure; but they are not real flesh and blood, 
 changing with the changing breeze and tinged with 
 varying hues, as the fresh life-current, welling up 
 from the heart, retards or quickens the pulse and 
 sends a passing cloud or sunlight over the coun- 
 tenance. They are not forms subject to every 
 skyey influence, whose real feelings, moods, and 
 purposes are subjects to speculate about, like 
 those of any actual, living person whose character 
 assumes a different aspect according to the differ- 
 ent point of view. The personages are plastic 
 forms, expressing a few definite, well-defined quali- 
 ties simply and directly, in accordance with the 
 simplicity and directness of the time. Schiller 
 said: "It seems to me that the characters of 
 Greek tragedy are more or less ideal masks, and 
 not individual persons." But their real nature 
 is more clearly designated by Hegel, who says: 
 
I06 NEMESIS IN GREEK TRAGEDY. 
 
 " The personages are neither what we in the mod- 
 ern sense term characters, nor are they pure 
 abstractions; but they stand between these two 
 extremes, — firm figures, which are just what they 
 are, and nothing else, without any internal colli- 
 sion, and without any mingling of conflicting ele- 
 ments ; absolutely determined characters based upon 
 some definite and simple moral state." That is, 
 there is individual character, but all forces are 
 excluded except those which work in a straight 
 line; and therefore no higher calculus is needed 
 to determine the direction and movement of the 
 impinging objects. There are no infinite grada- 
 tions of guilt and mental suffering, of waverings 
 and conflicts of purpose, of infirmities of resolve, 
 of gradual hardening of conscience and obscuration 
 of the inner light. Our interest is not that of an 
 overpowering personal sympathy, our judgment not 
 distracted by various and complex views of life and 
 conduct. In the modern drama there is the free 
 play of individual states, feelings, idiosyncrasies 
 of mood and temperament, personal traits and com- 
 plex situations, with new combinations springing 
 from the action and reaction of colliding views of 
 life and duty. The ancient heroes and heroines 
 go straight to the goal, and are but little affected 
 by the currents and counter-currents proceeding 
 from varying humors and interjected side-inter- 
 ests of a large number of dramatic personages. 
 
 Now, it is because of this varied and complex 
 nature of Shakspeare's dramas, because he works 
 
NEMESIS IN- GREEK TRAGEDY. 107 
 
 out his results from so many different foci, be- 
 cause he never expresses in didactic form the 
 great moral lessons at the heart of his mimic rep- 
 resentation, — it is because of these things that the 
 reality of a conception of retributive justice as a 
 central idea is denied to his tragedy. Even J. A. 
 Symonds makes this assertion. But he accounts 
 for it by assigning as a reason the " continued treat- 
 ment of one class of subjects, — namely, the mytho- 
 logical, which remarkably exhibited the working of 
 a retributive justice." Yet how can this be, when, 
 with this "continued treatment" the idea almost 
 disappears from Greek tragedy, and is to be found 
 most vividly presented in .^schylus himself, the- 
 earliest of the tragic poets ? In Euripides, the last 
 of the mighty three, the idea has almost faded out, 
 and passionate caprice, intense subjective tenden- 
 cies, dominate the entire treatment of the material. 
 In his presentation of the well-worn, threadbare 
 subjects there is the romantic abandonment to 
 impulse and wayward feeling, keen psychological 
 analysis, eloquent dissertation, and beautiful simple 
 narration; but there is no sureness of eternal vision 
 and no instinctive fidelity to those spiritual laws 
 which made the very warp and woof of the being of 
 .(Eschylus, as they did of the ancestral myths. No ! 
 it was the genius of ./Eschylus that sculptured out 
 of this marble quarry those forms of transcendent 
 justice, and gave to the popular consciousness 
 those awful gods who, "not of to-day or yester- 
 day," have ruled the world. 
 
V. 
 
 THE POPE IN "THE RING AND 
 THE BOOK." 
 
 The old Pope, trembling on the verge of the grave, 
 has waded through all the dreary documents on that 
 dreary winter's day. Some of them are dreary 
 enough, even after they have been shaped into what 
 the poet fancies is a ring ; but what must they have 
 been in the rough? Innocent XII. has read them 
 all through; and what next.' He will look to the 
 history of his predecessors, so that he may take 
 instruction from them, and haply get some prece- 
 dent in the case. The Persian king, Artaxerxes or 
 Ahasuerus, made search in the book of records of 
 his fathers, and finding evidence enough of the re- 
 bellious spirit of Jerusalem, decreed that a stop 
 should be put to the rebuilding of its walls. So 
 the Pope would find in the history of his predeces- 
 sors some light to guide him in the decision he was 
 to make as the last court of appeal, whether Guido 
 Franceschini and his accomplices should be snatched 
 from death. 
 
 In searching thus to see what God had gained 
 or lost by having a vicar or representative in the 
 world, the good Pope comes across a curious pre- 
 cedent, not very well adapted to make him confi- 
 
THE POPE IN " THE RING AND THE BOOK." 1 09 
 
 dent in his own judgment, or secure in his own 
 infallibility as Pope, and-voice of the unchange- 
 ble One. He finds a ghastly decree against Pope 
 Formosus after he was dead and buried ; then dug 
 up and seated in Saint Peter's chair; then con- 
 demned, and the corpse cast into the Tiber; then 
 next year the sentence reversed, and the Pope re- 
 poped, and his condemner pronounced accursed; 
 then this judgment condemned, and Formosus 
 again cast out; then, lastly, the final sentence 
 given, Formosus decreed a holy man, and all his 
 dignities restored. Which of all these was the in- 
 fallible decree.' In which did God speak.' Truly, 
 a puzzling conundrum to the anxious seeker after 
 historical precedent. 
 
 But the Pope gets what is better than any literal 
 example or direct precept: he gets inspiration, 
 courage, light. He sees that the old Formosus 
 condemned, absolved, condemned and absolved 
 again, was no wise affected in reality by all the 
 varied processes of embalming, dislocation, de- 
 vouring by fishes, miraculous restorations, and 
 final reinstatement as a corpse in good standing, 
 as, a Pope of immaculate fame. Not all these con- 
 demnations could touch the soul of the man. 
 Courage, then, and stand by thy soul, now when 
 thine own turn has come to give judgment ! Now, 
 he. Pope Innocent, is to speak in God's name; to 
 speak the word which is to push "a poor, weak, 
 trembling, human wretch" over the edge into "the 
 awful dark," or to hold out the hand and draw him 
 
no THE POPE IN 
 
 back. It is winter outside : it is yet more sombre 
 winter in the Pope's soul, as the darkness of even- 
 ing shuts from sight the dismal documents. But 
 his course is clear; his mind is made up; he has, 
 no irresolution. Yet he pauses before he rings 
 the hand-bell and makes known his irrevocable 
 sentence. Why.? Because he may be fallible in 
 his judgment.' Or does he fall back upon his 
 infallibility as God's vicegerent, as sitting in 
 Christ's seat.' Never this plea from first to last. 
 He is a man, and as a man may possibly err. 
 But if he err, it is in ignorance; and that is "his 
 sorrow, not his sin." 
 
 No morbidness of conscience is in; the sound- 
 hearted old man, though he is an ecclesiastic; he 
 makes strenuous use of all the faculty God has 
 given him, and not God himself can ask more. 
 God judges by the intent and not by the out- 
 ward act; God knows the integrity of his heart, 
 and therefore he has no fear at all. It may be the 
 last act of his trembling eighty-six years; but in 
 that last act will be tasted the true product of his 
 heart and soul. The method of judgment taken, 
 the tribunal appealed to by this soul laden with 
 "the cark and care" of the whole world is the 
 pivotal thing so far as the Pope is concerned. It 
 is, in fact, a practical commentary on these words 
 of Emerson : — 
 
 " Whoever looks with heed into his thoughts will find 
 there is somebody within him that knows more than he 
 does, — a simple wisdom behind all acquired wisdom ; some- 
 
"THE RING AND THE BOOK:' III 
 
 thing not educated or educaWe, not altered or alterable ; 
 a mother-wit, which does not learn by experience or by 
 books, but knew it all already ; makes no progress, but was 
 wise in youth as in ag^. More or less clouded, it yet re- 
 sides the same in all, — saying ay, ay ! or no, no ! to every 
 proposition. Its justice is perfect ; its look is catholic 
 and universal, its light ubiquitous like the sun." 
 
 Now, who is this somebody within him that 
 knows more than the aged Pope with all his apos- 
 tolic functions, more than the vicar of Christ with 
 all his outpoured spiritual illumination? It is to 
 his "ancient self," plain Antonio Pignatelli, as 
 was his name before he was Pope, that he will 
 state the reasons why he finds Guido reprobate, 
 and not to be saved from the clutches of the law : 
 
 *' Wherefore, Antonio Pignatelli, thou, 
 Mine ancient self, who wast no Pope so long, 
 But studied God and man the many years 
 r the school, i' the cloister, in the diocese 
 Domestic, legate-rule in foreign lands, — 
 Thou other force in those old busy days 
 Than this gray ultimate decrepitude, — 
 
 Thou, not Pope, but the mere old man o' the world, 
 Supposed inquisitive and dispassionate, — 
 Wilt thou, the one whose speech I somewhat trust. 
 Question the after-me, this self now Pope, 
 Hear his procedure, criticise his work ? " 
 
 Here, verily, is the appeal from Philip drunk to 
 Philip sober; from representative Pope to the 
 manly self before Pope was thought of! With 
 
112 THE POPE IN 
 
 this electric light steadily burning, far-flashing 
 its beams into every dark corner, every foggy 
 nook, every cobwebbed hole, he brings out trick- 
 ster and vermin, wolf and fox, forger and coward, 
 fool and murderer, — all in one. So also is re- 
 vealed that choice flower of earth, that blossom 
 " gathered for the breast of God " : — 
 
 " See how this mere chance-sown, cleft-nursed seed. 
 That sprang up by the wayside, 'neath the foot 
 Of the enemy, — this breaks all into blaze, 
 Spreads itself, one wide glory of desire 
 To incorporate the whole great sun it loves, 
 From the inch-height whence it looks and longs." 
 
 Then what a humanly smile sweeps across the 
 rigid papal mask, as the good soul calls up the 
 vision of the masquerading Caponsacchi, stripped 
 of all his conventional priestly clothing, and leap- 
 ing at the first call into the arena to fight for God ! 
 What clear insight, on this basis of a purely human 
 touch, in separating the apparent from the real, the 
 surface from the substance! Yet at last comes 
 the doubt whether this light may not be from a 
 coal blown bright by his own breath, and not be at 
 all the light of the upper sky ! Instead of a celes- 
 tial star there may be only a burning coal ! 
 
 A quick, cold thrill creeps over him, and his 
 tense nerve slackens at the doubt. Why not face 
 it, and look for that higher light from which his 
 own little spark of intelligence is drawn? How- 
 ever little, this mind of man is in its degree the 
 representative, "though but an atom -width," of 
 
"THE RING AND THE BOOK." 1 13 
 
 the measureless intelligence. However small this 
 earth, it became among all the peopled stars the 
 stage for that transcendent act of self-sacrificing 
 love, which makes the seeming deficiency of good- 
 ness in the work of God equal to the manifest 
 intelligence and strength. He believes in this 
 divine story of unlimited self-sacrifice, and finds 
 nothing lacking of " perfection fit for God." All 
 the pain of life is meant to bring out the moral 
 qualities of man, to make him loving and pure, 
 and to form the moral sense which grows by ex- 
 ercise. Man is to make a fairer world than he 
 finds here; and so Pompilia is not lost, and Guido 
 may be saved in that large life which awaits those 
 who pass out of this small world. This earth is 
 but the starting-point, not the goal. 
 
 But this thought terrifies him, that those who 
 profess to know the worth of the priceless pearl 
 dredge only for whelks and mud- worms, — as the 
 archbishop, the bare-foot monk, the Convertites, 
 the women meant to help women, who yet for 
 a little expected inheritance slander the sainted 
 mother and would rob her child. Is this the out- 
 come of " seventeen hundred years since God died 
 for man " ? 
 
 Then, further, it forces itself upon him that 
 love and faith leap forl;Ji to-day, not under the 
 authority of the Church, but at the call of purely 
 human instinct. The Christians, — into what cor- 
 ners have they slunk? But the light will still 
 burn. The clouds are sun-suffused, their soft 
 
 8 
 
114 "^^^ POPE IN 
 
 streaks are beautiful ; and that which seems weak- 
 ness is but the incentive to humanity ; so that the 
 divine act of self-sacrifice, never ending, always 
 begins for man. Then all is light. 
 
 " So does the sun ghastlily seem to sink 
 In those north parts, lean all but out of life, 
 Desist a dread mere breathing-stop ; then slow 
 Reassert day, begin the endless rise." 
 
 The old Christian heroism, he thinks, is impos- 
 sible, perhaps, because there is such an ignoble 
 confidence and cowardly assurance in the truth as 
 being already won. 
 
 But what vision rises before him } He sees the 
 dawning of that terrible eighteenth century, whose 
 mission it is to shake all the pillars of assured 
 faith, to shake that belief in the report which has 
 been substituted for belief in the thing that was 
 reported, and to correct the old portrait, "the 
 man's God by the God's God in the mjnd of 
 man." Ah, what a morris-dance for the selfish- 
 ness, the greed, the passions of men! 
 
 But he will smite with all his strength, in spite 
 of the pleas to a sense of honor and an educated 
 taste; to privilege of the clergy and interests of 
 the Church; to claims of culture and civilization; 
 to the necessity of the husband's supremacy over 
 the wife; to the appeal for him to spare his own 
 closing life this bloody setting, and to spare the 
 Church from incoming Luthers, Calvins, and Mo- 
 linos; to win the benedictions of the city. In 
 spite of all, he gives the order for the execution 
 
" THE RING AND THE BOOK." 1 1 5 
 
 of the criminals in the most public place, — the 
 People's Square. The very suddenness of the fate 
 may save the murderer's soul; for, he says, — 
 
 " I stood at Naples once, a night so dark 
 I could have scarce conjectured there was earth 
 Anywhere, sky or sea, or world at all : 
 But the nighf s black was burst through by a blaze ; 
 Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore 
 Through her whole length of mountain visible. 
 There lay the city thick and plain with spires. 
 And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea. 
 So tnay the truth be flashed out by one blow. 
 And Guido see, one instant, and be saved." 
 
 Wonderful Pope ! whose natural force and whose 
 true instinct the Augustinian monk, in his sermon, 
 may well call a miracle. It would be indeed a 
 miracle to have such a Pope; for it would put the 
 good Innocent of the seventeenth century in the 
 poetic chair of the stalwart leader of the spiritual 
 thought of the nineteenth century. No Pope that 
 ever yet gaVe the papal benediction would thus 
 have threaded the maze of theological vaticination. 
 No twelfth Innocent has here contributed his quota 
 to that golden ring, though to say so is to deny 
 the claim of dramatic transpositidn. But it is the 
 genuine Robert Browning who has sat on the papal 
 throne, and laid down a precedent which, I am 
 afraid, the infallible successor of Saint Peter will 
 be very sure not to follow. 
 
VI. 
 
 BROWNING'S "IN A BALCONY." 
 
 " Now ! " " Not now ! " So ring in staccato tones 
 the plea and its denial. The man aspires "to live 
 in harmony with truth ; " the woman fears that the 
 open truth will be their ruin. Why cannot the 
 present life of stolen interviews, of secret confi- 
 dences, which neither queen nor court suspects, be 
 continued.' The woman — politic, afraid of meet- 
 ing the direct consequences of open avowal — be- 
 comes the adroit casuist, the convincing pleader 
 for indirection, and for averting the manly avowal 
 of their mutual love. The forecasting prudence 
 offers a compromise, and that compromise is 
 reluctantly assented to by the lover. 
 
 Evidently we have here an utterance different 
 from that which came from another moon-lit bal- 
 cony, where the loving heart expresses itself in the 
 words, — 
 
 " And all my fortunes at thy feet I '11 lay, 
 And follow thee, my lord, throughout the world." 
 
 Yet here, too, in this dramatic sketch by the 
 great poet, we do have a love-tragedy, — tragedy 
 in every sense. A tragedy is something more than 
 
BROWNING'S "IN A BALCONY." 1 17 
 
 a fatal result, a death, an inevitable stroke from 
 the outside. Death comes to all, but we do not 
 therefore call it a tragedy, whether accidental or 
 necessary. Disappointment, thwarting of highest 
 purpose, wreck upon some lee-shore, may be tragic 
 enough ; but the simple happening of these events, 
 though accompanied by untold sufferings and an- 
 guish, does not of itself constitute a tragedy in the 
 true sense of the word. In a tragedy the real ele- 
 ment of pathos and terror is from within and not 
 from without : it is the collision which comes 
 from moral opposites, from irreconcilable ideals, 
 from conflicting forces inside the soul, from the 
 destroying tempest rushing by inevitable laws out 
 of that quarter which had been looked to as the 
 very source of peaceful serenity. As the end of 
 all their joyous ecstasy of love, their hopeful 
 schemes, their plausible plans for outwitting the 
 conventional pressure all around them, Romeo and 
 Juliet find the world in which they are to dwell as 
 small as the boundaries of "one little grave." The 
 headlong rush of a love irrespective of time and 
 sense and earthly limitations, bore within itself 
 the very causes that bring about the fatal end. 
 
 In the fragment before us, the collision comes 
 from the opposite poles of that electric current 
 which streams through all the parallel and cross- 
 ing wires of the human soul and human life. 
 
 " 'T is dangerous when the baser nature comes 
 Between the pass and fall incensed points 
 Of mighty opposites." 
 
Il8 BROWNING^S " m A BALCONY." 
 
 Love would have its own, but would have it in a, 
 circuitous way, — stretching a new wire, crossing 
 and interlacing the network of wires that already 
 existed in the actual life. The man saw clearly 
 enough the right thing to be done, when he 
 says, — 
 
 " Truth is the strong thing. Let man's life be true ! 
 And love 's the truth of mine : time prove the rest." 
 
 In the light and warmth of this love he would live 
 and work, no longer hiding in corners and steals 
 ing caresses in the dark, but living a manly, open, 
 blessed life, in which all should see, and all give 
 due acknowledgment of, the source from which 
 that life was supplied: — 
 
 " I choose to have^«>« stamped all over me, — 
 Your name upon my forehead and my breast, —i- 
 You, from the sword's blade to the ribbon's edge, 
 That men may see, all over, you in me ; 
 That pale loves may die out of their pretence 
 In face of mine ; shames thrown on love fall off. 
 Permit this, Constance ! " 
 
 Does she permit it.' No; she even misinterprets 
 his noble longing; she thinks he is fretting be- 
 cause she is not yet wholly his own ; he is " stum- 
 bling at a straw," when he will risk all to gain 
 the world's cognizance, — 
 
 " How he loves her, and how she worships him." 
 
 Thus she would have Norbert play a false part, — 
 "not very false, as courtiers go," but still false, — 
 and tell the queen, whose tenderness seemed all 
 
BROWNING'S "IN A BALCONY." II9 
 
 starved out, that he had done the great services 
 he had rendered out of devotion to her ; and to ask 
 for the hand of her cousin as being the nearest 
 thing to her, — a ribbon valued because she had 
 worn and breathed upon it; and Norbert re- 
 presses his own convictions of what is highest 
 and best, adopts the policy of flattery and white 
 lies, and so uncoils the wire which will convey 
 safely the intensified electric current if the wire 
 remain unbroken and come in contact with no 
 other conductor. 
 
 That tragic if! The wire does fall upon some 
 other crossing wires, and they who have grasped 
 it in their hands writhe disfigured and lifeless 
 under its touch. This queen, whose tenderness 
 Constance thought was all starved out; this cold, 
 marble-encased soul ; this proud thing of state and 
 ceremony, who will be content with the mere name 
 and echo of love, — is not so cold and shadowy after 
 all. And nowhere is the Sophoclean tragic irony 
 better exhibited than in the case of Constance in 
 the Second Part. She stands there waiting for 
 her lover to return, — her lover, who had adopted 
 her way, who had given up his own chosen plan, 
 and become in everything subject to her as he had 
 been to the queen; and instead of him the queen 
 herself, — the supposed stately, icy, buckram shadow 
 of a withered and deformed existence, — bursts in 
 with every nerve trembling, every organ and mus- 
 cle alive, her eyes flashing, her tongue quivering 
 with the confession of lier own love, the fulness 
 
I20 BROWNING'S "IN A BALCONY." 
 
 of her own rejoicing in the unhoped-for issue! 
 The almost paralyzed maiden hears the queen's 
 exulting proclamation that she will brush away 
 all obstacles, retrieve her calamitous youth, and 
 become the wife of the young hero of her dearest 
 dreams. The poor girl drains the cup to its dregs. 
 She had counselled that Norbert should speak of 
 her as but the reflex of the queen, and is taken at 
 her word. "I'll come to you for counsel," says 
 the queen. 
 
 " This he says, 
 This he does ; what should this amount to, pray ?' 
 Beseech you, change it into current coin. 
 Is that worth kisses ? Shall I please him there ? " 
 
 Furthermore, Constance is to be permitted to 
 choose some one whom she may love and marry. 
 It is, indeed, an unlooked-for catastrophe, a sudden 
 overcasting of the smiling sky. 
 
 Perhaps a yet more effective instance of dra- 
 matic irony is that presented in the Third Part, 
 when the queen, in the very noon and flood-tide 
 of her ecstatic joyfulness, is overwhelmed by the 
 calamity that no courage can overcome and no 
 consolation can cheer. She had gone out, feeling 
 that she lived in a changed world which God's 
 smile had blessed, where everything was made for 
 happiness, and the love-lit future was all before 
 her in which to redeem the past. She had had 
 dreams of bliss; but this was as different — 
 
 " As these stone statues from the flesh and blood." 
 
BROWNING'S "IN A BALCONY." 121 
 
 Her last word as she looked at " the blessed moon " 
 of Romeo, "the inconstant moon" of Juliet, was, 
 
 " The comfort thou hast caused mankind, God's moon ! " 
 
 Now, however, she returns to find the lovers in 
 each other's arms. 
 
 But the resolute, self-composed Constance is not 
 wholly thrown off her balance ; what the queen has 
 seen is all nothing but the performance of a part 
 as her reflex, her helper to love, and on Norbert's 
 part a fitting exercise of his gratitude to the queen. 
 She is thus self-possessed and strong, because the 
 highest motive has now gained full possession of 
 her soul. If human acting can accomplish it, all 
 these cross purposes shall work to bring about the 
 queen's desired ends. Constance will sacrifice 
 herself; and she explains the sudden starting away 
 of Norbert as a rude repulse, as if he said, " There, 
 now, I 've had enough of you ! " The kiss was but 
 the thanks given to the tool he had employed, and 
 now threw away, — "a first, as well as what was 
 to be the last, kiss." Turning to the queen, she 
 bids her take him with her own full consent. Nor- 
 bert, looking upon it as a poorly played jest, asks 
 the queen to give him his reward, — meaning the 
 hand of Constance. The poor queen, still in the 
 meshes of her delusive dream, confesses all her 
 love, and offers herself to Norbert. He cannot' 
 understand what seems only a horrible jest, and 
 throws himself at the feet of Constance, saying, — 
 
122 BROWNING'S "IN A BALCONY." 
 
 " Now you know 
 That body and soul have each one life, but one : 
 And here 's my love, here, living at your feet." 
 
 The queen is silent, but we see her there grasp- 
 ing fiercely the balcony, "glaring with panther's 
 eyes" at Constance, who in her turn succumbs 
 and glares back again. Now Norbert understands, 
 and says : — 
 
 " Was it your love's mad trial to o'ertop 
 Mine by this vain self-sacrifice ? WeU, still 
 Though I should curse, I love you. I am love, 
 And cannot change ! Love's self is at your feet ! " 
 
 The queen retires, as well she may. The lovers 
 now find each other out, and in the joyfulness of 
 perfect trust await the coming of the guard to 
 stamp upon their love the black seal of death. 
 
 At last the swan-song of love, here as it is not 
 always, is, — 
 
 " And all my fortunes at thy feet I '11 lay. 
 And follow thee, my lord, throughout eternity. " 
 
 Or, as Constance expresses it, we are here "oji 
 the breast of God." 
 
 But the Philistine asks for the moral of it all. 
 Well, he may surely see that to bring about exter- 
 nal success it is not best always to go cunningly 
 to work, inasmuch as truth is the sure thing, the 
 strong thing, in this universe of God. Constance 
 was false to love ; for she could imagine, one mo- 
 ment at least, her lover to be so base as to give his 
 
BROWNING'S "IN A BALCONY." 1 23 
 
 hand for a crown, and barter her away for any liv- 
 ing thing. Norbert was false to his own clearly- 
 seen, noblest ideal of manliness and truth; and 
 between "the fell, incensed points of mighty op- 
 posites" both must be consumed. Constance has 
 brought about the very ruin which she feared her 
 lover would effect by his straightforward " now. " 
 
 But is this the final result? Is this all that 
 comes of their struggle in the flesh, their human 
 contact, and their mutual aspiration ? 
 
 No, this is not all by any means. The ruin is 
 but the tearing down of the scaffolding, to show the 
 perfect proportions of the building within. What 
 matter now, as the unsightly structure falls, how 
 much labor was spent in gathering together its 
 beams and planks, in nailing fast its floors and 
 stagings? Down it all goes; for the building itself 
 is completed, and must greet the eyes of all. The 
 image used by our poet is that of the labyrinth: 
 why take account of the meanders, if the centre 
 has been reached? "The deep plots" have all 
 failed to accomplish a certain external result ; but 
 the want of wisdom which Constance thought was 
 the perfection of far-sightedness, and the "rash- 
 ness " of Norbert, which she would guard against 
 as ruin to their loves, have "served them well." 
 The "not now" of the one and the "now" of the 
 other have become resolvfed into a higher unity 
 than either had dreamed of. They are "past 
 harm " now, for they have attained that which per- 
 haps could not have been attained in any other 
 
124 BROWNING'S "IN A BALCONY." 
 
 way. She is now his; and that she never was 
 before. His love will never now decline into the 
 commonplace and vulgar life of "their five hun- 
 dred friends ; " for now they are melted together 
 in the divine heat of a furnace more than seven 
 times heated, and without and within and around 
 "it is one blaze," which no time and no human 
 chance can ever put out. You may call it ruin; 
 but it is only the ruin of the scaffolding, without 
 which the temple could not have, been built. You 
 may call it shipwreck; but the bark sinks only 
 "to float on another sea." 
 
 If we take Constance herself as the central fig- 
 ure, and name the entire action from her position 
 in its course of development, we should say, — 
 
 Part I. The false move in advance. 
 
 Part II. The surprise and almost total rout of 
 the advancing forces. 
 
 Part III. The calling up of the reserves, and 
 victory along the whole line. 
 
 What, the poet intended in the sketch we know 
 not, and, alas! can ndver know. He has passed 
 beyond our mortal sight, and no one can vex his 
 ghost to ask what he meant, what vision of human 
 faculty and human destiny he saw in the creations 
 of his poetic power. To him, no doubt, there was 
 a determined reality, though to us there may seem 
 something strained beyond the limits of every-day 
 life and common experience. To him it was the 
 portrayal of a soul-crisis, an acting out of supposed 
 destinies, — which, granting his analysis, and look- 
 
BROWNING'S "IN A BALCONY." 
 
 125 
 
 ing through his telescopic lens, appear to be the 
 onward tramp of forces that no human power can 
 resist. As the unfolding of such a special situa- 
 tion, not as a transcript of our every-day human 
 life, there is wonderful strength in almost every 
 line. 
 
 More real dramatic reproductiveness of emotion 
 and passion are here unfolded than in any of the 
 complete dramas. The dialogue is more inter- 
 woven as cause and effect, as an immediate re- 
 sponse to the thought, and as a revelation not 
 merely of what is thought at the moment, but of 
 what has been occupying the mind. The thought 
 is not stated as a categorical answer to questions 
 that are put and to speeches that are made; but 
 it takes on a more dramatic life than is found in 
 most of the literary dramas, full as they are of 
 thoughtful study to readers by themselves. He 
 called himself " Robert Browning, writer of plays ; " 
 but if that were all, he would not attain his right 
 place and his full power in the present and the 
 coming generations. Rather do we say, "Robert 
 Browning, who expressed himself in every line 
 that he wrote, whether lyric poem or dramatic 
 utterance; who saw under some poetic form the 
 mysteries that encompass our souls, and make us 
 bow down in reverence and in awe." 
 
VII. 
 
 THE GREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 
 
 Greek Comedy, as represented by Aristophanes, 
 was the unique production of democratic Athens. 
 It was an unbridled caricature of public and even 
 Jjrivate life, — an acted representation, in fact, of 
 the burlesque and satirical plates of "Punch" or 
 "Puck," when "Punch" and "Puck" are most 
 pointed and happy in their take-off of political 
 and social questions. Under the patronage of 
 the State, it was a part of the Bacchus cult, like 
 the lyric tragedy Of iEschylus and Sophocles. 
 Woman, of course, had no place in this broad and 
 free jesting at whatever ran counter to the politi- 
 cal, social, and personal view of the poet. Women, 
 however, do appear in one play, in which, disguised 
 as men, they get possession of the assembly, de- 
 cree all sorts of laws, and behave in a way that 
 would give comfort and satisfaction to the most 
 pronounced opponent of woman-suffrage at the 
 present day. As democracy declined, laws were 
 passed restricting in various ways the comic poet ; 
 and about the time of Alexander the Great ap- 
 peared what has sometimes been called genteel 
 comedy, or the comedy of manners and character. 
 
THE GREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 127 
 
 The Latin plays of Plautus and Terence are only 
 translations or adaptations of these earlier Greek 
 dramas. Debarred from its previous position as 
 public critic, political teacher, and exponent of 
 the national life, comedy lost its chorus, and was 
 restricted to individual manners, character, and 
 incidents. 
 
 This Comedy of Manners is best known to us 
 through Menander, although not a play of his re- 
 mains, and we become acquainted with him only 
 through critics, scholiasts, and fragmentary scenes 
 and quotations. He was first, as Leasing says,^ not 
 in point of time, but of excellence ; and the transi- 
 tion from the old comedy to the new was gradual 
 and almost imperceptible. This new comedy is 
 marked by the introduction of love as a leading 
 motif in the action and development of the plot. 
 But there is a very limited range of characters 
 and situations. The returned mercenary, with his 
 boastful words, lavish folly, and greedy appetites ; 
 the cunning slave and unprincipled courtesan ; the 
 female slave, with whom the young man falls in 
 love, who proves to be some well-born damsel ; the 
 unnecessary, indignant, or stupid parent, who is to 
 be cajoled, out-generaled, and finally reduced to a 
 willing or passive consent; the strange turns and 
 quirks of fortune and chance; the foolish spend- 
 thrift, the contemptible parasite, the wretched 
 miser, the indispensable cook and purveyor-gene- 
 ral to appetite, — these intrigued, crossed and re- 
 i Lessing: Dramaturgie, vol. ii. p. 173, note. 
 
128 THE GREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 
 
 crossed one another's path, and formed the general 
 stock in trade of comic writers. 
 
 In this later comedy chance plays the same part 
 as fate in tragedy; human follies are contemplated 
 from the ridiculous side, and nothing comes to a 
 serious and earnest issue. '' This comedy deals with 
 surface-appearances, not the solemn realities of life. 
 It is not a higher Nemesis with its thunder-bolt, 
 the bursting forth of forces long pent-up which 
 find their equilibrium in the darting electric spark. 
 It is the same element playing in auroral gleams 
 and broad sheets of harmless flashings across the 
 firmament. It is no crisis, or judgment-day, but 
 a pleasant tournament, or a market fair, where 
 the sudden shower determines no fate of contend'^ 
 ing arinies, but only dampens the mirth a little 
 and #ets some of the fine uniforms and gallant 
 plumes. 
 
 In Shakspeare we have both tragedy and comedy; 
 not only in separate dramas, but inextricably inter- 
 woven in the same scene, — just as it is in life, 
 where the sublime and the ridiculous, the severely 
 grand and the grotesque, tear and smile, primal 
 granite and tenderest flower, are found close to- 
 gether. Mr. Ruskin has so aptly spoken of this 
 characteristic, that I quote his words : — 
 
 "Shakspeare has been blamed by some few critical 
 asses for the raillery of Mercutio, and the humor of the 
 nurse in Romeo and Juliet; for the fool in. Lear; for 
 the porter in Macbeth ; for the grave- diggers in Hamlet, 
 etc.; because, it is said, these bits interrupt the tragic 
 
THE GREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 1 29 
 
 feeling. No such thing. They enhance it to an incal- 
 culable extent; they deepen its degree, though they di- 
 niinish its duration. And what is the result? That the 
 impression of the agony of the individuals brought before 
 us is far stronger than it could otherwise have been, and 
 our sympathies are more forcibly awakened; while had 
 the contrast been wanting, the impression of pain would 
 have come over into ourselves, and our selfish feelings 
 'instead of our sympathy would have been awakened, 
 the conception of the grief of others would have been 
 diminished, and the tragedy would have made us very 
 uncomfortable, but never have melted us to tears or ex- 
 cited us to indignation. When he whose merry and satiri- 
 cal laugh rang in our ears the moment before faints before 
 us with ' a plague o' both your houses ! they have made 
 worms' meat of me ! ' the acuteness of our feeling is ex- 
 cessive; but had we not heard the laugh before, there 
 would have been a dull weight of melancholy impression 
 which would have been painful, not affecting." 
 
