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1'ROF.    LOUIS   AGAW1Z 


LIBRARY  of  UNIVERSAL  HISTORY 

AND 

POPULAR  SCIENCE 

CONTAINING 

A  RECORD  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE  FROM  THE 

EARLIEST    HISTORICAL    PERIOD  TO  THE   PRESENT  TIME; 

EMBRACING  A  GENERAL  SURVEY  OF  THE  PROGRESS  OF  MANKIND 

IN  NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  LIFE,  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT, 

RELIGION,  LITERATURE,  SCIENCE  AND  ART 

Complete  in  Twenty -five  Volumes 

THE  TEXT  SUPPLEMENTED  AND  EMBELLISHED  BY  MORE  THAN  SEVEN  HUNDRED 
PORTRAITS  AND  OTHER  ILLUSTRATIONS,  MAPS  AND  CHARTS 

INTRODUCTION  BY 
HUBERT    HOWE    BANCROFT 

HISTORIAN 

GEORGE    EDWIN    RINES 

MANAGING  EDITOR 

Reviewed  and  Endorsed  by  Fifteen  Professors  in  History  and  Educators  in 
American  Uiiiveraities,  among  whom  are  the  following : 


GEORGE    EMORY    FELLOWS,    Ph.D., 
LL.D. 

President,  University  of  Maine 

KEMP    PLUMMER    BATTLE,    A.M., 
LL.D. 

Professor  of  History.   University  of  North  Carolina 

AMBROSE  P.  WINSTON,  Ph.D. 

Assistant  Professor  of  Economics,  Washington  Uni- 
versity 

WILLIAM  R.  PERKINS 

Professor  of  History,  University  of    Iowa 

REV.  GEO.  M.  GRANT,  D.D. 

S,ate  Principal  of  Queen's  University,  Kingston, 
Ontario,  Canada 


MOSES     COIT     TYLER,     A.M.,     Ph.D. 

Late   Professor   of  American   History,   Cornell   Uni- 
versity 

ELISHA  BENJAMIN  ANDREWS,  LL.D. 
D.D. 

Chancellor,  University  of  Nebrasl  a 

WILLIAM    TORREY    HARRIS,    Ph.D. 
LL.D. 

Formerly  United  States  Commissioner  of  Education 
JOHN    HANSON    THOMAS    McPHER- 

SON,    Ph.D. 
Professor  of  History,   University  of  Georgia 

RICHARD     HEATH     DABNEY,     A.M. 

Ph.D. 
Professor  of  History,  University  01  Virginia 


NEW  YOFK  AND  CHICAGO 

THE   BANCROFT  SOCIETY 

1910 


COPYRKIHT,    1900,    BY 

WILLIAM  S.   BRYAN 


LIBRARY  OF  UNIVERSAL  HISTORY 
AND  POPULAR  SCIENCE 


Containing  a  record  of  the  human  race  from  the  earliest  his- 
torical period  to  the  present  time.  Embracing  a  general 
survey  of  the  progress  of  mankind  in  national  and  social  life, 
civil  government,  religion,  literature  science  and  art.  :  :  : 


Complete  in  TWENTY-FIVE  MASSIVE  VOLUMES 


EDITORS  IN  CHIEF 

GEORGE  EDWIN  RINES,  Editor  of  Encyclopedia  Americana 

HUBERT  HOWE  BANCROFT,  Author  Bancroft  History  of  the  United  States 

WILLIAM  S.  BRYAN,  Author  of  "Footprints  of  the  World's  History,"  "Americas  War  for  Humanity," 
'  'Our  Islands  and  Their  People. " 

ISRAEL  SMITH  CLARE,  Author  of  "  Illustrated  Universal  History."  Com- 
plete Historical  Compendium,"  "Unrivaled  History  of  the  World, "  History  of  the  British-Boer  War," 
and  Other  Works;  Also  Author  of  the  Series  of  Forty  Historical  Maps;  Member  of  the  Amer.  His.  Asso. 

ADVISORY  BOARD 

JOHN  TROWBRIDGE,  Sc.  D.,  Professor  of  Applied  Science,  Harvard  University. 

HENRY  EMERY,  A.  M.,  Ph.  D.,  Professor  of  Political  Economy,  Yale  University. 
GEORGE  WILLIS  BOTSFORD,  A.  M.,  Ph.  D.,  Professor  of  Ancient  History,  Columbia  University. 

ALEXANDER  T.  ORMOND,  Ph.  D.,  Professor  Philosophy,  Princeston  University. 
JAMES  H.  BALDWIN,  M.  A.,  Ph.  D.,  Hon.  D.  Sc.  (Oxford),  LL.  D.    (Glasgow).     Professor  Phi- 

losophy  and  Psychology,  John  Hopkins  University. 
MARSHAL  S.  BROWN,  A.  M.,  Professor  History  and  Political  Science,  New  York  University. 

GEORGE  EMERY  FELLOWS,  Ph.  D.  LL.  D.,  President  University  of  Maine. 
KEMP  PLUMBER  BATTLE,  A.  M.  LL.  D.,  Professor  of  History,  University  of  North  Carolina. 

AMBROSE  P.  WINSTON,  Ph.  D.,  Assistant  Professor  Economics,  Washington,  University. 
WILLIAM  R.  PERKINS,   Professor  History,  University  of  Iowa. 

REV.  GEO.  M.  GRANT,  D.  D.,  Late  Principal  of  Queen's  University,  Kingston,  Ontario,  Canada. 
MOSES  COIT  TYLER,  A.  M.,   Ph.  D.,  Late  Professor  of  American  History,  Cornell  University. 

ELISHA  BENJAMIN  ANDREWS,  LL  D.,  D.  D.,  Chancellor,  University  of  Nebraska. 
WILLIAM  TORREY  HARRIS,   Ph.  D.,  LL.  D.,  Formerly  United  States  Commissincr  of  Education. 

JOHN  HANSON  THOMAS  McPHERSON,  Ph.  D.,  Professor  of  History,  University  of  Georgia. 
RICHARD  HEf.TH  DABNEY,  A.  M.,  Ph.  D.,  Professor  of  History,  University  of  Virginia. 


MILLAR  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

225  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 
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&Gf]f2fts~J) 

: _C1/  "35=^=.^^ 


THE   PLEASURES  OF  LIFE 

By  SIR  JOHN  LUBBOCK,  BART 


PREFACE. 


THOSE  who  have  the  pleasure  of 
attending  the  opening  meetings  of 
schools  and  colleges,  and  of  giving 
away  prizes  and  certificates,  are  gen- 
erally expected  at  the  same  time  to 
offer  such  words  of  counsel  as  the  ex- 
perience of  the  world  might  enable 
them  to  give  to  those  who  are  entering 
life. 

Being  myself  naturally  rather  prone 
to  suffer  from  low  spirits,  I  have  at 
several  of  these  gatherings  taken  the 
opportunity  of  dwelling  on  the  privi- 
leges and  blessings  we  enjoy,  and  1 
reprint  here  the  substance  of  some  of 
these  addresses  (omitting  what  was 
special  to  the  circumstances  of  each 
case,  and  freely  making  any  altera- 
tions and  additions  which  have  since 
<  occurred  to  me),  hoping  that  the 
thoughts  and  quotations  in  which  I 
have  myself  found  most  comfort  may 
perhaps  be  of  use  to  others  also. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  I 
have  not  by  any  means  referred  to  all 
the  sources  of  happiness  open  to  us, 
some  indeed  of  the  greatest  pleasures 
and  blessings  being  altogether  omit- 
led. 

In  reading  over  the  proofs  I  feel 
that  I  may  appear  in  some  cases  too 
dogmatic,  but  I  hope  that  allowance 
will  be  made  for  the  circumstances 
under  which  thev  were  delivered. 


HIGH  ELMS, 
DOWN,  ~K.Tf.wr,  January  1887. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE   DUTY   OF    HAPPINESS.* 

"  If  a  man  is  unhappy,  this  must  be  his 
own  fault ;  for  God  made  all  men  to  be 
happy. ' ' — EPICTET  us. 

LIFE  is  a  great  gift,  and  as  we  reach 
years  of  discretion,  we  most  of  us  nat- 
urally ask  ourselves  what  should  be 
the  main  object  of  our  existence. 
Even  those  who  do  not  accept  "  the 
greatest  good  of  the  greatest  num- 
ber "  as  an  absolute  rule,  will  yet  ad- 
mit that  we  should  all  endeavor  to 
contribute  as  far  as  we  may  to  the 
happiness  of  our  fellow  creatures. 
There  are  many,  however,  who  seem 
to  doubt  whether  it  is  possible,  or 
even  right,  that  we  should  be  happy 
ourselves.  Our  own  happiness  ought 
not,  of  course,  to  be  our  main  object, 
nor  indeed  will  it  ever  be  secured  if 
selfishly  sought.  We  may  have  many 
pleasures  in  life,  but  must  not  let 
pleasures  have  rule  over  us  or  they 
will  soon  hand  us  over  to  sorrow  ;  and 
"  into  what  dangerous  and  miserable 
servitude  does  he  fall  who  suffereth 
pleasures  and  sorrows  (two  unfaithful 
and  cruel  commanders)  to  possess  him 
successively  ?  "  t 

I  cannot,  however,  but  think  that 
the  world  would  be  better  and  brighter 
if  our  teachers  would  dwell  on  the 
duty  of  happiness  as  well  as  on  tiie 
happiness  of  duty  ;  for  we  ought  to  be 

*  The  substance  of  this  was  delivered  at 
the  Harris  Institute,  Preston, 
t  Seneca. 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


<\     <T>^ 

as  cheerful  as  we  can,  if  only  because 
to  be  happy  ourselves  is  a  most  effec- 
tual contribution  to  the  happiness  of 
others. 

Every  one  must  have  felt  that  a 
cheerful  friend  is  like  a  sunny  day, 
which  sheds  its  brightness  on  all 
around ;  and  most  of  us  can,  as  we 
choose,  make  of  this  world  either  a 
palace  or  a  prison. 

There  is  no  doubt  some  selfish  sat- 
isfaction in  yielding  to  melancholy ; 
in  brooding  over  grievances,  especially 
if  more  or  less  imaginary;  in  fancying 
that  we  are  victims  of  fate.  To  be 
bright  and  cheerful  often  requires  an 
effort ;  there  is  a  certain  art  in  keep- 
ing ourselves  happy  ;  in  this  respect, 
as  in  others,  we  require  to  watch  over 
and  manage  ourselves  almost  as  if  we 
were  somebody  else. 

As  a  nation  we  are  prone  to  mel- 
ancholy. It  has  been  said  of  our 
countrymen  that  they  take  even  their 
pleasures  sadly.  But  this,  if  it  be 
true  at  all,  will,  I  hope,  prove  a  transi- 
tory characteristic.  "  Merry  Eng- 
land "  was  the  old  saying,  and  we 
hope  it  may  become  true  again.  We 
must  look  to  the  East  for  real  mel- 
ancholy. What  can  be  sadder  than 
the  lines  with  which  Omar  Khayyam 
opens  his  quatrains.  I  quote  from 
Whinfield's  translation : 

"  We  sojourn  here  for  one  short  day  or  two, 
And  all  the  gain  we  get  is  grief  and  woe  ; 
And   then,  leaving  life's  problems  all  un- 
solved 
And  harassed  by  regrets,  we  have  to  go. 

or  the  Devas'  song  to  prince  SiddaT- 
tha,  in  Edwin  Arnold's  beautiful  ver- 
sion : 

'*  We  are  ths  voices  of  the  wandering  wind, 
Which  moan  for  rest,  &Ad  reet  can  never 

find. 

Lo !  as  the  wind  is,  so  is  mortal  life — 
A  moan,  a  sigh,  a  sob,  a  storm,  a  strife." 

No  wonder  that  under  such  circum- 
stances, Nirvana — the  cessation  of 
sorrow — should  be  welcomed  even  at 
the  sacrifice  of  consciousness.  But, 
on  the  contrary,  ought  we  not  to  place 
before  ourselves  a  very  different  ideal 


— a  healthier,  manlier,  and  nobler 
hope  ? 

"Im  ganzen,  guten,  scho'nen 
Resolut  zu  leben."  * 

Life  certainly  may  be,  and  ought  to 
be,  bright,  interesting,  and  happy ; 
and,  according  to  the  Italian  proverb, 
"  if  all  cannot  live  on  the  piazza, 
every  one  may  feel  the  sun." 

If  we  do  our  best ;  if  we  do  not 
magnify  trifling  troubles  ;  if  we  reso- 
lutely look,  I  do  not  say  at  the  bright 
side  of  things,  but  at  things  as  they 
really  are  ;  if  we  avail  ourselves  of 
the  manifold  blessings  which  surround 
us,  we  cannot  but  feel  how  thankful 
we  ought  to  be  for  the  "  sacred  trusts 
of  health,  strength,  and  time," — for 
the  glorious  inheritance  of  life. 

Few  of  us,  indeed,  realize  the  won- 
derful privilege  of  living ;  the  bless- 
ings we  inherit,  the  glories  and  beau- 
ties of  the  Universe,  which  is  our  own 
if  we  choose  to  have  it  so  ;  the  extent 
to  which  we  can  make  ourselves  what 
we  wish  to  be ;  or  the  power  we  pos- 
sess of  securing  peace,  of  triumphing 
over  pain  and  sorrow. 

Dante  pointed  to  the  neglect  of  op- 
portunities as  a  serious  fault : 

"  Man  can  do  violence 
To  himself  and  his  own  blessings,  and  for 

this 

He,  in  the  second  round,  must  aye  deplore, 
With  unavailing  penitence,  his  crime. 
Whoe'er  deprives  himseJf  of  life  and  light 
In  reckless  lavishment  his  talent  wastes, 
And  sorrows  then  when  he  should  dwell  in 

joy." 

Ruskin  has  expressed  this  with  spe- 
cial allusion  to  the  marvelous  beauty 
of  this  glorious  world,  too  often  taken 
as  a  matter  of  course,  and  remem- 
bered, if  at  all,  almost  without  grati- 
tude. "  Holy  men,"  he  complains, 
"  in  the  recommending  of  the  love  of 
God  to  us,  refer  but  seldom  to  those 
things  in  which  it  is  most  abundantly 
and  immediately  shown  ;  though  they 
insist  much  on  His  giving  of  bread, 
and  raiment,  and  health  (which  He 
gives  to  all  inferior  creatures),  they 


*  Goethe. 


THE  PLEASURES  OP  LIFE. 


3 


require  us  not  to  thank  Him  for  that 
glory  of  His  works  which  He  has  per- 
mitted us  alone  to  perceive  ;  they  tell 
us  often  to  meditate  in  the  closet,  but 
they  send  us  not,  like  Isaac,  into  the 
fields  at  even  ;  they  dwell  on  the  duty 
of  self-denial,  but  they  exhibit  not  the 
duty  of  delight :  "  and  yet,  as  he 
justly  says  elsewhere,  "  each  of  us, 
as  we  travel  the  way  of  life,  has  the 
choice,  according  to  our  working,  of 
turning  all  the  voices  of  Nature  into 
one  song  of  rejoicing  ;  or  of  withering 
and  quenching  her  sympathy  into  a 
fearful  withdrawn  silence  of  condem- 
nation, or  into  a  crying  out  of  her 
stones  and  a  shaking  of  her  dust 
against  us." 

May  we  not  all  admit,  with  Sir 
Henry  Taylor,  that  **  the  retrospect 
of  life  swarms  with  lost  opportunities." 

St.  Bernard,  indeed,  goes  so  far  as 
to  state  that  "  nothing  can  work  me 
damage  except  myself ;  the  harm  that 
I  sustain  I  carry  about  with  me,  and 
never  am  a  real  sufferer  but  by  my 
own  fault." 

Some  Heathen  moralists  have 
taught  very  much  the  same  lesson. 
"  The  gods,"  says  Marcus  Aurelius, 
"  have  put  all  the  means  in  man's 
power  to  enable  him  not  to  fall  into 
real  evils.  Now  that  which  does  not 
make  a  man  worse,  how  can  it  make 
his  life  worse  ?  " 

Epictetus  takes  the  same  line  :  "  If 
a  man  is  unhappy,  remember  that 
his  unhappiness  is  his  own  fault;  for 
God  has  made  all  men  to  be  happy." 
"lam,"  he  elsewhere  says,  "always 
content  with  that  which  happens  ;  for 
I  think  that  what  God  chooses  is  bet- 
ter than  what  I  choose."  And  again  : 
"  Seek  not  that  things  which  happen 
should  happen  as  you  wish ;  but  wish 
the  things  which  happen  to  be  as  they 
are,  and  you  will  have  a  tranquil  flow 
of  life.  ...  If  you  wish  for  anything 
which  belongs  to  another,  you  lose 
that  which  is  your  own." 

Few,  however,  if  any,  can  I  think 
go  as  far  as  St.  Bernard.  We  cannot 
but  suffer  from  pain,  sickness,  and 
anxiety ;  from  the  loss,  the  unkind- 
ness,  the  faults,  even  the  coldness  of 


those  we  love  ,  How  many  a  day  has 
been  damped  and  darkened  by  an 
angry  word. 

Hegel  is  said  to  have  calmly  fin- 
ished his  Phcenomenologie  des  Geistes 
at  Jena,  on  the  i4th  October,  1806, 
not  knowing  anything  whatever  of  the 
battle  that  was  raging  round  him. 

But  if  we  separate  ourselves  so 
much  from  the  interests  of  those 
around  us  that  we  do  not  sympathize 
with  them  in  their  sufferings,  we  shut 
ourselves  out  from  sharing  their  joys, 
and  lose  far  more  than  we  gain.  K 
we  exclude  sympathy  and  wrap  our- 
selves round  in  a  cold  chain  armor  of 
selfishness,  we  exclude  ourselves  from 
many  of  the  greatest  and  purest  joys 
of  life.  To  render  ourselves  insensi- 
ble to  pain  we  must  forfeit  also  the 
possibility  of  happiness. 

It  is,  in  fact,  impossible  to  deny 
the  existence  of  evil,  and  the  reason 
for  it  has  long  exercised  the  human 
intellect.  The  savage  solves  it  by 
the  supposition  of  evil  spirits.  The 
Greeks  attributed  the  misfortunes  of 
men  in  great  measure  to  the  antipa- 
thies and  jealousies  of  gods  and  god- 
desses. Others  have  imagined  two 
divine  principles,  opposite  and  antag- 
onistic— the  one  friendly,  the  other 
hostile  to  men. 

Much,  however,  of  what  we  call  evil 
is  really  good  in  disguise,  and  we 
should  not  "  quarrel  rashly  with  ad- 
versities not  yet  understood,  nor  over- 
look the  mercies  often  bound  up  in 
them."*  Pain,  for  instance,  is  a 
warning  of  danger,  a  very  necessity  of 
existence.  But  for  it,  but  for  the 
warnings  which  our  feelings  give  us, 
the  very  blessings  by  which  we  are 
surrounded  would  soon  and  inevitably 
prove  fatal.  Many  of  those  who  have 
not  studied  the  question  are  under  the 
impression  that  the  more  deeply- 
seated  portions  of  the  body  must  be 
most  sensitive.  The  very  reverse  is 
the  case.  The  skin  is  a  continuous 
and  ever  watchful  sentinel,  ever  on 
guard  to  give  us  notice  of  any  ap- 
proaching danger ;  while  the  flesh 


«  Sir  T.  Browne. 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


and  inner  organs,  where  pain  would 
be  without  purpose,  are,  so  long  as 
they  are  healthy,  comparatively  with- 
out sensation. 

Freedom  of  action  seems  to  involve 
the  possibility  of  evil.  If  any  freedom 
of  choice  be  left  us,  much  must  depend 
on  the  choice  we  make.  In  the  very 
nature  of  things,  two  and  two  cannot 
make  five.  Epictetus  imagines  Jupi- 
ter addressing  man  as  follows  :  "  If  it 
had  been  possible  to  make  your  body 
and  your  property  free  from  liability 
to  injury,  I  would  have  done  so.  As 
this  could  not  be,  I  have  given  you  a 
small  portion  of  myself." 

This  divine  gift  it  is  for  us  to  use 
wisely.  It  is,  in  fact,  our  most  valu- 
able treasure.  "  The  soul  is  a  much 
better  thing  than  all  the  others  which 
you  possess.  Can  you  then  show  me 
in  what  way  you  have  taken  care  of 
it  ?  For  it  is  not  likely  that  you,  who 
are  so  wise  a  man,  inconsiderately 
and  carelessly  allow  the  most  valuable 
thing  that  you  possess  to  be  neglected 
and  to  perish."  * 

Moreover,  even  if  evil  cannot  be 
altogether  avoided,  it  is  no  doubt  true 
that  not  only  whether  we  lead  good 
and  useful,  or  evil  and  useless  lives, 
but  also  whether  we  are  happy  or  un- 
happy, is  very  much  in  our  own  power, 
and  depends  greatly  on  ourselves. 
"  Time  alone  relieves  the  foolish  from 
sorrow,  but  reason  the  wise,"  f  and 
no  one  was  ever  yet  made  utterly  mis- 
erable excepting  by  himself.  We  are, 
if  not  the  masters,  at  any  rate  almost 
the  creators  of  ourselves. 

With  most  of  us  it  is  not  so  much 
great  sorrows,  disease  or  death,  but 
rather  the  little  "  daily  dyings  "  which 
cloud  over  the  sunshine  of  life.  How 
many  of  the  troubles  of  life  are  insig- 
nificant in  themselves,  and  might 
easily  be  avoided  ! 

How  happy  home  might  generally 
be  made  but  for  foolish  quarrels,  or 
misunderstandings,  as  they  are  well 
named !  It  is  our  own  fault  if  we 


*  Epictetus. 
t  Epictetus. 


are  querulous  or  ill-humored ;  nor 
need  we,  though  this  is  less  easy,  at 
low  ourselves  to  be  made  unhappy  by 
the  querulousness  or  ill-humors  of 
others. 

Much  of  what  we  suffer  we  have 
brought  on  ourselves,  if  not  by  actual 
fault,  at  least  by  ignorance  or  thought- 
lessness. Many  of  us  fritter  our  life 
away.  Indeed,  La  Bruyere  says  that 
"  most  men  spend  much  of  their  lives 
in  making  the  rest  miserable  ; "  or, 
as  Goethe  puts  it : 

"  Careworn  man  has,  in  all  ages, 
Sown  vanity  to  reap  despair." 

Not  only  do  we  suffer  much  in  the 
anticipation  of  evil,  as  "  Noah  lived 
many  years  under  the  affliction  of  a 
flood,  and  Jerusalem  was  taken  unto 
Jeremy  before  it  was  besieged,"  but 
we  often  distress  ourselves  greatly  in 
the  apprehension  of  misfortune> 
which  after  all  never  happen  at  all. 
We  should  do  our  best  and  wait 
calmly  the  result.  We  often  hear  of 
people  breaking  down  from  overwork, 
but  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  they  art; 
really  suffering  from  worry  or  anxiety. 

"Nos  maux  moraux,"  says   Rous- 
seau, "  sont  tous  dans  1'opinion,  hoi." 
un  seul,  qui  est  le  crime ;  et  celui-la 
|  depend  de  nous  ;  nos  maux  physique 
j  nous    ddtruisent,   ou    se    detruisent. 
Le     temps    ou    la    mort    sont    nos 
remedes." 

This,  however,  applies  to  the  gro\\n 
up.     With   children   of    course  it    is 
different.      It   is    customary,   but     I 
think  it  is  a  mistake,  to  speak  of  haj  ; 
childhood.     Children,    however,    ai 
often  over-anxious  and  acutely  sens 
live.     Man   ought  to  be  a  man   and 
master  of  his  fate,  but  children  are  ai 
the  mercy  of  those  around  them.    Mr. 
Rarey,    the    great    horse-tamer,  has 
told  us  that  he  has   known  an  angry 
word  raise  the  pulse  of   a  horse  ten 
beats  in  a  minute.     Think  then  how 
it  must  affect  a  child  ! 

It  is  small  blame  to  the  young  if 
tney  are  over- anxious  ;  but  it  is  a 
danger  to  be  striven  against.  "  The 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


terrors  of  the  storm  are  chiefly  felt 
in  the  parlor  or  the  cabin."* 

To  save  ourselves  from  imaginary, 
or  at  any  rate  problematical,  evils, 
we  often  incur  real  suffering.  "The 
man,"  said  Epicurus,  "  who  is  not 
content  with  little  is  content  with 
nothing."  How  often  do  we  "  labor 
for  that  which  satisfied!  not."  We 
most  of  us  give  ourselves  an  immense 
amount  of  useless  trouble  ;  encumber 
ourselves,  as  it  were,  on  the  journey 
of  life  with  a  dead  weight  of  unnec- 
essary baggage.  And  as  "  a  man 
maketh  his  train  longer,  he  makes  his 
wings  shorter."  t  In  that  delightful 
fairy  tale,  Alice  through  the  Looking- 
Glass,  the  "White  Knight"  is  de- 
scribed as  having  provided  himself 
on  starting  for  a  journey  with  a 
variety  of  odds  and  ends,  including  a 
mousetrap,  in  case  he  was  troubled 
by  mice  at  night,  and  a  bee-hive  in 
case  he  came  across  a  swarm  of  bees. 

Hearne,  in  \i\sjourney  to  the  Mouth 
of  the  Coppermine  River,  tells  us  that  | 
a  few  days  after  starting  he  met  a 
party  of  Indians,  who  annexed  a  great 
deal  of  his  property,  and  all  Hearne 
says  is,  "  The  weight  of  our  baggage 
being  so  much  lightened,  our  next 
day's  journey  was  much  pleasanter." 
I  ought,  however,  to  add  that  the 
Indians  broke  up  the  philosophical 
instruments,  which,  no  doubt,  were 
rather  an  encumbrance. 

"  We  talk  of  the  origin  of  evil ;  .  .  . 
but  what  is  evil  ?  We  mostly  speak  of 
sufferings  and  trials  as  good,  perhaps, 
in  their  result ;  but  we  hardly  admit 
that  they  may  be  good  in  themselves. 
Yet  they  are  knowledge — how  else  to 
be  acquired,  unless  by  making  men  as 
gods,  enabling  them  to  understand 
without  experience.  All  that  men 
go  through  may  be  absolutely  the 
best  for  them — no  such  thing  as  evil, 
at  least  in  our  customary  meaning  of 
the  word."  $ 

Indeed,  "  the  vale  best  discovereth 


*  Emerson. 
t  Bacon. 
t  Helps. 


the  hill,"*  and  "pour  sentir  les 
grands  biens,  il  faut  qu'il  connoisse 
les  petits  maux."t 

If  we  cannot  hope  that  life  will  be 
all  happiness,  we  may  at  least  secure 
a  heavy  balance  on  the  right  side,  and 
even  events  which  look  like  misfort- 
une, if  boldly  faced,  may  often  be 
turned  to  good.  Helmholtz  dates  his 
start  in  science  to  an  attack  of 
typhoid  fever.  This  illness  led  to  his 
acquisition  of  a  microscope,  which  he 
was  enabled  to  purchase,  owing  to 
his  having  spent  his  autumn  vacation 
of  1841  in  the  hospital,  prostrated  by 
typhoid  fever ;  being  a  pupil,  he  was 
nursed  without  expense,  and  on  his 
recovery  he  found  himself  in  posses- 
sion of  the  savings  of  his  small  re- 
sources. 

"  Under  different  circumstances," 
says  Castelar,  "Savonarola  would  un- 
doubtedly have  been  a  good  husband, 
a  tender  father,  a  man  unknown  to 
history,  utterly  powerless  to  print 
upon  the  sands  of  time  and  upon  the 
human  soul  the  deep  trace  which  he 
has  left ;  but  misfortune  came  to  visit 
him,  to  crush  his  heart,  and  to  impart 
that  marked  melancholy  which  char- 
acterizes a  soul  in  grief,  and  the  grief 
that  circled  his  brows  with  a  crown  of 
thorns  was  also  that  which  wreathed 
them  with  the  splendor  of  immortal- 
ity. His  hopes  were  centered  in  the 
woman  he  loved,  his  life  was  set  upoiv 
the  possession  of  her,  and  when  her 
family  finally  rejected  him,  partly  on 
account  of  his  profession,  and  partly 
on  account  of  his  person,  he  believed 
that  it  was  death  that  had  come  upon 
him,  when  in  truth  it  was  immortal- 
ity" 

Moreover,  when  troubles  come. 
Marcus  Aurelius  wisely  tells  us  to 
"  remember  on  every  occasion  which 
leads  thee  to  vexation  to  apply  this 
principle,  that  this  is  not  a  misfort- 
une, but  that  to  bear  it  nobly  is  good 
fortune  ;  "  and  he  elsewhere  observes 
that  we  suffer  much  more  from  the 
anger  and  vexation  which  we  allow 


*  Bacon. 
t  Rousseau. 


6 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


acts  to  rouse  in  us,  than  we  do  from 
the  acts  themselves  at  which  we  are 
angry  and  vexed.  How  much  most 
people,  for  instance,  allow  themselves 
to  be  distracted  and  disturbed  by 
quarrels  and  family  disputes.  Yet  in 
nine  cases  out  of  ten  one  ought  not  to 
suffer  from  being  found  fault  with. 
If  the  condemnation  is  just,  it  should 
be  welcome  as  a  warning  ;  if  it  is  un- 
deserved, why  should  we  allow  it  to 
distress  us  ? 

If  misfortunes  happen  we  do  but 
make  them  worse  by  grieving  over 
them. 

"  I  must  die,"  again  says  Epictetus. 
"  But  must  I  then  die  sorrowing  ?  I 
must  be  put  in  chains.  Must  I  then 
also  lament  ?  I  must  go  into  exile. 
Can  I  be  prevented  from  going  with 
cheerfulness  and  contentment  ?  But 
I  will  put  you  in  prison.  Man,  what 
are  you  saying  ?  You  can  put  my 
body  in  prison,  but  my  mind  not  even 
Zeus  himself  can  overpower." 

If,  indeed,  we  cannot  be  happy, 
the  fault  is  generally  in  ourselves. 
Epictetus  was  a  poor  slave,  and  yet 
how  much  we  owe  him  ! 

"  How  is  it  possible,"  he  says, 
"that  a  man  who  has  nothing,  who  is 
naked,  houseless,  without  a  hearth, 
squalid,  without  a  slave,  without  a 
city,  can  pass  a  life  that  flows  easily  ? 
See,  God  has  sent  you  a  man  to  show 
yon  that  it  is  possible.  Look  at  me 
who  am  without  a  city,  without  a 
house,  without  possessions,  without  a 
slave  ;  I  sleep  on  the  ground ;  I  have 
no  wife,  no  children,  no  praetorium, 
but  only  the  earth  and  heavens,  anc 
one  poor  cloak.  And  what  do 
want  ?  Am  I  not  without  sorrow  ? 
Am  I  not  without  fear?  Am  I  not 
free  ?  When  did  any  of  you  see  me 
failing  in  the  object  of  my  desire  ?  or 
ever  falling  into  that  which  1  woulc 
avoid?  Did  I  ever  blame  God  or 
man  ?  Did  I  ever  accuse  any  man 
Did  any  of  you  ever  see  me  with 
a  sorrowful  countenance  ?  And  how 
do  I  meet  with  those  whom  you 
are  afraid  of  and  admire  ?  Do  not  I 
treat  them  like  slaves  ?  Who,  when 


ic  sees  me,  does  not  think  that  he 
sees  his  king  and  master  ?  " 

Think  how  much  we  have  to  be 
hankful  for.  Few  of  us  appreciate 
he  number  of  our  everyday  blessings ; 
we  think  they  are  trifles,  and  yet 
'  trifles  make  perfection,  and  perfec- 
tion is  no  trifle,"  as  Michael  Angelo 
said.  We  forget  them  because  they 
are  always  with  us ;  and  yet  for  each 
of  us,  as  Mr.  Pater  well  observes  of 
lis  hero  Marius,  "  these  simple  gifts, 
and  others  equally  trivial,  bread  and 
wine,  fruit  and  milk,  might  regain 
that  poetic  and,  as  it  were,  moral 
significance  which  surely  belongs  to 
all  the  means  of  our  daily  life,  could 
we  but  break  through  the  veil  of  our 
familiarity  with  things  by  no  means 
vulgar  in  themselves." 

"  Let  not,"  says  Isaak  Walton, 
"  the  blessings  we  receive  daily  from 
God  make  us  not  to  value  or  not 
praise  Him  because  they  be  common; 
let  us  not  forget  to  praise  Him  for 
the  innocent  mirth  and  pleasure  we 
have  met  with  since  we  met  together. 
What  would  a  blind  man  give  to  see 
the  pleasant  rivers  and  meadows  and 
flowers  and  fountains ;  and  this  and 
many  other  like  blessings  we  enjoy 
daily." 

Contentment,  we  have  heen  told 
by  Epicurus,  consists  not  in  great 
wealth,  but  in  few  wants.  In  this 
fortunate  country,  however,  we  may 
have  many  wants,  and  yet,  if  they  are 
only  reasonable,  we  may  gratify  them 
all. 

Nature  provides  without  stint  the 
main  requisites  of  human  happiness. 
"  To  watch  the  corn  grow,  or  the 
blossoms  set ;  to  draw  hard  breath 
over  the  ploughshare  or  spade ;  to 
read,  to  think,  to  love,  to  pray," 
these,  says  Ruskin,  "  are  the  things 
that  make  men  happy." 

"  I  have  fallen  into  the  hands  of 
thieves,"  says  Jeremy  Taylor  ;  "  what 
then  ?  They  have  left  me  the  sun 
and  moon,  fire  and  water,  a  loving 
wife  and  many  friends  to  pity  me,  and 
some  to  relieve  me,  and  I  can  still 
discourse:  and,  unless  I  list,  they 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


7 


have  not  taken  away  my  merry  coun- 
tenance and  my  cheerful  spirit  and  a 
good  conscience.  .  .  .  And  he  that 
hath  so  many  causes  of  joy,  and  so 
great,  is  very  much  in  love  with 
sorrow  and  peevishness  who  loses  all 
these  pleasures,  and  chooses  to  sit 
down  on  his  little  handful  of  thorns." 

"  When  a  man  has  such  things  to 
think  on,  and  sees  the  sun,  the  moon, 
and  stars,  and  enjoys  earth  and  sea, 
he  is  not  solitary  or  even  helpless."  * 

"  Paradise  indeed  might,"  as  Lu- 
ther said,  "  apply  to  the  whole  world." 
What  more  is  there  we  could  ask  for 
ourselves  ?  "  Every  sort  of  beauty," 
says  Mr  Greg,  "  has  been  lavished  on 
our  allotted  home ;  beauties  to  en- 
rapture every  sense,  beauties  to  satis- 
fy every  taste  ;  forms  the  noblest  and 
the  loveliest,  colors  the  most  gor- 
geous and  the  most  delicate,  odors  the 
sweetest  and  subtlest,  harmonies  the 
most  soothing  and  the  most  stirring  ; 
the  sunny  glories  of  the  day :  the 
pale  Elysian  grace  of  moonlight,  the 
lake,  the  mountain,  the  primrose,  the 
forest,  and  the  boundless  ocean ; 
'  silent  pinnacles  of  aged  snow '  in 
one  hemisphere,  the  marvels  of  tropi- 
cal luxuriance  in  another ;  the  se- 
renity of  sunsets ;  the  sublimity  of 
storms ;  everything  is  bestowed  in 
boundless  profusion  on  the  scene  of 
our  existence ;  we  can  conceive  or 
desire  nothing  more  exquisite  or  per- 
fect than  what  is  round  us  every  hour, 
and  our  perceptions  are  so  framed  as 
to  be  consciously  alive  to  all.  The 
provision  made  for  our  sensuous  en- 
joyment is  in  overflowing  abundance  : 
so  is  that  for  the  other  elements  of 
our  complex  nature.  Who  that  has 
revelled  in  the  opening  ecstasies  of  a 
young  imagination,  or  the  rich  mar- 
vels of  the  world  of  thought,  does  not 
confess  that  the  intelligence  has  been 
dowered  at  least  with  as  profuse  a 
beneficence  as  the  senses  ?  Who 
that  has  truly  tasted  and  fathomed 
human  love  in  its  dawning  and  crown- 
ing joys  has  not  thanked  God  for  a 
felicity  which  indeed  '  passeth  un- 


*  Epictetus. 


derstanding  ? '  If  we  had  set  our 
fancy  to  picture  a  Creator  occupied 
solely  in  devising  delight  for  children 
whom  he  loved,  we  could  not  con- 
ceive one  single  element  of  bliss 
which  is  not  here." 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  HAPPINESS  OF  DUTY.* 

"  I  am  always  content  with  that  which  hap- 
pens ;  for  I  think  that  what  God  chooses  is 
better  than  what  I  choose." — EPICTETUS. 

"  O  God,  All  conquering !  this  lower  earth 
Would  be  for  men  the  blest  abode  of  mirth 

If  they  were  strong  in  Thee 
As  other  things  of  this  world  well  are  seen, 
Other,  far  other  than  they  yet  have  been, 
How  happy  would  men  be." 

KING  ALFRED'S  ed.  of  Boethius's 
Consolations  of  Philosophy. 

WE  ought  not  to  picture  duty  to 
ourselves,  or  to  others,  as  a  stern 
taskmistress.  She  is  rather  a  kind 
and  sympathetic  mother,  ever  ready 
to  shelter  us  from  the  cares  and  anx- 
ieties of  this  world,  and  to  guide  us 
in  the  paths  of  peace. 

To  shut  one's  self  up  from  mankind 
is,  in  most  cases,  to  lead  a  selfish  as 
well  as  a  dull  life.  Our  duty  is  to 
make  ourselves  useful,  and  thus  life 
may  be  most  interesting,  and  yet  com- 
paratively free  from  anxiety. 

But  how  can  we  fill  our  lives  with 
life,  energy,  and  interest,  and  yet 
keep  care  outside  ? 

Many  great  men  have  made  ship- 
wreck in  the  attempt.  "  Anthony 
sought  for  happiness  in  love  ;  Brutus 
in  glory ;  Caesar  in  dominion :  the 
first  found  disgrace,  the  second  dis- 
gust, the  last  ingratitude,  and  each 
destruction."  f  Riches,  again,  often 
bring  danger,  trouble,  and  tempta- 
tion ;  they  require  care  to  keep, 
though  they  may  give  much  happiness 
if  wisely  spent. 


*  The  substance  of  this  was  delivered  at 
the  Harris  Institute,  Preston. 

t  Colton,  Lacon,  or  Many  Things  in  Few 
Words. 


8 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


How  then  is  this  great  object  to 
be  secured?  What,  says  Marcus 
Aurelius,  "What  then  is  that  which 
is  able  to  conduct  a  man  ?  One  thing 
and  only  one — philosophy.  But  this 
consists  in  keeping  the  daemon  within 
a  man  free  from  violence  and  un- 
harmed, superior  to  pains  and  pleas- 
ures, doing  nothing  without  a  pur- 
pose, not  yet  falsely  and  with  hypoc- 
risy, not  feeling  the  need  of  another 
man's  doing  or  not  doing  anything ; 
and  besides,  accepting  all  that  hap- 
pens, and  all  that  is  allotted,  as  com- 
ing from  thence,  wherever  it  is,  from 
whence  he  himself  came  ;  and,  finally, 
waiting  for  death  with  a  cheerful 
mind,  as  being  nothing  else  than  a 
dissolution  of  the  elements  of  which 
every  living  being  is  compounded." 
I  confess  I  do  not  feel  the  force  of 
these  last  few  words,  which  indeed 
scarcely  seem  requisite  for  bis  argu- 
ment. The  thought  of  death,  how 
ever,  certainly  influences  the  conduct 
of  life  less  than  might  have  been  ex- 
pected. 

Bacon  truly  points  out  that  "  there 
is  no  passion  in  the  mind  of  man  so 
weak,  but  it  mates  and  masters  the 
fear  of  death.  .  .  .  Revenge  triumphs 
over  death,  love  slights  it,  honor  as- 
pireth  to  it,  grief  flieth  to  it." 

"  Think  not  I  dread  to  see  my  spirit  fly, 

Through  the  dark  gates  of  fell  mortality ; 

Death  has  no  terrors  when  the  life  is  true ; 

'Tis  living  ill  that  makes  us  fear  to  die."  * 

We  need  certainly  have  no  such 
fear  if  we  have  done  our  best  to  make 
others  happy ;  to  promote  "  peace  on 
earth  and  goodwill  amongst  men.'' 
Nothing,  again,  can  do  more  to  re- 
lease us  from  the  cares  of  this  world, 
which  consume  so  much  of  our  time, 
and  embitter  so  much  of  our  life ;  yet 
when  we  have  done  our  best,  we 
should  wait  the  result  in  peace  ;  con- 
tent, as  Epictetus  says,  "  with  that 
which  happens,  for  what  God  chooses 
is  better  than  what  I  choose." 

At  any  rate,  if  we  have  not  effected 
all  we  wished,  we   shall   have  influ- 


enced ourselves.  It  may  be  true  that 
one  cannot  do  much.  "  You  are  not 
Hercules,  and  you  are  not  able  to 
purge  away  the  wickedness  of  otheio , 
nor  yet  are  you  Theseus,  able  to 
purge  away  the  evil  things  of  Attica. 
Clear  away  your  own.  From  your- 
self, from  your  thoughts ;  cast  away, 
instead  of  Procrustes  and  Sciron,  sad- 
ness, fear,  desire,  envy,  malevolence, 
avarice,  effemi.  acy,  intemperance. 
But  it  is  not  possible  to  eject  these 
things  otherwise  than  by  looking  to 
God  only,  by  fixing  your  affections  on 
Him  only,  by  being  consecrated  by 
His  commands."  *  To  rule  one's  self 
is  in  reality  the  greatest  triumph. 

"  He  who  is  his  own  monarch," 
says  Sir  T.  Browne,  "contentedly 
sways  the  scepter  of  himself,  not  en- 
vying the  glory  to  crowned  heads  and 
Elohim  of  the  earth  ; "  for  those  are 
really  highest  who  are  nearest  to 
heaven,  and  those  are  lowest  who  are 
farthest  from  it.  True  greatness  has 
little,  if  anything,  to  do  with  rank  or 
power. 

"  Eurystheus  being  what  he  was," 
says  Epictetus,  "  was  not  really  king 
of  Argos  nor  of  Mycenae,  for  he  could 
not  even  rule  himself  ;  while  Hercules 
purged  lawlessness  and  introduced 
justice,  though  he  was  both  naked 
and  alone." 

We  are  told  that  Cineas,  the  philos- 
opher, once  asked  Pyrrhus  what  he 
would  do  when  he  had  conquered 
Italy.  "  I  will  conquer  Sicily." 
"  And  after  Sicily  ?  "  "  Then  Africa." 
"  And  after  you  have  conquered  the 
world  ?  "  "I  will  take  my  ease  and 
be  merry."  "Then,"  asked  Cineas, 
"  why  can  you  not  take  your  ease  and 
be  merry  now  ?  "  Moreover,  as  Sir 
Arthur  Helps  has  wisely  pointed  out, 
"  the  enlarged  view  we  have  of  the 
Universe  must  in  some  measure  damp 
personal  ambition.  What  is  it  to  be 
king,  sheikh,  tetrarch,  or  emperor 
over  a  'bit  of  a  bit'  of  this  little 
earth  ? " 

"  All  rising  to  great  place,"  says 
i  Bacon,  "  is  by  a  winding  stair  ,  "  and 


*  Omar  Khayyam. 


*  Epictetus. 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


"  princes  are  like  heavenly  bodies, 
which  have  much  veneration,  but  no 
rest."  Moreover,  there  is  a  gieat  deal 
of  drudgery  in  the  lives  of  courts. 
Ceremonials  may  be  important,  but 
they  are  terribly  tedious,  and  take  up 
a  great  deal  of  time. 

A  man  is  his  own  best  kingdom. 
But  self-control,  this  truest  and  great- 
est monarchy,  rarely  comes  by  inher- 
itance. Every  one  of  us  must  con- 
quer himself,  and  we  may  do  so,  if  we 
take  conscience  for  our  guide  and 
general. 

Being  myself  engaged  in  business, 
I  was  rather  startled  to  find  it  laid 
down  by  no  less  an  authority  than 
Aristotle  (almost  as  if  it  were  a  self- 
evident  proposition)  that  commerce 
"  is  incompatible  with  that  dignified 
life  which  it  is  our  wish  that  our  citi- 
izens  should  lead,  and  totally  adverse 
to  that  generous  elevation  of  mind 
with  which  it  is  our  ambition  to  in- 
spire them/'  I  know  not  how  far 
that  may  really  have  been  the  spirit 
and  tendency  of  commerce  among  the 
ancient  Greeks ;  but  if  so,  I  do  not 
wonder  that  it  was  not  more  suc- 
cessful. 

But  is  it  true  that  the  ordinary 
duties  of  life  in  a  country  like  ours — 
commerce,  manufactures,  agriculture 
— the  pursuits  to  which  the  vast  ma- 
jority are  and  must  be  devoted — are 
incompatible  with  the  dignity  or  no- 
bility of  life  ?  Surely  this  is  not  so. 
Whether  a  life  is  noble  or  ignoble  de- 
pends not  on  the  calling  which  is 
adopted,  but  on  the  spirit  in  which  it 
is  followed.  The  humblest  life  may 
be  noble,  while  that  of  the  most  pow- 
erful monarch  or  the  greatest  genius 
may  be  contemptible.  What  Ruskin 
says  of  art  is,  with  due  modification, 
true  of  life  generally.  It  does  not 
matter  whether  a  man  "  paint  the 
petal  of  a  rose  or  the  chasms  of  a 
precipice,  so  that  love  and  admiration 
attend  on  him  as  he  labors,  and  wait 
forever  on  his  work.  It  does  not 
matter  whether  he  toil  for  months  on 
a  few  inches  of  his  canvas,  or  cover  a 
palace  front  with  color  in  a  day,  so 
only  that  it  be  with  a  solemn  purpose, 


that   he   have   filled   his    heart   with 
patience  or  urged  his  hand  to  haste." 

It  is  true  that  in  a  subsequent  vol- 
ume he  refers  to  this  passage,  and 
adds,  "  But  though  all  is  good  for 
study,  and  all  is  beautiful,  some  is 
better  than  the  rest  for  the  help  and 
pleasure  of  others  ;  and  this  it  is  our 
duty  always  to  choose  if  we  have  op- 
portunity," adding,  however,  "being 
quite  happy  with  what  is  within  our 
reach  if  we  have  not." 

Commerce,  indeed,  is  not  only 
compatible,  but  I  would  almost  go 
further  and  say  that  it  will  be  most 
successful,  if  carried  on  in  happy 
union  with  noble  aims  and  generous 
aspirations.  We  read  of  and  admire 
the  heroes  of  old,  but  every  one  of  us 
has  to  fight  his  own  Marathon  and 
Thermopylae ;  every  one  meets  the 
Sphinx  sitting  by  the  road  he  has  to 
pass  ;  to  each  of  us,  as  to  Hercules, 
is  offered  the  choice  of  vice  and  vir- 
tue ;  we  may,  like  Paris,  give  the 
apple  of  life  to  Venus,  or  Juno,  or 
Minerva. 

I  may,  indeed,  quote  Aristotle 
against  himself,  for  he  has  elsewhere 
told  us  that  "business  should  be 
chosen  for  the  sake  of  leisure ;  and 
things  necessary  and  useful  for  the 
sake  of  the  beautiful  in  conduct." 

There  are  many  who  seem  to  think 
that  we  have  fallen  on  an  age  in  the 
world  when  life  is  especially  difficult 
and  anxious,  when  there  is  less  leisure 
than  ever,  and  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence is  keener  than  it  was  of  yore. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  must  re 
member  how  much  we  have  gained 
in  security?  It  may  be  an  age  of 
hard  work,  but  when  this  is  not  car 
ried  to  an  extreme,  it  is  by  no  means 
an  evil.  Cheerfulness  is  the  daughter 
of  employment,  and  on  the  whole  I 
believe  there  never  was  a  time  when 
modest  merit  and  patient  industry 
were  more  sure  of  reward.  We  must 
not,  indeed,  be  discouraged  if  success 
be  slow  in  coming,  nor  puffed  up  if  it 
comes  quickly.  We  should,  however, 
greatly  misunderstand  the  teaching  of 
Marcus  Aurelius  if  we  supposed  that 
in  advocating  philosophy  he  intended 


10 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


In  any  way  to  exclude  sympathy  with 
the  joys  and  sorrows  of  others. 

Matthew  Arnold  has  suggested  that 
we  might  take  a  lesson  from  the  heav- 
enly bodies : 

"  Unaffrighted  by  the  silence  round  them, 
Undistracted  by  the  sights  they  see, 
These  demand  not  that  the  things  without 

them 
Yield  them  love,  amusement,  sympathy. 

Bounded  by  themselves,  and  unobservant 
In  what  state  God's  other  works  may  be, 
In  their  own  tasks  all  their  powers  pouring, 
These  attain  the  mighty  life  you  see." 

To  many,  however,  this  isolation 
would  be  itself  most  painful.  The 
heart  is  "  no  island  cut  off  from  other 
lands,  but  a  continent  that  joins  to 
them,"  *  though  it  is  true  that 

"  A  man  is  his  own  star ; 
Our  acts  our  angels  are 
For  good  or  ill." 

and  that  "  rather  than  follow  a  multi- 
tude to  do  evil,"  one  should  "  stand 
like  Pompey's  pillar,  conspicuous  by 
one's  self,  and  single  in  integrity. "  t 

Newman,  in  perhaps  the  most 
beautiful  of  his  hymns,  "Lead, kindly 

it,"  says  : 


"  Keep  thou  my  feet,  I  do  not  ask  to  see 
The  distant  scene ;  one  step  enough  for 
me.'1 

But  we  must  be  sure  that  we  are 
really  following  some  worthy  guide, 
and  not  out  of  mere  laziness  allowing 
ourselves  to  drift.  We  have  a  guide 
within  us  which  will  generally  lead  us 
straight  enough. 

Religion,  no  doubt,  is  full  of  diffi- 
culties, but  if  we  are  often  puzzled 
what  to  think,  we  need  seldom  be  in 
doubt  what  to  do. 

"  To  say  well  is  good,  but  to  do  well  is  bet 
ter; 

Do  well  is  the  spirit,  and  say  well  the  let- 
ter ; 

If  do  well  and  say  well  were  fitted  in  one 
frame, 

All  were  won,  all  were  done,  and  got  were 
all  the  gain." 

*  Bacon. 

t  Sir  T.  Browne. 


Cleanthes,  who  appears  to  have  well 
merited  the  statute  erected  to  him  at 
Assos,  says : 

"  Lead  me,  O  Zeus,  and  thou,  O  Destiny, 
The  way  that  I  am  bid  by  you  to  go : 
To  follow  I  am  ready.     If  1  choose  not, 
I  make  myself  a  wretch;  and  still  must  fol 
low.' 

If  we  are  ever  in  doubt  what  to  do, 
it  is  a  good  rule  to  ask  ourselves  what 
we  shall  wish  on  the  morrow  that  we 
had  done. 

Moreover,  the  result  in  the  long 
run  will  depend  not  so  much  on  some 
single  resolution,  or  on  our  action  in 
a  special  case,  but  rather  on  the  prep- 
aration of  daily  life.  Great  battles 
are  really  won  before  they  are  actually 
fought.  To  control  our  passions  we 
must  govern  our  habits,  and  keep 
watch  over  ourselves  in  the  small  de- 
tails of  everyday  life. 

The  importance  of  small  things  has 
been  pointed  out  by  philosophers  over 
and  over  again  from  ^Esop  down- 
wards. "  Great  without  small  makes 
a  bad  wall,"  says  a  quaint  Greek  prov- 
erb, which  seems  to  go  back  to  cyclo- 
pean  times.  In  an  old  Hindoo  story 
Ammi  says  to  his  son,  "  Bring  me  a 
fruit  of  that  tree  and  break  it  open. 
What  is  there  ? "  The  son  said, 
"  Some  small  seeds."  "  Break  one 
of  them  and  what  do  you  see  ? " 
"  Nothing,  my  lord."  "  My  child," 
said  Ammi,  "  where  you  see  nothing 
there  dwells  a  mighty  tree."  It  may 
almost  be  questioned  whether  any- 
thing can  be.  truly  called  small. 

"  There  is  no  great  and  no  small 
To  the  soul  that  maketh  all ; 
And  where  it  cometh  all  things  are, 
And  it  cometh  everywhere."  * 

"  If,  then,  you  wish  not  to  be  of  an 
angry  temper,  do  not  feed  the  habit : 
throw  nothing  on  it  which  will  increase 
it :  at  first  keep  quiet,  and  count  the 
days  on  which  you  have  not  been  an- 
gry. I  used  to  be  in  passion  every 
day ;  now  every  second  day ;  then 
every  third  ;  then  every  fourth.  But 

*  Emerson. 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


II 


if  you  have  intermitted  thirty  days, 
make  a  sacrifice  to  God.  For  the 
habit  at  first  begins  to  be  weakened, 
and  then  is  completely  destroyed. 
When  you  can  say,  '  I  have  not  been 
vexed  to-day,  nor  the  day  before,  nor 
yet  on  any  succeeding  day  during  two 
or  three  months;  but  I  took  care 
when  some  exciting  things  happened,' 
be  assured  that  you  are  in  a  good 
way."  * 

"  The  great  man,"  says  Emerson, 
"  is  he  who  in  the  midst  of  the  crowd 
keeps  with  perfect  sweetness  the  se- 
renity of  solitude." 

And  he  closes  his  Conduct  of  Life 
with  a  striking  allegory.  The  young 
mortal  enters  the  Hall  of  the  Firma- 
ment. The  gods  are  sitting  there,  and 
he  is  alone  with  them.  They  pour  on 
him  gifts  and  blessings,  and  beckon 
him  to  their  thrones.  But  between 
him  and  them  suddenly  appear  snow- 
storms of  illusions.  He  imagines 
himself  in  a  vast  crowd,  whose  behests 
he  fancies  he  must  obey.  The  mad 
crowd  drives  hither  and  thither,  and 
sways  this  way  and  that.  What  is  he 
that  he  should  resist  ?  He  lets  him- 
self be  carried  about.  How  can  he 
think  or  act  for  himself?  But  when 
the  clouds  lift,  there  are  the  gods  still 
sitting  on  their  thrones ;  they  alone 
with  him  alone. 

We  may  all,  if  we  will,  secure  peace 
of  mind  for  ourselves. 

"  Men  seek  retreats,"  says  Marcus 
Aurelius,  "  houses  in  the  country,  sea- 
shores, and  mountains  ;  and  thou  too 
art  wont  to  desire  such  things  very 
much.  But  this  is  altogether  a  mark 
of  the  most  common  sort  of  men,  for 
it  is  in  thy  power  whenever  thou  shalt 
choose  to  retire  into  thyself.  For  no- 
where either  with  more  quiet  or  more 
freedom  from  trouble  does  a  man  re- 
tire than  into  his  own  soul,  particu- 
larly when  he  has  within  him  such 
thoughts  that  by  looking  into  them  he 
is  immediately  in  perfect  tranquillity." 

Happy  indeed  is  the  man  who  has 
such  a  sanctuary  in  his  own  soul. 

*Epictetu*. 


"  He  who  is  virtuous  is  wise  ;  and 
he  who  is  wise  is  good ;  and  he  who 
is  good  is  happy."  * 

But  we  cannot  expect  to  be  happy 
if  we  do  not  lead  pure  and  useful 
lives.  To  be  good  company  for  our- 
selves we  must  store  our  minds  well ; 
fill  them  with  happy  and  pure 
thoughts,  with  pleasant  memories  of 
the  past,  and  reasonable  hopes  for 
the  future.  We  must,  as  far  as  may 
be,  protect  ourselves  from  self-re- 
proach, from  care,  and  from  anxiety. 
We  shall  make  our  lives  pure  and 
happy,  by  resisting  evil,  by  placing 
restraint  upon  our  appetites,  and  per- 
haps even  more  by  strengthening  and 
developing  our  tendencies  to  good. 
We  must  be  careful,  then,  how  we 
choose  our  thoughts.  The  soul  is 
dyed  by  its  thoughts ;  we  cannot  keep 
our  minds  pure  if  we  allow  them  to 
dwell  on  detailed  accounts  of  crime 
and  sin.  Peace  of  mind,  as  Ruskin 
beautifully  observes,  "  must  come  in 
its  own  time,  as  the  waters  settle 
themselves  into  clearness  as  well  as 
quietness;  you  can  no  more  filter 
your  mind  into  purity  than  you  can 
compress  it  into  calmness ;  you  must 
keep  it  pure  if  you  would  have  it 
pure,  and  throw  no  stones  into  it  if 
you  would  have  it  quiet." 

Few  men  have  led  a  wiser  or  more 
virtuous  life  than  Socrates,  of  whom 
Xenophon  gives  us  the  following  de 
scription  : — "  To  me,  being  such  as  I 
have  described  him,  so  pious  that  he 
did  nothing  without  the  sanction  of 
the  gods ;  so  just,  that  he  wronged  no 
man  even  in  the  most  trifling  affair, 
but  was  of  service  in  the  most  im- 
portant matters  to  those  who  enjoyed 
his  society ;  so  temperate  that  he 
never  preferred  pleasure  to  virtue ; 
so  wise,  that  he  never  erred  in  dis 
tinguishing  better  from  worse  ;  need- 
ing no  counsel  from  others,  but  be- 
ing sufficient  in  himself  to  discrimi- 
nate between  them ;  so  able  to  ex- 
plain and  settle  such  questions  by 
argument ;  and  so  capable  of  discern- 
ing the  character  of  others,  of  confut- 


King  Alfred's  Boethius, 


12 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


ing  those  who  were  in  error,  and  of 
exhorting  them  to  virtue  and  honor, 
he  seemed  to  be  such  as  the  best  and 
happiest  of  men  would  be.  But  if 
any  one  disapproves  of  my  opinion 
let  him  compare  the  conduct  of  oth- 
ers with  that  of  Socrates,  and  deter- 
mine accordingly." 

Marcus  Aurelius  again  has  drawn 
for  us  a  most  instructive  lesson  in  his 
character  of  Antoninus  : — "  Do  every- 
thing as  a  disciple  of  Antoninus. 
Remember  his  constancy  in  every  act 
which  was  conformable  to  reason,  and 
his  evenness  in  all  things,  and  his 
piety,  and  the  serenity  of  his  counte- 
nance, and  his  sweetness,  and  his  dis- 
regard of  empty  fame,  and  his  efforts 
to  understand  things ;  and  how  he 
would  never  let  anything  pass  with- 
out having  first  most  carefully  exam- 
ined it  and  clearly  understood  it ; 
and  how  he  bore  with  those  who 
blamed  him  unjustly  without  blaming 
them  in  return  ;  how  he  did  nothing 
in  a  hurry ;  and  how  he  listened  not 
to  calumnies,  and  how  exact  an  ex- 
aminer of  manners  and  actions  he 
was ;  not  given  to  reproach  people, 
nor  timid,  nor  suspicious,  nor  a  soph- 
ist ;  with  how  little  he  was  satisfied, 
such  as  lodging,  bed,  dress,  food, 
servants  ;  how  laborious  and  patient ; 
how  sparing  he  was  in  his  diet;  his 
firmness  and  uniformity  in  his  friend- 
ships; how  he  tolerated  freedom  of 
speech  in  those  who  opposed  his  opin- 
ions: the  pleasure  that  he  had  when 
any  man  snowed  him  anything  better ; 
and  how  pious  he  was  without  super- 
stition. Imitate  all  this  that  thou 
mayest  have  as  good  a  conscience, 
when  thy  last  hour  comes,  as  he  had." 

Such  peace  of  mind  is  indeed  an 
inestimable  boon,  a  rich  rewaid  of 
duty  fulfilled.  Well  does  Epictetus 
ask,  "  Is  there  no  reward  ?  Do  you 
seek  a  reward  greater  than  doing 
what  is  good  and  just  ?  At  Olympia 
you  wish  for  nothing  more,  but  it 
seems  to  you  enough  to  be  crowned 
at  the  games.  Does  it  then  seem  to 
you  so  small  and  worthless  a  thing  to 
be  good  and  happy?  " 


In  St.  Bernard's  beautiful  lines — 

"  Pax  erit  ilia  fidelibus,  ilia  beata 
Irrevocabilis,  Invariabilis,  Intemerata. 
Pax  sine  crimine,  pax  sine  turbine,  pax  sine 

rixa, 
Meta  laboribus,  inque  tumultibus  anchora 

fixa; 
Pax  erit  omnibus  unica.     Sed  quibus  ?   im- 

maculatis, 
Pectore    mitibus;     ordine    stantibus,    ore 

sacratis." 

What    greater    happiness    can   we 
have  than  this? 


CHAPTER  III. 

A   SONG   OF    BOOKS.* 

"  Oh  for  a  booke  and  a  shadie  nooke, 
Eyther  in-a-doore  or  out; 
With  the  grene  leaves  whispering  overhede, 
Or  the  streete  cryes  all  about. 
Where  I  maie  reade  all  at  my  ease, 
Both  of  the  newe  and  olde; 
For  a  jollie  goode  booke  whereon  to  looke, 
Is  better  to  me  than  golde." 

OLD  ENGLISH  SONG. 

OF  all  the  privileges  we  enjoy  in 
this  nineteenth  century  there  is  none, 
perhaps,  for  which  we  ought  to  be 
more  thankful  than  for  the  easier 
access  to  books. 

The  debt  we  owe  to  books  was 
well  expressed  by  Richard  de  Bury, 
Bishop  of  Durham,  author  of  Philobib- 
lon,  published  as  long  ago  as  1473, 
and  the  earliest  English  treatise  on 
the  delights  of  literature  : — "  These 
are  the  masters  who  instruct  us  with- 
out rods  and  ferules,  without  hard 
words  and  anger,  without  clothes  or 
money.  If  you  approach  them,  they 
are  not  asleep;  if  investigating  you 
interrogate  them,  they  conceal  noth- 
ing;  if  you  mistake  them,  they  never 
grumble ;  if  you  are  ignorant,  they 
cannot  laugh  at  you." 

This  feeling  that  books  are  real 
friends  is  constantly  present  to  all 
who  love  reading. 

"  I   have   friends,"   said    Petrarch. 


*  Delivered   at  the  Working   Men's   Col- 
lege. 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


"whose  society  is  extremely  agreea- 
ble to  me  ;  they  are  of  all  ages  and  of 
every  country.  They  have  distin- 
guished themselves  both  in  the  cabi- 
net and  in  the  field,  and  obtained 
high  honors  for  their  knowledge  of 
the  sciences.  It  is  easy  to  gain 
access  to  them,  for  they  are  always  at 
my  service,  and  I  admit  them  to  my 
company,  and  dismiss  them  from  it, 
whenever  I  please.  They  are  never 
troublesome,  but  immediately  answer 
every  question  I  ask  them.  Some 
relate  to  me  the  events  of  past  ages, 
while  others  reveal  to  me  the  secrets 
of  Nature.  Some  teach  me  how  to 
live,  and  others  how  to  die.  Some  by 
their  vivacity,  drive  away  my  cares 
and  exhilarate  my  spirits ;  while  oth- 
ers give  fortitude  to  my  mind,  and 
teach  me  the  important  lesson  how  to 
restrain  my  desires,  and  to  depend 
wholly  on  myself.  They  open  to  me, 
in  short,  the  various  avenues  of  all 
the  arts  and  sciences,  and  upon  their 
information  I  may  safely  rely  in  all 
emergencies.  In  return  for  all  their 
services,  they  only  ask  me  to  accom- 
modate them  with  a  convenient  cham- 
ber in  some  corner  of  my  humble 
habitation,  where  they  may  repose  in 
peace ;  for  these  friends  are  more 
delighted  by  the  tranquillity  of  retire- 
ment than  with  the  tumults  of  soci- 
ety." 

"He  that  loveth  a  book,"  says 
Isaac  Barrow,  "will  never  want  a 
faithful  friend,  a  wholesome  coun- 
sellor, a  cheerful  companion,  an  ef- 
fectual comforter.  By  study,  by 
reading,  by  thinking,  one  may  inno- 
cently divert  and  pleasantly  entertain 
himself,  as  in  all  weathers,  so  in  all 
fortunes." 

Southey  took  a  rather  more  melan- 
choly view : 

"  My  days  among  the  dead  are  pass'd, 
Around  me  I  behold, 
Where'er  these  .casual  eyes  are  cast, 
The  mighty  minds  of  old ; 
My  never-failing  friends  are  they, 
With  whom  I  converse  day  by  day." 

Imagine,  in  the  words  of  Aikin, 
"  that  we  had  it  in  our  power  to  call 


up  the  shades  of  the  greatest  and 
wisest  men  that  ever  existed,  and 
oblige  them  to  converse  with  us  on 
the  most  interesting  topics — what  an 
inestimable  privilege  should  we  think 
it ! — how  superior  to  all  common  en- 
joyments !  But  in  a  well-furnished 
library  we,  in  fact,  possess  this  power. 
We  can  question  Xenophon  and 
Caesar  on  their  campaigns,  make 
Demosthenes  and  Cicero  plead  before 
us,  join  in  the  audiences  of  Socrates 
and  Plato,  and  receive  demonstra- 
tions from  Euclid  and  Newton.  In 
books  we  have  the  choicest  thoughts 
of  the  ablest  men  in  their  best  dress." 

"  Books,"  says  Jeremy  Collier,  "  are 
a  guide  in  youth  and  an  entertain- 
ment for  age.  They  support  us  under 
solitude,  and  keep  us  from  being  a 
burthen  to  ourselves.  They  help  us 
to  forget  the  crossness  of  men  and 
things  ;  compose  our  cares  and  our 
passions ;  and  lay  our  disappoint- 
ments asleep.  When  we  are  weary 
of  the  living,  we  may  repair  to  the 
dead,  who  have  nothing  of  peevish- 
ness, pride,  or  design  in  their  conver- 
sation." 

Cicero  described  a  room  without 
books  as  a  body  without  a  soul.  But 
it  is  by  no  means  necessary  to  be  a 
philosopher  to  love  reading. 

Sir  John  Herschel  tells  an  amusing 
anecdote  illustrating  the  pleasure  de- 
rived from  a  book,  not  assuredly  of 
the  first  order.  In  a  certain  village 
the  blacksmith  had  got  hold  of  Rich 
ardson's  novel,  Pamela,  or  Virtue  Re- 
warded, and  used  to  sit  on  his  anvil 
in  the  long  summer  evenings  and 
read  it  aloud  to  a  large  and  attentive 
audience.  It  is  by  no  means  a  short 
book,  but  they  fairly  listened  to  it 
all.  "  At  length,  when  the  happy 
turn  of  fortune  arrived,  which  brings 
the  hero  and  heroine  together,  and 
sets  them  living  long  and  happily  ac- 
cording to  the  most  approved  rules, 
the  congregation  were  so  delighted 
as  to  raise  a  grea^  shout,  and  procur- 
ing the  church  kev?,  actually  set  the 
parish  bells  ringing." 

"  The  lover  of  reading."  says  Leigh 
Hunt,  "  will  derive  agreeable  terror 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


from  Sir  Bertram  and  the  Haunted 
Chamber ;  will  assent  with  delighted 
reason  to  every  sentence  in  Mrs. 
Barbauld's  Essay;  will  feel  himself 
wandering  into  solitudes  with  Gray; 
shake  honest  hands  with  Sir  Roger  de 
Covcrley ;  be  ready  to  embrace  Par- 
son Adams,  and  to  chuck  Pounce  out 
of  the  window  instead  of  the  hat ; 
will  travel  with  Marco  Polo  and 
Mungo  Park;  stay  at  home  with 
Thomson ;  retire  with  Cowley ;  be 
industrious  with  Hutton ;  sympathiz- 
ing with  Gay  and  Mrs.  Inchbald ; 
laughing  with  (and  at)  Buncle ;  mel- 
ancholy, and  forlorn,  and  self-restored 
with  the  shipwrecked  mariner  of  De 
Foe." 

Carlyle  has  wisely  said  that  a  col- 
lection of  books  is  a  real  university. 

The  importance  of  books  has  been 
appreciated  in  many  quarters  where 
we  might  least  expect  it.  Among 
the  hardy  Norsemen  runes  were  sup- 
posed to  be  endowed  with  miraculous 
power.  There  is  an  Arabic  proverb, 
that  "  a  wise  man's  day  is  worth  a 
fool's  life,"  and  though  it  rather  per- 
haps reflects  the  spirit  of  the  Califs 
than  of  the  Sultans,  that  "  the  ink 
of  science  is  more  precious  than  the 
blood  of  the  martyrs." 

Confucius  is  said  to  have  described 
himself  as  a  man  who  "  in  his  eager 
pursuit  of  knowledge  forgot  his 
food,  who  in  the  joy  of  its  attainment 
forgot  his  sorrows,  and  did  not  even 
perceive  that  old  age  was  coming 
on." 

Yet,  if  this  could  be  said  by  the 
Chinese  and  .the  Arabs,  what  lan- 
guage can  be  strong  enough  to  ex- 
press the  gratitude  we  ought  to  feel 
for  the  advantages  we  enjoy!  We 
do  not  appreciate,  I  think,  our  good 
fortune  in  belonging  to  the  nine- 
teenth century.  Sometimes,  indeed, 
one  may  be  inclined  to  wish  that 
one  had  not  lived  quite  so1  soon,  and 
to  long  for  a  glimpse  of  the  books, 
r  even  the  school-books,  of  one  hundred 
years  hence.  A  hundred  years  ago 
not  only  were  books  extremely  ex- 
pensive and  cumbrous,  many  of  the 
most  delightful  books  were  still  un- 


created— such  as  the  works  01  Scott, 
Thackeray,  Dickens,  Bulwer  Lytton, 
and  Trollope,  not  to  mention  living 
authors.  How  much  more  interest- 
ing science  has  become,  especially  if 
I  were  to  mention  only  one  name, 
through  the  genius  of  Darwin  !  Re- 
nan  has  characterized  this  as  a  most 
amusing  century;  I  should  rather 
have  described  it  as  most  interesting ; 
presenting  us  with  an  endless  vista 
of  absorbing  problems,  with  infinite 
opportunities ;  with  more  than  the 
excitements,  and  less  of  the  dangers, 
which  surrounded  our  less  fortunate 
ancestors. 

Reading,  indeed,  is  by  no  means 
necessarily  study.  Far  from  it.  "  I 
put,"  says  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  in 
his  excellent  article  on  the  "  Choice 
of  Books,"  "I  put  the  poetic  and 
emotional  side  of  literature  as  the 
most  needed  for  daily  use." 

In  the  prologue  to  the  Legende  of 
Goode  Women,  Chaucer  says : 

"  And  as  for  me,  though  that  I   konne  but 

lyte, 

On  bokes  for  to  rede  I  me  delyte, 
And  to  him  give  I  feyth  and  ful  credence. 
And  in  myn  herte  have  him  in  reverence, 
So  hertely,  that  ther  is  game  noon, 
That  fro  my  bokes  maketh  me  to  goon, 
But  yt  be  seldome  on  the  holy  day, 
Save,   certynly,  when  that  the  monthe  of 

May 

Is  comen,  and  that  I  here  the  foules  synge, 
And    that    the    floures     gynnen    for    to 

sprynge, 
Farwel  my  boke,  and  my  devocion."        s 

But  I  doubt  whether,  if  he  had  en- 
joyed our  advantages,  he  could  have 
been  so  certain  of  tearing  himself 
away  even  in  the  month  of  May. 

Macaulay,  who  had  all  that  wealth 
and  fame,  rank  and  talents  could 
give,  yet,  we  are  told,  derived  his 
greatest  happiness  from  books.  Sir 
G.  Trevelyan,  in  his  charming  biogra- 
phy, says  that — "  of  the  feelings 
which  Macaulay  entertained  towards 
the  great  minds  of  bygone  ages  it  is 
not  for  any  one  except  himself  to 
speak.  He  has  told  us  how  his  debt 
to  them  was  incalculable  ;  how  they 
guided  him  to  truth  ;  how  they  filled 
his  mind  with  noble  and  graceful 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


images  ;  how  they  stood  by  him  in  all 
vicissitudes — comforters  in  sorrow, 
nurses  in  sickness,  companions  in 
solitude,  the  old  friends  who  are 
never  seen  with  new  faces ;  who  are 
the  same  in  wealth  and  in  poverty,  in 
glory  and  in  obscurity.  Great  as 
were  the  honors  and  possessions 
which  Macaulay  acquired  by  his  pen, 
all  who  knew  him  were  well  aware 
that  the  titles  and  rewards  which  he 
gained  by  his  own  works  were  as 
nothing  in  the  balance  as  compared 
with  the  pleasure  he  derived  from  the 
works  of  others." 

There  was  no  society  in  London  so 
agreeable  that  Macaulay  would  have 
preferred  it  at  breakfast  or  at  dinner 
"  to  the  company  of  Sterne  or  Field- 
ing, Horace  Walpole  or  Boswell." 

The  love  of  reading  which  Gibbon 
declared  he  would  not  exchange  for 
all  the  treasures  of  India  was,  in  fact, 
with  Macaulay  "  a  main  element  of 
happiness  in  one  of  the  happiest 
lives  that  it  has  ever  fallen  to  the  lot 
of  the  biographer  to  record." 

"History,"  says  Fuller,  "  maketh 
a  young  man  to  be  old  without  either 
wrinkles  or  gray  hair,  privileging  him 
with  the  experience  of  age  without 
either  the  infirmities  or  the  incon- 
veniences thereof." 

So  delightful  indeed  are  our  books 
that  we  must  be  careful  not  to  neg- 
lect other  duties  for  them  ;  in  culti- 
vating the  mind  we  must  not  neglect 
the  body. 

To  the  lover  of  literature  or  science 
exercise  often  presents  itself  as  an 
irksome  duty,  and  many  a  one  has 
felt  like  "  the  fair  pupil  of  Ascham, 
who,  while  the  horns  were  sounding 
and  dogs  in  full  cry,  sat  in  the  lonely 
oriel  with  eyes  riveted  to  that  immor- 
tal page  which  tells  how  meekly  and 
bravely  the  first  martyr  of  intellectual 
liberty  took  the  cup  from  his  weeping 
jailer."* 

Still,  as  the  late  Lord  Derby  justly 
observed,  f  those  who  do  not  find 


*  Macaulay. 

t  Address,  Liverpool  College,  1873. 


time  for  exercise  will  have  to  find 
time  for  illness. 

Books  are  now  so  cheap  as  to  be 
within  the  reach  of  almost  every  one. 
This  was  not  always  so.  It  is  quite 
a  recent  blessing.  Mr.  Ireland,  to 
whose  charming  little  Book  Lover's 
Enchiridion,  in  common  with  every 
lover  of  reading,  I  am  greatly  in- 
debted, tells  us  that  when  a  boy  he 
was  so  delighted  with  White's  Nat- 
ural History  of  Selborne,  that  in  order 
to  possess  a  copy  of  his  own  he  actu- 
ally copied  out  the  whole  work. 

Mary  Lamb  gives  a  pathetic  de- 
scription of  a  studious  boy  lingering 
at  a  bookstall : 

"  I  saw  a  boy  with  eager  eye 
Open  a  book  upon  a  stall, 
And  read  as  he'd  devour  it  all ; 
Which,  when  the  stall  man  did  espy, 
Soon  to  the  boy  I  heard  him  call, 
'  You,  sir,  you  never  buy  a  book, 
Therefore  in  one  you  shall  not  look.' 
The  boy  passed  slowly  on,  and  with  a  sigh 
He  wished   he   never  had  been  taught  to 

read, 
Then  of  the  old  churl's   books  he  should 

have  had  no  need." 

Such  snatches  of  literature  have, 
indeed,  a  special  and  peculiar  charm. 
This  is,  I  believe,  partly  due  to  the 
very  fact  of  their  being  brief.  Many 
readers  I  think,  miss  much  of  the 
pleasure  of  reading  by  forcing  them 
selves  to  dwell  too  long  continuously 
on  one  subject.  In  a  long  railway 
journey,  for  instance,  many  persons 
take  only  a  single  book.  The  conse- 
quence is  that,  unless  it  is  a  story, 
after  half  an  hour  or  an  hour  they  are 
quite  tired  of  it.  Whereas,  if  they 
had  two,  or  still  better  three,  on  differ- 
ent subjects,  and  one  of  them  being 
of  an  amusing  character,  they  would 
probably  find  that,  by  changing  as 
soon  as  they  felt  at  all  weary,  they 
would  come  back  again  and  again  to 
each  with  renewed  zest,  and  hour 
after  hour  would  pass  pleasantly  away. 
Every  one,  of  course,  must  judge  for 
himself,  but  such  at  least  is  my  ex- 
perience. 

I  quite  agree,  therefore,  with  Lord 
Iddesleigh  as  to   the  charm  of   desul- 


16 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


tory  reading,  but  the  wider  the  field  the 
more  important  that  we  should  benefit 
by  the  very  best  books  in  each  class. 
Not  that  we  need  confine  ourselves 
to  them,  but  that  we  should  commence 
with  them,  and  they  will  certainly 
lead  us  on  to  others.  There  are  of 
course  some  books  which  we  must 
read,  mark,  learn,  and  inwardly 
digest.  But  these  are  exceptions. 
As  regards  by  far  the  larger  number, 
it  is  probably  better  to  read  them 
quickly,  dwelling  only  on  the  best 
and  most  important  passages.  In 
this  way,  no  doubt,  we  shall  lose 
much,  but  we  gain  more  by  ranging 
over  a  wider  field.  We  may,  in  fact, 
I  think,  apply  to  reading  Lord 
Brougham's  wise  dictum  as  regards 
education,  and  say  that  it  is  well  to 
read  everything  of  something  and 
something  of  everything.  In  this  way 
only  we  can  ascertain  the  bent  of  our 
own  tastes,  for  it  is  a  general,  though 
not  of  course  an  invariable,  rule,  that 
we  profit  little  by  books  which  we 
do  not  enjoy. 

Every  one,  however,  may  suit  him- 
self.    The  variety  is  endless. 

"  We  may  sit  in  our  library  and  yet 
be  in  all  quarters  of  the  earth.  We 
may  travel  round  the  world  with  Cap- 
tain Cook  or  Darwin,  with  Kingsley 
or  Ruskin,  who  will  show  us  much 
more  perhaps  than  ever  we  should 
see  for  ourselves.  The  w>rld  itseli 
has  no  limits  for  us ;  Humboldt  anc 
Herschel  will  carry  us  far  away  to 
the  mysterious  nebulae,  far  beyond  the 
sun  and  even  the  stars  ;  time  has  no 
more  bounds  than  space ;  history 
stretches  out  behind  us,  and  geology 
will  carry  us  back  for  millions  ol 
years  before  the  creation  of  man, 
even  to  the  origin  of  the  materiai 
Universe  itself.  We  are  not  limited 
even  to  one  plane  of  thought.  Aris 
totle  and  Plato  will  transport  us  into 
a  sphere  none  the  less  delightful  be- 
cause it  acquires  some  training  to  ap- 
preciate it.  We  may  make  a  library, 
if  we  do  hut  rightly  use  it,  a  true  par- 
adise on  earth,  a  garden  of  Eden  with- 
out its  one  drawback,  for  all  is  open 
to  us,  including  and  especially  the 


ruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  for  which 
we  are  told  that  our  first  mother  sac- 
rificed all  the  rest.  Here  we  may 
read  the  most  important  histories,  the 
most  exciting  volumes  of  travels  and 
adventures,  the  most  interesting 
stories,  the  most  beautiful  poems ; 
we  may  meet  the  most  eminent  states- 
men and  poets  and  philosophers,  ben- 
efit by  the  ideas  of  the  greatest 
thinkers,  and  enjoy  all  the  greatest 
creations  of  human  genius." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   CHOICE   OF    BOOKS.* 

"  All  round  «iie  room  my  silent    servants 

wait — 
My  friends  in  every  season,  bright  and  dim, 

Angels  and  Seraphim 
Come  down  and  murmur  to  me,  sweet  and 

low, 

And  spirits  of  the  skies  all  come  and  go 
Early  and  Late." 

PROCTOR. 

AND  yet  too  often  they  wait  in  vain. 
One  reason  for  this  is,  I  think,  that 
people  are  overwhelmed  by  the  crowd 
of  books  offered  to  them.  There  are 
books  and  books,  and  there  are  books 
which,  as  Lamb  said,  are  not  books 
at  all. 

In  old  days  books  were  rare  and 
dear.  Our  ancestors  had  a  difficulty 
in  procuring  them.  Our  difficulty 
now  is  what  to  select.  We  must  be 
careful  what  we  read,  and  not  like  the 
sailors  of  Ulysses,  take  bags  of  wind 
for  sacks  of  treasure — not  only  lest 
we  should  even  now  fall  into  the  er- 
ror of  the  Greeks,  and  suppose  that 
language  and  definitions  can  be  in- 
struments of  investigation  as  well 
as  of  thought,  but  lest,  as  too  often 
happens,  we  should  waste  time  over 
trash.  There  are  many  books  to 
which  one  may  apply,  in  the  sarcastic 
sense  the  ambiguous  remark  said  to 
have  been  made  to  an  unfortunate 


*  Delivered  at  the  London  Working  Men's 
College. 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


author,  "  I  will  lose  no  time  in  read- 
ing your  book." 

It  is  wonderful  indeed  how  much 
innocent  happiness  we  thoughtlessly 
throw  away.  An  eastern  proverb 
says  that  calamities  sent  by  heaven 
may  be  avoided,  but  from  those  we 
bring  on  ourselves  there  is  no  es- 
cape. 

Many,  I  believe,  are  deterred  from 
attempting  what  are  called  stiff  books 
for  fear  they  should  not  understand 
them  ;  but,  as  Hobbes  said,  there  are 
few  who  need  complain  of  the  narrow- 
ness of  their  minds,  if  only  they 
would  do  their  best  with  them. 

In  reading,  however,  it  is  most  im- 
portant to  select  subjects  in  which 
one  is  interested.  I  remember  years 
ago  consulting  Mr.  Darwin  as  to  the 
selection  of  a  course  of  study.  He 
asked  me  what  interested  me  most, 
and  advised  me  to  choose  that  sub- 
ject. This,  indeed,  applies  to  the 
work  of  life  generally. 

I  am  sometimes  disposed  to  think 
that  the  great  readers  of  the  next 
generation  will  be,  not  our  lawyers 
and  doctors,  shopkeepers  and  manu- 
facturers, but  the  laborers  and  me- 
chanics. Does  not  this  seem  natural  ? 
The  former  work  mainly  with  their 
head ;  when  their  daily  duties  are 
over  the  brain  is  often  exhausted, 
and  of  their  leisure  time  much  must 
be  devoted  to  air  and  exercise.  The 
laborer  and  mechanic,  on  the  contrary, 
besides  working  often  for  much 
shorter  hours,  have  in  their  work-time 
taken  sufficient  bodily  exercise,  and 
could  therefore  give  any  leisure  they 
might  have  to  reading  and  study. 
They  have  not  done  so  as  yet,  it  is 
true  ;  but  this  has  been  for  obvious 
reasons.  Now,  however,  in  the  first 
place,  they  receive  an  excellent  edu- 
cation in  elementary  schools,  and  in 
the  second  have  more  easy  access  to 
the  best  books. 

Ruskin  has  observed  he  does  not 
wonder  at  what  men  suffer,  but  he 
often  wonders  at  what  they  lose.  We 
suffer  much,  no  doubt,  from  the  faults 
of  others,  but  we  lose  much  more  by 
our  own  ignorance, 


It  is  one  thing  to  own  a  library ;  it 
is,  however,  another  to  use  it  wisely. 
"If,"  says  Sir  John  Herschel,  "I 
were  to  pray  for  a  taste  which  should 
stand  me  instead  under  every  variety 
of  circumstances,  and  be  a  source  of 
happiness  and  cheerfulness  to  me 
through  life,  and  a  shield  against  its 
ills,  however  things  might  go  amiss 
and  the  world  frown  upon  me,  it 
would  be  a  taste  for  reading.  I 
speak  of  it  of  course  only  as  a  worldly 
advantage,  and  not  in  the  slightest 
degree  as  superseding  or  derogating 
from  the  higher  office  and  surer  and 
stronger  panoply  of  religious  princi- 
ples— but  as  a  taste,  an  instrument, 
and  a  mode  of  pleasurable  gratifica- 
tion. Give  a  man  this  taste,  and  the 
means  of  gratifying  it,  and  you  can 
hardly  fail  of  making  a  happy  man, 
unless,  indeed,  you  put  into  his 
hands  a  most  perverse  selection  of 
books." 

I  have  often  been  astonished  how 
little  care  people  devote  to  the  selec- 
tion of  what  they  read.  Books,  we 
know,  are  almost  innumerable ;  our 
hours  for  reading  are,  alas !  very 
few.  And  yet  many  people  read  al- 
most by  hazard.  They  will  take  any 
book  they  chance  to  find  in  a  room 
at  a  friend's  house  ;  they  will  buy  a 
novel  at  a  railway-stall  if  it  has  an 
attractive  title  ;  indeed,  I  believe  in 
some  cases  even  the  binding  affects 
their  choice.  The  selection  is,  no 
doubt,  far  from  easy.  I  have  often 
wished  some  one  would  recommend  a 
list  of  a  hundred  good  books.  If  we 
had  such  lists  drawn  up  by  a  few 
good  guides  they  would  be  most  use- 
ful. I  have  indeed  sometimes  heard 
it  said  that  in  reading  every  one 
must  choose  for  himself,  but  this  re- 
minds me  of  the  recommendation 
not  to  go  into  the  water  till  you  can 
swim. 

In  the  absence  of  such  lists  I  have 
picked  out  the  books  most  frequently 
mentioned  with  approval  by  those 
who  have  referred  directly  or  indi- 
rectly to  the  pleasure  of  reading,  and 
have  ventured  to  include  some  which, 
though  less  frequently  mentioned, 


i8 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


are  especial  favorites  of  my  own. 
Every  one  who  looks  at  the  list  will 
wish  to  suggest  other  books,  as  in- 
deed I  should  myself,  but  in  that 
case  the  number  would  soon  run  up.* 

I  have  abstained,  for  obvious  rea- 
sons, from  mentioning  works  by  liv- 
ing authors,  though  from  many  of 
them — Tennyson,  Ruskin,  and  others 
— I  have  myself  derived  the  keen- 
est enjoyment ;  and  have  omitted 
works  on  science,  with  one  or  two 
exceptions,  because  the  subject  is  so 
progressive. 

I  feel  that  the  attempt  is  over  bold, 
and  I  must  beg  for  indulgence ;  but 
indeed  one  object  which  I  have  had 
in  view  is  to  stimulate  others  more 
competent  far  than  I  am  to  give  us 
the  advantage  of  their  opinions. 

Moreover,  I  must  repeat  that  I 
suggest  these  works  rather  as  those 
which,  as  far  as  I  have  seen,  have 
been  most  frequently  recommended, 
than  as  suggestions  of  my  own, 
though  I  have  slipped  in  a  few  of  my 
own  special  favorites. 

In  the  absence  of  such  lists  we 
may  fall  back  on  the  general  verdict 
of  mankind.  There  is  a  "  struggle 
for  existence "  and  a  "  survival  of 
the  fittest "  among  books,  as  well  as 
among  animals  and  plants.  As  Alon- 
zo  of  Aragon  said,  "Age  is  a  rec- 
ommendation in  four  things — old 
wood  to  burn,  old  wine  to  drink,  old 
friends  to  trust,  and  old  books  to 
read."  Still,  this  cannot  be  accept- 
ed without  important  qualifications. 
The  most  recent  books  of  history  and 
science  contain,  or  ought  to  contain, 
the  most  accurate  information  and  the 
most  trustworthy  conclusions.  More- 
over, while  the  books  of  other  races 
and  times  have  an  interest  from  their 
very  distance,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  many  will  still  more  enjoy,  and 
feel  more  at  home  with,  those  of  our 
own  century  and  people. 


*  Several  longer  lists  have  been  given  ;  for 
instance,  by  Comte,  Catechism  of  Positive 
Philosophy ;  Pycroft,  Course  of  English 
Reading  ;  Baldwin,  The  Book  Lover ;  and 
Perkins,  The  Best  Reading  ;  and  by  Mr. 
Ireland,  Books  for  General  Reader*. 


Yet  the  oldest  books  of  the  world 
are  remarkable  and  interesting  on  ac- 
count of  their  very  age  ;  and  the 
works  which  have  influenced  the  opin- 
ions, or  charmed  the  leisure  hours,  of 
millions  of  men  in  distant  times  and 
far-away  regions  are  well  worth  read- 
ing on  that  very  account,  even  if  they 
seem  scarcely  to  deserve  their  repu- 
tation. It  is  true  that  to  many  of  us 
such  works  are  accessible  only  in 
translations  ;  but  translations,  though 
they  can  never  perhaps  do  justice  to 
the  original,  may  yet  be  admirable  in 
themselves.  The  Bible  itself,  which 
must  stand  first  in  the  list,  is  a  con- 
clusive case. 

At  the  head  of  all  non-Christian 
moralists,  I  must  place  the  Enchir- 
idion of  Epictetus,  certainly  one  of 
the  noblest  books  in  the  whole  of  lit- 
erature ;  so  short,  moreover,  so  acces- 
sible, and  so  well  translated  that  it  is 
always  a  source  of  wonder  to  me  that 
it  is  so  little  read.  With  Epictetus 
I  think  must  come  Marcus  Aurelius. 
The  Analects  of  Confucius  will,  I  be- 
lieve, prove  disappointing  to  most  Eng- 
lish readers,  but  the  effect  it  has  pro- 
duced on  the  most  numerous  race  of 
men  constitutes  in  itself  a  peculiar  in- 
terest. The  Ethics  of  Aristotle,  per- 
haps, appear  to  some  disadvantage 
from  the  very  fact  that  they  have  so 
profoundly  influenced  our  views  of 
morality.  The  Koran,  like  the  An- 
alects of  Confucius,  will  to  most  of  us 
derive  its  principal  interest  from  the 
effect  it  has  exercised,  and  still  exer- 
cises, on  so  many  millions  of  our  fel- 
low-men. I  doubt  whether  in  any 
other  respect  it  will  seem  to  repay 
perusal,  and  to  most  persons  proba- 
bly certain  extracts,  not  too  numer- 
ous, would  appear  sufficient. 

The  writings  of  the  Apostolic 
Fathers  have  been  collected  in  one 
volume  by  Wake.  It  is  but  a  small 
one,  and  though  I  must  humbly  con- 
fess that  I  was  disappointed,  they  are 
perhaps  all  the  more  curious  from 
the  contrast  they  afford  to  those  of 
the  Apostles  themselves.  Of  the  lat- 
er Fathers  I  have  included  only  the 
Confessions  of  St.  Augustine,  which 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


Dr.  Pusey  selected  for  the  commence- ! 
ment  of  the   Library   of  the  fathers, 
and  which,  as  he  observes,  has  "  been 
translated    again  and   again  into   al-  j 
most  every    European  language,  and  j 
in  all  loved  ;  "  though  Luther  was  of  ; 
opinion    that  he   "  wrote    nothing   to ! 
the  purpose   concerning  faith  ;  "  but ! 
then  Luther  was  no  great  admirer  of  | 
the  Fathers.       St.   Jerome,   he  says,  j 
"  writes,   alas  !    very  coldly  ;  "  Chry-  j 
sostom   "  digresses    from    the    chief  | 
points  ;  "  St.  Jerome  is  "  very  poor;  " 
and  in  fact,  he   says,    "  the    more    I 
read    the    books  of  the    Fathers  the 
more  I  find  myself  offended  ;  "  while 
Renan,  in  his  interesting  autobiogra- 
phy, compared  theology  to  a  Gothic 
Cathedral,    "elle   a  la  grandeur,   les 
vides   immenses,    et  le    peu   de    sol- 
iditeV' 

Among    other     devotional     works 
most    frequently    recommended    are 
Thomas     a     Kempis's    Imitation    of\ 
Christ,     Pascal's     Pensees,    Spinoza's  | 
Tractatus  Theologico-Politicus,  Butler's 
Analogy  of  Religion,   Jeremy  Taylor's 
Holy  Living  and  Dying,  Keble's  beau- 
tiful   Christian    Year,   and     last,   not 
least,  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress. 

Aristotle  and  Plato  again  stand  at 
the  head  of  another  class.     The  Pol- 
itics of  Aristotle,  and    Plato's    Dia-  \ 
logues,  if  not  the  whole,  at  any  rate  | 
the  Phcedo,  the   Apology,  and  the  Re- 
public, will  be  of  course   read  by  all  j 
who   wish    to   know  anything  of  the  j 
history  of  human  thought,  though   I 
am  heretical  enough  to  doubt  whether 
the  latter  repays  the  minute  and  la- 
borious study  often  devoted  to  it. 

Aristotle   being   the  father,  if  not 
the  creator,  of  the  modern  scientific 
method,  it   has  followed   naturally — 
indeed,   almost    inevitably — that    his 
principles   have  become   part  of  our 
very  intellectual   being,   so  that  they 
seem  now   almost  self-evident,  while  j 
his  actual  observations,    though  very  I 
remarkable — as,  for    instance,    when  j 
he  observes  that  bees  on  one  journey  \ 
confine    themselves    to   one   kind   of 
flower — still  have  been  in  many  cases 
superseded  by  others,  carried  on  un- 
der more  favorable  conditions.     We 


must  not  be  ungrateful  to  the  great 
master,  because  his  own  lessons  have 
taught  us  how  to  advance. 

Plato,  on  the  other  hand,  I  say  so 
with  all  respect,  seems  to  me  in  some 
cases  to  play  on  words ;  his  argu- 
ments are  very  able,  very  philosophi- 
cal, often  very  noble  ;  but  not  always 
conclusive  ;  in  a  language  differently 
constructed  they  might  sometimes 
tell  in  exactly  the  opposite  sense.  If 
this  method  has  proved  less  fruitful, 
if  in  metaphysics  we  have  made  but 
little  advance,  that  very  fact  in  one 
point  of  view  leaves  the  Dialogues  of 
Socrates  as  instructive  now  as  ever 
they  were  ;  while  the  problems  with 
which  they  deal  will  always  rouse  our 
interest,  as  the  calm  and  lofty  spirit 
which  inspires  them  must  command 
our  admiration. 

I  would  also  mention  Demosthe- 
nes's  De  Corona,  which  Lord  Brough- 
am pronounced  the  greatest  oration 
of  the  greatest  of  orators  ;  Lucretius, 
Plutarch's  Lives,  Horace,  and  at  least 
the  De  Ojficiis,  De  Amidtia,  and  De 
Senedute  of  Cicero. 

The  great  epics  of  the  world  have 
always  constituted  one  of  the  most 
popular  branches  of  literature.  Yet 
how  few,  comparatively,  ever  read 
the  Iliad  or  Odyssey,  Hesiod  or  Vir- 
gil, after  leaving  school. 

The  Nibelungenlied,  our  great  An- 
glo-Saxon epic,  is  perhaps  too  much 
neglected,  no  doubt  on  account  of 
its  painful  character.  Brunhild  and 
Kriemhild,  indeed,  are  far  from  per- 
fect, but  we  meet  with  few  such 
"  live "  women  in  Greek  or  Roman 
literature.  Nor  must  I  omit  to  men- 
tion Sir  T.  Malory's  Morte  tf  Arthur, 
though  I  confess  I  do  so  mainly  in 
deference  to  the  judgment  of  others. 

Among  the  Greek  tragedians, 
JSschylus,  if  not  all  his  works,  at  any 
rate  Prometheus,  perhaps  the  sublim- 
est  poem  in  Greek  literature,  and 
the  Trilogy  (Mr.  Symonds  in  his 
Greek  Poets  speaks  of  the  "  unrivaled 
majesty "  of  the  Agamemnon,  and 
Mark  Pattison  considered  it  "  the 
grandest  work  of  creative  genius  in 
the  whole  range  of  literature  ") ;  or, 


20 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


as  Mr.  Grant  Duff  recommends,  the 
Persa;  Sophocles  (CEdipus  Tyran- 
nus),  Euripides  (Medea),  and  Aris- 
tophanes (The  Knights  and  Clouds)  ; 
Schlegel  says  that  probably  even  the 
greatest  scholar  does  not  understand 
half  his  jokes  ;  though  I  think  most 
modern  readers  will  prefer  our  mod- 
ern poets. 

I  should  like,  moreover,  to  say  a 
word  for  Eastern  poetry,  such  as  por- 
tions of  the  Maha  Bharata  and 
Ramayana  (too  long  probably  to  be 
read  through,  but  of  which  Talboys 
Wheeler  has  given  a  most  interesting 
epitome  in  the  two  first  volumes  of 
his  History  of  India)  ;  the  Shah-nameh, 
the  work  of  the  great  Persian  poet, 
Firdusi ;  and  the  Sheking,  the  classi- 
cal collection  of  ancient  Chinese  odes. 
Many,  I  know,  will  think  I  ought  to 
have  included  Omar  Khayyam. 

In  history  we  are  beginning  to  feel 
that  the  vices  and  vicissitudes  of 
kings  and  queens,  the  dates  of  battles 
and  wars,  are  far  less  important  than 
the  development  of  human  thought, 
the  progress  of  art,  of  science,  and  of 
law,  and  the  subject  is  on  that  very 
account  even  more  interesting  than 
ever.  I  will,  however,  only  mention, 
and  that  rather  from  a  literary  than  a 
historical  point  of  view,  Herodotus, 
Xenophon  (the  Anabasis),  Thucydi- 
des,  and  Tacitus  (Germania)  ;  and  of 
modern  historians,  Gibbon's  Decline 
and  Fall,  Hume's  History  of  England, 
Carlyle's  French  Revolution,  Grote's 
History  of  Greece,  and  Green's  Short 
History  of  the  English  People. 

Science  is  so  rapidly  progressive 
that,  though  to  many  minds  it  is  the 
most  fruitful  and  interesting  subject  of 
all,  I  cannot  here  rest  on  that  agree- 
ment which,  rather  than  my  own 
opinion,  I  take  as  the  basis  of  my 
list.  I  will  therefore  only  mention 
Bacon's  Novum  Organum,  Mill's 
Logic,  and  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species  ; 
in  Political  Economy,  which  some  of 
our  rulers  now  scarcely  seem  suffi- 
ciently to  value,  Mill,  and  parts  of 
Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations,  for  prob- 
ably those  who  do  not  intend  to 
make  a  special  study  of  political 


economy   would    scarcely   read     the 
whole. 

Among  voyages  and  travels,  per- 
haps those  most  frequently  suggest- 
ed are  Cook's  Voyages,  Humboldt's 
Travels,  and  Darwin's  Naturalist's 
Journal ;  though  I  confess  I  should 
like  to  have  added  many  more. 

Mr.  Bright  not  long  ago  specially 
recommended  the  less  known  Ameri- 
can poets,  but  he  probably  assumed 
that  every  one  would  have  read 
Shakespeare,  Milton  (Paradise  Lost, 
Lycidas,  and  minor  poems),  Chau- 
cer, Dante,  Spenser,  Dryden,  Scott, 
Wordsworth,  Pope,  Southey,  Byron, 
and  others,  before  embarking  on 
more  doubtful  adventures. 

Among  other  books  most  frequent- 
ly recommended  are  Goldsmith's 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,  Swift's  Gulliver's 
Travels,  Defoe's  Robinson  Crusoe,  The 
Arabian  Nights,  Don  Quixote,  Bos- 
well's  Life  of  Johnson,  White's  Natu- 
ral History  of  Selborne,  Burke's  Select 
Works  (Payne),  the  Essays  of  Bacon, 
Addison,  Hume,  Montaigne,  Macau- 
lay,  and  Emerson  ;  the  plays  of  Mol- 
iere  and  Sheridan ;  Carlyle's  Past 
and  Present,  Smiles's  Self-Help,  and 
Goethe's  Faust  and  Autobiography. 

Nor  can  one  go  wrong  in  recom- 
mending Berkeley's  Human  Knowl- 
edge, Descartes's  Discours  sur  la  Me- 
thode,  Locke's  Conduct  of  the  Under- 
standing, Lewes's  History  of  Philoso- 
phy ;  while  in  order  to  keep  within 
the  number  one  hundred,  I  can  only 
mention  Moliere  and  Sheridan  among 
dramatists.  Macaulay  considered 
Manvaux's  La  Vie  de  Marianne  the 
best  novel  in  any  language,  but  my 
number  is  so  nearly  complete  that  I 
must  content  myself  with  English : 
and  will  suggest  Miss  Austen  (either 
Emma  or  Pride  and  Prejudice),  Thack- 
eray ( Vanity  Fair  and  Pendennis), 
Dickens  (Pickwick  and  David  Copper- 
field},  G.  Eliot  (  Adam  Bede  or  The 
Mill  on  the  Floss},  Kingsley  {West- 
ward Ho  /),  Lytton  (Last  Days  of 
Pompeii},  and  last,  not  least,  those  of 
Scott,  which  indeed  constitute  a  libra- 
ry in  themselves,  but  which  I  must 
ask,  in  return  for  my  trouble,  to  be 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


21 


allowed,  as  a  special  favor,  to  count 
as  one. 

To  any  lover  of  books  the  very 
mention  of  these  names  brings  back  a 
crowd  of  delicious  memories,  grateful 
recollections  of  peaceful  home  hours, 
after  the  labors  and  anxieties  of  the 
day.  How  thankful  we  ought  to  be 
for  these  inestimable  blessings,  for 
this  numberless  host  of  friends  who 
never  weary,  betray,  or  forsake  us  ! 

LIST  OF  100  BOOKS. 

Works  by  Living  Authors  are  omitted. 

The  Bible. 

The  Meditations  of  Marcus  Aurelius. 

Epictetus. 

Aristotle's  Ethics. 

Analects  of  Confucius. 

St.  Hilaire's  "  Le  Bouddha  et  sa  religion." 

Wake's  Apostolic  Fathers. 

Thos.  a  Kempis's  Imitation  of  Christ. 

Confessions  of  St.  Augustine  (Dr.  Pusey). 

The  Koran  (portions  of)- 

Spinoza's  Tractatus  Theologico-Politicus. 

Comte's  Catechism  of  Positive  Philosophy. 

Pascal's  Pensees. 

Kutle-'s  Analogy  of  Religion. 

Taylor's  Holy  Living  and  Dying. 

Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress. 

Keble's  Christian  Year. 


Plato's  Dialogues ;  at  any  rate,  the  Apology, 
Phaedo,  and  Republic. 

Xenophon's  Memorabilia. 

Aristotle's  Politics. 

Demosthenes's  De  Corona. 

Cicero's  De  Officiis,  De  Amicitia,  and  De 
Senectute. 

Plutarch's  Lives. 

Berkeley's  Human  Knowledge. 

Descartes's  Discours  sur  la  Methode. 

Locke's  On  the  Conduct  of  the  Understand- 
ing. 


Homer. 

Hesiod. 

Virgil. 

Maha    Bharata  Epitomized     in      Talboys 

Ramayana.          )  Wheeler's    History  of   In- 

(  dia,  vols.  i.  and  11. 
The  Shahnameh. 
The  Nibelungenlied. 
Malory's  Morte  d' Arthur. 
The  Sheking. 
/Eschylus's  Prometheus. 
Trilogy  of  Orestes. 
Sophocles's  CEdipus. 
Euripides's  Medea. 
Aristophanes's  The  Knights  and  Clouds. 


Horace. 

Lucretius. 

Chaucer's    Canterbury    Tales    (perhaps    in 

Morris's  edition ;   or,  if  expurgated,  in 

C.  Clarke's,  or  Mrs.  Haweis's). 
Shakespeare. 
Milton's    Paradise   Lost,   Lycidas,  and  the 

shorter  poems. 
Dante's  Divina  Commedia. 
Spenser's  Fairie  Queen. 
Dryden's  Poems. 
Scott's  Poems. 

Wordsworth  (Mr.  Arnold's  selection). 
Southey's  Thalaba  the  Destroyer. 

The  Curse  of  Kehama. 
Pope's  Essay  on  Criticism. 

Essay  on  Man. 

Rape  of  the  Lock. 
Burns. 

Byron's  Childe  Harold. 
Gray. 


Herodotus. 

Xenophon's  Anabasis. 

Thucydides. 

Tacitus' s  Germania. 

Livy, 

Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall. 

Hume's  History  of  England. 

Grote's  History  of  Greece. 

Carlyle's  French  Revolution. 

Green's  Short  History  of  England. 

Lewes's  History  of  Philosophy. 


Arabian  Nights. 

Swift's  Gulliver's  Travels. 

Defoe's  Robinson  Crusoe. 

Goldsmith's  Vicar  of  Wakefield. 

Cervantes's  Don  Quixote. 

Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson. 

Moliere. 

Sheridan's  The  Critic,  School  for   Scandal, 

and  the  Rivals. 
Carlyle's  Past  and  Present. 


Smiles's  Self-Help. 

Bacon's  Novum  Organum. 

Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations  (part  of  ). 

Mill's  Political  Economy. 

Cook's  Voyages. 

Humboldt's  Travels. 

White's  Natural  History  of  Selbornc. 

Darwin's  Origin  of  Species. 

Naturalist's  Voyage. 
Mill's  Logic. 


Bacon's  Essays. 
Montaigne's  Essays. 
Hume's  Essays. 
Macaulay's  Essays. 


22 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


Addison's  Esstys. 
Emerson's  Essays. 
Burke' s  Select  works. 


Voltaire's  Zadig. 

Goethe's  Faust,  and  Autobiography. 

Miss  Austen's  Emma,  or  Pride  and  Prejudice. 

Thackeray's  Vanity  Fair. 

Pendennis. 
Dickens's  Pickwick. 

David  Copperfield. 
Lytton's  Last  Days  of  Pompeii. 
George  Eliot's  Adam  Bede. 
Kingsley's  Westward  Ha 
Scott's  Novels. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  BLESSING  OF  FRIENDS.* 

"  They  seem  to  take  away  the  sun  from 
the  world  who  withdraw  friendship  from  life ; 
for  we  have  received  nothing  better  from  the 
immortal  gods,  nothing  more  delightful." — 
CICERO. 

MOST  of  those  who  have  written  in 
praise  of  books  have  thought  they 
could  say  nothing  better  of  them  than 
to  compare  them  to  friends. 

Socrates  said  that  "  all  people  have 
their  different  objects  of  ambition — 
horses,  dogs,  money,  honor,  as  the 
case  may  be ;  but  for  his  own  pan 
he  would  rather  have  a  good  frienc 
than  all  these  put  together."  Anc 
again,  men  know  "  the  number  ol 
their  other  possessions,  although  they 
might  be  very  numerous,  but  of  their 
friends,  though  but  few,  they  were 
not  only  ignorant  of  the  number,  bu 
even  when  they  attempted  to  reckon 
it  to  such  as  asked  them,  they  se 
aside  again  some  that  they  had  pre- 
viously counted  among  their  friends 
so  little  did  they  allow  their  friends 
to  occupy  their  thoughts.  Yet  in 
comparison  with  what  possession,  o: 
all  others,  would  not  a  good  frienc 
appear  far  more  valuable  ? " 

"  As  to  the  value  of  other  things,' 
says  Cicero,  "  most  men  differ ;  con 


*  The  substance  of  this  was  delivered  a 
the  London  Working  Men's  College. 


cerning  friendship  all  have  the  same 
opinion."  What  can  be  more  foolish 
han,  when  men  are  possessed  of 
reat  influence  by  their  wealth,  power, 
and  resources,  to  procure  other  things 
vhich  are  bought  by  money — horses, 
slaves,  rich  apparel,  costly  vases — 
and  not  to  procure  friends,  the  most 
valuable  and  fairest  furniture  of  life  ?  " 
And  yet,  he  continues,  "  every  man 
can  tell  how  many  goats  or  sheep  he 
possesses,  but  not  how  many  friends." 
in  the  choice,  moreover,  of  a  dog  or 
of  a  horse,  we  exercise  the  greatest 
care ;  we  inquire  into  its  pedigree,  its 
training  and  character,  and  yet  we 
too  often  leave  the  selection  of  our 
friends,  which  is  of  infinitely  greater 
importance — by  whom  our  whole  life 
will  be  more  or  less  influenced  either 
for  good  or  evil — almost  to  chance. 

No  doubt,  much  as  worthy  friends 
add  to  the  happiness  and  value  of 
life,  we  must  in  the  main  depend  on 
ourselves,  and  every  one  is  his  own 
best  friend  or  worst  enemy. 

Sad,  indeed,  is  Bacon's  assertion 
that  "  there  is  little  friendship  in  the 
world,  and  least  of  all  between  equals, 
which  was  wont  to  be  magnified. 
That  that  is,  is  between  superior  and 
inferior,  whose  fortunes  may  compre- 
hend the  one  to  the  other."  But  this 
can  hardly  be  taken  as  his  deliberate 
opinion,  for  he  elsewhere  says,  "  but 
we  may  go  farther,  and  affirm  most 
truly,  that  it  is  a  mere  and  miserable 
solitude  to  want  true  friends,  without 
which  the  world  is  but  a  wilderness." 
Not  only,  he  adds,  does  friendship  in- 
troduce "  daylight  in  the  understand- 
ing out  of  darkness  and  confusion  of 
thoughts  ;  "  it  "  maketh  a  fair  day  in 
the  affections  from  storm  and  tem- 
pests :  "  in  consultation  with  a  friend 
a  man  "  tosseth  his  thoughts  more 
easily ;  he  marshalleth  them  more  or- 
derly ;  he  seeth  how  they  look  when 
they  are  turned  into  words  ;  finally, 
he  waxeth  wiser  than  himself,  and 
that  more  by  an  hour's  discourse  than 
by  a  day's  meditation."  ..."  But 
little  do  men  perceive  what  solitude 
is,  and  how  far  it  extendeth,  for  a 
crowd  is  not  company,  and  faces  are 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


but  a  gallery  of  pictures,  and  talk  but 
a  tinkling  cymbal  where  there  is  no 
love.'' 

With  this  I  cannot  altogether  con- 
cur. Surely  even  strangers  may  be 
most  interesting  !  and  many  will  agree 
with  Dr.  Johnson  when,  describing  a 
pleasant  evening,  he  summed  it  up— 
"  Sir,  we  had  a  good  talk." 

It  is  no  doubt  true,  as  the  Autocrat 
of  the  Breakfast  Table  says,  that  all 
men  are  bores  except  when  we  want 
them.  And  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
quaintly  observes  that  "unthinking 
heads  who  have  not  learnt  to  be  alone 
are  a  prison  to  themselves  if  they  be 
not  with  others ;  whereas,  on  the  con- 
trary, those  whose  thoughts  are  in  a 
fair  and  hurry  within,  are  sometimes 
fain  to  retire  into  company  to  be  out 
of  the  crowd  of  themselves."  Still  I 
do  not  quite  understand  Emerson's 
idea  that  "  men  descend  to  meet."  In 
another  place,  indeed,  he  qualifies 
the  statement,  and  says,  "  Almost  all 
people  descend  to  meet."  Even  so  I 
should  venture  to  question  it,  es- 
pecially considering  the  context. 
"  All  association,"  he  adds,  "  must  be 
a  compromise,  and,  what  is  worse,  the 
very  flower  and  aroma  of  the  flower 
of  each  of  the  beautiful  natures  dis- 
appears as  they  approach  each  other." 
What  a  sad  thought !  Is  it  really  so  ? 
Need  it  be  so  ?  And  if  it  were  so, 
would  friends  be  any  real  advantage  ? 
I  should  have  thought  that  the  influ- 
ence of  friends  was  exactly  the  re- 
verse :  that  the  flower  of  a  beautiful 
nature  would  expand,  and  the  colors 
grow  brighter,  when  stimulated  by  the 
warmth  and  sunshine  of  friendship. 

Much  certainly  of  the  happiness 
and  purity  of  our  lives  depends  on 
our  making  a  wise  choice  of  our  com- 
panions and  friends.  Many  people 
seem  co  trust  in  this  matter  to  the 
chapter  of  accident.  It  is  well  and 
right,  indeed,  to  be  courteous  and 
considerate  to  every  one  with  whom 
one  is  thrown  into  contact,  but  to 
choose  them  as  real  friends  is  another 
matter.  Some  seem  to  make  a  man 
a  friend,  or  try  to  do  so,  because  he 
lives  near,  because  he  is  in  the  same 


business,  travels  on  the  same  line  of 
railway,  or  for  some  other  trivial  rea- 
son. There  cannot  be  a  greater  mis- 
take. These  are  only,  in  the  words 
of  Plutarch  "  the  idols  and  images  of 
friendship."  If  our  friends  are  badly 
chosen  they  will  inevitably  drag  us 
down ;  if  well  they  will  raise  us  up. 
To  be  friendly  with  every  one  is 
another  matter;  we  must  remember 
that  there  is  no  little  enemy,  and 
those  who  have  ever  really  loved  any 
one  will  have  some  tenderness  for  all. 
There  is  indeed  some  good  in  most 
men.  "  I  have  heard  much,"  says 
Mr.  Nasmyth  in  his  charming  auto- 
biography, "  about  the  ingratitude 
and  selfishness  of  the  world.  It  may 
have  been  my  good  fortune,  but  I 
have  never  experienced  either  of  these 
unfeeling  conditions."  Such  also  has 
been  my  own  experience. 

"Men   talk  of  unkind   hearts,   kind  deeds 

With  deeds  unkind  returning. 
Alas  1  the  gratitude  of  men 

Has  oftener  left  me  mourning." 

I  cannot,  then,  agree  with  Emerson 
that  "  we  walk  alone  in  the  world. 
Friends  such  as  we  desire  are  dreams 
and  fables.  But  a  sublime  hope  cheers 
ever  the  faithful  heart,  that  else- 
where in  other  regions  of  the  universal 
power  souls  are  now  acting,  enduring, 
and  daring,  which  can  love  us,  and 
which  we  can  love." 

Epictetus  gives  very  good  advice 
when  he  dissuades  from  conversation 
on  the  very  subjects  most  commonly 
chosen,  and  advises  that  it  should  be 
on  "  none  of  the  common  subjects — 
not  about  gladiators,  nor  horse-races, 
nor  about  athletes,  nor  about  eating 
or  drinking,  which  are  the  usual  sub- 
jects ;  and  especially  not  about  men, 
as  blaming  them ; "  *  but  when  he 
adds,  "  or  praising  them  "  the  in- 
junction seems  to  me  of  doubtful 
value.  Surely  Marcus  Aurelius  more 
wisely  advises  that  "  when  thou  wish- 
est  to  delight  thyself,  think  of  the 
virtues  of  those  who  live  with  thee ; 


*  Enchiridion. 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


for  instance,  the  activity  of  one,  and 
the  modesty  of  another,  and  the  liber- 
ality of  a  third,  and  some  other  good 
quality  of  a  fourth.  For  nothing  de- 
lights so  much  as  the  examples  of  the 
virtues,  when  they  are  exhibited  in 
the  morals  of  those  who  live  with  us 
and  present  themselves  in  abundance, 
as  far  as  is  possible.  Wherefore  we 
must  keep  them  before  us."  Yet  how 
often  we  know  merely  the  sight  of 
those  we  call  our  friends,  or  the  sound 
of  their  voices,  but  nothing  whatever 
of  their  mind  or  soul. 

We  must,  moreover,  be  as  careful 
to  keep  friends  as  to  make  them. 
The  affections  should  not  be  mere 
"  tents  of  a  night."  Friendship  gives 
no  privilege  to  make  ourselves  disa- 
greeable. Some  people  never  seem 
to  appreciate  their  friends  till  they 
have  lost  them.  Anaxagoras  de- 
scribed the  Mausoleum  as  the  ghost 
of  wealth  turned  into  stone. 

"  But  he  who  has  once  stood  beside 
the  grave  to  look  back  on  the  compan- 
ionship which  has  been  forever  closed, 
feeling  how  impotent  then  are  the 
wild  love  and  the  keen  sorrow,  to 
give  one  instant's  pleasure  to  the 
pulseless  heart,  or  atone  in  the  low- 
est measure  to  the  departed  spirit  for 
the  hour  of  unkindness,  will  scarcely 
for  the  future  incur  that  debt  to  the 
heart  which  can  only  be  discharged 
to  the  dust."  * 

Death,  indeed,  cannot  sever  friend- 
ship. "Friends,  though  absent,  are 
still  present,  though  in  poverty  they 
are  rich;  though  weak,  yet  in  the 
enjoyment  of  health ;  and  what  is 
still  more  difficult  to  assert,  though 
dead  they  are  alive."  This  seems  a 
paradox,  yet  is  there  not  much  truth 
in  his  explanation  ?  "  To  me,  indeed, 
Scipio  still  lives,  and  will  always  live  ; 
for  I  love  .the  virtue  of  that  man,  and 
that  worth  is  not  yet  extinguished. 
.  .  .  Assuredly  of  all  things  that 
either  fortune  or  time  has  bestowed 
on  me,  I  have  none  which  I  can  com- 
pare with  the  friendship  of  Scipio." 

If,  then,  we  choose  our  friends  for 

»  Ruskin. 


what  they  are,  not  for  what  they  have, 
and  if  we  deserve  so  great  a  blessing, 
then  they  will  be  always  with  us, 
preserved  in  absence,  and  even  after 
death  in  the  "  amber  of  memory." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE   VALUE   OF   TIME.f 
Each  day  is  a  little  life. 

ALL  other  good  gifts  depend  on 
time  for  their  value.  What  are 
friends,  books,  or  health,  the  interest 
of  travel  or  the  delights  of  home,  if 
we  have  not  time  for  their  enjoyment  ? 
Time  is  often  said  to  be  money,  but 
it  is  more — it  is  life  ;  and  yet  many 
who  would  cling  desperately  to  life, 
think  nothing  of  wasting  time. 

Ask  of  the  wise,  says  Schiller  in 
Lord  Sherbrooke's  translation, 

"  The  moments  we  forego 
Eternity  itself  cannot  retrieve." 

And  in  the  words  of  Dante, 

"  For  who  knows   most,  him  loss  of  time 
most  grieves." 

Not  that  a  life  of  drudgery  should  be 
our  ideal.  Far  from  it.  Time  spent 
in  innocent  and  rational  enjoyments, 
in  social  and  family  intercourse,  in 
healthy  games,  is  well  and  wisely 
spent.  Games  not  only  keep  the 
body  in  health,  but  give  a  command 
over  the  muscles  and  limbs  which 
cannot  be  over-valued.  Moreover, 
there  are  temptations  which  strong 
exercise  best  enables  us  to  resist. 

It  is  generally  the  idle  who  com- 
plain they  cannot  find  time  to  do  that 
which  they  fancy  they  wish.  In 
truth,  people  can  generally  find  time 
for  what  they  choose  to  do  ;  it  is  not 
really  the  time  but  the  will  that  is 
wanting  :  and  the  advantage  of  leis- 
ure is  mainly  that  we  may  have  the 
power  of  choosing  our  own  work  ;  not 


t  The  substance  of  this  was  delivered  at 
the  Polytechnic  Institution. 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


certainly  that  it  confers  any  privilege 
of  idleness. 

For  it  is  not  so  much  the  hours 
that  tell  as  the  way  we  use  them. 

"Circles  are  praised,  not  that  excel 
In  largeness,  but  th'  exactly  framed ; 
So  life  we  praise,  that  does  excel 
Not  in  much  time,  but  acting  well."  * 

"Idleness,"  says  Jeremy  Taylor, 
"  is  the  greatest  prodigality  in  the 
world  ;  it  throws  away  that  which  is 
invaluable  in  respect  of  its  present 
use,  and  irreparable  when  it  is  past, 
being  to  be  recovered  by  no  power  of 
art  or  nature." 

"A  counted  number  of  pulses 
only,"  says  Pater,  "is  given  to  us 
of  a  variegated  aromatic  life.  How 
may  we  see  in  them  all  that  is  to  be 
seen  in  them  by  the  finest  senses  ? 
How  can  we  pass  most  swiftly  from 
point  to  point,  and  be  present  always 
at  the  focus  where  the  greatest  num- 
ber of  vital  forces  unite  in  their  pur- 
est energy  ? 

"  To  burn  always  with  this  hard 
gem-like  flame,  to  maintain  this  ecs- 
tasy, is  success  in  life.  Failure  is  to 
form  habits ;  for  habit  is  relation  to  a 
stereotyped  world  .  .  .  while  all  melts 
under  our  feet,  we  may  well  catch  at 
any  exquisite  passion,  or  any  contri- 
bution to  knowledge  that  seems,  by  a 
lifted  horizon,  to  set  the  spirit  free 
for  a  moment." 

I  would  not  quote  Lord  Chester- 
field as  generally  a  safe  guide,  but 
there  is  certainly  much  shrewd  wis- 
dom in  his  advice  to  his  son  with 
reference  to  time.  "  Every  moment 
you  now  lose,  is  so  much  character 
and  advantage  lost;  as,  on  the  other 
hand,  every  moment  you  now  employ 
usefully,  is  so  much  time  wisely  laid 
out,  at  prodigious  interest." 

And  again,  "  It  is  astonishing  that 
any  one  can  squander  away  in  abso- 
lute idleness'  one  single  moment  of 
that  small  portion  of  time  which  is 
allotted  to  us  in  the  world.  .  .  .  Know 
the  true  value  of  time ;  snatch,  seize, 
and  enjoy  every  moment  of  it." 


"  Are  you  in  earnest  ?  seize  this  very  minute 
What  you  can  do,  or  think  you  can  begin 
it."t 

I  remember,  says  Hillard,  "  a  satir- 
ical poem,  in  which  the  devil  is  rep- 
resented as  fishing  for  men,  and  adapt- 
ing his  bait  to  the  tastes  and  temper- 
aments of  his  prey;  but  the  idlers 
were  the  easiest  victims,  for  they 
swallowed  even  the  naked  hook." 
The  mind  of  the  idler  indeed  preys 
upon  itself. 

"  The  human  heart  is  like  a  mill- 
stone in  a  mill ;  when  you  put  wheat 
under  it,  it  turns  and  grinds  and 
bruises  the  wheat  to  flour ;  if  you  put 
no  wheat,  it  still  grinds  on — and 
grinds  itself  away."  t 

It  is  not  work,  but  care,  that  kills, 
and  it  is  in  this  sense,  I  suppose,  that 
we  are  told  to  "  take  no  thought  for 
the  morrow."  To  "  consider  the 
lilies  of  the  field,  how  they  grow; 
they  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin : 
and  yet  even  Solomon,  in  all  his  glory, 
was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these. 
Wherefore,  if  God  so  clothe  the  grass 
of  the  field,  which  to-day  is,  and  to- 
morrow is  cast  into  the  oven,  shall  he 
not  much  more  clothe  you,  O  ye  of 
little  faith  ? "  It  would  indeed  be  a 
mistake  to  suppose  that  the  lilies  are 
idle  or  imprudent.  On  the  contrary, 
like  all  plants,  they  are  most  indus- 
trious, and  store  up  in  their  complex 
bulbs  a  great  part  of  the  nourishment 
of  one  year  to  quicken  the  growth  of 
the  next.  Care,  on  the  other  hand, 
they  certainly  know  not.§ 

Wasted  time  is  worse  than  no  time 
at  all ;  "  I  wasted  time,"  says  Richard 
II.,  "  and  now  doth  time  waste  me." 

"  Hours  have  wings,  fly  up  to  the 
author  of  time,  and  carry  news  of  our 
usage.  All  our  prayers  cannot  en- 
treat one  of  them  either  to  return  or 
slacken  his  pace."  "The  misspents 
of  every  minute  are  a  new  record 


*  Waller. 


t  Faust. 

J  Luther. 

§  The  word  used  ftcpifivf/ffirre  is  translated 
in  Liddell  and  Scott  "  to  be  anxious  about, 
to  be  distressed  in  mind,  to  be  cumbered 
with  many  cares." 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


against  us  in  heaven.  Sure  if  we 
thought  thus,  we  should  dismiss  them 
with  better  reports,  and  not  suffer 
them  to  fly  away  empty,  or  laden  with 
dangerous  intelligence.  How  happy 
is  it  when  they  carry  up  not  only  the 
message,  but  the  fruits  of  good,  and 
stay  with  the  Ancient  of  Days  to 
speak  for  us  before  His  glorious 
throne ! "  * 

"  He  that  is  choice  of  his  time," 
says  Jeremy  Taylor,  "will  also  be 
choice  of  his  company,  and  choice  of 
his  actions  ;  lest  the  first  engage  him 
in  vanity  and  loss,  and  the  latter,  by 
being  criminal,  be  a  throwing  his 
time  and  himself  away,  and  a  going 
back  in  the  accounts  of  eternity."  f 

If  we  deduct  the  time  required  for 
sleep,  for  meals,  for  dressing  and  un- 
dressing, for  exercise,  etc.,  how  little 
of  our  life  is  really  at  our  own  dis- 
posal ! 

"I  have  lived,"  said  Lamb,  "nom- 
inally fifty  years,  but  deduct  from 
them  the  hours  I  have  lived  for  other 
people,  and  not  for  myself,  and  you 
will  find  me  still  a  young  fellow." 

It  is  not,  however,  the  hours  we  live 
for  other  people  which  should  be 
deducted,  but  those  which  benefit 
neither  one's  self  nor  anyone  else ;  and 
these,  alas  !  are  often  very  numerous 

It  is  wonderful,  indeed,  how  much 
innocent  happiness  we  thoughtlessly 
throw  away.  An  Eastern  proverb 
says  that  calamities  sent  by  heaven 
may  be  avoided,  but  from  those  we 
bring  on  ourselves  there  is  no  escape 

Some  years  ago  I  paid  a  visit  to 
the  principal  lake  villages  of  Switzer- 
land in  company  with  a  distinguished 
archaeologist,  M.  Morlot.  To  my 
surprise  I  found  that  his  whole  in- 
come was  ;£ioo  a  year,  part  of  which, 
moreover,  he  spent  in  making  a  small 
museum.  I  asked  him  whether  he 
contemplated  accepting  any  post  or 
office,  but  he  said  certainly  not.  He 
valued  his  leisure  and  opportunities 
as  priceless  possessions  far  more  than 


*  Milton. 
tjiremy  Taylor. 


silver  or  gold,  and  would  not  wast* 
any  of  his  time  in  making  money. 

Just  think  of  our  advantages  here 
in  London  !  We  have  access  to  the 
whole  literature  of  the  world ;  we  may 
see  in  our  National  Gallery  the  most 
beautiful  productions  of  former  gener- 
ations, and  in  the  Royal  Academy  and 
other  galleries  works  of  the  greatest 
living  artists.  Perhaps  there  is  no 
one  who  has  ever  found  time  to  see 
the  British  Museum  thoroughly.  Yet 
consider  what  it  contains  ;  or  rather, 
what  does  it  not  contain  ?  The  most 
gigantic  of  living  and  extinct  animals, 
the  marvelous  monsters  of  geological 
ages,  the  most  beautiful  birds  and 
shells  and  minerals,  the  most  interest- 
ing antiquities,  curious  and  fantastic 
specimens  illustrating  different  races 
of  men  ;  exquisite  gems,  coins,  glass, 
and  china ;  the  Elgin  marbles,  the 
remains  of  the  Mausoleum  ;  of  the 
temple  of  Diana  of  Ephesus  ;  ancient 
monuments  of  Egypt  and  Assyria; 
the  rude  implements  of  our  predeces- 
sors in  England,  who  were  coeval 
with  the  hippopotamus  and  rhinoc- 
eros, the  musk-ox,  and  the  mammoth  ; 
and  beautiful  specimens  of  Greek  and 
Roman  art.  In  London  we  may  un- 
avoidably suffer,  but  no  one  has  any 
excuse  for  being  dull. 

And  yet  some  people  are  dull. 
They  talk  of  a  better  world  to  come, 
while  whatever  dulness  there  may  be 
here  is  all  their  own.  Sir  Arthur 
Helps  has  well  said:  "What!  dull, 
when  you  do  not  know  what  gives  its 
loveliness  of  form  to  the  lily,  its  depth 
of  color  to  the  violet,  its  fragrance  to 
the  rose ;  when  you  do  not  know  in 
what  consists  the  venom  of  the  adder, 
any  more  than  you  can  imitate  the 
glad  movements  of  the  dove.  What ! 
dull,  when  earth,  air,  and  water  are 
all  alike  mysteries  to  you,  and  when 
as  you  stretch  out  your  hand  you  do 
not  touch  anything  the  properties  of 
which  you  have  mastered  ;  while  all 
the  time  Nature  is  inviting  you  to 
talk  earnestly  with  her,  to  understand 
her,  to  subdue  her,  and  to  be  blessed 
by  her  !  Go  away,  man  ;  learn  some- 
thing, do  something,  understand  some- 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


thing,  and  let  me  hear  no  more  of 
your  dulness." 

Time,  indeed,  is  a  sacred  gift,  and 
each  day  is  a  little  life. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE   PLEASURES   OF  TRAVEL.* 

"  I  am  a  part  of  all  that  I  have  seen." 

TENNYSON. 

I  AM  sometimes  disposed  to  think 
that  there  are  few  things  in  which  we 
of  this  generation  enjoy  greater  ad- 
vantages over  our  ancestors  than  in 
the  increased  facilities  of  travel ;  but 
I  hesitate  to  say  this,  not  because 
our  advantages  are  not  great,  but  be- 
cause I  have  already  made  the  same 
remark  with  reference  to  several  other 
aspects  of  life. 

The  very  word  "  travel "  is  suggest- 
ive. It  is  a  form  of  "  travail  "  —  ex- 
cessive labor ;  and,  as  Skeat  observes, 
it  forcibly  recalls  the  toil  of  travel  in 
olden  days.  How  different  things  are 
now! 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  every  one 
should  travel  on  foot  "like  Thales, 
Plato,  and  Pythagoras  "  ;  we  are  told 
that  in  these  days  of  railroads  people 
rush  through  countries  and  see  noth- 
ing. It  may  be  so,  but  that  is  not 
the  fault  of  the  railways.  They  con- 
fer upon  us  the  inestimable  advantage 
of  being  able,  so  rapidly  and  with  so 
little  fatigue,  to  visit  countries  which 
were  much  less  accessible  to  our  an- 
cestors. What  a  blessing  it  is  that 
not  our  own  islands  only — our  smiling 
fields  and  rich  woods,  the  mountains 
that  are  full  of  peace  and  the  rivers 
of  joy,  the  lakes  and  heather  and  hills, 
castles  and  cathedrals,  and  many  a 
spot  immortalized  in  the  history  of 
our  country — but  the  sun  and  scenery 
of  the  South,  the  Alps,  the  palaces  of 
Nature,  the  blue  Mediterranean,  the 
cities  of  Europe,  with  all  their  mem- 


*  The  substance  of  this  was  delivered  at 
Oldham. 


ones  and  treasures,  are  now  brought 
within  a  few  hours  of  us.  Surely  no 
one  who  has  the  opportunity  should 
omit  to  travel.  The  world  belongs 
to  him  who  has  seen  it. 

Bacon  tells  us  that  "  the  things  to 
be  seen  and  observed  are  the  courts 
of  princes,  especially  when  they  give 
audience  to  ambassadors  ;  the  courts 
of  justice  while  they  sit  and  hear 
causes ;  and  so  of  consistories  eccle- 
siastic ;  the  churches  and  monasteries, 
with  the  monuments  which  are  therein 
extant ;  the  walls  and  fortifications 
of  cities  and  towns  ;  and  so  the  havens 
and  harbors,  antiquities  and  ruins, 
libraries,  colleges,  disputations  and 
lectures  when  any  are ;  shipping  and 
navies ;  houses  and  gardens  of  state 
and  pleasure  near  great  cities  ;  armo- 
ries, arsenals,  magazines,  exchanges, 
burses,  warehouses,  exercises  of  horse- 
manship, fencing,  training  of  soldiers, 
and  the  like  ;  comedies,  such  where- 
unto  the  better  sort  of  persons  do 
resort ;  treasuries  of  jewels  and  robes ; 
cabinets  and  rarities;  and,  to  con- 
clude, whatsoever  is  memorable  in  the 
places  where  they  go." 

But  this  depends  on  the  time  at 
our  disposal,  and  the  object  with 
which  we  travel.  If  we  can  stay  long 
in  any  one  place,  Bacon's  advice  is 
no  doubt  excellent ;  but  for  the  mo- 
ment I  am  thinking  rather  of  an  an- 
nual holiday,  taken  for  the  sake  of 
rest  and  health  ;  for  fresh  air  and  ex- 
ercise rather  than  for  study.  Yet 
even  so,  if  we  have  eyes  to  see,  we 
cannot  fail  to  lay  in  a  stock  of  new 
ideas  as  well  as  a  store  of  health. 

We  may  have  read  the  most  vivid 
and  accurate  description,  we  may 
have  pored  over  maps  and  plans  and 
pictures,  and  yet  the  reality  will  burst 
on  us  like  a  revelation.  This  is  true 
not  only  of  mountains  and  glaciers, 
of  palaces  and  cathedrals,  but  even 
of  the  simplest  examples. 

For  instance,  like  every  one  else, 
I  had  read  descriptions  and  seen  pho- 
tographs and  pictures  of  the  Pyramids. 
Their  form  is  simplicity  itself.  I  do 
not  know  that  I  could  put  into  words 
any  characteristic  of  the  original  for 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


which  I  was  not  prepared.  It  was 
not  that  they  were  larger ;  it  was  not 
that  they  differed  in  form,  in  color, 
or  situation.  And  yet,  the  moment  I 
saw  them,  I  felt  that  my  previous  im- 
pression had  been  but  a  faint  shadow 
of  the  reality.  The  actual  sight 
seemed  to  give  life  to  the  idea. 

Every  one,  I  think,  who  has  been 
in  the  East  will  agree  that  a  week  of 
oriental  travel  seems  to  bring  out, 
with  more  than  stereoscopic  effect, 
the  pictures  of  patriarchal  life  as 
given  us  in  the  Old  Testament.  And 
what  is  true  of  the  Old  Testament  is 
true  of  history  generally.  To  those 
who  have  been  in  Athens  or  Rome, 
the  history  of  Greece  or  Italy  be- 
comes far  more  interesting;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  some  knowledge  of 
the  history  and  literature  enormously 
enhances  the  interest  of  the  scenes 
themselves. 

Good  descriptions  and  pictures, 
however,  help  us  to  see  much  more 
than  we  should  perhaps  perceive  for 
ourselves.  It  may  even  be  doubted 
whether  some  persons  do  not  derive 
a  more  correct  impression  from  a 
good  drawing  or  description,  which 
brings  out  the  salient  points,  than 
they  would  from  actual,  but  unaided, 
inspection.  The  idea  may  gain  in 
accuracy,  in  character,  and  even  in 
detail,  more  than  it  misses  in  vivid- 
ness. But,  however  this  may  be,  for 
those  who  cannot  travel,  descriptions 
and  pictures  have  an  immense  in- 
terest ;  while  to  those  who  have  trav- 
elled, they  will  afford  an  inexhaust- 
ible delight  in  reviving  the  memories 
of  beautiful  scenes  and  interesting 
expeditions. 

It  is  really  astonishing  how  little 
most  of  us  see  of  the  beautiful  world 
in  which  we  live.  Mr.  Norman  Lock- 


saw,  surprised  to  find  me  here.  The 
fact  is,  that  some  months  ago  I  was 
very  ill.  My  physicians  gave  me  up, 
and  one  morning  I  seemed  to  faint 
and  thought  that  I  was  already  in  the 
arms  of  the  Bon  Dieu,  and  I  fancied 
the  angels  came  and  asked  me, 
'  Well,  M.  1'Abbe,  and  how  did  you 
like  the  beautiful  world  you  have  just 
left  ? '  And  then  it  occurred  to  me 
that  I  who  had  been  all  my  life 
preaching  about  heaven  had  seen 
almost  nothing  of  the  world  in 
which  I  was  living.  I  determined 
therefore,  if  it  pleased  Providence  to 
spare  me,  to  see  something  of  this 
world  ;  and  so  here  I  am." 

Few  of  us  are  free,  however  much 
we  might  wish  it,  to  follow  the  exam- 
ple of  the  worthy  Abbs'.  But  al- 
though it  may  not  be  possible  for  us 
to  visit  the  Rocky  Mountains,  there 
are  other  countries  nearer  home 
which  most  of  us  might  find  time  to 
visit. 

Though  it  is  true  that  no  descrip- 
tions can  come  near  the  reality,  they 
may  at  least  persuade  us  to  give  our- 
selves this  great  advantage.  Let  me 
then  try  to  illustrate  this  by  pictures 
in  words,  as  realized  by  some  of  our 
most  illustrious  countrymen ;  I  will 
select  references  to  foreign  countries 
only,  not  that  we  have  not  equal  beau- 
ties here,  but  because  everywhere  in 
England  one  feels  one's  self  at  home. 

The  following  passage  from  Tyn- 
dall's  Hours  of  Exercise  in  the  Alps,  is 
almost  as  good  a$  an  hour  in  the  Alps 
itself  : 

"  I  looked  over  this  wondrous 
scene  towards  Mont  Blanc,  the  Grand 
Combin,  the  Dent  Blanche,  the  Weiss- 
horn,  the  Dom,  and  the  thousand 
lesser  peaks  which  seemed  to  join  in 
the  celebration  of  the  risen  day,  I 


yer  tells  us  that  while  traveling  on  a  |  asked  myself,  as   on   previous   occa- 

scientific  mission  in  the  Rocky  Moun- 1  sions,   How   was  this   colossal    work 

tains,  he  was  astonished  to  meet  an   performed  ?      Who     chiselled    these 

aged    French   Abbe,   and   could   not  mighty  and   picturesque   masses   out 

help  showing  his  surprise.     The  Ab-  of     a     mere     protuberance     of     the 

be  observed  this,  and  in  the  course  ;  earth  ?    And  the  answer  was  at  hand. 

conversation   explained   his  pres- '  Ever  young,  ever   mighty— with   the 

ence  in  that  distant  region.  \  vigor  of  a  thousand  worlds  still  within 

You  were,"  he  said,   "  J   easily  him— the  real  sculptor  was  even  then. 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


29 


climbing  up  the  eastern  sky.  It  was 
he  who  raised  aloft  the  waters  which 
cut  out  these  ravines ;  it  was  he  who 
planted  the  glaciers  on  the  mountain- 
slopes,  thus  giving  gravity  a  plough 
to  open  out  the  valleys  ;  and  it  is  he 
who,  acting  through  the  ages,  will 
finally  lay  low  those  mighty  monu- 
ments, rolling  them  gradually  sea- 
ward, sowing  the  seeds  of  continents 
to  be  ;  so  that  the  people  of  an  older 
earth  may  see  mould  spread,  and 
corn  wave  over  the  hidden  rocks 
which  at  this  moment  bear  the  weight 
of  the  Jungfrau."  And  the  Alps  lie 
within  twenty-four  hours  of  London. 

His  writings  also  contain  many 
vivid  descriptions  of  the  glaciers, 
those  "  silent  and  solemn  causeways 
.  .  .  broad  enough  for  the  march  of 
an  army  in  line  of  battle  and  quiet  as 
a  street  of  tombs  in  a  buried  city."  * 
I  do  not,  however,  borrow  from  him 
or  from  any  one  else  any  description 
of  glaciers,  for  they  are  so  unlike  any- 
thing else  that  no  one  who  has  not 
seen  them  can  possibly  visualize 
them. 

The  history  of  European  rivers  yet 
remains  to  be  written,  and  is  most 
interesting.  They  did  not  always  run 
in  their  present  courses.  The  Rhone, 
for  instance,  appears  to  have  been 
itself  a  great  traveler.  At  least  there 
seems  reason  to  believe  that  the 
upper  waters  of  the  Valais  fell  at 
first  into  the  Danube,  and  so  into 
the  Black  Sea;  and  subsequently 
joined  the  Rhine,  and  so  ran  far 
north  to  the  Arctic  Ocean,  over  the 
plains  which  once  connected  the 
mountains  of  Scotland,  and  of  Nor- 
way, before  they  adopted  their  present 
course  into  the  Mediterranean.  But, 
however  this  may  be,  the  Rhine  of 
Germany  and  the  Rhine  of  Switzer- 
land are  very  unlike.  The  catastro- 
phe »f  Schaffhausen  seems  to  alter 
the  whole  character  of  the  river,  and 
no  wonder. 

"  Stand  for  half  an  hour  beside  the 
Fall  of  Schaffhausen,  on  the  north 
side  where  the  rapids  are  long,  and 

*  Ruskin. 


watch  how  the  vault  of  water  first 
bends,  unbroken,  in  pure  polished 
velocity,  over  the  arching  rocks  at  the 
brow  of  the  cataract,  covering  them 
with  a  dome  of  crystal  twenty  feet 
thick,  so  swift  that  its  motion  is  un- 
een,  except  when  a  foam  globe  from 
above  darts  over  it  like  a  falling  star ; 
.  .  .  and  how  ever  and  anon,  start- 
ling you  with  its  white  flash,  a  jet  of 
spray  leaps  hissing  out  of  the  fall,  like 
a  rocket,  bursting  in  the  wind  and 
driven  away  in  dust,  filling  the  air 
with  light;  and  how,  through  the 
curdling  wreaths  of  the  restless  crush- 
ing abyss  below,  the  blue  of  the 
water,  paled  by  the  foam  in  its  body, 
shows  purer  than  the  sky  through 
white  rain  cloud  ;  .  .  .  their  dripping 
masses  lifted  at  intervals,  like  sheaves 
of  loaded  corn,  by  some  stronger 
gush  from  the  cataract,  and  bowed 
again  upon  the  mossy  rocks  as  its 
roar  dies  away."  t 

But  however  much  we  may  admire 
the  majestic  grandeur  of  a  mighty 
river,  either  in  its  eager  rush  or  its 
calmer  moments,  there  is  something 
which  fascinates  even  more  in  the 
free  life,  the  young  energy,  the  spark- 
ling transparency,  and  merry  music  of 
smaller  streams. 

"  The  upper  Swiss  valleys,"  as  the 
same  great  "  seer  "  says,  "  are  sweet 
with  perpetual  streamlets,  that  seem 
always  to  have  chosen  the  steepest 
places  to  come  down,  for  the  sake  of 
the  leaps,  scattering  their  handfuls  of 
crystal  this  way  and  that,  as  the  wind 
takes  them,  with  all  the  grace,  but 
with  none  of  the  formalism,  of  foun- 
tains .  .  .  until  at  last  .  .  .  they  find 
their  way  down  to  the  turf,  and  lose 
themselves  in  that,  silently;  with 
quiet  depth  of  clear  water  furrowing 
among  the  grass  blades,  and  looking 
only  like  their  shadow,  but  presently 
emerging  again  in  little  startled 
gushes  and  laughing  hurries,  as  if 
they  had  remembered  suddenly  that 
the  day  was  too  short  for  them  to  get 
down  the  hill." 

How  vividly  does   Symonds  bring 

t  Ruskin. 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


before  us  the  sunny  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean,  which  he  loves  so 
well,  and  the  contrast  between  the 
scenery  of  the  South  and  the  North. 

"  In  northern  landscapes  the  eye 
travels  through  vistas  of  leafy  boughs 
to  still,  secluded  crofts  and  pastures, 
where  slow-moving  oxen  graze.  The 
mystery  of  dreams  and  the  repose  of 
meditation  haunt  our  massive  bowers. 
But  in  the  South,  the  lattice-work  of 
olive  boughs  and  foliage  scarcely  veils 
the  laughing  sea  and  bright  blue  sky, 
while  the  hues  of  the  landscape  find 
their  climax  in  the  dazzling  radiance 
of  the  sun  upon  the  waves>  and  the 
pure  light  of  the  horizon.  There  is 
no  concealment  aud  no  melancholy 
here.  Nature  seems  to  hold  a  never 
endmg  festival  and  dance,  in  which 
the  waves  and  sunbeams  and  shad- 
ows join.  Again,  in  northern  scenery 
the  rounded  forms  of  full-foliaged 
trees  suit  the  undulating  country, 
with  its  gentle  hills  and  brooding 
clouds;  but  in  the  South  the  spiky 
leaves  and  sharp  branches  of  the 
olive  carry  out  the  defined  outlines 
which  are  everywhere  observable 
through  the  broader  beauties  of 
mountain  and  valley  and  sea-shore. 
Serenity  and  intelligence  characterize 
this  southern  landscape,  in  which  a 
race  of  splendid  men  and  women 
lived  beneath  the  pure  light  of  Phoe- 
bus, their  ancestral  god.  Pallas  pro- 
tected them,  aud  golden  Aphrodite' 
favored  them  with  beauty.  Olives 
are  not,  however,  by  any  means  the 
only  trees  which  play  a  part  in  idyllic 
scenery.  The  tall  stone  pine  is  even 
more  important.  .  .  .  Near  Massa, 
by  Sorrento,  there  are  two  gigantic 
pines  so  placed  that,  lying  on  the 
grass  beneath  them,  one  looks  on 
Capri,  rising  from  the  sea,  Baiae,  and 
all  the  bay  of  Naples  sweeping  round 
to  the  base  of  Vesuvius.  Tangled 
growths  of  olives,  oranges,  and  rose- 
trees  fill  the  garden-ground  along  the 
shore,  while  far  away  in  the  distance 
pale  Inarime  sleeps,  with  her  ex- 
quisite Greek  name,  a  virgin  island  on 
the  deep. 

"  On    the   wilder    hills    you    find 


patches  of  ilex  and  arbutus  glowing 
with  crimson  berries  and  white  waxen 
bells,  sweet  myrtle  rods  and  shafts  of 
bay,  frail  tamarisk  and  tall  tree 
heaths  that  wave  their  frosted  boughs 
above  your  head.  Nearer  the  shore 
the  lentisk  grows,  a  savory  shrub, 
with  cytisus  and  aromatic  rosemary. 
Clematis  and  polished  garlands  of 
tough  sarsaparilla  wed  the  shrubs 
with  clinging,  climbing  arms ;  and 
here  and  there  in  sheltered  nooks  the 
vine  shoots  forth  luxuriant  tendrils 
bowed  with  grapes,  stretching  from 
branch  to  branch  of  mulberry  or  elm, 
flinging  festoons  on  which  young 
loves  might  sit  and  swing,  or  weaving 
a  lattice-work  of  leaves  across  the 
open  shed.  Nor  must  the  sounds  of 
this  landscape  be  forgotten, — sounds 
of  bleating  flocks,  and  murmuring 
bees,  and  nightingales,  and  doves 
that  moan,  and  running  streams,  and 
shrill  cicadas,  and  hoarse  frogs,  and 
whispering  pines.  There  is  not  a 
single  detail  which  a  patient  student 
may  not  verify  from  Theocritus. 

"Then  too  it  is  a  landscape  in 
which  sea  and  country  are  never  sun- 
dered. The  higher  we  climb  upon 
the  mountain  side  the  more  marvelous 
is  the  beauty  of  the  sea,  which  seems 
to  rise  as  we  ascend,  and  stretch  into 
the  sky.  Sometimes  a  little  flake  of 
blue  is  framed  by  olive  boughs,  some- 
times a  turning  in  the  road  reveals 
the  whole  broad  azure  calm  below. 
Or,  after  toiling  up  a  steep  ascent  we 
fall  upon  the  undergrowth  of  juniper, 
and  lo  !  a  double  sea,  this  way  and 
that,  divided  by  the  sharp  spine  of 
the  jutting  hill,  jewelled  with  villages 
along  its  shore,  and  smiling  with  fair 
islands  and  silver  sails." 

To  many  of  us  the  mere  warmth  of 
the  South  is  a  blessing  and  a  delight. 
The  very  thought  of  it  is  delicious. 
I  have  read  over  again  and  again  Wal- 
lace's graphic  description  of  a  tropical 
morning — "The  sun  of  the  early 
morning  that  turneth  all  into  gold."  * 

"  Up  to  about  a  quarter  past  five 
o'clock,"  says  Wallace,  "  the  darkness 


*  Morris. 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


is  complete ;  but  about  that  a  few 
cries  of  birds  begin  to  break  the 
silence  of  night,  perhaps  indicating 
that  signs  of  dawn  are  perceptible  in 
the  eastern  horizon.  A  little  later 
the  melancholy  voices  of  the  goat- 
suckers are  heard,  varied  croakings 
of  frogs,  the  plaintive  whistle  of 
mountain  thrushes,  and  strange  cries 
of  birds  or  mammals  peculiar  to  each 
locality.  About  half-past  five  the  first 
glimmer  of  light  becomes  perceptible  ; 
it  slowly  becomes  lighter,  and  then  in- 
creases so  rapidly  that  at  about  a 
quarter  to  six  it  seems  full  daylight, 
For  the  next  quarter  of  an  hour  this 
changes  very  little  in  character; 
when,  suddenly,  the  sun's  rim  appears 
above  the  horizon,  decking  the  dew- 
laden  foliage  with  glittering  gems, 
sending  gleams  of  golden  light  far 
into  the  woods,  and  waking  up  all 
nature  to  life  and  activity.  Birds 
chirp  and  flutter  about,  parrots 
scream,  monkeys  chatter,  bees  hum 
among  the  flowers,  and  gorgeous 
butterflies  flutter  lazily  along  or  sit 
with  full  expanded  wings  exposed  to 
the  warm  and  invigorating  rays.  ! 
The  first  hour  of  morning  in  the  j 
equatorial  regions  possesses  a  charm 
and  a  beauty  that  can  never  be  for- 1 
gotten.  All  nature  seems  refreshed  ; 
and  strengthened  by  the  coolness 
and  moisture  of  the  past  ni^ht,  new 
leaves  and  buds  unfold  almost  before 
the  eye,  and  fresh  shoots  may  often 
be  observed  to  have  grown  many 
inches  since  the  preceding  day.  The 
temperature  is  the  most  delicious  con- 
ceivable. The  slight  chill  of  early 
dawn,  which  was  itself  agreeable,  is  ! 
succeeded  by  an  invigorating  warmth  ; 
and  the  intense  sunshine  lights  up 
the  glorious  vegetation  of  the  tropics, 
and  realizes  all  that  the  magic  art  of 
the  painter  or  the  glowing  words  of 
the  poet  have  pictured  as  their  ideals 
of  terrestrial  beauty." 

Or  take  Dean  Stanley's  description 
of  the  colossal  statues  of  Amenophis 
III.,  the  Memnon  of  the  Greeks,  at 
Thebes — "The  sun  was  setting,  the 
African  range  glowed  red  behind 
them  ;  the  green  plain  was  dyed  with 


a  deeper  green  beneath  them,  and 
the  shades  of  evening  veiled  the  vast 
rents  and  fissures  in  their  aged 
frames.  As  I  looked  back  at  them  in 
the  sunset,  and  they  rose  up  in  front 
of  the  background  of  the  mountain, 
they  seemed,  indeed,  as  if  they  were 
part  of  it — as  if  they  belonged  to 
some  natural  creation." 

But  I  must  not  indulge  myself  in 
more  quotations,  though  it  is  difficult 
to  stop.  Such  extracts  recall  the 
memory  of  many  glorious  days;  for 
the  advantages  of  travels  last  through 
life  :  and  often,  as  we  sit  at  home, 
"  some  bright  and  perfect  view  of 
Venice,  of  Genoa,  or  of  Monte  Rosa 
comes  back  on  you,  as  full  of  repose 
as  a  day  wisely  spent  in  travel."  * 

Not  only  does  a  thorough  love  and 
enjoyment  of  traveling  by  no  means 
interfere  with  the  love  of  home,  but 
perhaps  no  one  can  thoroughly  enjoy 
his  home  who  does  not  sometimes 
travel.  They  are  like  exertion  and 
rest,  each  the  complement  of  the 
other;  so  that,  though  it  may  Seem 
paradoxical,  one  of  the  greatest  pleas- 
ures of  travel  is  the  return,  and  no 
one  who  has  not  traveled  can  realize 
the  devotion  which  the  wanderer  feels 
for  Domiduca,  the  sweet  and  gentle 
goddess  who  watches  over  our  com- 
ing home. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE   PLEASURES   OF    HOME. 

"  Outside  fall  the  snowflakes  lightly, 

Through  the  night  loud  raves  the  storm ; 
In  my  room  the  fire  glows  brightly, 
And  'tis  cosy,  silent,  warm." 

HEINE. 

IT  may  well  be  doubted  which  is 
most  delightful, — to  start  for  a  holi- 
day which  has  been  well  earned,  or 
to  return  home  from  one  which  has 
been  thoroughly  enjoyed  ;  to  find  one's 
self,  with  renewed  vigor,  with  a  new 
store  of  memories  and  ideas,  back 
once  more  by  one's  own  fireside, 

*  Helps. 


'BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


with  one's  family,  friends,  and  books. 

"To  sit  at  home,"  says  Leigh 
Hunt,  "with  an  old  folio  (?)  book  of 
romantic  yet  credible  voyages  and 
travels  to  read,  an  old  bearded 
traveler  for  its  hero,  a  fireside  in  an 
old  country  house  to  read  it  by,  cur- 
tains drawn,  and  just  wind  enough 
stirring  out  of  doors  to  make  an  ac- 
companiment to  the  billows  or  forests 
we  are  reading  of — this  surely  is  one 
of  the  perfect  moments  of  existence." 

It  is  no  doubt  a  great  privilege  to 
visit  foreign  countries  ;  to  travel  say 
in  Mexico  or  Peru,  or  to  cruise  among 
the  Pacific  Islands ;  but  in  some  re- 
spects the  narratives  of  early  travel- 
ers, the  histories  of  Prescott  or  the 
voyages  of  Captain  Cook,  are  even 
more  interesting ;  describing  to  us, 
as  they  do,  a  state  of  society  which 
was  then  so  unlike  ours,  but  which 
now  has  been  much  changed  and 
Europeanized. 

Thus  we  may  make  our  daily  travels 
interesting,  even  though,  like  the 
Vicar  of  Wakefield's  family,  all  our 
adventures  are  by  own  fireside,  and 
all  our  migrations  from  one  room  to 
another. 

Moreover,  even  if  the  beauties  of 
home  are  humble,  they  are  still  infi- 
nite, and  a  man  "  may  lie  in  his  bed, 
like  Pompey  and  his  sons,  in  all  quar- 
ters of  the  earth."* 

It  is  no  doubt  very  wise  to  "culti- 
vate a  talent  very  fortunate  for  a  man 
of  my  disposition,  that  of  traveling 
in  my  easy  chair  ;  of  transporting  my- 
self, without  stirring  from  my  parlor, 
to  distant  places  and  to  absent 
friends ;  of  drawing  scenes  in  my 
mind's  eye ;  and  of  peopling  them 
with  the  groups  of  fancy,  or  the  society 
of  remembrance."  f 

We  may  indeed  secure  for  our- 
selves endless  variety  without  leaving 
our  own  firesides. 

In  the  first  place,  the  succession  of 
seasons  multiplies  every  home.  How 
different  is  the  view  from  our  windows 
as  we  look  on  the  tender  green  of 


*  Sir  T.  Browne. 

t  Mackenzie,  The  Lounger. 


spring,  the  rich  foliage  of  summer, 
the  glorious  tints  of  autumn,  or  the 
delicate  tracery  of  winter. 

In  our  happy  climate,  even  in  the 
worst  months  of  the  year,  "calm 
mornings  of  sunshine  visit  us  at  times, 
appearing  like  glimpses  of  departed 
spring  amid  the  wilderness  of  wet  and 
windy  days  that  lead  to  winter.  It  is 
pleasant,  when  these  interludes  of 
silvery  light  occur,  to  ride  into  the 
woods  and  see  how  wonderful  are  all 
the  colors  of  decay.  Overhead,  the 
elms  and  chestnuts  hang  their  wealth 
of  golden  leaves,  while  the  beeches 
darken  into  russet  tones,  and  the  wild 
cherry  glows  like  blood-red  wine.  In 
the  hedges  crimson  haws  and  scarlet 
hips  are  wreathed  with  hoary  clematis 
or  necklaces  of  coral  briony  berries ; 
the  brambles  burn  with  many-colored 
flames  ;  the  dog-wood  is  bronzed  to 
purple ;  and  here  and  there  the 
spindle-wood  puts  forth  its  fruit,  like 
knots  of  rosy  buds,  on  delicate  frail 
twigs.  Underneath  lie  fallen  leaves, 
and  the  brown  brake  rises  to  our 
knees  as  we  thread  the  forest  paths. "t 
Nay,  every  day  gives  us  a  succession 
of  glorious  pictures  in  never-ending 
variety. 

It  is  remarkable  how  few  people 
seem  to  derive  any  pleasure  from  the 
beauty  of  the  sky.  Gray,  after  de- 
scribing a  sunrise — how  it  began  with 
a  slight  "whitening,  then  slightly 
tinged  with  gold  and  blue,  all  at  once 
a  little  line  of  insufferable  brightness 
that,  before  I  can  write  these  five 
words,  was  grown  to  half  an  orb,  and 
now  to  a  whole  one  too  glorious  to 
be  distinctly  seen  " — adds,  "  I  won- 
der whether  any  one  ever  saw  it  be- 
fore. I  hardly  believe  it."  § 

From  the  dawn  of  poetry,  the  splen- 
dors of  the  morning  and  evening 
skies  have  excited  the  admiration  of 
mankind.  But  we  are  especially  in- 
debted to  Ruskin  for  making  us  see 
more  vividly  these  glorious  sky  pict- 
ures. As  he  says,  in  language  al- 


|  J.  A.  Symonds. 
§  Gray's  Letters. 


T.77I  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


33 


most  as  brilliant  as  the  sky  itself,  the 
whole  heaven,  "  from  the  zenith  to 
the  horizon,  becomes  one  molten, 
mantling  sea  of  color  and  fire  ;  every 
black  bar  turns  into  massy  gold, 
every  ripple  and  wave  into  unsullied, 
shadowless  crimson,  and  purple,  and 
scarlet,  and  colors  for  which  there  are 
no  words  in  language,  and  no  ideas 
in  the  mind — things  which  can  only 
be  conceived  while  they  are  visible  ; 
the  intense  hollow  blue  of  the  upper 
sky  melting  through  it  all,  showing 
here  deep  and  pure,  and  lightness; 
there,  modulated  by  the  filmy,  form- 
less body  of  the  transparent  vapor, 
till  it  is  lost  imperceptibly  in  its  crim- 
son and  gold." 

It  is  in  some  cases  indeed  "not 
color  but  conflagration,"  and  though 
the  tints  are  richer  and  more  varied 
towards  morning  and  at  sunset,  the 
glorious  kaleidoscope  goes  on  all  day 
long.  Yet  "  it  is  a  strange  thing  how 
little  in  general  people  know  about 
the  sky.  It  is  the  part  of  creation  in 
which  nature  has  done  more  for  the 
sake  of  pleasing  man,  more  for  the 
sole  and  evident  purpose  of  talking  to 
him  and  teaching  him,  than  in  any 
other  of  her  works,  and  it  is  just  the 
part  in  which  we  least  attend  to  her. 
There  are  not  many  of  her  other 
works  in  which  some  more  material 
or  essential  purpose  than  the  mere 
pleasing  of  man  is  not  answered  by 
every  part  of  their  organization  ;  but 
every  essential  purpose  of  the  sky 
might,  so  far  as  we  know,  be  an- 
swered, if  once  in  three  days,  or  there- 
abouts, a  great,  ugly,  black  rain-cloud 
were  brought  up  over  the  blue,  and 
everything  well  watered,  and  so  all 
left  blue  again  till  next  time,  with 
perhaps  a  film  of  morning  and  even- 
ing mist  for  dew.  And  instead  of 
this,  there  is  not  a  moment  of  any 
day  of  our  lives  when  nature  is  not 
producing  scene  after  scene,  picture 
after  picture,  glory  after  glory,  and 
working  still  upon  such  exquisite  and 
constant  principles  of  the  most  per- 
fect beauty,  that  it  is  quite  certain  it 


is  all  done  for  us,  and  intended  for 
our  perpetual   pleasure."  * 

Nor  does  the  beauty  end  with  the 
day.  For  my  part  I  always  regret  the 
custom  of  shutting  up  our  rooms  in 
the  evening,  as  though  there  was 
nothing  worth  looking  at  outside. 
What,  however,  can  be  more  beauti- 
ful than  to  "  look  how  the  floor  of 
heaven  is  thick  inlaid  with  patines  of 
bright  gold,"  or  to  see  the  moon 
journeying  in  calm  and  silver  glory 
through  the  night ;  and  even  if  we  do 
not  feel  that  "  the  man  who  has  seen 
the  rising  moon  break  out  of  the 
clouds  at  midnight,  has  been  present 
like  an  archangel  at  the  creation  of 
light  and  of  the  world,"  |  still  "  the 
stars  say  something  significant  to  all 
of  us :  and  each  man  has  a  whole 
hemisphere  of  them,  if  he  will  but 
look  up,  to  counsel  and  befriend 
him  "  t  for  it  is  not  so  much,  as  he 
elsewhere  observes,  "  in  guiding  us 
over  the  seas  or  our  little  planet,  but 
out  of  the  dark  waters  of  our  own 
perturbed  minds,  that  we  may  make 
to  ourselves  the  most  of  our  signifi- 
cance." §  Indeed, 

"  How  beautiful  is  night ! 

A  dewy  freshness  fills  the  silent  air  ; 
No  mist  obscures,  nor  cloud,  nor  speck,  nor 
stain 

Breaks  the  serene  of  heaven  : 
In  fuel-orbed  glory  yonder  moon  divine 
Rolls  through  the  dark  blue   depths  ; 
Beneath  her  steady  ray 
The  desert  circle  spreads. 
Like  the  round  ocean,  girdled  with   the  sky, 
How  beautiful  is  night  1"** 

I  have  never  wondered  at  those 
who  worshiped  the  sun  and  moon. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  all  out- 
side is  dark  and  cold  ;  when  perhaps 

"  Outside  fall  the  snowflakes  lightly ; 
Through  the  night  loud  raves  the 

storm  ; 

In  my  room  the  fire  glows  brightly, 
And  'tis  cosy,  silent,  warm. 


*  Ruskin. 
t  Emerson. 
J  Helps. 
§  Ibid. 
**  Southey. 


34 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


"  Musing  sit  I  on  the  settle 

By  the  firelight's  cheerful  blaze, 
Listening  to  the  busy  kettle 

Humming  long-forgotten  lays."* 

For  after  all  the  true  pleasures  of 
home  are  not  without,  but  within,  and 
"  the  domestic  man  who  loves  no 
music  so  well  as  his  own  kitchen 
clock  and  the  airs  which  the  logs 
sing  to  him  as  they  burn  on  the 
hearth,  has  solaces  which  others 
never  dream  of.  "  f 

We  love  the  ticking  of  the  clock, 
and  the  flicker  of  the  fire,  like  the 
sound  of  the  cawing  of  rooks,  not  for 
their  own  sakes,  but  for  their  associa- 
tions. 

It  is  a  great  truth  that  when  we 
retire  into  ourselves  we  can  call  up 
what  memories  we  please. 

"  How  dear  to  this  heart   are   the  scenes  of 

my  childhood, 
When   fond  recollection   recalls   them    to 

view — 
The  orchard,  the  meadow,  the  deep-tangled 

wildwood, 
And  every   lov'd   spot  which  my  infancy 

knew."  J 

It  is  not  so  much  the 

"  Fireside  enjoyments, 
And  all  the  comforts  of  the  lowly  roof,"  § 

but  rather,   according   to  the   higher 
and  better  ideal  of  Keble, 

"  Sweet  is  the  smile  of  home  ;  the  mutual 

look, 

When  hearts  are  of  each  other  sure  ; 
Sweet  all  the  joys  that  crowd  the  household 

nook, 
The  haunt  of  all  affections  pure." 

In  ancient  times,  not  only  among 
savage  races,  but  even  among  the 
Greeks  themselves,  there  seems  to 
have  been  but  little  family  life. 

What  a  contrast  is  the  home  life  of 
the  Greeks,  as  it  seems  to  have  been, 
to  that  described  by  Cowley — a  home 
happy  "in  books  and  gardens,"  and 
above  all,  in  a 


*  Heine,  trans,  by  E.  A  Browning. 

Emerson, 
t   Woodworth. 
§  Cowpen 


"  Virtuous  wife,  where  thou  again  dost 

meet 

Both  pleasures  more  refined  and  sweet ; 
The  fairest  garden  in  her  looks, 
And  in  her  mind  the  wisest  books." 

No  one  who  has  ever  loved  mother 
or  wife,  sister  or  daughter,  can  read 
without  astonishment  and  pity  St. 
Chrysostom's  description  of  woman 
as  "  a  necessary  evil,  a  natural  temp- 
tation, a  desirable  calamity,  a  domes- 
tic peril,  a  deadly  fascination,  and  a 
painted  ill." 

In  few  respects  has  mankind  made 
a  greater  advance  than  in  the  rela- 
tions of  men  and  women.  It  is  terri- 
ble to  think  how  women  suffer  in  sav- 
age life  ;  and  even  among  the  intel- 
lectual Greeks,  with  rare  exceptions, 
they  seem  to  have  been  treated  rather 
as  housekeepers  or  playthings  than  as 
the  angels  of  home. 

The  Hindoo  proverb  that  you 
should  "  never  strike  a  wife,  even 
with  a  flower,"  though  a  considerable 
advance,  tells  a  melancholy  tale  of 
what  must  previously  have  been. 

In  The  Origin  of  Civilization  I  have 
given  many  cases  showing  how  small 
a  part  family  affection  plays  in  savage 
life.  Here  I  will  only  mention  one 
case  in  illustration.  The  Algonquin 
(North  America)  language  contained 
no  word  for  "  to  love,"  so  that  when 
the  missionaries  translated  the  Bible 
into  it  they  were  obliged  to  invent 
one.  What  a  life  !  and  what  a  lan- 
guage without  love  ! 

Yet  in  marriage  even  the  rough 
passion  of  a  savage  may  contrast 
favorably  with  any  cold  calculation, 
which  is  almost  sure,  like  the  en- 
chanted hoard  of  the  Nibelungs,  to 
bring  misfortune.  In  the  Finnish 
epic,  the  Kalevala,  Ilmarinnen,  the 
divine  smith,  forges  a  bride  of  gold 
and  silver  for  Wainamoinen,  who  was 
pleased  at  first  to  have  so  rich  a  wife, 
but  soon  found  her  intolerably  cold, 
for,  in  spite  of  fires  and  furs,  when- 
ever he  touched  her  she  froze  him. 

Moreover,  apart  from  mere  cold- 
ness, how  much  we  suffer  from  fool- 
ish quarrels  about  trifles  ;  from  hasty 
words  thoughtlessly  repeated  (some- 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


times  without  the  context  or  tone 
which  would  have  deprived  them  of 
any  sting)  ;  from  mere  misunder- 
standings !  How  much  would  that 
charity  which  "  beareth  all  things, 
believeth  all  things,  hopeth  all  things, 
endureth  all  things,"  effect  to  smooth 
away  the  sorrows  of  life  and  add  to 
the  happiness  of  home.  Home  in- 
deed may  be  a  haven  of  repose  from 
the  storms  and  perils  of  the  world. 
But  to  secure  this  we  must  not  be 
content  to  pave  it  with  good  inten- 
tions, but  must  make  it  bright  and 
cheerful. 

If  our  life  be  one  of  toil  and  of  suf- 
fering, if  the  world  outside  be  cold 
and  dreary,  what  a  pleasure  to  return 
to  the  sunshine  of  happy  faces  and 
the  warmth  of  hearts  we  love. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

SCIENCE.* 

"  Happy  is  the  man  that  findeth  wisdom, 
And  the  man  that  getteth  understanding : 
For  the  merchandise  of  it  is  better  than 

silver, 

And  the  gain  thereof  than  fine  gold. 
She  is  more  precious  than  rubies : 
And  all  the  things  thou   canst  desire  are 

not  to  be  compared  unto  her. 
Length  of  days  is  in  her  right  hand, 
And  in  her  left  hand  riches  and  honor. 
Her  ways  are  ways  of  pleasantness, 
And  all  her  paths  are  peace." 

PROVERBS  OF  SOLOMON. 

THOSE  who  have  not  tried  for 
themselves  can  hardly  imagine  how 
much  science  adds  to  the  interest  and 
variety  of  life.  It  is  altogether  a 
mistake  to  regard  it  as  dry,  difficult, 
or  prosaic — much  of  it  is  as  easy  as 
it  is  interesting.  A  wise  instinct  of 
old  united  the  prophet  and  the 
"  seer."  Technical  work,  descrip- 
tions of  species,  etc..  bear  the  same 
relation  to  science  as  dictionaries  do 
to  literature.  In  endless  aspects 
science  is  as  wonderful  and  interest- 
ing as  a  fairy  tale. 

» The  substance  of  this  was  delivered  at 
Mason  College,  Birmingham. 


"  There  are  things  whose  strong  reality 
Outshines   our    fairyland ;    in   shape  and 

hues 

More  beautiful  than  our  fantastic  sky. 
And  the   strange    constellations  which  the 

Muse 
O'er  her  wild  universe  is  skillful  to  diffuse."  t 

Occasionally,  indeed,  it  may  de- 
tory  some  poetical  myth  of  antiquity, 
uch  as  the  ancient  Hindoo  explana- 
tion of  rivers,  that  "  Indra  dug  out 
their  beds  with  his  thunderbolts,  and 
sent  them  forth  by  long  continuous 
paths."  But  the  real  causes  of  natur- 
al phenomena  are  far  more  striking, 
and  contain  more  real  poetry,  than 
those  which  have  occurred  to  the  un- 
trained imagination  of  mankind. 
Mackay  more  justly  exclaims : — 

"  Blessings   on   Science  I    When     the  earth 

seemed  old, 
When  faith  grew  doting,  and  our    reason 

cold, 
Twas   she    discovered   that   the  world  was 

young, 

And    taught     a  language    to    its    lisping 
tongue." 

Botany,  for  instance,  is  by  many 
regarded  as  a  dry  science.  Yet  with- 
out it  one  may  admire  flowers  and 
trees  as  one  may  admire  a  great  man 
or  a  beautiful  woman  whom  one  meets 
in  a  crowd  ;  but  it  is  as  a  stranger. 
The  botanist,  on  the  contrary — nay, 
I  will  not  say,  the  botanist,  but  one 
with  even  a  slight  knowledge  of  that 
delightful  science — when  he  goes  out 
into  the  woods  or  into  one  of  those 
fairy  forests  which  we  call  fields, 
finds  himself  welcomed  by  a  glad 
company  of  friends,  every  one  with 
something  interesting  to  tell.  Dr. 
Johnson  said  that,  in  his  opinion, 
when  you  had  seen  one  green  field 
you  had  seen  them  all,  and  a  greater 
even  than  Johnson,  Socrates,  the  very 
type  of  intellect  without  science, 
said  he  was  always  anxious  to  learn, 
and  from  fields  and  trees  he  could 
learn  nothing.  It  has,  I  know,  been 
said  that  botanists 

"  Love  not  the  flower  they  pluck  and  know 

it  not, 
And  all  their  botany  is  but  Latin  names. 


t  Byron. 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


Contrast  this,  however,  with  the  lan- 
guage of  one  who  would  hardly  claim 
to  be  a  master  in  botany,  though  he 
is  certainly  a  loving  student.  "  Con- 
sider, "  says  Ruskin,  "  what  we  owe 
to  the  meadow  grass,  to  the  covering 
of  the  dark  ground  by  that  glorious 
enamel,  by  the  companies  of  those 
soft,  countless,  and  peaceful  spears  of 
the  field !  Follow  but  for  a  little 
time  the  thought  of  all  •  that  we  ought 
to  recognize  in  those  words.  All 
spring  and  summer  is  in  them — the 
walks  by  silent  scented  paths,  the 
rest  in  noon-day  heat,  the  joy  of  the 
herds  and  flocks,  the  power  of  all 
shepherd  life  and  meditation  ;  the 
life  of  the  sunlight  upon  the  world, 
falling  in  emerald  streaks  and  soft 
blue  shadows,  when  else  it  would 
have  struck  on  the  dark  mould  or 
scorching  dust ;  pastures  beside  the 
pacing  brooks,  soft  banks  and  knolls 
of  lowly  hills,  thymy  slopes  of  down 
overlooked  by  the  blue  line  of  lifted 
sea ;  crisp  lawns  all  dim  with  early 
dew,  or  smooth  in  evening  warmth  of 
barred  sunshine,  dinted  by  happy 
feet,  softening  in  their  fall  the  sound 
of  loving  voices." 

Even  if  it  be  true  that  science  was 
dry  when  it  was  buried  in  huge  folios, 
that  is  certainly  no  longer  the  case 
now;  and  Lord  Chesterfield's  wise 
wish,  that  Minerva  might  have  three 
graces  as  well  as  Venus,  has  been 
amply  fulfilled. 

The  study  of  natural  history  indeec 
seems  destined  to  replace  the  loss  of 
what  is,  not  very  happily  I  think 
termed  "sport;"  engraven  in  us  as 
it  is  by  the  operation  of  thousands  o 
years,  during  which  man  lived  greatb 
on  the  produce  of  the  chase.  Game 
is  gradually  becoming  "  small  by  de 
grees  and  beautifully  less."  Our  pre 
historic  ancestors  hunted  the  mam 
moth,  the  woolly-haired  rhinoceros 
and  the  Irish  elk ;  the  ancient  Brit 
ons  had  the  wild  ox,  the  deer,  anc 
the  wolf.  We  have  still  the  hare,  th 
partridge,  and  the  fox;  but  eve 
these  are  becoming  scarcer,  and  mus 
be  preserved  first,  in  order  that  the 


may  be  killed  afterwards.  Some  of 
s  even  now — and  more,  no  doubt, 
vill  hereafter— satisfy  instincts,  es- 
entially  of  the  same  origin,  by  the 
tudy  of  birds,  or  insects,  or  even  in- 
usoria — of  creatures  which  more 
han  make  up  by  their  variety  what 
hey  want  in  size. 

Emerson  says  that  when  a  natural- 
st  has  "got  all  snakes  and  lizards  in 
his  phials,  science  has  done  for  him 
also,  and  has  put  the  -man  into  a  bot- 
le."     I  do  not  deny  that  there    are 
,uch  cases,  but  they  are  quite  excep- 
ional.     The  true  naturalist  is  no  mere 
dry  collector. 

I  cannot  resist,  although  it  is  rather 
ong,  quoting  the  following  descrip- 
ion  from  Hudson  and  Gosse's  beau- 
iful  work  on  the  Rotifera  : — 

"  On  the  Somersetshire  side  of  the 
Avon,  and  not  far  from  Clifton,  is  a 
ittle  combe,  at  the  bottom  of  which 
ies  an  old  fish-pond.  Its  slopes  are 
covered  with  plantations  of  beech 
and  fir,  so  as  to  shelter  the  pond  on 
three  sides,  and  yet  leave  it  open  to 
the  soft  south-western  breezes,  and 
to  the  afternoon  sun.  At  the  head  of 
the  combe  wells  up  a  clear  spring, 
which  sends  a  thread  of  water,  trick- 
ling through  a  bed  of  osiers,  into  the 
upper  end  of  the  pond.  A  stout 
stone  wall  has  been  drawn  across  the 
combe  from  side  to  side,  so  as  to  dam 
up  the  stream  ;  and  there  is  a  gap  in 
one  corner  through  which  the  over- 
flow finds  its  way  in  a  miniature  cas- 
cade, down  into  the  lower  plantation. 

"  If  we  approach  the  pond  by  the 
game-keeper's  path  from  the  cottage 
above,  we  shall  pass  through  the 
plantation,  and  come  unseen  right  on 
the  corner  of  the  wall  ;  so  that  one 
quiet  step  will  enable  us  to  see  at  a 
glance  its  whole  surface,  without  dis- 
turbing any  living  thing  that  may  be 
there. 

"  Far  off  at  the  upper  end  a  water- 
hen  is  leading  her  little  brood  among 
the  willows  ;  on  the  fallen  trunk  of 
an  old  beech,  lying  half  way  across 
the  pond,  a  vole  is  sitting  erect,  rub- 
bing his  right  ear,  and  the  splash  of 


THi 


OF  LIFE. 


37 


a  beech  husk  just  at  our  feet  tells  of 
a  squirrel  who  is  dining  somewhere 
in  the  leafy  crown  above  us. 

"  But  see,  the  water-rat  has  spied 
us  out,  and  is  making  straight  for  his 
hole  in  the  bank,  while  the  ripple 
above  him  is  the  only  thing  that  tells 
of  his  silent  flight.  The  water-hen 
has  long  ago  got  under  cover,  and  the 
squirrel  drops  no  more  husks.  It  is 
a  true  Silent  Pond,  and  without  a 
sign  of  life. 

"  But  if,  retaining  sense  and  sight, 
we  could  shrink  into  living  atoms  and 
plunge  under  the  water,  of  what  a 
world  of  wonders  should  we  then  form 
part !  We  should  find  this  fairy  king- 
dom peopled  with  the  strangest  crea- 
tures— creatures  that  swim  with  their 
hair,  that  have  ruby  eyes  blazing 
deep  in  their  necks,  with  telescopic 
limbs  that  now  are  withdrawn  wholly 
within  their  bodies  and  now  stretched 
out  to  many  times  their  own  length. 
Here  are  some  riding  at  anchor, 
moored  by  delicate  threads  spun  out 
from  their  toes ;  and  there  are  others 
flashing  by  in  glass  armor,  bristling 
with  sharp  spikes  or  ornamented 
with  bosses  and  flowing  curves; 
while  fastened  to  a  great  stem  is  an 
animal  convolvulus  that,  by  some  in- 
visible power,  draws  a  never  ceasing 
stream  of  victims  into  its  gaping  cup, 
and  tears  them  to  death  with  hooked 
jaws  deep  down  within  its  body. 

"  Close  by  it,  on  the  same  stem,  is 
something  that  looks  like  a  filmy 
heart's-ease.  A  curious  wheelwork 
runs  round  its  four  outspread  petals  ; 
and  a  chain  of  minute  things,  living 
and  dead,  is  winding  in  and  out  of 
their  curves  into  a  gulf  at  the  back  of 
the  flower.  What  happens  to  them 
there  we  cannot  see ;  for  round  the 
stem  is  raised  a  tube  of  golden-brown 
balls,  all  regularly  piled  on  each  other. 
Some  creature  d'ashes  by,  and  like  a 
flash  the  flower  vanishes  within  its 
tube. 

"  We  sink  still  lower,  and  now  see 
on  the  bottom  slow  gliding  lumps  of 
jelly  that  thrust  a  shapeless  arm  out 
where  they  will,  and  grasping  their 
prey  with  these  chance  limbs,  wrap 


themselves  round  their  food  to  get  a 
meal ;  for  they  creep  without  feet, 
seize  without  hands,  eat  without 
mouths,  and  digest  withoui  stom- 
achs." 

Too  many,  however,  still  feel  only 
in  nature  that  which  we  share  '•  with 
the  weed  and  the  worm  ;  "  they  love 
birds  as  boys  do — that  is,  they  love 
throwing  stones  at  them  ;  or  wonder 
if  they  are  good  to  eat,  as  the  Esqui- 
maux asked  of  the  watch  ;  or  treat 
them  as  certain  devout  Afreedee  vil- 
lagers are  said  to  have  treated  a 
descendant  of  the  Prophet — killed 
him  in  order  to  worship  at  his  tomb  : 
but  gradually  we  may  hope  that  the 
love  of  nature  will  become  to  more 
and  more,  as  already  it  is  to  many,  a 
"  faithful  and  sacred  element  of 
human  feeling." 

Science  summons  us 

"  To  that  cathedral,  boundless  as  our  won- 
der, 
Whose    quenchless    lamps    the    sun  and 

moon  supply ; 

Its  choir   the   winds  and  waves,  its  organ 
thunder, 

Its  dome  the  sky."  * 

Where  the  untrained  eye  will  see 
nothing  but  mire  and  dirt,  science 
will  often  reveal  exquisite  possibili- 
ties. The  mud  we  tread  under  our 
feet  in  the  street  is  a  grimy  mixture 
of  clay  and  sand,  soot  and  water. 
Separate  the  sand,  however,  as  Rus- 
kin  observes — let  the  atoms  arrange 
themselves  in  peace  according  to 
their  nature — and  you  have  the  opal. 
Separate  the  clay,  and  it  becomes  a 
white  earth,  fit  for  the  finest  porce- 
lain :  or  if  it  still  further  purifies 
itself,  you  have  a  sapphire.  Take 
the  soot,  and  if  properly  treated  it 
will  give  you  a  diamond.  While, 
lastly,  the  water,  purified  and  dis- 
tilled, will  become  a  dew-drop  or 
crystallize  into  a  lovely  star.  Or, 
again,  you  may  see  in  a  shallow  pool 
either  the  mud  lying  at  the  bottom, 
or  the  image  of  the  sky  above. 

Nay,  even  if  we  imagine  beauties 
and  charms  which  do  not  really  exist ; 


*  H.  Smith. 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


still  if  we  err  at  all,  it  is  better  to  do 
so  on  the  side  of  charity;  like 
Nasmyth,  who  tells  us  in  his  delight- 
ful autobiography  that  he  used  to 
think  one  of  his  friends  had  a  charm- 
ing and  kindly  twinkle,  till  one  day 
he  discovered  that  he  had  a  glass 
eye. 

But  I  should  err  indeed  were  I  to 
dwell  exclusively  on  science  as  lend- 
ing interest  and  charm  to  our  leisure 
hours.  Far  from  this,  it  would  be 
impossible  to  overrate  the  importance 
of  scientific  training  on  the  wise  con- 
duct of  life. 

"Science,"  said  the  Royal  Com- 
mission of  1861,  "quickens  and  cul- 
tivates directly  the  faculty  of  obser- 
vation, which  in  very  many  persons 
lies  almost  dormant  through  life,  the 
power  of  accurate  and  rapid  gener- 
alization, and  the  mental  habit  of 
method  and  arrangement ;  it  accus- 
toms young  persons  to  trace  the 
sequence  of  cause  and  effect ;  it 
familiarizes  them  with  a  kind  of  rea- 
soning which  interests  them,  and 
which  they  can  promptly  compre- 
hend ;  and  it  is  perhaps  the  best  cor- 
rective for  that  indolence  which  is  the 
vice  of  half-awakened  minds,  and 
which  shrinks  from  any  exertion  that 
is  not  like  an  effort  of  memory, 
merely  mechanical." 

Again,  when  we  contemplate  the 
grandeur  of  science,  if  we  transport 
ourselves  in  imagination  back  into 
primeval  times,  or  away  into  the 
immensity  of  space,  our  little  troub- 
les and  sorrows  seem  to  shrink  into 
insignificance.  "  Ah,  beautiful  crea- 
tions !  "  says  Helps,  speaking  of  the 
stars,  "  it  is  not  in  guiding  us  over 
the  seas  of  our  little  planet,  but  out 
of  the  dark  waters  of  our  own  per- 
turbed minds,  that  we  may  make  to 
ourselves  the  most  of  your  signifi- 
cance." They  teach,  he  tells  us  else- 
\vhere,  "  something  significant  to  all 
of  us ;  and  each  man  has  a  whole 
hemisphere  of  them,  if  he  will  but 
look  up  to  counsel  and  befriend  him." 
There  is  a  passage  in  an  address 
given  many  years  ago  by  Professor 
Huxley  to  the  South  London  Work- 


ing Men's  College  which  struck  me 
very  much  at  the  time,  and  which 
puts  this  in  language  more  forcible 
han  any  which  I  could  use. 

"  Suppose,"  he  said,  "  it  were  per- 
ectly  certain  that  the  life  and  for- 
tune of  every  one  of  us  would,  one 
day  or  other,  depend  upon  his  win- 
ling  or  losing  a  game  of  chess. 
Don't  you  think  that  we  should  all 
consider  it  to  be  a  primary  duty  to 
learn  at  least  the  names  and  the 
moves  of  the  pieces  ?  Do  you  not 
think  that  we  should  look  with  a  dis- 
approbation amounting  to  scorn  upon 
the  father  who  allowed  his  son,  or 
the  State  which  allowed  its  members, 
to  grow  up  without  knowing  a  pawn 
from  a  knight?  Yet  it  is  a  very 
plain  and  elementary  truth  that  the 
life,  the  fortune,  and  the  happiness 
of  every  one  of  us,  and  more  or  less 
of  those  who  are  connected  with  us, 
do  depend  upon  our  knowing  some- 
thing of  the  rules  of  a  game  infinitely 
more  difficult  and  complicated  than 
chess.  It  is  a  game  which  has  been 
played  for  untold  ages,  every  man 
and  women  of  us  being  one  of  the 
two  players  in  a  game  of  his  or  her 
own.  The  chessboard  is  the  world, 
the  pieces  are  the  phenomena  of  the 
Universe,  the  rules  of  the  game  are 
what  we  call  the  laws  of  nature. 
The  player  on  the  other  side  is  hid- 
den from  us.  We  know  that  his 
play  is  always  fair,  just,  and  patient. 
But  also  we  know  to  our  cost  that  he 
never  overlooks  a  mistake  or  makes 
the  smallest  allowance  for  ignorance. 
To  the  man  who  plays  well  the  highest 
stakes  are  paid,  with  that  sort  of  over- 
flowing generosity  which  with  the 
strong  shows  delight  in  strength. 
And  one  who  plays  ill  is  checkmated 
— without  haste,  but  without  re- 
morse." 

I  have  elsewhere  endeavored  to 
show  the  purifying  and  ennobling  in- 
fluence of  science  upon  religion  ; 
how  it  has  assisted,  if  indeed  it  may 
not  claim  the  main  share,  in  sweeping 
away  the  dark  superstitions,  the  de- 
grading belief  in  sorcery  and  witch- 
craft, and  the  cruel,  however  well  in- 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


39 


tentioned,  intolerance  which  embit- 
tered the  Christian  world  almost  from 
the  very  days  of  the  Apostles  them- 
selves. In  this  she  has  surely  per- 
formed no  mean  service  to  religion 
itself.  As  Canon  Fremantle  has  well 
and  justly  said,  men  of  science,  and 
not  the  clergy  only,  are  ministers  of 
religion. 

Again,  the  national  necessity  for 
scientific  education  is  imperative. 
We  are  apt  to  forget  how  much  we 
owe  to  science,  because  so  many  of 
its  wonderful  gifts  have  become  fa- 
miliar parts  of  our  everyday  life,  that 
their  very  value  makes  us  forget  their 
origin.  At  the  recent  celebration  of 
the  Sexcentenary  of  Peterhouse  Col- 
lege, near  the  close  of  a  long  dinner, 
Sir  Frederick  Bramwell  was  called  on, 
some  time  after  midnight,  to  return 
thanks  for  applied  science.  He  ex- 
cused himself  from  making  a  long 
speech  on  the  ground  that,  though 
the  subject  was  almost  inexhaustible, 
the  only  illustration  which  struck  him 
as  appropriate  under  the  circum- 
stances was  "  the  application  of  the 
domestic  lucifer  to  the  bedroom  can- 
dle." One  cannot  but  feel  how  un- 
fortunate was  the  saying  of  the  poet 
that 

"  The  light-outspeeding  telegraph 
Bears  nothing  on  its  beam." 

The  report  of  the  Royal  Commis- 
sion on  Technical  Instruction,  which 
has  recently  been  issued,  teems  with 
illustrations  of  the  advantages  afforded 
by  technical  instruction.  At  the  same 
time,  technical  training  ought  not  to 
begin  too  soon,  for,  as  Bain  truly  ob- 
serves, "  in  a  right  view  of  scientific 
education  the  first  principles  and 
leading  examples,  with  select  details, 
of  all  the  great  sciences,  are  the 
proper  basis  of  the  complete  and  ex- 
haustive study  of  any  single  science." 
Indeed,  in  the  words  of  Sir  John 
Herschel,  "  it  can  hardly  be  pressed 
forcibly  enough  on  the  attention  of 
the  student  of  nature,  that  there  is 
scarcely  any  natural  phenomenon 
which  can  be  fully  and  completely  ex- 
plained in  all  its  circumstances,  with- 


out a  union  of  several,  perhaps  of  all 
the  sciences."  The  most  important 
secrets  of  nature  are  often  hidden 
away  in  unexpected  places.  Many 
valuable  substances  have  been  dis- 
covered in  the  refuse  of  manufac- 
tories :  it  was  a  happy  thought  of  Glau- 
ber to  examine  what  everybody  else 
threw  away.  There  is  perhaps  no 
nation  the  future  happiness  aud  pros- 
perity of  which  depend  more  on 
science  than  our  own.  Our  popula- 
tion is  over  35,000,000,  and  is  rapidly 
increasing.  Even  at  present  it  is  far 
larger  than  our  acreage  can  suppon. 
Few  people  whose  business  does  not 
lie  in  the  study  of  statistics  realize 
that  we  have  to  pay  foreign  countries 
no  less  than  ^"140,000,000  a  year  for 
food.  This,  of  course,  we  purchase 
mainly  by  manufactured  articles. 
We  hear  now  a  great  deal  about  de- 
pression of  trade,  and  foreign,  espec- 
ially American,  competition,  which, 
let  me  observe,  will  be  much  keener 
a  few  years  hence,  when  she  has  paid 
off  her  debt,  and  consequently  reduced 
her  taxation.  But  let  us  look  forward 
one  hundred  years — no  long  time  in 
the  history  of  a  nation.  Our  coal 
supplies  will  then  be  greatly  dimin- 
ished. The  population  of  Great 
Britain  doubles  at  the  present  rate  of 
increase  in  about  fifty  years,  so  that 
we  should  then,  if  the  present  rate 
continues,  require  to  import  over 
^400,000,000  a  year  in  food.  How, 
then,  is  this  to  be  paid  for?  We 
have  before  us,  as  usual,  three  courses. 
The  natural  rate  of  increase  may  be 
stopped,  which  means  suffering  and 
outrage  ;  or  the  population  may  in- 
crease, only  to  vegetate  in  misery  and 
destitution  ;  or,  lastly,  by  the  devel- 
opment of  scientific  training  and  ap- 
pliances, they  may  probably  be  main- 
tained in  happiness  and  comfort. 
We  have,  in  fact,  to  make  our  choice 
between  science  and  suffering.  It  is 
only  by  wisely  utilizing  the  gifts  of 
science  that  we  have  any  hope  of 
maintaining  our  population  in  plenty 
and  comfort.  Science,  however,  will 
do  this  for  us  if  we  will  only  let  her. 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


She  may  be  no  fairy  godmother  indeed, 
but  she  will  richly  endow  those  who 
love  her. 

That  discoveries,  innumerable,  mar- 
velous, and  fruitful,  await  the  suc- 
cessful explorers  of  nature  no  one 
can  doubt.  What  would  one  not  give 
for  a  science  primer  of  the  next  cent- 
ury ?  for,  to  paraphrase  a  well-known 
saying,  even  the  boy  at  the  plough 
will  then  know  more  of  science  than 
the  wisest  of  our  philosophers  do  now. 
Boyle  entitled  one  of  his  essays  "  Of 
Man's  great  Ignorance  of  the  Uses  of 
Natural  Things ;  or  that  there  is  no 
one  thing  in  nature  whereof  the  uses 
to  human  life  are  yet  thoroughly  un- 
derstood " — a  saying  which  is  still  as 
true  now  as  when  it  was  written. 
And,  lest  I  should  be  supposed  to  be 
taking  too  sanguine  a  view,  let  me 
give  the  authority  of  Sir  John  Her- 
schel,  who  says  :  "  Since  it  cannot 
but  be  that  innumerable  and  most 
important  uses  remain  to  be  discov- 
ered among  the  materials  and  objects 
already  known  to  us,  as  well  as  among 
those  which  the  progress  of  science 
must  hereafter  disclose,  we  may  hence 
conceive  a  well-grounded  expectation 
not  only  of  constant  increase  in  the 
physical  resources  of  mankind,  and 
the  consequent  improvement  of  their 
condition,  but  of  conditional  accession 
to  our  power  of  penetrating  into  the 
arcana  of  nature  and  becoming  ac- 
quainted with  her  highest  laws." 

Nor  is  it  merely  in  a  material  point 
of  view  that  science  would  thus  bene- 
fit the  nation.  She  will  raise  and 
strengthen  the  national,  as  surely  as 
the  individual,  character.  The  great 
gift  which  Minerva  offered  to  Paris  is 
now  freely  tendered  to  all,  for  we 
may  apply  to  the  nation,  as  well 
as  to.the  individual,  Tennyson's  noble 
lines  :— - 

"Self-reverence,  self-knowledge,  self-control : 
These  three   alone   lead  life   to  sovereign 

power, 

Yet  not  for  power  (power  of  herself 
Would  come  uncalled  for),  but  to  live  by 

law; 
Acting  the  law  we  live  by  without  fear." 

"  In  the  vain  and  foolish  exultation 


of  the  heart,"  said  John  Quincy 
Adams,  at  the  close  of  his  final  lect- 
ure on  resigning  his  chair  at  Boston, 
"  which  the  brighter  prospects  of  life 
will  sometimes  excite,  the  pensive 
portress  of  science  shall  call  you  to 
the  sober  pleasures  of  her  holy  cell. 
In  the  mortification  of  disappoint- 
ment, her  soothing  voice  shall  whis- 
per serenity  and  peace.  In  social 
converse  with  the  mighty  dead  of 
ancient  days,  you  will  never  smart 
under  the  galling  sense  of  depend- 
ence upon  the  mighty  living  of  the 
present  age.  And  in  your  struggles 
with  the  world,  should  a  crisis  ever 
occur,  when  even  friendship  may 
deem  it  prudent  to  desert  you,  when 
priest  and  Levite  shall  come  and  look 
on  you  and  pass  by  on  the  other  side, 
seek  refuge,  my  unfailing  friends,  and 
be  assured  you  shall  find  it,  in  the 
friendship  of  Laelius  and  Scipio,  in 
the  patriotism  of  Cicero  ,  Demosthe- 
nes, and  Burke,  as  well  as  in  the  pre- 
cepts and  example  of  Him  whose 
law  is  love,  and  who  taught  us  to 
remember  injuries  only  to  forgive 
them." 

Let  me  in  conclusion  quote  the 
glowing  description  of  our  debt  to 
science  given  by  Archdeacon  Farrar 
in  his  address  at  Liverpool  College — 
testimony,  moreover,  all  the  more 
valuable,  considering  the  source  from 
which  it  comes. 

"  In  this  great  commercial  city," 
he  said,  "where  you  are  surrounded 
by  the  triumphs  of  science  and  of 
mechanism — you,  whose  river  is 
ploughed  by  the  great  steamships, 
whose  white  wake  has  been  called 
the  fittest  avenue  to  the  palace  front 
of  a  mercantile  people — you  know 
well  that  in  the  achievements  of  sci- 
ence there  is  not  only  beauty  and 
wonder,  but  also  beneficence  and 
power.  It  is  not  only  that  she  has 
revealed  to  us  infinite  space  crowded 
with  unnumbered  worlds ;  infinite 
time  peopled  by  unnumbered  exist- 
ences; infinite  organisms  hitherto  in- 
visible but  full  of  delicate  and  irides- 
cent loveliness ;  but  also  that  she 
has  been,  as  a  great  archangel  of 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


mercy,  devoting  herself  to  the  service 

of  man.     She   has   labored,   her   vo- 
taries have  labored,    not   to   increase 
the  power  of  despots  or   add   to   the 
magnificence  of  courts,  but  to  extend 
human  happiness,  to    economize    hu- 
man effort,  to  extinguish  human  pain. 
Where  of  old,  men  toiled,  half  blinded 
and  half  naked,  in  the    mouth  of    the 
glowing  furnace  to  mix  the  white-hot 
iron,  she  now  substitutes  the  mechan- 
ical action  of  the  viewless    air.     She 
has  enlisted  the  sunbeam  in  her    ser- 
vice to  limn    for    us,   with   absolute 
fidelity,  the  faces   of  the   friends    we 
love.     She  has  shown  the  poor   miner 
how   he   may    work  in   safety,    even 
amid  the  explosive  fire-damp    of   the 
mine.     She  has  by  her    anaesthetics, 
enabled  the  sufferer  to  be  hushed  and 
unconscious  while  the   delicate    hand 
of  some  skilled  operator  cuts  a    frag- 
ment from  the  nervous   circle   of    the 
unquivering  eye.     She   points  not    to 
pyramids  built  during  weary  centuries 
by  the   sweat   of   miserable  nations, 
but  to  the   lighthouse,  and  the  steam- 
ship, to   the   railroad    and  the    tele- 
graph.    She  has  restored  eyes  to   the 
blind  and  hearing   to  the   deaf.     She 
has  lengthened  life,  she   has    minim- 
ized danger,  she  has  controlled  mad- 
ness,  she   has   trampled  on  disease. 
And  on   all   these   grounds,  I    think 
that  none  of  our  sons  should  grow  up 
wholly  ignorant  of  studies   which   at 
once  train  the   reason    and  fire   the 
imagination,  which  fashion  as  well  as 
forge,  which  can  feed  as  well    as   fill, 
the  mind." 


CHAPTER  X. 

EDUCATION. 

"  No  pleasure  is  comparable  to   the  stand 
ing  upon  the  vantage  ground  of  truth." — 

BACON 

"Divine  Philosophy  ! 

Not  harsh  and  crabbed  as  dull  fools  suppose 
But  musical  as  is  Apollo's  lute, 
And  a  perpetual  feast  of  nectar'd  sweets 
Where  no  crude  surfeit  reigns." 

SHAKESPEARE. 

IT  may  seem  rather  surprising  to 
include  education    amony   the  pleas 


ures  of  life ;  for  in  too  many   cases  it 

s  made  odious  to  the  young,    and   is 

upposed  to  cease  with  school  ;  while, 

on  the  contrary,  if  it    is   to  be  really 

uccessful  it  must  be    made    suitable, 

and  therefore  interesting,  to  children, 

and  must  last  through  life. 

"  It  is  not  the  eye  that  sees  the 
jeauties  of  heaven,  nor  the  ear  that 
icars  the  sweetness  of  music,  or  the 
lad  tidings  of  a  prosperous  accident ; 
>ut  the  soul  that  perceives  all  the 
relishes  of  a  sensual  and  intellectual 
jerceptions  :  and  the  more  noble  and 
excellent  the  soul  is,  the  greater  and 
more  savory  are  its  perceptions.  And 
if  a  child  behold  the  rich  ermine,  or 
the  diamonds  of  a  starry  night,  or  the 
order  of  the  world,  or  hears  the  dis- 
courses of  an  apostle  ;  because  he 
makes  no  reflex  act  on  himself  and 
sees  not  what  he  sees,  he  can  have 
but  the  pleasure  of  a  fool  or  the  de- 
liciousness  of  a  mule.''  * 

Herein  lies  the  importance  of  edu- 
cation. I  say  education  rather  than 
instruction,  because  it  is  far  more  im- 
portant to  cultivate  the  mind  than  to 
store  the  memory.  Studies  are  a 
means  and  not  an  end.  "  To  spend 
too  much  time  in  studies  is  sloth ;  to 
use  them  too  much  for  ornament  is 
affectation  ;  to  make  judgment  wholly 
by  their  rules  is  the  humor  of  a  schol- 
ar :  they  perfect  nature,  and  are  per- 
fected by  experience.  .  .  .  Crafty 
men  contemn  studies,  simple  men  ad- 
mire them,  and  wise  men  use  them."  t 

Moreover,  though,  as  Mill  says, 
"  in  the  comparatively  early  state  of 
human  development  in  which  we  now 
live,  a  person  cannot  indeed  feel  that 
entireness  of  sympathy  with  all  others 
which  would  make  any  real  discord- 
ance in  the  general  direction  of  their 
conduct  in  life  impossible,"  yet  educa- 
tion might  surely  do  more  to  root  in 
us  the  feeling  of  unity  with  our  fellow- 
creatures  ;  at  any  rate,  if  we  do  not 
study  in  this  spirit,  all  our  learning 
will  but  leave  us  as  weak  and  sad  as 
Faust. 


*  Jeremy  Taylor, 
t    Bacon. 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


"  I've  now,  alas  !  Philosophy, 
Medicine  and  Jurisprudence  too, 
And  to  my  cost  Theology  ; 
With  ardent  labor  studied  through, 
And  here  I  stand,  with  all  my  lore, 
Poor  fool,  no  wiser  than  before."* 

Our  studies  should  be  neither  "  a 
couch  on  which  to  rest ;  nor  a  cloister 
in  which  to  promenade  alone  ;  nor  as 
a  tower  from  which  to  look  down  on 
others  ;  nor  as  a  fortress  whence  we 
may  resist  them  ;  nor  as  a  workshop 
for  gain  and  merchandise  ;  but  as  a 
rich  armory  and  treasury  for  the  glory 
of  the  creator  and  the  ennoblement 
of  life."t 

For  in  the  noble  words  of  Epicte- 
tus,  "  you  will  do  the  greatest  service 
to  the  state  if  you  shall  raise,  not  the 
roofs  of  the  houses,  but  the  souls  of 
the  citizens  :  for  it  is  better  that  great 
souls  should  dwell  in  small  houses 
rather  than  for  mean  slaves  to  lurk  in 
great  houses." 

It  is  then  of  great  importance  to 
consider  whether  our  present  system 
of  education  is  the  one  best  calculated 
to  fulfill  these  great  objects.  Does  it 
really  give  that  love  of  learning  which 
is  better  than  learning  itself  ?  Does 
all  the  study  of  the  classics  to  which 
our  sons  devote  so  many  years  give 
any  just  appreciation  of  them  ;  or  do 
they  not  on  leaving  college  too  often 
feel  with  Byron — 

"Then,  farewell,  Horace,  whom  I  hated  so !  " 

Too  much  concentration  on  any  one 
subject  is  a  great  mistake,  especially 
in  early  life.  Nature  herself  indicates 
the  true  system,  if  we  would  but  listen 
to  her.  Our  instincts  are  good  guides, 
though  not  infallible,  and  children 
will  profit  little  by  lessons  which  do 
not  interest  them.  In  cheerfulness, 
says  Pliny,  is  the  success  of  our 
studies — "studia  hilaritate  proveni- 
unt " — and  we  may  with  advantage 
take  a  lesson  from  Theognis,  who,  in 
his  Ode  on  the  Marriage  of  Cadmus 


•  Goethe, 
t    Bacon. 


and  Harmonia,    makes    the     Muses 
sing  :— 

"What  is  good  and  fair, 
Shall  ever  be  our  care  ; 
Thus  the  burden  of  it  rang, 
That  shall  never  be  our  care, 
Which  is  neither  good  nor  fair. 
Such  were    the  words  your  lips  immortal 
sang." 

There  are  some  who  seem  to  think 
that  our  educational  system  is  as  good 
as  possible,  and  that  the  only  remain- 
ing points  of  importance  are  the 
number  of  schools  and  scholars,  the 
question  of  fees,  the  relation  of  volun- 
tary and  board  schools,  etc.  "  No 
doubt,"  says  Mr.  Symonds  in  his 
Sketches  in  Italy  and  Greece,  "  there 
are  many  who  think  that  when  we 
not  only  advocate  education  but  dis- 
cuss the  best  system  we  are  simply 
beating  the  air  ;  that  our  population 
is  as  happy  and  cultivated  as  can  be, 
and  that  no  substantial  advance  is 
really  possible.  Mr.  Galton,  however, 
has  expressed  the  opinion,  and  most 
of  those  who  have  written  on  the 
social  condition  of  Athens  seem  to 
agree  with  him,  that  the  population 
of  Athens,  taken  as  a  whole,  was  as 
superior  to  us  as  we  are  to  Austra- 
lian savages." 

That  there  is,  indeed,  some  truth  in 
this,  probably  no  student  of  Greek 
history  will  deny.  Why,  then,  should 
this  be  so  ?  I  cannot  but  think  that 
our  system  of  education  is  partly  re- 
sponsible. 

Manual  and  science  teaching  need 
not  in  any  way  interfere  with  instruc- 
tion in  other  subjects.  Though  so 
much  has  been  said  about  the  impor- 
tance of  science  and  the  value  of 
technical  instruction,  or  of  hand- 
training,  as  I  should  prefer  to  call  it, 
it  is  unfortunately  true  that  in  our 
system  of  education  from  the  highest 
schools  downwards,  both  of  them  are 
sadly  neglected,  and  the  study  of  lan- 
guage reigns  supreme. 

This  is  no  new  complaint.  Ascham, 
in  The  Schoolmaster,  long  ago  lamented 
it ;  Milton,  in  his  letter  to  Mr.  Sam- 
uel Hartlib,  complained  "that  our 
children  are  forced  to  stick  unreason- 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


43 


ably  in  these  grammatick  flats  and 
shallows ;  "  and  observes  that,  "  though 
a  linguist  should  pride  himself  to 
have  all  the  tongues  Babel  cleft  the 
world  into,  yet,  if  he  have  not  studied 
the  solid  things  in  them  as  well  as 
the  words  and  lexicons,  he  were  noth- 
ing so  much  to  be  esteemed  a  learned 
man  as  any  yeoman  or  tradesman 
competently  wise  in  his  mother  dia- 
lect only ;  "  and  Locke  said  that 
"schools  fit  us  for  the  university 
rather  than  for  the  world."  Com- 
mission after  commission,  committee 
after  committee,  have  reiterated  the 
same  complaint.  How  then  do  we 
stand  now  ? 

I  see  it  indeed  constantly  stated 
that,  even  if  the  improvement  is  not 
so  rapid  as  could  be  desired,  still  we 
are  making  considerable  progress. 
But  is  this  so?  I  fear  that  our  pres- 
ent system  does  not  really  train  the 
mindj  or  cultivate  the  power  of  obser- 
vation, or  even  give  the  amount  of 
information  which  we  may  reasonably 
expect  from  the  time  devoted  to  it. 

Mr.  (now  Sir  M.  G.)  Grant-Duff 
has  expressed  the  opinion  that  a  boy 
or  girl  of  fourteen  might  reasonably 
be  expected  to  "  read  aloud  clearly 
and  agreeably,  to  write  a  large  dis- 
tinct round  hand,  and  to  know  the 
ordinary  rules  of  arithmetic,  especially 
compound  addition — a  by  no  means 
universal  accomplishment;  to  speak 
and  write  French  with  ease  and  cor- 
rectness, and  have  some  slight  ac- 
quaintance with  French  literature ; 
to  translate  ad  aperturam  libri  from 
an  ordinary  French  or  German  book; 
to  have  a  thoroughly  good  elementary 
knowledge  of  geography,  under  which 
are  comprehended  some  notions  of 
astronomy — enough  to  excite  his  curi- 
osity ;  a  knowledge  of  the  very  broad- 
est facts  of  geology  and  history — 
enough  to  make  him  understand,  in 
a  clear  but  perfectly  general  way, 
how  the  larger  features  of  the  world 
he  lives  in,  physical  and  political, 
came  to  be  like  what  they  are  ;  to 
have  been  trained  from  earliest  infan- 
cy to  use  his  powers  of  observation 
on  plants,  or  animals,  or  rocks,  or 


other  natural  objects ;  and  to  have 
gathered  a  general  acquaintance  with 
what  is  most  supremely  good  in  that 
portion  of  the  more  important  Eng- 
lish classics  which  is  suitable  to  his 
time  of  life  ;  to  have  some  rudiment- 
ary acquaintance  with  drawing  and 
music." 

To  effect  this,  no  doubt,  "industry 
must  be  our  oracle,  and  reason  our 
Apollo,"  as  Sir  T.  Browne  says ;  but 
surely  it  is  no  unreasonable  estimate  ; 
yet  how  far  do  we  fall  short  of  it  ? 
General  culture  is  often  deprecated 
because  it  is  said  that  smatterings 
are  useless.  But  there  is  all  the  dif- 
ference in  the  world  between  having 
a  smattering  of,  or  being  well  ground- 
ed in,  a  subject.  It  is  the  latter 
which  we  advocate — to  try  to  know, 
as  Lord  Brougham  well  said,  "  every- 
thing of  something,  and  something  of 
everything." 

"It  can  hardly,"  says  Sir  John  Her- 
schel,  "  be  pressed  forcibly  enough 
on  the  attention  of  the  student  of 
nature,  that  there  is  scarcely  any 
natural  phenomenon  which  can  be 
fully  and  completely  explained,  in  all 
its  circumstances,  without  a  union  of 
several,  perhaps  of  all,  the  sciences." 

The  present  system  is  most  of  our 
public  schools  and  colleges  sacrifices 
everything  else  to  classics  and  arith- 
metic. They  are  most  important 
subjects,  but  ought  not  to  exclude 
science  and  modern  languages.  More- 
over, after  all,  our  sons  leave  college 
unable  to  speak  either  Latin  or 
Greek,  and  too  often  absolutely  with- 
out any  interest  in  classical  history 
or  literature.  But  the  boy  who  has 
been  educated  without  any  training 
in  science  has  grave  reason  to  com- 
plain of  "  knowledge  at  one  entrance 
quite  shut  out." 

By  concentrating  the  attention,  in- 
deed, so  much  on  one  or  two  subjects, 
we  defeat  our  own  object,  and  pro- 
duce a  feeling  of  distaste  where  we 
wish  to  create  an  interest. 

Our  great  mistake  in  education    is, 

as  it   seems   to   me,    the  worship  of 

book-learning — the   confusion   of   in- 

'  struction  and  education.     We  strain 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


the  memory  instead  of  cultivating  the 
mind.  The  children  in  our  elemen- 
tary schools  are  wearied  by  the  me- 
chanical act  of  writing,  and  the  in- 
terminable intricacies  of  spelling, 
they  are  oppressed  by  columns  of 
dates,  by  lists  of  kings  and  places, 
which  convey  no  definite  idea  to 
their  minds,  and  have  no  near  rela- 
tion to  their  daily  wants  and  occupa- 
tions ;  while  in  our  public  schools  the 
same  unfortunate  results  are  pro- 
duced by  the  weary  monotony  of 
Latin  and  Greek  grammar.  We 
ought  to  follow  exactly  the  opposite 
course  with  children — to  give  them 
a  wholesome  variety  of  mental  food, 
and  endeavor  to  cultivate  their  tastes, 
rather  than  to  fill  their  minds  with 
dry  facts.  The  important  thing  is 
not  so  much  that  every  child  should 
be  taught,  as  that  every  child  should 
be  given  the  wish  to  learn.  What 
does  it  matter  if  the  pupil  knows  a 
little  more  or  a  little  less  ?  A  boy 
who  leaves  school  knowing  much, 
but  hating  his  lessons,  will  soon  have 
forgotten  almost  all  he  ever  learnt ; 
while  another  who  had  acquired  a 
thirst  for  knowledge,  even  if  he  had 
learnt  little,  would  soon  teach  him- 
self more  than  the  first  ever  knew. 
Children  are  by  nature  eager  for 
information.  They  are  always  put- 
ting questions.  This  ought  to  be 
encouraged.  In  fact,  we  may  to  a 
great  extent  trust  to  their  instincts, 
and  in  that  case  they  will  do  much 
to  educate  themselves.  Too  often, 
however,  the  acquirement  of  knowl- 
edge is  placed  before  them  in  a  form 
so  irksome  and  fatiguing  that  all 
desire  for  information  is  choked,  or 
even  crushed  out;  so  that  our  schools, 
in  fact,  become  places  for  the  discour- 
agement of  learning,  and  thus  pro- 
duce the  very  opposite  effect  from 
that  at  which  we  aim.  In  short, 
children  should  be  trained  to  observe 
and  to  think,  for  in  that  way  there 
would  be  opened  out  to  them  a 
source  of  the  purest  enjoyment  for 
leisure  hours,  and  the  wisest  judg- 
ment in  the  work  of  life. 

Another  point  in  which  I  venture 


to  think  that  our  system  of  education 
might  be  amended,  is  that  it  tends  at 
present  to  give  the  impression  that 
everything  is  known.  Dr.  Bushby  is 
said  to  have  kept  his  hat  on  in  the 
presence  of  King  Charles,  that  the 
boys  might  see  what  a  great  man  he 
was.  I  doubt,  however,  whether  the 
boys  were  deceived  by  the  hat;  and 
am  very  skeptical  about  Dr.  Bushby's 
theory  of  education. 

Master  John  of  Basingstoke,  who 
was  Archdeacon  of  Leicester  in  1252, 
and  who,  having  learnt  Greek  during 
a  visit  to  Athens  from  Constantina, 
daughter  of  the  Archbishop  of  Athens, 
used  to  say  afterwards  that  though  he 
had  studied  well  and  diligently  at  the 
University  of  Paris,  yet  he  learnt 
more  from  an  Athenian  maiden  of 
twenty.  We  cannot  all  study  so 
pleasantly  as  this,  but  the  main  fault 
I  find  with  Dr.  Bushby's  system  is 
that  it  keeps  out  of  sight  the  great 
truth  of  human  ignorance. 

Boys  are  given  the  impression  that 
the  masters  know  everything.  If,  on 
the  contrary,  the  great  lesson  im- 
pressed on  them  was  that  what  w» 
know  is  as  nothing  to  what  we  do  nol 
know,  that  the  "  great  ocean  of  truth 
lies  all  undiscovered  before  us," 
surely  this  would  prove  a  great  stimu- 
lus, and  many  would  be  nobly  anxious 
to  extend  the  intellectual  kingdom  of 
man,  and  enlarge  the  boundaries  of 
human  knowledge. 

Education  ought  not  to  cease  when 
we  leave  school ;  but  if  well  begun 
there,  will  continue  through  life. 

Moreover,  whatever  our  occupation 
or  profession  in  life  may  be,  it  is  most 
desirable  to  create  for  ourselves 
some  other  special  interest.  In  the 
choice  of  a  subject  every  one  should 
consult  his  own  instincts  and  interests. 
I  will  not  attempt  to  suggest  whetlu  r 
it  is  better  to  pursue  art;  whether  we 
only  study  the  motes  in  the  sunbeam, 
or  the  heavenly  bodies  themselves. 
Whatever  may  be  the  subject  of  our 
choice,  we  shall  find  enough,  and 
more  than  enough,  to  repay  the  devo- 
tion of  a  lifetime.  Life  no  doubt  is 
paved  with  enjoyments,  but  we  must 


THE  PLE.ISURHS  OF  LIFE. 


45 


all  expect  times  of  anxiety,  of  suffer- 
ing, and  of  sorrow ;  when  these  come 
it  is  an  inestimable  comfort  to  have 
some  deep  interest  which  will,  at  any 
rate  to  some  extent,  enable  us  to  es- 
cape from  ourselves. 

"  A  cultivated  mind,"  says  Mill, — "I 
do  not  mean  that  of  a  philosopher, 
but  any  mind  to  which  the  fountains 
oj  knowledge  have  been  opened,  and 
which  has  been  taught  in  any  tolerable 
degree  to  exercise  its  faculties — will 
rind  sources  of  inexhaustible  interest 
in  all  that  surrounds  it;  in  the  objects 
of  nature,  the  achievements  of  art, 
the  imaginations  of  poetry,  the  inci- 
dents of  history,  the  ways  of  mankind 
past  and  present,  and  their  prospects 
in  the  future.  It  is  possible,  indeed, 
to  become  indifferent  to  all  this,  and 
tli at  too  without  having  exhausted  a 
thousandth  part  of  it  ;  but  only  when 
one  has  had  from  the  beginning  no 
moral  or  human  interest  in  these 
things,  and  has  sought  in  them  only 
the  gratification  of  curiosity." 

I  have  been  subjected  to  some 
good-natured  banter  for  having  said 
that  I  looked  forward  to  a  time  when 
our  artisans  and  mechanics  would  be 
great  readers.  But  it  is  surely  not 
unreasonable  to  regard  our  social 
condition  as  susceptible  of  great  im- 
provement. The  spread  of  schools, 
the  cheapness  of  books,  the  establish- 
ment of  free  libraries  will,  it  may  be 
hoped,  exercise  a  civilizing  and  en- 
nobling influence.  They  will  even,  I 
believe,  do  much  to  diminish  poverty 
and  suffering,  so  much  of  which  is 
due  to  ignorance  and  to  the  want  of 
interest  and  brightness  in  uneducated 
life.  So  far  as  our  elementary  schools 
are  concerned,  there  is  no  doubt 


much  difficulty  in  opportioning  the  Na- 
tional Grant  without  unduly  stimu- 
lating mere  mechanical  instruction. 
But  this  is  not  the  place  to  discuss 
the  subject  of  religious  or  moral  train- 
ing, or  the  system  of  apportioning 
the  grant. 

If  we  succeed  in  giving  the  love  of 
learning,  the  learning  itself  is  sure  to 
follow. 

We  should  then  endeavor  to  edu- 
cate our  children  so  that  every  coun- 
try walk  may  be  pleasure;  that  the 
discoveries  of  science  may  be  a  living 
interest  ;  that  our  national  history 
and  poetry  may  be  sources  of  legiti- 
mate pride  and  rational  enjoyment ; 
in  short,  our  schools,  if  they  are  to 
be  worthy  of  the  name — if  they  are  in 
any  measure  to  fulfil'l  their  high  func- 
tion— must  be  something  more  than 
mere  places  of  dry  study ;  must  train 
the  children  educated  in  them  so  that 
they  may  be  able  to  appreciate  and 
enjoy  those  intellectual  gifts  which 
might  be,  and  ought  to  be,  a  source 
of  interest  and  of  happiness,  alike  to 
the  high  and  to  the  low,  to  the  rich 
and  to  the  poor. 

Education  might  at  least  teach  us 
how  little  man  yet  knows,  how  much 
he  has  to  learn  ;  it  might  enable  us 
to  realize  that  those  who  complain  of 
the  tiresome  monotony  of  life  have 
only  themselves  to  blame  that  knowl- 
edge is  pleasure  as  well  as  power; 
it  should  lead  us  all  to  try  with  Milton 
"  to  behold  the  bright  countenance  of 
truth  in  the  quiet  and  still  air  of 
study,"  and  to  realize  with  Bacon  in 
part,  if  not  entirely,  that  "no  pleas- 
ure is  comparable  to  the  standing 
upon  the  vantage  ground  of  truth." 


CONTENTS  TO   PART  I. 


MO. 

CRAP. 

I.  THE  DITTY  OF  HAPPINESS ••••••••• ••• 

1 
II.  THE  HAPPINESS  OF  DUTY 

HI.  A  SONG  OF  BOOKS l 


IV.  THE  CHOICE  OF  BOOKS 

V.  THE  BLESSINGS  OF   FRIENDS. 


22 

24 


VI.  THE  VALUE  OF  TIME 

VII.  THE  PLEASURES  OF  TRAVEL 27 

VIII.  THE  PLEASURES  OF  HOME 31 

IX.  SCIENCE 35 

X.  EDUCATION 4* 

CONTENTS   TO    PART    II. 


PAOK. 

I.  AMBITION 47 

II.  WEALTH 50 

III.  HEALTH 53 

IV.  LOVE 58 

V.  ART 62 

VI.  POETRY 67 

VII.  Music 71 

VIII:  THE  BEAUTIES  OF  NATURE  76 

IX.  THE  TROUBLES  OF  LIFE   84 

X.  LABOR  AND  REST   86 

XI.  RELIGION 89 

XII.  THE  HOPE  OF  PROGRESS   94 

XIII.  THE  DESTINY  OF  MAN  .  99 


IIgS|I:j> 

— — — ^^— *  •"  ^"^^ 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE 


PARTH 


By  SIR  JOHN  LUBBOCK,  Bart. 


PREFACE. 


"  And  what  is  writ,  is  writ — 
Would  it  were  worthier." 

BYBON. 

HEREWITH  I  launch  the  conclusion 
of  my  subject.  Perhaps  I  am  unwise 
in  publishing  a  second  part.  The 
first  was  so  kindly  received  that  I 
am  running  a  risk  in  attempting  to 
add  to  it. 

In  the  preface,  however,  to  the 
first  part  I  have  expressed  the  hope 
that  the  thoughts  and  quotations  in 
which  I  have  found  most  comfort 
and  delight,  might  be  of  use  to  oth- 
ers also. 

In  this  my  most  sanguine  hopes 
have  been  more  than  realized.  Not 
only  has  the  book  passed  through 
thirteen  editions  in  less  than  two 
years,  but  the  many  letters  which 
I  have  received  have  been  most 
gratifying. 

Two  criticisms  have  been  repeated 
by  several  of  those  who  have  done 
me  the  honor  of  noticing  my  pre- 
vious volume.  It  has  been  said  in 
the  first  place  that  my  life  has  been 
exceptionally  bright  and  full,  and 
that  I  connot  therefore  judge  for 
others.  Nor  do  I  attempt  to  do  so. 
I  do  not  forget,  I  hope  I  am  not 
ungrateful  for,  all  that  has  been 
bestowed  on  me.  But  if  I  have 
been  greatly  favored,  ought  I  not  to 
be  on  that  very  account  especially 
qualified  to  write  on  such  a  theme  ? 


Moreover,   I    have    had, — who    has 
not, — my  own  sorrows. 

Again,  some  have  complained  that 
there  is  too  much  quotation — too 
little  of  my  own.  This  I  take  to  be 
in  reality  a  great  compliment.  I 
have  not  striven  to  be  original. 

If,  as  I  have  been  assured  by 
many,  my  book  have  proved  a  com- 
fort, and  have  been  able  to  cheer  in 
the  hour  of  darkness,  that  is  indeed 
<in  ample  reward,  and  is  the  utmost 
I  have  ever  hoped. 

HIGH  ELMS, 

DOWN,  KENT,  April  1889. 


CHAPTER L 


AMBITION. 


"  Fame  is  the  spar  that  the  clear  spirit  doth  raise 

(That  last  infirmity  of  noble  minds) 

To  scorn  delights  and  live  laborious  days." 

MILTON. 


IF  fame  be  the  last  infirmity  of  no- 
ble  minds,  ambition  is  often  the  first ; 
though,  when  properly  directed,  it 
may  be  no  feeble  aid  to  virtue. 

Had  not  my  youthful  mind,  says 
Cicero,  "from  many  precepts,  from 
many  writings,  drunk  in  this  truth, 
that  glory  and  virtue  ought  to  be  the 
darling,  nay,  the  only  wish  in  lif^ ; 
that,  to  attain  these,  the  torments  of 
the  flesh,  with  the  perils  of  death 
and  exile,  are  to  be  despised ;  never 
had  I  exposed  my  person  in  so  many 
encounters,  and  to  these  daily  con- 


BEACON  LIGHTS  Or  SCIENCE. 


fliots  with  the  worst  of  men,  for 
your  deliverance.  But  on  this  head, 
books  are  full ;  the  voice  of  the  wise 
is  full ;  the  examples  of  antiquity  are 
full :  and  all  these  the  night  of  bar- 
barism had  still  enveloped,  had  it  nojb 
been  enlightened  by  the  sun  of  sci- 
ence." 

The  poet  tells  us  that 

"  The  many  fail :  the  one  succeeds."  * 

But  this  is  scarcely  true.  All  suc- 
ceed who  deserve,  though  not  per- 
haps as  they  hoped,  An  honorable 
defeat  is  better  than  a  mean  victory, 
and  no  one  is  really  the  worse  for  be- 
ing beaten,  unless  he  loses  heart. 
Though  we  may  not  be  able  to  attain, 
that  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not 
aspire. 

I  know,  says  Morris, 

••  How  far  high  failure  overleaps  the  bound 
Of  low  successes." 

And  Bacon  assures  us  that  "if  a  man 
look  sharp  and  attentively  he  shall 
see  fortune ;  for  though  she  is  blind, 
she  is  not  invisible." 

To  give  ourselves  a  reasonable 
prospect  of  success  we  must  realize 
what  we  hope  to  achieve ;  and  then 
make  the  most  of  our  opportunities. 
Of  these  the  use  of  time  is  one  of 
the  most  important.  What  have  we 
to  do  with  time,  asks  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes,  but  to  fill  it  up  with  labor. 

"At  the  battle  of  Montebello,"  said 
Napoleon,  "I  ordered  Kellermann  to 
attack  with  800  horse,  and  with  these 
he  separated  the  6000  Hungarian 
grenadiers  before  the  very  eyes  of 
the  Austrian  cavalry.  This  cavalry 
was  half  a  league  off,  and  required  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  to  arrive  on  the 
field  of  action ;  and  I  have  observed 
that  it  is  always  these  quarters  of  an 
hour  that  decide  the  fate  of  a  bat- 
tle," including,  we  may  add,  the  bat- 
tle of  life. 

Nor  must  we  spare  ourselves  in 
other  ways,  for 

"  He  who  thinks  in  strife 

To  earn  a  deathless  fame,  must  do,  nor  ever  care 
for  life."t 

In  the  excitement  of   the  struggle, 


moreover,  he  will  suffer  compara- 
tively little  from  wounds  and  blows 
which  would  otherwise  cause  intense 
suffering. 

It  is  well  to  weigh  scrupulously 
the  object  in  view,  to  run  as  little 
risk  as  may  be,  to  count  the  cost  with 
care. 

But  when  the  mind  is  once  made 
up,  there  must  be  no  looking  back, 
you  must  spare  yourself  no  labor, 
nor  shrink  from  danger. 

"  He  either  fears  his  fate  too  much 

Or  his  deserts  are  small, 
That  dares  not  put  it  to  the  touch 

To  gain  or  lose  it  all."* 

Glory,  says  Benan,  "is  after  all 
the  thing  which  has  the  best  chance 
of  not  being  altogether  vanity."  But 
what  is  glory  ? 

Marcus  Aurelius  observes  that  "  a 
spider  is  proud  when  it  has  caught  a 
fly,  a  man  when  he  has  caught  a  hare, 
another  when  he  has  taken  a  little  finh 
in  a  net,  another  when  he  has  taken 
wild  boars,  another  when  he  has 
taken  bears,  and  another  when  he 
has  taken  Sarmatians  ;"f  but  this,  if 
from  one  point  of  view  it  shows  the 
vanity  of  fame,  also  encourages  us 
with  the  evidence  that  every  one  may 
succeed  if  his  objects  are  but  reason- 
able. 

Alexander  may  be  taken  as  almost 
a  type  of  Ambition  in  its  usual  form, 
though  carried  to  an  extreme. 

His  desire  was  to  conquer,  not  to 
inherit  or  to  rule.  When  news  was 
brought  that  his  father  Philip  had 
taken  some  town,  or  won  some  bat- 
tle, instead  of  appearing  delighted 
with  it,  he  used  to  say  to  his  com- 
panions, "My  father  will  go  on  con- 
quering, till  there  be  nothing  extra- 
ordinary left  for  you  and  me  to  do.":}: 
He  is  said  even  to  have  been  morti- 
fied at  the  number  of  the  stars,  con- 
sidering that  he  had  not  been  able  to 
conquer  one  world.  Such  ambition 
is  justly  foredoomed  to  disappoint- 
ment. 

The  remarks  of  Philosophers  on 


Tennyson. 
\  Beowulf. 


*  Moutrose. 

t  He  is  referring  here  to  one  of  his  expedition*. 

t  Plutarch. 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


49 


the  vanity  of  ambition  refer  gener- 
ally to  that  unworthy  form  of  which 
Alexander  may  be  taken  as  the  type 
— the  idea  of  self -exaltation,  not  only 
without  any  reference  to  the  happi- 
ness, but  even  regardless  of  the  suf- 
ferings, of  others. 

"A  continual  and  restless  search 
after  fortune,"  says  Bacon,  "takes 
up  too  much  of  their  time  who  have 
nobler  things  to  observe."  Indeed 
he  elsewhere  extends  this,  and  adds, 
"No  man's  private  fortune  can  be  an 
tudany  way  worthy  of  his  existence." 

Goethe  well  observes  that  man 
"exists  for  culture;  not  for  what  he 
can  accomplish,  but  for  what  can  be 
accomplished  in  him."* 

As  regards  fame  we  must  not  con- 
fuse name  and  essence.  To  be  re- 
membered is  not  necessarily  to  be 
famous.  There  is  infamy  as  well  as 
fame ;  and  unhappily  almost  as  many 
are  remembered  for  the  one  as  for 
the  other,  and  not  a  few  for  a  mix- 
ture of  both. 

Who  would  not  rather  be  forgot- 
ten, than  recollected  as  Ahab  or  Jez- 
ebel, Nero  or  Commodus,  Messalina 
or  Heliogabalus,  King  John  or  Rich- 
ard in.? 

"To  be  nameless  in  worthy  deeds 
exceeds  an  infamous  history.  The 
Canaanitish  woman  lives  more  hap- 
pily without  a  name  than  Herodias 
with  one ;  and  who  would  not  rather 
have  been  the  good  thief  than  Pi- 
late ?"f 

Kings  and  Generals  are  often  re- 
membered as  much  for  their  deaths 
as  for  their  lives,  for  their  misfortunes 
as  for  their  successes.  The  hero 
of  Thermopylae  was  Leonidas,  not 
Xerxes.  Alexander's  Empire  fell  to 
pieces  at  his  death.  Napoleon  was  a 
great  genius,  though  no  Hero.  But 
what  came  of  all  his  victories.  They 
passed  away  like  the  smoke  of  his 
guns,  and  he.  left  France  weaker, 
poorer,  and  smaller  than  he  found 
her.  The  most  lasting  result  of  his 

*  Emerson. 

*  *ttr  J.  Browne. 


genius  is  no  military  glory,  but  the 
Code  Napoleon. 

A  surer  and  more  glorious  title  to 
fame  is  that  of  those  who  are  re- 
membered for  some  act  of  justice  or 
self-devotion :  the  self-sacrifice  of  Le- 
onidas, the  good  faith  of  Regulus,  are 
the  glories  of  history. 

In  some  cases  where  men  have 
been  called  after  places,  the  men  are 
remembered,  while  the  places  are  for- 
gotten. When  we  speak  of  Palestrina 
or  Perugino,  of  Nelson  or  Welling- 
ton, of  Newton  or  Darwin,  who  re- 
members the  towns?  We  think  only 
of  the  men. 

Goethe  has  been  called  the  soul  of 
his  century. 

It  is  true  that  we  have  but  meagre 
biographies  of  Shakespeare  or  of 
Plato ;  yet  how  much  we  know  about 
them. 

Statesmen  and  Generals  enjoy  great 
celebrity  during  their  lives.  The 
newspapers  chronicle  every  word  and 
movement.  But  the  fame  of  the 
Philosopher  and  Poet  is  more  en- 
during. 

Wordsworth  deprecates  monu- 
ments to  poets,  with  some  exceptions, 
on  this  very  account.  The  case  of 
statesmen,  he  says,  is  different.  It  is 
right  to  commemorate  them  because 
they  might  otherwise  be  forgotten ; 
but  Poets  live  in  their  books  for 
ever. 

The  real  conquerors  of  the  world 
indeed  are  not  the  Generals  but  the 
Thinkers;  not  Genghis  Khan  and 
Akbar,  Rameses,  or  Alexander,  but 
Confucius  and  Buddha,  Aristotle, 
Plato,  and  Christ.  The  rulers  and 
kings  who  reigned  over  our  ancestors 
have  for  the  most  part  long  since 
sunk  into  oblivion — they  are  forgot- 
ten for  want  of  some  sacred  bard  to 
give  them  life — or  are  remembered, 
like  Suddhodana  and  Pilate,  from- 
their  association  with  higher  spirits. 

Such  men's  lives  cannot  be  com- 
pressed into  any  biography.  They 
lived  not  merely  in  their  own  gene- 
ration, but  for  all  time.  When  we 
speak  of  the  Elizabethan  period  we 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


think  of  Shakepeare  and  Bacon, 
Raleigh  and  Spenser.  The  minister 
and  secretaries  of  state,  with  one  or 
two  exceptions,  we  scarcely  remem- 
ber, and  Bacon  himself  is  recollected 
less  as  the  Judge  than  as  the  Philo- 
sopher. 

Moreover,  to  what  do  Generals 
and  Statesmen  owe  their  fame?  They 
were  celebrated  for  their  deeds,  but 
to  the  Poet  and  the  Historian  they 
owe  their  fame,  and  to  the  Poet  and 
Historian  we  owe  their  glorious 
memories  and  the  example  of  their 
virtues. 

"  Vixere  fortes  ante  Agamemnona 
Haiti ;  sed  omnes  illacrimabiles 
Urgentur  ignotique  longa 
Nocte,  careiit  quia  vate  sacro." 

There  were  many  brave  men  before 
Agamemnon,  but  their  memory  has 
perished  because  they  were  cele- 
brated by  no  divine  bard. 

Montrose  happily  combined  the 
two,  when  in  "My  dear  and  only 
love  "  he  promises, 

"  I'll  make  thee  glorious  by  my  pen. 
And  famous  by  my  sword.' 

It  is  remarkable,  and  encouraging, 
how  many  of  the  greatest  men  have 
risen  from  the  lowest  rank,  and  tri- 
umphed over  obstacles  which  might 
well  have  seemed  insurmountable ; 
nay,  even  obscurity  itself  may  be  a 
source  of  honor.  The  very  doubts 
as  to  Homer's  birthplace  have  con- 
tributed to  this  glory,  seven  cities  as 
we  all  know  laying  claim  to  the  great 
poet — 

"Smyrna,  Chios,    Colophon,    Salamis,    Bhodos, 
Argos,  Athenae." 

To  take  men  of  Science  only. 
Ray  was  the  son  of  a  blacksmith, 
Watt  of  a  shipwright,  Franklin  of  a 
tallow-chandler,  Dalton  of  a  hand- 
loom  weaver,  Fraiinhofer  of  a  gla- 
zier, Laplace  of  a  farmer,  Linnaeus 
of  a  poor  curate,  Faraday  of  a  black- 
smith, Lamarck  of  a  banker's  clerk ; 
Davy  was  an  apothecary's  assistant, 
Galileo,  Kepler,  Sprengel,  Cuvier,and 
Sir  \V.  Herschel  were  all  children  of 
very  poor  parents. 

It  is,  on  the  other  hand,  sad  to 
think  how  many  of  our  greatest  ben- 
efactors are  unknown  even  by  name. 


Who  discovered  the  art  of  procuring 
fire  ?  Prometheus  is  merely  the  per- 
sonification of  forethought.  Who 
invented  letters?  Cadmus  is  a  mere 
name. 

These  inventions,  indeed,  are  lost 
in  the  mists  of  antiquity,  but  even  as 
regards  recent  progress  the  steps  are 
often  so  gradual  and  so  numerous, 
that  few  inventions  can  be  attributed 
entirely,  or  even  mainly,  to  any  one 
person. 

Columbus  is  said,  and  truly  said, 
to  have  discovered  America,  though 
the  Northmen  were  there  before 
him. 

We  Englishmen  have  every  reason 
to  be  proud  of  our  fellow-country- 
men. To  take  Philosophers  and  men 
of  Science  only,  Bacon  and  Hobbes, 
Locke  and  Berkeley,  Hume  and  Ham- 
ilton, will  always  be  associated  with 
the  progress  of  human  thought ;  New- 
ton with  gravitation,  Adam  Smith 
with  Political  Economy,  Young  with 
the  undulatory  theory  of  light,  Her- 
schel with  the  discovery  of  Uranus 
and  the  study  of  the  star  depths, 
Lord  Worcester,  Trevethick,  and 
Watt  with  the  steam-engine,  Wheat- 
stone  with  the  electric  telegraph, 
Jenner  with  the  banishment  of  small- 
pox, Simpson  with  the  practical  ap- 
plication of  anaesthetics,  and  Darwin 
with  the  creation  of  modern  Natural 
History. 

These  men,  and  such  as  these,  have 
made  our  history  and  moulded  our 
opinions;  and  though  during  life 
they  may  have  occupied,  compara- 
tively, an  insignificant  space  in  the 
eyes  of  their  countrymen,  they  be- 
came at  length  an  irresistible  power, 
and  have  now  justly  grown  to  a  glo- 
rious memory. 


CHAPTER  IL 


WEALTH. 


"  The  rich  and  the  poor  meet  together :  the  Lori 
is  the  maker  of  them  all."    PBOVESBS  OF  SOLOMON. 

AMBITION  often  takes  the  form  of 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


a  lore  of  money.  There  are  many 
who  have  never  attempted  Art  or 
Music,  Poetry  or  Science ;  but  most 
people  do  something  for  a  livelihood, 
and  consequently  an  increase  of  in- 
come is  not  only  acceptable  in  itself, 
but  gives  a  pleasant  feeling  of  suc- 
cess. 

Doubt  is  often  expressed  whether 
wealth  is  any  advantage.  I  do  not 
myself  believe  that  those  who  are 
born,  as  the  saying  is,  with  a  silver 
spoon  in  their  mouth,  are  necessarily 
any  the  happier  for  it.  No  doubt 
wealth  entails  almost  more  labor 
than  poverty,  and  certainly  more 
anxiety.  Still  it  must,  I  think,  be 
confessed  that  the  possession  of  an 
income,  whatever  it  may  be,  which 
increases  somewhat  as  the  years 
roll  on,  does  add  to  the  comfort  of 
life. 

Unquestionably  the  possession  of 
wealth  is  by  no  means  unattended 
by  drawbacks.  Money  and  the  love 
of  money  often  go  together.  The 
poor  man,  as  Emerson  says,  is  the 
man  who  wishes  to  be  rich ;  and  the 
more  a  man  has,  the  more  he  often 
longs  to  be  richer.  Just  as  drinking 
often  does  but  increase  thirst ;  so  in 
many  cases  the  craving  for  riches 
does  grow  with  wealth. 

This  is,  of  course,  especially  the 
case  when  money  is  sought  for  its 
own  sake.  Moreover,  it  is  often 
easier  to  make  money  than  to  keep 
or  to  enjoy  it.  Keeping  it  is  dull 
and  anxious  drudgery.  The  dread 
of  loss  may  hang  like  a  dark  cloud 
over  life.  Apicius,  when  he  had 
squandered  most  of  his  patrimony, 
but  had  still  250,000  crowns  left, 
committed  suicide,  as  Seneca  tells 
us,  for  fear  he  should  die  of  hunger. 

Wealth  is  certainly  no  sinecure. 
Morever,  the  value  of  money  depends 
partly  on  knowing  what  to  do  with 
it,  partly  on  the  manner  in  which  it 
i>s  acquired. 

"Acquire  money,  thy  friends  say, 
that  we  also  may  have  some.  If  I 
can  acquire  money  and  also  keep 
myself  modest,  and  faithful,  and 


magnanimous,  point  out  the  way, 
and  I  will  acquire  it.  But  if  you 
ask  me  to  love  the  things  which  are 
good  and  my  own,  in  order  that  you 
may  gain  things  that  are  not  good, 
see  how  unfair  and  unwise  you  are. 
For  which  would  you  rather  have! 
Money,  or  a  faithful  and  modest 
friend 

"What  hinders  a  man,  who  has 
clearly  comprehended  these  things, 
from  living  with  a  light  heart,  and 
bearing  easily  the  reins,  quietly  ex- 
pecting which  can  happen,  and  en- 
during that  which  has  already  hap- 
pened I  Would  you  have  me  to  bear 
poverty?  Come,  and  you  will  know 
what  poverty  is  when  it  has  found 
one  who  can  act  well  the  part  of  a 
poor  man."* 

We  must  bear  in  mind  Solon's 
answer  to  Croesus,  "  Sir,  if  any  other 
come  that  hath  better  iron  than  you, 
he  will  be  master  of  all  this  gold." 

Midas  is  another  case  in  point. 
He  prayed  that  everything  he  touched 
might  be  turned  into  gold,  and  this 
prayer  was  granted.  His  wine  turned 
to  gold,  his  bread  turned  to  gold, 
his  clothes,  his  very  bed. 

"  Attonitus  novitate  mali,  divesque  miserque, 
Effugere  optat  opes,  et  quse  modo  voverat,  odit." 

He  is  by  no  means  the  only  man 
who  has  suffered  from  too  much 
gold. 

The  real  truth  I  take  to  be  that 
wealth  is  not  necessarily  an  advan- 
tage, but  that  whether  it  is  so  or 
not  depends  on  the  use  we  make  of 
it.  The  same,  however,  might  be 
said  of  most  other  opportunities  and 
privileges ;  Knowledge  and  Strength, 
Beauty  and  Skill,  may  all  be  abused; 
if  we  neglect  or  misuse  them  we  are 
worse  off  than  if  we  had  never  had 
them.  Wealth  is  only  a  disadvan- 
tage in  the  hands  of  those  who  do 
not  know  how  to  use  it.  It  gives 
the  command  of  so  many  other 
things — leisure,  the  power  of  help- 
ing friends,  books,  works  of  art,  op- 
portunities and  means  of  travel. 

It  would,  however,  be  easy  to  ex- 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


aggerate  the  advantages  of  money. 
It  is  well  worth  having,  and  worth 
working  for,  but  it  does  not  requite 
too  great  a  sacrifice ;  not  indeed  so 
great  as  it  often  offered  up  to  it  A 
wise  proverb  tells  us  that  gold  may 
be  bought  too  dear.  If  wealth  is  to 
lie  valued  because  it  gives  leisure, 
Clearly  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  sacri- 
lice  leisure  in  the  struggle  for 
wealth.  Money  has  no  doubt  also  a 
tendency  to  make  men  poor  in  spirit. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  what  gift  is 
there  which  is  without  danger? 

Euripides  said  that  money  finds 
friends  for  men,  and  has  great  (he 
said  the  greatest)  power  among  Man- 
kind, cynically  adding,  "A  mighty 
person  indeed  is  a  rich  man,  espe- 
cially if  his  heir  be  unknown." 

Bossuet  tells  us  that  "  he  had  no 
attachment  to  riches,  still  if  he  had 
only  what  was  barely  necessary,  he 
felt  himself  narrowed,  and  would  lose 
more  than  half  his  talents." 

Shelley  was  certainly  not  an  avari- 
cious man,  and  yet "  I  desire  money," 
lie  said,  "because  I  think  I  know  the 
use  of  it.  It  commands  labor,  it  gives 
leisure ;  and  to  give  leisure  to  those 
who  will  employ  it  in  the  forwarding 
of  truth  is  the  noblest  present  an  in- 
dividual can  make  to  the  whole." 

Many  will  have  felt  with  Pepys 
when  he  quaintly  and  piously  says, 
"  Abroad  with  my  wife,  the  first  time 
that  ever  I  rode  in  my  own  coach ; 
which  do  make  my  heart  rejoice  and 
praise  God,  and  pray  him  to  bless  it 
to  me,  and  continue  it." 

This,  indeed,  was  a  somewhat  sel- 
fish satisfaction.  Yet  the  merchant 
need  not  quit  nor  be  ashamed  of  his 
profession,  bearing  in  mind  only  the 
inscription  on  the  Church  of  St.  Gia- 
como  de  Rialto  at  Venice :  "  Around 
this^  temple  let  the  merchant's  law 
be  just,  his  weights  true,  and  his 
covenants  faithful."* 

If  life  has  been  sacrificed  to  the 
rolling  up  of  money  for  its  own  sake, 
the  very  means  by  which  it  was  ac- 
quired will  prevent  its  being  enjoyed ; 

*  Buskin. 


the  chill  of  poverty  will  have  entered 
into  the  very  bones.  The  term  Miser 
was  happily  chosen  for  such  persona; 
they  are  essentially  miserable. 

"A  collector  peeps  into  all  the 
picture  shops  of  Europe  for  a  land 
scape  of  Poussin,  a  crayon  sketch  of 
Salvator;  but  the  Transfiguration, 
the  Last  Judgment,  the  Communion 
of  St.  Jerome,  and  what  are  as  tran 
scendent  as  these,  are  on  the  walls  of 
the  Vatican,  the  Uffizi,  or  the  Louvre, 
where  every  footman  may  see  them ; 
to  say  nothing  of  Nature's  pictures 
in  every  street,  of  sunsets  and  sun- 
rises every  day,  and  the  sculpture  of 
the  human  body  never  absent.  A 
collector  recently  bought  at  public 
auction  in  London,  for  one  hundred 
and  fifty-seven  guineas,  an  autograph 
of  Shakespeare:  but  for  nothing  a 
schoolboy  can  read  Hamlet,  and  can 
detect  secrets  of  highest  concern- 
ment yet  unpublished  therein."*  And 
yet  "  What  hath  the  owner  but  the 
sight  of  it  with  his  eyes."f 

We  are  really  richer  than  we 
think.  We  often  hear  of  Earth  hun- 
ger. People  envy  a  great  Landlord, 
and  fancy  how  delightful  it  must  be 
to  possess  a  large  estate.  But,  as 
Emerson  says,  "if  you  own  land,  the 
land  owns  you."  Moreover,  have  we 
not  all,  in  a  better  sense — have  we 
not  all  thousands  of  acres  of  our  ownt 
The  commons,  and  roads,  and  foot- 
paths, and  the  seashore,  our  grand 
and  varied  coast — these  are  all  ours. 
The  sea-coast  has,  moreover,  two 
great  advantages.  In  the  first  place, 
it  is  for  the  most  part  but  little  inter- 
fered with  by  man,  and  in  the  second 
it  exhibits  mostinstructively  the  forces 
of  Nature.  We  are  all  great  landed 
proprietors,  if  we  only  knew  it.  What 
we  lack  is  not  land,  but  the  power  to 
enjoy  it.  Moreover,  this  great  in- 
heritence  has  the  additional  advan- 
tage that  it  entails  no  labor,  requires 
no  management.  The  landlord  has 
the  trouble,  but  the  landscape  be- 
longs to  every  one  who  has  eyes  to 


*  Kmeraon. 
t  Solomon. 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


53 


see  it.  Thus  Kingsley  called  the 
heaths  round  Eversley  his  "winter 
garden ;"  not  because  they  were  his 
in  the  eye  of  the  law,  but  in  that 
higher  sense  in  which  ten  thousand 
persons  may  own  the  same  thing. 


CHAPTER  in. 


HEALTH. 


"Health  is  best  for  mortal  man,  next  beauty; 
thirdly,  well  gotten  wealth  ;  fourthly,  the  pleasure 
of  youth  among  friends." 

SIMONIDES. 


BUT  if  there  has  been  some  dif- 
ference of  opinion  as  to  the  advantage 
of  wealth,  with  reference  to  health  all 
are  agreed. 

"Health,"  said  Simonides  long 
ago,  "  is  best  for  mortal  man ;  next 
beaiaty ;  thirdly,  well  gotten  wealth  ; 
fourthly,  tne  pleasure  of  youth 
among  friends."  "Life,"  says  Long- 
fellow, "  without  health  is  a  burden, 
with  health  is  a  joy  and  gladness." 
Empedocles  delivered  the  people  of 
Selinus  from  a  pestilence  by  drain- 
ing a  marsh,  and  was  hailed  as  a 
Demigod.  We  are  told  that  a  coin 
was  struck  in  his  honor,  represent- 
ing the  Philosopher  in  the  act  of 
staying  the  hand  of  Phoebus. 

We  scarcely  realize,  I  think  how 
much  we  owe  to  Doctors.  Our  sys- 
tem of  Medicine  seems  so  natural 
and  obvious  that  it  hardly  occurs  to 
us  as  somewhat  new  and  exceptional. 
When  we  are  ill  we  send  for  a  Phy- 
sician ;  he  prescribes  some  medicine ; 
we  take  it,  and  pay  his  fee.  But 
among  the  lower  races  of  men  pain 
and  illness  are  often  attributed  to 
the  presence  of  evil  spirits.  The 
Medicine  Man  is  a  Priest,  or  rather 
a  Sorcerer,  more  than  a  true  Doctor, 
and  his  effort  is  to  exorcise  the  evil 
spirit. 

In  other  countries  where  some 
advance  has  been  made,  a  charm  is 
written  on  a  board,  waslx:,!  off,  and 
drunk.  In  some  oases  I  he  medicine 


is  taken,  not  by  the  patient,  but  by 
the  Doctor.  Such  a  system,  how- 
ever, is  generally  transient;  it  is 
naturally  discouraged  by  the  Pro- 
fession, and  is  indeed  incompatible 
with  a  large  practice.  Even  as  re- 
gards the  payment  we  find  very  dif- 
ferent systems.  The  Chinese  pay 
their  medical  man  as  long  as  they 
are  well,  and  stop  his  salary  as  soon 
as  they  are  ill.  In  ancient  Egypt  we 
are  told  that  the  patient  feed  the 
Doctor  for  the  first  few  days,  after 
which  the  Doctor  paid  the  patient 
until  he  made  him  well.  This  is  a 
fascinating  system,  but  might  afford 
too  much  temptation  to  heroic 
remedies. 

On  the  whole  our  plan  seems  the 
best,  though  it  does  not  offer  ade- 
quate encouragement  to  discovery 
and  research.  We  do  not  appreciate 
how  much  we  owe  to  the  discoveries 
of  such  men  as  Hunter  and  -Fenner, 
Simpson  and  Lister.  And  yet  in  the 
matter  of  health  we  can  generally  do 
more  for  ourselves  than  the  greatest 
Doctors  can  for  us. 

But  if  all  are  agreed  as  to  the 
blessing  of  health,  there  are  many 
who  will  not  take  the  little  trouble, 
or  submit  to  the  slight  sacrifices, 
necessary  to  maintain  it.  Many, 
indeed,  deliberately  ruin  their  own 
health,  and  incur  the  certainty  of  an 
early  grave,  or  an  old  age  of  suf- 
fering. 

No  doubt  some  inherit  a  constitu- 
tion  which    renders    health    almost 
unattainable.      Pope  spoke  of  that 
long  disease,  his  life.     Many  indee^ 
may  say,  "  I  suffer,  therefore  I  am.' 
But  happily  these  cases  are  excef 
tional.     Most  of  us  might  be   welv 
if  we   would.     It  is   very  much  oui 
own  fault  that  we  are  ill.     We   do 
those  things  which  we  ought  not  to 
do,    and   we    leave    undone     those 
things  which  we  ought  to  have  done, 
and   then   we   wonder   there   is    no 
health  in  us. 

We  all   know   that   we  can  make 
ourselves  ill,  but  few  perhaps  realize 
\  how   much  we  can  do  to  keep  our 
7. 


54 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


selves  well.  Much  of  our  suffering 
is  self-inflicted.  It  has  been  ob- 
served that  among  the  ancient  Egyp- 
tians the  chief  aim  of  life  seemed  to 
be  to  be  well  buried.  Many,  however, 
live  even  now  as  if  this  were  the 
principal  object  of  their  existence. 
Like  Naaman,  we  expect  our  health 
to  be  the  subject  of  some  miraculous 
interference,  and  neglect  the  homely 
precautions  by  which  it  might  be  se- 
cured. 

I  am  inclined  to  doubt  whether 
the  study  of  health  is  sufficiently  im- 
pressed on  the  minds  of  those  enter- 
ing life.  Not  that  it  is  desirable  to 
potter  over  minor  ailments,  to  con 
over  books  on  illnesses,  or  experi- 
ment on  ourselves  with  medicine. 
Far  from  it.  The  less  we  fancy  our- 
selves ill,  or  bother  about  little  bodily 
discomforts,  the  more  likely  perhaps 
we  are  to  preserve  our  health. 

It  is,  however,  a  different  matter 
to  study  the  general  conditions  of 
health.  A  well  known  proverb  tells 
us  that  every  one  is  a  fool  or  a  phy- 
sician at  forty.  Unfortunately,  how- 
ever, many  persons  are  invalids  at 
forty  as  well  as  physicians. 

Hi-health,  however,  is  no  excuse  for 
moroseness.  If  we  have  one  disease 
we  may  at  least  congratulate  our- 
selves that  we  are  escaping  all  the 
rest.  Sydney  Smith,  ever  ready  to 
look  on  the  bright  side  of  things, 
once,  when  borne  down  by  suffering, 
wrote  to  a  friend  that  he  had  gout, 
asthma,  and  seven  other  maladies, 
but  was  "  otherwise  very  well ;  "  and 
many  of  the  greatest  invalids  have 
borne  their  sufferings  with  cheerful- 
ness and  good  spirits. 

It  is  said  that  the  celebrated  phys- 
iognomist, Campanella,  could  so  ab 
stract  his  attention  from  any  suffer 
ings  of  his  body,  that  he  was  even 
able  to  endure  the  rack  without  much 
pain ;  and  who  ever  has  the  power  of 
concentrating  his  attention  and  con 
trolling  his  will,  can  emancipate  him- 
self from  most  of  the  minor  miseries 
of  life.  He  may  have  much  cause  for 
anxiety,  his  body  may  be  the  seat  of 


severe  suffering,  and  yet  his  mind  will 
remain  serene  and  unaffected ;  he 
may  triumph  over  care  and  pain. 

But  many  have  undergone  much 
unnecessary  suffering,  and  valuable 
lives  have  often  been  lost,  through 
ignorance  or  carelessness.  We  can 
not  but  fancy  that  the  lives  of  many 
great  men  might  have  been  much 
prolonged  by  the  exercise  of  a  little 
ordinary  care. 

If  we  take  musicians  only,  what  a 
grievous  loss  to  the  world  it  is  that 
Pergolesi  should  have  died  at  twenty 
six,  Schubert  at  thirty-one,  Mozart 
at  thirty-five,  Purcell  at  thirty-seven, 
and  Mendelssohn  at  thirty-eight. 

In  the  old  Greek  myth  the  life  of 
Meleager  was  indissolubly  connected 
by  fate  with  the  existence  of  a  par- 
ticular log  of  wood.  As  long  as  thia 
was  kept  safe  by  Althaea,  his  mother, 
Meleager  bore  a  charmed  life.  It 
seems  wonderful  that  we  do  not 
watch  with  equal  care  over  our  body, 
on  the  state  of  which  happiness  so 
much  depends. 

The  requisites  of  health  are  plain 
enough;  regular  habits,  daily  exer- 
cise, cleanliness,  and  moderation  in 
all  things — in  eating  as  well  as  in 
drinking — would  keep  most  people 
well. 

I  need  not  here  dwell  on  the  evils 
of  drinking,  but  we  perhaps  scarcely 
realize  how  much  of  the  suffering 
and  ill-humor  of  life  is  due  to  over- 
eating. Dyspepsia,  for  instance, 
from  which  so  many  suffer,  is  in  nine 
cases  out  of  ten  their  own  fault,  and 
arises  from  the  combination  of  too 
much  food  with  too  little  exercise. 
To  lengthen  your  life,  says  an  old 
proverb,  shorten  your  meals.  Plain 
living  and  high  thinking  will  secure 
health  for  most  of  us,  though  it 
matters,  perhaps,  comparatively  little 
what  a  healthy  man  eats,  so  long  as 
he  does  not  eat  too  much. 

Mr.  Gladstone  has  told  us  that 
the  splendid  health  he  enjoys  is 
greatly  due  to  his  having  early  learnt 
one  simple  physiological  maxim,  and 
laid  it  down  as  a  rule  for  himself 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


55 


always  to  make  twenty-five  bites  at 
every  bit  of  meat. 

"  Go  to  your  banquet  then,  but  use  delight 
So  as  to  rise  still  with  an  appetite."* 

No  doubt,  however,  though  the 
rule  not  to  eat  or  drink  too  much  is 
simple  enough  in  theory,  it  is  not 
quite  so  easy  in  application.  There 
have  been  many  Esaus  who  have  sold 
their  birthright  of  health  for  a  mess 
of  pottage. 

Moreover,  it  may  seem  paradoxi- 
cal, but  it  is  certainly  true,  that  in 
the  long  run  the  moderate  man  will 
derive  more  enjoyment  even  from 
eating  and  drinking,  than  the  glut- 
ton or  the  drunkard  will  ever  obtain. 
They  know  not  what  it  is  to  enjoy 
"  the  exquisite  taste  of  common  dry 
bread,  "f 

And  yet  even  if  we  were  to  con 
sider  merely  the  pleasure  to  be  de- 
rived from  eating  and  drinking,  the 
same  rule  would  hold  good.  A  lunch 
of  bread  and  cheese  after  a  good 
walk  is  more  enjoyable  than  a  Lord 
Mayor's  feast.  Without  wishing,  like 
Apicius,  for  the  neck  of  a  stork,  so 
that  he  might  enjoy  his  dinner  long- 
er, we  must  not  be  ungrateful  for 
the  enjoyment  we  deiive  from  eating 
and  drinking,  even  though  they  be 
amongst  the  least  aesthetic  of  our 
pleasures.  They  are  homely,  no 
doubt,  but  they  come  morning,  noon, 
and  night,  and  are  not  the  less  real 
because  they  have  reference  to  the 
bodv  rather  than  the  soul. 

We  speak  truly  of  a  healthy  appe- 
tite, for  it  is  a  good  test  of  our  bod- 
ily condition ;  and  indeed  in  some 
cases  of  our  mental  state  also.  That 

"  There  coineth  no  good  thing 
Apart  from  toil  to  mortals," 

is  especially  true  with  reference  to  ap 
petite1;  to  sit  down  to  a  dinner,  how- 
ever simple,  after  a  walk  with  a  friend 
?imong  the  mountains  or  along  the 
shore,  is  no  insignificant  pleasure. 

Cheerfulness  and  good  humor, 
moreover,  during  meals  are  not  only 

*  Herrick. 
t  Hamerton. 


pleasant  in  themselves,  but  conducs 
greatly  to  health. 

It  has  been  said  that  hunger  is  the 
best  sauce,  but  most  would  prefer 
some  good  stories  at  a  feast  even  to 
a  good  appetite ;  and  who  would  not 
like  to  have  it  said  of  him,  as  of 
Biron  by  Rosaline — 

"  A  merrier  man 

Within  the  limit  of  becoming  mirth 
I  never  spent  an  hour's  tali  withal." 

In  the  three  great  "Banquets"  of 
Plato,  Xenophon,  and  Plutarch,  the 
food  is  not  even  mentioned. 

In  the  words  of  the  old  Lambeth 
adage — 

"  What  is  a  merry  man  ? 
Let  him  do  what  he  can 
To  entertain  his  guests 
With  wine  and  pleasant  jests, 
Yet  if  his  wife  do  frown 
All  inerrymeut  goes  down. 

What  salt  is  to  food,  wit  and 
humor  are  to  conversation  and  liter- 
ature. "You  do  not,"  an  amusing 
writer  in  the  Cornhill  has  said, 
"expect  humor  in  Thomas  a  Kempis 
or  the  Hebrew  Prophets ; "  but  we 
have  Solomon's  authority  that  there 
is  a  time  to  laugh,  as  well  as  to 
weep. 

"To  read  a  good  comedy  is  to 
keep  the  best  company  in  the  world, 
when  the  best  things  are  said,  and 
the  most  amusing  things  happen.''* 

It  is  not  without  reason  that  every 
one  resents  the  imputation  of  being 
unable  to  see  a  joke. 

Laughter  appears  to  be  the  special 
prerogative  of  man.  The  higher 
animals  present  us  with  proof  of 
evident,  if  not  highly -developed  rea- 
soning power,  but  it  is  more  than 
doubtful  whether  they  are  capable 
of  appreciating  a  joke. 

Wit,  moreover,  has  solved  many 
difficulties  and  decided  many  con- 
troversies. 

"  Ridicule  shall  frequently  prevail, 
And  cut  the  knot  when  graver  reasons  fail."* 

A  careless  song,  says  Walpole, 
with  a  little  nonsense  in  it  now  and 
then,  does  not  misbecome  a  monarch, 
but  it  is  difficult  now  to  realize  that 
James  I.  should  have  regarded  skill 


*  Hazlitt. 
t  Francis. 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


in  punning  in  his  selection  of  bishops 
and  privy  councillors. 

The  most  wasted  of  all  days,  says 
Chamfort,  is  that  on  which  one  has 
not  laughed. 

It  is  moreover,  no  small  merit  of 
laughter  that  it  is  quite  spontaneous. 
"You  cannot  force  people  to  laugh ; 
you  cannot  give  a  reason  why  they 
should  laugh;  they  must  laugh  of 
themselves  or  not  at  all.  ...  If 
we  think  we  must  not  laugh,  this 
makes  our  temptation  to  laugh  the 
greater."*  Humor  is,  moreover,  con- 
tagious. A  witty  man  may  say,  as 
Falstaffdoes  of  himself,  "lam  not 
only  witty  in  myself,  but  the  cause 
that  wit  is  in  other  men." 

But  one  may  paraphrase  the  well- 
known  remark  about  port  wine  and 
say  that  some  jokes  may  be  better 
than  others,  but  anything  which 
makes  one  laugh  is  good.  "After 
all,"  says  Dryden,  "  it  is  a  good  thing 
to  laugh  at  any  rate ;  and  if  a  straw 
can  tickle  a  man,  it  is  an  instrument 
of  happiness,"  and  I  may  add,  of 
health. 

I  have  been  told  that  in  omitting 
any  mention  of  smoking  I  was  over- 
looking one  of  the  real  pleasures  of 
life.  Not  being  a  smoker  myself  I 
cannot  perhaps  judge;  much  must 
depend  on  the  individual  tempera- 
ment; to  some  nervous  natures  it 
certainly  appears  to  be  a  great  com- 
fort ;  but  I  have  my  doubts  whether 
smoking,  as  a  general  rule,  does  add 
to  the  pleasures  of  life.  It  must, 
moreover,  detract  somewhat  from 
the  sensitiveness  of  taste  and  of 
smell. 

Those  who  live  in  cities  may  al- 
most lay  it  down  as  a  rule  that  no 
time  spent  out  of  doors  is  ever 
wasted.  Fresh  air  is  a  cordial  of 
incredible  virtue;  old  families,  are 
in  all  senses  county  families,  not 
town  families ;  and  those  who  prefer 
Homer  and  Plato  and  Shakespeare 
to  hares  and  patridges  and  foxes 
must  beware  that  they  are  not  tempt- 


*  Harlitt. 


ed  to  neglect  this  great  requisite  of 
our  nature. 

Most  Englishmen,  however,  lov« 
open  air,  and  it  is  probably  true  that 
most  of  us  enjoy  a  game  at  cricket 
or  golf  more  than  looking  at  any  of 
the  old  masters.  The  love  of  sport 
is  engraven  in  the  English  character. 
As  was  said  of  William  Rufus,  "he 
loves  the  tall  deer  as  if  he  had  been 
their  father." 

An  Oriental  traveller  is  said  to 
have  watched  a  game  of  cricket  and 
been  much  astonished  at  hearing 
that  many  of  those  playing  were  rich 
men.  He  asked  why  they  did  not 
pay  some  poor  people  to  do  it  for 
them. 

Wordsworth  made  it  a  rule  to  go 
out  every  day,  and  he  used  to  say 
that  as  he  never  consulted  the 
weather,  he  never  had  to  consult 
the  physicians. 

It  always  seems  to  be  raining 
harder  than  it  really  is  when  you 
look  at  the  weather  through  the 
window.  Even  in  winter,  though 
the  landscape  often  seems  cheerless 
and  bare  enough  when  you  look  at  it 
from  the  fireside,  still  it  is  far  better 
to  go  out,  even  if  you  have  to  brave 
the  storm :  when  you  are  once  out  of 
doors  the  touch  of  earth  and  the 
breath  of  the  fresh  air  gives  you 
fresh  life  and  energy.  Men,  like 
trees,  live  in  great  part  on  air. 

After  a  gallop  over  the  downs,  a 
row  on  the  river,  a  sea  voyage,  a 
walk  by  the  seashore  or  in  the 
woods, 

"  The  blue  above,  the  music  in  the  air 
The  flowers  upon  the  ground."* 

one  feels  as  if  one  could  say  with 
Henry  IV,  "  Je  me  porte  comme  le 
Pont  Neuf." 

The  Roman  proverb  that  a  child 
should  be  taught  nothing  which  he 
cannot  learn  standing  up,  went  no 
doubt  into  an  extreme,  but  surely  we 
fall  into  another  when  we  act  as  if 
games  were  the  only  thing  which 
boys  could  learn  upon  their  feet. 

The  love  of  games  among  boys  is 


*Tr«nch . 


1(1 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


57 


•ertainly  a  healthy  instinct,  and 
though  carried  too  far  in  some  of  our 
great  schools,  there  can  be  no  question 
that  cricket  and  football,  boating  and 
hockey,  bathing  and  birdnesting,  are 
not  only  the  greatest  pleasures,  but 
the  best  medicines  for  boys 

We  cannot  always  secure  sleep. 
When  important  decisions  have  to  be 
taken,  the  natural  anxiety  to  come 
to  a  right  decision  will  often  keep  us 
awake.  Nothing,  however,  is  more 
conducive  to  healthy  sleep  than 
plenty  of  open  air.  Then  indeed  we 
can  enjoy  the  fresh  life  of  the  early 
morning :  "  the  breezy  call  of  incense- 
bearing  mom."* 

"  At  inornthe  Blackcock  trims  his  jetty  wing, 
'  Tis  morning  tempts  the  linnet's  blithest  lay, 

All  nature's  children  feel  the  matin  spring 
Of  life  reviving  with  reviving  day." 

Epictetus  described  himself  as  "a 
spirit  beaiing  about  a  corpse."  That 
seems  to  me  an  ungrateful  descrip- 
tion. Surely  we  ought  to  cherish 
the  body,  even  if  it  be  but  a  frail  and 
humble  companion.  Do  we  not  owe 
to  the  eye  our  enjoyment  of  the 
beauties  of  this  world  and  the  glories 
of  the  Heavens ;  to  the  ear  the  voices 
of  friends  and  all  the  delights  of 
music  ;  are  not  the  hands  most  faith- 
full  and  invaluable  instruments,  ever 
ready  in  case  of  need,  ever  willing  to 
do  our  bidding;  and  even  the  feet 
bear  us  without  a  murmur  along  the 
roughest  and  stoniest  paths  of  life. 

With  reasonable  care  then,  most 
of  us  may  hope  to  enjoy  good  health. 
And  yet  what  a  marvellous  and  com- 
plex organization  we  have ! 

We  are  indeed  fearfully  and  won- 
derfully made.  It  is 

"Strange  that  a  harp  of  a  thousand  strings 
Should  keep  in  tune  so  long." 

When  we  consider  the  marvellous 
complexity  of  our  bodily  organiza- 
tion, it  seems  a  miracle  that  we 
should  live  at  all ;  much  more  that 
the  innumerable  organs  and  processes 
should  continue  day  after  day  and 
year  after  year  with  so  much  regu- 
larity and  so  little  friction  that  we 


:  Gray. 


are  sometimes  scarcely  conscious  of 
having  a  body  at  all. 

And  yet  in  that  body  we  have 
more  than  200  bones,  of  complex  and 
vai-ied  forms,  any  irregularity  in,  or 
injury  to,  which  would  of  course 
grievously  interfere  with  our  move- 
ments. 

We  have  over  500  muscles ;  each 
nourished  by  almost  innumerable 
bloodvessels,  and  regulated  by  nerves. 
One  of  our  muscles,  the  heart,  beats 
over  30,000,000  times  in  a  year,  and 
if  it  once  stops,  all  is  over. 

In  the  skin  are  wonderfully  varied 
and  complex  organs — for  instance, 
over  2,000,000  perspiration  glands, 
which  regulate  the  temperature  and 
communicate  with  the  surface  by 
ducts,  which  have  a  total  length  of 
some  ten  miles. 

Think  of  the  miles  of  arteries  and 
veins,  of  capillaries  and  nerves ;  of 
the  blood,  with  the  millions  of  mil- 
lions of  blood  corpuscles,  each  a 
microcosm  in  itself. 

Think  of  the  organs  of  sense, — 
the  eye  with  its  cornea  and  lens, 
vitreous  humor,  aqueous  humor,  and 
choroid,  culminating  in  the  retina, 
no  thicker  than  a  sheet  of  paper,  and 
yet  consisting  of  nine  distinct  layers, 
the  innermost  composed  of  rods,  and 
cones,  supposed  to  be  the  immedi- 
ate recipients  of  the  undulation  of 
light,  and  so  numerous  that  in  each 
eve  the  cones  are  estimated  at  over 
3>)0,000,  the  rods  at  over  30,000,- 
000. 

Above  all,  and  most  wonderful  of 
all,  the  brain  itself.  Meinert  has 
calculated  that  the  gray  matter  of 
the  convolutions  alone  contains  no 
less  than  600,000,000  cells ;  each  cell 
consists  of  several  thousand  visible 
atoms,  and  each  atom  again  of  many 
millions  of  molecules. 

And  yet  with  reasonable  care  we 
can  most  of  us  keep  this  wonderful 
organization  in  health  so  that  it  will 
work  without  causing  us  pain,  or 
even  discomfort,  for  many  years ;  and 
we  may  hope  that  even  when  old  age 
comes 


11 


'BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


"  Time  may  lay  his  hand 
Upon  your  heart  gently,  uot  smiting  it, 
But  as  a  haryer  lava  his  open  palm 
Upon  his  harp,  to  deaden  its  vibrations." 


CHAPTER  IV. 


"  Love  rules  the  conrt,  the  camp,  the  grove, 
And  men  below  and  saints  above ; 
For  love  is  heaven  and  heaven  is  love." 

SCOTT. 


LOVE  is  the  life  and  sunshine  of 
life.  We  are  so  constituted  that  we 
cannot  fully  enjoy  ourselves,  or  any- 
thing else,  unless  some  one  we  love 
enjoys  it  with  us.  Even  if  we  are 
alone,  we  store  up  our  enjoyment  in 
hope  of  sharing  it  hereafter  with 
those  we  love. 

Love  lasts  through  life,  and  adapts 
itself  to  every  age  and  circumstance ; 
in  childhood  for  father  and  mother, 
in  manhood  for  wife,  in  age  for  chil- 
dren, and  throughout  for  brothers 
and  sisters,  relations  and  friends. 
The  strength  of  friendship  is  indeed 
proverbial,  and  in  some  cases,  as  in 
that  of  David  and  Jonathan,  is  de- 
scribed as  surpassing  the  love  of 
women.  But  I  need  not  now  refer 
to  it,  having  spoken  already  of  what 
we  owe  to  friends. 

The  goodness  of  Providence  to 
man  has  been  often  compared  to 
that  of  fathers  and  mothers  for  their 
children. 

"  Just  as  a  mother,  with  sweet  pious  face, 
Yearns  towards  her  little  children  from  her 

seat, 
Gives  one  a  kiss,  another  an  embrace, 

Tabes  this  upon  her  kuees,  that  on  her  feet ; 
And  while  from  actions,  looks,  complaints, 

pretences, 
She  learns  their  feelings  and  their  various 

will, 

To  this  a  look,  to  that  a  word,  dispenses, 
And,  whether  stern  or  smiling,  loves  them 

still  ;— 

So  Providence  for  us,  high  infinite, 
Makes  our  necessities  its  watchful  task, 
Hearkens  to  all  our  prayers,  helps  all  our 

wants, 

And  e'en  if  it  denies  what  seems  our  right, 
Either  denies  because  'twould  have  us  ask. 
Or  seems  but  to  deny,  or  in  denying  grants."* 

Sir  Walter  Scott  well  says — 


*  Filicaja.    Translated  by  Leigh  Hunt. 


