Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

times have no doubt gone by when men like William Cowper can read aloud to ladies a book like "Joseph Andrews." But neither the reader nor the listeners could have looked without horror at the view presented by a modern ball-room, at the waltzes, polkas, and general dance movements of young men and women of society. Conscientiousness may have changed its front, while conscience may not have gained in sensibility. Immorality has assumed another form; but is it so certain that its character is essentially altered, or its degree abated?

"They tell me, Sir John," said George III. to one of his favorites, "that you love a glass of wine." "Those who have so informed your majesty," was the reply, "have done me great injustice. They should have said, a bottle." What courtier would venture, in these days, to make such a remark to a king? Even at banquets such drinking as was common among gentlemen, half a century ago, is unknown and would be considered disgraceful. The most refined people take very little wine, even of the lightest. This seems an immense advance. But who can say how much of the improvement may be due to moral principle, how much to the fashion of the period in which we live, and how much to the regard for the conditions of bodily health, so remarkable in an industrial age like our own, which obliges even gentlemen to have clear heads? No temperance indicates moral improvement but such as may be attributed to moral considerations. Respect for health or economy evinces a fine sort of selfishness, nothing more; and respect for fashionable usage does not indicate so much as that. The elegant English essayist, Robert L. Stevenson, suggests that Thoreau abstained from wine because, living in America, he never tasted any that was good. It is more likely that he abstained because he regarded the drinking of wine as a sensual indulgence; or because he dreaded the evil effects of it on society; or because he thought that, like tea and coffee, wine would deaden his vital power, and so diminish his enjoyment of nature. Either of these reasons may be esteemed noble. But it is not probable that many temperate people can claim motives as worthy for their temperance. If they could, a higher strain of conviction on this subject would prevail, a conviction that would close bar-rooms, and render "corner-groceries" unprofitable; for a power of moral conviction equal to this would raise the level of common opinion on the subject.

In 1770, Horace Walpole wrote to a friend: "I do not know a tea-spoonful of news. I could tell you what was trumps, but that was all I heard." "The gaming," he said, "is worthy the decline of our empire. The young men lose five, ten, fifteen thousand pounds in an evening." Putting together the things best worth finding, Walpole enumerates: the longitude, the philosopher's stone, the certificate of the Duchess of Kingston's first marriage, the missing books of Livy, and all that Charles Fox had lost. The losses of Fox at the gaming table were notorious. Gambling was the fashion among gentlemen and ladies in that generation. To be in debt, to borrow money, was universal among people in society. So completely established was the custom that no disgrace, no feeling of moral degradation was attached to it. In spite of his recklessness, Fox not only kept his social position, but preserved his sweetness of character. Nothing of the kind would be possible now. Gambling has been remanded to the lower orders of men. The law is against it; custom frowns on it; the practice is banished from respectable company. But has it been exterminated, or has it merely assumed another form? A recent article in this Review on the "Ethics of Gambling," which some thought too severe, drew from a Western man a protest accompanied with terrible statistics, all going to show that the writer of the article had "hardly scratched the surface of the subject." The evil, it was maintained, threatened to undermine our institutions, being more virulent in a democracy than it was in the time of Fox, the fences which confined it to a certain class being taken down, and a coarser instinct being admitted to the gratification, the excitements of which are extended to business and politics as well as to amusement.

But will not popular education, so general under our democratic forms, correct this lamentable tendency? Alas! there is too much ground for thinking that education, instead of raising people above their level of actual attainment, simply supplies them with what they desire, and thus indirectly confirms in them a low standard of taste. Ideal, heroic, stimulating studies like Greek, Latin, Philosophy, are neglected for "useful" lessons in physics or dietetics. Besides, education waits on character; and, unless the style of character be lofty and strong, education may turn out to be a mischief, like putting improved tools into the hands of a burglar. Mr. Herbert Spencer, who called attention to this

fact a generation ago in his "Social Statics," has lately repeated the warning. The old saying, "In much wisdom" (that is, learning) "is much grief," may be true in more senses than one; and its truth may be particularly evident in a democracy where it is left with average people to decide what shall be taught in schools. In a society like our own, the passion for "getting on " operates with fearful power upon intellectual ambition. Success is the goal toward which all are striving, and we know what success means. No doubt schools and libraries multiply, but these alone do not attest the moral elevation by which the growth of communities is measured. They are certainly to be encouraged, but along with them must go efforts at making a grander type of man; otherwise knowledge may prove a snare. In older countries ancient universities, institutes, the influence of an educated class, the traditions of centuries, guarantee the permanence of "liberal studies"; but here no such safeguards exist; the danger of accommodating to popular taste the standard of mental accomplishment is, consequently, greater with us than it is in England or on the continent of Europe.

