The Cure of Business Melancholy.

15

grade to grade, may be seen the disastrous effects of the operation of the central fallacy through the several lesser ones it stimulates into being. Men who might be wiser, better, and happier, petulantly refuse to be made, or to make themselves so, and when business is over and a little respite allowed them from its cares, they still hug it as a 'substantial form,' and potter about over nothing at all, in a semi-vacuous condition of mind, because they do not wish to distract themselves by applying to anything outside. Such men sometimes keep their country houses, and go through a mock separation from business every day at four o'clock in the afternoon. Of course there are many felicitous exceptions here as elsewhere, and we joyfully recognize them, but still there is too much of that listlessness out of harness which induces ennui, and lays open the mental and moral nature to many bewildering and dangerous enchantments. Be always busy with something, is one of the remedies urged by Democritus, junior, for the cure of love-melancholy, and substantiated by him with happy quotations from Virgil, Savanarola, and Avicenna. But what is to cure the melancholy that is engendered by business itself? Love? or culture? or both? Idleness to a real man of business is wearisomeness at any time, unless it be filled with pleasure-trips and summer holidays. But is cessation from trade idleness? A man may not only cultivate his own nature pleasantly and profitably, but help others in the same duty, by example, counsel, and assistance. A man may learn to entertain himself, and find more real relaxation than he has anticipated in what at first appeared to him to be only a continuation or aggravation of his previous labour. If there is one law of life more emphasised than another by the highest modern physio-psychologists, it is that mental exercise is not in itself destructive but conducive to health, and especially as it alternates with physical, and physical especially as it alternates with mental. References seem unnecessary here where facts are so plentiful, and we do not hope to persuade those by authority whom we cannot convince by reason. If to be human be worth anything, to be harmoniously human is surely worth everything. Without in any way wishing to make and proclaim a gospel of mere self-culture, or confining culture to such ideal regions, one may still find deep and tender truth in that trite injunction of Goethe's, Every day hear a little song, see a good picture, read some poetry, and if possible talk some sensible words.' Men are continually bisecting themselves, and throwing the blame of their weariness, as they distil the curse of their bitterness, upon their fellow-men, their social state, or the forces of the age, but never by any means upon themselves. And here, lest we might seem to need high authority, we give it :

'Next to selfishness,' says Mr. Mill, 'the principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory is want of mental cultivation. A cultivated mind, I do not mean that of a philosopher, but any mind to which the fountains of knowledge have been opened, and which has been taught, in any tolerable degree, to exercise its faculties, finds sources of inexhaustible interest in all that surrounds it; in the objects of nature, the achievements of art, the imaginations of poetry, the incidents of history, the ways of mankind past and present, and their prospects in the future.'-('Utilitarianism,' p. 20.)

It would be cruel to wish to narrow the effects of culture in any way by the exclusion of any, even the lowest class. What is good for one human being, simply in virtue of all that makes him one, is surely good for another. There can be no proprietary in truth and knowledge. They are like fresh air which is the right of everybody, and which if a man do not find immediately about him, is easily procurable by a change of position. In all conditions and circumstances men are found to become intelligent and cultivated by more causes within than beyond their own control. As far as even the strictly labouring classes are concerned, trade and culture are everywhere seen to be friendly and not inimical powers, and a little more fostering of good habits, such as we see and hear of in many places, by their wealthy masters, would considerably benefit both parties. We frequently hear, however, that educational efforts are dangerous because they breed discontent, and some employers eye suspiciously any movements that would make their workmen feel they deserved better situations and higher wages. This distrust turns upon two things, a fallacy, and a narrow mistaken selfishness, both welded together by a miscalled and misread experience. The fallacy, in one of its aspects, has been already touched upon : here it is simply, that all a master is bound to pay for, is work and not intelligence; that so long as the former is done as he wants it, he has nothing to do with the latter. There can be no fear of starting a difficult problem by denying this. An intelligent workman is, or ought to be, more valuable than one less so, and, if his master does not think so, the sooner the workman finds some one else who does, the better for all parties concerned. The error lies with the master who does not see his own interest, rather than with the shifting and discontented workman who does. Some employments are so mechanical as not to require much mental energy, but no employments can be carried on without it, and even those most mechanical are open to many improvements from their being followed by better workmen, who could possibly find out how it could be done without a workman at all. The closer we probe into the origin of many inventions and discoveries, the more do we find this to be true. It has been so through other times, and is so still.