"  And  if  there  be  on  Earth  atear 
From  passion's  dross  *  refined  and  clear, 
•Tis  that  which  pious  fathers  shed 
Upon  a  duteous  daughter's  head." 

Eparninondas  is  said  to  have  given 
as  his  main  reason  for  rejoicing  at 
the  victory  of  Leuctra,  that  it  would 
give  so  much  pleasure  to  his  father 
and  mother. 

Nor  must  the  love  of  animals  be 
altogether  omitted.     It  is  impossible 
not  to   sympathize  with  the  Savnge 
when  he  believes  in  their  immortal 
ity,  and  thinks  that  after  death 

"  Admitted  to  that  equal  sky 
Sis  faithful  dog  shall  bear  him  company. "t 

In  the  Mahabharata,  the  great 
Indian  Epic,  when  the  family  of 
Pandavas,  the  heroes,  at  length 
reached  the  gates  of  heaven,  they 
are  welcomed  themselves,  but  are 
told  that  their  dog  cannot  come  in. 
Having  pleaded  in  vain,  they  turn  to 
depart,  as  they  say  they  can  never 
leave  their  faithful  companion. 
Then  at  the  last  moment  the  Angel 
at  the  door  relents,  and  their  dog  is 
allowed  to  enter  with  them. 

We  may  hope  the  time  will  come 
when  we  shall  learn 

• '  Never  to  blend  our  pleasure  or  our  pride 
Witli  sorrow  of  the  meanest  thing  that  feels,"t 

But  at  the  present  moment  I  am 
speaking  rather  of  the  love  which 
leads  to  marriage.  Such  love  is  the 
music  of  life,  nay,  "  there  is  music  in 
the  beauty,  and  the  silent  note  of 
love,  far  sweeter  than  the  sound  of 
any  instrument.''! 

The  Symposium  of  Plato  contains 
an  interesting  and  amusing  disquisi- 
tion on  Love. 

"Love,"  Phsedrus  is  made  to  say, 
"  will  make  men  dare  to  die  for  their 
beloved — love  alone ;  and  women  as 
well  as  men.  Of  this,  Alcestis,  the 
daughter  of  Pehas,  is  a  monument 
to  all  Hellas ;  for  she  was  willing  to 
lay  down  her  life  on  behalf  of  her 
husband,  when  no  one  else  would, 
although  he  had  a  father  and  moth- 
er; but  the  tenderness  of  her  love 

*Not  from  passion  itself. 

tPope. 

{Wordsworth. 

§Browne. 


12 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


59 


so  far  exceeded  theirs,  that  she 
made  them  seem  to  be  strangers  in 
blood  to  their  own  son,  and  in  name 
only  related  to  him;  and  so  noble 
did  this  action  of  hers  appear  to 
the  gods,  as  well  as  to  men,  that 
among  the  many  who  have  done 
virtuously  she  is  one  of  the  very  few 
to  whom  they  have  granted  the 
privilege  of  returning  to  earth,  in 
admiration  of  her  virtue;  such  ex- 
ceeding honor  is  paid  by  them  to  the 
devotion  and  virtue  of  love." 

Agathon  is  even  more  eloquent — 

Love  "fills  men  with  affection, 
and  takes  away  their  disaffection, 
making  them  meet  together  at  such 
banquets  as  these.  In  sacrifices, 
feasts,  dances,  he  is  our  lord — sup- 
plying kindness  and  banishing 
unkindness,  giving  friendship  and 
forgiving  enmity,  the  joy  of  the 
good,  the  wonder  of  the  wise,  the 
amazement  of  the  gods,  desired  by 
those  who  have  no  part  in  him,  and 
precious  to  those  who  have  the  bet- 
ter part  in  him ;  parent  of  delicacy, 
luxury,  desire,  fondness,  softness, 
grace,  regardful  of  the  good,  regard- 
less of  the  evil.  In  every  word, 
work,  wish,  fear — pilot,  comrade, 
helper,  saviour;  glory  of  gods  and 
men,  leader  best  and  brightest :  in 
whose  footsteps  let  every  man  fol- 
low, sweetly  singing  in  his  honor 
that  sweet  strain  with  which  love 
charms  the  souls  of  gods  and  men." 

No  doubt,  even  so  there  are  two 
Loves,  "one,  the  daughter  of  Uranus, 
who  has  no  mother,  and  is  the  elder 
and  wiser  goddess;  and  the  other, 
the  daughter  of  Zeus  and  Dione, 
who  is  popular  and  common," — but 
let  us  not  examine  too  closely. 
Charity  tells  us  even  of  Guinevere, 
"  that  while  she  lived,  she  was  a  good 
lover  and  therefore  she  had  a  good 
end."* 

The  origin  of  love  has  exercised 
philosophers  almost  as  much  as  the 
origin  of  evil.  The  Symposium  con- 
tinues with  a  speech  which  Plato  at- 
tributes in  joke  to  Aristophanes,  and 

*M«lory,  Morted'  Arthur. 


of  which  Jowett  observes  that  noth- 
ing in  Aristophanes  is  more  truly 
Aristophanic. 

The  original  human  nature,  he 
says,  was  not  like  the  present.  The 
Primeval  Man  was  round,*  his  back 
and  sides  forming  a  circle ;  and  he 
had  four  hands  and  four  feet,  one 
head  with  two  faces,  looking  opposite 
ways,  set  on  a  round  neck  and  pre- 
cisely alike.  He  could  walk  upright 
as  men  now  do,  backwards  or  for- 
wards as  he  pleased,  and  he  could  al- 
so roll  over  and  over  at  a  great  rate, 
whirling  round  on  his  four  hands  and 
four  feet,  eight  in  all,  like  tumblers 
going  over  and  over  with  their  legs 
in  the  air ;  this  was  when  he  wanted 
to  run  fast.  Terrible  was  their  might 
and  strength,  and  the  thoughts  of 
their  hearts  were  great,  and  they 
made  an  attack  upon  the  gods;  of 
them  is  told  the  tale  of  Otys  and 
Ephialtes,  who,  as  Homer  says,  dared 
to  scale  heaven,  and  would  have  laid 
hands  upon  the  gods.  Doubt  reigned 
in  the  celestial  councils.  Should  they 
kill  them  and  annihilate  the  race 
with  thunderbolts,  as  they  had  done 
the  giants,  then  there  would  be  an 
end  of  the  sacrifices  and  worship 
which  men  offered  to  them ;  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  gods  could  not 
suffer  their  insolence  to  be  unre- 
strained. At  last  after  a  good  deal 
of  reflection,  Zeus  discovered  a  way. 
He  said:  "Methinks  I  have  a  plan 
which  will  humble  their  pride  and 
mend  their  manners ;  they  shall  con- 
tinue to  exist,  but  I  will  cut  them  in 
two,  which  will  have  a  double  advan- 
tage, for  it  will  halve  their  strength 
and  we  shall  have  twice  as  many  sac- 
rifices. They  shall  walk  upright  on 
two  legs,  and  if  they  continue  inso- 
lent and  will  not  be  quiet  I  will  split 
them  again  and  they  shall  hop  on  a 
single  leg."  He  spoke  and  cut  men 
in  two,  "as  you  might  split  an  egg 
with  a  hair."  .  .  .  After  the  division 
the  two  parts  of  man  each  desiring 
his  other  half,  came  together.  .  .  . 
So  ancient  is  the  desire  of  one  an- 


*I  avail  myself  of  Dr.  Jowett's  translation. 


13 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


other  which  is  implanted  in  us,  reu- 
niting our  original  nature,  making  one 
of  two,  and  healing  the  state  of  man. 
Each  of  us  when  separated  is  but  the 
indenture  of  a  man,  having  one  side 
only,  like  a  flat-fish,  and  he  is  always 
looking  for  his  other  half. 

And  when  one  of  them  finds  his 
other  half,  the  pair  are  lost  in  amaze- 
ment of  love  and  friendship  and  inti- 
macy, and  one  will  not  be  out  of  the 
other's  sight,  as  I  may  say,  even  for 
a  minute  :  they  will  pass  their  whole 
lives  together ;  yet  they  could  not 
explain  what  they  desire  of  one  an- 
other. For  the  intense  yearning 
which  each  of  them  has  towards  the 
other  does  not  appear  to  be  the  de- 
sire of  lovers '  intercourse,  but  of 
something  else,  which  the  soul  of 
either  evidently  desires  and  cannot 
tell,  and  of  which  she  has  only  a 
dark  and  doubtful  presentiment. 

However  this  may  be,  there  is  such 
instinctive  insight  in  the  human 
heart  that  we  often  form  our  opinion 
almost  instantaneously,  and  such  im- 
pressions seldom  change,  I  might 
even  say,  they  are  seldom  wrong. 
Love  at  first  sight  sounds  like  an  im- 
prudence, and  yet  is  almost  a  reve- 
lation. It  seems  as  if  we  were  but 
renewing  the  relations  of  a  previous 
existence. 

"  But  to  see  her  were  to  love  her. 
Love  but  her,  and  love  for  erer."  * 

Yet  though  experience  seldom 
falsifies  such  a  feeling,  happily  the  re 
verse  does  not  hold  good.  The  deep- 
est affection  is  often  of  slow  growth. 
Many  a  warm  love  has  been  won  by 
faithful  devotion. 

Montaigne  indeed  declares  that 
"Few  have  married  for  love  without 
repenting  it."  Dr.  Johnson  also 
maintained  that  marriages  would 
generally  be  happier  if  they  were 
arranged  by  the  Lord  Chancellor; 
but  I  do  not  think  either  Montaigne 
or  Johnson  were  good  judges.  As 
Lancelot  said  to  the  unfortunate 
Maid  of  Astolat,  "I  love  not  to  be 
constrained  to  love,  for  love  must 


*Bnms. 


arise  of  the  heart  and  not  by  con- 
straint."* 

Love  defies  distance  and  the  ele- 
ments; Sestos  and  Abydos  are  di 
vided  by  the  sea,  "  but  Love  joined 
them  by  an  arrow  from  his  bow."| 

Love  can  be  happy  anywhere. 
Byron  wished 

"O  that  the  desert  were  my  dwelling-place, 
With  one  fair  Spirit  for  my  minister, 
That  I  might  all  forget  the  humau  race 
And,  hating  no  one,  love  but  only  her." 

And  many  will  doubtless  have  felt 

"  O  Love  !  what  hours  were  thine  and  mine 
In  lands  of  Palm  and  southern  Pine, 

In  lands  of  Palm,  of  Orange  blossom, 
Of  Olive,  Aloe,  and  Maize  and  Vine." 

What  is  true  of  space  holds  good 
equally  of  time. 

"  In  peace,  Love  tunes  the  shepherd's  reed  ; 
In  war,  he  mounts  the  warrior's  steed ; 
In  halls,  in  gay  attire  is  seen  ; 
In  hamlets,  (lances  on  the  green. 
Love  rules  the  court,  the  camp,  the  grove, 
And  men  below,  and  saints  above  ; 
For  love  is  heaven,  and  heaven  is  love."}: 

Even  when,  as  among  some  East- 
ern races,  Religion  and  Philosophy 
have  combined  to  depress  Love, 
truth  reasserts  itself  in  popular  say- 
ings, as  for  instance  in  the  Turkish 
proverb,  "  All  women  are  perfection, 
especially  she  who  loves  you." 

A  French  lady  having  once  quoted 
to  Abed-el-Kader  the  Polish  proverb, 
"  A  woman  draws  more  with  a  hair 
of  her  head  than  a  pair  of  oxen  well 
harnessed;1'  he  answered  with  a 
smile,  "The  hair  is  unnecessary, 
woman  is  powerful  as  fate." 

But  we  like  to  think  of  Love 
rather  as  the  Angel  of  Happiness 
than  as  a  ruling  force:  of  the  joy  of 
home  when  "  hearts  are  of  each  other 
sure  " 

"  It  is  the  secret  sympathy, 
The  silver  link,  the  silken  tie, 
Which  heart  to  heart,  and  mind  to  mind 
In  body  and  in  soul  can  bind."§ 

What  Bacon  says  of  a  friend  is 
even  truer  of  a  wife;  there  is  "no 
man  that  imparteth  his  joys  to  his 
friend,  but  he  joyeth  the  more ;  and 
no  man  that  imparteth  his  griefs  to 
his  friend,  but  he  grieveth  the  less." 


*  Malory,  Mortc  cf  Arthur, 
t  SymondB, 
t  Scott. 
SSoott, 


THE  PLEASURES  Of  LIFE. 


61 


Let  »ome  one  we  love  come  near 
us  and 

"  At  one*  It  seems  that  something  new  or  strange 
Has  passed  upon  th*  flowers,   the    trees,    the 

ground ; 

Some  slight  but  unintelligible  change 
Ou  everything  around."* 

We  might,  I  think,  apply  to  love 
what  Homer  says  of  Fate : 

"  Her  feet  are  tender,  for  she  sets  her  steps 
Not  on  the  ground,  but  on  the  heads  of  men." 

Love  and  Reason  divide  the  life 
of  man.  We  must  give  to  each  its 
due.  If  it  is  impossible  to  attain  to 
virtue  by  the  aid  of  Reason  withouc 
Love,  neither  can  we  do  so  by  means 
of  Love  alone  without  Reason. 

Love,  said  Melanippides,  "  sowing 
in  the  heart  of  man  the  sweet  har- 
vest of  desire,  mixes  the  sweetest 
and  most  beautiful  things  together." 

No  one  indeed  could  complain 
now,  with  Phaedrus  in  Plato's  Sym- 
posium, that  Love  has  had  no  wor- 
shippers among  the  Poets.  On  the 
contrary,  Love  has  brought  them 
many  of  their  sweetest  inspirations ; 
none  perhaps  nobler  or  more  beauti- 
ful than  Milton's  description  of  Para- 
dise : 

"  With  thee  conversing,  I  forget  all  time, 
All  seasons,  and  their  change,  all  please  alike. 
Sweet  is  the  breath  of  morn,  her  rising  sweet 
With  charm  of  earliest  birds  ;  pleasant  the  sun 
When  first  on  this  delightful  laud  he  spreads 
His  orient  beams  on  herb,  tree,  fruit  and  flower 
Glistering  with  dew,  fragrant  the  fertile  earth 
After  soft  showers ;  and  sweet  the  coming  on 
Of  frrateful  evening  mild  ;  then  silent  night 
With  this  her  solemn  bird  and  this  fair  moon. 
And  these  the  geins  of  heaven,  her  starry  train  : 
But  neither  breath  of  morn  when  she  ascends 
With  charui  of  earliest  birds,  nor  rising  sun 
On  this  delightful  laud,  no  herb,  fruit,  flower 
Glistering  with  dew,  nor  fragrance  after  showers, 
Nor  grateful  evening  mild,  nor  silent  night 
With  this  her  solemn  bird,  nor  walk  by  moon 
Or  glittering  starlight,  without  thee  is  sweet." 

Moreover,  no  one  need  despair  of 
an  ideal  marriage.  We  fortunately 
differ  so  much  in  our  tastes;  love 
does  so  much  to  create  love,  that 
even  the  humblest  may  hope  for  the 
happiest  marriage  if  only  he  de- 
serves it;  and  Shakespeare  speaks, 
as  he  does  so  often,  for  thousands 
when  he  says 

'•  She  is  mine  own, 
And  I  as  rich  in  having  such  a  jewel 
As  twenty  seas,  if  all  their  sands  were  pearls, 
The  water  nectar,  and  the  rocks  pure  gold." 


*  Trench' 


True  love  indeed  will  not  be  un- 
reasonable or  exacting. 

"  Tell  me  not,  sweet,  I  am  unkind 

That  from  the  nunnery 
Of  thy  chaste  breast  and  quiet  mind 

To  war  and  arms  I  fly, 
True  !  a  new  mistress  now  I  chase, 

The  first  foe  in  the  field. 
And  with  a  stronger  faith  embrace 

A  sword,  a  horse,  a  shield. 
Yet  this  inconstancy  is  such 
As  you  too  shall  adore 
I  could  not  love  thee,  dear,  so  much, 
Loved  I  not  honor  more."* 

And  yet 

"  Alas  !  how  light  a  cause  may  move 
Dissension  between  hearts  that  love! 
Hearts  that  the  world  in  vain  had  tried, 
And  sorrow  but  more  closely  tied, 
That  stood  the  storm,  when  waves  were  rough. 
Yet  in  a  sunny  hour  fall  off, 
Like  ships  that  have  gone  down  at  sea 
When  heaven  was  all  tranquility  ."t 

For  love  is  brittle.  Do  not  risk 
even  any  little  jar;  it  may  be 

"The  little  rift  within  the  late, 
That  by  and  by  will  make  the  music  mute, 
And  ever  widening  slowly  silence  all."t. 

Love  is  delicate;  "Love  is  hurt 
with  jar  and  fret,"  and  you  might  as 
well  expect  a  violin  to  remain  in  tune 
if  roughly  used,  as  Love  to  survive  if 
chilled  or  driven  into  itself.  But 
what  a  pleasure  to  keep  it  alive  by 

"Little,  nameless,  unremembered  acts 
Of  kindness  and  of  love."§ 

"She  whom  you  loved  and  chose," 
says  Bondi, 

"  Is  now  your  bride, 

The  gift  of  heaven,  and  to  your  trust  consigned  ; 
Honor  her  still,  though  not  with  passion  blind ; 
And  in  her  virtue,  though  you  watch,  confide, 

Be  to  her  youth  a  comfort,  guardian,  guide, 
In  whose  experience  she  may  safety  find  ; 
And  whether  sweet  or  bitter  V/e  assigned, 
The  joy  with  her,  as  well  as  pain,  divide. 

Yield  not  too  much  if  reason  disapprove  ; 
Nor  too  much  force  ;  the  partner  of  your  life 
Should  neither  victim  be,  nor  tyrant  prove. 

Thus  shall  that  rein,  which  often  mars  the  bliss 
Of  wedlock,  scarce  be  felt ;  and  thns  your  wife 
Ne'er  in  the  husband  shall  the  lover  miss."l| 

Every  one  is  ennobled  by  true 
love — 

"  Tis  better  to  have  loved  and  lost 
Than  never  to  have  loved  at  all."1T 

Perhaps  no  one  ever  praised  a 
woman  more  gracefully  in  a  sentence 
than  Steele  when  he  said  of  Lady 
Elizabeth  Hastings  that  "to  know 
her  was  a  liberal  education;"  but 
every  woman  may  feel  as  she  im- 

*Lovelace. 

t  Moore. 

t  Tennyson. 

§  Wordsworth. 

II  Bondi.    Tr.  by  Glassfors. 

*T  Tennyson.  ( 


15 


62 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


proves  herself  that  she  is  not  only 
laying  in  a  store  of  happiness  for 
herself,  but  also  raising  and  blessing 
him  whom  she  would  most  wish  to 
see  happy  and  good. 

Love,  true  love,  grows  and  deep- 
ens with  time.  Husband  and  wife, 
who  are  married  indeed,  live 

••  By  each  other,  till  to  love  and  live 
Be  one."* 

Nor  does  it  end  with  life.  A  mother's 
love  knows  no  bounds. 

"  They  err  who  tell  us  Love  can  die, 
With  life  all  other  passions  fly. 
All  others  are  but  vanity. 
In  Heaven  Ambition  cannot  dwell, 
Nor  Avarice  in  the  vaults  of  Hell ; 
Earthly  these  passions  of  the  Earth  ; 
They  perish  where  they  have  their  birth. 
But  Love  is  indestructible ; 

Its  holy  flame  f  drover  bnrueth, 
From  heaven  it  came,  to  Heaven  returneth  ; 

Too  oft  on  Earth  a  troubled  guest, 

At  times  deceived,  at  times  opprest, 
It  here  is  tried  and  purified. 

Then  hath  in  Heaven  its  perfect  rest : 
It  soweth  here  with  toil  and  care, 
But  the  harvest  time  of  Love  is  there. 

"The  Mother  when  she  meets  on  higli 

The  Babe  she  lost  in  infancy, 
Hathslie  not  then,  for  pains  and  fears, 

The  day  of  woe,  the  watchful  night, 

For  all  hi'i-  sorrow,  all  her  tears. 

An  over-payment  of  delight  ?"t 

As  life  wears  on  the  love  of  husband 
or  wife,  of  friends  and  of  children, 
becomes  the  great  solace  and  delight 
of  age.  The  one  recalls  the  past,  the 
other  gives  interest  to  the  future  ; 
and  in  our  children,  it  has  been  truly 
said,  we  live  our  lives  again. 


CHAPTER  V. 


AKT. 


"High  art  consists  neither  in  altering,  nor  in 
Improving  nature ;  but  in  seeking  throughout 
nature  for  •  whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatso- 
ever thing  are  pure  ; '  in  loving  these,  in  displaying 
to  the  utmost  of  the  painter's  power  such  loveli- 
ness as  is  in  them,  and  directing  tHe  thoughts  of 
others  to  them  by  winning  art,  or  gentle  emphasis. 
Art  (caeteris  paribus)  is  great  in  exact  proportion 
to  the  love  of  beauty  shown  by  the  painter.pro- 
Yided  that  love  of  beauty  forfeit  no  atom  of  truth." 

— EUSKDI. 

THE  most  ancient  works  of  Art 
•which  we  possess  are  representations 
of  animals,  rude  indeed,  but  often 
strikingly  characteristic,  engraved 


*  Swinburne. 
t  Southey. 


on,  or  carved  in, stag's  horn  or  bone; 
and  found  in  English,  French,  and 
German  caves,  with  stone  and  other 
rude  implements,  and  the  remains 
of  mammalia,  belonging  apparently 
to  the  close  of  the  glacial  epoch :  not 
only  of  the  deer,  bear,  and  other 
animals  now  inhabiting  temperate 
Europe,  but  of  some,  such  as  the 
reindeer,  the  musk  sheep,  and  the 
mammoth,  which  have  either  re- 
treated north  or  become  altogether 
extinct.  We  may,  I  think,  venture 
to  hope  that  other  designs  may 
hereafter  be  found,  which  will  give 
us  additonal  information  as  to  the 
manners  and  customs  of  our  ances- 
tors in  those  remote  ages. 

Next  to  these  in  point  of  antiquity 
came  the  sculptures  and  paintings 
on  Assyrian  and  Egyptian  tombs, 
temples,  and  palaces. 

These  ancient  scenes,  considered 
as  works  of  art,  have  no  doubt 
many  faults,  and  yet  how  graphically 
they  tell  their  story !  As  a  matter 
of  fact  a  king  is  not,  as  a  rule,  big- 
ger than  his  soldiers,  but  in  these 
battle-scenes  he  is  always  so  repre- 
sented. We  must,  however,  remem- 
ber that  in  ancient  warfare  the 
greater  part  of  the  fighting  was,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  done  by  the  chiefs. 
In  this  respect  the  Homeric  poems 
resemble  the  Assyrian  and  Egyptian 
representations.  At  any  rate,  we 
see  at  a  glance  which  is  the  king, 
which  are  officers,  which  side  is 
victorious,  the  struggles  and  suffer- 
ings of  the  wounded,  the  flight  of 
the  enemy,  the  city  of  refuge — so 
that  he  who  runs  may  read ;  while  in 
modern  battle-pictures  the  story  is 
much  less  clear,  and,  indeed,  the  un- 
trained eye  sees  for  some  time  little 
but  scarlet  and  smoke. 

These  works  assuredly  possess  a 
grandeur  and  dignity  of  their  own, 
even  though  they  have  not  the 
beauty  of  later  art. 

In  Greece  Art  reached  a  perfection 
which  has  never  been  excelled,  and 
it  was  more  appreciated  than  per- 
haps it  has  ever  been  since. 


u 


THE  PLEASURES  Ob'  LIFE. 


At  the  time  when  Demetrius  at- 
tacked the  city  of  Rhodes,  Proto- 
genes  was  painting  a  picture  of 
lalysus.  "This,"  says  Pliny,  "hin- 
dered King  Demetrius  from  taking 
Rhodes,  out  of  fear  lest  he  should 
burn  the  picture ;  and  not  being 
able  to  fire  the  town  on  any  other 
side,  he  \vas  pleased  rather  to  spare 
the  painting  than  to  take  the  vic- 
tory, which  was  already  in  his  hands. 
Protogenes,  at  that  time,  had  his 
painting-room  in  a  garden  out  of  the 
town,  and  very  near  the  camp  of 
the  enemies,  where  he  was  daily 
finishing  those  pieces  which  he  had 
already  begun,  the  noise  of  soldiers 
not  being  capable  of  interrupting  his 
studies.  But  Demetrius  causing  him 
to  be  brought  into  his  presence,  and 
asking  him  what  made  him  so  bold 
as  to  work  in  the  midst  of  enemies, 
he  answered  the  king,  'That  he  un- 
derstood the  war  which  he  made  was 
against  the  Rhodians,  and  not  against 
the  Arts.' " 

With  the  decay  of  Greece,  Art 
sank  too,  until  it  was  revived  in  the 
thirteenth  century  by  Cimabue, 
since  whose  time  its  progress  has 
been  triumphal. 

Art  is  unquestionably  one  of  the 
purest  and  highest  elements  in 
human  happiness.  It  trains  the 
mind  through  the  eye,  and  the  eye 
through  the  mind.  As  the  sun 
colors  flowers,  so  does  art  color  life. 

"  In  true  Art,"  says  Ruskin,  "  the 
hand,  the  head,  and  the  heart  of  man 
go  together.  But  Art  is  no  recrea 
tion :  it  cannot  be  learned  at  spare 
moments,  nor  pursued  when  we  have 
nothing  better  to  do." 

It  is  not  only  in  the  East  that 
great  works,  really  due  to  study  and 
labor,  have  been  attributed  to  magic. 

Study  and  labor  cannot  make  every 
man  an  artist,  but  no  one  can  suc- 
ceed in  art  without  them.  In  Art 
two  and  two  do  not  make  four,  and 
no  number  of  little  things  will  make 
a  great  one. 

It  has  been  said,  and  on  high  au- 
thority, that  the  end  of  nil  art  is  to 


please.  But  this  is  a  very  imperfect 
definition.  It  might  as  well  be  said 
that  a  library  is  only  in  tend  od  for 
pleasure  and  ornament. 

Art  has  the  advantage  of  nature, 
in  so  far  as  it  introduces  a  human  ele- 
ment, which  is  in  some  respects 
superior  tven  to  nature.  "If,"  s«iys 
Plato,  "you  take  a  man  as  he  is  made 
by  nature  and  compare  him  with  an- 
other who  is  the  effect  of  art,  the 
work  of  nature  will  always  appear  the 
less  beautiful,  because  art  is  more 
accurate  than  nature." 

Bacon  also,  in  The  Advancement 
of  Learning,  speaks  of  ''the  world 
being  inferior  to  the  soul,  by  reason 
whereof  there  is  agreeable  to  the 
spirit  of  man  a  more  ample  greatness, 
a  more  exact  goodness,  and  a  more 
absolute  variety  than  can  be  found  in 
the  nature  of  things." 

The  poets  tell  us  that  Prometheus, 
having  made  a  beautiful  statue  of 
Minerva,  the  goddess  was  so  de- 
lighted that  she  offered  to  bring 
down  anything  from  Heaven  which 
could  add  to  its  perfection.  Prome- 
theus on  this  prudently  asked  her  to 
take  him  there,  so  that  he  might 
choose  for  himself.  This  Minerva 
did,  and  Prometheus,  finding  that 
in  heaven  all  things  were  animated 
by  fire,  brought  back  a  spark,  with 
which  he  gave  life  to  bis  work. 

In  fact,  Imitation  is  the  means 
and  not  the  end  of  Art.  The  story 
of  Zeuxis  and  Parrhasius  is  a  pretty 
tale;  but  to  deceive  birds,  or  even 
man  himself,  is  but  a  trifling  matter 
compared  with  the  higher  functions 
of  Art.  To  imitate  the  Iliad,  says 
Dr.  Young,  is  not  imitating  Homer, 
but  as  Sir  J.  Reynolds  adds,  the 
more  the  artist  studies  nature  •'  the 
nearer  he  approaches  to  the  true  and 
perfect  idea  of  art." 

"Following  these  rules  and  using 
these  precautions,  when  you  have 
clearly  and  distinctly  learned  in  what 
good  coloring  consists,  you  cannot 
do  better  than  have  recourse  to  Na- 
ture herself,  who  is  always  at  hand, 
and  in  comparison  of  whose  true 


17 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


•plendor  the  best  colored  pictures 
are  but  faint  and  feeble."* 

Art,  indeed,  must  create  as  well 
as  copy.  As  Victor  Cousin  well 
says,  "The  ideal  without  the  real 
lacks  life ;  but  the  real  without  the 
ideal  lacks  pure  beauty.  Both  need 
to  unite;  to  join  hands  and  enter 
into  alliance.  In  this  way  the  best 
work  may  be  achieved.  Thus  beauty 
is  an  absolute  idea,  and  not  a  mere 
copy  of  imperfect  Nature." 

The  grouping  of  the  picture  is  of 
course  of  the  utmost  importance. 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  gives  two  re- 
markable cases  to  show  how  much 
any  given  figure  in  a  picture  is  affect- 
ed by  its  surroundings.  Tintoret  in 
one  of  his  pictures  has  taken  the 
Samson  of  Michael  Angelo,  put  an 
eagle  under  him,  placed  thunder  and 
lightning  in  his  right  hand  instead 
of  the  jawbone  of  an  ass,  and  thus 
turned  him  into  a  Jupiter.  The 
second  instance  is  even  more  strik- 
ing. Titian  has  copied  the  figure  in 
the  vault  of  the  Sistine  Chapel  which 
represents  the  Deity  dividing  light 
from  darkness,  and  has  introduced 
it  into  his  picture  of  the  battle  of 
Cadore,  to  represent  a  general  fall- 
ing from  his  horse. 

We  must  remember  that  so  far  as 
the  eye  is  concerned,  the  object  of 
the  artist  is  to  train,  not  to  deceive, 
and  that  his  higher  function  has 
reference  rather  to  the  mind  than 
to  the  eye. 

No  doubt 

"To  glid  refined  gold,  to  paint  the  lily, 
To  throw  a  perfume  on  the  violet, 
To  smooth  the  ice,  or  add  another  hue 
Unto  the  rainbow,  or  with  taper-light 
To  seek  the  beauteous  eye  of  heaven  to  garnish, 
Is  wasteful  and  ridiculous  excess.t 

But  all  is  not  gold  that  glitters, 
flowers  are  not  all  arrayed  like  the 
lily,  and  there  is  room  for  selection 
as  well  as  representation. 

"The  true,  the  good,  and  the 
beautiful,"  says  Cousin,  "are  but 
forms  of  the  infinite :  what  then  do 
we  really  love  in  truth,  beauty,  and 
virtue?  We  love  the  infinite  himself. 


•Reynolds, 
t  Shakespeare. 


The  love  of  the  infinite  substance 
is  hidden  under  the  love  of  its  forms. 
It  is  so  truly  .the  infinite  which 
charms  in  the  true,  the  good,  and 
the  beautiful,  that  its  manifestations 
alone  do  not  suffice.  The  artist  is 
dissatisfied  at  the  sight  even  of  his 
greatest  works;  he  aspires  still 
higher." 

It  is  indeed  sometimes  objected 
that  Landscape  painting  is  not  true 
to  nature ;  but  we  must  ask,  What 
is  truth?  Is  the  object  to  produce 
the  same  impression  on  the  mind  as 
that  created  by  the  scene  itself?  If 
so,  let  any  one  try  to  draw  from 
memory  a  group  of  mountains,  and 
he  will  probably  find  that  in  the 
impression  produced  on  his  mind 
the  mountains  are  loftier  and  steeper, 
the  valleys  deeper  and  narrower, 
than  in  the  actual  reality.  A  draw- 
ing, then,  which  was  literally  exact 
would  not  be  true,  in  the  sense  of 
conveying  the  same  impression  as 
Nature  herself. 

In  fact,  Art,  says  Goethe,  is  called 
Art  simply  because  it  is  not  Nature. 

It  is  not  sufficient  for  the  arti. 
choose  beautiful  scenery  and  deline- 
ate it  with  accuracy.  He  must  not 
be  a  mere  copyist.  Something  high- 
er and  more  subtle  is  required.  He, 
must  create,  or  at  any  rate  interpret, 
as  well  as  copy. 

Turner  was  never  satisfied  merely 
to  reach  to  even  the  most  glorious 
scenery.  He  moved,  and  even  sup- 
pressed, mountains. 

A  certain  nobleman,  we  are  told, 
was  very  anxious  to  see  the  model 
from  whom  Guido  painted  his  lovely 
female  faces.  Guido  placed  his  col 
or-grinder,  a  big  coarse  man,  in  an 
attitude,  and  then  drew  a  beautiful 
Magdalen.  "My  dear  Count,"  he 
said,  "the  beautiful  and  pure  idea 
must  be  in  the  mind,  and  then  it  is 
no  matter  what  the  model  is." 

Guido  Reni,  who  painted  Saint 
Michael  for  the  Church  of  the  Capu- 
chins at  Rome,  wished  that  he  "had 
the  wings  of  an  angel,  to  have  as- 
cended unto  Paradise,  and  there  to 


18 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


hare  beheld  the  forms  of  those  beau- 
tiful spirits,  from  which  I  might  have 
copied  my  Archangel.  But  not  be- 
ing able  to  mount  so  high,  it  was  in 
vain  for  me  to  seek  for  his  resem- 
blance here  below;  so  that  I  was 
forced  to  look  into  mine  own  mind, 
and  into  that  idea  of  beauty  which 
I  have  formed  in  my  own  imagin- 
ation''* 

Science  attempts,  as  far  as  the 
limited  powers  of  Man  permit,  to 
reproduce  the  actual  facts  in  a  man- 
ner which,  however  bald,  is  true  in 
itself,  irrespective  of  time  and  scene. 
To  do  this  she  must  submit  to  many 
limitations ;  not  altogether  unvexa- 
tious,  and  not  without  serious  draw- 
backs. Art,  on  the  contrary,  endeav- 
ors to  convey  the  impression  of  the 
original  under  some  especial  aspect. 

In  some  respects,  Art  gives  a 
clearer  and  more  vivid  idea  of  an  un- 
known country  than  any  description 
can  convey.  In  literature  rock  may 
be  rock,  but  in  painting  it  must  be 
granite  or  slate,  and  not  merely  rock 
in  general. 

It  is  remarkable  that  while  artists 
have  long  recognized  the  necessity 
of  studying  anatomy,  and  there  has 
been  from  the  commencement  a  pro- 
fessor of  anatomy  in  the  Royal 
Academy,  it  is  only  of  late  years  that 
any  knowledge  of  botany  or  geology 
has  been  considered  desirable,  and 
even  now  their  importance  is  by  no 
means  generally  recognized. 

Much  has  been  written  as  to  the 
relative  merits  of  painting,  sculpture, 
and  architecture.  This,  if  it  be  not 
a  somewhat  unprofitable  inquiry, 
would  at  any  rate  be  out  of  place 
here. 

Architecture  not  only  gives  in- 
i  onse  pleasure,  but  even  the  impres- 
sion of  something  ethereal  and  super- 
human. 

Madame  de  Stael  described  it  as 
•'frozen  music;"  and  a  cathedral  is  a 
glorious  specimen  of  "thought  in 
stone,"  whose  very  windows  are  trans- 
parent walls  of  gorgeous  hues. 


Caracci  said  that  poets  paint  in 
their  words  and  artists  speak  in  their 
works.  The  latter  have  indeed  one 
great  advantage,  for  a  glance  at  a 
statue  or  a  painting  will  convey  a 
more  vivid  idea  than  a  long  and  min- 
ute description. 

Another  advantage  possessed  by  Art 
is  that  it  is  understood  by  all  civil- 
ized nations,  whilst  each  has  a  sep- 
arate language. 

Even  from  a  material  point  of  view 
Art  is  most  important.  In  a  recent 
address  Sir  F.  Leighton  has  observed 
that  the  study  of  Art  "is  every  day 
becoming  more  important  in  relation 
to  certain  sides  of  the  waning  mate- 
rial prosperity  of  the  country.  For 
the  industrial  competition  between 
this  and  other  countries — a  competi- 
tion, keen  and  eager,  which  means 
to  certain  industries  almost  a  race 
for  life — runs,  in  many  cases,  no 
longer  exclusively  or  mainly  on  the 
lines  of  excellence  of  material  and 
solidity  of  workmanship,  but  greatly 
nowadays  on  the  lines  of  artistic 
charm  and  beauty  of  design." 

The  highest  service,  however,  that 
Art  can  accomplish  for  man  is  to  be- 
come "at  once  the  voice  of  his  no- 
bler aspirations,  and  the  steady  dis- 
ciplinarian of  his  emotions;  and  it  is 
with  this  mission,  rather  than  with 
any  aesthetic  perfection,  that  we  are 
at  present  concerned."* 

Science  and  Art  are  sisters,  or 
rather  perhaps  they  are  like  brother 
and  sister.  The  mission  of  Art  is  in 
some  respects  like  that  of  woman. 
It  is  not  Hers  so  much  to  do  the 
hard  toil  and  moil  of  the  world,  as  to 
surround  it  with  a  halo  of  beauty,  to 
convert  work  into  pleasure. 

In  science  we  naturally  expect  prog- 
ress, but  in  Art  the  case  is  not  so 
clear ;  and  yet  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 
did  not  hesitate  to  express  his  con- 
viction that  in  the  future  "  so  much 
will  painting  improve,  that  the  best 
we  can  now  achieve  will  appear  like 
the  work  of  children,"  and  we  may 
hope  that  our  power  of  enjoying  it 

*Baw«U. 


66 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


may  increase  in  an  equal  ratio. 
Wordworth  says  that  poets  have  to 
create  the  taste  for  their  own  works, 
and  the  same  is,  in  some  degree  at 
any  rate  true  of  artists. 

In  one  respect  especially  modern 
painters  appear  to  have  made  a 
marked  advance,  and  one  great  bless- 
ing which  in  fact  we  owe  to  them  is 
a  more  vivid  enjoyment  of  scenery. 

I  have  of  course  no  pretensions  to 
speak  with  authority,  but  even  in  the 
case  of  the  greatest  masters  before 
Turner,  the  landscapes  seem  to  me 
singularly  inferior  to  the  figures.  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds  tells  us  that  Gains- 
borough framed  a  kind  of  model  of 
a  landscape  on  his  table,  composed 
of  broken  stones,  dried  herbs,  and 
pieces  of  looking-glass,  which  he 
magnified  and  improved  into  rocks, 
trees,  and  water;  and  Sir  Joshua 
solemnly  discusses  the  wisdom  of  such 
a  proceeding.  '•  How  far  it  may  be 
useful  in  giving  hints,"  he  says,  "the 
professors  of  landscape  can  best  de- 
termine," but  he  does  not  recom- 
mend it,  and  is  disposed  to  think,  on 
the  whole,  the  practice  may  be  more 
likely  to  do  harm  than  good ! 

lu  the  picture  of  Ceyx  and  Alcy- 
one, by  Wilson,  of  whom  Cunning- 
ham said  that,  with  Gainsborough,  he 
laid  the  foundation  of  our  School  of 
Landscape,  the  castle  is  said  to  have 
been  painted  from  a  pot  of  porter, 
and  the  rock  from  a  Stilton  cheese. 
There  is  indeed  another  version  of 
the  story,  that  the  picture  was  sold 
for  a  pot  of  porter  and  a  cheese, 
which,  however,  does  not  give  a  high- 
er idea  of  the  appreciation  of  the  arl 
of  landscape  at  that  date. 

Until  very  recently  the  general 
feeling  with  reference  to  mountain 
scenery  has  been  that  expressed  by 
Tacitus.  "Who  would  leave  Asia  or 
Africa  or  Italy  to  go  to  Germany,  a 
shapeless  and  unformed  country,  a 
harsh  sky,  and  melancholy  aspect, 
unless  indeed  it  was  his  native  laud?" 

It  is  amusing  to  read  the  opinion 
of  Dr.  Beattie,  in  a  special  treatise  on 
Truth,  Poetry,  and,  Music,  written 


at  the  close  of  last  century,  that 
"The  Highlands  of  Scotland  are  in 
general  a  melancholy  country.  Long 
tracts  of  mountainous  country,  cov 
ered  with  dark  heath,  and  often  ob- 
scured by  misty  weather;  narrow 
valleys  thinly  inhabited,  and  bound- 
ed by  precipices  resounding  with  the 
fall  of  torrents ;  a  soil  so  nigged, 
and  a  climate  so  dreary,  as  in  many 
parts  to  admit  neither  the  amenities 
of  pasturage,  nor  the  labors  of  agri- 
culture; the  mournful  dashing  of 
waves  along  the  firths  and  lakes ;  the 
portentous  noises  which  every  change 
of  the  wind  is  apt  to  raise  in  a  lonely 
region,  full  of  echoes,  and  rocks,  and 
caverns;  the  grotesque  and  ghastly 
ppearance  of  such  a  landscape  bv 
the  light  of  the  moon:  objects  like 
these  diffuse  a  gloom  over  the  fancy," 
etc.* 

Even  Goldsmith  regarded  the  scen- 
ery of  the  Highlands  as  dismal  and 
hideous.  Johnson,  we  know,  laid  it 
down  as  an  axiom  that  "  the  noblest 
prospect  which  a  Scotchman  ever 
sees  is  the  high  road  that  leads  him 
to  England" — a  saying  which  throws 
much  doubt  on  his  distinction  that 
the  Giant's  Causeway  was  "worth 
seeing  but  not  worth  going  to  see."f 

Madame  de  Stael  declared,  that 
i'lough  she  would  go  500  leagues 
to  meet  a  clever  man,  she  would  not 
care  to  open  her  window  to  see  the 
Bay  of  Naples. 

Nor  was  the  ancient  absence  of 
appreciation  confined  to  scenery. 
Even  Burke,  speaking  of  Stonehenge, 
says,  "Stonehenge,  neither  for  dis- 
position nor  ornament,  has  anything 
admirable." 

Ugly  scenery,  however,  may  in 
some  cases  have  an  injurious  effect 
on  the  human  system.  It  has  been 
ingeniously  suggested  that  what 
really  drove  Don  Quixote  out  of  his 
mind  was  not  the  study  of  his  books 
of  chivalry,  so  much  as  the  mono- 
tonous scenery  of  La  Mancha. 

The  love  of  landscape  is  not  in- 


*  Beattie.    1776, 
t  Boswell, 


20 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


deed  due  to  Art  alone.  It  has  been 
the  happy  combination  of  art  and 
science  which  has  trained  us  to  per- 
ceive the  beauty  which  surrounds  us. 

Art  helps  us  to  see,  and  " hun- 
dreds of  people  can  talk  for  one  who 
can  think ;  but  thousands  can  think 
for  one  who  can  see.  To  see  clearly 
is  poetry,  prophecy,  and  religion  all 
in  one.  .  .  .  Remembering  always 
that  there  are  two  characters  in  which 
all  greatness  of  Art  consists — first, 
the  earnest  and  intense  seizing  of 
natural  facts;  then  the  ordering 
those  facts  by  strength  of  human 
intellect,  so  as  to  make  them,  for  all 
who  look  upon  them,  to  the  utmost 
serviceable,  memorable,  and  beauti- 
ful. And  thus  great  Art  is  nothing 
else  than  the  type  of  strong  and 
noble  life ;  for  as  the  ignoble  person, 
in  his  dealings  with  all  that  occurs 
in  the  world  about  him,  first  sees 
nothing  clearly,  looks  nothing  fairly 
in  the  face,  and  then  allows  himself 
to  be  swept  away  by  the  trampling 
torrent  and  unescapable  force  of  the 
things  that  he  would  not  foresee  and 
could  not  understand :  so  the  noble 
person,  looking  the  facts  of  the 
world  full  in  the  face,  and  fathoming 
them  with  deep  faculty,  then  deals 
with  them  in  tinalarmed  intelligence 
and  unhurried  strength,  and  be- 
ccmes,  with  his  human  intellect  and 
will,  no  unconscious  nor  insignificant 
agent  in  consummating  their  good 
and  restraining  their  evil."* 

May  we  not  also  hope  that  in  this 
respect  also  still  further  progress 
may  be  made,  that  beauties  may  be 
revealed,  and  pleasures  may  be  in 
store  for  those  who  come  after  us, 
which  we  cannot  appreciate,  or  at 
least  can  but  faintly  feel. 

Even  now  there  is  scarcely  a  cot- 
tage without  something  more  or  less 
successfully  claiming  to  rank  as  Art, 
— a  picture,  a  photograph,  or  a  stat- 
uette ;  and  we  may  fairly  hope  that 
much  as  Art  even  now  contributes 
to  the  happiness  of  life,  it  will  do  so 
even  more  effectively  in  the  future. 


*Ruskiu. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

POETRY. 

"And  here  the  singer  for  his  Art 
Not  all  in  vain  may  plead  ; 
The  song  that  nerves  a  nation's  heart 
Is  in  itself  a  deed." 

TEHNYSON. 

AFTER  the  disastrous  defeat  of  the 
Athenians  before  Syracuse,  Plutarch 
tells  us  that  the  Sicilians  spared 
those  who  could  repeat  any  of  the 
poetry  of  Euripides. 

"Some  there  were,"  he  says,  "  who 
owed  their  preservation  to  Euripi- 
des. Of  all  the  Grecians,  his  was  the 
muse  with  whom  the  Sicilians  were 
most  in  love.  From  the  strangers 
who  landed  in  their  island  they 
gleaned  every  small  specimen  or 
portions  of  his  works,  and  communi- 
cated it  with  pleasure  to  each  other. 
It  is  said  that  upon  this  ocasion  a 
number  of  Athenians  on  their  return 
home  went  to  Euripides,  and  thanked 
him  in  the  most  grateful  manner  for 
their  obligations  to  his  pen;  some 
having  been  enfranchised  for  teach 
ing  their  masters  what  they  remem- 
bered of  his  poems,  and  others  hav- 
ing procured  refreshments,  whe» 
they  were  wandering  about  after  the 
tattle,  by  singing  a  few  of  hie 
verses.'' 

Nowadays  we  are  none  of  us  likelj 
to  owe  our  lives  to  Poetry  in  this 
sense,  yet  in  another  we  many  of  us 
owe  to  it  a  similar  debt.  HOAM 
often,  when  worn  with  overwork 
sorrow  or  anxiety,  have  we  taken 
down  Homer  or  Horace,  Shakespeare 
or  Milton,  and  felt  the  clouds  gradu- 
ally roll  away,  the  jar  of  nerves  sub- 
side, the  consciousness  of  power  re- 
place physical  exhaustion,  and  the 
darkness  of  despondency  brighten 
once  more  into  the  light  of  life. 

"And  yet  Plato."  says  Jowett, 
"expels  the  poets  from  his  Republic 
because  they  are  allied  to  sense ;  be- 
cause they  stimulate  the  emotions; 
because  they  are  thrice  removed 
from  the  ideal  truth." 

In  that  respect,  as  in  some  others, 


21 


68 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


few  would  accept  Plato's  Republic  as 
being  an  ideal  Commonwealth,  and 
most  would  agree  with  Sir  PMlip 
Sidney  that  "if  you  cannot  bear  the 
planet-like  music  of  poetry  ...  I 
must  .-end  you  in  the  behalf  of  all 
poets,  that  while  you  live,  you  live 
in  love,  and  never  get  favor  for  lack- 
ing skill  of  a  sonnet ;  and  when  you 
die,  your  memory  die  from  the  earth, 
for  want  of  an  epitaph." 

Poetry  has  often  been  compared 
with  painting  and  sculpture.  Simon- 
ides  long  ago  said  that  Poetry  is  a 
speaking  picture,  and  painting  is 
mute  Poetry. 

"Poetry"  says  Cousin,  "is  the 
first  of  the  Arts  because  it  best  rep- 
resents the  infinite." 

And  again,  "Though  the  arts  are 
in  some  respects  isolated,  yet  there 
is  one  which  seems  to  profit  by  the 
resources  of  all,  and  that  is  Poetry. 
With  words,  Poetry  can  paint  and 
sculpture ;  she  can  build  edifices  like 
an  architect ;  she  unites,  to  some  ex- 
tent, melody  and  music.  She  is,  so 
to  say,  the  centre  in  which  all  arts 
unite." 

A  true  poem  is  a  gallery  of  pictures. 

It  must,  I  think,  be  admitted  that 
painting  and  sculpture  can  give  us  a 
clearer  and  more  vivid  idea  of  an  ob- 
ject we  have  never  seen  than  any  de- 
scription can  convey.  But  when  we 
have  once  seen  it,  then  on  the  con- 
trary there  are  many  points  which 
the  poet  brings  before  us,  and  which 
perhaps  neither  in  the  representation, 
nor  even  in  nature,  should  we  per- 
ceive for  ourselves.  Objects  can  be 
most  vividly  brought  before  us  by  the 
artist,  actions  by  the  poet ;  space  is 
the  domain  of  Art,  time  of  Poetry.* 

Take,  for  instance,  as  a  typical  in- 
stance, female  beauty.  How  labored 
and  how  cold  any  description  ap- 
pears. The  greatest  poets  recognize 
this ;  as,  for  instance,  when  Scott 
wishes  us  to  realize  the  Lady  of  the 
Lake  he  does  not  attempt  any  de- 
scription, but  just  mentions  her  atti- 
tude and  then  adds — 


*  See  Leasing"*  Laocodn. 


"And  ne'er  did  Grecian  chlitl  troe* 
A  Nymph,  a  Naiad,  or  a  grace, 
Of  finsr  form  or  lovelier  face !" 

A  great  poet  indeed  must  be  in- 
spired ;  he  must  posses  an  exquis 
ite  sense  of  beauty,  and  feelings  deep- 
er than  those  of  most  men,  and  yet 
well  under  his  control.  "  The  Mil- 
ton of  poetry  is  the  man,  in  his  own 
magnificent  phrase,  of  devout  prayer 
to  that  eternal  spirit  that  can  enrich 
with  all  utterance  and  knowledge, 
and  sends  out  his  seraphim  with  the 
hallowed  fire  of  his  altar,  to  touch 
and  purify  the  lips  of  whom  he 
pleases."*  And  if  from  one  point  of 
view  Poetry  brings  home  to  us  the 
immeasurable  inequalities  of  different 
minds  on  the  other  hand  it  teaches 
us  that  genius  is  no  affair  of  rank  or 
wealth. 

"  I  think  of  Chatterton,  the  marvellous  boy. 
The  sleepless  soul,  thatperish'd  in  his  pride; 

Of  Burns,  that  walk'd  in  glory  and  in  joy 
Behind  his  plough  upon  the  mountain-side.''! 

A  man  may  be  a  poet  and  yet 
write  no  verse,  but  not  if  he  writes 
bad  or  poor  ones. 

"  Mediocribus  esse  poetis 
Non  homines,  non  Di,  non  concessere  column®. "$ 

Second-rate  poets,  like  second- 
rate  writers  generally,  fade  gradu- 
ally into  dreamland ;  but  the  great 
poets  remain  always. 

Poetry  will  not  live  unless  it  be 
alive,  "that  which  comes  from  the 
head  goes  to  the  heart ;  "§  and  Mil- 
ton truly  said  that  "he  who  would 
not  be  frustrate  of  his  hope  to  write 
well  hereafter  in  laudable  things, 
ought  himself  to  be  a  true  poem." 

For  "he  who,  having  no  touch  of 
the  Muses'  madness  in  his  soul,  comes 
to  the  door  and  thinks  he  will  get 
into  the  temple  by  the  help  of  Art — 
he,  I  say,  and  his  Poetry  are  not 
admitted."! 

But  the  work  of  the  true  poet  is 
immortal. 

"  For  have  not  the  verses  of 
Homer  continued  2500  years  or 

*  Arnold, 
t  Coleridg*. 
t  Horace. 
§  Wordsworth. 
II  Plato. 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


69 


more  without  the  loss  of  a  syllable 
or  a  letter,  during  which  time  in 
finite  palaces,  temples,  castles,  cities, 
have  been  decayed  and  demolished? 
It  is  not  possible  to  have  the  true 
pictures  or  statues  of  Cryus,  Alex- 
ander, Caesar,  no,  nor  of  the  kings  or 
great  personages  of  much  later  years; 
for  the  originals  cannot  last,  and 
the  copies  cannot  but  lose  of  the 
life  and  truth.  But  the  images  of 
men's  wits  and  knowledge  remain  in 
books,  exempted  from  the  wrong  of 
time  and  capable  of  perpetual  reno- 
vation. Neither  are  they  fitly  to  be 
failed  images,  because  they  generate 
still  and  cast  their  seeds  in  the 
minds  of  others,  provoking  and 
(Musing  infinite  actions  and  opinions 
in  succeeding  ages;  so  that  if  the 
invention  of  the  ship  was  thought  so 
noble,  which  carrieth  riches  and 
commodities  from  place  to  place, 
/ai '.I  consociateth  the  most  remote 
regions  in  participation  of  their 
f raits,  how  much  more  are  letters  to 
be  magnified,  which,  as  ships,  pass 
through  the  vast  seas  of  time  and 
make  ages  so  distant  to  participate 
of  the  wisdom,  illuminations,  and 
inventions,  the  one  of  the  other?"* 

Tho  poet  requires  many  qualifica- 
tions. "Who  has  traced,"  says 
Cousin,  "the  plan  of  this  poem? 
Reason.  Who  has  given  it  life  and 
charm  ?  Love.  And  who  has  guid- 
ed reason  and  love  ?  The  Will." 

"  All  men  have  some  imagination,  but 
The  Lover  and  the  Poet 
Are  of  imagination  all  compact. 

The  Poet's  eye,  in  a  fine  frenzy  rolling. 

Doth  glance  from  heaven  to  earth,  from  earth  to 

heaven, 

And  as  imagination  bodies  forth 
The  forms  of  things  unknown,  the  poet's  pen 
Turns  them  to  shapes,  and  gives  to  airy  nothing 
A  local  habitation  and  a  name,  't 

Poetry  is  the  fruit  of  genius ;  but 
it  cannot  be  produced  without 
labor.  Moore,  one  of  the  airiest  of 
poets,  tells  us  that  he  was  a  slow  and 
painstaking  workman. 

The  works  of  our  greatest  Poets 
are  all  episodes  in  that  one  great 


*B»oon. 


poem  which  the  genius  of  man  has 
created  since  the  commencement  of 
human  history. 

A  distinguished  mathematician  is 
said  once  to  have  inquired  what  was 
proved  by  Milton  in  his  Paradise 
Lost;  and  there  are  no  doubt  still 
some  who  ask  themselves,  even  if  they 
shrink  from  putting  the  question  to 
others,  whether  Poetry  is  of  any  use, 
just  as  if  to  give  pleasure  were  not 
useful  in  itself.  No  true  Utilitarian, 
however,  would  feel  this  doubt, 
since  the  greatest  happiness  of  the 
greatest  number  is  the  rule  of  his 
philosophy. 

"We  must  not  estimate  the  works 
of  genius  merely  with  reference  to 
the  pleasure  they  afford,  even  when 
pleasure  was  their  principal  object. 
We  must  also  regard  the  intelligence 
which  they  presuppose  and  exercise."* 

Thoroughly  to  enjoy  Poetry  we 
must  not  so  limit  ourselves,  but 
must  rise  to  a  higher  ideal. 

"Yes;  constantly  in  reading  poetry, 
a  sense  for  the  best,  the  really  ex- 
cellent, and  of  the  strength  and  joy 
to  be  drawn  from  it,  should  be 
present  in  our  minds,  and  should 
govern  our  estimate  of  what  we 
read."f 

Cicero,  in  his  oration  for  Archias, 
well  asked,  "Has  not  this  man  then 
a  right  to  my  love,  to  my  admira- 
tion, to  all  the  means  which  I  can 
employ  in  his  defense?  For  we  are 
instructed  by  all  the  greatest  and 
most  learned  of  mankind,  that  edu- 
cation, prer-epts,  and  practice,  can  in 
every  other  branch  of  learning  pro- 
duce excellence.  But  a  poet  is 
formed  by  the  hand  of  nature;  he 
is  aroused  by  mental  vigor,  and  in- 
spired by  what  we  may  call  the  spii  i£ 
of  divinity  itself.  Therefore  014* 
Ennius  has  a  right  to  give  to  poelf 
the  epithet  of  Holy,t  because  they 
are,  as  it  were,  lent  to  mankind  by 
the  indulgent  bounty  of  the  gods." 


*8t.  Hilaire. 
Unsold. 

iPlato  (trie*  poets   the  ions  and  interpreter*  of 
the  godi. 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


"Poetry," says  Shelley,  "awakens 
and  enlarges  the  mind  itself  by  ren- 
dering it  the  receptacle  of  a  thou- 
sand nnapprehended  combinations  of 
thought.  Poetry  lifts  the  veil  from 
the  hidden  beauty  of  the  world,  and 
makes  familiar  objects  be  as  if  they 
were  not  familiar;  it  reproduces  all 
that  it  represents,  and  the  imperson- 
ations clothed  in  its  Elysian  light 
stand  thenceforward  in  the  minds  of 
those  who  have  once  contemplated 
them,  as  memorials  of  that  gentle 
and  exalted  content  which  extends  it- 
self over  all  thoughts  and  actions 
with  which  it  co-exists." 

And  again,  "  All  high  Poetry  is  in- 
finite ;  it  is  as  the  first  acorn,  which 
contained  all  oaks  potentially.  Veil 
after  veil  may  be  undrawn,  and  the 
inmost  naked  beauty  of  the  meaning 
never  exposed.  A  great  poem  is  a 
fountain  for  ever  overflowing  with 
the  waters  of  wisdom  and  delight." 

Or,  as  he  has  expressed  himself  in 
his  Ode  to  a  Skylark  : 

"  Higher  still  and  higher 

From  thR  earth  thou  springest 
Like  a  cloud  of  lire  ; 

The  blue  deep  thou  wingest, 
And  singing  still  dost  Boar,  aud  soaring  ever  singest. 

"  Like  a  poet  1:  UMen 

In  the  light  of  thought, 
Singinghymiis  unbidden, 

Till  the  w  rid  is  wrought 
To  sympathy  with  hopes  aud  fears  it  heeded  not. 

"  Like  a  glow-worm  golden 

In  a  dell  of  dew, 
Scatter!  up  unbeholden 

Its  aerial  hue 

Among  the  flowers  and  grass,  which  screen  it  from 
the  view." 

We  speak  now  of  the  poet  as  the 
Maker  or  Creator — iron?ri?s ;  the  ori- 
gin of  the  word  "  bard  "  seems  doubt- 
ful. 

The  Hebrews  well  called  their 
poets  "  Seers,"  for  they  not  only  per- 
ceive more  than  others,  but  also  help 
other  men  to  see  much  which  would 
otherwise  be  lost  to  us.  The  old 
Greek  word  was  a'oiSoS — the  Bard  or 
Singer. 

Poetry  lifts  the  veil  from  the 
beauty  of  the  world  which  would 
otherwise  be  hidden,  and  throws  over 
tin;  most  familiar  objects  the  glow 
:iml  hnlo  of  imacrination.  The  man 


who  has  a  love  for  Poetry  can  scarcely 
fail  to  derive  intense  pleasure  from 
Nature,  which  to  those  who  love  it  is 
all  "  beauty  to  the  eye  and  music  to 
the  ear." 

"Yet  Nature  never  set  forth  the 
earth  in  so  rich  tapestry  as  divers 
poets  have  done ;  neither  with  so 
pleasant  rivers,  fruitful  trees,  sweet- 
smelling  flowers,  nor  whatsoever  else 
may  make  the  too-much-loved  earth 
more  lovely."  * 

In  the  smokiest  city  the  poet  will 
transport  us,  as  if  by  enchantment,  to 
the  fresh  air  and  bright  sun,  to  the 
murmur  of  woods  and  leaves  and  wa- 
ter, to  the  ripple  of  waves  upon  sand, 
and  enable  us,  as  in  some  delightful 
dream,  to  cast  off  the  cares  and 
troubles  of  life. 

The  poet,  indeed,  must  have  more 
true  knowledge,  not  only  of  human 
Nature,  but  of  all  Nature,  than  other 
men  are  gifted  with. 

Crabbe  Robinson  tells  us  that  when 
a  stranger  once  asked  permission  to 
see  Wordsworth's  study,  the  maid 
said,  "This  is  master's  Library,  but 
he  studies  in  the  fields."  No  wonder 
then  that  Nature  has  been  said  to 
return  the  poet's  love. 

"  Call  it  not  vain  ;  they  do  not  err 

Who  say  that,  when  the  poet  dies, 
Mute  Nature  mourns  her  worshipper, 
And  celebrates  his  obsequies.''! 

Swinburne  says  of  Blake,  and  I 
feel  entirely  with  him,  though  in  my 
case  the  application  would  have  been 
different,  that  "  The  sweetness  of  sky 
and  leaf,  of  grass  and  water — the 
bright  light  life  of  bird,  child,  and 
beast — is,  so  to  speak,  kept  fresh  by 
some  graver  sense  of  faithful  and 
mysterious  love,  explained  and  vivi- 
fied by  a  conscience  and  purpose  in 
the  artist's  hand  and  mind.  Such  a 
fiery  outbreak  of  spring,  such  an 
insurrection  of  fierce  floral  life  and 
radiant  riot  of  childish  power  and 
pleasure,  no  poet  or  painter  ever 
gave  before ;  such  lustre  of  green 
leaves  and  flushed  limbs,  kindled 


*  Sydney,  Defence 
t  Scott. 


Poetry. 


•44 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


cloud  and  fervent  fleece,  was  never 
wrought  into  speech  or  shape." 

To  appreciate  Poetry  we  must  not 
merely  glance  at  it,  or  rush  through 
it,  or  read  it  in  order  to  talk  or  write 
about  it.  One  must  compose  oneself 
into  the  right  frame  of  mind.  Of 
course  for  one's  own  sake  one  will 
read  Poetry  in  times  of  agitation, 
sorrow,  or  anxiety,  but  that  is  an- 
other matter. 

The  inestimable  treasures  of  Poet- 
ry ;  .-jpiin  are  open  to  all  of  us.  The 
best  books  are  indeed  the  cheapest. 
For  the  price  of  a  little  beer,  a  little 
tobicco,  we  can  buy  Shakespeare  or 
Milton — or  indeed  almost  as  many 
books  as  a  man  can  read  with  profit 
in  a  year. 

Nor,  in  considering  the  advantage 
of  Poetry  to  man,  must  we  limit 
ourselves  to  its  past  or  present  in- 
fluence. The  future  of  Poetry,  says 
Mr.  Matthew  Arnold,  and  no  one 
was  more  qualified  to  speak,  "The 
future  of  Poetry  is  immense,  because 
in  Poetry,  where  it  is  worthy  of  its 
high  destinies,  our  race,  as  time  goes 
on,  will  find  an  ever  surer  and  surer 
stay.  But  for  Poetry  the  idea  is 
everything;  the  rest  is  a  world  of 
illusion,  of  divine  illusion.  Poetry 
attaches  its  emotion  to  the  idea;  the 
idea  is  the  fact.  The  strongest  part 
of  our  religion  to  day  is  its  uncon- 
scious Poetry.  We  should  conceive 
of  Poetry  worthily,  and  more  highly 
than  it  has  been  the  custom  to  con- 
ceive of  it.  We  should  conceive  of 
it  as  capable  of  higher  uses,  and 
r?illed  to  higher  destinies  than  those 
which  in  general  men  have  assigned 
to  it  hitherto." 

Poetry  has  been  well  called  the 
record  "  of  the  best  and  happiest 
moments  of  the  happiest  and  best 
minds ;"  it  is  the  light  of  life,  the 
very  "image  of  life  expressed  in  its 
eternal  truth';"  it  immortalizes  all 
that  is  best  and  most  beautiful  in  the 
world;  "it  purges  from  our  inward 
sight  the  film  of  familiarity  which 
>  ;*eures  from  us  the  wonder  of  our 
_;•;"  "it  is  the  centre  and  cir- 


cumference of  knowledge ;"  and  poets 
are  "mirrors  of  the  gigantic  shadows 
which  futurity  casts  upon  the  pres- 
ent." 

Poetry,  in  effect,  lengthens  life :  it 
creates  for  us  time,  if  time  be  realized 
as  the  succession  of  ideas  and  not  of 
minutes ;  it  is  the  "breath  and  finer 
spirit  of  all  knowledge ; "  it  is  bound 
neither  by  time  nor  space,  but  lives 
in  the  spirit  of  man.  What  greater 
praise  can  be  given  than  the  saying 
that  life  should  be  Poetry  put  into 
action. 


CHAPTER  VII 


MUSIC. 


"  Music  is  a  moral  law.  It  gives  a  soul  to  the 
universe,  wings  to  the  mind,  flight  to  the  imagina- 
tion, a  charm  to  sadness,  gaiety  and  life  to  every- 
thing. It  is  the  essence  of  order,  and  leads  to  all 
that  is  good,  just,  and  beautiful,  of  which  it  is  the 
invisible,  but  nevertheless  dazzling,  passionate, 
and  eternal  form." — PLA.TO. 


Musio  is  m  one  sense  far  more  an- 
cient than  man,  and  the  voice  was 
from  the  very  commencement  of  hu- 
man existence  a  source  of  melody: 
but  so  far  as  musical  instruments 
are  concerned,  it  is  probable  that 
percussion  came  first,  then  wind  in- 
struments, and  lastly,  those  with 
strings:  first  the  Drum,  then  the 
Flute,  and  thirdly,  the  Lyre.  The 
early  history  of  Music  is,  however, 
unfortunately  wrapped  in  much  ob- 
scurity. The  use  of  letters  long 
preceded  the  invention  of  notes,  and 
tradition  in  such  a  matter  can  tell 
us  but  little. 

The  contest  between  Marsyas  and 
Apollo  is  supposed  by  some  to  typify 
the  struggle  between  the  Flute  and 
the  Lyre;  Marsyas  representing  the 
archaic  Flute,  Apollo  the  champion 
of  the  Lyre.  The  latter  of  course 
was  victorious:  it  sets  the  voice  free, 
and  the  sound 

•  Of  music  that  is  born  of  human  breath 
Comes  straighter  to  the  soul  than  any  strain 
The  hand  alone  can  make."* 


'Morris. 


2 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


Various  myths  have  grown  up  to 
explain  the  origin  of  Music.  One 
Greek  tradition  was  to  the  effect 
Grasshoppers  were  human  beings 
themselves  in  a  world  before  the 
Muses ;  that  when  the  Muses  came, 
being  ravished  with  delight,  they 
sang  and  sang  and  forgot  to  eat, 
until  "they  died  of  hunger  for  the 
love  of  song.  And  they  carry  to 
heaven  the  report  of  those  who  hon- 
or them  on  earth."* 

The  old  writers  and  commentators 
tell  us  that  Pythagoras,  "  as  he  was 
one  day  meditating  on  the  want  of 
some  rule  to  guide  the  ear,  analogous 
to  what  had  been  used  to  help  the 
other  senses,  chanced  to  pass  by  a 
blacksmith's  shop,  and  observing 
that  the  hammers,  which  were  four 
in  number,  sounded  very  harmoni- 
ously, he  had  them  weighed,  and 
found  them  to  be  in  the  proportion 
of  six,  eight,  nine,  and  twelve.  Up- 
on this  he  suspended  four  strings 
of  equal  length  and  thickness,  etc., 
fastened  weights  in  the  above  men- 
tioned proportions  to  each  of  them 
respectively,  and  found  that  they 
gave  the  same  sounds  that  the  ham- 
mers had  done;  viz.  the  fourth, 
fifth,  and  octave  to  the  gravest 
tone."f  However  this  may  be,  it 
Would  appear  that  the  lyre  had  at 
irst  four  strings  only;  Terpander 
Is  said  to  have  given  it  three  more, 
and  an  eighth  was  subsequently 
added. 

We  have  unfortunately  no  speci- 
a^isns  of  Greek  or  Roman,  or  even  of 
iSarly  Christian  music.  The  Chinese 
indicated  the  notes  by  words  or  their 
initials.  The  lowest  was  termed 
"  Koung,"  or  the  Emperor,  as  being 
the  Foundation  on  which  all  were 
supported;  the  second  was  Tschang, 
the  ^Prime  Minister;  the  third,  the 
Subject;  the  fourth,  Public  Business; 
the  fifth,  the  Mirror  of  Heaven,  i 
The  Greeks  also  had  a  name  for  each 
note.  The  so-called  Gregorian  notes 

•SUto. 

tCrowMt. 

T  RowHotham .   ffiitory  <f  Mima. 


were  not  invented  until  six  hundred 
years  after  Gregory's  death.  The 
Monastery  of  St.  Gall  possesses  a 
copy  of  Gregory's  Antiphonary,  made 
about  the  year  780  by  a  chorister 
who  was  sent  from  Borne  to  Charle- 
magne to  reform  the  Northern 
music,  and  in  this  the  notes  are 
indicated  by  "pneumss,"  from  which 
our  notes  were  gradually  developed, 
and  first  arranged  along  one  line,  to 
which  others  were  gradually  added. 
But  I  must  not  enlarge  on  this  in- 
teresting subject. 

In  the  matter  of  music  English- 
men have  certainly  deserved  well  of 
the  world.  Even  as  long  ago  as 
1185  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  Bishop  of 
St.  David's,  says,  "The  Britons  do 
not  sing  their  tunes  in  unison  like 
the  inhabitants  of  other  countries, 
but  in  different  parts.  So  that  when 
a  company  of  singers  meet  to  sing, 
as  is  usual  in  this  country,  as  many 
different  parts  are  heard  as  there  are 
singers."* 

The  most  ancient  known  piece  of 
music  for  several  voices  is  an  Eng- 
lish four  men's  song,  "Summer  is 
a-coming  in,"  which  is  considered  to 
be  at  least  as  early  as  1240,  and  is 
now  in  the  British  Museum. 

The  Venetian  Ambassador  in  the 
time  of  Henry  VIII.  said  of  our 
English  Church  music:  "The  mass 
was  sung  by  His  Majesty's  choristers, 
whose  voices  are  more  heavenly  than 
human;  they  did  not  chaunt  like 
men,  but  like  angels." 

Speaking  of  Purcell's  anthem,  "Ba 
merciful  to  me,  O  God,"  Burney  says 
it  is  "throughout  admirable.  In- 
deed, to  iny  conception  there  is  no 
better  music  existing  of  the  kind 
than  the  opening  of  this  anthem,  in 
which  the  verse  '  I  will  praise  God ' 
and  the  last  movement  in  C  natural 
are,  in  melody,  harmony,  and  modu- 
lation, truly  divine  music." 

Dr.  Burney  says  that  Purcell  wag 
"as  much  the  pride  of  an  Englishman 
in  music  as  Shakespeare  in  produc- 
tions of  the  sf-nge,  Milton  in  epic 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


73 


poetry,  Locke  in  metaphysics,  or  Sir 
Isaac  Newton  in  philosophy  and 
mathematics;"  and  yet  PurcelTs 
music  is  unfortunately  but  little 
known  to  us  now,  as  Macfarren  says, 
"to  our  great  loss." 

The  authors  of  some  of  the  lovli- 
( st  music,  and  even  in  some  cases 
that  of  comparatively  recent  times, 
are  unknown  to  us.  This  is  the  case 
for  instance  with  the  exquisite  song 
"Drink  to  me  only  with  thine  eyes," 
the  words  of  which  were  taken  by 
Jonson  from  Philostratus,  and  which 
has  been  considered  as  the  most 
beautiful  of  all  "people's  songs." 

The  music  of  "God  save  the  Queen" 
has  been  adopted  in  more  than  half 
a  dozen  other  countries,  and  yet  the 
authorship  is  a  matter  of  doubt,  be- 
ing attributed  by  some  to  Dr.  John 
Bull,  by  others  to  Carey.  It  was  ap- 
parently first  sung  in  a  tavern  in 
Cornhill. 

Both  the  music  and  words  of  "O 
Death;  rock  me  to  sleep  "  are  said  to 
be  by  Anne  Boleyn :  "  Stay,  Cory  don" 
and  "Sweet  Honey-sucking  Bees" 
by  Wildye,  "  the  first  of  madrigal 
writers.''  "Rule  Britannia"  was 
composed  by  Arne,  and  originally 
formed  part  of  his  Masque  of  Alfred, 
first  performed  in  1740  at  Cliefden, 
near  Maidenhead.  To  Arne  we  are 
also  indebted  for  the  music  of 
"  Where  the  Bee  sucks,  there  lurk  I." 
"  The  Vicar  of  Bray"  is  set  to  a  tune 
originally  known  as  "A  Country  Gar- 
den." "Come  unto  these  yellow 
sands"  we  owe  to Purcell ;  "Sigh  no 
more,  Ladies"  to  Stevens  ;  ''Home, 
Sweet  Home  "  to  Bishop. 

There  is  a  curious  melancholy  in 
national  nmsic,  which  is  generally  in 
the  minor  key;  indeed  this  holds  good 
with  the  music  of  savage  races  gen- 
erally. They  appear,  moreover,  to 
have  no  love  songs. 

Herodotus  tells  us  that  during  the 
whole  time  he  was  in  Egypt  he  only 
heard  one  song,  and  that  was  a  sad 
one.  My  own  experience  there  was 
the  same.  Some  tendency  to  melan- 
choly seems  indeed  inherent  in  music. 


and  Jessica  is  not  alone  in  the  feel- 
ing 

"  I  am  nerer  merry  -when  I  h«ar  sweet  mnsic." 

The  epitaphs  on  Musicians  have 
been  in  some  cases  very  well  ex- 
pressed. Such,  for  instance,  is  the 
following : 

"Philips,  whose  touch  harmonious  could  remove 
The  pangs  of  guilty  power  and  hapless  love, 
Rest  here,  distressed  by  poverty  no  more  ; 
Here  find  that  calm  thou  gav'st  so  oft  before ; 
Sleep,  undisturbed,  within  this  peaceful  shriue, 
Till  angels  wake  thee  with  a  note  like  thine  1 " 

Still  more  so  that  on  Purcell,  whose 
premature  death  was  so  irreparable  a 
loss  to  English  music — 

"  Hera  lies  Henry  Purcell,  who  left 
this  life,  and  is  gone  to  that  blessed 
place,  where  only  his  harmony  can  be 
exceeded." 

The  histories  of  Music  contain 
many  curious  anecdotes  as  to  the 
circumstances  under  which  different 
works  have  been  composed. 

Rossini  tells  us  that  he  wrote  the 
overture  to  the  "  Gazza  Ladra  "  on 
the  very  day  of  the  first  performance, 
in  the  upper  loft  of  the  La  Scala 
where  he  had  been  confined  by  the 
manager  under  the  guard  of  four 
scene-shifters,  who  threw  the  text  out 
of  window  to  copyists  bit  by  bit  as  it 
was  composed.  Tartini  is  said  to 
have  composed  "H  trillo  del  Dia- 
volo,"  considered  to  be  his  best  work, 
in  a  dream.  Rossini,  speaking  of  the 
chorus  in  G  minor  in  his  "  Dal  tuo 
stollato  so^-lio,"  tells  us:  "While  I 
was  writing  the  chorus  in  G  minor  I 
suddenly  dipped  my  pen  into  a  medi- 
cine bottle  instead  of  the  ink.  I 
made  a  blot,  and  when  I  dried  this 
with  the  sand  it  took  the  form  of  a 
natural,  which  instantly  gave  me  the 
idea  of  the  effect  the  change  from  G 
minor  to  G  major  would  make,  aud  to 
this  blot  is  all  the  effect,  if  any,  due." 
But  these  of  course  are  exceptional 
cases. 

There  are  other  forms  of  Music, 
which,  though  not  strictly  entitled  to 
the  name,  are  yet  capable  of  giving 
intense  pleasure.  To  the  sportsman 
what  Music  can  excel  that  of  the 
hounds  themselves.  The  cawing  of 


74 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


rooks  has  been  often  quoted  as  a 
sound  which  has  no  actual  beauty  of 
its  own,  and  yet  which  is  delightful 
from  its  associations. 

There  is,  however,  a  true  Music  of 
Nature, — the  song  of  birds,  the  whis- 
per of  leaves,  the  ripple  of  waters 
upon  a  sandy  shore,  the  wail  of  wind 
or  sea. 

There  was  also  an  ancient  impres- 
sion that  the  Heavenly  bodies  give 
out  music  as  well  as  light :  the  Music 
of  the  Spheres  is  proverbial. 

"There's  not  the  smallest  orb  which  thou  be- 

h  Meat 

But  in  his  motion  like  an  angel  sings. 
Still  ouiriutf  to  the  young-eyed  cherubims  ; 
Such  harmony  is  in  immortal  souls 
But  while  this  muddy  vesture  of  decay 
Doth  grossly  close  it  in,  we  canuot  hear  it."* 

Music  indeed  often  seems  as  if  it 
scarcely  belonged  to  this  material 
universe,  but  was 

"  A  tone 

Of  some  world  far  from  ours, 
Where   music,  and  moonlight,   and  feeling  are 

one."t 

There  is  Music  in  speech  as  well 
as  in  song.  Not  merely  in  the  voice 
of  those  we  love,  and  the  charm  of 
association,  but  in  actual  melody ;  as 
Milton  says, 

"  The  Angel  ended,  and  in  Adam's  ear 
So  charming  left  his  voice,  that  he  awhile 
Thought  him  still  speaking,  still  stood  fixed  to 
hear." 

It  is  remarkable  that  more  pains 
are  not  taken  with  the  voice  in  con- 
versation as  well  us  in  singing,  for 

"  What  plea  so  tainted  and  corrupt 
But,  being  seasoned  with  a  gracious  voice, 
Obscures  the  show  of  evil." 


"  The  man  that  hath  no  Music  in  himself 
Nor  is  not  moved  with  concord  of  sweet  sounds 
Is  fit  for  treasons,  stratagems,  and  spoils  ;  "t 

but  there  are  some  notable  excep- 
tions. Dr.  Johnson  had  no  love  of 
music.  On  one  occasion,  hearing 
that  a  certain  piece  of  music  was 
very  difficult,  he  expressed  his  re- 
gret that  it  was  not  impossible. 

Poets,  as  might  have  been  ex- 
pected, have  sung  most  sweetly  in 
praise  of  song.  They  have,  more- 


*  Shakespeare, 
t  Swinburne. 
J  Shakespeare. 


over,  done  so  from  the  most  opposite 
points  of  view. 

Milton  invokes  it  as  a  luxury — 

"  And  ever  against  eating  car** 
Lap  me  in  soft  Lydian  airs ; 

Married  to  immortal  verse 
Such  as  the  meeting  soul  may  pierce. 
In  notes  with  many  a  winding  bout 
Of  linked  sweetness  long  drawn  out ; 
With  wanton  heed,  and  giddy  cunning, 
The  melting  voice  through  mazes  running ; 
Untwisting  all  the  chains  that  tie 
The  hidden  soul  of  harmony." 

Sometimes  as  a  temptation :  so  Spen- 
ser says  of  Phaedria, 

"  And  she,  more  sweet  than  any  bird  on  bough 
Would  oftentimes  amongst  them  bear  a  part, 
And  strive  to  passe  (as  she  could  well  enough) 
Their  native  inusicke  by  her  skilful  art." 

Or  as  an  element  of  pure  happiness: 

"  There  is  in  souls  a  sympathy  with  sounds ; 
And  as  the  mind  is  pitched,  the  ear  is  pleased 
With  melting  airs  or  martial,  brisk  or  grave  ; 
Some  chord  in  unison  w-th  what  we  hear 
Is  touched  within  ua,  and  the  heart  replies. 
How  soft  the  music  of  those  village  bells, 
Falling  at  intervals  upon  the  ear 
In  cadence  sweet,  now  dying  ail  away, 
Now  pealing  loud  again  and  louder  still 
Clear  and  sonorous,  as  the  gale  comes  on."* 

As  touching  the  human  heart — 

"  The  soul  of  music  slumbers  in  the  shell. 
Till  waked  and  kindled  by  the  master's  spell, 
And  feeling  hearts — touch  them  but  rightly — pour 
A  thousand  melodies  unheard  before."! 

As  an  education — 

"  I  have  sent  books  and  music  there,  and  all 
Those  instruments  with  which  high  spirit*  call 
The  future  from  its  cradle,  and  the  past 
Out  of  its  grave,  and  make  the  present  last 
In  thoughts  and  joys  which  sleep,  but  cannot  die, 
Folded  within  their  own  eternity."! 

As  an  aid  to  religion — 

"  As  from  the  power  of  sacred  lays 

The  spheres  began  to  move, 
And  sung  the  great  Creator's  praise 

To  all  the  blessed  above, 
So  when  the  last  and  dreadful  hour 
This  crumbling  pageant  shall  devour. 
The  trumpet  shall  be  heard  on  high, 
The  dead  shall  live,  the  living  die, 
And  music  shall  untune  the  sky  ."§ 


Or  again- 


"  Hark  how  it  falls  1  and  now  it  steals  along. 

Like  distant  bells  upon  the  lake  at  eve, 
When  all  is  still ;  and  now  it  grows  more  strong 

As  when  the  choral  train  their  dirges  weave 
Mellow  and  many  voiced  ;  where  every  close 

O'er  the  old  minster  roof,  in  echoing   waves 

renews, 
Oh  I  I  am  rapt  aloft.    My  spirit  soars 

Beyond  the  skies,  and  leaves  the  stars  behind  ; 
Lo  I  angels  lead  me  to  the  happy  shores, 

And  floating  paeans  fill  the  buoyant  wind. 
Farewell !    base    earth,    farewell !    my    soul  is 

freed." 

The  power  of  Music  to  sway  the 

*  Cowper. 
tRogers. 
tShelley. 
§Dryden. 


28 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


75 


feelings  of  Man  has  never  been 
more  cleverly  protrayed  them  by 
Dryden  in  "  The  Feast  of  Alexan- 
der/' though  the  circumstances  of 
the  case  precluded  any  reference  to 
the  influence  of  Music  in  its  noblest 
aspects. 

Poets  have  always  attributed  to 
Music, — and  who  would  wish  to  deny 
it,  a  power  even  over  the  inanimate 
forces  of  Nature.  Shakespeare  ac- 
counts for  shooting  stars  by  the  at- 
traction of  Music: 

"  The  rude  sea  grew  civil  at  her  song, 

And  certain  stars  shot  madly  from  their  spheres 

To  hear  the  Sea-maid's  Music." 

Prose  writers  have  also  been  in- 
spired by  Music  to  their  highest 
eloquence.  "  Music,"  says  Plato,  "  is 
a  moral  law.  It  gives  a  soul  to  the 
universe,  wings  to  the  mind,  flight 
to  the  imagination,  a  charm  to  sad- 
ness, gaiety  and  life  to  everything. 

It  is  the  essence  of  order,  and 
leads  to  all  that  is  good,  just,  and 
beautiful,  of  which  it  is  the  invisible, 
but  nevertheless  dazzling,  passion- 
ate, and  eternal  form."  "Music," 
said  Luther,  "is  a  fair  and  glorious 
gift  from  God.  I  would  not  for  the 
world  renounce  my  humble  share  in 
music."  "Music,"  said  Haley,  "is 
an  art  that  God  has  given  us,  in 
which  the  voices  of  all  nations  may 
unite  their  prayers  in  one  harmoni- 
ous rhythm."  Or  Carlyle,  "Music 
is  a  kind  of  inarticulate,  unfathom- 
able speech,  which  leads  us  to  the 
edge  of  the  infinite,  and  lets  us  for 
moments  gaze  into  it." 

Let  me  also  quote  Helmholtz, 
one  of  the  profoundest  exponents 
of  modern  science.  "Just  as  in 
the  rolling  ocean,  this  movement, 
rhythmically  repeated,  and  yet  ever- 
varying,  rivets  our  attention  and 
hurries  us  along  But  whereas  in 
the  sea  blind  physical  forces  alone 
are  at  work,  and  hence  the  final 
impression  on  the  spectator's  mind 
is  nothing  but  solitude — in  a  musi- 
cal work  of  art  the  movement  follows 
the  outflow  of  the  artist's  own  emo- 
tions. Now  gently  gliding,  now 


gracefully  leaping,  now  violently 
stirred,  penetrated,  or  laboriously 
contending  with  the  natural  expres- 
sion of  passion,  the  stream  of  sound, 
in  primitive  vivacity  bears  over  into 
!  the  hearer's  soul  unimagined  moods 
which  the  artist  has  overheard  from 
his  own,  and  finally  raises  him  up  to 
that  repose  of  everlasting  beauty  of 
which  God  has  allowed  but  few  of 
his  elect  favorites  to  be  the  heralds. '' 

"  There  are  but  seven  notes  in  the 
scale ;  make  them  fourteen,"  says 
Newman,  "yet  what  a  slender  outfit 
for  so  vast  an  enterprise !  What 
science  brings  so  much  out  of  so 
little  ?  Out  of  what  poor  elements 
does  some  great  master  in  it  create 
Ins  new  world !  Shall  we  say  that 
all  this  exuberant  inventiveness  is  a 
mere  ingenuity  or  trick  of  art,  like 
some  game  of  fashion  of  the  day, 
without  reality,  without  meaning  ? 
...  Is  it  possible  that  that  inexhaus- 
tible evolution  and  disposition  of 
notes,  so  rich  yet  so  simple,  BO  intri- 
cate yet  so  regulated,  so  various  yet 
so  mnjestic,  should  be  a  mere  sound, 
which  is  gone  and  perishes  ?  Can  it 
be  that  those  mysterious  stirrings  of 
the  heart,  and  keen  emotions,  and 
strange  yearnings  after  we  know  not 
what,  and  awful  impressions  from 
we  know  not  whence,  should  be 
wrought  in  us  by  what  is  unsubstan- 
tial, and  comes  and  goes,  and  begins 
and  ends  in  itself  ?  it  is  not  so ;  it 
cannot  be.  No  ;  they  have  esc  iped 
from  some  higher  sphere  ;  they  are 
the  outpourings  of  eternal  harmony 
in  the  medium  of  created  sound; 
they  are  echoes  from  our  Home ; 
they  are  the  voice  of  Angels,  or  the 
Magnificat  of  Saints,  or  the  living 
laws  of  Divine  Governance,  or  tlia  Di- 
vine Attributes ;  something  are  they 
besides  themselves,  which  we  cannot 
compass,  which  we  cannot  utter, 
though  mortal  man,  and  he  perhaps 
not  otherwise  distinguished  above  his 
fellows,  has  the  gift  of  eliciting 
them." 

Poetry  and  Music  unite  in  song. 
From  the  earliest  ages  song  has  been 


29 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


the  sweet  companion  of  labor.  The 
rude  chant  of  the  boatman  floats 
upon  the  water,  the  shepherd  sings 
upon  the  hill,  the  milkmaid  in  the 
dairy,  the  ploughman  at  the  plough. 
Every  trade,  every  occupation,  every 
act  and  scene  of  life,  has  long  had 
Vs  own  especial  music.  The  bride 
vent  to  her  marriage,  the  laborer  to 
his  work,  the  old  man  to  his  last 
long  rest,  each  with  appropriate  and 
immemorial  music. 

Music  has  been  truly  described  as 
the  mother  of  sympathy,  the  hand- 
maid of  Eeligion,  and  will  never 
exercise  its  full  effect,  as  the  Em- 
peror Charles  VI.  said  to  Farinelli, 
unless  it  aims  not  merely  to  charm 
the  ear,  but  to  touch  the  heart. 

There  are  many  who  consider  that 
our  life  at  present  is  peculiarly 
prosaic  and  mercenary.  I  greatly 
doubt  whether  that  be  the  case,  but 
if  so  our  need  for  Music  is  all  the 
more  imperative. 

Much  as  Music  has  already  done 
for  man,  we  may  hope  even  more 
from  it  in  the  future. 

It  is,  moreover,  a  joy  for  all.  To 
appreciate  Science  or  Art  requires 
some  training,  and  no  doubt  the 
cultivated  ear  will  more  and  more 
appreciate  the  beauties  of  Music; 
but  though  there  are  exceptional 
individuals,  and  even  races,  almost 
devoid  of  any  love  of  Music,  still 
they  are  happily  but  rare. 

Good  Music,  moreover,  does  not 
necessarily  involve  any  considerable 
outlay ;  it  is  even  now  no  mere  lux- 
ury of  the  rich,  and  we  may  hope 
that  as  time  goes  on,  it  will  become 
more  and  more  the  comfort  and  sol- 
ace of  the  poor. 


CHAPTEE  Vin. 

THE  BEAUTIES  OF   NATURE. 

"  Speak  to  the  earth  and  it  shall  teach  thee." 

JOB. 

"  And  this  onr  life,  exempt  from  public  haunt, 
Finds  tongues  in  trees,  books  in  the  running 

brooks, 

Pennons  in  ston*«,  and  good  in  everything." 
SHAKFSPKAKE. 


WE  are  told  in  the  first  chapter 
of  Genesis  that  at  the  close  of  the 
sixth  day  "  God  saw  every  thing  that 
he  had  made,  and,  behold,  it  was 
very  good."  Not  merely  good,  but 
very  good.  Yet  how  few  of  us  ap- 
preciate the  beautiful  world  in  which 
we  live! 

In  preceding  chapters  I  have  in- 
cidentally, though  only  incidentally, 
referred  to  the  Beauties  of  Nature  ; 
but  any  attempt,  however  imperfect, 
to  sketch  the  blessings  of  life  must 
contain  some  special  reference  to 
this  lovely  world  itself,  which  the 
Greeks  happily  called  xo'rf//o? — 
beauty. 

Hamerton,  in  his  charming  work 
on  Landscape,  says,  "There  are,  I 
believe,  four  new  experiences  for 
which  no  description  ever  adequate- 
ly prepares  us,  the  first  sight  of  the 
sea, .the  first  journey  in  the  desert, 
the  sight  of  flowing  molten  lava,  and 
a  walk  on  a  great  glacier.  We  feel 
in  each  case  that  the  strange  thing 
in  pure  nature  as  much  nature  as  a 
familiar  English  moor,  yet  so  extraor- 
dinary that  we  might  be  in  another 
planet."  But  it  would,  I  think,  be  ea- 
sier to  enumerate  the  Wonders  of 
Nature  for  which  description  can  pre- 
pare us,  than  those  which  are  alto- 
gether beyond  the  power  of  lan- 
guage. 

Many  of  us,  however,  walk  through 
the  world  like  ghosts,  as  if  we  were 
in  it,  but  not  of  it.  We  have  "  eyes 
and  see  not,  ears  and  hear  not."  To 
look  is  much  less  easy  than  to  over- 
look, and  to  be  able  to  see  what  we 
do  see,  is  a  great  gift.  Euskin 
maintains  that  "  The  greatest  thing 
a  human  soul  ever  does  in  this  world 
is  to  see  something,  and  tell  what  it 
saw  in  a  plain  way."  I  do  not  sup- 
pose that  his  eyes  are  better  than 
ours,  but  how  much  more  he  sees 
with  them! 

We  must  look  before  we  can  ex- 
pect to  see.  "To  the  attentive  eye," 
says  Emerson,  "each  moment  of  the 
year  hns  its  own  beauty;  and  in  the 
jsame  field  it  beholds"  every  hour  n 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


77 


picture  that  was  never  seen  before, 
and  shall  never  be  seen  again.  The 
heavens  change  every  moment  and 
reflect  their  glory  or  gloom  on  the 
plains  beneath." 

The  love  of  Nature  is  a  great 
gift,  and  if  it  is  frozen  or  crashed 
out,  the  character  can  hardly  fail  to 
suffer  from  the  loss.  I  will  not,  in- 
deed, say  that  a  person  who  does 
not  love  Nature  is  necessarily  bad; 
or  that  one  who  does,  is  necessarily 
good ;  but  it  is  to  most  minds  a  great 
help.  Many,  as  Miss  Cobbe  says, 
enter  the  Temple  through  the  gate 
called  Beautiful. 

There  are  doubtless  some  to  whom 
none  of  the  beautiful  wonders  of 
Nature;  neither  the  glories  of  the 
rising  or  setting  sun ;  the  magnifi- 
cent spectacle  of  the  boundless  ocean, 
sometimes  so  grand  in  its  peaceful 
tranquillity,  at  others  so  majestic  in 
its  mighty  power;  the  forests  agita- 
ted by  the  storm,  or  alive  with  the 
song  of  birds ;  nor  the  glaciers  and 
mountains — there  are  doubtless  some 
whom  none  of  these  magnificent 
spectacles  can  move,  whom  "all  the 
glories  of  heaven  and  earth  may  pass 
in  daily  succession  without  touch- 
ing their  hearts  or  elevating  their 
minds.'  * 

Such  men  are  indeed  pitiable. 
But,  happily,  they  are  exceptions. 
If  we  can  none  of  us  as  yet  fully 
appreciate  the  beauties  of  Nature, 
we  are  beginning  to  do  so  more  and 
more. 

For  most  of  us  the  early  summer 
has  a  special  charm.  The  veiy  life 
is  luxury.  The  air  is  full  of  scent, 
and  sound,  and  sunshine,  of  the 
song  of  birds  and  the  murmur  of 
insects;  the  meadows  gleam  with 
golden  buttercups,  it  almost  seems 
as  if  one  could  see  the  grass  grow 
and  the  buds  open ;  the  bees  hum 
for  very  joy,  and  the  air  is  full  of  a 
thousand  scents,  above  all  perhaps 
that  of  new- mown  hay. 

The  exquisite  beauty  and  delight 
of  a  fine  summer  day  in  the  country 


*Beattie. 


31 


has  never  perhaps  been  more  truly, 
and  therefore  more  beautifully,  de»- 
cribed  than  by  Jefferies  in  his  "  Pa- 
geant of  Summer."  "I  linger,"  he 
says,  "  in  the  midst  of  the  long  grass, 
the  luxury  of  the  leaves,  and  the  song 
in  the  very  air.  I  seem  as  if  I  could 
feel  all  the  glowing  life  the  sunshine 
gives  and  the  south  wind  calls  to  be- 
ing. The  endless  grass,  the  endless 
leaves,  the  immense  strength  of  the 
oak  expanding,  the  unalloyed  joy  of 
finch  and  blackbird ;  from  all  of  them 
I  receive  a  little.  ...  In  the  black- 
bird's melody  one  note  is  mine ;  in 
the  dance  of  the  leaf  shadows  the 
formed  maze  is  for  me,  though  the 
motion  is  theirs ;  the  flowers  with  a 
thousand  faces  have  collected  the 
kisses  of  the  morning.  Feeling  with 
them,  I  receive  some,  at  least,  of 
their  fulness  of  life.  Never  could 
I  have  enough;  never  stay  long 
enough.  .  .  .  The  hours  when  the 
mind  is  absorbed  by  beauty  are  the 
only  hours  when  we  really  live,  so 
that  the  longer  we  can  stay  among 
these  things  so  much  the  more  i* 
snatched  from  inevitable  Time.  .  .  . 
These  are  the  only  hours  that  are 
not  wasted — these  hours  that  absorb 
the  soul  and  fill  it  with  beauty. 
This  is  real  life,  and  all  else  is  iliu 
sion,  or  mere  endurance.  To  bf 
beautiful  and  to  be  calm,  withou: 
mental  fear,  is  the  ideal  of  Nature. 
If  I  cannot  achieve  it,  at  least  I 
can  think  it." 

This  chapter  is  already  so  long 
that  I  cannot  touch  on  the  contrast 
and  variety  of  the  seasons,  each  with 
its  own  special  charm  and  interes* 
as 

"  The  daughters  of  the  year 

Dance  into  light  and  die  into  the  shade."* 

Our  countrymen  derive  great  pleas 
ure  from  the  animal  kingdom,  in 
limiting,  shooting,  and  fishing,  thus 
obtaining  fresh  air  and  exercise,  and 
being  led  into  much  varied  and 
beautiful  scenery.  Still  it  will  prob- 
ably ere  long  be  recognized  that  even 
from  a  purely  selfish  point  of  view, 

•Tennyson. 


BEACON  LIGHTS  Oh'  SCIENCE. 


killing  animals  is  not  the  way  to  get 
the  greatest  enjoyment  from  them. 
How  much  more  interesting  would 
every  walk  in  the  country  be,  if  Man 
would  but  treat  other  animals  with 
kindness,  so  that  they  might  ap- 
proach us  without  fear,  and  we  might, 
have  the  constant  pleasure  of  watch- 
ing their  winning  ways.  Their  ori- 
gin and  history,  structure  and  habits, 
senses  and  intelligence,  offer  an  end- 
less field  of  interest  and  wonder. 

The  richness  of  life  is  wonderful. 
Any  one  who  will  sit  down  quietly 
on  the  grass  and  watch  a  little  will 
be  indeed  surprised  at  the  number 
and  variety  of  living  beings,  every 
one  with  a  special  history  of  its  own, 
every  one  offering  endless  problems 
of  great  interest. 

"If  indeed  thy  heart  were  right, 
then  would  every  creature  be  to  thee 
a  mirror  of  life,  and  a  book  of  holy 
doctrine."* 

The  study  of  Natural  History  has 
the  special  advantage  of  carrying  us 
into  the  country  and  the  open  air. 

Not  but  what  towns  are  beautiful 
too.  They  teem  with  human  interest 
and  historical  associations. 

Wordsworth  was  an  intense  lover 
of  nature ;  yet  does  he  not  tell  us,  in 
lines  which  every  Londoner  will  ap- 
preciate, that  he  knew  nothing  in  na- 
ture more  fair,  no  calm  more  deep, 
than  the  city  of  London  at  early 
dawn? 

"Earth  has  not  anything  to  show  mare  fair 
Dull  would  he  be  of  soul  who  could  pass  by 
A  sight  of  touching  in  its  majesty  : 
This  City  now  doth,  like  a  garment,  wear 
The  beauty  of  the  morning  ;  silent,  bare, 
Ships,  towers,  domes,  theatres,  and  temples  lie 
Open  unto  the  fields,  and  to  the  aky  : 
All  bright  and  glittering  in  the  smokeless  air. 
Never  did  sun  more  beautifully  steep 
In  his  first  splendor,  valley,  rock,  or  hill ; 
Ne'er  saw  I,  never  felt,  a  calm  so  deep  1 
The  river  glideth  at  its  own  sweet  will : 
Dear  God  1  the  very  houses  seem  asleep  ; 
And  all  that  mighty  heart  is  lying  still  1 " 

Milton  also  described  London  as 

"Too  blest  abode,  no  loveliness  we  see 
In  all  the  earth,  but  it  abounds  in  thee." 

But  after  being  some  time  in  a  great 
city,  one  feels  a  longing  for  the 
country. 


*  Thomas  a  Kempis 


"  The  mr>anent  floweret  of  the  vale. 
The  simplest  note  that  swells  the  gale. 
The  common  sun,  the  air,  the  skies. 
To  him  are  opening  paradise."1*1 

Here  Gray  justly  places  flowers  in 
the  first  place,  for  when  in  any  great 
town  we  think  of  the  country,  flowers 
seem  first  to  suggest  themselves. 

"Flowers,"  says  Buskin,  "seem 
intended  for  the  solace  of  ordinary 
humanity.  Children  love  them; 
quiet,  tender,  contented,  ordinary 
people  love  them  as  they  grow : 
luxurious  and  disorderly  people  re- 
joice in  them  gathered.  They  are 
the  cottager's  treasure;  and  in  the 
crowded  town,  mark,  as  with  a  little 
broken  fragment  of  rainbow,  the 
windows  of  the  workers  in  whose 
heart  rests  the  covenant  of  peace." 
But  in  the  crowded  street,  or  even 
in  the  formal  garden,  flowers  always 
seem,  to  me  at  least,  as  if  they  were 
pining  for  the  freedom  of  the  woods 
and  fields,  where  they  can  live  and 
grow  as  they  please. 

There  are  flowers  for  almost  all 
seasons  and  all  places.  Flowers  for 
spring,  summer,  and  autumn,  while 
even  in  the  very  depth  of  winter 
here  and  there  one  makes  its  ap- 
pearance. There  are  flowers  of  the 
fields  and  woods  and  hedgerows,  of 
the  seashore  and  the  lake's  margin, 
of  the  mountain  side  up  to  the  very 
edge,  of  the  eternal  snow. 

And  what  an  infinite  variety  they 
present. 

"  Daffodils, 

That  come  before  the  swallow  dares,  and  take 
The  winds  of  March  with  beauty  ;  violets,  dim. 
But  sweeter  than  the  lids  of  Juno's  eyes, 
Or  Cytherea'a  breath  :  pale  primroses, 
That  die  unmarried,  ere  they  can  behold 
Bright  Pho3bus  in  his  strength,  a  malady 
Most  incident  to  maids ;  bold  oxlips  and 
The  crown  imperial ;  lilies  of  all  kinds. 
The  flower-de-luce  being  oue."t 

Nor  are  they  mere  delights  to  the 
eye;  they  are  full  of  mystery  and 
suggestions.  They  almost  seem  like 
enchanted  princesses  waiting  for 
some  princely  deliverer.  Wordsworth 
tells  us  that 

"  To  me  the  meanest  flower  that  blows  can  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears." 

Every  color  again,  every  variety  of 


*  Gray. 

t  Shakespeare 


32 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE, 


79 


form,  has  some  purpose  and  explana 
tion. 

And  yet,  lovely  as  Flowers  are. 
Leaves  add  even  more  to  the  Beauty 
of  Nature.  Trees  in  our  northern 
latitudes  seldom  own  large  flowers; 
and  though  of  course  there  are  nota- 
ble exceptions,  such  as  the  Horse- 
chestnut,  still  even  in  these  cases  the 
flowers  live  only  a  few  days,  while 
the  leaves  last  for  months.  Every 
tree  indeed  is  a  picture  in  itself :  The 
gnarled  and  rugged  Oak,  the  symbol 
and  source  of  our  navy,  sacred  to  the 
memory  of  the  Druids,  the  type  of 
strength,  the  sovereign  of  British 
trees  ;  the  Chestnut,  with  its  beauti- 
iol,  tapering,  and  rich  green,  glossy 
leaves,  its  delicious  fruit,  and  to  the 
durability  of  which  we  owe  the  grand 
anJ  historic  roof  of  Westminster 
Abbey. 

The  Birch  is  the  queen  of  trees, 
with  her  feathery  foliage,  scarcely 
visible  in  spring  but  turning  to 
leaves  of  gold  in  autumn;  the  pen- 
dulous twigs  tinged  with  purple,  and 
silver  stems  so  brilliantly  marked 
with  black  and  white. 

The  Elm  forms  grand  masses  of 
foliage  which  turn  a  beautiful  golden 
yellow  in  autumn ;  and  the  Black 
Poplar  with  its  perpendicular  leaves, 
rustling  and  trembling  with  every 
breath  of  wind,  towers  over  most 
other  forest  trees. 

Tha  Beech  enlivens  the  country 
by  its  tender  green  in  spring,  rich 
green  in  summer,  and  glorious  gold 
and  orange  in  autumn,  set  off  by  the 
graceful  gray  stems ;  and  has,  more- 
over, such  a  wealth  of  leaves  that  in 
autumn  there  are  enough  not  only 
to  clothe  the  tree  itself  but  to  cover 
the  grass  underneath. 

If  the  Beech  owes  much  to  its 
delicate  gray  stem,  even  more  beau- 
tiful is  the  reddish  crimson  of  the 
Scotch  Pines,  in  such  charming1  con- 
trast with  the  rich  green  of  the  foli- 
age, by  which  it  is  shown  off  rather 
than  hidden;  and,  with  the  green 
spires  of  the  Firs,  they  keep  the 
Broods  warm  in  winter. 


Nor  must  I  overlook  the  smaller 
trees :  the  Yew  with  its  thick  green 
foliage ;  the  wild  Guelder  rose,  which 
lights  up  the  woods  in  autumn  with 
translucent  glossy  berries  and  many- 
tinted  leaves ;  or  the  Bryouies,  the 
Briar,  the  Traveller's  Jov,  and  many 
another  plant,  even  humbler  perhaps, 
and  yet  each  with  some  exquisite 
beauty  and  grace  of  its  own,  so  that 
we  must  all  have  sometimes  felt  our 
hearts  overflowing  with  gladness 
and  gratitude,  as  if  the  woods  were 
full  of  music — as  if 

"  The  woods  were  filled  so  full  with  song 
There  seemed  110  room  for  sense  of  wrong."* 

On  the  whole,  no  doubt,  woodlands 
are  less  beautiful  in  the  winter ;  yet 
even  then  the  delicate  tracery  of  the 
branches,  which  cannot  be  so  well 
seen  when  they  are  clothed  with 
leaves,  has  a  special  beauty  of  its 
own ;  while  every  now  and  then  hoar 
frost  or  snow  settles  like  silver  on 
every  branch  and  twig,  lighting  up 
the  forest  as  if  by  enchantment  in 
preparation  for  some  fairy  festival. 

I  feel  with  Jefferies  that  "  by  day 
or  by  night,  summer  or  winter,  be- 
neath trees  the  heart  feels  nearer  to 
that  depth  of  life  which  the  far  sky 
means.  The  rest  of  spirit  found 
only  in  beauty,  ideal  and  pure,  comes 
there  because  the  distance  seems 
within  touch  of  thought." 

The  general  effect  of  forests  in 
tropical  regions  must  be  very  dif- 
ferent from  that  of  those  in  our  lati- 
tudes. Kingsley  describes  it  as  one 
of  helplessness,  confusion,  awe,  all 
but  terror.  The  trunks  are  very 
lofty  and  straight,  and  rising  to  a 
great  height  without  a  branch,  so 
that  the  wood  seems  at  first  com- 
paratively open.  In  Brazilian  for- 
sts,  for  instance,  the  trees  straggle 
upwards,  and  the  foliage  forms  an 
unbroken  canopy,  perhaps  a  hundred 
Feet  overhead.  Here,  indeed,  high 
up  in  the  air  is  the  real  life  of  the 
Forest.  Everything  seems  to  climb 
;o  the  light.  The  quadrupeds  climb, 
rirds  climb,  reptiles  climb,  and  the 


*  Tennyson. 


33 


8o 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


variety  of  climbing  plants  is  far 
greater  than  anything  to  which  we 
are  accustomed. 

Many  savage  nations  worship  trees, 
and  I  really  think  my  first  feeling 
would  be  one  of  delight  and  interest 
rather  than  of  surprise,  if  some  day 
when  I  am  alone  in  a  wood  one  of 
the  trees  were  to  speak  to  me. 
Even  by  day  there  is  something  mys- 
terious in  a  forest,  and  this  is  much 
more  the  case  at  night. 

With  wood,  water  seems  to  be 
naturally  associated.  Without  water 
no  landscape  is  complete,  while 
overhead  the  clouds  add  beauty  to 
the  heavens  themselves.  The  spring 
and  the  rivulet,  the  brook,  the  river, 
and  the  lake,  seem  to  give  life  to 
Nature,  and  were  indeed  regarded 
by  our  ancestors  as  living  entities 
themselves.  Water  is  beautiful  in 
the  morning  mist,  in  the  broad  lake, 
in  the  glancing  stream  or  the  river 
pool,  in  the  wide  ocean,  beautiful  in 
all  its  varied  moods.  Water  nour- 
ishes vegetation;  it  clothes  the  low- 
lands with  green  and  the  mountains 
with  snow.  It  sculptures  the  rocks 
and  excavates  the  valleys,  in  most 
cases  acting  mainly  through  the  soft 
rain,  though  our  harder  rocks  are 
still  grooved  by  the  ice-chisel  of  by- 
gone ages. 

The  refreshing  power  of  water 
upon  the  earth  is  scarcely  greater 
than  that  which  it  exercises  on  the 
mind  of  man.  After  a  long  spell  of 
work  how  delightful  it  is  to  sit  by  a 
lake  or  river,  or  on  the  seashore,  and 
enjoy 

"A  little  murmur  In  mine  ear 
A  little  rtpple  at  my  feet."* 

Every  Englishman  loves  the  sight 
of  the. Sea.  We  feel  that  it  is  to  us 
a  second  home.  It  seems  to  vivify 
the  very  atmosphere,  so  that  Sea  air 
is  proverbial  as  a  tonic,  and  makes 
the  blood  dance  in  our  veins.  The 
Ocean  gives  an  impression  of  free- 
dom and  grandeur  more  intense 
perhaps  even  than  the  aspect  of  the 
heavens  themselves.  A  poor  woman 


•  Trench. 


from  Manchester,  on  being  taken  to 
the  seaside,  is  said  to  have  expressed 
her  delight  on  seeing  for  the  first 
time  something  of  which  there  was 
enough  for  everybody.  The  sea 
coast  is  always  interesting.  When 
we  think  of  the  cliff  sections  with 
their  histories  of  bygone  ages;  the 
shore  itself  teeming  with  sea  weeds 
and  animals,  waiting  for  the  return 
of  the  tide,  or  thrown  up  from 
deeper  water  by  the  waves;  the 
weird  cries  of  seabird;  the  delight- 
ful feeling  that  with  every  breath 
we  are  laying  in  a  store  of  fresh  life, 
and  health,  and  energy,  it  is  im- 
possible to  over-estimate  all  we  owe 
to  the  sea. 

It  is,  moreover,  always  changing. 
We  went  for  our  holiday  this  year 
to  Lyme  Regis.  Let  me  attempt  to 
describe  the  changes  in  the  view 
from  our  windows  during  a  single 
day.  Our  sitting-room  opened  on  to 
a  little  lawn,  beyond  which  the 
ground  drops  suddenly  to  the  sea, 
while  over  about  two  miles  of  water 
were  the  hills  of  the  Dorsetshire 
coast  —  Golden  Cap,  with  its  bright 
crest  of  yellow  sand,  and  the  dark 
blue  Lias  Cliff  of  Black  Yen.  When 
I  came  early  down  in  the  morning 
the  sun  was  rising  opposite,  shining 
into  the  room  over  a  calm  sea,  along 
an  avenue  of  light;  by  degrees,  as  it 
rose,  the  whole  sea  was  gilt  with 
light,  and  the  hills  bathed  in  a  violet 
mist.  By  breakfast-time  all  color 
had  faded  from  the  sea  —  it  was  like 
silver  passing  on  each  side  into  gray; 
the  sky  was  blue,  flecked  with  fleecy 
clouds;  while,  on  the  gentler  slopes 
of  the  coast  opposite,  fields  and 
woods,  and  quarries  and  lines  of 
stratification  begin  to  show  them- 
selves, though  the  cliffs  are  still  in 
shadow,  and  the  more  distant  head- 
lands still  a  mere  succession  of 
ghosts,  each  one  fainter  than  the 
one  before  it.  As  the  morning  ad- 
vances the  sea  becomes  blue,  the 
dark  woods,  green  meadows,  and 
golden  cornfields  of  the  opposite 
coast  more  distinct,  and  the  detaili 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


81 


of  the  cliffs  come  gradually  into  view, 
and  fishing-boata  with  dark  sails 
begin  to  appear. 

Gradually  the  sun  rises  higher,  a 
yellow  line  of  shore  appears  under 
the  opposite  cliffs,  and  the  sea 
changes  its  color,  mapping  itself 
out  as  it  were,  the  shallower  parts 
turquoise  blue,  almost  green;  the 
deeper  ones  deep  violet. 

This  does  not  last  long  —  a  thun- 
derstorm comes  up.  The  wind  mut- 
ters overhead,  the  rain  patters  on 
the  leaves,  the  cost  opposite  seems 
to  shrink  into  itself,  as  if  it  would 
fly  from  the  storm.  The  sea  grows 
dark  and  rough,  and  white  Horses 
appear  here  and  there. 

But  the  storm  is  soon  over.  The 
clouds  break,  the  rain  stops,  the  sun 
shines  once  more,  the  hills  opposite 
come  out  again.  They  are  divided 
now  not  only  into  fields  and  woods, 
but  into  sunshine  and  shadow.  The 
sky  clears,  and  as  the  sun  begins  to 
descend  westwards  the  sea  becomes 
one  beautiful  clear  uniform  azure, 
changing  again  soon  to  pale  blue  in 
front  and  dark  violet  beyond;  and 
once  more  as  clouds  begin  to  gather 
again,  into  an  archipelago  of  bright 
blue  sea  and  deep  islands  of  ultrama- 
rine. As  the  sun  travels  westward, 
the  opposite  hills  change  again.  They 
scarcely  seem  like  the  same  country. 
What  was  in  sun  is  now  in  shade,  and 
what  was  in  shade  now  lies  bright  in 
the  sunshine.  The  sea  once  more 
becomes  a  uniform  solid  blue,  only 
llecked  in  places  by  scuds  of  wind, 
and  becoming  paler  towards  evening, 
as  the  sun  sinks,  the  cliffs  which 
catch  his  setting  rays,  losing  their 
deep  color  and  in  some  places  look- 
ing almost  as  white  as  chalk,  while  at 
sunset  they  light  up  again  for  a  mo- 
ment with  a  golden  glow,  the  sea  at 
the  same  time  sinking  to  a  cold  gray. 
But  soon  the  hills  grow  cold  too,  Gol- 
den Cap  holding  out  bravely  to  the 
last,  and  the  shades  of  evening  settle 
over  cliff  and  wood,  cornfield  and 
meadow. 

These  are  but  ft  part,  and  a  very 


small  part,  of  the  changes  of  a  single 
day.  And  scarcely  any  two  days  are 
alike.  At  times  a  sea-fog  covers 
everything.  Again  the  sea  which 
sleeps  to-day  so  peacefully  sometimes 
rages,  and  the  very  existence  of  the 
bay  itself  bears  witness  to  its  force. 

The  night,  again,  varies  like  the 
day.  Sometimes  shrouded  by  a  can- 
opy of  darkness,  sometimes  lit  up  by 
millions  of  brilliant  worlds,  some- 
times bathed  in  the  light  of  a  moon, 
which  never  retains  the  same  form 
for  two  nights  together. 

If  Lakes  are  less  grand  than  the 
sea,  they  are  in  some  respect  even 
more  lovely.  The  seashore  is  com- 
paratively bare.  The  banks  of  Lakes 
are  often  richly  clothed  with  vegeta- 
tion which  comes  close  down  to  the 
water's  edge,  sometimes  hanging  even 
into  the  water  itself.  They  are  often 
studded  with  well-wooded  islands. 
They  are  sometimes  fringed  with 
green  meadows,  somtimes  bounded 
by  rocky  promontories  rising  directly 
from  comparatively  deep  water,  while 
the  calm  bright  surface  is  often  fret- 
ted by  a  delicate  pattern  of  interlac- 
ing ripples,  or  reflects  a  second,  soft- 
ened, and  inverted  landscape. 

To  water  again  we  owe  the  mar- 
vellous spectacle  of  the  rainbow  — 
"God's  bow  in  the  clouds/'  It  it 
indeed  truly  a  heavenly  messenger, 
and  so  unlike  anything  else  that  it 
scarcely  seems  to  belong  to  thit 
world. 

Many  things  are  colored,  but  the 
rainbow  seems  to  be  color  itself. 

•'  First  the  flaming  red 

Sprang  vivid  forth ;  the  tawny  orange  next* 
And  next  delicious  yellow;  by  whose  side 
Fell  the  kind  beams  of  all-refreshing  green. 
Then  the  pure  blue  that  swells  au'umnalskle*. 
Ethereal  play'd ;  and  then,  of  sadder  hue. 
Emerged  the  deeper  Inriigo  (as  when 
The  heavy-skirted  evening  droops  with  from), 
While  the  last  gleamlngs  of  refracted  light 
Died  In  the  fainting  violet  away."* 

We  do  not,  I  think,  sufficiently 
realize  how  wonderful  is  the  blessing 
of  color.  It  would  have  been  pos- 
sible, it  would  even  seem  more  prob- 
able, that  though  light  might  have 
enabled  us  to  perceive  objects,  thi* 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


could  only  have  been  by  shade  and 
form.  How  we  perceive  color  it  is 
very  difficult  to  comprehend,  and  yet 
when  we  speak  of  beauty,  among 
the  ideas  which  come  to  us  most 
naturally  are  those  of  birds  and 
butterflies,  flowers  and  shells,  pre- 
cious stones,  skies,  and  rainbows. 

Our  minds  might  have  been  con- 
stituted exactly  as  they  are,  we 
might  have  been  capable  of  compre- 
hending the  highest  and  sublimest 
truths,  and  yet,  but  for  a  small  or- 
gan in  the  head,  the  world  of  sound 
would  have  been  shut  out  from  us; 
we  should  have  lost  the  sounds  of 
nature,  the  charms  of  music,  the 
conversation  of  friends,  and  have 
been  condemned  to  perpetual  si- 
lence: and  yet  a  slight  alteration  in 
the  retina,  which  is  not  thicker  than 
a  sheet  of  paper,  not  larger  than  a 
finger  nail, —  and  the  glorious  spec- 
tacle of  this  beautiful  world,  the  ex- 
quisite variety  of  form,  the  glory  and 
play  of  color,  the  variety  of  scenery, 
of  woods  and  fields,  and  lakes  and 
hills,  seas  and  mountains,  the  glory 
of  the  sky  alike  by  day  and  night, 
would  all  have  been  lost  to  us. 

Mountains,  again,  "seem  to  have 
been  built  for  the  human  race,  as  at 
once  their  schools  and  cathedrals; 
full  of  treasures  of  illuminated  man- 
uscript for  the  scholar,  kindly  in 
simple  lessons  for  the  worker,  quiet 
in  pale  cloisters  for  the  thinker, 
glorious  in  holiness  for  the  wor- 
shipper. And  of  these  great  cathe- 
drals of  the  earth,  with  their  gates 
of  rock,  pavements  of  cloud,  choirs 
of  stream  and  stone,  altars  of  snow, 
and  vaults  of  purple  traversed  by  the 
continual  stars/'* 

All  these  beauties  are  comprised 
in  Tennyson's  exquisite  description 
of  (Enone's  vale  —  the  city,  flowers, 
trees,  river,  and  mountains. 

"There  IB  a  vale  In  Ida,  lovller 
Than  all  the  valleys  of  Ionian  hlllf 
The  •wtmadat  vapor  slopes  athwart  the  glen, 

utt  forth  an  arm.  and  creeps  from  pine  to  pine, 
And  loiters,  slowly  drawn.    On  either  hand 
The  lawn*  and  meadow-ledges  midway  down 
Hang  rich  In  flowers,  and  far  below  them  roars 


The  long  brook  falling  thro'  the  clov*n  ravin* 

In  cataract  after  cataract  to  the  sea. 

Behind  the  valley  topmost  Gargarus 

Stands  up  and  takes  the  morning ;  but  In  front 

The  gorges,  opening  wide  apart,  reveal 

Troas  and  Illon's  column'd  citadel, 

The  crown  of  Troas." 

And  when  we  raise  our  eyes  from 
earth,  who  has  not  sometimes  felt 
"the  witchery  of  the  soft  blue  sky;" 
who  has  not  watched  a  cloud  float- 
ing upwards  as  if  on  its  way  to 
heaven,  or  when 

"Sunbeam  proof,  I  hang  like  a  roof 
The  mountain  its  columns  be."  * 

And  yet  "if,  in  our  moments  of 
utter  idleness  and  insipidity,  we  turn 
to  the  sky  as  a  last  resource,  which 
of  its  phenomena  do  we  speak  of? 
One  says,  it  has  been  wet;  and  an- 
other, it  has  been  windy;  and  an- 
other it  has  been  warm.  Who, 
among  the  whole  chattering  crowd, 
can  tell  me  of  the  forms  and  preci- 
pices of  the  chain  of  tall  white  moun- 
tains that  girded  the  horizon  at 
noon  yesterday?  Who  saw  the  nar- 
row sunbeam  that  came  out  of  the 
south,  and  smote  upon  their  summits 
until  they  melted  and  mouldered 
away  in  a  dust  of  blue  rain?  Who 
saw  the  dance  of  the  dead  clouds 
when  the  sunlight  left  them  last 
night,  and  the  west  wind  blew  them 
before  it  like  withered  leaves?  All 
has  passed,  unregretted  as  unseen; 
or  if  the  apathy  be  ever  shaken  off, 
even  for  an  instant,  it  is  only  by  what 
is  gross,  or  what  is  extraordinary; 
and  yet  it  is  not  in  the  broad  and 
fierce  manifestations  of  the  elemen- 
tal energies,  not  in  the  clash  of  the 
hail,  nor  the  drift  of  the  whirlwind, 
that  the  highest  characters  of  the 
sublime  are  developed." f 

But  exquisitely  lovely  as  is  the 
blue  arch  of  the  midday  sky,  Avith 
its  inexhaustible  variety  of  clouds, 
"there  is  yet  a  light  which  the  eye 
invariably  seeks  with  a  deeper  feel- 
ing of  the  beautiful,  the  light  of  the 
declining  or  breaking  day,  and  the 
flakes  of  scarlet  cloud  burning  like 


•Shelley. 

+  Ruskin. 


36 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


watch-fires  in  the  green  sky  of  the 
horizon."* 

The  evening  colors  indeed  soon 
fade  away,  but  as  night  comes  on, 

"How  glorious  the  firmament 
With  living  sapphires!    Hesperus  that  led 
The  starry  host,  rode  brightest;  till  the  moon 
Rising  In  clouded  majesty,  at  length. 
Apparent  queen,  unveiled  her  peerless  light, 
And  o'er  the  dark  her  silver  mantle  threw."  t 

We  generally  speak  of  a  beautiful 
night  when  it  is  calm  and  clear,  and 
the  stars  shine  brightly  overhead; 
but  how  grand  also  are  the  wild 
ways  of  Xature,  how  magnificent 
when  the  lightning  flashes,  "  between 
gloom  and  glory;"  when 

"  From  peak  to  peak  the  rattling  crags  among 
Leaps  the  live  thunder."  t 

In  the  words  of  Ossian — 

"Ghosts  ride  In  the  tempest  to-night; 
Sweet  Is  their  voice  between  the  gusts  of  wind, 
Their  songs  are  of  other  worlds." 

Nor  are  the  wonders  and  beauties 
of  the  heavens  limited  by  the  clouds 
and  the  blue  sky,  lovely  as  they  are. 
In  the  heavenly  bodies  we  have  be- 
fore us  "the  perpetual  presence  of 
the  sublime."  They  are  so  immense 
and  so  far  away,  and  yet  on  soft 
summer  nights  "they  seem  leaning 
down  to  whisper  in  the  ear  of  our 
souls."§ 

"A  man  can  hardly  lift  up  his 
eyes  towards  the  heavens,"  says 
Seneca,  "  without  wonder  and  venera- 
tion, to  see  so  many  millions  of 
radiant  lights,  and  to  observe  their 
courses  and  revolutions,  even  with- 
out any  respect  to  the  common  good 
of  the  Universe." 

\\Tio  does  not  sympathize  with  the 
feelings  of  Dante  as  he  rose  from 
his  visit  to  the  lower  regions,  until, 
he  says, 

"  On  our  view  the  beautiful  lights  of  heaven 
Dawned  through  a  circular  opening  In  the  cave. 
Thence  Issuing,  we  again  beheld  the  stars." 

As  we  watch  the  stars  at  night 
they  seem  so  still  and  motionless 
that  we  can  hardly  realize  that  all 
the  time  they  are  rushing  on  with  a 
velocity  far  far  exceeding  any  that 
man  has  ever  accomplished. 


»lWd. 

+  Wordsworth. 
iSwinbura*. 
I  Svmonda. 


Like  the  sands  of  the  sea,  the 
stars  of  heaven  have  ever  been  used 
as  an  appropriate  symbol  of  number, 
and  we  know  that  there  are  some 
75,000,000,  many,  no  doubt,  with 
planets  of  their  own.  But  this  is 
by  no  means  all.  The  floor  of  heav- 
en is  not  only  "thick  inlaid  with 
patines  of  bright  gold,"  but  is 
studded  also  with  extinct  stars,  once 
probably  as  brilliant  as  our  own  sun, 
but  now  dead  and  cold,  as  Helmhoitz 
tells  us  our  sun  itself  will  be  some 
seventeen  millions  of  years  hence. 
Then,  again,  there  are  the  comets, 
which,  though  but  few  are  visible  to 
us  at  once,  are  even  more  numerous 
than  the  stars;  there  are  the  nebulae, 
and  the  countless  minor  bodies  cir- 
culating in  space,  and  occasionally 
visible  as  meteors. 

Nor  is  it  only  the  number  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  which  is  so  over- 
whelming; their  magnitude  and 
distances  are  almost  more  impres- 
sive. The  ocean  is  so  deep  and 
broad  as  to  be  almost  infinite,  and 
indeed  in  so  far  as  our  imagination 
is  the  limit,  so  it  may  be.  Yet  what 
is  the  ocean  compared  to  the  sky? 
Our  globe  is  little  compared  to  the 
giant  orbs  of  Jupiter  and  Saturn, 
which  again  sink  into  insignificance 
by  the  side  of  the  sun.  The  sun  it- 
self is  almost  as  nothing  compared 
with  the  dimensions  of  the  solar  sys- 
tem. Sirius,  is  calculated  to  be  a 
thousand  times  as  great  as  the  sun, 
and  a  million  times  as  far  away. 
The  solar  system  itself  travels  in  one 
region  of  space,  sailing  between 
worlds  and  worlds,  and  is  surround- 
ed by  many  other  systems  as  great 
and  complex  as  itself;  and  we  know 
that  even  then  we  have  not  reached 
the  limits  of  the  Universe  itself. 

There  are  stars  so  distant  that 
their  light,  though  traveling  180, 
000  miles  in  a  second,  yet  takes 
years  to  reach  us;  and  beyond  all 
these  are  other  systems  of  stars 
which  are  so  far  away  that  they  can- 
not be  perceived  singly,  but  even  in 
our  most  powerful  telescopes  appear 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


only  as  minute  clouds  or  nebulae.  It 
is,  indeed,  but  a  feeble  expression  of 
the  truth  to  lay  that  the  infinities  re- 
realed  to  us  by  Science, —  the  infi- 
nitely great  in  the  one  direction,  and 
the  infinitely  small  in  the  other, —  go 
far  beyond  anything  which  had  oc- 
curred to  the  unaided  imagination  of 
Man,  and  are  not  only  a  never-failing 
source  of  pleasure  and  interest,  but 
seem  to  lift  us  out  of  the  petty 
troubles  and  sorrows  of  life. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  TROUBLES  OF  LIFE. 

WE  have  in  life  many  troubles,  and 
troubles  are  of  many  kinds.  Some 
sorrows,  alas,  are  real  enough,  espe- 
cially those  we  bring  on  ourselves, 
but  others,  and  by  no  means  the 
least  numerous,  are  mere  ghosts  of 
troubles:  if  we  face  them  boldly,  we 
find  that  they  have  no  substance  or 
reality,  but  are  mere  creations  of  our 
own  morbid  imagination,  and  that  it 
is  as  true  now  as  in  the  time  of  David 
that  "Man  disquieteth  himself  in  a 
vain  shadow." 

Some,  indeed  of  our  troubles  are 
evils,  but  not  real;  while  others  are 
real,  but  not  evils. 

"And  yet,  into  how  unfathomable 
a  gulf  the  mind  rushes  when  the 
troubles  of  this  world  agitate  it.  II 
it  then  forget  its  own  light,  which  is 
eternal  joy,  and  rush  into  the  outer 
darkness,  which  are  the  cares  of  this 
world,  as  the  mind  now  does,  it 
knows  nothing  else  but  lamenta- 
tions."* 

"Athens,"  said  Epicetetus,  "is  a 
good  place, —  but  happiness  is  much 


passions, 


better;    to    be    free    from 
free  from  disturbance." 

"We  should  endeavor  to  maintain 
ourselves  in 


Is  lighte 


J?urrtt;n  of  the  mystery, 
iV  £!\  the  npavy  and  the  weary  weight, 
l  I  this  unintelligible  world 
ghtened.  "  + 


tr»Ml»tl<H»  <>'  the  CoMolations 


f  Wordsworth. 


So  ishall  we  fear  "  neither  the  exil« 
of  Aristides,  nor  the  prison  of  An- 
axagoras,  nor  the  poverty  of  Socra- 
tes, nor  the  condemnation  of  Phocion, 
but  think  virtue  worthy  our  love 
even  under  such  trials."*  We  should 
then  be,  to  a  great  extent,  independ- 
ent of  external  circumstances,  for 

4  Stone  walls  do  not  a  prison  make. 

Nor  Iron  bars  a  cage, 
Minds  inuocent  and  quiet  take 

That  for  an  hermitage. 
"If  I  have  freedom  In  my  love, 

And  In  my  soul  am  free; 
Angels  alone  that  soar  abore 
Enjoy  such  liberty ."t 

Happiness  indeed  depends  much 
more  on  what  is  within  than  with- 
out us.  When  Hamlet  says  the 
world  is  "a  goodly  prison;  in  which 
there  are  many  confines,  wards,  and 
dungeons;  Denmark  being  one  of 
the  worst/'  and  Rosencrantz  differs 
from  him,  he  rejoins  wisely,  "Why 
then,  'tis  none  to  you:  for  there  is 
nothing  either  good  or  bad,  but 
thinking  makes  it  so:  to  me  it  is  a 
prison."  "All  is  opinion,"  said  Mar- 
cus Aurelius.  "  That  which  does 
not  make  a  man  worse,  how  can  it 
make  his  life  worse?  But  death  cer- 
tainly, and  life,  honor  and  dishonor, 
pain  and  pleasure,  all  these  things 
happen  equally  to  good  men  and 
bad,  being  things  which  make  us 
neither  better  nor  worse." 

"  The  greatest  evils,"  says  Jeremy 
Taylor,  "are  from  within  us;  and 
from  ourselves  also  we  must  look 
for  our  greatest  good." 

"The  mind,"  says  Milton, 

"In  Its  own  place,  and  In  lt*elf 
Can  make  a  Heaven  of  Hell,  a  Hell  of  Heaven." 

Milton  indeed  in  his  blindness  saw 
more  beautiful  visions,  and  Beetho- 
ven in  his  deafness  heard  more 
heavenly  music,  than  most  of  us  can 
ever  hope  to  enjoy. 

We  are  all  apt,  when  we  know  not 
what  may  happen,  to  fear  the  worst. 
When  we  know  the  full  extent  of  any 
danger,  it  is  half  over.  Hence,  we 
dread  ghosts  more  than  robbers, 
not  only  without  reason,  but  against 


38 


*  Plutarch. 
+  Lovelace. 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


*5 


reason;  for  even  if  ghosts  existed, 
how  could  they  hurt  us?  and  in 
ghost  stories,  few,  even  those  who 
say  that  they  have  seen  a  ghost, 
ever  profess  or  pretend  to  have  felt 
one. 

Milton,  in  his  description  of  death, 
dwells  on  this  characteristic  of  ob- 
scurity : 

"  The  other  shape 

If  fhape  It  might  be  call'd  that  shape  had  none 
Distinguishable,  In  member,  joint,  or  limb ; 
Or  substance  might  be  cail'd  thatshad-iw  seem'd, 
For  each  6  emea  either;  Mack  he  stood  as  night; 
Fierce  as  ten  furies ;  terrible  as  hell : 
And  shook  a  deadly  dart.    What  seem'd  his  head 
The  likeness  of  a  kingly  cruwn  had  on." 

The  effect  of  darkness  and  night 
in  enhancing  terrors  is  dwelt  on  in  one 
of  the  sublimest  passages  in  Job  — 

"In  thoughts  from  the  visions  of  the  night 
When  deep  sleep  falleth  on  men. 
Fear  came  upon  me,  ami  trembling, 
Which  made  all  my  bones  to  shake. 
Then  a  spirit  passed  before  my  face ; 
The  hair  of  my  flesh  stood  up. 
It  stood  still,  an  image  was  before  mine  eyes; 
There  was  silence ;  and  I  heard  a  voice  saying 
Shall  mortal  man  be  more  just  than  God?" 

Thus  was  the  terror  turned  into  a 
lesson  of  comfort  and  of  mercy. 

We  often  magnify  troubles  and 
difficulties,  and  look  at  them  till 
they  seem  much  greater  than  they 
really  are. 

"Dangers  are  no  more  light,  if 
they  once  seem  light;  and  more 
dangers  have  deceived  men  than 
forced  them:  nay,  it  were  better  to 
meet  some  dangers  half  way,  though 
they  come  nothing  near,  than  to  keep 
too  long  a  watch  upon  their  ap- 
proaches; for  if  a  man  watch  too 
long,  it  is  odds  he  will  fall  asleep."* 

Foresight  is  very  wise,  but  fore- 
sorrow  is  very  foolish;  and  castles 
are  at  any  rate  better  than  dungeons, 
in  the  air. 

Some  of  our  troubles,  no  doubt, 
are  real  enough,  but  yet  are  not 
evils. 

It  happens,  unfortunately  too  often, 
that  by  some  false  step,  intentional 
or  unintentional,  we  have  missed  the 
right  road,  and  gone  wrong.  Can 
we  then  retrace  our  steps?  can  we 
recover  what  is  lost?  This  may  be 
done.  It  is  too  gloomy  a  view  to 
affirm  that 


"  A  word  too  much,  or  a  kiss  too  long. 
And  the  world  is  never  the  same  again.1 


There  are  two  noble  sayings  of 
Socrates,  that  to  do  evil  is  more  to 
be  avoided  than  to  suffer  it;  and 
that  when  a  man  has  done  evil,  it  is 
better  for  him  to  be  punished  than 
to  be  unpunished. 

We  generally  speak  of  selfishness 
as  a  fault,  and  as  if  it  interfered 
with  the  general  happiness.  But 
this  is  not  altogether  correct. 

The  pity  is  that  so  many  people 
are  foolishly  selfish:  that  they  pur- 
sue a  course  of  action  which  neither 
makes  themselves  nor  any  one  else 
happy. 

"  Every  man,"  says  Goethe,  "ought 
to  begin  with  himself,  and  make  his 
own  happiness  first,  from  which  the 
happiness  of  the  whole  world  would 
at  last  unquestionably  follow."  It 
is  easy  to  say  that  this  is  too  broad- 
ly stated,  and  of  course  exceptions 
might  be  pointed  out:  but  if  every 
one  would  avoid  excess,  and  take 
care  of  his  own  health;  would  keep 
himself  strong  and  cheerful;  would 
make  his  home  happy,  and  give  no 
cause  for  the  petty  vexations  which 
embitter  domestic  life;  would  attend 
to  his  own  affairs  and  keep  himself 
sober  and  solvent;  would,  in  the 
words  of  the  Chinese  proverb, 
"sweep  away  the  snow  from  before 
his  own  door,  and  never  mind  the 
frost  upon  his  neighbor's  tiles; " 
though  it  might  not  be  the  noblest 
course  of  conduct;  still,  how  well  it 
would  be  for  their  family,  relations, 
and  friends.  But,  unfortunately, 

"  Look  round  the  habitable  world,  how  few 
Enow  their  own  good ;  or,  knowing  It,  pursue."* 

It  would  be  a  great  thing  if  peo- 
ple could  be  brought  to  realize  that 
they  can  never  add  to  the  sum  of 
their  happiness  by  doing  wrong. 
In  the  case  of  children,  indeed,  we 
recognize  this;  we  perceive  that  a 
spoilt  child  is  not  a  happy  one;  that 
it  would  have  been  far  better  for 
him  to  have  been  punished  at  first 
and  thus  saved  from  greater  suffer- 
ing in  after  life. 


•DrjCUKi. 


86 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


It  is  a  beautiful  idea  that  every 
man  has  with  him  a  Guardian  Angel; 
and  it  is  true  too:  for  Conscience  is 
ever  on  the  watch,  ever  ready  to 
warn  us  of  danger. 

We  often  feel  disposed  to  com- 
plain, and  yet  it  is  most  ungrateful: 

•'  For  who  would  IOM, 
Though  full  of  pain,  this  Intellectual  being, 
Those  thoughts  that  wander  through  Eternity  t 
To  perish  rather,  swallowed  up,  and  lost 
In  the  wide  womb  of  uncreated  thought."* 

But  perhaps  it  will  be  said  that 
we  are  sent  here  in  preparation  for 
another  and  a  better  world.  Well, 
then,  why  should  we  complain  of 
what  is  but  a  preparation  for  future 
happiness? 

We  ought  to 

"  Count  each  affliction,  whether  light  or  grave, 
God's  messenger  send  down  to  thee ;  do  thou 
With  courtesy  receive  him ;  rise  and  bow ; 
And,  ere  his  shadow  pass  thy  threshold,  crave 
Permission  first  his  heavenly  feet  to  lave ; 
Then  lay  before  him  all  thou  hast  r  allow 
No  cloud  of  passion  to  usurp  thy  brow. 
Or  mar  thy  hospitality  ;  no  wave 
Of  moral  tumult  to  obliterate 
The  soul's  marmoreal  calmness  :  Grief  should  be 
Like  joy,  majestic,  equable,  sedate : 
Confirming,  cleansing,  raising,  making  free; 
Strong  to  consume  small  troubles ;  to  commend 
Great  thoughts,  grave  thoughts,  thoughts  lasting  to 
the  end."  t 

Some  persons  are  like  the  waters 
of  Siloam,  and  require  to  be  troubled 
before  they  can  exercise  their  virtue. 

"We  shall  get  more  contented- 
ness,"  says  Plutarch,  "from  the 
presence  of  all  these  blessings  if  we 
fancy  them  as  absent,  and  remember 
from  time  to  time  how  people  when 
ill  yearn  for  health,  and  people  in 
war  for  peace,  and  strangers  and  un- 
known in  a  great  city  for  reputation 
and  friends,  and  how  painful  it  is  to 
be  deprived  of  all  these  when  one 
has  once  had  them.  For  then  each 
of  these  blessings  will  not  appear  to 
us  only  great  and  valuable  when  it  is 
lost,  and  of  no  value  when  we  have 
it.  .  .  .  And  yet  it  makes  much  for 
contentedness  of  mind  to  look  for 
the  most  part  at  home  and  to  our 
own  condition;  or  if  not,  to  look  at 
the  case  of  people  worse  off  than 
ourselves,  and  not,  as  people  do,  to 
compare  ourselves  with  those  who 


•  Milton. 


are  better  off But  you  will 

find  others,  Chians,  or  Galatiana,  or 
Bithynians,  not  content  with  the 
share  of  glory  or  power  they  have 
among  their  fellow-citizens,  but 
weeping  because  they  do  not  wear 
senators'  shoes;  or,  if  they  have 
them,  that  they  cannot  be  praetors  at 
Rome;  or  if  they  get  that  office,  that 
they  are  not  consuls;  or  if  they  are 
consuls,  that  they  are  only  pro- 
claimed second  and  not  first.  .  .  . 
Whenever,  then,  you  admire  any  one 
carried  by  in  his  litter  as  a  greater 
man  than  yourself,  lower  your  eyes 
and  look  at  those  that  bare  the 
litter."  And  again,  "I  am  very 
taken  with  Diogenes'  remark  to  a 
stranger  at  Lacedaemon,  who  was 
dressing  with  much  display  for  a 
feast,  '  Does  not  a  good  man  consider 
every  day  a  feast?'  .  .  .  Seeing 
then  that  life  is  the  most  complete 
initiation  into  all  these  things,  it 
ought  to  be  full  of  ease  of  mind  and 
joy;"  and  if  properly  understood, 
would  enable  us  "to  acquiesce  in  the 
present  without  repining,  to  remem- 
ber the  past  with  thankfulness,  and 
to  meet  the  future  hopefully  and 
cheerfully  without  fear  or  suspicion." 


CHAPTER  X. 

LABOR  AND  EEST. 

"  Through  labor  to  rest,  through  combat  to  victory." 
THOMAS  A.  KEMFIS. 

AMONG  the  troubles  of  life  I  do  not, 
of  course,  reckon  the  necessity  of 
labor. 

Work  indeed,  and  hard  work,  if 
only  it  is  in  moderation,  is  in  itself  a 
rich  source  of  happiness.  We  all 
know  how  quickly  time  passes  when 
we  are  well  employed,  while  the  mo- 
ments hang  heavily  on  the  hands  of 
the  idle.  Occupation  drives  away 
care  and  all  the  small  troubles  of 
life.  The  busy  man  has  no  time  to 
brood  or  to  fret. 


40 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


•From  ton  he  wins  hit  spirits  light, 

From  busy  day  the  peaceful  uigut, 

Rich,  from  the  very  waut  of  wealth, 

In  tteuvtu'a  bent  treasures,  peace  and  health."* 

This  applies  especially  to  the  labor 
of  the  field  and  the  workshop. 
Humble  it  may  be,  but  if  it  does  not 
dazzle  with  the  promise  of  fame,  it 
gives  the  satisfaction  of  duty  fulfilled, 
and  the  inestimable  blessing  of 
health.  As  Emerson  reminds  those 
entering  life,  "  The  angels  that  live 
with  them,  and  are  weaving  laurels  of 
life  for  their  youthful  brows,  are  toil 
and  truth  and  mutual  faith." 

Labor  was  truly  said  by  the  an- 
cients to  be  the  price  which  the  gods 
set  upon  everything  worth  having. 
We  all  admit,  though  we  often  for- 
get, the  marvellous  power  of  perse- 
verance, and  yet  all  Nature,  down  to 
Bruce's  spider  is  continually  impres- 
sing this  lesson  on  us. 

Hard  writing,  it  has  been  said, 
makes  easy  reading;  Plato  is  said  to 
have  rewritten  the  first  page  of  the 
Republic  thirteen  times;  and  Carlo 
Maratti,  we  are  told,  sketched  the 
head  of  Antinoiis  three  hundred 
times  before  he  wrought  it  to  his  sat- 
isfaction. 

It  is  better  to  wear  out  than  to 
rust  out,  and  there  is  "a  dust  which 
settles  on  the  heart,  as  well  as  that 
which  rests  upon  the  ledge."  f 

But  though  labor  is  good  for  man, 
it  may  be,  and  unfortunately  often 
is,  carried  to  excess.  Many  are 
wearily  asking  themselves 

"  Ah  why 
should  life  aU  labor  be !"» 

There  is  a  time  for  all  things,  says 
Solomon,  a  time  to  work  and  a  time 
to  play:  we  shall  work  all  the  better 
for  reasonable  change,  and  one  re- 
ward of  work  is  to  secure  leisure. 

It  is  a  good  saying  that  where 
there's  a  will,  there's  a  way;  but 
while  it  is  all  very  well  to  wish, 
wishes  must  not  take  the  place  of 
work. 

In  whatever  sphere  his  duty  lies 


»Gray. 

fJeffertes. 

ITwugraoa. 


every  man  must  rely  mainly  on  him- 
self. Others  can  help  us,  but  we 
must  make  ourselves.  No  one  else 
can  see  for  us.  To  profit  by  our 
advantages  we  must  learn  to  use  for 
ourselves 

"  The  dark  lantern  of  the  spirit 

Wiuuii  uouo  caa  see  by,  but  he  who  bean  It." 

It  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say 
that  honest  work  is  never  thrown 
away.  If  we  do  not  find  the  imagi- 
nary treasure,  at  any  rate  we  en- 
rich the  vineyard. 

"Work,"  says  Nature  to  man,  "in 
every  hour,  paid  or  unpaid;  see  only 
that  thou  work,  and  thou  canst  not 
escape  the  reward:  whether  thy 
work  be  fine  or  coarse,  planting  corn 
or  writing  epics,  so  only  it  be  honest 
work,  done  to  thine  own  approba- 
tion, it  shall  earn  a  reward  to  the 
senses  as  well  as  to  the  thought:  no 
matter  how  often  defeated,  you  are 
born  to  victory.  The  reward  of  a 
thing  well  done  is  to  have  done  it."* 

Nor  can  any  work,  however  per- 
severing, or  any  success,  however 
great,  exhaust  the  prizes  of  life. 

The  most  studious,  the  most  suc- 
cessful, must  recognize  that  there 
yet  remain 

"  So  much  to  do  that  is  not  e'en  began, 
So  much  to  hope  for  that  we  cauiiot  see, 
So  much  to  win,  so  many  things  to  be."  r 

At  the  present  time,  though  there 
may  be  some  special  drawbacks,  still 
we  come  to  our  work  with  many 
advantages  which  were  not  enjoyed 
in  olden  times.  We  live  in  much 
greater  security  ourselves,  and  are 
less  liable  to  have  the  fruits  of  our 
labor  torn  violently  from  us. 

In  olden  times  the  difficulties  of 
study  were  far  greater  than  they 
are  now.  Books  were  expensive  and 
cumbersome,  in  many  cases  more- 
over chained  to  the  desks  on  which 
they  were  kept.  The  greatest  schol- 
ars have  often  been  very  poor. 
Erasmus  used  to  read  by  moonlight 
because  he  could  not  afford  a  candle, 
and  "begged  a  penny,  not  for  the 


•  Emerson. 
t  Morris. 


41 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


88 

love  of  charity,  but  for  the  love  of 
learning/'* 

Want  of  time  is  no  excuse  for 
idleness.  "Our  life,"  says  Jeremy 
Taylor,  "is  too  short  to  serve  the 
ambition  of  a  haughty  prince  or  a 
usurping  rebel;  too  little  time  to 
purchase  great  wealth,  to  satisfy  the 
pride  of  a  vainglorious  fool,  to  tram- 
ple upon  all  the  enemies  of  our  just 
or  unjust  interest:  but  for  the  ob- 
taining virtue,  for  the  purchase  of 
sobriety  and  modesty,  for  the  actions 
of  religion,  God  gives  us  time  suffi- 
cient, if  we  make  the  outgoings  of 
the  morning  and  evening,  that  is  our 
infancy  and  old  age,  to  be  taken  into 
the  computations  of  a  man." 

Work  is  so  much  a  necessity  of 
existence,  that  it  is  less  a  question 
whether,  than  how,  we  shall  work. 
An  old  proverb  tells  us  that  the 
Devil  finds  work  for  those  who  do 
not  make  it  for  themselves. 

If  we  Englishmen  have  succeeded 
as  a  race,  it  has  been  due  in  no  small 
measure  to  the  fact  that  we  have 
worked  hard.  Not  only  so,  but  we 
have  induced  the  forces  of  Nature  to 
work  for  us.  "Steam,"  says  Emer- 
son, "is  almost  an  Englishman." 

The  power  of  work  has  especially 
characterized  our  greatest  men.  Cecil 
said  of  Sir  Walter  Ealeigh  that  he 
"  could  toil  terribly." 

We  are  most  of  us  proud  of  be- 
longing to  the  greatest  Empire  the 
world  has  ever  seen.  It  may  be  said 
of  us  with  special  truth  in  Words- 
worth's words  that 

"  The  world  is  too  much  with  us  5  late  and  soon 
Getting  and  spending,  we  lay  waste  our  powers." 

Yes,  but  what  world?  The  world 
will  be  with  us  sure  enough,  and 
whether  we  please  or  not.  But  what 
sort  of  world  it  will  be  for  us  will  de- 
pend greatly  on  ourselves. 

We  are  told  to  pray  not  to  be 
taken  out  of'  the  world,  tut  to  be 
kept  from  the  evil. 

There  are  various  ways  of  working. 
Quickness  may  be  good,  but  haste  is 
bad. 


•Oolerldae. 


'WledasGectlrn 
Obne  Uaat 
Ohne  Hast 
Drehe  sich  Teder 
Um  die  elgne  Last.'-* 


"Like  a  star,  without  haste,  with- 
out rest,  let  every  one  fulfil  his  own 
hest." 

Newton  is  reported  to  have  de- 
scribed as  his  mode  of  working  that 
I  keep  the  subject  constantly  be- 
fore me,  and  wait  till  the  first  dawn- 
ings  open  slowly  by  little  and  little 
into  a  full  and  clear  light," 

"The  secret  of  genius,"  says 
Emerson,  "is  to  suffer  no  fiction  to 
exist  for  us;  to  realize  all  that  we 
know;  in  the  high  refinement  of 
modern  life,  in  Arts,  in  Sciences,  in 
books,  in  men,  to  exact  good  faith, 
reality,  and  a  purpose;  and  first, 
last,  midst,  and  without  end,  to 
honor  every  truth  by  use." 

Lastly,  work  secures  the  rich  re- 
ward of  rest,  we  must  rest  to  be 
able  to  work  well,  and  work  to  be 
able  to  enjoy  rest. 

"We  must  no  doubt  beware  that 
rest  become  not  the  rest  of 


our 


stones,  which  so  long  as  they  are 
torrent  tossed  and  thunder-stricken 
maintain  their  majesty;  but  when  the 
stream  is  silent,  and  the  storm  past, 
suffer  the  grass  to  cover  them,  and 
the  lichen  to  feed  on  them,  and  are 
ploughed  down  into  the  dust.  .  .  . 
The  rest  which  is  glorious  is  of  the 
chamois  couched  breathless  in  its 
granite  bed,  not  of  the  stalled  ox  over 
his  fodder."f 

When  we  have  done  our  best  we 
may  wait  the  result  without  anixety. 

"What  hinders  a  man,  who  has 
clearly  comprehended  these  things, 
from  living  with  a  light  heart  and 
bearing  easily  the  reins;  quietly  ex- 
pecting everything  which  can  happen 
and  enduring  that  which  has  already 
happened?  Would  you  have  me  to 
bear  poverty?  Come  and  you  will 
know  what  poverty  is  when  it  has 
found  one  who  can  act  well  the  part 
of  a  poor  man.  Would  you  have  me 


•  Goethe, 
t  .Buskin. 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


to  possess  power?  Let  me  have 
power,  and  also  the  trouble  of  it. 
Well,  banishment?  Wherever  I  shall 
go,  there  it  will  be  well  with  me."* 

The  Buddhists  believe  in  many 
forms  of  future  punishment;  but  the 
highest  reward  of  virtue  is  Nirvana 
—  the  final  and  eternal  rest. 

Very  touching  is  the  appeal  of 
Ashmanezer  to  be  left  in  peace, 
which  was  engraved  on  his  Sarcopha- 
gus at  Sidon, —  now  in  Paris. 

"In  the  month  of  Bui,  the  four- 
teenth year  of  my  reign,  I,  King  Ash- 
manezer, King  of  the  Sidonians,  son 
of  King  Tabuith,  King  of  the  Sidon- 
ians, spake,  saying:  'I  have  been 
stolen  away  before  my  time  —  a  son 
of  the  flood  of  days.  The  whilom 
great  is  dumb:  the  son  of  gods  is 
dead.  And  I  rest  in  this  grave,  even 
in  this  tomb,  in  the  place  which  I 
have  built.  My  adjuration  to  all  the 
Ruling  Powers  and  all  men:  Let  no 
one  open  this  resting-place,  nor  search 
for  treasure,  for  there  is  no  treasure 
with  us;  and  let  him  not  bear  away 
the  couch  of  my  rest,  and  not  trouble 
us  in  this  resting  place  by  disturbing 
the  couch  of  my  slumbers.  .  .  .  For 
all  men  who  should  open  the  tomb  of 
my  rest,  or  any  man  who  should  carry 
away  the  couch  of  my  rest,  or  any 
one  who  trouble  me  on  this  couch: 
unto  them  there  shall  be  no  rest  with 
the  departed:  they  shall  not  be 
buried  in  a  grave,  and  there  shall  be 

to  them  neither  son  nor  seed 

There  shall  be  to  them  neither  root 
below  nor  fruit  above,  nor  honor 
among  the  living  under  the  sun/"f 

The  idle  man  does  not  know  what 
it  is  to  rest.  Hard  work,  moveover, 
tends  not  only  to  give  us  rest  for 
the  body,  but,  what  is  even  more 
important,  peace  to  the  mind.  If 
we  have  done  our  best  to  do,  and  to 
be,  we  can  rest  in  peace. 

"  En  la  sua  voluntade  e  nostra 
pace."!  In  His  will  is  our  peace; 


•Eplctetus, 

t  From  Sir  M.&  Grant  Duff*  "AWinterinSyria." 

*  Dante. 


and  in  such  peace  the  mind  will  find 
its  truest  delight,  for 

"  When  care  sleeps  the  soul  wakM." 

In  youth,  as  is  right  enough,  the 
idea  of  exertion,  and  of  struggles,  is 
inspiriting  and  delightful;  but  as 
years  advance  the  hope  and  pros- 
pect of  peace  and  of  rest  gain  ground 
gradually,  and 

"When  the  last  dawns  are  fallen  on  gray, 

And  all  life's  tolls  and  ease  complete, 
They  know  who  work,  not  they  who  play. 
If  rest  1»  sweet."' 


CHAPTER  XT. 

RELIGION, 

"For  what  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to 
dp  Justly,  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with 
thy  GOJ."— MICAH. 

"  Pure  religion  and  undeflled  Is  this,  to  visit  the 
fatherless  and  wleows  In  their  affliction,  and  to  keep 
himself  unspotted  from  the  world."— JAMES  i. 

"The  letter  klUetd.  but  the  spirit  glveth  life." 

2  CORINTHIANS. 

It  would  be  quite  out  of  place 
here  to  enter  into  any  discussion 
of  theological  problems  or  to  ad- 
vocate any  particular  doctrines. 
Nevertheless  I  could  not  omit  what 
is  to  most  so  great  a  comfort  and 
support  in  sorrow  and  suffering,  and 
a  source  of  the  purest  happiness. 

We  commonly,  however,  bring 
together  under  this  term  two  things 
which  are  yet  very  different:  the 
religion  of  the  heart,  and  that  of 
the  head.  The  first  deals  with  con- 
duct, and  the  duties  of  Man;  the 
second  with  the  nature  of  the  super- 
natural and  the  future  of  the  soul, 
being  in  fact  a  branch  of  knowledge. 

Eeligion  should  be  a  strength, 
guide,  and  comfort,  not  a  source  of 
intellectual  anxiety  or  angry  argu- 
ment. To  persecute  for  religion's 
sake  implies  belief  in  a  jealous,  cruel, 
and  unjust  Deity.  If  we  have  done 
torment  oneself  about  the  truth,  to 
torment  oneslf  about  the  result  is 
to  doubt  the  goodness  of  God,  and, 


43 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


in  the  words  of  Bacon,  "to  bring 
down  the  Holy  Ghost,  instead  of 
the  likeness  of  a  dove,  in  the  shape 
of  a  raven."  "The  letter  killeth, 
but  the  spirit  giveth  life/'  and  the 
first  duty  of  religion  is  to  form  the 
highest  possible  conception  of  G-od. 

Many  a  man,  however,  and  still 
more  many  a  woman,  render  them- 
selves miserable  on  entering  life  by 
theological  doubts  and  difficulties. 
These  have  reference,  in  ninety-nine 
cases  out  of  a  hundred,  not  to  what 
we  should  do,  but  to  what  we  should 
think.  As  regards  action,  conscience 
is  generally  a  ready  guide;  to  follow 
it  is  the  real  difficulty.  Theology, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  a  most  abstruse 
science;  but  as  long  as  we  honestly 
wish  to  arrive  at  truth  we  need  not 
fear  that  we  shall  be  punished  for 
unintentional  error.  "For  what," 
says  Micah,  "  doth  the  Lord  require 
of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  ,to  love 
mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly'' with  thy 
God."  There  is  very  little  theology 
in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  or 
indeed  in  any  part  of  the  Gospels; 
and  the  differences  which  keep  us 
apart  have  their  origin  rather  in  the 
study  than  the  Church.  Religion 
was  intended  to  bring  peace  on 
earth  and  goodwill  towards  men, 
and  whatever  tends  to  hatred  and 
persecution,  however  correct  in  the 
letter,  must  be  utterly  wrong  in  the 
spirit. 

How  much  misery  would  have 
been  saved  to  Europe  if  Christians 
had  been  satisfied  with  the  Sermon 
on  tbe  Mount ! 

Bokhara  is  said  to  have  contained 
more  than  three  hundred  colleges, 
all  occupied  with  theology,  but  ig- 
norant of  everything  else,  and  it 
was  probably  one  of  the  most  big- 
oted and  uncharitable  cities  in  the 
world.  "Knowledge  puffeth  up, 
but  charity  edifieth." 

We  must  not  forget  that 

"  He  pnyeth  bpst  who  loveth  best 
All  things  both  great  aud  small." 

Theologians  too  often  appear  to 
agree  that 


"  Tbe  awful  shadow  of  tome 
Floats,  tbongh  unse«n,  among  u»;" 

and  in  the  days  of  the  Inquisition 
many  must  have  sighed  for  the 
cheerful  childlike  religion  of  the 
Greeks,  if  they  could  but  have  had 
the  Nymphs  and  Nereids,  the  Fays 
and  Faeries,  with  Destiny  and  Fate, 
but  without  Jupiter  and  Mars. 

Sects  are  the  work  of  Sectarians. 
No  truly  great  religious  teacher,  aa 
Carlyle  said,  ever  intended  to  found 
a  new  Sect. 

Diversity  of  worship,  says  a  Per- 
sian proverb,  "has  divided  the  hu- 
man race  into  seventy-two  nations." 
From  among  all  their  dogmas  I 
have  selected  one — "Divine  Love." 
And  again,  "He  needs  no  other 
rosary  whose  thread  of  life  is  strung 
with  the  beads  of  love  and  thought." 

There  is  more  true  Christianity  in 
some  pagan  Philosophers  than  in 
certain  Christian  theologians.  Take, 
for  instance,  Plato,  Marcus  Aurelius, 
Epictetus,  and  Plutarch. 

"Now  I,  Callicles,"  Bays  Socrates, 
"  am  persuaded  of  the  trutn  of  these 
things,  and  I  consider  how  I  shall 
present  my  sbul  whole  and  undefiled 
before  the  judge  in  that  day.  Re- 
nouncing the  honors  at  which  the 
world  aims,  I  desire  only  to  know 
the  truth,  and  to  live  as  well  as  I 
can,  and,  when  the  times  comes,  to 
dia  And  to  the  utmost  of  my  pow- 
er, I  exhort  all  other  men  to  do  the 
same.  And  in  return  for  your  ex- 
hortation of  me,  I  exhort  you  also  to 
take  part  in  the  great  combat,  which 
is  the  combat  of  life,  and  greater 
than  every  other  earthly  conflct." 

"As  to  piety  towards  the  Gods/' 
says  Epictetus,  "you  must  know 
that  this  is  the  chief  thing,  to  have 
right  opinions  about  them,  to  think 
that  they  exist,  and  that  they  admin- 
ister the  All  well  and  justly;  and 
you  must  fix  yourself  in  this  princi- 
ple (duty),  to  obey  them,  and  to 
yield  to  them  in  everything  which 
happens,  and  voluntarily  to  follow  it 


44 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


as  being  accomplished  by  the  wisest 
intelligence." 

"Do  not  act,"  says  Marcus  Aurel- 
ius,  "  as  if  thou  wert  going  to  live 
ten  thousand  years.  Death  hangs 
over  thee.  While  thou  livest,  while 
it  is  in  thy  power,  be  good.  .  .  . 

"Since  it  is  possible  that  thou  may- 
est  depart  from  life  this  very  moment, 
regulate  every  act  and  thought  ac- 
cordingly. But  to  go  away  from 
among  men,  if  there  be  gods,  is 
not  a  thing  to  be  afraid  of,  for  the 
gods  will  not  involve  thee  in  evil: 
but  if  indeed  they  do  not  exist,  or  if 
they  have  no  concern  about  human 
affairs,  what  is  it  to  me  to  live  in 
a  universe  devoid  of  gods,  or  devoid 
of  Providence.  But  in  truth  they  do 
exist,  and  they  do  care  for  human 
things,  and  they  have  put  all  the 
means  in  man's  power  to  enable  him 
not  to  fall  into  real  evils.  And  as  for 
the  rest,  if  there  was  anything  evil, 
they  would  have  provided  for  this 
also,  that  it  should  be  altogether  in  a 
man's  power  not  to  fall  into  it." 

And  Plutarch:  "The  Godhead  is 
tfot  blessed  by  reason  of  his  sil- 
ver -and  gold,  nor  yet  Almighty 
through  his  thunder  and  lightnings, 
but  on  account  of  knowledge  and 
intellegence." 

It  is  no  doubt  very  difficult  to 
arrive  at  the  exact  teaching  of  East- 
ern Moralists,  but  the  same  spirit 
runs  through  Oriental  Literature. 
For  instance,  in  the  Toy  Cart,  when 
the  wicked  Prince  wishes  Vita  to 
murder  the  Heroine,  and  says  that  no 
one  would  see  him,  Vita  declares 
"All  nature  would  behold  the  crime 
—  the  Genii  of  the  Grove,  the  Sun, 
the  Moon,  the  Winds,  the  Vault  of 
Heavens,  the  firm-set  Earth,  the 
mighty  Yama  who  judges  the  dead, 
and  the  conscious  Soul." 

Take  even  the  most  extreme  type 
of  difference.  Is  the  man,  says  Plu- 
tarch, "a  criminal  who  holds  there 
are  no  gods;  and  is  not  he  that 
holds  them  to  be  such  as  the  super- 
stitious believe  them,  is  he  not  pos- 
sessed with  notions  infinitely  more 


atrocious?  I  for  my  part  would 
much  rather  have  men  say  of  me  that 
there  never  was  a  Plutarch  at  all,  nor 
is  now,  than  to  say  that  Plutarch  is  a 
man  inconstant,  fickle,  easily  moved 
to  anger,  revengeful  for  trifling  prov- 
ocations, vexed  at  small  things." 

There  is  no  doubt  a  tone  of  doubt- 
ing sadness  in  Eoman  moralists,  as  in 
Hadrian's  dying  lines  to  his  soul  — 

"  Anlmula.  vngnla,  b'andula 
Hotipcs.  coniHgqup  corporls 
Qua  nunc  ablbis  in  loca  : 
Fallidula,  rlgida,  nmiula, 
Nee,  ut  soles,  dabis  jocos." 

The  same  spirit  indeed  is  ex- 
pressed in  the  epitaph  on  the  tomb 
of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  in  West- 
minister Abbey  — 


••  Dubtus  non  Impro^ns 

Incrrt  us  in  riur,  non  perturbatus 
Humauum  est  nescire  tt  eriare, 

Deo  confido 

Omnipotent!  beuevolentisslmo  ; 
Ens  eutiura  miserere  met." 

Many  things  have  been  mistaken 
forxreligion,  selfishness  especially,  but 
also  fear,'  hope,  love  of  music,  of  art, 
'of  pomp;  scruples  often  take  the 
place  of  love,  and  the  glory  of  heaven 
is  sometimes  made  to  depend  upon 
precious  stones  and  jewelry.  Many, 
as  has  been  well  said,  run  after 
Christ,  not  for  the  miracles,  but  for 
the  loaves. 

In  many  cases  religious  differences 
are  mainly  verbal.  There  is  an 
Eastern  tale  o£  four  men,  an  Arab, 
a  Persian,  a  Turk,  and  a  Greek, 
who  agreed  to  club  together  for  an 
evening  meal,  but  when  they  had 
done  so  they  quarrelled  as  to  what 
it  should  be.  The  Turk  proposed 
Azum,  the  Arab  Aneb,  the  Persian 
An'ghur,  while  the  Greek  insisted  on 
Staphylion.  While  they  were  dis- 
puting 

"  Before  their  eyes  did  pass, 
Laden  with  grapes,  a  gardener's  ass, 
Sprang  to  his  feet  each  man,  and  showed, 
With  eager  band,  that  purple  load. 
'See  Azum.'  said  the  Turk  ;  and  'sea 
Anghur,'  the  Persian;  'what  should  be 
Better.'  '  Nay  Aneb.  Aneb  'tis.' 
The  Arab  cried     The  Greek  said,  •  Tntt 
Is  my  ^taphylion.'    Then  they  brought 
Their  grapes  In  peace. 

Hence  be  ye  taught."* 

It  is  said  that  on  one  occasion, 
when  Dean  Stanley  had  been  explain- 


*  Arnold .    Pe&rls  of  the  Faith. 


45 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


ing  his  views  to  Lord  Beaconsfield, 
the  latter  replied,  "Ah!  Mr.  Dean, 
that  is  all  very  well,  but  you  must 
remember, —  No  dogmas,  no  Deans." 
To  lose  such  Deans  as  Stanley  would 
indeed  be  a  great  misfortune;  but 
does  it  follow?  Religions,  far  from 
being  really  built  on  Dogmas,  are 
too  often  weighed  down  and  crushed 
by  them.  No  one  can  doubt  that 
Stanley  has  done  much  to  strengthen 
the  Church  of  England. 

We  may  not  always  agree  with 
Spinoza,  but  is  he  not  right  when 
he  says,  "The  first  precept  of  the 
divine  law,  therefore,  indeed  its  sum 
and  substance,  is  to  love  God  uncon- 
ditionally, as  the  supreme  good  —  un- 
conditionally, I  say,  and  not  from  any 
love  or  fear  of  aught  besides?"  And 
again,  that  the  very  essence  of  re- 
ligion is  belief  in  "  a  Supreme  Being 
who  delights  in  justice  and  mercy, 
whom  all  who  would  be  saved  are 
bound  to  obey,  and  whose  worship 
consists  in  the  practice  of  justice 
and  charity  towards  our  neighbors  ?  " 

Doubt  is  of  two  natures,  and  we 
often  confuse  a  wise  suspension  of 
judgment  with  the  weakness  of  hesi- 
tation. To  profess  an  opinion  for 
which  we  have  no  sufficient  reason 
is  clearly  illogical,  but  when  it  is 
necessary  to  act  we  must  do  so  on 
the  best  evidence  available,  however, 
slight  that  may  be.  Herein  lies  the 
importance  of  common  sense,  the 
instincts  of  a  General,  the  sagacity 
of  a  Statesman.  Pyrrho,  the  recog- 
nized representative  of  doubt,  was 
often  wise  in  suspending  his  judg- 
ment, however  foolish  in  hesitating 
to  act,  and  in  apologizing  when, 
after  resisting  all  the  arguments  of 
philosophy,  an  angry  dog  drove  him 
from  his  position. 

Collect  from  the  Bible  all  that 
Christ  thought  necessary  for  his 
disciples,  and  how  little  Dogma  there 
is.  "  Pure  religion  and  undefiled  is 
this,  to  visit  the  fatherless  and 
widows  in  their  affliction,  and  to 
keep  himself  unspotted  from  the 
world,"  «By  this  shall  all  men 


know  that  ye  are  my  disciples,  if  ye 
have  love  one  to  another."  "Suffer 
little  children  to  come  unto  me." 
And  one  lesson  which  little  children 
have  to  teach  us  is  that  religion  is 
an  affair  of  the  heart  and  not  of 
the  mind  only. 

Why  should  we  expect  Religion 
to  solve  questions  with  reference  to 
the  origin  and  destiny  of  the  Uni- 
verse? We  do  not  expect  the  most 
eleborate  treatise  to  tell  us  the  ori- 
gin of  electricity  or  of  heat.  Natu- 
ral History  throws  no  light  on  the 
origin  of  life.  Has  Biology  ever 
professed  to  explain  existence? 

"  Simonides  was  asked  at  Syracuse 
by  Hiero,  who  or  what  God  was, 
when  he  requested  a  day's  time  to 
think  of  his  answer.  On  subsequent 
days  he  always  doubled  the  period 
required  for  deliberation;  and  when 
Hiero  inquired  the  reason,  he  re- 
plied that  the  longer  he  considered 
the  subject,  the  more  obscure  it 
appeared." 

The  Vedas  say,  "  In  the  midst  of 
the  sun  is  the  light,  in  the  midst  of 
light  is  truth,  and  in  the  midst  of 
truth  is  the  imperishable  being." 
Deity  has  been  defined  as  a  circle 
whose  center  is  everywhere,  and 
whose  circumference  is  nowhere,  but 
the  "God  is  love"  of  St.  John  ap- 
peals more  forcibly  to  the  human 
soul. 

The  Church  is  not  a  place  for 
study  or  speculation.  Few  but  can 
sympathize  with  Eugenie  de  Guerin 
in  her  tender  affection  for  the  little 
Chapel  at  Cahuze  where  she  tells  us 
she  left  "  tant  de  miseres." 

Doubt  does  not  exclude  Faith. 

"Perplexed  in  faith,  but  pure  In  deeds 
At  last  he  bent  his  music  out. 
There  lies  more  faith  In  honest  doubt, 
Believe  me,  than  In  half  the  creeds."* 

And  if  we  must  admit  that  many 
points  are  still,  and  probably  long 
will  be  involved  in  obscurity,  we  may 
be  pardoned  if  we  indulge  ourselves 
in  various  speculations  both  as  to  our 
beginning  and  our  end. 


*Tenny*o&, 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


etting  ; 
ft'*  *tar 


"Onr  birth  it  but  a  sleep  and  a  for 
The  soul  tnat  rises  with  us,  our 
Hath  bad  elsewhere  Its  setting, 
And  cometb  from  afar  ; 

Not  In  entire  forge  tfulness, 

And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 

From  God  who  la  our  home."* 

Unfortunately  many  have  at- 
tempted to  compound  for  wicked- 
ness in  life  by  purity  of  belief,  a  vain 
and  fruitless  effort.  To  do  right  is 
the  sure  ladder  which  leads  up  to 
Heaven,  though  the  true  faith  will 
help  us  to  find  and  to  climb  it. 

"It  was  my  duty  to  have  loved  the  highest, 
It  surely  was  my  profit  had  I  known, 
It  would  have  been  my  pleasure  had  I  Been." 

But  though  religious  truth  can 
justify  no  bitterness,  it  is  well  worth 
any  amount  of  thought  and  study. 

I  hope  I  shall  not  be  supposed  to 
depreciate  any  honest  effort  to  arrive 
at  truth,  or  to  undervalue  the  devo- 
tion of  those  who  have  died  for  their 
religion.  But  surely  it  is  a  mistake 
to  regard  martyrdom  as  a  merit, 
when  from  their  own  point  of  view 
it  was  in  reality  a  privilege. 

Let  every  man  be  persuaded  in 
his  own  mind 

"Truth  Is  the  highest  thing  that  man  may  keep."t 

To  arrive  at  truth  we  should  spare 
ourselves  no  pain,  but  certainly  in- 
flict none  on  others. 

We  may  be  sure  that  quarrels  will 
never  advance  religion,  and  that  to 
persecute  is  no  way  to  convert.  No 
doubt  those  who  consider  that  all 
who  do  not  agree  with  them  will 
suffer  eternal  torments,  seem  logi- 
cally justified  in  persecution  even 
unto  death.  Such  a  course,  if  carried 
out  consistently,  might  stamp  out  a 
particular  sect,  and  any  sufferings 
which  could  be  inflicted  here  would 
on  this  hypothesis  be  as  nothing  in 
comparison  with  the  pains  of  Hell. 
Only  it  must  be  admitted  that  such 
a  view  of  religion  is  incompatible 
with  any  faith  in  the  goodness  of 
God,  and  seems  quite  irreconcilable 
with  the  teaching  of  Christ. 

Moreover,  the  Inquisition  has  even 
from  its  own  point  of  view  proved 


93 

The  blood  of 
wed    of    the 


*  Wordsworth, 


generally   a  failure, 
the    martyrs    IB    the 
Church. 

"  In  obedience  to  the  order  of  the 
Council  of  Constance  (1415)  the  re- 
mains of  Wickliffe  were  exhumed 
and  burnt  to  ashes,  and  these  cast 
into  the  Swift  a  neighboring  brook 
running  hard  by,  and  thus  this  brook 
hath  conveyed  his  ashes  into  Avon; 
Avon  into  Severn;  Severn  into  the 
narrow  seas;  they  into  the  main 
ocean.  And  thus  the  ashes  of 
Wickliffe  are  the  emblem  of  his  doc- 
trine, which  now  is  dispersed  all  the 
world  over."* 

The  Talmud  says  that  when  a 
man  once  asked  Shamai  to  teach  him 
the  law  in  one  lesson,  Shamai  drove 
him  away  in  anger.  He  then  went 
to  Hillel  with  the  same  request. 
Hillel  said,  "Do  unto  others  as  you 
would  have  others  do  unto  you. 
This  is  the  whole  Law;  the  rest, 
merely  Commentaries  upon  it." 

The  Religion  of  the  lower  races  is 
almost  as  a  rule  one  of  terror  and  of 
dread.  Their  deities  are  jealous  and 
revengeful,  cruel,  merciless,  and  sel- 
fish, hateful  and  yet  childish.  They 
require  to  be  propitiated  by  feasts 
and  offerings,  often  even  by  human 
sacrifices.  They  are  not  only  ex- 
acting, but  so  capricious  that,  with 
the  best  intentions,  it  is  often  im- 
possible to  be  sure  of  pleasing  them. 
From  such  evil  beings  Sorcerers  and 
Witches  derived  their  hellish  powers, 
No  one  was  safe.  No  one  knew 
where  danger  lurked.  Actions  ap- 
parently the  most  trifling  might  be 
fraught  with  serious  risk;  objects 
apparently  the  most  innocent  might 
be  fatal. 

In  many  cases  there  are  supposed 
to  be  deities  of  Crime,  of  Misfor- 
tunes, of  Disease.  These  wicked 
Spirits  naturally  encourage  evil  rather 
than  good.  An  energetic  friend  of 
mine  was  sent  to  a  district  in  India, 
where  smallpox  was  specially  preva- 
lent, and  where  one  of  the  principal 
Temples  was  dedicated  to  the  God- 


*  Fuller. 


47 


94 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


dess  of  that  disease.  He  had  the 
peopJe  vaccinated,  in  spite  of  some 
opposition,  and  the  disease  disap- 
peared, much  to  the  astonishment  of 
the  natives.  But  the  priests  of  the 
Deity  of  Smallpox  were  not  discon- 
certed ;  only  they  deposed  the  Image 
of  their  discomfited  Goddess,  and 
petitioned  my  friend  for  some  emblem 
of  himself  which  they  might  install  in 
her  stead. 

We  who  are  fortunate  enough  to 
live  in  this  comparatively  enlightened 
century  hardly  realize  how  our  ances- 
tors suffered  from  their  belief  in  the 
existence  of  mysterious  and  malevo- 
lent beings;  how  their  life  was  em- 
bittered and  overshadowed  by  these 
awful  apprehensions. 

As  men,  however,  have  risen  in 
civilization,  their  religion  has  risen 
with  them  ;  they  have  by  degrees  ac- 
quired higher  and  purer  conceptions 
of  divine  power. 

We  are  only  just  beginning  to  re- 
alize that  a  loving  and  merciful  Fa- 
ther would  not  resent  honest  error, 
Dot  even  perhaps  the  attribution  to 
m'm  of  such  odious  injustice.  Yet 
what  can  be  clearer  than  Christ's 
teaching  on  this  point.  He  impressed 
it  over  and  over  again  on  his  disci- 
ples. "The  letter  killeth,  but  the 
spirit  giveth  life." 

"If,"  says  Kuskin,  "for  every  re- 
buke that  we  utter  of  men's  vices,  we 
put  forth  a  claim  upon  their  hearts  ; 
if,  for  every  assertion  of  God's  de- 
mands from  them,  we  should  substi- 
tute a  display  of  His  kindness  to 
them;  if  side  by  side,  with  every 
warning  of  death,  we  could  exhibit 
proofs  and  promises  of  immortality; 
if,  in  fine,  instead  of  assuming  the 
being  of  an  awful  Deity,  which  men, 
though  they  cannot  and  dare  not 
deny,  are  always  unwilling,  sometimes 
unable,  to  conceive ;  we  were  to  show 
them  a  near,  visible,  inevitable,  but 
all-beneficent  Deity,  whose  presence 
makes  the  earth  itself  a  henv<n,  I 
think  there  would  be  fewer  deaf  chil- 
dren sitting  in  the  market-place." 

But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that 


those  who  doubt  whether  the  ulti- 
mate truth  of  the  Universe  can  be  ex- 
pressed in  human  words,  or  whether, 
even  if  it  could,  we  should  be  able  to 
comprehend  it,  undervalue  the  im- 
portance of  religious  study.  Quite 
the  contrary.  Their  doubts  arise 
not  from  pride,  but  from  humility : 
not  because  they  do  not  appreciate 
divine  truth,  but  on  the  contrary 
they  doubt  whether  we  can  appreciate 
it  sufficiently,  and  are  sceptical 
whether  the  infinite  can  be  reduced 
to  the  finite. 

We  may  be  sure  that  whatever  may 
be  right  about  religion,  to  quarrel 
over  it  must  be  wrong.  "  Let  others 
wrangle,"  said  St.  Augustine,  "  I  will 
wonder." 

Those  who  suspend  their  judgment 
are  not  on  that  account  sceptics:  and 
it  is  often  those  who  think  they  knovr 
most,  who  are  especially  troubled  by 
doubts  and  anxiety. 

It  was  Wordsworth  who  wrote 

"  Great  God,  I  had  rather  be 
A  Pagan  suckled  in  some  creed  outworn ; 
So  might  I,  standing  oil  this  pleasant  lea, 
Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn.'' 

In  religion,  as  with  children  at 
night,  it  is  darkness  and  ignorance 
which  create  dread;  light  and  love 
cast  out  fear. 

In  looking  forward  to  the  future 
we  may  fairly  hope  with  Buskin  thaf 
"the  charities  of  more  and  more 
widely  extended  peace  are  preparing 
the  way  for  a  Christian  Church  which 
shall  depend  neither  on  ignorance 
for  its  continuance,  nor  on  contro- 
versy for  its  progress,  but  shall 
reign  at  once  in  light  and  love." 


CHAPTER 


THE  HOPE  OP  PROGRESS 

"  To  what  then  may  we  not  look  forward,  when 
a  spir-'t  of  scientific  inquiry  shall  have  spread, 
through  those  vast  regions  in  which  the  progress 
of  civilization,  its  mire  precursor,  is  actually  com- 
lupuced  and  in  active  pi-ogrprs?  And  what  may  we 
not  expect  from  the  pxertinra  of  powerful  mind* 
called  into  action  under  circumstances  totally  dif- 
ferent from  any  which  have  yet  existed  in  the 
world,  and  over  an  extent  of  terrtory  far  sur 
ing  that  which  has  hitherto  produced  the 
harvest  of  human  intellect. "— 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


95 


THEEE  are  two  lines,  if  not  more, 
in  which  we  may  look  forward  with 
hope  to  progress  in  the  future.  In 
the  first  place,  increased  knowledge 
of  nature,  of  the  properties  of  mat- 
ter, and  of  the  phenomena  which 
surround  us,  may  afford  to  our 
children  advantages  far  greater  even 
than  those  which  we  ourselves  enjoy. 
Secondly,  the  extension  and  improve- 
ment of  education,  the  increasing 
influence  of  Science  and  Art,  of 
Poetry  and  Music,  of  Literature  and 
Keligion, — of  all  the  powers  which 
are  tending  to  good,  will,  we  may 
reasonably  hope,  raise  man  and  make 
him  more  master  of  himself,  more 
able  to  appreciate  and  enjoy  his 
advantages,  and  to  realize  the  truth 
of  the  Italian  proverb,  that  wherever 
light  is,  there  is  joy. 

One  consideration  which  has1 
greatly  tended  to  retard  progress 
has  been  the  floating  idea  that  there 
was  some  sort  of  ingratitude,  and 
even  impiety,  in  attempting  to  im- 
prove on  what  Divine  Providence 
had  arranged  for  us.  Thus  Prome- 
theus was  said  to  have  incurred  the 
wrath  of  Jove  for  bestowing  on  mor- 
tals the  use  of  fire  ;  and  other  im- 
provements only  escaped  similar 
punishment  when  the  ingenuity  of 
priests  attributed  them  to  the  spe- 
cial favor  of  some  particular  deity. 
This  feeling  has  not  even  yet  quite 
died  out.  Even  I  can  remember  the 
time  when  many  excellent  persons 
had  a  scruple  or  prejudice  against 
the  use  of  chloroform,  because  they 
fancied  that  pain  was  ordained  under 
certain  circumstances. 

We  are  told  that  in  early  Saxon 
days  Edwin,  King  of  Northumbria, 
called  his  nobles  and  his  priests 
around  him,  to  discuss  whether  a 
certain  missionary  should  be  heard 
or  not.  The  king  was  doubtful. 
At  last  there  rose  an  old  chief,  and 
said: — "You  know,  O  King,  how, 
on  a  winter  evening,  when  you  are 
sitting  at  supper  in  your  hall,  with 
vour  company  around  you,  when  the 
aight  is  dark  and  dreary,  when  the 


rain  and  the  snow  rage  outside,  when 
the  hall  inside  is  lighted  and  warm 
with  a  blazing  fire,  sometimes  it  hap- 
pens that  a  sparrow  flies  into  the 
bright  hall  out  of  the  dark  night, 
flies  through  the  hall  and  then  flies 
out  at  the  other  end  into  the  dark 
night  again.  We  see  him  for  a  few 
moments,  but  we  know  not  whence 
he  came  nor  whither  he  goes  in  the 
blackness  of  the  storm  outside.  So 
is  the  life  of  man.  It  appears  for  a 
short  space  in  the  warmth  and 
brightness  of  this  life,  but  what 
came  before  this  life,  or  what  is  to 
follow  this  life,  we  know  not.  If, 
therefore,  these  new  teachers  can 
enlighten  us  as  to  the  darkness  that 
went  before,  and  the  darkness  that 
is  to  come  after,  let  us  hear  what 
they  have  to  teach  us." 

It  is  often  said,  however,  that 
great  and  unexpected  as  recent  dis- 
coveries have  been,  there  are  certain 
ultimate  problems  which  must  ever 
remain  unsolved.  For  my  part,  I 
would  prefer  to  abstain  from  laying 
down  any  such  limitations.  When 
Park  asked  the  Arabs  what  became 
of  the  sun  at  night,  and  whether 
the  sun  was  always  the  same,  or  new 
each  day,  they  replied  that  such  a 
question  was  foolish,  being  entirely 
beyond  the  reach  of  human  investi. 
gation. 

M.  Comte,  in  his  Cours  de  Phil- 
osophie  Positive  as  recently  as  1842, 
laid  it  down  as  an  axiom  regarding 
the  heavenly  bodies,  "  We  may  hope 
to  determine  their  forms,  distances, 
magnitude,  and  movements,  but  we 
shall  never  by  any  means  be  able  to 
study  their  chemical  composition  or 
mineralogical  structure."  Yet  with- 
in a  few  years  this  supposed  impos- 
sibility has  been  actually  accom- 
plished, showing  how  unsafe  it  is  to 
limit  the  possibilities  of  science.* 

It  is,  indeed,  as  true  now  as  in  the 
time  of  Newton,  that  the  great  ocean 
of  truth  lies  undiscovered  before  us. 
I  often  wish  that  some  President  of 
the  Royal  Society,  rr  of  the  Britisk 

*Lublioci.    Fifty  Years  of  Science, 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


Association,  would  take  f  »r  the 
theme  of  his  annual  address  "The 
things  we  do  not  know."  Who  can 
gay  on  the  verge  of  what  discoveries 
we  are  perhaps  even  now  standing! 
It  is  extraordinary  how  slight  a 
margin  may  stand  for  years  between 
Man  and  some  important  improve- 
ment. Take  the  case  of  the  electric 
light,  for  instance.  It  had  been 
known  for  years  that  if  a  carbon  rod 
be  placed  in  an  exhausted  glass  re- 
ceiver, and  a  current  of  electricity  be 
passed  through  it,  the  carbon  glowed 
with  an  intense  light,  but  on  the 
other  hand  it  became  so  hot  that  the 
glass  burst.  The  light,  therefore, 
was  useless,  because  the  lamp  burst 
as  soon  as  it  was  lighted.  Edison 
hit  on  the  idea  that  if  you  made  the 
carbon  filament  fine  enough,  you 
would  get  rid  of  the  heat  and  yet 
have  abundance  of  light.  Edison's 
right  to  this  patent  has  been  contest- 
ed on  this  very  ground.  It  has  been 
said  that  the  mere  introduction  of  so 
small  a  difference  as  the  replace- 
ment of  a  thin  rod  by  a  fine  filament 
was  so  slight  an  item  that  it  could 
not  be  patented.  The  improvements 
by  Swan,  Lane,  Fox,  and  others, 
though  so  important  as  a  whole,  have 
been  made  step  by  step. 

Or  take  again  the  discovery  of 
anaesthetics.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
century  Sir  Humphrey  discovered 
laughing  gas,  as  it  was  then  called. 
He  found  that  it  produced  complete 
insensibility  to  pain  and  yet  did  n  ot 
injure  health.  A  tooth  was  actually 
taken  out  under  its  influence,  and  of 
course  without  suffering.  These 
facts  were  known  to  our  chemists, 
they  were  expained  to  the  students 
in  our  great  hospitals,  and  yet  for 
half  a  century  the  obvious  applica- 
tion occured  to  no  one.  Operations 
continued  to  be  performed  as  before, 
patients  suffered  the  same  horrible 
tortures,  and  yet  the  beneficent  ele- 
ment was  in  our  hands,  its  divine 
properties  were  known,  but  it  never 
occured  to  any  one  to  make  use  of 
it. 


I  may  give  one  more  illustration. 
Printing  is  generally  said  to  have 
been  discovered  in  the  fifteenth 
century ;  and  so  it  was  for  all  prac- 
tical purposes.  But  in  fact  printing 
was  known  long  before.  The  Ro- 
mans used  stamps ;  on  the  monu- 
ments of  the  Assyrian  kings  the 
name  of  the  reigning  monarch  may 
be  found  duly  printed.  What  then 
is  the  difference  ?  One  little,  but  all- 
important  step.  The  real  inventor  of 
printing  was  the  man  into  whose 
mind  flashed  the  fruitful  idea  of  hav- 
ing separate  stamps  for  each  letter, 
instead  of  for  separate  words.  How 
slight  seems  the  difference,  and  yet 
for  3000  years  the  thought  occurred 
to  no  one.  Who  can  tell  what  other 
discoveries,  as  simple  and  yet  as  far- 
reaching,  lie  at  this  very  momenl  un- 
der our  very  eyes ! 

Archimedes  said  that  if  you  would 
give  him  room  to  stand  on,  he  would 
move  the  earth,  One  truth  leads  to 
another;  each  discovery  renders  pos- 
sible another,  and,  what  is  more,  a 
higher. 

We  are  but  beginning  to  realize 
the  marvellous  range  and  complexity 
of  Nature,  I  have  elsewhere  called 
attention  to  this  with  special  refer- 
ence to  the  problematical  organs  of 
sense  possessed  by  many  animals.* 

There  is  every  reason  to  hope  that 
future  studies  will  throw  much  light 
on  these  interesting  structures.  We 
may,  no  doubt,  expect  much  from  the 
improvement  in  our  microscopes,  the 
use  of  new  re-agents,  and  of  mechani- 
cal appliances ;  but  the  ultimate 
atoms  of  which  matter  is  composed 
are  so  infinitesimally  minute,  that  it 
is  difficult  to  forseee  any  manner  in 
which  we  may  hope  for  a  final  solution 
of  these  problems. 

Loschmidt,  who  has  since  been 
confirmed  by  Stony  and  Sir  W. 
Thomson,  calculates  that  each  of  the 
ultimate  atoms  of  matter  is  at  most 
of  an  inch  in  diameter. 


50,000,000 

Under  these   circumstances 


we  can. 


*The  Senses  of  Anima.lt 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


97 


not,  it  would  seem,  hope  at  present 
for  any  great  increase  of  our  knowl- 
edge of  atoms  by  improvements  in 
the  microscope.  With  our  present 
instruments  we  can  perceive  lines 
ruled  on  glass  which  are  - — 1 —  of  an 


90,000 

inch  apart ;  but  owing  to  the  proper- 
ties of  light  itself,  it  would  appear 
that  we  cannot  hope  to  be  able  to 
perceive  objects  which  are  much  less 

than  i of  an  inch  in  diameter. 

100,000 
Our  microscopes  may,  no  doubt,  be 

improved,  but  the  limitation  lies  not 
in  the  imperfection  of  our  optical  ap- 
pliances, but  in  the  nature  of  light  it- 
self. 

It  has  been  calculated  that  a  parti- 
cle of  albumen  -g^Vinr  of  an  inch  in 
diameter  contains  no  less  than  125,- 
000,000  of  molecules.  In  a  simpler 
compound  the  number  would  be 
much  greater;  in  water,  for  instance, 
no  less  than  8,000,000,000.  Even 
then,  if  we  could  construct  micro- 
scopes far  more  powerful  than  any 
which  we  now  possess,  they  could 
not  enable  us  to  obtain  by  direct 
vision  any  idea  of  the  ultimate  organ- 
ization of  matter.  The  smallest 
sphere  of  organic  matter  which  could 
be  clearly  defined  with  our  most  pow- 
erful microscopes  may  be,  in  reality, 
very  complex ;  may  be  built  up  of 
many  millions  of  molecules,  and  it 
follows  that  there  may  be  an  almost 
infinite  number  of  structural  charac- 
ters in  organic  tissues  which  we  can 
at  present  foresee  no  mode  of  examin- 
ing.* 

Again,  it  has  been  shown  that  ani- 
mals hear  sounds  which  are  beyond 
the  range  of  our  hearing,  and  I  have 
proved  they  can  perceive  the  ultra- 
violet rays,  which  are  visible  to  our 
eyes.f 

Now,  as  every  ray  of  homogeneous 
light  which  we  can  perceive  at  all, 
appears  to  us  as  a  distinct  color,  it 
becomes  probable  that  these  ultra- 
violet rays  must  make  themselves 
apparent  to  animals  as  a  distinct 


*Lubbock.    Fifty  Years  of  Science, 


and  separate  color  (of  which  we  can 
form  no  idea),  but  as  different  from 
the  rest  as  red  is  from  yellow,  or 
green  from  violet.  The  question 
also  arises  whether  white  light  to 
these  creatures  would  differ  from 
our  white  light  in  containing  this 
additional  color. 

These  considerations  cannot  but 
raise  the  reflection  how  different  the 
world  may — I  was  going  to  say  must 
— appear  to  other  animals  from  what 
it  does  to  us.  Sound  is  the  sensa- 
tion produced  on  us  when  the  vibra- 
tions of  the  air  strike  on  the  drum  of 
our  ear.  When  they  are  few,  the  sound 
is  deep ;  as  theyincrease  in  number, 
it  becomes  shriller  and  shriller ;  but 
when  they  reach  40,000  in  a  second, 
they  cease  to  be  audible.  Light  is 
the  effect  produced  on  us  when 
waves  of  light  strike  on  the  eye. 
When  400  millions  of  millions  of 
vibrations  of  ether  strike  the  retina 
in  a  second,  they  produce  red,  and  as 
the  number  increases  the  color  pass- 
es into  orange,  then  yellow,  green, 
blue,  and  violet.  But  between  40,- 
000  vibrations  in  a  second  and  400 
millions  of  millions  we  have  no  or- 
gan of  sense  capable  of  receiving  the 
impression.  Yet  between  these  lim- 
its any  number  of  sensations  may 
exist.  We  have  five  senses,  and 
sometimes  fancy  that  no  others  are 
possible.  But  it  is  obvious  that  we 
cannot  measure  the  infinite  by  our 
own  narrow  limitations. 

Moreover,  looking  at  the  question 
from  the  other  side,  we  find  in  ani- 
mals complex  organs  of  sense,  richly 
supplied  with  nerves,  but  the  func- 
tion of  which  we  are  as  yet  power- 
less to  explain.  There  may  be  fifty 
other  senses  as  different  from  ours 
as  sound  is  from  sight;  and  even 
within  the  boundaries  of  our  own 
senses  there  may  be  endless  sounds 
which  we  cannot  hear,  and  colors, 
as  different  as  red  from  green,  of 
which  we  have  no  conception.  These 
and  a  thousand  other  questions  re- 
main for  solution.  The  familiar 
world  which  surrounds  us  may  b<> 


51 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


a  totally  different  place  to  other 
animals.  To  them  it  may  be  full  of 
music  which  we  cannot  hear,  of  color 
which  we  cannot  see,  of  sensations 
which  we  cannot  conceive.  To  place 
stuffed  birds  and  beasts  in  glass 
cases,  to  arrange  insects  in  cabinets, 
and  dried  plants  in  drawers,  is  mere- 
ly the  drudgery  and  preliminary  of 
study;  to  watch  their  habits,  to 
understand  their  relations  to  one 
another,  to  study  their  instincts  and 
intelligence,  to  ascertain  their  adapta- 
tions and  their  relations  to  the  forces 
of  Nature,  to  realize  what  the  world 
appears  to  them;  these  constitute, 
as  it  seems  to  me  at  least,  the  true 
interest  of  natural  history,  and  may 
even  give  us  the  clue  to  senses  and 
perceptions  of  which  at  present  we 
have  no  conception.* 

From  this  point  of  view  the  possi- 
bilities of  progress  seem  to  me  to  be 
almost  unlimited. 

So  far  again  as  the  actual  condi- 
tion of  man  is  concerned,  the  fact 
that  there  has  been  some  advance 
cannot,  I  think,  be  questioned. 

In  the  Middle  Ages,  for  instance, 
culture  and  refinement  scarcely 
existed  beyond  the  limits  of  courts, 
and  by  no  means  always  there.  The 
life  in  English,  French,  and  German 
castles  was  rough  and  almost  bar- 
barous. Mr.  Galton  has  expressed 
the  opinion,  which  I  am  not  pre- 
pared to  question,  that  the  popula- 
tion of  Athens,  taken  as  a  whole, 
was  as  superior  to  us  as  we  are  to 
Australian  savages.  But  even  if 
that  be  so,  our  civilization,  such  as 
it  is,  is  more  diffused,  so  that  un- 
questionably the  general  European 
level  is  much  higher. 

Much,  no  doubt,  is  owing  to  the 
greater  facility  of  access  to  the  litera- 
ture of  our  country,  to  that  litera- 
ture, in  the  words  of  Macauley; 
"the  brightest,  the  purest,  the  most 
durable  of  all  the  glories  of  our 
country ;  to  that  Literature,  so  rich 
in  precious  truth  and  precious  fic- 


*  Lubbock.     The  Sentet  of  Animal*. 


tion ;  to  that  Literature  which  boasts 
of  the  prince  of  all  poets,  and  of  the 
prince  of  all  philosophers;  to  that 
Literature  which  has  exercised  an 
influence  wider  than  that  of  our 
commerce,  and  mightier  than  that 
of  our  arms." 

Few  of  us  make  the  most  of  ouf 
minds.  The  body  ceases  to  grow 
in  a  few  years;  but  the  mind,  if  we 
will  let  it,  may  grow  as  long  as  life 
lasts. 

The  onward  progress  of  the  future 
will  not,  we  may  be  sure,  be  con- 
fined to  mere  material  discoveries. 
We  feel  that  we  are  on  the  road  to 
higher  mental  powers;  that  prob- 
lems which  now  seem  to  us  beyond 
the  range  of  human  thought  will 
receive  their  solution,  and  open  the 
way  to  still  further  advance.  Prog- 
ress, moreover,  we  may  hope,  will 
be  not  merely  material,  not  merely 
mental,  but  moral  also. 

It  is  natural  that  we  should  feel  a 
pride  in  the  beauty  of  England,  in 
the  size  of  our  cities,  the  magnitude 
of  our  commerce,  the  wealth  of  our 
country,  the  vastness  of  our  Empire. 
But  the  true  glory  of  a  nation  does 
not  consist  in  the  extent  of  its  do- 
minion, in  the  fertility  of  the  soil,  or 
the  beauty  of  Nature,  but  rather  in 
the  moral  and  intellectual  preemi- 
nence of  the  people. 

And  yet  how  few  of  us,  rich  or 
poor,  have  made  ourselves  all  we 
might  be.  If  he  does  his  best,  as 
Shakespeare  says,  "  What  a  piece  of 
work  is  man !  How  noble  in  reason  ! 
How  infinite  in  faculty  !  in  form  and 
movement,  how  express  and  admir- 
able ! "  Few  indeed,  as  yet,  can  be 
said  to  reach  this  high  ideal. 

The  Hindoos  have  a  theory  that 
after  death  animals  live  again  in  a 
different  form  ;  those  that  have  done 
well  in  a  higher,  those  that  have  done 
ill  in  a  lower  grade.  To  realize  this 
is,  they  find,  a  powerful  incentive  to 
a  virtuous  life.  But  whether  it  be 
true  of  a  future  life  or  not,  it  is  cer- 
tainly true  of  our  present  existence. 
If  we  do  our  best  for  a  day,  the  next 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


99 


morning  we  shall  rise  to  a  higher 
life;  while  if  we  give  way  to  our 
passions  and  temptations,  we  take 
with  equal  certainty  a  step  down- 
wards towards  a  lower  nature. 

It  is  an  interesting  illustration  of 
the  Unity  of  Man,  and  an  encourage- 
ment to  those  of  us  who  have  no 
claims  to  genius,  that,  though  of 
course  there  have  been  exceptions, 
still  on  the  whole,  periods  of  prog- 
ress have  generally  been  those  when 
a  nation  has  worked  and  felt  togeth- 
er; the  advance  has  been  due  not 
entirely  to  the  efforts  of  a  few  great 
men,  but  also  of  a  thousand  little 
men  ;  not  to  a  single  genius,  but  to 
a  national  effort. 

Think,  indeed,  what  might  be. 

"  Ah  I  when  shall  all  men's  good 
Be  each  man's  rule,  and  universal  Peace 
Lie  like  a  shaft  of  light  across  the  land, 
And  like  a  lane  of  beams  athwart  the  sea, 
Thro'  all  the  circle  of  the  golden  year."* 

Our  life  is  surrounded  with  mys- 
tery, our  very  world  is  a  speck  in 
boundless  space;  and  not  only  the 
period  of  our  own  individual  life, 
but  that  of  the  whole  human  race  is, 
as  it  were,  but  a  moment  in  the  eter- 
nity of  time.  We  cannot  imagine 
any  origin,  nor  foresee  the  conclusion. 

But  though  we  may  not  as  yet 
perceive  any  line  of  research  which 
can  give  us  a  clue  to  the  solution,  in 
another  sense  we  may  hold  that 
every  addition  to  our  knowledge  is 
one  small  step  towards  the  great 
revelation. 

Progress  may  be  more  slow,  or 
more  rapid.  It  may  come  to  others 
and  not  to  us.  It  will  not  come  to 
us  if  we  do  not  strive  to  deserve 
it.  But  come  it  surely  will. 

"Yet  one  thing  is  there  that  ye  shall  not  slay, 
Even  thought,  that  fire  nor  iron  can  affright."t 

The  future  of  man  is  full  of  hope, 
and  we  can  foresee  the  limits  of  his 
destiny. 


*Tennyaon. 

tSwinburua 


CHAPTER 


THE  DESTINY  OF   MAN. 

"  For  I  reckon  that  the  sufferings  of  this  present 
time  are  not  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  glory 
which  shall  be  revealed  in  us  " — ROMANS  viii.  18. 

BUT  though  we  have  thus  a  sure 
and  certain  hope  of  progress  for  the 
race,  still,  as  far  as  man  is  individu- 
ally concerned,  with  advancing  years 
we  gradually  care  less  and  less  for 
many  things  which  gave  us  the 
greatest  pleasure  in  youth.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  our  time  has  been  well 
used,  if  we  have  warmed  both  hands 
wisely  "before  the  fire  of  life,"  we 
may  gain  even  more  than  we  lose. 
If  our  strength  becomes  less,  we  feel 
also  the  less  necessity  for  exertion. 
Hope  is  gradually  replaced  by  mem- 
ory :  and  whether  this  adds  to  our 
happiness  or  not  depends  on  what 
our  life  has  been. 

There  are  of  course  some  lives 
which  diminish  in  value  as  old  age 
advances,  in  which  one  pleasure  fades 
after  another,  and  even  those  which 
remain  gradually  lose  their  zest ;  but 
there  are  others  which  gain  in  rich- 
ness and  peace  all,  and  more,  than 
that  of  which  time  robs  them. 

The  pleasures  of  youth  may  excel 
in  keenness  and  in  zest,  but  they 
have  at  the  best  a  tinge  of  anxiety  and 
unrest ;  they  cannot  have  the  fullness 
and  depth  which  may  accompany  the 
consolations  of  age,  and  are  amongst 
the  richest  rewards  of  an  unselfish 
life. 

For  as  with  the  close  of  the  day,  so 
with  that  of  life  ;  there  may  be  clouds, 
and  yet  if  the  horizon  is  clear,  the 
evening  may  be  beautiful. 

Old  age  has  a  rich  store  of  memor- 
ies. Life  is  full  of 

"Joys  too  exquisite  to  last. 
And  yet  more  exquisite  when  past.':* 

Swedenborg  imagines  that  in  heav- 
en the  angels  are  advancing  continu- 
ally to  the  spring-time  of  their  youth, 
so  that  those  who  have  lived  longest 
are  really  the  youngest;  and  have 


*  Montgomery. 


100 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


we  tx)t  all  had  friends  who  seem  to 
fulfil  this  idea  I  who  are  in  reality — 
that  is  in  mind — as  fresh  as  a  child : 
of  whom  it  may  be  said  with  more 
truth  than  of  Cleopatra  that 

"  Age  cannot  wither  nor  custom  stale 
Their  infinite  variety." 

"When  I  consider  old  age,"  says 
Cicero,  "  I  find  four  causes  why  it  is 
thought  miserable :  one,  that  it  calls 
us  away  from  the  transaction  of  af- 
fairs ;  the  second,  that  it  renders  the 
body  more  feeble ,  the  third  that  it 
deprives  us  of  almost  all  pleasures  : 
the  fourth,  that  it  is  not  very  far  from 
death.  Of  these  causes  let  us  see,  if 
you  please,  how  great  and  how  reason- 
able each  of  them  is." 

To  be  released  from  the  absorbing 
affairs  of  life,  to  feel  that  one  has 
earned  a  claim  to  leisure  and  repose, 
is  surely  in  itself  no  evil. 

To  the  second  complaint  against 
old  age,  I  have  already  referred  in 
speaking  of  Health. 

The  third  is  that  it  has  no  passions. 
"  O  noble  privilege  of  age !  if  indeed 
it  takes  from  us  that  which  is  in  youth 
our  greatest  defect.''  But  the  higher 
feelings  of  our  nature  are  not  neces- 
sarily weakened ;  or  rather,  they  may 
become  all  the  brighter,  being  puri- 
fied from  the  grosser  elements  of  our 
lower  nature. 

Then,  indeed,  it  might  be  said  that 
"  Man  is  the  sun  of  the  world ;  more 
than  the  real  sun.  The  fire  of  his 
wonderful  heart  is  the  only  light  and 
heat  worth  gauge  or  measure."  * 

"Single,"  says  Manu,  "is  each 
man  born  into  the  world ;  single  he 
dies  ;  single  he  receives  the  reward 
of  his  good  deeds ;  and  single  the 
punishment  of  his  sins.  When  he 
dies  his  body  lies  like  a  fallen  tree 
upon  the  earth,  but  his  virtue  accom- 
panies his  soul.  Wherefore  let  Man 
harvest  and  garner  virtue,  that  so  he 
may  have  an  inseparable  companion 
in  that  gloom  which  all  must  pass 
through,  and  which  it  is  so  hard  to 
traverse." 

Is  it  not  extraordinary  that  many 


men  will  deliberately  take  a  road 
which  they  know  is,  to  say  the  least, 
not  that  of  happiness.  That  they 
prefer  to  make  others  miserable, 
rather  than  themselves  happy. 

Plato,  in  the  Phsedrus,  explains 
this  by  desciibing  Man  as  a  Compo- 
site Being,  having  three  natures,  and 
compares  him  to  a  pair  of  wingec1 
horses  and  a  charioteer.  "Of  the 
two  horses  one  is  noble  and  of  noble 
origin,  the  other  ignoble  and  of  ig- 
noble origin;  and  the  driving,  as 
might  be  expected,  is  no  easy  mat- 
ter." The  noble  steed  endeavors  to 
raise  the  chariot,  but  the  ignoble 
one  struggles  to  drag  it  down. 

"Man,"  says  Shelley,  "is  an  in- 
strument over  which  a  series  of  ex- 
ternal and  internal  impressions  are 
driven,  like  the  alternations  of  an 
ever-changing  wind  over  an  .^Eolian 
lyre,  which  move  it  by  their  motion 
to  ever-changing  melody." 

Cicero  mentions  the  approach  of 
death  as  the  fourth  drawback  of  old 
age.  To  many  minds  the  shadow 
of  the  end  is  ever  preaent,  like  the 
coffin  in  the  Egyptian  feast,  and 
overclouds  all  the  sunshine  of  life. 

But  ought  we  so  to  regard  death  ? 

Shelley's  beautiful  lines, 

"Life,  Irke  a  Dome  of  many-colored  glass. 
Stains  the  white  radiance  of  Eternity, 
Until  death  tramples  it  to  fragments'," 

contain,  as  it  seems  to  me  at  least,  a 
double  error.  Life  need  not  stain 
the  white  radiance  of  eternity ;  nor 
does  death  necessarily  trample  it  to 
fragments. 

Man  has,  says  Coleridge, 

"  Three  treasures, — love  and  light 
And  calm  thoughts,  regular  as  infants'  breath  ; 
And  three  firm   friends,  more  sure  than  day  and 

night, 
Himself,  his  Maker,  and  the  Angel  Death." 

Death  is  "the  end  of  all,  the  rem- 
edy of  many,  the  wish  of  divers  men, 
deserving  better  of  no  men  than  of 
those  to  whom  she  came  before  she 
was  called."* 

It  is  often  assumed  that  the  jour- 
ney to 

"The  undiscovered  country  from  whose  bourn* 
No  traveller  returns  " 


*  Emerson. 


54 


*  Seneca. 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE. 


101 


must  be  one  of  pain  and  suffering. 
But  this  is  not  so.  Death  is  often 
peaceful  and  almost  painless. 

Bede  during  his  last  illness  was 
translating  St.  John's  Gospel  into 
Anglo-Saxon,  and  the  morning  of 
his  death  his  secretary,  observing 
his  weakness,  said,  "There  remains 
now  only  one  chapter,  and  it  seems 
difficult  to  you  to  speak."  "It  is 
easy,"  said  Bede;  "take  your  pen 
and  write  as  fast  as  you  can."  At 
the  close  of  the  chapter  the  scribe 
said,  "It  is  finished,"  to  which,  he 
replied,  "  Thou  hast  said  the  truth, 
consummatum  est."  He  then  di- 
vided his  little  property  among  the 
brethren,  having  done  which  he 
asked  to  be  placed  opposite  to  the 
place  where  he  usually  prayed,  said 
'•Glory  be  to  the  Father,  and  to  the 
Son,  and  to  the  Holy  Ghost,"  and 
as  he  pronounced  the  last  word  he 
expired. 

Goethe  died  without  any  apparent 
suffering,  having  just  prepared  him- 
self to  write,  and  expressed  his  de- 
light at  the  return  of  spring. 

We  are  told  of  Mozart's  death 
that  "the  unfinished  requiem  lay 
upon  the  bed,  and  his  last  efforts 
were  to  imitate  some  peculiar  in- 
strumental effects,  as  he  breathed 
out  his  life  in  the  arms  of  his  wife 
and  their  friend  Siissmaier." 

Plato  died  in  the  act  of  writing ; 
Lucan  while  reciting  part  of  his 
book  on  the  war  of  Pharsalus ;  Blake 
died  singing  ;  Wagner  in  sleep  with 
his  head  on  his  wife's  shoulder. 
Many  have  passed  away  in  their 
sleep.  Various  high  medical  au- 
thorities have  expressed  their  sur- 
prise that  the  dying  seldom  feel 
«ither  dismay  or  regret.  And  even 
those  who  perish  by  violence,  as  for 
instance  in  battle,  feel,  it  is  proba- 
ble, but  little  suffering. 

But  what  of  the  future?  There 
may  be  said  to  be  now  two  principal 
views.  There  are  some  who  believe 
indeed  in  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  but  not  of  the  individual  soul ; 
that  our  life  is  continued  in  that  of 


our  children  would  seem  indeed  to 
be  the  natural  deduction  from  the 
simile  of  St.  Paul,  as  thao  of  the 
grain  of  wheat  is  carried  ou  in  the 
plant  of  the  following  year. 

So  long  indeed  as  happiness  ( xists 
it  is  selfish  to  dwell  too  much  on  our 
own  share  in  it.  Admit  that  the  soul 
is  immortal,  but  that  in  the  future 
state  of  existance  there  is  a  break  in 
the  continuity  of  memory,  that  one 
does  not  remember  the  present  life, 
and  from  this  point  of  view  is  not  the 
importance  of  identity  involved  in 
that  of  continuous  memory?  But 
however  this  may  be  according  to  the 
general  view,  the  soul,  though  de- 
tached from  the  body,  will  retain 
its  conscious  identity,  and  will 
awake  from  death,  as  it  does  from 
sleep;  so  that  if  we  cannot  ffirm 
that 

"Millions  of  spiritual  creatures  walk  the  Earth, 
Unseen,  both  when  we  wake,  and  when  we  sleep."* 

at  any  rate  they  exist  somewhere 
else  in  space,  and  we  are  indeed 
looking  at  them  when  we  gaze  at  the 
stars,  though  to  our  eyes  they  are  as 
yet  invisible. 

In  neither  case,  however,  can  death 
be  regarded  as  an  evil.  To  wish 
that  youth  and  strength  were  unaf- 
fected by  time  might  be  a  different 
matter. 

"But  if  we  are  not  destined  to  be 
immortal,  yet  it  is  a  desirable  thing 
for  a  man  to  expire  at  his  fit  time. 
For,  as  nature  prescribes  a  bound- 
ary to  all  other  things,  so  does  she 
also  to  life.  Now  old  age  is  the 
consummation  of  life,  just  as  of  a 
play:  from  the  fatigue  of  which  we 
ought  to  escape,  especially  when 
satiety  is  superadded."f 

From  this  point  of  view,  then,  we 
need 

"  Weep  not  for  death, 

'Tis  but  a  fever  stilled, 
A.  pain  suppressed,—  a  fear  at  rest, 

A  solemn  hope  fulfilled. 
The  moonshine  on  the  slumbering  deep 

Is  scarcely  calmer.    Wherefore  weep  ? 


*  Milton. 
tCicero. 


55 


i.03 

"  Weep  not  for  deatln 

The  fount  of  tears  is  sealed, 
Who  knows  how  bright  the  inward  light 

To  those  closed  eyes  revealed  ? 
Who  knows  what  holy  love  may  fill 

The  heart  that  seems  so  cold  and  still." 

Many  a  weary  soul  will  have  re- 
curred with  comfort  to  the  thought 
that 

"  A  few  more  years  shall  roll, 
A  few  more  seasons  come, 
And  we  shall  be  with  those  that  rest 

Asleep  within  the  tomb. 
"  A  few  more  struggles  here, 
A  few  more  partings  o'er, 
A  few  more  toils,  a  few  more  tears, 
And  we  shall  weep  no  more." 

By  no  one  has  this,  however,  been 
more  grandly  expressed  than  by 
Shelley. 

"  Peace,  peace  I  he  is  not  dead,  he  doth  not  sleep  ! 

He  hath  awakened  from  the  dream  of  life. 

"Tis  we  who,  lost  in  stormy  visions,  keep 

With  phantoms  an  unprofitable  strife, 

He  has  outsoared  the  shadows  of  our  night. 

Envy  and  calumny,  and  hate  and  pain, 

And  that  unrest  which  men  miscall  delight, 

Can  touch  him  not  and  torture  not  again. 

From  the  contagion  of  the  world's  slow  stain 

He  is  secure,  and  now  can  never  mourn 

A  heart  grown  cold,  a  head  grown  gray,  in  vain — " 

Most  men,  however,  decline  to 
believe  that 

"We  are  such  stuff 

As  dreams  are  made  of,  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep."  * 

According  to  the  more  general 
view  death  frees  the  soul  from  the 
encumbrance  of  the  spirit,  and  sum- 
mons us  to  the  seat  of  judgment. 
In  fact, 

"  There  is  no  Death  !  What  seems  so  is  transition; 

This  life  of  mortal  breath 
Is  but  a  suburb  of  the  life  elysian, 
Whose  portal  we  call  Death.'1 1 

We  have  bodies,  "  we  are  spirits." 
"  I  am  a  soul,"  said  Epictetus,  "  drag- 
ging about  a  corpse."  The  body  is 
the  mere  perishable  form  of  the  im- 
mortal essence.  Plato  concluded 
that  if  the  ways  of  God  are  to  be 
justified,  there  must  be  a  future  life. 

To  the  aged  in  either  case  death 
is  a  release.  The  Bible  dwells  most 
forcibly  on  the  blessing  of  peace. 
"  My  peace  I  give  unto  you  :  not  as 
the  world  giveth,  give  f  unto  you." 
Heaven  is  described  as  a  place  where 
the  wicked  cease  from  troubling, 
and  the  weary  are  at  rest. 

But  I  suppose   every  one  must 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE 


•Shakespeare, 
t  Longfellow. 


have  asked  himself  in  what  can  the 
pleasures  of  heaven  consist. 

'•  For  all  we  know 
Of  what  the  blessed  do  above 
Is  that  they  sing,  and  that  they  love."  * 

It  would  indeed  accord  with  few 
men's  ideal  that  there  should  be  any 
"  struggle  for  existence  "  in  heaven. 
"We  should  then  be  little  better  off 
than  we  are  now.  This  world  is  very 
beautiful,  if  we  could  only  enjoy  it  in 
peace.  And  yet  mere  passive  exist- 
ence —  mere  vegetation  —  would  in 
itself  offer  few  attractions.  It  would 
indeed  be  almost  intolerable. 

Again,  the  anxiety  of  change 
seems  inconsistent  with  perfect 
happiness  ;  and  yet  a  wearisome,  in- 
terminable monotony,  the  same 
thing  over  and  over  again  for  ever 
and  ever  without  relief  or  variety, 
suggests  dulness  rather  than  bliss. 

I  feel  that  to  me,  said  Greg,  "  God 
has  promised  not  the  heaven  of  the 
ascetic  temper,  or  the  dogmatic  theo- 
logian, or  of  the  subtle  mystic,  or  of 
the  stern  martyr  ready  alike  to  inflict 
and  bear ;  but  a  heaven  of  purified 
and  permanent  affections  —  of  a 
book  of  knowledge  with  eternal 
leaves,  and  unbounded  capacities  to 
read  it  —  of  those  we  love  ever 
round  us,  never  misconceiving  us,  or 
being  harassed  by  us  —  of  glorious 
work  to  do,  and  adequate  faculties 
to  do  it  —  a  world  of  solved  prob- 
lems, as  well  as  of  realized  ideals." 

"  For  still  the  doubt  came  back,— Can  God  provide 
For  the  large  heart  of  man  what  shall  not  pall, 

Nor  through  eternal  ages'  endless  tide 
On  tired  spirit  fall  ? 

"  These  make  him  say,—  If  God  has  so  arrayed 
A  fading  world  that  quickly  passes  by, 

Such  rich  provision  of  delight  has  made 
For  every  human  eye, 

What  shall  the  eyes  that  wait  for  him  survey 
When  his  own  presence  gloriously  appears, 

In  worlds  that  were  not  founded  for  a  day, 
But  for  eternal  years  ?  "  t 

Here  Science  seems  to  suggest  a 
possible  answer :  the  solution  of 
problems  which  have  puzzled  us 
here  ;  the  acquisition  of  new  ideas ; 
the  unrolling  the  history  of  the  past ; 
the  world  of  animals  and  plants ;  the 


*  Waller. 
t  Trench. 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE 


103 


secrets  of  space ;  the  wonders  of  the 
stars  and  of  the  regions  beyond  the 
stars.  To  become  acquainted  with 
all  the  beautiful  and  interesting  spots 
of  our  own  world  would  indeed  be 
something  to  look  forward  to,  and 
our  world  is  but  one  of  many  mil- 
lions. I  sometimes  wonder  as  I  look 
away  to  the  stars  at  night  whether  it 
will  ever  be  my  privilege  as  a  disem- 
bodied spirit  to  visit  and  explore 
them.  When  we  had  made  the  great 
tour  fresh  interests  would  have 
arisen,  and  we  might  well  begin 
again. 

Here  there  is  an  infinity  of  interest 
without  anxiety.  So  that  at  last  the 
only  doubt  may  be. 

"  Lest  an  eternity  should  not  suffice 

To  take  the  measure  and  the  breadth  and  height 
Of  what  there  is  reserved  in  Paradise 

Its  ever- new  delight."  * 

Cicero  surely  did  not  exaggerate 
when  he  said,  "  O  glorious  day ! 
when  I  shall  depart  to  that  divine 
company  and  assemblage  of  spirits, 
and  quit  this  troubled  and  polluted 
scene.  For  I  shall  go  not  only  to 
those  great  men  of  whom  I  have 
spoken  before,  but  also  to  my  son 
Cato,  than  whom  never  was  better 
man  born,  nor  more  distinguished 
for  pious  affection  ;  whose  body  was 
burned  by  me.  whereas,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  was  fitting  that  mine  should 
be  burned  by  him.  But  his  soul 
not  deserting  me,  but  oft  looking 
back,  no  doubt  departed  to  these 
regions  whither  it  saw  that  I  my- 
self was  destined  to  come.  "Which, 
though  a  distress  to  me,  I  seemed 
patiently  to  endure  :  not  that  I  bore 
it  with  indifference,  but  I  comforted 
myself  with  the  recollection  that  the 
separation  and  distance  between  us 
would  not  continue  long.  For  these 
reasons,  O  Scipio  (since  you  said 
that  you  with  Lselius  were  accus- 
tomed to  wonder  at  this),  old  age  is 
tolerable  to  me,  and  not  only  not 
irksome,  but  even  delightful.  And 
if  I  am  wrong  in  this,  that  1  believe 
the  souls  of  men  to  be  immortal,  I 


*  Trench. 


57 


willingly  delude  myself :  nor  do  I 
desire  that  this  mistake,  in  which  I 
take  pleasure,  should  be  wrested 
from  me  as  long  as  I  live ;  but  if  I, 
when  dead,  shall  have  no  conscious- 
ness, as  some  narrow-minded  phil- 
osophers imagine,  I  do  not  fear  lest 
dead  philosophers  should  ridicule 
this  my  delusion." 

Nor  can  I  omit  the  striking  pas- 
sage in  the  Apology,  when  pleading 
before  the  people  of  Athens,  Soc- 
rates says,  "  Let  us  reflect  in  another 
way,  and  we  shall  see  that  there  is 
great  reason  to  hope  that  death  is  a 
good ;  for  one  of  two  things — either 
death  is  a  state  of  nothingness  and 
utter  unconsciousness,  or,  as  men 
say,  there  is  a  change  and  migration 
of  the  soul  from  this  world  to  an- 
other. Now  if  you  suppose  that 
there  is  no  consciousness,  but  a  sleep 
like  the  sleep  of  him  who  is  undis- 
turbed even  by  the  sight  of  dreams, 
death  will  be  an  unspeakable  gain. 
For  if  a  person  were  to  select  the 
night  in  which  his  sleep  was  undis- 
turbed even  by  dreams,  and  were 
to  compare  with  this  the  other  days 
and  nights  of  his  life,  and  then  were 
to  tell  us  how  many  days  and  nights 
he  had  passed  in  the  course  of  his 
life  better  and  more  pleasantly  than 
this  one,  I  think  that  any  man,  I 
will  not  say  a  private  man,  but  even 
the  great  king  will  not  find  many 
such  days  or  nights,  when  compared 
with  the  others.  Now,  if  death  is 
like  this,  I  say  that  to  die  is  gain  ; 
for  eternity  is  then  only  a  single 
night.  But  if  death  is  the  journey 
to  another  place,  and  there,  as  men 
say,  all  the  dead  are,  what  good, 
O  my  friends  and  judges,  can  be 
greater  than  this  ? 

"If,  indeed,  when  the  pilgrim 
arrives  in  the  world  below,  he  is 
delivered  from  the  professors  of 
justice  in  this  world,  and  finds  the 
true  judges,  who  are  said  to  give 
judgment  there,— Minos,  and  Ehada- 
tnanthus,  and  4lacus,  and  Triptole- 
mus,  and  other  sons  of  God  who 
were  righteous  in  their  own  life, — 
that  pilgrimage  will  be  worth  mak- 


104 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIEXCE 


ing.  What  would  not  a  man  give 
if  he  might  converse  with  Orpheus, 
and  Musaeus,  and  Hesoid,  and  Ho- 
mer? Nay,  if  this  be  true,  let  me 
die  again  and  again.  I  myself,  too, 
shall  have  a  wonderful  interest  in 
there  meeting  and  conversing  witl 
Palamedes,  and  Ajax  the  son  of 
Telamon,  and  other  heroes  of  old, 
who  have  suffered  death  through  an 
unjust  judgment ;  and  there  will  be 
no  small  pleasure,  as  I  think,  in 
comparing  my  own  sufferings  with 
theirs.  Above  all,  I  shall  then  be 
able  to  continue  my  search  into  true 
and  false  knowledge ;  as  in  this 
world,  so  also  in  that ;  and  I  shall 
find  out  who  is  wise,  and  who  pre- 
tends to  be  wise,  and  is  not.  What 
would  not  a  man  give,  O  judges,  to 
be  able  to  examine  the  leader  of  the 
great  Trojfin  expedition  ;  or  Odysse- 
us or  Sisyphus,  or  numberless  others, 
men  and  women  too  !  What  infinite 
delight  would  there  be  in  convers- 
ing with  them  and  asking  them 
questions.  In  another  world  they 
do  not  put  a  man  to  death  for  asking 
questions ;  assuredly  not.  For  be- 
sides being  happier  in  that  world 
than  in  this,  they  will  be  immortal,  if 
what  is  said  be  true. 

"Wherefore,  O  judges,  be  of  good 
cheer  about  death,  and  know  of  a 
certainty  that  no  evil  can  happen  to 
a  good  man,  either  in  life  or  after 
death.  He  and  his  are  not  neglected 
by  the  gods ;  nor  has  my  own  ap- 
proaching end  happened  by  mere 
chance.  But  I  see  clearly  that  to  die 
and  be  released  was  better  for  me ; 
and  therefore  the  oracle  gave  no 
sign.  For  which  reason,  also,  I  am 
not  angry  with  my  condemners,  or 
with  my  accusers ;  they  have  done 
me  no  harm,  although  they  did  not 
mean  to  do  me  any  good ;  and  for 
this  I  may  gently  blame  them.  The 
hour  of  departure  has  arrived,  and 
we  go  our  ways  —  I  to  die  and  you 
to  live.  Which  is  better  God  only 
knows."  J 


In  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon  we 
are  promised  that — 

"  The  souls  of  the  righteous  are  in 
the  hand  of  God,  and  there  shall  no 
torment  touch  them. 

"  In  the  sight  of  the  unwise  they 
seemed  to  die ;  and  their  departure 
is  taken  for  misery. 

"  And  their  going  from  us  to  be 
utter  destruction :  but  they  are  in 
peace. 

"For  though  they  be  punished  in 
the  sight  of  men,  yet  is  their  hope 
full  of  immortality. 

"  And  having  been  a  little  chas- 
tised, they  shall  be  greatly  rewarded : 
for  God  proved  them,  and  found 
them  worthy  for  himself." 

And  assuredly,  if  in  the  hour  of 
death  the  conscience  is  at  peace,  the 
mind  need  not  be  troubled.  The 
future  is  full  of  doubt,  indeed,  but 
fuller  still  of  hope. 

If  we  are  entering  upon  a  rest 
after  the  struggles  of  life, 

"  Where  the  wicked  cease  from  troubling, 
And  the  weary  are  at  rest," 

that  to  many  a  weary  soul  will  be  a 
welcome  borne,  and  even  then  we 
may  say, 

"  O  Death!  where  is  thy  sting? 
O  Gravel  where  is  thy  victory?  " 

On  the  other  hand,  if  we  are  enter- 
ing on  a  new  sphere  of  existence, 
where  we  may  look  forward  to  meet 
not  only  those  of  whom  we  have 
heard  so  often,  those  whose  works 
we  have  read  and  admired,  and  to 
whom  we  owe  so  much,  but  those 
also  whom  we  have  loved  and  lost ; 
when  we  shall  leave  behind  us  the 
bonds  of  the  flesh  and  the  limita- 
tions of  our  earthly  existence  ;  when 
we  shall  join  the  Angels,  and  Arch- 
angels, and  all  the  company  of 
Heaven, —  then,  indeed,  we  may 
cherish  a  sure  and  certain  hope  that 
the  interests  and  pleasures  of  this 
world  are  as  nothing  compared  to 
those  of  the  life  that  awaits  us  in 
our  Eternal  Home. 


THE   END. 


68 


CONTENTS. 


CHARLES  DARWIN. 

CHAP.  PAGE. 

I.  INTBODUCTOBY  NOTICE.    BY  T.  H.  HUXLEY,  P.R.S 107 

II.  LIFE  AND  CHAEACTEB.    BY  G.  J.  ROMANES,  F.R.S 108 

III.  WOBK  IN  GEOLOGY.    BY  ARCHIBALD  GEIKIE,  F.R.S 113 

IV.  WOBK  IN  BOTANY.     BY  W.  T.  THISELTON  DYES,  F.R.S.          .        .        .•  117 
V.  WOBK  IN  ZOOLOGY.    BY  G.  J.  ROMANES,  F.R.S. 122 

VI.  WOBK  IN  PSYCHOLOGY.    BY  THE  SAME 127 

ALEXANDER   VON    HUMBOLDT. 

I.  CENTENNIAL  ADDBESS.    BY  Louis  AGASSIZ. 133 

II.  REMARKS  BY  PBOF.  FBEDEBIC  H.  HODGE.  151 


DARWIN  AND  HUMBOLDT 


THEIR  LIVES  AND  WORK 


CHARLES    DARWIN 


I.  INTRODUCTORY  NOTICE. 


BY    PROF.    T.    H.    HUXLEY,    F.K.S. 


Very  few,  even  among  those  who 
nave  taken  the  keenest  interest  in  the 
progress  of  the  revolution  in  natural 
knowledge  set  afoot  by  the  publica- 
tion of  the  Origin  of  Species,  and 
who  have  watched,  not  without  as- 
tonishment, the  rapid  and  complete 
change  which  has  been  effected  both 
inside  and  outside  the  boundaries  of 
the  scientific  world  in  the  attitude  of 
men's  minds  toward  the  doctrines 
which  are  expounded  in  that  great 
work,  can  have  been  prepared  for  the 
extraordinary  manifestation  of  affec 
tionate  regard  for  the  man,  and  of 
profound  reverence  for  the  philoso- 
pher, which  followed  the  announce- 
ment of  the  death  of  Mr.  DARWIN. 


Not  only  in  these  islands,  where  so 
many  have  felt  the  fascination  of 
personal  contact  with  an  intellect 
which  had  no  superior,  and  with  a 
character  which  was  even  nobler  than 
the  intellect ;  but,  in  all  parts  of  the 
civilized  world,  it  would  seem  that 
those  whose  business  it  is  to  feel  the 
pulse  of  nations  and  to  know  what 
interests  the  masses  of  mankind,  were 
well  aware  that  thousands  of  their 
readers  would  think  the  world  the 
poorer  for  DARWIN'S  death,  and  would 
dwell  with  eager  interest  upon  every 
incident  of  his  history.  In  France, 
in  Germany,  in  Austro- Hungary,  in 
Italy,  in  the  United  States,  writers  of 
all  shades  of  opinion,  for  once  unani- 
mous, have  paid  a  willing  tribute  to 
the  worth  of  our  great  countryman, 
ignored  in  life  by  the  official  represen- 
tatives of  the  kingdom,  but  laid  ic 


io8 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


death  among  his  peers  in  Westminster 
Abbey  by  the  will  of  the  intelligence 
of  the  nation. 

It  is  not  for  us  to  allude  to  the 
sacred  sorrows  of  the  bereaved  home 
at  Down ;  but  it  is  no  secret  that, 
outside  that  domestic  group,  there 
are  many  to  whom  Mr.  DARWIN'S 
death  is  a  wholly  irreparable  loss. 
And  this  not  merely  because  of  his 
wonderfully  genial,  simple,  and  gener- 
ous nature ;  his  cheerful  and  animated 
conversation,  and  the  infinite  vai'iety 
and  accuracy  of  his  information  ;  but 
because  the  more  one  knew  of  him, 
the  more  he  seemed  the  incorporated 
ideal  of  a  man  of  science.  Acute  as 
were  his  reasoning  powers,  vast  as 
was  his  knowledge,  marvelous  as  was 
his  tenacious  industry,  under  physical 
difficulties  which  would  have  convert- 
ed nine  men  out  of  ten  into  aimless 
invalids ;  it  was  not  these  qualities, 
great  as  they  were,  which  impressed 
those  who  were  admitted  to  his  inti- 
macy with  involuntary  veneration, 
but  a  certain  intense  and  almost  pas- 
sionate honesty  by  which  all  his 
thoughts  and  actions  were  irradiated, 
as  by  a  central  fire. 

It  was  this  rarest  and  greatest  of 
endowments  which  kept  his  vivid 
imagination  and  great  speculative 
powers  within  due  bounds ;  which 
compelled  him  to  undertake  the  pro- 
digious labors  of  original  investiga- 
tion and  of  reading,  upon  which  his 
published  works  are  based;  which 
made  him  accept  criticisms  and 
suggestions  from  any  body  and  every 
body,  not  only  without  impatience, 
but  with  expressions  of  gratitude 
sometimes  almost  comically  in  excess 
of  their  value ;  which  led  him  to 
allow  neither  himself  nor  others  to  be 
deceived  by  phrases,  and  to  spare 
neither  time  nor  pains  in  order  to 
obtain  clear  and  distinct  ideas  upon 
every  topic  with  which  he  occupied 
himself. 

One  could  not  converse  with  DAB- 
WIN  without  being  reminded  of  SO- 
CRATES. There  was  the  same  desire 
to  find  some  one  wiser  than  himself ; 


reason ;  the  same  ready  humor ;  the 
same  sympathetic  interest  in  all  the 
ways  and  works  of  men  But  instead 
of  turning  away  from  the  problems 
of  nature  as  hopelessly  insoluble,  our 
modern  Philosopher  devoted  his 
whole  life  to  attacking  them  in  the 
spirit  of  HEKACLITUS  and  of  DE- 
MOCRITUS,  with  results  which  are  as 
the  substance  of  which  their  specula- 
tion were  anticipatory  shadows. 

The  due  appreciation  or  even 
enumeration  of  these  results  is  neithei 
practicable  nor  desirable  at  this  mo- 
ment. There  is  a  time  for  all  things 
— a  time  for  glorying  in  our  ever- 
extending  conquests  over  the  realm 
of  nature,  and  a  time  for  mourning 
over  the  heroes  who  have  led  us  to 
victory. 

None  have  fought  better,  and  none 
have  been  more  fortunate,  than 
CHARLES  DARWIN.  He  found  a 
great  truth  trodden  under  foot,  re- 
viled by  bigots,  and  ridiculed  by  all 
the  world;  he  lived  long  enough 
to  see  it,  chiefly  by  his  own  efforts, 
irrefragably  established  in  science, 
inseparably  incorporated  with  the 
common  thoughts  of  men,  and  only 
hated  and  feared  by  those  who  would 
revile,  but  dare  not.  What  shall  a 
man  more  desire  than  this?  Once 
more  the  image  of  SOCRATES  rises  un- 
bidden, and  the  noble  peroration  of 
the  Apology  rings  in  our  ears  as  if  it 
were  CHARLES  DARWIN'S  farewell : 

"The  hour  of  departure  has  ar- 
rived, and  we  go  our  ways — I  to  die, 
and  you  to  live.  Which  is  the  better, 
God  only  knows." 


II.  CHARACTER  AND  LIFE. 


BY   G.    J.    ROMANES,  P.R.S. 


The  object  of  this  notice  is  to  give 
a  brief  account  of  the  life,  and  a  pro- 
portionately still  more  brief  account 
of  the  work  of  Mr.  DARWIN.  But 
while  we  recognize  in  him  perhaps  the 
greatest  genius  and  the  most  fertile 
thinker,  certainly  the  most  important 


th*  same  belief  in  the  sovereignty  of  'generalUer  and   one   of  the  few  most 

a.. 


DARWIN  AND  HUMBOLDT. 


log 


successful  observers  in  the  whole  histo 
ry  of  biological  science,  we  feel  that 
no  less  great,  or  even  greater  than  the 
wonderful  intellect  was  the  character 
of  the  man.  Therefore  it  is  in  his 
case  particularly  and  pre-eminently 
true  that  the  first  duty  of  biographers 
will  be  to  render  some  idea,  not  of 
what  he  did,  but  of  what  he  was.  And 
this,  unfortunately,  is  just  the  point 
where  all  his  biographers  must  nec- 
essarily fail.  For  while  to  those 
favored  few  who  were  on  terms  of 
intimate  friendship  with  him,  any 
language  by  which  it  is  sought  to 
portray  his  character  must  seem 
inadequate,  to  every  one  else  the  same 
language  must  appear  the  result  of 
enthusiastic  admiration,  finding  vent 
in  extravagant  panegyric.  Whatever 
is  great  and  whatever  is  beautiful  in 
human  nature  found  in  him  so  lux 
uriant  a  development,  that  no  place  or 
chance  was  left  for  any  other  growth, 
and  in  the  result  we  beheld  a  magnifi- 
cence which,  unless  actually  realized, 
we  should  scarcely  have  been  able  to 
imagine.  Any  attempt,  therefore,  to 
describe  such  a  character  must  be 
much  like  an  attempt  to  describe  a 
splendid  piece  of  natural  scenery  or  a 
marvelous  work  of  art;  the  thing 
must  itself  have  been  seen,  if  any  de- 
scription of  it  is  to  be  understood. 

But  without  attempting  to  describe 
Mr.  DARWIN'S  character,  if  we  were 
asked  to  indicate  the  features  which 
stood  out  with  most  marked  prom- 
inence, we  should  first  mention  those 
which,  from  being  conspicuous  in 
his  writings,  are  already  more  or  less 
known  to  all  the  world.  Thus,  the 
absorbing  desire  to  seek  out  truth  for 
truth's  sake,  combined  with  a  char- 
acteristic disregard  of  self,  led  not 
only  to  the  caution,  patience,  and 
candor  of  his  own  work — which  are 
proverbial — and  to  the  generous  sat- 
isfaction which  .  he  felt  on  finding 
any  of  his  thoughts  or  results  inde- 
pendently attained  by  the  work  of 
others ;  but  also  to  a  keen  and  vivid 
freshness  of  interest  in  every  detail 
of  a  new  research,  such  as  we  have 
sometimes  seen  approached  by  much 


younger  men  when  the  research 
happens  to  have  been  their  own.  And 
indeed  what  we  may  call  this  fervid 
youthf  ulness  of  feeling  extended 
through  all  Mr.  DARWIN'S  mind,  giv- 
ing, in  combination  with  his  immense 
knowledge  and  massive  sagacity,  an 
indescribable  charm  to  his  manner 
and  conversation.  Animated  and 
fond  of  humor,  his  wit  was  of  a 
singularly  fascinating  kind,  not  only 
because  it  was  always  brilliant  and 
amusing,  but  still  more  because  it 
was  always  hearty  and  good-natured. 
Indeed,  he  was  so  exquisitely  refined 
in  his  own  feelings,  and  so  almost 
painfully  sensitive  to  any  display  of 
questionable  taste  in  others,  that  he 
could  not  help  showing  in  his  humor, 
as  in  the  warp  and  woof  of  his  whole 
nature,  that  in  him  the  man  of  science 
and  the  philosopher  were  subordinate 
to  the  gentleman.  His  courteous  con- 
sideration of  others,  also,  which  went 
far  beyond  anything  that  the  ordinary 
usages  of  society  require,  was  simi- 
larly prompted  by  his  mere  spontane- 
ous instinct  of  benevolence. 

For  who  can  always  act  ?  but  he, 
To  whom  a  thousand  memories  call 
Not  being  less  but  more  than  all 

The  gentleness  he  seemed  to  be, 

Best  seem'd  the  thing  he  was,  and  join'd 
Each  office  of  the  social  hour 
To  noble  manners,  as  the  flower 

And  native  growth  of  noble  mind  ; 

Nor  ever  narrowness  or  spite, 
Or  villain  fancy  fleeting  by, 
Drew  in  the  expression  of  an  eye, 

Where  God  and  nature  met  in  light. 

And  this  leads  us  to  speak  of  his 
kindness,  which,  whether  we  look  to 
its  depth  or  to  its  width,  must  certain- 
ly be  regarded  as  perhaps  the  most 
remarkable  feature  of  his  remarkable 
disposition.  The  genuine  delight 
that  he  took  in  helping  every  one  in 
their  work — often  at  the  cost  of  much 
personal  trouble  to  himself — in  throw- 
ing out  numberless  suggestions  for 
others  to  profit  by,  and  in  kindling 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  humblest  tyro 
in  science ;  this  was  the  outcome  of 
a  great  and  generous  heart,  quite  as 


no 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


much  as  it  was  due  to  a  desire  for  the 
advancement  of  science.  Nothing 
seemed  to  give  him  a  keener  joy  than 
being  able  to  write  to  any  of  his 
friends  a  warm  and  glowing  congratu- 
lation upon  their  gaining  some  success ; 
and  the  exuberance  of  his  feelings  on 
such  occassions  generally  led  him  to 
conceive  a  much  higher  estimate  of 
the  importance  of  the  results  attained 
than  he  would  have  held  had  the  suc- 
cess been  achieved  by  himself.  For 
the  modesty  with  which  he  regarded 
his  own  work  was  no  less  remarkable 
than  his  readiness  enthusiastically  to 
admire  the  work  of  others  ;  so  that, 
to  any  one  who  did  not  know  him 
well,  this  extreme  modesty,  from  its 
very  completeness  and  unconscious- 
ness, might  almost  have  appeared  the 
result  of  affectation.  At  least,  speak- 
ing for  ourselves,  when  we  first  met 
him,  and  happened  to  see  him  convers- 
ing with  a  greatly  younger  man, 
quite  unknown  either  in  science  or 
literature,  we  thought  it  must  have 
been  impossible  that  Mr.  DARWIN — 
then  the  law  giver  to  the  world  of 
biology — could  with  honest  sincerity 
be  submitting,  in  the  way  he  did,  his 
matured  thought  to  the  judgment  of 
such  a  youth.  But  afterward  we 
came  fully  to  learn  that  no  one  was 
so  unconscious  of  Mr.  DARWIN'S 
worth  as  Mr.  DARWIN  himself,  and 
that  it  was  a  fixed  habit  of  his  mind 
to  seek  for  opinions  as  well  as  facts 
from  every  available  quarter.  It 
must  be  added,  however,  that  his 
tendency  to  go  beyond  the  Scriptural 
injunction  in  the  matter  of  self 
approval,  and  to  think  of  others  more 
highly  than  he  ought  to  think,  never 
clouded  his  final  judgment  upon  the 
value  of  their  opinions ;  but  spontane- 
ously following  another  of  these  in- 
junctions, while  proving  all  things,  he 
held  fast  only  to  that  which  was 
good.  "In  malice  be  ye  children, 
but  in  understanding  be  ye  men." 

On  the  whole,  then,  we  should  say 
that  Mr.  DARWIN'S  character  was 
chiefly  marked  by  a  certain  grand  and 
cheerful  simplicity,  strangely  and 
beautifully  united  with  a  deep  and 


thoughtful  wisdom,  which,  together 
with  his  illimitable  kindness  to  otherg 
and  complete  forgetfulness  of  him- 
self, made  a  combination  as  lovable 
as  it  was  venerable.  It  is,  therefore, 
not  to  be  wondered  at  that  no  man 
ever  passed  away  leaving  behind  him 
a  greater  void  of  enmity,  or  a  depth 
of  adoring  friendship  more  profound. 

But,  as  we  have  said,  it  is  im- 
possible to  convey  in  words  any 
adequate  conception  of  a  character 
which  in  beauty  as  in  grandeur  can 
only,  with  all  sobriety,  be  called 
sublime.  If  the  generations  are  ever 
to  learn,  with  any  approach  to  accu- 
racy, what  Mr.  DARWIN  was,  his  biog- 
raphers may  best  teach  them  by 
allowing  this  most  extraordinary 
man  to  speak  for  himself  through  the 
medium  of  his  correspondence,  as 
well  as  through  that  of  his  books; 
and  therefore,  as  a  small  foretaste  of 
the  complete  biography  which  will 
some  day  appear,  we  shall  quote  a 
letter  in  which  he  describes  the  char- 
acter of  his  great  friend  and  teacher, 
the  late  Prof.  P!ENSLOW,  of  Cambridge. 
We  choose  this  letter  to  quote  from 
on  account  of  the  singular  manner  in 
which  the  writer,  while  describing 
the  character  of  another,  is  uncon- 
sciously giving  a  most  accurate  de- 
scription of  his  own.  It  is  of  im- 
portance also  that  in  any  biographical 
history  of  Mr.  DARWIN,  Professor 
HENSLOW'S  character  should  be  duly 
considered,  seeing  that  he  exerted  so 
great  an  influence  upon  the  expanding 
powers  of  Mr.  DARWIN'S  mind.  We 
quote  the  letter  from  the  Rev.  L. 
JENYNS'S  Memoir  of  the  late  Prof. 
Henslow. 

"I  went  to  Cambridge  early  in  the 
year  1828,  and  soon  became  acquaint- 


of    my   brother 
Prof.   HENSLOW, 


ed,  through  some 
entomologists,  with 
for  all  who  cared  for  any  branch  of 
natural  history  were  equally  en- 
couraged by  him.  Nothing  could  be 
more  simple,  cordial,  and  unpretend- 
ing than  the  encouragement  which 
he  afforded  to  all  young  naturalists. 
I  soon  became  intimate  with  him,  for 
he  had  a  remarkable  power  of  mak- 


DARWIN  AND  HUMBOLDT. 


tit 


ing  the  young  feel  completely  at  ease 
with  him,  though  we  were  all  awe- 
struck with  the  amount  of  his  knowl- 
edge. Before  I  saw  him,  I  heard 
one  young  man  sum  up  his  attain- 
ments by  simply  saying  that  he 
knew  everything.  When  I  reflect 
how  immediately  we  felt  at  perfect 
ease  with  a  man  older,  and  in  every 
way  so  immensely  our  superior,  I  think 
it  was  as  much  owing  to  the  trans- 
parent sincerity  of  his  character  as  to 
his  kindness  of  heart,  and  perhaps 
even  still  more  to  a  highly  remarkable 
absence  in  him  of  all  self -conscious- 
ness. We  perceived  at  once  that  he 
never  thought  of  his  own  varied 
knowledge  or  clear  intellect,  but  sole- 
ly on  the  subject  in  hand.  Another 
charm,  which  must  have  struck  every 
one,  was  that  his  manner  to  a  distin- 
guished person  and  to  the  youngest 
student  was  exactly  the  same :  to  all, 
the  same  winning  courtesy.  He 
would  receive  with  interest  the  most 
trifling  observation  in  any  branch  of 
natural  history,  and  however  absurd 
a  blunder  one  might  make,  he  pointed 
it  out  so  clearly  and  kindly  that  one 
left  him  in  no  way  disheartened,  but 
only  determined  to  be  more  accurate 
the  next  time.  So  that  no  man 
could  be  better  formed  to  win  the 
entire  confidence  of  the  young  and 
to  encourage  them  in  their  pursuits. . . 

"  During  the  years  when  I  associa- 
ted so  much  with  Prof.  HENSLOW,  I 
never  once  saw  his  temper  even  ruf- 
fled. He  never  took  an  ill  natured 
view  of  any  one's  character,  though 
very  far  from  blind  to  the  foibles  of 
others.  It  always  struck  me  that  his 
mind  could  not  be  well  touched  by 
any  paltry  feeling  of  envy,  vanity, 
or  jealousy.  With  all  this  equability 
of  temper,  and  remarkable  benev- 
olence, there  was  no  insipidity  of 
character.  A  man  must  have  been 
blind  not  to  have  perceived  that 
beneath  this  placid  exterior  there  was 
a  vigoi'ous  and  determined  will. 
When  principle  came  into  play,  no 
power  on  earth  could  have  turned 
him  an  hair's  breadth.  .  .  . 

"In   intellect,  as  far   as  I  could 


judge,  accurate  powers  of  observation, 
sound  sense,  and  cautious  judgment 
seemed  to  predominate.  Nothing 
seemed  to  give  him  so  much  enjoy- 
ment as  drawing  conclusions  from 
minute  observations.  But  his  admi- 
rable memoir  on  the  geology  of 
Anglesea  shows  his  capacity  for  ex- 
tended observations  and  broad  views. 
Reflecting  over  his  character  with 
gratitude  and  reverence,  his  moral 
attributes  rise,  as  they  should  do  in 
the  highest  characters,  in  pre-emi- 
nence, over  his  intellect." 

CHARLES  ROBERT  DARWIN  was 
born  at  Shrewsbury  on  February  12, 
1809.  His  father  was  Dr.  R.  W. 
DARWIN,  F.R.S.,  a  physician  of  emi- 
nence, who,  as  his  son  used  frequently 
to  remark,  had  a  wonderful  power  of 
diagnosing  diseases,  both  bodily  and 
mental,  by  the  aid  of  the  fewest 
possible  questions ;  and  his  quick- 
ness of  perception  was  such  that  he 
could  even  divine,  in  a  remarkable 
manner,  what  was  passing  through 
his  patients'  minds.  That,  like  his 
son,  he  was  benevolently  inclined, 
may  be  inferred  from  a  little  anecdote 
which  we  once  heard  Mr.  DARWIN 
tell  of  him  while  speaking  of  the 
curious  'kinds  of  pride  which  are 
sometimes  shown  by  the  poor.  For 
the  benefit  of  the  district  in  which  he 
lived  Dr.  DARWIN  offered  to  dispense 
medicines  gratis  to  any  one  who  ap- 
plied and  was  not  able  to  pay.  He 
was  surprised  to  find  that  very  few 
of  the  sick  poor  availed  themselves 
of  his  offer,  and  guessing  that  the 
reason  must  have  been  a  dislike  to 
becoming  the  recipients  of  charity, 
he  devised  a  plan  to  neutralize  this 
feeling.  Whenever  any  poor  persons 
applied  for  medical  aid,  he  told  them 
that  he  would  supply  the  medicine, 
but  that  they  must  pay  for  the  bottles. 
This  little  distinction  made  all  the 
difference,  and  ever  afterward  the 
poor  used  to  flock  to  the  doctor's  house 
for  relief  as  a  matter  of  right. 

Mr.  DARWIN'S  mother  was  a  daugh- 
ter of  JOSIAH  WEDGWOOD.  Little 
is  at  present  known  concerning  his 
early  life,  and  it  is  questionable 


112 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


whether  we  can  hope  to  learn  much 
with  reference  to  his  boyhood  or 
youth,  till  the  time  when  he  entered 
at  Edinburgh  We  can,  therefore, 
only  say  that  he  went  to  Shrewsbury 
School,  the  head  master  of  which  was 
at  that  time  Dr.  BUTLER,  afterward 
Bishop  of  Lichfield.  He  was  sent  to 
Edinburgh  (1825)  because  it  was  in- 
tended that  he  should  follow  his 
father's  profession,  and  Edinburgh 
was  then  the  best  medical  school  in 
the  kingdom.  He  studied  under 
Prof  JAMESON,  but  does  not  seem 
to  have  profited  at  all  by  whatever 
instruction  he  received  ;  for  not  only 
did  it  fail  to  awaken  in  him  any 
special  love  of  natural  history,  but 
even  seems  to  have  had  the  contrary 
effect. 

The  prospect  of  being  a  medical 
practitioner  proving  distasteful  to 
him,  he  was,  after  two  sessions  at 
Edinburgh,  removed  to  Christ's  Col- 
lege, Cambridge,  with  the  view  of 
his  entering  the  Church.  He  took 
his  B.A.  in  1831,  and  his  M.A.  in 
1887.  There  being  no  Natural  Sci- 
ences Tripos  at  that  time,  his  degree 
was  an  ordinary  one.  While  at 
Cambridge  he  attracted  the  notice  of 
the  late  Rev.  Prof.  HENSLOW,  who 
had  just  previously  exchanged  the 
Professorship  of  Mineralogy  for  that 
of  Botany.  From  the  above  de- 
scription of  this  man's  character  and 
attainments,  it  is  sufficiently  evident 
that  he  was  a  .worthy  teacher  of  a 
worthy  pupil ;  and  the  world  owes 
an  immense  debt  of  gratitude  to  him 
for  having  been  the  means  of  enthu- 
siastically arousing  and  sagaciously 
directing  the  first  love  and  the  early 
study  of  natural  science  in  the  mind 
of  DARWIN.  No  one  can  be  more 
deeply  moved  by  a  sense  of  this 
gratitude  than  was  Mr.  DARWIN  him- 
self. His  letters,  written  to  Prof. 
HENSLOW  during  his  voyage  round 
the  world,  overflow  with  feelings  of 
affection,  veneration,  arid  obligation 
to  hia  accomplished  master  and 
dearest  friend  —  feelings  which 
throughout  his  life  he  retained  with 
undiminished  intensity.  As  he  used 


himself  to  say,  before  he  knew  Prof. 
HENSLOW,  the  only  objects  of  natu- 
ral history  for  which  he  cared  wer« 
foxes  and  partridges.  But  owing  t/o 
the  impulse  which  he  derived  from 
the  field  excursions  of  the  HENSLOW 
class,  he  became  while  at  Cambridge 
an  ardent  collector,  especially  in  the 
region  of  entomology ;  and  we  re- 
member having  heard  him  observe 
that  the  first  time  he  ever  saw  his 
own  name  in  print  was  ?n  connection 
with  the  capture  of  an  insect  in  the 
fens. 

During  one  of  the  excursions 
Prof.  HENSLOW  told  him  that  he  had 
been  commissioned  (through  Prof. 
PEACOCK)  to  offer  any  competent 
young  naturalist  the  opportunity  of 
accompanying  Captain  FITZROY  as  a 
guest  011  the  surveying  voyage  of  the 
-Beagle,  and  that  he  would  strongly 
urge  its  acceptance  on  him.  Mr. 
DARWIN  had  already  formed  desire 
to  travel,  having  been  stimulated 
thereto  by  reading  HUMBOLDT'S  Per- 
sonal Narrative  ;  so  after  a  short 
hesitation  on  the  part  of  his  father, 
who  feared  that  the  voyage  might 
"  unsettle  "  him  for  the  Church,  the 
matter  was  soon  decided,  and  in  De 
cemberof  1838  the  expedition  started. 
During  the  voyage  he  suffered  greatly 
from  sea-sickness,  which,  together 
with  the  fasting  and  fatigue  incident- 
al to  long  excursions  over-land,  was 
probably  instrumental  in  producing 
the  dyspepsia  to  which,  during  the 
remainder  of  his  life,  he  was  a  victim. 
Three  years  after  returning  from  this 
voyage  of  circumnavigation,  he  mar- 
ried, and  in  1842  settled  at  Down,  in 
Kent.  The  work  which  afterward 
emanated  from  that  quiet  and  happy 
English  home,  which  continued  up  to 
the  day  of  his  death,  and  which  has 
been  more  effectual  than  any  other  in 
making  the  nineteenth  century  illus- 
trious, will  form  the  subject  of  our 
subsequent  articles. 


DARll'IX  AXD  H U:\1BOLDT. 


ffl.  WORK  IN  GEOLOGY. 


BT   ARCHIBALD  GEIKIE,  F.R.8. 


No  man  of  his  time  has  exercised 
upon  the  science  of  Geology  a  pro- 
founder  influence  than  CHARLES  DAR- 
WIN. At  an  early  period  of  his  life 
he  took  much  interest  in  geological 
studies,  and  in  later  years,  while  en- 
gaged in  other  pursuits,  he  kept  him- 
self acquainted  with  the  progress  that 
was  being  made  in  this  department 
of  natural  knowledge.  His  influence 
upon  it  has  been  twofold,  arising 
partly  from  the  importance  and  orig- 
inality of  some  of  his  own  contribu- 
tions to  the  literature  of  the  science, 
but  chiefly  from  the  bearing  of  his 
work  on  other  branches  of  natural 
history. 

When  he  began  to  direct  his  atten- 
tion to  geological  inquiry  the  sway  of 
the  Cataclysrnal  school  of  geology 
was  still  paramount.  But  already 
the  Uniformitariaiis  were  gathering 
strength,  and,  before  many  years 
were  past,  had  ranged  themselves  un- 
der the  banner  of  their  great  champion, 
LYKLT.  DARWIN,  who  always  re- 
cognized his  indebtedness  to  LYELL'S 
teaching,  gave  a  powerful  impulse  to 
its  general  reception  by  the  way  in 
which  he  gathered  from  all  parts  of 
the  world  facts  in  its  support.  He 
continually  sought  in  the  phenomena 
of  the  present  time  the  explanation  of 
those  of  the  past.  Yet  he  was  all  the 
while  laying  the  foundation  on  which 
the  later  or  Evolutional  school  of 
geology  has  been  built  up. 

DARWIN'S  specially  geological  mem- 
oirs are  not  numerous,  nor  have  they 
been  of  the  same  epoch-making  kind 
as  his  biological  researches.  But 
every  one  of  them  bears  the  stamp 
of  his  marvelous  acuteness  in  observa- 
tion, his  sagacity  in  grouping  scatter- 
ed facts,  and  his  unrivalled  far- 
reaching  vision  that  commanded  all 
their  mutual  bearings,  as  well  as  their 
place  in  the  general  economy  of  things. 
His  long  travels  in  the  Beagle  afford- 
ed him  opportunities  of  making  him- 


self acquainted  with  geological  phe- 
nomena of  the  most  varied  kinds. 
With  the  exception  of  one  or  two 
minor  papers  written  in  later  years, 
it  may  be  said  that  all  his  direct  con- 
tributions to  geology  arose  out  of 
the  Beagle  voyage.  The  largest  and 
most  important  part  of  his  geological 
work  deal  with  the  hypogene  forces 
of  nature — those  that  are  concerned 
in  volcanoes  and  earthquakes,  in  the 
elevation  of  mountains  and  continents, 
in  the  subsidence  of  vast  areas  of  the 
sea-bottom,  and  in  the  crumpling, 
foliation,  and  cleavage  of  the  rocks 
of  the  earth's  crust.  His  researches 
in  these  subjects  were  mainly  embod- 
ied in  the  Geology  of  the  Voyage  of 
the  Beagle — a  work  which,  in  three 
successive  parts,  was  published  under 
the  auspices  -of  the  Lords  of  the 
Treasury. 

The  order  chosen  by  DARWIN  for 
the  subjects  of  these  three  parts 
probably  indicates  the  relative  im- 
portance with  which  they  were  re- 
garded by  himself.  The  first  was  en- 
titled The  Structure  and  Distriba 
tion  of  Coral  Reefs  (1842).  This 
well-known  treatise,  the  most  orig 
inal  of  all  its  author's  geological 
memoirs,  has  become  one  of  the  re- 
cognized classics  of  geological  litera- 
ture. The  origin  of  those  remarkable 
rings  of  coral-rock  in  mid-ocean  had 
given  rise  to  much  speculation,  but 
no  satisfactory  sol  ution  of  the  problem 
had  been  proposed.  After  visiting 
many  of  them,  and  examining  also 
coral -reefs  that  fringe  islands  and 
continents,  he  offered  a  theory  which 
for  simplicity  and  grandeur  strikes 
every  reader  with  astonishment.  It 
is  pleasant  after  the  lapse  of  many 
years  to  recall  the  delight  with  which 
one  first  read  the  Coral  Reefs,  how 
one  watched  the  facts  being  marshal- 
led into  their  places,  nothing  being 
ignored  or  passed  lightly  over,  and 
how  step  by  step  one  was  led  up  to 
the  grand  conclusion  of  wide  oceanic 
subsidence.  No  more  admirable 
example  of  scientific  method  was 
ever  given  to  the  world,  and  even  if 
he  had  written  nothing  else,  this 


114 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE 


treatise  alone  would  have  placed  DAK- 
WIN  in  the  very  front  of  investigators 
of  nature. 

The  second  part  was  entitled 
Geological  Observations  of  the 
Volcanic  Islands  visited  during  the 
Voyage  of  H.M  S.  Beagle,  together 
with  some  Brief  Notices  on  the 
Geology  of  Australia  and  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope  (1844).  Full  of  de- 
tailed observations,  this  work  still 
remains  the  best  authority  on  the  gen- 
eral geological  structure  of  most  of 
the  regions  it  describes.  At  the  time 
it  was  written,  the  "  Crater  of  Eleva- 
tion theory,"  though  opposed  by 
CONSTANT,  PREVOST,  SCROPE,  and 
LYELL,  was  generally  accepted,  at 
least  on  the  Continent.  DARWIN, 
however,  could  not  receive  it  as  a 
valid  explanation  of  the  facts,  and 
though  he  did  not  adopt  the  views  of 
its  chief  opponents,  but  ventured  to 
propose  a  hypothesis  of  his  own,  the 
observations  impartially  made  and 
described  by  him  in  this  volume  must 
be  regarded  as  having  contributed 
toward  the  final  solution  of  the  ques- 
tion. 

The  third  and  concluding  part  bore 
the  title  of  Geological  Observations 
on  South  America    (1846).     In  this 
work  the  author  embodied  all  the 
materials  collected  by  him  for    the 
illustration  of  South  American  geol- 
ogy   save  some  which  had   already 
been   published   elsewhere.     One  of 
the  most  important  features  of  the 
book    was    the    evidence  which    it 
brought  forward  to  prove  the  slow, 
interrupted    elevation   of   the  South 
American  Continent  during  a  recent 
geological  period.      On  the  western 
sea  board   he   showed  that   beds    of 
marine  shells  could  be  traced  more  or 
less   continuously  for  a  distance  of 
upward   of     2,000    miles,    that    the 
elevation  had  been  unequal,  reaching 
in  some  places  at  least  to  as  much  as 
1,800  feet,  that  in  one  instance,  at  a 
hight  of  85  feet  above   the  sea,  un- 
doubted traces  of  the  presence  of  man 
occurred  in  a  raised  beach,  and  hence 
that  the  land  had  there  risen  85  feet 
•ince  Indian  man  had  inhabited  Peru. 


These  proofs  of  recent  elevation  may 
have  influenced  him  in  the  conclu- 
sion which  he  drew  as  to  the  marine 
origin  of  the  great  elevated  plains  of 
Chili.  But  at  that  time  there  was  a 
general  tendency  among  British  geol- 
ogists to  detect  evidence  of  sea-action 
everywhere,  and  to  ignore  or  minimize 
the  action  of  running  water  and  wind- 
drift  upon  the  land.  An  important 
chapter  of  the  volume,  devoted  to  a 
discussion  of  the  phenomena  of  cleav- 
age and  foliation,  is  well  known  to 
every  student  of  the  literature  of 
metamorphism. 

The  official  records  of  the  Beagle 
did  not,  however,  include  all  that 
DARWIN  wrote  on  the  geology  of  the 
voyage.  He  contributed  to  the  Trans- 
actions of  the  Geological  Society 
(vol.  v.  1840)  a  paper  on  the  connec- 
tion of  volcanic  phenomena.  In  the 
same  publication  (vi.  1842)  appears 
another,  on  the  erratic  boulders  of 
South  America ;  while  a  third,  on  the 
geology  of  the  Falkland  Islands,  was 
published  later. 

While  dealing  with  the  subterrane- 
an agents  in  geological  change,  he 
kept  at  the  same  time  an  ever  wach- 
f  ul  eye  upon  the  superficial  operations 
by  which  the  surface  of  the  globe  is 
modified.  He  is  one  of  the  earliest 
writers  to  recognize  the  magnitude 
of  the  denudation  to  which  even  recent 
geological  accumulations  have  been 
subjected.  One  of  the  most  impres- 
sive lessons  to  be  learnt  from  his 
account  of  Volcanic  Islands  is  the 
prodigious  extent  to  which  they  have 
been  denuded.  As  just  stated,  he 
was  disposed  to  attributs  more  of  this 
work  to  the  action  of  the  sea  than 
most  geologists  would  now  admit; 
but  he  lived  himself  to  modify  his 
original  views,  and  on  this  subject  his 
latest  utterances  are  quite  abreast  of 
the  time.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that 
one  of  his  early  geological  papers  was 
on  the  Formation  of  Mould  (1840), 
and  that  after  the  lapse  of  forty  years 
he  returned  to  this  subject,  devoting 
to  it  the  last  of  his  volumes.  In  the 
first  sketch  we  see  the  patient  observ- 
ation and  shrewdness .  of  inference  so 


DARWIN  AND  HUMBOLT 


eminently  characteristic  of  the  writer, 
and  in  the  finished  work  the  same 
faculties  enriched  with  the  experience 
of  a  long  and  busy  life.  In  bringing 
to  light  the  operations  of  the  earth- 
worm, he  called  the  attention  of 
geologists  to  an  agency,  the  real 
efficiency  of  which  they  probably  do 
not  yet  appreciate.  ELIE  DE  BEAU- 
MONT looked  upon  the  layer  of  grass- 
covered  soil  as  a  permanent  datum- 
line  from  which  th*j  denudation  of  ex- 
posed surfaces  might  be  measured. 
But,  as  DARWIN  showed,  the  constant 
transference  of  soil  from  beneath  to 
the  surface,  and  the  consequent  ex- 
posure of  the  materials  so  transferred 
to  be  dried  and  blown  away  by  wind, 
or  to  be  washed  to  lower  levels  by 
rain,  must  tend  slowly  but  certainly 
to  lower  the  level  even  of  undisturbed 
grass-covered  land. 

To  another  of  his  early  papers  ref- 
erence may  be  made,  from  its  interest 
in  the  history  of  British  geology. 
BUCKLAND,  following  in  the  footsteps 
of  AGASSIZ,  had  initiated  that  prodig- 
ious amount  of  literature  which  has 
now  been  devoted  to  the  records  of 
the  Glacial  period  in  this  country,  by 
reading  to  the  Geological  Society  a 
paper  "  On  Diluvio-glacial  Phenome- 
na in  Snowdonia  and  in  adjacent 
parts  of  North  Wales  "  (1841).  DAR- 
WIN, whose  wanderings  in  South 
American  had  led  him  to  study  the 
problems  presented  by  erratic  blocks, 
took  an  early  opportunity  of  visiting 
the  Welsh  district  described  by  BUCK- 
LAND,  and  at  once  declared  himself  to 
be  a  believer  in  the  former  presence 
of  glaciers  in  Britain.  His  paper 
(1843)  in  which  this  belief  is  stated 
and  enforced  by  additional  observa- 
tions, stands  almost  at  the  top  of  the 
long  list  of  English  contributions  to 
the  history  of  the  Ice  Age. 

The  influence  exercised  upon  the 
progress  of  geology  by  DARWIN'S 
researches  in  other  than  geological 
fields,  is  less  easy  to  be  appraised. 
Yet  it  has  been  far  more  widespread 
and  profound  than  that  of  his  direct 
geological  work.  Even  as  far  back 
w  the  time  of  the  voyage  of  the 


Heagle,  he  had  been  led  to  reflect 
deeply  on  some  of  LYELL'S  specula- 
tions upon  the  influence  of  geological 
changes  on  the  geographical  distribu- 
tion of  animals.  From  that  time  the 
intimate  connection  between  geologi- 
cal history  and  biological  progress 
seems  to  have  been  continually  pre- 
sent in  his  mind.  It  was  not,  how- 
ever, until  the  appearance  of  the 
Origin  of  /Species  in  1859  that  the 
full  import  of  his  reflections  was  per- 
ceived. His  chapter  on  the  "  Imper- 
fection of  the  Geological  Record  " 
startled  geologists  as  from  a  profound 
slumber.  It  would  be  incorrect  to 
say  that  he  was  the  first  to  recognize 
the  incompleteness  of  the  record;  but 
certainly  until  the  appearance  of  that 
famous  chapter  the  general  body  of 
geologists  was  blissfully  unconscious 
of  the  essentially  fragmentary  char- 
acter of  the  geological  record.  DAR- 
WIN showed  why  this  must  necessarily 
be  the  case  ;  how  multitudes  of  organ- 
ic types,  both  of  the  sea  and  of  the 
land,  must  have  decayed  and  never 
have  been  preserved  in  any  geologi- 
cal deposit ;  how,  even  if  entombed  in 
such  accumulations,  they  would  in 
great  measure  be  dissolved  away 
by  the  subsequent  percolation  of  water. 
Returning  to  some  of  his  early  specu- 
lations, he  pointed  out  that  massive 
geological  deposits  rich  in  fossils 
could  only  have  been  laid  down  dur- 
ing subsidence,  and  only  where  the 
supply  of  sediment  was  sufficient  to 
let  the  sea  remain  shallow,  and  to 
entomb  the  organic  remains  on  its 
floor  before  they  had  decayed.  Hence, 
by  the  very  conditions  of  its  forma- 
tion, the  geological  record,  instead  of 
being  a  continuous  and  tolerably 
complete  chronicle,  must  be  intermit- 
tent and  fragmentary.  The  sudden 
appearance  of  whole  groups  of  allied 
species  of  fossils  on  certain  horizons 
had  been  assumed  by  some  eminent 
authorities  as  a  fatal  objection  to  any 
doctrine  of  the  transmutation  of 
species.  But  DARWIN  now  claimed 
this  fact  as  only  another  evidence  of 
the  enormous  gaps  in  geological 
history.  Reiterating  again  and  again 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE 


that  only  a  small  fraction  of  the  world 
had  been  examined  geologically,  and 
that  even  that  fraction  was  still  but 
imperfectly  known,  he  called  atten- 
tion to  the  history  of  geological  dis- 
covery as  furnishing  itself  a  strong  ar- 
gument against  those  who  reasoned  as 
if  the  geological  record  were  a  full 
chronicle  of  the  history  of  life  upon  the 
earth.  There  is  a  natural  tendency 
to  look  upon  the  horizon  upon  which 
a  fossil  species  first  appears  as  mark- 
ing its  birth,  and  that  on  which  it 
finally  disappears  as  indicating  its 
extinction.  DARWIN  declared  this 
assumption  to  be  "rash  in  the  extreme. " 
No  palaeontologist  or  geologist  will 
now  gainsay  this  assertion.  And  yet 
how  continually  do  we  still  hear  men 
talking  of  the  stages  of  the  geologi 
cal  record,  as  if  these  were  sharply 
marked  off  everywhere  by  the  first 
appearance  and  final  disappearance  of 
certain  species.  The  boldness  with 
which  DARWIN  challenged  some  of 
these  long-rooted  beliefs  is  not  less 
conspicuous  than  the  modesty  and 
deference  with  which  his  own  sugges- 
tions were  always  given.  "It  is 
notorious,"  he  remarked,  "on  what 
excessively  slight  differences  many 
palaeontologists  have  founded  their 
species ;  and  they  do  this  the  more 
readily  if  the  specimens  come  from 
different  sub-stages  of  the  same  forma- 
tion." 

Starting  from  this  conception  of 
the  nature  of  the  geological  record, 
DARWIN  could  show  that  the  leading 
facts  made  known  by  palaeontology 
could  be  explained  by  his  theory  of 
descent  with  modification  through 
natural  selection.  New  species  had 
slowly  come  in,  as  old  ones  had  slowly 
died  out.  Once  the  thread  of  succes- 
sion had  been  broken  it  was  never 
taken  up  again  ;  an  extinct  species  or 
group  never  reappeared,  yet  extinction 
was  a  slow  and  unequal  process,  and 
a  few  descendants  of  ancient  types 
might  be  found  lingering  in  protect- 
ed and  isolated  situations.  "  We  can 
understand  how  it  is  that  all  the 
forms  of  life,  ancient  and  recent, 
make  together  one  grand  system  ;  for 


J.U 


all  are  connected  by  generation.  From 
the  continued  tendency  to  divergence, 
the  more  ancient  a  form  is,  the  more 
generally  it  differs  from  those  now 
living.  The  inhabitants  of  each 
successive  period  in  the  world's  history 
have  beaten  their  predecessors  in  the 
race  for  life,  and  are  in  so  far  higher 
in  the  scale  of  nature ;  and  this  may 
account  for  that  vague,  yet  ill-de- 
fined sentiment,  felt  by  many  palae- 
ontologists, that  organization  on  the 
whole  has  progressed.  If  it  should 
hereafter  be  proved  that  ancient 
animals  resemble  to  a  certain  extent 
the  embryos  of  more  recent  animals  of 
the  same  class,  this  fact  will  be  intel- 
ligible " 

Again,  what  a  flood  of  fresh  light 
was  poured  upon  geological  inquhj 
by  the  two  chapters  on  Geographical 
Distribution  in  the  Origin  of  Species  I 
A  new  field  of  research,  or,  at  least, 
one  in  which  comparatively  little  had 
been  yet  attempted,  was  there  opened 
out.  The  grouping  of  living  organ- 
isms over  the  globe  was  now  seen  to 
have  the  most  momentous  geological 
bearings.  Every  species  of  plant  and 
animal  must  have  had  a  geologica1 
history,  and  might  be  made  to  tell  itft 
story  of  the  changes  of  land  and  sea. 

In  fine,  the  spirit  of  Mr.  DABWIN'S 
teaching  may  be  traced  all  through 
the  literature  of  science,  even  in  de- 
partments which  he  never  himself 
entered.  No  branch  of  research  has 
benefited  more  from  the  infusion 
of  this  spirit  than  geology.  Time- 
honored  prejudices  have  been  broken 
down,  theories  that  seemed  the  most 
surely  based  have  been  reconsidered, 
and,  when  found  untenable,  have  been 
boldly  discarded.  That  the  Present 
must  be  taken  as  a  guide  to  the  Past, 
has  been  more  fearlessly  asserted 
than  ever.  And  yet  it  has  been  re- 
cognized that  the  present  differs  widely 
from  the  past,  that  there  has  been  a 
progress  everywhere,  that  Evolution 
and  not  Uniformitarianism  has  been 
the  law  by  which  geological  history 
has  been  governed.  For  the  impetus 
with  which  these  views  have  been 
advanced  in  every  civilized  country, 


IT; 


we  look  up  with  reverence  to  th«  i  The  wr  ter  of  these  lines  can  well  re- 
loved  and  immortal  name  of  CHARLES  member  Mr.  DARWIN  gently  complain- 
DARWIN.  ing  that  some  of  this  warm  enthusiasm 

for  nature,  as   it  presents   itself 


IV.  WORK  IN  BOTANY. 


BT  W.  T.  THISELTON   DYER,  F.R.S. 