 As the Grecian drama was a purely indigenous 
 product, it shows us most clearly the moral, social, 
 political, and religious character of the times. It 
 is a mirror faithfully reflecting the nature of the 
 period, if not Nature herself. In tragedy there 
 was the spirit of worship, ideal aspiration, the 
 embodiment of the national cultus, and its roots 
 were intertwined with the national life itself. As 
 the mythology became dissolved into clouds and 
 mists by the analysis of the philosopher, the trav- 
 esties of the comedian, and the indifference of 
 epicurean indulgence and luxurious sensuality, 
 
130 THE GREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 
 
 the grand ideal representation palled upon the 
 taste. The serious drama ceases to be pictur- 
 esque, symbolical, positive in its tone, and be- 
 comes subjective, analytical, and didactic. The 
 style approximates to prose, and is more like the 
 style of ordinary life. Comedy, too, passes through 
 the same transitions. When the gods are no lon- 
 ger believed in, they cease to be comic material. 
 Broad caricatures give place to nicer delineations 
 of character. The political drama, too, loses its 
 edge when politics are no longer the business of 
 the people. With popillar freedom, popular criti- 
 cism expires; and as public interest expiires, the 
 interest centres in the intricacy of the plot aiid 
 the representation of character. 
 
 Of the thousands of plays written by different 
 Greek authors of this school, none remains entire. 
 The best representative was Menander of whom 
 are found fragments in the criticisms of gramma- 
 rians, in collections of gnomic sayings, and in quo- 
 tations by ancient heathen and Christian writers. 
 No writer attained a greater circle of enthusias- 
 tic readers ; and according to the essay ascribed to 
 Plutarch comparing Aristophanes and Menander, no 
 dramatist was so frequently exhibited on the stage; 
 Plutarch contrasts the refined style of Menander 
 with what he calls " the blustering, mean, obscure, 
 turgid, strutting, prattling, and fooling style of 
 Aristophanes," whose personages, he says, "do not 
 express themselves according to character, stateli- 
 
THE GREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 131 
 
 ness in the prince, energy in the orator, meanness 
 of language in a low station, sauciness or pertness 
 in a tradesman," etc. Menander's style is, on the 
 contrary, "proportioned to every sex, condition, and 
 age." As if Aristophanes' drama were intended 
 to be one of character, man'iifers, or private life! 
 We might as well object to the pineapple because 
 it is not an orange. Yet as showing the opinion of 
 Menander held in the second century, when all his 
 plays were entire, this testimony is exceedingly 
 interesting. Plutarch says further: — 
 
 "Menander has shown himself sufficiently charming, 
 being the sole reading, topic, and discussion at theatres, 
 schools, and entertainments, his poetry being the most 
 imiversal ornament that was ever produced by Greece. 
 Eor what other reason should a man of learning and 
 talent frequent the theatre, except to hear Menander? 
 And when are the theatres better filled than when his 
 comedies are performed? And at. private entertainments 
 among friends, to whom do the meats and the drinks 
 more justly give place ? To philosophers also and hard 
 students Menander is a rest from their lecturing and 
 their thinking, and entertains their minds with pleasant 
 and cool meadows amidst the shade of trees and re- 
 freshing breezes." 
 
 The comedy of Menander must have been for 
 generations the best exponent of the moral and 
 social conditions of his time. In modern times 
 the nearest approximation to it is that of Moli^re 
 in France. It represents classes of characters 
 
132 THE GREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 
 
 rather than distinct individualities; types, and not 
 separate personalities. In Aristophanes, even, 
 who represents the old comedy, — a broad carica- 
 ture of manners, social tendencies, politics, and 
 contemporary men and events, — there is already 
 to be perceived after the parabasis and chorus are 
 forbidden, an attempt to delineate character. But 
 there was no room for any nice delineation or deli- 
 cate shading on his Canvas, covered as it was with 
 groups of massive forms. Everything was pictur- 
 esque, imaginative, fantastic, an acted series of 
 broadest caricatures, wherein the only limit was 
 that the very extreme of the ludicrous was reached, 
 and one could laugh no more. This end was at- 
 tained by dissolving all into a universal jest. With 
 the general spread of philosophic thought, however, 
 and the loss of interest in public affairs (that were 
 now managed for the people, and were wholly be- 
 yond their own interference), the intelligence and 
 social instincts of the rich and cultivated sought 
 occupation in seeing private life represented. Man 
 himself became interesting to man. The stage be- 
 came a school of manners and of every-day interest. 
 From the names given to some of the comedies 
 of Menander, we may see how cosmopolitan an ele- 
 ment had entered into Athenian life ; how vastly the 
 sphere of experience had widened. One is named 
 "The Ephesian," another "The Thessalian," an- 
 other "The Carthaginian," another "The Corin- 
 thian. " The human element was extended ; on the 
 stage once trodden solely by heroes and demigods 
 
THE GREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 133 
 
 now appeared plays named "The Fisherman," "The 
 Pilots," "The Husbandman," "The Shipmaster." 
 
 The grand ideals of tragedy were now out of 
 ^-pla^. What echo could the austere forms of self- 
 sacrifice, the heroic models of patriotism and reli- 
 gious faith find in that ennuyed and enslaved 
 community, whose greatest orator was Demetrius 
 Phalereus, and whose greatest philosopher was Epi- 
 curus? Instead of the intense heat of national 
 patriotism and traditional belief, there was a more 
 pervasive sentiment of humanity and interest in 
 man as an individual being. He appeared now, not 
 as the politician, the demagogue, the general, the 
 flatterer of the people, the public poet, and the phi- 
 losopher, but in the various forms that made up the 
 private life of the community. Youthful lovers, 
 old misers, boastful soldiers, parasites, flatterers, 
 women of pleasure, victims of fraud and supersti- 
 tion, dupers and their dupes, enemies and friends, 
 guardians and wards, — all these found voice and 
 fitting form in the comedy of Menander. 
 
 The thin and meretricious comedies of Terence 
 give only a partial idea of the style and contents 
 of the plays of Menander. In the Greek dramatist 
 love, honorable and domestic, appears as a motif, 
 and is widely sundered from the loose relations 
 that make the staple of the Latin poet. The out- 
 lines of three comedies are given by the scholiasts, 
 and these show that' the drama had taken up the 
 representation of domestic and home life among 
 the people. 
 
134 ^-^-S CREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 
 
 One of these plays is called "The Plokion," or 
 "Wreath." Here two marriages are contrasted, — 
 the one ill-sorted and turning out badly, in which 
 the husband, tempted by a large dowry, had taken 
 to wife a woman deformed both in body and mind ; 
 the other a genuine love-match, crbwned at last by 
 a happy union. 
 
 Another play, whose, plot is outlined, is called 
 " The Treasure. " In this, a rich father leaves his 
 property to his spendthrift son on condition that 
 at the end of ten years funeral honors should be 
 paid to himself at a tomb already erected in one of 
 his possessions. The son spends lavishly his prop- 
 erty, and even disposes of the iield in which was 
 the tomb, reserving to himself, however, the right 
 to visit it and perform his duties according to the 
 terms of the will. When the tenth anniversary 
 comes round, the son, accompanied by the pur- 
 chaser, goes to the tomb, which is now for the 
 first time opened. Therein a casket is found con- 
 taining a large treasure, from which the play takes 
 its name. The purchaser claims it as being a 
 deposit which he himself had made, to hide it 
 from thieves and marauding soldiers. The matter 
 is brought before the courts, where the cause is 
 tried; and on opening the casket a letter of the 
 deceased to his son is found, and decision is given 
 accordingly. In this letter the father assigns as 
 his reason for making such an arrangement, that 
 the son's filial regard would be tested, and re- 
 warded or punished according as he complied 
 
THE GREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 135 
 
 with or disregarded the condition; and if he had 
 wasted the property he had already received, he 
 might become wiser by the experience, and make 
 a good use of the unexpected acquisition. 
 
 In the third play, called "The Ghost," the plot 
 is as follows : A widower with one son marries a 
 woman who already has a daughter, a circumstance 
 which she does not care to make known. The 
 daughter lives in an adjoining house, and open- 
 ing from it is a door into the private boudoir or 
 oratory of the mother, concealed by flowers and 
 votive offerings. There mother and daughter have 
 their meetings. The grown-up son of the husband 
 sees the beautiful girl by chance, and takes her to 
 be a ghost, a supernatural visitation; but he is 
 gladly undeceived, and to the great joy of the 
 mother leads her, as the correspondents say, to 
 the sacred altar. 
 
 The Grecian idea of wife and mother was that 
 of entire subjection and seclusion. In Plato's 
 " Republic " woman was made the equal of man 
 in every respect; and in the succeeding century 
 family life became a theme for comedy, — for a 
 revolution was going on in the very constitution 
 of the family; the secluded and cloistral life of 
 woman was being broken up, and her position in 
 society was in the process of transformation. 
 
 The received Grecian idea was that the wife 
 should be in seclusion as in a sanctuary. Laws 
 undoubtedly at first made for her protection, and 
 modes of living inherited from a rude and warlike 
 
136 THE GREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 
 
 condition of society, separated woman from the 
 general atmosphere of thought and social inspira- 
 tion. In her seclusion she became weak, petty in 
 her pursuits, often rebellious under her chains, 
 exacting in her claims, and jealous of the authority 
 vouchsafed by custom and the law. Her condition 
 showed, in fact, how fatal it is to perpetuate cer- 
 tain external forms of living after the conditions 
 which gave rise to them have changed. In the 
 Homeric times woman was the honored equal of 
 man, because she was the real bond of the family 
 life, superintending its labors while the warrior 
 fought; and all her sphere was within the home. 
 But in the complex life of the growing city, to 
 limit her to the one corner of the house was to 
 make her a slave, — causing her to descend in 
 the scale of intelligence, while the husband was 
 ascending. This false position of woman ex- 
 plains much of the moral and social degradation 
 of the wealthy cities of Greece. The women who 
 could be companions for educated men were not 
 those who had been brought up in this seclusion 
 of the women' s apartments, but were those who had 
 been able to acquire some instruction, and by their 
 freedom had shared in the civilizing and refining 
 elements of the time. By the superstitious adhe- 
 rence to old family institutions the very life of 
 the family was undermined; and that position 
 which an advancing civilization required the wife 
 and mother to take, was occupied by the cultivated 
 and attractive courtesan. 
 
THE GREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 1 37 
 
 The comedy of the time derives many of its 
 situations and many of its traits of character from 
 this anomalous condition of family life. The 
 woman does not take kindly to her nun-like seclu- 
 sion when there is so much going on that she 
 would like to see and take a part in ; and the man 
 can see only one remedy, — which is, to put more 
 bolts on the door, more bars on the window, and 
 more spies all around. 
 
 Suspicion, jealousy, cunning, and intrigue were 
 cnronic social states. One of the married women 
 'n Menander says : " A sensible man ought not to 
 imprison his wife in the back part of his house, for 
 then she gets to be very curious about what is go- 
 ing on outside. If he will only let her go about 
 freely, see and hear what she pleases, her curi- 
 osity is satisfied, and she is kept from evil de- 
 sires. Do not men desire more eagerly what they 
 are forbidden to get ? He who thinks to keep his 
 wife under lock and key is very much mistaken, 
 and is nothing but an idiot. When our hearts are 
 outside, we can get there straight as an arrow 
 or a bird flies; we can deceive the hundred eyes 
 of Argus himself. What then? Why, you are 
 laughed at for your pains." Thus speaks human 
 nature in the fourth century b. c. So it spoke in 
 Moli^re, when he says, — 
 
 " Bolts and bars cannot make wives and daughters virtuous." 
 
 Another character discusses the advantages and 
 disadvantages of marrying; what rights a dowry 
 
138 THE GREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 
 
 brings with it; what a plague it is to have a rich 
 woman for a wife, — one poor sufferer saying : " You 
 will not marry, if you are wise. I 'm a married 
 man, and that is why I say to you, 'Don't! ' You 
 are going to sail on a sea of trouble : it is not the 
 African Sea, nor the vEgean Sea, nor the Mediter- 
 ranean Sea, where at least three vessels are saved 
 out of thirty; but it 's a sea where not a single 
 ship floats, — not one." 
 
 Love in this comedy is of the same stamp with 
 that which plays such an important part in the 
 corrupt time of Charles II. and the modern sensa- 
 tional French drama. It is the product of a social 
 state corrupt to the core. Yet there are some few 
 plays where a young man sees a young girl of 
 whom he becomes ardently enamoured. She is 
 poor, however, or in sope condition of life that 
 forms a bar to marriage. • There is the usual oppo- 
 sition, plots and counter-plots, hope and despair, 
 until in the d^no&ment the worthy young woman 
 turns out to be of some rich or noble family, and to 
 have been carried away in infancy, etc. ; and thus 
 all goes to the tune that has since been played 
 so often. Some of the sentiments have a truly 
 modern air, and, separated from their framework of 
 circumstance, might be expressed in some comedy 
 of manners in the England or even the America 
 of to-day. A young man whose mother wishes to 
 hinder him from marrying below what is consid- 
 ered his rank, says to her: "Always this nobility! 
 Don't, mother, be forever setting up nobility of 
 
THE GREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 1 39 
 
 family! If one has no personal good quality, he 
 falls back on his birth and the monuments of his 
 ancestors. But what's the good of that? Every 
 one has some ancestors, else he would not be born. 
 If one cannot tell exactly who they are, through 
 emigration, captivity, or some other misfortune, 
 must he be any the less well-born than those who 
 can say who their fathers are? The nobleman, 
 dear mother, is he who is noble, even if he were 
 born in Ethiopia. ' A Scythian ! ' they say, — ' how 
 horrible ! ' Well, was not Anacharis a Scythian ? " 
 
 So, too, wealth is an illusion. " I thought," says 
 one, "that the rich slept tranquilly, and that the 
 poor alone passed sleepless nights; but I see now 
 that you rich folk, — you who are considered so 
 happy, — that you are just like the rest of us. Are 
 life and suffering, then, of the same birth ? " 
 
 Another character says of wealth : — 
 
 " Our only gods, as Epicharmus says, - 
 Are air, fire, water, earth, the sun, the stars ; 
 But I maintain the only useful gods 
 Are gold and silver. Set up these two 
 As household gods within your home ; pray to them, 
 And all ye pray for instantly is yours, — 
 Fields, houses, hosts of servants, silver plate. 
 Friends, judges, witnesses. Give, only give ; 
 The very gods are at your humble service." 
 
 Many choice sayings of Menander have been pre- 
 served by different writers, which show a spontaneous 
 kindliness of feeling, a universal good-will, a gentle 
 irony free from harshness, and a satire melancholy 
 indeed, but without severity. It is this sorrowful 
 
140 THE GREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 
 
 human tenderness, this expression of sentiments 
 belonging to the common lot of humanity, that 
 gave Menander his hold upon his contemporaries, 
 and has embalmed some of his sayings in the writ- 
 ings of succeeding generations. In translation their 
 aroma escapes. Here are a few of them : — 
 
 " A slave, in fine, is made of as good flesh as we are." 
 
 "No noble man can be ignobly born." 
 
 " A man is a man even in slavery." 
 
 " Teach youth, for men you '11 find unteachable." 
 
 " Think all the sorrows of your friends your own." 
 
 " The conscience is the god within us all." 
 
 " Who loves himself too much is loved by none." 
 
 " To live is not to live for oneself alone." 
 
 Evidently the human had found an interpreter. 
 The loud cry of city against city had been hushed, 
 and that common sentiment was forming which 
 would recognize the master-word, "He has made 
 of one blood all nations, " as the rallying cry of all 
 noble souls. There is also the recurring strain, 
 so frequent in Horace, of the fleeting nature of all 
 earthly happiness, the ills of mortal life, the impar- 
 tial omnipresence of the great leveller death. A 
 shadow had passed over the clear sky and sparkling 
 seas of Greece. 
 
 " If you would know yourself and what you are. 
 Go to the tombs of the illustrious dead : 
 There lie the bones of kings in common dust ; 
 There are the rich, the noble, and the wise ; 
 There beauty and renown, — one lot to all. 
 Reflect, whoe'er thou art, and know thyself." 
 
THE GREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 141 
 
 The refrain also comes, Happy he who dies when 
 young, before old age and changing fortune have 
 laid upon him their heavy hand. 
 " For what is life, the longest life of man, 
 
 But the same scene repeated o'er and o'er? 
 
 A few more lingering days to be consumed 
 
 In throngs and crowds, with sharpers, knaves, and thieves." 
 
 " Better be a dog, a horse, an ass, than be a man, 
 and see unworthy men lord it over patient merit. " 
 Again: "You are a man, and as man you are to 
 expect to be thrown from the highest prosperity 
 to the lowest adversity. Bear up, then, as a man, 
 for as yet you have suffered no extraordinary 
 calamity. " 
 
 As showing that there were some sources of 
 consolation even in that dark hour, we hear these 
 words, astonishing indeed as spoken on that stage 
 as part of the acted life of that time : — 
 
 " God is everywhere present, and sees all." 
 
 " Without God, no man can be happy." 
 
 " If you perform a good act, be of good hope, knowing well 
 this, — that God is a sharer in every good undertaking." 
 
 " God is not deaf to the just man's prayer.'' 
 
 It is God, and not gods, in the verse of the poet. 
 Well may we suppose that the Apostle quoted from 
 Menander when he said : " As one of your own poets 
 has said, 'We are His offspring.' " 
 
 No wonder that one has said that if he could res- 
 cue any one ancient author from oblivion, it would 
 be Menander. Quintilian says of Menander:* — 
 
 1 Institutes, book x. chap. i. § 169. 
 
142 THE GREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 
 
 " Menander admired Euripides greatly, and even imi- 
 tated him, though in a different department of the drama ; 
 and Menander alone, in my judgment, would, if sufficiently 
 read, suffice to generate all those qualities in the student 
 of oratory for which I am an advocate, — so exactly does 
 he represent all the phases of human life, such is his 
 fertility of invention and easy grace of expression, and 
 so readily does he adapt himself to all circumstances, 
 persons, and feelings." 
 
 Again : — 
 
 " For speakers, it is necessary to assume various char- 
 acters, — those of fathers, sons, soldiers, peasants, rich 
 men and poor men, angry persons and beseeching per-, 
 sons, those who are mild and those who are rough. Now, 
 in all these characters Menander observes a wonderful 
 appropriateness, so that he has left all other dramatists of 
 that kind scarcely a name, the splendor of his reputation 
 throwing them entirely into the shade." * ~ 
 
 There can be no more interesting study than 
 that of the rise and progress of the Grecian drama, 
 from its first rude beginnings in the religious 
 chorus celebrating the exploits of the creative, 
 nourishing, and inspiring power in Nature and 
 life, through the various phases of its development, 
 expressing the intellectual, social, and political 
 changes, — a truly national drama. From it can 
 be gained a concrete and life-like presentation of 
 the progress and decline of Grecian faith, Grecian 
 freedom, and- Grecian manners. Throughout, we 
 
 1 Institutes, book x. chap. i. § 71. 
 
THE GREEK COMEDY OF MANNERS. 143 
 
 trace the process by which the human element is 
 broadened and deepened, the subject-matters of 
 thought extended and made more complex, the 
 entire sphere of existence enlarged, and man's 
 relations to man substituted for man's relation to 
 the gods and other supernatural powers. It is a 
 record of the growth of humanity; and being free 
 from foreign admixture and influences from with- 
 out, this literature is the freest exponent of the 
 essential principles of the drama, and of its normal 
 unfolding. An understanding of it, of the place 
 it filled, the means by which it attained its ends, 
 its processes of idealizing, and its resources for 
 awakening pity, fear, sympathy, and the higher 
 emotions of the soul, — this understanding is the 
 best preparation for a thorough comprehension of 
 that wonderful Sh^kspearian drama, in which are 
 embodied in a form not less perfect the deeper and 
 more universal life of our modern era. 
 
VIII. 
 
 PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 
 
 The student of Grecian history finds in it a won- 
 derful likeness in miniature of his own times, — the 
 same stirring interests, the same mental, moral, and 
 social problems, that now occupy the attention of 
 thinkers, and lovers of truth. Our age has no mo- 
 nopoly of social dreams and Utopian common- 
 wealths ; for Greece had them before Plato's time, 
 in the philosophic community which Pythagoras 
 sought to establish in Magna Grascia; and widely 
 spread must have been the dreams and tendencies 
 which Aristophanes satirized in his inimitable verse. 
 No popular caricaturist would take the pains to raise 
 a laugh against woman's participation in affairs of 
 government and society, if such an attempt were 
 the dream only of some one speculative philoso- 
 pher, and had no general vogue. Plato's philo- 
 sophic scheme stands out now as a solitary peak, 
 but it must have been one of a mountain range. 
 Among those small Grecian States there were in- 
 deed the seething elements of every form of gov- 
 ernment, from the unbridled tyranny of the despot 
 to the unlicensed despotism of the wildest de- 
 mocracy, passing through all grades of modified 
 
PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 145 
 
 aristocracies of every shade and tint of exclusive- 
 ness and worth. 
 
 The philosophers of Greece were essentially un- 
 democratic, and excited the fears of the ignorant 
 many, — as if philosophy were necessarily some hos- 
 tile element. This led to the expulsion of Pythag- 
 oras and to the death of Socrates. The bearing 
 of Plato towards the industrious crowd, the men of 
 industry and toil, was one of aversion and contempt. 
 In his view, the philosopher could be neither a 
 man in public life nor a man of affairs ; above all, 
 he must not be engaged in business, trade, or me- 
 chanical or agricultural employments. All this was 
 regarded by Plato as unworthy a man whose specu- 
 lations must be on the highest themes', and his robes 
 free from the dirt of earthly concerns. 
 
 Towards democratic Athens Plato felt no attrac- 
 tion; towards aristocratic Sparta he was strongly 
 drawn. The Spartan institutions had existed for hun- 
 dreds of years; and in their grave simplicity, their 
 austere temperance, their indifference to pleasure and 
 comfort, they came the nearest to the philosophic 
 ideal. It is on those lines of Spartan exclusiveness, 
 and the crushing out of every trace of Athenian 
 democracy, that Plato has constructed his ideal 
 commonwealth, — the Spartan institutions being the 
 rough model of those in the Repjublic. These in- 
 stitutions were ascribed to Lycurgus, but they were 
 really founded in a great antiquity, and no more 
 belonged to Lycurgus as exclusive author than the 
 Hebrew code to Moses. But in making artificial 
 
146 PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 
 
 commonwealths this fact was forgotten; and ap- 
 parently Plato thought it as easy to construct a 
 commonwealth as to build a house. Thus have 
 thought Utopian theorists of a later time 
 
 But in treating of Greek history, it is well to bear 
 in mind that — 
 
 " Few distinctions are so important for a true under- 
 standing of history, as that between liberty in the classic 
 and in the modern sense of the word. An Englishman, 
 when he desires liberty, thinks of it as the desire of in- 
 dividual development, the soil on which strongly marked 
 character flourishes most vigorously. It is doubtful 
 whether a Greek would have understood what this 
 means, and still more whether he would have thought 
 it desirable. Indeed, we may say that the Greek love 
 of liberty embodied the very opposite feehng to this. 
 There never could have been a city less free than Sparta, 
 according to our ideas; and evidently in making it the 
 model of his Republic, Plato was not contemplating as a 
 possibility the reproach that he was a foe to liberty. He 
 and his contemporaries meant by liberty something which 
 was compatible with any amount of despotic regulation 
 of individual Hfe. The ideal republic of liberty-loving 
 Greece would have been a despotism more intolerable 
 to modem feeling than the most despotic kingdom of 
 modem Europe.'" 
 
 Yet to-day these despotic features recur in many 
 modern plans to rescue society from its evils, and 
 produce an ideal state of well-being. The subjec- 
 tion of a workman to his fraternity, or Union, is 
 1 The Moral Ideal. By Julia Wedgwood. P. 104. 
 
PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 147 
 
 often such as to annihilate all freedom of choice, all 
 liberty in individual act. He voluntarily signs 
 away his individual liberty, and is made to do what 
 his own conscience or his own sense of expediency 
 condemns. He gives up his own wrists and ankles 
 to be fettered, and renounces his own freedom of 
 action. Are we to go back to this ideal of Grecian 
 life, in which the individual was nothing, and the 
 city or State was all? The advance of our modern 
 civilization began in this very separation of man 
 from the group, of man from the citizen, and mak- 
 ing him, whether tradesman, laborer, merchant, or 
 soldier, a self-governing, self-respecting man. He 
 was no longer a mere appendage to the State, not 
 a wheel or cog in a vast machine, but a living unit, 
 for whom all machines were made. 
 
 It is not fair to Plato to look upon his Republic, or 
 polity of a city, as an end in itself. His purpose 
 was not to write a treatise upon the constitution of 
 a commonwealth, as a pattern for all who would 
 build up States ; but to furnish an illustration of 
 that broader theme of what constitutes justice and 
 what injustice, — the only necessary thing for an in- 
 telligent man to know. Now, as there is an analogy 
 between the individual man and the State of which 
 he forms a part, justice can be studied in the larger 
 form of the State better than in the individual man. 
 The letters, composing it are there written in a large 
 round hand, and can be more readily deciphered. 
 The city, however, in which the form of justice can 
 be discerned, is not any actual commonwealth, but 
 
148 PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 
 
 an ideal one, constructed upon man's supposed es- 
 sential nature, and governed according to the high- 
 est principles of abstract, philosophic reason. Plato 
 sees clearly the vital connection which should exist 
 between all the different members of a community ; 
 and he makes this general sensitiveness the test of 
 a well-regulated State. He uses precisely the 
 same expression that has been made use of by 
 Shakspeare, a finger-ache being felt throughout 
 the whole body. " In a well-regulated State," he 
 says, "just as in the individual man, when the finger 
 is wounded, the sensation extends throughout the 
 whole ; and by reason of the common principle of 
 life or soul, such a State will feel that she herself is 
 the one hurt, and will mourn with the injured mem- 
 ber." This feeling of unity must be preserved by 
 taking away the occasions for jealousy, rivalry, and 
 envy. The mother will not scheme for her darling, 
 for as there is no individual household she does 
 not know which child is her darling. The guardian 
 soldier will not become a tyrant, because, already 
 supported at the public charge, he has no tempta- 
 tion to possess himself of the person or goods of 
 citizens. 
 
 Plato's commonwealth is meant to be a true 
 aristocracy, — that is, a government by the wisest 
 and the best. These will always be the minority, 
 " the precious remnant," of which Matthew Arnold 
 spoke. As man is threefold in his spiritual con- 
 stitution, so will the State be based on this three- 
 fold division of reason, energy (or will), and appetite 
 
PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 
 
 149 
 
 (or desire). Reason is seated in the brain, energy 
 in the breast, and appetite in the abdomen. At the 
 basis of the State are the laborers, the cultivators of 
 the soil, the tradesmen, — that is, all of the indus- 
 trial class. Then come the soldiers, the military- 
 class; and then the governors and teachers, or 
 official class. Through the energy of will, thought 
 rules over and directs the lower appetites ; and so 
 the highest grade in Plato's commonwealth, the 
 philosophers, rule over and direct the masses of 
 the laborers and artisans through the middle class, 
 the assistant guardians or rriilitary auxiliaries. This 
 second grade consists of the exclusive defenders 
 and protectors of the city, and they are absolutely 
 free from all the cares and labors of ordinary life. 
 The abdomen does not perform the work of the 
 heart, nor the heart that of the brain. The highest 
 class can engage neither in labor nor in trade : the 
 philosopher must devote himself to thinking, the 
 soldier to fighting, and the laborer to working. 
 The dividing line between the castes can never be 
 passed over, as the perfection of the whole consists 
 in each one performing perfectly his own part. The 
 rulers are to have wisdom; the soldiers fortitude, 
 or courage; and the workmen temperance, or 
 obedience. 
 
 But how is the State necessary? 
 
 The State has its foundation in human wants, and 
 no man is sufficient for himself. From" this fact, 
 that no one is self-sufficing, springs the necessity of 
 those who live in one place forming one commu- 
 
150 PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 
 
 nity, wherein each person imparts to others what he 
 has, and receives from others what he wants. The 
 most pressing want is food ; then lodging, clothing, 
 etc. One man becomes a husbandman, another a 
 builder, another a weaver, another a shoemaker, — 
 each one having a natural fitness for some one 
 kind of work, since each is born unlike to any- 
 other. 
 
 The " Republic " has nothing to say about the 
 morals, the education, or the condition of the great 
 body of the workers. They are, for the most part, 
 slaves or aliens, — people born to eat, sleep, indulge 
 their various appetites, and work for the support of 
 the chosen few warriors and philosophers, who will 
 make for them all necessary arrangements and pro- 
 vide for their happiness better than they can provide 
 for themselves. The education of the guardians 
 is to be such as will make them what Carlyle 
 was always clamoring for, — the natural leaders 
 and the wise helpers in the common life of the 
 Platonic city. This care for the philosophic and 
 military guardians was to begin before birth; for 
 only fitting mates were to be arranged, with all care 
 on the part of the governing body for the health 
 and character of the offspring. No permanent life- 
 partnerships were to be made, but the governing 
 body was to arrange with consummate wisdom all 
 unions of men and women under a certain age, giv- 
 ing to the parties a seeming choice by lot. Every 
 element of individual love and personal affection on 
 the part of these State guardians was to be eliminated. 
 
PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 151 
 
 They were to have no care for subsistence, and to be 
 free from all but the most disinterested devotion to 
 the welfare of the city of which they had the charge. 
 They were to be neither husbands nor fathers nor 
 human beings in any ordinary sense of those words. 
 They were to possess neither individual property nor 
 separate goods, but in a sublime sense of being a 
 godlike providence to the inferior race of beings 
 whom they protected and watched over, they were 
 to keep themselves secluded from the base and de- 
 basing world, and nourish in themselves all the arts 
 of wisdom, and all the means of strength. In their 
 childhood they were to hear none of the degrading 
 stories of the gods, — Plato bringing against the old 
 national poets the same charges that have been 
 brought against some parts of the Old Testament in 
 our day, that they degraded the deities, and gave a 
 wrong direction to the youthful imagination and 
 heart. Nothing was to be admitted in the educa- 
 tion of these guardians which would hinder them 
 from becoming " pious and divine men." The 
 rhythm and harmony that belonged to the soul 
 were to be brought out by a proper training ; and 
 thus " a man would perceive at once whatever was 
 bad or defective in any workmanship, would rejoice 
 in what was beautiful, and foster it in his soul, de- 
 spising what was base, even from early youth and 
 before reason was developed, and embracing what 
 partook of reason from its intimate relationship 
 with himself." He was to be so trained that he 
 would need neither lawyers nor physicians ; he will 
 
1 52 PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 
 
 go through a course of labors, trials, and contests, 
 — " while yet young being subjected to various ter- 
 rible tests, and then thrown back into pleasures; 
 tried more than gold in the fire, that he may show 
 whether he is in just rhythm and harmony." And 
 he who had been thus tried, and come out pure, 
 was to be appointed governor and guardian of the 
 State ; " honors were to be paid him while he lived, 
 and at his death he should receive the highest 
 reward of public burial." 
 
 All men were brethren, it was to be taught, and 
 from one common mother, the earth. But those 
 who were able to be governors, — the real philoso- 
 phers, — had gold mixed in the material of which 
 they were made ; those who were able to be aids and 
 helpers had silver; and the husbandmen and arti- 
 sans had iron and brass. Plato cites an oracle, which 
 said that whenever iron or brass should come to be 
 guardians the city would perish ; and hence those 
 children who had no silver or gold in their make-up 
 were to be thrust down among the iron or brass to 
 which they really belonged. Over nothing were the 
 guardians to keep closer watch ; and if any child 
 of the people should show unmistakably the vein of 
 gold, he was to be taken under the care of the guar- 
 dians, and receive the same training as if he were 
 born of their number. 
 
 What arrangements were made in Plato's scheme 
 to develop this golden germ in any child ? It does 
 not appear; and we may say, that if many such 
 children were to spring from the iron and the brass 
 
PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 153 
 
 parentage of the common herd, his whole sys- 
 tem of exclusive education would prove a useless 
 nullity. 
 
 Plato claims, however, that in his commonwealth 
 every human being would find his level, and every 
 one settle in that place for which the qualities of his 
 nature had fitted him. Yet the same chance was 
 not given to all, and it must be against vast odds 
 that any shining nugget would crop out so as to 
 be seen and transferred to the jeweller's manipulat- 
 ing skill. 
 