There

Effect of Culture on Labouring Classes.

17

There is scarcely a large employer of this kind of labour in the kingdom who has not many facts to establish the truth. 'I believe I am correct in stating,' Sir Benjamin Brodie makes Eabulus say in his 'Psychological Inquiries,' 'that in the manufacturing districts most of the improvements in machinery have originated with the artizans to whom the immediate management of the machines has been entrusted; and it is difficult to say how much of the improvements of agriculture may not, in the first instance, have been derived from the casual remarks and suggestions of farm-labourers.'* The effect of this culture upon the labouring classes themselves is in itself a most fruitful topic. Their well-being is, indeed, in every way bound up with it. Mr. Mill has some excellent remarks upon this head in a chapter entitled 'The Probable Futurity of the Labouring Classes,' from which we can only quote a portion :

It is on a far other basis that the well-being and well-doing of the labouring people must henceforth rest. The poor have come out of leading strings, and cannot any longer be governed or treated like children. To their own qualities must now be commended the care of their destiny. Modern nations will have to learn the lesson, that the well-being of a people must exist by means of the justice and self-government, the dikaιoσúvη and σwppoúvn, of the individual citizens. The theory of dependence attempts to dispense with these qualities in the dependent classes. But now, when even in position they are becoming less and less dependent, and their minds less and less acquiescent in the degree of dependence which remains, the virtues of independence are those which they stand in need of. Whatever advice, exhortation, or guidance is held out to the labouring classes, must henceforth be tendered to them as equals, and accepted with their eyes open. The prospect of the future depends on the degree in which they can be made rational beings.

*

*

*

"There is no reason to believe that prospect other than hopeful. The progress, indeed, has hitherto been, and still is, slow. But there is a spontaneous education going on in the minds of the multitude, which may be greatly accelerated and improved by artificial aids. From this increase of intelligence, several effects may be confidently anticipated. First: that they will become even less willing than at present to be led and governed, and directed in the way they should go, by the mere authority and prestige of superiors. If they have not now, still less will they have hereafter, any deferential airs, or religious principle of obedience, holding them in mental subjection to a class above them. The theory of dependence and protection will be more and more intolerable to them, and they will require that their conduct and condition shall be essentially self-governed. It is, at the same time, quite possible that they may demand, in many cases, the intervention of the legislature in their affairs, and the regulation by law of various things which concern them, often under very mistaken ideas of their interest. Still, it is their own will, their own ideas and suggestions, to which they will demand that effect should be given, and not rules laid down for them by other people. It is quite consistent with this that they should feel respect for superiority of intellect and knowledge, and defer much to the opinions, on any subject, of those whom they think well acquainted with it. Such deference is deeply grounded in human nature; but they will judge for themselves of the persons who are and who are not entitled to it. It appears to me impossible but that the increase of intelligence, of education, and of the love of independence among the working classes, must be attended with a corresponding growth of the good sense, which manifests itself in provident habits

Vol. 7.-No. 25.

*Second part, p. 145.

B

of

of conduct, and that population, therefore, will bear a gradually diminishing ratio to capital and enjoyment. This most desirable result would be much accelerated by another change, which lies in the direct line of the best tendencies of the time the opening of industrial occupations freely to both sexes.'-('Political Economy." Vol. ii., pp. 332, 3, 4.)