In  attempting  to  estimate  the 
influence  which  Mr.  DARWIN'S  writ- 
ings have  exerted  on  the  progress  of 
botanical  science,  we  must  necessarily 


discriminate 
effect  which 


between    the     indirect 
his  views  have  had  on 


un- 

analysed  to  ordinary  .healthy  vision, 
seemed  to  be  a  little  dulled  in  the 
younger  naturalists  of  the  day.  The 
pages  of  the  Journal  of  Researches 
show  no  such  restraint,  but  abound 
with  passages  in  which  Mr.  DARWIN'S 
unstudied  aiid  simple  language  is  car- 
ried by  the  force  of  warm  impression 
and  perfect  joy  in  nature  to  a  level  of 


singular  beauty, 
be  quoted   as  an 


One  passage  may 
illustration ;    it  is 


botanical  research  generally,  and  the 
direct  results  of  his  own  contributions. 
No  doubt  in  a  sense  the  former  will 
seem  in  the  retrospect  to  overshadow 
the  latter.  For  in  his  later  writings 
Mr.  DARWIN  was  content  to  devote 
himself  to  the  consideration  of  prob- 
lems which,  in  a  limited  field, 
brought  his  own  theoretical  views  to 
a  detailed  test,  and  so  may  ultimately 
seem  to  be  somewhat  merged  in  them. 
Yet  these  writings  can  never  fail  to 
command  our  admiration  even  viewed 
apart  from  all  else  that  Mr.  DARWIN 
did.  It  is  wonderful  enough  that  so 
great  a  master  in  biological  science 
should,  at  an  advanced  age,  have  been 
content  to  work  with  all  the  fervor 
and  assiduity  of  youth  at  phenomena 
of  vegetable  life  apparently  minute 
and  of  the  most  special  kind.  To  him, 
no  doubt,  they  were  not  minute,  but 
instinct  with  a  significance  that  the 
professed  botanical  world  had  for  the 
most  part  missed  seeing  in  them  fail- 
ing the  point  of  view  which  Mr.  DAR- 
WIN himself  supplied.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  each  of  his  botanical 
investigations,  taken  on  its  own 
merits,  would  alone  have  made  the 
reputation  of  any  ordinary  botanist. 
Mr.  DARWIN'S  attitude  toward  bot 
any,  as  indeed  to  biological  studies 
generally,  was,  it  should  always  be 
remembered,  in  his  early  life  essen- 
tially that  of  a  naturalist  of  the  school 

of  LINNJEUS  and  HUMBOLDT — a  point  ties  which  unite  these  into  one  per- 
of  view  unfortunately  now  perhaps  a  feet  scene  must  fade  away  ;  yet  they 
little  out  of  fashion.  Nature  in  all  will  leave,  like  a  tale  heard  in  child- 
its  aspects  spoke  to  his  feelings  with  hood;  a  picture  full  of  indistinct,  but 
a  voice  that  was  living  and  direct,  most  beautiful  figures." 

11 


from    the  description    of    Bahia  in 
chapter  xxi: 

"  When  quietly  walking  along  the 
shady  pathways,  and  admiring  each 
successive  view,  I  wished  to  find 
language  to  express  my  ideas.  Epi- 
thet after  epithet  was  found  too  weak 
to  convey  to  those  who  have  not 
visited  the  intertropical  regions,  the 
sensation  of  delight  which  the  mind 
experiences.  I  have  said  that  the 
plants  in  a  hothouse  fail  to  communi- 
cate a  just  idea  of  the  vegetation,  yet 
I  must  recur  to  it.  The  laud  is  one 
great  wild,  untidy,  luxuriant  hothouse, 
made  by  nature  for  herself,  but  taken 
possession  of  by  man,  who  has  studded 
it  with  gay  houses  and  formal  gar 
dens.  How  great  would  be  the  desire 
in  every  admirer  of  nature  to  behold, 
if  such  were  possible,  the  scenery  of 
another  planet !  Yet  to  every  person 
in  Europe,  it  may  be  truly  said,  that 
at  the  distance  of  only  a  few  degrees 
from  his  native  soil,  the  glories  of 
another  world  are  opened  to  him.  In 
my  last  walk  I  stopped  again  and 
again  to  gaze  on  these  beauties,  and 
endeavored  to  fix  in  my  mind  forever, 
an  impression  which  at  the  time  1 
knew  sooner  or  later  must  fail  The 
form  of  the  orange-tree,  the  cocoa- 


nut,  the  palm,  the  mango,  the 
fern,  the  banana,  will  remain 
and  separate  ;  but  the  thousand  beau 


tree- 
clear 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE 


A  spirit  such  as  this,  penetrating 
an  intelligence  such  as  Mr.  DARWIN'S, 
would  not  content  itself  with  the 
superficial  interest  of  form  and  color. 
These,  in  his  eyes,  were  the  outward 
and  visible  signs  of  the  inner  secrets. 
The  fascination  of  sense  which  the 
former  imposed  upon  him  but  stimu- 
lated his  desire  to  unveil  the  latter. 
In  the  Galapagos  we  are  not  then 
surprised  to  find  him  ardently  ab- 
sorbed in  the  problems  which  the 
extraordinary  distribution  of  the 
plants,  no  less  than  of  other  organ- 
isms presented : — "  I  indiscriminately 
collected,"  he  says,  "everything  in 
flower  on  the  different  islands,  and 
fortunately  kept  my  collections  sep- 
arate." 

After  tabulating  the  results  which 
they  yielded  after  systematic  determ- 
ination, he  proceeds : 

"  Hence  we  have  the  truly  wonder- 
ful fact,  that  in  James  Island,  of  the 
thirty-eight  Galapageian  plants,  or 
those  found  in  no  other  part  of  the 
world,  thirty  are  exclusively  confined 


the  geographical  distribution  of  plant* 
stood  after  the  publication  of  the 
Origin  of  Species  cannot  then  be 
better  estimated  than  from  the 
summary  of  the  position,  contained  in 
SIR  JOSEPH  HOOKER'S  recent  Address 
to  the  Geographical  Section  of  the 
meeting  of  the  British  Association  at 
York. 

"  Before  the  publication  of  the  doc* 
trine  of  the  origin  of  species  by  varia- 
tion and  natural  selection,  allreasoning 
on  their  distribution  was  in  subordina- 
tion to  the  idea  that  these  were  per- 
manent and  special  creations ;  just 
as,  before  it  was  shown  that  species 
were  often  older  than  the  islands  and 
mountains  they  inhabited,  naturalists 
had  to  make  their  theories  accord 
with  the  idea  that  all  migration  took 


existing   conditions  of 
Hitherto  the  modes  of 


place  under 
land  and  sea. 
dispersion  of  species,  genera  and  fam- 
ilies had  been  traced,  but  the  origin 
of  representative  species,  genera,  and 
families,  remained  an  enigma  ;  these 
could  be  explained  only  by  the  sup- 


to  this  one  island  ;  and  in  Albemarle  position  that  the  localites  where  they 
Island,  of  the  twenty-six  aboriginal  occurred  presented  conditions  so 
Galapageian  plants,  twenty-two  are  similar  that  they  favored  the  crea- 
confined  to  this  one  island,  that  is,  •  tion  of  similar  organisms.  But  this 
only  four  are  known  to  grow  on  the  failed  to  account  for  representation 
other  islands  of  the  Archipelago ;  and  occurring  in  the  far  more  numer- 
so  on,  as  shown  in  the  above  table, '  ous  cases  where  there  is  no  dis- 
with  the  plants  from  Chatham  and  coverable  similarity  of  physical 
Charles  Island."  conditions,  and  of  their  not  occurring 

It  is  impossible  in  reading  the  in  places  where  the  conditions  are 
Origin  of  Species  not  to  perceive  similar.  Now  under  the  theory  of 
how  deeply  Mr.  DARWIN  had  been  modification  of  species  after  migra- 
tion and  isolation,  their  representation 
in  distant  localities  is  only  a  question 
of  time  and  changed  physical  con- 
ditions. In  fact,  as  Mr.  DARWIN  well 
sums  up,  all  the  leading  facts  of  dis- 
tribution are  clearly  explicable  under 
this  theory ;  such  as  the  multiplica- 
tion of  new  forms,  the  importance  of 
barriers  in  forming  and  separating 
zoological  and  botanical  provinces ; 
the  concentration  of  related  species  in 
the  same  area  ;  the  linking  together 
under  different  latitudes  of  the  in- 

»  — -„     ,  habitants  of  the  plains  and  mountains, 

DARWIN  did  for  those  who  worked  in  i  of  the  forests,  i;;:irslies,  and  deserts, 
this  neld.    How  the  whole  theory  of  I  and  the  linking  of  these  with  the 

12 


impressed  by  the  problems  presented 
by  such  singularities  of  plant  distribu- 
tion as  he  met  with  in  the  Galapagos. 
And  of  such  problems  up  to  the  time 
of  its  publication  no  intelligible  ex- 
planation had  seemed  possible.  SIR 
JOSEPH  HOOKER  had  indeed  prepared 
the  ground  by  bringing  into  prom- 
inence, in  numerous  important  papers, 
the  no  less  striking  phenomena  which 
were  presented  when  the  vegetation 
of  large  areas  cam-e  to  be  analysed 
and  compared.  No  one  therefore 
could  estimate  more  justly  what  Mr. 


DARWIN  AND  HUM  BOLT 


119 


extinct  beings  which  formerly  in- 
habited the  same  areas ;  and  the  fact 
of  different  forms  of  life  occurring  in 
areas  having  nearly  the  same  physical 
conditions." 

If  Mr.  DARWIN  had  done  no  more 
than  this  for  botanical  science  he 
would  have  left  an  indelible  mark  on 
its  progress.  But  the  consideration 
of  the  various  questions  which  the 
problem  of  the  origin  of  species  pre- 
sented led  him  into  other  inquiries  in 
which  the  results  were  scarcely  less 
important.  The  key-note  of  a  whole 
series  of  his  writings  is  struck  by 
the  words  with  which  the  eighth 
chapter  of  the  Origin  of  Species  com- 
mences: 

"The  view  generally  entertained 
by  naturalists  is  that  species,  when 
intercrossed,  have  been  specially 
endowed  with  the  quality  of  sterility, 
in  order  to  prevent  the  confusion  of 
all  organic  forms." 

The  examination  of  this  principle 
necessarily  obliged  him  to  make  a 
profound  study  of  the  conditions  and 
limits  of  sterility.  The  results  em- 
bodied in  his  well-known  papers  on 
dimorphic  and  trimorphic  plants  af- 
forded an  absolutely  conclusive  proof 
that  sterility  was  not  inseparably  tied 
up  with  specific  divergence.  But  the 
question  is  handled  in  the  most  cau- 
tious way,  and  when  the  reader  of  the 
chapter  on  hybridism  arrives  at  the 
concluding  words,  in  which  Mr.  DAR- 
WIN declares  that  on  this  ground  "  there 
is  no  fundamental  distinction  between 
species  and  varieties,"  he  finds  himself 
in  much  the  same  intellectual  position 
as  is  produced  by  the  Q.E.D.  at  the 
end  of  a  geometrical  demonstration. 

It  was  characteristic  of  Mr.  DAR- 
WIN'S method  of  study  to  follow  up  on 
its  own  account,  as  completely  as  pos- 
sible, when  opportunity  presented, 
any  side  issue  which  had  been  raised 
apparently  incidentally  in  other  dis- 
cussions. Indeed,  it  was  never  pos- 
sible to  guess  what  amount  of  evi- 
dence Mr.  DARWIN  had  in  reserve 
behind  the  few  words  which  marked 
a  mere  siep  in  an  argument.  It  is 
from  his  practice  of  bringing  out  from 


time  to  time  the  contents  of  his  un- 
seen treasure-house  that  we  gain 
some  insight  into  the  scientific  fertil- 
ity of  his  later  years,  at  first  sight  so 
inexplicably  prolific.  Many  of  his 
works  published  during  that  period 
may  be  properly  regarded  in  the  light 
of  disquisitions  on  particular  points 
of  his  great  theory.  The  researches 
on  the  sexual  phenomena  of  hetero- 
styled  plants,  alluded  to  above,  which 
were  communicated  to  the  Linnean 
Society  in  a  series  of  papers  ranging 
over  the  years  1862-8,  ultimately 
found  their  complete  development  in 
the  volume  On  the  Different  Forms 
of  Flowers  on  Plants  of  the  sam« 
Species,  published  in  1877.  In  the 
same  way,  the  statement  in  the  Origin 
of  Species,  that  "the  crossing  of 
forms  only  slightly  differentiated 
favors  the  vigor  and  fertility  of 
their  offspring,"  finds  its  complete  ex- 
pansion in  The  Effects  of  Cross  and 
Self-Fertilization  in  the  Vegetable 
Kingdom,  published  in  1876. 

The  Origin  of  Species  in  the  form 
in  which  it  has  become  a  classic  in 
scientific  literature  was  originally  only 
intended  as  a  preliminary  precis  of  a 
vast  accumulation  of  facts  and  argu- 
ments which  the  author  had  collected. 
It  was  intended  to  be  but  the  precur- 
sor of  a  series  of  works  in  which  all 
the  evidence  was  to  be  methodically 
set  out  and  discussed.  Of  this  vast 
undertaking  only  one  portion,  the 
Variation  of  Plants  and  Animals 
under  Domestication,  was  ever  actu- 
ally published.  Apart  from  its  pri- 
mary purpose  it  produced  a  profound 
impression,  especially  on  botanists. 
This  was  partly  due  to  the  undeniable 
force  of  the  argument  from  analogy 
stated  in  a  sentence  in  the  introduc- 
tion: "Man  may  be  said  to  have 
been  trying  an  experiment  on  a  gigan- 
tic scale;  and  it  is  an  experiment 
which  nature,  during  the  long  lapse 
of  time,  has  incessantly  tried."  But 
it  was  still  more  due  to  the  unex- 
pected use  of  the  vast  body  of  appar- 
ently trivial  facts  and  observation* 
which  Mr.  DARWIN  with  astonishing 
industry  had  disinterred  from  weekly 


13 


120 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


journals  and  ephemeral  publications  of 
all  sorts  and  unexpectedly  forced  in- 
to his  service.  Like  MOLI£RE'S  Mon- 
sieur Jourdain,  who  was  delighted  to 
find  that  he  had  been  unwittingly 
talking  prose  all  his  life,  horticultur 
ists  who  had  unconsciously  molded 
plants  almost  at  their  will  at  the 
impulse  of  taste  or  profit  were  at 
once  amazed  and  charmed  to  find 
that  they  had  been  doing  scientific 
work  and  helping  to  establish  a  great 
theory.  The  criticism  of  practical 
men,  at  once  most  tenacious  and  dif- 
ficult to  meet,  was  disarmed  ;  these 
found  themselves  hoisted  with  their 
own  petard.  Nor  was  this  all.  The 
exclusive  province  of  science  was  in 
biological  phenomena  forever  broken 
down  ;  every  one  whose  avocations  in 
life  had  to  do  with  the  rearing  or  use 
of  living  things,  found  himself  a  party 
to  the  "experiment  on  a  gigantic 
•cale,"  which  had  been  going  on 
ever  since  the  human  race  withdrew 
for  their  own  ends  plants  or  animals 
from  the  feral  and  brought  them  into 
the  domesticated  state. 

Mr.  DARWIN  with  characteristic 
modesty  had  probably  underrated 
the  effect  which  the  Origin  of 
Species  would  have  as  an  argumenta- 
tive statement  of  his  views.  When 
he  came  to  realize  this,  it  probably 
seemed  to  him  unnecessary  to  submit 
to  the  labor  of  methodizing  the  vast 
accumulations  which  he  had  doubt- 
less made  for  the  second  and  third 
installments  of  the  detailed  exposition 
of  the  evidence  which  he  had  promised. 
As  was  hinted  at  the  commencement, 
his  attention  was  rather  drawn  away 
from  the  study  of  evidence  already 
at  the  disposal  of  those  who  cared  to 
digest  and  weigh  it,  to  the  explora- 
tion of  the  field  of  nature  with  the 
new  and  penetrating  instrument  of 
research  which  he  had  himself  forged. 
Something  too  must  be  credited  to 
the  intense  delight  which  he  felt  in 
investigating  the  phenomena  of  liv- 
ing things.  But  he  doubtless  saw 
that  the  work  to  be  done  was  to  show 


how  morphological  and  physiological 
complexity    found     its     explanation 


14 


from  the  principle  of  natural  selec- 
tion.    This  is  the  idea  which  is   ever 
dominant.      Thus  he  concludes    his 
work  on   climbing  plants:     "It  has 
often    been     vaguely    asserted    that 
plants  are  distinguished  from  animals 
by   not  having  the  power   of   move- 
ment.    It  should  rather  be  said  that 
plants  acquire  and  display  this  power 
only  when  it  is  of  some  advantage  to 
them;  this    being   of    comparatively 
rare  occurrence,  as  they  are  affixed  to 
the  ground,  and  food   is  brought   to 
them    by   the   air   and    rain."     The 
diversity  of  the  power  of   movement 
in  plants  naturally  engaged  hi.s  atten- 
tion,   and    the    last   but  one   of   his 
works — in  some  respects  perhaps  the 
most    remarkable    of    his    botanical 
writings — was    devoted    to   showing 
that  this  diversity  could   be  regarded 
as  derived  from  a  single  fundamental 
property :     "  All  the  parts  or  organs 
of  every  plant  while  they  continue  to 
grow  .  .  .  are  continually  circunmuta- 
ting."     Whether  this   masterly   con- 
ception  of    the 
hitherto  seemed 
phenomena    will 
alone  will  show, 
doubt  the  importance  of   what  Mr. 
DARWIN  has  done  in  showing  that  for 
the  future   the  phenomena  of  plant 
movement  can  and  indeed  must   be 
studied  from   a  single  point  of  view. 
Along  another  line  of   work  Mr. 
DARWIN  occupied  himself  with  show- 
ing what  aid  could  be  given  by  the 
principle  of  natural  selection  in  ex- 
plaining the  extraordinary  structural 
variety  exhibited   by  plant  morpho- 
logy.   The  fact  that  cross-fertilization 
was  an  advantage,  was  the  key  with 
which,  as   indicated   in  the  pages   of 
the    Origin  of  Species,  the   bizarre 
complexities  of  orchid  flowers  could 
be  unlocked.  The  detailed  facts  were 
set  out  in  a  well-known  work,  and  the 
principle  is  now  generally   accepted 
with  regard  to  flowers  generally.  The 
work  on  insectivorous  plants  gave  the 
results  of  an  exploration  similar  in  its 
object,  and  bringing  under  one  com- 
mon physiological    point  of  view  a 
variety    of    the    most    diverse    and 


unity  of   what   has 
a  chaos  of  unrelated 
be   sustained 
But 


no 


time 
one   can 


DARWIN  AND   HUMBOLDT. 


121 


most  remarkable  modifications  of  leaf- ,  DARWIN — if  one  may  venture  on  Ian- 
form,  guage  which  will  strike  no  one  who 
In  the  beginning  of  these  remarks  had  conversed  with  him  as  over- 
the  attempt  has  already  been  made  to  strained — seemed  by  gentle  persuasion 
do  justice  to  the  mark  Mr.  DARWIN  to  have  penetrated  that  reserve  of 
has  left  on  the  modern  study  of  geo- ;  nature  which  baffles  smaller  men.  In 
graphical  botany  (and  that  implies  a  other  words,  his  long  experience  had 
corresponding  influence  on  phyto- '  given  him  a  kind  of  instinctive  in- 
palseontology).  To  measure  the  iu-  j  sight  into  the  method  of  attack  of 
he  has  had  on  any  any  biological  problem,  however  un- 
of  botany,  it  is  sum-  familiar  to  him,  while  he  rigidly 
controlled  the  fertility  of  his  mind  in 
hypothetical  explanations  by  the  no 
less  fertility  of  ingeniously-devised 
experiment.  Whatever  he  touched, 
he  was  sure  to  draw  from  it  some- 
thing that  it  had  never  before  yielded, 
and  he  was  wholly  free  from  that 
familiarity  which  comes  to  the  pro- 
fessed student  in  every  branch  of 
science,  and  blinds  the  mental  eye 
to  the  significance  of  things  which 
are  overlooked  because  always  in 
view. 

The  simplicity  of  Mr.  DARWIN'S 
character  pervaded  his  whole  method 
of  work.  ALPHONSE  DE  CANDOLLB 
visited  him  in  1880  and  felt  the  im- 
pression of  this :  "  He  was  not  one 
of  those  who  would  construct  a  palace 
to  lodge  a  laboratory.  I  sought  out 
the  greenhouse  in  which  so  many 
admirable  experiments  had  been  made 
on  hybrids.  It  contained  nothing  but 
a  vine."  There  was  no  affectation  in 
this.  Mr.  DARWIN  provided  himself 
with  every  resource  which  the  meth- 
ods of  the  day  or  the  mechanical 
ingenuity  of  his  sons  could  supply, 
and  when  it  had  served  its  purpose  it 
was  discarded.  Nor  had  he  any  pre- 
possession in  favor  of  one  kind  of 
scientific  work  more  than  another. 
His  scientific  temperament  was  thor- 
oughly catholic  and  sympathetic  to 
anything  which  was  not  a  mere  re- 
grinding  of  old  scientific  dry  bones. 


fluence    which 
other  branches 

cient  to  quote  again  from  the  Origin 
of  Species  :  "The  structure  of  each 
part  of  each  species,  for  whatever 
purpose  used,  will  be  the  sum  of  the 
many  inherited  changes  through 
which  the  species  has  passed  during 
its  successive  adaptations  to  changed 
habits  and  conditions  of  life."  These 
words  may  almost  be  said  to  be  the 
key-note  of  SACHS'S  well  known  text- 
book, which  is  the  most  authoritative 
modern  exposition  of  the  facts  and 
principles  of  plant-structure  and  func- 
tion ;  and  there  is  probably  not  a 
botanical  class-room  or  work-room  in 
the  civilized  world  where  they  are 
not  the  animating  principle  of  both 
instruction  and  research. 

Notwithstanding  the  extent  and 
variety  of  his  botanical  work,  Mr. 
DARWIN  always  disclaimed  any  right 
to  be  regarded  as  a  professed  botanist, 
lie  turned  his  attention  to  plants 
•  loubtless  because  they  were  con 
venient  objects  for  studying  organic 
phenomena  in  their  least  complicated 
forms;  and  this  point  of  view,  which, 
if  one  may  use  the  expression  without 
disrespect,  had  something  of  the 
amateur  about  it,  was  in  itself  of  the 
greatest  importance.  For,  from  not 
being,  till  he  took  up  any  point,  fa- 
miliar with  the  literature  bearing  on 
it,  his  mind  was  absolutely  free  from 
any  prepossession.  He  was  never 
afraid  of  his  facts  or  of  framing  any 

hypothesis,  however  startling,  which  j  He  would  show  his  visitors  an  Epi- 
seemed  to  explain  them.  However  \pactis  which  for  years  came  up  in  the 
much  weight  he  attributed  to  inherit-  i  middle  of  one  of  his  gravel  walks  with 
anoe  as  a  factor  in  orgauic  phenomena,  almost  as  much  interest  as  some  new 
tradition  went  for  nothing  in  studyingj  point  which  he  had  made  out  in  a 
them.  In  any  one  else  such  an  atti-  j  piece  of  work  actually  in  hand.  And 
tude  would  have  produced  much  work  j  though  he  had  long  abandoned  any 
that  was  crude  and  rash.  But  Mr.  I  active  interest  in  systematic  work, 

15 


122 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


only  a  few  months  before  his  death 
he  had  arranged  to  provide  funds  for 
the  preparation  of  the  new  edition  of 
S-rEUDEL'sNomenclator,*  which,  at  his 
earnest  wish,  has  been  projected  at 
Kew. 


V.   WORK  IN  ZOOLOGY. 


BTG.  J.  ROMANES,  P.R.S. 


The  influence  which  our  great 
naturalist  has  exerted  upon  zoology 
is  unquestionably  greater  than  that 
which  has  been  exerted  by  any  other 
individual ;  and  as  it  depends  on  his 
generalizations  much  more  than  upon 
his  particular  researches,  we  may  best 
do  justice  to  it  by  taking  a  bro.id 
view  of  the  effects  of  Darwinism  on 
zoology,  rather  than  by  detailing 
those  numberless  facts  which  have 
been  added  to  the  science  by  the  ever 
vigilant  observations  of  DARWIN. 
Nevertheless,  we  may  begin  our  sur- 
vey by  enumerating  the  more  im- 
portant results  of  his  purely  zoologi- 
cal work,  not  so  much  because  these 
have  been  rarely  equaled  by  the  work 
of  any  other  zoologist,  as  because  we 
may  thus  give  due  prominence  to  the 
remarkable  association  of  qualities 
which  was  presented  by  Mr.  DAR- 
WIN'S mind.  This  association  of 
qualities  was  such  that  he  was  able 
fully  to  appi'eciate  and  successfully  to 
cultivate  every  department  and  rami- 
fication of  biological  research — wheth- 
er morphological,  physiological,  syste- 
matic, descriptive,  or  statistical — and 
at  the  same  time  to  rise  above  the 
minutiae  of  these  various  branches,  to 
take  those  commanding  views  of  the 
whole  range  of  nature  and  of  natural 
science  which  have  produced  so 
enormous  a  change  upon  our  means 
of  knowledge  and  our  modes  of 
thought.  No  laborer  in  the  field  of 
science  has  ever  plodded  more 
patiently  through  masses  of  small  de- 


'  Ai  enumeration  of  the  names  and  syn- 
onyms of  all  described  flowerings  plants  with 
their  native  countries. 


If* 


tail ;  no  master-mind  on  the  highest 
elevation  of  philosophy  has  ever 
grasped  more  world- transforming 
truth. 

Taking  the  purely  zoological  work 
in  historical  order,  we  have  first 
to  consider  the  observations  made 
during  the  voyage  of  the  Heagle. 
These,  however,  are  much  toonumer 
ous  and  minute  to  admit  of  being 
here  detailed.  Among  the  most 
curious  are  those  relating  to  the 
scissor-beak  bird,  niata  cattle,  aeronaut 
spiders,  upland  geese,  sense  of  sight 
and  smell  in  vultures;  and  amonu 
the  most  important  are  those  relating 
to  the  geographical  distribution  oi 
species.  The  results  obtained  on  the 
latter  head  are  of  peculiar  interest, 
inasmuch  as  it  was  owing  to  them 
that  Mr.  DARWIN  was  first  led  to 
entertain  the  idea  of  evolution.  As 
displaying  the  dawn  of  this  idea  in  his 
mind  we  may  quote  a  passage  or  two 
from  his  Voyage  of  a  Naturalist, 
where  these  observations  relating  to 
distribution  are  given : 

"These  mountains  (the  Andes) 
have  existed  as  a  great  barrier  since 
the  present  races  of  animals  have 
appeared,  and  therefore,  unless  we 
suppose  the  same  species  to  have 
been  created  in  two  different  places, 
we  ought  not  to  expect  any  closer 
similarity  between  the  organic  beings 
on  the  opposite  sides  of  the  Andes, 
than  on  the  opposite  shores  of  the 
ocean." 

"The  natural  history  of  these 
islands  (of  the  Galapagos  Archipelago) 
is  eminently  curious,  and  well  deserves 
attention.  Most  of  the  organic  pro- 
ductions are  aboriginal  creations, 
found  nowhere  else ;  there  is  even  a 
difference  between  the  inhabitants  of 
the  different  islands;  yet  all  show  a 
marked  relationship  with  those  of 
America,  though  separated  from  that 
continent  by  an  open  space  of  ocean 
between  500  and  600  miles  in  width. 
The  Archipelago  is  a  little  world 
within  itself,  or  rather  a  satellite 
attached  to  America,  whence  it  has 
derived  a  few  stray  colonists,  and  has 
received  the  general  character  of  its 


DARWIN  AND  HUMBOLDT. 


123 


mdigenous  productions.  Considering 
the  small  size  of  the  islands,  we  feel 
astonished  at  the  number  of  their 
aboriginal  beings,  and  at  their  con- 
fined range.  Seeing  every  height 
crowned  with  its  crater,  and  the 
boundaries  of  most  of  the  lava-streams 
still  distinct,  we  are  led  to  believe 
that  within  a  period  geologically 
recent,  the  unbroken  ocean  was  here 
spread  out  Hence,  both  in  space 
and  time,  we  seem  to  be  brought 
somewhat  near  to  that  fact — that 
mystery  of  mysteries — the  first  appear- 
ance of  new  beings  on  this  earth." 

Next  in  order  of  time  we  have  to 
notice  the  Monograph  of  the  Oirri- 
pedia.  This  immensely  elaborate 
work  was  published  by  the  Ray  So 
ciety  in  two  volumes,  comprising  to- 
gether over  1,000  large  octavo  pages, 
and  40  plates.  These  massive  books 
(which  were  respectively  published  in 
1851  and  1854)  convey  the  results  of 
several  years  of  devoted  inquiry,  and 
are  particularly  interesting,  not  only 
on  account  of  the  intrinsic  value  of 
the  work,  but  also  because  they  show 
that  Mr.  DARWIN'S  powers  of  research 
were  not  less  remarkable  in  the  direc- 
tion of  purely  anatomical  investiga- 
tion than  they  were  in  that  of  physio- 
logical experiment  and  philosophical 
generalization.  No  one  can  even 
glance  through  this  memoir  without 
perceiving  that  if  it  had  stood  alone 
it  would  have  placed  its  author  in  the 
very  first  rank  as  a  morphological  in 
vestigator.  The  prodigious  number 
and  minute  accuracy  of  his  dissections, 
the  exhaustive  detail  with  which  he 
worked  out  every  branch  of  his  sub- 
ject— sparing  no  pains  in  procuring 
every  species  that  it  was  possible  to 
procure,  in  collecting  all  the  known 
facts  relating  to  the  geographical  and 
geological  distribution  of  the  group, 
in  tracing  the  complicated  history  of 
metamorphoses  represented  by  the  in- 
dividuals of  the  sundry  species,  in 
disentangling  the  problem  of  the 
homologies  of  these  perplexing  ani 
mals,  etc. — all  combine  to  show  that 
had  Mr.  DARWIN  chosen  to  devote 
himself  to  a  life  of  purely  morpholog- 


17 


ical  work,  his  name  would  probably 
have  been  second  to  none  in  that  de- 
partment of  biology.  We  have  to 
thank  his  native  sagacitv  that  such 
was  not  his  choice.  Valuable  as 
without  any  question  are  the  results 
of  the  great  anatomical  research  which 
we  are  considering,  we  cannot  peruse 
j  these  thousand  pages  of  closely- writ- 
ten detail  without  feeling  that,  for  a 
man  of  Mr.  DARWIN'S  exceptional 
powers,  even  such  results  are  too 
dearly  bought  by  the  expenditure  of 
time  required  for  obtaining  them. 
We  cannot,  indeed,  be  sorry  that  he 
engaged  in  and  completed  this  solid 
piece  of  morphological  work,  because 
it  now  stands  as  a  monument  to  his 
great  ability  in  this  direction  of  in- 
quiry ;  but  at  the  same  time  we  feel 
sincerely  glad  that  the  conspicuous 
success  which  attended  the  exercise  of 
such  ability  in  this  instance  did  not 
betray  him  into  other  undertakings 
of  the  same  kind.  Such  undertak- 
ings may  suitably  be  left  to  establish 
the  fame  of  great  though  lesser  men ; 
it  would  have  been  a  calamity  in  the 
history  of  our  race  if  CHARLES  DAK- 
WIN  had  been  tempted  by  his  own 
ability  to  become  a  comparative  anat- 
omist. 

But  as  we  have  said — and  we  repeat 
it  lest  there  should  be  any  possibility 
of  mistaking  what  we  mean — -the 
results  which  attended  this  laborious 
inquiry  were  of  the  highest  import- 
ance to  comparative  anatomy,  and  of 
the  highest  interest  to  comparative 
anatomists.  The  limits  of  this  article 
do  not  admit  of  our  giving  a  summary 
of  these  results,  so  we  shall  only 
allude  to  the  one  which  is  most  im- 
portant. This  is  the  discovery  of 
"Complemental  Males."  The  manner 
in  which  this  discovery  was  made  in 
its  entirety  is  of  interest,  as  showing 
the  importance  of  remembering  ap- 
parently insignificant  observations 
which  may  happen  to  be  incidentally 
made  during  the  progress  of  a  re- 
search. For  Mr.  DARWIN  writes  : 

"  When  first  dissecting  ScalpelZum 
vttlgare,  I  was  surprised  at  the  almost 
constant  presence  of  oue  or  more  very 


124 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


were   Cirri  pedes. 
terward,  when   I 


minute  parasites,  on  the  margins  of 
Itoth  scuta,  close  to  the  umbones.  I 
carelessly  dissected  one  or  two  speci- 
mens, and  concluded  that  they  be- 
longed to  some  new  class  or  order 
among  the  Articulata.  but  did  not 
at  the  time  even  conjecture  that  they 
Many  months  af 
had  seen  in  Ibla 

that  an  hermaphrodite  could  have  a 
complemental  male,  I  remembered 
that  I  had  been  surprised  at  the  small 
size  of  the  vesiculae  seminales  in  the 
hermaphrodite  S.  vulgare,  so  that  I 
resolved  to  look  with  care  at  these 
parasites ;  on  doing  so  I  now  dis- 
covered that  they  were  Cirripedes, 
for  I  found  that  they  adhered  by  ce- 
ment, and  were  furnished  with  pre- 
hensile antennae,  which  latter,  I  ob- 
served with  astonishment,  agreed  in 
every  minute  character,  and  in  size, 


ach,  inhabiting  the  pouches  formed 
on  the  under  sides  of  her  two  valves; 
(3)  an  hermaphrodite,  with  from  one 
or  two,  up  to  five  or  six,  similai 
short-lived  males  without  muuih  -A 
stomach,  attached  to  one  partioaiar 
spot  on  each  side  of  the  orifice  of  the  ca- 
pitulum ;  and  (4)  hermaphrodites,  with 
occasionally  one,  two,  or  three  males, 
capable  of  seizing  and  devouring  their 
prey  in  the  ordinary  Cirripedal  ineth- 


to     two    parts   of  the 
both   cases   being  pro 


od,   attached 
capituluin,  in 

tected  by  the  closing  of  the  scuta. '' 
With  reference  to  these  Comple- 
mental Males  (so-called  "  to  show  that 
they  do  not  pair  with  a  female,  but  with 
a  bisexual  individual.")  Mr.  DARWIN 
further  observes :  "Nothing  strictly 
analogous  is  known  in  the  animal 
kingdom ;  but  amongst  plants,  in  the 
Linnean  class  Polygamia,  closely 


with  those  of  S.  vulgnre.  I  also  found  j  similar  instances  abound;"  and  also 
that  these  parasites  were  destitute  of  \  that  "in  the  series  of  facts  now  given 
a  mouth  and  stomach ;  that  con-  j  we  have  one  curious  illustration  more 
sequently  they  were  short-lived  but  to  the  many  already  known,  how 
that  they  reached  maturity ;  and  that  gradually  nature  changes  from  one 
all  were  males.  Subsequently  five  other  condition  to  the  other,  in  this  case 


species  of  the  genus  Scalpellum  were 
found  to  present  more  or  Isss  closely- 
analogous  phenomena.  These  facts, 
together  with  those  given  under  Ibla 
(and  had  it  not  been  for  this  latter 
genus,  I  never  probably  should  have 
struck  on  the  right  line  in  my  investi- 
gation), appear  s  ifficient  to  justify 
me  in  provisionally  considering  the 
truly  wonderful  parasites  of  the  seve- 
ral species  of  Scalpellum,  as  Males  and 
Complemental  Males."  (vol.  i.  pp. 
292-3). 

The  remarkable  phenomena  of 
sexuality  in  these  animals  is  summed 
up  thus : 

"  The  simple  fact  of  the  diversity  in 
the  sexual  relations  displayed  within 
the  limits  of  the  genera  Ibla  and  Scal- 
pellum, appears  to  me  eminently  curi 
OUB.  We  have  (1)  a  female,  with  a 
male  (or  rarely  two)  permanently 
attached  to  her,  protected  by  her,  and 
nourished  by  any  minute  animals 
which  may  enter  her  sac  ;  (2)  a  female, 


from    bisexuality     to    uuisexuality." 
(ii.  29). 

Lastly,  to  give  only  one  other  quo- 
tation from  this  work,  he  writes  : 

"  As  I  am  summing  up  the  singu- 
larity of  the  phenomena  here  present 
ed,  1  will  allude  to  the  marvelous 
assemblage  of  beings  seen  by  me 
within  the  sac  of  an  Ibla  quadrival- 
vis,  namely,  an  old  and  young  male, 
both  minute,  worm-like,  destitute  of  a 
capitulum,  with  a  great  mouth  and 
rudimentary  thorax  and  limbs,  attach- 
ed to  each  other  and  to  the  hermaph- 
rodite, which  latter  is  utterly  dif- 
ferent in  appearance  and  structure ; 
secondly,  the  four  or  five  free,  boat- 
shaped  larvae,  with  their  curious  pre- 
hensile antennae,  two  great  compound 
eyes,  no  mouth,  and  six  natatory 
legs ;  and  lastly,  several  hundreds  of 
the  larvae,  in  their  first  stage  of  de- 
velopment, globular,  with  horn-shaped 
projections  on  their  carapaces,  minute 
single  eyes,  filiform  antennae,  pro 

with  successive  pairs   of   short-lived  i  bosciform   mouths,    and    only    thVee 
males,  destitute  of  mouth  and  atom- 1  pairs  of  natatory  legs    What 

18 


DARWIN  AND  HUMBOLDT. 


125 


beings,  with  scarcely  anything  in 
common,  and  yet  all  belonging  to  the 
same  species!  "  (i.  293). 

Scattered  through  the  Origin  of 
Species,  the  Variation  of  Plants  and 
Animals  under  Domestication,  and 
the  Descent  of  Man,  we  meet  with 
many  purely  zoological  observations 
of  much  interest  and  importance  as 
such,  or  apart  from  their  bearing  on 
the  general  principles  and  arguments 
for  the  illustration  or  fortification  of 
which  they  are  introduced.  In  this 
connection  we  may  particularly  allude 
to  the  chapters  on  Variability,  Hy- 
bridism, and  Gc  graphical  Distribu- 
tion— chapters  which  contain  such  a 
large  number  of  new  facts,  as  well  as 
new  groupings  of  old  ones,  that  we 
cannot  undertake  to  epitomize  them  in 
a  resume  of  Mr.  DARWIN'S  work  so 
brief  as  the  present.  Nor  should  we 
forget  to  mention  in  the  present  con- 
nection his  experimental  proof  of  the 
manner  in  which  bees  make  their 
hexagonal  cells,  id  of  the  important 
part  played  in  the  economy  of  nature 
by  earthworms.  Moreover,  the  hy- 
pothesis of  sexual  selection  necessitat- 
ed the  collection  of  a  large  body  of 
facts  relating  to  the  ornamentation  of 
all  classes  of  animals,  from  insects  and 
Crustacea  upward ;  and  whatever  we 
may  think  about  the  stability  of  the 
hypothesis,  there  can  be  no  question, 
from  a  zoological  point  of  view,  con- 
cerning the  value  of  this  collection  of 
facts  as  such. 

But  without  waiting  to  consider 
further  the  purely  zoological  results 
presented  by  the  work  before  us,  we 
must  turn  to  consider  the  effects  of 
this  work  upon  zoological  science  it- 
self. And  here  we  approach  the 
true  magnitude  of  DARWIN  as  a 
zoologist.  Of  very  faw  men  in  the 
history  of  our  race  can  it  be  said  that 
uhey  not  only  enlarged  science,  but 
changed  it — not  only  added  facts  to 
the  growing  structure  of  natural 
knowledge,  but  profoundly  modified 
the  basal  conceptions  upon  which  the 
whole  structure  rested;  and  of  no  one 
can  this  be  said  with  more  truth  than 
it  can  be  said  of  DARWIN.  For 


although  it  is  the  case  that  the  idea 
of  evolution  had  occurred  to  other 
minds — in  two  or  three  instances 
with  all  the  force  of  full  conviction — 
it  is  no  less  certainly  the  case  that  the 
idea  proved  barren.  Why  did  it 
prove  so?  Because  it  had  never  be- 
fore been  fertilized  by  the  idea  of 
natural  selection.  To  demonstrate, 
or  to  render  sufficiently  probable  by 
inference,  the  fact  of  evolution  (for 
direct  observation  of  the  process  is 
from  the  nature  of  the  case  impossible), 
required  some  reasonable  suggestion 
as  to  th  >  cause  of  evolution,  such  as 
is  supplied  by  the  theory  of  natural 
selection  ;  and  when  once  this  sugges- 
tion was  forthcoming,  it  mattered 
little  whether  it  was  considered  ah 
propounding  the  only,  the  chief,  or 
but  a  subordinate  cause ;  all  that  was 
needed  to  recommend  the  evidence  of 
evolution  to  the  judgment  of  science 
was  the  discovery  of  some  cause 
which  could  be  reasonably  regarded 
as  not  incommensurate  with  some  of 
the  effects  ascribed  to  it.  And,  un 
like  the  desperate  though  most  laud- 
able groupings  of  LAMARCK,  the  sim- 
ple solution  furnished  by  DARWIN 
was  precisely  what  was  required  to 
give  a  locus  standi  to  the  evidence 
of  descent. 

But  we  should  form  a  very  inade- 
quate estimate  of  the  services  render- 
ed to  science  by  Mr.  DARWIN  if  we 
were  to  stop  here.  The  few  gen- 
eral facts  out  of  which  the  theory  of 
evolution  by  natural  selection  is 
formed — viz.  struggle  for  existence, 
survival  of  the  fittest,  and  heredity — 
were  all  previously  well-known  facts; 
and  we  may  not  unreasonably  feel 
astonished  that  so  apparently  obvious 
a  combination  of  them  as  that  which 
occurred  to  Mr.  DARWIN  should  have 
occurred  to  no  one  else,  with  the 
single  exception  of  Mr.  WALLACE. 
The  fact  that  it  did  not  do  so  is  most 
fortunate  in  two  respects — first,  be- 
cause it  gave  Mr.  DARWIN  the  op- 
portunity of  pondering  upon  the  sub- 
ject ab  initio,  and  next  because  it  gave 
the  world  an  opportunity  of  witness- 
ing the  disinterested  unselfishness 


19 


126 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


which   has  been   so   signally  and  so ,  from   this   aspect  of  our   subject   to 
consistently  displayed  by  both  these !  enlarge  upon  the   influence  which  a 

general  acceptance  of  the  theory  of 
descent  has  had  upon  biology.  WV 
do  not  state  the  case  too  strongly 
when  we  say  that  this  has  been  tli<- 
influence  which  has  created  organiza 
tion  out  of  confusion,  brought  thedn 


English  naturalists.  But  the 
ness  of  Mr.  DARWIN  as  the  reformer 
of  biology  is  not  to  be  estimated  by 
the  fact  that  he  conceived  the  idea  of 
natural  selection  ;  his  claim  to  ever- 
lasting memory  rests  upon  the  many 


years  of  devoted   labor  whereby  he  |  bones  to  life,  and  made  all  the  previ 
tested  this    idea  in   all    conceivable  ously    dissociated    facts    of    scienc< 
facts    from    every  stand  up  as  an  exceeding  great  army 


ways — amassing 

department  of  science,  balancing  evi- 
dence with  the  souivlest  judgment, 
shirking  no  difficulty,  and  at  last 
astonishing  the  world  as  with  a  reve- 
lation by  publishing  the  completed 
proof  of  evolution.  Indeed,  so  co- 
lossal is  Mr  DARWIN'S  greatness  in 
this  respect,  that  we  doubt  whether 
there  ever  was  a  man  so  well  fitted  to 
undertake  the  work  which  he  has  so 
successfully  accomplished.  For  this 
work  required  not  merely  vast  and 
varied  knowledge  of  many  provinces 
of  science,  and  the  very  exceptional 
powers  of  judgment  which  Mr.  DAR 
WIN  possessed,  but  also  the  patience 
to  labor  for  many  years  at  a  great 


Let  any  one  turn  to 
prophecy  with  which 
the  Origin  of  tfpecies 


the  eloquent 
the  pages  ol 
terminate — a 


generalization, 
which  rendered 
best  critic,  and 


the 
the 


honest    candor 
author  his   own 


last,  though  perhaps 


not  least,  the  magnanimous  simplicity 
of  character  which,  in  rising  above 
all  petty  and  personal  feelings,  deliv- 
ered a  thought-reversing  doctrine  to 
mankind  with  as  little  disturbance  as 
possible  of  the  deeply- rooted  senti- 
ments of  the  age.  In  the  chapter  of 
accidents,  therefore,  it  is  a  singularly 
fortunate  coincidence  that  Mr.  DAR- 
WIN was  the  man  to  whom  the  idea  of 
natural  selection  occurred ;  for  al- 
though in  a  generation  or  two  the 
truth  of  evolution  might  have  be- 
come more  and  more  forced  upon  the 
belief  of  science,  and  with  it  the  ac- 
ceptance of  natural  selection  as  an 
operating  cause,  in  our  own  genera- 


tion  this  could 
complished  in 


only  have  been   ac- 
the  way  that  it  was 


accomplished  ;  we  required  one  such 
exceptional  mind  as  that  of  DARWIN 
to  focus  the  facts,  and  to  show  the 
method . 

It  seems   almost   needless  to    turn 


prophecy  which   sets   forth  in  order 
the  transforming  effect  that  the  doc- 
trine of  evolution  would  in  the  future 
exert  upon  every  department  of  biol 
ogy — and   he   may   rejoice  to  think 
that  Mr.    DARWIN   himself  lived   to 
see  every  word  of  that  prophecy  f ul 
filled.     For  where  is  now  the  "syste- 
niatist  .  .  .  incessantly    haunted   by 
the  shadowy  doubt  whether  this  or 
that  form  be  a  true  species  ?  "     And 
has  it  not  proved  that  "the  other  and 
more  general  departments  of  natural 
history  will  rise  greatly  in  interest- 
that  the  terms  used  by  naturalists,  of 
affinity,    relationship,   community    of 
type,  paternity,  morphology,  adaptive 
characters,  rudimentary  and   aborted 
organs,  etc  ,  will  cease  to  be  metaphor- 
ical, and    will  have  a  plain  significa- 
tion ?  "     Do  we   not   indeed  begin  to 
feel  that  "  we  no  longer   look  at  an 
organic  being  as  a  savage   looks  at  a 
ship,  as  something  wholly  beyond  his 
comprehension?  And  when  we  regard 
every   production   of    nature  as  one 
which  has  had  a  long  history,  when 
we  contemplate  every  complete  struc- 
ture and  instinct  as  the  summing  up 
of  many  contrivances,  each  useful  to 
the  possessor,  in  the  same  way  as  any 
great    mechanical    invention   is    the 
summing  up  of  the  labor,  the  experi 
ence,  the  reason,  and  even  the  blunders 
of  numerous  workmen,  when  we  thus 
view  each  organic   being,"   may  we 
not  now  all  say  with  DARWIN,  "How 
far  more  interesting — I   speak  from 
experience— does  the  study  of  natural 
history  become  ?"     And  may  we  not 
"o\v  all  see  that  "  a  grand  and  almost 


DARWIN  AND  HUMBOLDT. 


12; 


untrodden  field  of  inquiry  on  the  laws 
of  variation,  on  correlation,  on  the 
effects  of  use  and  disuse,  on  the  direct 
action  of  external  conditions"  has 
been  opened  up  ;  that  our  classifica- 
tions have  become  "  as  far  as  they 
can  be  made  so,  genealogies,  and  truly 
give  what  may  be  called  a  plan  of 
creation  ; "  that  rules  of  classifying 
do  "  become  simpler  when  we  have  a 
definite  object  in  view;"  and  that 
''aberrant  species,  which  may  fanci 
fully  be  called  living  fossils,"  actually 
are  of  service  in  supplying  "  a  picture 
of  ancient  forms  of  life  ? "  And 
again,  must  we  not  agree  that 
"when  we  can  feel  assured  that 
all  the  individuals  of  the  same  species 
and  all  the  closely-allied  species 
of  most  genera,  have,  within  a  not 
very  remote  period,  descended  from 
one  parent,  and  have  migrated  from 
some  one  birthplace;  and  when  we 
better  know  the  many  means  of  migra- 
tion, then,  by  the  light  which  geology 
now  throws,  and  will  continue  to 
throw,  on  former  changes  of  climate 
and  of  the  level  of  the  land,  we  shall 
surely  be  able  to  trace  in  an  admira- 
ble manner  the  former  migrations  of 
the  inhabitants  of  the  whole  world"? 


the  last  two-and-twenty  years  has  in 
so  astonishing  a  measure  verified  the 
prophecy  of  the  Origin  of  Species, 
surely,  in  conclusion,  we  are  more 
than  ever  constrained  to  agree  with 
the  sentiments  expressed  by  its  clos- 
ing words  :  "When  I  view  all  beings, 
not  as  special  creations,  but  as  the 
lineal  descendants  of  some  few  beings 
which  lived  long  before  the  first  bed 
of  the  Cambrian  system  was  deposited, 
they 
bled 

view  of  life,  with  its  several  powers, 
having  been  originally  breathed  by 
the  Creator  into  a  few  forms  or  into 
one ;  and  that,  whilst  this  planet  has 
gone  cycling  on  according  to  the  fixed 
law  of  gravity,  from  so  simple  a  be 
ginning  endless  forms  most  beautiful 
and  most  wonderful  have  been,  and 
are  being  evolved." 


VI.    WORK   IN  PSYCHOLOGY. 


seem   to   me  to   become   enno- 
There  is  grandeur  in  this 


BT   G.    J.    ROMANES,  F.R.8. 


The  effects  upon  Psychology  of  Mr. 
DARWIN'S  writings  have  been  BO  im- 
And  who  is  now  able  to  question  that  i  mense,  that  we  shall  not  overstate 
"  by  comparing  the  differences  be- !  them  by  saying  that  they  are  fully 
tween  the  inhabitants  of  the  sea  on  comparable  with  those  which  we  have 
the  opposite  sides  of  a  continent,  and  previously  considered  as  having  been 
of  the  various  inhabitants  on  that  con-  exerted  by  the  same  writings  on  geol- 
tinent  in  relation  to  their  apparent  ogy,  botany,  and  zoology.  This  fact 
means  of  migration,  some  light  can  at  first  sight  cm  scarcely  fail  to  strike 
be  thrown  on  ancient  geography  "  ?  us  as  remarkable,  in  view  of  thecon- 
Or,  if  we  turn  to  "the  noble  science  sideration  that  Mr.  DABWIN  was  not 
of  geology,"  do  we  not  see  that  we  are  only  not  himself  a  psychologist,  but 
beginning  to  "  gauge  with  some  had  little  aptitude  for,  and  perhaps 
security  the  duration  of  intervals  by  less  sympathy  with,  the  technique  of 
a  comparison  of  the  preceding  and  psychological  method.  The  whole 
succeeding  forms  of  life  "  ?  And  last,  constitution  of  his  mind  was  opposed 
though  not  least,  have  we  not  found  to  the  subtlety  of  the  distinctions  and 
this  one  short  sentence  so  charged  the  mvsticism  of  the  conceptions 
with  meaning  that  anew  and  extensive  which  this  technique  BO  frequently 
science,  second  in  importance  to  none,  involves  ;  and  therefore  he  was  ac- 
may  be  almost  said  to  have  grown  customed  to  regard  the  problems  of 
out  of  what  it  states  :  "Embryology  mind  in  the  same  broad  and  general 
will  often  reveal  to  us  the  structure,  light  that  he  regarded  all  the  otha- 
in  some  degree  obscured,  of  the  proto-  problems  of  nature.  But  if  at  first 
types  "  ?  sight  we  ai-e  inclined  to  feel  surprised 

If  the    progress   of  science  during   that,  although  possessing  none  of  the 

21 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


special  mental  equipments  of  a 
psychologist,  he  ihould  have  exert- 
ed so  enormous  an  influence  upon 
psychology,  our  surprise  must  vanish 
when  we  consider  the  matter  a  little 
more  attentively.  For  the  truth  of 
this  matter  is  that  psychology,  in 
being  the  science  furthest  removed 
from  the  reach  of  experimental  means 
and  inductive  method,  is  the  science 
which  has  longest  remained  in  the 
trammels  of  a  priori  analysis  and 
metaphysical  thought ;  therefore  DAR- 
WIN, by  casting  the  eye  of  a  philo- 
sophical naturalist  upon  the  facts, 
without  reference  to  the  cobwebs 
which  the  specialists  had  woven 
around  them,  was  able  to  gather 
directly  much  new  information  as  to 
their  meaning.  And  the  rare  sagac- 
ity with  which  he  observed  and 
reflected  upon  the  phenomena  of  mind 
merely  as  phenomena  or  facts  of 
nature,  led  to  the  remarkable  results 
which  we  shall  presently  have  to  con- 
sider— results  which  have  done  more 
than  any  other  to  unmuflie  the  young 
science  of  psychology  from  the  swad- 
dling clothes  of  its  mediaeval  nursery. 
The  portions  of  Mr.  DARWIN  s 
writings  which  refer  to  mental 
science  are  very  limited  in  extent — 
comprising,  in  fact,  only  one  chapter 
in  the  Origin  of  Species,  three  in 
the  Descent  of  Man,  and  a  short 
paper  on  the  development  of  in- 
fantile intelligence.  The  import- 
ance of  the  effect  produced  by 
them  is  therefore  rendered  all  the 
more  remarkable ;  but  in  this  con- 
nection it  seems  desirable  to  state  that 
the  chapters  to  which  we  have  alluded 
represent,  in  an  exceedingly  condensed 
form,  the  result  of  extensive  thought 
and  reading.  A  year  or  two  ago 
Mr.  DARWIN  lent  the  present  writer 
the  original  drafts  of  these  essays, 
together  with  all  the  notes  and  mem- 
oranda which  he  had  collected  on 
psychological  subjects  during  the  pre- 
vious forty  years,  and  so  we  can  testi- 
fy that  any  one  who  reads  these  MSS. 
is  more  likely  to  be  surprised  at  the 
amount  of  labor  which  they  indicate 
than  at  the  effect  which  has  been 


produced  by  the  compressed  publica 
tion  of  its  results.  What  strikes 
one  most  in  reading  the  MSS.  is  that 
which  also  strikes  one  most  in  read- 
ing the  published  resume  that  has 
grown  out  of  them — namely,  the 
honest  adherence  throughout  to  the 
strictly  scientific,  or,  as  the  followers 
of  COMTE  would  say,  positive  method 
of  seeking  and  interpreting  facts; 
speculation,  hypothesis,  and  straw- 
splitting  are  everywhere,  not  so  much 
intentionally  avoided,  as  alien  to  the 
whole  conception  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  sundry  problems  are  to  be 
attacked  We  all  know  that  this  con- 
ception has  not  met  with  universal  ap- 
proval— that  more  than  one  writer, 
adhering  to  the  traditional  methods 
of  psychological  inquiry,  has  express- 
ly joined  issue  upon  it.  But  although 
it  is  an  easy  matter  for  a  technical 
psychologist  to  point  to  an  absence 
of  technical  thought,  and  so  of  a  rec 
ognition  of  technical  principles,  ir. 
these  parts  of  Mr.  DARWIN'S  writings, 
we  are  persuaded  that  the  expose  onl  \ 
serves  to  reveal  a  beam  in  the  eye  ot 
the  technical  psychologist  which 
prevents  him  from  seeing  clearly  how- 
to  remove  the  mote  from  Mr.  DA* 
WIN'S.  In  other  words,  although  it 
is  true  that  Mr.  DARWIN  does  not  rec- 
ognize the  niceties  of  distinction 
which  seem  so  important  to  what  we 
may  term  the  professional  mind,  it 
is  no  less  true  that  in  the  cases  to 
which  we  have  alluded,  the  profession 
al  mind  has  failed  in  its  duty  of  fill- 
ing up  for  itself  the  technical  lacunae 
in  Mr  DARWIN'S  expositions.  Such 
lacunae,  no  doubt  occur,  but  they  nevei 
really  vitiate  the  integrity  of  the  con- 
j  elusions ;  and  a  trained  psycholo- 
gist would  best  fulfill  his  function 
as  an  under-builder,  by  supply  ing  here 
and  there  the  stones  which  the  hand 
!  of  the  master  has  neglected  to  put  in. 
!  To  ourselves  it  always  seems  one  of 
the  most  .wonderful  of  the  many 
wonderful  aspects  of  Mr.  DARWIN'S 
varied  work,  that  by  the  sheer  force 
of  some  exalted  kind  of  common  sense, 
unassisted  by  any  special  acquaintance 
with  psychological  method,  he  should 


DARWIN  AND  HUMBOLDT. 


have  been   able  to  strike,  as  it  were,  |  ing  generations.     It   can  be  clearly 
straight  down  upon  some  of  the  most ' 


important    truths  which   have    ever 
been  brought  to   light  in  the  region 


we 


of  mental   science.     These 
now  proceed  to  consider. 

The    chapter    in    the    Origin 


shall 


Species  to  which  we  have  referred,  is 
occupied  chiefly  with  an  application 
of  the  theory  of  natural  selection  to 
the  phenomena  of  instinct  and  incur 
opinion  it  has  done  more  than  all  other 
psychological  writings  put  together 
to  explain  what  instinct  is,  why  it  is 
and  how  it  came  to  be.  Before  this 
chapter  was  published,  the  only  scien- 
tific theory  concerning  the  origin  of 
instincts  that  had  been  formed  was 
the  theory  wh'ch  regarded  them  as 
hereditary  habits.  Because  we  know 
that  in  the  individual  intelligent  ad- 
justments become,  by  frequent  rep- 
etition, automatic,  it  was  inferred 
that  the  same  might  be  true  of  the 
species,  and  therefore  that  all  instincts 
were  to  be  regarded  as  what  LEWES 
has  aptly  termed  "lapsed  intelli 
gence."  In  this  view  there  is,  with- 
out any  question,  much  truth,  and  the 
first  thing  we  have  to  notice  about 
Mr.  DARWIN'S  writings  .vith  reference 
to  instinct  is  that  they  not  only  rec- 
ognized this  truth,  but,  by  elucida- 


.-.hown  that   the   most   wonderful  in 
stincts  with  which  we  are  acquainted, 
namely,  those  of  the  hive  bee  and  of 
many  ants,  could   not  possibly  have 
been  acquired  by  habit.* 
of\      "It  will  be    universally   admitted 


that  instincts  are  as  important  as  cor- 
poreal structures  for  the  welfare  of 
each  species,  under  its  present  con- 
ditions of  life.  Under  changed  con- 
ditions of  life,  it  is  at  least  possible 
that  slight  modifications  of  instinct 
might  be  profitable  to  a  species  ;  and 
if  it  can  be  shown  that  instincts  do 
vary  ever  so  little,  then  I  can  see  no 
difficulty  in  natural  selection  preserv- 
ing and  continually  accumulating 
variations  of  instinct  to  any  extent 
that  was  profitable.  It  is  thus,  I  be- 
lieve, that  all  the  most  complex  and 
wonderful  instincts  have  originated." 
Briefly,  then,  in  Mr.  DARWIN'S 
view,  instincts  may  arise  by  lapsing 
intelligence,  by  natural  selection  of 
accidental  and  possibly  non-intelligent 
variations  of  habit,  or  by  both  prin 
ciples  combined — seeing  that  "a  little 
dose  of  judgment  "is  often  commin- 
gled with  even  the  most  fixed  (or 
most  strongly  inherited)  instincts. 
One  good  test  of  the  truth  of  the  view 
as  a  whole  is  that  which  Mr.  DARWIN 


ting  the  whole  subject  of  heredity,  j  has  himself  supplied — namely,  search- 
placed  it  in  a  much  clearer  light  than  |  ing  through  the  whole  range  of  in- 
it  ever  stood  before.  Mr.  DARWIN,  |  stincts  to  see  whether  any  occur 
however,  earned  the  philosophy  of 
the  subject  very  much  further  when 
he  agued  that,  in  conjunction  with  the 
cause  formulated  as  "lapsing  intelli- 
gence," there  was  another  at  least  as 
potent  in  the  formation  of  instincts — 
namely,  natural  selection.  His  own 


which  are  either  injurious  to  the 
animals  exhibiting  them,  or  benefical 
only  to  other  animals.  Now  there 
is  really  no  authentic  case  of  the 
former,  and  the  latter  are  so  few  in 
number  that  they  may  reasonably  be 
regarded,  either  as  rudiments  of  in- 


statement  of  the  case  is  so  terse  that '  stincts  once  useful  (so  analogous  to 
we  cannot  do  better  than  quote  it.  j  the  human  tail),  or  as  still  useful  in 
"If  MOZART,  instead  of  playing  the  ( some  unobservable  manner  (so  anal- 
pianoforte  at  three  years  with  won-  ogous  to  the  tail  of  the  rattlesnake), 
derfully  little  practice,  had  played  a  !  The  case  of  aphides  secreting  honey- 
tune  with  no  practice  at  all,  he  might ! 

truly  be  said  to  have  done  so  instinct-  •      *  Because   the  individuals   which   exhibit 
ively.    But  it  would  be  a  serious  error   them,  being  neuters,  can  never  have  progeny. 


to  suppose   that  the  greater  number   It  is  indeed   surprising,  as 


Mr.   DARWIN 

.  .    -  -.  -  further  on  observes,  that  no  on«  previously 

of  instinct*  have    been   acquired    ty    ..advanced this  demonstrative  case  of  neuter 

habit  in   one    generation,    and  then  insects  against  the  well-known  doctrine  of 
tfangrrutt^  by  inheritance  to  succeed-  \  inherit*!  habit  w  advanced  by  LAMARCK." 

*** 


130 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


uew  for  the  benefit  of  ants  occurred  to 
Mr.  DARWIN  as  one  which  might  be 
adduced  against  his  theory  in  this 
connection,  and  he  therefore  made 
some  experiments  upon  the  subject, 
which  led  him  to  conclude  that  "  as 
the  excretion  is  extremely  viscid,  it  is 
no  doubt  a  convenience  to  the  aphides 
to  have  it  removed  ;  therefore  proba 
bly  they  do  not  excrete  solely  for  the 
good  of  the  ants." 

A  discussion  of  the  variability  of 
instinct,  and  of  the  probability  that 
variations  should  be  inherited,  leads 
him  to  consider  the  important  case  of 
the  apparent  formation  of  artificial 
instincts  in  our  domestic  dogs  by  con- 
tinued training  with  selection,  and  also 
the  not  less  important  case  of  the 
effects  produced  upon  natural  instincts 
by  the  long-continued  change  of  en- 
vironment to  which  other  of  our 
domestic  animals  have  been  exposed. 
All  the  facts  adduced  as  resulting 
from  these  long-continued  though 
unintentional  experiments  by  i»an,  go 
to  substantiate,  in  a  very  unmistaka- 
ble manner,  the  theory  concerning 
the  origin  and  development  of  in- 
stincts which  we  are  considering. 
The  chapter  concludes  with  a  close 
consideration  of  some  of  the  more 
remarkable  instincts  which  occur  in 
the  animal  kingdom,  such  as  the  par- 
asitic instinct  of  the  cuckoo,  the  slave 
making  instinct  of  ants,  and  the  cell- 
making  instinct  of  bees  A  flood  of 
light  is  thrown  upon  the  latter,  and 
the  old  standing  problem  as  to  Low 
the  bees  have  come  to  make  their  cells 
in  the  form  which  requires  the  smallest 
amount  of  material  for  their  construc- 
tion, while  affording  the  largest  ca- 
pacity for  purposes  of  storage,  is  solv- 
ed. 

From  this  brief  account  of  the 
chapter  on  "Instinct,"  it  is  evident 
that  the  new  idea  which  it  starts,  and 
in  several  directions  elaborates,  is  an 
idea  of  immense  importance  to  psy- 
chology, and  that  the  broad  marks  or 
general  principles  laid  down  by  it 
afford  large  scope  for  a  further  filling- 
:n  of  numberless  details  by  the  attent- 
ive observation  of  facts.  The  phe- 


noinena  of  instinct,  indeed,  cease  to 
be  rebellious  to  explanation,  and 
range  themselves  in  orderly  array 
under  the  flag  of  science. 

But  not  less  important  than  the 
chapter  on  "  Instinct "  are  the  chapters 
in  the  Descent  of  Man  on  the  mental 
powers  of  man  as  compared  with 
those  of  the  lower  animals,  on  tl it- 
moral  sense,  and  on  the  development 
of  both  during  primaeval  and  civ  ili/,f! 
times.  Our  estimate  of  the  value  oi 
these  chapters  is  so  high  that  we 
gladly  endorse  the  opinion  of  the  late 
Prof  CLIFFORD — who  was  no  mean 
judge  upon  such  matters — when  he- 
writes  of  them  as  presenting  to  his 
mind  "the  simplest, and  clearest,  and 
most  profound  philosophy  that  was 
ever  written  upon  the  subject."  As 
the  three  chapters  together  cover  only 
eighty  pages,  it  seems  needless  to 
render  an  abstract  of  them,  so  we 
shall  only  observe  that  although  it  is 
easy  to  show  in  them,  as  Mr.  MIVAB* 
and  others  have  shown,  a  want  of 
appreciation  of  technical  terms,  and 
even  of  Aristotelian  ideas,  nowhere  in 
the  whole  range  of  Mr.  DARWIN'S 
writings  is  his  immense  power  of 
judicious  generalization  more  con- 
spicuously shown.  So  much  is  this 
the  case,  that  in  studying  these  chap- 
ters we  have  ourselves  always  felt 
glad  that  Mr.  DARWIN  was  not  the 
specialist  in  psychology  which  some 
of  his  critics  seem  to  suppose  that  he 
ought  to  have  been  if  he  presumed  to 
shake  their  science  to  its  base ;  had  he 
been  such  a  specialist  the  great  sweep 
of  his  thought  might  have  been  hinder- 
ed by  comparatively  immaterial  de- 
tails. 

Of  the  three  chapters  which  we 
are  considering,  the  most  important  is 
the  one  on  the  moral  sense.  As  he 
himself  says: 

"  This  great  quebtion  (the  origin  of 
the  moral  sense)  has  been  discussed 
by  many  writers  of  consummate  abil- 
ity; and  my  only  excuse  for  touching 
upon  it,  is  the  iro  possibility  of  bere 
passing  it  over ;  and  because,  so  fat 
as  I  know,  no  one  has  approached  it 
exclusively  from  the  side  of 


DARWIN  AND  HUMBOLDT. 


history.  The  investigation  possesses, 
also,  some  independent  interest,  as  an 
attempt  to  see  how  far  the  study  of 
the  lower  animals  throws  light  on 
one  of  the  highest  psychical  faculties 
of  man." 

The  result  of  this  investigation  and 
study  has  been  to  give,  if  not  a  new 
point  of  departure  to  the  science  of 
ethics,  at  least  a  completely  new  con- 
ception as  to  the  origin  of  the  faculties 
with  which  that  science  has  to  deal; 
and  without  attempting  to  discuss  the 
objections  which  have  been  raised 
against  the  doctrine,  or  to  enumerate 
the  points  of  contact  between  this 
doctrine  and  older  ethical  theories — 
to  neither  of  which  undertaKings 
would  our  present  space  be  adapted — 
we  may  say  in  general,  that,  as  in  the 
case  of  instinct,  so  in  that  of  con- 
science, we  feel  persuaded  that  Mr. 
DARWIN'S  genius  has  been  the  first 
to  bring  within  the  grasp  of  human 
understanding  large  classes  of  phe- 
nomena which  had  been  previously 
wholly  unintelligible. 

"The  Expression  of  the  Emotions 
in  Man  and  Animals"  is  an  essay 
which  may  be  more  suitably  men- 
tioned in  the  present  division  than  in 
any  of  the  preceding.  The  work  is 
a  highly  interesting  one,  not  only  on 
account  of  its  philosophical  theories, 
but  also  as  an  extensive  accumulation 
of  facts.  "The  three  chief  principles" 
enunciated  by  the  former  are:  (1) 
"the  principle  of  serviceable  asso- 
ciated habits  ";  (2)  "the  principle  of 
antithesis";  and  (3)  "the  principle  of 
actions  due  to  the  constitution  of  the 
Nervous  System,  independently  from 
the  first  of  the  Will,  and  independent- 
ly to  a  certain  extent  of  Habit."  It 
is  shown  that  the  first  of  these  prin- 
ciples leads  to  the  performance  of  ac- 
tions expressive  of  emotions,  because 
"  certain  complex  actions  are  of  direct 
or  indirect  service  under  certain  states 
of  mind,  in  order  to  relieve  or  gratify 
certain  sensations  desired,  etc. ;  and 
*vneuever  the  same  state  of  mind  is  in- 
duced, however  feebly,  there  is  a  ten- 
dency through  the  force  of  habit  and  as- 
sociation for  the  same  movements  to 


be  performed,  though  they  may  not 
then  be  of  the  least  use."  The  second 
principle  arises  because,  "when  a 
directly  opposite  state  of  mind  is 
induced,  there  is  a  strong  and  invol- 
untary tendency  to  the  performance 
of  movements  of  a  directly  opposite 
nature,  though  these  are  of  no  use  ; 
and  such  movements  are  in  some 
cases  highly  expressive."  And  the 
third  principle  occurs  because,  "  when 
the  seusorium  is  strongly  excited, 
nerve  force  is  generated  in  excess, 
and  is  transmitted  in  certain  definite 
direction?,  depending  on  the  connec 
tion  of  the  nerve-cells,  and  partly  on 
habit."  All  these  principles  are  more 
or  less  well  substantiated  by  large 
bodies  of  facts,  and  although  the 
essay,  from  the  nature  of  its  subject- 
matter,  is  necessarily  not  of  so  trans- 
form ing  a  character  in  psychology  as 
those  which  we  have  already  con- 
sidered, and  although  we  may  doubt 
whether  it  gives  a  full  explanation  ot 
every  display  of  expressive  movement, 
we  think  there  can  be  no  reasonable 
question  that  the  three  principles  above 
quoted  are  shown  to  be  true  principles, 
and  therefore  that  the  essay  is  com- 
pletely successful  within  the  scope 
of  its  purposes. 

Lastly,  we  have  to  allude  to  the 
brief  paper  published  in  Mind  on  the 
psychogenesis  of  a  child.  These  notes 
were  not  published  till  long  after  they 
were  taken,  so  that  Mr.  DARWIN  was 
the  first  observer,  in  a  department  of 
psychology  which — owing  chiefly  to 
the  attention  which  his  other  writings 
have  directed  to  the  phenomena  of 
evolution — is  now  being  very  fully 
explored.  The  observations  relate 
entirely  to  matters  of  fact,  and  dis- 
play the  same  qualities  of  thoughtful- 
ness  and  accuracy  which  are  so  con- 
spicuous in  all  his  other  work. 

On  the  whole,  then,  we  must  say 
that  Mr.  DARWIN  has  left  as  broad 
and  deep  a  mark  upon  Psychology  as 
he  has  upon  Geology,  Botany,  and 
Zoology.  Groups  of  facts  which 
previously  seemed  to  be  separate,  are 
now  seen  to  be  bound  together  in  the 
most  intimate  manner  ;  and  some  of 


13* 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OV  SCIENCE. 


what  must  be  regarded  as  the  first 
principles  of  the  science,  hitherto 
unsuspected,  have  been  brought  to 
light.  No  longer  is  it  enough  to  say 
that  such  and  such  actions  are  the 
result  of  instinct,  and  so  beyond  the 
reach  of  explanation;  for  ,u>w  the 
very  thing  to  be  explained  is  the  char- 
acter and  origin  of  the  instinct — the 
causes  which  led  to  its  development, 
i;s  continuance,  its  precision  and  its 
use.  No  longer  is  it  enough  to  con- 
sider the  instincts  manifested  by  an 
animal,  or  a  group  of  animals,  as  an 
isolated  body  of  phenomena,  devoid 
of  any  scientific  meaning  because 
standing  out  of  relation  to  any  known 
causes ;  for  now  the  whole  scientific 
import  of  instincts  as  manifested  by 
one  animal  depends  on  the  degree  in 
which  they  are  connected  by  general 
principles  of  causation  with  the  in- 
stincts that  are  manifested  by  other 
animals.  And  not  only  in  respect  of 
instincts,  but  also  in  respect  of  intelli- 
gence, the  science  of  comparative 
psychology  may  be  said  for  the  first 
time  really  to  have  begun  with  the 
discovery  of  the  general  causes  in 
question ;  while  from  the  simplest 
reflex  actions,  up  to  the  most  recondite 
processes  of  reason  and  the  most  im- 
perious dictates  of  conscience,  we  are 
able  to  trace  a  continuity  of  develop- 
ment. A  revelation  of  truth  so  ex- 
tensive as  this  in  the  department  of 
science  which,  in  most  nearly  touch 
ing  the  personality  of  man,  is  of  most 
importance  for  man  to  explore,  can- 
not fail  to  justify  the  anticipations  of 
the  revealer,  who,  in  referring  to 
psychology,  could  "  in  the  future  see 
open  fields  for  far  more  important 
researches"  than  those  relating  to 
geology  and  biology.  If  the  proper 
study  of  mankind  is  man,  Mr.  DAR- 
wi.v  has  done  more  than  any  other 
human  being  to  further  the  most  de- 
sirable kind  of  learning,  for  it  is 
through  him  that  humanity  in  our 
generation  has  first  been  able  to  be- 
gin its  response  to  the  precept  of 
antiquity — Know  thyself. 


The  series  of  urief  resumes  whereby 
we  have  endearored  to  take  a  sort  of 
bird's  eye  view  of  Mr.  DARWIN'S  great 
and  many  labors  have  now  drawn  to 
a  close.  But  we  cannot  finish  this 
very  rudimentary  sketch  of  his  work 
without  alluding  once  more  to  what 
was  said  in  the  opening  paragraphs 
of  the  series,  and  which  cannot  be 
more  tersely  repeated  than  in  Mr. 
DARWIN'S  own  words  there  quoted 
with  reference  to  Prof.  HENS  LOW: 
"  Reflecting  over  his  character  with 
gratitude  and  reverence,  his  moral 
attributes  rise,  as  they  should  do  in 
the  highest  character,  in  pre-eminence 
over  his  intellect." 

In  the  gratitude  and  reverence 
which  we  feel  in  a  measure  never  to  be 
expressed,  we  sometimes  regret  that 
the  ill-health  which  led  to  his  seclusion 
prevented  the  extraordinary  beauty  of 
his  character  from  being  more  gen- 
erally known  by  personal  intercourse 
True  it  is  that  the  world  has  shown 
in  a  wonderful  degree  a  just  apprecia- 
tion of  this  character,  so  that  many 
thousands,  in  many  nations,  who  had 
never  even  seen  the  man,  heard  that 
CHARLES  DARWIN  was  dead  with  a 
shock  like  that  which  follows  such  an 
announcement  in  the  case  of  a  well 
loved  friend ;  still  it  seems  almost  sad 
that  when  such  an  exalted  character 
has  lived,  it  should  only  have  been  to 
so  comparatively  few  of  us  that  the  last 
farewell  over  the  open  grave  at  West- 
minster implied  a  severance  of  feel- 
ings which  had  never  been  formed 
before,  and  which,  while  ever  living 
among  the  most  hallowed  lights  of 
memory,  we  know  too  well  can  never 
be  formed  again.  But  to  those  of  us 
who  have  now  to  mourn  so  unspeaka- 
ble a  loss,  it  is  some  consolation  to 
think,  while  much  that  was  sweetest 
and  much  that  was  noblest  in  our  lives 
has  ended  in  that  death,  his  great  life 
and  finished  work  still  stand  before 
our  view;  and  in  regarding  them  we 
may  almost  bring  our  hearts  to  cry — 
Not  for  him,  but  for  ourselves,  we 
weep. 


-- 


ALEXANDER  VON  HUMBOLDT.* 


BY  LOUIS  AGASSIZ. 


I  am  invited  to  an  unwonted  task. 
Thus  far  I  have  appeared  before  the 
public  only  as  a  teacher  of  Natural 
History.  To-day,  for  the  first  time  in 
ray  life,  I  leave  a  field  in  which  I  am 
at  home,  to  take  upon  myself  the 
duties  of  a  biographer.  If  I  succeed 
at  all,  it  will  be  because  I  so  loved 
and  honored  the  man  whose  memory 
brings  us  together. 

ALEXANDER  VON  HUMBOLDT  was 
born  in  Berlin  in  1769, — one  hundred 
years  ago  this  day, — in  that  fertile 
year  which  gave  birth  to  NAPOLEON, 
WELLINGTON,  CANNING,  CUVIER, 
CHATEAUBRIAND,  and  so  many  other 
remarkable  men.  All  America  was 
then  the  property  of  European  mon- 
archs.  The  first  throb  of  the  Amer- 
ican Revolution  had  not  yet  disturbed 
the  relations  of  the  mother  country 
and  her  colonies  Spain  held  Florida, 
Mexico,  and  the  greater  part  of  South 
America ;  France  owned  Louisiana ; 
and  all  Brazil  was  tributary  to  Por- 
tugal. What  stupendous  changes 
liave  taken  place  since  that  time  in 


movement.  He  bravely  fought  the 
battle  for  independence  of  thought 
against  the  tyranny  of  authority. 
No  man  impressed  his  century  intel- 
lectually more  powerfully,  perhaps  no 
man  so  powerfully  as  he.  Therefore 
he  is  so  dear  to  the  Germans,  with 
whom  many  nations  unite  to  do  him 
honor  to-day.  Nor  is  it  alone  be- 
cause of  what  he  has  done  for  science, 
or  for  anyone  department  of  research, 
that  we  feel  grateful  to  him,  but 
rather  because  of  that  breadth  and 
comprehensiveness  of  knowledge 
which  lifts  whole  communities  to 
higher  levels  of  culture,  and  impres- 
ses itself  upon  the  unlearned  as  well 
as  upon  students  and  scholars. 

To  what  degree  we  Americans  are 
indebted  to  him,  no  one  knows  who  is 
not  familiar  with  the  history  of  learn- 
ing and  education  in  the  last  century 
All  the  fundamental  facts  of  popular 
education  in  physical  science,  beyond 
the  merest  elementary  instruction,  we 
owe  to  him.  We  are  reaping  daily 
in  everv  school  throughout  this  broad 


the  political  world  !     Divine  right  of  1  land,  where  education  is  the  heritage 


possession  was  then  the  recognized 
law  on  which  governments  were  baaed. 
A  mighty  Republic  has  since  been 
born,  the  fundamental  principle  of 
which  is  self-government.  Progress 
in  the  intellectual  world,  the  world  of 


even  of  the  poorest  child,  the  intellec- 
tual harvest  sown  by  him.  See  this 
map  of  the  United  States; — all  its 
important  traits  are  based  upon  his  in- 
vestigations ;  for  he  first  recognized 
the  essential  relations  which  unite  the 


thought,  has  kept  pace  with  the  ad-  i  physical  features  of  the  globe,  the 
vance  of  civil  liberty ;  reference  to  j  laws  of  climate  on  which  tiie  whole 
authority  has  been  superseded  by  free  '  (system  of  insothermal  lines  is  based, 
inquiry;  and  HCMBOLDT  was  one  of  ;  the  relative  he'ght  of  mountain  chains 
the  great  leaders  in  this  onward  and  tablelands,  the  distribution  of 

:  vegetation  over    the    whole     earth. 

*  An  address  delivered  at  the  Centennial  ;  '|'aere  js  not  a  text-book  of  geography 
Anniversary  of  the  birth  of  Alexander  v   a  •  SCQool-atlas  in  the  hand«f of  our 

Humboldt,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Bo-;to  ».,.,,  ,  .   ,      ,  , 

Society  of  Natural  History,  (Sept.  14,  1669,.    children  to-day  which  does  not  bear, 


134 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


however    blurred    and    defaced,  the 
impress  of  his  great  mind.     But  for 
him  our  geographies  would  be  mere 
enumerations  of  localities  and  statist- 
ics.    He  first  suggested   the  graphic 
methods  of  representing  natural  phe- 
nomena which   are  now   universally 
adopted.     The  first    geological  sec- 
tions,   the  first    sections    across    an 
entire    continent,  the   first   averages 
of  climate  illustrated  by  lines,  were 
his.     Every    school-boy    is    familiar 
with     his     methods     now,    but    he 
does   not    know   that   HUMBOLDT    is 
his  teacher.     The  fertilizing  power  of 
a  great  mind  is  truly  wonderful ;  but 
as  we  travel  farther  from  the  source, 
it  is   hidden   from  us  by   the   very 
abundance  and  productiveness  it  has 
caused.     How  few  remember  that  the 
tidal  lines,  the  present  mode  of  reg- 
istering   magnetic    phenomena    and 
oceanic  currents,  are  but  the  applica- 
tion of  HUMBOLDT'S  researches,  and  of 
his  graphic  mode  of  recording  them ! 
This  great  man  was  a  feeble  child, 
and   had   less  facility  in  his  studies 
than  most  children.     For  this  reason 
hia  early  education  was  intrusted  to 
private  teachers,  his   parents    being 
wealthy,  and  of  a  class  whose  means 
;viid  position  command  the  advantages 
denied  to  so  many.     It  is  worthy  of 
note  that  when  he  was  a  little  fellow, 
not  more   than   seven   years  old,  his 
teacher  was   CAMPE,   author    of  the 
German  Robinson  Crusoe.     We  can 
f;uicy  how  he  amused  the  boy  with 
the  ever  fresh  story  of  Crusoe  on  his 
desert  island,  and  inspired  him  even 
at  that  early  age  with  the  passionate 
love  of  travel   and   adventure  which 
was  to  bear  such  fruit  in  later  years. 
Neither  should  we  omit,  in  recalling 
memories  of  his  childhood,  his  tender 
relation  to  his  older  brother  WILLIAM. 
These  two  brothers,  so  renowned  in 
their  different  departments   of  learn- 
ing^— the  elder  as  statesman  and  phi- 
lologist, the   younger  as  a  student  of 
nature, — were  united  from  their  ear- 
liest years  by  an  intimate   sympathy 
which  grew  with   their   growth   and 
strengthened     with     their     strength. 
They  went  together  to  the  University 


of  Frankfort,  the  younger  being  then 
seventeen,  WILLIAM  nineteen.     After 


the  University  of  Gottingen,  where 
they  passed  the  two  following  years. 
In  these  four  pregnant  years  of  stu- 
dent life  ALEXANDER  already  sketched 
the  plans  which  occupied  his  active 
mind  for  more  than  threescore  years 
and  ten. 

The  character  of  the  German 
universities  is  so  different  from  ours, 
that  a  word  upon  his  student  life  may 
not  be  out  of  place  here.  Untrammel 
ed  by  prescription  and  routine,  every 
branch  of  learning  was  open  to  him. 
Instead  of  being  led  through  a  pre- 
scribed course  of  study,  an  absolute 
freedom  of  selection  in  accordance 
with  his  natural  predilections  was 
allowed  him.  The  effect  of  this  is 
felt  through  his  whole  life  ;  there  was 
a  universality,  a  comprehensiveness 
in  his  culture,  which  could  not  be 
obtained  under  a  less  liberal  system 
of  education. 

Leaving  the  University  at  the  age 
of  twenty-one,  he  began  to  make 
serious  preparations  for  the  great 
journeys  toward  which  all  his  hopes 
tended.  Nothing  has  impressed  me 
more  in  reviewing  HUMBOLDT'S  life, 
than  the  harmony  between  the  aspira- 
tions of  his  youth  and  the  fulfillment 
of  his  riper  age.  A  letter  to  PFAFF, 
written  in  his  twenty-fourth  year, 
contains  the  first  outline  of  the  Cos- 
mos ;  its  last  sheets  were  forwarded 
to  the  publisher  in  his  ninetieth  year, 
two  months  before  his  death.  He 
had  thus  been  an  original  investigator 
for  nearly  seventy  years. 

His  first  journey  after  leaving  the 
University  was  important  rather  for 
the  circumstances  under  which  it 
was  made  than  for  any  local  interest. 
He  went  to  the  Rhine  with  GEORG 
FORSTER,  who  had  accompanied  COOK 
in  his  second  journey  round  the 
world.  He  could  hardly  have  been 
thrown  with  any  one  more  likely  to 
stimulate  his  desire  to  travel  than 
this  man,  who  had  visited  the  South 
Seas,  had  seen  the  savages  of  the 


28 


Pacific  Islands,  and  had  made  valuable 


DARWIN  AND  HUMBOLDT. 


contributions  to  geographical  science. 
Nor  was  this  their  only  point  of 
sympathy.  GEORG  FORSTEB  was  a 
warm  republican ;  he  had  espoused 
the  ideas  of  the  French  Revolution, 
and  when  Mayeuce  became  united  to 
the  French  Republic  he  was  sent  as 
deputy  to  the  National  Assembly  in 
Paris.  HUMBOLDT  was  too  ardent 
and  too  independent  to  be  a  laggard 
in  the  great  public  questions  of  the 
day  Like  FORSTER,  he  also  believed 
in  the  Republic  of  France  and  in  the 
dawn  of  civil  liberty  for  Europe. 
Thus,  both  in  political  and  scientific 
preferences,  although  so  different  in 
age,  he  and  FORSTER  were  sympa- 
thetic traveling  companions.  This 
excursion  was  by  no  means  a  pleasure 
trip.  Young  as  he  was,  HUMBOLDT 
had  knowledge  enough  to  justify  him 
in  approaching  the  most  difficult 
geological  question  of  the  day,  namely, 
the  origin  of  the  Basalt.  At  that 
time  the  great  war  was  waging  be- 
tween the  Neptuuists  and  Piutonists, 
— that  is,  between  the  two  great 
schools  in.  Geology, — one  attributing 


Nature  in  all  her  aspects.  His  desires 
turned  especially  toward  India.  He 
wished  to  visit  the  East,  and,  reach- 
ing India  by  way  of  Egypt,  Syria, 
and  Persia,  to  cross  the  Pacific  and 
return  to  Europe  through  America. 
In  this  he  was  foiled ;  but  to  his 
latest  day  he  felt  the  same  longing 
for  a  sight  of  that  antique  ground  of 
civilization.  At  this  moment  all 
Europe  was  in  a  blaze  ;  between  con- 
tending armies  there  was  little  room 
for  peaceful  travel  and  investigation. 
We  find  him,  therefore,  floating  be- 
tween various  plans.  He  went  to 
Paris  with  the  hope  of  joining  BAU- 
DIN'S  contemplated  expedition  to 
Australia.  In  this  he  was  again 
baffled,  for  the  breaking  out  of  the 
war  between  France  and  Austria 
postponed  the  undertaking  indefinite- 
ly. His  next  hope  was  Spain  ;  he 
might  obtain  permission  to  visit  her 
Transatlantic  possessions  and  study 


tropical   nature   under 
Here  he  was  successful. 


the    equator. 
The  scientific 


discoverer  of  America,  as  the  Germans 
like  to  call  him,  was  destined  to  start 


the  rocks  to  tire  as  the  great  con-  from  the  same  shore  as  CHRISTOPHER 
etructive  agent,  the  other  asserting ;  COLUMBUS.  He  not  only  received  per- 
that  all  rocks  were  the  result  of  water  mission  to  visit  the  colonies,  but 
deposits.  The  young  student  brought  I  special  facilities  for  his  investigations 
to  these  subjects  the  truthfulness  and  were  offered  him.  This  liberality  was 
patience  which  marked  ail  his  later  unexampled  on  the  part  of  the  Spanish 
investigations.  Carried  away  neither  government,  for  in  those  days  Spain 
by  theories  nor  by  leaders,  he  left  in  guarded  her  colonies  with  jealous 
abeyance  the  problem  which  seemed  exclusiveness.  His  enthusiasm  dis- 
to  him  not  yet  solved.  His  interest  armed  suspicion,  however,  and  the 
in  this  and  kindred  topics  carried  him  king  cordially  sustained  his  under- 
to  Freiberg,  where  he  studied  Geol-  taking. 

ogy  with  WERNER,  and  where  he  Almost  ten  years  had  passed  in 
made  acquaintance  with  LEOPOLD  \  maturing  his  plans,  preparing  himself 
VON  BUCH,  who  became  the  greatest  i  for  their  execution  and  obtaining  the 
geologist  of  the  age,  and  was  through  j  means  of  carrying  them  out.  He  was 
life  his  trusted  friend.  He  also  j  nearly  thirty  years  of  age  when  he 
applied  himself  to  Anatomy  and  '•.  sailed  from  the  harbor  of  Corunna, 
Physiology,  and  made  physical  in-  running  out  in  a  dark  and  stormy 
vestigations  on  the  irritability  of  the  night,  and  so  evading  the  English 
muscular  fiber,  which  he  afterward  cruisers  which  then  blockaded  the 
axtended  to  the  electric  fishes,  during  Spanish  coast. 

bis  American  journey.  There  is  perhaps  no  part  of  HUM 

All  the  while  he  brooded  over  his  BOLDT'S  life  better  known  to  the 
schemes  of  travel,  gathering  materials  public,  especially  in  this  country, 
in  every  direction,  in  order  that  his  |  than  his  American  journey.  His 
mind  might  be  prepared  to  understand  !  fascinating  "  Personal  Narrative  "  is 


136 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


known  to  all,  and  I  need  not,  there- 
fore, describe  his  course,  or  dwell 
upon  the  details  of  his  personal  ex- 
perience. No  period  of  his  life,  how- 
ever, has  had  a  more  powerful  influence 
upon  knowledge  and  education  th  m 
those  five  years  of  travel,  and  there- 
fore I  will  speak  at  some  length  of 
their  scientific  results  In  the  very 
glory  of  his  youth,  and  yet  with  an 
intellectual  maturity  which  belongs  to 
later  manhood,  his  physical  activity 
and  endurance  kept  pace  with  the 
fertility  and  comprehensiveness  of  his 
mind.  Never  was  the  old  proverbial 
wish,  "  Sijeunesse  savait,  si  vieillesse 
pouvait,r  so  near  fulfillment ;  never 
were  the  strength  of  youth  and  the 
knowledge  of  age  so  closely  com- 
bined. 

At  the  first  step  of  the  journey, 
namely,  his  pause  at  the  Canary 
Islands  and  ascension  of  the  Peak  of 
Teneriffe,  he  has  left  us  a  graphic 
picture  of  the  place,  of  its  volcanic 
phenomena,  its  geological  character, 
and  the  distribution  of  its  vegetation, 
in  which  are  foreshadowed  all  his 
later  generalizations.  Landing  in 
Cumana  he  made  his  first  long  station 
there.  His  explorations  of  the 
'mountains,  valleys,  and  sea-shore  in 
that  neighbborhood,  his  geological 
researches,  his  astronomical  observa- 
tions by  which  the  exact  position  of 
various  localities  was  determined,  his 
meteorological  investigations,  and  his 
collections  of  every  kind,  were  of  vast 
scientific  importance  He  had  already 
begun  his  studies  upon  averages  of 
climate,  the  result  of  which,  known 
as  the  "  isothermal  lines,"  was  one  of 
his  most  original  contributions  to 
science.  With  the  intu'tion  of  genius 
he  saw  that  the  distribution  of  tern- 


physical  experiments  upon  animaU 
and  plants,  and  his  collectioni  were 
also  of  great  value.  At  Paris  he  had 
made  the  acquaintance  of  BONPJLAND. 
a  young  botanist,  equally  determined 
with  himself  to  see  distant  lands,  who 
accompanied  him  in.  his  journey  to 
South  America ;  and  when  HUM- 
BOLDT  was  too  exclusively  engaged  in 
physical  experiments  to  join  ia  the 
botanical  researches,  they  were  never- 
theless not  neglected,  for  BONPLAND 
was  unremitting  in  the  study  of  plants 
and  in  making  collections. 

After  months  thus  spent  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  coast,  HUMBOLDT 
cros  ed  the  Llanos,  the  great  plains 
which  divide  the  basin  of  the  Orinoco 
from  the  sea  shore.  Here  again  every 
step  of  his  journey  is  marked  by  orig- 
inal research.  He  has  turned  those 
desert  plains  into  enchanted  land  by 
the  power  of  his  thought,  and  left  us 
descriptions,  as  fascinating  from  their 
beauty  as  they  are  valuable  for  their 
novelty  and  precision.  In  his  Ion0 
and  painful  journey  through  the  vallej 
of  the  Orinoco  he  traced  the  singulpr 
network  of  rivers  by  which  this 
great  stream  connects,  through  the 
Cassiquiare  and  the  Rio  Negro,  wita 
the  Amazons, — a  fresh-water  route 
which  is,  no  doubt,  yet  to  become  one 
of  the  highways  of  the  world.  Had 
it  not  been  for  the  illiberality  of  the 
Portugue.se  government,  he  would 
probably  have  gone  down  the  Rio 
Negro  to  the  Amazons,  and  would 
perhaps  have  changed  completely  the 
course  which  he  ultimately  took.  He 
was,  however,  turned  back  from  the 
mighty  river  by  a  prohibition  which 
made  it  dangerous  to  proceed  farther 
on  pain  of  imprisonment  and  the 
possible  renunei  ition  of  all  his  cher- 


perature  obeyed  certain  laws.  He  i  ished  plans.  When,  in  ray  late  ex- 
collected,  both  from  his  own  observa-  ploration  of  the  Amazonian  Valley,  I 
lion  and  from  report,  all  that  could  '  read  his  narrative  again,  on  the  spot, 
be  learned  of  the  average  temperature  !  I  could  not  but  contrast  the  cordial 
in  various  localities,  and  combining  liberality  which  smoothed  every  dif- 
ali  these  facts  he  first  taught  geogra  ;  iiculty  in  my  path  with  the  dangers, 
ptten  how  to  trace  upon  their  maps  '  obstacles,  and  buffering  which  beset 
those  curves  which  give  in  one  un- !  his.  I  approached,  however,  so  near 
dulating  line  the  varying  aspects  of !  the  scene  of  his  labors  that  I  was 
oiimate  upon  the  whole  globe.  His  constantly  able  to  compare  my  result^ 

30 


DARll'/X  AND  HUMBOLDT. 


137 


With  his,  and  to  recognize  the  extent 
of  his  knowledge  and  the  comprehen- 
siveness of  his  views,  even  where  the 
progress  of  science  led  to  a  different 
interpretation  of  the  facts. 

I  omit  all  notice  of  his  visit  to 
Cuba,  and  his  journey  through  Mexico, 
interesting  as  they  were,  remarking 
inly  that  to  him  we  owe  the  first 
.fccurate  maps  of  those  regions  So 
imperfect  were  those  published  before 
him,  that  even  toward  the  close  of 
vhe  last  century  the  position  of  Mexico 
differed  by  aboutthree  hundreil  miles 
in  the  maps  published  by  different 
HUAIBOLDT'S  is  the  first 


of  Mexico   and   Cuba 
astronomical     observa- 


geographers. 
general   map 
based    upon 
lions. 

The  next  great  stage  of  the  Amer- 
ican journey  is  along  the  ridge  of  the 
Andes.  There  is  a  picturesque  charm 
about  this  part  of  the  undertaking 
which  is  irresistible.  At  that  time 
traveling  in  those  mountains  was 
infinitely  more  difficult  than  it  is 
now.  We  follow  him  with  his  train 
of  mules,  bearing  the  most  delicate 
instruments,  the  most  precious  scien- 
tific apparatus,  through  the  passes  of 
the  great  chain.  Measuring  the 
mountains, — sounding  the  valleys  as 
he  went, — tracing  the  distribution  of 
vegetation  on  slopes  20,000  feet  high, 


heigher.*  Returning  from  the  An- 
des, HUMBOLUT  skirted  the  Pacifia 
from  TruxillotoAcapulco,  and  paused 
in  Mexico  again.  There  he  ascended 
all  the  great  mountains  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, continuing  and  completing 
the  same  investigations  which  he  had 
pursued  with  such  persistency  through 
his  whole  laborious  journey  He 
studied  volcanic  action,  mines,  the 
production  of  precious  metals,  their 
influence  upon  civilization  and  com- 
merce, latitudes  and  longitudes,  aver- 
ages of  climate,  relative  heights  of 
mountains,  distribution  of  vegetation, 
astronooiical  and  meteorological  phe- 
nomena. From  Mexico  he  went  to 
Havana,  and  from  Havana  sailed  for 
Philadelphia.  His  stay  in  this  country 
was  short.  He  was  cordially  received 
by  JEFFERSON  on  his  visit  to  Wash 
ingtou,  and  warmly  welcomed  by 
scientific  men  in  Philadelphia.  But 
he  made  no  important  researches  in 
the  United  States,  and  sailed  for 
Europe  soon  after  his  arrival. 

He  returned  to  Paris  in  1804,  hav- 
ing been  five  years  absent  from 
Europe.  It  was  a  brilliant  period 
in  science,  letters,  and  politics  in  the 
great  capital.  The  Republic  was  still 
in  existence ;  the  throes  of  Revolu 
tion  were  over,  and  the  reaction  to- 
ward monarchical  ideas  had  not  yet 


— examining  extinct  and  active  volca-  j  culminated  in  the  Empire.  LAPLACE, 
noes, — collecting  and  drawing  animals  GAY-LUSSAC,  CUVIEK,  DESFONTAINES, 
and  plants, — he  brought  away  an  in-  UELAMBRE,  OI.TMANNS,  FOURCROY, 
credible  amount  of  information  which  >  BERTHOLLET,  BIOT,  DOLOMIEU,  LA- 


has  since  filtered  into  all  our  scien- 
tific records,  remodeled  popular 
education,  and  become  the  common 
property  of  the  civilized  world.  Many 
of  these  ascensions  were  attended 
with  infinite  danger  and  difficulty. 
He  climbed  Chiinborazo  to  a  height 
of  18,000  feet  at  a  time  when 
no  other  man  had  ever  ascended  so 
far  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  and  was 
prevented  from'  reaching  the  summit 
by  an  impassable  chasm,  in  which  he 
nearly  lost  his  life.  When,  a  few 

his 
for 


years   later,    GAT  LUSSAC    made 
famous     ascent    in    a    balloon, 


MARCK,  and  LACEPEDE  were  leaders 
then  in  the  learned  world.  The  young 
traveler,  bringing  intellectual  and 
material  treasures  even  to  men  who 
had  grown  old  in  research,  was  wel 
corned  by  all,  and  in  this  great  centre 
of  social  and  intellectual  life  he  made 
his  home  for  the  most  part,  from  1805 
to  1827 ;  from  the  last  days  of  the 
Republic,  through  the  rise  and  fall  of 


*  The  ascension  of  Mont  Blanc  by  DE 
SAUSSURE  was  the  only  exploit  of  that  kind  on 
record  before.  Even  as  late  as  1842  the  ascent 
of  the  Jungfrau  attracted  some  attention. 
Nowadays  tourists  may  run  up  the  highest 


the    sake    of    studying    atmospheric  ,  surTim{ts  Of  the  Alps  to  drink  the  health  of 


phenomena,  he   rose  only  1,200  feet  their  friends. 

31 


138 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


the  Empire,  to  the  restoration  of  the 
Bourbons.  He  devoted  himself  to  the 
publication  of  his  results,  and  secured 
as  his  collaborators  in  this  work  the 
ablest  men  of  the  day.  CUVIER,  LA- 
TREII.LE,  and  VALENCIENNES  worked 
up  the  zoological  collections,  BON- 
PLAND  and  KUNTH  directed  the  publica- 
tion of  the  botanical  treasures,  OLT- 
MANNS  undertook  the  reduction  of  the 
astronomical  and  barometrical  ob- 
servations, while  he  himself  jointly 
with  GAY-LUSSAC  and  PROVENCAL 
made  investigations  upon  the  respira- 
tion of  fishes  and  upon  the  chemical 
constitution  of  the  atmosphere  and 
the  composition  of  water,  which  have 
left  their  mark  in  the  annals  of  chem- 
istry. While  of  course  superintend- 
ing more  or  less  all  the  publications, 
HUMBOLDT  himself  was  engaged  espe- 
cially with  those  upon  physical 
geography,  meteorology,  and  geology. 
The  mere  enumeration  of  the  volume's 
resulting  from  this  great  expedition 
is  impressive.  It  embraces  thiee  folio 
volumes  of  geographical,  physical,  and 
botanical  maps,  including  scenery, 
antiquities,  and  the  aboriginal  races ; 
twelve  quarto  volumes  of  letter  press, 
three  of  which  contain  the  personal 
narrative,  two  are  devoted  to  New 
Spain,  two  to  Cuba,  two  to  zoology 
and  comparative  anatomy,  two  to 
astronomy,  and  one  to  a  physical  de- 
scription of  the  tropics.  The  botanic- 
al results  of  the  journey  occupy  not 
less  than  thirteen  folio  volumes, 
ornamented  with  magnificent  colored 

plates.     As  all  these  works  are  in  our  __    , . ,  ._    

Public   Library   in   Boston,  I  would  j  take  journeys    in   various   parts    of 
invite  my  hearers  t?  a  real  intp.lW.tual  j  Europe ;  to  examine  and  re-examine 
and   a    gratification    of    tnen-    Vesuvius,  and   compare  its  mode  01 

action,  its  geological  constitution,  and 
the  phenomena  of  its  eruptions  with 


ble  smaller  papers,  and  lastly,  five 
volumes  on  the  history  of  geography 
and  the  progress  of  nautical  astronomy 
during  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries,  more  or  less  directly  con- 
nected with  HUMBOLDT' sown  journey, 
though  published  in  later  years  His 
investigations  into  the  history  of  the 
discovery  of  America  have  a  special  in- 
terest for  us.  We  learn  from  him  that 
the  name  of  our  continent  was  first 
introduced  into  the  learned  world  by 
WALTZ  EEMULLER,  a  German  profes- 
sor, settled  at  St.  Didie,  in  Lorraine, — 
HYLACOMYLUS,  as  he  called  himself  at 
a  time  when  scholars  were  wont  to 
translate  their  names  into  the  dead 
languages,  and  thought  it  more  digni 
fied  to  appear  under  a  Greek  or 
Latin  garb.  This  cosmographer 
published  the  first  map  of  the  New 
World,  with  an  account  of  the  jour- 
neys of  AMRRICUS  VESPUCCI,  whose 
name  he  affixed  to  the  lands  recently 
discovered.  HUMBOLDT  shows  us, 
also,  that  COLUMBUS' s  discovery  was 
no  accident,  but  grew  naturally  out 
of  the  speculations  of  the  time,  them- 
selves the  echo  of  a  far  off  dream, 
which  he  follows  back  into  the  dim- 
ness of  Grecian  antiquity.  We  rec- 
ognize again  here  the  characteristic 
features  of  HUMBOLDT'S  mind,  in  his 
constant  endeavor  to  trace  discoveries 
through  all  the  stages  of  their  pro- 
gress 


Although  he  made  his  head-quarters 
in  Paris,  it  became  necessary  for 
HUMBOLDT,  during  the  preparation  of 
so  many  extensive  works,  to  under- 


treat    and   a   gratification    of    t 
aesthetic  tastes,  in   urging  them 


to 


devote  some  leisure  hour  to  turning 


over  the  leaves  of  these  magnificent !  what  he  had  seen  of  the  volcanoes  of 
volumes.  A  walk  through  the  hot- 1  South  America.  On  one  of  these  oc- 
houses  of  the  largest  botanical  garden  casions  he  ascended  Vesuvius  in  com- 
— and  unfortunately  we  have  no  such  pany  with  GAY-LUSSAC  and  LEOPOLD 
on  this  continent— could  hardly  be  VON  BUCH.  That  single  excursion, 
more  impressive  than  an  examination  undertaken  by  such  men,  was  fruitful 
of  these  beautiful  plates.  Add  to  i  in  valuable  additions  to  knowledge, 
these  a  special  work  on  the  position  At  other  times  he  went  to  consult  rare 
of  rocks  in  the  two  hemispheres,  one  books  in  the  great  libraries  of  Ger- 
ou  the  isothermal  lines,  ais  iunuuiera-  many  and  England,  or  to  discuss  with 

32 


DARWIN  AND  HUMBOLDT. 


139 


his  brother  in  Berlin,  or  with  trusted 
friends  in  other  parts  of  Europe,  the 
work  in  which  he  was  engaged, 
comparing  notes,  assisting  at  new  ex- 
periments, suggesting  further  in- 
quiries, ever  active,  ever  inventive, 
ever  suggestive,  ever  fertile  in  resource, 
— neither  disturbed  by  the  great  po- 
litical commotions  which  he  witness- 
ed, nor  tempted  from  his  engrossing 
labors  by  the  most  brilliant  offers  of 
public  service  or  exalted  position.  It 
was  during  one  of  his  first  visits  to 
Berlin,  where  he  went  to  consult 
about  the  organization  of  the  Univers- 
ity with  his  brother  WILLIAM,  then 
Minister  of  State  in  Prussia,  that  he 
published  those  fascinating  "Views 
of  Nature,"  in  which  he  has  given  pic- 
tures of  the  tropics  as  vivid  and  as  ex- 
citing to  the  imagination  as  if  they  liv- 
ed on  the  canvas  of  some  great  artist. 
The  question  naturally  arises,  Who 
provided  for  the  expenses  of  these 
extensive  literary  undertakings  ? 
HUMBOLDT  himself.  No  one  knows 
exactly  what  he  spent  in  the  pub- 
lication of  his  works.  Some  ap- 
proach to  an  estimate  may,  however, 
be  made  by  computing  the  cost  of 
printing,  paper,  and  engraving,  which 
cannot  have  amounted  to  less  than 
two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dol- 
lars. No  doubt  the  sale  indemnified 
him  in  some  degree,  but  all  know 
that  such  publications  do  not  pay. 
The  price  of  a  single  copy  of  the 
complete  work  on  America  is  two 
thousand  dollars, — double  that  of  the 

freat  national  work  published  by 
ranee  upon  Egypt,  for  the  publica- 
tion of  which  the  government  spent 
about  eight  hundred  thousand  dollars. 
Of  course  very  few  copies  can  be 
sold  of  a  work  »f  this  magnitude. 
But  from  his  youth  upward  HUM- 
BOLDT spent  his  private  means  liber- 
ally, not  only  for  the  carrying  out 
and  subsequent '  publication  of  his 
own  scientific  undertakings,  but  to 
forward  the  work  of  younger  and 
poorer  men.  The  consequence  was 
that  in  old  age  he  lived  upon  a  small 
pension  granted  to  him  by  the  King 
of  Prussia. 


His  many-cidenewwu  remarkable. 
He  touched  life  at  all  points.  He 
was  the  friend  of  artists,  no  less  than 
of  scientific  and  literary  men.  Hia 
desire  to  make  his  illustrations  worthy 
of  the  great  objects  they  were  to 
represent  brought  him  into  constant 
and  intimate  relation  with  the 
draughtsmen  and  painters  of  his  day. 
Even  DAVID  did  not  think  it  below 
his  dignity  to  draw  an  allegoric  title- 
page  for  the  great  work.  He  valued 
equally  the  society  of  intelligent  and 
cultivated  women,  such  as  Madame 
DE  STAEL,  Madame  RECAMIER,  RA.HEL, 
BETTINA,  and  many  others  less  known 
to  fame.  He  was  intimate  with  states- 
men, politicians,  and  men  of  the  world. 
Indeed,  the  familiarity  of  HUMBOLDT 
with  the  natural  resources  of  the  coun- 
tries he  had  visited, — with  their  min- 
eral products  and  precious  metals,— 
made  his  opinion  valuable  not  only  in 
matters  of  commerce,  but  important 
also  to  the  governments  of  Europe ; 
and  after  the  colonies  of  South  Amer- 
ica had  achieved  their  independence, 
the  allied  powers  of  Europe  invited 
him  to  make  a  report  upon  the  po- 
litical condition  of  the  new  republics. 
In  1822  he  attended  the  Congress  of 
Verona,  and  visited  the  South  of  Italy 
with  the  King  of  Prussia.  Thus  his 
life  was  associated  with  the  political 
growth  and  independence  of  the  New 
World,  as  it  was  intimately  allied 
with  the  literary,  scientific,  and  artist- 
ic interests  of  the  Old.  He  never, 
however,  took  an  active  part  in  pol- 
itics at  home,  and  yet  all  Germany 
looked  upon  him  as  identified  with  the 
aspirations  of  the  liberal  party,  of 
which  his  brother  WILLIAM  was  the 
most  prominent  representative. 

Before  closing  this  period  of  HUM- 
BOLDT'S  life  I  would  add  a  few  words 
more  in  detail  upon  the  works  pub- 
lished by  him  after  his  return  from 
South  America.  One  of  the  first 
fruits  in  the  rich  harvest  reaped  from 
this  expedition  was  the  successful 
attempt  to  which  I  have  already 
alluded  at  representing  graphically 
the  physical  features  of  that  con- 
tinent. Thus  far  such  representations 


140 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


had  mainly  consisted  in  maps  and  the 
delineation  of  the  characteristic  plants 
and  animals.  HUMBOLDT  devised  a 
new  method,  equally  impressive  to 
the  eye  and  comprehensive  in  its  out- 
lines. Impressed  by  the  fact  that 
vegetation  changes  its  character  as  it 
ascends  upon  the  side  of  high  mount- 
ains,— thus  presenting  successive  ter- 
races upon  their  slopes, — he  conceived 
the  idea,  already  suggested  by  his  ex- 
amination of  the  Peak  of  Teneriffe,  of 
drawing  upon  the  outline  of  a  conical 
mountain  the  different  aspects  of  its 
surface  from  the  level  of  the  sea  to 
its  highest  peak.  Thus  he  could  ex- 
hibit at  a  glance  all  the  successive 
zones  of  vegetation.  Afterward  he 
extended  these  comparisons  to  the 
temperate  and  arctic  zones,  and 
ascertained  that,  as  we  proceed 
further  north,  the  gradation  of  the 
vegetation,  at  the  level  of  the  ocean, 
corresponds  to  its  succession  upon 
mountain  slopes, — until,  toward  the 
Arctics,  it  assumes  a  remarkable 
resemblance  to  the  plants  found  near 
the  line  of  perpetual  snows  under  the 
Tropics.  But  this  is  not  all.  The 
intervening  expanse  from  North  to 
South,  as  far  as  the  equator,  and  then 
in  reverse  order  to  the  Antarctic 
regions,  also  exhibits,  in  proportion  to 
the  elevation  of  the  land,  a  vegetation 
characterized  by  intermediate  forms. 

In  the  same  way  he  reproduced  the 
general  appearance  of  the  inequalities 
of  the  earth's  surface  by  drawing  ideal 
sections  across  the  regions  described. 
In  the  first  place,  through  Spain,  af- 
terward from  La  Guayra  to  Caraccas 
across  the  Cumbre,  from  Cartagena 
to  Santa  F6  de  Bogota,  and  finally 
through  the  whole  continent  of 
America,  from  Acapulco  to  Vera 
Cruz.  And  this  not  by  mere  ap- 
proximations, but  founding  his  pro- 
files upon  his  own  barometric  and 
astronomical  observations,  which  he 
multiplied  to  such  an  extent  that  his 
works  are  to  this  day  the  chief  source 
of  information  concerning  the  physical 
geography  of  the  regions  visited  by 
Him. 

Noi  •atUfted  with  this,  he  under 


took  to  represent,  in  like  manner,  the 
internal  structure  of  the  earth,  draw- 
ing similar  charts  upon  which  the 
relative  position  of  the  rocks,  with 
signs  to  indicate  their  mineralogical 
character,  is  faithfully  portray  ed.  The 
first  chart  of  this  kind  was  drawn  by 
him  in  Mexico  in  1804,  and  presented 
to  the  School  of  Mines  of  that  city. 
It  was  afterward  published  in  the 
Atlas  of  the  American  Journey. — We 
are  thus  indebted  to  him  for  the 
whole  of  that  graphic  method  which 
has  made  it  possible  to  delineate,  in 
visible  outlines,  the  true  characterist- 
ics of  physical  phenomena ;  for  after- 
ward this  method  was  applied  to  the 
representation  of  the  oceanic  currents, 
the  direction  of  the  prevalent  winds, 
the  tidal  waves,  the  rise  and  fall  of 
our  lakes  and  rivers,  the  amount  of 
rain  falling  upon  different  parts  of  the 
earth's  surface,  the  magnetic  phenom- 
ena, the  lines  of  equal  average  tem- 
perature, the  relative  height  of  our 
plains,  table-lands  and  mountain 
chains,  their  internal  structure,  and 
the  distribution  of  plants  and  animals. 
Even  the  characteristic  features  of 
the  History  of  Mankind  are  now 
tabulated  in  the  same  way  upon  our 
ethnographical  maps,  in  which  the 
distribution  of  the  races,  the  high- 
ways of  navigation  and  commerce, 
the  difference  among  men  as  to  lan- 
guage, culture,  creeds,  nay,  even  the 
records  of  our  census,  the  estimates  of 
the  wealth  of  nations,  down  to  the 
statistics  of  agriculture  and  the  aver- 
ages of  virtue  and  vice,  are  represent- 
ed. In  short,  every  branch  of  mental 
activity  has  been  vivified  by  this 
process,  and  has  undergone  an  entire 
transformation  under  its  influence. 

His  paper  upon  the  isothermal  lines 
was  published  in  the"  Memo  ires  de 
la  Societb  cFArcueil,"  a  scientific 
club  to  which,  in  the  beginning  of 
this  century,  the  most  eminent  men 
of  the  age  belonged.  Though  a  mere 
sketch,  the  first  delineation  of  the 
curves  uniting  different  point?  of  the 
earth's  surface  which  possess  the 
sam^average  annual  temperature  un- 
der varying  latitudes,  exhibits  already 


DARWIX  -L\'D  HUMBOLDT. 


141 


the  characteristic  features  of  these 
lines,  which  myriads  of  observations 
of  a  later  date  have  only  confirmed. 
No  other  series  of  investigations 
shows,  more  plainly  than  this,  to  what 
accurate  results  an  observer  may 
arrive,  who  understands  how  to  weigh 
critically  the  meaning  of  his  facts 
however  few  they  may  be. 

The  barometrical  and  astronomical 
observations  upon  which  his  numer- 
ous maps  are  based  were  computed 
and  reduced  to  their  final  form  by  his 
friend  OLTMANNS.  They  fill  two  large 
quarto  volumes,  and  amount  to  the 
accurate  determination  of  nearly  one 
thousand  localities.  They  are  not 
taken  at  random,  but  embrace  points 
of  the  highest  importance,  with  ref- 
erence to  the  geographical  distribu- 
tion of  plants  and  animals  and  the 
range  of  agricultural  products.  HUM- 
BOLDT has  himself  added  an  introduc- 
tion to  this  work  in  which  he  gives 
an  account  of  the  instruments  used 
in  his  observations  and  the  methods 
pursued  by  him  in  his  experiments, 
and  discusses  the  astronomical  refrac- 
tions in  the  torrid  zone. 

Thus  the  physical  geography  of 
our  days  is  based  upon  HUMBOLDT' s 
investigations.  He  is,  indeed,  the 
founder  of  Comparative  Geography, 
that  all-embracing  science  of  our 
globe,  unfolded  with  a  master  hand 
by  KARL  RITTER,  and  which  has 
now  its  ablest  representative  in 
our  own  GUYOT.  His  correspond 
ence  with  BERGHAUS  testifies  his 
intense  interest  in  the  progress  of 
geographical  knowledge.  To  HUM- 
BOLD  r  this  world  of  ours  is  indeed 
not  only  the  abode  of  man,  it  is  a 
growth  in  the  history  of  the  Universe, 
shaped  according  to  laws,  by  a  long 
process  of  successive  changes,  which 
have  resulted  in  its  present  configura- 
tion with  its  mutually  dependent  fea- 
tures. The  work  upon  the  Position 
of  Rocks  in  the  two  hemisphere  tells 
the  history  of  that  growth  as  it  could 
be  told  in  1823,  and  is  of  course  full 
of  gross  anachronisms;  but  at  the 
same  time  it  exhibits  the  wonderful 
power  of  generalization  and  combina- 


tion which  HUMBOLDT  possessed, — at, 
for  instance,  where  he  says  in  few 
beautiful  words,  fertile  in  consequence* 
not  yet  fully  appreciated  by  the  natu 
ralists  of  our  day :  "  When  we  ex- 
amine the  solid  mass  of  our  planet, 
we  perceive  that  the  simple  minerals 
are  found  in  associations  which  are 
i  everywhere  the  same,  and  that  the 
,  rocks  do  not  vary,  as  organized  beings 
,  do,  according  to  the  differences  of 
I  latitude  or  the  isothermal  lines  under 
I  which  they  occur  "  ;  thus  contrasting 
in  one  single  phrase  the  whole  organic 
world  with  the  inorganic  in  their  essen- 
tial character.  In  practical  geology  we 
owe  to  him  the  first  recognition  of  the 
Jurassic  formation.  It  was  he  who 
introduced  into  our  science  those 
happy  expressions,  "geological  ho- 
rizon" and  "independence  of  geological 
formations."  He  also  paved  the  way 
for  ELIE  DE  BEAUMONT'S  determina- 
tion of  the  relative  age  of  mountain 
chains  by  his  discussion  upon  the  direc- 
tion of  stratified  rocks  and  by  the 
parallels  he  drew  between  the  age  of 
plutonic  and  sedimentary  formations; 
nor  had  it  escaped  him  that  distant 
flora  and  faunae,  though  of  the  same 
age,  may  be  entirely  different. 

The  collection  of  zoological  and 
anatomical  papers,  in  two  quarto 
volumes,  with  numerous  colored 
plates,  is  full  of  valuable  contributions 
to  the  Natural  History  of  Animals, 
from  his  own  pen,  as  well  as  that  of 
his  collaborators.  The  most  remarka- 
ble are  his  description  of  the  Condor, 
which  must  have  delighted  the  French 
zoologists,  who  could  not  fail  to 
compare  it  with  the  glowing  pages  of 
their  own  BUFFON;  his  Synopsis  of  the 
South  American  Monkeys,  rivalling 
the  works  of  AUDEBERT  and  GEOFFROY 
ST.-HILAIRE;  his  account  of  the 
Electric  Eel  and  the  Catfish  thrown 
out  by  the  burning  volcanoes  of  the 
Andes,  contrasted  with  the  Great 
Natural  History  of  Fishes  by  LACE- 
PEDE  ;  his  paper  on  the  respiration  of 
Crocodiles  and  the  larynx  of  Birds 
and  Crocodiles,  daring  upon  his 
own  ground  the  greatest  anatomist  of 
.the  age,  the  immortal  CUVIER.  la- 


14* 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCI  EM' L. 


deed,  it  must  have  created  a  pro- 
found sensation  in  the  learned  world 
when  a  naturalist,  all  whose  previous 
publications  related  to  physical  sub- 
jects, .suddenly  came  forward  as  a 
master  among  masters  in  the  treat- 
ment of  zoological  and  anatomical 
questions. 

The  botanical  works  appeared 
under  several  titles.  We  have  first 
the  "Plantes  fiquinoxiales  "  in  two 
folio  volumes,  with  140  plates,  by 
BONPLAND  ;  the  monograph  of  the 
Melastomacees  and  that  of  the 
Rh^xiees,  in  two  folio  volumes,  with 
120  plates,  also  by  BONPLAND  ;  then 
the  Mimosees  by  KUNTH,  in  one  folio 
volume,  with  60  plates ;  the  revision 
of  the  Graminees,  in  one  folio  volume, 
with  220  plates,  by  KUNTH;  and 
finally  the  "  Nova  Genera  et  Species 
J*lantarum"  by  KUNTH,  in  seven 
folio  volumes,  with  700  plates.  Al- 
together thirteen  folio  volumes,  with 
1240  plates,  most  of  which  are  beauti- 
fully colored,  and  remain  unsurpassed 
for  fidelity  of  description  and  fullness 
of  illustration.  Though  the  descriptive 
part  of  these  splendid  volumes  is 
from  the  pen  of  his  fellow-traveler 
BONPLAND,  and  his  younger  friend 
KUNTH,  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  sup- 
pose that  HUMBOLDT  had  no  share  in 
their  preparation.  Not  only  did  he 
assiduously  collect  specimens  during 
the  journey,  but  it  was  he  who  made, 
on  the  spot,  from  the  living  plant, 
drawings  and  analyses  of  the  most 
remarkable  and  characteristic  trees  ; 
the  general  aspect  of  which  could 
not  be  preserved  in  the  specimens 
gathered  for  the  herbarium.  Besides 
this  there  are  entire  chapters  concern- 
ing the  geographical  distribution  of 
the  most  remarkable  families  of 
plants,  their  properties,  their  uses, 
etc.,  entirely  written  by  HUMBOLDT 
himself.  It  was  he,  also,  who  for  the 
first  time  divided  the  areas  of  the 
regions  he  had  explored  into  botanical 
provinces,  according  to  their  natural 
physical  features ;  thus  distinguishing 
the  Flora  of  New  Andalusia  and 
Venezuela  from  that,  of  the  Orinoco 
basin,  that  of  New  Granada,  that  of 


Quito,  that  of  the  Peruvian  Andes, 
and  those  of  Mexico  and  Cuba.  It 
was  he,  also,  who  first  showed  that 
the  whole  Vegetable  Kingdom  con- 
tains, after  all,  but  a  few  distinct 
types,  which  characterize  the  vegeta- 
ble carpet  of  the  earth's  surface,  in 
different  parti  of  the  world  under 
different  latitudes  and  at  different 
heights.  He  closes  one  of  these  ex- 
positions with  a  few  words,  which  I 
cannot  pass  by  without  quoting. 
"  Such  investigations,"  he  says,  "  af- 
ford an  intellectual  enjoyment  and 
foster  a  moral  strength  which  fortify 
us  against  misfortunes,  and  which  no 
human  power  can  overcome  " 

In  1827,  at  the  urgent  solicitation 
of  his  brother,  HUMBOLDT  transferred 
his  residence  from  Paris  to  Berlin. 
With  this  step  there  opens  a  new  phase 
in  his  life.  Thus  far  he  had  been 
absolutely  independent  of  public  or 
official  position.  Conducting  his 
researches  as  a  private  individual,  if 
he  appeared  before  the  public  at  all, 
it  was  only  in  reading  his  papers  to 
learned  Academies.  Now  he  began 
to  lecture  in  the  University.  In  his 
first  course,  consisting  or  sixty-one 
lectures,  he  sketched  the  physical 
history  of  the  world  in  its  broadest 
outlines, — it  was,  in  truth,  the  pro- 
gramme of  the  Cosmos.  Since  I 
shall  give  an  analysis  of  this  work  in 
its  fitting  place,  I  will  say  nothing  of 
the  lectures  here,  except  that  as  a 
teacher,  he  combined  imciense  knowl- 
edge with  simplicity  of  expression, 
avoiding  all  technicalities  not  abso- 
lutely essential  to  the  subject. 

In  the  midst  of  his  lectures  there 
came  to  him  an  invitation  from  the 
Russian  government  to  visit  the 
Russian  provinces  of  Asia.  Nothing 
could  be  more  gratifying  to  a  scien- 
tific man  than  the  terms  in  which  this 
proposition  was  made.  It  was  ex- 
pressly stipulated  by  the  Emperor 
that  he  wished  the  material  advant- 
ages which  might  accrue  from  the 
expedition  to  be  a  secondary  con- 
sideration. HUMBOLDT  was  to  make 
scientific  research  and  the  advance- 
ment of  knowledge  his  first  aim,  and 


DARWIN  AND  HUM  BO  LOT. 


he  might  turn  his  steps  in  whatever 
direction  he  chose.  Never  before  had 
any  government  organized  an  ex- 
pedition with  so  little  regard  to  pure- 
ly utilitarian  considerations. 

This  second  great  journey  of  HUM- 
BOLDT is  connected  with  a  hope  and 
disappointment  of  my  own.  I  was 
then  a  student  in  Munich.  That 
University  had  opened  under  the 
most  brilliant  auspices.  Almost  every 
uame  on  the  list  of  professors  was 
also  prominent  in  some  department 
of  science  or  literature.  They  were 
not  men  who  taught  from  text-books 
or  even  read  lectures  made  from  ex- 
tracts of  original  works.  They  were 
themselves  original  investigators, 
daily  contributing  to  the  sum  of 
human  knowledge.  MARTIUS,  OKEX, 

DOLUXGER,       SCHELLIXG,       FB.       VON 

BAADER,  WAGLER,  ZCCCARINI,  FUCHS, 
VOGEL,  vox  KOBELL,  were  our  teach- 
ers. And  they  were  not  only  our 
teachers  but  our  friends.  The  best 
spirit  prevailed  among  the  professors 
and  students.  We  were  often  the 
companions  of  their  walks,  often 
present  at  their  discussions,  and  when 
we  met  for  conversation  or  to  give 
lectures  among  ourselves,  as  we  con- 
stantly did,  our  professors  were  often 
among  our  listeners,  cheering  and 
stimulating  us  in  all  our  efforts  after 
independent  research. 

My  room  was  our  meeting-place, — 
bedroom,  study,  museum,  library, 
lecture-room,  fencing  room, — all  in 
one.  Students  and  professors  used 
to  call  it  the  little  Academy.  Here 
SCHIMPER  and  BRAUN  for  the  first 
time  discussed  the  laws  of  phyllo- 
taxis,  that  marvelous  rhythmical 


Adriatic  and  adjoining  regions.  Hero 
BORX  exhibited  his  wonderful  pre- 
parations of  the  anatomy  of  the 
Lamper-Eel.  Here  RUDOLPHI  made 
us  acquainted  with  his  exploration  of 
the  Bavarian  Alps  and  the  shores  of 
the  Baltic.  These  my  fellow  students 
in  Munich  were  a  bright,  promising 
set, — boys  then  in  age,  many  of  whom 
did  not  live  to  make  their  names 
famous  in  the  annals  of  science.  It 
was  in  our  little  Academy  that 
DOLLINGER,  the  great  master  in 
physiology  and  embryology,  showed 
to  us,  his  students,  before  he  had 
even  given  them  to  the  scientific 
world,  his  wonderful  preparations 
exhibiting  the  vessels  of  the  villosities 
of  the  alimentary  canal ;  and  here  he 
taught  us  the  use  of  the  microscope 
in  embryological  investigation.  And 
here  also  the  great  German  anatomist, 
MECKEL,  came  to  see  my  collection 
of  fish  skeletons,  of  which  he  had 
heard  from  DOLLIXGER.  Such  as- 
sociations, of  course,  made  us  ac- 
quainted with  everything  of  import- 
ance which  was  going  on  in  the 
scientific  world.  The  preparations 
of  HUMBOLDT  for  his  Asiatic  journey 
excited  our  deepest  interest,  and  I 
was  filled  with  a  passionate  desire  to 
accompany  the  expedition  as  an 
assistant. 

General  LA  HARPE,  then  residing 
in  Lausanne,  who  had  been  the 
preceptor  of  both  the  Emperors 
ALEXAXDER  and  NICHOLAS  of  Russia, 
and  who  knew  HUMBOLDT  personally, 
was  a  friend  of  my  family,  and  he 
wrote  to  HUMBOLDT  in  my  behalf,  ask- 
ing that  I  might  join  the  expedition 
as  an  assistant.  But  it  was  not  to  be. 


arrangement  of  the  leaves  in  plants  j  The  preparations  for  the  journey 
which  our  great  mathematician  in  \  were  already  made,  and  EHREXBERG 
Cambridge  has  found  to  agree  with  j  and  GUSTAV  ROSE,  then  professors  at 
the  periods  of  the  rotation  of  our !  the  University  of  Berlin,  were  to  be 
planet.  Among  their  listeners  were  ;  his  traveling  companions.  I  should 
Professors  MARTIUS  and  ZUCCARIXI  ;  i  not  mention  the  incident  here,  but 
and  even  ROBERT  BROWX,  while  in  j  that,  sl;ght  as  it  was,  it  marks  the 
Munich,  during  a  journey  through  beginning  of  my  personal  relation 
Germany,  sought  the  acquaintance  of  •  with  Hi  MBOLDT. 
these  young  botanists  Here  for  the  |  The  incidents  of  HUMBOLDT'S  Asi- 
first  timedidMicHAHKi.i  1:3  lay  before  ;  atic  journey  are  less  known  to  the 
us  the  results  of  his  exploration  of  the  public  at  large  than  those  of  his  longer 

27 


'44 


BEACON  LIGHTS  Ol;  SCIENCE. 


American  ramblings.  Short  as  it  through  the  Hindoo-koo  and  the  De- 
was,  however, — for  he  was  absent '  mavend  with  the  far-off  range  of  the 
only  nine  months,— he  brought  to  !  Caucasus.  These  east- westerly  ranges, 
the  undertaking  such  an  amount  of  giving  form  and  character  to  the 
collateral  knowledge,  that  its  scbn-  continent  of  Asia,  are  then  contrasted 
titic  results  are  of  the  utmost  import-  With  the  north-southerly  direction  of 


ance,  and  may  be  considered  as  the 
culmination  of  his  mature  research 
and  comprehensiveness  of  views.  His 
success  was  insured  also  by  the  ample 
preparations  of  the  Russian  govern- 
ment, orders  having  been  given  along 
the  whole  route  to  grant  him  every 
facility.  Descending  the  Volga  to 
Kass.i,  and  hence  crossing  to  Ikate- 
rinenburg  over  the  Ural  Mountains, 
he  passed  through  Tobolsk  on  the 
Irtish,  to  Barnaul  on  the  Obi,  and 
reached  the  Altai  Mountains  on  the 
borders  of  China,  thus  penetrating 


the  Ghauts,  the  Soliman  and  Bolor 
range,  a.nd  the  Ural  Mountains  which 
divide  Europe  from  Asia.  Approach- 
ing the  great  highways,  over  which 
the  caravans  of  the  East,  from  Delhi 
and  Lahore,  reacu  the  northern  marts 
of  Samarcand,  Bokhara,  and  Oren- 
burg, he  opens  to  us  the  most  striking 
vistas  of  the  early  communication  be- 
tween the  Aryan  civilization  and  the 
Western  lands  lying  then  m  the 
darkness  of  savage  life.  He  inquired 
also  into  the  course  of  the  old  Oxas, 
and  the  former  channels  between 


into  the  heart  of  Asia.  His  researches  Lake  Aral  and  the  Caspian  Sea.  The 
into  the  physical  constitution  of  what  |  level  of  that  great  inland  salt  lake, 
was  considered  the  high  table-land  of 


Asia  revealed  the  true  features  of 
that  vast  range  of  mountains.  Touch- 
ed by  his  cultivated  genius,  the  most 
insignificant  facts  became  fruitful, 
and  gave  him  at  once  a  clew  to  the 
real  character  of  the  land.  The 
presence  of  fruit-trees  and  other 
plants,  belonging  to  families  not 
known  to  occur  in  elevated  regions, 
led  him  to  distrust  the  existence  of 
an  unbroken,  high,  cold  table-land, 
extending  over  the  whole  of  Central 
Asia,  and  by  a  diligent  comparison  of 
all  existing  documents  on  the  sub- 
ject, combined  with  his  own  observa- 
tions, he  showed  that  four  great  par- 
allel mountain  ridges,  separated  by 
gradually  hijher  and  higher  level 
grounds,  extend  in  an  east-westerly 


about  two  or  three  hundred  feet  lower 
than  the  surface  of  the  sea,  suggested 
to  him  its  former  communication  with 
the  Arctic  Ocean,  when  the  Steppes 
of  the  Kirghis  formed  an  open  gulf 
and  the  northern  waters  poured  over 
those  extensive  plains.  After  ex- 
amining the  German  settlements 
about  the  Caspian  Sea,  he  returned  to 
St.  Petersburg  by  way  of  Orenburg 
and  Moscow. 

The  scientific  results  of  this  journey 
are  recorded  in  two  separate  works, 
the  first  of  which,  under  the  title  of 
"Asiatic  Fragments  of  Climatology 
and  Geology,"  is  chiefly  devoted  to 
an  account  of  the  inland  volcanoes 
which  he  had  had  an  opportunity  of 
studying  during  this  journey.  He 
rf  had  now  examined  the  volcanic  phe- 

direction.     First,  the  Altai,  bordering  |  nomena   upon   three   continents,  and 
on   the   plains   of  Siberia,  from   the  .  had  gained  an  insight  more  penetrat- 
northern  slope  of  which  descend  all  ing  and  more  comprehensive  than  was 
the  great  rivers  flowing  into  the  Arctic  ;  possessed  by  any  other  geologist  into 
Ocean,— as  the  Irtish  with  the  Obi, ;  their   deep   connection  with  all   the 
the  Jenisei  and  the  Lena;  then   the !  changes    our  globe   has   undergone. 
Thian-Shan,  south  of  the   plateau   of  Volcanoes  were    no  longer    to   him 
Sooiijzaria ;  next,  the  Kuenlun,  south  mere  local  manifestations  of  a  limited 
of  the  plateau  of  Tartary  ;  finally,  the  focus  of  eruption ;  he  perceived  their 
Himalaya   range,  separating  the  pla-  relation  to  earthquakes  and  to  all  the 
Thibet  from  the  plains  of  the  phenomena  o-oincident  with  the  tor- 
He   showed   also  the  con-   mation   of   the    inequalities    of    the 
aection  of  the  Himalaya  Mountains  earth's  surface. 

38 


DARWIN  AND  HUMBOLDT. 


145 


The  contrast  between  the  Siberian 
winter  and  the  great  fertility  of  the 
neighborhood  of  Astracan,  where  he 
found  the  finest  vineyards  he  had  ever 
seen,  led  him  to  consider  anew  the 
causes  of  the  irregularities  of  tem- 
perature under  corresponding  lati- 
tudes, and  thus  to  enlarge  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  isothermal  lines,  which  he 
had  first  sketched  in  his  younger 
years,  and  the  rationale  of  which  he 
now  clearly  set  forth.  In  one  com- 
prehensive view  he  showed  the  con 
nection  between  the  rotation  of  the 
earth,  the  radiation  of  its  surface,  the 
currents  of  the  ocean,  and  especially 
among  the  latter  the  Gulf  Stream,  in 
their  combined  influence  upon  condi- 
tions of  temperature,  producing  under 
identical  latitudes  such  contrasts  of 
climate  as  exist  between  Boston, 
Madrid,  Naples,  Constantinople,  Tif 
lis  on  the  Caucasus,  Hakodadi  in 
Japan,  and  that  part  of  our  own 
coast  in  California,  where  stands  the 
city  which  bears  his  own  venerated 
name. 

The  second  work  relating  to   the 


tion  of  the  earth,  estimated  by  LA- 
PLACE at  more  than  one  thousand 
metres,  could  in  fact  be  scarcely  one 
third  that  amount, — a  great  deal  less, 
indeed,  than  the  average  depth  of  the 
sea. 

In  1830,  after  his  return  to  Berlin, 
he  was  chosen  as  the  fitting  mes- 
senger from  one  great  nation  to  an- 
other. The  Restoration  which  fol 
lowed  the  downfall  of  NAPOLEON  had 
been  overturned  by  the  July  revolu- 
tion, and  HUMBOLDT  who  had  lived 
through  the  glory  of  the  Republic 
and  the  most  brilliant  days  of  the 
Empire  was  appointed  by  the  King 
of  Prussia  to  carry  an  official  greeting 
to  Louis  PHILIPPE  and  the  new  dy- 
nasty. He  had  indeed  the  most 
friendly  relations  with  the  ORLEANS 
family,  and  was,  from  private  as  well 
as  public  considerations,  a  suitable 
ambassador  on  this  occasion. 

Paris  had  greatly  changed  since 
his  return  from  his  first  great  journey. 
Many  of  those  who  had  made  the 
glory  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences, 
in  the  beginning  of  the  century,  had 


Asiatic  journey  appeared  under  the  i  passed  away,  and  a  new  generation 
title  of  "Central  Asia,"  being  an  ac-  j had  come  up.  ELIE  DE  BEAUMONT, 
count  of  his  researches  into  the  j  DUFRENOT,  the  younger  BRONGNIART, 
mountain  systems  and  the  climate  of  j  ADRIEN  DE  JUSSIEU,  ISIDORE  GEOFF- 
that  continent.  The  broadest  gen-  j  ROT,  MILNE  EDWARDS,  AUDOUIN, 
eralizations  relating  to  the  physics  of  j  FLOURENS,  GUILLEMAIN,  POUILLET, 
the  globe,  showing  HUMBOLDT'S  won-  |  DUPERREY,  BABINET,  DECAISNE,  and 
derful  familiarity  with  all  its  external  j  others,  had  risen  to  distinction,  while 
features,  are  here  introduced  in  a  j  the  older  AMPERE,  the  older  BRONGNI- 


short  paper   upon  the  average  eleva- 


tion of  the  continents  above  the  level 
of  the  sea,  as  compared  with  the 
average  depths  of  the  ocean.  LA- 
PLACE, the  great  geometer,  had  al- 
ready considered  the  subject ;  but 


ART,  VALENCIENNES,  DE  BLAINNILLE. 


ARAGO  and  GEOFFROY  ST.  HILAIRE, 
had  come  forward  as  leaders  in 
science.  CUVIER,  just  the  age  of 
HUMBOLDT  himself,  was  still  active 
I  and  ardent  in  research.  His  salon, 

HUMBOLDT  brought  to  the  discussion  frequented  by  statesmen,  scholars, 
an  amount  of  facts  which  showed  j  and  artists,  was,  at  the  same  time,  the 
conclusively  that  the  purely  mathe- ;  gathering-place  of  all  the  most  orig- 
matical  consideration  of  the  inquiry,  '•  inal  thinkers  in  Paris ;  and  ^  the 
as  handled  by  LAPLACE,  had  been  pleasure  of  those  delightful  meetings 
premature.  .Taking  separately  into  was  unclouded,  for  none  dreamed  how 
consideration  the  space  occupied  upon  soon  they  were  to  end  forever, — how 
the  earth's  surface  by  mountain  soon  that  bright  and  vivid  mind  was 
ridges  v/ith  that  occupied  by  high  to  pass  away  from  among  us. 
table-lai.ds,  and  the  far  more  ex-  In  those  days  a  fierce  discussion 
tensive  tracts  of  low  plains,  HUM-  was  carried  on  before  the  Academy 
ibowed  that  the  average  eleva-  as  well  aa  in  public  lecture^, 

80 


146 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


had  declared  the  unity  of  structure 
in  the  bony  frame  of  all  the  Verte- 
brates, and  had  laid  the  foundation 
of  the  morphology  of  plants.  These 
new  views  had  awakened  the  interests 
and  passions  of  the  whole  world  of 
science  to  a  degree  hitherto  unknown 
in  her  peaceful  halls.  CUVIER,  strange 
to  say,  had  taken  ground  in  opposition 
to  GOETHE'S  views  upon  the  Verte- 
brate type,  while  GEOFFROT  ST.- 
HILAIRE,  a  devoted  adherent  of 
GOBI  HE'S  ideas,  had  expressed  his 
convictions  in  words  not  always 
courteous  toward  CUVIER.  The  latter 
had  retorted  with  an  overwhelming 
display  of  special  knowledge,  under 
which  the  brilliant  generalizations  of 
ST.-HILAIRE  seemed  to  be  crushed. 
CUVIER  was  then  giving  a  course  of 
lectures  in  the  College  de  France  on 
the  history  of  science,  into  which  he 
wove  with  passionate  animation  his 
objections  to  the  new  doctrine.  HUM- 
BOLDT  attended  these  lectures  regular- 
ly, and  I  had  frequently  the  pleasure 
of  sitting  by  his  side  and  being  the 
recipient  of  his  passing  criticism. 
While  he  was  impressed  by  the  ob- 
jections of  the  master-anatomist,  he 
could  not  conceal  his  sympathy  for 
the  conception  of  the  great  poet,  his 
countryman.  Seeing  more  clearly 
than  CUVIER  himself  the  logic  of  his 
investigations,  in  whispered  com- 
ments during  the  lectures,  he  constant- 
ly declared  that  whatever  deficiencies 
the  doctrine  of  unity  might  still  con- 
tain, it  must  be  essentially  true,  and 
CUVIER  ought  to  be  its  expounder  in- 
stead of  its  opponent.  The  great 
French  naturalist  did  not  live  to 
complete  these  lectures,  but  the  view 
expressed  by  his  friend  was  prophetic. 
CUVIER'S  own  researches,  especially 
those  bearing  upon  the  characteristics 
of  the  four  different  plans  of  struc- 
ture of  the  animal  kingdom,  have 
helped  to  prove,  in  his  own  despite, 
though  in  a  modified  form,  the  trut  h 
of  the  doctrine  he  so  bitterly  opposed. 
The  life  which  HUMBOLDT  now  led 
was  less  exclusively  that  of  a  student 


than  it  had  been  during  his  former 
Paris  life.     He  was  the  ambassador 


of  a  foreign  court.  His  official  posi- 
tion and  his  rank  in  society,  as  well 
as  his  great  celebrity,  made  him 
everywhere  a  cherished  guest,  and 
HUMB'  >I,DT  had  the  gift  of  making 
himself  ubiquitous.  He  was  as  famil- 
iar with  the  gossip  of  the  fashionable 
and  dramatic  world  as  with  the 
higher  walks  of  life  and  the  abstruse 
researches  of  science.  He  had  at  this 
time  two  residences  in  Paris, — his 
lodging  at  the  hotel  des  Princes, 
where  he  saw  the  great  world,  and 
his  working-room  in  the  Rue  de  la 
Harpe,  where  he  received  with  less 
formality  his  scientific  friends.  It  is 
with  the  latter  place  I  associate  him ; 
for  there  it  was  my  privilege  to  visit 
him  frequently.  There  he  gave  me 
leave  to  come  to  talk  with  him  about 
my  work  and  consult  him  in  my  dif- 
ficulties. I  am  unwilling  to  speak 
of  myself  on  this  occasion,  and  yet  I 
do  not  know  how  else  I  can  do  justice 
to  one  of  the  most  beautiful  sides  of 
HUMBOLDT' s  character.  His  sym- 
pathy for  all  young  students  of  nature 
was  one  of  the  noblest  traits  of  his 
long  life.  It  may  truly  be  said  that 
toward  the  close  of  his  career  there 
was  hardly  one  prominent  or  aspiring 
scientific  man  in  the  world  who  was 
not  under  some  obligation  to  him. 
His  sympathy  touched  not  only  the 
work  of  those  in  whom  he  was  in- 
terested, but  extended  also  to  their 
material  wants  and  embarrassments. 
At  this  period  I  was  twenty-four;  he 
was  sixty-two.  I  had  recently  taken 
my  degree  as  Doctor  of  Medicine,  and 
was  struggling  not  only  for  a  scientific 
position,  but  for  the  means  of  exist- 
ence also.  I  have  said  that  he  gave 
me  permission  to  come  as  often  as  I 
pleased  to  his  room,  opening  to  me 
advantages 
such  a  man 


freely    the    inestimable 
which   intercourse  with 


40 


gave  to  a  young  investigator  like  my- 
self. But  he  did  far  more  than  this. 
Occupied  and  surrounded  as  he  was, 
he  sought  me  out  in  my  own  lodging. 
The  first  visit  he  paid  me  at  my  nar- 
row quarters  in  the  Quartier  Latin, 
where  I  occupied  a  small  room  in  the 
hotel  du  Jardin  des  Plantes,  wae 


DARW1X  AXD  HUMBOLDT. 


characteristic  of  the  man.  After  a 
cordial  greeting,  he  walked  straight 
to  what  was  then  my  library, — a  small 
book  shelf  containing  a  few  classics, 
the  meanest  editions  bought  for  a 
trifle  along  the  quays,  some  works  on 
philosophy  and  history,  chemistry 
and  physics,  his  own  Views  of  Na- 
ture, ARISTOTLE'S  Zoology,  LINN^EUS'S 
Systema  Naturae,  in  several  editions, 
CURVIER'S  Regne  Animal,  and  quite 
a  number  of  manuscript  quartos, 
copies  which,  with  the  assistance  of 
my  brother,  I  had  made  of  works  I 
was  too  poor  to  buy,  though  they  cost 
but  a  few  francs  a  volume.  Most 
conspicuous  of  all  were  twelve  vol- 
umes of  the  new  German  Cyclopaedia 
presented  to  me  by  the  publisher.  I 
shall  never  forget,  after  his  look  of 
mingled  interest  and  surprise  at  my 
little  collection,  his  half  sarcastic 
question  as  he  pounced  upon  the  great 
Encyclopaedia, — "  Was  machen  /Sie 
denn  mlt  dieser  EselsbrUcke?'1'1  What 
are  you  doing  with  this  ass's  bridge? 
— the  somewhat  contemptuous  name 
given  in  Germany  to  similar  compila- 
tions. "I  have  not  had  time,"  I 
said,  "to  study  the  original  sources  of 
learning,  and  I  need  a  prompt  and 
easy  answer  to  a  thousand  questions  I 
have  as  yet  no  other  means  of  solv- 
ing." 

It  was  no  doubt  apparent  to  him 
that  I  was  not  over  familiar  with  the 
good  things  of  this  world,  for  I  shortly 
afterward  received  an  invitation  to 
meet  him  at  six  o'clock  in  the  Galerie 
vitree  of  the  Palais  Royal,  whence  he 
led  me  into  one  of  those  restaurants, 
the  tempting  windows  of  which  I 
had  occasionally  passed  by.  When 
we  were  seated,  he  half  laughingly, 
half  inquiringly  asked  me  whether  I 
would  order  the  dinner.  I  declined 
the  invitation,  saying  that  we  should 
fare  better  if  he  would  take  the 
trouble.  And  for  three  hours,  which 
passed  like  a  dream,  I  had  him  all  to 
myself.  How  he  examined  me,  and 
how  much  I  learned  in  that  short 
time !  How  to  work,  what  to  do, 
and  what  to  avoid ;  how  to  live  ;  how 
to  distribute  my  time  ;  what  methods 


of  study  to  pursue, — these  were  the 
things  of  which  he  talked  to  me  on 
that  delightful  evening.  I  do  not 
mention  this  trivial  incident  without 
feeling  that  it  may  seem  too  familiar 
for  the  occasion ;  nor  should  I  give 
it  at  all,  except  that  it  shows  the 
sweetness  and  kindliness  of  HUM- 
BOLDT'S  nature.  It  was  not  enough 
for  him  to  cheer  and  stimulate  the 
student ;  he  cared  also  to  give  a  rare 
indulgence  to  a  young  man  who  could 
allow  himself  few  luxuries. 

The  last  period  of  his  life  was  spent 
in  Berlin,  and  while  there  to  the  end 
of  his  long  and  laborious  career  he 
was  engaged  with  the  publication  of 
his  Cosmos,  and  also  in  editing  the 
great  work,  on  the  Kavi  language, 
left  by  his  brother  WILLIAM,  who 
died  in  1835.  Besides  these  import- 
ant undertakings,  he  was  unceasingly 
engaged  in  fostering  magnetic  observ- 
ations and  the  establishment  of  mag- 
netic observatories.  He  likewise  felt 
a  lively  interest  in  the  proposed  inter- 
oceanic  Canal  between  the  Atlantic 
and  Pacific  Oceans,  the  lines  for 
which  he  had  carefully  considered  in 
earlier  years.  Surrounded  by  loving 
and  admiring  friends,  covered  with 
honors  and  distinctions,  these  days 
were  rich  in  peaceful  enjoyment. 

One  of  the  most  prominent  features 
of  HUMBOLDT'S  mind,  as  philosopher 
and  student  of  nature,  consists  in  the 
keenness  with  which  he  perceives  the 
most  remote  relations  of  the  phenom- 
ena under  consideration,  and  the 
felicity  with  which  he  combines  his 
facts  so  as  to  draw  the  most  com- 
prehensive pictures.  This  faculty  is 
more  particularly  exhibited  in  the 
Cosmos,  the  crowning  effort  of  his  ma- 
ture life.  With  a  grasp  transcending 
the  most  profound  generalizations  of 
the  philosophers  of  all  ages,  he  draws 
at  first  in  broad  outlines  a  sketch  of 
the  whole  Universe.  With  an  eye 
sharpened  by  the  most  improved  in- 
struments of  the  Observatory,  and  ex- 
alted by  the  experience  of  all  his 
predecessors,  he  penetrates  into  the 
remotest  recesses  of  space,  to  seek  for 
the  faintest  ray  of  light  that  may 


14* 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


furnish  any  information  concerning 
the  expanse  of  the  heavenly  vault  and 
the  age  of  the  celestial  bodies.  He 
thus  makes  the  rapidity  with  which 
light  is  propagated  a  measure  of  the 
distance  which  separates  the  visible 
parts  of  the  whole  system  from  one 
another,  as  well  as  a  means  of  ap- 
proximately estimating  the  duration 
of  their  existence.  He  next  con- 
siders the  various  appearances  of  the 
celestial  bodies,  the  different  kinds  of 
nebulae,  their  form  and  relations  to 
one  another  and  to  the  so-called  fixed 
stars ;  describes  in  graphic  and  fas- 
cinating language  the  landscape-like 
loveliness  of  their  combinations  in  the 
Milky- Way  and  the  various  con- 
stellations; discusses  the  nature  of 
the  doublestars,  and,  gradually  ap- 
proaching our  own  system  by  a  com- 
parison of  our  sun  to  other  suns,  rises, 
by  a  sublime  effort  of  the  imagina- 
tion, to  a  conception  of  the  form  of 
their  united  systems  in  space.  In  the 
description  of  our  solar  system  one 
might  have  expected  an  exposition 
similar  to  the  methods  adopted  by 
astronomers ;  but  the  object  of  our 
great  physicist  is  not  to  write  a  syn- 
opsis of  Astronomy.  He  plunges 
without  hesitation  into  the  earliest 
history  of  the  formation  of  our  earth, 
the  better  to  illustrate  the  relations  to 
one  another  of  the  sun  and  the  planets 
with  their  satellites,  the  comets,  and 
the  hosts  of  meteors  of  all  kinds  which 
come  flashing,  like  luminous  showers, 
through  the  atmosphere.  Our  globe 
is  reviewed  in  its  turn.  First,  its 
structure,  the  density  of  its  mass,  in 
the  estimation  of  which  the  oscilla- 
tions of  the  pendulum  become  a  plum- 
met-line with  which  to  fathom  the 
inapproachable  deep;  then  the  vol- 
canoes are  made  to  reveal  the  ever- 
lasting conflict  between  the  interior 
caldrons  of  melted  materials  and  the 
consolidation  of  the  ruffled  surface; 
the  distribution  of  heat  and  light,  the 
climates,  as  depending  upon  the  in 
equalities  of  form  and  relief,  the  cur- 
rents of  the  ocean,  as  modifying  the 
temperature,  the  magnetic  phenom- 
ena, the  aurora  borealis,  the  shooting 


stars,  etc.,  are  discussed  in  turn  Th« 
changes  which  our  globe  has  under- 
gone in  the  course  of  ages  are  next 
described:  how  the  lands  gradually 
rose  above  the  level  of  the  sea  :  how 
they  first  formed  disconnected  archi- 
pelagos ;  how  mountains  grew  up  in 
succession,  and  their  relative  age  ;  the 
form  and  extent  of  successively  larger 
continental  islands,  their  plants  and 
animals; — nothing  escaped  his  atten- 
tion ;  everything  is  represented  in  its 
true  place  and  relation  to  the  whole. 
Especially  attractive  are  his  delinea- 
tions of  the  distribution  of  plants  and 
animals  upon  the  present  surface  of 
the  earth,  of  which  an  account  has 
already  been  given. 

This  mode  of  treating  his  subjects, 
emphatically  his  own,  has  led  many 
specialists  to  underrate  HUMBOLDT'S 
familiarity  with  different  branches  of 
science  ;  as  if  knowledge  could  only 
be  recorded  in  pedantic  forms  and  a 
set  phraseology. 

But  HUMBOLDT  is  not  only  an  ob- 
server, not  only  a  physicist,  a  geog- 
rapher, a  geologist  of  matchless 
power  and  erudition,  he  knows  that 
nature  has  its  attraction  for  the  soul 
of  man ;  that,  however  uncultivated, 
man  is  impressed  by  the  great  phe- 
nomena amid  which  he  lives;  that  he 
is  dependent  for  his  comforts  and  the 
progress  of  civilization  upon  the  world 
that  surrounds  him  This  leads  to  an 
appreciative  analysis  of  the  enjoyment 
derived  from  the  contemplation  of  na- 
ture, and  to  considerations  of  the 
highest  order  respecting  the  influence 
which  natural  highways  have  had 
upon  the  races  of  men,  in  their  distri- 
bution upon  the  whole  surface  of  the 
globe. 

In  speaking  of  his  later  days  I  can 
not  omit  some  allusion  to  a  painful 
fact  connected  with  his  residence  at 
Berlin.  The  publication  of  a  private 
correspondence  between  VARNHAGEN 
VON  ENSE  and  HUMBOLDT  has  led  to 
many  unfriendly  criticisms  upon  the 
latter.  He  has  been  blamed  for 
holding  his  place  at  court,  while,  in 
private,  he  criticised  and  even  satirized 
severely  everything  connected  with 


DARWIN  AND  HUM  BO  LOT. 


149 


it.  It  is  not  easy  to  place  one's  self 
in  the  right  point  of  view  with  ref- 
erence to  these  confidential  letters. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  HUM- 
BOLDT  was  a  Republican  at  heart. 
His  most  intimate  friends,  from 
FORSTKR,  in  his  early  youth,  to 
ARAGO,  in  his  mature  years,  were 
ardent  Republicans.  He  shared  their 
enthusiasm  for  the  establishment  of 
self-government  among  men.  An 
anecdote  preserved  to  us  by  LIEBER 
shows  that  he  did  not  conceal  his 
sympathies,  even  before  the  King 
who  honored  him  so  highly.  LIEBER, 
who  was  present  at  the  conversation, 


gives 
"The 


the   following   account   of  it 
King  of   Prussia,  HUMBOLDT, 


and  NIKBUHR  were  talking  of  the 
affairs  of  the  day,  and  the  latter  spoke 
in  no  flattering  terms  of  the  political 
views  and  antecedents  of  ARAGO,  who, 
it  is  well-known,  was  a  very  advanced 
Republican  of  the  Gallican  School,  an 
uncomprimising  French  democrat. 
FREDERIC  WILLIAM  the  Third  simply 
abominated  Republicanism  ;  yet  when 
NIEBUHR  had  finished,  HUMBOLDT 
said  with  a  sweetness  which  I  vividly 
remember :  "  Still  this  monster  is  the 
dearest  friend  I  have  in  France." 

Can  we,  therefore,  be  surprised,  that 
in  his  confidential  letters  to  a  sym- 
pathizing friend,  he  should  not  refrain 
from  expressing  his  dislike  of  the 
petty  intrigues  and  low  sentiments 
which  he  met  among  courtiers.  I  re- 
ceived, myself,  a  letter  from  HUM 
it  >i  DT,  written  in  the  days  when  the 
reactionary  movements  were  at  their 
height  in  Prussia,  in  which,  in  a  strain 
of  deep  sadness  and  despondency,  he 
expresses  his  regret  at  the  turn  po- 
litical affairs  had  taken  in  Europe, 
and  his  disappointment  at  the  failure 
of  those  aspirations  for  freedom  with 
which  he  had  felt  the  deepest  sym- 
pathy in  his  youth.  We  may  wish 


remember  that  his  official  station 
there  gave  him  the  means  of  in- 
fluencing culture  and  education  in  his 
native  country  in  a  way  which  he 
could  not  otherwise  have  done,  and 
that  in  this  respect  he  made  the 
noblest  use  of  his  position.  His  sym- 
pathy with  the  oppressed  in  every  land 
was  profound.  We  see  it  in  his  feel- 
ing for  the  aborigines  in  South  Amer- 
ica, in  his  abhorrence  of  slavery.  I 
believe  that  he  would  have  experien- 
ced one  of  the  purest  and  deepest 
joys  of  his  life  had  he  lived  to  bear  of 
the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  United 
States.  His  dislike  of  all  subserviency 
and  flattery,  whether  toward  himself 
or  others,  was  always  openly  ex- 
pressed, and  was  unquestionably  gen- 
uine. 

The  philosophical  views  of  HUM- 
BOLDT, his  position  with  reference  to 
the  gravest  and  most  important 
questions  concerning  man's  destiny, 
and  the  origin  of  all  things,  have  been 
often  discussed,  and  the  most  op- 
posite opinions  have  been  expressed 
respecting  them  by  men  who  seem 
equally  competent  to  appreciate  the 
meaning  of  his  writings.  The  modern 
school  of  Atheists  claims  him  as  their 
leader ;  as  such  we  find  him  represent- 
ed by  BURMEISTER  in  his  scientific 
letters.  Others  bring  forward  his 
sympathy  with  Christian  culture  as 
evidence  of  his  adherence  to  Chris- 
tianity in  his  broadest  sense.  It  is 
difficult  to  find  in  HUMBOLDT'S  own 
writings  any  clew  to  the  exact  nature 
of  his  convictions.  He  had  too  great 
regard  for  truth,  and  he  knew  too  well 
the  Aryan  origin  of  the  traditions 
collected  by  the  Jews,  to  give  his 
countenance  to  any  creed  based  upon 
them  Indeed,  it  was  one  of  his 
aims  to  free  our  civilization  from  the 
pressure  of  Jewish  tradition  ;  but  it  is 
impossible  to  become  familiar  with  his 


writings  without  feeling  that,  if  HUM- 
BOLDT was  not  a  believer,  he  was  no 


that  this  great  man  had  been  wholly 
consistent,  that  no  shadow  had  rested 
upon  the  loyalty  of  his  character,  that  scoffer.  A  reverential  spirit  for  every- 
he  had  not  accepted  the  friendship  thing  great  and  good  breaths  through 
and  affection  of  a  King  whose  court  j  all  his  pages.  Like  a  true  philosopher, 
he  did  not  respect  and  whose  weak-  j  he  knew  that  the  time  had  not  yo, 
he  keenly  felt.  But  let  un  come  for  a  scientific  investigation  in- 

43 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


to  the  origin  of  all  things.  Before 
he  attempted  to  discuss  the  direct 
action  of  a  Creator  in  bringing  about 
the  present  condition  of  the  Universe, 
he  knew  that  the  physical  laws  which 
govern  the  material  world  must  be 
first  understood  ;  that  it  would  be  a 
mistake  to  ascribe  to  the  agency  of  a 
Supreme  Power  occurrences  and  phe- 
nomena which  could  be  deduced  from 
the  continued  agency  of  natural 
causes.  Until  some  limit  to  the  action 
of  these  causes  has  been  found,  there 
is  no  place,  in  a  scientfic  discussion, 
as  such,  for  the  consideration  of  the 
intervention  of  a  Creator. 

In  the  closing  paragraph  of  the  first 
volume    of    the   Cosmos   HUMBOLDT 
distinctly  objects  to  the  consideration 
of  the  sphere  of  intelligence  in  con- 
nection  with  the  study   of  Nature. 
But  the  time  is  fast  approaching,  and 
indeed   some    daring  thinkers   have 
actually  entered   upon   the  question, 
— Where  is  the  line  between  the  in- 
evitable action  of  law  and  the  inter- 
vention of  a  higher  power?  where  is 
the   limit?     And    here  we  find  the 
most    opposite    views     propounded. 
There  are  those  who  affirm  that,  inas- 
much as  force  and  matter  are  found 
to  be  a  sufficient  ground  for  so  many 
physical  phenomena,  we  are  justified 
in  assuming  that  the  whole  universe, 
including  organic  life,  has  no  further 
origin.     To  these,  I   venture  to  say, 
HUMBOLDT  did  not  belong.     He  had 
too  logical  a  mind  to  assume  that  an 
harmoniously  combined  whole  could 
be  the  result  of  accidental  occurrences. 
In   the  few   instances   where,  in  his 
works,  he  uses  the  name  of  God,  it 
appears  plainly  that  he  believes  in  a 
Creator  as  a  lawgiver  and   primary 
originator  of  all  things.     There   are 
two  passages  in  his  writings  especially 
significant  in   this   respect.     In   the 
second  volume   of  the  Cosmos,  when 
speaking  of  the  impression  man   re- 
ceives from  the  contemplation  of  the 
physical  world,  he  calls  nature  God's 


inquirer  may  even  infer  that  HUM- 
BOLI  T  believed  in  a  special  Provi- 
dence. For  he  says  with  much  feel- 
ing :  "  Our  friends  are  no  more,  the 
house  we  lived  in  is  a  pile  of  ruins  ; 
the  city  I  have  described  no  longer 
exists.  The  day  had  been  very  hot, 
the  air  was  calm,  the  sky  without  a 
cloud.  It  was  Holy  Thursday  ;  the 
people  were  mostly  assembled  in  the 
churches.  Nothing  seemed  to  fore- 
shadow the  threatening  misfortune. 
Suddenly,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon, the  bells  which  were  struck 
mute  that  day  began  to  toll.  It  was 


the  hand  of  God,  and  not  the  hand  of 
man,  which  rang  that  funeral  dirge." 
In  his  own  words :  "  J£s  war  Crottes, 
nicht  Menschetihand,  die  hier  zum 
G-rabgeltt'ite  zwang." 

One  word  more  before  I  close.  I 
have  appeared  before  you  as  the  rep- 
resentative of  the  Boston  Natural 
History  Society.  It  was  their  pro- 
position to  celebrate  this  memorable 
anniversary.  I  feel  grateful  for  their 
invitation,  for  the  honor  they  have 
done  me.  I  feel  still  more  grateful 
for  the  generous  impulse  which  has 
prompted  them  to  connect  a  HUM- 
BOLDT scholarship,  as  a  memorial  of 
this  occasion,  with  the  Museum  of 
Comparative  Zoology  at  Cambridge. 
I  trust  this  token  of  good- will  may 
only  be  another  expression  of  that 
emulation  for  progress  which  I 
earnestly  hope  may  forever  be  the 
only  rivarly  between  these  kindred 
institutions  and  their  younger  sister 
in  Salem.  We  have  all  a  great  task 
to  perform.  It  should  be  our  effort, 
as  far  as  it  lies  in  our  power,  to  raise 
the  standard  of  culture  of  our  people, 
as  HUMBOLDT  has  elevated  that  of  the 
world.  May  the  community  at  large 
feel  with  equal  keenness  the  import- 
ance of  each  step  now  taken  for  the 
expansion,  in  every  direction,  of  all 
the  means  of  the  highest  culture. 
The  physical  suffering  of  humanity, 
the  wants  of  the  poor,  the  craving  of 
the  hungry  and  naked,  appeal  to  the 
sympathy  of  every  one  who  has  a 

..-, human  heart.     But  there  are  neces- 

by  an  earthquake  in  1812,  the  critical  I  sities   which   only  the  destitute  stu- 

44 


majestic 
Reich:- 


realm, — "  Gottes  erhabenes 
In  his  allusion  to  the  fear 


ful  catastrophe  of  Carracas,  destroyed 

Dv  an  fr^urt liMii'iL-o  in  i  Qi  o   (i,,.  ,...;«;,...! 


DARWIN  AND  HUMBOLDT. 


dent  knows ;  there  is  a  hunger  and 
thirst  which  only  the  highest  charity 
can  understand  and  relieve,  and  on 
this  solemn  occasion  let  me  say  that 
every  dollar  given  for  higher  educa- 
tion, in  whatever  special  department 
of  knowledge,  is  likely  to  have  a 
greater  influence  upon  the  future  char- 
acter of  our  nation  than  even  the 
thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands 
and  millions  which  have  already  been 
spent  and  are  daily  spending  to  raise 
the  many  to  material  ease  and  com- 
fort. 

In  the  hope  of  this  coming  golden 
age,  let  us  rejoice  together  that  HUM- 
BOI.DT'S  name  will  be  permanently 
connected  with  education  and  learning 
in  this  country,  with  the  prospects  and 
institutions  of  which  he  felt  so  deep 
and  so  affectionate  a  sympathy. 


At  the  Evening  Reception  which  followed 
the  Memorial  Address,  Professor  FREDERIC 
H.  HEDGE,  of  Harvard  University,  spoke  as 
follows  : 

Mr.  CHAIRMAN — It  is  hard  gleaning 
in  a  field  in  which  AGASSIZ  has  been 
with  his  sickle.  But  since  you  call 
upon  me,  I  will  say  that  the  thing 
which  most  impressed  me,  as  I  listened 
to  the  discourse  this  afternoon,  was 
the  psychological  marvel  of  such  a  na- 
ture as  HUMBOLDT'S  and  the  illustra- 
tion it  affords  of  the  capabilities  o  f 
the  human  mind.  Here  was  a  man 
whose  inappeasable  greed  of  knowl- 
edge had  appropriated  all  the  science 
of  his  time,  who  knew  all  that  was 
known  in  his  day  of  things  below  and 
things  above.  The  word  ''Cosmos," 
the  title  he  gave  to  his  immortal 
work,  is  an  apt  designation  i  of  the 
mind  of  the  author, — a  mind  in  which 
the  universe  mirrored  itself  in  all  its 
vastness  and  all  its  minuteness,  with 
its  infinitely  great  and  its  no  less 
amazing  infinitely  little.  Where 
shall  we  look  for  the  parallel  and  peer 
of  such  a  mind?  To  find  his  match 
we  have  to  go  back  two  thousand 
years.  We  cannot  stop  at  the  name 
of  LAPLACE  or  of  BUFFON;  these 
men  were  great  in  single  provinces  of 
science,  but  HUMBOLDT  was  great  in 


all.  We  cannot  stop  at  NEWTON  or 
LEIBNITZ,  though  NEWTON  seems  to 
have  gravitated  with  a  more  absolute 
aplomb  to  the  truth  of  fact,  and 
though  LEIBNITZ,  pierced  with  a  fiuer 
apercu  to  the  heart  of  things.  We 
cannot  stop  at  BACON,  whose  merit  is 
not  to  have  found,  nor  even  to  have 
sought  with  sincerity,  but  only  to 
have  taught  men  what  and  how  to 
seek.  We  cannot  stop  till  we  come 
to  ARISTOTLE.  And  here  we  have  an 
even  parallel.  Between  HUMBOLDT  and 
ARISTOTLE  there  are,  it  seems  to  me, 
some  points  of  striking  resemblance. 
Both  of  these  sages  mastered  and  ex- 
tended the  science  of  their  time, — 
with  this  difference  in  favor  of  the 
Greek,  that  he  explored  the  realm  of 
ideas  as  well  as  of  things ;  with  this 
difference  in  favor  of  the  German, 
that  the  science  of  things  and  their 
relations  —  cosmic  science  —  was  a 
thousand-fold  more  complex  and  dif- 
ficult in  the  nineteenth  century  of  the 
Chri  stain  era  than  in  the  fourth  of 
the  ante-Christain.  Both  were  fortu- 
nate in  being  partakers  of  the  recent 
stimulus  given  by  a  great  philosophic 
movement, — that  of  SOCRATES  in  the 
one  case,  in  the  other  that  of  KANT. 
Both  were  contemporaries  of  great 
world  conquerors  and  shared  the  im- 
pulse imparted  to  their  time, — the 
one  by  ALEXANDER  the  other  by  NA- 
POLEAN  the  first. 

DANTE  called  ARISTOTLE  "il maestro 
di  color'  che  sanno" — master  among 
them  that  know.  And  what  better 
title  can  be  conferred  upon  HUM- 
BOLDT? Master  among  them  that 
know, — the  master  savant. 

Another  thing  which  fills  my  soul 
with  profound  admiration  when  I 
think  of  HUMBOLDT  is  the  heroism  of 
his  life, — a  life  which  exceeded  in 
breadth  as  well  as  in  length  the  ordi- 
nary limits  of  mortality.  I  admire 
his  loyal  devotion  to  the  single  aim  of 
extending  the  area  of  the  human 
mind.  I  admire  the  indomitable  en- 
terprise which  ransacked  the  globe 
in  search  of  materials  with  which  to 
build  his  monumental  Cosmos.  I 
admire  no  less  the  indefatigable  in- 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


dustry  which  methodized  and  shaped 
those  materials  for  after  ages.  A 
new  standard  of  the  possibilities  of  a 
single  life  is  given  in  what  he  was 
and  what  he  did.  There  was  no  sen- 
escence in  his  experience.  He  passed 
away  in  the  midst  of  tasks  which  the 
noon  of  his  life  bequeathed  to  its  even- 
ing, and  which  the  evening  did  not 
seek  to  escape.  And  when  he  died, 
it  seemed  as  if  the  civilized  world, 
from  the  Himalaya  to  the  Andes, 
sighed  in  sympathy  with  the  going 
down  of  a  man  who  carried  a  universe 
in  the  lobes  of  his  brain,  and  who 
counted  an  ally  and  a  friend  wherever 
nature  had  a  studedent  or  science  a 
home. 

One  thing  more.  The  professor 
has  told  us  of  the  service  which  HUM- 
BOLDT  rendered  to  humanity  by  free- 
ing men  from  the  pressure  of  Jew- 
ish tradition.  I  accept  the  state- 
ment. From  all  that  was  puerile  and 
inadequate  in  Jewish  or  Jew-Christian 
theology  he  was  free  himself,  and 
helped  to  make  others  free.  But  the 
central  truth  of  Judaism,  the  truth  of 
Semitic  monotheism,  was  as  true  to 
him  as  to  any  before  or  since.  An  im- 
pression went  abroad  at  the  time  of 
his  death  that  HUMBOLDT  was  an  athe- 
ist. We  all  know  how  loosely,  how 
unthinkingly,  that  term  is  applied. 
That  he  did  not  receive  the  authro- 
pomorphism  of  the  conception  I  can 
well  suppose.  But  that  he  rejected 
die  idea  of  a  conscious  intelligence  at 
the  heart  of  the  world — that  intelli- 
gence which  all  his  life  was  spent  in 
tracing — nothing  shall  convince  me, 
not  even  an  unguarded  saying  of  his 
own.  For  I  am  persuaded  that  with 
out  the  belief  in  such  an  Intelligence, 
and  a  purpose  and  a  method  corres- 
ponding therewith,  he  would  not  have 
had  the  heart  to  prosecute  his  in 
quiries.  For  what  use  or  instruction, 
or  what  satisfaction  would  there  be  in 


I  observing  and  classifying  material 
!  phenomena,  if  those  phenomena  rep- 
resented no  order  and  obeyed  no  law* 
And  when  we  say  "Order,"  Mr. 
Chairman,  and  when  we  say  "  Law," 
we  say  God.  And  when  we  affirm 
the  constancy  of  that  order  and  the 
certainty  of  that  law,  we  bear  witness 
of  one  at  least  of  the  attributes  of 
Deit  y, — his  unchangeable  veracity. 
Thotie  stated  processes  which  make 
the  life  of  nature  and  which  HUM- 
BOLDT so  loved  to  note, — the  stars  in 
their  course,  the  ever-recurring  phases 
of  earth  and  sky,  precession  of  equin- 
oxes, succession  of  seasons,  gravita 
don,  magnetism, — these  are  Nature's 
comment  on  the  text  of  the  Spirit, 
"  God  is  true."  And  when  HUMBOLDT 
applied  the  methods  he  had  learned 
in  academic  Europe  and  the  laws 
announced  by  students  of  nature  in 
other  centuries, — applied  these  to 
the  measurement  of  mountains  on  the 
other  side  of  the  globe,  knowing  them 
to  be  as  apt  and  applicable  then  as  in 
all  past  time,  he  unwittingly  con 
fessed  his  belief  in  a  God  whose 
"  truth  endureth  through  all  genera- 
tions." 

But  if,  after  all,  it  should  prove  to 
be  the  case — if  that  were  possible 
which  I  deny — that  the  greatest  sci- 
entist of  modern  time,  in  his  search 
after  truth,  had  missed  the  first  and 
most  essential  of  all  truths, — the  being 
of  God, — what  then?  Why  then  I 
should  say  that  the  man  himself  is  the 
most  convincing  proof  of  the  truth  he 
missed.  I  should  feel  that  the  marvel 
of  such  a  mind,  a  wonder  surpassing 
any  of  those  it  explored,  must  have 
had  its  adequate  cause ;  that  the  finite 
intelligence  which  looked  creation 
through  presupposes  an  infinite  In- 
telligence as  its  origin  and  ground. 
The  highest  mortal  can  only  be  ex- 
plained as  the  product  of  a  more  than 
mortal  power. 


HISTORY 


OF  THE 


SCIENCE   OF  POLITICS 


By  FREDERICK  POLLOCK 


CHAPTER  I. 

Introductory — Place  of  the  Theory 
of  Politics  in  Human  Knowl- 
edge. 

"  They  be  farre  more  in  number,  that  love 
to  read  of  great  Armies,  bloudy  Battels,  and 
many  thousands  slaine  at  once,  than  that 
minde  the  Art,  by  which  the  Affaires,  both  of 
Armies,  and  Cities,  be  conducted  to  their 
ends." — HOBBES,  Preface  to  Thucydides. 

No  good  Brahman  begins  any  lite- 
rary work  without  a  formula  of  salu- 
tation to  Ganesa,  the  elephant-headed 
patron-god  of  learning.  In  the  West 
we  are  not  so  punctilious  about  forms; 
yet  we  might  with  some  fitness  open 
our  undertakings  in  philosophy  and 
science  by  saluting  expressly  or  tac- 


*  This  History,  like  the  late  Mr.  BAGE- 
HOT'S  well-Known  works  "The  English 
Constitution  "  and  "  Physics  and  Politics  ", 
appeared  serially  in  the  " 'Fortnightly  Review" '. 
It  was  published  at  intervals  between  Aug- 
ust, 1882,  and  January  of  the  present  year 
(1883). 


itly  the  memory  of  ARISTOTLE.  For 
as  Greece  is  to  us  the  mother  of  al- 
most everything  that  makes  life 
worthy  to  be  lived,  so  is  ARISTOTLE 
especially  the  father  of  science  and 
scientific  method;  and  during  the 
centuries  when  the  lessons  of  Greece 
were  forgotten  the  name  and  work  of 
ARISTOTLE  (used  indeed  in  a  manner 
and  for  purposes  he  would  have 
marveled  at)  were  almost  the  only 
links  that  still  bound  the  modern  to 
the  Hellenic  world.  With  regard  to 
our  present  subject  ARISTOTLE'S  claim 
is  evident  and  eminent.  He  has  been 
recognized  as  the  founder  of  political 
science  by  the  general  voice  of  poster- 
ity. There  was  political  speculation 
before  him,  but  it  was  he  who  first 
brought  to  bear  on  political  phenom- 
ena the  patient  analysis  and  unbiased 
research  which  are  the  proper  marks 
and  virtues  of  scientific  inquiry  The 
science  of  politics,  like  so  much  else 
of  our  knowledge  and  endeavors  to 
know,  begins  with  ARISTOTLE.  In 


154 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


this  as  in  other  things  his  organizing 
genius  consolidated  the  scattered  ma 
terial  of  his  predecessors,  and  left  a 
compact  structure.  From  ARISTOTLE 
onward  we  shall  now  try  to  follow  the 
fortunes  and  growth  of  this  science. 
It  is  not  a  tale  of  continuous  and 
rapid  advance  like  the  history  of  the 
exact  sciences,  or  even  of  those  natural 
sciences  in  which  mathematical  pre- 
cision is  not  attainable.  On  the  con- 
trary, we  shall  find  much  wild  specu- 
lation, and  many  grave  mistakes. 
But  we  shall  also  find  a  good  deal  of 
real  advance,  if  we  attend  to  what  has 
been  done  by  scientific  inquirers  rather 
than  what  has  been  put  forward  under 
the  name  of  science  by  social  and  po- 
litical agitators,  and  do  not  allow  the 
failures  to  blind  our  eyes  to  the  succes- 
ses. 

Before  we  enter  on  the  history  it 
may  be  as  well  to  take  a  rough  gen- 
eral view  of  the  place  of  the  theory  of 
politics  in  human  knowledge.     Many 
persons   would    perhaps   Tleny    that 
there  is  any  science  of  politics  at  all. 
If  they  meant  that  there  is  no  body 
of  rules  from  which  a  Prime  Minister 
may  infallibly  learn  how  to  command 
a  majority,  they  would  be  right  as  to 
the  fact,  but   would  betray  a  rather 
inadequate  notion  of  what  science  is. 
There  is  a  science  of  politics  in  the 
same  sense,  and  to  the  same,  or  about 
the  sa.ne,  extent,  as  there  is  a  science 
of  morals    Whatever  systematic  mor- 
alists may  have  professed  to   think, 
it  is  at  least  doubtful  whether  systems 
of  moral  philosophy  have  been  of  much 
direct  use  in  helping  people  to  decide 
actual  questions  of  conduct.    For  my 
own   part,  I  would  in  a  case  of  con 
science  rather  consult  a  right  miridec 
and  sensible  friend  than  any  mora" 
philosopher  in  the  world,     f  shoulc 
think  neither  the  better  nor  the  worse 
of  his  advice  if  he  happened  also  to  be 
a  student  of  philosophy.  Nevertheless 
few   educated  persons  will  refuse  to 
admit  that  inquiry  into  the   nature 
and  origin  of  moral  rules  is  legitimate 
and  useful,  or  will   maintain  that  th 
endeavor  to  refer  them,  historically  01 
rationally,  to  general  principles    is 


altogether    idle.     Men,  being  moral 
beings,  are  led  to  reflect  on  the  nature 
of  right  and  wrong,  and  the  functions 
of    conscience ;  being    citizens,  they 
are  equally  led  to  reflect  on  the  nature 
of  the  State,  the  functions  of  govern- 
ment, and  the  origin  and  authority  of 
civil  obligation.     This  latter  inquiry 
s  indeed  more  practical  than  the  other; 
'or  political  theories  of  the  most  gen- 
eral   kind    often    have   considerable 
direct     influence    in    public    affairs, 
which   cannot,  I   think,   be    said    of 
ethical  theories.     The  declaration  of 
he   Rights   of  Man  by  the   French 
Constituent    Assembly  has  certainly 
not    been    without    practical    effect. 
This  consists  of  general  statements  of 
what  men,  as  men,  are  entitled  to  and 
nay    justly    demand.      If  true,   the 
statements  are  of  the  utmost   import- 
ance to  politicians  and  legislators ;   if 
:alse,  they    are   highly   mischievous. 
[n  either  case  they  purport  to  be  pro- 
positions   of    political    science.     M. 
BARTHELEMT    ST.-HILAIRE    informed 
the  world  in  1848  that  they  were  the 
rown  and  sum  of  all  the  political  sci- 
ence of  all  former  ages.  Claiming  such 
authority,  and  having  in  fact  influenced 
men's    minds,    the     principles     thus 
enounced    cannot    be    merely   disre- 
garded ;  and  it  is  scientific  criticism 
that  must   establish  or  refute   them. 
To  the  persons  who  deny  the  necessity 
or  possibility   of  philosophy   it  is  a 
sufficient   answer  that   at   all  events 
critical  philosophy  is   needful  for  the 
exposure  of  philosophies    falsely  so 
called;  and  in  the  same  way  polit- 
ical  science    must    and    does    exist, 
if   it   were    only  for   the   refutation 
of  absurd  political  theories  and  pro- 
jects. 

To  show  how  I  conceive  politics  to 
fit  into  the  general  scheme  of  our 
knowledge,  I  adopt  the  old-fashioned 
division  of  the  sciences  into  natural 
and  moral.  By  this  I  do  not  mean  to 
commit  myself  to  any  general  doctrine. 
I  do  not  see  why  there  should  be  any 
one  classification  which  is  absolutely 
right  in  itself,  or  why  we  should  not 
use  different  classifications  for  dif- 
ferent purposes.  From  some  points 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


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of  view  it  may  be  proper  to  neglect 
entirely  the  distinction  I  now  mean  to 
use,  as  is  done,  for  example,  by  Mr. 
HERBERT  SPINCER  is  his  essay  on  the 
classification  of  the  sciences.  In  ulti- 
mate analysis  the  distinction  may  be 
made  to  vanish.  At  present  I  do  not 
want  to  carry  matters  to  ultimate 
analysis,  but  to  regard  the  study  of 
politics  as  belonging  to  a  kind  of  in- 
quiries which  for  ordinary  practical 
purposes  are  sufficiently  well  marked 
off  from  others.  In  the  natural 
sciences  we  have  to  do  with  the  ma- 
terial world,  and  man's  bodily 
organism  as  part  thereof.  In  the 
moral  sciences  we  have  to  do  with 
man  as  intelligent,  and  to  study  the 
laws  of  his  intelligent  action.  The 
general  aim  and  method  are  the  same 


the 
but 


are  language  and  books.  Hence 
there  are  wide  differences  in  the  man- 
ner of  the  student's  work,  the  nature 
of  the  results,  and  the  power  of 
verifying  them ;  and  these  are  worth 
marking,  if  only  to  perceive  that  the 
comparative  inexactness  of  the  moral 
sciences  is  not  the  fault  of  the  men 
who  have  devoted  their  abilities  to 
them,  but  depends,  as  ARTS  '•  OTLE 
already  saw,  on  the  nature  of  their 
subject  matter. 

The  subdivisions  of  natural  science 
do  not  now  concern  us.*  The  moral 
sciences  may  be  divided  into  specu- 
lative and  prac  ical  branches.  In  the 
former,  we  consider  man  as  knowing 
and  thinking  ;  in  the  latter,  as  feeling 
and  acting.  It  is  questionable,  again, 
if  this  division  will  hold  in  final 
analysis.  My  own  opinion  is  that  it 
will  not,  or  that  knowledge  and  action 
are  not  really  separable ;  but  it  cor- 
responds to  a  difference  sufficiently 
obvious  in  the  common  course  of  life. 
For  the  speculative  branch,  or  the 
laws  of  thought,  we  have  logic  ( what- 
ever its  exact  place  among  or  beside 
the  speculative  sciences  ought  to  be) 
and  metaphysics,  which  leads  us  to  the 
all-devouring  question  of  questions — 
what  knowledge  is,  and  how  is  it 
possible  at  all.  Thus  from  the  theory 
of  knowledge  on  the  speculative  side, 
as  also  from  ethics,  on  the  practical 
side,  we  are  landed  (or  cast  adrift 
might  be  thought  by  some  the  better 
phrase)  on  philosophy  in  the  special 
sense,  which  is  really  apart  from  the 
sciences,  both  moral  and  natural ; 
for  the  organized  knowledge  of  par- 


*  Not  attempting;  a  complete  division,  I 
purposely  leave  much  open  :  as  whether  the 
pure  sciences  of  space  and  number  should 
stand  at  the  head  of  the  physical  sciences,  or 


be  set  apart  by   themselves,  as   not  dealing 
with  any   one   fact  of  na:ure   but   fixing  the 


—  the    discovery     of    truth    by 

reasoned  investigation  of  facts  ;  -,  .  , 

,,  ='.  ,   ,       ,.„.  T      ganeral  conditions  of  exact  knowledge  ot  the 

the  means  are  widely  different.  In  *xterna,  worldt  Again,  I  offer  no  opinion 
the  natural  sciences  the  work  is  done,  j  about  ogic,  *ave  that  it  belongs  to  the  specu- 
broadly  speaking,  on  phenomena  •  lative  as  distinct  from  the  practical  side  of 
present  to  the  senses  and  with  instru-  the  moral  sciences.  There  is  a  question 
f  i  T  ^i,  i  (ana'ocous  to  that  of  the  pure  sciences) 

ments  of  manual  use.     In    the  moral  ,  ^^  h  }s  a         -al  sdenpce  at  al]>  an(j 

science    the  matter  is    present   only   further  anti  Very  difficult  questions  of  its 
in    reflection,    and    the     instruments    relation  to  psychology  and  metaphysics. 


156 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


ticular  kinds  of  phenomena  cannot 
include  the  analysis  of  knowledge  it- 
self. This  I  mention  by  the  way, 
just  to  show  that  philosophy  will  not 
be  exorcised  by  any  ingenious 
arrangement  of  the  sciences.  She 
laughs  at  the  pitchfork  of  AUGUSTS 
COMTE,  and  comes  back  at  every  turn, 
taking  her  revenge  in  a  thousand 
ways  on  the  blunders  of  popular 
thinking.  Psychology  belongs  in  a 
manner  to  both  the  speculative  and 
the  practical  branch,  being  intimately 
connected  alike  with  metaphysics  and 
with  ethics.  On  the  practical  side 
we  may  regard  it  as  the  study  of 
man's  action  considered  simply  as  an 
individual.  But  then  we  cannot  be 
content  with  studying  men  as  indi- 
viduals. They  live  together  in  so- 
cieties, and  we  know  of  no  time  when 
they  did  not.  Hence  the  actions  of 
man  in  society  are  the  subject  of  a 
further  kind  of  study,  which  is  now 
commonly  called  Sociology.  The 
word  is  offensive  to  scholars  as  being 
a  barbarously  formed  hybrid;*  and 
although  it  is  too  late  to  quarrel  with 
anybody  for  using  it,  I  should  prefer 
Economy  as  a  general  name  for  the 
study  of  men's  common  life  short  of 
specific  reference  to  the  State.  Such 
usage  of  the  term  corresponds  pretty 
closely  to  ARISTOTLE'S.  An  import 
ant  branch  of  this  is  what  we  all 
know  as  political  economy,  remark- 
able as  the  one  department  of  the 
moral  sciences  which  has  assumed  a 
semi  exact  character.  Another  branch 
is  ethics,  if  with  the  Greeks  we  re- 
gard ethics  as  dealing  essentially  with 
a  man  in  his  relations  to  his  fellow- 
men.  And  indeed,  whatever  may  be 
thought  of  the  existence  of  absolute 
or  purely  self-regarding  duties,  or  of 
the  possibility  of  a  moral  sense  arising 
otherwise  then  in  society,  it  is  un- 


*  If  such  a  Latin  word  could  exist  at  all, 
it  could  only  mean  a  science  of  partnerships 
or  alliances.  One  must  not  push  these 
objections  too  far,  however.  Suicide,  as  was 
once  pointed  out  by  the  Cambridge  opponent 
of  a _  Latm  thesis,  "  Recte  statuit  Paleius  de' 
Rcic'diis."  could  as  a  Latin  word  mean  noth 
ing  but  killing  swine 


doubted  that  the  great  bulk  of  raorai 
duties  have  regard  to  other  persons. 
Without  passing  judgment  on  con- 
troverted questions,  therefore  we  may 
practically  class  ethics  as  a  social 
science.  Lastly,  we  come  to  consider 
man  not  only  as  a  member  of  society, 
but  as  a  member  of  some  particular 
society  organized  in  a  particular  way, 
and  exercising  supreme  authority 
over  its  members ;  in  other  words, 
we  consider  man  as  a  citizen,  and  the 
citizen  in  his  relations  to  the  State. 
Thus  the  field  is  indicated  for  the 
science  of  politics  :  a  science  dealing 
with  matter  so  rich  and  various  that 
from  the  beginning  it  has  been  e~- 
bairassed  by  this  weight  of  wealth. 
Its  subdivisions  will  be  more  con- 
veniently mentioned  when  we  arrive  at 
the  period  of  its  history  in  which 
they  become  distinct.  It  is  enough 
to  say  now  that  the  foundation  and 
general  constitution  of  the  State,  the 
forms  and  administration  of  govern- 
ment, and  the  principles  and  method 
of  legislation  seem  naturally  to  fall 
asunder  as  heads  under  which  the 
topics  of  political  science  may  be 
grouped,  though  a  strictly  accurate 
and  exclusive  division  is  hardly  pos- 
sible ;  and  we  must  add  as  another 
head,  more  clearly  marked  off  from 
all  these,  the  consideration  of  the 
State  as  a  single  and  complete  unit  of 
a  higher  order,  capable  of  definite 
relations  to  other  like  units. 


CHAPTER   II. 

The  Classic  Period:  PERICLES — 
SOCRATES  —  PLATO — ARISTOTLE — 
The  Greek  Ideal  of  the  State. 

ARISTOTLE,  as  we  have  said,  is  the 
founder  of  the  science  ;  but  not  even 
the  greatest  of  men  can  make  a 
science  out  of  nothing,  and  a  word 
of  remembrance  must  be  given  to  the 
men  and  the  conditions  that  made 
ARISTOTLE'S  work  possible.  There 
cannot  be  a  theory  of  constitutions 
and  statesmanship  until  civilized  pol- 
and  statesmen  exist  in  fact, 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


more  than  there  can  be  a  theory  of 
ethics  unless  in  a  society  which  is 
already  moral.  Political  speculation 
was  suggested  and  invited  by  the  va- 
riety of  political  constitutions  existing 
in  Greek  cities,  and  most  of  all  by 
the  brilliant  political  activity  and 
resource  displayed  in  the  city  of  cities, 
where  in  art,  in  letters,  and  in  civil 
life  the  power  and  beauty  of  Hellenic 
genius  came  to  their  full  height ;  the 
city  which  our  own  MILTON,  an  artist 
in  spite  of  his  Puritanism,  celebrated 
as  the  eye  of  Greece,*  and  a  living 
English  poet,  who  has  studied  Greek 
poetry  and  art  as  deeply  as  MILTON, 
\nd  more  freely,  has  sung  of  in  lines 
dot  unworthy  of  her  own  tragedians : 

'The  fruitful  immortal  anointed  adored 
Dear  city  of  men  without  master  or  lord, 
Fair  fortress  and  f ostress  of  sons  born  free 
Who  stand  in  her  sight  and  in  thine,  O  sun, 
Slaves  of  no  man,  subjects  of  none  ; 
A  wonder  enthroned    on  the  hills  and  sea, 
A  maiden  crowned  with  a  fourfold  glory 
That  none  from  the  pride  of  her  head  may 
Violet  and  olive-leaf  purple  and  hoary,  [rend, 
song- wreath  and  story  the  fairest  of  fame, 
Flowers  that  the  winter  can  blast  not  or  bend; 
A  light  upon  earth  as  the  sun's  own  flame, 

A  name  as  his  name, 
Athens,  a  praise  without  end  " 

PERICLES  was  the  first  of  Athenian 
statesmen,  and  one  of  the  greatest 
statesmen  who  have  ever  lived.  The 
speech  delivei'ed  by  him  at  the  funeral 
of  the  Athenians  who  fell  in  the  first 
campaign  of  the  Peloponnesian  war, 
and  related  by  THU  YDIDES,  contains 
a  description  and  an  ideal  of  the  State 
which,  though  sketched  out  in  bold 
and  broad  lines  and  for  popular  effect, 
may  help  us  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
soil  that  was  ready  for  PLATO  and 
ARISTOTLK  to  till.  We  cannot  be 
sure,  indeed,  that  PERICLES  actually 
spoke  the  words  attributed  to  him 
by  THUCYDIDES  ;  but  we  may  be 
sure,  at  the  very  least,  that  they  are 
such  as  THUCYDIDES  thought  PER- 
ICLES likely  to  say,  and  an  Athenian 


*  True,  it  is  by  the  mouth  of  Satan  ;  but 
MILTON  constantly  neglects  the  caution  ex- 
pressed at  a  later  time  about  letting  the  devil 
have  the  best  tunes. 


audience  to  approve :  and,  consid- 
ering the  publicity  and  solemnity 
of  the  occasion,  and  the  number  of 
persons  (THUCYDIHES  himself,  in  all 
probability,  being  among  them)  who 
must  have  preserved  a  vivid  memory 
of  what  they  heard,  I  am  much  dis- 
posed to  lhink  that  we  have  in 
THUCYDIDES  a  substantially  correct 
account  of  .vhat  PERICLES  did  say. 
What  the  student  of  politics  has  to 
note  is  this :  there  runs  all  through 
the  speech  the  conception  of  the  city, 
not  as  a  mere  dwelling  place  or  pro- 
vision for  material  security,  but  as 
the  sphere  of  man's  higher  activity. 
There  is  embodied  in  the  city,  in  its 
laws,  customs,  and  institutions,  a 
pattern  and  ideal  of  life  for  the  citizen. 
And  the  glory  of  Athens  is  that  her 
ideal  is  better  than  that  of  others ; 
Athens  has  reached  the  highest  pitch 
of  civilization  yet  attained,  and  is  a 
school  for  all  Hellas.  She  aims  at 
producing  a  better  type  of  man  than 
other  cities ;  natural  abilities  being 
equal,  man's  faculties  are  more  fully 
and  variously  developed  at  Athens 
than  anywhere  else.  And  this  is 
effected,  not  by  a  pedantic  and  irk 
some  course  of  training  (after  the 
fashion  of  the  Lacedaemonian  enemy,* 
but  by  the  free  and  generous  educa- 
tion of  a  refined  life.  "We  aim," 
said  PERICLES,  "at  a  life  beautiful 
without  extravagance,  and  contem- 
plative without  unmanliness ;  wealth 
is  in  our  eyes  a  thing  not  for  osten 
tation,  but  for  reasonable  use  ;  and  it 
is  not  the  acknowledgment  of  poverty 
we  think  disgraceful,  but  the  want 
of  endeavor  to  avoid  it," — words 


*  The  Spartans  have  had  their  day  of 
glorification  from  rhetoricians  and  second- 
hand scholars.  To  me  they  have  always 
appeared  the  most  odious  impostors  in  the 
who! :  history  of  antiquity.  Even  in  the 
military  art  to  which  they  sacrificed  every- 
thing else  they  were  repeatedly  distanced  by 
others,  as  witness  their  discomfiture  by  the 
light  infantry  of  the  Athenian  IPHICRATES: 
and  with  all  their  pretentious  discipline  they 
produced  in  the  whole  course  of  their  wars 
only  two  officers  who  are  known  to  have 
been  gentlemen,  BRASIDAS  and  CALLICRA- 

TIDAS. 


158 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


from  which  our  modern  society 
•till  has  much  to  learn.  And  it  was 
this  loftiness  of  aim,  this  appreciation 
of  the  worth  of  human  life,  which 
justified  Athens  in  aiming  likewise 
ai  primacy  among  the  Greek  States. 
If  PKUICI.KS  had  used  the  jargon  of 
modem  diplomacy,  he  would  have 
said  that  Athens  had  a  mission  to  ful 
fill  in  holding  up  the  best  attainable 
exemplar  of  a  civilized  community. 
And  therefore  he  bade  the  Athenians 
to  quit  themselves  like  men  for  a  city 
dear  to  them  by  such  titles,  and  to 
be  strong  in  their  fathers'  renown  and 
in  their  own  courage,  knowing  that 
their  renown  too  would  be  preserved, 
not  by  the  praise  of  poets,  which  may 
be  idle  or  exaggerated,  but  by  the 
lasting  marks  of  their  achievements  in 
history.  On  this  part  of  the  speech 
we  cannot  dwell  now,  but  one  may  be 
allowed  to  hope  that  no  Englishman 
reads  it  without  feeling  a  glow  of 
something  more  than  cosmopolitan 
sympathy  for  the  men  who  delivered 
Hellas  from  the  invincible  armada 
of  the  Persian  despot,  and  carried  the 
name  and  fame  of  Athens  wherever 
their  ships  could  sail.* 

The  conception  of  the  State,  then, 
was  a  very  living  real  ty  to  the  Athe 
mans  among  whom  SOCRATES  was  born 
and  lived.  And  of  the  many  subjects 
on  which  SOCRATES  was  never  tired 
of  questioning  and  discoursing,  we 
may  suppose  that  this  was  not  the 
least  interesting  to  his  hearers.  Yet 
we  have  no  direct  evidence  that  he 
dwelt  much  on  it.  We  can  only  sus- 
pect from  PLATO  that  he  had  more  to 
say  of  it  than  XENOPHOV  lets  us  know. 
XKN»PHON  reported  only  what  he 

*  An  Index  Expurgatori-us ,  I  understand,  is 
being  prepare,!  under  the  auspices  of  the  Uni- 
versal Rose-water  and  Anti-State  Society,  in 
which  the  fune-al  oration  of  PERICLES  (to- 
gether with  Sir  W  RALEIGH'S  Last  Fight  of 
the  Revenge,  SHAKESPEARE'S  King  Ifenr?  ir., 
Mr.  FREEMAN'S  chapter  on  the  Battle  of 
Hastings,  Mr.  KIN'OLAKE'S  Invasion  of  the 
Crimea,  the  greater  part  of  the  historical 
books  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  whole  of 
the  Homeric  poems,  and  other  such  like  im- 
moral publications)  will  hold  a  prominent 
place. 


could  understand,  and  probably  we 
shall  never  know  what  we  have  lost 
by  XEXOPHON  being  a  man  of  timid 
and  commonplace  mind  — a  man  who 
deserved  (to  say  the  worst  of  him  at 
once)  to  become  half  a  Lacedaemonian 
and  forget  how  to  write  Attic.  What- 
ever may  be  the  reason,  we  find  in 
any  case  but  slender  beginnings  of 
political  science  in  the  conversations 
of  SOCRATES  as  reported  by  him. 
The  passage  where  SOCRATES  enforces 
obedience  to  the  laws  as  they  stand, 
comparing  a  citizen  who  disregards 
the  law  because  it  may  be  changed  to 
a  soldier  who  runs  away  in  battle  be- 
cause there  may  be  peace,*  may  be 
said  to  contain  a  doctrine  of  civil 
allegiance.  We  also  find  a  roughly- 
sketched  classification  of  forms  of 
government. t  The  names  given  are 
royalty  (BaffiXfid),  tyranny,  aristoc- 
racy, plutocracy,  and  democracy. 
The  terms  monarchy  and  oligarchy 
do  not  occur  here,  but  appear  in 
PLATO'S  Politicus.  It  was  PLATO 
likewise  who  first  worked  out  the 
theory,  lightly  touched  by  SOCRATES, 
that  government  is  a  special  art,  and, 
like  all  other  special  arts,  can  be  right- 
ly exercised  only  by  competent  per- 
sons.J  This  is  a  branch  of  the  gen- 
eral Socratic  doctrine  that  excellence 
of  every  kind,  including  moral  rirtue, 
is  analogous  to  that  excellence  in  par- 
ticular skilled  occupations  which,  as 
everybody  knows,  can  be  acquired  by 
the  appropriate  kind  of  discipline,  and 
cannot  be  acquired  otherwise.  SOCRA- 
TES appears  to  have  used  this  applica- 
tion of  the  doctrine  by  way  of  practi- 
cal exhortation  to  those  who  possessed 
political  power  to  take  politics  seri- 
j  ously.  PLATO  developed  it  into 
fanciful  aspirations,  which  he  himself 
acknowledged  to  be  impracticable,  for 
government  by  an  absolute  and  per- 
fectly wise  despot,  who,  not  being 
bound  by  inflexible  general  rules,  will 
do  what  is  absolutely  fitting  in  every 


*  Xen.  Mem.,  iv.  4,  14, 

I  Op.  cit.,  iv.  6,  12. 
Op.  cit.,  iii.  9,  ia 


6 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


159 


case  that  occurs.*  The  elaborate 
construction  of  an  ideal  common- 
wealth in  his  Republic  proceeds  on 
similar  principles.  Of  course  under 
the  actual  conditions  of  life,  political 
franchises  cannot  be  adjusted  accord- 
ing to  political  competence,  even  if 
an  infallible  judge  of  competence 
could  be  found ;  and  the  only  applica- 
tion that  can  be  made  of  the  position 
laid  down  by  SOCRATES  is  to  endeavor 
to  secure,  as  far  as  may  be,  that  the 
conditions  of  competent  judgment 
shall  not  be  wanting  to  those  who 
must  in  any  case  have  political  power. 
Lord  SHERBROOKE'S  injunction  to 
educate  our  masters  is  thoroughly 
Socratic  both  in  spirit  and  form. 

The  Platonic  Republic,  I  think, 
must  be  considered  as  a  brilliant  ex- 
ercise of  philosophical  imagination, 
not  as  a  contribution  to  political  sci- 
ence. PLATO'S  latest  work,  the  Laws, 
appears  to  have  been  intended  as  a 
kind  of  compromise  between  the  ideas 
of  the  Republic  and  the  conditions 
of  practical  politics.  In  this  it  was 
not  successful.  Except  that  it  stim- 
ulated ARISTOTLE'S  criticism,  it  took 
no  definite  place  in  the  developement 
of  systematic  thinking  on  political 
matters.  Morover,  it  is  hardly  too 
much  to  say  that  PLATO  never  got  to 
the  point  of  having  a  theory  of  the 
State  at  all.  In  the  Politicus  he  seeks 
to  determine  the  character  of  the 
ideal  statesman,  and  touches  only  by 
a  kind  of  afterthought  on  actual  and 
practically  possible  forms  of  govern- 
ment. It  would  be  best  of  all  to  b  : 
governed  by  a  perfectly  wise  ruler 
unfettered  by  any  laws  whatever;  but 
it  is  worst  of  all  to  be  in  the  hands  of 
a  ruler  who  has  not  wisdom  and  is  not 
restrained  by  law.  The  wise  govern 
or  whom  the  philosopher  desires  be- 
ing hardly  to  be  discovered  in  the 
world  as  it  exists,  government  by 
fixed  laws  is  accepted  as,  though  a 
clumsy  business  in  itself,  more  toler- 
able than  the  tyranny  which  is  the 
only  practical  al;ernative.  In  the 
Republic  again  PLATO  starts  from 

*  PUt.  Polit.,  294. 


the  character  of  individual  men  and 
its  formation.  As  a  Greek  naturally 
would,  and  as  we  have  seen  that 
PERICLES  did,  he  regarded  this  as 
largely  depending  on  the  type  and 
institutions  of  the  State  in  which  the 
individual  was  a  citizen.  The  indi- 
vidual is  for  PLATO  the  city  in  minia 
ture ;  and  to  define  the  notion  of 
justice,  the  problem  by  which  the 
dialogue  of  the  Republic  is  opened, 
and  to  the  solution  of  which  the  whole 
discussion  is  ostensibly  auxiliary, 
he  magnifies  the  individual  into  the 
State.  In  order  to  construct  the  per- 
fect citizen  PLATO  finds  himself  under 
the  need  of  constructing  the  State 
itself.  This  point  of  view  left  its 
mark  impressed  upon  the  work  of 
ARISTOTLE,  in  whose  treatise  on  poli- 
tics, as  we  now  have  it,  the  theory 
of  education  occupies  one-eighth  of 
the  whole;  an  indefensible  arrange- 
ment according  to  modern  ideas,  giv- 
ing to  the  subject,  as  it  does,  too 
much  for  an  incidental  consideration, 
and  too  little  for  a  monograph.  It 
is  better,  however,  to  have  one's  the- 
ory of  education  not  exactly  in  the 
right  place  than  to  have  none  at  all, 
which  last  is  about  the  condition  in 
which  we  moderns  have  been  since 
the  tradition  of  the  Renaissance  sank 
into  an  unintelligent  routine. 

ARISTOTLE  struck  out  a  new  and 
altogether  different  path.  In  the 
first  place  he  made  the  capital  ad- 
vance of  separating  ethics  from  pol- 
itics. Not  only  is  this  not  done  in 
the  Platonic  writings,  but  the  very 
opposite  course  is  taken  in  the  Repub- 
lic :  man  is  treated  as  a  micropolis, 
and  the  city  is  the  citizen  writ  large. 
Another  and  hardly  less  important 
point  in  ARISTOTLE'S  favor  is  his  meth-- 
od  of  dealing  with  political  facts  and 
problems.  Without  abandoing  the 
ideal  construction  of  the  State  as  it 
ought  to  be,  he  sets  himself  to  make  out 
the  natural  history  of  the  State  as  it 
is.  He  begins  not  with  an  ideal,  but 
with  the  actual  conditions  of  human 
society  and  the  formation  of  govern- 
ments He  made  a  full  and  minute 
study  of  the  existing  constitutions  of 


i6o 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


Greek  cities,  and  thus  eoik-ea-.l  :\  great 
body  of  information  and  matt-rials, 
unhappily  lost  to  the  modern  world. 
And  we  regret  the  loss  the  more 
keenly  in  that  we  know  how  accurate 
ARISTOTLE  was,  and  feel  more  at 
home  with  him  than  with  those  who 
went  before  him  or  came  after  him. 
PLATO'S  splendor  of  imagination  and 
charm  of  language  have  indeed  desert- 
ed us  ;  but  we  get  an  exact  observa 
tion  of  men  and  things  aid  a  sound 
practical  judgment,  which  set  us  on 
firm  ground  and  assure  us  of  solid 
progress.  A  balloon  is  a  very  fine 
thing  if  you  are  not  anxious  to  go 
anywhere  in  particular  ;  a  road  is  com- 
mon, and  the  traveling  on  it  may  be 
tedious,  but  you  come  to  the  journey's 
end.  PLATO  is  a  man  in  a  balloon 
who  hovers  over  a  new  land,  and  now 
and  then  catches  a  commanding  view 
of  its  contours  through  the  mist. 
ARISTOTLE  is  the  working  colonist  who 
goes  there  and  makes  the  roads.  The 
more  one  considers  his  work,  the 


points  in  ARISTOTLE'S  work  which  are 
so  trite  by  incessant  quotation  and 
allusion  that  we  are  now  apt  to  think 
them  obvious,  have  been  repeatedly 
shown  to  be  neither  obvious  nor 
superfluous  by  the  most  conclusive  of 
all  evidence — the  mistakes  of  clever 
men  who  have  disregarded  them. 

These  merits  are  conspicuously 
shown  in  the  general  introduction 
which  forms  the  first  book  of 


ARISTOTLE'S  Politics.  He  plunges 
without  preface,  as  his  manner  is, 
into  the  analytical  inquiry.  A  State 
is  a  community,  and  every  com- 
munity exists  for  the  sake  of 
members  (for 
for  the  sake 


some    benefit    to    its 

all    human    action    is 

of  obtaining   some   apparent  good) : 

the  State  is  that  kind  of  community 

which  has   for  its   object   the   most 

comprehensive  good.  The  State  does 


not  differ  from  a 


imagine. 


onlv 


household,  as  some 
the  number  of  its 
shall  see  this  by 


members.     We 

examining  its  elements.    To  begin  at 


more  one  appreciates  his  good  sense, '  the  beginning,  man   cannot   exist   in 

his  tact  in  dealing  with  a  question  in   solitude  ;    the  union  of  the  two  sexes 

the  best  way   possible   to  him  under  jig  necessary  for  life  being  continued 

the  given  conditions,  and   his  candor          " 

toward  the   reader.     When   he  does 

not  see  his  way  to  critical  analysis,  or 

does  not  care  just  then  and  there   to 

undertake  it,  and  builds  upon  the  data 

given    by    common     language     and 

opinion,  he  frankly  tells  us  what  he  is 

doing.     He    always    knows    exactly 

what   he   is   undertaking  and    works 


with   careful 
ticular  object 


reference    to  his    par- 
His  practical  insight 


is  very  seldom  at  fault.       Even  those 

*  I  may  mention  an  instance  that  occurs 
to  me  in  detail.  In  Eth.  Nic.,  v.  8  (where, 
thought  the  book  is  not  of  ARISTOTLE'S  own 
writing,  the  matter  may  be  taken  as  Aristo- 
telian), the  harm  that  may  be  done  by  one 
person  to  another  is  classified  under  four 
degrees.  •  These  are  atychema,  or  pure  mis- 
adventure; hamartema  or  injury  by  negli- 
gence, where  the  harm  might  have  been 
foreseen;  adikema,  or  injury  willful  but  not 
premeditated;  and  adikia,  or  mochtheria, 
where  the  injury  is  deliberate.  If  the 
notes  taken  by  me  many  years  ago  of  the 
late  Mr.  COPE'S  lectures  to  which  I  here 
acknowledge  my  great  obligation  for  what  I 
know  of  the  Polities)  are  correct,  Mr.  COPE 


at  all,  and  a  system  of  command  and 
obedience  for  its  being  led  in  safety. 
Thus  the  relations  of  husband  and 
wife,  master  and  servant,  determine 
the  household.  Households  coming 
together  make  a  village  or  tribe.  The 
rule  of  the  eldest  male  of  the  house- 
hold is  the  primitive  type  of  monarchy. 
Then  \ve  get  the  State  as  the  commu- 
nity of  a  higher  order  in  which  the 
village  or  tribe  is  a  unit.  It  is 
formed  to  secure  life,  it  continues  in 
order  to  improve  life.  Hence — and 
this  is  ARISTOTLE'S  first  great  point — 
the  State  is  not  an  affair  of  mere  con- 
vention. It  is  the  natural  and  neces- 
sary completion  of  the  process  in 
which  the  family  is  a  step.  The 
family  and  the  village  community  are 


thought  this  last  di -Unction  over-refined.  But 
this,  as  well  as  the  whole  classification,  ccr 
responds  to  the  gradation  attempted  by 
the  law  of  modern  civilized  countries  with  a 
closeness  which,  considering  the  rudimentary 
state  of  public  law  in  ARISTOTLE'S  ti^ie, 
deserves  admiration  rather  than  criticism. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


161 


not  independent  or  self-sufficient ;  we 
look  to  the  State  for  an  assured 
social  existence.  The  State  is  a  natural 
institution  in  a  double  sense :  first,  as 
imposed  on  man  by  the  general  and 
permanent  conditions  of  his  life  ;  then 
it  is  the  only  form  of  life  in  which  he 
can  do  the  most  he  is  capable  of. 
Man  is  born  to  be  a  citizen —  ArOp&)- 
TtOy  g)Uy€i  TtokniKOv  2,coov.  There 
is  hardly  a  saying  in  Greek  literature 
so  well  worn  as  this :  nor  is  there  any 
which  has  worn  better,  or  which 
better  deserved  to  become  a  proverb. 
It  looks  simple  enough,  but  it  is  one 
of  the  truths  in  which  we  go  on  per- 
ceiving more  significance  the  more  our 
knowledge  increases.  This  is  a  thing 
which  happens  even  in  the  exact 
sciences.  The  full  importance  of 
NEWTON'S  Third  Law  of  Motion,  as 
enounced  and  explained  by  himself, 
escaped  his  contemporaries,  and  was 
not  realized  even  by  the  leaders  of 
science  until  a  new  light  was  thrown 
on  it  by  the  development  of  the  mod- 
ern doctrine  of  energy.  NEWTON'S 
law,  in  NEWTON'S  own  form,  has  now 
been  restored  by  SIR  W.  THOMSON 
and  PROF.  TAIT  to  its  rightful  place 
in  the  forefront  of  mathematical 
physics.  And  we  may  confidently 
expect  that  our  children  will  find 
more  wisdom  and  light  in  CHARLES 
DARWIN'S  writings  than  we  have  as 
yet  found.  So,  too,  in  philosophy, 
we  hear  that  among  students  in  Ger 
many  "  Back  to  Kant  "  has  become  a 
kind  of  watchword ;  and  PROF.  MAX 
MULLER  has  gone  out  of  his  way  to 
produce,  with  labor  which  would  have 
been  great  even  for  a  man  with  noth- 
ing else  to  do,  a  new  translation  of 
KANT'S  master-work  in  the  centenary 
year  of  its  original  publication.  This 
does  not  mean  that  philosophy  has 
been  barren  ever  since  KANT,  but  that 
the  years  of  a  century,  even  a  century 
remarkable  fdr  philosophical  interest 
and  activity,  are  all  too  short  for  us 
to  have  taken  the  full  measure  of  a 
man  of  KANT'S  greatness.  And  in  our 
present  case  of  ARISTOTLE  we  may 
well  say  that  twenty  centuries  have 
none  too  much  ;  for  there  have 


been  times  once  and  again  when  there 
was  sore  need  of  a  wise  and  sober 
man  to  cry  "  Back  to  ARISTOTLE  "  to 
nations  deluded  by  specious  political 
fallacies,  and  no  such  man  was  found. 

This  axiom  of  ARISTOTLE  contra- 
|  diets  by  anticipation  the  worst  and 
the  most  widely  spread  of  modern 
errors — the  theory  of  the  Social  Con- 
tract, which,  consistently  worked  out, 
can  lead  to  nothing  but  individualism 
run  mad  and  pure  anarchy.  Should 
there  be,  says  ARISTOTLE,  a  really 
cityless  man  (as  d  stinct  from  one 
who  has  lost  political  standing  by 
misadventure ;  ARISTOTLE  was  prob- 
ably thinking  of  the  common  case  of 
exile,  or  the  total  subversion  which 
had  befallen  his  own  native  city), 
what  can  we  say  of  such  a  onet  He 
must  be  either  superhuman  or  beneath 
contempt ;  he  must  be  in  a  natural 
state  of  war,  with  his  hand  against 
every  man.  Now  this  atTto'X.iS,  the 
clanless  and  masterless  man  whom 
ARISTOTLE  regards  as  a  kind  of  monster, 
is  identical  with  the  natural  man  of 
HOBBES  and  ROUSSEAU.  He  is  the  unit 
out  of  whom,  if  there  be  only  enough 
of  them,  theorists  of  the  Social  Con- 
tract school  undertake  to  build  up  the 
State.  This  is  an  enterprise  at  which 
ARISTOTLE  would  have  stared  and 
gasped.  We  have  seen  pretty  well 
what  comes  of  it.  ROUSSEAU  and  the 
Social  Contract  have  had  their  in- 
nings in  revolutionary  France  ;  and  I 
think  we  have  by  this  time  ample 
warrant  of  experience  for  saying  that 
ARISTOTLE  was  right,  and  HOBBES 
and  ROUSSEAU  (assuming  for  the 
moment  that  we  have  the  real  mind 
of  HOBBES  in  HOBBES  as  commonly 
understood)  were  altogether  wrong. 

Thus  in  ARISTOTLE'S  view  the  State 
is  natural  and  necessary  to  man  ;  in 
the  rational  order  it  is  even  prior  to 
to  the  individual  man,  since  man  can- 
not live  a  complete  or  even  tolerable 
life  apart  from  the  State.  Inasmuch 
as  the  State  is  composed  of  house- 
holds, preliminary  questions  arise 
which  ARI-T  >TLE  included  in  the  gen- 
eral term  Economy  (the  ordering  of 
the  oiKia,  which  is  the  component 


1 62 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


unit  of  the  TTO^I?)  ;  these  amount  to 
the  study  of  society  apart  from  the 
particular  form  of  government.  There 
is  nothing  or  next  to  nothing,  left  to 
be  said  about  ARISTOTLE'S  much- 
discussed  defense  of  slavery  which 
comes  in  at  this  point.  The  Eng- 
lish reader  will  do  well  to  bear 
in  mind  that  ARISTOTLE  justifies 
slavery  only  under  conditions  which, 
if  applied  in  practice,  would  have 
greatly  mitigated  the  institution  as  it 
existed  in  his  time.  Of  more  perma 
nent  interest  is  the  sketch  of  what 
ARISTOTLE  calls  the  art  of  trade  or 
wealth- getting  (xprfpaTiGTiHrf) — an 
art  which,  in  his  view,  is  not  included 
in  that  of  the  general  conduct  of  social 
life,  but  is  separate  and  auxiliary 
to  it.  It  would  be  going  rather  too 
far  to  call  ARISTOTLE  the  father  of 
political  economy  on  the  strength  of 
this  incidental  discussion.  But  it  is 
quite  plain  that  he  had  a  shrewd 
notion  of  the  scientific  handling  of 
economical  problems.  In  particular 
there  are  some  clear  and  thoroughly 
sound  remarks  on  exchange  and  cur- 
rency. LORD  SHERBROOKE  (whose 
bad  words  for  classical  studies  are 
after  all  only  amantium  irce)  cited 
them  with  the  happiest  eifect  the 
other  day  in  a  paper  on  Bimetallism. 
ARISTOTLE  goes  wrong,  indeed,  on  the 
matter  of  the  interest  of  money,  and 
professed  moralists  and  statesmen 
went  wrong  for  many  centuries  after 
him.  It  is  not  yet  a  generation  since 
our  own  usury  laws  were  finally  re- 
pealed. Economy,  however,  is  treated 
by  ARISTOTLE  as  a  purely  subordinate 
study,  auxiliary  to  the  general  wel- 
fare of  the  State  and  the  promotion 
of  the  most  desirable  type  of  life. 
Modern  economists  have  found  it 
necessary  to  work  out  their  problems 
as  if  wealth  were  an  end  in  itself, 
leaving  statesmen  to  take  up  the 
results  and  place  them  in  their  due 
relation  to  the  wider  purposes 
and  aims  of  society  But  this  leads 
to  so.ne  danger  of  forgetting  that 
there  really  are  other  and  higher 
aims  in  life,  and  notwithstanding 
ARISTOTLE'S  economical  errors,  we 


may  do  well  to  take  a  lesson  from 
him  herein,  or  rather  from  the  Greeks : 
for  on  this  point  ARISTOTLE  represents 
the  universal  feeling  of  the  cultivated 
Greek  society  of  his  time. 

Before  entering  upon  any  details 
on  his  own  account,  AUISTOTLK  clears 
the  way  by  criticism  of  some  earlier 
political  speculations,  PLATO'S  and 
others.  What  he  says  of  the  com- 
munity of  goods  and  so  forth  in 
PLATO'S  Republic  is  open  to  the  re- 
mark that  PLATO  was  constructing 
an  ideal  which  he  knew  to  be  im- 
practicable, and  ARISTOTLE  criticises 
as  if  he  were  dealing  with  a  practical 
proposal.  But  the  intrinsic  value  of 
ARISTOTLE'S  opinions  is  not  affected 
by  this,  nor  has  it  been  in  any  Avay 
diminished  by  the  lapse  of  time  and 
growth  of  experience  His  decisive 
condemnation  of  communism  remains 
as  forcible,  as  just  and  I  fear  it  must 
be  said  as  necessary,  as  ever  it  was. 
No  one  has  better  expressed  what  in 
our  time  has  been  called  the  magic  of 
ownership.  "Carefulness  is  least  in 
that  which  is  common  to  most :  for 
men  take  thought  in  the  chief  place 
for  their  own,  and  less  for  the  com- 
mon stock."  Duly  regulated  private 
ownership  combines  the  supposed 
advantages  of  communism  with  those 
of  several  enjoyment.  The  higher 
and  only  true  communism  for  men  in 
society  is  that  of  the  proverb, 
"Fdends' goods  are  common."  How 
to  foster  and  maintain  a  state  of  gen- 
erous friendship  in  which  a  man  shall 
give  and  take  in  turn  of  the  good 
things  of  life,  so  that  property  shall 
in  effect  be  several  in  title,  but  com- 
mon in  use — that  is  the  high  social 
problem  which  the  communist  evades 
and  the  true  statesman  must  attack. 
''Moreover,  the  pleasure  we  take  in 
anything  is  increased  beyond  ex- 
pression when  we  esteem  it  our  own; 
and  I  conceive  that  the  individual's 
affection  for  himself  is  by  no  means 
casual,  but  is  of  man's  "very  na- 
ture."* ARISTOTLE  goes  on  to  show 
that  the  grievances  which  are  now 


*  Pol.,  ii.  5,  5— 8. 


10 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


163 


the  communist's  stock-in-trade,  as 
much  as  they  were  in  his  time,  have 
no  necessary  or  real  connection  with 
the  existence  of  private  property ; 
and  in  the  course  of  this  criticism  he 
repeats  his  warning  that  the  State  is 
not  to  be  considered  as  a  mere  mag- 
nified family,  nor  yet  as  an  alliance  of 
independent  and  similar  individuals, 
but  as  a  specific  organism  made  up  of 
divers  parts,  all  working  together,  and 
each  fitted  for  its  own  proper  function. 
A  scheme  for  the  division  of  property 
among  the  citizens  in  equal  shares, 
which  had  acquired  some  reputation 
in  ARISTOTLE'S  day,  is  dealt  with  by 
him  in  the  same  spirit.  He  goes 
straight  to  the  roof  of  the  matter 


with  a  piercin, 
very  well,   he 


question.     It    is  all 
says,  to  make  plans 


for  equal  distribution,  or  for  limiting 
the  amount  of  property  that  may  be 
held  by  one  owner,  but  supposing  it 
done,  the  deaths  and  births  of  a  single 
generation  will  bring  about  an  altered 
relation  of  citizens  to  property,  and 
upset  all  your  calculations.  After  the 


there  remains  something  of  the  gen- 
eral part  to  which  we  may  give  a 
word.  The  third  book  of  the  Politics 
still  deals  with  preliminary  questions. 
It  fixes  the  general  terminology  and 
classification  of  forms  of  government 
(which,  let  us  note  in  passing,  have 
been  retained  in  use  ever  since),  and  in- 
cludes a  discussion  corresponding  to 
what  we  now  call  the  theory  of  sover- 
eignty. One  incidental  question  is, 
what  do  we  mean  by  a  citizen  ?  Who 
is  a  citizen  in  the  full  sense  ?  The  fall 
citizen,  in  ARISTOTLE'S  meaning,  is 
defined  by  the  right  to  take  part  in 
legislation  and  the  administration  of 
j  ustice.  This  corresponds  with  curious 
exactness  to  the  old  English  notion  of 
the  "  lawful  man ;"  and  it  corresponds 
very  nearly  to  the  modern  under- 
standing of  political  franchises  in 
the  constitutional  countries,  though 
neither  ARISTOTLE  nor  any  one  for 
many  centuries  later  had  thought  of 
the  indirect  form  of  legislative  power 
conferred  by  the  right  of  sending 
representatives  to  form  a  legislative 


question  of  property  you  will  have  a  •  assembly.     In   the   Greek   view   the 
question  of  population   before   you :  I  size  of  the  State  was  limited  by  the 


and  how  do  you  mean  to  dispose  of 
that?  Again,  it  is  idle  to  talk  of 
equality  for  its  own  sake,  as  if  it  were 
an  absolute  good:  an  equality  in 


number  of  citizens  who  could  effectu- 
ally take  a  direct  part  in  public  affairs. 
Babylon  was  all  within  one  wall,  but 
it  was  not  a  city  in  the  proper  Greek 


pinching  poverty  would  not  help  us  sense ;  that  is  not  a  city  which  can 
much.  Nor  would  all  be  done  even '  be  taken  by  an  invader  at  one  end  (as 
if  you  could  fix  exactly  the  reason-  the  tale  went  of  Babylon)  a  couple  of 
able  and  sufficient  portion,  and  give  days  before  the  other  end  knows  of 
everybody  that;  "  it  is  of  more  import  it.*  What  then  constitutes  the  identity 


ance  to  equalize  men's  wanta  than 
their  substance."  This  is  another  of 
ARISTOTLE'S  deep  and  pregnant  say- 
ings; forgetfulness  of  it  has  made 
shipwreck  of  many  splendid  expecta- 
tions. It  would  be  impracticable  in 
this  place,  and  for  the  purpose  now  in 
hand,  to  follow  into  more  detail 
ARISTOTLE'S  discussion  of  ideal  and 
actual  constitutions.  Enough  has 
been  said  to  give  some  sort  of  general 
notion  of  his  critical  method. 

Still  less  shall  we  attempt  to  follow 
ARISTOTLE  into  the  special  part  of  his 
work,  where  he  considers  the  institu- 
tion of  a  model  State  and  the  several 
possible  types  of  government.  But 


of  a  State,  since  lying  within  a  ring- 
fence  will  not?  Is  it  continuity  of 
race  within  the  manageable  compass 
of  a  State,  as  the  river  is  the  same 
though  the  particles  of  water  are  con- 
stantly changing  ?  Neither  is  this 
enough,  says  ARISTOTLE  ;  for  a  tragic 
and  a  coinic  chorus  are  not  the  same, 
though  the  men  who  perform  in 


*  Pol.,  iii.  3,  5  The  collection  of  geogra- 
phically continuous  parishes  covered  with 
buildings  in  the  counties  of  Middlesex, 
Surrey,  and  Kent  which  is  called  London  in 
popular  language  would  have  been  a  hope- 
lessly bewildering  object  to  an  old  Greek  ; 
but  of  one  thing  he  would  have  been  sure, 
and  rightly,  that  nothing  could  well  be  Ictt 


11 


164 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


them  may  be  the  same.  Continuity 
of  constitution  is  also  needful.  After 
a  revolution  which  changes  the  type  of 
government  there  is  no  longer  the 
same  State,  though  it  may  be  called 
by  the  same  name.  ARISTOTLE  was 
obviously  not  thinking  of  international 
relations,  which  would  be  entirely 
confused  by  applying  this  test ;  for 
example,  all  treaties  to  which  France 
was  a  party  would  have  been  annulled 
over  and  over  again  in  the  course  of 
the  past  century.  But  no  theory  of 
the  relations  of  independent  States  to 
one  another  was  put  into  shape  until 
long  after  this  time.  From  ARIST- 
OTLE'S pure  natural  history  point  of 
view  there  is  much  to  be  said  for 
drawing  the  line  where  he  does. 

Again,  having  defined  the  citizen 
and  the  city,  where  shall  we  find  our 
criterion  of  the  merit  of  particular 
constitutions'?  The  answer  is  clear 
and  simple.  A  normal  or  right 
constitution  is  that  which  is  framed 
and  administered  for  the  common 
good  of  all,  whether  the  sovereign 
power  be  with  one,  with  few,  or  with 
the  many.  A  constitution  framed  in 
the  exclusive  interest  of  a  class,  even 
though  it  be  a  majority  of  the  whole, 
is  wrongful  and  perverse.  Royalty, 
aristocracy,  and  commonwealth 
TzroA  ireia  are  the  normal  forms ;  their 
respective  corruptions  are  tyranny, 
oligarchy,  and  democracy — tyranny 
being  a  monarchical  government 
worked  for  the  advantage  of  the  mon- 
arch over  all  subjects ;  oligarchy,  the 
government  of  a  privileged  class  for 
the  advantage  of  the  rich  over  the 
poor ;  and  democracy,  the  government 
of  the  multitude  for  the  advantage  of 
the  poor  over  the  rich.  Tyranny  is 
still  always  used  in  a  bad  sense,  and 
oligarchy  generally;  but  as  to  de- 
mocracy ARISTOTLE'S  distinction  has 
fallen  out  of  political  language,  per- 
haps because  his  term  for  the  normal 
State  was  specific  enough.  In  Eng 
lish  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in 
using  Commonwealth  or  Jtepublic  in 
ABIST UTLE'S  good  sense,  and  Democ- 
racy in  his  bad  one;  but  it  has 
never  been  done. 


A  last  word  may  be  added  on  the 
Greek  ideal  of  the  State,  if  it  should 
still  be  thought  we  have  nothing  to 
learn  from  it.  In  his  latest  publica- 
tion MR.  HERBERT  SPENCER  bids  us 
look  forward  to  a  state  of  ultimate 
enlightenment  on  political  matters,  in 
which  "law  will  have  no  other  justi 
fication  than  that  gained  by  it  as 
maintainer  of  the  conditions  to  com- 
plete life  in  the  associated  state."  This 
is  almost  as  much  as  to  say  that,  after 
all  this  time,  we  are  at  last  coming  up 
to  the  level  of  ARISTOTLE,  or  we  might 
indeed  say  of  PERICLES.  For  in 
ARISTOTLE'S  view  "  complete  life  in  the 
associated  state  "  is  precisely  the  end 
and  aim  of  government.  It  is  what 
the  city  exists  for,  and  a  government 
which  does  not  honestly  aim  at  it  has 
no  business  to  exist.  All  other  ends 
are  subordinate  to  this.  The  other 
ends  or  reasons  assigned  in  later  times 
(and  MR.  SPENCER  seems  to  think  that 
they  are  such  as  would  now  be 
assigned  by  most  people )  would  have 
appeared  to  ARISTOTLE  absurd  or  ir- 
relevant.* In  fairness  to  ourselves, 
however,  we  must  remember  that  the 
problems  of  modern  statecraft  are  o! 
much  greater  extent  and  more  form  id 
able  complexity  than  those  of  Greek 
political  philosophers.  After  all,  the 
citizens  for  whose  welfare  ARISTOTLE 
conceived  the  State  to  exist  were, 
even  in  the  most  democratic  of  con- 
stitutions, a  limited  and  privileged 
class.  They  are  people  of  leisure  and 
culture,  not  living  by  the  work  of  their 
hands.  To  make  a  true  citizen  of  the 
worker  in  mechanical  arts,  the  handi- 
craftsman who  has  not  leisure,  is 
thought  by  ARISTOTLE  a  hopeless 
task,  and  this  even  with  reference  to 
the  skilled  and  finer  kinds  of  work. 
The  grosser  kind  of  labor  is  assumed 
to  be  done  by  slaves,  who  are  wholly 
outside  the  sphere  of  political  right. 
Not  that  ARISTOTLE  would  neglect/ 
the  welfare  of  inferior  freemen  or 
even  of  slaves.  He  would  have  the 


12 


*  The  legal  doctrine  of  the  authority  of 
law  is  a  different  matter  altogether.  It  be- 
longs to  the  theory  of  sovereignty,  which  we 
shall  come  to  later. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


165 


statesman  make  them  comfortable, 
and  bring  them  as  near  happiness  as 
their  condition  admits.  But  of  happi- 
ness in  the  true  sense  they  are  in- 
capable. We  have  swept  away 
these  restrictions,  and  mid  ourselves 
applying  the  ideal  of  a  Greek  city  to 
our  vast  and  heterogeneous  modern 
political  structures — a  tremendous 
extension  of  the  difficulties.  If  we 
are  not  much  more  successful  than 
the  Greeks,  the  task  is  greater  and 
the  aim  higher. 

ARISTOTLE  was  in  a  singularly 
favorable  position  for  his  political 
studies.  By  circumstances  in  no  way 
touching  his  personal  credit,  he  was 
discharged  from  taking  an  active  part 
in  public  affairs,  lie  could  survey  the 
Greek  world  as  a  disinterested  observ- 
er, and  the  tranquillity  produced  by 
the  establishment  of  Macedonian  su- 
premacy gave  increased  opportunities 
of  observation,  while  the  practical 
extinction  of  Greek  independence  had 
not  yet  borne  its  fruit  in  the  visible 
decay  of  public  life.  After  ARIST- 
o  i  LE'S  time  the  decay  spread  rapidly, 
and  its  effects  were  striking.  His 
immediate  successors  are  said  to  have 
worked  on  the  theory  of  politics,  but 
their  books  are  lost  and  very  little 
seems  to  be  known  of  their  resul'S.  In 
the  later  Greek  schools  political 
speculation  became  stagnant.  The 
old  public  spirit  was  supplanted  by  a 
kind  of  cosmopolitan  indifference. 
The  Roman  conqueror  was  regarded 
by  the  Greek  rhetoricians  as  the  ruling 
Englishman  in  India  is  now  regarded 
by  the  Brahman — as  a  masterful 
barbarian  sent  by  the  fates,  whose 
acts  and  institutions  were  of  no  im- 
portance to  the  philosophic  mind.* 
Whatever  genuine  philosophical  in- 
terest was  left  ran  to  the  study  of 
ethics,  and  that  as  a  study  reg-rding 
the  conduct,  not  of  man  ;.s  a  citizen, 
but  simply  of  man  living  among  men. 


*  Of  course  there  were  exceptions  among 
thoughtful  Greeks.  But  I  believe  it  is  gen- 
erally true  that  no  Greek  author  through  the 
whole  period  of  Roman  dominion  shows  any 
interest  in  Latin  literature,  or  treats  the  Ro- 
mans as  intellectual  equals. 


In  many  things  the  post-Aristotelian 
schools  not  merely  failed  to  make  any 
advance  on  what  ARISTOTLE  had  left, 
but  fell  back  from  the  point  lie  had 
reached.  Accordingly  they  contribu- 
ted to  political  science  nothing  worth 
mentioning  In  EPICURUS  we  may 
find  a  rudimentary  form  of  the  Social 
Contract,*  and  the  stoics  had  one  fine 
idea,  that  of  the  world  as  a  kind  of 
great  city  in  which  individual  cities 
were  like  households.  This  idea 
(which  is  more  than  once  used  by 
CICERO)  might,  under  other  condi- 
tions, have  led  them  to  consider  the 
relations  of  independent  States  to  one 
another,  and  perhaps  to  develop 
something  like  international  law.  But 
there  were  no  independent  States  left; 
there  was  only  the  Roman  power 
which  had  absorbed  all  the  civilized 
world,  surrounded  by  dimly  known 
and  more  or  less  barbarous  tribes  and 
kingdoms.  In  the  early  Roman 
period  there  is  one  example  of  a  Greek 
who  made  a  serious  study  of  Roman 
institutions,  PoiTBlUS.  His  panegyric 
of  the  Roman  constitution  is  remark- 
able as  presenting,  in  a  distinct  form 
and  concrete  application,  the  theory 
of  mixed  and  balanced  powers  which 
was  so  much  in  vogue  with  British 
publicists  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  is  hardly  yet  obsolete  among  their 
Continental  imitators. 

The  Romans  were  great  as  rulers 
and  administrators,  and  they  created 
systematic  law.  But  in  philosophy 
they  were  simply  the  pupils  and 
imitators  of  the  Greeks,  and  showed 
themselves  as  little  capable  of  inven- 
tion in  politics  as  in  any  other  branch. 
CICERO,  a  man  both  of  letters  and 
of  affairs,  devoted  a  considerable  part 
of  his  life  to  making  Latin  a  philo 
sophical  language.  He  succeeded  ad- 
mirably in  transcribing  the  current 
ideas  of  the  Greek  schools,  especially 
those  of  the  Stoics,  in  a  language  far 
more  attractive  and  eloquent  than 
that  of  his  post-Aristotelian  models. 
More  than  this  he  did  not  attempt, 


*<jvv6rfxrf  TiZ  vrrtp  TOV  w  fi\ait~ 
rtiv 


13 


i66 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


and  in  any  case  did  not  achieve.   No-  absence  of  independent   political  life 


philosophical  writings ;  and  the  por- 
tions of  his  work  on  the  Common- 
wealth which  have  come  down  to  us 
in  a  fragmentary  state  are  no  excep 
tion  to  this.  His  theory  was  mainly 
Stoic,  and  the  chief  peculiarity  of  the 
work  was  a  pretty  full  historical 
discussion  of  the  Roman  constitution, 
which,  after  the  example  of  POLYBIUS, 
he  praised  as  combining  the  merits  of 
all  forms  of  government.  Even 
Roman  law,  the  really  great  and 
original  work  of  Roman  intellect, 
owes  something  of  its  theoretical 
form  to  Greek  philosophy — how  much 
it  is  not  our  business  to  consider  in 
this  place.  Jurisprudence  is  a  branch 
of  politics,  but  too  peculiar  a  branch 
for  its  history  to  be  dwelt  on  in  a 
general  sketch  like  the  present  But 
the  Greeks  themselves,  as  we  have  jusfc 
said,  ceased  to  produce  anything  of 
vital  interest  The  overmastering 
might  of  the  Roman  empire,  leveling 
men  of  all  kindreds  and  nations  in  a 
common  subjection,  finished  the  work 
which  the  Macedonian  supremacy 
had  begun,  and  with  political  inde- 
pendence the  scientific  study  of  politics 
became  extinct.  It  was  a  sleep  of 
many  centuries  that  followed,  broken 
only  by  half  conscious  stirrings  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  Th  re  were  brilliant 
attempts  and  notable  precursors.  But 
there  was  no  serious  revival  of  interest 
in  the  theory  of  politics  until  the 


Renaissance  ;  and 
birth   of   political 


the   definite    new 
thinking,  and   its 


consecutive  growth  in  forms  adapted 
to  the  civilization  of  modern  Europe, 
may  fairly  be  dated  from  HOBBES, 
and  at  most  cannot  be  put  back  earlier 
than  MACHIAVELLI. 


CHAPTER  III. 

The  Mediaeval  Period :   The  Panacv 


PADUA. 

Under  the 


Roman    Empire    the 


for  theoretical  politics.  It  was  enough 
for  the  Roman  lawyers  that  supreme 
power  over  the  Roman  world  had 
been  conferred  on  CAESAR.  So  things 
remained  until  the  Empire  was  broken 
up.  On  its  ruins  there  gradually  arose 
a  new  state  of  society,  and  ultimately 
of  public  law.  But  still  the  condi- 
tions of  political  philosophy  were 
wanting.  The  cultivated  leisure  in 
which  Greek  speculation  was  nurtured, 
and  which  ARISTOTLE  required  as  the 
security  for  even  an  ord  nary  citizen's 
political  competence,  had  been  utterly 
destroyed,  and  awaited  reconstruction. 
The  new  or  renovated  institutions 
that  were  consolidating  the  shattered 
frame  of  European  civilization  were 
as  yet  hardly  political  in  any  proper 
sense.  As  Prof.  BRYCE  has  well  said, 
the  Middle  Ages  were  essentially  un- 
political. Only  one  great  question 
came  into  prominence  in  the  thirteenth 
and  fourteenth  centuries,  and  drew  to 
itself  whatever  power  or  interest 
men's  minds  then  had  in  the  theoreti- 
cal treatment  of  affairs  of  State.  This 
was  the  controversy  between  the  tem- 
poral and  the  spiritual  power.  It  was 
the  common  ground  of  the  disputants 
that  the  Papacy  and  the  Empire  were 
both  divinely  ordained,  and  each  in 
its  own  sphere  had  universal  jurisdic- 
tion over  Christendom.  The  point  of 
difference  was  as  to  the  relation  of 
these  two  jurisdictions  to  one  another. 
Was  the  temporal  ruler  in  the  last 
resort  subordinate  to  the  spiritual,  as 
the  lesser  to  the  greater  light?  or 
were  their  dignities  co-ordinate  and 
equal?  The  whole  reign  of  FRED- 
ERICK. II.,  by  the  confession  even  of 
his  enemies  the  most  extraordinary 
man  of  his  age,  was  an  unremitting 
battle  between  the  Roman  Emperor 
and  the  Roman  Pontiff  on  this  ground. 
FR^KRICK,  who  had  entered  on  his 
*f  **  s^cl^  ^vorite  of  the 
^ee,  found  himself  ere  long  in 
open  hostility  to  it,  and  at  last  under 
its  formal  ban.  Indications  are  not 


u 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS.  167 

ranting  that  he  was  prepared  not ;  political  ideas  too  much  in  advance  of 
only  to  maintain  the  independence  of  his  time  to  be  acceptable ;  and  the 
the  Empire,  but  to  carry  the  war  in-  hostility  of  a  power  which  outlives 
to  the  enemy's  camp.  He  aimed  at  dynasties,  and  never  forgets  or  for- 
uothing  less  than  making  himself  gives,  had  its  effect  in  the  long  run. 
supreme  in  spiritual  as  well  as  tempo  DANTE  felt  bound  to  place  FRED- 
ral  government.  It  seems  not  clear  REICK  II  among  the  unbelievers  in 
how  far  his  plans  were  laid  in  detail,  his  Inferno,  though  all  his  sympathies 
but  his  general  intention  is  certain,  must  have  gone  with  him  in  his  life- 
He  openly  treated  the  Papal  censures  long  struggle  against  the  Roman 
as  of  no  authority,  and  affected  in  his  Curia.* 

own    person     the     titles     especially       The  strife  which  FREDERICK  II.  had 

appropriate    to    spiritual    dominion,  failed  to  conclude  in  action  was  left 

He  called  himself,  or  encouraged  his  as  a  heritage   for    the  ingenuity   of 

followers  to  call  him,  the  vicar   f  God  mediaeval  dialectics.     It  produced  a 

on  earth,  the  reformer  of  the   age,  a  considerable  literature,  among  which 

new  ELIJAH  discomfiting  the  priests  there  were  two  books,  one  on  either 

of  Baal.     He  denounced  the  Pope  as  side,  bearing  names  of  lasting  renown. 

a  Pharisee   anointed  with   the  oil   of  The  Papal  claims  were  defended  in  a 

iniquity   and   sitting   in  the   seat  of  treatise  Of  the  Government  of  Prin- 

uorrupt  judgment,   a   false    vicar  of  ces,    begun,    but   left    unfinished,  by 

CHRIST   and   deceiving   serpent,  who  THOMAS  AQUINAS,  and  continued  by 

disturbed  the  world  out  of  mere  envy  his  disciple,  PTOLEMY  of  Lucca;  the 

of  tin-  majesty  and  prosperity  of  the  independence    of    the    Empire    was 

Empire.     It  is  thought  that  he  con-  ;  maintained  by  DANTE  in  his  equally 

templated    the    erection    of    a   new  celebrated  De  Monarchia.^    Wecan- 

Church  in   subjection  to  the  Empire,  not  say  that  these  works  develop  any- 

whose    center  would   have   been   in  thing  like  a  complete  political  theory. 

Sicily.*    The  princes  and  people   of  So  far  as  they  make  an  approach  to 

Europe  looked  by  no  means  unfavor-  this,  they  show  an  unconscious  reac- 

abiy  on  FREDEKICK'S  anti-papal  policy,  tion  from  the  Aristotelian  to  the  Pla 

But  in  what   seemed   its   full  tide  of  tonic  way  of   handling  the    subject, 

success  it  was  cut   short  by  a  death  Both  the  Imperialist  and  the  Curialist 

almost  sudden,  and    at  the  time  not  champion  abandon  the  problem  of  dis- 

free  from  suspicion.  The  excommuni-  tributing  power  on  rational  principles 

cated  Emperor's  memory  was  dark-  among  the  different  elements  in  the 

ened,  as  was  always  the  fate  of  the  State.     They  fall  back  on  unlimited 

Roman   See's   enemies,  by  the   fame  monarchy  as  the  only  means  of  keep- 

of   monstrous   heresies   and  blasphe-  ing  the  peace,  and  trust  to  Providence 

mies.  In  his  lifetime  these  charges  for  the  ruler  being  endowed  with 
got  little  credence.  ST.  Louis  of !  wisdom.J  DANTE  goes  even  further 
France,  the  model  of  Catholic  kings, 


turned   a  deaf   ear   to  them.    FRED- 


*  The  words  put  into  the  mouth  of  PETER 


w    "  "\"\   ~T*  A-~7~A  '  DE  VINEA  (/»/.,  xiii.  64  -75)  afford  positive 

ERICK  himself  indignantly  repudiated   °         .f  u^  neede^ 

and    retorted     them.       But     he     had  |  j^s  tothe  De  Regimine  Principum,  I  fol- 

notoriously  committed  the  unpardon-  low    M.  FRANCK'S  opinion  {R^formateurs  et 

able  crime  of  making  a  treaty  on  just  Publicises  de  I 'Europe,  Paris,  1864} that  there 

j                                   Tti.  ^.u     o,  i*.        ~t  is  no  reason  to  doubt   the  attribution  of  the 

and  equal   terms  with  the  Sultan  ot  ;sw™firstbookstoST.  THOMAS  himseif.    The 

Egypt,  which '  indeed  was   a  sign  ot    third  js  a  iater,  but  not  much  later,  addition  ; 

-    the  fourth  is   incongruous  with  the   body  of 

*  Huiiliard-Breholles,   Vie  et    Correspond-    the  work  and  bears  the  stamp  of  the  Renais- 
ance  de  Pierre  de  la  Vigne,  Paiis,  1865.    The  !  sance. 

learned  author  draws  an  ingenious  parallel  \  ST.  THOMAS  disapproves  tyrannicide, 
between  FREDERICK  II.  and  his  minister  but  holds  that  a  tyrannical  ruler  may  he 
PETER  DE  VINEA  and  our  HENRY  VIII.  and  justly  deposed,  at  all  events  in  an  elective 
THOMAS  CROMWELL.  monarchy. 

15 


166 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


than  ST.  THOMAS.  His  argument  is 
not  only  for  monarchy  as  the  best 
form  of  government,  but  for  a  uni- 
versal monarchy  as  necessary  for  the 
welfare  of  mankind  ;  and  he  maintains 
that  the  universal  monarch,  having 
no  rival  to  fear  and  no  further  ambi- 
tion to  satisfy,  can  have  no  motive  for 
ruling  other  wise  than  wisely  and  justly. 
The  Monarcha  of  Dante's  treatise  is 
PLATO'S  heaven-born  statesman,  the 
transferred  from 


the  Greek  city  to  the  larger  stage  of 
mediaeval  Christendom.  It  is  only 
under  his  rule,  DANTE  says,  that  true 
freedom  is  possible  to  men,  and  this 
is  the  justification  of  his  universal 
dominion.  ARISTOTLE'S  doctrine, 
that  the  merit  of  a  government  must 
be  tested  by  its  promotion  of  the 
common  weal  of  all  the  subjects,  is 
fully  and  expressly  adopted. 

"  Since  the  Monarch  is  full  of  love 
for  men,  as  was  before  touched  upon, 
he  will  have  all  men  good,  which  can- 
not be  if  they  live  under  perverted 
constitutions  :*  wherefore  the  Philoso 
pher  in  his  Politics  saith  :  Thnt  in  a 
perverted  Commonwealth  the  good 
man  is  a  bad  citizen  ;  but  in  a  right- 
ful one  good  man  and  good  citizen 
are  convertible  terms.  And  the  aim  of 
such  rightful  commonwealths  is  liber- 
ty, to  wit  that  men  may  live  for  their 
own  sake.  For  citizens  are  not  for 
the  sake  of  the  Consuls,  nor  a  nation 
for  the  King;  but  contrairiwise  the 
Consuls  are  for  the  sake  of  the  citizens, 
the  King  for  the  eake  of  the  nation. 
For  as  a  commonwealth  is  not  sub- 
ordinate to  laws,  but  laws  to  the  com- 
monwealth ;  so  men  who  live  accord- 
ing to  law  are  not  for  the  service  of 
the  lawgiver,  but  he  for  theirs  ;  which 
is  the  Philosopher's  opinion  in  that 
which  he  hath  left  us  concerning  the 
present  matter.  Hence  it  is  plain 
also  tliat  though  a  Consul  or  King  in 
regard  of  means  be  the  lord  of  others, 
yet  in  regard  of  the  end  they  are  the 
servants  of  others  :  and  most  of  all 
the  Monarch  who  without  doubt  is 


to  be   deemed  the  servant   of  them 
all." 

We  are  not  concerned  here  with 
the  scholastic  arguments  in  favor  of 
monarchy,  drawn  from  the  intrinsic 
excellence  of  unity  as  compared  with 
plurality,  which  are  used  both  by 
DANTE  and  by  ST.  THOMAS  ;  nor  can 
we  dwell  at  length  on  DANTE'S  reasons 
for  identifying  his  ideal  monarch  with 
the  actual  prince  who  wore  th-^  crown 
of  the  revived  Western  Empire.  They 
deserve  some  passing  mention,  how- 
ever, if  only  to  show  what  had  taken 
the  place  of  political  sc-ence  in  even 


the  best  minds  of  the  time, 
nothing   more    curious    in 


"  Quod  tsse  non  potest  apud  oblique 
politizantes,"  with  reference  to  the  parekba- 
.>.!  oi  ARISTOTLE'S  classification. 


There  is 
literature 

than  the  proof  in  the  second  book  of 
the  De  Monarchia  that  the  Roman 
people  were  ordained  of  God  to  con- 
quer the  world.  The  PSALMIST, 
ARISTOTLE,  CJCERO,  VIRGIL,  and 
AQUINAS  are  cited  as  equally  relevant 
and  binding  authorities ;  and  the 
application  of  the  language  of  the 
second  Psalm  to  the  Roman  dominion 
is  almost  as  strong  as  anything  ad- 
dressed to  FREDERICK  II.  by  his 
Chancellor  and  courtiers.  It  is  argued 
that  the  Roman  victories  over  all  the 
other  powers  of  the  earth  were  not 
mere  vulgar  conquests,  but  due  and 
formal  trial  by  battle  of  the  dispute 
for  universal  sovereignty,  the  result 
of  which  declared  the  judgment  of 
GOD.*  Most  curious  of  all  is  the  ar- 
gument that  the  title  of  the  Roman 
Empire  was  confirmed  by  the  highest 
possible  authority  in  the  passion  of 
CHRIST.  The  sin  of  ADAM  was 
punished  in  CHRIST,  but  there  is  no 
punishment  without  competent  juris- 
diction ;  and,  since  CHRIST  repre- 
sented all  mankind,  a  jurisdiction 
extending  to  all  mankind  was  in  this 
case  the  only  competent  one.  Such 
a  universal  jurisdiction  was  that  of 
Rome  as  exercised  by  PILATE.  In  the 
third  and  last  book  DANTE  proves  that 
the  authority  of  the  Roman  Empire 
proceeds  immediately  from  God,  and 

*  The  "  formalia  duelli"  prescribed  by 
DANTE  as  the  conditions  of  a  just  acd 
judicially  decisive  war  are,  as  might  be  ex- 
pected, extremely  vague. 


16 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


169 


is  not  held  of  the  Pope  or  the  Church. 
His  minute  refutations  of  the  reasons 
adduced  on  the  Papal  side  from  the 
sun  and  moon,  the  offerings  of  the 
Magi,  the  two  swords,  and  so  forth, 
now  seern  to  us  only  one  degree  less 
grotesque  than  the  reasons  them 
selves. 

Yet  there  is  an  earnest  endeavor  in 
this  work  of  DANTE'S,  though  it  is 
but  feeling  about  in  a  dim  twilight,  to 
find  a  solid  ground  for  a  real  system 
of  European  public  law.  The  mon- 
arch he  conceives  is  not  a  universal 
despot,  but  a  governor  of  a  higher 
order  set  over  the  princes  and  rulers 
of  particular  States,  and  keeping  the 
peace  between  them.  He  is  to  have 
the  jurisdiction,  in  modern  language, 
of  an  international  tribunal.  "  Where- 
soe\.  er  contention  may  be,  there 
judgment  ought  to  be;"  and  therefore 
the  monarch  is  needful  to  give  judg- 
ment in  the  contentions  which  arise 
between  independent  princes.  The 
desire  for  such  an  authority  had  not 
apparently  been  felt  by  the  Greek 
philosophers.  DANTE  says  nothing  of 
the  manner  in  which  the  Emperor's 
jurisdiction  is  to  be  exercised,  or  of 
the  means  whereby  his  judgments  are 
to  be  executed.  He  must  have  known 
that  his  idea  was  far  removed  from 
anything  likely  to  be  put  in  practice. 
Even  now  we  have  made  but  feeble 
and  halting  steps  toward  realizing  it. 
Still  the  idea  was  a  noble  one,  and  we 
may  say  for  it  of  DANTE,  in  his  own 
words  concerning  his  master  VIRGIL 

"  Onorate  1'alttssimo  poeta." 

For  the  rest,  we  must  say  of  all 
the  mediseval  writers  on  politics,  as 
we  said  before  of  PLATO,  but  in  a  much 
more  unqualified  sense,  that  they  real- 
ly have  no  theory  of  the  State.  Their 
aim  is  to  maintain  the  cause  of  the 
Papacy  or  of  the  Empire  as  the  case 
be.  Disinterested  study  of  politics 
was  a  thing  beyond  them.  Our  own 
BKA  TON  has  elements  of  a  constitu- 
tional doctrine,  but  such  beggarly 
elements  as  only  to  show  the  poverty 
of  the  age  in  systematic  thought  on 
matters.  He  rejects  the  notion 


of  an  English  king  being  an  absolute 
sovereign.  The  king  is  under  tne 
law,  and  if  he  uttempts  to  govern 
against  law,  the  great  men  of  the 
land  who  are  his  companions  must  do 
something  to  check  him.  But  how  or 
by  what  authority  the  check  is  to  be 
applied  we  are  not  told :  much  less 
where,  if  not  in  the  crown,  the  ulti- 
mate political  authority  really  is.  MAR- 
SILIO of  Padua,  who  wrote  early  in 
the  fourteenth  century,  shows  a 
certain  return  to  Aristotelian  method 
and  results.  He  defended  govern- 
ment by  the  majority  by  the  same 
argument  that  ARISTOTLE  had  already 
used  as  applicable  to  the  imperfect 
condition  of  actually  existing  commu- 
nities. True  it  is  that  the  people  at 
large  are  not  fit  to  govern  ;  but  they 
can  tell  whether  they  are  well  or  ill 
governed,  as  a  man  knows  whether 
his  shoe  fits  him  or  not  without  being 
a  shoemaker.  MARSILIO  likewise  dis- 
tinctly marked  the  separation  of  the 
executive  power  (which  he  calls  by 
its  modern  name)  from  the  legislative; 
moreover,  he  advocated  a  complete 
separation  of  temporal  from  spiritual 
authority,  and  would  have  the  tempo- 
ral laws  and  magistrates  make  no  dif- 
ference of  persons  on  the  score  of  relig- 
ious opinion.  Being  a  zealous  Impe- 
rialist, MARSILIO  proceeded  to  deny  the 
pre-eminence  of  the  Roman  See  even  in 
spiritual  matters,  and  naturally  incur- 
red excommunication.  1  lalf  a  century 
later  his  steps  were  followed  with  no 
small  vigor  and  effect  (but  this  time 
for  Gallican,  not  Imperial  ends)  in 
the  French  dialogue  known  as  the 
Songe  du  Verger  of  which  the  author- 
ship is  attributed  to  RAOUL  DE  PRES- 
LES.* 

CHAPTER  IV, 

The  modern  Period:  MACHIAVELLI 
— JEAN  BOUIN — SIR  THOMAS  SMITH 
— HOBBES. 

The  modern  study  of  politics,  how- 
ever, begins  with  MACHIAVELLI.  Not 
that  he  made  any  definite  or  per- 


*  FRANCK,  op.  cit.,  pp.    135 — 151, 
250. 


17 


170 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


manent  contribution  to  political  the- 
ory which  can  be  laid  hold  of  as  a 
principle  fertile  of  new  consequences. 
His  works  are  more  concerned  with 
the  details  of  statecraft  than  with  the 
analysis  of  the  State.  But  we  find 
hi  him,  for  the  first  time  since  ARIS- 
TOTLE, the  pure  passionless  curiosity 
of  the  man  of  science.  We  find  the 
separation  of  Ethics  and  Politics, 
which  had  fallen  into  neglect,  not  only 
restored,  but  forming  the  groundwork 
of  all  MACHIAVELLI'S  reasoning,  and 
made  prominent  even  to  the  point  of 
apparent  paradox  and  scandal. 
MACHIAVELU  takes  no  account  of 
morality.  He  assumes  certain  ends 
to  be  in  the  view  of  a  prince  or  na- 
tion. They  might  be,  we  know  by 
his  own  life  and  sufferings  that  often 
they  were,  ends  of  which  MACHIAVEL- 
LI  himself  disapproved.  But  he  con- 
siders, as  a  purely  intellectual  prob- 
lem, by  what  means  an  Italian  ruler 
of  the  sixteenth  century  is  most  likely 
to  attain  those  ends.  Religion  and 
morality  are  in  his  assumed  point  of 
view  simply  instruments  in  the  hand 
of  the  ruler ;  not  masters,  not  always 
even  safe  guides,  but  useful  servants 
and  agents.  The  art  of  politics  de- 
pends on  the  constant  principles  and 
motives  of  human  self-interest.  Its 
details  are  to  be  learnt  from  history 
and  experience.  MACHIAVELLI'S  own 
account  of  his  best  known  (though 
perhaps  not  his  most  important)  work, 
as  he  gave  it  in  a  familiar  letter  to  his 
friend  FRANC  KSCO  VETTORI,  leaves 
nothing  to  desire  in  clearness  as  far  as 
it  goes.  The  letter  describes  how  he 
spends  the  day  in  out-of-door  pursuits ; 
fowling  in  the  season,  or  looking  after 
his  wood  cutting,  and  then  gossiping 
or  playing  cards  at  the  roadside  inn 
nearest  his  country  retreat,  picking 
up  news  and  noting  men's  various 
humors.  But  his  time  of  real  pleasure 
is  in  the  evening  ;  then  he  casts  off 
his  rough  and  muddy  country  dress, 
and  arrays  himself  as  becomes  a 
statesman  in  good  company;  his 
company  are  the  ancients,  among 
whose  history  and  thoughts  he  spends 
this  time,  forgetting  misfortune  and 


poverty.  He  lias  meditated  over  what 
he  learns  from  these  companions,  and 
set  down  the  chief  results  "  I  have 
made,"  he  says,  "  a  treatise  De  Prin- 
cipatibus,  where  I  go  to  the  depth  of 
my  ability  into  the  consideration  of 
this  matter,  discussing  what  is  the 
nature  of  sovereignty,*  what  kinds  of 
it  there  are,  how  they  are  acquired, 
how  maintained,  and  for  what  causes 
lost.  He  describes  his  treatise,  that 
is,  as  a  study  of  pure  natural  history, 
an  inquiry  by  what  means  despotic 
rulers  (such  as  then  abounded  in  Italy, 
some  of  greater,  some  of  smaller 
pretensions)  are,  in  fact,  successful  or 
unsuccessful  in  consolidating  their 
power.  And  that  is  exactly  what  the 
book  is  on  the  face  of  it.  MACHIAVEL- 
LI  does  not  approve  or  advise  fraud 
and  treachery,  as  he  has  been  charged 
with  doing.  His  own  public  conduct, 
so  far  as  known  (and  he  was  a 
public  servant  for  many  years),  was 
upright  both  abroad  and  at  home.  He 
only  points  out  that  power  gained  in 
certain  ways  must  be  maintained,  if 
at  all,  by  corresponding  means. 
It  is  not  strange  that  a  man  liv- 
ing among  Italian  politics,  such  as 
they  then  were,  and  as  they  were 
closely  observed  and  described  by 
himself,  should  regard  the  separation 
of  policy  from  morality  as  a  remedi- 
less evil  which  must  be  accepted. 
There  is  no  ground  for  saying  that  he 
did  not  perceive  it  to  be  an  evil  at 
all.  Nor  is  it  to  be  set  down  as  the 
evil  fruit  of  his  advice  that  other 
despots  and  usurpers  in  later  times 
have  been  successful  by  those  arts 
which  MACHIAVELU  described  as  lead- 
ing to  success,  NAPOLEOX  III  for  ex- 
ample. No  man  ever  learnt  the  secret 
of  despotism  out  of  a  book. 

It  has  always  been   assumed,  how 
ever    that    MACHIAVELLI    had    some 


*  MACHIAVELLI'S  Principato  is  not  easy 
to  translate  exactly.  He  means  by  it  every 
form  of  personal  government,  under  what- 
ever title,  as  opposed  to  popular  govern- 
ment (repubblica)  \  these  being  the  only  two 
kinds  into  which  he  thinks  it  worth  while  for 
his  purposes  to  divide  governments  in  gen- 
eral. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


171 


further  object  in  his  political  writings: 
and  much  controversial  ingenuity  has 
been  expended  on  determining  what 
it  was.  All  kinds  of  opinions  have 
been  advanced,  from  the  vulgar 
prejudice  that  MACHIAVELLI  was  a 
cynical  counselor  of  iniquity  to  the 
panegyric  cf  the  modern  writers  who 
place  MACHIAVELLI  with  DANTE  and 
MAZZINI  as  one  of  the  great  preparers 
and  champions  of  Italian  unity.* 
This  latter  view  contains  at  all  events 
more  truth  than  the  old  one.  MACHIA- 
VELLI, though  by  education  and  pref- 
erence a  republican,  despaired  of  a 
strong  and  stable  republican  govern- 
ment in  the  Italian  States  as  he  knew 
them.  The  one  pressing  need  for  the 
restoration  of  prosperity  to  Italy  was 
to  deliver  hei  from  the  invaders, 
French,  German,  and  Spanish,  who 
spoiled  and  ruined  her :  and  this  could 
be  done,  as  it  seemed  to  MACHIA- 
VELLI, only  by  some  Italian  prince 
wiser,  more  fortunate,  and  more  nobly 
ambitious  than  others  making  him- 
self the  chief  power  in  Italy,  and 
gathering  such  strength  of  native 
arms  as  would  enable  him  to  withstand 
the  foreigner.  For  an  end  so  sacred 
in  Italian  eyes  all  the  political  means 
of  the  times  were  justified;  and  be 
side  the  possibility  of  attaining  it 
questions  of  municipal  politics  and 
forms  of  domestic  government  sank 
into  insignificance  National  unity 
and  independence  was  to  be  made  the 
supreme  end,  even  if  it  had  to  be  at- 
tained through  a  military  despotism. 
We,  who  have  seen  German  unity 
accomplished  (allowing  for  differences 
of  civilization  and  manners)  in  almost 
exactly  the  same  fashion  that  MACHIA- 
VELLI conceived  for  Italy,  can  at  any 
rate  not  suppose  that  his  idea  was 
chimerical.  That  such  was  indeed 
one  of  his  leading  ideas  is  beyond 
doubt.  It  is  not  only  avowed  in  the 
last  chapter  of  "the  Prince,  but  the  sub- 
ordination of  internal  to  external  pol- 
itics throughout  MACHIAVELLI' s  work 
is  explicable  by  this  fixed  purpose, 


,  *  F.  CoSTfeRO,  Preface  to  //  Princiff,etc., 
Milan,  1875, 


and  by  this  only.  For  MACHIAVKL- 
LI  as  for  DANTE,  the  question  of 
assuring  political  life  at  all  is  still 
pressing  to  be  solved  before  there  is 
time  to  consider  narrowly  what  is  the 
best  form  of  it.  In  ARISTOTLE'S  phrase, 
the  process  of  yiyveadai  TOV  2,ffv 
f'rsxevis  as  yet  barely  accomplished, 
and  the  final  problem  of  sv  8,tfv  is 
thrust  into  the  background.  There- 
fore even  MACHIAVELLI,  full  as  he  is 
of  observation  and  practical  wisdom, 
is  only  on  the  threshold  of  political 
science.  His  doctrine  is  a  theory  of 
the  preservation  of  States  rather  than 
a  theory  of  the  State. 

In  JEAN  BODIN'S  treatise  Of  the 
Commonwealth,  we  get  for  the  first 
time  the  definite  enunciation  of  at  least 
one  capital  point  of  modern  political 
doctrine.  He  is  entitled,  indeed,  to 
share  with  HOBBES  the  renown  of 
having  founded  the  modern  theory  of 
the  State ;  and  it  may  be  said  of  him 
that  he  seized  on  the  vital  point  of  it 
at  the  earliest  time  when  it  was  pos- 
sible. The  doctrine  referred  to  is 
that  of  political  sovereignty.  In  every 
independent  community  governed  by 
law  there  must  be  some  authority, 
whether  residing  in  one  person  or 
several,  whereby  the  laws  themselves 
are  established,  and  from  which  they 
proceed.  And  this  power,  being  the 
source  of  law,  must  itself  be  above 
the  law :  not  above  duty  and  moral 
responsibility,  as  BODIN  carefully  ex- 
plains ;  but  above  the  municipal  ordi- 
nances of  the  particular  State — the 
positive  laws,  in  modern  phrase — 
which  it  creates  and  enforces.  Find 
the  person  or  persons  whom  the  con- 
stitution of  the  State  permanently 
invests  with  such  authority,  under 
whatever  name,  and  you  have  found 
the  sovereign.  "  Sovereignty  is  a 
power  supreme  over  citizens  and 
subjects,  itself  not  bound  by  the  laws." 
This  power  somewhere  is  necessary 
to  an  independent  State,  and  its  pres- 
ence is  the  test  of  national  independ- 
ence. Such  is  in  outline  the  principle 
of  sovereignty  as  stated  by  BODIN, 
taken  up  a  century  later  by  HoBBESj 
and  adopted  by  all  modern  publicist* 


19 


172 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


with  only  more  or  less  variation  in 
the  manner  of  statement.  It  is  one 
of  the  things  which  appear  tolerably 
simple  to  a  modern  reader.  The 
history  of  English  politics  and  legisla- 
tion has  made  it  specially  acceptable 
to  English  readers,  and  to  an  English 
lawyer  it  needs  a  certain  effort  of 
imagination  to  conceive  that  people 
ever  thought  otherwise.  Yet  a  little 
consideration  will  make  it  equally 
obvious  that  the  proposition  could  not 
have  assumed  a  definite  shape  much 
before  the  sixteenth  century.  The 
legal  supremacy  of  the  State  is  con- 
ceivable only  when  the  State  has 
acquired  a  local  habitation  and  a  per- 
manent establishment.  The  medieval 
system  of  Europe  was  not  a  system  of 
States  in  our  sense  or  in  the  Greek 
sense.  It  was  a  collection  of  groups 
held  together  in  the  first  instance  by 
ties  of  personal  dependence  and  alle- 
giance, and  connected  among  them- 
selves by  personal  relations  of  the 
same  kind  on  a  magnified  scale. 
Lordship  and  homage,  from  the  Em- 
peror down  to  the  humblest  feudal 
tenant,  were  the  links  in  the  chain  of 
steel  which  saved  the  world  from 
being  dissolved  into  a  chaos  of  jarring 
fragments.  The  laws  and  customs 
which  were  obeyed  by  princes  and 
people,  by  lords  and  their  men,  were 
not  thought  of  as  depending  on  the 
local  government  for  their  efficacy. 
The  Roman  law,  in  particular,  was 
treated  as  having  some  kind  of  in- 
trinsic and  absolute  authority.  We 
see  its  influence  even  in  England, 
where  it  was  never  officially  received. 
Men  sought  in  the  shadow  of  the 
Roman  Empire  and  its  dead  institu- 
tions the  unity  of  direction  and  govern- 
ment which  their  actual  life  had  not 
yet  found.  The  old  unity  of  the  clan 
had  disappeared,  and  it  was  only 
gradually  and  slowly,  as  kingdoms 
were  consolidated  by  strong  rulers, 
that  the  newer  unity  of  the  nation 
took  its  place.  Here  and  there,  as  in 
England,  where  a  clear  territorial 
definition  was  from  an  early  time  as- 
tured  by  the  geographical  nature  of 
»hings,  and  foreign  disturbance  was 


easily  kept  aloof,  a  true  national  feel 
ing  and  life  rose  up  soon  and  waxed 
apace.  But  on  the  continent  the 
fifteenth  century  was  still  a  time  when 
nations  were  forming  rather  than 
formed;  and  when  in  the  succeding 
century  the  French  monarchy  began 
to  feel  its  real  strength,  the  masterly 
definitions  of  BODIN  gave  expression 
to  a  change  in  the  political  face  of 
Europe  which  was  yet  young. 

BODIN  v/as  a  man  of  vast  and  — 
with  one  strange  exception,  his  polem- 
ic against  sorcerers — of  enlightened 
learning.  On  public  economy  and 
many  other  matters  his  opinions  were 
far  in  advance  of  those  current  in  his 
age.  He  not  only  strove  to  put  in 
practice,  but  distinctly  announced  as  a 
necessary  principle,  the  foundation  of 
political  theory  on  a  broad  base  of 
historical  observation.  Like  MACHIA- 
VELIJ,  he  showed  in  his  own  conduct 
as  a  citizen  a  settled  attachment  to 
freedom  and  justice,  and  suffered 
for  his  constancy.  Yet  we  find  in 
BODIN'S  doctrine,  as  in  that  of  MA- 
CHIAVELLI  before  him  and  of  HOBBES 
after  him,  a  certain  apparent  leaning 
in  favor  of  absolute  power.  He  not 
only  defines  sovereignty  as  a  power 
not  subject  to  the  laws,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  maker  and  master  of  them 
— a  power  which  so  far  may  belong  to 
one,  to  few,  or  to  many,  to  a  king,  to 
an  assembly,  or  to  both  together — 
but  he  is  prone  to  identify  the  the- 
oretical sovereign  with  the  aotual 
king  in  a  State  where  a  king  exists. 
For  his  own  country  this  might  be  done 
without  grave  difficulty;  but  BODIN 
was  not  content  without  foreign 
instances,  and  England,  where  even 
in  the  hands  of  the  Tudors  the  power 
of  the  Crown  had  reached  its  utmost 
height,  gave  him  a  great  deal  of 
trouble.  He  recognizes  more  fair!} 
than  HOBBES  the  possibility  of  a  limit 
ed  monarchy.  The  Emperor,  he  says, 
is  no  absolute  sovereign,  for  he  is 
bound  by  the  ordinances  and  decrees 
of  the  German  princes.  Probably 
BODIN'S  position  is  to  be  accounted 
for  by  his  practical  view  of  the  French 
monarchy.  Doubtless  the  king's 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


173 


power  appeared  to  him,  as  indeed  \ 
was,  the  only  one  then  capable  o: 
governing  France  with  tolerable 
efficiency  and  equity.  And  it  is 
curious  to  see  what  limits  BODIN, 
herein  less  rigidly  consistent  than 
HOBBES,  proceeds  to  impose  on  mon 
archical  power  after  he  has  defined  it 
as  unlimited.  Sovereign  authority, 
us  we  have  seen,  is  the  absolute  power 
in  the  State,  whatever  that  may  be. 
It  is  that  power  which  is  neither  tem- 
porary, nor  delegated,  nor  subject  to 
particular  rules  which  it  cannot  alter, 
nor  answerable  to  any  other  power  on 
earth.  "Maiestas  nee  rnaiore potentate, 
nee  legibus  ullis,  nee  tempore  dejini- 
tur  .  .  .  princeps  populusque  in  qui- 
bus  maiestas  inest  ratiouen  rerum 
gestarum  nemini  proeterquam  im- 
mortali  Deo  reddere  coguntur."  * 
And  such  power,  as  matter  of  legal  and 
historical  fact,  belongs  to  the  kings  of 
France,  but  this  only  means  that  they 
have  no  legal  duties  to  their  subjects. 
They  have  moral  duties,  or,  as  BODIN 
says  in  the  language  of  the  jurispru- 
dence of  his  day,  they  remain  bound 
by  the  law  of  nature:  "Quod  sum- 
mum  in  JRepublica  imperium  legibus 
solutum  diximus,  nihil  ad  divinas 
aut  naturae,  leges  pert inet."  Thus  an 
absolute  prince  is  bound  in  moral  duty 
and  honor  by  his  conventions  with 
other  princes  and  rulers,  and  even 
with  his  own  subjects.  In  certain 
cases  he  is  bound  by  the  promises  of 
his  predecessors ;  though  no  sovereign 
power  can  bind  its  successors  in  the 
sense  of  making  a  law  that  shall  be 
unalterable  and  of  perpetual  obliga- 
tion. BODIN  shows  at  some  length, 
and  with  much  perspicuity,  both  on 
principle  and  by  historical  examples, 
the  idleness  of  assuming  to  make  laws 
irrevocable.  The  sovereign  power 
could,  it  is  admitted,  repeal  the  law 
but  for  the  clause  forbidding  repeal. 
But  such  a  clause  is  itself  part  of  the 
law,  so  that  the  sovereign  can  repeal 
the  body  and  the  supposed  safeguard 


*  BODIN'S  own  Latin  version  of  his  work 
is  really  a  new  recension,  and  is  fuller  and 
more  precise  iu  language  luau  the  French, 


of  the  law  together.     If 
legislative  power  which 


there  is  a 
cannot  do 


this,  it  is  not  really  sovereign.  So  far 
BODIN  is  on  firm  ground,  and  seems 
in  full  possession  of  the  modern  the- 
ory. He  has  distinguished  legal 
obligation  in  the  strict  sense  from 
purely  moral  and  honorable  duties  on 
the  one  hand,  and  from  the  duties 
created  by  convention  between  inde- 
pendent powers  on  the  other.  He  has 
made  a  great  step  toward  the  clear 
separation  of  the  legal  from  the 
ethical  sphere  of  thought  within  po- 
litical science  itself — a  thing  only  less 
in  importance  than  ARISTOTLE'S 
original  separation  of  Politics  from 
Ethics. 