 How completely Plato derived from the institu- 
 tions of Sparta the practical regulations for the 
 education and daily life of his guardian- class, to 
 whom all government and all military powers were 
 intrusted, may be seen from a slight consideration of 
 Spartan customs, (i) In Sparta the citizens were 
 obliged to eat at the common tables, living upon the 
 simplest fare. (2) Plutarch says that Lycurgus 
 strove to drive away from the Spartan men the vain 
 and womanish passion of jealousy, making it quite 
 reputable to have children in common with persons 
 of merit ; for he considered children not so much the 
 property of their parents as of the State. (3) The 
 Spartan father could not rear what children he 
 pleased, but he must carry the child to a public place 
 to be examined ; and if it was weakly and deformed, 
 it was thrown into a deep cavern called "apothetae ; " 
 so were weak and deformed children exposed in 
 Plato's Republic. (4) When the Spartan children 
 were seven years old, they were enrolled in compa- 
 
154 PLATO'S Republic. 
 
 nies, and all kept under the same instruction and dis- 
 cipline. (5) Sparta was simply a great camp, — as 
 the home of Plato's guardians was but a military 
 barrack, without any of the adornments or con- 
 veniences of ordinary existence. (6) The Spar- 
 tan was forbidden to engage in any business or 
 trade, or exercise any vocation by which wealth 
 could be gained ; his business was to devote him- 
 self to the honor, safety, and glory of his country. 
 (7) The training of the Spartan girls was like that 
 of the boys in athletic exercises, with like contests 
 in wrestling and running, clothed only with a light 
 tunic, open at the skirts ; they formed a part of 
 the religious and patriotic processions, and at the 
 public festivals sang and danced. So in Plato's Re- 
 public ; the men and womqn of the guardian class 
 lived together, drilled together, — from the earliest 
 years being under the same superintendence, and 
 having the same education. 
 
 It was a doctrine with Plato, strange for that age, 
 that whatever man could do, woman could do also ; 
 and that the training which was best for man was 
 best also for woman. There was no reason in the 
 nature of things, he says, why the woman should be 
 restricted to indoor occupations ; and from the mere 
 difference of sex no argument could be drawn 
 as to fitness or unfitness for different occupations. 
 Only as they were properly trained could men 
 perform fittingly the office of guardians; and on 
 the same terms women also could be equally well 
 fitted. 
 
PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 155 
 
 But while in its positive arrangements this polity 
 embraced many of the leading Spartan regulations, 
 it also negatively eschewed the individual freedom 
 of Athenian democratic ideas. For these Plato had 
 no sympathy, and not even any tolerance. He 
 shrank from them with all the bitterness of uncon- 
 genial temperament, and all the contempt of a 
 philosophic superiority. That mass of people 
 crowded in the law-courts, in the public assemblies, 
 shouting, stamping, hooting, or applauding, — it was 
 his aversion ; and to meet their approbation was in 
 his eyes treason to manliness and honor. " Do you 
 not know," he asks, " that they punish with exile, 
 fines, and death him whom they cannot influence? " 
 The " people " was a great wild beast, which was to 
 be kept in good humor and pleased if one would not 
 be torn in pieces. In the degradation of a common- 
 wealth, it passed through different forms of govern- 
 ment until it reached democracy, on its way to an 
 anarchy only to be superseded by some form of ab- 
 solute tyranny. Whenever in a State the poor get 
 the uppermost, banish and kill the rich, and share 
 among themselves the magistracies and offices of 
 State, a democracy becomes established; every 
 one does as he pleases, and all sorts of characters 
 spring up. Those are honored who flatter the 
 multitude and cater to its whims. 
 
 Here Plato draws that picture which Alcibiades, 
 or many another of the jeunesse dor^ may have 
 sat for, — of a young man, indulging every passing 
 desire ; now getting drunk at the sound of a flute. 
 
156 PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 
 
 and now drinking only water; at one time practising 
 gymnastics, at other times lazy and idle; at one 
 period playing the politician, at another imitating 
 some soldier or merchant ; his life regulated by no 
 plan or law, — a truly democratic character. A de- 
 mocracy, in fine, is a lawless and motley affair, 
 " giving equal rights to unequal persons." 
 
 In such a State as this, how can philosophy be 
 cultivated, and how can the philosopher be formed ? 
 Some well-disposed youth may try to emerge from 
 the corrupting tendencies, but being one only 
 against the host of wild beasts, he must at last suc- 
 cumb and perish, without any profit to the world. 
 Like a man sheltered from a storm of wind and dust 
 under some wall, this man will attend to his own 
 affairs, content to pass his life pure from injustice 
 and corruption, and make at last a cheerful and 
 quiet exit. And why must his life be this failure? 
 "Because," says Plato, "he has had no suitable 
 form of government to live under." " This is what; 
 I complain of," he says again, " that no existing 
 constitution of a State is worthy of a philosophic 
 nature." And so he will construct one, wherein 
 philosophy shall have its rights, and the philoso- 
 phers shall rule. Occupied with what is real and 
 eternal, beautiful and in harmony with reason, they 
 will imitate what they admire, and will put upon the 
 canvas the divine pattern which they behold. And 
 until such as these have the government of the 
 State, he affirms, the miseries of States will not have 
 an end. 
 
PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 157 
 
 Plato imagined he had constructed a State in 
 which individual tastes and tendencies, personal, 
 predilections and sensual temptations, would be ut- 
 terly extinguished. These guardians are not men 
 and women, but philosophic machines moved by 
 wires beyond their control. Their breathing can 
 have no irregular movement, their pulse no quick- 
 ening, and their cheeks no mantling blush. They 
 are as dead to human interests as the mediaeval 
 monk, or the begging friar of the Catholic Church. 
 They have no personal interests, but are official in- 
 struments. They have no occasion to exercise vir- 
 tuous aspirations or put forth individual efforts, or 
 be moved by pity or fear. Better the anarchy even 
 of individual hopes and aspirations than this frozen 
 surface of social monotony ! 
 
 But however impracticable Plato's socialistic 
 dream may appear, let it always be remembered 
 that he was planning for no mere vulgar enjoyment, 
 aspiring for no sensual deUght, clutching no passing 
 satisfactions of time and sense. He sought, after 
 all, for a city which should have eternal foundations 
 in the human soul, and whose builder should be 
 God. His high intent shines out in the closing 
 paragraph of his book: — 
 
 " If the company will be persuaded by me, regarding 
 the soul as immortal and able to bear all evil and good, 
 we shall always persevere in the road which leads upward \ 
 and above all else shall follow after justice united with 
 wisdom, that thus we may be friends to the gods as well 
 as to ourselves, both while we remain in this state of be- 
 
158 PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 
 
 ing, and when, afterwards, like victors assembled together 
 we receive its rewards. And so, both here and in that 
 journey of a thousand years, we shall be happy." 
 
 Plato, then, sought to give the model of an ideal 
 commonwealth which should be the perfect em- 
 bodiment, in the largest capital letters, (i) of Justice, 
 or Righteousness; (2) a commonwealth in which 
 every soul should find its own proper place; (3) in 
 which woman should take her place on an equality 
 with man ; and (4) in which the Best, — the lovers of 
 wisdom, the subjects of reason,' the disinterested 
 followers of truth, — should be the acknowledged 
 rulers. 
 
 Plato's ends were lofty, and his dreams were noble j 
 yet the edifice which he builded seems now but a 
 sorry make-shift, because no individual plan can ever 
 satisfy the demands of the universal spirit; because 
 the building which it is erecting is of such immense 
 proportions and such indescribable grandeur. The 
 ideals which inspire the minds of this present hour 
 are as grand as Plato ever mused upon; but his 
 actual plans, suggested by the institutions and social 
 manifestations of his day, are but a child's house of 
 cards compared with the mighty cathedral of which 
 the spirit of humanity is laying stone upon stone 
 before our very eyes. Plato would have his ideal 
 commonwealth a unit, so that the need of the re- 
 motest extremity should be at once felt and re- 
 sponded to by the wisest and the best; and does 
 space make any obstacle to-day to the transmission 
 of any sound from the remotest quarters of Africa, 
 
PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 159 
 
 Australia, and the islands of the sea? He would 
 have all functions executed by those who were fitted 
 for them ; and for what else are we trying to-day in 
 our demands for civil service, in our endeavors to get 
 the best service of the best citizens? Plato would 
 have the golden child placed among the golden 
 men and women, though he were born of the very 
 lowest parentage; and what are our schools for, 
 our open careers for every son sjid daughter of 
 humanity, but to supply one great bolting appara- 
 tus by which at last the great, the inventive, the skil- 
 ful, the strong should find their proper place, and 
 best minister to their fellow- men? So we might 
 say of all the higher social tendencies at work in 
 our community, that they are seeking to accom- 
 plish something in the direction which the purest 
 transcendental philosopher that has ever lived set 
 down as the only objects worthy of human pursuit. 
 He distrusted democratic rule; but we see to-day 
 that the true meaning of democracy is not a form of 
 government external to the people, separate from 
 them, like a king or an oligarchy, but it is that of 
 a whole people governing themselves, promoting 
 their own interests, advancing their own welfare. 
 Not the selfishness of the few, not the passing im- 
 pulses of the many, can be the permanent out- 
 growth of this last embodiment of the universal 
 spirit in a political State ; but that wisdom which 
 is the inmost life of humanity is to find here its 
 abiding home in every man's life, and every man's 
 daily work. 
 
IX. 
 
 ARISTOTLE'S " POLITICS." 
 
 Aristotle's " Politics," Prof. R. T. Ely, the econo- 
 mist, has recently called " one of the most remark- 
 able books in the world's history. ... In some 
 respects," he says, " the most advanced political 
 economy is a return to Aristotle." A brief survey 
 of this great work is, then, in order in this day of 
 " social problems." 
 
 Differing widely from Plato's poetical dream, the 
 " Politics " may be considered the first great eifort 
 in the scientific study of society and of the elements 
 of social well-being. Plato stood in an attitude of 
 antagonism to the Grecian methods of life and gov- 
 ernment. He attacked the poetry, the education, 
 and the political notions of his time. His ideal 
 State was based upon man's supposed nature and 
 the constitution of the soul as reason, will, and appe- 
 tite. It was a true Utopia, for there was no place in 
 all the world where it could be actually embodied ; 
 but the " Republic " presented an inspiring ideal of 
 order, justice, and righteousness in human affairs. 
 Aristotle's ideal is no less elevated, but his method 
 is entirely different. Like Plato, he desires to pro- 
 mote the highest good of the individual in the State ; 
 
ARISTOTLE'S "POLITICS." l6l 
 
 but he follows no cl priori plan. He sets up no 
 ideal as a necessary and universal pattern, but tries 
 to find a reason in the nature of man and the facts 
 of experience for Greek institutions. For the many 
 changes that had occurred in the political forms of 
 the Grecian States around him he likewise seeks a 
 law. He applies to the best of his ability the prin- 
 ciples of common-sense. He asks; What is the 
 specific end of the concrete thing we call the State ? 
 What is the actual nature of the organization which 
 we call political ? What is needed that this organi- 
 zation may most effectually accomplish its end? 
 
 Aristotle saw everywhere a process of growth. 
 The very lowest form contained, potentially, the 
 highest and best. Practically, Aristotle followed 
 the method of evolution. If one wishes to know 
 the end for which anything exists, he must study 
 the concrete thing itself. States, commonwealths, 
 communities, do not have an abstract existence in 
 the clouds, — they are realities of this earth. Es- 
 tablished by human beings, they contain in posse 
 a final, highest, and most perfect organization. To 
 Aristotle, the work of political science consisted in 
 studying each political phenomenon as an unfold- 
 ing of the principle of life, a manifestation of what 
 Nature was after, a step in the ascending series to 
 the perfect and best. 
 
 Yet such a commonwealth as the United States of 
 America would have violated all Aristotle's canons 
 of the essential polity of the best State. The vast 
 extent of territory; the many races of men making 
 
1 62 ARISTOTLE'S "POLITICS." 
 
 up the body of citizens ; the conflicting interests of 
 the widely divided sections ; the prevalence of oppo- 
 site views of culture, religion, economics, domestic 
 habits, and modes of Hfe, — all these features would 
 seem to him contradictory to every principle of a 
 well-ordered civil polity, fatal to permanence, and 
 utterly incapable of promoting the ends which a 
 State ought to have in view as the very object of 
 its existence ; namely, the virtue, the happiness, the 
 moral and intellectual development of all its citi- 
 zens. The Greek State was everything, in fact, to 
 the individual citizen. It supervised his household 
 affairs, his education, his religion, and the thousand 
 details of his daily life. Its object was to cultivate 
 virtue, and it assigned to each citizen his work. 
 What we leave to public opinion the Greek made the 
 subject of law. In Aristotle's view, the statesman is 
 the vital, spiritual power in the commonwealth ; the 
 State itself is the nurse of science and the school 
 of philosophy, — in itself the one sufficient means 
 for attaining a good life. The good, the perfectly 
 rounded life is the very end for which the State 
 exists. 
 
 What, then, is Aristotle's definition of a State? 
 It is a whole, formed of parts which share in a com- 
 mon feeling, interest, and action; and this whole 
 has been constituted for the attainment of a com- 
 plete and fully developed life for all. This concep- 
 tion is in accordance with the ordinary Greek view, 
 albeit nobler and more comprehensive. The Greek 
 citizen was essentially a part of the city-State in 
 
ARISTOTLE'S "POLITICS." 163 
 
 which he was born and had his home.^ The cit^ 
 laid hold of the individual to absorb his individual 
 claims. The sphere of government in modern times 
 has embraced chiefly the protection of life and 
 property. Politics has thus meant little beyond 
 practical arrangements for the punishment of 
 crime, the defence of personal liberty, and the 
 protection of vested interests in property. But 
 to the Greek the State Avas his religion, his cul- 
 ture, his social club, — not merely his protector 
 against foreign enemies and domestic injustice. He 
 breathed and acted through the organs which the 
 State furnished him. Beyond this corporate life, he 
 was an exile and a vagabond. Hence, with Aristotle 
 the State must not be too large for a common life to 
 be lived by its citizens. The State must be a unit ; 
 and of this unit each citizen is a component part. 
 
 The State, according to the Aristotelian idea, has 
 its origin in nature and natural relations. Nature 
 joins together the father, the mother, the child, and 
 the slave, who constitute a family. Several families 
 constitute a village ; many villages constitute a State, 
 united together " at first that they may live, but con- 
 tinuing united together that they may live happily 
 and well." Like every other object in the natural 
 world, civil government is a whole, and really exists 
 in idea before it exists in actual form. It is the 
 inherent power of development that constitutes a par- 
 ticular animal : so is it with the State. The individ- 
 
 ' The city of Boston would form a State many times larger than 
 the largest Greek city. 
 
1 64 ARISTOTLE'S "POLITICS." 
 
 ual man is not complete in himself, and he bears 
 the same relation to the State that the individual 
 organs bear to the entire human body. Not to need 
 the State as a complement to one's limited self is to 
 be either a monster oragod. Man perfected by so- 
 ciety is the most excellent of all living beings ; but 
 given up to selfish appetite, he is the worst. There- 
 fore, as in determining the true nature of any other 
 species we take the most perfect specimen in its 
 highest state of development, so we should take 
 man in his highest condition of social development, 
 unfolding fully his noblest powers and his most 
 humane characteristics. 
 
 How different is the theory of Rousseau, which 
 stimulated the imagination and fired the heart of the 
 civilized world in those days of revolutionary fervor 
 and philosophic zeal, when civilization was repre- 
 sented as the curse of human society, and a re- 
 turn to natural conditions was considered the only 
 way to make progress in virtue ! How different is 
 the " Leviathan " of Hobbes, the monster from whom 
 society had its first spring and its primal origin, — 
 fear, that arose from mutual hate and internecine 
 war ! In Aristotle's philosophic view, the State is 
 the natural outgrowth of human qualities and ten- 
 dencies ; and it is as congenial to the nature of man 
 to live in society as it is for the plant to send its 
 rootlets down into the soil, its stem up into the air, 
 and to scatter its seed on the wind. The families 
 of men uniting in a social union obey a divine in- 
 stinct, even as the trees of the forest do when their 
 
ARISTOTLE'S "POLITICS." 165 
 
 seed is planted in congenial soil, or the honey-bees 
 when they construct their cells. How different is 
 the theory of an original compact which Locke 
 enunciates as the origin of government! "The ori- 
 ginal compact, which begins and actually consti- 
 tutes any political society," he says, " is nothing but 
 the consent of any number of freemen capable of 
 a majority to unite and to incorporate into such 
 a society ; and this is that, and that only, which 
 could give beginning to any lawful government in 
 the world." This theory served its purpose against 
 the theory of the original and divine right of kings; 
 but for real philosophical comprehension of the 
 origin of government, Aristotle's view is infinitely 
 superior: " As we make use of our bodily members 
 before we understand the end and purpose of this 
 exercise, so it is by nature itself that we are bound 
 together and associated in political society." 
 
 Hence the State grows up naturally, man being 
 by his very nature a political animal. As Homer 
 says, " He that hath no tribe, or state, or home, is 
 as solitary as a bird of prey." Man is the only ani- 
 mal that has reason, and so has language, which is 
 not merely an expression of pleasure and pain, but 
 of the just and the unjust. The impulse toward as- 
 sociation is thus universal and natural. By carrying 
 out this impulse in the formation of the State, man 
 becomes the most excellent of living beings instead 
 of the most helpless and the worst. He embodies in 
 the State justice, which is the rule of social order. 
 
 The family, according to Aristotle, is the unit of 
 
1 66 ARISTOTLE'S "POLITICS." 
 
 social life ; and in it man has three relations, — hus- 
 band, father, and master. Here the philosopher 
 runs counter to our modern ideas of the injustice of 
 slavery. He discusses the matter, indeed ; for even 
 in his day some had maintained that slavery was 
 unjust. But Aristotle maintains that they are slaves 
 by nature who have strength of body without ability 
 to take care of themselves ; and that to them a mas- 
 ter is a benefit, — and not only to them, but to the 
 community also. But the master should be as well 
 fitted for ruling as the slave for obeying ; then both 
 will be profited. No Greek, again, should be en- 
 slaved, even if taken captive in war. This opinion 
 was contrary to the universal custom of the age; 
 for the entire population of Hellenic cities, when 
 conquered, was often reduced to slavery. Aristotle 
 further maintains that whenever a slave plainly 
 shows himself qualified for freedom, he should be 
 set free. Had the Stagirite lived a few generations 
 later, he would have seen thousands of his Greek 
 countrymen — among them men of culture and of 
 high intelligence, scholars and philosophers — held 
 as slaves in the households of the rude Romans, 
 who doubtless thought that they were doing a ser- , 
 vice to the commonwealth, as well as to themselves, 
 by keeping the effeminate Greeks closely subjected 
 to their own stronger will and convenience. The 
 doctrine that outsiders and barbarians can justly be 
 enslaved would perhaps have assumed a different 
 aspect to Aristotle, had he known that the barbarian 
 would put his own interpretation upon the principle 
 that might is the law of right. 
 
ARISTOTLE'S "POLITICS." 167 
 
 But the slowness of the advance of humanity in 
 social justice can be estimated from the fact that 
 even Locke could write, as late as the seven- 
 teenth century, " There is another sort of servants, 
 which by a peculiar name we call slaves, who, being 
 captives taken in a just war, are by the rights of 
 nature subjected to the absolute dominion and ar- 
 bitrary power of their masters. These men having, 
 as I say, forfeited their life, and with it their liber- 
 ties, and lost their estates, and being in a state of 
 slavery, not capable of any property, cannot in that 
 state be considered as any part of civil society." ^ 
 To Aristotle, we should remember, a slave was not 
 an end in himself, but an instrument to carry out 
 the purposes of his master, — a part of his master, 
 though a separable part. 
 
 The city-state, then, is a whole, an integral unit, 
 formed by the congregation of villages for the at- 
 tainment of a complete life of virtue, and for the 
 development of all the human activities. To dis- 
 cover the best organization of this whole is the work 
 of political science. A study of the course of his- 
 torical development is not the only need, forthe his- 
 torical process may have been warped and distorted. 
 These distortions, as well as all the other phenomena, 
 must be tested by the principles of ethics. The 
 inquiry thus arises. What constitution of the State 
 is most favorable to virtue in the citizen and to the 
 common good? To answer this question wisely, 
 Aristotle investigates the economical and social 
 phenomena which result from different kinds of 
 1 Locke's Works, ii. 181. 
 
1 68 ARISTOTLE'S "POLITICS." 
 
 government, the character of the citizens, the fea- 
 tures of the territory, the different ways of getting 
 wealth ; and he considers the adaptation of proposed 
 changes to the circumstances of the people. Plato 
 had sought to establish an ideal commonwealth, 
 which by its very construction should be a model 
 State, wherein all the variable elements of hu- 
 man nature should be constrained to harmonious 
 adjustment. Aristotle shows what elements are 
 necessary to make the State what it should be to 
 accomplish its natural results. He is fully aware 
 that the " best State " will be a rare thing in the 
 world's history; and so he occupies himself often 
 with practical suggestions on the reform of abuses, 
 the remedies for evils, and the beneficial changes 
 that may be made in actual forms of government. 
 
 The citizens of Aristotle's " best State " are those 
 only who .have undergone a special training, who 
 have ample leisure for gymnastics, for practice in 
 arms, and for the pursuit of philosophy and noble 
 learning. But all those who work for pay in any 
 industrial pursuit are excluded from the right to 
 rule or to choose their rulers. In the democratic 
 States of Greece the laborers and artisans were 
 ranked as citizens, and they enjoyed equal rights as 
 voters with the noblest and the richest. But in 
 Sparta and some other States, where " useful and 
 necessary work " was performed by slaves, the in- 
 dustrial life virtually excluded one from all liberal 
 pursuits, such as those of the soldier, the statesman, 
 and the philosopher. Even agriculture lay under 
 
ARISTOTLE'S "POLITICS." 169 
 
 the ban of condemnation, as it allowed only talk of 
 crops and bullocks. The tradesman and the mer- 
 chant were also regarded as pursuing sordid and 
 mercenary trades. All useful occupations per- 
 formed for pay were deemed servile and ignoble. 
 Even the teacher of philosophy who taught for 
 regular pay was the object of Plato's bitterest 
 scorn. When to-day we hear the system of wages 
 denounced by laborers as nothing but slavery, it 
 will remind us of the advance made toward giv- 
 ing what Aristotle called the useful and illiberal pur- 
 suits of life a recognition in the commonweal. 
 
 Aristotle's State, as a natural whole made up of 
 parts, is subject to the laws of every structure of a 
 like constitution. In this whole made up of many 
 members, some must rule and others must be ruled. 
 There is in the State a natural inequality among the 
 different elements. As in every object made up of 
 parts some are only means subservient to a higher 
 end, so it is in the State. The tools with which a 
 house is built are no part of the house itself. Every 
 animal has parts which are useful only for certain 
 ancillary purposes, and these must be held strictly 
 to their subordinate office. The lower half of the 
 body exists for the upper; and throughout all 
 Nature there is, as in the egg, that which is meant 
 to grow, and that also which is meant to promote 
 growth. The same principles apply in the State that 
 we see rule in every living organism in the natural 
 world. Shakspeare's social view is similar. The 
 wise Ulysses, in " Troilus and Cressida," says : — 
 
170 ARISTOTLE'S "POLITICS." 
 
 " How could communities, . . . 
 But by degrees, stand in authentic place ? 
 Take but degree away, untune that string, 
 And, hark, what discord follows ! each thing meets 
 In mere oppugnancy. . . . 
 Strength should be lord of imbecility. 
 And the rude son should strike his father dead. 
 Force should be right. . . . 
 Then everything includes itself in power, 
 Power into will, will into appetite ; 
 And appetite, a universal wolf, 
 So doubly seconded with will and power, 
 Must make, perforce, a universal prey, 
 And, last, eat up himself. " 
 
 The science of Aristotle sees the same law of 
 order, degree, and subordinated powers and capaci- 
 ties in every living organism, whether in the natural 
 or the social world. He gives the beehive as a 
 special example in his natural history of animals. 
 Shakspeare has put the same comparison into the 
 mouth of the politic Archbishop of Canterbury, in 
 '• Henry V." : — 
 
 " Therefore doth Heaven divide 
 The state of man in divers functions. 
 Setting endeavor in continual motion ; 
 To which is fixed, as an aim or butt, 
 Obedience : for so work the honey-bees. 
 Creatures that by a rule in Nature teach 
 The act of order to a peopled kingdom." 
 
 No better summary than this could be given of 
 Aristotle's best form of State organization. 
 
 To Aristotle the whole modern system of credit, 
 
ARISTOTLE'S " POLITICS^ 1 71 
 
 interest, monetary exchange, based upon the infinite 
 complexity and variety of claims involved, is wrong. 
 He holds that it leads to the unbounded acquisi- 
 tion of wealth, and causes the means of living to 
 be mistaken for the end. To buy and sell merely 
 for profit is a perversion of trade, which should 
 be carried on only to satisfy the needs of existence. 
 To make money produce money is unnatural. As 
 Shakspeare expresses it, to take interest is to 
 make barren metal breed metal. Aristotle would 
 have every commercial transaction a direct ex- 
 change of social services. But strange are the 
 standards of right and wrong, of justice and injus- 
 tice, in every age ! Just as his commonwealth, if it 
 wanted fish, could catch them from the sea ; or if 
 it needed game, could hunt wild animals on land, 
 so if it lacked slaves, it could make war for them 
 upon some weak and alien nation. Money may 
 not breed money, but slaves may breed slaves ! 
 
 The citizens of Aristotle's State are to have, as 
 far as possible, a common interest, a common aim, 
 and a common enjoyment of the means of educa- 
 tion and amusement provided by the powers that 
 be. But he severely criticises Plato's scheme of 
 community of property and community of offspring. 
 Plato would abolish the idea of mine and thine. 
 To be free from the quarrels caused by property 
 and individual relationships, he would do away with 
 them altogether. Aristotle uses the same valid 
 arguments that we employ to-day. The difficulties 
 of living in harmony where there is no individual 
 
172 ARISTOTLE'S "POLITICS." 
 
 property, he says, are very great. Where colonies 
 are settled with a common ownership of property, 
 there are continual disputes about the most trifling 
 matters. There are disputes also as to the labor al- 
 lotted and the compensation received ; complaints, 
 criminations, and recriminations, and even blows, 
 abound. If all things are common, no one can 
 give assistance to his friend or help to the needy; 
 no one can be generous, no one can be grateful, 
 no one self-relying. If there were no individual 
 property, some evils would be removed, but more 
 evils would be brought into existence; life wOuld 
 lose its zest, and unity would become a tiresome 
 monotony. With the development of virtue and 
 noble living, all the unity that is desirable will be 
 brought about. With community of property, in- 
 dustry would lack much of its present stimulus, 
 and not a few of the real pleasures of life would 
 be wanting; for many permanent and universal 
 tendencies of human nature would then be without 
 proper satisfaction. 
 
 But Aristotle, the opponent of common property, 
 is also opposed to the unlimited acquisition of 
 either wealth or land. He sees the evils of the 
 possession of superfluous riches, and seeks to guard 
 against them by the moral training of the citizens 
 and the limitation of buying and selling to real 
 exchanges of property for actual use. To accumu- 
 late for the sake of ^cumulation is sordid and 
 base, a habit unworthy of him who would live no- 
 bly and so as to benefit the State. Only those 
 
ARISTOTLE'S "POLITICS." 173 
 
 ends are to be pursued which contribute to a full and 
 perfect life. 
 
 Upon the relation of women to the State, Aris- 
 totle scarcely touches. Woman is a part of the 
 household, and receives no particular consideration. 
 Plato would emancipate her from her unnatural 
 seclusion, and make her the equal of man in the 
 social organization ; but Aristotle looks upon her 
 as the inferior of man, like the child and the slave : 
 she is to form a part of the family, whose head and 
 natural king is the husband, father, and master. 
 Men are not to marry until they are thirty-seven 
 years of age, or women until they are eighteen: 
 thus there is secured for the inexperienced maiden, 
 as far as possible, a grave and experienced coun- 
 sellor and friend, and the father will not be too near 
 of an age with the children, who should entertain 
 for him a certain respect and reverence. But was 
 not William von Humboldt nearer the truth, — that 
 is, to nature and common-sense, — when he said : 
 •' The freshness of youth is the true foundation for 
 a happy marriage. I would not for an instant say 
 that the happiness of marriage ends with youth; 
 but I do say that husband and wife should carry 
 into later life the memory of years enjoyed together, 
 if their happiness is not to lose the distinguishing 
 characteristic of wedded bliss." Yet if Aristotle 
 wished to make sure of the wife's silence before 
 the husband, he certainly was wise to make the 
 husband venerable. Comte said that the function 
 of the household is to cultivate to the highest 
 
174 ARISTOTLE'S "POLITICS." 
 
 point the influence of woman over man; but in 
 Aristotle's view the household is only a factor in 
 the organization of the State which supervises it. 
 He therefore permitted many things, such as checks 
 against over-population, which we should consider 
 cruel and inhuman. 
 
 On the different forms of State constitutions, 
 which Aristotle treats at great length,^ we need not 
 dwell. In the small area of Hellenic territory all 
 kinds of government were to be found, and the cities 
 often changed rapidly from one form to another. 
 Aristotle himself prefers the rule of one royal head, 
 if that head be gifted with a true genius for ruling, and 
 endowed with all the virtues that will serve to make 
 the happiness of the people the sole end in view. 
 But how can such a phoenix be assured? Next to 
 such a rare and almost impossible phenomenon, the 
 best government is a true aristocracy, — a govern- 
 ment of the best, selected from a body of citizens 
 instructed in the art of ruling ; men of education 
 and experience. A democracy is to Aristotle the 
 worst form of government. This was natural, as 
 there was no place in his scheme for the education 
 of the great body of the people. 
 
 This vast American democracy of ours, — this 
 graded system of town, city, county, State, and na- 
 tion, — presents a grand whole, with such a subor- 
 dination and combination of parts that Aristotle's 
 provisions for attaining political ends seem irisig- 
 
 1 His exposition of the Constitution of Athens has been the 
 latest discovery to interest the learned world. 
 
ARISTOTLB^S "POLITICS." 175 
 
 nificant in comparison. To-day the cex he set 
 aside as not capable of citizenship presses forward 
 for complete recognition ; and many women labor 
 zealously for a State looking to the highest good 
 of all the people, and administered by all the peo- 
 ple. Aristotle feared a State too large and a peo- 
 ple too numerous. He did not dream that vast 
 diversity of interests, infinite variety of produc- 
 tions, complexity of institutions, opposite systems 
 of religion, varied soil and climate, different ideals 
 held by many classes of society, and employ- 
 ments and methods of living endlessly varied, — 
 that all these could work together to secure 
 permanence and stability in the constitution of 
 the State. . 
 
 Yet if we look at the American situation in an- 
 other light, the remotest parts of our country are 
 not much farther apart than were the remotest cities 
 of Greece, thanks to the railway, the telephone, 
 and the telegraph. Moreover, the means of educa- 
 tion have in our case been infinitely multiplied in 
 schools, churches, and the products of the printing- 
 press. But though thus aided by invention and 
 by wide-spread knowledge in preserving alive an 
 enormous State, we have — even more than the 
 Greeks had — to rely on intelligence, courage, 
 and faith to overcome the difficulties that con- 
 front us. 
 
 At the present time we have followers of Aris- 
 totle and followers of Plato, — men who uncon- 
 sciously range themselves among the scientific 
 
176 ARISTOTLE'S "POLITICS." 
 
 students of natural and social phenomena, and 
 men who construct castles in the air, cities in 
 the clouds, and believe in Utopian ideals, the 
 more fervently the more impracticable they ap- 
 pear. Plato depreciated natural science and the 
 study of physical objects, giving it credit only as 
 a pleasant pastime, " a means of pleasure which 
 did not bring repentance with it." This world 
 was but the sprii^-board from which the soul 
 was to make its bound into the infinite, the per- 
 manent, the ideal, the divine. He knew nothing of 
 our modern reverent study of Nature ; for in natu- 
 ral existences was the cause of all evil, and the realm 
 of ideas was to him the only realm of reality. The 
 temporary and changing phenomena of life he 
 deemed unworthy of philosophic thought, and the 
 real statesman was he who could discern essential 
 causes, and see what was, in itself and eternally, 
 noble and just. Philosophers, or men of insight 
 into divine realities, were of necessity the rulers in 
 Plato's ideal commonwealth. 
 
 The method of the " Politics " was just the oppo- 
 site from this ; for Aristotle reverenced the facts of 
 Nature, and from these unfolded the general law. 
 Plato, starting from the realm of ideas, looked upon 
 every object of sense as a declension from the divine 
 order, as a loss of reality, an immersion in the 
 world of matter and of sense, a descent from eter- 
 nal and permanent goodness and truth. To study 
 the actual development of institutions, and from 
 various forms of existing States to deduce the 
 
ARISTOTLE'S "POL/TICS." 1 77 
 
 laws of political science, was entirely counter to 
 his method of philosophizing. All past and 
 present State-institutions were monstrous and ab- 
 normal phenomena, violations of the divine ideas 
 of righteousness and justice, and at the best could 
 be only warnings, — buoys as it were, to show the 
 "limits of the channel or the sunken reefs. The 
 " Politics," on the contrary, has for its main thesis 
 the identification of the State and individual well- 
 being. The end for which man exists is not in 
 himself, but in that city- State of which he makes 
 a part. As in the animal every member and limb 
 is subordinate to the organization as a whole, and 
 as the plan of this whole gives the normal status 
 or form which each and every part must assume, 
 — so in the social organism, or State, the good 
 or well-being of the whole constitutes the norm, 
 or rule, to which every individual part must con- 
 form itself, if there is to be the highest develop- 
 ment. And with Aristotle this may be said to 
 constitute the absolute ethics; namely, the iden- 
 tification of the individual with the State. 
 
