The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, Issue 4

Published December 1879.

CONTENTS.

DECEMBER, 1879.

[pg 539]

THE LORD’S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH.

LETTERS ADDRESSED BY JOHN RUSKIN, D.C.L.,

TO THE CLERGY.

T
HE following letters, which are still receiving the careful consideration
of many of my brother clergy, are, at the suggestion of the
Editor, now printed in the Contemporary Review, with the object
of eliciting a further and wider expression of opinion. In addition to
the subjoined brief Introductory Address, I desire here to say that every
reader of these remarkable letters should remember that they have proceeded
from the pen of a very eminent layman, who has not had the
advantage, or disadvantage, of any special theological training; but yet
whose extensive studies in Art have not prevented him from fully recognizing,
and boldly avowing, his belief that religion is everybody’s
business, and his not less than another’s. The draught may be a bitter
one for some of us; but it is a salutary medicine, and we ought not to
shrink from swallowing it.

I shall be glad to receive such expressions of opinion as I may be
favoured with from the thoughtful readers of the Contemporary
Review. Those comments or replies, along with the original letters,
and an essay or commentary from myself as editor, will be published
by Messrs. Strahan & Co., and appear early in the spring; the volume
being closed by a reply, or Epilogue, from Mr. Ruskin himself.

F. A. Malleson, M.A.

The Vicarage, Broughton-in-Furness.

INTRODUCTION.

The first reading of the Letters to the Furness Clerical Society was
prefaced with the following remarks:—

A few words by way of introduction will be absolutely necessary
before I proceed to read Mr. Ruskin’s letters. They originated simply
[pg 540]
in a proposal of mine, which met with so ready and willing a response,
that it almost seemed like a simultaneous thought. They are addressed
nominally to myself, as representing the body of clergy whose secretary I
have the honour to be; they are, in fact, therefore addressed to this Society
primarily. But in the course of the next month or two they will also
be read to two other Clerical Societies,—the Ormskirk and the Brighton
(junior),—who have acceded to my proposals with much kindness, and
in the first case have invited me of their own accord. I have undertaken,
to the best of my ability, to arrange and set down the various
expressions of opinion, which will be freely uttered. In so limited a
time, many who may have much to say that would be really valuable
will find no time to-day to deliver it. Of these brethren, I beg that
they will do me the favour to express their views at their leisure, in
writing. The original letters, the discussions, the letters which may be
suggested, and a few comments of the Editor’s, will be published in a
volume which will appear, I trust, in the beginning of the next year.

I will now, if you please, undertake the somewhat dangerous responsibility
of avowing my own impressions of the letters I am about to
read to you. I own that I believe I see in these papers the development
of a principle of the deepest interest and importance,—namely, the
application of the highest and loftiest standard in the interpretation of
the Gospel message to ourselves as clergymen, and from ourselves
to our
congregations. We have plenty elsewhere of doctrine and dogma, and
undefinable shades of theological opinion. Let us turn at last to
practical questions presented for our consideration by an eminent layman
whose field of work lies quite as much in religion and ethics, as it does,
reaching to so splendid an eminence, in Art. A man is wanted to show
to both clergy and laity something of the full force and meaning of
Gospel teaching. Many there are, and I am of this number, whose
cry is “Exoriare aliquis.”

I ask you, if possible, to do in an hour what I have been for the
last two months trying to do, to divest myself of old forms of thought,
to cast off self-indulgent views of our duty as ministers of religion, to
lift ourselves out of those grooves in which we are apt to run so
smoothly and so complacently, persuading ourselves that all is well just
as it is, and to endeavour to strike into a sterner, harder path, beset
with difficulties, but still the path of duty. These papers will demand
a close, a patient, and in some places, a few will think, an indulgent
consideration; but as a whole, the standard taken is, as I firmly believe,
speaking only for myself, lofty and Christian, to the extent of an almost
ideal perfection. If we do go forward straight in the direction which
Mr. Ruskin points out, I know we shall come, sooner or later, to a
chasm right across our path. Some of us, I hope, will undauntedly
cross it. Let each judge for himself,
τῷ τελει πίστιν φέρων.

[pg 541]

LETTERS.

I.

Brantwood, Coniston,

Lancashire, 20th June, 1879.

Dear Mr. Malleson,—I could not at once answer your important
letter: for, though I felt at once the impossibility of my venturing to
address such an audience as you proposed, I am unwilling to fail in
answering to any call relating to matters respecting which my feelings
have been long in earnest, if in any wise it may be possible for me to
be of service therein. My health—or want of it—now utterly forbids
my engagement in any duty involving excitement or acute intellectual
effort; but I think, before the first Tuesday in August, I might be able to
write one or two letters to yourself, referring to, and more or less completing,
some passages already printed in Fors and elsewhere, which
might, on your reading any portions you thought available, become
matter of discussion during the meeting at some leisure time, after its
own main purposes had been answered.

At all events, I will think over what I should like, and be able, to
represent to such a meeting, and only beg you not to think me insensible
of the honour done me by your wish, and of the gravity of the
trust reposed in me.

Ever most faithfully yours,

J. Ruskin.

The Rev. F. A. Malleson.

II.

Brantwood, Coniston,

23rd June, 1879.

Dear Mr. Malleson,—Walking, and talking, are now alike impossible
to me;¹ my strength is gone for both; nor do I believe talking on such
matters to be of the least use except to promote, between sensible
people, kindly feeling and knowledge of each other’s personal characters.
I have every trust in your kindness and truth; nor do I fear being
myself misunderstood by you; what I may be able to put into written
form, so as to admit of being laid before your friends in council, must
be set down without any question of personal feeling—as simply as a
mathematical question or demonstration.

The first exact question which it seems to me such an assembly may
he earnestly called upon by laymen to solve, is surely axiomatic: the
definition of themselves as a body, and of their business as such.

Namely: as clergymen of the Church of England, do they consider
themselves to be so called merely as the attached servants of a particular
state? Do they, in their quality of guides, hold a position
similar to that of the guides of Chamouni or Grindelwald, who, being a
numbered body of examined and trustworthy persons belonging to those
several villages, have nevertheless no Chamounist or Grindelwaldist
[pg 542]
opinions on the subject of Alpine geography or glacier walking: but are
prepared to put into practice a common and universal science of Locality
and Athletics, founded on sure survey and successful practice? Are
the clergymen of the Ecclesia of England thus simply the attached and
salaried guides of England and the English, in the way, known of all
good men, that leadeth unto life?—or are they, on the contrary, a body
of men holding, or in any legal manner required, or compelled to hold,
opinions on the subject—say, of the height of the Celestial Mountains,
the crevasses which go down quickest to the pit, and other cognate
points of science—differing from, or even contrary to, the tenets of the
guides of the Church of France, the Church of Italy, and other Christian
countries?

Is not this the first of all questions which a Clerical Council has to
answer in open terms?

Ever affectionately yours,

J. Ruskin.

¹  In answer to the proposal of discussing the subject during a mountain walk.

III.

Brantwood, 6th July.

My first letter contained a Layman’s plea for a clear answer to the
question, “What is a clergyman of the Church of England?” Supposing
the answer to this first to be, that the clergy of the Church of
England are teachers, not of the Gospel to England, but of the Gospel
to all nations; and not of the Gospel of Luther, nor of the Gospel of
Augustine, but of the Gospel of Christ,—then the Layman’s second
question would be:

Can this Gospel of Christ be put into such plain words and short
terms as that a plain man may understand it?—and, if so, would it
not be, in a quite primal sense, desirable that it should be so, rather
than left to be gathered out of Thirty-nine Articles, written by no
means in clear English, and referring, for further explanation of
exactly the most important point in the whole tenour of their teaching,¹
to a “Homily of Justification,”² which is not generally in the
possession, or even probably within the comprehension, of simple
persons?

Ever faithfully yours,

J. Ruskin.

¹  Art xi.

²  Homily xi. of the Second Table.

IV.

Brantwood, 8th July.

I am so very glad that you approve of the letter plan, as it enables
me to build up what I would fain try to say, of little stones, without
lifting too much for my strength at once; and the sense of addressing
a friend who understands me and sympathizes with me prevents my
being brought to a stand by continual need for apology, or fear of
giving offence.

But yet I do not quite see why you should feel my asking for a
[pg 543]
simple and comprehensible statement of the Christian Gospel at starting.
Are you not bid to go into all the world and preach it to every
creature? (I should myself think the clergyman, most likely to do
good who accepted the πάση τῆ κτίσει so literally as at least to
sympathize with St. Francis’ sermon to the birds, and to feel that feeding
either sheep or fowls, or unmuzzling the ox, or keeping the wrens
alive in the snow, would be received by their Heavenly Feeder as the
perfect fulfilment of His “Feed my sheep” in the higher sense.)

That’s all a parenthesis; for although I should think that your good
company would all agree that kindness to animals was a kind of
preaching to them, and that hunting and vivisection were a kind of
blasphemy to them, I want only to put the sterner question before your
council, how this Gospel is to be preached either “
πανταχου” or
to “πὰντα τά ἔθνη,” if first its preachers have not determined quite
clearly
what it is? And might not such definition, acceptable to the entire
body of the Church of Christ, be arrived at by merely explaining, in
their completeness and life, the terms of the Lord’s Prayer—the first
words taught to children all over the Christian world?

I will try to explain what I mean of its several articles, in following
letters; and in answer to the question with which you close your last,
I can only say that you are at perfect liberty to use any, or all, or any
parts of them, as you think good. Usually, when I am asked if letters
of mine may be printed, I say; “Assuredly, provided only that you
print them entire.” But in your hands, I withdraw even this condition,
and trust gladly to your judgment, remaining always

Faithfully and affectionately yours,

J. Ruskin.

The Rev. F. A. Malleson.

V.

Brantwood, 10th July.

My meaning, in saying that the Lord’s Prayer might be made a
foundation of Gospel-teaching, was not that it contained all that
Christian ministers have to teach; but that it contains what all
Christians are agreed upon as first to be taught; and that no good
parish-working pastor in any district of the world but would be glad to
take his part in making it clear and living to his congregation.

And the first clause of it, of course rightly explained, gives us the
ground of what is surely a mighty part of the Gospel—its “first and
great commandment,” namely, that we have a Father whom we can
love, and are required to love, and to desire to be with Him in Heaven,
wherever that may be.

And to declare that we have such a loving Father, whose mercy is
over all His works, and whose will and law is so lovely and lovable that
it is sweeter than honey, and more precious than gold, to those who can
“taste” and “see” that the Lord is Good—this, surely, is a most pleasant
and glorious good message and spell to bring to men—as distinguished
[pg 544]
from the evil message and accursed spell that Satan has brought to the
nations of the world instead of it, that they have no Father, but only
“a consuming fire” ready to devour them, unless they are delivered
from its raging flame by some scheme of pardon for all, for which they
are to be thankful, not to the Father, but to the Son.

Supposing this first article of the true Gospel agreed to, how would
the blessing that closes the epistles of that Gospel become intelligible
and living, instead of dark and dead: “The grace of Christ, and the
love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost,”—the most
tender word being that used of the Father?

VI.

Brantwood, 12th July, 1879.

I wonder how many, even of those who honestly and attentively join
in our Church services, attach any distinct idea to the second clause of
the Lord’s Prayer, the first petition of it, the first thing that they
are
ordered by Christ to seek of their Father?

Am I unjust in thinking that most of them have little more notion
on the matter than that God has forbidden “bad language,” and wishes
them to pray that everybody may be respectful to Him?

Is it any otherwise with the Third Commandment? Do not most
look on it merely in the light of the Statute of Swearing? and read
the words “will not hold him guiltless” merely as a passionless intimation
that however carelessly a man may let out a round oath, there
really is something wrong in it?

On the other hand, can anything be more tremendous than the words
themselves—double-negatived:

For other sins there is washing;—for this, none! the seventh verse,
Ex. xx., in the Septuagint, marking the real power rather than the
English, which (I suppose) is literal to the Hebrew.

To my layman’s mind, of practical needs in the present state of the
Church, nothing is so immediate as that of explaining to the congregation
the meaning of being gathered in His name, and having Him in the
midst of them; as, on the other hand, of being gathered in blasphemy
of His name, and having the devil in the midst of them—presiding over
the prayers which have become an abomination.

For the entire body of the texts in the Gospel against hypocrisy are
one and all nothing but the expansion of the threatening that closes the
Third Commandment. For as “the name whereby He shall be called
is the Lord our Righteousness,”—so the taking that name in vain is the
sum of “the deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish.”

Without dwelling on the possibility—which I do not myself, however,
for a moment doubt—of an honest clergyman’s being able actually to
prevent the entrance among his congregation of persons leading openly
[pg 545]
wicked lives, could any subject be more vital to the purposes of your
meetings than the difference between the present and the probable state
of the Christian Church which would result, were it more the effort of
zealous parish priests, instead of getting wicked poor people to
come to church, to get wicked rich ones to stay out of it?

Lest, in any discussion of such question, it might be, as it too often
is, alleged that “the Lord looketh upon the heart,” &c., let me be permitted
to say—with as much positiveness as may express my deepest
conviction—that, while indeed it is the Lord’s business to look upon the
heart, it is the pastor’s to look upon the hands and the lips; and that
the foulest oaths of the thief and the street-walker are, in the ears of
God, sinless as the hawk’s cry, or the gnat’s murmur, compared to
the responses, in the Church service, on the lips of the usurer and the
adulterer, who have destroyed, not their own souls only, but those of
the outcast ones whom they have made their victims.

It is for the meeting of clergymen themselves—not for a layman
addressing them—to ask further, how much the name of God may be
taken in vain, and profaned instead of hallowed—in the pulpit, as well
as under it.

Ever affectionately yours,

J. Ruskin.

VII.

Brantwood, 14th July, 1879.

Dear Mr. Malleson,—Sincere thanks for both your letters and the
proofs sent. Your comment and conducting link, when needed, will be
of the greatest help and value, I am well assured, suggesting what you
know will be the probable feeling of your hearers, and the point that
will come into question.

Yes, certainly, that “His” in the fourth line¹ was meant to imply
that eternal presence of Christ; as in another passage,² referring to the
Creation, “when His right hand strewed the snow on Lebanon, and
[pg 546]
smoothed the slopes of Calvary,” but in so far as we dwell on that truth,
“Hast thou seen Me, Philip, and not the Father?” we are not teaching
the people what is specially the Gospel of Christ as having a distinct
function—namely, to serve the Father, and do the Father’s will. And
in all His human relations to us, and commands to us, it is as the Son
of Man, not as the “power of God and wisdom of God,” that He acts
and speaks. Not as the Power; for He must pray, like one of us.
Not as the Wisdom; for He must not know “if it be possible” His
prayer should be heard.

And in what I want to say of the third clause of His prayer (His, not
merely as His ordering, but His using), it is especially this comparison
between His kingdom, and His Father’s, that I want to see the disciples
guarded against. I believe very few, even of the most earnest, using
that petition, realize that it is the Father’s—not the Son’s—kingdom,
that they pray may come,—although the whole prayer is foundational
on that fact: “For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the
glory.”
And I fancy that the mind of the most faithful Christians is quite led
away from its proper hope, by dwelling on the reign—or the coming
again—of Christ; which, indeed, they are to look for, and watch for,
but not to pray for. Their prayer is to be for the greater kingdom to
which He, risen and having all His enemies under His feet, is to surrender
His, “that God may be All in All.”

And, though the greatest, it is that everlasting kingdom which the
poorest of us can advance. We cannot hasten Christ’s coming. “Of
the day and the hour, knoweth none.” But the kingdom of God is as a
grain of mustard-seed:—we can sow of it; it is as a foam-globe of
leaven:—we can mingle it; and its glory and its joy are that even the
birds of the air can lodge in the branches thereof.

Forgive me for getting back to my sparrows; but truly, in the present
state of England, the fowls of the air are the only creatures, tormented
and murdered as they are, that yet have here and there nests, and peace,
and joy in the Holy Ghost. And it would be well if many of us, in
reading that text, “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink,” had
even got so far as to the understanding that it was at least as much,
and that until we had fed the hungry, there was no power in us to
inspire the unhappy.

Ever affectionately yours,

J. Ruskin.

I will write my feeling about the pieces of the Life of Christ you
have sent me, in a private letter. I may say at once that I am sure it
will do much good, and will be upright and intelligible, which how few
religious writings are!

¹  “Modern Painters.”

²  Referring to the closing sentence of the third paragraph of the fifth letter, which
seemed to express what I felt could not be Mr. Ruskin’s full meaning, I pointed out to him
the following sentence in “Modern Painters:”—

“When, in the desert, Jesus was girding Himself for the work of life, angels of life came
and ministered unto Him; now, in the fair world, when He is girding Himself for the work
of death, the ministrants come to Him from the grave; but from the grave conquered.
One from the tomb under Abarim, which His own hand had sealed long ago; the other from
the rest which He had entered without seeing corruption.”

On this I made a remark somewhat to the following effect: that I felt sure Mr. Ruskin
regarded the loving work of the Father and of the Son to be equal in the forgiveness of
sins and redemption of mankind; that what is done by the Father is in reality done also
by the Son; and that it is by a mere accommodation to human infirmity of understanding
that the doctrine of the Trinity is revealed to us in language, inadequate indeed to convey
divine truths, but still the only language possible; and I asked whether some such feeling
was not present in his mind when he used the pronoun “His,” in the above passage from
“Modern Painters” of the Son, where it would be usually understood of the Father;
and as a corollary, whether, in the letter, he does not himself fully recognize the fact of
the redemption of the world by the loving self-sacrifice of the Son in entire concurrence
with the equally loving will of the Father. This, as well as I can recollect, is the origin
of the passage in the second paragraph in the seventh letter.—Editor of Letters.

VIII.

Brantwood, 9th August, 1879.

I was reading the second chapter of Malachi this morning by chance,
[pg 547]
and wondering how many clergymen ever read it, and took to heart the
“commandment for them.”

For they are always ready enough to call themselves priests (though
they know themselves to be nothing of the sort) whenever there is any
dignity to be got out of the title; but, whenever there is any good,
hot scolding or unpleasant advice given them by the prophets, in that
self-assumed character of theirs, they are as ready to quit it as ever
Dionysus his lion-skin, when he finds the character of Herakles inconvenient.

“Ye have wearied the Lord with your words,” (yes, and some of His
people, too, in your time): “yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied Him?
When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the
Lord, and He delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?”

How many, again and again I wonder, of the lively young ecclesiastics
supplied to the increasing demand of our west-ends of flourishing
Cities of the Plain, ever consider what sort of sin it is for which God
(unless they lay it to heart) will “curse their blessings, and spread dung
upon their faces,” or have understood, even in the dimmest manner,
what part they had taken, and were taking, in “corrupting the covenant
of the Lord with Levi, and causing many to stumble at the
Law.”

Perhaps the most subtle and unconscious way in which the religious
teachers upon whom the ends of the world are come, have done this, is
in never telling their people the meaning of the clause in the Lord’s
Prayer, which, of all others, their most earnest hearers have oftenest on
their lips: “Thy will be done.” They allow their people to use it as if their
Father’s will were always to kill their babies, or do something unpleasant
to them, instead of explaining to them that the first and intensest
article of their Father’s will was their own sanctification, and following
comfort and wealth; and that the one only path to national prosperity
and to domestic peace was to understand what the will of the Lord
was, and to do all they could to get it done. Whereas one would
think, by the tone of the eagerest preachers nowadays, that they held
their blessed office to be that, not of showing men how to do their
Father’s will on earth, but how to get to heaven without doing any of
it either here or there!

I say, especially, the most eager preachers; for nearly the whole
Missionary body (with the hottest Evangelistic sect of the English
Church) is at this moment composed of men who think the Gospel they
are to carry to mend the world with, forsooth, is that, “If any man
sin, he hath an Advocate with the Father;” while I have never yet, in
my own experience, met either with a Missionary or a Town Bishop
who so much as professed himself “to understand what the will of the
Lord” was, far less to teach anybody else to do it; and for fifty preachers,
yes, and fifty hundreds whom I have heard proclaiming the Mediator
of the New Testament, that “they which were called might receive the
[pg 548]
promise of eternal inheritance,” I have never yet heard so much as
one heartily proclaiming against all those “deceivers with vain words”
(Eph. v. 6), that “no covetous person which is an idolator hath any
inheritance in the kingdom of Christ, or of God;” and on myself personally
and publicly challenging the Bishops of England generally, and
by name the Bishop of Manchester, to say whether usury was, or was
not, according to the will of God, I have received no answer from
any one of them.¹

13th August.

I have allowed myself, in the beginning of this letter, to dwell on
the equivocal use of the word “Priest” in the English Church (see
Christopher Harvey, Grosart’s edition, p. 38), because the assumption
of the mediatorial, in defect of the pastoral, office by the clergy
fulfils itself, naturally and always, in their pretending to absolve the
sinner from his punishment, instead of purging him from his sin; and
practically, in their general patronage and encouragement of all the
iniquity of the world, by steadily preaching away the penalties of it.
So that the great cities of the earth, which ought to be the places set
on its hills, with the Temple of the Lord in the midst of them, to
which the tribes should go up,—centres to the Kingdoms and Provinces
of Honour, Virtue, and the Knowledge of the law of God,—have
become, instead, loathsome centres of fornication and covetousness—the
smoke of their sin going up into the face of Heaven like the
furnace of Sodom, and the pollution of it rotting and raging through
the bones and the souls of the peasant people round them, as if they
were each a volcano whose ashes broke out in blains upon man and
upon beast.

And in the midst of them, their freshly-set-up steeples ring the crowd
to a weekly prayer that the rest of their lives may be pure and holy,
while they have not the slightest intention of purifying, sanctifying, or
changing their lives in any the smallest particular; and their clergy
gather, each into himself, the curious dual power, and Janus-faced
majesty in mischief, of the prophet that prophesies falsely, and the
priest that bears rule by his means.

And the people love to have it so.

Brantwood, 12th August.

I am very glad of your little note from Brighton. I thought it
needless to send the two letters there, which you will find at home;
and they pretty nearly end all I want to say; for the remaining clauses
of the prayer touch on things too high for me. But I will send you
one concluding letter about them.

¹  Fors Clavigera, Letter lxxxii., p. 323.

IX.

Brantwood, 19th August.

I retained the foregoing letter by me till now, lest you should think
[pg 549]
it written in any haste or petulance; but it is every word of it
deliberate, though expressing the bitterness of twenty years of vain
sorrow and pleading concerning these things. Nor am I able to write,
otherwise, anything of the next following clause of the prayer;—for no
words could be burning enough to tell the evils which have come on
the world from men’s using it thoughtlessly and blasphemously, praying
God to give them what they are deliberately resolved to steal. For all
true Christianity is known—as its Master was—in breaking of bread,
and all false Christianity in stealing it.

Let the clergyman only apply—with impartial and level sweep—to
his congregation, the great pastoral order: “The man that will not
work, neither should he eat;” and be resolute in requiring each
member of his flock to tell him what—day by day—they do to earn
their dinners;—and he will find an entirely new view of life and its
sacraments open upon him and them.

For the man who is not—day by day—doing work which will earn
his dinner, must be stealing his dinner; and the actual fact is that the
great mass of men, calling themselves Christians, do actually live by
robbing the poor of their bread, and by no other trade whatsoever:
and the simple examination of the mode of the produce and consumption
of European food—who digs for it, and who eats it—will prove
that to any honest human soul.

Nor is it possible for any Christian Church to exist but in pollutions
and hypocrisies beyond all words, until the virtues of a life moderate in
its self-indulgence, and wide in its offices of temporal ministry to the
poor, are insisted on as the normal conditions in which, only, the
prayer to God for the harvest of the earth is other than blasphemy.

In the second place. Since in the parable in Luke, the bread asked
for is shown to be also, and chiefly, the Holy Spirit (Luke xi. 13),
and the prayer, “Give us each day our daily bread,” is, in its fulness,
the disciples’, “Lord, evermore give us this bread,”—the clergyman’s
question to his whole flock, primarily literal: “Children, have ye here
any meat?” must ultimately be always the greater spiritual one:
“Children, have ye here any Holy Spirit?” or, “Have ye not heard
yet whether there be any? and, instead of a Holy Ghost the Lord and
Giver of Life, do you only believe in an unholy mammon, Lord and
Giver of Death?”

The opposition between the two Lords has been, and will be as long
as the world lasts, absolute, irreconcileable, mortal; and the clergyman’s
first message to his people of this day is—if he be faithful—”Choose
ye this day whom ye will serve.”

Ever faithfully yours,

J. Ruskin.

X.

Brantwood, 3rd September.

Dear Mr. Malleson,—I have been very long before trying to say so
[pg 550]
much as a word about the sixth clause of the Pater; for whenever I
began thinking of it, I was stopped by the sorrowful sense of the hopeless
task you poor clergymen had, nowadays, in recommending and
teaching people to love their enemies, when their whole energies were
already devoted to swindling their friends.

But, in any days, past or now, the clause is one of such difficulty,
that, to understand it, means almost to know the love of God which
passeth knowledge.

But, at all events, it is surely the pastor’s duty to prevent his flock
from misunderstanding it; and above all things to keep them from
supposing that God’s forgiveness is to be had simply for the asking, by
those who “wilfully sin after they have received the knowledge of the
truth.”

There is one very simple lesson also, needed especially by people in
circumstances of happy life, which I have never heard fully enforced
from the pulpit, and which is usually the more lost sight of, because the
fine and inaccurate word “trespasses” is so often used instead of the
simple and accurate one “debts.” Among people well educated and
happily circumstanced it may easily chance that long periods of their
lives pass without any such conscious sin as could, on any discovery or
memory of it, make them cry out, in truth and in pain,—”I have
sinned against the Lord.” But scarcely an hour of their happy days
can pass over them without leaving—were their hearts open—some
evidence written there that they have “left undone the things that
they ought to have done,” and giving them bitterer and heavier cause
to cry, and cry again—for ever, in the pure words of their Master’s
prayer, “Dimitte nobis debita nostra.”

In connection with the more accurate translation of “debts” rather
than “trespasses,” it would surely be well to keep constantly in the
mind of complacent and inoffensive congregations that in Christ’s own
prophecy of the manner of the last judgment, the condemnation is
pronounced only on the sins of omission: “I was hungry, and ye gave
me no meat.”

But, whatever the manner of sin, by offence or defect, which the
preacher fears in his people, surely he has of late been wholly remiss in
compelling their definite recognition of it, in its several and personal
particulars. Nothing in the various inconsistency of human nature is
more grotesque than its willingness to be taxed with any quantity of
sins in the gross, and its resentment at the insinuation of having committed
the smallest parcel of them in detail. And the English Liturgy,
evidently drawn up with the amiable intention of making religion as
pleasant as possible, to a people desirous of saving their souls with no
great degree of personal inconvenience, is perhaps in no point more
unwholesomely
lenient than in its concession to the popular conviction
that we may obtain the present advantage, and escape the future punishment,
of any sort of iniquity, by dexterously concealing the manner of
it from man, and triumphantly confessing the quantity of it to God.

[pg 551]

Finally, whatever the advantages and decencies of a form of prayer,
and how wide soever the scope given to its collected passages, it cannot
be at one and the same time fitted for the use of a body of well-taught
and experienced Christians, such as should join the services of a Church
nineteen centuries old,—and adapted to the needs of the timid sinner who
has that day first entered its porch, or of the remorseful publican who
has only recently become sensible of his call to a pew.

And surely our clergy need not be surprised at the daily increasing
distrust in the public mind of the efficacy of Prayer, after having so
long insisted on their offering supplication, at least every Sunday
morning
at eleven o’clock, that the rest of their lives hereafter might be pure
and holy, leaving them conscious all the while that they would be similarly
required to inform the Lord next week, at the same hour, that
“there was no health in them!”

Among the much rebuked follies and abuses of so-called “Ritualism,”
none that I have heard of are indeed so dangerously and darkly “Ritual”
as this piece of authorized mockery of the most solemn act of human
life, and only entrance of eternal life—Repentance.

Believe me, dear Mr. Malleson,

Ever faithfully and respectfully yours,

J. Ruskin.

XI.

Brantwood, 14th September, 1879.

Dear Mr. Malleson,—The gentle words in your last letter referring
to the difference between yourself and me in the degree of hope with which
you could regard what could not but appear to the general mind Utopian
in designs for the action of the Christian Church, surely might best be
answered by appeal to the consistent tone of the prayer we have been
examining.

Is not every one of its petitions for a perfect state? and is not this
last clause of it, of which we are to think to-day—if fully understood—a
petition not only for the restoration of Paradise, but of Paradise in
which there shall be no deadly fruit, or, at least, no tempter to praise
it? And may we not admit that it is probably only for want of the
earnest use of this last petition that not only the preceding ones have
become formal with us, but that the private and simply restricted prayer
for the little things we each severally desire, has become by some
Christians dreaded and unused, and by others used faithlessly, and
therefore with disappointment?

And is it not for want of this special directness and simplicity
of petition, and of the sense of its acceptance, that the whole nature
of prayer has been doubted in our hearts, and disgraced by our lips;
that we are afraid to ask God’s blessing on the earth, when the scientific
people tell us He has made previous arrangements to curse it; and
that, instead of obeying, without fear or debate, the plain order, “Ask,
and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full,” we sorrowfully sink
[pg 552]
back into the apology for prayer, that “it is a wholesome exercise,
even when fruitless,” and that we ought piously always to suppose
that the text really means no more than “Ask, and ye shall not receive,
that your joy may be empty?”

Supposing we were first all of us quite sure that we had prayed,
honestly, the prayer against temptation, and that we would thankfully
be refused anything we had set our hearts upon, if indeed God saw that
it would lead us into evil, might we not have confidence afterwards that
He in whose hand the King’s heart is, as the rivers of water, would
turn our tiny little hearts also in the way that they should go, and that
then the special prayer for the joys He taught them to seek would be
answered to the last syllable, and to overflowing?

It is surely scarcely necessary to say, farther, what the holy teachers
of all nations have invariably concurred in showing,—that faithful prayer
implies always correlative exertion; and that no man can ask honestly
or hopefully to be delivered from temptation, unless he has himself
honestly and firmly determined to do the best he can to keep out of it.
But, in modern days, the first aim of all Christian parents is to place
their children in circumstances where the temptations (which they are
apt to call “opportunities”) may be as great and as many as possible;
where the sight and promise of “all these things” in Satan’s gift may
be brilliantly near; and where the act of “falling down to worship me”
may be partly concealed by the shelter, and partly excused, as involuntary,
by the pressure, of the concurrent crowd.

In what respect the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them,
differ from the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, which are God’s
for ever, is seldom, as far as I have heard, intelligibly explained from
the pulpit; and still less the irreconcileable hostility between the two
royalties and realms asserted in its sternness of decision.

Whether it be, indeed, Utopian to believe that the kingdom we are
taught to pray for may come—verily come—for the asking, it is surely
not for man to judge; but it is at least at his choice to resolve that he
will no longer render obedience, nor ascribe glory and power, to the
Devil. If he cannot find strength in himself to advance towards
Heaven, he may at least say to the power of Hell, “Get thee behind
me;” and staying himself on the testimony of Him who saith, “Surely
I come quickly,” ratify his happy prayer with the faithful “Amen, even
so, come, Lord Jesus.”

Ever, my dear friend,

Believe me affectionately and gratefully yours,

J. Ruskin.

[pg 553]

INDIA UNDER LORD LYTTON.

L
ORD LYTTON is fond of public speaking, and his more solemn
speeches are remarkable for the stream of abundant piety which
runs through them. Not unfrequently they have taken the form of
addresses to some unknown power, rather than discourses delivered
to a mundane audience. He signalized his accession to office by one of
these semi-theological orations to the members of Council assembled
to meet him at Government House, Calcutta. He said:—

“Gentlemen, it is my fervent prayer, that a Power higher than that of any
earthly Government may inspire and bless the progress of our counsels; granting
me, with your valued assistance, to direct them to such issues as may prove
conducive to the honour of our country, to the authority and prestige of its
august Sovereign, to the progressive well-being of the millions committed to our
fostering care, and to the security of the chiefs and princes of India, as well as
of our allies beyond the frontier, in the undisturbed enjoyment of their just
rights and hereditary possessions.”

The sequel renders it probable that by a “power higher than any
earthly Government,” Lord Lytton understood nothing more remote
from human ken than the will of Lord Beaconsfield. At any rate, the
prayer was rejected; and under the influence of a perverse destiny, the
Viceroy has been singled out to accomplish precisely those acts from
which he entreated to be delivered. The “valued assistance” of his
colleagues in council he has systematically set at nought and rejected;
the “millions committed to his fostering care” he has (as I shall show)
permitted to perish of hunger under circumstances of peculiar cruelty;
and I need not say that he has entirely failed in his endeavours to preserve
“our allies beyond the frontier in the undisturbed enjoyment of
their just rights and hereditary possessions.”

It is the story of these inconsistencies which I propose to tell in the
following pages. In the reading they can hardly fail to awaken a
[pg 554]
smile; but in the acting they have brought suffering, poverty, and death
upon thousands of innocent people. Throughout India they have
shaken the confidence of the people in the humanity, justice, and truthfulness
of the British character; and have, as I believe, brought our
Indian Empire to the verge of a catastrophe, from which nothing but a
complete and immediate reversal of policy will avail to save it.

The rule that we have set up in India is so hard and mechanical in
its character—it has so entirely failed to strike root in the affections of
the natives—that a very brief period of misgovernment suffices to provoke
an insurrection. This is occasioned mainly by two causes—the
exclusive system on which India is administered, and the absence of all
intercommunion (in any true sense of the word) between the ruling
and the subject races. It is not too much to say that under the present
system every native of ambition, ability, or education, is of necessity a
centre of disaffection towards British rule. For within the area of
British rule the ascendency of strangers makes him an alien in his
native land without scope for his power or hopes for his ambition; and
beyond that area the possession of ability awakens the distrust and
unconcealed dislike of English officialism. On the other hand, to the
great mass of the people, the English official is simply an enigma.
Their relations with him are almost exclusively official. The magistrate
of a district is little more to them than a piece of machinery possessing
powers to kill and tax and imprison. Such pieces of machinery they
behold, as Carlyle would say, in endless succession “emerging from the
inane,” killing and taxing for a time, and then “vanishing again into the
inane.” But the people know not whence they come, or whither they
go; their voices go for nothing in the selection of this human machinery
which hold their fortunes in its power. The great administrative mill
goes grinding on, impelled by forces of which they have no knowledge;
and the people are merely the passive, unresisting grist which is ground
up year after year. A truly frightful and unnatural state of things!

It is impossible that a dominion thus constituted should be otherwise
than transitory. But even for a brief space its peaceful continuance is
possible only under certain conditions. The absence of either loyalty
or thorough understanding in those who are ruled, must be made good
by the plainest rectitude of purpose on the part of the Government, and
thoroughly genuine and successful administration. If such a Government
as we have set up in India does not adhere strictly to the letter
and the spirit of its engagements—if it cannot insure the physical
well-being of its subjects—it is simply good for nothing; because, from
its very nature, it cannot achieve anything more than this. It was the
first of these conditions that Lord Dalhousie thought he might safely
set at nought; and in five years he brought down upon us the terrible
retribution of 1857. But Lord Dalhousie was, at least, sincerely
anxious to secure the “physical well-being” of the people. He struck
at the chiefs and princes of India because he believed that they stood in
[pg 555]
the way of that well-being. He was entirely mistaken; but nevertheless
he threw down only one of the pillars on which our rule is sustained,
and when the Mutiny came upon us, the bulk of the people remained
loyal. Lord Lytton has undermined the foundations of both pillars,
and a very brief continuance of his policy will bring them down with
a crash. How this has been accomplished I have now to relate. I
begin with his policy on the Frontier, because all the other transactions
of which I shall have to speak are connected with that policy, as effects
with their cause.

The Negotiations with Shere Ali.

Despite of all that has been written and said on the subject, to most
people the origin of the war in Afghanistan appears involved in as great
obscurity as ever. Leading Liberal politicians are in this benighted
condition not less than the rank and file of the Tories. More people
than formerly are willing to admit that the Government was rash and
mistaken in its calculations—that the Treaty of Gundamuck has not
fulfilled the expectations it awakened; but a war of some kind, they
believe, was forced upon the Government by the attitude of Russia and
the disposition of the Ameer. This belief is entirely erroneous. The war
was a war of deliberately planned aggression, entirely unjustified either by
the attitude of Russia or the disposition of the Ameer. Unless we perceive
this we are not in a position to form a sound estimate of the effect
wrought in the minds of the princes and people of India. The wanton
character of the war is, therefore, the first thing I must demonstrate.

When Lord Lytton reached India, the situation in Afghanistan was
as follows:—The late Ameer Shere Ali had succeeded in establishing a
degree of order throughout Afghanistan, to which the country had been
a stranger for many years. His officers were loyal and devoted;
intrigue and rebellion had everywhere failed to make headway; and
he was on terms of sincere friendship with the Governor-General at
Calcutta. There was, at this time, no fear that the Russians in Central
Asia desired to exercise any unwarrantable influence in Afghanistan;
on the contrary, in the despatch to Lord Northbrook’s Government, in
which Lord Salisbury propounded his new policy of establishing a
permanent Embassy at Kabul, he said:—

“I do not desire, by the observations which I have made, to convey to your
Excellency the impression that, in the opinion of her Majesty’s Government, the
Russian Government have any intention of violating the frontier of Afghanistan….
It is undoubtedly true that the recent advances in Central Asia have
been rather forced upon the Government of St. Petersburg than originated by
them, and that their efforts, at present, are sincerely directed to the prevention of
any movement which may give just umbrage to the British Government.”

The political horizon was, therefore, cloudless at the moment selected
by Lord Salisbury for a radical change of policy in Afghanistan. This
very fact would have sufficed to arouse the suspicions of the Ameer.
Lord Salisbury has since expressed his conviction that if Lord Northbrook
[pg 556]
had made the proposal, the Ameer would have accepted the permanent
Embassy, and both he and we should have been spared the calamities
which resulted from delay. But at the time Lord Salisbury sent his
instructions to the Government of India he thought otherwise. He
had then no doubt that if the Ameer was asked in so many words to
receive a permanent Mission in Afghanistan, the Ameer would refuse.
But he thought it was possible to fasten a Mission on him by means of
a deception.

“The first step” Lord Salisbury wrote to the Government of India, “in
establishing our relations with the Ameer on a more satisfactory footing will be
to induce him to receive a temporary Embassy in his capital. It need not be
publicly connected with the establishment of a permanent Mission within his
dominions. There would be many advantages in ostensibly directing it to some
object of smaller political interest, which it will not be difficult for your
Excellency to find, or if need be, to create. I have, therefore, to instruct you
… without any delay that you can reasonably avoid, to find some occasion
for sending a Mission to Kabul.”

Lord Northbrook, as is well known, declined to carry out this ingenious
plan for overreaching the Ameer, and breaking the pledge that we had
given not to force English officers upon him. He resigned almost
immediately after the receipt of the despatch setting forth the new
policy, and was succeeded by Lord Lytton. It is generally assumed
that Lord Lytton came to India charged with the execution of no other
policy than that to which Lord Northbrook had declined to assent.
But this assumption is incompatible with the line of action pursued by
Lord Lytton. This much, however, is clear already. The new policy,
whatever it was, was not forced upon the British Government, either by
the alienation of the Ameer or the intrigues of Russia. They entered
upon it at a time when, by their own confession, the sky was clear.
Afghanistan was in the enjoyment of an unprecedented quiet and
prosperity; the Ameer was conducting his foreign policy in accordance
with our wishes; and the efforts of the Government of St. Petersburg
were “sincerely directed to the prevention of any movement which
might give just umbrage to the British Government.” So far as India
was concerned, the condition of the country called aloud for a policy devoted
to internal reform and retrenchment. The limit of endurable
taxation had been reached; the army imperatively needed thorough
reorganization; and the people and the land were still being scourged
by famine upon famine of the most appalling character.

Now, if the English Cabinet had no designs in their frontier
policy except to establish British agents in Afghanistan, without
breach of pre-existing arrangements, and with the free concurrence of
the Ameer, it is plain that for such a policy concealment was unnecessary.
Yet, until the actual outbreak of hostilities, the negotiations with
the Ameer were kept hidden from the English Parliament and the
nation. The fact is, that in the instructions given to Lord Lytton
before his departure from England, Lord Salisbury anticipates the
[pg 557]
refusal of the Ameer to agree to the new policy, and points out what, in
that case, is to be done:—

“11. If the language and demeanour of the Ameer be such as to promise no
satisfactory result of the negotiations thus opened, his Highness should be
distinctly reminded that he is isolating himself at his own peril from the friendship
and protection it is his interest to seek and deserve….”

“28. The conduct of Shere Ali has more than once been characterized by so
significant a disregard of the wishes and interests of the Government of India,
that the irretrievable alienation of his confidence in the sincerity and power of
that Government is a contingency which cannot be dismissed as impossible.
Should such a fear be confirmed by the result of the proposed negotiation, no time
must be lost in reconsidering, from a new point of view, the policy to be pursued in
reference to Afghanistan.”

These instructions clearly establish the following points:—They show
that the new policy, whatever it was, was expected “irretrievably” to
destroy the confidence of the Ameer “in the sincerity of the Government;”
and that, in that case, the Ameer was to be informed
that he had forfeited our friendship and protection, and a new policy
was immediately to be adopted towards Afghanistan. Here, then, we
have the first note of war. All this time there was no pressure upon
the British Government occasioned by the attitude of Russia. Our
relations with Russia were excellent. On the 5th May, 1876, Mr.
Disraeli said in the House of Commons, “I believe, indeed, that at no time
has there been a better understanding between the Courts of St. James and
St. Petersburg than at this present moment, and there is this good
understanding because our policy is a clear and frank policy.” So here
we have the proof, that in a season of perfect calm, the Ministry
commenced a policy for the “irretrievable alienation” of the Ameer,
and sent Lord Lytton to India in order to execute it.

Lord Lytton entered with zest into the spirit of these singular
instructions, and set to work to “alienate” the Ameer with the utmost
vigour. He politely caused him to be informed that he (the Ameer)
was an earthen pipkin between two iron pots; that if he did not come
to a “speedy understanding” with us, the two iron pots would combine
to crush him out of existence altogether. “As matters now stand,
the British Government is able to pour an overwhelming force into
Afghanistan, which could be spread round him as a ring of iron, but if
he became our enemy, it could break him as a reed.” “Our only
interest in maintaining the independence of Afghanistan is to provide
for the security of our own frontier.” “If we ceased to regard it as a
friendly State, there was nothing to prevent us coming to an understanding
with Russia which would wipe Afghanistan out of the map for ever.”
Would any man, I ask, address these insults and menaces to one whose
friendship and confidence he was desirous to gain? It must be plain
to every reasonable person that British officers could only then be
established in Afghanistan with safety to themselves, and utility to the
British Government, when they were admitted with the free concurrence
[pg 558]
of the Ameer and his people. A concession of this nature, if
extorted by means of menaces and insults, would be, by that very
circumstance, deprived of all value. And the fact is (as the reader will
perceive immediately) Lord Lytton was not sincere in the propositions he
made to the Ameer. He had no wish that the Ameer should come to
a “speedy understanding” with him; and as soon as he saw that such
a result was impending, he broke off all intercourse with him. Lord
Lytton charged the British Vakeel, Atta Mohammed Khan, to convey
to the Ameer Shere Ali the amenities I have just quoted about the
pipkin, the iron pots, and the rest of it. At the same time, the Vakeel
was instructed to propose a meeting at Peshawur between Sir Lewis
Pelly, as the representative of the Indian Government, and Noor
Mohammed Shah, the Minister of the Ameer. The basis of negotiations
between them was to be the admission of British officers to
certain places in the territories of the Ameer. Unless the Ameer was
prepared to concede this, as a preliminary condition, there was no good
in his sending a representative to confer with Sir Lewis Pelly. Great
was the consternation at the Court of the Ameer when our Vakeel
unfolded the message with which he was charged. They bowed before
the storm; and on December 21, 1876, Atta Mohammed Khan wrote
to the Government of India, that the Ameer, though still disliking to
receive English officers, would on account of the insistence of the
British Government, yield the point; but only after his Minister had,
at the conference, made representations of his views and stated all his
difficulties.