But  at  this  point  BODIN'S  sureness 
of  foot  fails  him.  He  tells  us  of  or- 
ganic laws  or  rules  which  may  be  so 
closely  associated  with  the  very  nature 
of  this  or  that  sovereignty  that  they 
cannot  be  abrogated  by  the  sovereign 
power  itself,  and  he  instances  the  rule 
of  succession  to  the  French  crown. 
Again,  there  are  institutions  of  society, 
such  as  the  family  and  property, 
which  he  assumes  as  the  foundation 
of  the  State  ;  and  with  these  even 
the  sovereign  power  cannot  meddle.* 
From  the  inviolability  of  property  he 
draws  the  consequence  that  not  the 
most  absolute  monarch  can  lawfully 
tax  his  subjects  without  their  consent. 
At  this  day  we  should  say  that  these 
are  excellent  maxims  of  policy,  but 
do  not  affect  the  State's  legal  suprem- 
acy, or  (to  anticipate  the  classical 
English  name  for  the  thing  as  it 
appears  in  our  own  constitution)  the 
omnipotence  of  Parliament.  There 
are  things  which  no  ruler  in  his  senses 
would  do,  things  which  very  few  or 
none  can  afford  to  do.  Just  so  there 
are  many  things  a  private  man  is 
egally  entitled  to  do  which  he  will 
not  do  if  he  is  wise,  or  which  no  man 
of  common  sense  or  common  good 

*  BODIN  charges  ARISTOTLE  with  omitting 
he  family  from  his  definition  of  the  State. 
As  ARISTOTLE  explicitly  leads  up  to  the 
itate  from  the  family,  and  defines  the  family 
s  the  unit  of  the  State,  it  is  difficult  to  see 
vhat  BODIN  meant. 


21 


174 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


feeling  will  do.  But  his  legal  right  is 
not  thereby  affected.  And  so,  too, 
particular  authorities  iu  the  State  may 
have  legal  powers  which  are  in  prac- 
tice never  exercised,  and  which  it 
would  be  impolitic  to  exercise  in  al- 
most any  conceivable  case.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  in  England  the  Crown 
is  legally  entitled  to  refu-  e  assent  to  a 
Bill  passed  by  both  houses  of  Parlia- 
ment, though  such  a  thing  has  not 
been  done  for  more  than  a  century 
and  a-half,  and  as  far  as  human  fore- 
sight can  go  will  never  be  done  again. 
As  a  harsh  or  foolish  exercise  of  legal 
or  political  rights  does  not  cease  to  be 
within  the  agent's  right  because  it  is 
harsh  or  foolish,  so  an  unwise  or 
morally  wrongful  act  of  sovereign 
power  is  not  the  less  an  act  of  sover- 
eign power  because  it  is  unwise  or 
wrong.  On  this  point,  therefore,  BO- 
DIN  is  not  consistent.  But  this  is 


|  out  of  the  study  of  the  English  con- 
stitution and  laws  as  early  as  th« 
fifteenth  century.  FORIESCUE,  both 
in  his  book  De  laudibus  legutn 
Lnglice  and  in  his  less  known  treatises 
on  the  Law  of  Nature  and  the  Mon- 
archy of  England,  is  careful  to  repre- 
sent the  king's  power  as  not  absolute 
but  limited  by  the  law,  or,  to  use  the 
language  borrowed  by  him  from  ST. 


egimine  Pnn- 
cipum,  not  "royal"  but  "political." 
The  King  is  the  head  of  the  body 
politic,  but  can  act  only  according  to 
its  constitution  and  by  the  appropriate 
organs  in  each  case.  And  it  is  said 
in  general  terms  that  the  king's  power 
is  derived  from  the  consent  of  the 
people.  But  the  question  where  polit- 


ical  supremacy  really 


lies  is  not  fol- 
lowed up.  Neither  is  any  definite 
theory  of  the  origin  of  government  put 
forward.  MORE'S  Utopia  calls  for 
mention  on  account  of  its  literary 
fame;  but,  though  it  contains  inci- 


nothing  to  be  wondered  at :  it  seldom 

happens  that  an  acute  thinker  who  is  in 

the  main  in  advance  of  his  time  either  j  dentally  not  a  few  shrewd  criticisms, 

fully  accomplishes  the  working  out  of  j  open  and  covert,  on  the  state  of  Eng- 


his  own  ideas  or  sees  the  way  clear 
to  it. 

BODIN'S  opinions  in  matters  of  de- 
tail are  for  the  most  part  worthy  of 
his  exposition  of  leading  principles. 
He  condemned  slavery  without  reserve, 
and  advocated  a  comprehensive  tol- 
eration of  religious  opinion.  Not  only 
did  he  anticipate,  as  we  have  just 
seen,  the  analytical  method  of  HOBBES  ; 
he  anticipated  the  historical  method 
of  MONTESQUIEU  by  a  detailed  discus- 
sion of  the  infiuenc.1  of  climate  and 
geographical  conditions  on  political 
institutions  and  governments.  His 
work  attained  a  great  reputation  in  a 
short  time.  Besides  the  author's  own 
Latin  version,  an  English  translation 
appeared  early  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  There  is  little  doubt  that 


r  not  only  prepared  the  way  for 
HOBBES  and  MONTESQUIKU,  but  that 
both  of  them.  —  writers  differing  from 
one  another  as  widely  as  possible  in 
method,  manner,  and  purpose  —  actu 
ally  studied  and  profited  by  him. 

Turning   to  England,  we  find    at- 
tempts in  speculative  politics  arising 


lish  society  in  the  first  quarter  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  we  cannot  count  it 
as  an  addition  to  political  science.  It 
is  a  Platonic  or  ultra-Platonic  fancy, 
bred  of  the  Platonism  of  the  Renais- 
sance. Even  more  than  the  Republic 
of  PLATO  it  belongs  to  the  poetry  as 
distinguished  from  the  philosophy  of 
politics.  In  the  De  RepublicaAnylo- 
rum,,  or  English  Commonwealth,  of 
S*R  THOMAS  SMITH,  first  published 
aftot  the  author's  death  in  1583,  we 
find  something  much  more  like  a  fore- 
runner of  UOBBES.  Indeed,  so  clear 
and  precise  are  SMITH'S  chapters  on 
Sovereignty  that  one  is  tempted  to 
think  that  he  must  somehow  have  had 
knowledge  of  Boom's  work.  At  the 
outset  he  defines  political  supremacy 
in  a  manner  by  no  means  unlike  BO- 
DIN'S.  When  he  comes  to  English 
institutions  in  particular,  he  states 
the  omnipotence  of  Parliament  in  the 
most  formal  manner,  and  so  far  as  I 
know  for  the  first  time,  as  if  on  pur- 
pose to  contradict  BODIN'S  argument 
that  the  monarchy  of  England  is  really 
absolute.  It  is  true  that  BODIN'S  De 


22 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIEA'CE  OF  POLITICS. 


Republica  was  published  only  in  1577, 
the  year  of  SMITH'S  death.  But  we 
know  that  SMITH'S  work  was  compos- 
ed while  he  was  embassador  at  the 
French  court,  and  considering  how 
long  books  often  waited  for  publica- 
tion at  that  time,  it  is  fairly  suppos- 
able  that  BODIN'S  treatise,  or  at  least 
the  introductory  part  of  it,  was  already 
in  existence,  and  that  a  certain  num. 
ber  of  scholars  were  acquainted  with 
its  contents.  Even  a  century  later  a 
great  deal  of  private  communication 
of  this  kind  went  on.  SIR  THOMAS 
SMITH'S  principles,  wherever  he  got 
them,  have  the  merit  of  being  much 
the  clarest  which  down  to  that  time 
had  been  put  into  shape  by  an  English 
author  or  in  the  English  language. 

We  now  come  to  HOBBVS,  with 
whom  the  modern  school  of  political 
theory  begins.  ARISTOTLE  effected 
the  separation  of  Ethics  from  Politics: 
from  HOBBES,  or  rather  through  HOB- 
BES,  we  get  the  further  separation  of 
policy  from  legality — of  that  which 
is  wise  or  expedient  from  that  which 
is  allowed  by  positive  law.  The  po- 
litical theory  of  HOBBES  runs  more  or 
less  through  every  thing  that  he  wrote, 
but  is  especially  contained  in  his 
Leviathan  This  famous  and  much- 
decried  treatise  contains  a  great  deal 
of  curious  learning  of  all  sorts,  includ- 
ing not  a  few  theological  eccentricities. 
But  the  principles  laid  down  by  HOB- 
BES which  have  had  a  serious  effect 
upon  later  political  thinking  may  be 
reduced  to  two.  One  of  these  is  the 
principle  of  sovereignty ;  the  other  is 
the  theory  of  the  origin  of  civil  so- 
ciety in  contract.  We  have  already  j 
seen  the  doctrine  of  sovereignty  as  it 
was  stated  in  the  preceding  century 
by  BODIN.  With  him  it  rested  on  a 
pure  analysis  of  the  fact  of  civilized 
government.  In  every  form  of  govern- 
ment you  must  come  at  last  to  some 
power  which  is  absolute,  to  which  all 
other  powers  of  the  State  are  subject, 
and  which  itself  is  subject  to  none. 
The  possession  of  such  power  is  sover- 
eignty, and  the  person  or  body  in 
whom  it  resides  is  the  sovereign. 
HOBBES  is  in  one  respect  less  enter- 


prising and  straightforward  than 
BODIN.  In  his  anxiety  to  fortify  the 
doctrine  of  sovereignty  and  to  leave 
no  excuse  for  disputing  the  authority 
of  the  State,  he  gives  an  elaborate 
account  of  the  construction  of  the 
State  by  an  original  covenant  be- 
tween its  members.  This  imaginary 
covenant,  modified  in  its  terms  and 
circumstances  according  to  the  con- 
clusion which  the  particular  author 
sought  to  establish,  became  familiar 
to  later  publicists  as  the  Original  or 
Social  Contract.  If  we  are  called 
upon  to  say  in  one  sentence  what  HOB- 
BKS  did,  we  must  say  that  he  support- 
ed a  clear  and  sound  doctrine  by  a 
needless  and  untenable  fiction,  and  for 
the  purpose  of  deducing  consequences 
from  it  which  it  would  not  bear.  This, 
however,  is  no  more  than  has  to  be 
said  of  many  of  the  most  able  men  in 
all  ages.  HOBBES'S  firm  grasp  of  all 
his  ideas,  and  the  admirable  clearness 
with  which  his  arguments  and  results, 
whether  right  or  wrong,  are  invariably 
stated,  make  him  the  first  classic  of 
English  political  science. 

Let  us  now  see  how  HOBBES  goes  to 
work  to  construct  the  State.  Men, 
taking  them  all  round,  are  by  nature 
equal,  none  being  so  strong  in  body 
or  mind  that  he  need  not  be  in  fear 
of  others,  or  so  weak  that  he  may  not 
be  dangerous  to  them.  Men  living 
without  any  common  power  set  over 
them  would  be  in  a  state  of  mutual 
fear  and  enmity,  that  is,  in  a  state  of 
war.  Such  a  state  of  things  in  per- 
manence would  be  intolerable  ;  in  it 
there  is  no  property,  no  law,  and  no 
justice.  Every  man  will  aim  at  secur- 
ing his  own  safety,  and  for  that  pur- 
pose will  take  all  he  can  get  Peace  is 
good,  but  life  is  necessary,  and  in  the 
state  of  war  it  is  our  right  to  use  all 
means  to  defend  ourselves. 

The  only  way  to  peace  is  for  men 
to  abandon  so  much  of  their  natural 
rights  as  is  inconsistent  with  living 
in  peace.  This  again  can  only  be 
done  by  mutual  agreement,  and  the 
faithful  performance  of  such  an 
agreement,  as  evidently  tending  to 
self  preservation,  is  a  rule  of  rea- 


23 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


•on,  or  in  HOBBES'S  use  of  the  term, 
"  a  law  of  nature."  But  a  mere  agree- 
ment to  live  together  in  peace  is  in- 
sufficient. Men's  individual  passions 
and  ambitions  would  speedily  break 
up  a  society  resting  on  no  better 
foundation.  There  must  be  "  a  com- 
mon power  to  keep  them  in  awe,  and 
to  direct  their  actions  to  the  common 
benefit."  Th'S  is  effected  by  all  the 
members  of  the  community  giving  up 
their  natural  rights  to  some  man  or 
body  of  men  in  whom  their  united 
power  is  henceforth  to  be  vested. 
Every  member  of  the  community 
gives  up  to  the  chosen  head  the  right 
of  governing  himself  on  condition 
that  every  other  member  does  the 
same.  The  person  or  body  so  invested 
with  the  power  of  the  whole  becomes 
a  kind  of  new  person  ;  "  and  he  that 
carrie1  hthisperson  is  called  sovereign, 
and  hath  sovereign  power ;  and  every 
one  besides,  his  subject." 

It  is  by  no  means  easy  to  make  out 
whether  HOBBES  intended  this  to  be 
taken  as  a  true  account  of  the  manner 
in  which  civil  governments  had  been 
established  as  a  matter  of  fact.  I 
think  he  would  have  been  prepared  to 
say  that  it  would  make  no  difference 
to  his  argument  whether  it  were  so  or 
not ;  at  any  rate,  he  is  prepared  to 
show  to  any  one  who  presumes  to 
traverse  the  story  of  the  original  cov- 
enant that  if  he  disputes  it  he  has  no 
title  to  live  in  society  at  all.  HOBBES 
proceeds  to  deduce  from  this  institu- 
tion of  the  Commonwealth,  as  he 
calls  it,  the  attributes  of  sovereignty. 
The  sovereign's  authority  is  derived 
from  the  consent  of  the  subjects,  and 
he  is  their  agent  for  the  purpose  of 
directing  their  united  strength  for  the 
common  benefit;  but  he  is  an  agent 
wi  ih  unlimited  discretion,  and  with  an 
authority  which  cannot  be  revoked. 
Tim  subjects  cannot  change  the  form 
of  government,  for  that  would  be  a 
breich  of  the  original  covenant  both 
toward  the  sovereign  and  toward  one 
Mother.  The  sovereign  cannot  for- 
feit his  power,  for  he  made  no  cov- 
enant, and  there  is  none  therefore 
which  he  can  break.  Any  subject 


who  dissents  from  the  institution  of 
the  sovereign  thereby  ceases  to  be  a 
member  of  the  community  and  remits 
himself  to  the  original  state  of  war,  in 
which  any  one  who  can  may  destroy 
"him  without  violating  any  right.  For 
similar  reasons  the  sovereign  is  ir- 
responsible and  unpunishable.  No 
man  can  complain  of  what  his  agent 
does  within  the  authority  given  him, 
and  in  the  case  of  a  political  sover- 
eign all  acts  of  sovereignty  have  been 
authorized  beforehand  by  all  the  sub 
jects.  Holders  of  sovereign  power 
may  commit  iniquity  but  not  in  justice. 
The  sovereign,  again,  is  the  sole  judge 
of  what  is  necessary  for  the  defense 
and  security  of  the  commonwealth, 
and,  in  particular,  of  the  question  what 
doctrines  are  fit  to  be  taught  in  it. 
There  are  likewise  annexed  to  sover- 
eignty the  powers  of  legislature  and 
judicature,  of  making  war  and  peace, 
of  choosing  counselors  and  officers, 
of  rewarding  and  punishing,  and  of 
regulating  titles  and  precedence.  All 
these  rights  are  indivisible  and  incom- 
municable ;  the  sovereign  may  dele- 
gate them,  but  cannot  abandon  them. 
HOBBES  is  perfectly  aware  that  the 
sovereign  thus  defined  need  not  be 
one  man ;  but  he  is  nevertheless 
anxious  to  show  that  in  England  the 
king  alone  is  sovereign.  Yet  he  gives 
very  little  express  argument  to  this 
topic.  He  shows,  as  BODIN  has  shown 
before  him,  that  sovereign  power  can- 
not be  divided,  and  this  he  seems  to 
think  fatal  to  all  doctrines  of  mixed 
or  limited  monarchy.  The  loose  lan- 
guage of  someconstitutional  advocates 
is  taken  by  him  as  stamping  their 
cause  itself  with  repugnance  to  the 
nature  of  things.  It  does  not  occur 
to  him  as  possible  that  sovereignty 
should  be  vested  in  a  compound  as 
well  as  in  a  simple  body. 

The  limits  of  sovereignty,  or  the 
liberty  of  the  subject,  as  they  may  be 
indifferently  called  in  HOBBES' s  view, 
are  defined  as  consisting  in  those 
powers  or  rights  of  the  individual 
man  which  he  cannot  surrender  by 
any  covenant.  Thus  no  man  can  be 
bound  to  kill  himself,  to  abstain  from 

24 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIEXCE  OF  POLITICS.  [77 


aelt-preservation,  or  to  accuse  himself ; ' 
and  more  generally,  the  obligation  of 
pubjocts   to    the   sovereign   lasts    no 
longer  than  he  has  power  to  protect 
them. 

HOBBES'S  further  consideration  of 
civil  laws  gives  him  occasion  to  enter 
more  in  detail  upon  the  relation  of 
t  he  sovereign  power  in  a  State  to  its 
municipal  laws.  His  definition,  with 
its  introductory  explanation,  really 
contains  all  the  points  which  have 
only  in  the  present  century  been  work- 
ed out  by  the  English  school  of  juris- 
prudence. 

"Law  in  general  is  not  counsel  but 
command  ;  nor  a  command  of  any  man  ; 
to  any  man  ;  but  only   of  him  whose  | 
command  is  addressed  to  one  former- 
ly "  (i   e.  already  by  having  agreed  to 
be  his  subject)  "obliged  to  obey  him.  , 
And  as  for  civil  law,  it   addeth  only  j 
the  name  of  the  person  commanding,  i 
which  is  persona  civitatis,  the  person  I 
of  the  Commonwealth. 

"  Which   considered,  I  define  civil j 
law  in  this  manner      Civil   law  is  to 
every  subject  those   rules  which  the 
Commonwealth  hath  commanded  hi  :i  j 
l»y  word,  writing,  or   other   sufficient 
Rgn  of  the  will,  to  make  use  of  for  the 
distinction  of  right  and  wrong ;  that  j 
is  to  say,  of  what  is   contrary  and 
what  is  not  contrary  to  the  rule." 

Right  and  wrong,  in  the  legal  sense, 
are  that  which   the  State  has  allowed 
and  forbidden,  and  nothing  else.     To  ! 
understand  this  is  one  of  the  first  con-  I 
ditions   of   clear  legal  and    political  i 
thinking,   and    it  is  HOBBES'S   great 
merit  to  have  made  this  clear  beyond 
the   possibility  of  misunderstanding,  ' 
No   one  who   has  grasped  HOBBES'S  > 
definition  can  ever  be  misled  by  verb- 
al conceits   about   laws  of  the  State 
which  are  contrary  to  natural  right,  or 
the  law  of  nature,  not  being  binding.  | 
All  such  language  is  mischievous,  as 
confusing    the    moral    and    political 
grounds  of  positive  law  with  its  actual 
force.     In  practice  we  all  know  that ' 
the  officers  of  the   State   cannot   en- ; 
tertain   complaints   that  the  laws  en- 
acted hy  the   supreme   power  in  the 
State  are  in  the  complainant's  opinion 


unjust.  It  would  be  impossible  for 
government  to  be  carried  on  if  they 
did.  Laws  have  to  be  obeyed,  as 
between  the  State  and  the  subject,  not 
because  they  are  reasonable,  but  be- 
cause the  State  has  so  commanded. 
The  laws  may  be,  and  in  a  wisely 
ordered  State  will  be,  the  result  of  the 
fullest  discussion  which  the  nature  of 
the  case  admits,  and  subsequent  criti- 
cism may  be  allowed  or  even  invited. 
But  while  the  laws  exist  they  have  to 
be  obeyed.  The  citizen  who  sets  him- 
self against  the  authority  of  the  State 
is  thereby,  so  far  as  in  him  lies,  dis- 
solving civil  society  ;  and  this  was  the 
solid  truth  which  HOBBES  expressed 
in  the  curiously  artificial  form  of  his 
original  convenant.  Some  of  HOBBES'S 
consequences  from  his  definition  of 
civil  law  are  these.  The  sovereign  is 
the  sole  legislator  in  all  common- 
wealths, and  having  power  to  make 
and  repeal  laws  is  not  subject  to  the 
civil  law.  For  practical  purposes  it 
would  be  more  useful  to  convert  this 
proposition  and  say  that  the  ultimate 
test  of  sovereignty  in  a  given  com- 
monwealth is  the  unlimited  power  of 
legislation.  If  HOBBL.S  had  applied 
the  rule  in  this  form  to  England,  he 
would  have  found  some  trouble  in  es- 
caping SIR  THOMAS  SMITH'S  conclu- 
sion. Then  customary  law  depends  for 
its  force  on  "  the  will  of  the  sovereign 
signified  by  his  silence."  For  custom 
"is  no  longer  law,  than  the  sovereign 
shall  be  silent  therein."  When  it  is 
said  that  law  can  never  be  against 
reason,  this  is  true,  but  with  the  ex- 
planation that  the  commonwealth, 
that  is,  "the  sovereign,  which  is  the 
person  of  the  commonwealth,"  is  the 
supreme  judge  of  what  is  reasonable. 
The  next  consequence  would  startle  the 
reader  who  took  up  HOBBES  expecting 
to  find  in  him  nothing  but  maxims  of 
despotism.  It  is  that  law,  being  a 
a  command  addressed  to  the  subject, 
must  be  communicated  in  order  to  be 
effectual.  No  one  is  answerable  for 
breach  of  the  law  who  is  incapable  of 
entering  into  the  original  covenant  of 
institution  or  understanding  its  con 
sequences ;  nor  is  a  man  answerable 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


if  without  his  own  default  he  had  not 
"the  means  to  take  notice  of  any  par- 
ticular law." 

We  said  above  that  the  distinction 
between  legality  and  policy  comes  to 
us  through  HOBBES.  The  survey  of 
HOBBES'S  leading  doctrines  has  now 
enabled  us  to  see  how  it  comes.  HOB- 
BES defines  legal  sovereignty  and  legal 
obligation  with  admirable  strength 
and  precision ;  but  th«n  he  endeavors 
to  swallow  up  policy,  and  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  even  morality,  in 
positive  law.  This  made  it  necessary 
to  carry  the  work  of  division  further. 
But  it  was  a  long  time  before  this  was 
done.  It  was  AUSTIN  who  completed 
the  process  in  England  :  and  even  his 
philosophy  of  positive  law  is  encum- 
bered and  entangled  with  trappings 
of  moral  philosophy  which  have  no 
business  there.  It  would  not  be  too 
much  to  say  that  Professor  HOLLAND'S 
Elements  of  Jurisprudence  is  the 
first  work  of  pure  scientific  jurispru- 
dence which  has  appeared  in  England 
— that  is  of  the  general  science  of  law 
distinctly  separated  from  the  ethical 
part  of  politics.  HOBBES  had  indeed 
influence  enough  in  England  to  provoke 
a  reaction.  But  its  leaders  applied 
themselves  to  the  wrong  part  of 
HOBBES'S  work.  Instead  of  making 
the  doctrine  of  sovereignty  the  start- 
ing-point of  fresh  criticism  and  con- 
struction, they  endeavored  to  avoid 
HOBBES'S  consequences  by  devising  a 
different  sort  of  original  contract  as 
the  assumed  foundation  of  society.* 
This  task  we  shall  see  undertaken  by 
the  publicists  of  the  eighteenth  centu- 
ry. We  shall  see  the  original  contract, 
seized  on  as  a  watchword  by  the 
enthusiasm  of  ROUSSEAU,  grow  from 
an  arid  fiction  into  a  great  and  danger- 
ous deceit  of  nations.  But  we  shall 
also  meet  with  penetrating  and  ob- 
servant minds,  which  the  construction 

*  The  right  kind  of  improvement  on  HOB- 
BES  was  attemi'ted  by  SPINOZA  in  his  un- 
finished Tractatus  Politicus.  But  the  general 
aversion  to  SPINOZA'S  philosophy  which 
prevailed  for  a  century  after  his  death  pre- 
vented this,  so  far  as  I  know,  from  having 
any  influence  whatever. 


of  society  by  fiction  fails  to  satisfy. 
We  shall  see  the  dawn  of  the  histor- 
ical method  in  the  great  Frenchman 
MONTESQUIEU  ;  we  shall  see  it  in  its 
full  power  in  the  work  of  one  greater 
than  MONTESQUIEU,  one  of  the  pro- 
foundest  political  thinkers,  and  yet, 
by  no  fault  of  his  own,  one  of  the  least 
fortunate  statesmen  who  ever  lived — 
our  own  BURKE. 


CHAPTER  V. 

The  Modern  Period  (continued) : 
HOOKER  —  LOCKE  —  ROUSSEAU  — 
BLACKSTONE. 

The  movement  in  political  specula- 
tion of  which  LOCKE  stands  at  the 
head  was  the  result  not  of  a  pure 
development  of  scientific  ideas,  but  of 
the  necessity  for  having  a  theory  to 
justify  accomplished  facts.  LOCKE'S 
Essay  on  Civil  Government  is  in  truth 
an  elaborate  apology  for  the  revolu- 
tion of  1688;  not  ostensibly  for  its 
righteousness  or  policy  in  the  particu- 
lar circumstances,  but  for  the  possi 
bility  of  such  a  proceeding  being 
rightful  in  any  circumstances.  The 
partisans  of  JAMES  II.  took  their  stand 
on  a  supposed  indefeasible  right  of 
kings,  derived  from  a  supposed  divine 
institution  of  monarchy.  The  doctrine 
of  divine  right  has  to  modern  eyes 
no  sort  of  merit.  It  was  not  rational, 
it  was  not  ingenious,  it  was  not  even 
ancient.  A  certain  sanctity  had  in- 
deed attached  to  kings  from  time  im- 
memorial. But  this  belonged  to  the 
office,  not  to  the  person  apart  from  the 
office.  Because  the  man  had  a  kind 
of  sacred  character  while  he  was  king, 
it  by  no  means  followed  that  being 
once  made  king  he  could  not  be  un- 
made, or  was  entitled  to  retain  and 
exercise  the  office  without  conditions. 
I  The  notion  of  the  office  itself  being 
I  something  above  human  disposition 
and  jurisdiction  had  been  introduced 
only  in  the  current  century.  Still, 
absurd  as  it  was,  it  was  fortified  by  a 
great  show  of  respectable  authority. 
It  had  taken  root  in  many  minds,  and 
become  a  motive  or  a  stumbling-block 
in  many  good  men's  consciences.  The 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


Whigs  needed  an  antidote,  and  LOCKE  men  in  this  state  are  not  in  absolute 
found  one  in  his  modified  version  of  anarchy.  They  are  subject  to  the  law 
the  original  compact.  HOOKER  had  to  of  reason,  which  "teaches  all  man- 
some  extent  prepared  the  way.  Long  kind,  who  will  but  consult  it,  that 


the  Commonwealth. 
of  HOOKEK'S  tieatise 
Ecclesiastical   Polity 


before  his  time  FORTESCUE,  and  prob- 
ably others,  had,  in  a  confused  fashion, 
represented  the  English  constitution 
as  in  some  way  founded  on  the  delib- 
erate assent  of  the  original  founders  of 
Li  the  first  book 
of  the  Laws  of 
the  conception 

takes  a  distinct  shape.  The  plainer- 
spoken  doctrine  of  the  natural  state  of 
war  which  afterward  gave  so  much 
offense  in  HOBBES  is  virtually  fore- 
shadowed in  HOOKER'S  paragraph  on 
the  condition  of  men  without  civil 
government :  and  the  origin  of  govern- 
ment is  in  express  terms  referred  to 
"deliberate  advice,  consultation,  and 
composition  between  men."  HOOKER 
adds  his  opinion  that  there  is  "no  im- 
possibility in  nature  considered  by  it- 
self, but  that  men  might  have  lived 
without  any  public  regiment ; "  a 
phrase  which  looks  like  a  willful 
contradiction  of  ARISTOTLE'S  axiom 
though,  considering  the  respect  with 
which  HOOKER  constantly  cites 
ARISTOTLE,  it  is  difficult  to  believe 
that  it  was  in  fact  so  meant.  We  may 
also  discov  er  both  here  and  in  the  un- 
finished eighth  book  a  nascent  theory 
of  sovereignty,  but  it  is  nascent  at 


After 
of  the 


most.  Had  the  divine  to  whom  the 
name  of  Judicious  was  eminently 
applied  by  the  next  generation  worked 
out  anything  definite  in  this  direction, 
it  would  probably  have  shown  more 
regard  for  the  historical  conditions  of 
English  politics  and  the  practical  possi- 
bilities of  government  than  the  heroic 
method  of  HOBBES. 

LOCKE  sets  to  work  to  cast  the  ideas 
of  HOOKER  (whom  he  expressly  cites) 
into  a  better  defined  form.  His  de- 
finition of  political  power  is  curiously 
lumbering  and  loaded  with  qualifica- 
tions, as  if  he  were  afraid  of  giving  a 
handle  to  despotism.  He  begins  with 
a  state  of  nature,  but  he  conceives  of 
it  otherwise  than  HOBBES.  The  mark 
of  the  state  of  nature  is  the  "  want  of 
a  common  judge  with  authority; "  but  of  that  society ;  there,  aud  there  only, 

27 


being  all  equal  and  independent,  no  one 
ought  to  harm  another  in  his  life, 
health,  liberty,  or  possession."  The 
state  of  war  arises  only  when  some  one, 
not  having  the  law  of  reason  before 
his  eyes,  puts  himself  out  of  its  protec- 
tion by  offering  violence  to  others.' 
LOCKE  has  an  answer  in  due  form  to 
the  question  by  what  right  the  others 
may  resist  and  even  kill  the  offender. 
In  the  state  of  nature  every  one  alike 
has  the  executive  power  of  the  law  of 
nature;  and  this  power  is  even  in 
modern  societies  the  only  justification 
for  the  exercise  of  sovereignty  over 
aliens  within  the  territorial  dominion 
of  a  State.  One  would  here  expect 
LOCKE  to  come  at  once  to  the  original 
compact ;  but  he  is  too  wary  for  this. 
He  will  first  establish  as  much  private 
right  as  he  can  ;  and  he  argues  with 
much  ingenuity  for  a  natural  right  of 
property  which  is  altogether  antece- 
dent to  government.  Every  man  is 
said  to  have  "  a  property  in  his 
own  person,"  and  this  is  extended  to 
things  which  he  has  changed  from 
their  natural  state  by  doing  work  upon 
them,  or  in  LOCKE'S  phrase,  "hath 
mixed  his  labor  with  "  Conflict  of 
interests  is  foreseen,  and  is  accordingly 
forestalled  by  the  rule  of  nature  that 
the  right  of  property  is  limited  by 
capacity  of  enjoyment,  or  at  any  rate 


of  permanent  safe  custody 
some  preliminary  discussion 
constitution  of  the  family  we  come  at 
length  to  political  society,  which  is 
described  in  a  curiously  indecisive 
Man  "  hath  by  nature  a 
power  not  only  to  preserve  his  proper- 
ty, that  is,  his  life,  liberty,  and  estate, 
against  the  injuries  and  attempts  of 
other  men,  but  to  judge  of  and  punish 


the  breach  of  that  law 
nature)  "in  others 


(i.  e.  the  law  of 
But  because 


no  political  society  can  be  nor  subsist, 
without  having  in  itself  the  power  to 
preserve  the  property,  and  in  order 
.hereunto,  punish  the  offenses  of  all 


i8o 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


is  political  nociety,  where  every  one  of 
the  members  hath  quitted  this  natural 
power,  and  resigned  it  up  into  the 
hands  of  the  community  in  all  cases 
that  exclude  him  not  from  appealing 
for  protection  to  the  law  established 
by  it.  And  thus  all  private  judg- 
ment of  every  particular  member 
being  excluded,  the  community  comes 
to  be  umpire  by  settled  standing  rules, 
indifferent  and  the  same  to  all  parties." 
Every  man,  as  with  HOBBES,  gives  up 
his  actual  power  to  the  community; 
bnthe  gives  up  not  absolutely,  but  for 
particular  and  limited  purposes.  Who- 
ever joins  an  existing  commonwealth 
becomes  a  party  to  the  original  con- 
tract on  which  it  rests  by  accepting 
the  benefit  of  it,  and  is  as  much  bound 
as  if  he  had  been  present  and  assisting 
at  the  first  institution.  LOCKE  then 
proves  (no  doubt  as  against  HOBBES) 
that  .in  absolute  monarchy  is  not  a 
civil  socii  ty  at  all,  for  an  absolute 
monarch,  being  no  "common  judge 
with  authority  "  to  decide  between 
himself  and  his  subjects,  is  really  in 
the  state  of  nature  with  regard  to 
them.  'When  a  political  society  is 
formed  the  right  of  a  majority  to  be 
the  ultimate  source  of  power  is  deduc- 
ed as  a  practical  necessity  Without 
such  right  the  commonwealth  could 
not  act  as  one  body  at  all.  And  for 
this  LOCKE  appeals  to  actual  usage : 
"We  see  that  in  assemblies  empowered 
to  act  by  positive  laws,  where  no 
number  is  set  by  that  positive  lavv 
which  empowers  them,  the  act  of  the 
majority  passes  for  the  act  of  the 
whole,  and  of  course  determines,  as 
having  by  the  law  of  nature  and  rea- 
son the  power  of  the  whole." 

Political  society,  then,  is  in  LOCKE'S 
theory  constituted  by  the  compact  of 
Its  original  members,  a  compact  re- 
newed from  generation  to  generation 
in  the  person  of  every  citizen  when  he 
comes  to  an  age  of  discretion  to  choose 
his  allegiance.  If  he  chooses,  as  in  the 
vast  majority  of  cases  he  does,  to  go  on 
living  in  the  State  where  he  was 
brought  up,  he  thereby  becomes  a  party 
to  it.>  Constitution,  and  autlioi  izes  its 
sovereignty  over  him.  But  the  sover- 


eignty of  the  society  is  not  absolute  It 
is  limited  to  the  ends  for  which  it  was 
conferred ;  the  State  is  like  a  corporate 
joint-stock  company,  whose  operations 
he  cannot  lawfully  extend  beyond  the 
purposes  for  which  it  was  incorpora- 
ted. Men  have  established  govern 
ments  not  to  control  their  lives  alto- 
gether, but  "  for  the  mutual  preserva- 
tion of  their  lives,  liberties,  and 
estates."  Forms  of  government  may 
be  and  are  various,  but  the  fundamental 
principles  are  the  same.  The  legisla- 
tive power  is  supreme,  and  all  mem- 
bers of  the  State  owe  obedience  to  it; 
but  its  authority  is  not  arbitrary. 
First,  it  must  be  exercised  as  it  was 
given,  for  the  good  of  the  subjects 
Secondly,  it  must  dispense  justice  by 
standing  laws  and  authorized  judges; 
for  under  irregular  arbitrary  power 
the  subjects  would  be  worse  off  than 
in  the  state  of  nature  Thirdly,  no 
man  can  be  deprived  of  any  part  of  his 
property  without  his  own  consent, 
given  either  in  person  or  by  his  rep- 
resentatives ;  or  as  LOCKE  more  cor- 
rectly puts  it  in  summing  up,  "they 
must  not  raise;  taxes  on  the  property 
of  the  people,  without  the  consent  ot' 
the  people,  given  by  themselves  or 
their  deputies."  Fourthly,  the  legis- 
lature cannot  transfer  its  powers  to 

ny  other  person  or  body.     These  are 
organic  maxims  of  government  which 

so  far  as  one  can  make  sure  of  LOCKE'S 
meaning)  cannot  be  dispensed  with  by 
any  power  whatever.  Excellent  max- 
ims they  are,  but  we  should  now  say 
that  they  are  rules  of  political  expedi- 
ency, not  lim'ts  to  the  legal  capacity 
of  the  authority  by  whom  laws  them 
selves  are  made. 

LOCKE  is  aware,  it  should  be  said, 
of  the  objection  that  the  state  of  nature 
is  an  unproved  and  improbable  assump- 
tion, and  the  original  contract,  there- 
fore, no  better  than  a  fiction.  He 
seriously  endeavors  to  deal  with  it, 
though  the  attempt  cannot  be  pro- 
nounced successful.  The  state  of 
nature,  he  says,  is  exhibited  as  a  thing 
really  existing  in  modern  times  by  the 
relation  of  independent  States  to  one 
another.  As  to  the  want  of  evidence 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS.  181 


that  it  was  the  primeval  state  of  man- 
kind in  general,  he  says  that  the  very 
obscurity  of  all  early  records  and  ab- 
sence of  positive  knowledge  leaves  the 
ground  all  the  more  clear  for  any 


probable 
society. 


hypothesis  of  the  origin  of 


Subject  to  these  conditions,  which 
in  some  points  curiously  resemble 
those  imposed  on  sovereignty  by  Bo- 
mx,  LOCKE  is  quite  clear  that  "  whilst 
the  government  subsists,  the  legisla- 
tive is  the  supreme  power  ;  for  what 
can  give  laws  to  another  must  needs 
be  superior  to  him."  But  its  author- 


positive 
remark - 


ence  to  the  English  constitution  and 
the  Revolution  of  1688.  He  never 
distinctly  faces  the  question  whether 
a  change  of  government  can  take 
place  within  the  limits  of 
law.  This  omission  seems 
able  when  we  remember  that  the  Con- 
vention Parliament,  "lawfully,  fully, 
and  freely  representing  all  the  estau-s 
of  the  people  of  this  realm,"  had  ex- 
pressed itself  on  this  point  in  the 
affirmative  in  sufficiently  plain  terms. 
It  is  impossible  to  read  the  Bill  of 
Rights  carefully  without  seeing  that 
its  framers  were  convinced  not  onlv 


ity  is  not  indefeasible :  "being  only  a  of  the  justice  and  policy  but  of  the 
fiduciary  power  to  act  for  certain  j  strict  legality  of  their  proceedings, 
ends,"  it  may  be  forfeited  by  misuse. 
Under  every  form  of  government  the 
community  retains  a  supreme  power 
of  self-preservation,  a  power  which, 
underlying  all  positive  institutions, 
and  not  being  bound  to  any  of  them, 
"can  never  take  place  till  the  govern- 
ment be  dissolved."  HOBBES  would 
say  that  this  alleged  power  is  merely 
a  specious  name  for  the  de  facto  pos- 
sibility of  a  successful  rebellion,  fol- 
lowed by  a  return  to  the  natural  state 
of  war,  in  other  words  for  that  anar- 
chy which  is  to  be  avoided  at  all  costs. 
Further  on  LOCKE,  as  if  to  meet  this 
objection,  is  at  no  small  pains  to  show 
that  the  dissolution  of  governments  is 
to  be  distinguished  from  that  of  soci- 
eties. "  Where  the  society  is  dissolv- 
ed, the  government  cannot  remain." 
but  governments  may  be  altered  or 
dissolved  from  within,  and  the  society 
not  be  destroyed.  LOCKE  seems  to 
regard  the  original  agreement  as  hav- 
ing t\vo  stages.  First,  people  agree 
to  live  in  a  commonwealth ;  next, 
that  the  institutions  of  their  particular 
commonwealth  shall  have  this  or  that 
form.  So  far  as  the  agreement  con- 
cerns the  establishment  of  a  commu- 
nity in  general,  it  is  perpetual  and 
irrevocable ; .  so  far  as  it  places  author- 
ity in  the  hands  of  a  dynasty  or  an  as- 
sembly,it  is  subject  to  a  revision  when- 
ever organic  change  is  demanded  by 
the  common  good.  LOCKE  illustrates 
his  position  by  cases  hypothetical  in 
terms,  but  having  a  transparent  refer- 


Technical  difficulties  were  felt  as  to 
the  exact  manner  in  which  James  II. 
had  legally  ceased  to  be  king.  But 
the  Revolution  was  conducted  through- 
out as  a  reformation  within  the  law, 
nay,  as  a  restoration  of  the  law,  not 
as  a  breaking  of  legal  bonds  which 
had  become  intolerable.  It  was 
LOCKE'S  way,  however,  to  swallow  up 
legality  in  policy  almost  as  much  HS 
HOBBES  had  swallowed  up  policy  in 
legality. 

At  one  point  LOCKE  comes  down, 
as  against  HOBBES,  on  the  hard  bot- 
tom of  facts,  and  does  it  with  great 
effect.  He  expects  the  objection  that 
"this  hypothesis"  (of  the  possible 
forfeiture  of  political  power)  ''lays  a 
ferment  for  frequent  rebellion."  And 
he  answers,  "No  more  than  any  other 
hypothesis ;  for  when  the  people  are 
made  miserable,  aud  find  themselves 
exposed  to  the  ill  usage  of  arbitrary 
power,  cry  up  their  governors  as 
much  as  you  will,  for  sons  of  Jupiter; 
let  them  be  sacred  or  divine,  descend- 
ed or  authorized  from  heaven ;  give 
them  out  for  whom  or  what  you 
please,  the  same  will  happen."  The 
preaching  of  HOBBES'S  irrevocable 
covenant  of  sovereignty,  or  FILMER'S 
patriarchal  title  of  kings  deduced 
from  ADAM,  will  not  make  people  en- 
dure a  government  that  is  in  fact  un 
endurable.  It  ia  by  no  means  clear 
that  HOBBES  was  not  ready  to  say  it 
would ;  it  is  clear,  at  any  rate,  from 
divers  passages  in  his  Leviathan  and 


182 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


elsewhere,  that  he  set  an  exaggerated 
value  upon  the  influence  of  political 
theories  propagated  under  color  of 
civil  or  ecclesiastical  authority.     He 
seems  to  have  thought  the  bulk  of 
men   would    believe   whatever  their 
superiors  told  them,  even  when  their 
own  obvious  interests  were  concerned, 
and  the  sovereign  might  make  them 
believe  what  he  pleased  if  he  took 
care  to  allow  no  superior  but  himself. 
For  the  rest,  the   hesitations   and 
half-truths  of  LOCKE  and  his  followers 
are  partly  to  be  accounted  for  by  the 
practical   conditions  of    their   work. 
They   dared   not  say  distinctly  that 
the  king  of  England  was  not  sover- 
eign in  the  political  sense  of  sover- 
eignty.    LOCKE    says,  for    example, 
that  "in  some  commonwealths  where 
the     legislative    is    not    always    in 
being,  and  the  executive  is  vested  in  a 
single  person,  who  has  also  a  share 
in  the  legislative,  there    that  single 
person  in  a  very  tolerable  sense  may 
also    be    called  supreme."     Besides 
this,  LOCKE   was  evidently  afraid  on 
principle    of  over-definition.     He  is 
nowhere  so  precise  on  the  supreme 
authority  of  Parliament  (for  the  Eng- 
lish Parliament  is  constantly  in  his 
mind  when  he  speaks  of  the  "legis- 
lative")  as   SIR    THOMAS    SMITH    a 
century  before  him.     On  prerogative, 
again,  he  is  not  so  plain-spoken  or 


exact  as  SELDEN  had  been.  SELDEN, 
like  a  clear-headed  lawyer,  said  there 
was  no  mystery  at  all.  Prerogative  is 
the  law  which  peculiarly  concerns  the 
Crown,  and  is  not  different  in  kind 
from  any  other  branch  of  law.*  With 
LOCKE  there  is  still  a  shadow  of 
mystery  about  it.  Prerogative  is  a 
vague  and  extraordinary  discretion, 
limited,  like  the  legislative  power  it- 
self, by  the  rule  that  it  must  be  em- 
ployed .in  good  faith  for  the  public 
advantage. 

the 


that  a  moderate  constitutional  govern- 
ment not    merely  was  justified    by 
the  law  of  nature,  but  was  the  only 
government  so  justified.    It  remained 
for   ROUSSEAU   to  employ  the   same 
fiction   for    purposes   which  HOBBES 
would  have  thought  the  very  madness 
of  anarchy,  and  at  which  LOCKE  would 
have  been  appalled.     LOCKE'S  propo- 
sitions, as  Mr.  MORLEY  has  pointed 
out,  are  guarded  by  practical  reserves, 
on  all  sides,  and  are  as  far  as  possible 
from  being  universal  dogmas.    ROUS- 
SEAU was  more  popular  than  LOCKE, 
and    more   dogmatic  than    HOBBES. 
The  result  was  that  the  Contrat  So- 
cial became  one  of  the  most  success- 
ful and  fatal  of  political  impostures.* 
ROUSSEAU'S   social  contract  is  dis- 
tinguished from  that  of  other  specu- 
lators in  purporting  to  create  a  com- 
mon  and   sovereign   power   and  yet 
leave  every  contracting  party  as  free 
as  he  was  before,  and  owing  obedience 
only  to  himself.     Every  man  gives  up 
himself  and  his  individual   rights   as 
fully  as  in  HOBBES'S  covenant.     But 
the  surrender  is  to  the  whole  society, 


not  to  a  sovereign.  "  Chacun  se 
a  tons  ne  se  donne  dper- 
sonne."  The  terms  of  the  contract 
(for  ROUSSEAU  knows  all  about  the 
terms)  are  as  follows: — "Each  of  us 
puts  his  person  and  faculties  in  a  com- 
mon stock  under  the  sovereign  direc- 
tion of  the  general  will;  and  we 
receive  every  member  as  an  insepa- 
rable part  of  the  whole."  Every 
member  is  called  citizen  as  having  a 
share  in  the  sovereignty,  subject  as 
owing  obedience  to  the  laws  made  by 
the  State.  Whoever  refuses  to  obey 
;he  general  will  is  to  be  compelled 
t>y  the  whole  body  to  obey  it :  "which 


*  It  contains  incidentally  one  of  the  many 
fallacies  of  international  law  which  have 
been  warmly  espoused  (by  no  means  out  of 
pure  philanthropy)  by  certain  Continental 
statesmen  and  publicists  :  "  La  guerre  n'est 


K    i  u  TT  s 

ICt  had  been  used  by  HOBBES  to  \point  une  relation  d'homme  a  homme,  mats 
generate  the   absolute  power  of  his 
Leviathan,  and  by   LOCKE  to  show 


*  SELDKN, 
ttve. 


"  Table-talk,"    /.  ».   Preroga- 


une  relation  d'etat  a.  itat."  This  leads 
straight  to  the  monstrous  proposition  that  no 
one  not  specially  authorized  by  the  State  may 
defend  his  own  homestead  against  an  invader, 
and  is  used  by  the  publicists  in  question  for 
that  purpose. 


30 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


183 


A  as  much  as  to  say  that  he   will  be 
aompelled   to   be  free" — an  ominous 
phrase.     The  sovereign  power    thus 
created  is  spoken  of  in  a  tone  which 
HOBBES  could  not  surpass.     It  is   in- 
alienable,  indivisible,  and,  it   would 
seem,  infallible,  if  you  can  only  get 
the  "general  will"  truly  expressed. 
The  sovereign  is  bound  to  be  just  in 
the  sense   of  having  no   respect   of 
persons.     Law  is  defined  by  the  one 
mark  of  generality,  so  that  the  choice 
of  a  king  or  a  dynasty  cannot   be   a 
legislative  act.     A  definition  by  which 
the  Bill  of  Rights  is  partly  a  law  and 
partly  not,  and  the  Act  of  Settlement 
is  not  one  at  all,  does  not  particularly 
commend  itself  to  the  English  student 
of    politics.     ROUSSEAU'S    object    is 
apparently  to  reconcile  HOBBES'S  dic- 
tum that  no  law  can  be  unjust,  which 
he  adopts,  with  his  own  definition  of 
the  justice  required  in  the  sovereign. 
Further,  no  power  in  the  State  can  be 
sovereign.  The  legislator  is  not  sover- 
eign, but  the  organ  and  servant  of  the 
sovereign  community.     The  govern- 
ment is  not  the  sovereign,  but  a  rnedi 
ator  between  the  community  in   its 
corporate  and  sovereign  capacity  and 
its  individual   members  as  subjects. 
As  the  government  cannot  legislate,  so 
the  sovereign  cannot  govern  directly. 
But  the  tendency  of  governments  is 
to  aim  at  usurping  sovereignty ;  sooner 
or  later    the     ruler    subjugates   the 
sovereign,  and  the  fundamental  pact  of 
society  is  broken.  This  is  the  inherent 
weakness  of  all   commonwealths,  by 
which  they  ultimately   perish.     The 
political  as  well  as  the  natural  body  is 
on  the  way  to   death   from   the   mo 
merit  it  begins  to  live. 

ROUSSEAU  does  not  fail  to  see  that 
the  complete  exercise  of  sovereign 
power,  according  to  his  notion  of  it, 
is  impossible ;  for  how  are  the  sover- 
eign people  all  to  come  together?  His 
answer  is  that  modern  States  are  a 
great  deal  too  large ;  he  would  restore 
the  independent  Greek  city,  or  what 
he  supposed  it  to  be.  When  the 
people  are  assembled  every  citizen  is 
equally  a  magistrate,  and  all  govern- 
ment is.  in  abeyance.  Representative 


government,  where  it  exists,  is  only  a 
makeshift ;  deputies  of  the  people  can- 
not really  represent  its  power,  they 
can  be  only  limited  agents  whose  acta 
need  ratification.  English  liberty  is 
an  illusion  ;  for  the  English  people  is 
the  slave  of  the  Parliament  it  makes. 
Political  representation  is  indeed  no 
better  than  a  rag  of  feudal  iniquity. 
Thus  for  want  of  a  proper  declaration 
of  the  "  general  will ' '  there  is  hardly 
a  nation  on  earth  which  possesses* 
laws  in  any  proper  sense.  But  then, 
^  Jl  just  and  true 
people  with  the 


how    to    unite 


sovereignty    of 


the 
the 


size  and  defensive  resources  of  the 
modern  State  ?  ROUSSEAU  promised 
to  deal  at  large  with  this  question,  but 
did  not  perform  his  promise  in  the 
Contrat  /Social,  or  any  other  pub- 
lished writing.*  Apparently  his  plan 
would  have  been  the  establishment  of 
some  sort  of  federal  government  for 
purposes  of  external  policy.  The 
federal  constitution  of  Switzerland, 
though  in  his  time  a  very  imperfett 
one,  would  have  no  doubt  furnished 
a  good  part  of  his  matter  for  this 
head. 

The  social  contract  had  sometimes 
been  represented  as  including,  or 
identical  with,  a  contract  between  tho 
king  or  other  ruler  and  the  people. 
ROUSSEAU  formally  repudiates  this. 
Government  is  created,  in  his  view, 
not  by  contract,  but  by  an  act  of 
sovereignty.  The  supposed  contract, 
he  says  (truly  enough,  but  the  remark 
comes  strangely  from  him),  would  be 
notcivil  but  merely  natural,  and  would 
be  under  the  sanction  of  no  common 
authority.  There  is  only  one  contract, 
the  original  contract  of  society ;  this 
leaves  no  room  for  any  other,  for  the 
community  has  acquiied  by  it  all  the 
rights  of  its  individual  members.  So 
confident  is  ROUSSEAU  in  the  indefea- 
sible rights  of  the  sovereign  people 
that  he  seems  to  approve  of  delega- 


*  It  is  stated  that  he  left  materials  on  this 
subject  which  were  destroyed  from  political 
scruples.  Their  custodian  need  not  have 
feared  to  publish  them.  It  would  have  been 
difficult  to  add  to  the  mischief  wrought  bjr 
the  Contrat  Social  without  their  aid. 


1 84 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


tions  of  authority  which  constitutional 
writers  like  LOCKE  thought  dangerous 
and  unwarrantable.  He  speaks  with 
equanimity  of  a  dictatorship.  In  the 
days  of  the  Committee  of  Public 
Safety  the  Jacobin  governors  of 
France  more  than  acted  up  to  his 
principles.  One  more  great  difficulty 
remained  about  the  exercise  of  the 
sovereign  people's  rights.  ROUS- 
SEAU had  of  course,  like  all  other 
absolute  theorists  on  government,  to 
make  out  why  a  dissenting  citizen 
should  be  bound  by  the  will  of  the 
majority.  This  he  does  in  a  fashion 
both  more  sophistical  and  more  clumsy 
than  LOCKE'S.  LOCKE  indeed  is  frank 
enough  in  his  appeal  to  practical  con 
venience  on  this  point. 

Thus  much  for  a  rapid  sketch  of 
ROUSSEAU'S  political  system,  of  which 
the  historical  importance  is  that  it  is 
in  great  measure  answerable  for  the 
Declaration  of  the  Rights  of  Man.* 
This  Declaration  (which  belongs  to 
the  earliest  stage  of  the  Revolution) 
carries  the  confusion  of  legal  right 
and  political  expediency,  and  the 
enunciation  of  pompous  platitudes  un- 
der qualifications  so  wide  as  to  make 
them  illusory,  to  a  pitch  seldom,  if 
ever,  equaled  in  any  other  political 
document.  The  birth  of  all  men  free 
and  with  equal  rights,  the  collective 
sovereignly  of  the  nation,  and  the 
"  volonte  generate  "  which  positive 
laws  express,  are  taken  straight  from 
ROUSSEAU.  It  would  be  unjust  to 
deny  all  merit  to  the  Declaration.  The 
7th,  8th,  and  9th  articles  express,  in 
language  fairly  free  from  objection, 
important  maxims  of  legislation  and 
administrative  jurisprudence.  But  so 
far  as  the  Declaration  embodies  a 
political  theory,  it  is  a  standing  warn- 
ing to  nations  and  statesmen  not  to 
commit  themselves  to  formulas  The 
original  contract  between  king  and 
people  had  been  much  talked  of  at 
Westminster  in  the  debates  on  the  ab 
dicatiori  of  JAMES  II.  :  but  happily  we 

*  The  full  text  of  this  document  (which 
most  historians  strangely  negita)  is  given  in 
HENRI  MARTIN'S  Histoire  <fc  la  France  de- 
fuii  1789,  vol.  i.  p.  78. 


escaped  having  it  embodies  in  the  Bil! 
of  Rights.  The  effect  of  the  Pri  nciples 
of  1789,  as  the  Declaration  of  the 
Rights  of  Man  is  often  called,  has 
been  to  hinder  and  prevent  the  de- 
velopment of  politics  in  France,  in 
practice  as  well  as  in  theory,  to  an 
almost  incalculable  extent. 

While  ROUSSEAU'S  Gontrat  Social 
was  almost  fresh  from  the  press. 
BLACKSTONE  was  handling  LOCKK'S 
principles  in  England  after  qu  te 
another  fashion.  If  we  dismiss  from 
our  minds  BENTH  AM' s  fervid  criticism, 
and  approach  BLACKSTONE  in  an  un- 
prejudiced mood,  we  shall  find  that  he 
not  only  was  faithful  to  his  lights,  but 
materially  improved  on  LOCKE  in  more 
than  one  point.*  For  one  thing,  he 
distinctly  refuses  to  believe  in  the 
state  of  nature  as  an  historical  fact, 
and  thereby  avoids  a  difficulty  which 
LOCKE  had  palliated  rather  than  met 
by  ingenious  but  weak  excuses.  "  So- 
ciety had  not  its  formal  beginning 
from  any  convention  of  individuals." 
BLACKSTONE  treats  the  family  as  the 
unit  of  society,  and  reduces  the  orig- 
inal contract,  though  he  does  not 
abandon  the  term,  to  the  fact  that  men 
hold  together  in  society  because  they 
cannot  help  it.  On  the  doctrine  of 
sovereignty,  again,  he  is  much  clearer 
than  LOCKE.  In  all  forms  of  govern- 
ment "there  is  andinustbeasupreme, 
irresistible,  absolute,  uncontrolled 
authority,  in  which  the  jura  summa 
imperil  or  the  rights  of  sovereignty 
reside."  And  he  affirms,  as  against 
LOCKE'S  vague  reservations,  that  in 


*  It  is  easy  for  us  now  to  make  light  of 
BLACKSTONE'S  constitutional  theory.  Two 
things,  I  conceive,  ought  to  be  remembered 
in  fairness  to  him.  (i)  BLAI  KSTONE  wrote 
as  a  lawyer  ;  and,  as  far  as  positive  law  goes, 
a  hopeless  deadlock  was  and  is  quiie  possible 
in  the  working  of  the  English  Constitution  as 
it  stood  in  his  time  and  stands  now.  (2)  The 
distribution  of  real  political  power  between 
the  Crown  and  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament 
was  still  undefined  at  the  date  of  BLACK- 
STONE'S  description.  We  now  say  that  po- 
litical power,  as  distinct  from  legal  sover- 
eignty, is  in  the  last  resort  with  the  majority 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  BLACKSTON* 
not  only  would  not  but  could  not  have  8*id 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


England  this  authority  belongs  to 
Parliament,  and  there  is  no  legal 
possibility  of  looking  further.  "  What 
the  Parliament  doth,  no  authority 
upon  earth  can  undo."  The  separa 
tion  of  law  from  policy  is  still  far 
from  complete,  but  BLACKSTONE  is 
nearer  to  the  true  state  of  the  facts 
than  either  HOBBES  or  LOCKE. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The   Modern    Period   (continued)  : 
HUME — MONTESQUIEU — BURKE. 

ROUSSEAU  and  BLACKSTONE  have 
been  taken  out  of  their  order  in  time 
for  the  convenience  of  bringing  into 
one  view  the  social  contract  in  its 
various  forms.  Meantime  the  doctrine 
had  not  escaped  criticism  on  its  native 
soil.  HUME,  taking  a  double  pleasure, 
we  may  be  sure,  in  dissecting  a  phil 
osophical  fallacy  which  was  almost  a 
Whig  article  of  faith,  exposed  its 
hollowness  in  such  fashion  as  really 
left  nothing  more  to  be  said.  But 
HUME  was  a  destroyer,  not  a  rebuilder. 
He  had  nothing  to  put  in  the  place  of 
the  beloved  fiction,  which  accordingly 
went  on  living  in  political  common- 
place, as  Mr.  STEPHEN  has  said,  long 

His    own 
poor   and 


institutions  as  belonging  to  societies 
of  definite  historical  types,  and  deter- 
mined by  historical  conditions  One 
may  remember  with  a  certain  pride 
that  he  was  a  member  of  our 
own  Royal  Society,  which  thus  early 
recognized  in  his  person  that  the 
questions  of  politics  as  well  as  of 
physics  may  be  treated  in  a  scientific 
spirit,  so  as  to  give  a  truly  scientific 
character  to  the  inquirer's  work. 

MONTESQUIEU'S  plan  included  two 
ideas,  which  were  brilliant  in  them- 
selves and  quite  out  of  the  common 
course  of  the  publicists  of  the  time. 
He  aimed  at  constructing  a  compara- 
tive theory  of  legislation  arid  institu- 
tions adapted  to  the  political  needs 
of  different  forms  of  government,  and 
a  comparative  theory  of  politics  and 
law  based  on  wide  observation  of  the 
actual  systems  of  different  lands  and 
ages.  In  the  first  branch  of  this  design 
MACHIAVELLI  had,  after  a  sort,  been 
before  him,  but  in  a  limited  field  and 
for  a  special  purpose.  The  second 
was  entirely  new.  We  have  already 
said  that  the  execution  was  not 
equal  to  the  conception.  The  means 
did  not  exist  for  making  it  so.  Few 
books  are  so  unfit  to  be  judged  by 
extracts  or  cursory  inspection  as  the 
Esprit  des  Lois.  There  are  many 


chapters  in  it  which  might  have  come 


after  the  brains  were  out. 
political  conceptions  were 

mechanical,  and  his  idea  of  a  perfect  I  from  a  mere  gossiping  collector  of 
commonwealth  is  one  of  the  most  travelers'  talcs.  Nor  is  MONTESQUIEU 
barren  and  least  pleasing  exercises  of  by  any  means  always  happy  in  his 
political  imagination  ever  produced.  \  reflections.  He  was  above  many  of  the 
It  was  a  Frenchman  who  supplied  <  illusions  of  his  time,  but  he  could  not 
beforehand,  if  his  countrymen  would  :  escape  the  besetting  temptation  of  the 
have  appreciated  it,  an  antidote  to  !  eighteenth  century  to  regard  men  as 
ROUSSEAU'S  fictions.  MONTESQUIEU,  •  more  rational  than  they  are.  Thus 
with  all  his  faults  and  irregularities,  '  we  find  him  assigning  conjectural 
is  the  father  of  modern  historical  re-  reasons  of  State  policy  for  all  kinds 
search.  His  information  was  often  of  barbarous  customs,  more  or  less 
crude  and  imperfect,  his  inferences  correctly  reported  by  Jesuit  mission- 
often  hasty,  and  his  judgment  often  aries  and  others.  He  rightly  saw 
misdirected.  Yet  he  held  fast  to  the  that  customs  which  appear  to  us 


•^reat  truth  that  serious  politics  can-  foolish  or  monstrous  do  not  exist 
not  be  constructed  in  the  air  by  playing  without  any  reason  at  all.  He  no  less 
with  imaginary  men  of  no  particular  rightly  saw  that  the  institutions  of  a 


not  be  constructed  in  the  air  by  playing  without  any  reason  at  all. 

with  imaginary  men  of  no  particular  rightly  saw  that  the  instit 

race  or  country,  and  building  them  up  society  depend  on  its  particular  cou- 

into  arbitrary  combinations,  as  a  child  ditions,  and  must  be  studied  in  con- 

builds  castles  with    wooden    bricks,  nection  with  them ;  but   in  counting 

He  applied  himself  to  study  political  the  conditions    he  left  out  the  men 

33 


i86 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


themselves.  He  did  not  see  that  to 
understand  a  civil  society  widely 
differing  from  our  own  we  must  first 
get  some  knowledge  of  the  ancestral 
habits  and  character  of  its  members, 
and  of  the  stage  they  have  reached  in 
general  culture.  In  one  word,  he 
stopped  short  of  discovering  that  in- 
stitutions are  an  affair  of  race  as  well 
as  of  circumstances;  not  far  short, 
for  he  went  a  considerable  way  in 
the  aplication  of  physiology  to  poli- 
tics. It  is  not  so  much  that  MONTES- 
QUIEU neglects  race  as  that  he  exag- 
gerates the  modif >  ing  effect  of  exter- 
nal conditions.  And  we  also  find  his 
historical  method,  imperfect  as  it  was, 
preserving  him  from  a  great  many  cur- 
rent mistakes.  For  example,  he  com- 
pletely sees  through  the  rose-colored 
accounts  of  the  Chinese  empire  which 
were  the  common  stock  of  eighteenth 
century  mor  i lists  and  even  of  VOL- 
TAIRE, and  this  because  he  has  taken 
the  trouble  to  study  the  facts  as  a 
whole. 

Again,  MONTESQUIEU'S  remarks  on 
England,  of  which  he  has  a  good 
many  (though  sometimes  thinly  dis- 
guised, like  LOCKE'S,  in  the  form  of 
suppositions),  are  by  no  means  free 
from  mistakes ;  but  they  show  on  the 
whole  a  wonderful  insight  into  the 
effectual  forces  of  English  policy,  and 
what  is  more,  into  the  English  char- 
acter.* It  is  needless  to  say  much  of 
his  general  enlightenment  and  robust- 
ness of  mind.  A  writer  who  in  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
could  suggest,  though  in  an  ironical 
passage,  an  international  convention 
against  the  slave  trade,  needs  no  fur- 
ther commendation.  Once  more,  he 
meets  with  rare  straightforwardness 
the  ancient  objection  to  popular 
government— that  the  people  at  large 
are  not  competent  in  politics.  It  is 
not  to  be  expected,  says  MONTESQUIEU, 
that  they  should  be  comp3tent,  nor 
does  it  much  matter.  The  main  thing 
is  that  they  should  be  interested 
Experience  and  discussion  must  be 

*  On  some  points  of  English  foreign  and 
colonial  policy  AiuvrtsguiEU  is  almost  pro- 
phetic.— Esf.  des  Lois,  book  xx.  0.27. 


trusted  to  make  error  find  its  level 
"  Dans  une  nation  libre,  il  est  tres- 
souvent  indifferent  que  les  particu- 
liers  raisonnent  bien  ou  mat  /  il 
suffit  qu'ils  raisonnent :  de  In  sort  la 
liberte,  qui  garantit  des  effets  de  ces 
memes  raisonnements" 

MONTESQUIEU  was  vastly  honored 
in  his  own  country,  but  very  little 
attended  to.  BURKE  fared  even  worse ; 
he  had  the  melancholy  satisfaction  of 
seeing  his  wisest  counsels  neglected, 
and  seeing  the  neglect  of  them  fol- 
lowed by  the  evils  he  predicted  ;  and 
when  at  last  he  was  taken  into  favor 
it  was  because  his  political  reason  fell 
in  for  once  with  the  blind  passions  of 
those  who  had  denounced  him  as  a 
renegade. 

Just  now  I  said  that  MONTESQUIEU 
was  a  difficult  author  to  give  a  fair 
representation  of  in  any  summary 
manner.  For,  though  he  professes  to 
be  systematic,  he  is  too  discursive  and 
unequal  to  be  judged  of  in  abridge- 
ment. Neither  will  an  epitome  of  the 
matter  serve  much  for  knowledge  of 
his  real  import,  since  his  merit  is  often 
far  more  in  the  disposition  and  hand- 
ling than  in  the  matter  itself.  With 
BURKE  the  difficulty  is  yet  greater; 
he  is  full  of  ideas  more  instructive 
than  other  men's  systems,  but  they  are 
so  admirably  woven  into  the  discus- 
sion of  particular  and  actual  questions 
that  they  refuse  to  be  torn  out  as  ex- 
amples of  him.  They  proceed  from  a 
settled  way  of  thinking,  but  are  no- 
where reduced  into  a  connected  argu- 
ment. A  light  of  great  wisdom  shines 
in  almost  everything  of  BURKK'S  mak- 
ing, but  it  is  a  diffused  light,  of  which 
the  focus  is  not  revealed  but  only  con- 
jectured. This  is  in  the  first  place  due  to 
the  manner  of  BURKE'S  life  and  to  the 
occasions  of  his  activity  ;  but  it  is 
also  connected  with  the  nature  of  his 
thought  itself.  We  may  be  pretty 
sure  that  BURKE  would  under  no  con- 
ditions have  constructed  a  formal  the- 
ory of  politics.  He  mistrusted  for- 
malism even  to  excess,  and  was  never 
so  happy  as  when  he  used  the  most 
splendid  power  of  political  reasoning 
ever  exhibited  in  English  oratory  to 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


187 


denounce  the  danger  of  reasoning 
overmuch.  He  was  not  afraid  to  say 
that  he  feared  definitions  "  Meta- 
physics cannot  live  without  definitions, 
but  prudence  is  cautious  how  she  de- 
fines." He  declared  himself  "re- 
solved not  to  be  wise  beyond  what  is 
written  in  the  legislative  record  and 
practice."  Not  only  is  BURKE  not 
formally  complete  as  a  political  teach- 
er, but  if  \ve  look  for  formal  consist- 
ency in  him  we  shall  not  find  it. 
When  he  is  denouncing  the  monstrous 
penal  laws  of  Ireland  he  sets  the  con- 
ventional value  of  positive  laws  as 
low  as  possible.  Curiously  antici- 
pating in  one  point  almost  the  very 
language  of  the  greatest  master  of  the 
modern  historical  school,  BURKE  says 
that  "  as  a  law  directed  against  the 
mass  of  the  nation  has  not  the  nature 
of  a  reasonable  institution,  so  neither 
has  it  the  authority :  for  in  all  forms 
of  government  the  people  is  the  true 
legislator;*  and  whether  the  im- 
mediate and  instrumental  cause  of  the 
law  be  a  single  person  or  many,  the 
remote  and  efficient  cause  is  the  con- 
sent of  the  people,  either  actual  or  j 
implied;  and  such  consent  is  absolutely 
essential  to  its  validity."  Even  the 
whole  people  "  have  no  right  to  make 
a  law  prejudicial  to  the  whole  com- 
munity." When  the  same  BURKE  is 
combating  the  Declaration  of  the 
Rights  of  Man  he  speaks  of  legal 
power  in  a  strangely  different  tone. 
In  the  tracts  on  the  Popery  Laws 
HOBBES  is  just  mentioned  as  having 
broached  a  monstrous  ductrine ;  in  the 
Reflections  on  the  French  Revolu- 
tion we  catch  for  a  moment  the  ring 
of  HOBBES'S  doctrine  almost  in  HOB- 
BES's  own  words.  "If  civil  society 
be  the  offspring  of  convention  that 
convention  must  be  its  law ;  "  no 
^ersson  can  claim  any  right  incon- 
sistent with  it.  *'  That  he  may  obtain 
justice  he  gives  up  his  right  of  deter- 
mining what  it  is  in  points  the  most 
essential  to  him.  That  he  may 
(secure  some  liberty  he  makes  a  sur- 


*  Compare  SAVIGNV'S  "  Das  Gesetz  ist  das 
Organ  des  Volksrechts." 


render  in  trust  of  the  whole  of  it." 
Government  is  a  thing  apart  from 
natural  rights ;  it  is  contrived  to  pro- 
vide for  men's  wants  and  to  restrain 
their  passions,  which  "can  only  be 
done  by  a  power  out  of  themselves  " — 
HOBBES'S  <; common  power  to  keep 
them  in  awe."  And  for  the  moment 
we  think  BURKE  is  ready  to  fall  down 
and  worship  the  Leviathan  if  Levia- 
than will  put  a  sword  in  his  hand  to 
smite  the  Jacobins  with. 

Yet  it  is  the  same  BURKE  who 
speaks  in  both  places,  and  really  with 
the  same  voice.  His  anger  against 
Protestant  oppression  in  Ireland  and 
Jacobin  violence  in  France  comes 
from  one  and  the  same  root  His 
constant  purpose,  whether  in  the 
affairs  of  Ireland,  of  England,  or  of 
France,  is  to  appeal  to  experience 
against  dogmatism.  He  will  have  for 
the  guide  of  politics  neither  the  bare 
letter  of  positive  institutions  nor  bare 
deduction  from  universal  propositions, 
but  a  rule  of  equity  and  utility  found- 
ed on  and  preserving  the  rights  and 
liberties  which  exist.  He  will  treat 
politics  as  an  experimental  science, 
not  a  scheme  of  a  priori  demonstra- 
tion. Once  he  was  challenged  with 
substantial  defection  from  his  princi- 
ples His  Reflections  on  the  French 
Revolution  were  said  to  be  repugnant 
to  his  former  public  life.  The  result 
was  the  Appeal  from  the  New  to  the 
Old  Whigs,  in  which,  by  dint  of 
criticising  the  Jacobin  theory  of  so- 
ciety, BURKE  is  brought  nearer  than 
in  any  other  of  its  works  to  an  explicit 
statement  of  his  own. 

We  are  bidden,  he  says,  in  the  name 
of  the  supreme  authority  of  the  people 
to  recognize  as  a  matter,  not  of  extra- 
ordinary necessity,  but  of  common 
right,  an  unlimited  power  of  changing 
the  foundations  of  government.  What 
are  the  people  1  "A  number  of  vague, 
loose  individuals" — the  imaginary 
parties  to  the  social  contract — are  not 
a  people,  neither  can  they  make  them- 
selves one  off-hand  by  convention.  A 
"  multitude  told  by  heads  "  is  no  more 
a  people  after  it  has  been  told  than 
before.  The  corporate  unity  of  a 


35 


i88 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


people  is  artificial  indeed ;  but  art  is 
long,  and  for  that  very  reason  a  nation 
is  easier  unmade  than  made.  And 
how  is  the  supreme  authority  of  the 
people  exercised?  By  the  will  of  a 
majority  But  what  power  has  the 
majority  to  bind  the  rest  ?  Again  an 
artificial  power,  nay,  a  most  artificial 
power.  First  there  is  a  fiction  to 
make  one  corporate  person  of  many 
men  ;  then  another  fiction,  "  one  of 
the  most  violent  fictions  of  positive 
law,"  to  enable  a  majority  to  act  as 
this  one  person.  And  on  these  artificial 
and  judicial  conceptions,  confusing,  as 
BURKE  says,  judicial  with  civil  princi- 
ples, the  French  revolutionary  specu- 
lators would  rest  the  authority  of 
positive  law  itself.  Whether  a  ma- 
jority shall  have  power  to  decide,  in 
what  cases,  and  what  majority,  is  an 
affair  of  convention.  These  people 
have  no  right,  on  their  own  principles, 
to  exercise  any  of  the  authorities  of  a 
State.  If  "prescription  and  long  pos- 
session form  no  title  to  property," 
what  better  claim  have  they  than  a 
horde  of  brigands  or  squatters  to  the 
territory  called  France  ?  Civil  society 
will  not  come  by  counting  of  heads  ; 
it  is  a  social  organism  and  a  social 
discipline.  And  if  it  is  artificial  in  its 
perfection,  yet  it  is  more  truly  a  state 
of  nature  "than  a  savage  and  incoher- 
ent mode  of  life,"  or  rather  it  is  this 
because  it  is  artificial,  for  "  art  is  man's 
nature."  Such  is  the  substance  of 
BURKE'S  comment  on  the  fundamental 
axiom  of  ARISTOTLE.  Man  is  born  to 
be  a  citizen  in  that  he  comes  into  an 
existing  social  order,  and  is  attached 
to  it  by  duties  of  others  to  himself  and 
himself  to  others,  which  are  not,  and 
cannot  be,  of  his  own  making.  He 
does  not  come  into  the  world  as  an 
unrelated  unit  and  acquire  by  some 
convention  a  fantastic  title  to  some 
hundred-thousandth  undivided  part  of 
the  indivisible  sovereignty  of  the  peo- 
ple. 

Never  was  there  a  more  complete 
tearing  to  pieces  and  trampling  under 
foot  of  political  sophistries.  The 
Contrat  Social  is  reduced  in  BURKJE'S 
powerful  hands  to  what  he  has  else- 


where called  it — "  chaff  and  rags  and 
paltry  blurred  shreds  of  paper  about 
the  rights  of  man."     It  seems  hardly 
possible  that  such  a  critic  should  fall  in- 
to sophistries  himself ;  but  he  thought 
little  of  being  guarded,  and  more  than 
once  he  stumbles.     Regarding  politi- 
cal science  as  above  all  things  experi 
mental  and  practical  he  took  up,  as  he 
tells   us  himself,  whatever   point   lie 
thought  most  in  need  of  defense,  and 
urged  his  case  without  qualification  of 
the    matter,   and    without    thinking 
much  of  other  sides.     Thus  we  find  in 
him  forms  of  statement  and  objection 
which  in  a  lesser  man  we  should  call 
obtuse.     Believing   as  he  justly  did, 
in  the  respect  due  to  the  continuity  of 
the  present  with  the  past,  and  to  asso- 
ciations which  cannot  be  replaced,  he 
looked  on  the  analysis  of  the  ultimate 
forces  of  society  as  a  kind  of  sacrilege. 
He  could  see  no  practical  security  for 
the  British  Constitution  if  the  French 
principles  of   1789  were   to  be  held 
tolerable  even   in   speculation.     The 
security  of  the  sympathizers  with  the 
revolution — those  who  profess  to  be 
peaceable   ones — "amounts  in  reality 
to  nothing  more  than   this,  that  the 
difference   between   their  republican 
system  and  the  British  limited  mon- 
archy is  not  worth  a  civil  war  "    And 
this  is  called  by  BURKE  "the  poorest 
defensive   principle  that  ever  was  in- 
fused into  the   mind  of  man   against 
the   attempts  of  those  who  will  en- 
terprise."    As  if  in  the  last  resort  any 
frame  of   society  whatever  had  any 
other  defensive  principle,  or  as  if  any 
stronger   were  conceivable.     HOBBES 
could  find  no  firmer  ground  to  set  un- 
der the  feet  of  the  Leviathan.     The 
vast  majority  of  men   adhere  to  their 
established   institutions,  not   because 
they  admire  them,  not  even  because 
of  any  positive  prejudice  in  their  favor, 
but  because  they  dread  the  unknown. 
They  cling  to  any  tolerable  certainty 
For  certainty  and  custom's  sake,  and 
when  they  break  loose  from  their  ac 
customed  order  it  is  a  vehement  pre- 
sumption  that  their  present  state  is 
not  only   imperfect  but  intolerable. 
When  it  comes  to  that  point  no  pre- 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


189 


icriptive  majesty  of  the  ancient  order 
will  help  it,  not  though  the  voice  of  a 
BURKE  were  there  to  defend  it.  In 
1832  a  large  part  of  the  English  peo- 
ple were  of  opinion  that  the  differ- 
ence between  an  unreformed  and  a 
reformed  Parliament  was  worth  a 
civil  war ;  and  it  was  the  knowledge 
of  their  opinion  and  of  their  readiness 
in  extremity  to  act  on  it  that  then 
narrowly  saved  the  State.  BURKE 
failed  to  see  this  in  the  case  '.  f  the 
French  Revolution,  and  therefore  was 
violent  and  one-sided.  Shallow  or 
false  he  could  not  be ;  stripped  of 
their  rhetorical  exaggerations,  or  often 
even  with  them,  his  charges  were 
mostly  true,  and  his  foresight  of  the 
course  of  events  was  marvelously 
fulfilled.  In  1789,  and  even  later, 
many  good  people,  both  in  Paris 
and  London,  were  dreaming  of  a 
happy  and  peaceful  change  from  the 
old  French  monarchy  to  some  new 
version  of  the  British  Constitution. 
BUUKE  warned  them  from  the  first 
that  at  all  events  they  would  not  see 
fhat,  and  he  was  terribly  in  the  right. 

After  BURKE  it  was  impossible  for 
any  one  in  England  to  set  up  the 
Social  Contract  again,  either  in  Rous 
SEAL'S  or  in  LOCKE'S  form,  for  any 
effectual  purpose.  There  is  another 
distinct  contribution  both  to  political 
science  and  to  exactness  of  reasoning 
in  practical  politics,  which  I  think  we 
may  ascribe  to  him  :  the  separation  of 
expediency  from  legality.  It  might 
be  difficult  to  show  in  his  writings 
any  full  and  formal  enunciation  of 
this  ;  but  it  :s  the  whole  burden  of  his 
great  speeches  and  letters  on  the 
American  War.  Englishmen  were 
declaiming  on  the  right  of  the  British 
Parliament  to  tax  the  colonists. 
BURKE  told  them  the  abstract  right 
might  be  what  it  would,  but  they 
were  fighting  against  justice,  con- 
venience, and  •human  nature,  and  for 
the  sake  of  their  abstract  right  were 
making  a  breach  in  the  dominions  of 
the  British  Crown.  The  event  signally 
and  unhappily  showed  his  wisdom. 

BURKE,  however,  was  too  great  for 
his  generation.     He  restored  history 


to  its  place  in  politics,  but,  like  some 
of  the  greatest  thinkers  in  pure  phi- 
losophy, he  left  no  disciples.  The 
formal  development  of  political  science 
in  the  present  century  is  not  traced  to 
him,  but  was  taken  up  in  England 
from  a  wholly  different  side,  and  on 
the  Continent  by  an  independent  im- 
pulse, though  in  a  spirit,  and  so-ne- 
times  even  in  a  form,  which  have  more 
affinities  with  BURKE  than  with  any 
other  Englishman. 

CHAPTER   VII. 

The  Present  Century:  Political 
Sovereignty  —  Limits  of  State 
Intervention — BENTHAM — AUSTIV 
—  MAINE  —  BAGEHOT  —  KANT  — 
AHRENS  —  SAVIGNT  —  CORNEWALL 
LEWIS — JOHN  STUART  MILL — HER- 
BERT SPENCER — LABOULAYE. 

We  have  now  come  down  to  the  be- 
ginning of  this  century,  a  date  from 
which  the  development  of  political 
speculation  becomes  too  vast  and 
multifarious  to  be  dealt  with  on  a 
uniform  scale  in  such  a  summary 
sketch  as  the  present.  A  choice  must 
of  necessity  be  made  among  the 
various  branches  of  the  subject.  An 
attempt  to  exhibit  their  general  charac- 
ter is  made  in  the  accompanying  ta- 
bles. In  one  group  we  have  the  oldest 
branch  of  political  science,  the  general 
theory  of  the  State  and  its  possible 
forms.  This  has  received  much  ad- 
ditional definition  at  the  hands  of 
modern  authors,  and  in  England  in 
particular  the  doctrine  of  sovereignty 
has  been  found  capable  of  further 
discussion  and  working  out  than  its 
founders  imagined.  In  a  second  group 
comes  the  study  of  particular  in- 
stitutions and  the  action  of  the  State 
for  particular  purposes,  which  may 
be  called  as  a  whole  the  theory  of 
Government.  Here  seerus  to  be  the 
fittest  place  for  the  question  of  what 
things  ought  to  be  dealt  with  by  the 
State  and  what  left  alone,  a  question 
associated  with  sundry  terms  and 
phrases  such  as  laissez  faire,  limits 
of  the  State,  individual  liberty.  Then 
:i  more  technical  branch  of  the  subject 


BEACOX 


01;  SCIENCE. 


has  to  do  with  the  State  in  its  legal 
aspect,  in  other  words  with  the  method, 
form,  and  application  of  positive  law. 
This  may  be  named  the  theory  of 
legislation  in  a  wide  sense,  and  legal 
science  as  specially  understood  by 
lawyers  may  be  regarded  in  the  logi- 
cal order  as  an  offshoot  from  it,  though 
the  shoot  is  considerably  larger  than 
the  parent  stem,  and,  in  historical 
order,  much  older.  Lastly,  the  State 
is  personified  for  the  purpose  of  ex- 
ternal action,  and  regarded  as  having 
duties  toward  other  States  and  claims 
upon  them.  A  systematic  doctrine 
of  these  duties  and  rights  is  given  by 
the  law  of  nations  and  the  speculative 
theories  which  profess  to  support  or 
account  for  it.  This  division,  except 
as  to  the  last  branch,  is  to  a  great  ex- 
tent not  really  a  division  of  different 
subjects,  but  a  distinction  of  the  forms 
and  relations  under  which  the  same 
subjects  are  presented ;  neither  does 
it  attempt  exact  analysis,  which  in- 
deed the  nature  of  the  matter  hardly 
admits.  But  it  may  serve  to  show 
the  range  and  variety  of  modern  po- 
litical science. 

THEORETICAL  POLL  APPLIED  POLITICS. 
TICS. 

A.  THEORY  OF  TH«  STATE.  A.  THE  STATE. 

Origin  of  Polity.  Existing  form*   of  gov- 

a.  Historical.  ernment. 

t.  Rational.  Confederations  and  Fed- 
Constitution,  eral  States. 

Classification  of  forms  Independence, 
of  government. 

Political  Sovereignty. 

B.  THEORY  OF  GOVERN-    B.  GOVERNMENT. 

MENT.  Constitutional  Law  and 

Forms  of  institutions.  Usage. 

Representative   and  Parliamentary  Systems. 

Ministerial  Govern-  Cabinet  and  Ministerial 

ment.  Responsibility. 

Executive  Departments.  Administrative    Consti- 

Defense  and  Order.  tutions. 

Revenue    and    Taxa-  Army,  Navy,  Police. 

tion.  Currency, Budget/frade. 

Wealth  of  Nations.  State  regulation  or  non- 

Prov.nce  and  Limits  of  interterence. 
Positive  Law. 


D.  THEORY  OF  THE  STATE  D.  THE   STATE  PBRSONI- 

AS  ARTIFICIAL  PERSON.  FIED. 

Relations  to  other  States    Diplomacy,  Peace    and 


and  bodies  of  men. 
International  Law. 


C.  THEORY  or  LEGISLA-    C, 

TION. 

Objects  of  Legislation. 

General  Character  and 
Divisions  of  Positive 
Law  (Philosophy  of 
Law  or  General  Juris- 
prudence). 

Method  and  Sanction  of 
Laws. 

Interpretation  and  Ad- 
ministration. 

Lanijua^e  and  Style 
(Nomopoetic  or  Me- 
chanics of  Law-mak- 
ing). 


LAWS  AND  LEGISLA- 
TION. 

Legislative  Procedure. 
(Embodiment  of  the- 
ory in  legislative 
form  :  memora  dum, 
exposides  moti/s,etc.) 

Jurisprudence  of  par- 
ticular States. 

Courts  of  Justice  and 
their  machinery. 

Judica  precedents  and 
authority. 


War. 

Treaties  and  Conven- 
tions. 

International  agree- 
ments for  furtherance 
of  justice,  commerce, 
communications,  etc. 


It  seems  natural  to  choose  for  closer 
inspection  such  topics  as,  being  in 
themselves  important,  have  been 
more  than  others  handled  by  English 
writers  and  connected  with  practical 
questions  of  legislation  and  policy. 
Dismissing  international  law,  which 
otherwise  answers  this  description,  as 
too  technical  and  standing  too  much 
apart,  we  find  political  sovereignty 
and  the  limits  of  State  intervention 
to  be  topics  of  the  desired  kind.  On 
these  English  literature,  if  not  abund- 
ant, can  make  a  fair  show,  and  on  one 
or  other  of  them  a  great  part  of  mod- 
ern English  political  discussion  has 
turned,  so  far  as  it  has  involved 
speculative  ideas  at  all.  It  will  there- 
fore be  convenient  to  mention  par- 
ticularly what  has  been  done  by  Eng- 
lish writers  on  these  subjects,  marking 
in  other  directions  only  the  most  gen- 
eral characters  of  the  different  mod- 
ern schools  of  political  theory. 

There  is  no  doubt  who  has  the  first 
claim  upon  us.  It  was  BBNTHAM 
who,  after  the  interval  of  a  century, 
took  up  the  theory  of  sovereignty 
where  HOBBES  had  left  it,  and  showed 
it  to  be  capable  of  a  reasonable  inter- 
pretation, and  fruitful  of  practical 
consequences.  His  Fragment  on  Gov 
ernment,  a  short  book,  but  containing 
all  his  leading  ideas,  appeared  in  1776. 
Not  only  the  ideas  are  there,  but  th  \y 
are  much  better  expressed  than  in 
BENTHAM'S  own  later  versions  of  them. 
No  man  ever  labored  more  assiduous  - 
ly  than  BENTHAM  in  his  old  age  to 
make  the  outwai-d  form  of  his  thoughts 
repulsive  or  ridiculous  to  the  public. 
Happily  the  thoughts  nave  LOW  be- 
come common  property,  and  ti.e  later 
volumes  of  BENTHAM'S  collected  works 
may  repose  undisturbed,  save  by  any 
curious  student  of  the  follies  of  great 
men  vvn  >  f-iay  have  the  patience  to 
see  want  s  iolence  can  be  done  to  the 


38 


HISTORY  Or  THE  SCIENCE  OP  POLITICS. 


191 


English  language  by  a  philosopher 
under  the  dominion  of  his  own  in- 
ventions. The  Fragment  is  a  merci- 
less criticism  on  the  introductory  part 
of  BLACKS-TONE'S  Commentaries,  then 
in  the  height  of  their  first  renown. 
BENTHAM  was  stirred  to  indignation 
by  the  tone  of  comfortable  optimism 
that  pervaded  BLACKSTONE' s  classical 
treatise.  He  denounced  BLACKSTONE 
as  an  enemy  of  reform  whose  sophist- 
ry was  so  perverse  as  to  be  almost  a 
crime,  an  official  defender  of  abuses 
with  a  "  sinister  bias  of  the  affections. " 
It  does  not  now  concern  us  to  adjust 
the  merits  of  the  controversy  as  be- 
tween BLACKSTONE  and  his  critics.  It 
should  be  remembered,  however,  that 
while  much  of  BENTHAM'S  animadver- 
sion is  captious  and  unfair  in  detail, 
he  was  quite  right  in  attacking  the 
people  who  maintained  that  English 
law  as  it  stood  in  1776  was  the  per- 
fection of  reason,  and  in  taking 
BLACKSTONE  as  their  best  representa- 
tive. And  to  BL.YCKSTONK'S  merits 
;is  an  expounder  he  does  full  justice, 
declaring  that  "he  it  is  who,  first  of 
all  institutional  writers,  has  taught 
jurisprudence  to  speak  the  language 
of  the  scholar  and  the  gentleman." 
But  we  must  pass  on  to  BENTHAM' s 
own  doctrine. 

The  foundation  of  the  modern  Eng- 
lish theory  of  the  State  is  laid  in 
BENTHAM' s  definition  of  political  So- 
ciety. "When  a  number  of  persons 
(whom  we  may  style  subjects)  are 
supposed  to  be  in  the  habit  of  paying 
obedience  to  a  person,  or  an  assem- 
blage of  persons,  of  a  known  and 
certain  description  (whom  we  may 
call  governor  of  governors),  such  per- 
sons altogether  (subjects  and  govern- 
ors) are  said  to  be  in  a  state  of  polit- 
ical society."*  It  is  worth  noting, in 
the  light  of  SIR  H.  MAINE'S  later 
criticism,  that  BENTHAM  explicitly 
admits  the  difficulty  there  may  be  in 
deciding  whether  in  a  particular  soci- 
ety a  known  and  certain  governor  is 
habitually  obeyed,  and  consequently 


*  I  spare  the   reader   BENTHAM'S   profuse 
italics  and  capitals. 


whether  the  society  should  be  reckon- 
ed political  or  natural ;  a  natural  so- 
ciety being  defined  as  one  where  this 
habitual  obedience  does  not  exist.  He 
is  quite  aware  that  there  is  in  the 
facts  of  human  society  nothing  corre- 
sponding to  the  definition  with  per- 
fect accuracy.  "  Few,  in  fact,  if  any, 
are  the  instances  of  this  habit  being 
perfectly  absent,  certainly  none  at  all 
of  its  being  perfectly  present."  Prac- 
tically the  mark  of  a  political  society 
is  "the  establishment  of  names  of 
office,"  the  existence  of  people  set 
apart  for  the  business  of  governing 
and  issuing  commands. 

Laws  are  the  commands  of  the  su- 
preme governor,  or  to  use  the  term 
now  adopted,  the  sovereign.  And  the 
field  of  the  supreme  governor's  autho- 
rity is  indefinite.  In  practice,  indeed, 
it  is  limited  by  the  possibility  of  re- 
sistance, and  there  are  conditions  un- 
der which  resistance  is  morally  justifi- 
able or  proper.  But  these  conditions 
are  not  c  ;pable  of  general  or  precise 
definition.  For  the  purpose  of  scien- 
tific analysis  the  power  of  the  sover- 
eign must  be  treated  as  unlimited. 
The  difference  between  free  and  des- 
potic governments  is  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  sovereign  authority,  not  in 
its  power ;  in  the  securities  for  the 
responsibility  of  the  particular  persons 
who  exercise  it,  and  for  free  criticism 
of  the  manner  of  its  exercise,  not  in 
any  nominal  restriction  of  its  scope. 
To  say  that  a  supreme  legislature  can- 
not do  this  or  that,  or  that  any  act  of 
such  a  body  is  illegal,  is  an  abuse  of 
language.*  "Why  cannot?  What 
is  there  that  should  hinder  them?" 
Those  who  profess  to  discuss  the 
power  of  the  sovereign  are  really 
discussing,  in  a  confused  and  obscure 
way,  whether  the  acts  of  that  power 


*  BENTHAM  excepts  the  case  where  the 
authority  of  a  supreme  body  is  "  limited  by 
express  convention  "  with  some  other  State  or 
States.  Here,  however,  the  supreme  body 
in  the  particular  State  is  not  the  true  sover- 
eign, or  is  not  so  for  all  purposes.  This  is 
the  case,  as  BENTHAM  hints,  in  all  federal 
governments.  In  federal  affairs  the  ultimate 
sovereign  is  the  power,  whatever  it  be,  which 
can  alter  the  federal  constitution. 


39 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


are  useful  or  mischievous  ;  in  the  last , 
resort,  whether  they  are  so  mischiev- 1 
ous  that  resistance    appears    better 
than  submission. 

This  alone  is  a  considerable  ad- 
vance. BENTHAM,  like  HOBBES,  ex- 
poses the  fallacy  of  a  limited  suprem- 
acy; but,  unlike  HOBBES,  he  distin- 
guishes between  the  legal  duty  of 
obedience  (the  supreme  power  itself 
being  supposed  unchallenged)  and  the 
political  doctrine  of  non-resistance. 
The  sovereign  prince  or  assembly  j 
governs  without  any  assigned  su- 
perior or  formal  check,  but  always  at : 
the  peril  of  being  in  fact  overthrown, 
if  it  appears  to  a  competent  number 
of  the  subjects  that  the  evils  of  sub- 
mission are  gre  iter  than  those  of  re- 
sistance. HOBBES,  if  called  on  to 
state  his  real  position  in  BENTHAM'S 
language,  would  no  doubt  have  said 
that  the  evils  of  resistance  are  always 
greater ;  but  BENTHAM  would  have 
declined  either  to  accept  this  as  evi- 
dent, or  to  accept  HOBBES'S  forcible 
description  of  the  miseries  of  a  state 
of  war  as  amounting  to  proof.  In 
short,  to  be  legally  supreme  governor  j 
is  one  thing,  and  to  govern  as  you 
please  is  another.  Political  duty  is 
one  thing,  moral  duty  is  another.  In 
the  political  sense  (which  at  the  pre- 
sent time  we  rather  call  legal)  su- 
preme governors  cannot  have  any 
duties.  BENTHAM  is  particularly  se- 
vere on  BLACKSTONE  for  speaking  of 
the  duty  of  the  sovereign  to  make 
laws. 

Yet  we  may  say  in  another  sense 
that  the  duty  of  the  sovereign  to 
make  laws  is  BENTHAM'S  capital  dis- 
covery in  political  science.  For 
BENTHAM  has,  besides  and  beyond  the 
formal  theory  of  sovereignty,  a  de-  j 
cided  and  confident  theory  as  to  the  ' 
purpose  for  which  governments  exist. 
They  exist  for  the  common  advantage 
of  the  governed ;  or,  in  terms  which 
to  BENTHAM  appeared  more  accurate, 
in  order  to  promote  the  greatest  hap- 
piness of  the  greatest  number.  Only 
one  standard  can  be  found  by  which 
their  acts  can  be  judged,  that  of  gen- 
eral utility.  Here  BKNIHAM  found  the 


rule  both  of  private  morals  and  of 
public  expedience  ;  and  the  practical 
inference  from  combining  this  with 
his  theory  of  sovereignty  is  that  the 
State  has  no  excuse  for  being  back 
ward  in  well-doing.  The  greatest 
happiness  is  the  end  of  human  action; 
abuses  and  grievances  exist ;  let  then 
the  supremacy  of  the  State,  the  most 
powerful  form  of  human  action,  be  set 
to  work  to  abolish  them.  Let  the 
machinery  of  government  and  justice 
be  simplified;  let  irrational  and  anom- 
alous rules  be  swept  away ;  let  the 
motives  of  abuse  and  corruption  be 
removed,  and  political  duties  made 
plain  and  easy  of  comprehension. 
Let  there  be  no  superstition  about  old 
rules  being  inviolable  merely  because 
they  are  old.  Let  no  prescriptive 
privilege  stand  in  the  way  of  the  gen- 
eral good.  Above  all,  let  none  pretend 
a  want  of  power  to  do  these  things. 
The  State  bears  not  sovereignty  in 
vain.  Non  est  potestas  super  terrain 
qnae  cowparetur  ei,  says  HOBBK.-*  : 
therefore  fear  the  sovereign  and  obey. 
True,  says  BENTHAM,  obedience  is 

food  ;  but  while  I  "obey  punctually" 
will  "censure  freely."  What  is 
sovereignty  for,  if  it  is  not  to  be 
directed  by  every  light  of  reason  to- 
ward the  attainment  of  the  common 
happiness?  The  formula  of  the 
greatest  happiness  is  made  a  hook  to 
put  in  the  nostrils  of  Leviathan, 
that  he  may  be  tamed  and  harnessed 
to  the  chariot  of  utility.  Such  is  the 
connection  between  BENTHAM'S  the 
ory  of  the  State  and  his  theory  of 
legislation.  Taken  together  they 
give  us  the  ideal  of  modern  legisla- 
tion, in  which  the  State  is  active, 
not  merely  in  providing  remedies  for 
new  mischiefs,  but  in  the  systematic 
reform  and  improvement  of  its  own 
institutions.  Down  to  the  last  century 
legislation  was  considered  as  an  ex- 
oeptional  instrument  of  policy,  ana  iu 
England  at  all  events  regarded  with  a 
certain  jealousy.  The  mysterious 
authority  of  custom  which  to  this  day 
rules  the  Eastern  world  was  still  in 
the  air  of  Europe.  The  change  whick 
has  come  over  the  spirit  and  methods 


40 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


193 


of  law-making  in  the  last  few  genera- 
tions is  almost  entirely  due  to  BEN- 
THAM. 

We  have  nothing  to  do  here  with 
the  ethical  value  of  BENTHAM'S  doc- 
trine. It  is  enough  to  say  that  it  had 
to  be  seriously  modified  even  by  his 
immediate  followers.  But  there  is  no 
doubt  of  its  power  in  the  political 
field.  Had  it  been  more  subtle,  it 
might  have  been  less  successful.  It 
had  exactly  that  amount  of  generality 
and  apparent  reasonableness  which 
even  in  England  will  make  speculative 
conceptions  operative  in  practice. 
Everybody  thinks  he  knows  what 
happiness  means ;  and  for  practical 
purposes,  indeed,  it  matters  little 
whether  it  is  precisely  known  or  not. 
A  public  judgment  of  happiness,  ex- 
pediency, well-being,  or  whatever  else 
we  call  it,  is  in  the  nature  of  human 
affairs  a  rough  thing  at  best;  and 
there  is  plenty  of  work  to  be  done 
which  ought  to  be  done  on  any  pos- 
sible view  of  the  nature  of  duty.  The 
main  point  was  to  rouse  the  State  to 
consciousness  of  its  power  and  its 
proper  business ;  and  by  persistent 
and  confident  iteration  BENTHAM  did 
this  effectually. 

We  cannot,  again,  say  anything 
here  either  of  the  many  actual  reforms 
which  may  be  traced  to  BENTHAM,  or, 
on  the  other  hand,  of  that  part  of 
his  proposals,  by  no  means  an  in- 
considerable one,  which  was  hopeless- 
ly out  of  relation  to  the  feelings  and 
habits  of  mankind.  There  is  an  extra- 
ordinary mixture  in  his  work  of 
practical  good  sense  on  some  topics 
with  impracticable  extravagance  and 
obstinacy  on  others.*  But  there  is  no 
leisure  to  discuss  this,  nor  would  there 
be  much  profit.  BENTHAM'S  eccentri- 
cities have  passed  away  harmlessly, 

*  BENTHAM'S  want  of  touch  of  public  feel- 
ing and  its  tendencies  comes  out  in  startling 
ways  in  his  doctrine  of  penalties.  Utilitarian- 
ism is,  in  common  understanding,  associated 
with  rational  philanthropy,  and  justly  so  on 
the  whole.  Yet  BENTHAM  seems  to  have 
thought  it  practicable  and  rather  desirable  to 
burn  incendiaries  alive,  and  several  of  his 
other  suggestions  are  both  cruel  and  other- 
wise absurd 


save  so  far  as  they  prejudiced  the  re- 
ception of  his  really  valuable  ideas. 
It  remained  to  complete  the  separa- 
tion of  the  theory  of  political  sover- 
eignty from  that  of  the  ethical  and 
historical  foundation  of  political  so- 
ciety. This  was  done  by  AUSTIN, 
who  finally  cleared  the  way,  with  labor 
which  now  seems  uncouth  and  exces- 
sive, to  the  conception  of  a  pure 
science  of  positive  law.  The  worker 
in  this  field  assumes  the  sovereign 
authority  of  the  State  as  for  his  pur- 
poses the  ultimate  source  of  laws  and 
legal  institutions  as  they  exist,  and  he 
analyzes  and  classifies  them  without  re- 
gard to  the  moral,  social,  or  historical 
reasons  which  may  have  moved  the 
sovereign  to  approve  them.  Of  course 
this  can  be  done  only  by  a  process  of 
highly  formal  abstraction,  and  the  ab- 
straction cannot  be  maintained  in  its 
ideal  purity  when  we  come  to  dealing 
with  even  the  simplest  facts.  This, 
however,  is  really  the  case  with  all 
scientific  and  philosophical  abstrac- 
tions ;  and  if  AUSTIN'S  manner  had 
been  less  dogmatic,  and  I  fear  we 
must  say  pedantic,  a  great  deal  of 
misunderstanding  might  have  been 
saved.  As  it  was,  further  criticism 
became  indispensable,  and  has  been 
supplied  by  SIR  HENRY  MAINE  in 
the  two  last  chapters  of  his  Early 
History  of  Institutions,  and  later  by 
Mr.  FREDERIC  HARRISON  in  the 
Fortnightly  Review.  Still  more  lately 
Professor  HOLLAND  has  exhibited  the 
results  of  the  English  school  in  a  form 
wholly  freed  from  the  old  controver- 
sial encumbrances,  and  thereby  freed 
also  from  the  extreme  insularity  which 
has  prevented  AUSTIN'S  work  entire- 
ly, and  BENTHAM'S  to  a  great  extent, 
from  being  appreciated  by  Continent- 
al thinkers.  BEN  i  HAM'S  importance 
in  the  science  of  politics  and  legisla- 
tion is  ignored  even  by  the  minority 
of  foreign  critics  who  in  psychology 
and  ethics  are  fairly  in  sympathy 
with  the  English  school;  and  I  am 
not  aware  of  anything  tending  to 
qualify  SIB  H.  MAINE'S  statement 
that  AUSTIN  is  entirely  unknown  out 
of  thie  country.  After  all,  the  cou- 


41 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


194 

temporaries  and  followers  of  SAVIGNY 
could  hardly  be  expected  to  take 
much  interest  in  authors  of  whom 
one  was  ostentatiously  ignorant  of 
Roman  law  and  the  philosophy  of 
law  that  has  grown  out  of  its  mod- 
ern study,  and  the  other,  knowing  it 
mechanically  but  not  intelligently, 
seldom  cites  its  literature  but  in  a 
tone  of  perverse  depreciation.  Per- 


haps we 
things. 

Meanwhile 


may  now  hope  for  better 


the   doctrine  of  sover- 


answer  is  plain.  Successful  persua- 
sion is  not  sovereignty.  PERICLES 
persuaded  the  majority  of  Athenian 
citizens,  but  that  majority  has  no  need 
to  persuade  any  one:  it  commands. 
And  a  majority  one  way  or  the  other 
will  always  be  found.  We  may  con 
ceive,  indeed,though  not  believe,  that  a 
sovereign  assembly  should  be  equally 
divided,  and  that  there  should  be  no 
body  with  authority  to  give  a  casting 
vote.  In  this  practically  impossible 
case  the  form  of  sovereignty  would 
be  unimpaired,  but  the  State  would 
be  at  a  dead-lock, 
we 


eignty  has  opened  up  another  field  of 

research  at  the  back,  so  to  speak,  of 

the  domain  of  positive  law.  We  have       From  this  we  may  proceed  to  im- 

separated  the   actual   existence   and   agine   the    more    complex    cases  of 

authority  of    government  from   the   assemblies    voting    not    collectively, 

foundations   and  reasons   of  govern-  but  by  sections   or  estates ;   of  sev- 

ment.     The   voice  of  the   sovereign  j  eral  bodies  meeting  and  deliberating 

is  the  command   of    the   State, 

the     State     acknowledges 

perior      But  the   sovereign  may 


and 

no     su- 
be 

an  artificial  and  composite  body.  Such 
is   now   the   case   in   every  civilized 
country  in  the  world,  with  the  doubt- 
ful exceptions  of  Russia  and  Turkey.* 
This  raises  a  new  distinction  between 
formal  and  substantial,  or  if  we  sub 
stitude  legal  for  BENTHAM'S  political, 
and  set  free  the  latter  term  for  a  new 
s-pecial  use,  we  may  say  between  legal 
and    political    sovereignty.      Where 
does  the  supreme  power  of  a  corporate 
or  compound  sovereign    in  practice 
reside"?     Even   in  the    simplest  case 
of  a  single  assembly,  say  the  Atheni- 
an  Demos,  the    whole   assembly    is 
formally    sovereign,   but    practically 
the  whole   are   not  sovereign   unless 
they  are  unanimous.     The  power  of 
the  whole  is  exercised  by  a  majority ; 
whoever  wishes  it  exercised  in  a  par- 
ticular way  must  persuade  a  majority 
to  think  with  him,  and  if  he  can  do 
this  it  is  enough.     What  then  of  him 
Avho  persuades  the   majority — PER- 
ICLES for  example?     Is  he  sovereign 
toot     Or  if  ASPASIA  persuades  PER- 
ICLES'?    Is  not  this   the  vain  and  in- 
finite search  for  causes  of  causes?  The 


separately,  but  acting 
concurrent  decision  o 


only    by    the 
all ;  and  fin  ally 


*  Neither  the  Czar  nor  th;  Sultan,  I  be- 
lieve, has  absolute  legal  supremacy  in  eccle- 
siastical affairs, 


to  apply  these  ideas  to  the  peculiar  sys- 
tem of  the  British  constitution,  which 
appears  to  us  by  long  habit  familiar 
and  natural,  and  has  been  copied, 
with  variations  partly  designed  and 
partly  undesigned,  all  ovt  r  the 
world.  We  have  seen  what  confusion 
arose  among  the  earlier  publicists 
from  unwillingness  to  carry  out  the 
separation  of  politics  from  ethics.  A 
similar  confusion  long  prevailed  in  the 
thought  of  British  publicists,  because 
they  could  not  or  would  not  distin 
guish  legal  supremacy  from  the  practi- 
cal power  of  guiding  its  exercise.  Par- 
liament is  the  supreme  power  in  Eng- 
land, or,  in  our  technical  terms,  is  the 
sovereign.  Everybody  since  H  >BBKS, 
who  vainly  strove  to  deny  it  (though 
even  he  admitted  a  corporate  sover 
eign  to  be  theoretically  possible),  has 
admitted  and  asserted  so  much.  But 
what  is  Parliament?  Who  is  the 
wielder  of  sovereign  power?  Let  us 
open  the  last  volume  of  statutes.  "Be 
it  enacted  by  the  Queen's  most  ex- 
cellent majesty,  by  and  with  the  advice 
and  consent  of  the  Lords  Spiritual 
and  Temporal,  and  Commons,  in  this 
present  Parliament  assembled,  and 
by  the  authority  of  the  same,  as  fol- 
lows." Here  are,  to  all  appearance, 
three  distinct  powers;  they  might 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


195 


have  been,  and  as  matter  of  history 
were  near  being,  four.  It  is  part  of 
the  positive  law  of  the  land,  the  law 
by  which  courts  of  justice  are  govern- 
ed, that  to  make  a  new  law  they  must 
all  agree.  The  Crown  cannot  legislate 
without  the  estates  of  the  realm,  nor 
with  one  House  of  Pailiament  against 
the  other,  nor  can  the  Houses  of  Par- 
liament jointly  or  severally  legislate 
without  the  Crown.  But  what  is  to 
make  them  agree  ?  What  security  is 
there  that  they  shall  not  constantly 
disagree?  Why  do  Engl  shmen  go 
about  their  business  in  confidence  that 
this  complicated  machine,  with  ap- 
parently independent  parts,  will  work 
smoothly  and  all  together? 

As  far  as  the  purely  legal  con- 
stitution goes,  it  is  like  a  clock  with 
three  distinct  sets  of  works  for  the 
hour  and  minute  hands  and  the 
striking  part,  and  no  provision  for 
their  keeping  the  same  time.  The 
publicists  of  the  last  century  were 
content  to  say,  in  effect,  that  the 
component  parts  of  Parliament  were 
really  independent,  and  (to  use  the 
language  of  their  own  time)  in 
a  state  of  nature  with  regard  to 
one  another.  The  risk  of  a  dead- 
lock, so  far  from  being  unreal,  was 
regarded  as  the  peculiar  virtue  of  the 
British  constitution,  and  as  exercising 
a  moderating  influence  on  all  parties. 
It  was  argued  with  great  ingenuity 
that  the  powers  of  King,  Lords,  and 
Commons  were  not  only  different  in 
kind,  but  that  they  had  been  kept 
apart  by  the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors 
because  the  conjunction  of  them  in 
the  hands  of  any  one  man  or  assembly 
would  be  fatal  to  liberty.  DE  LOLME 
proved  that  the  balance  could  not 
subsist  if  the  executive  power  were 
not  one,  or  the  legislative  were  not 
divid°d.  The  doctrine  of  sovereignty, 
even  in  its  barely  legal  aspect,  is  a 
complete  solvent  of  this  theory.  No 
one  who  has  assimilated  HOBBES  can 
go  on  believing  in  the  balance  of 
constitutional  powers.  It  has  been 
shown  by  the  late  Mr.  BAGEHOT  (as 
thinking  people  must  have  felt  before 
bis  time,  but  did  not  plainly  say)  that 


the  British  Constitution  in  its  modern 
form  gives  the  practical  sovereignty 
to  the  majority  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, and  gives  it  in  a  most  effectual 
manner.  The  machine  works  as  well 
as  it  does,  not  because  the  powers  are 
balanced,  but  because  in  the  last  resort 
there  is  only  one  power.  The  ulti- 
mate unity  of  sovereignty  its  disguised 
by  the  very  means  which  secure  it ; 
for  those  means  do  not  appear  at  all 
on  the  legal  face  of  our  institutions. 
Government  is  carried  on  by  a  system 
of  understandings,  which  for  the  most 
part  have  never  been  authentically 
defined,  much  less  acquired  the  force 
of  positive  law.  The  study  of  these 
informal  conventions,  as  distinct  from 
the  positive  constitutional  law  which 
in  the  United  States  and  in  most  Con- 
tinental countries  is  to  be  found  in 
some  one  solemn  act  of  state,  and  in 
our  country  in  such  statutes  as  Magna 
Charta,  the  Bill  of  Rights,  and  the 
Act  of  Settlement,  is  really  a  new 
branch  of  Dolitical  science  I  am  not 
aware  thac  any  special  study  of  it  has 
been  made  on  the  Continent,  and  I 
think  its  rise  here  is  a  sufficient  proof 
that  the  doctrine  of  the  English 
school  is  not  the  mean  and  barren 
empiricism  which  its  enemies  accuse 
it  of  being. 

It  is  good,  however,  to  know  one's 
enemies,  especially  when  they  are  both 
honorable  and  formidable.  And  some- 
thing must  be  said,  before  we  pass  to 
our  other  specially  chosen  subject,  of 
the  drift  of  political  speculation  on 
the  Continent.  It  has  been  hinted 
that  in  the  main  it  is  hostile  to  our 
school;  and  so  it  is.  Yet  it  is  possible 
to  exaggerate  the  opposition  between 
English  and  Continental  publicists, 
and  to  treat  as  fundamental  differ- 
ences of  method  what  are  really  differ- 
ences of  definition  and  handling. 
Thus  BENTHAM'S  ethical  theory  is 
opposed  to  those  of  modern  Conti- 
nental philosophers  or  their  English 
adherents,  say  KANT  or  COLEKIDGE, 
as  a  system  founded  on  experience.-, 
the  others  being  derived  from 
transcendental  ideas.  And  it  is  as- 
sumed that  the  like  opposition  holds 


196 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


between  the  respective   political  the 
ories.     For  my  part  I  do  not  think  it 
holds,   at    least   not    without    much 
qualification,   even     on     the    ethical 
ground.      The    principle    of    utility 
seems  to  me  no  whit  less   dogmatic 
than   the   principle  of  the  practical 
reason.     Whatever  validity  either  of 
them   has  depends  on  its  correctness 
as   an  interpretation    of    human   ex- 
perience, and  they  both  appeal  to  ex- 
perience  to   justify    them.     But  on 
the  political  ground  it  is  abundantly 
clear  that  BEN  IMAM  is  as  much  a  dog- 
in  'tist  as  any   propounder  of  Natur- 
recht.     He  assigns   a  final  cause   to 
the  State  by  abstract  consideration  of 
human  motives  in  general,  such  as  they 
appear  to  him,  and  without    taking 
the  slightest  trouble  to  consult  history 
or  specific  facts,  and  he  constructs  a 
universal  theory  of  legislation  accord- 
ingly. Still  more  dogmatic  is  AUSTIN'S 
method,  which,  if  it  could  be  perfectly 
carried  out,  would  lead  to  a  formal 
analysis   entirely  indifferent   to    any 
practical  end,  or  to  the  actual  histori- 
cal contents  of  any  legal  system.    Let 
us  not  make  too  much  haste  to  flatter 
ourselves  that   we  are  not  as  these 
dogmatizing  Germans. 

The  Continental  schools,  or  the  two 
branches  of  the  Continental  school, 
may  be  described  as  ethical  and 
historical.  By  the  ethical  school  I 
mean  (leaving  apart  for  the  present 
all  minor  differences,  which,  indeed, 
we  have  no  time  to  consider)  those 


schools  of  philosophy  from  the  Stoics 
downward.  Obviously  this  is  a  legit- 
imate branch  of  political  science  in 
itself  ;  how  much  we  can  get  out  of 
it  is,  until  we  have  tried,  another 
matter,  but  nobody  can  be  blamed 
for  trying.  And  the  study  has  not 


itself 


any    necessary   connection 


with  any  particular  doctrine  of  ethics. 
The   construction  of  pattern  institu- 


tions and  rules  of  la\v  which 
in  BENTHAM'S   works   comes 


abounds 
for  the 


authors  who  throw  their  main  strength 
on  investigating  the  universal  moral 
And  social  conditions  of  government 
and  laws,  or  at  any  rate  civilized 
government  and  laws,  and  expound 
ing  what  such  government  and  laws 
are  or  ought  to  be,  so  far  as  deter- 
mined by  conformity  to  those  condi- 
tions. This  is  the  nearest  account  I 
can  give  in  few  words  of  what  is  im- 
plied in  modern  usage  by  the  terms 
law  of  nature,  droitnaturel,  or  Natur- 
recht:  in  modern  usage,  I  say,  for  it 
would  be  only  confusing  the  matter 
to  trouble  ourselves  just  now  with  all 


most   part   under  the  description   of 
Naturrecht,  not  being  limited  in  terms 
or  intention  to  the  circumstances  of 
England  or  any  other  particular  coun- 
try. His  chapter  on  "Title  by  Succes- 
sion," in   "Principles   of    the    Civil 
Code,"  is   as    much    Naturrecht    as 
anything  one  can  find  in  Germany, 
for  it  lays  down  rules  purporting  to 
be  justified  by  the  universal  nature  of 
human  relations,  and  qualified  by  no 
respect  of  time  or  place.     And   BEX 
THAM'S  Naturrecht  is  really  no  more 
congenial  to  the   positive  law  which 
lawyers  discuss   and  administer  than 
that  of  AHRENS  or  KANT.  An  English 
lawyer  may  come  upon  a  bit  of  land 
in  one  parish  which  decends  to  all  the 
tenant's  sons  equally,  and  a  bit  in  the 
next   parish   which  descends   to   the 
youngest  son  alone.     It  concerns  him 
not  for  the  matter  in  hand  which  rule 
looks  more   like  an  expression  of  the 
rational   will   of  the   community,  or 
better  fitted  to  promote  the  greatest 
happiness.     Each    rule    will   be   en- 
forced as  to   the  land  subject  to  it, 
and   without  discussion  of  its  being 
reasonable    or    otherwise,    and     his 
client's  title  will  depend  on  the  correct 
ascertainment  and  application  of  the 


rule  as  it  exists. 
any  work  of 
which  belongs 


Again,  if  there  is 
political  reasoning 
purely  and  simply 


to  the  English  school,  it  is  the  collec- 
tion of  notes  appended  to  the  first 
draft  of  the  Indian  Penal  Code,  a 
most  interesting  and  instructive  docu- 
ment, which,  to  the  great  loss  of  Eng- 
lish students,  is  still  accessible  only  in 
the  cumbrous  form  of  a  Parliamenta 


.»  .  —    j —  nivi  UULUISXVUB  nji  iii  \ji  a  j.  aiuaiuouvc*' 

neanmgs  which  have  been  given  ry  Paper.     But  the  substance  of  these 
w>   ine  law   of  nature   by    different  notes,  except  so  far  as  they  relate  to 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


197 


provisions  specially  adapted  to  the 
circumstances  of  British  India,  and 
except  so  far  as  the  framers  of  the 
Code  may  have  been  influenced,  with- 
out knowing  it,  by  any  peculiarities 
Df  English  positive  law,  is  no  less 

and  simple  Naturrecht. 
Still  there  is  no  doubt  that  there  is 
a  certain   mutual   repulsion  between 
the  English  and  the  Continental  mode 
of  treating  these  inquiries     We  must 
not  say  British,  for  Scotland  goes  with 
the   Continent.     What   is  the  expla- 
nation   of    this?      The    German   or 
(•knnanizing    philosopher     is    ready 
wita  an  easy  one.     "  It  just  means," 
hu  would  say,  "that  you  English  have 
uot  taken   the   pains   to   understand 
modern  philosophy.     You  are  still  in 
the    darkness     of    the    prae  Kantian 
epoch,  and  you  will  never  get  a  real  the- 
ory of  the  State   or  of   law   till  you 
come  out  of  it.  When  you  show  signs 
of  doing  that,  we  may  attend  to  what 
you  have  to  say."  There  are  English- 
men on  the  other  hand  who  would  be 
no  less  ready  with  their  answer.  "  We 
confess,"  they   would  say,  "that  we 
know  very  little  of  your  transcenden- 
tal philosophies,  and  care  less.     It  ap- 
pears to  us  that  you  get  nothing  out 
of  them  but  interminable  vague  talk 
about  Personlichkeit  and  Menschen- 
wttrde,  or  le  bien    and  r ideal,  as  the 
case  may  be,  and  that  when  it  comes 
to   distinct   questions   of   policy  you 
have  to  deal  with  them  really  by  the 
same   empirical    methods   as  we  do, 
and   in  much    more    cumbrous    lan- 
guage."    In  each   of   these   charges 
there  is  some  truth  and  much  exagge- 
ration.      Continental    critics    ignore 
the  English  school  because  they  sup- 
pose it  to  be  tied  down  to  BENTHAM'S 
form   of   utilitarianism,  whereas    the 
true    character    of   English   political 
science  is  to  be  found  in  the  series  of 
distinctions  by  which  our  publicists 
have  assigned  separate  fields  to  polit- 
ical ethics,  constitutional  politics,  and 
positive  law.     The  process  was  beguu 


standard     of 
Whigs,  with 


political    ethics.     The 
LOCKE'S  aid,  strove  to 


by  HOBBES  and   virtually  completed 


by  HUME.     HOBBES  began  it  uncon- 


restore  the  ethical  element  by  work- 
ing the  law  of  nature,  through  the 
machinery  of  the  original  contract, 
into  the  technical  conception  of  polit- 
ical supremacy  itself.  The  original 
contract  was  slain  by  HUME  and 
trampled  upon  by  BDRKE,  and  the 
separation  of  the  ethical  part  of  pol- 
itics, as  the  theory  of  legislation  and 
government,  from  the  analytical  part, 
as  the  theory  of  the  State  and  of  pos- 
itive law,  was  forced  upon  BENTHAM 
and  his  successors.  The  theory  of 
legislation  must  to  some  extent 
involve  a  theory  of  ethics,  though 
it  need  not  involve,  in  my  opin- 
i,  any  decision  upon  the  ulti- 
mate metaphysical  questions  of  ethics. 
But  the  analytical  branch  of  political 
science,  including  the  pure  science  of 
positive  laws,  is  altogether  independ- 
;nt  of  ethical  theories.  And  that  is 
ihe  definite  scientific  result  which  we 
in  England  say  that  the  work  of  the 
Dast  century  has  given  us.  The  pre- 
cision and  abstraction  which  we  have 
succeeded  in  giving  to  our  technical 


mistaken    by  foreign 
even  by  able  Scottish 


terms   is    still 

students,  and 

followers  of  the  Continental  methods 

like  Professor  LORIMEK  of  Edinburgh, 

for    crudeness    and     narrowness    of 

thought. 

The  English  student,  in  turn,  is 
naturally  repelled  by  this  misunder- 
standing, and  is  prone  to  assume  that 
no  solid  good  is  to  be  expected  of 
philosophers  who  have  not  yet  clearly 
separated  in  their  minds  the  notion  of 
things  as  they  are  from  that  of  things 
as  they  ought  to  be.  The  German 
school  seems  to  him  to  mix  up  the 
analytical  with  the  practical  aspect  of 
politics,  and  politics  in  general  with 
ethics,  in  a  bewildering  manner. 
When  he  reads  that  there  are  "na- 
tural laws "  which  are  "  necessary 
inferences  from  the  facts  of  nature," 
and  "fix  the  principles  of  juris- 
prudence as  a  whole,"  and  that  never- 


theless  "positive  laws 


never    have 

sciously  by   trying  to  make  legal  su- !  been,  and   probably   never    will    be, 
premacy    the    final    and    conclusive   perfectly  discovered," — and  these  diet* 

45 


198 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


from  Professor  LORIMER'S  book  are 
favorable  specimens — he  is  not  un- 
likely to  give  up  further  pursuit  in 
despair.  But  he  is  not  justified  in 
despairing.  Let  him  not  assume  that 
we  and  the  Germans  are  talking  about 
the  same  things  when  we  use  corre- 
sponding terms,  or  even  an  English- 
man and  a  Scotsman,  when  they 
use  the  same  terms.  Let  him  allow 
for  the  necessary  difference  in  point 
of  view  between  those  who  have  the 
two  words  law  and  right,  and  those 
for  whom  Recht  or  droit  covers  both, 
so  that  our  "law"  and  "right"  (even 
when  "right"  means  the  particular 
right  of  an  individual)  appear  as 
aspects  of  one  and  the  same 
thing,  "  Recht  im  subjectiven  Sinne" 
and  " Recht  in  subjectiver  Hinsicht." 
Probably  the  Germans  think  this  a 
difference  to  their  advantage.  We 
do  not ;  but  the  difference  must  be 
remembered  in  any  case.  And  when 
we  take  the  thing  as  we  find  it,  net 
expecting  it  to  be  something  else,  we 
may  discover  this  mysterious  and 
terrible  Naturrecht  to  be  no  worse 
than  a  theory  of  government  and 
legislation  ;  or,  to  preserve  better  the 
wide  generality  given  to  it  by  its  au- 
thors, a  kind  of  teleology  of  the  State 
and  its  institutions,  differing  much, 
indeed,  from  anything  of  the  kind  in 
English  literature,  and  as  much  in- 
volved with  ethical  philosophy  of 
Kantian  or  post  Kantian  schools  as 
BENTHAM'S  theory  of  legislation  is  in- 
volved with  his  utilitarianism.  But 
we  shall  make  out,  held  in  solution  as 
it  were  in  this  unfamiliar  vehicle, 
much  subtle  discrimination  and  sound 
political  thought,  and  we  shall  hope 
that  the  two  methods  may  come,  if 
not  as  yet  to  an  alliance  or  modus 
vivendi,  at  least  to  intelligent  and 
useful  criticism  of  one  another. 

Take  Prof.  AHRENS'S  definition  of 
law.  He  says  (to  translate  his  words 
freely)  that  it  is  the  rule  or  standard 
governing  as  a  whole  the  conditions 
for  the  orderly  attainment  of  whatever 
is  good,  or  assures  good,  for  the  indi- 
vidual and  society,  so  far  as  those 
conditions  depend  on  voluntary  ac- 


tion.* This,  the  Englishman  will  say 
at  once,  tells  me  (if  I  can  understand 
it)  what  \3Lvrisfor;  but  it  fails  to 
tell  me  what  it  is.  Very  well,  but  we 
have  made  up  our  mind  to  that.  The 
Germans  do  not  care  about  the  pure 
analysis  or  anatomy  of  political  ideas; 
we  only  have  to  regard  the  definition 
as  applying  to  the  scope  of  law,  not 
its  positive  character.  But  then  the 
definition  assumes  that  we  know  what 
is  good.  What  does  Prof.  AHRENS 
mean  by  good?  Well,  Professor 
AHRENS  has  a  perfectly  explicit  answer 
to  that.  "•  Good  is  whatever  we  re- 
cognize as  fitted  to  satisfy  the  needs 
of  man,"  meaning,  it  appears  from 
the  context,  a  normal  or  reasonable 
man,  and  including  the  need  of  cul- 
ture and  improvement.  Therefore 
law  has  for  its  object  in  a  general  way, 
it  would  seem,  the  provision  of  secu- 
rity for  the  proper  and  reasonable 
satisfaction  of  the  desires  of  men  liv- 
ing in  society.  But  satisfied  desires 
are  the  elements  of  happiness.  Hap- 
piness is  the  sum  of  satisfied  desires, 
whatever  test  we  adopt  as  to  the  kind 
of  desires  that  shall  be  admitted  to 
make  up  the  sum,  and  their  relative 
value.  Happiness,  therefore,  in  some 
sense,  is  the  aim  of  laws  and  govern- 
ment, and  the  deduction  of  law  from 
the  rational  nature  of  man  brings  u« 
out  for  practical  purposes  not  so  very 
far  fr  im  BENTHAM.  Neither  is  the 
difference  between  the  two  points  of 
view  to  be  attributed  to  any  essential 
difference  between  the  English  and 
!  the  German  mind.  It  appears  to  me 
!  to  be  much  more  probably  accounted 
j  for  by  the  difference  of  historical  con- 
ditions. In  England  the  positive  lav,- 
of  the  land  has  for  centuries  been 
single,  strong,  and  conspicuous  in  all 
public  life,  and  therefore  positive  law 
presented  itself  as  an  adequate  object 
for  distinct  scientific  study.  In  Ger- 
many there  were  down  to  our  own 
time  a  great  number  of  independent 
States,  many  of  them  very  small,  and 
each  with  its  own  local  law,  but  all 


Introduction  to  HOLTZENDORFFS  Ency- 
ckpadit  der 


46 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


199 


having  their  laws  framed  more  or  less 
on  the  same  sort  of  pattern,  and  look- 
ing for  authority,  in  the  absence  of 
specific  enactment  or  custom,  to  a  com- 
mon stock  of  Roman  or  Romanized 
German  tradition.  In  this  state  of 
things  it  was  impossible  that  theory 
should  not  busy  itself  with  the  com- 
mon stock  of  ideas  to  the  neglect  of 
tli.'  multitude  of  their  varying  appli- 
cations in  actual  use.  And  it  is 
sii-iiiticant  that  in  the  United  States, 
where  a  number  of  independent  muni- 
cipal jurisdictions  (with  the  exception 
oi  ilie  few  States  not  settled  from  Eng 
land)  find  their  general  source  of  au- 
thority in  the  common  law,  much  as 
the  German  States  found  theirs  in  the 
Roman  law,  and  share  the  common 
stock  of  English  legal  ideas,  exactly 
the  same  thing  is  now  happening.  In 
spite  of  English  tradition  and  com- 
munications, the  bent  of  modern 
American  publicists  appears  to  be 
decidedly  toward  the  Continental 
habit  of  thought.  They  believe  in 
the  Common  Law  like  English  judges 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  in  the 
Law  of  Nature  like  German  philos 
ophers. 

The  historical  method  in  politics,  as 
understood  on  the  Continent,  is  not 
opposed  to  what  I  have  called  the 
deductive,  but  apart  from  it.  Publicists 
of  the  historical  school  seek  an  expla- 
nation of  what  institutions  are,  and 
are  tending  to  be,  more  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  what  they  have  been  and  how 
they  came  to  be  what  they  are,  than 
in  the  analysis  of  them  as  they  stand. 
SAVTGNY,  the  greatest  master  of 
jurisprudence  in  modern  times,  is  the 
chief  representative  of  the  historical 
school  in  Germany,  though  the  appli- 
cation of  the  method  to  the  general 
theory  of  politics  fills  but  a  small  pro- 
portion of  his  admirable  work.  In 
England  BURKE  is  recognized  by  the 
Germans  themselves,  as  his  fore- 
runner, and  COLERIDGE'S  political 
writings,  which,  though  less  practical, 
are  similar  in  their  spirit  and  influence, 
must  be  as-igned  to  the  same  class. 
The  general  idea  of  the  historical 
method  may  be  summed  up  in  the 


aphorism,  now  familiar  enough,  that 
institutions  are  not  made,  but  grow. 
Thus  SAVIGNT,  instead  of  giving  a 
formal  definition  of  law,  describes  it 
as  an  aspect  of  the  total  common  life 
of  a  nation  ;  not  something  made  by 
the  nation  as  matter  of  choice  or  con- 
vention, but  like  its  manners  and  Ian 
guage,  bound  up  with  its  existence, 
and  indeed  helping  to  make  the  nation 
what  it  is ;  so  that  (as  we  have  already 
noted)  he  says,  in  almost  the  same 
words  as  BURKE,  that  the  people  is 
always  the  true  legislator :  Das  Ge- 
setz  ist  das  Organ  des  Volksrechts. 
Thus  COLERIDGE,  in  his  essay  on 
Church  and  State,  considers  the 
Church  of  England  not  as  he  actually 
finds  it,  nor  yet  as  somebody  might 
wish  the  Church  to  be  if  he  were 
devising  an  ideal  commonwealth,  but 
in  what  he  callr,  its  idea,  that  is,  what 
the  English  Church,  from  its  place 
and  conditions  in  the  English  com- 
monwealth seemed  to  him  fitted  to  be, 
and  but  for  disturbing  causes  might 
be.  This  method  leads  to  a  certain 
optimism  which  is  its  danger ;  not 
the  rationalist  optimism  of  the 
eighteenth  century  which  makes  out 
that  whatever  is,  is  best,  but  a  specula- 
tive optimism  which  tries  to  see 
that  whatever  is  becoming,  or  is  con- 
tinuously in  a  way  to  be,  is  best.  I 
have  elsewhere  indicated  the  affinity 
between  the  historical  method  and 
the  modern  scientific  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion, and  we  may  call  this  the  optim- 
of  historical  evolution.  For 


ism 


the  rest,  the  historical  method  is 
many-sided,  and  for  that  reason  I 
have  avoided  as  much  as  possible  the 
word  school.  It  is  needless  to  dwell 
on  the  power  with  which  SIR  HENRY 
MAINE  has  used  it  among  ourselves  to 
throw  light  on  legal  and  political 
ideas.  And  if  we  seek  the  application 
of  it  to  the  field  of  the  English  Con- 
stitution, it  is  excellently  represented 
by  Mr.  FREEMAN.  CORNEWALL  LEWIS'S 
book  on  the  Methods  of  Observation 
and  Reasoning  in  Politics,  though 
more  properly  belonging,  in  the  ter- 
minology I  should  adopt,  to  the 
philosophy  of  history,  is  likewise  a 


47 


200 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


good  English  example  of  the  method  |  others,  WILHELM  VONHTTMBOLDT  him- 
self, who  in  this  book  had  proved  that 
publio   instruction    was   one    of  the 
for  omitting  to  follow  out  or  even  in- 
dicate other  modern  developments  of 


in  a  more 
Want  ol 


general  way. 

'  space  must  be  the  excuse 


political  speculation, 
tempting  to  trace  in 


It    would    be 
BLUNTSCHLI'S 


work  the  result  of  a  philosophical 
temper  combined  with  technical  train- 
ing and  a  wide  command  of  historical 
knowledge;  to  endeavor  to  fix  the 
olace  of  Positivism  among  other 
recent  theories,  or  to  assign  the  rela- 
tion to  previous  English  thought  of 
tne  system  even  now  being  unfolded 
by  sir.  HERBERT  SPENCER,  a  much 
more  important  one  in  my  opinion 
than  AUGUSTS  COMTE'S.  But  not  one 
of  these  topics  could  be  deal  with  to 
any  good  purpose  in  the  room  we  have 
left.  A  few  words  on  the  question 
of  the  "limits  of  the  State ' '  may  how- 
ever be  allowed;  the  more  so  as, 
having  been  already  handled  in  a 
popular  manner  by  three  of  our  best 
modern  essayists,  J.  S.  MILL,  Mr. 
H.  SPENCER,  and  Mr.  HUXLEY,  it  is 
more  or  less  familiar  to  all  educated 
readers.  This  question  may  be  said 
to  arise  out  of  the  doctrine  of  sover- 
eignty. For  when  it  becomes  clear 
that  it  is  futile,  and  indeed  contra- 
dictory to  limit  the  supreme  power  in 
a  State  by  any  formal  or  positive  or- 
dinance, one  is  led  to  consider  whether 
any  general  rules  of  policy  may  be 
laid  down  as  to  what  the  State  may 
wisely  attempt  and  what  it  will  do 
more  wisely  to  leave  alone.  In  the 
field  of  political  economy  we  have 
already  got  fairly  definite  principles 
of  this  kind,  though  their  application 
is  still  widely  disputed. 

But   there  is  a  larger  inquiry   as 
to  the  general  control  of  the  State 


things  the  State  ought  on  no  account 
to  meddle  with,  had  been  the  Prussian 
Minister  of  Education.  I  do  not  know 
that  he  ever  retracted  his  former  opin- 
ion ;  he  had  no  occasion  to  do  so,  not 
having  published  it ;  but  deeds   are 
more  eloquent  than  words   in  such  a 
case.     His  earlier  essay  was,  in  fact, 
the  most  natural  protest  of  an  active 
mind  against  the  fussy  paternal  gov- 
ernment of  the  little  German   States 
in  the  latter   half  of  the   eighteenth 
century.     No  doubt  it  was  expressed 
in   general  terms.     Equally   general 
in    terms,    as    we    have    seen,    was 
LOCKE'S  plea  for  the  Revolution  of 
1688.     How   far    HUMBOLDT'S  argu- 
ments remained  applicable  to  Prussia 
or  other  German  States  in  1851,  it  is 
not  our  business  to  inquire.     It  seems, 
however,  a  curious  and  at  first  sight  a 
gratuitous  proceeding  to  adopt  them 
as  at  that  time  applicable  to  the  state 
of  government  and  public  opinion  in 
England.     But  we  have  a  way  of  in- 
felicitous borrowing  from  our  neigh- 
bors.    In  metaphysics  SIR  WILLIAM 
HAMILTON   had,  some   little  time  be- 
fore, invented,  by  a  wonderful  misun- 
derstanding   of    KANT,    the    specter 
called  the  Unconditioned,  which  was 
gravely  taken  by  himself  arid  a  few 
disciples  for  a  hopeful  foundation  of 
systematic     philosophy.      Somewhat 
after  the   same   fashion  the  English 
publicist  who  was  afterward  HAMIL- 
TON'S   most    brilliant    opponent  was 
pleased  to  take  up  the  cry  of  the  over- 
regulated  Prussian,  and  the  result  was 
the  essay  which  we  all  know  as  Mill 
on  Liberty.   The  same  line  was  taken 
up  by  EOTVOS,  in  Hungary  (the  Hun- 
over  the   private  action   of  its  citi-  gary  of  thirty    years    ago),  and  Mr. 
zens,   whether  severally  or  in   asso    EDOUARD  LABOULAYE  in  France  a  few 
ris  is  what  we  shall  years  later,  summed  up   and  adopted 
glance    at.       It   was    definite- 1  the  arguments   of  all   these  writers ; 
its   modern    form   by  j  with  what  provocation,  any  one  who 
ILHELM  VON  HUMBOLDT  in  a  little  j  knows    even    slightly    what   French 
written  in  1791,  but  not   pub-  administration  has  been  any  time  this 
Ushed  till   after  the  writer's  death,   century,  and   particularly  during  the 
xty  years  later.     Meanwhile  a  good  second  Empire,  may  easily  guess.     It 
many  things  had  happened.     Among  must  not  be  overlooked  that  the  tradi- 


ciaion 

now 

ly    stated 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  POLITICS. 


201 


tion  of  BENTHAM  and  political  utilitari 
anism  contributed  something  to  the 
minimizing  view  of  the  State's  func- 
tions. For  law,  being  viewed  exclusive- 
ly as  command  and  restraint,  came  to 
Tt>e  thought  of  as  in  its  nature  an  evil ; 
and  of  course  it  f  flowed  that  there 
ought  to  be  as  little  of  it  as  was  com- 
patible with  the  preservation  of  so- 
siety.  More  lately  Mr.  SPENCER  has 
followed  on  the  same  side  (though  he 
declared  himself  in  his  earliest  work, 
Social  Statics,  some  years  before  J. 
S.  MILL'S  essay  was  published),*  and 
has  been  encountered  by  Mr.  HUXLEY, 
who  has  called  the  minimizing  doc- 
trine by  the  ingenious  name  of  "Ad- 
ministrative Nihilism."  This  is  not 
acceptable  to  Mr.  SPENCER,  and  he 
proposes  the  more  neutral  but  less 
striking  term,  "Specialized  Adminis- 
tration." MILL'S  particular  exposition 
has  also  been  vigorously  criticised 
by  Mr.  Justice  STEPHKN  in  his  book 
named  Liberty,  Equaliti^  Frater- 
nity. English  citizens  may  thus,  at 
the  cost,  or  rather  with  the  gain,  of 
reading  a  volume  or  two  of  the  best 
English  writing  of  our  time,  easily  put 
themselves  in  possession  of  the  argu- 
ments on  one  important  question  of 
theoretical  politics. 

The  only  remark  of  my  own  T  have 
to  add  is  this:  that  the  minimizers 
appear  not  to  distinguish  sufficiently 
the  action  of  the  State  in  general 
from  its  centralized  action.  There 
are  many  things  which  the  State  can- 
not do  in  the  way  of  central  govern- 
ment, or  not  effectually,  but  which  can 
be  very  well  done  by  the  action  of 
local  governing  bodies.  But  this  is 
a  question  between  the  direct  and  the 
delegated  activity  of  the  State,  not 
between  State  action  and  individual 
enterprise.  It  is  just  as  much  against 
the  pure  principles  of  HUMBOLDT  and 


*  There  are  things  in  Social  Statics  which 
Mr.  SPENCER  would  now  hardly  defend,  such 
as  the  supposed  "right  of  the  individual  to 
ignore  the  State,"  which  is  the  very  reductio 
fd  absurdum  of  individualism.  In  the  na 
tural  organism  a  member  that  attempts  to 
ignore  the  body  is  taught  its  mistake  swiftly 
and  sharply  enough. 


Mr  SPENCER  for  the  Town  Council  of 
Birmingham  or  Manchester  to  regulate 
the  gas  and  water  supply  of  its  own 
town  as  it  would  be  for  the  Board  of 
Trade  to  regulate  it. 

As  to  the  question  in  its  general 
bearing,  I  do  not  think  it  can  be  fully 
dealt  with  except  by  going  back  to 
the  older  question,  "What  does  the 
State  exist  for?"  And  although  I 
have  no  space  to  justify  myself,  I  will 
bear  witness  that  for  my  own  part  I 
think  this  a  point  at  which  we  may 
well  say,  "Back  to  ARISTOTLE."  The 
minimizers  tell  us  that  the  State  existi 
only  for  protection.  ARISTOTLE  tell 
us  that  it  was  founded  on  theneedfor 
protection,  but  exists  for  more  than 
protection — yivo^vrj  juev  rdj  8,ijv 
f'vsKSv,  ovffa  6s  TOV  fv  Zijv.  Not 
only  material  security,  but  the  perfec- 
tion ct  auman  and  social  life  is  what  we 
aim  at  in  that  organized  co-operation 
of  many  men's  lives  and  works  which 
is  called  the  State.  I  fail  to  see  good 
warrant  of  either  reason  or  experience 
for  limiting  the  corporate  activity  of 
a  nation  by  hard  and  fast  rules.  We 
must  fix  the  limit  by  self-protection, 
says  MILL  ;  by  negative  as  opposed  to 
po'sitive  regulation,  says  Mr.  SPENCER. 
But  where  does  protection  leave  off 
and  interference  begin?  If  it  is 
negative  and  proper  regulation  to  say 
a  man  shall  be  punished  for  building 
his  house  in  a  city  so  that  it  falls  into 
the  street,  is  it  positive  and  improper 
regulation  to  say  that  he  shall  so  build 
it,  if  he  builds  at  all,  as  to  appear  to 
competent  persons  not  likely  to  fall 
into  the  street  ?  It  is  purely  nega- 
tive regulation,  and  may  therefore  be 
proper,  to  punish  a  man  for  commu- 
nicating an  infectious  disease  by 
neglectof  common  precautions.  Why 
is  it  improper  to  compel  those  pre- 
cautions, when  the  danger  is  known 
to  exist,  without  waiting  for  some- 
body to  be  actually  infected?  Mi. 
SPENCER  would  have  the  State  protect 
both  property  and  contracts.  I  have 
heard  a  zealous  maintainer  of  Mr. 
SPENCER'S  views  on  this  point  outdo 
his  master  by  arguing,  and  not  inapt- 
ly, that  the  State  should  protect  only 


202 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


property  in  the  strict  sense,  and  leave 
contracts  to  take  care  of  themselves. 
Perhaps  somebody  else  may  say  that 
law  is  restraint,  and  restraint  is  force, 
and  the  State  ought  to  use  its  force 
only  against  actual  force ;  in  other 
words,  to  protect  persons  directly,  and 
property  not  otherwise  than  indirectly 
through  persons ;  from  which  it  would 
be  but  one  step  more  to  the  trium 
pliant  establishment  of  the  perfect 
"liberty  of  the  subject "  in  HOBBES'S 
state  of  nature,  which  is  a  state  of 
universal  war.  I  prefer  to  say  with 
Professor  HUXLEY,  who  is  no  dealer 


in  empty  phrases,  that  government  is 
the  corporate  reason  of  the  communi- 
ty ;  with  BUUKE,  philosopher  and 
statesman,  that  a  State  "is  not  a 
partnership  in  things  subservient  only 
to  the  gross  animal  existence  of  a 
temporary  and  perishable  nature," 
but  "  a  partnership  in  all  science,  a 
partnership  in  all  art,  a  partnership  in 
every  virtue,  and  in  all  perfection ;  " 
and  with  HOBBES,  but  in  a  higher  and 
deeper  sense  than  he  enforced,  Non 
est  super  terram  potestas  quae  contr- 
paretur  ei. 


CONTENTS. 


III. 


I.    INTRODUCTORY— PLACE  OF  THE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  IN  HUMAN  KNOWL- 
EDGE,       ..... 

II.     THE    CLASSIC    PERIOD:     PERICLES— SOCRATES— PLATO— ARISTO- 
TLE— THE  GREEK  IDEAL  OF  THE  STATE, 
THE    MEDIEVAL   PERIOD  :    THE    PAPACY   AND   THE  EMPIRE— THOMAS 

AQUINAS— DANTE— BRACTON— MARSILIO  OF  PADUA,        . 
IV.     THE  MODERN  PERIOD  :  MACHIAVELLI— JEAN  BODIN— SIR  THOMAS 

SMITH— HOBBES. 
V.     THE  MODERN   PERIOD.  (CONTINUED):   HOOKER— LOCKE— ROUSSEAU 

— BLACKSTONE.    . 

VI.     THE  MODERN  PERIOD.(CONTINUED):  HUME— MONTESQUIEU— BURKE. 
THE    PRESENT    CENTURY:    POLITICAL    SOVEREIGNTY— LIMITS    OF    STATE 
INTERVENTION  —  BENTHAM  —  AUSTIN  —  MAINE  —  BAGEHOT— 
KANT-AHRENS-SAVIGNY-CORNEWALL   LEWIS  — JOHN 
STUART  MILL-HERBERT  SPENCER-LABOULAYE, 


VII. 


33 


50 


THE  HISTORY 


OF 


LANDHOLDING    IN   ENGLAND 

By  JOSEPH  FISHER,  F.R.H.S. 


"Mncli  food  is  in  the  tillage  of  the  poor,  bat  there  is  that  is  destroyed  for  want  of  judgment.'' 

--PBOV.  13:  2rf. 

"  Of  all  arts,  tillage  or  agriculture  is  doubtless  the  most  useful  and  necessary,  as  being  th»  source 
whence  the  nation  derives  its  subsistence.  The  cultivation  of  the  soil  causes  it  to  produce  an  infinite 
increase.  It  forms  ihe  surest  resource  and  the  most  solid  fund  of  riches  and  commerce  for  a  nation  that 
enjoys  a  happy  climate.  .  .  .  The  cultivation  of  the  soil  deserves  the  attention  of  the  Government,  not 
only  on  account  of  the  invaluable  advantages  that  flow  from  it,  but  from  its  being  an  ot^'-rat  .."n  imposed 
by  nature  on  mankind.  "—  VATTEL. 


INTRODUCTION. 

THIS  work  is  an  expansion  of  a  paper 
read  at  the  meeting  of  the  Royal  His- 
torical Society  in  May,  1875,  and  will  be 
published  in  the  volume  of  the  Trans- 
actions of  that  body.  But  as  it  is  an 
expensive  work,  and  only  accessible  to 
the  Fellows  of  that  Society,  and  as  the 
subject  is  one  which  is  now  engaging  a 
good  deal  of  public  consideration,  I  have 
thought  it  desirable  to  place  it  within 
the  reach  of  those  who  may  not  have 
access  to  the  larger  and  more  expensive 
work. 

I  am  aware  that  much  might  be  add- 
ed to  the  information  it  contains,  and 
I  possess  materials  which  would  have 
more  than  doubled  its  size,  but  I  have 
endeavored  to  seize  upon  the  salient 
points,  and  to  express  ray  views  as  con- 
cisely as  pos-sible. 

I  have  also  preferred  giving  the  exact 


words  of  important  Acts  of  Parliament 
to  any  description  of  their  t  ^jocts. 

If  this  little  essay  adds  any  informa- 
tion upon  a  subject  of  much  public  in- 
terest, and  contributes  to  tbnjnst  settle- 
ment of  a  very  important  'juestion,  I 
shall  consider  my  labor  has  n:;t  been  in 
vain.  JOSEPH  FISHER. 

WATEEFOBD,  November  3,  1876. 


I  DO  not  propose  to  enter  upon  the 
system  of  landholding  in  Scotland  or 
Ireland,  which  appears  to  n?e  to  bear 
the  stamp  of  the  Celtic  origin  of  the 
people,  and  which  was  preserved  in  Ire- 
land long  after  it  had  disappeared  in 
other  European  countries  formerly  in- 
habited by  the  Celts.  That  ancient  race 
may  be  regarded  as  the  original  settlers 
of  a  large  portion  of  the  European  con- 
tinent, and  its  land  system  possesses  a 
remarkable  affinity  to  that  of  the  Sla- 


204 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


vonic,  the  Hindoo,  and  even  the  New 
Zealand  races.  It  was  originally  Patri- 
archal, and  then  Tribal,  and  was  com- 
munistic in  its  character. 

I  do  not  pretend  to  great  originality  in 
my  views.  My  efforts  have  been  to  col- 
lect the  scattered  rays  of  light,  and  to 
bring  them  to  bear  upon  one  interesting 
topic.  The  present  is  the  child  of  the 
past.  The  ideas  of  bygone  races  affect 
the  practices  of  living  people.  We 
form  but  parts  of  a  whole  ;  we  are  in- 
fluenced by  those  '/fho  preceded  us,  and 
we  shall  influence  those  who  come  after 
us.  Men  cannot  disassociate  themselves 
either  from  the  past  or  the  future. 

In  looking  at  this  question  there  is,  I 
think,  a  vast  difference  which  has  not 
been  sufficiently  recognized.  It  is  the 
broad  distinction  between  the  system 
arising  out  of  the  original  occupation  of 
land,  and  that  proceeding  out  of  the 
necessities  of  conquest ;  perhaps  I 
should  add  a  third — the  complex  system 
proceeding  from  an  amalgamation,  or 
)rora  the  existence  of  both  systems  in 
the  same  nation.  Some  countries  have 
been  so  repeatedly  swept  over  by  the 
tide  of  conquest  that  but  little  of  the 
aboriginal  ideas  or  systems  have  sur- 
vived the  flood.  Others  have  submit- 
ted to  a  change  of  governors  and  pre- 
served their  customary  laws  ;  while  in 
some  there  has  been  such  a  fusion  of 
the  two  systems  that  we  cannot  decide 
which  of  the  ingredients  was  the  older, 
except  by  a  process  of  analysis  and  a 
comparison  of  the  several  products  of 
the  alembic  with  the  recognized  institu- 
tions of  the  class  of  original  or  of  in- 
vading peoples. 

Efforts  have  been  made,  and  not  with 
very  great  success,  to  define  the  princi- 
ple which  governed  the  more  ancient 
races  with  regard  to  the  possession  of 
land.  While  unoccupied  or  unappro- 
priated, it  was  common  to  every  settler. 
It  existed  for  the  use  of  the  whole  hu- 
man race.  The  process  by  which  that 
which  was  common  to  all  became  the 
possession  of  the  individual  has  not 
been  clearly  stated.  The  earlier  settlers 
were  either  individuals,  families,  tribes, 
or  nations.  In  some  cases  they  were 
nomadic,  and  used  the  natural  prod- 


ucts without  taking  possession  of  the 
land  ;  in  others  they  occupied  districts 
differently  defined.  The  individual  was 
the  unit  of  the  family,  the  patriarch  of 
the  tribe.  The  commune  was  formed 
to  afford  mutual  protection.  Each  sept 
or  tribe  in  the  early  enjoyment  of  the 
products  of  th,_  District  it  selected  was 
governed  by  its  own  customary  laws. 
The  cohesion  of  these  tribes  into  states 
was  a  slow  process  ;  the  adoption  of  a 
general  system  of  government  still 
slower.  The  disintegration  of  the 
tribal  system,  and  dissolution  of  the 
commune,  was  not  evolved  out  of  the 
original  elements  of  the  system  itself, 
but  was  the  effect  of  conquest ;  anil,  a 
far  as  I  can  discover,  the  appropri.>.tio\ 
to  individuals  of  land  which  was  c^n 
mon  to  all,  was  mainly  brought  al  out 
by  conquest,  and  was  guided  by  im- 
pulse rafJicr  th~n  regulated  by  principle. 

Mr.  l.ooke  thinks  that  an  individual 
became  sole  owner  of  a  part  of  the 
common  heritage  by  mixing  his  labor 
with  the  land,  in  fencing  it,  making- 
wells,  or  building  ;  and  he  illustrates 
his  position  by  the  appropriation  of 
wild  animals,  which  are  common  to  al! 
sportsmen,  but  become  the  property  of 
him  who  captures  or  kills  them.  This 
acute  thinker  seems  to  me  to  have  fallen 
into  a  mistake  by  confounding  land 
with  labor.  The  improvements  were 
the  property  of  the  man  who  made 
them,  but  it  by  no  means  follows  that 
the  expenditure  of  labor  on  land  gave 
any  greater  right  than  to  the  labor  itself 
or  its  representative. 

It  may  not  be  out  of  plane  here  to 
allude  to  the  use  of  the  word  property 
with  reference  to  land  ;  property — from 
proprium,  my  own — is  something  per- 
taining to  man.  I  have  a  property  in 
myself.  I  have  the  right  to  be  free. 
All  that  proceeds  from  myself,  my 
thoughts,  my  writings,  my  works,  are 
property  ;  but  no  man  made  land,  and 
therefore  it  is  not  property.  This  in- 
correct application  of  the  word  is  the 
more  striking  in  England,  where  the 
largest  title  a  man  can  have  is  ' '  tenancy 
in  fee,"  and  a  tenant  holds  but  does 
not  own. 

Sir  William    Blackstone 


plac 


es 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     205 


possession  of  land  upon  a  different  prin- 
tiple.  He  says  that,  as  society  became 
brmed,  its  instinct  was  to  preserve  the 
peace  ;  and  as  a  man  who  had  taken 
possession  of  land  could  not  be  dis- 
turbed without  using  force,  each  man 
continued  to  enjoy  the  use  of  that 
ichich  he  had  taken  out  of  the  common 
stock  ;  but,  he  adds,  that  right  only 
lasted  as  long  as  the  man  lived.  Death 
put  him  out  of  possession,  and  he  could 
not  give  to  another  that  which  he 
ceased  to  possess  himself. 

Vattel  (book  i.,  chap,  vii.)  tells  us 
that  "  the  whole  earth  is  destined  to 
feed  its  inhabitants  ;  but  this  it  would 
be  incapable  of  doing  if  it  were  uncul- 
tivated. Every  nation  is  then  obliged 
by  the  law  of  nature  to  cultivate  the 
land  that  has  fallen  to  its  share,  and  it 
has  no  right  to  enlarge  its  boundaries 
or  have  recourse  to  the  assistance  of 
other  nations,  but  in  proportion  as  the 
land  in  its  possession  is  incapable  of 
furnishing  it  with  necessaries."  He 
adds  (chap,  xx.),  "  When  a  nation  in  a 
body  takes  oossession  of  a  country, 
everything  that  is  not  divided  among  its 
members  remains  common  to  the  whole 
nation,  and  is  called  public  property." 

An  ancient  Irish  tract,  which  forms 
part  of  the  Senchus  Mor,  and  is  sup- 
posed to  be  a  portion  of  the  Brehon 
code,  and  traceable  to  the  time  of  St. 
Patrick,  speaks  of  land  in  a  poetically 
symbolic,  but  actually  realistic  manner, 
and  says,  "Land  is  perpetual  man." 
All  the  ingredients  of  our  physical 
frame  come  from  the  soil.  The  food 
we  require  and  enjoy,  the  clothing 
which  enwraps  us,  the  fire  which  warms 
us,  all  save  the  vital  spark  that  consti- 
tutes life,  is  of  the  land,  hence  it  is 
' '  perpetual  man. ' '  Selden  ("  Titles  of 
Honor,"  p.  27),  when  treating  of  the 
title  "  King  of  Kings,"  refers  to  the 
eastern  custom  of  homage,  which  con- 
sisted not  in  offering  the  person,  but 
the  elements  which  composed  the  per- 
son, earth  and  'water — "  the  perpetual 
man"  of  the  Brehons — to  the  con- 
queror. He  says  : 

"  So  that  both  titles,  those  of  King  of 
Kings  and  Great  King,  were  common  to 
those  emperors  of  the  two  first  empires  • 


as  also  (if  we  believe  the  story  of  Judith) 
that  ceremonies  of  receiving  an  acknowl- 
edgment of  regal  supremacy  (which,  by  the 
way,  I  note  here,  because  it  was  as  homage 
received  by  kings  in  that  time  from  such 
princes  or  people  as  should  acknowledge 
themselves  under  their  subjection)  by  ac- 
ceptance upon  their  demand  of  earth  and 
water.  This  demand  is  often  spoken  of  as 
used  by  the  Persian,  and  a  special  example 
of  it  is  in  Darius'  letters  to  Induthyr,  King 
of  the  Scythians,  when  he  first  invites  him 
to  the  field  ;  but  if  he  would  not,  then 
bringing  to  your  sovereign  as  gifts  earth 
and  water,  come  to  a  parley.  And  one  oi 
Xerxes'  ambassadors  that  came  to  demand 
earth  and  water  from  the  state  of  Lacedse- 
mon,  to  satisfy  him,  was  thrust  into  a  well 
and  earth  cast  upon  him." 

The  earlier  races  seem  to  me,  either 
by  reasoning  or  by  instinct,  to  have 
arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  every  man 
was,  in  right  of  his  being,  entitled  to 
food  ;  that  food  was  a  product  of  the 
land,  and  therefore  every  man  was  en- 
titled to  the  possession  of  land,  other- 
wise his  life  depended  upon  the  will  of 
another.  The  Romans  acted  on  a 
different  principle,  which  was  "  the 
spoil  to  the  victors."  He  who  could 
not  defend  and  retain  his  possessions 
became  the  slave  of  the  conqueror,  all 
the  rights  of  the  vanquished  passed  to 
the  victor,  who  took  and  enjoyed  as 
ample  rights  to  land  as  those  naturally 
possessed  by  the  aborigines. 

The  system  of  landholding  varies  in 
different  countries,  and  we  cannot  dis- 
cover any  idea  of  abstract  right  underly- 
ing the  various  differing  systems  ;  they 
are  the  outcome  of  law,  the  will  of  the 
sovereign  power,  which  is  liable  to 
change  with  circumstances.  The  word 
law  appears  to  be  used  to  express  two 
distinct  sentiments  ;  one,  the  will  of 
the  sovereign  power,  which,  being  ac- 
companied with  a  penalty,  bears  on  its 
face  the  idea  that  it  may  be  broken  by 
the  individual  who  pays  the  penalty  : 
"  Thou  shalt  not  eat  of  the  fruit  of  the 
tree,  for  on  the  day  tho-.  eatest  thereof 
thou  shalt  die,"  was  a  law.  All  laws, 
whether  emanating  from  an  absolute 
monarch  or  from  the  representatives 
of  the  majority  of  a  state,  are  mere  ex- 
pressions of  the  will  of  the  sovereign 
power,  which  may  be  exacted  by  force. 
The  second  use  of  the  word  law  is  a 


200 


record  of  our  experience — e.g.,  we  see 
the  tides  ebb  and  flow,  and  conclude  it 
is  done  in  obedience  to  the  will  of  a 
sovereign  power  ;  but  the  word  in  that 
sense  does  not  imply  any  violation  or 
any  punishment.  A  distinction  must 
also  be  drawn  between  laws  and  codes  ; 
the  former  existed  before  the  latter. 
The  lex  non  scripta  prevailed  before  let- 
ters were  invented.  Every  command 
of  the  Decalogue  was  issued,  and  pun- 
ishment followed  for  its  breach,  before 
the  existence  of  the  engraved  tables. 
The  Brehon  code,  the  Justinian  code, 
the  Draconian  code,  were  compilations 
of  existing  laws  ;  an'l  the  same  may  be 
said  of  the  common  or  customary  law 
of  England,  of  France,  and  of  Ger- 
many. 

I  am  aware  that  recent  analytical 
writers  have  sought  to  associate  law 
with/orce,  and  to  hold  that  law  is  a 
command,  and  must  have  behind  it 
sufficient  force  to  compel  submission. 
These  writers  find  at  the  outset  of  their 
examination,  that  customary  law,  the 
"  Lex  non  scripta,"  existed  before 
force,  and  that  the  nomination  to  sov- 
ereign power  was  the  outcome  of  the 
more  ancient  customary  law.  These 
laws  appear  based  upon  the  idea  of 
common  good,  and  to  have  been  sup- 
ported by  the  "  posse  comitatus"  be- 
fore standing  armies  or  state  constab- 
ularies were  formed.  Vattel  says 
(book  i.,  chap,  ii.),  "  It  is  evident  that 
men  form  a  political  society,  and  sub- 
mit to  laws  solely  for  their  own  advan- 
tage and  safety.  The  sovereign  authority 
is  then  established  only  for  the  common 
good  of  all  the  citizens.  The  sovereign 
thus  clothed  with  the  public  authority, 
with  everything  that  constitutes  the 
moral  personality  of  the  nation,  of 
course  becomes  bound  by  the  moral  ob- 
ligations of  that  nation  and  invested  with 
its  rights."  Ic  appears  evident,  that 
customary  law  was  the  will  of  small 
communities,  when  they  were  sover- 
eign ;  that  the  cohesion  of  such  com- 
munities was  a  confirmation  of  the  cus- 
toms of  each,  that  the  election  of  a 
monarch  or  a  parliament  was  a  recog- 
nition of  these  customs,  and  that  the 
moral  and  material/orce  or  power  of  the 


sovereign  was  the  outcome  of  existing 
laws,  and  a  confirmation  thereof.  The 
application  of  the  united  force  of  the 
nation  could  be  rightfully  directed  to 
the  requirements  of  ancient,  though 
unwritten  customary  law,  and  it  could 
only  be  displaced  by  legislation,  in 
which  those  concerned  took  part. 

The  duty  of  the  sovereign  (which  in 
the  United  Kingdom  means  the  Crown 
and  the  two  branches  of  the  legislature) 
with  regard  to  land,  is  thus  described 
by  Vattel  : 

"  Of  all  arts,  tillage  or  agriculture  is 
doubtless  the  most  useful  and  necessary, 
as  being  the  source  whence  the  nation  de- 
rives its  subsistence.  The  cultivation  of 
the  soil  causes  it  to  produce  an  infinite 
increase.  It  forms  the  surest  resource,  and 
the  most  solid  fund  of  riches  and  commerce 
for  a  nation  that  enjoys  a  happy  climate. 
The  sovereign  ought  to  neglect  no  means 
of  rendering  the  land  under  his  jurisdic- 
tion as  well  cultivated  as  possible. 
Notwithstanding  the  introduction  of  pri- 
vate property  among  the  citizens,  the  na- 
tion has  still  the  right  to  take  the  most 
effectual  measures  to  cause  the  aggregate 
soil  of  the  country  to  produce  the  greatest 
and  most  advantageous  revenue  possible. 
The  cultivation  of  the  soil  deserves  the  at- 
tention of  the  Government,  not  only  on 
account  of  the  invaluable  advantages  that 
flow  from  it,  but  from  its  being  an  obliga- 
tion imposed  by  nature  on  mankind. ' ' 

Sir  Henry  Maine  thinks  that  there  are 
traces  in  England  of  the  commune  or 
mark  system  in  the  village  communities 
which  are  believed,  to  have  existed,  but 
these  traces  are  very  faint.  The  subse- 
quent changes  were  inherent  in,  and 
developed  by,  the  various  conquest* 
that  swept  over  England  ;  even  that  an- 
cient class  of  holdings  called  "  Borough 
English,"  are  a  development  of  a  war- 
like system,  under  which  each  son,  as 
he  came  to  manhood,  entered  upon  the 
wars,  and  left  the  patrimonial  lands  to 
the  youngest  son.  The  system  of  gavel- 
kind  which  prevailed  in  the  kingdom  of 
Kent,  survived  the  accession  of  William 
of  Normandy,  and  was  partially  effaced 
in  the  reign  of  Henry  VII.  It  was  not 
the  aboriginal  or  communistic  system, 
but  one  of  its  many  successors. 

The  various  systems  may  have  run 
one  into  the  other,  but  I  think  there 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     207 


are  sufficiently  distinct  features  to  place 
them  in  the  following  order  : 

1st.   The  Aboriginal. 

2d.  The  Roman.  Population  about 
1,500,000. 

3d.  The  Scandinav ian  under  the  An- 
glo-Saxon and  Danish  kings — A.D.  450 
to  A.D.  1066.  The  population  in  1066 
was  2,150,000. 

4th.  The  Norman,  from  A.D.  1066  to 
A.D.  1154.  The  population  in  the  lat- 
ter year  was  3,350,000. 

5th.  The  Plantayenet,  from  1154  to 
1485  ;  in  the  latter  the  population  was 
4,000,000. 

6th.  The  Tudor,  1485  to  1603,  when 
the  population  was  5,000,000. 

7th.  The  Stuarts,  1603  to  1714,  the 
population  having  risen  to  5,750,000. 

8th.  The  Present,  from  1714.  Down 
to  1820  the  soil  supported  the  popula- 
tion ;  now  about  one  half  lives  upon 
food  produced  in  other  countries.  In 
1874  the  population  was  23, 648, 607. 

Each  of  these  periods  has  its  own 
characteristic,  but  as  I  must  compress 
my  remarks,  you  must  excuse  my  pass- 
ing rapidly  from  one  to  the  other. 

I.    THE    ABORIGINES. 

The  aboriginal  period  is  wrapped  in 
darkness,  and  I  cannot  with  certainty 
say  whether  the  system  that  prevailed 
was  Celtic  and  Tribal.  An  old  French 
customary,  in  a  MS.  treating  upon  the 
antiquity  of  tenures,  says  :  "  The  first 
English  king  divided  the  land  into  four 
parts.  He  gave  one  part  to  the  Arch 
flamens  to  pray  for  him  and  his  pos- 
terity. A  second  part  he  gave  to  the 
earls  and  nobility,  to  do  him  knight's 
service.  A  third  part  he  divided 
among  husbandmen,  to  hold  of  him 
in  socage.  The  fourth  he  gave  to 
mechanical  persons  to  hold  in  bur- 
gage."  The  terms  used  apply  to  a 
much  more  recent  period  and  more 
modern  ideas. 

Caesar  tells  us  "  that  the  island  of 
Britain  abounds  in  cattle,  and  the 
greatest  part  of  those  within  the  coun- 
try never  sow  their  land,  but  live  on 
flesh  and  milk.  The  sea-coasts  are  in- 
habited by  colonies  from  Belgium, 


which,  having  established  themselves  in 
Britain,  began  to  cultivate  the  soil." 

Diodorus  Siculus  says,  "  The  Brit- 
ons, when  they  have  reaped  their  corn, 
by  cutting  the  ears  from  the  stubble,  lay 
them  up  for  preservation  in  subterranean 
caves  or  granaries.  From  thence,  they 
say,  in  very  ancient  times,  they  used  to 
take  a  certain  quantity  of  ears  out  every 
day,  and  having  dried  and  bruised  the 
grains,  made  a  kind  of  food  for  their 
immediate  use." 

Jeffrey  of  Monmouth  relates  that  one 
of  the  laws  of  Dunwalls  Molnutus,  who 
is  said  to  have  reigned  B.C.  500,  enacted 
that  the  ploughs  of  the  husbandmen,  as 
well  as  the  temples  of  the  gods,  should 
be  sanctuaries  to  such  criminals  as  fled 
to  them  for  protection. 

Tacitus  states  that  the  Britons  were 
not  a  free  people,  but  were  under  sub- 
jection to  many  different  kings. 

Dr.  Henry,  quoting  Tacitus,  says, 
"  In  the  ancient  German  and  British 
nation  the  whole  riches  of  the  people 
consisted  in  their  flocks  and  herds  ;  the 
laws  of  succession  were  few  and  simple  : 
a  man's  cattle,  at  death,  were  equally 
divided  among  hie  sons  ;  or,  if  he  had 
no  sons,  his  daughters  ;  or  if  he  bad 
no  children,  among  his  nearest  rela- 
tions. These  nations  seem  to  have  had 
no  idea  of  the  rights  of  primogeniture, 
or  that  the  eldest  son  had  any  title  to  a 
larger  share  of  his  father's  effects  than 
the  youngest." 

The  population  of  England  was 
scanty,  and  did  not  probably  exceed  a 
million  of  inhabitants.  They  were  split 
up  into  a  vast  number  of  petty  chief- 
tainries  or  kingdoms  ;  there  was  no 
cohesion,  no  means  of  communication 
between  them  ;  there  was  no  sovereign 
power  which  could  call  out  and  combine 
the  whole  strength  of  the  nation.  No 
single  chieftain  could  oppose  to  the 
Romans  a  greater  force  than  that  of  one 
of  its  legions,  and  when  a  footing  was 
obtained  in  the  island,  the  war  became 
one  of  detail  ;  it  was  a  provincial  rather 
tha*  a  national  contest.  The  brave, 
ib  •  igh  untrained  and  ill-disciplined 
•>  rriors,  fell  before  the  Romans,  just 
as  the  Red  Man  of  North  America  was 
vanquished  by  the  English  settlers. 


208 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


II.    THE    ROMAN. 

The  Romans  acted  with  regard  to  all 
conquered  nations  upon  the  maxim, 
"  To  the  victors  the  spoils."  Britain 
was  no  exception.  The  Romans  were 
the  first  to  discover  or  create  an  estate 
«f  uses  in  land,  as  distinct  from  an 
estate  of  possession.  The  more  ancient 
nations,  the  Jews  and  the  Greeks,  never 
recognized  the  estate  of  uses,  though 
there  is  some  indication  of  it  in  the  re- 
kition  established  by  Joseph  in  Egypt, 
when,  during  the  years  of  famine,  he 
purchased  for  Pharaoh  the  lands  of  the 
people.  The  Romans  having  seized 
upon  lands  in  Italy  belonging  to  con- 
quered nations,  considered  them  public 
lands,  and  rented  them  to  the  soldiery, 
thus  retaining  for  the  state  the  estate  in 
the  lands,  but  giving  the  occupier  an 
estate  of  uses.  The  rent  of  these  pub- 
hc  lands  was  fixed  at  one  tenth  of  the 
produce,  and  this  was  termed  usufruct 
— the  use  of  uie  fruits. 

The  British  chiefs,  who  submitted  to 
the  Romans,  were  subjected  to  a  tribute 
or  rent  in  com  ;  it  varied,  according  to 
circumstances,  from  one  fifth  to  one 
twentieth  of  the  produce.  The  grower 
was  bound  to  deliver  it  at  the  prescribed 
places.  This  was  felt  to  be  a  great 
hardship,  as  they  were  often  obliged  to 
carry  the  grain  great  distances,  or  pay 
a  bribe  to  be  excused.  This  oppressive 
law  was  altered  by  Julius  Agricola. 

The  Romans  patronized  agriculture. 
Cato  says,  "  When  the  Romans  de- 
signed to  bestow  the  highest  praise  on  a 
good  man,  they  used  to  say  he  under- 
stood agriculture  well,  and  is  an  excel- 
lent husbandman,  for  this  was  esteemed 
the  greatest  and  most  honorable  char- 
acter." Their  system  produced  a 
great  alteration  in  Britain,  and  con- 
verted it  into  the  most  plentiful  prov- 
ince of  the  empire  ;  it  produced  suf- 
ficient corn  for  its  own  inhabitants,  for 
the  Roman  legions,  and  also  afforded 
a  great  surplus,  which  was  sent  up  the 
Rhine.  The  Emperor  Julian  built  new 
granaries  in  Germany,  in  which  he 
stored  the  corn  brought  from  Britain. 
Agriculture  had  greatly  improved  in 
England  under  the  Romans. 

The  Romans  do  not  appear  to  have 


established  in  England  any  military 
tenures  of  land,  such  as  those  they  cre- 
ated along  the  Danube  and  the  Rhine  ,• 
nor  do  they  appear  to  have  taken  pos- 
session of  the  land  ;  the  tax  they  im- 
posed upon  it,  though  paid  in  kind,  was 
more  of  the  nature  of  a  tribute  than  a 
rent.  Though  some  of  the  best  of  the 
soldiers  in  the  Roman  legions  were 
Britons,  yet  their  rule  completely  ener- 
vated the  aboriginal  inhabitants — they 
were  left  without  leaders,  without  co- 
hesion. Their  land  was  held  by  permis- 
sion of  the  conquerors.  The  waU 
erected  at  so  much  labor  in  the  north 
of  England  proved  a  less  effectual  bar- 
rier against  the  incursions  of  the  Picts 
and  Scots  than  the  living  barrier  of 
armed  men  which,  at  a  later  period, 
successfully  repelled  their  invasions. 
The  Roman  rule  affords  another  ex- 
ample that  material  prosperity  cannot 
secure  the  liberties  of  a  people,  that 
they  must  be  armed  and  prepared  to 
repel  by  force  any  aggression  upon  their 
liberty  or  their  estates. 

"  Who  will  be  free,  themselves  must  strike 
the  blow." 

The  prosperous  ' '  Britons, ' '  who 
were  left  by  the  Romans  in  possession 
of  the  island,  were  but  feeble  represen- 
tatives of  those  who,  under  Caractacus 
and  Boadicea,  did  not  shrink  from 
combat  with  the  legions  of  Csesar. 
Uninured  to  arms,  and  accustomed  to 
obedience,  they  looked  for  a  fresh 
master,  and  sunk  into  servitude  and 
serfdom,  from  which  they  never 
emerged.  Yet  under  the  Romans  they 
had  thriven  and  increased  in  material 
wealth  ;  the  island  abounded  in  numer- 
ous flocks  and  herds  ;  and  agriculture, 
which  was  encouraged  by  the  Romans, 
flourished.  This  wealth  was  but  one  of 
the  temptations  to  the  invaders,  who 
seized  not  only  upon  the  movable  wealth 
of  the  natives,  but  also  upon  the  land, 
and  divided  it  among  themselves. 

The  warlike  portion  of  the  aboriginal 
inhabitants  appear  to  have  joined  the 
Gymri  and  retired  westward.  Their 
system  of  landbolding  was  non-feudal, 
inasmuch  as  each  man's  land  was  di- 
vided among  all  his  sons.  One  of  the 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     209 


laws  of  Hoel  Dha,  King  of  Wales  in 
the  tenth  century,  decreed  "that  the 
youngest  son  shall  have  an  equal  share 
of  the  estate  with  thu  eldest  son,  and 
that  when  the  brothers  have  divided 
their  father's  estate  among  them,  the 
youngest  son  shall  have  the  best  house 
with  all  the  office  houses  ;  the  imple- 
ments of  husbandry,  his  father's  kettle, 
his  axe  for  cutting  wood,  and  his  knife  ; 
these  three  last  things  the  father  cannot 
give  away  by  gift,  nor  leave  by  his  last 
will  to  any  but  his  youngest  son,  and 
if  they  are  pledged  they  shall  be  re- 
deemed." It  may  not  be  out  of  place 
here  to  say  that  this  custom  continued 
to  exist  in  Wales  ;  and  on  its  conquest 
Edward  I.  ordained,  "  Whereas  the  cus- 
tom is  otherwise  in  Wales  than  England 
concerning  succession  to  an  inheritance, 
inasmuch  as  the  inheritance  is  partible 
among  the  heirs-male,  and  from  time 
whereof  the  memory  of  man  is  not  to 
the  contrary  hath  been  partible,  Our 
Lord  the  King  will  not  have  such  cus- 
tom abrogated,  but  willeth  that  inherit- 
ance shall  remain  partible  among  like 
heirs  as  it  was  wont  to  be,  with  this  ex- 
ception that  bastards  shall  from  hence- 
forth not  inherit,  and  also  have  portions 
with  the  lawful  heirs  ;  and  if  it  shall 
happen  that  any  inheritance  should  here- 
after, upon  failure  of  heirs-male,  de- 
scend to  females,  the  lawful  heirs  of 
their  ancestors  last  served  thereof.  We 
will,  of  our  especial  grace,  that  the 
same  women  shall  have  their  portions 
thereof,  to  be  assigned  to  them  in  our 
court,  although  this  be  contrary  to  the 
custom  of  Wales  before  used." 

The  land  system  of  Wales,  so  recog- 
nized and  regulated  by  Edward  I.,  re- 
mained unchanged  until  the  reign  of 
the  first  Tudor  monarch.  Its  existence 
raises  the  presumption  that  the  aborigi- 
nal system  of  landholding  in  England 
gave  each  son  a  share  of  his  father's 
land,  and,  if  so,  it  did  not  correspond 
with  the  Germanic  system  described  by 
CaBsar,  nor  with  the  tribal  system  of 
the  Celts  in  Ireland,  nor  with  the  feudal 
system  subsequently  introduced. 

The  polity  of  the  Romans,  which 
endured  in  Gaul,  Spain,  and  Italy,  and 


tinged  the   laws   and   usages  of  these 


countries  after  they  had  been  occupied 
by  the  Goths,  totally  disappeared  in 
England  ;  and  even  Christianity,  which 
partially  prevailed  under  the  Romans, 
was  submerged  beneath  the  flood  of  in- 
vasion. Save  the  material  evidence  of 
the  footprints  of  "  the  masters  of  the 
world  "  in  the  Roman  roads,  Roman 
wall,  and  some  other  structures,  there  is 
no  trace  of  the  Romans  in  England. 
Their  polity,  laws,  ,and  language  alike 
vanished,  and  did  not  reappear  for  cen- 
turies, when  their  laws  and  language 
were  reimported. 

I  should  not  be  disposed  to  estimate 
the  population  of  England  and  Wales, 
at  the  retirement  of  the  Romans,  at 
more  than  1,500,000.  They  were  like 
a  flock  of  sheep  without  masters,  and, 
deprived  of  the  watch-dogs  which  over- 
awed and  protected  them,  fell  an  easy 
prey  to  the  invaders. 

III.    THE    SCANDINAVIANS. 

The  Roman  legions  and  the  outlying 
serai  -  military  settlements  along  the 
Rhine  and  the  Danube,  forming  a  cor- 
don reaching  from  the  German  Ocean  to 
the  Black  Sea,  kept  back  the  tide  of 
barbarians,  but  the  volume  of  force  ac- 
cumulated behind  the  barrier,  and  at 
length  it  poured  in  an  overwhelming  and 
destructive  tide  over  the  fair  and  fertile 
provinces  whose  weat  and  effeminate 
people  offered  but  a  feeble  resistance  to 
the  robust  armies  of  the  north.  The 
Romans,  under  the  instruction  of  Caesar 
and  Tacitus,  had  a  faint  idea  of  the 
usages  of  the  people  inhabiting  the 
verge  that  lay  around  the  Roman  do- 
minions, but  they  had  no  knowledge  of 
the  influences  that  prevailed  in  "  the 
womb  of  nations,"  as  Central  Europe 
appeared  to  the  Latins,  who  saw  emerg- 
ing therefrom  hosts  of  warriors,  bearing 
with  them  their  wives,  their  children, 
and  their  portable  effects,  determined 
to  win  a  settlement  amid  the  fertile  re- 
gions owned  and  improved  by  the  Ro- 
mans. 

These  incursions  were  not  coloniza- 
tion in  the  sense  in  which  Rome  under- 
itood  it ;  they  were  the  migrations  of  a 
aeople,  and  were  as  full,  as  complete, 
ind  as  extensive  as  the  Israelitisb  in* 


210 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


vaaion  of  Canaan — they  were  more  de- 
structive of  property,  but  less  fatal  to 
life.  These  migratory  hosts  left  a  des- 
ert behind  them,  and  they  either  gained 
a  settlement  or  perished.  The  Roman 
colonies  preserved  their  connection  with 
the  parent  stem,  and  invoked  aid  when 
in  need  ;  but  the  barbarian  hosts  had 
no  home,  no  reserves.  Other  races, 
moving  with  similar  intent,  settled  on 
the  land  they  had  vacated.  These 
brought  their  own  social  arrangements, 
and  it  is  very  difficult  to  connect  the 
land  system  established  by  the  aborigi- 
nes with  the  system  which,  after  a  lapse 
of  some  hundreds  of  years,  was  found 
to  prevail  in  another  tribe  or  nation 
which  had  occupied  the  region  that  had 
been  vacated. 

Neither  Caesar  nor  Tacitus  gives  us 
any  idea  of  the  habits  or  usages  of  the 
people  who  lived  north  of  the  Belgae. 
They  had  no  notion  of  Scandinavia 
nor  of  Sclavonia.  The  Walhalla  of  the 
north,  with  its  terrific  deities,  was  un- 
known to  them  ;  and  I  am  disposed  to 
think  that  we  shall  look  in  vain  among 
the  customs  of  the  Teutons  for  the  basis 
from  whence  came  the  polity  established 
in  England  by  the  inv  aders  of  the  fifth 
century.  The  Anglo-Saxons  came  from 
a  region  north  of  the  Elbe,  which  we 
call  Schleswig  -  Holstein.  They  were 
kindred  to  the  Norwegians  and  the 
Danes,  and  of  the  family  of  the  sea 
robbers  ;  they  were  not  Teutons,  for 
the  Teutons  were  not  and  are  not  sail- 
ors. The  Belgae  colonized  part  of  the 
coast — i.e.,  the  settlers  maintained  a 
connection  with  the  mainland  ;  but  the 
Angles,  the  Saxons,  and  the  Jutes  did 
not  colonize,  they  migrated  ;  they  left 
no  trace  of  their  occupancy  in  the  lands 
they  vacated.  Each  separate  invasion 
was  the  settlement  of  a  district ;  each 
leader  aspired  to  sovereignty,  and  was 
supreme  in  his  own  domains  ;  each 
claimed  descent  from  Woden,  and,  like 
Romulus  or  Alexander,  sought  affinity 
with  the  gods.  Each  member  of  the 
Heptarchy  was  independent  of,  and 
owed  no  allegiance  to,  the  other  mem- 
bers ;  and  marriage  or  conquest  unitec 
them  ultimately  into  one  kingdom. 

The  primary  institutions  were  mould- 


jd  by  time  and  circumstance,  and  th« 
state  of  things  in  the  eleventh  century 
was  as  different  from  that  of  the  fifth 
as  those  of  our  own  time  differ  from 
;he  rule  of  Richard  II.  Yet  one  was 
as  much  an  outgrowth  of  its  predeces- 
sor as  the  other. 

Attempts  have  been  made,  with  con- 
siderable ingenuity,  to  connect  races 
with  each  other  by  peculiar  characteris- 
tics, but  human  society  has  the  same 
necessities,  and  we  find  great  similarity 
in  various  divisions  of  society.  At  all 
times,  and  in  all  nations,  society  re- 
solved itself  into  the  upper,  middle,  and 
lower  classes.  Rome  had  its  Nobles, 
Plebeians,  and  Slaves  ;  Germany  its 
Edhilingi,  Frilingi,  and  Lazzi  ;  England 
its  Eaorls,  Thanes,  and  Ceorls.  It 
would  be  equally  cogent  to  argue  that, 
because  Rome  had  three  classes  and 
England  had  three  classes,  the  latter 
was  derived  from  the  former,  as  to  con- 
clude that,  because  Germany  had  three 
classes,  therefore  English  institutions 
were  Teutonic.  If  the  invasion  of  the 
fifth  century  were  Teutonic  we  should 
look  or  siir.ilar  nomenclature,  but  there 
is  as  great  a  dissimilarity  between  the 
English  and  German  names  of  the 
classes  as  between  the  former  and  those 
of  Rome. 

The  Germanic  mark  system  has  no 
counterpart  in  the  land  system  intro- 
duced into  England  by  the  Anglo- 
Saxons.  If  village  communities  existed 
in  England,  it  must  have  been  before 
the  invasion  of  the  Romans.  The  Ger- 
man system,  as  described  by  Caesar, 
was  suited  to  nomads — to  races  on  the 
wing,  who  gave  to  no  individual  pos- 
session for  more  than  a  year,  that  there 
might  be  no  ho«,ie  ties.  The  mark  sys- 
tem is  of  a  later  date,  and  was  evidently 
the  arrangement  of  other  races  who 
permanently  settled  themselves  upon 
the  lands  vacated  by  the  older  nations. 
And  I  may  suggest  whether,  as  these 
lands  were  originally  inhabited  by  the 
Celts,  the  conquerors  did  not  adopt  the 
system  of  the  CL  nquered. 

Even  in  the  nomenclature  of  Feudal- 
ism, introduced  into  England  in  the  fifth 
century,  we  are  driven  back  to  Scan- 
,dinavia  for  an  explanation.  The  word 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     211 


feudal  as  applied  to  land  has  a  Nor- 
wegian origin,  from  which  country 
came  Rollo,  the  progenitor  of  William 
the  Norman.  Pontoppidan  ("  History 
of  Norway,"  p.  290)  says,  "  The 
Odhall,  right  of  Norway,  and  the 
Udall,  right  of  Finland,  came  from 
the  words  '  Odh,'  which  signifies  pro- 
prietors, and  '  all,'  which  means  totum. 
A  transposition  of  these  syllables  makes 
all  odh,  or  allodium,  which  means  ab- 
solute property.  Fee,  which  means 
stipend  or  pay,  united  with  oth,  thus 
forming  Fee-oth  or  Feodum,  denoting 
stipendiary  property."  Wacterus  states 
that  the  won!  allode,  allodium,  which  ap- 
plies to  land  in  Germany,  is  composed 
of  an  and  lot — i.e.,  land  obtained  by  lot. 

I  therefore  venture  the  opinion  that 
the  settlement  of  England  in  the  fifth 
and  sixth  centuries  was  not  Teutonic  or 
Germanic,  but  SCANDINAVIAN. 

The  lands  won  by  the  swords  of  all 
were  the  common  property  of  all  ;  they 
were  the  lands  of  the  people,  Folc-land  ; 
they  were  distributed  by  lot  at  the 
Folc-gemot  ;  they  were  Odh-all  lands  ; 
they  were  not  held  of  any  superior, 
nor  was  there  any  service  save  that  im- 
posed by  the  common  danger.  The 
chieftans  were  elected  and  obeyed, 
because  they  represented  the  entire  peo- 
ple. Hereditary  right  seems  to  have 
been  unknown.  The  essence  of  feudal- 
ism was  a  life  estate,  the  land  reverted 
either  to  the  sovereign  or  to  the  people 


The  several  ranks  were  thus  defined 
by  Athelstane  : 

"  1st.  It  was  whilom  in  the  laws  of  the 
English  that  the  people  went  by  ranks, 
and  these  were  the  counsellors  of  the  na- 
tion, of  worship  worthy  each  according  to 
his  condition— '  eorl,'  '  ceorl,'  'thegur, ' 
and  '  theodia.' 

"  2d.  If  a  ceorl  thrived,  so  that  he  had 
fully  five  hides  (600  acres)  of  land,  church 
and  kitchen,  bell-house  and  back  gatescal, 
and  special  duty  in  the  king's  hall,  then  he 
was  thenceforth  of  thane-right  worthy. 

"  3d.  And  if  a  thane  thrived  so  that  he 
served  the  king,  and  on  his  summons  rode 
among  his  household,  if  he  then  had  a 
thane  who  him  followed,  who  to  the  king 
utward  five  hides,  had,  and  in  the  king's 
hall  served  his  lord,  and  thence,  with  his 
errand,  went  to  the  king,  he  might  thence- 
forth, with  his  fore  oath,  his  lord  repre- 
sent at  various  needs,  and  his  and  his 
plant  lawfully  conduct  wheresoever  he 
ought. 

"  4th.  And  he  who  so  prosperous  a  vice- 
gerent had  not,  swore  for  himself  accord- 
ing to  his  right  or  it  forfeited. 

"  5th.  And  if  a  '  thane  '  thrived  so  that 
he  became  an  eorl,  then  was  he  thence- 
forth of  eorl-right  worthy. 

"  6th.  And  if  a  merchant  thrived  so  that 
he  fared  thrice  over  the  wide  sea  by  his 
own  means  (or  vessels),  then  was  he  thence- 
forth of  thane-right  worthy." 

The  oath  of  fealty,  as  prescribed  by 
the  law  of  Edward  and  Guthrum,  was 
very  similar  to  that  used  at  a  later 
period,  and  ran  thus  : 

"  Thus  shall  a  man  swear  fealty  :  By  the 
Lord,  before  whom  this  relic  is  holy,  I  will 


At  a  I  be  faithful  and  true,  and  love  all  that  he 

the    loves'  and  shun  aU  that  ne  shuns'  accord- 
ing  to  God's  law,   and   according  to  the 


upon  the  death  of  the  occupant 

latPr  nprinrl    HIP    monarch 

,     . 

power  uf  confiscating  land,  and  of  giv-  j  world's  principles,  and  never  by  will  nor 
ing  it  away  by  charter  or  deed  ;  and  j  by  force,  by  word  nor  by  work,  do  aught 
hence  arose  the  distinction  between  !  of  what  is  loathful  to  him,  on  condition 


Folc-land  and  Boc-land  (the  land  of  the  j that  ^"•JSS&'jJ  am  willingto  deserve, 
,  v         j.  \.      ,.  and  all  that  fulfil,  that  our  agreement  was, 

book   or  charter),  a  distinction  some- 


what  similar  to  the  freehold  and  copy- 
hold tenures  of  the  present  day.  King 
Alfred  the  Great  bequeathed  "  his  Boc- 
land  to  his  nearest  relative  ;  and  if  any 
of  them  have  children  it  is  more  agree- 
able to  me  that  it  go  to  those  born  on 


when  I  to  him  submitted  and  chose  his 
will." 

The  Odh-all  (noble)  land  was  divid- 
ed into  two  classes  :  the  in  -  lands, 
which  were  farmed  by  slaves  under 
Bailiffs,  and  the  out-lands,  which  were 


the  male  side."  He  adds,  "  My  grand-  j  let  to  ceorls  either  for  one  year  or  for 
father  bequeathed  his  land  on  the  spear  '  a  term.  The  rents  were  usually  paid 
side,  not  on  the  spindle  side  ;  therefore  j  in  kind,  and  were  a  fixed  proportion  of 
if  I  have  given  what  he  acquired  to  any  the  produce.  Ina,  King  of  the  West 
on  the  female  side,  let  my  kinsman  !  Saxons,  fixed  the  rent  of  ten  hides 
make  compensation."  1(1200  acres),  in  the  beginning  of  the 


212 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


eighth  century,  as  follows  :  10  casks 
honey,  12  casks  strong  ale,  30  casks 
small  ale,  300  loaves  bread,  2  oxen,  10 
wedders,  10  geese,  20  hens,  10  chick- 
ens, 10  cheeses,  1  cask  butter,  5  sal- 
mon, 20  Ibs.  forage,  and  100  eels.  In 
the  reign  of  Edgar  the  Peaceable  (tenth 
century),  land  was  sold  for  about  four 
shillings  of  the  then  currency  per  acre. 
The  Abbot  of  Ely  bought  an  estate 
about  this  time,  which  was  paid  for  at 
the  rate  of  four  sheep  or  one  horse  for 
each  acre. 

The  freemen  (Liberi  Homines)  were 
a  very  numerous  class,  and  all  were 
trained  in  the  use  of  arms.  Their  Folc- 
land  was  held  under  the  penalty  of  for- 
feiture if  they  did  not  take  the  field, 
whenever  required  for  the  defence  of 
the  country.  In  addition,  a  tax,  called 
Danegeld,  was  levied  at  a  rate  varying 
from  two  shillings  to  seven  shillings  per 
hide  of  land  (120  acres)  ;  and  in  1008, 
each  owner  of  a  large  estate,  310  hides, 
was  called  on  to  furnish  a  ship  for  the 
navy. 

Selden  ("  Laws  and  Government  of 
England,"  p.  34)  thus  describes  the 
freemen  among  the  Saxons,  previous  to 
the  Conquest  : 

"  The  next  and  most  considerable  degree 
of  all  the  people  is  that  of  the  Freemen, 
anciently  called  Frilingi,*  or  Free-born,  or 
such  as  are  born  free  from  all  yoke  of  arbi- 
trary power,  and  from  all  law  of  compul- 
sion, other  than  what  is  made  by  their  vol- 
untary consent,  for  all  freemen  have  votes 
in  the  making  and  executing  of  the  general 
laws  of  the  kingdom.  In  the  first,  they  dif- 
fered from  the  Gauls,  of  whom  it  is  noted 
that  the  commons  are  never  called  to  coun- 
cil, nor  are  much  better  than  servants.  In 
the  second,  they  differ  from  many  free  peo- 
ple, and  are  a  degree  more  excellent,  being 
adjoined  to  the  lords  in  judicature,  both 
by  advice  and  power  (consilium  et  authori- 
tates  adsunt},  and  therefore  those  that  were 
elected  to  that  work  were  called  Comites  ex 
plebe,  and  made  one  rank  of  Freemen  for  wis- 
dom superior  to  the  rest.  Another  degree 
of  these  were  beholden  for  their  riches, 
and  were  called  Vustodes  Pagani,  an  honor- 
able title  belonging  to  military  service,  and 
these  were  such  as  had  obtained  an  estate 
of  such  value  as  that  their  ordinary  arms 
were  a  helmet,  a  coat  of  mail,  and  a  gilt 
aword.  The  rest  of  the  freemen  were  con- 


*  This  is  a  Teutonic,  not  an  Anglo-Saxon 
term  ;  the  Anglo-Saxon  word  is  Thane. 


tented  with  the  name  of  Ctorls,  and  had  M 
sure  a  title  to  their  own  liberties  as  th» 
Custode*  Pagani  or  tk«  country  gentlemen 
had." 

Land  was  liable  to  be  seized  upon  for 
treason  and  forfeited  ;  but  even  after 
the  monarchs  had  assumed  the  func- 
tions of  the  Folc-gemot,  they  were  not 
allowed  to  give  land  away  without  the 
approval  of  the  great  men  ;  charters 
were  consented  to  and  witnessed  in 
council.  "  There  is  scarcely  a  charter 
extant,"  says  Chief  Baron  Gilbert, 
"  that  is  not  proof  of  this  right."  The 
grant  of  Baldred,  King  of  Kent,  of  the 
manor  of  Mailing,  in  Sussex,  was  an- 
nulled because  it  was  given  without  the 
consent  of  the  council.  The  subse- 
quent gift  thereof,  by  Egbert  and  Ath- 
elwolf,  was  made  with  the  concurrence 
and  assent  of  the  great  men.  The 
kings'  charters  of  escheated  lands,  to 
which  they  had  succeeded  by  a  personal 
right,  usually  declared  "  that  it  might 
be  known  that  what  they  gave  was  their 
own." 

Discussions  have  at  various  time.* 
taken  place  upon  the  question,  "  WHS 
the  land-system  of  this  periodfeudal  .*" 
It  engaged  the  attention  of  the  Irish 
Court  of  King's  Bench,  in  the  reign  of 
Charles  I.,  and  was  raised  in  this  way  : 
James  I.  had  issued  "  a  commission  of 
defective  titles."  Any  Irish  owner, 
upon  surrendering  his  land  to  the  king, 
got  a  patent  which  reconvened  it  on 
him.  Wentworth  (Lord  Stafford) 
wished  to  settle  Connaught,  as  Ulster 
had  been  settled  in  the  preceding  reign, 
and,  to  accomplish  it,  tried  to  break 
the  titles  granted  under  "  the  commis- 
sion of  defective  titles."  Lord  Dillon's 
case,  which  is  still  quoted  as  an  au- 
thority, was  tried.  The  plea  for  the 
Crown  alleged  that  the  honor  of  the 
monarch  stood  before  his  profit,  and  as 
the  commissioners  were  only  authorized 
to  issue  patents  to  hold  in  capite, 
whereas  they  had  given  title  "  to  hold 
in  capite,  by  knights'  service  out  of 
Dublin  Castle,"  the  grant  was  bad.  In 
the  course  of  the  argument,  the  exist- 
ence of  feudal  tenures,  before  the  land- 
ing of  William  of  Normandy,  was  dis- 
cussed, and  Sir  Henry  Spelman's  views, 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     213 


as  expressed  in  the  Glossary,  were  con- 
sidered. The  Court  unanimously  de- 
cided that  feudalism  existed  in  England 
under  the  Anglo-Saxons,  and  it  affirmed 
that  Sir  Henry  Spelman  was  wrong. 
This  decision  led  Sir  Henry  Spelman  to 
write  his  "  Treatise  on  Feuds,"  which 
was  published  after  his  death,  in  which 
he  reasserted  the  opinion  that  feudal- 
ism was  introduced  into  England  at  the 
Norman  invasion.  This  decision  must, 
however,  be  accepted  with  a  limitation  ; 
I  think  there  was  no  separate  order  of 
nobility  under  the  Anglo-Saxon  rule. 
The  king  had  his  councillors,  but  there 
appears  to  have  been  no  order  between 
him  and  the  Folc-gemot.  The  Earls 
and  the  Thanes  met  with  the  people, 
but  did  not  form  a  separate  body.  The 
Thanes  were  country  gentleman,  not 
senators.  The  outcome  of  the  heptar- 
chy was  the  Earls  or  Ealdermen  ;  this 
was  the  only  order  of  nobility  among 
the  Saxons  ;  they  corresponded  to  the 
position  of  lieutenants  of  counties,  and 
were  appointed  for  life.  In  1045  there 
were  nine  such  officers  ;  in  1065  there 
were  but  six.  Harold's  earldom,  at 
the  former  date,  comprised  Norfolk, 
Suffolk,  Essex,  and  Middlesex  ;  and 
Godwin's  took  in  the  whole  south  coast 
from  Sandwich  to  the  Land's  End,  and 
included  Kent,  Sussex,  Hampshire, 
Wilts,  Devonshire,  and  Cornwall.  Up- 
on the  death  of  Godwin,  Harold  re- 
signed his  earldom,  and  took  that  of 
Godwin,  the  bounds  being  slightly 
varied.  Harold  retained  his  earldom 
after  he  became  king,  but  on  his  death 
it  was  seized  upon  by  the  Conqueror, 
and  divided  among  his  followers. 

The  Crown  relied  upon  the  Libert 
Homines  or  freemen.  The  country  was 
not  studded  with  castles  filled  with 
armed  men.  The  House  of  the  Thane 
was  an  unfortified  structure,  and  while 
the  laws  relating  to  land  were,  in  my 
view,  essentially  feudal,  the  government 
was  different  from  that  to  which  we 
apply  the  terra  feudalism,  which  ap- 
pears to  imply  baronial  castles,  armed 
men,  and  an  oppressed  people. 

I  venture  to  suggest  to  some  modern 
writers  that  further  inquiry  will  show 
them  that  Folc-land  was  not  confined. 


to  commonages,  or  unallotted  portions, 
but  that  at  the  beginning  it  comprised 
all  the  land  of  the  kingdom,  and  that 
the  occupant  did  not  enjoy  it  as  owner- 
in-severalty  ;  he  had  a  good  title  against 
his  fellow-subjects,  but  he  held  under 
the  Folc-gemot,  and  was  subject  to  con- 
ditions. The  consolidation  of  the  sov- 
ereignty, the  extension  of  laws  of  for- 
feiture, the  assumption  by  the  kings  of 
the  rights  of  the  popular  assemblies,  ah1 
tended  to  the  formation  of  a  second  set 
of  titles,  and  boc-land  became  an  object 
of  ambition.  The  same  individual  ap- 
pears to  have  held  land  by  both  titles, 
and  to  have  had  greater  powers  over 
the  latter  than  over  the  former. 

Many  of  those  who  have  written  on 
the  subject  seem  to  me  to  have  failed 
to  grasp  either  the  object  or  the  genius 
of  FEUDALISM.  It  was  the  device  of 
conquerors  to  maintain  their  possessions, 
and  is  not  to  be  found  among  nations, 
the  original  occupiers  of  the  land,  nor 
in  the  conquests  of  states  which  main- 
tained standing  armies.  The  invading 
hosts  elected  their  chieftain,  they  and 
he  had  only  a  life  use  of  the  conquests. 
Upon  the  death  of  one  leader  another 
was  elected,  so  upon  the  death  of  the 
allottee  of  a  piece  of  land  it  reverted  to 
the  state.  The  genius  of  FEUDALISM 
was  life  ownership  and  non-partition. 
Hence  the  oath  of  fealty  was  a  personal 
obligation,  and  investiture  was  needful 
before  the  new  feudee  took  possession. 
The  state,  as  represented  by  the  king 
or  chieftain,  while  allowing  the  claim 
of  the  family,  exercised  its  right  to 
select  the  individual.  All  the  lands 
were  considered  Beneficia,  a  word 
which  now  means  a  charge  upon  land, 
to  compensate  for  duties  rendered  to 
the  state.  Under  this  system,  the 
feudatory  was  a  commander,  his  resi- 
dence a  barrack,  his  tenants  soldiers  ; 
it  was  his  duty  to  keep  down  the 
aborigines,  and  to  prevent  invasion. 
He  could  neither  sell,  give,  nor  be- 
queath his  land.  He  received  the  sur- 
plus revenue  as  payment  for  personal 
service,  and  thus  enjoyed  his  benejice. 
Judged  in  this  way,  I  think  the  feudal 


11 


system  existed  before  the  Norman  Con' 
quest.     Slavery  and  serfdom  undoubt- 


214 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


edly  prevailed.  The  country  prospered 
under  the  Scandinavians  ;  and,  from 
the  great  abundance  of  corn,  William 
of  Poitiers  calls  England  "  the  store- 
house of  Ceres." 

IV.    THE    NORMANS. 

The  invasion  of  William  of  Norman- 
dy led  to  results  which  have  been  repre- 
sented by  some  writers  as  having  been 
the  most  momentous  in  English  his- 
tory. I  do  not  wish  in  any  way  to  de- 
preciate their  views,  but  it  seems  to  me 
not  to  have  been  so  disastrous  to  exist- 
ing institutions,  as  the  Scandinavian 
invasion,  which  completely  submerged 
all  former  usages.  No  trace  of  Roman 
occupation  survived  the  advent  of  the 
Anglo-Saxons  ;  the  population  was  re- 
duced to  and  remained  in  the  position 
of  serfs,  whereas  the  Norman  invasion 
preserved  the  existing  institutions  of 
the  nation,  and  subsequent  changes  were 
an  outgrowth  thereof. 

When  Edward  the  Confessor,  the 
last  descendant  of  Cedric,  was  on  his 
deathbed,  he  declared  Harold  to  be  his 
successor,  but  William  of  Normandy 
claimed  the  throne  under  a  previous  will 
of  the  same  monarch.  He  asked  for 
the  assistance  of  his  own  nobles  and 
people  in  the  enterprise,  but  they  re- 
fused at  first,  on  the  ground  that  their 
feudal  compact  only  required  them  to 
join  in  the  defence  of  their  country, 
and  did  not  coerce  them  into  affording 
him  aid  in  a  completely  new  enter- 
prise ;  and  it  was  only  by  promising  to 
compensate  them  oat  of  the  spoils  that 
he  could  secure  their  co-operation.  A 
list  of  the  number  of  ships  supplied  by 
each  Norman  chieftain  appears  in  Lord 
Lyttleton's  "History  of  Henry  III." 
vol.  i,,  appendix. 

I  need  hardly  remind  you  that  the 
settlers  in  Normandy  were  from  Nor- 
way, or  that  they  had  been  expelled 
from  their  native  land  in  consequence 
of  their  efforts  to  subvert  its  institu- 
tions, and  to  make  the  descent  of  land 
hereditary,  instead  of  being  divisible 
among  all  the  sons  of  the  former  owner. 
Nor  need  I  relate  how  they  won  and 
held  the  fair  provinces  of  northern 
France— whether  as  a  fief  of  the  French 


Crown  or  not,  is  an  open  question. 
But  I  should  wish  you  to  bear  in  mind 
their  affinity  to  the  Anglo-Saxons,  to 
the  Danes,  and  to  the  Norwegians,  the 
family  of  Sea  Robbers,  whose  ravages 
extended  along  the  coasts  of  Europe  as 
far  south  as  Gibraltar,  and,  as  some  al- 
lege, along  the  Mediterranean.  Some 
questions  have  been  raised  as  to  the 
means  of  transport  of  the  Saxons,  the 
Jutes,  and  the  Angles,  but  they  were 
fully  as  extensive  as  those  by  wnich 
Rollo  invaded  France  or  William  in- 
vaded England. 

William  strengthened  his  claim  to  the 
throne  by  his  military  success,  and  by 
a  form  of  election,  for  which  there 
were  many  previous  precedents.  Those 
who  called  upon  him  to  ascend  it  al- 
leged "  that  they  had  always  been  ruled 
by  legal  power,  and  desired  to  follow 
in  that  respect  the  example  of  their  an- 
cestors, and  they  knew  of  no  one  more 
worthy  than  himself  to  hold  the  reins 
of  government. ' ' 

His  alleged  title  to  the  crown,  sanc- 
tioned by  success  and  confirmed  by  elec- 
tion, enabled  him,  in  conformity  with 
existing  institutions,  to  seize  upon  the 
lands  of  Harold  and  his  adherents,  and 
to  grant  them  as  rewards  to  his  follow- 
ers. Such  confiscation  and  gifts  were 
entirely  in  accord  with  existing  usages, 
and  the  great  alteration  which  took 
place  in  the  principal  fiefs  was  more  a 
change  of  persons  than  of  law.  A  large 
body  of  the  aboriginal  people  had  been, 
and  continued  to  be,  serfs  or  villeins  ; 
while  the  mass  of  the  freemen  (Liberi 
Homines)  remained  in  possession  of 
their  holdings. 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  here  to 
say  a  few  words  about  this  important 
class,  which  is  in  reality  the  backbone 
of  the  British  constitution  ;  it  was  the 
mainstay  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  monarchy ; 
it  lost  its  influence  during  the  civil  wars 
of  the  Plantagenets,  but  reasserted  its 
power  under  Cromwell.  Dr.  Robertson 
thus  draws  the  line  between  them  and 
the  vassals  : 

"  In  the  same  manner  Liber  homo  is  com- 
monly opposed  to  Vassus  or  Vassalus,  the 
former  denoting  an  allodial  proprietor,  the 
latter  one  who  held  of  a  superior.  These 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     215 


freemen  were  under  an  obligation  to  serve 
the  state,  and  this  duty  was  considered  so 
sacred  that  freemen  were  prohibited  from 
entering  into  holy  orders,  unless  they  ob- 
tained the  consent  of  the  sovereign." 

De  Lolme,  chap,  i.,  sec.  5,  says  : 

"  The  Liber  homo,  or  freeman,  has  existed 
in  this  country  from  the  earliest  periods, 
as  well  as  of  authentic  as  of  traditionary 
history,  entitled  to  that  station  in  society 
as  one  of  his  constitutional  rights,  as  be- 
ing descended  from  free  parents  in  contra- 
distinction to  '  villains,'  which  should  be 
borne  in  remembrance,  because  the  term 
'  freeman '  has  been,  in  modern  times, 
perverted  from  its  constitutional  significa- 
tion without  any  statutable  authority." 

The  Liberi  Homines  are  so  described 
in  the  Doomsday  Book.  They  were 
the  only  men  of  honor,  faith,  trust,  and 
reputation  in  the  kingdom  ;  and  from 
among  such  of  these  as  were  not  barons, 
the  knights  did  choose  jurymen,  served 
on  juries  themselves,  bare  offices,  and 
dispatched  country  business.  Many  of 
the  Liberi  Homines  held  of  the  king  in 
capite,  and  several  wore  freeholders  of 
other  persons  in  military  service.  Their 
rights  were  recognized  and  guarded  by 
the  55th  William  I.  ;*  it  is  entitled  : 

"  CONCERNING    CHEUTTLAB   OB  FEUDAL  BIGHTS, 
AND   THE   IMMUNITY   OF  FKKEMEN. 

"  We  will  also,  and  strictly,  enjoin  and 
concede  that  all  freemen  (Liberi  Homines) 
of  our  whole  kingdom  aforesaid,  have  and 
hold  their  land  and  possessions  well  and 
in  peace,  free  from  every  unjust  exaction 
and  from  Tallage,  so  that  nothing  be  ex- 
acted or  taken  from  them  except  their  free 
service,  which  of  right  they  ought  to  do  to 
us  and  are  bound  to  do,  and  according  as 
it  was  appointed  (statutum)  to  them,  and 
given  to  them  by  us,  and  conceded  by  he- 
reditary right  for  ever,  by  the  common 


*  "LV.— De  Chartilari  seu  Feudorum 
jure  et  Ingenuorum  immunitate.  Volumu 
etiain  ac  firmiter  prseoipimus  et  concedi- 
mus  ut  omnes  liberi  homines  totius  Mon- 
archies regni  nostri  prsedicti  habeant  el 
teneant  terras  suas  et  possessiones  suas 
bene  et  in  pace,  liberi  ab  omni,  exactione 
iniusta  et  ab  omni  Tallagio  :  Itaquod  nihi 
ftb  eis  exigatur  vel  capiatur  nisi  servicium 
Buum  liberum  quod  de  iure  nobis  facere 
debent  et  facere  tenentur  et  prout  statutum 
est  eis  et  illis  a  nobis  datum  et  concessum 
iure  hasreditario  imperpetuum  per  com- 
mune consilium  totius  regni  nostri  prae 
icti." 


council   (fblc-gemof)  of  our    whole  realm 
aforesaid." 

These  freemen  were  not  created  by 
the  Norman  Conquest,  they  existed 
:)rior  thereto  ;  and  the  laws,  of  which 
;his  is  one,  are  declared  to  be  the  laws 
of  Edward  the  Confessor,  which  William 
re-enacted.  Selden,  in  "  The  Laws  and 
Government  of  England,"  p.  34,  speaks 
of  this  law  as  the  first  Magna  Charta. 
He  says  : 

"  Lastly,  the  one  law  of  the  kings,  which 
may  be  called  the  first  Magna  (Jharta  in  the 
Norman  times  (55  William  I.),  by  which 
the  king  reserved  to  himself,  from  the  free- 
men of  this  kingdom,  nothing  but  their  free 
service,  in  the  conclusion  saith  that  their 
lands  were  thus  granted  to  them  in  inher- 
itance of  the  king  by  the  Common  Council 
( Folc-gemot)  of  the  whole  kingdom  ;  and  so 
asserts,  in  one  sentence,  the  liberty  of  the 
freemen,  and  of  the  representative  body  of 
the  kingdom." 

He  further  adds  : 

"  The  freedom  of  an  Englishman  consist- 
eth  of  three  particulars  :  first,  in  ownership  ; 
second,  in  voting  any  law,  whereby  owner- 
ship :'j  maintained  ;  and,  thirdly,  in  hav- 
ing an  influence  iipon  the  judiciary  power 
that  must  apply  the  law.  Now  the  Eng- 
lish, under  the  Normans,  enjoyed  all  this 
freedom  with  each  man's  own  particular, 
besides  what  they  had  in  bodies  aggregate. 
This  was  the  meaning  of  the  Normans,  and 
they  published  the  same  to  the  world  in  a 
fundamental  law,  whereby  is  granted  that 
all  freemen  shall  have  and  hold  their  lands 
and  possessions  in  hereditary  right  for 
ever  ;  and  by  this  they  being  secured  from 
forfeiture,  they  are  further  saved  from  all 
wrong  by  the  same  law,  which  provideth 
that  they  shall  hold  them  well  or  quietly, 
and  in  peace,  free  from  all  unjust  tax,  and 
from  all  Tallage,  so  as  nothing  shall  be  ex- 
acted nor  taken  but  their  free  service,  which, 
by  nght,  they  are  bound  to  perform." 

This  is  expounded  in  the  law  of 
Henry  I.,  cap.  4,  to  mean  that  no  trib- 
ute or  tax  shall  be  taken  but  what  was 
due  in  the  Confessor's  time,  and  Ed- 
ward II.  was  sworn  to  observe  the  laws 
of  the  Confessor. 

The  nation  was  not  immediately  set- 
tled. Rebellions  arose  either  from  the 
oppression  of  the  invaders  or  the  rest- 
lessness of  the  conquered  ;  and,  as  each 


13 


outburst  was  put  down  by  force,  there 
were  new  lands  to  be  distributed  among 


2l6 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


the  adherents   of   the    monarch;  ulti- 1  crown,  and  that  his  title,  real  or  pretended. 


mately  there  were  about  700  chief  ten- 
ants holding  in  capite,  but  the  nation 
was  divided  into  60,215  knights'  fees, 
of  which  the  Church  held  28^  15.  The 
king  retained  in  his  own  hands  1422 
manors,  besides  a  great  number  of  for- 
ests, parks,  chases,  farms,  and  houses, 
in  all  parts  of  the  kingdom  ;  and  his 
followers  received  very  large  holdings. 

Among  the  Saxon  families  who  re- 
tained their  land  was  one  named  Shob- 
ington  in  Bucks.  Hearing  that  the 
Norman  lord  was  coming  to  whom  the 
estate  had  been  gifted  by  the  king,  the 
head  of  the  house  armed  his  servants 
and  tenants,  preparing  to  do  battle  for 
his  rights  ;  he  cast  up  works,  which 
remain  to  this  day  in  grassy  mounds, 
marking  the  sward  of  the  park,  and  es- 
tablished himself  behind  them  to  await 
the  despoiler's  onset.  It  was  the  period 
when  hundreds  of  herds  of  wild  cattle 
roamed  the  forest  lands  of  Britain,  and, 
failing  horses,  the  Shobingtous  collect- 
ed a  number  of  bulls,  rode  forth  on 
them,  and  routed  the  Normans,  unused 
to  such  cavalry.  William  heard  of  the 
defeat,  and  conceived  a  respect  for  the 
brave  man  who  had  caused  it ;  he  sent 
a  herald  with  a  safe  conduct  to  the 
chief,  Shobington,  desiring  to  speak 
with  him.  Not  many  days  after,  came 
to  court  eight  stalwart  men  riding  upon 
bulls,  the  father  and  seven  sons.  "  If 
thou  wilt  leave  me  my  lands,  O  king," 
said  the  old  man,  "  I  will  serve  thee 
faithfully  as  I  did  the  dead  Harold." 
Whereupon  the  Conqueror  confirmed 
him  in  his  ownership,  and  named  the 
family  Bullstrode,  instead  of  Shobing- 
ton. 

Sir  Martin  Wright,  in  his  "  Treatise 
on  Tenures,"  published  in  1730,  p.  61, 
remarks  : 


ifc  istruetnat  the  possessions 


was  established  by  the  death  of  Harold, 
which  amounted  to  an  unquestionable  judg- 
ment in  his  favor.  He  did  not  therefore 
treat  his  opposers  as  enemies,  but  as  trait- 
ors, agreeably  to  the  known  laws  of  the 
kingdom  which  subjected  traitors  not  only 
to  the  loss  of  life  but  of  all  their  posses- 


He  adds  (p.  63)  : 

"  As  William  I.  did  not  claim  to  possess 
himself  of  the  lands  of  England  as  the 
spoils  of  conquest,  so  neither  did  he  tyran- 
nically and  arbitrarily  subject  them  to  feu- 
dal dependence  ;  but,  as  the  fedual  law 
was  at  that  time  the  prevailing  law  of 
Europe,  William  I.,  who  had  always  gov- 
erned by  this  policy,  might  probably  rec- 
ommend it  to  our  ancestors  as  the  most  ob- 
vious and  ready  way  to  put  them  upon  a 
footing  with  their  neighbors,  and  to  secure 
the  nation  against  any  future  attempts  from 
them.  We  accordingly  find  among  the  laws 
of  William  I.  a  law  enacting  feudal  law  it- 
self, not  eo  nomine,  but  in  effect,  inasmuch 
as  it  requires  from  all  persons  the  same  en- 
gagements to,  and  introduces  the  same  de- 
pendence upon,  the  king  as  supreme  lord 
of  all  the  lands  of  England,  as  were  sup- 
posed to  be  due  to  a  supreme  lord  by  the 
feudal  law.  The  law  I  mean  is  the  LII.  law 
of  William  I." 

This  view  is  adopted  by  Sir  William 
Blackstone,  who  writes  (vol.  ii.,  p. 
47): 

"  From  the  prodigious  slaughter  of  the 
English  nobility  at  the  battle  of  Hastings, 
and  the  fruitless  insurrection  of  those  who 
survived,  such  numerous  forfeitures  had 
accrued  that  he  (William)  was  able  to  re- 
ward his  Norman  followers  with  very  large 
and  extensive  possessions,  which  gave  a 
handle  to  monkish  historians,  and  such  as 
have  implicitly  followed  them,  to  represent 
him  as  having,  by  the  right  of  the  sword, 
seized  upon  all  the  lands  of  England,  and 
dealt  them  out  again  to  his  own  favorites — 
a  supposition  grounded  upon  a  mistaken 
sense  of  the  word  conquest,  which  in  its 
feudal  acceptation  signifies  no  more  than 
acquisition,  and  this  has  led  many  hasty 
writers  into  a  strange  historical  mistake, 
and  one  which,  upon  the  slightest  exami- 


«*r  ------   ------  ,  ^—  ___  --„—  -  _____ 

the  Normans  were  of  a  sudden  very  \  nation,  will  be  found  to  be  most  untrue. 
aat,  and  that  they  received  most  of  them       "  We  learn  from  a  Saxon  chronicle  (A.D. 
from  the  hands  of  William  I.,  yet  it  does   1085  \  that  in  the  nineteenth  year  of  King 
not  follow  that  the  king  took  all  the  lands  !  William's  reign,   an  invasion   was    appre- 
iglandoutof  the  hands  of  their  several   hended  from  Denmark;    and  the  military 
owners,  claiming  them  as  his  spoils  of  war,    constitution  of  the  Saxons  being  then  laid 
>r  as  a  parcel  of  a  conquered  country  ;  but,  |  aside,  and  no  other  introduced  in  its  stead, 
on  the  contrary,  it  appears  pretty   plain  I  the  kingdom  was  wholly  defenceless  :  which 
i  the  history  of  those  times  that  the  I  occasioned  the  king  to  bring  over  a  large 
King  either  had  or  pretended  title  to  thej  army  of  Normans  and  Britona.  who  were 

14 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     217 


quartered  upon,  and  greatly  oppressed,  the 
people.  This  apparent  weakness,  together 
with  the  grievances  occasioned  by  a  foreign 
force,  might  co-operate  with  the  king's  re- 
monstrance, and  better  incline  the  nobility 
to  listen  to  his  proposals  for  putting  them 
in  a  position  of  defence.  For,  as  soon  as 
the  danger  was  over,  the  king  held  a  great 
council  to  inquire  into  the  state  of  the  na- 
tion, the  immediate  consequence  of  which 
was  the  compiling  of  the  great  survey  call- 
ed the  Doomsday  Book,  which  was  finished 
the  next  year  ;  and  in  the  end  of  that  very 
year  (1086)  the  king  was  attended  by  all  his 
nobility  at  Sarum,  where  the  principal 
landholders  submitted  their  lands  to  the 
yoke  of  military  tenure,  and  became  the 
king's  vassals,  and  did  homage  and  fealty 
to  his  person." 

Mr.  Henry  Hallam  writes  : 

"  One  innovation  made  by  "William  upon 
the  feudal  law  is  very  deserving  of  atten- 
tion. By  the  leading  principle  of  feuds, 
an  cath  of  fealty  was  due  from  the  vassal 
to  the  lord  of  whom  he  immediately  held 
the  land,  and  no  other.  The  King  of  f  ranee 
long  after  this  period  had  no  feudal,  and 
scarcely  any  royal,  authority  over  the  ten- 
ants of  his  own  vassals  ;  but  William  re- 
ceived at  Salisbury,  in  1085,  the  fealty  of 
all  landholders  in  England,  both  those  who 
held  in  chief  and  their  tenants,  thus  break- 
ing in  upon  the  feudal  compact  in  its  most 
essential  attribute — the  exclusive  depend- 
ence of  a  vassal  upon  his  lord  ;  and  this 
may  be  reckoned  among  the  several  causes 
which  prevented  the  continental  notions 
of  independence  upon  the  Crown  from  ever 
taking  root  among  the  English  aristocracy." 

A  more  recent  writer,  Mr.  Freeman 
(:' History  of  the  Norman  Conquest," 
published  in  1871,  vol.  iv.,  p.  695), 
repeats  the  same  idea,  though  not  ex- 
actly in  the  same  words.  After  describ- 
ing the  assemblage  which  encamped  in 
the  plains  around  Salisbury,  he  says  : 

"In  this  great  meeting  a  decree  was 
passed,  which  is  one  of  the  most  memora- 
ble piet-es  of  legislation  in  the  whole  his- 
tory of  England.  In  other  lands  where 
military  tenure  existed,  it  was  beginning 
to  be  held  that  he  who  plighted  his  faith  to 
a  lord,  who  was  the  man  of  the  king,  was 
the  man  of  that  lord  only,  and  did  not  be- 
come the  man  of  the  king  himself.  It  was 
beginning  to  be  held  that  if  such  a  man 
followed  his  immediate  lord  to  battle 
against  the  common  sovereign,  the  lord 
might  draw  on  himself  the  guilt  of  treason, 
but  the  men  that  followed  him  would  be 
guiltless.  William  himself  would  have  been 
amazed  if  any  vassal  of  his  had  refused  to 


draw  his  sword  in  a  war  with  France  on 
the  score  of  duty  toward  an  over-lord.  But 
in  England,  at  all  events,  William  was  de- 
termined to  be  full  king  over  the  whole 
land,  to  be  immediate  sovereign  and  im- 
mediate lord  of  every  man.  A  statute  was 
passed  that  every  freeman  in  the  realm 
should  take  the  oath  of  fealty  to  King  Will- 
iam." 

Mr.  Freeman  quotes  Stubbs's  "  Select 
Charters,"  p.  80,  as  his  authority. 
Stubbs  gives  the  text  of  that  charter, 
with  ten  others.  He  says  :  "  These 
charters  are  from  '  Textus  Rofiensis,'  a 
manuscript  written  during  the  reign  of 
Henry  I.  ;  it  contains  the  sum  and  sub- 
stance of  all  the  legal  enactments  made 
by  the  Conqueror  independent  of  his 
confirmation  of  the  earlier  laws. "  It  is 
as  follows  :  "  Statuimus  etiam  ut  om- 
nis  liber  homo  feodere  et  sacramento 
affirmet,  quod  intra  et  extra  Augliam 
Willelmo  regi  fideles  esse  volunt,  terras 
et  honorem  illius  omni  fidelitate  cum 
eo  servare  et  eum  contra  inimicos  de- 
fendere." 

It  will  be  perceived  that  Mr.  Hallam 
reads  Liber  homo  as  "  vassal."  Mr. 
Freeman  reads  them  as  "  freeman," 
while  the  older  authority,  Sir  Martin 
Wright,  says  :  "I  have  translated  the 
words  Liberi  Homines,  '  owners  of 
land,'  because  the  sense  agrees  best 
with  the  tenor  of  the  law." 

The  views  of  writers  of  so  much  em- 
inence as  Sir  Martin  Wright,  Sir  Will- 
iam Blackstone,  Mr.  Henry  Hallam, 
and  Mr.  Freeman,  are  entitled  to  the 
greatest  respect  and  consideration,  and 
it  is  with  much  diffidence  I  venture  to 
differ  from  them.  The  three  older 
writers  appear  to  have  had  before  them 
the  LII.  of  William  L,  the  latter  the 
alleged  charter  found  in  the  "  Textus 
Roffensis  ;"  but  as  they  are  almost 
identical  in  expression,  I  treat  the  latter 
as  a  copy  of  the  former,  and  I  do  not 
think  it  bears  out  the  interpretation 
sought  to  be  put  upon  it — that  it  altered 
either  the  feudalism  of  England,  or  the 
relation  of  the  vassal  to  his  lord  ;  and 
it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  not  only 
did  William  derive  his  title  to  the  crown 
from  Edward  the  Confessor,  but  he 
preserved  the  apparent  continuity,  and 
re-enacted  the  laws  of  his  predecessor. 


218 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


Wilkins'  "  Laws  of  the  Anglo-Saxons 
and  Normans,"  republished in  1840  by 
the  Record  Commissioners,  gives  the 
following  introduction  : 

"  Here  begin  the  laws  of  Edward,  the 
glorious  king  of  England. 

"  After  the  fourth  year  of  the  succession 
to  the  kingdom  of  William  of  this  land, 
that  is  England,  he  ordered  all  the  English 
noble  and  wise  men  and  acquainted  with 
tho  law,  through  the  whole  country,  to  be 
summoned  before  his  council  of  barons,  in 
order  to  be  acquainted  with  their  customs. 
Having  therefore  selected  from  all  the  coun- 
ties twelve,  they  were  sworn  solemnly  to 
proceed  as  diligently  as  they  might  to  write 
their  laws  and  customs,  nothing  omitting, 
nothing  adding,  and  nothing  changing." 

Then  follow  the  laws,  thirty-nine  in 
number,  thus  showing  the  continuity  of 
system,  and  proving  that  William  im- 
posed upon  his  Norman  followers  the 
laws  of  the  Anglo-Saxons.  They  do 
not  include  the  LII.  William  I.,  to 
which  I  shall  refer  hereafter.  I  may, 
however,  observe  that  the  demonstra- 
tion at  Salisbury  was  not  of  a  legislative 
character  ;  and  that  it  was  held  in  con- 
formity with  Anglo-Saxon  usages.  If, 
according  to  Stubbs,  the  ordinance  was 
a  charter,  it  would  proceed  from  the 
king  alone.  The  idea  involved  in  the 
statements  of  Sir  Martin  Wright,  Mr. 
Hallam,  and  Mr.  Freeman,  that  the 
vassal  of  a  lard  was  then  called  on  to 
swear  allegiance  to  the  king,  and  that  it 
altered  the  feudal  bond  in  England,  is 
not  supported  by  the  oath  of  vassalage. 
In  swearing  fealty,  the  vassal  knelt, 
placed  his  hands  between  those  of  his 
lord's,  and  swore  : 

"  I  become  your  man  from  this  day  for- 
ward, of  life  and  limb,  and  of  earthly  wor- 
ship, and  unto  you  shall  be  true  and  faith- 
ful, and  bear  you  faith  for  the  tenements  at 
that  I  claim  to  hold  of  you, 
earring  the  faith  that  1  owe  unto  our  Sovereign 
Lord  the  King." 

This  shows  that  it  was  unnecessary  to 
call  vassals  to  Salisbury  to  swear  allegi- 
ance. The  assemblage  was  of  the  same 
nature  and  character  as  previous  meet- 
ings. It  was  composed  of  the  Liberi 
Homines,  the  freemen,  described  by  the 
learned  John  Selden  (ante,  p.  10),  and 
by  Dr.  Robertson  and  De  Lolme  (ante. 
PP-  12,  13). 


But  there  is  evidence  of  a  much 
stronger  character,  which  of  itself  re- 
futes the  views  of  these  writers,  and 
shows  that  the  Norman  system,  at  least 
during  the  reign  of  William  L,  was  a 
continuation  of  that  existing  previous 
to  his  succession  to  the  throne  ;  and 
that  the  meeting  at  Salisbury,  so  graph- 
ically portrayed,  did  not  effect  that  rad- 
ical change  in  the  position  of  English 
landholders  which  has  been  stated.  I 
refer  to  the  works  of  EADMERUS  ;  he 
was  a  monk  of  Canterbury  who  was  ap- 
pointed Bishop  of  St.  Andrews,  and 
declined  or  resigned  the  appointment 
because  the  King  of  Scotland  refused 
to  allow  his  consecration  by  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury.  His  history  in- 
cludes the  reigns  of  William  L,  Will- 
iam II.,  and  Henry  L,  from  1066  to 
1122,  and  he  gives,  at  page  173,  the 
laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  which 
William  I.  gave  to  England  ;  they  num- 
ber seventy-one,  including  the  LII.  law 
quoted  by  Sir  Martin  Wright.  The  in- 
troduction to  these  Jaws  is  in  Latin  and 
Norman-French,  and  is  as  follows  : 

"  These  are  the  laws  and  customs  which 
King  William  granted  to  the  whole  people 
of  England  after  he  had  conquered  the 
land,  and  they  are  those  which  King  Ed- 
ward his  predecessor  observed  before  him."* 

This  simple  statement  gets  rid  of  the 
theory  of  Sir  Martin  Wright,  of  Sit 


*  The  laws  of  William  are  given  in  a  work 
entitled  "Eadmeri  Monachi  Cantuariensis 
Historia  Novonim,"  etc.  It  includes  the 
reigns  of  William  I.  and  II.,  and  Henry  L, 
from  1066  to  1122,  and  is  edited  by  John 
Selden.  Page  173  has  the  following  : 

"  Ces  pont  les  Leis  et 
les  Custuin-  qne  le  Rui 
William  grained  »  tut  le 
penule  de  Engleterre 
apres  le  Conquest  de  le 
Terre.  Ice  les  nieit>mes 
que  le  Rui  Edward  eun 
Cosin  tuit  devaiit  lot. 

LH. 

"  De  fide  et  obsequio  erga  Kegnum. 
"  Rtatuimus  etiam  ut  omnes  liberi  homines 
foedere  et  sacramento  affirment  quod  intra 
et  extra  universum  regnum  Anglise  (quod 
olim  vccabatur  regnum  Britannise)  Williel- 
mo  suo  domino  fideles  esse  volunt,  terras 
et  honores  illius  fidelitate  ubique  servare 
cum  eo  et  contra  iuimicos  et  aiienigenaa 
defenders. " 


"  Hae  sunt  Leges  et 
Consuetudines  quas 
Willielmus  Rex  conc'-s- 
si  t  universo  I-'opalo  An- 
glise  post  pubactntn  ter- 
rain Beedmn  sunt  quas 
Eclwardu-  Hex  cognatas 
ejua  obaeruauit  ante 
earn. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     219 


William  Blackstone,  of  Mr.  Ilallam 
and  of  Mr.  Freeman,  that  William  in- 
troduced a  new  system,  and  that  he  die 
so  either  as  a  new  feudal  law  or  as  an 
amendment  upon  the  existing  feudal- 
ism. The  LII.  law,  quoted  by  Wright, 
is  as  follows  : 

"  We  have  decreed  that  all  free  men 
should  affirm  on  oath,  that  both  within  anc 
without  the  whole  kingdom  of  England 
(which  is  called  Britain)  they  desire  to  be 
faithful  to  William  their  lord,  and  every- 
where preserve  unto  him  his  land  and  hon- 
ors with  fidelity,  and  defend  them  against 
all  enemies  and  strangers." 

Eadmerus,  who  wrote  in  the  reign  of 
Henry  I.,  gives  the  LII.  William  I.  as 
a  confirmatory  law.  The  charter  given 
by  Stubbs  is  a  contraction  of  the  law 
given  by  Eadmerus.  The  former  uses 
the  words  Omnes  liberi  homines;  the 
latter,  the  words  Omnis  liber  homo. 
Those  interested  can  compare  them,  as 
I  shall  give  the  text  of  each  side  by 
side. 

Since  the  paper  was  read,  I  have  met 
with  the  following  passage  in  Stubbs's 
"  Constitutional  History  of  England," 
vol.  i.,  p.  £65  : 

"  It  has  been  maintained  that  a  formal 
and  definitive  act,  forming  the  initial  point 
of  the  feudalization  of  England,  in  to  be 
found  in  a  clause  of  the  laws,  as  they  arj 
called,  of  the  Conqueror,  which  directs 
that  every  freeman  shall  affirm,  by  cove- 
nant and  oath,  that '  he  will  be  faithful  to 
King  William  within  England  and  without, 
will  join  him  in  preserving  his  land  with 
all  fidelity,  and  defend  him  against  his  ene- 
mies.' But  this  injunction  is  little  more 
than  the  demand  of  the  oath  of  allegiance 
taken  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  kings,  and  is  here 
required  not  of  every  feudal  dependant  of 
the  king,  but  of  every  freeman  or  freehold- 
er whatsoever.  In  that  famous  Council  of 
Salisbury,  A.D  1086,  which  was  summoned 
immediately  after  the  making  of  the 
Doomsday  survey,  we  learn,  from  the 
'  Chronicle,'  that  there  came  to  the  king 
'  all  his  witan  and  all  the  landholders  of 
substance  in  England,  whose  vassals  soever 
they  were,  and  they  all  submitted  to  him 
and  became  his  men,  and  swore  oaths  of 
allegiance  that  they  would  be  faithful  to 
him  against  all  others.'  In  the  act  has 
been  seen  the  formal  acceptance  and  date 
of  the  introduction  of  feudalism,  but  it  has 
a  very  different  meaning.  The  oath  de- 
scribed is  the  oath  of  allegiance,  combined 
with  the  act  of  homage,  and  obtained  from 


all  landowners  whoever  their  feudal  lord 
might  be.  It  is  a  measure  of  precaution 
taken  against  the  disintegrating  power  of 
feudalism,  providing  a  direct  tie  between 
the  sovereign  and  all  freeholders  which  no 
inferior  relations  existing  between  them 
and  the  mesne  lords  would  justify  them  in 
breaking." 

I  have  already  quoted  from  another 
of  Stubbs's  works,  "  Select  Charters," 
the  charter  which  he  appears  to  have 
discovered  bearing  upon  this  transac- 
tion, and  now  copy  the  note,  giving 
the  authorities  quoted  by  Stubbs,  with 
reference  to  the  above  passage.  He 
appears  to  have  overlooked  the  complete 
narration  of  the  alleged  laws  of  William 
I. ,  given  by  Eadmerus,  to  which  I  have 
referred.  The  note  is  as  follows  : 

"LI.  William  I,  §2,  below  note;  sea 
Hovenden,  ii.,  pref.  p.  5,  seq.,  where  I  have 
attempted  to  prove  the  spuriousness  of  the 
document  called  the  Charter  of  William  I., 
printed  in  the  ancient '  Laws,'  ed.  Thorpe, 
p.  211.  The  way  in  which  the  regulation  of 
the  Conqueror  here  referred  to  has  been 
misunderstood  and  misused  is  curiotis. 
Lambarde,  in  the  '  Archaionomia,'  p.  170, 
printed  the  false  charter  in  which  this  gen- 
uine article  is  incorporated  as  an  appendix 
to  the  French  version  of  the  Conqueror's 
laws,  numbering  the  clauses  51  to  67  ;  from 
Lambarde,  the  whole  thing  was  transferred 
by  Wilkins  into  his  collection  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  laws.  Blackstone' s  '  Commentary," 
ii.  49,  suggested  that  perhaps  the  very  law 
vwhich  introduced  feudal  tenures)  thus 
made  at  the  Council  of  Salisbury  is  that 
which  is  still  extant  and  couched  in  these 
remarkable  words,  i.e.,  the  injunction  in 
question  referred  to  by  Wilkins,  p.  228. 
Ellis,  in  the  introduction  to  '  Doomsday,' 
i.  16,  quotes  Blackstone,  but  adds  a  refer- 
ence to  Wilkins,  without  verifying  Black- 
stone's  quotation  from  his  collection  of 
laws,  substituting  for  that  work  the  Con- 
cilia, in  which  the  law  does  not  occur. 
Many  modern  writers  have  followed  him 
in  referring  the  enactment  of  the  article  to 
:he  Council  of  Salisbury.  It  is  well  to  give 
acre  the  text  of  both  passages  ;  that  in  the 
aws  runs  thus  :  '  Statuimus  etiam  ut  om- 
nis  liber  homo  foedere  et  sacramento  af* 
firmet,  quod  intra  et  extra  Angliam  Willel- 
mo  regi  fideles  esse  volunt,  terras  et  hono- 
remillius  omni  fidelitate  eum  eo  servare  et 
ante  eum  contra  inimicos  defendere '  (Se- 
.ect  Charters,  p.  80).  The  homage  done  at 
Salisbury  is  described  by  Florence  thus  : 
Nee  multo  post  mandavit  ut  Archiepiscopi, 
jpiscopi,  abbates,  comitas  et  barones  et 
vicecomitas  cum  suis  militibus  die  Kalen- 
darum  Augusta  r em  sibi  occurent  Saresberis* 


220 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


quo  cnm  venissent  niilitea  eorem  sibi  fidel- 
itatem  contra  omnes  homines  jurare  coe- 
git.'  The  '  Chronicle  '  is  a  little  more  full  : 
'  Thsa  him  comon  to  his  witan  and  ealle 
tha  Landsittende  men  the  ahtes  \vseron 
ofer  eall  Engleland  wseron  thaes  mannes 
men  the  hi  waeron  and  ealle  hi  bugon  to 
him  and  wasron  his  men,  and  him  hold 
athas  sworon  thaet  he  woldon  ongean  ealle 
other  men  him  holde  beon.' " 

Mr.  Stubbs  had,  in  degree,  adopted 
the  view  at  which  I  had  arrived,  that 
the  law  or  charter  of  William  I.  was  an 
injunction  to  enforce  the  oath  of  allegi- 
ance, previously  ordered  by  the  laws  of 
Edward  the  Confessor,  to  be  taken  by 
all  freemen,  and  that  it  did  not  relate 
to  vassals,  or  alter  the  existing  feudal- 
ism. 

As  the  subject  possesses  considerable 
interest  for  the  general  reader  as  well 
as  the  learned  historian,  I  think  it  well 
to  place  the  two  authorities  side  by  side, 
that  the  text  may  be  compared  : 


Charter  from  Textus 
Roffensis,  given  by  Mr. 
Stubbs. 

"Statuimns  etiam  ut 
omni.'S  liber  homo  feodere 
«t  eacrameiito  affirmet, 
quod  intra  et  extra  An- 
p  iiim  Willelmo  regi 
fldel<-8  e*se  volunt,  ter- 
ms et  honorem  illius 
omni  fldelitate  cam  eo 
cervare  et  ante  eum 
contra  inimicos  defen- 
dere." 


Lll.  William  I.,  as  given 
by  E'ldmerus. 

"  De  flde  et  obsequio 
erga  Regiuim. 

"Statuiimis  etiam  ut 
imnes  liheri  hrnnine* 
foedere,  et  sacramenio 
a.Hnnent  quod  intra  et 
extra  universum  reg- 
niim  Anjilise  (quod  olim 
vo^almtur  rvgnum  Bri- 
tanniae)  Willielrao  BUO 
flomino  fldeles  esse  vo- 
lunt, terras  et  honores 
illius  fi'lelitatc  unique 
servare  cum  eo  et  con- 
tra inimicog  et  alienige- 
nas  defeudere." 


I  think  the  documents  I  have  quoted 
show  that  Sir  Martin  Wright,  Sir  Will- 
iam  Blackstone,  and  Messrs.  Hallam 
and  Freeman,  labored  under  a  mistake 
in  supposing  that  William  had  intro- 
duced or  imposed  a  new  feudal  law,  or 
that  the  vassals  of  a  lord  swore  allegi- 
ance to  the  king.  The  introduction  to 
the  laws  of  William  I.  shows  that  it 
was  not  a  new  enactment,  or  a  Norman 
custom  introduced  into  England,  and 
the  law  itself  proves  that  it  relates  to 
freemen,  and  not  to  vassals. 

The  misapprehension  of  these  authors 
may  have  arisen  in  this  way  :  William 
I.  had  two  distinct  sets  of  subjects. 
The  NORMALS,  who  had  taken  the  oath 
of  allegiance  on  obtaining  investiture, 
»nd  whose  retinue  included  vassals  : 


and  the  ANGLO-SAXONS,  among  whom 
vassalage  was  unknown,  who  were  free- 
men (Liberi  Homines]  as  distinguished 
from  serfs.  The  former  comprised 
those  in  possession  of  Odhal  (noble) 
land,  whether  held  from  the  Crown  or 
its  tenants.  It  was  quite  unnecessary 
to  convoke  the  Normans  and  their  vas- 
sals, while  the  assemblage  of  the  Saxons 
—  Omnes  Liberi  Homines — was  not  only 
in  conformity  with  the  laws  of  Edward 
the  Confessor,  but  was  specially  needful 
when  a  foreigner  had  possessed  himself 
of  the  throne. 

1  have  perhaps  dwelt  too  long  upon 
this  point,  but  the  error  to  which  I  have 
referred  has  been  adopted  as  if  it  was 
an  unquestioned  fact,  and  has  passed 
into  our  school-books  and  become  part 
of  the  education  given  to  the  young, 
and  therefore  it  required  some  examina- 
tion. 

I  believe  that  a  very  large  portion  of 
the  land  in  England  did  not  change 
hands  at  that  period,  nor  was  the  posi- 
tion of  either  serfs  or  villeins  changed. 
The  great  alteration  lay  in  the  increase 
in  the  quantity  of  boc-land.  Much  of  the 
folc-land  was  forfeited  and  seized  upon, 
and  as  the  king  claimed  the  right  to  give 
it  away,  it  was  called  terra  reyis.  The 
charter  granted  by  King  William  to 
Alan  Fergent,  Duke  of  Bretagnc,  of  the 
lands  and  towns,  and  the  rest  of  the  in- 
heritance of  Edwin,  Earl  of  Yorkshire, 
runs  thus  : 

"  Ego  Guilielmus  cognomine  Bastardus, 
Rex  Angliffi  do  et  concedo  tibi  nepoti  meo 
Alano  Brittaniae  Comiti  et  haaredibus  tuis 
imperpetuuru  omnes  villas  et  terras  quse 
nuper  fuerent  Comitis  Edwini  in  Ebora- 
shina  cum  feodis  militise  et  aliis  libertati- 
Lms  et  consuetudinibus  ita  libere  et  honori- 
fice  sicut  idem  Edwinus  eadem  tenuit. 

"  Data  obsidione  coram  civitate  Eboraoi. " 

This  charter  does  not  create  a  differ- 
ent title,  but  gives  the  lands  as  held  by 
the  former  possessor.  The  monarch 
assumed  the  function  of  the  folc-gemot, 
but  the  principle  remained — the  feudee 
only  became  tenant  for  life.  Each  es- 
tate reverted  to  the  Crown  on  the  death 
of  him  who  held  it ;  but,  previous  to 
acquiring  possession,  the  new  tenant 
had  to  cease  to  be  his  own  "  man,"  nnd 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     221 


became  the  "  man"  of  his  superior. 
This  act  was  called  "  homage,"  and 
was  followed  by  "  investiture."  In 
A.D.  1175,  Prince  Henry  refused  to 
trust  himself  with  his  father  till  his 
homage  had  been  renewed  and  accepted, 
for  it  bound  the  superior  to  protect  the 
inferior.  The  process  is  thus  described 
by  De  Lolme  (chap,  ii.,  sec.  1)  : 

"  On  the  death  of  the  ancestor,  lands 
holden  by  '  knight' s  service '  and  by 
'  grand  sergeantcy '  were,  upon  inquisi- 
tion finding  the  tenure  and  the  death  of 
the  ancestor,  seized  into  the  king's  hands. 
If  the  heir  appeared  by  the  inquisition  to 
be  within  the  age  of  twenty-one  years,  the 
king  retained  the  lands  till  the  heir  at- 
tained the  age  of  twenty-one,  for  his 
own  profit,  maintaining  and  educating  the 
heir  according  to  his  rank.  If  the  heir  ap- 
peared by  the  inquisition  to  have  attained 
twenty-one,  he  was  entitled  to  demand  liv- 
ery of  the  lands  by  the  king's  officers  on 
paying  a  relief  and  doing  fealty  and  hom- 
age. The  minor  heir  attaining  twenty-one, 
and  proving  his  age,  was  entitled  to  livery 
of  his  lands,  on  doing  fealty  and  homage, 
\rithout  paying  any  relief." 

The  idea  involved  is,  that  the  lands 
were  held,  and  not  owned,  and  that  the 
proprietary  right  lay  in  the  nation,  as 
represented  by  the  king.  If  we  adopt 
the  poetic  idea  of  the  Brehon  code,  that 
"  land  is  perpetual  man,"  then  homage 
for  land  was  not  a  degrading  institution. 
But  it  is  repugnant  to  our  ideas  to  think 
that  any  man  can,  on  any  ground,  or 
for  any  consideration,  part  with  his 
manhood,  and  become  by  homage  the 
"  man"  of  another. 

The  Norman  chieftains  claimed  to  be 
peers  of  the  monarch,  and  to  sit  in  the 
councils  of  the  nation,  as  barons-by- 
tenure  and  not  by  patent.  This  was  a 
decided  innovation  upon  the  usages  of 
the  Anglo-Saxons,  and  ultimately  con- 
verted the  Parliament,  the  folc-gemot, 
into  two  branches.  Those  who  accom- 
panied the  king  stood  in  the  same  po- 
sition as  the  companions  of  Romulus, 
they  were  the  patricians  ;  those  subse- 
quently called  to  the  councils  of  the 
sovereign  by  patent  corresponded  with 
the  Roman  nobiles.  No  such  patents 
werfc  issued  by  any  of  the  Norman 
monarchs.  But  the  insolence  of  the 
Norman  nobles  led  to  the  attempt  made 


by  the  successors  of  the  Conqueror  to 
revive  the  Saxon  earldoms  as  a  counter- 
poise. The  weakness  of  Stephen  en- 
abled the  greater  feudees  to  fortify  theii 
castles,  and  they  set  up  claims  against 
the  Crown,  which  aggravated  the  dis- 
cord that  arose  in  subsequent  reigns. 

The  "  Saxon  Chronicles,"  p.  238, 
thus  describes  the  oppressions  of  th« 
nobles,  and  the  state  of  England  in  th« 
reign  of  Stephen  : 

"They  grievously  oppressed  the  poor 
people  with  building  castles,  and  when 
they  were  built,  tilled  them  with  wicked 
men,  or  rather  devils,  who  seized  both  men 
and  women  who  they  imagined  had  any 
money,  threw  them  into  prison,  and  put 
them  to  more  cruel  tortures  than  the  mar- 
tyrs ever  endured  ;  they  suffocated  some 
in  mud,  and  suspended  others  by  the  feet, 
or  the  head,  or  the  thumbs,  kindling  fires 
below  them.  They  squeezed  the  heads  of 
some  with  knotted  cords  till  they  pierced 
their  brains,  while  they  threw  others  into 
dungeons  swarming  with  serpents,  snakes, 
and  toads." 

The  nation  was  mapped  out,  and  the 
owners'  names  inscribed  in  the  Dooms- 
day Book.  There  were  no  unoccupied 
lands,  and  had  the  possessors  been  loyal 
and  prudent,  the  sovereign  would  have 
had  no  lands,  save  his  own  private  do- 
mains, to  give  away,  nor  would  the  in- 
dustrious have  been  able  to  become 
tenants-in-fee.  The  alterations  which 
have  taken  place  in  the  possession  of 
land  since  the  composition  of  the  Book 
of  Doom,  have  been  owing  to  the  dis- 
loyalty or  extravagance  of  the  descend- 
ants of  those  then  found  in  possession. 

Notwithstanding  the  vast  loss  of  life 
in  the  contests  following  upon  the  in- 
vasion,  the  population  of  England  in- 
creased 'rom  2,150,000  in  1066,  when 
William  landed,  to  3,350,000  in  1152, 
when  the  great-grandson  of  the  Con- 
queror ascended  the  throne,  and  the 
first  of  the  Plantagenets  ruled  in  Eng- 
land. 

V.    THE    PLANTAGENETS. 

Whatever  doubts  may  exist  as  to  th& 
influence  of  the  Norman  Conquest  upon 
the  mass  of  the  people — the  freemen, 
the  ceorls,  and  the  serfs — there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  its  effect  upon  the  higher 


222 


'BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


classes  was  very  great.  It  added  to 
the  existing  feudalism — the  system  of 
Baronage,  with  its  concomitants  of  cas- 
tellated residences  filled  with  armed 
men.  It  led  to  frequent  contests  be- 
tween neighboring  lords,  in  which  the 
liberty  and  rights  of  the  freemen  were 
imperilled.  It  also  eventuated  in  the 
formation  of  a  distinct  order — the  peer- 
age— and 'for  a  time  the  constitutional 
influence  of  the  assembled  people,  the 
folc-gemot,  was  overborne. 

The  principal  Norman  chieftains  were 
barons  in  their  own  country,  and  they 
retained  that  position  in  England,  but 
their  holdings  in  both  were  feudal, 
not  hereditary.  When  the  Crown, 
originally  elective,  became  hereditary, 
the  barons  sought  to  have  their  pos- 
sessions governed  by  the  same  rule,  to 
remove  them  from  the  class  of  terra  - 
regis  (folc-land),  and  to  convert  them 
into  chartered  land.  Being  gifts  from 
the  monarch,  he  had  the  right  to  direct 
the  descent,  and  all  charters  which  gave 
land  to  a  man  and  his  heirs,  made  each 
of  them  only  a  tenant  for  life  ;  the  pos- 
sessor was  bound  to  hand  over  the  es- 
tate undivided  to  the  heir,  and  he  could 
neither  give,  sell,  nor  bequeath  it.  The 
land  was  bencficia,  just  as  appointments 
in  the  Church,  and  reverted,  as  they 
do,  to  the  patron  to  be  re-granted. 
They  were  held  upon  military  service, 
and  the  major  barons,  adopting  the 
Saxon  title  Earl,  claimed  to  be  peers  of 
the  monarch,  and  were  called  to  the 
councils  of  the  state  as  barons-by- 
tenure.  In  reply  to  a  quo  warranto, 
issued  to  the  Earl  of  Surrey,  in  the 
reign  of  Edward  I.,  he  asserted  that  his 
ancestors  had  assisted  William  in  gain- 
ing England,  and  were  equally  entitled 
to  a  share  of  the  spoils.  "It  was," 
eaid  he,  "  by  their  swords  that  his  an- 
cestors had  obtained  their  lands,  and 
that  by  his  he  would  maintain  his 
rights."  •  The  same  monarch  required 
the  Earls  of  Hereford  and  Norfolk  to 
go  over  with  his  array  to  Guienne,  and 
they  replied,  "  The  tenure  of  our  lands 
does  not  require  ut  to  do  so,  unless  the 
king  went  in  person."  The  king  in 
•isted  ;  the  earls  were  firm.  "  By 
God,  sir  Earl,"  said  Edward  to  Here- 


ford, "  you  shall  go  or  hang."  *'  By 
God,  sir  King,"  replied  the  earl,  "  I 
will  neither  go  nor  hang."  The  king 
submitted  and  forgave  his  warmth. 

The  struggle  between  the  nobles  and 
the  Crown  commenced,  and  was  contin- 
ued, under  varying  circumstances. 
Each  of  the  barons  had  a  large  retinue 
of  armed  men  under  his  own  command, 
and  the  Crown  was  liable  to  be  over- 
borne by  a  union  of  ambitious  nobles. 
At  one  time  the  monarch  had  to  face 
them  at  Runnymede  and  yield  to  their 
demands  ;  at  another  he  was  able  to 
restrain  them  with  a  strong  hand.  The 
Church  and  the  barons,  when  acting  in 
union,  proved  too  strong  for  the  sover- 
eign, and  he  had  to  secure  the  alliance 
of  one  of  these  parties  to  defeat  the 
views  of  the  other.  The  barons  abused 
their  power  over  the  freemen,  and  sought 
to  establish  the  rule  "  that  every  man 
must  have  a  lord, ' '  thus  reducing  them 
to  a  state  of  vassalage.  King  John 
separated  the  barons  into  two  classes — 
major  and  minor  ;  the  former  should 
have  at  least  thirteen  knights'  fees  and 
a  third  part  ;  the  latter  remained  coun- 
try gentlemen.  The  20th  Henry  III., 
cap.  2  and  4,  was  passed  to  secure  the 
rights  of  freemen,  who  were  disturbed 
by  the  great  lords,  and  gave  them  an 
appeal  to  the  king's  courts  of  assize. 

Bracton,  an  eminent  lawyer  who 
wrote  in  the  time  of  Henry  III.,  says  : 

"  The  king  hath  superiors — viz.,  God  and 
the  law  by  which  he  is  made  king  ;  also 
his  court  —  viz.,  his  earls  and  barons. 
Earls  are  the  king's  associates,  and  he  that 
hath  an  associate  hath  a  master  ;  and  there- 
fore, if  the  king  be  unbridled,  or  (which  is 
all  one)  without  law,  they  ought  to  bridle 
him,  unless  they  will  be  unbridled  as  the 
king,  and  then  the  commons  may  cry,  Lord 
Jesus,  pity  us,"  etc. 

An  eminent  lawyer,  time  of  Edward 
I.,  writes  : 

"  Althotigh  the  king  ought  to  have  no 
equal  in  the  land,  yet  because  the  king  and 
his  commissioners  can  be  both  judge  and 
party,  the  king  ought  by  right  to  have 
companions,  to  hear  and  determine  in  Par- 
liament all  writs  and  plaints  of  wrongs 
done  by  the  king,  the  queen,  or  theix  chil- 
dren." 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     223 


These  views  found  expression  in  the 
coronation  oath.  Edward  II.  was  forced 
to  swear  : 

"  Will  you  grant  and  keep,  and  by  your 
oath  confirm  to  the  people  of  England  the 
laws  and  customs  to  them,  granted  by  the 
ancient  kings  of  England,  your  righteous 
and  godly  predecessors  ;  and  especially  to 
the  clergy  and  people,  by  the  glorious  King 
ttt.  Edward,  your  predecessor  ?' ' 

The  king' s  answer  — "  I  do  them  grant 
and  promise." 

"  Do  yon  grant  to  hold  and  keep  the 
laws  and  rightful  customs  which  the  com- 
monalty of  your  realm  shall  have  chosen, 
and  to  maintain  and  enforce  them  to  the 
honor  of  God  after  your  power?" 

The  king's  answer — "  I  this  do  grant  and 
promise." 

I  shall  not  dwell  upon  the  event  most 
frequently  quoted  with  reference  to  the 
era  of  the  Plantagenets — I  mean  King 
John's  "  Magna  Charta. "  It  was 
more  social  than  territorial,  and  tended 
to  limit  the  power  of  the  Crown,  and  to 
increase  that  of  the  barons.  The  Plan- 
tagenets had  not  begun  to  call  Com- 
mons to  the  House  of  Lords.  The 
issue  of  writs  was  confined  to  those  who 
were  barons- by-tenure,  the  patricians 
of  the  Norman  period.  The  creation 
of  nobles  was  the  invention  of  a  later 
age.  The  baron  feasted  in  his  hall, 
while  the  slave  grovelled  in  his  cabin. 
Braeton,  the  famous  lawyer  of  the  time 
of  Henry  III.,  says  :  *'  All  the  goods 
a  slave  acquired  belonged  to  his  master, 
who  could  take  them  from  him  when- 
ever he  pleased. ' '  therefore  a  man  could 
not  purchase  his  own  freedom.  "  In 
the  same  year,  1283,"  says  the  Annals 
of  Dunstable,  "  we  sold  our  slave  by 
birth,  William  Pyke,  and  all  his  fam- 
ily, and  received  one  mark  from  the 
buyer. ' '  The  only  hope  for  the  slave 
was,  to  try  and  get  into  one  of  the 
walled  towns,  when  he  became  free. 
Until  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  these  serfs 
were  greatly  harassed  by  their  owners. 

In  the  reign  of  Edward  L,  efforts 
were  made  to,  prevent  the  alienation  of 
land  by  those  who  received  it  from  the 
Norman  sovereigns.  The  statute  of 
mortmain  was  passed  to  restrain  the  giv- 
ing of  lands  to  the  Church,  the  statute 
de  donis  to  prevent  alienation  to  lay- 
men. The  former  declares  : 


"That  whereas  religious  men  had  enter- 
ed into  the  fees  of  other  men,  without  li- 
cense and  will  of  the  chief  lord,  and  some- 
times appropriating  and  buying,  and  some- 
times receiving  them  of  gift  of  others, 
whereby  the  services  that  are  due  of  such 
fee,  and  which,  in  the  beginning,  were 
provided  for  the  defence  of  the  realm,  are 
wrongfully  withdrawn,  and  the  chief  lord 
do  lose  the  escheats  of  the  same  (the  primer 
seizin  on  each  life  that  dropped)  ;  it  there- 
fore enacts  :  That  any  such  lands  were 
forfeited  to  the  lord  of  the  fee  ;  and  if  he 
did  not  take  it  within  twelve  months,  it 
should  be  forfeited  to  the  king,  who  shall 
enfeoff  other  therein  by  certain  services  to 
be  done  for  us  for  the  defence  of  the 
realm." 

Another  act,  the  6th  Edward  I., 
cap.  3,  provides  : 

"  That  alienation  by  the  tenant  in  court- 
esy was  void,  and  the  heir  was  entitled  to 
succeed  to  his  mother's  property,  notwith- 
standing the  act  of  his  father.'' 

The  13th  Edward  I.,  cap.  41,  enacts  : 

"  That  if  the  abbot,  priors,  and  keepers 
of  hospitals,  and  other  religious  houses, 
aliened  their  land  they  should  be  seized 
upon  by  the  king." 

The  13th  Edward  I.,  cap.  1,  de  donis 
conditionalitiis,  provided  : 

"  That  tenements  given  to  a  man,  and  the 
heirs  of  his  body,  should,  at  all  events,  go  to  the 
issue,  if  there  were  any;  or,  if  there  were  none, 
should  revert  to  the  donor." 

But  while  the  fiefs  of  the  Crown  were 
forbidden  to  alien  their  lands,  the  free- 
men, whose  lands  were  Odhal  (noble) 
and  of  Saxon  descent,  the  inheritance 
of  which  was  guaranteed  to  them  by  55 
William  I.  (ante,  p.  13),  were  empow- 
ered to  sell  their  estates  by  the  statute 
called  Quia  Emptores  (6  Edward  L). 
It  enacts  : 

"  That  from  henceforth  it  shall  be  law- 
ful to  every  freeman  to  sell,  at  his  own 
pleasure,  his  lands  and  tenements,  or  part 
of  them  :  so  that  the  feoffee  shall  hold  the 
same  lands  and  tenements  of  the  chief  lord 
of  the  fee  by  such  customs  as  his  feoffee 
held  before. ' ' 

The  scope  of  these  laws  was  altered 
in  the  reign  of  Edward  III.  That  mon- 
arch, in  view  of  his  intended  invasion 
of  France,  secured  the  adhesion  of  the 


224 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


landowners,  by  giving  them  povor  to 
raise  money  upon  and  alien  their  es- 
tates. The  permission  was  as  follows, 
1  Edward  III.,  cap.  12  : 

"  Whereas  divers  people  of  the  realm 
complain  themselves  to  be  grieved  because 
that  lands  and  tenements  which  be  holden 
of  the  king  in  chief,  and  aliened  without 
license,  have  been  seized  into  the  king's 
hand,  and  holden  as  forfeit :  (2.)  The  king 
shall  not  hold  them  as  forfeit  in  such  case, 
but  will  and  grant  from  henceforth  of  such 
lands  and  tenements  so  aliened,  there  shall 
be  reasonable  fine  taken  in  chancery  by  due 
process. " 

1  Edward  III.,  cap.  13  : 

"  Whfreas  divers  have  complained  that 
they  be  grieved  by  reason  of  purchasing  of 
lands  and  tenements,  which  have  been 
holden  of  the  king' s  progenitors  that  now 
is,  as  o1  honors  ;  and  the  same  lands  have 
been  taken  into  the  king's  hands,  as  though 
they  had  been  holden  in  chief  of  the  king 
as  of  his  crown  :  (2.)  The  king  will  that  from 
henceforth  no  man  be  grieved  by  any  such 
purchase." 

De  Lolmc,  chap,  iii.,  sec.  3,  remarks 
on  these  laws  that  they  took  from  the 
king  all  power  of  preventing  alienation 
or  of  purchase.  They  left  him  the  re- 
versionary right  on  the  failure  of  heirs. 

These  changes  in  the  relative  power 
*•{  the  sort-reign  and  the  nobles  took 
place  to  enable  Edward  to  enter  upon 
llie  conquest  of  France  ;  but  that  mon- 
arch conferred  a  power  upon  the 
barons,  which  was  used  to  the  detri- 
ment of  his  descendants,  and  led  to  the 
dethronement  of  the  Plantagenets. 

The  line  of  demarcation  between  the 
two  sets  of  titles,  those  derived  through 
the  Anglo-Saxon  laws  and  those  derived 
through  the  grants  of  the  Norman  sov- 
ereigns, was  gradually  being  effaced. 
The  people  looked  back  to  the  laws  of 
Edward  the  Confessor,  and  forced  them 
apon  Edward  II.  But  after  passing 
•.he  laws  which  prevented  nobles  from 
selling,  and  empowering  freemen  to  do 
so,  Edward  III.  found  it  needful  to 
assert  his  claims  to  the  entire  land  of 
England,  and  enacted  in  the  twenty- 
fourth  year  of  his  reign  : 

"  Tliat  the  king  is  the  universal  lord  and 
original  proprietor  of  all  land  in  his  kingdom  ; 
and  tlial  no  man  doth,  or  canpossess,  any  part 


of  it  but  what  has  mediately  or  immediately  beer 
derived  as  a  gift  from  him  to  be  held  on  feodai 
service." 

Those  who  obtained  gifts  of  land, 
only  held  or  had  the  use  of  them  ;  the 
ownership  rested  in  the  Crown.  Feodai 
service,  the  maintenance  of  armed  men, 
and  the  bringing  them  into  the  field, 
was  the  rent  paid. 

The  wealth  which  came  into  England 
after  the  conquest  of  France  influenced 
all  classes,  but  none  more  than  the 
family  of  the  king.  His  own  example 
seems  to  have  affected  his  descendants. 
The  invasion  of  France  and  the  captiv- 
ity of  its  king  reappear  in  the  invasion 
of  England  by  Henry  IV. ,  and  the  cap- 
ture and  dethronement  of  Richard  II. 
The  prosperity  of  England  during  the 
reign  of  Edward  had  passed  away  in 
that  of  his  grandson.  Very  great  dis- 
tress pervaded  the  land,  and  it  led  to 
efforts  to  get  rid  of  villeinage.  The 
1st  Richard  II.  recites  : 

"  That  grievous  complaints  had  been 
made  to  the  Lords  and  Commons,  that  vil- 
leins and  land  tenants  daily  withdraw  into 
cities  and  towns,  and  a  special  commission 
was  appointed  to  hear  the  case,  and  decide 
thereon. " 

The  complaint  was  renewed,  and  ap- 
pears in  Act  9  Richard  II.,  cap.  2  : 

"  Whereas  divers  villeins  and  serfs,  as 
well  of  the  great  Lords  as  of  other  people, 
as  well  spiritual  as  temporal,  do  fly  within 
the  cities,  towns,  and  places  enfranched. 
as  the  city  of  London,  and  other  like,  and 
do  feign  divers  suits  against  their  Lords,  to 
the  intent  to  make  them  free  by  the  answer 
of  the  Lords,  it  is  accorded  and  assented 
that  the  Lords  and  others  shall  not  be  fore- 
bound  of  their  villeins,  because  of  the  an- 
swer of  the  Lords." 

Serfdom  or  slavery  may  have  existed 
previous  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  invasion, 
but  I  am  disposed  to  think  that  the 
Saxons,  the  Jutes,  and  the  Angles  re- 
duced the  inhabitants  of  the  lands  which 
they  conquered,  into  serfdom.  The 
history  of  that  period  shows  that  men, 
women,  and  children  were  constantly 
sold,  and  that  there  were  established 
markets.  One  at  Bristol,  which  was 
frequented  by  Irish  buyers,  was  put 
down,  owing  to  the  remonstrance  of  the 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     225 


bishop.  After  the  Norman  invasion 
the  name  of  Villein,  a  person  attached 
to  the  villa,  was  given  to  the  serfs. 
The  village  was  their  residence.  Oc- 
casional instances  of  enfranchisement 
took  place  ;  the  word  signified  being 
made  free,  and  at  that  time  every  free- 
man was  entitled  to  a  vote.  The  word 
enfranchise  has  latterly  come  to  bear  a 
different  meaning,  and  to  apply  solely 
to  the  possession  of  a  vote,  but  it  origi- 
nally meant  the  elevation  of  a  serf  into 
the  condition  of  a  freeman.  The  act  of 
enfranchisement  was  a  public  ceremony 
usually  performed  at  the  church  door. 
The  last  act  of  ownership  performed  by 
the  master  was  the  piercing  of  the  right 
ear  with  an  awl.  Many  serfs  fled  into 
the  towns,  where  they  were  enfranchised 
and  became  freemen. 

The  disaffection  of  the  common 
people  increased  ;  they  were  borne 
down  with  oppression.  They  struggled 
against  their  masters,  and  tried  to  secure 
their  personal  liberty,  and  the  freedom 
of  their  land.  The  population  rose  in 
masses  in  the  reign  of  Richard  II.,  and 
demanded  — 

1st.  The  total  abolition  of  slavery  for 
themselves  and  their  children  forever  ; 

2d.  The  reduction  of  the  rent  of  good 
land  to  4d.  per  acre  ; 

3d.  The  right  of  buying  and  selling, 
like  other  men,  in  markets  and  fairs  ; 

4th.  The  pardon  of  all  offences. 

The  monarch  acted  upon  insidious 
advice  ;  he  spoke  them  fair  at  first,  to 
gain  time,  but  did  not  fulfil  his  prom- 
ises. Ultimately  the  people  gained  part 
of  their  demands.  To  limit  or  defeat 
them,  an  act  was  passed,  fixing  the 
wages  of  laborers  to  4rf.  per  day,  with 
meat  and  drink,  or  6d.  per  day,  with- 
out meat  and  drink,  and  others  in  pro- 
portion ;  but  with  the  proviso,  that  if 
any  one  refused  to  serve  or  labor  on 
these  terms,  every  justice  was  at  liberty 
to  send  him  to  jail,  there  to  remain  un- 
til he  gave  security  to  serve  and  labor 
as  by  law  required.  A  subsequent  act 
prevents  their  being  employed  by  the 
week,  or  paid  for  holidays. 

Previous  to  this  period,  the  major 
barons  and  great  lords  tilled  their  land 
by  serfs,  and  bar)  very  large  flocks  and 


herds  of  cattle.  On  the  death  of  the 
Bishop  of  Winchester,  1367,  his  ex- 
ecutors delivered  to  Bishop  Wykeham, 
his  successor  in  the  see,  the  following  : 
127  draught  horses,  1556  head  of  cat- 
tle, 3876  wedders,  4777  ewes,  and  3541 
lambs.  Tillage  was  neglected  ;  and  in 
1314  there  was  a  severe  dearth  ;  wheat 
sold  at  a  price  equal  to  £30  per  quarter, 
the  brewing  of  ale  was  discontinued  by 
proclamation,  in  order  "  to  prevent 
those  of  middle  rank  from  perishing  for 
want  of  food." 

The  dissensions  among  the  descend- 
ants of  Edward  III.  as  to  the  right  to 
the  Crown  aided  the  nobles  in  their 
efforts  to  make  their  estates  hereditary, 
and  the  civil  wars  which  afflicted  the 
nation  tended  to  promote  that  object. 
Kings  were  crowned  and  discrowned  at 
the  will  of  the  nobles,  who  compelled 
the  freemen  to  part  with  their  small  es- 
tates. The  oligarchy  dictated  to  the 
Crown,  and  oppressed  and  kept  down 
the  freemen.  The  nobles  allied  them- 
selves with  the  serfs,  who  were  manu- 
mitted that  they  might  serve  as  soldiers 
in  the  conflicting  armies. 

From  the  Conquest  to  the  time  of 
Richard  II.,  only  barons-by-tenure,  the 
descendants  of  the  companions  of  the 
Conqueror,  were  invited  by  writ  to 
Parliament.  That  monarch  made  an 
innovation,  and  invited  others  who  were 
not  barons-by-tenure.  The  first  duke- 
dom was  created  the  llth  of  Edward 
III.,  and  the  first  viscount  the  18th 
Henry  VI. 

Edward  IV.  seized  upon  the  lands 
granted  by  former  kings,  and  gave  them 
to  his  own  followers,  and  thus  created 
a  feeling  of  uneasiness  in  the  minds  of 
the  nobility,  and  paved  the  way  for  the 
events  which  were  accomplished  by  a 
succeeding  dynasty.  The  decision  in 
the  Taltarum  case  opened  the  question 
of  succession  ;  and  Edward's  efforts  to 
put  down  retainers  was  the  precursor  of 
the  Tudor  policy. 

We  have  a  picture  of  the  state  of  so- 
ciety in  the  reign  of  Edward  IV.  in  the 
Paston  Memoirs,  written  by  Margaret 
Paston.  Her  husband,  John  Paston, 
was  heir  to  Sir  John  Fastolf.  He  was 
bound  bv  the  will  to  establish  in  Caistci 


226 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


Castle,  Fastolf  's  own  mansion,  a  college 
of  religious  men  to  pray  for  his  bene- 
factor's soul.  But  in  those  days  might 
was  right,  and  the  Duke  of  Norfolk, 
fancying  that  he  should  like  the  house 
for  himself,  quietly  took  possession  of 
it.  At  that  time,  Edward  was  just 
seated  on  the  throne,  and  Edward  had 
just  been  reported  to  Paston  to  have 
said  in  reference  to  another  suit,  that 

"  He  would  be  your  good  lord  therein  as  he 
would  to  the  poorest  man  in  England.  He 
would  hold  with  you  in  your  right  ;  and  as 
for  favor,  he  will  not  be  understood  that  he 
shall  show  favor  more  to  one  man  to  an- 
other, not  to  one  in  England." 

This  was  a  true  expression  of  the 
king's  intentions.  But  either  he  was 
changeable  in  his  moods,  or  during 
these  early  years  he  was  hardly  settled 
enough  on  the  throne  always  to  be  able 
to  carry  out  his  wishes.  This  time, 
however,  in  some  way  or  another,  the 
great  duke  was  reduced  to  submission, 
and  Caister  was  restored  to  Paston. 

In  1465  a  new  claimant  appeared  ; 
and  claimants,  though  as  troublesome 
in  the  fifteenth  as  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, proceeded  in  a  different  fashion. 
This  time  it  was  the  Duke  of  Suffolk, 
who  asserted  a  right  to  the  manor  of 
Drayton  in  his  own  name,  and  who  had 
bought  up  the  assumed  rights  of  an- 
other person  to  the  manor  of  Hellesdon. 
John  Paston  was  away,  and  his  wife 
had  to  bear  the  brunt.  An  attempt  to 
levy  rent  at  Drayton  was  followed  by  a 
threat  from  the  duke's  men,  that  if  her 
servants  "  ventured  to  take  any  further 
distresses  at  Drayton,  even  if  it  were 
but  of  the  value  of  a  pin,  they  would 
take  the  value  of  an  ox  in  Hellesdon. ' ' 

Paston  and  the  duke  alike  professed 
to  be  under  the  law.  But  each  was 
anxious  to  retain  that  possession  which 
in  those  .days  seems  really  to  have  been 
nine  points  of  the  law.  The  duke  got 
hold  of  Drayton,  while  Hellesdon  was 
held  for  Paston.  One  day  Paston's 
men  made  a  raid  upon  Drayton,  and 
carried  off  seventy-seven  head  of  cattle. 
Another  day  the  duke's  bailiff  came  to 
Hellesdon  with  300  men  to  see  if  the 
place  were  assailable.  Two  servants  of 


Paston,  attempting  to  keep  a  court  at 
Drayton  in  their  master's  name,  were 
carried  off  by  force.  At  last  the  duke 
mustered  his  retainers  and  marched 
against  Hellesdon.  The  garrison,  too 
weak  to  resist,  at  once  surrendered. 

"  The  duke's  men  took  possession,  and 
set  John  Paston's  own  tenants  to  work,  very 
much  against  their  wills,  to  destroy  the 
mansion  and  break  down  the  walls  of  the 
lodge,  while  they  themselves  ransacked  the 
church,  turned  out  the  parson,  and  spoiled 
the  images.  They  also  pillaged  very  com- 
pletely every  house  in  the  village.  As  for 
John  Paston's  own  place,  they  stripped  it 
completely  bare  ;  and  whatever  there  was 
of  lead,  brass,  pewter,  iron,  doors  or  gates, 
or  other  things  that  they  could  not  conven- 
iently carry  off,  they  hacked  and  hewed 
them  to  pieces.  The  duke  rode  through 
Hellesdon  to  Drayton  the  following  day, 
while  his  men  were  still  busy  completing 
the  wreck  of  destruction  by  the  demolition 
of  the  lodge.  The  wreck  of  the  building, 
with  the  rents  they  made  in  its  walls,  is 
visible  even  now"  (Introd.  xxxv. ). 

The  meaning  of  all  this  is  evident. 
We  have  before  us  a  state  of  society  in 
which  the  anarchical  element  is  predom- 
inant. But  it  is  not  pure  anarchy. 
The  nobles  were  determined  to  reduce 
the  middle  classes  to  vassalage. 