 This would seem, then, to be no new doctrine; 
 yet this is claimed as something peculiar to the 
 modern development of socialistic theories. I turn 
 to a book called the " Ethics of Socialism," and 
 there I read the following : — 
 
 " At last, with the dawn of a new economic era, — the 
 era of social production for social uses, — we shall have also 
 the dawn of a new Ethic ; an Ethic whose ideal is neither 
 personal holiness nor personal interest, but social happi- " 
 
178 ARISTOTLE'S "POLITICS." 
 
 ness, for which the perfect individual will ever be sub- 
 ordinate to the perfect society. The test of personal char- 
 acter will here be the possession of social qualities and the 
 zeal for positive and definite social ends. This may be 
 termed in a sense an absolute Ethic. In this new con- 
 ception of duty the individual consciously subordinates 
 himself to the community. The separation of ethics 
 from politics, and of both from religion, is finally abol- 
 ished. In socialism, ethics become political, and poli- 
 tics become ethical ; while religion means but the higher 
 and more far-reaching aspect of that ethical sense of ob- 
 ligation, duty, fraternity, which is the ultimate bond of 
 every-day society." 
 
 Could a better statement be made of Aristotle's 
 view of the end and aim of social organization? It 
 adds nothing to it. To be sure, Aristotle had a 
 different view of what constitutes fraternity; but 
 this does not affect the moral purpose and the 
 philosophic groundwork of his social and political 
 theory. 
 
 This, then, is the new Ethic, this the supreme 
 and satisfying ideal for which humanity is to work ! 
 The struggles of the human heart for these two 
 thousand years; the aspirations for a divine life 
 and for a destiny beyond time and sense; the 
 vision of immortality; the communion with the 
 great and good of all ages ; the rising into higher 
 states of loving, disinterested service; the opening 
 vistas of progressive knowledge, and of unfolding 
 states and modes of being, — all this is to be abol- 
 ished, and that which constitutes " the bond of 
 
ARISTOTLE'S "POLITICS." 1 79 
 
 every-day society " is to be the embodiment of all 
 striving, the all-sufficient aim of the denizens of this 
 wonderful universe ! Aristotle expressed the high- 
 est conception of that Greek civilization ; but there 
 is now a higher; and this higher conception is not 
 abandoned, though it may seem lost in the transition 
 from a lower to a higher form. "Attacks on reli- 
 gion," as Benjamin Constant well says, " do not mean 
 that mankind is ready to say good-by to religion, 
 but simply that its popular forms no longer fit the 
 needs of the souls which have outgrown them and 
 desire something purer and larger." 
 
 There is a higher view of man in his political and 
 social destiny than either Plato or Aristotle saw, — 
 a commonwealth of humanity whose foundation is 
 in the earth, but whose superstructure is in the 
 realm of eternal and spiritual ideas; and we are 
 made citizens of that commonwealth, not by_any 
 written constitution or any geographical boundaries, 
 but by oneness of spirit, and by sympathy with 
 every effort for the well-being of man. 
 
X. 
 
 SOCIAL PROGRESS. 
 
 Progress in the animal world consists in manifes- 
 tation of more highly organized forms of life, from 
 the simplest cell to the most wonderful and compact 
 human brain. Social progress is the advance from 
 the wandering savage, sufficient for his own few in- 
 dividual needs, to the citizen of to-day, dependent 
 ;every moment on the ministration of his fellows in 
 a thousand ways for comfort and even life. At 
 every stage we see that society becomes a more 
 highly organized form of life, each part more de- 
 pendent, each nerve more sensitive, each remotest 
 .organ more fully ministrant to the needs and well- 
 being of the whole, — from the bald monotony of 
 the old village community, to the boiling stir and 
 lively commotion of the country of the telegraph, 
 the railway, and the daily newspaper.. 
 
 This social progress has been in the direction of 
 the organization of industry, the application of mind 
 to all the various employments, occupations, and 
 cotnforts of life. Where all work is performed by 
 slaves, what object in lessening their toils, or mak- 
 ing efforts to increase their leisure? The wisest of 
 the ancients could see no other way than the slavery 
 
SOCIAL PROGRESS. I Si 
 
 of the many in order that the few might have lei- 
 sure for culture and the means of citizenship. The 
 slow centuries have evolved the true idea of man- 
 hood, and on it, as on an eternal foundation, rests 
 our social as well as our political superstructure. 
 
 The wonderful simplicity of those arrangements 
 by which human progress is promoted escapes our 
 notice, and therefore it may be well to look more 
 minutely at what takes place every moment,, and is 
 more truly miraculous than if man's food were 
 brought to him every day and laid at his feet by 
 some fowl of the air or some beast of the field. No 
 delicate piece of machinery ever devised by man is 
 so delicate, so complex, so intricately involved in 
 its parts as this living machine which we call so- 
 ciety, the body politic, the social organization, the 
 modern democratic State. 
 
 How are such results secured as we witness every 
 moment, and secured so universally that we do not 
 take thought of them, any more than we do of our 
 breathing, of our walking, of our ordinary use of 
 speech? Think how many innumerable services 
 are combined in order to clothe any average citizen 
 of the millions of our people ! The cotton, silk,, 
 flax, wool, and leather, coming from every quarter 
 of the world, have passed through how many hands, 
 how many changes, how many processes of produc- 
 tion, manufacture, and distribution ! The imagina- 
 tion flags before this, infinite complexity of labors, 
 inventions, industries, and trades. Look upon a 
 table set. out for the commonest meal, and reflect 
 
1 82 SOCIAL PROGRESS. 
 
 what generations of men have conspired to clear, 
 defend, and till the land ; to plant, reap, grind, and 
 prepare the grain ; how many men have delved in 
 mines, how many labored to perfect machines; 
 and what forces of air, water, and steam have been 
 brought into play before that simple loaf of bread 
 was placed upon the table ; — take in all this, and 
 pass over then as commonplace and insignificant, 
 if you can, that wonderful system of social arrange- 
 ments by which, for a trifle on your part, you can 
 be put into possession not only of that loaf of bread, 
 but of a vast variety of products which by your 
 own individual efforts you never could have earned 
 in thousands of years, though you had a hundred 
 contriving heads and a hundred skilful hands. It 
 is the conspiring labor of the human race that 
 has built our houses, ordained justice, established 
 schools, and secured the means of material, intel- 
 lectual, and spiritual good, — more, infinitely more, 
 than the wisest, the strongest, could ever obtain by 
 his own individual labor and skill. Yet each one, 
 by doing his daily work, becomes a share-holder: 
 in this vast company. With his day's work he pays 
 his part of the debt to the human race. Is there 
 no harmonious working in the laws by which so 
 wonderful a result is brought about? 
 
 Reflect what a triumph of commissariat ability is 
 involved in supplying a few hundred soldiers with 
 what is necessary to eat and drink for a few days. 
 Still more, consider how the supplies of every town 
 and city seem to take, care of themselves. Four 
 
SOCIAL PROGRESS. 183 
 
 millions of people in London are daily fed, and what 
 organized corps of planners, what human foresight 
 and supervision, could accomplish this result which 
 comes so easily and so regularly from so many chan- 
 nels, and with such incredible labors by land and by 
 sea, by lane and by highway, by railroad and by 
 river ! And each one is benefited in the same ratio 
 of an infinity of services from others over and above 
 what he himself can furnish. Is there not something 
 wonderful in that system of economic laws by which 
 society is estabhshed and kept together, — by which 
 services are rendered, exchanges effected, and 
 needed products furnished for the social well-being 
 of the race? Is this equilibrium of forces, this call- 
 ing forth of efforts, this restraining of excesses, this 
 remedying of deficiencies, this universal supplying 
 of needs, — is this a trifling affair? 
 
 Each man's labor does seem so small an affair ! 
 He ploughs a few acres, cuts a few soles or uppers, 
 fashions a few pin-heads or points, digs a little lead 
 or iron or coal out of the rock, enters a few figures 
 in a ledger, drives a few nails, sets up a few types, — 
 and what does his work amount to ? If he look at 
 the sum-total of that alone, reckoned up in its soli- 
 tary bigness, he feels ismall enough. But it does 
 not stand alone; it has relations with every other 
 man's work, and every other man's work with it. It 
 is an essential part of the grand result ; it gives him 
 a share in the work of all other men. The race is at 
 work to supply each one's special need. A travel- 
 ler once said of London, that " he believed if you 
 
1 84 SQCI4L PROGRESS. 
 
 had a hole between the third and fourth upper molar 
 of the left jaw, and had reason to think that a tooth- 
 pick of nickel cut with cydoidal lines, and curved 
 on the pattern of the lines of the pillars of the Par- 
 thenon, was necessary for it, and went into a tooth- 
 pick shop and asked for it, you would find that that 
 particular thing had been provided for an emer- 
 gency just like yours, and that a stock was kept 
 with a view to future necessities." 
 
 You then are at work to supply some want j and 
 your neighbor, if he is an honest man, is also at 
 work to supply your want and that of other people 
 besides. Show your title to any service, and you, 
 can get it. What is this title or certificate? Money. 
 A dollar, say, stands for so much service to be ren- 
 dered to you by the human race ; it stands for so 
 much service of a particular kind rendered hy you^, 
 if you worked for it, — by your ancestors, if you in- 
 herited it. You have this ticket : what will you take 
 it out in? One man in land, another in bookSr; 
 one in a house, another in fancy goods of various 
 kinds ; one in eatables, another in drinkables, — until 
 the ticket is punched out in all its values. One 
 man says, perhaps, " I will not present my certifi- 
 cate just now; I will postpone it for a month or a 
 year. You, neighbor, may use it, and get.such ser- 
 vice as you can out of it, paying me so much for 
 using it, just as you would pay me for using my 
 horse or my wagon or my house; only, be sure 
 that I get it back again at the end of the time." 
 
 A dqllar, then, is the record of so much, service 
 
SOCIAL PROGRESS. 1 85 
 
 rendered, and is the title to so much service to- be 
 rendered in return. You may hoard it up or use it 
 up, loan it or throw it away; you may spend it 
 yourself, or give it to posterity: so far as it goes, 
 it is a good title to all the manifold labors of all 
 mankind. Thus, every blow with the hammer, every 
 stroke with the pen, every stitch with the needle, 
 every throw of the shuttle, every revolving of the 
 wheel, is one more bond of union of the part with 
 the whole, in this vast aggregate of human services 
 that constitutes what we call "civilization" or "social 
 development." 
 
 And without some feeling that what he does is 
 of some use, — that is, has a. relation to the great 
 fabric of human weal, — no man can be content with 
 his life, no man can receive true joy from his work. 
 But a perception of this relation gives elasticity to 
 the muscle, light to the eye, cheer to the spirit, and 
 speed to the weary hour of toil. The humblest 
 worker may truly say, " I also help raise the great 
 edifice of society and of social well-being." 
 
 Many a man becomes discouraged, loses heart, 
 sinks into Hstlessness, or throws himself into the 
 whirl of dissipated folly, because he fails to recog- 
 nize how infinitely great is the least effort in its re- 
 lation to the whole, and how infinitely small is the 
 most gigantic strength when isolated and separate 
 from the social mass of benefit. There is a world 
 of meaning in that old story of the poor Yankee and ■ 
 the wealthy Pennsylvania Quaker, when the former 
 applied to the latter for help in his need. 
 
1 86 SOCIAL PROGRESS. 
 
 "Friend," said the Quaker, "I will furnish thee 
 with work, and pay thee for it; but it is not my 
 custom to give alms to one able to labor like thee." 
 
 " That's just what I want," rephed the other; " I 
 am willing to work." 
 
 "Well," said the Quaker, "there is a log yonder, 
 and here is an axe. Thee may pound on that log 
 with the head of the axe ; and if thee is diligent and 
 faithful, I will pay thee a dollar a day." 
 
 " I 'd as soon do that as anything else," said the 
 laborer; and accordingly he pounded and pounded 
 on the log with the head of the axe. After a while 
 his energies began to flag, and in half an hour, 
 coming to a full stop, he threw away the axe, 
 saying, " I 'II be hanged if I 'II cut wood without 
 seeing the chips fly." 
 
 Good for the poor fellow ! He wanted to eff'ect 
 some end, to feel that he was doing something more 
 than earning his dollar. No one of us is content to 
 pound merely for the sake of pounding. Said Dr. 
 Channing, more than fifty years ago, — 
 
 " To get a living a man must be useful. It is strange 
 that laboring men do not think more of the vast useful- 
 ness of their toils, and take a benevolent pleasure in them 
 on this account. This beautiful city, with its houses, furni- 
 ture, markets, public walks, and numberless accommoda- 
 tions, has grown up under the hands of artisans and other 
 laborers ; and ought they not to take a disinterested joy 
 in their work? One would think that a carpenter or 
 mason, on passing a house which he had helped to rear, 
 would say to himself, ' This work of mine is giving comfort 
 
SOCIAL PROGRESS. 187 
 
 and enjoyment every day and hour, and will continue 
 to be a kindly shelter, a domestic gathering-place, an 
 abode of affection after I sleep in the dust ; ' and 
 ought not a generous satisfaction to spring up at the 
 thought?" 
 
 Must we wait for a new organization of society to 
 feel this satisfaction? It may belong to the hod- 
 carrier, to the hewer of wood and to the ham- 
 merer of stone, as well as to the architect or to the 
 skilled mechanic. Having this in mind, I was sur- 
 prised to read the words of another Boston clergy- 
 man, the other day, when he said that no man could 
 derive satisfaction from mere manual labor, but only 
 from skilled work. It is a fact of social progress, 
 indeed, that more and more the great forces of Na- 
 ture are brought to do the muscular drudgery of the 
 world ; but can this drudgery be entirely eliminated? 
 Cannot there be for the laborer, as well as for the 
 artist, a noble consolation and an ideal outlook? 
 
 The law of social development is as simple as it 
 is universal. The basis of all movement is a hu- 
 man want ; and in order to satisfy this want, labor 
 is requisite. At first, man has only his own hands 
 with which to work ; but he invents tools, — the 
 pick, the plough, the wheel, the axe, etc., — and 
 thus the gratuitous and mighty forces of Nature are 
 turned into his service and made to do his bidding. 
 Every new application of these forces inures to the 
 benefit of man universally, — not merely of the par- 
 ticular man who invents the machine, or of him who 
 appHes it to use. The capitalist gains much less 
 
1 88 SOCIAL PROGRESS. 
 
 relative advantage from improvements in machin- 
 ery thaa the community at large. Every conquest 
 over natural powers, every new servant of the brain 
 brought to do man's bidding, takes so much from 
 the cost of what is intended to supply some human 
 want. The labor of the hands, at every step of me- 
 chanical improvement, at every employment of nat- 
 ural forces, — such as gravitation, heat, attraction, in 
 air, water, vapor, and gas, — becomes proportionally 
 less and less, while Nature supplies more and more 
 of her invisible ministrants. For these helpers no 
 charge is made. Only open a way for Nature to 
 serve, and she runs to do your bidding. She asks 
 nothing but to have the way kept free for service. 
 Keep that in good condition, and she neither strikes,, 
 nor asks for higher pay, nor even quits work when 
 the sun goes down. She will not be bound appreu:- 
 tice to any one exclusive master. Does the inventor 
 nod, she serves some one who is wide awake. Does 
 he appropriate too much to his own benefit, a hun- 
 dred rivals start up where there is an open field for 
 work, and immediately some simpler process is. in- 
 vented, some better machine,, some cheaper method,; 
 and thus there is the unfailing tendency to benefit 
 the whole, — for more of the gain that comes from 
 the employment of these untiring, unreasoning, 
 ever-obedient slaves passes over to the credit of 
 the many than to that of the few. 
 
 The houses of a few large land-owners were once 
 the only abodes of even a modicum of comfort, the 
 sole possessors of many books, of fine furniture. 
 
SOCIAL PROGRESS. 189 
 
 of works of luxury and art. But even these few 
 would look with wonder upon the accumulated re- 
 sources and means belonging to thousands and tens 
 of thousands of average citizens to-day. Once the 
 king's courier could travel, perhaps, at great trouble 
 and expense, two hundred miles a day; now the 
 laborer, at the cost of an hour's Avork, can send his 
 courier a thousand miles in a few minutes of time. 
 Xings now must travel upon the people's iron 
 highway, if they»would travel as fast as the people 
 themselves ; the books read by the rich are no 
 longer a few illuminated manuscripts, purchased at 
 an incredible cost because made entirely by human 
 labor; but they are printed and bound by machin- 
 ery, and so are within the reach of all. Thus the 
 relative gain of the community of men, at every 
 step of social development through economic law, 
 is vastly greater than the gain of the capitalist, or 
 of the few pampered possessors of exclusive claims 
 to lordship and privilege and superfluous wealth. 
 The aiverage level is continually rising, and the 
 number of s^harers in any common application of 
 natural forces grows larger every day. 
 
 Now, because of the helping forces of Nature 
 wealth increases; and this wealth, over and above 
 what is immediately used, is the measure of man's 
 triumph over Nature, as well as of Nature's gratui- 
 tous service in the supply of human wants. What 
 is property, then? It is the symbol of power over 
 Nature ; or, rather, it is the record and the expres- 
 sion of the use which man has made of the forces of 
 
190 SOCIAL PROGRESS. 
 
 the material universe. It is the result of so much 
 work done; and if you will, you can exchange your 
 share for so much work of a different kind. Says a 
 writer on the " PoHtical Life of our Time, — 
 
 " Where Nature does everything for man, and man can 
 live from hand to mouth, capital has no increase and so- 
 ciety no progress. Capital and civilization have gone 
 hand in hand. The results of a man's isolated contests 
 with the difficulties of Nature are extremely limited, but 
 all-powerful and productive in the accumulated effort of 
 the race. This constitutes the real iixed capital of our 
 time, existing not only in our material riches, — buildings 
 and machinery, — but in the experience, the foresight, 
 and the prudence embodied in the agriculture, trades, 
 and letters of the day. 
 
 Because it is of so much vital significance, prop- 
 erty has been the great object which all government 
 and all organized forms of order have sought to 
 secure and to protect. Without this safety and 
 security, man remains a savage and a brute. He 
 even sinks below the level of the brute. The brute 
 does not know what property is: it has properties, — 
 that is, faculties, — exactly proportioned to its limited 
 needs. Its faculties, or properties, are good for just 
 so much and no more, — for the secretion of so 
 much honey or wax or web ; for the obtaining of 
 so much food ; for the construction of a shelter on 
 just such a pattern; for the living in just such an 
 environment : in a word, the wants, and the proper- 
 ties by which it supplies those wants, are nicely 
 
SOCIAL PROGRESS. 191 
 
 correlated, exactly measured, the one by the other. 
 But it is the prerogative of man to have property, — 
 that is, an accumulation of material things beyond 
 the satisfaction of his own immediate wants. While 
 animals of one species have precisely the same 
 wants and the same properties, man has infinitely 
 various wants to be supplied in infinitely various 
 ways ; man has a personality not identical with the 
 properties of his nature ; he has a spiritual force 
 not measured by his beak, his claws, or his teeth. 
 Now, the symbol of this personality, this force, 
 is property, — that is, something over and above 
 man's purely physical necessities, his wants of the 
 moment; something which represents the services 
 he may claim of his fellow-men, according to the 
 estimate set by the community at any given time; 
 something which entitles him to so many supplies 
 to the wants of body, mind, or taste, — clothing, 
 books, houses, pictures, fields ; services of all kinds 
 except the spontaneous affections of the heart. 
 Here is a plane above the operation of the econo- 
 mic laws; here is the kingdom not of this world. 
 Character, moral worth,'is the reality, while property 
 is only a symbol. 
 
 But because property is such a weighty symbol, it 
 has always possessed a mysterious power; it repre- 
 sents so much force, so much industry, so much ex- 
 cellence, so much self-restraint, so much forethought 
 somewhere and in some souls, but not necessarily 
 in those particular persons who may possess it at 
 the present moment. Thus property carries with 
 
192 SOCIAL PROGRESS. 
 
 it a prestige, indefinable, subtile, universally pene- 
 trating; so that he who does not feel it, and is not 
 unconsciously swayed by it, has been pronounced 
 " a miracle in Nature." But this prestige is not an 
 unmixed evil : it is one of those appearances by 
 which man is lured on to his higher destiny. He 
 is trained and educated through symbols, and pri- 
 marily through the world of Nature, which is itself 
 only a symbol. 
 
 See the operation of the universal law. Man 
 attains a sense of personality, a feeling of pure, 
 spiritual activity so far as he rules, directs, and mas- 
 ters the natural world. Just so far as he subdues 
 and possesses Nature, just so far does he come into 
 the knowledge, the use, and the enjoyment of his 
 own faculties as a spiritual being. The savage, who 
 uses Nature as coextensive only with the supply of 
 his pressing animal needs from day to day, remains 
 stationary, makes little social progress, attains no 
 high degree of social development. He looks upon 
 the forces of Nature as cruel and relentless foes ; he 
 sees in lightning and in torrent only wrathful ministers 
 of vengeance. He feels his own weakness, his own 
 subjection, his own wretchedness. Nature is not to 
 him a mirror in which his own powers are reflected, 
 a standard by which his own strength is measured ; 
 but it is a crushing tyrant, before whom he must 
 unconditionally yield. 
 
 But every advance made by man in subduing 
 Nature demonstrates his power and measures his 
 essential worth. He accumulates more than he 
 
SOCIAL PROGRESS. 
 
 193 
 
 uses for his present wants ; and that accumulation is 
 his capital. That symbolizes his power and his great- 
 ness ; that moves him from place to place, unfolds 
 to him the secrets of the stars, opens to him the 
 glories of the past, sends his messages with light- 
 ning swiftness, turns the swamp into a garden, fills 
 his ear with music and his house with the means 
 of comfort and of ease ; that sets in motion multi- 
 tudes of men, and makes his word almost omnipo- 
 tent in the material world. 
 
 Thus social progress is the result of man's rule 
 over Nature's powers, of his activity in the supply 
 of various human wants. And the symbol of this 
 power, the representative of this essential preroga- 
 tive of man — property — has been instinctively and 
 blindly pursued as if it were the real and only good 
 in itself The idol has been worshipped as if it 
 were the god. In this material sheath the higher 
 spiritual development of man has been cared for 
 and protected; for in its building up of material 
 interests humanity is building up something better 
 than it now sees. Through the free and unre- 
 stricted operation of the laws inherent in life and the 
 world, the great problems of society will have their 
 solution. The special organization is beyond the 
 device of any individual skill; but the time will 
 come when the general means of good shall so far 
 surpass any one man's peculiar appropriation, that 
 the idol shall be dashed in pieces, and the domain 
 of Nature pass entirely over to man. At every step 
 of the transfer, what are now exclusive benefits 
 
 13 
 
194 SOCIAL PROGRESS. 
 
 will then be distributed as a common heritage. The 
 privileges of the few in learning and art are rapidly 
 becoming the possibilities of all. The general level 
 of comfort, of opportunity, of knowledge, is rising 
 from year to year; and to doubt of the sufficiency 
 of the in-working laws of humanity for evolving the 
 highest good is to doubt the splendid achievements 
 of the present and the no less splendid possibihties 
 of the future. 
 
 " Man ought never to be troubled about the 
 means of subsistence," says the Hindu apologue 
 in its admirable simplicity; "for that the Creator 
 provides. A mother has no sooner given birth to 
 her child, than two fountains of milk flow from the 
 maternal bosom." This suggests a truth which 
 every stage of human progress does but make 
 more plain. In it are volumes of social science; 
 in it is the prophecy of everything relating to 
 moral and natural subsistence. Every supply 
 which humanity needs comes in its time; every 
 child of inventive genius opens the sealed fountains 
 of Nature's maternal breast. To be alarmed lest 
 iron and coal and oil shall fail ! Let them fail : 
 there is water, there is air, there is sunlight to ren- 
 der up their infinite stores of good. 
 
 What is the lesson taught over and over again? 
 Whenever the old has ceased, some better new has 
 taken its place ; whenever the old faith and the old 
 form are but husks, behold ! from the unknown 
 depth of the human spirit comes some fresh inspira- 
 
SOCIAL PROGRESS. 195 
 
 tion, some renewing ideal. When the wider field 
 and the virgin soil were needed for the seed of a more 
 perfect manhood, the compass was made known, and 
 bold heart and seeing mind sailed forth into un- 
 known seas. And so each generation is supplied 
 out of an infinite fountain of good, each day giving 
 some new application of the forces of the natural 
 world to man's physical, social, and spiritual exigen- 
 cies. We need to see, then, the eternal laws of 
 order, of harmony, of universal tendency to good 
 shining in the firmament above, however dark may 
 be the night, and however hidden may be the road. 
 A grdat social theorist of the past generation, 
 Leroux, interpreted aright the lesson that is taught 
 to us all, when we look with upward gaze into thd 
 heavens over our heads, and let " the soul of things " 
 speak to our hearts. He says : — 
 
 "Last evening, as I walked, I was thinking upon the 
 ills that afflict humanity, the ignorance and the passion 
 that oppose its progress ; upon how hard it is to spread 
 abroad a new idea, and how the truths most essential to 
 man's happiness and well-being are ignored and perse- 
 cuted ; and thus thinking, I became sad and discouraged. 
 Suddenly I lifted up my eyes : the stars were shining in 
 the heavens. I had gazed only a moment, when a voice 
 within me said : ' Thou who thus art afflicted at the woes 
 of humanity, and would 'st have them removed in one 
 single instant, look at those stars, and remember that not 
 centuries, but millions upon millions of centuries are 
 needed for their light to reach the eye and show their 
 
196 SOCIAL PROGRESS. 
 
 place in the heavens.' With this thought, peace and hope 
 entered my soul, and my moral sanity was restored." 
 
 Neither must we be misled by shooting stars or 
 sparkling meteors that flash across the sky. It is 
 related of President Lincoln, " that in the gloomiest 
 period of the war he had a call from a large delega- 
 tion of bank presidents. One of them asked him 
 whether his confidence in the permanency of the 
 Union was not beginning to be shaken; to which 
 this embodied genius of common-sense made the 
 following reply: ' Gentlemen, when I was a young 
 man in Illinois, I boarded for a time with a worthy 
 deacon of the Presbyterian Church. One night I 
 was roused from my sleep by a rap at the door, and 
 I heard the deacon's voice exclaimirig, " Get up, 
 Abraham ! the day of judgment has come ! " Spring- 
 ing from the bed I rushed to the window, and saw 
 great showers of falling stars ; but looking back of 
 them, I saw in the heavens the grand old constella- 
 tions fixed and true in their well-known places. 
 Gentlemen,' he added, ' the world did not come to 
 an end then, nor will the Union now.' " 
 
 The great social result we now see has -been 
 brought about without any one man's, or all men's, 
 direct or voluntary contrivance, — a result plastic to 
 every higher, in-pressing tendency. May we not 
 say, then, in regard to social development what an 
 eminent physiologist^ says in regard to the physical 
 universe, that " to see a great result brought about 
 
 1 Nature and Man. By W. B. Carpenter. P. 382. 
 
SOCIAL PROGRESS. 197 
 
 by the consentaneous but diversified aUion of a 
 multitude of individuals, each of whom does his 
 own particular work in a manner that combines 
 harmoniously with the different work of every other, 
 suggests to me nothing but admiration for the 
 Master-mind by which that order was devised." 
 
XI. 
 
 SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. - 
 
 In his grandest Ode, — " Intimations of Immortal- 
 ity from the Recollections of Early Childhood," — 
 Wordsworth draws, not proofs, but suggestions of 
 man's capacity for the immortal life ; and he raises 
 the song of thanks and praise, not for the delight 
 and liberty and hope of childhood's years, — 
 
 " But for those obstinate questionings 
 Of sense and outward things ; 
 Fallings from us, vanishings ; 
 Blank misgivings of a creature 
 Moving about in worlds not realized ; 
 High instincts, before which our mortal nature 
 Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised : 
 But for those first affections. 
 Those shadowy recollections. 
 Which, be they what they may, 
 Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, 
 Are yet a master-light of all our seeing." 
 
 Equally suggestive are those dreams of a nobler 
 than the present life, which, whether they take the 
 form of a paradise in the ages long past, or a para- 
 dise in the coming ages of the future of humanity, 
 alike give intimations of an immortal spirit and an 
 eternal destiny. Man is not content with that which 
 
SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 1 99 
 
 the eye can see and the hand can touch ; in a mo- 
 ment, his thought travels to a fairer land and a more 
 joyous clime. 
 
 All ages have their Utopias, their visions of repub- 
 lics and cities of God, their purer State and nobler 
 organization, wherein justice shall reign and love 
 shall rule, and all shall be sharers in a blessedness 
 which the human heart has never truly imagined. 
 Take away this ideal element, and few would be 
 found to trouble themselves with plans and prob- 
 lems for the social good of the race. Even man's 
 most material heaven is a protest against the limita- 
 tions of time and sense. Any -project or plan which 
 has not in it something of this higher tendency, this 
 appeal to what is noblest and best, gains no hold, or 
 soon sinks into decay and nothingness. There is 
 this essential greatness in humanity, — that the only 
 cement which does not crumble, even as it is being 
 put on, is that which has, or seems to have, a divine 
 quality, a potency derived from its being mixed with 
 man's purest loves and grandest aspirations. Be- 
 fore he has developed his capacities, before he finds 
 out that he is capable of an infinite progress, man 
 suffering under the evils and limitations of the pres- 
 ent looks back to the past, whose frowning features 
 he has forgotten, and places there his ideal state of 
 blessedness, when he lived in innocence and peace, 
 when the earth yielded spontaneously its stores of 
 good, and a golden age was the heritage of the race. 
 But the occult wisdom of the Greek mysteries and 
 traditions taught ^Eschylus better than this; and 
 
200 SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 
 
 he makes the beginnings of humanity in the lowest 
 depths of ignorance and want, without the knowl- 
 edge even of fire, dwelling — 
 
 " In hollowed holes, like swarms of tiny ants, 
 In sunless depths of caverns." 
 
 It is evident that yEschylus conceived civilization as 
 growth. 
 
 The early priesthoods were the select brother- 
 hoods, which, withdrawn into themselves, had pos- 
 session of whatever knowledge then existed, and kept 
 it too as their own exclusive right. In their view 
 the multitude were to be led, and to be let into only 
 so much acquaintance with the ancient traditions 
 and the higher wisdom as seemed safe to the few 
 dwellers in the inmost circle. Among the freedom- 
 loving Greeks, however, the exclusive lines drawn 
 by the sacred fraternities were soon overleaped, and 
 in the tragedies of the poets and the philosophies of 
 the early schools was embodied whatever was vital 
 in the mysteries and the sacerdotal fraternities. But 
 philosophy did not outgrow the idea of something 
 select to be followed only by the few, who consti- 
 tuted a separate caste, and whose life was not to be 
 stained by contact with the ordinary cares and busi- 
 ness of the many. The great philosopher Pytha- 
 goras, who preceded Plato, and to whom Plato was 
 vastly indebted, founded a secret society, or reli- 
 gious community, into whose mystic wisdom only 
 those were admitted who underwent years of initia- 
 tory preparation by silence, by prayer, by purify- 
 
SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 20I 
 
 ing services, until they were deemed worthy to re- 
 ceive the knowledge of the inmost revelations of 
 science and religion. The discipline which Pathag- 
 oras instituted was intended to raise up a company 
 of select souls, who should be the teachers of man- 
 kind, and who should live a separate and divine life. 
 It was a new method of living, and his disciples re- 
 ceived a training in science, in morals, and in politi- 
 cal knowledge. It was their mingling in politics, 
 together with their aristocratic bearing and haughty 
 exclusiveness, which brought about their destruction 
 as an order and scattered them over Greece. It is 
 easy for us to comprehend how that which holds 
 others in contempt should itself finally become the 
 victim of contempt in other men. 
 
 In all ages religion appears to have been the con- 
 secrating bond that has kept together those who 
 would separate themselves from ordinary society, and 
 thus attain a position of freedom from its claims and 
 its cares. No plan of material utility alone, of sen- 
 sual pleasure, of pecuniary gain, has been able to 
 unite for any length of time the sons and daughters 
 of this dreaming, aspiring human race. But some 
 common, infinite hope ; some longing for good un- 
 bounded by the narrow limits of earth and sense, — 
 this has melted away the differences of external con- 
 dition, of strength, of capacity, of wealth, and of out- 
 ward form, and given a long lease of perpetuity to 
 many social arrangements. Witness the Essenes in 
 Egypt and Palestine; the monastic orders of the 
 Middlp Ages ; the Moravians and Shakers of modern 
 
202 SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 
 
 times. In the earliest days of overflowing common 
 affection and devotion, the followers of Christ made 
 common cause for mutual support, and no longer 
 said mine and thme, as far as fellow-believers were 
 concerned. But this was no association taking in 
 all the world; it was a solidarity among those 
 only who felt as brothers, and owned one common 
 head; it was a passing, temporary condition of 
 things, as limited and as exclusive as the life-school 
 of Pythagoras, or the brotherhood of the Knights 
 of Saint John. 
 