Behold, then, the Government of India arrived at the goal of its
desires. The Ameer consents to receive English officers if, after hearing
all his reasons, Lord Lytton remains convinced of the expediency of
that policy. But what follows? The conference is begun; but while
the discussions were still unfinished, Noor Mohammed Shah fell sick,
and died; and then what was the action of Lord Lytton? I quote his
own words:—

“At the moment when Sir Lewis Pelly was closing the conference, his Highness
was sending to the Mir Akhir instructions to prolong it by every means in
his power; a fresh Envoy was already on his way from Kabul to Peshawur;
and it was reported that this Envoy had authority to accept eventually all the
conditions of the British Government. The Viceroy was aware of these facts
when he instructed our Envoy to close the conference.”

The closing of the conference was followed by the withdrawal from
Kabul of the British agency which had been established there for more
than twenty years, and the suspension of all intercourse between us and
the Ameer.

There is but one conclusion possible from these strange proceedings.
The demands made upon the Ameer were made in the hope that he
would refuse to concede them, and so furnish the Indian Government
with a pretext for attacking him. The last thing which Lord Lytton
desired was that the Ameer should accept his demands. And, therefore,
[pg 559]
as soon as it became apparent that Shere Ali was prepared to do this
rather than forfeit the protection and friendship of the British Government,
Lord Lytton broke up the conference, which (be it remembered)
he had himself proposed. Lord Lytton, not Shere Ali, without provocation
or ostensible cause, assumes towards Afghanistan “an attitude
of isolation and scarcely veiled hostility;” and Lord Salisbury thus
comments upon the situation (October 4, 1877):—

“In the event of the Ameer … spontaneously manifesting a desire to
come to a friendly understanding with your Excellency, on the basis of the terms
lately offered to, but declined by him, his advances should not be rejected. If, on
the other hand, he continues to maintain an attitude of isolation and scarcely
veiled hostility, the British Government … will be at liberty to adopt
such measures for the protection and permanent tranquillity of the North-West
frontier of her Majesty’s Indian dominions as the circumstances may render
expedient, without regard to the wishes of the Ameer Shere Ali or the interests of
his dynasty.”

Here, at last, we get at the veritable purpose of this tortuous
policy. As we suspected, the “terms offered to the Ameer, and
unhappily not declined by him,” were a mere pretence. The real
object was the “protection of the North-West frontier”—in other
words, the acquisition of a “scientific frontier”—without regard to the
wishes of the Ameer, or the interests of his dynasty. The Ameer was
to be “irretrievably alienated” by menacing his independence; and
then the “irretrievable alienation” was to be made the pretext for
carrying the menace into execution. What the “scientific frontier”
was the reader will find, if he refers to my article on “India and
Afghanistan,” in the October number of this Review.

The threat, however, for reasons I shall state presently, could not be
carried into execution at once. The negotiations at Peshawur were
carefully concealed from the knowledge of the public. Neither in
India nor in England was it known that the British agency was withdrawn
from Kabul. The Pioneer—the official journal in India—was
instructed to inform its readers that the Ameer was animated with feelings
of the utmost cordiality towards us; and Lord Lytton made a
speech in the Council Chamber expounding his frontier policy. He
glanced first at the policy of his predecessors. His sensitive spirit was
much grieved by its apathetic character. It seemed to him “atheistic,”
and “inhuman,” and “inconsistent with our high duties to God and man
as the greatest civilizing Power.” Then, warming with his subject, he
set forth his own idea of a frontier policy in the following grandiloquent
fashion:—

“I consider that the safest and strongest frontier India can possibly possess
would be a belt of independent frontier States, throughout which the British
name is honoured and trusted; within which British subjects are welcomed and
respected, because they are subjects of a Government known to be unselfish as it
is powerful, and resolute as it is humane; by which our advice is followed without
suspicion, and our word relied on without misgiving, because the first has been
justified by good results, and the second never quibbled away by timorous sub-intents
[pg 560]
or tricky saving clauses—a belt of States, in short, whose chiefs and
populations should have every interest, and every desire, to co-operate with our
own officers in preserving the peace of the frontier, developing the resources of
their own territories, augmenting the wealth of their own treasuries, and vindicating
in the eyes of the Eastern and Western world their title to an independence,
of which we are ourselves the chief well-wishers and supporters.”

It is hardly credible that the same man who gave expression to these
magnificent sentiments had just caused the Ameer to be informed that
he did not regard the promises made to Shere Ali, by Lords Northbrook
and Mayo, as binding upon the Government of India, because they
were “verbal.” “His Excellency the Viceroy,” said Sir Lewis Pelly to
the Ameer’s Envoy, “instructs me to inform your Excellency plainly,
that the British Government neither recognizes, nor has recognized, the
obligation of these promises.” And the official journal called upon
India to rejoice, because one result of the conference had been the
cancelling of these “verbal promises and engagements,” which the
Government had found “very embarrassing.”

It is plain from the foregoing that Shere Ali was a doomed man
long before the appearance of a Russian Mission in his capital. We
did not declare war at once, simply because we were then in danger of
a war with Russia in Bulgaria. And the Government were still
possessed of sufficient prudence not to attempt an invasion of Afghanistan
simultaneously with a campaign on the Balkans. But the sore was
carefully kept open by “our attitude of isolation and scarcely veiled
hostility;” and if the Russian Embassy had not appeared in Kabul, some
other pretext for war would indubitably have been found. The
Government of India—or rather Lord Lytton—affected to be greatly
alarmed at the advent of this Russian Mission, but his subsequent proceedings
show that he seized upon the incident with greediness as
enabling him to carry out his long-meditated project for the destruction
of an old and faithful ally. A single fact will suffice to prove
this. What I have already related shows that, up to this time, the
Ameer Shere Ali had given us no cause of quarrel whatever. He had
been desirous, against the dictates of his own judgment, to agree to
what was asked of him rather than forfeit the friendship of the
English Government. The estrangement between him and ourselves
was the result of our policy—not his. Lord Lytton was solely and
wholly responsible for it. The Russian Embassy, as Lord Lytton
knew perfectly well, was due to no overtures made by Shere Ali to
the Russians in Central Asia, but to the silly exhibition of seven
thousand Sepoys at Malta, by means of which we had recently earned
the ridicule of Europe. Moreover, as the Treaty of Berlin was an
accomplished fact before the Russians had appeared in Kabul, their
arrival there was a matter of comparatively trifling significance. How,
then, did Lord Lytton act? He organized a Mission under the command
of Sir Neville Chamberlain to proceed to Kabul; and at the
same time directed our Vakeel, Gulam Hussein Khan, to go before it to
[pg 561]
Kabul, and obtain the permission of the Ameer for its entrance to his
territories. So far there is nothing to object to, but mark what
follows.

While yet Sir Neville Chamberlain with his Mission was at Peshawur,
Gulam Hussein Khan, from Kabul, reported to Sir Neville as follows:—”If
Mission will await Ameer’s permission, everything will be arranged,
God willing, in the best manner, and no room will be left for complaint
in the future…. Further, that if Mission starts on 18th, without
waiting for the Ameer’s permission, there would be no hope left for the
renewal of friendship or communication.”

These reports were received by Sir Neville Chamberlain on 19th
September, and on the same day the Viceroy ordered the Mission to
attempt to force its way through the Khyber Pass. All Europe knows
the sequel. The Afghan officer in charge of the fort at Ali Musjid
declined to let the Mission pass; but, while obeying his orders firmly,
behaved, as Major Cavagnari reported, “in a most courteous manner,
and very favourably impressed both Colonel Jenkins and myself.” And
then was telegraphed home the shameless fiction that he had threatened
to fire on Major Cavagnari, and that the majesty of the Empire had
been insulted.

It is hard to write with calmness when one has to speak of actions
like these. It is, I trust, impossible for any Englishman to read of
them without the keenest shame and remorse. What, however, we have
to consider at present is their effect upon the native mind. There is
not, we may be certain, a single native Court throughout India where
they have not been discussed again and again; and there is but one
conclusion which could be drawn from them. It is, that despite of all
we may say, we allow neither pledges, promises, nor treaties to stand in
our way, if we imagine that they are in opposition to the material
interests of the moment. There is not a native prince in India but
will have seen the fate of his descendants in the doom which has fallen
upon the unhappy Shere Ali. It is a fate which no loyalty can avert—which
no treaties are powerful enough to ward off. Shere Ali was loyal;
Shere Ali was fenced about by treaty upon treaty: he and his father
had been our friends and faithful allies for more than forty years; but
none the less, the English Government no sooner coveted his territory
than they determined upon his destruction. For eighteen months was
that Government engaged in secretly weaving the toils around its
victim, and when at last it struck, it struck with a calumny upon its
lips.

Think, again, of the anger and the bitterness awakened by this war
in the hearts of our Moslem subjects. A few months previously, the
English Government had made appeal to their sympathies on the
ground that it was upholding the integrity and independence of the
Sultan’s dominions. They now saw this very Government engaged in
the unprovoked invasion of an independent Muhammadan State. They
[pg 562]
made no concealment of their feelings; and when Major Cavagnari and
his companions were murdered at Kabul, the Moslems of Upper India
openly expressed their satisfaction. It is not too much to say, that if
Sir Salar Jung had not been ruling in Hyderabad, the outbreak at
Kabul would have been instantly followed by a similar outbreak in the
Deccan. Sir Richard Temple, writing from Hyderabad in 1867, thus
describes the state of feeling existing there:—

“This hostility” (i.e., to the English Government) “is even stronger in the
Muhammadan priesthood; with them it literally burns with an undying flame;
from what I know of Delhi in 1857-58, from what I am authentically informed
of in respect to Hyderabad at that time, I believe that not more fiercely does the
tiger hunger for his prey, than does the Mussulman fanatìc throughout India
thirst for the blood of the white infidel.”

Lord Lytton’s treatment of Shere Ali has been, as it were, the
pouring of oil upon this “undying flame.” Henceforth, it will burn
more fiercely than ever.

The Famine in the North-West Provinces.

I shall next proceed to show the manner in which Lord Lytton’s
internal administration of India was affected by his policy beyond the
frontier. As every one knows, there have been, of late years, a series of
terrible famines in different parts of India. The desolating effects of
these famines last for many years after the actual dearth has terminated.
Not only has the cattle been swept away, together with millions of the
agricultural population, but those who survive are without capital and
without physical strength. The consequence is that large tracts of
naturally productive land fall out of cultivation, and remain so for
considerable periods of time. There are, moreover, no poor-laws in India
for the relief of the starving and the destitute. The administration of
State relief, therefore, during such seasons of calamity, is a matter of
imperative necessity. In keeping its agriculturists alive, the State is
simply providing for its own solvency. It sacrifices for this purpose a
portion of the wealth it derives from the land, in order to save
the remainder. A combat with famine is to the State in India an
act as much demanded by obvious expediency, as in the interests of
humanity. This relief is afforded partly by remissions of revenue
throughout the stricken districts, and partly by the opening of public
works where the starving and destitute may find food and employment.
In the winter of 1877-78 a terrible famine fell upon the North-West
Provinces. The cultivated land in these provinces is mainly under two
descriptions of crops—the rain crops, and the cold weather crops. The
rain crops are sown towards the end of June, or shortly after the rains
have set in, and are reaped in October and November. From these
crops the people obtain the food on which they are to subsist during
the winter. In 1877 there was an almost total failure of rain in the
North-West Provinces, and the Lieutenant-Governor—Sir George
Couper—reported that the “greater part of the crops was irretrievably
[pg 563]
ruined by a scorching west wind that blew for three weeks.” The long
and severe winter of the North-West had to be faced by a population
destitute of food. Sir George Couper reports as follows to the Government
of India on the 11th October, 1877:—

“The Lieutenant-Governor is well aware of the straits to which the Government
of India is put at the present time for money, and it is with the utmost
reluctance that he makes a report which must temporarily add to their burdens.
But he sees no other course to adopt. If the village communities which form the
great mass of our revenue payers be pressed now, they will simply be ruined….
Cattle are reported to be dying or sold to the butchers in hundreds,
in consequence of the want of fodder, and this will add very materially to the
agricultural distress and difficulties if they are called on at once to meet their
State obligations.”

In making this appeal for a remission of revenue, Sir George Couper
was asking for no more than what had been granted by every
English Government since British rule was planted in India. But then
former Governments had not adopted a spirited frontier policy to which
reason, justice, and humanity had to be subordinated. This was what
Lord Lytton had done. The hunting to death of an old and faithful
ally was certain to prove a costly operation; and he would need for it
every farthing which could be wrung from the population of India.
Sir George Couper’s appeal was therefore rejected, and he was instructed
that these destitute creatures were to be compelled to meet their State
obligations at once, precisely as if there was no dearth in the land.
To this order Sir George Couper returned a long reply, from which we
quote the following remarkable paragraphs:—

“If the demand on the zemindars (landlords) is not suspended, the cultivators
can neither claim nor expect any relaxation of the demand for rent; if pressure
is put on the former, they in turn must and will put the screw on their tenants.
All through the dark months of August and September, zemindars were urged by
district officers to deal leniently with their tenants, and aid them by all means in
their power. Many nobly responded to the call, and it would be rather inconsistent
to subject them now to a pressure which may compel them to deal harshly
with their tenants. These remarks are offered in no captious spirit…. His
Honour trusts that the realizations will equal the expectations of the Government
of India, but if they are disappointed, his Excellency the Viceroy … may
rest assured that it will not be for want of effort or inclination to put the necessary
pressure on those who are liable for the demand.”

Is not this passing strange? Sir George knows that these people are
in a state of the direst distress; their cattle dying by hundreds, themselves
penniless and foodless; if this demand is made upon them, he has
reported that they will “simply be ruined;” but at the exhortations of
Lord Lytton he sets to work cheerfully. Neither inclination nor effort
shall be wanting in him to make the people experience to the full the
agony and the bitterness of famine. Thus it is that a prayerful
Viceroy, with the “valued assistance” of his colleagues, provides for
the “well-being of the millions committed to his fostering care.”

“I have tried,” writes one despairing district officer, “to stave off
collecting, but have received peremptory orders to begin. This will be
[pg 564]
the last straw on the back of the unfortunate zemindars…. A
more suicidal policy I cannot conceive. I have done what I could to
open the eyes of the Commissioners and the Lieutenant-Governor as to
the state of the place, but without avail. I have nothing to do but to
carry out the orders of Government, which means simply ruin.”
“The exaction of the land revenue in Budaon,” writes another, “and, I
believe, in other districts as well, involved a direct breach of faith with
the zemindars, which has had the very worst effect on the minds of the
native community…. The people are loud in their complaints of
the faithlessness of Government, and, to my mind, with ample reason.”

But the Government of India having decreed the collection of the
land revenue, were now compelled to justify their rapacity, by pretending
that there was no famine calling for a remission. The dearth
and the frightful mortality throughout the North-West Provinces were
to be preserved as a State secret like the negotiations with Shere Ali.
By this means it was hoped that the famine would work itself out, the
dead be decently interred out of human sight, and Lord Lytton obtain
the funds for his hunting expedition without an unpatriotic opposition
becoming cognizant of the facts either in India or in England. It is a
striking illustration of the enormous space which divides us from the
people of India, that such a scheme should have been thought practicable,
but stranger still—it was very near to success. An accident may
be said to have defeated it. During all that dreary winter famine was
busy devouring its victims by thousands. At the lowest computation
more than a quarter of a million perished of actual starvation. The
number would have to be doubled if it included all those who perished
of disease, the consequence of insufficient food and exposure to cold;
for, in the desperate endeavour to keep their cattle alive, the wretched
peasantry fed them on the straw which thatched their huts, and which
provided them with bedding. The winter was abnormally severe, and
without a roof above them or bedding beneath them, scantily clad and
poorly fed, multitudes perished of cold. The dying and the dead were
strewn along the cross-country roads. Scores of corpses were tumbled
into old wells, because the deaths were too numerous for the miserable
relatives to perform the usual funeral rites. Mothers sold their children
for a single scanty meal. Husbands flung their wives into ponds, to
escape the torment of seeing them perish by the lingering agonies of
hunger. Amid these scenes of death the Government of India kept its
serenity and cheerfulness unimpaired. The journals of the North-West
were persuaded into silence. Strict orders were given to civilians,
under no circumstances to countenance the pretence of the natives that
they were dying of hunger. One civilian, a Mr. MacMinn, unable to
endure the misery around him, opened a relief work at his own expense.
He was severely reprimanded, threatened with degradation, and ordered
to close the work immediately.

All this time, not a whisper of the tragedy that was being enacted
[pg 565]
in the North-West Provinces had reached Calcutta. The district officials
dared not communicate to the press what they knew, and in India
there are hardly any other means of obtaining information. But in
the month of February Mr. Knight, the proprietor of the Calcutta
Statesman, had occasion to visit Agra. He was astonished to find all
around him the indications of an appalling misery. He began to investigate
the matter, and gradually the truth revealed itself. A quarter
of a million of British subjects had perished of hunger, pursued even
to their graves by the pitiless exactions of the Government.

Mr. Knight made known in the columns of the Statesman what
he had seen, and what he had learned from others in the course of his
inquiries. The guilty consciences of those who were responsible for
this vast suffering smote them. Lord Lytton and Sir George Couper
felt that it was necessary to extinguish Mr. Knight—and that speedily.
Sir George Couper accordingly drew up a long Minute, vindicating himself
from the attacks of Mr. Knight; and this Minute was duly
acknowledged in laudatory terms by the Government of India. The
Viceroy in Council characterized the Minute as “a convincing statement
of facts,” and then added that the Government of India needed
no such statement to convince it that the “Lieutenant-Governor had
exercised forethought in his arrangements, and had shown humanity in
his orders throughout the recent crisis.” The mortality which Lord
Lytton “deplored” with “a deep and painful regret,” in so far “as it
was directly the result of famine, was caused rather by the unwillingness
of the people to leave their homes than by any want of forethought
on the part of the local government in providing works where they
might be relieved.” Lord Lytton “unhesitatingly accepted the statement
of the local government that no one who was willing to go to a
relief work need have died of famine, and it is satisfactorily shown in
his Honour’s Minute that the relief wage was ample.”

This eulogy on Sir George Couper and all his doings was published
on May 2, 1878, after Mr. Knight had begun publishing his revelations
in the Statesman. It is to be noted that neither Sir George Couper
nor the Government of India denies that the famine has been sore in
the land and the mortality excessive. But on February 28—two
months previously, and before Mr. Knight had commenced his inconvenient
disclosures—Sir George Couper reported to the Government
of India that “it may be questioned whether it will not be found
hereafter that the comparative immunity from cholera and fever
which, owing apparently to the drought, the Provinces have enjoyed
during the past year, will not compensate for the losses caused by
insufficient food and clothing, and make the mortality generally little,
if at all, higher than in ordinary years.” At the time when this
letter was written, the official mortuary returns showed that the
mortality in the North-West was seven and eight times in excess of
what it was in ordinary years. There can, therefore, be no question
[pg 566]
that the confession of that “terrible mortality” which Lord Lytton so
deeply “deplored,” was wrung from Sir George Couper by the publication
of Mr. Knight’s letters. But for them, the official record would
have stated that the “mortality was little, if at all, higher than in
ordinary years.” This record is sufficient proof that no adequate
arrangements were made to meet a calamity which, according to Sir
George Couper, did not exist—at least, not until Mr. Knight insisted
that it did. At the same time, it will be as well to give the proof of
this in detail, in order to show what the Government of India is capable
of saying.

In one of his letters to the Statesman, Mr. Knight averred
that there were “no relief works worthy of the name till about
January 20, and no works sufficient for the people’s need till the
middle of February.” Sir George Couper replies to this charge as
follows:—”The reports already submitted to the Government are, I
think, amply sufficient to acquit me of this charge…. In October,
Colonel Fraser was again deputed to visit the head-quarters of each
division, and, in consultation with the district officers, settle what works
should be undertaken to give employment to the poor when the inevitable
pressure began.” Here Sir George Couper affirms that so far
back as October he had foreseen the “inevitable pressure,” and made all
the necessary arrangements. Nevertheless we find him, so late as
November 23, reporting as follows to the Government of India:—

“Although the danger of widespread famine … has happily passed
away, it is a matter of extreme importance that well-considered projects for
great public works should be ready in case of future necessity…. Very
few projects of this character have been completed for these provinces, and the
Lieutenant-Governor thinks no time should be lost in preparing them….
There can be no doubt that the want of such projects would have been felt as a
most serious difficulty by this Government if relief works on a large scale had
been necessary in the present season.”

Thus, we find that up to the close of November no large relief works
had been sanctioned, because the “danger of widespread famine had
happily passed away.” Allowing for official delays, this would make
the date when “relief works worthy of the name” were opened tally
with the time stated by Mr. Knight—namely, January 20. What,
again, Sir George Couper could mean by reporting on November 23,
that “danger of widespread famine has happily passed away,” is perplexing,
for on November 26, or just three days subsequently, he writes
as follows:—

“It appears to his Honour that the Government of India fail to realize the
extent of the damage caused by the unparalleled failure of the rain this year….
The rain did not come until 6th October, by which time the greater
part of the crops was irretrievably ruined…. It is a mistake to suppose
that the autumn crop has escaped in the greater part of the Benares and
Allahabad divisions, and in the south-eastern districts of Oudh…. The
rice crops, which are largely grown in most of the districts in these divisions,
have almost entirely perished, and of other crops, the area sown is much less than
usual.”

[pg 567]

On October 11 Sir George Couper reported that if the land revenues
was exacted the village communities would be ruined. On November 26
he reported that the crops had been “irretrievably ruined.” Nevertheless,
on November 23, he reported that no large relief works had
been sanctioned because “the danger of widespread famine had passed
away.” It follows, from this last report, that for whatever other purpose
Colonel Fraser may have been deputed to visit the head-quarters of
each division, it was not to make satisfactory provision for a widespread
famine. No. As Sir George Couper was well aware at the
time he penned his reply to Mr. Knight, the object of Colonel Fraser’s
tour was precisely the opposite of this. These were the instructions
he was charged to enjoin upon civil officers and executive engineers:—

“Please discourage relief works in every possible way. It may be, however,
that when agricultural operations are over, some of the people may want work.
This, however, except on works for which there is budget provision, should only
be given if the collector is satisfied that without it the people would actually
starve. Mere distress is not a sufficient reason for opening a relief work. And if a
relief work be started, task-work should be rigorously exacted, and the people put
on the barest subsistence wage; so that we may be satisfied that if any other kind
of work were procurable elsewhere, they would resort to it.”

In accordance with the letter and spirit of these instructions the
famine-stricken multitudes were literally starved off such scanty works
as were open. The “barest subsistence wage” was fined down, smaller
and smaller, until the people abandoned the works in despair, and
returned to their villages to die. Nay, in some places, the public
works which had been duly sanctioned in the yearly budget were transformed
into relief works; and the labourers upon them, instead of
being paid at the ordinary market rates, were reduced to the “barest
subsistence wage, task-work being rigorously exacted.” A beneficent
but economical Government took advantage of the dire extremity to
which its subjects were reduced to reap this unexpected profit out of
their miseries. None the less, “the Viceroy in Council unhesitatingly
accepts the statement of the local government, that no one who was
willing to go to a relief work need have died of famine.”

The License Tax.

The foregoing is an illustration of the manner in which an Imperial
Viceroy secures “the progressive well-being of the multitudes committed
to his fostering care.” I purpose now to illustrate the manner in which
the same Imperial functionary deals with the finances “committed to
his fostering care.” The position of “isolation and scarcely veiled
hostility” which, without any provocation, Lord Lytton had assumed
towards the Ameer of Afghanistan rendered a war against that sovereign
a mere question of time and opportunity. Meanwhile, funds were
necessary for its prosecution in addition to those which had been
obtained from the starving population of the North-West. Accordingly,
in his Budget statement for 1878-79, Sir John Strachey
[pg 568]
announced that the Indian Government had arrived at the conclusion
that they ought to regard famines as normal occurrences for which
provision should be made in the budgets of each year. Famine
expenditure could not be estimated at a smaller sum than a million and
a half annually. This sum he now proposed to raise by means of a
License Tax on trades and dealings, to be levied throughout India, and
which, it was estimated, would yield £700,000. The remainder of the
sum required was to be obtained by a tax on the agricultural classes
in Northern India and Bengal alone. The peculiar incidence of
these taxes was justified on the ground that the classes taxed were
the same classes which, in periods of famine, had to be supported by
the State. It was therefore only just that they should provide the
fund which was to insure them against famine. This money was in
fact a sum raised for a special purpose, at the expense of certain classes,
for whose benefit it was to be exclusively applied. This was acknowledged
by Lord Lytton with his usual superabundance of emphasis:—

“The sole justification for the increased taxation which has just been imposed
upon the people of India, for the purpose of insuring this Empire against the worst
calamities of future famine … is the pledge we have given that a sum not
less than a million and a half sterling, which exceeds the amount of the additional
contributions obtained from the people for this purpose, shall be annually applied
to it. We have explained to the people of this country that the additional
revenue raised by the new taxes is required, not for luxuries, but the necessities
of the State; not for general purposes, but for the construction of a particular
class of public works; and we have pledged ourselves not to spend one rupee of
the special resources, thus created, upon works of a different character….
The pledges which my financial colleague was authorized to give, on behalf of
the Government, were explicit and full as regards these points…. For these
reasons, it is all the more binding on the honour of the Government to redeem
to the uttermost, without evasion or delay, those pledges, for the adequate redemption
of which the people of India have, and can have, no other guarantee than the good
faith of their rulers.”

The ink which recorded this solemn pledge was hardly dry before it
had been broken. The predetermined war with Shere Ali began in
the wanton manner I have told, and the question of cost was mentioned
in the Houses of Parliament. The British Imperialist glories in war
when the chances are all in his favour, but he has an invincible
objection to paying the costs of such transactions. And they are costly.
It was therefore very necessary so to arrange matters, that while the
glory of hunting an ally to death should be appropriated by British
Imperialism, the expenses of the chase should be defrayed by India.
Accordingly, towards the end of November, Lord Cranbrook informed
the House of Lords that India was in possession of a surplus more than
sufficient to defray the costs of the war:—

“I am bound to say, that after looking very carefully into the financial condition
of India, I believe it will not be necessary, at least in the initial steps, to call
on the revenues of England. I am in possession of facts which, I think, would
convince your Lordships that, without unduly pressing on the resources of India,
there will be no necessity to call on the English revenues—at least during the
present financial year. It was announced by my noble friend in another place the
[pg 569]
other night that, including the £1,500,000 of new taxes, the surplus of Indian
revenue will amount to £2,136,000.”

A fortnight later the “facts” of which Lord Cranbrook professed to be
in possession were discovered not to be facts, and the surplus was
reduced by Mr. Stanhope to a million and a half—in other words, to
exactly the sum which Lord Lytton had solemnly pledged his honour to
apply to no purpose except that of insuring India against the ravages of
famine. On the most elastic system of interpretation, the acquisition
of a fictitious “scientific frontier” cannot be made to appear as a
fulfilment of this pledge. However, on the faith of the surplus thus
created by Lord Cranbrook and Mr. Stanhope, Parliament voted that
the expenses of the Afghan war should be charged upon India. Mr.
Stanhope said,—” The surplus being of the amount he had mentioned,
it must be perfectly obvious that the Indian Government could pay the
whole cost of the war during the present year, without adding a shilling
to the taxation or the debt of the country.”

The intention here is sufficiently obvious. Lord Cranbrook and Mr.
Stanhope were quite prepared to disregard the pledges given to the
people of India, and apply the Famine Insurance Fund to an illegitimate
purpose. They had all the will to do this, but their desires were
frustrated by the fact that there was no such fund in existence. It
had already been spent and disappeared. Lord Lytton thus calmly
announces its extinction in the Budget resolution of March, 1879:—

“The insurance provided against future famines has virtually ceased to exist,
and the difficulties in the way of fiscal and commercial and administrative reform
have been greatly aggravated. Nor can it be in any way assumed that the evil
will not continue and go on increasing. Under such circumstances, it is
extremely difficult to follow any settled financial policy; for the Government
cannot even approximately tell what income will be required to meet the necessary
expenditure of the State…. For the present the Governor-General
in Council thinks it wise to abstain from imposing any fresh burdens on the
country, and to accept the temporary loss of the surplus by which it was hoped
that an insurance against famine had been provided.”

That is, that the Government of India having “pledged itself not to
spend one rupee of these special resources,” except “for the construction
of a particular class of public works”—having declared that “the sole
justification for the increased taxation” is that it should be devoted to a
particular end—no sooner gets the money into its possession than it
expends the entire sum on something else, and then “thinks it wise”
not to discuss the matter any further. The Government is very sorry;
it really wanted to make an Insurance Fund against famine; but it
finds that it “cannot even approximately tell what income will be
required to meet the necessary expenditure of the State.” Under such
circumstances the Government finds it extremely difficult to follow
“any settled financial policy,” except that of spending every shilling
which it can get possession of. Thus it is that an Imperial Government
“redeems to the uttermost” the honour of the British nation,
and strengthens the confidence of India in “the good faith of her
rulers.”

[pg 570]

The Cotton Duties.

I come, lastly, to the action of the Indian Government in respect to
the Cotton Duties. It is, I fancy, generally supposed in England that
the duty on imported cotton was designedly protective—i.e., that it had
from the beginning been imposed with the intention of favouring the
Indian manufacturer at the expense of Manchester. This is a mistake.
The duty was imposed at a time when there were no Indian manufactures
to compete with those from England, simply as a source of revenue.
In India there is a great difficulty in so arranging the incidence of
taxation that the well-to-do classes shall contribute their proper share
to the necessities of the State. A light duty on imported cotton—as
being the universally used material for dress—enabled the Government
to reach these classes in a manner that was effective without being
burdensome. Even now that mills are at work in India, by far the
larger part of these duties had nothing protective in their character,
because there is in India no manufacture of the finer sorts of cotton.
Whether, however, the duty was or was not protective in its character,
both the Indian Government and the House of Commons had repeatedly
given pledges that the duty should not be repealed until the Indian
finances were in a position to justify the loss of revenue thereby occasioned.
Lord Lytton, who throughout his viceroyalty has made a
point in all important matters of making a confession of political faith
exactly the opposite of his subsequent political action, expressed himself
on the subject of the Cotton Duties with his usual copiousness. In reply
to an address from the Calcutta Trades’ Association, shortly after his
arrival in India, he said:—

“I think that no one responsible for the financial administration of this Empire
would at present venture to make the smallest reduction in any of its limited
sources of income. Let me, however, take this opportunity of assuring you that,
so far as I am aware, the abolition or reduction of the Cotton Duties, at the cost of
adding one sixpence to the taxation of this country, has never been advocated,
or even contemplated by her Majesty’s Secretary of State for India…. It
is due to myself, and the confidence you express in my character, that I should
also assure you, on my own behalf, that nothing will ever induce me to tax the
people of India for any exclusive benefit to their English fellow-subjects.”

A short time previously he had told the Bombay Chamber of Commerce
that “he was of opinion that, with the exception of about forty
thousand pounds sterling, the duties were not protective, because Manchester
had no Indian competitors in finer manufactures. He thought
the £800,000 collected yearly as duty, on finer fabrics, a fair item of
revenue. With regard to the duty on coarse goods, he thought it
protective, because Bombay mills competed with Manchester; but he did
not see how it could be abolished, because it would lead to irregularities
in order to evade duty.”

These assurances were given in 1876. In 1879, when the finances
of India were in a state of almost hopeless embarrassment—when the
Famine Insurance Fund had been misappropriated in the way I have
related—when the Indian Government frankly acknowledged that it was
[pg 571]
beyond their power to estimate their future expenditure, even approximately,
the Indian Government deliberately sacrificed revenue to the
amount of £200,000 derived from this source. The motives which
persuaded them to this sacrifice may have been as pure as driven snow;
but with Lord Lytton’s assurances fresh in their memories, I need not
say that their motives were not so interpreted by those in India. There
the explanation given was this:—The war in Afghanistan, from which so
much had been expected, had resulted, not in success, but ignominious
failure. The Government had been compelled to patch up a peace
without a single element of permanence in it. Despite of the choral
odes which Ministers sang together on the occasion of this peace, it was
impossible that they could have been wholly blind to the real character
of the Treaty of Gundamuck. They felt that discovery could not be
long delayed, and, like the steward who had wasted his master’s goods,
they hastened to make themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.
While, therefore, the war was still nominally unfinished, they
sought to propitiate Manchester by throwing its merchants this sop of
£200,000. Like Canning’s famous policy of calling on the New World
to redress the balance of the Old, the prestige of Imperialism, damaged
by the failure in Afghanistan, was to be re-established in Manchester at
the expense of the Indian taxpayer.

If the Indian Government had any better reason than this for their
partial repeal of the Cotton Duties, it is a pity that they did not communicate
it to the world. The reason which they did condescend to
give was simply this—that the finances of the Empire were so heavily
embarrassed, and in such confusion, that it was a matter of no consequence
if they become still further involved to the extent of £200,000.
I give the actual words, that I may not be suspected of caricaturing the
Government:—

“The difficulties caused by the increased loss by exchange are great, but they
will not practically be aggravated to an appreciable extent by the loss of £200,000.
If the fresh fall in the exchange should prove to be temporary, such a loss will
possess slight importance. If, on the other hand, the loss by exchange does not
diminish … it will become necessary to take measures of a most serious
nature for the improvement of the financial position; but the retention of the
import duties on cotton goods will not thereby be rendered possible. On the
contrary, such retention will become more difficult than ever.”

According to the Government of India, it was the peculiarity of
these £200,000 to be simply an incumbrance, happen what might.
If the exchange did not fall, they were reduced to insignificance; if
it did fall, their retention became more difficult than ever. The reader
will not be surprised to learn that these enigmatic propositions were
not accepted in India as a sufficient justification of the act they were
supposed to explain.

Despotic as an Indian Viceroy is, there are even in India certain
Constitutional checks on his authority, as, for instance, the Members of
Council, the Vernacular and the English press. How was it, the
[pg 572]
reader may ask, that these constitutional checks were evaded; for it
cannot be that they all concurred in such a policy as I have described
in the foregoing pages? The principal means of evasion was secrecy.
The negotiations with Shere Ali were kept sedulously hidden from the
public knowledge, and their nature was only to be dimly inferred from
the devout and philanthropic orations of the Viceroy himself. The
same course was adopted with respect to the North-West famine; and
but for the accident of Mr. Knight’s visit to Agra, the truth would
have remained hidden to this day. But Lord Lytton did not trust to
secrecy alone. The vernacular press was gagged by a Press Act, which
was hurried through Council, and made a law in the course of a few
hours. The English press could not be gagged precisely in this
fashion, but it was very ingeniously drugged through the agency of a
curious functionary, styled the Press Commissioner. When Mr. Stanhope
was questioned in the House regarding the special duties of this
nondescript official, he replied that he had been appointed to superintend
the working of the Vernacular Press Act. Actually, he was in
operation for several months before that Act had come into existence,
and never has had any duties in connection with it. The Press Commissioner
is attached to the personal staff of the Viceroy, and may be
regarded as a kind of official bard, whose duty it is to chant the praises
of his master, and advertise his political wares. The description of Lord
Lytton as a “specially-gifted Viceroy” is believed in India to have
proceeded from the affectionate imagination of the Press Commissioner.
But, besides this, he is a channel of communication between the
Government of India and the Indian press. When he was first called
into existence, India was informed that a new era was about
to begin, in the relations between the press and the Government.
The Government, anxious that its policy should be fully discussed
by an intelligent press, had appointed a Press Commissioner, whose
duty it would be to keep editors supplied with accurate information,
from the very fountain-head, of all that Government was
doing, or intended to do. It is unnecessary to say that the Press
Commissioner has done nothing of the kind. The greater part of
the matter he communicates to the press is simply worthless,
and wholly devoid of interest to any sane person. If anything
of importance occurs which the Government desires to keep secret,
but which it fears will leak out, the Press Commissioner communicates
the matter to the editors “confidentially,” and then it is understood
that they are in honour bound not to allude to the subject
in their papers. At distant intervals, however, the Press Commissioner,
of necessity, allows some interesting scraps of information to escape
from him; and it is by means of these that the English press is
drugged. Any newspaper which offends the Government by criticism
of too harsh a character is liable to have the supply of such morsels
suspended until it gives evidence of amendment. And as there
[pg 573]
is in India, among the readers of newspapers, quite an insatiable
craving for these morsels of official gossip, it would be extremely
prejudicial to the circulation of a newspaper if they no longer
appeared in its columns. The vengeance of Lord Lytton and
the Press Commissioner has already fallen upon one journal. The
Calcutta Statesman, having poured ridicule on this Press Commissioner,
has been deprived of his ministrations. In brief, the Press
Commissionership is simply an agency for bribing the English Press,
which costs the Indian taxpayer the sum annually of £5000. But
the most effective check on the arbitrary authority of the Governor-General
is furnished by his Council. These are selected as men of
long Indian experience, in order to aid the Governor-General with
their advice and special knowledge. The last Governor-General who
set at nought the advice and remonstrances of his Council was Lord
Auckland, when he plunged into the disastrous war in Afghanistan.
Lord Lytton, who in other respects has so carefully trod in the footsteps
of his predecessor, did not fail to imitate him in this. His
frontier policy was carried out in spite of the opposition of the three
most experienced members of his Council; his repeal of the Cotton
Duties in the face of their unanimous opposition, with the single
exception of Sir John Strachey. Thus it is that, under Lord Lytton,
British rule in India has become a tawdry and fantastic system of personal
rule. It might perhaps do well enough if an Empire could be
governed by means of ceremonies, speeches, and elegantly written
despatches—”fables in prose,” they might very fitly be called. But
an Empire cannot be so governed, and the result of the experiment has
been an amount of human suffering appalling to contemplate. The
Indian air is “full of farewells for the dying and mournings for the
dead,” and the path of the Government can be traced in broken pledges
and dead men’s bones. These bones are as dragon’s teeth, which
Lord Lytton is sowing broadcast all over India and Afghanistan,
and they will assuredly be changed into armed men if the hand of the
sower be not promptly stayed.

“Nothing,” writes Sir Alexander Arbuthnot, one of the Indian Members of
Council, “would have induced me to have been a party to the imposition of
restrictions on the press, if I could have foreseen that within a year of the passing
of the Vernacular Press Act the Government of India would be embarked on
a course which, in my opinion, is as unwise and ill-timed as it is destructive of
the reputation for justice upon which the prestige and political supremacy of the
British Government in India so greatly depend. And here I must remark that
the slight value which in some influential quarters is now attached to the popularity
of our rule with our native subjects, has for some time past struck me as
a source of grave political danger. The British Empire in India was not established
by a policy of ignoring popular sentiment, and of stigmatizing all views and
opinions which are opposed to certain favourite theories, as the views and opinions
of foolish people. Nor will our rule be long maintained if such a policy is persisted
in.”

Robert D. Osborn.

[pg 574]

ON THE UTILITY TO FLOWERS OF THEIR BEAUTY.

T
HE question which I propose to consider in this paper is how far the
beauty of blossoms can be accounted for by the utility of this beauty
to the plant producing them. It is manifestly only one particular case
of a larger inquiry whether the beauty which Nature exhibits can be
accounted for by its utility.

These questions connect themselves with some of the highest points
of the philosophy of the universe. Is the system of the universe
intellectual, or is it purely material? Is there an ordering mind, or is
there merely blind and struggling matter? Are there final causes as
well as material causes, or are there material causes only?

These questions have been asked and answered in opposite senses,
from the first dawn of philosophy to the present hour; and during all
that period of time the battle has been raging—and has spread, too, over
the whole realm of Nature. Scarcely any branch of natural science
exists which has not furnished materials for at least a skirmish; so that
it requires an experienced and impartial eye to be able rightly to
understand the true fortunes of the contest over the whole field of
battle. True it is, that for every man the question between the two
theories has to be decided by somewhat simpler considerations than any
such survey. Something in every man seems inevitably to determine
him towards either the intellectual or the material theory of things.

The existence of beauty in the world is a very remarkable fact. On
the theory of a Divine and beneficent Creator, this fact has seemed no
difficulty; but the theory of a mere blind fermentation of matter gives
no account of it, except as a mere accident, which, on the doctrine of
chances, should be perhaps a very rare and unusual accident. Hence
the existence of beauty has from of old been a favourite theme of the
theistic believers. “Let them know how much better the Lord of them
[pg 575]
is,” says the author of the Wisdom of Solomon, speaking of the works of
Nature, “for the first Author of beauty hath created them … for by
the greatness and beauty of the creatures proportionably the Maker of
them is seen.”¹ The same familiar view has lately been presented by
the Duke of Argyll in his “Reign of Law”:²—

“It would be to doubt the evidence of our senses and of our reason, or else to
assume hypotheses of which there is no proof whatever, if we were to doubt that
mere ornament, mere variety, are as much an end and aim in the workshop of
Nature as they are known to be in the workshop of the goldsmith and the jeweller.
Why should they not? The love and desire of these is universal in the mind of
man. It is seen not more distinctly in the highest forms of civilized art than
in the habits of the rudest savage, who covers with elaborate carving the handle
of his war-club or the prow of his canoe. Is it likely that this universal aim and
purpose of the mind of man should be wholly without relation to the aims and
purposes of his Creator? He that formed the eye to see beauty, shall He not see it?
He that gave the human hand its cunning to work for beauty, shall His hand never
work for it? How, then, shall we account for all the beauty of the world—for
the careful provision made for it where it is only the secondary object, not the first?”

But even if beauty be always associated with utility and have in fact
been brought about by its utility, it may nevertheless have been an
object in the mind of a Divine artificer, who may have been minded
to use the one as a means and end to the other. We may therefore,
I think, approach the subject with a perfect freedom from any theological
bias.

The whole subject will, I believe, be felt by some persons to be a
piece of moonshine,—the whole discussion fit for cloudland, not for
this practical solid world of ours.

Beauty, such persons would say, is not a real thing, an objective fact:
it is a part of man, not of the world—it is in him who sees, not in the
thing seen: it is seen by one man in one thing—by another man in
another.

To this it seems a sufficient answer to say that the relation of any
one external thing to any one mind which produces the peculiar condition
which we call the perception of beauty, is a fact, and, like every
other single fact, must have an adequate cause. But when we find
that there are forms of beauty, such as the beauty of sunlight, which
operate alike on all men, and, it would seem, on all sensitive beings—when
we find that the brilliant flowers which attract the child in the
field or the lady in the drawing-room, attract the insect tribes—we feel
ourselves in the presence of a great body of persistent relations, which
it is impossible to pass over as unreal or as unimportant.

But, again, there is ugliness in the world; and one ugly thing, it is
suggested, destroys all your deductions from beauty. This, no doubt,
is a very important fact for any one to grapple with who proposes to
give any theoretical explanation of the presence of beauty in the
universe; but for me, who am only inquiring whether and how far
beauty is useful, it is not really material, because there can be no doubt
[pg 576]
that beauty, as well as ugliness, exists in the world. This much I will
say in passing, that, to my mind, the balance of things is in favour of
beauty and against ugliness—the tendency is in favour of beauty, not
ugliness, and that tendency may be a very important thing to think of.

Furthermore, the fact that we recognize ugliness seems to make our
recognition of beauty more important; for it shows that the perception
of beauty is not mere habit, and that we have an inward and independent
judgment on the matter—we are able to approve the one thing on
the score of beauty, and to reject the other as ugly.

Even allowing fully for the existence of ugliness, it must be conceded
that the world around us presents a vast mass of beauty—complex,
diverse, commingled, and not easily admitting of analysis. It is common
alike to the organic and the inorganic realms of Nature. The pageants
of the sky at morning, noon, and night, the forms of the trees, the
beauty of the flowers, the glory of the hills, the awful sublimity of the
stars—these, and a thousand things in Nature, fill the soul with a sense
of beauty, which the art neither of the poet, nor of the philosopher,
nor of the painter can come near to depict. We are moved and overcome,
sometimes by this object of beauty, sometimes by that, but yet
more by the complex mass of glory of the universe.

As yet no attempt has been made to show the utility of this promiscuous
and multitudinous crowd of beauties—and it seems not likely
that such an attempt can yet be made with success: and the phenomena
of Nature are therefore likely for a long time to come to impress most
men with the sense of beauty for beauty’s sake. But in respect of
certain particular and separable instances, the attempt has recently
been made to show that the beauty exhibited is useful to the structure
exhibiting it, and consequently that it may be accounted for by the
strictly utilitarian principle of the survival of the fittest,—one instance
in which this has been most notably attempted being in respect of the
beauty of flowers. Let us consider how far beauty can thus be
accounted for in this particular case.

