Chapter 16

It is one of the most received arguments of the present day against religious persecution, that the judgments we form are not under the authority of our will, and that, for what it is not in our power to change, it is unjust we should be punished: and there is much truth in this. But it is not true to the fullest extent. The sentiments we shall entertain, are to a considerable degree at the disposal of inticements on the one side, and of menaces and apprehension on the other. That which we wish to believe, we are already greatly in progress to embrace; and that which will bring upon us disgrace and calamity, we are more than half prepared to reject. Persecution however is of very equivocal power: we cannot embrace one faith and reject another at the word of command.

It is a curious question to decide how far punishments and rewards may be made effectual to determine the religion of nations and generations of men. They are often unsuccessful. There is a feeling in the human heart, that prompts us to reject with indignation this species of tyranny. We become more obstinate in clinging to that which we are commanded to discard. We place our honour and our pride in the firmness of our resistance. "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." Yet there is often great efficacy in persecution. It was the policy of the court of Versailles that brought almost to nothing the Huguenots of France. And there is a degree of persecution, if the persecuting party has the strength and the inexorableness to employ it, that it is perhaps beyond the prowess of human nature to stand up against.

The mind of the enquiring man is engaged in a course of perpetual research; and ingenuousness prompts us never to be satisfied with the efforts that we have made, but to press forward. But mind, as well as body, has a certain vis inertiae, and moves only as it is acted upon by impulses from without. With respect to the adopting new opinions, and the discovery of new truths, we must be indebted in the last resort, either to books, or the oral communications of our fellow-men, or to ideas immediately suggested to us by the phenomena of man or nature. The two former are the ordinary causes of a change of judgment to men: they are for the most part minds of a superior class only, that are susceptible of hints derived straight from the external world, without the understandings of other men intervening, and serving as a conduit to the new conceptions introduced. The two former serve, so to express it, for the education of man, and enable us to master, in our own persons, the points already secured, and the wisdom laid up in the great magazine of human knowledge; the last imparts to us the power of adding to the stock, and carrying forward by one step and another the improvements of which our nature is susceptible.

It is much that books, the unchanging records of the thoughts of men in former ages, are able to impart to us. For many of the happiest moments of our lives, for many of the purest and most exalted feelings of the human heart, we are indebted to them. Education is their province; we derive from them civilization and refinement; and we may affirm of literature, what Otway has said of woman, "We had been brutes without you." It is thus that the acquisitions of the wise are handed down from age to age, and that we are enabled to mount step after step on the ladder of paradise, till we reach the skies.

But, inestimable as is the benefit we derive from books, there is something more searching and soul-stirring in the impulse of oral communication. We cannot shut our ears, as we shut our books; we cannot escape from the appeal of the man who addresses us with earnest speech and living conviction. It is thus, we are told, that, when Cicero pleaded before Caesar for the life of Ligarius, the conqueror of the world was troubled, and changed colour again and again, till at length the scroll prepared for the condemnation of the patriot fell from his hand. Sudden and irresistible conviction is chiefly the offspring of living speech. We may arm ourselves against the arguments of an author; but the strength of reasoning in him who addresses us, takes us at unawares. It is in the reciprocation of answer and rejoinder that the power of conversion specially lies. A book is an abstraction. It is but imperfectly that we feel, that a real man addresses us in it, and that what he delivers is the entire and deep-wrought sentiment of a being of flesh and blood like ourselves, a being who claims our attention, and is entitled to our deference. The living human voice, with a countenance and manner corresponding, constrains us to weigh what is said, shoots through us like a stroke of electricity, will not away from our memory, and haunts our very dreams. It is by means of this peculiarity in the nature of mind, that it has been often observed that there is from time to time an Augustan age in the intellect of nations, that men of superior powers shock with each other, and that light is struck from the collision, which most probably no one of these men would have given birth to, if they had not been thrown into mutual society and communion. And even so, upon a narrower scale, he that would aspire to do the most of which his faculties are susceptible, should seek the intercourse of his fellows, that his powers may be strengthened, and he may be kept free from that torpor and indolence of soul, which, without external excitement, are ever apt to take possession of us.