If the fallacy under consideration had been confined in its operations to trade, it would not be half so difficult to dislodge and explode. But that specious naturalness, which makes its force and fascination, has enabled it to creep stealthily into education, and even conceal itself under the reverential garb of religion. Knowledge itself is made to have a marketable value, not ultimately, but proximately, and immediate production, or direct remuneration, to be the aim and end of many educational efforts. It is thought that we do not so much want men as money-factors. The dignity and perfectibility of human nature is nothing; its transmutation into gold pieces, and things tangible, everything. Life is real, and earnest, too, but only half of it. The ideal-man is that happily pictured by Jean Paul, where one half is a giant, and the other a dwarf, excepting that in this instance the giant side is the practical and not the ideal half. Thus the whole subjectmatter of human knowledge is divided into that which is Utilitarian, and that which is Speculative, as if the division would hold good for a moment in the presence of enlightened reason! The latter division, we may state, includes theology, natural and revealed, moral philosophy, metaphysics, and some of the as yet infant sciences, so that there is very little left in the former. And here, it is well to remember, that those thinkers who introduced the term Utilitarian, as the designation of their theory of morals, and would now resume it if by so doing they can hope to contribute anything towards rescuing it from the utter degradation' into which it has fallen, namely, its perversion into simple use, pleasure, or expediency-do not hold in the least with a division which would narrow their foundation of morals, and cut off all the higher aspects of human thought and endeavour. So that the division of knowledge into these two apparently opposite parts may be fairly considered, morally and intellectually, to belong to the very persons who claim a more transcendental ground in the one, only to let it slip from them in the other; to such inconsistencies do fallacies lead men, first blinding their eyes, and then endeavouring to persuade them that they see so much the better. The effect of this is manifest in the shallow scepticism that affects alike education and religion. Whatsoever does not produce immediate and definite results in the former that can be easily tabulated, or specdily returned in the schedule of the income tax, is thought to be all so much waste and weariness.

The

The Moral Character of Shakespeare.

19

The religious aspect of the question we may not press here, but we would solemnly protest against that sad scepticism, calling itself religious belief, which makes itself the enemy of anything like a genuine, intellectual, and well-balanced manliness. These two later branches of our subject, indeed, deserve much more thought from everybody than they have hitherto had, in their extremely extensive and diversified relations. Vapid and clap-trap agitation we have already had about the usefulness of this or that institution for this or that class of persons, but that is not what is wanted. Rhetorical flourishes are excellent embellishments, and sometimes captivate and then persuade, but for real and genuine incisiveness commend us to a little plain speaking and simple logic. We do not want pictures; we want punctures. We want the matter driving home, sharply, often, and closely to ourselves as masters, servants, or, in any sense, parties concerned. The principle is clear enough, but our action will make it clearer. There needs be no parleying at supposed barriers, and no hesitation over partial failures. A joyful energy will overleap all hindrances, and recover from all disconcertments. The pressure of a gigantic necessity ought to make us prompt with a stubborn pride and a flashing heroism. Everywhere, look where we will, we miss men, and the agony of despair creeps over, when we meet only homunculuses, apologies, and clothes-horses.' 'Have you dug up a great man lately?' asked a distinguished American of an English friend. It is a question we might frequently be profitably asking of each other, and preparing ourselves, modestly, as best we may, to answer it in thought, action, and example. We are all Memphises and Pompeiis, it would seem, for it takes a good deal of rubbish-clearing before most of us get a sight of our real selves. Strange, that a man should live so long with himself, sleep, walk, and talk, and yet only begin to know himself when the rays of another life come through his chinks and crannies!

ART. II. THE MORAL CHARACTER OF

SHAKESPEARE.

SHAKESPEARE'S "Packs, irrevocably fixed; and his

HAKESPEARE'S place in the Temple of Fame is,' as

works are no longer affected by praise or censure.' It is admitted, on all hands, that, as regards thought, the dramas of Shakespeare are 'rich as the oozy bottom of the deep in

sunken