Whether or no democratic institutions are favorable to political purity, may be left to the decision of those who will take the trouble to compare the ideal of our state with the condition of things actually existing in Washington, New York, or any center of political activity. The power of "the machine," the prevalence of "wire-pulling," the faith in party men and party measures, the confidence in partisan tactics, the strength of the doctrine that to the victor belong the spoils, the difficulty of establishing what seems the common-sense principle of Civil Service Reform, the general opinion that ours must always be an administration by parties, and that an administration by parties must from the nature of the case be to a considerable degree venal, do not promise a celestial Utopia either in the near or distant future. Granting that England's anticipation of the principle of merit in the choice of her civil functionaries may be due in a measure to her habit of keeping the appointment of officials in select hands, leaving to Government the task of appointing its servants, while politicians discuss other matters more within their conceded province, one might suppose that such an example, though not literally imitable, would act as an encouragement to the principle rather than as a disapproval of it,-might, at least, animate us to engraft so fine a

system upon our democratic institutions and prove that republics can be just. The greatness of the difficulty in the United States ought to nerve Americans to the greater endeavor. Unfortunately, this inference is not often drawn. Politicians who have grown gray in service enthusiastically extol the advantages of the "spoils system," which, notwithstanding their eulogium, is practically the opprobrium of democratic politics, threatening more than anything else to drag our institutions through the mire. The few men who toil at efforts to elevate them must take the position of reformers, as if the principle they recommend were an innovation savoring of aristocracy. No sign so clearly indicates a tendency to ignoble greed as this, none so evidently exhibits a base appetite for "the loaves and fishes." In a word, statesmanship of the higher order is, by confession, rare in governments that regard statesmanship as a natural growth. The democratic faith in "the bare man " is hardly favorable to dignity or excellence of attainment, while the frequent change in official stations is all but fatal to stability of personal character. No doubt the future may repair the injury of the present time; but the evil is actual not prospective, and there is danger that it will become too deeply rooted to be eradicated without revolution. At all events, the situation can be mended now better than it can be half a century hence, and the hope of amendment, if it comes, will not be due to the average construc tion put upon the democratic idea, so much as to the prevalence of reason over instinct- that is, to moral rather than political

causes.

Does democracy promise an elevation of the religious sentiment? That is too large a question to be answered here in a few sentences. One or two specifications must suffice. The writer of these lines attended lately an Episcopal church. It chanced to be Communion Sunday, when the mystery of supernatural grace was to be celebrated for the spiritual benefit of believers. The minister, a "broad Churchman," so very broad that he passed over the distinctions which are understood to divide the "faithful" from the "faithless," gave an invitation that might have been accepted by a Unitarian, a Deist, a Rationalist: an invitation harder to resist than that of an old-fashioned Socinian. This was a concession to the untheological spirit so prevalent in our communities. But was it an evidence of a moral advance as it was, unquestionably, of a sentimental one? Is it a sign of

moral advance that a distinguished "orthodox" preacher, an American of Americans, a democrat in the grain, applies the epithet "hideous" to doctrines which he himself calls "fundamental to the whole orthodox theology of the world"? Such a declaration is entirely in accordance with the general democratic sentiment, but certainly it is inconsistent with orthodox profession. The wonder is that it should be so loudly applauded by people of exact thinking, who ought to know the meaning of language. This circumstance alone shows how deeply the democratic sentiment has penetrated into the recesses of the mind and has obliterated the ancient distinctions of creed. The doctrine that one man is as good as another leads to an abrogation of the supernatural belief on which the church rests, and must, sooner or later, disintegrate the unity of faith. This appears from the satisfaction with which hearty democrats welcome the leveling of religious distinctions, the overthrow of ecclesiastical barriers, the abolition of doctrinal tests. In a word, the restoration of moral fiber to the religious sense will scarcely come through an extension of the democratic principle as commonly understood.

Mr. Emerson, in his address on the "Progress of Culture," read before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, July 18, 1867, enumerates the astonishing gains made by the republican idea within a few years, with the comment: "Now, if any one say we have had enough of these boastful recitals, then I say, happy is the land wherein benefits like these have grown trite and commonplace." Mr. Emerson, as we know, was a dauntless optimist, and his prophecy was made nearly twenty years ago, soon after the remarkable outbreak of hopefulness which followed the civil war. After the virtual abolition of slavery, everything seemed possible in America. All questions found on easy answer. The energy of the people had not subsided, and might be counted on as adequate to the severest tasks. Candor compels the admission that the enthusiastic prediction has not been fulfilled. Some of the reforms have not been accomplished; others have been achieved in advance of us by aristocratic communities, like that of England, for example; several were wrought out under the sway of selfish motives," the search for just rules affecting labor," "the insurance of life and limb," for instance. "The marked ethical quality of the innovations urged and adopted" which the orator insists on, must VOL. CXXXVII.-NO. 320.

3

« НазадПродовжити »