The  reign  of  the  Plantagenets  wit- 
nessed the  elevation  of  the  nobility. 
The  descendants  of  the  Norman  barons 
menaced,  and  sometimes  proved  too 
powerful  for  the  Crown.  In  such 
reigns  as  those  of  Edward  I.,  Edward 
III.,  and  Henry  V.,  the  sovereigns  held 
their  own  ;  but  in  those  of  John,  Ed- 
ward II.,  and  Henry  VI.,  the  barons 
triumphed.  The  power  wielded  by 
the  first  Edward  fell  from  the  feeble 
grasp  of  his  son  and  successor.  The 
beneficent  rule  of  Edward  III.  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  anarchy  of  Richard  II. 
Success  led  to  excess.  The  triumphant 
party  thinned  the  ranks  of  its  oppo- 
nents, and  in  turn  experienced  the  same 
fate.  The  fierce  struggle  of  the  Red  and 
White  Roses  weakened  each.  Guy,  Earl 
of  Warwick,  "  the  king-maker,"  sank 
overpowered  on  the  field  of  Tewkes- 
bury,  and  with  him  perished  many 
of  the  most  powerful  of  the  nobles. 
The  jealousy  of  Richard  III.  swept 
away  his  own  friends,  and  the  bloody 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     227 


Contest  on  Bosworth  field  destroyed  the 
nower  of  the  nobility.  The  sun  of  the 
Plantagenets  went  down,  leaving  the 
country  weak  and  impoverished,  from  a 
contest  in  which  the  barons  sought  to 
establish  their  own  power,  to  the  detri- 
ment alike  of  the  Crown  and  the  free- 
men. The  latter  might  have  exclaimed  : 

"  Till  half  a  patriot,  half  a  coward,  grown, 
We  fly  from  meaner  tyrants  to  the  throne." 

The  long  contest  terminated  in  the  defeat 
alike  of  the  Crown  and  the  nobles,  but 
the  nation  suffered  severely  from  the 
struggle. 

The  rule  of  this  family  proved  fatal 
to  the  interest  of  a  most  important 
class,  whose  rights  were  jealously 
guarded  by  the  Normans.  The  Liberi 
Homines,  the  freemen,  who  were  Odhal 
occupiers,  holding  in  capite  from  the 
sovereign,  nearly  disappeared  in  the 
Wars  of  the  Roses.  Monarchs  who 
owed  their  crown  to  the  favor  of  the 
nobles  were  too  weak  to  uphold  the 
rights  of  those  who  held  directly  from 
the  Crown,  and  who,  in  their  isolation, 
were  almost  powerless. 

The  term  freeman,  originally  one  of 
the  noblest  in  the  land,  disappeared  in 
relation  to  urban  tenures,  and  was  ap- 
plied solely  to  the  personal  rights  of 
civic  burghers  ;  instead  thereof  arose 
the  term  freeholder  from  free  hold, 
which  was  originally  a  grant  free  from 
all  rent,  and  only  burdened  with  mili- 
tary service.  The  term  was  subsequent- 
ly applied  to  land  held  for  leases  for 
lives  as  contradistinguished  from  leases 
for  years,  the  latter  being  deemed  base 
tenures,  and  insufficient  to  qualify  a  man 
to  vote  ;  the  theory  being  that  no  man 
was  free  whose  tenure  could  be  dis- 
turbed during  his  life.  Though  the 
Liberi  Homines  or  freemen  were,  as  a 
class,  overborne  in  this  struggle,  and 
reduced  to  vassalage,  yet  their  descend- 
ants were  able,  under  the  leadership  of 
Oromwell,  to  regain  some  of  the  rights 
and  influence  of  which  they  had  been 
despoiled  under  the  Plantagenets. 

Fortescue,  Lord  Chief  -  Justice  to 
Henry  VI.,  thus  describes  the  condi- 
tion of  the  English  people  :  ., 


"  They  drunk  no  water,  unless  it  be  that 
some  for  devotion,  and  upon  a  rule  of  pen- 
ance, do  abstain  from  other  drink.  They 
eat  plentifully  of  all  kinds  of  flesh  and  fish. 
They  wear  woollen  cloth  in  all  their  ap- 
parel. They  have  abundance  of  bed  cover- 
ing in  their  houses,  and  all  other  woollen 
stuff.  They  have  great  store  of  all  imple- 
ments of  household.  They  are  plentifully 
furnished  with  all  instruments  of  husband- 
ry, and  all  other  things  that  are  requisite 
to  the  accomplishment  of  a  great  and 
wealthy  life,  according  to  their  estates  and 


This  flattering  picture  is  not  support- 
ed by  the  existing  disaffection  and  the 
repeated  applications  for  redress  from 
the  serfs  and  the  smaller  farmers,  and 
the  simple  fact  that  the  population  had 
increased  under  the  Normans — a  period 
of  88  years— from  2,150,000  to  3,350,- 
000,  while  under  the  Plantagenets — a 
period  of  300  years — it  only  increased 
to  4,000,000,  the  addition  to  the  popu- 
lation in  that  period  being  only  650,000. 
The  average  increase  in  the  former 
period  was  nearly  14,000  per  annum, 
while  in  the  latter  it  did  not  much  ex- 
ceed 2000  per  annum.  This  goes  far 
to  prove  the  evil  from  civil  wars,  and 
the  oppression  of  the  oligarchy. 

VI.    THE    TUDORS. 

The  protracted  struggle  of  the  Plan- 
tagenets left  the  nation  in  a  state  of  ex- 
haustion. The  nobles  had  absorbed 
the  lands  of  the  freemen,  and  had  thus 
broken  the  backbone  of  society.  They 
had  then  entered  upon  a  contest  with 
the  Crown  to  increase  their  own  power  ; 
and  to  effect  their  selfish  objects,  set  up 
puppets,  and  ranged  under  conflicting 
banners,  but  the  Nemesis  followed. 
The  Wars  of  the  Roses  destroyed  their 
own  power,  and  weakened  their  influ- 
ence, by  sweeping  away  the  heads  of 
the  principal  families.  The  ambition 
of  the  nobles  failed  of  its  object,  when 
"  the  last  of  the  barons"  lay  gory  in 
his  blood  on  the  field  of  Tewkesbury. 
The  wars  were,  however,  productive  of 
one  national  benefit,  in  virtually  ending 
the  state  of  serfdom  to  which  the  ab- 
origines were  reduced  by  the  Scandi- 
navian invasion.  The  exhaustion  of  the 
nation  prepared  the  way  to  changes  of 
n  most  radical  character,  and  the  reigni 


228 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


of  the  Tudore  are  characterized  by 
greater  innovations  and  more  striking 
alterations  than  even  those  which  fol- 
lowed the  accession  of  the  Normans. 

Henry  of  Richmond  came  out  of  the 
field  of  Bosworth  a  victor,  and  ascend- 
ed the  throne  of  a  nation  whose  lead- 
ing nobles  had  been  swept  away.  The 
sword  had  vied  with  the  axe.  Henry 
VII.  was  prudent  and  cunning  ;  and  in 
the  absence  of  any  preponderating  oli- 
garchical influence,  planted  the  heel  of 
the  sovereign  upon  the  necks  of  the 
nobles.  He  succeeded  where  the  Plan- 
tagenets  had  failed.  His  accession  be- 
came the  advent  of  a  series  of  measures 
which  altered  most  materially  the  sys- 
tem of  landholding.  The  Wars  of  the 
Roses  showed  that  the  power  of  the 
nobles  was  too  great  for  the  comfort  of 
the  monarch.  The  decision  in  Talta- 
rum'scase,  in  the  reign  of  Edward  IV., 
affected  the  entire  system  of  entail. 
Land,  partly  freed  from  restrictions, 
passed  into  other  hands.  But  Henry 
went  further.  He  destroyed  their 
physical  influence  by  rigidly  putting 
down  retainers  ;  and  in  one  of  his  tours, 
while  partaking  of  the  hospitality  of 
the  Earl  of  Oxford,  he  fined  him  £15,- 
000  for  having  greeted  him  with  5000 
of  his  tenants  in  livery.  The  rigid  en- 
forcement of  the  laws  passed  against 
retainers  in  former  reigns,  but  now 
made  more  penal,  strengthened  the  king 
and  reduced  the  power  of  the  nobles. 
Their  estates  were  relieved  of  a  most 
onerous  charge,  and  the  lands  freed 
from  the  burden  of  supporting  the  army 
of  the  state. 

Henry  VII.  had  thus  a  large  fund  to 
give  away  ;  the  rent  of  the  land  grant- 
ed in  knights'  service  virtually  consist- 
ed of  two  separate  funds — one  part 
went  to  the  feudee,  as  officer  or  com- 
mandant, the  other  to  the  soldiery  or 
vassals.  The  latter  part  belonged  to 
the  state.  Had  Henry  applied  it  to 
the  re-establishment  of  the  class  of 
freemen  (Liberi  Homines),  as  was  re- 
cently done  by  the  Emperor  of  Russia 
when  he  abolished  serfdom,  he  would 
have  created  a  power  on  which  the 
Crown  and  the  constitution  could  rely. 
This  might  have  been  done  by  convert- 


ing the  holdings  of  the  men-at-arms 
into  allodial  estates,  held  direct  from 
the  Crown.  Such  an  arrangement 
would  have  left  the  income  of  the 
feudee  unimpaired,  as  it  would  only 
have  applied  the  fund  that  had  been 
paid  to  the  men-at-arms  to  this  pur- 
pose ;  and  by  creating  out  of  that  land 
a  number  of  small  estates  held  direct 
from  the  Crown,  the  misery  that  arose 
from  the  eviction  and  destruction  of  a 
most  meritorious  class,  would  have  been 
avoided.  Vagrancy,  with  its  great 
evils,  would  have  been  prevented,  and 
the  passing  of  the  Poor  laws  would  have 
been  unnecessary.  Unfortunately  Henry 
and  his  counsellors  did  not  appreciate 
the  consequence  of  the  suppression  of 
retainers  and  liveries.  By  the  course 
he  adopted  to  secure  the  influence  of 
the  Crown,  he  compensated  the  nobles, 
but  destroyed  the  agricultural  middle 
class. 

This  change  had  an  important  and, 
in  some  respects,  a  most  injurious  effect 
upon  the  condition  of  the  nation,  and 
led  to  enactments  of  a  very  extraordi- 
nary character,  which  I  must  submit  in 
detail,  inasmuch  as  I  prefer  giving  the 
ipsissima  verba  of  the  statute-book  to 
any  statement  of  my  own.  To  make 
the  laws  intelligible,  I  would  remind 
you  that  the  successful  efforts  of  the 
nobles  had,  during  the  three  centuries 
of  Plantagenet  rule,  nearly  obliterated 
the  Liberi  Homines  (whose  rights  the 
Norman  conqueror  had  sedulously 
guarded),  and  had  reduced  them  to  a 
state  of  vassalage.  They  held  the 
lands  of  their  lord  at  his  will,  and  paid 
their  rent  by  military  service.  When 
retainers  were  put  down,  and  rent  or 
knights'  service  was  no  longer  paid  with 
armed  men,  their  occupation  was  gone. 
They  were  unfit  for  the  mere  routine 
of  husbandry,  and  unprovided  with 
funds  for  working  their  farms.  The 
policy  of  the  nobles  was  changed.  It 
was  no  longer  their  object  to  maintain 
small  farmsteads,  each  supplying  its 
quota  of  armed  men  to  the  retinue  of 
the  lord  ;  and  it  was  their  interest  to 
obtain  money  rents.  Then  commenced 
a  struggle  of  the  most  fearful  character. 
The  nobles  cleared  their  lands,  pulled. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     229 


down  the  bouses,  and  displaced  the 
people.  Vagrancy,  on  a  most  unparal- 
leled scale,  took  place.  Henry  VII., 
to  check  this  cruel,  unexpected,  and 
harsh  outcome  of  his  own  policy,  re- 
sorted to  legislation,  which  proved 
nearly  ineffectual.  As  early  as  the 
fourth  year  of  his  reign  these  efforts 
commenced  with  an  enactment  (cap. 
19)  for  keeping  up  houses  and  encour- 
aging husbandry  ;  it  is  very  quaint, 
and  is  as  follows  : 

' '  The  King,  our  Sovereign  Lord,  having 
singular  pleasure  above  all  things  to  avoid 
such  enormities  and  mischiefs  as  be  hurt 
ful  and  prejudicial  to  the  commonwealth  of 
this  his  land  and  his  subjects  of  the  same, 
remembereth  that,  among  other  things, 
great  inconvenience  daily  doth  increase  by 
dissolution,  and  pulling  down,  and  wilful 
waste  of  houses  and  towns  within  this  his 
realm,  and  laying  to  pasture  lands,  which 
continually  have  been  in  tilth,  whereby  idle- 
ness, the  ground  and  beginning  of  all  mischief, 
daily  do  increase  ;  for  where,  in  some  towns 
200  persons  were  occupied,  and  lived  by 
these  lawful  labors,  now  there  be  occupied 
two  or  three  herdsmen,  and  the  residue 
full  of  idleness.  The  husbandry,  which  is 
one  of  the  greatest  commodities  of  the 
realm,  is  greatly  decayed.  Churches  de- 
stroyed, the  service  of  God  withdrawn,  the 
bodies  there  buried  not  prayed  for,  the  pa- 
trons and  curates  wronged,  the  defence  of 
the  land  against  outward  enemies  feebled 
and  impaired,  to  the  great  displeasure  of 
God,  the  subversion  of  the  policy  and  good 
rule  of  this  land,  if  remedy  be  not  hastily 
therefor  purveyed  :  Wherefore,  the  King, 
our  Sovereign  Lord,  by  the  assent  and  ad- 
vice, etc.,  etc.,  ordereth,  enacteth,  and  es- 
tablisheth  that  no  person,  what  estate,  de- 
gree, or  condition  he  be,  that  hath  any 
house  or  houses,  that  at  any  time  within  the 
past  three  years  hath  been,  or  that  now  is, 
or  heretofore  shall  be,  let  to  farm  with 
twenty  acres  of  land  at  least,  or  more,  lay- 
ing in  tillage  or  husbandry  ;  that  the  own- 
ers of  any  such  house  shall  be  bound  to 
keep,  sustain,  and  maintain  houses  and 
buildings,  xipon  the  said  grounds  and  land 
convenient  and  necessary  for  maintaining 
and  upholding  said  tillage  and  husbandry  ; 
and  if  any  such  owner  or  owners  of  house 
or  house  and  land  take,  keep,  and  occupy 
any  such  house  or  house  and  land  in  his  01 
their  own  hands,  that  the  owner  of  the  said 
authority  be  bound  in  likewise  to  maintair 
houses  and  buildings  upon  the  said  grouuc 
i  1  land,  convenient  and  necessary  for 

Maintaining  and  upholding  the  said  tillage 
.tnd  husbandry.  On  their  default,  the  king, 
r>r  the  other  lord  of  the  fee,  shall  receive 

half  of  the  profits,  and  apply  the  same  in 


repairing  the  houses  ;  but  shall  not  gain 
he  freehold  thereby  " 

This  act  was  preceded  by  <  no  with 
•eference  to  the  Isle  of  Wight,  1  Henry 
VII.,  cap.  16,  passed  the  same  session, 
which  recites  that  it  is  so  near  France 
that  it  is  desirable  to  keep  it  in  a  state 
of  defence.  It  provides  that  no  person 
shall  have  more  than  one  farm,  and 
nacts  : 

"  For  remedy,  it  is  ordered  and  enacted 
;hat  no  manner  of  person,  of  what  estate, 
degree,  or  condition  soever,  shall  take  any 
farm  more  than  one,  whereof  the  yearly 
rent  shall  not  exceed  ten  marks  ;  and  if  any 
several  leases  afore  this  time  have  been 
made  to  any  person  or  persons  of  divers 
and  sundry  farmholds  whereof  the  yearly 
value  shall  exceed  that  sum,  then  the  said 
person  or  persons  shall  choose  one  farm, 
hold  at  his  pleasure,  and  the  remnant  of 
the  leases  shall  be  void." 

Mr.  Froude  remarks  (History,  p. 
26),  "  An  act,  tyrannical  in  form,  was 
singularly  justified  by  its  consequences. 
The  farm-houses  were  rebuilt,  the  land 
reploughed,  the  island  repeopled  ;  and 
in  1546,  when  the  French  army  of  60,- 
000  men  attempted  to  effect  a  landing 
at  St.  Helens,  they  were  defeated  and 
driven  back  by  the  militia,  and  a  few 
levies  transported  from  Hampshire  and 
the  surrounding  counties." 

Lord  Bacon,  in  his  "  History  of  the 
Reign  of  Henry  VII.,  says  : 

"  Enclosures,  at  that  time,  began  to  be 
more  frequent,  whereby  arable  land  (which 
could  not  be  manured  without  people  and 
families)  was  turned  into  pasture,  which 
was  easily  rid  by  a  few  herdsmen  ;  and 
tenancies  for  years,  lives,  and  at  will 
(whereupon  much  of  the  yeomanry  lived) 
were  turned  into  demesnes.  This  bred  a 
decay  of  people  and  (by  consequence)  a  de- 
cay of  towns,  churches,  tithes,  and  the  like. 
The  king,  likewise,  knew  full  well,  and  in 
nowise  forgot  that  there  ensued  withal 
upon  this  a  decay  and  diminution  of  sub.-i- 
dies  and  taxes  ;  for  the  more  gentlemen, 
ever  the  lower  books  of  subsidies.  In  rem- 
edying of  this  inconvenience,  the  king's  wis- 
dom was  admirable,  and  the  parliaments  at 
that  time.  Enclosures  they  would  not  for- 
bid, for  that  had  been  to  forbid  the  im- 
provement of  the  patrimony  of  the  king- 
dom ;  nor  tillage  they  would  not  compel, 
for  that  was  to  strive  with  nature  and  util- 
ity ;  but  they  took  a  coarse  to  take  away 
depopulating  enclosures  and  depopulating 


23° 


'BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


pasturage,  and  yet  not  by  that  name,  or  by  | 
any  imperious  express  prohibition,  but  by 
consequence.  The  ordinance  was,  that  all 
houses  of  husbandry,  that  were  used  with 
twenty  acres  of  ground  and  upward,  should 
be  maintained  and  kept  up  for  ever,  to- 
gether with  a  competent  proportion  of  land 
to  be  used  and  occupied  with  them  ;  and 
in  nowise  to  be  severed  from  them,  as  by 
another  statute  made  afterward  in  his  suc- 
cessor's  time,  was  more  fully  declared  : 
this,  upon  forfeiture  to  be  taken,  not  by 
way  of  popular  action,  but  by  seizure  of 
the  land  itself,  by  the  king  and  lords  of  the 
fee,  as  to  half  the  profits,  till  the  houses 
and  land  were  restored.  By  this  means 
the  houses  being  kept  up,  did  of  necessity 
enforce  a  dweller  ;  and  the  proportion  of 
the  land  for  occupation  being  kept  up,  did 
of  necessity  enforce  that  dweller  not  to  be 
a  beggar  or  cottager,  but  a  man  of  some 
substance,  that  might  keep  hinds  and  ser- 
vants, and  set  the  plough  a-going.  This  did 
wonderfully  concern  the  might  and  man- 
nerhood  of  the  kingdom,  to  have  farms,  as 
it  were,  of  a  standard  sufficient  to  maintain 
an  able  body  out  of  penury,  and  did,  in  ef- 
fect, amortise  a  great  part  of  the  lands  of 
the  kingdom  unto  the  hold  and  occupation 
of  the  yeomanry  or  middle  people,  of  a  con- 
dition between  gentlemen  and  cottagers  or 
peasants.  Now,  how  much  this  did  ad- 
vance the  military  power  of  the  kingdom, 
is  apparent  by  the  true  principles  of  war, 
and  the  examples  of  other  kingdoms.  For 
it  hath  been  held  by  the  general  opinion  of 
men  of  best  judgment  in  the  wars  (howso- 
ever some  few  have  varied,  and  that  it  may 
receive  some  distinction  of  case),  that  the 
principal  strength  of  an  army  consisteth  in 
the  infantry  or  foot.  And  to  make  good 
infantry,  it  requireth  men  bred,  not  in  a 
servile  or  indigent  fashion,  but  in  some  free 
and  plentiful  manner.  Therefore,  if  a 
state  run  most  to  noblemen  and  gentlemen, 
and  that  the  husbandman  and  ploughman 
be  but  as  their  workfolks  and  laborers,  or 
else  mere  cottagers  (which  are  but  housed 
beggars),  you  may  have  a  good  cavalry,  but 
never  good  stable  bands  of  foot  ;  like  to 
coppice  woods,  that  if  you  leave  in  them 
standing  too  thick,  they  will  run  to  bushes 
and  briars,  and  have  little  clean  underwood. 
And  this  is  to  be  seen  in  France  and  Italy, 
and  some  other  parts  abroad,  where  in  ef- 
fect all  is  nobles  or  peasantry.  I  speak  of 
people  out  of  towns,  and  no  middle  people  ; 
and  therefore  no  good  forces  of  foot  :  inso- 
much as  they  are  enforced  to  employ  mer- 
cenary bands  of  Switzers  and  the  like  for 
their  battalions  of  foot,  whereby  also  it 
comes  to  pass,  that  those  nations  have 
much  people  and  few  soldiers.  Whereas 
the  king  saw  that  contrariwise  it  would  fol- 
low, that  England,  though  much  less  in  ter- 
ritory, yet  should  have  infinitely  more  sol- 
diera  of  their  native  forces  thai  those  other 


nations  have.  Thus  did  the  king  secretly 
sow  Hydra's  teeth  ;  whereupon  (according 
to  the  poet's  fiction)  should  rise  up  armed 
men  for  the  service  of  this  kingdom." 

The  enactment  above  quoted  was  fol- 
lowed by  others  in  that  reign  of  a  simi- 
lar character,  but  it  would  appear  they 
were  not  successful.  The  evil  grew 
apace.  Houses  were  pulled  down, 
farms  went  out  of  tillage.  The  people, 
evicted  from  their  farms,  and  having 
neither  occupation  nor  means  of  living, 
were  idle,  and  suffering.  Succeeding 
sovereigns  strove  also  to  check  this  dis- 
order, and  statute  after  statute  was 
passed.  Among  them  are  the  7th 
Henry  VIII.,  cap.  1.  It  recites  : 

"  That  great  inconveniency  did  daily  in- 
crease by  dissolution,  pulling  down,  and 
destruction  of  bouses,  and  laying  to  pas- 
ture, lands  which  customarily  had  been 
manured  and  occupied  with  tillage  and 
husbandry,  whereby  idleness  doth  in- 
crease ;  for  where,  in  some  town-lands,  hun- 
dreds of  persons  and  their  ancestors,  time 
out  of  mind,  were  daily  occupied  with  sow- 
ing of  corn  and  graynes,  breeding  of  cattle, 
and  other  increase  of  husbandry,  that  now 
the  said  persons  and  their  progeny  are  dis- 
united and  decreased.  It  further  recites 
the  evil  consequences  resulting  from  this 
state  of  things,  and  provides  that  all  these 
buildings  and  habitations  shall  be  re-edi- 
fice^ and  repaired  •within  one  year  ;  and 
all  tillage  lands  turned  into  pasture  shall 
be  again  restored  into  tillage  ;  and  in  de- 
fault, half  the  value  of  the  lands  and  houses 
forfeited  to  the  king,  or  lord  of  the  fee,  un- 
til they  were  re-edificed.  On  failure  of  the 
next  lord,  the  lord  above  him  might  seize." 

This  act  did  not  produce  that  in- 
creased tilth  which  was  anticipated. 
Farmers'  attention  was  turned  to  sheep- 
breeding  ;  and  in  order  to  supply  the 
deficiency  of  cattle,  an  act  was  passed 
in  the  21st  Henry  VIII.,  to  enforce 
the  rearing  of  calves  ;  and  every  farmer 
was,  under  a  penalty  of  6s,  8d.  (about 
£3  of  our  currency),  compelled  to  rear 
all  his  calves  for  a  period  of  three 
years  ;  and  iu  the  24th  Henry  VIII. 
the  act  was  further  continued  for  two 
years.  The  culture  of  flax  and  hemp 
was  also  encouraged  by  legislation. 
The  24th  Henry  VIII.,  cap.  14,  re- 
quires every  person  occupying  land  apt 
for  tillage,  to  sow  a  quarter  of  an  acre 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDIXG  IX  ENGLAND.     231 


of  flax  or  hemp  for  every  sixty  acres  of 
land,  under  a  penalty  of  3s.  4rf. 

The  profit  which  arose  from  sheep- 
farming  led  to  the  depasturage  of  the 
land  ;  and  in  order  to  check  it,  an  act, 
25  Henry  VIII.,  cap.  13,  was  passed. 
It  commences  thus  : 

"  Forasmuch  as  divers  and  sundry  per- 
sons  of  tne  king's  subjects  of  this  realm,  to 
whom  God  of  His  goodness  hath  disposed 
great  plenty  and  abundance  of  movable 
substance,  now  of  late,  within  few  years, 
have  daily  studied,  practised,  and  invented 
ways  and  means  how  they  might  gather 
and  accumulate  together  into  few  hands, 
as  well  great  multitude  of  farms,  as  great 
plenty  of  cattle  and  in  especial  sheep,  put- 
ting such  lands  as  they  can  get  to  pasture 
and  not  to  tillage  :  whereby  they  have  not 
only  pulled  down  churches  and  towns,  and 
enhanced  the  old  rates  of  the  rents  of  pos- 
sessions of  this  realm,  or  else  brought  it  to 
such  excessive  fines  that  no  poor  man  is 
able  to  meddle  with  it,  but  have  also  raised 
and  enhanced  the  prices  of  all  manner  of 
corn,  cattle,  wool,  pigs,  geese,  hens,  chick- 
ens, eggs,  and  such  commodities  almost 
double  above  the  prices  which  hath  been 
accustomed,  by  reason  whereof  a  marvel- 
lous multitiide  of  the  poor  people  of  this 
realm  be  not  able  to  provide  meat,  drink, 
and  clothes  necessary  for  themselves,  their 
wives,  and  children,  bnt  be  so  discouraged 
with  misery  and  poverty,  that  they  fall 
daily  to  theft,  robbery,  and  other  incon- 
veniences, or  pitifully  die  for  hunger  and 
cold  ;  and  it  is  thought  by  the  king's  hum- 
ble and  loving  subjects,  that  one  of  the 
greatest  occasions  that  moveth  those  greedy 
Mid  covetous  people  so  to  accumulate  and 
keep  in  their  hands  such  great  portions  and 
parts  of  the  lands  of  this  realm  from  the 
occupying  of  the  poor  husbandmen,  and  so 
use  it  in  pasture  and  not  in  tillage,  is  the 
great  profit  that  cometh  of  sheep,  which  be 
now  come  into  a  few  persons'  hands,  in  re- 
spect of  the  whole  number  of  the  king's 
subjects,  so  that  some  have  24,000,  some 
20,000,  some  10,000,  some  6000,  some 
5000,  and  some  more  or  less,  by  which 


cloth  making,  whereby  many  poor  people 
hath  been  accustomed  to  be  set  on  work  ; 
and  in  conclusion,  if  remedy  be  not  found, 
it  may  turn  to  the  utter  destruction  and 
dissolution  of  this  realm  which  God  de- 
fend." 

It  was  enacted  that  no  person  shall 
have  or  keep  on  lands  not  their  own  in- 
heritance more  than  2000  sheep,  under 
a  penalty  of  3s.  4rf.  per  annum  for 
each  sheep  ;  lambs  under  a  year  old 
not  to  be  counted  ;  and  that  no  person 
shall  occupy  two  farms. 


to  prevent  the  evil  ;  and  the  27th  Henry 
VIII.,  cap.  22,  states  that  the  4th 
Henry  VII.,  cap.  19,  for  keeping 
houses  in  repair,  and  for  the  tillage  of 
the  land,  had  been  enforced  on  lands 
holden  of  the  king,  but  neglected  by 
other  lords.  It,  therefore,  enacted 
that  the  king  shall  have  the  moiety  of 
the  profits  of  lands  converted  from  till- 
age to  pasture,  since  the  passing  of  the 
4th  Henry  VII.,  until  a  proper  house 
is  built,  and  the  land  returned  to  till- 
age ;  and  in  default  of  the  immediate 
lord  taking  the  profits  as  under  that 
act,  the  king  might  take  the  same. 
This  act  extended  to  the  counties  of 
Lincoln,  Nottingham,  Leicester,  War- 
wick, Rutland,  Northampton,  Bedford, 
Buckingham,  Oxford,  Berkshire,  Isle 
of  Wight,  Hertford,  and  Cambridge. 

The  simple  fact  was,  that  those  who 
had  formerly  paid  the  rent  of  their 
land  by  service  as  soldiers  were  with- 
out the  capital  or  means  of  paying  rent 
in  money  ;  they  were  evicted  and  be- 
came vagrants.  Henry  VIII.  took  a 
short  course  with  these  vagrants,  and 
it  is  asserted  upon  apparently  good 
authority  that  in  the  course  of  his  reign 


VWV/,        (l-LJLl       OWJ-UC       AUUI O       \Ji       J.t^Oi3,         *JJ        "  «UMW*  J  ill  xt 

a  good  sheep  for  victual,  which  was  accus-  thirty-six  years,  he  hanged  no  lesstnan 
tomed  to  be  sold  for  2s.  4d.  or  3s.  at  j  72,000  persons  for  vagrancy,  or  at  the 
most,  is  now  sold  for  6s.,  5s.,  or  4s.  at  the  j  rate  Q£  200Q  per  annum.  The  execu- 
least ;  and  a  stone  of  clothing  wool,  that  ,  <r  i^a  Aan(f\\\^r 

in  some  shire  of  this  realm  was  accustomed  i  tions   in   the    reign    <       his 
to  be  sold  from  16d.  to  20d.,  is  now  sold  for  j  Queen    Elizabeth,    had  fane 
4s.  or  3s.  4d.  at  the  least ;   and  in  some  j  300  to  400  per  annum 
counties,  where1  it  has  been  sold  for  2s.  4d. 
to  2s.  8d.,  or  3s.  at  the  most,  it  is  now  5s. 
or  4s.  8d.  at  the  least,  and  so  arreysed  in 
every  part  of  the  realm,  which  things  thus 
used  be  principally  to  the  high  displeasure 
of  Almighty  God,  to  the  decay  of  the  hos- 
pitality of  this  realm,  to  the  diminishing  j 


32  Henry  VIII.,  cap.  1,  gave  powers 
of  bequest  with  regard  to  land  ;  as  It 
explains  the  change  it  effected,  I  < 


exp 

it 


quote 


Ljituutv     UJ.    I/.LLIO    icai-LLL,    LW    cue    *A-iAiiAi**'j".*"&   f  '  &  ,          - 

Of  the  king's  people,   and  the  let  of  the  '  not  having  any  lands  holden   by  knight 

29 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


service  of  the  king  in  chief,  be  empowered 
to  devise  and  dispose  of  all  such  socag< 
lands,  and  in  like  case,  persons  holdini 
socage  lands  of  the  king  in  chief,  and  also 
of  others,  and  not  having  the  lands  holdei 
by  knight  service,  saving  to  the  king,  al 
his  right,  title,  and  interest  for  primer 
seizin,  reliefs,  fines  for  alienations,  etc 
Persons  holding  lands  of  the  king  bj 
knight' s  service  in  chief  were  authorized  to 
devise  two  third  parts  thereof,  saving  to 
the  king  wardship,  primer  seizin,  of  the 
third  paid,  and  fines  for  alienation  of  the 
whole  lands.  Persons  holding  lands  by 
knight's  service  in  chief,  and  also  other 
lands  by  knight's  service,  or  otherwise, 
may  in  like  manner  devise  two  third  parts 
thereof,  saving  to  the  king  wardship  of  the 
third,  and  fines  for  alienation  of  the  whole. 
Persons  holding  land  of  others  than  the 
king  by  knight's  service,  and  also  holding 
socage  lands,  may  devise  two  third  parts 
of  the  former  and  the  whole  of  the  latter, 
saving  to  the  lord  his  wardship  of  the  third 
part.  Persons  holding  lands  of  the  king 
by  knight's  service  but  not  in  chief,  or  so 
holding  of  the  king  and  others,  and  also 
holding  socage  lands,  may  in  like  manner 
devise  two  thirds  of  the  former  and  the 
whole  of  the  latter,  saving  to  the  king  the 
wardship  of  the  third  part,  and  also  to  the 
lords  ;  and  the  king  or  the  other  lords  were 
empowered  to  seize  the  one  third  part  in 
case  of  any  deficiency." 

The  34th  and  35th  Henry  VIII., 
cap.  5,  was  passed  to  remove  some 
doubts  which  had  arisen  as  to  the 
former  statute  ;  it  enacts  : 

"  That  the  words  estates  of  inheritance 
should  only  mean  estates  in  fee-simple 
only,  and  empowers  persons  seized  of  any 
lands,  etc.,  in  fee-simple  solely,  or  in  co- 
partnery  (not  having  any  lands  holden  of 
knight's  service),  to  devise  the  whole,  ex- 
cept corporations.  Persons  seized  in  fee- 
simple  of  land  holden  of  the  king  by 
knight's  service  may  give  or  devise  two 
thirds  thereof,  and  of  his  other  lands,  ex- 
cept corporation,  such  two  thirds  to  be  as- 
certained by  the  divisor  or  by  commission 
out  of  the  Court  of  Ward  and  Liveries. 
The  king  was  empowered  to  take  his  third 
land  descended  to  the  heir  in  the  first  place, 
the  devise  in  gift  remaining  good  for  the 
two  thirds  ;  and  if  the  land  described  were 
insufficient  to  answer  such  third,  the  de- 
ficiency should  be  made  up  out  of  the  two 
thirds." 

"  The  next  attack,"  remarks  Sir  William 
Blackstone,  vol.  ii.,  p.  117,  "  which  they 
suffered  in  order  of  time  was  by  the  statute 

Henry  VIII.,  c.  28,  whereby  certain  leases 
made  by  tenants  in  tail,  which  do  not  tend 
**>  prejudice  the  issue,  were  allowed  to  be 
good  in  law  and  to  bind  the  issue  in  tail. 


But  they  received  a  more  violent  blow  the 
same  session  of  Parliament  by  the  construc- 
tion put  upon  the  statute  of  fines  by  the 
statute  32  Henry  VIII.,  cap.  36,  which  de- 
clares a  fine  duly  levied  by  tenant  in  tail  to 
be  a  complete  bar  to  him  and  his  heirs  and 
all  other  persons  claiming  under  such  en- 
tail. This  was  evidently  agreeable  to  the 
intention  of  Henry  VII.,  whose  policy  was 
(before  common  recovery  had  obtained 
their  full  strength  and  authority)  to  lay  the 
road  as  open  as  possible  to  the  alienation 
of  landed  property,  in  order  to  weaken  the 
overgrown  power  of  his  nobles.  But  as 
they,  from  the  opposite  reasons,  were  not 
easily  brought  to  consent  to  such  a  provi- 
sion, it  was  therefore  couched  in  his  act  un- 
der covert  and  obscure  expressions  ;  and  the 
judges,  though  willing  to  construe  that  stat- 
ute as  favorably  as  possible  for  the  defeat- 
ing of  entailed  estates,  yet  hesitated  at  giv- 
ing fines  so  extensive  a  power  by  mere  im- 
plication when  the  statute  de  donis  had  ex- 
pressly declared  that  they  should  not  be  a 
bar  to  estates-tail.  But  the  statute  of  Henry 
VIII.,  when  the  doctrine  of  alienation  was 
better  received,  and  the  will  of  the  prince 
more  implicitly  obeyed  than  before,  avow- 
ed and  established  that  intention." 

Fitzherbert,  one  of  the  judges  of  the 
Common  Pleas  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
VIII.,  wrote  a  work  on  surveying  and 
husbandry.  It  contains  directions  for 
draining,  clearing,  and  inclosing  a  farm, 
and  for  enriching  the  soil  and  reducing 
it  to  tillage.  Fallowing  before  wheat 
was  practised,  and  when  a  field  was  ex- 
lausted  by  grain  it  was  allowed  to  rest. 
Sollingshed  estimated  the  usual  return 
as  16  to  20  bushels  of  wheat  per  acre  ; 
irices  varied  very  greatly,  and  famine 
was  of  frequent  recurrence.  Leases 
>egan  to  be  granted,  but  they  were  not 
sffectual  to  protect  the  tenant  from  the 
sntry  of  purchasers  nor  against  the  op- 
sration  of  fictitious  recoveries. 

In  the  succeeding  reigns  the  efforts 
o  encourage  tillage  and  prevent  the 
bearing  of  the  farms  were  renewed,  and 
imong  the  enactments  passed  were  the 
ollowing  : 

5  Edward  VI.,  cap.  5,  for  the  better 
maintenance  of  tillage  and  increase  of 
;orn  within  the  realm,  enacts  : 

u  That  there  should  be,  in  the  year  1553, 
s  much  land,  or  more,  put  wholly  in  till- 
ge  as  had  been  at  any  time  since  the  1st 
lenry  VEIL,  under  a  penalty  of  5s.  per 
ere  to  the  king  ;  and  in  order  to  secure 
his,  it  appoints  commissioners,  who  were 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     233 


bound  to  ascertain  by  inquests  what  land 
was  in  tillage  and  had  been  converted  from 
tillage  into  pasture.  The  commission  is- 
sued precepts  to  the  sheriffs,  who  summon- 
ed jurors,  and  the  inquests  were  to  be  re- 
turned, certified,  to  the  Court  of  Exchequer. 
Any  prosecution  for  penalties  should  take 
place  within  three  years,  and  the  act  con- 
tinued for  ten  years." 

2  and  3  Philip  and  Mary,  cap.  2,  re- 
cites the  former  acts  of  4  Henry  VII., 
cap.  19,  etc.,  which  it  enforces.  It 

onacts  : 

"  That  as  some  doubts  had  arisen  as  to 
the  interpretation  of  the  words  twenty 
acres  of  land,  the  act  should  apply  to  houses 
with  twenty  acres  of  land,  according  to  the 
measurement  of  the  ancient  statute  ;  and  it 
appoints  commissioners  to  inquire  as  to 
all  housjs  pulled  down  and  all  land  con- 
verted from  pasture  into  tillage  since  the 
4th  Henry  VII.  The  commissioners  were 
to  take  security  by  recognizance  from  of- 
fenders, and  to  re-edify  the  houses  and  re- 
convert the  land  into  tillage,  and  to  assess 
the  tenants  for  life  toward  the  repairs. 
The  amount  expended  under  order  of  the 
commissioners  was  made  recoverable 
against  the  estate,  and  the  occupiers  were 
made  liable  to  their  orders  ;  and  they  had 
power  to  commit  persons  refusing  to  give 
security  to  carry  out  the  act." 

2  and  3  Philip  and  Mary,  cap.  3,  was 
passed  to  provide  for  the  increase  of 
milch  cattle,  and  it  enacts  : 

"  That  one  milch- cow  shall  be  kept  and 
calf  reared  for  every  sixty  sheep  and  ten 
oxen  during  the  following  seven  years." 

The  2d  Elizabeth,  cap.  2,  confirms 
the  previously  quoted  acts  of  4  Henry 
VII.,  cap.  19  ;  7  Henry  VIII.,  cap. 
1  ;  27  Henry  VIII.,  cap.  22  ;  27 
Henry  VIII.,  cap.  18  ;  and  it  enacts  : 

"  That  all  farm-houses  belonging  to  sup- 
pressed monasteries  should  be  kept  up,  and 
that  all  lands  which  had  been  in  tillage  for 
four  years  successively  at  any  time  since 
the  20th  Henry  VET.,  should  be  kept  in 
tillage  under  a  penalty  of  10s.  per  acre, 
which  was  payable  to  the  heir  in  reversion, 
or  in  case  he  did  not  levy  it,  to  the  Crown.' ' 

31  Elizabeth' ,  cap.  7,  went  further  ; 
and  in  order  to  provide  allotments  for 
the  cottagers,  many  of  whom  were  dis- 
possessed from  their  land,  it  provided  : 

"  For  avoiding  the  great  inconvenience 
which  i-s  found  by  experience  to  grow  by 


the  erecting  and  building  of  great  number* 
of  cottages,  which  daily  more  and  more  in- 
creased in  many  parts  of  the  realm,  it  was 
enacted  that  no  person  should  build  a  cot- 
tAge  for  habitation  or  dwelling,  nor  convert 
any  building  into  a  cottage,  without  assign- 
ing and  laying  thereto  four  acres  of  land, 
being  his  own  freehold  and  inheritance, 
lying  near  the  cottage,  under  a  penalty  of 
£10  ;  and  for  upholding  any  such  cottages, 
there  was  a  penalty  imposed  of  40s.  a  month, 
exception  being  made  as  to  any  city,  town, 
corporation,  ancient  borough,  or  market 
town  ;  and  no  person  was  permitted  to  al- 
low more  than  one  family  to  reside  in  each 
cottage,  under  a  penalty  of  10s.  per  month." 

The  39th  Elizabeth,  cap.  2,  was 
passed  to  enforce  the  observance  of 
these  conditions.  It  provides  : 

"  That  all  lands  which  had  been  in  tillage 
shall  be  restored  thereto  within  three  years, 
except  in  cases  where  they  were  worn  out 
by  too  much  tillage,  in  which  case  they 
might  be  grazed  with  sheep  ;  but  in  order 
to  prevent  the  deterioriation  of  the  land,  it 
was  enacted  that  the  quantity  of  beeves  or 
muttons  sold  off  the  land  should  not  exceed 
that  which  was  consumed  in  the  mansion* 
house." 

In  these  various  enactments  of  the 
Tudor  monarchs  we  may  trace  the  anx- 
ious desire  of  these  sovereigns  to  repair 
the  mistake  of  Henry  VII. ,  and  to  pre- 
vent the  depopulation  of  England.  A 
similar  mistake  has  been  made  in  Ire- 
land since  1846,  under  which  the  homes 
of  the  peasantry  have  been  prostrated, 
the  land  thrown  out  of  tillage,  and  the 
people  driven  from  their  native  land. 
Mr.  Froude  has  the  following  remarks 
upon  this  legislation  : 

"  Statesmen  (temp.  Elizabeth)  did  not 
care  for  the  accumulation  of  capital.  They 
desired  to  see  the  physical  well-being  of  all 
classes  of  the  commonwealth  maintained  in 
the  highest  degree  which  the  producing 
power  of  the  country  admitted.  This  was 
their  object,  and  they  were  supported  in  it 
by  a  powerful  and  efficient  majority  of  the 
nation.  At  one  time  Parliament  interfered 
to  protect  employers  against  laborers,  but 
it  was  equally  determined  that  employers 
should  not  be  allowed  to  abuse  their  op- 
portunities ;  and  this  directly  appears  from 
the  4th  and  5th  Elizabeth,  by  which,  on 
the  most  trifling  appearance  of  a  diminu- 
tion of  the  currency,  it  was  declared  that 
the  laboring  man  could  no  longer  live  on 
the  wages  assigned  to  him  by  the  Act  of 
Henry  VIII. ;  aud  a  sliding  scale  was  insti 


234 


BE. ICON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


tnted,  by  which,  tor  the  future,  wages 
should  be  adjusted  to  the  price  of  food. 
The  same  conclusion  may  be  gathered  also 
indirectly  fom  the  acts  interfering  imperi- 
ously with  the  rights  of  property  wheie  a 
disposition  showed  itself  to  exercise  them 
selfishly. 

"  The  city  merchants,  as  I  have  said, 
were  becoming  landowners,  and  some  of 
them  attempted  to  apply  their  rules  of 
trade  to  the  management  of  landed  estates. 
While  wages  were  rated  so  high,  it  answered 
better  as  a  speculation  to  convert  arable  land 
into  pasture,  but  the  law  immediately  stepped 
in  to  prevent  a  proceeding  which  it  regarded  as 
petty  treason  to  the  state.  Self -protection  is 
the  first  law  of  life,  and  the  country,  rely- 
ing for  its  defence  on  an  able-bodied  pop- 
ulation, evenly  distributed,  ready  at  any 
moment  to  be  called  into  action,  either 
against  foreign  invasion  or  civil  disturb- 
ance, it  could  not  permit  the  owners  of 
land  to  pursue,  for  their  own  benefit,  a 
course  of  action  which  threatened  to  weak- 
en its  garrisons.  It  is  not  often  that  we  are 
able  to  test  the  wisdom  of  legislation  by 
specific  results  so  clearly  as  in  the  present 
instance.  The  first  attempts  of  the  kind 
which  I  have  described  were  made  in  the 
Isle  of  Wight  early  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
VII.  Lying  so  directly  exposed  to  attacks 
by  France,  the  Isle  of  Wight  was  a  place 
which  it  was  peculiarly  important  to  keep 
in  a  state  of  defence,  and  the  4th  Henry 
VII.,  cap.  16,  was  passed  to  prevent  the 
depopulation  of  the  Isle  of  Wight,  occa- 
sioned by  the  system  of  large  farms." 

The  city  merchants  alluded  to  by 
Froude  seem  to  have  remembered  that 
from  the  times  of  Athelwolf,  the  pos- 
session of  a  certain  quantity  of  land, 
with  gatehouse,  church,  and  kitchen, 
converted  the  ceorl  (churl)  into  a  thane. 

It  is  difficult  to  estimate  the  effect 
which  the  Tudor  policy  had  upon  the 
landholding  of  England.  Under  the 
feudal  system,  the  land  was  held  in 
trust  and  burdened  with  the  support 
of  the  soldiery.  Henry  VII.,  in  order 
to  weaken  the  power  of  the  nobles,  put 
an  end  to  their  maintaining  indepen- 
dent soldiery.  Thus  landlords'  incomes 
increased,  though  their  material  power 
was  curtailed.  It  would  not  have  been 
difficult  at  thL*  time  to  have  loaded 
these  properties  with  annual  payments 
equal  to  the  cost  of  the  soldiers  which 
they  were  bound  to  maintain,  or  to 
have  given  i-ach  of  them  a  farm  under 
the  Crown,  and  strict  justice  would  have 
prevented  the  landowners  from  putting 


into  their  pockets  those  revenues  which, 
according  to  the  grants  and  patents  of 
the  Conqueror  and  his  successors,  were 
specially  devoted  to  the  maintenance  of 
the  army.  Land  was  released  from  the 
conditions  with  which  it  was  burdened 
when  granted.  This  was  not  done  by 
direct  legislation  but  by  its  being  the 
policy  of  the  Crown  to  prevent  "  king- 
makers" arising  from  among  the  nobil- 
ity. The  dread  of  Warwick  influenced 
Henry.  He  inaugurated  a  policy  which 
transferred  the  support  of  the  army 
from  the  lands,  which  should  solely 
have  borne  it,  to  the  general  revenue  of 
the  country.  Thus  he  relieved  one 
class  at  the  expense  of  the  nation.  Yet, 
when  Henry  was  about  to  wage  war  on 
the  Continent,  he  called  all  his  subjects 
to  accompany  him,  under  pain  of  for- 
feiture of  their  lands  ;  and  he  did  not 
omit  levying  the  accustomed  feudal 
charge  for  knighting  his  eldest  son  and 
for  marrying  his  eldest  daughter.  The 
acts  to  prevent  the  landholder  from 
oppressing  the  occupier,  and  those  for 
the  encouragement  of  tillage,  failed. 
The  new  idea  of  property  in  land, 
which  then  obtained,  proved  too  power- 
ful to  be  altered  by  legislation. 

Another  change  in  the  system  of 
landholding  took  place  in  these  reigns. 
Lord  Cromwell,  who  succeeded  Cardi- 
nal Wolsey  as  minister  to  Henry  VIII. , 
had  land  in  Kent,  and  he  obtained  the 
passing  of  an  act  (31  Henry  VIII., 
cap.  2)  which  took  his  land  and  that  of 
other  owners  therein  named,  out  of  the 
custom  of  gavelkind  (gave-all-kind), 
which  had  existed  in  Kent  from  before 
the  Norman  Conquest,  and  enacted  that 
they  should  descend  according  to  com- 
mon law  in  like  manner  as  lands  held 
by  knight's  service. 

The  suppression  of  the  RELIGIOUS 
HOUSES  gave  the  Crown  the  control  of 
a  vast  quantity  of  land.  It  had,  with 
the  consent  of  the  Crown,  been  devot- 
ed to  religion  by  former  owners.  The 
descendants  of  the  donors  were  equi- 
tably entitled  to  the  land,  as  it  ceased 
to  be  applied  to  the  trust  for  which  it 
was  given,  but  the  power  of  the  Crown 
was  too  great,  and  their  claims  were  re- 
fused. Had  these  estates  been  wplied 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     235 


to  purposes  of  religion  or  education 
they  would  have  formed  a  valuable 
fund  for  the  improvement  of  the  peo- 
ple ;  but  the  land  itself,  as  well  as  the 
portion  of  tithes  belonging  to  the  relig- 
ious houses,  was  conferred  upon  favor- 
ites, and  some  of  the  wealthiest  nobles 
of  the  present  day  trace  their  rise  and 
importance  to  the  rewards  obtained  by 
their  ancestors  out  of  the  spoils  of  these 
charities. 

The  importance  of  the  measures  of 
the  Tudors  upon  the  system  of  land- 
holding  can  hardly  be  exaggerated.  An 
impulse  of  self-defence  led  them  to 
lessen  the  physical  force  of  the  oli- 
garchy by  relieving  the  land  from  the 
support  of  the  army,  and  enabling  them 
to  convert  to  their  own  use  the  income 
previously  applied  to  the  defence  of  the 
realm.  This  was  a  bribe,  but  it  brought 
its  own  punishment.  The  eviction  of 
the  working  farmers,  the  demolition  of 
their  dwellings,  the  depopulation  of  the 
country,  were  evils  of  most  serious  mag- 
nitude ;  and  the  supplement  of  the 
measures  which  produced  such  deplor- 
able results  was  found  in  the  perma- 
nent establishment  of  a  taxation  for  the 
SUPPORT  of  the  POOR.  Yet  the  nation 
reeled  under  the  depletion  produced  by 
previous  mistaken  legislation,  and  all 


proving  insufficient,  the  powers  of  the 
churchwardens  were  extended,  and  they 
were  directed  and  authorized  to  assess 
the  parishioners  according  to  their 


to 

means,  and  thus  arose  a  system  which, 
though  benevolent  in  its  object,  is  a  slur 
upon  our  social  arrangements.  Land, 
the  only  source  of  food,  is  rightly 
charged  with  the  support  of  the  desti- 
tute. The  necessity  for  such  aid  arose 
originally  from  their  being  evicted 
therefrom.  The  charge  should  fall  ex- 
clusively upon  the  rent  receivers,  and 
in  no  case  should  the  tiller  of  the  soil 
have  to  pay  this  charge  either  directly 
or  indirectly.  It  is  continued  by  the 
inadequacy  of  wages,  and  the  improvi- 
dence engendered  by  a  social  system 
which  arose  out  of  injustice,  and  pro- 
duced its  own  penalty. 

Legislation  with  regard  to  the  poor 
commenced  contemporaneous  with  the 
laws  against  the  eviction  of  the  small 
farmers.  I  have  already  recited  some 
of  the  laws  to  preserve  small  holdings  ; 
I  now  pass  to  the  acts  meant  to  com- 
pel landholders  to  provide  for  those 
whom  they  had  dispossessed.  In  1530 
the  act  22  Henry  VIII.,  cap.  12,  was 
passed  ;  it  recites  : 


"  Whereas  in  all  places  through  the  realm 
of  England,  vagabonds  and  beggars  have  of 
lasses  have  been  injured  by  the  trans-   long  ^me  incr|ased)  and  daiij?t0  increase, 

fer  of  the  support  of  the  army  from  the  jn  great  and  excessive  numbers  by  the  oc- 
land  held  by  the  nobles  to  the  income  casion  of  idleness,  the  mother  and  root  of  att 
of  the  people  vices,*  whereby  hath  insurged  and  sprung, 

Side    by    side,    with    the    measures   **?$»%  insurgeth  and  springeth,  contin- 
,     ,  J  ,   ,,       ~,       .  ,  ,.       ual  thefts,  murders,  and  other  heinous  of 

passed,  to  prevent  the  Clearing  ot  the  fences  and  gj.eat  enormities,  to  the  high 
Land,  arose  the  system  of  POOR  LAWS,  displeasure  of  God,  the  inquietation  and 
Previous  to  the  Reformation  the  poor  damage  of  the  king  and  people,  :*nd  to  the 
were  principally  relieved  at  the  religious  S^1^^" turbance  °f  the  commoilweal 
houses.  The  destruction  of  small  farms, 

and  the  eviction  of  such  masses  of  the !  It  enacts  that  justices  may  give 
people,  which  commenced  in  the  reign  license  to  impotent  persons  t^  beg 
of  Henry  VII.,  overpowered  the  re-  j  within  certain  limits,  and,  if  found 
sources  of  these  establishments  ;  their  j  begging  out  of  their  limits,  they  shall 
suppression  in  the  reigns  of  Henry  j  be  set  in  the  stocks.  Beggars  without 
VIII.  and  Elizabeth  aggravated  the  license  to  be  whipped  or  set  in  th« 
evil.  The  indiscriminate  and  wholesale  stocks.  All  persons  able  to  labor, 
execution  of  the  poor  vagrants  by  the  j  who  shall  beg  or  be  vagrant,  shall  be 
former  monarch  only  partially  removed  whipped  and  sent  to  the  place  of  their 
the  evil,  and  the  statute-book  is  loaded  ! 
with  acts  for  the  relief  of  the  destitute  : 

poor.  Ihe  first  efforts  were  collections  that  it  was  throwing  the  land  out  of  tilth 
in  the  churches  ;  but  voluntary  alms  that  occasioned  pauperism. 

33 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


birth.     Parishes  to  be  fined  for  neglect 
of  the  constables. 

37  Henry  VIIL,  cap.  23,  continued 
this  act  to  the  end  of  the  ensuing  Par- 
liament. 

1  Edward  VI.,  cap.  3,  recites  the  in- 
crease of  idle  vagabonds,   and  enacts 
that  all  persons  loitering  or  wandering 
shall  be  marked  with  aV,  and  adjudged 
a  slave  for  two  years,    and  afterward 
running  away  shall    become    a  felon. 
Impotent  persons  were  to  be  removed 
to  the  place  where  they  had  resided  for 
three  years,  and  allowed  to  beg.      A 
weekly  collection  was  to  be  made  in  the 
churches    every    Sunday    and    holiday 
after  reading  the  gospel  of  the  day,  the 
amount  to  be  applied  to  the  relief  of 
bedridden  poor. 

5  and  6  Edward  VI.,  cap.  2,  directs 
the  parson,  vicar,  curate,  and  church- 
wardens, to  appoint  two  collectors  to 
distribute  weekly  to  the  poor.  The 
people  were  exhorted  by  the  clergy  to 
contribute  ;  and,  if  they  refuse,  then, 
upon  the  certificate  of  the  parson, 
vicar,  or  curate,  to  the  bishop  of  the 
diocese,  he  shall  send  for  them  and  in- 
duce him  or  them  to  charitable  ways. 

2  and  3  Philip  and  Mary,   cap.    5, 
re-enacts  the  former,  and  requires  the 
collectors    to    account    quarterly  ;  and 
where  the  pooi  are  too  numerous  for 
relief,  they  were  licensed  by  a  justice 
of  the  peace  to  oeg. 

5  Elizabeth,  cap.  3,  confirms  and  re- 
news the  forjaer  acts,  and  compels 
collectors  to  serve  under  a  penalty  ol 
£10.  Persons  refusing  to  contribute 
their  alms  shall  be  exhorted,  and,  il 
they  obstinately  refuse,  shall  be  bounc 


by  the  bishop  to  appear  at  the  next 
general  quarter  session,  and  they  may  be 
mprisoned  if  they  refuse  to  be  bound. 

The  14th  Elizabeth,  cap.  5,  requires 
the  justices  of  the  peace  to  register  all 
aged  and  impotent  poor  born  or  for 
,hree  years  resident  in  the  parish,  and 
to  settle  them  in  convenient  habita- 
tions, and  ascertain  the  weekly  charge, 
and  assess  the  amount  on  the  inhabi- 
tants, and  yearly  appoint  collectors  to 
receive  and  distribute  the  assessment, 
and  also  an  overseer  of  the  poor.  This 
act  was  to  continue  for  seven  years. 

The  18th  Elizabeth,  cap.  3,  provides 
for  the  employment  of  the  poor. 
Stores  of  wool,  hemp,  flax,  iron,  etc., 
to  be  provided  in  cities  and  towns,  and 
the  poor  set  to  work.  It  empowered 
persons  possessed  of  land  in  free  soc- 

e  to  give  or  devise  same  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  poor. 

The  39th  Elizabeth,  cap.  3,  and  the 
43d  Elizabeth,  cap.  2,  extended  these 
acts,  and  made  the  assessment  com- 
pulsory. 

I  shall  ask  you  to  compare  the  date 
of  these  several  laws  for  the  relief  of 
the  destitute  poor  with  the  dates  of  the 
enactments  against  evictions.  You 
will  find  they  run  side  by  side.* 

I  have  perhaps  gone  at  too  great 
length  into  detail  ;  but  I  think  I  could 
not  give  a  proper  picture  of  the  altera- 
tion in  the  system  of  landholding  or  its 
effects  without  tracing  from  the  stat- 
ute-book the  black  records  of  these 
important  changes.  The  suppression 
of  monasteries  tended  greatly  to  in- 
crease the  sufferings  of  the  poor,  but  I 
doubt  if  even  these  institutions  could 


*  The  following:  tables  of  the  acts  passed  against  eviction,  and  enacting  the  support 
of  the  poor,  show  that  they  were  contemporaneous  : 

Against  Evictions.  Enacting  Poor  Laws. 

4  Henry  VII.,  Cap.  19. 
7  Henry  VIIL,  "       1. 

21 
24 
25 
27 

5  Edward  VI., 

2  and  3  Philip  and  Mary, 


2  Elizabeth, 
81 
39          " 


14. 
13. 
22. 

5. 

2. 

8. 

2. 

7. 

2. 


22  Henry  VIIL, 
37 

1  Edward  VI., 
5  and  6 

2  and  4  Philip  and  Mary, 
5  Elizabeth, 
14 
18 


Cap.  12. 
"  23. 
3. 
2. 
5. 
8. 
5. 

8. 
8. 
2. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     237 


have  met  the  enormous  pressure  which 
arose  from  the  wholesale  evictions  oi 
the  people.  The  laws  of  Henry  VII. 
and  flenry  VIII.,  enforcing  the  tillage 
of  the  land,  preceded  the  suppression 
of  religious  houses,  and  the  act  of  the 
latter  monarch  allowing  the  poor  to  beg 
was  passed  before  any  steps  were  taken 
to  close  the  convents.  That  measure 
was  no  doubt  injurious  to  the  poor,  but 
the  main  evil  arose  from  other  causes. 
The  lands  of  these  houses,  when  no 
longer  applicable  to  the  purpose  for 
which  they  were  giveu,  should  have 
reverted  to  the  heirs  of  the  donors,  or 
have  been  applied  to  other  religious  or 
educational  purposes.  The  bestowal 
of  them  upon  favorites,  to  the  detri- 
ment alike  of  the  State,  the  Church, 
the  Poor,  and  the  Ignorant,  was  an 
abuse  of  great  magnitude,  the  effect  of 
which  is  still  felt.  The  reigns  of  the 
Tudors  are  marked  with  three  events 
affecting  the  land — viz.  : 

1st.   Relieving  it  of  the  support  of 
the  army  ; 

2d.  Burdening  of  it  with  the  support 
of  the  poor  ; 

3d.  Applying  the  monastic  lands  to 
private  uses. 

The  abolition  of  retainers,  while  it 
relieved  the  land  of  the  nobles  from 
the  principal  charge  thereon,  did  not 
entirely  abolish  knight's  service.  The 
monarch  was  entitled  to  the  care  of  all 
minors,  to  aids  on  the  marriage  or 
knighthood  of  the  eldest  son,  to  primer- 
seizin  or  a  year's  rent  upon  the  death 
of  each  tenant  of  the  Crown,  These 
fees  were  considerable,  and  were  under 
the  care  of  the  Court  of  Ward  and 
Liveries. 

The  artisan  class  had,  however, 
grown  in  wealth,  and  they  were  greatly 
strengthened  by  the  removal  from 
France  of  large  numbers  of  workmen 
in  consequence  of  the  revocation  of  the 
Edict  of  Nantes.  These  prosperous 
tradespeople  became  landowners  by 
purchase,  and  thus  tended  to  replace 
the  Libert  Homines,  or  freemen,  who 
had  been  destroyed  under  the  wars  of 
the  nobles,  which  effaced  the  land- 
marks of  English  society.  The  liber- 
al d  serfs  attained  the  position  of  paid 


farm  -  laborers  ;  had  the  policy  of 
Elizabeth,  who  enacted  that  each  of 
their  cottages  should  have  an  allotment 
of  four  acres  of  land,  been  carried  out, 
it  would  have  been  most  beneficial  to 
the  state. 

The  reign  of  this  family  embraced 
one  hundred  and  eighteen  years,  dur- 
ing which  the  increase  of  the  popula- 
tion was  about  twenty-five  per  cent. 
When  Henry  VII.  ascended  the  throne 
in  1485  it  was  4,000,000,  and  on  the 
death  of  Queen  Elizabeth  in  1603  it  had 
reached  5,000,000,  the  average  increase 
being  about  8000  per  annum.  The 
changes  effected  in  the  condition  of 
the  farmers'  class  left  the  mass  of  the 
people  in  a  far  worse  state  at  the  close 
than  at  the  commencement  of  their  rule. 

VII.    THE    STUARTS. 

The  accession  of  the  Stuarts  to  the 
throne  of  England  took  place  under 
peculiar  circumstances.  The  nation  had 
just  passed  through  two  very  serious 
struggles — one  political,  the  other  re- 
ligious. The  land  which  had  been  in 
the  possession  of  religious  communi- 
ties, instead  of  being  retained  by  the 
state  for  educational  or  religious  pur- 
poses, had  been  given  to  favorites.  A 
new  class  of  ownerships  had  been  creat- 
ed— the  lay  impropriators  of  tithes. 
The  suppression  of  retainers  converted 
land  into  a  quasi  property.  The  ex- 
tension to  land  of  the  powers  of  bequest 
gave  the  possessors  greater  facilities 
for  disposing  thereof.  It  was  relieved 
from  the  principal  feudal  burden,  mili- 
tary service,  but  remained  essentially 
feudal  as  far  as  tenure  was  concerned. 
Men  were  no  longer  furnished  to  the 
state  as  payment  of  the  knight's  fee  ; 
they  were  cleared  off  the  land,  to  make 
room  for  sheep  and  oxen,  England  be- 
ing in  that  respect  about  two  hundred 
years  in  advance  of  Ireland,  though 
without  the  outlet  of  emigration. 
Vagrancy  and  its  attendant  evils  led  to 
;he  Poor  Law. 

James  I.  and  his  ministers  tried  t<> 
grapple  with  the  altered  circumstances, 
and  strove  to  substitute  an  equita- 
ble Crown  rent  or  money  payment 
:or  the  existing  and  variable  claiins 


238 


BEACON  LI Gn  1^  Ol<  SCIENCE. 


which  were  collected  by  the  Court 
of  Ward  and  Livery.  The  knight's 
fee  then  consisted  of  twelve  plough- 
lands,  a  more  modern  name  for  "  a 
hide  of  land."  The  class  burdened 
with  knight's  service,  or  payments  in 
lieu  thereof,  comprised  160  temporal 
and  26  spiritual  lords,  800  barons,  600 
knights,  and  3000  esquires.  The 
knight's  fee  was  subject  to  aids,  which 
were  paid  to  the  Crown  upon  the  mar- 
riage of  the  king's  son  or  daughter. 
Upon  the  death  of  the  possessor,  the 
Crown  received  as  primer-seizin  a  year's 
rent.  If  the  successor  was  an  infant, 
the  Crown  under  the  name  of  Ward- 
ship, took  the  rents  of  the  estates.  If 
the  ward  was  a  female,  a  fine  was  levied 
if  she  did  not  accept  the  husband  cho- 
sen by  the  Crown.  Fines  on  alienation 
were  also  levied,  and  the  estates, 
though  sold,  became  escheated,  and 
reverted  to  the  Crown  upon  the  failure 
of  issue.  These  various  fines  kept 
alive  the  principle  that  the  lands  be- 
longed to  the  Crown  as  representative 
of  the  nation  ;  but,  as  they  varied  in 
amount,  James  I.  proposed  to  com- 
pound with  the  tenants-in-fee,  and  to 
convert  them  into  fixed  annual  pay- 
ments. The  nobles  refused,  and  the 
scheme  was  abandoned. 

In  the  succeeding  reign,  the  attempt 
to  stretch  royal  power  beyond  its  due 
limits  led  to  resistance  by  force,  but  it 
was  no  longer  a  mere  war  of  nobles  ; 
their  power  had  been  destroyed  by 
Henry  VII.  The  Stuarts  had  to  fight 
the  people  with  a  paid  army,  and  the 
Commons,  having  the  purse  of  the  na- 
tion, opposed  force  to  force.  The 
contest  eventuated  in  a  military  protec- 
torship. Many  of  the  principal  ten- 
ants-in-fee fled  the  country  to  save  their 
lives.  Their  lands  were  confiscated 
and  given  away  ;  thus  the  Crown  rights 
were  weakened,  and  Charles  II.  was 
forced  to  reccgnize  many  of  the  titles 
given  by  Cromwell  ;  he  did  not  dare  to 
face  the  convulsion  which  must  follow 
an  expulsion  of  the  novo  homo  in  pos- 
session of  the  estates  of  more  ancient 
families  ;  but  legislation  went  further 
— it  abolished  all  the  remaining  feudal 
charges.  The  Commons  appear  to 


have  assented  to  this  change,  from  a 
desire  to  lessen  the  private  income  of 
the  Sovereign,  and  thus  to  make  him 
more  dependent  upon  Parliament. 
This  was  done  by  the  12th  Charles  II., 
cap.  24.  It  enacts  : 

"  That  the  Court  of  Ward  and  Liveries, 
primer  seizin,  etc.,  and  all  fines  for  aliena- 
tion, tenures  by  knight's  service,  and  tenures 
in  capite,  be  done  away  with  and  turned  into 
fee  and  common  socage,  and  discharged  of 
homage,  escuage,  aids,  and  reliefs.  All  fu- 
ture tenures  created  by  the  king  to  be  in 
free  and  common  socage,  reserving  rents  to 
the  Crown  and  also  fines  on  alienation.  It 
enables  fathers  to  dispose  of  their  chil- 
dren's share  during  their  minority,  and 
gives  the  custody  of  the  personal  estate  to 
the  guardians  of  such  child,  and  imposes 
in  lieu  of  the  revenues  raised  in  the  Court 
of  Ward  and  Liveries,  duties  upon  beer 
and  ale." 

The  land  was  relieved  of  its  legiti- 
mate charge,  and  a  tax  on  beer  and  ale 
imposed  instead  !  the  landlords  were 
relieved  at  the  expense  of  the  people. 

The  statute  which  accomplished  this 
change  is  described  by  Blackstone  as 

"  A  greater  acquisition  to  the  civil  prop- 
erty of  this  kingdom  than  even  Magna 
Charta  itself,  since  that  only  pruned  the 
luxuriances  that  had  grown  out  of  military 
tenures,  and  thereby  preserved  them  in 
vigor  ;  but  the  statute  of  King  Charles  ex- 
tirpated the  whole,  and  demolished  both 
root  and  branches." 

The  efforts  of  James  II.  to  rule  con- 
trary to  the  wish  of  the  nation,  led  to 
his  expulsion  from  the  throne,  and 
showed  that,  in  case  of  future  disputes 
as  to  the  succession,  the  army,  like  the 
Praetorian  Guards  of  Rome,  had  the 
selection  of  the  monarch.  The  Red 
and  White  Roses  of  the  Plantagenets 
reappeared  under  the  altered  names  of 
Whig  and  Tory  ;  but  it  was  proved 
that  the  decision  of  a  leading  soldier 
like  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  would 
decide  the  army,  and  that  it  would 
govern  the  nation  ;  fortunately  the  de- 
cision was  a  wise  one,  and  was  ratified 
by  Parliament  :  thus  force  governed 
law,  and  the  decision  of  the  army  influ- 
enced the  Senate,  William  III.  suc- 
ceeded, as  an  elected  monarch,  under 
the  Bill  of  Rights.  This  remarkable 
document  contains  no  provision,  secur- 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAXD-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     239 


ing  the  tenants- in-fee  in  their  estates  ; 
and  I  have  not  met  with  any  treatise 
dealing  with  the  legal  effects  of  the 
eviction  of  James  II.  Ml  patents  were 
covenants  between  the  king  and  his 
heirs,  and  the  patentees  and  their  heirs. 
The  expulsion  of  the  sovereign  virtually 
destroyed  the  title  ;  and  an  elected 
king,  who  did  not  succeed  as  heir,  was 
not  bound  by  the  patents  of  his  prede- 
cessors, nor  was  William  asked,  by  the 
Bill  of  Rights,  to  recognize  any  of  the 
existing  titles.  This  anomalous  state  of 
things  was  met  in  degree  by  the  statute 
of  prescriptions,  but  even  this  did  not 
entirely  cure  the  defect  in  the  titles  to 
the  principal  estates  in  the  kingdom. 
The  English  tenants  in  decapitating  one 
landlord  and  expelling  another,  appear 
to  have  destroyed  their  titles,  and  then 
endeavored  to  renew  them  by  prescrip- 
tive right  ;  but  I  shall  not  pursue  this 
topic  further,  though  it  may  have  a  very 
definite  bearing  upon  the  question  of 
landholding. 

It  may  not  be  uninteresting  to  allude 
rather  briefly  to  the  state  of  England  at 
the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
Geoffrey  King,  who  wrote  in  1696, 
gives  the  first  reliable  statistics  about 
the  state  of  the  country.  He  estimat- 
ed the  number  of  houses  at  1,300,000, 


and  the  average  at  four  to  each  house, 
making  the  population  5,318,000.  He 
says  there  was  but  seven  acres  of  land 
for  each  person,  but  that  England  was 
six  times  better  peopled  than  the 
known  world,  and  twice  better  than 
Europe.  He  calculated  the  total  in- 
come at  £43,500,000,  of  which  the 
yearly  rent  of  land  was  £10,000,000. 
The  income  was  equal  to  £7,  18s.  Orf. 
per  head,  and  the  expense  £7,  lls.  4rf.  ; 
the  yearly  increase,  6s.  8d.  per  head, 
or  £1,800,000  per  annum.  He  esti- 
mated the  annual  income  of  160  tem- 
poral peers  at  £2800  per  annum,  26 
spiritual  peers  at  £1300,  of  800  baro- 
nets at  £800,  and  of  600  knights  at 
£650. 

He  estimated  the  area  at  39,000,000 
acres  (recent  surveys  make  it  37,319,- 
221).  He  estimated  the  arable  land  at 
11,000,000  acres,  and  pasture  and 
meadow  at  10,000,000,  a  total  of  21,- 
000,000.  The  area  under  all  kinds  of 
crops  and  permanent  pasture  was,  in 
1874,  26,686,098  acres  ;  therefore 
about  five  and  a  half  million  acres  have 
been  reclaimed  and  added  to  the  arable 
land.  As  the  particulars  of  his  esti- 
mate may  prove  interesting,  I  append 
them  in  a  note.* 

He  places  the  rent  of  the  corn  land  at 


Geoffrey  King  thus  classifies  the  land  of  England  and  Wales  : 


Arable  Land,  ..... 
Pasture  and  Meadow, 
Woods  and  Coppices, 
Forests,  Parks,  and  Covers,    . 
Moors,  Mountains,  and  Barren  Lands, 
Houses,    Homesteads,     Gardens,     Orchards, 

Churches,  and  Churchyards, 
Rivers,  Lakes,  Meres,  and  Ponds,  . 
Roadways  and  Waste  Lands, 


He  estimates  the  live  stock  thus : 


Acres. 
11,000,000 
10,000,000 
3,000,000 
3.000.000 
10,000,000 

1,000,000 

500,000 
500,000 

Value  per  Acre.         Rent. 
£0    5  10       £3.200,000 
090          4,500,000 
050            750,000 
036            550,000 
010            500,000 
|  The  Land,       .     450,000 
|  The  Buildings,  2,000,000 
020               50,000 

39,000,000        £0    6    OJ    £12,000,000 


Beeves,  Stirks,  and  Calves,    .... 
Sheep  and  Lambs,  

4,500.000 
11,000,000 

Value  without 
the  Skin. 

£200 
080 

£9,000,000 
4,400,000 

2,000,000 

0  16    0 

1,600,000 

Deer,  Fawns  Goats  and  Kids         • 

247,900 

Horses,    

1,200,000 

200 

15,247,900 
3,000.000 

2,400,(i('0 

£20,647,900 


240 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OP  SCIENCE. 


about  one  third  of  the  produce,  and 
that  of  pasture  land  at  rather  more. 
The  price  of  meat  per  Ib.  was  :  beef 
l^c/.  ;  mutton,  2±d.  ;  pork,  3rf.  ;  ven- 
ison, Qd.  ;  bares,  7c/.  ;  rabbits,  Qd. 
The  weight  of  flesh-meat  consumed 
was  398,000,000  Ibs.,  it  being  72  Ibs. 

0  oz.  for  each  person,  or  3£  oz.    daily. 

1  shall  have  occasion  to  contrast  these 
figures  with  those  lately  published  when 
I  come  to  deal  with  the  present ;  but  a 
great   difference   has  arisen   from   the 
alteration  in  price,   which  is  owing  to 
the  increase  in  the  quantity  of  the  pre- 
cious metals. 

The  reign  of  the  last  sovereign  of  this 
unfortunate  race  was  distinguished  by 
the  first  measures  to  inclose  the  commons 
and  convert  them  into  private  property, 
with  which  I  shall  deal  hereafter. 

The  changes  effected  in  the  land  laws 
of  England  during  the  reigns  of  the 
Stuarts,  a  period  of  111  years,  were 
very  important.  The  act  of  Charles 
II.  which  abolished  the  Court  of  Ward 
and  Liveries,  appeared  to  be  an  abandon- 
ment of  the  rights  of  the  people,  as  as- 
serted in  the  person  of  the  Crown  ;  and 
this  alteration  also  seemed  to  give  color 
of  right  to  the  claim  which  is  set  up  of 
property  in  land,  but  the  following  law 
of  Edward  III.  never  was  repealed  : 

"  TJi at  the  king  is  the  universal  lord  and 
oriyincil  proprietor  of  all  land  in  his  kingdom, 
and  that  no  man  doth  or  can  possess  any  part 
of  it  but  what  has  mediately  or  immediately  been 
derived  as  a  gift  from  him  to  be  held  on  feodal 
service. " 

No  lawyer  will  assert  for  any  English 
subject  a  higher  title  than  tenancy-in- 
fee,  which  bears  the  impress  of  holding 
and  denies  the  assertion  of  ownership. 

The  power  of  the  nobles,  the  tenants- 


|in-fee,  was  strengthened  by  an  act 
\  passed  in  the  reign  of  William  and 
Mary,  which  altered  the  relation  of  land- 
lord and  tenant.  Previous  thereto,  the 
landlord  had  the  power  of  distraint,  but 
he  merely  held  the  goods  he  seized  to 
compel  the  tenant  to  perform  personal 
service.  It  would  be  impossible  for  a 
tenant  to  pay  his  rent  if  his  stock  or 
implements  were  sold  off  the  land.  As 
the  Tudor  policy  of  money  payments 
extended,  the  greed  for  pelf  led  to  an 
alteration  in  the  law,  and  the  act  of 
William  and  Mary  allowed  the  landlord 
to  sell  the  goods  he  had  distrained. 
The  tenant  remained  in  possession  of 
the  land  without  the  means  of  tilling  it, 
which  was  opposed  to  public  policy. 
This  power  of  distraint  was,  however, 
confined  to  holdings  in  which  there 
were  leases  by  which  the  tenant  cove- 
nanted to  allow  the  landlord  to  distrain 
his  stock  and  goods  in  default  of  pay- 
ment of  rent.  The  legislation  of  the 
Stuarts  was  invariably  favorable  to  the 
possessor  of  land  and  adverse  to  the 
rights  of  the  people.  The  government 
during  the  closing  reigns  was  oligarchi- 
'cal,  so  much  so,  that  William  III.,  an- 
noyed at  the  restriction  put  upon  his 
kingly  power,  threatened  to  resign  the 
crown  and  retire  to  Holland  ;  but  the 
aristocracy  were  unwilling  to  relax  their 
claims,  and  they  secured  by  legislatioc 
the  rights  they  appeared  to  have  lost  by 
the  deposition  of  the  sovereign. 

The  population  had  increased  from 
5,000,000  in  1603  to  5,750,000  in 
1714,  being  an  average  increase  of  less 
than  7000  per  annum. 

VIII.    THE    HOUSE    OF    HANOVER. 

The  first  sovereign  of  the  House  of 
Hanover  ascended  the  throne  not  by 


The  annual  produce  he  estimated  as  follows  : 
Grain,      . 

Acres. 
10  000  000 

Rent.              Produce. 
£3  000  000         £8  27fi  000 

Hemp,  Flax,  etc.,    . 

1  000  000 

200  000            9  000  000 

Butter,  Cheese,  and  Milk,                                         "1 

f  2  500  000 

Wool, 

2  000  000 

Horses  bred,    . 

250  000 

Flesh  Meat,     . 
Tallow  and  Hides, 

f  29,000,000 

6,800,000      \  3,500|000 
600  000 

Hay  Consumed, 

2  300  000 

Timber, 

J 

Total, 


38 


39,000,000    £10,000,000      £22,275,000 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     241 


right  of  descent  but  by  election  ;  the 
legitimate  heir  was  set  aside,  and  a  dis- 
tant branch  of  the  family  was  chosen, 
and  the  succession  fixed  by  act  of  Par- 
liament ;  but  it  is  held  by  jurists  that 
every  Parliament  is  sovereign  and  has 
the  power  of  repealing  any  act  of  any 
former  Parliament.  The  beneficial  rule 
of  some  of  the  latter  monarchs  of  this 
family  has  endeared  them  to  the  people, 
but  the  doctrine  of  reigning  by  divine 
right,  the  favorite  idea  of  the  Stuarts, 
is  nullified,  when  the  monarch  ascends 
the  throne  by  statute  law  and  not  by 
succession  or  descent. 

The  age  of  chivalry  passed  away 
when  the  Puritans  defeated  the  Cava- 
liers. The  establishment  of  standing 
armies  and  the  creation  of  a  national 
debt,  went  to  show  that  money,  not 
knighthood  or  knight's  service,  gave 
force  to  law.  The  possession  of  wealth 
and  of  rent  gave  back  to  their  possessors 
even  larger  powers  than  those  wrested 
from  them  by  the  first  Tudor  king. 
The  maxim  that  "  what  was  attached  to 
the  freehold  belonged  to  the  freehold, ' ' 
gave  the  landlords  even  greater  powers 
than  those  held  by  the  sword,  and  of 
which  they  were  despoiled.  Though 
nominally  forbidden  to  take  part  in  the 
election  of  the  representatives  of  the 
Commons,  yet  they  virtually  had  the 
power,  the  creation  of  freehold,  the  sub- 
stance and  material  of  electoral  right ; 
and  consequently  both  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment were  essentially  landlord,  and  the 
laws,  for  the  century  which  succeeded 
the  ascension  of  George  I.,  are  marked 


with   the    assertion   of 
which  is  tenant  wrong. 


landlord   right 


Among  the  exhibitions  of  this  influ- 
ence is  an  act  passed  in  the  reign  of 
George  II.,  which  extended  the  power 
of  distraint  for  rent,  and  the  right  to 
sell  the  goods  seized — to  all  tenancies. 
Previous  legislation  confined  this  privi- 
lege solely  to  cases  in  which  there  were 
leases,  wherein  the  tenant,  by  written 
contract,  gave  the  landlord  power  to 
seize  in  case  of  non-payment  of  rent, 
but  there  was  no  legal  authority  to  sell 
until  it  was  given  by  an  act  passed  in 
the  reign  of  William  III.  The  act  of 


a  contract  in  all  cases  of  parole  letting 
or  tenancy-at-will,  and  extended  the 
landlord's  powers  to  such  tenancies.  It 
is  an  anomaly  to  find  that  in  the  freest 
country  in  the  world  such  an  arbitrary 
power  is  confided  to  individuals,  or  that 
the  landlord-creditor  has  the  precedence 
over  all  other  creditorsi^and  can,  by  his 
own  act,  and  without  either  trial  or  evi- 
dence, issue  a  warrant  that  has  all  the 
force  of  the  solemn  judgment  of  a  court 
of  law  ;  and  it  certainly  appears  unjust 
to  seize  a  crop,  the  seed  for  which  is 
due  to  one  man,  and  the  manure  to  an- 
other, and  apply  it  to  pay  the  rent. 
But  landlordism,  intrusted  with  legisla- 
tive power,  took  effectual  means  to  pre- 
serve its  own  prerogative,  and  the  form 
of  law  was  used  by  parliaments,  in 
which  landlord  influence  was  paramount, 
to  pass  enactments  which  were  enforced 
by  the  whole  power  of  the  state,  and 
sustained  individual  or  class  rights. 

The  effect  of  this  measure  was  most 
unfortunate  ;  it  encouraged  the  letting 
of  lands  to  tenants-at-will  or  tenants 
from  year  to  year,  who  could  not,  un- 
der existing  laws,  obtain  the  franchise  or 
power  to  vote — they  were  not  freemen, 
they  were  little  better  than  serfs.  They 
were  tillers  of  the  soil,  rent-payers  who 
could  be  removed  at  the  will  of  another. 
They  were  not  even  freeholders,  and  had 
no  political  power — no  voice  in  the 
affairs  of  the  nation.  The  landlords  in 
Parliament  gave  themselves,  individually 
by  law,  all  the  powers  which  a  tenant 
gave  them  by  contract,  while  they  had 
no  corresponding  liability,  and,  there- 
fore, it  was  their  interest  to  refrain  from 
giving  leases,  and  to  make  their  ten- 
antry as  dependent  on  them  as  if  they 
were  mere  serfs.  This  law  was  es- 
pecially unfortunate,  and  had  a  positive 
and  very  great  effect  upon  the  condition 
of  the  farming  class  and  upon  the  nation , 
and  people  came  to  think  that  landlord 
could  do  as  they  liked  with  their  land. 
and  that  the  tenants  must  be  creeping, 
humble,  and  servile. 

An  effort  to  remedy  this  evil  was 
made  in  1832,  when  the  occupiers,  if 
rented  or  rated  at  the  small  amount 
named,  became  voters.  This  gave  the 


George  TT.  presumed  that  there  was  such   power  to  the  holding,  not  to  the  man 


242 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


and  the  landlord  could  by  simple  evic- 
tion deprive  the  man  of  his  vote  ;  hence 
the  tenants-at-will  were  driven  to  the 
hustings  like  sheep — they  could  not, 
and  dare  not,  refuse  to  vote  as  the  land- 
lord ordered. 

The  lords  of  the  manor,  with  a  land- 
lord Parliament,  asserted  their  claims 
to  the  commonages,  and  these  lands  be- 
longing to  the  people,  were  gradually 
inclosed,  and  became  the  possession  of 
individuals.  The  inclosing  of  com- 
monages commenced  in  the  reign  of 
Queen  Anne,  and  was  continued  in  the 
reigns  of  all  the  sovereigns  of  the  House 
of  Hanover.  The  first  inclosure  act 
was  passed  in  1 709  ;  in  the  following 
thirty  years  the  average  number  of  in- 
closure bills  was  about  three  each  year  ; 
in  the  following  fifty  years  there  were 
nearly  forty  each  year  ;  and  in  the  forty 
years  of  the  nineteenth  century  it  was 
nearly  fifty  per  annum. 

The  inclosures  in  each  reign  were  as 
follows  : 

A«ta. 

Queen  Anne,  2 

George  I., 
George  II.,  . 
George  III., . 
George  IV.,  . 
William  IV., 


16 

226 

3446 

192 

72 


Acres. 

1,439 

17,660 

818,784 

3,500.000 

250,000 

120,000 


Total,    . 


.    3954        4,207,883 


These  lands  belonged  to  the  people,  and 
might  have  been  applied  to  relieve  the 
poor.  Had  they  been  allotted  in  small 
farms,  they  might  have  been  made  the 
means  of  support  of  from  500,000  to 
1,000,000  families,  and  they  would 
have  afforded  employment  and  suste- 
nance to  all  the  poor,  and  thus  rendered 
compulsory  taxation  under  the  poor-law 
system  unnecessary  ;  but  the  landlords 
seized  on  them  and  made  the  tenantry 
pay  the  poor-rate. 

The  British  Poor  Law  is  a  slur  upon 
its  boasted  civilization.  The  unequal 
distribution  of  land  and  of  wealth  leads 
to  great  riches  and  great  poverty.  In- 
tense light  produces  deep  shade.  No- 
where else  but  in  wealthy  England  do 
God's  creatures  die  of  starvation,  want- 
ing food,  while  others  are  rich  beyond 
comparison.  The  soil  which  affords 

•t-nance    for   the   people    is    rightly 


charged  with  the  cost  of  feeding  those 
who  lack  the  necessaries  of  life,  but  the 
same  object  would  be  better  achieved  in 
a  different  way.  Poor-rates  are  now  a 
charge  upon  a  man's  entire  estate,  and 
it  would  be  much  better  for  society  if 
land  to  an  amount  equivalent  to  the 
charge  were  taken  from  the  estate  and 
assigned  to  the  poor.  If  a  man  is 
charged  with  £100  a  year  poor-rate,  it 
would  make  no  real  difference  to  him, 
while  it  would  make  a  vast  difference  to 
the  poor  to  take  land  to  that  value,  put 
the  poor  to  work  tilling  it,  allowing  them 
to  enjoy  the  produce.  Any  expense 
should  be  paid  direct  by  the  landlord, 
which  would  leave  the  charge  upon  the 
land,  and  exempt  the  improvements  of 
the  tenant,  which  represent  his  labor, 
free. 

The  evil  has  intensified  in  magnitude, 
and  a  permanent  army  of  paupers  num- 
bering at  the  minimum  829,281  per- 
sons, but  increasing  at  some  periods  to 
upward  of  1,000,000,  has  to  be  pro- 
vided for  ;  the  cost,  about  £8,000,000 
a  year,  is  paid,  not  by  landlords  but  by 
tenants,  in  addition  to  the  various  chari- 
ties founded  by  benevolent  persons. 

There  are  two  classes  relieved  under 
this  system,  and  which  ought  to  be 
differently  dealt  with — the  sick  and  the 
young.  Hospitals  for  the  former  and 
schools  for  the  latter  ought  to  take  the 
place  of  the  workhouse.  It  is  difficult 
to  fancy  a  worse  piace  for  educating  the 
young  than  the  workhouse,  and  it  would 
tend  to  lessen  the  evil  were  the  children 
of  the  poor  trained  and  educated  in 
separate  establishments  from  those  for 
the  reception  of  paupers.  Pauperism 
is  the  concomitant  of  large  holdings  of 
land  and  insecurity  of  tenure.  The 
necessity  of  such  a  provision  arose,  as  I 
have  previously  shown,  from  the  whole- 
sale eviction  of  large  numbers  of  the  oc- 
cupiers of  land  ;  and,  as  the  means  of 
supplying  the  need  came  from  the 
LAND,  the  expense  should,  like  tithes, 
have  fallen  exclusively  upon  land.  The 
poor-rates  are,  however,  also  levied 
upon  houses  and  buildings,  which  rep- 
resent labor.  The  owner  of  land  is  the 
people,  as  represented  by  the  Crown, 
and  the  charges  thereon  next  in  succes- 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     243 


•*ion  to  the  claims  01-  the  state  are  the 
CHURCH  and  the  POOR. 

The  Continental  wars  at  the  close  of 
the  eighteenth  and  the  commencement 
of  the  nineteenth  century  had  some 
effect  upon  the  system  of  tillage  ;  they 
materially  enhanced  the  price  of  agri- 
cultural produce — rents  were  raised,  and 
the  national  debt  was  contracted,  which 
remains  a  burden  on  the  nation. 

The  most  important  change,  however, 
arose  from  scientific  and  mechanical  dis- 
coveries— the  application  of  heat  to  the 
production  of  motive  power.  As  long  as 
water,  which  is  a  non-exhaustive  source 
of  motion,  was  used,  the  people  were 
scattered  over  the  land  ;  or  if  segrega- 
tion took  place,  it  was  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  running  streams.  The  applica- 
tion of  steam  to  the  propulsion  of 
machinery,  and  the  discovery  of  engines 
capable  of  competing  with  the  human 
hand,  led  to  the  substitution  of  machine- 
made  fabrics  for  clothing,  in  place  of 
homespun  articles  of  domestic  manu- 
facture. This  led  to  the  employment 
of  farm-laborers  in  procuring  coals,  to 
the  removal  of  many  from  the  rural  into 
the  urban  districts,  to  the  destruction  of 
the  principal  employment  of  the  family 
during  the  winter  evenings,  and  conse- 
quently effected  a  great  revolution  in  the 
social  system.  Many  small  freeholds 
were  sold,  the  owners  thinking  they 
could  more  rapidly  acquire  wealth  by 
using  the  money  representing  their  oc- 
cupancy, in  trade.  Thus  the  large  es- 
tates became  larger,  and  the  smaller 
ones  were  absorbed,  while  the  appear- 
ance of  greater  wealth  from  exchanging 
subterranean  substances  for  money,  or 
its  representative,  gave  rise  to  ostenta- 
tious display.  The  rural  population 
gradually  diminished,  while  the  civic 
population  increased.  The  effect  upon 
the  system  of  landholding  was  triplicate. 
First,  there  was  a  diminution  in  the 
amount  of  labor  applicable  to  the  culti- 
vation of  land  ;  second,  there  was  a  de- 
crease in  the  amount  of  manure  applied 
to  the  production  of  food  ;  and  lastly, 
there  was  an  increase  in  the  demand  for 
land,  as  a  source  of  investment,  by  those 
who,  having  made  money  in  trade, 
sought  that  social  position  which  follows 


the  possession  of  broad  acres.  Thus  th« 
descendants  of  the  feudal  aristocracy 
were  pushed  aside  by  the  modern  plu- 
tocracy. 

This  state  of  things  had  a  double 
effect.  Food  is  the  result  of  two  essen- 
tial ingredients  —  LAND  and  LABOR. 
The  diminution  in  the  amount  of  labor 
applied  to  the  soil,  consequent  upon  the 
removal  of  the  laborers  from  the  land, 
lessened  the  quantity  of  food  ;  while 
the  consumption  of  that  food  in  cities 
and  towns,  and  the  waste  of  the  fertile 
ingredients  which  should  be  restored  to 
the  soil,  tended  to  exhaust  the  land,  and 
led  to  vast  importations  of  foreign  and 
the  manufacture  of  mineral  manures. 
I  shall  not  detain  you  by  a  discussion 
of  this  aspect  of  the  question,  which  is 
of  very  great  moment,  consequent  upon 
the  removal  of  large  numbers  of  people 
from  rural  to  urban  districts  ;  but  I  may 
be  excused  in  saying  that  agricultural 
chemistry  shows  that  the  soil — "  per- 
petual man" — contains  the  ingredients 
needful  to  support  human  life,  and  feed- 
ing those  animals  meant  for  man's  use. 
These  ingredients  are  seized  upon  by 
the  roots  of  plants  and  converted  into 
aliment.  If  they  are  consumed  where 
grown,  and  the  refuse  restored  to  the 
soil,  its  fertility  is  preserved  ;  nay, 
more,  the  effect  of  tillage  is  to  increase 
its  productive  power.  It  is  impossible 
to  exhaust  land,  no  matter  how  heavy 
the  crops  that  are  grown,  if  the  produce 
is,  after  consumption,  restored  to  the 
soil.  I  have  shown  you  how,  in  the 
reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  a  man  was 
not  allowed  to  sell  meat  off  his  land  un- 
less he  brought  to,  and  consumed  on  it, 
the  same  weight  of  other  meat.  This 
was  true  agricultural  and  chemical 
economy.  But  when  the  people  were 
removed  from  country  to  town,  when 
the  produce  grown  in  the  former  was 
consumed  in  the  latter,  and  the  refuse 
which  contained  the  elements  of  fertil- 
ity was  not  restored  to  the  soil,  but 
swept  away  by  the  river,  a  process  of 
exhaustion  took  place,  which  has  been 
met  in  degree  by  the  use  of  imported 
and  artificial  manures.  The  SEWAGE 
question  is  taken  up  mainly  with  refer- 
ence to  the  health  of  towns,  but  it  de« 


244 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OP  SCIENCE. 


serves  consideration  in  another  aspect — 
its  influence  upon  the  production  of 
food  in  the  nation. 

An  exhaustive  process  upon  the  fer- 
tility of  the  globe  has  been  set  on  foot. 
The  accumulations  of  vegetable  mould 
in  the  primeval  forests  have  been  con- 
v,  rte'd  into  grain,  and  sent  to  England, 
1'  .-iving  permanent  barrenness  in  what 
should  be  prolific  plains  ;  and  the  de- 
posits of  the  Chincha  and  Ichaboe 
Islands  have  been  imported  in  myriads 
of  tons,  to  replace  in  our  own  land  the 
resources  of  which  it  is  bereft  by  the 
civic  consumption  of  rural  produce. 

These  conjoined  operations  were  ac- 
celerated by  the  alteration  in  the  British 
corn  laws  in  1846,  which  placed  the 
English  farmer,  who  tried  to  preserve 
his  land  in  a  state  of  fertility,  in  com- 
petition with  foreign  grain  -  growers, 
who,  having  access  to  boundless  fields 
of  virgin  soil,  grow  grain  year  after 
year  until,  having  exhausted  the  fertile 
element,  they  leave  it  in  a  barren  con- 
dition, and  resort  to  other  parts.  A 
competition  under  such  circumstances 
resembles  that  of  two  men  of  equal  in- 
come, one  of  whom  appears  wealthy  by 
spending  a  portion  of  his  capital,  the 
other  parsimonious  by  living  within  his 
means.  Of  course,  the  latter  has  to  de- 
bar himself  of  many  enjoyments.  The 
British  farmer  has  lessened  the  produce 
of  grain,  and  consequently  of  meat  ; 
and  the  nation  has  become  dependent 
upon  foreigners  for  meat,  cheese,  and 
butter,  as  well  as  for  bread. 

This  is  hardly  the  place  to  discuss  a 
question  of  agriculture,  but  scientific 
fanners  know  that  there  is  a  rotation  of 
crops,*  and  that  as  one  is  diminished 


*  The  agricultural  returns  of  the  United 
Kingdom  show  that  50£  per  cent  of  the  ara- 
V)le  laud  was  under  pasture,  24  per  cent  un- 
der grain,  12  per  cent  under  green  crops  and 
!>;iru  fallow,  and  13  per  cent  under  clover. 
The  rotation  would,  therefore,  be  somewhat 
in  this  fashion  :  Nearly  one  fourth  of  the 
land  in  tillage  is  under  a  manured  crop  or 
fallow,  one  fourth  under  wheat,  one  fourth 
under  nlover,  and  one  fourth  under  barley, 
oats,  etc.,  the  succession  being,  first  year, 
the  manured  crop  ;  next  year,  wheat  ;  third 
year,  clover  ;  fourth,  barley  or  oats  ;  and 
so  on. 


the  others  lessen.  The  quantity  under 
tillage  is  a  multiple  of  the  area  under 
grain.  A  diminution  in  corn  is  fol- 
lowed by  a  decrease  of  the  extent  under 
turnips  and  under  clover  ;  the  former 
directly  affects  man,  the  latter  the  meat- 
affording  animals.  A  decrease  in  the 
breadth  under  tillage  means  an  addition 
to  the  pasture  land,  which  in  this  cli- 
mate only  produces  meat  during  the 
warm  portions  of  the  year.  I  must, 
however,  not  dwell  upon  this  topic,  but 
whatever  leads  to  a  diminution  in  the 
LABOR  applied  to  the  LAND  lessens  the 
production  of  food,  and  dear  meat  may 
only  be  the  supplement  to  cheap  corn. 

I  shall  probably  be  met  with  the 
hackneyed  cry,  The  question  is  entirely 
one  of  price.  Each  farmer  and  each 
landlord  will  ask  himself,  Does  it  pay 
to  grow  grain  ?  and  in  reply  to  any  such 
inquiry,  1  would  refer  to  the  annual  re- 
turns. 1  find  that  in  the  five  years, 
1842  to  1846,  wheat  ranged  from  50*. 
2d.  to  57*.  9rf.  ;  the  average  for  the  en- 
tire period  being  54s.  lOrf.  per  quarter. 
In  the  five  years  from  1870  to  1874  it 
ranged  from  46s.  lOd.  to  58s.  Sd.,  tin 
average  for  the  five  years  being  54s.  "id. 
per  quarter.  The  reduction  in  price 
has  only  been  3d.  per  quarter,  or  less 
than  one  half  per  cent. 

I  venture  to  think  that  there  are 
higher  considerations  than  mere  profit 
to  individuals,  and  that,  as  the  lands 
belong  to  the  whole  state  as  represented 
by  the  Crown,  and  as  they  are  held  in 
trust  to  produce  food  for  tie  /,«*j>/e.  that 
trust  should  be  enforced. 

The  average  consumption  of  grain  bv 
each  person  is  about  a  quarter  (eielit 
bushels)  per  annum.  In  1841  the  poj 
ulation  of  the  United  Kingdom  wa:- 
27,036,450.  The  average  inipoit  oi 
foreign  grain  was  about  3,000,000  quar- 
ters, therefore  twenty-four  mil/ions  were 
fed  on  the  domestic  produce.  In  1871 
the  population  was  31,513,412,  and  the 
average  importation  of  grain  20,000,- 
000  quarters  ;  therefore  only  eleven  ami 
a  half  millions  were  supported  by  home 
produce.  Here  we  are  met  with  the 
startling  fact  that  our  own  soil  is  not 
now  supplying  grain  to  even  one  half 
i li<-  number  of  people  to  whom  it  gave, 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HQLDIXG  IN  EX  GLAND      245 


Hread  in  1841.  This  is  a  serious  aspect 
of  the  question,  and  one  that  should 
lead  to  examination,  whether  the  de- 
velopment of  the  system  of  landholding, 
the  absorptions  of  small  farms  and  the 
creation  of  large  ones,  is  really  benefi- 
cial to  the  state,  or  tends  to  increase 
the  supply  of  food.  The  area  under 
^•rain  in  England  in  1874  was  8,021,- 
077.  In  1696  it  was  10,000,000  acres, 
the  diminution  having  been  2,000,000 
acres.  The  average  yield  would  prob- 
ably be  four  quarters  per  acre,  and 
therefore  the  decrease  amounted  to  the 
enormous  quantity  of  eight  million 
quarters,  worth  £25,000,000,  which  had 
to  be  imported  from  other  countries,  to 
fill  up  the  void,  and  feed  8,000,000  of 
the  population  ;  and  if  a  war  took 
place,  England  may,  like  Rome,  be 
starved  into  peace. 

An  idea  prevails  that  a  diminution  in 
the  extent  under  grain  implies  an  in- 
crease in  the  production  of  meat.  The 
best  answer  to  that  fallacy  lies  in  the 
great  increase  in  the  price  of  meat.  If 
the  supply  had  increased  the  price 
would  fall,  but  the  converse  has  taken 
place.  A  comparison  of  the  figures 
given  by  Geoffrey  King,  in  the  reign 
of  William  III.,  with  those  supplied 
by  the  Board  of  Trade  in  the  reign  of 


Queen  Victoria,  illustrates  this  phase  of 
the  landholding  question,  and  shows 
whether  the  "  enlightened  policy"  of 
the  nineteenth  century  tends  to  encour- 
age the  fulfilment  of  the  trust  which 
applies  to  land  —  the  production  of 
food.* 

The  former  shows  that  in  1696  there 
were  ten  million  acres  under  grain,  the 
latter  only  eight  million  acres.  Two 
million  acres  were  added  for  cattle  feed- 
ing. The  former  shows  that  the  pasture 
land  was  ten  million  acres,  and  that 
green  crops  and  clover  were  unknown. 
The  latter  that  there  were  twelve  million 
acres  under  pasture,  and,  in  addition, 
that  there  were  nearly  three  million  acres 
of  green  crop  and  three  million  acres  of 
clover.  The  addition  to  the  cattle- 
feeding  land  was  eight  million  acres  ; 
yet  the  number  of  cattle  in  1696  was 
4,500,000,  and  in  1874,  4,305,400. 
Of  sheep,  in  1696,  there  were  11,000,- 
000,  and  in  1874,  19,889,758.  Th» 
population  had  increased  fourfold,  and 
it  is  no  marvel  that  meat  is  dear.  It  is 
the  interest  of  agriculturists  to  Xv'/> 
down  the  quantity  and  keep  up  the  price. 
The  diminution  in  the  area  under  corn 
was  not  met  by  a  corresponding  in- 
crease in  live  stock — in  other  words, 
the  decrease  of  land  under  grain  is  not, 


*  The  land  of  England  and  Wales  in  1696  and  1874  was  classified  as  follows  : 


Under  grain 

Pastures  and  meadows, 
Flax,  hemp,  aud  madder,    . 
Green  crops,         .... 
Bare  fallow,         .... 

Clover, 

Orchards, 

Woods,   coppices,  etc., 
Forests,  parks,  and  commons,    . 
Moors,  mountains,  and  bare  land, 
Waste,  water,  and  road, 


1696. 
Acres. 

10,000,000 

10,000,000 

1,000,000 


1,000,000 
3,000,000 
3,000,000  ) 
10.000,000  [ 
1,000,000  } 


1874. 
Acres. 

8,021,077 
12,071,791 

2,895,138 
639,519 

2,983,733 
148,526 

1,552,598 

9,006,839 


39,000,000  37,319,221 

The  estimate  of  1696  may  be  corrected  by  lessening  the  quantity  of  waste  land,  and 
thus  bringing,  the  total  to  correspond  with  the  extent  ascertained  by  actual  survey, 
but  it  shows  a  decrease  in  the  extern  under  grain  of  nearly  two  million  acres,  and  an 
increase  in  the  area  applicable  t>  catt!  -  of  nearly  8,000,000  acres;  yet  there  is  a 
decrease  in  the  number  of  cattle,  though  an  increase  in  sheep.  The  returns  are  as 
follows : 

1896.  1800.  1874. 

Cattle 4500,00d  2,852.428  4,305,440 

Sheep 11,000,0011  26,1*8,000  19,859.758 

.  '.(»00  LHO!  given)  2.0o8,791 

if 


546 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


verse,  followed  by  an  increase  of  meat. 
If  the  area  under  grain  were  increased, 
it  would  be  preceded  by  an  increase  in 
the  growth  of  turnips,  and  followed  by 
a  greater  growth  of  clover  ;  and  these 
cattle-feeding  products  would  materially 
add  to  the  meat  supply. 

A  most  important  change  in  the  sys- 
tem of  landholding  was  effected  by  the 
spread  of  RAILWAYS.  It  was  brought 
about  by  the  influence  of  the  trading 
as  opposed  to  the  landlord  class.  In 
their  inception  they  did  not  appear 
likely  to  effect  any  great  alteration  in 
the  land  laws.  The  shareholders  had 
no  compulsory  power  of  purchase, 
hence  enormous  sums  were  paid  for  the 
land  required  ;  but  as  the  system  ex- 
tended, Parliament  asserted  the  owner- 
ship of  the  nation,  over  land  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  individual.  Acting  on 
the  idea  that  no  man  was  more  than  a 
tenant,  the  state  took  the  land  from  the 
occupier,  as  well  as  the  tenant-in-fee, 
and  gave  it,  not  at  their  own  price,  but 
an  assessed  value,  to  the  partners  in  a 
railway  who  traded  for  their  mutual 
benefit,  yet  as  they  offered  to  convey 
travellers  and  goods  at  a  quicker  rate 
than  on  the  ordinary  roads,  the  state 
enabled  them  to  acquire  land  by  com- 
pulsion. A  general  act,  the  Land 
Clauses  Act,  was  passed  in  1846,  which 
gives  privileges  with  regard  to  the  ac- 
qusition  of  land  to  the  promoters  of 
such  works  as  railways,  docks,  canals, 
etc.  Numbers  of  acts  are  passed  every 
session  which  assert  the  right  of  the 
state  over  the  land,  and  transfer  it 
from  one  man,  or  set  of  men,  to  an- 
other. It  seems  to  me  that  the  princi- 
ple is  clear,  and  rests  upon  the  assertion 
of  the  state's  ownership  of  the  land  ; 
but  it  has  often  struck  me  to  ask,  Why 
is  this  application  of  state  rights  limited 
to  land  required  for  these  objects  ?  why 
not  apply  to  the  land  at  each  side  of  the 
railway,  the  principle  which  governs 
th:it  under  the  railway  itself  ?  I  con- 
sider the  production  of  food  the  primary 
trust  upon  the  land,  that  rapid  transit 
over  it  is  a  secondary  object  ;  and  as  all 
experience  shows  that  the  division  of 
land  into  small  estates  leads  to  a  more 
perfect  system  of  tillage,  I  think  it 


would  be  of  vast  importance  to  the  en- 
tire nation  if  all  tenants  who  were,  say, 
five  years  in  possession  were  made 
"  promoters"  under  the  Land  Clauses 
Act,  and  thus  be  enabled  to  purchase 
the  fee  of  their  holdings  in  the  same 
manner  as  a  body  of  railway  proprie- 
tors. It  would  be  most  useful  to  the 
state  to  increase  the  number  of  tenants- 
in-fee — to  re-create  the  ancient  freemen, 
the  Liberi  Homines — and  I  think  it  can 
be  done  without  requiring  the  aid  either 
of  a  new  principle  or  new  machinery,  by 
simply  placing  the  farmer-in-possession 
on  the  same  footing  as  the  railway  share- 
holder. I  give  at  foot  the  draft  of  a 
bill  I  prepared  in  1866  for  this  object.* 
The  55th  William  I.  secured  to  free- 


44 


*  A  BILL  TO  ENCOTJEAGE  THE  OTJTLAT  OP 
MONEY  UPON  LAND  FOB  AGBICtTLTUBAli 
PTJKPOSES. 

Whereas  it  is  expedient  to  encourage  the 
occupiers  of  land  to  expend  money  thereon, 
in  building,  drainage,  and  other  similar  im- 
provements ;  and  whereas  the  existing  laws 
do  not  give  the  tenants  or  occupiers  any 
sufficient  security  for  such  outlay  :  Be  it 
enacted  by  the  Queen's  Most  Excellent  Maj- 
esty, by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent 
of  the  Lords  Spiritual  and  Temporal,  and 
Commons  in  Parliament  assembled,  and 
by  the  authority  of  the  same  : 

1.  That  all  outlay  upon  land  for  the  pur- 
pose of  rendering  it  more  productive,  and  all 
outlay  upon  buildings  for  the  accommoda- 
tion of  those  engaged  in  tilling  or  working 
the  same,  or  for  domestic  animals  of  any 
sort,  be,  and  the  same  is  hereby  deemed  to 
be,  an  outlay  of  a  public  nature. 

2.  That  the  clauses  of  ' '  The  Land  Clauses 
Consolidation  Act  1845,"  "  with  respect  to 
the  purchase  of  lands  by  agreement,"   and 
"  with  respect  to  the  purchase  and  taking  of 
lands  otherwise  than  by  agreement,"  and 
"  with  respect  to  the  purchase  money  or 
compensation   coming    to    parties    having 
limited  interests,  or  prevented  from  treat- 
ing or  not  making  title,"  shall  be,  and  they 
are  hereby  incorporated  with  this  act. 

3.  That  every  tenant  or  occupier  who  has 
for  the  past  five  years  been  in  possession 
of  any  land,  tenements,  or  hereditaments, 
shall  be  considered  "  a  promoter  of  the  un- 
dertaking within  the  meaning  of  the  said 
recited  act,  and  shall  be  entitled  to   pur- 
chase the  lands  which  he  has  so  occupied, 
'  either  by  agreement '   '  or  otherwise  than 
by  agreement,'  as  provided  in  the  said  re- 
cited act." 

Then  follow  some  details  which  it  is  un- 
necessary to  recite  here. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     247 


men  the  inheritance  of  their  lands,  and 
they  were  not  able  to  sell  them  until  the 
act  Quia  Emptores  of  Edward  I.  was 
passed.  The  tendency  of  persons  to 
spend  the  representative  value  of  their 
lands  and  sell  them  was  checked  by 
the  Mosaic  law,  which  did  not  allow  any 
man  to  despoil  his  children  of  their  in- 
heritance. The  possessor  could  only 
mortgage  them  until  the  year  of  jubilee 
— the  fiftieth  year.  In  Switzerland  and 
Belgium,  where  the  nobles  did  not  en- 
tirely get  rid  of  the  freemen,  the  lands 
continued  to  be  held  in  small  estates. 
In  Switzerland  there  are  seventy-four 
proprietors  for  every  hundred  families, 
and  in  Belgium  the  average  size  of  the 
estate  is  three  and  a  half  hectares — 
about  eight  acres.  These  small  owner- 
ships are  not  detrimental  to  the  state. 
On  the  contrary,  they  tend  to  its  security 
and  well-being.  I  have  treated  on  this 
subject  in  my  work,  ' '  The  Food  Sup- 
plies of  Western  Europe."  These 
small  estates  existed  in  England  at  the 
Norman  Conquest,  and  their  perpetual 
continuance  was  the  object  of  the  law 
of  William  I.,  to  which  I  have  re- 
ferred. Their  disappearance  was  due 
to  the  greed  of  the  nobles  during  the 
reign  of  the  Plantagenets,  and  they 
were  not  replaced  by  the  Tudors,  who 
neglected  to  restore  the  men-at-arms  to 
the  position  they  occupied  under  the 
laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor  and 
William  I. 

The  establishment  of  two  estates  in 
land  ;  one  the  ownership,  the  other  the 
use,  may  be  traced  to  the  payment  of 
rent,  to  the  Roman  commonwealth,  for 
the  ager  publicus.  Under  the  feudal 
system  the  rent  was  of  two  classes — 
personal  service  or  money  ;  the  latter 
was  considered  base  tenure.  The  leg- 
islation of  the  Tudors  abolished  the 
payment  of  rent  by  personal  service, 
and  made  all  rent  payable  in  money  or 
in  kind.  The  land  had  been  burdened 
with  the  sole  support  of  the  army.  It 
was  then  freed  from  this  charge,  and  a 
tax  was  levied  upon  the  community. 
Some  writers  have  sought  to  define 
RENT  as  the  difference  between  fertile 
lands  and  those  that  are  so  unproductive 
as  barely  to  pay  the  cost  of  tillage. 


This  far-fetched  idea  is  contradicted  by 
the  circumstance  that  for  centuries  rent 
was  paid  by  labor — the  personal  service 
of  the  vassal — and  it  is  now  part  of  the 
annual  produce  of  the  soil  inasmuch  as 
land  will  be  unproductive  without  seed 
and  labor,  or  being  pastured  by  tame 
animals,  the  representative  of  labor  in 
taming  and  tending  them.  Rent  is 
usually  the  labor  or  the  fruits  of  the 
labor  of  the  occupant.  In  some  cases 
it  is  income  derived  from  the  labors  of 
others.  A  broad  distinction  exists  be- 
tween the  rent  of  land,  which  is  a  por- 
tion of  the  fruits  or  its  equivalent  in 
money,  and  that  of  improvements  and 
houses,  which  is  an  exchange  of  the 
labor  of  the  occupant  given  as  payment 
for  that  employed  in  effecting  improve- 
ments or  erecting  houses.  The  latter 
described  as  messuages  were  valued  in 
1794  at  six  millions  per  annum  ;  in 
1814  they  were  nearly  fifteen  millions  ; 
now  they  are  valued  at  eighty  millions.* 
The  increase  represents  a  sum  consider- 
ably more  than  double  the  national  debt 
of  Great  Britain,  and  under  the  system 
of  leases  the  improvements  will  pass 
from  the  industrial  to  the  landlord  class. 
It  seems  to  me  to  be  a  mistake  in 
legislation  to  encourage  a  system  by 
which  these  two  funds  merge  into  one, 
and  that  hands  the  income  arising  from 
the  expenditure  of  the  working  classes 
over  to  the  tenants-in-fee  without  an 
equivalent.  This  proceeds  from  a  strain- 
ing of  the  maxim  that  "what  is  at- 
tached to  the  freehold  belongs  to  the 
freehold, ' '  and  was  made  law  when  both 
Houses  of  Parliament  were  essentially 
landlord.  That  maxim  is  only  partially 
true  :  corn  is  as  much  attached  to  the 
freehold  as  a  tree  ;  yet  one  is  cut  with- 
out hindrance  and  the  other  is  pre- 
vented. Potatoes,  turnips,  and  such 


*  A  Parliamentary  return  gives  the  fol- 
lowing information  as  to  the  value  of  lands 
and  messuages  in  1814  and  1874  : 

1814-15.  1873-74. 

Lands,  .  .  £34,330,463  £49,906,866 
Messuages,  .  14,895,130  80,726,502 

The  increase  in  the  value  of  land  is  hardly 
equal  to  the  reduction  in  the  value  of  gold, 
while  the  increase  in  messuages  shows  tho 
enormous  expenditure  of  labor. 


248 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


tubers,  are  only  obtained  by  disturbing 
the  freehold-  This  maxim  was  at  one 
time  so  strained  that  it  applied  to  fix- 
tures, but  recent  legislation  and  modern 
discussions  have  limited  the  rights  of 
the  landlord  class  and  been  favorable  to 
the  occupier,  and  I  look  forward  to 
such  alterations  in  our  laws  as  will  secure 
to  the  man  who  expends  his  labor  or 
earnings  in  improvements,  an  estate  in 
perpetuo  therein,  as  I  think  no  length 
of  user  of  that  which  is  a  man's  own — 
his  labor  or  earnings — should  hand  over 
his  representative  improvements  to  any 
other  person.  I  agree  with  those  writ- 
ers who  maintain  that  it  is  prejudicial  to 
the  state  that  the  rent  fund  should  be 
enjoyed  by  a  comparatively  small  num- 
ber of  persons,  and  think  it  would  be 
advantageous  to  distribute  it,  by  increas- 
ing the  number  of  tenants-in-fee.  Nat- 
ural laws  forbid  middlemen,  who  do 
nothing  to  make  the  land  productive, 
and  yet  subsist  upon  the  labor  of  the 
farmer,  and  receive  as  rent  part  of  the 
produce  of  his  toil.  The  land  belongs 
to  the  state,  and  should  only  be  subject 
to  taxes,  either  by  personal  service,  such 
as  serving  in  the  militia  or  yeomanry, 
or  by  money  payments  to  the  state. 

Land  does  not  represent  capital,  but 
the  improvements  upon  it  do.  A  man 
does  not  purchase  land.  He  buys  the 
right  of  possession.  In  any  transfer  of 
land  there  is  no  locking  up  of  capital, 
because  one  man  receives  exactly  the 
amount  the  other  expends.  The  indi- 
vidual may  lock  up  his  funds,  but  the 
nation  does  not.  Capital  is  not  money. 
I  quote  a  definition  from  a  previous 
work  of  mine,  "  The  Case  of  Ireland," 
p.  176  : 

"Capital  stock  properly  signifies  the 
means  of  subsistence  for  man,  and  for  the 
animals  subservient  to  his  use  while  en 
gaged  in  the  process  of  production.  The 
jurisconsults  of  former  times  expressed  the 
idea  by  the  words  res  fungibiles,  by  which 
they  meant  consumable  commodities,  or 
those  things  which  are  consumed  in  their 
use  for  the  supply  of  man's  animal  wants, 
as  contradistinguished  from  unconsumable 
commodities  which  latter  \mters,  by  an 
extension  of  the  term,  in  a  figurative  sense, 
have  called  fixed  capital." 

All  the  money  in  the  Bank  of  England 


will  not  make  a  single  four-pound  loaf. 
Capital,  as  represented  by  consumable 
commodities,  is  the  product  of  labor  ap- 
plied to  land,  or  the  natural  fruits  of 
the  land  itself.  The  land  does  not  be- 
come either  more  or  less  productive  by 
reason  of  the  transfer  from  one  person 
to  another ;  it  is  the  withdrawal  of 
labor  that  affects  its  productiveness. 

Wages  are  a  portion  of  the  value  of 
the  products  of  a  joint  combination  of 
employer  and  employed.  The  former 
advances  from  time  to  time  as  wages  to 
the  latter,  the  estimated  portion  of  the 
increase  arising  from  their  combined 
operations  to  which  he  may  be  entitled. 
This  may  be  either  in  food  or  in  money. 
The  food  of  the  world  for  one  year  is 
the  yield  at  harvest  ;  it  is  the  capital 
stock  upon  which  mankind  exist  while 
engaged  in  the  operations  for  producing 
food,  clothing,  and  other  requisites  for 
the  use  of  mankind,  until  nature  again 
replenishes  this  store.  Money  cannot 
produce  food  ;  it  is  useful  in  measuring 
the  distribution  of  that  which  already 
exists. 

The  grants  of  the  Crown  were  a  fee 
or  reward  for  service  rendered  ;  the 
donee  became  tenant-in-fee  ;  being  a 
reward,  it  was  restricted  to  a  man  and 
his  heirs-male  or  his  heirs-general  ;  in 
default  of  heirs-male  or  heirs-general, 
the  land  reverted  to  the  Crown,  which 
was  the  donor.  A  sale  to  third  parties 
does  not  affect  this  phase  of  the  ques- 
tion, inasmuch  as  it  is  a  principle  of 
British  law  that  no  man  can  convey  to 
another  a  greater  estate  in  land  than 
that  which  he  possesses  himself  ;  and 
if  the  seller  only  held  the  land  as 
tenant-in-fee  for  Ms  own  life  and  that 
of  his  heirs,  he  could  not  give  a  pur- 
chaser that  which  belonged  to  the 
Crown,  the  reversion  on  default  of  heirs 
(see  Statute  De  Donis,  13  Edward  I., 
ante,  p.  21).  This  right  of  the  sov- 
ereign, or  rather  of  the  people,  has  not 
been  asserted  to  the  full  extent.  Many 
noble  families  have  become  extinct,  yet 
the  lands  have  not  been  claimed,  as  they 
should  have  been,  for  the  nation. 

I  should  not  complete  my  review  of 
the  subject  without  referring  to  what 
are  called  the  LAWS  OF  PRIMOOKVI- 


THE  HISTORY  Oh'  LAND-HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND.     249 


TCHB.  I  fail  to  discover  any  such  law. 
On  the  contrary,  I  find  that  the  descent 
of  most  of  the  land  of  England  is  under 
the  law  of  contract — by  deed  or  be- 
quest— and  that  it  is  only  in  case  of  in- 
testacy that  the  courts  intervene  to  give 
it  to  the  next  heir.  This  arises  more 
from  the  construction  the  judges  put 
upon  the  wishes  of  the  deceased,  than 
upon  positive  enactment.  When  a  man 
who  has  the  right  of  bequeathing  his 
estate  among  his  descendants  does  not 
exercise  that  power,  it  is  considered 
that  IMJ  wishes  the  estate  to  go  un- 
divided to  the  next  heir.  In  America 
the  converse  takes  place  :  a  man  can 
leave  all  his  land  to  one  ;  and,  if  he 
fails  to  do  so,  it  is  divided.  The  laws 
relating  to  contracts  or  settlements 
allow  land  to  be  settled  by  deed  upon 
the  children  of  a  living  person,  but  it  is 
more  frequently  upon  the  grandchildren. 
They  acquire  the  power  of  sale,  which 
is  by  the  contract  denied  to  their 
parents.  A  man  gives  to  his  grand- 
child that  which  he  denies  to  his  son. 
This  cumbrous  process  works  disad- 
vantageously,  and  it  might  very  prop- 
erly be  altered  by  restricting  the  power 
of  settlement  or  bequest  to  living  per- 
sons, and  not  allowing  it  to  extend  to 
those  who  are  unborn. 

It  is  not  a  little  curious  to  note  how 
the  ideas  of  mankind,  after  having  been 
diverted  for  centuries,  return  to  their 
original  channels.  The  system  of  land- 
holding  in  the  most  ancient  races  was 
communal.  That  word,  and  its  deriva 
tive,  communism,  has  latterly  had  a  bad 
odor.  Yet  all  the  most  important  pub- 
lic works  are  communal.  All  joint- 
stock  companies,  whether  for  banking, 
trading,  or  extensive  works,  are  com- 
munes. They  hold  property  in  com- 
mon, and  merge  individual  in  general 
rights.  The  possession  of  land  by  com- 
munes or  companies  is  gradually  ex- 
tending, and  it  is  by  no  means  improb- 
able that  the  ideas  which  governed  very 
remote  times  may,  like  the  communal 
joint-stock  system,  be  applied  more  ex- 
tensively to  landholding. 

It  may  not  be  unwise  to  review  the 
grounds  that  we  have  been  going  over, 
and  to  glance  at  the  salient  points. 


The  ABORIGINAL  inhabitants  of  this 
island  enjoyed  the  same  rights  as  those 
in  other  countries,  of  possessing  them- 
selves of  land  unowned  and  unoccupied. 
The  ROMANS  conquered,  and  claimed 
all  the  rights  the  natives  possessed,  and 
levied  a  tribute  for  the  use  of  the  lands. 
Upon  tho  retirement  of  the  Romans, 
after  an  occupancy  of  about  six  hun- 
dred years,  the  lands  reverted  to  the 
aborigines,  but  they,  being  unable  to 
defend  themselves,  invited  the  SAXONS, 
the  JUTES,  and  the  ANGLES,  who  re- 
duced them  to  serfdom,  and  seized  upon 
the  land  ;  they  acted  as  if  it  belonged 
to  the  body  of  the  conquerors,  it  was 
allotted  to  individuals  by  the  Folc-gemot 
or  assembly  of  the  people,  and  a  race 
of  Libert  Homines  or  freemen  arose,  who 
paid  no  rent,  but  performed  service  to 
the  state  ;  during  their  sway  of  about 
six  hundred  years  the  institutions 
changed,  and  the  monarch,  as  represent- 
ing the  people,  claimed  the  right  of 
granting  the  possession  of  land  seized 
for  treason  by  boc  or  charter.  The 
NORMAN  invasion  found  a  large  body 
of  the  Saxon  landholders  in  armed  op- 
position to  William,  and  when  they 
were  defeated,  he  seized  upon  their 
land  and  gave  it  to  his  followers,  and 
then  arose  the  term  terra  regis,  "  the 
land  of  the  king,"  instead  of  the  term 
folc-land,  "  the  land  of  the  people  ;" 
but  a  large  portion  of  the  realm  re- 
mained in  the  hands  of  the  Lilteri 
Homines  or  freemen.  The  Norman 
barons  gave  possession  of  part  of  their 
lands  to  their  followers,  hence  arose  the 
vassals  who  paid  rent  to  their  lord  by 
personal  service,  while  the  freemen  held 
by  service  to  the  Crown.  In  the  wars 
of  the  PLANTAGENETS  the  freemen  seem 
to  have  disappeared,  and  vassalage  was 
substituted,  the  principal  vassals  being 
freeholders.  The  descendants  of  the 
aborigines  regained  their  freedom.  The 
possession  of  land  was  only  given  for 
life,  and  it  was  preceded  by  homage  to 
the  Crown,  or  fealty  to  the  lord,  inves- 
titure following  the  ceremony.  The 
TUDOR  sovereigns  abolished  livery  and 
retainers,  but  did  not  secure  the  rights 
of  the  men-at-arms  or  replace  them  in 
x,heir  position  of  freemen.  The  chief 


250 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


lords  converted  the  payment  of  rent  by 
•service  into  payment  in  money  ;  this 
,ed  to  wholesale  evictions,  and  necessi- 
tated the  establishment  of  the  Poor 
Laws.  The  STUARTS  surrendered  the 
remaining  charges  upon  land  ;  but  on 
the  death  of  one  sovereign,  and  the  ex- 
pulsion of  another,  the  validity  of 
patents  from  the  Crown  became  doubt- 
ful. The  PRESENT  system  of  landhold- 
ing  is  the  outcome  of  the  Tudor  ideas. 
But  the  Crown  has  never  abandoned  the 
claim  asserted  in  the  statute  of  Edward 
I. ,  that  all  land  belongs  to  the  sovereign 
as  representing  the  people,  and  that  in- 
dividuals hold  but  do  not  own  it  ;  and 
upon  this  sound  and  legal  principle  the 
state  takes  land  from  one  and  gives  it 
to  another,  compensating  for  the  loss 
arising  from  being  dispossessed. 

I  have  now  concluded  my  brief  sketch 
of  the  facts  which  seemed  to  me  most 
important  in  tracing  the  history  of  LAND- 
HOLDING  IN  ENGLAND,  and  laid  before 
you  not  only  the  most  vital  changes, 
but  also  the  principles  which  underlay 
them  ;  and  I  shall  have  failed  in  con- 
veying the  ideas  of  my  own  mind  if  I 
have  not  shown  you  that  at  least  from 
the  Scandinavian  or  Anglo-Saxon  in- 
vasion, the  ownership  of  land  rested 
either  in  the  people,  or  the  Crown  as 
representing  the  oeoule  :  that  individual 


proprietorship  of  land  is  not  only  un- 
known, but  repugnant  to  the  principles 
of  the  British  Constitution  :  that  the 
largest  estate  a  subject  cau  have  is 
tenancy-in-fee,  and  that  it  rs  a  holding 
and  not  an  owning  of  the  soil  ;  and  I 
cannot  conceal  from  you  the  conviction 
which  has  impressed  ray  mind,  after 
much  study  and  some  personal  exami- 
nation of  the  state  of  proprietary  occu- 
pants on  the  Continent,  that  the  best  >~- 
terests  of  the  nation,  both  social'  . 
morally,  and  materially,  wiH  be  pro- 
moted by  a  very  large  increase  in  tne 
number  of  tenants-in-fee  ;  which  can 
be  attained  by  the  extension  of  princi- 
ples of  legislation  now  in  active  opera- 
tion. All  that  is  necessary  is  to  extend 
the  provisions  of  the  Land  Clauses  Act, 
which  apply  to  railways  and  such  ob- 
jects, to  tenants  in  possession  ;  to  make 
them  "  promoters"  under  that  act  ;  to 
treat  their  outlay  for  the  improvement 
of  the  soil  and  the  greater  production  of 
food  as  a  public  outlay  ;  and  thus  to  re- 
store to  England  a  class  which  corre- 
sponds with  the  Peasant  Proprietors  of 
the  Continent — the  Freemen  or  Libert 
Homines  of  Anglo-Saxon  times,  whose 
rights  were  solemnly  guaranteed  by  the 
55th  William  I.,  and  whose  existence 
would  be  the  glory  of  the  country  am1 
the  safeguard  of  its  institutior  < 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

OF  THE 

DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND  IN  ENGLAND 

PART  FIRST 


ANGLO-SAXON    AGRICULTURE. — GENE- 
ATS    AND   GEBURS. VILLANI. 


THE  changes  that  take  place  in  the 
terms  on  which  land  is  held,  and  the 
manner  in  which  it  is  cultivated,  are 


Before  adverting  to  the  conclusions 
which  may  be  drawn  from  the  great 
survey,  it  will  be  convenient  to  refei 
shortly  to  the  scanty  information  we 
possess  respecting  earlier  times,  so 
far  as  it  throws  light  upon  the  terms 
and  statements  of  Domesday, 

In  the  Rectitudines  Singularum  Per- 


usually  so  gradual  that  they  escape  i  sonarum  (Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes 
the  notice  of  contemporaries.  The  i  of  England,  1840.  Vol.  i.  431),  a 
causes  of  such  changes  thus  become  i  short  treatise  in  Saxon  and  Latin,  of 


at   a    subsequent   period   matters   of 
conjecture,    giving    rise    not    unfre- 


uncertain  date,  but  which  from  inter 
nal  evidence  we  may  safely  conclude 


quently,  as  we  shall  have  occasion  to  I  was  composed  in  Saxon  times,  we 
point  out,  to  most  extravagant  theo- 1  find  described  the  duties  of  the  va- 
ries. !  rious  classes  of  owners  and  occupiers 


The  first  period  at  which  we  obtain 


of  land. 


any  detailed  account  of  the  agricult-       Thus  the  thegn,  or  landowner,  is 
ural    condition   of    England   is    that  I  obliged  to  serve  the  king  in  war,  and 


which  succeeded,  at  no  great  interval, 
the  Norman  Conquest.  The  admira- 
ble survey  made  by  order  of  William 
I.,  the  record  of  which  is  preserved 


to  assist  in  making  or  repairing  forti- 
fied places  and  bridges.  This  is  the 
trinoda  necessitas,  so  often  a  subject 
of  complaint  with  Anglo-Saxon  pro- 


m    the    two   volumes    known   by  the 
popular    name    of    Domesday    Book, 


pnetors. 

The  duties  of  the  geneats  are  to 
stands  unrivaled  (so  far  as  1  am  ;  till,  to  sow,  and  reap  the  land  of  their 
aware)  by  any  memorial  respecting ;  lord,  to  go  on  errands  far  and  near 
the  material  and  social  condition  of  for  him,  to  provide  a  horse,  to  fell 
this  or  any  other  country.  '  wood  for  his  deer  park,  to  perform 

1 


252 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


other  servile  works,  and  to  make  cer- 
tain small  payments  in  money  or 
kind. 

The  gebur,  when  he  enters  on  his 
"yard  of  land,"  is  to  be  supplied  with 
two  oxen,  one  cow,  and  six  sheep, 
and  seven  acres  of  his  land  are  to  be 
sown  for  him.  After  the  first  year  he 
must  perform  the  duties  attached  to 
his  condition.  In  some  places  he 
must  work  two  days  in  each  week,  in 
harvest  (rendered  in  the  Latin  text 
Augustus)  three  days.  He  is  to 
plow  one  acre  a  week  from  the 
time  when  plowing  begins  till  Mar- 
tinmas. He  also  makes  small  pay- 
ments in  money  and  kind.  If  he  de- 
parts (dies),  all  that  he  has  belongs 
to  his  lord. 

These  general  rules  were  subject 
(as  appears  by  the  same  document) 
to  some  variation,  dependent  on  the 
custom  of  the  district  in  which  the 
lands  were  situate. 

There  can,  I  think,  be  no  question 
that  the  cultivation  of  the  soil,  when 
the  Rectitudines  were  written,  was 
mainly  carried  on  by  the  geneats  and 
geburs.  They  were  evidently  not 
slaves  whose  duties  depended  abso- 
lutely on  the  will  of  their  lord.  Their 
work  was  defined  by  the  general  cus- 
tom, as  described  in  the  Rectitudines, 
subject  to  variation  by  the  local  cus- 
tom of  the  district.  Of  these  two 
classes  the  geneats  were  legally  un- 
free  j  and  the  geburs,  by  their  pov- 
erty, must  have  been  practically  in  a 
servile  condition,  even  if  not  unfree 
according  to  law. 

If  we  turn  now  to  the  Great  Record, 
we  shall,  I  think,  find  that  the  course 
of  husbandry  had  suffered  little  alter- 
ation from  the  change  in  regard  to 
the  ownership  of  land  which,  in  many 


cases,  had  taken  place  during  the  in- 
terval of  twenty  years  between  the 
Conquest  and  the  completion  of 
Domesday. 

The  properties  mentioned  in  Domes- 
day are  generally  styled  villa  or  man- 
eria,  and  had  usually,  before  the  Con- 


quest,  been   the 
nobles,   or   were 


property  of    Saxon 
then,  and    still    re- 


mained, the  property  of  ecclesiastics, 
or  of  the  Crown ;  and  almost  inva- 
riably attached  to  the  villa  are  a  cer- 
tain number  of  villani.  Now  the 
word  villanus  occurs  in  the  Latin 
text  of  the  Rectitudines  as  the  equiva- 
lent of  the  Saxo-1*geneat.  In  Domes- 
day it  probably  included  the  gebur 
also,  the  distinction  between  the  two 
in  the  Rectitudines  not  being  very 
apparent. 

The  villani,  afterward  called  the 
villeins  by  the  Norman  lawyers,  were 
men  allowed,  like  the  geburs  of  the 
Rectitudines,  to  occupy  small  allot- 
ments, or  "yards,"  of  land  for  the 
support  of  themselves  and  their  fam- 
ilies, and  who,  in  return,  were  re- 
quired to  plow,  sow,  and  reap  the 
land  which  their  lord  kept  in  his  own 
hands — his  demesne,  as  it  was  called. 


II. 


AGRICULTURE  AFTER  THE  CONQUEST. 
—  VILLEINAGE.  —  COPYHOLDERS.  — 
CONTINENTAL  SERFS. 


IT  appears  from  the  authorities  to 
which  I  have  referred,  that  both  be- 
fore and  after  the  Conquest,  at  least 
a  large  portion  of  the  agricultural 
population  of  England,  was  organized 
in  the  same  manner,  as  that  which 


OP  LAND  IN  ENGLAND. 


253 


prevailed  over  the  greatest  part  of 
the  Western  European  Continent, 
during  tl»s  middle  ages,  and  in  some 
countries,  as  in  Prussia,  Poland  and 
Hungary,  almost  to  the  present  day ; 
while  in  England,  on  the  other  hand, 
all  traces  of  villeinage  have  disap- 
peared for  centuries. 

The  main  cause  which  occasioned 
the  discontinuance  of  villeinage  in 
England,  at  a  much  earlier  period 
than  that  at  which  it  ceased  to  exist  in 
foreign  countries  was  probably  eco- 
nomical. 

The  services  due  to  the  lord  from 
the  villein,  peasant,  bauer,  or  serf,  as 
he  was  usually  termed  on  the  Conti- 
nent, often  a  source  of  vexation  to  both 
parties,  were,  in  England,  at  an  early 
period,  for  the  most  part,  commuted 
for  an  annual  money  payment ;  and  so 
powerful  was  the  influence  of  custom, 
that  it  came  to  be  established  law,  that 
the  villein,  if  he  rendered  his  accus- 
tomed rent  and  other  services,  if  any? 
in  respect  of  his  holding,  could  not  be 
ejected  from  it,  nor  could  his  rent  or 
services  be  increased.  He  obtained, 
by  custom,  fixity  of  rent  and  fixity  of 
tenure. 

A  list  was  kept  of  these  tenants  on 
the  estate  and  their  holdings  by  the 
steward  of  the  owner,  and  at  every 
change  of  a  tenant,  the  fact  was  noti- 
fied at  a  court  or  assembly  of  tenants 
held  under  the  presidency  of  the  stew 
ard,  and  an  entry  on  this  list  or  roll 
became  evidence  of  the  right  of  the 
tenant  to  hold  his  land.  A  copy  of 
the  entry  was  given  to  him,  and  he 
was  said  to  hold  his  land  by  copy  of 
court-roll ;  but  tolerably  conclusive  evi- 
dence of  the  original  infirmity  of  his 
title,  was  preserved  in  his  legal  desig- 
nation, which  was,  and  still  is,  "  ten- 


ant at  the  will  of  the  lord,  by  copy  of 
court-roll,  according  to  the  custom  of 
the  mane  r." 

The  disappearance  of  the  class 
\  which  in  England  corresponded  to  the 
i  peasantry  of  the  Continent  has  been 
much  deplored  by  some  politicians. 
I  will  not  stop  to  inquire  whether  it 
was  a  desirable  state  of  things,  that  the 
agricultural  proprietors  should  be 
sharply  divided  into  two  classes,  hav- 
ing distinct  customs,  interests  and 
opinions,  as  has  been  usually,  if  not 
invariably,  the  case,  wherever  peasant 
proprietors,  properly  so  called,  have 
existed.  But  I  would  remark  that  the 
disappearance  of  the  English  peas- 
antry, '•  the  divorce  of  the  laborer  from 
the  soil/'  as  it  has  been  termed,  is  not 
due  to  oppression,  but  to  prosperity. 
By  the  great  fall  in  the  value  of  silver, 
which  commenced  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  the  copyholder,  who  enjoyed 
by  custom  fixity  of  rent  and  tenure, 
became,  in  fact,  a  proprietor  of  his  al- 
lotment, subject  to  some  moderate 
burdens  .  and  he  therefore  generally 
ceased  to  be  a  tiller  of  the  soil.  Cul •' 
tivation  came  to  be  carried  on  univer- 
sally by  hired  laborers,  employed  by 
copyholders  as  well  as  by  freeholders. 
If  injustice  has  been  done  in  the  course 
of  this  great  change,  it  has  certainly 
not  been  exercised  by  the  owners  of 
land  on  the  peasantry,  since  a  vast 
part  of  the  best  lands,  to  which  the 
former  were  legally  entitled,  have  be- 
come the  property  of  the  latter,  with- 
out any  equivalent  being  given  by 
them,  through  the  gradual  operation  of 
the  causes  t«  which  I  have  alluded. 
i  Without  revolution,  and  almost  imper- 
!  ceptibly.  landlordism  was  virtually 
I  abolished  over  at  least  one-fourth  ot 
|  the  arable  land  of  England.  The  bur 
3 


254 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


dens  and  restrictions  to  which  copy 
hold  lands  remained  subject,  render 
them,  no  doubt,  somewhat  less  valu- 
able than  freeholds  of  the  same  extent, 
but  the  difference  is  not  generally  of 
great  importance. 


III. 

ORIGIN     OF    LARGE     PROPERTIES. — ES- 
TATES OF  ANGLO-SAXON  NOBILITY. 

EVIDENCE  OF  DOMESDAY. 

IT  is  a  commonly  received  opinion, 
that  the  present  distribution  of  land 
in  England  differs  greatly  from  that 
which  prevailed  in  ancient,  and  par- 
ticularly in  Saxon  times ;  and  that  the 
change  is  due  to  the  operation  of  the 
law  of  primogeniture  or  entail,  or  the 
practice  of  making  settlements  of  land. 
I  propose  to  consider  in  the  first  place, 
how  far  this  opinion,  that  a  great 
change  in  the  distribution  of  land  has 
occurred  is  well  founded,  before 
inquiring  into  the  causes  alleged  to 
have  produced  it. 

In  order  to  arrive  at  a  sound  con- 
clusion on  the  subject,  we  must  extend 
the  investigation  into  centuries  long 
anterior  to  the  Norman  Conquest. 

According  to  ail  historical  accounts, 
the  Saxon  Conquest  of  England  was 
effected  by  a  body  of  men,  about  as 
insignificant  in  point  of  numbers,  as 
the  Spanish  invaders  of  Mexico.  A 
few  long  boats  are  said  to  have  con- 
veyed Hengist  and  his  companions — 
conquerors  of  England.  They  were 
no  doubt,  re-enforced,  and  supported 
by  a  large  immigration  of  their  coun- 
trymen ;  but  still  after  deducting 
those  who  fell  in  the  struggle  with  the 
Romanized  Britons,  the  residue  must 


have  formed  a  scanty  band,  when  con- 
sidered in  connection  with  the  extent 
of  territory  which  lay  at  their  disposal. 
They,  however,  were  the  ancestors  of 
the  kings  and  Saxon  nobility  of  Eng- 
land. Is  it  to  be  supposed  that  these 
conquerors  first  ravaged  the  open 
country,  and  then  began  to  cultivate 
it,  in  small  properties,  with  their  own 
hands  ?  Is  it  not  more  probable,  that 
the  principal  men  among  them  took 
possession  of  the  Roman  villas,  with 
which  the  country  was  studded,  and 
cultivated  the  land  like  their  immedi- 
ate predecessors,  by  means  of  forced 
labor  ?  I  find  no  reason  for  holding, 
that  the  Saxon  invaders  of  England 
differed  greatly  from  the  Germans  as 
described  by  Tacitus — strenuous  in 
war,  slothful  in  peace.  "  Nee  arare 
terram,  aut  expectare  annonam,  tarn 
facile  persuaseris,  quam  vocare  hostes 
et  vulnera  mereri :  pigrum  quinimino 
et  iners  videtur  sudore  adquirere  quod 
possis  sanguine  parare." — Germania, 
cap.  14. 

All  conquerors  and  colonists  bring 
with  them  their  own  laws  and  cus- 
toms. Now,  in  Germany,  the  land 
was  cultivated,  according  to  the  same 
testimony  of  Tacitus,  by  men  who 
were  not  free,  though  not,  like  the 
Roman  slaves,  in  a  state  of  absolute 
bondage;  the  German  serfs  having 
separate  dwellings  and  occupying  por- 
tions of  land,  while  rendering  a  return 
in  kind  to  their  lords.  He  says  (af- 
ter speaking  of  those  who  become 
slaves  by  staking  their  liberty  in 
gambling),  "  Caeteris  servis,  non  in 
nostrum  morem,  descriptis  per  famil- 
ias,  utuntur:  suam  quisque  sedem, 
suos  penates  regit.  Frumenti  modum 
dominius,  aut  pecoris,  aut  vestis,  ut 
colonoinjungit :  et  servi  hactenus  par- 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND  IN  ENGLAND. 


255 


cnt.  .  .  .  Verberare  servum  ac  vin- 
culis  et  opere  coercere  rarum." — TAC- 
ITUS, Germ.  cap.  25. 

Why  should  we  suppose  that  a  peo- 
ple so  tenacious  of  ancient  habits  as 
the  Germans,  introduced  into  England 
a  system  of  cultivation  unknown  in 
Germany  ?  We  find  serfdom  existing 
in  England,  soon  after  the  Norman 
Conquest,  under  the  name  of  villein 
age  ;  we  find  serfs  in  Saxon  times  un- 
der the  designation  of  geneats  or  ge- 
burs;  we  find  serfdom  forming  part 
of  the  German  agricultural  system  in 
the  days  of  Tacitus.  Is  there  not,  at 
least,  a  strong  probability  that  the 
first-mentioned  custom  was  derived 
from  the  last?  Would  the  German 
warriors  become  more  inclined  to  fol- 
low the  plow,  when  they  had  the 
larger  part  of  England  at  their  dis- 
posal, than  they  were  in  their  native 
country  ? 

What  then  was  there  to  prevent  the 
Anglo-Saxon  invaders,  few  in  numbers 
as  they  were,  from  appropriating  large 
tracts  of  ccmntry  and  cultivating  them, 
however  imperfectly,  by  serfs  brought 
from  Germany,  or  drawn  from  the 
inhabitants  of  the  conquered  lands  ? 
Bondage  in  one  form  or  other  was, 
we  know,  rife  among  the  Anglo-Sax- 
ons. 

Again,  the  quantity  of  land  held 
sufficient  for  an  Anglo-Saxon  family 
was  called  a  hide.  Now  the  average 
hide  cannot  be  estimated  at  less  than 
200  acres — a  quantity  obviously  great- 
er than  that  which  could  be  cultivated 
by  the  owner  and  his  family  alone. 
The  work  was,  in  all  probability,  done 
by  geneat  or  gebur  labor.  There  is 
no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  were  less  inclined  to  employ 
forced  labor,  than  the  Dutch  were  a 


few  years  ago  (if  not  at  present)  in 
the  Transvaal. 

But  while  the  hide  appears  to  have 
been  the  minimum  allotment,  we  meet 
with  constant  allusions  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  laws  and  documents,  to  pro- 
prietors of  five,  of  twenty,  and  even  a 
much  greater  number  of  hides. 

There  is  therefore,  strong  reason 
for  believing  that  in  the  earliest 
Saxon  period,  there  were  proprietors 
of  very  large  estates ;  and,  as  soon  as 
the  light  of  history  breaks  upon  us, 
it  reveals  their  existence.  Ethel- 
dreda,  an  Anglian  princess,  in  the 
seventh  century,  gave,  it  is  said,  the 
Isle  of  Ely  to  the  abbey  which  she 
established.  The  Ealdorman  Edric, 
in  the  days  of  Ethelred  the  Unready, 
could  turn  the  scale  in  the  struggle 
for  supremacy  between  the  Danes 
and  the  English.  The  manors  of 
Earl  Godwin  are  said  to  have 
stretched  almost  continuously  through 
the  county  of  Sussex.  Domesday 
Book  shows  that  the  Earls  Morcar, 
Edwin  and  Tosti  (the  brother  of  Har- 
old) had  vast  possessions.  In  Cam- 
bridgeshire "  OEdiva  Pulchra  "  "held 
many  manors  at  the  Conquest.  In 
Dorsetshire,  as  Mr.  Eyton,  in  his  ad- 
mirable introduction  to  the  Domesday 
of  the  County*  observes,  Marlswayn 
was  ubiquitous.  The  manor  of 
Tewkesbury  was  held  by  Brictric  and 
was  estimated  at  ninety-five  hides,  not 
less  probably  than  20,000  acres.  The 
Manor  of  Helston,  in  Cornwall, 
which  belonged  to  Harold  as  Earl  of 
the  county,  was  of  yet  greater  extent. 

It  is,  therefore,  I  think,  sufficiently 
obvious  that  vast  estates  existed  in 


*  Analysis  of  the  Dorset  Survey,  by  the  Rev, 
R.  W.  Eyton,  1877.     See  pp.  5«,  10. 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


England  from  the  earliest  to  the 
latest  Anglo-Saxon  days. 

Extensive  as  were  these  posses- 
sions, it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that 
their  owners  were  wealthy,  in  the 
modern  acceptation  of  the  word. 
The  rent  of  land  at  the  date  of 
Domesday  is  estimated  by  Mr.  Eyton 
at  a  penny  an  acre,  a  hide  at  a  pound 
of  silver,  about  £2  IQS.  od.  of  our 
present  money,  per  annum. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  instruments 
of  agriculture  were  dear,  when  com- 
pared with  the  rent  of  land.  In 
Magna  Carta,  Cap.  21  (1225),  the 
hire  "  limited  of  old  "  of  a  cart  with 
two  horses  is  lod.  a  day,  of  a  cart 
with  three  horses  is.  zd. 

Taking  these  facts  into  considera- 
tion, and  remembering  that  the  whole 
burden  of  the  military  establishment, 
of  repairing  fortified  places,  bridges 
and  roads,  was  thrown  upon  the  land, 
while  the  means  of  communication 
were  very  imperfect,  it  is  clear  that 
few  laymen,  however  extensive  their 
manors  might  be,  could  have  enjoyed 
a  considerable  surplus  income,  al- 
though they  might  command  the  nec- 
essaries of  life  in  abundance — a  con- 
dition in  which  many  great  landown- 
ers on  the  Continent  still  find  them- 
selves at  the  present  day. 

With  the  ecclesiastics  the  case  was 
different.  Their  personal  expenses 
were  comparatively  small,  and  when 
their  possessions  were  considerable, 
they  could  devote  large  sums,  not 
only  to  building  stately  monasteries 
and  cathedrals,  but  also  to  increasing 
their  revenues  by  bringing  waste  land 
into  cultivation. 

The  lavish  grants  made  to  ecclesi- 
astics may  be  explained,  in  part,  by 
the  fact  that,  in  the  hands  of  their 


donors,  they  were,  through  want  of 
capital,  comparatively  worthless  ;  and 
a  landowner  might,  by  means  of  a 
small  sacrifice,  become  a  great  bene- 
factor. Some  persons  appear  to  im- 
agine that  the  early  occupiers  of  land 
obtained,  at  once,  a  very  valuable 
possession,  forgetful  that  some  of  the 
best  land  in  the  world  may,  even  a; 
this  day,  be  purchased  in  fee  simple, 
for  the  cost  of  surveying  it.  But  land 
is  an  insatiable  devourer  of  capital. 
The  amount  annually  expended  MI  it 
may  be  small,  but  it  becomes  im- 
mense in  the  course  of  ages ;  and  it  is 
probable  that  few  increments  of 
value  are  better  earned,  than  that 
which  accrues  to  agricultural  land  in 
the  course  of  many  generations. 


IV. 


THE  SOK.E. — SOCAGE  TENURE. 


ALTHOUGH  the  properties  mentioned 
in  Domesday  are  generally  considera- 
ble, and  often  very  large,  notices  of 
smaller  possessions,  held  by  freemen, 
are  not  infrequent.  The  owners  are 
usually  said  to  be  the  men,  homines. 
of  some  Saxon  or  Norman  noble,  and 
are  termed  socmanni,  sokemen.  The 
word  soke  at  this  time  signified  juris- 
diction, and  a  landowner  who,  by  pre- 
scription, or  grant  from  the  sovereign, 
was  entitled  to  hold  a  court  of  justice, 
was  said  to  have  a  soke.  His  men. 
that  is  the  freemen  who  acknowl- 
edged that  he  was  their  lord — for  h 
of  whom  another  was  man,  was  styled 
his  lord — were  legally  bound  to  at- 
tend the  Court  of  Justice  held  in  the 
hall  of  the  lord's  residence,  and,  if  not 
themselves  parties,  plaintiffs  or  de- 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND  IK  ENGLAND. 


fendants,  to  decide  on  matters  arising 
within  the  limits  of  the  soke. 

The  existence  of  these  private  jur- 
isdictions was  a  matter  almost  of  ne- 
cessity, since  without  them,  remote 
districts,  from  the  feebleness  of  the 
state  judicial  institutions,  and  the 
difficulties  of  communication,  would 
have  been  left  without  effectual  legal 
supervision.  Free  landowners,  who 
did  not  belong  to  a  soke,  were  ob- 
liged to  attend  the  Court  of  the  Hun- 
dred ;  the  hundred  being  a  division  of 
the  county,  generally  of  considerable 
extent.  Such  owners  were  styled 
simply  freemen,  liberi  homines,  or 
liberi  tenentes ;  but  their  position  dif- 
fered from  that  of  the  sokemen 
merely  as  regarded  the  tribunal  which 
they  were  bound  to  attend,  and  their 
being  or  not  being  under  the  protec- 
tion of  a  lord.  Hence,  when  a  new 
free  tenure,  the  military,  was  intro- 
duced, and  it  became  necessary  to 
discriminate  the  new  from  the  old 
free  tenures,  the  term  socage  tenure 
seems  to  have  been  extended  to  the 
freemen  who  owed  service  to  the  hun- 
dred court,. although  a  public  court, 
and  was  no  longer  confined,  as  in 
Domesday,  to  those  who  attended  the 
court  of  a  private  person.  The  soc- 
men  are  frequently  mentioned  in 
Domesday  as  bound  to  furnish  inward 
— that  is,  to  perform  the  duty  of  a 
local  guard  or  watch.  They  probably 
formed  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Saxon 
armies. 

It  is  also  probable  that  the  smaller 
sokemen  and  free  tenants,  cultivated 
their  lands  themselves;  but,  judging 
from  the  Domesday  record,  I  think  we 


must  conclude,  that  the  total  extent 
of  land  in  the  hands  of  small  free 
proprietors,  was  insignificant,  when 
compared  with  that  which  was  culti- 
vated by  means  of  serf  labor. 

The  terms  on  which  th-j  sokemen 
held  their  lands,  as  appears  by 
Domesday,  were  various.  Some  could 
alienate  their  land  without  the  license 
of  their  lord;  others  were  unable  to 
do  so.  If  they  possessed  the  right  of 
alienation,  in  some  instances,  upon 
alienation,  the  jurisdiction  over  the 
land,  the  soke,  remained  with  the 
lord ;  in  other  cases  the  tenants  were 
free  to  dispose  not  only  of  the  land, 
but  of  the  soke  also. 

This  variety  seems  to  indicate  that 
the  relation  of  lord  and  sokeman 
often  had  its  origin  in  contract.  The 
liberated  serf  also  must  frequently 
have  passed  into  the  ranks  of  the 
sokemen.  The  latter  generally  paid 
a  rent  to  his  lord  in  money  or  in  kind, 
as  well  in  return  for  the  protection  he 
could  claim,  as  for  the  use  of  his  land. 
There  are  still  freehold  lands  held  of 
the  lords  of  some  manors,  at  ancient 
rents  of  small  amount — generally 
called  quit-rents. 

When  we  consider  the  extraordinary 
deference  which  the  Anglo-Saxon 
laws  paid  to  wealth,  estimating  not 
only  the  value  of  a  man's  life,  but 
the  value  of  his  testimony  also,  by 
the  number  of  his  hides,  it  is  not  dif- 
ficult to  account  for  the  readiness, 
with  which  small  free  proprietors 
commended  themselves  to  a  great 
noble  or  prelate,  and  became  his 
sokemen,  in  order  to  obtain  his  advo- 
cacy. 


258 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


V. 


AGRICULTURAL   COMMUNITIES. 

NOTWITHSTANDING  that  the  facts  I 
have  mentioned  are  well  known  and 
rest,  for  the  most  part,  on  unquestion- 
able authority,  there  is,  I  think,  a  cur- 
rent opinion  that,  during  Anglo-Saxon 
times,  land  in  England  was,  generally 
speaking,  in  the  hands  of  free  peasant 
proprietors — men  who  cultivated  the 
soil  with  their  own  hands,  for  their 
own  profit  and  were  not  subject  to  any 
master. 

This  opinion  has  received  confirma- 
tion from  a  work  on  the  Agricultural 
Communities  of  the  Middle  Ages  in 
England,  by  E.  Nasse,  a  German 
writer  of  considerable  learning.  The 
author  maintains  that  communities  of 
free  peasant  proprietors  prevailed  in 
England  during  the  Anglo-Saxon  pe- 
riod. 

The  author  has,  however,  fallen  in- 
to some  important  errors  with  regard 
to  facts,  and  the  conclusions  which  he 
draws  from  facts  are  not  always  in- 
controvertible. 

His  theory  is  founded,  in  a  great 
measure,  on  the  continued  existence 
of  certain  common  rights  in  England 
up  to  recent  times  :  the  nature  of  these 
rights  being  recorded  in  the  "  Report 
of  the  Select  Committee  on  Commons 
Inclosures  appointed  by  the  House 
of  Commons  in  1844,"  and  the  de- 
scriptions of  Agriculture  in  the  sev- 
eral counties  of  England  published 
by  the  then  Board  of  Agriculture,  un- 
der the  control  of  Sir  John  Sinclair, 
at  the  close  of  the  last  and  commence- 
ment of  the  present  century. 

Thus  he  says  at  p.  3  of  the  transla- 
tion made  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Cobden  Club  :— 


"  The  professional  experts  who 
were  examined  before  the  Committee 
in  1844  agreed  in  their  information 
that,  in  many  parts  of  the  country, 
plots  of  arable  land  in  the  same  town- 
ship lay  intermixed  and  uninclosed, 
so  that  the  lands  of  a  rural  property 
consisted  of  narrow  parcels  lying 
scattered  in  a  disconnected  manner 
all  over  the  extent  of  the  village  dis- 
trict (Dorfflur).  These  arable  parcels 
were  for  the  separate  use  of  individ- 
ual possessors  from  seed-time  to  har- 
vest, after  which  they  were  open  and 
common  to  all  for  pasturage.  They 
were  designated  'open  commonable 
intermixed  fields,'  and  also  'lammas 
lands,'  because  '  lammas '  is  the  fes- 
tival '  Petri  ad  vincula  '  on  the  ist  of 
August — or,  according  to  the  old 
calendar  by  which  the  reckoning  was 
then  taken,  the  i3th  of  August — which 
was  the  period  at  which  the  common 
rights  of  pasture  commenced." — 
(Nasse  on  the  Agricultural  Community 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  translated  by  Col- 
onel H.  A.  Ouvry,  p.  3.) 

Now  the  period*from  "  seed-time  to 
harvest "  never  can  have  terminated 
in  England,  as  a  general  rule,  so  early 
as  the  1 3th  of  August.  August  is 
mentioned  as  harvest-time  in  ancient 
records  (as  in  the  Rectitudines  Singula- 
rum  Personarum,  see  above  p.  2),  and 
is  still  the  harvest  month  in  England. 
If  the  cattle  had  been  turned  upon  the 
cultivated  lands  on  the  i3th  of  that 
month  (as  Nasse  imagines  they  were), 
the  destruction  of  the  wheat-  and  other 
grain-crops  must,  in  ordinary  years, 
have  been  the  consequence.  Besides, 
in  Anglo-Saxon  times  the  error  in  the 
length  of  the  Julian  year  had  not 
occasioned  (as  Nasse  seems  to  sup- 
pose) a  difference  of  twelve  days  be- 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND  IN  ENGLAND. 


259 


tween  the  solar  year  and  the  calendar. 
If  we  take  A.D.  750  as  the  mean  year 
of  the  Saxon  period,  the  difference 
would  be  only  four  days.  So  that  the 
Saxon  ist  of  August  would  then  cor- 
respond not  with  our  present  i3th,  but 
our  5th  of  August — a  date  when  the 
cutting  of  wheat-  and  other  grain-crops 
has  not  commenced,  in  ordinary  years 
through  a  great  part  of  England.  In 
point  of  fact,  the  lands  subject  to  this 
custom  described  by  Nasse  were  not 
arable,  but  meadow ;  and  they  were 
inclosed  not  from  "  seed-time  to  har- 
vest," but  until  the  second  hay-crop 
had  been  mown.  The  lands  known 
as  Lammas  Lands  at  the  present  day 
are,  I  believe,  invariably  meadow. 

If  any  confirmation  of  the  fact  be 
wanting,  it  may  be  found  in  the  cir- 
cumstance, that  the  only  probable  de- 
rivation of  Lammas  is  Late-Math,  late 
mowing.  Hence  "  Latter  Lammas," 
a  later  math  than  Lammas,  became 
proverbial,  as  an  equivalent  to  the 
Greek  Calends. 

Then  the  hypothesis  that  the  cultiva- 
tors of  intermixed  patches  of  land 
were  free  proprietors  to  whom,  as  a 
community,  the  land  belonged,  seems 
to  rest  upon  two  circumstances — first, 
that  they  all  cultivated  the  land  accord, 
ing  to  the  same  course  of  husbandry  ; 
and  secondly,  that  they  were  entitled  in 
common  to  depasture  their  cattle  upon 
the  land,  after  the  crop  had  been  re- 
moved. 

Now,  where  land  is  held  in  small 
portions,  and  cultivated  by  the  plow, 
the  course  of  husbandry  cannot,  it 
is  obvious,  conveniently  vary  from  one 
plot  to  another.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
plow  was  a  cumbrous  and  costly  in- 
strument. It  was  drawn  by  eight 
oxen.  The  ancient  measures  of  land 


owe  their  origin  to  this  plow.  It  is 
mentioned  in  Co.  Lit.  50,  that  a  bo- 
vate  or  oxgang  is  as  much  land  as  an 
ox  can  cultivate,  and  a  plow-land  as 
much  as  one  plow  can  cultivate ; 
and  it  was  said  that  eight  oxgangs 
make  a  plow-land  (see  Co.  Lit.  69  a). 

Now  a  gebur,  according  to  the 
Rectitudines,  was  to  have  his  yard-land  : 
and  a  yard,  or  virgata  terrce,  varied, 
according  to  Lcrd  Coke  (Co.  Lit.  50) 
from  ten  to  twenty,  twenty-five  or 
thirty  acres,  on  an  average  about  one- 
fourth  of  the  extent  which  a  plow 
could  cultivate  in  a  year,  and  there- 
fore about  equal  to  two  oxgangs. 
Hence  the  gebur  could  not  afford  to 
keep  a  plow  of  his  own.  Several, 
therefore,  must  unite  in  order  to  main- 
tain a  plow,  and  the  gebur  was,  ac- 
cordingly, to  be  supplied  with  two 
oxen,  so  that  four  geburs  could  have 
a  plow  among  them,  and  employ  it 
in  cultivating  the  land  which  they 
held  in  severally. 

The  fact  that  the  land  was  thus 
cultivated  in  common  by  no  means 
proves  that  it  was  owned  in  common. 
I  can  therefore  see,  in  the  circum- 
stance of  a  common  cultivation,  no  suf- 
ficient reason  for  holding  that  these  in- 
termixed fields  were  not,  in  numerous 
instances,  the  holdings  of  villeins 
which,  in  process  of  time,  were  con- 
verted into  copyholds. 

The  second  fact,  that  these  inter- 
mixed fields  were  subject  to  a  com- 
mon right  of  pasture,  after  the  crop 
had  been  removed,  appears  to  be 
equally  insufficient  for  the  purpose  of 
establishing  Mr.  Nasse's  conclusion. 
Depasturing  of  cattle  and  sheep,  upon 
small  portions  of  uninclosed  land, 
held  by  several  occupiers,  must  be  en- 
joyed, if  at  all,  by  them  in  common 


260 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OP  SCIENCE. 


and  the  exigencies  of  cultivation  by  a 
common  plow  forbade  inclosures. 
It  was  for  the  general  benefit  that  the 
stubble  and  oiher  pasturage  should 
not  be  wasted ;  and  the  fact  of  a  com- 
mon enjoyment  by  no  means  proves 
that  the  land  itself  was  common  prop- 
erty. 


VI. 


MR.    SEEBOHM. 


THE  preceding  chapters,  as  well  as 
nearly  all  the  subsequent  parts  of  this 
book,  were  written  before  Mr.  See- 
bohnvs  work  on  Village  Communities 
and  the  English  Manor  appeared,  and 
I  congratulate  myself  on  the  fact,  that 
the  opinions  I  have  expressed  in  the 
foregoing  chapters  are  verified  by  Mr. 
Seebohm's  accurate  and  laborious 
researches.  He  has,  besides,  thrown 
much  new  light  on  the  economy  of  the 
English  Manor  in  the  centuries  suc- 
ceeding the  Conquest. 

He  has  traced  with  minute  and  ex- 
tended inquiry  the  mode  in  which  the 
arable  land  of  England  was  then  culti- 
vated— shown  that  the  villeins  plowed 
the  land  in  parallel  strips  a  furlong  in 
length,  with  a  space  or  balk  between 
adjacent    strips — that    the  strips  be- 
longing to  one  villein,  and  forming 
with  their  appurtenances  his  virgate 
or  yard,  of  land,  were  scattered  over 
the  open  fields, — that  they  were  helc 
not  in  common  but   separately,  were 
indivisible,  and  descended  from  father 
to  son  by  a  species  of  customary  en 
tail. 

I  do  not   find,  however,  that    Mr 


the  question,  why  the  lanci  was  culti 
vated  in  these  strips.  The  practice  . 
can  scarcely  have  arisen  through  any 
requirement  of  tenure.  The  strips 
generally  contained  half  an  acre. 
Why  was  not  the  virgate  of  the  peas- 
ant divided  into  allotments,  say  ol 
ten  acres  each,  situate  in  each  of  the 
three  great  fields,  supposing  the  land 
to  be  cultivated  on  the  three  field 
system  ? 

I  venture  to  suggest  that  the  an- 
swer may  be  found  in  a  custom,  traces 
of  which  may  still  be  observed  in 
Cambridgeshire,  and  which  prevailed, 
I  believe,  in  other  parts  of  the  coun- 
try. 

The  land,  by  skillful  management 
f  the  plow,  was  thrown  into  ridges 
rising  gradually  from  the  sides  to  the 
middle,  and  having  deep  furrows  be- 
ween  the  ridges.     The  traces  of  these 
ridges  are  still  called  "  high  backs." 

Now  the  land  was  brought  into  this 
form,  as  it  is  supposed  on  very  probable 
grounds,  with  a  view  to  drainage,  at  a 
period  when  tile  drainage  did  not  ex- 
ist. Such  distance  as  might  be  found 
by  experience  most  suitable  for  this 
purpose  would,  of  course,  be  left  be- 
tween the  deep  furrows. 

The  term  acre  was  probably  applied 
to  as  much  land  as  the  Saxon  team  of 


eight  oxen  could  plow  in  a  day,  and 
this  was  found  to  be  two  high  backs 
of  a  furlong  in  length.  This  block  of 
land,  therefore,  became  the  normal 
acre.  The  width  of  the  one  strip,  in- 
cluding the  furrow  was  about  eleven 
yards,  of  the  two,  twenty-two  yards, 
one-tenth  of  a  furlong. 

Mr.  Eyton  has  pointed  out  that  the 
acre  was  a  lineal,  as  well  as  a  super- 
ficial measure,  and  equal  to  four  poles 


Seebohm   has   attempted    to   answer  I  or  twenty-two   yards,  the  width  of  an 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND  IN  ENGLAND. 


261 


acre  when  its  sides  were,  according  to 
usual  custom,  a  furlong  in  length. 

This  remark  may  throw  some  fur- 
ther light  on  Edward  the  Confessor's 
dream,  of  which  Mr.  Seebohm  has 
given  an  interesting  account  and  ex- 
planation. 

The  division  of  the  land  into  strips 
would  also,  no  doubt,  be  convenient 
in  determining  the  amount  of  labor 
due  from  each  ox. 


THE      FIRST 


VII. 

TAXATION      OF 
THE     HIDE. 


LAND. — 


I  HAVE  already  mentioned  that  the 


companiment  of  the  arable  land  or 
terra  registered  in  Domesday.  There 
was  also,  in  many  cases,  pannage,  or 
feeding  for  the  swine  in  the  oak  woods  : 
the  pastures  and  pannage  by  no  means 
necessarily  adjoining  the  arable. 

The  extent  of  the  hide  probably  va- 
ried, in  some  degree,  from  one  part  of 
the  country  to  another.  Mr.  Eyton, 
after  a  very  careful  examination,  esti- 
mates the  average  hide  in  the  count} 
of  Dorset  at  240  acres.  Now  the  vir- 
gate,  or  yard  land,  contained  on  an 
average  about  twenty-four  acres,  and 
was  estimated,  as  I  have  mentioned, 
to  be  as  much  land  as  two  oxen  could 
plow  in  a  year.  The  eight  oxen  of 
the  Saxon  plow  would  therefore  suf- 
fice for  about  ninetv-six  acres.  We 


hide  of  land  appears  to  have  been  the   may  suppose,  then,  that  the  hide  was 


quantity  held  sufficient  to  support  a 
freeman  and  his  family.  Familia  in 
Bede  is  rendered  Hida*  An  estate 
consisting  of  a  hide  must  have  com- 
prised a  residence  for  the  owner  and 
the  buildings  required  for  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  land.  It  is  also  clear,  from 
numerous  authorities,  that  a  hide  con- 
tained as  much  arable  as  a  plow  could 
conveniently  cultivate  in  a  year,  the 
Saxons  being  familiar  with  the  greatest 
of  all  the  inventions  which  have  been 
made  in  agriculture,  the  application  of 


originally  divided,  not  very  unequally, 
into  arable  and  pasture,  the  latter  tend- 
ing to  predominate.  If  an  estate  con- 
sisted of  many  hides,  the  same  propor- 
tion of  arable  to  pasture  was  probably 
preserved. 

We  may  describe  the  original  hide 
as  an  allotment  containing  arable  for 
one  plow,  with  the  appropriate  quan- 
tity of  pasture  and  meadow. 

The  first  taxation  of  land  in  Eng- 
land took  place  under  Ethelred  about 
the  year  994,  and  the  land  was  as- 


animal  labor  to  the   tillage  of  the  soil,  j  sessed  by  the  hide      The  reason  for 
The  hide  contained  also  a  small  quan-  adopting  this  system  is  obvious.     The 


tity  of  meadow,  to  provide  hay  for  the 
oxen  of  the  plow,  and  it  comprised 
sufficient  pasture  for  the  cattle  and 


assessors  could  readily  ascertain  how 
many  plows  were  employed  in  culti- 
vating each  estate,  and  they  appear  to 


sheep,  which  seem  always  to  have  \  have  usuai:y  assessed  it  accordingly, 
formed  an  important  adjunct  in  Eng-  j  It  would  be  unnecessary  in  most  in- 
lish  husbandry.  Pastura  ad peamiam  \  stances  to  take  the  pasture  into  ac- 
vilto— pasture  for  the  animals  of  the  count)  because  its  value  might  be  as- 
villa  or  manor— is  the  unfailing  ac-  sumed  to  be  much  less  than  that  of 

the   plow   land,  besides   being  gener- 

*  Bed.  ffist.  Ecc.  3,  24;  4,  13,  16.  19.          ally  proportionate  to  it  in  extent,     If 

11 


262 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


the  estate  did  not  contain  an  exact 
number  of  hides,  the  fractions  were  es- 
timated in  virgates  and  in  acres ;  the 
virgate,  no  doubt,  like  the  hide,  com- 
prising, not  merely  the  arable,  but  the 
appurtenant  right  of  pasture  also. 
There  were,  as  I  have  mentioned,  four 
virgates  of  arable  to  the  plow  land, 
each  virgate  contributing  two  oxen  to 
the  plow.  So  there  were  to  the  hide 
four  complete  virgates,  comprising 
arable  land  and  rights  of  pasture. 
It  is  mentioned  in  the  Rectitudines  that 
the  gebur  was  provided  with  six  sheep 
and  a  cow  as  well  as  two  oxen. 

It  was  usual  for  the  owner  of   land 


under    the   plow  at    the 
original     valuation    had 


date  of  the 
been    subse- 


quently increased  ;  and  the  remark  is 
sometimes  added  that  one  or  two  more 
carucates  could  be  made. 

After  a  hide  had  been  taken  as  the 
unit  of  taxation,  it  came  to  signify,  a 
property  which  was  rated  at  the  value 
of  an  average  hide  ;  and,  accordingly, 
as  Mr.  Eyton  has  shown,  the  assess- 
ment, in  many  instances,  was  not 
based  entirely  on  the  extent  of  the  land 
assessed,  but  that  advantages  or  disad- 
vantages of  situation  were  also  taken 
into  account.  A  hide  at  the  date  of 
the  Domesday  survey  meant,  therefore, 
land  assessed  at  the  value  of  an  aver- 
age plow-land  with  its  appurtenances 
of  pasture,  etc. 


to  hold  a  portion — generally  about 
one-half — in  hand,  or  in  dominio,  the 
remainder  being  occupied  by  the  vil- 
leins, and  cottagers  with  gardens  and 
orchards.  As  a  villein  generally  oc- 
cupied a  yard  of  land,  we  may  conclude 
that  there  would  be  regularly  two  vil- 
leins to  each  hide  of  land.  In  such  a 
case,  each  villein  would  contribute 
his  two  oxen  to  the  plow,  while  the 
owner  would  provide  the  remaining 
four. 

Some  confusion  has  arisen  from  the 
hide  being  occasionally  spoken  of  as 
equivalent  to  the  plow-land — a  mode 
of  expression  which  was,  I  have  no 
doubt,  adopted,  in  consequence  of  the 
plow-land  being  the  more  valuable 
part  of  the  hide,  and  the  rest  of  the 
hide  being  regarded  merely  as  an  ac- 
cessory to  the  plow-land  or  carucata. 

Domes  day  gives  the  number  of  hides 
at  which  each  property  was  assessed 
at  the  death  of  King  Edward  the  Con- 
fessor, and  at  the  date  of  the  survey. 
It  gives  also  the  number  of  carucates 
or  plow-lands,  and  these  often  exceed 

in  number  the  number  of   hides.      It 

*  Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes  of  England, 

would  appear  that  the  extent  of  land  |  edited  by  Thorpe,  vol.  i.  pp.  412,  420, 

18 


VIII. 


SAXON  LAW  OF  SUCCESSION  TO  LAND. 

THERE  is  not,  as  far  as  I  am  aware, 
any  distinct  authority  respecting  the 
law  of  succession  to  land  of  free  ten- 
ure among  the  Anglo-Saxons,  in  case 
of  intestacy. 

It  has  been  conjectured  that  the 
custom  of  Gavelkind,  which  still  sub- 
sists in  a  large  part  of  Kent,  was  once 
general  throughout  the  kingdom. 

The  yist  and  ygth  laws  of  Cnut* 
are  sometimes  quoted  in  support  of 
this  opinion.  Now  the  yist  law 
merely  directs  that  the  "aeht"  shall 
be  divided.  This  word  signifies  cattle 
and  swine.  That  it  does  not  include 
land  appears  from  the  y8th  law,  which 
provides  that  he  who  flees  from  the 
enemy  shall  forfeit  land  and  aehtan. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND  IN  ENGLAND. 


263 


It  is  true  that  the  ygth  law  directs 
that,  "if  a  man  fall  before  his  lord," 
then  the  heirs  shall  "  shift "  to  the 
land  and  aehtan ,  but  the  loose  and 
general  terms  in  which  the  law  is  ex- 
pressed would  be  satisfied,  by  holding 
that  the  aeht  are  to  be  divided  among 
the  heirs  of  the  movables,  the  next  of 
kin,  the  land  passing  to  the  heir  of  the 
land,  whoever  he  or  they  might  be. 

Neither  is  the  theory,  that  equal  suc- 
cession among  sons  was  the  general 
rule,  easily  reconcilable  with  the  fact 
that,  in  many  towns  and  manors,  the 
youngest  son  succeeded  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  his  brothers.  This  custom 
still  exists  in  a  country  inhabited  by 
Saxons,  in  the  northern  part  of  Ger- 
many, Westphalia.  I  have  before  me 
a  project  of  a  law  for  regulating  this 
course  of  descent.  The  custom  was 
besides  emphatically  termed  Borough 
English,  showing  that  it  must  have  ex- 
isted in  England  before  the  Norman 
Conquest. 

Again,  on  the  vast  manor  of  West 
Derby,  the  country  between  the  Rib- 
ble  and  the  Mersey  (comprising  many 
small  manors)  which  belonged  to  Ed- 
ward the  Confessor,  there  were  many 
free  tenants,  and  the  customs  ac- 
cording to  which  they  held  their  lands 
are  recorded  in  Domesday.  It  is  said, 
"  Si  quis  terram  patris  mortui  habere 
volebat  XL.  solidos  relevabat :  qui 
nolebat  et  terram  et  omnem  pecuniam 
patris  mortui  rex  habebat,"  Domesday, 
vol.  ii.,  269  b. — "  If  any  one  wished 
to  have  the  land  of  his  deceased  father 
he  paid  40^.  relief,"  but  there  is  no 
mention  of  more  than  one  son  suc- 
ceeding. The  holdings  were  appar- 
ently indivisible. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the 
manor,  both  of  the  Norman  and  Saxon 


days,  was  not  simply  a  house  where 
the  landowner  resided,  or  might  reside, 
but  a  homestead  as  well,  with  the 
buildings  necessary  for  storing  agri- 
cultural produce. 

The  same  remark  will  apply  to  the 
^wner  of  a  single  hide  of  some  240 
acres. 

The  villein  also  must  have  had  ac- 
commodation for  his  two  beasts  of  the 
plow  and  provisions  during  the  winter, 
as  well  as  a  house  or  cottage  for  res- 
idence. 

Each  of  these  holdings,  the  manor, 
the  hide,  and  the  virgate,  was  an  ag- 
ricultural unit,  which  could  not  be  ac- 
tually divided  without  considerable 
difficulty. 

At  the  present  day,  the  owner  of  an 
estate  will  not  readily  divide  a  farm 
of  ordinary  extent,  as  he  will  hesitate, 
even  if  it  be  too  large  for  a  single 
tenant,  in  view  of  the  expense  which 
must  be  incurred  in  providing  another 
farm-house  and  other  farm-buildings. 
Now  the  ancient  manor  could  not  be 
divided  without  even  greater  difficulty 
than  a  modern  farm,  and  the  succession 
of  several  children,  however  equitable, 
would  in  numerous  instances  be  highly 
inconvenient.  The  difficulty  of  act- 
ually dividing  the  land,  might,  it  is 
true,  be  avoided  by  a  sale  and  di 
vision  of  the  proceeds:  but  in  the 
times  we  are  considering,  few  persons 
would  have  saved  money  enough  to 
purchase  any  considerable  property. 
In  the  absence  of  any  other  plausibk 
theory  to  account  for  the  prevalenc* 
in  Kent  of  the  custom  which  gave  th> 
land  to  all  the  sons  equally,  perhaps 
may  be  permitted  to  conjecture  tha 
it  may  have  proceeded  from  the  supe- 
rior wealth  of  this  county,  produced 
by  the  stream  of  foreign  commerce 


13 


264 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


which  passed  through  it — from  pur- 
chasers of  land  being  readily  found, 
and  actual  division  therefore  generally 
unnecessary. 

I  am  disposed  to  think,  therefore, 
that  in  Saxon  times,  actual  division 
was  the  exception  rather  than  the 
rule — that  if  there  were  sons,  one 
would  generally  succeed  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  the  others ;  the  choice  of 
the  successor  depending,  partly  on 
fitness  to  perform  the  duties  attached 
to  the  land,  partly  on  the  will  of  the 
superior  lord :  and  this  opinion  is,  I 
think,  confirmed,  by  the  most  ancient 
exposition  of  the  English  law  of  suc- 
cession which  we  possess,  and  which 
is  found  in  the  treatise  of  Glanville ; 
since  from  his  statement  it  appears, 
that  the  rule  of  descent  of  non-military 
lands  was,  in  his  time,  dependent  on 
ancient  custom.* 


IX. 

EFFECT  OF  THE  NORMAN  CONQUEST  ON 
THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND. 

THE  statements  contained  in  Domes- 
day Book  do  not,  I  think,  lead  us  to 
believe,  that  the  Norman  Conquest 
occasioned  any  very  material  effect  on 
the  magnitude  of  landed  estates  in 
England.  The  grants  made  to  the 
immediate  vassals  of  the  Crown  were, 
it  is  true,  in  many  instances  very  ex- 
tensive, but  probably  did  not  comprise 
more  manors  than  were  held  by  the 
Earls  or  Ealdormen  and  other  great 
landowners  previously  to  the  battle  o\ 
Hastings.  Mr.  Furley  in  his  interest- 
ing and  learned  work  on  the  Weald  of 


Glanville,  vii.  3. 


Kent,  vol.  i.,  p.  233,  points  out  that  be- 
fore the  Conquest,  there  were  in  that 
ounty  eleven  immediate  tenants  of 
the  Crown,  and  after  the  Conquest 
there  remained  the  same  number,  not 
withstanding  the  substitution  of  Nor- 
mans for  Saxons  in  the  lay  fees. 

But  whether  the  Norman  tenants 
in  capitc  held  greater  possessions  than 
the  Saxon  magnates  or  not,  there  can 
be  little  doubt  that  the  burdens  im- 
posed on  the  great  estates  were  in- 
creased after  the  Conquest. 

To  insure  the  safety  of  the  kingdom, 
for  which  such  scant  and  unsystemat- 
ic provision  was  made  by  the  weak 
Saxon  executive,  castles  were  erected 
at  important  strategical  points,  such  as 
Rochester,  Tonbridge,  Reigate,  Bram- 
ber,  Clare,  etc.,  as  well  as  on  the  bor- 
ders toward  Scotland  and  Wales ;  cas- 
tles which  became  the  residences  and 
were  probably  built  at  the  expense  of 
the  great  feudal  tenants,  aided  by 
forced  labor;  and  were  garrisoned 
by  their  retainers. 

Not  only  was  the  defense  of  the  king- 
dom strengthened,  and  its  possession 
assured,  by  the  erection  of  fortresses, 
but  the  grants  made  by  the  Crown 
were  burdened  by  an  obligation  on  the 
grantee  to  furnish,  when  called  up- 
on, a  certain  number  of  knights — 
that  is,  of  armed  horsemen,  with  suf- 
ficient attendants  and  provisions  for 
forty  days,  during  which  they  were 
bound  to  serve.  According  to  the 
number  of  knights  for  whose  service 
the  grant  was  made,  it  was  said  to  con. 
sist  of  so  many  knights'  fees,  and  to  be 
held  by  knight-service. 

Those  who  received  grants  compris- 
ing many  manors,  retained  some  of 
the  principal  in  their  own  hands, 
while  the  rest  were  granted  by  them 


14 


DISTRIBUTION   Oi:  LAND  IN  ENGLAND. 


265 


to  their  followers,  or  remained  in  pos-  cient  compensation,  through  their  cor- 
session  of  the  Saxon  owners.     These   responding  rights   against   those  who 


grants  also  were  generally  subject  to 
the  services  of  knights,  proportionate  in 
number  to  the  magnitude  of  the  grant. 
Some  manors  were  estimated  at  sev- 
eral knights'  fees,  some  at  one  knight's 
fee,  and  some  at  a  portion  of  a  fee. 
The  Saxon  proprietor  who  retained 
his  land  would  probably  not  raise 
objections  to  the  change  of  tenure  as 
regarded  military  service,  the  princi- 
pal difference  between  new  and  old  be- 
ing that  he  now  held  his  property  on 
condition  of  yielding  such  service  to  a 
subject,  instead  of  directly  to  the  state 
as  formerly. 

The  burdens  on  landed  property  in- 
dependent of  military  service  were 
also  increased.  If  the  land  descended 
to  an  infant  heir,  the  lord  was  entitled 
to  the  profits  during  the  minority  of 
his  tenant,  while  providing  for  his 
maintenance  and  education,  and  sub- 
ject to  the  right  of  the  widow  to  one- 
third  of  the  land  for  her  life.  And 
the  lord  was  also  held  entitled  to  dis- 
pose of  the  hand  of  his  ward,  whether 
male  or  female,  in  marriage,  and  to  re- 
ceive any  amount  which  the  relations 
of  the  other  party  to  the  match  were 
willing  to  pay,  in  order  to  secure  it. 
If  the  ward  married  without  the  lord's 
consent,  the  lord  might  obtain,  out  of 
the  ward's  property,  the  value  of  the 
marriage — the  amount  which  it  was  es- 
timated might  have  been  secured  by 
the  lord  as  the  price  of  his  consent. 

It  seems  probable,  that  these  fruits 
of  the  feudal  tenure  were  grasped  with 
a  strict  and  vigorous  hand  from 
the  greater  vassals  alone.  At  least 
the  great  vassals  do  not  appear  to  have 
considered,  that  the  burdens  to  which 
they  were  subjected,  received  suffi- 


held  of  themselves  by  military  service. 
The  establishment  of  the  Court  of 
Wards  and  Liveries,  at  the  Reforma- 
tion, must  have  rendered  the  collec- 
tion of  the  feudal  dues  of  the  Crown, 
from  the  tenants  in  capite,  more  certain 
and  rigorous  than  before. 

We  may  therefore,  I  think,  conclude 
that  the  feudal  system,  as  it  existed 
in  England,  did  not  favor  the  growth 
of  the  great  estates,  although  the  ef- 
fect of  the  heavy  burdens  to  which  they 
were  regularly  subject,  may  have  been, 
in  some  cases,  compensated  through 
the  escheats  and  forfeitures  by  which 
they  were  occasionally  augmented. 

In  some  of  the  larger  manors, 
there  were  probably  tenants  who 
held  of  the  lord  by  military  service — 
ut  this  second  sub-infeudation  was, 
think,  rare.  The  socmen,  though,  it 
may  be,  reduced  in  numbers,  remained 
as  tenants  of  the  manor ;  they  were, 
of  course,  still  free,  and  still  held  by 
some  certain  service  or  payments  in 
money  or  kind,  and  by  the  obligation 
or  service  of  attending  the  manor 
court,  at  stated  intervals.  These  courts 
do  not  seem  to  have  been  materially 
nterfered  with  at  the  Conquest.  The 
Dossession  of  such  a  court  continued 
to  be  held  in  estimation,  as  affording 
an  accession  of  dignity,  as  well  as  a 
source  of  profit.  And  an  estate,  on 
which  a  court  could  not  be  held, 
either  through  want  of  free  tenants, 
or  absence  of  prescriptive  right,  was 
not  considered  worthy  to  be  dignified 
with  the  name  of  Manor.  In  order 
that  an  estate  might  be  entitled  to  the 
appellation,  it  must  have  "  sac  and 
soc,"  words  which  clearly  indicate  the 
Saxon  origin  of  the  jurisdiction.  The 


15 


266 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


court,  however,  obtained  a  Norman 
name — that  of  Court  Baron — the  court 
of  the  lord's  men  or  free  tenants. 

I  am  not  aware  of  any  reason  for 
supposing  that  the  condition  of  the 
peasant  class,  the  actual  tillers  of  the 
soil,  was  affected  in  any  sensible  de- 
gree, by  the  introduction  of  feudal- 
ism. That  system  moved  above  their 
heads.  To  intrust  serfs  with  arms 
was  no  more  a  part  of  the  Norman, 
than  of  the  Saxon  constitution. 

Among  the  current  errors  of  politi- 
cal writers  and  speakers  respecting 
the  ancient  tenures  of  land,  there  is 
none  more  common  than  to  represent 
serfage  as  a  feudal  institution ;  al- 
though serfage  has  notoriously  existed 
in  Russia,  Egypt,  and  other  countries 


where    feudalism    was 
lished ;   and   although, 


never   estab- 
in    countries 


which  became  feudal,  the  introduc- 
tion of  feudalism  had  been  preceded 
for  centuries  by  the  custom  of  serfage. 
Serfage  was,  in  fact,  a  purely  agricult- 
ural, and  feudalism  a  purely  military 
institution. 


X. 


NORMAN  LAW  OF  SUCCESSION. 


WHATEVER  may  have  been  the  gen- 
eral law  of  the  country  on  the  subject 
of  succession  to  land  in  Saxon  times, 
the  rule  that  the  eldest  son  should 
succeed  to  land  held  by  military  ser- 
vice, had  speedily  been  settled  after 
the  Norman  Conquest. 

During  at  least  the  first  century 
after  the  Conquest,  feudalism  in  Eng- 
land was  a  reality.  The  vassal  followed 
his  lord  in  war.  The  relation  between 
the  two  was  so  intimate,  that  it  could 


not  be  dissolved  without  the  consent 
of  both.  It  originated  in  the  act  of 
homage,  constituting  a  contract,  by 
which  the  one  expressly  became  the 
man  of  the  other,  of  "life  and  limb 
and  worldly  honor  ;"  and  which  carried 
with  it  an  implied  obligation,  on  the 
part  of  the  lord,  to  protect  his  man. 
Hence  the  vassal  could  not  alienate 
the  land,  which  was  the  reward  and 


retainer     for 
and  enabled 


his  personal    services, 
him   to   perform   them, 


16 


without  his  lord's  approval. 

The  vassal  might,  however,  make  a 
sub-infeudation  of  part,  at  least,  of  his 
land,  and  the  sub-vassal  did  not  be- 
come the  vassal  of  the  superior  lord  ; 
he  did  homage  not  to  the  superior 
lord,  but  to  the  vassal,  by  whom  the 
land  was  granted  to  him.  It  was  a 
maxim  of  feudal  law,  "  vassallus  met 
vassalli  non  est  meus  vassallus.'" 

As  the  vassal  could  not  transfer  his 
land  to  another,  without  his  lord's 
consent,  so  neither  could  the  lord 
transfer  his  vassal's  services  to  another, 
without  the  consent  of  the  vassal. 

It  is  not  surprising  that,  when  the 
relation  between  lord  and  vassal  was 
thus  strictly  regulated,  the  right  of 
giving  lands  by  will,  which  was  cer- 
tainly permitted,  as  regards  some 
freehold  lands,  by  Saxon  law,  should 
have  been  lost  with  respect  to  land 
held  by  knight  service.  The  vassal 
could  not  be  permitted  to  replace  his 
own  services  by  those  of  a  stranger 
who  might,  possibly,  be  a  personal 
enemy  of  the  lord  ;  and  the  reciprocal 
attachment  of  lord  and  vassal  would 
also  tend  to  give  the  descendants  of 
the  vassal  an  incontestable  title  to 
succession. 

These  considerations  do  not  en- 
tirely explain  the  fact  that,  if  the  vas- 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND  IN  ENGLAND. 


sal  left  several  sons,  he  was  succeeded 
by  the  eldest  alone. 

That  primogeniture  was  not  a  nec- 
essary consequence  of  feudalism,  we 
find  from  one  of  the  earliest  treatises 
on  feudal  law,  the  first  of  the  Libri 
feudorum  (Titles  I.  and  VIII.)  gener. 
ally  annexed  to  the  Corpus  Juris  Ctv- 
ilis,  which  expressly  provides  that,  on 
the  death  of  a  vassal,  the  feud  shall 
be  divided  equally  among  his  sons. 

With  regard  to  the  origin  of  pri- 
mogeniture in  England,  it  should  not 
be  forgotten  that,  as  England  received 
the  feudal  institutions  from  the  Nor- 
mans, so  the  Normans  had  previously 
adopted  them  in  imitation  of  the 
French ;  who  had  established  feu- 
dalism, throughout  the  greater  part  of 
France,  in  the  latter  half  of  the  ninth 
century,  not  long  before  the  perma- 
nent settlement  of  Normandy  under 
Rollo.  Now  in  France  primogeniture 
has  prevailed  in  the  succession  of 
feudal  grants,  and  it  is  probable  there- 
tore,  that  in  the  history  of  that  country 
there  are  to  be  found  the  main  causes 
from  which  the  custom  proceeded,  and 
it  appears  to  have  been  adopted  with 
other  feudal  institutions  by  the  Nor- 
mans from  the  French,  and  by  the 
English  after  the  Norman  invasion, 
as  a  part  of  the  body  of  laws  which 
they  accepted  almost  in  its  entirety.* 
In  like  manner,  at  rather  a  later 
period,  Scotland  voluntarily  embraced 
feudalism  in  imitation  of  England,  and 
also  established  the  rule  of  primogeni- 
ture, and  with  slight  modifications,  the 

*  We  find  that  according  to  the  Etablisse- 
ments  de  FEchiquier  de  Normandie  (Paris, 
l$39)>  P-  9i  the  eldest  son  succeeded  to  the 
"  fief  of  the  hauberk  "  to  the  exclusion  of  his 
brothers — but  the  date  of  this  rule  is  uncer- 
tain. 


other  English  rules  of  succession  to 
land. 

The  inconveniences  always  attend- 
ing an  actual  division  of  the  land 
would  be  enhanced,  when  it  was  held 
as  a  retainer  for  military  services,  be- 
cause the  services  also  would  have  to 
be  apportioned ;  and  we  may  conject- 
ure that  these  difficulties  assisted  in 
establishing  the  custom,  which  gave  to 
one  son  the  land  of  his  father;  and 
although  the  eldest  might  be  by  no 
means  the  fittest  to  fulfil  the  duties  of 
a  vassal,  yet  the  advantage  of  having 
a  fixed  rule,  the  probability  that  when 
the  father  died  in  youth  or  middle  age, 
the  eldest  son  would  be  most  capable 
of  bearing  arms,  and  the  prestige 
which  has  always  attended  primogen- 
iture seem  to  have  been  sufficient  to 
recommend  that  rule  in  England,  as 
in  Normandy  and  in  France,  which 
favored  the  eldest  son,  with  respect  to 
land  held  by  knight  service. 

Two  centuries  after  the  Conquest 
we  find  the  law  of  primogeniture  ap- 
plied to  freehold  lands,  as  well  those 
held  by  socage  as  by  military  tenure, 
with  scarcely  any  exception  beyond 
the  bounds  of  Kent,  and  certain  bor- 
oughs, in  which  equal  division  and 
succession  of  the  youngest  prevailed 
respectively.  The  latter  tenure  also 
remained,  as  regarded  the  lands  of 
villeins,  in  many  manors,  particularly 
in  those  of  Sussex.  Although,  how- 
ever, the  actual  division  of  land  and 
services  must  have  always  been  at- 
tended with  difficulty,  especially  in 
early  times,  this  inconvenience  did 
not  prevent,  in  England,  the  succes- 
sion of  daughters  equally.  The  suc- 
cession of  females  probably  formed 
no  part  of  the  most  ancient  form  of 
feudalism,  but  was  introduced  when 


17 


268 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


the  fee  was  ceasing  to  be  a  retainer, 
and  becoming  simply  the  property  of 
the  vassal,  subject  to  certain  financial 
rights  of  his  lord ;  while  at  this  time, 
the  death  of  a  vassal  leaving  male  is- 
sue being  an  event  much  more  usual, 
than  the  death  of  a  vassal  leaving 
only  several  daughters,  the  succession 
of  the  eldest  son  had  been  too  firmly 
established,  by  custom,  to  be  altered 
by  considerations  of  equity,  when  the 
rule  with  regard  to  daughters  was 
settled. 

It  appears,  I  think,  from  these  con- 
siderations, that  the  introduction  of 
the  feudal  system  must  have  had  a 
tendency  to  preserve  large  estates, 
by  discouraging  alienation  inter  vivos, 
forbidding  alienation  by  will,  and,  in 
some  instances,  giving  to  one  son 
lands  which,  by  custom,  might  have 
been  divisible  among  several. 

Much  interesting  information  on 
the  subject  of  primogeniture  may  be 
found  in  two  essays  by  C.  S.  Kenny 
and  P.  M.  Laurence,  Cambridge,  1878, 
which  divided  the  Yorke  prize. 


XL 

STRICT    ENTAILS — THE    STATUTE     "  DE 
DONIS   CONDITIONALIBUS." 

No  very  remarkable  change  was 
made  in  laws  directly  affecting  land 
in  England,  during  the  two  centuries 
immediately  succeeding  the  Norman 
Conquest.  Magna  Carta  defined  and 
regulated,  without  materially  altering, 
the  feudal  tenure,  and  promised  to 
freeman,  without  distinction,  the  pro- 
tection of  the  law  against  arbitrary 
proceedings  by  the  Crown.  Nor 
were  the  villeins  passed  over  with 


complete  neglect ,  a  clause,  the  aoth 
chapter  of  John's  charter,  provided 
that  if  the  villein  were  amerced,  his 
wainage  should  be  saved.  The  Pro- 
visions of  Merton,  twenty  years  later 
than  Magna  Carta,  empowered  the 
owners  of  manors  to  appropriate  a 
portion  of  their  waste  lands,  provided 
that  enough  pasture  was  left  for  the 
use  of  their  freehold  tenants,  but  the 
statute  is  silent  respecting  the  villeins, 
though  now  rising  into  copyholders. 

Great  changes  however,  were  in 
course  of  preparation.  During  the 
long  reign  of  Henry  III.  the  country, 
on  the  whole,  was  prosperous,  and 
increased  in  wealth.  Notwithstand- 
ing the  loud  complaints  respecting 
the  exactions  of  Rome,  stately  cathe- 
drals of  exquisite  beauty  arose 
throughout  England  ,  and,  in  her  so- 
cial condition,  a  new  order  of  men 
was  in  course  of  formation,  destined 
to  become  a  power  in  the  state. 
Since  the  seat  of  the  great  court  for 
determining  private  suits,  Common 
Pleas  had  been  rendered  stationary 
by  Magna  Carta,  and  had  been  estab- 
lished in  the  hall  of  the  Palace  at 
Westminster,  many  practitioners  in 
that  court  had  become  learned  in  the 
customs  of  the  realm,  and,  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  acquainted  with  the  laws 
of  Rome.  The  servientes  ad  legem 
began  to  rival  in  credit  the  servientes 
ad  arma.  The  tendency  to  place 
greater  reliance  upon  law,  and  to  fa- 
vor those  who  were  engaged  in  ad- 
ministering it,  became  manifest  in 
England,  and,  we  ma}'  add,  about  the 
same  time,  in  France  also. 

It  was  in  the  year  1285,  the  i3th  of 
Edward  I.  that  the  famous  statute  De 
Donis  Conditionalibus,  which  gave  to 
all  owners  of  freehold  land  in  Eng- 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND  IN  ENGLAND. 


269 


land,  the  power  of  strictly  entailing ' 
it,  was  passed.  It  was  by  no  means 
a  solitary  enactment  like  Magna 
Carta,  or  the  Provisions  of  Merton, 
but  formed  part  of  the  great  body  of 
remedial  laws  passed  in  the  reign  of 
Edward  I.  which  obtained  for  himself 
the  not  wholly  inappropriate  designa- 
tion of  the  English  Justinian.  No 
one,  I  think,  can  peruse  this  body  of 
legislation,  without  being  convinced 
that  it  was  the  work  of  men  well 
versed  in  the  laws  as  they  then  ex- 
isted : — not  the  result  of  a  sudden  ef- 
fort, but  of  continuous  labor  and  ma- 
ture deliberation,  and  that  these  laws 
had  for  their  authors  the  learned  ser- 
geants of  Westminster  Hall. 

There  is  a  class  of  writers  on  law, 
especially  on  laws  relating  to  land, 
who  attribute  various  legislative  acts 
to  profound  political  designs,  now  of 
the  nobles,  now  of  the  sovereign  ,  and 
accordingly  allege  that  the  statute 
De  Donis  was  the  work  of  the  nobility, 
intent  on  increasing  the  power  of 
their  order.  But  even  without  recall- 
ing the  just  maxim  of  Napoleon,  that  i 
in  politics  the  present  alone  is  re-1 
garded,  the  notion  that  the  law  of  en- 
tail was  framed  by  the  peers,  with 
such  a  political  purpose  as  I  have 
mentioned,  is  singularly  wanting  in 
orobability.  The  barons  had  not 
only  been  discredited,  by  the  failure 
of  their  attempt  to  govern  the  coun- 
try, by  means  of  a  ministry  or  com- 
nittee  selected  by  themselves  from 
their  own  order,  but  their  power  had 
been  crushed,  for  the  time,  by  Prince 
Edward  at  Evesham,  where  their 
great  military  and  political  leader  Si- 
mon de  Montfort  was  slain.  On  the 
demise  of  Henry  III.  seven  years 


afterward  Prince  Edward,  a  cautious 
man,  felt  his  power  so  assured,  that 
he  did  not  hasten  to  England  in  or- 
der to  take  possession  of  the  Crown, 
but  spent  two  years  in  Italy  and 
France,  on  his  homeward  journey 
from  the  Holy  Land.  After  his  re- 
turn, and  before  the  thirteenth  year 
of  his  reign,  when  the  statute  De 
Donis  was  passed,  he  had  subdued 
Llewellyn,  and  permanently  annexed 
North  Wales  to  the  English  Crown. 
Yet  it  was  by  this  monarch  and  at 
this  time  according  to  the  opinion  I 
have  mentioned,  that  the  statute  De 
Donis  was  passed  at  the  instance  of 
the  nobility,  in  order  to  depress  the 
power  of  the  Crown ,  and  we  are 
asked  to  believe  that  the  King,  a  man 
of  wide  experience  and  undoubted  sa- 
gacity, was  outwitted  or  overawed  by 
an  illiterate  and  disheartened  body  of 
barons. 

If  we  look  at  the  preamble  of  the 
statute,  and  the  preamble  of  a  statute 
is  generally  the  best  key  to  the  inten 
tion  of  its  authors,  we  shall  see  it 
stated  that  their  object  was  to  pre- 
vent what  must,  I  think,  be  admitted 
to  have  been  a  grievance. 

Suppose  that  a  man,  on  the  mar- 
riage of  his  daughter,  gave  a  portion 
of  his  land  to  her  husband  and  the 
heirs  of  his  body  by  the  wife.  Then 
if  the  wife  had  issue,  the  husband 
might  as  the  law  stood  before  the 
statute  was  passed,  alienate  the  land 
leaving  the  issue  unprovided  for. 

If  no  alienation  took  place,  the 
land  on  the  death  of  the  donee  would 
descend  to  the  issue  of  the  marriage 
like  an  ordinary  estate  in  fee  simple. 
But,  if  the  donee  died  without  leaving 
issue,  or  if,  after  his  decease,  his  is- 


19 


270 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


sue  failed,  and  the  land  had  not  been 
alienated,  the  donor  or  his  heir  would 
have  the  land  again. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  after  issue 
born  the  donee  alienated  the  land, 
he,  as  we  have  seen,  disinherited  his 
heirs,  and  also  deprived  the  donor  of 
his  chance  of  reversion.  This  as  the 
statute  says,  "to  the  giver  seemeth 
hard,"  and  it  therefore  enacted  that, 
for  the  future,  the  will  of  the  giver 
should  be  observed  according  to  the 
form  of  the  gift,  and  that  they,  to 
whom  the  land  was  given,  should 
have  no  power  to  alienate  it.  It 
seems  to  me  that  the  hardship  thus 
referred  to  in  the  preamble  of  the 
statute  De  Donis,  was  sufficiently  real 
to  account  for  its  enactment,  without 
attributing  any  deep  political  designs 
to  its  authors. 


XII. 

EFFECTS  OP  STRICT  ENTAILS. 

THE  evils  arising  from  strict  entails, 
vividly  depicted  by  modern  writers, 
appear  to  have  escaped  the  observa- 
tion of  contemporaries.  They  do  not 
allege  that  agriculture  retrograded,  or 
that  the  condition  of  the  rural  pop- 
ulation deteriorated,  under  the  opera- 
tion of  the  statute  De  Donis. 

It  was  during  the  period  in  which 
the  statute  was  in  full  force,  that,  in 
the  great  forest  of  the  Weald  (accord 
ing  to  Mr.  Furley,  the  historian  of  the 
Weald  of  Kent)  extensive  clearings 
were  made,  and  an  industrious  agri- 
cultural population  took  the  place  of 
the  herds  of  swine  which,  from  the 
most  remote  ages,  had  been  the  prin- 
cipal inhabitants. 


Serfdom  was  rapidly  disappearing 
before  the  advance  of  wealth  and 
prosperity.  The  laborers  began  to 
claim  freedom  as  a  right,  and  strove, 
not  always  without  success,  to  break 
the  antiquated  links,  which  still 
bound  some  of  their  number  to  the 
soil. 

With  reference  to  the  general  state 
of  England  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
during  the  whole  of  which  the  statute 
De  Donis  remained  in  almost  entirely 
unimpaired  force,  Lord  Macaulay 
says : — 

"  Every  yeoman  from  Kent  to 
Northumberland  valued  himself  as 
one  of  a  race  born  to  victory  and  do- 
minion, and  looked  down  with  scorn 
on  the  nation  before  which  his  ances- 
tors had  trembled.  .  .  .  France  had  no 
infantry  that  could  face  the  English 
bows  and  bills.  .  .  Nor  were  the  arts 
of  peace  neglected  by  our  fathers  dur 
ing  this  stirring  period.  While 
France  was  wasted  by  war,  until  she 
at  length  found  in  her  own  desolation 
a  miserable  defense  against  invaders, 
the  English  gathered  in  their  harvests, 
adorned  their  cities,  pleaded,  traded, 
and  studied  in  security." — Macaulay's 
History  oj  England,  i.  p.  18. 

The  effects  of  the  statute  De  Donis 
upon  the  distribution  of  land,  have,  I 
think,  been  greatly  exaggerated.  That 
very  large  estates  existed  in  England 
long  before  the  statute  was  passed 
has,  in  the  preceding  pages,  been 
abundantly  demonstrated.  Its  ef- 
fects in  preventing  division  have  been 
dwelt  upon,  while  its  operation  in 
checking  accumulation  has  been  al- 
most wholly  overlooked.  The  main 
causes  of  accumulation  in  ancient,  as 


20 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND  IN  ENGLAND. 


271 


In  modern  times  will  be  found  in  the 
marriage  of  heirs  with  heiresses,  and 
the  investment  in  land  of  fortunes 
amassed  by  commerce  :  the  mere 
landowner,  whether  his  estate  was  en- 
tailed or  not,  being  rarely  in  a  con- 
dition to  become  a  purchaser. 

Now  the  statute  in  many  instances 
opposed  an  effectual  bar  to  accumu- 
lation by  either  of  these  modes.     If 
land  on  being  entailed  were  given,  as 
it  often,  perhaps  generally,  was  given, 
to  a  man  and  the  heirs  male  of  his 
body,  it  could  not  pass,  so  long  as  a 
male  descendant  existed,  to  any  fe- 
male, and  so  long  therefore,  the  union 
by   marriage  of  such  an  estate  with 
another  also  entailed  on  male  issue  ] 
became,   while     such   issue  survived, ' 
impossible.     Just   as    two    kingdoms,  ; 
in  which  the  Salic  Law  prevails,  can  ; 
never   become    consolidated  by  mar-  i 
nage.     In  the  same  way  the  rich  cit-  j 
izen  of  London,  of  Hull,  or  Bristol,  | 
bent  upon   purchasing   land   enough 
for   the  founder  of   a  county  family, ! 
must  often  have  been  checked  in  the 
attempt,  by  coming  upon   some  Na- 1 
both's  vineyard1,   protected   from  an- 
nexation by  the  statute  De  Donis. 

For  the  origin  of  large  estate  we 
must  therefore,  as  has  already  been 
shown,  look  to  a  period  long  anterior 
to  this  statute. 

That  the  statute  did  produce  evils 
and  inconveniences  cannot  be  doubted, 
since,  otherwise,  the  judges  of  the 
Common  Pleas  would  not  have  sanc- 
tioned the  transparent  collusion,  by 
which  the  heir  in  tail  was  deprived 
of  his  legal  right.  What  these  evils 
and  inconveniences  were,  we  may 
learn  from  Lord  Coke,  whose  state- 
ments rest  upon  recorded  facts,  and 
not  like  the  assertions  of  many  mod- 


ern writers,  on  preconceived  opin- 
ions. 

Lord  Coke  observes,  "  When  all  es- 
tates were  fee  simple,  then  were  pur- 
chasers sure  of  their  purchase^,  farm- 
ers of  their  leases,  creditors  of  their 
debts,  the  kings  and  lords  had  their 
escheats,  forfeitures,  ward-ships  and 
other  profits  of  their  seignories  :  and 
for  this  and  other  like  cases,  by  the 
wisdom  of  the  Common  Law,  all  es- 
tates of  inheritance  were  fee  simple  •, 
and  what  contentions  and  mischiefs 
have  crept  into  the  quiet  of  the  law  by 
these  fettered  inheritances,  daily  ex- 
perience teaches  us.'' — Co.  Lit.  igb. 

The  danger  to  purchasers  with 
which  Lord  Coke  heads  his  indict- 
ment against  entails,  appears  to  have 
arisen  in  manner  such  as  this.  The 
descent  even  of  an  unentailed  estate 
from  father  to  son,  for  some  genera- 
tions, was,  in  his  day,  of  no  rare  occur- 
rence. The  purchaser  of  an  estate 
which  had  so  descended,  might  be- 
lieve that  he  was  buying  a  fee  simple, 
while  in  fact,  an  ancient  deed  entail- 
ing the  land  in  the  course  of  descent, 
which  had  already  taken  place,  had 
been  executed  and  forgotten.  On  the 
existence  of  the  deed  being  discovered 
the  heir  in  tail  of  the  vendor  might  in- 
sist, that  in  compliance  with  the  stat- 
ute, the  will  of  the  donors  "  according 
to  the  form  of  the  gift,"  should  be  ob- 
served, and  the  purchaser  would  be 
without  remedy,  except  perhaps  under 
a  clause  of  "  warranty."  Creditors 
by  securities  binding  the  heir  might 
be  defeated  in  the  same  manner,  and 
the  Crown  and  other  lords  might  be 
disappointed,  in  rare  cases,  of  forfeit- 
ure and  escheats  for  treason  or  felony. 

That  these  were  the  real  evils  which 
arose  from  the  statute,  and  that  it  did 


272 


BEACON  LIGHTS  Oh'  SCIENCE. 


not  produce  the  pernicious  consequen- ' 
ces  either  to  the  nobility,  the  esquires 
or  the  other  freeholders  of  England 
which  are  frequently  attributed  to  it, 
we  have  thus  given  reason  to  believe 
by  the  testimony  of  Lord  Coke  and 
Lord  Macaulay. 

Scotland  had  no  statute  correspond- 
ing to  our  statute  De  Donis,  but  at- 
tempts were  made  in  that  country  to 
establish  strict  entails  by  clauses  of 
"  irritancy  and  resolution,  "  purport- 
ing to  make  void  alienation,  but  the 
validity  of  such  clauses  had  by  no 
means  been  admitted  before  the  act 
of  1685,  c.  22,  which  expressly  recog- 
nizes their  authority,  and  the  absolute 
right  of  heirs  to  succeed  according  to 
the  disposition  of  the  entailer,  Erskine 
Inst. ,  Book  iii.  Tit.  viii.  25,  and  this 
law  with  no  very  important  modifi- 
cations remained  in  force  until  1848, 
when  by  ii  and  12  Vic.,  c.  36,  §  i,  ten- 
ant in  tail  in  possession  was  empow- 
ered to  acquire  the  fee  simple,  if  born 
after  the  deed  of  entail  was  executed, 
at  his  own  discretion,  or  if  born  be- 
fore the  execution,  with  the  consent 
of  the  next  heir  of  entail. 

It  is  worthy  of  note,  that  the  period 
during  which  the  law  permitted  the 
establishment  of  strict  entails  in  Scot- 
land, coincides  with  that  during  which 
Scottish  agriculture  underwent  the 
greatest  improvements. 


XIII. 

RELAXATION       OF     STRICT     ENTAILS 

COMMON  RECOVERIES. 

I  HAW:  already  stated  that  the  stat- 
ute De  Donis  remained  in  nearly  un- 
impaired force  during  the  fourteenth 


century.  Even  if  the  owner  of  en- 
tailed land  sold  it,  with  a  warranty 
that  he  held  in  fee  simple,  his  heir  in 
tail  might  claim  the  land  by  force  of 
the  entail,  notwithstanding  that  the 
obligation  of  the  warranty  would,  ac- 
cording to  the  ordinary  rules  of  law, 
by  descending  upon  him,  preclude 
him  from  asserting  his  right.  This 
was  the  case  of  a  lineal  warranty; 
but  if  the  warranty  were  collateral,  if 
the  warranty  did  not,  and  could  not, 
descend  from  or  through  the  ancestor 
from  whom  the  entailed  land  de- 
scended, then  the  heir  in  tail  was 
barred. 

The  cases  in  which  a  collateral  war- 
ranty existed  must,  however,  have  been 
rare,  and  owners  of  entailed  lands, 
with  the  view  of  obtaining  complete 
control  over  them,  had  recourse  to 
this  expedient.  The  owner  instructed 
a  friend  to  bring  an  action  against 
himself,  in  due  form,  in  the  Court  of 
Common  Pleas,  seeking  that  the  right 
to  the  land  might  be  adjudged  to  the 
complainant.  Simply  to  have  allowed 
judgment  to  go  by  default,  a  mere 
cessio  in  jure,  would  not  have  bound 
the  heir  of  the  owner.  The  owner 
therefore  alleged  that  some  other  per. 
son  had  warranted  the  title  of  the  land 
to  him  (the  owner),  and  that  person  was 
admitted  to  defend  the  action  in  place 
of  the  owner,  according  to  the  usual 
course  of  law,  as  the  person  on  whom 
the  loss  would  ultimately  fall,  if  the 
plaintiff  succeeded  in  his  suit.  At  the 
hearing  the  alleged  warrantor  made 
default,  and  judgment  was  given  that 
the  plaintiff  should  recover  the  land 
in  dispute,  and  the  original  defendant 
should  have  an  equivalent  out  of  the 
lands  of  the  warrantor. 

If   the   defendant  in  the  collusive 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND  IN  ENGLAND. 


action  died,  and  his  heir  brought  his 
action  founded  on  the  gift  in  tail,  he 
was  met  by  the  objection,  that  his  an- 
cestor had  received  in  equivalent  for 
the  land  entailed,  which  equivalent 
must  have  descended  to  the  present 
claimant,  as  heir  to  his  ancestor. 

It  is  most  probable  that  this  decis- 
ion first  took  place  in  a  hostile  suit, 
in  which  the  heir  in  tail  was  really  in 
possession  of  the  equivalent ;  and  that 
some  astute  lawyer,  seeing  that  the 
court  assumed,  without  proof,  that  the 
heir  had  inherited  the  equivalent  for 
which  his  ancestor  had  obtained  judg- 
ment, perceived  that  a  door  was  open 
for  escaping  from  the  trammels  of  an 
entail,  by  means  of  a  pretended  war- 
ranty and  judgment  thereupon. 

Taltarum's  Case,  decided  by  the 
Court  of  Common  Pleas,  in  the  12  Ed. 
IV.,  1472,  is  considered  to  have  es- 
tablished the  efficiency  of  such  a  pro- 
ceeding in  barring  an  estate  tail 
against  the  heir.  The  language  of 
the  pleadings,*  however,  leads  me  to 
believe  that  the  experiment  was  not  a 
novel  one,  and  that  the  defendant, 
claiming  under  the  entail,  relied  on 
some  facts  which  distinguished  his 
case  from  the  simple  one  I  have  de- 
scribed, rather  than  on  the  fact  of 
the  recovery  being  feigned  and  collu- 
sive. 

As,  however,  this  latter  defense  was 
raised  by  the  pleadings,  the  judgment 
in  favor  of  the  plaintiff  showed  that 
the  defense  was  untenable,  and  thus 

*  See  Digby's  History  of  the  Law  of  Real 
Property,  p.  '220,  for  a  translation  of  the 
pleadings. 


established  the  validity  of  a  recovery 
of  entailed  land,  where  the  ancestor 
of  the  plaintiff  had  also  obtained  a 
judgment  for  recovery  of  an  equiva- 
lent against  a  warrantor,  notwithstand- 
ing that  the  whole  proceeding  was 
notoriously  feigned  and  collusive. 
It  is  probable  that  the  Court  was  in- 
fluenced, among  other  considerations, 
by  the  fear  of  shaking  titles,  which  de- 
pended on  admitting  the  validity  of 
such  recoveries. 

The  Court  was  also  in  all  probabil- 
ity willing  to  favor  a  proceeding  for 
converting  an  estate  tail  into  an  estate 
in  fee  simple,  for  the  sake  of  dimin- 
ishing the  evils  which  were  attendant 
on  the  former,  and  were  afterward 
pointed  out  by  Lord  Coke,  as  I  have 
already  mentioned. 

A  purchaser  for  a  valuable  consid- 
eration is  said  to  be  a  favorite  in  a 
Court  of  Equity  :  he  is  in  fact  a  fa- 
vorite in  every  Court  of  Justice. 
That  a  man,  who  has  given  convinc- 
ing proof  of  his  good  faith  by  paying 
his  money,  in  order  to  obtain  some 
stipulated  advantage,  has  a  strong 
claim  to  be  protected  in  his  purchases 
is  unquestionable,  and  every  court 
would  lean  in  his  favor,  when  the  con- 
test lies  between  him  and  a  person 
claiming  under  an  ancient  gift,  of 
which  the  purchaser  has  had  no  no- 
tice. 

I  do  not,  however,  discover  any 
ground,  for  attributing  to  the  judges 
of  the  Common  Pleas,  the  opinions 
expressed  by  modern  writers,  with  re- 
gard to  the  injurious  effects  of  entails 
on  the  cultivation  of  the  soil,  and  the 
well-being  of  the  people. 


274 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


XIV. 


HENRY     VII.    AND     HIS     NOBLES — THE 
STATUTE  OF  FINES. 

THE  Statute  of  Fines,  4  Henry  VII., 
c.  24  (1487),  was  made  about  fifteen 
years  after  Taltarum's  case  had  estab- 
lished the  right  of  the  tenant  in  pos- 
session of  entailed  land  to  dispose  of 
it  absolutely. 

This  statute  has  afforded  occasion 
of  comment  to  those  who  discover 
deep  political  designs  in  the  authors 
of  every  change  in  the  law  relating  to 
land. 

They  allege  that  Henry  VII.,  be- 
ing a  politic  and  sagacious  prince, 
obtained  the  enactment  with  the  view 
of  depressing  the  power  of  his  nobil- 
ity; although  the  objections  to  such 
a  theory  are  neither  few  nor  inconsid- 
erable. 

The  first  objection  is  that  the  stat- 
ute was  really  not  the  work  of  Henry 
VII.  or  his  advisers,  but  of  his  prede- 
cessor Richard  III.,  a  prince  whose 
hands  were  too  full  of  pressing  busi- 
ness, during  his  short  reign,  to  leave 
him  leisure  for  plans  which  could  ri- 
pen, if  at  all,  only  in  the  distant  fu- 
ture. The  statute  of  Henry  VII.  dif- 
fers in  no  essential  particular  from 
that  of  i  Richard  III.,  c.  7.  The 
statute  of  Henry  VII.  merely  relaxes 
the  provisions  for  ensuring  the  publi- 
city of  a  fine  contained  in  the  earlier 
statute. 

There  is  another  objection  scarcely 
less  fatal  than  the  last  to  the  assump- 
tion of  a  deep  political  design  in  the 
framers  of  the  statute,  that  the  design, 
if  it  existed,  was  so  clumsily  carried 
into  effect  by  the  words  of  the  statute, 


that  it  became  necessary  about  fifty 
years  afterward  to  pass  another  stat- 
ute, the  32  Henry  VIII.,  c.  36  (1540), 
to  declare  that  the  4  Henry  VII.  ap- 
plied to  entailed  estates  at  all.  The 
4th  of  Henry  VII.  was  a  general 
statute  intended  to  restore  (with  modi- 
fications) the  ancient  rule  of  law, 
which  made  a  fine  or  compromise  of 
a  suit  concerning  land  in  the  King's 
Court,  a  bar  to  the  suit  of  any  one 
who  did  not  claim  the  land  comprised 
in  the  fine,  within  a  certain  period  af- 
ter the  fine  taking  place.  There  was 
a  saving  clause  in  the  statute  of 
Henry  VII.,  and  most  persons  now 
reading  it  would,  I  think,  conclude 
that  the  right  of  an  heir  in  tail  was 
within  the  saving  clause,  and  there- 
fore not  intended  to  be  affected  by 
the  general  enactment. 

There  is  also  the  third  objection, 
that  the  law  had  already  admitted  the 
right  of  the  tenant  in  tail  in  posses- 
sion to  acquire  an  absolute  right  to 
his  land,  by  means  of  a  common  re- 
covery, and  further,  that  the  common 
recovery  was  more  effectual  than  the 
fine,  because  the  former  barred  not 
merely  the  issue  in  tail,  but  all  subse- 
quent estates  also,  including  that  of 
the  reversioner ;  while  the  Statute  of 
Fines,  4  Henry  VII.,  even  after  it 
had  been  explained  by  the  statute  of 
Henry  VIII. ,  barred  the  issue  only, 
and  left  claimants  whose  estates  were 
to  take  effect,  after  failure  of  issue  of 
the  tenant  in  tail,  to  assert  their 
rights  whenever  they  might  accrue. 
It  is  true  that  a  fine  might  be  resorted 
to  by  tenant  in  tail  in  remainder, 
while  a  recovery  could  be  effectively 
suffered  by  tenant  in  tail  in  posses- 
sion only. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND  IN  ENGLAND. 


275 


XV. 

STRICT    SETTLEMENTS. 

THE  decision  of  the  Court  of  Com- 
mon Pleas  in  the  year  1472,  estab- 
lished, as  I  have  pointed  out,  that  any 
person  entitled  to  the  possession  of  en- 
tailed land  could  become,  at  his  pleas- 
ure, the  absolute  owner,  by  means  of 
a  friendly  suit.  The  decision  applied 
no  less  to  the  lands  of  peers  than  to 
those  of  commoners.  Indeed,  not- 
withstanding the  rooted  popular  be- 
lief that  estates  of  peers  are,  in  some 
manner,  connected  with  their  titles, 
in  order  that  their  dignity  may  be 
maintained,  the  law  has  recognized 
no  such  distinction.  Where,  however, 
the  reversion  of  landed  property  after 
the  extinction  of  issue  on  whom  the 
land  was  entailed,  belonged  to  the 
Crown,  the  entail  could  not  be  barred 
by  a  common  recovery,  34  and  35 
Hen.  VIII.  c.  20,  s.  2.  Estates  so 
circumstanced  were  and  are  not  nu- 
merous ;  and  as  to  the  great  mass  of 
landed  property  in  England,  the  pow- 
er of  strictly  entailing  it,  conferred 
by  the  Statute  de  Donis,  ceased  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  and  has  never  since 
been  revived.  A  few  estates  given 
for  eminent  public  services,  such  as 
Woodstock  and  Strathfieldsaye,  have, 
it  is  true,  been  strictly  entailed,  but 
this  has  been  effected  by  special  Acts 
of  Parliament,  in  contravention  of  the 
general  law  of  the  land. 

Soon  after  strict  entails  had  thus 
been  virtually  abolished,  the  practice 
of  settling  lands,  for  the  limited  period 
which  the  rules  of  law  permitted,  was 
introduced.  The  owner  of  an  estate 
desirous,  for  example,  of  making  pro- 
vision, on  his  son's  marriage,  for  the 
son  and  his  family,  instead  of  granting 


the  land  to  the  son  and  the  heirs  male 
of  the  son's  body,  would  give  it  to  the 
son  for  his  life  only,  in  order  to  obvi- 
ate the  possibility  of  the  son  obtain- 
ing the  power,  through  a  recovery,  of 
alienating  the  land  absolutely.  And 
the  donor  would  provide  by  the  settle- 
ment that,  after  the  son's  decease,  the 
land  should  go  to  the  son's  eldest  son 
and  the  heirs  of  his  body,  And  in 
case  of  failure  of  the  eldest  son's  is- 
sue, that  the  land  should  pass  to  the 
second  son  and  the  heirs  of  his  body, 
with  similar  provisions  for  other  sons 
according  to  seniority,  or  in  any  other 
order,  and  with  any  omissions  which 
the  settler  might  think  proper  to 
make.  The  security  obtained  by  such 
a  settlement  that  the  land  would  long 
remain  in  the  same  family,  fell  far 
short  of  that  which  could  be  gained 
before  the  validity  of  recoveries  to  bar 
an  estate  tail  had  been  established, 
for  if  the  son  to  whom  the  first  estate 
in  tail  had  been  given  (generally,  of 
course,  the  eldest)  attained  twenty- 
one,  then  with  the  consent  of  his 
father,  or  of  his  own  authority  suppos- 
ing the  father  to  have  died,  a  recovery 
might  be  suffered,  the  estate  sold,  and 
the  other  subsequent  interests  given 
by  the  settlement  entirely  defeated. 
As  a  son  is  usually  born  within  three 
or  four  years  after  a  marriage,  a  settle- 
ment on  marriage  generally  becomes 
liable  to  be  set  aside  within  some 
five-and-twenty  years  after  its  execu- 
tion. In  the  rare  case  of  the  eldest 
son  marrying  and  dying  in  infancy, 
and  leaving  an  infant  heir,  the  liabil 
ity  would,  no  doubt,  be  deferred  till 
that  heir  attained  twenty-one.  Mar 
riage  settlements  of  land  have  re- 
mained subject  to  the  liabilities  I 
have  mentioned  ever  since  their  in- 


276 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


troduction,  and  so  remain  at  the  pres- 
ent day. 

We  sometimes  hear  it  said  that  the 
"  law  of  settlement  "  should  be  abol- 
ished, as  if  there  were  some  law  in 
existence  which  favored  settlements 
of  land.  No  such  law  can,  however, 
be  pointed  out,  although  there  are 
rules  of  law,  by  which  the  power  of 
making  settlements  is  restrained  with- 
in the  narrow  limits  which  I  have 
mentioned,  and  which  will  be  more 
fully  stated  below. 

It  cannot  have  been  long  after  the 
liability  of  estates  tail  to  alienation 
had  been  established,  when  settle- 
ments, nearly  in  the  form  I  have  exr 
plained  and  now  in  use,  were  intro- 
duced. The  settlement,  the  provis- 
ions of  which  were  the  subject  of 
litigation  in  Chudleigh's  case  (i  Co. 
Rep.  113)  was  made  in  the  3d  and 
4th  Ph.  and  Mary  (1556),  and  con- 
tained limitations  of  the  nature  I  have 
explained,  and  there  is  no  reason  for 
holding  that  this  was  by  any  means 
the  first  settlement  of  the  kind.  A 
little  research  would,  I  believe,  bring 
earlier  instances  to  light.  Settle- 
ments of  land  such  as  I  have  describ- 
ed, strict  settlements  as  they  are  call- 
ed, possessed  manifest  advantages 
over  the  grants  of  estates  tail  which 
they  had  superseded.  No  provision 
for  younger  children  was  compatible 
with  the  estate  tail,  unless  we  admit 
that  the  right  of  a  widow  to  dower,  the 
right,  that  is,  to  one-third  of  the  land 
for  her  life,  frequently,  no  doubt,  ap- 
plied to  their  support,  could  be  so 
considered.  In  addition  to  provision 
for  younger  children  a  settlement  can 
be  moulded  entirely  at  the  pleasure  of 
the  settler ;  it  may  prefer  a  younger 
son  to  an  elder,  a  daughter  to  a  son, 


it  may  give  to  younger  children  any 
part  or  the  whole  of  the  estate.  In 
short,  the  law,  in  accordance  with  the 
genius  of  the  English  people,  leaves 
the  settler  absolutely  unfettered  with 
regard  to  the  disposition  of  his  prop- 
erty ;  restraining  him  only  by  forbid- 
ding provisions,  which  would  give  an 
interest  in  the  property  to  an  unborn 
person,  if  that  person  would  not  neces- 
sarily take  the  interest  during  the  life 
of  a  person  in  existence  at  the  time  of 
the  settlement,  or  within  a  period  of 
twenty-one  years  and  a  few  months 
from  the  death  of  such  person.  This 
is  "  the  rule  against  perpetuities  "  to 
which  the  Courts  have  strictly  ad- 
hered, and  which  applies  equally  to 
land  and  to  personal  property.  The 
ordinary  strict  settlement  of  land,  as 
will  be  seen  from  the  example  I  have 
given,  by  no  means  takes  advantage 
of  the  utmost  limits  of  the  law. 


XVI. 

EFFECT   OF    STRICT   SETTLEMENTS   OF 
LAND MR.    THOROLD    ROGERS. 

IN  a  valuable  work  on  agriculture 
and  prices  in  the  middle  ages,  the  fol- 
lowing impassioned  and  eloquent  pas- 
sage occurs  : — "  No  English  laborer 
in  his  most  sanguine  dreams  has  the 
vista  of  occupying,  still  less  of  possess- 
ing, land.  He  cannot  rise  in  his  call- 
ing. He  cannot  cherish  any  ambi- 
tion, and  he  is,  in  consequence,  dull 
and  brutish,  reckless  and  stupid. 

"We  owe  the  fact  that  the  great 
English  nation  is  tenant  at  will  to  a 
few  thousand  landowners  to  that  de- 
vice of  evil  times,  a  strict  settlement. 
We  are  informed  that  the  machinery 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND  IN  ENGLAND. 


277 


which  has  gradually  changed  the 
whole  character  of  the  rural  population 
of  England,  was  invented  by  the  sub- 
tlety of  two  lawyers  of  the  Restora- 
tion, Palmer  and  Bridgman.  As  there 
have  been  men  whose  genius  has  be- 
stowed lasting  benefits  on  mankind, 
so  there  have  been,  from  time  to  time, 
exhibitions  of  perverse  intellectual  ac- 
tivity, whose  malignant  influence  has 
inflicted  permanent  evils.  It  may  be 
that  the  mischief  is  too  widespread  for 
remedial  measures.  But  no  English- 
man who  has  the  courage  to  forecast 
the  destinies  of  his  country  can  doubt 
that  its  greatest  danger  lies  in  the  pres- 
ent alienation  of  the  people  from  the 
soil,  and  in  the  future  exodus  of  a  dis- 
contented peasantry."  * 

Although  well  accustomed  to  the 
somewhat  exaggerated  terms  which 
often  characterize  attacks  on  the  Eng- 
lish law  of  real  property,  I  had  consid- 
erable difficulty  in  discovering  the 
particular  mischief  floating  in  the 
mind  of  the  author,  against  which  the 
above  pathetic  passage  was  directed. 

It  is  well  known  that  strict  settle- 
ments of  land  were,  as  I  have  shown 
above,  introduced  more  than  a  century 
before  the  Restoration,  and  could  not, 
therefore,  have  been,  as  supposed  by 
the  writer,  the  invention  of  lawyers  of 
that  period  ;  and  as  the  evil  results 
which  moved  his  indignation  mani- 
fested themselves,  according  to  his 
statement,  only  through  the  malignant 
influence  of  such  lawyers,  it  cannot 
be  supposed  that  strict  settlements 
produced  these  evils.  As  tcTthe  mode 
in  which  strict  settlements  prevented 
the  laborer  from  obtaining  land  (the 


*  History  of  Agriculture  and  Prices  in  Eng- 
land, by  James  E.  Thorold  Rogers,  M.A. 
Oxford,  vol.  i.  p.  693. 


effect  which  the  author  attributes  to 
them),  he  is  entirely  silent.  He  sim- 
ply assumes  the  fact.  Does  he  wish 
it  to  be  understood  that  the  laborer 
could  not  obtain  land,  because  there 
was  no  land  in  the  market  in  conse- 
quence of  the  introduction  of  settle- 
ments ?  But  settlements  still  exist, 
and  yet  it  is  notorious  that  abundance 
of  land  is  always  to  be  purchased,  at 
a  price  which  does  not  exceed  what 
may  be  called  the  natural  level,  the 
price  of  Government  securities  yield- 
ing the  same  annual  income.  Nor 
can  it,  I  believe,  be  shown  that  it  was 
formerly  more  difficult  to  purchase 
land  than  it  is  at  present.  The  delu- 
sion that  "  the  English  nation  is  tenant 
at  will  to  a  few  thousand  landowners  " 
was  dispelled  by  Lord  Derby's  Domes- 
day Book,  showing  that  their  number 
is  about  a  million. 

The  key  to  the  passage  I  have  quo- 
ted will,  I  think,  be  found  in  the  second 
volume  of  Blackstone's  Commentaries, 
p.  165,  in  Kerr,  third  edition. 

Speaking  of  strict  settlements  of 
land  in  the  form  which  they  first  assum- 
ed, Blackstone  says  •  "  In  these  cases, 
therefore,  it  was  necessary  to  have 
trustees  appointed  to  preserve  the 
contingent  remainders  "  (the  estates 
granted  to  the  first  and  other  sons  in 
the  example  I  have  given),  "  in  whom 
there  was  vested  an  estate  in  remain- 
der for  the  life  of  the  tenant  for  life. 
to  commence  when  his  estate  deter- 
mined. If,  therefore,  his  estate  for 
life  determined  otherwise  than  by  his 
death,  the  estate  of  the  trustees  for 
the  term  of  his  natural  life  took  effect, 
and  became  a  particular  estate  in  pos- 
session, sufficient  to  support  the  re- 
mainders depending  in  contingency. 
This  method  is  said  to  have  been  in- 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


vented  by  Sir  Orlando  Bridgman,  Sir 
Geoffrey  Palmer,  and  other  eminent 
counsel,  who  betook  themselves  to 
conveyancing  during  the  time  of  the 
civil  wars,  in  order  to  secure  in  family 
settlements  a  provision  for  the  future 
children  of  an  intended  marriage,  who, 
before,  were  usually  left  to  the  mercy 
of  a  particular  tenant  for  life ;  and 
when,  after  the  Restoration,  those 
gentlemen  came  to  fill  the  first  offices 
of  the  law,  they  supported  their  inven- 
tion within  reasonable  and  proper 
bounds,  and  introduced  it  into  general 
use." 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  Bridg. 
man  and  Palmer  merely  introduced  a 
clause  into  some  strict  settlements, 
making  them  somewhat  more  strict 
than  they  otherwise  would  have  been, 
and  that  these  perversely  intellectual 
lawyers  were  far  removed  from  being 
the  inventors  of  strict  settlements. 

I  propose  to  consider  in  the  next 
chapter  whether  the  invention  of  trus- 
tees to  preserve  contingent  remainders 
can  have  produced  the  disastrous  ef- 
fects attributed  to  the  perverse  inge- 
nuity of  Palmer  and  Bridgman  by  Pro- 
fessor Rogers. 


XVII. 

TRUSTEES  TO  PRESERVE   CONTINGENT 
REMAINDERS. 

EVERY  one  conversant  with  the 
working  of  settlements  is  aware,  that 
the  introduction  of  trustees  to  preserve 
contingent  remainders  can  have  had 
any  effect  in  rare  and  exceptional  in- 
stances only.  But  the  vast  importance 
attached  by  so  able  and  learned  a 
writer  as  Mr.  Rogers  to  the  change  in 


the  practice  of  conveyances,  which 
took  place  at  the  Restoration,  makes 
it  desirable,  that  the  nature  of  this 
change  and  the  extent  of  its  opera- 
tion should  be  clearly  and  explicitly 
stated. 

When  land  was  given  to  one  for 
life,  with  remainder  after  his  decease 
to  his  sons  and  their  issue  successively 
in  the  usual  form,  the  interests  given 
to  the  sons  were,  previously  to  the 
birth  of  a  son,  said  to  be  contingent^ 
because  they  could  have  no  immediate 
effect,  in  consequence  of  there  then 
being  no  one  to  take  them.  In  such 
circumstances  it  was  possible,  that  the 
father,  who  had  the  life  interest,  might 
acquire,  by  purchase  or  descent,  the 
absolute  reversionary  right  to  the  land, 
or  reversion  in  fee  simple,  as  it  is 
termed,  expectant  on  the  determina- 
tion or  failure  of  the  intermediate  in- 
terests given  to  his  children  and  the 
heirs  of  their  bodies.  In  such  a  case, 
if  no  son  had  been  born  or  was  living, 
there  would  be  no  actual  or  vested 
interest,  no  interest  which  had  an  ex- 
isting owner,  intervening  between  the 
life  interest  given  by  the  settlement 
and  the  ultimate  reversion  afterward 
acquired  by  the  owner  of  the  life  in- 
terest. And  it  is  a  rule  of  law, 
adopted  with  a  view  to  simplification, 
that  if  the  same  person  has  two  inter- 
ests in  the  same  land,  one  to  com- 
mence when  the  other  terminates,  and 
the  second  in  time  is  of  a  nature  as 
high  as  the  first  or  superior  to  it,  then 
the  two  will  coalesce,  the  first  being 
merged  or  drowned  in  the  second,  the 
commencement  of  which  will  of  course 
be  accelerated.  The  unborn  children 
of  a  marriage,  upon  the  celebration  of 
which  a  strict  settlement  of  land  had 
been  made,  were  therefore  liable  to 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND  IN  ENGLAND. 


279 


be  deprived  of  the  benefit  intended 
for  them,  if  no  issue  entitled  under  the 
settlement  were  in  existence,  and  the 
husband,  the  tenant  for  life,  acquired 
the  ultimate  property,  the  reversion  or 
remainder  in  fee  of  the  land,  when  the 
life  estate  would  be  merged  in  the  fee  ; 
and  although  a  child  might  afterward 
come  into  existence,  who  would  have 
been  entitled  to  an  intermediate  in- 
terest under  the  settlement  if  no  mer- 
ger had  taken  place,  the  law  would 
not  undo,  on  his  account,  what  it  had 
already  done,  but  would  treat  the  in- 
terest of  the  child  as  non-existent. 
This  is  the  main,  if  not  the  only 
chance  of  a  settled  estate  becoming 
alienable,  which  is  guarded  against  by 
the  invention  of  Palmer  and  Bridgman. 

Now  in  the  first  place  the  cases 
would  be  few  in  which  the  husband 
could  acquire,  before  there  was  a  son 
issue  of  the  marriage,  the  remainder 
expectant  on  the  determination  of  the 
provision  for  his  children  and  their 
descendants  ;  and  the  cases  must  have 
been  fewer  still  in  which  an  English 
gentleman,  while  any  hope  of  issue  re- 
mained, would  take  advantage  of  a 
legal  technicality,  for  the  sake  of  de- 
priving his  own  progeny  of  the  bene- 
fits provided  for  them  by  a  solemn 
compact  to  which  he  had,  as  was 
usually  the  case,  been  himself  a  party, 
or  under  which,  if  not  a  party  to  it, 
he  had  taken  a  substantial  benefit. 

But  not  only  did  these  difficulties 
stand  in  the  way  of  defeating  a  strict 
settlement,  but  the  danger  of  its  being 
thus  set  aside  might  be  guarded 
against,  even  before  the  days  of  Bridg- 
man and  Palmer,  by  placing  the  prop- 
erty in  the  hands  of  trustees.  To 
suppose,  therefore,  that  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  device  to  prevent  contingent 


remainders  from  the  danger  of  being 
thus  defeated — a  danger  which,  as  we 
have  seen,  could  exist  in  rare  instances 
only — produced  the  deterioration  in 
the  position  of  the  English  laborer  al- 
leged to  have  "taken  place  by  Mr. 
Rogers,  appears  to  me  a  conclusion 
for  which  even  a  show  of  probability 
is  entirely  wanting ;  and  that  if  the 
English  laborer  has  indeed,  since  the 
Restoration,  as  Professor  Rogers  as- 
serts, become  "  brutish,  reckless,  and 
stupid," — an  assertion,  however,  which 
I  venture  to  controvert — the  cause 
must  be  sought  elsewhere  than  in  the 
invention  of  strict  settlements  of  land, 
or  of  trustees  to  preserve  contingent 
remainders. 


XVIII. 


POWERS  OF  SALE. 

THE  invention  of  trustees  to  pre- 
serve contingent  remainders  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  introduction  into  settle- 
ments of  provisions,  which  enabled 
trustees  to  sell  the  estate  (subject 
generally  to  the  consent  of  the  tenant 
for  life),  and  to  invest  the  moneys  aris- 
ing from  the  sale  in  the  purchase  of 
other  lands,  to  be  settled  with  limi- 
tations the  same  as  those  with  which 
the  estate  sold  had  been  settled. 
Such  powers  were  found  convenient, 
especially  where  some  circumstance 
had  occurred  rendering  a  settled  estate 
less  eligible  for  residence,  or  had  in- 
creased its  value  as  a  site  for  building. 
These  powers,  however,  occasionally 
favored  accumulation.  Before  they 
were  employed,  the  settlement  of  an 
estate  offered  a  barrier,  for  some  time 
at  least,  against  its  annexation  to  a 


29 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


neighboring  property,  although,  of 
course,  not  so  durable  a  barrier  as  a 
strict  entail.  If  settled  estates  could 
be  sold  under  a  power,  a  rich  neighbor, 
by  a  tempting  offer,  might  induce  the 
trustees  to  sell,  with  the  view  of  invest- 
ing the  purchase-money  in  another 
property  producing  perhaps  a  larger 
income. 

The  legislature  has  by  various  stat- 
utes, and  particularly  by  Lord  Cairns's 
Act  (Settled  Lands  Act,  1882),  45  and 
46  Vic.  c.  38,  much  increased  the  fa- 
cility for  selling  settled  estates.  The 
tenant  for  life  can  now  himself,  with- 
out the  consent  of  trustees,  absolutely 
dispose  of  the  property,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  principal  mansion  and 
its  demesne,  which  cannot  be  sold 
without  the  consent  of  the  trustees  of 
the  settlement,  or  order  of  the  court. 
It  is  provided  that  the  moneys  to  arise 
from  a  sale  of  settled  land  shall  be 
paid  into  court,  or  to  the  trustees  oi 
the  settlement,  and  invested  in  land, 
government  stock,  or  other  securities 
in  which  trustees  are  authorized  to  in- 
vest moneys,  or  railway  debentures, 
upon  the  trusts  and  provisions  of  the 
settlement. 

Provision  is  made  for  the  application 
of  capital  moneys  arising  from  the  sale 
of  part  of  the  settled  lands  in  improve- 
ments sanctioned  by  the  Land  Com- 
missioners ;  and  the  tenant  for  life  is 
empowered  to  grant  agricultural  leases 
for  twenty-one  years,  mining  leases 
for  sixty,  and  building  leases  for 
ninety-nine  years. 

An  objection  often  urged  against 
settlements  of  land,  that  a  settled  es- 
tate cannot  be  dealt  with  advantage- 
ously, through  the  interest  of  the  pos- 
sessor being  limited  in  duration,  ap- 
pears to  be  entirely  removed  by  these 


provisions,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how 
they  could  be  extended,  without  abol- 
ishing settlements  of  land  altogether, 
and  forbidding  landowners  to  exercise 
the  right  of  being  prudent  and  making 
provision  for  their  families — a  right 
which  is  conceded  to  all  other  classes 
of  society. 


XIX. 

INCLOSURE  OF  WASTE  LANDS. — MR. 
JOHN  WALTER — FORMATION  OF  A 
PEASANT  PROPRIETARY. 

A  NOT  inconsiderable  alteration  in 
the  distribution  of  land  in  England 
took  place  at  the  end  of  the  last  and 
commencement  of  the  present  cent- 
ury, through  the  operation  of  inclos- 
ures.  Under  the  sanction  of  Parlia- 
ment, waste  lands  were  divided  among 
those  who  had  rights  of  common  over 
them,  in  proportion  to  the  estimated 
value  of  those  rights,  and  the  area  of 
cultivated  land  was  thus  considerably 
increased. 

Some  interesting  statistics  respect- 
ing inclosures  are  given  in  a  pamphlet 
entitled  "A  Letter  to  the  Electors  of 
Berkshire,  by  John  Walter,  Esq., 
1839,"  from  which  it  appears  that, 
while  the  average  number  of  Inclosure 
Acts  from  1783  to  1793  was  about 
thirty  annually,  the  annual  average 
rose  to  ninety  from  1793  to  the  close 
of  the  war  in  1815. 

The  inclosure  of 


waste  lands  does 


not  appear  to  have  produced  the  im- 
provement in  the  condition  of  the 
agricultural  laborers  which  some  econ. 
omists  expected  as  the  consequence 
of  the  measure.  On  the  contrary,  as 
Mr.  Walter  states  on  the  authority  of 


30 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAXD  IN  EX  G  LAXD. 


281 


Parliamentary  Returns,  the  amounts 
annually  expended  on  the  relief  of 
the  poor  rose  from  about  two  millions 
sterling  in  1793,  to  four  millions  in 
1803,  and  more  than  six  millions  at 
the  end  of  the  war  in  1815. 

The  conclusion  drawn  by  Mr.  Wal- 
ter from  these  statistics,  that  the  in- 
closure  of  waste  lands  was  injurious 
to  the  poorer  commoners,  is  confirmed 
by  the  instance  of  at  least  one  pro- 
posed inclosure,  that  of  Bucklebury, 
by  figures  which  show  that  a  cottager 
benefited  from  uninclosed  common 
land,  in  the  article  of  fuel,  to  the  value 
of  2/.  i2J.  annually,  and  in  pasturage 
of  a  cow  and  other  advantages,  to  the 


the  wastes  should  have  remained  in 
their  original  condition  of  pasture 
land. 

One  of  the  disadvantages  attending 
inclosures  was,  according  to  Mr.  Wal- 
ter, that  the  recipients  of  small  allot- 
ments were  sometimes  obliged  to  sell 
them,  in  order  to  meet  their  quotas  of 
the  expense  attendant  on  procuring 
the  Act.  And  this  brings  us  in  face 
of  the  great  difficulty  which  besets 
small  proprietors  of  land.  Bad  sea- 
sons inevitably  come,  when  the  prod- 
uce is  insufficient  for  the  maintenance 
of  the  owner.  He  is  compelled  to 
seek  an  advance  on  the  security  of 
his  land,  and  obtains  it,  not  infrequent- 


amount  of  more  than  8/.  a  year  ,  while  I  ly,  on  exorbitant  terms.  Favorable 
the  value  of  the  allotment,  which  he  j  seasons  seldom  enable  him  to  do  more 
was  to  receive  in  exchange,  amounted  I  than  pay  the  interest  on  the  debt  he 
to  2/.  per  annum  only.  It  is  not  sur-  has  contracted  ;  and  one,  two,  or  three 
prising  that,  with  these  facts  before  successive  bad  harvests  may  produce 
them,  the  House  of  Commons  threw  j  foreclosure  and  ruin.  The  same  cry 


out  the  Bucklebury  Inclosure  Bill. 


comes    from    the     Ganges    and    the 
It  is,  however,  plain  that   a  large   Nile  ;  the  ryot  and  the  fellah  are  in  the 
part   of   the   increase  in  the  amount  grasp  of  the  usurer.     Legislation  may 
expended  on  the  poor  is  attributable   mitigate,  but    cannot    extirpate,   the 
to  the  same  cause  as  that  which  occa-  j  evil :  for  it  lies  in  the  very  nature  of 


sioned  the  increase  in  inclosures, 
namely,  the  advance  in  the  price  of 
wheat  which  took  place  during  the 
war.  The  poor-rates  Were  swelled 
because  wheaten  bread  entered  large- 


things.  Even  the  French  peasantry, 
economical  as  they  are  and  inured  to 
hardship,  suffer  grievously  from  the 
same  cause  :  its  effects  in  their  case 
being,  no  doubt,  exaggerated  by  the 


ly  into  the  consumption  of  the  poor,  '  law  of  succession,  which  tends  to  the 
and  the  high  price  of  wheat  stimulated  perpetual  subdivision  of  the  land,  and 
inclosure,  because  when  wheat  was  at  |  throws  ever-increasing  difficulties  in 


from  50^.  to  iooj.  and  upward  a  quar- 
ter, it  could  be  culth  !  \vith  profit 
even  on  inferior  lands. 

It  may  well  be  doubted,  however, 
whether  this  conversion  of  pasturage 
into  tillage  has  been  of  permanent 


the  way  of  profitable  cultivation. 
Meanwhile,  agriculture  in  France 
shows  little,  if  any,  sign  of  improve- 
ment, there  is  no  emigration,  and  yet 
the  population,  if  not  diminishing,  is 
almost  stationary. 


advantage  to  the  country,  and  whether,  The  difficulties,  which  beset 
independently  of  the  interests  of  the  j  schemes  for  the  establishment  of  per- 
poor,  it  would  not  have  been  well  that  [  manent  peasant  proprietors,  render  it 

31 


282 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


desirable  to  consider  attentively  those 
measures  which  have  been  found,  in 
practice,  beneficial  to  the  agricultu- 
ral laborers. 

Experience  has  shown  that  small 
allotments,  let  at  moderate  rents,  can 
be  cultivated  by  agricultural  laborers 
with  advantage  to  themselves,  and 
without  interfering  materially  with 
their  ordinary  vocation.  If  this  sys- 
tem were  generally  adopted,  and  in 
exceptionally  bad  years,  attended  with 
a  reduction  or  remission  of  rent,  the 
condition  of  the  laborer  would  be  rais- 
ed, and  the  owner  or  farmer  of  the 
land  would  probably  find,  that  the 
sacrifices,  which  he  might  occasionally 


be  called  upon  to  make,  would  be 
compensated,  by  a  reduction  of  poor 
rates,  and  an  improvement  in  the 
moral  qualities  of  his  laborers. 

This  plan  might  be  supplemented 
on  considerable  estates,  by  the  forma- 
tion of  small  farms,  for  the  occupation 
of  the  laborers  who  showed  most  intel- 
ligence and  energy  in  the  cultivation 
of  their  allotments.  Their  rise  in  the 
social  scale  might  be  slow,  but  it 
would  probably  be  more  lasting  than 
the  sudden  elevation  of  a  laborer  con- 
verted, without  previous  preparation, 
into  a  proprietor,  who  would  be  ex- 
posed to  the  strong  temptation  of  mort- 
gaging or  selling  his  land. 


PART  SECOND. 


AMENDMENT  OF    LAW   OF    PRIMOGEN- 
ITURE. 

IT  will  be  evident,  I  think,  from 
the  preceding  statements,  that  the 
English  "  Land  Laws  "  are  not  justly 
chargeable  with  the  faults  usually 
urged  against  them  by  advanced  poli- 
ticians, whose  opinions  upon  the  sub- 
ject appear  to  be  grounded,  for  the 
most  part,  on  hasty  assumptions.  It 
cannot  however  be  denied,  that,  in  two 
respects  at  least,  the  English  system 
of  land  tenure  loudly  demands  amend- 
ment. 

The  Law  of  Primogeniture,  although 
it  operates  but  rarely,  contravenes,  in 
many  instances,  the  wish  of  an  intes- 


tate. The  owner  of  a  landed  estate 
is,  no  doubt,  usually  desirous  that  it 
shall  continue  in  his  name  and  family. 
This  may  be  condemned  as  a  weak- 
ness by  philosophers  ;  but,  like  the 
desire  of  posthumous  fame,  it  is  fre- 
quently attended  with  beneficial  re- 
sults. Now,  the  owner,  although  op- 
posed to  the  sale  or  division  of  his 
real  estate,  would,  for  the  most  part, 
deprecate  no  less  strongly  than  sale  or 
division,  the  exclusion  of  all  members 
of  his  family  except  an  eldest  son, 
from  any  interest  in  his  freehold  prop- 
erty. In  old  times  the  widow  could 
not  be  deprived  of  her  dower,  a  life 
interest  in  one-third  of  the  lands,  held 
in  fee-simple  or  fee-tail,  of  her  hus- 
band, without  her  own  consent,  and 
the  cumbrous  procedure  in  the  Court 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND  IN  ENGLAND. 


283 


of  Common  Pleas  called  a  fine  ;  but 
as  this  state  of  the  law  was  found  in- 
convenient, in  case  it  became  desira- 
ble to  sell  the  land  during  the  joint 
lives  of  the  husband  and  wife,  convey- 
ancers introduced  a  provision  into 
purchase  deeds,  which  had  the  effect 
of  depriving  the  wife  of  her  right  to 
dower  out  of  the  purchased  land  ;  and 
they  appear  to  have  continued  a  simi- 
lar practice,  although  the  Dower  Act 
of  1834  rendered  it  wholly  unnecessa- 
ry, because  the  sale  of  the  land  by  the 
husband  was,  by  virtue  of  the  Act,  suf- 
ficient to  dispHce  the  right  of  the 
wife  ;  and  thus  i.ie  provision  which  the 
law  made  for  the  widow,  and  which, 
of  course,  often  became  a  temporary 
provision  for  younger  children  also, 
was  needlessly  swept  away.  So  that, 
on  an  intestacy  taking  place,  the  eld- 
est son  generally  excludes,  not  only 
the  other  children,  but  the  widow  also, 
from  all  interest  whatever  in  the  free- 
hold property  of  his  father,  if  the 
father  has  been  the  purchaser ;  al- 
though if  he  has  inherited  it,  only 
the  younger  children  are  entirely  ex- 
cluded. 

The  present  state  of  things  is, 
therefore,  even  more  objectionable 
than  that  which  existed  under  the 
feudal  law,  when,  as  I  have  before 
mentioned,  the  third  part  of  the  land, 
which  the  widow  enjoyed  for  her  life, 
often  must  have  afforded  some  sup- 
port for  younger  children,  as  well  as 
for  herself. 

It  has  often  been  pointed  out  as  an 
excellence  of  the  Statute  for  the  Dis- 
tribution of  Intestates'  Estates,  that  it 
makes  for  an  intestate  such  a  disposi- 
tion of  his  personal  property,  as,  in  or- 
dinary cases,  a  reasonable  man  would  i 
make  for  himself.  Does  it  transcend 


the  wisdom  of  Parliament  to  do  the 
like  with  regard  to  freehold  property  ? 
Why  should  it  not  preserve  the  right 
of  the  eldest  son  to  take  the  land  as 
heir  to  his  father,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  charge  the  land  with  a  sum  of 
money  to  be  divisible,  like  the  personal 
estate  of  the  father,  between  the 
widow  and  the  younger  children  or 
their  issue ,  the  proportion  of  the 
amount  so  distributable  to  the  value 
of  the  land,  varying  according  to  the 
number  of  claimants  ?  Such  a  law 
would  give  the  eldest  son  a  fair  oppor- 
tunity of  retaining  the  land,  without 
doing  manifest  injustice  to  other 
members  of  the  family.  It  would  re- 
move a  palpable  grievance,  with  as 
little  alteration  as  possible  in  the  ex- 
isting law,  while  avoiding  the  risk  of 
encountering  the  evils  which  result 
from  the  constant  subdivision  of  land. 


II. 

PROPOSED     SYSTEM  OF    REGISTRATION. 

THERE  is  another  improvement  in 
our  land  system  which  is  much  more 
urgent!)  required  than  the  amend- 
ment of  the  Law  of  Primogeniture. 
I  refer  to  the  establishment  of  Regis- 
ters of  deeds  and  wills  relating  to  land. 

The  efforts  of  the  legislature  in  this 
direction  have  been  singularly  unsuc- 
cessful— more  unsuccessful,  perhaps, 
than  its  other  attempts  to  improve  the 
laws  relating  to  land. 

Registers  were  established  in  the 
earlier  part  of  the  last  century  for 
Yorkshire  and  Middlesex,  and  two 
Acts  for  introducing  a  General  Reg- 
ister have  been  passed  in  the  present 
reign.  The  earlier  attempts  pro- 


33 


284  BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 

duced  but  slight  advantage  through  '  should  be  marked  on  a  copy  of  the  ord* 
doing  too  little,  the  later  still  slighter  !  nance  map,  so  that  by  inspection,  it 
through  endeavoring  to  do  too  much.  !  might  at  once  be  ascertained  whether 

It  is  essential  to  a  good  system  of  a  property  had  been  registered  or  not. 
registration  that  an  intending  pur-  When  land  had  thus  been  regis- 
chaser  or  mortgagee  should  be  able  to  tered,  no  purchaser  or  mortgagee 
ascertain,  from  an  inspection  of  the  !  should  be  affected  by  any  dealing 
register,  what  documents  there  are  in  \  with  the  land,  subsequent  to  the  reg- 
existence  which  affect  the  title  to  the  istration,  which  did  not  appear  on  the 
land.  Now  Lord  Hardwick  decided  *  register ,  and  further,  every  one  deal- 
that  a  purchaser  of  land  in  Middlesex,  ing  with  the  land  should  be  consid 
having  notice  of  a  document  affecting  ered  as  having  notice  of  all  that  ap- 
the  land,  was  bound  by  it,  although  <  peared  on  the  register,  whether  he 
the  document  had  not  been  registered  took  the  trouble  of  inspecting  it  or 
according  to  the  Middlesex  Register  not. 

Act ;  and  a  purchaser  was  thus  ren- 1  For  the  purpose  of  registration  a 
dered  liable  to  be  deprived  of  his  pur- !  book  might  be  appropriated  to  each 
chase,  through  forgetfulness  or  some  registered  property,  so  that  by  turn- 
slight  inadvertence  on  the  part  of  him-  ing  to  that  book,  it  might  at  once  be 
self  or  his  agent.  Lord  Hardwick  has  '  known,  with  certainty,  who  had  ob- 
been  blamed  for  this  decision,  which  tained  any  right  in  the  property  since 
went  far  to  destroy  the  utility  of  the  the  registration  took  place, 
registers  of  Middlesex  and  Yorkshire. t !  A  claim  as  heir  should  be  entered 
The  censure  was,  however,  unde-  J  on  the  register,  and  after  a  certain 
served,  as  the  decision  was  in  accord-  period  from  the  death  of  the  owner,  a 
ance  with  the  intention  of  the  Act,  as  bond,  fide  purchaser,  from  one  whose 
disclosed  by  the  preamble.  j  claim  as  heir  has  been  so  entered  on 

As  these  Acts  are  acknowledged  to  !  the  register,  should  not  be  affected 
be  defective  in  allowing  a  purchaser  by  the  claim  of  any  person  as  heir  or 
to  be  affected  by  an  unregistered  doc-  as  devisee  not  registered  previously 
ument,  I  suggest  that  the  defect  should  to  the  purchase, 
be  removed,  and  an  efficient  system  A  will  affecting  the  land  should  be 
of  registration  made  general  through-  entered  on  the  register,  and  after  a 
out  England.  certain  period  from  the  decease  of  the 

I  venture  to  propose  that  any  one  testator,  a  bond, fide  purchaser  from  a 
in  possession  of  land,  for  a  freehold  devisee  under  such  will,  should  not  be 
estate,  or  leasehold  estate  of  twenty-  affected  by  any  will  or  claim  as  heir 
one  years  or  upward,  should  be  en-  not  previously  registered, 
titled  to  have  the  land  entered  on  the  The  registration  of  any  document 
Register,  upon  paying  the  expense  of  or  claim  would  not  give  to  the  docu- 
surveying  the  boundaries,  by  an  offi.  ment  or  claim  itself  any  greater  valid- 
cial  surveyor  ;  that  the  boundaries  ity  than  it  possessed  before  registra- 

I ~"        " ;  tion ;   the  registration  would    simply 

*  In  Le  Neve  v.  Le  Neve,  Amb.  4-56. 

t  The  Yorkshire  Acts  have  been  amended  Prevent  the  validity  of  the  document 
o)  47  &  48  Vrct,  c.  54.  or  claim  (supposing  a  purchase  or 

84 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND  IN  ENGLAND. 


mortgage  to  have  taken  place  on  the 
iaith  of  it)  from  being  affected  by 
documents  or  claims  not  previously 
registered,  or  by  subsequent  transac- 
tions. 

If  a  registered  property  were  di- 
vided, a  new  book  referring  to  the  old 
one  should  be  appropriated  to  each 
portion.  If  several  registered  prop- 
erties were  consolidated,  only  one 
new  book  would  be  required  for  the 
whole,  the  new  one  referring  to  the 
books  relating  to  the  separate  proper- 
ties. 

The  map  on  which  the  registered 
properties  were  delineated  would 
form  the  key  and  index  to  the  vol- 
umes of  registration  ;  each  property 
would  receive  a  number,  and  this 
number  would  constitute  a  sufficient 
description  of  the  property  in  convey- 
ances, mortgages,  etc. 

It  seems  to  me  clear,  that  after  the 
lapse  of  a  few  years,  through  the  op- 
eration of  the  Statute  of  Limitations, 
an  indefeasible  title  would  be  ob- 
tained under  such  a  system  of  regis- 
tration, without  the  expense  and  dan- 
ger of  an  official  investigation  of 
titles,  and  that  equitable  rights  would, 
as  well  as  legal  rights,  be  perfectly 
protected. 

In  order  to  preserve  the  facilities 
which  land  owners  now  enjoy,  of  creat- 
ing a  security  by  the  deposit  of  title- 
deeds,  I  would  propose  that  any  one, 
who  appears  by  the  register  to  be  en- 
titled to  an  interest  in  the  land, 
should,  on  application,  be  furnished 
with  a  certificate  that  he  appears  by 
the  register  to  be  entitled  to  such  in- 
terest, and  the  fact  of  the  certificate 
being  granted  should  be  entered  on 
the  register.  After  this,  any  one  deal- 
ing with  the  same  interest  should  be 


held  bound  by  any  right  secured  by 
the  deposit  of  the  certificate.  It 
would,  therefore,  in  order  to  deal 
safely  with  the  interest,  be  necessary 
that  the  certificate  should  be  pro- 
duced and  handed  over  to  a  pur- 
chaser or  mortgagee,  or  entered  on 
the  register  as  surrendered. 

In  the  subsequent  chapters  will  be 
found  a  short  examination  of  the  two 
modern  Registration  Acts. 


III. 

MODERN  REGISTRATION  ACTS. 

25  &  26  Viet.  c.  53. 

As  regards  the  two  modern  attempts 
to  establish  a  system  of  registra- 
tion, it  appears  to  have  been  the  prin- 
cipal object  of  the  first,  the  25  &  26 
Viet.  c.  53  (1862),  that  the  owner  of 
land  should  be  enabled  to  obtain  an 
absolutely  indefeasible  title  to  his  prop- 
erty. Now  desirable  as  is  this  ob- 
ject, it  is  one  which  cannot  be  attained 
without  a  minute  investigation  into  the 
actual  title.  In  order  not  to  commit 
injustice  by  destroying  the  right  of  an 
absent  and,  it  may  be,  an  unknown  per- 
son, it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  ascer- 
tain that  the  applicant,  who  requires 
the  grant  of  an  indefeasible  title,  is 
the  true  and  sole  owner :  and  this  can- 
not be  effected  without  a  rigid  exam- 
ination of  documents,  and  public  ad- 
vertisements limiting  a  time  for  ad- 
verse claimants  to  come  in — precau- 
tions which  necessarily  occasion  con- 
siderable delay  and  expense.  Own- 
ers, therefore,  who  feel  satisfied  with 
their  titles,  as  practically,  if  not  theo- 
retically, sufficient,  have  been  unwi'V 


286 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


ing  to  apply,  at  this  cost,  for  an  inde- 
feasible title ;  while  in  cases  where 
some  doubts  existed  respecting  the 
perfection  of  the  title,  the  owner  has 
been  fearful  of  submitting  it  to  the 
strict  preliminary  scrutiny.  Hence 
the  Act  had  little  practical  value, 
except  in  cases  where  a  considerable 
property  was  to  be  disposed  of  by 
dividing  it  into  numerous  lots.  In 
such  a  case  registration  under  this  Act 
might  effect  a  saving  of  expense 
besides  giving  an  indefeasible  title  to 
the  purchasers. 

Criticism  would,  however,  be  wasted 
on  the  provisions  of  this  Statute,  since 
the  registration  under  it  was  closed 
(after  a  trial  of  thirteen  years)  by  the 
38  &  39  Viet.  c.  87,  the  Registration 
Act  at  present  in  force. 


IV. 

THE  PRESENT  GENERAL   REGISTRATION 
ACT. 

THE  objections  which  I  pointed  out, 
as  having  been  fatal  to  the  usefulness 
of  the  former  Act,  apply  also  to  the 
present  (the  Land  Transfer  Act,  1875, 
38  &  39  Viet.  c.  87),  viz.,  the  expense 
and  possible  danger  which  must  be  in- 
curred in  order  to  obtain  registration. 
An  indisputable  title,  subject  or  not 
subject  to  specified  qualifications,  can- 
not be  granted  without  the  rigid  inves- 
tigation requisite  to  prove  that  there 
exist  no  valid  latent  claims. 

Nor  is  it  clear  that  the  advantages 
to  be  derived  from  the  possession  of 
an  indisputable  title  under  the  Act  are 
such  as  to  counterbalance  these  ob- 
jecHons. 

The  object  of  the  Act  appears  to 


be  the  assimilation,  as  far  as  practi- 
cable, of  the  method  of  conveying 
land  to  that  which  is  in  force  for  trans- 
ferring Government  stock. 

If  stock  is  entered  in  the  books  kept 
by  the  Bank  of  England  in  the  name 
of  one  or  more  persons,  the  stock  be- 
comes, at  law,  the  absolute  property 
of  those  persons  or  person,  so  far  as 
the  books  convey  information.  You 
are  not  allowed  to  enter  in  these  books 
the  name  of  a  person  as  having  merely 
a  limited  interest,  for  example  an  in- 
terest for  life,  in  a  sum  of  stock. 

So  under  the  present  Land  Act 
(putting  leaseholds  out  of  the  ques- 
tion), a  person  can  be  registered  as 
owner  of  an  absolute  estate  or  fee- 
simple  only.  If  a  life  interest  is  to 
be  conferred,  it  must  be  given  by  way 
of  trust ;  the  person  registered  as  own- 
er in  fee  must  execute  an  instrument 
declaring  that  he  holds  the  land  in 
trust  for  the  person  designated,  for  his 
life — the  Act  not  making  any  provis- 
ion for  the  registration  of  trusts. 

As  the  Bank  of  England  will  not 
take  notice  of  any  trust  of  stock,  the 
new  register,  like  the  Bank  books,  is 
a  register  of  absolute  owners.  The 
I  Act,  however,  permits  the  registration 
of  money  charges  on  registered  land. 

Hitherto  a  provision  (say  for  infant 
children)  out  of  land,  has  been  con- 
sidered more  secure  than  a  provision 
out  of  stock.  The  latter  is  at  the  mercy 
of  a  trustee.  The  purchaser  of  stock 
from  a  trustee,  in  whose  name  the 
stock  stands,  is  safe,  in  the  absence 
of  notice  of  the  trust,  and  the  person 
beneficiallv  entitled  has  no  remedy  ex- 
cent  against  the  trustee  personally. 

A  trust  estate  in  land  could  not  with- 
out difficulty  be  defeated  by  a  sale, 
because  a  purchaser  of  the  land  would, 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND  IN  ENGLAND. 


almost  necessarily,  have  notice  of  the 
trust — the  trustee  in  establishing  his 
own  title  would  disclose  the  trust  also. 
Even  if  the  land  were  vested  in  trus- 
tees for  sale,  the  almost  necessary 
notoriety  of  the  sale  of  unregistered 
land  affords  practical  protection  to 
the  beneficial  owner. 

As  regards  land  registered  under 
this  Act  the  case  will  be  different. 
The  person  who  is  registered  owner 
can  convey  the  land  discharged  of 
all  trusts,  except  registered  money 
charges  by  a  transaction  no  more 
notorious  than  a  transfer  of  Govern- 
ment stock. 

It  is  true  that  the  Act  provides  for 
the  entry  of  "  cautions "  on  the  reg- 
ister, and  when  a  caution  has  been 
entered,  the  land  is  not  to  be  dealt 
with,  until  notice  of  the  intended  trans- 
fer has  been  given  personally,  or  by 
post,  to  the  cautioners — a  proceeding 
analogous  to  placing  a  distringas  on 
stock  at  the  Bank  of  England.  But, 
although  the  notice  is  not  duly  given, 
the  sale  is  still  absolute — and  in  many 
instances  beneficial  owners,  especially 
if  they  are  infants,  will  omit  to  enter 
a  caution. 

It  is,  perhaps,  unnecessary  to  remark 
that  the  security  at  present  enjoyed 
by  partial  owners  of  land  as,  for  exam- 
ple, tenants  for  life,  entitled  at  law 
will  be  much  diminished  if  the  land  is 
registered  under  this  Act,  because  the 
interest  of  such  an  owner  will  be  neces- 
sarily converted  into  an  equitable  in- 
terest. 

Nor  is  this  all ;  by  the  41  st  Section 
if  a  person  registered  as  sole  owner 
of  freehold  land  (or  the  survivor  of 
several  registered  owners)  dies,  the 
land  which  he  held  will  not  pass  to  his 
heir,  or  to  his  personal  representatives, 


but  to  a  person  nominated  by  the  Reg- 
istrar, at  his  discretion,  regard  being 
had  to  the  rights  of  persons  interested 
in  the  land.  So  that  if  the  deceased 
was  the  beneficial  owner,  his  heir,  wid- 
ow, or  the  devisees  under  his  will,  may 
find  their  interests  in  the  land  at  the 
mercy  of  a  person,  whom  neither  they 
nor  the  deceased  had  any  potential 
voice  in  selecting,  and  who  may  defeat 
their  rights  by  a  sale  and  transfer  on 
the  register  to  a  purchaser,  whether 
that  person  had  or  had  not  notice  of 
the  trusts.  (See  Section  30.) 

It  may  well  be  asked  with  what 
view  are  these  provisions  with  regard 
to  Registration  introduced  ?  They 
will  clearly  have  the  effect  of  render- 
ing less  secure  the  interests  of  many 
persons  in  landed  property,  supposing 
the  land  to  be  registered  under  the 
Act.  What  then  are  the  countervail- 
ing advantages  which  the  authors  of 
the  Act  expect  that  it  will  confer  ? 

I  have  heard  it  stated  by  a  high  au- 
thority that  the  late  Mr.  Cobden  de- 
clared, after  having  attained  free  trade 
I  in  corn,  that  the  next  most  important 
object  was,  in  his  opinion,  to  establish 
free  trade  in  land.  I  do  not  feel  sure 
as  to  the  meaning  which  he  attached 
to  this  expression  ,  but  I  presume  that 
"establishing  free  trade  in  land" 
means  providing  for  its  purchase  and 
sale  in  the  same  manner  as^ Govern- 
ment and  other  stocks  and  securities 
are  purchased  and  sold  in  the  market. 

The  authors  of  the  Act  under  con- 
sideration appear  to  have  had  this  ob- 
ject in  view.  The  persons  in  whose 
names  land  is  registered  are  to  be  the 
j  absolute  owners  (not  owners  for  life 
or  in  remainder),  in  the  same  sense 
that  proprietors  of  Government  stock 
are  absolute  owners.  The  directors 


288 


BEACO:\   LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


of  the  Bank  of  England,  who  have 
charge  of  the  national  stocks,  as  well 
as  of  their  own,  refuse  to  take  notice 
of  trusts — the  Registrar  of  land  is  to 
do  the  same.  The  cautions  which 
may  be  entered  on  the  register  are  ap- 
parently devised  in  imitation  of  the 
distringas  which  may  be  placed  upon 
Government  stocks. 

To  a  landowner  engaged  in  com- 
mercial speculations,  it  may  be  advan- 
tageous to  register  his  land  under  the 
Act.  The  registration  might  render 
it  more  easy  for  him  to  raise  money 
on  the  security  of  his  estate,  or  to  sell 
it  with  despatch,  on  an  emergency. 
He  might,  perhaps,  have  his  land  quo- 
ted like  so  much  stock,  and  make  it  a 
subject  of  speculation  in  the  market. 
If  many  estates  were  thus  offered  for 
public  sale,  there  might  be  called  into 
existence  a  body  of  land-brokers  and 
land-jobbers,  who  would  benefit  by  land 
speculations;  but  I  see  no  reason  to 
suppose  that,  by  such  transactions, 
the  cultivation  of  the  soil  would  be 
improved.  How  could  free  trade  in 
land  produce  effects  at  all  analogous 
to  the  results  of  free  trade  in  corn  ? 
Suppose  that  Bowood  or  Belvoir  was 
registered  by  their  proprietor,  and 
thereby  rendered  more  marketable, 
would  a  purchaser  for  a  rise  of  one- 
eighth  per  cent,  be  likely  to  lay  out 
capital  in  improving  land  which  he 
intended  to  retain  as  his  property  only, 
it  may  be,  till  next  settling  day,  or  un- 
til he  closed  his  speculation  ?  Would 
he  make  a  drain,  or  plant  a  tree — 

"  Seris 
Umbram  factura  nepotibus  ? " 

If  it  was  not  the  object  of  the  Act 
to  encourage  speculation  in  land,  by 
assimilating  land  to  Government  stock, 


it  is  difficult  to  understand  why  the  as- 
similation was  attempted  at  all. 
Merely  to  facilitate  bond, fide  invest- 
ments in  land,  desirable  as  such  an 
object  is  in  itself,  would  not  justify 
the  introduction  of  a  system  of  reg. 
istration  which  diminishes  the  security 
of  equitable  interests,  and  prevents  the 
creation  of  many  legal  estates  which 
can  be  created  in  non-registered  lands. 

I  will  conclude  this  chapter  by  quot- 
ing an  instance  of  the  mode  in  which 
the  antiquated  system  of  land  tenure, 
favoring  the  continuance  of  land  in 
the  same  family  for  several  genera- 
tions, not  unfrequently  worked.  The 
following  statement  is  extracted  from 
the  Times  of  the  6th  March,  1882, 
and  relates  to  the  Swinton  estate  in 
the  North  Riding  of  Yorkshire  : — 

"The  rental  is  very  considerable, 
amounting  to  over  i2,ooo/.,  exclusive 
of  the  mansion,  the  park,  and  the 
grouse-shooting;  yet  relatively  the 
superficial  area  is  much  in  excess  of 
the  rent-roll. 