There will be a great advantage in this course; for beauty is a
thing about which it is not very easy to argue: it is too subtle, too
evanescent, too disputable, to afford an easy material for the logical or
scientific crucible; and these difficulties we shall best surmount by in
the first place isolating certain beautiful things for our consideration,
and limiting to them our inquiry into how far each of the rival theories
is sufficient to explain their existence. We shall thus try to narrow
the great controversy to very definite and distinct issues.

[pg 577]

“Flowers,” says Mr. Darwin,³ “rank amongst the most beautiful productions of
Nature, and they have become, through natural selection, beautiful, or rather
conspicuous in contrast with the greenness of the leaves, that they might be easily
observed and visited by insects, so that their fertilization might be favoured. I
have come to this conclusion, from finding it an invariable rule that when a
flower is fertilized by the wind it never has a gaily-coloured corolla. Again,
several plants habitually produce two kinds of flowers: one kind open and coloured,
so as to attract insects; the other closed and not coloured, destitute of nectar,
and never visited by insects. We may safely conclude that, if insects had never
existed on the face of the earth, the vegetation would not have been decked with
beautiful flowers, but would have produced only such poor flowers as are now
borne by our firs, oaks, nut and ash trees, by the grasses, by spinach, docks,
and nettles.”

No one can doubt who watches a meadow on a summer’s day that
insects are attracted by the scent and the colours of the flowers. The
whole field is busy with their jubilant hum. These little creatures
have the same sense of beauty that we have. What room there is for
thought in that fact! There is a subtle bond of mental union between
ourselves and the creatures whom we so often despise. There is a joy
widespread and multiplied beyond our highest calculation. What a
deadly blow to that egotism of man which thinks of all beauty as made
for him alone!

But I return to the argument. We have presented to our notice
three kinds of attraction which operate upon insects—the conspicuousness
of colour and form, the beauty of the smell, and the pleasant taste
of the honey. No one, as I have said, who watches a meadow or a
garden on a summer’s day can for a moment doubt the operation of
these causes, or question the direct action of insects in producing the
fertilization of flowers. In that sense the beauty of a flower is clearly
of direct use to the flower which exhibits it. It is better for it that it
should be fertilized by insects than not fertilized at all; but is it better
for it to be fertilized by insects than by the wind, or by some other
agency, if such exist?

This shall be the subject of inquiry. But before we can answer it,
we must go a little afield and collect some other of the facts of the
case.

The conclusion that beauty is useful for the fertilization of the flower
does not rest merely on the general phenomena of a summer meadow.
It is confirmed by many other observations. Flowers are not merely
attractive in themselves; they are frequently rendered attractive by
their grouping. Sometimes flowers individually small are gathered into
heads, or spikes, or bunches, or umbels, and so produce a more conspicuous
effect than would result from a more equal distribution of the
flowers; sometimes yet more minute flowers or florets are gathered
together into what appears a single flower, and often have the outer
florets so modified both in shape and colour as to produce the general
effect of one very brilliant blossom, as in the daisy or the marigold.

[pg 578]

Sometimes the same result is produced by “the massing of small
flowers into dense cushions of bright colour.”⁴ This, as is well known,
is of common occurrence with Alpine flowers; and this mode of growth,
as well as the great size of many Alpine blossoms as compared with that
of the whole plant, and the great brilliance of Alpine plants as
compared with their congeners of the lowlands, have all been explained
by reference to the comparative rarity of insects in the Alpine heights,
and the consequent necessity, if the plants are to survive, that they
should offer strong attractions to their needful friends.⁵ A similar
explanation has been offered for the brilliant colours of Arctic flowers.⁶

Furthermore, this curious fact exists, that of flowering plants a large
number do not ripen or put forward their pistils and stamens at the
same periods of their growth: in some cases the pistil is ready to
receive the pollen whilst the anthers are immature and not ready to
supply it: such are called proterogynous. In other cases the anthers
are ripe before the pistil is ready to receive the pollen: these are
proterandrous. In either case the same event happens—that the
ovules can never be fertilized by the pollen of the same blossom, nor
without some foreign agency, generally that of insects.

Lastly, there is a large number of plants, including a great proportion
of those with unsymmetrical blossoms, of which the flowers have been
shown to be specially adapted by various mechanical contrivances for
insect agency. Nothing, as is well known, is more marvellous than the
variety and subtlety of the arrangements for the purpose which exist in
orchidaceous plants, as explained by the patience and genius of Mr. Darwin.

In view of these facts it would be impossible to deny that conspicuousness
is one of the agencies in force for the fertilization of
flowers; that, to use the recent language of Mr. Darwin, “flowers are
not only delightful for their beauty and fragrance, but display most
wonderful adaptations for various purposes.”⁷

So far we have considered the evidence which is affirmative, and in
favour of the explanation of the existence of beauty in flowers; we have
found clearly that beauty, or rather conspicuousness, is in many
cases useful to the plant. But beauty is by no means the only agency
in this necessary process. On the contrary, the agencies actually in
operation are very numerous.

As Mr. Darwin points out in the passage I have cited, and still more
at large in his work “On the Different Forms of Flowers,” a large proportion
of existing plants are fertilized by the action of the wind; and
again, many plants bear two kinds of flowers, the one conspicuous and
attractive to insects, the other inconspicuous and which never open to admit
the activity either of insects or of the wind. Moreover, there are various
other agencies called into play. Some plants, such as the Hypericum
[pg 579]
perforatum, one of the commonest of the St. John’s Worts, and probably
the bindweed, are, it seems, fertilized by the withering of the corolla,
which naturally brings the stamens into contact with the style, and so
transfers the pollen grains from the one to the other.⁸ Other plants,
again, such as the common centaury (Erythræa centaurium) and the
Chlora perfoliata, are fertilized by the closing of the corolla over the
anthers and stigma, not in the death but in the sleep of the plant.⁹ In
the brilliant autumnal Colchicum, and in the Sternbergia, again,
according
to Dr. Kerner, Nature has recourse to a more complex machinery: the
corolla first closes over the anthers, which are at a lower level than the
stigma, and takes off some of the pollen; a growth of the corolla
carries the pollen dust to the level of the stigma, and a second closing
of the corolla transfers the pollen to the stigmatic surface. The pollen
has been made to ascend to its proper place by an arrangement which
reminds one of the man-engine of a Cornish mine.¹⁰ A similar
arrangement is described as occurring in the bright-flowered
Pedicularis.¹¹

Let us take another group of beautiful flowers which adorn our
greenhouses and our tables: I mean the Asclepiadæ, to which the
Stephanotis and the Hoya belong. The former is distinguished by
the
beauty of its scent as well as of its flowers. Both present flowers not
merely conspicuous in themselves from their size, form, and colour, but
conspicuous also by reason of their grouping. Here, if anywhere, we
should expect that beauty should justify itself by its utility. But the
facts appear to be just the other way. The pollen is collected together
into waxy masses, which are arranged in a very peculiar manner on the
pistil; and the pollen tubes pass from the pollen grains whilst still
enclosed within the anthers, and so bring about fertilization without the
intervention of insect agency. It is difficult to suppose the Asclepiadæ
can have become beautiful for the sake of an agency of which they
never avail themselves.

Our common Fumitory has not very conspicuous flowers, but still
they have considerable attractiveness of form and still more of colour, due
both to the individual blossom and to their grouping together; and yet
Fumaria is said to be self-fertile.¹²

A much more brilliantly coloured member of the same family is the
Dicentra (Diclytra) spectabilis, so familiar in our gardens. Any one
who examines the flowers of this species will continually find the pollen
grains transferred to the stigma without the slightest trace of the
flower ever having opened so as to allow of insect agency. Dr. Lindley¹³
[pg 580]
has given an account of the mechanism for self-fertilization; and this
flower has recently been the subject of an elaborate study by the
German botanist, Hildebrand,¹⁴ and he concurs in the view that the
anthers inevitably communicate their pollen to the pistil, and that as the
result of a very complicated and subtle arrangement of the parts, which
it would be useless to attempt to describe without diagrams. But he
believes that in addition to the arrangements for self-fertilization,
another arrangement exists for producing cross-fertilization by insects;
but as the plant has never produced seed under his observation, he is
unable to tell whether one mode of fertilization is more useful than the
other. I think the evidence of the self-fertilization is far clearer than
that of the cross-fertilization.

Now, if the Dicentra has become beautiful in order to attract insects,
it must have done so through a long series of developments, for its
adaptation to their agency is of the most complex kind. It is difficult
to suppose either that, side by side with this development for
cross-fertilization,
there has been also developed another complex arrangement
for self-fertilization, or that an earlier complex arrangement for
self-fertilization
should have survived through the changes necessary to
render the flower fit for insect fertilization. The co-existence in one
organism of two complex schemes for different objects, and the interlacing
of those two schemes in one beautiful flower (which, if Hildebrand
be right, occurs in the Dicentra), seem to be things very improbable if
the beautiful flower has become what it is in the pursuit of one only of
those objects. These speculations may be premature as regards the
particular flower; but the co-existence of two modes of fertilization is
not peculiar to Dicentra and seems to furnish material for important
reflection.

Yet one more plant must be considered. The Loasa aurantiaca is a
creeper which grows freely in our gardens, and has large and brilliantly
coloured scarlet flowers turned up with yellow. Its seeds set freely in
cultivation. The means by which fertilization is effected are—unless
my observations have misled me—very peculiar. When the flower first
unfolds, the numerous stamens are found collected together in bundles
in depressions or folds of the petals; after a while the anthers begin to
move, and one after the other the stamens pass upwards from their nests
in the petals, and gather in a thick group round the style; subsequently
a downward and backward movement begins, which brings the anthers
against the pistils, and restores the stamens nearly to their old position,
but with exhausted and faded anthers. I have never seen any insects
at work on the flowers, and yet I find the plant to be a free
seeder.

So long ago as 1840 M. Fromond enumerated several conspicuous
flowers in which, according to his observations, fertilization was effected
[pg 581]
without the agency of either the wind or insects.¹⁵ And much more
recently an American writer, Mr. Meehan, has given a list of eleven
genera, amongst others, in which he has observed the pistils covered with
the pollen of the plant before the flower has opened, and in the one case
which he submitted to the microscope, it was found that the pollen
tubes were descending through the pistil towards the ovarium.¹⁶ Amongst
the genera he names were Westaria, Lathyras, Ballota,
Circes Genista,
Pisum, and Linaria.

The instances which I have given are mostly from plants familiar in
our fields, our gardens, or our greenhouses. They are, I think, sufficient
to make us pause before we conclude that all conspicuous flowers are
fertilized by insect agency. It may be that Bacon’s warning to attend
as carefully to negative as to affirmative instances has been a little
forgotten. Moreover, these instances seem to show that it would be a
great error to suppose that all flowers are fertilized either by insects or
by the wind; and it is probable that the more the subject is considered
the more complex will the arrangements for fertilization be found
to be.

The agencies to which I have last referred exist, it will be observed,
in beautiful and conspicuous flowers; and yet act independently of that
beauty and that conspicuousness: so that in each instance these facts
are, on the utilitarian theory, unexplained and residual phenomena.
They, therefore, demand earnest inquiry. For the existence of a single
residual phenomenon is notice to the inquirer that he has not got to the
bottom of his subject; that his theory is either not the truth or not the
whole truth.

Do the facts justify us in concluding that insect fertilization
is more beneficial to the plant than fertilization by the wind or
any other agency? Do they afford any sufficient cause for that
change from the one mode of fertilization to the other which has been
suggested? The facts bearing on these questions are very remarkable;
for, as we have already seen, many plants produce two kinds
of blossom, the one conspicuous and the other inconspicuous; the
one visited by insects, the other self-fertilizing. Recent observation
shows that these cleistogamous flowers, as they are called, are present
in a great variety of plants.¹⁷ In the violet they are found
to exist, being seen in the summer and autumn, when all the more
brilliant flowers have gone. The one flower has everything in its
favour—honey and a beauty of colour and of smell that has passed into
a proverb—and it opens its blue wings to the visits of the insect tribe in
the season of their utmost jollity and life. The other has everything
against it: it is inconspicuous, scentless, ugly, and closed. And yet,
[pg 582]
which succeeds the better? which produces the more seed? The
cleistogamous, and not the brilliant flowers: the victory is with ugliness,
and not with beauty.

The same is true of the Impatiens fulva. This is an American plant,
closely akin to the balsam of our gardens, which has now thoroughly
established itself on the banks of some of our rivers, as the Wey, and
the tributary stream that runs through Abinger and Shere. It has
attractive flowers hung on the daintiest flower-stalks. It has also little
green flowers that never open and almost escape attention; and yet
they, and not the large flowers, are the great source of seed vessels
to the plant—the great security that the life of the race will be
continued.¹⁸
Again, ugliness has borne away the palm of utility from beauty.

So, too, in America the same happens with the Specularia perfoliata:
in shady situations all its flowers are said to be cleistogamous, and to be
wonderfully productive and strong.¹⁹

The conditions of the problem in these cases are such as to make
them of the last importance in our inquiry into the utility of beauty;
for in each case we are comparing a conspicuous and an inconspicuous
flower in the very same plant. The conditions seem to exclude the
possibility of error in the result.

Two explanations have been suggested of the origin of these cleistogamous
flowers: according to the one, they are the earliest form of the
flowers; according to the other view, they are degraded forms of the
more beautiful flowers.²⁰ For our purpose, it is immaterial whether of
the two explanations is correct; for either the development of beauty has
diminished the utility of the flower, or the loss of beauty has increased the
utility: in either event, utility and beauty are dissociated the one from
the other.

Another experiment Nature presents us with, in which the conditions
are nearly, if not quite, as rigorously exclusive of error. The vast
majority of orchidaceous plants are, as already mentioned, dependent
on insect agency, for fertilization, and present a marvellous variety of
contrivances for effecting cross-fertilization through their activity.
But one of our orchids (the Bee orchis) is self-fertilized. I hardly
know anything in vegetable life more striking or beautiful than to
see its delicate pollinaria at a certain stage of its inflorescence
descending on to the stigmatic surface and so yielding their pollen
grains to the fertilization of their own blossom; and yet the Bee
orchis has been found by observers to be as free a seeder as any of
its tribe. Here the beauty and conspicuousness of the blossom, which are
very great, are, as far as can be seen, useless; the plant gains nothing
by the attractiveness which it offers, and the colouring and ornamentation
of the blossom are, on the theory of utility, residual phenomena.

[pg 583]

It is difficult to imagine that the change from wind or self-fertilization
can, so to speak, commend itself to the flower on the score either of
economy or success. If the anemophilous blossom must produce somewhat
more pollen than the entomophilous, it saves the great expenditure
of material and vital force requisite for the production of the large and
conspicuous corolla. The one is fertilized by every wind that blows; the
other, especially in the case of highly-specialized flowers like the
orchids, may be incapable of fertilization except by a very few insects.
The celebrated Madagascar orchid Angræcum can be fertilized, it is said,
only by a moth with a proboscis from ten to fourteen inches long—a
moth so rare or local that it is as yet known to naturalists only
by prophecy. It is difficult to suppose that it would be beneficial for
the plant’s chance of survival to exchange as the fertilizing agent the
universal wind for this most localized insect.

And here another line of evidence comes in and demands consideration.
The face of Nature, as we now see it, has not been always exhibited by
the world. The flora, like the fauna, of the world has changed: how
has it changed as regards the beauty of the flowers? Does it give any
testimony to that becoming beautiful of the flowers of plants to which
Mr. Darwin refers? The answer is not a very certain one, by
reason of the imperfection of the geological record, of the probability
that beautiful plants, if they had existed, and had been of a
delicate structure, would have perished and left no trace behind. But
so far as an answer can be given, it is in favour of the increase of floral
beauty in the vegetable world. The earliest flower known (the Pothocites
Grantonii) occurs in the coal measures; its flowers cannot have
been other than inconspicuous in themselves, though it is possible that
by grouping they were made more attractive to the eye; in the period
of the growth of the coal, when this plant lived, the vast forests seem
principally to have been composed of trees without conspicuous blossoms,
huge club mosses and marestails, and many conifers; in the earlier
periods of this earth we have no trace of conspicuous blossom, and it is
not till the upper chalk that the oaks and myrtles and Proteaceæ appear
as
denizens of the forests. In like manner, if we refer to the appearance
of insects on the earth, we have no clear trace in very early strata of
those classes of insects which now do the principal work of fertilization
for our conspicuous flowers. In the coal measures there have been
found insects of the scorpion, beetle, cockroach, grasshopper, ant, and
neuropterous families; but of a butterfly or moth there is only evidence
of great doubt. It seems probable, then, and one cannot say more, that
with the progress of the ages, flowers, as a whole, have become more
conspicuous and attractive. But if we inquire whether the dull flowers
of one era have grown into the conspicuous flowers of another, the
answer is negative. The conifers of the coal age were anemophilous
then, and are anemophilous still; they show no symptom of becoming
more conspicuous; the same is true of the oaks of the chalk period, and
[pg 584]
of all other inconspicuous plants. The difference between conspicuous
and inconspicuous flowers appears a permanent one; and the page of
geology gives no evidence in favour of the supposed change.

Another observation must yet be made. Comparing flowers fertilized
by insects and by the wind, it has never, so far as I can learn, been
observed that the former are more certain of being set or more prolific
than the latter; and, as already shown, the inconspicuous flowers are
often more fertile than the conspicuous ones. What motive would there
be, then, for the inconspicuous flowers of the early geologic periods to
convert themselves into the brilliant corollas of our day?

Carefully considered, the passage which I have cited from Mr. Darwin
does not account for the beauty of the flowers of plants at all; it
accounts only for their conspicuousness, as the writer himself points out;
and the two things are so different, that to account for the one is not
even to tend to account for the other. If any one will consider the
beauty of every inflorescence, whether conspicuous or not—a beauty
which the microscope always makes apparent where the unaided eye
fails to perceive it; or, again, the easily perceived beauty of many
inconspicuous plants; or, lastly, the beauty of many conspicuous plants
which does not tend to their conspicuousness—he will see how true
this is.

For in many conspicuous flowers there are delicate pencillings and
markings which certainly do not tend to make them such, but which
nevertheless add greatly to their beauty, as we perceive it. In the
regularly shaped flowers these markings often start from the centre of
the blossom like radii, and they may be conceived as guiding the insects
to the central store of honey. Such guidance can hardly be needful,
as the shape of the flower itself generally does all, and more than all,
that the markings can do in the way of guidance. But it is by no
means true that all the markings lead to the centre of the flower:
many are transverse; many are marginal; some are by way of spot.

Again, take the irregularly shaped flowers, which are supposed to be
the exclusive subjects of insect fertilization; how infinite are the
beauties of the flower over and above those which make it conspicuous,
or can assist to guide the insect. Take the orchids, for example: the
labellum is generally the landing-place of the insect visitors; but the
other flower-leaves are almost always the subjects of a vast display of
delicate beauty which cannot be accounted for by the necessity of
conspicuousness
or guidance. All this beauty is, on the theory in question,
an unexplained fact.

But, again, take the grasses, which depend for fertilization exclusively
on the wind, and have no need to woo the visits of the insects. The
beauty of the markings of the inflorescence of many of the grasses is
very great, though far from conspicuous: take the delicately banded
flowers of our quaking grasses; take the rich crimson of the foxtails;
take the brilliant yellow of the Canary Phaleris; and it is impossible to
[pg 585]
refuse the attribute of beauty in colour to the wind-loving grasses.
And all this beauty is unexplained on the theory in question.

It is impossible to speak of the grasses and not to have the mind
recalled to the beauty that resides in form as contrasted with colour.
Elegance, grace of form, characterizes most (but not all) plants, whether
fertilized by the wind or by insects; and yet this grace, in many cases,
perhaps in most, adds nothing to their conspicuousness. It is, on the
theory in question, a piece of idle beauty; and yet it is all-pervading—a
persistent, though not universal, characteristic of the vegetable world.

But to revert to conspicuousness. It is not true to say that all self-fertilized
plants have inconspicuous flowers. I have adduced the
Stephanotis and Hoya on this point. Nor is it true to say that all
anemophilous flowers are inconspicuous as compared with the green of
their leaves. The large but delicate yellow groups of the male flowers
of the Scotch pine (not to travel beyond very familiar plants) are very
conspicuous in the early summer—much more so, to my eye at least,
than many flowers which are supposed to stake their lives on attraction
by being conspicuous. Hermann Müller has observed on this same
fact, and considers it to be clear that the display of colour can be of no
use to the plant, and must therefore be regarded as “a merely accidental
phenomenon,”²¹—i.e., a phenomenon not accounted for by utility.

The crimson flowers of the larch, again, are certainly very conspicuous
as well as beautiful on the yet leafless boughs; and yet they
owe nothing to insects.

One other remark must be made on this passage from Mr. Darwin
which has formed my text. It does not pretend to account for the
production of beauty or even of conspicuousness. It only seeks to
account for the accumulation of that quality in certain plants, and its
comparative absence in others. The tendency in Nature to produce
beauty is a postulate in Mr. Darwin’s theory.

The beauty of mountain blossoms has been referred to as supporting
the utility of beauty: it is not perfectly clear that even this can be
accounted for merely by the need of attracting insects. It is said by
the American writer to whom I have already referred, Mr. Meehan,
that the flowers of the Rocky Mountains are beautifully coloured, produce
as much seed as similar ones elsewhere, and yet that there is a
remarkable scarcity of insect life—so great, I understand him to mean,
as to render it highly improbable that the races of the flowers can be
perpetuated by insect agency.

We have hitherto, according to promise, been considering the beauty
of flowers as detached from all surrounding facts, and isolated from all
other parts of the plant. But, in fact, this beauty of the inflorescence
of plants is only one phenomenon of a much larger class. The petals
and sepals are only leaves; and it is difficult to argue about the
character of the flower-leaves and omit from thought the stalk and root-leaves;
[pg 586]
and these leaves continually possess a wealth of beauty both of
form and colour for which no intelligible utility has ever been suggested.
The use made of conspicuous leaves in the modern style of bedding-out
and the cultivation in hot-houses of what are called foliage plants, will
recall this to every one. In many cases the stems of plants, often the
veins of the leaves, and often the backs of the leaves, are the homes of
distinct and beautiful colouring, for which, so far as I know, no account
can be given on the score of use. To enlarge our view yet a little
more, the brilliant colours of the fungi and of the lichens, mosses, and
sea-weeds, and, lastly, the outburst of varied colours in the autumn—the
crimson of the bramble, the browns of the oaks, the red of the maple,
the gold of the elm, “the sunshine of the withering fern”—all these
present themselves to us as so closely akin to the painted beauty of
flowers that we cannot think of the one without the other; and we may
well hesitate to accept as satisfactory a theory which can offer no explanation
of phenomena so closely akin to those of flowers, except,
forsooth, that they are merely accidental. Once again, to widen the
range of our mental vision, the beauty of the vegetable world is but a
part of that great and complex mass of beauty from which we agreed to
segregate it; and viewed as part of that, it must have the same explanation
applied to it as the other beautiful phenomena of the world.

It is worth while to remember that Beauty is no outcome of a long
period of evolution; it is no late event in the geologic history of the
world. The lowest forms of organic life no less than the highest are
clad in beauty. Many beings that are “simple structureless protoplasm”—to
use the language of Professor Allman as President of the British Association
this year—”fashion for themselves an outer membraneous or calcareous
case, often of symmetrical form and elaborate ornamentation,
or construct a silicious skeleton of radiating spicula or crystal-clear
concentric spheres of exquisite symmetry and beauty.”²²

So, too, in the Silurian period, the corals and other marine structures
were, no doubt, endowed with every grace which could please the eye
of man, if he had been there. Beauty is the invariable companion of
Nature. It is difficult, therefore, to account for it as a result of
evolution; and, as for the theory that it was made for man’s delectation
only, a single diatom or a single fossil from a Silurian bed is enough to
put the whole vain egotism to flight.

What are the results fairly deducible from these observations? They
seem to be the following:—

• 1. That conspicuousness is a step towards fertilization in one mode,
  and might, therefore, well be used by an artist loving at once beauty
  and fertility.
• 2. That there is no such preponderating advantage in beauty as
  should convert the ugly anemophilous flowers into the brilliant entomophilous
  flowers.
• [pg 587]3. That in an infinite number of cases beauty exists, but without any
  relation to the mode of fertilization.
• 4. That it is maintained in many cases where the uglier and less
  beautiful plant is more useful, as in the case of the violet.
• 5. That even where conspicuousness is useful, it furnishes no complete
  account of the whole beauty of the flower.

Let us apply these facts to the two rival theories. If, on the one
hand, nothing has become beautiful but through the utility of beauty,
beauty will be found where it is useful and nowhere else. But we have
found beauty without finding utility; so that theory, on our present
knowledge, is inadmissible.

If, on the other hand, there be an artificer in Nature who loves at
once utility and beauty, he may use the one sometimes as a mean to
the other, or he may use beauty without utility; and the presence of
beauty without utility is intelligible.

And here I conclude. I see in Nature both utility and beauty; but
I am not convinced that the one is solely dependent on the other. I
find a grace and a glory (even in the flowers of plants) which, on the
utilitarian theory, is not accounted for, is a residual phenomenon; and
that in such enormous proportions that the phenomenon explained
bears no perceptible proportion to the phenomenon left unexplained.
Whether this be so or not, it appears to me, for the reasons I have already
given, that we may still entertain the same notions about the beauty of
the world as before. Our souls may still rejoice in beauty as of old.
To some of us this glorious frame has not appeared a dead mechanic
mass, but a living whole, instinct with spiritual life; and in the beauty
which we see around us in Nature’s face, we have felt the smile of a
spiritual Being, as we feel the smile of our friend adding light and
lustre to his countenance. I still indulge this fancy, or, if you will,
this superstition. Still, as of old, I feel (to use the familiar language of
our great poet of Nature)—

¹  Wisdom, xiii. 3-5.

²  P. 200.

³  “Origin of Species” (4th Ed.), p. 239.

⁴  Wallace, “Tropical Nature,” p. 232.

⁵  Ibid. p. 232.

⁶  Ibid. p. 237.

⁷  “Flowers and their Unbidden Guests,” by Kerner, translated by Ogle. Prefatory
Letter.

⁸  Henslow, “On Self-Fertilization.” Trans. Linn. Society, 2nd series, “Botany,” i. p. 325.
Query: Is not this the case with the Tacsonia of our greenhouses?

⁹  Henslow, ubi sup. 329.

¹⁰  Kerner, p. 11. These statements appear to me, though made by a very accomplished
observer, to require verification. My own observations on the Colchicum (which have been only very imperfect) would have led me to incline to a different conclusion.

¹¹  Kerner, p. 12.

¹²  Lubbock’s “Wild Flowers in Relation to Insects,” p. 56.

¹³  Lindley, “Veg. King.” 436.

¹⁴  “Ueber die Bestaubungsvorrichtungen bei den Fumariaceen,” in Pringsheim’s “Jahrbuch,”
vol. vii. part iv. p. 423. 1870.

¹⁵  Link, “Report on Progress of Botany during 1841,” translated by Lankester (Ray
Society, 1845), p. 65.

¹⁶  Meehan, “On Fertilization by Insect Agency.” Gardeners’ Chronicle, 11 Sept. 1875.

¹⁷  For the whole subject of these most curious flowers, see Mr. Darwin’s book “On the
Different Forms of Flowers;” Rev. G. Henslow, Tr. Linn. Society, “Botany,” 2nd series, vol. i. p. 317; Mr. Bennett, Journal of Linn. Society, “Botany,” xiii. p. 147, xvii. p. 269.

¹⁸  Bennett, Journal of Linn. Society, “Botany,” xiii. p. 147.

¹⁹  Meehan, “On Fertilization,” ubi supra.

²⁰  Mr. Bennett, “On Cleistogamous Flowers,” Linn. Society’s Journal, “Botany,” xvii.
p. 278, has shown that the latter is probably the correct view.

²¹  Nature, ix. 461.

²²  Nature, xx. p. 386.

[pg 588]

WHERE ARE WE IN ART?

“N
O doubt education is a fine thing!” said I, meditatively, laying
down my thirteenth newspaper. It was a rainy November
day, and the reading-room was nearly empty. I had been told the
great fact over and over again in some form or other in all the
“Dailies” and “Weeklies.” It had been repeated in every variety of tone
in the little pile of “Monthlies” at my elbow, of which I had skimmed
the cream (no one in these days can be expected to go through the
labour of a whole article)! The “Quarterlies,” in more ponderous fashion,
had reiterated the sentiment. We had got hold of the right thing; all
that was wanted was more and more of the same. Let everybody be
served alike; what is meat for the gander is meat also for the goose,
repeated the advocates of women’s education, magniloquently (though
not exactly in those words). Let everybody learn the same thing that
I am learning! How much better and wiser we are than our forefathers!
How beautiful for us to be able to say, as in the old story
of the French Minister of Instruction when he pulls out his watch,
“It is ten o’clock; all the children in the schools in England are doing
their sums. It is half-past eleven, they are all writing their copies!”

“What everybody says must be true,” thought I; “the schoolmaster
has got the better of the world, and rules the roast despotically; but then
how great is the result!” I repeated, with pride.

Such perfection was rather oppressive, and I could not help yawning
a little as I went upstairs, looking round as I went. The decorations
of the club were wonderfully fine, no doubt, but perhaps an Italian of the
“Cinque-cento” would not have thought them quite successful. Probably,
however, he would have been wrong. He was certainly much less
“instructed” in art than we are. I strolled to the window, and looked
out at a stucco palace on either hand and over the way, with pillars
and pilasters added ad libitum, and a glimpse of a long wall with oblong
[pg 589]
openings cut in it, stretching the whole length of the street. One of
the abominable regiments of black statues which disfigure London stood
near the corner, the nicely-finished buttons of whose paletôt, and the
creases of whose boots (the originals of which must have been made by
Hoby), had often been my wonder, if not admiration.

“Yes, there certainly is a lost art or two, which have somehow made
their escape from this best of all worlds, in spite of our drilling and
double-distilled training,” I sighed.

There was a portfolio of photographs lying on the table, which
I turned over abstractedly. The Venus de Milo, and the Theseus of
the Parthenon; the Raphael frescoes of the great council of the gods
in the Farnesina Palace at Rome; a street in Venice; Durham Cathedral;
the decorations of the Certosa at Pavia; some specimens of old
Japanese porcelain; some coloured patterns of Persian shawls and
prayer-rugs and of Indian inlaid work. Each of them was good and
appropriate of its kind, expressing a national or individual taste
and feeling, or, best of all, a belief. And none of them were the
results of education, but of a kind of instinct of art which no instruction
hitherto has been able to give, of which it seems even sometimes
to deprive a race, as a savage generally loses his accurate perception of
details and his power of memory and artistic perceptions, with his
delicacy of hearing and smell, as a consequence of so-called civilization.

The Hindoo arranges colours for a fabric with the same certainty
of intuition that a bird weaves his nest, or a spider its web. His blues
and greens are as harmonious in their combinations as those of Nature
herself; while the “educated” Englishman is now introducing every
species of atrocity in form and colour wherever he goes, ruining the
beautiful native manufactures by instructions from his superior “standpoint;”
forcing the workers to commit every blunder which he does
himself at home, in order to adapt their fabrics to the abominable taste
of the middle classes in England. Even the missionaries, male and
female, cannot hold their hands, and teach the children in schools and
hareems crochet and cross-stitch of the worst designs and colours,
instead of the exquisite native embroidery of the past. Arsenic greens,
magenta and gas-tar dyes, are introduced by order of the merchants
into carpets and cashmere shawls; vile colours and forms in pottery
and bad lacquer-work are growing up, by command, in China and
Japan. There seems to be no check or stay to the irruption of bad
taste which is swamping the whole world by our influence. The
Japanese have even been recommended to make a Museum of their own
beautiful old productions quickly, or the very memory of their existence,
and of the manner in which they were made, would be lost.

It is commonly supposed that the taste of the French is better than
our own, and the pretty, the bizarre, the becoming, may indeed be said to
belong to their domain; but high art is not their vocation. A certain
harmony is obtained by quenching colour, as in the “Soupir étouffé,” the
[pg 590]
“Bismarck malade,” the “rose dégradée,” the “Celadon” of the Sèvres
china, all eighth and tenth degrees of dilution; but pure colour, like that
of Persia and of the East generally, they never now dare to dip their
hands into. The gorgeous effects of their own old painted glass, the
“rose windows” of the churches at Rouen and in many other towns
of Normandy, are far beyond their present reach.

The stained glass of all countries in Europe, indeed, belonging to the
good times, is a feast of colour which none of the modern work can
approach. There is a “Last Judgment,” said to be from designs by
Albert Dürer, which was taken in a sea-fight on its road to Spain, and
put up in a little church at Fairford, in Gloucestershire, which dazzles
us with its splendour; and the scraps which are still to be found
all over England in village churches (many of which are now believed
to be of home manufacture) are as beautiful as the great Flemish
windows thirty feet high. At the present day the pigments used, we
are told, are finer; the glass is infinitely better rolled, all the
manufacturing
processes have made wonderful progress, as we proudly declare;
only the results of it are utterly and simply detestable—the colours of
the great modern windows in Cologne Cathedral and Westminster
Abbey set one’s very teeth on edge—the temptation to use a stone (if
it had come under one’s hand) would be frightfully great in front of
that at the east end of Ripon.

There lies before me an old Persian rug, all out of shape and twisted
in the weaving, but full of subtle quantities in colour, perfect in the
proportions of its vivid brilliancy, and a grand new Axminster carpet
alongside, of faultless construction, with a design as hideous as its colours
are harsh.

It is not only now with productions destined for the English market,
but the degradation of art is beginning to spread all over the world—the
standards of “instructed” European taste are vitiating the very
well-springs of beautiful old work. The “mantilla” of Seville, and
the “tovaglia” of the Roman peasant, are supplanted by frightful bonnets;
the striking old costumes are disappearing alike in Brittany and in
Algiers; in Athens and in Turkey they are giving way to the abominations
of Parisian toilettes for the women, while the chimney-pot hat is
taking the place of the turban and the kalpac for the men.

The picturesque quaintness of the narrow Egyptian streets dies away,
as under a frost, under the hand of Western architects; the delicate
pierced woodwork of their projecting balconies is changed for flat windows
with red and green “jalousies;” and the Khedive builds minarets, it is
true, but like enlarged Mordan pencil-cases. The harmony of the lines
in an ancient Arabian fountain or mosque at Cairo, the interlacing
patterns of fretwork in the Saracenic buildings at Grenada, are marvellous
in their exquisite variety; yet the secret of their construction in
their own land is nearly gone, the very tradition of the old work seems
to have perished in the race—they cannot even imitate their own old
[pg 591]
creations. “Oh for a touch of a vanished hand!” we say over the
ruined tombs of the Memlook Sultans in their desolate beauty, standing
lonely in the desert near Cairo, or the wonderful mosques of the deserted
city of Beejapore in the Bombay Presidency, whose photographs have
lately been printed.

Each nation in the old time had an expression of its thoughts in the
buildings in which it housed its gods, its government, and its individuals,
which was as distinctive as its language: a tongue, indeed, in stone, in
colour and in form, as plain as, indeed plainer than, ever words could
frame.

The Egyptian, with the flat square lines of the gigantic slabs placed
across the forests of enormous rounded pillars closely packed, the
avenues of sphinxes and obelisks leading up (never at right angles,
curiously to our sense of conformity) to the temples—solemn, heavy,
magnificent, mysterious—with a sentiment of dignified repose, though
little of beauty or proportion, but full of symbolism and suggestion and
grandeur.

The exquisite Greek buildings, where proportion was almost like
music in its scientific harmony of parts, so exact, so modulated, so
severe, so lovely—with sculpture forming an almost necessary portion of
the architectural design when at its highest point of excellence.

The Saracenic, with its simple grace of construction and delicate
detail of ornament, with holy words and combinations of lines in place
of natural forms, and soaring beauty of domes, and pierced marble work.

The Middle Age Italian, with its inlaid and decorated façades and
wealth of columns, and traceries of gay-coloured stones, and contrasts
of brilliant light and dark shadows in the deep-set windows and doors,—bright
and lovely like Giotto’s Campanile at Florence, rising like a
flower over the city, or great churches like those of Orvieto and St.
Mark’s,¹ with their rich profusion of mosaic and carved stone and quaint
modifications of brickwork.

Or the buildings of the Gothic nations (our own included), which
often, like those at Mont St. Michel, seem to have so grown out of the
situation—where the Art is so interwoven with Nature, that it is hardly
possible to discover where one begins and the other ends. There is
something also of the manner in which Nature works, in the feeling with
which the curves interlace, seeming almost to grow into each other, in
a Gothic cathedral. In the perspectives of heavy round arches of Winchester
and Durham, in the upward soaring of the Salisbury spire,
there is the same impression—they seem to have “come” so. It is like a
living organism, the parts of which are as natural and necessary to the
whole as is the growth of a tree: like the recipe of old for a poet,
they seem to have been “born, not made.”

All these different races invented for themselves what is called a
[pg 592]
“style;” that is to say, an original manner, peculiar and adapted to
their special idiosyncrasies, of fulfilling those wants which every nation,
as soon as it emerges from the savage state, must feel and provide for
in some fashion.

Even to descend to very inferior work—there is character and expression
in the old King William houses on the river-bank at Chelsea,
in the pretty little Queen Anne Square in Westminster; it is too neat
and pretty to be high art, with its unobtrusive moulded brick, its
shallow projections, and the carved shells over the doorways; but it is
not unlike the poetry of Pope in the delicate finish and adaptation of its
parts, while no one can deny that it has an individuality which the
smart new houses in Grosvenor Place are totally without, where
costly granite and excellent stone seem to have been employed to show
the moral lesson that the best materials are of little service unless
mixed “with brains, sir,” as Opie advised. Every capital of the
columns is carved by hand, but of the poorest design and all alike—it is
hardly possible to conceive the poverty of invention involved in making
every house and every ornament an exact copy of its neighbour, in a
situation which invited picturesque treatment—after too, it had been
shown at the Oxford Museum that carving was done both quicker and
better when the workers exerted their minds in such inventions as they
possessed (and some of their renderings of natural forms were beautiful)
than when they merely followed a stereotyped pattern.

At present we can as soon invent a new style for ourselves as a new
animal; we copy, we combine—that is, under the Georgian era we added
a Mahometan cupola to Roman columns in the Regent’s Park; or, still
later, we made one pediment serve for the whole side of a Belgravian
square—i.e., a form intended for a nicely-calculated angle over the
front
of a temple with a particular number of columns, is stretched as on a
rack over the roofs of an acre of houses; or we build a portico designed
as a shelter against the cloudless sunshine of the Greek climate to
darken a sunless English dwelling-house. Our last achievement has
been to make a “pasticcio” of the high “mansarde” Parisian roofs,
with hideous little debased Italian porticoes, a quarter of a mile of
which may be seen in the Grosvenor Gardens district.

Also we can patch and imitate—that is, rebuild a sham antique—from
which, however ingeniously done, the ineffable charm of the
original has escaped like a gas. Why the portico of the capital at
Washington, or the monument on the Calton Hill at Edinburgh, whose
columns are said to be “an exact copy of those at Athens,” are so utterly
uninteresting, it would take too long to explain; but no one will deny
that they are mere lumps of dead stone, while the Parthenon itself,
ruined and defaced, wrecked and ill-used, still stands like a glorious
poem in marble, which no evil treatment can deprive of its charm.
There is mind and soul worked into the material, and somehow
inextricably entangled into it, which no copy, however exact, can in the
least reproduce.

[pg 593]

No doubt we have improved in our street architecture; there are
isolated specimens of red brick, a shop-front in South Audley Street,
and one in New Bond Street, several excellent buildings in the city,
&c, &c, legitimate adaptations of gables, dormers, and windows,
exceedingly good of their kind; but these are not original creations,
only developments of what already exists.

There is one point in which our present shallow, unintelligent education
has wrought irreparable mischief. We have learnt so much of
respect for art as to desire to preserve the works of our forefathers,
but not so far as to find out how this is to be done. We set to work to
“restore” them. Every inch of the surface of an old church is historical
as to the manner of the handiwork of the men of the twelfth, thirteenth,
or whatever may be the century, and we proceed to put a new face on it,
which, at the best, must certainly be that of the nineteenth century;
we find a defaced portrait statue on an altar-tomb (as in a church in
Devonshire), and we insert a smooth mask out of our own heads; we
find an Early English tower with walls fourteen feet thick, and think a
vestry would be “nicer” in its place, and the tower is therefore pulled
down and rebuilt at the other end of the nave (as in a church in Bucks);
or a curious monument to the fifth son of Edward III., or a couple
of kneeling figures, clad in ruffs and farthingales, of an old rector and
his wife, are within the communion rails (as in two other churches in
Bucks); the incumbents do not approve of tombs in such “sacred places,”
and, regardless of the curious historical fact shown by the very position
itself in pre-Reformation days, they are ruthlessly rooted up, and in
the latter case a flaming brass to the rector’s own family substituted.

Even a little art education would show us that this is not “restoration;”
it may be a much finer and smarter kind of work, as many
people seem to consider it; but the cutting down an inch of the splendid
carved stone porches at Chartres to a new surface is not “restoring”
that which was there before—the face of the fifteenth-century lady cannot
be “restored” without a portrait which no longer exists—the new tower
may be very “pretty,” but it is certainly no longer a specimen of rare
old Early English work. Like the monks of old carefully scratching their
invaluable parchment manuscripts, to put in their own words and notes,
we have at one fell swoop scratched the history of English ecclesiastical
art off the land, and archæologists are inquiring sadly for instances of
unrestored churches, which, alas! now are scarcely to be found.

What may be the reason why architecture, sculpture, painting, and
even poetry—i.e., the combination of stone, brick, marble, metal,
colours, and, lastly, of metrical forms of words—should all suffer by
the advance of our (so-called) civilization and education, is still a
mystery; but few will be found to doubt the fact in detail, though
they may deny the general formula.

Perhaps our self-consciousness as to our great virtues, our “progress,”
our knowledge, the learning of the reason of our work, the introversion
of our present moods of thought, check the development of an idea,
[pg 594]
even if we may be fortunate enough to get hold of one. Self-consciousness
is fatal to art; there is a certain spontaneity of utterance—singing,
as the birds sing, because they cannot help it—”composing,”
almost as the mountains and clouds “compose,” by reason of their
existence itself, not because they want to make a picture,—which produces
natural work, grown out of the man and the requirements of his
nature, to which it seems, with very rare exceptions, that we cannot
now attain.

In sculpture, a modern R.A. has acquired ten times as much anatomy
as Phidias: dissection was unknown, and not permitted, by the Greeks.
Chemistry has produced for the painter colours which Raphael (luckily
for us) never dreamed of. Yet one cannot help wondering at the
strange daring which permits the honourable society at Burlington
House to hang yearly the works of the ancient masters of the craft on
the same walls where their own productions are to figure a few weeks
later, as if to inform the world most impressively and depressingly from
how far we have fallen in pictorial art; to string up our taste, as it
were, to concert pitch—to give the key-note of true excellence, in order
to mark the depth to which we have sunk.

We now teach drawing diligently in all European countries, and are
surprised that we get no Michelangelos. Did Masaccio go to a school
of design, or Giotto learn “free-hand” manipulation? Education, as it
is generally defined—meaning thereby a knowledge of the accumulation
of facts discovered by other people—is good for the general public, for
ordinary humanity, but not for original minds, except so far as it saves
them time and trouble by preventing them from reinventing what has
been already done by others. True, there can be but few “inventors”
(in the old Italian sense of creators) in the world at any one moment,
and training must, it will be said, be carried on for the use of the many;
but one might still plead for a certain elasticity in our teaching, a
margin left for free-will among the few who will ever be able to use it.
And, meantime, it is allowable to lament over the number of arts we
have lost, or are in danger of losing, which can only be practised by
the few—whose number seems ever to be diminishing, under our generalizing
processes of turning out as many minds of the same pattern as
if we wanted nail-heads or patent screws by the million.

This is not education in its true and highest sense—i.e., the bringing
forth the best that is in a man; not simply putting knowledge into him,
but using the variety of gifts, which even the poorest in endowment
possess, to the best possible end. And this seems more and more difficult
as the stereotyped pattern is more and more enforced in board-schools,
endowed schools, public schools, universities; and each bit of plastic
material, while young, is forced as much as possible into the same
shape, the only contention being who shall have the construction of the
die which all alike are eager to apply to every individual of the nation.

