Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843

"The object of this work is not to advocate particular measures, nor even to assume that every thing that is wrong is so through culpable neglect; but it is to call attention to the grievous evils, that neither legislation nor zeal and charity can counteract with effect, till the increased education of all classes assists their efforts. Something must be wanting, when such unrivalled knowledge and wealth are accompanied by such various and wide-spread evils. It is not benevolence that is deficient, for nowhere can we turn without meeting it in private, struggling against miseries too great for its power, and in public devoting abilities of the first order to the cause of humanity.

"It is the wider diffusion of knowledge we require: more heads and hands still are wanted, qualified for acting in concert, or at least acting generally on right principles. Too many persons capable of generous feeling are absorbed and corrupted by luxury and frivolity; too many waste their efforts from shallow, mistaken, and contradictory views."

Then follows a splendid description of scientific energy, the gratification which it affords, and the noble objects to which it points the way.

"In examining the prodigious resources at the command of the upper classes of English society, it is finely remarked, that 'the fine arts are the materials by which our physical and animal sensations are converted into moral perceptions.'

"Every thing in the form of matter, however coarse—the refuse and dross of more valuable materials—is resolvable, by science, into elements too subtle for our vision, and yet possessed of such potency that they effect transmutations more surprising than the fables of magic. The points that spangle the still blue vault, and make night lovely to the untaught peasant, interpreted by science, expand into worlds and systems of worlds: some so remote, that even the character of light, in which their existence is declared to us, can scarcely give full assurance of their reality—some, kindred planets which science has measured, and has told their movements, their seasons, and the length of their days. Such resemblances to our own globe are ascertained in their general laws, and such diversity in their peculiar ones, that we are led irresistibly to believe they all teem with beings, sentient and intelligent as we are, yet whose senses, and powers, and modes of existence, must be very dissimilar, and indefinitely varied. The regions of space, within the field of our vision, present us with phenomena the most incomprehensibly mysterious, and with knowledge the most accurate and demonstrable. Light, motion, form, and magnitude—the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms—have their several sciences, and each would exhaust a life to master it completely. No uneasy passion follows him who engages in such speculations, where continual pursuit is made happy by the sense of continual progress. He leaves his cares at the threshold; for when his attention is fixed, so great is the pleasure of contemplation, that it seems good to have been born for this alone.

"If we turn to the moral world, where, strange as it seems, we meet with less clearness and grandeur, yet there our deep interest in its truths supplies a different, perhaps a more powerful attraction. While we wonder and hope, the general laws of sentient existence give us glimpses of their harmony with those of inanimate nature. The latter seems assuredly made for the use of the former. The identity of benevolence with wisdom presents itself to our minds as a necessary truth, and, notwithstanding our perplexities, brings peace to our hearts. Social distinctions sink to insignificance when contemplating our place in existence, and the privilege of reading the book of nature, and sharing the thoughts and the sentiments of the distinguished among men, atones for obscurity and neglect; neither would the troubled power of a throne nor the flushing of victory repay us for the sacrifice of those pleasures."

The second volume opens with a dissertation on luxury, in which the subject is treated with the depth and perspicuity that the extracts we have already made will have prepared our readers to anticipate. Luxury is a word of relative, and therefore of ambiguous signification; it may be the test of prosperity—it may be the harbinger of decay: according to the state of society in which it prevails, its signification will, of course, be different. The effect of civilization is to increase the number of our wants. The same degree of education which, during the last century, was considered, even by the upper classes, a superfluity, is now a necessary for the middling class, and will soon become a necessary for the lowest, or all but the lowest, members of society. Most of our readers are acquainted with the story of the Highland chief who rebuked his son indignantly for making a pillow of a snowball. Sumptuary laws have always been inefficient, or efficient only for the purposes of oppression. Public morality has been their pretext—the private gratification of jealousy their aim. In republics they were intended to allay the envy of the poor—in monarchies to flatter the arrogance of the great. The first of these motives produced, as Say observes, the law Orchia at Rome, which prohibited the invitation of more than a certain number of guests. The second was the cause of an edict passed in the reign of Henry II. of France, by which the use of silken shoes and garments was confined to princes and bishops. States are ruined by the extravagance, not of their subjects, but of their rulers.