 But as we travel down the ages we come into a 
 different atmosphere. Individual liberty begins to 
 claim its rights. Religion, more and more relegated 
 to a future world, ceases to regulate and preside over 
 the present. Science makes known its wonderful 
 secrets ; freedom in the sphere of politics, of thought, 
 and of labor makes its demands. The American 
 Revolution is an object-lesson that startles the dull- 
 est pupil in the school of privilege and divine right. 
 The French Revolution, so quickly consumed by its 
 own excesses, scatters everywhere glowing embers, 
 which kindle into a living flame, and burn on and 
 on wherever there is wrong to be redressed and 
 inequalities to be removed. The foundations up- 
 heaved, trembling, do not fall back again into the 
 old places. "We are here," say the laboring millions, 
 " and we are men who claim our rights ! " 
 
 In the first quarter of the present century the voice 
 that gives utterance, embodying in articulate, syste- 
 matic tones this cry of labor, is that of the. Count 
 
SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 203 
 
 Saint-Simon, who died in poverty and isolation in 
 1825 ; but not before he had given to the world his 
 plan for the amelioration of the moral, intellectual, 
 and physical condition of the most numerous and 
 poorest class of modern society. He would have 
 the State become an association of laborers, with its 
 chosen chiefs, who should organize every depart- 
 ment and distribute to each one his work ; the pre- 
 sent system of competition and individual rivalry 
 and warfare should cease, and each individual labor 
 for the good of the whole. He would have the 
 directors of labor, the chiefs of industry, chosen by 
 those who are most interested in the success of the 
 association, and they should regulate all business 
 affairs and all employments now left to chance and 
 isolated proprietors. 
 
 " Society," he says, " is the owner of all instruments of 
 production; it should preside over all material occupa- 
 tions ; it can alone watch over every part of the great 
 industrial workshop, carry means and instruments where 
 they are needed, and, in one word, bring production into 
 harmony with consumption. Thus will disappear the mis- 
 fortunes, the reverses, the failures, to which every laborer is 
 now exposed ; industry is organized, everything is foreseen 
 and provided for ; division of labor is perfected, and the 
 combination of all efforts becomes more potent every day." 
 
 But Saint-Simon's was only one among many en- 
 thusiastic utterances and hopeful social plans. At 
 last, in France, the vast number of converging rays 
 centred in one burning focus, and, as the result, 
 
204 SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 
 
 Louis Philippe in 1848 was driven from the throne. 
 What an era was that of grandest enthusiasm and 
 hope ! The governor of Massachusetts, George 
 N. Briggs, in his Thanksgiving proclamation ex- 
 horted us all to pray to " Our Father in Heaven, 
 that He will vouchsafe His aid to our fellow-men 
 in the Old World, who are struggling to throw off 
 the oppression of ages, and to regain their long- 
 lost rights." 
 
 The element which predominated in the early- 
 stages of this movement in France was that which 
 the exiled king had opposed and persecuted. It 
 was thus formulated in the defence of some repub- 
 licans who were accused of violating the law by 
 seditious utterances in 1833, three years after Louis 
 Philippe had been made king. 
 
 "We demand," boldly said the defendants' counsel, 
 " that labor shall no longer be made subordinate to the 
 interests of the greedy and the idle j that the workingman 
 be no longer made the helpless drudge of the capitalist j 
 that the labor of his han'ds be not the sole source of 
 profit; that he may find in the establishment of public 
 banks, in the diffusion of instruction, in the wise ad- 
 ministration of justice, in the multiplication of the means 
 of inter-communication, and in the strength of association 
 itself, the way of enlightening his tasks, of freeing his capa- 
 cities, and of recompensing his industry and courage." 
 
 It was the energy imparted by this social element 
 that won the victory over the royal government ; it 
 was the hope which this gave that inspired the 
 
SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 205 
 
 clamorous democracy and restrained their fierce 
 excesses. Thus France stood in the vanguard of 
 the nations, and pointed out the way in which, it 
 was claimed, the hosts of the future must march. 
 
 Ah, well, the revolution failed ; but the enthusi- 
 asm of humanity never dies ! 
 
 The present socialistic atmosphere has been the 
 gradual accretion of nearly a century of growth in 
 democratic ideas. From 1825 to 1850 — the second 
 quarter of our present century — was a period of 
 social experiments under various names of commu- 
 nities, phalanxes, associations, unions, co-operative 
 societies, etc., the professed object of which was to 
 furnish a catholicon, or universal remedy, for all the 
 ills that afflict the social body. There were between 
 forty and fifty of these societies, with a membership 
 of about nine thousand persons, and with an aver- 
 age life of less than two years. The story of these 
 attempts to heal the sickness of society by a uni- 
 versal remedy is one of the most pathetic pages of 
 human history. It is a most moving tragedy, if 
 the essence of tragedy be the collision of the ideal 
 and the actual, — the shipwreck of hope, aspiration, 
 and faith, when nothing had been looked for but 
 clear skies, favoring winds, and an open sea. 
 
 But Nature and life are inexorable. To mean 
 .well is not enough ; good intentions will not make 
 up for the want of conformity to the simple laws of 
 intelligence, industry, patience, and order. Robert 
 Owen, a sincere philanthropist, one of the earliest 
 social reformers, obeyed these laws in his dealings 
 
206 SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 
 
 with wood, stone, wool, and iron, and became a 
 wealthy magnate in the manufacturing world. He 
 disobeyed them in his philanthropic socialism, be- 
 cause he was ignorant of the finer quahties of in- 
 dividual and collective humanity. Each man is a 
 more subtile mechanism than was ever embodied 
 in wood or iron ; and yet how easy a thing, many 
 think, he is to put into some associate phalanstery, 
 and how sure he is to go right! In 1824, Owen 
 bought out the land and buildings of the Rappites 
 on the banks of the Wabash, and issued his invita- 
 tion to all the peoples of the earth to throw off the 
 monstrous evils to which up to that hour man had 
 been a slave. On the 4th of July, 1826, he delivered 
 his new declaration of independence, in a hall at 
 New Harmony, to the nine hundred souls who had 
 been attracted by his picture of the golden oppor- 
 tunity to attain all human goods, without any ac- 
 companying mortal ill. He said : — 
 
 " For nearly forty years have I been employed, heart 
 and soul, day by day, almost without ceasinfg, in preparing 
 the means and arranging the circumstances to enable me 
 to give the death-blow to the tyranny which for unnum- 
 bered ages has held the human mind spellbound in chains 
 of such mysterious forms that no mortal has dared approach 
 to set the suffering prisoner free ! Nor has the fulness of 
 time for the accomplishment of this great event been 
 completed until within this hour. Such has been the 
 extraordinary course of events, that the Declaration of 
 Political Independence in 1776 has produced its counter- 
 part, the Declaration of Mental Independence in 1826, — 
 the latter just half a century from the former." 
 
SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 20/ 
 
 Here certainly is self-confidence, if nothing else. 
 But in one year from that time the bubble had 
 burst; Mr. Owen went back to Scotland, and his 
 poor followers went back to the beggarly elements 
 of the outside world. A visitor to New Harmo- 
 ny, fifteen years afterward, was cautioned not to 
 speak of socialism, " as the subject was unpop- 
 ular." That is not very strange. Poor man ! he 
 found that men were, many of them, intractable, dis- 
 honest, lovers of liquor, lovers of their own selfish 
 pleasure, envious, wasteful, and quarrelsome. But 
 he never saw that a man carried himself with him 
 wherever he went; that fine feathers did not neces- 
 sarily make fine birds. He held fast to his main 
 principle, that, put men in good circumstances, and 
 they will necessarily be good. Ah, how easy it 
 would be to reform the world if only the external 
 surroundings had to be considered ! But unfortu- 
 nately there is such a thing as human nature in 
 every human being ; and this human nature has a 
 trick of throwing down every obstacle, and flying, if 
 need be, over every wall. 
 
 How often we forget this, in our impatient zeal 
 to accomplish at one stroke what the thousand and 
 tens of thousand ages of the slowly growing past 
 have not yet bropght about ! Yes, our temple shall 
 be constructed at once ; its massive walls and grace- 
 ful dome shall bless the sight now, even of this 
 present generation. But where are the polished 
 bricks, the hammered and jointed stones? Alas 
 for the necessity to have the clay well burnt, rightly 
 
208 SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 
 
 hardened, and deftly smoothed, and the stones, 
 something else than crumbhng pudding-stone ! 
 
 When Robert Owen was seventy-five years old he 
 again visited this country on a lecture tour, to ad- 
 vocate his philanthropic schemes. He was not 
 shaken in his firm faith of being able to establish, 
 as Adin Ballou says of him, " a great model of the 
 new social State, which would bring the human race 
 into a terrestrial paradise." In 1846 he lectured in 
 the New York Assembly chamber before the dele* 
 gates to form a new Constitution for that State, in 
 which he said : — 
 
 " All religious systems, constitutions, governments, and 
 laws are, and have been, founded in error ; and that error 
 is, that man forms his own character. They [the dele- 
 gates] were about to form another Constitution based 
 upon that error, and ere long more Constitutions would 
 have to be made and altered, — and so on, until the truth 
 that the character of man is formed for him shall be re- 
 cognized, and the system of society based upon that prin- 
 ciple become national and universal." 
 
 This is, expressed or unexpressed, the essen- 
 tial point of view, the fundamental creed, of all 
 socialistic schemes. Louis Blanc stated it plainly 
 in his programme, when he said : " It is not the 
 man who is responsible for his wrong-doings, but 
 society; and, hence, a society on a good basis 
 will make the individual man good." With a cer- 
 tain class of minds there is this conviction, that 
 external conditions are the all-important thing; 
 
SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 209 
 
 that with changed circumstances, the entire inner 
 being will be changed. This was the expressed 
 creed, as we have seen, of Robert Owen; and he 
 based upon this theoretical view of man's nature 
 all his reasonings and exhortations. It crops out 
 incidentally in many advocates of social changes. 
 Thus Gronlund says : " A socialist regime will make 
 it a man's interest to be honest ; and just as surely 
 as a stone falls to the ground, all men will become 
 honest." Here seems to be an entire ignorance 
 of what constitutes honesty as a virtue. Because 
 a man does not steal from you or pick your pocket, 
 he is not necessarily an honest man: you can 
 simply predicate of him that he is not a pick- 
 pocket, or that he is not a thief. The ox, satisfied 
 with the rich pasturage of its grazing-field, feeds 
 on, and does not jump the wall that divides it 
 from the adjoining rocky pasture. That speaks 
 well for its contented disposition, but it is not 
 honesty. So it does not constitute a man of in- 
 tegrity to perform, as a cog-wheel in a machine, 
 the work appointed him in some social regime. 
 As a part of the machine, he has no idea what 
 integrity means. According to the terms laid down, 
 he has no more temptation to do differently than 
 a stone has not to fall to the ground. The stone 
 has just as much integrity, then, as the man: it 
 is an honest stone, let me tell you that. 
 
 Here comes out plainly the radical defect of all 
 such panaceas. They profess to furnish, once for 
 all, the catholicon, or universal remedy for all the 
 
 14 
 
2IO SOCIAL PLANS AKD PROBLEMS. 
 
 ills that social flesh is heir to. All wants are to be 
 supplied, all sufferings removed, all afflictions healed, 
 by some external arrangements which money and 
 modern improvements can furnish. These will 
 form a man's character, perfect his morals, purify 
 his motives, and make him disinterested, manly, 
 ' and loving ! That he shall form his own character 
 is, of course, absurd. Even Lamennais, whose deep 
 spiritual sympathies were stirred, and whose inter- 
 est was that of a man in the sufferings of his fellow- 
 man, says that " from the holy maxims of equality, 
 liberty and fraternity being immovably established, 
 the organization of society will emanate." But 
 embody, if you will, these maxims in an external 
 form, and how long will it last unless there' is the 
 internal spirit pervading its every part ! To gather 
 brothers by blood under one roof has never yet 
 proved a catholicon for an unbrotherly temper. 
 
 But in the system of Fourier all this demand for 
 pure principles of action is regarded as sentimen- 
 tal bosh. Society, he thinks, must be organized 
 so as to give free expression to all the natural ten- 
 dencies of man. Self-restraint, self-control, and self- 
 sacrifice are the fundamental errors of an effete 
 and collapsing order of things. The general har- 
 mony will come from the free action and re-action 
 of all the affections, tendencies, and passions of man. 
 So arrange the work, the occupations, and the 
 amusements of life that every spontaneous passion 
 shall find its proper gratification, and the great 
 laws of social order will be established on the 
 
SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 211 
 
 immutable basis of Nature's laws. When every 
 part of the human machine, every wheel and 
 pivot, is in its pre-arranged and proper place, 
 there must be,^he affirms, orderly movement and 
 a harmonious result. There can be no such thing 
 as suffering when every one can delight himself 
 to the top of his bent, — an embodiment on the 
 earth of Swedenborg's doctrine of the spiritual 
 hells. 
 
 Such has been the rise and fall of some of the 
 associations and phalanxes of the past; and in 
 reading their history it is surprising, most of all, that 
 while the ignorance, the moral defects, the social 
 delinquencies, and the shortcomings of every kind 
 are freely spoken of, the final failure is not attri- 
 buted to these, but mainly to some external and 
 material cause, — debt, poor crops, inharmonious 
 surroundings, unfaithful agents, hasty preparation, 
 barren soil, bad location, and insufficient capital. 
 Thus, one of the members of the Sylvania associa- 
 tion, of which Horace Greeley was treasurer, admits 
 " that jealousies and ill-feelings were created, and in 
 place of that self-sacrifice and zealous support of 
 the constitution and officers, to which they were 
 all pledged, there was a total disregard of all dis- 
 cipline, and a determination in each to have the 
 biggest share of all things going, except hard labor, 
 which was very unpopular with a certain class." 
 But as if this were only a secondary matter, the 
 writer goes on to say, " Aside from this, we had 
 only a barren wilderness to experiment upon," etc. 
 
212 SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 
 
 And this association was announced as the remedy 
 for " the present defective, vice-engendering, and 
 ruinous system of society, with its wasteful compli- 
 cation of isolated households, its destructive com- 
 petition and anarchy in industry, its constraint of 
 millions to idleness," etc., 
 
 It is hard for us, at this day, remote from the stir- 
 ring enthusiams of public meetings, the personal 
 magnetism of leaders, the devoted zeal of long-pon- 
 dering thought, and the hardships, perhaps, of a 
 previous life of constraint and poverty, — it is hard 
 for us to be patient with such utter want of common- 
 sense, with the stupid futility of these numerous 
 plans and attempts to cure, once for all, the diseases 
 of modern society. One of these es'caping victims 
 well says, " If human beings were passive bodies, 
 and we could place them just where we pleased, we 
 might so arrange them that their actions would be 
 harmonious." Yes; but this is a mighty if, that 
 ought to be enough to deter any reflecting man 
 from the attempt. And he goes on to say, " If we 
 knew mathematically the laws which regulate the ac- 
 tions of human beings, it is possible we might place 
 all men in true relations to one another." 
 
 Now, this is what Charles Fourier professed to 
 have discovered and unfolded to humanity. As 
 this very man says, " We wished to combine capi- 
 tal and labor, according to the theory laid down 
 by Charles Fourier." It seems almost incredible 
 that such men as Horace Greeley, Charles A. Dana, 
 and others should have actively encouraged poor. 
 
SOCIAL' PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 213 
 
 well-meaning enthusiasts to embark in such hazard- 
 ous schemes. They knew well enough, what these 
 earnest souls did not know, that Charles Fourier 
 discouraged all attempts to carry out his theory, 
 unless it could be carried out in its completeness 
 and under the circumstances indicated by him. 
 He laid down the exact forces of what he called 
 passional attraction, by which a harmonious adjust- 
 ment would result, if a community were arranged 
 in such groups and series as some two thousand 
 persons might render possible, in a fitting phalan- 
 stery. And intelligent men who understood Fourier 
 sat by and saw these ignorant people embark in 
 an undertaking that was as sure to fail as the sun 
 was to set. It was as if some naval constructor 
 had said, " Build me a ship of such a size and of 
 such a strength, and you shall be insured safety in 
 crossing the stormiest ocean." And they build a 
 ship of reeds and shingles, and they call it his 
 modelled vessel, and put forth bravely to sea, and 
 sink, even before they have passed the harbor's 
 mouth ! To float bogus mines and bonds of rail- 
 roads that begin nowhere and end in the same 
 place, is harmless in comparison with this trifling 
 with man's most sacred aspirations and hopes. 
 
 Another association was started with a flourish- 
 ing constitution of sixty-two articles, of which the 
 fourteenth is as follows : — 
 
 " The treasury shall consist of a suitable metallic safe, 
 secured by seven different locks, the keys of which shall 
 
214 SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 
 
 be deposited in the keeping and the care of the following 
 officers, to wit, — one with the president of the Unity, one 
 with the president of the advisory council, one with the 
 secretary-general, one with the agent-general, one with the 
 arbiter-general, and one with the reporter-general. The 
 moneys in said treasury to be drawn out only by authority 
 of an order from the executive council, signed by all the 
 members of the same in session at the time of the draw- 
 ing of such order, and countersigned by the president of 
 the Unity. All such moneys thus drawn shall be com- 
 mitted to the care and disposal of the executive council." 
 
 Here evidently was trust put not in human nature, 
 but in a combination that beats the most elaborate 
 modern combination-lock of the finest steel. No 
 money, however, was lost; for none was ever put 
 in, and the Unity itself soon became a zero. 
 
 To read the entire record of these attempts to 
 overcome the great primal laws of Nature and hu- 
 manity ; to see often the best hearts broken under the 
 fatal impingement against the rocky ramparts that 
 the everlasting nature of things builds against igno- 
 rance, rashness, and vice, — leaves little room for ridi- 
 cule or even blame. This world is but young, and 
 the same lesson has to be learned a;gain and agaio. 
 
 The day for forming such associations as a social 
 catholicon has gone by, and the view of hopeful 
 dreamers is fixed upon a far higher goal, — that is, of 
 bringing all the power of the State to annihilate all 
 individual property, all capital in private hands, and 
 to effect all production and all distribution through 
 public functionaries of the State. 
 
SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 21 5 
 
 But what is the State? Why, you and I. That is, 
 then, you and I are to settle who of us shall occupy 
 the land; who shall manage the railroads, the shops, 
 and the manufactories; who shall create and dis- 
 tribute the vast and infinitely complex systems of 
 modern life. According to Edward Bellamy, fifty 
 years is an unreasonably long time for this universal 
 revolution to be brought about. Incredible as it 
 may seem, "Looking Backward" is a romance taken 
 for more than gospel by thousands of men, and it 
 has the greatest circulation of any book at the pres- 
 ent time. This fact shows us not its literary worth, 
 not its excellence as a work of pure imagination, 
 but its adaptation to the thoughts and tendencies 
 of the present time. A chord has been struck to 
 which there is a general response. In this remark- 
 able book the wishes and hopes and aspirings of 
 many hearts are revealed; and though the special 
 view it advocates may not be accomplished, the 
 vision of better things than the present may be an 
 incitement and an inspiration to many souls. 
 
 In the ancient view, man was really a man not 
 from his own manliness, but as a corporate part of 
 the city or State. So in the Augustinian view man 
 was man as one of the elect of God, a citizen of the 
 heavenly city. There was but one city that pos- 
 sessed this prerogative, — the earthly Rome ; and it 
 existed as the symbol of the city of God, into which 
 the right of citizenship was the eternal decree of 
 God himself. The Church received in a wider form 
 the legacy of the city. 
 
2l6 SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 
 
 That any definite plan which man can devise, ^ 
 prion, will be the final goal of humanity is a Utopi- 
 an ideal. Man, as a recipient of the infinite reality, 
 must ever be unfolding, putting forth higher aspira- 
 tions, and using every present attainment as a step- 
 ping stone to yet more glorious ideals. The real 
 heaven is in the enjoyment and use of this growing 
 aspiration. It is not a discontented feeling arising 
 from the want of some definite means of enjoyment, 
 but of entire content with the means and conditions 
 as adequate to man's real wants. To be absolutely 
 perfect is, indeed, an impossible state for humanity; 
 but to be content with an ever increasing growth of 
 higher possibilities is the reward of fidelity to the 
 opening ideals. In all ages, man has had the au- 
 dacity to think that he can construct a model 
 according to which society must be arranged, if it 
 would reach a perfect state. It is forgotten that 
 it would be easier to construct a living man than 
 a living society. There is no limit to man's power 
 in making machines; but social man is the most 
 complex mechanism in Nature. 
 
 Because, moreover, man is this living, organized 
 form of affections and spontaneous impulses; be- 
 cause he is subject to every skyey influence, and 
 open to ever fresh inspirations of truth and duty, it 
 is impossible to make him over after any one model, 
 or distil any one simple or compound ehxir that 
 shall suit all his wants, or remedy all his social evils. 
 As Mr. Ely says : " There is no one remedy for social 
 evils. A multitude of agencies for good must work 
 
SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 217 
 
 together." But does not he himself fall into this idea 
 of a catholicon, panacea, or universal remedy, when 
 he quotes with approval these words of De Lave- 
 leye: "There must be for human affairs an order 
 which is the best. It is the order which ought to 
 exist for the greatest happiness of the human race. 
 It is for man to discover aYid establish it." Now, is 
 the responsibility laid upon man to discover the best 
 order for all the human race any more than to dis- 
 cover the best weather for the whole round earth? 
 It is for man to adapt himself in the best way he 
 can to those conditions of earth, sky, and atmos- 
 phere which prevail from hour to hour, in this 
 climate and in that. He can establish, a priori, no 
 one state of things which, being the absolutely best, 
 will answer for all times and all men. There can be 
 no one permanent, crystallized form that shall en- 
 dure forever. To every human state there is a 
 morning and an evening; for movement is the token 
 and condition of life. While man lives, he must be 
 in , vital relations, ever changing, with that which 
 surrounds him ; and that which surrounds him re- 
 flects his own internal being. Any one fixed state 
 would seem to a growing and unfolding soul an in- 
 tolerable burden, a wearisome monotony of exist- 
 ence. Flat, stale, and unprofitable would become all 
 the uses even of the best world into which we were 
 nicely fitted to a T, parts of a machine from which 
 there was no escape. 
 
 To the clear-seeing eye, society is now a form of 
 useful activities, and not a mere conglomerate of 
 
2l8 SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 
 
 scrambling, self-sufficing, all-grasping individuali- 
 ties. There is no honest work or business that is 
 not founded upon the actual necessities of man, or 
 which does not include the good of some others 
 than self. Every paying employment, as well as 
 many non-paying ones, ministers to some human 
 need. To earn his own daily bread, the individual 
 must perform some service to his fellow-men; and 
 all the apparatus of social existence is for the supply 
 of the varied wants of social man. 
 
 The more these wants are multiplied, the more 
 easy it becomes to get what is called a living ; and 
 at the present time there are very many ways of 
 ministering to the wants of society where fifty -years 
 ago there was one. The varieties of daily work are 
 increasing from day to day; and it has iieen well 
 said, that " every one who is lifted from a Ufe of 
 bare existence to one where it becomes a necessity 
 for him to have the best of life, is adding so much 
 to the world's wealth." In this way Hfe becomes 
 as great as we can make it. 
 
 A strenuous advocate of making all men public 
 functionaries, says : " Look at the pettiness of iso- 
 lated private business; and then consider what a 
 dignity it will confer on one to become a public func- 
 tionary, conscientiously contributing, in his smallest 
 acts, to society's welfare ! " But is not all the dignity 
 really contained in that one mighty word " consci- 
 entiously " ? Is not that included in the humblest 
 work of every honest man and woman to-day? 
 
SOCIAL PLANS AND PROBLEMS. 219 
 
 Moreover, is it true that becoming a public func- 
 tionary of itself adds to the dignity of a man's life ? 
 Does a man thereby become more manly, more self- 
 sacrificing, broader in his views, grander in his out- 
 look upon life and the world? Ask the post-office 
 clerks, the members of the civil service, the men 
 and women in Washington who serve in the official 
 tread-mill, bitterly regretting the time when they 
 stepped upon the revolving wheel, which now com- 
 pels them to keep up, for dear life, the incessant 
 tramp, tramp, tramp, of their convict round, — hear 
 them speak of the pettiness of official life, and the 
 illusion of any special dignity pertaining to the pub- 
 lic functionary will be dispelled. 
 
 But whether as private individuals or as public 
 functionaries, it matters not: the work of the all- 
 aspiring soul that is present in Humanity, and is the 
 central force of every unfolding adaptation to man's 
 well-being and progress, — this work will be accom- 
 plished ; and let us be glad that we are privileged 
 to live and to learn in this day, when the dawn of a 
 brighter morning gilds the distant mountain peaks. 
 
XII. 
 
 SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 
 
 In every organic structure there is a relation of all 
 the parts to the whole ; and when this relation is 
 normal and perfect the object is beautiful, and 
 answers all the purposes for which it was made. 
 But when some one part, some one organ, is forced 
 out of this relation, deformity is the result. Society 
 may be deformed through undue predominance of 
 king or lords or commons, when king, lords, and 
 commons make up the whole. In different ages, 
 different types of deformity are seen. 
 
 It has been well said that the three great char- 
 acteristics of any living organism are unity, growth, 
 and identity of structure. These characteristic fea- 
 tures manifest themselves in that organism which we 
 call the United States of America. The various 
 parts are united as a vital whole ; and of this whole, 
 growth can most surely be predicated. So also can 
 identity of structure. In England there is no such 
 identity, for hereditary kingship and hereditary 
 lords do not belong to a democratic sti;ucture. 
 
 In the social tendencies of to-day toward the car- 
 rying out of democratic principles into life, many 
 see only danger to our present form of political 
 
SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 221 
 
 organization. A recent writer in the "Atlantic 
 Monthly " will have it that in the establishment of 
 our government we were simply carrying out the 
 principles and habits of constitutional history, but 
 that now other influences have come in, to which 
 we must adapt ourselves the best way we can ; that, 
 above all, leaders are necessary, and only in na- 
 tional leaders can national safety be found. He for- 
 gets the one great leader {the people) which makes 
 leaders possible only as they share in the inspiration 
 that comes to every soul ; he does not consider that 
 we shall hold together only so long as we are the 
 conductors of the magnetic current that streams 
 through all the race; that our safety and growth 
 consist not in holding fast to any historical pre- 
 cedent, but in obeying the law of human progress, 
 and in following that spirit of equal justice, of uni- 
 versal freedom, which was the key-note of the first 
 intelligent political utterances. 
 
 But whether original or imported, we must accept 
 the break which present tendencies — that order of 
 things in which we live and work to-day — have 
 made with the old. We hear it said : " True, we 
 have a different way of governing, — we choose our 
 rulers, and they do not theirs ; that is about all you 
 can make of it. It is a question, however, if their 
 way may not be the best, — sometimes at least. To 
 be sure, an hereditary ruler and a privileged class 
 do not always produce the best results ; and on the 
 whole, if we can have a good strong police, it may 
 not prove so bad a thing to have got rid of the ex- 
 
222 SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 
 
 pensive luxury of kings and queens, — especially 
 if they have large families, and all the regal scions 
 must have establishments and pensions, and be sup- 
 ported out of the public crib. Yet how nice it would 
 be to have, as Mr. Carlyle says they have in England, 
 ' a body of brave men and of beautiful, polite women, 
 furnished gratis, as they are, — some of them (as 
 my Lord Derby, I am told, in a few years will be) 
 with not far from two-thirds of a million sterling 
 annually ! ' Why could not we with profit have in 
 America, as Mr. Carlyle suggests, ' a nobleman or 
 two, with his chivalry and magnanimity, one polite 
 in the finest form, — the politest kind of nobleman 
 (especially his wife, the politest and gracefullest 
 kind of woman) ? ' " 
 
 Now, greatly as we must admire bravery and 
 magnanimity, devoutly as we may worship polite- 
 ness and grace of demeanor, mere politeness and 
 grace cannot make the sun go round the earth, 
 even a little. Bravery and magnanimity must be 
 developed in some more rational and consistent 
 way than this. We must accept the break which 
 our democratic order makes with the old order of 
 things. "The breach of America," says the Ger- 
 man Michelet,' "with the old principles is com- 
 plete. America is to be called a new world, in the 
 spiritual sense yet more than in the natural. Its 
 connecting bond is the universal spirit. Its rulers 
 are not the masters, but the servants of the people. 
 It has no nobility, no privileged class with its ossi- 
 1 History of the Development of Humanity since 1775. 
 
SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 223 
 
 fied prejudices, to hinder the transmission of the 
 indweUing reason of the people, the divine inspi- 
 ration. It has broken with historical precedents, 
 and its life is in the carrying out of the eternal new 
 which its Constitution embodies." 
 
 But we must distinguish between " breaking with 
 historical precedents" and breaking with history 
 itself. There is, there can be, no break in the life 
 of humanity; and we are the normal development 
 of the historic continuity of that humanity. That 
 principle of life, that indwelling reason, that creat- 
 ing idea which gives meaning, continuity, and per- 
 manence to the political and social world, has in 
 America found its ultimate and most universal ex- 
 pression. Take away this principle, and what 
 meaning is there in all this material movement and 
 multiform appearance of men and things? The 
 new, different as it is, is the child of the old. It 
 has a separate existence; but it has the blood of 
 the parents coursing in its veins, though it must 
 thereafter use its own lungs, and live by the beat- 
 ing of its own heart. Only thus can it build up a 
 new body of a better type, and on a higher plane 
 of social well-being. 
 
 The relation we have to the European world is 
 sometimes spoken of as comprehended in showing 
 the older nations that free institutions are possible, 
 and that political arrangements after our pattern are 
 the best method of governing a people. But this 
 is a very incomplete and one-sided statement of 
 this central truth, — that here, in America, is the un- 
 
224 SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 
 
 folding and realization of principles and tenden- 
 cies that are everywhere operating throughout the 
 civilized world. The form which such principles 
 must take in political organization has here been 
 taken. In that direction the fitting expression has 
 been found ; the spirit has created its adapted body, 
 and that work needs not to be done again. And it 
 is a universal law, that any spiritual tendency oper- 
 ates with full power only when it has reached the 
 outmost boundary, the lowest plane of action and 
 life; then it ascends, and pervades every part with 
 fullest energy. It became a vital necessity that 
 slavery should be cut away ; for it was a cancerous 
 tumor in the body politic, sucking up the life and 
 corrupting the blood. It is a vital necessity that 
 the fresh demands of the spirit of humanity to be 
 embodied in other spheres of life than those of 
 dynasties and diplomacies should meet a fitting 
 response, and that ultimate forms be organized in 
 which it can dwell. The idea that each human 
 being is to enjoy his full share in all that makes 
 humanity great and beautiful and strong is here 
 to grow brighter, even unto the perfect day. 
 
 Those questions which are imminent even now in 
 European politics, — questions of forms of govern- 
 ment, of proprietorship, of freedom of speech and 
 the press, of privileges of birth and of class, of 
 ancestral rights, of distribution of power, of civil 
 and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, — are settled here ; 
 and they interest us only as being the initial move- 
 ments of that tendency everywhere at work. Cer- 
 
SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 
 
 225 
 
 tain external institutions are not in harmony with 
 the democratic spirit in the British empire; and 
 if the democratic spirit is to have sway, those in- 
 stitutions must go, in spite of conservative fears 
 and reluctant tenacity of possession. " It is im- 
 possible," says one, " to reconcile hereditary privi- 
 lege with civil equality of rights; and while this 
 antagonism exists, under forms however venerated, 
 there will always accompany it a sense of insta- 
 bility and feeling of uncertainty with regard to na- 
 tional action, and a never ending source of national 
 conflict." 1 
 
 In America we have done with discussing the 
 rights of Church and State, of king and subject; 
 we have not to contend for theoretical freedom, 
 o;- to overthrow hierarchies, orders, and hereditary 
 establishments. We begin where this, as an ideal, 
 ended. Our theory assumes the essential manhood 
 of every man, and regards institutions as but the 
 means of perfecting that. We believe that every 
 man is in all essential rights equal to every other 
 man ; that every man is a priest and a king ; that 
 no pope can add to his royalty by any conse- 
 crating oil, no ruler can confer upon him any civil 
 right, no outward dignity can exact his homage. 
 As man, he enters upon an inheritance of infinite 
 freedom and unbounded progress. The law which 
 he obeys, he obeys because it has first been enacted 
 in his own soul ; its validity is not in any outside 
 ordinance, but in the tribunal of his own heart. He 
 1 The Political Life of our Time. By D. Nicol. 
 •5 
 
226 SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 
 
 is governor as well as governed, law-maker as well 
 as citizen, judge as well as executive. Here is scope 
 for the individual and social application of every 
 truth in education, morals, and political science, — 
 for the application of every ideal that human aspi- 
 ration has ever framed, every grace, every magna- 
 nimity, every service that the lover of God or man 
 has nurtured in rarest moments of insight, or in 
 his most enthusiastic dreams. The currents of hu- 
 manly inspiring life flow all within and around ; and 
 so far as a man is open to their influence, he rises 
 into elements of fresh strength and use. 
 
 The central principle, then, which pervades our 
 national organic structure is manhood. Its po- 
 litical expression is a common-place of oratorical 
 appeal; but its operation as a beneficent, conser- 
 vating principle of social order and development is 
 not yet fully acknowledged, or even clearly per- 
 ceived. We ought to see that it is not destructive, 
 but constructive ; not to be feared, but welcomed ; 
 not disorganizing and disintegrating, but healing 
 and organific in all its normal applications. 
 