Of all races which have yet existed there can be no doubt that the
[pg 595]
Greek was the one most highly endowed with artistic powers of all
kinds; yet the Greek was certainly not, in our sense of the term, an
educated man at all; his powers of every kind, however, were cultivated
indirectly by the very atmosphere he lived in. His sensitive
artistic nature found food in the forms and colours of the mountains
and the islands, the sea and the sky, by which he was surrounded; by
the human nature about him in its most perfect development; by every
building—his temples, his tombs, his theatres—every pot and pan he
used, every seat he sat upon; whereas no man’s eye can be other than
degraded by the unspeakable ugliness of an English manufacturing
town, or, what is almost worse, by the sham art where decoration of
any kind is invented or attempted by the richer middle class.

The theory that soil and climate and food produce instincts of beauty,
as well as varieties of beasts and plants, is, however, evidently at fault
in these questions; for if this were the case at one time in the world’s
history, why not at another? and the present inhabitants of Greece are
as inapt as their neighbours in sculpture, painting, and architecture.
Nothing, even out of the workshops of Birmingham, can exceed the
ugliness of their present productions—e.g., a Minerva’s head without a
forehead, done in bead-work on canvas, fastened on to a piece of white
marble, which was given as a precious parting gift from the goddess’s
own city to a valued friend. There seems now a headlong competition
in every country after bad art. If we ask for lace and embroidery in
the Greek islands, or silver fillagree in Norway,—if we inquire for
wood-carving
from Burmah, or the old shawls and pottery from Persia and
the East,—the answer is always the same: we are told that there is
“none such made at present.” It is only what remains of the old handmade
work that is to be obtained; the present inhabitants “care for
none of these things.” Sham jewellery from the “Palais Royal,” Manchester
goods, stamped leather, and the like, are what the natives are
seeking for themselves, while they get rid of “all those ugly old things”
to the first possible buyer for any price which they can fetch.

Manufacturing an article, (whatever be the real derivation of the
word, but) meaning the use of machinery for the multiplication of the
greatest number of articles at the least cost, however admirable for the
comfort of the million, is evidently fatal to art. When each bit of ironwork,
every hinge, every lock scutcheon, was hammered out with care
and consideration by the individual blacksmith, even if he were but an
indifferent performer, it bore the stamp of the thought of a man’s mind
directing his hand; now there is only the stamp of a machine running
the metal into a mould. When every bit of decorative wood-work was
“all made out of the carver’s brain,”—when the embroidery of the
holiday shirt of a boatman of “Chios’ rocky isle” took half a lifetime
to devise and stitch, and was intended to last for generations of wearers,
art found a way, however humble, through nimble fingers interpreting the
fancies of the individual brain. “Fancy work,” as an old Hampshire
[pg 596]
woman called her stitching of the fronts and backs of the old-fashioned
smock-frocks, each one differing from the one she made before, as her
“fancy” led. It was always interesting, and almost always beautiful.

Now the hinges are cast by the ton, all of one pattern; fortunate,
indeed, if the original be a good one (a very hopeful supposition!). The
sewing-machine repeats its monotonous curves of embroidery; the wood-carving
is the result of skilfully-arranged knives and wheels worked by
steam, which only execute forms adapted for them. The initial thought of
their designer must be, not what is in itself desirable, but that which
the machine can best produce. What is right in a particular place, is
the natural object of the workman artist; how to use what has been
already cast or stamped, is the object of the present ordinary builder;
and what he calls “symmetry”—i.e., monotony, every line repeated ad
nauseam—is the result his education aims at. Symmetry, in the sense
of the repetition of the infinite variety of exquisitely modulated curves
in the two outlines of the human body, is beautiful and harmonious; but
there is neither beauty nor harmony in the repetition of the self-same
horizontal and perpendicular lines of windows and doors in a London
street. A feeling of what in music are called “contrary motion,”
“oblique motion,” is all required in the impression produced by really
fine architecture. Yet, if the ordinary builder is asked to vary his hideous
row of houses by an additional window or a higher chimney, he exclaims
with horror at such a violation of “symmetry,” his sole rule of beauty
being that all should look alike.

The effect, indeed, of machine-made work is to impress upon the
tradesman mind the belief that perfection consists wholly in exact and
correct repetition of a pattern, which may be said to be true in his craft;
whereas constant variation and development is the law of healthy art,
the need being expressed by the design. To save the expense and
trouble of fresh drawings, also, as soon as a pattern becomes popular
in one material, it is immediately repeated ad nauseam in every other,
however incongruous. A bunch of fuchsias has been supposed to look well
in a lace curtain; it is then cast in brass for the end of a curtain-rod;
is used for wall-papers and stone-carving alike. Whereas if a Japanese
artist has designed a flight of cranes on his screen or his paper, it is
impossible to get another exactly the same; to reproduce a sketch
exactly being, generally, as every artist can tell, more laborious than to
make a new one, where the brain assists the fingers in their work.

There is another result of our present shallow “general” education
which has a most depressing effect upon art. Every one now can read
and write, and it would be considered an infringement of the right of
private judgment to doubt the ability of every writer or reader to
criticize any work of art whatsoever. In the case of buying a kitchen
range or a carriage we should not trust to our own knowledge, but
should apply to the experienced expert; but “every one can tell whether
he likes a picture or not!”

[pg 597]

Now, good criticism in art demands at least as long and severe an
apprenticeship as that in ironmongery—the training of the eye by long
experience, reading, historical, scientific, mechanical—real study of all
the various subjects connected with it; and this can be acquired only by
few. It has been said, with perfect truth, that it will not do to depend
on the fiat of artists themselves for the value of a picture, statue, or
building. With some, the admiration of the technical part of art is
too great; the passionate likes and dislikes for particular styles or
particular men warp the judgments of others; and this is, perhaps,
inherent in the artist nature. But this is only saying that we must not
go to the ironfounder for the character of his kitchen range; there are
other skilled opinions to be had besides those of the authors of a work.

At the present time, the art of criticism has got so far beyond our
powers of creation that it becomes more and more difficult to bring
forth a great work of art. The hatching of eggs requires a certain
genial warmth to bring them to perfection; creation is a vital act, but the
reception which any new-fledged production is likely to meet with is either
the scorching fire of fault-finding or the freezing cold of indifference.

It was not thus that great works of old were produced; Cimabue’s
picture of the Virgin was carried in a triumphal procession through
Florence, from the artist’s studio to the church which was to be
honoured by its possession. It was a worthy religious offering to the
goddess Mary, a subject of rejoicing to the whole city, and the quarter
of the town where it was first seen, amid cries of delight, was called the
“Borgo Allegri,” a name which it has kept six hundred years. And the
sympathy of the people reacted on the artist, and helped him to carry
out his great conceptions. They were proud of him, and he worked
at his picture as a labour of love to do his nation honour.

Now, when a man has spent perhaps years over a religious picture,
working with all his heart and soul and strength, instead of its being
taken into a church, and seen only with the associations for which it is
adapted, it is hung up between a smirking lady, clad in the last
abominations of the fashion, on one side, and a “horse and dog, the
property of Blank, Esq.,” on the other; while the artist is fortunate if
the best of the critics, who has just glanced at it as he passes by, does
not entirely ignore his meaning and mistake the expression of his idea,
only discovering that “the drawing of the toe of the left foot is
decidedly awkward.” So it may be, and there are probably faults in it
still more considerable; yet the picture, with all these faults, may be one
of great merit.

Is it possible to conceive the Madonna di San Sisto painted under
such conditions? The cold chill of the indifferent public would have
reacted on the artist, and quenched the fire of his inspiration. The
picture was intended to be the incarnation of the religious feeling of
the whole Christian world, in the divine expression of the infant
Christ gazing into futurity, with those rapt, far-seeing eyes,—in the holy
[pg 598]
mother, who carries him so reverently, yet with such power and purity
in her look and bearing. It was honoured sympathetically by all who
had the joy of seeing it borne as a banner through a great city as an
act of the highest worship; not cut up into little morsels and set on a
fork by every man who can write smart articles for a penny paper,
bestowing a little supercilious praise and much wholesome advice on
Holman Hunt and Tennyson, on Stevens² and Street alike.

But the result is that the world is poorer by the want of the work
which only a sense of sympathy between the artist and his public
inspires. “Action and reaction are equal,” we are told, in science,
and the artist cannot produce the best that is in him alone, any more
than the most finished musician can play on a dumb piano. The
receivers must do their share in the partnership. Mrs. Siddons once
said that she lost all her power when annihilated by the coldness of the
cream of the cream society of a salon, and preferred any marks of
emotion of an unsophisticated if intelligent audience, to the chill of
fashionable indifference; and when we complain of the poorness of our
art, we must remember for how large a share of this we, the present
public, are responsible. It may be all very well for the skylark to
“pour his strains of unpremeditated art” for his own pleasure and that
of the little skylarks; but Shelley must have had the hope that “the
world will listen then, as I am listening now.”

The poet and the painter require intelligent cordial belief and
sympathy, which is just what we have not to give, and therefore the
reign of the highest art is probably at an end: no Phidias or Michelangelo,
no Homer or Shakspeare, are likely again to arise. This is
pre-eminently a scientific age—a time for the collection and co-ordination
of facts; and what imagination we possess we use in the discovery
of the laws by which Nature works, and in the application of our knowledge
to the ordinary wants and comforts and pleasures of the human
race. Electric telegraphs, phonographs, photographs abound; every
possible adaptation of steam in majestic engines (almost, it seems, as
intelligent as man), to promote our means of communication and locomotion
over the surface of the earth, and of production in every conceivable
form; great ships and engines of destruction in war, and
(curious antithesis) ingenious contrivances for the saving of pain in
disease—everything, in short, connected with the comprehension and
subjugation of the material world, is more and more carried to perfection.
Yet in spite of these marvellous achievements, unless we can manage
to secure a supply of good art, there can be no doubt that there will
“have passed away a glory from the earth” which we can ill afford to lose.

There is no use in preaching what is called the common sense of the
matter, and telling Keats (though he may have died of consumption,
and not of the Edinburgh Review) that the critique on his poems was
[pg 599]
flippant and unintelligent; or one artist that the account of his picture
was written by a man who did not understand painting, and the next
by a writer who had no notion of the requisites of true poetry. The
artist is by necessity of his nature a thin-skinned, impressionable being,
with sensitive nerves and perceptions, without which the power of creation
does not exist. He writes and paints and acts and sculpts—in
short, composes, invents, creates—to make the world feel as he is feeling.
Fame is a vulgar word for the sentiment which inspires him; the longing
after sympathy is a much truer expression of what the true artist
desires. That of his own family and friends is not sufficient; he wants
the world at large to hear and understand and join in what he has to
say, whether it be in marble or on canvas, in music or in words.
To grow such a creature to perfection is very rare in the history of
mankind, and when our aloe does flower, we should make the most of
it, and feed it with food convenient. Our blame depresses him, even
stupid,³ unintelligent blame, more than our praise elevates him;
“he is absurdly sensitive,” says the hard-headed man of the world; but
that is the very condition of the problem with which we have to deal;
if he were not so, we should not have great works of art from him. He
is an idealist by nature. If we declare that it is very absurd of our
vines to require so much care and kindness, and that a little roughing
and neglect will do them a great deal of good, we shall not get many
grapes; and, after all, what we want is grapes—results, great artistic
works.

It is almost pathetic to see the nation doing the best it knows,
offering its patronage and its public buildings, its monuments of great
men and its money, and then to mark the results. It is fortunate
that most of the frescoes are scaling off the walls of the Houses of
Parliament. It is fortunate that Nelson and the Duke of York are
hoisted up so high that they cannot be scrutinized at all; it is fortunate
that most of the public statues are generally so begrimed with dirt
and soot that few can make out their intention. But it is we who are
responsible for half at least of their failures.⁴ We have, as a nation,
neither the artistic feeling which delights in the beautiful with a sort of
worship, nor the sensuous religious instincts which require an outward
and visible sign of our inward faith. Therefore our best chance of
great work seems to be when the common-sense necessity is so large in
its demands, that carrying it out even on merely utilitarian principles may
give a grand result by the force of circumstances, almost without our will,—the
very fulfilment of the working conditions on an enormous scale
forcing a certain grandeur on the work. As, for instance, when a
[pg 600]
viaduct is carried over a deep valley and river, upon a lofty series of
arches, as in many Welsh railways and at Newcastle, there are elements
of strength, durability, might, and therefore majesty, which the barest
execution of the requirements cannot take away. The Suspension Bridge
hung high in the air above the ships in the Menai Straits, and that over
the narrow hollow of the Avon, have a beauty of lightness and grace all
their own—Waterloo Bridge, which Canova declared to be worth coming
to England to see—are all specimens of a kind of work which we may
hope to see multiplied, and even improved upon, as the adaptation of art
to the common necessities of our civilization becomes more common,
and is taken in hand by a higher and more educated class of men.

Nothing, however, can well be more depressing than the experience of
the United States in respect to this question of art and education.
Here is a country (in their own magniloquent hyperbole) “bounded on
the north by the Aurora Borealis, and on the west by the setting sun,”
&c., &c., whose proud boast it is that every man, woman, and child (born
on its soil) can read, write, and something more,—which has just
celebrated its centenary of independent existence, and is in the very
spring-time of its national life when the “sap is rising,”—a season which
among other nations is that of their greatest artistic vigour, yet which has
never produced a poet, painter, sculptor,⁵ or architect above mediocrity.
Strangely as it would seem at first sight, it is originality which is chiefly
wanting in their art; it is all an echo of European models; they have no
independent action of thought or interpretation of Nature. Here, again, it is
probably the want of culture of the public which is to blame. Evidence is
difficult to obtain on such a vast subject as the use made of the reading
and writing so freely imparted at the schools in the United States, but
there is very good testimony showing that, with the exception of great
centres of civilization, like Boston, the nation, as a nation, reads little
but newspapers and story-books; and these clearly would produce a soil
utterly unfit for the growth of real art.

Lastly, let us not forget Mr. Mill’s warning how much the nation, as
well as the individual, must suffer by the stifling of original thought in
the rigid conformity to system which our present mechanism of
Government regulations, of centralized hard-and-fast rules, is bringing
about in education.

The State has a right to exact a certain amount of training in the
individuals who compose it, but has no right whatever to interfere as to
how that result is obtained. Every encouragement should be held out
to original action of all kinds, tending to develop the faculties—artistic,
scientific, as well as practical—which remain to be utilized among the
millions who are now coming under an influence hitherto painfully
narrow, rigid, and shallow in its operations, in spite of its magnificent
promises and high-sounding notes of self-satisfaction.

F. P. Verney.

¹  Now, alas! under sentence of “restoration;” the age of creation in Italy appears to
be over, and that of destruction to have begun.

²  The monument to the Duke of Wellington has never received its due meed of praise.
With all his faults, poor Stevens was a man of true genius.

³  “Quoique les applaudissemens que j’ai reçus m’aient beaucoup flatté, la moindre critique,
quelque mauvaise qu’elle eût été, m’a toujours causé plus de chagrin que toutes les
louanges ne m’aient fait de plaisir,” writes Racine to his son. He was silent for twelve years
after the “insuccès de Phêdre.” “Quoique le ‘Mercure Gallant’ était au dessous de rien,
les blessures qu’il fait n’en sont pas moins cruelles à la sensibilité d’un poëte,” adds the
Revue des Deux Mondes.

⁴  The group of “Asia,” by Foley, in Prince Albert’s Memorial, is one of the few exceptions
to the indifferent character of out-door statues in London.

⁵  Mr. Story may perhaps be considered an exception; but even the “Cleopatra,”
and “Sibyl” were produced under the influence of Rome.

[pg 601]

LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE FIFTY YEARS AGO.

I
T has often been said that the Turk never changes, that he is now
just what he was when he first appeared in Asia Minor. There
is very little truth in this observation, for in fact he is like other men,
and his character has been modified by the circumstances in which he
has been placed, as well as by constant intermarriage with other races.
He has changed in some respects for the better, and in others for the
worse. There is probably no important city in the world, unless it be
Cairo, which has been so radically changed during the last fifty years
as the capital of the Turkish Empire. The dress, the customs, the
people, the Government, have all been transformed under the influence
of European civilization; and these changes have exerted more or less
influence in all parts of the Empire.

In this impatient age, when men will hardly give a moment to the
consideration of anything but the future, and are always anxiously
waiting for to-morrow’s telegrams, it is easy to forget that we cannot
understand either the present or the future without constant reference
to the past. No one can fairly judge the Turks or the Christians of
this Empire, or form any idea of their probable destiny, who is not
acquainted with their condition fifty years ago, in the time of the last
of the Ottoman Sultans; and a brief sketch of Constantinople as it was
at that time cannot fail to suggest some interesting considerations to
those who are watching the course of events in the East. As contemporary
records are even more valuable than personal reminiscences, I
shall quote freely from the private journal of a late English resident,
who was a member of the Levant Company, and, after its dissolution,
for many years the leading English banker in Constantinople, with a
world-wide reputation for integrity, and in every way a perfect specimen
of an English gentleman of the old school. He came to Constantinople
[pg 602]
in 1823, and his journal was continued till 1827. It has never
been published.

The reigning Sultan was Mahmoud II., the Reformer, who came
to the throne in 1808, after the murder of Sultan Selim and the
execution of his brother Moustapha, and after narrowly escaping
death himself. The insurrection in Moldavia and Wallachia had been
put down in 1821, and Ali Pacha, the famous Albanian chief of
Janina, had been treacherously put to death in 1822; but the war of the
Greek Revolution was still in progress, and the battle of Navarino was
not fought until 1827. War was declared against Russia the same
year. Halet Pacha had been strangled in 1822, and Mohammed Selim
Pacha was Grand Vizier. Lord Strangford and Mr. Stratford Canning
(Lord Stratford) represented England at the Sublime Porte during this
period. The relation of the European Powers to the Sultan at this
time cannot be better illustrated than by the following account of the
reception of Mr. Stratford Canning in April, 1826. The ceremony
was not so humiliating as it was in 1621, when Sir Thomas Rowe made
such vigorous but unavailing attempts to have it modified; when the
Ambassador was forced down upon his knees, and compelled to kiss the
earth at the feet of the Sultan; when he was often beaten by the
Janissaries on leaving the palace; or, as in the case of the Ambassador
of Louis XIV., struck in the face by a soldier in the presence of the
Grand Vizier; but although there had been some ameliorations in the
ceremony, its significance was exactly the same in 1826 as in 1621,
and the same religious scruples were advanced as a reason why they
could not be modified in favour of Giaours by the Caliph of Islam.
They were all the more humiliating for those who submitted to them,
from the fact that there was one Power in Europe which had never
recognized them. Even as early as 1499 the Russian Ambassador
refused to submit to any such degradation. In 1514 a new Ambassador
was specially instructed “on no account to compromise his dignity,
or prostrate himself before the Sultan; to deliver his letters and presents
with his own hands, and not to inquire after his health unless he
first inquired after that of the Czar.” The Turks seem to have had an
instinctive fear of Russia even at that early day, when they were strong
and Russia was weak. But could Sultan Mahmoud have looked forward
twenty-five years, he would no doubt have treated Lord Stratford
with more respect and consideration. In 1826, however, the haughty
pride of the Caliph was unbroken, and he little thought that his descendants
would reign only by the favour of Europe.

“After having an audience of the Grand Vizier, the 10th was fixed
for the Ambassador’s audience of the Sultan, when he, accompanied by
all the English residents at Constantinople, left the Embassy in the
morning at a quarter before six, in procession, on horseback. At
Topkhana, about five minutes’ ride from the Embassy, we embarked in
boats and crossed the harbour to Stamboul. We found horses waiting
[pg 603]
for us, but stopped to take coffee, pipes, sherbet, and sweetmeats, with
the Tchaoush-bachi (a Marshal of the Palace), who preceded us to the
entrance of the Porte, where it is usual for Ambassadors to wait under
some large spreading trees until the Grand Vizier passes and precedes
them to the seraglio. Having entered the first gate, we passed through
a large open space, enclosed by low buildings, in which the Janissaries
were drawn up to the number of three thousand. We stopped on the
farther side of the second gate, in a large square chamber between the
second and third gates, within which is the cell where Grand Viziers
and other State prisoners under sentence of death are confined and
beheaded. After waiting here a quarter of an hour, permission was
sent for our entrance. We passed through the third gate into a large
garden, in which stood the divan chamber, and the front of the
seraglio, both very richly painted and gilt, with roofs projecting four or
five feet beyond the walls. As soon as we entered the garden, the
Janissaries all uttered a loud shout and began running as quick as they
could. This was for their pilaf, the distribution of which was a complete
scramble. This is a farce always played off on these occasions to
impress foreigners with a respect for this contemptible soldiery. We
then walked forward, for we had left our horses outside the second
gate, to the divan chamber, where the Grand Vizier was sitting in
state, immediately opposite the entrance, on the centre of a sofa, which
extended along the side of the chamber, covered with the richest silks,
at the further ends of which, on each side of him, sat the judges of
Anatolia and Roumelia. The chamber was small but richly decorated,
the ceiling being splendidly painted and gilt. We walked to one side
of the room without making any salutation, as no notice was taken of us.
After a time, a number of Turks entered and ranged themselves in two
rows before the judges, who went through the form of examining them
and deciding their suits. This was intended to impress us with a high
sense of their administration of justice. The payment of the Janissaries
is also generally appointed to take place at the audience of an
Ambassador, in whose presence are piled great bags of money, which
are delivered to the troops, in order to impress foreigners with an
exalted idea of Turkish opulence. This tedious ceremony lasted more
than three hours, but it was the last payment before the destruction of
that body. The Grand Vizier had in the meantime sent a letter to the
Sultan, stating in the usual form that a Giaour Ambassador had come
to prostrate himself at the feet of his sacred Majesty. The royal
answer came at length, enclosed in an envelope. When this was taken
off there appeared a quantity of muslin, in which the letter was
wrapped. The Grand Vizier, taking the letter, kissed it and applied it
to his forehead before he read it. The tenor of this letter was a command
to feed, wash, and clothe the Giaours, and bring them to
him.
After the Grand Vizier had read this, two tables were laid (i.e., two
large tin plates were laid upon reversed stools), one for the Vizier and
[pg 604]
the Ambassador, the other for the rest of us. Washing materials were
provided, and a collation served. All this time the Sultan was looking
at us through a latticed window. After this we went into the garden,
and pelisses were distributed. I was lucky enough to receive one.
The Ambassador, with those who had pelisses, amounting to twenty in
all, then followed the Grand Vizier and entered the palace. At the
door each of us was seized by two Capoudji-bachis, who held us by the
arms and half-carried us through an outer hall, in which was drawn up
a line, three deep, of white eunuchs. When we entered the throne-room,
we advanced bowing. The Sultan was sitting on a throne
superbly decorated. His turban was surmounted by a splendid diamond
aigrette and feather. His pelisse was of the finest silk, lined with the
most costly sable fur, and his girdle was one mass of diamonds. The
Ambassador recited his speech in English, which the interpreter translated,
and the Grand Vizier replied to it. This ceremony lasted ten
minutes, and we retired.”

This same Mr. Stratford Canning, who waited under a tree for the
Grand Vizier to pass, who had to sit three hours unnoticed while the
Janissaries were paid, who was a Giaour unfit to enter the sacred
presence of the Sultan until he had been fed by his bounty, washed, and
clothed, is still alive, and he remained in Constantinople long enough to
become the Great Elchi who practically governed the Empire and kept
the Sultan under his tutelage. It was an unhappy day for Turkey
when he was removed to please the Emperor of the French.

Only two months after this audience the Sultan accomplished his
long-cherished plan of destroying the Janissaries, as his Viceroy in
Egypt had fifteen years before destroyed the Mamelukes. It is not
easy at this day to realize how large a place this body filled in the life
of the people of Constantinople. We are accustomed to think of them
as soldiers, as they were in the early history of the Ottoman Turks, the
sad tribute of Christian children exacted by the Mohammedan conqueror
to extend the influence of Islam. But this terrible blood-tax ceased in
1675, and the Janissaries became a caste or a guild, entrance into
which was eagerly sought by the wealthiest Mohammedan families, and
the majority of them seldom did any military service. In the time of
Mahmoud II. they were at once a source of terror to the Sultan and to
the people of the country. They were above all law, and the lives and
property of the Christians especially were at their mercy. Those who
still remember those days can hardly speak of the Janissaries without a
shudder. They lived in constant fear of them; night and day, at any
hour, they might enter the house, strip it of its furniture, and torture
the family until every place of concealment was revealed and every
valuable given up. They were universally feared and hated, and it was
this fact which made it possible for the Sultan to destroy them. He
proceeded with caution, for he could not hope to destroy them by the
cruel and treacherous means adopted by the Pacha of Egypt. He
[pg 605]
obtained a Fetva from the Sheik-ul-Islam approving of the drafting of a
certain number of Janissaries into a new military force which was
organized on the principle of European armies. These men rebelled
against the strict discipline, and some of them were quietly strangled.
Finally, on the 14th of June, 1826, the whole body revolted, murdered
their officers, plundered the palace of the Grand Vizier, and prepared to
attack the Sultan next day if he did not yield to their demands.

“They displayed a spirit of determination which they never manifested
but in extreme cases. All their soup-kettles were solemnly
brought to the Atmeidan (Hippodrome) and inverted in the centre of
the area. Soon 20,000 men were assembled around them. The crisis
had now arrived which the Sultan both feared and wished for, and he
immediately availed himself of all those resources which he had
previously prepared for such an event. He first ordered the small
military force which he had organized to hold itself in readiness to act
at a moment’s notice. He then summoned a council, explained to them
the mutinous spirit and insubordination of the Janissaries, and declared
his intention of either ruling without their control, or passing over into
Asia, and leaving Constantinople and European Turkey to their mercy.
He proposed to them to raise the sacred standard of Mahomet, and
summon all good Mussulmans to rally around it. This proposal met
with unanimous applause. The sacred relic had not been seen in Constantinople
for fifty years before. It was now taken from the Imperial
Treasury to the Mosque of Sultan Achmet. The Ulema and the Softas
walked before, and the Sultan with all his Court followed it. Public
criers spread the solemn news all over the city. No sooner was it
announced than thousands rushed from their homes and joined the
procession with fiercest enthusiasm. When they entered the mosque,
the Mufti planted the standard on the pulpit, and the Sultan, as
Caliph, pronounced an anathema against all who should refuse to
range themselves under it. Just at this time the artillery arrived
under the walls of the seraglio. The marines and gardeners joined it.
Four officers of rank were then sent to offer a pardon to the Janissaries
if they would desist from their demands and disperse. The experience
of centuries had taught them that they had only to persist in their
demands to have them conceded. In this conviction, they at once
murdered the four officers who had proposed submission to them.
This was done in sight of the mosque. They then peremptorily
demanded that the Sultan should for ever renounce his plan of innovation,
and that the heads of the principal officers of Government should
be sent to them. The Sultan then demanded and received from the
Sheik-ul-Islam a Fetva authorizing him to put down the rebellion. It
was now twelve o’clock, and a large force of the new troops had been
collected who could be relied upon. Orders were given to attack the
Janissaries. The Agha Pacha surrounded the Atmeidan, where they
were tumultuously assembled with no apprehension of such a measure,
[pg 606]
and the first intimation that many of them had of their situation was
a murderous discharge of grape-shot from the cannon of the Topdjis.
This continued some time, and vast numbers were killed on the spot.
The survivors retired to their barracks on one side of the square. Here
they barricaded themselves, and to dislodge them the building was set
on fire. The flames were soon seen from Pera, bursting out in different
places. The discharge of artillery continued without intermission; as it
was determined to exterminate them utterly, no quarter was given, and
the conflagration and fire of the cannon continued until night. The
Janissaries, notwithstanding the surprise and their comparatively unprepared
state, defended themselves with desperate fierceness and
intrepidity. The troops suffered severely, and the Agha Pacha was
wounded. Opposition ceased only when no one was left alive to make
it. The firing ceased, the flames died out, and the next morning
presented a frightful scene of burning ruins slaked in blood, a huge
mass of mangled flesh and smoking ashes.

“During the next two days the gates continued closed, with the
exception of one to admit faithful Mussulmans from the country to pay
their devotion to the sacred standard. The Janissaries who had escaped
the slaughter of the Atmeidan were thus shut in, and unremittingly
hunted down and destroyed, so that the streets and barracks were full of
dead bodies. During these two days no Christian was allowed, under
any pretence, to pass over to Stamboul; but, though the two places are
separated only by a narrow channel, the most perfect tranquillity reigned
in Pera. The people would have known nothing of the tremendous
convulsion on the other side if it had not been for the blaze of the fire
and the report of cannon. On the fourth day I went, from curiosity,
under the charge of a high Turk, to see how matters were going on, and
was pleased at the appearance of the splendid encampment of the Grand
Vizier, which was found at the Porte, and was at the same time the chief
tribunal for the condemnation of the Janissaries, who were constantly
being brought in, and, after undergoing a nominal trial of a few seconds,
were taken to the front of the gate and beheaded; but the numbers so
taken off, though amounting in this one place from 300 to 500 daily, were
but few in comparison with those who were strangled privately at night
on the Bosphorus. The Agha Pacha had his camp at the old palace,
and was employed there in the same work. Carts and other machines
were constantly employed in conveying the bodies to the sea. These
executions continued for several months. The whole number destroyed
at this time was 25,000: 40,000 more were banished to the interior of
Asia, many of whom never reached their destination.”

This account differs materially from that given by Creasy, on the
authority of Ranke; but the author was a resident in Constantinople at
the time, and in a position to know the facts as well as any Christian
in the city. There are also inherent improbabilities in Creasy’s account.
The Sultan no doubt avoided, in appearance, the treachery of the Pacha
[pg 607]
of Egypt, but in substance the destruction of the Janissaries was accomplished
in much the same way as the massacre of the Mamelukes. But
whatever may be thought of the wisdom or the morality of this wholesale
slaughter, it was as great a relief to the Christian population as it
was to the Sultan himself, and it changed the whole spirit of life in
Constantinople. The destruction of the Janissaries was followed by a
violent persecution of the sect of Bektachi dervishes, whose founder,
Hadji Bektach, had consecrated the first recruits. This was a powerful
order, and possessed of immense wealth and influence; but its members
were killed or exiled, and its tékés demolished. It is not easy, however,
to destroy a religious sect, with a secret organization; and the Bektachis
are almost as numerous and powerful to-day as they were fifty years ago,
especially in Albania. They are not true Mussulmans, but are generally
liberal, enlightened, and inclined to cultivate friendly relations with the
Christians. They are frequently attacked by the Turkish newspapers as
heretics, but they occupy many important positions in the Government.
The famous Mahmoud Neddim Pacha belongs to this sect. Sultan
Mahmoud probably attacked these dervishes, not so much because he
feared them, as to prove himself a devoted Mohammedan, and to conciliate
the fanatics who were indignant at the slaughter of so many true
believers. He soon afterwards issued a Hatt proclaiming his devotion to
Islam, and ordering the authorities to inflict the severest punishment
upon any Mussulman who should neglect his religious duties.

The discussion on the Greek question which has been going on since
the war adds new interest to those scenes of the Greek Revolution
which fifty years ago aroused the sympathy of the world for a long-forgotten
nation, and resulted in the creation of the little kingdom of
Greece which now seeks an extension of her territory. The condition
of the Greeks in Constantinople during the war was melancholy enough.
It was all in vain that the Patriarch proclaimed their entire and absolute
devotion to the Sultan, just as the Fanariote Greeks are doing to-day.
It was in vain that he solemnly excommunicated and anathematized
all who took part in the revolution. He was hung at the door of
his church, and his body given to the Jews to be dragged about the
streets of the city. All the prominent Greeks here were put to death,
and all Mohammedans, even children, were ordered to arm themselves
and destroy the Greeks whenever they could be found. All who could
escape from the capital did so, and many were conveyed in foreign ships
to Russia.

“Many of those who remained were protected and concealed in
European houses. The property and the lives of the others were
entirely at the mercy of the Government and the populace, and the
distressing scenes which in consequence daily occurred in the streets are
not easily described. Notwithstanding this disagreeable state of things,
the Europeans enjoyed perfect security. The escapes from death which
some of the rich Greeks had during this period were very extraordinary,
[pg 608]
and none more so than that of Signor Stephano Ralli, a rich merchant
of Scio, who, with nine others, was sent at the commencement of the
revolution to Constantinople, as a hostage for the peaceable conduct of
the inhabitants of that island, when the Samiotes, soon after landing
and butchering the few Turks on the island, so exasperated the Turkish
Government that they immediately beheaded all the hostages except
Signor Ralli, who found sufficient interest with one of the Ministers to
escape. He was, however, immediately made a hostage for the tranquillity
of Smyrna, and was again, by his acquaintance with and large
bribes to the executioner, the only one who escaped death. When the
disturbances commenced at the capital, in order to strike terror into
the minds of the Greeks, twenty-four of the richest merchants were
destined to be seized and executed, and the presence of Signor Ralli
was demanded with the rest at the Porte. But, suspecting the consequence
of such attendance, he cunningly informed the guard who found
him that his master was at the next house, and that he would immediately
send him in. Signor Ralli, then leaving the room, sent in
his own servant, who was at once seized, conveyed to the Porte, and
without further question executed in place of his master. Signor Ralli
was then concealed in the house of an Englishman. He was found and
arrested again in 1827, and again escaped with the loss of half his property;
but this had such an effect upon his constitution that he died soon after.”

The Bulgarian massacres which excited the indignation of the world
a few years ago were insignificant in comparison with the terrible
slaughter of the Greeks which went on for years in all parts of the
Empire. Their effect upon public opinion in Europe was greater and
more immediate, chiefly because Turkey was no longer a really independent
Power, but was committing these atrocities under the protection
of Europe, and especially of England. Fifty years ago the Sultan
was responsible for his acts only to his own people; but even then
Christian Europe was finally roused to put an end to these barbarities,
and the battle of Navarino, October 20th, 1827, was the result. In
justice to Sultan Mahmoud, however, it should be said that some of his
most ferocious acts were not committed without great provocation on the
part of the Greeks, who manifested equal ferocity when the opportunity
offered. The news of the battle of Navarino roused the Sultan to proclaim
a holy war.

“The design of the Giaours,” he said in his proclamation, “is to destroy
Islamism, and tread under foot the Mussulman nation. Let
all the faithful, rich and poor, great and small, know that war is a
duty for all. Let no one dream of receiving any pay. Far from this,
we ought to sacrifice our persons and our property, and fulfil with zeal
the duty which is imposed upon us by the honour of Islam. We must
unite our efforts, give ourselves, body and soul, to defend our faith, even
to the day of judgment. Mussulmans have no other means of obtaining
safety in this world or the next.”

[pg 609]

This holy war resulted in nothing better than the independence of
Greece and the treaty of Adrianople. It was just at this period that
Lord Beaconsfield spent a winter at Constantinople; but, as far as is
known, his visit had no political object or influence.

The Greeks were not the only Christians who suffered at this time.
The Catholic Armenians were persecuted with almost equal ferocity,
although their only offence was that a number of them had left Turkey
and settled in Russia under Russian protection. Irritated by this
demonstration of attachment to the Czar, the Sultan expelled the whole
sect from Constantinople, to the number of 27,000. They were allowed
only ten days for preparation, and were then driven off en masse into
Asia Minor. They were mostly wealthy families, living in luxury, and
their sufferings were so great that but few lived to reach the place of
exile. They perished at sea, died of hunger on the roads, and froze to
death in the snow on the mountains. It was not a pleasant thing in
those days to be a Christian subject of the Sultan, even when that
Sultan was Mahmoud, the great Reformer.

Next to the Janissaries, the thing best remembered by the people of
Constantinople is the plague. It seems to have been regularly
domiciled here, and people made provision for it in all their domestic
arrangements. It was only at certain times, when it raged with terrible
severity, that it excited general alarm. It of course occupies a large
place in the private journal from which I have already quoted; and all
Europe has so recently been frightened out of its good sense by a rumour
of its existence in Russia, that it is well to see how coolly a man can
write about it who lived in the midst of it, and who is devoutly thankful
that it is the plague, and not the cholera or the yellow fever, to
which he is exposed.

“The plague is a disease communicating itself chiefly, if not solely,
by contact. Hence, though it encircle the house, it will not affect the
persons within if all are uniformly discreet and provident. Iron, it is
observed, and like substances of a close, hard nature, do not retain and
are not susceptible of the contagion. In bodies soft or porous, and
especially in paper, it lurks often undiscovered but by its seizing some
victim. The preservatives are fumigations, and washing with water and
vinegar. Meat and vegetables are washed in water, and all paper is
fumigated. The disease is usually observed to break out after times of
famine, and it is a well-known fact that those are most subject to it who
live badly and whose blood is in a low and impoverished state, for
which reason it may be considered rather a disease of the poor than the
rich. The Turks are the greatest victims, on account of their religious
tenets and their abstinence from wine, although it is very rare to
hear of a rich Turk who dies of it, for many of these drink wine and
spirit secretly, and live upon substantial and nutritious food. The
Greeks are more cautious than the Turks, but die in great numbers,
which may be attributed to their numerous fasts, which they observe for
[pg 610]
at least half of the year, and during these they live on bad and unwholesome
food. The first symptoms are debility, sickness at the
stomach, shivering, followed by great heat, violent pains in the head,
giddiness, and delirium. In a more advanced stage, the disease shows
itself in dark-coloured spots, and sometimes in tumours on the glandular
parts, which often suppurate and break, and then the patient
escapes. A few days brings this dreadful malady to a crisis after the
spots have appeared.

“There is a contradiction in this disorder, difficult to account for; so
easy to catch that a bit of wood or cotton can retain it for years, and
convey it with all its horrible symptoms. On the contrary, some are
proof against the most violent contagion. The wife of Mr. W. was a
lady born in the country, and notwithstanding she took more than usual
precaution, she caught the infection, without being able to assign any
cause. Most of her family and servants immediately left the house, but
her husband and her father attended her until she died, having had her
infant at the breast to the last moment. No one of them caught the
disease. My predecessor, Mr. B., having been forty-one years at Constantinople,
had not the least fear of the plague. A few years since, as
he was returning from Cyprus, his fellow-passenger fell ill and was put
ashore at the Dardanelles. Mr. B. occupied his friend’s bed, as it was
better than his own, and wore his friend’s nightcap. The next morning
he went ashore to see him, and found that he had died during the night
of the plague. Another time, two of his servants died of the disease in
his house; but in neither case did he experience any inconvenience.
The Europeans, and more particularly the English, take the usual precautions
at the first appearance of the disease, but have little apprehension
from it, living in the country in the summer, and in a very different
manner from the natives, both as to food and cleanliness. It is a great
satisfaction to know that not one English gentleman has died of the
plague during the last thirty years. How inferior it is in its ravages
to the cholera and the yellow fever, which are not known in this
country!”

Unhappily, the cholera has become very well known here since, and
has proved quite as fatal as the plague. In 1865 the city was decimated
by it, some 75,000 dying in two months, a loss of life almost as great
as in the great plague seasons of 1812 and 1837. These great epidemics
of plague were, however, in some respects more terrible than the cholera,
for they continued many months. Life became a burden. The
wealthiest often suffered for want of food and clothing, as they remained
shut up in their houses for fear of contagion. Those who were forced to
go out, dressed in long oil-cloth cloaks, and carefully avoided touching
anything. Every one entering a house was fumigated with sulphur,
in a sort of sentry-box kept for the purpose at the door. All ties of
family and society were broken. But even in these great epidemics
very few Europeans died, while in the cholera epidemics there has been
[pg 611]
no exemption. It is now forty years since the last appearance of plague
at Constantinople, and, whatever theorists may say, no one here who
remembers the old times has any doubt that its disappearance was due
to the strict enforcement of quarantine regulations, which before that
time the Turks would not accept.

There was another source of constant anxiety for the people of Constantinople
fifty years ago, in regard to which there has unfortunately been
but little change. The city was often visited by terrible conflagrations.
In those days they were generally attributed to the Janissaries, who
always improved such opportunities to enrich themselves by wholesale
plunder. To this day it is often suspected that the Government itself
is responsible for these fires, especially as they frequently occur in
quarters where it is proposed to widen the streets. Sometimes, on the
other hand, they are supposed to have a political significance, as a
manifestation of popular discontent; but probably, then as now, they
generally resulted from carelessness, and when once they had commenced
there were no adequate means for extinguishing them. Only two
months after the destruction of the Janissaries, at the moment when the
sacred standard of the Prophet was being taken back from the mosque,
a fire broke out in Stamboul which raged for thirty-six hours, destroying
the bazaars and about an eighth part of the city, including the richest
Turkish quarters. The people universally attributed this to the friends
of the Janissaries, and the discontent with the Sultan was general; but
he acted with the greatest vigour. He opened his palaces for the
reception of those who had no shelter, distributed food and clothing, and
undertook to rebuild the bazaars. At the same time, he sent his spies
into every public place, and every one who was heard complaining of
the Government was at once arrested and decapitated. Even the women
were not spared, but many were strangled and thrown into the
Bosphorus, without any form of trial. These vigorous measures soon
put an end to all complaints, but unhappily did not prevent the burning
of Pera in 1831, when 10,000 houses were destroyed, a calamity which
the Mussulmans attributed to the wrath of God against the Europeans
for the destruction of the Turkish fleet at Navarino, but which the
Christians naturally attributed to the wrath of the Mohammedans
themselves. It is probable that both these fires were accidental, as
were those which burned over almost the same ground in 1865 and
1870; but the alarm and suffering of the people were as real and as
great as they would have been if these fires had resulted from the cause to
which they were attributed. It is a very curious fact that, in both
cases, just five years intervened between the destruction of Stamboul and
of Pera.

Another characteristic of the time of which we write was the insecurity
of property. There were no regular taxes at that time in
Constantinople, for all the residents of the Imperial city were considered
to be the guests of the Sultan. It is only within ten years that this
[pg 612]
pleasant fiction has been altogether abandoned. But in Constantinople,
as well as in other parts of the Empire, the people were liable to be
called upon to contribute “voluntarily” to meet the wants of the
Government. This system of voluntary contributions has not yet been
altogether abandoned, but was enforced during the late war all through
the Empire, in addition to the regular taxes. Even foreigners were
made very uncomfortable if they refused to contribute. The financial
system of Mahmoud II. was like that of his ancestors. There was no
national debt, there were no budgets, and yet there was no lack of
money even for such long and expensive wars as were carried on all
through the reign of this Sultan. With what envy Abd-ul-Hamid must
look back upon those happy days! The system was a simple one.
Whatever money the Sultan needed he took from the people. Orders
were sent to the governor of such a town to send so much to Constantinople,
or to such a Pacha. He summoned the principal men, informed
them that the Sultan needed so much money as a free gift from each of
them. The unhappy contributors entered into private negotiations
with him, and bribed him to reduce their quota and increase that of
some one else. He took the bribes and rapidly accumulated wealth,
but he did not fail to secure and forward the money demanded by the
Sultan. What is more, the Sultan looked upon the governor himself
as nothing better than a sponge. As soon as it was known that he
had absorbed a large amount of wealth, he was squeezed for the benefit
of the Imperial Treasury. He was disgraced, and his property confiscated.
It was very seldom that a Pacha bequeathed much of his ill-gotten
wealth to his children. Unfortunately, this custom has been abandoned
of late years, and the Treasury no longer derives any benefit from the
plunder of the people. But this system of confiscation was not confined
to the Pachas who had robbed the people. The wealthy men of Constantinople,
especially the Christians, were never safe. Their property
might be seized any day, and they might consider themselves happy
if by giving it up without reserve they escaped the bow-string. They
feared the Sultan as much as they feared the Janissaries. The Armenians
suffered less than any other nationality from these extortions,
because they acted as the bankers of the Government and of individual
Pachas who found it for their interest to protect them. They understood
the Turkish character, and had acquired infinite skill in managing
them; but even they lived in constant fear. When a man heard a
knock at his door in the night, he at once took it for granted that his
last hour had come, bade farewell to his family, and, if possible, escaped
from his house with what jewels he could carry. I have heard many
very amusing stories of this kind resulting from evening visits of
belated friends as well as many very sad ones, where the end was the
bow-string for the father and a life of poverty for the family.
The change in the financial system of the Empire, which led
to regular taxation and foreign loans, destroyed the influence of the
[pg 613]
Armenians, and threw the Turks into the hands of the Greeks and Europeans.
It is hardly probable that they can ever recover their former
importance under Turkish rule. Another means adopted by the
Government to raise money was the old expedient of debasing the
coinage, which was perhaps quite as honest as the modern plan of issuing
paper-money and then repudiating it. The Turkish piastre is said to
have been originally the same as the Spanish, worth four shillings and
sixpence. In the time of Mahmoud II. it was worth fourpence, and
the silver piastre is now worth twopence, while the copper piastre is worth
only a farthing and a half.