"  The  bounds  of  Swinton  are  almost 
identical  with  those  of  the  famous  old 
manor  of  Mashamshire.  Besides  the 
thriving  little  market  town  of  Mas- 
ham,  they  include,  either  entirely  or 
in  part,  several  parishes,  with  sundry 
villages.  And  Mashamshire  recalls 
a  long  train  of  historical  associa- 
tions, going  back  to  Saxon  times.  It 
was  owned  at  the  Conquest  by  Earl 
Edwin,  twin  brother  of  Morcar,  grand- 
son of  the  great  Leofric  of  Mercia  and 
the  Lady  Godiva,  and  brother-in-law 
of  the  unfortunate  Harold.  The  Con- 
queror confiscated  it  for  the  benefit  of 


,38 


his  nephew,  the  Earl  of  Bretagne  and 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND  IN  ENGLAND. 


289 


Richmond.  In  the  reign  of  the  first 
Edward  it  had  passed  to  the  Scropes, 
who  were  ennobled  as  Lords  Scrope 
of  Masham  ;  and  from  the  Scropes  it 
came  by  marriage  to  the  old  Yorkshire 
family  of  the  Danbys,  whose  descend- 
ants held  it  down  to  the  present  day. 


"  Swinton  is  emphatically  an  '  old ' 
property,  as  one  of  the  people  with 
whom  I  conversed  on  the  estate  re- 
marked very  suggestively.  He  meant 
that  for  generations  it  had  been  the 
pride  of  its  owners  ;  that  they  had  lav- 
ished their  money  freely  on  it ;  and, 
indeed,  everywhere  you  see  signs  that 
nothing  has  been  stinted  either  in  or- 
namental outlay  or  for  remunerative 
improvements.  The  Danbys  seem  al- 
ways to  have  resided  at  home,  spend- 
ing a  large  and  unencumbered  income 
in  their  parishes ;  they  have  been  lib- 
eral landlords  to  an  industrious  tenant- 
ry, and  I  believe  that  in  the  last  fifty 
years  the  rents  have  hardly  been  al- 
tered. Considering  the  rugged  char- 
acter of  the  country,  there  was  ample 
scope  for  extending  cultivation. 

"  Swinton  may  be  supposed  to  have 
taken  its  name  from  the  wild  swine 
that,  in  the  olden  time,  found  inacces- 
sible retreats  in  its  woods  and  swampy 
wastes,  and  in  the  recesses  of  the  pre- 


cipitous ravines  that  everywhere  inter- 
sect them. 

"  The  father  of  the  late  Mr.  Danby 
was  a  famous  improver ;  so  much  so, 
that  Arthur  Young  was  induced  to 
pay  Swinton  a  visit  on  his  '  Northern 
Tour.'  Young,  who  was  much  grati- 
fied by  what  he  saw,  remarks  that 
'  Mr.  Danby  possessed  several  thou- 
sands of  contiguous  acres,  which  did 
not  yield  him  a  tenth  part  as  many 
farthings  a  year.'  Those  barren  acres, 
where  they  have  not  been  reclaimed, 
are  now  let  to  the  sheep  fanners; 
while  as  well-stocked  grouse  shootings, 
they,  of  course,  have  a  value  which 
was  not  dreamed  of  in  1768.  That 
Mr.  Danby's  son,  during  his  long  oc- 
cupation, seems  to  have  improved  al- 
most as  indefatigably  as  his  father : 
he  made  many  excellent  roads,  and 
built  sundry  substantial  bridges,  while 
he  showed  his  admirable  taste  by  ju- 
diciously beautifying  the  home  do- 
mains." 

The  Danbys  were  clearly  not  trad- 
ers in  land.  Is  there  any  reason  to 
believe  that,  had  they  been  such,  the 
lands  of  Masham  would  have  been  bet- 
ter cultivated,  the  plantations  more 
extensive,  or  the  inhabitants  more 
prosperous  and  contented  than  they 
have  become  under  the  old  system  of 
land  tenure  ? 


39 


CONTENTS. 


PARTL 

PAOH. 

I.ANGLO-SAXON  AGRICULTURE —  GENEATS  AND  GEBURS —  VILLANI 251 

II.  AGRICULTURE    AFTER    THE    CONQUEST  —  VILLEINAGE  —  COPYHOLDERS  — 

CONTINENTAL  SERFS i 252 

III.  ORIGIN  OF  LARGE  PROPERTIES  —  ESTATES  OF  ANGLO-SAXON  NOBILITY  — 

EVIDENCE  OF  DOMESDAY  254 

IV.  THE  SOKE  —  SOCAGE  TENURE  __ v 256 

V.  AGRICULTURAL  COMMUNITIES " .'. 258 

VI.  MR.  SEEBOHM 260 

VII.  THE  FIRST  TAXATION  OF  LAND  —  THE  HIDE 261 

VIII.  SAXON  LAW  OF  SUCCESSION  TO  LAND 262 

IX.  EFFECT  OF  THE  NOEMAN  CONQUEST  ON  THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  LAND.  .. .  264 

X.  NORMAN  LAW  OF  SUCCESSION   266 

XI.  STRICT  ENTAILS  —  THE  STATUTE  "  DE  DONIS  CONDITIONALIBUS  " 268 

XII.  EFFECTS  OF  STRICT  ENTAILS  —  SCOTCH  ENTAILS   270 

XIII.  RELAXATION  OF  STRICT  ENTAILS  —  COMMON  RECOVERIES 272 

XIV.  HENRY  VII.  AND  HIS  NOBLES  —  THE  STATUTE  OF  FINES 274 

XV.  STRICT  SETTLEMENTS 275 

XVI.  EFFECT  OF  STRICT  SETTLEMENTS  OF  LAND  —  MR.  THOROLD  ROGERS....  276 

XVII.  TRUSTEES  TO  PRESERVE  CONTINGENT  REMAINDERS 278 

XVIII.  POWERS  OF  SALE  279 

XIX.  INCLOSURE  OF  WASTE  LANDS  —  MR.  JOHN  WALTER  —  FORMATION  OF  A 

PEASANT  PROPRIETARY .  280 


PART  II. 

I.  AMENDMENT  or  LAW  OF  PRIMOGENITUBE 282 

II.  PROPOSED  SYSTEM  OF  REGISTRATION  283 

III.  MODERN  REGISTRATION  ACTS 285 

IV.  THE  PRESENT  GENERAL  REGISTRATION  ACT  .  .  286 


MONEY 


AND 


THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE 


IN  TWO  PARTS-PART  ONE. 


PREFACE. 


In  preparing  this  volume,  I  have  attempted 
to  write  a  descriptive  essay  on  the  past  and 
present  monetary  systems  of  the  world,  the 
materials  employed  to  make  money,  the 
regulations  under  which  the  coins  are  struck 
and  issued,  the  natural  laws  which  govern 
their  circulation,  the  several  modes  in  which 
they  may  be  replaced  by  the  use  of  paper 
documents,  and  finally,  the  method  in  which 
the  use  of  money  is  immensely  economized 
by  the  cheque  and  clearing  system  now  being 
extended  and  perfected. 

This  is  not  a  book  upon  the  currency 
question,  as  that  question  is  so  often  dis- 
cussed in  England.  I  have  only  a  little  to 
say  about  the  Bank  Charter  Act,  and  upon 
that,  and  other  mysteries  of  the  money 
market,  I  refer  my  readers  to  the  admirable 
essay  of  Mr.  Bagehot  on  "Lombard  Street," 
to  which  this  book  may  perhaps  serve  as  an 
introduction. 

There  is  much  to  be  learnt  about  money 
before  entering  upon  those  abstruse  ques- 
tions, which  barely  admit  of  decided  answers. 
In  studying  a.  language,  we  begin  with  the 
jp-ammar  before  we  try  to  read  or  write.  In 
mtthtmnti"*.  we  practice  ourselves  in  simple 


arithmetic  before  we  proceed  to  the  snbtle- 
ties  of  algebra  and  the  differential  calculus. 
But  it  is  the  grave  misfortune  of  the  moral 
and  political  sciences,  as  well  shown  by  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer,  in  his  "Study  of  Sociology, " 
that  they  are  continually  discussed  by  those 
who  have  never  labored  at  the  elementary 
grammar  or  the  simple  arithmetic  of  the  sub- 
ject. Hence  the  extraordinary  schemes  and 
fallacies  every  now  and  then  put  forth. 

Currency  is  to  the  science  of  economy 
what  the  squaring  of  the  circle  is  to  geometry, 
cr  perpetual  motion  to  mechanics.  If  there 
were  a  writer  on  Currency  possessing  some 
of  the  humor  and  learning  of  the  late  Pro- 
fessor De  Morgan,  he  could  easily  produce  a 
Budget  of  Currency  Paradoxes  more  than 
rivaling  De  Morgan's  Circle-Squaring  Para- 
doxes. There  are  men  who  spend  their  time 
and  fortunes  in  endeavoring  to  convince  a 
dull  world  that  poverty  can  be  abolished  by 
the  issue  of  printed  bits  of  paper.  I  know 
one  gentleman  who  holds  that  exchequer 
bills  are  the  panacea  foi  the  evils  of  humanity. 
Other  philanthropists  wish  to  make  us  all 
rich  by  coining  the  national  debt,  or  coining 
the  lands  of  the  country,  or  coining  every- 
thing.  Another  class  of  persons  have  long 
been  indignant  that,  in  this  stage  of  free  trade, 
the  Mint  price  of  gold  should  still  rcaaaia 


292 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


arbitrarily  6xed  by  statute.  A  member  of 
Parliament  lately  discovered  a  new  grievance, 
*nd  made  his  reputation  by  agitating  against 
the  oppressive  restrictions  on  the  coinage  of 
silver  at  the  Mint.  No  wonder  so  many 
people  are  paupers  when  there  is  a  deficiency 
of  shillings  and  sixpences,  and  when  the 
amount  merely  of  the  rates  and  taxes  paid  in 
a  year  exceeds  the  whole  sum  of  money  cir- 
culating in  the  kingdom. 

The  subject  of  money  as  a  whole  is  a  very 
extensive  one,  and  the  literature  of  it  would 
fill  a  very  great  library.  Many  changes  are 
now  taking  place  in  the  currencies  of  the 
world,  and  important  inquiries  have  been 
lately  instituted  concerning  the  best  mode  of 
constituting  the  circulating  medium.  The 
information  on  the  subject  stored  up  in  evi- 
dence given  before  Government  Commis- 
sions, in  reports  of  International  Confer- 
ences, or  in  researches  and  writings  of  pri- 
vate individuals,  is  quite  appalling  in  ex- 
tent. It  has  been  my  purpose  to  extract 
from  this  mass  of  literature  just  such  facts 
as  seem  to  be  generally  interesting  and  use- 
ful in  enabling  the  public  to  come  to  some 
conclusion  upon  many  currency  questions 
which  press  for  solution.  Shall  we  count  in 
pounds,  or  dollars,  or  francs,  or  marks  ? 
Shall  we  have  gold  or  silver,  or  gold  and 
silver,  as  the  measure  of  value  ?  Shall  we 
employ  a  paper  currency  or  a  metallic  one  ? 
How  long  shall  we  in  England  allow  our 
gold  coinage  to  degenerate  in  weight  ?  Shall 
we  recoin  it  at  the  expense  of  the  State  or 
of  the  unlucky  individuals  who  happen  to 
hold  light  sovereigns  ? 

In  America  the  questions  are  still  more 
important  and  pressing,  involving  the  return 
to  specie  payments,  the  future  regulation  of 
the  paper  currency,  its  partial  replacement 
by  coin,  and  the  exact  size  and  character  of 
the  American  dollar,  regarded  in  relation  to 
international  currency.  Germany  is  in  the 
midst  of  a  great,  and  probably  a  sound  and 
successful,  reorganization  of  the  currency, 
both  metallic  and  paper.  In  France  the 
great  debate  upon  the  double  versus  the 
single  standard  is  hardly  yet  terminated, 
and  active  measures  are  being  taken  to  place 
the  paper  issues  on  a  convertible  basis. 
Among  the  other  countries  of  Europe— Italy, 
Austria,  Holland,  Belgium,  Switzerland, 
the  Scandinavian  kingdoms  and  Russia  — 
there  is  hardly  one  which  is  not  at  present 
reforming  its  currency,  or  has  lately  done  so, 
or  is  discussing  the  proper  method  of  at- 
tempting the  task.  As  regards  all  such 
changes,  we  should  remember  that  in  the 
presep*  we  are  ever  molding  the  future, 
and  that  a  world -wide  system  of  interna- 
tional money,  though  it  may  seem  impracti- 
cable at  the  moment,  is  an  object  at  which 
•11  those  should  aim  who  wish  to  leave  the 
world  better  than  they  found  it. 

I  wish  to  acknowledge  the  assistance 
have  derived  from  the  works  of  Mr. 


Seyd,  especially  his  treatise  on  "  Bullion  and 

the  Foreign  Exchanges,"  from  Professor 
Sumner's  "Hi  tory  of  the  American  Curren- 
cy," M.  Chevalier's  work  "La  Monnaie," 
M.  Wolowski's  various  important  publication! 
upon  money,  and  many  valuable  articles  in 
the  Jourual  des  Economistes.  I  must  ex- 
press my  thanks  to  many  bankers  and  gen- 
tlemen for  information  and  assistance  kind- 
ly rendered  to  me,  especially  to  Mr.  John 
Mills,  Mr.  T.  R.  Wilkinson,  Mr.  Roberts, 
the  chemist  of  the  Royal  Mint,  and  Mr.  E. 
Helm. 

I  should  also  like  to  take  this  opportunity 
of  thanking  those  gentlemen  who  have  from 
time  to  time  sent  me  documents  and  publi- 
cations bearing  upon  the  subject  of  money, 
which  have  proved  very  valuable.  I  may 
mention  especially  a  series  of  reports  and 
documents  concerning  the  American  Mint 
and  currency  received  through  the  kindness 
of  the  Director  of  the  Mint,  and  of  Mr.  Wal- 
ker and  Mr.  E.  Dubois. 

I  am  much  indebted  to  Mr.  W.  H.  Brew- 
er, M.A.,  for  carefully  reading  the  whole  of 
the  proofs,  and  to  Professor  T.  E.  Cliffe 
Leslie,  Mr.  R.  H.  Inglis  Palgrave,  and  Mr. 
Frederick  Hendriks,  for  examining  particular 
portions. 


CHAPTER  L 


BARTER 


Some  years  since,  Mademoiselle  Zfilie,  a 
singer  of  the  Theatre  Lyrique  at  Paris,  made 
a  professional  tour  round  the  world,  and  gave 
a  concert  in  the  Society  Islands.  In  ex- 
change for  an  air  from  Norma  and  a  few 
other  songs,  she  was  to  receive  a  third  part 
of  the  receipts.  When  counted,  her  share 
was  found  to  consist  of  three  pigs,  twenty- 
three  turkeys,  forty-four  chickens,  five 
thousand  cocoanuts,  besides  considerable 
quantities  of  bananas,  lemons  and  oranges. 
At  the  Halle  in  Paris,  as  the  prima  donna 
remarks  in  her  lively  letter,  printed  by  M. 
Wolowski,  this  amount  of  live  stock  and 
vegetables  might  have  brought  four  thousand 
francs,  which  would  have  been  good  remu- 
neration for  five  songs.  In  the  Society  Is- 
lands, however,  pieces  of  money  were  very 
scarce;  and  as  Mademoiselle  could  not  con« 
sume  any  considerable  portion  of  the  re- 
ceipts herself,  it  became  necessary  in  the 
meantime  to  feed  the  pigs  and  poultry  with 
the  fruit. 

When  Mr.  Wallace  was  traveling  in  the 
Malay  Archipelago,  he  seems  to  have  suf- 
fered rather  from  the  scarcity  than  the  super- 
abundance of  provisions.  In  his  most  in- 
teresting account  of  his  travels,  he  tells  us 
that  in  some  of  the  islands,  where  there  was 
no  proper  currency,  he  could  not  procure 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE. 


supplies  for  dinner  without  a  special  bargain, 
and  much  chaffering  upon  each  occasion.  If 
the  vendor  of  fish  or  other  coveted  eatables 
did  not  meet  with  the  sort  of  exchange  de- 
sired, he  would  pass  on,  and  Mr.  Wallace 
and  his  party  had  to  go  without  their  din- 
ner. It  therefore  became  very  desirable  to 
keep  on  hand  a  supply  of  articles,  such  as 
knives,  pieces  of  cloth,  arrack,  or  sago  cakes, 
to  multiply  the  chance  that  one  or  other 
article  would  suit  the  itinerant  merchant. 

In  modern  civilized  society,  the  inconven- 
iences of  the  primitive  method  of  exchange 
are  wholly  unknown,  and  might  almost  seem 
to  be  imaginary.  Accustomed  from  our 
earliest  years  to  the  use  of  money,  we  are 
unconscious  of  the  inestimable  benefits 
which  it  confers  upon  us;  and  only  when  we 
recur  to  altogether  different  states  of  society 
can  we  realize  the  difficulties  which  arise  in 
its  absence.  It  is  even  surprising  to  be  re- 
minded that  barter  is  actually  the  sole  method 
of  commerce  among  many  uncivilized  races. 
There  is  something  absurdly  incongruous 
in  the  fact  that  a  joint-stock  company, 
called  "The  African  Barter  Company,  Lim- 
ited," exists  in  London,  which  carries  en  its 
transactions  upon  the  West  Coast  of  Africa, 
entirely  by  bartering  European  manufactures 
for  palm  oil,  gold  dust,  ivory,  cotton,  coffee, 
gum,  and  other  raw  produce. 

The  earliest  form  of  exchange  must  have 
consisted  in  giving  what  was  not  wanted  di- 
rectly for  that  which  was  wanted.  This  simple 
traffic  we  call  barter  or  truck,  the  French  troc, 
and  distinguish  it  from  sale  and  purchase  in 
which  one  of  the  articles  exchanged  is  in- 
tended to  be  held  only  for  a  short  time,  until 
it  is  parted  with  in  a  second  act  of  exchange. 
The  object  which  thus  temporarily  intervenes 
in  sale  and  purchase  is  money.  At  first  sight 
it  might  seem  that  the  use  of  money  only 
doubles  the  trouble,  by  making  two  exchanges 
necessary  where  one  was  sufficient;  but  a 
slight  analysis  of  the  difficulties  inherent  in 
simple  barter  shows  that  the  balance  of  trou- 
ble lies  quite  in  the  opposite  direction.  Only 
by  such  an  analysis  can  we  become  aware 
that  money  performs  not  merely  one  service 
to  us,  but  several  different  services,  each  in- 
dispensable. Modern  society  could  not  exist 
in  its  present  complex  form  without  the  means 
which  money  constitutes  of  valuing,  distrib- 
uting, and  contracting  for  commodities  of 
various  kinds. 

WANT  OF  COINCIDENCE  IN  BARTER. 

The  first  difficulty  in  barter  is  to  find  two 
persons  whose  disposable  possessions  mutu- 
ally suit  each  other's  wants.  There  may  be 
many  people  wanting,  and  many  possessing 
those  things  wanted;  but  to  allow  of  an  act 
of  barter,  there  must  be  a  double  coincidence, 
which  will  rarely  happen.  A  hunter  having 
returned  from  a  successful  chase  has  plenty 
of  game,  and  may  want  arms  and  ammunition 
to  renew  the  chase.  But  those  who  have 


!  arms  may  happen  to  be  well  supplied  with 
game,  so  that  no  direct  exchange  is  possible. 
In  civilized  society  the  owner  of  a  house  may 
find  it  unsuitable,  and  may  have  his  eye  upon 
another  house  exactly  fitted  to  his  needs.  Bu* 
even  if  the  owner  of  this  second  housr- 
wishes  to  part  with  it  at  all,  it  is  exceedingly 
unlikely  that  he  will  exactly  reciprocate  th» 
feelings  cf  the  first  owner,  and  wish  to  bar- 
ter houses.  Sellers  and  purchasers  can  only 
be  made  to  fit  by  the  use  of  some  commodity, 
some  marchandise  banale,  as  the  French  cal' 
it,  which  all  are  willing  to  receive  for  a  time, 
so  that  what  is  obtained  by  sale  in  one  case, 
may  be  used  in  purchase  in  another.  Thi- 
common  commodity  is  called  a  medium  of 
exchange,  because  it  forms  a  third  or  imme- 
diate term  in  all  acts  of  commerce. 

Within  the  last  few  years  a  curious  attemp' 
has  been  made  to  revive  the  practice  of  barter 
by  the  circulation  of  advertisements.  T/it 
Exchange  and  Mart  is  a  newspaper  whick 
devotes  itself  to  making  known  all  the 
odd  property  which  its  advertisers  are 
willing  to  give  for  some  coveted  arti 
cle.  One  person  has  some  old  coins  and 
a  bicycle,  and  wants  to  barter  them  for  a 
good  concertina.  A  young  lady  desires  tc 
possess  "  Middlemarch,"  and  offers  a  variety 
of  old  songs,  of  which  she  has  become  tired. 
Judging  from  the  size  and  circulation  of  the 
paper,  and  the  way  in  which  its  scheme  has 
been  imitated  by  some  other  weekly  papers, 
we  must  assume  that  the  offers  are  sometimes 
accepted,  and  that  the  printing  press  can 
bring  about,  in  some  degree,  the  double 
coincidence  necessary  to  an  act  of  bartar. 

WANT   OF  A  MEASURE   OF   VALUE. 

A  second  difficulty  arises  in  barter.  At 
what  rate  is  any  exchange  to  be  made  ?  If  a 
certain  quantity  of  beef  be  given  for  a  cer- 
tain quantity  of  corn,  and  in  like  manner 
corn  be  exchanged  for  cheese,  and  cheese 
for  eggs,  and  eggs  for  flax,  and  so  on,  still 
the  question  will  arise — How  much  beef  for 
how  much  flax,  or  how  much  of  any  one 
commodity  for  a  given  quantity  of  another? 
In  a  state  of  barter  the  price-current  list 
would  be  a  most  complicated  document,  for 
each  commodity  would  have  to  be  quoted  in 
terms  of  every  other  commodity,  or  else 
complicated  rule-of-three  sums  would  become 
necessary.  Between  one  hundred  articles 
there  must  exist  no  less  than  four  thousand 
nine  hundred  and  fifty  possible  ratios  of  ex- 
change, and  all  these  ratios  must  be  care- 
fully adjusted  so  as  to  be  consistent  with 
each  other,  else  the  acute  trader  will  be  able 
to  profit  by  buying  from  some  and  selling  to 
others. 

All  such  trouble  is  avoided  if  any  on< 
commodity  be  chosen,  and  its  ratio  of  ex. 
change  with  each  other  commodity  b« 
quoted.  Knowing  how  much  corn  is  to  b* 
bought  for  a  pound  of  silver,  and  also  how 
much  flax  for  the  same  quantity  of  silver,  w« 


294 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


team  without  further  trouble  how  much  corn 
exchanges  for  so  much  flax.  The  chosen 
commodity  becomes  a  common  denominator 
or  common  measure  of  value,  in  terms 
of  which  we  estimate  the  values  of  all  other 
goods,  so  that  their  values  become  capable 
of  the  most  easy  comparison. 

WANT  OF  MEANS  OF  SUBDIVISION. 

A  third  but  it  may  be  a  minor  inconven- 
ience of  barter  arises  from  the  impossibility 
of  dividing  many  kinds  of  goods.  A  store 
of  corn,  a  bag  of  gold  dust,  a  carcase  of 
meat,  may  be  portioned  out,  and  more  or 
less  may  be  given  in  exchange  for  what  is 
wanted.  But  the  tailor,  as  we  are  reminded 
in  several  treatises  on  political  economy, 
may  have  a  coat  ready  to  exchange,  but  it 
much  exceeds  in  value  the  bread  which  he 
wishes  to  get  from  the  baker,  or  the  meat 
from  the  butcher.  He  cannot  cut  the  coat 
np  without  destroying  the  value  of  his  handi- 
work. It  is  obvious  that  he  needs  some 
medium  of  exchange,  into  which  he  can 
temporarily  convert  the  coat,  so  that  he  may 
give  a  part  of  its  value  for  bread,  and  other 
parts  for  meat,  fuel,  and  dai!y  necessaries, 
retaining  perhaps  a  portion  for  future  use 
Further  illustration  is  needless  ;  for  it  is 
obvious  that  we  need  a  means  of  dividing 
and  distributing  value  according  to  our  va- 
rying requirements. 

In  the  present  day  barter  still  goes  on  in 
some  cases,  even  in  the  most  advanced  com- 
mercial countries,  but  only  when  its  incon- 
veniences are  not  experienced.  Domestic 
servants  receive  part  of  their  wages  in  board 
and  lodging  ;  the  farm  laborer  may  partially 
receive  payment  in  cider,  or  barley,  or  the 
use  of  a  piece  of  land.  It  has  always  been 
usual  for  the  miller  to  be  paid  by  a  portion 
of  the  corn  which  he  giinds.  The  truck  or 
barter  system,  by  which  workmen  took  their 
wages  in  kind,  has  hardly  yet  been  extin- 
guished in  some  parts  of  England.  Pieces  of 
land  are  occasionally  exchanged  by  adjoining 
landowners  ;  but  all  these  are  comparatively 
trifling  cases.  In  almost  all  acts  of  ex- 
change money  now  intervenes  in  one  way  or 
other,  and  even  when  it  does  not  pass  from 
hand  to  hand,  it  serves  as  the  measure  by 
which  the  amounts  given  and  received  are 
estimated.  Commerce  begins  with  barter, 
and  in  a  certain  sense  it  returns  to  barter; 
but  the  last  form  of  barter,  as  we  shall  see, 
is  very  different  from  the  first  form.  By  far 
the  greater  part  of  commercial  payments  are 
made  at  the  present  day  in  England  appar- 
ently without  the  aid  of  metallic  money; 
but  they  are  readily  adjusted,  because  money 
acts  as  the  common  denominator,  and  what 
is  bought  in  one  direction  is  balanced  off 
•gainst  what  is  sold  in  another  direction. 


EXCHANGE. 

Money  Is  the  measure  and  standard  of 
value  and  the  medium  of  exchange,  yet  it  is 
not  necessary  that  I  should  enter  upon  more 
than  a  very  brief  discussion  concerning  the 
nature  of  value,  and  the  advantage  of  ex- 
change. Every  one  must  allow  that  the 
exchange  of  commodities  depends  upon  the 
obvious  principle  that  each  of  our  wants 
taken  separately  requires  a  limited  quantity  of 
some  article  to  produce  satisfaction.  Hence 
as  each  want  becomes  fully  satiated,  our  de- 
sire, as  Senior  so  well  remarked,  is  for  varie- 
ty, that  is,  for  the  satisfaction  of  some  other 
want.  The  man  who  is  supplied  daily  with 
three  pounds  of  bread,  will  not  desire  more 
bread;  but  he  will  have  a  strong  inclination 
for  beef,  and  tea,  and  alcohol.  If  he  happen 
to  meet  with  a  person  who  has  plenty  of  beef 
but  no  bread,  each  will  give  that  which  is 
less  desired  for  that  which  is  more  desired. 
Exchange  has  been  called  the  darter  of  the 
superfluous  for  the  necessary. 

Ii  is  impossible,  indeed,  to  decide  exactly 
how  much  bread,  or  beef,  or  tea,  or  how  many 
coats  and  hats  a  person  needs.  There  is  no 
precise  limit  to  our  desires,  and  we  can  only 
say,  that  as  we  have  a  larger  supply  of  a  sub- 
stance, the  urgency  of  our  need  for  more  is 
in  some  proportion  weakened.  A  cup  of 
water  in  the  desert,  or  upon  the  field  of  bat- 
tle, may  save  life,  and  become  infinitely  use- 
ful. Two  or  three  pints  per  day  for  each 
person  are  needful  for  drinking  and  cooking 
purposes.  A  gallon  or  two  per  day  are 
highly  requisite  for  cleanliness;  but  we  soon 
reach  a  point  at  which  further  supplies  of 
water  are  of  very  minor  importance.  A 
modern  town  population  is  found  to  be  satis- 
fied with  about  twenty-five  gallons  per  head 
per  day  for  all  purposes,  and  a  further  supply 
would  possess  little  utility.  Water,  indeed, 
may  be  the  reverse  of  useful,  as  in  the  case 
of  a  flood,  or  a  damp  house,  or  a  wet  mine. 

UTILITY  AND  VALUE  ARE  NOT^  INTRINSIC. 

It  is  only,  then,  when  supplied  in  moderate 
quantities,  and  at  the  right  time,  that  a  thing 
can  be  said  to  be  useful.  Utility  is  not  a 
quality  intrinsic  in  a  substance,  for  if  it  were, 
additional  quantities  of  the  same  substance 
would  always  be  desired,  however  much  we 
previously  possessed.  We  must  not  confuse 
the  usefulness  of  a  thing  with  the  physical 
qualities  upon  which  the  usefulness  depends. 
Utility  and  value  are  only  accidents  of  a  thing 
arising  from  the  fact  that  some  one  wants  it, 
and  the  degree  of  the  utility  and  the  amouut 
of  resulting  value  will  depend  upon  the  extent 
to  which  the  desire  for  it  has  been  previously- 
gratified. 

Regarding  utility,  then,  as  constantly  vary. 
ing  in  degree,  and  as  variable  even  for  each 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      295 


different  portion  of  commodity,  it  is  not  dif- 
ficult to  see  that  we  exchange  those  parts  of 
our  stock  which  have  a  low  degree  of  utility 
to  us,  for  articles  which,  being  of  low  utility 
to  others,  are  much  desired  by  us.  This  ex- 
change is  continued  up  to  the  point  at  which 
the  next  portion  given  would  be  equally  use- 
ful to  us  with  that  received,  so  that  there  ^is 
no  gain  of  uti  ity;  there  would  be  a  loss  in 
carrying  the  exchange  further.  Upon  these 
consideiations  it  is  easy  to  construct  a  theory 
of  the  nature  of  exchange  and  value,  which 
has  been  explained  in  my  bock,*  called  "The 
Theory  of  Political  Economy."  It  is  there 
shown  that  the  well-known  laws  of  supply 
and  demand  follow  from  this  view  of  utility, 
and  thus  yield  a  verification  of  the  theory. 
Since  the  publication  of  the  work  named,  M. 
Leon  \Valras,  the  ingenious  professor  of  polit- 
ical economy  at  Lausanne,  has  independent- 
ly arrived  at  the  same  theory  of  exchange,  \ 
a  remarkable  confirmation  of  its  truth. 

VALUE  EXPRESSES  RATIO  OF  EXCHANGE. 

We  must  now  fix  our  attention  upon  the 
fact  that,  in  every  act  of  exchange,  a  definite 
quantity  of  one  substance  is  exchanged  for  a 
definite  quantity  of  another.  The  things 
bartered  may  be  most  various  in  character, 
and  may  be  variously  measured.  We  may 
give  a  weight  of  silver  for  a  length  of  rope, 
or  a  superficial  extent  of  carpet,  or  a  num- 
ber of  gallons  of  wine,  or  a  certain  horse- 
power of  force,  or  conveyance  over  a  certain 
distance.  The  quantities  to  be  measured 
may  be  expressed  in  terms  of  space,  time, 
mass,  force,  energy,  heat,  or  any  other  phy- 
sical units.  Yet  each  exchange  will  consist 
in  giving  co  many  units  of  one  thing  for  so 
many  units  of  another,  each  measured  in  its 
appropriate  way. 

Every  act  of  exchange  thus  presents  itself 
to  us  in  the  form  of  a  ratio  bet-ween  two  num- 
bers. The  word  value  is  commonly  used, 
and  if,  at  current  rates,  one  ton  of  copper 
exchanges  for  ten  tons  of  bar  iron,  it  is  usual 
to  say  that  the  value  of  copper  is  ten  times 
that  of  the  iron,  weight  for  weight.  For  our 
purpose,  at  least,  this  use  of  the  word  value 
is  only  an  indirect  mode  of  expressing  a 
ratio.  When  we  say  that  gold  is  more  valu- 
able than  silver,  we  mean  that,  as  commonly 
exchanged,  the  weight  of  silver  exceeds  that 
of  the  gold  given  for  it.  If  the  value  of 
gold  rises  compared  with  that  of  silver,  then 
still  more  silver  is  given  for  the  same  quan- 
tity of  gold.  But  value  like  utility  is  no  in- 
trinsic quality  of  a  thing  ;  it  is  an  extrinsic 
accident  or  relation.  We  should  never  speak 
of  the  value  of  a  thing  at  all  without  having 
in  our  minds  the  other  thing  in  regard  to 
which  it  is  valued.  The  very  same  sub- 
stance may  rise  and  fall  in  value  at  the  same 

*  "  The  Theory  of  Political  Economy,"  8vo.  1871. 
(Mmcmillan). 

t  Walras,  Elements  d'Economi  •  politique  pure. 
tmmnnr,  Paris.  (CHiilUnniin),  1874. 


time.  If,  in  exchange  for  a  giyen  weight  of 
gold,  I  can  get  more  silver,  but  less  copper, 
than  I  used  to  do,  the  value  of  gold  has 
risen  with  respect  to  silver,  but  fallen  with 
respect  to  copper.  It  is  evident  that  an  in- 
trinsic property  of  a  thing  cannot  both  in- 
crease and  decrease  at  the  same  lime;  there- 
fore value  must  be  a  mere  relation  or  accident 
of  a  thing  as  regards  other  things  and  the 
persons  needing  them. 


CHAPTER  III. 


THE  FUNCTIONS  OF  MONEY. 

We  have  seen  that  three  inconveniences 
attach  to  the  practice  of  simple  barter,  name- 
ly, the  improbability  of  coincidence  between 
persons  wanting  and  persons  possessing;  the 
complexity  of  exchanges,  which  are  not 
made  in  terms  of  one  single  substance;  and 
the  need  of  some  means  of  dividing  and  dis- 
tributing valuable  articles.  Money  remedies 
these  inconveniences,  and  thereby  performs 
two  distinct  functions  of  high  importance, 
acting  as — 

(1)  A  medium  of  exchange. 

(2)  A  common  measure  of  value. 

In  its  first  form  money  is  simply  any  com- 
modity esteemed  by  all  persons,  any  article 
of  food,  clothing,  or  ornament  which  any 
person  will  readily  receive,  and  which,  there- 
fore, every  person  desires  to  have  by  him  in 
greater  or  less  quantity,  in  order  that  he  may 
have  the  means  of  procuring  necessaries  of 
life  at  any  time.  Although  many  commod- 
ities may  be  capable  of  performing  this 
function  of  a  medium  more  or  less  perfectly, 
some  one  article  will  usual'y  be  selected,  as 
money  par  excellence,  by  custom  or  the  force 
of  circumstances.  This  article  will  then  be- 
gin to  be  used  as  a  measure  of  value.  Being 
accustomed  to  exchange  things  frequently  for 
sums  of  money,  people  learn  the  value  of 
other  articles  in  terms  of  money,  so  that  all 
exchanges  will  most  readily  be  calculated  and 
adjusted  by  comparison  of  the  money  values 
of  the  things  exchanged. 

A  STANDARD  OF  VALUE. 

A  third  function  of  money  soon  develops 
itself.     Commerce  cannot  advance  far  before 
people  begin  to  borrow  and  lend,  and  debts 
of  various  origin  are  contracted.     It  is  in 
some  cases  usual,  indeed,  to  restore  the  very 
same  article  which  was  borrowed,  and  in  al- 
most every  case  it  would  be  possible  to  pay 
back  in  the  same  kind  of  commodity.     If 
i  corn  be  borrowed,  corn  might  be  paid  back, 
I  with   interest  in  corn;   but  the   lender  will 
!  often  not  wish  to  have  things  returned  to  him 
at  an  uncertain  time,  when  he  does  not  much 
need  them,  or  when  their  value  is  unusually 
low.    A  borrower,  too,  may  need  several  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  articles,  which  be  is  not  likely 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


to  obtain  from  one  person;  hence  arises  the 
convenience  of  borrowing  and  lending  in  one 
generally  recognized  commodity,  of  whicn 
the  value  varies  little.  Every  person  making 
a  contract  by  which  he  will  receive  something 
at  a  future  day,  will  prefer  to  secure  the  re- 
ceipt of  a  commodity  likely  to  be  as  valuable 
then  as  now.  This  commodity  will  usually 
be  the  current  money,  and  it  will  thus  come 
to  perform  the  function  of  a  standard  of  value 
We  must  not  suppose  that  the  substance  serv- 
ing as  a  standard  of  value  is  really  invaria- 
ble in  value,  but  merely  that  it  is  chosen  as 
that  measure  by  which  the  value  of  future 
payments  is  to  be  regulated.  Bearing  in 
mind  that  value  is  only  the  ratio  of  quantities 
exchanged,  it  is  certain  that  no  substance 
permanently  bears  exactly  the  same  value 
relatively  to  another  commodity;  but  it  will, 
of  course,  be  desirable  to  select  as  the  stand- 
ard of  value  that  which  appears  likely  to  con- 
tinue to  exchange  for  many  other  commod- 
ities in  nearly  unchanged  ratios. 

A  STORE  OF  VALUE. 

It  is  worthy  of  inquiry  whether  money 
does  not  also  serve  a  fourth  distinct  purpose 
— that  of  embodying  value  in  a  convenient 
form  for  conveyance  to  distant  places. 
Money,  when  acting  as  a  medium  of  ex- 
change, circulates  backward  and  forward 
near  the  same  spot,  and  may  sometimes 
return  to  the  same  hands  again  and  again. 
It  subdivides  and  distributes  property,  and 
lubricates  the  action  of  exchange.  But  at 
times  a  person  needs  to  condense  his  property 
into  the  smallest  compass,  so  that  he  may 
hoard  it  away  for  a  time,  or  carry  it  with 
him  on  a  long  journey,  or  transmit  it  to  a 
friend  in  a  distant  country.  Something 
which  is  very  valuable,  although  of  little 
bulk  and  weight,  and  which  will  be  recog- 
nized as  very  valuable  in  every  part  of  the 
world,  is  necessary  for  this  purpose.  The 
current  money  of  a  country  is  perhaps  more 
likely  to  fulfill  these  conditions  than  anything 
else,  although  diamonds  and  other  precious 
stones,  and  articles  of  exceptional  beauty 
and  rarity,  might  occasionally  be  employed 

The  use  of  esteemed  articles  as  a  store  or 
medium  for  conveying  value  may  in  some 
cases  precede  their  employment  as  currency. 
Mr.  Gladstone  states  that  in  the  Homeric 
poems  gold  is  mentioned  as  being  hoarded 
and  treasured  up.  and  as  being  occasionally 
used  in  the  payment  of  services,  before  it 
became  the  common  measure  of  value,  oxen 
being  then  used  for  the  latter  purpose.  His- 
torically speaking,  such  a  generally  esteemed 
substance  as  gold  seems  to  have  served, 
firstly,  as  a  commodity  valuable  for  orna- 
mental purposes  ;  secondly,  as  stored  v  ealth  ; 
thirdly,  as  a  medium  of  exchange  ;  and,  last- 
ly, as  a  measure  of  value. 

SEPARATION  OF  FUNCTIONS. 

It  is  in  the  highest  degree  important  that 


the  reader  should  discriminate  carefully  and 
constantly  between  the  four  functions  which 
money  fulfills,  at  least  in  modern  societies. 
We  are  so  accustomed  to  use  the  one  same 
substance  in  all  the  four  different  ways,  that 
they  tend  to  become  confused  together  in 
thought.  We  come  to  regard  as  almost  nec- 
essary that  union  of  functions  which  is,  at 
the  most,  a  matter  of  convenience,  and  may 
not  always  be  desirable.  We  might  certain- 
ly employ  one  substance  as  a  medium  of 
exchange,  a  second  as  a  measure  of  value, 
a  third  as  a  standard  of  value,  and 
a  fourth  as  a  store  of  value.  In  buying 
and  selling  we  might  transfer  portions  of 
gold  ;  in  expressing  and  calculating  prices 
we  might  speak  in  terms  of  silver  ;  when  we 
wanted  to  make  long  leases  we  might  define 
the  rent  in  terms  of  wheat,  and  when  we 
wished  to  carry  our  riches  away  we  might 
condense  it  into  the  form  of  precious  stones. 
This  use  of  different  commodities  for  each 
of  the  functions  of  money  has  in  fact  been 
partially  carried  out.  In  Queen  Elizabeth's 
reign  silver  was  the  common  measure  of 
value  ;  gold  was  employed  in  large  payments 
in  quantities  depending  upon  its  current 
value  in  silver,  while  corn  was  required  by 
the  Act  i8th  Elizabeth,  c.  VI.  (1576),  to  be 
the  standard  of  value  in  drawing  the  leases 
of  certain  college  lands. 

There  is  evident  convenience  in  selecting, 
if  possible,  one  single  substance  which  can 
serve  all  the  functions  of  money.  It  will 
save  trouble  if  we  can  pay  in  the  same  money 
in  which  the  prices  of  things  are  calculated. 
As  few  people  have  the  time  or  patience  to 
investigate  closely  the  history  of  prices,  they 
will  probably  assume  that  the  money  in 
which  they  make  all  minor  and  temporary 
bargains,  is  also  the  best  standard  in  which 
to  register  debts  and  contracts  extending 
over  many  years.  A  great  mass  of  payments 
too  are  invariably  fixed  by  law,  such  as  tolls, 
fees,  and  tariffs  of  charges  ;  many  other  pay- 
ments are  fixed  by  custom.  Accordingly, 
even  if  the  medium  of  exchange  varied  con- 
siderably in  value,  people  would  go  on  mak- 
ing their  payments  in  terms  of  it,  as  if  th:re 
had  been  no  variation,  some  gaining  at  the 
expense  of  others. 

One  of  our  chief  tasks  in  this  book  will  be 
to  consider  the  various  materials  which  have 
been  employed  as  money,  or  have  been,  or 
may  be,  suggested  for  the  purpose.  It  must 
be  our  endeavor,  if  possible,  to  discover  some 
substance  which  will  in  the  highest  degree 
combine  the  characters  requisite  for  all  the 
different  functions  of  money,  but  we  must 
bear  in  mind  that  a  partition  of  these  func- 
tions among  different  substances  is  practi- 
cable. We  will  first  proceed  to  a  brief  review 
of  the  very  various  ways  in  which  the  need 
of  currency  has  been  supplied  from  the  ear- 
liest ages,  and  we  will  afterward  analyze  the 
physical  qualities  and  circumstances  which 
render  the  substances  employed  more  or  lew 


6 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      297 


•uited  to  the  purpose  to  which  they  were 
applied.  We  may  thus  arrive  at  some  decis- 
ion as  to  the  exact  nature  of  the  commodity 
which  is  best  adapted  to  meet  our  needs  in 
the  present  day. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


EARLY   HISTORY   OF   MONEY. 

Living  in  civilized  communities,  and  ac- 
customed to  the  use  of  coined  metallic  mon- 
ey, we  learn  to  identify  money  with  gold  and 
silver ;  hence  spring  hurtful  and  insidious 
fallacies.  It  is  always  useful,  therefore,  to 
be  reminded  of  the  truth,  so  well  stated  by 
Turgot,  that  every  kind  of  merchandise  has 
the  two  properties  of  measuring  value  and 
transferring  value.  It  is  entirely  a  question 
of  degree  what  commodities  will  in  any  given 
state  of  society  form  the  most  convenient 
currency,  and  this  truth  will  be  best  impressed 
upon  us  by  a  brief  consideration  of  the  very 
numerous  things  which  have  at  one  time  or 
other  been  employed  as  money.  Though 
there  are  many  numismatists  and  many  polit- 
ical economists,  the  natural  history  of  money 
is  almost  a  virgin  subject,  upon  which  I 
should  like  to  dilate  ;  but  the  narrow  limits 
of  my  space  forbid  me  from  attempting  more 
than  a  brief  sketch  of  the  many  interesting 
facts  which  may  be  collected. 

CURRENCY   IN  THE  HUNTING   STATE. 

Perhaps  the  most  rudimentary  stafe  of  in- 
dustry is  that  in  which  subsistence  is  gained 
by  hunting  wild  animals.  The  proceeds  of 
the  chase  would,  in  such  a  state,  be  the  prop- 
erty of  most  generally  recognized  value.  The 
meat  of  the  animals  captured  would,  indeed, 
be  too  perishable  in  nature  to  be  hoarded  or 
often  exchanged  ;  but  it  is  otherwise  w:th  the 
skins,  which,  being  preserved  and  valued  for 
clothing,  became  one  of  the  earliest  materi- 
als of  currency.  Accordingly,  there  is  abun- 
dant evidence  that  furs  or  skins  were  em 
ployed  as  money  in  many  ancient  nations. 
They  serve  this  purpose  to  the  present  day 
in  some  parts  of  the  world. 

In  the  book  of  Job  (ii.  4)  we  read,  "  Skin 
for  skin,  yea,  all  that  a  man  hath  will  he  give 
for  his  life ;  "  a  statement  clearly  implying 
that  skins  were  taken  as  the  representative 
of  value  among  the  ancient  Or  ental  nations. 
Etymological  research  shows  that  the  same 
may  be  said  of  the  northern  nations  from  the 
earliest  times.  In  the  Esthonian  language 
the  word  rdha  generally  signifies  money,  but 
its  equivalent  in  the  kindred  Lappish  tongue 
has  not  yet  altogether  lost  the  original  mean 
ing  of  skin  or  fur.  Leather  money  is  said 
to  have  circulated  in  Russia  as  late  as  the 
reign  of  Peter  the  Great,  and  it  is  worthy  of 
notice,  that  classical  writers  h.ivc  recorded 
tradition-,  to  the  effect  ti.at  t'e  earliest  cur- 


rency used  at  Rome,  Lacedsemon,  and  Car- 
thage, was  formed  of  leather. 

We  need  not  go  back,  however,  to  such 
early  times  to  study  the  use  of  rude  curren- 
cies. In  the  traffic  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Com- 
pany with  the  North  American  Indians,  furs, 
in  spite  of  their  differences  of  quality  and 
size,  long  formed  the  medium  of  exchange. 
It  is  very  instructive,  and  corroborative  of  the 
previous  evidence  to  find  that,  even  after  the 
use  of  coin  had  become  common  among  the 
Indians  the  skin  was  still  commonly  used  as 
the  money  of  account.  Thus  Whymper  says,* 
"a  gun,  nominally  worth  about  forty  shil- 
lings, brought  twenty  'skins.'  This  term  is 
the  old  one  employed  by  the  company.  One 
skin  (beaver)  is  supposed  to  be  worth  two 
shillings,  and  it  represents  two  marten,  and 
so  on.  You  heard  a  great  deal  about  'skins' 
at  Fort  Yukon,  as  the  workmen  were  also 
charged  for  clothing,  etc.,  in  this  way." 

CURRENCY  IN  THE  PASTORAL  STATE. 

In  the  next  higher  stage  of  civilization,  the 
pastoral  state,  sheep  and  cattle  naturally  form 
the  most  valuable  and  negotiable  kind  of 
property.  They  are  easily  transferable,  con- 
vey themselves  about,  and  can  be  kept  SOT 
many  years,  so  that  they  readily  perform 
some  of  the  functions  of  money. 

We  have  abundance  of  evidence,  tradi- 
tional, written,  and  etymological,  to  show 
this.  In  the  Homeric  poems  oxen  are  dis- 
tinctly and  repeatedly  mentioned  as  the  com- 
modity in  terms  of  which  other  objects  are 
valued.  The  arms  of  Dicmed  are  stated  to 
be  worth  nine  oxen,  and  are  compared  with 
those  of  Glaucos,  worth  one  hundred.  The  tri- 
pod, the  first  prize  for  wrestlers  in  the  twenty- 
third  Iliad,  was  valued  at  twelve  oxen,  and  a 
woman  captive,  skilled  in  industry,  at  four.f 
It  is  peculiarly  interesting  to  find  oxen  thus 
used  as  the  common  measure  of  value,  because 
from  other  passages  it  is  probable,  as  already 
mentioned,  that  the  precious  metals,  though 
as  yet  uncoined,  were  used  as  a  store  of  value, 
and  occasionally  as  a  medium  of  exchange.  The 
several  functions  of  money  were  thus  clearly 
performed  by  different  commodities  at  this 
early  period. 

In  several  languages  the  name  for  money 
is  identical  with  that  of  some  kind  of  cattle 
or  domesticated  animal.  It  is  generally  al- 
lowed that  pecunia,  the  Latin  word  for 
money,  is  derived  from  pecus,  cattle.  From 
the  Agamemnon  of  ^Eschylus  we  learn  that 
the  figure  of  an  ox  was  the  sign  first  im- 
pressed upon  coins,  and  the  same  is  said  to  have 
been  the  case  with  the  earliest  issues  of  the 
Roman  As.  Numismatic  researches  fail  to 
bear  out  these  traditions,  which  were  proba- 
bly invented  to  explain  the  connection  be- 
tween the  name  of  the  coin  and  the  animal. 


*  "  Travels  in  Alaska,"  etc.,  by  F.  Whymper,  page 
225 

t  Gladstone,  "  Juventus  Mundi,"  page  534. 


298 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


A  corresponding  connection  between  these 
notions  may  be  detected  in  much  more  mod- 
ern languages.  Our  common  expression  for 
the  payment  of  a  sum  of  money  is  fee,  which 
is  nothing  but  the  Anglo-Saxon  feoh,  mean- 
ing alike  money  and  cattle,  a  word  cognate 
with  the  German  vieh,  which  still  bears  only 
the  original  meaning  of  cattle.  As  I  am  in- 
formed by  my  friend,  Professor  Theodores, 
the  same  connection  of  ideas  is  manifested 
in  the  Greek  word  for  property,  ktenta, 
which  means  alike  possession,  flock,  or  cat- 
tle, and  is  referred  by  Grimm  to  an  original 
verb  keto  or  ketuo,  to  feed  cattle.  It  is 
even  supposed  by  Grimm  that  the  same  root 
reappears  in  the  Teutonic  and  Scandinavian 
languages,  in  the  Gothic,  skatts,  the  modern 
High  German,  schatz,  the  Anglo-Saxon,  scat, 
or  sceat,  the  ancient  Norsk  skat,  all  meaning 
wealth,  property,  treasure,  tax,  or  tribute, 
especially  in  the  shape  of  cattle.  This  theory 
is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  the  Frisian 
equivalent,  sket,  has  retained  the  original 
meaning  of  cattle  to  the  present  day.  In  the 
Norsk,  Anglo-Saxon,  and  English,  scat  or 
scot  has  been  specialized  to  denote  tax  or 
t:ibute. 

In  the  ancient  German  codes  of  law,  fines 
and  penalties  are  actually  denned  in  terms  of 
live-stock.  In  the  Zend  Avesta,  as  Professor 
Theodores  further  informs  me,  the  scale  of 
rewards  to  be  paid  to  physicians  is  carefully 
stated,  and  in  every  case  the  fee  consists  in 
some  sort  of  cattle.  The  fifth  and  sixth 
lectures  in  Sir  H.  S.  Maine's  most  interesting 
work  on  ' '  The  Early  History  of  Institutions, " 
are  full  of  curious  information  showing  the 
importance  of  live-stock  in  a  primitive  siate 
of  society.  Being  counted  by  the  head,  the 
kine  was  called  capitale,  whence  the  econom- 
ical term  capital,  the  law  term  chattel,  and 
our  common  name  cattle. 

In  countries  where  slaves  form  one  of  the 
most  common  and  valuable  possessions,  it  is 
quite  natural  that  they  should  serve  as  the 
medium  of  exchange  like  cattle.  Pausanias 
mentions  their  use  in  this  way,  and  in  Cen- 
tral Africa  and  some  other  places  where  slav- 
ery still  flourishes,  they  are  the  medium  of 
exchange  along  with  cattle  and  ivory  tusks. 
According  to  Earl's  account  of  New  Guinea, 
there  is  in  that  island  a  large  traffic  in  slaves, 
and  a  slave  forms  the  unit  of  value.  Even 
in  England  slaves  are  believed  to  have  been 
exchanged  at  one  time  in  the  manner  of 
money. 

ARTICLES  OF  ORNAMENT  AS  CURRENCY. 

A  passion  for  personal  adornment  is  one 
of  the  most  primitive  and  powerful  instincts 
of  the  human  race,  and  as  articles  used  for 
such  purposes  would  be  durable,  universally 
esteemed,  and  easily  transferable,  it  is  natu- 
ral that  they  should  be  circulated  as  money. 
The  warnpurapeag  of  the  North  American 
Indians  is  a  case  in  point,  as  it  certainly 
terved  as  jewelry.  It  consisted  of  beads 


made  of  the  ends  of  black  and  white  shells, 
rubbed  down  and  polished,  and  then  strung 
into  belts  or  necklaces,  wh.ch  were  valued  ac- 
cording to  their  length,  and  also  according 
to  their  color  and  luster,  a  foot  of  black  peag 
being  worth  two  feet  of  wmte  peag.  Ic  was 
so  well  established  as  currency  among  the 
natives  that  tr.e  Court  of  Massachusetts  ord- 
ered in  1649,  tnat  it  should  be  received  in 
the  payment  ot  debts  among  settlers  to  the 
amount  of  forty  shillings.  It  is  curious  to 
learn,  too,  that  just  as  European  misers 
hoard  up  gold  and  silver  coins,  the  richer 
Indian  chiefs  secrete  piles  of  wampum  beads, 
having  no  better  means  of  investing  theit 
superfluous  wealth. 

Exactly  analagous  to  this  North  American 
currency,  is  that  of  the  cowry  shells,  which, 
under  one  name  or  another — chamgos,  zim- 
bis,  bouges,  porcelanes,  etc. — have  long  been 
used  in  the  East  Indies  as  small  money.  In 
British  India,  Siam,  the  West  Coast  of 
Africa,  and  elsewhere  on  the  tropical  coasts, 
they  are  still  used  as  small  change,  being  col- 
lected on  the  shores  of  the  Maldive  and  Lac- 
cadive  Islands,  and  exported  for  the  purpose. 
Their  value  varies  somewhat,  according  to 
the  abundance  of  the  yield,  but  in  India  the 
current  rate  used  to  be  about  5,000  shells  for 
one  rupee,  at  which  rate  each  shell  is  worth 
about  the  two-hundredth  part  of  a  penny 
Among  our  interesting  fellow-subjects,  the 
Fijians,  whale's  teeth  served  in  the  place  of 
cowries,  and  white  teeth  were  exchanged  for 
red  teeth  somewhat  in  the  ratio  of  shillings 
to  sovereigns. 

Among  other  articles  of  ornament  or  of 
special  value  used  as  currency,  may  be  men 
tioned  yellow  amber,  engraved  stones,  such 
as  the  Egyptian  scarabsei,  and  tusks  of  ivory. 

CURRENCY   IN  THE  AGRICULTURAL  STATE. 

Many  vegetable  productions  are  at  least 
as  well  suited  for  circulation  as  some  of  the 
articles  which  have  been  mentioned.  It  is 
not  surprising  to  find,  then,  that  among  a 
people  supporting  themselves  by  agriculture, 
the  more  durable  products  were  thus  used. 
Corn  has  been  the  medium  of  exchange  in 
remote  parts  of  Europe  from  the  time  of  the 
ancient  Greeks  to  the  present  day.  In  Nor- 
way corn  is  even  deposited  in  banks,  and 
lent  and  borrowed.  What  wheat,  barley, 
and  oats  are  to  Europe,  such  is  maize  in 
parts  of  Central  America,  especially  Mex- 
ico, where  it  formerly  circulated.  In  many 
of  the  countries  surrounding  the  Mediter- 
ranean, olive  oil  is  one  of  the  commonest 
articles  of  produce  and  consumption  ;  being, 
moreover,  pretty  uniform  in  quality,  durable, 
and  easily  divisible,  it  has  long  served  as 
currency  in  the  Ionian  Islands,  Mytilene, 
some  towns  of  Asia  Minor,  and  elsewhere  in 
the  Levant, 

Just  as  cowries  circulate  in  the  East  Indies, 
so  cacao  nuts,  in  Central  America  and  Yu- 
catan, form  a  perfectly  recognized  and  prob- 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.     299 


ably  an  ancient  fractional  money.  Trav- 
elers have  published  many  distinct  state- 
ments as  to  their  value,  but  it  is  impossible 
to  reconcile  these  statements  without  sup- 
posing great  changes  of  value  either  in  the 
nuts  or  in  the  coins  with  which  they  are  com- 
pared. In  1521,  at  Caracas,  about  thirty 
cacao  nuts  were  worth  one  penny  English, 
whereas  recently  ten  beans  would  go  to  a 
penny,  according  to  Squier's  statements.  In 
the  European  countries,  where  almonds  are 
commonly  grown,  they  have  circulated  to 
some  extent  like  the  cacao  nuts,  but  are  vari- 
able in  value  according  to  the  success  of  the 
harvest. 

It  is  not  only,  however,  as  a  minor  cur- 
rency that  vegetable  products  have  been 
used  in  modern  times.  In  the  American 
settlements  and  the  West  India  Islands,  in 
former  days,  specie  used  to  become  incon- 
veniently scarce,  and  the  legislators  fell  back 
upon  the  device  of  obliging  creditors  to  re- 
ceive payment  in  produce  at  stated  rates.  In 
1618,  the  Governor  of  the  Plantations  of 
Virginia  ordered  that  tobacco  should  be  re- 
ceived at  the  rate  of  three  shillings  for  the 
pound  weight,  under  the  penalty  of  three 
years'  hard  labor.  We  are  told  that,  when 
the  Virginia  Company  imported  young 
women  as  wives  for  the  settlers,  the  price 
per  head  was  one  hundred  pounds  of  to- 
bacco, subsequently  raised  to  one  hundred 
and  fifty.  As  late  as  1732,  the  legislature  of 
Maryland  made  tobacco  and  Indian  corn 
legal  tenders  ;  and  in  1641  there  were  similar 
laws  concerning  corn  in  Massachusetts.  The 
governments  of  some  of  the  West  India 
Islands  seem  to  have  made  attempts  to  imi- 
tate these  peculiar  currency  laws,  and  it  was 
provided  that  the  successful  plaintiff  in  a 
lawsuit  should  be  obliged  to  accept  various 
kinds  of  raw  produce,  such  as  sugar,  rum, 
molasses,  ginger,  indigo,  or  tobacco.*  Such 
endeavors  to  establish  a  kind  of  multiple  cur- 
rency will  be  found  to  possess  considerable 
interest  for  us  in  a  later  chapter. 

The  perishable  nature  of  most  kinds  of 
animal  food  prevents  them  from  being  much 
used  as  money  ;  but  eggs  are  said  to  have 
circulated  in  the  Alpine  villages  of  Switzer- 
land, and  dried  codfish  have  certainly  acted 
as  currency  in  the  colony  of  Newfoundland. 

MANUFACTURED   AND   MISCELLANEOUS  ARTI- 
CLES AS  CURRENCY. 

The  enumeration  of  articles  which  have 
served  as  money  may  already  seem  long 
enough  for  the  purposes  in  view.  I  will, 
therefore,  only  add  briefly  that  a  great  num- 
ber of  manufactyred  commodities  have  been 
used  as  a  medium  of  exchange  in  various 
times  and  places.  Such  are  the  pieces  of 
cotton  cloth,  called  Guinea  pieces,  used  for 
traffic  upon  the  banks  of  the  Senegal,  or  the 


*  See  a  scarce  tract,  entitled  "  Two  Letters  to  Mr. 
Wood  on  the  Coin  and  Currency  in  the  Leeward 
Iilamds,"  p.  34.  London,  1740. 


somewhat  similar  pieces  circulated  In  Abys- 
sinia, the  Soulou  Archipelago,  Sumatra, 
Mexico,  Peru,  Siberia,  and  among  the  Ved- 
dahs.  It  is  less  easy  to  understand  the  ori- 
gin of  the  curious  straw  money  which  circu- 
lated until  1694  in  the  Portuguese  possessions 
in  Angola,  and  which  consisted  of  small 
mats,  called  libongos,  woven  out  of  rice 
straw,  and  worth  about  one  and  a-half  pennies 
each.  These  mats  must  have  had,  at  least 
originally,  some  purpose  apart  from  their  use 
as  currency,  and  were  perhaps  analogous  to 
the  fine  woven  mats  so  much  valued  by  the 
Samoans,  and  also  treated  by  them  as  a  me- 
dium of  exchange. 

Salt  has  been  circulated  not  only  in  Abys- 
sinia, but  in  Sumatra,  Mexico,  and  elsewhere. 
Cubes  of  benzoin  gum  or  beeswax  in  Suma- 
tra, red  feathers  in  the  Islands  of  the  Pacific 
Ocean,  cubes  of  tea  in  Tartary,  iron  shovels 
or  hoes  among  the  Malagasy,  are  other  pecu- 
liar forms  of  currency.  The  remarks  of 
Adam  Smith  concerning  the  use  of  hand- 
made nails  as  money  in  some  Scotch  villages 
will  be  remembered  by  many  readers,  and 
need  not  be  repeated.  M.  Chevalier  has 
adduced  an  exactly  corresponding  case  from 
one  of  the  French  coalfields. 

Were  space  available  it  would  be  interest- 
ing to  discuss  the  not  improbable  suggestion 
of  Boucher  de  Perthes,  that,  perhaps,  after 
all,  the  finely  worked  stone  implements  now 
so  frequently  discovered  were  among  the 
earliest  mediums  of  exchange.  Some  of 
them  are  certainly  made  of  jade,  nephrite,  or 
other  hard  stones,  only  found  in  distant 
countries,  so  that  an  active  traffic  in  such 
implements  must  have  existed  in  times  of 
which  A  e  have  no  records  whatever. 

There  are  some  obscure  allusions  in  classi- 
cal authors  to  a  wooden  money  circulating 
among  the  Byzantines,  and  to  a  wooden 
talent  used  at  Antioch  and  Alexandria,  but 
in  the  absence  of  fuller  information  as  to 
their  nature,  it  is  impossible  to  do  more  than 
mention  them. 


CHAPTER  V, 

QUALITIES  OF  THE  MATERIAL  OF  MONEY. 

Many  recent  writers,  such  as  Huskisspn, 
MacCulloch,  James  Mill,  Gamier,  Chevalier, 
and  Walras,  have  satisfactorily  described  the 
qualities  which  should  be  possessed  by  the 
material  of  money.  Earlier  writers  seem, 
however,  to  have  understood  the  subject 
almost  as  well.  Harris  explained  these  qual- 
ities with  remarkable  clearness  in  his  "Essay 
upon  Money  and  Coins,"  published  in  1757,  a 
work  which  appeared  before  the  "Wealth  of 
Nations,"  yet  gave  an  exposition  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  money  which  can  hardly  be  im- 
proved at  the  present  day.  Eighty  years 
before,  however,  Rice  Vaughan,  in  his  excel- 


9 


300 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


lent  little  "Treatise  of  Money,"  had  written 
a  brief  but  satisfactory  statement  of  the 
qualities  requisite  in  money.  We  even  find 
that  William  Stafford,  the  author  of  that  re- 
markable dialogue  of  the  Elizabethan  age 
(1581),  called  "A  Brief  Conceipte  of  Eng- 
lish Policy,"  showed  perfect  insight  into  the 
subject.  Of  all  writers,  M.  Chevalier,  how- 
ever, probably  gives  the  most  accurate  and 
full  account  of  the  properties  which  money 
should  possess,  and  I  shall  in  many  points 
follow  his  views. 

The  prevailing  defect  in  the  treatment  of 
the  subject  is  the  failure  to  observe  that 
money  requires  different  properties  as  regards 
different  functions.  To  decide  upon  the 
best  material  for  money  is  thus  a  problem  of 
great  complexity,  because  we  must  take  into 
account  at  once  the  relative  importance  of 
the  several  functions  of  money,  the  degree  in 
which  money  is  employed  for  each  function, 
and  the  importance  of  each  of  the  physical 
qualities  of  the  substance  with  respect  to 
each  function.  In  a  simple  state  of  industry 
money  is  chiefly  required  to  pass  about 
between  buyers  and  sellers.  It  should,  then, 
be  conveniently  portable,  divisible  into  pieces 
of  various  size,  so  that  any  sum  may  readily 
be  made  up,  and  easily  distinguishable  by 
its  appearance,  or  by  the  design  impressed 
upor.  it.  When  money,  however,  comes  to 
serve,  as  it  will  at  some  future  time,  almost 
exclusively  as  a  measure  and  standard  of 
value,  the  system  of  exchange  being  one  of 
perfected  barter,  such  properties  become  a 
matter  of  comparative  indifference,  and  sta- 
bility of  value,  joined  perhaps  to  portability, 
is  the  most  important  quality.  Before  ven- 
turing, however,  to  discuss  such  complex 
questions,  we  must  proceed  to  a  preliminary 
discussion  of  the  properties  in  question, 
which  may  thus  perhaps  be  enumerated  in 
the  order  of  their  importance : — 

1.  Utility  and  value.   5.  Divisibility. 

2.  Portability.  6.  Stability  of  value. 

3.  Indestructibility.     7.  Cognizability. 

4.  Homogeneity. 

I. — UTILITY  AND   VALUE. 

Since  money  has  to  be  exchanged  for 
valuable  goods,  it  should  itself  possess 
value,  and  it  must  therefore  have  utility 
as  the  basis  of  value.  Money,  when  once 
in  full  currency,  is  only  received  in  order 
to  be  passed  on,  so  that  if  all  people 
could  be  induced  to  take  worthless  bits 
of  material  at  a  fixed  rate  of  valuation, 
it  might  seem  that  money  does  not  really 
require  to  have  substantial  value.  Some- 
thing like  this  does  frequently  happen 
in  the  history  of  currencies,  and  appar- 
ently valueless  shells,  bits  of  leather, 
or  scraps  of  paper,  are  actually  receiv- 
ed in  exchange  for  costly  commodities. 
This  strange  phenomenon  is,  however, 
in  most  cases  capable  of  easy  expla- 
nation, and  if  we  were  acquainted  with 
the  history  of  every  kind  of  money 
tot  like  explanation  would  no  doubt 


be  possible  in  other  cases.  The  essential 
point  is  that  people  should  be  induced  to  re- 
ceive money,  and  pass  it  on  freely  at  steady 
ratios  of  exchange  for  other  objects  ;  but 
there  must  always  be  some  sufficient  reason 
first  inducing  people  to  accept  the  money. 
The  force  of  habit,  convention,  or  legal 
enactment  may  do  much  to  maintain  money 
in  circulation  when  once  it  is  afloat,  but  it  is 
doubtful  whether  the  most  powerful  govern- 
ment could  oblige  its  subjects  to  accept  and 
circulate  as  money  a  worthless  substance 
which  they  had  no  other  motive  for  receiving. 

Certainly,  in  the  early  stages  of  society, 
the  use  of  money  was  not  based  on  le^al 
regulations,  so  that  the  utility  of  the  sub- 
stance for  other  purposes  must  have  been  the 
prior  condition  of  its  employment  as  money. 
Thus  the  singular  peag  currency,  or  ivam- 
pumpeag,  which  was  found  in  circulation 
among  the  North  American  Indians  by  the 
early  explorers,  was  esteemed  for  the  purpose 
of  adornment,  as  already  mentioned,  (Chapter 
IV).  The  cowry  shells  so  widely  used  as  a 
small  currency  in  the  East,  are  valued  for 
ornamental  purposes  on  the  West  Coast  of 
Africa,  and  were  in  all  probability  employed 
as  ornaments  before  they  were  employed  as 
money.  All  the  other  articles  mentioned  in 
Chapter  IV.,  such  as  oxen,  corn,  skins,  to- 
bacco, salt,  cacao  nuts,  etc.,  which  have  per- 
formed the  functions  of  money  in  one  place 
or  other,  possessed  independent  utility  and 
value.  If  there  are  any  apparent  exceptions 
at  all  to  this  rule,  they  would  doubtless  ad- 
mit of  explanation  by  fuller  knowledge.  We 
may,  therefore,  agree  with  Storch  when  he 
says: — "  It  is  impossible  that  a  substance 
which  has  no  direct  value  should  be  intro- 
duced as  money,  however  suitable  it  may  be 
in  other  respects  for  this  use." 

When  once  a  substance  is  widely  employed 
as  money,  it  is  conceivable  that  its  utility 
will  come  to  depend  mainly  upon  the  services 
which  it  thus  confers  upon  the  community. 
Gold,  for  instance,  is  far  more  important  as 
material  of  money  than  in  the  production  of 
plate,  jewelry,  watches,  gold-leaf,  etc.  A 
substance  originally  used  for  many  purposes 
may  eventually  serve  only  as  money,  and 
yet,  by  the  demand  for  currency  and  the 
force  of  habit,  may  maintain  its  value. 
The  cowry  circulation  of  the  Indian 
coasts  is  probably  a  case  in  point.  The 
importance  of  habit,  personal  or  heredit- 
ary, is  at  least  as  great  in  monetary  sci- 
ence as  it  is,  according  to  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer,  in  moral  and  sociological  phe- 
nomena generally. 

There  is,  however,  no  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  the  value  of  gold  and  silver  is  at 
present  due  solely  to  their  conventional 
use  as  money.  These  metals  are  endowed 
with  such  singularly  useful  properties 
that,  if  we  could  only  get  them  in  suffi- 
cient abundance,  they  would  supplant  all 
the  other  metals  in  the  manufacture  of 
household  utensils,  ornaments,  fittings 
of  all  kinds,  and  an  infinite  multitude 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      301 


«f  small  articles,  which  are  now  made  of 
brass,  copper,  bronze,  pewter,  German  silver, 
or  other  inferior  metals  and  alloys. 

In  order  :hat  money  may  perform  some  of 
its  functions  efficiently,  especially  those  of  a 
medium  of  exchange  and  a  store  of  value,  to 
be  carried  about,  it  is  important  that  it  should 
be  made  of  a  substance  valued  highly  in  all 
parts  of  the  world  and,  if  possible,  almost 
equally  esteemed  by  all  peoples  There  is 
reason  to  think  that  sold  and  silver  have 
been  admired  and  valued  by  all  tribes  which 
have  been  lucky  enough  to  procure  them. 
The  beautiful  luster  of  these  metals  must 
have  drawn  attention  and  excited  admiration 
as  much  in  the  earliest  as  in  the  present 
times. 

2. — PORTABILITY. 

The  material  of  money  must  not  only  be 
valuable,  but  the  value  must  be  so  related  to 
the  weight  and  bulk  of  the  material,  that  the 
money  shall  not  be  inconveniently  heavy  on 
the  one  hand,  nor  inconveniently  minute  on 
the  other.  There  was  a  tradition  in  Greece 
that  Lycurgus  obliged  the  Lacedsemonians 
to  use  iron  money,  in  order  that  its  weight 
might  deter  them  from  overmuch  trading. 
However  this  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  iron 
money  could  not  be  used  in  cash  payments 
at  the  present  day,  since  a  penny  would 
weigh  about  a  pound,  and  instead  of  a  five- 
pound  note,  we  should  have  to  deliver  a  ton 
of  iron.  During  the  last  century  copper  was 
actually  used  as  the  chief  medium  of  ex- 
change in  Sweden  ;  and  merchants  had  to 
take  a  wheelbarrow  with  them  when  they 
went  to  receive  payments  in  copper  dalers. 
Many  of  the  substances  used  as  currency  in 
former  times  must  have  been  sadly  wanting 
in  portability.  Oxen  and  sheep,  indeed, 
would  transport  themselves  on  their  own 
legs ;  but  corn,  skins,  oil,  nuts,  almonds, 
etc.,  though  in  several  respects  forming  fair 
currency,  would  be  intolerably  bulky,  and 
troublesome  to  transfer. 

The  portability  of  money  is  an  important 
quality  not  merely  because  it  enables  the 
owner  to  carry  small  sums  in  the  pocket  with- 
out trouble,  but  because  large  sums  can  be 
transferred  from  place  to  place,  or  from  con- 
tinent to  continent,  at  little  cost.  The  re- 
sult is  to  secure  an  approximate  uniformity 
in  the  value  of  money  in  all  parts  of  the 
world.  A  substance  which  is  very  heavy 
and  bulky  in  proportion  to  value,  like  corn 
or  coal,  may  be  very  scarce  in  one  place  and 
over  abundant  in  another ;  yet  the  supply 
and  demand  cannot  be  equalized  without 
great  expense  in  carriage.  The  cost  of  con- 
veying gold  or  silver  from  London  to  Paris, 
including  insurance,  is  only  about  four-tenths 
of  one  per  cent. ;  and  between  the  most  dis- 
tant parts  of  the  world  it  does  not  exceed 
from  two  to  three  per  cent. 

Substances  may  be  too  valuable  as  well  as 
too  cheap,  so  that  for  ordinary  transactions 


it  would  be  necessary  to  call  in  the  aid  of  the 
microscope  and  the  chemical  balance.  Dia- 
monds, apart  from  other  objections,  would 
be  far  too  valuable  for  small  transactions. 
The  value  of  such  stones  is  said  to  vary  as 
the  square  of  the  weight,  so  that  we  cannot 
institute  any  exact  comparison  with  metals 
of  which  the  value  is  simply  proportional  to 
the  weight.  But  taking  a  one-carat  diamond 
(four  grains)  as  worth  fifteen  pounds,  we  find 
it  is,  weight  for  weight,  four  hundred  and 
sixty  times  as  valuable  as  go  d.  There  are 
several  rare  metals,  such  as  iridium  and  osmi- 
um, which  would  likewise  be  far  to»  valuable 
to  circulate.  Even  gold  and  silver  are  too 
costly  for  small  currency.  A  silver  penny 
now  weighs  seven  and  one-fourth  grains,  and 
a  gold  penny  would  weigh  only  half  a  grain. 
The  pretty  octagonal  quarter-dollar  tokens 
circulated  in  California  are  the  smallest  gold 
coins  I  have  seen,  weighing  less  than  four 
grains  each,  and  are  so  thin  that  they  can 
almost  be  blown  away. 

3. — INDESTRUCTIBILITY. 

If  it  is  to  be  passed  about  in  trade,  and 
kept  in  reserve,  money  must  not  be  subject 
to  easy  deterioration  or  loss.  It  must  not 
evaporate  like  alcohol,  nor  putrefy  like  an- 
imal substances,  nor  decay  like  wood,  nor 
rust  like  iron.  Destructible  articles,  such 
as  eggs,  dried  codfish,  cattle,  or  oil, 
have  certainly  been  used  as  currency;  but 
what  is  treated  as  money  one  day  must  soon 
afterward  be  eaten  up.  Thus  a  large  stock 
of  such  perishable  commodities  cannot  be 
kept  on  hand,  and  their  value  must  be  very 
variable.  The  several  kinds  of  corn  are  less 
subjtct  to  this  objection,  since,  when  well 
dried  at  first,  they  suffer  no  appreciable  de- 
terioration for  several  years. 

4. — HOMOGENEITY. 

All  portions  or  specimens  of  the  substance 
used  as  money  should  be  homogeneous,  that 
is,  of  the  same  quality,  so  that  equal  weights 
will  have  exactly  the  same  value.  In  order 
that  we  may  correctly  count  in  terms  of  any 
unit,  the  units  must  be  equal  and  similar,  so 
that  twice  two  will  always  make  four.  If  we 
were  to  count  in  precious  stones,  it  would 
seldom  happen  that  four  stones  would  be 
just  twice  as  valuable  as  two  stones.  Even 
the  precious  metals,  as  found  in  the  native 
state,  are  not  perfectly  homogeneous,  being 
mixed  together  in  almost  all  proportions;  but 
this  produces  little  inconvenience,  because 
the  assayer  readily  determines  the  quantity 
of  each  pure  metal  present  in  any  ingot.  In 
the  processes  of  refining  and  coining,  the 
metals  are  afterward  reduced  to  almost  ex- 
actly uniform  degrees  of  fineness,  so  that 
equal  weights  are  then  of  exactly  equal  value. 

5. — DIVISIBILITY. 

Closely  connected  with  the  last  property 
is  that  of  divisibility.  Every  material  is,  in- 


11 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


deed,  mechanically  divisible,  almost  without 
limit.  The  hardest  gems  can  be  broken, 
and  steel  can  be  cut  by  harder  steel.  But 
the  material  of  money  should  be  not  merely 
capable  of  division,  but  the  aggregate  value 
of  the  mass  after  division  should  be  almost 
exactly  the  same  as  before  division.  If  we 
cut  up  a  skin  or  fur,  tne  pieces  will,  as  a 
general  rule,  be  far  less  valuable  than  the 
whole  skin  or  fur,  except  for  a  special  in- 
tended purpose;  and  the  same  is  the  case 
with  timber,  stone,  and  most  other  materials 
in  which  reunion  is  impossible.  But  portions 
of  metals  can  be  melted  together  again  when- 
ever it  is  desirable,  and  the  cost  of  doing 
this,  including  the  metal  lost,  is  in  the  case 
of  precious  metals  very  inconsiderable,  vary- 
ing from  one-fourth  to  one-half  penny  per 
ounce.  Thus,  approximately  speaking,  the 
value  of  any  piece  of  gold  or  silver  is  simply 
proportional  to  the  weight  of  fine  metal  which 
it  contains. 

6. — STABILITY    OF   VALUE. 

It  is  evidently  desirable  that  the  currency 
should  not  be  subject  to  fluctuations  of  value. 
The  ratios  in  which  money  exchanges  for 
other  commodities  should  be  maintained  as 
nearly  as  possible  invariable  on  the  average. 
This  would  be  a  matter  of  comparatively 
minor  importance  were  money  used  only  as  a 
measure  of  values  at  any  one  moment,  and  as 
a  medium  of  exchange.  If  all  prices  were 
altered  in  like  proportion  as  soon  as  money 
varied  in  value,  no  one  would  lose  or  gain, 
except  as  regards  the  coin  which  he  hap- 
pened to  have  in  his  pocket,  safe,  or  bank 
balance.  But,  practically  speaking,  as  we 
have  seen,  people  do  employ  money  as  a 
standard  of  value  for  long  contracts;  and 
they  often  maintain  payments  at  the  same 
invariable  rate,  by  custom  or  law,  even  when 
the  veal  value  of  the  payment  is  much  al- 
tered. Hence  every  change  in  the  value  of 
monty  doe?  some  injury  to  society. 

It  might  be  plausibly  said,  indeed,  that  the 
debtor  gains  as  much  as  the  creditor  loses,  or 
vice  -versa,  so  tha*  on  the  whole  the  commu- 
nity is  as  rich  as  before;  but  this  is  not  really 
true.  A  mathematical  analysis  of  the  subject 
shows  that  to  take  any  sum  of  money  from 
one  and  give  it  to  another  will,  on  the  av- 
erage of  cases,  injure  the  loser  more  than  it 
benefits  the  receiver.  A  person  with  an  in- 
come of  one  hundred  pounds  a  year  would 
suffer  more  by  losing  »en  pounds  than  he 
would  gain  by  an  addition  of  ten  pounds,  be- 
cause the  degree  of  utility  e*  money  to  him 
is  considerably  higher  at  ninety  pounds  than 
it  is  at  one  hundred  and  ten.  OP  the  same 
principle,  all  gaming,  betting,  purr  specula- 
tion, or  other  accidental  modes  of  tr«nsfer- 
ring  property  involve,  on  the  average,  a  dead 
loss  of  utility.  The  whole  incitement  to  in- 
dustry and  commerce  and  the  accumulation 
of  capital  depends  upon  the  expectation  of 
enjoyment  thence  arising,  and  every  varia- 


tion of  the  currency  tends  in  some  degree  to 
frustrate  such  expectation  and  to  lessen  the 
motives  for  exertion. 

7.— COGNIZABIUTY. 

By  this  name  we  may  denote  the  capabil- 
ity of  a  substance  for  being  easily  recognized 
and  distinguished  from  all  other  substances. 
As  a  medium  of  exchange,  money  has  to  be  con- 
tinually handed  about,  and  it  will  occasion 
great  trouble  if  every  person  receiving  currency 
has  to  scrutinize,  weigh,  and  test  it.  If  it  re- 
quires any  skill  to  discriminate  good  money 
from  bad,  poor  ignorant  people  are  sure  to 
be  imposed  upon.  Hence  the  medium  of 
exchange  should  have  certain  distinct  marks 
which  nobody  can  mistake.  Precious  stones, 
even  if  in  other  respects  good  as  money, 
could  not  be  so  used,  because  only  a  skilled 
lapidary  can  surely  distinguish  between  true 
and  imitation  gems. 

Under  cognizability  we  may  properly  in- 
clude what  has  been  aptly  called  impressibil- 
ity, namely,  t!:e  capability  of  a  substance  to 
receive  such  an  impression,  seal,  or  design, 
as  shall  establish  its  character  as  current 
money  of  certain  value.  We  might  more 
simply  say,  that  the  material  of  money  should 
be  coinable,  so  that  a  portion,  being  once  is- 
sued according  to  proper  regulations  with 
the  impress  of  the  State,  may  be  known  to 
all  as  good  and  legal  currency,  equal  in 
weight,  size,  and  value  to  all  similarly  marked 
currency.  We  shall  afterward  consider  more 
minutely  what  is  involved  in  the  manufacture 
of  a  good  coin. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


THE  METALS  AS  MONEY. 

It  need  not  be  pointed  out  in  detail  that, 
though  the  numerous  commodities  mentioned 
in  Chapter  IV.  possess,  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  the  qualities  essential  to  the  material 
of  money,  they  cannot  for  a  moment  compare 
in  this  respect  with  many  of  the  metais.  Some 
of  the  metals  seem  to  be  marked  out.  by  na- 
ture as  most  fit  of  all  substances  for  employ- 
ment as  money,  at  least  when  acting  as  a 
medium  of  exchange  and  a  store  of  value. 
Accordingly,  we  find  that  ^old,  silver,  cop- 
per, tin,  lead,  and  iron  have  been  more  or 
less  extensively  in  circulation  in  all  historical 
ages.  So  closely  have  silver  and  copper  be- 
come associated  in  people's  minds  with  their 
use  as  money,  that  we  find  their  names 
adapted  as  the  names  of  money.  In  Greek, 
arguros  means  equally  silver,  silver  coin, 
ar»d  noney  generally  ;  in  Latin,  aes  is  cop- 
per, brcnze,  or  brass,  and  also  money  and 
wages;  in  French,  irgent  is  both  silver  and 
money.  The  sa»T>«:  association  of  meanings 
could  be  pointed  ouv  :n  many  other  languages 
including  cur  own.  Though  out  pecce  are 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      303 


HOW  made  of  bronze,  we  still  speak  of  them 

•s  coppers. 

With  the  exception  of  iron,  the  principal 
metals  are  peculiarly  indestructible,  and  un- 
dergo little  or  no  deterioration  when  hoarded 
up  or  handed  about.  Each  kind  of  metal  is 
approximately  homogeneous,  piece  differing 
from  piece  in  nothing  but  weight,  the  differ- 
ences of  fineness  being  ascertained  and  al- 
lowed for  in  the  case  of  gold  and  silver.  The 
metals  are  also  perfectly  divisible,  either  by 
the  chisel  or  the  crucible,  and  yet  a  second 
melting  will  always  reunite  the  pieces  again 
with  little  cost  or  loss  of  material.  Most  of 
them  possess  the  properties  of  cognizability 
and  impressibility  in  the  highest  degree. 
Each  metal  has  its  characteristic  color,  den- 
sity, and  hardness,  so  that  it  is  easy  for  a 
person  with  very  slight  experience  to  dis- 
tinguish one  metal  from  another.  Their 
malleability  enables  us  to  roll,  cut,  and  ham- 
mer them  into  any  required  form,  and  to  im- 
press a  permanent  design  by  means  of  dies. 
With  the  exception  of  porcelain  coins,  which 
have  been  used  in  Siam,  I  am  not  aware 
that  coins  have  ever  been  made  of  any  sub- 
stance except  metal. 

In  respect  to  steadiness  of  value  the  metals 
are  probably  less  satisfactory,  regarded  as  a 
standard  of  value,  than  many  other  commodi- 
ties, such  as  corn.  From  the  earliest  ages 
metals  must  have  been  most  highly  valued,  as 
we  may  learn  from  the  way  in  which  they  are 
esteemed  by  savages  in  the  present  day.  But 
their  value  has  suffered  and  is  suffering  an 
almost  continuous  decline,  owing  to  the  pro- 
gress of  industry,  and  the  discovery  of  new 
mechanical  and  chemical  means  for  their  ex- 
traction. Even  the  order  of  their  values  be- 
comes changed.  According  to  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, iron  was,  in  the  Homeric  age,  much 
more  valued  than  chalkos,  or  copper,  which 
latter  was  then  the  most  common  and  useful 
metal.  Lead  was  little  known  or  valued,  but 
gold,  silver,  and  tin  held  the  same  places  at 
the  head  of  the  list,  which  they  hold  at  the 
present  day. 

IRON. 

Proceeding  to  consider  briefly  each  of  the 
more  important  metals,  the  statements  of 
Aristotle,  Pollux,  and  other  writers  prove 
that  iron  was  extensively  employed  as  money 
in  early  times.  Not  a  single  specimen  of  such 
money  is  now  known  to  exist,  but  this  is 
easily  accounted  for  by  the  rapidity  with 
which  the  metal  rusts.  In  the  absence  of 
specimens,  we  do  not  know  the  form  and  size 
of  the  money,  but  it  is  probable  that  it  con- 
sisted of  small  bars,  ingots,  or  spikes,  some- 
what similar  to  the  small  bars  of  iron  which 
are  still  used  in  trading  with  the  natives  of 
Central  Africa.  Iron  money  is  still,  or  was 
not  long  since,  used  in  Japan  for  small 
Tames;  but  its  issue  from  the  mint  has  been 
discontinued. 

The  use  of  pure  iron  coins  in  civilized 


countries  at  the  present  day  is  out  of  the 
question,  both  because  of  the  cheapness  of 
the  metal,  and  because  the  coins  would  soon 
lose  the  sharpness  of  their  impressions  by 
rusting,  and  become  dirty  and  easily  counter- 
feited. But  it  is  quite  possible  that  iron  or 
steel  might  still  be  alloyed  with  other  metals 
for  the  coining  of  pence. 

LEAD. 

Lead  has  often  been  used  as  currency,  and 
is  occasionally  so  mentioned  by  the  ancient 
Greek  and  Latin  poets.  In  1635  leaden 
bullets  were  used  for  change  at  the  rate  of  a 
farthing  a  piece  in  Massachusetts.  At  the 
present  day  lead  is  still  current  in  Burmah, 
being  passed  by  weight  for  small  payments. 
The  extreme  softness  of  the  metal  obviously 
renders  it  quite  unfit  for  coining  in  the  pare 
state.  It  is  one  of  the  components  of  pewter, 
which  has  frequently  been  coined. 

TIN. 

Tin  has  also  been  employed  as  money  at 
various  times.  Dionysius  of  Syracuse  is- 
sued the  earliest  tin  coinage  of  which  any- 
thing is  certainly  known;  but  as  tin  was  in 
early  times  procured  from  Cornwall,  it  can 
hardly  be  doubted  that  the  first  British  cur- 
rency was  composed  of  tin.  In  innumerable 
cabinets  may  be  found  series  of  tin  coins  is- 
sued by  the  Roman  emperors;  the  kings  of 
England  also  often  coined  tin.  In  1680  tin 
farthings  were  struck  by  Charles  II.,  a  stud 
of  copper  being  inserted  in  the  middle  of  the 
coin  to  render  counterfeiting  more  difficult. 
Tin  halfpence  and  farthings  were  also  issued 
in  considerable  quantities  in  the  reign  of 
William  and  Mary  (1690  to  1691).  Tin  coins 
were  formerly  employed  among  the  Javanese, 
Mexicans,  and  many  other  peoples,  and  the 
metal  is  said  to  be  still  current  by  weight  in 
the  Straits  of  Malacca. 

Tin  would  be  in  many  respects  admirably 
suited  for  making  pence,  possessing  a  fine 
white  color,  perfect  freedom  from  corrosion, 
and  a  much  higher  value  than  copper.  Un- 
fortunately, its  softness  and  tendency  to  bend 
and  break  when  pure  are  insuperable  obsta- 
cles to  its  employment  as  money. 


This  metal  is  in  many  respects  well  suited 
for  coiHn?.  It  does  not  suffer  from  expo- 
sure to  dry  air,  possesses  a  fine  distinct  reo 
color,  and  takes  a  good  impression  from  the 
dies,  which  impression  it  retains  better 
than  the  majority  of  other  metals.  Accord 
ingly,  we  find  that  it  has  been  continually 
employed  as  currency,  either  alone  or  in  oub- 
ordination  to  golJ  and  silver.  The  earliest 
Hebrew  coins  were  composed  chiefly  of  cop- 
per, and  the  metallic  currency  of  Rome  con- 
sisted of  the  impure  copper,  called  aes,  until 
B.  c.  269,  when  silver  was  first  coined.  In 
later  times  copper  has  not  only  been  gener- 
ally used  for  coins  of  minor  value,  but,  in 


304 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


Russia  and  In  Sweden,  a  hundred  years  ago, 
It  formed  the  principal  ma^s  of  the  currency. 
Its  low  value  now  stands  in  the  way  of  its 
use.  A  penny,  if  made  so  as  to  contain 
metal  equivalent  to  its  nominal  value,  would 
weigh  eight  hundred  and  seventy  grains,  or 
more  than  an  ounce  and  three  quarters  troy. 
Its  value  is  also  subject  to  considerable  fluc- 
tuations. Moreover,  it  is  unlikely  that  cop- 
per in  a  pure  state  will  be  coined  for  the 
future,  since  bronze  is  now  known  to  be  so 
much  more  suitable  for  coinage. 


I  need  hardly  say  that  silver  is  distin- 
guished by  its  exquisite  white  luster,  which 
is  not  rivalled  by  that  of  any  other  pure 
me'al.  Certain  alloys,  indeed,  ;uch  as  spec- 
ulum metal,  or  Britannia  metal,  have  been 
made  of  almost  equal  luster,  but  they  are 
either  brittle,  or  so  soft  as  not  to  give  the 
metallic  ring  of  silver.  When  much  exposed 
to  the  air  silver  tarnishes  by  the  formation  of 
a  black  film  of  silver  sulphide;  but  this  forms 
no  obstacle  to  its  use  as  currency,  since  the 
film  is  always  very  thin,  and  its  peculiar 
black  color  even  assists  in  distinguishing  the 
pure  metal  from  the  counterfeit.  When 
suitably  alloyed,  silver  is  sufficiently  hard  to 
stand  much  wear,  and  next  after  gold  it  is 
the  most  malleable  and  impressible  of  all  the 
metals. 

A  coin  or  other  object  made  of  silver  may 
oe  known  by  the  following  marks — (i)  a  fine 
tmre  white  luster,  where  newly  rubbed  or 
scraped;  (2)  a  blackish  tint  where  the  surface 
has  long  been  exposed  to  the  air;  (3)  a  mod- 
erate specific  gravity;  (4)  a  good  metallic 
ring  when  thrown  down;  (5)  considerable 
hardness;  (6)  strong  nitric  acid  dissolves  sil- 
ver, and  the  solution  turns  black  if  exposed 
to  light. 

Silver  has  been  coined,  it  need  hardly  be 
said,  in  all  ages  since  the  first  invention  of 
the  art,  and  its  value  relatively  to  gold  and 
copper  fits  it  for  taking  the  middle  place  in 
a  monetary  system.  Its  value  too  remains 
very  stable  for  periods  of  fifty  or  a  hundred 
years,  because  a  vast  stock  of  the  metal  is 
kept  in  the  form  of  plate,  watches,  jewelry, 
and  ornaments  of  various  kinds,  in  addition 
to  money,  so  that  a  variation  in  the  supply 
for  a  few  years  cannot  make  any  appreciable 
change  in  the  total  stock.  Productive  silver 
mines  exist  in  almost  all  parts  of  the  world; 
and  wherever  lead  is  produced,  a  small  but 
steady  yield  of  silver  is  obtained  from  it  by 
the  Pattinson  method  of  extraction. 


Silver  is  beautiful,  yet  gold  is  even  more 
beautiful,  and  presents  indeed  a  combination 
of  useful  and  striking  properties  quite  with- 
out parallel  among  known  substances.  To  a 
richa-id  brilliant  yellow  color,  which  can  only 
be  adequately  described  as  golden,  it  joins 
astonishing  malleability  and  a  very  high  spe- 


cific gravity,  exceeded  only  by  that  of  plati 
num  and  a  few  of  the  rarest  or  almost  un^ 
known  metals.  We  can  usually  ascertain 
whether  a  coin  consists  of  gold  or  not,  by 
looking  for  three  characteristic  marks :  (l) 
the  brilliant  yellow  color  ;  (2)  the  high  specific 
gravity  ;  (3)  the  metallic  ring  of  the  coin  when 
thrown  down,  which  will  prove  the  absence 
of  lead  or  platinum  in  the  interior  of  the 
coin. 

If  there  remain  any  doubt  about  a  metal 
being  gold,  we  have  only  to  appeal  to  its  sol- 
ubility. Gold  is  remarkable  for  its  freedom 
Trom  corrosion  or  solution,  being  quite  unaf- 
fected and  untarnished  after  exposure  of  any 
length  of  time  to  dry,  or  moist,  or  impure 
air,  and  being  also  insoluble  in  all  the  simple 
acids.  Strong  nitric  acid  will  rapidly  attack 
any  colored  counterfeit  metal,  but  will  not 
touch  standard  gold,  or  will,  at  the  most, 
feebly  dissolve  the  copper  and  silver  alloyed 
with  it. 

In  almost  all  respects  gold  is  perfectly  suit- 
ed for  coining.  When  quite  pure,  indeed, 
it  is  almost  as  soft  as  tin,  but  when  alloyed 
with  one-tenth  or  one-twelfth  part  of  copper, 
becomes  sufficiently  hard  to  resist  wear  and 
tear,  and  to  give  a  good  metallic  ring  ;  yet  it 
remains  perfectly  malleable  and  takes  a  fine 
impression.  Its  melting  point  is  moderately 
high,  and  yet  there  is  no  perceptible  oxidiza- 
tion or  volatilization  of  the  metal  at  the  high- 
est temperature  which  can  be  produced  in  a 
furnace.  Thus  old  coin  and  fragments  of 
the  metal  can  be  melted  i^to  bullion  at  a  very 
slight  loss,  and  at  a  cost  of  not  more  than 
one  half-penny  per  ounce  troy,  or  little  more 
than  one-twentieth  of  one  per  cent. 

PLATINUM. 

This  is  one  of  those  comparatively  rare 
metals  which  have  been  known  only  in  recent 
times.  Its  extremely  high  melting-point,  and 
low  affinity  for  oxygen,  render  it  one  of  the 
most  indestructible  of  all  substances,  whilst 
its  white  color,  joined  to  its  excessively  high 
specific  gravity,  are  marks  which  cannot  be 
mistaken.  As  it  seemed  in  these  respects 
well  suited  for  currency,  the  Russian  govern- 
ment, which  owns  the  principal  platinum 
mines  in  the  Ural  Mountains,  commenced  to 
coin  it  in  1828,  into  pieces  intended  to  have 
the  values  of  twelve,  six,  and  three  roubles. 
Several  objections  to  this  use  of  the  metal 
soon  presented  themselves.  The  appearance 
ot  platinum  being  inferior  to  that  of  silver  or 
gold,  it  is  seldom  or  never  employed  for  pur- 
poses of  ornament,  and  its  only  extensive  use 
is  in  the  construction  of  chemical  apparatus. 
Hence  there  is  no  large  stock  of  the  metal 
kept  on  hand,  and  the  localities  where  it  is 
found  being  few,  the  supply  is  incapable  of 
being  much  increased,  so  that  any  variation 
of  demand  is  sure  to  cause  a  great  change  in 
its  value.  Moreover,  the  cost  of  making  the 
coins  was  very  great,  owing  to  the  extreme 
difficulty  of  melting  platinum,  and  the  worn 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      305 


Coins  could  not  be  withdrawn  ana  recoined 
without  much  additional  cost.  Platinum  be- 
ing thus  found  to  be  quite  unfitted  for  cur- 
rency, the  scheme  was  abandoned  in  1845, 
and  the  existing  coins  withdrawn  from  circu- 
lation. 

Great  improvements  having  been  lately 
made  in  the  modes  of  working  platinum,  it 
was  proposed  by  M.  de  Jacobi,  the  represent- 
ative of  Russia  at  the  International  Mone- 
tary Conference  held  at  Paris,  in  1867,  that 
platinum  should  be  employed  for  the  coinage 
of  five-franc  pieces.  It  is  not  likely  that 
such  a  suggestion  will  be  adopted. 

NICKEL. 

This  metal  was  formerly  regarded  as  the 
bane  of  the  metallurgist,  but  has  recently 
assumed  an  important  place  in  manufactur- 
ing industry,  and  even  in  monetary  science. 
It  is  used  only  in  alloy  with  other  metals, 
and  for  the  purposes  of  coinage  it  is  usual 
to  melt  up  one  part  of  nickel  with  three  of 
copper.  Some  of  the  coins  of  Belgium,  and 
the  one-cent  pieces  of  the  United  States 
have  been  made  of  this  material  and  seem  to 
be  very  convenient.  In  1869  and  1870-1, 
pence  and  halfpence,  to  the  value  of  .£3,000, 
were  executed  in  the  same  alloy,  at  the  En- 
glish mint  for  the  colony  of  Jamaica.  These 
are  some  of  the  most  beautiful  coins  which 
have  ever  been  issued  from  Tower  Hill,  and 
are  in  most  respects  admirably  suited  for  cir- 
culation. But  they  were  unfortunately  made 
much  too  large  and  heavy  ;  not  only  were 
they  thus  rendered  less  convenient,  but  when, 
in  1873,  the  Deputy  Master  of  the  Mint  was 
requested  to  supply  a  further  quantity  of  the 
same  coins,  he  found  that  the  price  of  nickel 
had  risen  very  much,  so  that  the  materials 
for  the  coinage  alone  would  cost  more  than 
the  nominal  value  of  the  coins  to  be  produced. 
This  rise  in  prices  was  due  partly  to  the 
small  number  of  nickel  mines  yet  worked, 
and  partly  to  the  great  demand  for  the  metal 
occasioned  by  the  German  government, 
which  has  chosen  the  same  alloy  for  the  ten 
and  five-pfennig  pieces  of  its  new  monetary 
system.  These  coins,  which  are  now  being  is- 
sued, are  of  a  convenient  size,  rather  less  than 
a  shilling  and  sixpence  respectively,  and  ap- 
pear to  be  in  every  way  admirably  suited  to 
their  purpose.  The  German  empire  will  soon 
possess  the  best  instead  of  the  worst  fractional 
currency  in  the  world.  The  variableness  in 
the  price  of  nickel,  which  is  at  present  a 
cause  of  embarrassment,  may  after  a  time  be- 
come less  serious,  when  the  stock  in  use  and 
the  annual  produce  become  larger. 

OTHER   METALS. 

The  metals  yet  mentioned  are  but  a  small 
number  of  those  now  known  by  chemists  to 
exist,  and  it  would  be  unwise  to  assume  as 
certain  that  money  must  always  be  made  in 
the  future  of  the  same  materials  as  in  the 
past,  It  is  just  conceivable,  on  the  one  hand. 


that  in  the  coarse  of  time  some  metal  still 
more  valuable  than  gold  may  be  introduced. 
Roughly  speaking,  the  order  in  which  the 
metals  have  hitherto  acted,  as  the  principal 
medium  of  exchange,  is  (i)  copper,  (2)  silver, 
(3)  gold ;  as  a  general  decline  in  the  values 
of  the  metals  took  place,  the  more  valuable 
replaced  the  less  valuable,  and  the  more  port- 
able gold  is  now  rapidly  taking  the  place  of 
silver.  Some  still  more  valuable  metal,  such 
as  the  scarce  and  intractable  iridium  or  os- 
mium, or  the  remarkable  metal  palladium, 
might  possibly  take  the  place  of  gold.  This, 
however,  is  barely  more  than  a  matter  of  sci- 
entific fancy. 

On  the  other  hand,  many  metals  exist  which 
might  be  produced  more  cheaply  than  silver, 
such  as  aluminium  or  manganese.  It  may  be 
well  worthy  of  inquiry  whether  in  such  metals 
may  not  be  found  the  best  solution  of  the 
fractional  currency  difficulty,  to  be  afterward 
more  fully  discussed  (Chapter  XI). 

ALLOYS  OF   METALS. 

At  one  time  or  another  an  immense  num- 
ber of  different  alloys  or  mixtures  of  metals 
have  been  coined.  It  would  be  strictly  cor- 
rect to  say,  indeed,  that  metals  have  seldom 
been  issued  except  in  the  state  of  alloy.  Even 
gold  and  silver,  as  usually  coined,  are  either 
alloyed  with  each  other  or  with  copper.  The 
latter  metal,  too,  has  generally  been  employed 
in  union  with  other  metals.  The  Roman  as 
consisted,  not  of  pure  copper,  but  of  the 
mixed  metal  aes,  an  alloy  of  copper  and  tin, 
partially  resembling  the  bronze  which  has 
quite  recently  been  introduced  for  small  mon- 
:y  in  France,  England,  and  other  countries. 
Brass  was  largely  coined  by  some  of  the  Ro- 
man emperors.  In  many  cases,  no  doubt, 
the  early  metallurgists  in  smelting  an  ore 
obtained  a  natural  alloy  of  all  the  metals  con- 
fined therein,  and  being  unable  to  separate 
them,  were  obliged  to  use  the  mixture.  Thus 
we  may  explain  the  curious  metal  containing 
From  sixty  to  seventy  parts  of  copper,  twenty 
to  twenty-five  of  zinc,  five  to  eleven  of  silver, 
with  small  quantities  of  gold,  lead,  and  tin, 
which  was  employed  to  make  the  stycas,  or 
small  money,  of  the  early  kings  of  Northum- 
bria. 

Monarchs  or  States  in  difficulty  have  often 
coined  the  metal  which  they  could  most  easily 
obtain.  The  Irish  money  issued  by  James 
II.  was  said  to  have  been  coined  from  a  mix- 
ture of  old  guns,  broken  bells,  waste  copper, 
brass,  and  pewter,  old  kitchen  furniture;  and 
in  fact  any  refuse  metal  which  his  officers 
could  lay  their  hands  upon  He  attempted 
to  make  pewter  crowns  cirot  X*e  for  the  "alu* 
of  silver  ones. 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


COINS. 

It  is  clear  that  the  metals  far  surpass  all 
other  substances  in  suitability  for  the  purpose 
of  circulation,  and  it  is  almost  equally  clear 
that  certain  metals  surpass  all  the  other  met- 
als in  this  respect.  Of  gold  and  silver  espe- 
cially we  may  say,  with  Turgot,  that,  by  the 
nature  of  things,  they  are  constituted  the  uni- 
versal money  independently  of  all  convention 
and  law.  Even  if  the  art  of  coining  had 
never  been  invented,  gold  and  silver  would 
probably  have  formed  the  currency  of  the 
world;  but  we  have  now  to  consider  how,  by 
shaping  weighed  pieces  of  these  metals  into 
coins,  we  can  make  use  of  their  valuable 
properties  to  the  greatest  advantage. 

The  primitive  mode  of  circulating  the  met- 
als, indeed,  was  simply  that  of  buying  and 
selling  them  against  other  commodities,  the 
weights  or  portions  being  rudely  estimated. 
Some  of  the  earliest  specimens  of  money  con- 
sist of  the  aes  rude,  or  rough,  shapeless  lumps 
of  native  copper  employed  as  money  by  the 
ancient  Etruscans.  In  the  Museum  of  the 
Archiginnasio  at  Bologna  may  bz  seen  the 
Skeleton  of  an  Etruscan,  half  embedded  in 
earth,  with  the  piece  of  rough  copper  yet 
within  the  grasp  of  the  bony  hand,  placed  there 
to  meet  the  demands  of  Charon.  Pliny,  more- 
over, tells  us  that,  before  the  time  of  Servius 
Tullius,  copper  was  circulated  in  the  rude  state. 
Afterward  copper,  brass,  or  iron  were,  it  is 
probable,  employed  in  the  form  of  small  bars 
or  spikes,  and  the  name  of  the  Greek  unit  of 
value,  drachma,  is  supposed  to  have  been  de- 
rived from  the  fact  that  six  of  these  metal 
spikes  could  be  grasped  in  the  hand,  each 
piece  being  called  an  obelus.  Such  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  the  first  system  of  money 
which  was  passed  purely  by  tale,  or  number  of 
pieces. 

Gold  is  most  readily  obtained  from  alluvial 
deposits,  and  then  has  the  form  of  grains  or 
dust.  Hence  this  is  the  primitive  form  of 
gold  money.  The  ancient  Peruvians  enclosed 
the  gold  dust  for  the  sake  of  security  in  quills, 
and  thus  passed  it  about  more  conveniently. 

At  the  gold  diggings  of  California,  Aus- 
tralia, or  New  Zealand,  gold  dust  is  to  the 
present  day  sold  directly  against  other  goods 
by  the  aid  of  scales.  The  art  of  melting  gold 
and  silver  and  fashioning  t  iem  by  the  ham- 
mer into  various  shapes  was  early  invented. 
Even  in  the  present  day,  the  poor  Hindoo, 
who  has  saved  up  a  few  rupees,  employs  a 
silversmith  to  melt  them  up  and  beat  them 
into  a  simple  bracelet,  which  he  wears  in  the 
double  character  of  an  ornament  and  a  hoard  of 
wealth. 

Similarly,  the  ancient  Goths  and  Celts 
were  accustomed  to  fashion  gold  into  thick 
wires,  which  tney  rolled  up  into  spiral  rings 
and  probably  wore  upon  their  fingers  until 


the  metal  was  wanted  for  trading  purposes. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  ring 
money,  of  which  abundant  specimens  have 
been  found  in  various  parts  of  Europe  and 
Asia,  formed  the  first  approximation  to  a 
coinage.  In  some  cases  the  rings  may  have 
been  intentionally  made  of  equal  weight; 
for  Csesar  speaks  of  the  Britons  as  having 
iron  rings,  adjusted  to  a  certain  weight,  to 
serve  as  money.  In  other  cases  the  rings,  or 
amulets,  were  bought  and  sold  by  aid  of  the 
balance  ;  and  in  certain  Egyptian  paintings 
men  are  represented  as  in  the  act  of  weighing 
rings.  It  is  probable  that  the  necessity  for 
frequent  weighings  was  avoided  by  making 
up  sealed  bags  containing  A  certain  weight  of 
rings,  and  such  perhaps  are  the  bags  of  silver 
given  by  Naaman  to  Gehazi  in  the  Second 
Book  of  Kings  (v.  23).  Ring  money  is  said 
to  be  still  current  in  Nubia. 

Gold  and  silver  have  been  fashioned  into 
various  other  forms  to  serve  as  money. 
Thus  the  Siamese  money  consists  of  very 
small  ingots  or  bars  bent  double  in  a  peculiar 
manner.  In  Pondicherry  and  elsewhere 
gold  is  circulated  in  the  form  of  small  grains 
or  buttons. 

THE  INVENTION   OF  COINING. 

The  date  of  the  invention  of  coining  can 
be  assigned  with  some  degree  of  probability. 
Coined  money  was  clearly  unknown  in  the 
Homeric  times,  and  it  was  known  in  the 
time  of  Lycurgus.  We  might  therefore  as- 
sume, with  various  authorities,  that  it  was 
invented  in  the  mean  time,  or  about  goo  B.C. 
There  is  a  tradition,  moreover,  that  Phei- 
don,  King  of  Argos,  first  struck  silver  money 
in  the  island  of  /^Egina  about  895  B.  c. ,  and 
the  tradition  is  supported  by  the  existence  of 
small  stamped  ingots  of  silver  which  have 
been  found  in  ^Egina.  Later  inquiries,  how- 
ever, lead  to  the  conclusion  that  Pheidon 
lived  in  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century  B.C.. 
and  Grote  has  shown  good  reasons  for  be- 
lieving that  what  he  did  accomplish  was  done 
in  Argos,  and  not  in  ^gina. 

The  mode  in  which  the  invention  hap- 
pened is  sufficiently  evident.  Seals  were 
familiarly  employed  in  very  early  times,  as 
we  learn  from  the  Egyptian  paintings  or  the 
stamped  bricks  of  Nineveh.  Being  em- 
ployed to  signify  possession,  or  to  ratify  con- 
tracts, they  came  to  indicate  authority.  When 
a  ruler  first  undertook  to  certify  the  weights 
of  pieces  of  metal,  he  naturally  employed  his 
seal  to  make  the  fact  known,  just  as,  at 
Goldsmiths  Hall,  a  small  punch  is  used  to 
certify  the  fineness  of  plate.  In  the  earliest 
forms  of  coinage  there  were  no  attempts  at 
so  fashioning  the  metal  that  its  weight  could 
not  be  altered  without  destroying  the  stamp 
or  design.  The  earliest  coins  struck,  both 
in  Lydia  and  in  the  Peloponnesus,  wer 
stamped  on  one  side  only.  The  Persian 
money,  called  the  larin,  consists  of  a  round 
silver  wire,  about  six  centimeters  long,  bent 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      307 


h»  two,  and  stamped  on  one  part  which  is 
flattened  for  the  purpose.  It  is  probably  a 
relic  of  ring  money.  The  present  circulation 
of  China  is  composed  to  a  considerable  ex- 
tent of  the  so-called  Sycee  silver,  which  con- 
sists of  small  shoe-shaped  ingots,  assayed 
and  stamped,  according  to  some  accounts, 
by  the  government. 

WHAT   IS   A  COIN? 

Although  in  rings,  or  stamped  ingots,  we 
have  an  approximation  to  what  we  call  coin, 
it  is  plain  that  we  must  do  something  more 
to  make  convenient  money.  The  stamp  must 
be  so  impressed  as  to  certify,  not  only  the 
fineness  and  the  original  weight,  but  also  the 
absence  of  any  subsequent  alteration.  To 
coin  metal,  as  we  now  understand  the  art,  is 
to  form  it  into  flat  pieces  of  a  circular,  oval, 
square,  hexagonal,  octagonal,  or  other  regu- 
lar outline,  and  then  to  impress  designs  from 
engraved  dies  upon  both  sides,  and  some- 
times upon  the  edges.  Not  only  is  it  very 
costly  and  difficult  to  counterfeit  coins  well 
executed  in  this  manner,  but  the  integrity  of 
the  design  assures  us  that  no  owner  of  the 
coin  has  tampered  with  it.  Even  the  amount 
of  ordinary  wear  and  tear,  which  the  coin 
has  suffered,  may  be  rudely  infer  ted  from  the 
sharpness  or  partial  effacement  of  the  de- 
signs, and  the  roundness  of  the  edges. 
"  Pieces  of  money,"  says  M.  Chevalier,  "are 
ingots  of  which  the  weight  and  the  fineness 
are  certified."  There  is  nothing  in  this  defi- 
nition to  distinguish  coins  from  Sycee  silver, 
or  from  the  ordinary  stamped  bars  and  ingots 
of  bullion.  I  should  prefer,  therefore,  to 
say,  coins  are  ingots  of  which  the  weight  and 
fineness  are  certified  by  the  integrity  of  designs 
impressed  upon  the  surfaces  of  the  metal. 

VARIOUS  FORMS  OF  COINS. 

From  time  to  time  coins  have  been  manu- 
factured in  very  many  forms,  although  circu- 
lar coins  vastly  predominate  in  number. 
Among  the  innumerable  issues  of  the  Ger- 
man States  maybe  found  octagonal  and  hex- 
agonal coins.  A  singular  square  coin,  with 
a  circular  impress  in  the  center,  was  issued 
from  Salzburg  by  Rudbert  in  1513.  Siege- 
pieces  have  been  issued  in  England  and  else- 
where in  the  form  of  squares,  lozenges,  etc. 
Some  of  the  most  extraordinary  specimens 
of  money  ever  used  are  the  large  plates  of 
pure  copper  which  circulated  in  Sweden  in 
the  eighteenth  century.  These  were  about 
three-eights  of  an  inch  in  thickness,  and  va- 
ried in  size,  the  half-daler  being  three  and 
a-half  inches  square,  and  the  two  daler  piece 
as  much  as  seven  and  a-half  inches  square, 
and  three  and  a-half  pounds  in  weight.  As 
the  whole  surface  could  not  be  covered  with 
a  design,  a  circular  impress  was  struck  near 
to  each  corner,  and  one  in  the  center,  so  as 
to  render  alteration  as  difficult  as  possible. 

Among  Oriental  nations  the  shapes  of 
coins  arc  still  more  curious.  In  Japan,  the 


principal  part  of  the  circulation  consists  of 
silver  itzibus,  which  are  oblong,  flat  pieces  of 
silver,  covered  on  both  sides  wi  h  designs  and 
legends,  the  characters  being  partly  in  relief 
and  partly  incised.  The  smaller  silver  coins 
have  a  similar  form.  Among  the  minor 
Japanese  coins  are  found  large  oval,  molded 
pieces  of  copper  or  mixed  metal,  each  with 
a  square  hole  in  the  center.  The  Chinese 
cash  are  well  known  to  be  round  disks  of  a 
kind  of  brass,  with  a  square  hole  in  the  cen- 
ter to  allow  of  their  being  strung  together. 
The  coins  of  Formosa  are  similar,  except 
that  they  are  much  larger  and  thicker.  All 
the  copper  and  base  metal  cains  of  China, 
Japan,  and  Formosa  are  distinguished  by 
a  broad  flat  rim,  and  they  have  characters  in 
relief  upon  a  sunk  ground,  somewhat  in  the 
manner  of  Boulton  and  Watt's  copper  pence. 
They  are  manufactured  by  molding  the 
metal,  and  then  filing  the  protuberant  parts 
smooth.  Such  coins  stand  wear,  and  pre- 
serve their  design  better  than  European 
coins,  but  they  are  ea-.iy  counterfeited. 

The  most  singular  of  all  coins  are  the 
scimitar-shaped  pieces  formerly  circulated  in 
Persia. 

THE   BEST  FORM   FOR  COINS. 

It  is  a  matter  of  considerable  importance 
to  devise  the  best  possible  form  for  coins, 
and  the  best  mode  of  striking  them.  The 
use  of  money  creates,  as  it  were,  an  artificial 
crime  of  false  coining,  end  so  great  is  the 
temptation  to  engage  in  this  illicit  art  that 
no  penalty  is  sufficient  to  repress  it,  a3  the 
experience  of  two  thousand  years  sufficiently 
proves.  Thousands  of  persons  have  suffered 
death,  and  all  the  penalties  of  treason  have 
been  enforced  without  effect.  Ruding  is 
then  unquestionably  right  in  saying,  that  our 
efforts  should  be  directed  not  so  much  to  the 
punishment  of  the  crime,  as  to  its  preveution 
by  improvements  in  the  art  of  coining.  We 
must  strike  our  coins  so  perfectly  that  suc- 
cessful imitation  or  alteration  shall  be  out  of 
the  question. 

There  are  four  principal  objects  at  which 
we  should  aim  in  deciding  upon  the  exact 
design  for  a  coin. 

1.  To  prevent  counterfeiting. 

2.  To  prevent  the  fraudulent  removal  of 
metal  from  the  coin. 

3.  To  reduce  the  loss  of  metal  by  legiti- 
mate wear  and  tear. 

4.  To  make  the  coin  an  artistic  and  histo- 
rical monument  of  the  State  issuing  it,  and 
the  people  using  it. 

For  the  prevention  of  counterfeiting,  our 
princip  -.1  resource  is  to  render  the  mechani- 
cal execution  of  the  piece  as  perfect  as  pos. 
sible,  and  to  strike  it  in  a  way  which  can 
only  be  accomplished  with  the  aid  of  elabo- 
rate machinery.  When  all  coins  are  made  by 
casting-,  the  false  coiner  ^~-_'id  work  almost 
as  skillfully  as  the  moneyer.  Hence,  in  the 
Roman  empire,  it  was  difficult  to  distinguish 


308 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


'Between  true  and  false  coin.  Hammered 
money  was  a  great  improvement  on  molded 
money,  and  milled  money  on  hammered 
money.  The  introduction  of  the  steam  coin- 
ing press  by  Boulton  and  Watt  was  the  next 
great  improvement ;  and  the  knee-joint  press 
of  Ulhorn  and  Thonnelier,  now  used  in 
nearly  all  mints,  except  that  on  Tower  Hill, 
forms  the  last  advance  in  the  mechanism  for 
striking  coin. 

The  utmost  attention  ought  to  be  paid  to 
the  perfect  execution  of  the  milling,  legend, 
or  other  design,  impressed  upon  the  edge  of 
modern  coins.  This  serves  at  once  to  pre- 
vent clipping  or  tampering  with  the  coin,  and 
to  baffle  the  skill  of  the  counterfeiter.  The 
coins  of  ancieut  nations  were  issued  with 
rough,  unstamped  edges,  and  the  first  coin 
marked  with  a  legend  on  the  edge  was  a  sil- 
ver coin  of  Charles  IX.  of  France,  issued  in 
the  year  1573.  The  English  coinage  was 
first  grained  or  marked  on  the  edge  in  1658 
or  1662,  when  the  use  of  the  mill,  and  screw 
was  finally  established  in  the  mint.  All  the 
larger  coins  now  issued  from  the  English, 
and,  indeed,  from  most  other  mints,  bear  a 
milled  or  serrated  edge,  produced  by  ridges 
on  the  internal  surface  of  the  collar  which 
holds  the  coin  when  being  struck  between  the 
two  dies.  These  collars  are  difficult  to  make, 
and  useless  when  made  except  in  the  coinage- 
press,  and  the  counterfeiter  cannot  imitate 
ihe  milling  by  hand  work,  it  being  almost 
•mpossible  to  use  a  file  with  sufficient  regu- 
larity. 

The  French  five-franc  pieces  bear  a  legend 
on  the  edge  in  raised  letters,  the  words  being 
"  Dieu  protege  la  France."  Such  raised  let- 
ters are  quite  beyond  the  art  of  the  counter- 
feiter. The  English  crown  has  a  legend, 
"  Decus  et  Tutamen,"  and  the  year  of  the 
reign  in  incised  letters,  which  could  obvious- 
ly be  imitated  by  the  use  of  punches.  The 
new  German  gold  coins  are  issued  with 
smooth  edges,  the  ten- mark  piece  having 
only  a  few  slight  incised  marks,  and  the 
twenty  mark  piece  bearing  the  legend,  "Gott 
mit  uns,"  in  faint  letters;  this  is  surely  a  far 
less  satisfactory  protection  than  the  milled 
edge  adopttd  in  most  other  mints.  It  may 
be  worthy  of  inquiry,  whether  the  milled 
edge  might  not  be  combined  with  a  legend 
or  other  design  in  relief,  so  as  to  render  imi- 
tation still  more  difficult.  One  or  two  cen- 
turies ago,  silver  coins  used  to  have  a  kind  of 
ornamental  beading  on  the  edge.  Elaborate 
patterns,  produced  by  machinery  with  per- 
fect regularity,  and  altogether  »,.  capable  of 
imitation  by  hamd,  might  now  be  substituted. 

COINS  AS  WORKS  OF  ART. 

I  have  in  the  previous  section  considered 
the  best  form  of  a  coin  as  regards  the  pre- 
vention of  counterfeiting.  The  falsification 
of  coin?,  the  loss  which  they  undergo  by  ab- 


rasion, and  the  best  means  of  avoiding  these 
«vils  will  be  treated  in  Chapter  XIII.    Of  the 


use  of  coins  as  artistic  medals  It  would  not  be 
appropriate  to  speak  at  any  length.  I  must 
however  remark  that  many  of  the  coins  still 
issued  from  the  English  mint  are  monuments 
of  bad  taste.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  poorer 
designs  than  those  upon  the  shilling  and  six- 
pence, descending  from  a  time  when  art  in 
many  branches  was  at  its  apogee  in  England. 
As  our  architecture  and  art  manufactures  of 
many  kinds  are  regenerated  by  the  efforts  of 
private  persons,  is  it  too  much  to  hope  that  a 
government  department  will  follow  ?  The 
florin  is  indeed  an  immense  advance  upon  the 
shilling,  being  in  some  respects  a  reversion 
to  the  style  of  old  English  money.  A  very 
beautiful  pattern  crown  piece  was  produced 
in  1847,  in  a  somewhat  similar  style,  but  nevet 
issued.  Mr.  Lowe,  when  Master  of  the  Mint, 
gave  us  back  the  old  George  and  Dragoa 
sovereign,  which  is  much  superior  to  the 
shield  and  wreaths.  I  think,  however,  that 
the  time  has  come  for  a  general  improvement 
in  our  coins. 

HISTORICAL  COINS. 

Some  states  have  utilized  their  coins  as 
monuments  of  important  events,  such  as  con- 
quests, jubilees,  the  accession  of  monarchs, 
etc.  The  German  states,  especially  Prussia> 
have  struck  a  long  series  of  beautiful  coins 
down  to  the  Kronung's  Thaler  of  1861,  and 
the  Sieges  Thaler  of  1871.  Some  of  these 
coins  are  at  once  treasured  up  in  cabinets  in 
the  manner  of  medals.  If  it  is  possible  to 
conceive  literature  destroyed,  and  modern 
cities  and  their  monuments  in  ruins  and  de- 
cay, such  medallic  coins  would  become  the 
most  durable  memorials,  and  the  history  of 
the  kings  of  Prussia  would  be  traced  out  by 
future  numismatists  as  that  of  the  great  dy- 
nasties of  Bactria  has  lately  been  recovered . 

In  1842  M.  Antenor  Joly  brought  before 
the  French  legislative  chambers  a  scheme 
for  a  system  of  historical  money,  and  he  re- 
newed his  proposal  in  1852.  M.  Ernest 
Dumas  has  also  suggested  the  issue  of  twen- 
ty-centime bronze  pieces,  which  should  serve 
either  as  money  or  as  historical  medals.  Such 
schemes  have  not  been  carried  out  in  France, 
and  in  England  no  coins  of  the  sort  have 
been  struck.  Except  the  mere  expense  of  a 
new  set  of  dies,  I  see  no  objection  to  the 
issue  of  historical  money. 

THE  ROYAL  ATTRIBUTE  OF  COINING. 
Every  civilized  community  requires  a  sup- 
ply of  well-executed  coins,  and  there  arises 
the  question.  How  shall  this  money  be  pro- 
vided? The  coins  of  each  denomination 
must  contain  exactly  equal  weights  of  fine 
metal,  and  must  bear  an  impress  proving  that 
they  do  so.  Can  we  trust  to  the  ordinary 
competition  of  manufacturers  and  traders  to 
keep  up  a  sufficient  supply  of  such  coins,  just 
as  they  supply  buttons,  or  pins  and  needles  r 
Or  must  we  establish  a  government  depart- 
ment, under  strict  legislative  control,  to  se 
cure  good  coinage  ? 


18 

••-"1 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      309 


As  almost  every  opinion  finds  some  advo- 
cate, there  are  not  wanting  a  few  who  believe 
that  coinage  should  be  left  to  the  free  action 
of  competition.  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  es- 
pecially, in  his  "Social  Statics,"  advanced 
the  doctrine  that,  as  we  trust  the  grocer  to 
furnish  us  with  pounds  of  tea,  and  the  baker 
to  send  us  loaves  of  bread,  so  we  mi^ht  trust 
Heaton  and  Sons,  or  some  of  the  oilier  en- 
terprising firms  of  Birmingham,  to  supply 
us  with  sovereigns  and  Siiillings  at  their  own 
risk  and  profit.  He  held  that  just  as  people 
go  by  preference  to  the  grocer  who  sells  good 
tea,  and  to  the  baker  whose  loaves  are  sound 
and  of  full  weight,  so  the  honest  and  suc- 
cessful coiner  would  gain  possession  of  the 
market,  and  his  money  would  drive  out  in- 
ferior productions. 

Though  I  must  always  deeply  respect  the 
opinions  of  so  profound  a  thinker  as  Mr. 
Spencer,  I  hold  that  in  this  instance  he  has 
pushed  a  genciul  principle  into  an  exceptional 
case,  where  it  quite  fails.  He  has  overlooked 
the  important  law  of  Gresham  (to  be  explained 
in  the  next  chapter),  that  better  money  can- 
not drive  out  worse.  In  matters  of  currency 
self-interest  acts  in  the  opposite  direction  to 
what  it  docs  in  other  affaiis,  as  will  be  ex- 
plained, and  if  coining  were  left  free,  those 
who  sold  light  coins  at  reduced  prices  would 
drive  the  best  trade. 

This  conclusion  is  amply  confirmed  by  ex- 
perience ;  for  at  many  times  and  plates  coins 
have  been  issued  by  private  manufacturers, 
and  always  with  the  result  of  debasing  the  cur- 
rency. For  a  lo'  g  time  the  crpper  currency 
of  England  consisted  mainly  cf  tradesmen's 
tokens,  which  were  issued  very  light  in  weight 
and  excessive  in  number.  In  Mr.  Smilcs's 
"Lives  of  Boulton  and  Watt  "  (page  391), 
there  is  printed  an  interesting  letter,  in 
which  Mr.  Boulton  complains  that  in  his 
journeys  he  received  on  an  average  at  the 
toll-giiKs  two  counterfeit  pennies  for  one 
true  one.  The  lower  class  of  manufactur- 
ers, he  says,  purchased  crpper  coin  to 
the  nominal  value  of  thirty-six  shillings  for 
twenty  shillings  in  silver,  and  distributed 
it  to  their  work-people  in  wages,  so  as  to 
make  a  considerable  profit.  The  multitude 
of  these  depreciated  pieces  in  circulation 
was  so  great,  that  the  magistrates  and  in- 
habitants of  Stockport  held  a  public  meet- 
ing, and  resolved  to  take  no  halfpence  in  fu- 
ture but  those  of  the  Anglesey  Company, 
which  were  of  full  weight.  This  shows,  if 
proof  were  needed,  that  the  separate  action  of 
self-interest  was  inoperative  in  keeping  bad 
coin  out  of  circulation,  and  it  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  the  public  meeting  could  have 
had  any  sufficient  effect.  In  China  the  cur- 
rent small  money  called  cask  or  /<?,  is  com- 
monly manufactured  by  private  coiners,  and 
the  consequence  is  that  the  size,  quality,  and 
value  of  the  coins  have  fallen  very  much. 

In  my  opinion  there  is  nothing  less  fit  to 
be  left  to  the  action  of  competition  than 


money.  In  constitutional  law  the  right  of 
coining  has  always  been  held  to  be  one  of  the 
peculiar  prerogatives  of  the  Crown,  and  it  is 
a  maxim  of  the  civil  law,  that  monetandi  jus 
principum  ossibus  inhaeret.  To  the  executive 
government  and  its  scientific  advisers,  who 
have  minutely  inquired  into  the  intricacies  of 
the  subject  of  currency  and  coinage,  the  mat- 
ter had  better  be  left.  It  should  as  far  as 
possible  be  removed  from  the  sphere  of  party 
struggles  or  public  opinion,  and  confided  to 
the  decision  of  experts.  No  doubt,  in  times 
past,  kings  have  been  the  most  notorious 
false  coiners  and  depreciators  of  the  currency, 
but  there  is  no  danger  of  the  like  being  done 
in  modern  times.  The  danger  lies  quite  in 
the  opposite  direction,  that  popular  govern- 
ments will  not  venture  upon  the  most  obvious 
and  necessary  improvement  of  the  monetary 
system  without  obtaining  a  concurrence  of 
popular  opinion  in  its  favor,  while  the  peo- 
ple, influenced  by  habit,  and  with  little 
knowledge  of  the  subject,  will  never  be  able 
to  agree  upon  the  best  scheme. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF   CIRCULATION. 


Before  proceeding  to  consider  the  actual 
monetary  systems  adopted  by  modern  or 
ancient  nations,  it  is  desirable  to  dwell  for  a 
short  time  upon  the  different  meanings  which 
may  be  attributed  to  the  word  man  y,  and 
upon  the  natural  principles  which  govern  the 
use  and  circulation  of  coins.  We  must,  in 
the  first  place,  distinguish  three  things 
which,  in  the  practical  working  of  a  currency 
system,  are  often  separate,  namely,  the  actual 
coins  employed,  the  numbers  by  which  they 
are  expressed,  and  the  relation  of  those  num- 
bers to  the  assumed  unit  of  value.  We  must 
further  distinguish  coins  according  as  their 
values  depend  upon  the  metal  they  contain, 
the  metal  for  which  they  can  be  exchanged, 
or  the  other  coins  for  which  they  are  tb* 
legal  equivalent. 

THE  STANDARD  UNIT  OF  VALUE 

It  is  essential,  in  the  first  place,  to  decide 
clearly  what  we  mean  by  a  standard  unit  of 
value.  This  must  consist  of  a  fixed  quantity 
of  some  concrete  substance,  defined  by  refer- 
ence to  the  units  of  weight  or  space.  Value 
may  seem  to  some  people  to  be  a  purely 
mental  phenomenon,  and  a  pound  would 
then  have  to  be  defined,  as  Lord  Castlereagh 
asserted,  by  a  sense  of  value.  But  we  might 
as  well  define  a  yard  by  a  sense  of  length,  or 
a  grain  by  a  sense  of  weight.  Just  as  ev^ry 
quantity  in  physical  science  is  defined  by 
reference  to  sonfe'concrete  standard  speci- 
men, so  if  we  are  to  measure  and  express 
value  at  all,  we  must  fix  upon  definite  quait- 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


title*  of  one  or  more  definite  and  unchange- 
able commodities  for  the  purpose. 

The  expression,  standard  unit  of  value. 
will  indeed  be  almost  inevitably  misunder- 
stood as  implying  the  existence  of  something 
of  fixed  value.  As  we  have  seen,  however, 
(Chapter  I.),  value  merely  expresses  the  essen- 
tially variable  ratio  in  which  two  commodities 
exchange,  so  that  there  is  no  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  any  substance  does  for  two  days 
together  retain  the  same  value.  All  that  a 
standaul  of  value  means  is,  that  some  uni- 
form unchangeable  substance  is  chosen,  in 
terms  of  which  all  ratios  of  exchange  may  be 
expressed  and  calculated,  without  any  regard 
whatever  to  the  feelings  or  mental  phe- 
nomena which  the  commodities  produce  in 
men.  For  reasons  already  stated,  one  or  the 
Other  of  the  metals,  gold,  silver,  or  copper, 
has  usually  been  considered  most  suitable 
for  constituting  the  standard  substance. 

The  absolute  weight  or  magnitude  of  the 
unit  of  money  is  a  matter  of  little  or  no  im- 
portance, provided  that  all  people  agree  upon 
the  same  unit,  and  that  it  be  permanently  and 
exactly  defined,  and  afterward  adhered  to. 
Before  the  English  yard  was  fixed,  it  would 
not  have  mattered  whether  it  was  a  few 
inches  longer  or  shorter;  it  does  not  matter, 
indeed,  whether  the  inch,  the  foot,  the  fur- 
long, or  the  mile  is  the  unit,  provided  that 
one  of  them  is  definitely  fixed,  and  the  others 
referred  to  it  by  known  ratios.  So,  it  is 
really  indifferent  whether  we  regard  the 
pound  troy  of  standard  gold,  or  the  ounce, 
or  the  fixed  number  of  grains  in  the  sover- 
eign as  our  standard.  It  is  only  requisite 
that  every  contract  expressed  in  money  shall 
enable  us  to  ascertain  exactly  how  much  stand- 
ard gold  is  due  from  one  person  to  another. 

M.  Chevalier  and  some  other  continental 
economists  have  argued  elaborately  in  favor  of 
a  universal  standard  unit  of  value,  coinciding 
with  the  metric  system  of  weights.  They  wish 
the  unit  of  value  to  be  ten  grains  of  gold 
exactly,  and  seem  to  think  that  there  is  some 
magical  efficacy  in  the  correspondence  of 
money  and  weights.  This  correspondence 
might  perhaps  be  a  slight  convenience  to 
those  bullion  dealers  who  have  to  calculate 
the  metallic  value  of  coins  before  melting  or 
exporting  them,  or  to  those  mint  officials 
who  have  to  adjust  and  test  the  weights  of 
coins  ;  to  all  other  persons  it  would  be  a 
matter  of  complete  indifference.  Those  who 
use  coins  in  ordinary  business  need  never 
inquire  how  much  metal  they  contain.  Pro- 
bably riot  one  person  in  ten  thousand  in  this 
kingdom  knows,  or  need  know,  that  a  sov- 
ereign should  contain  123.27447  grains  of 
standard  gold.  Besides,  if  we  agree  to  ac- 
cept a  precise  metrical  quantity  of  one  metal 
as  our  standard,  the  weights  of  the  coins 
composed  of  other  metals  will  be  complicated 
fractional  amounts,  to  be  determined  with 
reference  to  the  accidental  market  value  of 
the  metals. 


All  we  can  say,  then,  if  that  the  standard 
unit  of  value  is  some  entirely  arbitrary  weight 
of  the  standard  metal,  the  exact  amount  of 
which,  being  a  matter  of  indifference  on  gen- 
eral grounds,  should  be  fixed  as  seems  most 
convenient  in  reference  to  the  habits  of  na- 
tions or  other  accidental  circumstances. 

COIN,   MONEY    OF    ACCOUNT,   AND    UNIT    OF 
VALUE. 

It  is  desirable  to  distinguish  clearly  be- 
tween three  things  which,  although  definitely 
related  to  each  other,  need  not  be  identical. 
The  unit  of  value,  or  standard  weight  of  the 
selected  metal,  is  not  necessarily  made  into  a 
coin.  It  may  be  a  quantity  too  great  or  too 
small  for  coining.  All  that  is  requisite  is 
that  the  current  coins  shall  be  multiples  or 
submultiples  of  the  unit,  or  easily  expressible 
in  terms  of  the  unit.  Nor  is  it  even  re- 
quisite that  the  numbers  in  which  we  express 
value  should  be  numbers  of  coins,  or  num- 
bers of  units  of  value.  The  money  of  ac- 
count, as  it  is  called,  may  differ  both  from 
the  current  money  and  the  standard  money. 
This  is  well  illustrated  in  the  Anglo-Saxon 
system  of  currency.  The  unit  of  value  was 
the  Saxon  pound  of  standard  silver,  which 
was  far  too  large  to  be  coined.  The  only 
coins  issued  in  any  considerable  quantity  by 
the  Anglo-Saxon  kings,  were  silver  pennies 
and  a  few  halfpennies  ;  yet  the  usual  money 
of  account  was  the  shilling,  which,  after 
varying  from  four  to  five  pence,  was  fixed 
by  William  I.  at  twelve  pence,  as  it  has  ever 
since  continued.  No  coin  called  a  shilling 
was  issued  before  the  reign  of  Henry  VII. 
Though  the  shilling  has  survived,  other 
moneys  of  account  have  been  forgotten,  as, 
for  instance,  the  mancus,  which  was  equal  to 
thirty  pennies,  or  six  shillings  of  five  pence 
each.  The  mark,  the  ora,  and  the  thrimsa 
were  other  moneys  of  account  used  by  the 
Anglo-Saxons. 

In  our  present  English  system  the  three 
moneys  happen  to  coincide,  which  is  doubt- 
less a  matter  of  some  convenience.  The 
sovereign  is  at  once  the  principal  coin,  the 
unit  of  value,  and  the  money  of  account  in 
all  the  larger  transactions,  although  in  the 
expression  of  smaller  sums  the  shilling  is 
yet  preferred.  In  France  at  the  present 
time  the  money  of  account  and  the  unit  of 
value  is  the  franc  in  gold;  but  as  this  weighs 
only  0.3226  grams,  or  about  five  grains,  it  is 
coined  only  in  five,  ten,  and  twenty-franc 
gold  pieces,  with  subsidiary  silver  coins.  In 
Russia,  before  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great, 
the  rouble  was  an  imaginary  money  of  ac- 
count, consisting  of  one  hundred  copper  co- 
pecks. 

When  Montesquieu  affirmed  that  the  ne- 
groes on  the  West  Coast  of  Africa  had  a 
purely  ideal  sign  of  value  called  a  macute,  he 
misunderstood  the  nature  of  money  of  ac- 
count. The  macute  served  with  the  negroe* 
as  the  name  for  a  definite,  though  probably 


20 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      311 


a  variable,  number  of  cowry  <1ieHg,  trie  num- 
ber being  at  one  time  2,000.  The  macuts 
has  also  been  coined  in  silver  pieces  of  eight, 
six,  and  four  macutes,  struck  by  the  Portu- 
guese for  use  in  their  colonies,  the  macute 
being  worth  about  two  and  three-fourth  pen- 
nies. 

When  the  currency  of  a  country  undergoes 
a  change,  the  units  of  coinage,  account  and 
value  are  likely  to  become  separated.  Some- 
times a  new  system  of  accounts  is  applied  to 
an  old  coinage,  as  in  Norway  at  the  present 
time.  The  Stockholm  government  is  endeav- 
oring to  introduce  the  Swedish  decimal  sys- 
tem of  currency,  and  some  merchants  are 
said  already  to  keep  their  accounts  in  kro- 
ner and  5re,  although  the  money  in  cir- 
culation consists  almost  wholly  of  the  old 
skillings  and  the  paper  specie- dalers.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  coinage  is  sometimes 
changed,  and  yet  the  old  method  of  ac- 
count retained,  especially  as  regards  for- 
eign transactions.  Thus  the  rates  of  for 
eign  exchange  between  the  United  States 
and  England  were,  until  last  year,  quoted 
in  terms  of  a  dollar  valued  at  four  shil- 
lings and  sixpence,  in  accordance  with  a 
law  of  1 789.  This  rate  seems  to  have  been 
the  traditional  par  of  exchange  of  the  Mexi- 
can dollar,  and  it  was  still  retained  even 
when  the  American  dollar  had  been  coined 
so  as  to  be  worth  only  40/316  English  pence. 

There  are  two  causes  which  have  often  led 
to  a  difference  between  coinage  and  money 
of  account.  The  coins  may,  by  legitimate 
abrasion,  or  by  fraudulent  clipping  and 
sweating,  become  much  reduced  below  their 
proper  weights,  yet  an  agio,  or  allowance, 
being  made  for  the  average  depreciation,  the 
old  standard  of  value  and  money  of  ac- 
count may  be  retained,  as  was  the  case 
in  Amsterdam,  Hamburg,  and  other  towns. 
When  a  depreciated  currency  is  issued  in  a 
country,  the  money  of  account  may  either 
change  with  it  or  remain  as  before;  and  it  is 
an  exceedingly  difficult,  if  not  insoluble, 
problem  to  decide  whether,  in  particular  pe- 
riods of  English  history,  prices  were  ex- 
pressed in  the  new  depreciated  or  the  old 
good  money.  Professor  J.  E.  T.  Rogers 
has  pointed  out,  in  his  admirable  "  History 
of  Agriculture  and  Prices  in  England," 
printed  by  the  Clarendon  Press  (vol.  i.,  p. 
175),  that,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  the 
coinage,  though  apparently  passed  by  tale, 
was  often  weighed.  In  the  ancient  college 
accounts  which  he  has  investigated,  he  finds 
charges  entered  both  for  the  cost  of  scales 
to  make  the  weighings,  and  for  the  deficiency 
of  weight  of  the  coins. 

In  many  countries,  even  at  the  present  day, 
the  circulating  medium  consists  not  of  any 
one  simple  and  well-connected  series  of  coins, 
but  of  a  miscellaneous  collection  of  coins  of 
various  sizes  and  values,  imported  from  for- 
eign states.  In  such  cases  the  money  of  ac- 
couot  must  necessarily  differ  from  the  mass 


of  the  coins,  of  which  the  value  is  usually 
estimated  by  a  tariff  expressed  in  terms  of 
the  money  of  account.  In  the  German 
states,  a  few  years  ago,  French  and  English 
gold  was  freely  accepted  in  this  manner.  In 
Canada  there  was  in  former  years  an  intricate 
confusion  of  monetary  systems.  Many  spe- 
cies of  foreign  coins,  chiefly  varieties  of  the 
dollar,  were  in  circulation.  There  were  also 
two  separate  moneys  of  account,  namely,  the 
Halifax  Currency  Pound,  divided  into  twenty 
shillings  of  twenty  pence  each,  and  defined 
by  the  fact  that  sixty  such  pence  were  equal 
to  one  dollar;  and,  secondly,  the  Halifax 
Sterling  Currency.  The  latter  is  still  em- 
ployed to  express  the  foreign  exchanges. 
The  present  monetary  unit  of  Canada  is  the 
dollar,  and  the  currency  consists  of  bank- 
notes, with  silver  coins  of  50,  25,  20,  10,  and 
5  cents;  but  English  sovereigns  and  half  sov- 
ereigns are  also  in  circulation. 

STANDARD  AND  TOKEN  MONEY. 

We  must  distinguish  between  coins  ac- 
cording as  they  serve  for  standard  money  or 
for  token  money.  A  standard  coin  is  one  of 
which  the  value  in  exchange  depends  solely 
upon  the  value  of  the  material  contained  in 
it.  The  stamp  serves  as  i  mere  indication 
and  guarantee  of  thj  quantity  of  fine  metal. 
We  may  treat  such  coins  as  bullion,  and  melt 
them  up  or  export  them  to  countries  where 
they  are  not  legally  current;  yet  the  value  of 
the  metal,  being  independent  of  legislation, 
will  everywhere  be  recognized. 

Token  coins,  on  the  contrary,  are  defined 
in  value  by  the  fact  that  they  can,  by  force 
of  law  or  custom,  be  exchanged  in  a  certain 
fixed  ratio  for  standard  coins.  The  metal 
contained  in  a  token  coin  has  of  course  a  cer- 
tain value;  but  it  may  be  less  than  the  legal 
value  in  almost  any  degree.  In  our  English 
silver  coinage  the  difference  is  from  9  to  12 
per  cent. ,  according  to  the  market  price  of  sil- 
ver; in  our  bronze  coinage  the  d  fference  is 
75  per  cent.  The  metal  contained  in  the 
French  bronze  coins  is  in  like  manner  equal 
in  value  to  little  more  than  one-quarter  of  the 
current  value.  In  many  cases  the  difference 
has  been  far  greater;  as,  for  instance,  in 
some  of  the  old  kreutzer  pieces  lately  current 
in  the  German  states.  Woods's  halfpence, 
which  at  one  time  created  so  much  discontent 
in  Ireland,  or  the  small  money  previously 
issued  by  James  II.  in  Ireland,  are  extreme 
instances  of  depreciated  token  money. 

METALLIC    AND    NOMINAL   VALUES  OF  COIN. 

It  has  been  usual  to  call  the  value  of  the 
metal  contained  in  a  coin  the  intrinsic  value 
of  the  coin;  but  this  use  of  the  word  intrinsic 
is  likely  to  give  rise  to  fallacious  notions  con- 
cerning the  nature  of  value;  which  is  never 
an  intrinsic  property,  or  existence,  but  mere- 
ly a  circumstance,  or  external  relation  (see 
Chapter  II.).  To  avoid  any  chance  of  am- 
biguity, I  shall  substitute  the  expression,  me- 


312 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


tallic  value,  and  I  shall  distinguish  this  from 
the  nominal,  customary,  or  legal  value,  at 
which  a  coin  actually  does,  or  is  by  law  re- 
quired to,  exchange  for  other  coins. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  the  metallic 
value  of  a  coin  may  be  reduced  below  its 
nominal  value,  namely,  by  reducing  either 
the  weight  or  the  fineness  of  the  metal.  En- 
glish silver  coin  is  still  maintained  at  the 
"ancient  right  standard"  of  II  oz.  2  dwts. 
in  the  troy  pound,  which  has  existed  from 
time  immemorial.  By  the  Act  of  1816  the 
silver  coins  which  had  previously  been,  in 
theory  at  least,  standard  money,  were  re- 
duced in  weight  by  6  per  cent.,  and  thus  ren- 
dered token  money,  which  they  still  continue 
to  be.  In  France  and  other  countries  be- 
longing to  the  Monetary  Convention,  the 
smaller  silver  coins  of  two  francs,  one  franc, 
and  fifty  centimes,  have  been  converted  into 
tokens  by  reducing  the  fineness  of  the  silver 
from  900  to  835  parts  in  1000.  It  does  not 
seem  to  be  a  matter  of  any  importance  which 
mode  is  adopted;  but  the  English  mode,  so 
long  as  it  does  not  render  the  coins  incon- 
veniently small,  is  perhaps  slightly  the  bet- 
ter, because  some  persons  can  satisfy  them- 
selves as  to  the  weight  of  a  coin,  but  none 
are  able  to  test  its  fineness,  unless  they  are 
professional  assayers. 

Jt  need  hardly  be  stated  that  coins  which 
circulate  by  law  in  one  country  as  tokens  may 
be  accepted  in  other  countries  at  their  me- 
tallic value. 

LEGAL  TENDER. 

Money  must  further  be  distinguished  ac- 
cording as  it  is  or  is  not  legal  tender,  or  has  or 
has  not  what  the  French  call  cours  for^e".  By 
legal  tender  is  denoted  such  money  as  a  cred- 
itor is  obliged  to  receive  in  requital  of  a 
debt  expressed  in  terms  of  money  of  the  realm. 
One  great  object  of  legislation  is  to  prevent 
uncertainty  in  the  interpretation  of  contracts, 
and  accordingly  the  Coinage  Act  defines  pre- 
cisely what  will  constitute  a  legal  offer  of 
payment  on  the  part  of  a  debtor,  as  regards 
a  money  debt.  If  a  debtor  tender  to  his 
creditor  the  amount  of  a  debt  due  in  legal 
tender  money,  and  it  be  refused,  the  creditor 
may  indeed  apply  for  it  or  sue  for  it  afterward, 
but  the  costs  of  the  action  will  be  thrown 
upon  him. 

But  there  seems  to  be  no  legal  necessity 
that  exchanges  or  contracts  shall  be  made  in 
money  of  the  realm.  At  common  law,  con- 
tracts for  the  direct  barter  of  two  commodi- 
ties, or  for  purchase  and  sale  in  t-rms  of  any 
kind  of  money,  will  be  valid,  provided  it  is 
clear  what  the  terms  of  the  contract  mean. 
Accordingly,  the  sixth  section  of  the  Coin- 
age Act  (33  Viet.  c.  10),  while  enacting  that 
every  contract,  sale,  payment,  bill,  note, 
transaction,  or  matter  relating  to  money, 
•hall  be  made  or  done  according  to  the 
coins  which  are  current  and  legal  tender  in 
pursuance  of  this  Act,  yet  adds,  ' '  unless  the 


same  be  made,  executed,  entered  i$  ^  »ne 
or  had,  according  to  the  currency  a\  *ome 
Biitish  possession  or  some  foreign  .*tate." 

If  I  understand  the  matter  aright,  then, 
every  person  is  at  liberty  to  buy,  sell,  or 
exchangein  terms  of  any  money  or  commod- 
ity whatsoever  whicL  he  prefers ;  and  the 
fact  that  certain  coins,  up  to  certain  limits, 
are  legal  tender,  only  means  that  the  state 
provides  a  definite  medium  of  exchange,  and 
defines  precisely  what  that  is.  The  Act 
requires  that  English  money  shall  be  the 
money  issued  by  the  mint  in  accordance  with 
the  terms  of  the  Act.  Of  course  it  remains 
quite  open  to  a  creditor  to  receive  payment 
in  coins  which  are  not  legal  tender,  if  he  like 
to  do  so,  and  I  presume  there  would  be 
nothing  to  prevent  him  entering  into  a  con- 
tract to  that  effect.  If  a  man  contracted  to 
sell  goods  to  the  extent  of  ^100,  and  to  re- 
ceive payment  in  bronze  pence  and  half- 
pence, it  would  no  doubt  be  a  valid  contract, 
although  no  single  quantity  of  pence  exceed- 
ing twelve  pence  is  a  legal  tender. 

The  exact  meaning  of  the  term,  legal  ten- 
der, may  of  course  vary  from  country  to  coun- 
try, and  the  above  remarks  apply  only  to 
countries  under  the  English  law. 

THE    FORCE    OF     HABIT    IN    THE     CIRCULA- 
TION OF  MONEY. 

No  one  can  possibly  understand  many 
social  phenomena  unless  he  constantly  bears 
in  mind  the  force  of  habit  and  social  conven- 
tion. This  is  strikingly  true  in  our  subject 
of  money.  Over  and  over  again  in  the  course 
of  history,  powerful  rulers  have  endeavored 
to  put  new  coins  into  circulation  or  to  with- 
draw old  ones ;  but  the  instincts  of  self- 
interest  or  habit  in  the  people  have  been  too 
strong  for  laws  and  penalties.  Though  in 
particular  instances  it  may  be  difficult  to  ex- 
plain occurrences  which  happen  in  the  cir- 
culation of  coins,  yet  a  close  analysis  of  the 
character  of  those  who  handle  money,  and 
their  motives  for  holding  it  or  paying  it  away, 
will  throw  much  light  upon  the  subject. 

We  must  notice,  in  the  first  place,  that  the 
great  mass  of  the  population  who  hold  coins 
have  no  theories,  or  genera!  information 
whatever,  upon  the  subject  of  money.  They 
are  guided  entirely  by  popular  report  and 
tradition.  The  sole  question  with  them  on 
receiving  a  coin  is  whether  similar  coins  have 
been  readily  accepted  by  other  people.  Thus 
in  the  remote  parts  of  Norway  at  the  present 
time,  the  old  paper  daler  notes  are  preferred 
to  the  beautful  new  twenty-kroner  geld 
pieces.  By  far  the  greater  number  of  the 
people  possess  no  means  of  learning  the  me- 
tallic, or  even  the  legal  value,  of  an  unfamiliar 
coin.  Few  people  have  scales  and  weights 
suitable  for  weighing  a  coin,  and  no  one  but 
an  assayer  or  analytical  chemist  can  decide 
upon  its  fineness.  Many  a  traveler  who  has 
carried  good  new  coin  into  a  country  where 
it  happened  to  be  strange,  has  had  to  suffer 


MONEY  AND   THE  MECHANISM  OI:  EXCHANGE.      313 


a  loss  in  paying  it  away.  When  our  bronze 
pence  were  quite  a  novelty,  I  happened  to 
take  some  witn  me  into  a  remote  part  of 
North  Wales,  and  they  were  rejected. 

People  in  general  accept  coin  simply  on 
the  ground  oi  its  familiar  appearance.  So 
entirely  is  this  the  case  among  very  ignorant 
populations,  that  it  has  often  been  found 
desirable  to  maintain  unchanged  the  impress 
on  successive  issues  of  coins.  In  many  cases 
coins  have  been  struck  for  this  purpose  with 
the  date  of  a  long  past  year,  or  even  the 
effigy  of  a  dead  sovereign.  The  Maria 
Theresa  dollar  is  still  coined  by  the  Austrian 
mint,  with  exactly  the  same  design  and  date 
as  when  first  issued  in  1780,  because  it  is  the 
favorite  coin  in  some  of  the  states  of  North 
Africa,  and  various  parts  of  the  Levant.  The 
British  Government,  when  undertaking  the 
Abyssinian  expedition,  procured  a  large 
stock  of  these  coins  for  paying  the  natives. 
In  the  same  way  Mexican  dollars  are  usually 
worth  rather  more  than  silver  bullion,  be- 
cause of  their  easy  currency  in  the  East. 

To  the  supremacy  of  habit,  and  the  ab- 
sence of  means  of  estimating  the  real  value 
of  coin,  is  obviously  due  the  depreciation 
which  currencies  have  undergone.  False 
coiners  and  kings  alike  find  that,  if  they  can 
only  make  new  coins  look  and  feel  exactly 
like  old  coins,  the  people  will  accept  depre- 
ciated money  without  question. 

The  annals  of  coinage,  in  this  and  all 
other  countries,  are  little  more  than  a  monot- 
onous repetition  of  depreciated  issues  both 
public  and  private,  varied  by  occasional  mer- 
itorious, but  often  unsuccessful,  efforts,  to 
restore  the  standard  of  the  currency.  A 
curious  instance  of  successive  attempts  to 
beguile  a  people  is  found  in  certain  Roman 
denarii  of  the  Consular  times.  False  coiners 
having  issued  plated  denarii  among  the  sub 
ject  Germans,  the  people  appeared  to  have 
notched  them  with  files  to  test  their  genuine- 
ness. The  Germans  having  thus  become 
accustomed  to  see  genuine  notched  coins,  the 
Roman  government  found  it  desirable  to 
issue  new  coins  notched  in  a  similar  manner. 
But  the  forgers  were  not  to  be  beaten.  They 
issued  plated  denarii  with  the  notches  all 
complete,  apparently  displaying  good  metal 
within;  and  notched  false  coins  of  this  kind 
exist  to  the  present  day  in  numismatic  cab- 
inets. 

GRESHAM'S  LAW. 

Though  the  public  generally  do  not  dis- 
criminate between  coins  and  coins,  provided 
there  is  an  apparent  similarity,  a  small  class 
of  money-changers,  bullion-dealers,  bankers, 
or  goldsmiths  make  it  their  business  to  be 
acquainted  with  such  differences,  and  know 
how  to  derive  a  profit  from  them.  These  are 
the  people  who  frequently  uncoin  money, 
either  by  melting  it,  or  by  exporting  it  to  coun- 
tries where  it  is  sooner  or  later  melted.  Some 
coins  are  sunk  in  the  sea  or  lost,  prd  some 


are  carried  abroad  by  emigrants  and  travelers 
who  do  not  look  closely  to  the  metallic  value 
of  the  money.  But  by  far  the  greatest  part 
of  the  standard  coinage  is  removed  from  cir- 
culation by  people  who  know  that  they  shall 
gain  by  choosing  for  this  purpose  the  new 
heavy  coins  most  recently  issued  from  the 
mint.  Hence  arises  the  practice,  extensively 
carried  on  in  the  present  day  in  England,  of 
picking  and  culling,  or,  as  another  technical 
expression  is,  garbling  the  coinage,  devoting 
the  good  new  coins  to  the  melting  pot,  and 
passing  the  old  worn  coins  into  circulation 
again  on  every  suitable  opportunity. 

From  these  considerations  we  readily  learn 
the  truth  and  importance  of  a  general  law  or 
principle  concerning  the  circulation  of  money, 
which  Mr.  Macleod  has  very  appropriately 
named  the  Law  or  Theorem  of  Gresham, 
after  Sir  Thomas  Gresham,  who  clearly  per- 
ceived its  truth  three  centuries  ago.  This 
law,  briefly  expressed,  is  that  bad  money  drives 
out  good  money,  but  that  good  money  cannot 
drive  out  bad  money.  At  first  sight  there 
may  seem  to  be  something  paradoxical  in 
the  fact,  that  when  beautiful  new  coins  of 
full  weight  are  issued  from  the  mint,  the  peo- 
ple still  continue  to  circulate,  in  preference, 
the  old  depreciated  ones.  Many  well  inten- 
tioned  efforts  to  reform  a  currency  have  thus 
been  frustrated,  to  the  great  cost  of  states, 
and  the  perplexity  of  statesmen  who  had  not 
studied  the  principles  of  monetary  science. 

In  all  other  matters  everybody  is  led  by 
self-interest  to  choose  the  better  and  reject 
the  worse;  but  in  the  case  of  money,  it  would 
seem  as  if  they  paradoxically  retain  the  worse 
and  get  rid  of  the  better.  The  explanation 
is  very  simple.  The  people,  as  a  general 
rule,  do  not  reject  the  better,  but  pass  from 
hand  to  hand  indifferently  the  heavy  and  the 
light  coins,  because  their  only  use  for  the 
coin  is  as  a  medium  of  exchange.  It  is  those 
who  are  going  to  melt,  export,  hoard,  or  dis- 
solve the  coins  of  the  realm,  or  convert  them 
into  jewelry  and  g°ld  leaf,  who  carefully  se- 
lect tor  their  purposes  the  new  heavy  coins. 

Gresham's  law  alone  furnishes  a  sufficient 
refutation  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  doctrine, 
already  noticed  (Chapter  VII),  that  money 
ought  to  be  provided  by  private  manufactur- 
ers. People  who  want  furniture,  or  books,  or 
clothes,  may  be  trusted  to  select  the  best 
which  they  can  afford,  because  they  are  go- 
ing to  keep  and  use  these  articles;  but  with 
money  it  is  just  the  opposite.  Money  is 
made  to  go.  They  want  coin,  not  to  keep  it 
in  their  own  pockets,  but  to  pass  it  off  into 
their  neighbors'  pockets;  and  the  worse  the 
money  which  they  can  get  their  neigh- 
bors  to  accept,  the  greater  the  profit  to  them- 
selves.  Thn-.  there  is  a  natural  tendency  to 
the  depreciation  of  the  metallic  currency, 
w  hich  can  only  be  prevented  by  the  constant 
supervision  of  the  state. 

From  Gresham's  law  we  may  infer  the  ne- 
cessity of  two  precantions  in  the  regulation 


23 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


of  the  currency.  In  the  first  place,  the  stand- 
ard coins,  as  issued  from  the  mint,  should  be 
as  nearly  as  possible  of  the  standard  weight, 
otherwise  the  difference  will  form  a  profit  for 
the  bullion  broker  and  exporter.  In  the  sec- 
ond place,  adequate  measures  must  be  taken 
for  withdrawing  from  circulation  all  coins 
which  are  worn  below  the  leas>t  legal  weight, 
otherwise  they  will  continue  to  circulate  as 
token  c*ins  for  an  indefinite  length  of  time. 
All  commerce  consists  in  the  exchange  of 
commodities  of  equal  value,  and  the  princi- 
pal money  should  consist  of  pieces  of  metal 
so  nearly  equal  in  metallic  contents,  that  ail 
persons,  including  bullion  dealers,  bankers, 
and  other  professed  dealers  in  money,  will 
indifferently  substitute  one  coin  for  another. 
But  it  is  obvious  that  these  remarks  do  not 
apply  to  coins  intended  to  serve  as  tokens, 
since  the  current  value  of  tokens  exceeds 
their  metallic  value,  and  every  one  who  uses 
them  otherwise  than  in  ordinary  circulation 
will  lose  the  difference.  Hence  the  weight  of 
a  token  coin  is  comparatively  a  matter  of  in- 
difference, so  long  as  people  will  receive 
it,  and  the  deficiency  of  weight  is  not  too 
great  a  temptation  to  the  false  coiner. 

In  England  at  the  present  day  the  force  of 
habit,  and  the  absence  of  means  of  discrim- 
ination, lead  to  the  depreciation  of  our  gold 
standard  coinage  by  abrasion.  Only  while  a 
sovereign  exceeds  122  5  grains  in  weight  is 
it  legally  a  sovereign ;  but  people  go  on  pay- 
ing and  receiving  indifferently,  in  ordinary 
trade,  sovereigns  of  which  the  metallic  values 
differ  two  pence  or  four  pence,  and  some- 
times six  pence  or  eight  pence.  Every 
standard  coin  thus  tends  to  degenerate  into 
a  token  coin,  and  such  a  coin  can  only  be 
withdrawn  from  circulation  by  the  state. 

EXTENSION  OF  GRESHAM's  LAW. 

Gresham's  remarks  concerning  the  inabil- 
ity of  good  money  to  drive  out  bad  money, 
only  referred  to  moneys  of  one  kind  of  metal, 
but  the  same  principle  applies  to  the  rela- 
tions of  all  kinds  of  money,  in  the  same  cir- 
culation. Gold  compared  with  silver,  or 
silver  with  copper,  or  paper  compared  with 
gold,  are  subject  to  the  same  law  that  the 
relatively  cheaper  medium  of  exchange  will 
be  retained  in  circulation  and  the  relatively 
dearer  will  disappear.  The  most  extreme 
instance  which  has  ever  occurred  was  in  the 
case  of  the  Japanese  currency.  At  the  time 
of  the  treaty  of  1858,  between  Great  Britain, 
the  United  States,  and  Japan,  which  par- 
tially opened  up  the  last  country  to  European 
traders,  a  very  curious  system  of  currency 
existed  in  Japan.  The  most  valuable  J  p- 
anese  coin  was  Kie  kobang,  consisting  of  a 
thin  oval  disk  of  gold  about  two  inches  long, 
and  one  and  one-fourth  inches  wide,  weighing 
two  hundred  grains,  and  ornamented  in  a 
very  primitive  manner.  It  was  passing  cur- 
t  in  the  towns  of  Japan  for  four  silver 
Jtaebus,  but  wai  worth  in  English  money 


about  eighteen  shillings,  five  pence,  whereas 
the  silver  itzebu  was  equal  only  to  about  one 
shilling,  four  pence.  Thus  the  Japanese 
weie  estimating  their  gold  money  at  only 
about  one-third  of  its  value,  as  estimated  ac- 
cording to  the  relative  values  of  the  metals 
in  other  parts  of  the  world.  The  earliest 
European  traders  enjoyed  a  rare  opportunity 
for  making  profit  By  buying  up  the  ko- 
bangs  at  the  native  rating  they  trebled  theii 
money,  until  the  natives,  perceiving  what 
was  being  done,  withdrew  from  circulation 
the  remainder  of  the  gold.  A  complete  re- 
form of  the  Japanese  currency  is  now  being 
carried  out,  the  English  mint  at  Hong  Kong 
having  been  purchased  by  the  Japanese  gov- 
ernment. 

What  happened  in  an  extreme  degree  in 
Japan  has  often  happened  in  England  and 
other  European  countries,  in  a  less  degree. 
If  the  ratio  of  gold  and  silver  in  the  coinage, 
as  legally  current,  differs  only  one  or  two 
percent,  from  the  commercial  ratio,  it  may  be- 
come profitable  to  export  the  one  metal  rather 
than  the  other,  and  in  this  way,  as  we  shall 
see,  the  main  part  of  the  currency  of  France 
was  changed  from  silver  into  gold  between 
1849  and  1869.  In  fact  the  character  of  the 
coinage  of  most  nations  has  been  determined 
n  a  similar  manner,  and  England  and  the 
United  States  were  thus  led  to  adopt  a  prin- 
cipal gold  currency.  There  is  every  reason 
to  believe  that  in  ancient  Rome,  both  in  the 
time  of  the  Republic  and  of  the  Empire,  great 
difficulties  were  encountered  in  regulating  the 
currency  of  silver  alongside  of  copper,  and  the 
perplexity  became  worse  when  gold  coin  was 
introduced. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


SYSTEMS  OF   METALLIC   MONEY. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  analyse  the 
construction  of  the  various  systems  of  me- 
tallic money  which  have  existed,  or  do  exist, 
or  which  might  be  conceived  to  exist.  The 
systems  actually  brought  into  operation  are 
more  numerous  than  is  commonly  supposed, 
and  I  have  nowhere  met  with  an  adequate 
classification  of  them.  M.  Courcelle-Seneuil, 
indeed,  has  satisfactorily  described  some  of 
the  principal  systems,  and  MM.  Chevalier, 
Gamier,  and  other  writers,  both  Continental 
and  English,  have  given  other  brief  classifi- 
cations. But  we  must  now  take  a  compre- 
hensive view  of  the  possible  ways  in  which 
two,  three,  or  more  metals  may  be  employed 
in  the  construction  of  a  more  or  less  useful 
monetary  system. 

There  seem  to  be  five  distinct  modes  in 
which  a  government  may  deal  with  metallic 
money. 

i.  It  may  confine  itself  to  providing  a  sys- 
tem of  weights  and  measures,  and  may  then 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      315 


allow  the  precious  metals  to  be  passed  about 
frcm  hand  to  hand,  like  other  commodities, 
in  terms  of  the  national  weights  and  meas- 
ures, and  in  the  form  which  individuals  find 
to  be  the  most  convenient.  This  we  may  call 
the  system  of  currency  by  weight. 

2.  To  save  the  trouble  of  frequent  weigh- 
ing, and  the   uncertainty  of  fineness  of  the 
metal,  it  may  coin  one  or  more  metals  into 
pieces  of  certain  specified  weights  and  fine- 
ness, and  may  afterward  allow  the  public  to 
make  their  contracts  and  sales  in  one  or  other 
kind  of  coin,  as  they  deem  expedient.     This 
may  be  described  as  the  system  of  unrestrict- 
ed currency  by  tale. 

3.  To  prevent  misunderstanding,  the  gov- 
ernment, while  emitting  various  coins  in  vari- 
ous metals,  may  ordain  that  all  contracts  ex- 
pressed in  money  of  the  realm  shall,  in  the 
absence  of  express  provision  to  the  contrary, 
betaken  to  mean  money  of  one  kind  of  metal, 
specially  named,   while  other  coin  shall  be 
left  to  circulate  at  varying  market  rates  com- 
pared with  this  principal  kind  of  coinage. 
This  is  the  single  legal  tender  system. 

4.  The  government  may  emit  coins  of  two 
or  more  kinds  of  metal,  and  enact  that  money 
contracts  may  be  discharged  in  one  or  other 
kind,  at  certain  rates  fixed  by  law.     This  is 
the  multiple  legal  tender  system. 

5.  While  maintaining  one  kind  of  coin  as 
the  principal  legal  tender,  in  which  all  large 
money  contracts  must  be  fulfilled,  coins  of 
other  kinds  of  metal  may  be  ordered  to  be 
received  in  limited  quantities,  as  equivalent 
to  the  principal  coin.    For  this  the  name  com- 
posite legal  tender  system  may  be  proposed. 

CURRENCY   BY   WEIGHT. 

The  order  in  which  I  have  enumerated  the 
principal  systems  of  metallic  money,  is  not 
only  the  logical  order,  but  it  is  the  historical 
order  in  which  the  systems  have,  for  the 
most  part  been  introduced.  There  is  over- 
whelming evidence  to  prove  that  simple  cur- 
rency by  weight  is  the  primitive  system.  Be- 
fore the  invention  of  the  balance,  lumps  and 
grains  were  no  doubt  exchanged  according  to 
a  rude  estimation  of  their  bulk  or  weight; 
but  afterward  the  balance  became  a  necessary 
instrument  in  all  important  transactions.  In 
the  Old  Testament  we  find  several  statements 
clearly  implying  that  the  ancient  Hebrews 
used  to  pass  money  by  weight.  In  Genesis 
(xxiii.  1 6)  Abraham  is  represented  as  weigh- 
ing out  to  Ephron  "four  hundred  shekels  of 
silver,  current  money  with  the  merchant," 
but  the  silver  in  question  is  believed  to  have 
consisted  of  rough  lumps  or  rings  not  to  be 
considered  coin.  'In  the  Book  of  Job  (xxviii. 
IS)  we  are  told  that  "wisdom  cannot  be 
gotten  for  gold,  neither  shall  silver  be  weigh- 
ed for  the  price  thereof." 

Aristotle,  in  his  Politics  (Book  I.,  chap,  ix), 
gives  an  interesting  account  of  his  views  of 
the  origin  of  money,  and  distinctly  tells  us 
that  the  metals  were  first  passed  simply  by 


weight  or  size,  and  Pliny  makes  a  similar  as- 
sertion. That  it  was  so,  we  may  infer  from 
the  remarkable  fact  that,  even  when  no  use 
was  made  of  it,  the  custom  of  bringing  a  pair 
of  scales  survived  as  a  legal  formality  in  the 
sale  of  slaves  at  Rome. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  every  system 
of  coinage  was  originally  identical  with  a  sys- 
tem of  weights,  the  unit  of  value  being  the 
unit  of  weight  of  some  selected  metal.  The 
English  pound  sterling  was  certainly  the  Sax- 
on pound  of  standard  silver,  which  was  too 
large  to  be  made  into  a  single  coin,  but  was 
divided  into  two  hundred  and  forty  silver 
pennies,  each  equal  to  a.  penny  weight.  In  the 
English  and  Scotch  pounds,  and  the  FrencL 
iivre,  we  have  the  vestiges  of  a  uniform  in- 
ternational system  of  money  and  weights, 
the  establishment  of  which  is  attributed  to 
Charlemagne,  but  which  unfortunately  be- 
came differentiated  and  destroyed  by  the 
various  depreciations  of  the  coinage  in  one 
country  or  another.  Most  of  the  other  prin- 
cipal units  of  value  were  originally  units  of 
weight,  such  as  the  shekel,  the  talent,  the 
as,  the  stater,  the  libra,  the  mark,  the  franc, 
the  lira. 

In  the  Old  Testament  the  notion  of  money 
is  expressed  three  times  by  the  Hebrew  word 
kesitah,  which  is  translated  in  certain  old 
versions  into  words  meaning  lamb.  This 
might  seem  to  be  an  additional  proof  of  the 
former  use  of  cattle  as  a  medium  of  ex- 
change; but  I  am  informed  by  my  learned 
friend,  Professor  Theodores,  that  this  trans- 
lation probably  arises  from  an  accidental 
blunder,  and  that  the  original  meaning  of 
the  word  kesitah,  was  that  of  a  "certain 
weight, "or  " an  exact  quantity. "  The  cor- 
responding word  in  the  Arabic,  kist,  is  said 
to  denote  a  pair  of  scales. 

Currency  by  weight  still  exists  among  con- 
siderable portions  of  the  human  race.  In 
the  Burman  empire,  for  instance,  three  kinds 
of  metal  are  current,  namely,  lead,  silver,  and 
gold,  and  all  payments  are  made  by  the  bal- 
ance, the  unit  of  weight  for  silver  being 
the  tical.  In  the  Chinese  empire  and  Cochin 
China,  there  is  indeed  a  legal  tender  currency 
of  cash  or  sapeks  but  gold  and  silver  are  usu- 
ally dealt  in  by  weight,  the  unit  being  the 
tael.  A  very  interesting  account  of  Chinese 
money,  by  M.  le  Comte  Rochechouart,  will 
be  found  in  the  Jo^lrnal  des  Economistes  for 
1869  (vol.  xv.,  page  103).  According  to  this 
writer,  both  gold  and  silver  are  treated  sim- 
ply as  merchandise,  and  there  is  not  even  a 
recognized  stamp, or  government  guarantee  of 
the  fineness  of  the  metal.  The  traveler  must 
carry  these  metals  with  him,  as  a  sufficient 
quantity  of  strings  of  cash  would  require  a 
wagon  for  their  conveyance.  Yet  in  ex- 
changing silver  or  gold  he  is  sure  to  suffer 
great  losses,  both  from  the  falsity  of  bal- 
ances and  weights,  and  the  uncertain  fine- 
ness of  the  metal.  In  buying  a  tael  of  gold 
the  traveler  may  have  to  give  eighteen  taels 


25 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


of  silver;  but  in  selling  it  he  will  often  not 
obtain  more  than  fourteen  taels. 

Whatever  be  the  inconveniences  of  the 
method,  currency  by  weight  is  yet  the  nat- 
ural and  necessary  system  to  which  people 
revert  whenever  the  abrasion  ef  coins,  the 
•ntermixture  of  currencies,  the  fall  of  a  state, 
or  other  causes,  destroy  the  public  con- 


lation,  without  any  attempt  to  regulate  their 
currency.  If  I  understand  his  meaning  cor 
rectly,  M.  Marnier  has  recently  brought  for- 
ward a  somewhat  similar  scheme,  proposing 
to  make  the  gram  of  gold  at  nine-tenths  the 
unit  of  value,  and  to  coin  pieces  of  one,  two, 
five,  eight,  or  ten  grams  concurrently  \\ith 
standard  silver  pieces,  which  are  in  France 


fidence   in   a  more  highly  organized  system,  j  already  multiples  of  the  gram.     M.   Cheval 
Though  the  silver  penny  among   the   Anglo-    ier's  proposed  system  of  international  money 


'  axons  was  supposed  to  correspond  with  a 
pennyweight,  there  was  a  practice  of  giving 
compensatio  ad  pensum,  which  really  amount- 
ed to  taking  the  coins  by  weight,  to  allow  for 
abrasion  and  inaccurate  or  false  coinage. 
The  as  was  at  first  equal  in  weight  to  a 
Roman  pound,  but  it  was  rapidly  lessened, 
so  that  at  the  epoch  of  the  First  Punic  War, 
it  did  not  exceed  two  ounces,  and  by  the 
time  of  the  Second  Punic  War  it  had  sunk 
to  one  ounce.  The  Roman  people  had  nat- 
urally reverted  to  weighing  the  metal,  and 
the  aes  grave  was  money  reckoned  by  weight 
instead  of  by  tale. 

In  the  present  day,  currency  by  weight  is 
far  more  extensively  practiced  than  might 
be  supposed,  because,  in  many  parts  of  the 
world,  the  currency  consists  of  a  miscel- 
laneous assortment  of  old  gold,  silver,  and 
even  copper  coins,  which  have  been  brought 
thither  from  other  countries,  and  have  been 
variously  worn,  clipped,  or  depreciated.  In 
such  countries,  the  only  means  of  avoiding 
loss  and  fraud  is  to  weigh  each  coin,  and 
the  impress  passes  for  little  more  than  an  in- 
dication of  the  fineness  of  the  metals.  In 
all  large  international  transactions,  again, 
currency  by  weight  is  the  sole  method.  The 
regulations  of  a  state  concerning  its  legal 
tender,  have  no  validity  beyond  its  own 
frontiers;  and  as  all  coins  are  subject  to 
more  or  less  wear  and  uncertainty  of 
weight,  they  are  received  only  for  the  actual 
weight  of  metal  they  are  estimated  to  con- 
tain. The  coin  of  well-conducted  foreign 
mints  is  bought  and  sold  by  weight  without 
melting;  but  the  coin  of  minor  states,  which 
have  occasionally  depreciated  their  money,  is 
melted  up  and  treated  simply  as  bullion. 

UNRESTRICTED  CURRENCY  BY  TALE. 

The  simplest  way  for  a  state  to  manage  its 
money,  might  seem  to  be  to  revert  to  the 
primitive  notion  of  a  coin,  and  issue  pieces  of 
£old,  silver,  and  copper,  certified  to  be  equal 
to  units  of  weight,  leaving  all  persons  free  to 
make  contracts  or  sales  in  terms  of  any  of 
these  metals.  These  pieces  of  certified  metal 
would  then  be  so  many  commodities  thrown 
into  the  markets  and  allowed  to  take  their 
natural  relative  values. 

Such  appears  to  have  been  the  system  in- 
tended to  be  established  by  the  French  Revo- 
lutionary Government  in  terms  of  the  abor- 
tive law  of  Thermidor,  an  III.  Disks  of 


partially  at  least,  involves  the  same  notion 
for  he  considers  that  the  principal  currency 
should  consist  of  decagrams  of  gold  But, 
as  Mr.  Bagehot  has  well  remarked,  there  is 
no  object  whatever,  as  regards  the  greater 
mass  of  the  population,  in  having  coins  sim- 
ply related  to  the  system  of  weights,  because 
most  people  never  need  take  any  account  of 
the  weight  at  all.  They  need  only  know  how 
many  copper  coins  are  equal  to  one  silver 
coin,  and  how  many  silver  to  one  gold  coin 
Now,  if  we  carry  out  M.  Chevalier's  scheme 
consistently  and  fully,  and  make  all  the  coins 
multiples  of  the  gram,  we  shall  oblige  all 
people  to  be  constantly  working  complex 
arithmetical  sums.  No  one  could  give  ex- 
actly correct  change  without  calculating- 
how  many  silver  ten-gram  pieces  are,  at  the 
market  price  of  silver,  equal  to  one  gold  ten- 
gram  piece.  The  necessity  for  calculation 
occasions  needless  loss  of  time  and  troubie, 
and  a  factitious  gain  is  sure  to  accrue  to  the 
expert  and  unscrupulous  at  the  expense  of 
the  poor  and  ignorant. 

Owing  to  these  obvious  objections  no 
government  has  ever,  I  believe,  carried  into 
practice  a  system  of  money  of  the  kind  de- 
scribed. Nevertheless,  currencies  approxi- 
mating to  it  in  nature  have  come  to  exist  in 
many  parts  of  the  world  by  the  intermixture 
of  coinages  of  different  states.  There  are 
many  half-civilized  nations  which  have  no 
national  coinage,  but  employ  the  coins 
which  happen  to  reach  them  in  the  course  of 
trade.  On  the  West  Coast  of  Africa  the 
Spanish  dollar  is  the  best  known  coin,  but 
Danish,  French  or  Dutch  coins  also  circulate. 
In  several  of  the  South  American  States  the 
currency  is  in  a  state  of  complete  confusion, 
consisting  of  a  mixture  of  American  eagles, 
gold  doubloons,  silver  dollars,  English  sov- 
ereigns, piastres,  etc.,  together  sometimes 
with  several  different  issues  of  coinage  of 
the  South  American  States  variously  depreci- 
ated. Even  in  the  British  possessions  we 
find  the  same  state  of  things.  In  the  British 
West  Indian  Islands,  American,  Mexican, 
Spanish,  and  other  dollars,  circulate  concur- 
rently with  English  money  ;  but  it  should  be 
added  that  in  most  cases  the  Spanish  dollar 
is  treated  as  the  standard  of  value,  and  other 
coins  are  quoted  in  terms  of  it 

In  Eastern  countries  there  is  a  similar 
intermixture  of  coinage.  In  Singapore  the 
Indian  rupee  mingles  with  Spanish  and  Mex- 


ten  grams  each  were  to  be  struck  in  gold,    ican  dollars.     Persia   has  a  rude  coinage  of 
Hlver,  and.  copper,   and.  then  put  in  circu-  its  own,  so  uncertain,  jn  weight  that  it  has  to 

88 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      317 


be  dealt  in  by  the  balance,  but  Russian, 
Turkish,  and  Austrian  gold  coins  circulate  by 
tale.  Some  of  the  best-reguiated  nations 
have  allowed,  or  even  promoted,  the  cur- 
rency of  various  foreign  coins.  In  Ger- 
many, French  and  English  gold  coins  used 
to  be  accepted,  according  to  a  well-recog- 
nized tariff.  The  circulation  of  English, 
['.••neb,  Spanish,  Mexican,  and  other  ^oid 
*-'ii:is  in  the  United  States  was  legalised  by 
an  Act  of  June  23th,  1^34,  repealed  by  an 
Act  of  February  2ist,  1857,  which  however 
Allows  certain  foreign  coins  to  be  received 
at  government  offices. 

In  England  we  have  for  many  generations 
enjoyed  a  very  pure  currency,  so  that  we  are 
unconscious  of  the  inconveniences  arising 
from  a  confusion  of  coins  of  different  values. 
Hut  in  the  early  part  of  this  century  Spanish 
('.-•'liars  were  put  into  circulation  for  a  time  in 
England. 

In  former  centuries  the  mixture  of  coin- 
ages was  far  more  common  than  at  present. 
No  country  had  a  currency  free  from  «trange 
coins.  It  is  impossible  to  open  an  old  book 
on  commerce  without  rinding  long  tables  of 
coins  which  the  merchant  might  expect  to 
meet  with ;  and  the  business  of  money- 
changing  was  a  lucrative  and  common  one. 

It  will  be  understood,  that  only  so  long  as 
coins  are  known  by  the  fresh  sharp  appear- 
ance of  the  impression  to  be  of  full  weight, 
and  are  accepted  according  to  tariff,  does  the 
system  of  currency  by  tale  of  number  exist. 
The  silver  dollar,  being  a  large  coin,  is  sub- 
ject to  comparatively  little  abrasion,  so  that 
people  learn  to  receive  dollars  of  various 
species  at  cei.ain  well-established  rates. 
Thus  the  dollar  has  practically  been  for  sev- 
eral centuries  the  international  money  of  the 
tropical  countries.  But  so  soon  as  coins  bear 
evidence  of  wear  or  ill-treatment,  they  must 
be  circulated  by  weight,  and  we  revert  to  a 
more  primitive  system. 

M.  Feer-Herzog  has  described,  as  the  sys- 
tem of  parallel  standards,  that  in  which  a 
state  issues  coins  in  two  or  more  metals,  and 
then  allows  them  to  circulate  by  tale  at  ratios 
varying  according  to  the  market  values  of  the 
metals.  He  cites,  as  recent  examples,  the 
rixdaler  in  silver,  employed  as  the  internal 
money  of  Sweden  in  combination  with  the 
ducat  in  gold,  serving  as  international  money. 
The  government  of  India,  again,  has  on  sev- 
eral occasions  tried  to  introduce  a  parallel 
standard  of  gold  alongside  of  the  single  silver 
legal  tender  now  existing  there.  Gold  mo- 
hurs  have  long  been  more  or  less  in  circula- 
tion in  India,  and  are  supposed  to  form  at 
present  about  one-tenth  part  of  the  coinage. 
They  are  of  exactly  the  same  weight  and  fine- 
ness as  the  silver  rupee,  and  are  usually 
valued  at  from  fifteen  to  fifteen  and  two- 
third  rupees.  It  seems  probable,  however, 
that  what  M.  Feer-Herzog  calls  the  system 
of  parallel  standards  will  coincide  according 
to  circumstances,  either  wi  h  that  which  I 


have  described  as  the  sys'.em  of  unrestricted 
currency  by  tale,  or  that  of  a  single  legal  ten- 
der, with  an  additional  commercial  money  of 
varying  value.  The  Indian  currency  must 
c  rtainly  be  classed  under  the  latter  head. 
There  cannot  in  fact  be  two  different  parallel 
standards  used  both  at  the  same  time  ;  and 
though  it  is  not  uncommon  for  a  state  to  coin 
moneys  in  two  metals,  and  leave  its  subjects 
to  pay  in  one  or  other  at  will,  yet  one  of  the 
two  is  generally  recognized  as  the  standard  of 
value. 

SINGLE   LEGAL   TENDER    SYSTEM. 

The  system  of  currency  naturally  adopted 
by  the  first  coiners  of  money  was  that  of  a 
single  legal  tender.  Coins  of  one  kind  of 
metal,  or  even  a  single  series  of  coins  of  uni- 
form weight,  were  at  first  thought  sufficient. 
Iron  in  small  bars  was  the  single  legal  tender 
in  Lacedaemon,  and  possibly  in  some  other 
early  states.  Aes  was  undoubtedly  the  legal 
tender  among  the  Romans  for  a  length  of 
time.  In  China  the  sole  measure  of  value 
and  legal  tender  to  the  present  day  consists 
of  brass  cash  or  sapeks,  strung  together  in  lots 
of  a  thousand  each.  In  England  silver  was 
the  only  metal  coined  from  the  time  of  Egbert 
to  that  of  Edward  III.,  with  the  doubtful  ex- 
ception of  a  very  few  small  pieces  of  gold. 
Silver  was  the  sole  legal  tender  and  measure 
of  value,  and  few  coins  except  silver  pennies 
were  issued.  In  Russia  and  Sweden,  during 
part  of  last  century,  copper  was  the  sole  legal 
tender. 

A  single  metal  currency  has  the  great  ad- 
vantages  of  simplicity  and  certainty.  Every 
one  knows  exactly  what  he  is  to  pay  or  re- 
ceive,  and  when  the  coins  are  of  one  size  or 
of  a  few  sizes,  simply  related  to  each  other, 
like  the  early  English  coins,  no  one  is  sub- 
ject to  loss  by  errors  of  calculation.  But 
there  is  the  obvious  disadvantage  that,  ac- 
cording as  the  metal  chosen  is  cheap  or  dear, 
large  or  small  transactions  will  be  trouble- 
some to  effect.  To  pay  a  few  hundred  pounds 
in  Swedish  copper  plates,  or  Chinese  strings 
of  cash,  a  cart  would  be  required  for  con- 
veyance, and  the  counting  of  casfiis  almost 
impracticable.  A  silver  coinage  again  does 
not  admit  of  coins  sufficiently  small  for 
minor  transactions.  It  is  difficult  to  under- 
stand how  retail  trade  was  carried  on  when 
the  silver  penny  weighed  twenty-two-and-a- 
half  grains,  and  the  precious  metals  were 
far  more  precious  than  at  present.  The 
penny  was,  indeed,  cut  up  into  half  pence 
and  farthings,  i.  e.,  four  things;  but  even 
the  farthing  must  have  been  equal  in  pur- 
chasing power  to  our  three-penny  or  four- 
penny  piece.  The  mass  of  the  currency  ap- 
pears to  have  consisted  of  silver  pennies. 

Accordingly  it  is  found  that,  if  a  govern- 
ment issue  coins  only  of  a  sirgle  metal,  the 
pecple  will  introduce  and  circulate  coins  of 
other  metals  for  their  own  convenience.  In 
Anglo-Saxon  times,  gold  byzants  from  By- 


27 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


aantium  were  used  in  England,  and  the  gold 
coins  of  Florence,  thence  called  florins,  were 
much  esteemed  both  here  and  in  other  parts 
of  Europe.  In  later  centuries,  too,  in  the 
absence  of  a  legitimate  copper  coinage, 
tradesmen's  tokens  came  into  general  circu- 
lation. 

MULTIPLE    LEGAL  TENDER   SYSTEM. 

Out  of  a  single  legal  tender  naturally  grew 
up  systems  of  a  double  or  even  multiple 
legal  tender.  The  Plantagenet  Kings  of  Eng- 
land, for  instance,  finding  that  though  they 
coined  only  silver,  the  people  made  use  of 
gold,  eventually  began  to  issue  gold  coins, 
and  fixed  the  rates  at  which  they  should  be 
exchanged  for  silver  coins.  In  the  absence 
of  any  special  regulations  to  the  contrary, 
this  constituted  a  double  tender  system.  As, 
after  a  time,  the  ratio  of  values  of  the  metals 
would  fail  to  coincide  with  that  involved  in 
the  relative  weights  of  the  coins,  it  became 
requisite  to  fix  by  royal  proclamation  a  new 
value  for  one  metal  in  terms  of  the  other. 
From  1257  to  1664,  the  gold  and  silver  cur- 
rency of  England  was  thus  regulated,  no 
coins  of  copper  or  any  inferior  metal  being 
then  issued.  From  1664  to  1717,  proclama- 
tions were  made  upon  the  subject,  and  the 
value  of  the  guinea  was  allowed  to  vary  in 
terms  of  the  shilling.  At  one  time  it  rose 
nearly  to  thirty  shillings,  owing  partly  to  the 
decreased  value  of  silver,  but  chiefly  to  the 
clipped  and  worn  state  of  the  silver  money. 
During  this  interval,  then,  the  country  had  a 
single  silver  standard. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  last  century,  a 
great  deal  of  discussion  took  place  upon  the 
unsatisfactory  state  of  the  silver  currency,  and 
Sir  Isaac  Newton,  the  Master  of  the  Mint, 
was  requested  to  report  upon  the  best  meas- 
ures to  be  adopted.  In  1717  he  made  a 
celebrated  report,  recommending  that  the 

fovernment  should  revert  to  the  practice  of 
xing  the  price  of  the  guinea,  and  he  sug- 
gested twenty-one  shillings  as  the  best  rate. 
His  advice  being  accepted,  the  guinea  has 
ever  since  been  valued  at  twenty-one  shil- 
lings. Then  there  was  again  a  double  stand- 
ard in  England,  any  one  being  at  liberty  to 
pay  in  either  kind  of  coin.  In  practice,  how- 
ever, it  is  almost  impossible  that  the  com- 
mercial value  of  the  metals  should  coincide 
with  the  legal  ratio.  At  the  rate  adopted  by 
Sir  Isaac  Newton,  gold  was  overvalued  by 
rather  more  than  one  and  a-half  per  cent. ; 
to  that  extent  it  was  more  valuable  as  cur- 
rency than  as  metal.  Therefore,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  Law  of  Gresham,  and  the 
principles  laid  down  in  Chapter  VIII.,  the 
the  full  weight  silver  coin  was  withdrawn  or 
exported,  and  gold  became  the  practical 
measure  of  value,  which  it  has  ever  since 
continued  to  be. 

In  every  other  part  of  the  world,  where  at- 
tempts have  been  made  to  combine  two  met- 
als as  concurrent  standards  of  value,  similar 


results  have  followed.  In  Massachusetti,  in 
1762,  gold  was  made  a  legal  tender,  as  well 
as  silver,  at  the  rate  of  two  pence  halfpenny 
per  grain;  but  being  overvalued  as  much  as 
five  per  cent.,  the  silver  coinage  rapidly  dis- 
appeared from  circulation.  Various  laws 
were  passed  to  remedy  this  inconvenient 
state  of  things,  but  without  success  so  long 
as  this  valuation  of  gold  was  maintained. 

In  these  and  many  other  cases  which 
might  be  quoted,  a  government  had  attempt- 
ed to  combine  a  circulation  of  gold  with  that 
of  silver,  without  being  aware  of  all  the  prin- 
ciples involved  in  the  experiment.  It  was 
hardly,  perhaps,  till  the  time  of  the  French 
Revolution  that  the  double  standard  system 
was  consciously  selected  as  the  best  method. 
Since  the  celebrated  law,  known  as  "  La  loi 
du  7  Germinal,  an  XL,"  was  adopted  by  the 
Revolutionary  Government,  the  system  has 
become  identified  with  the  policy  of  the 
French  economists.  The  history  of  the 
origin  of  this  law  was  almost  unknown,  un- 
til M.  Wolowski  described  it  in  a  series  of 
valuable  articles  published  in  the  Journal des 
Economistes  for  1869. 

As  early  as  1790  Mirabeau  presented  to 
the  National  Assembly  a  celebrated  memoir 
on  monetary  doctrines,  in  which,  amid  a  cu- 
rious mixture  of  true  and  false  views,  he  de- 
cided in  favor  of  silver  as  the  principal  money, 
on  the  ground  of  the  greater  abundance  of 
silver  compared  with  gold.  He  proposed  to 
make  silver  the  constitutional  money,  that  is, 
the  legal  tender,  and  to  employ  gold  and  cop- 
per as  additional  signs  of  value.  These  ideas 
were  only  so  far  carried  out  that  the  franc 
was  defined  first  as  ten  grams  of  silver  by  the 
decree  of  the  ist  August,  1793,  and  was  af- 
terward definitely  fixed  at  five  grams  by  the 
law  of  the  28th  Thermidor,  an  III.  The 
old  gold  pieces  of  twenty  four  and  forty-eight 
livres  continued  to  circulate,  while  the  ten- 
gram  gold  pieces  ordered  by  the  decree  to  be 
struck  were  not  really  issued. 

In  the  year  IX.  Gaudin  proposed  that  the 
ratio  of  fifteen  and  a-half  to  one  should  be 
adopted  in  fixing  the  weight  of  the  gold  coins 
relatively  to  the  silver  ones.  Thus,  while 
the  franc  was  defined  as  consisting  of  five 
grams  of  silver  nine-tenths  fine,  the  twenty- 
franc  gold  piece  was  to  contain  6 '451  grams 
of  gold  of  equal  fineness.  He  seems  to  have 
thought  that  this  ratio  was  sufficiently  near 
to  that  of  the  market  to  allow  the  coins  to 
circulate  side  by  side  for  a  long  time,  and  in 
cise  of  a  change,  he  thought  that  the  gold 
pieces  could  be  melted  and  reissued  at  a  dif- 
ferent weight.  After  a  great  amount  of  dis- 
cussion, in  which  Berenger,  Lebreton,  Daru, 
and  Bosc  took  the  most  prominent  parts,  the 
proposals  of  Gaudin  were  carried  out,  but 
not  precisely  on  the  ground  indicated  by 
him.  It  appears  to  have  been  thought  unwise 
either  to  demonetize  gold  altogether,  which 
would  have  seriously  diminished  the  circulat- 
ing medium,  or  to  leave  the  value  of  the 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      319 


fold  coins  uncertain,  which  would  give  rise 
to  disputes. 

The  ratio  adopted  by  the  legislators  of  the 
Revolution  happened  to  overvalue  silver  in 
some  degree,  and  hence  the  currency  of 
France  came  to  consist  principally  of  the 
heavy  five-francs  pieces,  or  ecus.  Not  until 
the  Californian  and  Australian  discoveries 
caused  gold  to  be  the  cheaper  money  in 
which  to  make  payments,  did  this  heavy  sil- 
ver money  gradually  disappear.  The  action 
of  the  double  standard  system  will  be  further 
considered  in  Chapter  XII. 

COMPOSITE  LEGAL  TENDER. 

We  have  seen  that  with  a  single  metal  cur- 
rency there  is  inconvenience  in  making  small 
or  large  payments,  according  as  the  metal 
chosen  is  dear  or  cheap.  If  two  or  more 
series  of  full-weight  coins  be  issued  in  differ- 
ent metal,  and  allowed  to  vary  in  relation  to 
each  other,  the  difficulty  of  circulation  inter- 
venes. If  they  both  be  made  legal  tenders 
at  a  fixed  ratio,  the  currency  will  tend  to  be- 
come composed  alternately  of  one  or  the 
other  metal,  and  money-changers  will  m«.ke 
a  profit  out  of  the  conversion. 

There  yet  remains  another  possible  system, 
in  which  coins  of  one  metal  are  adopted  as 
the  standard  of  value  and  principal  legal  ten- 
der, and  subordinate  token  coins  of  other 
metals  are  furnished  for  the  purpose  of  sub- 
division, being  recognized  as  legal  tender 
only  for  small  amounts  The  values  of  these 
token  coins  now  depend  upon  that  of  the 
standard  coins  for  which  they  are  legally  ex- 
changeable, and  care  is  taken  to  make  their 
weights  such  that  the  metallic  value  will  al- 
ways be  less  than  the  legal  value.  No  profit 
can  ever  be  made  by  melting  such  coins,  or 
removing  them  from  the  country,  and  their 
ratio  of  exchange  with  the  principal  coins  is 
always  a  simple  ratio  fixed  by  law. 

The  composite  legal  tender  rises  naturally 
out  of  the  double  standard  system ;  for,  as 
we  have  seen,  if,  under  the  latter  system, 
gold  be  overvalued  at  the  legal  rate,  all  full- 
weight  silver  coins  will  be  withdrawn  and  ex- 
ported by  degrees,  so  that  there  will  remain 
practically  a  token  currency  of  light  silver. 
Lord  Liverpool,  having  in  his  thorough  in- 
vestigation of  the  subject  of  metallic  money 
observed  the  superior  convenience  of  the 
composite  legal  tender  to  the  double  legal 
tender,  advocated  its  adoption  in  England  in 
the  most  conclusive  manner.  His  arguments 
will  be  found  in  his  admirable  "  Treatise  on 
the  Coins  of  the  Realm  in  a  Letter  to  the 
King"  (Oxford,  1805),  and  his  recommenda- 
tions, as  carried  into  effect  in  1816,  are  the 
foundation  of  our  present  monetary  system. 

A  composite  system  of  currency  has  fre- 
quently existed  in  one  country  or  another 
without  being  specially  designed  or  recog- 
nized. It  comes  into  existence  whenever 
coins  of  gold  and  silver  are  current  at  rates 
fixed  by  law  or  custom,  but  the  silver  coins 


are  reduced  by  abrasion  or  clipping  below 
the  corresponding  weight.  From  the  year 
1717,  when  the  guinea  was  fixed  at  twenty- 
one  shillings,  until  the  present  system  was 
instituted  in  1816,  the  English  currency  was 
based  theoretically  upon  the  double  standard 
system.  Practically,  however,  the  silver 
coins  were  so  scarce  and  worn  that  they 
served  but  as  tokens.  The  tradesmen's  cop- 
per tokens,  too,  being  always  of  light  weight, 
and  exchangeable  by  custom  for  a  certain 
proportion  of  silver  coins,  formed  the  third 
term  in  the  series.  But  Lord  Liverpool 
appears  to  have  been  the  first  to  apprehend 
and  explain  the  principles  on  which  such  a 
composite  system  worked,  and  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  system,  as  he  expounded 
it,  is  the  best  adapted  for  supplying  a  con- 
venient and  economical  currency. 

Most  of  the  leading  nations  have  now 
adopted  the  composite  legal  tender  in  a  more 
or  less  complete  form.  France,  Belgium, 
Switzerland,  and  Italy  still  adhere  to  the 
double  standard  in  theory,  but  have  reduced 
all  coins  of  less  value  than  five  francs  to  the 
footing  of  token  money,  by  reducing  the 
fineness  of  the  silver  from  goo  parts  to  835 
parts  in  1000,  or  by  seven  and  one-fourth 
per  cent.,  and  by  limiting  the  amount  for 
which  they  are  legal  tender.  The  copper 
money  of  France  had  previously  been  re- 
stricted as  a  legal  tender  to  sums  below  five 
francs  in  any  one  payment.  In  the  United 
States,  when  metallic  currency  was  generally 
employed,  the  double  standard  system  exist- 
ed in  theory,  but  was  reduced  to  a  composite 
standard  by  the  excessive  overvaluing  of  the 
gold  money.  Moreover,  by  a  law  of  2ist  of 
February,  1853,  the  smaller  silver  coins  were 
reduced  in  weight  and  made  legal  tender 
only  for  sums  not  exceeding  five  dollars.  The 
silver  three-cent  pieces,  and  the  several  cop- 
per, bronze,  or  nickel  coins,  issued  from  the 
United  States  mints,  were  also  token  money 
with  various  limits  as  regards  legal  tender. 

The  new  German  monetary  system  is  per- 
fectly organized  as  a  composite  legal  tender. 


CHAPTER  X. 

TH»  ENGLISH   SYSTEM   OF  METALLIC  CUR- 
RENCY. 

I  now  come  to  describe  in  more  detail  the 
system  of  metallic  currency  which  has  existed 
in  England  for  more  than  half  a  century,  and 
which  seems  to  be  the  best  of  all  as  regards 
the  principles  on  which  coins  of  three  differ- 
ent  metals  are  combined  into  a  composite 
legal  tender.  The  legal  regulations  under 
which  the  Fnglish  coinage  is  issued  and  cir- 
culated, can  be  ascertained  with  ease  and 
certainty,  thanks  to  the  Act  of  Parliament 
[33  Victoria,  ch.  ic),  which  Mr.  Lowe 
caused  to  be  passed  to  simplify  and  consoli- 
date the  statutes  on  the  subject. 


29 


320 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


and  is  bound  to  cut  or  deface  the  coin,  and 
return  it  to  the  tenderer,  who  must  bear  the 
loss.  If  the  coin  so  defaced  should  prove 
not  to  be  below  the  limit,  then  the  defacer 
has  to  receive  it  and  bear  the  loss  arising 
from  his  mistake.  Any  justice  of  the  peace 
may  decide  disputes  arising  concerning  light 
sovereigns  in  a  summary  manner. 

The  only  other  gold  coin  actually  issued  is 
the  half-sovereign,  of  which  the  standard 
weight  and  remedy  are  exactly  half  those  of 
the  sovereign,  the  remedy  in  finemss  the 
same  as  in  the  sovereign,  and  t'~e  least  cur- 
rent weight  6i'i25o  grains  (3-96083  grams). 
1  he  Coinage  Act  also  legalizes  the  issue  of 
two  and  five-pound  gold  pieces,  the  weights 
and  remedies  in  weight  being  corresponding 
multiples  of  those  of  the  sovereign.  Coins  of 
the  value  of  fiveand  two  guineas  were  struck 
by  most  of  the  English  monarchs  from  tht- 
time  of  Charles  II.  to  that  of  George  III. 
Patterns  of  five  and  two-pound  pieces  have 
been  prepared  under  Queen  Victoria  ;  but 
gold  coins  of  this  size  have  not  been  issued  in 
the  present  reign,  nor  is  it  desirable,  for 
reasons  stated  in  Chapter  XIII,  that  they 
should  be  issued. 

ENGLISH   SILVER  COIN. 

The  further  subdivision  of  the  pound  is 
effected  by  token  coins  of  silver  and  bronze, 

tested  against  the  government  fixing  the  j  which  are  made  of  such  weights  that  there  is 
price  at  which  gold  should  be  bought  and  i  no  danger  of  their  metallic  values  rising 
sold  by  the  mint,  and  who  yet  allowed  that  j  above  the  metallic  value  of  the  gold  coii.> 
the  sovereign  must  have  some  fixed  weight,  for  which  tley  are  legally  equivalent.  Pit- 
But  the  fixed  price  is  convertible  with  the  fixed  vious  to  the  year  1816,  the  troy  pound  cf 
weight,  and  vice  versa.  Either  follows  from  ,  standard  silver,  containing  925  parts  of  fine 
the  other.  j  silver  and  seventy-five  parts  of  alloy  in  1000, 

In  practice^  the  weight  of  a  coin  is  always  !  was  coined  into  sixty-two  shillings,  so  that 
a  matter  of  limits,  and  there  must  be  limits    each  shilling  would  contain  92*90  grains  of 


ENGLISH    GOLD   COIN. 


The  English  sovereign  is  the  principal 
legal  tender  and  the  standard  of  value.  It  is 
defined  as  consisting  of  123*27447  grains 
(7  98805  grams)  of  English  standard  gold, 
composed  of  eleven  parts  of  fine  gold,  and 
one  part  of  alloy,  chiefly  copper.  The  sov- 
ereign ought,  therefore,  in  theory,  to  con- 
tain 113-00160  grains,  or  7-32238  grams,  of 
pure  gold.  But  as  it  is  evidently  impossible 
to  make  coins  of  any  precise  weight,  or  to 
maintain  them  of  that  weight  when  in  circu- 
lation, the  weight  stated  is  only  that  standard 
weight  to  which  the  mint  workmen  should 
aim  to  attain  as  closely  as  possible,  both  in 
each  individual  piece,  and  in  the  average. 

From  the  weight  of  the  sovereign  we  de- 
duce the  mint  pi  ice  of  gold.  For  if  we  di- 
vide the  number  of  grains  in  the  sovereign  in- 
to the  number  of  grains — namely,  480 — in 
the  troy  ounce,  we  ascertain  exactly  how 
many  sovereigns  and  portions  of  a  sovereign 
the  mint  ought  to  return  for  each  ounce  de- 
livered in.  This  we  find  to  be  3  89375, 
which  is  equivalent  to  £3  ijs.  io]^d.  It 
comes  to  exactly  the  same  thing  to  say  in 
terms  of  the  old  mint  indentures,  that  twen- 
ty-pounds' wiight  troy  of  gold  are  to  be 
coined  into  934  sovereigns,  and  one  half- 
sovereign.  I  have  heard  of  people  who  pro- 


both  for  the  weight  assent  out  and  that  at 
which  it  can  legally  remain  in  circulation. 
The  remedy  is  the  technical  name  for  the  al- 
lowance made  to  the  mint-master  for  imper- 
fection of  workmanship,  and  is  defined  by 
the  Act  as  two-tenths  of  a  grain  (0-01296 
gram).  Thus  the  mint  cannot  legally  issue 
a  sovereign  weighing  less  than  123 '074  grains, 
or  more  than  123-474  grains.  Since  the  fine- 
ness of  the  gold,  again,  can  never  be  adjust 
ed  exactly  to  the  standard  of  eleven  parts  in 
twelve,  or  gi6'66  in  a  1000,  a  remedy  of  two 
parts  in  1000  is  allowed  in  this  respect.  It  is 
understood  that  the  English  mint  succeeds  in 
working  well  within  the  remedy  both  of 
weight  and  fineness 

Every  sovereign  issued  from  the  mint  in 
accordance  with  these  regulations,  and  bear- 
ing the  impress  authorized  by  the  Queen,  is 
legal  tender,  and  must  be  accepted  by  a 
creditor  in  discharge  of  a  debt  to  that 
amount,  provided  that  it  has  not  been  re- 
duced by  wear  or  ill-treatment  below  the 
weight  of  122-50  grains  (7 '93787  grams). 
If  a  sovereign  of  less  than  this  least  current 
•weight be  tendered  to  any  person,  he  is  pre- 
sumed by  the  law  to  detect  the  deficiency, 


standard  metal.  Under  these  regulations 
gold  was  rated  as  15-21  times  as  valuable  as 
silver.  As  silver,  however,  may  sometimes 
become  more  valuable  relatively  to  gold, 
Lord  Liverpool  very  wisely  recommended  in 
his  letter  to  the  king,  that  the  weight  of  the 
shilling  should  be  reduced.  By  the  Act  56 
Geo.  III.  ch.  68,  it  was  ordered  that  the 
troy  pound  of  silver  should  be  coined  into 
sixty-six  shillings,  a  reduction  of  weight  of 
about  six  per  cent.  The  new  Coinage  Act 
maintains  the  chief  provisions  of  that  of 
1816,  so  that  the  English  shilling  now  has 
the  weight  of  87-27272  grains  of  standard 
silver  (5-65518  grams),  and  the  weights  of  all 
the  other  silver  coins  are  exactly  correspond- 
ing multiples  or  submultiples  of  this.  The 
mint  remedy  in  weight  for  the  shilling  is  a 
little  more  than  the  third  part  of  a  grain,  and 
in  simple  proportion  for  the  other  coirs.  The 
remedy  in  fineness  is  in  all  cases  four  parts  in 
one  thousand.  The  denominations  of  coii.s 
authorized  are  nine  in  number,  namely,  the 
crown,  half-crown,  florin,  shilling,  sixpence, 
groat,  or  fourpenny  piece,  threepence,  two- 
pence, and  penny.  All,  except  the  crown, 
are  coined  in  greater  or  less  quantity,  but 


30 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      321 


the  fourpence,  twopence,  and  penny,  are 
now  only  struck  in  very  small  quantities,  as 
Maundy  money,  which,  after  being  distrib- 
uted by  the  Queen  annually  in  alms,  appears 
to  find  its  way  into  numismatic  cabinets  or 
to  be  melted  down. 

All  such  coins  are  legally  current,  irrespec- 
tive of  their  weights,  so  long  as  they  are  not 
called  in  by  proclamation,  or  so  worn  and  de- 
i.iced  that  the  impress  of  the  mint  cannot  be 
recognized.  The  coin  in  circulation  is  actu- 
ally reduced  in  weight  by  abrasion  to  a  con- 
siderable amount,  often  one-fourth  or  one- 
third  of  its  original  wt  ight.  Moreover,  the 
fall  in  the  value  of  silver  relatively  to  gold 
reduces  the  metallic  worth  of  the  coins,  so 
that  no  one  can  export  them  to  foreign  coun- 
tries, or  melt  them  for  sale  as  bullion,  without 
losing  from  ten  to  thirty  per  cent,  of  their 
nominal  value. 

It  would  obviously  be  a  cause  of  grievance 
if  a  person  could  be  obliged  to  receive  unlimit- 
ed amounts  of  this  token  money  in  discharge 
of  a  debt.  Merchants  might  often  have 
thousands  of  pounds  worth  of  such  coins 
thrown  upon  their  hands,  the  full  value  of 
which  could  only  be  realized  by  gradually  put- 
ting it  into  circulation  again.  It  was  there- 
fore provided  by  the  Acts  of  1816  and  1870, 
that  silver  coin  shall  be  a  legal  tender  only  to 
the  amount  of  forty  shillings  in  any  one  pay- 
ment. This  limit  was  chosen  apparently  be- 
cause the  two- pound  piece  was  in  1816  re- 
garded as  the  largest  coin  then  in  circulation, 
or  likely  to  be  issued 

ENGLISH   BRONZE   COINAGE. 

The  final  subdivision  of  the  pound  is  ef- 
fected by  bronze  pence,  halfpence,  and  farth- 
ings, of  which  the  weights  when  issued  should 
be  respectively  145 '833.  87-500  and  43'75O 
grains.  They  are  composed  of  an  alloy  of 
ninety-five  parts  by  weight  of  copper,  four 
parts  of  tin,  and  one  part  of  zinc,  being  exact- 
ly the  same  kind  of  bronze  as  was  previously 
employed  by  the  French  mints.  The  remedy 
in  weight  is  one-fifth  of  one  percent.,  and  as 
the  coins  are  token  money  there  is  no  least 
current  weight.  As  the  reasons  against  al- 
lowing them  to  be  a  legal  tender  for  large 
sums  are  stronger  than  in  the  case  of  silver 
coin,  it  is  enacted  that  bronze  coins  shall  be 
a  legal  tender  only  to  an  aggregate  amount  of 
one  shilling. 

If  a  copper  penny  were  now  made  to  con- 
tain metal  equivalent  in  value  to  the  two  hun- 
dred and  fortieth  part  of  a  sovereign,  its 
weight  would  be  eight  hundred  and  seventy- 
one  grains,  at  the  present  market  price  of 
copper  G£?5  per  ton).  Thus  the  fractional 
coinage  has  been  reduced  in  weight  nearly  to 
one-sixth  part  of  what  it  would  be  as  stand- 
ard copper  coin.  The  bronze  of  which  the 
pence  are  made  is  worth,  according  to  Mr. 
Seyd,  ten  pence  per  troy  pound,  so  that  the 
metallic  values  of  the  coins  are  almost  exactly 
one-fourth  part  of  their  nominal  values.  A 


considerable  profit  therefore  accrues  upon  the 
coinage  of  bronze,  amounting  up  to  the  end 
of  1871  to  about  ^270,000;  but  the  reduction 
of  weight  is  altogether  an  advantage,  and  is 
probably  not  carried  as  far  as  it  might  pro- 
perly be  done. 

DEFICIENCY    OF  WEIGHT    OF    THE    ENGLISH 
GOLD    COIN. 

It  is  the  theory  of  the  present  English 
monetary  law.  as  we  have  seen  (Chapter  X.), 
that  every  person  weighs  a  sovereign  tender- 
ed to  him,  and  assures  himself,  before  ac- 
cepting it,  that  it  does  not  weigh  less  than 
I22'5  grains.  In  former  days,  it  was  not  un- 
common for  people  to  carry  pocket-scales  for 
weighing  guineas,  and  such  scales  may  still 
be  occasionally  seen  in  old  curiosity  shops. 
But  we  know  that  the  practice  is  entirely 
given  up,  and  that  even  the  largest  receivers 
oi  coin,  such  as  the  banks  and  railway  com- 
panies, and  even  the  tax-offices,  post-offices, 
etc.,  do  not  pay  the  least  regard  to  the  law. 
Only  the  Bank  of  England,  its  branches,  and 
a  few  government  offices,  weigh  gold  coin  in 
England.  The  result  is  that  a  large  part  of 
the  gold  coinage  is  worn  below  the  least  cur- 
rent weight,  and  all  persons  of  experience 
avoid  paying  old  sovereigns  to  the  Bank  of 
England.  Only  ignorant  and  unlucky  per- 
sons, or  else  large  banks  and  companies  which 
cannot  otherwise  get  rid  of  light  coin,  suffer 
loss.  The  quantity  of  light  gold  coin  with- 
drawn by  the  bank  did  not  for  many  years 
exceed  half  a  million  a  year;  during  the  last 
few  years  it  has  varied  from  ,£700,000  to 
^950,000.  As  the  average  amount  of  gold 
coined  annually  is  four  or  five  millions,  and 
the  coins  melted  or  exported  are  for  the  most 
part  new  and  of  full  we  ght,  it  follows  ne- 
cessarily, that  the  currency  is  becoming  more 
and  more  deficient  in  weigh;. 

In  1869,  I  ascertained,  by  a  careful  and 
extensive  inquiry,  that  thirty-one  and  a-half 
per  cent,  of  the  sovereigns  and  nearly  one- 
half  )l  the  ten-shilling  pieces  were  then  be- 
low the  legal  limit.  The  reader  who  has  at- 
tended to  the  remarks  on  Gresham's  Law 
(Chapter  VIII.),  will  see  that  no  amount  of 
coinage  of  new  gold  will  drive  out  of  circula- 
tion these  depreciated  old  coins,  because 
those  who  export,  or  me!t,  or  otherwise  treat 
the  coins  as  bullion,  will  take  care  to  operate 
upon  good  new  ones. 

Great  injustice  arises  in  some  cases  from 
this  defective  state  of  the  gold  currency.  I 
have  heard  of  one  case  in  which  an  inexperi- 
enced person,  after  receiving  several  hundred 
pounds  in  gold  from  a  bullion  dealer  in  the 
city  of  London,  took  them  straight  to  the 
Bank  of  England  for  deposit.  Most  of  the 
sovereigns  were  there  found  to  be  light,  ami 
a  prodigious  charge  was  made  upon  the  un- 
fortunate depositor.  The  dealer  in  bullion 
had  evidently  paid  him  the  residuum  of  a 
mass  of  coins,  from  which  he  had  picked  the 
heavy  ones.  In  a  still  worse  cast  lately 


31 


323 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


reported  to  me,  a  man  presented  a  post-office 
order  at  St.  Martins-le-Grand,  and  carried 
the  sovereigns  received  to  the  stamp-office  at 
Somerset  House,  where  the  coins  were 
weighed,  and  some  of  them  found  to  be  de- 
ficient. Here  was  a  man,  so  to  say,  de- 
frauded between  two  government  offices. 

It  should  be  stated  that  the  government 
made,  in  July,  1870,  a  slight  effort  to  pro- 
mote the  withdrawal  of  light  gold  by  engag- 
ing to  receive  it  through  the  Bank  of  Eng- 
lanJ  at  the  full  price  of  £3  ijs.  qct.  per  ounce 
by  weight,  the  price  previously  paid  by  the 
bank  having  been  only  £3  17*.  b}4d.,  owing 
to  the  old  sovereigns  being  a  little  below  the 
standard  in  fineness.  A  certain  increase  in 
the  amounts  withdrawn  has  no  doubt  fol- 
lowed this  measure:  but  the  loss  by  defici- 
ency in  weight  is  still  thrown  upon  the  pub- 
lic, and  as  long  as  this  is  the  case  the  with- 
drawal of  light  gold  will  continue  inadequate 
to  maintain  the  coinage  at  its  standard 
weight. 

WITHDRAWAL  OF  LIGHT   GOLD   COIN. 

Some  steps  must  soon  be  taken  to  remedy 
the  increasing  deficiency  of  weight  of  the 
gold  coinage  described  above.  The  with- 
drawal may  no  doubt  be  effected  in  several 
ways.  One  method  would  be  for  the  Queen  to 
issue  a  proclamation  calling  in  and  prohibit- 
ing the  circulation  of  all  gold  coins  more  than 
twenty  or  twenty-five  years  old,  as  it  is  mostly 
the  older  coins  which  are  deficient  in  weight. 
Another  method  would  be  to  oblige  all  reve- 
nue officers,  postmasters,  and  others,  under 
the  control  of  government,  to  weigh  all  sov- 
ereigns presented  to  them.  If  necessary,  the 
bankers  of  the  kingdom  generally  might  be 
obliged  to  weigh  coin.  But  it  is  obvious  that 
great  trouble  and  inconvenience  would  arise 
from  such  measures.  The  progress  of  the 
post-office  savings  bank  would  be  imperiled 
if  every  depositor  of  a  pound  were  liable  to 
be  charged  two  per  cent,  for  lightness.  Con- 
siderable excitement  and  trouble  followed 
the  issue  of  the  last  proclamation  of  June, 
1842,  calling  in  light  gold.  To  make  the 
last  holder  of  a  coin  pay  for  the  whole  cost 
of  its  circulation  during  thirty  or  forty  years 
past,  leads  in  many  cases  to  gross  injustice. 
The  present  law  tends  to  throw  the  lots 
upon  the  poor,  who  have  usually  only  one  or 
two  sovereigns  at  a  time  to  pay,  whereas  rich 
people,  having  many,  can  avoid  paying  light 
gold  at  offices  where  it  will  be  weighed. 

I  hold  that  the  only  thorough  remedy  is 
for  the  government  to  bear  the  loss  oc- 
casioned by  the  wear  of  the  gold,  as  it  al- 
ready bears  that  of  the  silver  currency. 
The  Bank  cf  England  should  be  authorized 
to  receive  all  sovereign s  showing  no  marks  of 
intentional  damage  or  unfair  treatment  at 
their  full  nominal  value  on  behalf  of  the 
mint,  which  should  re-coin  the  light  ones  at 
the  public  expense.  No  one  would  then  have 
any  reason  for  keeping  the  light  gold  away 


from  the  bank;  the  currency  would  soon  be 
purged  of  the  illegally  light  coins,  and 
would  thenceforth  be  kept  up  strictly  to  the 
standard  weight;  all  loss  of  time  and  trouble 
would  be  saved  to  individuals,  a  consider- 
ation which  we  should  not  lose  sight  of;  and, 
lastly,  no  injustice  would  be  done,  as  at 
present,  to  the  last  holder  of  a  light  sov- 
ereign. 

In  opposition  to  such  a  proposal  it  is 
usually  urged,  that  encouragement  would  be 
given  to  the  criminal  practice  of  sweating  or 
otherwise  diminishing  the  weight  of  the 
currency.  I  answer  that,  on  the  contrary, 
it  is  the  present  state  of  things  which  gives 
the  best  opportunity  for  illegal  practices,  be 
cause  it  renders  the  population  perfectly  ac- 
customed to  handling  old  and  worn  coins. 
1s*  o  one  now  actually  refuses  any  gold  money 
in  retail  business,  so  that  the  sweater,  if  he  ex- 
ists at  all,  has  all  the  opportunities  he  can 
desire.  I  have  met  with  sovereigns  deficient 
to  the  extent  of  four  to  five  grains,  or  eight 
pence  to  ten  pence,  but  they  nevertheless 
circulate.  If  under  a  better  system  the 
gold  currency  consisted  entirely  of  full- 
weight,  fresh  coins,  with  sharp,  new,  perfect 
impressions,  attention  would  quickly  be 
drawn  to  any  coin  which  appeared  to  be 
worn  or  ill-treated  in  any  degree.  As  the 
currency,  too,  would  be  constantly  passing 
through  the  automaton  weighing-machines 
of  the  Bank  of  England,  without  |  revnusly 
undergoing  the  operation  of  garbling  by 
bullion  brokers,  sweated  coins,  if  they  ex- 
isted at  all,  would  soon  be  detected;  where- 
as, according  to  the  present  system,  the  bank 
authorities  have  no  opportunity  of  examining 
the  whole  coinage.  It  is  the  present  state  of 
things,  then,  which  gives  the  best  oppor- 
tunity for  tampering  with  the  currency, 
though  there  is  no  evidence  to  show  that 
fraudulent  practices  are  carried  on  to  any 
appreciable  extent.  Under  the  proposed 
new  system,  such  practices  would  be  ren 
dered  almost  impossible. 

SUPPLY   OF   GOLD   COIN. 

It  is  the  theory  of  the  English  monetary 
law  that  every  individual  is  entitled  to  take 
gold  to  the  mint  and  have  it  coined  gratui- 
tously, all  the  expenses  being  borne  by  the 
public  revenues.  It  is  intended  that  the  coin 
shall  be  rendered  identical  in  value  with  an 
equal  quantity  of  gold  bullion,  so  that  it 
shall,  in  short,  be  so  much  certified  bullion, 
and  shall  be  reconvertible  in  to  ingots  without 
loss.  Though  this  theory  is  simple  and 
sound  in  some  respects,  it  is  not  perfectly 
carried  into  practice.  The  mint  never  en- 
gages to  deliver  coin  in  immediate  exchange 
for  gold  sent  for  coining,  so  that  there  is  a 
loss  of  interest  during  the  uncertain  interval 
of  coinage.  If,  instead  of  sending  gold  di- 
rectly to  the  mint,  the  owner  pursues  the 
customary  mode  of  selling  it  to  the  Bank  of 
England,  he  receives,  according  to  the  Bank 


32 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      323 


Charter  Act  of  1844,  only  three  pounds,  sev- 
enteen shillings,  ninepence  per  ounce,  in- 
stead of  the  full  mint  price  of  three  pounds, 
seventeen  shillings,  ten  and  one-half  pence. 
Moreover,  it  has  been  pointed  out  by  Mr.  E. 
Seyd,  that,  as  the  bank  used  to  conduct  their 
bullion  business,  there  was  a  series  of  small 
charges  or  profits  made  for  weighing,  melt- 
ing, assaying,  the  turn  of  the  scale,  the  dif- 
ference of  the  assay  reports,  etc.,  which 
amounted  on  the  whole,  including  the  above 
charge  of  one  and  one-half  pence  per  ounce 
for  demurrage,  to  CT2828  per  cent,  on  the 
value  of  the  gold.  The  bank  has  since 
made  some  small  improvements  in  the  mode 
of  conducting  the  business,  but  it  may  still 
be  considered  that  the  cost  of  converting  gold 
bullion  into  sovereigns  is  about  one-fourth 
per  cent. 

Though  every  person  whatever  has  the 
right,  under  the  Coinage  Act,  of  taking  gold 
to  the  mint  and  having  it  coined  free  of 
charge  and  in  order  of  priority  without 
undue  preference,  no  one  ever  does  use  the 
privilege,  except  the  Bank  of  England. 
During  an  inquiry  into  the  Bank  Act  in  1857, 
Mr.  Twells  stated  that  he  had  once  sent 
;£io,ooo  to  the  mint,  and  was  afterward  sur- 
prised to  find  his  firm  of  Spooner  and  Co. 
mentioned  in  a  parliamentary  paper  as  the 
only  private  firm  that  had  ever  done  such  a 
thing.  The  directors  of  the  Bank  of  Eng- 
land have  naturally  acquired  the  monopoly 
of  transactions  with  the  mint,  because  they 
have  to  keep  large  stocks  both  of  coin  and 
bullion  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  Issue 
Department  and  of  their  customers,  includ- 
ing directly  or  indirectly,  the  whole  of  the 
bankers  of  the  United  Kingdom.  They  can 
convert  portions  of  their  bullion  into  coin 
without  any  loss  of  interest  or  cost,  whenever 
they  find  the  stock  of  coin  running  down. 
They  feel  the  monetary  pulse  of  the  whole 
community,  and  they  have  all  the  requisite 
appliances  for  the  custody,  assay,  or  exact 
weighing  of  bullion.  Even  those  persons 
who  need  to  possess  large  sums  of  gold  often 
employ  the  bank  to  weigh,  pack,  and  ware- 
house it,  and  the  bank  is  always  willing  to  do 
the  work  for  fixed  low  charges.  Hence  it  is 
most  natural  and  convenient  that  the  bank 
should  act  as  the  agent  of  the  mint.  Though 
the  bank  makes  a  certain  profit  out  of  the 
business,  it  is  hardly  earned  at  the  cost  of 
the  public,  but  rather  comes  out  of  the  econ- 
omy with  which  the  work  is  managed.  It 
could  in  no  way  improve  the  currency  of  the 
country  if  every  one  who  owned  a  few 
ounces  of  gold  were  to  run  with  it  to  the 
mint,  throwing  upon  the  country  the  cost  of 
melting  and  assaying  insignificant  ingots,  and 
complicating  the  accounts  and  transactions 
of  the  mint. 

SUPPLY   OF    SILVER   COIN. 


On  account   of  the  absurd  misapprehen- 
sions recently  existing  as  to  the  scarcity  of  '  mint 

33 


silver  money,  and  the  supposed  right  of  pri- 
vate individuals  to  demand  the  coinage  of 
silver,  it  may  be  well  to  describe  exactly  how 
the  supply  of  silver  coin  is  legally  regulated 
and  practically  carried  out.  There  is  no  law, 
statute,  or  common,  which  gives  any  private 
person,  company,  or  institution,  the  right  to 
take  silver  to  the  mint,  and  demand  coin  in 
exchange.  Thus  it  is  left  in  the  hands  of  the 
Treasury  and  the  mint  to  issue  so  much  and 
such  denominations  of  silver  coins  as  they 
may  think  needful  for  the  public  service. 
This  state  of  the  law  is  perfectly  right ;  be- 
cause, as  the  silver  coins  are  tokens,  they 
cannot  be  got  rid  of  by  melting  or  exporta- 
tion at  their  nominal  values.  If  individuals 
were  frtc  TO  demand  as  much  silver  coin  as 
they  liked,  a  surplus  might  be  thrown  into 
circulation  in  years  of  brisk  trade,  which  in  a 
subsequent  year  of  depressed  trade  would  lie 
upon  people's  hands. 

Practically  speaking,  the  mint  is  guided  in 
the  supply  of  silver  coin  by  the  Bank  of 
England,  not  because  this  bank  has  by  law 
any  special  powers,  privileges,  or  duties  in 
the  matter,  but  because,  in  acting  as  the  bank 
of  banks,  and  the  bank  of  government  de- 
partments, it  has  the  best  opportunities  of 
judging  when  more  coin  is  wanted.  Not 
only  do  all  the  London  bankers  draw  silver 
coin  from  the  Bank  of  England  when  they 
need  it,  but  the  same  is  done  directly  or  in- 
oirectly  by  all  the  other  bankers  in  the  king- 
dom. A  deficiency  of  silver  coin  in  any 
county  is  shown  by  the  stock  of  the  local 
bankers  running  down.  They  replenish  their 
stocks  either  from  the  nearest  branch  of  the 
Bank  of  England  or  from  their  London 
agents,  who  again  draw  from  the  Bank  of 
England.  At  other  times  or  places  the 
bankers  tend  to  accumulate  a  surplus  of  sil- 
ver coin.  Some  banks  in  a  large  town  may 
happen  to  have  accounts  with  many  shop- 
keepers, butchers,  brewers,  cattle-dealers,  or 
dealers  of  one  kind  or  another,  who  deposit 
silver  coin  in  large  quantities.  Other  banks 
may  bu  largely  drawn  upon  by  manufacturers 
for  the  payment  of  wages,  and  may  suffer 
from  a  deficiency  of  silver  coin.  It  is  a  com- 
mon practice,  therefore,  for  bankers  in  any 
locality  to  assist  each  other  by  buying  or  sell- 
ing superfluous  silver  coin  as  the  case  may 
require.  If  a  superfluity  of  coin,  however, 
cannot  be  got  rid  of  in  this  way,  it  may  be 
returned  to  the  Bank  of  England  or  one  of 
its  branches.  This  bank  indeed  is  in  no 
way  bound  to  provide  or  receive  large  sums 
in  silver,  and  it  therefore  usually  makes  a 
small  charge  of  about  five  shillings  per  hun- 
dred pounds  to  cover  the  trouble  and  risk. 
In  consideration  of  this  charge  the  bank 
bears  the  cost  of  transmission  by  railway, 
examines  the  coin  for  the  detection  of  base 
pieces  and  the  withdrawal  of  worn  coin — 
which  latter  it  sends  to  the  mint  for  recoin- 
age,  and  acts  in  general  as  the  agent  of  the 


324 


BEACOti  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


Having  the  business  so  much  in  its  hands, 
it  is  obvious  that  the  department  of  the  bank 
which  manages  the  receipt  and  issue  of  silver 
coin  can  judge  accurately  when  a  fresh  sup- 
ply of  coin  is  wanted.  Before  the  stock  runs 
too  low  notice  is  given  to  the  mint,  and 
money  is  usually  advanced  to  the  Masterthat 
he  may  purchase  silver  bullion  for  coinage. 
Under  this  system  it  is  almost  impossible  for 
a  deficiency  of  currency  to  arise  without  be- 
coming known  to  the  mint,  and  if,  two  or 
three  years  ago,  the  supply  could  not  be 
made  equal  to  the  sudden  demand,  it  was  be- 
cause the  mint  was  not  supplied  by  govern- 
ment with  machinery  adequate  to  the  growing 
wants  of  the  country.  The  existing  system, 
in  short,  seems  to  be  as  nearly  perfect  as  can 
be  desired,  provided  that  the  mint  be  rebuilt 
and  organized  in  such  a  manner  as  to  enable 
it  to  meet  any  demand  which  the  fluctuations 
of  trade  may  occasion. 

THE  ROYAL  MINT. 

While  treating  of  the  English  system  of 
metallic  money,  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  ex- 
pressing the  wish  that  the  House  of  Commons 
and  the  government  will  no  longer  delay  a 
complete  reconstruction  of  the  Royal  Mint. 
The  mint  factories,  as  they  now  stand,  were 
very  creditable  to  the  generation  which  erect- 
ed them  ;  but  it  is  needless  to  say  that  in  the 
last  fifty  or  seventy  years  we  have  immensely 
advanced,  both  in  the  art  of  constructing 
machinery  and  in  our  ideas  of  the  arrange- 
ment and  economy  of  manufactories.  What 
should  we  think  of  a  Cotton  Spinning  Com- 
pany, which  should  propose  to  use  a  mill  and 
machinery  originally  constructed  by  Ark- 
wright,  or  to  dnve  a  mill  by  engines  turned 
out  of  the  Soho  works  in  the  time  of  Boulton 
and  Watt?  Yet  the  nation  still  depends  for 
its  coinage  upon  the  presses  actually  erected 
by  Bculton  and  Watt,  although  much  more 
convenient  coining  presses  have  since  been 
invented  and  employed  in  foreign  and  colo- 
nial mints. 

The  present  mint  workshops  are  quite  in- 
adequate for  meeting  the  demands  which 
may  be  throne  upon  them  by  the  increasing 
industry  and  wealth  of  the  United  Kingdom, 
not  to  speak  of  the  British  Empire.     A  few 
years  ago  it  was  impossible  to  turn  out  silver 
coin  as  quickly  as  it  was  required  when  trade 
was  brisk,  and,  while  one  metal  is  being 
coined,  there  are  no  means  of  meeting  the 
demand  for  other  kinds  of  coin.     As  to  the 
bronze  coinage,  it  has  generally  to  be  obtain- 
ed  from   Birmingham   presses,    and   bronze 
blanks  have  also  to  be  purchased  at  times. 
Even  silver  blanks  have  been  obtained  from 
Birmingha-n.     The    British   mint  ought   to 
represent  the  skill  and  wealth  of  the  British 
nation,  and  no  petty  considerations  shoulc 
be  allowed  to  postpone  so  necessary  a  reform. 
Nothing  short  of  a  complete  reconstruc- 
tion of   the  mint  workshops  will    meet  the 
requirements  of  the  case.     If  this  is  to  be 


done,  much  corvenience  and  economy  wilt 
arise  from  abandoning  the  large  and  valuable 
site  upon  Tower  liiil,  and  erecting  an  en- 
tirely new  mint  in  a  more  accessible  pos.tion. 
The  opinions  of  Mr.  E.  Seyd  upon  this  sub- 
ect  are  worthy  of  much  attention. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


FRACTIONAL  CURRENCY 

One  monetary  question  which  can  hardly 
be  said  to  be  satisfactorily  solved  as  yet,  is 
:hat  of  selecting  the  best  possible  material 
:or  coins  of  small  value,  called  in  English 
pence,  in  French  monnaie  <f  appoint.  The 
'ractional  coins  should  be  equal  in  value  to 
about  a  tenth  part  of  the  silver  ones,  coin 
:or  coin,  but  it  unfortunately  happens  that 
there  is  no  suitable  metal  of  which  the  value 
,  now  one-tenth  part  of  that  of  silver.  In 
ihetime  of  the  Romans,  gold  was  about  ten 
imes  as  valuable  as  silver,  and  silver  about 
en  times  as  valuable  as  copper,  so  that  there 
would  then  have  been  no  difficulty  in  con- 
structing a  perfect  decimal  system  of  money. 

To  throw  light  upon  this  subject;  I  have 
drawn  out  the  following  table,  in  which  are 
shown  the  weights  of  the  principal  commer- 
cial metals  which  are  of  equal  values  at  pres- 
ent. The  numbers  in  such  a  table  must  of 
course  be  subject  to  perpetual  fluctuations, 
ac  ording  to  the  changes  in  the  market 
prices  of  the  metals.  In  some  cases,  too,  it 
is  difficult  to  find  any  accurate  quotations 
at  all,  and  the  price  often  depends  greatly 
on  the  manufactured  state  of  the  metal. 
Gold  and  silver  are  taken  as  of  standard  fine- 
ness, and  gold  forms  the  unit. 

EQUIVALENT  WEIGHTS  OF  THE  PRINCIPAL 
METALS. 


Gold      . 
Platinum  . 
Aluminium 
Silver     .     . 
Nickel 


7 
16 

71 


Tin      . 
Copper 
Lead     . 
Bar  Iron 
Pig  Iron 


942 

1,696 

6,360 

15,900 

50,880 


It  may  be  worthy  of  notice  that  when  we 
thus  draw  out  what  may  be  called  the  com- 
mercial equivalents  of  the  metals,  they  are 
found  to  form  a  series  very  rudely  approxi- 
mating to  a  geometrical  series  with  the  com- 
mon ratio  three.  Silver,  however,  is  an  ex- 
ception. There  is,  too,  one  term  missing 
between  nickel  and  tin,  and  as  tin  is  not  a 
coinable  metal,  there  is  a  wide  interval  be- 
tween nickel  and  copper,  and  a  still  wider  one 
between  silver  and  copper.  At  present  silver 
is  almost  exactly  one  hundred  times  as  valu- 
able as  copper  ;  hence  copper  pence  must 
either  contain  in  metallic  value  but  a  fraction 
of  the  nominal  value,  or  else  they  must  be 
very  heavy  and  bulky.  When  a  new  copper 
coinage  was  issued  in  England  from  the  mint 
of  Boulton  and  Watt  in  1797,  the  coins  were 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      325 


made  nearly  of  standard  weight,  at  the  rate 
of  an  ounce  avoirdupois  for  each  penny. 
There  was  a  double  inconvenience  in  this. 
Sixteen  pence  actually  weighed  a  pound  avoir- 
dupois, at  which  rate  the  people  would  now 
be  carrying  three  times  as  great  a  weight  in 
their  pockets  as  with  our  bronze  currency. 
Moreover,  the  price  of  copper  having  risen, 
Boulton's  pence  became  more  valuable  as 
metal  than  as  coins,  and  were  used  as  mate- 
rial in  spite  of  their  beautiful  execution. 

The  first  and  most  obvious  course  was  to 
reduce  the  weight  of  the  penny,  making  it 
purely  a  token  coin.  The  old  pennies  of 
Victoria  weighed  about  290  grains  each, 
instead  of  about  4  '3  grains,  as  in  the  coinage 
of  Boulton  and  Watt,  a  reduction  of  about 
one-third  part.  The  bronze  penny  has  been 
still  further  reduced,  and  ought  to  weigh 
145 '8  grains. 

There  are  two  inconveniences  which  may 
arise  from  too  great  and  suddtn  a  reduction 
in  the  %veight  of  token  currency.  There  is  a 
risk  of  the  population  rejecting  the  new  coins 
as  fraudulently  light.  This  was  the  case 
with  the  new  copper  five  and  ten-centime 
pieces,  struck  in  France  in  1794  by  the  Rev- 
olutionary Government,  at  the  rate  of  one 
gram  for  each  centime,  which  was  half  the 
previous  rate.  The  government  was  obliged 
to  call  in  the  light  coin  and  issue  it  again  at 
the  old  weight,  and  only  in  the  time  of 
Napoleon  III.  could  coins  of  one  gram  per 
centime  be  put  into  circulation.  The  people, 
then,  must  be  educated  to  receive  very  light 
tokens,  and  the  reduction  must  be  made  by 
moderate  steps. 

In  the  second  place,  if  the  metal  is  easily 
coined  or  manipulated  like  copper,  if  it  fails 
to  retain  a  very  good  impression,  and  if  there 
is  a  considerable  margin  for  profit,  the  temp- 
tation to  false  coiners  might  become  strong. 
I  am  not  aware  that  this  has  ever  happened 
in  regard  to  the  English  copper  coinage,  but 
counterfeit  sous  used  to  be  manufactured  on 
a  large  scale  in  the  Faubourg  Saint  Antoine, 
in  Paris,  almost  under  the  eyes  of  the  govern- 
ment. 

At  the  best,  too,  pure  copper  makes  indif- 
ferent coin,  being  deficient  in  hardness,  so 
that  it  soon  becomes  disfigured  ;  it  has  a 
disagreeable  odor  which  it  communicates  to 
the  fingers  ;  and  when  exposed  to  damp  air 
it  becomes  covered  with  verdigris,  which  is 
both  unsightly  and  poisonous  I  proceed  to 
consider  the  various  ways  in  which  it  has  been 
attempted  to  substitute  for  copper  coin  some 
more  convenient  currency. 

BILLON  COIN. 

Pennies  and  twopenny  pieces,  if  now  made 
of  standard  silver,  like  the  Maundy  money, 
would  be  two  small  and  1  ght  for  use,  weigh- 
ing respectively,  seven  and  one-fourth  and 
fourteen  and  one-half  grains.  Even  the 
threepenny  pieces,  now  so  abundant  in  Eng- 
and,  and  weighing  2i'8  grains  each,  are  in 


conveniently  small.  In  England,  for  a  very 
long  time,  no  silver  has  been  coined  of  less 
fineness  than  the  old  standard  of  925  parts  in 
1000.  In  many  continental  countries  the 
smaller  currency  has  been  made  of  a  very  low 
alloy  of  silver  and  copper  called  billon.  Such 
coins  were  at  one  time  current,  to  a  certain 
extent,  in  France,  the  metal  containing  only 
one  part  of  silver  in  five  of  alloy,  but  they 
have  long  been  recalled.  In  Norway  the 
small  currency  now  consists  partly  of  half- 
skillingand  one-skilling  pieces  in  copper,  the 
skilling  being  nearly  equal  in  value  to  an 
tnglish  halfpenny,  but  principally  of  two, 
three,  and  four-skilling  pieces,  composed  of 
billon,  containing,  according  to  an  analysis 
performed  for  me  at  the  Owens'  College 
chemical  laboratory,  one  part  of  si!ver  and 
three  of  copper.  These  billon  pieces  are 
very  convenient  n  size,  and,  b  ing  for  the 
most  part  newly',  ssued,  are  c  ean  and  neat. 
Billon  is  still  being  coined  in  Austria. 

It  is  in  the  states  now  forming  the  German 
empire  that  billon  coins  have  been  most  ex- 
tensively used,  especially  in  pieces  of  three, 
four,  and  six  kreutzers,  the  so-called  scheid- 
emunze  now  being  recalled.  This  consists  of 
silver  alloyed  with  three,  four,  or  more  times 
its  weight  of  copper.  Before  such  base  silver 
is  passed  through  the  coining  press,  it  is 
usual  to  dissolve  the  copper  from  the  surface 
of  the  blank  pieces  of  metal,  so  as  to  produce 
a  film  of  pure  white  silver  upon  the  surface. 
This  operation,  called  coloring,  gives  a  fine 
bright  appearance  to  the  coins  when  new, 
and  tneyare  easily  put  into  circulation.  But 
after  a  little  time  the  silver  film  is  worn  off, 
and  the  coins  assume  a  very  patchy  aspect. 
Billon  coinage  seems  to  have,  too,  an  extra- 
ordinary power  of  accumulating  a  layer  of 
dirt  of  a  very  disagreeable  character,  with 
which  all  travelers  in  Germany  in  past  years 
must  be  well  acquainted.  Moreover,  it  offers 
great  facilities  to  the  counterfeiter,  and  for 
several  sufficient  reasons  cannot  be  recom- 
mended for  adoption. 

COMPOSITE    COIN. 

It  is  said  that  Saint  Louis,  the  great  King 
of  France,  finding  much  want  of  small 
money  to  pay  his  soldiers,  caused  little  pieces 
of  silver  wire,  weighing  nine  and  eighteen 
grains,  to  be  fixed  on  pieces  of  stamped 
leather,  and  circulated  for  one-  and  two-dime 
pieces.  The  silver  gave  the  value  and  the 
leather  served  as  a  case  or  handle  to  preserve 
the  small  bit  of  metal  from  being  lost.  In 
recent  times,  composite  coins,  having  a  center 
piece  of  silver  and  a  rim  of  copper,  were 
constructed  on  similar  principles.  A  model 
penny  of  this  kind  has  an  agreeable  appear- 
ance and  a  convenient  size,  but  seems  to  be 
subject  to  several  objections.  The  cost  of 
coinage  would  be  considerable  ;  the  coins 
could  hardly  be  made  so  perfect  that  the 
center  would  not  come  out  sometimes ;  the 
contact  of  dissimilar  metals  would  set  «p 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


electro-chemical  action,  and  the  copper  would 
be  corroded  ;  and,  lastly,  it  would  be  difficult 
to  detect  counterfeit  silver  pieces  inserted  by 
the  forger.  Composite  coins  of  a  similar 
character  were  struck  in  France  under  Napo- 
leon I.,  about  the  year  1810,  but  were  never 
circulated.  Pennies  formed  of  a  copper  cen- 
ter with  a  brass  rim  have  been  employed  in 
England,  and  tin  pence,  halfpence,  or  far- 
things, with  a  copper  plug  inserted  near  the 
center,  were  long  used,  and  are  plentiful  in 
numismatic  cabinets. 

BRONZE  COIN. 

It  was  known,  even  in  prehistoric  times, 
that  a  small  quantity  of  tin  communicated 
hardness  to  copper,  and  the  ancient  nations 
were  familiar  with  the  use  of  bronze  thus 
manufactured.  The  French  Revolutionary 
Government  melted  up  the  bells  of  the 
churches  seized  by  them,  and  the  sous  de 
cliche,  as  they  were  called,  made  from  the 
bell  metal,  were  superior  to  coins  of  pure 
copper.  Yet  curiously  enough  no  modern 
government  thought  of  employing  a  well- 
chosen  bronze  for  small  money,  until  the 
government  of  the  late  Emperor  of  the 
French  undertook  the  recoinage  of  the  old 
sous  in  1852.  This  recoinage  was  carried 
out  with  great  succiss. 

Between  the  years  1853  and  1867  coins  to 
the  nominal  value  of  about  two  millions  ster- 
ling, consisting  of  800  millions  of  pieces, 
and  weighing  eleven  millions  of  kilograms 
(10,826  tons)  were  struck,  in  addition  to  a 
subsequent  issue  of  about  two  hundred  mil- 
lions of  pieces.  The  experiment  was  in  al- 
most every  way  successful.  The  ten  and  five- 
centime  pieces  now  circulating  in  France  are 
models  of  good  minting,  with  a  low  but  sharp 
and  clear  impression.  They  were  readily  ac- 
cepted by  the  people,  although  only  weighing 
as  much  as  the  sous  rejected  in  the  time  of 
the  Revolution,  namely,  one  gram  per  cen- 
time, and  they  are  wearing  well. 

The  bronze  used  consists  of  ninety-five  parts 
of  copper,  four  of  tin,  and  one  of  zinc.  It  is 
much  harder  than  copper,  yet  so  tough  and 
impressible  that  it  takes  a  fine  impression 
from  the  dies,  and  retains  it  for  a  long  time. 
It  cannot  be  struck  except  by  a  press  of  some 
power,  and  thus  counterfeiting  is  rendered 
almost  impossible.  It  can  hardly  be  said  to 
corrode  by  exposure  to  air  or  damp,  and 
merely  acquires  a  natural  patina,  or  thin  dark 
film  of  copper  oxide,  which  throws  the  worn 
part  of  the  design  into  relief,  and  increases 
the  beauty  of  the  coin. 

Bronze  has  since  been  coined  by  the  gov- 
ernments of  England,  the  United  States, 
Italy,  and  Sweden,  and  it  seems  probable 
that  it  will  entirely  take  the  place  of  copper. 
The  German  Government  is  now  using 
bronze  for  the  one-pfennig  pieces. 

ENGLISH  BRONZE  COIN. 
The  old  copper  coinage  of  the   United 


Kingdom  was  replaced  from  ten  to  fifteen 
years  ago,  by  a  much  more  convenient  and 
elegant  series  of  pence,  half-pence,  and  far- 
things,  struck  in  exactly  the  same  kind  of 
bronze  as  the  French  centime  pieces.  The 
1  nglish  coins,  though  far  from  being  so 
well  executed  as  the  French  ones,  are  clean, 
and  likely  to  wear  well.  The  only  great 
objection  which  can  be  raised  to  them,  is  that 
they  are  still  of  considerable  size  and  weight, 
although  less  than  the  old  copper  coins.  As 
all  the  latter  are  now  withdrawn,  and  few  of 
the  new  ones  can  yet  be  lost  or  destroyed, 
we  know  very  accurately  the  amount  of  the 
English  fractional  currency.  The  whole 
amount  issued  in  the  years  1861  to  1873  k 
as  follows: — 

Number  of  Nominal 

pieces.  value  in 

pounds  steiling. 

170,419,000   ^"710,082 
164,505,000 

53,594,000 


Weight 
in  tons. 

Pennies  .  1,585 
Halfpennies  .  918 
Farthings  .  .149 


342,719 

55,526 


2,652      388,518,000    1,108,627 

Including  a  small  amount  issued  before 
1861,  the  whole  value  of  the  bronze  coin  put 
into  circulation  up  to  the  end  of  1873  was 
^1,143,633.  It  is  remarkable  that  the 
quantity  of  small  coins  used  in  England  is 
much  less  than  in  France,  where  at  least 
1000  millions  of  pieces,  chiefly  of  ten  and 
five  centimes,  are  in  use.  Thus  while  the 
English,  Scotch,  and  Irish  seem  to  be  suf- 
ficiently supplied  with  eight  and  a  half  pence 
per  head,  the  French  employ  on  the  average 
one  franc  sixty  centimes,  (fifteen  pence),  the 
Belgians,  two  francs  twenty-six  centimes 
(twenty-one  and  a-half  pence),  and  the  Ital- 
ians as  much  as  three  francs  ten  centimes 
(twenty-nine  and  a-half  pence). 

WEIGHT  OF  THE  CURRENCY. 

It  is  curious  that  the  weights  of  the  sev- 
eral kinds  of  currency  vary  inversely  as 
their  nominal  values;  thus,  taking  the  paper 
circulation  of  the  United  Kingdom  at  forty 
millions,  the  gold  roughly  at  one  hundred 
millions,  the  silver  at  fifteen  millions,  and 
the  bronze  as  above,  I  find  the  weights  to  be 
approximately  as  follows: — 

Paper  currency  .  .  .         16  tons. 

Gold        "        .  .  .  .  786    ' 

Silver       "        .  .  .  •  1670   " 

Bronze     "        .  .  .  2652   " 

5124  tons. 

It  is  impossible  to  give  a  satisfactory  rea- 
son why  the  least  valuable  part  of  the  cur- 
rency  should  be  so  much  the  most  weighty. 
A  tendency  thus  arises  for  the  pence  to  accu- 
mulate upon  the  hands  of  retail  traders,  es- 
pecially publicans,  omnibus  proprietors,  and 
newspaper  publishers.  At  one  time  the  London 
brewers  had  such  large  quantities  of  bronza 
coins  thrown  upon  their  hands  from  the  pub- 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      327 


He-houses  which  they  own,  that  the  mint  had 
eventually  to  arrange  to  buy  it  from  them, 
instead  of  coining  more.  In  large  towns,  ar- 
rangements have  to  be  made  for  getting  rid 
of  the  accumulating  pence  with  the  least 


transferred 


the  pocket  without  discomfort.  The  chief 
difficulty  in  adopting  such  a  new  metal  would 
arise  from  the  uncertain  price  at  which  it  can 
be  produced.  It  is  unknown,  too,  how  it 
would  wear.  Even  if  pure  aluminium  were 
found  10  be  unsuitable  for  coining,  some  of 


trouble   and   loss ;    the 

weekly  to  mills  and  factories,   where  it  is   its    remarkable  alloys   might   be  employed 

used   in   paying  wages.     Bankers  refuse  to  i  instead.    Mr.  Graham,  the  late  Master  of  the 


have  anything  to  do  with  bronze  coin  beyond 
the  amount  of  a  shilling,  for  which  it  is  legal 
tender,  and  it  is  usual  for  persons  to  object 
to  receive  more  than  twopence  or  threepence 
of  change  in  pence. 

It  is  worthy  of  inquiry  whether  this  ten- 
dency of  the  fractional  currency  to  stagnation 
would  rot  be  remedied  by  the  substitution  of 
a  much  lighter  and  more  elegant  currency  of 
nickel,  or  of  s<  me  alloy  yet  to  be  invented. 
In  France,  it  is  found  that  the  bronze  coin- 
age circulates  much  more  freely  than  the  old 
copper  and  bell  metal  sous,  which  tended  to 
accumulate  in  certain  localities.  Our  bronze 
pence  are  much  bet'er  than  the  old  copper 
pence,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  we  have 
in  any  degree  approximated  to  perfection. 
Coins  of  about  half  the  weight  of  those  in 
circulation  would  be  much  more  convenient. 

NICKEL, MANGANESE,  ALUMINIUM,  AND  OTHER 
METALS  AND  ALLOYS. 

The  employment  of  nickel  in  the  manufac" 
tureof  small  money  has  already  been  referred 
to(ChapterVL),  and  if  the  conditions  of  sup- 
ply and  demand  of  this  metal  were  more  steady 
we  should  perhaps  want  nothing  better.  The 
alloy  of  nickel  and  copper  generally  used  is 
hard  and  difficult  to  coin,  but  it  takes  a  fine 
impression  which  it  will  probably  require  long 
wear  to  efface.  Nickel  coinage  is  thus  very 
unlikely  to  be  counterfeited,  and  its  peculiar 
nondescript  c^lor  renders  it  easily  distinguish- 
able from  silver  or  gold  money.  The  pro- 
gress of  metallurgy,  however,  is  making  us 
acquainted  with  several  new  metals  and  many 
new  alloys,  and  it  is  quite  likely  that  some 
new  material  for  fractional  money  will  event- 
ually be  found.  Dr.  Percy,  having  regard  to 
the  rising  price  of  nickel,  suggests  that  man- 
ganese should  be  employed  instead,  as  it 
gives  alloys  of  similar  character,  and  can  be 
procured  in  greater  quantities. 

Dr.  Clemens  Winkler  strongly  recommend ; 
aluminium  as  suited  for  monetary  pur- 
poses. Trial  pieces,  marked  "^  rea^  I872," 
have  been  struck,  and  one  of  them  may  be 
seen  in  the  Monetary  Museum  at  the  Paris 
mint.  This  metal  has  a  characteristic  bluish 
white  color,  but  its  great  advantage  is  its  low 
specific  gravity.  The  trial  piece  i.i  question, 
of  wh;ch  a  specimen  was  furnished  to  me  by 
Mr.  Roberts,  the  chemist  of  the  English 
mint,  is  two  cemimeters,  0^79  inch,  in  diam- 
eter, a  little  wider  than  a  sixpence  and  much 
thicker,  and  yet  weighs  only  one  gram,  or 
fifteen  and  a-half  grains.  Were  our  pence 
and  halfpennies  as  light  and  convenient  as 
this  coin,  we  could  carry  many  of  them  in 


Mint,  had  a  series  of  trial  pieces  of  one  to 
ten  cents  struck  in  the  so-called  "aluminium 
bronze." 

I  may  suggest  that  one  of  the  best  possi 
ble  materials  for  small  money  would  be  steel- 
provided  it  could  be  prevented  from  rusting. 
Steel  coins  would  be  difficult  to  strike,  but 
when  once  struck  could  be  hardened,  so  as 
to  be  almost  indestructible.  The  cheapness 
of  the  material  would  allow  of  their  produc- 
tion on  a  large  scale  at  small  cost,  whiL  they 
could  not  possibly  be  imitated  by  the  false 
coiners  with  any  profit.  Hence  it  would  be 
needless  to  pay  any  attention  to  the  metallic 
value  of  the  coins,  which  might  be  struck  of 
the  most  convenient  sizes,  probably  those  of 
the  sixpence  and  shilling.  Now  it  has  been 
pointed  out  by  Sir  John  Herschel  (Physical 
Geography,  reprinted  from  the  "  Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica,"  §  320,  p.  289),  that  steel 
appears  to  be  protected  from  rusting  by  be- 
ing alloyed  with  a  small  quantity  of  nickel; 
this  at  least  is  the  effect  in  the  case  of  mete- 
oric iron.  It  is  much  to  be  desired  that  such 
an  alloy  should  be  fairly  tried.  I  am  inform- 
ed by  Mr.  Roberts,  that  silver  also  alloys 
well  with  iron  or  steel,  and  that  such  mix- 
tures have  been  proposed  for  coining  pur- 
poses. An  alloy  of  silver,  copper,  and  zinc 
has  already,  indeed,  been  fully  tested  in 
Switzerland,  where  it  is  used  for  twenty,  ten, 
and  five  centime  pieces.  These  coins  are 
convenient  in  size,  but  have  a  poor  yellowish 
white  appearance.  They  have  not  been 
adopted,  so  far  as  I  know,  by  any  other 
country ;  and  there  seems  to  be  no  use  in 
putting  silver  into  them,  as  it  would  proba- 
bly be  easy  to  produce  a  similarly  colored 
alloy  without  silver. 

It  is  a  misfortune  of  what  may  be  called 
the  science  of  monetary  technology,  that  its 
study  is  almost  of  necessity  confined  to  the 
few  officers  employed  in  government  mints. 
Hence  we  can  hardly  expect  the  same  ad- 
vances to  be  made  in  the  production  of 
money  as  in  other  branches  of  manufacture, 
where  there  is  wide  and  free  competition. 
Moreover,  it  is  very  difficult  to  get  an  oppor- 
tunity of  testing  any  new  kind  of  coin  ;  in  a 
large  currency,  like  that  of  the  United  King- 
dom, it  is  almost  impossible  to  execute  ex- 
periments. But  it  may  be  suggested  that  the 
English  mint,  in  supplying  coins  for  some 
of  the  smaller  British  colonies  and  posses- 
sions, enjoys  an  admirable  opportunity  for 
testing  new  proposals.  This  need  not  in- 
volve any  cost  to  such  colonies,  as  the  Eng- 
lish government,  in  striking  a  few  hundred 
or  thousands  of  pounds  worth  of  small  coin 


3*8 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


for  a  colony,  might  readily  engage  to  with- 
draw them  at  its  own  cost  if  found  unsuitable 
after  a  certain  number  of  years. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  STANDARDS. 


Ever  since  the  great  discoveries  of  gold  in 


Wettern  Europe,  and  those  who  uphold  * 
gold  standard  combined  with  subsidiary  coin- 
ages of  silver  and  small  money,  somewhat  in 
the  manner  of  the  English  system.  The  ad- 
vantages of  the  double  standard  have  been 
most  ably  advocated  by  MM.  Wolowski,  • 
Courcelle-Seneuil,  Seyd,  Leon,  Prince-Smith, 
and  others,  while  MM.  Chevali-r,  De  Parieu, 
Hendriks,  Frere  Orban,  Levasseur,  Feer- 
Herzog,  and  Juglar,  have  been  some  of  the 
leading  upholders  of  the  gold  standard.  The 
literature  of  the  subject  is  very  extensive  and 


California  and  Australia  began  to  disturb  the  to  most  readers  dreary  in  the  extreme,  but  I 
value  of  that  metal  relatively  to  silver  and  to  will  try  to  give  a  tolerably  concise  statement 
other  commodities,  it  has  been  a  continual ;  Q£  th<?  prjncjpai  arguments. 


subject  of  discussion  what  standard  of  value 
should  be  ultimately  adopted.  There  have 
been  partisans  of  the  now  antiquated  silver 
standard,  of  the  double  standard,  and  of  the 


In  the  first  plac*",  I  have  no  doubt  what- 
ever that  M.  Wolowski  is  theoretically  quite 
correct  in  what  he  says  about  the  compen- 
satory action  of  the  double  standard  system. 


gold  standard.  Having  in  England  long  j  Engiish  wrjters  seem  completely  to  have  mis- 
possessed  a  gold  standard,  we  have  been  only  |  understood  the  question,  asse-ting  that  the 
in  a  secondary  degree  concerned  m  such  dis-  ,  system  expOsesus  to  the  extreme  fluctuations 


cussions,  upon  which  quite  a  library  of  works 
has  been  written  by  distinguished  French, 
Belgian,  German,  Swiss,  Italian,  and  Dutch 
economists.  The  changes  actually  effected 
in  the  currencies  of  Europe  since  1849  are 
of  the  most  extensive  character.  Some 
nations  have  more  than  once  changed  their 
policy.  Holland,  anticipating  a  great  fall  in 
the  value  of  gold,  adopted  silv  r  as  the  single 
standard  of  value  in  1850.  This  change  had 
to  be  effected  at  considerable  pecuniary  loss, 
and  it  is  understood  that  Holland  is  again 
exposed  to  the  trouble  and  expense  of  having 
to  admit  a  gold  standard,  either  as  a  sole  legal 
tender,  like  Germany,  or  else  concurrently 


of  both  metals.  No  doubt,  when  gold  and 
silver  are  both  legal  tenders  to  unlimited 
amounts,  there  will  be  a  tendency  to  pay  in 
that  metal  which  is  overrated  in  the  legal 
ratio  of  fifteen  and  a-half  to  one.  Only 
when  the  price  of  standard  silver  is  exactly 
five  shillings  and  thirteen-sixteenths  of  a 
penny  per  ounce  is  it  a  matter  of  indifference 
in  France  whether  a  debt  be  paid  in  gold  or 
silver,  and  this  exact  price  has  only  been 
quoted  a  few  times  in  the  London  market 
in  the  last  thirty  years.  Accordingly.it  has 
been  urged  that  the  double  standard  is  not 
really  a  double  one,  but  only  an  alternative 


ler,  li    :  Germany,  o:  renuy  g0u  and  silver  standard.  When  silver  is  low- 

with  a  restricted  silver  coinage   like  Belgium  |«r   .Q       .       than   fiye  shillings  thirteen-six- 
and  the  other  monetary  allies  of  France.          ,  teenth<fof  a  penny  per  ounce,  silver  becomes 
From  the  time  of  Locke  to  that  of  Lord    ,  „„/.  ,  .;,„__  ^..^  ah.WP   *>,;<. 


Liverpool,  the  comparative  advantages  of 
gold  and  silver,  as  the  principal  measure  of 
value,  were  a  frequent  subject  of  discussion 
among  English  political  writers.  Locke  and 
most  of  the  earlier  English  economists  upheld 


the  standard;  when  silver  rises  above  this 
price,  gold  takes  its  place  as  the  real  measure 
of  value. 

So  far,  the  English  economists  are  no 
doubt  correct;  but,  in  the  first  place,  it  does 
not  follow  that  the  prices  of  commodities 


fcLi.  ^-  Liverpool  definitely  decided  f  n  th  extreme  Actuations  of  value  of 
English  policy  in  favor  of  gold  and  the  ten-  j  ^  metal  as  mun  writers  haye  inconsid. 
dency  of  opinion  is  now  strongly  in  the  same  j  erate,  declared  ^rices  only  depend  upon 
direction.  Several  countries  have  recently  ;  fa  £  f  fa  ,  wh'kh  happens  to 

changed  from  silver  to  gold,  and  since  the  haye  gunk  Jn  ya]ue  be]ow  the  {  ,  ratio  of 
single  example  of  Holland  no  nation  has  ;  fifteen  and  a_ha,f  tQ  Qne  NoW)  if  in  the  ac. 
passed  from  gold  to  silver.  Even  Austria,  .  fi  we  represent  by  the  line 

woich  is  still  supposed  to  represent  the  silver  A  £  JJ^*,  of  the  value  of  gold,  as  es- 
standard,  has  taken  a  step  toward  a  change  timated  jn  terms  of  SQme  third  commodity, 
by  coining  ten  and  twenty-franc  pieces  in  say  copper>  and  b y  the  line  B  the  co rrespond- 
gold,  the  inscriptions  ten  francs  and  twenty  .*  y^at'ions  o{\he  va!ue  of  silver;  then, 
francs  now  appearing,  as  well  as  four  gulden  j  K  .  fa  the  ,ine  c  would 

and  eight  gulden,  on  the  new  gold  coins  of  j  b /  P  B  expressing  the  extreme  fluc- 
tU  Austro-Hunganan  empire.  JJ^  ^  ^^  Pmetalsg  f,ow>  the  stand. 

aid  of  value  always  follows  the  metal  which 
falls  in  value;  hence  the  curve  L>  really 
The  single  silver  standard  having  been  shows  the  course  of  variation  of  the  stand- 
piactically  abandoned  as  regards  the  curren-  ard  of  value.  This  line  undergoes  more 
cics  of  Europe,  the  battle  has  more  recently  frequent  undu)»tions  than  either  of  the 
been  waged  between  the  partisans  of  the  dou-  curves  of  gold  or  silver,  but  the  fluctuations 
ble  standard,  represented  in  the  currencies  of  do  not  proceed  to  so  great  an  extent,  a  point 
France  and  the  Monetary  Convention  of  of  much  greater  importance. 


THE  DOUBLE  STANDARD. 


MONEY  AND   1  HE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      329 


COMPENSATORY    ACTION. 

Nor  is  this  the  whole  error  of  the  English 
writers.  A  little  reflection  must  show  that 
MM.  Wolowski  and  Courcelle-Seneuil  are 
quite  correct  in  urging  that  a  compensatory 
or,  as  I  should  prefer  to  call  it,  equilibra- 
tory  action  goes  on  under  the  French  cur- 
rency law,  and  tends  to  maintain  both 
gold  and  silver  more  steady  in  value  than 
they  would  otherwise  be.  If  silver  becomes 
more  valuable  than  in  the  ratio  of  one  to 
fifteen  and  one-half  compared  with  gold, 
there  arises  at  once  a  tendency  to  import 
gold  into  any  country  possessing  the  double 
standard,  so  that  it  may  be  coined  there,  and 
exchanged  for  a  legally  equivalent  weight  of 
silver  coin,  to  be  exported  again.  This  is  no 
matter  of  theory  only,  the  process  having 
gone  on  in  France  until  the  principal  cur- 
rency, which  was  mainly  composed  of  silver 
in  1849,  was  in  1860  almost  wholly  of  gold. 
France  absorbed  the  cheapened  metal  in  vast 
quantities  and  emitted  the  dearer  metal, 
which  must  have  had  the  effect  of  preventing 
gold  from  falling  and  silver  from  rising  so 
much  in  value  as  they  would  otherwise  have 
done.  It  is  obvious  that,  if  gold  rose  in 
value  compared  with  silver,  the  action  would 
be  reversed  ;  gold  would  be  absorbed  and 
silver  liberated.  At  any  moment  the  stand- 
ard of  value  is  doubtless  one  metal  or  the 
other,  and  not  both  ;  yet  the  fact  that  there 


pipe  the  level  of  the  water  in 
each  reservoir  will  be  subject  to 
its  own  fluctuations  only.  But 
if  we  open  a  connection,  the 
water  in  both  will  assume  a  cer- 
tain mean  level,  and  the  effects 
of  any  excessive  supply  or  de- 
mand will  be  distributed  over 
the  whole  area  of  both  reser- 
voirs. The  mass  of  the  metals, 
gold  and  silver,  circulating  in 
Western  Europe  in  late  years, 
is  exactly  represented  by  the 
water  in  these  reservoirs,  and 
the  connecting  pipe  is  the  law 
of  the  7th  Germinal,  an  XI, 
which  enables  one  metal  to  take 
the  place  of  the  other  as  an  un- 
limited legal  tender. 

DEMONETIZATION   OF   SILVER. 

M.  Wolowski  has  earnestly 
warned  Europe  against  the  dan- 
ger of  abrogating  the  law  of  the  double 
standard,  and  demonetizing  silver.  Ger- 
many, in  adopting  a  gold  standard,  is  caus- 
ing a  considerable  demand  for  gold,  and 
at  the  same  time  throwing  many  millions  of 
silver  coins  upon  the  market.  Austria,  Den- 


mark     Sweden,    and 
follow  her  example. 


Norway  are    likely  to 
If  other  countries  were 


to  insist  upon  suddenly  having  a  gold  money, 
it  is  evident  that  gold  would  tend  to  rise  in 
value  compared  with  silver,  which  might  be 
largely  depreciated.  If  France,  Italy,  Bel- 
gium and  other  countries  now  possessing 
theoretically  the  double  standard  were  to 
allow  the  free  action  of  their  monetary  laws, 
t.:e  depreciated  silver  would  flow  in  and  re- 
place the  appreciated  gold,  so  that  the 
change  of  values  would  be  moderated  M. 
Wolowski  asserts  that  if  this  compensatory 
action  be  suspended,  and  the  demonetization 
of  silver  be  extended,  there  must  ensue  a  dis- 
astrous rise  in  the  value  of  gold,  thus  ren- 
dered the  sole  standard  of  value.  All  debts 
private  and  public  will  be  legally  due  in  f  his 
metal,  and  all  burdens  will  be  greatly  in- 
creased. 

Within  the  last  year  or  two  the  predictions 
of  M.  Wolowski  may  seem  to  have  been  veri- 
fied in  some  degree.  The  price  of  standard 
silver,  which  was  at  one  time  f>2%d.  per 
ounce,  has  already  fallen  as  low  as  57^^. 
while  the  demonetization  of  silver  in  Germany 
is  only  partially  accomplished.  The  whole 


is  an  alternation  tends  to  make  each  vary  effect  of  the  great  discoveries  of  gold  was 
muchless  than  it  would  otherwise  do.  It  can- 1  only  to  raise  the  price  from  about  $g}£d.  to 
not  prevent  both  metals  from  falling  or  rising  '  a  maximum  of  62*4^.,  while  the  double 
in  value  compared  with  other  commodities,  but ;  standard  system  freely  worked  ;  but  since  its 
it  can  throw  variations  of  supply  and  demand  action  has  been,  as  we  shall  see,  suspended, 
over  a  larger  area,  instead  of  leaving  each  j  the  minting  operations  of  a  single  govern- 
metal  to  be  affected  merely  by  its  own  acci-  ment  can  affect  the  price  in  a  greater  degree, 
dents.  Agreeing  that  M.  Wolowski  is  ent:re!ycor- 

Imagine  two  reservoirs  of  water,  each  sub-  rect  in  an  abstract  point  of  view,  and  is  justi 
ject  to  independent  variations  of  supply  and  fied  to  some  extent  by  the  course  of  events,  1 
demand.  In  the  absence  of  any  connecting  :  must  adhere  to  the  opinion  which  I  expressed 

39 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


33° 

at  his  request  in  1868,  and  which  was  par- 
tially published  in  his  volume,  "L'Or  et 
1'Argent "  (p.  62). 

The  question  seems  to  be  entirely  one  of 
degree,  and  in  the  absence  of  precise  infor- 
mation is  quite  indeterminate.  If  all  the 
nations  of  the  globe  were  suddenly  and  simul- 
taneously to  demonetize  silver,  and  require 
gold  money,  a  revolution  in  the  value  of  gold 
would  be  inevitable.  But  M.  Wolowski 
seems  to  forget  that  the  nations  of  Europe 
constitute  only  a  small  part  of  the  population 
of  the  world.  The  hundreds  of  millions  who 
inhabit  India  and  China,  and  other  parts  of 
the  eastern  and  tropical  regions,  employ  a 
silver  currency,  and  there  is  not  the  least  fear 
that  they  will  make  any  sudden  change  in 
theii  habits.  The  English  government  has 
repeatedly  tried  to  introduce  a  gold  currency 
into  our  Indian  possessions,  but  has  always 
failed,  and  the  gold  coins  now  circulating 
there  are  supposed  not  to  exceed  one-tenth 
part  of  the  metallic  currency.  Although  the 
pouring  out  of  forty  or  fifty  millions  sterling 
of  silver  from  Germany  may  for  some  years 
depress  the  price  of  the  meta1,  it  can  be 
gradually  absorbed  without  difficulty  by  the 
eastern  nations,  which  have  for  tsvo  or  three 
thousand  years  received  a  continual  stream 
of  the  precious  metals  from  Europe  If  other 
nations  should  one  after  anether  demonetize 
silver,  yet  the  East  may  be  found  quite  able 
to  absorb  all  that  is  thrust  upon  it,  provided 
that  this  be  not  done  too  rapidly. 

As  regards  the  gold  required  to  replace  sil- 
ver, it  does  not  seem  to  be  evident  that  there 
will  be  any  scarcity.  The  adoption  of  the 
gold  standard  does  not  necessarily  involve  the 
coiuing  of  much  gold,  for  some  countries 
may,  like  Norway,  or  Italy,  or  Scotland,  have 
a  principal  currency  almost  entirely  composed 
of  paper.  In  other  countries,  such  as  France 
and  Germany,  the  check  and  clearing  sys- 
tem, which  we  shall  shortly  considt  r,  may 
be  gradually  introduced,  and  may  economize 
to  a  great  extent  the  use  of  the  metallic  cur- 
rency. The  current  supply  of  gold  from  the 
mines  is  still  very  large,  and  we  cannot  be 
sure  that  it  will  not  be  increased  by  fresh 
discoveries  in  New  Guinea,  South  Africa, 
North  and  South  America,  and  elsewhere. 

In  short,  then,  the  amount  of  supply  and 
amount  of  demand  of  both  the  precious  met- 
als depend  upon  a  number  of  accidents, 
changes,  or  legislative  decisions,  which  can- 
not be  in  any  way  predicted.  The  price  of  sil- 
ver has  fallen  in  consequence  of  the  German 
currency  reforms,  but  it  is  by  no  means  cer- 
tain that  it  will  fall  further  than  it  has  already 
done.  That  any  great  rise  will  really  happen 
in  the  purchasing  power  of  gold  is  wholly  a 
matter  of  speculation.  We  cannot  do  more 
than  make  random  guesses  on  the  subject, 
and,  as  a  mere  guess,  I  should  say  that  it  is 
not  likely  to  rise,  Gold  has  since  1851  been 
falling  in  value,  and  an  increased  d'-mand  for 
gold  is  not  likely  to  do  more  than  slacken,  or 


at  the  most  arrest,  the  progress  of  depreda- 
ion. 

DISADVANTAGES  OF  THE  DOUBLE  STAND- 
ARD. 

While  the  need  for  maintaining  the  system 
of  the  double  standard  is  a  matter  of  specula- 
tion, the  inconveniences  of  the  system  ara 
beyond  doubt.  So  long,  indeed,  as  its  oper- 
ation resulted  in  substituting  a  beautiful 
coinage  of  napoleons,  half-napoleons,  and 
five-franc  pieces  in  gold  for  the  old  heavy 
silver  ecus,  there  was  no  complaint,  and  the 
French  people  admired  the  action  of  theii 
compensatory  system.  But  when,  a  year  o( 
two  ago,  it  became  evident  that  the  heavy 
.ilver  currency  was  coming  back  again,  and 
that  the  gold  coin  was  likely  to  form  the  cir- 
culating medium  of  other  nations,  the  matte* 
assumed  a  different  aspect.  The  French,  in 
short,  have  been  educated  to  the  use  of  gold, 
and  they  are  not  likely  to  wish  for  the  return 
of  a  currency  fifteen  and  one-half  times  aS 
heavy  and  cumbrous.  Moreover,  the  change 
involves  a  loss  to  the  community  in  general, 
ho  receive  their  debts  in  a  metal  of  lessen- 
ed value;  and  a  part  of  the  benefit  is  reaped 
by  bullion-brokers,  money-changers,  and 
bankers,  for  whom  a  factitious  trade  in  gold 
and  silver  money  is  created  by  the  law  of  the 
7th  Germinal,  an  XI.  The  statesmen  of  the 
countries  still  maintaining  the  double  stand- 
ard must  have  reflected  that  other  nations 
showed  no  tendency  whatever  to  adopt  the 
same  system.  Thus,  if  France  were  to  con- 
tinue to  act  as  a  great  compensatory  currency 
pendulum,  she  would  bear  the  cost  and  in- 
convenience, while  other  nations  would  reap 
equally  with  herself  the  advantage  of  the  in- 
creased steadiness  of  value  of  the  precious 
metals.  The  founders  of  the  Monetary  Con. 
vention  and  the  advocates  of  International 
Currency  never  intended  to  sacrifice  them. 
selves  to  this  extent  for  the  benefit  of  the 
world.  Accordingly  they  have  in  effect  aban- 
doned the  double  standard. 