Luxury is pernicious when it is purchased at an excessive price, or when it stands in the way of advantages greater and more attainable. The worse a government is, the more effect does it produce upon the manners and habits of its subjects. The influence of a government of favourites and minions over the community, is as prodigious as it is baneful. Every innocent pleasure is a blessing. Luxury is innocent, nay, it is desirable, as far as it can contribute to health and cleanliness—to rational enjoyment; as far as it serves to prevent gross debauchery; and, as one of our poets has expressed it,

"When sensual pleasures cloy, To fill the languid pause with finer joy,"

it should be encouraged. It does not follow, because the materials for luxury are wanted, that the bad passions and selfishness, which are its usual companions, will be wanted also. A Greenlander may display as much gluttony over his train oil and whale blubber as the most refined epicure can exhibit with the Physiologie du Goût in his hand, and with all Monsieur Ude's science at his disposal. When the gratification of our taste and senses interferes with our duty to our country, or our neighbours, or our friends—when, for the sake of their indulgence, we sacrifice our independence—or when, rather than abandon it, we neglect our duties sacred and imperative as they may be—the most favourable casuists on the side of luxury allow that it is criminal. But even when it stops far short of this scandalous excess, the habit of immoderate self-indulgence can hardly long associate in the same breast with generous, manly, and enlightened sentiments: its inevitable effect is to stifle all vigorous energy, as well as to eradicate every softer virtue. It is the parent of that satiety which is the most unspeakable of all miseries—a short satisfaction is purchased by long suffering, and the result is an addition to our stock, not of pleasure, but of pain.

The next topic to which our attention is directed is the influence of habit. Habit is thus defined:—

"Habit is the aptitude for any actions or impressions produced by frequent repetition of them."

The word impressions is used to designate affections of mind and body that are involuntary, in contradistinction to those which we can originate and control. For instance, we may choose whether or not we will enter into any particular enquiry; but when we have entered upon it, we cannot prevent the result that the evidence concerning it will produce upon our minds. A person conversant with mathematical studies can no more help believing that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with its side, than, if his hand had been thrust in the fire, he could help feeling heat. The remarks which follow are ingenious and profound:—

"The more amusements," continues the writer, "partake of an useful character, the more lasting they are. This is never the case with trifles; when the enjoyment is over, they leave little or nothing in the mind. They are not steps to something else, they have no connexion with other and further results, to be brought out by further endeavours. The attempt to make life a series of quickly succeeding emotions, will ever prove a miserable failure; whereas, when the chief part of our time is spent in labour, active power increases—the exertion of it becomes habit—the mind gathers strength; and emotion being husbanded, retains its freshness, and the spirits preserve their alacrity through life. It follows that the most agreeable labours are those which superadd to an object of important and lasting interest a due mixture of intermediate and somewhat diversified results. To a mechanic, making a set of chairs and tables, for example, is more agreeable than working daily at a sawpit. But nothing can deprive the industrious man (however undiversified his employment) of the advantage of having a constant and important pursuit—viz. earning the necessaries and comforts of life; and when we consider the uneasiness of a life without any steady pursuit, and how slight is the influence that such as one merely voluntary has over most men, it seems certain that, as a general rule, we do not err in representing the necessity of labour as a safeguard of happiness."

Active habits are such as action gives: passive habits are such as our condition qualifies us to receive. In emotion, however violent, we may be passive, the forgiving and the vindictive man are for a time equally passive in their emotions. It is when the vindictive man proceeds to retaliation upon an adversary that he becomes a voluntary agent. It is often difficult to analyse the ingredients of our thought, and to determine how far they are involuntary and how far they are spontaneous. Nor is this an enquiry the solution of which can ever affect the majority of mankind: it is not with such subtleties that the practice of the moralist is concerned. It is a psychological fact, which never can be repeated too often, that habit deadens impression and fortifies activity. It gives energy to that power which depends on the sanction of the will—it renders the sensations which are nearly passive every day more languid and insignificant.

"Mon sachet de fleurs," says Montaigne, "sert d'abord à mon nez; mais, après que je m'en suis servi huit jours, il ne sert plus qu'au nez des assistants." So the taste becomes accustomed to the most irritating stimulants, and is finally palsied by their continued application, yet the necessity of having recourse to these provocatives becomes daily more imperious.

"Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops Nec sitim pellit."

The tanner who lives among his hides till he is insensible to their exhalations—the surgeon who has conquered the disgust with which the objects around him must fill an ordinary individual—the sensualist, on whose jaded appetite all the resources of art and all the loveliness of nature are employed in vain—may serve as common instances of the first part of the proposition; and the astonishing facility acquired by particular men in the business with which they are conversant, are proofs no less irrefragable of the second. Can any argument be conceived which is more decisive in favour of the moral economy to which even this lower world is subject, than the undeniable fact, that virtue is fortified by exercise, and pain conquered by endurance; while vice, like the bearer of the sibyl's books, extorts every hour a greater sacrifice for less enjoyment? The passage in Mammon's speech is no less philosophically accurate than it is poetically beautiful—

"Out torments also may in length of time Become our elements, these piercing fires As soft as now severe, our temper changed Into their temper, which must needs remove The sensible of pain."