The comparative cost of living in Constantinople in 1827 and 1879
may be seen from the following Table, the prices being reduced to
English money:—

Game was also very abundant and very cheap in 1827.

This Table tends to prove that, so far as Constantinople is concerned,
the old system of “voluntary contributions” and confiscations was much
more favourable to production than the present ill-conceived system of
taxation. My impression is that the same was true in other parts of
the Empire. Prices were unusually high in 1827, on account of the
war and the general confusion in the Empire, and the increase in fifty
years can only be explained by the destructive system of taxation adopted
by the Government, which falls almost exclusively upon the agriculturist.
The price of bread is the same, but Constantinople now depends upon Russia
for its wheat, and the price depends upon the harvests in other countries.
Everything produced here has increased in price enormously, and the
result is that bread is now almost the sole food of the poor. Fifty years
ago for one oke of bread a man might have one oke of meat, or eight
okes of fruit or two okes of wine. Now he can obtain only about one-fifth
of an oke of meat, or one oke of fruit, or two-thirds of an oke of
wine, and this in spite of the improved communications by steamer and
railway with other parts of the Empire. Then the Bosphorus was lined
with vineyards, and it was profitable to cultivate them, to exchange eight
okes of grapes or two okes of wine for one of bread. Now it is unprofitable
to raise grapes at eight times the former price, and the vineyards
have almost all disappeared. They have been destroyed by unwise
and vexatious taxation. The condition of the rich, especially of the
rich Turkish Pachas, has greatly improved; but it may well be doubted
whether the poor, those who had nothing to fear from the jealousy of the
Turks or the confiscations of the Sultan, can live as well now as they
[pg 614]
could fifty years ago. The poor Mussulmans have certainly gained
nothing, and the Turkish population of Constantinople was probably
never in so wretched a condition as it is now. With the Christian poor
it is different. In many respects their condition has greatly improved.
Then they had no rights which a Turk was bound to respect. They
were sometimes shot down in their vineyards, like dogs, by passing
Mussulmans who wished to try their guns. Their children were kidnapped
with impunity. They were forced to wear a peculiar dress, which
marked them everywhere as an inferior race. They were insulted and
abused in the streets, and trembled at the sight of a Turk. They find
it harder now to get food, but they can eat it in peace. The poor Turks
have gained no such advantages. They are no freer than they were
then, and have not the satisfaction which they then had of domineering
over a subject race. The Christians are still treated as inferiors and suffer
under many disabilities, but in Constantinople their lives, their families,
and their property are comparatively secure, and they are seldom maltreated
because they are Christians. They no longer fear to look a Turk
in the face. The change for them is certainly a happy one, and it is not
strange that the Turks who remember the old times feel that the power
of Islam is waning, and that reform has gone quite far enough. It is
this old Turkish spirit which inspires the present Government to choose
the most inopportune moment to proclaim to the world its determination
to repress all free thought among Mohammedans. A Turkish Khodja
has just been condemned to death for assisting an English missionary to
translate the English Prayer Book and some Tracts into Turkish. This
is not done secretly. The Turkish papers have discussed the case, and
one of the most liberal of them speaks of his offence as follows:—”The
abject author of this act of profanation has been drawn into his sin by
Satan and by his own evil heart, and has thus dared to commit a sacrilege,
by which he is condemned to the curse of God and to eternal torture.
We demand that the miserable creature may receive an overwhelming
punishment, so that he may, by his example, deter others from selling
their religion for a few pence.” This is an act of intolerance and barbarity
worthy of the bloody days of Mahmoud II., and is far less excusable
than it would have been then. It remains to be seen whether it
will be approved by those Powers who maintain the Turkish Empire.

In one respect Constantinople has undoubtedly suffered by the changes
of the last fifty years. It is no longer the picturesque Oriental city
that it was then. Its natural beauties remain, but in everything else it
has become less interesting as it has become more European. The
steamers, whose smoke clouds the clear air of the Bosphorus and
blackens the white palaces, are no doubt very convenient; but they are
a sad contrast to the tens of thousands of gay caiques which used to
give life to the transparent waters of the strait. Ugly north-country
colliers are no doubt profitable to their owners, but there is very little
interest
in watching their passage in comparison with the wonderful displays
[pg 615]
which were formerly seen when, after a long north wind, a southerly
gale would take hundreds of vessels, under full sail, through the Bosphorus
in a single day. I have counted over three hundred in sight at
once. The square walls and narrow eaves of modern Turkish houses
may be more European, but they do not compare favourably with the
light Moorish architecture and gilded arabesques of the olden time.
German ready-made clothing may be very cheap, and the European
style of dress may be adapted to active pursuits; but it is not likely to
rouse the enthusiasm of a lover of the picturesque who remembers the
gorgeous costumes of fifty years ago, when the streets of Constantinople
were crowded with gay and fantastic dresses, as in a perpetual carnival,
and each rank, profession, and creed had its own peculiar costume.
Even the Sultan is now no longer worth looking at, with his little red
fez in place of the magnificent turban with plume and diamonds, and
his tight black coat in place of his flowing sable robe, his attendants
covered with tawdry brass in place of the gorgeous robes of the olden
time. The pachas are pachas no longer in appearance: you may see
them running for steamers, or sitting on crowded benches on the deck
reading their daily papers. What a contrast to the stately pacha of
seven tails, who lived fifty years ago, whose very title was picturesque,
who could not read at all, and if he had ever heard of a newspaper
looked upon it as a device of Satan; but who never ran for anything,
and who never wore a red cap or a black coat. A graceful caique, with
many oarsmen, awaited his convenience; richly caparisoned Arab horses
stood at his door; when he appeared—with slow and dignified step—with
turban, robes of silk, and Cashmere or diamond girdle—his slaves
kissing the ground at his feet, his pipe-bearers and guards behind him—he
was an ornament to the city, and perhaps quite as great an ornament
to the State as his successor, without any tails to his title, who reads
newspapers and wears black clothes, but who has no fear of being bow-strung
and thrown into the Bosphorus if he betrays the interests of the
State for a consideration, or plunders the people for his own profit.
Even the bazaars are no longer Oriental, although the buildings remain.
They are little more than storehouses for the Manchester goods which
have destroyed native manufactures. The only relics of the olden time
are the Turkish women; but even they have become less picturesque.
They are not so attractive, when crowded like sheep into the stern of a
Bosphorus steamer, as they were when they rode in lofty arabas drawn
by white oxen; and their dress is gradually changing in spite of the
frequent decrees of the Sheik-ul-Islam, who declared two years ago in
one of these that the disasters of the war were due, among other things
specified, to the fact that the women wore French boots in place of
heelless yellow slippers. Constantinople has lost all the peculiar
charm of an Oriental city without having as yet attained the regularity,
cleanliness, and elegance of a European capital; just as the Government
has ceased to be an Oriental despotism, careless of human life and individual
[pg 616]
rights, without having as yet learned the principles of European
civilization; just as the individual Turk has ceased to be a fanatical
Mussulman, with the peculiar virtues which once belonged to his
religion, without having as yet acquired anything but the vices of European
society.

If we seek the cause of these changes which fifty years have wrought
in life in Constantinople, they may be summed up as the result of the
constantly increasing influence of the European Powers at Constantinople
and the corresponding decay of the Ottoman Empire. Sultan
Mahmoud II. was one of the greatest as well as one of the most unfortunate
of the sovereigns of Turkey; but he was a Sultan of the old
school, whose many attempts at reform had no other object than to
revive the power of Islam and restore his Empire to its former rank.
He did not wish to Europeanize his people, as Peter the Great did, but
simply to adopt such improvements, especially in the organization of his
army, as would enable him the better to maintain himself against his
European enemies. But, unhappily, he had to contend against Moslem
as well as Christian foes, and to save himself from the former he had to
call in the aid of the latter. His dynasty was saved by the intervention
of Europe; but when Sultan Abd-ul-Medjid ascended the throne at
the death of his father it was by the favour and under the protection of
Europe, and from that day Turkey ceased to be the old Empire of the
Ottoman Turks. Mahmoud was the last of the Sultans. Nothing
remained to his successors but the shadow of a great name. Europe is
undoubtedly responsible for the evils which have befallen the Empire
since that day. She has neither allowed the Turks to rule in their own
way, with fire and sword, as their ancestors did, nor forced them to
emancipate the Christians and establish a civil government in place of
their religious despotism. She has sought to maintain the Empire, but
to maintain it as a weak and decaying Empire. Austria and Russia, and
at times other Powers, have sought to hasten the process of disintegration,
and the limits of the Empire have been gradually narrowed until
they now approach the capital itself. The Turks are abused for their
stupidity, as if it were all their fault; and no doubt they have done and
are doing many unwise things; but after all they are not to be too
harshly condemned. They have probably done what seemed to them
wise and politic, and they have often outwitted the keenest statesmen;
but they have been doomed by Europe to struggle against the inevitable.
Turkey can never again be what she was fifty years ago, and as
a Mohammedan despotism, ruled by Turks alone, she can never become
a great or even a civilized Power and command the respect of Europe.
She must soon disappear. But with the full emancipation of the
Christians, the abolition of the present system of religious government,
and the support of Western Europe, she might settle the Eastern Question
for herself, win the loyal support of her own subjects and the
respect of the world.

An Eastern Statesman.

[pg 617]

MIRACLES, PRAYER, AND LAW.

I
N the following remarks I assume the existence of God, All-knowing
and All-powerful; and of a spirit in men which is not matter. I
do not say that either is demonstrated or can be demonstrated, still less
do I presume to define either, but I address only those who already
assent to both.

Many, however, of those who give such assent are troubled about the
ways of God and the nature of man’s relation to Him. On the one
hand is the Bible, which declares that all things on earth as well as in
heaven are regulated by Divine will at every moment, which records
frequent miracles, and which bids men ask from Him whatsoever they
would, in absolute confidence that they shall have their desires. On
the other hand stands the Book of Nature, as Divine as that of
Revelation, being in fact another revelation of God, which tells of an
unchanging sequence of events, of laws incapable of modification by
isolated acts of will, laws which, indeed, if subject to such modification,
would fall into disorder. Which of these revelations shall they believe?
Or can they be reconciled so that both are credible?

The tendency of recent belief in those who have studied the Book of
Nature, and perhaps most decidedly in those who have only turned
some of its pages, is that the two revelations are irreconcilable. The
immutability of Nature’s laws is to them a gospel taught by every
stone, by every plant, by every animated being. All that they have
learnt to know of matter rests on the assurance that its properties are
absolutely fixed. The progress of science, of art, of civilization, of the
human race, depends on the fact that what has been found to be true
will be always true, that there is an ordered sequence of events which
may be trusted to be invariable, to which we must conform our lives if
we would be happy, and which, if we cross it in ignorance or defiance,
[pg 618]
will revenge the outrage by inevitable penalties. Those laws, which
some call of matter, may by others be called laws of God, and the most
devout minds find in their fixity only a confirmation of their faith in
His unchanging promises. But if thus fixed, it seems to many who are
devout as well as to many who are sceptical, that it becomes impossible
to believe that their Author should ever set them aside by what are
called miracles; still less that He should bid men pray for events which are,
in fact, not regulated by wish or will, but by what has gone before
up to the beginning of time. To meet this dilemma there seem to
such minds only two courses, either to believe that Scripture is not the
word of a God at all, or to give to its language an interpretation which
is not the natural sense of the words, and which was certainly not
meant or understood by those who first wrote or first heard it.

Yet it is not possible to abandon the conviction that the words and the
acts of God cannot really be at variance. Before surrendering His
words contained in the Scripture, as either spurious or misunderstood,
no effort can be too often reiterated to show them to be compatible
with what we have learned of His works. I propose to make one more
such effort, based on the closest examination of what both really tell, or
imply.

Let us first understand accurately what it is we are to deal with,
both as facts and as expressed in language. The inquiry is to be
limited (with exceptions which will be noted as they occur) to the laws
of matter. It will be assumed that matter exists as our ordinary perceptions
inform us, but if it shall hereafter be proved to be only a form
of motion, or of force, the arguments will still be applicable. By laws,
we shall understand what in a different expression we call the properties
of matter. The advantage of thus explaining law is that it excludes
some other senses of a vague and misleading character, while it includes
the sense in which alone law can properly be applied to physical nature.
Thus, the law of gravity is the same thing as the property of matter
which we call weight, and if there be any matter or ether which is
imponderable, then the law of gravity does not apply to it. So
the law of attraction, in its different forms, expresses the property
of cohesion, and of capillary ascent, and so on; the law of chemical
affinities expresses the property of the combination of one species of
matter with another in definite proportions; the laws of sound, light,
or electricity express the properties of vibrations, either of air or of
subtler forms of matter, as they affect our senses. In thus limiting the
meaning of law, it is therefore obvious that we embrace all which the
materialist can desire to include when he insists that law is permanent and
unchangeable.

This, in fact, is the first proposition which we must all accept. No
human being can add to or subtract a single property of any species of
matter. To do so were, indeed, to create. For matter is an aggregate
of properties; each species of matter is differentiated only by its
[pg 619]
properties, and could we alter one of these we should really turn it into
different matter. It is true there are what are called allotropic forms,
such as oxygen and ozone, the yellow and red phosphorus, the forms of
sulphur as modified by heat, and a considerable number of organic
compounds, and we can by certain arrangements turn the one into the
other. But when we ask what allotropism is, we find that it is itself
one of the properties (however obscure to us) of the matter we
deal with. Oxygen would not be oxygen, but something else, if it
had not the inherent property of becoming ozone under certain
conditions. Given these conditions, and there is nothing we can
do which will prevent the change occurring. If, as chemists
believe, allotropism depends on the different arrangement of the ultimate
atoms of matter, then the capacity of assuming two arrangements
in its atoms is clearly one of the ultimate properties of that species of
matter.

It follows, then, that if a miracle were really a suspension of a physical
law, or a change, temporary or permanent, of any property of matter,
it would really be an act of creation—the creation of something having
different properties from any matter that before existed. If iron were
to float on water by suspension of the law of gravity, it would be in fact
the creation of something having (at least for the time required) the
physical and chemical properties of iron, but with a specific gravity less
than water—and therefore something not iron.

But, without creation, man has enormous power over Nature. He can,
and daily does, overpower her laws, or seemingly make them work as he
pleases. Despite the law of gravity, he ascends to the sky in a balloon;
he makes water spring up in fountains; he makes vessels, weighing
thousands of tons, float on the seas. Despite cohesion, he grinds rocks
to powder; despite chemical affinity, he transmutes into myriads of
different forms the few elements of which all matter consists; despite the
resistless power of the thunderbolt, he tames electricity to be his
servant or his harmless toy. With water and fire he moulds into
shape mighty masses of metal; he shoots, at a sustained speed beyond
that of birds, across valleys and through mountain ranges; he unites
seas which continents had separated; there is nothing in the whole
earth which he has not subdued, or does not hope to subdue, to his use.
There is hardly a physical miracle which he does not feel he can, or may
yet, perform.

But all this wonderful, this boundless, power over material laws is
gained by these laws. He alters no property of matter, but he uses
one property or another as he needs, and he uses one property to overpower
another. It is by knowing that gravity is more powerful in the
case of air than in the case of hydrogen gas, that he makes air sustain
him as he floats, beneath a bag of hydrogen, above the earth; it is by
knowing that it is more powerful in water than in air that he sails in iron
ships; it is by knowing chemical affinity or repulsion that he makes the
[pg 620]
compounds or extracts the simple elements he desires; it is by knowing
that affinity is force, and that force is transmutable into electricity, that
he makes a messenger of the obedient lightning shock; it is by knowing
that heat, itself unknown, causes gases to expand, that he makes
machines of senseless iron do the work of intelligent giants. He subdues
Nature by understanding Nature. He creates no property; he therefore
performs no miracle, though he does marvels.

By what means, then, does man bring one property, or law, into play
instead of, or against, another? By one means only, that of changing
the position of matter.

This is Bacon’s aphorism (Nov. Org. Book i. 4): “Man contributes
nothing to operations except the applying or withdrawing of natural
bodies: Nature, internally, performs the rest.”

In order to trace and recognize the truth of this fact, let us follow in
rough and rapid outline the operations by which man effects his
purposes. We will begin at the beginning, and suppose him to have
only reached the stage when a knowledge of the effects of fire enables
him to work with metals. He produces fire by friction—that is, by
bringing one piece of wood to another, and rapidly moving the one on
the other; or else by striking two flints on each other, which also is
merely rapid motion and shock. He carries the wood to a hearth, he
brings to it the lump of crude metal or the ore; he urges the fire by a
blast of air—still his acts are only those of imparting motion. Then
the fire acts on the metal, it excites some affinities and enfeebles other
affinities, which result in removing impurities; it softens the purified
metal. Then the workman lifts it on a stone, and by beating it with
another stone—still motion—he moves its particles so that it assumes
the form of a hammer, an axe, a chisel, or a file. Then by rubbing
with a rough stone—still motion—he moves away some particles from
the edge, and makes it sharp and fit for cutting. By plunging it in
water when hot—still only motion—he tempers it to hardness. With
the edge thus obtained he cuts wood into the forms he requires for
various purposes, and by degrees he learns how to fashion other pieces
of metal into other and more elaborate tools. Yet all this is done by
no other means than giving motion to the material on which, or by
which, he works. From tools he advances to machines, by which his
power of giving motion is increased, and as he learns more of the
properties of matter he constructs engines, by which these properties
work for him in the directions in which he guides them. Meantime he
has learned that clay, when heated, becomes hard as stone, and the arts
of pottery take their rise; while glass-making follows on the discovery
that ashes and sand fuse into a transparent mass. Yet, whether in their
rude beginning or finished elegance, man in these arts does no more
than bring together the rough materials and apply to them heat, then
their own inherent properties effect the result. Science—that is, knowledge
of natural laws of matter—guides his hand, but his hand only
[pg 621]
moves matter; it gives no property and takes away none; it does not
even enable one property to work; it does absolutely nothing except to
place matter where its own laws work, to bring or to remove matter
which is needed, or to remove matter which is superfluous. Let us
analyze every complicated triumph of human knowledge and skill, and
we shall find it all reduced to the knowledge of what the properties of
matter are, and the skill which imparts to it motion just sufficient to
permit these properties to operate. Man’s power over Nature is therefore
limited to the power of giving motion to matter, or of stopping
or resisting motion in matter.

Now, to give motion or to resist motion is itself either a breach or a
use of a law of Nature, according as we express that law. The law is
(as usually expressed), that matter at rest remains at rest till moved by
a force, and that matter in motion continues in motion till stayed by a
force. This is the law of inertia. If we consider that rest or motion
when once established is the normal state of matter, then the force
which causes a change causes a breach of the law of inertia. But if we
consider that the liability to be moved, or to have motion stopped by
force, is itself a property of matter, then the application of force with
such result is merely calling into operation the law of inertia. It really
does not signify which view we take, so long as we recognize that such
are the facts. But since it is more familiar to associate rest with
inertia, it will perhaps be most convenient and simple to consider rest
and motion as the laws of matter, till the law is interfered with.
Therefore in what follows we shall say, that when matter at rest is moved,
or when matter in motion is stayed, or its movement by a natural
force is prevented, a breach of the law of inertia is committed.

We come, then, to these propositions:—1st, That human power is
utterly unable to break any law of matter except the law of inertia.
2nd, That when, by breaking only the law of inertia—i.e., by moving or
by
resisting the motion of matter—any operation is accomplished, no other
law of matter is broken. 3rd, That to break the law of inertia by Force,
directed by Will, is no interference with the properties of matter. 4th,
That by breaking the law of inertia only, man has power to call into play
properties which make matter subservient to his objects.

Nor is this man’s power only. Inferior animals can also move
matter, and by moving it can cause prodigious results. A minute
insect, by secreting lime from sea waters, makes a coral reef, or aids in
forming a cliff of chalk. A beaver cuts down a tree, and forms a swamp
that changes the climate of a district; a bird carries a seed, and makes
a forest on an island. Inanimate life has the same power. The plant
opens its leaves to the sun, and abstracts the carbon that forms fruitful
soils and beds of coal. Matter itself can by motion work on matter.
The great physical powers, heat and electricity, are modes of motion.
Radiation of heat causes freezing, and freezing crumbles rocks into
soil, or it forms the clouds in the air, whose deluges hollow valleys;
[pg 622]
while electricity cleaves and splinters the summits of the mountain
peaks. Everywhere motion, sharp or slow, works with matter; everywhere
the law of inertia is broken; and everywhere the miracles of
Nature are wrought out by Nature’s unbroken laws, set in action or
withheld by only the movement which matter has received, be it from
Will in man or beast, or be it from forces which themselves are part of
matter’s properties.

Now, since we have started from the assumption that God does exist,
it is impossible to make Him an exception to the rule which holds of the
spirits of inferior creatures, and even of inanimate matter. If, therefore,
He can cause or stop movement, He can, without further breach of any
law of Nature, bring into play the laws of Nature. Or, to state the
same proposition conversely, we must admit that whatever wonders
God may cause by bringing into operation a law of Nature through
the means of affecting motion in matter, cannot be called a breach of the
laws of Nature. It is, of course, understood that this proposition is
limited to the results of motion; it does not affirm that the cause of the
motion may not be a breach of a law of Nature. This question will
remain for future examination; at present it is neither affirmed nor
denied.

Let us in the meantime, however, consider what we have reached
by the proposition above stated. What are called miracles may be divided
into three classes. The first are purely spiritual, affecting mind without
the intervention of matter, such as visions (though these may
originate in the brain, and therefore belong to the next class), gifts of
tongues, inspirations, mental resolutions. The second affect mind in
connection with matter, such as, perhaps, the healing of paralytic or
epileptic affections, and certainly the restoration of life to the dead.
The third affect matter solely; they include the healing of wounds, or
of corporeal disease, such as blindness, or fever; the dividing of waters;
the walking on water, or raising an iron axe-head from the bottom of
water; the falling of walls or trees; the opening of prison-doors, and
such like.

The first two classes we may, in any discussion limited to the laws
of Nature, leave out of view, because it cannot be said that we know any
laws of Nature affecting mind by itself, or even mind in relation to
matter. Metaphysicians have interested themselves in trying to trace
the origin or sequence of intellectual processes, but I hardly think any
would assert they had discovered or defined what can properly be
called a law; and certainly, if any do assert it, the accuracy of the assertion
is controverted by as many philosophers on the other side. Any
direct influence of God on mind cannot, therefore, be charged with being
in violation of natural law. Nor can it even be declared to be contrary
to universal experience, since in this case the negative evidence of those
who have not experienced it would only be set against the positive evidence
of innumerable persons who affirm that they have experienced it.

[pg 623]

The influence of mind on matter, and matter on mind, are also so
obscure, that it cannot be affirmed that anything which mental operation
can effect on one’s own body is contrary to natural law. No
physiologist will assert that mental resolution, or conviction, tending
towards recovery from sickness, is without some power to bring that
result to pass. They will admit also that this is peculiarly the case in
regard to those disorders which, in pure ignorance of their actual source,
they are fain to call hysterical, neuralgic, or generally nervous. They
are all acquainted with many cases in their own experience of recovery
from such disorders in which no physical cause for recovery can be
imagined. If, then, God should convey to the mind of a patient an
impression which brings about recovery, there would clearly be no
violation of natural law. With regard to the restoration of life, it is
quite true that this is beyond the ordinary power of man’s volition.
Nevertheless, at each moment of our lives there is a communication of
life to the dead matter which has formed our food, but which, after
digestion, becomes a part of our living organs; and this is true even in
the nutrition of plants. How or at what moment the mind enters or
becomes capable of affecting our frames, we do not know. But this
happens at some moment before or during birth; its doing so at a subsequent
period is, therefore, not a breach of natural law, but is only an
instance of natural law coming into operation, by the same cause, at a
period differing from that which is customary. The act, whatever it
is, is not exceptional, but ordinary. The time is alone exceptional.

We have now to consider the strictly physical phenomena to which
the name of miracles is in this discussion confined, and to which the
objection that they are contrary to natural laws is commonly stated.

A very large number of these are at first glance seen to be only
instances of inertia being affected. To walk on water, to make water
stand in a heap, to raise a body from the ground, to cast down walls,
or move bolts and doors, are obviously exertions of simple mechanical
force such as we ourselves daily employ. Their effective cause is
neither more nor less than an interference with the law of inertia, and
by the previous demonstration they are therefore not to be reckoned as
breaches of any law of Nature.

Let us try if this can be made clearer by an example. It has been
stated before that if iron were made to swim on water by modification
of the law of gravity it would be creation of a new substance differing
from iron in being of less specific gravity. At the same time, the
original iron of normal specific gravity would have disappeared. These
processes of creation and destruction would be so unprecedented that
we should justly call them violations of the ordinary laws of nature.
But at least we should then expect that the light iron thus created
would be permanently light, and we should call it another breach of
the laws of nature if on lifting it from the water we found it heavy.
But if we were to hold a magnet of suitable power over the original
[pg 624]
heavy iron, when at the bottom of the water, we might see it rise and
float, although not touched or upheld by any visible substance, and although
its specific gravity remained constant. In this case it would be
moved by a power which overcomes gravity, but there would be no
creation nor destruction of any property, and no natural law would be
broken. But if now we substitute for “magnetic” “Divine” power,
there is still no breach of a natural law, for no property is created or
destroyed. In both cases the acting agent is a power outside the iron,
invisible and unknown, except by the effects. The effect of both is the
same: it is to give motion to matter, and nothing more. Hence,
neither violate any law of nature except that of inertia.

Proceeding to another class of miracles, which seem at first to be
creative, we shall find that they also come within the range of
familiar human potentiality. The making of bread, or meal, or oil,
or wine, are instances of chemical synthesis. These substances are
composed of three or four elements, all gaseous except carbon (to be
absolutely accurate, we must add minute quantities of eight other
elements), which no chemist has yet succeeded in uniting in such forms.
But chemists have succeeded in forming certain substances by bringing
together their elements, of which water is the simplest type, and others
of greater complexity are every year being attained. These are formed
by moving into proximity, or admixture, the elementary ingredients,
under circumstances favourable to their union in the desired combination,
and the combination then proceeds by the operation of natural
laws. No one would be surprised to hear that some chemist had thus
attained to form starch or gluten, the main ingredients of bread; or oil,
or spirit, or essences; for if it were announced we should all know that
he had only discovered some new method of manipulation by which
circumstances were arranged so as to favour the natural laws which
effect the union of the necessary elements. Therefore, if these substances
are formed by Divine power, it is not creation—it is only the
chemist’s work, adopting natural laws for its methods, and bringing
them into play by transposition of material substances.

Meteorological processes—such as lightning, rain, drought, winds—are
sometimes made the immediate cause of “miracles,” as when the
wind caused the waters of the Red Sea to flow back, or brought the
flights of quails, or locusts. These are effects which we know wind is
quite capable of producing, and does produce naturally. Was there then
any breach of natural laws (beyond that of inertia) in causing such
winds to blow? or in bringing up thunder-clouds? or in causing an
arid season? We cannot, indeed, say that there was not; but as little
can we say that there was. For since we ourselves have acquired such
power over lightning, the most inscrutable and irresistible of all
meteorological agencies, as to be able to lead it where we will, how
shall we say that God’s infinite knowledge has not the same power over
the winds and the clouds, by employing only natural agencies for His
[pg 625]
work, and employing these only by the operation of motion given to
matter.

With regard to the healing of diseased matter, conjectures also can
only be offered, because of the source of diseases we know so little.
Sight is restored in cataract by simple removal of an abnormal membrane.
Many fevers, if the germ theory or the poison theory be
correct, are cured when the germs die, or the poison is eliminated. A
power that could kill the germs, or remove them or the poison from the
system, would then effect immediate cure in accordance with natural
laws. It does not seem necessarily beyond man’s reach to effect this
when he shall understand natural laws more fully; it cannot, therefore,
be a breach of natural laws if God should effect it by laws as yet
unknown to man, provided they are brought into play with no other
agency than the motion of matter.

It would be folly as well as impiety to assert that it is in such ways
only that miracles are performed. No such assertion is made. But
when, on the other side, it is asserted that the miracles narrated in
Scripture cannot be true because they must involve a breach of the
immutable laws of Nature, the answer is justifiable and is sufficient,
that they do not necessarily involve any breach of any law, save of that
one law of inertia which at every instant is broken by created things,
without any disturbances being introduced into the serene march of
Nature’s laws. The scientific revelation is reconciled with the written
revelation when it is shown that neither necessarily implies the falsity
of the other.

But supposing the argument thus far to be conceded, it will be urged
that the real “miracle” remains yet behind. When man moves matter,
his hand is visible: when an animal gnaws a tree, its teeth are seen
working; when a river flows down a valley, its force is heard and felt.
How different, it will be said, is God’s working, where there is no arm
of flesh, no sound of power, no sign of presence.

Unquestionably it is a deep marvel and a mystery, that impalpable
spirit should act upon gross matter; but it is a mystery of humanity
as well as of Godhead. What moves the hand? Contraction of the
muscles. But what causes contraction of the muscles? The influence
transmitted from the brain by the nerves. But what sends that influence?
It is mind, which somewhere, somehow, moves animal tissues—tissues
consisting of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulphur.
At some point of our frames, we know not yet where, mind does act
directly on matter. It is a law of Nature that it should so act there.
But
if God exists, His mind must, by the same law, act on matter somewhere.
Can we call it an offence against law if it acts on matter elsewhere than in
that mass of organized pulp which we call brains? If no possibility of
communication between mind and matter could anywhere be found in
Nature, we might call such communication contrary to natural law. In
other words, if it were one of the properties of matter that it could not
[pg 626]
receive motion from that which is not matter, its motion without a
material cause would be supernatural. But since it is of the very
essence of existence that matter in certain combinations should be
capable of being endowed with life, and by such endowment become
capable of being affected in motion by mind, it is indisputable that
such capability is one of matter’s properties, and that its being so
affected falls within and not without Nature’s laws.

It may be objected that, since it is only living substance which can
be acted on by the human mind, it is contrary to law that dead matter
should be acted on by Divine mind. But this is a simple begging of the
question at issue. It is constructing a law for the purpose of charging
God with breaking it. Where do we find evidence in Nature that
matter cannot be moved by the Divine mind? Science reveals no such
law. Science is simply silent on the subject; it admits its utter
ignorance, and declares the question beyond its scope. Undoubtedly
it does not pronounce that God does move matter, but it equally abstains
from asserting that God does not. For when it traces back material
effects from cause to cause, it comes at last to something for which it
has no explanation. When we say that an acid and an alkali combine
by the law of affinity, that a stone falls by the law of gravity, we merely
generalize facts under a name, we do not account for them. What causes
affinity, what causes gravity? Suppose we say the one is polar electricity,
the other is the impact of particles in vibration (both of which
statements are unproved guesses), what do we gain? The next question
is only, what causes electricity and what causes vibration? Suppose,
again, we answer that both are modes of motion, we only come to the
further question, what causes motion? And since motion is a breach of
the law of inertia, what is it that first excited motion in this dead
matter? Carry back our analysis as far as we will or can, at last we
reach a point where matter must be acted upon by something that is
not matter. This something is Mind; and God also is Mind.

Again, when any one affirms that only living matter can be acted
on by mind, whether human or Divine, we may fairly ask him, not
indeed what is life, which is a problem as yet beyond science; but how
life changes matter, which is a question strictly within the range of
science dealing with matter. But to this inquiry we shall get no
answer. The cells in an organism, the protoplasm in the cells, are
living when the organism is living, dead when the organism is dead, and,
as matter, no difference is discoverable between them in the state of
living and dead. The cells consist of cellulose, the protoplasm of some
“protein” compounds; no element is added or subtracted, no compound
is altered, when it lives or when it dies. Nor can science even tell us
when an organic compound becomes alive, or dead. Every instant
crude sap is becoming living plants, every instant crude chyle is
becoming living blood, every instant living organisms die and are
expelled from plants by the leaves, from animals by the lungs, the skin,
[pg 627]
and the kidneys. Yet no physician can say at what moment any of
these carbon compounds become living, or when they cease to have life.
Since of this perpetual birth and death in all nature we know absolutely
nothing, it is manifestly unreasonable to lay down laws respecting
them. If life and death make (as far as we can discover) absolutely no
immediate physical change in the matter which they affect, how can
we propound as a dogma of physical science that God cannot move
“dead” matter, when our own experience tells us that our spirits can
move “living” matter?

It is clear that if we are not warranted in making a law, we are not
warranted in saying that it is broken. Our concern with laws is to see
that such as we do know are uniform, for this is the basis of science.
But true science repudiates dogmas on subjects of which it avows its
ignorance.

Let us sum up the argument as it has now been stated. The
propositions are the following:—

• 1. Matter is subject to unalterable laws, which express its properties.
  No created being can originate, alter, or destroy any of these properties.
• 2. It is possible, however, for one property to overpower the action
  of another property, either in the same matter or in other matter.
• 3. By placing matter in a position in which one or other property
  has its natural action, man, as well as animals and inanimate matter,
  can overpower a law of Nature with almost boundless power.
• 4. The sole means by which such results are effected, are by
  affecting the law of inertia. Therefore, whatever is effected by natural
  laws, without other interference than by affecting inertia, is consistent
  with the uniformity of natural law.
• 5. All strictly physical “miracles” recorded in the Bible are capable of
  being effected by natural law, without other interference than by affecting
  inertia, and therefore are consistent with the uniformity of natural law.
• 6. It is consistent with natural law that created minds should affect
  the inertia of certain forms of matter directly.
• 7. It is not inconsistent with natural law that Divine mind should
  affect the inertia of other forms of matter directly.

The bearing of these conclusions upon prayer, in so far as it affects physical
conditions, may now be briefly shown. It has been argued that, in
the light of modern discovery, prayer ought to be restricted to spiritual
objects, and that at all events it can have none but spiritual effects. It
has for example been asserted that to pray for fine weather, for bodily
health, for removal of any plague, for averting of any corporeal
danger is asking God to change the laws of Nature for our benefit,
that this is what He never does, what would produce endless confusion
if He should, and consequently what He certainly will not do.

But if in point of fact God can confer on us all these gifts which we
ask from Him without breaking a single law by which Nature is bound,
[pg 628]
we are restored to the older confidence that He will, provided that such
gifts are at the same time consonant with our spiritual good.

Now as it has been shown that God can affect matter to the full
extent for which we ever petition by means of Nature’s own laws,
set in operation by no other agency than the mere communication
of motion to matter, it has been shown that He will break no law in
giving what we ask.

For example, what is fine weather? It is the result of the due
motion of the winds, which bear the clouds on their bosom, and carry
the warmth of equatorial sunshine to the colder north. It is still as true
as eighteen hundred years ago, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and
ye hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh or whither
it goeth.” But if it be no breach of law to give motion to the air, it
is in God’s power to bring us favourable winds. But the winds we wish
are not necessarily moved immediately by God’s breath. They depend
probably on certain electric repulsions, which make the colder or the
warmer current come closer to the surface of the earth. And electricity
is motion. It may be directly, it may be indirectly, through electricity;
it may be by some cause still further back, that God sends forth the
winds; but, if He can give motion, He can direct their currents, and by
such agency give to His creatures the weather best suited for their wants.

Or what is disease? Probably, in many cases, germs; let us then
suppose germs, because it is what the latest science tells us. But germs
need a suitable nidus, and we know that merely what we call “change of
air” is one of the most potent means of defending or restoring our bodies
from the assault of germs to which it is exposed. We change our air,
by moving to another place; what violation of law would there be if
God, to our prayer, were to change our air by moving a different air
to us? That is but a rude illustration; the marvellous economy of the
body suggests a thousand others, none of which may be true, but which
yet all agree in this, that they would work our cure by strictly natural
laws, set in action merely by motion given to matter.

That even an impending rock should not fall upon us would be a
petition involving no further disturbance of natural law. Had we
appliances to enhance our force we could uphold it, without breaking
natural law. God has superhuman force, and if He upholds it by an
arm we cannot see, He will break no law.

It were needless to pursue examples; but the subject must not be dismissed
without reference to the spiritual laws, which we are bound to
regard in praying for aught we may desire.

These are expressed and summed in the command, “Ask in my
name.” There is a prevalent misunderstanding of these words, arising
out of the theological dogma which interprets them as if they were
written, “for my sake.” It is unnecessary here to enter into the
inquiry how far any prayer is granted because of the merits or for the
sake of Christ. It is sufficient that the words here used mean something
[pg 629]
else. When we desire another person to ask anything from a superior
in our name, we mean to ask as if we asked. It must be something
then which we should ask for personally. Therefore, Christ desiring us
to ask in His name, limits us to ask those things which we can presume
He would ask for us.

It is obvious how this interpretation defines the range of petition.
It must be confined to what He, all-knowing, knows to be for
our good. It must be, in our ignorance, subject to the condition
that He should see it best for us. It utterly excludes all seeking for
worldly advantage, for which He would never bid us pray. It equally
excludes all spiritual benefits which are not those of a godly, humble
spirit. Above all, it excludes all things which would be suggested by
Satan as a tempting of the Lord our God. To ask, as some scientific
men would have us do, for something in order to see if God would grant
it, would be an experiment which, applied to an earthly superior, would
be an insult—to God is impiety. To such prayers as these there is
no promise made, for they cannot be in Christ’s name.

Neither can those prayers be in His name which come from men
regardless of His precepts. These are contained in the Book of Nature
as well as in the Bible, and to both alike we owe reverence. We are
bound to learn His will as far as our powers extend, we are bound to
inform ourselves as fully as we can of the physical as well as of the
moral laws set for our guidance, and having learned we are bound to
obey. It were vain to pray for help in an act of wrong-doing, and
equally vain to pray for relief from consequences of our own neglect or
defiance of such rules of the government of nature as we have learned,
or as with due diligence we might have learned. No man so acting
can presume to think that he may ask in Christ’s name for succour.
Christ could not ask it for such as he.

But to what we can truly ask in His name there is no limit set. We
may ask for all worldly and all spiritual good, which we can conceive
Him to ask for us, in assurance that it will be given, if He sees it really
to be for our good. How it may be reconciled with good to other
men is not for us to inquire. The Omnipotent rules all, and He
who can do all is able to do what is best for us as well as for every
other creature He has made, without breach of one of these laws
which He has set as guides for all.

J. Boyd Kinnear.

[pg 630]

WHAT IS RENT?

T
HE public mind of the country is at the present hour largely occupied
with thinking about rent. The severe agricultural depression
has generated painful effects on the feelings and the fortunes of the
people of England. The various classes who are connected with the
cultivation of land are visited with much suffering, and we cannot be
surprised if they are found discussing whether their relations towards
each other, as well as the system of agriculture prevailing in these
islands, are precisely what they ought to be. The various methods of
dealing with the land and the population that devote themselves to its
tillage, have been the subjects of keen debate for ages: failing harvests,
low prices, and heavy losses, are well suited to impart energy and even
violence to such discussions. In some portions of the kingdom, even
agricultural revolution has made its appearance on the scene. The law
itself is openly and avowedly defied. The debtor, it is decreed, shall
determine at his own pleasure how much he shall pay of the debt to
which he is pledged. If the owner of the property let on hire repels
such an adjudication of his rights, he is plainly warned that they shall
be swept away altogether, and the insolvent debtor be made the owner
of what he borrowed. The very structure of society itself is imperilled.
“To refuse to pay debt violently,” it has been well said,
“is to steal, and to permit stealing, is not only to dissolve, but to
demoralize society: accumulation of property, and civilization itself
would become impossible.”

Amidst such agitated passions it was inevitable that rent should
speedily come to the front. Those who had contracted to pay rent,
in the expectation that the produce of their labour would enable
them to redeem their pledge, had been plunged into losses, more or less
severe, by the badness of the seasons; their means were reduced; to pay
[pg 631]
was inconvenient; and it was a simpler method to take the matter into
their own hands, and rather than appeal to the feelings of their landlords
for a considerate diminution of their rents, to call rent itself into
judgment, and to suppress it altogether. When, then, matters have
reached the pass that an anti-rent agitation, based on the confiscation
of property and the repudiation of contracts, has sprung up, and is swiftly
spreading among an excitable people, it becomes important, in the highest
degree, that the true nature of rent should be clearly understood by the
whole country. Whatever may be ultimately decided about rent, let
every man first know accurately what it is. To advocate a system of
agriculture which shall abolish the possession of land by a class who
are owners and not cultivators of the soil, and thus extinguish the
charge for the loan of it to farmers, is perfectly legitimate. Let the
merits and demerits of such a tenure be freely investigated; let
peasant-proprietorship
be counter-examined over against it; but let the conviction
be brought home to every mind that no just or intelligent
conclusion can be reached, unless every element of the problem has
been fully and honestly weighed. A reduction of rents may very possibly
be called for by necessity and by reason; but to place the position
itself of landlord in an invidious light, as that of a man who exacts
from the labour of others that for which he has neither toiled nor spun,
is a most unwarrantable process of argumentation, and can lead to no
trustworthy result in a matter of such transcendant importance to the
nation.

What then is rent? The true answer to this very natural question,
obvious and easy though it may seem to be, has been grasped by few
only. Let the question be put to a mixed company, and the incapacity
to explain the real nature of rent will be found most surprising.
One’s first impulse is to appeal to Political Economy for an answer, for
indisputably rent belongs to its domain; but unhappily Political
Economists, for the most part, instead of enlightening have obscured this
inquiry for the public mind. Some few amongst them have perceived
the true character of rent; but most other economical writers have
been led astray into a wrong path by Ricardo. Ricardo’s theory of
rent was accepted as the orthodox doctrine; but it was a theory from
which the common world, landlords and farmers alike, turned away as
unworkable. Ricardo was dominated by the passion of giving to
Political Economy a strictly scientific treatment, and the explanation of
rent he hailed as an excellent instrument for accomplishing his
purpose. He built the amount of rent payable by different lands,
on the varying fertilities of the soil. Land A paid no rent; its productive
powers were unequal to such an effort; it must content itself
with rewarding the cultivator alone. Land B presented itself as
something better; a feeble rent it could supply. C, D, and E continued
the ascending scale; the rents they yielded assumed grander dimensions,
till the maximum of fertility and remunerating power was reached. The
[pg 632]
array wore a splendidly scientific air; it almost rivalled the great law
of the inverse square of the distances. But, alas, as Ricardo himself
dimly saw, rent bowed to other forces besides mere fertility. Varying
distances from manures and markets, dissimilar demands for horsepower
for the attainment of the same crops, unequal pressure of rates
and taxes, and other like causes compelled rent to sway upwards and
downwards in contradiction of the law of fertility; and that was not
scientific. But it was true in fact, and Ricardo, under the pressure of
necessity, summed up these disturbing causes under the general word
situation. Like Mill, he had to recognise that Political Economy, as
he and Mill posed it, was “an hypothetical science,” and that the stern
world of material realities was under the dominion of influences which
were not hypothetical nor scientific.¹

If Ricardo and Mill had contented themselves with laying down what
the amount of rent was, governed by the quality of the soil’s fertility
and by the forces which they feebly recognised by the word situation,
no harm would have been done. They would have given a tolerably
fair description of the causes on which the magnitude of rent depends.
It would not indeed have explained what rent is, but it would have
expressed truths with which the common agricultural mind was
familiar, and they might have retained the command of agricultural
ears. But scientific ambition would not be satisfied with so simple and
unpretending a statement. It was resolved that the explanation of rent
should take the shape of a scientific doctrine; and with this object it
invented an addition to it of whose scientific character there could be
no doubt. “It converted the land,” in the words of Mr. Mill, “which
yields least return to the labour and capital employed on it, and gives
only the ordinary profit of capital, without leaving anything for rent,
into a standard for estimating the amount of rent which will be
yielded by all other land. Any land yields as much more than the
ordinary profits of stock, as it yields more than what is returned by the
worst land in cultivation.” This worst land, which had no rent to
give, was erected into a standard which should measure rents as accurately
as a yard measures distances, and a pound avoirdupois weights.
Most useful indeed is the yard which tells us how far it is to Dover,
and the lb. weight which informs us how heavy the load of coals is which
has reached our door; and delightful truly, would be an instrument
which should tell a disputing landlord and tenants, with unerring
precision, how much rent exactly each farm was bound to pay. But
[pg 633]
this “margin of calculation,” this land which pays no rent—what landlord
or what farmer has ever inquired for it in the calculation of their
rents? Has it ever occurred to the thoughts, or passed the lips, of a
single practical agriculturist, in these days of excitement, and anger,
and unceasing declamations in the press and tribune on rent? And
if it had been found, what possible help could it have brought to a
single agriculturist? Such land could be no measure to measure by.
A measure must either be a given portion of the thing measured, as a
yard of length, or else be an effect of a given force, as the height of the
barometer of the pressure of the atmosphere. A piece of land which
yields no rent cannot measure one that does, because the non-payment
of rent is not the effect of a single force but of many diverse ones. A
particular farm may pay no rent because it is isolated by want of roads,
or is in a lonely spot, or is far off from manures, or is burdened with
excess of taxation, as a whole parish in Buckinghamshire which was
said to have gone out of cultivation because no man would face the
burden of its poor-rates. What facility for calculation could such a parish
furnish to a farmer in Middlesex or Lancashire? The selection of such
a standard was a purely illogical process; it confounded effect with
cause. The forces which determine rent decree that such a farm
cannot pay rent, that is an effect; but its paying no rent could be no
cause, by the mere fact alone that it did not yield sufficient net profit,
why other lands should pay no rent. The margin of calculation was
framed at a particular locality, under its own circumstances, but it could
say nothing about the circumstances of another farm and their effects.