When  the  renewed  tendency  to  coin  silver 
five-franc  pieces  in  large  quantities  first  be- 
came apparent,  the  French  government  at 
once  suspended  the  coinage.  Subsequently 
an  agreement  has  been  made  from  year  to 
year  between  France,  Switzerland,  Belgium, 
and  Italy,  that  each  country  shall  coin  only  a 
fixed  quantity  of  silver  ecus  proportional  to 
its  population.  An  agreement  to  the  same 
effect  had  before  exi-sted  as  regards  the  silver 
token  currency  of  two-franc  and  smaller 
pieces;  but  the  coinage  of  ecus,  which  were 
in  theory  standard  coins  and  legal  tender  for 
unlimited  amounts,  had  been  left  unrestrict- 
ed. The  result  of  the  limitation  of  coinage 
now  imposed  is  to  destroy  the  action  of  the 
double  standard  system.  Silver  being  coined 
only  in  limited  quantities  cannot  replace  and 
drive  out  the  gold,  and  the  five-franc  pieces, 
although  worth  more  than  five  single  franc 
pieces,  are  worth  less  than  the  fourth  part  of 


40 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  [OF  EXCHANGE.      331 


of  exchange.  This  system  is  now  adopted 
throughout  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  the 
Australian  colonies,  and  New  Zealand,  the 
African  colonies,  and  many  of  the  minor 
possessions  of  the  British  empire.  It  has  ex- 
isted for  some  time  in  Portugal,  Turkey, 
Egypt,  and  in  several  of  the  South  American 
States,  such  as  Chili  and  Brazil.  It  has  been 
established  by  recent  legislation  in  the  Ger- 
man empire,  and  al-o  in  the  Scandinavian 
kingdoms  of  Denmark,  Norway,  and  Sweden, 
where  a  gold  currency,  and  principal  legal 
tender,  of  twenty-kroner  pieces,  is  now  being 
issued.  Even  Japan  has  imitated  European 
nations,  and  introduced  a  gold  coinage  of 
twenty,  ten,  five,  two,  and  one-yen  pieces, 
the  yen  being  only  three  per  mille  less  than 
the  American  gold  dollar.  The  new  fraction- 
al money  of  Japan  is  to  consist  of  fifty,  twen- 
ty, ten,  and  five-sen  pieces  in  silver,  the  sen 
corresponding  to  a  cent,  and  forming  a  token 
money  at  u;e  fineness  of  eight  parts  in  ten. 
The  double  standard  is  still  theoretically 
maintained  in  France,  Italy,  Belgium,  Switz- 
erland. Spain,  Greece,  and  Roumania  have 
also  in  recent  years  reformed  their  curren- 
cies in  imitation  of  .he  French  system,  and 
must,  I  suppose,  be  considered  as  having  a 
double  standard.  In  the  New  World,  Peru, 
Ecuador,  and  New  Grenada,  profess  to  have 
the  same  system. 

A  few  years  ago  a  very  considerable  part 
of  Europe  might  have  been  classed  as  retain- 
ing the  ancient  system  of  a  single  silver  stand- 
ard, with  gold  coins  circulating,  if  at  all, 
at  varying  rates,  as  commercial  money.  The 
whole  of  Germany,  north  and  south,  togeth- 
er with  Austria,  the  Scandinavian  kingdoms, 
and  Russia,  belonged  to  this  group.  Owing 
to  the  changes  already  mentioned,  only  Aus- 
tria and  Russia  now  clearly  represent  the  sil- 
ver standard  in  Europe,  and  even  Austria  has 
begun,  since  1870,  to  coin  gold  pieces  of 
eight  and  four  florins,  the  same  in  weight  and 
fineness  as  the  French  gold  twenty-  and  ten- 
franc  pieces.  By  an  imperial  decree,  dated 
Vienna,  I2th  July,  1873,  it  is  ordered  that  the 
French,  Belgian,  Italian,  and  Swiss  gold 
pieces  of  twenty,  ten,  and  five  francs  shall 
be  internationally  accepted  in  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  empire  in  the  ratio  of  eight  gold 
florins  to  twenty  francs  of  gold  coin  of  the 
other  nations.  Nevertheless  the  silver  stand- 
trade  dolhr,  and~of  the  half-dollar  and  'ts  \  ard  practically  prevails  over  a  large  part  of 
subdivisions,  to  an  amount  not  exceeding  five  the  world.  The  vast  populations  of  India 
dollars  in  any  one  payment.  Thus  the  dou-  I  and  China,  Cochin  China,  the  East  Indian  Is- 
ble  standard  previously  existing  in  theory  v/as  |  lands,  portions  of  Africa  and  the  West  In- 


a  napoleon  or  twenty-franc  piece  in  gold. 
Although,  so  far  as  I  understand,  they  re- 
main a  legal  tender  for  unlimited  amounts, 
they  cannot  be  had  in  unlimited  quantities, 
and  are  thus  practically  reduced  to  the  rank 
of  token  coins.  By  the  least  possible  legisla- 
tive change,  the  French  and  other  govern- 
ments of  the  Monetary  Convention  have  thus 
practically  abandoned  the  double  standard, 
and  have  adopted  one  which  is  hardly  distin- 
guishable from  the  composite  legal  tender  of 
.  England  and  Germany.  Ever  since  1810 
copper  or  bronze  money  had  only  been  legal 
tender  in  France  to  the  amount  of  four  francs 
ninety-nine  centimes,  and  since  the  fineness 
of  the  smaller  silver  currency  was  lowered, 
this  money  also  was  restricted  as  a  legal  ten- 
der to  the  amount  of  fifty  francs  for  any  one 
payment  between  individuals,  or  to  the 
amount  of  one  hundred  francs  for  any  pay- 
ment to  the  public  treasuries.  The  silver 
ecu  forms  the  single  link  by  which  France 
holds  to  the  double  standard,  and  this  link  is 
half  severed. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  changes  thus  ef- 
fected in  the  money  of  Western  Europe  are 
almost  the  same  as  those  by  which  the 
United  States  had  previously  abandoned  the 
double  standard.  Until  the  year  1853  the 
silver  dollar  of  the  United  States  mint  was  a 
standard  coin  of  unrestricted  legal  tender, 
concurrently  with  the  gold  coinage  of  eagles 
and  their  fractions.  The  legal  ratio  of  silver 
to  gold  in  weight  indeed,  was  sixteen  to  one, 
instead  of  fifteen  and  one-half  to  one  as  in 
France.  More  silver  being  thus  required  to 
make  a  legal  payment  in  America  than  else- 
where, gold  was  naturally  preferred  for  this 
purpose,  and  the  silver  was  sent  abroad.  To 
remedy  this  state  of  things  the  government 
of  Washington,  in  1853,  reduced  the  half- 
dollar  and  smaller  silver  pieces  to  the  con- 
dition of  token  coins,  and  though  the  single 
silver  dollar  pieces  remained  of  standard 
weight,  they  were  coined  in  very  small  quan- 
tities and  Were  practically  suppressed.  The 
predominance  of  an  inconvertible  paper  cur- 
rency suspended  the  question  of  metallic 
money  for  a  time.  The  Coinage  Act  of  the 
United  States  Congress  came  info  operation 
on  1st  April,  1873,  and  constituted  the  gold 
one-dollar  piece  the  sole  unit  of  value,  whilst 
it  restricted  the  legal  tender  of  the  new  silver 


finally  abolished,  and  the  United  States  was 
added  to  the  list  of  nations  adopting  the  single 
gold  standard.  • 

THE  MONETARY   SYSTEMS   OF  THE  WORLD. 

On  reviewing  the  changes  which  have  re- 
cently taken  place  in  the  currencies  of  the 
principal  nations,  we  notice  an  unmistakable 
tendency  to  the  adoption  of  gold  as  the  mea- 
sure of  value,  and  the  sole  principal  medium 


41 


dies,  Central  America  and  Mexico,  have  a 
currency  mainly  consisting  of  silver  coins, 
either  rupees  as  in  India,  sycee  bars  as  in 
China,  or  silver  dollars  as  in  many  other 
places. 

The  gold  standard  has  thus  made  great 
progress,  and  it  will  probably  continue  to 
progress.  When  the  United  States  return  to 
specie  payments,  they  will  certainly  adopt 
gold,  and  Canada,  whose  currency  can  hardly 


332 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


declassed  at  all  at  present,  must  do  the  same. 
The  Latin  nations,  having  once  abandoned 
the  double  standard  in  practice,  are  not  likely 
to  return  to  it,  and  Austria  must  follow.  An 
extensive  monetary  change  is  hardly  to  be 
expected  in  Russia,  although  it  is  very  re- 
markable that  in  the  province  of  Finland,  a 
part  of  the  empire  highly  distinguished  for 
intelligence  and  good  education,  Russia  has 
positively  admitted  the  franc  system  and  its 
decimal  subdivisions,  the  Finnish  marc  or 
quarter-rouble  having  the  precise  silver  weight 
and  value  of  the  franc,  lira,  and  peseta.  A  great 
step  toward  a  future  international  coinage  is 
thus  effected.  Like  changes  are  impossible 
among  the  poor,  ignorant,  conservative  na- 
tions of  India,  China,  and  the  tropics  gener- 
ally. Hence,  we  arrive,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
at  a  broad,  deep  distinction.  The  highly 
civilized  and  advancing  nations  of  Western 
Europe  and  North  America,  including  also 
the  rising  states  of  Australasia,  and  some  of 
the  better  second-rate  states,  such  as  Egypt, 
Brazil,  and  Japan,  will  all  have  the  gold 
standard.  The  silver  standard,  on  the  other 
hand,  will  probably  long  be  maintained 
throughout  the  Russian  Empire,  and  most 
parts  of  the  vast  continent  of  Asia  ;  also  in 
some  parts  of  Africa,  and  possibly  in  Mex- 
ico. Excluding,  however,  these  minor  and 
doubtful  cases,  Asia  and  Russia  seem  likely 
to  uphold  silver  against  the  rest  of  the  world 
adopting  gold.  In  such  a  result  there  seems 
Co  be  nothing  to  regret. 


TECHNICAL 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

MATTERS     RELATING    TO    COIN- 
AGE. 


In  this  chapter  I  propose  to  consider  sev- 
eral minor  points  relating  to  the  construction 
and  regulation  of  metallic  currency.  Al- 
though the  first  principles  of  money  are  sim- 
Ele,  it  is  surprising  how  many  little  details 
ave  to  be  considered  before  we  can  attain 
the  maximum  of  convenience.  We  have  al- 
ready discussed  the  selection  of  metals  to  be 
employed,  the  modes  in  which  they  may  be 
combined  into  a  system,  the  regulations  as  to 
issue,  etc.  In  this  and  the  following  chap- 
ters we  still  have  to  consider  the  character  of 
the  alloy  which  is  best  adapted  for  coining  ; 
the  most  convenient  sizes  for  coins  ;  the 
method  of  counting  large  numbers  of  coins  ; 


the  cos1,  at  which  the  currency  is  maintained  ; 
the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  inter- 
national currency  of  money  ;  the  difficulty  of 
selecting  a  single  standard  unit :  the  best  se- 
ries of  multiples  and  submultiples  of  the 
unit.  At  the  most,  I  cannot  in  this  work  at- 
tempt to  give  more  than  a  slight  sketch  of 

the  complicated   questions  of   detail  which    „  ^ ^   ^--i 

have  to  be  considered  before   making   anv    adopted   by   the   French   in    the  time  of  the 
change  in  the  currency.  Revolution  ;  it   has   been  extended  over  the 

42 


THE  ALLOY   IN   COINS. 

Although  we  commonly  speak  of  money 
as  consisting  of  gold  or  silver,  the  coins  ac- 
tually used  contain  alloys  either  of  silver  or 
copper,  or  of  gold  and  copper,  or  of  gold, 
silver,  and  copper.  Money  struck  in  nearly 
pure  gold  has  indeed  been  issued  both  in 
early  and  recent  times,  and  among  such  gold 
coins  may  be  mentioned  the  ancient  bezant, 
the  recent  Austrian  ducat,  containing  986 
parts  of  gold  in  looo,  the  six-ducat  piece  of 
Naples,  containing  996  parts,  or  the  Tuscan 
sequin,  which  is  said  to  be  almost  pure  gold, 
namely  999  parts  in  1000.  Pure  gold  and 
silver  are,  however,  soft  metals,  so  that 
even  if  they  were  found  naturally  in  the  pure 
state,  it  would  be  desirable  to  add  copper, 
v\  hich  communicates  hardness  and  reduces 
very  much  the  abrasion  of  the  coins.  The 
proportion  of  copper  to  be  adopted  has  been 
a  matter  of  frequent  discussion,  and  is  de- 
termined partly  on  historical,  partly  on  sci- 
entific grounds. 

The  exact  alloy  employed  in  England  ap- 
pears to  have  been  decided  by  the  system  of 
weights  used.  Silver  was  weighed  by  the 
troy  pound  of  twelve  ounces,  of  which  eleven 
ounces  two  pennyweights  were  to  be  pure 
silver,  and  eighteen  pennyweights  copper. 
This  proportion,  which  even  in  1357,  was 
called  the  "  old  right  standard  of  England," 
has,  in  spite  of  temporary  depreciations, 
been  maintained  to  the  present  day,  and  cor- 
responds to  the  proportion  of  925  parts  in 
looo.  Gold  having  been  weighed  by  the 
ancient  and  curious  system  of  carat  weights, 
said  to  be  derived  from  the  seeds  of  an 
Abyssinian  plant,  the  unit  weight  of  gold 
was  twenty-four  carats,  of  which  twenty-two 
were  to  be  of  pure  gold  and  two  of  alloy. 
This  ratio,  which  has  existed  for  many  cen- 
turies, is  decimally  expressed  by  916 '66  parts 
in  looo. 

The  degrees  of  fineness  employed  in  one 
country  or  another  at  different  times  are  in- 
finitely various.  Silver  has  been  coined  of 
only  200  or  even  150  parts  in  1000,  and  gold 
of  750  or  700  parts;  and  coins  exist  of  al- 
most every  fineness  from  these  limits  up  to 
nearly  pure  metal.  The  only  standards  of 
fineness  which  it  is  needful  to  discuss  in  the 
present  day  are  those  of  900  and  835  which 
are  proposed  for  general  adoption  in  inter- 
national money.  A  few  years  ago,  indeed, 
the  Berlin  government  contemplated  the 
adoption  of  a  standard  German  crown,  con- 
sisting of  ten  grams  of  pure  gold  and  one 
gram  of  alloy,  which  would  give  a  fineness 
of  ten-elevenths  or  909  09.  This  scheme 
had  no  apparent  advantages,  and  was  fortu- 
nately abandoned  in  favor  of  the  present  Ger- 
man coinage,  which  is,  both  as  regards  gold 


and  silver,   of  the  fineness  of  900  parts 
looo.     This  simple   decimal  proportion  was 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      333 


countries  belonging  to  the  Monetary  Conven- 
tion of  1865,  and  over  Spain,  Greece,  and 
other  countries  which  have  more  or  less  imi- 
tated the  French  system.  It  was  long  ago 
adopted  by  the  United  States,  and  has  been 
recently  introduced  into  the  gold  currency  of 
the  Scandinavian  kingdoms.  The  German 
government,  having  now  decided  to  accept 
it,  the  simple  decimal  fineness  is  established 
in  all  the  more  advanced  countries,  excepting 
England  and  some  ot  her  colonies,  and  a  few 
nations,  such  as  Russia,  Portugal,  and  Tur- 
key, which  have  imitated  the  English  cur- 
rency and  coined  gold  at  916  "66. 

la  a  chemical  and  mechanical  point  of 
view  the  exact  degree  of  fineness  is  not  a 
matter  of  importance.  The  difference  be- 
tween eleven-twelfths  and  nine-tenths  is  only 
one-sixtieth,  and  though  the  often-quoted 
experiments  of  Hatchett  were  said  to  show 
that  our  standard  was  slightly  better  than 
that  of  the  French,  the  difference  is  so  slight 
and  questionable  as  to  afford  no  ground  for 
preference.  The  late  Master  of  the  Mint, 
Professor  Graham,  was  quite  willing  to  ac- 
cept the  standard  of  900,  both  for  gold  and 
silver,  and  there  are  really  no  reasons,  except 
prejudice  and  traditional  usage,  why  we 
should  not  do  so  as  soon  as  we  make  any 
change  at  all.  Uniformity  in  the  practice  of 
nations  is  desirable  in  this  and  many  othei 
points,  and  the  French"  economists  lay  great 
stress  upon  this  question  of  fineness.  It  ap- 
pears to  me,  however,  that  the  exact  degree 
of  fineness  is  altogether  a  matter  of  secondary 
importance.  If  we  were  now  to  make  our 
sovereign  nine-tenths  fine,  we  should  have  to 
raise  its  weight  from  123 '274  grains  to  125'- 
557  grains,  and  the  mixture  of  old  and  new 
coins  would  entirely  frustrate  the  method  of 
counting  gold  money  by  the  scales  adopted 
in  all  banks.  We  must  certainly,  therefore, 
postpone  a  change  of  fineness  in  gold  until 
we  make  a  more  considerable  monetary  re- 
form. I  see  no  reason,  on  the  other  hand, 
why  the  mint  should  not  at  once  be  author- 
ized to  coin  silver  of  the  decimal  fineness  of 
nine-tenths.  This  would  merely  involve  an 
imperceptible  increase  in  the  thickness  of  the 
coins,  which  would,  in  the  case  of  the  small- 
er ones,  be  advantageous. 

The  finenes-;  of  835  parts  In  1000  was 
adopted  by  France,  as  already  stated  (Chapter 
VIII.),  in  order  to  reduce  the  two-franc  ind 
smaller  pieces  to  the  rank  of  tokens,  witnout 
making  any  change  in  their  weight  and  ap- 
pearance. There  is  no  special  objection  to 
this  alloy,  which  is  perfectly  coinable  and  of 
good  color  ;  but  it  is  not  likely  that  it  will  be 
adopted  by  the  English  government  instead 
of  the  present  fineness  of  925  parts  in  1000 
of  our  silver  coinage,  and  does  not  need  fur- 
ther discussion.  It  may  be  added  that,  in 
former  years,  the  alloy  contained  in  gold 
coins  consisted  in  part  of  silver,  which  is  al- 
ways present  in  greater  or  less  quantity  in 
native  gold  wherever  it  is  found.  The  yel- 


low appearance  of  guineas,  and  also  of  many 
Australian  sovereigns,  was  due  to  this  silver 
alloy ;  but  all  such  silvery  gold  coins  are 
rapidly  withdrawn  now  by  gold  refiners,  who 
can  profitably  separate  tne  silver.  The  very 
remarkable  invention  of  Mr.  F.  B.  Miller,  01 
the  new  Melbourne  mint,  enables  this  separa- 
tion to  be  effected  with  great  ease,  and  at 
small  cost,  almost  on  the  gold  fields.  It  is 
only  requisite  to  melt  the  silvery  gold,  and 
pass  a  current  of  chlorine  gas  into  it,  to  ob- 
tain the  silver  in  the  state  of  chloride,  which 
is  readily  separated  from  the  gold  and  re- 
duced to  the  metallic  state.  It  is  a  further 
advantage  of  this  simple  process  that  all  gold 
so  treated  is  freed  from  accidental  impurities, 
and  rendered  perfectly  malleable  and  fit  for 
coining.  One  of  the  great  difficulties  of  mint 
masters,  the  brittleness  of  gold,  has  thus 
been  entirely  overcome.  A  full  description 
of  the  process,  as  employed  at  the  English, 
Australian,  American,  Norwegian,  and  other 
mints  will  be  found  in  the  First  Annual  Re- 
port of  the  Deputy  Master  of  the  English 
Mint  (p.  93),  and  in  the  Second  Report  (p. 
33),  or  in  the  specification  as  printed  by  the 
Patent  Office. 

THE   SIZE  OF  COINS. 

There  appear  to  be  pretty  well  defined 
limits  of  size  within  which  we  should  confine 
ourselves  in  the  striking  of  money.  Coins 
must  not  be  so  small  that  they  can  be  easib 
lost,  or  can  with  difficulty  be  picked  up. 
Phe  rule  seems  to  be  that  the  coin  should 
cover  the  whole  area  of  contact  between  the 
points  of  the  thumb  and  first  finger ;  and 
though,  of  course,  this  area  will  differ  with 
men,  women,  and  children,  we  should  err 
rather  in  excess  than  defect.  On  this  ground 
I  should  condemn  the  English  threepenny 
silver  piece  as  too  small,  and,  on  the  same 
ground,  the  Swedish  ten-6re  piece,  the  Amer- 
ican one  dollar  gold  piece,  the  former  Papal 
one-scudo  piece,  must  be  pronounced  incon- 
veniently small.  The  French  five-franc  gold 
piece  of  the  latter  type,  the  English  fourpen- 
ny  piece,  the  Canadian  five-cent  piece,  or  the 
new  silver  piece  of  twenty  pfennigs,  now  be- 
ing introduced  into  the  German  empire,  must 
be  considered  the  smallest  coins  to  be  toler- 
ated. The  thickness  of  the  coins,  however, 
must  be  taken  into  account  as  well  as  the 
diameter.  The  moneys  issued  from  the 
United  States  mint  are  thicker  than  usual, 
and  though  this  tends  to  give  some  of  the 
coins  a  clumsy  appearance,  yet  they  seem 
to  me  all  the  more  convenient  to  use. 
The  French  have  gone  to  the  opposite  ex- 
treme, the  five-franc  gold  piece  being  verj 
thin,  and  having  a  diameter  of  nearly  seven- 
teen millimeters,  while  the  American  dollar, 
which  is  more  valuable,  has  a  diameter  of 
little  more  than  thirteen  millimeters.  The 
maximum  size  of  coins  has  probably  been  de- 
-termined  chiefly  with  regard  to  the  practical 
difficulty  of  coining.  The  largest  coin  which 


334 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


hat  been  very  widely  circulated  is  perhaps  j  millionths.    My  own  weighings  flf  English 


the  Maria  Theresa  dollar,  measuring  I  '6  inch- 
es, or  forty-one  millimeters,  in  diameter ; 
the  other  most  common  species  of  dollar  are 
somewhat  smaller,  such  as  the  Spanish  dol- 
lar of  1858,  measuring  thirty-seven  milli- 
meters ;  the  American  dollar,  1846,  the  Span- 
ish dollar,  1870,  the  Mexican  dollar,  1872, 
measuring  from  thirty-seven  to  thirty-eight 
meters.  The  average  diameter  of  the  dollars 
which  I  have  examined  is  thirty-eight  and  one- 
half  millimeters,  or  almost  exactly  an  inch 
and  a-half.  In  their  larger  gold  coins  the 
Americans  maintain  unusual  thickness.  Thus 
the  double  eagle,  though  in  value  equal  to 
more  than  four  pounds,  has  a  diameter  of 
only  thirty-four  millimeters,  or  one  and  one- 
third  inches.  The  beautiful  four-ducat  piece  of 
Austria  has  a  larger  diameter  than  the  double 
eagle,  though  it  contains  less  than  half  the 
quantity  of  fine  gold. 

THE  WEAR  OF  COIN. 

Some  attention  must  be  given  to  the  abra- 
sion which  coins  suffer  in  use.  In  the  case 
of  gold  coins  the  loss  of  metal  thus  occa- 
sioned is  of  importance,  and  leads,  as  we 
have  seen  (Chapter  X.),  to  a  gradual  depre- 
ciation of  the  currency.  As  coins  pass  fre- 
quently from  hand  to  hand,  the  amount  of 
metal  abraded  will  be  nearly  the  same  as  re- 
gards each  coin  of  the  same  type,  and  each 
year  of  circulation.  The  loss  will  be  propor- 
tional to  length  of  wear.  Now  the  English 
iaw  allows  a  sovereign  to  be  legal  tender  so 
long  as  it  weighs  1 22 '5  grains,  or  more  ;  and 
the  difference  between  this  and  the  full  stand- 
ard weight,  or  0774  grain,  represents  the 
margin  a' lowed  for  abrasion.  Now,  from 
experiments  described  in  a  paper  read  to  the 
London  Statistical  Society  in  November, 
1868,  ("Journal  of  the  Statistical  Society," 
Dec.  1868,  vol.  xxxi.  p.  426),  I  estimated  the 
average  wear  of  a  sovereign  for  each  year  of 
circulation  at  0*043  grain  (0-00276  gram). 
It  would  follow  that  a  sovereign  cannot  in 
general  circulate  more  than  about  eighteen 
years  without  becoming  illegitimately  light. 
This  length  of  time,  then,  would  constitute 
what  may  be  called  the  legal  life  of  a  sover- 
eign. It  has  since  been  shown  by  Dr.  Farr, 
that  certain  considerations  overlooked  in  my 
calculations  would  reduce  this  estimate  of  the 
legal  life  to  fifteen  years.  Mr.  Seyd,  on  the 
other  hand,  thinks  that  twenty  years  might  be 
adopted  as  the  legal  age  of  the  sovereign. 

When  we  compare  the  currencies  of  differ- 
ent countries,  it  becomes  evident  that  the 
rate  of  abrasion  will  depend  partly  upon  the 
rapidity  and  constancy  of  circulation,  partly 
upon  the  size  and  character  of  the  coins. 
According  to  the  inquiries  of  M.  Feer-Her- 
zog  in  Switzerland,  the  average  loss  of  the 
twenty-franc  piece  amounts  to  two  hundred 
millionths  of  the  full  weight  in  each  year, 


while  with  the  ten  and  five-franc  gold  pieces', 
the  corresponding  amounts  are  430  and  620 


gold  show  that  the  sovereign  loses  about  350 
miilionths  in  each  year  of  wear,  and  the  half- 
sovereign  no  less  than  1120  miiaonths,  or 
more  than  one-tenth  per  cent,  per  annum, 
As  the  English  coins  are  heavier  than  the 
napoleon  and  half-napoleon,  they  should  suf- 
fer less  loss  in  proportion.  M.  Feer-Herzog 
attributes  the  excessive  loss  manifested  by 
English  money  to  the  softer  character  of  the 
English  alloy  of  eleven-twelfths.  This  cause 
may  contribute  something  to  the  effect  ob- 
served, but  it  is  probable  that  the  greater 
rapidity  of  the  circulation  in  England  is  the 
main  ground  on  which  so  great  a  difference 
can  bs  explained. 

The  rate  of  wear  of  a  coin  depends  greatly, 
it  will  be  seen,  upon  its  size.  A  large  coin, 
like  an  English  crown,  a  French  silver  6cu. 
or  rn  American  double  eagle,  suffers  com- 
paratively little  wear,  because  the  surface  in- 
creases much  less  rapidly  in  proportion  than 
the  contents  of  the  coin.  The  slight  degree 
of  abrasion  of  the  various  silver  doilars  may 
be  one  cause  of  their  popularity  in  the  East. 
Smaller  silver  money  loses  much  more.  Thus, 
according  to  experiments  made  at  the  mint 
in  1833,  the  loss  per  cent,  per  annum  on  half- 
crowns  is  about  2s.  6d.,  on  shillings  4s.,  and 
on  sixpences  "]s.  6d.,  or  decimally  '125,  '200, 
and  '375  per  cent,  respectively.  This  loss 
becomes  considerable  in  the  course  of  years, 
as  may  readily  be  seen  in  the  case  of  worn 
sixpences.  The  average  loss  of  weight  of 
the  old  silver  coins  melted  at  the  mint,  seems 
to  be  about  i6>£  per  cent.,  but  this  loss  is 
more  than  covered  by  the  profit  upon  the 
issue  of  new  silver  coin.  Experiments  were 
made  at  the  mint  in  1798  upon  the  weight  of 
English  silver  coins  then  in  circulation.  It 
was  found  that  the  deficiency  amounted  in 
crowns  to  3 '3 1  per  cent.,  and  in  half-crowns, 
shillings,  and  sixpences,  respectively,  to  9 '90, 
24 '60,  and  38 '28,  per  cent.  In  the  recent 
withdrawal  of  the  old  silver  money  of  South 
Germany,  it  was  found  to  have  lost  on  the 
average  about  one-fifth  part  of  its  weight. 

To  reduce  the  loss  arising  from  the  wear  of 
gold  coin,  it  might  seem  to  be  desirable  to 
'ssue  large  gold  pieces.  The  Americans 
used  to  have  a  great  circulation  of  eagles 
and  double  eagles,  the  latter  especially  being 
very  handsome  medal-li^e  pieces.  In  for- 
mer days  many  large  gold  coins,  such  as  the 
carlino,  dobraon,  doubloon,  quadruple  pis- 
tole, and  the  double  ryder  were  current.  A 
serious  objection,  however,  to  such  coins  as 
a  double  eagle,  one-hundred  franc-piece,  or 
five-pound  piece,  is  that  they  can  readily  be 
falsified.  Small  holes  can  be  drilled  throngb 
:hem,  and  then  concealed  by  hammering. 
The  application  of  the  file,  the  sweating-bag, 
or  cylinder,  or  of  chemical  reagents,  would 
probably  be  safer  with  large  than  with  small 
coins.  In  some  cases  a  double  eagle  has 
been  completely  sawn  into  two  flat  discs, 
which  were  afterward  neatly  soldered  to- 


.44 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      335 


gather  again   with  a  plate  of  platinum  be-  pidity  for  the  payment  of  checks  over  the 

tween  to  give  the  requisite  weight.    It  might  counter,  or  to  verify  the  number  of  sovereigns 

have  been  thought  that   the  labor  and  skill  paid  in  on  deposit.     For  this  purpose  balan- 

required  to  effect  such   falsification  would  ces  are  employed,  with  weights  prepared  so 

have  been  better  remunerated  in  some  honest  as  to  be  equivalent  to  5,  10,  20,  30,  50,  100, 

employment;  but,  according  to  the  reports  of  200,  and  300  sovereigns.     Any  sum  which  is 

the  Director  of  the  United  States  Mint,  there  !  a  multiple  of  five  sovereigns  can  thus  be  rap- 


is  evidence  to  show  that  the  practice  is  prof- 
itable. It  is  proposed  to  prevent  this  falsifi- 
cation by  reducing  the  thickness  of  the  double 
eagle,  and  also  making  it  somewhat  dish 
shaped;  but  it  would  be  better  to  abandon 
the  issue  of  such  large  gold  money,  as  has 
long  been  done  in  England  and  France.  Ex- 
perience shows  that  sovereigns,  napoleons, 
half -eagles,  and  gold  coins  of  the  same  size 
are  not  fraudulently  treated,  nor  are  silver 
coins  ever  debased  in  the  way  described. 

In  order  to  diminish  the  abrasion  of  coins 
as  far  as  possible,  the  design  and  legend 
should  be  executed  with  the  least  possible  re- 
lief consistent  with  perfect  definition,  and 
the  head  of  the  monarch,  or  other  person- 
age, should  not  protrude.  In  this  and  most 
other  respects  the  sharply  defined  flat  design 
upon  the  English  florin  is  much  superior  to 
the  high  rounded  ornaments  of  the  old  crown, 
half-crown,  and  shilling.  The  French  mints 
seem  to  be  very  successful  in  the  execution 
of  dies,  all  the  coins,  gold,  silver,  and  bronze, 
struck  by  them  having  flat,  yet  admirably  ex- 
ecuted devices.  Perhaps  the  most  beautiful 


idly,  and  almost  infallibly,  weighed  out  in  a 
few  seconds,  provided  that  the  coins  are  not 
too  old  and  worn.  An  error  of  a  sovereign  is 
sometimes  possible  in  a  large  sum,  on  account 
of  deficiency  of  weight.  Jn  the  case  of  half, 
sovereigns,  this  process  is  seldom  to  be  de- 
pended upon,  owing  to  the  very  considerable 
lightness  of  the  coins.  This  uncertainty  in 
weighing  is  one  of  several  serious  inconveni- 
ences which  arise  from  the  defective  state  of 
our  gold  coinage. 

Half-sovereigns,  nowever,  and  in  fact  all 
coins  which  are  approximately  equal  to  each 
other  on  the  average,  can  be  rapidly  counted 
on  the  balance  by  the  ingenious  method  oj 
duplication.  Any  convenient  number,  for 
instance,  fifty  coins,  being  counted  into  one 
scale,  an  equal  number  may  be  made  to  bal- 
ance them,  without  counting,  in  the  other 
scale.  The  two  equal  lots  being  united,  one 
hundred  more  coins  may  be  made  to  counter- 
balance them,  and  by  a  second  union  we  get 
two  hundred  coins.  We  may  repeat  this  du- 
plication, if  the  balance  will  bear  the  weight, 
and  afterward,  using  one  lot  of  coins  as  the 


recent  coin  which  I   have  seen  is   the   new    fixed  weight,    may  go  on  counting  out  lot 
twenty- franc  gold  piece   struck  during  1874    after  lot  equal  to  it  in  weight  and  number, 
for  Hungary,  the  engraving  of  the  die  being  j      When  neither  balance  nor  counting  board 
excellent.    The  new  Scandinavian  gold  pieces    is   available,  coins  maybe   counted  out  into 
of  five  specie  dollars,  or  twenty  kroner,  are   little  piles  of  ten,  fifteen,  or  twenty.    Placing 

these  piles  alongside  each  other  on  a  flat 
board,  it  is  easy  to  detect  any  inequality  of 
height  by  the  unassisted  eye,  or  by  a  straight 


also  well  executed. 

METHODS  OF  COUNTING  COINS. 

To  count  large  quantities  of  coin  by  tale, 
piece  after  piece,  is  not  only  a  tedious  opera- 
tion, but  very  uncertain  as  regards  accuracy. 
Several  methods  have  been  devised  to  facili- 
tate the  operation.  In  mints,  the  Bank  of 
England,  and  other  establishments,  where 
vast  quantities  of  coin  are  treated,  counting 
boards  are  used.  Similar  boards  have  indeed, 
been  used  from  time  immemorial  in  some 
parts  of  India  by  money-changers  and  trades-  j 


edge  laid  along  the  top.    A  mistake  in  count- 
ing will  thus  be  generally  made  manifest. 

COST  OF  THE  METALLIC  CURRENCY 

Calculations  of  some  interest  may  DC  <n«iut 
as  to  the  cost  which  falls  upon  the  public  in 
one  way  or  another,  owing  to  the  use  of  me- 
tallic money.  Speaking  first  of  the  subordi- 
nate coins  of  silver  and  bronze,  the  govern- 
ment make  a  profit  by  their  manufacture, 


men.     These  consist  of  simple  flat  trays,  with   owing  to  the  reduced   weight  at  which  they 
several  hundred  depressions  regularly  arrang-    are   issued   as  tokens.     Standard  silver  can 


ed,  and  of  such  a  size  that  one  coin  will  ex- 
actly fit  into  each  depression.  Handfuls  of 
uniform  coins  are  thrown  on  to  the  board, 
and  shaken  over  it,  until  most  of  the  holes 
are  filled;  the  remaining  holes  are  then  filled 
up  one  after  another  by  hand.  The  number 
contained  upon  the  board  is  then  known  with 
infallible  accuracy,  and  at  the  same  time  it  is 
very  easy  to  examine  the  coins,  and  detect 
any  counterfeit,  defective,  or  foreign  pieces. 


usually  be  bought  by  the  mint  for  five  shi- 
lings  per  standard  ounce,  It  is  issued  to  the 
public  £t  the  rate  of  five  shillings,  six  pence 
per  ounce,  so  that  the  government  receives  a 
seignorage  of  at  least  nine  per  cent,  on  the 
nominal  value  of  the  coin  issued.  The  aver- 
age coinage  of  silver  at  the  English  mint  dur- 
ing the  last  ten  years  has  been  £ 546, 580,  upon 
which  the  seignorage  would  be  about  £49,- 
200  per  annum.  On  the  other  hand,  the 


By  the   use  of   such    boards,  bags   of  equal  j  mint  has  to  buy  back  worn  silver  coinage  at 
numbers  of  any  coinage  are  readily  made  up   its  nominal   value,    and   in     recoining   such 


with  great  certainty. 

In  English  banks   it  is  requisite  to  count 


money  there  is  a  loss,  which,  on  the  average 
of   the   last  ten   years  (1864-73)   has   been 


cut  considerable  sums  in  gold  coin  with  rr-   £16,700,  leaving  a  net  annual  profit  o 


336 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


500,  DO  account  being  taken  of  the  cost  of 
the  mint  establishment.  At  present  the 
price  of  silver  is  not  above  four  shillings 
ten  pence  per  ounce,  so  that  the  seignorage 
is  about  twelve  per  cent.,  and  the  profit  on 
coining  silver  proportionately  greater. 

We  may  look  at  this  matter  in  another 
way,  by  regarding  the  seignorage  as  so  much 
money  funded  to  bear  interest,  to  meet  the 
cost  of  withdrawing  the  coin,  when  worn 
out,  say  thirty  years  subsequently.  Now  a 
pound  bearing  three  and  one-fourth  per  cent, 
compound  interest,  becomes  in  thirty  years 
2  61  pounds,  so  that  the  nine  per  cent,  of 
seignorage  will  have  multiplied  to  23 '5  per 
cent.  But  the  actual  deficiency  of  weight  of 
the  silver  coin  withdrawn  is,  on  the  average, 
only  sixteen  and  one-half  per  cent.,  so  that, 
without  taking  into  account  the  considerable 
number  of  coins  which  must  be  lost,  ex- 
ported, melted,  hoarded,  sunk  in  the  sea,  or 
otherwise  finally  withdrawn  from  circula- 
tion, there  is  a  profit  on  the  issue  of  the  silver 
coin  unaer  the  present  regulations. 

In  the  issue  of  bronze  money  there  has 
been,  as  before  staled,  a  profit  of  .£270,000, 
against  which  must  be  set  off  the  possible, 
but  uncertain  cost  of  recoining  a  light  token 
currency  at  some  future  time. 

The  cost  of  the  currency  is  made  up  of 
four  principal  items :  the  loss  of  interest 
upon  the  capital  invested  in  the  money,  the 
loss  by  the  abrasion  of  gold  coins,  the  ex- 
penses of  the  mint,  and  lastly  the  casual  loss 
of  coins.  The  last  item  is  of  wholly  un- 
known amount ;  the  other  items  may  be  esti- 
mated as  follows.  We  may,  roughly  speak- 
ing, assume  the  gold  currency  of  the  king- 


dom to  consist  of  84,000,000  of  sovereign* 
and  32,000,000  of  half-sovereigns,  the  total 
value  being  100,000,000  sterling.  The  sov- 
ereigns lose  annually  on  the  average  o  043 
grain  each,  giving  an  annual  loss  of  about 
£30,000  ;  the  half-sovereigns  lose  0*069 
grain  each,  producing  a  loss  of  £18,000. 
The  loss  of  interest,  however,  is  a  far  more 
serious  matter.  The  whole  value  of  the 
metals  employed  in  the  currency  is,  roughly 
speaking,  as  follows  :— 

Gold  coin  in  circulation   .     .     .  100,000,000 

Bullion  in  the  Bank  of  England  15,000.000 

Silver  coin 15,000,000 

Bronze  coin 1,125,000 


Total 


131,125,000 


The  interest  on  this  sum  at  three  and  a-half 
per  cent,  is  no  less  than  £4,262,000. 

The  cost  of  the  mint  establishment  is 
about  £42,000  annually.  The  following 
statement,  then,  shows  the  aggregate  cost 
of  the  metalllic  currency  so  far  as  it  can  be 
estimated: 

Loss  of  interest ^4,262,000 

Wear  of  coin 48,000 

Mint  establishment    ....  42,000 


£4.352,000 

From  this  amount  ought  to  be  subtracted  the 
profit  which  the  mint  makes  out  of  the 
seignorage  upon  silver  and  bronze  coins ; 
but  we  may  set  off  this  profit  against  the 
wholly  unknown  amount  which  the  public 
loses  by  the  accidental  dropping  of  coins. 


MONEY 


AND 


THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE. 

BY  W.  STANLEY  JEVONS,  M.A.,  F.R.S., 

PROFESSOR  or  LOGIC  AND  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  IN  THE  OWENS  COLLEGE,  MANCHESTER 


IN   TWO   PARTS— PART   TWO. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


INTERNATIONAL  MONEY. 


In  a  book  upon  money  written  in  the  pres* 


we  may  look  for  the  time  when  all  people 
will  seek  to  break  down,  as  far  as  possible, 
the  barriers  between  one  family  and  another 
of  the  human  race. 

I  will  first  of  all  state   the    advantages 
which  may  be  expected  to  accrue  from  an  in- 


ent  day,  reference  must  certainly  be  made  to    ternational  system  of  metallic  money,  and 
the  scheme  put  forward,  and  even  the  steps  |  will  then   describe  in  succession  the  corre- 
accomplished,   toward  a  world-wide    system    sponding  possible  disadvantages,  the  progress 
of  International  Money.     Much  time  will  no   which  has   already  been  made  toward   the 
doubt  pass  before  such  a  notion  is  realized,    simplification  of  monetary  systems,  the  prin- 
and  the  recent  retrograde  action  of  the  Ger-    cipal  schemes  set  forth,  and  their  compara- 
man  government  tends  to  retard  so  great  an    tive  merits  and  demerits, 
achievement  of  advancing  civilization      Yet  j     ADVANTAGES  OF  INTERNATIONL  MONEY. 
in  all  our  changes  and  discussions  of  mon-  ' 

etary  matters  we  ought  to  bear  in  mind  thf  Short-sighted  people  have  objected  to  all 
eventual  introduction  of  a  uniform  monetary  i  schemes  of  international  money,  that  the  ob- 
system.  We  may  surely  look  for  a  gradual  ject  in  view,  if  ever  realized,  would  only  save 
amelioration  in  the  relations  of  nations,  trouble  to  the  comparatively  few  people  who 
though  wars  cannot  yet  be  avoided.  We  travel  from  nation  to  nation.  This  is  the 
have  international  copyright,  extradition  of  least  of  all  the  benefits  which  the  uniformity 


criminals,  maritime  codes  of  signals,  postal 
conventions,  treaties  for  lessening  the  hor- 
rors of  war.  Nations  have  long  sirce  ceased 
to  be  isolated  bodies,  wishing  evil  to  all  their 
neighbors  ;  and  as  free  trade  becomes  every- 
where predominant,  and  communication  by 


of  money  would  confer.  I  am  disposed  to 
put  in  the  first  place  the  immense  good  which 
would  arise  from  facility  in  understanding  all 
statements  of  accounts,  prices,  and  statistics, 
when  expressed  in  terms  of  a  uniform  meas- 
ure of  value.  To  the  statistician  it  is  al- 


means    of    railway,    steamboat,    telegraph,    most  intolerable  to  meet  with  tables  of  inform* 
po«t,  and  newspaper,   continually  increases,    atioo,  variously  expressed  in  f-*n«t, 

47 


338 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


dollars,  thalers,  meters,  yards,  ells,  hundred-    DISADVANTAGES  OF  INTERNATIONAL  MONEY. 
weights,  kilograms.     The  labor  of  statistical 
inquiry  is  sufficiently  great  without  the  pre- 


liminary labor  of  reducing  great  masses  of 


There  are,  no  doubt,   certain  evils  which 


might  possibly  arise   from  the  circulation   of 


figures  "to  a  common  unit."  To  the  merchant,  |  money   between   nation   and   nation.      One 
or  man   of  business,  the  variety  of  moneys    government,  for  instance,  might  coin  money 


and  measures  is  equally  perplexing.  In 
many  places  the  value  of  the  currency  is  not 
certainly  known,  and  only  those  who  happen 
to  have  a  special  knowledge  of  a  locality,  and 
the  money  and  measures  there  employed,  can 


slightly  infeiior  to  the  proper  standard,  and 
such  money,  once  introduced,  would,  in  vir- 
tue of  Gresham's  law,  be  difficult  to  dislodge. 
The  French  mint  has  been  in  fault  in  this 
respect.  French«gold  coin,  when  carefully 


venture  to  trade  with   it.     The  difference  of  I  assayed,  is  found  to  have  a  fineness  of  898  or 


monetary  systems,  again,  renders  calculations 


parts  in    1000,   instead'    of    900    parts. 


relating  to  the  foreign  exchanges  very  com-  There  1S.  indeed,  a  mint  remedy  of  two 
plex,  so  that  profit  falls  to  those  who  have  ac-  Parts-  so  that  the  com  was  leSaI1y  lssued  !  7et 
quired  skill  in  calculations  of  the  kind.  j the  mint  authorities  have  taken  advantage  of 

In  the  second  place,  the  actual  adjustment  i thls  remedy  in  an  improper  way.  On  the 
of  the  foreign  exchanges  would  be  rendered  I  average,  tne  coins  issued  by  any  mint  ought 
more  prompt  and  perfect  when  the  coin  of  to  have  almost  tne  exact  standail  fineness, 


one  country  could  be  transferred  directly  in- 
to the  circulation  of  another  country.     One 


and  the  divergence  allowed  under  the  name 
of  remedy  is  only  intended  to  cover  accidental 


result  of  international  currency  would  be  j  faults  of  workmanship  in  particular  coins, 
that  the  precious  metals  would  be  held  more  I  and  not  in  intentional  average  divergence 
in  the  form  of  coin.  At  the  present  time,  j  from  the  standard. 

whs*  is  coined  by  one  country  has  often  to  be  lt  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  a  state  is- 
melted  up  and  recoined  by  another,  although  suin£  money  under  international  obligations 
to  some  extent  the  principal  kinds  of  coin,  would  wish  to  make  a  profit  of  one  or  two 


English  sovereigns,  American  eagles,  French 
napoleons,  Mexican  dollars,  are  held  by 
banks  and  bougnt  and  sold.  With  a  single 
system  of  coins,  all  stocks  of  gold  and  silver 
would,  as  a  general  rule,  be  kept  in  the  coined 
state,  ready  to  go  into  circulation  at  any 
moment.  Some  small  savings  would  accrue 
from  the  less  amount  of  mintage  required, 
though  this  is  a  very  secondary  matter.  One 
of  more  importance  is  the  lessened  oppor- 


parts  in  a  thousand  in  this  way.  To  secure 
uniformity,  it  would  be  desirable  for  the  as- 
sayers  and  officers  of  different  mints  to  meet 
and  agree  upon  a  common  standard  process, 
and  uniform  trial  plates.  I  xperience  does 
not  show  that  one  nation  need  distrust  the 
faithfulness  of  another  in  matters  of  coining. 
We  do  not  look  upon  Spain  and  Mexico  as 
models  of  financial  integrity,  yet  so  faithfully 
used  the  mints  of  those  countries  to  main- 

tunities  of  profit  which  there  would  be^for  tain  tne  standard  of  weight  and  fineness  in 
bullion  brokers  and  others,  who  trade  upon  j the  issue  of  silver  dollars,  that  these  coins 
the  difficulties  of  conducting  the  bullion  traf-  have  for  a  hundred  years  past  been  received 
fie  in  the  present  state  of  things.  Nor  is  the  by  tale  almost  without  question  in  most  parts 
saving  of  trouble  and  loss  to  travelers  a  mat-  of  the  world,  and  were  at  one  time  made 
ter  of  indifference.  As  international  com-  j  current  in  England.  The  possibility  of  in- 
munication  increases,  the  number  of  trav-  ternational  currency  is  proved  by  the  fact 
elers  will  increase,  and  we  ought  to  break  tnat.  without  any  international  treaties,  the 
down  as  far  as  possible,  all  factitious  diffi-  coins  of  several  nations  are  recognized  as  a 

legal  tender  elsewhere.  This  is  the  case  with 
English  sovereigns,  not  only  in  the  British 

colonies  and  possessions,  but  also  in  Portugal, 

ment  which  its  adoption  would  probably  ef-  Egypt,  Brazil,  and  probably  elsewhere.  The 
feet  in  the  currencies  of  minor  and  half  civil-  i  napoleon  has  circulated  freely  in  most  parts 
ized  states.  In  many  parts  of  the  world  °f  Europe.  The  ducat  of  Holland  has  also 
there  is  still  a  mixture  of  coins  of  various ! been  a  highly  esteemed  coin;  and  of  the 
and  uncertain  value  ;  and  as  long  as  the  j  wide  circulation  of  several  species  of  dollars 
principal  nations  coin  money  on  totally  dif-  I  have  frequently  spoken, 
ferent  systems,  the  coins  will  circulate  else- 
where and  make  confusion.  Already  for  a 
long  time  the  practically  international  currency 
of  the  Mexican  dollar  has  been  a  matter  of 


culties. 


One  benefit  of  informational  money  which 
has  been  insufficiently  noticed,  is  the  improve 


CONFLICT  OF  MONETARY   SYSTEMS. 

The  chief  difficulty  in  establishing  an  in- 
ternational money,  arises  from  the  fact  that 


great  convenience  ;  and  where  it  is  the  unit  there  are  seTcral  great  nations,  the  French, 
of  value,  merchants  know  on  what  basis  they  j  English,  Americans,  and  Germans,  each  with 
are  making  contracts.  Now,  if  all  the  lead-  :  its  own  system  of  money,  which,  from  mo- 
mg  nations  combined  to  issue  coins  of  one  tives  worthy  and  unworthy,  it  is  unwilling  to 

mform  series  of  weight  and  sizes,  these  ;  give  up.  There  is  no  overpowering  advant- 
would  by  degrees  form  the  currencies  of  non-  |  age  which  marks  out  any  one  of  these  sys- 

oimng  states,  and  would  effect  a  reform  in  terns  on  its  own  merits  as  distinctly  the  best. 
the  most  remote  parts  of  the  world.  (  There  is  accordingly  a  balance  of  power 

48 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.     339 


which  produces  a  dead  lock.  Each  of  the 
three  first-named  nations  has  much  to  say  in 
favor  of  its  own  system.  The  French  sys- 
tem, founded  on  the  franc,  is  an  eminently 
perfect  decimal  coinage,  and  has  the  prestige 
of  being  recognized  as  international  money  in 
Belgium,  Switzerland,  and  Italy,  besides 
being  adopted  with  international  currency  as 
regards  gold  in  Austria,  and  without  it  as 
regards  silver  in  Spain,  Greece,  and  some 


minor  states. 

The  English  may  very  properly  urge 


that, 


though  the  subdivision  of  the  pound  is  not 
to  be  recommended,  the  pound  sterling  is  it- 
self an  excellent  unit  of  value.  It  is  the 
largest  existing  monetary  unit,  and  on  a  gold 
basis,  so  that  it  seems  to  be  peculiarly  suit- 
able for  the  growing  wealth  of  nations. 
Thougn  recognized  only  in  a  small  corner  of 
Europe,  namely,  Portugal,  we  must  remem- 
ber that  Europe  is  rapidly  leasing-  to  be  the 
exclusive  centre  of  trade  and  civilization. 
In  the  Australian,  Polynesian,  and  African 
colonies  are  growing  states  which  will  make 
their  might  felt  ere  long,  and  they  adhere  to 
the  pound.  The  world-wide  extension  of 
British  commerce  and  British  shipping  makes 
the  sovereign  known  in  all  the  ports  of  the 
world. 

On  their  part,  however,  the  Americans 
might  have  much  to  say  in  favor  of  the  dollar. 
It  is  decimally  divided,  and,  as  we  shall  see, 
in  the  most  convenient  manner.  It  corre- 
sponds to  the  coins  which  have  for  two  or 
three  centuries  been  most  widely  circulated 
and  treated  as  units  of  account,  so  that  there 
is  much  weight  of  experience  in  its  favor. 
But,  above  all,  it  is  firmly  adopted  as  the 
money  of  a  nation,  which,  as  far  as  human 
wisdom  can  penetrate  the  future,  is  destined 
to  be  the  most  numerous,  rich,  and  powerful 
in  the  world.  That  nation,  which  has  arisen 
from  the  best  stock  of  England,  has  absorbed 
much  of  the  best  blood  of  other  European 
nations,  and  has  inherited  the  richest  conti- 
nent in  the  world,  must  have  an  importance 


in  coining  times  of  which  even  Americans 
are  barely  conscious. 

INTERNATIONAL   MONETARY  NEGOTIATIONS. 


also  be  consulted, 

mistes  is  full  of  information  on  the  subject. 

The  International  Association  for  obtain- 
ing a  Uniform  Decimal  System  of  Measures, 
Weights,  and  Coins,  was  founded  in  Paris  in 
1855,  and  the  English  branch  carried  on  act- 
ive operations.  In  1858  the  United  States 
made  proposals  towards  the  assimilation  of 
currencies.  In  1860  and  1863  important  in- 
ternational congresses  were  held  at  London 
and  Berlin,  and,  at  the  latter  one  especially, 
important  resolutions  were  adopted  which  we 
shall  have  to  consider.  It  was,  however,  the 
close  contiguity  of  the  countries,  Belgium, 
France,  Switzerland,  and  Italy,  and  the  fact 
that  French  gold,  and  even  silver  coin,  could 
not  be  prevented  from  passing  the  frontiers, 
which  forced  the  question  forward,  and  led, 
in  December,  1865,  to  an  actual  Convention 
for  International  Currency. 

The  report  of  the  Congress  of  1863  con- 
cerning currency  is  a  highly  important  docu- 
ment. It  points  out  the  superior  convenience 
of  a  gold  standard,  with  a  subsidiary  coinage 
of  silver  and  bronze ;  advocates  uniform 
fineness  of  nine  parts  in  ten  for  all  standard 
coins ;  suggests  a  definition  of  weight  of 
coins,  on  the  metric  system  ;  and,  finally, 
propounds  a  scheme  by  which  the  existing 
monetary  units  could  be  brought  into  simple 
relations  with  each  other. 

In  1870,  a  short  time  previous  to  the  de- 
claration of  war  with  Germany,  France  sum- 
moned a  fresh  Imperial  Commission,  presided 
over  by  the  Minister  of  Commerce  and  the 
Minister  President  cf  the  Council  of  State 
(M.  de  Parieu),  to  take  evidence  from  all 
sides  on  the  various  questions  connected 
with  the  standard  and  its  bearing  upon  inter- 
national coinage.  No  less  than  thirty-seven 
witnesses  were  examined,  and  the  results  of 
the  inquiry,  printed  by  the  French  govern- 
ment in  two  very  large  volumes  in  1872, 
show  that  the  majority  of  the  witnesses  and 
of  the  Commissioners  were  decidedly  in  favor 
of  a  single  gold  standard. 


Owing  to  a  purely  accidental  coincidence, 
the  principal  monetary  units  already  closely 
approximate     to   simple     multiples   of     the 
franc.       The  following  table  shows  the  pres- 
It  is  quite  impossible  that  I  should  in  this  !  ent  relative   values  of  these   units  and  the 


brief  work  give  any  sufficient  sketch  of  the 
long  series  of  discussions,  meetings,  con- 
gresses, associations,  negotiations,  and  con- 
ventions which  resulted  in  the  actual  estab- 
lishment of  an  international  money  among 
the  nations  of  western  continental  Europe. 
I  must  refer  the  reader,  desirous  of  more  in- 
formation, to  the  excellent  pamphlet  of  the 
eminent  actuary,  Mr.  Frederick  Hendriks, 
which  first  made  the  subject  well  known  in 
England.  ItiscalK-d  "  Decimal  Coi  age;  a 
Plan  for  its  immpdhte  Extension  in  England 
in  connection  with  the  International  Coinage 
of  France  and  otht  r  Countries.'  and  was  pri- 
vately printed  in  :86fi.  Mr.  Sevd's  "  Treatise 
on  Bullion  and  the  Foreign  Exchanges"  may 


multiples  to  which  it   is  proposed   to  make 
them  exactly  conform : 

Present  value    Proposed 
in  francs     value  in  frs. 

Franc I  I 

Florin  (Austrian,  silver)     2  "47  a^ 

Dollar  (American,  gold)    5-18  5 

Pound  sterling      .     .     •  25'22  25 

It  is  only  requisite  to  raise  the  florin  i'2i 
per  cent.,  and  to  lower  the  dollar  and  pound 
sterling  respectively  3 '5  and  o'8S  percent.,  to 
establish  very  simple  ratios  between  them. 
Thus,  without  any  appreciable  change  of 
monetary  systems,  it  would  be  possible  to  re- 
duce statements  from  one  mode  of  expression 


340 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


into  another  j  moreover,  the  coins  might 
themselves  have  international  currency,  the 
^jound  sterling  serving  as  a  twenty-five  franc 
piece  in  France,  and  as  a  five-dollar  piece  in 
America,  the  American  gold  dol'ar  recipro- 
cally circulating  as  an  ecu  in  France,  and  a 
four-shilling  piece  in  England. 

The  congress  abstained  from  recommend- 
ing any  one  unit  for  universal  adoption,  but 
urged  that  every  nation,  not  possessing  one 
of  the  four  units  named,  should  select  that 
which  should  please  them  best.  Had  this 
scheme  been  accepted  by  all  nations  in  an 
intelligent  and  liberal  spirit,  we  should  ere 
now  have  probably  seen  our  w^y  clearly  to 
the  selection  of  the  best  unit.  Since  1865, 
unfortunately,  both  the  German  empire  and 
the  Scandinavian  kingdoms  have  made  alter- 
ations not  in  accordance  with  these  princi 
pies.  A  great  assimilation  of  moneys  has 
taken  place,  but  it  is  in  the  direction  of 
groups  of  national,  rather  than  of  interna- 
tional currencies,  although  as  has  been  dem- 
onstrated by  Mr.  Hendriksin  several  articles 
in  the  Economist,  the  new  coins  have  many 
fresh  and  important  points  of  contact  and  of 
agreement  with  the  metrical  and  decimal 
systems,  so  that  some  real  progress  has  ac- 
tually been  accomplished. 

DECIMALIZATION   OF   ENGLISH   MONEY. 

Since  Lord  Wrottesleyin  1824  proposed  in 
parliament  to  adopt  a  decimal  subdivision  of 
Jhe  pound  sterling,  an  immense  amount  of 
discussion  has  taken  place  upon  various 
schemes  for  a  new  arrangement  of  our 
money.  The  advantages  of  several  plans 
are  so  nearly  balanced,  and  the  difficulty  of 
carrying  any  one  into  effect  is  so  great,  that 
no  practical  result  has  yet  been  achieved  by 
half  a  century  of  debate.  The  two  princi- 
pal schemes,  which  perhaps  need  alone  be 
noticed  now,  are  the  Pound  and  Mil  scheme, 
and  the  Penny  and  Ten-franc  scheme. 

The  former  of  these  schemes  reposes  upon 
the  fact  that  the  farthing  is  nearly  the  thou- 
sandth part  of  the  pound.  Since  960  farth- 
ings make  a  pound,  it  would  only  be  neces- 
sary to  alter  the  farthing  four  per  cent,  to 
obtain  the  lowest  decimal  multiple,  to  be 
called  the  mil.  The  penny  would  be  five 
mils,  like  the  French  halfpenny  or  five  cen- 
times ;  as  some  have  supposed,  a  new  coin, 
in  value  2' 4  pence,  would  have  to  be  intro- 
duced as  the  hundredth  part  of  the  pound; 
but  this  is  unnecessary,  and  the  florin  would 
be  one  hundred  mils,  and  the  half-sovereign 
five  hundred  mils.  The  great  advantage  of 
this  method  is,  that  it  retains  the  pound  as 
the  principal  unit,  together  with  several 
other  familiar  coins.  Against  it  has  been 
urged  (i)  the  supposed  fact  that  it  excludes 
the  most  familiar  of  all  coins,  the  shilling 
and  sixpence,  and  (2)  that  the  mil  is  some- 
what too  small  a  submultiple  to  begin  with. 
Th'.s  is,  however,  not  necessarily  the  case. 
"1  he  shilling  might  remain,  as  coin  of  circu- 


lation, of  the  same  weight,  finenew,  and 
value  as  at  present,  but  would  be  translated, 
as  coin  of  account,  into  fifty  mils  instead  of 
forty-eight  farthings,  and  the  sixpence  into 
twenty-five  mils  instead  of  twenty-four  far- 
things. This  subdivision  is  not  more  com- 
plex than  the  one  successfully,  and  in  the 
almost  parallel  forms  of  fifty  and  twenty 
pfennige,  centimes,  lire,  ore,  etc.,  pieces,  car- 
ried out  in  the  new  coinages  of  Germany, 
Scandinavia,  or  of  the  monetary  allies  of 
France.  As  to  the  mil  being  too  small  for  a 
submultiple,  it  seems  to  be  overlooked  that  it 
is  two  and  one  half  times  as  large  as  the 
initial  submultiple  of  the  French  system,  and 
two  and  one-twenty-fifth  times  as  large  as 
that  of  the  new  German  system. 

The  second  scheme  was  suggested  by  the 
late  Professor  Graham,  and  by  Mr.  Rivers 
Wilson,  in  their  Report  upon  the  Proceed- 
ings of  the  International  Monetary  Confer- 
ence of  1867.  It  is  founded  upon  the  fact 
that  the  ten-franc  piece  is  within  three-fourths 
of  a  penny  of  eight  shillings,  and  only  differs 
four  per  cent,  from  one  hundred  p_nce.  Thus 
it  would  only  be  requisite  to  introduce  a  gold 
piece  of  ten  francs,  temporarily  serving  as  a 
token  for  eight  shillings,  to  obtain  a  link  with 
the  French  system.  The  subsequent  reduc- 
tion of  the  penny  by  four  per  cent.,  and  the 
replacement  of  the  shilling  by  a  franc  or  ten- 
penny  piece,  would  give  us  a  truly  decimal 
system.  A  great  advantage  of  this  proposal 
is,  that  it  retains,  almost  unaltered,  so  famil- 
iar a  coin  as  the  penny,  and  makes  it,  as  it  is 
for  the  most  part  at  present,  the  lowest  money 
of  account.  It  is,  moreover,  in  close  accord- 
ance with  the  French  monetary  system.  The 
main  difficulty  is  that  it  involves  the  aban- 
donment of  the  pound,  which  becomes  two 
and  a-half  of  the  new  unit;  and  that,  of  all 
our  present  coins,  only  the  florin,  penny,  and 
halfpenny,  would  fall  in  conveniently.  To 
convert  sums  of  money  from  pounds  sterling 
into  the  new  currency,  it  would  be  requisite 
to  multiply  by  the  factor  two  and  a  half, 
which  would  be  regarded  by  most  people  as 
a  very  troublesome  process. 

When  the  decimalization  of  English  money 
was  first  proposed,  the  notion  of  international 
money  had  never  been  seriously  entertained, 
and  hardly  indeed  conceived.  So  much  pro- 
gress has  now  been  made,  that  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  consider  the  one  reform  without  refer- 
ence to  the  other.  The  difficulty  of  making 
any  change  whatever  is  so  great,  that  it  would 
not  be  worth  while  to  achieve  a  partial  re- 
form. 

THE   FUTURE   AMERICAN   DOLLAR. 

The  most  easy  and  important  step  which 
can  now  be  taken  toward  an  international 
money,  consists  in  the  assimilation  of  the 
American  dollar  to  the  five-franc  piece.  A 
great  opportunity  arises  from  the  fact  that 
the  currency  of  the  United  States  is  now  a 
variable  paper  currency.  Considering  the 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      341 


enormous  fluctuations  of  value  which  hare 
been  experienced  in  the  last  ten  years,  it 
would  be  altogether  needless  scrupulosity  to 
bring  it  back  to  the  old  standard,  to  the  last 
degree  of  exactness,  t  very  change  of  valu6 
of  the  currency,  whether  it  be  a  fall  or  a  rise, 
s  so  far  injurious.  Now  the  American  dollar 
consists  of  25  8  grains  of  gold,  valued  in 
English  money  at  4Q'3i6  pence.  When  gold 
is  at  one  hundred  and  eleven  the  paper  do.lar 
will  be  at  a  discount  of  ten  per  cent.,  and  will 
therefore  be  worth  4.1/384  pence,  whereas  the 
French  dollar,  or  five-franc  ^old  piece,  weighs 
24'8g  grains,  and  is  worth  47*58  pence.  It 
would  be  obviously  desirable,  therefore,  to 
make  the  new  metallic  dollar  exactly  of  the 
same  weight  as  the  French  one,  and  to  com- 
mence specie  payments  when  the  greenback 
currency  shall  have  risen  to  par  with  this  coin. 
As  regards  all  contracts  made  in  paper,  all 
current  prices  and  charges,  this  change  would 
involve  no  breach  of  faith  whatever;  it  would 
in  fact  imply  less  change  and  breach  of  con- 
cracts  than  if  the  paper  currency  were  reduced 
sufficiently  to  come  to  par  with  the  old 
dollar. 

The  reduction  of  weight  of  the  dollar 
would  indeed  lead  to  a  repudiation  of  all  gold 
contracts,  including  all  bonds  of  the  United 
States,  railway  companies,  and  other  bodies 
payable  in  coin,  unless  provision  were  made 
to  alter  the  terms  of  such  contracts.  This 
difficulty,  however,  could  be  overcome  by 
simply  enacting  that  each  103^  of  the  new 
dollars  shall  be  received  and  paid  as  equiv- 
alent to  100  of  the  old  ones. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  the  adhesion  of 
the  American  Government  to  the  proposals 
of  the  Congress  of  1863, would  give  the  hold- 
ing turn  to  the  metric  system  of  weights, 
measures,  and  moneys.  It  is  quite  likely  that 
it  might  render  the  dollar  the  future  univer- 
sal unit.  The  fact  that  the  dollar  is  already 
the  monetary  unit  of  many  parts  of  the  world, 
gives  it  large  odds.  In  becoming  assin- 
ilated  to  the  French  ecu,  American  gold 
would  be  capable  of  c'rculation  in  Europe, 
or  wherever  the  French  napoleon  has  hither- 
to been  accepted.  It  may  seem  unpatriotic 
in  an  Englishman  to  advocate  a  change 
which  may  lead  to  the  defeat  of  the  pound 
sterling:,  but  I  look  upon  any  one  scheme  of 
unification  as  better  than  none.  Whatever 
may  be  the  ultimate  results,  I  desire  to  see 
assimilation  between  the  French  and  Amer- 
ican systems  adopted  as  soon  as  possible. 
For  reasons  subsequently  stated,  I  consider 
the  dollar  so  good  a  unit  that  it  would  be 
mere  national  prejudice  to  oppose  it,  were 
there  a  fair  chance  of  its  general  adoption. 
Even  if  it  were  not  generally  adopted,  it 
would  be  a  great  step  in  advance  if  Great 
Britain,  America,  and  France,  were  to  agree 
to  coin  gold  money  identical  in  weight  and 
fineness,  which  might  circulate  indifferently 
as  sovereigns,  five-dollar  pieces,  and  twenty- 
five  franc  pieces. 


GERMAN   MONETARY   REFORM. 

The  new  monetary  system  of  the  German 
Empire,  is  introducing  a  good  money  where 
all  was  before  confusion.  In  a  few  years  it 
will  hardly  be  comprehensible  to  Germans 
that  they  had  so  long  endured  a  state  of  the 
currency  in  which  two,  or  even  three  or  four, 
inconsistent  series  of  coins  were  minglefc 
without  any  method.  In  many  respects,  tht 
new  system  is  all  that  could  be  desired.  I* 
place  of  the  antiquated  silver  standard,  gold 
is  selected  as  the  measure  of  value,  the  sola 
principal  money,  and  unlimited  legal  tender. 
The  unit  of  account  is  the  mark,  consisting 
of  6'I4&5  grains  of  gold  of  the  fineness  ol 
9  parts  in  10.  Its  value  is,  therefore,  about 
n^d.  The  principal  coin  will  be  the 
twenty-mark  piece,  weighing  I22'q2  grains, 
or  7  964954  g/ams,  and  containing  7 '168459 
grams  of  pure  gold.  There  is  also  a  ten. 
mark  piece  of  exactly  half  the  weight. 

The  subordinate  coins  of  silver  and  nickel* 
copper,  are  issued  on  the  footing  of  the  com- 
posite tender,  or  English  system,  being 
tokens.  The  seignorage  to  be  levied  on  the 
German  silver  coins,  will  be  ii'ui  percent., 
exceeding  the  amounts  subtracted  from  the 
English  and  French  silver  money,  which 
are  about  9  and  7'784  per  cent,  respectivelr 

It  cannot  be  too  much  regretted  by  all  friends 
of  progress,  that,  in  deciding  upon  the  weigh*: 
of  the  new  mark  piece,  the  German  Goven>- 
ment  should  have  studiously  avoided  assim- 
ilation to  the  French  system.  The  sovereign 
contains  7  3224  grams  of  pure  gold,  the 
twenty-five-franc  piece  when  coined,  will 
contain  7'2?8i,  and  the  twenty-mark  piece 
has  been  made  to  contain  7'i68s.  The  only 
ground  on  which  this  precise  weight  could 
have  been  justified,  is  that  three  marks  are 
approximately  equal  to  one  thaler.  But  so 
various  was  the  coinage  of  the  German 
States,  that  the  field  was  open  to  the  adop- 
tion of  any  system;  and  it  is  impossible  to 
suppose  that  in  so  great  a  reform  a  difference 
of  i^per  cent,  would  have  been  an  insuper- 
able obstacle  to  the  adoption  of  international 
coinage. 

SYSTEMS   OF  FRACTIONAL  MONEY. 

A  unit  of  value  having  been  chosen,  there 
are  three  competing  methods  according  to 
which  it  might  be  subdivided,  the  binary^ 
duodecimal,  and  decimal.  The  first  system  is 
carried  out  most  perfectly  in  our  avoirdupois 
weights,  in  which  sixteen  ounces  make  a 
pound  ;  but  it  is  also  freely  employed  in  our 
monetary  system,  th^  sovereign  being  divided 
into  half-sovereigns,  crowns,  and  half -crowns, 
the  shilling  into  sixpences  aid  three-penny 
pieces  ;  and  the  penny  into  halfpence  and 
farthings.  At  the  same  time,  the  duodeci- 
mal method  is  represented  in  our  money  by 
the  division  of  the  shilling  into  twelve  pence, 
of  which  the  third  part  is  still  in  circulation 
as  the  groat,  or  fourpenny  piece  now  being 
withdrawn. 


51 


342 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


Each  system  of  subdivision  has  its  own 
advantages,  and  there  must  always  exist  a 
kind  of  natural  competition  between  them. 
They  have  thus  competed  from  the  earliest 
times.  In  ancient  Italy  the  duodecimal  sys- 
tem predominated  to  the  south  of  the  Apen- 
nines, while  the  decimal  division  was  in  use 
to  the  northward.  In  Sicily  the  two  methods 
were  confused  together.  China  has  had  a 
purely  decimal  system  from  an  unknown 
epoch  in  antiquity.  In  England  duodecimal 
and  binary  divisions  have  existed  from  very 
early  times.  It  will  be  readily  allowed  that 
the  binary  system  is  most  simple  and  natural, 
involving  as  it  does  the  least  possible  factor 
above  unity.  The  duodecimal  system  also 
has  marked  advantages,  because  it  allows  of 
division  into  several  aliquot  parts,  involving 
the  factor  2  twice  over,  and  the  next  higher 
factor  3  once.  Thus  the  shilling  is  divisible 
exactly  into  two  sixpences,  three  fourpences, 
four  threepences,  and  six  twopences. 

The  decimal  system  is  far  less  simple,  and 
in  some  ways  less  convenient.  Ten  admits 
of  only  two  factors  superior  to  unity,  namely, 
2  and  5,  and  5  is  a  more  complex  prime  fac- 
tor than  appears  in  either  of  the  previous 
methods.  But  the  system  has  the  supreme 
advantage  of  exactly  falling  in  with  our  deci- 
mal system  of  numeration  and  calculation. 
Although  probably  not  the  best  method 
which  might  have  been  selected,  had  selection 
been  open  to  us,  decimal  numeration  is  firm- 
ly fixed  among  the  institutions  of  the  human 
race,  as  an  hereditary  habit,  derived  from  the 
early  practice  of  counting  on  the  fingers. 
We  have  no  choice  but  to  accept  the  inevita- 
ble, and  as  all  our  arithmetical  processes  are 
conducted  on  the  decimal  method  there  is  an 
overwhelming  advantage,  as  education  and 
the  use  of  writing  advance,  in  making  all  our 
weights,  measures,  and  coins  comformable  to 
the  same  system. 

A  perfectly  and  purely  decimal  system,  in- 
deed, would  admit  only  the  decimal  multiples 
and  submultiples,  thus: — 1000,  100,  10,  i, 
o'i,  o'oi,  o'ooi.  But  it  is  so  troublesome 
to  have  to  count  out  as  marty  as  ten  coins, 
before  coming  to  the  next  higher  unit,  that 
the  rigor  of  the  decimal  divisions  has  always 
been  relaxed.  In  the  French  system,  the 
half  and  the  double  of  each  multiple  are  al- 
lowed to  be  represented  by  intermediate 
coins,  the  series  being  I,  2,  5,  10,  20,  50, 
100,  200.  500,  etc.  The  American  coinage 
is  less  simple  and  symmetrical,  since  it  ad- 
mits the  half  and  quarter  eagle,  half  and 
quarter  dollar,  the  ten  and  five  cent  pieces, 
and  also  a  three-cent  piece.  I  am  inclined 
to  prefer  the  French  method,  and  to  think 
that  the  American  mint  has  issued  too  many 
denominations  of  coins. 

FINAL   SELECTION   OF   THE  UNIT   OF  INTER- 
NATIONAL  MONEY. 

I  will  conclude  this  chapter  by  some  re- 
marks on  the  reasons  which  should  guide  us 


in  selecting  the  monetary  unit  to  be  finally 
established  as  the  basis  of  a  future  universal 
money. 

I  attribute  very  little  weight  to  arguments 
concerning  the  absolute  amount  of  the  rival 
units.  It  is  said  that  as  the  wealth  of  nations 
increases,  and  the  value  of  gold  at  the  same 
time  sinks,  we  need  a  large  unit.  The  pound 
is  recommended  on  this  ground  as  clearly 
superior  to  the  franc.  If  we  count  in  francs 
our  figures  will  be  twenty-five  times  as  large 
as  in  pounds  sterling.  It  seems  to  be  for- 
gotten that  the  same  unit  can  never  suit  the 
extremely  different  sums  which  we  have  to 
express,  so  that  we  must  use  multiples  or 
submultiples  of  the  actual  unit.  Just  ai  we 
use  inches,  feet,  yards,  furlongs,  miles,  or 
diameters  of  the  earth's  orbit,  according  to 
the  magnitudes  to  be  measured,  so  we  vary 
the  unit  with  money.  If  we  are  discussing 
a  workman's  weekly  wages,  we  count  in  shil- 
lings ;  if  we  speak  of  a  clerk's  yearly  salary, 
we  speak  of  pounds  ;  if  the  fortune  of  a  mer- 
chant or  banker  is  in  question,  we  take  notice 
only  of  thousands  of  pounds  ;  in  matters  re- 
lating to  the  revenue  of  the  kingdom  or  the 
national  debt,  we  give  our  exclusive  attention 
to  millions  of  pounds.  The  Portuguese  unit 
of  account,  called  the  rei,  is  worth  only  about 
the  nineteenth  part  of  an  English  penny,  and 
is  probably  the  smallest  unit  in  the  world. 
Practically,  however,  the  milreis,  or  thousand 
reis,  worth  53  1-3^.,  becomes  the  unit.  In 
the  same  way  Indian  merchants  speak  of  lacs 
and  crores  of  rupees.  The  French  estimate 
their  national  debt  in  milliards  of  francs. 
No  doubt  it  is  puzzling  to  Englishmen  to  in- 
terpret exactly  the  meaning  of  a  milliard  of 
francs,  but,  tC  these  accustomed  to  count  in 
francs  it  is  no  more  difficult  than  a  million  of 
pounds.  Exactly  the  same  considerations 
apply  to  units  of  weight;  thus,  though  the 
French  use  so  small  an  ultimate  unit  as  one 
gram,  or  I5'43  grains,  yet  according  to  the 
magnitudes  of  the  objects  to  be  weighed, 
they  use  smaller  or  larger  units,  centigrams 
or  milligrams  on  the  one  side,  or  decagrams 
and  kilograms  on  the  other.  The  absolute 
amount  then  of  the  ultimate  unit  seems  to  me 
to  be  entirely  a  matter  of  indifference  in  this 
point  of  view. 

As  regards  the  subdivision  of  the  unit 
there  are  considerations  of  more  importance. 
The  subdivision  ought  of  course  to  be  deci- 
mal, and  it  ought  to  be  so  contrived  that  the 
lowest  submultiple  shall  correspond  to  the 
smallest  sum  which  is  thought  worthy  of  be- 
ing recorded  in  mercantile  transactions. 
Now  the  franc  is  divided  into  100  centimes, 
so  that  the  centime  has  a  value  of  less  than 
the  tenth  of  a  penny.  Though  bronze  pieces 
of  one  and  two  centimes  were  coined  to  the 
amount  of  about  five  per  cent,  of  the  whole 
bronze  currercy,  it  is  found  that  they  hardly 
circulate.  Even  if  they  were  used  in  the 
smallest  retail  transactions  at  bakers'  shops, 
they  would  not  be  entered  in  account  books. 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGED    343 


Thus  the  lowest  entry  which  a  French  ac- 
countant makes  is  five  centimes,  and  the 
next  lowest  ten  centimes,  corresponding  to 
our  penny.  A  needle-s  complexity  i~  thus 
introduced  into  small  accounts.  It  is  indeed 
so  inconvenient  to  have  to  call  the  smallest 
coin  in  general  use  cinq  centimes  that  it  is 
still  common  to  speak  of  it  as  a  sott,  in  spite 
of  the  ninety  years  during  which  the  decimal 
sysfem  has  existed  in  France.  The  Portu- 
guese rei  is  so  small  a  unit  that  it  is  not  rep- 
resented by  any  coin  at  all.  It  nevertheless 
has  a  place  in  Portuguese  mercantile  ac- 
counts, and  thus  needlessly  adds  a  figure  to 
all  pecuniary  statements. 

In  England  the  smallest  coin  in  actual  use 
is  the  farthing,  but  in  accounts  little  notice 
is  taken  of  farthings  or  halfpennies,  so  that 
the  penny  is  the  lowest  money  of  account. 
The  post-office,  in  the  regulations  of  the  sav- 
in s  bank  business,  refuses  to  recognize  any 
coin  less  than  the  penr.y.  But  trie  penny  is 
inconveniently  related  to  the  pound,  the 
hundredth  part  of  which  is  2 '4^.,  and  the 
thousandth  part  about  a  farthing.  Thus  the 
decimal  system  applied  to  our  pound  would 
oblige  us  to  record  as  the  lowest  money  of 
account  an  inconveniently  small  coin,  namely, 
the  mil.  In  this  respect,  indeed,  the  pound 
and  mill  scheme  is  superior  to  the  franc  and 
centime  system.  Thus  12s.  6J.  maybe  ex- 
pressed as  625  mils  ;  but  in  French  money 
(at  twenty  five  francs  to  the  pound)  it  would 
become  I5'625.  Taking  the  ten  franc  piece 
as  the  principal  unit,  it  would  become  I '56 
units,  or  156  metrical  pennies.  In  ma  ly 
cases  it  would  require  less  figures  to  express 
a  sum  in  pennies  thin  in  mils  or  centimes. 

The  American  system  is  unexceptionable 
in  this  respect.  The  dollar  is  divided  into  one 
hundred  cents,  each  of  which  has  the  value 
of  about  one  halfpenny.  Although  half  cents 
have  been  coined,  and  may  be  u.-^ed  in  some 
trifling  purchases,  they  need  never  be  entered 
in  ordinary  accounts.  The  cent  thus  seems 
to  me  to  correspond  to  the  smallest  sum 
which  need  be  treated  in  accounts,  so  that 
money  statements  are  reduced  to  the  greatest 
possible  simplicity.  The  question  my  well 
be  asked  whether  the  lowest  coin  actually  re- 
corded is  not  truly  the  unit,  of  which. all 
other  coins  are  multiples.  Perhaps  the  best 
answer  would  be  to  say  that  the  unit  is  indif- 
ferently the  cent,  or  the  dollar,  or  the  eagle. 
In  English  money  it  matters  not  whether 
we  regard  the  pound,  or  its  twentieth  part, 
or  its  two  hundred  and  fortieth  part,  as  the 
unit.  The  absolute  amount  of  the  unit,  I 
repeat,  is  totally  a  matter  of  indifference,  and 
the  only  point  we  Irave  to  cons' der  is  whether 
it,  or  any  decimal  part  of  it,  corresponds 
to  the  smallest  sum  of  which  we  need  take 
account.  In  this  respect  the  dollar  is  the 
best  existing  unit;  but  it  might  admit  of  dis- 
cussion whether  the  double  dollar,  or  ten- 
franc  piece  <>f  gold,  equal  to  eight  shillings, 
or  one  hundred  pence,  would  not  be  better. 


If  the  wealth  of  nations  continues  to  grow, 
and  the  value  of  pold  to  fall,  even  the  cent 
w.'.l  bj'.oo  small  a  coin  to  appear  convenient- 
ly in  accounts,  and  the  penny  will  be  a  bet- 
ter lowest  unit.  In  this  case  the  hundred 
pennies,  or  the  ten-franc  piece,  would  be- 
come the  best  unit.  The  choice  thus  seems 
to  me  to  lie  between  the  five-franc  and  the 
ten-franc  piece  in  gold  as  the  ultimate  unit  of 
international  money.  In  favor  of  the  ten- 
franc  piece  it  may  be  added,  that  it  would 
make  a  convenLnt  gold  coin  of  the  smallest 
size  which  it  would  be  well  to  issue.  The 
gold  dollar  and  five-franc  piece  are  too 
small,  and  suffer  great  abrasion. 


CHAPTER   XV. 

THE  MECHANISM   OF   EXCHANGE. 

Having  now  sufficiently  discussed  the  sub- 
ject of  metallic  money,  we  pass  on  to  con- 
sider the  devices  which  naturally  develop 
themselves  in  a  highly  organized  commercial 
nation,  for  the  purpose  of  economizing  the 
precious  metals,  or  even  avoiding  the  use  of 
coins  altogether.  No  sooner  have  a  people 
fully  experienced  the  usefulness  of  a  good 
system  of  money,  th.m  they  begin  to  discover 
tnat  they  can  dispense  with  it  as  a  medium 
of  exchange,  and  return  to  a  method  of  traffic 
closely  resembling  barter.  With  barter  they 
begin  and  with  barter  they  end;  but  the  sec- 
ond form  of  barter,  as  we  shall  see,  is  very 
different  from  the  fi  st.  Purchases  and  sales 
continue  to  be  made  in  terms  of  gold  and  sil- 
ver coin,  but  equivalent  quantities  of  goods 
thus  estimated  are  made  to  pay  for  each 
other.  If  ownership  in  gold  or  silver  inter- 
venes at  all,  it  is  in  the  shape  of  -warrants  or 
representative  documents,  with  which  gold  can 
be  procured,  if  desired,  but  which  are  seldom 
used  to  procure  it. 

At  the  outset  we  found  that  money  per- 
formed at  least  two,  and  probably  four  dis- 
tinct functions  (Chapter  III.);  and,  in  a  sim- 
ple state  of  industry,  it  is  convenient  that  the 
same  metallic  substance  should  fulfill  all 
these  functions  concurrently.  But  it  does 
not  follow  that  this  union  of  functions  is  the 
best  possible  arrangement  under  all  condi- 
tions. We  shall  find  that  gold  or  silver  al- 
ways continues  to  be  the  comnun  denomi- 
nator of  value,  but  that  these  metals  cease  to 
a  great  extent  to  be  the  actual  medium  of 
exchange  which  is  passed  about  between 
buyer  and  seller.  In  a  later  part  of  the  book 
(Chapter  XXV.)  I  shall  further  show  that 
money  may  with  great  advantage  be  replaced 
in  its  function  as  a  standard  of  value  for  long 
periods  of  time  by  a  Tabular  Standard. 

PROGRESSIVE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THK 
METHODS  OF  EXCHANGE. 

Beginning  with  the  primitive  method  of 
barter,  a  series  of  steps  have  been  nude  to- 


344 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


wwd  a  perfect  and  world-wide  system  of  "In- 
terchange of  commodities,  with  the  least 
possible  use  of  the  precious  metals.  We 
may  classify  the  devices  employed  for  avoid 
ing  the  use  of  metallic  money  under  five  dif- 
ferent heads,  as  follows: 

1.  Replacement  of    standard    money  by 
representative  money. 

2.  Intervention  of  book  credit. 

3.  The  check  and  clearing  system. 

4.  Use  of  foreign  bills  of  exchange. 

5.  International  clearing  system. 

REPRESENTATIVE  MON1Y. 

Metallic  money,  as  we  have  seen,  im- 
mensely facilitates  and,  so  to  speak,  lubri- 
cates the  operation  of  exchange.  But  nations 
employing  gold  and  silver  money  have  usu- 
ally discovered,  in  the  course  of  time,  that 
tokens  of  small  metallic  value,  or  even  pieces 
of  leather  and  paper  of  nominal  value,  might 
be  passed  from  hand  to  hand  as  signs  of  the 
ownership  of  coins.  That  which  replaces 
gold,  or  silver,  or  copper  money,  is  at  first  of 
a  purely  representative  character.  But,  when 
a  community  has  become  thoroughly  habitu- 
ated to  the  circulation  of  a  currency  of  this 
character,  it  is  often  found  possible  to  remove 
the  basis  of  valuable  metal  which  it  is  sup- 
posed to  represent,  and  yet  to  maintain  the 
valueless  bits  of  leather  or  p  iper  in  circulation 
as  before.  Thus  arises  the  abnormal  phe- 
nomenon known  as  an  inconvertible,  paper 
money.  Such  a  currency  is,  however,  never 
accepted  beyond  the  frontiers  of  the  state 
recognizing  it. 

Merchants  conducting  large  international 
transactions  soon  found  out  that  great  loss  of 
interest  and  risk  of  loss  of  the  whole  mon«y 
would  arise,  if  they  were  to  trade  with  actual 
specie.  Hence  they  introduced  the  use,  many 
centuries  since,  of  bills  of  exchange,  which  are 
signs  or  certificates  of  debt,  passed  from  hand 
to  hand  almost  like  representative  money,  and 
often  accomplishing  many  acts  of  exchange 
by  a  single  transfer  of  specie. 

CHECK  AND  CLEARING  SYSTEM. 

There  is  yet  a  more  potent  way  of  avoiding 
the  actual  use  of  a  medium  of  exchange, 
without  encountering  any  of  the  inconven- 
iences of  barter.  Those  who  frequently 
traded  with  each  other,  both  buying  and  sell- 
ing, found  that  it  was  absurd  to  pay  a  sura  of 
money  for  what  was  bought,  and  then  receive 
it  back  for  what  was  sold.  It  was  sufficient 
to  estimate  in  terms  of  money  the  values  of 
the  articles  exchanged,  and  then  pay  the 
difference,  if  any,  in  actual  cash.  The  prac- 
tice having  grown  up  of  depositing  the  metal- 
lic money  not  immediately  wanted  with  gold- 
smiths or  bankers,  for  safe  custody,  it  was 
gradually  discovered  than  an  order  to  pay 
money  would  serve  instead  of  the  money  ; 
and  that,  if  two  persons  trade  with  the  same 


banker,  they  need  not  in  their  mutual  trans- 
actions handle  the  money  at  all.     A  transfer 


in  the  books  of  their  common  bankers  will 
effect  the  payment  of  any  balance  of  debt. 
Bankers  can  in  like  manner  arrange  their 
mutual  accounts,  and  in  this  way  there  has 
been  gradually  developed  in  this  country  and 
in  America  a  vast  system,  which  I  propose  to 
denominate  the  Check  an.i  Clearing  System, 
whereby  all  the  larger  internal  transactions  of 
the  people  are  arranged  by  a  mere  settlement 
of  accounts. 

la  this  system  London  naturally  becomes 
the  monetary  center  of  the  United  Kingdom  ; 
but  there  is  a  further  tendency  to  make  Lon- 
don the  banking  center  of  the  world  as 
regards  all  large  and  international  transac- 
tions. It  is  found  to  be  advantageous  to 
deposit  money  in  London,  or  to  obtain  credit 
and  make  bills  payable  there,  rather  than 
elsewhere.  By  such  a  concentration  of  bank- 
ing operations,  London  tends  to  become  the 
seat  of  a  world-wide  Clearing  House.  Such 
are  the  principal  steps  in  the  development  of 
the  mechanism  of  exchange,  and  we  proceed 
to  consider  them  in  detail. 


CHAPTER  XVL 

REPRESENTATIVE    MONEY. 

Although  we  now  distinguish  money  ac- 
cording as  it  is  metallic  or  paper  money, 
because  paper  has  in  recent  times  been  uni- 
versally adopted  as  the  material  for  repre- 
sentative money,  yet  it  is  well  to  remember 
that  various  other  substances  have  been  used 
for  the  purpose.  We  may  pass,  in  fact,  by 
gradual  steps  from  the  perfect  standard  coins, 
whose  nominal  value  is  coincident  with  their 
metallic  value,  to  worthless  bits  of  paper, 
which  are  yet  allowed  to  stand  for  thousands, 
or  even  millions  of  pounds  sterling. 

Token  money,  which  we  considered  in 
Chapter  VI 1 1.,  is  in  some  degree  repre- 
sentative money,  because  it  derives  its 
value,  not  so  much  from  the  metal  it  contains 
as  from  the  standard  coins  for  which  it  can  be 
exchanged.  There  is  no  need  that  a  promise 
should  be  always  expressed  by  ink  and  paper. 
It  may  be  still  more  durably  recorded  by  a 
die  upon  a  piece  of  metal.  Accordingly, 
while  the  monarchs  of  England  down  to  the 
end  of  Elizabeth's  reign  refused  to  debase 
their  currency,  as  the  noticfn  seems  to  have 
been,  by  issuing  such  a  poor  metal  as  copper, 
the  tradesmen  supplied  the  want  of  pence  by 
issuing  tokens.  These  pieces  were  in  the 
earlier  centuries  composed  of  lead,  or  latten, 
a  kind  of  brass,  or  sometimes,  it  is  believed, 
of  leather.  During  the  last  century,  again, 
they  were  issued  in  large  quantities,  chiefly  in 
copper,  and  often  bore  an  express  statement 
that  they  served  as  promissory  notes.  Thus 
a  well-executed  piece,  issued  at  Southampton 
in  1791,  bears  the  inscription,  "  Halfpenny 


54 


Promissory,  payable  at  the  Office  of  W.  Tay 
lor,  R.  V.  Moody  &  Co."  A  token  struck  by 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      345 

th*  Flint  lead  works  in  1813,  states  the  prom-  h'rory  of  the  leather  money  which  long  had 
ise  in  different  terms,  thus:  "One  Penny  ;  currency  in  Russia. 

Token,  One  Pound  Note  for  240  Tokens."  j  It  is  impossible  to  ascertain  what  was  the 
The  variety  of  such  promissory  coins  issued  character  of  the  leather  money  which,  accord- 
at  one  time  or  other  is  very  great,  and  their  ing  to  an  obscure  tradition,  was  in  use  at 


study  forms  an  important  branch  of  numis- 
matic science,  as  will  be  learned  by  looking 
into  such  a  work  as  "Akerman's  London 
Tradesmen's  Tokens."  In  quite  recent  years 
small  money  was  found  to  be  scarce  in  New 
South  Wales,  and  some  tradesmen  issued 
copper  or  bronze  tokens  which  circulated 
until  the  year  1870,  when  their  further  use 
was  prohibited. 

The  ancients  were  well  acquainted  with 
the  difference  between  a  standard  and  a 
token  currency.  The  iron  money  of  the 
Lacedaemonians  was  probably  standard  legal 
tender,  for  it  is  describe  i  as  being  heavy  and 
bulky,  and  yet  of  small  value.  The  iron 
money  of  the  Byzantines,  on  the  contrary, 
was  token  representative  money.  We  shall' 
find  in  the  following  section  that  pieces  of 
money  of  the  same  nature  as  bank-notes 
were  also  employed  by  several  ancient  na- 
tions. 

EARLY   HISTORY   OF   REPRESENTATIVE 
MONEY. 

Ancient  nations  were  unacquainted  with 
the  use  of  paper  money,  simply  because  they 
had  no  paper.  But  it  would  be  a  mistake  to 
suppose  that  they  did  not  employ  represent- 
ative money  exactly  on  the  same  principles 
as  we  use  bank  notes.  Some  few  particulars 
on  the  subject  have  long  been  known,  but  a 
recent  article  by  M.  Bernardakis  in  the  Jour, 
nal des  Economistes  (vol.  .xxxiii.  pp.  353-370) 
has  added  much  to  our  knowledge,  and  made 
it  quite  clear  that  the  ancients  were  more 
acute  in  matters  of  currency  than  we  have 
given  them  credit  for. 

One  of  the  very  earliest  mediums  of 
exchange,  as  we  have  seen,  consisted  of 
the  skins  of  animals.  The  earliest  form 
of  representative  money  consisted  of  small 
pieces  of  leather,  usually  marked  with  an 
official  seal.  If  is  a  very  reasonable  sug- 
gestion made  by  Storch,  Bernardakis,  and 
other  writers,  that  when  skins  and  furs  be- 
gan to  be  found  an  inconveniently  bulky 
kind  of  money,  small  pieces  were  clipped  off, 
and  handed  over  as  tokens  of  possession. 
By  fitting  into  the  place  from  which  they 
were  cut  they  would  prove  ownership,  some- 
thing in  the  same  way  that  notched  sticks, 
or  tallies,  were  for  many  centuries  used  to 
record  loans  of  money  to  the  English 
Exchequer.  We  know  by  experience  in  the 
case  of  paper  money,  that  if  the  people  had 
become  thoroughly  accustomed  to  the  circu- 
lation of  these  small  leather  tallies,  they 
would  in  time  forget  their  representative 
character,  and  continue  to  circulate  them, 
when  the  government,  or  other  holders  of 


Rome  before  the  time  of  Numa.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  the  Carthaginians  had  a  repre- 
sentative leather  currency,  for  ^Eschines  the 
Socratic  tells  us  that  they  used  small  pieces  c.f 
leather  wrapped  round  cores  of  unknown 
material,  and  then  sealed  up.  Neighboring 
nation's  refused  to  receive  these  curious 
pieces  of  currency,  whence  we  may  safely 
infer  that  their  value  was  nominal. 

It  is,  however,  in  China  that  the  use  of  pa- 
per money  was  most  fully  developed  in  early 
times.  More  than  a  century  before  the 
Christian  era,  an  emperor  of  China  raised 
funds  to  prosecute  his  wars  in  a  way  which 
shows  that  the  use  of  leather  tokens  was  fa 
miliar  to  the  people.  The  tokens  having 
been  made  of  the  skins  of  white  deer,  he 
collected  together  into  a  park  all  deer  of  this 
color  which  he  could  find,  and  prohibited 
his  subjects  f  •om  possessing  any  animals  of 
the  same  kind.  Having  thus  obtained  a 
monopoly  of  the  material,  reminding  one  of 
the  monopoly  of  the  Bank  of  England  in 
water-marked  paper,  he  issued  pieces  of  the 
white  leather  as  money  at  a  high  rate. 

In  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
Marco  Polo  found  a  paper  money  in  circula- 
tion in  China,  composed  of  the  inner  bark  of 
a  ti«e  beaten  up  and  made  into  paper,  square 
pieces  of  which  were  signed  and  sealed  with 
great  formality, 
ous  values,  and 

being  the  penalty  imposed  upon  those  who 
refused  to  receive  them.  Counterfeiters 
likewise  incurred  the  same  penalty.  Another 
traveler,  who  visited  China  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  gives  a  very  similar  account  of  the 
paper  money  then  circulating,  and  adds  that, 
when  worn  or  torn,  it  could  be  exchanged 
for  new  notes  without  charge.  It  is  need- 
less to  follow  out  the  long  and  doubtful  his- 
tory of  the  subject  in  later  times,  many  par- 
ticulars of  which  will  be  found  in  the  article 
of  M.  Bernardakis,  or  that  of  M.  Courcelle- 
Seneuil  on  Papier  Monnaie  in  the  "  Dic- 
tionnaire  de  1'Economie  Politique."  It  may 
suffice  to  say  that  the  history  resembles  that 
of  most  inconvertible  currencies.  The  quan- 
tity of  paper  afloat  increased  so  much  under 
the  Moneol  dynasty  as  to  cause  great  evils, 
and  the  Ming  dynasty,  continuing  the  issues, 
went  so  far  as  to  prohibit  the  use  of  gold  or 
silver  money.  The  value  of  the  paper  fell  so 
low,  it  is  said,  that  one  metallic  cash  was 
worth  a  thousand  paper  cash,  reminding  us 
of  the  present  state  of  the  paper  currency  in 
San  Domingo.  The  result  was  a  collapse 
and  reaction  in  the  fifteenth  centnry. 

Among  oth.  r  Asiatic  nations,  the  Tartars 
r.nd  the  Persians  also  understood  the  use  of 


These  notes  were  of  van- 
were     legal   tender,  death 


the  skins  themselves,  had  made  away  with    paper   money,    and   Sir  John    Maundcville, 
the  actual  property       Such  is  no  doubt  the  '  who  traveled  in   Tartary  in  the  fourteenth 

55. 


346 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


century,  gives  the  following  account  of  the 
advantages  which  the  Great  Chan  enjoyed  in 
consequence.  "  This  Emperour  may  dis- 
penden  als  moche  as  he  wile,  withouten  esty- 
macioun.  For  he  despendethe  not,  ne 
makethe  no  money,  but  of  Lether  emprented, 
or  of  Papyre.  And  of  that  money,  is  som 
of  gretter  prys,  and  som  of  lesse  prys,  aftre 
the  dyversitee  of  his  Statutes.  And  whan 
that  Money  bathe  ronne  so  longe  that  it  be- 
gynnethe  to  waste,  than  men  beren  it  to  the 
Emperoure's  Tresotye  ;  and  than  thei  taken 
newe  money  for  the  olde.  And  that  Money 
gothe  thorghe  out  all  the  contree,  and 
thorghe  out  alle  his  Provynces.  For  there 
and  beyonde  hem,  thei  make  no  Money 
nouther  of  Gold  nor  of  Sylver.  And  there- 
fore he  may  despende  ynow,  and  outrage- 
ously." Not  a  few  great  emperors  and 
kings,  and  even  republics,  have  imitated  the 
Great  Chan,  and  have  spent  their  paper 
money,  "ynow  and  outrageously." 
REASONS  FOR  THE  USE  OF  REPRESENTATIVE 
MONEY. 

It  is  well  to  analyse  and  state  exactly  the 
reasons  which  may  be  given  for  the  introduc- 
tion of  pieces  of  representative  money.  Sev- 
eral motives  may  be  detected,  and  they  have 
been  of  different  weight  in  different  cases. 
The  origin  of  the  European  system  of  bank- 
notes is  to  be  found  in  the  deposit  banks 
established  in  Italy  from  four  to  seven  cen- 
turies ago.  In  those  days  the  circulating 
medium  consisted  of  a  mixture  of  coins  of 
many  denominations,  variously  clipped  or 
depreciated.  In  receiving  money,  the  mer- 
chant had  to  weigh  and  estimate  the  fineness 
of  each  coin,  and  much  trouble,  loss  of  time, 
and  risk  of  fraud  thus  arose.  It  became, 
therefore,  the  custom  in  the  mercantile  re- 
publics of  Italy  to  deposit  such  money  in  a 
bank,  where  its  value  was  accurately  estima- 
ted, once  for  all,  and  placed  to  the  credit  ot 
the  depositor. 

The  banks  of  Amsterdam  and  Hamburg 
were  subsequently  established  on  a  similar 
system,  and  a  full  account  of  them  will  be 
found  in  Adam  Smith's  "Wealth  of  Nations," 
Book  IV.,  Chapter  III.,  and  in  Hewitt's 
"Treatise  upon  Money"  (p.  121).  The 
money  placed  to  the  credit  of  individuals  in 
these  banks  was  called  bank-money,  and  com- 
manded an  agio  or  premium  corresponding 
to  the  average  depreciation  of  the  coins.  Pay- 
ments  were  made  by  the  merchants  attending 
at  the  bank  at  a  particular  hour,  and  order- 
ing transfers  to  be  made  in  the  bank  books. 
The  money  paid  was  thus  always  of  full 
value,  and  all  trouble  in  counting  and  valu- 
ing it  was  avoided.  The  regulations  of  these 
banks  were,  however,  in  many  respects  com- 
plicated, and  it  is  difficult  to  understand  their 
purpose. 

INCONVENIENCE  OF   METALLIC  MONEY. 
Closely  involved  with  the  previous  motive 
for  the  use  of  representative  money  is  that  of 


avoiding  the  trouble  and  risk  of  handling 
large  amounts  of  the  precious  metals.  In 
order  to  keep  large  sums  of  metallic  money 
in  safety  a  person  must  have  strongholds 
and  watchmen.  The  origin  of  banking  in 
England  has  never  been  sufficiently  inves- 
tigated, but,  so  far  as  we  know,  it  arose  for 
the  purpose  of  safe  custody.  While  public 
and  well-regulated  deposit  banks  had  existed 
for  centuries  in  Italy,  the  only  trace  of  such 
an  institution  in  England  was  found  in  the 
mint  in  the  T'>wer  of  London,  whither  mer- 
chants were  accustomed  to  send  their  specie 
for  safe  keeping.  Unfortunately,  in  1640 
King  Charles  I.  appropriated  as  a  loan  ^200,- 
ooo  thus  deposited,  and  the  merchants,  no 
longer  trusting  the  government,  and  finding 
it  dangerous  to  keep  large  sums  of  money  in 
their  own  houses  during  the  troubled  times 
which  followed,  resorted  to  the  practice  of 
depositing  their  money  with  goldsmiths,  who 
probably  had  vaults  and  guards  suitable  for 
tae  purpose. 

As  acknowledgments  of  the  possession  of 
such  sums  of  money,  the  goldsmith  gave  re- 
ceipts, and  at  first  these  documents  were 
special  promises,  like  dock  warrants.  The 
practice  arose  of  transferring  possession  by 
delivery  of  these  receipts,  or  "goldsmiths' 
notes,'  as  they  were  called.  £uch  notes  are 
frequently  referred  to  in  Acts  of  Parliament, 
and  even  as  late  as  1746  most  of  the  London 
bankers  continued  to  be  members  of  the 
Goldsmiths'  Company.  It  is  plain  from  the 
manner  in  which  these  notes  were  mentioned 
in  some  statutes  that  they  had  become  gen- 
eral and  not  special  promises — mere  engr  je- 
ments  to  deliver  a  sum  of  money  on  demand, 
.•ithout  conditions  as  to  keeping  a  reserve  for 
the  purpose. 

THE  WEIGHT  OF   CURRENCY. 

Even  the  weight  of  metallic  money  would 
be  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  use  of  repre- 
sentative documents  in  large  transactions. 
In  proportion  as  the  legal  tender  k  more 
bulky  and  inconvenient  to  carry  about,  is  this 
motive  more  powerful.  Thus,  when  the  state 
of  Virginia  employed  tobacco  as  the  medium 
of  exchange  in  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
tobacco  was  placed  in  stores,  and  receipts  on 
paper  were  handed  about.  Paper  money  was 
issued  in  Russia  under  Catherine  II.  in  1768, 
on  the  ground  that  the  copper  money,  then 
forming  the  legal  tender,  was  inconvenient. 
So  much  were  these  assignats,  or  notes,  pre- 
ferred, that  they  at  first  circulated  at  a  pre- 
mium of  one-fourth  per  cent. 

In  the  present  state  of  commerce,  even  gold 
money  would  be  far  too  heavy  to  form  a  con- 
venient medium  for  making  large  payments. 
M.  Chevalier  states  that  it  would  require 
forty  men  to  carry  the  gold  equal  in  value  to 
the  Regent  Diamond.  The  average  daily 
transactions  in  the  London  Bankers'  Clearing 
House  amount  to  about  twenty  millions  of 
pounds  sterling,  which  if  paid  in  gold  coin 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      347 


would  weigh  about  157  tons,  and  would  re- 
quire nearly  eighty  horses  for  conveyance.  II 
paid  in  silver  the  weight  would  be  increased 
to  more  than  2500  tons.  For  the  conveyance 
and  custody  of  very  moderate  sums  i>i  coin  or 
bullion,  individuals,  or  even  large  banks,  re- 
sort to  the  aid  of  the  Bank  of  England,  whose 
officials  are  experienced  in  the  matter,  and 
have  all  facilities. 

I  find  that  a  Bank  of  England  note  weighs 
about  zol/2  grains  (ilA,  grams),  wherea"  a 
single  sovereign  weighs  about  123  grains, 
and  the  note  may  represent  five,  ten,  fifty,  a 
thousand,  or  ten  thousand  such  sovereigns 
with  slight  differences  in  the  printing.  If 
we  were  obliged  to  handle  a  medium  of  ex- 
change actually  embodying  value,  it  woul  !, 
ere  now,  have  been  necessary  to  employ  pre- 
cious stones,  or  some  metal  much  more  rare 
and  precious  than  gold.  But  the  use  of 
representative  documents  is  becoming  so 
general  in  the  most  advanced  commercial 
countries,  that  the  portability  of  metallic 
money  is  a  question  uf  very  minor  importance. 
Gold  already  acts  in  England  only  as  change 
for  notes,  and  the  question  will  arise  whether 
it  will  long  be  needed  even  for  that  purpose. 

SAVING  OF    INTEREST. 

A  further  and  very  potent  motive  for  em- 
ploying representative  tokens  and  notes,  con- 
sists in  the  saving  of  interest  and  capital, 
which  is  effected  by  substituting  a  compara- 
tively valueless  material  in  place  of  costly  gold 
and  silver.  Whenever  a  nation  is  in  great 
straits  for  want  of  revenue,  there  is  a  great 
temptation  to  treat  the  metallic  currency  as  a 
treasure  to  be  temporal  ily  borrowed  for  the 
necessities  of  the  state.  The  ancient  Greeks 
understood  this  as  well  as  the  modern  Eng- 
lish, Italians,  or  Americans.  Dionysius,  on 
this  ground,  obliged  the  Syracusans  to  accept 
tin  tokens  in  place  of  silver  coins,  worth  four 
times  as  much  in  metallic  value.  In  the  book 
on  Economics,  attributed  to  Aristotle,  we  are 
told  that  Timotheus  the  Athenian  persuaded 
the  soldiers  and  merchants  to  receive  copper 
money  in  place  of  silver,  promising  to  ex- 
change it  for  silver  coins  at  the  close  of  the 
war.  The  Clazomenians  m  de  a  similar  issue 
of  token  money  avowedly  for  the  sake  of  the 
interest  thereby  saved.  Being  unable  to  pay 
twenty  talents  due  to  some  mercenary  troops, 
they  were  under  the  necessity  of  paying  four 
talents  a  year  as  interest.  They  fell  upon  the 
device  cf  coining  iron  tokens  to  the  nominal 
amount  of  twenty  talents,  which  they  obliged 
the  citizens  to  take  in  place  of  silver  coin. 
The  silver  thus  obtained  was  used  for  the 
immediate  discharge  of  the  debt,  and  there 
was  a  spare  annual  revenue  of  four  talents, 
formerly  absorbed  in  the  payment  of  inUr^t, 
which  now  enabled  them  in  a  few  years  to 
redeem  the  token  money.  Closely  parallel  to 
this  is  the  case  of  the  Guernsey  Market, 


termined  to  build  a  market  in  St  Peters,  but 
not  having  the  necessary  funcg,  issued  under 
the  seal  of  the  island  four  thousand  market 
notes  for  one  pound  each,  with  which  he  paid 
the  artificers.  When  the  market  was  finished 
and  the  rents  came  in,  the  notes  were  thereby 
canceled,  and  not  an  ounce  of  gold  was  em- 
ployed in  the  matter.  There  is,  however,  no 
mystery  in  this  advantage  of  paper  money. 

Daniel  le  Broc,  by  issuing  his  market  notes, 
drove  an  equivalent  amount  of  gold  out  of 
circulation,  and  thus  effected  a  kind  of  forced 
loan  out  of  the  metallic  currency  of  the  isl- 
and, without  paying  any  interest  for  it.  A 
similar  gain  of  interest  accrues  upon  all  paper 
notes  so  far  as  their  amount  exceeds  the  gold 
held  in  readiness  to  pay  them.  The  private 
and  joint  stock  banks  of  issue  in  England  in 
this  xv«y  enjoy  the  interest  upon  a  sum  of 
about  six  mil 'ions  and  a  half  sterling,  the 
Scotch  banks  upon  two  millions  and  three- 
quarters,  and  the  Irish  banks  upon  more  than 
six  millions.  The  issue  of  paper  representa- 
tive money  13  beneficial  to  all  parties,  pro- 
vided that  it  be  conducted  upon  a  sound 
method  of  regulation,  a  subject  upon  which 
t  he  greatest  differences  of  opinion  exist. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 


THE    NATURE 


AND    VARIETIES 
SORY  NOTES. 


OF    PROMTS. 


which  was  built  without  apparent  cost.  Dan- 


iel  le  Broc,  the  governor  of   the  island,  de- 


Before  attempting  to  come  to  any  conclu- 
sion as  to  the  best  mode  of  regulating  the 

ssue  of  promissory  notes,  we  must  carefully 
analyse  the  differences  which  may  exist  be- 

:ween  one  promise  and  another.  What 
seems  at  first  sight  a  very  slight  and  subtle 
distinction,  may  be  ioand  *~>  lead  to  import- 
ant results.  He  who  ir-ru^-.  .  representative 
or  promissory  document,  engaging  to  give  a 
certain  quantity  of  a  defin'd  commodity  in 
return  for  the  document  when  presented, 
may  really  make  any  one  of  three  distinct 
engagements. 

1.  He  may  promise  to  keep  acertian  iden- 
tical   article    in    his  possession  until   it  is 
called  for. 

2.  He  may  engage  to  have  in  his  posses- 
sion a  certain  r  m,  unt  of  commodity  .eady  to 
meet    the  promissory  notes,  without  distin- 
guishing between  portion  and  portion  of  a 
similar  substance. 

3.  The    undertaking    may  be  merely  to 
the  effect  that  the  required  commodity  shall 
be  forthcoming  when  the  note  is  presented, 
no  covenant  beii.g  made  as  to  the  quantity 
to  be  held  in  stock  for  the  purpose. 

SPECIFIC   I  EPOSIT   WARRANT. 

The  most  satisfactory  kind  of  promissory 
document  is  the  first,  which  is  represented 
by  bills  of  lading,  pawn-tickets,  dock-war- 
rants, or  certificates  which  establish  owner- 


57, 


348 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


tbip  to  a  definite  object.  A  bill  of  lading 
entitles  the  legal  holder  of  it  to  certain  cases 
or  packages  of  goods,  described  by  marks, 
numbers,  dimensions,  or  otherwise.  The 
ship-master  signing  such  a  bill  is  obliged  to 
retain  the  identical  cases  committed  to  his 
care,  unti  he  delivers  them  up  in  return  for 
the  bill  of  lading  at  the  close  of  his  voyage. 
Dock-warrants  are  of  the  same  diaracter, 
being  receipts  for  packages  of  goods  depos- 
ited in  the  London  or  other  dock  ware- 
houses. The  holder  of  a  dock-warrant  has  a 
prima  facie  claim  to  the  pipes  of  wine,  bales 
of  wool,  he  gsheads  of  sugar,  or  other  pack- 
ages named  thereon.  Transfer  of  the  war- 
rant by  endorsement  or  otherwise,  as^re- 
quired  by  law  and  custom,  is  accounted  a 
transfer  of  the  ownership  of  the  goods. 
The  important  point  concerning  such  prom- 
issory notes  is  that  they  cannot  possibly  be 
issued  in  excess  of  the  goods  actually  depos- 
ited, unless  by  distinct  fraud.  The  issuer 
ought  to  act  purely  as  a  warehouse  keeper, 
and  as  possession  may  be  claimed  at  any 
time  he  can  never  legally  allow  any  object 
deposited  to  go  out  of  his  safe  keeping  un- 
til it  is  delivered  back  in  exchange  for  the 
promissory  note. 

GENERAL  DEPOSIT   WARRANT. 

We  pass  to  the  case  in  which  the  issuer  of 
a  promissor-  document  engages  to  keep  on 
hand  gocd.-,  exactly  equivalent  in  quantity 
and  quality  to  what  are  specified  thereon, 
without  taking  note  of  individual  parcels. 
In  many  cases  commotii  ics  are  so  homoge- 
neous that  there  seems  to  be  no  need  to 
distinguish  parcel  from  parcel,  or  to  restore 
the  identical  portion  deposited.  Thus  the 
keeper  of  a  pig-iron  store  in  Glasgow  receives 
larg,;  quantities  of  pk'-iron,  of  several 
brands,  and  issues  corresponding  werrants 
representing  ownership  therein.  As  no  dif- 
ference, however,  is  known  to  exist  between 
different  portions  of  iron  of  the  same  brand, 
it  was  the  practice  in  former  years  not  to  al- 
lot one  heap  of  pigs  to  each  warrant,  but 
simply  to  retain  a  stock  of  each  brand  equal 
ia  weight  to  the  aggregate  amount  due  on 
outstanding  warrants.  More  recently  a  bet- 
ter system  has  been  introduced,  and  each 
specific  lot  of  iron  has  been  marked  and  set 
aside  to  meet  some  particular  warrant.  The 
difference  seems  to  be  slight,  but  it  is  really 
very  important,  as  opening  the  way  to  a  lax 
fulfillment  of  the  contract.  Misunderstand- 
ings occasionally  arise  upon  this  point  in 
other  trades.  For  instance,  a  cotton  mer- 
chant in  Liverpool,  a  few  years  since,  ob- 
tained a  loan  of  mi_ney  upon  the  security  of 
cotton  in  his  possession,  and  a  court  of  law 
was  subsequently  called  upon  to  decide 
"•hether  he  had  mortgaged  certain  individual 
bales  of  cotton,  and  undertaken  to  retain 
-hem  until  the  loan  was  repaid,  or  whether 
he  had  merely  engaged  to  have  in  his  hands 
an  equal  quantity  of  cotton  of  the  same 


quality.  I  have  heard  that  carrying  and 
warehousing  companies  are  sometimes  care- 
less about  distinction  of  parcel  and  parcel. 
If  they  are  continually  conveying  or  holding 
portions  of  exactly  the  same  goods,  flour 
from  the  same  miller,  coal  from  the  same 
seam,  they  will  sometimes  deliver  out  the  re- 
quired quantity  of  the  same  sort  of  goods, 
irrespective  of  its  being  the  identical  portion 
delivered  to  them  for  conveyance  or  safe 
custody. 

DIFFERENCE     BETWEEN     A     SPECIAL    AND    A 
GENERAL   PROMISE. 

The  great  importance  of  the  distinctions 
pointed  out  in  the  last  section  will  be  easily 
apparent.  He  who  has  made  a  special  prom- 
ise to  give  definite  parcels  of  goods  in  re- 
turn for  particular  individual  papers,  cannot 
issue  any  such  promissory  papers  without 
holding  corresponding  goods.  If  he  does  so, 
he  will  be  continually  liable  to  be  convicted 
of  fraud  or  default  by  the  presentation  of  a 
particular  document.  If  the  promises  made 
by  him,  however,  are  only  general  ones,  any 
promissory  document  can  be  met  by  any  por- 
tion of  commodity  of  the  proper  qualit; ,  and 
it  will  be  necessary  to  present  most  or  all  of 
the  documents  in  order  to  disclose  default. 
The  way  is  thus  opened  for  the  speculative 
issue  of  promissory  notes.  The  receiver  of 
deposits,  finding  that  a  large  portion  of  the  de- 
posited commodity  always  remains  on  hand, 
may  proceed  to  use  it  in  trade,  only  keeping 
so  much  as  may  meet  current  demands.  So 
long  as  he  does  fulfill  promises,  no  harm 
seems  to  be  done  ;  but  experience  proves  that 
there  will  always  be  a  certain  proportion  of 
persons  who,  in  such  circumstances,  will  not 
act  so  discreetly  as  to  be  in  a  position  to  re- 
deem all  their  engagements. 

Moreover,  it  now  becomes  possible  to 
create  a  fictitious  supply  of  a  commodity; 
that  is,  to  make  people  believe  that  a  supply 
exists  which  does  not  exist.  The  possessor 
of  a  promissory  note  or  warrant  icgards  the 
document  as  equivalent  to  the  commodity 
named  thereon.  It  is  only  necessary  then  to 
print  off,  fill  up,  and  sign  an  additional  num- 
ber of  such  notes  in  order  to  have  a  corre- 
sponding supply  of  commodity  to  sell.  It  is 
true  that  the  issue  of  promises  involves  their 
fulfillment  at  a  future  day  ;  but  the  future  is 
unknown,  and  the  issuer  may  believe  that 
before  the  fulfillment  is  likely  to  be  demanded 
:he  price  of  the  commodity  will  have  fallen. 
Thus,  if  pig-iron  warrants  could  be  issued  in 
unlimited  quantities  (irrespective  of  the  stocks 
actually  in  the  stores  at  Glasgow),  an  unscru 
pulous  band  of  speculators  might  perhaps  make 
large  profits  by  selling  great  quantities  of 
iron  for  future  delivery.  After  suddenly  and 
excessively  depressing  the  price  of  pig-iron 
they  might  succeed  in  gradually  buying  up 
enough  at  lower  prices  to  meet  the  warrants 
when  presented,  This  kind  of  ' '  bear  "  pper 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      349 


ations  has  certainly  been  successful  in  other 
markets. 

About  ten  years  ago  it  became  the  practice 
to  rig  the  market  as  regards  the  shares  of 
particular  joint-stock  banking  companies. 
A  party  would  be  formed,  perhaps  owning 
none  of  the  shares  of  the  selected  company, 
and  they  would  proceed  to  sell  considerable 
quantities  of  the  shares,  hoping  so  to  damage 
the  reputation  of  the  company  and  lower  the 
value  of  the  stock  as  to  be  ab*e  to  buy  up 
enough  before  delivery  would  be  required. 
This  noxious  kind  of  speculation  was 
checked  by  an  Act  of  Parliament  (30  Victoria, 
c.  29  1867),  which  now  requires  the  seller  of 
bank  shares  to  specify  the  numbers  or  the 
registered  proprieti  rs  of  the  shares  wuich  he 
is  selling  for  future  delivery. 

It  might  be  urged,  indeed,  that  there  is  a 
natural  right  belonging  to  all  persons  to 
make  promises,  if  they  can  thereby  benefit 
themselves.  Any  one  can  accept  a  bill, 
thereby  promising  to  deliver  money  at  a  fu 
ture  day.  It  is  quite  common  to  make  con- 
tracts involving  the  delivery  of  government 
stock,  or  of  cotton  or  corn  expected  to  arrive 
by  sea,  before  delivery  becomes  due.  But 
we  must  remember  that  all  laws  and  all 
social  relations  are  devised  to  secure  the 
greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number.  If  a 
right  to  make  all  promises  be  recognized  by 
law,  it  must  be  because  the  right  is  benefi- 
cial to  society,  and  it  is  the  recognition  by 
law  which  makes  it  a  right.  If,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  be  found  by  experience  that  freedom 
of  making  and  selling  promises  in  a  particu- 
lar vri<y  gives  scope  to  illegitimate  specula- 
tion, or  otherwise  injures  society  more  than 
it  produces  benefit,  the  law  ought  certainly 
k ,  restrict  this  freedom,  and  regulate  the  mat- 
ter for  the  good  of  the  community.  The 
whole  matter,  in  short,  is  one  of  expediency. 
It  used  to  be  held  as  a  general  rule  of  law, 
that  any  present  grant  or  assignment  of 
goods  not  in  existence  is  without  operation. 
Though  the  rule  seems  to  be  generally  disre- 
garded, there  are  many  cases  in  which  it 
might  be  advantageously  enforced. 

PECUNIARY   PROMISSORY  NOTES. 

Applying  these  considerations  to  the  spe- 
cial matter  of  money,  we  find  that  pecuniary 
promises  are  nearly  always  of  a  general  kind. 
He  who  undertakes  to  pay  a  sum  of  money 
on  a  future  day,  rarely  specifies  the  individ- 
ual coins  which  will  be  paid.  In  fact,  the 
Coinage  Act,  in  defining  legal  tender,  makes 
any  sovereigns,  shillings,  and  pence,  duly 
coined  and  of  proper  weight,  a  discharge  for 
a  corresponding  sum  named  in  a  contract. 
It  is  true  that  just  as  pipes  of  wine  are 
warehoused  in  the  London  docks,  cases  of 
gold  and  silver  bullion  or,  it  may  be,  of  for 
eign  or  English  coin,  are  warehoused  in  the 
vaults  of  the  Bank  of  England.  In  fact, 
imports  of  gold  and  silver,  at  whatever  port 
JB  the  kingdom  they  may  arrive,  are  almost 


always  sent  up  for  delivery  at  the  bullion 
office  of  the  bank,  which  acts  precisely  as  if 
it  were  a  dock  warehouse,  and  delivers  the 
packages  on  production  of  the  bills  of  lading. 
'1  hese  bills  of  lading  are  specific  promises, 
and  may  yet  be  passed  by  endorsement  from 
one  person  to  another.  Such  consignments 
of  bullion,  however,  do  not  enter  into  the 
banking  accounts. 

The  Bank  of  England  note  is  neither  more 
nor  les<;  binding  upon  the  bank  a>  Ihorities 
than  a  bill  of  lading,  but  it  does  not  specify 
the  bag  or  box  of  money  to  be  employed  in 
paying  it.  Almost  all  other  pecuniary  en- 
gagements are  in  the  same  way  general  en- 
gagements. No  banker  could  make  any 
profit  if  he  were  obliged  to  put  away  the 
sovereigns  deposited  by  a  customer  until  that 
customer  presented  a  check  for  them,  nor 
would  there  usually  be  a  sufficient  motive  for 
desiring  such  a  special  pledge.  The  idea  never 
enters  into  our  heads  in  mercantile  matters. 
Disputes,  however,  have  occasionally  arisen 
upon  this  point.  Some  people  have  a  pecu- 
liar fancy  for  collecting  particular  coins,  and 
an  old  lady,  having  formed  a  hoard  of  four- 
penny  pieces,  died  after  bequeathing  them  to 
a  relative.  Although  wishing  to  keep  them, 
out  of  respect  for  the  old  lady,  this  relative 
was  in  want  of  ready  cash,  and  desired  to 
realize  their  value;  he  thought  to  achieve 
both  objects  by  pledging  them  with  a  pawn- 
broker. The  broker  readily  received  tLeni. 
but  after  a  while  thoughtlessly  used  the 
groats  as  change.  When  the  pawn-ticket 
was  presented  he  considered  that  the  tender 
of  the  equivalent  sum  in  sovereigns  and  shil- 
lings was  a  sufficient  discharge.  Here,  how- 
ever, the  pledge  should  have  been  held  as  a 
special  one. 

Now,  if  pecuniary  promises  were  always  of 
a  special  character  there  could  be  no  possible 
harm  in  allowing  perfect  freedom  in  the  issue 
of  promissory  notes.  The  issuer  would 
merely  constitute  himself  a  warehouse-keepei , 
and  would  be  bound  to  hold  each  special  lot 
of  coin  ready  to  pay  each  corresponding  note. 
But  this  is  not  the  case,  and  much  harm  may 
arise  from  the  excessive  issue  of  promises  to 
pay  gold  on  demand.  The  gold  market  may 
be  rigged  as  well  as  the  iron  or  any  other 
special  market.  One  difference  is  that  the 
gold  market  is  the  most  extensive  of  all  mar- 
kets, so  that  a  great  many  individuals  or 
companies,  each  acting  under  the  separate 
mpuises  of  self-interest,  must  over-issue 
notes  in  order  to  produce  any  appreciable  ef- 
fect. A  further  difference  is  that  gold,  being 
tself  the  measure  of  value,  the  rise  or  fall  in 
ts  price  cannot  be  apparent  except  in  tl  e 
average  fall  or  rise  in  the  price  of  many  com- 
modities. This  subject  must  be  pursued  in 
Chapter  XXIV. 

PRINCIPLES  OF  THE    CIRCULATION    OF    REP- 
RESENTATIVE MONEY. 

In  the  last  two  sections  of  Chapter  VIII 


350 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


we  founv.    that  by   analysing   the  motives  I  beautiful    gold    and  silver   coins  had  been 
of    indiyiduals    in    receiving,    holding,    or   struck  in  tht  >oars  1^62  to  1865,  but  all  dis- 
appeared 


paying  away  metallic  money,  we  could  ar- 
rive at  certain  laws  of  circulation,  which  were 
amply  confirmed  by  experience.  It  was  also 
pointed  out  ttiat  the  same  laws  might  be  extend- 
ed mutatis  mutandis,  to  the  mixed  circulation 
of  metallic  and  paper  money.  Habit  is 
almost  as  powerful  in  supporting  the  use  cf 
/epresentative  money  as  of  real  metallic  coins. 
Persons  who  have  long  been  accustomed  to 
pay  away  certain  pieces  of  p.; per  without  loss, 
will  continue  to  regard  them  as  good  currency 
until  some  rude  shocit  is  given  to  t  icir  confi- 
dence. This  may  go  so  far  that  a  dirty  bit 
of  paper,  containing  a  promise  to  pay  a  sover- 
eign, will  be  actually  preferred  to  tre  beau- 
tiful gold  c<-in  which  it  promises.  The  cur- 
rency of  Scotland  is  a  standing  proof  of  this 
assertion;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  Nor- 
way, where,  until  1874,  no  gold  at  all  was  in 
circulation,  and  notts  for  one,  five,  or  ten 
dollars  formed  the  principal  part  of  the  cur- 
rency. 

There  is  one  all-important  point  in  which 
representative  differs  from  metallic  money  ; 
it  will  not  circulate  beyond  the  boundaries  of 
the  district  or  country  where  it  is  legally 
current  or  habitually  employed.  No  doubt 
Bank  of  England  notes  are  frequently  car- 
ried abroad  by  travelers,  and  are  in  most 
places  readily  exchanged  for  the  money  of 
the  locality  ;  but  they  never  circulate,  and 
are  treated  as  bills  upon  London,  forming  a 
convenient  mode  of  remittance.  They  do 
not  satisfy  a  debt  fiom  this  to  another  coun- 
try, but  rather  create  it,  an  English  bank- 
note, in  the  hands  of  a  Paris  banker,  repre- 
senting a  claim  which  he  has  upon  the  Bank 
of  England.  The  only  money  which  can 
really  be  exported  in  payment  of  debts  due 
to  foreign  merchants  is  standard  metallic 
money.  Hence  paper  money  has  exactly  the 
same  capacity  for  driving  out  standard 
money  that  light  or  depreciated  coins  pos- 
sess. 

In  the  case  of  inconvertible  notes  this  has 
always  been  most  obvious.  As  the  quantity 
of  such  notes  issued  progressively  increases, 
as  almost  always  happens,  coin  must  be  ex- 
ported, otherwise  the  currency  would  become 
excessive.  But  when  most  of  the  coin  is 
gone,  need  of  it  begins  to  be  iclt  for  making 
foreign  payments,  and  then  the  value  of  the 
paper  falls  below  that  of  the  coin  which  it  is 
supposed  to  correspond  to.  Many  persons 
begin  to  hoard  the  coins  for  the  sake  of  an- 
ticipated profit,  and  nothing  but  paper  is 
soon  to  be  found  in  circulation.  This  effect 
cf  paper  in  driving  coin  out  of  use  has  been 
manifested  over  and  over  again,  as  in  the 
time  of  the  assignats  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, the  suspension  of  specie  payments  at 
the  Bank  of  England  between  1797  and  i8iq, 
and  the  late  American  war.  One  of  me 
most  recent  and  striking  instancts  is  to  be 
found  in  Italy,  where  large  quantities  of 


very  rapidly  from  circulation  as 
i-oon  as  tha  ce*ts  ford  of  paper  money  was 
proclaimed. 


CHAPTER  XVIIL 


METHOD*    OF 


REGULATING    A 
RENCY. 


PAPXB.    CUR 


60 


We  may  now  proceed  with  advantage  to 
conside*  the  various  methods  on  which  the 
isbue  of  paper  money  may  be  conducted.  This 
question  is  perhaps  the  most  vexed  and  de- 
batable one  in  the  whole  sphere  of  political 
economy  ;  but,  by  carefully  adhering  to  the 
analysis  of  facts,  we  may,  perhaps,  get  a  view 
of  the  subject  free  from  the  great  perplexities 
in  which  it  is  commonly  involved.  The  ele- 
mental y  principles  of  the  subject  are  not  of  a 
complex  character ;  and  if  we  hold  tenaciously 
to  those  principles,  we  may  perhaps  be  saved 
from  that  dangerous  kind  of  intellectual  verti- 
go which  often  attacks  writers  on  the  cur- 
rency. 

The  state  may  either  take  the  issue  of 
representative  money  into  its  own  hands,  as 
it  takes  the  coining  of  money,  or  it  may  allow 
private  individuals,  or  semi-public  companies 
and  corporations,  to  undertake  the  work 
under  more  or  less  strict  legislative  control. 
We  will  afterward  briefly  consider  the  rela- 
tive advantages  of  government  and  private  is 
sues,  but  in  either  case  we  may  lay  down  the 
following  series  of  methods  according  to 
which  the  amount  of  issue  may  be  regulated, 
and  the  performance  of  the  promises  guaran- 
teed. 

1.  The  Simple  Deposit  Method.  The  issuer 
of  promissory  notes  may  be  obliged  to  keep  a 
stock  of  coin  and  bullion  constantly  on  hand, 
equal  in  amount  to  the  aggregate  of  the  un- 
canceled  notes,  eacL  of  which,  being  instantly 
paid  on  presentation,  will  produce  a  corre 
sponding  decrease  of  the  reserve. 

2.  The  Partial  Deposit  Metliod.     Instead 
of  being  obliged  to  keep  the  whole  of  the 
precious  metals  deposited  in  his  vaults,  the 
issuer  may  be  allowed  to  invest  a  fixed  amount 
in  government  funds,  or  other  sale  profitable 
securities. 

3.  Tlie  Minimum  Reset  ve  Method.     The 
issuer  may  be  bound  to  have  on  hand  undel 
all  circumstances  a  fixed  minimum  amount  of 
coin  and  bullion. 

4.  The  Proportional  Reserve  Method.    Th« 
reserve  may  b-  mads  to  vary  with  the  amount 
of   outstanding     notes,  being,  say,  at  least 
one-third  or  one-fourth  of  the  total. 

5.  The  Maximum  Issue  Method.     Permis- 
sion may  be  given  to  issue  notes  not  exceed- 
ing in  the  aggregate  a  fixed  amount,  prohibi- 
tory   p.na.ties    being    imposed    upon    an) 
breach  of  ttus  restriction. 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      351 


6.  Tkt  Elastic    Limit    Method.     A   limit 
dnay  be  assigned  to  the  aggregate  amount  of 
notes,  as  in  the  last  method,  but  the  penal- 
ties on  the  excessive  issue  may  be  intention- 
ally made  so  light,  that  the  issuer  will  undtr 
some  circumstances  prefer  to  pay  the  penalty 
rather  than  restrict  his  issues. 

7.  The  Documentary  Reserve  Method.    The 
reserve   of   property  which  the  issuer  is  re- 
quired to  keep  may  consist,  not  of  gold  or 
silver  coin   or  bullion,  but  of  government 
funds,  bonds,  shares,  or  other  documentary 
securities. 

8.  The  Real  Property  Reserve  Method.     In- 
stead of  merely  documentary  property,  the 
issuer  may  be  allowed  to  treat  various  prop- 
erty, such  as   land,  houses,   ships,    railway 
shares,  etc.,  as  his  reserve  of  wealth  to  meet 
engagements. 

9.  The  Foreign  Exchanges  Method.     Some 
important  bank  may  be  allowed  to  issue  con- 
vertible notes  on  the  understanding  that  it 
will  not  increase  the  amount  in  circulation  so 
long  as  the  foreign  exchanges  are  against  the 
country,  and  render  the  export  of  specie  prof- 
itable. 

10.  The  Free  Issue  Method.    The  business 
of  issuing  promissory  notes  may  be  left  open 
to  the  free  competition  of  all  individuals,  free 
from   any  restrictions  or  conditions,  except 
such  laws  as  apply  to  all  commercial  con- 
tracts and  promises. 

11.  The  Gold  Par  Method.     Paper  money 
may  be  issued,  bearing  the  appearance  of 
promissory  notes,  but  inconvertible  into  coin. 
The  issue  being  restricted  as  long  as  any  pre- 
mium on  gold  is  apparent,  the  paper  money 
may  be  thus  maintained  equal  in  value  to  the 
coin  which  it  nominally  represents. 

12.  The  Revenue  Payments  Method.     In- 
convertible paper  money  may  be  freely  issued, 
but  an  attempt  may  be  made  to  keep  up  its 
value  by  receiving  it  in  place  of  coin  in  the 
payment  of  taxes. 

13.  The   Deferred  Convertibility  Method. 
Notes  may  be  issued  promising  to  pay  me 
tallic  money  at  some  future  day,  either  defi- 
nitely fixed  or  dependent  v.pon  political  or 
other  contingent  events. 

14.  The  Paper  Money  Method.     Lastly, 
those  who  coin   apparent  promissory  notes 
may  be  entirely  absolved  from  the  perform- 
ance of  their  promises,  so  that  the  notes  cir- 
culate by  force  of  habit,  by  '.lie  command  of 
the  sovereign,  or  in  cor  ;. quince  of  the  ab- 
sence of  any  other  meci.um  of  exchange. 

Although  I  have,  in  the  above  statement, 
enumerated  no  less  than  fourteen  distinct 
methods  of  managing  the  issue  of  paper  cur- 
rency, it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  other 
methods  have  not  been  employed  from  time 
to  time  There  may  be,  in  fact,  an  almost 
unlimited  number  of  devices  for  securing  the 
performance  of  promises,  or  for  rendering 
the  performance  unnecessary.  Moreover, 
these  methods  may  be  combined  together  in 
Almost  unii anted  variety.  The  reserve  may 


be  required  to  be  partially  in  the  form  of 
specie,  and  partially  in  documentary  securi- 
ties, or  real  property.  A  banker  m.ty  be  al- 
lowed to  issue  a  certain  fixed  amount  of 
notes  without  any  condition  as  to  reserves, 
and  to  issue  further  notes  on  the  Deposit 
Method. 

It  would  obviously  require  a  very  large 
volume  to  enter  at  all  in  an  adequate  manner 
upon  a  description  of  these  methods,  their 
relative  advantages  or  deficits,  and  U.e  ways 
in  which  they  have  been  combined  and  car- 
ried into  effect  at  different  times  and  places. 
I  must  therefore  confine  myself  in  this  small 
book  to  a  very  concise  discussion  of  this  most 
extensive  subject. 

I. — SIMPLE  DEPOSIT. 

This  method  is  perfectly  represented  by  the 
ancient  deposit  banks  in  the  Italian  commer- 
cial republics,  by  the  banks  of  Amsterdam 
and  Hamburg,  or  by  the  London  goldsmiths, 
so  long  as  they  only  acted  as  safe  keepers  of 
the  specie  committed  to  their  care.  Notes  is- 
sued on  this  system  have  a  purely  representa- 
tive character,  like  dock  warrants  or  pawn 
tickets,  as  I  have  already  fully  explained.  The 
performance  of  promises  is  rendered  certain 
so  far  as  legislation  can  provide  for  it.  The 
amount  of  such  currency  will  vary  exactly 
like  that  of  a  metallic  currency,  and  there  can 
be  no  fear  of  paper  replacing  specie,  and  driv- 
ing it  out  of  the  country,  because  the  specie 
must  be  in  the  vaults  of  the  issuing  banks  be- 
fore the  notes  are  issued. 

At  the  same  time  the  advantages  of  the 
method  are  comparatively  slight,  because  the 
use  of  paper  representatives  merely  saves  the 
abrasion  of  coin,  and  the  trouble  and  risk  of 
carrying  it  about  and  counting  it.  The  com- 
munity kses  the  interest  of  the  whole  sum 
held  in  pledge,  and  this  forms  by  far  the 
largest  part  of  the  cost  of  the  currency, 
as  we  have  seen.  The  coin,  too,  may 
be  safer  in  the  hands  of  the  people. 
When  lying  apparently  useless  within  the 
reach  of  an  abritraiy  government,  it  often 
proves  an  irresistible  temptation.  Charles  I. 
seized  the  money  in  the  Tower.  When  the 
French  invaded  Holland  in  1795,  a  large  part 
of  the  specie  supposed  to  be  deposited  in  the 
vaults  of  the  bank  of  Amsterdam  was  not 
forthcoming,  having  been  secretly  lent  to  the 
Dutch  East  India  Company,  and  the  city  au- 
thorities. The  Russian  government  diligent- 
ly collected  a  bank  reserve  in  the  citadel  of 
St.  Petersburg,  which  was  under  the  cogni- 
zance of  members  of  the  Exchange,  until  the 
troubles  of  1848  forced  the  emperor  to  as- 
sume the  control  himself.  In  innumerable 
instances  governments,  including  the  English 
i  government  in  1797,  have  made  use  of  bank 
i  deposits,  under  the  form  of  suspending  specie 
payments. 

2. — PARTIAL  DEPOSIT. 

The  Bank  of  England,  under  the  Bank 
Charter  Act  of  1844,  perfectly  represents  thU 


352 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


method.  For  each  additional  fiVe-po  :.r>d  note  there  be  100,000  dollars  of  outstanding  note*, 
which  is  put  forth  out  of  the  issue  department,  and  40,000  dollars  reserve,  then  it  is  obvious 
gold  to  the  weight  of  61637  grains  nr-.ust  be  that  the  presentation  of  20,000  dollars  of 
deposited  in  that  department.  The  v,  hole  notes  will  reduce  these  numbers  respectively 
amount  of  gold,  however,  retained  in  the  to  80,000  dollars  of  outstanding  notes,  and 
vaults  is  less  by  ^15,000,000  than  the  out-  20,000  dollars  of  reserve  ;  and  if  the  law  re- 
standing  notes,  this  c  nstant  difference  being  quired  the  reserve  to  be  one-fourth  part  of 
covered  by  documentary  securities,  and  by  a  the  liabilities,  no  more  notes  could  be  paid 
sum  of  about  eleven  millions  which  the  bank  Thus,  from  the  moment  that  the  banker 
lends  to  the  government  without  interest,  allows  his  reserve  to  touch  the  legal  minimum, 
Under  this  arrnngement  we  secure  all  the  ad-  it  becomes  unavailable  to  him,  except  by  a 
vantages  of  the  simple  deposit  system,  while  breach  of  law,  and  it  may  be  said  that  the 
the  community  gains  the  interest  amounting  law  is  of  little  use  except  when  broken.  This 
to  about  .£445,000,  of  which  the  government  system,  in  fact,  reduces  itself,  when  it  comes 
receives  .£188,00 :>  per  annum.  The  charac-  '  into  operation  at  all,  to  the  Minimum  Re- 
ter  of  the  contract  betwe.-n  the  government  j  serve  method  last  described.  The  banker 
and  the  bink  is  of  too  intricate  a  nature  to  be  cannot  touch  his  reserve  just  when  he  most 


readily  fathomed  or  described,  but  it  substan- 
tially amounts  to  the  government  borrowing 
the  larger  part  of  the  fifteen  millions  of  de- 
posits, and  allowing  the  bank  to  use  the  rest 


wants  it,  and  the  deadlock  thus  occasioned 
was  acutely  felt  in  the  United  States  during 
the  panic  of  1873. 

This  method  of  regulation  has,  moreover, 


to  cover  the  cost  of  printing  and  managing  i  little  or  no  effect  in  removing  the  motives  for 
the   note    circulation.     I   shall   treat  of  this  !  an  extension  of  the  circulation.     The  greater 


system  again  in  Chapter  XXIV.  The  Partial 
Deposit  method  is  the  basis  of  the  new  law 
concerning  the  issue  of  notes  in  the  German 
empire,  in  combination  with  the  Elastic 
Limit  method,  which  possibly  constitutes  an 
improvement. 

3. — MINIMUM   RESERVE. 
One  mode  of  guaranteeing  the  payment  of 


part  of  the  value  of  every  additional  note  kept 
in  circulation  is  a  gratuitous  addition  to  the 
loanable  capital  of  the  bank,  and  bears  inter- 
est as  long  as  it  can  be  kept  afloat. 

5. — MAXIMUM   ISSUE. 

To  allow  a  bank  or  banks  to  issue  in  the 
aggregate  a  certain  fix  d  amount  of  prom- 


notes,  which  might  be  suggested,  would  con-  j  issory  notes,  and  no  more,  appears  to  me 
sist  in  obliging  the  issuers  to  keep  on  hand  I  |3uite  consistent  with  the  principles  of  polit- 
a  stock  of  specie,  which  is  never  to  be  i ical  economy.  It  saves  interest  upon  a  cer- 
allowed  to  fall  below  a  certain  fixed  amount,  i  tain  portion  of  the  circulating  medium,  and 
This  would  be  like  recommending  a  man  to  supplies  a  convenient  and  economical  cur- 
avoid  impecuniosity  by  always  keeping  a  '  rency.  At  the  same  time,  the  notes  issued 
shilling  in  his  pocket.  The  fact  that  the  cannot  drive  gold  out  of  the  country  beyond 
minimum  amount  must  be  kept  in  the  vaults  !  a  fixpd  amount.  It  is  strongly  urged  by  Mr. 
renders  it  unavailable  for  meeting  demands  i  R-  Inglis  Palgrave  and  others  that  the  limit- 
when  they  come.  There  can  be  no  me  in  ation  is  arbitrary,  and  that  the  people  want 


such  a  reserve  unless  there  be  a  power  exer- 
cised by  the  legislature  or  executive  govern- 


more  money  ,  but  it  is  always  open  to  them 
to  use  metallic  money  instead.  The  limitation 


ment,  of  arbitrarily  suspending  the  operation  imposed  is  not  upon  money  itself,  but  upon 
of  the  law  when  there  is  a  run  upon  the  the  representative  part,  and  though  we  there- 
banks.  |  by  foiego  the  increased  saving  of  interest 
4. — PROPORTIONAL  RESERVE.  upi,n  enlarged  issues,  this  loss  may  be 
_,  .  balanced  by  the  freedom  from  any  risk  of 
The  issuer  of  promises  to  pay  money  on  producing  a  fictitious  abundance  of  gold, 
demand  may  be  required  to  keep  a  reserve  of  This  system  is  sufficiently  illustrated  in  the 
com  never  less  than,  say,  one-fourth  of  the  I7O  banks  of  England  which  are  stiil  allowed 
whole  ou  standing  notes.  1  his  is  analagous  to  issue  notes.  Sir  Robert  Peel  provided, 
to  the  method  on  which  the  National  Bank  j  in  the  Act  of  1844,  that  tney  might  continue 
currency  of  the  United  States  was  lately  j  to  issue  without  any  condition  as  to  reserve, 
regulated  and  it  is  perhaps,  better  to  en- |  the  same  quantity  of  notes  as  they  had 
force  the  keqnnZ  of  a  certain  amount  than  to  issued  on  the  average  of  twelve  weeks  pre- 
leave  hem  mer  entirely  to  the  discretion  and  I  Ceding  a  day  named.  If  any  bank  ex- 
tood  faith  of  the  individual  ^issuers.  As  the  j  ceeded  the  amount  thus  determined  it  was  to 
banker  sees  his  reserve  running  down  nearly  be  fined  a  sum  of  m  ,  to  the  average 
to  the  legal  limit,  he  will  be  Compelled  to  use  |  excess  of  the  month  ;  and  sworn  returns  of 
addition  d  caution,  in  order  to  avoid  a  breach  their  circulations  were  required  from  all  issu- 

the  law.      But  if   the   untoward   state  of   ing  banks 

trade  and  credit  causes  any  large  portion  of  ,  '     6.— ELASTIC  LIMIT. 

tne   outstanding  notes  to  be  presented,  the 

legal  tender  reserve  will  be  diminished  in  a  The  above  is  the  best  name  which  I  ean 
•reater  proportion  than  the  amount  of  notes,  find  for  a  new  method  of  regulation  which 
which  is  larger  in  absolute  quantity.  It  has  just  been  adopted  in  the  Bank  Act  of  the 

02 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      353 


German  empire.  So  far  as  regards  the  issue 
of  bank-notes  the  banking  organization  of 
Germany  will  substantially  resemble  that  of 
England.  The  new  Imperial  Bank,  and 
such  of  the  state  or  other  banks  which  con- 
form to  the  requirements  of  the  law,  will  have 
the  right  of  issuing  notes  not  backed  by  gold 
to  the  aggregate  sum  of  385  millions  of 
marks.  They  may  apparently  issue  any 
further  quantity  of  notes  in  exchange  for  a 
deposit  of  gold  to  an  equal  value.  So  far  the 
method  is  precisely  that  of  the  partial  deposit 
already  described.  Observing,  however, 
that  the  English  Bank  Charter  Act  has 
on  several  occasions  been  violated  to  prevent 
a  panic,  the  German  legislature  has  provided 
that  a  tax  of  5  per  cent,  be  paid  thereon. 
It  is  intended  in  this  way  to  make  it  unpro- 
fitable for  any  bank  to  exceed  the  normal 
!imits.  It  seems  likely  that  this  provision 
will  work  well,  and  form  an  improvement  on 
our  method.  The  Englisn  Government,  in- 
deed, has  always  deprived  the  Bank  of  Eng- 
land of  the  interest  on  any  excess  of  notes 
which  it  issued  during  a  suspension  of  the 
Bank  Act,  but  the  German  law  makes  the 
limit  of  issue  elastic  in  all  cases,  so  as  to 
avoid  the  danger  of  panic 

7- — DOCUMENTARY   RESERVE. 

It  might  seem  enough  in  order  to  ensure 
the  convertibility  of  notes,  that  the  bankers 
issuing  them  should  prove  their  possession  of 
abundant  funds,  in  the  form  of  government 
stocks,  bonds,  exchequer  bills,  rentes,  or  even 
good  mercantile  bills,  sufficient  to  establish 
the  perfect  solvency  of  the  firm.  If  a  con- 
siderable margin  be  left,  it  may  seem  impos- 
sible that  the  notes  should  not  ultimately  be 
paid.  To  argue  in  this  way,  however,  is  to 
forget  that  bank-notes  are  promises  to  pay 
gold  or  legal  tender  metallic  money  on  demand, 
and  '.hat  to  pay  the  notes  ultimately  is  not  to 
pay  them  on  demand.  With  such  a  reserve, 
payment  can  only  be  made  in  any  large  quan- 
tity by  selling  the  stocks  and  bonds  for  me- 
tallic money,  but  it  is  just  when  there  is  a 
scarcity  of  gold  and  silver,  that  notes  are  pre- 
sented for  payment.  No  doubt  good  govern- 
ment funds  and  good  bills  can  always  be 
sold  at  some  price,  so  that  a  banking  firm 
with  a  strong  reserve  of  this  kind  might  al- 
ways maintain  their  solvency.  But  the 
remedy  might  be  worse  for  the  community 
than  the  disease,  and  the  forced  sale  of  the 
reserve  might  create  such  a  disturbance  in 
the  money  market  as  would  do  more  harm 
than  the  suspension  of  payment  of  the  notes. 
Payment  of  notes  on  demand  implies  the  pos- 
session of  adequate  gold  and  silver,  and  if 
there  be  not  sufficient  bullion  and  coin  in  the 
country,  no  paper  documents,  or  promises  to 
pay  at  a  future  day,  can  take  their  place. 

8. — REAL  PROPERTY   RESERVE. 

Many  currency  theorists  have  held,  that  in 
»ecuring  the  repayment  of  notes  we  need  not 


restrict  ourselves  to  a  single  commodity  gold, 
but  may  mortgage  for  the  purpose,  land, 
houses,  or  any  kind  of  fixed  real  property. 
The  celebrated  scheme  of  John  Law  was  of 
this  nature  In  his  remarkable  tract  on 
"  Money  and  Trade  Considered,  with  a  Pro- 
posal for  Supplying  the  Nation  with  Money," 
published  in  1705,  he  suggests  that  commis- 
sioners should  be  appointed  to  "  coin  "  notes 
"to  be  received  in  payments  where  offeied," 
that  is,  I  presume,  as  legal  tender.  He  sets 
forth  three  alternative  modes  of  issuing  these 
notes  on  land  security,  the  first  and  simplest 
being  to  lend  them  to  land-owners  at  the  ordi- 
nary interest,  to  ti'.e  extent  of  one-half  or  two- 
thirds  of  the  value.  He  endeavors  to  provide 
against  depreciation  of  the  notes  by  taking 
care  that  the  prices  are  always  estimated  in 
silver  money. 

The  assignats  of  the  French  Revolutionary 
Government  represented  land  assigned,  name- 
ly, portions  of  the  confiscated  estates  of  the 
Church.  They  were  to  be  received  back  and 
canceled  as  the  lands  were  bought  by  the 
public,  but,  as  the  price  of  the  land  was  not 
fixed,  no  proportion  was  established  bttween 
land  and  paper,  and  no  amount  of  land  could 
prevent  the  assignats  from  falling  as  they  did 
to  one  two-hundredth  pare  of  their  original 
value.  In  the  subsequent  issue  of  Mandats, 
an  attempt  was  made  to  fix  the  price  of  land 
in  mandats,  but  this  scheme-also  failed.  The 
inconvertible  land  mortgage  notes,  issued  by 
Frederick  the  Great  to  recruit  his  treasury,  ex- 
hausted by  wars,  were  of  somewhat  the  same 
nature,  but  bore  interest. 

Land  is  doubtless  one  of  the  best  kinds  of 
security  for  the  ul'imate  repayment  of  a  debt, 
and  is  therefore  very  suitable  when  money  is 
lent  for  a  long  time.  But  representative 
bank-notes  purport  to  be  equivalent  to  gold 
payable  on  demand,  and  nothing  is  less 
readily  convertible  into  gold  on  an  emergency 
than  land.  In  this  respect  a  reserve  of  reaJ 
property  is  worse  tnan  a  reserve  of  excheq- 
uer bills  or  consols. 

This  method  of  providing  paper  money 
has  generally  been  advocated  on  the  ground 
that  the  quantity  of  money  in  circulation 
might  thus  be  greatly  increased,  and  the 
wealth  of  the  nation  augmented.  It  could 
readily  be  shown,  however,  that  an  increase 
of  the  money  in  circulation  will  lead  to  a  re- 
duction in  its  value.  In  any  given  state  of 
industry  only  a  certain  quantity  of  circula- 
ting medium  is  needed,  and  were  the  notes 
really  convertible  into  definite  quantities  of 
land  or  any  other  substantial  commodity,  the 
excess  of  notes  would  ultimately  be  present- 
ed for  payment.  To  suppose  that  the  cur- 
rency could  be  made  equal  in  aggregate 
value  to  any  large  part  of  the  lands  of  the 
country  is  evidently  absurd. 

9. — REGULATION      BY     THE      FOREIGN      EX- 
CHANGES. 

A  theory  was  very  much  in  favor  among 


354 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


bank  directors  at  the  beginning  of  this  cen- 
;ury  that  a  paper  currency  could  be  regula- 
ted merely  by  watching  the  rates  of  the  foreign 
exchanges,  and  restricting  the  issue  when 
the  lowness  of  the  rates  and  the  export  of 
specie  showed  a  depreciation  of  the  paper. 
This  was  one  of  the  methods  proposed  in 
opposition  to  the  celebrated  Bullion  Report, 
and  a  summary  of  the  interminable  discus- 
sions on  the  subject  will  be  found  in  Mr. 
Macleod's  Treatise  on  Banking,  Vol.  II. 
Chapter  IX. 

Regulation  by  the  foreign  exchanges  is 
much  better  than  no  regulation  at  all,  but  if 
perfectly  carried  out  it  would  give  exactly  the 
same  results  as  the  deposit  method,  and  is 
only  a  loose  and  indirect  way  of  reaching  the 
tame  end. 

IO. — FREE  ISSUE  SYSTEM. 

There  is  a  school  of  economists,  both  in 
this  country  and  America,  who  uphold  the 
expediency  of  allowing  ail  persons  to  issue 
as  many  promissory  notes  payable  on  de- 
mand as  they  can  get  other  persons  to  ac-. 
cept.  They  call  this  system  the  Free  Bank- 
ing system,  but  incorrectly,  because  it  is  no 
necessary  function  of  a  banker  to  issue 
promissory  notes,  and  a  great  many  banks 
exist  in  England  without  any  power  of  issue. 
This  subject  will  be  further  discussed  in  a 
subsequent  chapter,  and  I  will  only  add 
here  that  under  the  system  of  unrestricted 
issue,  a  banker  is  bound  by  law  to  pay  a  note 
issued  by  him,  but  it  is  left  entirely  at  his 
own  discretion  to  keep  such  balance  of  specie 
tor  the  purpose  as  he  may  think  proper.  As 
a  general  rule,  no  doubt,  notes  thus  issued 
will  be  paid  ;  but,  having  regard  to  the  great 
fluctuations  of  commerce,  which  are  becom- 
ing more,  rather  than  less  marked,  there  will 
occur  periods  tvhen  a  pressure  for  payment 
of  notes  will  be  made.  Experience  abun- 
dantly shows  that  a  certain  number  of  indi- 
viduals will  calculate  too  confidently  on  their 
good  fortune,  and  fail  to  carry  out  their 
promises  and  intentions  when  the  critical 
time  arrives. 

II. — THE  GOLD  PAR  METHOD. 

Assuming  an  inconvertible  paper  currency 
to  be  issued,  and  to  be  entirely  in  the  hands 
oi  the  government,  many  of  the  evils  of  such 
a  system  might  be  avoided  if  the  issue  were 
limited  or  reduced  the  moment  that  the  price 
of  gold  in  paper  rose  above  par.  As  long  as 
the  notes  and  the  gold  coin  which  they  pre- 
cend  to'  represent  circulate  on  a  footing  of 
eqnality,  they  are  as  good  as  convertible. 
Since  the  beginning  of  the  Franco  Prussian 
war,  the  Bank  of  France  appears  to  have 
acted  successfully  on  this  principle,  and  the 
inconvertible  notes  were  never  depreciated 
more  than  about  one-half  or  one  per  cent,  in 
spite  of  the  vast  political  or  financial  troubles  in 
France.  But  this  is  one  of  the  very  few  cases 
in  which  inconvertible  paper  currency  has  not 


been  depreciated.  During  the  restrictioa  of 
specie  payments  in  England,  gold  was  bought 
and  sold  at  a  premium  varying  up  to  25  per 
cent.,  yet  Fox,  Vansittart,  and  other  leading 
men  of  the  time,  declared  it  to  be  absurd  to 
suppose  that  paper  was  depreciated.  So  un- 
accouutable  are  the  prejudices  of  men  on  the 
subject  of  currency  that  it  is  not  well  tc  leave 
anything  to  discretionary  management. 

12.— CONVERTIBILITY  BY  REVENUE 
PAYMENTS. 

In  many  instances  governments  have  tried 
to  maintain  the  vahie  of  a  paper  circulation  by 
engaging  to  receive  it  as  taxes,  or  even  ren- 
dering  its  use  for  this  purpose  obligatory. 
The  Russian  government,  when  issuing  assign 
ats,  received  them  at  a  fixed  rate  in  place  of 
copper  coin,  and  required  that  at  least  one- 
twentieth  part  of  every  payment  was  to  be 
thus  paid.  The  French  assignats  of  the  Rev- 
olution were  also  received  at  the  public  treas 
uries.  This  would  be  a  fair  method  of  secur- 
ing stability  of  value  on  two  conditions  : — <i) 
that  the  taxes  or  charges  were  themselves 
levied  according  to  a  fixed  tariff ;  and  (2) 
that  the  quantity  of  notes  issued  were  kept 
within  such  moderate  limits  that  any  one 
wishing  to  realize  the  metallic  value  of  the 
notes  could  find  some  one  wanting  to  pay 
taxes,  and  therefore  willing  to  give  coin  for 
notes.  It  is  very  unlikely,  however,  that 
these  conditions  could  ever  be  fully  and  con. 
veniently  realized  in  practice. 

The  United  States  greenback  currency 
was  made  receivable  for  United  States  stamps, 
and  was  also  to  be  received  in  payment  of  all 
taxes  and  dues  in  sums  of  certain  assigned 
amounts,  excepting  Customs  dues.  But  the 
fact  that  some  notes  are  thus  withdrawn  will 
not  prevent  depreciation,  if  they  besocn  paid 
out  again  with  additions  rt quired  to  meet 
the  pressing  expenditure  of  a  government 

In  a  small  way  postage  stamps  are  becom- 
ing used  as  currency  in  several  countries. 
They  were  extensively  used  in  the  earlier  years 
of  the  American  war  as  the  well-kn  wn  frac- 
tional currency.  They  are  now  a  recognized 
medium  of  payment  in  England,  being  re- 
purchased by  most  postmast  .rs  at  a  discount 
of  two  and  one-half  per  cent,  if  presented  in 
a  piece  of  two  or  more  undivided  stamps. 
Independently,  however,  of  re-purchase, 
stamps  are  so  continually  being  canceled  by 
use  in  postage,  that  thdir  value  can  hardly  be 
lowered  by  excess  of  quantity.  They  form  a 
convenient  and  costless  form  of  remittance 
for  very  small  sums,  say  from  a  halfpenny  to 
five  shillings,  and  little  or  no  objection  can 
be  made  to  their  occasional  use  as  change,  in 
pLce  of  pence.  They  would,  however,  form 
a  very  bad  currency  if  circulated  to  any  great 
extent. 

13. — DEFERRED  CONVERTIBILITY, 

It  is  a  common  resource  for  insurrectionary 
or  belligerent  governments  in  want  of  funds. 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.     355 


to  issue  documents  promising  to  pay  cash 
after  their  successful  establishment.  When 
interest  proportional  to  the  time  is  also  prom- 
ised, these  notes  must  be  regarded  rather  as 
bonds.  Of  such  nature  were  those  issued  by 
Kossuth  in  New  York  to  form  a  Hungarian 
fund,  to  be  paid  after  the  erection  of  an  inde- 
pendent Hungarian  government.  Similar 
bonds  were  signed  by  the  notorious  Walker, 
as  President  of  the  provisional  government  of 
the  republic  of  Nicaragua  By  far  the  best 
instance  of  this  kind  of  currency  is  furnished 
by  the  Confederate  States  treasury  notes,  the 
early  issues  of  which  were  made  payable  six 
months  after  the  ratification  of  a  treaty  of 
peace  with  the  United  States,  and  further  is- 
sues were  made  payable  two  years  after  such 
treaty. 

All  such  documents  may  be  considered  as 
bills  of  very  long  date  and  of  very  uncertain 
value.  The  public  spirit  of  a  people  in 
time  of  war  often  enables  them  to  be  put 
afloat,  and  the  need  of  currency  keeps  them 
in  circulation  for  a  time,  but  their  value  un- 
dergoes violent  variations,  and  there  are  few 
instances  in  which  such  bills  have  been 
eventually  paid. 

14. — INCONVERTIBLE  PAPER  MONEY. 

Finally  we  come  to  the  undisguised  paper 
money  issued  bv  government  and  ordered  to 
be  received  as  legal  tender.  Such  inconvert- 
ible paper  notes  have  in  all  instances  been 
put  in  circulation  for  convertible  ones,  or  in 
the  place  of  such,  and  they  are  always  ex- 
pressed in  terms  of  money.  The  French 
mandats  of  100  francs,  for  instance,  bear 
the  ambiguous  phrase  ' '  Bon  pour  cent 
francs."  The  wretched  scraps  of  paper 
which  are  circulated  in  Buenos  Ayres,  are 
marked  "  Un  Peso,  Moneda  Corriente,"  re- 
minding one  of  the  time  when  the  peso  was 
a  heavy  standard  coin.  After  the  promise  of 
payment  in  coin  is  found  to  be  illusory  the 
notes  still  circulate,  partly  from  habit,  partly 
because  the  people  must  have  some  currency, 
and  have  no  coin  to  use  for  the  purpose,  or  if 
they  have,  carefully  hoard  it  for  profit  or  fu- 
ture  use.  There  is  plenty  of  evidence  to 
prove  that  an  inconvertible  paper  money, 
carefully  limited  in  quantity,  can  retain  its 
full  value.  Such  was  the  case  with  the  Bank 
of  England  notes  for  several  years  after  the 
suspension  of  specie  payments  in  1797,  and 
such  is  the  case  with  the  present  notes  of  the 
Bank  of  France. 

The  principal  objections  to  an  inconvert- 
ible paper  currency  are  two  in  number. 

X.  The  great  temptation  which  it  offers  to 
over  issue  and  consequent  depreciation. 

2.  The  impossibility  of  varying  its 
amounts  in  accordance  with  the  requirements 
of  trade. 


OVER   ISSUE   OF    PAPER   MONEY. 

It  is  hardly  requisite  to  tell  again  the  well- 
WQCa  tab  of  the  over  issue  of  paper  money, 


which  has  almost  always  followed  the  re. 
moval  of  the  legal  necessity  of  convertibility. 
Hardly  any  civilized  nation  exists,  excepting 
some  of  the  newer  British  colonies,  which  has 
not  suffered  from  the  scourge  of  paper 
money  at  one  time  or  other.  Russia  has  had 
a  depreciated  paper  currency  for  more  than  a 
hundred  years,  and  the  history  of  it  may  be 
read  in  M.  Wolowski's  work  on  the  finances 
of  Russia.  Repeated  limits  were  placed  to 
its  issue  by  imperial  edict,  but  the  next  war 
always  led  to  further  issues.  Italy,  Austria, 
and  the  United  States,  countries  where  the 
highest  economical  intelligence  might  be  ex- 
pected to  guide  the  governments,  endure  the 
evils  of  an  inconvertible  paper  currency. 
Time  after  time  in  the  earlier  history  of  the 
New  England  and  some  of  the  other  States 
now  forming  parts  of  the  American  Union, 
paper  money  had  been  issued  and  had 
wrought  ruin.  Full  particulars  will  b«  found 
in  Professor  Sumner's  new  and  interesting 
"  History  of  American  Currency."  Some  of 
the  greatest  statesmen  pointed  to  the  results  ; 
and  Webster's  opinion  should  never  be  for- 
gotten. Of  paper  money  he  says :  "We 
have  suffered  more  from  this  cause  than  from 
every  other  cause  or  calamity.  It  has  killed 
more  men,  pervaded  and  corrupted  the 
choicest  interests  of  our  country  more,  and 
done  more  injustice  than  even  the  arms  and 
artifices  of  our  enemy." 

The  issue  of  an  inconvertible  money, 
as  Professor  Sumner  remarks,  has  often 
been  recommended  as  a  convenient  means  of 
making  a  forced  loan  from  the  people,  when 
the  finances  of  the  government  are  in  a  des- 
perate condition.  It  is  true  that  money  may 
be  thus  easily  abstracted  from  the  people, 
and  the  government  debts  are  effectually 
lessened.  At  the  same  time,  however,  every 
private  debtor  is  enabled  to  take  a  forced  con- 
tribution from  his  creditor.  A  government 
should,  indeed,  be  in  a  desperate  position, 
which  ventures  thus  to  break  all  social  con- 
tracts and  relations  which  it  was  created  to 
preserve. 

WANT  OF  ELASTICITY  OF  PAPER  MONEY. 

A  further  objection  to  a  paper  money  in- 
convertible into  coin,  is  that  it  cannot  be 
varied  in  quantity  by  the  natural  action  of 
trade.  No  one  can  export  it  or  import  it 
like  coin,  and  no  one  but  the  government  or 
banks  authorized  by  government  can  issue  or 
cancel  it.  Hence,  if  trade  becomes  brisk, 
nothing  bat  a  decree  of  the  government  can 
supply  the  requisite  increase  of  circulating 
medium,  and  if  this  be  put  afloat  and  trade 
relapse  into  dullness,  the  currency  becomes 
redundant,  and  falls  in  value.  Now,  even 
the  best  informed  government  department 
cannot  be  trusted  to  judge  wisely  and  im- 
partially when  more  money  is  wanted.  Cur- 
rency must  be  supplied  like  all  other  com- 
modities, according  to  the  free  action  of  th« 
laws  of  supply  and  demand. 


Sft 


356 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


Some  persons  have  argued  that  it  is  well  to 
have  a  paper  money  to  form  a  home  currency, 
which  cannot  be  drained  away,  and  will  be 
free  from  the  disturbing  influences  of  foreign 
trad:.  But  we  cannot  disconnect  home  and 
foreign  trade,  except  by  doing  away  with  the 
latter  altogether,  If  two  nations  are  to  trade, 
the  precious  metals  must  form  the  inter- 
national medium  of  exchange  by  which  a  bal- 
ance of  indebtedness  is  paid.  Hence  each 
merchant  in  ordering,  consigning,  or  selling 
goods  must  pay  regard  not  to  the  paper  price 
of  such  goods,  but  to  the  gold  or  silver  price 
with  which  he  really  pays  for  them.  Gold 
and  silver,  in  short,  continue  to  be  the  real 
measure  <^f  value,  and  the  variable  paper  cur- 
rency .3  only  an  additional  term  of  comparison 
which  adds  confusion. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 


CREDIT  DOCUMENTS. 

Much  mystery  has  been  created  on  the 
.subject  of  money  by  those  who  assert  vaguely 
t'»at  credit  can  replace  coins.and  that  we  have 
only  to  print  sufficient  bills  and  other  promis- 
sory documents  in  order  to  have  an  abundant 
circulating  medium.  Credit  has  been  said  to 
multiply  property  and  to  perform  all  kinds  of 
prodigies.  When  we  analyze  its  nature,  how- 
ever, credit  is  found  to  be  nothing  but  the 
deferring  of  a  payment.  1  take  credit  when  I 
induce  my  creditor  to  consent  to  my  paying 
a  month  hence  what  might  be  demanded  to- 
day ;  and  I  give  credit  when  I  allow  my 
debtor  in  the  same  manner  to  put  off  the 
liquidation  of  his  debt.  This  credit  involves, 
as  Locke,  very  accurately  said,  "the  expecta- 
tion of  money  within  some  limited  time." 
The  debts,  indeed,  may  consist  of  a  definite 
quantity  of  any  commodity.  I  may  have  to 
pay  corn,  pig-iron,  palm-oil,  cotton,  or  any 
other  staple  article,  but,  generally  speaking, 
debts  are  debts  of  legal  tender  money. 

MEASUREMENT   OF   CREDIT. 

In  order  to  measure  and  define  exactly  the 
amount  of  credit  which  is  given  or  received, 
and  to  estimate  the  present  value  of  a  debt, 
we  must  take  into  account  at  least  five  dis- 
tinct circumstances  which  are  as  follows: 

1.  The  amount  of  money  to  be  received- 

2.  he  probable  interval  of   time  elapsing 
before  its  receipt. 

3.  The  probability  that  it  will  then  be  paid. 

4.  The  rate  of  interest  likely  to  prevail  in 
the  meantime. 

5  The  legal  liabilities  which  it  creates  or 
Involves. 

Writers  upon  currency  have  been  too  much 
accus'omed  to  mass  together  all  kinds  of 
credit  documents,  taking  no  account  of  the 
Important  results  which  P  iy  follow  from  very 
slight  legal  or  customary  'differences.  No 


doubt  every  kind  of  promise  to  pay  money 
has  a  certain  value,  but  the  degree  in  which  i't 
may  be  made  available  to  facilitate  exchange 
varies    exceedingly    according    to    circum 
stances. 

BANK  NOTES. 

What  we  call  a  bank  note  is  a  promissory 
note,  issued  by  a  banker,  and  binding  him  to 
pay  the  sum  named  therein  to  the  bearer  im- 
mediately upon  demand.  The  note  is  trans- 
ferable by  delivery,  so  that  the  holder  is,  like 
the  holder  of  a  coin,  the  ovfn&r-prima  facie, 
and  as  such  can  claim  the  fulfillment  of  the 
promise  at  any  moment,  within  reasonable 
hours,  without  inquiry.  The  failure  of  the 
banker  to  pay  the  note  when  presented  does 
not  create  any  liability  between  the  persons 
through  whose  hands  the  note  had  previously 
passed,  so  that  the  note  is  continually  em- 
ployed, like  metallic  money,  in  settling  debts 
and  removing  liabilities.  It  is  most  impor- 
tant to  observe  that  a  bank-note  being  paya- 
ble on  demand  bears  no  interest,  and  is  never 
bought  at  a  discount,  except  when  the  tilti- 
mate  pay  is  doubtful.  lience  the  holder  of  a 
note  has,  like  the  holder  of  ordinary  coins, 
no  motive  in  keeping  it,  except  to  make 
future  purchases.  If  a  man  has  more  rotes 
than  he  expects  to  pay  away  in  a  week  or 
two,  he  will  do  best  to  deposit  them  in  a 
bank,  where  they  will  be  safer  and  at  the 
same  time  bear  interest.  There  is  thus  an 
inherent  tendency  in  notes  to  circulate  like 
coins,  and  to  be  kept  down  in  amount  to  the 
lowest  quantity  consistent  with  the  accom- 
plishment of  retail  purchases. 


A  check  payable  to  bearer  is  an  order 
addressed  to  a  banker,  requiring  him  to  pay 
the  sum  named  to  the  bearer  of  the  check  on 
demand.  Like  a  bank  note,  it  bears  no  inter- 
est, and  is  transferable  from  hand  to  hand 
without  any  formality,  so  that  the  holder  is 
prima  facie  the  owner.  If  there  be  no  doubt 
at  all  as  to  the  credit  both  of  the  drawer  and 
of  the  bank  on  which  the  check  is  drawn, 
it  is  difficult  to  see  why  a  check  should  be 
inferior  to  a  bank-note  as  representative 
money,  except  that  it  is  usually  drawn  for  an 
odd  sum.  In  some  places  checks  have  been 
so  used,  and  in  Queensland  at  the  present 
time,  in  the  absence  of  coins  and  notes,  the 
settlers  pay  their  men  in  small  bank  checks, 
which  are  received  at  the  stores,  and  thus  be- 
come the  circulating  medium  of  the  colony. 
Obvious  objections  to  this  use  of  checksmay 
be  pointed  out. 

It  is  impossible  to  be  acquainted  with  the 
check  forms  of  all  banks,  the  signatures  of 
those  who  draw  them  and  the  credit  of  the 
drawers.  If  the  public  were  in  the  habit  of 
daily  receiving  and  paying  checks  without 
minutely  inquiring  into  their  validity,  im- 
mense  facilities  would  be  given  to  the  perpe- 
tratkra  of  fraud.  Forgery  would  be  easy  but 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      357 


hardly  requisite,  since  it  would  be  better  to 
obtain  possession  of  a  check  book,  and  then 
fill  up  checks  for  amounts  exceeding  the  de- 
posits in  the  banker's  hands.  Every  one  ac- 
cepting a  check  thus  receives  it  at  the  risk 
of  fraud  or  bankruptcy  on  the  part  of  the 
drawer.  There  is,  moreover,  the  possibility 
of  failure  of  the  bank  on  which  it  is  drawn  ; 
for  it  is  a  well-understood  point  of  law,  that  if 
the  holder  of  a  check  does  not  present  it  in 
"reasonable  time,"  that  is,  before  the  close 
of  business  hours  on  the  day  following  the  re- 
ceipt of  the  check,  he  loses  his  claim  against 
the  drawer,  if  the  bank  should  happen  to  fail. 
The  reason  obviously  is  that  the  drawer  loses 
the  deposit  which  he  left  in  the  banker's 
hands  to  mi  et  the  check,  ar.d  should  not 
suffer  from  the  holder's  want  of  diligence. 

The  salutary  tffect  of  this  law  and  of  other 
conditions  is,  that  checks  do  not  circulate  in 
this  kingdom  in  place  of  money,  but  are  usu 
ally  presented  within  one  or  two  days  of  re- 
ceipt. Hence  they  come  to  serve  as  mere  in- 
struments of  transfer  of  money,  and  involve 
no  considerable  length  of  ciedit.  Nothing 
can  be  gained  by  holding  an  ordinary  check, 
for  there  is  no  interest,  and  something  may 
be  lost.  Beyond  the  mere  trouble  of  pre- 
sentation, then,  there  is  no  motive  to  prevent 
a  holder  from  at  once  getting  coin  or  bank- 
notes for  his  check  which,  though  paying  no 
interest,  are  safer.  Or,  still  better,  he  may 
deposit  the  sum  at  his  bankers,  get  a  low  in- 
terest in  the  meantime,  and  draw  a  new 
check  of  his  own  when  he  wishes  to  pay  the 
check  away  again.  Experience  shows  that 
the  latter  is  the  most  satisfactory  course,  the 
money  being  usually  safer  and  more  available 
in  the  hands  of  a  good  banker  than  else- 
where, and  usually  paying  interest  all  the 
time.  On  this  foundation  is  erected  the  ex- 
tensive system  of  payment  which  will  be  de- 
scribed in  the  next  chapter,  and  which  may 
be  called  the  Check  and  Clearing  System. 

There  are,  indeed,  many  varieties  of 
checks.  Bankers'  checks  are  those  drawn 
by  one  banker  upon  another,  and  are  used  as 
a  means  of  remittance.  If  both  the  bankers 
concerned  are  of  perfect  credit,  and  the  form 
and  signature  can  be  verified,  such  checks 
seem  to  me  to  be  in  no  way  inferior  to  bank- 
notes as  representative  money.  If  tv.o  per- 
fectly well-known  banks  were  to  arrange  to 
draw  checks  upon  each  other  for  convenient 
even  amounts,  and  to  issue  these  to  their  cus- 
tomers, it  would  effect  a  successful  evasion  of 
che  law  against  the  unlimited  issue  of  notes. 
So  gieat  however  is  the  force  of  habit,  or  the 
respect  for  !aw>  that  no  such  attempt  is 
made,  and  bankers'  checks  are  presented  al- 
most as  prorrptly  as  any  others. 

Certified  checks,  as  employed  in  the  New 
York  trade,  are  a  still  rearer  approach  to  a 
bank-note,  for  they  are  checks  which  have 
been  marked  by  the  bankers  on  whom  they 
are  drawn,  as  sure  to  be  paid  on  presenta- 
tion. Either  the  banker  in  certifying  the 


check  has  funds  belonging  to  the  drawer 
which  be  can  retain  to  meet  it,  or  else  he 
pledges  his  own  credit  that  he  will  r^ect  the 
check  in  any  case.  Such  checks  are  really 
promissory  notes  of  the  banker,  and  I  can 
see  no  reasons  why  they  should  not  circulate 
as  freely  as  bank-notes,  except  that  they  are 
drawn  for  odd  sums,  and  present  few  safe- 
guards against  forgery.  The  checks  of  the 
Check  Bank,  which  will  be  subsequently 
considered  (Chapter  XXII.),  are  equivalent 
to  certified  checks,  as  they  cannot  be  issued 
except  against  deposits  which  are  retained 
until  the  check  is  presented. 

Of  late  years  the  practice  has  become  very 
general  of  making  checks  payable  to  order 
instead  of  to  bearer,  and  of  crossing  them 
so  as  to  necessitate  their  presentation  through 
a  banker.  The  order  may,  indeed,  be  dis- 
charged by  an  open  endorsement,  which 
renders  the  check  again  payable  to  bearer, 
but  there  remains  the  possibility  of  a  forged 
endorsement.concerning  which  difficult  points 
of  law  have  arisen.  A  general  crossing  need 
not  interfere  appreciably  with  the  circulation 
of  a  check,  but  when  crossed  specifically 
for  presentation  through  a  particular  bank, 
the  check  becomes  practically  an  order  to 
credit  a  particular  individual,  who  keeps  his 
account  in  that  bank,  with  the  sum  of  money. 

BILLS   OF   EXCHANGE. 

A  bill  of  exchange  is  an  order  to  a  person 
to  pay  money  to  the  legal  holder  of  the  docu- 
ment on  a  day  indicated  therein.  If  payable 
at  sight,  a  bill  does  not  apparently  cliifer 
from  a  check  or  draft  to  order,  except  that 
it  will  be  usually  drawn  upon  persons  of  less 
credit  than  well-known  bankers.  If  not 
payable  at  sight,  the  length  of  time  interven- 
ing between  the  day  named  for  payment  and 
the  day  of  issue  may  vary  from  a  day  or  two 
upward,  and  the  money  cannot  be  demanded 
in  the  meantime.  Hence,  a  bill  generally 
bears  interest,  or  rather  is  only  bought  at  such 
a  discount  as  will  enable  it  to  be  held  to 
maturity  without  loss.  To  estimate  the 
liability  of  loss,  some  estimate  must  be  formed 
of  the  rate  of  interest  likely  to  prevail  in  the 
meantime,  and  the  value  of  the  bill  will  thus 
vary  according  to  a  multitude  of  circum- 
stances. Bills  of  exchange  may  be  msde 
payable  to  the  bearer,  but  as  a  general  rule 
they  are  payable  to  a  specified  person,  and 
transferred  by  endorsement  to  other  specified 
persons.  Thus,  every  party  concerned  with 
a  bill  incurs  a  certain  liability,  which  is  not 
removed  until  it  is  duly  paid.  In  several 
respects,  then,  a  bill  may  differ  from  coined 
money,  which  bears  no  interest,  and  dis- 
charges instead  of  creating  liability  when  ten- 
dered in  payment  of  debts. 

INTEREST-BEARING   DOCUMENTS. 

It  is  extraordinary  that  few  writers  on 
Currency  have  remarked  the  deep  difference 
between  commercial  documents  which  bear 


87 


358 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


interest  and  those  which  do  not.  On  this 
point  turns  the  possibility  of  their  forming 
representative  money.  For  it  is  an  essential 
characteristic  of  coin  that  it  yields  no  profit 
by  keeping  it  in  the  pocket  or  the  safe.  I 
may  be  obliged  to  keep  money  ready  to  pay 
debts,  but  in  the  meantime  I  lose  the  interest 
which  I  might  receive  by  investing  the  sum 
in  the  funds,  in  bills,  bonds,  or  even  as  a 
bank  deposit.  Hence  money  must  be  con- 
sidered as  a  commodity  which,  as  Chevalier 
s  ;ys,  is  in  a  constant  state  of  supply  and  de- 
mand. Every  one  is  always  trying  to  part 
with  it  in  a  profitable  purchase,  and  keeps  as 
little  in  hand  as  possible.  The  same  is  even 
more  true  of  bank-notes,  checks,  circular 
notes,  bills  at  sight,  and  a  few  other  kinds 
of  documents,  all  of  which  are  payable  on 
demand  at  :  ny  moment,  so  that  no  amount 
of  interest  can  be  assigned  to  them.  Except 
so  far  as  the  payment  may  be  doubtful,  or 
the  possession  of  the  documents  may  involve 
the  holder  in  legal  d.fficulties,  these  docu- 
ments have  the  characteristics  of  coin,  and 
the  amount  held  is  kept  down  to  the  lowest 
convenient  figure.  Interest-bearing  docu- 
ments, on  the  contrary,  are  held  in  as  large 


rate  of  interest  rose  above  3^,  and  the  value 
of  the  note  accordingly  fell  below  par,  a 
profit  would  be  made  by  presenting  the  notes 
for  payment.  Thus  the  government  issuing 
such  notes  would '  have  to  keep  a  large 
quantity  of  coin  in  reserve  to  meet  them,  and 
would  at  the  same  time  be  paying  interest  on 
the  whole  of  the  notes.  Thus  there  would 
be  a  loss  of  interest  upon  the  whole  reserve 
of  coin 

The  English  government  has  rendered  the  Na- 
tional Debt  as  transferable  as  possible  by  au- 
thorizing, in  terms  of  the  Act  of  33  and  34,  Vic- 
toria, chapter  71,  theissueof  stock  certificates. 
These  certificates  resemble  the  bonds  of  the 
United  States  and  other  governments.  They 
have  coupons  for  the  payment  of  interest,  and 
when  not  filled  up  with  a  name  are  transfer- 
able by  delivery  like  bank  notes.  They  are 
issued  in  exchange  for  Three  per  Cent.  An- 
nuities for  even  sums  of  not  less  than  ,£50 
and  not  more  than  .£1,000;  and  if  the  right  to 
annuity  could  be  passed  from  one  person  to 
another  as  currency,  these  certificates  would 
allow  of  its  being  done.  But  i*  is  understood 
that  a  comparatively  small  amount  of  such 
certificates  has  ever  been  applied  for.  They 


quantities  as  possible,  because  the  longer  .  are,  I  believe,  used  to  some  extent  by  bank- 
they  are  held  the  more  interest  accrues.  It  i  ers  and  others,  who  have  to  hold  sums  01 
is  the  principal  business  of  every  banker  to  j  money  invested  in  the  funds  for  short  peri- 


hold  a  portfolio  full  of  good  bills,  which 
really  represent  the  investment  of  capital  in 
industry.  Government  bonds,  or  bonds 
issued  by  public  companies  and  corporations, 
do  not  differ  from  commercial  bills  except  in 
the  fact  that  they  have  very  long,  or  even 
interminable,  usance,  and  that  the  interest  is 
paid  at  definite  intervals.  Such  bonds  repre- 
sent the  sinking  of  capital  in  fixed  under- 
takings, and  are  therefore  held  as  property 


ods,  and  can  save  the  cost  of  transfers  by 
the  use  of  certificates.  The  public  at  large 
are  found  to  prefer  the  old  method  of  regis- 
tering their  stock  in  the  books  of  the  Bank  of 
England. 

DEFINITION   OF  MON1Y. 

Much  ingenuity  has  been  spent  upon  at- 
tempts to  define  the  term  money,  and  puz- 
zling questions  have  arisen  as  to  the  precise 


by  individual  investors.  They  may  be  bought    kinds  of  credit  documents  which  are  to  be  in- 
and  sold    for  money,    but    are   not   money    eluded  under  the  term.     Standard  legal  ten- 


themselves.  They  rather  necessitate  than  re- 
place the  use  of  money,  since  currency  must 
have  been  paid  at  the  first  investment,  and  is 
repaid  by  degrees  at  the  periodical  terms 
fixed. 

A  number  of  seiemists  have  urged  from 
time  to  time  that,  in  addition  to  our  ordinary 
currency,  there  oug.u  to  bean  interest-bearing 
currency.  The  first  small  issue  of  the  French 
assignats  bore  interest,  and  about  twelve 
years  ago  the  United  States  Government 
tried  a  similar  experiment,  which  was  soon 


der  coin  of  full  weight  is  undoubtedly  money, 
and  as  convertible  legal  tender  bank-notes  are 
exactly  equivalent  to  the  coined  money  for 
which  they  may  at  any  moment  be  exchanged ; 
it  has  often  been  considered  that  these  also 
may  be  included.  But  inconvertible  notes 
are  often  made  legal  tender  by  law,  and  can 
discharge  in  inland  trade  all  the  functions  of 
money.  Are  they  not  then  to  be  included  ? 
The  question  will  next  arise  whether  checks 
may  not  be  as  good  as  money. 

All  such  attempts  at  definition  seem  to  me  to 


discontinued.      Persons   have    proposed    to  !  involve  the  logical  blunder  of  supposing  that 
coin  the  whole  Mational  Debt  into  money,  '         ..•••« 


so  that .  instead  of  some  160  millions  of 
metallic  and  paper  currency  we  might  have 
more  nearly  a  thousand  millions.  Mr.  E. 
Hill  has  published  a  form  of  bank-note  en- 
thling  the  holder  to  one  hundred  pounds  on 


we  may,  by  settling  the  meaning  of  a  single 
word,  avoid  all  the  complex  different  s  and 
various  conditions  of  many  things  each  re- 
quiring its  own  definition.  Bullion,  standard 
coin,  token  coin,  convertible  and  inconverti- 
ble notes,  legal  tender  and  not  legal  tender, 


demand,  and  to  interest  at  the  rate  of  3^  .checks   of   several    kinds    mercantile    bills, 
per  cent,  up  to  the  time  when  it  is  presented,  '  exchequer    bills,    stock  certificates,    etc.,  are 
le  amount  of  interest  being  tabular);  stated  :  all  things  capable  of  being   received  in  pay- 
form.     It  is   obviously   impossible,    ment  of  a  debt,  if  the  debtor  is  willing  to  pay 
wever,  that   any  government  should  i>sne    and   the  creditor  to  receive  them;  but  they 
totes,  because   whenever  the   current   are,  nevertheless,  different  kinds  of  things. 

68 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      359 


By  calling  some  money  and  some  not,  we  do 
not  save  ourselves  from  the  consideration  of 
their  complex  legal  and  economical  differ- 
ences. Bullion  is  evidently  not  coin,  but 
can  be  turned  into  it  at'little  or  no  cost,  and 
will  make  foreign  payments  almost  as  well  as 
coin.  Token  coins  are  not  standard  coins, 
and  will  not  make  foreign  payments,  but  are 
legnl  tender  for  small  sums,  and  may  bo 
readily  exchanged  for  standard  coin  at  little 
or  no  loss.  Bank  of  England  notes  are  not 
exactly  coin,  but  can  be  readily  turned  into 
coin  by  those  who  dwell  near  the  Bank  of 
England,  and  are  received  as  equivalent  to 
coin  by  other  persons.  Checks  are  not 
coin,  but  orders  to  receive  it  on  demand,  and 
are  valuable  in  proportion  to  the  probability 
that  the  sum  will  be  received.  Accepted 
bills  are  an  engagement  to  pay  coin  at  a  day 
named  ;  if  we  overlook  the  possible  failure  of 
the  acceptor  to  pay  them,  they  are,  as  it  were, 
deferred  money.  A  certificate  of  consoli- 
dated stock  entitles  the  holder  to  an  annuity, 
that  is,  to  quarterly  sums  of  money. 

We  get  back,  in  short,  to  that  with  which 
we  started.  Standard  legal  tender  coin  is 
that  in  which  all  commercial  transactions  and 
documents  are  expressed,  but  according  to 
infinitely  various  circumstances,  the  receipt 
of  the  money  is  more  or  less  deferred,  more 
or  less  involved  in  legal  complexities,  and 
also  variable  in  amount,  as  interest  is  or  is 
not  to  be  received  in  addition.  All  other 
commercial  property,  mortgage  deeds,  prefer- 
ence shares  and  bonds,  and  ordinary  shares, 
-esolve  themselves  into  more  or  less  proba- 
bility of  receiving  coin  at  future  dates  ;  and 
thus  we  pass  insensibly  from  the  golden  sov- 
ereign in  hand  to  the  most  flimsy  chance  of 
receiving  gold  which  is  still  like  the  bird  in 
the  bush. 

The  word  cash  is  used  with  exactly  the 
same  ambiguity  as  money.  Originally  cash 
meant  that  which  was  encaisse,  i.  e. ,  put  into 
the  chest  or  till.  Strictly  speaking,  it  should 
consist  of  actual  specie,  and  the  word  is  used 
in  some  English  banks  to  include  only  coin 
of  the  realTi.  But  I  find  by  actual  inquiry 
that  bank  cashiers  use  it  with  every  shade  of 
meaning.  Some  take  Bank  of  England  notes 
to  be  cash.  Good  checks  upon  a  bank  paid 
into  that  bank  are  evidently  as  good  as  cash. 
Others  go  so  far  as  to  include  checks  upon 
other  banks  of  the  same  town,  and  even 
country  bank-notes  are  sometimes  included 
in  cash.  The  question  is  evidently  one  of 
degree,  and  cannot  be  settled  except  by  the 
general  adoption  among  cashiers  of  some  one 


lighthouses,  tents,  caravans,  hulks,  sentry, 
boxes,  ice-houses,  summer-houses,  and  par' 
ish  pounds.  The  difficulty  is  exactly  anal- 
to  that  of  deciding  what  is  money  or 


ogmis 
cash. 


arbitrary  line  of  .definition. 
In   ordinary  life   we    use 


CHAPTER  XX. 


BOOK    CREDIT   AND   THE    BANKING    SYSTEM. 


Considerable  economy  o  the  precious 
metals  arises,  as  we  have  seen,  from  passing 
about  pieces  of  paper  representing  gold  coin, 
instead  of  the  coin  itself.  But  a  far  more 
potent  source  of  economy  is  what  we  may 
call  the  Check  and  Clearing  System,  where- 
by debts  are,  not  so  much  paid,  as  balanced 
off  against  each  other.  The  germ  of  the 
method  is  to  be  found  in  the  ordinary  prac- 
tice of  book  credit.  If  two  firms  have  fre- 
quent transactions  with  each  other,  alternate- 
ly buying  and  selling,  it  would  be  an  absurd 
waste  of  money  to  settle  each  debt  immedi- 
ately it  arose,  when,  in  a  few  days,  a  corre- 
sponding debt  might  arise  in  the  opposite  di- 
rection. Accordingly,  it  is  the  common  prac- 
tice for  firms  having  reciprocal  transactions, 
to  debit  and  credit  each  other  in  their  books 
with  the  debt  arising  out  of  each  transaction, 
and  only  to  make  a  cash  payment  when  the 
balance  happens  to  become  inconveniently 
great.  An  insurance  broker  is  one  who  acts 
as  a  middleman  between  the  owners  of  ships 
and  the  underwriters  who  insure  them  in 
shares.  He  has,  therefore,  to  make  many 
small  payments  to  underwriters,  for  the  pre- 
miums on  policies,  and  at  intervals  has  to 
receive  back  the  indemnity  for  any  insured 
vessel  which  has  been  lost.  It  is  the  com- 
mon practice  to  avoid  cash  payments ;  the 
broker  credits  the  underwriter  with  the  pre- 
miums and  debits  him  with  losses,  and  only 
pays  or  receives  the  balance  when  large. 

To  represent  the  highly  complex  system  of 
book  credit  which  is  organized  by  the  bank- 
ers of  a  large  kingdom,  we  shall  have  to  em- 
ploy a  method  of  diagramatic  notation.  I 
will  therefore  remark  that  the  simplest  case 
or  type  of  book-credit  is  represented  by  the 
formula 

P Q. 

Each  of  the  letters,  P  and  Q,  indicates  a 
person  or  a  firm,  and  the  line  indicates  the 
existence  of  transactions  between  them. 
Only  in  special  cases,  however,  will  this  di- 


rords  with  a  total  disregard  of  logical  pre- 
cision. Who  shall  decide,  for  instance,  what 
objects  are  to  be  included  under  the  names 


rect  balancing  of  accounts  render  the  use  of 
a  great   many  |  cash  or  of  a  more  complex  system   unneces- 
sary.     Generally    speaking,   there  will  be  a 


tendency  for  a  surplus  of  goods  to  pass  in 
one  direction,  so  that  money  must  pass  in 
the 


building  and  house?  Let  the  reader  attempt  j  the  opposite  direction.  The  manufacturer 
to  decide  which  of  the  following  objects  is  to  j  sells  to  the  wholesale  dealer,  the  latter  sells 
be  considered  a  house,  and  why  ? — namely,  i  to  the  retailer,  and  the  retailer  to  the  con- 
ftablcs,  cow-houses,  conservatories,  sheds,  '  sumer.  By  the  intervention  of  the  banker, 

69 


360 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


however,  the  transactions  of  many  different 
individuals,  or  even  of  many  branches  of 
trade,  are  brought  to  a  focus,  and  a  large 
proportion  of  payments  can  be  balanced  off 
against  each  other. 

SINGLE  BANK  SYSTEM. 

To  obtain  a  clear  notion  of  the  way  in 
which  bankers  help  us  to  avoid  the  use  of 
money  as  the  medium  of  exchange,  we  must 
follow  up  the  rise  of  the  system  from  the 
simplest  case  to  the  complete  development 
of  the  complex  organization  now  existing  in 
the  United  Kingdom.  Let  us  imagine,  in 
the  first  place,  that  there  is  an  isolated  town 
having  no  appreciable  dealings  with  other 
parts  of  the  world,  and  possessing  only  a  sin- 
gle bank,  in  which  each  inhabitant  has  de 
posited  all  his  money.  If  any  person,  a,  then 
wishes  to  make  a  payment  to  b,  he  need  not 
go  to  his  banker,  draw  out  coin,  and  carry  it 
to  6,  but  may  hand  to  b  a  check  requiring  the 
banker  to  pay  the  coins  to  b,  if  needed.  But 
if  b  makes  payments  in  the  same  way,  he  will 
not  need  to  draw  out  any  coin.  It  would  be 
a  mere  formality  for  b  to  receive  the  coin  due 
from  a,  and  then  pay  it  back  over  the  counter 
to  the  credit  of  his  account  with  the  same 
banker.  The  payment  is  made  by  merely 
writing  the  sum  of  money  to  the  debit  of  a's 
account.  If  b  wishes  to  make  another  pay- 
ment to  c,  a  similar  record  in  the  banker's 
ledger  will  accomplish  the  business.  However 
many  other  traders,  d,  e,  etc.,  there  may  be, 
their  mutual  transactions  may  be  settled  in 
the  same  way,  without  their  seeing  a  single 
coin.  We  may  represent  this  elementary 
banking  organization  by  the  following  dia- 
gram, 


it  is    requisite  to  consider  have  an  accoun 
with  one  or  the  other.    In  the  diagram, 


\\l/      \\// 


let  P  and  Q  be  the  two  bankers,  a,  b,  c,  a 
being  customers  of  P,  and  q,  r,  s,  /,  cus- 
tomers of  Q.  Now  the  mutual  transactions 
of  0,  b,  c,  d  will,  as  before,  be  balanced  off 
in  the  books  of  P,  and  similarly  with  the 
customers  of  Q.  But  if  a  has  to  make  a 
payment  to  q,  the  operation  becomes  some- 
what more  complex.  He  draws  a  check 
upon  P,  and  hands  it  to  q,  who  may,  of 
course,  demand  the  coin  from  P.  Not  want- 
ing coin,  he  carries  the  check  to  his  own 
banker,  Q,  and  pays  it  into  his  account  in 
place  of  coin.  It  is  the  banker,  Q,  who 
will  now  have  to  present  the  check  upon  P, 
and  it  might  seem  as  if  the  use  of  coin  would 
be  ultimately  required.  There  will  be  other 
persons,  however,  making  payments  in  the 
town  in  the  same  manner,  and  the  probabil- 
ity is  very  great  that  some  of  these  will  result 
in  giving  P  checks  upon  Q,  and  some  in 
giving  Q  checks  upon  P.  The  two  bankers, 
then,  will  be  in  the  position  of  the  two  traders 
before  described,  who  have  a  running 
account.  At  the  worst  the  payment  to  be 
made  in  coin  will  be  only  the  balance  of 
what  is  due  in  opposite  directions ;  but  as 
this  balance  will  probably  tend  in  one  direc- 
tion one  day,  and  in  the  opposite  direction 
the  next  day,  the  balance  need  only  be  paid 
when  it  assumes  inconvenient  proportions. 
i  m  •  9  9  f 


in  which  it  is  obvious  that  P  represents  the 
single  banker,  and  a,  b,  c,  d,  e  his  customers. 
The  deposit  banks  of  Amsterdam  and  Ham- 
burg form  perfect  illustrations  of  this  arrange- 
ment. 

So  long  as  we  regard  only  the  internal 
transactions  of  a  town,  then,  a  stationary 
amount  of  coin,  lying  untouched  in  the  bank, 
will  allow  the  whole  to  be  accomplished.  If 
the  traders  never  require  to  make  payments  at 
a  distance,  the  metallic  money  might  be  dis- 
posed with  altogether.  But  since  any  of 
t  he  customers  «,  b,  e,  etc. ,  may  want  his 
money,  the  banker  ought  to  keep  at  least  as 
mueb  as  will  meet  pos?ible  demands. 

SYSTEM  OF  TWO  BANKS. 

As  a  second  case,  let  us  suppose  that  there 

is  a  town  which  is  able  tosupi  ort  two  banks 

^ome  of  the  inhabitants  keep  their  money  in 

>™k  and  some  in  the  other,  but  all  whom 


COMPLEX  BANK  SYSTEM. 

A  large  commercial  town  usually  possesses 
several  banks,  each  with  its  distinct  body  of 
customers,  The  mutual  transactions  of 
each  body  will,  as  before,  be  balanced  off 
in  the  books  of  this  common  bank,  but  the 
larger  part  of  the  transactions  will  be  cross 
ones,  resulting  in  a  claim  by  one  banker 
upon  another.  The  probability  is  very  great, 
indeed,  that  each  banker  will  have  to  receive, 
as  well  as  to  pay,  each  day  ;  but  it  does  not 
follow  that  he  will  pay  to  the  same  as  those 
who  are  going  to  pay  to  him.  The  com- 
plexity of  relations  becomes  considerable  ; 

thus  among  fourteen  banks  there  are 


_  or  91  different  pairs  which  may  have  mutual 


MONEY  AXD  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      361 


claims,  and  among  fifty  banks  there  would  be 
no  less  than  1,225  pairs.  The  result  is,  that 
P  might  happen  10  have  a  considerable  bal- 
ance to  pay  to  Q,  and  yet  might  be  going  to 
receive  about  the  same  sum  from  R  or  S. 
The  actual  carrying  about  of  coin  under 
such  circumstances  would  be  absurd,  be- 
cause a  manifest  extension  of  the  book-cred- 
it system  at  once  meets  the  difficulty.  The 
several  banks  need  only  agree  to  appoint,  as 
it  were,  a  bankers'  bank,  to  hold  a  portion  of 
the  cash  of  each  bank,  and  then  the  mutual 
indebtedness  may  be  balanced  off  just  as 
when  a  bank  acts  for  individuals.  In  the 
figure  we  see  four  banks,  P,  Q,  R,  S,  each 
with  its  own  body  of  customers,  but  brought 
into  connection  with  each  other  by  the  bank- 
ers' bank,  X.  P  need  not  now  send  a  clerk 
to  present  bundles  of  checks  upon  Q,  R, 
and  S,  but  can  pay  them  into  the  central 
bank,  X,  where  after  being  placed  to  the 
credit  of  P  and  sorted  out,  they  will  be 
joined  to  similar  parcels  of  checks  received 
from  Q,  R,  S,  and  finally  presented  at  the 
banks  upon  which  they  are  drawn.  Thus 
all  the  payments  made  by  checks  will  be  ef- 
fected without  the  use  of  coin,  just  as  if 
there  were  only  a  single  bank  in  the  town. 
What  each  bai.k  has  to  pay  each  day  will 
usually  be  balanced  pretty  closely  by  what 
it  has  to  receive.  Such  balance  as  remains 
will  be  paid  by  a  transfer  in  the  books  of  X, 
the  bankers'  bank. 

It  is  not  precisely  true  that  there  is  in 
any  English  town  a  bankers'  bank,  which 
thus  arranges  the  payments  between  banks. 
The  accountants'  part  of  the  work  is  carried 
out  by  an  institution  called  the  Clearing 
House,  managed  by  a  committee  of  bankers, 
and  the  Bank  of  England  is  employed  to 
hold  the  deposits  of  the  bankers,  and  make 
transfers  which  close  the  transactions  of 
each  day.  The  organization  of  the  Clearing 
House  will  be  described  in  the  next  chapter. 

BRANCH  BANK  SYSTEM. 

It  is  impossible  to  avoid  perceiving  that 
the  organization  of  the  English  bank  system 
is  undergoing  a  complete  transformation,  and 
is  approximating  to  that  which  has  existed 
for  a  century  or  more  in  Scotland.  Instead 
of  a  great  number  of  small,  weak,  discon- 
nected banks,  there  is  arising,  by  amalgama- 
tion and  extinction  of  the  weaker  ones,  a 
moderate  number  of  important  banks,  each 
possessing  numerous  branches.  The  Scotch 
banks  have  long  had  many  branches,  and  at 
present  each  of  the  eleven  great  banks  has  on 
an  average  78  branches,  the  lowest  number 
being  19,  and  the  highest  125.  Already  a 
few  of  the  English  banks  have  equally  exten- 
sive ramifications.  Thus  the  London  and 
County  Bank,  and  the  National  Provincial 
Bank,  which  have  especially  developed  the 
branch  system,  have  respectively  148  and  137 
branches  ;  the  Manchester  and  Liverpool. 
District  Bank  has  50  branches  and  sub- 


j  branches.  The  Irish  Banks  also  adopt  th« 
the  same  system,  and  the  National  Bank  of 
Ireland  has  about  114  branches  and  sub- 
branches.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  in 
Australia,  too,  the  banking  system  has  taken 
a  similar  form,  and  a  comparatively  small 
number  of  strong  banks,  such  as  the  Bank  of 
New  South  Wales,  or  the  Bank  of  New  Zea- 
land, leave  no  rising  village  without  its 
branch. 

Now,  the  close  connection  which  exists  be- 
tween the  head  office  and  each  of  the  branches 
of  an  extensive  bank  leads  to  a  great  clearing 
off  of  claims.  The  third  diagram  again 
serves  to  represent  this  relation,  X  being  the 
head  office,  P,  Q,  R,  S,  branch  banks,  and 
a,  6,  c,  etc.,  customers.  If  a  pay  m  with  a 
check  on  P.  the  check  will  be  paid  into  R, 
credited  to  m,  forwarded  by  post  direct  to  P, 
and  debited  to  a.  The  head  office  being  in- 
formed of  this  transaction  in  the  usual  daily 
statement,  will  close  the  business  by  trans- 
ferring the  sum  from  the  account  of  P  to 
that  of  R.  Much  accountants'  work  seems 
to  arise,  but  it  is  work  of  mere  routine  which 
costs  little.  Cash  remittances  are  seldom 
necessary,  because  each  branch  settles  accounts 
only  with  the  head  office,  so  that  many  sums 
will  be  credited  and  debited  during  each 
week,  and  the  balance  will  usually  be  small. 
The  head  office,  in  fact,  acts  in  every  way 
like  a  clearing  house,  or  bankers'  bank. 

The  question  naturally  arises,  indeed,  how 
will  the  branches  of  one  bank  transact  business 
with  those  of  another  bank  ?  The  solution, 
however,  is  simple  ;  for  unless  the  branches 
happen  to  be  in  the  same  town,  or  for  other 
reason,  in  close  relation  with  each  other,  they 
will  communicate  through  their  head  offices. 
A  check  upon  any  branch  of  the  London  and 
County  Bank  received  by  a  branch  of  the 
National  Provincial  Bank,  will  be  presented 
through  the  head  office  of  the  latter  at  the 
Clearing  House  upon  the  head  office  of  the 
former. 

BANK   AGENCY   SYSTEM. 

Another  important  feature  of  the  banking 
system  is  the  extensive  organization  of 
agencies.  A  large  bank  has  various  business 
to  be  transacted  in  each  of  the  principal  com- 
mercial towns  of  the  kingdom,  and  if  it  has 
no  branches  in  these  towns  employs  a  banker 
in  each  town  to  act  as  its  agent.  This  agent- 
bank  collects  checks,  notes,  etc.,  payable  in 
the  district,  cashes  drafts  drawn  against 
them,  retires  bills  according  to  instructions, 
and  does  almost  all  that  a  branch  bank  would 
do,  the  main  difference  being  that  the  re- 
muneration for  this  work  consists  of  a  com- 
mission. Each  agent-bank  has  a  running 
account  with  its  principal,  so  that  to  a  certain 
extent  each  important  bank  and  its  agencies 
form  a  clearing  system  analogous  to  that  of 
a  head  bank  and  its  branches. 

LONDON  AGENCY  SYSTEM. 

By  insensible  degrees  there  has  grown  up 
"1 


362 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


\n  England  an  all-comprehensive  and  most  rather  cleared  off  in  the  Lombard  Street  Clear 
perfect  system  of  relations  between  the  pro-  ing  House,  will  frequently  be  the  balances  of 
trincial  and  London  city  banks.  Every ,  extensive  running  accounts  between  com. try 
b  inker  in  the  United  Kingdom,  without,  I  i  banks  and  their  agents  and  correspondent, 
believe,  any  exception,  employs  one  or  other  So  long  as  the  balance  of  accounts  betwt-tn 
of  the  great  London  city  banks  to  act  as  any  two  banks  does  not  assume  large  propor 
agent.  There  are  twenty-six  city  clearing  j  tions,  it  need  not  be  paid  in  cash  at  all,  t  x- 
banks  which  thus  undertake  agencies,  and  on  i  cept  for  special  reasons.  When  a  bclarn^ 
an  average  each  of  these  banks  represents  at  |  has  to  be  paid,  and  the  banks  happen  to  \.:.\-i: 


least  twelve  country  banks  ;  but  the  number 
varies  very  much,  and  some  country  banks 
have  two  London  agent  banks. 

This  agency  system  leads  at  once  to  a 
clearing  of  transactions,  because,  if  any  two 
country  banks  have  the  same  London  agent, 
all  their  mutual  adjustments  of  accounts  can 
be  made  by  transfers  in  the  books  of  the 


the  same  London  agent,  it  is  only  requiem 
for  the  debtor  bank  to  direct  their  Lcr.dcn 
agent  to  transfer  so  much  money  to  the  cu<  ii 
of  the  other  country  bank.  If  any  havt  i  i! 
ferent  London  agents,  and  P,  in  the  last  t:ia 
gram,  desires  to  pay  a  balance  to  U,  it  isdc-M- 
by  directing  X  to  credit  Y,  the  agent  of  U. 
The  credit  note  effecting  this  payment  passes 


agent.     The  third  diagram  on  p.  70  applies  i  through  the  Clearing  House  amid  a  mass  of 
once  more,  and  X  represents  the  city  agent,    other  documents    representing    payments  in 
having   running  accounts   with  P,  Q,  R,  S, 
the  country  banks.     The  whole  of  the  cus- 


one  direction  or  the  other,  and  will  in  general 
become  an  insignificant  item  in    the   general 


tomers  of  all  the  banks,  having  the  same  j  clearing.  If  it  can  be  said  to  be  paid  in  cash 
London  a^ent,  are  thus  brought  into  close  {  at  all,  it  is  in  the  form  of  a  final  transfer  in 
relation,  though  they  may  live  in  the  most  j  the  books  of  the  Bank  of  England,  as  \ve 
distant  parts  of  the  country.  Each  of  the  j  shall  see.  Great  as  are  the  transactions  daily 


city  banks  may  be   regarded   as   a   bankers' 
bank  and  a  clearing  house  on  a  small  scale. 

COUNTRY   CLEARING   SYSTEM. 

Only  one  further  step  is  required  to  corn- 


settled  in  the  London  Clearing   House,  they 
are  after  all  only  those  which  have  not  been 
previously  cleared  off  bv  any  more  direct  com 
munication,  and  they  often  represent  the  ba) 
ances  of   multitudinous   transactions   which 


plete  the  system  of  connections  between  each  i  never  pass  through  London  at  all. 

bank  in  the  kingdom  and  all  other  banks. 

Every  country  bank,  as  we  have  seen,  has  a 

running  account  with  some   city  bank,  and 

all  the  city  banks   daily  settle   transactions 

with  each  other  through  the  Clearing  House. 

It  follows  that  a  payment  from  any  part  of 

ihe  country  to  any  other  part  can  be  accom- 


plished  through  London, 
diagram, 


In  the  following 


CHAPTER  XXI. 


THE  CLEARING-HOUSE  SYSTEM. 


attetfglmn         r     s     t 

\\/  \l./  W 

r  Q  B 


By  means  of  the  London  agency  system. 
the  banking  transactions  of  the  country  are, 
as  we  have  seen,  brought  to  a  focus  in  the 
city  of  London.     The 
«      v    v>     a     g      *  settlement  of  the  re- 


\ 


cn 

let  P.  Q,  R,  be  country  banks 
the  London  agent,  X,  and  U,  V,  W~ 
other  country  banks  having  the  London 
agent,  Y.  If  «,  a  customer  of  P,  wishes  to 
pay  r,  a  customer  of  U,  he  transmits  by  post 
a  check  upon  his  banker,  P.  The  receiver, 
r,  pays  it  into  his  account  with  U,  who, 
having  no  direct  communication  with  P,  for- 
ward it  to  Y,  who  presents  it  through  the 
Clearing  House  on  X,  who  debits  it  to  P,  and 
forwards  it  by  the  next  post.  Nothing  can 
exceed  the  simplicity  and  perfection  of  this 
arrangement. 

It  will  be  readily  seen,  too,  that  sums  of 
money  passing  between  London  banks,  or 


y  \\f         city  banks  is  therefore 

\>  a  business   of  the  ut- 

/  most  magnitude    and 

S  importance,  icpresent- 

4  ing    as    it    does     the 

^^   Y  completion      of      the 

i-**"*"^  business  of  no   small 

part  of  the  world.     In 

having  a  room  of  moderate  dimensions,  entered  from 
a  narrow  passage  running  from  the  post- 
office  in  King  William  Street  across  to  Lom- 
bard Street,  debts  to  the  average  amount  of 
nearly  twenty  millions  sterling  per  day  are 
liquidated  without  the  use  of  a  single  coin  or 
bank-note.  In  the  classic  financial  neighbor- 
hood of  Lombard  Street,  and  even  in  this 
very  chamber,  the  system  of  paper  commerce 
has  been  brought  nearly  to  perfection.  T^e 
early  history  of  the  London  Clearing  House 
is  buried  in  obscurity,  and  it  is  much  to  be 
deskol  that  those  who  are  acquainted  with 
the  principal  incidents  in  its  progress  should 
put  them  on  record  before  it  is  too  late. 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      363 


The  Clearing  House  appears  to  have  been 
first  created  just  a  century  ago.  About  the 
year  1775  a  few  of  the  city  bankers  hired  a 
room  where  their  clerks  could  meet  to  ex- 
change notes  and  bills,  and  settle  their  mutual 
debts.  The  society  was  of  the  nature  of  a 
strictly  private  club,  the  public  knowing 
nothing  about  it,  and  the  transactions  bdng 
conducted  in  perfect  secrecy.  Mr.  Gilbart 
tells  us  that,  even  in  this  form,  it  was  re- 
garded as  a  questionable  innovation,  and 
some  of  the  principal  bankers  refused  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  it.  By  degrees,  however, 
the  convenience  of  the  arrangement  made  it- 
self apparent,  more  bankers  were  admitted  to 
the  society,  and  a  distinct  committee  and  set 
of  rules  were  formed  for  its  management. 
Although  it  remains  to  the  present  day  a 
private  and  voluntary  association,  unchar- 
tered,  and  in  fact  unknown  to  the  law,  the 
Clearing  House  has  steadily  grown  in  import- 
ance and  in  the  publicity  of  its  proceedings. 

Several  important  extensions  of  the  clear- 
ing work  have  been  made  in  the  last  twenty- 
five  years.  After  the  rise  of  the  London 
Joint  Stock  Banks,  subsequent  to  1833,  they 
were  for  a  long  time  refused  admittance  to 
the  Clearing  House  ;  but  in  June,  1854,  they 
were  at  last  allowed  to  join  the  association. 
The  Bank  of  England  long  remained  entirely 
outside  of  the  confederation,  but  more  re- 
cently it  has  become  a  member,  so  far  as  re- 
gards the  presentation  of  claims  upon  other 
banks.  The  West  End  banks  of  London  are 
still  beyond  its  sphere,  partly,  perhaps,  be- 
cause their  distance  stands  in  the  way  of  the 
working  of  the  system.  They  are  thus  in  the 
position  of  provincial  banks,  and  can  clear 
through  city  agents  like  provincial  banks. 

Before  the  year  1858  the  business  of  the 
Clearing  House  was  restricted  to  the  ex- 
change of  checks  and  bills  actually  drawn  on 
the  clearing  bankers.  Country  bankers  re- 
ceiving checks  drawn  upon  other  distant 
country  banks  were  in  the  habit  of  remitting 
them  direct  by  post,  the  paying  bank  ef- 
fecting the  payment  by  directing  their  Lon- 
don banker  to  pay  the  amount  to  the  London 
agent  of  the  receiving  bank.  In  the  year 
1858,  at  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  William  Gil- 
lett,  but  chiefly  by  the  exertions  of  Sir  John 
Lubbock,  the  country  clearing  system  was 
organized.  The  country  banker,  instead  of 
posting  many  checks  every  day  to  all  parts 
of  the  kingdom,  sends  them  in  a  single  par- 
cel to  his  London  agent,  to  be  presented 
through  the  Clearing  House  on  the  London 
agents  of  the  paying  banks.  This  exchange 
is  made,  as  we  shall  see,  at  different  hours  of 
the  day,  but  the  r'esults  are  summed  up  in  the 
general  balance  of  the  day's  transactions. 

TRANSACTION    OF    BUSINESS   AT  THE  LONDON 
CLEARING    HOUSE. 

There  are  three  clearings  daily  at  the  Lom- 
bard Street  House.  The  morning  clearing 
optns  on  ordinary  days  at  10.30;  drafts  are 


received  not  later  than  n,  and  the  work 
must  be  closed  at  noon.  The  country  dear- 
ing  then  begins,  drafts  being  received  until 
12  30,  and  the  clearing  closed  at  2.15.  The 
heaviest  clearing,  however,  is  that  of  the  af- 
ternoon, which  begins  at  2.30.  The  bustle 
and  turmoil  of  the  work  grow  to  a  climax  at 
four  o'clock,  the  runners  rushing  in  with  the 
last  parcels  of  drafts,  up  to  the  moment  when 
the  door  is  finally  closed.  On  the  fourth 
day  of  each  month,  when  the  heaviest  work 
occurs,  the  hours  are  extended,  the  House 
opening  at  nine  o'clock. 

The  Clearing  House  is  a  plain  oblong 
room,  with  rows  of  desks  in  compartments 
round  three  sides,  and  down  the  middle.  A 
small  office  for  the  two  superintendents  stands 
at  one  end.  Each  bank  sends  as  many  clerks 
to  the  House  as  may  be  requisite  for  the 
rapid  completion  of  the  work,  and  some 
banks  have  as  many  as  six  clerks.  The 
checks  and  bills  to  be  presented  by  any  one 
clearing  bank,  say  the  Alliance  Bank,  upon 
any  other  clearing  banker,  are  entered  at 
home  in  the  "Out-clearing  book,"  and  are 
then  sorted  into  twenty-five  parcels,  one  of 
which  is  to  be  presented  on  each  of  the  other 
clearing  banks.  On  reaching  the  Clearing 
House,  these  parcels  are  distributed  round 
the  room  to  the  desks  of  the  clerks  represent- 
ing the  several  paying  banks,  who  imme 
diately  begin  to  enter  them  in  the  ' '  In-clear- 
ing books"  in  columns  bearing  at  the  head 
the  name  of  the  presenting  bank.  After  be- 
ing entered,  the  drafts  are,  as  soon  as  possi- 
ble, forwarded  to  the  banking  house  for  ex- 
amination and  entry  in  the  bank  books.  Any 
checks  or  bills  refused  payment  are  called 
"returns,"  and  can  generally  be  sent  back  to 
the  Clearing  House  the  same  day,  and  en- 
tered again  as  a  reverse  claim  by  the  bank 
dishonoring  them  on  the  banks  which  pre- 
sented them.  At  the  close  of  the  day  the 
clerks  of  the  Alliance  Bank  are  able  to  add 
up  the  whole  of  the  claims  which  have  been 
made  upon  them  by  the  other  twenty-five 
banks,  and  they  learn  from  the  out-clearing 
book  the  amount  of  the  claims  which  the  AI 
liance  Bank  is  making  on  other  banks.  The 
difference  is  the  balance  which  the  Alliance 
Bank  has  either  to  pay  or  receive  as  the  case 
may  be.  These  balances  being  communi- 
cated to  the  superintendents  of  the  House  aru 
by  them  inserted  in  a  kind  of  balance  sheet. 
When  finally  added  up,  the  debtor  and 
creditor  sides  of  the  sheet  should  exactly 
balance,  because  every  penny  to  be  received 
by  one  bank  must  be  paid  by  another. 

In  former  years  the  balance  due  by  or  to 
each  bank  was  paid  in  bank  notes,  and  in 
the  year  1839,  average  daily  transactions  to 
the  amount  of  about  three  millions  were 
cleared  by  the  use  of  ^200,000  in  bank- 
notes, and  ,£20  in  coin,  or  about  one- 
fifteenth  part  of  the  debts  liquidated.  More 
recently  a  suggestion  of  the  late  Charles 
Babbage  was  carried  into  effect,  and  the  baj- 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


useful  to  describe  the  arrangements  in  detail, 
as  they  would  be  very  suitable  for  adoption 
in  many  English,  foreign,  or  colonial  towns, 
which  will  doubtless  before  long  establish 
clearing  houses. 

In  the  Manchester  Clearing  House  the 
work  is  performed  entirely  upon  loose  forms, 
and  not  in  account  books,  as  in  London. 
Though  these  forms  may  seem  rather  numer- 
ous and  elaborate,  they  greatly  assist  in  the 
accurate  and  orderly  settlement  of  the  balance. 
The  clearing  clerk,  before  leaving  his  bank, 
sorts  out  the  drafts,  which  he  has  to  deliver, 
into  thirteen  parcels,  one  for  each  of  the 
thirteen  other  banks,  and  then  fills  up  thir- 
teen lists,  one  for  each  parcel,  in  the  Form 
No.  I  shown  below,  each  check  being  rep- 
resented only  by  the  amount  of  money  ex- 
pressed in  it.  A  copy  of  the  list  is  entered 
in  one  of  the  books  of  the  bank  provided  for 
the  purpose. 


Form  No.  l. 


ances  were  paid  by  drafts  upon  the  Bank  of 
England,  in  which  bank  each  city  banker  de- 
posits a  large  part  of  his  spare  cash. 

One  ingenious  minor  arrangement  in  the 
London  Clearing  House  is  the  division  of 
the  whole  list  of  twenty-six  bankers  into 
three  groups,  in  such  a  way  that  one  of  the 
clearing  clerks  of  the  Alliance  Bank  corre- 
sponds with  one  group  of  the  other  banks,  a 
second  clerk  with  the  second  group  and  so 
on.  Thus  when  a  comparison  or  correction 
of  accounts  is  made  between  any  two  banks, 
it  is  known  precisely  which  clerk  must  an- 
swer to  the  questions  called  across  the  room. 

Although  the  rapid  and  effective  way  in 
which  the  settlement  is  carried  out  in  the 
London  Clearing  House  must  always  excite 
surprise,  it  is  quite  open  to  question  whether 
improvements  are  not  needed.  The  room  does 
not  seem  to  be  large  enough  for  the  conven- 
ient and  wholesome  transaction  of  such  vast 
and  increasing  work.  Although  some  banks 
employ  as  many  as  six  clerks,  the  pressure  is 
very  great  at  times.  The  facility  which  these 
clerks  acquire  by  practice  in  making  and  add- 
ing up  entries  is  very  great,  but  the  intense 
head  work  performed  against  time,  in  an  at- 
mosphere far  from  pure,  and  in  the  midst  of 
bustle  and  noise  arising  from  the  corrections 
shouted  from  one  clerk  to  another  across  the 
room,  must  be  exceedingly  trying.  Brain 
disease  is  occasionally  the  consequence. 

The  question  must  arise,  too,  whether  the 
privilege  of  clearing  is  to  be  forever  restrict- 
ed to  twenty-six  principal  city  banks,  when 
there  are  certainly  many  other  banks  existing 
or  being  founded  which  need  the  convenience 
of  access  to  the  House.  In  New  York  the 
clearing  circle,  as  we  shall  see,  is  much  wider. 
At  present  the  minor  London  banks  are 
forced  to  employ  the  clearing  bankers  as 
agents,  or  to  forego  the  advantages  of  the 
Clearing  House  altogether.  It  is  hardly  just 
or  possible  that  a  narrow  monoply  of  the  sort 
should  be  maintained  forever. 

MANCHESTER   CLEARING    HOUSE. 

Though  the  London  Clearing  House  is  en- 
tirely the  birthplace  of  the  system,  and  the 
spot  where  the  work  has  been  organized  on 
the  largest  scale,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  is 
in  every  respect  the  most  suitable  for  imita- 
tion in  commercial  towns  of  less  magnitude. 
At  least  two  English  provincial  towns,  Man- 
chester and  Newcastle,  have  established  local 
clearing  houses.  The  bankers  of  Liverpool, 
also,  I  am  told,  have  recently  arranged  a  pri- 
vate system  of  clearing  houses  among  them- 
selves; and  it  is  possible  that  the  bankers  of 
other  towns  may  have  taken  a  similar  step 
without  the  fact  becoming  generally  known. 
Through  the  kindness  of  some  members  of 
the  committee,  I  have  received  full  informa- 
tion as  to  the  working  of  the  Manchester  _.  

Clearing  House.  The  business  seems  to  have  i  abstract  of  all  the  claims  he  holds  upon  other 
been  arranged  chieBy,  I  believe,  by  Mr.  E.  i  banks,  and  adding  up  the  columns  ascertains 
W.  Nix,  with  great  success,  and  it  may  be  '  the  aggregate  "Out-clearing." 

74 


te 
a 

•c 


Adding  up  each  such  list,  he  inserts  the 
totals  in  one  of  the  left  hand  columns  of  the 
Form  No.  2.  He  thus  obtains  a  complete 


MONEY  Ai\D  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE. 


MANCHESTER  BANK  CLEANING- 


.187 


OUT. 

1 
IN 

First 
Clearing. 

Second 
Clearing. 

First 
Clearing. 

S«o 
Clea 

inc 

-in} 

I 

rm 

Adelphi 

Bank 

Consolidated 

1 

County 

Cunliffe's 

District 

Heywood 

Joint  Stock 

King  Street 

Lancashire 

National  Provincial 

Salford 

Sewell 

Union 

Total 
Balance 

_ 

— 

— 

I 

On  reaching  the  Clearing  House,  the  clerk 
walks  round  the  room  and  lays  on  the  desk 
belonging  to  each  other  bank  the  parcel  of 
checks  and  the  corresponding  list  already  de- 
scribed. In  the  course  of  a  little  time  thir- 
teen similar  parcels  and  lists  will  be  laid  on 


his  own  desk  by  the  clerks  of  other  banks, 
and  as  they  come  in  he  compares  the  lisi 
with  the  checks,  verifies  the  addition,  and  it 
all  be  correct,  enters  the  amount  in  one  of 
the  right  hand  columns  of  the  second  form, 
against  the  name  of  the  bank  presenting  the 


75 


366 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


drafts.  These  parcels  are  called  the  "/«- 
tlttring,"  and  represent  all  the  claims  of 
other  banks  upon  the  one  in  question,  so  that 
when  all  the  thirteen  amounts  are  entered, 
and  the  columns  added  up,  the  clerk  learns 
the  aggregate  which  his  bank  will  have  to 
pay. 

At  Manchester  two  clearings  are  held  each 
day.  The  first  at  11.15  A.M.  is  a  preliminary 
one  only,  and  no  payment  of  balances  is 
made.  As  soon  as  the  columns  for  the  first 
clearing  are  filled  up,  the  clerk  returns  to  his 
bank  with  the  in-clearing  parcel  of  checks 
and  drafts  presented  upon  the  bank.  These 
documents  are  immediately  examined  by  the 
proper  officials  in  order  to  detect  any  which 
may  be  irregular,  fraudulent,  or,  for  want  of 
funds  or  other  reasons,  must  be  dishonored. 
At  the  Clearing  House  the  clerk  has  already 
made  a  first  rough  inspection,  and  returned 
any  documents  which  were  obviously  irregu- 
lar, but  no  draft  is  considered  to  be  finally 
accepted  until  one  hour  after  the  clearing  is 
over.  The  returned  drafts  are  comparatively 
few,  and,  as  soon  as  detected,  are  forwarded 
direct  to  the  bank  presenting  them. 

The  second  clearing  takes  place  at  2.15 
P.M.  and  is  conducted  just  as  in  the  morning. 
The  second  columns  of  the  out-  and  in  clear- 
ing in  Form  2,  having  been  filled  and 
summed  up,  the  totals  of  the  first  columns 
are  added  in,  and  the  clerk  learns  the  sum 
that  has  to  be  paid,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
be  received,  by  his  bank.  The  difference  is 
the  balance  which  he  has  either  to  receive  or 
pay.  These  totals  and  the  balance  he  copies 
into  the  following  brief  form,  No.  3,  which 
he  hands  to  the  inspector  of  the  Clearing 
House : 

Form  No,  3. 


i      1 


The  inspector  now  proceeds  to  verify  the 
balances  by  inserting  the  amounts  in  Form 
No.  7,  in  an  abbreviated  form,  only  four  of 
the  names  of  the  banks  being  inserted,  to 
save  space.  In  these  forms  the  names  of 
the  banks  are  given  in  the  briefest  manner, 
and  the  Branch  Bank  of  England  is  called 
simply  "Bank.** 

Form  No.  J. 


•a, 

T3 


It  is  evident  that  the  total  which  some  of 
the  banks  have  to  receive  on  balance  must 
equal  what  the  others  have  to  pay,  because 
every  check  has  been  added  in  twice,  once 
in  favor  of,  and  once  against,  some  bank.  If 
the  debtor  and  creditor  columns  of  the 
seventh  form,  being  added  up.  fail  to  bal- 
ance, some  error  of  account  must  have  been 
committed,  and  all  the  work  is  submitted  to 
careful  re-examination  until  the  error  is  de- 
tected. When  all  is  correct,  it  remains  only 
to  effect  the  payments,  which  is  done  by 
means  of  credit  and  debit  notes,  directing 
transfers  in  the  books  of  the  Branch  Bank  of 
England,  to  or  from  the  accounts  of  the 
clearing  bankers.  The  payments  are  made, 
indeed,  to  and  from  the  Clearing  House,  as 
a  kind  of  fictitious  entity  ;  but  as  its  pay- 
ments and  receipts  each  day  exactly  balance, 
the  Clearing  House  requires  no  separate 
ledger  account,  except  for  small  current 
expenses,  or  inconsiderable  errors. 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      367 


To  effect  the  transfer  the  clerk  of  each 
paying  bank  fills  up  the  doubk  form,  No.  4, 
as  follows : 

form  No.  4. 


made,  as  a  receipt  for  the  sum  on  behalf  of 
the  Clearing  House. 

When,  on  the  other  hand,  the  balance  is  ID 
favor  of  a  bank,  Form  No.  5,  printed  on 
green  paper  for  the  sake  of  easy  diecrimina- 
tion,  comes  into  use.  It  sufficiently  explain. 


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& 

**          V 

for  the  purpose,  or  else  to 

be  carried  by 

him 

n 

(M 

V>      1      §      '•S          <4 

to  his  principals  to  be  signed,  and  then  paid 
Into  the    Bank  of   England.     It  directs  the 

There  remains  then  only  the  question  of 

cashier  to  credit  the  Clearing  House  with  the 

the  returned  checks.     Even  these  do  not  re- 

balance,  and    debit   the  sum  to  the 

paying    quire  cash   payment.      The  balance   at  the 

bank  in  question.     The  authorized  official  of  i  close  of   the  day  is   paid   only  provisionally, 
the  Bank  of  England  signs  the  corresponding    and    those    checks   which   have  to   be  dis- 
fcnn  on  the  right  hand,  when  the  payment  is   honored  are  returned  within  an  hour  to  tin 

BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


bank  presenting  them.  Unless  the  irregu 
larities  be  explained  away  or  removed,  the 
presenting  cashier  then  signs  the  following 
form,  No.  6,  which  is  an  acknowledgmen 
that  so  much  money  too  much  was  receivec 
by  him  at  the  last  clearing.  This  form 
included  by  the  bank  dishonoring  the  checks, 
in  its  out  clearing  parcel,  and  the  matter  is 
rectified  in  the  balance  of  the  next  clearing. 

Form  No.  6. 


u 


w 
a 

u 

JZJ 


S        5?    ^ 

S    5 

•5   § 

The  settlement  in  the  Manchester  Clearing 
House  is  often  effected  in  less  time  than  it 
would  take  to  read  this  account  of  the 
method,  and  the  work  goes  on  with  noiseless 
ease,  strongly  contrasting  with  the  turmoil 
of  the  London  House.  No  doubt,  the 
amounts  cleared  are  comparatively  insignifi- 
cant in  Manchester,  the  average  daily  sums 
b'.-ing,  in  the  years  1872,  1873,  and  1874,  re- 
spectively £226,160,  £237,150,  and  ^247,- 
930,  or  little  more  than  one-hundredth  part 
of  the  daily  transactions  in  the  Lombard 
Street  House. 

The  Manchester  Clearing  House  is  man- 
aged by  a  committee  of  bankers,  of  which  the 
chief  agent  of  the  Bank  of  England  in  Man- 
chester is  the  chairman,  and  the  superintend- 
ence of  the  clearing  work  is  conducted  by  an 
officia:  of  the  Bank  of  England.  Thus  the 
Bank,  while  naturally  taking  precedence, 
harmoniously  co-operates  with  the  local 
bankers. 


NEW  YORK  CLEARING  HOUSE. 

The  New  York  Clearing  House  was  estab- 
lished in  October,  1853,  and  has  become  a 
most  important  institution,  embracing  59 
banks,  as  compared  with  26  in  London,  and 
settling  transactions  hardly,  if  at  all,  inferior 
in  amount  to  those  of  the  London  house. 
The  general  method  of  settling  the  business 
is  necessarily  much  the  same  as  that  already 
described,  but  it  seems  to  be  in  some  respects 
better  arranged  than  in  London.  The  work 
is  carried  on  in  a  fine  large  Exchange  Room, 
and  there  is  proper  accommodation  for  the 
manager  and  his  clerks,  instead  of  the  small 
glass  box  in  which  the  inspectors  sit  in  the 
Lombard  Street  room. 

Each  New  York  bank  has  one  settling 
clerk  in  the  Exchange  Room,  besides  a  mes- 
senger, who  brings  and  delivers  the  parcels 
of  checks  and  bills,  The  settling  clerks  sit 
n  a  series  of  desks  arranged  in  an  oval  form 
n  the  middle  of  the  spacious  room,  and  the 
exchanges  are  effected  by  an  equal  number 
of  messengers  simultaneously  walking  round 
the  desks,  delivering  the  parcels  of  "out- 
clearing,"  and  receiving  those  of  "  in-clear- 
ng,"  or  as  they  are  called  in  New  York  the 
Credit  and  Debit  Exchanges.  An  account  of 
the  institution  will  be  found  in  Gibbon's  work 
"  The  Banks  of  New  York."  There  are 
said  to  be  no  less  than  fifteen  provincial 
clearing-houses  in  the  principal  cities  of  the 
United  States,  so  that  the  clearing  system 
would  seem  to  be  more  developed  there  than 
in  the  United  Kingdom. 

EXTENSION   OF  THE  CLEARING  SYSTEM. 

Until  within  the  last  few  years  there 
existed  only  two  bankers'  clearing  houses, 
:hose  of  Lombard  street  and  New  York,  but 
much  progress  has  recently  been  made  in  ex- 
tending a  similar  system  to  other  places,  and 
even  to  other  branches  of  business.  The 
Manchester  Clearing  House  was  established 
n  July,  1872,  and  Newcastle  has  a  similar 
establishment.  On  the  continent  only  a 
ingle  city  has  yet  adopted  the  method.  In 
F'aris  about  eighteen  bankers  have  formed  an 
association,  called  a  "  Cliambre  des  Compen 
ations,"  which  is  located  in  the  Place  de  la 
Bourse,  and  balances  the  reciprocal  claims  of 
hese  firms  much  in  the  manner  of  the  English 
clearing  houses.  In  France,  Germany  and 
other  continental  countries  the  use  of  the 
Banker's  check  is  much  less  developed  than  in 
ngland  and  America.  In  Germany  a  per- 
son wishing  to  remit  a  hundred  pounds  will 
ften  collect  the  actual  coins,  seal  them  up  in 
a  bag  with  five  seals,  and  register  them  at  the 
>ost  office.  Thanks  to  the  excellent  system 
of  government  Pastes  existing  in  Germany, 
his  method  of  remittance  is  sufficiencly  safe. 
3ut  it  is  evident  that  where  the  monetary 
irrangements  of  a  country  are  of  such  a  kind 
here  is  no  need  of  a  clearing  house. 
The  method  of  balancing  claims  needs  by 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      369 


no  meant  to  be  restricted  to  the  business  of 
banking.  As,  indeed,  the  monetary  trans- 
actions of  any  locality  come  to  a  focus  in  the 
banks,  the  principal  clearing  will  always  be 
in  the  hands  of  bankers.  But  wherever  a  set 
of  traders  hare  numerous  reciprocal  claims, 
they  may  find  it  desirable  to  set  up  their  own 
clearing  house.  As  long  ago  as  1842  it 
occurred  to  Robert  Stephenson  and  Mr.  K. 
Morison,  that  the  principle  of  the  City  Clear- 
ing House  might  be  advantageously  applied 
to  settling  the  very  complicated  accounts 
arising  between  railway  companies,  which 
have  through  booking  arrangements.  The 
-.vork  constantly  carried  on  in  the  great  house 
full  of  accountants  at  Euston  Square  is  vastly 
more  complicated  and  various  than  that 
of  a  bankers'  clearing  house  ;  but  the  final 
result  is  to  ascertain  how  much  each  railway 
company  is  indebted  to  each  other  one.  The 
balance  due  to  or  from  each  company  is  then 
paid  by  a  transfer  at  the  bankers. 

Within  the  last  twelve  months  an  attempt 
has  been  made,  unsuccessfully  as  yet,  to  in- 
troduce the  general  use  of  checks  into  Liver- 
pool, where  great  sums  of  money  are  con- 
stantly passing,  especially  in  the  cotton 
market.  For  reasons  which  it  would  be 
difficult  to  trace  out  satisfactorily,  the  Liver- 
pool merchants  and  bankers  have  never 
adapted  tie  use  of  checks  to  the  same  extent 
and  in  the  same  way  as  in  other  commercial 
tcirns.  7 'anj  firms  in  Liverpool  still  refuse 
to  receivf  payment  by  checks,  and  only  a  year 
or  two  a  ;o  it  was  a  common  practice  for  a 
..._~^«i<:r  firm  to  send  a  clerk  to  Liverpool 
by  railway  with  a  bundle  of  bank-notes  to 
make  payments.  At  present,  as  I  am  in- 
formd,  bank  bills  payable  at  sight,  and  for- 
warded by  post,  sue  substituted  for  Bank  of 
England  notes. 

A  Liverpool  fctock  or  cotton  broker,  wish- 
Ing  to  make  &  payment,  draws  money  out  of 
his  bank  in  notes  and  gold,  and  his  clerks 
carry  it  about  the  town-  Every  evening  a 
number  of  small  cosh-boxes,  containing  large 
turns  of  money,  are  deposited  at  a  well-known 
silversmith's  shop,  opposite  the  Town  Hall, 
for  safe  custody  during  the  night.  A  great 
amount  of  capital  is  thus  kept  lying  idle,  and 
it  is  surprising  that  the  bankers  do  not  se- 
cure this  sum,  as  an  addition  to  their  deposits, 
by  removing  every  obstacle.  At  present  the 
practice  is  to  charge  one-eighth  or  one-fourth 
per  cent,  commission,  whereas  the  actual  cost 
of  the  accountants'  work  by  which  the  bank 
transfers  are  accomplished  is  almost  nominal 
in  regard  to  large  transactions. 

An  important  extension  of  the  clearing 
principle  was  affected  by  the  establishment, 
in  1874,  of  the'  London  Stock  Exchange 
Clearing  House,  which  undertakes  to  clear, 
aot  sums  of  money,  but  quantities  of  stock. 
As  stock  brokers  settle  their  transactions 
only  once  a  fortnight,  or  in  consoles  once  a 
month,  it  naturally  arises  that,  in  the  inter- 
PRl»,  tht  wax  broker  will  usually  hay* 


bought  the  same  kind  of  stock  for  one  client 

and  sold  it  for  another.  The  very  same  stock 
may  have  passed  through  several  different 
hands,  and  the  same  brokers  may  have  had 
reciprocal  dealings  with  cacti  other.  Instead, 
then,  of  actually  making  transfers  of  stock 
for  each  transaction,  and  paying  by  checks 
which  greatly  swell  the  business  of  the  Lorn- 
bard  Street  Clearing  House  on  settling  days, 
a  plan  has  been  arranged,  according  to  which 
each  member  of  the  Clearing  House  pre- 
pares a  statement  of  the  net  amount  of  each 
stock  which  he  has  to  receive  from  or  deliver 
to  each  other  member.  The  manager  of  the 
house,  after  verifying  these  accounts,  which 
should  balance  in  the  aggregate,  directs  the 
debtor  members  to  transfer  qualities  of  stock 
19  the  creditor  members  in  such  a  way  as  to 
close  all  the  transactions.  It  will  be  noticed 
that,  for  pretty  obvious  reasons,  the  transfers 
are  made  in  the  stock  exchange,  directly  from 
broker  to  broker  and  not  to  the  manager  of 
the  Clearing  House,  as  in  banking  transac- 
tions. A  separate  clearing  has,  of  course,  to 
be  made  in  each  kind  of  stock-  It  is  found 
that  the  quantities  actually  transferred  do  not 
exceed  10  per  cent,  of  the  whole  transactions 
cleared,  and  the  checks  drawn  are  diminished 
on  settling  days  as  much  as  ten  million! 
sterling. 

Still  mora  recently  the  Cotton  Brokers'  As- 
sociation of  London,  although  unable  to  ap- 
ply the  system  of  clearing  as  yet  to  theii 
money  transactions,  have  arranged  a  clearing 
system  for  the  settlement  of  business  con- 
nected with  the  sales  of  cotton  "to  arrive." 
Under  the  new  arrangement  the  first  seller 
and  the  last  buyer  come  into  contact,  and  all 
intemediate  business,  which  sometimes  oc- 
casioned much  dispute  and  delay  from  coo- 
tracts  involving  many  middle-men,  will  be. 
as  it  were,  canceled  by  the  Clearing  House. 

The  business,  indeed,  is  being  extended,  so 
that  all  contracts,  declarations,  and  payments 
will  be  effected  through  the  agency  of  th» 
association. 

It  may  very  well  admit  of  question  whether 
we  have  at  all  reached  the  limit  of  the  advan- 
tageous application  of  the  clearing  principle. 
From  banker's  transactions  it  has  been  ex- 
tended to  railways,  stock  exchange,  and  cot- 
ton broker's  business.  It  is  conceivable  that 
any  other  body  of  merchants,  brokers,  pub- 
lishers, or  others  who  have  frequent  pecuniary 
claims  upon  each  other,  might  have  a  clearing 
meeting  once  or  twice  a  week.  Suggestions 
to  this  effect  have  already  been  made,  and  1 
am  told  that  in  the  Glasgow  iron  market,  a 
settlement  day  for  the  clearing  of  mutual 
transactions  has  been  established. 

ADVANTAGES  OF  THK   CHECK  AND  CLKAKJNO 
SYSTEM. 

Returning  to  the  subject  of  the  bankers' 
Clearing  Houses,  it  is  to  be  remarked  con- 
cerning the  vast  system  of  relations  which 
now  exists  between  English  banks,  that  if 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


has  grown  spontaneously,  aninvented,  un- 
authorized by  the  legislature,  and  only  recog- 
nized by  the  judges  when  firmly  established 
as  a  matter  of  business  custom.  No  Act  ol 
Parliament  has  been  passed  to  facilitate  the 
operations  of  clearing,  and  it  is  only  by  an 
understanding  between  the  banks,  that  the 
presentation  of  checks  and  bills  through  the 
Clearing  House,  or  their  settlement  by  the 
payment  of  a  balance,  is  regarded  as  legally 
valid. 

The  advantages  of  the  system  are  evi- 
dently of  enormous  magnitude.  All  the 
larger  payments  are  made  with  a  minimum 
of  risk,  loss  of  time,  trouble,  or  use 
of  the  precious  metals.  While  the 
check  representing  a  payment  is  travel- 
ing about  the  country,  the"  money  which  it 
is  transferring  is  reposing  in  the  vaults  of 
some  bank,  or  rather,  not  being  needed  in 
the  operation  at  all,  is  lent  or  sent  out  of  the 
country,  so  that  its  interest  is  saved.  We 
found  in  p.  165  that  the  loss  of  interest  upon 
(he  metallic  money  now  circulating  or  stored 
up  in  the  United  Kingdom,  amounts  to  be- 
tween four  and  five  millions  annually.  If 
payments  were  now  made  by  coin  only,  many 


*imes   as  much 
•ceded. 


metallic   money  would  be 


The  security  with  which  the  payments  are 
effected  is  also  an  element  of  importance. 
Specie  when  transmitted  in  large  sums,  is 
always  a  temptation  to  thieves,  and  has 
usually  to  be  accompanied  by  one  or  more 
guards.  Through  the  agency  of  banks, 
whether  by  crossed  checks  or  credit  notes, 
the  largest  payments  may  be  made  with  al- 
most absolute  immunity  from  risk.  The 
checks,  bills,  and  other  documents  trans- 
ferred in  the  clearing  houses  are,  as  a  general 
rule,  so  crossed  or  endorsed  as  to  be  of  no 
value  to  any  one  but  the  legal  owners,  and  in 
any  case  are  regarded  by  thieves  as  "duffer," 
with  which  they  dare  not  meddle. 

PROPORTION  OF   CASH   PAYMENTtS. 

It  is  surprising  to  find  to  what  an  extent 
paper  documents  have  replaced  coins  as  a 
medium  of  exchange  in  some  of  the  princi- 
pal centres  of  business.  In  the  Statistical 
Journal  lot  September,  1865,  Sir  J.  Lubbock 
published  some  particulars  concerning  the 
business  of  his  bank  during  the  last  few  days 
of  1864.  Transactions  to  the  amount  of 
£23, 000,000  were  effected  by  the  use  of  coin 
and  other  documents,  as  shown  in  the  follow- 
ing statement: 

Per  Cent. 
Checks  and  Bills  passed  through  the 

Clearing  House 70.8 

Checks  and  Bills  not  cleared 33.3 

Bank  of  England  Notes 5^0 

Coin ~.^.«       .6 

r«uitnr  Bank-tuxes ~.~       i 


IOO.O 

The  turns  of  money  paid  in  by  town  cus- 


tomers  amounted  to  £19,000,000,  and 
analysed  gave  the  following  results: 

Per  Cent. 
Chocks  and  Bills.......  ...............   96.3 

Bank  of  England  Notes..............     a.  a 

Country  Bank-notes  ...........  ........       .4 

Coin  .........................  ........  .......  6 

It  is  not  for  a  moment  to  be  supposed  that 
these  figures  represent  the  average  use  of 
coin  in  banking  transactions.  The  propor- 
tional amounts  of  different  kinds  of  money 
and  commercial  documents  used  in  different 
parts  of  the  country,  in  different  trades,  or 
in  banks  of  different  size  and  character  vary 
widely.  It  is  much  to  be  desired  that  bank- 
ers and  others  who  have  the  facts  before 
them  should  publish  more  copious  informa- 
tion on  the  subject.  In  Manchester  the  use 
of  Bank  of  England  notes  appears  to  be 
much  more  extensive  than  in  London.  Mr. 
R.  H.  Inglis  Palgrave  gave  in  the  Statistical 
Journal  for  March,  1873  (p.  86),  an  estimate 
prepared  for  him  by  Mr.  Langton,  the  Man- 
aging Director  of  the  Manchester  and  Sal- 
ford  Bank,  of  the  proportion  of  cash  payments 
made  in  that  bank.  It  appears  that  coin  an< 
notes  formed  53  per  cent.  of  the  total  turn  -over 
in  1859,  42  per  cent,  in  1864,  and  only  39 
per  cent,  in  1872,  so  that  a  rapid  decrease 
has  been  going  on.  But  we  find  that  in  1873 
the  amount  of  notes  was  stiH  large,  the  turn- 
over of  customers'  accounts  being  thus  com- 
posed: 

Per  Cent. 
Checks,  Bills,  etc..  ......................     68 

Bank-notes  ......  .........................     17 

Coin  .........................  _........... 


100 

I  hare  endeavored  to  form  some  notion  of 
the  comparative  amounts  of  checks  and  bills 
which  arc  cleared  off  at  successive  points  in 
the  organization  of  the  banking  system.  It 
is  very  desirable  that  we  should  learn  what 
proportion  the  transactions  of  the  Clearing 
House  bear  to  the  whole  transactions  of  the 
banks  of  the  kingdom.  There  would  not  be 
much  difficulty  in  forming  a  fair  estimate  if 
we  had  from  one  or  more  banks  in  each  of 
the  principal  towns  a  statement  of  the  com- 
parative amounts  of  checks  dealt  with  in 
various  manners.  According  to  information 
kindly  furnished  to  me  by  the  authorities  of 
one  of  the  principal  banks  of  Manchester,  I 
ind  that,  during  the  months  July  to  October, 
1874,  the  checks  and  bills  on  demand  pre- 
sented on  or  through  the  bank  were  disposed 
of  as  follows: 

Per  Cent. 

Checks  paid  in  Coin  and  Bank-notes 
over  the  Counter...  ...........  ,  ......  _  j*4t 

Checks  on  Selves  paid  to  Credit  of 
Account  ................................  sj  4 

Checks  presented  through  Manchester 
Qeanng-House  .MM.M..~....~  .....  .  as*i 


80 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      371 


Per  cent. 

Checks  and  Bills  on  demand  on  Lon- 
don presented  through  London 
Clearing-House 10*8 

Checks  on  Country  Bankers  pre- 
sented through  the  London  Clear- 
ing House 3'5 

Checks  on  Country  Bankers  presented 
direct 3'6 


100*0 

Although  considerable  trouble  has  been 
spent  in  the  preparation  of  this  account,  it 
seems  doubtful  whether  the  items  are  com- 
plete and  correct,  and  T  give  it  more  as  a 
specimen  of  the  kind  of  information  which  is 
much  wanted  than  as  a  reliable  statement. 

CASES  TO  WHICH  THE  CLEARING  SYSTEM  IS 
INAPPLICABLE. 

It  will  now  be  sufficiently  apparent  that,  so 
long  as  trade  is  reciprocal,  the  check  and 
clearing  system  can  arrange  all  exchanges 
without  the  use  of  coin.  The  values  of  goods 
are  estimated  and  «.  xpressed  in  terms  of  gold, 
which  acts  as  the  co_nmon  denominator  of 
value,  but  metallic  money  ceases  to  be  the 
medium  of  exchange.  The  banking  organi- 
zation effects  what  I  have  heard  Mr.  W. 
Langton  describe  as  a  restoration  of  barter. 
But  it  happens  in  some  cases  that  the  trans- 
actions are  not  reciprocal,  and  cannot  be 
made  to  balance.  In  certain  trades  there  is  a 
permanent  set  of  the  goods  in  one  direction. 
In  the  Manchester  cotton  trade,  for  instance, 
the  manufacturers,  in  purchasing  cotton  from 
the  Liverpool  merchants,  pay  with  cash  or 
short  credits  The  goods,  when  completed, 
are  often  shipped  again  at  Liverpool  for 
foreign  consignees  at  long  credits,  but  are 
not  generally  purchased  by  the  Liverpool 
merchants.  Consequently,  while  the  Man- 
chester manufacturer  owes  the  Liverpool 
merchant  for  the  whole  cost  of  the  raw 
material,  and  for  the  shipping  charges  and 
freights  upon  the  goods  sent  abroad,  there 
are  no  equivalent  claims  of  Manchester 
merchants  against  Liverpool.  The  foreign 
consignees  of  the  goods  pay  for  them  by  bills 
upon  London.  Now,  if  the  Manchester 
manufacturers  held  their  funds  in  Manchester, 
and  the  Liverpool  merchants  their  funds  in 
Liverpool,  there  would 'have  to  be  a  constant 
current  of  money  from  London  to  Manchester, 
and  from  Manchester  to  Liverpool,  whence  it 
would  go  abroad  to  pay  for  the  raw  material. 
This  inconvenient  state  of  things  is  remedied 
to  a  certain  extent,  as  we  shall  see  in  Chapter 
XXIII.,  by  making  London  the  headquarters 
and  clearing-house  both  of  home  and  foreign 
transactions. 

But  there  is  always  a  liability  that  claims 
expressed  in  metallic  money,  and  actually 
capable  of  being  demanded  in  that  shape  at 
the  option  of  the  owner,  will  sometimes  be 
pressed.  In  certain  states  of  trade,  or  under 
certain  contingent  circumstances,  the  holders 


of  checks  require  gold,  and  bankers  who 
have  become  accustomed  to  consider  metallic 
reserves  as  almost  superfluous,  find  them- 
selves suddenly  in  a  difficult  position.  Such, 
as  we  shall  see  in  Chapter  XXIV.,  is  the  real 
cause  of  the  present  instability  of  the  English 
money  market. 


CHAPTER    XXII. 


THE  CHECK   BANK. 

THE  Check  and  Clearing  System,  so  far  as 
we  have  hitherto  considered  it,  is  mainly  re- 
stricted to  the  arrangement  of  considerable 
payments.  No  one  can  enjoy  its  advantages 
unless  he  keeps  a  banking  account,  and  for 
this  purpose  he  must  be  able  to  command  a 
certain  sum  of  money,  and  must  have  a 
sufficiently  good  position  and  credit  to  be 
entrusted  by  a  banker  with  a  check  book. 
The  result  is  that  the  larger  part  of  the  popula- 
tion is  entirely  outside  the  banking  system, 
and  must  either  use  coin,  postage  stamps  or 
post-office  orders  in  making  payments. 

A  very  ingenious  attempt  is  now  being 
made  to  extend  the  area  of  banking  to  the 
masses  by  the  institution  of  the  Check  Bank. 
When  preparing  materials  for  this  book,  I 
was  so  much  struck  by  the  way  in  which  this 
new  bank  seems  to  be  adapted  to  complete 
the  check  and  clearing  system  in  a  downward 
direction,  that  I  applied  to  Mr.  James  Hertz, 
the  able  inventor  of  the  scheme,  for  informa- 
tion upon  the  subject,  and  have  been  enabled 
to  inquire  minutely  into  it. 

The  weak  point  of  the  present  ordinary 
check  book  is,  that  a  person  once  getting  a 
book  full  of  blank  checks,  can  fill  them  up 
for  any  amounts,  irrespective  of  the  balance 
against  which  they  are  supposed  to  be  drawn. 
Here  is  an  opening  for  easy  fraud,  if  checks 
were  generally  received  from  strangers  with- 
out inquiry.  The  Check  Bank  proceeds  on 
the  new  principle  of  issuing  checks  which 
can  be  filled  up  only  to  limited  amounts,  as 
shown  by  printed  and  indelible  perforated 
notices  upon  the  forms.  These  checks,  too, 
are  only  to  be  had  in  exchange  for  the  ut- 
most sum  for  which  they  can  be  drawn, 
which  sum  is  retained  as  a  deposit  until  each 
corresponding  check  has  been  presented. 
It  follows  that  each  check,  when  duly  filled 
up  and  signed  by  the  owner,  is  as  good  as  a 
bank-note  issued  against  a  documentary  re- 
serve. It  is  true  that  check  books  or  forms 
may  be  lost  or  purl  ined,  and  then  fraudu- 
lently signed  and  issued  ;  but,  being  drawn 
to  order  and  crossed,  these  documents  are 
very  dangerous  to  meddle  with  in  a  criminal 
manner,  and,  in  the  only  instance  in  which 
fraud  has  yet  been  attempted,  swift  punish- 
ment followrd. 

RELATION  OF  TH£  CHECK  BANK  TO  OTHIR 
BANKS. 

We  have  seen  how  much  has  been  accom- 
plished by  establishing  relations  between 


37* 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


banks,  as  branches,  agents,  or  correspondents 
of  each  other.  The  Check  Bank  carries 
out  a  similar  system  to  the  utmost  extent  by 
establishing  relations  with  almost  all  the 
banks  of  the  United  Kingdom,  as  well  as 
with  most  foreign  banks  of  importance.  Al- 
ready 984  English,  Irish,  or  Scotch  banks, 
have  entered  into  relations  with  the  Check 
Bank,  and  596  colonial  or  foreign  banks  cash 
the  checks.  One  advantage  of  this  ar- 
.-angement  is,  that  the  sphere  of  the  check 
system  can  be  greatly  extended  without  any 
equal  increase  of  trouble  and  risk.  When- 
ever a  bank  opens  a  new  account  with  an 
indiviJnal,  that  account  has  to  be  kept  apart 
in  the  ledger,  and  constantly  watched.  But 
a  bank  can  sell  Check  Bank  checks  to  any 
amount,  without  opening  separate  accounts 
with  the  purchasers,  and  may  also  pay  such 
checks  when  presented  without  risk.  The 
Check  Bank  thus  aims  at  becoming  a  great 
institution  of  accountants,  operating  for  the 
most  part  through  other  banks,  but  relieving 
them  of  much  of  the  risk  and  trouble  of 
small  transactions.  The  Bank  of  England 
is  a  bankers'  bank  in  the  sense  that  it  holds 
the  reserves  of  other  banks,  and  makes  those 
final  payments  of  cash  which  close  the  gen- 
eral balance  of  transactions.  The  Check 
Bank  seems  to  be  a  bankers'  bank  in  the  op- 
posite sense  of  making  deposits  in  all  other 
banks  and  employing  them  as  agents. 

A  peculiar  feature  of  the  Check  Bank  is 
that  it  entirely  abstains  from  using,  or  even 
holding,  the  money  deposited.  All  money 
received  for  check  books  is  left  in  the  hands 
of  the  bankers,  through  whom  they  are 
issued,  or  transferred  to  other  bankers,  as 
may  be  needed  for  meeting  the  checks  pre- 
sented. The  interest  paid  by  these  bankers 
will  be  the  source  of  profit,  and  as  the  money 
thus  lies  in  the  care  of  the  most  ..ealthy  and 
reputable  firms  in  the  kingdom,  it  could  not 
be  lost  in  any  appreciable  quantity,  except  by 
the  break-down  of  the  whole  banking  system 
of  the  country.  It  would  hardly  be  true  to 
say  that  these  checks  correspond  to  notes 
issued  on  the  deposit  of  government  funds, 
because  each  agent-bank  can  use  at  its  own 
discretion  the  portion  of  the  funds  of  the 
Check  Bank  in  its  possession.  Neverthe- 
less, as  the  portion  in  the  hands  of  any  one 
bank  will  usually  be  a  small  fraction  of  the 
whole,  and  there  is,  moreover,  a  guarantee 
fund  of  consols  in  the  background,  the  sys- 
tem of  issue  is  more  closely  analogous  to  that 
of  a  documentary  reserve  than  any  other. 

THE  CHECK  BANK  AS  A  MONETARY  AGENT. 

The  Check  Bank  appears  to  aim  at  becom- 
ing the  medium  for  the  accomplishment  of  an 
immense  mass  of  small  payments,  Small 
pensions  and  annuities,  small  dividends, 
8mall  disbursements  by  officers  of  depart- 


the  Check  Bank  checks  can  be  safely  trusted 
to  almost  any  servant  or  a^ent  who  oan 
write,  and  the  check  when  presented  forms  a 
record  of  the  way  in  which  he  has  applied  the 
money.  No  one  can  venture  in  like  manner 
to  give  signed  blank  checks  to  a  servant,  as 
they  may  be  filled  up  for  unlimited  amounts, 
and  the  Check  Bank  checks  are  evidently 
better  than  a  sum  of  metallic  money,  which 
may  be  more  readily  misapplied,  purloined, 
or  lost. 

The  recipient  of  such  checks  finds  them 
one  of  the  most  convenient  possible  forms  of 
remittance,  because  they  will  be  cashed  by 
almost  any  banker,  and  will  therefore  be  re- 
ceived as  cash  by  any  person  who  has  acquired 
sufficient  knowledge  of  their  nature  Thus 
the  check  bank  seems  to  be  capable  of  replac- 
ing with  great  advantage  the  money-order 
system  of  the  English  Pot  Office. 

To  procure  a  post-office  order  it  is  requisite 
to  apply  at  an  office  and  wait  while  certain 
forms  are  being  filled  up.  A  definite  office 
of  payment  must  be  selected,  and  the  re- 
ceiver of  the  order  can  obtain  payment,  as  a 
general  rule,  only  by  allying  personally  at 
the  office,  and  giving  the  name  of  the  sender. 
Even  if  a  person  cannot  afford  to  purchase  a 
book  of  Check  Bank  checks,  he  can,  in 
towns  where  agencies  are  established  for  the 
purpose,  buy  single  checks  filled  up  for  any 
odd  sum  with  less  formality  than  at  the  post- 
office,  and  these  checks  are  payable  not  at 
one  office,  but  at  almost  any  bank  in  the 
United  Kingdom  and  in  most  foreign  towns. 
They  can  afterward  be  restricted  in  payment 
if  desired,  to  any  particular  bank.  The  cost 
of  remittance  by  checks  will  on  the  average 
be  lower  than  by  money  orders,  since  the 
I  ost-Office  makes  charges  for  inland  orders, 
increasing  from  one  penny  for  sums  under 
ten  shillings  to  one  shilling  for  a  ^10  order, 
with  much  higher  charges  for  orders  to 
be  paid  in  certain  colonies  or  foreign  coun- 
tries. The  Check  Bank  check  costs  only 
one  penny  and  one-fifth  of  a  penny  in 
excess  of  the  sum  remitted,  and  of  this  charge 
the  penny  is  for  the  government  stamp  duty 
and  represents  so  much  public  revenue. 

The  government  can  have  no  reason  for 
opposing  the  Check  Bank,  because  if  success- 
ful it  must  earn  for  the  Chancellor  of  the  E., 
chequer  a  large  annual  revenue.  The  money- 
order  system,  on  the  other  hand,  in  spite  of 
the  higher  charges,  is  understood  to  yield  no 
profit,  and  is  rather  a  burden  upon  the  de- 
partment. It  is  said  that  the  issue  of  every 
money  order  involves  the  filling  up  of  eight 
or  nine  forms,  and  the  amount  of  labor  ren- 
dered requisite  swallows  up  the  revenue.  It 
is  a  very  striking  instance  of  the  comparative 
inefficiency  of  government  industry,  except  in 
special  cases,  that  a  single  banking  company 
can  bring  into  use  a  form  of  remittance  avail- 
able in  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  far  cheaper 


ments,  by  agents,  clerks,  or  even  domestic   than  post-office  orders,  and  yet  pay  duty  up. 
servants  are    made   through   it.     A  book  of  '  on  their  transactions. 

82 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      373 


The  Check  Bank  also  aims  °t  becoming  a 
collecting  as  well  as  a  paying  Agency.  Any 
public  institution  needing  to  collect  a  sub- 
scription, for  instance,  hn  cnly  to  procure  a 
"paying-in"  form,  or  credit  note,  and  the 
sum  inserted  therein  will  be  received  by  any 
of  the  numerous  banks  in  relation.  Thus 
small  debts  and  subscriptions  may  be  readily 
collected  without  trouble  or  expense  in  any 
part  of  the  country. 

PAYMENT  OF  WAGES  BY  CHECKS. 

The  managers  of  the  Check  Bank  hope  to 
substitute  their  checks  for  the  coin  now  used 
by  manufacturers  in  payment  of  wages.  It 
this  could  be  accomplished  it  would  be  con- 
venient rather  than  otherwise  to  bankers,  who 
are  called  upon  to  furnish  large  sums  in  gold 
and  silver  coin,  and  have  the  trouble  and  cost 
of  holding  and  continuing  a  sufficient  stock. 
Now,  if  a  master  in  paying  his  men  present- 
ed them  with  small  checks,  or,  perhaps  better 
still,  with  checks  for  even  sums,  and  the  bal- 
ance in  silver,  the  checks  would  be  cashed  by 
shopkeepers,  and  would  be  deposited  by  them 
in  the  banks,  or  might  even  be  bought  back 
in  large  sums  by  the  masters  for  further  use. 
It  w-s  a'  one  time  the  practice  of  great  rail- 
way contractors  to  issue  tally  checks  in  the 
form  of  one,  two,  or  five  shilling  cards,  which 
were  paid  to  their  workmen,  and  circulated 
among  the  publicans  and  tradesmen  of  the 
neighborhood,  until  taken  back  by  the  con- 
tractor in  who!  sale.  Such  checks  constitute! 
true  representative  money,  but  would  be  of 
doubtful  legality.  The  Check  Bank  checks 
might  serve  the  same  purpose,  and  have  been 
declared  legal,  but  it  is  yet  very  doubtful 
how  far  the  wholesome  practice  of  imme- 
diately presenting  ordinary  checks  will  stand 
in  the  way  of  the  continued  circulation  of 
other  checks,  for  which  there  is  no  need  of 
immediate  presentation.  Time  after  time  we 
have  fonnd  that  habit  and  custom  exercise  an 
immense  and  very  unmanageable  influence  in 
monetary  affairs,  and  it  will  probably  take  a 
long  time  to  teach  the  public  to  look  upon  a 
check  as  a  safe  document  to  keep. 

THE  CHECK  BANK  AS  A  SAVINGS  BANK. 

Already  the  Check  Bank  serves  as  a  sav- 
ings bank  into  which  persons  may  put  sur- 
plus money  for  security,  receiving  as  an  ac- 
knowledgment the  check  forms  by  which  it  can 
be  drawn  out  or  paid  away  with  ease.  No 
interest,  however,  is  paid  on  such  deposits. 
It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  the  bank,  if 
successful  in  its  present  aims,  might  readily 
become  the  most  admirable  of  savings  banks. 
Instead  of  issuing  checks  payable  at  any 
moment,  it  might  issue  through  its  agent- 
banks,  deposit  receipts,  bills,  or  what  comes 
to  much  the  same  thing,  post  dated  checks, 
th«  interest  to  be  paid  at  the  time  of  deposit 
as  a  discount  at  the  rate  of  two  or  two-and-a- 
half  per  cent.  This  receipt  could  be  re- 
tained, transferred  by  endorsement,  or  again 


discounted  by  the  Check  Bank.  If  retained 
until  maturity  it  would  become  payable  like  a 
check  at  any  bank  in  relation  with  the  Check 
Bank.  The  money  deposited  in  this  way 
miyht  be  invested  in  consols  at  three  and  one- 
fourth  per  cent.,  and  the  cost  of  the  docu- 
ments and  accountants'  work  being  slight 
might  leave  a  fair  margin  of  profit 

The  Post-Office  Savings  Bank  system  as 
established  by  Mr.  Gladstone  is  an  admirable 
institution  ;  it  has  been  very  successful,  and 
has  done  great  service  in  increasing  provi- 
dence. But  it  is  troublesome  and  costly  in 
working,  and  leaves  no  profit  to  the  Sta'e. 
Already  the  Scottish  banks  serve  almost  in 
the  capacity  of  saving  banks  by  recei^in  j 
small  fixed  deposits  ;  and  it  is  well  worthy  of 
consideration  whether,  by  the  assistance  of 
the  Check  Bank,  almost  all  the  English  banks 
might  not  be  converted  into  savings  banks,  to 
the  advantage  of  every  one. 

RESULTS  OF  THE  CHECK  BANK  SYSTEM. 

I  have  thought  it  quite  suitable  to  this 
book  to  enter  somewhat  minutely  into  the 
actual  and  possiule  work  done  by  the  Check 
Bank,  because,  if  successful,  the  institution 
opens  an  indefinite  sphere  lor  financial  im- 
provement. The  institution  is,  indeed,  at 
present  a  mere  experiment,  undertaken  at  the 
risk  of  the  shareholders,  and  K  *in  only  suc- 
ceed by  offering  conveniences  to  the  public 
and  the  body  of  bankers.  It  may  succeed  in 
some  of  its  schemes,  and  not  in  others,  but 
in  any  case  it  will  tend  to  replace  coin  pay- 
ments by  check  payments,  to  be  balanced  off 
in  the  general  London  clearing.  The  pr  fits 
of  the  bank  depend  upon  a  very  small  caarge 
of  one-fifth  of  a  penny  for  each  check  and 
the  interest  on  deposits.  The  amount  of 
deposits  remaining  undrawn  depends  upon 
three  circumstances  :  (&)  the  time  before  the 
check  is  utilized  ;  (2)  the  time  it  is  in  circula- 
tion, or  traveling  about,  and  (3)  the  difference 
between  the  sum  drawn  and  that  deposited. 
The  average  duration  of  circulation,  I  am  in- 
formed, was  lately  ten  days,  but  many  caecks 
have  already  been  out  a  year. 

I  should  add  that,  in  describing  with  some 
detail  the  operations  of  the  Check  Bank,  1 
have  no  interest  in  the  success  of  the  institu- 
tion other  than  a  strictly  scientific  interest. 
In  any  case  it  is  a  most  ingenious  inner  ttion. 
and  if  successful  cannot  fail  to  benefit  the 
community  in  a  high  degree,  adding  a  new 
feature  to  a  banking  system  already  wonder- 
fully organized. 

CHAPTER  XXIIL 

BILLS  OF  BXCKAN«I. 


In  early  times  foreign  trade  consisted  !n 
the  direct  exchange  of  commodities.  A 
caravan  set  out  with  a  variety  of  manufact- 


374 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


ured  articles  across    the  deserts  of  Arabia  |  direction.     The  American  merchant  who  1Mb 
or  Sahara,  and  came  back  with  ivory,  spices,  |  shipped  cotton  to  England  can  draw  a  bill 


and  other  valuable  raw  produce  obtained  by 
barter.  In  later  times  the  merchant  loaded 
his  own  ship  and  sent  her  forth  on  an  advent- 
ure, trusting  that  his  ship-master  would  sell 
the  cargo  to  advantage,  and,  with  the  pro- 
ceeds, bring  back  another  cargo  to  be  sold  to 
great  profit  at  home.  Trade  was  thus  evi- 
dently reciprocal  and  what  was  sent  out  paid 
f  ot  what  was  brought  back,  so  that  little  or 
no  money  was  kept  idle  in  the  mean  time. 

Wnerever  this  direct  reciprocal  exchange 
did  not  exist  it  wasrfiecessary  either  to  trans- 
mit metallic  money,  or  to  devise  some  mode 
of  transferring  debts.  Now  the  transmissi  >n 
of  money  not  only  causes  the  loss  of  inter- 
est during  the  interval  of  transit,  but  leads 
to  the  expense  of  guarding  it,  and  the  liabil- 
ity of  total  loss.  Many  centuries  ago,  ac- 
cordingly, it  was  discovered  that  the  use  of 
paper  documents  would  economize  if  not 
altogether  render  needless,  the  use  of  me- 
tallic money  in  foreign  trade. 

ORIGIN  AND  NATURE  OF  BILLS  OF  IX  - 
CHANGE. 

Even  the  Romans  appear  to  have  been  ac* 
quainted  in  a  slight  degree  with  the  system 
of  foreign  bills  of  exchange  ;  but  it  is  to  the 
early  Italian,  and  especially  the  Jewish  mer- 
chants, that  we  owe  the  development  of  the 
practice.  The  history  ot  the  subject  is 
buried  in  much  obscurity,  but  there  is  evi- 
dence that,  as  early  as  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, the  use  of  bills  of  exchange  was  fully 
established.  The  forms  of  the  bills,  and 
the  laws  and  customs  relating  to  them,  were 
then  much  the  same  as  in  the  present  day. 

A  bill  is  nothing  but  an  order  to  pay 
money  addressed  by  the  drawer  to  the 
drawee,  or  person  on  whom  it  is  drawn, 
specifying  the  amount  to  be  paid,  the  time 
of  payment,  and  the  person  to  whom  it  is  to 
be  paid.  Whenever  a  bill  is  drawn,  v;  is  to 
be  presumed  that  a  debt  is  due  from  the 
drawee  to  the  drawer.  When  presented  to 
the  drawee  and  accepted  by  him,  this  accept- 
ance is  an  acknowledgment  of  the  existence 
of  the  debt.  The  bill,  although  drawn  in 
favor  of  a  particular  person,  is  transferable 
by  endorsement,  and  thus  represents  a  nego- 
tiable claim  to  receive  money  at  a  future  date 
in  a  distant  country.  Hence  it  is  capable  of 
being  transmitted  in  discharge  of  another 
debt  of  equal  amount. 

England  buys  every  year  from  America  a 
great  quantity  of  cotton,  corn,  pork,  and 
many  other  articles.  America  at  the  same 
time  buys  from  England  iron,  linen,  silk,  and 
•ther  manufactured  goods.  It  would  be  ob- 
viously absurd  that  a  double  current  of  specie 
should  be  passing  across  the  Atlantic  Ocean 


upon  the  consignee  to  an  amount  not  exceed- 
ing the  value  of  the  cotton.  Selling  this  bill 
in  New  York  to  a  party  who  has  imported 
iron  from  England  to  an  equivalent  amount, 
it  will  be  transmitted  by  post  to  the  English 
creditor,  presented  for  acceptance  to  the  En- 
glish debtor,  and  one  payment  of  cash  on 
maturity  will  close  the  whole  circle  of  trans- 
actions. Money  intervenes  twice  over,  in- 
deed; once  when  the  bill  Is  sold  in  New  York, 
once  when  it  is  finally  canceled  in  England; 
but  it  is  evident  that  payment  between  two 
parties  in  one  town  is  substituted  for  payment 
across  the  whole  breadth  of  the  Atlantic. 
Moreover,  the  payments  may  be  effected  by 
the  use  of  checks,  or  the  bills  when  due  may 
themselves  be  presented  through  the  Clearing 
House,  and  balanced  off  against  other  bills 
and  checks.  Thus  the  use  of  metallic  money 
seems  to  be  rendered  almost  superfluous, 
and,  so  long  as  there  is  no  great  disturbance 
in  the  balance  of  exports  and  imports,  foreign 
trade  is  restored  to  a  system  of  perfected 
barter. 

TRADE  IN  FOREIGN  BILLS. 

It  is  an  unnatural  supposition  that  every 
importer  of  goods  will  meet  with  an  exporter 
of  goods  to  the  same  amount,  so  that  two 
transactions  will  exactly  balance  each  other. 
But  there  are  many  merchants  in  Liverpool 
indebted  to  American  merchants,  and  many 
American  merchants  indebted  to  others  in 
Liverpool.  Hence  there  will  be  a  continual 
supply  of  bills  of  various  amounts,  and  a  con- 
tinual demand,  and  it  becomes  a  profitable 
business  for  certain  houses  to  deal  in  the  bills, 
purchasing  bills  from  those  who  can  draw 
and  selling  to  those  wno  wish  to  remit. 