The man, who lives in solitude, and seldom communicates with minds of the same class as his own, works out his opinions with patient scrutiny, returns to the investigation again and again, imagines that he had examined the question on all sides, and at length arrives at what is to him a satisfactory conclusion. He resumes the view of this conclusion day after day; he finds in it an unalterable validity; he says in his heart, "Thus much I have gained; this is a real advance in the search after truth; I have added in a defined and palpable degree to what I knew before." And yet it has sometimes happened, that this person, after having been shut up for weeks, or for a longer period, in his sanctuary, living, so far as related to an exchange of oral disquisitions with his fellow-men, like Robinson Crusoe in the desolate island, shall come into the presence of one, equally clear-sighted, curious and indefatigable with himself, and shall hear from him an obvious and palpable statement, which in a moment shivers his sightly and glittering fabric into atoms. The statement was palpable and near at hand; it was a thin, an almost imperceptible partition that hid it from him; he wonders in his heart that it never occurred to his meditations. And yet so it is: it was hid from him for weeks, or perhaps for a longer period: it might have been hid from him for twenty years, if it had not been for the accident that supplied it. And he no sooner sees it, than he instantly perceives that the discovery upon which he plumed himself, was an absurdity, of which even a schoolboy might be ashamed.

A circumstance not less curious, among the phenomena which belong to this subject of belief, is the repugnance incident to the most ingenuous minds, which we harbour against the suddenly discarding an opinion we have previously entertained, and the adopting one which comes recommended to us with almost the force of demonstration. Nothing can be better founded than this repugnance. The mind of man is of a peculiar nature. It has been disputed whether we can entertain more than one idea at a time. But certain it is, that the views of the mind at any one time are considerably narrowed. The mind is like the slate of a schoolboy, which can contain only a certain number of characters of a given size, or like a moveable panorama, which places a given scene or landscape before me, and the space assigned, and which comes within the limits marked out to my perception, is full. Many things are therefore almost inevitably shut out, which, had it not been so, might have essentially changed the view of the case, and have taught me that it was a very different conclusion at which I ought to have arrived.

At first sight nothing can appear more unreasonable, than that I should hesitate to admit the seemingly irresistible force of the argument presented to me. An ingenuous disposition would appear to require that, the moment the truth, or what seems to be the truth, is set before me, I should pay to it the allegiance to which truth is entitled. If I do otherwise, it would appear to argue a pusillanimous disposition, a mind not prompt and disengaged to receive the impression of evidence, a temper that loves something else better than the lustre which all men are bound to recognise, and that has a reserve in favour of ancient prejudice, and of an opinion no longer supported by reason.

In fact however I shall act most wisely, and in the way most honourable to my character, if I resolve to adjourn the debate. No matter how complete the view may seem which is now presented to my consideration, or how irresistible the arguments: truth is too majestic a divinity, and it is of too much importance that I should not follow a delusive semblance that may shew like truth, not to make it in the highest degree proper that I should examine again and again, before I come to the conclusion to which I mean to affix my seal, and annex my sanction, "This is the truth." The ancient Goths of Germany, we are told, had a custom of debating every thing of importance to their state twice, once in the high animation of a convivial meeting, and once in the serene stillness of a morning consultation. Philip of Macedon having decided a cause precipitately, the party condemned by him immediately declared his resolution to appeal from the sentence. And to whom, said the king, wilt thou appeal? To Philip, was the answer, in the entire possession of his understanding.

Such is the nature of the human mind--at least, such I find to be the nature of my own--that many trains of thinking, many chains of evidence, the result of accumulated facts, will often not present themselves, at the time when their presence would be of the highest importance. The view which now comes before me is of a substance so close and well-woven, and of colours so brilliant and dazzling, that other matters in a certain degree remote, though of no less intrinsic importance, and equally entitled to influence my judgment in the question in hand, shall be entirely shut out, shall be killed, and fail to offer themselves to my perceptions.

It is a curious circumstance which Pope, a man of eminent logical power and acuteness, relates, that, having at his command in his youth a collection of all the tracts that had been written on both sides in the reign of James the Second, he applied himself with great assiduity to their perusal, and the consequence was, that he was a Papist and Protestant by turns, according to the last book he read(31).

(31) Correspondence with Atterbury, Letter IV.