So does man pass on his way, from youth to manhood, from manhood till the shadow of death falls upon him; and while his moral and physical structure adapts itself to the incessant vicissitudes of his being, he imagines himself the same. The same in sunshine and in tempest—in the temperate and the torrid zone—in sickness and in health—in joy and sorrow—at school and in the camp or senate—still, still he is the same. His passions change, his pleasures alter; what once filled him with rapture, is now indifferent, it may be loathsome. The friends of his youth are his friends no longer—other faces are around him—other voices echo in his ears. Still he is the same—the same, when chilling experience has taught him its bitter lesson, and when life in all its glowing freshness first dawned upon his view. The same, when "vanity of vanities" is graven upon his heart—as when his youthful fancy revelled in scenes of love, of friendship, and of renown. The same, when cold, cautious, interested, suspicious, guilty—as when daring, reckless, frank, confiding, innocent. Still the dream continues, still the vision lasts, until some warning yet unknown—the tortures of disease, or the loss of the very object round which his heartstrings were entwined, anguish within, and desolation without—stir him into consciousness, and remind him of that fast approaching change which no illusion can conceal. Such is the pliability of our nature, so varied are the modes of our being; and thus, through the benevolence of Him who made us, the cause which renders our keenest pleasures transient, makes pain less acute, and death less terrible.

It follows from this, that in youth positive attainment is a matter of little moment, compared with the habits which our instructors encourage us to acquire. The fatal error which is casting a blight over our plans of education, is to look merely to the immediate result, totally disregarding the motive which has led to it, and the qualities of which it is the indication; yet, would those to whom the delicate and most responsible task of education is confided, but consider that habits of mind are formed by inward principle, and not external action, they would adopt a more rational system than that to which mediocrity owes its present triumph over us; and which bids fair to wither up, during another generation, the youth and hopes of England. Such infatuation is equal to that of the husbandman who should wish to deprive the year of its spring, and the plants of their blossoms, in hopes of a more nutritious and abundant harvest.

"The inward principle required to give habits of industry, temperance, good temper, and so forth, is the express intention of being industrious, temperate, and gentle, and regulating one's actions accordingly. But the inward principle exercised by a routine of irksome restraints, submitted to passively on no other grounds but the laws of authority, or the influence of fashion, or imposed merely as the necessary condition of childhood, may be only that of yielding to present impression. He who, in youth, yields passively to fear or force, in after life may be found to yield equally to pleasure or temper; the habit of yielding to present impressions, in the first case, prepares the mind for yielding to them in the second, without any attempt at self-control.

"The necessity of reducing the young, in the first instance, to implicit obedience, and the utility of a strict routine of duties, is not hereby disputed. The impressions arising from every species of restraint and coercion, whether from the command of another or our own reason, being almost invariably unpleasant at first, it is necessary (on the theory of habit) to weaken their force by repetition, before the principle of self-government can be expected to act. But the point insisted on is, that weakening the pain of restraint and of submission to rules, will not necessarily create an intention of adhering to the rules, when coercion ceases. An intention is a mental action, and even when excited, it is neither impossible nor uncommon that the practice of forming intentions may be accompanied by the practice of breaking them; and as the shame and remorse of so doing wear out through frequency, a character of weakness is formed."

Although we regret the omission of some observations on waste and prodigality—remarks in which the most profound knowledge of the best authorities on this subject is tempered with a strict attention to practical interest, and a minute acquaintance with the affairs of ordinary life—we proceed to the chapters on "Frivolity and Ignorance," with which, and an admirable dissertation on the authority of reason, the volume terminates. These chapters yield to none in this admirable work for utility and importance; there are three subjects on which the influence of frivolity, baneful as it always is, is most peculiarly dangerous and destructive—education, politics, and religion. On all these great points, inseparably connected as they are with human happiness and virtue, the frivolity of women may give a bias to the character of the individual, which will be traced in his career to the last moment of his existence. The author well observes that frivolity and ignorance, rather than deliberate guilt, are the causes of political error and tergiversation. If there are few persons ready to devote themselves to the good of their species, and carrying their attention beyond kindred and acquaintance, to comprise the most distant posterity and regions the most remote within the scope of their benevolence; so there are few of those monsters in selfishness, who would pursue their own petty interests when the happiness of millions is an obstacle to its gratification; but as a leaf before the eye will hide a universe, self-love limits the intellectual horizon to a compass inconceivably narrow; and the prosperity of nations, when placed in the balance with a riband or a pension, has too often kicked the beam. Professional business, and the love of detail, which is so deeply rooted in most English natures, tends also to contract the thoughts, to erect a false standard of merit, and to fill the mind with petty objects. As an instance of this, it may be remarked that Lord Somers is the only great man who, in England, has ever filled a judicial situation. So wide is the difference between present success and future reputation—so weak on all sides but one, are those who have limited themselves to one side only—so technical and engrossing are the avocations of an English lawyer. The best, if not the only remedy for this evil, is, in the words of our author, the "study of well-chosen books."