 The difficulty in effecting this normal adjustment 
 of life to the political theory is enhanced by the 
 operation of influences that come from the mighty 
 revolution taking place in the industrial sphere. 
 Thousands are made rich and other thousands are 
 made poor by the changes that take place in the 
 business world. A millionnaire is made by some 
 unexpected rise in the value of land, some discovery 
 of oil or coal or iron or copper, by some rise in 
 
SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 227 
 
 merchandise or in stocks; a city suddenly springs 
 up, and a farmer's potato field is of more value 
 than a gold mine; a fashion changes, and some 
 prosperous manufacture is destroyed, and an entire 
 community sees its daily bread suddenly imper- 
 illed; a selfish greed of some railroad or bank 
 officers wrecks the institutions intrusted to them, 
 and helpless poverty stares thousands in the face. 
 By the division and sub-division of labor, and the 
 dominating power of capital, it gets to be harder 
 and harder for the workman to become a capitalist, 
 or even to save a few dollars from his daily wages. 
 The temptations to extravagance, to display, to 
 luxurious indulgence are multiplied on every side, 
 and there is much that looks like a justification in 
 fact of Carlyle's expression, so dubious in point of 
 taste, — " the universal rush into the cheap and 
 nasty in manners and life." 
 
 Is it any wonder that Young America sometimes 
 gets heated up beyond the boiling point, and boils 
 over, with much foaming and sizzling and waste? 
 Reverence does seem to be at an awful discount; 
 and modest, patient merit, sitting on the back seats, 
 appears to get but a small share of confection- 
 ery and ice-cream. But whatever form of disorder 
 and discomfort, even direful suffering, may result, 
 it is only a temporary and transitional concomitant, 
 and will disappear with the rise in the general level 
 of thought, and the higher tone imparted by uni- 
 versal education, — in a word, by the prevalence of 
 the principle itself in its full working power. The 
 
228 SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 
 
 grand army, with its disciplined ranks and orderly 
 march, comes to protect and upbuild; while the 
 petty marauding and pilfering of hen-roosts and 
 pig-pens are by the skirmishers and flying scuds, 
 the " bummers " of the host. In giving all a chance 
 for wealth, we must not be surprised if some rich 
 miner's spouse keeps her carriage, and smokes her 
 clay pipe as her thoroughbreds sweep her along in all 
 the majesty of a coach-and-six ; if some suddenly 
 created millionnaire adorns with a necklace of gold 
 nuggets or diamonds his favorite hound, or takes su- 
 preme delight in seeing wife or daughter sparkling 
 all over with flashing gems like a phdsphorescent 
 wave ; if some substantial citizen gains an entree to 
 some foreign court, and, his early years having been 
 under some other master than a master of ceremo- 
 nies, he says even to the Pope, " Well, old fellow, 
 how 's your wife and family? Hope they are well ; " 
 or to some royal exile, as one of our well-meaning 
 citizens said to the exiled Louis Napoleon, who 
 spoke of having visited our country twenty years 
 before, " I hope, sir, we may have the pleasure of 
 welcoming you there again." But what matters it 
 that there are some exuberances of taste, and a 
 boiling-over of individual idiosyncracies of vulgar- 
 ity and conventional disrespect? They are only 
 the natural results of a want of culture that was 
 the normal state of the past. 
 
 At any rate, there has been in America no lavish 
 bestowment of the wealth, the lands, the honors, and 
 the educational means of a people in order to give- 
 
SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 229 
 
 an exaggerated cultivation and refinement to a privi- 
 leged few. Grant even that there be now a lack of 
 original and genetic power in the higher depart- 
 ments of knowledge and art, yet the average level 
 is continually becoming higher, and a better tone 
 pervades the common life, from generation to gener- 
 ation. And the highest will come whenever the 
 superstructure beneath shall be fitted for it; the 
 dome shall crown fittingly the vast cathedral of hu- 
 manity, — a dome which only such walls could bear, 
 hot those propped and suspended by artificial means. 
 We want no elevation produced by compression at 
 the sides, but an elevation that comes from the build- 
 ing up of the whole mass with solid masonry and 
 architectural skill. The thought, the manners, the 
 education, the literature of our civilization must be 
 based on the manhood of the whole people, on the 
 popular life, — working from foundation to top- 
 stone, from seed to tree, from tree to forest. We 
 do not look for a few isolated and gigantic mon- 
 archs of the plain, the survivors of companions long 
 since rotted away, perishing in their feeble and 
 stunted growth, but for plantations of noble trees 
 over vast areas of field and hill-side, prairie and 
 mountain-range, from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
 shore. 
 
 Were they not so saddening, the wailings over 
 this state of things from that once glorious prophet 
 of universal brotherhood, Carlyle, would be highly 
 ludicrous. He sees only " the going of democracy 
 to complete itself in the bottomless, ... a free ra- 
 
230 SOCIAL TENDEJSrCIES. 
 
 cing, not in shop-goods only, but in all things tem- 
 poral, spiritual, and eternal, — a beautiful career to 
 be flung generously open, wide as the portals of the 
 universe ; so that everybody shall , start free, — and 
 everywhere, under enlightened popular suffrage, the 
 race shall be to the swift, and the high office shall 
 fall to him who is ablest, if not to do it, at. least 
 to get elected for doing it." But is this, in the 
 main, so bad? Is not this free and open career, 
 this equal chance for all, what the ages have been 
 striving after? That the way to knowledge, the way 
 to wealth, and the way to honorable position should 
 be not a narrow foot-path to be trod by wayfarers 
 in single file, but a broad avenue wherein every 
 man can walk withoiat jostling his fellow, — is this 
 to be sneered at and ridiculed? In " Sartor Resar- 
 tus " there is the following passage, worthy of being 
 inscribed in letters of gold : — 
 
 " Venerable to me is the hard hand, crooked, coarse ; 
 wherein, notwithstanding, lies a cunning virtue, indefea- 
 sibly royal, as of the sceptre of this planet. Venerable, 
 too, is the rugged face, all. weather-tanned, besoiled, with 
 its rude intelligence ; for it is the face of a man living 
 manlike. Oh, but the more venerable for thy rudeness, 
 and even because we must pity as well as love thee ! 
 Hardly-treated brother ! for us was thy back so bent, 
 for us were thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed ; 
 thou wert our conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fight- ' 
 ing our battles thou wert so marred. For in thee, too, 
 lay a God-created form, but it was not to be unfolded ; 
 encrusted must it stand, with the thick adhesions and de- 
 
SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 23 1 
 
 facements of labor ; and thy body, like thy soul, was not 
 to know freedom. Alas ! while the body stands so broad 
 and brawny, must the soul lie blinded, dwarfed, stupefied, 
 almost annihilated ? That there should one man die igno- 
 rant who had capacity for knowledge, this I call a tragedy, 
 were it to happen more than twenty times a minute, as by 
 some computations it does. The miserable fraction of 
 science, which united mankind has acquired, — why is n6t 
 this, with all diligence, imparted to all?" 
 
 A very reasonable question this, which our fore- 
 fathers long ago asked themselves, and which they 
 and we have been doing our best to make the asking 
 hereafter unnecessary. 
 
 But our prophet goes on in these words : — 
 
 "Quite in an opposite strain is the following: 'The 
 old Spartans had a wiser method; they went out and 
 hunted down their Helots, and speared and spitted them 
 when they grew too numerous. With our improved fash- 
 ions of hunting, now after the invention of firearms and 
 standing armies, how much easier were such a hunt ! 
 Perhaps in the most thickly peopled country some three 
 days annually might suffice to shoot all the able-bodied 
 paupers that had accumulated within the year. Let gov- 
 ernments think of this." 
 
 An opposite strain, with a vengeance! But it 
 was the strain which he continued for thirty years. 
 It was because he had no faith in an inspired hu- 
 manity; because he looked not to the many, but to 
 the few, — not to the instinctive powers within man, 
 but to a force outside of him, — that he therefore in- 
 
232 SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 
 
 voked the Alarics, the scourges of God, the besoms 
 of destruction. Or if there is to be salvation from 
 chaos, he thinks the nobility must practise rhythmic 
 drills with their peasantry and dependents ! (Always 
 higher and lower, never equality.) He wants the 
 " good old English gentleman" to appear again on 
 the scene, and servants' and laborers' wages, at so 
 many shillings a day, to be utterly abolished. He 
 recommends some " combined rhythmic action " to 
 be introduced among laborers; but mark the con- 
 dition, for it indicates a great deal, — " always," he 
 says, " always to be instituted by some superiors 
 from above" And he goes on to say : " I believe 
 that the vulgarest cockney crowd, flung out million- 
 fold on a Whit-Sunday, with nothing but beer and 
 dull folly to depend on for amusement, would at 
 once kindle into something human if you set them 
 to do almost any regulated act in common, and 
 would dismiss their beer and dull foolery in the si- 
 lent charm of rhythmic human companionship, in the 
 practical i&&\\xi^, probably new, that all of us are made, 
 in an unfathomable way, brothers to one another." 
 
 Now, how can men be made to feel that they are 
 brothers, unless they are treated in a brotherly 
 way? The " practical feeling" will come, when the 
 fact is realized, — never before. The people are not 
 fools; they are not to be impressed very deeply 
 with the fact of brotherhood through rhythmic 
 drills and gingerbread, and smiles dispensed by 
 "superiors from above." When the institutions 
 and the class feelings they cherish are dissolved, 
 
SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 233 
 
 whether in the weltering chaos of Niagara or in the 
 warm atmosphere of a common humanity, there 
 will be no need of special drills from noblemen, 
 of special sugar-plums from high-born ladies, or of 
 special grape-shot from kings. 
 
 But a notable phenomenon presents itself. These 
 superiors, who are alone to be intrusted with the 
 direction of the rhythmic movement of this dull, 
 vulgar set of artisans and laborers, — these highly 
 refined men and gracious ladies have no " rhythmic 
 combination " to impart. Their condition, after 
 all, is not an enviable one even in the eyes of their 
 too devout worshipper ; for Mr. Carlyle goes on to 
 describe in pathetic terms their melancholy status : 
 " More than once," he says, " I have been affected 
 with a deep sorrow and respect for noble souls 
 among our aristocracy, for their high stoicism, and 
 silent resignation to a kind of life which they in- 
 dividually could not alter, and saw to be so empty 
 and paltry." Has it then come to this, that men on 
 whom fortune has lavished her choicest favors, — 
 houses in town and houses in the country, horses 
 and parks, conservatories and yachts, galleries of 
 art and libraries, gardens and bank-accounts ; men 
 to whose education all the ages have been made 
 tributary, and in whose behalf the millions have 
 been stunted and subsidized, — that these men are 
 to be respected simply for their stoicism, their 
 noble endurance under all these harrowing burdens, 
 and their stern resignation to leading " empty and 
 paltry" lives? Yes, it has come to this; and it 
 
234 SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 
 
 must come to this. Not even an English nobleman 
 can dodge the law of gravitation ; not even he can 
 escape the operation of the social, human Nemesis. 
 " If one member suffer, all the members suffer 
 with it ; " and if all the members are suffering, how 
 shall the one escape? According to Carlyle, to 
 accept the new civilization is to " shoot Niagara." 
 Well, better that, if that is the only way of right- 
 ing things, with the assurance that what may come 
 after that plunge is just as much under the impartial 
 laws of a universe that shines and rains on the just 
 and the unjust, as anything that came before. But 
 obedience to these laws will make life so grand and 
 joyous that all the artificial and exclusive forms of 
 aristocratic pretence shall indeed seem " empty and 
 paltry," a dim shadow cast by the light which they 
 absorbed but could not reflect. 
 
 The present condition of English society is 
 treated by a prominent Review under the head of 
 " Social Disintegration." This consists, it is said, 
 in a want of personal acquaintance and intercourse 
 between the higher and lower classes. Of these ex- 
 tremes in the body politic the writer predicates " a 
 mutual ignorance, and an incapacity to understand 
 each other, that may almost be called dangerous." 
 Higher and lower classes ! — he does not see that 
 they already understand each other too well. They 
 understand each other sufficiently well to know that 
 by no possibility can the gulf between them be filled 
 up with kindly inquiries after one's health and the 
 sick baby; with occasional dinners for the peas- 
 
SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 235 
 
 antry and mugs of foaming beer. The patriarchal 
 age — all the giving on the one side, and all the re- 
 ceiving as a lordly boon on the other — is fast van- 
 ishing away. The old, severed, personal ties must 
 be replaced by others as real, and as adapted to 
 present wants and conditions, as were those of old 
 to the times in which they had their rise. "The 
 moral unity" of the people must be established on 
 a different basis ; and when once established, it can 
 never be secure, until the laws of spiritual gravitation 
 have produced that equilibrium which comes from 
 the centre of gravity resting upon the lowest point 
 of support. 
 
 What is stable equilibrium in natural philosophy? 
 Is it not, that, when disturbed from its state of rest, a 
 body tends of itself to return to that state ; and that 
 this will always be the case when the centre of 
 gravity is lowest in its position ? And here is the 
 precise point of difference between the old and the 
 new social order. In the old, that point of stable 
 equilibrium does not exist, as the different classes 
 of society form entirely separate organizations, with 
 views and interests that are utterly irreconcilable; 
 while in the new, whatever changes take place are 
 only the development and application, to the various 
 details of life, of what constitutes now the animating 
 principle of national existence. But the vastest ice- 
 berg floating in unstable equilibrium in the Atlantic 
 sea must oscillate and roll over until the eternal 
 law shall vindicate itself, and that force which sun 
 and mote obey shall accomplish its work. 
 
236 SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 
 
 A further indication of the new order, and a deri- 
 vation from the central principle of manhood, is 
 the idea of educated labor, — the reconciliation of 
 brain and hand, of thought and work. Not he is to 
 be envied who can point to his ancestor's kingship 
 in the social realm, but he who has found his work 
 and takes delight in doing it. The vast needs and 
 opportunities, the open career for every talent and 
 faculty, invite to work for some noble and useful 
 end. To be a worker in aught that ministers to 
 human benefit is the best foundation for wealth and 
 position in the world. From no work-bench or 
 trade or employment is the pathway closed to him 
 who follows the clew which industry, skill, and sci- 
 ence put into his hand. In the very place where 
 each man stands, there where his foot is planted, 
 he can make all the past tributary to his growth ; 
 and from the sure basis of Nature and practical life 
 he can become the thinker, the inventor, the cap- 
 tain of labor, the master-workman, the founder of 
 some beneficent industry, some wide-spreading 
 means of good. Foolish notions of the past still 
 trouble some foolish heads; and manly work is 
 ignorantly and — as they come afterward to see — 
 stupidly dodged. But the fact is patent that the 
 leaders spring up from the ranks of toil, from a 
 youth nurtured in hardship, from the healthy lap of 
 Nature, from those early thrown upon themselves. 
 
 Occasionally, even in this country, a survival of 
 the old civilization crops out in the words " lower 
 classes," " the common mass," " vulgar herd," " ser- 
 
SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 237 
 
 vile occupation," " mere mechanic," etc. ; for our 
 system retains some of the virus of the old Greek 
 and Roman times, and of times not so very remote 
 in a large part of the United States, when to get 
 one's honest living by labor was to be a slave; 
 when no one performed manual labor but slaves, or 
 the sons of slaves. But the all-pervading spirit of 
 our modern civilization renders it more and more 
 impossible to separate learning and labor, art and 
 every-day practical life. The new civilization is not 
 the separation of thought and work, but their recon- 
 ciliation and atonement ; it is not a pampered man 
 of letters on the one hand and a sordid drudge on 
 the other, but a harmonious development of brain 
 and hand, of body and mind. So far as this ten- 
 dency becomes realized, life gains in breadth, — in 
 extent of services rendered and services received ; in 
 fulness of aspiration, and in earnest devotedness. 
 Says an inquirer into socialism : ^ — 
 
 " The democratic movement is just beginning, and it is 
 rather early to pass sentence upon it ; but of this at least 
 we may be sure, — that the people who think that the de- 
 mocracy consists [alone] of vote by ballot, and that every- 
 thing else will proceed in the old style, will be grievously 
 disappointed." 
 
 No, it will not proceed in the old style ; neither 
 will it proceed in the style of the anarchists of to- 
 day, or in that of the early French Revoltitionists, 
 
 1 An Inquiry into Socialism. By Thos. Kirkup. Page xxiii, 
 London, 1887. 
 
238 SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 
 
 intoxicated as they were with the first vintage of 
 freedom and equality. That fire has not indeed 
 burned itself out, but it has burned up the brush- 
 wood and the combustible materials on the surface. 
 Yet the central fire remains; and in its heat the 
 huge structures of evil will be dissolved, and higher 
 forms of social life will be the heritage of the 
 coming generations. 
 
 The forces now at work are not to be judged 
 of by the outbursts of a few, enthusiasts enamored 
 with their own plans, with their own short-sighted 
 view of human history and human development. 
 They must, indeed, speak their word ; but deeper 
 voices, like the sound of many waters, are uttering 
 words of better cheer. 
 
 What are some of these encouraging aspects ? 
 
 First, there is the tendency to give free and unre- 
 stricted action to natural and social laws; and these 
 carry with them their own redeeming power. As 
 the domain of Nature passes over to man, what were 
 once exclusive benefits become diffused among the 
 many as a common possession ; the universal heri- 
 tage enlarges for every man. As obstructions are 
 removed, the new organizes itself, and needs no in- 
 terference of theoretic systems or rhythmic plans. 
 The organization itself is beyond human insight 
 or human skill, but it is gradually being developed. 
 The tendencies of our modern civilization neces- 
 sarily increase, at every step, the mutual depen- 
 dence of man upon his fellow-men. Society is 
 becoming a network in which the minutest thread 
 
SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 239 
 
 cannot be spared, and the least stitch is essential to 
 the perfectness of the woven whole. If you are 
 a manufacturer, a railroad director, an employer 
 of any kind, the law will more and more hold you 
 responsible for every neglect of the health and life 
 of him whom you employ. 
 
 Secondly, the legislation of every country that has 
 a representation of the people is directed toward 
 great questions of social interests and measures 
 of popular benefit. Thus, as the latest example, 
 the cable telegraph informs us that " Lord Ran- 
 dolph Churchill, in a public letter, urges the Con- 
 servatives, during the coming session of the British 
 Parliament, to give prominence to the land-law mea- 
 sures for the reform of workingmen's dwellings, 
 laborer's allotments and licensing, and laws provid- 
 ing for shorter hours of labor, etc." Yes, this is to 
 be the work of conservatives themselves, and is not 
 to be left to the radicals : Balaam, though in the pay 
 of the other side, must bless and not curse. So too, 
 in our country, the people themselves, as an or- 
 ganic body, are gradually seeking to reform abuses, 
 to prevent injustice, and to give to every child the 
 means of education, in order that he may find that 
 career in which he may be most useful to his fellow- 
 men. As a sign of the times, let us hear what an 
 eminent citizen said in a letter not long ago, declin- 
 ing to be a candidate for mayor : — 
 
 "The public schools are not abreast with the times, 
 and will not be until manual training, judiciously added 
 
240 SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 
 
 to our present system, sends out all boys and girls, rich 
 and poor, trained in eyes and fingers as well as brain, for 
 success in life. ... 
 
 " The pauper and neglected children should be placed 
 on a farm, where in cottages containing not over thirty 
 inmates, and under the charge of superintendents who 
 could teach different branches of industry, they might 
 grow up with the least possible institution taint. . . . 
 
 "The street commissioners need strong impulse in 
 favor of modest streets for the homes of plain people 
 in suitable locations. . . . 
 
 "The welfare of the working-classes needs to be con- 
 sidered with devoted attention. . . . 
 
 " The hours of labor can be shortened, especially 
 where skill, education, or the use of machinery aids 
 the workingman. . . . 
 
 " Many small play-grounds for children should be pro- 
 vided throughout the city." 
 
 Now, all this is in the direction which a true 
 civilization points out, and whether particular meas- 
 ures are expedient or not remains to be determined 
 by those whom the people elect to do their bid- 
 ding. But a force, which no conservative view of 
 the limitations of municipal power can turn aside, 
 tends in the direction of doing what may be done 
 for the common benefit. 
 
 But, lastly, the modern social tendencies are the 
 direct outgrowth of the spirit of Christianity itself. 
 Fifty years ago I said in an oration on the oneness - 
 of Christianity and Democracy: " The humble 
 flower has found many to interpret its silent Ian- 
 
SOCIAL TENDENCIES. 24 1 
 
 guage; the stars have had their prophetic seers 
 to unfold their mysteries; and now the common 
 of every-day life, the despised of every-day labor, 
 have found their priests, and in Christianity their 
 secret is revealed. A true democracy and a true 
 Christianity are one." 
 
XIII. 
 
 THE NATION AS AN ORGANISM IN 
 SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Mr. Mulford says that the very " condition of 
 political science is the apprehension of the truth 
 that the nation is an organism." It is indeed a 
 vital necessity in the present phase of economic 
 thought ; and it may not be out of place to show 
 how something of this organic life reveals itself in 
 Shakspeare's universal drama. Not that Shak- 
 speare consciously proposed to himself any such 
 thesis, or had in view any such social ends as may 
 be made out to be the drift of some of his char- 
 acters and representations. But every truly great 
 artist in accomplishing one end accomplishes many 
 others. He presents universal truths, and expresses 
 without being aware of it those vital relations which 
 could not by any possibility have been within ,the 
 range of conscious vision. Thus Shakspeare is 
 the unfolder of the organic life of the nation or 
 State, and his personages cannot live and act with- 
 out revealing something of common membership 
 and of national unity. 
 
 This great dramatist looks upon the State as an 
 organic body, — a social form deriving its powers, 
 its duties, its very life-blood from the one spirit 
 
THE NATION AS AN ORGANISM. 243 
 
 pervading all its members. Of society as originating 
 in an agreement between individuals, or constituted 
 by isolated atoms, he knows and says nought. 
 " Great is the mystery of the soul of State" is the 
 thought that inspires evefy reference to men as 
 corporate beings, — to rulers and ruled ; to kings 
 and subjects; to princes arid beggars. There is 
 an internal, vital connection between all parts of 
 the body politic', not merely an external associa- 
 tion; from this vital union no humblest part can 
 be severed without causing suffering and anguish 
 throughout. As in the human body, so in the body 
 politic there is a gradation of honor and dignity de- 
 pending upon the closeness of relationship to the 
 common-weal and the service rendered to the en- 
 tire body. The disturbance of this equilibrium of 
 powers and destinies must therefore always be at- 
 tended with wide-spread disaster. 
 
 " The cease of majesty 
 " Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw 
 What 's near it with it. It is a massy wheel 
 Fixed on the summit of the highest mount, 
 To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things 
 Are mortised and adjoined ; which, when it fall. 
 Each small annexment, petty consequence. 
 Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone 
 Did the king sigh, but with a general groan." 1 
 
 This truth is stated in a more positive form in 
 " Troilus and Cressida." The wise Ulysses, declaring 
 the reason why Troy still stands, says, — 
 
 1 Hamlet, act iii. scene 3. 
 
244 THE NATION AS AN ORGANISM 
 
 " Oh, when degree is shaked, 
 Which is the ladder to all high designs, 
 Then enterprise is sick ! " 
 
 So the key-note of history is struck in " Richard 
 II.," where the summary is made of what the suc- 
 ceeding plays detail with such dramatic force : — 
 
 " Oh, if you raise this house against this house. 
 It will the woefuUest division prove 
 That ever fell upon this cursed earth ! 
 Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so, 
 Lest child, child's children, cry against you ' woe ! ' " 
 
 No Greek drama, with its ancestral fate, has ever 
 portrayed in deeper colors the law of social retribu- 
 tion immanent in the life of succeeding generations. 
 . The difference between that government which 
 is a social organism, a living unity, and that which 
 is a mechanical contrivance made up of pieces that 
 can be dealt with separately, is plainly seen in 
 Shakspeare. He treats the State as a common- 
 weal, a living body, no part of which can be punc- 
 tured or disturbed without disturbing all the others. 
 Every part, to insure health, must work in harmony 
 with every other part. Each organ, tissue, muscle, 
 and nerve must obey the common impulse to main- 
 tain circulation and reach the end of complete life. 
 No organ has an independent agency. As a states- 
 man says in " Henry V.," — i 
 
 " For government, though high and low and lower, 
 Put into parts, doth keep in one consent ; 
 Congreeing in a full and natural close, 
 Like music.'' 
 
IN SHAKSPEARE. 245 
 
 Still further to unfold the vital nature of the 
 social organism, its essential oneness, under the 
 " divers functions," is illustrated from the honey- 
 bees, ~- 
 
 " Creatures, that, by a rule in Nature, teach 
 The act of order to a peoplM kingdom." 
 
 In a monarchy the king is the head, and no one 
 can harm him without bringing " the whole king- 
 dom into desolation," as Henry says. But the sym- 
 pathy between the different members of the same 
 body, however named, is the point to be consid- 
 ered. There is nothing in the mere name of king. 
 Shakspeare is not dazzled by the glitter of royal sta- 
 tion ; manhood is as essential to the king as to any 
 citizen. His pre-eminent place, indeed, calls for pre- 
 eminent strength and attractive power. The mere 
 outside is nothing ; the title brings with it a com- 
 pensating trouble. As Brakenbury moralizes on 
 the situation of the Duke Clarence, — 
 
 " Princes have but their titles for their glories, 
 An outward honor for an inward toil ; 
 And, for unfelt imagination, 
 They often feel a world of restless cares." * , 
 
 This deposition of the king as a fetich, and this 
 proclamation of a common humanity appear from 
 two quarters as opposite as the poles, and yet 
 each utterance converging to the same point, — 
 King Richard II. and King Henry V. The former, 
 — faithless to every kingly duty, yet fondly trust- 
 ing that the very stones of his native kingdom will 
 
 1 Richard III., act i. scene 4. 
 
246 THE NATION AS AN ORGANISM 
 
 have a feeling in his behalf, and rise up, armed 
 soldiers, to fight for him, although he himself has 
 alienated every soldierly heart, — asks how they 
 can call him king, in " whose crown death keeps 
 his court," who suffers hunger and thirst like 
 other men, and who " feels want and tastes grief" 
 Inasmuch as he is subject to these human limita- 
 tions, he asks : " How can you say to me I am a 
 king?" How, indeed? And so he gives "the 
 pride of kingly ■ sway from out his heart," and 
 washes away with his tears all oaths of allegiance 
 and fealty, — 
 
 " With mine own tongue deny my sacred state. 
 With mine own breath release all duty's rites." 
 
 Still further to unfold the lesson that a kingdom is a 
 kingdom only when " law, form, and due proportion " 
 are kept, there js that striking scene between the gar- 
 dener and his servants, where he says to tbem,^ — , 
 
 " Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays, . 
 That look too lofty in our commonwealth : 
 All must be even in our government." 
 
 And afte/ward this wise gardener says, — 
 
 " Bolingbrolce 
 Hath seized the wasteful king. Oh what pity is it, 
 That he had not so trimmed and dressed his land 
 As we this garden ! " 
 
 Here is a memorable lesson out of the book of 
 royal duties, to be taught by a player from his 
 
IN SHAKSPEARE, 247 
 
 pulpit-rstage. But the like regal ethics come ftom 
 the mouth of one who in " every inch " showed him- 
 self a king, — the chivalrous, manly, heroic Henry 
 V. Shakspeare shows his deep insight iiito the 
 difference between man in his nakedness and man 
 in his social apparel in that soliloquy of Henry 
 before the battle of Agincourt, when, moralizing 
 upon his condition and that of the common soldier, 
 he says, — 
 
 " ,0 ceremony, show me but thy worth ! 
 Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form, 
 Creating awe a^d fear in other men ? " 
 
 Because the kihg is so differentiated from other 
 men, he must watch, must lead, must truly be a 
 king. Yes, Shajcspeare saw clearly this truth, which 
 Carlyle illustrated in such a variety of ways, — " that, 
 first, man is a spirit, and bound by invisible bonds 
 to all men ; secondly, that he wears clothes, which 
 are the visible emblems of that fact." 
 
 But clothes are only rags, unless they clothe 
 something. Whatever commands, must haye the 
 right which comes from fitness and power. He 
 who assumes a divine commission must be divinely 
 commissioned, — or, woe upon his head ! He only 
 can lead whom Nature sanctions by giving him in- 
 sight, self-control, the magic of personal authority, 
 the secret word at whose utterance doors fly open, 
 and the genii of Nature throng to do service. King 
 Richard H. looks info the glass, and finding no 
 kingly image reflected, dashes it to pieces. Henry 
 
248 THE NATION AS AN ORGANISM 
 
 v., is ready to die, alone, honorably with the king. 
 Every nerve within him thrills with the feeling that 
 he is a king. 
 
 The queen's son, poor Cloten, in " Cymbeline," 
 finds this out when he, comes in contact with one 
 in whom, as Belarius says, divine Nature, the god- 
 dess, " blazons herself." The clothes-horse and the 
 man thus reveal themselves : — 
 
 Cloten. Yield thee, thief ! 
 
 Guideritis. To who ? — to thee ? What art thou ? Have not I 
 An arm as big as thine ? a heart as big ? 
 Thy words, I grant, are bigger ; for I wear not 
 My dagger in my mouth. Say what thou art ; 
 Why should I yield to thee? * / 
 
 Cloten. Thou villain base, knowest me not by my clothes ? 
 
 Guiderius. No, nor thy tailor, rascal. 
 Who is thy grandfather : he made those clothes. 
 Which, as it seems, make thee." 
 
 They proceed to fight, and he in whom the divine 
 goddess Nature " blazons herself," cuts off the head 
 of the clothes-dummy and throws it into the creek, 
 with the contemptuous words, — 
 
 " Let it to the sea. 
 And tell the fishes he 's the queen's son, Cloten. 
 That 's all I reck." 
 
 And when told that on account of his dead foe 
 being a prince, reverence for his high place shauld 
 lead to a princely burial, this peerless son of Nature 
 accedes, but says in his off-hand way, out of " an 
 invisible instinct," — 
 
IN SHAKSPEARE. 249 
 
 " Pray you, fetch him hither. 
 Thersites' body is as good as Ajax', 
 When neither are alive." 
 
 But Shakspeare goes further than the verbal 
 statement that mankind reduced to a state of pure 
 nature find one common level: he puts kings and 
 dukes themselves upon the stage stripped of all 
 their dignities and ceremonies, and glad to find 
 refuge in the meanest hut and on the dirtiest straw. 
 King Lear, the representative of purely arbitrary- 
 sovereignty, shaking off all cares and business on 
 younger strength, expects still to keep all the cere- 
 monies, — " still retain the name and all the additions 
 to a king." 
 
 It cannot be. In unclothing himself of the king- 
 dohi he divested himself of all power, and became 
 involuntarily a. subject to that "Nature" to whose 
 law Edmund voluntarily bound himself as his god- 
 dess. The latter rebels against ' ' that plague of 
 custom," that " curiosity of nations," or, in other 
 words, that strict rule of civil institutions which 
 made him, as an illegitimate son, no lawful heir of 
 his father's dukedom. " Fine word, — legitimate I " 
 he exclaims ; he will trust to his own wit, and if his 
 " invention thrive," and " the gods stand up for bas- 
 tards," he will prosper to his heart's content. No 
 ceremony shall stand in the path of his advance- 
 ment. He fights 'it out on this line, with a courage 
 and an inventive grasp worthy of a better cause. 
 He fails ; for what is the wit of one man against the 
 omnipotent laws of social order? What is the 
 
2 so THE NATION AS AN ORGANISM 
 
 keenest intellect against the on-striding "Nemesis of 
 outraged moral ordinance ? He who holds in pos- 
 session half the kingdom, of which Lear had dispos- 
 sessed himself, falls by the hand of a peasant-slave, 
 who rises in his manhood to plead against cruelty, 
 and hinder his prince from tearing out the eye of 
 the helpless Duke Gloster. " A peasant stand up 
 thus ? " exclaims the Duke Cornwall in disgust and 
 anger, as he runs at him with his sword ; but he is 
 himself slain, for he " takes the chance of anger," 
 and throwing away all the advantage which cere- 
 mony gave him, — stripped naked of that, — he 
 goes to the wall as the inferior man. Upon the 
 three daughters of the king poison, steel, and the 
 hangman's ropes how all their natural as well as 
 social virtues, and they perish by deaths as miser- 
 able as ever beset the meanest of villains and the 
 lowest of slaves. 
 
 Now, what have we here ? A quarry of dead game 
 to please the bloodthirsty taste of that bloodthirsty 
 age ? A holocaust of victims to satiate the degraded 
 craving of that London populace which saw men's 
 ears and noses slit, their heads cut off, their bodies 
 burned and exposed to tortures that cannot now be 
 described without making the flesh creep, — which 
 saw all this not on the mimic stage alone, but in real, 
 every-day life? No; here we have one common 
 theme, — man freed, from social bonds ; man re- 
 duced to and falling back upon his natural, savage 
 instincts ; man with none of the defences that organ- 
 ized society — with laws, well ordered government, 
 
IN SHAKSPEARE. 2$! 
 
 humane institutions — throws around men as bar- 
 riers against tiie encroachments of passionate will 
 and arbitrary injustice. The whole play, with its 
 characters interesting us in every change of passion, 
 every least utterance, every flush of countenance, 
 every accent of grief or joy, hope or despair, — the 
 whole is a picture of social misery, and of the bar- 
 barism of humanity when dissolved into its primeval 
 elements ; though the actors were dukes and dukes' 
 bravest sons, kings and kings' fairest daughters. 
 