This circumstance in the structure of the human understanding is well known, and is the foundation of many provisions that occur in the constitution of political society. How each man shall form his creed, and arrange those opinions by which his conduct shall be regulated, is of course a matter exclusively subjected to his own discretion. But, when he is called upon to act in the name of a community, and to decide upon a question in which the public is interested, he of necessity feels himself called upon to proceed with the utmost caution. A judge on the bench, a chancellor, is not contented with that sudden ray of mental illumination to which an ingenuous individual is often disposed to yield in an affair of abstract speculation. He feels that he is obliged to wait for evidence, the nature of which he does not yet anticipate, and to adjourn his decision. A deliberative council or assembly is aware of the necessity of examining a question again and again. It is upon this principle that the two houses of the English parliament are required to give a first, a second and a third reading, together with various other forms and technicalities, to the provision that is brought before them, previously to its passing into a law. And there is many a fundamental dogma and corner-stone of the sentiments that I shall emphatically call my own, that is of more genuine importance to the individual, than to a nation is a number of those regulations, which by courtesy we call acts of parliament.

Nothing can have a more glaring tendency to subvert the authority of my opinion among my fellow-men, than instability. "What went ye out into the wilderness to see" said Jesus Christ: "a reed shaken with the wind?" We ought at all times to be open to conviction. We ought to be ever ready to listen to evidence. But, conscious of our human frailty, it is seldom that we ought immediately to subscribe to the propositions, however specious, that are now for the first time presented to us. It is our duty to lay up in our memory the suggestions offered upon any momentous question, and not to suffer them to lose their inherent weight and impressiveness; but it is only through the medium of consideration and reconsideration, that they can become entitled to our full and unreserved assent.

The nature of belief, or opinion, has been well illustrated by Lord Shaftesbury(32). There are many notions or judgments floating in the mind of every man, which are mutually destructive of each other. In this sense men's opinions are governed by high and low spirits, by the state of the solids and fluids of the human body, and by the state of the weather. But in a paramount sense that only can be said to be a man's opinion which he entertains in his clearest moments, and from which, when he is most himself, he is least subject to vary. In this emphatical sense, I should say, a man does not always know what is his real opinion. We cannot strictly be said to believe any thing, in cases where we afterwards change our opinion without the introduction of some evidence that was unknown to us before. But how many are the instances in which we can be affirmed to be in the adequate recollection of all the evidences and reasonings which have at some time occurred to us, and of the opinions, together with the grounds on which they rested, which we conceived we had justly and rationally entertained?

The considerations here stated however should by no means be allowed to inspire us with indifference in matters of opinion. It is the glory and lustre of our nature, that we are capable of receiving evidence, and weighing the reasons for and against any important proposition in the balance of an impartial and enlightened understanding. The only effect that should be produced in us, by the reflection that we can at last by no means be secure that we have attained to a perfect result, should be to teach us a wholsome diffidence and humility, and induce us to confess that, when we have done all, we are ignorant, dim-sighted and fallible, that our best reasonings may betray, and our wisest conclusions deceive us.

(32) Enquiry concerning Virtue, Book 1, Part 1, Section ii.

ESSAY XIV. OF YOUTH AND AGE.

Magna debetur pueris reverentia.

Quintilian.

I am more doubtful in writing the following Essay than in any of those which precede, how far I am treating of human nature generally, or to a certain degree merely recording my own feelings as an individual. I am guided however in composing it, by the principle laid down in my Preface, that the purpose of my book in each instance should be to expand some new and interesting truth, or some old truth viewed under a new aspect, which had never by any preceding writer been laid before the public.

Education, in the conception of those whose office it is to direct it, has various engines by means of which it is to be made effective, and among these are reprehension and chastisement.

The philosophy of the wisest man that ever existed, is mainly derived from the act of introspection. We look into our own bosoms, observe attentively every thing that passes there, anatomise our motives, trace step by step the operations of thought, and diligently remark the effects of external impulses upon our feelings and conduct. Philosophers, ever since the time in which Socrates flourished, to carry back our recollections no further, have found that the minds of men in the most essential particulars are framed so far upon the same model, that the analysis of the individual may stand in general consideration for the analysis of the species. Where this principle fails, it is not easy to suggest a proceeding that shall supply the deficiency. I look into my own breast; I observe steadily and with diligence what passes there; and with all the parade of the philosophy of the human mind I can do little more than this.

In treating therefore of education in the point of view in which it has just been proposed, I turn my observation upon myself, and I proceed thus.--If I do not stand as a competent representative for the whole of my species, I suppose I may at least assume to be the representative of no inconsiderable number of them.

I find then in myself, for as long a time as I can trace backward the records of memory, a prominent vein of docility. Whatever it was proposed to teach me, that was in any degree accordant with my constitution and capacity, I was willing to learn. And this limit is sufficient for the topic I am proposing to treat. I do not intend to consider education of any other sort, than that which has something in it of a liberal and ingenuous nature. I am not here discussing the education of a peasant, an artisan, or a slave.

