The Crown of Wild Olive Part 12

Subject enough for the next paper, involving "economical" principles of some importance, of which, for theme, here is a sentence, which I do not care to translate, for it would sound harsh in English,[53] though, truly, it is one of the tenderest ever uttered by man; which may be meditated over, or rather _through_, in the meanwhile, by any one who will take the pains:--

[Greek: Ar oun, hosper Hippos to anepistemoni men encheirounti de chresthai zemia estin, houto kai adelphos, otan tis auto me epistamenos encheir chresthai, zemia esti];

FOOTNOTES:

[44] I have repeated the substance of this and the next paragraph so often since, that I am ashamed and weary. The thing is too true, and too simple, it seems, for anybody ever to believe. Meantime, the theories of "international values," as explained by Modern Political Economy, have brought about last year's pillage of France by Germany, and the affectionate relations now existing in consequence between the inhabitants of the right and left banks of the Rhine.

[45] I wish some one would examine and publish accurately the late dealings of the Governors of the Cape with the Caffirs.

[46] By "pay," I mean wages for labour or skill; by "profit," gain dependent on the state of the market.

[47] Since I wrote this, I have worked out the question of interest of money, which always, until lately, had embarra.s.sed and defeated me; and I find that the payment of interest of any amount whatever is real "usury," and entirely unjustifiable. I was shown this chiefly by the pamphlets issued by Mr. W. C. Sillar, though I greatly regret the impatience which causes Mr. Sillar to regard usury as the radical crime in political economy. There are others worse, that act with it.

[48] Hence Dante's companions.h.i.+p of Cahors, _Inf._, canto xi., supported by the view taken of the matter throughout the middle ages, in common with the Greeks.

[49] I do not wonder when I re-read this, that people talk about my "sentiment." But there is no sentiment whatever in the matter. It is a hard and bare commercial fact, that if two people deal together who don't try to cheat each other, they will in a given time, make more money out of each other than if they do. See - 104.

[50] Shakspeare would certainly never have chosen this name had he been forced to retain the Roman spelling. Like Perdita, "lost lady," or Cordelia, "heart-lady," Portia is "fortune" lady. The two great relative groups of words, Fortuna, fero, and fors--Portio, porto, and pars (with the lateral branch, op-portune, im-portune, opportunity, &c.), are of deep and intricate significance; their various senses of bringing, abstracting, and sustaining being all centralized by the wheel (which bears and moves at once), or still better, the ball (spera) of Fortune,--"Volve sua spera, e beata si G.o.de:" the motive power of this wheel distinguis.h.i.+ng its G.o.ddess from the fixed majesty of Necessitas with her iron nails; or [Greek: ananke], with her pillar of fire and iridescent orbits, _fixed_ at the centre. Portus and porta, and gate in its connexion with gain, form another interesting branch group; and Mors, the concentration of delaying, is always to be remembered with Fors, the concentration of bringing and bearing, pa.s.sing on into Fortis and Fort.i.tude.

[This note is literally a mere memorandum for the future work which I am now completing in _Fors Clavigera_; it was printed partly in vanity, but also with real desire to get people to share the interest I found in the careful study of the leading words in n.o.ble languages. Compare the next note.]

[51] As Charis becomes Charitas, the word "Cher," or "Dear," pa.s.ses from Shylock's sense of it (to buy cheap and sell dear) into Antonio's sense of it: emphasized with the final _i_ in tender "Cheri," and hushed to English calmness in our n.o.ble "Cherish." The reader must not think that any care can be misspent in tracing the connexion and power of the words which we have to use in the sequel. (See Appendix VI.) Much education sums itself in making men economize their words, and understand them.