 Thrown back into the old Celtic times, who 
 could suspect that the mirror was held up to the 
 poet's own age, or that he was unveiling the depths 
 of disorganized social life? Yet it is a thin disguise 
 which is cbntinuallj' dropped. Think of an apothe- 
 cary giving " an ounce of civet " to sweeten a poor 
 king's imagination ! think of Lear's extemporized 
 court of justice, where " yond justice rails upon 
 yond simple thief," and when they " change places, 
 handy-dartdy, AVhich is the justice, which is the 
 thief?" where the rascal beadle is bidden to hold 
 his bloody hand, — bloody w^ith lashing a poor 
 strumpet, — and the usurer hangs the cozener; 
 where, one is told to get for himself " glass eyes, 
 and like a scurvy politician seem to see the things " 
 he does not really see ! -r- think of all this, and the 
 old Celtic film and background disappear, and the 
 poet's time sits for its picture. Shakspeare was 
 not mindful of what the critics call local coloring : 
 verily he was not, — for the great, present humanity 
 pressed him in on every side ! 
 
252 THE NATION AS AN ORGANISM 
 
 In this play the entire order of things is sub- 
 verted. The social state is turned topsy-turvy; the 
 king is forced from the wild natural elements to 
 seek the shelter of a hovel, after fleeing from his 
 own child's inhospitable roof into the waste and 
 storm-pelted heath; the would-be friend, giving 
 way to impatient anger, becomes the worst of foes; 
 the loyal, virtuous son of wealth and station assumes 
 the vilest garb and name, and can only save his life 
 by abjuring home and name and reason itself; 
 and in telling what he will do, he but describes 
 what was a common sight in Shakspeare's own 
 time, the glorious Elizabethan age : — 
 
 " My face I 'II grime with filth ; 
 Blanket my loins ; elf all my hair in knots ; 
 And with presented nakedness out-face 
 The winds and persecutions of the sky. 
 The country gives me proof and precedent 
 Of bedlam beggars, who with roaring voices 
 Strike in their numbed and mortified bare arms 
 Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary ; 
 And with this horrible object, from low farms. 
 Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes and mills. 
 Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers. 
 Enforce their charity." 
 
 So low is this scion of a dukedom reduced, that he 
 welcomes even the assumption of a false name, — 
 " Poor Tom is something, Edgar is nothing," 
 
 In this universal subversion, the fool is the only 
 wise man, and the madman the only sane head, —r 
 the pivot upon which the final success depends. 
 
IN SHAKSPEARE. 253 
 
 The fool knows why a man's nose stands in the 
 middle of his face ; why a snail has a house ; why 
 the seven stars are no more than seven ; and what a 
 man will learn by going to school to the ant. And, 
 withal, the fool is loyal as well as wise : he serves 
 for love and not for gain. He sings, — 
 
 " That sir which serves and seeks for gain, 
 
 And follows but for form, 
 Will pack when it begins to rain, 
 
 And leave thee in the storm. 
 But I will tarry ; the fool will stay, 
 
 And let the wise man fly : 
 The knave turns fool that runs away ; 
 
 The fool no knave, perdy. 
 
 No knave, and no fool either ; for he sees in his 
 glimmering way a moral, or universal lesson, in this 
 particular case, and he draws that moral : — 
 
 " The man that makes his toe 
 , What he his heart should make 
 Shall of a corn cry woe, 
 And turn his sleep to wake." 
 
 A fool's doggerel, indeed, but pregnant with all 
 the wisdom of modern social ethics. From the 
 earliest times, society has made a toe of what 
 should have been the heart ; and it has cried out, 
 and is at intervals crying out, because of the tender 
 corn which is afiflicting it with spasm, and which 
 disturbs its sleep. " You are the great toe of this 
 assembly," said the aristocratic Menenius to the 
 
254 'J^HE NATION AS AN ORGANISM 
 
 loOdeSt of the popular rabble ; but that great toe, 
 the real heart of Rome, trodden upon and trodden 
 upon for ages, became at last gangrened, and the 
 whole body succumbed to death. 
 
 Shakspeare has given us in his world-wide re- 
 presentation two social insurrections, — that of 
 Rome in the third century of the city,^ and that 
 headed by Jack Cade in the fifteenth century of our 
 'era.2 They are both put down, not by a righting 
 of the wrongs and miseries of the rabble, but by 
 the pressure of a foreign war, and by that appeal 
 to patriotism against a foreign nation which has 
 always quelled the fiercest domestic troubles. The 
 old barrel, ready to fall to pieces, is hooped together 
 by this device of uniting against an external eneniy. 
 Jack Cade's final exclamation, when the fickle bab- 
 blement shout for the king and Clifford, who is to 
 lead them against France, is, — 
 
 " Was ever feather so lightly blown th and fro as this 
 multitude ? The name of Henry the Fifth hales them to 
 an hundred mischiefs, and makes them leave me desolate. 
 ... In despite of the devils and hell, have through the 
 very midst of you ! And Heavens and honor be witness, 
 that no want of resolution in me, but only my followers' 
 base and ignominious treasons, makes me betake me to 
 my heels." 
 
 In Coriolanus, the cry of the suffering plebs is 
 well voiced. When appealed to as "^ood? citizens," 
 
 1 Coriolanus, act i. scene i. 
 
 2 Henry VI. Part ii. act iv. scene 8. 
 
IN SHAKSPEARE. 255 
 
 one of them says: " We are accounted poor citi- 
 zens; the patricians, good. What authority sur- 
 feits on would relieve us. If they would yield us 
 but the superfluity, while it were wholesome, we 
 might guess they relieved us humanely ; but they 
 think we are too dear. The leanness that afflicts 
 us, the object of our misery, is as an inventory 
 to particularize their abundance; our sufferance 
 is a gain to them/' And when told that the pa- 
 tricians " have most charitable care " of the peo- 
 ple, the same citizen replies i " Care for us ! True, 
 indeed ! They ne'er cared for us yet. Suffer us 
 to famish, and their storehouses crammed with 
 grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; 
 repeal daily any wholesome act established against 
 the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily 
 to chain up and restrain the poor! If the wars 
 eat us not up, tkej/ will; and there's all the love 
 they" bear us ! " It can pass on the stage as a 
 Fepresentation of what happened two thousand 
 years ago in Ro6ie, and pass without question as 
 to whether " there is any offence in the argument." 
 But that cry is still heard, and will be heard until 
 there is some answer given that shall be something 
 more than a sop for the temporary passion and the 
 mbmefitary greed. 
 
 Thus is to be seen in Shakspeare the clearly 
 expressed idea that the men called a nation, a 
 people, a State, constitute one organized form, in 
 which each part has life only as it shares in the 
 
2S6 THE NATION ^S AN ORGANISM 
 
 life of the whole ; and the life of the whole inter- 
 penetrates and sustains each individual organ or 
 part. The king, separate and isolated, has no 
 power or even existence in himself; the lowest and 
 meanest part, while organically related, has a mean- 
 ing in Nature, has a right to be, and shares in the 
 universal life. The most potent individuality cut 
 off from this life is lost as a moral force. Coriola- 
 nus, the hero, — the towering, proud, self-sufficient 
 isolated peak, — can only die. Mr. Mulford says,^ 
 " When Caius Marcius turns to the crowd in Rome 
 and denounces them as the detached and disorgan- 
 ized rabble, in whom there is nothing of the organic 
 unity of the people, the disdain of the Roman is 
 in the words, ' Go, get you home, you fragments ! " 
 But how is it with the disdainful patrician himself? 
 Does not this very disdain cut him off from com- 
 munion with his fellow-citizens, and is not there 
 the beginning of his own fragmentary split? The 
 patrician was no more the nation than the mobo- 
 cratic citizen. Had this rabble joined in a body 
 the Volscian host, where would have been the na- 
 tion ? Coriolanus joined it, and the nation still lived ; 
 he was but a " fragment," and so he perished. 
 
 At that period of regal flattery, of royal absolu- 
 tism, of adulating homage, Shakspeare speaks the 
 word that pierces through the high-flown forms and 
 reveals man as he is in himself -No wonder that 
 Voltaire is disgusted with a poet who can make a 
 
 1 The Nation, p. lo. 
 
IN SHAKSPEARE. 257 
 
 queen say of herself, when addressed in deepest 
 grief by her attendant as empress, — 
 
 " No more, but e'en a woman ; and commanded 
 By such poor passion as the maid that milks, 
 And does the meanest chares." * 
 
 In that age, when the idea of man as man had 
 found no embodiment in word even, when human 
 rights were nothing, and privilege and rank were 
 all, Shakspeare makes his king say, — and from 
 the mouth of a king the expression would easily 
 escape comment: "The king is but a man, as I 
 am; the violet smells to him as it doth to me; 
 all his senses have but human conditions." And 
 that well-known passage, since become a common- 
 place in the mouths of all, but then a strange 
 sound of humanity pleading for the recognition of 
 oneness : " Hath not a , Jew eyes ? Hath not a 
 Jew hands, organs, senses, .affections, passions ? " 
 
 Since that time this " glittering generality " has 
 become officially proclaimed; but almost all be- 
 lieve it to be only some flickering from the blaze 
 of the nether pit, or some artificial light, electric or 
 otherwise, which now flares up dazzlingly, and now 
 leaves a blacker darkness as it flickers; and that 
 at any rate, it will be totally extinguished before the 
 clock strikes twelve. Few believe in it as the sun 
 about which all the planets of this our social exist- 
 ence are turning, and which is to work out revolu- 
 
 ' Antony and Cleopatra, act iv. scene I j. 
 17 
 
2S8 THE NATION AS AN ORGANISM 
 
 tions greater than ever science or philosophy has 
 dreamed. The true manhood of man is the prob- 
 lem that is to be solved; to this every discovery 
 in science, every stroke of the steam-engine, every 
 added means of education, every beat of the great 
 human heart, is advancing from hour to hour. 
 
 That a nation is a living organism, Shakspeare's 
 clear conception becomes more and more mani- 
 fest; and if it is a real, organic form, one part 
 cannot be turned from or hindered in its proper 
 function without the entire organism being there- 
 by affected. As our philosophic poet says, — 
 
 " Let our finger ache, and it indues 
 Our healthful members even to that sense 
 Of pain." 
 
 Social effort, to-day, is based upon this funda- 
 mental truth, — the oneness of humanity as a liv- 
 ing organism. Says a c.areful thinker,* " Not each 
 nation only, but the whole human society, under the 
 conditions which now prevail, is a vast organism, 
 a body of many members with a mutual life." In 
 Shakspeare's day it was not possible to see this 
 organic life of the human race, for the present con- 
 ditions did not exist. But the organic life of a 
 nation Shakspeare did see, and he unfolded it with 
 wonderful clearness. 
 
 In 1825, in his " Nouveau Christianisme," Saint- 
 Simon advanced this ethical statement as the rd- 
 sum^ oi the teachings of Christ: "All should labor 
 
 ' Inquiry into Socialism. By T. Kirkup. P. xxiv. 
 
IN SHAKSPEARE. 259 
 
 for the development, material, moral, and intellec- 
 tual, of the lowest and poorest class." And this 
 would seem to be the nearest expression of that 
 apparent paradox uttered by Jesus, that if the feet, 
 the lowest part, were right, all would be right ; and 
 that whoso ministered to the lowest and least minis- 
 tered to him, the highest of all. 
 
XIV. 
 
 THE COMMON REASON IN SOCIAL 
 REFORMS. 
 
 The principle of social progress may be formulated 
 in these words : It is to give the common reason 
 free play in the family, the school, the Church, and 
 the State. All advance has been in this direction. 
 If we look at the past, we shall see that the great 
 secret of all blundering, all harmful legislation has 
 been the endeavor to promote some private and 
 partial end ; to carry out measures to increase the 
 prosperity of some one class or clique, some special 
 order, in which the good only of some one part of 
 society was supposed to be wrapped up. Hence 
 the greater part of legislation, to-day, should aim 
 at the removal of those restrictions which in the 
 past have been imposed upon the many in the 
 interest of the few, — in other words, to promote 
 the highest good of the whole body politic. 
 
 Plato, with no conscious limitation of view in 
 order to secure exclusive advantages to a special 
 class, but to secure what he thought was for the 
 highest benefit of the commonwealth, ordained that 
 there should be a servile class, and that laborers 
 and artisans should not be regarded as citizens, 
 or have the rights of citizens. Such also was the 
 
COMMON REASON IN SOCIAL REFORMS. 26 1 
 
 view of Aristotle in his model State. Not until 
 the American democratic State was established, did 
 the essential manhood of every man become the 
 basis of all legislation and all political arrange- 
 ments. It was the victory of the common reason 
 all along the line of man's relation to the State, 
 and the State's relation to man. 
 
 But let us look at the real meaning of this term, 
 " common reason," which is something more than 
 what is ordinarily called common-sense. Buckle 
 says that " every step in the progress of science is 
 a contradiction to common-sense." He means that 
 science is continually reversing the appearance of 
 things to the senses ; and so it is. If we take the 
 testimony of the eye alone, the sun goes round the 
 tarth ; the moon is as large as the sun ; the sky is 
 a dome over our heads ; and . the city-boss the very 
 mainspring of all political movement. But this is 
 only the appearance to the senses, until the intellect 
 corrects it, and gives us an insight into the true re- 
 lations of things in the material and social world. 
 
 The communis sensus — better named the "com- 
 mon reason " — is the verdict made up not by one 
 faculty alone. If there is something else that en- 
 ters into Nature and life than the impression made 
 upon the senses, then that something else must 
 be called into play before a true judgment can 
 be pronounced. There is something else; and 
 when there is the consensus, or agreement, of all 
 thfe human faculties, then is common-sense exer- 
 cised. To limit it to what commends itself to 
 
262 THE COMMON REASON 
 
 vulgar eye, ear, and touch is to violate the very- 
 conditions of its existence at all. It is the har- 
 monious adjustment of all the faculties in the ac- 
 knowledgment of the real fact. 
 
 Man has senses, by which he takes cognizance 
 of external things ; he has understanding, by which 
 they are arranged in orderly sequence and depen- 
 dence ; he has moral perception, by which the rela- 
 tive value and different relations to what is useful 
 and beneficial are established ; he has also spiritual 
 perception, by which all these are conjoined and 
 subordinated in obedience to a pervading spirit of 
 wisdom and love, — and the harmonious expression 
 of ail these faculties is common-sense, or the ' vox 
 Dei.' If any one takes precedence, no matter how 
 authoritative be the expression, the universality 
 or commonness fails. The voice of a majority, 
 however large, if it is the voice of a particular 
 faculty alone, is one-sided, partial, disorderly, — vox 
 Diaboli, not vox Dei. A people includes, repre- 
 sentatively, all these faculties ; and if any one pre- 
 dominate, whether the priesthood or the masses, 
 the scholars or the artisans, there is distraction 
 and disorder. There are estates of the realm, and 
 no one estate must govern exclusively. How the 
 first estate governed was shown before the French 
 Revolution ; and how the third, after its outbreak. 
 Every parliament or congress or general assembly 
 is an attempt to get at the consensus communis of 
 the entire body of the nation. 
 
 That there is a collective wisdom far superior to 
 
IN SOCIAL REFORMS. 263 
 
 that of the individual judgment is affirmed by that 
 extraordinary professor of common-sense, Aristotle, 
 who says in the third book of his " Politics " : — 
 
 "The people at large, how contemptible soever they 
 may appear when taken individually, are yet, when collec- 
 tively considered, not perhaps unworthy of sovereignty. 
 It is a common remark that those entertainments where 
 each man sends the dish most agreeable to his own palate, 
 are preferable to those furnished by the most sumptuous 
 deUcacy of individuals. The people at large are admitted 
 to be the best judges of music and poetry. The general 
 taste is thus acknowledged to be better than that of the 
 few, or of any one man however skilful. The excellences 
 of that complex body the Public may sometimes surpass 
 those of the most accomplished prince, or of the most 
 virtuous counsel." 
 
 But from this " Public " Aristotle would carefully 
 exclude all laborers and artisans! 
 
 In every day individual life, there is in each one 
 - of us what may be called an invisible parliament or 
 congress of representatives from every department, 
 — even from the remotest part of body and soul, — 
 to enact laws, issue proclamations, devise ways and 
 means, ascertain our revenue, and regulate our ex- 
 penses. This parliament of faculties presides over 
 all our thoughts, yet it is embodied in no formal 
 statement ; it is back of all our conscious will, yet 
 compels no individual conviction; it mingles in 
 every exercise of judgment and reason, yet has no 
 visible tribunal ; its verdict is final, yet it is enacted 
 
264 THE COMMON REASON 
 
 in no formal statute. It is the presence of what may 
 be called the common or universal reason. As the 
 spiritual Fenelon says : " It is not myself, for it re- 
 proves and corrects me against my will. This reason 
 is the rule of my reason ; and from this every wise 
 man is instructed." 
 
 This also is the great rule not only for the indivi- 
 dual, but for the social order and common life. In 
 social order, neither anarchy nor despotism can en- 
 dure, but each is modified and restrained by this con- 
 trolling influence. Amidst oscillations from abnor- 
 mal tastes and one-sided tendencies, this omnipotent 
 element asserts itself, bringing chaotic strivings in- 
 to harmonious adjustment. As the atmosphere is 
 always tending to purify itsglf, and come into the 
 condition of relative proportion of gases needed' for 
 sound lungs and healthy breathing, so in the social 
 world the moist humors are absorbed, the chill mists 
 are scattered, the acids diluted, and effervescing 
 substances compounded into neutral salts, while the 
 work of reaction and ebullition is never at an end. 
 Parties and sects are bent upon making every man 
 breathe pure oxygen, but Nature knows better than 
 that. She tolerates for long no exclusive systems, 
 laughs at all panaceas, and quietly sets her veto on 
 all perpetual motions. Science would reduce the 
 world to a laboratory of crucibles, retorts, and ma- 
 terial atoms, while piety would make it a cell for 
 monkish asceticism. The intellect would analyze, 
 dissect, and question without end, while faith would 
 accept everything, believing the more fervently as 
 
IN SOCIAL HEFORMS. 265 
 
 the incredibility increases. But there is a regulat- 
 ing principle which permits no violent tendency to 
 continue unobstructed, and which when the machine 
 revolves too rapidly for safety shuts oflf the steam, — 
 balancing a Luther with a Loyola, conservatives 
 with reformers, eyes looking towards the sunset 
 with eyes gazing into the brightening dawn. 
 
 In education, see how speedily extreme theories 
 are brought to a level and absorbed into the general 
 circulation, all the good being assimilated as nutri- 
 ment into the system. Heated brains and abnor- 
 mal temperaments, wild philanthropists and zealous 
 theorists broach their one-sided projects, and then 
 are heard of no more. But much that is good 
 remains, and enters into life. At one time it is all 
 study of the languages, and at another of science ; 
 now all must be play, and now all hard work ; 
 now everything must be made plain, and now stated 
 only in barest outline ; now all must be lecture, and 
 now all lesson. A better culture is demanded for 
 the body, a better training for the physical man. 
 Then theorists start up with their special systems, 
 enthusiasts of one idea follow out their peculiar 
 methods; and soon each falls into partial neglect. 
 Base-ball becomes a professional knack ; foot-ball, a 
 brutal mel6e of muscle and brawn; rowing, an un- 
 natural training of a few, and a competitive strain- 
 ing even to complete organic collapse. But step by 
 step, steadily and surely, the young are brought 
 upon a higher plane, the highest thought is enlisted 
 in discovering the best methods of training, and the 
 
266 THE COMMON REASON 
 
 results of varied experiences are diffused and made 
 available. In other words, the invisible regulator, 
 the common reason, has the final say. 
 
 This final dictum of the common reason prevails 
 in some cases where we should scarcely expect to 
 see it. Not with impunity can any one clique or 
 party, any one sect or school, claim to be the 
 exclusive depositaries of truth. To assert such a 
 claim is to become separate from humanity, and 
 to cut oneself off from the universal inspiration. 
 This may be seen in what appear, at first sight, 
 to be provinces the farthest removed from any 
 such danger. Said once a learned solicitor-general 
 of England, in the House of Commons, in regard 
 to law reform: "I must warn the House, if they 
 attempt legal reforms, that they must not allow 
 lawyer after lawyer to get up and tell them that 
 they are not capable of understanding the subject. 
 They might depend upon it that if they could not 
 reduce a legal proposition to the plain principles of 
 common-sense comprehensible to persons of ordi- 
 nary intelligence, the defect was that it was a tech- 
 nical system invented for the creation of costs, and 
 not to promote the administration of justice." This 
 is in harmony with what an eminent professor of 
 jurisprudence (Professor Grote) says: "Law is the 
 public reason of a society participated in, more or 
 less, by the mass of individuals." 
 
 We may say, indeed, of all sciences, — except 
 those involving the higher mathematics, — that if 
 they cannot be reduced to universal principles com- 
 
IN SOCIAL REFORMS. 267 
 
 prehensible to sound minds and upright hearts, 
 they are but conventional and technical terminolo- 
 gies, which will soon be superseded. For science 
 does not contradict, it formulates, facts according to 
 the principles of the common reason. It confirms 
 and establishes them on an immovable basis; it 
 shows order in the apparent disorder. As a phil- 
 osophical observer, in describing the mer-de-glace 
 at Chamouni, says, — 
 
 " At first the ice presented an appearance of utter con- 
 Jiision ; but we soon reached a position where the mechan- 
 ical conditions of the glacier revealed themselves, and 
 where we might learn — had we not known it before — 
 that confusion is merely the unknown mixture of laws, 
 and becomes order and beauty when we rise to their 
 comprehension. 
 
 This is the " harmony not understood," which 
 belongs to the entire created universe in its mi- 
 nutest part. This is the Cosmos, or beautiful order, 
 which if science does not give us, it gives us noth- 
 ing really worth having. But it does always end in 
 establishing for us what was already prophesied in 
 the higher intuitions, — in the demand for order, 
 symmetry, law. 
 
 Look at what we call law. The State passes cer- 
 tain laws, — for what professed end ? To carry out 
 the ends of justice, — that is, to carry out ends 
 which have their existence, their foundation, in 
 something which precedes the laws, and which calls 
 them into being. The law, therefore, does not 
 
268 ' THE COMMON REASON 
 
 create justice ; but justice creates the law, of which 
 it is supposed to be the embodiment. Justice is the 
 divine reality,. and abides in the souls of those who 
 seek to make it a concrete, actual thing. Back of 
 all State enactments is that justice which is univer- 
 sal and divine, which gives them their justification 
 and their force. A calm, philosophic observer says 
 of the legislation of Great Britain at the present 
 time, — 
 
 " The revolution which is being effected in due course 
 of law is the gradual but complete transference of the 
 source of legislation from the select ruling portion of 
 society to the whole body of the people. Instead of law, 
 as of old, flowing down from king, lords, and commons to 
 the people, law is now impelled in an upward flow from 
 the people to the commons, lords, and monarch." ^ 
 
 So it is with the higher philosophy. " True phi- 
 losophy," it has been said, " accepts, as given, the 
 great and indestructible convictions of our race, 
 and the language in which these are expressed ; 
 and in place of denying or obliterating them, she 
 endeavors rationally to explain and justify them." ^ 
 Such is the work of philosophy to-day in every 
 department, — not rudely sneering or denying, but 
 seeking those broader statements which underlie 
 every universal conviction from the earliest historic 
 times. The old philosopher Heraclitus said that "it 
 behooves us all to follow the common reason of the 
 
 1 The Political Life of our Time. By D. Nichol. Vol. ii. p. 336, 
 " Blackwood's Magazine, April, 1838, — "Consciousness." 
 
IN SOCIAL REFORMS. 269 
 
 world" rather than private and individual idiosyn- 
 cracies ; and this is true in art, in literature, in every 
 sphere in which universal principles of truth and 
 beauty manifest themselves. The final verdict in 
 the ages is made up from the consensus of those who 
 are exponents of this universal wisdom, or reason. 
 
 Goethe uttered many a maxim pregnant with 
 wisdom, but nothing wiser than when he said, 
 " The best way to preserve our common-sense is 
 to live in the universal way with multitudes of 
 men." The anchorite and the nun become excep- 
 tional, and they pay the penalty. The martyrs are 
 not always martyrs to truth and righteousness, but 
 often to their own one-sided interpretation of truth, 
 and sometimes to their own self-assertion and self- 
 conceit. It is a nice line that separates the pure 
 impersonal devotion to principle from the love of 
 singularity, the desire for self-prominence and self- 
 extension. Pretentious vanity, exclusive assump- 
 tion, even under the garb of single-minded service, 
 gets persistently rebuffed, and wonders why its 
 claims are so coldly met or contemptuously re- 
 jected. Why should such well-meaning exertion 
 and earnest good-will not meet with a better re- 
 ward ? The sufferer does not see ; for he does not 
 perceive that his own atmosphere envelopes those 
 with whom he comes in contact, and that this at- 
 mosphere is one of offensive personal assumption, 
 perhaps of exclusiveness and contempt. We used 
 to hear, more than we do to-day, the woman earnest 
 for reform jeered at as strong-minded ; and charges 
 
270 THE COMMON REASON 
 
 were made as to the color of her stockings, when- 
 ever a woman was suspected of knowing a little 
 more than the average man, I have sometimes tried 
 to think that this was the growling way which some 
 men had of expressing their belief that the highest 
 womanly excellence is a loving heart predominat- 
 ing every other faculty, original or acquired. The 
 good masculine souls did not want the fair creatures 
 to become "too good for human nature's daily food." 
 It was not for woman's interest, you know, and wo- 
 men would be the greatest sufferers from it in the 
 long run ! Well, it is a woman who gives this 
 charming description of Mrs. Somerville, as " not 
 dwelling aloof from common men and women, but 
 throwing herself into the interests of those around 
 her, conversing with each in his or her own way; 
 being the kindest and pleasantest member of so- 
 ciety, — a sad stone of stumbling to those who 
 delight to depict that heraldic creature ' the strong- 
 minded female,' and to those who have established 
 it as a fact that the knowledge of Euclid is incom- 
 patible with the domestic affections." 
 
 In regard to the social relations and duties of 
 woman, common reason has had, at last, something 
 to say. It seems now so much a matter of course 
 for men and women to sit together, study together, 
 and work together, that we forget from what she 
 has been rescued, in spite of the protests of the 
 colossal intellects and the great minds in Church 
 and State, — that " chosen remnant " of the great 
 and good, so dear to Matthew Arnold's heart. Why, 
 
IN SOCIAL REFORMS. 27 1 
 
 the great General Assembly of the Church of Scot- 
 land, no longer ago than 1649, passed a law that 
 all women must sit together, and sit " laigh " in 
 the kirk. But as sitting " low " was found conducive 
 to a comfortable nap, " a church officer was ordered 
 to go through the church with a long pole, to 
 remove the plaids from the heads of all women, 
 whether wives or maids." The New England tith- 
 ing-man, who was the terror of boys and girls," 
 had thus a very respectable ancestry, and was 
 not the native growth of puritanic Massachusetts 
 or Connecticut. Of course, if all the women are 
 put away by themselves, and all the boys by them- 
 selves, they must have special legislation to meet 
 their special cases ; but come down to the hard pan 
 of common reason, and no legislation whatever is 
 needed. 
 
 In whatever direction we look, then, we see that 
 it is fidelity to universal principles that constitutes 
 real greatness and worth. In these only are all 
 men at home. As he gives expression to these, 
 the poet meets the deepest response from the 
 hearts of his fellows; and as the exponent of 
 these, men crown him king, and own themselves 
 his obedient subjects. The orator utters that 
 which all were waiting to hear, and wanting to 
 express. The heroism, the wisdom, the truth is 
 theirs also, and they breathe one common air. 
 His word is power, because he appeals to the 
 universal heart. He stands there to show off no 
 individual graces or personal excellences or su- 
 
272 THE COMMON REASON 
 
 perior wit. He gives up his own life, and so 
 receives the life of all. True, true everywhere 
 is that utterance of Fichte, — 
 
 " Whatever a man may do, so long as he does it from 
 himself, by himself, and through his own counsel, it is 
 vain, and will sink to nothing. All things new, great, and 
 beautiful which have appeared in the world since its be- 
 ginning, and those which will appear until its end, have 
 appeared and will appear through the divine or [common- 
 human] idea." 
 
 The pet notion, the peculiar theory, however 
 grand, however expressive of personal and indi- 
 vidual power, comes to nought. That which em- 
 bodies the ideas of beauty, of justice, of wisdom 
 which are in all souls must endure so long as 
 that which inspires them, and that from which 
 they draw, continues to endure. "It is character- 
 istic of the highest truth," says one, " to be acces- 
 sible to common minds, and inaccessible only to 
 ambitious ones." ^ 
 
 Here, now, we strike the key-note of Shak- 
 speare's greatness and lasting power. He has no 
 idiosyncracy, no favorite string, no recurring strain 
 from his own individual likes and dislikes; no 
 pet theory of man or woman; no special cause 
 or doctrine to advocate, whether in Church or 
 State. He gives every one a chance to speak 
 through him, as if he were simply the conduit 
 for his or her individual being. Hence he is the 
 1 The Secret of Swedenborg. By Henry James. 
 
IN SOCIAL REFORMS. 273 
 
 interpreter of humanity and not of any particular 
 class or clique, or of odd specimens of men and 
 women. He hits the golden mean. Mr. Blackie 
 sums up the ethics of Aristotle thus : — 
 
 " Virtue is a medium, a balance, a proportion, a sym- 
 metry, a harmony, a nice adjustment of the force of each 
 part in reference to the calculated action of the whele." 
 
 Now, Shakspeare makes the disturbance of this 
 balance, this harmony, the theme of all his tragedy, 
 whether as applied to the general State, the Com- 
 monwealth, or that individual State, that private 
 common-weal of which each man is a citizen, and 
 in which he ought to rule. To preserve this bal- 
 ance is the secret of all happiness, of all true well- 
 being. " It is no mean happiness to be seated in 
 the mean; superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, 
 but competency lives longer," — this is the leading 
 theme, with infinite variations. 
 
 This wisdom comes not from any intellectual 
 elevation, but from a dramatic sympathy with hu- 
 manity in its various developments. It is the ethics 
 which lives in those proverbs that grow up, one 
 knows not how or where, in the heart of the people, 
 and finds expression in the maxim that embodies 
 the experience of entire generations. Its power 
 is in its universality, and its commonness. It is the 
 wisdom of all, — that communis sensus which, after 
 all, is the highest and the last appeal. No man can 
 be wiser than humanity; and as the exponent of 
 
 18 
 
274 ^^^^ COMMON REASON 
 
 this purely human, universal (and because human 
 and universal, also divine) wisdorii, Shakspeare re- 
 mains unreached and alone. 
 
 In admitting this, Riimelin,! who loses no oppor- 
 tunity to depreciate Shakspeare, really concedes to 
 him, while depreciating him, the highest claim as a 
 moralist ; and he can but grant the vast superiority 
 of Shaksp-eare, in this respect, over Schiller and 
 Goethe. " Their maxims," he says, " occupy a 
 different sphere; and Goethe's, especially, rest 
 tipon an individual point of view wholly foreign 
 from the folk-wisdom. In Shakspeare, on the 
 contrary, we perceive a noteworthy trait of con- 
 geniality with this spirit of the people, not in any 
 one' peculiar direction, but in that wisdom as a 
 whole." What greater praise could be given to 
 Shakspeare's ethical genius? 
 
 It is indeed worth the while to study this body of 
 natural divinity, as it may be called, wherein the 
 concentrated wisdom of humanity lives in forms 
 to which the highest intuitive perception, united 
 with the most genial poetic power, has given an 
 enduring embodiment. These thickly strewn say- 
 ings sound often like quoted proverbs, but they are 
 from Shakspeare's own mint ; as, — 
 
 " Thrift is blessing, if men steal it not." 
 
 "To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wft." 
 
 "Will is deaf, and heeds no heedful friends." 
 
 " It is an heretic that makes the fire, not he which burns in 't." 
 
 1 RiJMELlN : Shakspeare Studien, p. i66. 
 
IN SOCIAL REFORMS. 2^$ 
 
 " Wishers were ever fools." 
 
 " In poison tliere is pliysic." 
 
 " Good words are better tlian Taad strokes." 
 
 " He that loves to be flattered is worthy of the flatterer." 
 
 " There is some soul of goodness in things evil, 
 Would men observingly distil it out." 
 
 " Love yourself ; and in that love, 
 
 Not unconsidered leave your honor.'' 
 " Best men are moulded out of faults." 
 " They love not poison that do poison need." 
 
 Thousands of like significance could be quoted, — 
 all springing from the character, the time, the place, 
 and the occasion, and all sounding as if the spirit of 
 human wisdom itself had brooded for generations 
 over the utterance. 
 
