A CRITICISM OF MORALITY. 



45 



of a human being in the world. If we are to act or live at all we must 

 act and live under limits. There must be channels along which the 

 stream is forced to run, else it will spread and lose itself aimlessly in all 

 directions and turn no mill-wheels. One man is disagreeable and un- 

 conciliatory the directions in which his sympathy goes out to others are 

 few and limited yet there are situations in life (and everyone must know 

 them) when a man who is able and willing to make himself disagreeable is 

 invaluable : when a Carlyle is worth any number of Balaams. 



Sometimes again vices, &c., appear as a kind of raw material from 

 which the other qualities have to be formed, and without which, in a 

 sense, they could not exist. Sensuality, for instance, underlies all art 

 and the higher emotions. Timidity is the defect of the sensitive imagin- 

 ative temperament. Bluntness, stupid candor, and want of tact are in- 

 dispensable in the formation of certain types of Reformers. But what 

 would you have? Would you have a rabbit with the horns of a cow, or 

 a donkey with the disposition of a spaniel ? The reformer has not to ex- 

 tirpate his brusqueness and aggressiveness, but to see that he makes good 

 use of these qualities ; and the man has not to abolish his sensuality, but 

 to humanise it. 



And so on. Lecky, in his " History of Morals," shows how in society 

 certain defects necessarily accompany certain excellencies of character. 

 "Had the Irish peasants been less chaste they would % have been more 

 prosperous," is his blunt assertion, which he supports by the contention 

 that their early marriages (which render the said virtue possible) ' ' are the 

 most conspicuous proofs of the national improvidence, and one of the 

 most fatal obstacles to industrial prosperity." Similarly he says that the 

 gambling table fosters a moral nerve and calmness ' ' scarcely exhibited 

 in equal perfection in any other sphere " a fact which Bret Harte has 

 finely illustrated in his character of Mr. John Oakhurst in the " Outcasts 

 of Poker Flat;" also that "the promotion of industrial veracity is pro- 

 bably the single form in which the growth of manufactures exercises a 

 favorable influence upon morals ; " while, on the other hand, "Trust in 

 Providence, content and resignation in extreme poverty and suffering, the 

 most genuine amiability, and the most sincere readiness to assist their 

 brethren, an adherence to their religious opinions which no persecutions 

 and no bribes can shake, a capacity for heroic, transcendent, and pro- 

 longed self-sacrifice, may be found in some nations, in men who are habit- 

 ual liars and habitual cheats. " Again he points out that thriftiness and 

 forethought which, in an industrial civilisation like ours, are looked 

 upon as duties " of the very highest order " have at other times (when 

 the teaching was ' ' take no thought for the morrow ") been regarded as 

 quite the reverse, and concludes with the general remark that as society 

 advances there is some loss for every gain that is made, and with the 

 special indictment against " civilisation " that it is not favorable to the 

 production of "self-sacrifice, enthusiasm, reverence, or chastity " 