Nor is it possible to estimate the harm which has been done, in matters of higher speculation and conduct, by loose verbiage, though we may guess at it by observing the dislike which people show to having anything about their religion said to them in simple words, because then they understand it. Thus congregations meet weekly to invoke the influence of a Spirit of Life and Truth; yet if any part of that character were intelligibly expressed to them by the formulas of the service, they would be offended. Suppose, for instance, in the closing benediction, the clergyman were to give vital significance to the vague word "Holy," and were to say, "the fellows.h.i.+p of the Helpful and Honest Ghost be with you, and remain with you always," what would be the horror of many, first at the irreverence of so intelligible an expression; and secondly, at the discomfortable occurrence of the suspicion that while throughout the commercial dealings of the week they had denied the propriety of Help, and possibility of Honesty, the Person whose company they had been now asking to be blessed with could have no fellows.h.i.+p with cruel people or knaves.

[52] "[Greek: ta men oun alla zoa ouk echein aisthesin ton en tais kinesesi taxeon oude ataxion ois de rythmos unoma kai haomonia emin de ous eipomen tous Theous] (Apollo, the Muses, and Bacchus--the grave Bacchus, that is--ruling the choir of age; or Bacchus restraining; 'saeva _tene_, c.u.m Berecyntio cornu tympana,' &c.) [Greek: synch.o.r.eutas dedosthai, toutous einai kai tous dedokotas ten enrythmon te kai enarmonion aisthesin meth' edones ... chorous te onomakenai para tes charas emphyton onoma]." "Other animals have no perception of order nor of disorder in motion; but for us, Apollo and Bacchus and the Muses are appointed to mingle in our dances; and there are they who have given us the sense of delight in rhythm and harmony. And the name of choir, choral dance, (we may believe,) came from chara (delight)."--Laws, book ii.

[53] [My way now, is to say things plainly, if I can, whether they sound harsh or not;--this is the translation--"Is it possible, then, that as a horse is only a mischief to any one who attempts to use him without knowing how, so also our brother, if we attempt to use him without knowing how, may be a mischief to us?"]

CHAPTER V.

GOVERNMENT.

106. It remains for us, as I stated in the close of the last chapter, to examine first the principles of government in general, and then those of the government of the Poor by the Rich.

The government of a state consists in its customs, laws, and councils, and their enforcements.

I. CUSTOMS.

As one person primarily differs from another by fineness of nature, and, secondarily, by fineness of training, so also, a polite nation differs from a savage one, first, by the refinement of its nature, and secondly by the delicacy of its customs.

In the completeness of custom, which is the nation's self-government, there are three stages--first, fineness in method of doing or of being;--called the manner or moral of acts; secondly, firmness in holding such method after adoption, so that it shall become a habit in the character: _i. e._, a constant "having" or "behaving;" and, lastly, ethical power in performance and endurance, which is the skill following on habit, and the ease reached by frequency of right doing.

The sensibility of the nation is indicated by the fineness of its customs; its courage, continence, and self-respect by its persistence in them.

By sensibility I mean its natural perception of beauty, fitness, and rightness; or of what is lovely, decent, and just: faculties dependent much on race, and the primal signs of fine breeding in man; but cultivable also by education, and necessarily peris.h.i.+ng without it. True education has, indeed, no other function than the development of these faculties, and of the relative will. It has been the great error of modern intelligence to mistake science for education. You do not educate a man by telling him what he knew not, but by making him what he was not.

And making him what he will remain for ever: for no wash of weeds will bring back the faded purple. And in that dyeing there are two processes--first, the cleansing and wringing-out, which is the baptism with water; and then the infusing of the blue and scarlet colours, gentleness and justice, which is the baptism with fire.

107.[54] The customs and manners of a sensitive and highly-trained race are always Vital: that is to say, they are orderly manifestations of intense life, like the habitual action of the fingers of a musician. The customs and manners of a vile and rude race, on the contrary, are conditions of decay: they are not, properly speaking, habits, but incrustations; not restraints, or forms, of life; but gangrenes, noisome, and the beginnings of death.

And generally, so far as custom attaches itself to indolence instead of action, and to prejudice instead of perception, it takes this deadly character, so that thus

Custom hangs upon us with a weight Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.