 We are often repelled when these representations 
 of dramatic power are made, by the extravagant 
 claims that are set up for the individual man, 
 William Shakspeare, — as if he must have been 
 himself so very wise and so very good and so 
 very great in his own personal character and life. 
 But his real value to us is that he could throw 
 himself, such as he was, into every form that he 
 summoned into his presence. His own self was 
 merged for the time in the self of another, and 
 by losing himself he gained humanity. He carried 
 into manhood that faculty which belongs to the 
 child, — "the six years' darling of a pigmy size." 
 
 " See at his feet some little plan or chart, 
 Some fragment from his dream of human life, 
 
276 THE COMMON REASON 
 
 Shaped by himself with newly-leam&d art, — 
 
 A wedding or a festival, 
 
 A mourning or a funeral. 
 
 And this hath now his heart, 
 
 And unto this he frames his song; 
 
 Then will he fit his tongue 
 
 To dialogues of business, love, or strife. 
 
 But it will not be long 
 
 Ere this be thrown aside. 
 
 And with new joy and pride 
 
 The little actor cons another part, 
 
 Filling from time to time his humorous stage 
 
 With all the persons down to palsied age, 
 
 That Life brings with her in her equipage, — 
 
 As if his whole vocation 
 
 Were endless imitation." 
 
 That free joy and sympathy with every form of 
 being ; that abandonment to the impression of Na- 
 ture and life which gave rise to mythology, and 
 which is the soul of all the creations of every 
 child, — this gave us the Shakspearian drama, with 
 all its lessons of the truth that lies at the basis of 
 every fact and of every emotion. 
 
 Because of the influence of this common reason, 
 we find that in literature the best survives; that 
 evermore there is a winnowing process going on 
 by which the solid grain is saved, and the dust 
 and chaff and lighter matter are sent whirling into 
 the great cavern of forgetfulness, never again to 
 mislead or vex human souls. What is this grand 
 winnowing machine on which there is no patent 
 for exclusive use, and from which there is no 
 possible way of escape? Time, you say. But 
 
IN SOCIAL REFORMS. 277 
 
 time is only the name given to a succession of 
 changes. There is no such entity as time; but 
 there is a communis sensus, a divine reason, im- 
 manent in human things and human souls, which 
 forever acts, and from which there is no appeal. 
 
 This common reason of the world is expressed, 
 too, in its proverbs, which sound the entire gamut 
 of human experience. In the derivation of the 
 word " proverb," there is the recognition of this re- 
 lation to a universal wisdom. When a man uses 
 such a saying, he uses pro verbo (instead of his own 
 word) every man's word: he does not carry his 
 own special lantern, but opens a shutter and lets in 
 the sunlight ; he merges self in the all-comprehend- 
 ing self of humanity; he utters not his individual 
 truth, but the conviction of his fellows. So, too, 
 with the legends, the sagas, the mythologies of all 
 nations: they are not the product of a few wise 
 heads, select literary students, or rare scholars, 
 but the product of a Universal Intelligence, whose 
 depths no man has sounded, — waifs cast upon the 
 shore by the all-surrounding ocean of truth ; reve- 
 lations made by a general daylight, not by any 
 number of coruscating meteors or winking stars. 
 
 This communis sensus, then, this divine reason in 
 the community, is the real source of all social 
 development; and, as it is trusted to, it gives a 
 cheering confidence in the accomplishment, not 
 perhaps of our short-sighted schemes, but of all the 
 purposes of higher good that we cherish for our- 
 selves and our fellow-men. The fine scholar trusts 
 
278 THE. COMMON REASON 
 
 in the few trained souls and in the chosen few. 
 " The mass of the people," says one of England's 
 ripest scholars, " look for guidance in political as 
 in other matters to their natural social leaders, to 
 their aristocracy. Any government founded on the 
 idea that people ever do, or ever can, govern them- 
 selves, is a delusion." But what shall we poor 
 souls do who have no aristocracy? My^ social 
 leader is he who will reveal to me the truth, and 
 awaken within me any dormant power. The light 
 by which I see, if I see at all, comes to me not 
 from any special training ; but it has illumined and 
 judged and set its seal of approval or condemna- 
 tion upon every book, every teacher, every word. 
 And this light is in me because it is in every man ; 
 and therefore when I think of this great American 
 nation, of which I also am glad to be a part, I say of 
 it what a Catholic lady, a member of the French 
 nobility, once said of the French nation in one of 
 its political crises, — 
 
 " This people has shown itself so amenable to reason 
 in so many diflScult circumstances, that I believe in its 
 true progress. All the confidence I have rests on this 
 public reason, which has no proper name of its own, but 
 which we have seen concentrate in itself alone resolution 
 and strength." 
 
 The people to get only the guidance which comes 
 from their natural leaders ! But what if this supe- 
 rior position and select training are the very obsta- 
 cles which shut these leaders' eyes and close their 
 
IN SOCIAL REFORMS. 279 
 
 ears? Why is it that so many, with every advan- 
 tage of birth and education, fail to speak the right 
 word when any crisis comes, and thus cease to be 
 the leaders of men? It is because they are out of 
 that main current which runs onward to the open 
 sea, and every little eddy whirls them about and 
 turns them aside. Out of the steadily blowing 
 trade-wind, the stateliest ship must lie with flapping 
 sails and groaning timbers in the region of baffling 
 winds or unchanging calm, while the fleets of little 
 boats speed along to their destined haven. Napo- 
 leon the First was a wonderful genius; but the 
 genius of humanity is more wonderful than he. 
 That prison of isolated rock in mid-ocean was the 
 true symbol of his real isolation from the great 
 world of human tendencies and social needs. What 
 an awful revelation, yet with such pure unconscious- 
 ness of what its real meaning was, is that (|tiestion 
 of his : " Is not the statesman wholly an eccentric 
 personage, always alone by himself, — he 'on one 
 side, and the world on the other? " Egoism arising 
 almost to sublimity ! Contrast it with the utterance, 
 " Yet am I not alone, for the Father [the ALL] is 
 with me ! " All the forces of love and truth are 
 working with him, working through him, and work- 
 ing for him. 
 
 Another illustration is given us in a great genius 
 before whose power we have all bowed, and whose 
 words have been like the rustling_ winds in the 
 forest of pines, — Mr. Ruskin. He asks with all 
 imaginable na'ivetd, — 
 
28o THE COMMON REASON 
 
 " How it is that well educated princes, who ought to be 
 of all gentlemen the gentlest, and of all nobles the most 
 generous, and whose title ' of royalty means only their 
 function of doing every man ' right ; ' how it is that 
 these, throughout history, should so rarely pronounce 
 themselves on the side of the poor and of justice; 
 how it comes to pass that a captain will die with his 
 passengers, and leaning over the gunwale give the de- 
 parting boat its course ; but that a king will not usually 
 die wiik, much less for, his passengers, thinkitig it rather 
 incumbent on them, in any number, to die for ktm, — 
 think, I beseech you, of the wonder of this ! " 
 
 Yes, let us think of it. Who are these princes 
 and kings? Persons cut off from any vital connec- 
 tion with the rest of humanity. There was a time 
 when Shakspeare could make his king say, — a king 
 who was ready to die with and for his fellow-Eng- 
 lishmen, — " The king, too, is a man like you." But 
 is it any wonder that when his office has become 
 mprely a perfunctory one, when all his virtue con- 
 sists in his aloofness from the common herd, and 
 when from the earliest moment he has been taught 
 that he is of better stuff than other men, — is it any 
 wonder that he should feel it incumbent on him to 
 preserve by all means that delicate and precious 
 porcelain, while the coarse clay-pots may look out 
 for themselves? To-day something else besides 
 the accident of birth determines who shall govern 
 the ship, the factory, the railway, and the church. 
 How would the divine right of birth answer here? 
 
 Then, further, it is treason and disloyalty to refuse 
 
IN SOCIAL REFORMS. 28 1 
 
 to serve the king ! But is it not equally treason and 
 disloyalty for the king not to serve the people? 
 Yet how can he serve them when a different life- 
 stream flows through his veins ? — for which dif- 
 ference he must pay the penalty. Mr. Ruskin does 
 not see why a poor king should be excused, be- 
 cause Mr. Ruskin himself has no belief in the com- 
 mon reason of humanity, but only in the institutions 
 of the past. He once gave a fine definition of a 
 noble war : " A noble war is one waged simply for 
 the defence of the country in which we were born, 
 and for the maintenance and execution of her laws, 
 by whomsoever threatened or defied." Very good ; 
 but how was it, dear Critic, that you left no occa- 
 sion unimproved to scoff at our country when she 
 poured out her treasure and her blood to maintain 
 and to execute her laws, threatened and defied? 
 Why was your vision then darkened? Alas! you 
 believed in what you called the divine right of born 
 gentlemen, not in the human right of God-inspired 
 men; you believed in the privileged greatness of 
 the few, not in the might of all. You had no belief 
 in the people as the instrument of that wondrous 
 power which evermore sweeps over its trembling 
 strings ! 
 
 More wonderful than even the most wonderful 
 visionary dreams will be the accomplished facts, if 
 the universal principles of Justice, order, and human 
 sympathies are ever fully embodied in the every- 
 day life and work, — just as the wonders of steam, 
 of the magnet, and of electricity now surpass the 
 
282 COMMON REASON IN SOCIAL REFORMS. 
 
 wildest fancies of the Arabian Nights. Social pro- 
 gress has but just begun; for the comnaon reason 
 of humanity being hitherto in abeyance, men have 
 never yet combined their efforts for the happiness 
 and well-being of all. 
 
 But the trend of all history is in that direction. 
 The energy and science and practical skill of the 
 human race are to be employed in the service of 
 common reason, if not of philanthropy; and then 
 will be more than realized the most enthusiastic 
 dreams of social welfare. Read the account of 
 some Woolwich arsenal with its hundred spreading 
 acres; its sixty steam-engines; its miles of shaft- 
 ing; its running gear for a thousand complicated 
 machines; 'its ten thousand workmen, all busy in 
 making engines of ruin, — engines to be used for 
 destroying human life and laying waste the results 
 of human industry, — -and say what shall come to 
 pass when there shall be the combined and scien- 
 tific adaptation of skill and machinery to the benefit, 
 and not to the harm, of the human family \ 
 
 Most heartily do we agree with Professor Jowett, 
 the learned translator of Plato and of Aristotle, 
 that "there is no absurdity in expecting that the 
 mass of mankind having the power in their own 
 hands, and becoming enlightened about the higher 
 possibilities of human life, when they come to see 
 how much more is attainable for all than is at 
 present the possession of a favored few, may pursue 
 the common interest with an intelligence and per- 
 sistency which the world has not yet seen.". 
 
XV. 
 
 HISTORY AS DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 " What is it," says the Chevalier Bunsen, " to write 
 a chapter of the universal history of mankind but to 
 recompose a canto of that most sacred epic of which 
 God is the poet, humanity the hero, and the histo- 
 rian the interpreter ? " What other than this can 
 history be if the life of humanity is an unfolding of 
 a divine spirit? For the natural world is no more a 
 transcript of divine thought than is the social world, 
 all whose parts are streamlets running into the one 
 ocean of universal history. We may call this poem 
 of history an epic or a drama : as a serene past, it is 
 the former ; as acted in the present, it is the latter. 
 It, no less than material phenomena, is the revelation 
 of an infinite variety of facts and processes, under 
 which lie unity, order, and progressive life. 
 
 History is of value, then, as being the record of 
 the spiritual or infinite element in humanity. Just 
 as everything in the natural world has life so far as 
 in some individual form it expresses the universal 
 life, so every human being has life so far as in some 
 individual form he embodies the universal life. This 
 universal life finds its highest expression in society ; 
 tjtiat is, in laws, arts, business, and various social in- 
 
284 HISTORY AS DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 stitutions. If there were no recorded history, there 
 could be no continuity of social life and no con- 
 sciousness of a higher destiny. Historical develop- 
 ment is simply man's growth in individuality and 
 freedom. In an Oriental despotism there is but 
 little individuality; all look alike and act alike, as a 
 school of herring or a herd of buffaloes. At the 
 opposite extreme is a true democracy, where each 
 man is distinctly himself, and in obeying the univer- 
 sal will obeys consciously th'e common reason em- 
 bodied in his own thought. 
 
 In the so-called democracies of Greece and Rome 
 and the Italian cities, there was nothing like the form 
 of society which we have arrived at to-day. It is 
 futile to point to them now, and say that we have 
 no more surety of surviving than they. The demo- 
 cracies of the past were but another form of exter- 
 nal government ; they were not the developments 
 of the spiritual nature of man, becoming embodied 
 in the only form adapted to inherent, living powers. 
 That our form of government secures to us the most 
 and the greatest material advantages, is not the chief 
 claim which it should have in our eyes: while it 
 does this, it does infinitely more. But if we could 
 have ten times the material good secured to us by 
 arrangements in which we had no participation, we 
 should reject such an external bountifulness ; for its 
 price would be our manhood and our free conscious- 
 ness, — in other words, of our capacity for growth 
 and indefinite progress. To be complete up to a 
 certain point, and to have this completeness formed 
 
HISTORY AS DEVELOPMENT. 285 
 
 for US from without, would be to reduce us to the 
 range of mere animal instinct ; and there we should 
 remain fixed forever. But history shows us that 
 man has forever been making mistakes, — sad mis- 
 takes, foolish mistakes, wicked mistakes, — yet that 
 he has had the ability to correct these mistakes, to 
 become as it were a new creature, alive with the life 
 of the creative spirit. This is the only progress ; and 
 this is the process unfolded in history. 
 
 As simply a form of repressive government to im- 
 pose regulations from without, to restrain and direct 
 men, a democratic form, of government may easily 
 be the poorest of all forms. But as the embodi- 
 ment of the conscious reason abiding in the social 
 body and seeking an expression for itself, a demo- 
 cratic form is the only fitting one. Whatever social 
 changes may be needed to embody perfectly the 
 universal life, those changes will come, must come ; 
 for the divine in man must find a development in 
 every word and work. The infinite ocean must flow 
 into every creek, inlet, harbor, and bay. All the 
 spheres of education, law, art, and industry must 
 become organic forms of harmonious life. 
 
 In this light of historical development, all the so- 
 cialistic plans must be looked upon as utterly inad- 
 equate and incomplete, because they cut away the 
 very veins and sinews through which man is related 
 to the universal life; they destroy individuality and 
 freedom ; they reduce men and women to an indis- 
 tinguishable mass. They would do for man and 
 over man what must be done by him and through 
 
286 HISTORY AS DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 hirti. Yet every socialistic demand is a recurring 
 admonition that we are what history shows us to 
 be, — members of one common body, receivers of 
 one divine life. 
 
 For thousands of years the human race has been 
 toiling, scheming, thinking, aspiring, embodying as 
 it could, from day to day, its visions and its plans. 
 In the social world have been contests as greatj 
 struggles as vast, as have ever taken place in the 
 natural and physical universe. Is any one man 
 adequate to say what shall be the crystallization 
 to take place from this mingling of substances? 
 Each of us can imagine some state of things 
 which should be without this annoyance or that 
 pain, in which there should be no disease, no soi> 
 row, no ill, — for to dream is the easiest of things. 
 Looked .at aright, the history of humanity is the 
 story of aspiration rather than of accomplishment. 
 What finally has been accomplished has been far 
 different from what often was aimed at, and far 
 grander than was ever dreamed. Great Britain 
 started a commercial company to gather in the ru- 
 pees of India, and now a vast empire is committed 
 to her guidance and her rule. Our forefathers 
 thought to find a place where they could worship 
 unmolested, and build up, after their own ideal pat- 
 tern, a little vestibule to heaven ; but an indwelling 
 spirit, wiser and more far-seeing than all, thwarted 
 their narrow plans, and built up this Western temple, 
 in which all the creeds of Christendom and Heathen- 
 dom alike should find a home. 
 
HISTORY AS DEVELOPMENT. 287 
 
 Saint-Simon had his dreatii of an industrial so- 
 ciety with its chief, whose legitimate authority all 
 would acknowledge because he was confessedly the 
 chief, and whom all would freely obey because all 
 held him in love ; where perfect order would reign, 
 and no workman be without guidance and help; 
 where all should have the necessary tools, and all 
 be employed in congenial work ; where one should 
 no longer use another as an instrument to his 
 own private good, but all should seek to beautify 
 the earth by their united labors, and to make all the 
 riches of the earth a common inheritance. Though 
 the particular form which that dream assumed may 
 be an illusion, and its fulfilment cannot come in the 
 way that was dreamed of, yet by all the sacred pages 
 of the past history of our race, the living spirit of 
 humanity shall triumph in a way that is infinitely 
 beyond man's limited schemes. 
 
 There is no short cut to establish permanently 
 even the highest and most perfect form of political 
 and social life. Progress is neither in a straight 
 line nor in a circle returning to the same point ; it 
 is a spiral movement, so that when you seem to be 
 going the same round you are really on a higher 
 plane. Though in the natural world you may not 
 be able to say where is the boundary line between 
 temeral and plant, between plant and animal, be- 
 tween animal and man, each stage of organic 
 life is on a higher plane than the preceding, and 
 there is an advance from the simpler to the more 
 complex forms. 
 
288 HISTORY AS DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 So in humanity itself there is the elimination, step 
 by step, of what belonged to a lower stage of devel- 
 opment; and though there may be carried along 
 with the advance many of the rudimentary organs, 
 they have ceased to dominate the life or make essen- 
 tial a special method of existence. Outgrown shells 
 are left behind; useless appendages are dropped. 
 Feudalism was once the best form in which hu- 
 manity could find expression for its needs ; it was 
 a natural, orderly, and beneficent crystallization of 
 the desires, hopes, and ideals of the time ; hamlet 
 and village sheltered themselves under the protec- 
 tion of castle and feudal lord. But when trade and 
 commerce grew up, when the middle classes asserted 
 their right to be, the castle became a den of rob- 
 bers, an incubus upon the earth. So monastic in- 
 stitutions, — the natural and spontaneous product 
 of social and spiritual needs in special conditions, 
 — were once a blessing and were blessed. But that 
 peculiar Heed has passed away, and monastic walls 
 and monastic rules remain only to warp and pervert 
 man's higher aspirations, — to witness useless mor- 
 tifications, half-believing prayers, and silent curses 
 of dehumanized devotees. When privileged classes 
 or orders only suck up the life-blood of humanity, 
 when they render no service in return, they must 
 yield their place ; for to retain the privileges and 
 shirk the price by which alone they were bestowed, 
 what is that ? 
 
 Service to humanity is the condition of every 
 form of embodiment in social life. Through priest 
 
HISTORY AS DEVELOPMENT. 289 
 
 and lord, through merchant and mechanic, through 
 soldier and artist, humanity seeks to unfold its own 
 inner life, its indwelling capacities of love and wis- 
 dom. Hence there must be many attempts before 
 the final success ; there must be defeats before any 
 great victory is attained. That his muscles should 
 be made strong is the real prize that the gymnast 
 wins ; that his moral powers should be unfolded is 
 worth more to a true man than any external suc- 
 cess ; and that humanity should have heroes, mar- 
 tyrs, and saints is better than selfish comfort and 
 bestial content. Therefore the way of progress is 
 not strewn with flowers; the ascent is steep, the 
 friendly stars seem hidden. Great sacrifices to be 
 made call forth the great souls to make them. In- 
 numerable Hves must pay the price of victory ; and, 
 as Guizot says, " it is only after an unknown number 
 of unrecorded labors, after a host of noble hearts 
 have succumbed in discouragement, convinced that 
 the cause is lost, — it is then only that the cause 
 triumphs." 
 
 Men sometimes see their best efforts thwarted, 
 and the good that has been sought for with infi- 
 nite toil seized upon as a means of harm. The 
 liberty for which pure hearts labored and prayed 
 is sometimes turned into license ; the truth hailed 
 as the dawn of some glorious day becomes a thick 
 pall over the midday sky ; the banner on which pure 
 hands have wrought, which tears have consecrated, 
 and the morning light has seen thrown out joyously 
 to the breeze, is borne aloft at evening by the 
 
 19 
 
290 HISTORY AS DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 advancing hosts of' anarchy and crime. But has 
 naught been gained ? Has not defeat been, the 
 means to a success greater than was at first 
 dreamed of? 
 
 To the physical world great cycles of ages alone 
 suffice for some new stage of growth; and why be 
 impatient for the moral and social world ? Ideal, 
 truths belong to a realm of infinity ; and what may 
 be the special good accomplished through this or 
 that means no human insight can determine. One 
 man's failure maybe as needful as another's success. 
 He who always succeeds in what he attempts may. 
 be sure that in his attempts no grand ideal purpose 
 is involved. It is noble to fail in some great cause ; 
 it is noble to fail where one's aim is so high that 
 one short life is all insufficient to realize it in his 
 human environment; it is divine to have aspira- 
 tions so great and principles so broad that only 
 ages of the coming time shall look upon them as 
 accomplished facts. But has any good cause ever 
 failed ? In one place and at one time it may seem 
 to have failed, to have died and been buried. But 
 no man and no people have labored for good utterly 
 to no purpose. When the flower perishes, the seed 
 is scattered abroad and the harvest springs up, 
 though perhaps in distant lands. " How I love," 
 says Alfred Vaughan, " to fi»d examples of that 
 consoling truth that no well-meant effort for God 
 and man can ever really die ! that the relics of 
 vanished, vanquished endeavors are gathered up 
 and conserved, and by the spiritual chemistry of. 
 
HISTORY AS DEVELOPMENT. 29 1 
 
 Providence are transformed into a new life in a 
 new age ! " 
 
 There is a transmigration of ideas, if not of sepa- 
 rate souls. Though institutions die, that which they 
 were meant to embody still lives. Forms of civi- 
 lized life perish ; but the soul which informed them 
 inspires new institutions, new systems of polity, new 
 philosophies, new customs and arts. Bravery, roy- 
 alty, thought, faith, do not die with the knight, the 
 king, the philosopher, the monk, in whom each once 
 found an adequate exponent. Cathedrals crumble 
 to dust and priesthoods disappear, but reverence 
 and love survive. The feudal castle is tumbled into 
 the moat, and the throne is consumed in fire ; but 
 order and law embody themselves in larger forms. 
 The real life-giving principle in every human organi- 
 zation — that which gave it birth and kept it sound 
 — does not die with the men, the institutions, but 
 disappears only to be manifest in some better em- 
 bodiment, some more perfectly adapted form. 
 
 Pythagoras and Plato moulded the living princi- 
 ples of Oriental wisdom into Greek classic beauty 
 and practical use. The Roman Church shaped into 
 a mighty whole the spiritual secrets of Buddha and 
 Brahma, of Egypt and Greece, of Phoenicia and Pal- 
 estine. The Protestant Reformation created a new 
 world for free, unlimited development of every seed 
 that has in it the germ of life. As the prophetic soul 
 of Milton saw, the people of England were transport- 
 ing in his day " a plant of more beneficial qualities 
 and more noble growth than that which Triptolemus 
 
292 HISTORY AS DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 was reported to have carried from region to region." 
 And that we have such an inheritance of rich and 
 manifold elements from the past — all ages and all 
 generations — is the surest pledge of a grand de- 
 velopment not hitherto attained. 
 
 Life has always been rich, potent, and assimi- 
 lating as it has been the resultant of complex, 
 numerous, and manifold component elements. One 
 individual, one tribe, one nation, of itself and by 
 itself, has little capacity for growth and progress. 
 Hellas owed its fuller development to the variety 
 of its constituent germs ; Rome, to its power of 
 assimilating and incorporating different elements ; 
 England, to the movements resulting from the con- 
 tests, the action and reaction, of races, classes, in- 
 terests, and occupations. And America to-day is 
 projecting in colossal form what these display in 
 miniature. The very idea of universal history forces 
 itself upon us from our condition as a nation. What 
 a commingling here of all that mother earth has 
 produced of blood, language, religion, industry, 
 science, and art ! Our national life is a heated fur- 
 nace to melt into a glowing mass the rough ores 
 that are poured into its open mouth, to be hard- 
 ened and tempered into- steel. The number, the 
 diversity, the free play, the interaction, of physical, 
 social, and moral influences, — no one can imagine 
 it ! Can the result be other than a human develop- 
 ment broader than has ever before been witnessed ? 
 A true cosmopolitanism must be the issue of a 
 variety of elements so rich and manifold, subordi- 
 
HISTORY AS DEVELOPMENT. 293 
 
 nated and moulded as they all are by the one 
 principle of individual manhood, the common- at- 
 mosphere of freedom to think, to speak, to worship, 
 and to vote. 
 
 Hitherto war, invasion, and trade have been the 
 rude means by which the stagnant pools have been 
 stirred and the incrusted surfaces have been broken 
 up. But to-day the relation is more direct There 
 is action and reaction between the remotest parts of 
 the globe. Each portion of the race begins to feel 
 its need of all the others ; each to be aware, in some 
 way however faint and imperfect, that it can pro- 
 mote the prosperity of all by being faithful to its own 
 peculiar service. That phrase " oneness of human- 
 ity" has been uttered. The spiritual philosopher 
 proclaims that " the whole human race exists as one 
 man before God." Daniel Webster said, from his 
 position as a statesman : " Each nation has the same 
 interest in the preservation of the laws of nations 
 that each individual has in the preservation of the 
 laws of his country." Never before could such a 
 sentiment meet with such a universal response as 
 now, when the broader the sentiment the more en- 
 thusiastic its reception. A common consciousness 
 is awakened by the common life, and an event that 
 deeply touches one people touches some chords of 
 sympathy in every people's heart. Walls and bar- 
 riers fall down; mysteries become open secrets; 
 the wisdom of the wise is inherited by all; the 
 results of industry and thought are brought to a 
 common mart, and will be more and more freely 
 
294 HISTORY AS DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 interchanged between people and peaple, — every 
 invention passing from mind to mind and from 
 hand to hand. 
 
 Does it indicate nothing that humanity now rises 
 above the horizon as the ideal of human souls? To 
 know man, his faculties, his wants, his hindrances, 
 and his helps, — this is education ; to love him and 
 labor for him, — this is religion ; to impart to him 
 beauty in every sphere of life, — this is art ; to en- 
 rich him and add to his means of comfort and well- 
 being, — this is industry. From this ideal the stir- 
 ring life of the present takes its tone, its direction, 
 its real force. Genius builds methods of education, 
 not rituals and elaborate ceremonials ; arranges na- 
 tional exhibitions, not fields of golden cloth where 
 monarchs spend the income of their subjects ; con- 
 structs palaces for the million, not luxurious abodes 
 for a king. It devises amelioration for human suf- 
 fering, not splendid pageants of Oriental adoration. 
 The vital efficiency of every movement is in propor- 
 tion to its enthronement of this ideal. The " cry 
 of the human " is not from some solitary dungeon, 
 or from some one grand martyr upon the cross ; 
 it comes from the fields and the streets, from the 
 church and the workshop, from the college and from 
 legislative halls. The demand for the removal of 
 social hindrances, for a juster distribution of the 
 profits of industry, for universal education, for the 
 relief of suffering and want, is in conformity with 
 this ideal, — and so must receive a fitting re- 
 sponse ; for no ideal that has inspired humanity 
 
HISTORY AS DEVELOPMENT. 295 
 
 has ever yet failed of being actualized in outward 
 forms. 
 
 The change into a higher form of social life is 
 necessarily accompanied by the decay and death of 
 what has previously enshrined the aspirations and 
 hopes of man. The night of an old civilization 
 seems to grow darker and darker just before the 
 dawning of a new, — recalling the old pious French 
 proverb, which says, " Patience ! it is when the de- 
 mon has said his last word, that God speaks." Per- 
 haps an instinctive perception of this has placed the 
 birth-time of him in whom the " enthusiasm of hu- 
 manity " was a ruling passion, and whose luminous 
 place in the history of our race marks a broad line 
 of division between the setting of old hopes and the 
 rising of new in the soul of man, in that season of 
 midwinter when the sun shines only with slanting 
 beams, when the daylight is shortest, and the frost- 
 bound forces of creative Nature seem asleep or dead. 
 A dark hour was that when thousands and tens of 
 thousands fled from Germany, England, and France ; 
 but it preceded the light of free institutions in this 
 western hemisphere. When in our own country 
 overbearing power celebrated its crowning triumph 
 in the fugitive-slave law, the dawn of the day of 
 universal freedom was very near. So in every age 
 the lesson is taught that only the surface changes, 
 while humanity abides forever, — gaining strength 
 from weakness, triumph from defeat! 
 
 There is always movement and change, even if it 
 be not always progress. No more in the social than 
 
29$ HISTORY AS DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 in the natural world is there absolute rest. Even 
 when the eye seems to look out upon an unvarying 
 landscape, great alterations are taking place, — con- 
 tinents are forming, mountains are upheaving, oceans 
 are changing their bed, each particle of solici rock is 
 in motion, lakes are filling up, forests are growing, 
 deserts are becoming gardens, and prairies are be- 
 coming populous cities. The old is ever passing 
 away, and the new is emerging. The causes that 
 produce revolutions are ever at work; the earth- 
 quake is gathering force, the volcano is dying out. 
 So beliefs are becoming obsolete ; power is changing 
 hands; new faiths are studding the firmament of 
 man's life. This continual movement in the uni- 
 verse Goethe thus enunciates : — 
 
 " It must go on, creating, changing, 
 Through endless shapes forever ranging, 
 And rest we only seem to see. 
 The eternal lives through all revolving, 
 For all must ever keep dissolving 
 Would it continue still to be." 
 
 Cowper has also well stated it : — 
 
 " Constant rotation of the unwearied wheel 
 That Nature rides upon maintains her health. 
 Her beauty, her fertility. £he dreads 
 An instant's pause, and lives but while she moves." 
 
 Long ago Plato said, " Everything mortal is pre- 
 served, not by its being in every respect the same 
 forever, but by the thing that is departing leaving 
 
HISTORY AS DEVELOPMENT. 297 
 
 some new thing like itself," — and this is true, 
 though every external form, everything possessed 
 of the instinct of life, shrinks from this renewing 
 power, distrusts the spirit, hardly believing that it 
 can furnish a better habitation, fairer scenes, or 
 more beautiful forms. To this persistent mutabil- 
 ity and perpetual change we owe the idea of one 
 spirit of humanity, one absolute order, one perva- 
 sive wisdom, one ruling mind. We see that no 
 development is independent and atone; no condi- 
 tion has inherent force in itself ; no being has 
 essential permanence and life. All events are re- 
 lated and dependent ; and all the doings of the race 
 must be referred to a common unity, — one source 
 of order and life, one inspiring spirit of humanity, 
 one power accomplishing through infinite changes 
 its vast designs. 
 
 To arrive at some final goal in truth and at com- 
 plete happiness and well-being would bring to an 
 end all development or progress, and so would be 
 death. It is essential that an ideal goodness, 
 beauty, truth, should still lure us on. Whatever 
 form of these is attained will not completely satisfy, 
 but as contrasted with that ideal will always ap- 
 pear to lack some perfection, and will at length be 
 called evil, — and when it once comes into the con- 
 sciousness as evil, its doom is sealed. To feel one's 
 ignorance is the first step to knowledge; to feel 
 one's imperfection is the beginning of a nobler 
 life. So with social evils, or those institutions and 
 general methods of life which are seen to work 
 
298 HISTORY AS DEVELOPMEN^T. 
 
 evil and not good to the organization that we call 
 the commonwealth, — when once they are seen to 
 be evils, there is no lasting peace until they are 
 brought into harmony with the new and higher ideal. 
 As that future is also the heir of the infinite, our 
 present good may wear to it the form of evil. 
 
 The discoveries of our day in science and art are 
 wonderful, but the ideas which underlie them are 
 more wonderful still. Railway and telegraph ar« 
 great as mechanical inventions, but greater in what 
 they suggest and symbolize, — the intercommunica- 
 tion of national thought and life. How impossible 
 for them to have existed in any known period of 
 the past! What scope can there be for inventive 
 genius under the protection of absolute power and 
 the enslavement of man? What field for the free 
 play of human faculties can exist among poor and 
 ignorant masses, toiling for bare subsistence when 
 they can be spared from the battle-field? What 
 opportunity can be offered for combined action 
 when there is no mutual confidence and trust? 
 The external results and physical wonders of our era 
 point to something higher than themselves, and are 
 far more wonderful as indications than even as facts. 
 They are a pledge of mental, moral, and spiritual 
 conditions that must accompany the mechanical and 
 external benefit. 
 
 In a reqent book on " Power and Liberty," Tol- 
 stojt rightly calls history " a science of the move 
 ments of peoples and of humanity, not a description 
 of episodes in the lives of a few men." In this light 
 
HISTORY AS DEVELOPMENT. 299 
 
 every human life is great, as sharing in the one life 
 that manifests itself in every racial movement, — is 
 infinitely little, when taken as a cause by itself, an 
 independent factor or power. History is not the 
 achievement of some few great men, but of all the 
 men who make up at any one moment the living 
 forces of human tendency. As a coral reef is the 
 combined work of an infinity of living agents, so 
 the social state at any point of time is the com- 
 bination of all the forces embodied in the forms of 
 living men and women; not one is so small as 
 to be left out. When we have given up the study 
 of the particular cause of this and that phenome- 
 non in the vast world of phenomena which we call 
 universal history, and seek simply for the mani- 
 fested laws or methods of operation, we shall find 
 that the social development is as truly a cosmos, 
 a sphere of beautiful and harmonious order, as is 
 this physical universe in which we struggle during 
 our little day. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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