"Life must often consist of acts or concerns which, taken individually, are trivial; but the speculations of great minds relate to important objects. By their eloquence they draw forth the best emotions of which we are capable, they fill our minds with the knowledge of great and general truths, which, if they relate to the works of creation, exalt our nature and almost give us a new existence; or if they unfold the conditions and duties of human life, they kindle our desire for worthy ends, and teach us how to promote them. We learn to consider ourselves not as single and detached beings, with separate interests from others, but as parts of that great class who are the support of society— that is, the upright, the intelligent, and the industrious. Hence we cease to be absorbed by one set of narrow ideas; and the least duties are dignified by being viewed as parts of a general system. The bulk of mankind must and ought to confine their attention principally to their own immediate business. But if they who belong to the higher orders, do not avail themselves of their command of time, to enlarge their minds and acquire knowledge, one of the great uses of an upper class will be lost."

The trite and ridiculous axiom, the common refuge of imbecility, that women should take no interest in politics, is then sifted and exposed; it would be as wise to say, that women should take no interest in the blood that circulates through their bodies because they are not physicians, or in the air they breathe because they are not chemists. The people who are most fond of repeating this absurdity, are, it may be observed, the very people who are most furious with women for not acquiescing at once in any absurdity which they may think proper to promulgate as an incontrovertible truth. Ill temper, and rash opinions, and crude notions, are always mischievous; but it is not in politics alone that they are exhibited, and the women most applauded for not meddling with politics, (an expression which, as our author properly observes, assumes the whole matter in dispute,) are generally those who adhere to the most obsolete doctrines with the greatest tenacity, and pursue those who differ with them in opinion with the most unmitigated rancour. In short, it is not till enquiry supersedes implicit belief, till violence gives place to reflection, till the study of sound and useful writers takes the place of sweeping and indiscriminate condemnation, that this aphorism is brought forward by those who would have listened with delight to the wildest effusions of bigotry and ignorance. But in the work before us, the author (convincing as her reasons are) has furnished the most complete practical refutation of this ridiculous error.

Infinitely worse, however, than any evil which can arise from this or any other source, is that which the opinions and ideas of a frivolous woman must entail upon those unhappy beings of whom she superintends the education.

"Turpe est difficiles habere nugas Et stultus labor est ineptiarum,"

is a text on which, even in this great and free country, many comments may be found.

The pursuit of eminence in trifles, the common sign of a bad heart, is an infallible proof of a feeble understanding. A man may dishonour his birth, ruin his estate, lose his reputation, and destroy his health, for the sake of being the first jockey or the favourite courtier of his day. And how should it be otherwise, when from the lips whence other lessons should have proceeded, selfishness has been inculcated as a duty, a desire for vain distinctions and the love of pelf encouraged as virtues, and a splendid equipage, or it may be some bodily advantage, pointed out as the highest object of human ambition? To set the just value on every enjoyment, to choose noble and becoming objects of pursuit, are the first lessons a child should learn; and if he does not learn their rudiments on his mother's knees, he will hardly acquire the knowledge of them elsewhere. The least disparagement of virtue, the slightest admiration for trifling and merely extrinsic objects, may produce an indelible effect on the tender mind of youth; and the mother who has taught her son to bow down to success, to pay homage to wealth and station, which virtue and genius should alone appropriate, is the person to whom the meanness of the crouching sycophant, the treachery of the trading politician, the brutality of the selfish tyrant, and the avarice of the sordid miser, in after life must be attributed.

This argument is closed by some very judicious remarks on the degree in which the perusal of works of imagination is beneficial.

"It is not easy to explain to a person whose mind is trifling, the consequences of the over-indulgence in passive impressions produced by light reading, or to make them understand the different effect produced by the highest order of works of imagination, and the trivial compositions which inundate the press, with no merit but some commonplace moral. Both are classed together as works of amusement; but the first enrich the mind with great and beautiful ideas, and, provided they be not indulged in to an extravagant excess, refine the feelings to generosity and tenderness. They counteract the sordid or the petty turn, which we are liable to contract from being wholly immersed in mere worldly business, or given up to the follies of the great world; in either case confined too much to intercourse with barren hearts and narrow minds. It is of great use to the 'dull, sullen prisoner in the body's cage' sometimes 'to peep out,' and be made to feel that it has aspirations for somewhat more excellent than it has ever known; and that its own ideas can stretch forth into a grandeur beyond what this real existence provides for it. It is good for us to feel that the vices into which we are beguiled are hateful to our own minds in contemplation, and that it is our unconquerable nature to love and adore that virtue we do not, or cannot, attain to."