In addition to this vein of docility, which easily prompted me to learn whatever was proposed for my instruction and improvement, I felt in myself a sentiment of ambition, a desire to possess the qualifications which I found to be productive of esteem, and that should enable me to excel among my contemporaries. I was ambitious to be a leader, and to be regarded by others with feelings of complacency. I had no wish to rule by brute force and compulsion; but I was desirous to govern by love, and honour, and "the cords of a man."

I do not imagine that, when I aver thus much of myself, I am bringing forward any thing unprecedented, or that multitudes of my fellow-men do not largely participate with me.

The question therefore I am considering is, through what agency, and with what engines, a youth thus disposed, and with these qualifications, is to be initiated in all liberal arts.

I will go back no further than to the commencement of the learning of Latin. All before was so easy to me, as never to have presented the idea of a task. I was immediately put into the accidence. No explanation was attempted to be given why Latin was to be of use to me, or why it was necessary to commit to memory the cases of nouns and the tenses of verbs. I know not whether this was owing to the unwillingness of my instructor to give himself the trouble, or to my supposed incapacity to apprehend the explanation. The last of these I do not admit. My docility however came to my aid, and I did not for a moment harbour any repugnance to the doing what was required of me. At first, and unassisted in the enquiry, I felt a difficulty in supposing that the English language, all the books in my father's library, did not contain every thing that it would be necessary for me to know. In no long time however I came to experience a pleasure in turning the thoughts expressed in an unknown tongue into my own; and I speedily understood that I could never be on a level with those eminent scholars whom it was my ambition to rival, without the study of the classics.

What then were the obstacles, that should in any degree counteract my smooth and rapid progress in the studies suggested to me? I can conceive only two.

First, the versatility and fickleness which in a greater or less degree beset all human minds, particularly in the season of early youth. However docile we may be, and willing to learn, there will be periods, when either some other object powerfully solicits us, or satiety creeps in, and makes us wish to occupy our attention with any thing else rather than with the task prescribed us. But this is no powerful obstacle. The authority of the instructor, a grave look, and the exercise of a moderate degree of patience will easily remove it in such a probationer as we are here considering.

Another obstacle is presumption. The scholar is willing to conceive well of his own capacity. He has a vanity in accomplishing the task prescribed him in the shortest practicable time. He is impatient to go away from the business imposed upon him, to things of his own election, and occupations which his partialities and his temper prompt him to pursue. He has a pride in saying to himself, "This, which was a business given to occupy me for several hours, I can accomplish in less than one." But the presumption arising out of these views is easily subdued. If the pupil is wrong in his calculation, the actual experiment will speedily convince him of his error. He is humbled by and ashamed of his mistake. The merely being sent back to study his lesson afresh, is on the face of the thing punishment enough.

It follows from this view of the matter, that an ingenuous youth, endowed with sufficient capacity for the business prescribed him, may be led on in the path of intellectual acquisition and improvement with a silken cord. It will demand a certain degree of patience on the part of the instructor. But Heaven knows, that this patience is sufficiently called into requisition when the instructor shall be the greatest disciplinarian that ever existed. Kind tones and encouragement will animate the learner amidst many a difficult pass. A grave remark may perhaps sometimes be called for. And, if the preceptor and the pupil have gone on like friends, a grave remark, a look expressive of rebuke, will be found a very powerful engine. The instructor should smooth the business of instruction to his pupil, by appealing to his understanding, developing his taste, and assisting him to remark the beauties of the composition on which he is occupied.

I come now then to the consideration of the two engines mentioned in the commencement of this Essay, reprehension and chastisement.

And here, as in what went before, I am reduced to the referring to my own experience, and looking back into the history of my own mind.

I say then, that reprehension and reprimand can scarcely ever be necessary. The pupil should undoubtedly be informed when he is wrong. He should be told what it is that he ought to have omitted, and that he ought to have done. There should be no reserve in this. It will be worthy of the highest censure, if on these points the instructor should be mealy-mouthed, or hesitate to tell the pupil in the plainest terms, of his faults, his bad habits, and the dangers that beset his onward and honourable path.

But this may be best, and most beneficially done, and in a way most suitable to the exigence, and to the party to be corrected, in a few words. The rest is all an unwholsome tumour, the disease of speech, and not the sound and healthful substance through which its circulation and life are conveyed.