But that weight, if it become impetus, (living instead of dead weight) is just what gives value to custom, when it works _with_ life, instead of against it.

108. The high ethical training of a nation implies perfect Grace, Pitifulness, and Peace; it is irreconcilably inconsistent with filthy or mechanical employments,--with the desire of money,--and with mental states of anxiety, jealousy, or indifference to pain. The present insensibility of the upper cla.s.ses of Europe to the surrounding aspects of suffering, uncleanness, and crime, binds them not only into one responsibility with the sin, but into one dishonour with the foulness, which rot at their thresholds. The crimes daily recorded in the police-courts of London and Paris (and much more those which are _un_recorded) are a disgrace to the whole body politic;[55] they are, as in the body natural, stains of disease on a face of delicate skin, making the delicacy itself frightful. Similarly, the filth and poverty permitted or ignored in the midst of us are as dishonourable to the whole social body, as in the body natural it is to wash the face, but leave the hands and feet foul. Christ's way is the only true one: begin at the feet; the face will take care of itself.

109. Yet, since necessarily, in the frame of a nation, nothing but the head can be of gold, and the feet, for the work they have to do, must be part of iron, part of clay;--foul or mechanical work is always reduced by a n.o.ble race to the minimum in quant.i.ty; and, even then, performed and endured, not without sense of degradation, as a fine temper is wounded by the sight of the lower offices of the body. The highest conditions of human society reached hitherto have cast such work to slaves; but supposing slavery of a politically defined kind to be done away with, mechanical and foul employment must, in all highly organized states, take the aspect either of punishment or probation. All criminals should at once be set to the most dangerous and painful forms of it, especially to work in mines and at furnaces,[56] so as to relieve the innocent population as far as possible: of merely rough (not mechanical) manual labour, especially agricultural, _a large portion should be done by the upper cla.s.ses_;--_bodily health, and sufficient contrast and repose for the mental functions, being unattainable without it_; what necessarily inferior labour remains to be done, as especially in manufactures, should, and always will, when the relations of society are reverent and harmonious, fall to the lot of those who, for the time, are fit for nothing better. For as, whatever the perfectness of the educational system, there must remain infinite differences between the natures and capacities of men; and these differing natures are generally rangeable under the two qualities of lordly, (or tending towards rule, construction, and harmony), and servile (or tending towards misrule, destruction, and discord); and since the lordly part is only in a state of profitableness while ruling, and the servile only in a state of redeemableness while serving, the whole health of the state depends on the manifest separation of these two elements of its mind; for, if the servile part be not separated and rendered visible in service, it mixes with, and corrupts, the entire body of the state; and if the lordly part be not distinguished, and set to rule, it is crushed and lost, being turned to no account, so that the rarest qualities of the nation are all given to it in vain.[57]

II. LAWS.

110. These are the definitions and bonds of custom, or of what the nation desires should become custom.

Law is either archic,[58] (of direction), meristic, (of division), or critic, (of judgment).

Archic law is that of appointment and precept: it defines what is and is not to be _done_.

Meristic law is that of balance and distribution: it defines what is and is not to be _possessed_.

Critic law is that of discernment and award: it defines what is and is not to be _suffered_.

111. A. ARCHIC LAW. If we choose to unite the laws of precept and distribution under the head of "statutes," all law is simply either of statute or judgment; that is, first the establishment of ordinance, and, secondly, the a.s.signment of the reward, or penalty, due to its observance or violation.

To some extent these two forms of law must be a.s.sociated, and, with every ordinance, the penalty of disobedience to it be also determined.

But since the degrees and guilt of disobedience vary, the determination of due reward and punishment must be modified by discernment of special fact, which is peculiarly the office of the judge, as distinguished from that of the lawgiver and law-sustainer, or king; not but that the two offices are always theoretically, and in early stages, or limited numbers, of society, are often practically, united in the same person or persons.