The moral to be derived from the examination of Ricardo and Mill’s
theories of rent is clear. The sooner that their margin of cultivation,
their standard of the amount of rent, disappears, the better will it be for
the interests of society and of Political Economy. It has driven away
all agricultural audience from the talk of Political Economy about rent;
it is felt to lie altogether outside of the practical world. Let the land
which is cultivated without being able to pay rent be inquired into by
all means, whenever there is a call for so doing. Let the impeding
causes and all their circumstances be explored, but let the inquiry and
its results be kept apart from all rent-paying land. The forces which
determine that one farm can pay rent and another none are the same
for both, either by their presence or their absence; but the two farms
have no connection with each other, except as suffering effects from
common causes. When this great truth is seen and acknowledged,
and when Political Economy has ceased to talk of the non rent-paying
land regulating the amount of all rent, the world which it addresses,
and for whom it exists, will be won over to listen to its teaching on rent
and to think it real.

And now let us face the question, simply, What is rent? It is
necessary to distinguish here between two different meanings of the
word rent. It is a legal word, connected with the hire of land or forms
[pg 634]
of real property connected with land, as houses, rooms, and the like.
Agricultural rent is different in nature from the rent of rooms. The
rents paid for a house or rooms in a large building such as Gresham
House have no relation to any particular business carried on in them,
much less do they depend on the success of that business. Agricultural
rent, on the contrary, is given for the very purpose of engaging in a
distinct business, agriculture; and the profits of that business enter
largely, in the settlement of rent, into the calculations of the lender
and the hirer of the land. It is of agricultural rent exclusively that we
are speaking on the present occasion.

In order to make a correct analysis of the subject, let us place ourselves
in the position of a farmer who is offered the tenancy of a
particular farm. It is necessary, further, to form a clear conception of
the fact, and to bear it constantly in mind, that in all acts of selling or
hiring, it is the purchaser or hirer, not the seller or the lender, who
ultimately decides whether an exchange shall take place. Whatever be
the price asked, be it high or be it low, the buyer by giving or
refusing it decrees whether a commercial transaction shall be carried out.
It is not the landlord but the tenant who will in the last resort determine
what the rent shall be. The landlord may select amongst competing
farmers the man who will pay the highest rent; still it will be
the judgment of that tenant that will decide at last, not only what the
amount of the rent shall be, but even whether the farm shall be let at all.
The inquiry thus becomes, What are the thoughts, and what the feelings
consequent on those thoughts, which traverse the mind of the farmer?
He is seeking to borrow the use of land in order to engage in the
agricultural business; his motive is profit, such an amount of profit as
will, after repaying all his outlay of every kind, yield him the fitting
reward for his efforts and his skill. His object is to gain a living out
of his farm; and his calculations turn on the inquiry, on what terms of
borrowing the use of the land he shall be able to obtain the ordinary
profits of trade. Let us accompany him in these calculations.

The landlord opens the debate by naming the rent which he requires
for the farm. The question for the tenant becomes, Can the farm afford
such a rent? Here, obviously, the productive power of the soil will
present itself as the first and most momentous subject of inquiry. It
is a productive machine that the farmer is seeking to hire. The strength
of that machine, its capacity to turn out much and good work, is the
great point to ascertain. The quality of the soil itself is clearly a most
important element of the problem; but it is far from being the only
force which constitutes the productive power of a farm. What the
climate is at the particular locality is a consideration of great weight.
Good land in a rainy district will yield an inferior rent to land of the
same quality under a more genial sun and a drier atmosphere. Then
the water connected with the farm will come under examination. Will it
be capable of creating water-meadows, which have such a lifting power
[pg 635]
for rent in many parts of England? The fertility, too, of the several
fields of the farm will differ. The intelligent tenant will feel himself
called upon to estimate what amount of crop, what quantity of food for
cattle, with his skill and capital, he may reasonably expect to produce.
This is the basis of the whole computation—the quantity and quality
of the produce that he can fairly reckon on obtaining. And he will not
be governed solely by the then existing state of the land. If he is an
able agriculturist, he will form a shrewd guess of what he will be able
to make it yield by proper treatment. And it is very probable that he
will prefer to pay a high rent for good land rather than a lower rent for
inferior soil, because he may feel a well-founded confidence in his own
resources to work up the greater power of a strong, if even obstinate,
farm to larger results.

Having completed the first stage, and formed his estimate of the
crops and cattle which the land will yield, the tenant will now address
himself to the very grave question of the cost which his manufacturing
industry will entail. Here he will encounter forces which pay small
respect to the beautiful symmetry of hypothetical economic science, and
often influence the amount of rent far more powerfully than the fertility
of the land. Will his farm be amongst the light and sunny hills of
Surrey; or will it be embedded in the stubborn clay of the Sussex
weald? Will he need four horses or two only for each of his ploughs?
The crop may be the same for both, but the cost will be widely different,
and may create much resistance to the landlord’s rent. If he appeals
to steam-power for help, he must ask himself how far off he will be
from the coal-field, how near to him will be the station at which he
will buy his coals. So, again, with his manure. Will the lime and the
marl be close to his borders, or must he send his carts long distances
to the pit or the railway? Then comes the serious question of the place
where his buyers dwell; how far he is from his market; what expense
of carriage he will be put to. It may be his good fortune to be offered
a farm in the neighbourhood of London, or some great manufacturing
town. A weighty rent, it is true, may be demanded of him, even some
ten or fifteen pounds an acre; but this will not extinguish the attractiveness
of such a farm. Better markets, abundant supplies of manure,
cultivation by the spade, and high prices, may possess higher claims in
his eyes than a small rent in a rural region.

But the computing farmer’s arithmetic is not yet over; he has very
formidable figures still to face. His land may be burdened with heavy
charges of an exceptional kind. His tithe may be unusually large; his
poor-rate peculiarly severe; and the school-rate may acutely try his
temper and his purse. Worse still, agricultural wages in his locality
may be inordinately high, for wide are the discrepancies between wages
in different parts of England, and the worth of the wage may not be
repaid by labourers demoralized by trade unions. The long arithmetical
array of heavy burdens will be duly noted by the incoming tenant, and
[pg 636]
carefully placed to the debit of the debated rent; but one thing he will
not do—he will not search out the position of the farm offered in the
brilliant series of ascending fertility, and comfort himself with the reflection
that economical science furnishes him with the assurance that a
farm standing so high above the margin of cultivation must necessarily
be able to pay the rent attached to that position, all these exceptional
charges of cost of production notwithstanding.

One item of cost still remains, which the intelligent tenant will
investigate before he contracts to take the farm. He will inquire into
the condition of the farm—into the outfit, so to speak, which it will require
for the full performance of the work which it is fitted to perform. He
will endeavour to ascertain the amount of draining which has been
effected, the number and state of the farm-buildings, as well as the amount
of unexhausted improvements of various kinds which either the landlord
or the previous tenant has laid out upon the land. These constitute
no real part of the land’s fertility, though they increase its power to
produce: they are fixed capital in the carrying out of the agricultural
business. And here it is important to note that the tenant will not
inquire into the amount of money, as such, which the landlord has
spent upon his land. He will not pay an additional pound of rent
because the landlord can appeal to large figures denoting the capital he
has laid out on his fields. This, by itself alone, does not concern the
tenant; but it does concern him greatly to learn the actual condition
of the farm; and beyond doubt the landlord will be able to demand
increased rent, and the tenant will be perfectly willing to pay it, to the
extent that the outlay on draining and other improvements has augmented
the actual produce of the farm. The tenant looks solely to the
working power of the agricultural machine and the results which he
may obtain from it; outside of this consideration he takes no account
of what outlay the landlord has incurred, any more than of the price
which he has given for the property. The tenant will be well aware
that if that machinery does not exist, it must be provided by means of
an understanding with the landlord, necessarily involving some cost for
himself: if he finds it on the ground and at work, he will set down in his
calculation an increased estimate of produce without any debit against
rent for cost of construction—he will feel that he is hiring a more
powerful machine.

The calculating tenant has now formed an estimate of what he may
assume as the amount of produce which he can procure from the farm,
as also of the cost which the obtaining of that produce in the given
locality will entail. He thus reaches the third stage of his investigation—the
price which he may reckon on realizing for the products he
has raised. Here the peculiar nature of the agricultural business
reveals itself. A man who enters upon a new industry, or erects a new
mill, or opens a fresh mine, will not inquire for a particular price
which he may adopt as the basis of his computations. He will think
[pg 637]
only of the extent of the demand which exists for the articles that he
intends to manufacture. If it is strong and increasing, he will feel sure
that the consumers will repay the whole cost of production, interest and
capital included, and in addition the legitimate profit attached to the
business. If he hires or buys machinery, he will pay the price belonging
to it in its own market as a manufactured article, precisely as if he were
making purchases in shops; the seller of a steam-engine will not ask
how much profit the engine will create for the factory. No doubt, if a
site must be bought or hired for the erection of the mill, a higher price
for the land will be encountered, in consequence of the prosperity of
trade in the particular town or district; but the rate of profit will not
rise in the discussion between the landowner and the trader. The price
of the land will be regulated by the force of the existing demand for
land, a demand which, of course, will gather strength from the swelling
profits realized in the trade.

The position of the farmer who is seeking to discover what is the
proper consideration for the hire of a farm is radically different from
that of an ordinary manufacturer. As all land in England can
be said to pay rent, it is clear that its products are sold at such a profit
as enables the tenant to reward his landlord for his loan. The sale of
what he makes is therefore certain, but the price which it will fetch is
anything but certain. His business is subject to influences which very
materially affect the quantity of his products, and still more the prices
which they will command. He is dominated by the seasons; but it may
be argued that their fluctuations may be guarded against by basing the
calculation on their average character. The statement is well founded,
and every sensible farmer will take the average season as his rule in computing;
yet even the average season, as recent experience has too sadly
shown, may sweep over a large cycle of years with very disturbing
results. But there are other and very formidable difficulties which the
farmer is called upon to face. The price which his produce will command
depends on forces of great and varying power which are entirely beyond
his own control, and often are incapable of being estimated beforehand.
He is necessarily met by foreign competition; and that competition itself
is stronger or weaker according to the commercial position of the
countries which bring it to bear. Further, the state of the home market
itself cannot be prejudged. The produce of English land will certainly
be demanded and sold; but its price is vastly influenced by the
prosperity or adversity of English trade. The rate, for instance, at which
meat will be sold will vary prodigiously according as the multitudes of
British workmen are earning high or low wages. The fortunes of foreign
nations will weigh on the cultivating farmer; they are buyers of English
wares, and their financial condition will act on British manufactures
and recoil, for good or evil, on British agriculture.

The combined action of these manifold and diverse forces generates a
special and very important effect. It imprints on the hire of land a
[pg 638]
distinct and unique feature of its own; it imparts its peculiar characteristic
to rent. The position of the farmer is not that of a man engaged in a
business, and buying or hiring a machine which is required for carrying
it on; it is rather the situation of one who is examining whether
he can reasonably enter upon the business at all. One feeling governs
that situation; the tenant must be able to live by it by means of a
natural profit after all expenses have been repaid. Thus, the payment
for the use of the land takes the form of handing over to the landowner
all excess of profit above the fitting reward for the farmer. This
seems manifestly the best method for giving the required security to
the tenant, whilst it provides the lender of the use of the land a reward
just in itself and compatible with the continuous cultivation of the soil.
Such a system is not unacceptable to the landlord; he cannot hope to
maintain a fixed rent which the returns yielded by the agricultural
business do not furnish. To insist upon such a condition would be
simply to compel the farmer to renounce the farm. And he will not
obtain such a rent from any other tenant; for the one he dismisses has
no other motive for leaving except the fact that the farm will not provide
such a rent. On the other hand, if he is dissatisfied with the rent
offered by the tenant, he has in the competition of tenants desirous of
hiring the farm a sure test for ascertaining whether the offer is just or
deficient.

It follows, from the preceding analysis, that rent depends on the prices
realized by agricultural produce compared with the cost of their production,
the farming profits included. A high price does not in every case imply
a correspondingly high rent, for the cost of raising agricultural produce
varies immensely in different localities; still, as a rule, elevated prices
will raise up rents with them. The same truth holds good of every
business: it must yield repayment of all cost of manufacturing, and
reward the manufacturer with the necessary profit, or it will cease to
exist. But agricultural price encounters two serious embarrassments
not to be found to an equal degree in other trades. It is, in the first
place, powerfully acted upon by the vicissitudes of the weather: a
bountiful harvest, coming in contact with great commercial profits,
brings a full and often an augmented price, to the great advantage of
the farmer; a poor harvest, falling on a depressed trade, often fails to
reap a price corresponding with the diminution of the supply. There
is but one remedy wherewith to meet the fluctuations of such a market—a
remedy, unfortunately, too little heeded by most farmers. The great
law of the average harvest must be ever borne in mind, ought ever to
govern the conduct of the intelligent farmer: he is bound, by the very
nature of his business, to reserve the excess of profits of the good year
to balance the deficient return of the failing crop. His rent ought to
be, probably is, founded on this principle; his practice often exhibits
profuse self-indulgence under the temptations of the prosperous time,
in utter thoughtlessness about the future.

[pg 639]

We have now reached the full explanation of rent. It is surplus
profit—that is, excess of profit after the repayment of the whole cost
of production, beyond the legitimate profit which belongs to the tenant
as a manufacturer of agricultural produce. The interest which he
would have reaped from placing capital which he has devoted to the
farm in some safe investment, such as consols or railway debentures,
forms necessarily a portion of the cost of production. He would have
realized some 4 per cent. on the investment without risk or effort of any
kind. This interest constitutes no reward for engaging in agriculture.

It remains now to consider certain important consequences which
flow from this explanation of rent. In the first place, it is evident that
three separate incomes are derived from agriculture, whilst two only
make their appearance in all other industries. In common with them
agriculture furnishes reward or income for two classes of persons—wages
for labourers and profit for the employer. There the similarity ends.
A third income makes its appearance for a third person—rent for the
landlord. This rent is not an ordinary consideration for hiring some
useful machine; if it were a compensation of this nature, it would necessarily
take its place amongst the items composing the cost of production.
It is a part of the profit won, dependent in no way on the
value of the property nor on the price at which it was bought, but
purely and simply on the degree of the profit realized. It is a part of
that profit, estimated and paid as what remains over—a surplus.

But how comes it to pass that an ordinary manufacture does not yield
or pay any such third income? For a simple and decisive reason. A
Manchester manufacturer cannot permanently earn a higher profit than
belongs to his trade. If we suppose 10 per cent. to be the natural profit
of that trade, and he persistently realizes 18, other mills will be opened
by new men entering into the business, and this process will be continued
till his profits are reduced to their legitimate level. It is otherwise with
farming. If a tenant reaps 10 per cent. continuously from his farm,
when competitors are willing to be content with 8, the landlord will
quickly make the discovery, and will add the surplus 2 to the rent he
requires. He will obtain the income, because 8 per cent. is judged by the
farming world to be an adequate reward for engaging in agriculture,
and because no additional land is to be found for the agricultural business.

2. It is clear that tithes, poor-rates, and other permanent charges,
fall upon the landlord’s rent, and not on the farmer’s profit. They
diminish rent. This is a point on which much misunderstanding
prevails. A loud outcry is raised amongst tenants at this time of
agricultural suffering against the heavy payments demanded of them for
special taxes imposed upon land; a strong agitation is rising to obtain
their repeal, as being unjustifiable wrongs inflicted on the most meritorious
of industries. It is not perceived that these charges figured as
items in the cost of production when the farmer was calculating what
rent the farm would warrant him to pay: they diminished the
[pg 640]
rent at the cost of the landlord. Tithes and rates took their
places in the estimate of the debit side quite as really as the number
of horses, or the quantity of manure, which the farm would require.
We have seen that rent makes its appearance only after every expense has
been provided for, and a legitimate profit secured; then, and not till then,
the calculation of the rent begins. If the farming world succeeds in
removing these burdens, wholly or in part, from the shoulders of the
tenants, there can be no doubt that rents will proportionately rise. The
landlords would argue, with entire justice, that all other circumstances
remaining the same, the collective farming profit had become larger
by the disappearance of these taxes, and as the tenant was entitled only
to his natural rate of profit, the increase of surplus would legitimately
belong to him. If the tenant repelled such a claim, the landlord
would be easily able to obtain the rent he claimed from competing
farmers who would be satisfied with the natural profit of the business.

One exception, however, must be allowed to this conclusion—the
case, namely, of a tenant who, upon a long lease, had contracted to
pay a definite rent for many years. Such a tenant has taken upon
himself the chances of the cost of production during a lengthened
period, it may be nineteen or twenty-one years, being larger or smaller.
If it diminishes during the interval, he gains: if it increases, he loses.
Practically he has insured the landlord’s rent, during the continuance
of the lease, against diminution. For all increase or diminution of
rates he fares as if he were the landlord.

3. A third very important deduction follows from the nature of
the process which determines rent. Rent does not increase the price
of agricultural produce; it does not make bread dearer. Rent is the
consequence, not the creator, of price. Here the difference between
agriculture and manufacturing trades is vital. The hire or purchase
of machinery forms necessarily a part of the cost of manufacturing the
goods: it must be paid for by the price realized, or the goods will not
be made. On the other hand, the consideration to be given for the
use of the land does not enter into the tenant’s estimate of his cost of
production. He does not direct his inquiry to the right rent till after
he has ascertained what the farm will produce, the cost of obtaining it,
and the price it will fetch. He then discovers what the profit will be:
from it he takes his own necessary share; what is over he hands to the
landlord as rent. He does not, like the manufacturer, insist upon a
price which must be obtained, for otherwise he would not be able to pay
for the use of the machine he borrows; he simply takes the price which
he finds in the market, makes himself reasonably sure of the profit which
rewards him, and the landlord must take the chance of what rent will
remain over, whether large or small. Rent exists because a selling price
is found which yields a surplus, an excess of profit beyond what the
tenant requires. If price gives no surplus profit, the landlord will
get no rent, and he must farm the land himself, or sell it to a farmer.

But there is a peculiarity in the agricultural market which exercises
[pg 641]
a very powerful influence in raising rents. Most manufactured articles
can be dispensed with, or their consumption greatly lessened, if their
cost of production is largely increased, or the means of buying diminished.
It is otherwise with food: it must be had, must be bought,
if any means of purchasing it exist. The effect of this force on a
country situated like England is very marked. England cannot supply
food for more than half of her population; the other half must be procured
from abroad. Now, the principle which governs the price of indispensable
food is the law, that the price paid for the dearest article—say, a
loaf of bread—which must and will be bought, will impose itself on all
like articles which are actually purchased. When the loaf made in
England was cheaper than any imported from abroad, then the price
of the English loaf rose to the price of the dearest foreign loaves
which were sold and purchased in the English markets. This extra-addition
of price was a pure surplus of profit received by the English
grower of wheat; the cost of production was not changed, nor his
requirement of profit for himself augmented. The gain he thus
realized, being absolutely surplus profit, passed to the landowner. The
need of foreign corn raised his rent. But the picture has a reverse
side. It may well happen that the foreign corn landed in England
will be saleable at a lower price than the English. If the supply can
be furnished in sufficient quantity to provide bread enough for all
England, the English corn in that case must inevitably sink to the level
of the foreign—its price will fall, the profit realized on its sale may
indefinitely sink, and a great reduction of rents throughout England
may well be the inevitable consequence. The only weapon wherewith to
fight off the disaster would be such a modification of British agriculture
as would lead to the cultivation of other crops than wheat.

Here it seems desirable to notice briefly some remarks addressed by
Professor Thorold Rogers to the Daily News, of October 30th, 1879; for
though they are in the main true, they might easily give rise to
mischievous misconception. He writes—”There is no doubt that rent
is wealth to the recipient, and a means of profit to those who trade
with the recipient; but except in so far as it represents the advantageous
outlay of capital, it is no more national wealth than the public funds
are.” Surely this is to ignore the fact that the sources from which
rent and the dividends on the public funds are derived differ radically
in nature. The dividends on consols are the fruit of taxes levied on
the whole people of England, and distributed as such to national creditors,
which they may consume as they please. Rent is part of a profit
earned by an industry useful to the country. A tax and a profit are
not necessarily the same thing. No doubt a profit swollen by a
monopoly price is equivalent to a tax: and a rent derived from “the
price of the produce of land, raised by excessive demand and stinted
supply,” would be a forced contribution from consumers. But is all
rent the child of monopoly? May it not well happen, does it not
constantly happen, that rents are high by the side of cheap corn, because
[pg 642]
the agricultural business is largely productive through efforts made by
landlords in improving the powers of the soil? Are they to be limited
down in their reward to the pure interest which they could have
obtained for their capital from investments in bonds and debentures?
Is not part of the profit realized legitimately due to them, as profit
accomplished by a commercial enterprise? If the returns on improvements
made by landowners on their estates were limited to the interest
which they could have obtained from consols, would not the motive for
making such improvements be sadly wanting? It would sound strange in
great manufacturing towns to be told that flowing profits are no increase
of the public wealth, that they are taxes resembling the public funds,
and must be swept away down to the lowest sum compatible with the
existence of the industry.

And what must be said of the ugly word, monopoly, which is so freely
flung against the owners of rent? There is a sound of unfairness in it;
of unearned gains won without effort from the fortunes of others. How
is such a reproach to be repelled? To parry the blow does not seem to be
so difficult. There is, indeed, a kind of monopoly which is susceptible
of no defence, a monopoly of manufacture conferred on a favoured few,
by the arbitrary decree of the law, founded on no superior claim of merit
or capacity, and resulting in inflated prices and inferiority of service
rendered. Such were the monopolies whose abolition an indignant public
opinion extorted from Queen Elizabeth. But a superior advantage of
production or sale attached by nature to particular individuals or
societies belongs to a wholly different class. Life is full of such
monopolies. They are inherent and indestructible. The vineyards of
France possess a monopoly of incomparable wine which will for all time
earn amazing profits paid by voluntary buyers. England enjoys a like
monopoly in the juxtaposition of her coal and iron, which have created
a trade that no other nation can rival. The eloquent barrister, the
acute physician, the brilliant artist, the quick-eyed inventor of
machines, the soul-stirring singer, all are endowed with a personal
monopoly resulting in great wealth. Are the men and nations who reap
the splendid fruit of such a superiority to be stigmatized as despoilers of
their fellow-citizens? Is rent, the offspring of a like advantage, to be
painted as a tribute exacted from fellow-countrymen compelled to
buy food?

But it will be said, change the tenure of the land, and the wrong will
disappear. But what system will clear away superior produce and
increased price? Certainly not a universal peasant-proprietor class.
Such peasants would still possess the command of higher prices conferred
by fertility and situation, and by means of such prices they would gather
up swollen profits which would in reality be rent. Then let the land be
owned by the whole community in common possession, exclaim French
Socialists, and let its fruits be distributed in equal shares to every
inhabitant. But even in such an extreme case it would be impossible to
[pg 643]
efface monopoly. The able-bodied man who received the same share of
produce as the weak dwarf, the clever artisan who was unable to earn a
special reward for his fructifying intelligence, would inevitably reap a
diminution of labour and time. His higher faculties would earn a monopoly
benefit in leisure.

The conclusion to be drawn is evident. Nature has scattered
monopolies broadcast, higher profits, over the world. She has ordained
that they shall ever exist. It is futile to stigmatize rent as an exceptional
offender against equality.

4. Finally, one more truth comes forth from this explanation, which
has a most important bearing on the efficient cultivation of land. The
landowner and the tenant are joint partners in a common business.
They share a common profit—the first portion belongs to the farmer, the
remainder to the landlord. They are both interested in promoting the
success of the agriculturist. If the cultivation of the soil thrives even under
the shortest leases, the rent is not quickly raised in consequence of
the rising profit—whilst under a long lease very considerable gains may
be won before a new settlement of the rent can come up for discussion.
This partnership brings a powerful motive to act on the landlord to
give help in developing the efficiency of the farming. He knows
that if he invests capital in draining and other improvements, he
increases the productive power of his land, he is laying the foundation
of enlarged results, and he cannot fail to perceive that land thus improved
must yield a bigger profit, of which the surplus part, the rents, must
necessarily be greater. Thus, an important benefit is acquired, not
only for the joint partners, but also for the whole population of the
country. Such processes generate more abundant and cheaper food.
The landlord who never visits his farms, never thinks of them
except on rent day, is blind to his own interest, is forgetting that
ownership of land is a partnership in a business. He neglects his
own enrichment, and leaves needed resources for the nation unused.
The active and intelligent landlord, on the contrary, watches the march
of agriculture. He observes where the machine, the soil, requires
improvement, he notices the farming qualities of the tenant, he lives
on friendly relations with him, and deliberates with him on expanding
the productive power of the farm. His rent becomes larger—not
only by obtaining interest on the capital laid out, but also by
sharing in the additional profit which that capital is sure to engender;
and that addition will not be grudged by the tenant. He, too, will have
prospered by the help of more powerful machinery in his trade, for he
is certain of getting an augmented profit from the capital laid out by
the landlord. Whatever may be said of the system of land-revenue
which prevails in England, one merit it certainly possesses: it tends to
bring the capital of a wealthy landowner to take part in enlarging the
power of the land and the amount of its produce.

Bonamy Price.

¹  It is much to be regretted that Professor Jevons in his “Primer of Political Economy”
should have omitted in his explanation of rent the action of the forces which Ricardo and
Mill sum up in the word situation. He affirms “that rent arises from the fact that different
pieces of land are not equally fertile,” and that “the rent of better land consists of the
surplus of its produce over that of the poorest cultivated land.” How is it then that
inferior land near great towns pays a much higher rent than very good land in the heart of
a rural district, far away from railways or canals, burdened with high poor-rates, and sorely
in want of lime or other distant manures? Ricardo himself admits, and so does Mill, that
if all lands were equally fertile, and, it may be added, equally well situated as to other
forces, they would still pay rent to their owners.

[pg 644]

BUDDHISM AND JAINISM.

I
N previous papers I have traced the progress of Indian religious thought
through the various stages of Vedism, Brāhmanism, Vaishnavism,
S′aivism, and S′āktism, and have pointed out that all these systems more
or less run into, and in a manner overlap, one another. We have
seen that among the primitive Āryans the air, the fire, and the sun,
were believed to contain within themselves mysterious and irresistible
forces, capable of effecting tremendous results either for good or evil.
They were therefore personified, deified, and worshipped. Some regarded
them as manifestations of one Supreme Controller of the Universe;
others as separate cosmical divinities with separate powers and
attributes.

If the religion of the ancient Indo-Āryans was a form of Theism, it
was a Theism of a very uncertain and unsettled character. It was a
religious creed based on a vague belief in the sovereignty of unseen
natural forces. Such a creed might fairly be called monotheism,
henotheism, polytheism, or pantheism, according to the particular
standpoint from which it is regarded. But it was not, in its earliest
origin, idolatry. Its simple ritual was the natural outcome of each
man’s earnest effort to express devotional feelings in his own way. Unhappily
it did not long retain its simplicity. The Brāhmans soon
took advantage of the growth of religious ideas among a people naturally
pious and superstitious. They gradually cumbered the simplicity of worship
with elaborate ceremonial. They persuaded the people that propitiatory
offerings of all kinds were needed to secure the favour of the beings
they worshipped, and that such sacrifices could not be performed
without the repetition of prayers by a regularly ordained and trained
priesthood. But this was not all. They developed and formulated a
pantheistic philosophy, based on the physiolatry of the Veda, and overlaid
[pg 645]
it with subtle metaphysical and ontological speculations. They
identified the Supreme Being with all the phenomena of Nature, and
maintained that the Brāhmans themselves were his principal human
manifestation, the sole repositories and exponents of all religious and
philosophical truth, the sole mediators between earth and heaven, the
sole link between men and gods. This combination of ritualism and
philosophy, which together constituted what is commonly called Brāhmanism,
gradually superseded the simple forms of Vedic religion. In
process of time, however, the extravagance of Brāhmanical ceremonial,
and the tyranny of priestcraft, led to repeated reactions. Efforts after
simplicity of worship and freedom of thought were made by various
energetic religious leaders at various periods. More than one reformer
arose, who attempted to deliver the people from the bondage of a complex
ceremonial, and the intolerable incubus of an arrogant sacerdotalism.

It was natural that the most successful opposition to priestcraft
should have originated in the caste next in rank to the Brāhmans.
Gautama (afterwards called “the Buddha”) was a man of the military
class (Kshatriya). He was the son of a petty chief who ruled over
a small principality called Kapila-vastu, north of the Ganges; but he
was not the sole originator of the reactionary movement. He had, in
all probability, been preceded by other less conspicuous social reformers,
and other leaders of sceptical inquiry. Or other such leaders may have
been contemporaneous with himself. We have already pointed out that
the philosophy he enunciated was not in its general scope and bearing
very different from that of Brāhmanism. The Brāhmans called their
system of doctrines “Dharma,”¹ and the Buddha called his by the same
name. He recognised no distinguishing term like Buddhism. His simple
aim was to remove every merely sacerdotal doctrine from the national
religion—to cut away every useless excrescence, and to sweep away every
corrupting incrustation. His own doctrines of liberty, equality, and
general benevolence towards all creatures, ensured the popularity of his
teaching; while the example he himself set of asceticism and self-mortification,
secured him a large number of devoted personal adherents.
For it is remarkable that just as the Founder of Christianity was Himself
a Jew, and required none of His followers to give up their true
Jewish creed, or Jewish usages, so the founder of Buddhism was himself
a Hindū, and did not require his adherents to give up every essential
principle of ordinary Hindūism, or renounce all the religious observances
of their ancestors.²

Yet it cannot be denied that Buddhism was very different from Brāhmanism,
[pg 646]
and it is a remarkable fact that, with all his personal popularity,
the atheistic philosophy of Gautama was unsuited to the masses of the
people. His negations, abstractions, and theories of the non-eternity
and ultimate extinction of soul, never commended themselves to the
popular mind.

It seemed, indeed, probable that Buddhism was destined to become
extinct with its founder. The Buddha died, like other men, and,
according to his own doctrine, became absolutely extinct. Nothing
remained but the relics of his burnt body, which were distributed in
all directions. No successor was ready to step into his place. No
living representative was competent to fill up the void caused by his
death. Nothing seemed more unlikely than that the mere recollection
of his teaching and example, though perpetuated by the rapid multiplication
of shrines, symbols, and images of his person,³ should have
power to secure the continuance of his system in his own native country
for more than ten centuries, and to disseminate his doctrines over the
greater part of Asia. What, then, was the secret of its permanence
and diffusion? It really had no true permanence. Buddhism never
lived on in its first form, and never spread anywhere without taking
from other systems quite as much as it imparted. The tolerant spirit
which was its chief distinguishing characteristic permitted its adherents
to please themselves in adopting extraneous doctrines. Hence it happened
that the Buddhists were always ready to acquiesce in, and even
conform to, the religious practices of the countries to which they
migrated, and to clothe their own simple creed in, so to speak, a many-coloured
vesture of popular legends and superstitious ideas.

Even in India, where the Buddha’s memory continued to be perpetuated
by strong personal recollections and local associations, as well
as by relics, symbols, and images, his doctrines rapidly lost their distinctive
character, and ultimately, as we have already shown, merged
in the Brāhmanism whence they originally sprang.

Nor is there any historical evidence to prove that the Buddhists were
finally driven out of India by violent means. Doubtless, occasional
persecutions occurred in particular places at various times, and it is well
ascertained that fanatical, enthusiastic Brāhmans, such as Kumārila and
S′ankara, occasionally instigated deeds of blood and violence. But the
[pg 647]
final disappearance of Buddhism is probably due to the fact that the two
systems, instead of engaging in constant conflict, were gradually drawn
towards each other by mutual sympathy and attraction; and that, originally
related like father and child, they ended by consorting together in
unnatural union and intercourse. The result of this union was the
production of the hybrid systems of Vaishnavism and S′aivism, both of
which in their lineaments bear a strong family resemblance to Buddhism.
The distinctive names of Buddhism were dropped, but the distinctive
features of the system survived. The Vaishnavas were Buddhists in
their doctrines of liberty and equality, in their abstinence from injury
(a-hinsā), in their desire for the preservation of life, in their
hero-worship,
deification of humanity, and fondness for images; while the
S′aivas were Buddhists in their love for self-mortification and austerity,
as well as in their superstitious dread of the power of demoniacal
agencies. What, then, became of the atheistical philosophy and agnostic
materialism of the Buddhistic creed? Those doctrines were no more
expelled from India than were other Buddhistic ideas. They found a
home, under changed names, among various sects, but especially in a
kindred system which has survived to the present day, and may be conveniently
called Jainism.⁴ Here, then, we are brought face to face
with the special subject of our present paper: What are the peculiar
characteristics of the Jaina creed?

To give an exhaustive reply to such a question will scarcely be
possible until the sacred books of Buddhists and Jainas (or, as they are
commonly called, Jains) have been more thoroughly investigated. All
that I can do at present is to give a general outline of Jaina doctrines,
and to indicate the principal points in which they either agree with or
differ from those of Buddhists and Brāhmans.⁵ Perhaps the first point
to which attention may be directed is that recent investigations have
tended to show that Buddhism and Jainism were not related to each
other as parent and child, but rather as children of a common parent,
born at different intervals, though at about the same period of time, and
marked by distinct characteristics, though possessing a strong family
resemblance. Both these systems, in fact, were the product of Brāhmanical
rationalistic thought, which was itself a child of Brāhmanism.
Both were forms of materialistic philosophy engendered from separate
kindred germs.

For there can be no doubt that different lines of philosophical speculation
were developed by the Brāhmans at a very early period. All
such speculations were regarded by them as legitimate phases of their
own religious system. In some localities where Brāhmanism was strong
[pg 648]
and dominant, rationalism was restrained within orthodox limits. In
other places it diverged into unorthodox sceptical inquiries. In others
into rank heresy and schism. Buddhism and Jainism represented
different schools of heretical philosophical speculation which were in all
likelihood nearly synchronous in their origin. That is to say,
Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, and Pārs′vanātha, the probable
founder of Jainism, may have lived about the same time in different
parts of India. Nor is it unreasonable to conjecture that both these
freethinkers may have followed closely on Kapila, the reputed founder
of the Sānkhya system and typical representative of rationalistic
Brāhmanism.⁶
By far the most popular of the three was Gautama, commonly
called the Buddha. The influence of his personal character,
combined with the extraordinary persuasiveness of his teaching, was
irresistible. His system spread with his followers and admirers in every
direction, and threw all kindred systems into the shade. Very soon
Buddhistic doctrines leavened the religions of the whole Indian peninsula,
from Afghānistān to Ceylon. They found their way into every home.
They became domesticated in the cottages of peasants and palaces of kings.
As to Jainism, centuries elapsed before it emerged from the obscurity to
which the greater popularity of Buddhism had consigned it. Nor, even
when its rival was extinguished, did it ever rise above the rank of an
insignificant sect. At present the total number of Jainas in all India
does not exceed 400,000, at least half of whom are found in the Bombay
Presidency.

Yet it is not impossible that the first opposition to sacerdotalism may
have been due to Jaina influences, and that Indian rationalistic speculation
may have been inaugurated by early Jaina leaders. We know that
the Buddhist king As′oka, in his inscriptions—which are referred to the
third century B.C.—mentions the Jainas under the name of Nirgrantha,
as if well established and well known in his time. We know, too, what
has happened in our own country. Not long ago there was a reaction
from extreme Evangelical religious thought in England. But because
that reactionary movement is called by the name of a particular leader,
it by no means follows that he was chronologically the first to set it in
action. In the same way it may possibly turn out to be a fact that the
Jaina Pārs′vanātha, rather than the Buddha Gautama, was the first
excogitator of the heretical ideas and theories common to both. It seems
to me, indeed, not improbable that Jainism, which is now at length
assimilating itself to Hindūism, maintained its ground more persistently
in India, not only because, unlike Buddhism, it sullenly refused to
fraternize with Brāhmanism, and to court converts from other creeds,
but because the lines of demarcation which separated it from the orthodox
system were in some essential points more sharp and decided than
[pg 649]
those which separated Buddhism. It is, at any rate, a fact that the
Jainas claim for their system a prior origin to that of Buddhism, and
even affirm that Gautama Buddha was a pupil of their chief Jina,
Mahāvīra. Nor will it surprise us that the legendary history of
Mahāvīra,
who succeeded Pārs′vanātha, and was the first real propagator
of the Jaina creed, favours the theory of such a priority. True,
Mahāvīra is described as the son of Siddhārtha, which is an epithet
given
to the Buddha. But he is also said to have had a pupil named Gautama,
and his death is fixed by the concurrent testimony of both parties of
Jainas, who follow different reckonings, at a date corresponding to about
B.C. 526 or 527, the usual date assigned by modern research to the
Nirvāna or death of Buddha being 477 or 478.

But it must not be supposed that Pārs′vanātha and his successor
Mahāvīra, are regarded by the Jainas as their first supreme Jinas. They
were preceded by twenty-two other mythical leaders and patriarchs,
beginning with Rishabha,⁷ whose fabulous lives protracted to millions of
years, and whose fabulous statures, proportionally extended, were probably
invented in recent times, that the Jaina system might not be outdone by
that of either Brāhmans or Buddhists.

It is well known that the code of Manu—which is the best exponent
of Brāhmanism—supposes a constant succession of religious guides
through an infinite succession of cycles. These cycles are called Kalpas.
Every Kalpa or Æon of time begins with a new creation, and ends with
a universal dissolution of all existing things—including Brahmā, Vishnu,
S′iva, gods, demons, men, and animals—into Brahmă, or the One sole
impersonal self-existent Soul of the Universe. In the interval between
each creation and dissolution there are fourteen periods, presided over
by fourteen successive patriarchs or progenitors of the human race called
Manus, who, as their name implies, are the authors of all human wisdom,
and who create a succession of Sages and Saints (Rishis and Munis), for
mankind’s guidance and instruction.

The Buddhists, also, have their cycles of time, presided over by
twenty-four Buddhas, or ‘perfectly enlightened men,’ Gautama being
(according to the Northern reckoning) the seventh of the series.
Similarly the Jainas have their vast periods superintended by twenty-four
Jinas, or ‘self-conquering sages.’ The notion is that alternate
periods of degeneracy and amelioration succeed each other with
symmetrical regularity. Each cycle embraces vast terms of years; for
in the determination of the world’s epochs Indian arithmeticians anticipated
[pg 650]
centuries ago the wildest hypotheses of modern European science.
A single Kalpa, or Æon, of the Brāhmans consists of 4,320,000,000
years. It is divided into a thousand periods of four ages (called Satya,
Treta, Dvāpara, and Kali), under which there is gradual degeneration
until the depths of degeneracy are reached in the Kali age. The
Buddhist Kalpas are similar, but the Jaina cycles have a distinctive
character of their own. They proceed in pairs, one of which is called
‘descending,’ (Avasarpinī), and the other ‘ascending,’
(Utsarpinī). Of
these the descending cycle has six stages, or periods, each comprising
one hundred million years, and called ‘good-good,’ ‘good,’ ‘good-bad,’
‘bad-good,’ ‘bad,’ ‘bad-bad,’ during which mankind gradually
deteriorates; while the ascending cycle has also six similar periods
called ‘bad-bad,’ ‘bad,’ ‘bad-good,’ ‘good-bad,’ ‘good,’ ‘good-good,’
during which the human race gradually improves till it reaches the
culminating pinnacle of absolute perfection. In illustration we are
told to imagine a vast serpent, whose body, coiled round in infinite
space in an endless circle, supports and guides the movement of the
earth in its eternal progress. The head and tail of the serpent
meet, and the notion is that the earth’s movement alternates after the
manner of the oscillating motion of a balance-wheel acted on by the
coiling and uncoiling of a steel spring. First the earth moves from the
head towards the tail in a downward course, and then reversing the
direction moves upwards from the tail to the head. At present we are
supposed to be in the descending cycle. Twenty-four Jinas have
already appeared in this cycle, while twenty-four were manifested in the
past ascending cycle, and twenty-four will be manifested in the future.

In Brāhmanism, Buddhism, and Jainism, the idea seems to be that
the tendency to deterioration would very soon land mankind in
a condition of hopeless degeneracy unless counteracted by the remedial
influences of great teachers, prophets, and deliverers. In the
legendary history of the Buddha Gautama, he is described in terms
which almost assimilate his character to the Christian conception of a
Redeemer: he is even reported to have said—”Let all the evils (or sins)
flowing from the corruption of the fourth or degenerate age (called Kali)
fall upon me, but let the world be redeemed.”

And what are the precise character and functions of a Jina? This
inquiry must, of course, form an important part of our present subject,
and the reply is really involved in the answer to another question:
What is the great end and object of Jainism? Briefly, it may be stated
that Jainism, like Brāhmanism and Buddhism, aims at getting rid of the
burden of repeated existences. Three root-ideas may be said to lie at the
foundation of all three systems:—first, that personal existence is protracted
through an innumerable succession of bodies by the almighty power of
man’s own acts; secondly, that mundane life is an evil, and that man finds
his perfection in the cessation of all acts, and the consequent extinction of
all personal existence; thirdly, that such perfection is alone attained
[pg 651]
through self-mortification, abstract meditation, and true knowledge.
In these crucial doctrines, the theory of Brāhmanism is superior to that
of Buddhism and Jainism. According to the Brāhmans, the living soul
of man has an eternal existence both retrospectively and prospectively,
and only exists separately from the One Supreme Eternal Soul because
that Supreme Soul wills the temporary separate personality of countless
individual spirits, dissevering them from his own essence and
causing them to pass through a succession of bodies, till, after a long
course of discipline, they are permitted to blend once more with their
great Eternal Source. With the Brāhmans existence in the abstract is
not an evil. It is only an evil when it involves the continued separation
of the personal soul from the impersonal Eternal Soul of the Universe.

Very different is the doctrine of Buddhists and Jains. With them
there is no Supreme Being, no Supreme Divine Eternal Soul, no separate
human eternal soul. Nor can there be any true soul-transmigration.
A Buddhist and a Jaina believe that the only eternal thing is matter.
The universe consists of eternal atoms which by their own inherent
creative force are perpetually developing countless forms of being in
ever-recurring cycles of creation and dissolution, re-creation and
re-dissolution.
This is symbolized by a wheel revolving for ever in perpetual
progression and retrogression.⁸

What then becomes of the doctrine of transmigration of souls, which
is said to be held even more strongly by Buddhists and Jains than by
Hindūs? It is thus explained. Every human being is composed
of certain constituents (called by Buddhists the five Skandhas). These
comprehend body, soul, and mind, with all the organs of feeling and
sensation. They are all dissolved at death, and absolute extinction
would follow, were it not for the inextinguishable, imperishable, omnipotent
force of Karman or Act. No sooner are the constituents of one
stage of existence dissolved than a new set is created by the force of
acts done and character formed in the previous stage. Soul-transmigration
with Buddhists is simply a concatenation of separate existences
connected by the iron chain of act. A man’s own acts generate a force
which may be compared to those of chemistry, magnetism, or electricity—a
force which periodically re-creates the whole man, and perpetuates his
personal identity (notwithstanding the loss of memory) through the
whole series of his separate existences, whether it obliges him to ascend
or descend in the scale of being. It may safely be affirmed that Brāhmans,
Buddhists, and Jains all agree in repudiating the idea of vicarious
suffering. All concur in rejecting the notion of a representative
man—whether he be a Manu, a Rishi, a Buddha, or a Jina—suffering
as a substituted victim for the rest of mankind. Every being
brought into the world must suffer in his own person the consequences
of his own deeds committed either in present or former states of being.
[pg 652]
It is not sufficient that he be rewarded in a temporary heaven, or
punished in a temporary hell. Neither heaven nor hell has power to
extinguish the accumulated efficacy of good or bad acts committed by
the same person during a long succession of existences. Such accumulated
acts must inevitably and irresistibly drag him down into
other mundane forms, until at length their potency is destroyed by
his attainment of perfect self-discipline and self-knowledge in some final
culminating condition of being, terminated by complete self-annihilation.

And thus we are brought to a clear understanding of the true
character of a Jina or self-conquering Saint (from the Sanskrit root ji,
to conquer). A Jina is with the Jains very nearly what a Buddha is
with the Buddhists.

He represents the perfection of humanity, the typical man, who has
conquered self and attained a condition so perfect that he not only
ceases to act, but is able to extinguish the power of former acts; a human
being who is released from the obligation of further transmigration, and
looks forward to death as the absolute extinction of personal existence.
But he is also more than this. He is a being who by virtue of the
perfection of his self-mortification (tapas) has acquired the perfection
of
knowledge, and therefore the right to be a supreme leader and teacher of
mankind. He claims far more complete authority and infallibility than
the most arrogant Roman Pontiff. He is in his own solitary person an
absolutely independent and infallible guide to salvation. Hence he is
commonly called a Tīrthan-kara, or one who constitutes a
Tīrtha⁹—that
is to say, a kind of passage or medium through which bliss may be
attained—a kind of ford or bridge leading over the river of life to the
elysium of final emancipation. Other names for him are Arhat,
“venerable;”
Sarva-jna, “omniscient;” Bhagavat, “lord.”

A Buddha with the Buddhists is a very similar personage. He is a
self-conqueror and self-mortifier (tapasvī), like the Jina, and is
besides a
supreme guide to salvation; but he has achieved his position of Buddhahood
more by the perfection of his meditation (yoga, samādhi) than by
the completeness of his self-restraint and austerities.

Both Jainas and Buddhists—but especially Jainas—believe in the
existence of gods and demons, and spiritual beings of all kinds, whom
they often designate by names similar to those used by the Hindūs.
These may possess vast supernatural and extra-mundane powers in different
degrees and kinds, which they are capable of exerting for the
benefit or injury of mankind; but they are inferior in position to the
Jina or Buddha. They are merely powerful beings—temporary rulers
in temporary heavens and hells.

They may be very formidable and worthy of propitiation, but they
are imperfect. They are liable to pass through other stages of existence,
or even to be born again in mundane forms, until they are
[pg 653]
finally extinguished by the same law of dissolution as the rest of the
universe.

Very different is the condition of the perfect saint. He is in a far
higher position, for he has but one step to take before plunging into the
ocean of non-existence. He is on the verge of the bliss of extinction,
and can guide others to it. He can never be dragged down again to
earthly imperfection and sin. He alone is a worthy object of adoration.
All other beings—divine and demoniacal—are to be dreaded, not worshipped.
“There is no god superior to the Arhat,” says the Kalpa-sūtra
(Stevenson, p. 10). True worship, indeed, is not possible with Jainas
any more than with Buddhists. They have no supreme Eternal Being,
omniscient and omnipresent, ever at hand to answer prayer, ever living
to be an object of meditation, devotion, and love to his creatures.

Yet a Jaina who acts up to the principles of his faith is a slave to a
ceaseless round of religious duties.

The late Bishop of Calcutta told me that he once asked a pious Jaina,
whom he happened to meet in the act of leaving a temple after a long
course of devotion, what he had been asking for in prayer, and to whom
he had been praying? He replied, “I have been asking for nothing,
and praying to nobody.” The fact was he had been meditating on the
perfections of some extinct Jina, doing homage to his memory, and
using prayer as a mere mechanical act, not directed towards any higher
Power capable of granting requests, but believed to have an efficacy of
its own in determining the character of his subsequent forms of
existence.

It may be said that the Brāhmanical idea of a saint is much the same
as that of Buddhists and Jainas. But with Brāhmans the perfect saint
is not so solitary and independent in his spiritual pre-eminence. He is
one of a numerous band of similar sainted personages. He has endless
names and epithets (such as Rishi, Muni, Yogī, Tapasvī, Jitendriya,
Yatendriya, Sannyāsī), all of which indicate that he, like the Buddha and
Jina, has attained the perfection of knowledge and impassiveness, either
by abstract meditation (yoga), or self-mortification (tapas), or
mastery
over his sensual organs (yama). He may also combine the functions
of a true teacher and guide to salvation (Tīrtha). He may even, like
the Buddha and Jina, have acquired such powers that any of the secondary
gods, including Brahmā, Vishnu, and S′iva, may be subject to him.
Finally, he may be himself worshipped as a kind of deity. Yet radically
there is an important distinction between the Brāhman and the Jaina
saint, for the Brāhman saint makes no pretence to absolute finality
and supremacy. However lofty his position, he can never be exalted
above the One Supreme Being (Brahma), in whose existence his own
personal existence is destined to become absorbed, and union with
whose essence constitutes the object of all his hopes, and the aim of all
his aspirations.

Nothing, perhaps, better illustrates the difference between Brāhmanism,
[pg 654]
Buddhism, and Jainism than the daily prayer used in all
three systems. That of the Brāhmans is in Sanskrit (from Rig-veda
iii. 62. 10), and is addressed to the Supreme Being as giver of life
and illumination. It is a prayer for greater knowledge and enlightenment:
thus, “Let us meditate on that excellent glory of the divine
Vivifier. May He stimulate our understandings.” That of the Jainas,
also called by them Gāyatrī, is in Māgadhī Prākrit, and is in
five short
clauses to the following effect:—”I venerate the sages who are worthy
of honour (arhat). I venerate the saints who have achieved perfection.
I venerate those who direct our religious worship. I venerate spiritual
instructors. I venerate holy men (sādhus) in all parts of the world.”
This is obviously no real prayer, but a mere formula, expressive of
veneration for human excellence, like that used by the Buddhists, which
is perhaps the simplest of all,—”Reverence to the incomparable
Buddha;” or (as in Thibet), “Reverence to the jewel in the lotus.”¹⁰

Brāhmans, Jains, and Buddhists all alike aim at the attainment of
perfect knowledge; but the Brāhman, by his Gāyatrī prayer, acknowledges
his dependence on a Supreme Being as the source of all
enlightenment; while the formulas of Jains and Buddhists are simply
expressive of their belief in the divinity of humanity—the efficacy of
human example, and the power of unassisted human effort.

It will be evident from the foregoing outline of the first principles
of Jainism, that the whole system hinges on the efficacy of self-mortification
(tapas), self-restraint (yama), and asceticism. Only twenty-four
supreme saints and Tīrthan-karas can appear in any one cycle of
time, but every mortal man may be a self-restrainer (yati). Every one
born into the world may be a striver after sanctity (sādhu), and a
practiser of austerities (tapasvī). Doubtless, at first there was no
distinction
between monks, ascetics, and ordinary men, just as in the earliest
days of Christianity there was no division into bishops, priests, and
laity. All Jainas in ancient times practised austerities, but among such
ascetics an important difference arose. One party advocated an entire
abandonment of clothing, in token of complete indifference to all
worldly ideas and associations. The other party were in favour of
wearing white garments. The former were called Dig-ambara, sky-clothed,
the latter S′vetāmbara (or, in ancient works, S′veta-pata),
white-clothed.¹¹⁰
Of these the Dig-ambaras were chronologically the earliest.
They were probably the first to form themselves into a regular society.
The first Jina, Rishaba, as well as the last Jina, Mahāvīra, are said to
have been Dig-ambaras, and to have gone about absolutely naked.
Their images represent two entirely nude ascetics, whereas the images of
other Jinas, like the Buddhist images, are representations of a sage,
[pg 655]
generally seated in a contemplative posture, with a robe thrown gracefully
over one shoulder.

It is not improbable that the ­S′vetāmbara division of the Jainas were
merely a sect which separated itself from the parent stock in later
times, and became in the end numerically the most important, at least
in Western India. The Dig-ambaras, however, are still the most
numerous faction in Southern India, and at Jaipur in the North.¹²

And, indeed, it need scarcely be pointed out that ascetics, both
wholly naked and partially clothed, are as common under the Brāhmanical
system as among Jainas and Buddhists. The god S′iva
himself is represented as a Dig-ambara, or naked ascetic, whenever he
assumes the character of a Mahā-yogī—that is to say, whenever he
enters on a long course of austerity, with an absolutely nude body, covered
only with a thick coating of dust and ashes, sitting motionless and
wrapped in meditation for thousands of years, that he may teach men
by his own example the power attainable through self-mortification and
abstract contemplation.

It is true that absolute nudity in public is now prohibited by law,
but the Dig-ambara Jainas who take their meals, like orthodox Hindūs,
in strict seclusion, are said to remove their clothes in the act of eating.
Even in the most crowded thoroughfares the requirements of legal
decency are easily satisfied. Any one who travels in India must
accustom himself to the sight of plenty of unblushing, self-asserting
human flesh. Thousands content themselves with the minimum of
clothing represented by a narrow strip of cloth, three or four inches
wide, twisted round their loins. Nor ought it to excite any feeling of
prudish disgust to find poor, hard-working labourers tilling the ground
with a greater area of sun-tanned skin courting the cooling action of
air and wind on the burning plains of Asia than would be considered
decorous in Europe. As to mendicant devotees, they may still occasionally
be seen at great religious gatherings absolutely innocent of even a rag.
Nevertheless, they are careful to avoid magisterial penalties. In a secluded
part of the city of Patna, I came suddenly on an old female ascetic, who
usually sits quite naked in a large barrel, which constitutes her only
abode. When I passed her, in company with the collector and magistrate
of the district, she rapidly drew a dirty sheet round her body.

In the present day both Dig-ambara and S′vetāmbara Jainas are
divided into two classes, corresponding to clergy and laity. When the
two sects increased in numbers, all, of course, could not be ascetics.
Some were compelled to engage in secular pursuits, and many developed
industrious and business-like habits. Hence it happened that a large
number became prosperous merchants and traders.

All laymen¹³ among the Jainas are called S′rāvakas, “hearers or
[pg 656]
disciples,” while the Yatis,¹⁴ or “self-restraining ascetics,” who constitute
the only other division of both Jaina sects, are the supposed teachers
(Gurus). Many of them, of course, never teach at all. They were
formerly called Nirgrantha, “free from worldly ties,” and are often
known by the general name of Sādhu, “holy men.” All are celibates,
and most of them are cenobites, not anchorites. Sometimes four or
five hundred live together in one monastery, which they call an
Upās′raya,¹⁵ “place of retirement,” under a presiding abbot. They
dress, like other Hindū ascetics, in yellowish-pink or salmon-coloured
garments.¹⁶ There are also female ascetics (Sādhvinī, or,
anciently,
Nirgranthī), who may be seen occasionally in public places clothed in
dresses of a similar colour. When these good women draw the ends
of their robes over their heads to conceal their features, and cover the
lower part of their faces with pieces of muslin to prevent animalculæ
from entering their mouths, they look very like hooded Roman Catholic
nuns. I saw several threading their way through the crowded streets
of Ahmedabad, apparently bent, like sisters of mercy, on charitable
errands.

Of course, in Jainism anything like a Brāhmanical priesthood would
be an impossibility. Jainas reject the whole body of the Veda, Vedic
sacrifices and ritual, and hold it to be a heinous sin to kill an animal
of any kind, even for religious purposes. They have, however, a Veda
of their own, consisting of a series of forty-five sacred writings, collectively
called Āgamas. They are all in the Jaina form of the Māgadhī dialect
(differing from, yet related to, the Pālī of the Buddhists, the
Māgadhī
Prākrit of Vararuchi, and the Prākrit of the plays), and are classed
under the different heads of Anga, Upānga, Pāinna (Sanskrit,
Prakīrnaka),
Mūla, Chheda, Anuyoga, and Nandi. Of these the eleven Angas are
the most esteemed, but the whole series is equally regarded as S′ruti,
or divine revelation. The Māgadhī text is sometimes explained by
Sanskrit commentaries, and sometimes by commentaries in the
Mārwārī dialect, very common among merchants in the West of India.
Some of the best known Angas and Upāngas were procured by me
when I was last at Bombay, through the kind assistance of Dr. Bühler;
but it appears doubtful whether they would repay the trouble which a
complete perusal and thorough examination of such voluminous writings
would entail. It may safely be affirmed that their teaching, like that
of the Purānas, is anything but consistent or uniform, and that they
deal with subjects—such as the formation of the universe, history,
geography, and chronology—of which their authors are profoundly
ignorant.

[pg 657]

The Indian commentator, Mādhavāchārya, in his well-known summary
of Hindū sects (called Sarva-dars′ana-sangraha) has given an interesting
sketch of the Jainas from his own investigation of their sacred writings.
Their philosophers are sometimes called Syād-vādins, “asserters of
possibility,”
because their system propounds seven modes of reconciling
opposite views (sapta-bhanga-naya) as to the possibility of anything
existing or not existing. All visible objects—all the phenomena of the
universe—are distributed under the two principles (tattva) or categories
of animate (jīva), and inanimate (a-jīva). Again, all living
beings comprised
under the former are divided into three classes: (1) eternally
perfect, as the Jina; (2) emancipated from the power of acts; (3) bound
by acts and worldly associations. Or, again, nine principles are
enumerated—namely, life, absence of life, merit (punya), demerit,
passion, helps to restraint, helps to freedom from worldly attachments,
bondage, emancipation. Inanimate matter is sometimes referred to a
principle (tattva) called Pudgala, which it is easier for Jaina
philosophers
to talk about than to explain.

When we come to the Jaina moral code, we find ourselves transported
from the mists of fanciful ideas and arbitrary speculation to a clearer
atmosphere and firmer ground. The three gems which every Jaina is
required to seek after with earnestness and diligence, are right intuition,
right knowledge, and right conduct. The nature of the first two may
be inferred from the explanations already given. Right conduct consists
in the observance of five duties (vratas), and the avoidance of five sins
implied in five prohibitions. The five duties are:—Be merciful to all
living things; practise almsgiving and liberality; venerate the perfect
sages while living, and worship their images after their decease; confess
your sins annually, and mutually forgive each other; observe fasting.
The five prohibitions are:—Kill not; lie not; steal not; commit not
adultery or impurity; love not the world or worldly honour.

If equal practical importance were attached to these ten precepts, the
Jaina system could not fail to conduce in a high degree to the happiness
and well-being of its adherents, however perverted their religious sense
may be. Unfortunately, undue stress is laid on the first duty and first
prohibition, to the comparative neglect of some of the others. In
former days, when Buddhism and Jainism were prevalent everywhere,
“Kill not” was required to be proclaimed by sound of trumpet in every
city daily.¹⁷

And, indeed, with all Hindūs respect for life has always been regarded
as a supreme obligation. Ahinsā, or avoidance of injury to others in
thought, word, and deed, is declared by Manu to be the highest virtue,
and its opposite the greatest crime. Not the smallest insect ought to
be killed, lest the soul of some relation should be there embodied. Yet
[pg 658]
all Hindūs admit that life may be taken for religious or sacrificial
purposes. Not so Buddhists and Jainas. With them the sacrifice of
any kind of life, even for the most sacred purpose, is a heinous crime.
In fact, the belief in transmission of personal identity at death through
an infinite series of animal existences is so intense that they live in
perpetual dread of destroying some beloved relative or friend. The
most deadly serpents or venomous scorpions may enshrine the spirits of
their fathers or mothers, and are therefore left unharmed. The Jainas
far outdo every other Indian sect in carrying the prohibition, “not to
kill,” to the most preposterous extremes. They strain water before
drinking, sweep the ground with a silken brush before sitting down,
never eat or drink in the dark, and often wear muslin before their
mouths to prevent the risk of swallowing minute insects. They even
object to eating figs, or any fruit containing seed, and would consider
themselves eternally defiled by simply touching flesh-meat with their
hands.

One of the most curious sights in Bombay is the Panjara-pol, or
hospital for diseased, crippled, and worn-out animals, established by rich
Jaina merchants and benevolent Vaishnava Hindūs in a street outside
the Fort. The institution covers several acres of ground, and is richly
endowed. Both Jainas and Vaishnavas think it a work of the highest
religious merit to contribute liberally towards its support. The animals
are well fed and well tended, though it certainly seemed to me, when I
visited the place, that the great majority would be more mercifully
provided for by the application of a loaded pistol to their heads. I
found, as might have been expected, that a large proportion of space
was allotted to stalls for sick and infirm oxen, some with bandaged eyes,
some with crippled legs, some wrapped up in blankets and lying on straw
beds. One huge, bloated, broken-down old bull in the last stage of
decrepitude and disease was a pitiable object to behold. Then I noticed
in other parts of the building singular specimens of emaciated buffaloes,
limping horses, mangy dogs, apoplectic pigs, paralytic donkeys,
featherless vultures, melancholy monkeys, comatose tortoises, besides a
strange medley of cats, rats and mice, small birds, reptiles, and even
insects, in every stage of suffering and disease. In one corner a crane,
with a kind of wooden leg, appeared to have spirit enough left to strut
in a stately manner amongst a number of dolorous-looking ducks and
depressed fowls. The most spiteful animals seemed to be tamed by their
sufferings and the care they received. All were being tended, nursed,
physicked, and fed, as if it were a sacred duty to prolong the existence
of every living creature to the utmost possible limit. It is even said that
men are paid to sleep on dirty wooden beds in different parts of the
building, that the loathsome vermin with which they are infested may
be supplied with their nightly meal of human blood.

Yet I observed on other occasions that both Jainas and Hindūs are
sometimes very cruel to animals used for domestic purposes, believing
[pg 659]
that the harshest treatment involves no sin provided it stops short of
destroying life. The following story, which I have paraphrased freely,
from the Jaina Kalpa-sūtra (Stevenson, p. 11) may be taken as an
illustration:¹⁸—

“There was a certain Brāhman in the city of Pushpavatī whose father and
mother died. In process of time both parents were born again in their own
son’s house, the father as a bullock, the mother as a female dog. By-and-by
the S′rāddha, or festive-day for the worship of deceased parents and forefathers,
came round. In the morning the son set the bullock to labour hard, that a supply
of rice and milk might be ready for the priests invited to the festival. When
they were about to begin eating, the female dog, in which was the mother’s soul,
seeing something poisonous fall into the milk, snatched it away with her mouth.
Upon that her son, not understanding the dog’s action, flew into a passion and
almost broke her back with a stick. In the evening the bullock was tied up in
a cowhouse, but no food given to him after his day’s toil. Both animals had
become conscious of their previous state of existence, and the bullock, looking at
the female dog, exclaimed, ‘Alas! what have we both suffered this day through
the cruelty of our wicked son!'”

As to the other precepts of the Jaina moral code, it is noteworthy that
the practice of confessing sins to a priestly order of men probably existed
in full force among the Jainas long before its introduction into the
Christian system. A pious Jaina ought to confess at least once a year,
or if his conscience happens to be burdened by the weight of any recent
crime—such, for example, as the accidental killing of a noxious insect—he
is bound to betake himself to the confessional without delay. The
stated observance of this duty is called Pratikramana, because on a
particular day the penitent repairs solemnly to a priestly Yati, who hears
his confession, pronounces absolution, and imposes a penance.

The penances inflicted generally consist of various kinds of fasting;
but it must be observed that fasting is with Jainas a duty incumbent
on all. It is a duty only second to that of not killing. Fasting
(upavāsa) is also practised by Hindūs and Buddhists, and held to be
a most
effective means of accumulating religious merit. Orthodox Hindūs fast
twice a month, on the eleventh day of each fortnight, as well as on the
birthday of Krishna (Janmāshtamī), and the night sacred to S′iva
(S′iva-rātri). On some fast days fruits may be eaten, but no cooked
food
of any kind.

With Buddhists and Jainas the season of fasting, religious meditation,
and recitation of sacred texts, far outdoes our Lenten period. The
Buddhists in some parts of the world call their fasting season Wasso
(corrupted from the Sanskrit Upavāsa). That of the Jainas is called
Pajjūsan or Pachchūsan (for Sanskrit Paryushana). The
S′vetāmbara
Jainas fast for the fifty days preceding the fifth of the month Bhādra,
the Dig-ambaras for the seventy following days. In both cases the
Pajjūsan corresponds generally to the rainy season or its close. Possibly
the practice of fasting during that period may be intended as an expiation
[pg 660]
for the supposed guilt incurred by the unintentional destruction of
damp-engendered insects.

In regard to the duty of worshipping images, this also, like the last
duty, is incumbent on all. But it is worthy of remark that images were
at first only used as memorials or as simple decorations, in places consecrated
to pure forms of worship. Idolatry has always been a later innovation.
It has never belonged to the original constitution of any religious
system. One or two differences between Hindū, Buddha, and Jaina images
should be noted. Hindū images (excepting that of the ascetic form of
S′iva) are often profusely decorated, while Buddha and Jaina idols are
always left unadorned, though sometimes cut out of the finest marble,
and often having a nimbus¹⁹ round their heads. Twenty-two of the
Jina images, as well as the seven Buddhas, are represented with a
coarse garment thrown over the left shoulder, the other shoulder being
bare. Those of the first and last Jinas (Rishabha and Mahāvīra) are
completely nude; and Jina images, like some of those of the Buddha,
are often erect. Moreover, the idols of the Buddha Gautama represent
him in four principal attitudes. He is (1) seated in deep contemplation;
or (2) is seated while engaged in teaching, with the tip of the forefinger
of one hand applied to the fingers of the other hand; or (3) he is
a mendicant ascetic in a standing posture; or (4) he is recumbent
just before his decease. In the first or contemplative attitude, he is
indifferent to everything except intense concentration of thought on
the problem of perfect knowledge. According to others, he is supposed
to be thinking of nothing, or, if that is impossible, his thoughts are
concentrated on the tip of his nose, till he does not even think of that.
Or there may be a modification of this meditative attitude, in which his
mind is apparently engaged in ecstatic contemplation of the short
distance which still separates him from the goal of annihilation. The
first contemplative attitude is by far the commonest. The sage is seen
seated (generally on a full-blown lotus) with his legs folded under him,
the left palm supinate on his lap, and the right hand extended over the
right leg. He has pendulous ears, curly hair, and a top-knot on the
crown of his head. His garment is thrown gracefully over the left
shoulder, leaving the right bare. The modification of this attitude,
representing the sage in ecstatic contemplation, has both the palms resting
one above the other on the lap, and occasionally holding a circular
object, the meaning of which is not well ascertained. In the second or
teaching attitude, the great teacher is supposed to be marking off the
points of his discourse, or emphasizing them on his fingers. This
attitude expresses an important peculiarity, already pointed out, as
distinguishing
Buddhism from Jainism—namely, that it lays more stress
than Jainism on the acquisition and imparting of knowledge. I have
never seen a Jina image in a teaching attitude. The recumbent
attitude of Buddha is supposed to represent him in the act of dying,
[pg 661]
and attaining Nirvāna. Pious Buddhists regard this supreme moment
in the life of their great leader with as much reverence as Christians
regard the death of Christ on the cross. Through the kindness of
Sir William Gregory, I was taken to see a colossal recumbent statue
of the Buddha, at least thirty feet long,²⁰ in the celebrated temple
of Kelani, not far from Columbo, in Ceylon. The image appeared to
be highly venerated by numerous worshippers, who presented offerings
at the shrine. On each side were colossal images of attendants and
doorkeepers (dvāra-pāla), and in other parts of the temple figures
of
Buddha’s demon enemies, besides idols of the Hindū deities, Vishnu,
S′iva, and Ganes′a. All around the walls of the temple were fresco
representations of incidents in the life of the Buddha. A huge bell-shaped
Dagoba (Dhātu-garbha), of massive masonry, covered with
chunam, was in the garden, on the right side of the temple. It doubtless
enshrined ashes or relics of great sanctity. But in all these
Dagobas there is no passage to any interior chamber: whatever relics
they contain have been bricked up for centuries, and no record is preserved
of their history or nature. On the left of the temple were the
residences of the high priests and monks, in a well-kept garden overshadowed
by an immense Pīpal tree, supposed to represent the sacred
tree of knowledge. Both Buddha and Jina images have always certain
objects or symbols (chihna) connected with them. Those of the Buddha
are generally associated with the tree of knowledge, or a hooded serpent,
or a wheel, or a deer.²¹ The seventh Tīrthan-kara of the Jainas is
specially associated with the Svastika cross—an auspicious symbol
common to Hindūism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Worshippers in
Buddhist and Jaina temples may be seen arranging their offerings in the
form of this symbol, which is shaped like a Greek cross, with the end
of each of the four arms bent round in the same direction. The
question as to the origin of the emblem has called forth many learned
dissertations from various scholars and archæologists. For my own
part, I am inclined to regard it as a mere rude representation of the
four arms of Lakshmī, goddess of good fortune, the bent extremities of
the arms denoting her four hands.

With regard to the adoration of relics, one or two points of difference
between the systems may be pointed out. The Hindūs wholly object
to the Buddhist practice of preserving and worshipping the ashes, hair,
or teeth of their departed saints. I remarked in the course of my
travels that articles of clothing, especially wooden shoes and cloth
slippers, used by holy men during life, are sometimes preserved by the
Hindūs in sacred shrines, and held in veneration. They must, of
course, be removed from the person before actual death has supervened;
for it is well known that in the minds of Hindūs an idea of impurity is
always inseparable from death. Contamination is supposed to result
[pg 662]
from contact with the corpses of even their dearest relatives. The
mortal frame is not held in veneration as it was by the ancient Egyptians,
and as it generally is in Christian countries. Every part of a
dead body ought to be got rid of as soon as possible. Hence, it is
burnt very soon after death, and the ashes scattered on the surface of
sacred rivers or on the sea. Nevertheless, the bodies of great ascetics
are exempted from this rule. They are generally buried, not burnt;
not, however, because the mere corporeal frame is held in greater veneration,
but because the most eminent saints are supposed to lie undecomposed
in a kind of trance, resulting from the intense ecstatic
meditation (samādhi) to which during life they were devoted. In
former days great ascetics were not unfrequently buried alive, and that,
too, with their own consent. A crowd of admiring disciples was always
ready to assist at the entombment, and it might be said in excuse that the
holy men really appeared to be dead, though they were merely speechless,
motionless, and senseless, in a kind of meditative catalepsy.

The Jainas hold views similar to those of the Hindūs in regard to
the treatment of dead bodies. They never preserve the ashes of
their saints in Stūpas, Chaityas, or Dagobas, or worship them, as the
Buddhists do.

In connection with this subject I may remark, that what may be called
“foot-worship” (pādukā-pūjā), or the veneration of
footprints, seems to
be common to Hindūs, Buddhists, and Jainas. Even during life, when
a Hindū wishes to show great respect for a person of higher rank or
position than himself, he reverentially touches his feet. The idea seems to
rest on a kind of a fortiori argument. If the feet, as the lowest members
of the body, are treated with honour, how much more is homage
rendered to the whole man. Children honour their parents in this
manner. They never kiss the faces of either father or mother. In
some families, sons prostrate themselves at their fathers’ feet. The arms
are crossed just above the wrist, both feet are touched, and the hands
raised to the forehead.

The notion of honouring the feet as the highest possible act of homage
runs through the whole Hindū system. Small shrines may often be
observed in different parts of India, sometimes dedicated to holy men,
sometimes to Satīs, or faithful wives who have burnt themselves with
their husbands. They appear to be quite empty. On closer inspection
two footprints may be detected on a little raised altar made of stone.
These are called Pādukā, “shoes,” but are really the supposed impression
of the soles of the feet. In the same way, the wooden clog of the
god Brahmā is worshipped at a particular shrine somewhere in Central
India, and we know that the footprint of both Buddha and Vishnu at
Gayā, and that of Buddha at Adam’s Peak, are objects of adoration to
millions.

Analogous ideas and practices prevail in Roman Catholic countries.
There is a wooden image of Christ on the cross in a church at Vienna,
[pg 663]
which is so venerated that, although it is a little elevated, some worshippers
stand on tiptoe to kiss its feet, while others touch its feet with
their fingers, and then raise their fingers to their mouths. Similarly, at
Munich, in Bavaria, numbers of worshippers may be seen kissing the
feet of an image of the Virgin Mary, and most travellers can testify
that images of St. Peter, not to mention the living representative of
St. Peter, are treated in a similar manner.

Nothing, however, comes up to the veneration of footprints among
Jainas. I visited the magnificent temple erected by Hāthi-Singh at
Ahmedabad, as well as the underground shrine dedicated to Ādinath,
and another great Jaina temple at Kaira. The first consists of a large
quadrangle, approached by a beautifully carved marble gateway. The
principal shrine is in the centre. All around the quadrangle is a kind
of cloister, in which are about thirty subordinate shrines, each containing
the image of a particular Jina or Tīrthan-kara. All the images
appeared to me to be of one type, and to resemble those of the contemplative
(Dhyānī) Buddha. All are carved out of fine marble,
generally of a light colour, and all represent the ascetic, in his sitting
posture, wrapped in profound meditation, indifferent to all external
phenomena—calm, serene, and imperturbable. The attendants of the
temple were either very ignorant or very unwilling to impart information.
No one could tell me whether all the twenty-four Jinas had a
place in the shrines. One image of perfectly black marble was described
to me as that of Pārs′vanāth.

The other temples were not very remarkable, except as affording good
illustrations of “foot-worship.” In one shrine I saw 1880 footprints of
Nemi-nāth’s disciples. In another, 1452 footsteps of the disciples of
Rishabha. They were covered with offerings of grain and money.
All the names of these holy disciples are given in the Jaina sacred
works, and it may be remarked that the disciples of Jinas, however
celebrated, are never represented by images. That privilege is reserved
for the twenty-four supreme Jinas themselves. I noticed that many
Hindū idols were placed outside the shrines.

Certainly Jainism, when regarded from the stand-point of a Christian
observer, is the coldest of all religions, if, indeed, it deserves to be
called a religion at all. Yet the number of temples in certain centres
of Jainism far exceeds the number of churches and chapels in the most
religious Christian districts. Every Jaina who lays claim to an excess
of piety or zeal builds a temple of his own. It never enters into his
head to repair the temples of other religious people. At Pālitāna, in
Kāthiāwār, there is a whole city of Jaina temples, some new, others
decaying, and others quite dilapidated. It is by no means necessary or
usual that every temple should possess either priests or worshippers.
I can certify that I saw fewer worshippers even in the most celebrated
Jaina temples than in any of the Buddhist temples at Columbo or
Kandy. Those who came contented themselves with bowing down
[pg 664]
before the idols, and placing flowers or grains of rice and corn on the
footprints of the saints.

The Yatis have a kind of liturgy, partly in Sanskrit, partly in the
Jaina form of Māgadhī Prākrit, partly in a kind of archaic
Gujarātī.
No real prayers are offered, but stories of the twenty-four Jinas and
their disciples are recited, with singing and an accompaniment of noisy
instrumental music and beating of cymbals. Religious festivals and
processions are also common. I witnessed one in the town of Kaira,
on the anniversary of the death of a celebrated Yati. An immense
multitude of men and women paraded the streets, preceded by a very
demonstrative band of musicians. In the centre was an apparently
empty palanquin, borne by six men. It contained the supposed footprints
of the deceased Yati in whose honour the festival was held.

A few short extracts from the Kalpa-sūtra (Stevenson, p. 103) will
give some idea of the rules of discipline by which the lives of the Yatis
are required to be regulated, as follow:—

“Self-restraint is to be exercised by each man individually. Self-control is
the chief of all religious exercises. If a quarrel arise, mutual forgiveness is to be
asked. Three daily cleansings are enjoined, morning, mid-day, and evening.
A period of rest and fasting is to be observed yearly in the four months of the
rainy season. During this period, male and female ascetics should by no means
partake of rice, milk, curds, fresh butter, melted butter, oil, sugar, honey, spirits,
and flesh. They must never use any angry or provoking language, on pain of
being expelled from the community. Ascetics must carefully avoid contact
with minute insects, small animals, small seeds, small flowers, small vegetables,
&c. No ascetic must do anything whatever, or go out for any purpose whatever,
without first asking permission of the Superior of the Convent. The head must
be shaved, or the hair constantly clipped. No ascetic must wear hair longer
than that which covers a cow.”

With regard to the last injunction, it may be mentioned that the
ceremony of initiation (dīkshā) usually takes place at the age of
twelve
or thirteen, and that part of the rite once consisted in forcibly pulling out
every hair of the head (kes′a-lunchana). In the present day ashes are
applied, and a few hairs torn out by the roots before the scissors are used.

It remains to state that the Jainas of the present period are leaning
more and more towards Hindū ideas and practices. They have their
purificatory rites (sanskāras), and a modified caste system. Not
unfrequently
Brāhman priests are invited to take part in their marriage
ceremonies. Indeed, it is by no means uncommon for intermarriages
to take place between lay Jainas (s′rāvakas) and lay Vaishnavas,
especially in cases when both belong to the Baniya or merchant caste.

In short, Jainism, like Buddhism, is gradually drifting into the
current of Hindūism which everywhere surrounds it, and, like every
other offshoot from that system, is destined in the end to be reabsorbed
into its source.

I must reserve the subject of the Indo-Zoroastrian creed, and modern
Pārsī religious usages, for treatment in my next paper.

Monier Williams.

¹  If an orthodox Brāhman is asked to describe his religion, he calls it Ārya-dharma, that
is, the system of doctrines and duties held and practised by the Āryas. He never thinks
of calling it by the name of any special founder or leader. Be it noted, however, that
Dharma implies more than a mere religious creed. It is a far more comprehensive term
than our word “religion.”

²  In many images of the Buddha he is represented with the sacred thread over the left
shoulder and under the right arm, according to orthodox Brāhmanical usage.

³  Since the Buddha became absolutely extinct, and since his system recognised no
Supreme Soul of the Universe, there remained nothing for his followers to venerate except
his memory. The mass of his converts, however, did not long rest satisfied with enshrining
him in their minds. First they made pilgrimages to the Bodhi-tree, or “Tree of Knowledge,”
at Gayā, under which their great teacher obtained supreme wisdom. There they erected
tumuli, or graves (variously called dagobas, chaityas, and stūpas), over his relics, and worshipped,
these. Then adoration was paid to his foot-prints, and to the wheel or symbol of
the Buddhist law. Finally, images of his person in different attitudes (to be described
subsequently) were multiplied everywhere. Temples, at first, were unknown. There were
rooms, or places of meeting, for Buddhist congregations to hear preaching; but it was not
till a later period that these were used to enshrine images and relics. A vast period of
development separates the original Sangha-griha from such a temple as that erected over
the eye-tooth of Buddha, at Kandy, in Ceylon, which is a costly edifice, containing images
and a library, as well as the far-famed relic shrine behind thick iron bars.

⁴  The expression, Jainism, corresponds to Vaishnavism and S′aivism just as the term
Jaina does to Vaishnava or S′aiva. Of course consistency would require the substitution of
Bauddhism and Bauddha for Buddhism and Buddhist, but I fear the latter expressions are
too firmly established to admit of alteration.

⁵  There is one place in India where the growth of Vaishnavism out of Buddhism, and
their near relationship, are conspicuously demonstrated. I mean Buddha-gayā, with the
neighbouring Vishnu temple of the city of Gayā.

⁶  In the Caves of Ellora, Brāhmanism, Buddhism, and Jainism, may be seen in juxtaposition,
proving that at one period, at least, they existed together, and were mutually
tolerant of each other.

⁷  Their names at full are:—1. Rishabha; 2. Ajita; 3. Sambhava; 4. Abhinandana;
5. Sumati; 6. Padma-prabha; 7. Supārs′va; 8. Chandra-prabha; 9. Pushpa-danta;
10. S′ītala; 11. S′reyas; 12. Vāsupūjya; 13. Vimala; 14. Ananta; 15. Dharma;
16. S′ānti; 17. Kunthu; 18. Ara; 19. Malli; 20. Suivrata; 21. Nimi; 22. Nemi;
23. Pārs′vanātha; 24. Mahāvīra, or Vardhamāna. The first of these lived 8,400,000
years, and attained a stature equal to 500 bows’ length. The age and stature of the second
was something less. The twenty-third lived a hundred years, and was little taller than an
ordinary man. The twenty-fourth lived only forty years, and was formed like a man of
the present day. The Buddhists hold that their Buddha Gautama was much above the
usual height.

⁸  When Buddhism merged in Vaishnavism, its symbol of a wheel (chakra) was adopted by
the worshippers of Vishnu.

⁹  The word Tīrtha may mean a sacred ford or crossing-place on the bank of a river, or it
may mean a holy man or teacher.

¹⁰  This is by some interpreted to mean—Reverence to the creative energy inherent in the
universe.

¹¹  The actual colour of an ascetic’s dress is a kind of yellowish-pink, or salmon colour.
Pure white is not much used by the Hindūs, except as a mark of mourning, when it takes
the place of black with us.

¹²  There is also a very low, insignificant, and intensely atheistical sect of Jainas called
Dhundhias. They are much despised by the Hindūs, and even by the more orthodox
Jainas.

¹³  This term, as well as Upāsaka, is also used to designate the Buddhist laity.

¹⁴  From the Sanskrit root, yam, to restrain. The Buddhists call their monks S′ramanas;
from the root S′ram, “men who work hard at austerities,” or Bhikshus, “mendicant friars.”
Their laymen are S′rāvakas, like the Jaina laymen, but are also called Upāsakas.

¹⁵  Also written Apās′raya.

¹⁶  When so attired they may be called Pītāmbaras, or Kashāyāmbaras, though they belong
to the S′vetāmbara, or white-clothed party.

¹⁷  Dr. Stevenson conjectures that As′oka’s famous edicts were similar proclamations, embodying
all the commands and prohibitions of Buddhism and Jainism, engraved on stone to secure
their permanence.

¹⁸  It is doubtless intended as a Jaina satire on the worship of deceased parents and
ancestors enjoined by the Brāhmanical system, and commonly practised by true Hindūs.

¹⁹  The idea of encircling the heads of saints with a disc of light probably existed in India
long before Christianity.

²⁰  Buddhists believe that the stature of the Buddha far exceeded that of ordinary men.
Muslims have similar legends about the stature of Moses.

²¹  There is a legend that the Buddha taught first in a deer-park near Benares.

[pg 665]

LORD BEACONSFIELD.

I.—WHY WE FOLLOW HIM.

A
WRITER in the last number of this Review, when giving a portraiture
of Mr. Gladstone, pointed out that that right honourable
gentleman was a bundle of persons rather than one. It will not, I
hope, be thought a very gross plagiarism if I say that Lord Beaconsfield’s
fame may be divided into four or five distinct reputations, any one
of which, in the case of a smaller man, would be thought enough
for enduring celebrity. If Mr. Disraeli had never succeeded in making
his way into Parliament, he would still, without needing to add
another volume to the books he has written, have had to be taken
account of as one of our foremost men of letters. Supposing that, having
entered the House of Commons, he had not attained office, he would
yet have always been remembered as the keenest Parliamentary
debater of his time. If his public life had ended in 1852—that
is, more than a quarter of a century ago—without his having
become a Minister, he would have stood recorded as the most
skilful leader of an Opposition which our history has known. Had he
never passed a measure through Parliament, he must have been referred
to by all political thinkers as a strikingly original critic of our
Constitution.
Such trifles as that, being born in the days of dandyism, he
ranked among the leaders of fashion directly after he was out of his teens,
and that he has been a leading social wit his whole life through, may
be thrown in without counting. But add the above items together, and
fill in the necessary details, and what a startling result we have!

It is very obvious that I cannot here trace Lord Beaconsfield’s
career in detail. The chronicle is much too rich for that. The
better plan will be to make the subject group itself around three or
four chief topics—say these: His public consistency; his personal
[pg 666]
relations with Peel and other leaders; his political and social views
regarded as a system; and his recent foreign policy.

A single paragraph may, however, be interposed, just to bring the
principal dates together in a way of prospective summary. Within four
years’ time from his entering the House of Commons, which, after vain
attempts at High Wycombe, Marylebone, and Taunton, he did in 1837
for the borough of Maidstone, Mr. Disraeli was at the head of a party—”The
New England Party.” The group, if not very numerous,
drew as much public attention as if it had been of any size we like to
name. Lord John Manners and Mr. G. S. Smythe had the generosity
of heart and the keenness of insight to be the first won over by him,
and that against the prejudices of their families. Who has not heard of
their courageous pilgrimage to the Manchester Athenæum to explain to
Cottonopolis how they proposed to re-make the nation? Then came the
“Young England” novels, with which all Europe was shortly ringing—”Coningsby”
in 1844, “Sybil” in 1845, “Tancred” in 1847. In the meantime
Mr. Disraeli had associated himself heart and soul with Lord George
Bentinck, attacked Peel, and done far more than any other in reorganizing
the shattered Conservative party within the House as well as outside
it. By the last-named year, too, Mr. Disraeli had, after a voluntary
exchanging of Maidstone for Shrewsbury, become member for Buckinghamshire,
a seat which he was to keep so long as he remained in the
House of Commons. Suddenly Lord George Bentinck died (much too
early for his country), and very soon after that event, owing to the
generous standing aside of Lord Granby and Mr. Herries, Mr. Disraeli,
within a dozen years of his first entry into Parliament, stood forth as
the recognized leader of the Conservatives. The publication of the
famous Biography of Lord George Bentinck was at once his noble
tribute to the memory of his friend and a valuable help to the party.
Five years later, when Lord Russell fell and the first Derby Administration
was formed, Mr. Disraeli—never having held an inferior post—became
Chancellor of the Exchequer. Shortly followed Lord Palmerston’s
triumphant reign, to be succeeded, after a further resignation of
Lord Russell, by the second Derby Ministry, in which Mr. Disraeli,
once more Chancellor of the Exchequer, found time, in addition to his
Budget-making, to dish the Whigs by a final Reform Bill. By-and-by
the nation lost the Earl of Derby, and the last promotion of official
dignity fell naturally to Mr. Disraeli, who became Prime Minister of
England. Mr. Gladstone succeeded in preventing the Cabinet from
having a very long life, and Mr. Disraeli kept mental self-composure
enough, after losing office, to sit down and write “Lothair.” By-and-by
his political turn again came: 1874 saw him Premier for the second
time, and this present year of grace still beholds him in the post, only
in the Upper House, instead of the Lower, as Lord Beaconsfield, and
with a Parliamentary majority scarcely diminished by five years of an
imperial rule which brings back memories of England’s most majestic
[pg 667]
days. He has visited Berlin, and more than held his own in a Council
of the greatest modern diplomatists; has received a welcome back in
London city such as no living Minister can boast; and has had the
high honour of entertaining his Queen as a guest under his own roof.

Now I may go back to the first of the texts I have chosen.

It is certain that Lord Beaconsfield has always most tenaciously insisted
that he has from first to last been politically consistent. His
opponents, for very good reasons of their own, have unceasingly affirmed
that this assertion is his chiefest, in fact his culminating audacity.
But all the facts favour Lord Beaconsfield’s view. In the first place, he
has never held office but on one side, and he is the only Prime Minister
during the last half century who could plead that circumstance. Earl
Russell could not say it; certainly Lord Palmerston could not; it is
quite out of Mr. Gladstone’s power to urge it; even the late Earl of Derby
could not make the claim. Next, it is now about thirty-two years
since Mr. Disraeli was formally recognized as the leader of the Tory
party, and he is still at the head of them, without their confidence
having been for a moment shaken or withdrawn. Men, in fact, have
been born and have grown up to middle life with Mr. Disraeli all the
time remaining at the head of the Conservatives. His inconsistency
during at least this somewhat lengthened period must have been of a
strange kind, since it has always coincided with the wishes and the
interests of his party, for he has never split them, and he has thrice led
them into power, But we may go ten years further back than the dates
we have named. From first to last, he never sat in Parliament but as an
avowedly Tory member for a Tory constituency; during nearly thirty
years he sat for one and the same county. If you sift what his enemies,
have to say, you will find that it refers to something which took place
about forty-five years ago, and is to the effect that he was for five
minutes a member of the Westminster Reform Club, and was willing in
his first candidatures to accept the assistance of Mr. Hume or of any other
of the Radicals. Lord Beaconsfield has the plainest and, as I think,
the most sufficient explanation to give of it all.