112. Also, it is necessary to keep clearly in view the distinction between these two kinds of law, because the possible range of law is wider in proportion to their separation. There are many points of conduct respecting which the nation may wisely express its will by a written precept or resolve, yet not enforce it by penalty:[59] and the expedient degree of penalty is always quite a separate consideration from the expedience of the statute; for the statute may often be better enforced by mercy than severity, and is also easier in the bearing, and less likely to be abrogated. Farther, laws of precept have reference especially to youth, and concern themselves with training; but laws of judgment to manhood, and concern themselves with remedy and reward.

There is a highly curious feeling in the English mind against educational law: we think no man's liberty should be interfered with till he has done irrevocable wrong; whereas it is then just too late for the only gracious and kingly interference, which is to hinder him from doing it. Make your educational laws strict, and your criminal ones may be gentle; but, leave youth its liberty and you will have to dig dungeons for age. And it is good for a man that he "wear the yoke in his youth:" for the reins may then be of silken thread; and with sweet chime of silver bells at the bridle; but, for the captivity of age, you must forge the iron fetter, and cast the pa.s.sing bell.

113. Since no law can be, in a final or true sense, established, but by right, (all unjust laws involving the ultimate necessity of their own abrogation), the law-giving can only become a law-sustaining power in so far as it is Royal, or "right doing;"--in so far, that is, as it rules, not misrules, and orders, not dis-orders, the things submitted to it.

Throned on this rock of justice, the kingly power becomes established and establis.h.i.+ng; "[Greek: theios]," or divine, and, therefore, it is literally true that no ruler can err, so long as he is a ruler, or [Greek: archon oudeis amartanei tote hotan archon e]; perverted by careless thought, which has cost the world somewhat, into--"the king can do no wrong."

114. B. MERISTIC LAW,[60] or that of the tenure of property, first determines what every individual possesses by right, and secures it to him; and what he possesses by wrong, and deprives him of it. But it has a far higher provisory function: it determines what every man _should_ possess, and puts it within his reach on due conditions; and what he should _not_ possess, and puts this out of his reach, conclusively.

115. Every article of human wealth has certain conditions attached to its merited possession; when these are un.o.bserved, possession becomes rapine. And the object of meristic law is not only to secure to every man his rightful share (the share, that is, which he has worked for, produced, or received by gift from a rightful owner), but to enforce the due conditions of possession, as far as law may conveniently reach; for instance, that land shall not be wantonly allowed to run to waste, that streams shall not be poisoned by the persons through whose properties they pa.s.s, nor air be rendered unwholesome beyond given limits. Laws of this kind exist already in rudimentary degree, but need large development; the just laws respecting the possession of works of art have not hitherto been so much as conceived, and the daily loss of national wealth, and of its use, in this respect, is quite incalculable.

And these laws need revision quite as much respecting property in national as in private hands. For instance: the public are under a vague impression that, because they have paid for the contents of the British Museum, every one has an equal right to see and to handle them. But the public have similarly paid for the contents of Woolwich a.r.s.enal; yet do not expect free access to it, or handling of its contents. The British Museum is neither a free circulating library, nor a free school: it is a place for the safe preservation, and exhibition on due occasion, of unique books, unique objects of natural history, and unique works of art; its books can no more be used by everybody than its coins can be handled, or its statues cast. There ought to be free libraries in every quarter of London, with large and complete reading-rooms attached; so also free educational museums should be open in every quarter of London, all day long, until late at night, well lighted, well catalogued, and rich in contents both of art and natural history. But neither the British Museum nor National Gallery is a school; they are _treasuries_; and both should be severely restricted in access and in use. Unless some order of this kind is made, and that soon, for the MSS. department of the Museum, (its superintendents have sorrowfully told me this, and repeatedly), the best MSS. in the collection will be destroyed, irretrievably, by the careless and continual handling to which they are now subjected.

Finally, in certain conditions of a nation's progress, laws limiting acc.u.mulation of any kind of property may be found expedient.

116. C. CRITIC LAW determines questions of injury, and a.s.signs due rewards and punishments to conduct.