He says that he came forward at High Wycombe and afterwards
offered himself to Marylebone as an opponent of the Whigs, determining
to do all he could to bring the Tories into better accord
with the masses of the people by re-establishing the natural social
bonds between the latter and the aristocracy. Certainly, this is
exactly what he has done; it is what he openly said that he aimed
at doing from the very beginning. Moreover, the Tories so understood
it from the first moment. They gave him their support at
High Wycombe before he went to Taunton, and political support
cannot be kept very secret. His name was a popular toast at
agricultural banquets, and he was sure of a welcome at any muster
of the Conservatives. Supposing that the Radicals had not had penetration
enough to comprehend the position he took up, who would have
[pg 668]
been to blame for that? But the fact is that it has suited them to
pretend in this case to be more stupid than they were. No Radical
constituency ever elected Mr. Disraeli. The newspapers of the party
never spoke of him as one of their sort; and Messrs. Hume and
O’Connell were in a great hurry to withdraw their letters of recommendation,
which had reached the candidate unsought. It is not
denied by Lord Beaconsfield’s most rabid defamer that he presented
himself as an Anti-Whig, and it is admitted that long before he was in
the House he was a supporter in public of Lord Chandos, and a eulogist
of Sir Robert Peel. In his address to the Marylebone electors he
described himself as an Independent. But it is really hardly worth while
to discuss Mr. Disraeli’s politics on this narrow basis.

The case may be put into a nutshell thus: if he had postponed
seeking a seat till he went to Taunton, which was in 1835—that is to
say forty-four years ago—no one would have been able to say, even
in a way of cavil, that he had been ever any other than a most openly
understood Tory. It is true that the Radicals would still have
been able to complain that he had been bold enough to pass a
Reform Bill giving household suffrage in the towns, and so spoiled
once for all their party tactics. But that is an allegation of inconsistency
which his Conservative supporters whom it has placed in
office need not be very anxious to defend him against. The other side
had made the question of Reform cease to be one of fair politics;
Parliament after Parliament they were trading upon it in the most
huckstering spirit. Mr. Disraeli’s own first narrower proposals were
scoffed at by them. The Bill that was finally passed was avowedly a
piece of party tactic, and admirably it answered its end. Of course,
since it succeeded so well, Lord Beaconsfield’s rivals will never forgive
him for it.

However, a more rational use of my space will be to ask at what
stage of his career Mr. Disraeli developed the leading political principles
which came to be recognized as characteristically his? That
is the only mode in which it is worth while to discuss a man’s consistency.
Lord Beaconsfield has himself done it all in the preface to
“Lothair,” but I may recall a few details. In the very first election
address he ever issued, he styled the Whigs “a rapacious, tyrannical,
and incapable faction.” That may be taken, one would suppose,
as pretty clearly marking his point of political departure. At his
second candidature for Wycombe, he quoted Bolingbroke and Windham
as his models; and it was as far back as 1835, in his “Vindication of the
English Constitution,” that he first applied the term “Venetian” to our
Constitution, as the Whigs had transformed it. The very peculiarities
of theoretical opinion which are most individually his, can be traced
back into what in respect of a living man’s career might almost be
termed antiquity—it is something like two-thirds of half a century ago
since he first spoke of the “Asian Mystery.” Nobody’s sayings live
[pg 669]
as Mr. Disraeli’s have done. The truth is, that so far from his political
system having been hatched piecemeal in a way of after-thought to
serve exigencies of personal ambition, he started with it ready made.
His critics themselves unknowingly admit this in one part of their
clumsy strictures, since they can find events so very recent as his naming
of the Queen Empress of India, and his appropriation of Cyprus, sketched
in his early novels. But let me take the very latest arraignment to which
he has been summoned to plead guilty—that of having invented “Imperialism”
just to bolster himself in office. As far back as 1849, which
now is exactly thirty years ago, in one of his greatest speeches after
having fairly settled down as the leader of his party, he used these
words:—”I would sooner my tongue should palsy than counsel the
people of England to lower their tone. I would sooner leave this
House for ever than I would say to the nation that it has overrated its
position…. I believe in the people of England and in their
destiny.” In his last Premiership he has simply put those thirty-year-old
utterances into practice. If he had not done all he has done, he
would have been false to the heroic spirit of that far-back hour.
On the hustings at Maidstone Mr. Disraeli said, “If there is
one thing on which I pique myself, it is my consistency.” Lord
Beaconsfield in advancing age may repeat the statement without varying
it a syllable, though more than forty years have elapsed between
the times.

The Peel-Disraeli episode has been for a long time now the chief
standard illustration of the political casuistry of our modern Parliamentary
history. Mr. Disraeli, those opposed to him will have it, acted most
cruelly in that matter. It is rather a curious thing for a young member
of Parliament to succeed in being cruel to the most powerful
Minister the House of Commons had seen for more than a generation.
If a giant is overthrown it must be rather the fault of the
colossus somehow, unless, that is, it be a bigger giant who attacks him;
and at that time of day, though Mr. Disraeli was growing fast, he
really was not yet of the same towering height as Peel. How was it,
then, that he succeeded in toppling over the great Minister? Let me
first of all say that the truth seems to be that Sir Robert Peel’s
unlooked-for tragic death has given to his memory a pathetic interest
which has caused an unfair heightening of emotion in the case. Neither
all England, nor even the bulk of Parliament, was in tears, busy with
pocket-handkerchiefs, during the delivery of those famous philippics. If
pocket-handkerchiefs were used it was to wipe away drops caused by
laughter, for everybody was roaring from moment to moment as each
stroke told. Peel had taken up a position in reference to his old supporters
which was certain to entail attack; the only thing special that
Mr. Disraeli contributed to the assault was the splendour of the wit
which barbed it. Everything that he said of Peel, allowing fairly for
controversial exigencies, was strictly true. Nobody wishes to revive
[pg 670]
those necessarily hard sayings now, but it must be insisted upon for a
second, in passing, that Peel had treated his party as no Minister before
him had ever done. It was the exactest verity, as well as the keenest
sarcasm, when Mr. Disraeli charged him with having tried to steer his
party right into the harbour of the enemy. Mr. Disraeli was the man
to feel this most of any, for it is one of his leading principles that as
this nation now exists party in our constitution is an apparatus absolutely
necessary to be preserved. He has for a third of a century
since then himself unfailingly worked by that rule. But I scarcely
need urge this part of the matter further here, as another word bearing
upon it will come later. If Peel had lived on, he and his
attacker would before the end have come to terms amicably enough, as
Mr. Disraeli has since done with everybody else whom he has, from
obligations of political duty, had publicly to oppose. That is, unless
they were stupid enough not to remember his known determination
that Parliamentary life should be raised above the level of vestry proceedings,
by being dignified by a play of wit; or else were ill-conditioned
enough, as some who have held high place have been, not to
meet his offered open palm when the weapon was put back into the
sheath. Peel himself would have had more sense; so, too, the present
bearer of his name has shown himself to have. The rather idle statement
that the Disraelian assault was prompted out of spite at not being
made an Under-Secretary may at this time of day be, perhaps, passed
over. Mr. Disraeli spoke with and voted for Peel long after that supposed
neglect, and though it may be said that a spiteful man could
nurse his revenge, it is just as true that the most generous
could have done nothing more than go on showing respect and giving
support just as Mr. Disraeli did. Further, no one was prompter than
he was with words of praise so soon as there was opportunity for them.
Indeed, the finest eulogy of Peel stands recorded in the printed pages
of the person who is charged with pursuing him with unheard-of
bitterness. The man who waited for office till the day when he vaulted
at once into the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, was scarcely the one
to be mightily offended, because, when a first batch of appointments
was distributed, an Under-Secretaryship went by him. It was the
leadership of his party for wise ends that Mr. Disraeli was looking
out for.

Here again, however, it is unnecessarily restricting the consideration
of the point to speak of Mr. Disraeli’s invective only in reference to
Peel. Acting on his maxim that it is the very ornament of debate, he
at one time or other has let the lightning of his tongue play around everybody
in Parliament who offered fit mark for it. Lord Russell was scorched
by it; so was Lord Palmerston. Mr. Roebuck, who in those days was
thought to have a bitter lip, got singed from it; and Mr. Gladstone has
felt its blaze wrapping around him often. He is, at this moment, in
fact, supposed to be showing some not very ancient scars from it. But,
[pg 671]
occasionally even Mr. Disraeli’s friends felt a more lambent play of
this glorious irony. It was he who told the late Earl Derby that he
was only “a Prince Rupert of debate,” always finding his camp in the
hands of the enemy on returning from his irresistible charges. He never
objected to receive as good as he gave, if only any one could be found
to give it him. Only once in all his career did he lose his temper—in
the challenge arising out of the O’Connell affair; and that was before
he was in Parliament. While in the House, who was there with steel
of any temper that he did not try its edge? Sharp blows were aimed
back, and he always admitted when it was a palpable hit; but who
came up so often as he did—who was there that did not go down before
him at the last? Take Mr. Disraeli and Lord Beaconsfield out of the
record of the Parliamentary debating of the last forty years, and what a
darkening it would give—what a gap it would make!

Something must now be said as to Lord Beaconsfield’s systematic
political and social views. It is very certain that he has a system,
and it is also sure that he has never hidden what it is. Nobody
has been at such pains to make his views clear. He has written
books in explanation, as well as made speeches; he has illustrated
the system by fiction, besides backing it up by historical disquisition.
Anybody who chooses may learn what it is, and—as a great
modification of political feeling in this country shows—a vast number
have done so, by reading “Coningsby,” “Sybil,” and the preface to
“Lothair.” Indeed, from this latter exposition itself, all that is vital
may be inferred. But the doctrine has of necessity some elaborateness,
and asks a trifle of thought. It cannot be hit off in as easy a way as
“Radicalism” can, where, when you have uttered the half-platitude,
half-sophism, “equality of man,” you are supposed to have said nearly
everything. Lord Beaconsfield has always kept before him the conception
of a community, which he distinguishes from a mob, and if he
could get his own way in the matter he would have the society highly
organized; the keeping it real in every part, and strictly and broadly
popular in its entirety, being the only working limit that he would
prescribe to its institutional intricacy.

This system, though on its being gradually promulgated it was held
to be Mr. Disraeli’s very own, expressly denies for itself that it is in any
sense Disraelian at all. Lord Beaconsfield avows that he has found it
in history—in our own history. He is content to be regarded as its
discoverer, not its inventor. In a word, Lord Beaconsfield’s great claim
upon his countrymen, as he himself puts it, is that he has again brought
to light and forced under the eyes of Englishmen their own national
chronicle.

To begin with, it is his Lordship’s firmly avowed belief that there
has been what may be called a break or rift in our great social
traditions. It is not difficult to see that he traces the causes of it back
to the violent subversal of the Church, which, he will have it, was never
[pg 672]
in this country at any time in real danger of becoming Papal. But
I may take up the narrative somewhat later. With his own inimitable
terseness, he has thus described the three great evils which afterwards
made a social wreck of modern England: they were, he says, Venetian
politics, Dutch finance, and French wars. All these he attributes to the
Whig nobles. What is called the great Revolution, which they so hugely
turned to their glory and their profit, he, in “Sybil,” ascribes to the fear
of those whom he calls “the great lay impropriators” that King James
intended to insist on the Church lands being restored to their original
purposes,—to wit, the education of the people and the maintenance of
the poor. They brought over William of Orange, along with whom,
he ironically says, England had the happiness of receiving a Corn Law
and the National Debt. But the Crown itself was enslaved in the
hands of the Whig families, who converted themselves into a Venetian
oligarchy; and, throwing off the natural obligations of property,
they borrowed money to defray the foreign wars in which William was
entangled before he left his own country.

These are the historical premises from which Lord Beaconsfield’s
views are all fundamentally derived. It is open to anybody to try to
disprove them; what they have got to do is simply to show that the
above alleged facts were not the true ones. But no one has done this
as yet. Coming down still later in his history, Mr. Disraeli, in “Sybil,”
gave the following condensed description of the social condition which
had resulted,—”a mortgaged aristocracy, a gambling foreign commerce,
a home trade founded on a morbid competition, and a degraded people.”
Here, again, the whole case is open to debate, but I venture to think
that he will be a bold man who denies that this was a vivid picture of
England at the moment Mr. Disraeli penned it. The bold man, at any
rate, did not present himself at the time. It was the last item in that
shocking list which fastened most on Mr. Disraeli’s imagination—”a
degraded people.” When writing “Sybil” he converted himself into
a Commissioner of Inquiry, and visiting the homes of his humbler
countrymen, painted them from sight on the spot. The descriptions in
those pages can never be forgotten of dwellings where lived fever
and consumption and ague as well as human beings; the three first-named
inhabitants being in fact the only tenants who remained under
the roofs long. With agitation unusual for him, but most consistent in
an upholder of the doctrine of race, he affirmed that “the physical
quality” of our people was endangered. But he further found that in
the manufacturing districts there was, to use his own words, “no
society, but only aggregation:” or, again to quote him, “the moral
condition of the people was entirely lost sight of.” Much of this, he
believed, was due to the Church having failed in its obligations. “The
Church,” he makes one of the characters in his story say to another in
it, “has deserted the people, and from that moment the Church has
been in danger, and the people degraded.”

[pg 673]

At this point I may very rightly interpolate a remark which has
not a little explanatory value. Just in proportion to the importance
given in Lord Beaconsfield’s system to the Church was his natural
disappointment at the failure, regarded from one side, of the awakening
going on within its borders at the time of the “Young England”
movement. A great part of his hopes rested on that stir. He was expecting
from those most prominent in it a grand resuscitation of the
Anglican Church, but in place of that he says Dr. (now Cardinal)
Newman and the other seceders “sought refuge in mediæval superstitions,
which are generally only the embodiment of pagan ceremonies and
creeds.” Bearing this in mind, there ought not to be much difficulty in
understanding either Lord Beaconsfield’s position towards the Ritualists,
or the course he took as to the Public Worship Regulation Act.

What was the remedy for this state of society into which England
had fallen? The cure which seemed natural to Mr. Disraeli was to revert
to the principles of our history. Practically, the first thing to be done
was to break up the political monopoly of the Whigs, and it was this
very task that he set himself to do. I have already extracted a
passage denouncing that party in the first election address he issued.
But here, too, he had no new course to strike out. He affirmed that
both Lord Shelburne and Mr. Pitt had attempted the same work long
before. Shelburne, he said, saw in the growing middle-class a bulwark
for the throne against the Revolution families; and Pitt, still more
determined to curb the power of the patrician party, created a plebeian
aristocracy, when they baffled his first endeavours, blending it with the
old oligarchy. It has not unlikely begun to dawn upon the reader that
Mr. Disraeli, holding these views, was himself a Reformer, of a much
more comprehensive kind even than the Radicals. True, Reform as it
actually had come about in 1832, most craftily manipulated as it then
was by the Whigs to their own advantage, skilfully snatching profit out
of what ought to have been a danger to them, was not his notion.
For part of what happened then he, indeed, with his usual courage,
blamed the Duke of Wellington and his colleagues. His own party
have had from no quarter criticism so severe as that he has given them.
If Lord Beaconsfield is in favour of an aristocracy, it is because he is for
making it actually “lead.” He affirms that the Tories, by their conduct
in office, precipitated a revolution which might have been delayed for
half a century, and which need never have occurred at all in so aggravated
a form. All that he could do, all that he has ever claimed to do, by his
own partial Reform measure, was to do away with part of the ill
effects of that partisan move of the other side, and to prevent fresh ill
ones from being worked in just the same way. But there ought to be
given a still broader statement of Lord Beaconsfield’s political and
social doctrines, and, perhaps, I cannot do better than make with that
view the following quotation from the preface to “Lothair.” He there
explains that his general aims were these:—

[pg 674]

“To change back the oligarchy into a generous aristocracy round a real throne;
to infuse life and vigour into the Church as the trainer of the nation, by the revival
of Convocation, then dumb, on a wide basis, and not, as has since been done, in
the shape of a priestly faction; to establish a commercial code on the principles
successfully negotiated by Lord Bolingbroke at Utrecht, and which, though baffled
at the time by a Whig Parliament, were subsequently and triumphantly vindicated
by his political pupil and heir, Mr. Pitt; to govern Ireland according to the policy
of Charles I., and not of Oliver Cromwell; to emancipate the political constituencies
of 1832 from sectarian bondage and contracted sympathies; to
elevate the physical as well the moral condition of the people by establishing
that labour required regulation as much as property; and all this rather by the
use of ancient forms and the restoration of the past than by political revolution
founded on abstract ideas.”

This, he goes on to say, appeared to him at the beginning of his career to
be the course which the country required, and, he adds, that it was one
“which, practically speaking, could only with all their faults and backslidings
be undertaken and accomplished by a reconstructed Tory party.”

If I were able to find room for bringing together from Lord Beaconsfield’s
books and speeches detailed passages to illustrate this summary,
it would be seen what a coherent social scheme he has always had present
to his mind. The above hints, however, must serve. Any one who,
after reading them, thinks that there is any ground for the electioneering
cry the Liberals are trying to raise, that this is a Minister who has no
domestic policy, will show more stolidity than we hope the bulk of the
electors possess. Further on I will return for a moment to this point.

Let me go at once to the fourth topic I have allotted to myself—Lord
Beaconsfield’s foreign policy. This policy, I need not say, is that, of the
Cabinet as well, but I am not in this paper writing of the other members
of the Government. It is not my purpose to trace the history of
the Eastern Question, that of the Afghan War, and the Zulu embroglio.
But there is one general aspect of these matters as to which
I must offer two or three comments in addition to what has been
before said about “Imperialism.” A set attempt has been made,
and is pretty certain to go on being made all the time between now
and the elections—whether they come earlier or later—and to be then
finally repeated on the hustings, to give to Lord Beaconsfield the
air of a most belligerent, not to say a bloodthirsty, Minister, who,
the moment he got into office, began to peep about the world
to see where he could pick a quarrel, and who has especially
acted defiantly towards Russia. By way of preliminary, I may ask
whether his past antecedents show him to be a statesman of this hobgoblin
type? Lord Palmerston found no more unyielding opponent of
his turbulent foreign policy than Mr. Disraeli, who always contended
that the effect of it was to draw the national attention away from home
reforms. When the question of coast fortifications was before Parliament,
Mr. Disraeli was among the first to protest against panic; he it
was who spoke of “bloated armaments;” and on countless occasions he
has raised his voice for peace and retrenchment. In 1865 he publicly
[pg 675]
declared that since he had had to do with politics he had known only
one war which was justifiable—that waged in the Crimea. But it may
be said that it is a common artifice for men in Opposition to preach
peace. Let us, then, turn specially to the Eastern Question, and see
what grounds there are for insinuating that Lord Beaconsfield has in
that case concocted a war policy for the purpose of exciting and
dazzling the country, and keeping himself in power. In 1843—which
is now some time ago—in a debate as to the production of papers on
Servia, in which Sir Robert Peel and Lord Palmerston were the chief
orators, he made a speech which contained this passage:—”What, then,
ought to be the Ministerial policy? To maintain Turkey by diplomatic
action in such a state that she might be able to hold independently the
Dardanelles.” Why, this is the literal description of what he has done
now. And we have already seen that in 1865, twenty-two years
after, the one only war he approved was that which had been fought
against Russia for this very purpose. In the early stage of the negotiations
which led to that war, his complaint was that the Government
was not vigorous enough in defending Turkey. But, in 1857, there
arose another occasion for testing whether Mr. Disraeli’s feelings
naturally were for peace or war. He opposed the war with China, and
in the Persian affair he denounced the Russophobia of Lord Palmerston—the
very complaint from which, we infer, the Liberals wish him to be
understood to be himself suffering now. Or take India as a test.
According to the Duke of Argyll and others, Lord Beaconsfield has an
insatiable thirst for more territory in that part of the world. Very
strangely, it was he who most condemned the annexation of Oude,
going so far as to make a motion for a Royal Commission to be sent out
to India to inquire into the condition of the people. When the contest
between the Northern and Southern States of America broke out, no
public man regretted it more than he did, and he was unfalteringly on
the side of the North.

In fact, only in one single case has Lord Beaconsfield ever shown the
slightest disposition for sacrificing peace, if need be—namely, for the
checking of Russia’s portentous advance; and this has necessarily implied
the maintenance of Turkey in some degree of power. Twice in his lifetime
has the need arisen, and he has acted the second time in just the
same way that he did the first, the only difference being that he happens
now, fortunately, to be in office instead of in Opposition.

In his first speech in the Upper House, Lord Beaconsfield said—”The
Eastern Question involves some of the elements of the distribution of
power in the world, and involves the existence of empires. I plead
for a calm statesmanlike consideration of the question.” In his
second great speech in that House, he made this remark,—”The independence
and integrity of Turkey is the traditional policy not only of
England but of Europe.” This is the absolute truth. It is not he
who has invented any brand-new tactics in this matter; he has simply
[pg 676]
stood upon the old paths, and carried on the settled habits of our
statesmanship.
The innovators are Mr. Gladstone and the self-styled humanitarians,
who were for substituting hysterics for national diplomacy,
and thought to solve the Eastern Question by presenting the Turk
with a carpet-bag and begging him to retire with it into Asia. But
it is stated that Lord Beaconsfield has defied Russia. Well, turn to
the famous Guildhall speech, which is the great article in the indictment.
It suits his critics to pick words out of it to please them; but
it also contains sentences like the following, which they somehow overlook,—”We
have nothing to gain by war. We are essentially a non-aggressive
Power.” In that same speech, too, he alluded to the
Emperor of Russia’s “lofty character,” addressing to him words of the
highest compliment. If he added a solemn warning to that monarch as
to the extent of England’s resources if she was forced into war for the
cause of public right, he still was speaking in the interests of peace,
not war. It was his bounden duty to prevent the present Czar from
falling into the mistake his father was so fatally guided into by the
Manchester school—that of thinking England would in no case draw
the sword. Construe his words how you will, they amount to no more
than this. Mr. Gladstone and his friends, by their factitious public
demonstrations, partly did away with the natural effects of that grave
intimation,
and made it necessary for the Government to prove its seriousness
by bringing troops from India, and actually risking the very war
which Lord Beaconsfield had wished to avoid. But the Premier had the
courage not only of his opinions but of a true policy, and he has had
his reward. He successfully checked the sinister progress of Russia,
restored the reign of public law in Europe, and while exalting the renown
of his own country, he has pointed another empire—that of Austria—to
a new career which will benefit the world as well as strengthen
and ennoble herself. After the alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary
was proclaimed, only one thing was left for his Lordship’s opponents
to go on repeating,—namely, that he had, in upholding Turkey,
spared no thought or feeling to the victims of her rule. In the very face
of this there was the fact that he had made England the formal protector
of the inhabitants of Asia Minor, and had demanded Cyprus as a
nearer point of observation of the Turk; but the plain obvious meaning
of those arrangements has been tried to be muddled away by misrepresenting
the protectorate of Asia Minor as a new insult to Russia.
These brave humanitarians got sorely entangled in their logic on all
sides. They pleaded in one breath that England had rashly undertaken
too much responsibility for these oppressed peoples, and in the
next breath said that nothing would ever come of it. Lord Beaconsfield
has made it all clear, and in the simplest way. It is not fully
explained at the moment of our writing what is the actual extent of
the pressure put upon the Porte, nor what precise orders were sent to our
admiral, but when the recent news was first published here the opponents
[pg 677]
of the Ministry must have felt that Lord Beaconsfield had ordered the
British Fleet to sail against them when they heard it was instructed to
steam back for the Turkish waters. Kindly meant as it might be for
those in Asia Minor, it was a very cruel step on the part of Lord
Beaconsfield towards some of his own countrymen, for it will necessitate
the altering of a good many already prepared electioneering speeches.
In the end, as we venture to predict, it will be seen that his Lordship and
his colleagues are the true humanitarians.

But let me not lose sight of the fact that this, though a very real plea
on the part of the Government, is not the one on which they mainly
rely. They have never pretended to be knights-errant for the righting
of wrongs throughout the world. What contents them is the humbler
rôle of old-fashioned English statesmanship, which seeks first to make
sure of the safety of our own empire and the promotion of our proper
interests, doing what further good it can to other peoples incidentally in
discharging the fair reasonable obligations which may in that way arise,
nor disdaining any glory that so falls to it. But an enormous obligation
of this sort was already on our shoulders—the preservation of India.
We have a strict duty to two hundred millions of human beings in the
East, and Lord Beaconsfield and his colleagues, who appeared to be the
only public men in England who remembered this, were determined to
discharge it. Anything and everything in their policy which may at
first sight seem risky or belligerent is explained fully to every one who
will keep that pressing need before his mind. It was this which made
them purchase the Suez Canal shares, and strengthen their interference
in Egypt; it was this that made them wish for a clearer understanding
with the Ameer of Afghanistan. But so little did they go about
matters with a high hand, that they most carefully humoured France
with respect to Egypt, and at the very earliest moment that they could,
they made a treaty with a new Afghan ruler. To try to make them
appear responsible for what afterwards occurred at Cabul is the most
shameless abuse of license on the part of an Opposition which parliamentary
records can show. A Russian embassy had been installed in
Cabul with no other guarantee for its safety than the word of a friendly
Ameer, and our Envoy and his suite were sent thither under the very
same guarantee. If we were not to be most dangerously overshadowed
by the Russian example, an English embassy had to show its face in
Cabul; and to say that our rulers either in Calcutta or in London should
have foreseen the pusillanimous break-down of the Ameer and the consequent
massacre of our brave countrymen is—well, it may be better
not further to try to say what it is.

Our own interests, I repeat, were jeopardized in every quarter where
the present Government has stirred hand or foot. That is its broad
justification. But I must certainly go a step farther than this. The
present Ministry assuredly would not be satisfied with an acquittal on
the Liberal arraignment; nor is that the verdict which the public has
[pg 678]
given. The British people find this Government guilty of having won
for it and for themselves much honour. When Lord Beaconsfield saw
that in any event he was committed to a contest with Russia for the
defence of English interests, he had the courage and the wit to determine
that the issue of it should be the better for the world. It is for
this noble superfluity of skilful statesmanship, this Imperial scope given
to England’s ruling, that Europe has thanked him, and the bulk of this
nation applauded him. By-and-by, he will reap still further credit, for
besides checking Russia he will eventually coerce the Turk. That further
obligation naturally arose out of the course he took, and he added it to
his proper task of safeguarding our own interests, just as impartially as
he did the other aim of arresting the Muscovite. I shall not push this
reasoning further: it seems to me sufficiently triumphant as it stands.
If Lord Beaconsfield has upheld the Turk, it was because it was
necessary, not because he admired him. But there is another remark,
coming much nearer home, that I wish to make before concluding this
section.

The foreign policy of Lord Beaconsfield has brought to him and
to his party much renown; but it has brought them nothing else.
That there has been the need for it is for the Conservatives a positive
misfortune. It has nearly entirely put aside the domestic legislation
on which they reckoned for at once redressing some grievances of their
own, and for satisfying the town populations who their true friends
were. Let it not be forgotten that it was on this very claim of having
a domestic policy that the Conservatives appealed to the people at the
last election. Their opponents, who now make a pretence of measures
of this kind being lacking, then denounced it loudly enough as a
“policy of sewage.” But Lord Beaconsfield’s rivals have tried hard
to make it seem that he sought out, or even invented, these hazardous
events abroad which put aside his home policy. The very attempt
impugns the common sense of the general public. A sort of pretext
might have been found for insinuating such a notion if Lord Beaconsfield
had been nearing the end of expending his Parliamentary majority
by carrying party measures. But to suppose that a Minister attaining
power in the triumphant way he did would wish to be plunged straightway
into foreign entanglements, is to imagine him stricken with idiocy.
Lord Beaconsfield had had far too much experience to make such a
preposterous mistake. He knew at the beginning, as he knows now,
that neither Minister nor party has much to gain in any way of permanent
power or confirmed home advantage from foreign policies, however
successful they may turn out to be. Foreign dangers are half-forgotten
as soon as they are past. Directly, these occurrences abroad will be
but memories; splendid ones they must ever remain: but they will
have against them, in the eyes of the unthinking, the drawback of
having necessarily, to some extent, disordered the finances. Lord
Beaconsfield’s rivals are sure to make the most of that fact on the
[pg 679]
hustings, as he well knew beforehand they would do; and, to balance
its effect, he will have nothing on which to rely but the patriotic
recollection of his country. Should everything go for the best, no
prestige which these foreign successes can give him and his party will
place him more solidly in power than he found himself at the beginning
of this Parliament; yet it will only be at the opening of the next that
he will be able to push forward the home policy intended for the present
Parliament. Apart from a heightening of fortunate reputation, won
through much risk, his own party will scarcely have gained a shred
of fair legislative or administrative advantage from six years’ splendid
possession of overwhelming power.

It does not seem needful to waste space in speaking of the Zulu war.
Even the Liberals are beginning to be silent on the subject. The affair
was forced upon the Government, not sought for by them, and it has
ended successfully.

If I now ask what have been the causes of Lord Beaconsfield’s unexampled
individual success, the remarks must at first seem to narrow
to mere personal ones. There has, in truth, been more than one reason for
the present Premier’s triumphs. First of all, I might state the matter
so generally as to say that for half a century he has managed to keep
himself the most thoroughly interesting personage in England. Neither
Mr. Disraeli nor Lord Beaconsfield has ever been dull, which is the one
only sufficient explanation of failure wherever it happens. But such a
statement of the matter as this is too comprehensive and wants particularizing.
I may add, then, that no one has shown so much pluck
as he has, and that is a quality which in the end tells with the British
public beyond all others. For one starting with his disadvantage of
race to dream in those days of a political career was most courageous,
but so soon as it began to be seen that he would triumph over all
obstacles, his very difficulties turned to his advantage. He soon commanded
everybody’s sympathies except those of injured partisans on the
other side. Not that it was sympathy he begged for; it was admiration
he extorted. Especially has he by means of his writings had the
generous feeling of youth in his favour, generation after generation.
They can never remain untouched by the spectacle of a successful fight
against circumstances. But Lord Beaconsfield has not owed all to dash
and daring. His industry has been equal to his pluck. If he had only
been a politician that would have had to be said; and so it again would
if he had only been known as the writer of his works. Put both the
careers together and nobody else has shown such fertility of brain. His
marvellous intellect has never tired. The versatility, too, has been
marvellous: a novelist and a diplomatist, a poet and a Chancellor
of the Exchequer, a satirist and a successful leader of Opposition. For
fifty years, in one or other of these characters, and often in several of
them at once, his wit has never ceased blazing, save when he himself, the
only one who ever tired of its play—except, indeed, those hit by it—has
[pg 680]
chosen to smother it in silence; but it was always ready to flash forth
upon occasion, and is as bright to-day as ever.

But, to come yet closer to the heart of the secret of Lord Beaconsfield’s
success, his faithful devotion to the great historic party he
allied himself with has been equal to his courage, to his industry, and to
his abilities. No politician can make an individual career; he has to
find his success in the prosperity of his followers. The loyalty which
Lord Beaconsfield has shown to his party and the ungrudging recognition
they have paid to him has half-redeemed the hardness of our
coarse partisan politics. Some Liberals have had the want of wit,
without our going so far as to say the lack of capability of feeling,
to express surprise at the faithful respect shown to Lord Beaconsfield
by his present colleagues. That Lord Beaconsfield has a personal
charm must be admitted, for he has turned every one who
was ever brought into any degree of nearness with him into a
friend, as well as a colleague. Those who like may believe that he has
done it by the use of magic philtres; less credulous people will, perhaps,
content themselves with thinking that his spell has been simply that of
strength of character, superior experience, and a non-despotic manner.
One thing is very patent. This chief of a Cabinet who is said to have
imprinted everywhere his own individuality on the Ministerial policy, has
never practised the slightest interference with his subordinates. It is
not he who has been charged with an uncontrollable wish to be the representative
of all the Ministry in his own person. Just as he could
show patience when a leader of Opposition, he has been able to be silent
when a Minister. However, it has been rather insinuated that he
became preternaturally active in the Cabinet Councils—there standing
forth a wizard, and cast all his colleagues into a clairvoyant slumber.
Strange to say, they remained in the same comatose condition afterwards
in both Houses, never waking up though speaking and passing measures.
Two members of his Government, however, have broken away—Lords
Derby and Carnarvon have escaped from the magician’s cell; but they
have divulged nothing as to any necromantic violence worked on them.
No, Lord Beaconsfield’s fair and reasonable ascendency has been more
honestly won. But his marvellous friendships have not been the only
softening touches in his career. All England felt a strange thrilling
about the heart on the morning when it heard that Mr. Disraeli’s wife
was henceforth to be the Viscountess Beaconsfield. It was a domestic
idyll suddenly disclosed in the centre of British politics. A man who
can make his own hearth the scene of romance, convert all who
know him well into true friends, and win all the young people of a
nation, must be something more than a self-seeker.

Still, though these things might explain Lord Beaconsfield being so
interesting, something else has yet to be added to account for the overwhelming
importance which he has attained in the last period of his
career. Not even the success of his party could have given him that
[pg 681]
unless the policy which secured this prosperity had obtained, also, the
exalting of the nation.

It is this which is his final boast; he has uplifted higher the fame
of England, and by doing that has made his own renown the greater.
Once more, it was achieved in the simplest way. He invented nothing,
strained at nothing, but only boldly carried on the traditionary English
policy, at a moment when his opponents were willing to forget it; and
in merely proving equal to the opportunity, and daring to make Britain
act worthily of her history, he has changed by her means the destiny of
the Western World. Not only his own countrymen, but Europe and
nations more distant still, to-day hail him as the greatest of modern
English statesmen. That is a title and dignity somewhat higher than an
Earldom, and it is under that larger style that those who wish to do Lord
Beaconsfield full honour will have to allude to him hereafter in the
national annals.

These are some of the reasons why we honour and follow him.

A Tory.

II.—WHY WE DISBELIEVE IN HIM.

If a Whig had been asked ten or a dozen years ago, or indeed
six years back, to write his impressions of Mr. Disraeli, he would
have set about it in a strikingly different spirit from that which the task
awakens now. Lord Beaconsfield has recently become much too serious
a joke in the national history, but for a very long time the jocosity was
light enough. In the eyes of all Liberals who had not fully acquired
the gravity of their own fundamental principles, there was, down to a
very late period, always something diverting about Mr. Disraeli. He
might and did vex them, but shortly they were again smiling at him.
The explanation was this, that for a long time his presence in Parliament
hardly at all hindered the progress of Liberal measures. Whenever
a legislative reform was proposed, he invariably spoke against it,
and at some stage afterwards the Conservatives voted in a body the same
way. From the voting being subsequent to the speaking, there was an
illusive appearance of Mr. Disraeli’s speechifying being the cause of the
Tory division list. But, in reality, there was no such connection, and
the Liberals were aware of it. They all knew that the Conservatives
would have voted just the same without a word being spoken. If, during
all the years Lord Palmerston was in power, almost the whole of
Lord Russell’s earlier and later official terms, and down to nearly the
end of Mr. Gladstone’s Ministry, Mr. Disraeli, instead of making speeches,
had amused his audience by pirouetting on one leg night after
night, the practical result would have been exactly the same. It could
not have been so entertaining to the Liberals, because, looking at some
[pg 682]
members of the Conservative party, it would have exceeded the bounds
of belief to suppose that Mr. Disraeli was really twirling for the whole,
whereas it did somehow come to be accepted that he was speaking for
all of them. The unlooked-for thoughts he pretended to put into
their minds, and the preposterous words he did put upon their lips,
kept all Englishmen who were not Conservatives shaking their sides
with laughter. It was as if a foreign Will-o’-the-Wisp had strayed
into the British Parliament, always, however, keeping himself and his
antics on the Conservative side, as being, we suppose, the worst-drained
part of the House, where the morasses lay. Even when, to the amazement
of the country generally, Mr. Disraeli found his way into office,
the merriment did not stop. Nobody who has reached mature years
can forget what an astounding drollery it was thought to be when
Mr. Disraeli was made Chancellor of the Exchequer by Lord Derby.
For the time it seemed to convert English politics into pantomime.
Will-o’-the-Wisp had been asked by the country party to undertake the
post of chief financier. Everybody on the other side was prepared
beforehand to laugh at his Budgets; and, when they were propounded,
the Liberals did laugh a little more even than they had expected to do.
When he brought in his India Bill, the merriment grew perfectly
uproarious,—Manchester,
Liverpool, Glasgow, Belfast, and the other large commercial
towns exploding one after the other. It was the same when he
proposed to give sixteen millions for Irish railways; it was the same with
the first sketches of his Reform Bill. Surely nobody can have forgotten
the “fancy franchises?” In a word, every domestic measure that Mr.
Disraeli ever proposed was, in the first shape in which it was presented,
received with mirth from nearly every quarter excepting his immediate
rear. There sat his supporters, usually in those years wearing rather
long faces during the earlier period of the statements, and apparently
wondering if their ears could possibly be telling them rightly.

But all this, as there is not a single Liberal in the country but will admit,
is a good deal altered. Lord Beaconsfield has recently signed foreign
treaties on England’s behalf, insisting most successfully, he tells us, on
what kind of treaties they should be; he has undoubtedly put our armies
and fleets into motion; and, while risking war in Europe, has actually
waged it in Asia and Africa. The bustle of these events, and a certain
dazzle and glitter attending them, cause people in general, at this moment,
to forget all that prior long period of non-success on his part in everything
else but making successive steps of personal advancement. What
has happened lately in Lord Beaconsfield’s career has certainly worn a
look of importance, and it has undoubtedly embodied political power.
If, as the Liberals will have it, he is still really Will-o’-the-Wisp as
much as ever, he has managed to get hold of the sword of England, and
has for some time been playing with it to the great wonder of foreign
nations. But how has this change in his position been worked? This
is the question I want now to consider.

[pg 683]

A Hebrew by descent, a Christian by profession, and in politics a
Tory—such is Lord Beaconsfield. This description, on the very face
of it, is a rather mixed one, and implies a singular career. It is,
however, the last item which specially fixes my attention. Mr. Disraeli,
sparse though the instances are, was not the first of his race who changed
his faith. Also, there have been, and indeed still are, other Hebrews
who have entered public life in England, and attained conspicuousness in
it. But those, while remaining nearly invariably Jews in religion, became
Liberals in politics. In fact, Lord Beaconsfield is the only Hebrew
of importance known who turned Tory. It was—and at first sight it
gives a highly religious air to the Conservative party—indispensable to
his doing this that he should first be a Christian. Not being that he would
indeed have had to wait till the Liberals carried their Bill for the
Removal of Jewish Disabilities before he could have joined the Conservatives
inside Parliament. That circumstance, again, seems to give to
his career a curious aspect. In fact, the reflection is forced
upon one so early as this,—what an utter failure Mr. Disraeli must
have been if he had not so amazingly succeeded! To be a Hebrew-Tory
left just two issues, either to become the leader of the party or
the very humblest member of it. All the circumstances would seem
to point to the latter alternative as being the natural one, but it is the
other which has somehow come about. Mr. Disraeli has flowered into
the Earl of Beaconsfield, and has now twice been, and will remain for a
little time longer, the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Mr. Disraeli did not wait for his celebrity until he entered the House
of Commons; he gathered the renown of authorship, and I might add,
remembering the number of constituencies he tried before he was elected,
the notoriety of out-door political life, before he plucked the fame of
statesmanship. At the early age of twenty-two he was a literary lion
in London society; his only claim to this premature publicity, though it
was held to be quite sufficient, being that he was the writer of “Vivian
Grey.” It is quite impossible to begin to speak of Lord Beaconsfield
in any other way than in connection with “Vivian Grey,” although he is
understood not altogether to approve of one’s doing so.

All the world knows, or is supposed to know, this work. Mr. Disraeli’s
own description of its object was that it was meant to paint the career of
a youth of talent in modern society, ambitious of political celebrity.
Nearly everybody has persisted in regarding it as a kind of prospective
autobiography, which the writer has ever since been occupied in realizing.
Certainly Mr. Disraeli was at that time a youth, and a youth of
talent; he must have been in society or he could not have known a great
many people who are sketched in the pages; and it is impossible for him
to deny that he was ambitious of political celebrity. The means
Vivian Grey adopted for attaining that aim were, also, wonderfully
like some of those which Mr. Disraeli himself afterwards, by some
mistake, appeared to use. On the title-page of the book was the well-known
[pg 684]
quotation from “Ancient Pistol,” to whom, in the eyes of some
people, Lord Beaconsfield at certain moments of his career has ever had
an indistinct resemblance. “The world is mine oyster,” the motto
stated, either on behalf of the writer or the hero; going on to add the rest,
to the effect that either the one or the other meant to open it. Lord
Beaconsfield has assuredly done so. The profound reflection which
prompts the youthful hero of the book to his course of action was
this:—”How many a powerful noble wants only wit to be a Minister;
and what wants Vivian Grey to attain the same end? That noble’s
influence.” Not many years after this Mr. Disraeli was seen in public
very close to Lord Chandos. But it was not that Lord but Lord Carabas
that Vivian Grey chose for his patron, which is, no doubt, a difference.
The story most frankly relates how Vivian wins the marquis by teaching
him how to make tomahawk punch, how he wins the marchioness by complimenting
her poodle, and how during the task he consoles himself by
such thoughts as this:—”Oh, politics, thou splendid juggle!” His settled
purpose he thus sums up: “Mankind, then, is my great game.” He
expressly states that he is to win this game by the use of his “tongue,”
on which he states he is “able to perform right skilfully;” but it will,
he recognises, be requisite “to mix with the herd” and to “humour
their weaknesses.” The chief guiding rule which he lays down for himself
in the midst of it all is, “that he must be reckless of all consequences
save his own prosperity.”

There are people who still believe that in all this they see
sketched the very determinations, maxims, and rules which are to
be found deliberately carried out in Mr. Disraeli’s actual career. It is
perplexing. The parallel, they assert, runs into the closest correspondence
of detail. Vivian Grey’s model author is Bolingbroke; and everybody
knows that he, also, was Mr. Disraeli’s. The young man in
the book shows his reverential admiration for Bolingbroke by inventing
a few passages and putting them into that personage’s mouth for the
better bamboozling of Lord Carabas; and it is known that Mr. Disraeli,
at different periods of his life, has taken passages from other people and
put them into his own mouth. But I cannot pursue this comparison
or contrast, or whatever it is, farther: it will be better seen as I go
on, what grounds people have had for beholding Mr. Disraeli in Vivian
Grey. For the present it is enough to say, that it was Mr. Disraeli,
and not Vivian Grey, who wrote this book. So much as that is quite
certain. A fiction of the kind above briefly hinted at was the first
fruit of Mr. Disraeli’s intellect; it was in penning those pages of
caricature of everybody who was notable in London society that he
expended the first fresh enthusiasm of his mind, and displayed the earlier
untainted innocence of his disposition. Lord Beaconsfield has spoken of it
as a book written by a boy. It was that which made it so marvellous.
This boy began with satire, and it might have been predicted that the
juvenile would develop into an exceptional man.

[pg 685]

It was not until 1837, when Mr. Disraeli was about thirty-three
years old, that he entered Parliament. Maidstone had the honour of
finding him his first seat, though he had been willing to represent
three other boroughs previously, if there had not been reluctance on
the part of the constituencies. High Wycombe saw his earliest appearance
on the hustings, and, indeed, it beheld him as a candidate more
than once, but never as a member. He also offered himself to Marylebone.
By some mistake it was supposed that in these instances he
came forward as a Radical. Certainly his addresses spoke of short
Parliaments, the ballot, and other measures commonly held to be
Liberal. Mr. Joseph Hume, Mr. O’Connell, and Sir F. Burdett fell under
the delusion, and wrote letters recommending him, though they afterwards
withdrew them. But when, a little later, Mr. Disraeli contested
Taunton as a Tory he explained it all. It seems that it arose out of a
mystification. From the first he really stood as an “Anti-Whig,”
which the Liberals thought meant a Radical; and Mr. Disraeli, not
wishing unnecessarily to disturb their minds, had let them go on thinking
so. However, there was no doubt whatever as to his politics long
before he was finally successful at Maidstone. He had become
intimate with Lord Chandos, and had had his name toasted at banquets
by the Aylesbury farmers as a friend of the agricultural interest. The
whole question is one scarcely worth debating. I myself believe that
the proper description of Mr. Disraeli at this time was not strictly either
that of Radical or Tory; his accurate designation would have run,—”An
intending politician determined somehow to get into Parliament,
and looking eagerly for the first opening.” Let me also add that, from
a review of all his tastes, I further believe that he would have preferred
the opening to offer on the Tory side, if only it had come soon enough.