Large  firms  of  merchants  often  have  houses 
both  in  America  and  in  England,  or  a  firm 
in  one  country  has  agents  or  correspondents 
in  the  other  with  whom  they  keep  a  running 
account.  Not  uncommonly,  the  very  same 
firm  may  be  both  importing  and  exporting, 
so  that  a  direct  balancing  of  their  accounts 
will  be  so  far  effected.  The  remaining  bal- 
ance need  only  be  paid  from  time  to  time  as 
opportunity  offers.  Tisus,  in  foreign  as  in 
home  trade,  book  credit  serves  in  a  great  de- 
gree to  economisa  the  use  of  money.  Only 
when  there  is  a  derangement  of  the  balance 
of  trade,  and  one  country  owes  to  another  a 
preponderating  debt  of  large  amount,  need 
specie  be  transmitted. 

It  is  out  of  the  question  that  I  should,  in 
this  small  treasise,  attempt  to  enter  into  the 
:ntricacies  of  the  Foreign  Exchanges,  which 
have  b~en  so  admirably  treated  by  Mr.  Gos- 
chen,  in  his  "Theory  of  the  Foreign  Ex- 
changes."  The  general  principle  of  the  sub- 


in  payment  for  these  goods,  when  the  inter-   ject  is,  that  bills  of  exchange  drawn  on  any 
vention  of  a  few  paper  acknowledgements  of  j  particular  place  constitute  a  new  kind  of  ar- 
3t  will  enable  the  goods  passing  in  one  di-  '  tide,  subject  to  the  laws  of  supply  and  de- 
ration to  pay  for  those  going  in  the  opposite  '  mand.      Any  circumstance  diminishing  the 

84 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      375 


supply,  or  Increasing  the  demand,  raises  the 
price  of  such  bills  and  vice  versa.  The  price 
being  raised,  there  is  additional  profit  on  any 
transaction  which  allows  a  new  supply  of 
bills  to  be  drawn.  The  export  of  any  kind 
of  goods  in  greater  quantities  tends  to  restore 
the  balance,  but,  if  requisite,  coin  or  bullion 
can  be  sent  at  a  certain  cost,  and  bills  drawn 
against  it.  Thus  the  cost  of  transmitting 
specie  is  the  limit  to  the  premium  on  bills. 
Gold  and  silver  being  everywhere  considered 
a  desirable  possession,  and  being  also  very 
portable,  form,  as  remarked  at  the  outset, 
the  natural  currency  between  nation  and  na- 
tion. If  a  country  were  to  be  absolutely  de- 
nuded of  specie,  and  had  foreign  debts  to 
pay,  forced  exportation  and  sale  of  the  next 
most  generally  desirable  and  portable  com- 
modity would  be  the  only  resource,  and  the 
premium  on  bills  might  vary  to  almost  any 
extent  from  par.  Thus  it  is  seen  that,  in  an 
economical  point  of  view,  gold  and  silver 
differ  from  other  merchandise  not  in  kind  but 
in  degree. 

THE  WORLD'S  CLEARING  HOUSE. 

It  might  seem  that  in  the  use  of  checks  in- 
ternally, and  of  bills  of  exchange  in  foreign 
trade,  we  have  reached  the  climax  in  the 
economy  of  metallic  money;  but  there  is  yet 
one  further  step  to  mdce.  We  found  that  so 
long  as  all  the  merchants  of  a  town  keep  their 
cash  with  the  same  banker,  they  have  no  need 
to  handle  the  money  at  all,  but  can  make  pay- 
ments by  transfers  in  the  books  of  their 
banker.  Let  us  imagine,  then,  that  mer- 
chants all  over  the  world  agreed  to  keep  their 
principal  accounts  with  the  bankers  of  any  one 
great  commercial  town.  All  their  mutual 
transactions  could  then  be  settled  among 
those  bankers.  An  approximation  to  such 
a  state  of  things  exists  in  the  tendency  to 
m=.ke  London  the  monetary  headquarters  of 
the  commercial  world,  and  the  general  clear- 
ing house  of  international  transactions. 

All  that  is  needed  to  secure  economy  of 
money  is  centralization  of  transactions,  so 
that  there  may  be  wider  scope  for  the  balan- 
cing of  claims.  Before  the  elaborate  system 
of  English  provincial  banking  grew  up,  con- 
siderable economy  was  effected  by  the  prac- 
tice of  "drawing  upon  London."  In  every 
country  town  many  persons  wanted  to  trans- 
mit money  to  London,  and  others  wanted  to 
draw  money  from  the  same  place.  To  vast 
private  trading  transactions  with  the  capital 
and  principal  commercial  towns  was  added 
the  whole  of  the  payments  connected  with 
the  collection  and  expenditure  of  the  public 
revenue.  In  each  country  town  some  promi- 
nent trader  discovered  that  profit  was  to  be 
made  by  selling  bills  on  London  to  those  who 
wished  to  remit,  and  buying  with  the  pro- 
ceeds the  bills  of  those  who  had  claims  upon 
banks  and  firms  in  London.  The  capital  thus 
becoming  the  monetary  centre,  it  was  often 
convenient  to  make  payments  to  other 


towns  by  bills  upon  London.  Each  person 
wanting  to  remit  was  more  likely  to  get  a  bill 
upon  London  with  ease  than  upon  any  other 
place,  and  it  was  likely  that  the  creditor 
would  prefer  such  a  bill  to  one  upon  a  town 
with  which  he  had  no  relations.  It  is  ob- 
vious tr.at  if  every  important  trader  in  En- 
gland kept  his  principal  cash  with  a  city 
banker,  the  use  of  bills  on  London  would 
have  enabled  all  the  commercial  transactions 
of  England  to  be  centred  in,  and  cleared 
through  the  books  of  these  bankers  and  the 
Clearing  House. 

CENTRALIZATION     OF    FINANCIAL    TRANSAC- 
TIONS IN  LONDON. 

There  is  a  similar  advantage  in  centraliz- 
ing foreign  transactions  in  London.  In  the 
absence  of  any  general  center,  each  two  com- 
mercial towns  must  settle  their  mutual  trans- 
actions directly  and  separately.  A  merchant 
will  be  receiving  bills  upon  the  bankers  and 
merchants  of  many  other  towns.  There  is  a 
double  inconvenience  in  this.  The  supply 
and  demand  for  bills  upon  comparatively 
small  places  must  be  comparatively  small  and 
variable,  and  the  bills  will  be  drawn  upon 
minor  firms,  of  the  soundness  of  which  it 
will  not  be  easy  to  get  satisfactory  informa- 
tion. Many  firms,  too,  in  the  present  day 
have  houses  in  several  parts  of  the  world,  and 
it  would  be  more  convenient  that  their  mutual 
transactions  should  be  brought  to  a  centre 
somewhere,  just  as  the  transactions  of  branch 
banks  are  brought  to  a  centre  in  the  head 
office.  Thus  there  arises  a  tendency  to  pre- 
fer bills  drawn  upon  well-known  London 
banks,  or  other  great  London  firms,  whose 
credit  is  known  all  over  the  world,  and  ceteiis 
paribus,  such  bills  will  command  a  readier 
acceptance  in  the  exchange  market.  Persons 
having  to  draw  bills  will  get  a  better  pnce  if 
they  can  draw  upon  London,  which  they  can 
do  by  opening  an  account  with  a  London 
firm,  and  arranging  that  remittances  due  to 
them  shall  be  deposited  to  their  credit  in 
London.  It  comes  to  pass  that  a  merchant 
in  America,  Australia,  or  India,  will  prefer 
to  receive  money  in  London  rather  than  any- 
where else.  Everyone  wishing  to  remit 
money  can'  then  do  so  in  the  form  of  a  bill 
upon  the  hclders  of  these  funds  in  London, 
and  the  fund  will  be  recruited  from  time  to 
time  by  similar  bills  received  and  transmitted 
to  London  for  collection. 

This  tendency  to  the  centralization  of  fi- 
nancial business  in  London  is  much  pro- 
moted by  the  fact  that  the  largest  mass  of 
cheap  loanable  capital  exists  the^e.  The 
general  rate  of  interest  in  New  York  is  at 
least  2  per  cent,  higher  than  in  London,  so 
that  a  trader  who  has  credit  enough  to  obtain 
loans  in  London,  will  make  a  profit  by  bor- 
rowing there  rather  than  in  New  York.  Thus, 
instead  of  first  depositing  money  in  London, 


85 


and  afterward   drawing  against  it,  the  more 
usual  and  profitable  form  of  the  transaction 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 

is  to  get  a  credit  there,  that  Is,  leave  to  draw  |  Intended  to  show  that  this  Is  an  erfl  naturally 

•irainit  a  hanker,  makintr  subseauent  remit-    resulting  from  the  excessive  economy  of  th< 


against  a  banker,  making  subsequent  remit 
tances  to  recoup  the  banker  accepting  and 
paying  the  bills.  As  regards  continental 
trade,  Paris,  Benin,  Vienna,  Hamburg,  and 
Amsterdam  are  of  course  highly  important 
centres,  but  recent  wars  have  occasioned  a 
considerable  transfer  of  financial  business 
to  London.  Moreover,  the  great  foreign 
trade  of  England,  reaching  into  every  quar- 
ter of  the  globe,  and  the  many  distant  colon- 
ies and  dependencies  which  naturally  have 
financial  relations  with  the  capital  of  the  em 
pire,  tend  to  give  London  a  unique  position. 

REPRESENTATION    OF   FOREIGN    BANKERS  IN 
LONDON. 

The  result  of  this  centralization  of  banking 
transactions  in  London  is,  that  colonial  and 
foreign  bankers  find  it  very  desirable  to  have 
agents,  or  even  head  offices  in  London.  At 
the  present  time  there  are  no  less  than  60  im- 
portant colonial  and  foreign  banks  which 
have  their  own  London  offices  or  houses. 
These  include  the  principal  Australian,  New 
Zealand  and  Indian  banks,  and  a  number  of 
minor  banks,  established  by  English  capital- 
ists to  cultivate  the  trade  of  the  minor  states 
of  Europe,  South  America,  China  and  the 
East.  In  addition  to  the  above  60  banks, 
there  are  fully  1,000  foreign  and  colonial 
banking  houses  in  correspondence  with  Lon- 
don bankers,  so  that  almost  every  town  in 
the  world  which  can  maintain  a  bank  at  all, 


resulting 

precious  metals,  which  the  increasing  perfec- 
tion of  our  banking  system  allows  to  be 
practiced,  but  which  may  be  carried  too  far 
and  lead  to  extreme  disaster. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 


THE    BANK    OF 


ENGLAND   AMD   THE   MONK** 
MARKET. 


We  commenced  the  study  of  money  wltt 
the  barter  of  ordinary  commodities,  and 
money  appeared  in  the  first  place  as  some 
common  commodity  handed  about  as  a  me- 
dium of  exchange.  By  degrees,  however, 
the  subject  assumed  a  greater  aud  greatei 
degree  of  complexity.  The  metals  took  the 
place  of  other  commodities  as  currency,  and 
delicate  consideratious  began  to  enter  con- 
cerning token  and  standard  coins.  From 
metallic  representative  money,  we  passed  to 
paper  representative  money,  and  finally  dis- 
covered that,  by  the  check  and  clearing  sys 
tern,  metallic  money  was  almost  eliminated 
from  the  internal  exchanges  of  the  country. 
Pecuniary  transactions  now  present  them 
selves  in  the  form  of  a  room  full  of  account- 
ants, hastily  adding  up  sums  of  money. 
But  we  must  never  forget  that  all  the  figures 
in  the  bocks  of  a  bank  represent  gold,  and 


has  the  means  of  correspondence  with  some  every  creditor  can  demand  the  payment  of 
member  of  the  London  banking  system.  The  |  the  metal.  In  the  ordinary  state  of  trade  no 
foreign  bankers  vary  greatly  in  the  importance  '  one  cares  to  embarrass  himself  with  a  quan- 
of  their  transactions,  and  some  of  them  tity  of  precious  metal,  which  is  both  safer 
would,  according  to  English  ideas,  be  con-  and  more  available  in  the  vaults  of  a  bank, 
sidered  merchants  rather  than  bankers  ;  but,  I  But  in  international  trade,  gold  and  silver 
in  the  aggregate,  their  transactions  must  be  |  are  still  the  media  by  which  balances  of  in- 
exceedingly  large.  It  must  almost  inevitably  i  debtedness  must  be  paid,  and  serious  conse- 
follow  that  transfers  of  money  will  be  more  j  quences  may  arise  from  any  disproportion 
and  more  made  through  London.  Just  as  |  between  the  amount  of  transactions  carried 
this  city  is  the  link  of  connection  between  each  |  on,  and  the  basis  of  gold  upon  which  they 

are  settled. 


EXPANSION  OF  TRADE. 

No  one  doubts  that  in  the  last  thirty  years 
there  has   been  an  immense  expansion   to 


English  country  banker  and  each  other  one, 
so  it  may,  and  probably  will  by  degrees,  be- 
come the  link  between  the  most  distant  parts  of 
the  world  But  the  greater  becomes  the  profit- 
able burden  of  financial  business  thrown  upon 

Lombard  street  and  Threadneedle  street,  the  ;  the  trade  of  this  and  most  other  countries, 
more  it  behoves  us  to  take  care  that  our  cur-  :  If,  as  is  very  commonly  done,  we  take  the 
rency  system  is  maintained  upon  the  soundest  '  foreign  trade  as  a  test  of  the  general  advance 
possible  basis.  It  is  requisite,  too,  that  our  ;  of  industry,  we  find  that  the  total  declared 
bankers,  financiers  and  merchants  should  reg-  |  real  value  of  British  and  Irish  produce  ex- 
ulate  their  operations  with  a  thorough  com-  '  ported  from  the  United  Kingdom  was,  in 
prehension  of  the  immense  system  in  which  1846,  about  58  millions  sterling.  In  1866  it 
they  play  a  part,  and  the  risks  of  derange-  !  amounted  to  189  millions,  or  more  than  three 
ment  and  failure  which  they  encounter  by  j  times  as  much.  In  the  mean  time  the  bank- 
over-severe  competition.  No  one  doubts  that  !  note  circulation  had  rema'ned  almost  un 
alarming  symptoms  have  during  recent  years  j  changed,  and  such  alteration  as  there  was, 
pi  esented  themselves  in  the  London  money  j  consisted  in  a  decrease.  The  total  circula- 
niarket.  There  is  a  tendency  to  frequent  i  tion  of  bank-notes,  English,  Scotch,  and 
seveije  scarcities  of  loanable  capital,  causing  ,  Irish,  was,  in  1846,  89  millions,  and  in  1866, 
sudden  variations  of  the  rate  of  interest  al-  ;  38^  millions.  I  believe,  however,  that  the 
most  unknown  thirty  years  ago.  I  will  there-  j  best  test  ot  the  progress  of  trade,  both  in- 
for*  in  the  next  chapter  offer  a  few  remarks  i  ternal  and  external,  i*  furnished  by  the  oat 

86 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      377 

pot  of  coal,  the  mainspring  of  our  wealth,  the  restriction  of  specie  payments,  the  bullion 
Now,  in  1854  the  total  quantity  of  coal  report,  the  one-pound  note  question,  and  the 
raised  was  about  65  millions  of  tons,  and  the  joint  stock  banks.  Since  1844,  however,  all 
oote  currency  38  millions  ;  in  1866  the  coal  currency  theorists  have  concentrated  their 
raised  had  increased  to  ioi«^  millions  of  attentions  upon  the  Bank  Charter  Act  of  that 
tons,  or  by  56  per  cent.,  while  the  note  cur-  year,  and  while  endlessly  differing  about  the 
rency  still  remained  almost  as  before,  name-  nature  of  the  remedy,  have  been  unanimous 
ty.  3%/4  millions.  Between  1866  and  1874,  in  attributing  all  kinds  of  evils  to  a  settle- 
indeed,  there  was  a  remarkable  increase  in  ment  of  our  currency,  which  I  believe  to  be  a 
che  circulation,  the  amount  of  which  rose  to  monument  of  sound  and  skillful  financial  leg- 
£43,912,000,  or  by  14  per  cent.,  but  the  islation. 

production  of  coal   had   in   the   mean  time  ;      The  Acts  of  1844  and  1845  placed  a  fixed 

risen  to  127  millions,  an  increase,  compared  limit  upon  the  amount  of  notes  which  can  in 

with  1854,  of  95  per  cent,  this  country  be  issued  without  an  equal   de- 

COMPETITION  OF   BANKERS.  j  %>*'**  °ff   ^      At   P1*?11*  ^P"1'  l875)  the 

I  Bank   of  England  can  issue,  without  gold, 

It  is  quite  apparent,  therefore,  that  the  fifteen  millions;  the  private  and  joint  stock 
tendency  is  to  carry  on  a  greater  and  greater  banks  of  England  are  individually  restricted 
trade  upon  an  amount  of  metallic  currency  to  fixed  amounts,  which,  added  together, 
which  does  not  grow  in  anything  like  the  make  about  ^6,460,000,  while  the  Scotch 
same  proportion.  The  system  of  banking,  banks  can,  in  a  similar  manner,  issue  notes 
too,  grows  more  perfect  in  the  sense  of  in-  to  the  amount  of  ,£2,750,000,  and  the  Irish 
creasing  the  economy  with  which  money  is  banks  to  the  amount  of  .£6,350,000,  making 
used.  The  competition  of  many  great  banks,  in  all  about  30}^  millions.  In  addition  to 
leads  them  to  transact  the  largest  possible  this  the  Bank  of  England,  and  the  Scotch  and 
business  with  the  smallest  reserves  which  '  Irish  banks,  can  issue  as  many  more  notes 
they  can  venture  to  retain.  Some  of  these  ,  as  they  have  deposits  of  bullion  or  coin;  and 
bani.s  pay  dividends  of  from  twenty  to  twen-  j  in  the  year  1874,  the  extra  amount  thus  issued 
ty  five  per  cent.,  which  can  only  be  possible  was  about  14^  millions.  Let  it  be  never 
by  using  large  deposits  in  a  very  feat  less  forgotten,  that  no  restriction  is  thus  placed 
ma/rner.  Even  the  reserves  consist  not  so  upon  the  sum  total  of  the  currency  of  the 
much  of  actual  coins  or  bank-notes  in  the  country:  for  the  original  legal  tender  of  the 
vaults,  as  of  money  employed  in  the  Stock  ;  country  is  the  coined  sovereign  of  123*274 
Exchange,  or  deposited  in  the  Bank  of  En-  grains  of  gold,  and  every  one  who  has  the 
gland  which  again  lends  the  deposits  out  to  a  gold  can  readily  turn  it  into  sovereigns.  The 
certain  extent.  objectors  to  the  Bank  Charter  Act  urge  that 

Now  the  larger  the  trade  which  is  carried  we  want  more  currency,  but  they  cannot 
on,  the  larger  will  be  the  occasional  demand  really  mean  more  metallic  currency.  We 
for  gold  to  make  foreign  payments  ;  and  if  must  not  look  to  change*  in  the  law  to 
the  stock  of  gold  kept  in  London  be  growing  increase  the  amount  of  specie  in  the  country, 
comparatively  smaller  and  smaller,  the  greater  and,  as  I  have  lemarked,  any  one  can  get 
will  be  the  difficulty  in  meeting  the  demand  sovereigns  if  he  has  the  needful  gold.  This 
from  time  to  time.  Such  is,  I  believe,  the  metal,  again,  is  only  to  be  had,  in  the  absence 
whole  secret  of  the  growing  instability  and  i  of  gold  mines,  by  that  state  of  foreign  trade 
delicacy  of  the  money  market  in  this  country.  '  which  brings  it,  and  does  not  drain  it  away 
There  is  a  larger  and  larger  quantity  of  again.  The  principal  currency,  in  short, 
claims  for  gold,  and  comparatively  less  gold  must  be  regarded  as  a  commodity,  the  supply 
to  meet  them,  so  that  every  now  and  then  ;  of  which  is  to  be  left  to  the  natural  action  of 
there  is  a  natural  difficulty  in  paying  claims,  '  the  laws  of  supply  and  demand.  The  unre- 
and  the  rate  of  interest  has  to  be  suddenly  strictcd  issue  of  paper  representative  notes 
raised  to  induce  those  who  have  gold  to  lend  .  produces  an  artificial  interference  with  these 
it,  or  to  induce  those  who  were  demanding  it  natural  conditions, 
to  forego  their  claims  for  a  time.  Most  peo- 
ple, it  is  true,  attribute  all  these  troubles, 
cither  to  the  much  abused  gentlemen  who 


THE    FREE-BANKING    SCHOOL. 

What  the  currency  theorists  want,  then,  is 


meet  weekly  in  the  parlor  of  the  Bank  of  not  more  gold,  but  more  promises  to  pay  gold. 
England,  or  to  Sir  Robert  Peel,  who  estab-  i  The  Free-banking  School  especially  argue 
lished  the  note  issue  of  the  Bank  upon  the  j  that  it  is  among  the  elementary  rights  of  an 
partial  deposit  system  already  described  in  I  individual  to  make  promises,  and  that  each 


Chapter  XVIII. , 

THE  BANK   CHARTER  ACT  OF    1844. 


banker  should  be  allowed  to  issue  as  many 
notes  as  he  can  get  his  customers  to  take, 
keeping  such  a  reserve  of  metallic  money,  as 


At  all  times  during  the  last  two  hundred  he  thinks,  in  his  own  private  discretion,  suffi- 
years,  there  has  been  some  cur:  ency  topic  cient  to  enable  him  to  redeem  his  promises, 
upon  the  anvil.  In  early  days  it  was  t  le  But  this  free  issue  of  paper  representative 
scarcity  of  silver  coin,  the  South  Sea  bubb  e,  money  does  not  at  all  meet  the  difficulty  of 
or  the  price  of  the  guinea.  Later  on  ca  ae  i  the  money  market,  which  is  a  want  of  gold, 

87 


378 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


not  of  paper  ;  on  the  contrary,  an  unlimited 
issue  of  paper  would  tend  to  reduce  the 
already  narrow  margin  of  gold  upon  which 
we  erect  an  enormous  system  of  trade.  Here 
we  reach  the  critical  point  of  the  whole  theory 
of  currency.  There  is  also  a  school  of  cur- 
rency writers,  formerly  represented  in  En- 
gland by  Ricardo  and  Tooke.who  hold  that  it 
is  impossible  to  over-issue  convertible  paper 
money.  Arguments  to  this  effect  have  been 
recently  urged  with  great  ability  by  Mr.  R. 
H.  Inglis  Palgrave,  in  his  work  entitled 
"  Notes  on  Banking,"  and  his  wide  acquain- 
tance with  the  subject  should  lend  much 
force  to  his  opinions.  But  there  is,  to  my 
mind,  an  evident  flaw  in  their  position. 

POSSIBILITY  OF  OVER-ISSUE. 

•  When  prices  are  at  a  certain  level,  and 
trade  in  a  quiescent  state,  a  single  banker  is, 
no  doubt,  unable  to  put  into  circulation  more 
than  a  certain  quantity  of  bank-notes.  He 


ing  credit  so  long  as  promises  to  pay  gold 
circulate  instead  of  gold.  But  foreigners  wiL 
not  hold  such  promises  on  the  same  footing; 
and,  if  the  exchanges  are  against  us,  the 
metallic,  not  the  paper,  part  of  the  currency 
will  go  abroad.  It  is  at  this  moment  that 
bankers  will  find  no  difficulty  in  expanding 
their  issues,  because  many  persons  have 
claims  to  meet  in  gold,  and  the  notes  are  re- 
garded as  gold.  The  notes  will  thus  conven- 
iently fill  up  the  void  occasioned  by  the  ex- 
portation of  specie;  prices  will  be  kept  up, 
prosperity  will  continue,  the  balance  of  for- 
eign trade  will  be  still  against  us,  and  the 
game  of  replacing  gold  by  promises  will  go 
on  to  an  unlimited  extent,  until  it  becomes 
actually  impossible  to  find  more  gold  to  make 
necessary  payments  abroad. 

Professor  Cliffe  Leslie,  writing  in  Macmil* 
tan's  Magazine  for  August,  1864,  correctly 
pointed  out,  as  I  think,  that  speculative 
credit  often  raises  prices  for  a  time  above 


cannot  produce  a  greater  effect  upon  the  j  their  natural  range.  Representative  credit, 
whole  currency  than  a  single  purchaser  can  ;  on  the  other  hand,  by  which  I  suppose  he 
by  his  sales  or  purchases  produce  upon  the  '  means  notes  issued  against  the  actual  de- 
market  for  corn  or  cotton.  But  a  number  of  posit  of  metal,  obviously  forms  no  augmenta- 
bankers,  all  trying  to  issue  additional  notes,  ;  tion  of  the  currency,  and  can  have  no  effect 
resemble  a  number  of  merchants  offering  to  in  raising  prices  above  the  level  which  would 
sell  corn  for  future  delivery,  and  the  value  of  '  exist  under  a  purely  metallic  system. 
gold  will  be  affected  as  the  price  of  corn  cer-  i  The  actual  exhaustion  of  the  bullion  of  a 
tainly  is.  We  are  too  much  accustomed  to  j  country  is  no  mere  ideal  event,  for  it  is  what 
look  upon  the  value  of  gold  as  a  fixed  datum  1  occurred  in  this  country  in  1839.  under  the 
line  in  commerce:  but,  in  reality,  it  is  a  very  \  free  system  of  note  issue.  The  Bank  of 


variable  thing  The  tables  of  prices  analysed 
by  me  in  the  Statistical  Journal  for  June, 
1865,  show  that  between  1822  and  1825  there 
was  an  average  rise  of  prices  to  the  amount 
of  17  per  cent.;  and  between  1844  a"d  1847, 
and  1852  and  1857,  the  average  rises  were 
respectively  13  and  31  per  cent.  Such  vari- 
ations of  prices  mean  that  the  value  of  gold 
Is  itself  altered  in  the  inverse  ratio;  and  these 
variations  are  produced  mainly  by  extensions 
of  credit.  Every  one  who  promises  to  pay 
gold  on  a  future  day,  thereby  increases  the 
anticipated  supply  of  gold,  and  there  is  no 
limit  to  the  market.  Every  one  who  draws  a 
bill  or  issues  a  note,  unconsciously  acts  as  a 
"  bear  "  upon  the  gold  market.  Everything 
goes  well,  and  apparent  prosperity  falls  upon 
the  whole  community,  so  long  as  these  prom- 
ises to  pay  gold  can  be  redeemed  or  replaced 
by  new  promises.  But  the  rise  of  prices  thus 
produc£d  turns  the  foreign  exchanges  against 
the  country,  and  creates  a  balance  of  indebt- 
ness  which  must  be  paid  in  gold.  The  basis 
of  the  whole  fabric  of  credit  slips  away,  and 
produces  that  sudden  collapse  known  as  a 
commercial  crisis. 

Now,  what  is  true  of  credit  generally,  is 
still  more  true  of  the  special  form  of  credit 
involved  in  bank  promissory  notes.  These 
purport  to  be  payable  in  gold  coin  on  demand, 
so  that  they  are  taken  by  every  one  as  equiv- 
alent to  the  coin.  Even  bills  of  exchange 
can  be  paid  in  notes,  and  as  regards  internal 
traoe,  no  difficulty  would  be  felt  in  maintain- 


England  had  parted  with  almost  the  whole 
of  its  bullion,  and  was  only  saved  from  bank- 
ruptcy by  the  ignominious  expedient  of  a 
large  loan  from  the  Bank  of  France.  The 
narrow  limits  of  this  book  evidently  restrict 
me  from  entering  into  historical  and  statis- 
tical illustrations,  but  it  may  be  said,  that  the 
collapse  which  followed  the  crisis  of  1839 
induced  severer  distress  and  depression  of 
trade  than  has  ever  since  been  known  in  this 
country.  We  now  carry  on  industry  and 
commerce  many  times  greater  than  in  1839, 
and  there  is  nothing  to  indicate  that  either 
the  bank  directors  or  the  commercial  classes 
are  more  cautious  or  far-seeing  than  they  then 
were.  On  the  contrary,  competition,  specu- 
lation, and  the  bold  erection  of  the  widest 
affairs  upon  the  narrowest  basis  of  real  cap- 
ital is  more  common  than  ever.  Knowing  as 
we  do  the  very  narrow  margin  of  real  metal 
upon  which  our  many  great  banks  conduct 
their  business,  it  is  impossible  to  entertain 
for  a  moment  the  notion  of  allowing  the  pa- 
per currency  of  the  country  to  rest  upon  the 
discretionary  reserves  of  such  competing 
bankers. 

THE  RIGHT  OF  COINING  BANK- NOTES. 

According  to  the  view  which  I  adopt,  the 
issue  of  notes  is  more  analogous  to  the 
royal  function  of  coinage  than  to  the  ordinary 
commercial  operation  of  drawing  bills.  W« 
ought  to  talk  of  coining  notes,  as  John  Law 
did;  for  though  the  design  is  impressed  OB 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.     379 


paper  instead  of  metal,  the  function  of  the 
note  is  entirely  the  same  as  a  representative 
token.  As  to  the  right  to  issue  promises,  it 
no  more  exists  than  the  right  to  establish  pri- 
vate mints.  For  our  present  purposes  that 
alone  is  right  which  the  legislature  declares 
to  be  expedient  to  the  community  at  large. 
As  almost  every  one  has  long  agreed  to  place 
the  coinage  of  money  in  the  executive  gov- 
ernment, so  I  believe  that  the  issue  of  paper 
representative  money  should  continue  to  be 
practically  in  the  hands  of  the  government, 
or  its  agents  acting  under  the  strictest  legis- 
lative control.  M.  Wolovvski,  in  his  admir- 
able works  on  banking,  has  maintained  that 
the  issue  of  notes  is  a  function  distinct  from 
the  ordinary  operations  of  a  banker;  and  Mr. 
Gladstone  has  allowed  that  the  distinction  is 
a  wholesome  and  vital  one.  Bankers  enjoy 
the  utmost  degree  of  freedom  in  this  country 
a*  present,  in  every  other  point,  so  that  it  is 
wholly  a  confusion  of  ideas  to  speak  of  the 
unrestricted  emission  of  paper  representative 
money  as  a  question  of  free  banking. 

Professor  Sumner  and  others  have  objected 
to  the  Bank  Charter  Act,  that  it  cannot  be 
regarded  as  a  scientific  settlement  of  the  cur- 
rency question,  inasmuch  as  no  other  nation 
had  adopted  the.  same  principles.  Quite 
lately,  however,  the  German  Imperial  gov- 
ernment has  adopted  the  main  principle  of  a 
partial  deposit,  adding  to  it  the  liberty  of  in- 
creasing the  issues  under  a  tax  of  five  per 
cent.,  an  arrangement  which  I  have  de- 
scribed under  the  name  of  the  Elastic  Limit 
System  (Chap,  xviii).  This  provision  appears 
to  be  designed  to  avoid  the  suspension  of 
the  law  during  times  of  crisis,  and  it  is 
quite  possible  that  we  might  with  advantage 
introduce  a  similar  modification  into  our  own 
currency  law.  But  the  fine  or  tax  upon  the 
excessive  issue  ought  surely  to  be  much  more 
than  five  per  cent.,  and  in  this  country  should 
certainly  not  be  less  than  ten  per  cent. 

SCOTCH   AND   ENGLISH   BANKING 

It  is  common,  indeed,  to  po:nt  to  the 
Scotch  banks  as  a  proof  that  a  perfectly  sound 
currency  may  be  furnished  by  banks  acting 
on  their  own  unfettered  discretion.  Up  to 
1 84s,  the  twelve  or  thirteen  Scotch  banks  cer- 
tainly did  possess  the  right  of  freely  issuing 
notes  down  to  one-pound  notes,  and  only  in 
one  or  two  cases  did  bankruptcy  occur.  All 
this  I  grant,  holding  that  Englishmen  and 
Americans,  and  natives  of  all  countries,  may 
well  admire  the  wonderful  skill,  sagacity,  and 
caution  with  which  Scotch  bankers  have  de- 
veloped and  conducted  their  system.  There 
is  no  doubt,  too,  that  Scotch  barkers  are 
guiding  the  course  of  development  of  the 
banking  system  in  England,  India,  the  Aus 
tralian  colonies,  and  everywhere  with  con- 
spicuous success.  If  we  were  all  Scotchmen, 


I  believe  the  unlimited  issue  of  one-pound 


banking  systems,  we  discover  a  profound  dif- 
ference. In  Scotland  there  exist  only  eleven 
great  banks,  which  take  good  care  that  there 
shall  not  be  a  twelfth  great  bank.  The  un- 
doubted monopoly  which  they  possess  is, 
however,  used  with  great  moderation  and 
wisdom,  and  by  an  immense  ra nification  of 
branches,  every  village  has  us  banks, 
and  every  poor  man  may  have  his  bank  de- 
posit, if  he  will  save  a  few  pounds.  In  En- 
gland and  Wales  we  have  267  private  and  121 
joint  stock  banks,  or,  in  all,  388  banking 
firms,  including  in  these  numbers  the  London 
banks,  but  not  including  any  of  the  numerous 
branch  banks.  There  is,  no  dcubt,  a  ten- 
dency to  approximate  to  the  Scotch  system 
by  the  amalgamation  of  smaller  banks.  Still 
many  new  banks  are  from  time  to  time 
started,  and  the  competition  between  them  is 
of  the  keenest  character.  The  high  divi- 
dends expected  by  the  shareholders  can  onlj' 
be  earned  by  bold  trading  on  small  reserves 
and  every  commercial  man  is  aware  that  thr 
money  market  is  becoming  more  and  mort 
sensitive. 

CASH    RESERVES  OF   BANKERS. 

It  is  important,  but  very  difficult  to  decide, 
what  is  the  amount  of  real  cash  held  by  th« 
bankers  of  the  I  nited  Kingdom  in  readiness  tc 
meet  their  liabilities.  Many  banks  publish  bal- 
ance-she"ts  professing  to  show  the  reserve  ol 
ready  money.  1  have  already  remarked 
(Chap,  x.x)  upon  the  ambiguity  which  at- 
taches to  the  words  money  and  cash  as  com- 
monly used  ;  and,  when  we  inquire  into  the 
nature  of  the  banker's  ready  money,  it  is 
found  to  consist  in  a  great  degree  of  money 
invested  in  government  securities,  deposited 
witu  other  bankers,  especially  the  Bank  of 
England,  or  held  "at  call,"  that  is,  lent  to 
speculators  who  invest  in  negotiable  securi- 
ties. From  the  published  balance-sheets  we 
thus  get  no  indication  of  the  real  metallic  re- 
serve of  the  country,  available  for  the  pay- 
ment of  foreign  debts. 

Mr.  R.  H.  Inglis  Palgrave,  in  his  impor. 
tant  "  Notes  on  banking,"  published  both  in 
the  Statistical  Journal,  for  March,  1873  (Vol. 
xxxvi.  p,  166),  and  as  a  separate  book,  has 
given  the  results  of  an  inquiry  into  this  sub- 
ject, and  states  the  amount  of  coin  and  Bank 
of  England  notes,  held  by  the  bankers  of  the 
United  Kingdom,  as  not  exceeding  four  or 
five  per  cent,  of  their  liabilities,  or  from  one 
twenty-fifth  to  one  twentieth  part  Mr.T.  B. 
Moxon,  of  Stockpert  and  Manchester,  has 
subsequently  made  an  elaborate  inquiry  into 
the  same  point,  and  finds  that  the  cash  re- 
serve does  not  exceed  about  seven  per  cent, 
of  the  deposits  and  notes  payable  on  demand. 
He  remarks  that  even  of  this  reserve  a  large 
proporticn  is  absolutely  indispensable  for  the 
daily  transactions  of  the  bankers'  business, 
and  couM  not 


be   parted   with.     Thus  the 

notes  would  be  an   excellent   measure.     But  j  whole  fabric  of   our  vast  commerce  is  found 
wncn  we  compare   the   Scotch   and   English  '  to  depend  upon  the  improbability  that   the 

89 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


•Merchants  and  other  customers  «f  the  banks 
vill  ever  want,  simultaneously  and  suddenly, 
>o  much  as  one  twentieth  part  of  the  gold 
noney  which  they  have  a  right  to  receive  on 
demand  at  any  moment  during  banking 
wurs. 

iEMEDY      FOR    THE    SENSITIVNESS     OF    THE 
MONEY  MARKET. 

The  present  state  of  things  in  England  is 
not  to  be  cured  by  any  legislation.  No 
government  can  save  those  from  trouble  who 
will  make  unlimited  transactions  in  gold, 
urithout  a  sure  prospect  of  finding  the  gold 
when  wanted  It  is  absurd  to  suppo  e  that 
any  single  establishment  like  the  Bank  of 
England,  itself  becoming  hardly  more  im- 
portant than  some  of  the  ^reat  city  banks, 
can  prop  up  the  whole  fabric  of  English 
commerce. 

The  only  measure  which  can  restore  sta- 
bility to  the  London  market,  or  prevent  it 
from  becoming  more  and  more  sensitive,  is 
to  secure  by  «ome  means  the  existence  of  more 
satisfactory  cash  reserves,  either  in  actual  coin, 
or  in  Bank  of  England  notes,  representing 
deposits  of  coin  in  the  bank  vaults.  It 
would  be  of  comparatively  little  use,  how- 
ever, for  some  banks  to  become  more  prudent 
and  self-denying,  while  others  are  allowed 
to  stretch  their  resources  to  the  utmost  pos- 
sible point,  and  outbid  the  more  prudent 
banks  in  the  rates  of  dividend  they  can  pay. 
Combined  action,  therefore,  seems  requisite, 
somewhat  in  the  manner  suggested  by  Mr. 
Bagehot,  as  regards  the  city  bankers. 

As  the  Bank  of  England  pays  no  interest 
upon  the  eight  millions  which  it  on  the  aver- 
age of  the  last  four  years  holds  as  the  deposits 
of  the  London  bankers,  there  seems  to  be  no 
sufficient  reason  why  the  Bank  should  be 
allowed  to  make  a  profit  out  of  so  large  a 
gum.  If  held  by  a  committee  of  the  deposit- 
ing banks  it  would  be  equally  Safe,  almost 
equally  available,  and  might,  moreover,  by 
the  investment  of  a  portion  in  government 
stock,  yield  a  profit  to  the  depositors.  It 
may  be  asked,  Why  not  leave  each  bank  to 
hold  its  own  reserve  in  its  own  vaults?  But 
there  would  then  be  no  security  against  some 
banks  running  their  reserves  dangerously  low , 
and  trusting  to  extrinsic  aid  in  times  of  diffi- 
culty. One  objection  which  I  should  make 
to  the  scheme  as  put  forth  is,  that  govern- 
ment stock  should  not  be  allowed  to  form  any 
part  of  the  ultimate  reserve.  When  loanable 
capital  is  very  scarce,  such  stock  can  only  be 
converted  into  actual  bullion  by  forced  sales 
which  depreciate  the  funds,  shock  public  con- 
fidence, and  drain  away  money  from  those 
who  would  in  some  other  channel  have  em- 
ployed it  in  the  money  market.  Unless 
government  stocks  be  sent  abroad,  their  sale 
cannot  possible  increase  the  stock  of  gold  in 


the  country.     A  cash   reserve  ought   to  be 
composed  of  cash,  and  although  it   may  be 


convenient  to  banker*  to  use  this  word 


In  a  loose  and  ambiguous  manner,  it  ongfat 
not  to  mean,  in  speaking  of  the  ultimat* 
reserves  of  the  country,  anything  but  gold 
coin  or  bullion,  or  warrants,  actually  issued 
against  coin  or  bullion,  on  the  deposit  system 
previously  considered. 

It  has  been  pointed  out,  moreover,  in  an 
able  article  in  the  Banker's  Magazine  for 
February,  1875,  that  the  proposed  scheme 
would  be  very  insufficient  if  carried  out  mere- 
ly by  a  narrow  circle  of  city  bankers,  i  i.u 
association  should  include,  in  one  way  or 
another,  all  the  more  important  banks  in  the 
three  kingdoms.  The  vast  trade  of  the 
country  cannot  be  placed  upon  a  sound  basis 
until  the  force  of  public  opinion  among  bank- 
ers imposes  upon  each  member  the  necessity 
of  holding  a  cash  reserve  bearing  a  fair  pro- 
portion to  the  liabilities  incurred.  It  matters 
little  who  holds  the  reserve,  provided  it  actu- 
ally does  exist  in  the  form  of  metal,  and  is 
noVevaporated  away  by  being  placed  at  call, 
or  deposited  with  other  banks  which  make 
free  use  of  it.  In  the  absence  of  some  com- 
rr.on  action  among  bankers,  it  is  certain  that 
the  sensitiveness  of  the  money  market  will 
increase,  and  it  is  probable  that  commercial 
crises  will  from  time  to  time  recur,  even  ex- 
ceeding in  their  violence  and  disastrous  con- 
sequences those  whose  history  we  know  too 
welL 


CHAPTER  XXV. 


A  TABULAR  STANDARD  OF  VALUE. 


At  the  outset  it  was  observed  that  money, 
besides  serving  as  a  common  denominator  of 
value,  and  as  a  medium  to  facilitate  exchange, 
was  usually  employed  likewise  as  the  stand- 
ard of  value,  in  terms  of  which  contracts  ex- 
tending over  long  series  of  years  are  expressed. 
In  iettii.g  land  on  long  or  perpetual  leases, 
in  lending  money  to  governments,  corpora- 
tions and  railway  companies,  it  is  the  general 
practice  to  make  the  interest  and  capital  re- 
payable in  legal  tender  gold  money.  But 
there  is  abundance  of  evidence  to  prove  that 
the  value  of  gold  has  undergone  extensive 
changes.  Between  1789  and  1809  it  fell  in 
the  ratio  of  zooto  54,  or  by  46  per  cent.,  as 
I  have  shown  in  a  paper  on  the  Variation  of 
Prices  since  1782,  read  to  the  London  Srati; 
tical  Society  in  June,  1865.  From  1809  to 
1849  it  rose  again  in  the  extraordinary  ratio 
of  loo  to  256,  or  by  1^5  per  cent.,  rendering 
government  annuities  and  all  fixed  payments 
extending  over  this  period,  almost  two  and  a 
half  times  as  valuable  as  they  were  in  1809. 
Since  1849  the  value  of  gold  has  again  fallen 
to  the  extent  of  at  lea^t  20  per  cent.,  and  a 
careful  study  of  the  fluctua  ions  of  prices,  as 
shown  either  in  the  Annual  Reviews  of  Trade 
of  the  Economist  newspaper,  or  in  the  paper 
referred  to  above,  shows  that  fluctuation*  pt 


90 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      38 


horn  10  to  SS  per  cent  occur  in  every  credit 
%4a 

COIN  RENT*. 

The  question  arises  whether,  baring;  regard 
to  these  extreme  changes  in  the  rallies  of  the 
precious  metals,  it  is  desirable  to  employ  them 
as  the  standard  of  value  in  long  lasting  con. 
tracts.  We  are  forced  to  admit  that  the 
statesmen  of  Queen  Elizabeth  were  far-seeing 
when  they  passed  the  Act  which  obliged  the 
colleges  of  Oxford,  Cambridge  and  Eaton  to 
lease  their  lands  for  corn  rents.  The  result 
has  been  to  make  those  colleges  far  richer 
than  they  would  otherwise  have  been,  the 
rents  and  endowments  expressed  in  money 
having  sunk  to  a  fraction  of  their  ancient 
ralue. 

I  beliere  that  there  is  no  legal  impediment 
in  the  way  of  a  landlord  leasing  his  lands  at 
present  for  a  corn  rent,  or  an  iron,  or  a  coal 
or  any  other  rent.  All  that  the  law  requires 
is  that  the  contract  shall  be  perfectly  definite, 
and  of  exactly  determinate  meaning,  so  that 
the  kind  of  commodity  intended,  and  the 
quantity  of  that  commodity,  shall  be  exactly 
ascertainable.  But  the  law,  in  defining  legal 
tender  money,  provides  against  misapprehen- 
sions concerning  money  payments,  whereas 
there  is  no  security  that  mistakes  and  diffi- 
culties will  not  arise  in  taking  other  com- 
modities as  the  matter  of  cents  Moreover, 
any  single  commodity,  such  as  corn  or  coal, 
undergoes  considerable  fluctuations  from 
year  to  year,  and  as  regards  periods  of  ten  or 
twenty  years,  might  prove  not  to  be  so  good 
a  standard  as  silver  or  gold.  Commodities 
which  are  comparatively  steady  in  ralue  on 
the  average  of  long  periods  may  be  subject  to 
great  temporary  variations  of  supply  or  de- 
mand. 

A  MULTIPLE   LEGAL  TENDEft. 

The  question  thus  arises  whether  the  prog- 
ress of  economical  and  statistical  science 
might  not  enable  us  to  devise  some  better 
standard  of  value.  We  hare  seen  (Chap,  xii) 
that  the  so-called  double  standard  sys- 
tem of  money  spreads  the  fluctuations  of 
supply  and  demand  of  gold  and  silver  over  a 
large  area,  and  maintains  both  metals  more 
unchanged  in  value  than  they  would  other- 
wise be.  Can  we  not  conceive  a  multiple 
legal  tender,  which  would  be  still  less  liable 
to  variation  ?  \Ve  estimate  the  value  of  one 
hundred  pounds  by  the  quantities  of  corn, 
beef,  potatoes,  coal,  timber,  iron,  tea,  coffee, 
beer,  and  other  principle  commodities,  which 


it  will   purchase  from  time  to  time. 
we  not  invent  a   legal   tender   note 


Might 
which 


should  be  convertible,  not  into  any  one  sin- 
gle commodity,  but  into  an  aggregate  of 
small  quantities  of  various  commodities,  the 
quantity  and  quality  of  each  being  rigorously 
defined  ?  Thus  a  hundred  pound  note  would 
.;iv'e  the  owners  a  right  to  demand  one  quar- 
•  r  of  good  wheat  one  ton  of  ordinary  mer- 
chant bar  iron,  one  kundr«sti  pound*  weight 


of  middling  cotton,  twenty  pounds  of  sugar, 
fire  pounds  of  tea,  and  other  articles  suffi. 
cient  to  make  up  the  ralue.  All  these  com- 
modities  will,  of  course,  fluctuate  in  their 
relative  values,  but  if  the  holder  of  the  note 
loses  upon  some,  he  will  in  all  probability 
gain  upon  others,  so  that  on  the  average  his 
note  will  remain  steady  in  purchasing  power. 
Indeed,  as  the  articles  into  which  it  is  con 
rertible  are  those  needed  for  continual  con- 
sumption, the  purchasing  power  of  the  note 
must  remain  steady  compared  with  that  of 
gold  or  silver,  which  metals  are  employed 
only  for  a  few  special  purposes. 

In  practice,  such  a  legal  tender  currency 
would  obviously  be  most  inconvenient, 
since  no  one  would  wish  to  have  a  miscel- 
laneous assortment  of  goods  forced  into  his 
possession.  He  who  wanted  corn,  would 
have  to  sell  to  other  parties  the  iron,  beef, 
and  other  things  received  along  with  it ;  gold, 
or  other  metallic  money,  would  doubtless  be 
used  as  the  medium  in  these  exchanges.  This 
scheme  would ,  therefore,  resolve  itself  prac- 
tically into  that  which  has  been  long  since 
brought  forward  under  the  title  of  the  Tabu- 
lar  Standard  of  Value. 

LOWE'S    PROPOSED   TABLE  OF   REFERENCE. 

Among  valuable  books,  which  hare  been 
forgotten,  is  to  be  mentioned  that  of  Joseph 
Lowe  on  "The  Present  State  of  England  in 
regard  to  Agriculture,  Trade  and  Finance," 
published  in  1822.  This  book  contains  one 
of  the  ablest  treatises  on  the  variation  of  prices, 
the  state  of  the  currency,  the  poor-law,  popu- 
lation, finance,  and  other  public  question,  of 
the  time  in  which  it  was  published,  that  I 
have  ever  met  with.  In  Chapter  IX.  Lowe 
treats,  in  a  very  enlightened  manner,  of  the 
fluctuations  in  the  value  of  money,  and  pro- 
ceeds to  propound  a  scheme,  probably  in- 
vented by  him,  for  giving  a  steady  value  to 
money  contracts.  He  proposes  that  persons 
shall  be  appointed  to  collect  authentic  infor- 
mation concerning  the  prices  at  which  the 
staple  articles  of  household  consumption  were 
sold.  In  regard  to  corn  and  sugar,  authori- 
tative returns  were  then  and  have  ever  since 
been,  published  in  the  London  Gazette,  and 
there  seemed  to  be  no  difficulty  in  extending 
a  like  system  to  other  articles.  Having  re- 
gard to  the  comparative  quantities  of  com- 
modities consumed  in  the  household,  he  would 
then  frame  a  table  of  reference,  showing  in 
what  degree  a  money  contract  must  be  varied 
so  as  to  make  the  purchasing  power  uniform. 
In  principle  the  scheme  seems  to  be  v*rfectly 
sound  ;  but  Lowe  did  not  attempt  to  work 
out  the  practical  details,  and  his  plan  involves 
needless  difficulties. 

POULETT  SCROPK'S  TABULAR  STANDARD  Of 
VALUE, 


A  very  similar  scheme  was  independently 
proposed,  about  eleren  years  later,  by  Mr. 


- 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


G.  Ponlett  Scrope,  the  well  known  writer  on 
geology  and  political  economy.  In  a  very  able 
but  now  forgotten  pamphlet,  called  "  An 
Examination  of  the  Bank  Charter  Question, 
with  an  Inquiry  into  the  Nature  of  a  Just 
Standard  of  Value"  (London,  1833),  Mr. 
Scrope  suggests  (p.  26)  that  a  standard  might 
be  formed  by  taking  an  average  of  the  mass 
of  commodities  which,  even  if  not  employed 
as  the  legal  standard,  might  serve  to  deter- 
mine and  correct  the  variations  of  the  legal 
standard.  The  scheme  was  also  described 
in  Mr.  Scrope's  interesting  book  on  the  Prin- 
ciples of  Political  Economy,  published  in  the 
same  year  (p.  406),  and  in  the  second  edition 
of  the  same  book,  called  "  Political  Economy 
for  Plain  People,"  issued  two  years  ago,  (p. 
308).  The  late  Mr.  G.  R.  Porter,  without 
referring  to  previous  writers,  gave  the  same 
scheme  in  1838,  in  the  first  edition  of  his 
well  known  treatise  on  *'  The  Progress  of 
the  Nation,"  (Sections  III.  and  IV.  p.  235). 
He  added  a  table  showing  the  average  fluct- 
uations of  fifty  commodities  monthly  during 
the  years  1833  to  1837. 

Such  scheme  for  a  tabular  or  average  stand- 
ard of  value  appear  to  be  perfectly  sound 
and  highly  valuable  in  a  theoretical  point  of 
view,  and  the  practical  difficulties  are  not  of 
a  serious  character.  To  carry  Lowe's  and 
Scrope's  plans  into  effect,  a  permanent  gov- 
ernment commission  would  have  to  be  creat- 
ed, and  endowed  with  a  kind  of  judicial 
power.  The  officers  of  the  department  would 
collect  the  current  prices  of  the  commodities 
in  all  the  principal  markets  of  the  kingdom, 
and,  by  a  well-defined  system  of  calculations, 
would  compute  from  these  data  the  average 
variations  in  the  purchasing  power  of  gold. 
The  decisions  of  this  commission  would  be 
published  monthly,  and  payments  would  be 
adjusted  in  accordance  with  them.  Thus, 
suppose  that  a  debt  of  one  hundred  pounds 
was  incurred  upon  the  1st  of  July,  1875,  and 
was  to  be  paid  back  on  ist  of  July,  1878  ;  if 
the  commission  had  decided  in  June,  1878, 
that  the  value  of  gold  had  fallen  in  the  ratio 
of  106  to  100  in  the  intervening  years,  then 
the  creditor  would  claim  an  increase  of  6  per 
cent  in  the  nominal  amount  of  the  debt. 

At  first  the  use  of  this  national  tabular 
standard  might  be  permissive,  so  that  it  could 
be  enforced  only  where  the  parties  to  the 
contract  had  inserted  a  clause  to  that  effect  in 
their  contract.  After  the  practicability  and 
utility  of  the  plan  had  become  sufficiently 
demonstrated,  it  might  be  made  compulsory, 
in  the  sense  that  every  money  debt  of,  say, 
more  than  three  months'  standing,  would  be 
varied  according  to  the  tabular  standard, 
in  the  absence  of  an  express  provision  to  the 
contrary. 

DIFFICULTIES  OF  THE   SCHEME. 

The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  such  a  scheme 
•re  not  considerable.  It  would,  no  doubt, 
introduce  a  certain  complexity  into  the  rela- 


tions of  debtors  and  creditors,  and  dWputti 
might  sometimes  arise  as  to  the  date  of  tht 
debt  whence  the  circulation  must  be  made. 
Such  difficulties  would  not  exceed  those  aris- 
ing from  the  payment  of  interest,  which  like- 
wise depends  upon  the  duration  of  the  debt. 
The  work  of  the  commission,  when  once  es- 
tablished and  directed  by  Act  of  Parliment, 
would  be  little  more  than  that  of  accountants 
acting  according  to  fixed  rules.  Their  deci- 
sions would  be  of  a  perfectly  bond  faU  and 
reliable  character,  because,  in  addition  to 
their  average  results,  they  would  be  required 
to  publish  periodically  the  detailed  tables  of 
prices  upon  which  their  calculations  were 
founded,  and  thus  many  persons  could  suffi- 
ciently verify  the  data  and  the  calculations. 
Fraud  would  be  out  of  the  question. 

The  only  real  difficulty  which  I  foresee,  is 
that  of  deciding  upon  the  proper  method  of 
deducing  the  average.  According  to  the 
method  which  I  should  advocate,  a  consider- 
able number  of  commodities,  say  100,  should 
be  chosen  with  special  regard  to  the  inde- 
pendence of  their  fluctuations  one  from 
another,  and  then  the  geometrical  average  of 
the  ratios  in  which  their  gold  prices  have 
changed  would  be  calculated  logarithmically. 
This  is  the  method  which  I  employed  in  my 
pamphlet  on  the  "  Serious  Fall  in  the  Value 
of  Gold,  etc,"  and  in  the  paper  on  tht 
Variations  of  Prices  since  1782,  previously 
referred  to  (page  323).  A  somewhat  similar 
method  had  been  previously  employed  by 
Mr.  Newmarch.  In  the  annual  Commercial 
History  and  Review  of  the  Economist  news- 
paper, there  has,  for  many  years,  appeared  a 
table  containing  the  Total  Index  Number  of 
prices,  or  the  arithmetical  sum  of  the  num- 
bers expressing  the  ratios  of  the  prices  of 
many  commodities  to  the  average  prices  of 
the  same  commodities  in  the  years  1845-50, 
Whatever  method  were  adopted,  however. 
the  results  would  be  better  than  if  we  con 
tinued  to  accept  a  single  metal  for  the  stand- 
ard, as  we  do  at  present. 

The  space  at  my  disposal  will  not  allow 
me  to  describe  adequately  the  advantages 
which  would  arise  from  the  establishment  of 
a  national  tabular  standard  of  value.  Such  a 
standard  would  add  a  wholly  new  degree  of 
stability  to  social  relations,  securing  the  fixed 
incomes  of  individuals  and  public  institutions 
from  the  depreciation  which  they  have  often 
suffered.  Speculation,  too,  based  upon  the 
frequent  oscillations  of  prices,  which  take 
place  in  the  present  state  of  commerce,  would 
be  to  a  certain  extent  discouraged.  The  cal- 
culations of  merchants  would  be  lest  fre- 
quently frustrated  by  causes  beyond  their 
own  control,  and  many  bankruptcies  would 
be  prevented.  Periodical  collapses  of  credit 
would  no  doubt  recur  from  time  to  time,  but 
the  intensity  of  the  crises  would  be  mitigated, 
becauses  as  prices  fell  the  liabilities  of  debt- 
ors would  decrease  approximately  ia  the  i 
ratio. 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE.      38; 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 


m    QUANTITY    OP     MONEY    NEEDED    IT  A 
NATION. 

It  might  seem  natuial  that  one  most  im 
portant  point  for  discussion  in  an  Essay  on 
Money  would  be  the  quantity  of  money  re- 
quired by  a  nation.  Nothing  would  seem 
more  desirable  than  to  decide  how  much  eacl 
person  needs  of  paper,  gold,  silvw  or  bronze 
currency,  so  that  the  government  might  tak 
care  to  provide  sufficient  for  every  one.  In 
almost  every  country  great  complaints  havi 
from  time  to  time  been  made  as  to  the  scarcit1 
of  the  circulating  medium,  and  the  urgen 
need  of  more.  All  the  evils  of  the  day,  the 
slackness  of  trade,  falling  prices,  declining 
revenue,  poverty  of  Ihe  people,  want  of  em- 
ployment, political  discontent,  bankruptcy 
and  panic,  have  been  attributed  to  the  want 
of  money,  the  remedy  suggested  being  in 
former  days  the  setting  of  the  mint  to  work, 
and  in  later  times  the  issue  of  paper  money. 

The  true  answer  to  all  such  complaints  is 
that  no  one  can  tell  how  much  currency  a 
nation  requires,  and  that  to  attempt  to  regu- 
late its  quantity  is  the  last  thing  which  a 
statesman  should  do.  In  almost  every  case 
the  apparent  scarcity  of  currency  arises  from 
unskillful  management  of  the  metallic  cur- 
rency, bad  regulation  of  paper  representative 
money,  speculation,  or  some  unsoundness  in 
commerce  which  would  be  aggravated  by  a 
further  increase  of  the  paper  currency. 
We  shall  find  that  to  ascertain  how  much 
money  is  needed  by  a  nation  is  a  problem  in- 
volving many  unknown  quantities,  so  that  a 
sore  solution  can  never  be  obtained. 

QUANTITY  OF  WORK  TO  BK  DONE  BY  MONEY. 

To  decide  how  much  money  is  needed  by 
a  nation,  we  must,  firstly,  determine  the 
quantity  ot  work  which  money  has  to  do. 
This  will  be  proportional,  ceteris  paribus,  to 
the  number  of  the  population;  twice  the  num- 
ber of  people,  if  equally  active  in  trade  and 
performing  it  in  the  same  way,  will  clearly 
want  twice  as  much  money.  It  will  be  pro- 
portional, again,  to  the  activity  of  industry, 
and  to  the  complexity  of  its  organization. 
The  more  goods  are  bought  and  sold,  and  the 
more  often  they  pass  from  hand  to  hand,  the 
more  currency  will  be  needed  to  move  them, 
tt  will  be  proportional,  again,  to  the  prices 
of  goods;  and  if  gold  falls  in  value,  and  prices 
are  raised,  more  money  will  be  needed  to  pay 
the  debts  increased  in  nominal  amount. 

Few  of  the 'quantities  concerned  in  such 
considerations  are  known.  We  know  fhe 


knowledge  \\  still  more  defective  in  other  re- 
spects. 

EFFICIENCY  OF  THE  CURRENCY. 

By  the  efficiency  of  the  currency  we  mean 
the  average  number  of  exchanges  effected  by 
each  piece  of  money  in  a  unit  of  time,  such  as 
a  year.  The  aggregate  work  done  by  mo:iey 
will  be  measured  by  its  quantity  multiplied 
into  the  average  number  of  times  which  each 
coin  or  note  passes  from  hand  to  hand  dur- 
ing the  year.  Now  we  know  very  imper- 
fectly what  is  the  quantity  of  the  currency  in 
most  countries,  and  we  know  nothing  at  all 
as  to  the  average  rapidity  of  circulation. 
Some  coins,  especially  small  silver  and  bronze 
coins,  may  pass  several  times  in  the  course  of 
a  day.  Other  coins  or  notes  may  be  kept  in 
the  pocket  for  weeks,  or  may  be  laid  by  for 
months  and  years.  I  have  never  met  with 
any  attempt  to  determine  in  any  country  the 
average  rapidity  of  circulation,  nor  have  I 
been  able  to  think  of  any  means  whatever  of 
approaching  the  investigation  of  the  question, 
except  in  the  inverse  way.  If  we  knew  the 
amount  of  exchanges  effected,  and  the  quan- 
tity of  currency  used,  we  might  get  by  divis- 
ion the  average  number  of  times  the  currency 
is  turned  over;  but  the  data,  as  already 
stated,  are  quite  wanting. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  rapidity  of  cir- 
culation varies  very  much  between  one  coun- 
try and  another.  A  thrifty  people  with  slight 
banking  facilities,  like  the  French.  Swiss, 
Belgians,  and  Dutch,  hoard  coin  much  more 
than  an  improvident  people  like  the  English, 
or  even  a  careful  people  with  a  perfect  bank 
'ng  system  like  the  Scotch.  Many  circum 
stances,  too,  affect  the  rapidity  of  circulation. 
Railways  and  rapid  steamboats  enable  coin 
and  bullion  to  be  more  swiftly  remitted  than 
of  old  ;  telegraphs  prevent  its  needless  re- 
moval, and  the  acceleration  of  the  mails  hu 
a  like  effect.  A  decrease  in  the  circulation 
of  country  bank-notes  in  England,  in  1843, 
was  attributed  to  the  effect  of  the  penny 
postal  reform  in  facilitating  presentation  of 
notes  by  post 

AND    CLEARING 


EFFECTS     OF 


THE      CHECK 
SYSTEM. 


number  of  the  population  approximately,  and 
the  amount  of  foreign  trade,  but  the  quanti- 
ties of  goods  bought  and  sold  in  inland  trade 
are  almost  entirely  unknown.  It  is  needless 
to  dwell  on  this  side  of  the  question,  as  our 


Far  more  important  than  these  censidera- 
tions  is   the  fact  that,   where  an   extensive 
ianking  system  exists,  only  a  portion  of  the 
xchanges  are  actually  effected  by  money.     I 
lo  not  lay  much  stress  upon  the  use  of  bills 
f  exchange  as  replacing  money,  because  the 
egree  in  which  they  are  so  used  must  be 
omparatively  limited,  and  they  are  rather 
nicies   bought  and  sold  with  money    than 
money  itself.     But  we  have  traced  out  step 
by  step  the  way  in  which  the  check  and  clear- 


ing system  enables  debts  to  be  balanced  off 
against  each  other,  so  that  the  money  is  never 
touched  at  all,  and  only  intervenes  as  the  unit 
of  value  in  which  sums  are  expressed.  Al- 
most all  large  exchanges  are  now  effected  ty 


384 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


a  complicated  and  perfected  system  of  barter. 
In  the  London  Clearing  House  transactions 
to  the  amount  of,  at  least,  ;£6,ooo,ooo,ooo  in 
the  year  are  thus  effected,  without  the  use  of 
any  cash  at  all,  and,  as  I  have  before  ex- 
plained, this  amount  gives  no  adequate  idea 
of  the  exchanges  arranged  by  checks,  because 
•o  many  transactions  are  really  cleared  in 
provincial  banks,  between  branches,  agents 
or  correspondents  of  the  same  bank,  or  be- 
tween branches  having  the  same  London 
agents. 

If  our  knowledge  of  the  amonnt  of  trans- 
actions in  England  is  highly  imperfect,  we 
know  still  less  of  the  way  in  which  payments 
are  effected  in  other  countries.  The  New 
York  Clearing  House  transactions  are  very 
extensive,  as  we  have  seen,  and  there  is  an 
elaborate  banking  system  extending  over  all 
the  States  of  the  Union  ;  but  it  would  require 
much  investigation  on  the  spot  to  enable  any 
one  to  form  a  notion  whether  the  correspond- 
ence between  these  banks  enables  them  to 
economize  currency  as  much  as  the  English 
system  of  London  agencies.  In  France  and 
most  continental  countries  the  check  and 
clearing  system  can  hardly  be  said  to  exist 
except  in  some  of  the  large  towns.  Paris  has 
an  incipient  clearing  house,  and  the  Bank  of 
France,  moreover,  makes  transfers  between 
clients  to  the  extent  of  two  or  three  millions 
daily.  All  banks  will  to  a  certain  extent 
economize  currency,  and  those  of  Amsterdam 
and  Hamburg  have  for  some  centuries  carried 
on  a  system  of  transfers,  the  true  prototype 
of  our  system. 

Considerable  changes,  it  is  true,  are  taking 
place  in  the  mode  of  conducting  business  in 
some  parts  of  the  continent.  Professor  Cliffe 
Leslie,  who  is  well  known  to  be  intimately 
acquainted  with  the  economical  systems  of 
the  continental  countries,  attnbutes  the  rise 
of  prices  in  Germany  in  a  great  degree  to  the 
quicker  circulation  of  the  money,  and  the 
freer  use  of  instruments  of  credit.  In  the 
Fortnightly  Review  for  November,  1870  (pp. 
568-9),  he  says  .  "  The  improvement  in  loco- 
motion and  in  commercial  activity  which 
have  se  largely  augmented  the  money-mak- 
ing power  of  the  Germans,  have  also  quick- 
ened prodigiously  the  circulation  of  money  ; 
and  the  development  of  credit,  likewise  fol- 
lowing industrial  progress,  has  added  to  the 
volume  of  the  circulating  medium  a  mass  of 
substitutes  for  money  which  move  with  greater 
velocity.  A  much  smaller  amount  of  money 
than  formerly  now  suffices  to  do  a  given 
amount  of  business,  or  to  raise  prices  to  a 
given  range  ;  and  to  the  increased  amount  of 
actual  money  now  current  in  Germany  we 
must  add  a  brisk  circulation  of  instruments 
of  credit.  Were  the  circulating  medium  com- 
posed of  coin  alone,  whatever  the  amount  of 
the  precious  metals  issuing  from  the  mines, 
or  circulating  in  other  countries,  and  what- 
ever the  price  of  German  commodities  in 
markets  abroad,  no  rise  in  the  prices  of  Ger- 


man commodities  at  home  could  take  pbm 
without  additional  coin  to  sustain  it. 

So  different,  then,  are  the  commercial 
habits  of  different  peoples,  that  there  evident- 
ly exists  no  proportion  whatever  between  the 
amount  of  currency  in  a  country  and  the 
aggregate  of  the  exchanges  which  can  be  ef- 
fected by  it.  Even  if  we  had  reliable  statis- 
tics of  the  amount  of  currencies,  such  data 
should  be  regarded  as  indicating,  not  the 
comparative  abundance  or  scarcity  of  money, 
but  the  degree  of  civilization,  of  providence, 
or  of  complexity  of  banking  organization,  in 
the  country. 

CONCLUSION. 

From  all  the  above  considerations  it  fol 
lows  that  the  only  method  of  regulating  the 
amount  of  the  currency  is  to  leave  it  at  per- 
fect freedom  to  regulate  itself.  Money  must 
find  its  own  level  like  water,  and  now  in  and 
out  of  a  country,  according  to  fluctuations  of 
commerce  which  no  government  can  foresee 
or  prevent.  The  manner  in  which  paper 
notes  may  be  used  to  represent  and  replace 
part  of  the  metallic  currency  should  be  strict 
ly  regulated,  because  otherwise  belief  in  the 
existence  of  metallic  money  is  created  when 
there  is  no  such  money  to  warrant  the  belief. 
But  the  amount  of  money  itself  can  be  no 
more  regulated  than  the  amounts  of  corn, 
iron,  cotton,  or  other  common  commodities 
produced  and  consumed  by  a  people.  It 
must  be  allowed,  indeed,  to  be  no  easy  matut 
to  discriminate  precisely  and  soundly  between 
those  points  at  which  the  legislator  must  in- 
terfere in  the  management  of  the  currency 
and  lay  down  a  fixed  rule,  and  those  points  at 
which  perfect  freedom  must  be  maintained. 

A  comparison  of  our  present  laws  regard- 
ing currency  and  trade,  with  those  which  ex- 
isted in  this  country  from  the  tenth  to  the 
fourteenth  century,  will  show  a  curious 
double  progress.  Many  things  which  our 
ancestors  attempted  to  regulate  by  law  are 
now  left  free  by  general  consent,  and  other 
things  which  they  left  free,  or  nearly  so,  arc 
now  strictly  regulated.  The  rates  of  wages 
the  price  of  the  quartern  loaf,  the  exercise  of 
various  trades,  were  then  the  subject  of  legis- 
letion,  though  we  know  that  they  cannot  be 
properly  brought  within  the  scope  of  legisla- 
tive control.  On  the  other  hand,  an  endless 
diversity  of  weights  and  measures  were  for- 
merly used  in  different  parts  of  the  country, 
and  little  or  no  attempt  was  made  to  reduce 
them  to  any  system  or  precise  definition. 
Almost  every  important  town,  too,  had  its 
mint  in  the  earlier  centuries,  and  barons  and 
great  ecclesiastics  often  exercised  the  right  ol 
issuing  their  own  money.  There  are  still  a  very 
few  persons  who  advocate  free  coinage;  but, 
by  almost  general  consent,  the  work  of  coin- 
ing metallic  money  is  now,  in  every  civilized 
country,  committed  to  the  care  of  the  State. 
We  provide  for  a  uniform  system  of  coins 
with  the  same  care  that  we  establish  a  nation- 


94 


MONEY  AND  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE,      385 


al  Astern  of  weights  and  measures.  But 
while  we  thus  take  the  greatest  care  of  the 
metallic  currency  in  one  respect,  we  have  ut- 
terly abandoned  all  the  futile  attempts 
which  were  in  former  centuries  made  to 
bring  bullion  into  the  kingdom  in  order  to 
set  the  mint  to  work. 

We  must  deal  with  the  paper  currency  in 
an  analogous  manner,  and  regulate  it  both 
more  and  less  than  hitherto.  Private  issues 
should  disappearlike  private  mints,and  each 
kingdom  should  have  one  uniform  paper  cir- 
culation, issued  from  a  single  central  State 
department,  more  resemblinga  mint  than  a 
bank.  The  manner  of  issuing  this  paper 
currency  should  be  strictly  regulated  in  one 
sense;  the  paper  circulation  should  he  made 
to  increase  and  diminish  with  the  amount  of 


g-old  deposited  in  exchange  for  it.  At  the 
same  time,  no  thought  need  be  taken  about 
the  amount  so  issued.  The  purpose  of  the 
strict  regulation  is  not  to  govern  the  amount, 
but  to  leave  that  amount  to  vary  according 
to  the  natural  laws  of  supply  and  demand. 
In  my  opinion,  it  is  the  issue  of  paper  repre- 
sentative notes  accepted  im  place  of  coin, 
which  constitutes  an  arbitrary  interference 
with  the  national  laws  governing  the  vari- 
ations of  a  purely  metallic  currency,  so  that 
strict  legislative  control  in  one  way  leads  to 
more  real  freedom  in  another.  I  am  quite 
willing  to  allow,  however  that  questions  of 
great  nicety  and  subtlety  arise  in  this  sub- 
ject, and  that  only  in  the  gradual  progress 
of  economic  science  can  they  be  finally  sat 
at  rest. 


CONTENTS. 


PARTL 
CHAP.  PAGE. 

PBEFACE 291 

I.  BAETEB  .  . , 292 

II.  EXCHANGE 294 

III.  THE  FUNCTIONS  OF  MONEY 295 

IV.  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  MONEY  297 

V.  QUALITIES  OF  THE  MATERIAL  OF  MONEY 299 

VI.  THE  METALS  AS  MONEY  302 

VII.  COINS 306 

VIII.  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  CIRCULATION  309 

IX.  SYSTEMS  OF  METALLIC  MONEY 314 

X.  THE  ENGLISH  SYSTEM  OF  METALLIC  CURRENCY 319 

XI.  FRACTIONAL  CURRENCY 324 

XII.  THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  STANDARDS 328 

XIII.  TECHNICAL  MATTERS  RELATING  TO  COINAGE 332 

PART  II. 

XIV.  INTERNATIONAL  MONEY * 337 

XV.  THE  MECHANISM  OF  EXCHANGE 343 

XVI.  REPRESENTATIVE  MONEY 344 

XVII.  THE  NATURE  AND  VARIETIES  OF  PROMISSORY  NOTES 347 

XVIII.  METHODS  OF  REGULATING  A  PAPER  CURRENCY 350 

XIX.  CREDIT  DOCUMENTS 356 

XX.  BOOK  CREDIT  AND  THE  BANKING  SYSTEM 359 

XXI.  THE  CLEARING-HOUSE  SYSTEM  362 

XXII.  THE  CHECK  BANK  371 

XXIII.  FOREIGN  BILLS  OF  EXCHANGE  373 

XXIV.  THE  BANK  OF  ENGLAND  AND  THE  MONEY  MARKET 376 

XXV.  A  TABULAR  STANDARD  OF  VALUE 380 

XXVI.  THE  QUANTITY  OF  MONEY  NEEDED  BY  A  NATION.,,,..,,.,.,,,,,,,,,,.  383 


§t 


CONTENTS. 


PREFACE v 387 

I.  THE  ORIGIN  OF  SOCIAL  DISCONTENT  387 

II.  DEFINITION  OF  CAPITAL   390 

III.  MEN  NOT  CAPITALISTS  BECAUSE  NOT  CEEATOBS  OF  CAPITAL 394 

IV.  SOCIAL  RESULTS  CONSIDERED  % 396 

V.  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  FINANCE   400 

VI.  EVERY  MAN  His  OWN  HOUSEHOLDER 404 

VII.  ILLUSTRATIONS  FROM  REAL  LIFE  409 

VIII.  EFFECTS  OF  MATERIAL  GROWTH 413 

IX.  OBJECTIONS  ANSWERED 418 

X.  SOME  POLITICAL  REFLECTIONS  423 

APPENDIX  A 428 

APPENDIX  B  .  .  430 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE 

A  TRUE  THEORY  OF  CO-OPERATION 

By  WILLIAM  NELSON  BLACK 


PEEFACE. 

This  number  of  the  Humboldt 
Library  is  a  contribution  to  the 
politico-economic  and  social  discus- 
sion which  exercises  so  largely  the 
intellectual  resources  of  the  age. 
It  is  addressed  to  all  classes,  capital- 
ist as  well  as  employee;  but  it  is 
especially  directed  to  the  class 
whose  circumstances  are  most  in 
need  of  amendment.  It  claims  to 
find  in  the  ordinary  methods  of 
finance  a  way  through  which  all 
men  may  control  the  capital  needed 
for  their  own  protection. 


CHAPTEE  L 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  SOCIAL  DISCONTENT. 

THE  wind  rises  and  falls,  and 
between  the  gusts  men  fancy  that 
the  storm  is  abating.  But  it  may 
only  be  gathering  force  for  a,  new 
descent.  It  may  come  again  with 
renewed  energy,  and  driving  the 
sea  over  the  land  destroy  land- 
marks that  have  stood  the  blasts  of 
centuries.  It  is  so  with  human 
movements.  The  waves  raised  by 
the  labor  agitation  are  now  at  com- 
parative rest,  and  seem  to  have 


gone  out  with  the  retreating  tide. 
But  it  will  be  the  part  of  statesman- 
ship to  prepare  the  shores  during 
their  quiescence,  so  that  when  they 
return  they  may  not  break  against 
and  submerge  constitutional  land- 
marks already  too  rudely  assailed. 

First,  we  must  know  what  is  the 
chief  disability  that  creates  social 
discontent.  Complaint  is  well-nigh 
universal.  It  comes  from  almost 
every  rank  in  life,  and  is  heard  as 
well  among  the  moderately  opulent 
as  among  the  poor.  It  cannot  be 
said  that  even  the  pre-eminently 
successful  are  satisfied.  They  are 
haunted  continually  by  the  sense 
of  insecurity.  Among  those  who 
are  most  prosperous  may  be  found 
the  first  to  turn  prematurely  gray, 
and  to  wear  in  their  lineaments  the 
deepest  evidence  that  they  arc 
bearing  an  oppressive  load.  Men 
are  wrestling  with  some  untoward 
complications  that  seem  to  bear 
heavily  upon  all ;  and  we  should 
look  to  see  if  we  cannot  discover 
their  nature.  After  it  is  found  the 
entanglement  should  be  unraveled 
with  less  difficulty. 

Let  us  avoid  abstractions,  and 
pursue  investigation  along  the 
pathways  of  practical  life.  The 
world  is  working  for  its  material 
good.  With  the  mass  it  can  hardly 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


be  said  to  have  any  other  object ;  j 
and  even  among  men  who  follow , 
intellectual  pursuits  the  ultimate  j 
purpose  remains  substantially  the 
same.  They  work  for  a  livelihood. 
Men  turn  all  their  accomplishments, 
whether  physical,  mental,  or  moral, 
to  the  work  of  providing  for  t»i  311 
bodily  comforts  and  enjoyments. 
This  may  not  quite  represent  the 
ideal  of  life,  but  it  represents  the 
reality.  We  are  neither  philoso- 
phers, poets,  nor  preachers  at  the 
dinner  table.  There  was  never  yet 
an  astronomer  so  enthusiastic  in 
his  pursuits  that  he  was  willing  to 
forego  the  possession  of  a  comforta- 
ble study,  and  to  stand  unprotet  ted 
under  the  bespangled  heavens  when 
demonstrating  his  theorems.  It  is 
our  bodies,  unfortunately,  that  teach 
us  the  fact  of  revolving  seasons,  of 
tropical  heats  and  arctic  colds.  The 
mind  may  have  its  appetites.  It 
is  even  susceptible  to  a  sense  of 
huuger  after  its  own  meats  and 
condiments  ;  but  it  must  devote  its 
finest,  accomplishments  to  the  work 
of  feeding,  protecting,  and  serving 
the  body.  The  chief  wants  of  the 
world  are  material  wants. 

These  reflections  may  be  thought 
to  place  society  upon  too  low  a 
level.  Then  we  will  pursue  them 
no  further.  To  say  truth  they  are 
not  necessary  in  the  lesson  to  be 
studied.  It  will  be  as  well  to  say 
simply  that  men  have  wants,  and 
that  for  the  supply  of  those  wants, 
whether  exalted  or  low,  there  is  but 
one  chief  agent.  The  word  material, 
then,  must  be  translated  into  a 
word  more  suggestive  of  the  mart. 
The  chief  want  of  society  is  the 
wanh  of  capital.  It  is  a  want  so 
urgent  that  it  has  become  the  chief 
disability.  Men  look  abroad  and 
see  the  evidence  of  great  opulence, 
and  they  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  capital  is  abundant.  They  are 
apt  to  think,  therefore,  that  there 
is  privation  only  because  wealth  is 
unequally  or  uo. justly  distributed. 
But  they  could  not  take  a  more 


erroneous  view.  The  apparent 
abundance  is  only  a  result  of  con- 
trast. The  world,  after  all  its  effort, 
remains  almost  inconceivably  poor. 
Divide  all  the  wealth  of  England 
equally  among  the  people  of  the 
realm  and  it  will  give  to  each 
person,  according  to  the  latest  ar 
tainable  data,  the  equivalent  of 
about  $1,000  in  money.  Divide  th* 
wealth  ot  the  United  States  in  th« 
same  manner,  with  our  large  inimi 
grant  population,  and  it  is  well 
known  that  the  allotment  to  each 
person  would  be  even  less,  or  some- 
thing more  than  $900  in  money. 
In  France  the  results  of  a  division 
will  drop  to  about  $700  per  capita, 
and  in  Germany  it  would  fall  to 
$500.  Over  the  rest  of  the  world, 
wLa  the  exception,  perhaps,  of 
some  of  the  minor  industrial  States 
of  Europe,  the  results  of  a  division 
would  be  even  less  fruitful,  and 
were  the  division  made  for  all 
Christendom  we  would  have  to  be 
content  with  about  $250  or  $300 
for  each  person.  Can  we  say  in  tin- 
face  of  these  facts,  which  are  statis- 
tical and  sufficiently  accurate  for 
all  the  purposes  of  correct  induction, 
that  the  world  is  opulent?  It  is 
evident  that  it  has  hardly  yet  ad- 
vanced beyond  the  shaft  which 
opens  into  the  mine. 

But  let  us  assume  that  income  and 
not  accumulation  is  the  true  depen- 
dence for  meeting  human  wants, 
and  then  see  if  the  morning  can  be 
made  to  break  through  the  perplex- 
ing clouds  by  which  we  are  sur- 
rounded. It  is  not  so  easy  to  ap 
proximate  the  total  of  income  as  to 
reach  the  total  of  accumulated 
wealth.  There  is  a  lack  of  statis- 
tical data  bearing  on  the  subject,  or. 
at  least,  a  lack  of  data  completely 
covering  the  ground.  But  we  arc 
not  without  means  for  making  : 
reasonably  close  estimate.  W< 
know  by  the  census  estimates  ol 
1880  that  the  total  value  of  the  pro 
duct  of  this  country  for  the  year 
was  $9,000,000,000.  This  included 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


mechanical,  manufacturing,  agri- 
cultural, and  mining  productions, 
and  the  figures  were  supposed  to 
represent  the  market  value  of  the 
total.  If  divided  equally  among 
the  50,000,000  persons  who  then 
made  up  the  total  of  our  population 
it  would  have  given  $180  to  each 
person.  Add  to  this  the  interest, 
or  dividends,  at  six  per  cent.,  on 
something  more  than  $11,500,000,- 
000  invested  in  corporate  or  other 
securities,  such  as  the  stock  or 
bonds  of  railways,  banks,  insurance 
companies,  telegraph  companies, 
and  mortgages  on  real  estate — 
$700,000,000  of  income  in  all— and 
we  find  the  total  to  be  $194  per 
capita.  It  was  fortunate,  it  will  be 
seen,  that  large  numbers  of  the 
total  population  were  represented 
by  infants  in  arms  whose  subsist- 
ence did  not  call  for  a  large  ex- 
penditure in  money. 

But  this  estimate  if  finished  here 
would  not  be  quite  fair.  Income  is 
drawn  not  merety  from  production 
mid  dividends  but  from  commerce. 
The  same  product  may  change  hands 
frequently  in  the  course  of  a  year, 
sometimes  increasing  and  some- 
times diminishing  the  income  of  the 
tradesman  through  whose  hand  it 
passes,  and  here  enters  the  element 
of  uncertainty  in  calculation.  We 
know  neither  the  precise  volume 
nor  the  exact  profits  of  mercantile 
traffic.  We  are  dependent  upon 
estimates  only  in  calculating  the 
sales  and  the  percentages.  It  is  not 
possible  to  know  within  a  few  bil- 
lions the  total  of  mercantile  trans- 
fers. It  is  estimated  all  the  way 
from  $25,000,000,000  up  to  $50,000,- 
000,000  per  annum.  It  will  surely 
he  covered  by  the  latter  amount. 
We  know  that  ninety  per  cent,  of 
<»ur  commerce  is  in  domestic  mer- 
chandise; audit  isii. conceivable  that 
•39,000, 00'  ',000  in  such  merchandise, 
with  ten  per  cent,  added  for  foreign 
products,  could  change  hands  often 
enough  in  reaching  the  consumer 
to  make  the  total  volume  of  ex- 


change more  than  $50,000,000,000. 
Then  suppose  this  to  be  the  total, 
and  suppose  that  twenty  per  cent., 
in  gross,  is  realized  on  the  traffic. 
This  would  add  $10,000,000,000  to 
the  total  of  incomes  drawn  from 
production  and  dividends,  and  in- 
stead of  $194  per  annum  for  each 
person  we  have  $394  per  annum. 
This  will  be  a  fortunate  increase. 
It  withdraws  the  suggestion  of  im- 
pending starvation  for  the  chief 
part  of  the  community ;  but  it  is 
not  sufficient,  it  will  be  seen,  to 
make  us  cease  to  be  thankful  for  the 
economy  of  subsisting  the  inmates 
of  the  nurseries.  Unfortunately, 
too,  the  estimate  is  excessive. 

Look  upon  this  subject  in  any 
light  of  which  it  is  capable  and  we 
see  that  the  great  want  of  the  world 
is  capital,  or  the  power  of  produc- 
ing income.  Until  this  want  is 
supplied  there  can  be  DO  general 
amendment.  A  note  cannot  be  met 
when  it  becomes  due  if  there  be  not 
money  enough  to  make  payment. 
Men  may  build  castles  in  the  air  as 
high  as  a  snow-capped  mountain, 
and  see  their  turrets  glittering  in  all 
the  coruscations  that  can  be  created 
by  the  lunar  lights  of  socialism,  but 
if  at  the  foundation  there  be  not 
wealth,  and  the  resources  for  ex- 
change, the  stairways  will  prove  too 
unsubstantial  to  sustain  the  foot- 
steps of  men  who  would  essay  to 
climb.  We  see  the  evidence  of  the 
great  need  upon  every  hand.  Were 
it  possible  to  obtain  the  capital  by 
which  they  could  be  prosecuted 
there  are  projected  enterprises 
enough  not  only  to  give  employment 
to  every  unemployed  workman  in 
the  country,  but  to  add  largely  to 
the  demand  for  labor,  and  to  in- 
crease the  rates  of  compensation. 
But  this  is  not  all.  The  builder  i& 
throttled  even  when  his  hand  is  in 
motion.  There  is  hardly  a  work  of 
any  kind  under  construction  where 
the  labor  is  not  needlessly  prolonged 
by  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  rnonej 
to  pay  workmen  and  provide  ma- 


3 


390 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE 


terial.  Is  it  a  question  of  railway 
building?  The  projectors  work 
continually  under  the  shadow  of  a 
receiver,  and  must  often  pledge 
about  three  dollars  in  stock  for 
every  dollar  obtained  and  legiti- 
mately expended.  Is  it  a  question 
of  constructing  dwellings  of  a  class 
suitable  for  men  of  limited  means  ? 
We  have  heard  of  the  expedients 
invented  by  the  Building  and  Loan 
Associations.  It  costs  illimitable 
invention  and  much  self-denial  on 
the  part  of  the  managers  and 
members  of  those  societies  to  con- 
struct dwellings  that  may  be  rated 
only  a  little  superior  to  the  better 
class  of  rookeries.  Wherever  a  work 
of  construction  is  to  be  undertaken 
we  may  be  almost  sure  that  it  will 
be  carried  forward  with  crippled 
resources. 

But  why  is  it  so  difficult  to  ob- 
tain building  capital?  It  is  diffi- 
cult simply  because  capital  is  so 
badly  needed  for  other  uses  that  it 
cannot  be  diverted  to  works  of  con- 
struction without  great  sacrifices. 
The  merchant  must  strain  every 
nerve  to  maintain  or  increase  his 
stock  of  goods,  and  to  enlarge  his 
market.  The  manufacturer  is  con- 
tinually finding  that  his  plant  is 
a  destructible  dependence,  failing 
him  as  well  through  the  progress 
of  invention  as  through  the  dete- 
rioration of  his  material.  The  fac- 
tory of  to-day  is  generally  an 
evolution  of  the  factory  of  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century  ago ;  and  every 
step  in  advance  has  been  met  by 
the  sacrifice  of  invested  wealth  and 
the  investment  of  new  capital.  We 
frequently  hear  it  said  that  there  is 
money  enough  to  loan  on  good 
securities.  It  is  a  misleading  re- 
mark. .  It  simply  means  that  the 
men  who  have  money  to  loan  will 
consider  only  the  good  securities. 
They  will  concentrate  on  such  secur- 
ities, and  leave  all  that  are  in  the 
least  open  to  suspicion  to  go  beg- 
ging. Every  merchant,  manufact- 
urer, and  builder  knows  that 


money  in  amounts  equal  to  all  his 
needs  is  never  easily  obtained  on 
terms  that  he  is  able  to  meet,  and 
that  he  is  often  unable  to  obtran  it 
on  any  terms.  Every  workman 
should  know,  too,  that  he  would 
never  be  subjected  to  an  hour  of 
enforced  idleness  were  it  not  for 
the  inability  of  so-called  capitalists 
to  obtain  capital.  The  difficulty 
meets  men  at  every  turn.  It  con- 
fronts the  rich  as  well  as  the  poor, 
and  it  hangs  like  an  incubus  on 
every  manitestation  of  enterprise. 
It  is  truly  the  world's  primal  curse. 


CHAPTEE  II. 

DEFINITION  OF  CAPITAL. 

FEOM  one  point  of  view  it  might 
seem  like  folly  to  waste  so  many 
words  in  the  statement  of  what 
should  be  thought  a  truism.  But 
the  assumption  that  there  is  a  lack 
of  capital  in  the  world  is  not  a  tru- 
ism to  the  great  majority  of  men. 
To  many  men,  indeed,  the  state 
ment  will  be  received  with  surprise. 
if  not  with  incredulity.  They 
will  be  disposed  to  discredit  the 
statistical  data  on  which  it  is 
founded.  But  the  figures  are  cor- 
rect enough  to  point  a  moral,  and 
they  show  pretty  conclusively  that 
we  have  no  right  to  reason  upen 
the  material  aspect  of  social  ques 
tions  without  first  admitting  thrt 
next  to  nothing  has  yet  been 
accomplished  towards  i  lacing  so- 
ciety in  a  condition  of  general 
security.  To  attempt  to  reas< 
from  any  other  ground  shows  eithe 
an  ignorance  of  fundamental  fa e? 
or  eccentric  habits  of  mind. 

It  will  form  an  instructive  sul> 
ject  for  study  to  learn  why  tl .>• 
world  is  so  poor  after  centuries  < 
apparently  effective  effort  in  11  <• 
accumulation  of  wealth,  and  the 
inquiry  will  have  a  direct  bearing 
on  the  conclusions  to  which  the  at- 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


39* 


tention  of  the  reader  is  to  be  called. 
Much  of  the  world's  wealth  is  per- 
ishable, and  demands  renewal  from 
year  to  year.  Another,  and  still 
larger  portion,  demands  renewal 
after  a  few  years,  and  cannot  enter 
into  the  total  of  permanent  posses- 
sions. Only  the  bare  land  endures 
from  generation  to  generation  with 
a  transmitted  value,  and  even  this 
representation  of  property  is 
subject  to  incessant  fluctuations, 
tun  I  is  only  to  be  made  productive 
I  expenditure  of  time  and 
li  on  a  foundation  of  still 
otii<-:  :.:!!il  vanished  capital.  The 
accumulation  of  national  wealth 
seems  t  >  be  a  good  deal  like  climb- 
ing a  soft  sand  hill  where  every 
step  of  the  ascent  levels  the  pile 
almost  as  much  as  it  elevates  the 
foothold.  But  it  would  be  prema- 
ture to  pursue  this  line  of  inquiry 
until  attention  has  been  called  to 
the  meaning  of  a  word  which  men 
should  learn  to  more  fully  compre- 
hend. 

What  is  capital? 

The  question  might  be  answered 
differently  by  different  persons.  It 
is  certainly  a  word  somewhat  con- 
fused in  the  application  even  among 
careful  thinkers.  It  is  often  con- 
founded with  accumulated  wealth, 
and  made  to  convey  the  same 
meaning.  Indeed,  so  general  is  the 
confusion  all  through  the  ritual  of 
political  economy  and  finance  that 
it  is  impossible  to  follow  the  text 
without  sometimes  using  the  words 
interchangeably.  But  while  ac- 
cumulated wealth  is  capital  the 
converse  is  not  always  true.  Capi- 
tal, both  theoretically  and  practi- 
cally, covers  much  the  broader 
ground.  If  you  ask  a  builder  the 
extent  of  his  capital  he  will  not 
limit  himself  to  the  value  of  the 
property  which  he  owns  over  and 
above  the  sum  of  all  encumbrances. 
He  will  estimate  on  his  resources, 
and  give  the  total  amount  that  he 
can  put  into  any  enterprise.  If  he 
be  known  for  a  man  of  probity,  and 


uniformly  or  generally  successful, 
his  resources  in  capital  might  far 
transcend  the  resources  of  a  rival 
following  the  same  vocation  whose 
accumulated  wealth  was  greatly  in 
excess  of  his  own  accumulations, 
but  who  was  publicly  known  as  un- 
scrupulous or  untrustworthy.  It  in 
a  common  saying  among  practical 
men  that  a  man's  credit  is  his  cap- 
ital, and  in  a  large  measure  the 
saying  is  true.  We  also  place  to 
the  account  of  capital  the.  accom- 
plishments, whether  mental  or 
manual,  through  which  a  man  earns 
his  subsistence.  They  bring  re- 
turns in  income,  and  yet  bear  no 
relation  to  accumulated  wealth. 
They  must  vanish  utterly  from  the 
earth  with  the  disappearance  of 
the  person  by  whom  they  were  pos- 
sessed. 

We  see,  therefore,  at  the  very 
threshold  that  capital  transcends 
the  limitations  of  wealth,  and  pos- 
sesses a  much  broader  significance. 
It  may  be  assumed,  indeed,  that  the 
chief  agency  which  maintains  in- 
dustrial and  mercantile  activity  is 
not  accumulated  wealth.  It  is  a 
i  certain  intangible  force  set  in 
!  motion  by  men  who  eventually 
become  possessed  of  accumulated 
wealth,  but  whose  activity  and 
strength  are  not  altogether  depend- 
ent on  its  possession.  It  may  even 
be  said  that  ninety  per  cent,  of  all 
the  money  which  men  handle  is 
maintained  in  circulation  by  forces 
that  bear  only  a  secondary  relation 
to  accumulated  property.  A  thou- 
sand workmen  leave  the  factory 
every  Saturday  night,  or  every  Sat- 
urday at  mid-day  under  the  new 
dispensation,  and  they  carry  with 
them  the  proceeds  of  a  week's 
labor.  Count  or  estimate  the 
amount  and  you  will  see  that  these 
proceeds  reach  the  large  total  of, 
say,  §12,000  in  money.  Yet  it  is 
even  conceivable  that  not  one  of 
those  workmen,  were  he  to  die  to- 
morrow, could  leave  behind  him 
wealth  enough  to  give  his  family 


393 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


subsistence  for  a  month.  The  house 
builder  goes  on  piling  bricks  upon 
bricks  until  a  stately  new  facade, 
crowned  with  massive  cornice  and 
finials,  rises  many  stories  from  the 
ground.  He  has  met  the  wages  of 
his  workmen  as  the  money  became 
due,  and  honored  all  his  bills  as 
fast  as  they  were  presented.  But 
investigate  and  you  will  find  that 
he  had  only  enough  accuminulated 
property  in  the  beginning  to  offer 
a  pledge  of  his  good  intentions, 
enough  to  carry  the  structure  to  the 
limits  of  the  first  story.  Is  he 
building,  then,  on  the  accumulated 
means  of  others  !  Not  necessarily. 
He  surely  is  not  building  on  the  ac- 
cumulations of  his  workmen  ;  and 
if  you  will  examine  his  transactions 
carefully  in  detail  you  may  find,  in 
some  extreme  cases,  thafc  not  a 
pound  of  material  nor  a  dollar  of 
money  goes  into  the  work  so  free 
from  liens  that  any  one  person 
could  claim  a  clear  title  to  posses- 
sion. Encumbrances  may  be  the 
rule ;  and  no  one  expects  to  see  the 
1  itles  cleared  until  the  building  is 
finally  placed  upon  the  market  and 
sold.  But  will  they  be  cleared  even 
then  1  Perhaps  the  man  who  makes 
the  purchase  will  not  pay  more 
than  one-fifth  of  the  purchase 
money  in  hand,  and  give  a  mort- 
gage for  the  remaining  four-fifths. 
Finally,  even  the  fifth  part  paid 
may  not  represent  accumulated 
property.  If  it  represents  only 
another  lien  in  the  form  of  a  note 
at  thirty  or  sixty  days,  the  receipt 
of  the  money  to  be  dependent  on 
the  completion  of  some  commercial 
transaction  in  hand,  it  will  be  more 
the  concern  of  the  buyer  than  of 
the  seller. 

Find  another  illustration  of  the 
intangible  nature  of  capital  in  the 
resources  that  construct  a  railway. 
Take  one  of  the  Pacific,  or  trans- 
continental roads,  as  an  example. 
The  construction  of  either  one  of 
those  roads  was  a  very  large  under- 
taking. Some  of  the  roadbeds  lay, 


for  nearly  two  thousand  miles, 
through  the  wilderness  where  the 
foot  of  civilization  had  rarely  or 
never  been  planted.  Among  the 
obstructions  to  be  overcome  were 
almost  impenetrable  fastnesses,  and 
the  most  difficult  mountain  ranges. 
There  were  also  financial  obstruc- 
tions more  formidable  even  than 
the  obstructions  to  be  met  and 
mastered  by  the  engineers.  It  was 
hardly  to  be  conceived  that  even 
the  interest  on  the  money  demanded 
for  construction  could  be  imme- 
diately paid  from  the  traffic  returns 
after  the  work  was  finally  completed. 
The  chief  resource  would  be  want- 
ing. It  is  very  well  known  that  no 
railway  can  yield  really  good 
returns  unless  it  is  secure  in  a  large 
local  traffic,  and  this  dependence 
was  out  of  the  question.  Yet  those 
Pacific  roads  were  built,  four 
through  lines  in  all,  and,  except  in  a 
single  instance,  it  may  be  as  well 
to  say  that  they  were  not  only  an 
exclusive  product  of  private  enter- 
prise unaided,  but  that  they  abso- 
lutely created  the  capital  by  which 
they  were  constructed. 

But  the  Government  gave  them 
land  enough  to  form  several  empires. 
This  has  been  said,  and  said  so 
often  that  it  has  become  a  part  of 
the  stereotyped  literature  of  the 
country.  But  what  was  the  value 
of  the  land  when  Congress  made  the 
donation!  As  a  matter  of  simple 
truth  and  justice  it  would  be  better 
to  say  that  the  Government  gave 
them  nothing  whatever  except  the 
right  of  way  through  a  territory 
over  which  it  held  the  authority  of 
eminent  domain,  and  gave  this 
right  only  on  condition  that  the 
roads  should  be  built,  and  confer  the 
character  of  property  on  something 
which  Congress  had  been  vainly 
trying  to  give  away  during  many 
previous  years.  Until  the  roads 
were  built  a  square  mile  of  the  land 
was  generally  worth  no  more  than 
any  single  clod  that  went  to  make 
up  an  insignificant  part  of  one 


6 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


393 


acre.  These  roads,  therefore,  in- 
stead of  having  received  capital 
through  the  liberality  of  Congress, 
were  really  contributors  to  the 
potential  wealth  held  by  the  Gov- 
ernment. Congress  gave  them  a 
franchise.  The  builders  of  the 
roads  converted  the  franchise  into 
a  marketable  commodity,  and  on 
this  foundation  built  up  the  super- 
structure of  their  bonds.  There 
will  be  no  room  in  this  little  book 
for  the  discussion  of  irrelevant 
subjects ;  but  it  may  be  said,  in 
passing,  that  it  would  probably 
have  been  better  for  the  promoters 
of  the  transcontinental  roads  had 
they  bought  their  laud  instead  of 
receiving  it  as  a  much  vaunted  gift. 
The  price  could  have  been  only 
nominal  before  their  roads  were 
undertaken ;  and  as  they  would 
have  held  it  subject  to  no  conditions 
they  would  have  maintained  a 
more  independent  position  before 
the  country.  They  could  have 
given  a  still  more  signal  illustra- 
tion, too,  of  the  creative  power  of 
enterprise. 

But  we  need  not  look  to  works 
of  construction  alone  when  we  wish 
to  find  examples  of  the  power  of 
expedients,  acting  independently 
of  accumulated  wealth,  in  the  crea- 
tion of  capital.  Such  examples  may 
be  found  abundantly  in  commercial 
fields,  though,  owing  to  the  greater 
secresy  observed  in  trade,  their 
manifestations  in  those  fields  may 
be  less  open  to  observation.  We 
know,  however,  that  upon  every 
side  are  to  be  found  men  of  wealth 
who  began  a  mercantile  career  with- 
out money,  and  who  yet,  externally, 
always  seemed  to  be  principals  in 
all  their  transactions.  We  know 
that  appearances  were  sometimes 
very  deceptive,  and  that  they  were 
often  only  factors;  but  they  man- 
aged nevertheless,  between  substitu- 
tion and  credit,  to  be  always  able 
to  give  a  good  account  of  them- 
selves at  the  bank  and  to  their  cor- 
respondents. 


These  are  familiar  examples,  and 
they  could  be  carried  further.  It 
could  be  shown  how  even  the  most 
richly  provided  railway  is  built 
upon  bonds  which  owe  their  best 
security  to  the  expenditures  that 
go  into  the  enterprise  day  by  day, 
and  how  the  ship  is  launched  with 
her  head  so  close  to  the  wind  thai 
the  helmsman  often  finds  he  ha* 
not  even  steerage  way.  Old  gentle 
men  who  have  come  down  from  a 
past  and  not  intensely  active  gener- 
ation might  shudder  and  shake 
their  heads  at  such  illustrations. 
They  might  even  call  them  pictures 
of  wild  cat  finance,  and  say  that 
if  they  represent  real  transactions 
they  are  portentous  representations 
neither  to  be  admired  nor  copied. 
But  the  old  gentlemen  would  be  in 
the  wrong.  The  pictures  represent 
entirely  legitimate  transactions, 
made  habitually  among  enterpris- 
ing men  in  the  soundest  markets. 
The  sounder  and  more  enterprising 
the  market,  too,  the  more  common- 
ly will  they  be  made.  The  truth  is 
that  in  all  works  of  construction 
every  man  who  creates  an  income 
producing  property  has  given  a 
pledge  against  any  very  disastrous 
loss  to  his  backers  or  colaborers, 
and  men  can  afford  to  take  slight 
risks  with  the  prospects  of  consid- 
erable mutual  gain.  No  commun- 
ity can  look  forward  to  a  very  rapid 
development  in  wealth  unless  this 
spirit  of  enterprise  and  co-operation 
largely  prevails.  For  reasons  that 
spring  from  the  statistical  data  al- 
ready given  no  community  that 
builds  on  accumulated  wealth  alone 
can  build  rapidly  or  well.  There 
is  not  enough  of  accumulation  to 
offer  more  than  a  mere  basis  for 
security ;  and  even  this  basis,  how- 
ever necessary  in  trade  and  in  the 
treatment  of  movable  property,  is 
hardly  needed  in  immovable  works 
of  construction.  Any  man  who  is 
honest  enough  to  be  trusted  with 
the  transfer  of  money  from  hand  to 
hand,  and  capable  enough  to  know 


394 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


needed  work  and  to  do  it  well,  be- 
longs to  the  class  of  capitalists 
whom  the  world  most  needs. 

When  broadly  defined,  then,  cap- 
ital, it  will  be  seen,  represents  not 
so  much  wealth  itself  as  resources 
for  the  production  of  wealth.  Credit 
is  capital,  income  is  capital,  educa- 
tion is  capital,  nay,  at  the  founda- 
tion of  all,  good  character  is  cap- 
ital ;  and  the  last  named  resource 
may  add  more  to  a  man's  capabili- 
ties than  gold  or  silver  in  dishonest 
hands.  Anything  that  may  be  used 
to  enlarge  the  boundaries  of  trade, 
to  increase  the  volume  of  produc- 
tion, to  raise  the  rate  of  compen- 
sation for  service,  or  to  add  to  the 
possibilities  of  enterprise  is  capital. 
There  are  potential  dollars  in  all 
or  in  any  of  these  elements  ;  and  it 
only  needs  a  cunning  hand  to  con- 
vert them  into  currency. 


CHAPTEE  III. 


AFTEB  this  hasty  generalization 
on  the  nature  of  capital  some 
further  suggestions  on  the  causes 
of  the  general  poverty  may  profit- 
ably be  made.  We  should  aim  to 
discover  the  chief  reasons  for  our 
attenuated  estate;  and  when  they 
are  found  it  should  be  less  difficult 
to  suggest  the  best  means  for  in- 
creasing resources.  We  have  long 
been  told  that  the  true  dependence 
in  the  accumulation  of  wealth  is 
industry  and  frugality.  But  since 
the  world,  after  all  its  Herculean 
labor  and  self-denial,  remains  mis- 
erably poor  there  is  evidently 
something  either  altogether  wrong 
in  this  idea,  or  something  only 
partially  right.  We  shall  not  learn 
why  it  is  wrong  until  we  have  dis- 
covered the  secret  of  the  very 
limited  total  of  wealth. 

Not  only  in  the  view  of  recognized 
facts  but  in  auswer  to  the  preced- 


ing argument,  moralists  and  men 
of  a  more  philosophical  than  prac- 
tical turn  might  tell  us  that  the 
cause  for  our  lack  of  capital  must 
be  sought  in  the  dishonesty  and  in- 
capacity of  the  race.  If  capital  be 
an  object  of  so  much  flexibility, 
and  so  easily  created,  how  does  it 
happen  that  society  is  afflicted  with 
such  poverty  in  resources?  This 
is  a  question  which  men  might  be 
expected  to  ask,  and  the  inquiry,  it 
must  be  confessed,  would  be  not 
without  justification.  If  credit  be 
capital  it  would  be  capable  of  un- 
limited expansion  were  it  not  true 
that  men  cannot  be  trusted  to  make 
an  unselfish  or  prudent  use  of  the 
resources  committed  to  their  charge. 
Were  all  men  perfectly  honest,  in- 
capable of  taking  advantage  of  an 
!  opportunity  to  defraud,  and  infalli- 
:  ble  in  judgment,  we  should  find  a 
diminished  use  for  banks,  and  no 
Juse  whatever  for  a  stamped  cur- 
irency.  The  mere  numerals,  writ- 
.ten  by  the  debtor  on  a  piece  of 
blank  paper  and  transferred  to  the 
1  creditor,  would  serve  us  just  as 
well.  But  we  must  deal  with  men 
as  we  find  them,  and  try  to  amend 
their  circumstances  despite  their 
bad  character.  All  men  are  not 
reliable,  some  failing  for  lack  of 
principle,  and  others  for  lack  of  dis- 
cernment ;  aijd  in  the  study  of 
needed  reforms  we  must  take  the 
weaknesses  of  men  into  considera- 
tion. This  much  is  certain.  The 
mere  trick  of  saying  that  men  are 
unhappy  because  they  are  wicked 
does  not  promise  to  bring  the  reign 
of  universal  virtue  so  rapidly  as 
we  could  wish  to  see  it  come.  There 
is  a  lung  and  painful  journey  to  be 
traveled  in  darkness  and  tribu- 
lation if  society  can  be  lifted  into 
the  light  by  no  other  means  than 
religious  or  moral  evangelism.  But 
perhaps  other  forces  may  be  brought 
into  action.  The  head  was  intended 
to  divide  with  the  heart  the  direc- 
tion of  human  affairs  ;  and  here  is 
a  case  where  the  evils  resulting 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


395 


from  a  lack  of  cerebral  tissue  ap- 
pear to  be  aggravated. 

Let  us  at  once,  then,  dismiss  all 
ethical  considerations  from  this 
phase  of  the  discussion,  and  pursue 
investigation  along  the  same  mate- 
rial ground  that  we  defined  in  the 
beginning.  Taking  men  as  we  find 
them,  with  a  fall  acknowledgment 
of  the  limitations  which  compel  us 
to  erect  barriers  against  their  en- 
croachments or  short  comings,  it 
will  be  found  that  the  chief  reason 
for  the  absence  of  capital  lies  in  the 
fact  that,  except  incidentally  and 
by  an  enforced  process,  only  a  very 
small  minority  of  men  are  engaged 
in  its  production.  It  will  not  be  an 
exaggeration  to  say  that  nineteen 
men  in  every  twenty  are  voluntarily 
producers  only  to  the  amount  of 
their  own  consumption.  This  dec- 
laration will  not  be  quite  popular. 
It  pleases  the  great  body  of  men  to 
believe  that  when  engaged  at  their 
labor  they  are  partners  in  the  pro- 
duction of  capital,  or  its  accepted 
correlative,  wealth;  and  they  like 
to  think  themselves  defrauded  of 
their  due  proportion  by  unjust  so- 
cial conditions.  But  the  idea  is  er- 
roneous. No  one  is  engaged  in  the 
production  of  capital,  using  the 
word  in  either  its  restricted  or 
broader  sense,  save  those  who  di- 
rectly contribute  towards  the  main- 
tenance of  its  product  in  the  market 
after  the  fruits  have  acquired  a 
merchantable  value.  It  would  be 
idle  to  assume  that  any  man  who 
consumes  the  full  value  of  his  pro- 
duct is  adding  anything  to  the  total 
of  accumulated  wealth.  But  such  a 
man  is  equally  inefficient  in  the 
production  of  operative  wealth  or 
capital.  The  profits  which  are  sup- 
posed to  be  drawn  from  his  labor, 
and  which  partly  represent  the 
measure  of  accumulation,  are  due 
to  the  resources  of  the  person  by 
whom  he  is  employed.  Within 
himself  he  is  only  an  agent  for  the 
transfer  of  money  from  hand  to 
hand,  his  own  subsistence  supplying 


the  reward.  Transfer  the  product 
of  his  labor  to  an  incompetent  man- 
ager on  the  date  of  its  completion 
and  his  total  contribution,  in  brain 
and  muscle,  might  result  in  loss  to 
the  employer.  A  badly  conceived 
enterprise,  indeed,  may  signify 
nothing  but  loss  from  the  beginning, 
the  workmen  only  finding  it  a 
means  of  temporary  subsistence, 
but  the  projector  sacrificing  his  en- 
tire investment.  Therein  may  be 
found  the  touch  ston  of  the  whole 
performance.  It  is  a  superficial 
political  economy  which  teaches 
that  an  employee,  except  to  the  ex- 
tent in  which  he  is  a  contributor  to 
the  income  drawn  from  finished 
products,  is  engaged  in  the  produc- 
tion of  wealth.  It  was  an  idea  ac- 
cepted without  any  close  analysis 
of  economic  processes,  and  formu- 
lated into  a  dogma  without  reflec- 
tion. Labor  does  not  create  wealth. 
Theproduct  of  labor,  notwithstand- 
ing the  number  of  times  that  its 
creative  power  has  been  announced 
from  the  rostrum,  is  too  perishable 
for  any  such  achievement.  Wealth 
is  broadly  a  fruit  of  some  form  of 
capitalization  on  surplus  earnings 
or  income.  The  man  who  fails  to 
act  upon  a  conception  of  this  truth 
might  give  employment  to  a  mill- 
ion men  and  still  remain  poor. 
We  comprehend  the  situation  more 
clearly  when  it  is  said  that  only  a 
few  men  are  directly  engaged  in  the 
production  of  wealth,  and  that  the 
great  body  of  men  are  dependent 
pensioners  on  the  resources  of  these 
few. 

But  the  accusation  may  be  car- 
ried still  further.  It  may  be  truth- 
fully charged  that  not  only  are  the 
great  majority  of  men  not  produc- 
ers of  wealth,  but  that  a  very  large 
proportion  of  this  majority  are  con- 
sumers of  the  accumulations  of  the 
few,  and  help  to  deplete  the  grana- 
ries where  the  public  harvests  are 
stored.  The  improvident  are  al- 
ways wasteful.  A  man  who  has  re- 
ceived his  allotment  of  $394,  the 


396 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


average  income  per  annum  for  each 
person  in  the  country,  it  will  be  re- 
membered, may  claim  it  as  his  right 
if  he  chooses  to  use  this  money  in 
such  manner  that  he  will  reduce, 
I  y  the  trifle  of,  say,  $10,  its  power 
uf  contributing  to  the  general  fund. 
This  seems  like  a  light  sacrifice ; 
but  if  the  power  of  each  corre- 
sponding allotment  in  income  be  re- 
<  I  uced  by  the  same  amount  the  total 
reduction  for  the  whole  country 
will  reach  $500,000,000.  This  is  a 
sum  sufficient  to  carry  at  six  per 
cent,  a  principal  of  nearly  $8,500,- 
000,000,  almost  one-fifth  the  total  of 
our  national  wealth  according  to 
the  census  estimates  of  1880  !  In 
this  view  of  the  case  the  reduction 
seems  very  far  from  trifling.  It  may 
be  claimed  that  it  would  not  be  a  de- 
struction of  actual  wealth,  but  only 
an  abnegation  of  possible  wealth, 
or  capital.  This  would  be  true; 
:uid  though  the  claim  will  not  re- 
lieve the  prodigal  of  all  responsi- 
bility for  his  wastefulness  it  must 
be  accepted  in  part  extenuation. 
But  the  fact  still  remains  that  large 
numbers  of  persons  live  upon  so- 
ciety in  one  way  or  another,  some 
honorably,  some  charitably,  and 
some  roguishly,  without  contribut- 
ing even  so  much  as  their  own 
living  to  the  general  fund,  and 
these  persons  aid  very  consider- 
ably in  retarding  the  progress  of 
accumulation. 

It  may  be  said,  then,  that  there 
are  three  chief  obstructions  to  the 
rapid  growth  of  national  wealth, 
first,  the  obstruction  growing  out 
of  the  perishable  nature  of  many  of 
its  objective  forms,  secondly,  the 
obstructions  raised  by  the  inertia 
<»f  the  masses  who  are  not  directly 
<•  mtributors  to  the  capitalization 
t-stablished  on  production  and  in- 
come, and,  thirdly,  the  obstructions 
caused  by  the  large  number  of  non- 
producing  consumers  which  society, 
for  its  combined  transgressions  and 
follies,  is  obliged  to  supply  with 
the  means  of  subsistence,  But  of 


these  three  obstructions  the  obstacle 
raised  by  the  inertia  of  the  masses 
is  incomparably  the  most  serious. 
It  lies  at  the  foundation  of  almost 
every  monetary  disability  from 
which  men  suffer.  It  is  the  direct 
or  the  indirect  cause  of  every  panic 
and  bankruptcy  that  occurs,  it  is 
the  source  of  all  idleness,  and  there 
is  not  a  beggar  on  the  street  who 
must  not  charge  his  poverty  to  the 
fact  that  he,  together  with  the  great 
mass  of  his  fellows,  has  never  been 
a  contributor  to  the  general  fund 
from  which  subsistence  must  be 
drawn.  The  perishable  nature  of 
production  is  not  an  incident  to  be 
deplored.  On  the  contrary  it  is 
our  chiefest  blessing.  Men  find 
their  income  and  resources  in  the 
necessity  for  reproduction.  Were 
products  not  perishable  exchange 
would  cease,  and  civilization  itself, 
would  soon  fall  into  a  decline  and 
perish.  The  non-producers,  too, 
who  live  at  the  public  table  without 
bringing  even  so  much  as  a  napkin 
to  the  feast,  are  comparatively  a 
small  impediment  to  our  advance 
In  fact  they  would  hardly  come  in 
at  the  summons  for  a  free  repast 
were  they  not  brought  in  by  their 
fellow  dependents  who  think  them- 
selves contributing  members  of  the 
household,  and  demand  honors  and 
a  distinguished  place  at  the  table. 
The  men  who  do  no  labor  are  a  bur- 
den. But  they  are  incomparably  a 
lighter  burden  than  the  men  who 
only  make  the  fire,  cook  and  serve 
the  meats,  wash  the  dishes,  and 
then  mistakenly  fancy  that  they 
contribute  liberally  towards  the 
maintenance  of  the  house. 


CHAPTEE  IV. 

SOCIAL  RESULTS  CONSIDERED. 

LET  us  hastily  recall  what  has 
been  written  and  see  how  far  we 
have  advanced.  It  was  discovered 


10 


UL  TIM  A  TE  FIN  AN  CE. 


397 


in  the  beginning  that  this  appar-  [ 
ently  so  opulent  world  is  in  reality 
very  poor,  and  that  the  total  of  its 
accumulated  wealth  is  barely  suffi- 
cient for  the  subsistence  of  its  in- 
habitants, in  accordance  with  civil- 
ized habits,  for  a  single  year.  It 
was  concluded,  therefore,  that  the 
chief  want  of  men  is  for  more  capi- 
tal and  larger  resources.  In  the 
second  chapter  an  attempt  was 


siderable  distance  in  advance  of 
the  other.  At  certain  paces  they 
are  joined  hand  in  hand  ;  and  in 
the  popular  understanding  it  is  im- 
possible for  any  man  to  be  a  capi- 
talist who  is  not  possessed  of  large 
accumulations.  This  throws  a  for- 
midable obstruction  in  the  way  of  the 
leaders  in  enterprise.  They  carry 
the  only  load  of  care  for  the  sue 
cess  or  failure  of  their  ventures : 


made  to  define   capital.      It    was  j  and  generally  find  themselves  crip- 
found    that,     though    inseparably  pled  at  every  step  by  the  want  of 


joined  to  wealth  in  the  popular 
conception,  it  is  yet  a  force  greatly 
transcending  wealth  for  executive 
uses,  and  capable  of  maintaining  an 
independent  being  on  much  the 
more  comprehensive  field.  In  this 
distinction  we  discover  the  possi- 
bility of  making  enterprise  com- 
paratively independent  of  wealth, 
and  placing  its  operations  on  a 
more  liberal  foundation.  Finally, 
in  the  third  chapter,  it  was  main- 


resources  to  do  something  that 
ought  to  be  done  to  insure  good  re- 
sults. But  their  employees  suffer, 
and  must  continue  to  suffer,  as  long 
as  the  unnatural  relations  between 
the  parties  are  maintained.  True, 
the  employee  feels  no  solicitude 
concerning  the  conclusion  of  a 
transaction  on  which  the  stability 
of  the  firm  by  which  he  is  employed 
may  depend.  He  does  not  even 
know  that  such  a  transaction  is  un- 


tained  that  the  lack  of  capital  is |  der  negotiation  or    contemplated, 
chiefly  due  to  the  fact  that  only  a '  But,  after  providing  very  imper- 

of 


comparatively  limited  number 
men  are  engaged  in  its  production. 
The  great  mass  are  content  to  look 
on  and  criticise,  sometimes  derid- 
ingly  and  sometimes  ill-naturedly, 
the  efforts  and  missteps  of  those 
who  have  assumed  the  burden. 
Through  the  remaining  pages  we 
shall  find  most  profit  in  amplifying 
on  the  consequences  of  our  unde- 
veloped financial  condition,  in  sug- 
gesting remedies,  and  in  illustrat- 
ing the  advantages  of  the  measures 
to  be  proposed. 

In  the  first  place  it  must  not  be 
thought  that  the  evil  results  of  the 
general  poverty  in  resources  fall  with 
peculiar  weight  upon  any  one  sec- 
tion of  the  community.  It  is  a 
popular  belief  that  their  only  sinis- 
ter weight  falls  upon  the  shoulders 
of  the  poor.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
they  rest  as  a  common  incubus  upon 
all  men.  It  happens  that  wealth 
and  capital  have  been  linked  to- 
gether, and  it  is  difficult  for  the  one 


fectly  for  his  family,  he  will  be  very 
solicitous  to  know  if  he  can  save 
enough  from  his  earnings  to  meet 
the  next  bill  for  rent.  He  would 
like,  also,  to  be  spared  the  mortifi- 
cation of  standing  before  his  market 
purveyor  on  the  next  Saturday 
night,  and  begging,  with  much 
apologetic  shuffling  of  feet  and 
many  confused  grimaces,  for  anoth- 
er week  of  credit  and  forbearance. 
He  sometimes  in  his  perplexity 
thinks  his  employer  a  hard  and  un- 
scrupulous robber  who  is  depriving 
him  of  adequate  payment  for  his 
services.  But  at  the  moment  when 
he  is  indulging  his  resentment  he 
does  not  know  that  the  employer 
may  be  in  still  greater  tribulation 
This  not  always  fortunate  but  much 
distrusted  person  may  fear  that  he 
will  be  compelled  to  ask  his  em 
ployees  for  an  extension  of  time. 
He  may  not  be  quite  sure  that  they 
will  not  be  forced  to  wait  for  their 
dues  until  funds  for  payment  can 


to  move  freely  forward  at  any  con- 1  be  obtained  through  the  arrange- 


11 


39$ 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


meat  of  some  obligation  not  yet 
matured.  Instances  of  such  em- 
barrassment among  employers  may 
not  be  so  common  now  as  they  were 
in  the  days  when  capital  was  even 
less  abundant  than  it  is  to-day,  and 
when  the  machinery  of  finance,  as 
represented  in  banking  institutions, 
was  less  flexible  and  accommodat- 
ing. But  they  are  still  experienced 
with  much  too  great  frequency. 
They  are  so  common  that  all  em- 
ployers, even  the  most  successful, 
are  obliged  to  hold  their  liberality 
very  closely  to  the  market  rates  of 
compensation  for  service,  while  the 
less  successful  are  often  forced  to 
take  advantage  of  every  incident 
that  can  be  turned  to  their  account. 
They  must  take  advantage,  for  ex- 
ample, of  such  incidents  as  pecun- 
iary distress,  manifested  in  applica- 
tions for  employment  from  men 
and  women  who  must  have  the 
work  or  starve.  If  forced  to  take 
such  advantages,  then,  should  the 
less  successful  men  cease  to  be  em- 
ployers? Were  all  of  this  class  to 
retire  their  present  employees  prob- 
ably would  starve.  They  would 
at  least  be  heard  repeating  the  old 
proverb:  A  half  loaf  is  better 
than  no  bread. 

But  the  evil  consequences  of  the 
general  lack  of  resources  not  only 
fall  with  about  equal  force  upon  all 
sections  of  the  community,  crush- 
ing here  and  there  an  individual 
no  matter  what  his  social  position 
or  vocation,  but  they  descend  with 
a  peculiarly  oppressive  weight 
upon  society  at  large,  and  not  only 
cripple  its  movements,  but  breed 
malevolent  instincts  and  passions. 
For  years  past  the  country  has 
been  kept  in  a  condition  bordering 
upon  financial  anarchy.  No  con- 
tractor has  been  able  to  take  a  con- 
tract with  any  feeling  of  certainty 
that  he  would  be  permitted  to  fin- 
ish his  work  without  finding  him- 
self forced  into  bankruptcy,  or 
compelled  to  suffer  heavy  losses. 
No  manufacturer  has  felt  any  secu- 


rity that  he  would  be  allowed  to 
manufacture  and  market  his  goods 
without  subjecting  himself,  through 
some  unfortunate  step,  to  a  boycot, 
a  disaster  that  would  cripple  his 
means,  and  make  the  fire  that  con- 
sumed not  only  his  stock  in  trade 
but  the  very  plant  itself  seem  like 
a  blessing  in  disguise.  No  railway 
S  managers  have  been  able  to  carry 
on  the  service  of  transportation 
with  any  feeling  of  confidence  that, 
between  the  discontented  employee 
and  the  demagogue,  the  stockhold- 
ers would  not  be  deprived  of 
the  dividends  to  which  they 
were  entitled  by  every  considera- 
tion that  should  govern  in  the  en- 
lightened and  just  administration 
of  public  affairs.  And,  finally, 
the  entire  community  has  no  pledge, 
except  in  its  growing  battalions  of 
policemen,  that  the  streets  of  our 
large  cities  may  not  any  time  break 
forth  into  riots  that  will  culminate 
in  bloodshed  and  the  destruction 
of  property.  There  is  no  ques- 
tion but  that  the  spirit  of  robbery 
is  rampant,  just  as  we  hear  it  as- 
serted. But  it  is  an  error  that 
charges  its  exclusive  possession 
against  those  who  have  least  occa- 
sion for  its  exercise.  It  is  always 
the  starved  rat  that  will  make  the 
most  intrepid  forays.  The  sleek, 
well-fed  companion  can  afford  to  lie 
in  wait,  and  abide  the  time  when 
the  cat  will  have  lost  her  appetite. 
The  events  of  the  past  fifteen 
years  are  worth  reviewing.  Eecall, 
first,  the  panic  which  occurred  dur 
ing  the  earlier  half  of  the  last  dec- 
ade, together  with  the  bankrupt- 
cies and  the  long  period  of  distress 
that  followed.  These  events  have 
almost  pacsed  from  the  memory  of 
all  except  those  who  most  keenly 
suffered.  But  the  brakeman's  re- 
bellion of  a  later  date,  culminating 
in  the  riot  and  the  destruction  of 
several  million  dollars  worth  of 
property,  at  Pittsburg,  is  fresher  in 
the  public  memory,  while  the  echoes 
of  the  final  catastrophe  at  Chicago 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


399 


have  hardly  yet  died  out  of  the  i 
public  ear.  We  have  passed 
through  a  decade  of  disorder  un- 
paralleled in  any  previous  decade 
when  the  country  was  nominally  at 
peace,  and  the  contest  has  not  yet 
been  brought  to  a  close.  Nay,  it 
has  not  even  been  brought  to  a 
pause.  It  is  carried  forward  under 
new  leaders  and  in  new  fields.  The 
echoes  of  the  brawl  are  heard  in 
Confess,  in  the  State  Legislatures, 
ami  in  the  courts.  They  are  heard, 
too,  wherever  a  body  of  squatters 
can  find  a  vacant  corner  and  a  few 
empty  chairs  to  serve  in  the  theat- 
ric spectacle  of  a  Legislative  in- 
vestigation. Honorable  men,  and 
men  by  courtesy  called  citizens  of 
a  free  republic,  are  haled  before  in- 
quisatorial  committees,  and,  by 
threats  of  imprisonment,  made  to 
answer  questions,  which,  a  few 
years  ago,  it  might  have  cost  the 
inquisitor  a  black  eye  to  ask. 

Are  we  deriving  any  benefit  from 
these  unseemly  exhibitions?  On 
the  contrary  we  are  suffering  great 
injury.  We  suffer  in  the  first  place 
in  the  loss  of  self-respect,  a  senti- 
ment worth  preserving  at  all  haz- 
ards. We  suffer,  also,  in  the  loss 
of  that  honorable  instinct  which  is 
above  both  deceit  and  the  suspicion 
of  deceit.  No  men  but  those  who 
wish  to  do  evil  are  prone  to  suspect 
evil.  But  the  heaviest  blow  is  de- 
livered at  our  material  interests. 
There  was  never  another  period  in 
the  history  of  the  country  when  the 
cry  of  depression  was  so  prolonged 
and  hopeless  as  it  has  been  during 
much  of  the  last  decade ;  and  never 
any  past  time  when  the  intervals 
of  prosperity,  breaking  through 
rifts  in  threatening  clouds,  were  so 
illusive  and  transient.  Irresolu- 
tion and  uncertainty  have  been  the 
chief  characteristics  of  the  market 
during  all  these  years;  and  the 
feeling  of  dissatisfaction  with  pre- 
vailing conditions  has  become  al- 
most universal. 

It  seems  to  be  the  fatality  with 


men  to  misconceive  both  their  evils 
and  the  remedy  that  should  be  ap- 
plied to  effect  a  cure.  To  say  noth- 
ing of  the  bloodshed,  privation,  and 
distress  caused  by  our  civil  war, 
one-half  the  material  resources  ex- 
pended and  destroyed  in  that  now 
fondly  remembered  struggle  would 
have  bought  the  freedom  of  every 
slave  in  the  country,  and  provided 
him  with  the  means  of  starting 
auspiciously  on  his  career  as  a 
freedman.  Is  there  not  something 
startlingly  suggestive  of  current 
blunders  and  follies  in  this  illus- 
tration ?  Men  who,  by  courtesy, 
are  called  statesmen  are  engaged  in 
feeding  the  passions  which  it  is 
their  duty  to  allay.  If  they  find 
an  uninstructed  mob,  numerous 
enough  to  give  promise  of  honors 
and  emoluments  for  all  who  secure 
its  applause,  moving  in  the  wrong 
direction  they  are  ready  to  place 
themselves  at  its  head  and  become 
the  champions  of  its  errors. 

It  would  be  idle  to  say  that  this 
is  not  the  spirit  in  which  the  mis- 
conceptions of  the  age  should  be 
met.  If  such  a  course  can  be  pur- 
sued without  final  disaster  it  will  be 
because  Providence  is  a  more  pow- 
erful factor  in  human  government 
than  either  the  wisdom  or  honesty 
of  men.  The  object  at  this  time 
should  be  to  discover  and  make 
evident  the  true  line  of  conduct  to 
be  followed.  It  may  be  asked,  and 
the  inquiry  would  be  pertinent,  if 
it  is  the  intention  to  charge  the 
prevalent  evils  against  those  who 
think  themselves  peculiarly 
oppressed  by  the  unfortunate  com- 
plications  that  surround  soci- 
ety. No,  this  is  not  the  intention. 
It  is  the  intention  only  to  charge 
these  evils  against  an  undeveloped 
system;  but  the  truth  should  be  U,ld 
no  matter  how  much  it  reflects  on 
men  who  think  they  have  right  to 
go  through  the  world  without  con- 
tributing to  the  resources  from 
which  they  draw  their  subsistence, 
and  then  a  further  right  to  com- 


400 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


plain  of  the  hardships  which  their 
dependent  condition  entails.  They 
have  the  right  to  do  neither  the  i 
one  nor  the  other.  They  have  j 
only  the  right  to  study  economic j 
laws  more  closely,  and  to  see  if  they 
cannot  find,  through  the  seemingly 
mysterious  labyrinth  of  finance,  a 
road  that  will  lead  them  to  ground 
of  greater  security.  They  are  poor 
not  because  they  have  been  kept 
poor  by  an  oppressive  social  order. 
They  are  poor  to  the  point  of  help- 
lessness because  they  have  failed  to 
take  advantage  of  laws  that  can  be 
made  ample  for  their  protection. 
Granted  that  the  world  must  have 
its  producers,  and  that  all  men  can- 
not enter  the  market  to  buy  and  to  sell 
and  to  become  tradesmen,  the  only 
field  where  great  opulence  can  be 
won.  It  does  not  follow,  therefore, 
that  the  men  who  are  withdrawn 
from  the  market,  either  from  choice 
or  necessity,  have  no  alternative  but 
dependence.  We  may  lay  this  truth 
to  heart,  and  the  sooner  it  is  univer- 
sally recognized  the  better.  Were 
society  to  last  as  long  as  the  innu- 
merable cycles  that  have  come  and 
gone  since  the  beginning  of  the 
Archaic  age,  and  were  nineteen- 
twentieths  of  its  members  to  de- 
pend upon  the  resources  of  the 
other  twentieth  for  the  means  of 
subsistence,  the  relative  condition 
of  the  different  social  grades  would 
not  be  materially  changed.  The 
humbler  grades  might  rise.  They 
might  advance  in  education,  in  in- 
telligence, and  even  in  the  posses- 
sion of  means  for  securing  their 
material  comfort.  But  they  would 
rise  at  the  same  time  to  a  clearer 
perception  of  the  immeasurable 
distance  that  separated  them  from 
their  .leaders.  They  would  rise, 
also,  to  a  keener  feeling  of  discon- 
tent, always  inflamed  by  the  spec- 
tacle of  social  contrasts.  During 
the  last  fifty  years  we  have  been 
witnessing  this  kind  of  an  advance, 
followed  by  just  these  manifesta- 
tions. It  has  been  an  advance  in 


which  the  rear  has  failed  to  clos* 
up  any  part  of  the  distance  which 
separated  it  from  the  van  ;  and  the 
improvement  is  neither  appreciated 
nor  recognized.  It  only  intensifies 
the  feeling  of  unrest.  Hence  tin- 
prevalent  disorder,  and  the  neces- 
sity for  plain  talk  on  questions  ol 
cause  and  effect. 


CHAPTEB  V. 

THE  EVOLUTION  OF  FINANCE. 

THE  question  to  follow  will  come 
naturally.  In  deference  to  the 
overwhelming  testimony  of  statis- 
tics, strengthened  by  observation 
and  experience,  all  that  has  been 
claimed  n>ay  be  admitted.  It  may 
be  confessed  that  the  evils  from 
which  men  suffer  are  not  due  to  the 
unequal  distribution  of  wealth  or 
profits ;  that  the  world  is  poor ; 
that  men  are  driven  to  innumera- 
ble expedients  to  find  the  means  for 
making  the  improvements  necessary 
for  their  comfort  and  convenience, 
and  that  the  masses  are  content  to 
live  without  putting  fort  h  any  strong 
personal  effort  towards  contribut- 
ing to  the  total  of  either  accumula- 
ted resources  or  capital.  But  it 
will  be  asked  in  what  possible  way 
the  situation  is  to  be  amended.  If 
it  be  true,  after  all  these  centuries 
of  effort,  that  society,  in  its  material 
environment,  has  only  succeeded  in 
advancing  beyond  the  lines  of  bar- 
barism, how  is  it  to  receive  an  im- 
pulse that  will  carry  it  rapidly  for- 
ward in  the  work  of  accumulation  * 
If  it  be  also  true  that  the  great 
mass  of  men  are  satisfied  to  remain 
inert  and  dependent  how  are  we  l<» 
cause  the  leopard  to  change  his 
skin,  and  to  put  on  some  less  tra- 
ditional fashion  of  covering?  These 
questions  are  pertinent;  and  at  the 
first  blush  the  outlook  is  not  encour- 
aging. It  seems  as  though  we  would 
be  compelled  to  allow  men  to  go 


1 1 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


401 


blundering  through  quagmires, 
sometimes  sinking  into  the  oozing 
slime  until  they  are  almost  stran- 
gled and  lost,  and  anon  finding  a 
foothold  which  suffers  them  to 
stand  temporarily  erect  and  gather 
breath  for  a  new  wrestle  with  their 
obstructions.  But  the  world  is 
growing.  Even  if  it  has  not  yet 
become  very  rich  and  independent, 
it  is  rapidly  beginning  to  accept  and 
apply  principles  which  will  finally 
prove  strong  enough  to  overcome 
the  evils  caused  by  its  inertia,  and 
the  neglect  of  beneficent  laws.  It  is 
entering  upon  the  right  road,  and 
has  even  advanced  further  than 
most  persons  in  their  blindness  are 
able  to  discover.  Men  are  quick  to 
learn  from  their  necessities,  if  not 
from  their  innate  sense  of  what  is 
theoretically  sound. 

The  most  phenomenal  and  signifi- 
cant incident  in  the  growth  of  mod- 
ern civilization  is  the  evolution  of 
institutions  designed  to  promote  the 
efficiency  of  personal  effort,  to 
strengthen  the  weakness  of  individ- 
ual methods,  to  combine  dispersed 
and  antagonistic  forces  under  a 
definite  head,  and  even  to  give  to 
benevolence  a  material  body  and 
vital  functions.  Since  the  institu- 
tion of  the  Bank  of  England,  in 
1694,  probably  the  initial  associa- 
tion of  bankers  unless  the  Bank  of 
Venice  may  be  called  an  exception, 
the  progress  of  financial  organiza- 
tion has  been  continuous  and  rapid. 
The  seed  of  a  new  system  was 
planted  in  rich  soil,  and,  in  England 
and  the  United  States  most  notice- 
ably, it  is  proved  to  have  been  of 
immense  vitality.  A  vigorous  trunk 
of  almost  redundant  growth  has 
been  prolonged  into  branches  and 
groups  of  branches  which  have  in 
tarn  become  strong  and  capable  of 
bearing  most  excellent  fruit.  Even 
before  the  incorporation  of  the 
Bank  of  England  there  was  organi- 
zation. There  were  the  guilds,  dat- 
ing back  to  the  reign  of  Edward 
UL  j  and  some  writers  trace  the  sys- 


tem of  incorporation  into  Grecian 
and  Eoman  history.  The  deter- 
mined virtuoso  of  modern  antiqui- 
ties might  even  insist  on  finding 
the  chief  stem  from  which  grew  the 
prevailing  system  of  co-operative 
finance  in  the  East  India  Company, 
incorporated,  in  1600,  by  Queen 
Elizabeth.  But  this  company  was 
a  mere  trading  organization,  and  it 
is  to  the  banking  system  that  we 
must  look  when  we  wish  to  discover 
what  is  most  hopeful  in  the  growth 
of  association.  Industrial  compa- 
nies, trading  companies,  and  com- 
panies for  the  transportation  and 
distribution  of  merchandise  have 
been  of  incalculable  service.  They 
are  both  strong  and  enterprising, 
and  working  hand  in  hand  with 
each  other  they  push  out  into  new 
fields,  and  carry  the  arts  and  wants 
of  civilization  over  comparatively 
unexplored  territory.  It  is  chiefly 
the  work  of  these  companies  that 
has  compressed  continents  into 
States,  and  robbed  the  ocean  of  that 
illimitable  surface  which  once 
caused  it  to  be  held  as  a  symbol  of 
eternity.  But  they  displace  as  well 
as  occupy  in  their  domestic  field  of 
operations,  thus  serving  to  diminish 
the  benefits  that  might  be  expected 
to  flow  from  their  great  resources, 
and,  unlike  the  banks,  they  do  not 
enfold  within  the  principles  of  their 
being  a  germ  which  may  be  culti- 
,  vated  to  cover  the  whole  earth 
I  with  an  abundant  and  general  har- 
I  vest.  We  must  find  in  the  banking 
•  system  and  its  auxiliary  forces  the 
[true  impulse  and  key  to  material 
progress. 

This  may  be  thought  extravagant 
praise  for  a  system    that    seems  to 
I  have  become  thoroughly  common- 
|  place,  and  to  be  suggestive  of  only 
I  sordid  purposes  and  ideas.    But  it 
1  will  be  found  that  the  encomium  is 
merited.     The   banks   are  teaching 
men  the  real  significance  of  inter- 
est, the  final  author,  gauge,    and 
regulator    of   all    wealth,   though 
once  thought    to    have    been     1 


402 


BEACOX  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


wicked  invention  of  the  totaLy 
depraved  and  despised  Jew.  In 
this  service  they  are  rapidly  beoom 
ing  recognized  as  the  fountain  of 
all  the  streams  that  flow  forth  and 
fructify  the  world ;  and  the  dull 
economic  ritual  that  mistook  the 
substance  for  the  soul,  and  found 
wealth  in  perishable  prediction, 
must  be  recast  ab  the  feet  :>f  this 
highly  enlightened  teacher.  But 
the  banking  system  is  great  not 
alone  because  it  gives  practical  ap- 
plication to  a  true  economic  princi- 
ple, but  because  it  makes  the  ap- 
plication in  conformity  with  a  pop- 
ular need.  Before  the  advent  of 
banking  associations  there  were 
bankers ;  and  again  the  good  germ 
must  be  sought  among  the  non- 
electrical and  uni  nominated  an- 
cients. But  when  found  it  is  seen 
to  have  been  only  a  germ.  It  could 
shoot  upward  and  jlossom  into  a 
tree,  with  branches  broad  enough 
and  sturdy  enough  to  offer  almost 
unlimited  shelter,  only  in  the  form  of 
co-operative  banking.  In  any  other 
form  it  would  not  have  proved  strong 
enough  to  illustrate  its  own  possi- 
bilities, nor  to  sustain  the  canopy 
which  it  has  been  appointed  to  up- 
hold. The  tanking  system  has 
matured,  if  not  perfected,  a  new 
science  of  finance;  and  herein  lies 
the  chief  element  of  progress.  Men 
are  beginning  to  find  that  wealth 
need  not  consist  solely  in  objective 
forms,  in  gold  and  silver,  in  lands, 
castles,  equipage,  and  cattle.  They 
are  learning  to  see  that  an  acknowl- 
edged exchange  of  service  may  be 
made  to  bring  the  substance  of 
wealth  more  imperishable  even,  and 
more  capable  of  transmission,  than 
fine  gold.  Our  banking  system, 
though  not  yet  upon  the  highest 
plane  of  development,  is  already  an 
agency  to  double  and  quadruple 
the  resources  of  capital.  As  we 
proceed  it  will  be  seen  that,  modi- 
fied, it  may  be  made  to  increase 
those  resources  almost  infinitive! y. 
But  the  utility  of  the  banking 


system  in  the  course  -^  its  mtnre 
development  will  not  be  found 
so  much  in  the  main  stem  as  in  the 
combination  formed  between  the 
main  stem  and  its  connecting 
branches.  Its  first  and  strongest 
branch  is  insurance.  This  was 
an  offset  of  wonderful  vigor,  finan- 
cial in  its  features,  but  benevolent' 
in  its  functions  and  fruit,  and  fui 
of  promise  for  the  future  of  society 
Its  merits  as  a  protector  have  beer 
sufficiently  extolled  in  circulars 
and  it  will  not  be  worth  while  tc 
amplify  on  this  feature  of  the  sys- 
tem. It  will  not  be  necessary  tx) 
engage  in  a  superfluous  effort  at 
illustrating  what  insurance  can  do 
at  the  portals  of  the  grave.  Wtf 
all  know  its  beneficence,  when  it 
offers  to  be  only  just.  But  we 
must  deal  with  insurance  as  an 
economic  force.  It  must  be  treated 
here  simply  as  an  agent,  a  benefi- 
cent agent  if  you  will,  for  the  ac- 
cumulation and  transmission  of 
property.  There  is  no  wealth  in 
objective  production.  The  dream 
of  riches  from  this  source  must  be 
dismissed  like  other  superstitions 
that  have  led  the  world  astray. 
But  there  is  wealth  in  the  super 
structures  of  finance  that  rest  upoi? 
a  foundation  of  production  ano 
among  all  that  have  been  rearer 
there  is  no  edifice  so  fair  as  the 
temple  erected  by  the  architects 
of  insurance.  The  gleam  of  its 
polished  marble  shines  along  the 
future  like  emeralds  and  precious 
stones,  and  the  whole  atmosphere 
is  made  luminous  in  its  glow. 
Like  the  banking  system,  insur- 
ance has  not  yet  reached  its  full 
development.  It  can  never  reach 
the  final  measure  of  its  utility  until 
certain  perfected  forms  of  associa- 
tion are  prepared;  but  in  its  poten- 
tial ^esources  it  is  able  to  makt 
even  the  figure  of  charity,  how- 
ever highly  exalted  in  our  ethical 
code,  look  pale  and  faded.  Kay,  it 
can  finally  convince  her  that  she 
was  never  more  than  a  name  signi- 


UL  '1  7  M  +il  L 


A  A  c'L. 


403 


fying  nothing,  a  piece  of  sounding 
brass  or  a  tinkling  cymbal.  We 
have  no  desire  to  disparage  benevo- 
lence. It  has  served,  and  is  still 
serving,  a  good  purpose  in  the 
world  ;  and  our  benevolent  socie- 
ties, offsets,  also,  from  the  banking 
system  only  one  branch  removed, 
have  been  adding  materially  to  the 
philosophy  which  is  receiving  an 
institutional  embodiment.  They 
are  sometimes  founded  on  a  too 
charitable  idea,  and  are  conducted 
with  an  imperfect  conception  of  the 
resources  of  finance.  They  need 
often  a  stronger  or  more  liberal 
transfusion  of  business  with  benev- 
olence. But  they  have  been  help- 
ing to  pave  the  way  for  the  advent 
of  a  better  system,  and,  in  memo- 
riam,  will  eventually  be  entitled 
to  a  tablet  in  the  temple  to  be 
erected  in  celebration  of  some  of 
the  apotheosized  but  retired  cardi- 
nal virtues.  These  virtues  have 
served  us  well;  but  the  reign  of 
charity  and  benevolence  approaches 
its  end.  In  the  banking  system 
alone  there  is  a  golden  hope  of  frui- 
tion ;  but  when  its  resources  are 
combined  with  the  resources  of  its 
connecting  limb  the  two  together 
may  be  made  to  seem  almost  like 
the  harbinger  of  that  mystical 
.thousand  years  projected  into  the 
future  of  mankind  from  the  Apoc- 
alypse. The  fulfillment  of  the 
prophecy  need  not  be  long  delayed. 
Even  the  children  of  the  present 
generation,  the  parents  of  the  next, 
may  step  forth  completely  enfran- 
chised from  the  shackles  in  which 
poverty  has  so  long  bound  the  race, 
and  find  the  liberty  which  is  now 
thought  the  privilege  of  only  the 
fortunate  few,  but  which  in  reality 
is  the  boon  of  none.  The  anticipa- 
tion may  seem  rose  colored,  but  it 
is  justified.-  Men  will  have  only 
themselves  to  blame  if  they  do  not 
so  improve  their  opportunities  that 
charity,  benevolence  and  all  cor- 


responding terms  must  lose  their 
material  application,  and  give 
place  to  words  of  less  humiliating 
significance. 

Is  there  not  good  reason  to  be 
hopeful  ?  All  the  favorable  condi- 
tions for  an  immense  stride  have 
been  developing  around  us  for  many 
years  ;  and  as  a  fresh  ground  for 
hope  we  may  point  to  the  evidence 
that  the  consuming  masses,  to  whose 
inactivity  has  been  charged  the 
slow  progress  made,  are  awakening 
from  the  lethargy  in  which  they 
have  been  so  long  bound.  The 
manifest  growth  of  their  discontent 
is  not  a  circumstance  to  be  regret- 
ted. On  the  contrary,  it  is  a  mani- 
festation to  be  welcomed,  and  it  is 
only  the  duty  of  those  who  hold 
the  position  of  guides  and  leaders 
to  see  that  the  spirit  of  discontent 
does  not  lead  to  excesses  that  may 
retard  rather  than  advance  the  gen- 
eral movement  towards  higher 
ground.  The  masses  still  remain 
impracticable  in  their  plans.  They 
are  always  ready  to  follow  leaders 
who  have  no  conception  of  social 
evolution,  and  who  stand  ready  to 
remedy  all  the  evils  that  spring 
from  lack  of  development  by  a 
treatment  of  either  concentrated  or 
reduced  dynamite.  But  they  are 
beginning  to  see  the  disadvantage 
of  living  without  capital  or  secu- 
rity; and  though  their  dissatisfac- 
tion has  not  yet  led  to  any  more 
practical  action  than  combination 
for  the  purpose  of  maintaining 
wages  it  is  drawing  them  over 
ground  which  cannot  be  occupied 
without  causing  their  ideas  to  take 
form  in  some  more  tangible  concep- 
tion than  they  have  yet  embodied. 
When  men  co-operate  for  the  main- 
tenance of  wages  they  are  playing 
with  a  toy  of  which  they  will 
finally  become  weary.  But  they  will 
acquire  habits  of  co-operation 
which  will  eventually  be  turned 
into  more  productive  channels. 


404 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


CHAPTEE  VL 

EYEBT     MAtf     HIS     OWN      HOUSE- 
HOLDEB. 

WHEREVER  possible  the  skillful 
general  advances  to  his  attack  under 
cover.    Such  a  course  is  prudent ; 
and  it  helps  to  confound  the  enemy. 
But  if  the  line  of  advance  up  to 
this  point  has  seemed  obscure  the 
obscurity  must  be  charged  to   no 
strategic  purpose.  There  were  hills 
to  be  captured,  hollows  to  be  occu- 
pied, and  points  of  vantage  to  be 
surveyed.     But  the  reader,  it  is  to 
be  presumed,  is  becoming  solicitous 
to  know  more  definitely  the  pur- 
pose of  all  this  preliminary  skir- 
mishing.    He  may  not  have  quite 
seen  the    objective  point   of   the 
maneuvers.     That  the  world  lacks 
capital  may  be  admitted  ;  that  idle- 
ness and  distress  may  spring  from 
its  want  will  be  readily  seen ;  that 
even  financial  depression,    panics, 
and  bankruptcies    are    the  direct 
consequences  of  this  lack,  however 
wisely  men  may  reason  on  human 
incapacity  and   frailties,  is  hardly 
to  be  denied,  and  there  is  a  great 
deal  that  must  be  accepted  for  truth 
in  all  that  has  been    stated   and 
claimed.     But    how    the    general 
stock  of  capital  is  to  be  increased 
by  depending  on  men  who  have  no 
capital,  and  not  much  expectation 
of   capital,  except   in  the  narrow 
sense  of  mental  or  manual  accom- 
plishments, may  not  be  so  readily 
comprehended.    The  dependence  is 
reasonable  nevertheless;  and  it  will 
be  the  next  object  in  the  discussion 
to  show  why  it  is  reasonable. 

It  happens  that  the  men  who 
have  least  capital,  as  capital  is  com- 
prehended, receive,  in  the  mass, 
much  the  larger  proportion  of  the 
total  of  income.  Potentially,  there- 
fore, they  have  incalculable  power 
to  maintain  capital.  It  would  be 
almost  perilous  to  give  the  total  in- 
come of  employees  in  the  United 


States.  It  cannot  bt,  accurately 
riven  on  any  census  data  to  be  ob- 
tained ;  and  even  a  reasonable  esti- 
mate, if  offered  without  exact  data, 
might  seem  so  extravagant  that  it 
would  almost  weaken  the  argument. 
We  know  that  the  amount  rises 
many  billions  of  dollars  each 
year,  and  forms  nearly  ninety  per 
cent,  of  the  income  of  all  the  people 
ombined.  But  in  offering  illustra- 
tions on  the  resources  of  employees 
it  will  not  be  necessary  to  consider 
totals.  It  will  be  better,  indeed,  to 
investigate  the  subject  in  its  de- 
tails, and  make  a  local  application 
of  every  instance.  Every  employer 
who  employs  a  large  number  of 
workmen  is  conscious  of  their  capa- 
bilities. Could  he  only  retain  ten 
per  cent,  of  their  earnings  on  each 
Saturday  night,  and  use  it  in  ac- 
cordance with  his  knowledge  of  fi- 
nancial expedients,  he  knows  that 
he  could  soon  duplicate  hisfortune, 
vastly  enlarge  his  field  of  opera 
tions,  and  employ  two  workmen 
where  he  now  employs  only  one. 

It  may  be  objected  that  employ- 
ees have  not  the  means  of  turning 
any  portion  of  their  income  into 
capital.  It  is  commonly  believed, 
among  workmen  themselves  at 
least,  that  the  great  body  of  em- 
ployees are  too  poor  to  spare  even 
a  trifle  from  their  receipts  for  any 
other  purpose  than  to  meet  the 
necessary  expenditures  for  their 
subsistence,  and  the  subsistence  of 
their  families.  It  might  be  ob- 
jected, further,  that,  even  were  it 
possible  to  save,  employees  have  no 
better  place  of  deposit  than  savings 
banks;  and  that,  these  banks, 
though  institutions  of  great  utility 
to  small  tradesmen  who  are  only 
holding  their  money  until  they  can 
find  a  good  place  for  its  in  vestment, 
fail  of  meeting  the  chief  want  of 
the  man  who  is  not  a  tradesman, 
and  needs  an  opportunity  to  make 
his  savings  fruitful.  The  word 
savings  has  little  significance  as  an 
economic  term  except  when  made 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


405 


to  represent  some  form  of  capitali- 
zation devised  for  the  benefit  of 
the  person  from  whose  economies 
it  results.  These  are  objections, 
we  say,  which  might  be  raised. 
But  the  first  objection  will  be  con- 
tradicted by  the  experience  of  al- 
most every  employee  who  will  take 
the  trouble  to  watch  his  expendi- 
tures closely,  and  observe  the  waste 
that  flows  continually  from  his 
hand.  Even  under  prevailing  con- 
ditions, almost  every  man  wastes 
money.  As  for  the  second  objec- 
tion, the  ground  for  its  validity 
could  be  easily  removed.  The  only 
reason  why  employees  do  not  save 
a  very  considerable  part  of  their 
income  is  to  be  found  in  the  want 
of  a  well  organized  system  that 
will  enable  them  to  carry  the  prin- 
cipal which  their  economies  can  be 
made  to  represent.  Give  them  the 
means  of  escaping  the  payment  of 
onerous  expenses  by  diverting  their 
savings  to  the  work  of  maintaining 
personal  resources  and  we  will  soon 
find  how  quickly  they  will  avail 
themselves  of  the  opportunity. 
Only  show  them  that  the  assump- 
tion of  obligations  in  one  direction 
can  be  made  the  measure,  and  more 
than  the  measure,  of  relief  obtained 
in  other  directions,  and  that  the 
net  results  will  be  greater  security 
for  themselves  and  families,  and 
we  would  soon  find  little  occasion 
to  speak  of  their  improvidence  and 
want  of  foresight. 

Let  us  descend  to  particulars  and 
apply  this  reasoning  where  it  will 
be  most  readily  understood.  The 
payment  of  rent  is  felt  to  be  the 
most  onerous  obligation  that  rests 
upon  the  shoulders  of  the  poor. 
NText  to  a  short  supply  of  coal,  the 
playwright  finds  in  the  necessity 
I'or  rent  paying  the  material  for  his 
most  pathetic  and  melodramatic 
situations.  The  novelist  has  ex- 
hausted his  invention  in  portmy- 
ing  the  wretchedness  and  sufferings 
of  the  tenant ;  and  the  orator  of 
reform  is  never  quite  so  felicitous 


as  when  he  can  flavor  his  eloquence 
from  the  sewers  of  the  tenement 
houses,  and  cause  to  float  before 
the  vision  of  his  audience  the  gaunt 
spectres  of  misery  which,  from  that 
atmosphere,  are  readily  invoked. 
Even  the  political  economist,  who, 
if  a  true  economist,  is  usually  hard 
headed  and  implacable,  has  been 
known  to  shudder  as  he  contem- 
plated the  law  that  seemed  to  make 
r<  nt  paying  inevitable,  and  to  find 
in  its  barren,  oppressive  features 
not  only  a  justification,  but  a  cause 
of  commendation,  for  the  doctrine 
of  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  It  is 
not  wonderful  that  the  subject 
should  be  found  so  perplexing.  It 
seems  exceedingly  unjust  that  a 
man  should  be  compelled,  year 
after  year  from  youth  to  old  age,  to 
pay  heavily  for  the  mere  space 
which  he  occupies  in  the  world, 
and  to  finally  die  and  be  able  to 
transmit  no  title  that  can  prevent 
the  dispossession  of  his  family.  But 
it  is  not  unjust.  It  is  only  exceed- 
ingly foolish  ;  and  if  any  man  can 
follow  the  illustration  by  which 
the  fatuity  of  rent  paying  can  be  ex- 
posed without  confessing  that  there 
is  still  a  great  want  of  practical 
common  sense  in  the  administra- 
tion of  human  affairs  he  must  be  a 
slave  to  economic  superstitions. 

Every  dollar  paid  for  rent  from 
the  hands  of  an  employee  is  a  dol- 
lar wasted  ;  and  the  withholding  of 
the  dollar,  through  legitimate  finan- 
cial expedients,  would  cause  no 
loss  to  the  landlord  to  whom  the 
payment  is  made.  This  may  sound 
like  an  incomprehensible  declara- 
tion ;  but  let  us  see  if  it  be  not 
true.  Here  is  a  five-story  double 
flat  house,  built  on  one  of  the  most 
eligible  and  central  streets  of  our 
commercial  metropolis,  at  a  cost, 
including  the  cost  of  land,  of  $20,- 
000.  In  its  interior  decorations  it 
contains  tiled  corriders,  marble,  or 
what  means  equal  elegance,  marbled 
slate  mantels  ;  and  all  the  ornamen- 
tation is  tasteful,  and  suggestive  of 


19 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


refinement.  It  shelters  ten  fam- 
ilies ;  and  the  heads  of  these  fam- 
ilies pay,  annually,  an  average  in 
rental  of  $230.  This  makes  the 
cost  for  each  family  only  about 
$4.50  a  week,  and  places  the  suites 
of  rooms  within  the  reach  of  very 
limited  means.  From  the  total  of 
his  rental  the  landlord  pays  taxes, 
fire  insurance,  and  the  cost  of  re- 
pairs; and  after  suffering  the  losses 
caused  by  vacant  premises  and  bad 
tenants  he  thinks  himself  fortunate 
if  he  realizes  six  per  cent,  on  his 
property.  He  will  not  often  realize 
more  than  five  per  cent,  on  first 
cost,  for  landlords  are  often  com- 
pelled to  share  with  tenants  the 
losses  caused  by  sickness  or  want 
of  employment.  The  entire  rental, 
it  will  be  seen,  is  $2300  a  year,  and 
the  amount  seems  pretty  large. 
But  the  interest  on  the  property  at 
six  per  cent.,  together  with  the  fire 
insurance,  and,  in  any  city  not  suf- 
fering from  extravagant  adminis- 
tration, the  taxes,  will  not  amount 
to  more  than  $1800  a  year.  Divide 
the  obligation  for  the  payment  of 
this  amount  among  the  ten  tenants, 
then,  and  the  total  would  only  be 
$180  due  from  each  person.  This 
sum,  it  will  be  seen,  leaves  a  margin 
of  nearly  $50  between  the  amount 
which  each  tenant  is  now  paying 
for  rent  arid  the  reduced  amount  to 
be  paid  were  he  his  own  house- 
holder. Then  why  should  not  the 
tenants  pay  the  interest,  taxes,  in- 
surance, and  all  costs,  giving  their 
bonds  to  the  landlord  in  exchange 
for  the  title  to  the  property,  and 
save  the  remainder?  This  seems 
like  a  reasonable  arrangement. 

But  here  enters  the  lion  in  the 
way.  These  ten  tenants  are  poor, 
and  they  could  give  no  security  for 
the  redemption  of  their  bonds. 
Were  the  landlord  to  transfer  the 
title  to  their  possession,  subject  to 
the  payment  of  the  interest  on  the 
share  held  by  each  person,  he  might 
get  this  interest  while  they  lived  ; 
but  after  their  death  he  or  his  heirs 


would  be  compelled  to  take  back 
the  property,  possibly  in  a  very 
dilapidated  condition.  No  one 
would  have  been  greatly  the  gainer; 
and  the  landlord  might  have  lost 
chances  for  profit  through  a  possi- 
ble sale  of  the  premises.  On  this 
basis,  therefore,  it  will  be  decided 
that  the  arrangement  would  not  be 
worth  while.  But  it  will  be  re- 
membered that  there  was  a  margin 
of  $50  remaining  in  the  hands  of 
each  of  the  old  tenants  as  a  fruit  of 
the  rearrangement  and  transfer  of 
obligations.  Here,  then,  we  are 
standing  at  the  portals  of  the 
golden  gate,  and  can  cry  Eureka ! 
There  is  a  wonderful  power  in  fifty 
dollars  when  properly  invested.  It 
will  help  to  carry  a  life  insurance 
fund  from  which  the  heirs  of  the 
investor  will  be  entitled  to  about 
$3,300  in  money,  estimating  on  ac- 
tual risks  without  any  considera- 
tion of  insurance  company  expen- 
ses or  profits.  Then  why  should 
not  the  money  be  used  for  this  pur- 
pose ?  It  would  not  only  cover  the 
bond  for  $2000  given  by  each  ten- 
ant, and  secure  its  redemption,  but  it 
would  cover  an  additional  $1,300 
for  the  use  of  the  family  after  the 
head  of  the  household  has  gone 
where  the  real  estate  agent  will 
possibly  cease  from  troubling.  This 
seems  like  a  better  plan  than  to 
throw  away  $230  a  year  on  a  per- 
son who,  it  should  be  seen,  is  no 
gainer  by  the  sacrifice,  and  who, 
under  prevailing  methods,  is  often 
subject  to  considerable  trouble  and 
no  little  loss. 

But  the  lion  in  the  way  has  not 
been  thoroughly  bound.  The  plan 
suggested  might  be  pronounced 
theoretically  good  in  its  main  fea- 
tures, but  so  far  as  outlined  it  will 
seem  too  loose.  It  would  be  liable 
to  fail  for  causes  that  may  be  read- 
ily conceived.  It  presupposes  bet- 
ter faith  on  the  part  of  all  parties 
to  the  arrangement  than  we  are  in 
the  habit  of  conceding  to  fallible 
menj  and  the  contracting  parties 


80 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


407 


might  be  subjected  to  infinite  com- 
plications through  the  failure  of  one 
or  several  of  the  old  tenants  to 
meet  the  obligators  imposed. 
They  could  not  absolutely  make 
•way  with  the  property  either  by 
sab'  or  removal.  But  one  or  all 
migat  lapse  in  the  payments  due 
on  fire  insurance,  and  then  the 
house  could  be  burned  down  and 
become  a  partial  or  total  loss.  Or, 
thej"  could  fail  in  meeting  the  de- 
mands of  the  tax  collector,  and  the 
State  might  exercise  its  right  of  se- 
questration. Or,  the  life  insurance. 
pledge,  thus  far  too  vaguely  defined 
in  its  details,  might  not  be  main- 
tained, and  the  former  landlord 
might  be  forced  to  take  back  the 
shares  that  were  found  in  default 
instead  of  the  money  he  had  stipu- 
lated to  receive.  Either  one  or  all 
of  th^se  complications  would  be 
possible  unless  the  ground  were 
made  perfectly  secure,  and  their 
possibility  would  stand  in  the  way 
of  any  weak  or  partial  attempt 
to  escape  from  the  prevailing  sys- 
tem. It  would  magnify  the  lion 
in  the  way  until  he  became  more 
colossal  than  a  mastodon. 

But  when  we  wish  to  be  thorough 
no  weak  nor  partial  attempt  should 
be  made.  Given  an  amendment 
which  is  desirable  and  the  means 
for  reaching  it  should  be  made  ad- 
equate to  the  end.  If  the  idea  of  an 
improved  system  of  househohiing, 
to  be  followed  and  attended  by  an 
improved  and  less  oppressive  sys- 
tem of  general  finance,  appeals 
favorably  to  the  judgment  it  should 
be  pursued  at  whatever  sacrifice  of 
traditional  notions  or  predilections. 
The  road  to  reach  it  in  this  case 
should  be  found  neither  difficult 
nor  obscure.  It  lies  along  the  path- 
way which  the  more  advanced  and 
successful  members  of  society  have 
been  long  following,  and  in  which 
they  are  well  advanced.  There  is 
not  a  principle  to  be  considered 
which  d<<es  not  lie  at  the  founda- 
tion of  systems  already  operative 


and  successful.  But  the  necessity 
is  far  more  highly  perfected  and 
general  organization  than  finance 
has  yet  essayed.  All  that  has  been 
done,  magnificent  as  are  the  total 
results,  is  but  a  prophecy  of  the 
work  yet  to  be  accomplished. 

Shall  we  descend  to  details!  Un- 
happily, the  world  has  but  recently 
awakened,  or,  to  describe  its  condi- 
tion more  accurately,  it  is  only  just 
awakening  from  the  fevered,  rest- 
less slumber  of  centuries,  and  its 
eyes  are  not  yet  quite  open.  It  is 
no  more  than  half  conscious  of  the 
morning.  It  fails  to  observe  the 
glory  of  the  sunrise,  the  softness 
of  the  air,  the  beauty  of  the  ver- 
dure, and  the  odor  of  fresh  flowers. 
It  has  been  sleeping  a  fitful,  disor- 
dered sleep,  and  dreaming  of  bur- 
glars. It  thoroughly  oelieves  in 
burglars,  notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  the  belief  does  violence  to  its 
own  instincts,  and  it  suspects  a  r<l>- 
her  behind  every  bush.  It  l.as 
been  toiling,  too,  even  while  ii 
slept,  working  in  si, anil. ks;  aiid 
the  scent  of  the  ofial  h;is  not  yet 
disappeared  frrm  its  coi.ception  of 
sweet  odors.  Will  it  be  possible  to 
speak  to  an  intelligence  so  be- 
clouded in  language  that  will  be 
understood?  Can  we,  with  any 
chance  of  receiving  credit,  say  to  a 
man  who  thinks  himself  upon  the 
point  f  having  his  pocket  picked 
that  the  thief  is  only  a  figment  of 
his  own  imagination  which  will  be 
dissolved  as  soon  as  he  walks  forth 
into  the  reviving  air?  Will  the 
man  who  believes  that  his  fellows 
were  born  to  prey  npon  each  other 
accept  a  philosophy  which  teaches 
that  they  were  born  to  co-operate 
with  each  other,  and  that  it  is  only 
the  conditions  on  which  personal 
success  is  won  that  cause  them  to 
seem  cruel,  rapacious,  selfish,  and 
full  of  duplicity  and  cunning?  It 
is  a  bold  venture  to  undertake  to 
unveil  a  possible  future  to  men 
with  perceptions  so  perverted.  But 
the  experiment  must  be  tried;  and 


21 


408 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


according  to  its  success  or  failure 
must  we  hold  to  the  opinion  that 
the  world  is  either  ready  for  its  new 
environment,  and  is  prepared  to  go 
cheerfully  forward  in  the  light  that 
is  blazing  upon  every  hand,  or  that 
it  is  only  seeking  the  shadows  of 
the  old  castles  and  dungeons,  where 
it  so  long  reposed,  in  order  that  it 
may  lie  down  again  and  sleep  for- 
ever. 

Let  us  conceive,  then,  of  compa- 
nies numbering  ten,  fifteen,  or 
twenty  thousand  men,  the  more  the 
better  until  the  safe  limits  of  local- 
ized administration  are  reached. 
Let  us  further  conceive  these  com- 
panies to  be  organized  with  admin- 
istrative boards,  after  the  manner 
of  those  associations  of  supposed 
highwaymen  who  have  taken  pos- 
session of  cfie  avenues  of  transpor- 
tation throughout  the  country,  or 
of  those  other  Eobin  Hoods  of  the 
green  baize  who  sit  in  the  execu- 
tive rooms  of  banks,  trust  compa- 
nies, insurance  companies,  and  like 
organizations.  The  new  companies 
should  be  organized  after  the  man- 
ner of  the  old  companies,  first,  be- 
cause it  is  the  best  form  of  admin- 
istrative organization  to  be  con- 
ceived, and,  secondly,  because  they 
will  have  corresponding  functions 
and  duties.  The  new  system  will 
comprehend  some  of  the  principles 
of  banking,  and  put  in  operation, 
with  new  machinery  and  a  new  and 
more  comprehensive  purpose,  all 
the  functions  of  insurance.  The 
companies,  therefore,  should  have 
a  thoroughly  executive  organiza- 
tion. 

The  administrative  functions  of 
these  new  combinations  may  be 
soon  outlined.  They  will  have 
power  to  issue  and  maintain  bonds 
founded  on  a  reserved  proportion 
of  the  incume  of  members,  and  will 
assume  all  responsibility  for  the 
payment  of  the  interest  on  these 
bonds.  They  will  also  have  power 
to  maintain  an  insurance  fund, 
•qual  to  the  total  amount  of  the  ob- 


ligations thus  floated,  and  this  fund 
will  be  held  for  the  redemption  of 
the  bonds  as  fast  as  the  death  of 
members  cuts  off  the  source  of  in- 
terest. These  are  the  hief  provi- 
sions. But  the  responsibility  of 
the  company  will  not  be  limited  to 
the  discharge  of  its  obligation  to 
the  bondholders.  It  will  have  du- 
ties to  perform  in  behalf  of  its  own 
members.  It  will  stand  behind 
them  in  all  their  investments;  and 
see  further  that  sickness,  or  mis- 
fortune of  any  kind,  does  not  ren- 
der the  obligation  to  pay  the  in- 
terest on  the  bonds  oppressive. 

This  gives  the  main  features  of 
the  kind  of  organization  needed  to 
enable  employees  to  become  con- 
tributors to  the  capital  in  use,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  come  into  the 
possession  of  property  which  may 
be  transmitted  unincumbered  to 
their  families.  Were  it  not  for  one 
reason  all  further  details  could  be 
left  to  the  invention  of  the  reader. 
But  this  reason  is  peculiar.  It  is 
necessary  to  be  very  explicit  in 
dealing  with  a  generation  that, 
without  any  intention  of  perpetra- 
ting a  jest,  can  organize  a  company 
for  insuring  bank  depositors  against 
loss.  It  will  be  well,  therefore,  to 
go  a  little  further  into  details 
so  that  there  may  be  no  chance  for 
mistaking  the  true  character  of  the 
organization  proposed. 

The  plan,  then,  must  contemplate 
not  the  subjection  but  the  greater 
independence  of  the  individual. 
The  bonds  issued  by  these  compan- 
ies must  not  be  company  bonds. 
They  must  be  issued  in  the  name 
of  the  company,  and  find  their 
chief  element  of  strength  in  its  en- 
dorsement ;  but  they  must  be  per- 
sonal bonds  bearing  the  name  of  in- 
dividual members,  and  must  be 
handled  as  personal  obligations, 
subject  only  to  such  regulations  as 
may  be  demanded  for  the  general 
security.  The  company  cannot  be 
allowed  to  control  the  member  in 
either  his  personal  possessions,  his 


22 


ULTIMATE   FINANCE. 


409 


movements,  or  his  conduct.  Neither 
can  it  be  allowed  to  maintain  any 
fund  that  can  be  diverted  into  the 
channels  of  corporate  speculation ; 
for  such  a  privilege  could  not  con- 
tribute to  individual  profit,  and 
would  prove  a  source  of  demoraliza- 
tion and  danger.  To  the  members, 
the  company  must  stand  only  in 
the  relation  of  an  endorser,  and 
find  its  own  security  for  the  en- 
dorsement in  the  insurance  fund 
which  it  is  permitted  to  maintain. 
It  will  be  merely  a  bond  insurance 
company,  and  might  with  propriety 
be  legally  known  under  this  desig- 
nation.* 

The  resources  of  a  company  thus 
organized,  and  containing,  say, 
twenty  thousand  members,  would 
be  almost  inconceivable.  Even  at 
the  rate  of  compensation  for  ser- 
vice given  to  common  laborers  the 
combined  income  of  the  members 
of  such  a  company  would  be  about 
$9,000,000  a  year.  One-fourth  of 
this  sum  would  pay  the  interest  and 
insurance  on  bonds  to  the  amount 
of  more  than  $30,000,000,  a  sum 
sufficient  to  buy  and  make  habita- 
ble an  incredible  number  of  tene- 
ment houses  in  any  city  in  the 
Union.  Or,  it  would  buy  the 
ground  and  build  a  suburban  city 
of  real  elegance  and  comfort.  It 
should  be  seen,  too,  that  the  pay- 
ment of  this  interest  and  insurance 
could  cause  no  reduction  in  the 
living  resources  of  the  person  who 
pays.  His  funds,  when  providing 
himself  with  ordinary  personal 
comforts,  would  not  be  diminished. 
Men  must  live  in  houses,  and  those 
who  receive  the  benefit  of  their 
shelter  must  pay  for  their  construc- 
tion in  one  way  or  another,  or  they 
will  not  be  built.  This  is  the  law 
of  reciprocity  that  obtains  every- 
where ;  and  it  will  be  better  to 
own  the  property  and  pay  the 
interest  and  insurance  than  to 
waste  the  money  in  the  payment 
of  rents. 


•Appendix  A. 


The  idea  of  such  companies  may 
seem  contrary  to  the  spirit  which 
animates  the  race.  It  is  in  per- 
fect conformity  with  the  spirit 
which  animates  the  wiser  represen- 
tatives of  the  race  ;  but  with  large 
numbers  of  men  the  savage  in- 
stincts seem  to  be  yet  extremely 
powerful.  It  is  hard  to  tell  whether 
they  most  love  or  hate  each  other. 
But  something  can  be  trusted  to 
their  self  love.  Stimulated  by  this 
instinct  very  mean  men  have  been 
made  almost  philanthropists ;  and  it 
is  possible  that  the  same  instinct 
may  work  a  similar  transfiguration 
in  the  booom  of  society.  But  thecom- 
iug  of  the  day  when  it  shall  begin 
to  manifest  itself  in  good  works 
depends  on  the  men  most  directly 
concerned.  It  may  come  quickly  or 
it  may  be  delayed  for  coming  gen- 
erations. During  many  years  past 
men  have  been  rushing  together  in 
what  are  known  as  protective  organ- 
izations. Protective  against  what  ? 
Protective  against  the  consequences, 
and  the  inevitable  consequences,  of 
their  own  partial  conception  of 
their  duties  and  capabilities.  An 
infinitesimal  part  of  the  strength 
wasted  in  the  pursuit  of  shadows 
would  have  served  to  lift  all  those 
who  thought  them  selves  endangered 
to  aground  of  very  perfect  security. 
It  is  time  to  either  abandon  the 
idea  of  protective  organization,  or 
to  change  the  meaning  of  the  words. 
There  are  no  wolves.  There  are  a 
great  many  lambs,  however,  which, 
for  one  cause  or  another,  would 
fare  much  better  were  they  brought 
into  some  kind  of  a  fold. 


CHAPTEE  VII. 

ILLUSTRATIONS    FROM  HEAL  LIFE. 

BUT  we  must  not  desert  the  line 
of  investigation  as  it  leads  out  from 
the  preliminary  statement  of  facts. 
The  possession  of  homes,  which 
may  be  held  on  easy  terms,  and 


23 


4io 


AC  ON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


transmitted  unin  cumbered  to  heirs 
or  descendants,  should  be  held  as  a 
chief  object  of  endeavor;  but  it 
would  be  folly  to  rest  satisfied  with 
the  attainment  of  this  object,  no 
matter  how  much  it  is  to  be  desired. 
It  was  assumed  in  the  beginning,  on 
data  too  strong  to  be  controverted, 
that  the  world's  chief  want  is  cap- 
ital. On  this  assumption  the  les- 
son must  be  studied  ;  and  not  until 
it  is  made  clear  that  the  total  of 
operative  capital  can  be  dupli- 
cated, or  even  multiplied  infiiii- 
tively,  can  the  argument  be  said  to 
have  reached  its  aim. 

Look  around  and  observe  in  de- 
tail the  execution  of  work  demand- 
ing a  large  expenditure  of  money. 
Let  us  again  Sudan  example  in  the 
construction  of  a  railway.  It  is  a 
popular  impression  that  capital 
springs  out  of  the  ground  for  th e 
construction  of  railways;  and  to 
say  truth  there  is  a  great  deal  in 
the  in .'thodsof  fertilizing  and  water- 
ing the  plant  to  sustain  the  opin- 
ion. The  capital  is  seen  to  expand 
from  small  beginnings  in  a  very 
mysterious  manner  until  it  becomes 
a  tree  of  really  magnificent  propor- 
tions beneath  the  shadow  of  which 
men  of  fortune  rest  and  seem  to 
take  solid  comfort.  It  is  supposed, 
therefore,  that  the  promoters  must 
be  men  of  large  resources.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  they  are  usually  men 
of  very  limited  resources,  in  the 
sense  that  combines  capital  with  ac- 
cumulated wealth.  They  are  most 
commonly  engineers,  contractors,  or 
unclassified  men  with  a  turn  for 
large  venture*  in  construction,  but 
with  very  little  money.  They 
win  their  spurs  as  capitalists  by  be- 
coming capitalists  in  the  most 
ethereal  sense  of  the  word,  and  then 
painfully  materializing  themselves 
into  bodies  of  greater  or  less  con- 
sistency. 

Let  us  observe  how  these  men 
operate.  Three,  four,  or  possibly 
a  half  dozen  such  men  get  together 
and  form  a  company.  But  in  the 


list  of  twenty-five  incorporators, 
largely  made  up  of  men  practically 
known  as  dummies,  there  may  not 
be  found  the  name  of  a  single  man 
of  wealth.  The  promoters  may 
sometimes  manage  in  the  beginning 
to  attach  to  their  enterprise  the 
names  of  a  few  men  not  altogether 
unknown  in  financial  circles;  but 
even  the  nature  of  this  backing  is 
often  equivocal.  It  may  be  given 
for  personal  motives,  or  it  may 
come  from  a  desire  to  see  the  work 
undertaken  on  account  of  some  in- 
direct personal  benefit  to  be  derived 
from  its  prosecution.  But  these 
ornamental  auxiliaries  have  rarely 
any  idea  of  subscribing  for  the 
stock  to  an  amount  in  excess  of  the 
legal  requirements.  They  only 
hold  themselves  in  a  position  to 
take  advantage  of  any  fortunate 
turns  that  may  occur  in  the  history 
of  the  company.  But  it  is  not  un- 
usual \\hen  a  newly  foimed  com- 
pany is  compelled  to  dispense  with 
even  those  top  feathers.  It  as  often 
happens  when  it  must  be  started 
on  its  career  without  even  a  pu- 
tative godfather. 

Now,  it  is  not  conceivable  that  a 
company  thus  organized  and  launch- 
ed, no  matter  what  the  ability  of 
the  promoters,  could  raise  the  many 
million  dollars  required  in  the 
work  of  construction  without  Her- 
culean efforts,  and  the  use  of  in- 
numerable sharp  expedients.  No 
matter  how  promising  the  enter- 
prise on  paper,  the  managers  are 
regarded  as  financiers  without  ex- 
perience; and  men  without  either 
money  or  experience  will  never  be 
men  with  large  credit.  To  expect 
the  banker  to  throw  open  his  vaults 
and  place  all  his  resources  at  the 
disposal  of  such  men  would  be  un- 
reasonable. He  is  not  often  a  man 
of  such  confiding  judgment.  He 
will  not  risk  a  dollar  in  the  adven- 
ture until  he  has  first  assured  him- 
self, so  far  as  a  man  who  is  some- 
thing of  a  financial  gambler  from 
necessity  can  assure  himself  of  any* 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


thing,  that  his  dollar  will  not  be 
managed  away  from  his  control. 
He  will  not  only  demand  this  as- 
surance, bub  he  will  further  demand 
very  large  margins.  Under  the 
circumstances  they  may  not  be  un- 
reasonably large ;  but  they  will  be 
large  enough  to  compel  an  exces- 
sive capitalization  in  the  beginning 
for  the  purpose  of  covering  con- 
tingencies. They  will  be  large 
enough,  also,  to  give  the  stock  a 
second  inflation  on  the  completion 
of  the  work  of  such  liberal  magni- 
tude that  intelligent  journalists 
and  statesmen  will  be  scandalized 
at  the  spectacle. 

But  what  else  can  you  expect? 
Trace  the  work  as  it  goes  forward. 
Here  is  a  handful  of  men  without 
much  money,  and  without  credit, 
except  to  the  extent  that  they  can 
convince  capitalists  of  the  merit  of 
their  enterprise,  engaged  on  a  work 
which  demands  the  services  of  sev- 
eral thousand  workmen  whose  wa- 
ges must  be  paid  every  Saturday 
night.  All  the  world  should  know 
that  their  resources  are  limited  ; 
and  it  id  soon  tound  out  that  they 
are  continually  at  their  wits'  end  to 
find  the  means  for  the  payment  of 
their  employees,  and  to  cover  the 
cost  of  the  material  demanded.  Tc 
make  their  case  still  more  embar- 
rassing the  air  is  soon  full  of  ru- 
mors concerning  the  appointment  of 
a  receiver,  or  of  seme  other  catas- 
trophe which  the  popular  imagina- 
tion can  always  create,  and  all 
their  financial  negotiations  must  be 
conducted  under  the  shadow  of 
these  real  and  imaginary  clouds. 
They  plod  on,  however,  and  hope 
for  better  days.  But,  suddenly,  they 
meet  their  crowning  disaster.  At 
the  moment  when  they  may  have 
found  a  possible  chance  to  market 
p,  few  of  their  bonds  on  what  might 
be  thought  reasonable  terms  a  tele- 
graphic operator  flashes  to  the  press 
an  account  of  a  frightful  riot  on 
some  section  of  the  work  caused  by 
the  non-payment  of  wages.  The 


story  is  graphically  told.  A  con- 
tractor has  been  compelled  to  take 
to  cover  behind  some  barricade 
where  he  is  holding  several  hun- 
dred infuriated  laborers  at  the  muz- 
zle of  his  revolver.  He  has  been 
unable  to  meet  their  dues  for  a 
month  past ;  and  they  have  grown 
exasperated  at  the  delay.  Is  it 
likely  under  the  circumstances  that 
the  bonds  will  be  marketed  on 
very  easy  terms!  To  presume  so 
we  would  have  to  suppose  bankers 
to  be  only  peace-makers,  men  en- 
gaged in  pouring  oil  on  troubled 
waters. 

This  may  be  thought  an  exagger- 
ated illustration  of  the  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  railway  construction, 
but  it  is  only  a  fair  picture ;  and 
the  suggestively  bad  feature  of  the 
exhibit  consists  in  the  fact  that  al- 
most all  the  money  paid  goes  into 
the  hands  of  workmen,  the  chief 
part  into  the  hands  of  workmen, — 
masons,  laborers,  or  teamsters, — 
employed  on  the  ground.  Over  and 
above  the  living  expenses  of  the 
I  promoters,  and  sometimes  without 
this  exception,  all  the  money  is  ex- 
pended for  service,  including,  of 
course,  the  service  of  the  contractor 
for  material.  Herein  lies  the  en- 
tire source  of  difficulty.  It  was 
!  the  need  for  money,  du<j  every  Sat- 
j  urday  night  for  wages,  that  caused 
the  directors  to  almost  mortgage 
their  souls,  and  in  a  few  instances 
probably  compelled  them  to  make 
the  contract.  The  cost  of  material 
could  be  secured  by  liens,  the  man- 
ufacturing contractor  in  this  case 
having  to  bear  the  labor  load  ;  but 
the  money  which  went  directly  to 
the  workmen  was  hopelessly  sunk 
for  any  imminent  emergency. 

Is  there  not  something  here  start- 

lingly  suggestive  of  a  bad  system  ! 

If   the   railroad    cost    $10,000,000, 

!  and,  after  the  promoters  had  wasted 

five    or    ten   years  in  preliminary 

!  struggles,  was  two  years  under  con- 

jstruction,   the   total  amount  of  in- 

i  terest  to  be  paid  may  have  reached 


25 


4I2 


BEACOX  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


$500,000.  This  would  be  five  per 
cent.,  or  $5  to  every  $100,  on  thej 
money  paid  for  labor.  Yet  it  was 
the  uncertainty  about  the  payment 
of  this  interest  which  made  bank- 
ers, brokers,  and  every  man  ap- 
proached in  the  course  of  the  mone- 
tary negotiations  timid  and  dis- 
trustful. It  was  this  uncertainty, 
too,  which  caused  the  final  capital- 
ization of  the  road  to  be  placed  at 
probably  $30,000,000,  although  the 
actual  cost  was  only  $10,000,000  in 
money  expended.  The  public,  to 
whom  these  concerns  are  always 
very  clear,  supposes  the  excess  in 
capitalization  to  have  been  due  to 
the  original  sin  of  railway  project- 
ors. But  the  public  is  sometimes 
mistaken.  No  great  profit  comes 
to  any  man  from  the  inflation  of 
railway  stock  beyond  the  values 
founded  on  its  traffic  at  reasonable 
rates.  In  this  case  the  stock  was 
inflated  for  security ;  and  it  would 
never  have  been  inflated  had  the 
interest  on  the  money  expended  in 
its  construction  been  paid  by  the 
workmen,  the  workman,  in  return, 
receiving  as  much  of  the  stock  as 
they  carried  by  their  payments. 

Illustrations  of  about  equal  force 
could  be  drawn  from  every  depart- 
ment of  industry  and  trade.  The 
secret  history  of  ninety-nine  per 
cent,  of  the  industrial  and  trading 
firms  of  the  country,  could  they  be 
given  to  the  world,  would  tell  the 
same  story  of  battles  fought  against 
overwhelming  odds,  ending  some- 
times in  victory  and  sometimes 
in  defeat.  Shall'  we  attempt  to  fix 
the  blame  for  the  unfortunate  meth- 
ods which  prevail?  Perhaps  no 
one  is  to  blame.  The  world  is  old 
in  its  stratification  of  rocks;  and  it 
abounds  in  fossils  that  suggest  an 
incredible  antiquity.  But  its  polit- 
ical economy  is  only  just  born;  and 
in  its  financial  practice  it  has  not 
yet  passed  the  empirical  stages. 
But  it  seems  to  be  high  time  that 
the  men  who  are  most  dissatisfied 
their  condition  should  begin 


to  wake  up  and  confess  the  cause 
of  their  abject  estate.  The  com- 
munity needs  better  reciprocal 
relations  between  its  members;  and 
improved  relations  can  only  be 
reached  through  the  material  co- 
operation of  that  great  mass  of  men 
who  now  occupy  a  position  of  inert 
dependence,  and  trust  to  the  irre- 
sistible forces  above  and  beyond 
them  to  supply  the  means  of  sub- 
sistence. The  plea  that  they  are 
poor  and  helpless  cannot  be  enter- 
tained. They  handle  ninety  per 
cent,  of  the  money  in  circulation ; 
and  if  from  this  total  they  cannot 
divert  enough  to  help  carry  the 
capital  from  which  they  must  draw 
their  subsistence  there  is  evidently 
something  wrong  in  their  habits 
which  needs  reforming.  But  it  is 
not  probable  that  their  apathy 
springs  from  their  unwillingness  to 
act  in  their  own  behalf.  It  springs 
from  the  lack  of  comprehension  of 
a  subject  which  they  have  never 
studied  except  under  the  tuition 
and  lead  of  impracticable  men. 
They  would  doubtless  be  willing 
to  take  up  their  end  of  the  load  to 
be  carried,  if  they  knew  where  to 
place  their  hands,  and  felt  that  they 
would  be  trusted  for  a  sustained 
effort.  With  their  assistance  the 
burden  would  cease  to  be  a  load, 
and  of  course  they  would  be  trusted. 
There  is  not  an  employer  who  would 
not  find  relief  in  their  co-operation; 
and  as  for  a  knowledge  of  the  place 
to  exert  their  strength  let  them 
study  the  load  for  themselves,  and 
learn  where  they  can  put  forth  their 
efforts  to  the  greatest  advantage. 

It  will  be  necessary  to  appeal  to 
insurance.  But,  fortunately,  it  is  a 
good  dependence,  better  in  some 
respects  than  accumulated  wealth. 
It  cannot  be  wasted,  cannot  be  lost 
through  mismanagement,  and,  when 
divested  of  some  of  its  institutional 
machinery,  it  can  easily  be  carried. 
It  would  be  hard  to  overrate  the 
importance  of  insurance  considered 
in  its  ultimate  status  as  a  force  in 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


413 


political  economy.  Owing  to  the 
perishable  character  of  products, 
and  property  founded  directly  on 
production,  insurance  seems  to  be 
about  the  only  agency  that  can 
transmit  wealth  from  generation  to 
generation  in  amounts  sufficient  to 
lift  society  above  a  condition  of 
general  penury.  But  men  should 
be  able  to  see  its  advantages  with- 
out looking  very  far  into  the  future. 
It  is  a  crime,  in  any  case,  for  a  man 
with  a  family  to  go  through  the 
world  without  insurance. 


CHAPTER  VIEL 

EFFECTS    ON    MATERIAL    GROWTH. 

IT  will  be  worth  while  to  be  more 
explicit  in  calculating  some  of  the 
industrial  and  commercial  benefits 
to  follow  upon  the  adoption  of  a 
system  which  would  make  all  men 
contributors  to  the  operative  capi- 
tal in  use.  That  the  results  would 
be  comprehensive  will  be  readily 
believed;  but  few  men  without 
carefully  weighing  the  subject  will 
be  prepared  to  estimate  the  effects 
in  all  their  magnitude. 

The  example  in  railway  construc- 
tion, given  to  illustrate  the  flimsy 
foundations  on  which  speculative 
enterprises  are  built,  was  a  generic 
example.  It  applies  to  all  enter- 
prises, but  it  applies  with  peculiar 
force  to  enterprises  undertaken 
with  no  element  of  co-operation  at 
the  foundation,  and  dependent  on 
the  force  of  individual  effort  to 
carry  them  to  a  successful  conclu- 
sion. There  is  a  power  to  inspire 
confidence  even  in  names ;  and 
when  many  names  are  associated 
the  power  will  be  increased  in 
something  like  the  ratio  of  increas- 
ing numbers.  If  one  man  is  effi- 
cient, it  is  felt  that  two  men  should 
be  doubly  efficient,  and  a  score  of 
names  should  give  a  suggestion  of 
almost  irresistible  strength.  It  is 


only  because  of  this  prepossession 
in  favor  of  united  effort  that  rail- 
way construction  by  private  enter- 
prise is  even  possible.  A  single 
person  of  great  wealth  could  no 
doubt  carry  such  an  undertaking  to 
a  successful  termination  ;  but  men 
who  have  amassed  fortunes  in  one 
field  of  investment  do  not  turn 
their  attention  to  different  and  new 
fields  unless  they  see  a  certainty  of 
great  profit.  Such  men,  therefore, 
are  out  of  the  field  for  any  enter- 
prise that  must  be  considered  at 
once  new  and  speculative,  and  the 
work  must  be  undertaken  by  the 
less  successful  men.  But  it  would 
be  even  presumptuous  for  any  one 
man,  with  no  better  standing  in 
finance  than  most  of  the  men  who 
conceive  and  carry  through  enter- 
prises in  railway  construction,  to 
so  much  as  make  an  unaided  at- 
tempt at  building  a  new  road.  He 
would  be  thought  no  better  than 
one  of  the  demented.  But  it  is 
equally  true  that  any  individual 
operator  who  depends  upon  his  own 
unaided  exertions,  no  matter  what 
his  field  of  operations,  will  be  weak 
in  compelling  confidence ;  and  as 
the  vast  majority  of  men  who  give 
employment  to  other  men  still  in- 
sist on  operating  on  their  own 
strength  we  can  easily  see  why  the 
example  in  railway  construction 
offers  rather  a  mild  than  an  exag- 
gerated illustration  of  the  difficul- 
ties everywhere  experienced.  In- 
dividuals who  undertake  to  give 
employment  to  large  numbers  of 
men  for  the  purpose  of  prosecuting 
an  imperfectly  established  and 
speculative  enterprise,  or  industry, 
assume  a  very  grave  responsibility. 
It  cannot  be  said  that  it  is  a  re- 
sponsibility which  they  ought  not 
to  assumeunderany  circumstances; 
but  it  may  be  truthfully  said  that 
they  will  do  better  if  they  find  one 
or  more  persons  to  help  carry  their 
load. 

The  weakness  which    obstructs 
new  men  everywhere  is  in  their 


27 


4*4 


LIGHTS  OP  SCIENCE. 


lack  of  power  to  give  security  for 
the  payment  of  interest  and  the  re- 
payment of  loans.  Without  loans 
aa  unfledged  business  man  is 
only  a  bird  without  wings.  But 
the  obstructions  in  the  way  of  ob- 
taining loans  have  been  reared  to 
huge  proportions.  Money  can  be 
obtained  in  any  amount  when  it  is 
reasonably  certain  that  the  interest 
payments  will  be  met,  and  that  the 
principal  can  be  recovered  when 
the  limitations  of  the  contract  are 
reached.  But,  in  one  form  or  an- 
other, it  is  supposed  that  accumu- 
lated wealth  must  lie  at  the  founda- 
tion of  all  loans  made  in  accord- 
ance with  the  rules  of  the  market ; 
and  that  this  wealth  shall  be  held 
subject  to  the  fulfillment  of  the  con- 
tract. The  title  may  not  be  vested 
in  any  single  bauds,  but  it  must  lie 
at  the  mercy  of  the  loan.  The 
operations  of  every  man,  therefore, 
are  theoretically  limited  to  twice 
the  amount  of  his  accumulations  ; 
and  as  this  amount  is  necessarily 
small  in  the  beginning  his  opera- 
tions must  be  also  restricted.  It  is 
often  the  case,  it  is  true,  when  ap- 
parently independent  business  men 
have  no  foundation  whatever  in 
accumulated  wealth.  But  in  such 
a  cas^  they  must  hold  the  position 
of  mere  factors,  and  remain  subject 
to  some  possibly  known  but  silent 
principal.  It  may  be  said  in  gen- 
eral terms  that  the  restrictions 
thrown  around  business  men  in  the 
beginning  of  their  career  are  almost 
suffocating  ;  and  that  comparatively 
few  are  ever  afterward  enabled  to 
breathe  with  perfect  freedom,  or  to 
move  without  restraint. 

But  the  rule  observed  in  finan- 
cial operations  is  not  the  univer- 
sal rule.  In  fiscal  administration 
other  theories  obtain  ;  and  munici- 
pal bodies  and  States  can  obtain 
money  on  very  easy  terms  without 
giving  any  pledge  in  objective 
wealth.  Their  credit  rests  u  pon  the 
power  of  taxation.  They  are  trusted 
because  there  is  no  doubt  upon 


their  ability  to   pay   Interest  and 
their  good   faith  is    accepted  as  a 
matter  of  course.     Yet  it  is  notori 
ously  true  that  neither  municipal 
bodies    nor   State?   have  any  con 
science  ;  and  they  have  proved  that 
they    can   be  as  dishonest  as  the 
most    unscrupulous  of  individual 
operators. 

There  is  something  very  sugges- 
tive in  this  difference  of  code  in 
the  treatment  of  debtors.  We  see 
that  the  restrictions  imposed  in 
finance  spring  rather  from  a  dis- 
trust of  the  abilities  of  operators 
than  from  want  of  confidence  in 
their  honesty.  If  the  truth  were 
known  there  is  a  very  general  con- 
fidence in  the  good  intentions  of 
men,  so  far  as  they  are  expressed  in 
a  desire  to  pay  just  dues.  They 
are  believed  to  be  honest,  and  to 
mean  well  in  the  main.  The  most 
conservative  bank  in  the  country, 
after  the  directors  had  assured 
themselves  that  the  applicant  was 
engaged  in  some  legitimate  pursuit, 
would  probably  consent  to  loan 
money  to  first  comers  were  there 
BO  possibility  of  loss  through  other 
causes  than  dishonesty.  The  mis- 
carriages would  be  so  few  that  they 
eoiJd  afford  to  take  their  chances. 
But  the  ability  of  men  to  pay  in- 
terest, and  to  hold  their  affairs  so 
well  in  hand  that  they  can  return 
the  principal  in  accordance  with 
the  contiact,  is  a  very  reasonable 
cfeuse  for  distrust.  It  may  be  called 
a  sufficient  cause  when  we  take 
into  consideration  the  immense  dis- 
advantages of  the  prevailing  man- 
agement in  finance,  the  uncertain- 
ties of  the  market,  and  the  limita- 
tions of  human  foresight.  But  men 
do  not  quite  like  to  regard  it  as  the 
chief  cause  of  their  difficulties. 
Possibly  for  the  purpose  of  inflict- 
ing a  penalty  for  failure,  they  have 
a  curious  habit  of  charging  all  men 
who  do  not  succeed  in  meeting 
their  obligations  with  an  intention 
to  defraud  ;  and  such  men  are  held 
up  to  the  public  censure  as  delib- 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


erately  bad  subjects.  It  is  a  habit, 
however,  that  throws  more  than 
the  due  load  of  approbrium  on  the 
shoulders  of  dishonesty.  The  de- 
ceitful spirit  is  made  to  carry  the 
responsibility  for  all  the  frailties 
through  which  men  suffer  loss ;;  and 
this  is  hardly  in  accordance  with 
the  injunction  in  which  we  are  told 
to  give  the  devil  his  due. 

There  is  a  lesson  here  which 
teaches  with  peculiar  force  the 
need  for  improved  methods.  Were 
interest  paid  from  the  savings  of 
employees,  in  accordance  with  a 
system  that  would  enforce  pavment 
at  once,  there  could  be  no  longer 
any  question  on  the  ability  to  pay. 
Almost  all  money  loaned  begins  to 
flow  into  their  hands  from  the  day 
it  leaves  the  counting  room  of  the 
banker ;  and  the  diversion  of  a  suf- 
ficient stream  to  meet  the  interest 
on  the  amount  which  they  receive, 
while  it  would  be  found  a  matter 
of  such  trifling  importance  in  its 
effect  on  their  receipts  that  it  would 
hardly  be  noticed,  would  put  an 
end  to  everything  like  default  in 
the  discharge  of  this  obligation. 
With  regard  to  the  security  de- 
manded for  the  recovery  of  the 
loan  the  best  possible  security  is 
offered  in  insurance.  It  would  never 
be  compromised  by  mortgages,  nor 
subjected  to  any  of  the  other  com- 
plications which  beset  accumulated 
wealth. 

Let  us  suppose,  then,  that  gen- 
eral organization  has  taken  place 
after  the  plan  outlined  in  a  preced- 
ing chapter,  and  that  the  pay- 
ment of  interest,  made  almost  au- 
tomatic in  the  process,  has  been 
placed  beyond  question.  There 
can  no  longer  be  default,  nor  the 
suspicion  of  default ;  and  from  this 
foundation  let  us  studv  the  power 
of  the  new  combinations  as  their 
strength  would  be  made  manifest  in 
the  different  avenues  of  production 
and  exchange,  and  see  if  we  have  j 
not  made  a  very  large  gain. 

The  first   manifestation   of    im- 


provement wonld  be  fonnd  in  th« 
disappearance  of  all  difficulty  in 
obtaining  money  for  any  object 
that  promised  good  returns.  Money 
is  but  the  representative  of  some 
income  producing  agent,  and  the 
tally  of  exchange.  When  we  have 
created  the  agent,  and  given  it  a 
form  to  be  serviceable  in  the  mar- 
ket, we  have  created  the  object. 
In  this  case  we  could  look,  with 
confidence,  to  see  the  bonds  of  any 
company  in  good  standing  cashed 
over  the  counter  of  even  the  most 
conservative  bank  as  fast  as  the 
money  was  needed  for  use  in  the 
construction  of  any  work,  or  the 
execution  of  any  contract,  for  which 
they  were  pledged.  There  would 
no  longer  be  any  occasion  for  dis- 
trusting the  qualifications  of  the 
financier  who  stands  at  the  head  of 
the  enterprise  in  which  the  money 
is  to  be  invested.  It  would  nc 
longer  be  necessary  that  he  should 
be  a  person  of  exuberent  invention, 
trained  even  in  the  arts  of  duplic- 
ity, and  capable  of  giving  to  jet 
black  all  the  tints  of  the  rainbow. 
It  would  only  be  necessary  that  he 
should  have  skill  and  knowledge 
in  the  practical  work  of  production 
and  exchange,  and  these  are  quali- 
fications to  be  discovered  by  the 
men  whose  interests  he  would  di- 
rect and  control.  The  banker 
would  be  relieved  of  all  embarrass- 
ment on  the  score  of  character  and 
capabilities,  and,  at  the  most,  would 
only  have  occasion  to  examine  the 
merits  of  the  venture  in  which  the 
money  was  to  be  invested.  If  sat- 
isfied with  the  results  of  this  ex- 
amination he  would  no  longer  find 
it  necessary  to  keep  his  vaults  en- 
closed in  triple  steel,  and  could 
afford  to  be  liberal  in  the  treatment 
of  his  customers. 

Among  the  first  benefits  to  be 
derived  from  this  increased  facility 
in  obtaining  money  for  legitimate 
uses  would  be  moral  benefits.  Many 
sensible  readers  may  think  that 
these  benefits  ought  not  to  be  the 


BEACON  LIGHTS  Ul-  SCIENCE. 


first  considered ;  but  they  shall  be 
put  first  for  courtesy.  Wit);  the 
adoption  of  the  proposed  syr-irin 
the  intensely  speculative  spirit, 
more  often  stimulated  by  desperate 
straits  and  business  complications 
than  by  a  morbid  desire  to  get 
rich,  will  disappear  j  and  with  its 
disappearance  will  go  a  train  of 
subject  essences,  known  variously  as 
defalcations,  forgeries,  and  breaches 
of  trust.  The  young  Napoleons  of 
Finance,  to  borrow  a  phrase  from 
the  current  journalism  of  the  day, 
will  all  vanish ;  and  in  their  place 
we  majr  have  the  more  staid  Wash- 
ingtons  of  Finance,  or  men  who 
can  be  satisfied  with  greatness  with- 
out brilliancy.  Everywhere  we 
shall  find  a  clearer  atmosphere,  and 
incomparably  better  hygienic  con- 
ditions. 

But  what  will  be  the  material 
benefits?  This  will  be  the  chief 
question  to  consider;  for  we  can- 
not resist  the  conviction  that  the 
moral  tone  of  men  a,nd  women  is 
more  largely  dependent  on  their 
material  advance  than  on  any  oc- 
cult influence  in  ethics.  We  have 
been  taught  to  believe  that  the  ma- 
terial environment  of  society  can 
be  brought  to  perfection  by  the 
cultivation  of  the  ethic  or  religious 
faculties ;  but  we  cannot  help  hold- 
ing to  the  opinion,  whether  truth- 
ful or  heretical,  that  it  will  be  eas- 
ier to  improve  public  morals  by 
improving  the  material  environ- 
ment of  men,  and  removing  the  in- 
ducements to  do  wrong,  than  to  im- 
prove the  environment  through  the 
cultivation  of  any  kind  of  senti- 
ment. We  insist,  therefore,  in 
keeping  the  material  features  of 
the  question  constantly  in  view, 
and  think  that  the  discussion  will 
be  most  effectively  maintained 
when  it  is  made  to  show  their  im- 
portance. What  will  be  the  mate- 
rial  effect  of  enabling  all  men  to 
become  contributors  to  the  capital 
by  which  the  manifold  operations 
of  life  are  carried  forward  ? 


The  first  effect  will  be  observed 
in  the  disappearance  of  all  enforced 
idleness.  Want  of  employment  is 
the  first  fruit  of  the  prevailing  want 
of  capital,  and  it  is  the  employees 
most  distressing  disability.  The 
fear  of  idleness  haunts  him  even 
when  he  is  most  actively  engaged 
at  his  labor,  and  the  frequent 
materialization  of  the  spectre, 
which  lives  continually  in  his 
imagination,  pinches  him  with 
sharp  pains.  But  the  gaunt  pre- 
sence is  not  necessarily  his  daily  at- 
tendant and  frequent  visitor.  It  is 
only  a  product  of  the  undeveloped 
system  which  obtains.  There  is  no 
good  reason  why  every  employee 
should  not  become  practically  his 
own  employer,  and  then  if  he  is 
ever  idle  it  will  be  only  because  he 
feels  that  he  needs  rest.  Under  the 
prevailing  system  a  laborer  goes 
out  on  the  railway  under  construc- 
tion and  solicits  employment.  He 
is  met  by  the  assurance  that  the 
men  already  employed  have  dif- 
ficulty in  obtaining  payment  for 
their  labor,  and  that  there  is  room 
for  no  more  employees.  It  is  only 
a  question,  indeed,  if  some  of  the 
force  already  engaged  must  not  soon 
be  discharged.  It  will  all  depend 
upon  the  success  of  the  managers  in 
floating  a  few  more  of  their  bonds-. 
But  under  the  proposed  system  the 
laborer  will  come,  if  necessary,  as  a 
subscriber  for  the  stock  to  an 
amount  equal  to  the  sum  of  his 
wages.  He  will  no  longer  appear 
as  a  suppliant  for  favors  then,  and 
in  his  changed  attitude  he  will  meet 
with  a  different  reception.  The 
contractor  will  tell  him  that  he  is 
the  very  man  for  whom  the  directors 
have  been  in  search,  and  might 
even  advise  him  to  become  an 
agent  of  the  company  and  to  go  out 
and  bring  in  his  fellows.  This 
illustration  it  will  be  seen  suggests 
very  encouraging  possibilities.  The 
negotiation  might  not  take  place 
in  just  the  informal  fashion  repre- 
sented. It  would  presumably  be 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


417 


carried  forward  through  the  office 
of  the  company  of  which  the  laborer 
was  a  member,  and  be  completed 
before  the  railway  was  put  under 
construction.  But  it  will  serve  to 
suggest  the  difference  between  two 
systems,  one  good  and  the  other 
most  detestably  bad. 

It  should  be  easy  to  foretell  the 
effect  of  this  facility  in  obtaining 
money  on  the  development  of  the 
country.  We  have  now  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  miles  of 
railway  in  the  United  States,  and 
their  construction  has  cost  fifty 
years  of  labor.  Under  the  proposed 
system  the  number  of  miles  might 
be  duplicated  in  ten  years  could  a 
sufficiently  large  working  force  be 
brought  together,  and  sufficient  ad- 
ditions made  to  the  iron  manufact- 
uring plant  of  the  country,  to  pro- 
vide the  labor  and  material  for  their 
construction.  Indeed,  under  this 
system,  railway  building  would  be 
carried  forward  so  freely  that  we 
would  be  compelled  to  make  regula- 
tions for  preventing  the  impairment 
of  property  already  in  service.  For 
the  first  time  in  our  career  we  could 
find  real,  practical  use  for  railway 
commissions.  We  could  look  to 
see  new  railways  constructed  over 
every  mile  of  our  territory  asfastas 
they  could  be  made  to  pay  divi- 
dends, and  possibly  even  faster  were 
not  construction  held  in  check.  We 
could  look,  also,  to  see  the  length 
of  our  telegraph  lines  soon  quad- 
rupled, our  express  service  made  to 
reach  every  hamlet,  the  electric 
light  set  up  along  every  urban  and 
village  street,  if  not  along  every 
rural  highway,  and  a  telephone 
receiver  located  in  every  house. 

"  But  such  an  advance  will  be  too 
rapid,"  the  old  conservative  will 
exclaim.  "  We  must  dig,  and 
drudge,  and  cover  ourselves  with 
mud,  and  filth,  to  extract  gold  from 
the  bowels  of  the  earth,  and  men 
must  learn  to  labor  and  to  wait." 
But  the  conservative  will  have  no 


occasion  for  alarm.     He  will  be  as- 
I  tonished  at  the  power  of  the  inar- 
I  ket  to  absorb  products  when  all 
j  men  are  at  work  with  the  feeling 
j  that  they  and  their  families  are  to 
I  be  compensated  for  their  labor,  and 
|  that  the  long  night  of  abject  pov- 
jerty  is  soon  to  pass  away.     Rates 
of  interest  might  fall.     It  is  prob- 
able that  a  decline  would  be  experi- 
enced ;  but  it  would  be  a  matter  for 
slight  concern  to  any  person  whether 
the  rates  fell  or  were  maintained  at 
a  fixed  standard.    The  magnitude 
of  transactions  would  certainly  pre- 
serve an  equilibrium  in  any  case, 
and  no  interests  would  suffer  irre- 
trievable  or  serious    damage.    In 
the     multiplicity    of    investments 
there    would   be  profit,  and  were 
prices   to  fall  until  they  i cached 
one-fourth  the  prevailing  rates  we 
should  still  find  the  average  of  in- 
comes vastly  enlarged. 

Every  material  interest  of  the 
community  demands  the  introduc- 
tion of  this  system.  Our  financial 
fabric  is  a  pyramid  standing  on  its 
apex;  and  it  turns  the  wisdom  of 
its  builders  into  foolishness  by 
tumbling  to  pieces  with  almost 
periodical  regularity.  Then  it 
must  be  painfully  rebuilt,  but  after 
each  catastrophe  it  has  been  rebuilt 
in  the  same  inverted  position,  and 
there  it  stands  to-day,  trembling 
through  every  stone,  and  ready  to 
collapse  at  the  lightest  breath  of 
summer.  Nay,  it  is  always  ready 
to  fall  without  any  external  im- 
pulse. It  settles  gradually  to  its 
overthrow  through  the  unbalanced 
weight  of  the  blocks  painfully  up- 
held in  mid  air,  and  it  would  come 
down  were  the  earth  as  completely 
denuded  of  atmosphere  as  the 
moon.  But  under  the  proposed 
system  it  could  never  fall.  There 
could  be  no  panics  and  no  bank- 
ruptcies, for  no  man  would  be 
obliged  to  carry  a  load  beyond  his 
capacity. 


4i8 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


CHAPTEE  IX. 

OBJECTIONS  ANSWERED. 

To  some  men  these  suggestions 
will  sound  impracticable,  on  ac- 
count of  their  seeming  want  of  con- 
sistency with  prevailing  customs. 
To  others,  again,  they  may  sound 
revolutionary;  and  seem  to  imply  a 
disposition  to  place  the  operations 
of  finance  on  a  new  and  radical 
foundation.  But,  theoretically, 
they  are  neither  the  one  nor  the 
other. 

As  already  suggested,  the  world 
is  changing  rapidly  in  its  concep- 
tions of  the  true  significance  of 
wealth.  Since  the  introduction  of 
the  corporate  and  joint  stock  sys- 
tems the  objective  character  of 
property,  and  the  methods  of  its 
production,  have  largely,  even  rad- 
ically, changed.  Were  there  a 
modern  Prince  Hal.  and  a  Jack 
Falstaff  they  would  find  it  difficult 
to  undo  any  tradesmen  in  the  sub- 
urbs of  London  by  a  repetition  of 
their  madcap  adventures.  They 
could  hardly  waylay  a  train  of  ^>ack- 
horses  loaded  down  with  gold  and 
silver  for  use  in  the  metropolitan 
market.  Property  is  no  longer 
recognized  in  the  substance,  but  in 
the  sign ;  and  the  sign  is  indicated 
in  the  figures  that  represent  income. 
This  change  is  in  part,  in  large 
part  no  doubt,  due  to  the  multipli- 
cation of  new  pursuits,  invented 
and  organized  in  recent  years.  Pro- 
portionally, men  have  probably  no 
more  houses  and  lands  to-day  than 
they  had  in  the  days  of  Charle- 
magne, and  no  more  flocks  and 
herds.  But  relatively  they  are 
even  beginning  to  turn  away  their 
eyes  from  such  possessions;  and  to 
find  in  certain  artificial  and  subtile 
creations  more  desirable  objects  of 
pursuit.  This  is  a  manifestation 
that  springs  from  the  variety  of  ob- 
jects to  be  desired;  and  it  must  be- 
come continually  more  and  more 
pronounced  as  civilization  ad- 


vances and  wants  are  multiplied. 
But  the  change  is  chiefly  due  to 
the  division  of  property  into  shares 
represented  by  stock  certificates. 
and  to  a  growing  comprehension 
of  the  meaning  of  interest  and  div- 
idends. Sell  the  material  of  half 
the  companies  in  being  to-day  and 
it  would  hardly  bring  enough  t( 
cancel  their  outstanding  obligations 
incurred  to  meet  running  expenses. 
to  say  nothing  of  the  total  esti- 
mates made  on  the  value  of  their 
securities.  Take  the  stock  of  an 
express  company  as  an  example. 
A  few  horses  and  wagons  for  the 
local  delivery  of  merchandise  form 
about  the  only  possessions  needed 
by  such  a  company;  and  were  the 
dividends  satisfactory  the  stock 
would  sell  just  as  well  in  the  market 
were  even  those  conveniences  ob- 
tained for  hire.  Your  great  news- 
paper is  honestly  worth  millions  rf 
dollars.  Yet  it  is  almost  exclu- 
sively water,  as  the  word  is  popu- 
larly understood,  notwithstanding 
the  abhorrence  for  that  most  excel- 
lent fluid  frequently  expressed  by 
some  of  the  editors.  In  the  true 
valuation  also  of  banks,  insurance 
companies,  and  even  of  railway 
companies,  as  indicated  by  the 
price  of  the  stock  at  market  quota- 
tions, everything  is  measured  by 
income.  Trusting  to  his  own  opin- 
ion on  the  course  of  trade,  no  man 
thinks  of  consulting  more  than 
official  reports  on  earnings  to  learn 
the  value  of  any  property  in  which 
he  may  think  of  investing.  Income, 
and  a  continuation  of  the  favorable 
circumstances  that,  will  maintain 
income,  will  form  the  only  test  for 
his  judgment. 

From  an  observation  of  these 
facts  we  have  the  right.to  conclude 
that  the  old  method  of  estimating 
property  on  production,  or  the  cost 
of  production,  has  been  substan- 
tially abandoned.  We  have  the 
right  to  conclude,  also,  that,  eco- 
nomically, income,  using  the  word 
generally  to  cover  interest,  rents, 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


419 


dividends,  or  profits,  is  the  only 
true  creator  of  property,  and  that 
whoever  can  guarantee  the  return 
of  a  certain  sum  in  annual  income 
possesses  the  power  of  producing  a 
property  equal  to  the  principal  rep- 
resented by  that  income  when  esti- 
mated as  lawful  interest.  It  mat- 
ters not  what  the  objective  form  of 
the  creation.  It  may  be  represented 
in  the  form  of  a  dwelling  returning 
so  much  per  annum  in  rent,  or  it 
may  be  only  a  bit  of  secured  paper 
bearing  a  pledge  of  certain  definite 
returns  to  the  holder.  It  will  be 
property  in  either  case ;  and  with 
the  spirit  prevailing  in  financial 
circles  at  the  present  day  the  latter 
form,  if  the  security  be  ample,  will 
be  held  in  best  esteem.  This  is  the 
reason  for  holding  that  there  is 
nothing  inconsistent  and  conse- 
quently impracticable  in  the  idea 
of  maintaining  securities  based  on 
personal  income.  All  income  is 
fundamentally  personal  income, 
and  the  principles  which  underlie 
cannot  be  changed  by  methods  and 
combinations. 

It  might  be  objected  that  a  sys- 
tem resting  on  a  foundation  of  per- 
sonal bonds  would  be  open  to  criti- 
cism from  the  beginning ;  that  such 
bonds  are  justly  thought  objection- 
able, and  that  they  could  not  be 
maintained  without  proving  a 
source  of  hardship  and  danger  to 
Ihe  person  by  whom  they  were  car- 
ried. But  this  objection  could  not 
be  raised  against  the  consistency  of 
the  system  when  compared  with 
the  prevailing  system.  It  could 
only  be  raised  against  its  advan- 
tages ;  and  it  would  not  weigh 
very  heavily  even  there.  The 
prejudice  against  personal  bonds  is 
due  to  the  uncertainty  that  hangs 
over  everything  negotiable  under 
our  empirical  system  of  finance. 
Such  bonds  are  to  be  feared  only 
because  casualty  is  to  be  feared, 
and  there  is  no  certain  dependence 
for  the  future.  Intrench  with  suf- 
ficient thoroughness  against  casu- 


alty and  yon  have  removed  every- 
thing objectionable  from  the  nature 
of  personal  bonds.  They  may  be 
made  the  true  instead  of  the  subter- 
fuge representative  of  capital.  We 
must  not  forget  to  observe  the 
trend  of  the  current  if  we  wish  to 
find  easy  navigation.  By  far  the 
larger  proportion  of  the  operative 
capital  in  the  world  is  represented 
in  bonds,  or  in  their  equivalent, 
mortgages,  which  are  most  com- 
monly personal  bonds  under  an  old 
form,  and  we  should  not  be  able  to 
move  without  the  aid  of  these  very 
useful  crutches.  The  plan,  while 
pre-eminently  consistent  with  all 
that  is  good  in  the  accepted  system, 
is  not  dangerous,  and  it  proposes 
not  hardship  but  relief  from  hard- 
ship. 

It  might  be  claimed,  however, 
that  the  system  would  be  found  im- 
practicable on  amount  of  obstacles 
that  would  have  no  foundation  in 
finance.  Its  consistency  and  gen- 
eral soundness  admitted,  it  might 
be  thought  likely  to  fail  on  account 
of  the  want  of  coherency  and  pur- 
pose on  the  part  of  the  men  wbo 
must  be  depended  upon  to  make 
it  practicable.  There  seems  to  be 
a  possible  obstruction  here ;  but  if 
the  right  spirit  prevails  among 
leading  men  it  ought  not  to  prove 
an  obstruction.  It  ought  not  to  be 
difficult  to  convince  even  the  least 
practical  man  that  if  he  can  have 
$1,000  by  paying  the  interest,  and 
giving  satisfactory  security  for  the 
final  redemption  of  his  bond,  he 
had  better  take  the  money.  It 
ought  to  be  still  easier  to  convince 
him  that  he  had  better  take  $5,000 
on  the  same  terms.  Men  who  can 
follow  the  leaders  of  the  Anti  Pov- 
erty Society,  and  endorse  a  single 
tax  scheme,  may  need  considerable 
tuition  before  they  can  grasp 
theories  founded  on  commonplace 
finance  ;  but  the  darker  the  night 
the  more  brilliant  may  be  made  the 
illumination  of  the  electric  candle. 

The  reasons  for  holding  that  the 


430 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


suggestions  for  an  improved  finan- 
cial system  are  not  revolutionary 
are  equally  well  entrenched  in  the 
tendencies     of   the    times.     True, 
evolution    is    generally    made   to 
mean  revolution  by    the   changes 
wrought  during  the  course  of  a  cen- 
tury   in    the    organic  features  of 
society.    Even  our  Federal  Union, 
with  its  clearly  defined  and  written 
Constitution,    has    been    made    to 
show  that  it  is  not  exempt  from 
the  law   of  motion ;  and  we  have 
seen  the  disappearance  of  one  of  its 
most  strongly  outlined,  though  ab- 
normal, features.     But  the  changes 
proposed  here  are  hardly  equal  to 
the  changes  wrought  in  a  century 
of  ordinary  growth.     Society  mis- 
apprehends its  own  status  at  the 
present  time.     Men  have  not  taken 
the  full  measure  of   its    advance 
during  the  last  hundred  years.     It 
stands  to-day  at  the  threshold  of 
the  proposed  system,  and  in  such  a 
position  that  a    single    step    will 
enable  it  to   enter.     Nay,  the  ad- 
vance has  already  entered,  and  has 
reached  even  the  rail  of  the  chancel. 
The  strongest  movement  of  the  age 
is  in  the  direction  of  organized  co- 
operation.     The    philosophers    of 
reform  do  not  discover  this  fact  be- 
cause our  political  economy  has  not 
been  sufficiently  analytical  to  give 
them  the  right  cue,  and  they  have 
mistaken  the  true  field  of  co-opera- 
tion.    While  they  have  been  talk- 
ing and  dreaming  of  co-operative 
production  they  have  misapprended 
the  true  scope  of  the  word  produc- 
tion, and  proposed  the  production 
of  objects  instead  of  the  production 
of  values.    But  practical  men  have 
been  wiser.     Co-operative  organiza- 
tion, and  co-operative  production, 
in  the  true  meaning  of  the  terms, 
have  gone  on  apace,  the  benefits  of 
co-operation  have  been  widely  dis- 
seminated,     and      the    dispersed 
masses,  though  still  blindly  hostile 
to  the  movement,  are  compelled  to 
admit  its  irresistible  force.    They 
feebly  imitate  it,  indeed,  and  while 


condemning,  and  calling  it  the 
combination  of  capitalists,  they 
form  feeble  counter  organizations. 
But  they  mistake  the  nature  of  the 
manifestation.  It  is  not  the  com- 
bination of  capitalists.  It  is  sim- 
ply the  combination  of  men  who 
become  capitalists  through  the  force 
of  their  combination ;  and  the 
whole  world  is  upon  the  point  of 
conversion  to  the  excellence  of 
their  principles.  Even  the  men 
who  are  most  determined  to  stand 
alone,  and  to  work  for  their  exclu- 
sive personal  interest,  are  generally 
beginning  to  see  that  their  position 
is  hopelessly  weak,  and  they  are 
trying  to  find  strength  in  some 
modified  form  of  association.  They 
may  not  in  all  instances  intend 
more  than  the  for  mat  ion  of  leagues; 
but  it  is  safe  to  presume  that  most 
leagues  will  be  only  preliminary  to 
something  more  complex  and  effi- 
cient. We  have  heard  a  great  deal 
recently  on  the  subject  of  trusts. 
They  have  been  made  and  are  still 
made  shuttlecocks  in  the  political 
game  between  parties;  and  the 
statesman  who  can  strike  down  a 
trust  with  the  greatest  neatness  and 
despatch  thinks  himself  a  made 
statesman.  Of  course  trusts  are 
opposed.  Anything  new  and  mer- 
itorious is  very  likely  to  meet  with 
opposition.  The  modern  banking 
system  was  opposed  with  consider- 
able bitterness  in  its  infancy  ;  and 
the  Bank  of  England  would  never 
have  been  chartered  had  it  not  been 
necessary  to  the  English  Govern 
ment.  But  the  bank  lived,  and  ii 
is  safe  to  presume  that  trusts. 
though  their  growth  may  be  checked 
by  repressive,  dishonest,  or  igno- 
rant laws,  have  come  to  follow  its 
example.  Among  other  trusts  we 
are  greatly  in  need  of  a  bank  trust, 
pledged  to  protect  every  bank  in 
the  country  against  failure. 

But  perhaps  the  possible  objection 
that  the  suggestions  are  revolution 
ary  is  not  yet  quite  met.     It  may 
be  raised  not  so  much  against  the 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


421 


financial  as  against  the  social  fea- 
tures of  the  plan.  It  may  be  ad- 
mitted that  the  financial  features 
are  entirely  consistent  with  much 
i.  hat  is  practiced  daily  in  the 
market,  and  strictly  in  accordance 
with  financial  principles ;  but  it 
might  still  be  objected  that  the 
result  could  prove  revolutionary 
from  a  social  point  of  view.  The 
sudden  accumulation  of  new  opera- 
tive capital  in  hands  trained  only 
to  handle  the  laborer's  pick  and 
shovel,  the  mechanic's  tools,  and 
the  accountant's  pen  might  tend  to 
disintegrate  or  dislocate  both  finan- 
cial and  social  relations.  To  this 
it  can  only  be  answered  that  society 
has  never  yet  suffered  from  a 
plethora  of  capital  that  could  be 
turned  to  industrial  uses.  It  may 
or  it  may  not  have  suffered  from 
the  concentration  of  accumulated 
wealth  in  too  lew  hands.  The 
question  is  one  that  there  will  be 
no  profit  in  discussing  here,  and 
not  much  profit  in  discussing  any- 
where else.  But  it  will  certainly 
not  suffer  by  placing  operative 
capital  in  the  hands  of  its  most 
discontented  members,  and  giving 
them  a  larger  stake  in  the  well- 
being  of  the  community.  It  would 
doubtless  make  the  poor  somewhat 
more  influential.  From  a  condi- 
tion of  mere  dependence  they 
would  become  stockholders  where- 
rver  there  was  stock  to  be  bought 
or  sold.  But  they  would  soon 
learn  to  take  conservative,  practical 
views,  and  would  not  be  found 
troublesome  stockholders.  They 
would  not  be  found  of  the  kind 
given  to  injunctions,  and  other 
legal  obstructions  that  cause  embar- 
rassment among  boards  of  directors. 
They  would  be  of  the  kind  to  see 
the  importance  of  maintaining  the 
value  of  stocks,  and  we  might  hear 
less  talk  of  enforced  reductions  in 
charges.  The  weakest  point  of  the 
plan,  when  it  is  a  question  of  secur- 
ing prompt  popular  approval, 
consists  in  the  fact  not  that  it  repre- 


sents any  form  of  aggression  but 
that  it  contains  nothing  absolutely 
new  or  sensational,  and  oficrs  no 
prospect  that  capable  men  will  be 
put  down,  and  deposed  from  their 
position  as  leaders.  Men  have  been 
so  long  enslaved  to  their  conditions 
that  they  think  they  have  personal 
outrages  to  redress. 

No,  the  suggestions  are  not .  evolu- 
tionary, and  they  ought  not  befouL-I 
impracticable.  It  is  not  a  revolution 
that  is  proposed,  but  simply  an  ex- 
tension of  the  foundations  on 
which  the  financial  structure  is 
built.  Men  full  of  traditional  ideas 
think  that  this  structure  rests  on  a 
foundation  of  accumulated  wealth. 
But  it  cannot  be  too  frequently  re- 
iterated that  this  conception  is  no 
longer  true.  Asa  matter  of  fact  it 
rests  on  a  foundation  of  six  per 
cent.,  or  on  something  as  nearly  ap- 
proximating six  per  cent,  as  it  is 
possible  to  reach.  Accumulated 
wealth  in  the  old  sense  can  be  con- 
sidered as  barely  more  than  the 
corner-stone,  and  it  may  be  relieved 
in  even  this  office  by  the  resources 
of  combination  and  insurance.  Fi- 
nancial transactions  may  be  said  to 
rest  more  upon  accumulating  than 
upon  accumulated  property.  Bank- 
ers turn  their  backs  upon  houses 
and  lands,  and  refuse  to  accept 
mortgages  for  half  their  estimaU  d 
value.  But  they  will  loan  money 
on  stocks  to  within  ten  per  cent,  of 
the  market  quotation  and  never  ask 
if  they  are  not  half  water.  Why 
is  this  true?  It  is  true  became 
stocks  have  a  quoted  market  value, 
and  have  become  a  chief  medium 
;  of  exchange.  To  within  ten  per 
cent,  of  their  worth  they  may  be 
made  practically  a  currency  ;  while 
;  the  more  objective  property,  not 
represented  in  shares  and  de- 
pendent upon  vague  estimates  for 
its  valuation,  is  too  inert  for  the 
swift  processes  of  modern  com- 
merce. The  day  will  probably 
come  when  even  houses  and  lands 
will  be  universally  represented  in 


35 


422 


'BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


shares ;  and  when  that  day  arrives 
they  will  be  serviceable  for  some- 
thing besides  their  provisions  of 
shelter  and  food.  But  for  the  pres- 
ent they  have  been  compelled  to 
withdraw  from  the  mart.  Stocks 
and  bonds  have  possession  of  the 
field.  It  is  known  that  the  corpo- 
ration iap,rhose  name  they  were  put 
forth- -all  struggle  to  keep  them  as 
"'early  at  par,  or  at  quotation  rates, 
as  circumstances  will  permit,  and 
that,  under  ordinary  conditions, 
nothing  less  than  a  panic  can  cause 
them  to  fall  much  below  market 
quotations.  But  very  few  merely 
personal  securities,  using  the  term 
in  the  sense  of  property  without 
corporate  endorsement,  unless  put 
in  the  form  of  gold  and  silver  and 
deposited  in  bank,  would  receive  so 
much  consideration.  Personal  af- 
fairs are  too  complicated,  and  too 
obscure,  for  these  days  of  organized 
and  institutional  enterprises. 

What  should  concern  us  most  in 
the  study  of  this  question  is  the 
frightful  waste  of  resources  that 
follows  on  the  prevailing  system  of 
financial  management.  The  men 
who  in  the  total  of  their  earnings 
are  competent  to  carry  the  entire 
weight  of  finance  without  feeling 
the  load  contribute  nothing  what- 
ever to  its  strength.  Yet  they 
themselves  suffer  because  of  their 
neglect,  and  society  is  retarded  in 
its  progress  beyond  calculation. 
No  broader  economic  question 
could  be  raised,  nor  one  more 
worthy  of  careful  study  and  delib- 
eration. 

But  in  holding  the  argument  so 
closely  to  the  material  ground  on 
which  it  was  originally  begun  we 
have  no  wish  to  assume  that  other 
considerations  have  no  relevance. 
They  are  worthy  the  largest  regard, 
the  mare  truly  because  there  are 
some  errors  that  should  be  uprooted, 
and,  as  already  suggested,  some 
vices  that  would  disappear  with  the 
disappearance  of  the  causes  that 
incite  to  crime.  Our  ethical  teach- 


ers tell  us  that  the  distresses  of 
men  are  necessary  for  disciplinary 
purposes,  and  for  the  development 
of  the  character.  It  is  'possible 
that  they  may  even  find  some  sanc- 
tion for  these  precepts  in  the  liter- 
ary productions  of  the  Kings  and 
Princes  of  Israel,  men  who  wrote 
poetry  and  conceived  distresses 
which  they  thought  might  benefit 
their  subjects,  but  which  they 
themselves  were  not  often  called 
upon  to  experience.  Certainly, 
were  there  anything  in  suffering  to 
improve  the  character,  and  to  jus- 
tify the  assertion  that  it  is  only  a 
blessing  in  disguise,  men  manage 
to  condense  enough  of  its  benefits 
into  the  three  score  and  ten  years 
allotted  to  human  life  to  serve  them 
for  all  the  remaining  cycles  of  their 
more  permanent  being.  The  disci- 
plinary blessing  is  pretty  evenly 
distributed,  too,  among  all  ranks 
and  conditions.  The  number  of 
wretched,  sleepless  nights  passed 
by  the  beggar  in  his  penury  and 
despair  is  only  paralleled  by  the 
number  of  correspondingly  bad 
nights  passed  by  the  expectant 
millionaire  while  he  is  confouaded 
by  visions  of  bad  debts,  notes  go- 
ing to  protest,  and  all  the  disasters 
that  can  befall  a  man  who  has  a 
great  deal  to  lose  and  thinks  that 
he  sees  a  rising,  imminent  chance 
for  its  disappearance.  To  readers 
sitting  quietly  in  their  own  domi- 
ciles the  story  of  struggles  against 
adverse  circumstances  may  seem 
entertaining,  and  full  of  romantic 
interest.  Modified  by  invention  it 
has  been  made  entertaining  in 
the  pages  of  the  novelist  and  the 
playwright ;  but  the  pleasure  is  all 
experienced  by  the  reader  or  the 
audience.  To  the  actors  on  the 
stage  it  is  only  the  dreary  rehearsal 
of  a  five  act  tragedy,  with  no  scenic 
embellishments  to  enhance  the  ro- 
mance, and  no  auditors  present  to 
applaud.  But  to  the  spectator  the 
exhibition  may  seem  heroic,  like 
conduct  of  the  man  who  can  suffer 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


423 


the  loss  of  an  arm  without  flinch- 
ing. Hence,  probably,  the  com- 
mon opinion  that  such  struggles 
quicken  the  intellect,  enlarge  the 
sympathies,  and  strengthen  the 
character.  This  is  one  of  the  most 
fondly  cherished  superstitions  of 
iuen,  and  it  will  be  a  pity  to  bring 
iu  into  discredit.  But  it  is  funda- 
mentally and  altogether  an  error. 
It  would  be  as  wise  to  say  that  the 
stunted  growth  of  a  tree  in  its  in- 
fancy is  favorable  to  a  broad  limbed, 
well  shapen,  and  sturdy  maturity. 
The  truth  is  the  early  experience 
of  almost  every  man  who  assumes 
the  control  of  large  and  speculative 
enterprises  is  favorable  only  for  the 
cultivation  of  faculties  which  ought 
not  be  too  highly  developed.  If 
his  intellect  is  quickened  it  is 
quickened  only  for  the  practice  of 
sharp  and  unscrupulous  expedients. 
If  his  sympathies  are  enlarged 
they  are  enlarged  simply  in  the 
Capacity  for  self  pity,  and  in  be- 
half of  the  bosom  whence  they  em- 
anate; and  if  the  character  is 
strengthened  it  acquires  the 
strength  of  a  stubbornness  which 
will  break  sooner  than  bend.  The 
early  career  of  every  man  of  in- 
tense activity  and  large  ambition  is 
a  career  of  constant  temptation  ; 
and  if  it  does  not  end  in  making 
him  utterly  selfish  and  unscrupu- 
lous it  is  a  sign  that  he  was  endowed 
by  nature,  or  education,  with  a 
fund  of  correct  principles  too  deep 
to  be  entirely  exhausted  by  his 
period  of  adversity.  The  theory 
that  men  are  made  better  or 
stronger  by  suffering,  though  pos- 
sibly a  source  of  some  encourage- 
ment for  those  who  suffer,  presup- 
poses a  Creator  who  can  only  per- 
fect his  work  by  making  himself  a 
hard  master.  This  would  be  an 
unfortunate  conception  of  the  Infi- 
nite. It  is  to  be  presumed  that 
growth  is  to  be  eternal  ;  and  it 
would  be  disheartening  to  believe 
that  suffering  must  also  be  made 
eternal  to  the  end  that  we  may  be 


properly  stimulated  to  exertion. 
We  prefer  to  believe  that  the  vir- 
tues live  and  thrive  to  a  healthful 
maturity  only  in  the  placid  atmos- 
phere of  contentment. 

No,  the  moral  and  intellectual 
growth  of  the  community  demands 
better  reciprocal  relations  between 
the  members;  and  we  may  dismiss 
the  idea  that  there  is  anything  in 
the  prevailing  methods  to  be  com- 
mended on  either  ethical  or  dis- 
ciplinary grounds.  Were  it  worth 
while,  or  consistent  with  the  argu- 
ment of  a  treatise  meant  to  be 
mainly  economic  in  its  objects,  the 
reasoning  from  such  grounds  could 
be  made  overwhelmingly  strong  in 
favor  of  a  change  of  sjTstem.  We 
could  point,  as  other  men  have 
pointed,  to  our  overflowing  prisons, 
filled  as  often  by  undeveloped  men 
who  have  been  driven  or  led  to 
crime  by  the  wretchedness  of  their 
early  environment  as  by  their  law- 
less instincts.  We  could  point, 
also,  to  the  spectre  of  ruin  that 
haunts  the  streets  at  midnight,  and 
challenge  the  moralist  to  separate 
the  inherently  vile  from  those  who 
have  found  the  impulse  to  evil  in 
the  despair  of  homelessness  and 
privation.  But  where  the  argu- 
ment from  material  grounds  alone 
should  be  found  irresistible,  it 
would  be  a  waste  of  time  to  go  up 
to  the  reinforcement  of  the  preacher 
and  the  philosopher  of  social 
science. 


CHAPTEE  X. 

SOME  POLITICAL  REFLECTIONS. 

WHEN  we  come  to  the  political 
bearings  of  the  question  we  meet 
with  manifestations  so  closely  re- 
lated to  political  economy,  and  so 
fraught  with  danger,  insidious  and 
direct,  that  the  discussion  would 
hardly  be  complete  without  giving 
them  more  than  an  incidental  con 


37 


424 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


sideration.  These  manifestations 
spring  from  both  political  and 
economic  causes;  and  they  need  to 
he  subjected  to  all  the  light  that 
can  be  brought  to  bear  upon  their 
meaning.  The  age  is  socially  one 
of  intense  unrest,  and  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  meet  the  agitation  contin- 
ually maintained  without  feeling  its 
effect  upon  political  institutions. 

We  follow  in  the  United  States 
certain  clearly  defined  constitu- 
tional theories.  These  theories  are 
so  well  defined  that  it  is  almost 
difficult  to  maintain  political  divis- 
ions founded  on  their  interpreta- 
tion. Men  go  from  party  to  party 
without  the  consciousness  of  hav- 
ing changed  their  convictions  on 
any  question  that  involves  their 
conception  of  the  Constitution,  and 
parties  sometimes  change  measures 
in  seeming  ignorance  of  the  fact 
that  they  are  masquerading  in  the 
garments  of  their  adversaries. 
This  was  the  experience  of  an  en- 
tire century  following  the  close  of 
the  Revolutionary  War;  and  it 
should  not  be  necessary  to  say  that 
it  was  a  healthful  experience,  sug- 
gestive of  the  possibility  of  main- 
taining government  strong  enough 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  public 
security  without  the  recurrence  of 
those  periodical  or  frequent  con- 
vulsions that  signalize  the  history 
of  most  other  countries.  So 
.strongly  were  our  people  imbued 
with  these  moderate  and  unaggres- 
sive  theories  that  the  Civil  War, 
springing  from  the  one  traditional 
inconsistency  in  our  political  code, 
failed  to  weaken  their  force,  or  lead 
to  more  than  a  temporary  suspen- 
sion of  their  operations. 

But  since  the  agitation  of  public 
questions  has  become  more  de- 
stinctively  social  than  constitu- 
tional we  have  been  compelled  to 
witness  a  new  movement.  It  can- 
not be  denied  that  the  atmosphere 
of  political  discussion  has  been 
materially  changed  ;  and  that  a  re- 
cationary  tide  has  set  in  which  has 


already  proved  strong  enough  to 
destroy  some  landmarks,  and  to 
threaten  others  with  overthrow. 
Public  men  seem  no  longer  inclined 
to  ask  if  any  proposed  new  measure 
will  be  constitutional.  They  only 
ask  if  it  will  be  popular.  They 
wish  only  to  know  if  it  will  win 
votes  from  the  precincts  where 
votes  are  most  numerous,  not  where 
the  voters  are  most  intelligent.  It 
would  be  reassuring  to  be  able  to 
believe  that  this  reckless  disregard 
of  a  statesman's  first  duty  springs 
from  an  excessive  confidence  in  the 
strength  of  the  Constitution,  and 
that  it  is  due  to  a  belief  that  the 
organic  law  will  prove  strong 
enough,  in  some  of  the  various  de- 
partments of  administration,  for  its 
own  protection,  notwithstanding  the 
treason  of  its  chosen  defenders. 
But  we  are  not  permitted  to  in- 
dulge even  in  this  poor  illusion. 
There  is  evidence  that  it  is  becom- 
ing common  with  public  men  to 
reason  from  transcendental  theo- 
ries. In  place  of  a  frank  accept- 
ance of  political  principles  which 
were  the  evolution  of  liberty  loving 
centuries  of  Anglo  Saxon  civiliza- 
tion, revised  and  perfected  beyond 
the  reach  of  kingcraft,  we  see  a  dis- 
position, if  not  openly  to  challenge 
our  constitutional  theories,  to  at 
least  obscure  them  by  false  issues 
and  to  defeat  them  by  subterfuges. 
Has  the  want  of  resources,  or  the 
condition  of  the  market,  caused 
some  unfortunate  manufacturer  to 
close  his  factory  and  discharge  his 
workmen  t  The  Government  is  to 
blame.  It  should  sell  or  call  in 
some  bonds,  or  make  an  appropria- 
tion. Or,  better  still  to  the  concep- 
tions of  our  mostadvanced  thinkers, 
it  should  take  possession  of  the 
machinery  of  production  and  insure 
those  workmen,  who  would  not 
consent  to  own  a  factory  if  it  were 
thrust  upon  them,  against  idleness. 
Is  the  rent  bill  onerous  f  Tax  the 
land  to  the  last  penny  that  it  will 
bear  for  the  support  of  the  Govern- 


38 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


4-. 


ment  to  the  end  that  the  rent  bill 
may  be  lightened.  Do  the  railways 
find  the  service  of  transportation 
complicated,  and  surrounded  by 
difficulties  which  only  their  man- 
agers of  largest  experience  and  best 
talent  are  able  to  comprehend  and 
meet?  The  government  is  the 
proper  appeal.  A  handful  of  Gov- 
ernment servants,  trained  in  the 
law  and  familiar  with  the  modes 
of  packing  and  carrying  a  conven- 
tion, should  know  how  to  pack  and 
despatch  merchandise.  Do  the 
managers  of  the  telegraph  impose 
a  tariff  on  messages,  and  learn 
secrets  which  no  cipher  can  be 
made  to  cover?  Let  us  have  done 
with  them,  then,  and  establish  a 
Government  telegraph  where 
charges  will  be  next  to  unknown, 
and  where  secrets  can  neither  be 
bought  nor  sold. 

This  is  the  spirit  in  which  the 
jest  is  carried  forward  and  matured. 
Day  after  day,  and  year  after  year, 
under  the  impulse  of  the  prevalent 
social  discontent,  we  see  our  theory 
of  individual  self  government,  the 
only  theory  of  self  government 
that  possesses  any  special  signifi- 
cance, assailed  in  its  most  vital 
principles.  We  not  only  see  it 
assailed,  but  have  seen  it  disre- 
garded and  set  aside  by  the  highest 
law  making  body  in  the  Union  in 
response  to  the  clamor  of  men 
whose  heads  have  been  turned  by 
the  fantastic  misconceptions  of 
reformers  and  State  socialists. 
Yet  men  meet  the  demonstrations 
against  their  constitutional  rights 
with  a  dazed  expression  of 
countenance,  and  seem  to  wonder 
if  it  be  not  true,  after  all, 
tiiat  our  political  system  was  con- 
ceived in  error.  They  begin  to ' 
suspect,  apparently,  that  every 
man  must  be  made  to  walk  under 
the  direction  of  some  official  supe- 
rior, even  after  he  has  passed  his 
own  threshold,  and  stands  beneath 
the  shelter  of  his  own  roof.  The 
picture  is  not  overdrawn.  We 


'hear  incessantly  the  clamor  for 
more  laws,  more  stringent  and  re- 
pressive legislation,  and  every 
Legislature  that  meets  is  at  once 
flooded  with  bills,  which,  if  passed, 
would  have  about  as  much  business 
in  the  statute  books  of  a  free  State 
as  an  imperial  ukase.  But  these 
bills  are  not  always  defeated. 

The  surrender  has  not  been  made 
at  the  hands  of  any  distinct  politi- 
cal party.  It  has  been  made  at  the 
hands  of  the  demagogue  who  is  at 
home  in  all  parties ;  but  if  either 
the  one  party  or  the  other  wears 
the  more  abject  countenance  at  this 
time  it  is  the  party  which  has 
always  most  distinctively  claimed 
to  be  the  advocate  of  self  govern- 
ment. Hence,  it  will  be  seen  that, 
on  account  of  the  misconceptions 
of  the  times,  we  are  in  danger  of 
seeing  the  champions  of  free  gov- 
ernment become  the  conspirators 
for  its  overthrow ;  and  we  should 
be  the  more  keenly  alive  to  the 
danger  of  allowing  the  existence  of 
evils  which  breed  social  discontent. 
We  cannot  afford,  in  response  to 
demands  that  should  never  be 
made,  to  see  compromised  the  only 
principles  on  which  free  govern 
nieiit  can  be  maintained. 

The  reason  why  we  are  running 
unusual  risks  at  this  time  should 
be  easily  comprehended.  Society, 
considered  independently  of  the 
Government,  which  of  course  is  a 
compulsory  organization  of  the 
entire  community,  is  half  organized 
and  half  unorganized.  Here  is  the 
first  cause  for  disagreement. 
Among  the  organized  forces  lies 
the  chief  strength  of  the  entire 
body  for  the  prosecution  of  great 
enterprises,  or  the  achievement  of 
brilliant  success;  and  the  display 
of  this  strength  provokes  jealousy 
and  all  kinds  of  uncharitableness. 
The  operations  of  a  portion  of 
these  organized  forces  have  been 
vast  and  comprehensive.  In  the 
possession  of  the  chief  avenues  of 
communication,  and  entrenched  in 


426 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


our  complex  and  highly  developed 
banking  system,  they  have  assumed 
control  of  two  functions  which,  in 
the  rudimentary  days  of  political 
evolution,  were  held  as  the  prerog- 
atives of  the  crown  or  king.  They 
control  the  monetary  sources,  and 
all  that  is  best  worth  holding  in  the 
highways.  This  is  entirely  right, 
and  consistent  with  a  just  concep- 
tion of  popular  functions  in  a  free 
State.  It  is  not  the  people  in  office 
who  are  sovereign.  It  is  the  peo- 
ple out  of  office.  But  this  is  an 
ultimate  distinction  which  the  men 
in  office  do  not  always  care  to  ob- 
serve ;  and  the  traditional  theories, 
conceived  in  the  days  when  Eng- 
land was  only  emerging  from  mili- 
tary despotism,  are  still  maintained, 
and  made  the  foundation  of  even 
our  republican  code.  Eeasoning 
from  these  theories  it  is  easy  to 
maintain  that  the  people  should  be 
held  subject  to  rulers  in  everything 
that  was  once  the  prerogative  of 
the  crown ;  and  we  are  in  danger 
of  seeing  ourselves  forced  back- 
ward to  ground  that  will  be  hardly 
the  less  unrepublican  and  oppres- 
sive because  the  rulers  happen  to 
be  elective  instead  of  hereditary 
rulers. 

But  the  instinct  of  independence 
is  so  strong  in  this  country  that  this 
kind  of  reasoning,  reactionary  and 
false  when  carried  to  any  consider- 
able extreme  beyond  the  mere  duties 
of  police,  would  give  us  little  cause 
for  concern  were  the  organized 
forces  of  the  community  all  organ- 
ized for  corresponding  purposes. 
Were  the  objects  always  similar 
we  could  look  to  see  the  organized 
forces  work  together  ;  and  the  exi- 
gencies of  the  situation  would  very 
soon  compel  universal  organiza- 
tion. Then  there  would  no  longer 
be  danger  of  appeals  to  the  Gov- 
ernment for  the  protection  which 
every  man  would  find  in  his  envi- 
ronment, and  there  would  be  little 
opportunity  for  covert  encroach- 
ment on  popular  rights.  But,  un- 


fortunately, the  organization  is  for 
distinct  and  antagonistic  purposes, 
The     majority     of  the    organized 
forces  are  combined  rather  in  obe- 
dience to  an   instinct  than  in  re- 
sponse to  the  demand  of  any  coin-r- 
ent principle ;  and  their  organi/u 
tion,  while   promising  well   for  i ! 
future,  remains,  for  the  presei  '. 
chief  source  of  danger.     They 
lieve  themselves  in  peril  from  \\  i  < 
they  term  the  capitalistic  conibhut 
tions,  and  cast  about  in  every  di- 
rection for  the  means  of  protection. 
Naturally,  they  turn  to  the  Govern- 
ment, and  offer  themselves  as  the 
allies  of  encroachment. 

Under  these  circumstances  we 
should  readily  see  what  would  be 
likely  to  happen.  The  financial 
companies  are  strong  not  only  in 
the  superiority  of  their  system,  but 
in  their  material  resources.  They 
do  not  yet  possess  more  than  one- 
fourth  the  accumulated  wealth  of 
the  country ;  but  they  possess  it  in 
the  form  in  which  it  may  be  most 
powerfully  wielded  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  any  end,  and  they 
hold  the  operative  capital  of  the 
entire  community  almost  com- 
pletely under  their  control.  1  hey 
represent  a  race  of  gigantic  indi- 
viduals in  fact,  surrounded  by  a 
race  of  pigmies :  and  they  can 
hardly  move  without  the  danger  ol 
stepping  on  one  of  these  pigmies 
and  crushing  him  out  of  all  sem- 
blance to  humanity.  Hence,  the 
continual  uproar  in  the  community, 
and  the  clamor  for  repressive  laws. 
Hence,  also, the  peculiar  danger  that 
conies  from  the  merely  protective 
organizations.  While  helpless  for 
any  financial  arrangement  that  can 
be  productive  of  considerable  ben- 
efit to  their  members,  such  or- 
ganizations may  be  made  powerful 
agents  to  assist  in  attacks  on  the 
liberties  of  citizens,  made  under 
pretext  of  protecting  the  commu- 
nity against  so  called  monopolies. 
All  the  meddlesome,  reactionary 
laws  that  have  been  placed  upon 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


427 


the  statute  books  within  the  past 
few  years,  and  they  are  not  a  few, 
have  been  passed  in  response  to  the 
demands,  or  the  supposed  demands, 
of  some  form  of  protective  organi- 
zation, Granger,  Knight  of  Labor, 
or  Trade  Union.  And  there  is  not 
one  of  those  laws  which,  besides 
being  fundamentally  unconstitu- 
tional under  the  American  concep- 
tion of  free  government,  has  not 
either  worked  mischievously  or 
proved  abortive. 

But  it  is  not  so  much  the  evils 
which  we  have  reached  that  should 
give  us  concern  as  the  evils  to  be 
anticipated  if  we  continue  moving 
over  the  road  we  are  now  follow- 
ing. At  the  moment  we  are  going 
in  the  wrong  direction  at  a  very 
much  more  rapid  pace  than  men 
who  do  not  trouble  themselves  by 
taking  observations  suspect.  Noth- 
ing is  so  treacherous  as  the  force  of 
a  current  in  the  middle  of  a  broad 
river.  More  than  one  boat  has 
been  swept  hopelessly  into  the  rap- 
ids above  Niagara  Falls  when  the 
boatman  did  not  even  suspect  that 
he  had  reached  a  current  that  he 
was  unable  to  stem.  Political 
movements,  more  than  any  other 
movements,  are  insidious.  Con- 
gress has  the  right  to  regulate  com- 
merce between  States.  Certainly, 
it  was  so  provided  in  the  Constitu- 
tion ;  and  no  man  can  be  found  to 
dispute  the  proposition.  Then  it 
must  have  the  right  to  take  con- 
trol of  all  the  railroads  chartered 
by  the  States,  appoint  a  new  board 
of  Federal  directors,  and  to  prac- 
tically usurp  the  chief  functions  of 
railway  management.  While  you 
are  making  regulations  it  will  be  as 
well  to  make  them  organic  and  in- 
stitutional as  to  have  them  merely 
statutory.  Again  the  proposition 
is  simple,  and  few  are  found  to  raise 
their  voices  in  protest.  But  what 
will  come  next  ?  Once  in  control 
of  the  railways,  Congress,  with 
equally  good  logic,  can  turn  them 
to  any  political  service  for  which  it 


thinks  them  adapted,  and,  little  by 
little,  make  them  an  entering  wedge 
to  rend  asunder  and  destroy  our 
constitutional  theory  of  localized, 
or  restricted,  eminent  domain. 
Will  it  be  said  that  there  could  be 
no  inducement  for  such  an  extreme 
act  ?  It  will  not  be  difficult  to  find 
an  inducement  for  any  encroach- 
ment that  could  be  conceived  when 
the  most  potent  motive  force  that 
is  driving  us  forward  is  inspired 
by  the  clamor  of  one  portion  of  the 
community  determined  to  repress 
and  subjugate  another  portion  at 
all  hazards.  When  upon  every 
hand  we  hear  men,  impelled  by 
their  misapprehensions,  demanding 
even  the  extinction  of  their  own 
liberties,  on  the  plea  that  they  must 
be  protected  against  encroachment, 
we  must  not  put  too  much  confi- 
dence in  want  of  inducement.  It 
is  hard  to  foretell  the  fate  of  a  soci- 
ety divided  against  itself.  We 
should  have  the  most  repressive 
government  on  earth  were  half  the 
laws  and  regulations  that  are  advo- 
cated once  proclaimed  and  put  in 
operation.  We  have  even  at  this 
time  organized  factions  clamoring 
for  the  destruction  of  both  the  first 
and  second  largest  fields  for  per- 
sonal investment  in  the  country. 
The  Government  is  asked  to  take 
possession  of  both  the  lands  and 
the  railroads,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
bagatelle  represented  in  the  tele- 
graphs. True,  these  factions  are 
strong  neither  in  numbers  nor  in 
the  force  of  their  leaders  ;  but  they 
are  strong  enough  to  encourage 
demagogues,  and  help  them  to  carry 
unconstitutional  measures.  We 
shall  have  little  room  for  govern- 
ment in  this  country.  As  a  large 
proprietor  and  operator,  with  des- 
potic functions,  it  represents  a 
stronger  personality  than  we  can 
prudently  let  loose  on  the  commu- 
nity. When  the  masses  have 
learned  to  do  their  duty  there  will 
be  such  a  demand  for  new  fields  of 
investment  that  even  the  postal 


41 


428 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


service  must  possibly  be  surren- 
dered to  the  people,  and  converted 
into  a  source  of  personal  profit. 

Security  against  aggression  on 
popular  institutions  will  be  found 
in  promoting  the  work  of  organiza- 
tion on  lines  that  will  give  it  some 
meaning  in  the  field  of  practical 
finance.  We  cannot  go  backward 
were  we  crazy  enough  to  wish  to 
turn  away  from  the  best  progress 
of  the  age,  and  become  as  rudimen- 
tary again  in  our  social  relations  as 
a  tribe  of  Comanche  savages.  But 


neither  can  we  suffer  a  continuance 
of  the  discordant  and  belligerent 
spirit  now  manifest  in  the  commu- 
nity without  risks  which  no  pru- 
dent people  would  care  to  run. 
Logic  is  fate.  Civilization  is  bound 
towards  complete  enfranchisement, 
or  it  is  bound  to  extinction  under 
the  shadow  of  reaction  and  strong 
government.  It  may  change  direc 
tion  frequently,  now  advancing  and 
now  returning  on  its  paces.  But 
the  general  progress  will  be  fin- 
ished at  one  or  the  other  limit. 


.A.  P  P  E  IN"  D I X   .A. 


IN  proposing  measures  for  in- 
creasing the  monetary  resources  of 
the  community  it  is  desirable  that 
everything  indeterminate  shall  be 
eliminated  from  the  plans.  The  fol- 
lowing bill  was  prepared,  therefore, 
in  colaboration  with  a  member  of 
the  New  York  bar,  who  is  a  mem- 
ber, also,  of  the  Legislature  for  the 
current  year ;  and  it  is  offered  for 
the  deliberations  of  legislative  bod- 
ies. It  is  believed  to  contain  the 
chief  provisions  needed  for  the  suc- 
cessful administration  of  the  system 
suggested  in  the  foregoing  treatise. 
Experience  might  demonstrate  the 
need  of  amendment ;  but  the  bill 
has  been  carefully  matured  with  an 
eye  to  the  various  sources  from 
which  danger  could  be  apprehended 
in  the  administration  of  companies 
organized  under  it  provisions,  and 
it  is  confidently  felt  that  it  leaves 
fewer  openings  for  irregular  con- 
duct on  the  part  of  either  officers 
or  members  than  most  of  the  acts 
of  incorporation  now  in  force. 

No  man  can  be  found,  not  utterly 
selfish,  who  will  deny  the  justice  of 
the  measure.  There  may  be  a  few 
men  who  will  deny  its  expediency. 
They  may  charge  the  general  pov- 
erty among  the  masses  to  lack  of 
thrift,  and  to  a  disregard  of  the 
.means  through  which  a  few  men 


obtain  wealth.  But  the  subject  of 
this  little  book  has  been  discussed 
in  vain  if  it  has  not  been  shown 
that  it  is  a  physical  impossibility 
for  more  than  a  few  to  obtain  even 
a  decent  subsistence  under  the  pre- 
vailing system,  while  the  great 
body  of  men  must  remain  not  only 
poor  but  peiilously  exposed  to  cas- 
ualty. The  bill  was  drawn  for  the 
benefit  of  this  latter  class,  and  not 
for  the  men  with  the  more  prehen- 
sile fingers.  It  is  commended  to  the 
Legislatures  of  all  the  States. 

AN  ACT  FOE  THE  INCORPORATION 
OF  BOND  INSURANCE  COMPANIES. 

The  People  of  the  State  of  New  York,  repre- 
sented in  Senate  and  Assembly,  do  enact  as 
follows  : 

SECTION  1. — Any  twenty  or  more  persons 
of  full  age,  citizens  of  the  United  States,  a 
majority  of  whom  shall  be  also  citizens  of 
this  State,  who  shall  desire  to  associate 
themselves  for  the  improvement  of  their 
condition,  may  make,  sign,  and  acknowl- 
edge before  any  officer  authorized  to  take 
the  acknowledgement  of  deeds  in  this  Staff. 
and  file  and  record  in  the  office  of  the  Se<  - 
retary  of  State,  and  also  in  the  office  of  tin- 
Clerk  of  the  county  in  which  the  princip:.! 
office  of  the  association  shall  be  situated,  a 
certificate  in  writing  in  which  shall  be 
stated  the  name  or  title  by  which  such  asso- 
ciation shall  be  known  in  law,  the  particu- 
lar business  or  object  for  which  it  shall  be 
formed,  the  number  of  trustees  who  shall 
manage  its  concerns,  with  their  names  for 
the  first  year  of  its  existence,  and  the  name 


UL'l  IMA TE  FINANCE. 


c.  the  town,  city,  or  connty  In  which  its 
Gyrations  shall  be  conducted.  But  such 
certificate  shall  not  be  filed,  unless  by  the 
written  consent  and  approbation  of  one  of 
the  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
district  in  which  the  principal  office  of  such 
company  or  association  shall  be  located,  to 
be  endorsed  on  such  certificate ;  and  noth- 
ing  in  this  act  contained  shall  authorize  the 
incorporation  of  any  society  or  association 
for  any  purpose  repugnant  to  the  Constitu- 
tion or  any  statute  of  this  State,  or  prohib- 
ited by  the  Constitution  or  laws  of  the 
United  States. 

SEC.  2. — Upon  filing  and  recording  a  cer- 
tificate as  aforesaid,  the  persons  who  shall 
have  signed  and  acknowledged  such  certifi- 
cate, and  their  associates  and  successors, 
shall,  by  virtue  of  this  act,  be  a  body  politic 
and  corporate  by  the  name  stated  in  such 
certificate,  and  by  that  name  they  and  their 
successors  shall  and  may  have  succession, 
and  shall  be  persons  in  law  capable  of  suing 
and  being  sued  in  any  court  of  law  or 
equity  in  this  State,  and  they  and  their  suc- 
cessors may  have  and  use  a  common  seal, 
and  may  alter  and  change  the  same  at 
pleasure,  and  they  and  their  successors  by 
their  corporate  name  shall  in  law  be  capable 
of  t:iking,  receiving,  purchasing,  leasing, 
holding,  and  conveying  any  personal  and 
real  estate  which  may  be  necessary  to 
enable  them  to  carry  on  their  operations 
and  transact  the  business  of  their  incorpor- 
ation, but  for  no  other  purpose  whatever. 

SEC.  3. — The  num>>er  of  trustees  in  said 
company  shall  be  not  less  than  five  nor 
more  than  thirteen.  They  shall  be  elected 
annually  by  ballot,  each  member  of  the 
company  having  one  vote  and  no  more,  and 
due  notice  of  the  date  and  time  of  election 
shall  be  given  in  a  newspaper  most  conven- 
ient in  place  of  publication.  It  shall  be  the 
duty  of  the  trustees  to  elect  a  President,  to 
appoint  and  fix  the  salaries  of  clerks  and 
other  assistants,  and,  as  hereinafter  pro- 
vided, to  meet  all  regular  and  contingent 
expenses  entailed  in  the  work  of  adminis- 
tration. They  shall  be  paid  a  compensation 
not  in  excess  of  the  sum  given  to  the  most 
highly  compensated  member  of  the  com- 
pany when  engaged  in  his  pursuit  or  call- 
ing for  a  livelihood. 

SEC.  4. — The  said  trustees  shall  make  suit- 
able by-laws  for  the  regulation  and  govern- 
ment of  the  company,  provided,  however, 
that  no  by-law  shall  be  adopted  which  shall 
he  inconsistent  with  the  Constitution  and 
laws  of  the  United  States  or  of  this  State,  or 
which  will  infringe  on  the  liberty  of  the 
member  to  select  or  change  his  place  of 
domicile,  or  restrict  his  freedom  in  making 
or  executing  any  contracts  for  which  the 
sureties  of  the  company  are  not  pledged. 

SEC.  5. — It  shall  be  lawful  for  the  said 
company  to  maintain  a  fund  founded  on  an 
established  percentage  reserved  from  the 
wages,  salaries,  or  income  of  its  members 
in  their  various  callings,  and  paid  into  the 
treasury  of  the  company  or  to  its  agent  by 
their  employers,  or  in  accordance  with  such 


other  regulations  as  the  trustees  may  adopt , 
the  said  fund  represented  in  bonds  bearing 
the  names  of  individual  members  to  be  ap- 
portioned in  allotments  among  the  members 
according  to  the  percentage  or  percentages 
so  reserved,  and  used  either  for  the  con- 
struction of  dwellings  or  for  general  invest- 
ment under  regulations  imposed  in  the  by 
laws  of  the  company.  All  bonds  shall  be 
fixed  at  an  amount  that  will  leave  in  the 
treasury,  after  the  payment  of  interest,  a 
fund  sufficient  for  their  redemption  on  the 
death  or  permanent  disability  of  the  mem- 
bers in  whose  names  they  were  issued,  and 
cover  the  expense  of  managing  the  concerns 
of  the  company,  including  the  payment  of 
losses  on  property  by  fire.  On  a  majority 
vote  of  the  members  the  percentages  may 
be  increased  to  meet  any  benevolent  or  edu- 
cational plans  which  may  be  thought  ex- 
pedient, but  in  no  case  shall  they  be  made 
to  cover  speculative  objects  or  plans  under 
the  control  of  the  trustees. 

SEC.  6. — All  investments  of  funds  made  by 
the  members  of  the  said  company  in  any 
manufacturing,  mercantile,  or  financial  con- 
cern shall  be  made  subject  to  the  consent  of 
the  trustees,  and  without  such  consent  the 
company  shall  not  be  held  liable  for  any 
losses  which  may  be  incurred.  In  case  of 
the  suspension  or  bankruptcy  of  any  firm 
with  which  the  funds  of  any  member  of  the 
company  are  invested,  it  shall  be  the  duty 
of  the  trustees  to  take  such  legal  steps  as 
may  be  thought  expedient  to  recover  the 
amount;  but  both  the  interest  and  insur- 
ance on  all  or  any  part  of  the  amount 
which  cannot  be  recovered  must  be  paid  by 
the  member  making  the  investment  until 
the  claim  is  fully  satisfied. 

SEC.  7. — The  trustees  shall  have  no  power 
to  order  an  assessment  on  the  members  of 
the  company,  nor  to  fix  the  allotments  to 
members  low  enough  to  leave  a  permanent 
reserve  in  the  treasury  larger  than  one  and 
one-half  of  one  per  cent,  on  the  total  re- 
ceipts ;  but  the  Supreme  Court,  on  the  ap- 
plication of  the  trustees,  may  order  an 
assessment  to  meet  the  demands  of  a  judg- 
ment obtained  against  the  company  in  a 
court  of  law,  or  to  cover  unusual  losses 
caused  by  fire,  pestilence,  or  the  disability 
of  members. 

SEC.  8. — On  receiving  an  application  for 
membership  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the 
trustees  to  investigate  the  character  and  fit- 
ness of  the  applicant.  No  person  shall  be 
deemed  eligible  to  membership  who  is  not 
industrious  and  trustworthy,  >nd  no  person 
who  has  once  been  a  member  of  any  com- 
pany which  may  be  formed  under  the  pro- 
visions of  this  act  shall  be  admitted  to  mem- 
bership in  any  bther  company  without 
bringing  a  certificate  of  his  good  standing 
and  qualifications  from  the  trustees  of  the 
company  of  which  he  was  last  a  member. 

SEC.  9. — It  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  com- 
pany to  maintain  an  employment  bureau, 
where  shall  be  kept  a  registration  of  the 
names  of  members  seeking  employment, 
and  the  names,  when  furnished,  of  employ. 


43 


430 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


•rs  wanting  service;  but  the  performance 
of  this  duty  shall  not  be  construed  to  give 
to  the  trustees  the  power  to  fix  rates  of 
wages  or  terms  of  employment.  During 
the  temporary  idleness  or  disability  of  a 
member,  the  percentage  reserved  from  his 
wages  or  salary  shall  be  paid  from  the  re- 
serve fund  of  the  company;  but  in  any 
such  case  the  said  member,  when  again  em- 
ployed, shall  be  liable  to  the  payment  of  a 
double  percentage  until  the  deficiency  is  met. 
SEC.  10. — The  right  to  membership  in  any 
company  formed  under  the  provisions  of 
this  act  shall  not  be  held  as  an  exclusive 
right ;  but  no  person,  not  a  trustee  or  other 
officer,  shall  remain  eligible  to  membership 
except  while  actually  engaged  in  the  pur- 
suit of  some  industrial,  mercantile,  or  pro- 
fessional calling  for  a  livelihood. 


APPENDIX  B. 

WE  have  undertaken  to  give  in 
the  foregoing  pages  a  true  theory 
of  co-operation  founded  on  the  facts 
of  our  social,  economic,  and  politi- 
cal development.  That  there  may 
be  also  false  theories  of  co-opera- 
tion will  be  readily  apprehended, 
for  there  is  no  virtue  in  a  word, 
however  attractive  the  train  of  as- 
sociations, which  it  may  awaken. 
It  will  be  worth  while  to  point  out 
a  few  of  the  objections  which  may 
be  raised  against  some  of  the  va- 
rious systems  of  co-operation  that 
have  been  taught  and  practiced. 

Until  within  the  last  two  or  three 
decades  political  economy  has  been 
a  very  inconclusive  science  because 
of  the  lack  of  data  from  which  cor- 
rect deductions  could  be  drawn. 
The  statistician  is  a  being  of  very 
recent  development;  and  even  the 
census  taker,  when  his  services 
comprehended  more  than  the  mere 
count  of  numbers  in  population, 
has  only  recently  reached  a  stage 
of  real  efficiency.  The  earlier  writers 
on  political  economy  knew  only 
theoretically  of  economic  condi- 
tions, or  of  the  nature  and  division 
of  the  forces  that  enter  into  the  ac- 
cumulation of  national  wealth.  In- 
deed, they  may  be  charged  with  a 
very  imperfect  conception  of  the 
substance  of  wealth  itself,  and  of 
its  sociologic  relations.  They  knew 


only  the  rudiments  of  financial 
science  as  it  is  made  intelligible  to- 
day in  statistical  tables  and  current 
facts;  and  many  of  their  theories 
are  still  accepted  only  because  they 
entered  into  the  early  education  of 
a  generation  which  has  not  yet  en- 
tirely passed  away. 

But  if  the  masters  of  political 
economy  often  failed  to  compre- 
hend the  principles  of  the  science- 
which  they  taught,  what  could  be 
expected  of  men  whose  impulses 
were  chiefly  benevolent,  and  who 
undertook  to  divert  the  crude  deduc- 
tions or  rather  the  a  priori  theories 
of  those  masters  -into  schemes  for 
ameliorating  social  conditions?  They 
could  be  expected  to  conceive  only 
ideal  systems,  founded  rather  upon 
ethical  than  upon  material  grounds. 
They  would  look  only  to  discover 
what  they  conceived  to  be  the  duty 
of  a  man  in  his  dealings  with  his 
fellows,  and  overlook  the  fact  that 
we  belong  to  an.  exceedingly  self- 
seeking  race.  Such  men  might  be 
good  prophets,  or  evangelists,  of  a 
new  era;  but  they  could  hardly  be 
expected  to  give  form  to  any  plan  that 
would  meet  with  universal  or  even 
general  favor.  Unprovided  with 
facts,  and  filled  only  with  philan- 
thropic sentiment,  they  would 
merely  devise  schemes  that  would 
prove  fundamentally  wrong  and 
impracticable. 

Of  this  character,  unfortunately, 
were  the  men  who  conceived  and 
instituted  the  various  systems  of 
co-operation  that  have  been  at- 
tempted in  divers  times  and  coun- 
tries. Their  first  dream  was  of  in- 
dustrial co-operation.  Well,  this 
is  a  good  enough  conception  when 
it  is  fully  comprehended ;  and  it  is 
to  be  hoped  that  those  who  are  able 
to  read  between  the  lines  have 
found  in  this  treatise  a  suggestion 
'  that  it  is  both  good  and  practicable. 
But  pursued  as  a  prime  object  it  is 
altogether  worthless.  The  facts  fur- 
nished in  the  first  chapter  prove 
i  beyond  question  that  no  great  ben- 


ULTIMATE  FINANCE. 


43 T 


ttSt  can  come  to  the  race  through 
the  adoption  of  a  system  in  which 
industrial  co-operation  shall  be 
more  than  incidental.  There  is  not 
enough  profit  in  production,  and 
not  enough  wealth  accumulated 
through  its  contributions,  to  add 
appreciably  to  the  comfort  or  secu- 
rity of  any  of  the  men  who  would 
become  the  recipients  of  a  univer- 
sal and  equal  dividend.  Hence 
the  failure,  or  the  lack  of  vitality, 
manifest  in  all  schemes  looking  to 
industrial  co-operation.  All  the 
coparceners  remai  n  as  poor  as  ever 
when  such  schemes  are  tried;  and, 
to  add  to  the  causes  for  dissatisfac- 
tion, they  are  restrained  in  their 
liberty  both  of  movement  and  ac- 
tion. The  notion  of  industrial  co- 
operation was  conceived  before 
statistics  enabled  men  to  define 
both  the  possibilities  and  limita- 
tions of  production. 

Similar  reflections  must  be  made 
in  relation  to  the  co-operative  store 
system  which  has  been  worked  up 
to  such  larga  proportions  in  Eng- 
land during  the  last  quarter  of  a 
century.  We  are  told  that  the  com- 
bined capital  of  the  English  co-opera- 
tive stores  reaches  the  large  total  of 
$45,000,000,  and  that  their  divi- 
dends distributed  among  the  stock- 
holders amount  to  $15,000,000  an- 
nually. But  those  stockholders 
number  nearly  1,000,000;  and  when 
we  divide  the  total  of  dividends 
among  this  large  army  of  partners 
we  find  that  each  partner  has  re- 
ceived only  a  few  dollars,  a  smaller 
sum  of  money  than  a  middle- pri"o<1 
mechanic  would  earn  in  this  coun- 
try in  a  single  week.  It  will  be 
seen,  therefore,  that  co-operative 
stores  add  very  little  to  income; 
and  as  for  their  contribution  to  the 
accumulations  of  the  stockholders 
a,  division  will  give  less  than  $50  to 
each  person.  Can  a  better  illustra- 
tion of  financial  impotency  be  con- 
ceived? But  the  system  is  not  im- 
potent for  evil.  These  co-operative 
stores  are  absolutely  mischievous 


in  their  effects  upon  the  market. 
They    intensify  competition,   ami, 
whether  intentionally  or  not,  they 
reduce  prices,  and,  as  a  final  conse- 
quence, they  reduce  the  income  of 
the  stockholders  by  whose  subscrip- 
!  tions  they  are  maintained.     They 
1  furthermore  violate  that  economic 
principle  which  demands  variety 
in  pursuit,  and  the  widest  possible 
!  extension  of  reciprocal  service. 

Another  development  of  the  cj- 
I  operative  idea  is  found  in  tin  .-e 
t  combinations  known  as  buildir.g 
•  and  loan  associations.  Here  ut 
,  least,  it  will  be  claimed,  the  co-op- 
jerathe  movement  has  been  pio- 
ductive  of  much  good.  But  even 
here  the  claim  cannot  be  admitted 
without  great  qualification.  Dur- 
ing nearly  a  half  century  co-opera- 
tive building  societies  have  been 
carrying  on  their  operations  in 
different  parts  of  the  world  ;  yet 
the  number  of  employees  who  have 
obtained  homes  through  their 
agency  would  not  be  as  a  single 
unit  to  five  thousand.  Why  this 
failure  if  they  have  proved  efficient? 
Advocates  of  the  system  will  charge 
the  insignificant  results  obtained 
to  want  of  thrift  and  foresight  on 
the  part  of  employees.  But  there 
are  various  causes  for  failure,  ai:d 
the  lack  of  thrift  and  foresight  is 
not  the  chief  cause.  The  system 
itself  is  essentially  weak.  The  class 
of  dwellings  offered  through  build- 
ing societies  is  not  such  as  would 
be  desired  by  men  of  reasonable 
ambition,  and  not  calculated  to 
p*r°ken  a  high  degree  of  enthusi- 
asm. But  for  the  population  of 
large  cities  a  second  objection  is 
even  more  fatal  than  the  first.  Em- 
ployees cannot  afford  to  live  in  the 
suburbs.  They  must  be  found  at 
their  places  of  employment  at  an 
early  hour  in  the  morning,  and 
must  remain  until  a  late  hour  in 
evening.  The  cost  of  transit  to  and 
from  suburban  homes  is  also  con- 
siderably in  excess  of  the  cost  in 
town.  Yet  it  is  only  in  the  sub- 


432 


BEACON  LIGHTS  OF  SCIENCE. 


nrbs,  where  space  is  necessarily 
abundant  and  of  little  value,  that 
building  societies  have  been  found 
strong  enough  to  operate.  These 
are  serious  obstructions  in  the  way 
of  co-operative  building  as  hereto- 
fore prosecuted.  Besides,  the 
scheme  has  uo  economic  bearing, 
and  entirely  fails  to  provide  for 
that  general  increase  of  operative 
capital  which  should  be  held  in 
view. 

The  most  popular,  and  as  em- 
ployees seem  to  believe,  the  most 
successful  form  of  co-operation  yet 
tried  has  been  developed  through 
the  agency  of  trade  unions  and  kin- 
dred organizations  for  maintaining 
wages.  Such  combinations  have 
probably  been  successful  in  secur- 
ing something  like  stability  for 
wages;  but  at  best  a  trade  union 
can  never  be  more  than  a  break- 
water to  prevent  a  too  sudden  out- 
flow of  the  current.  In  spite  of  all 
efforts  at  control,  wesee  continually 
that  wages  rise  and  fall  in  sympathy 
with  the  industrial  or  rather  the 
commercial  situation.  These  or- 
ganizations are  also  dangerous 


\  when  not  directed  with  the  utmost 
!  address  and  judgment.  Wages 
must  always  fall  after  a  panic,  or 
half  the  total  of  employees  would 
starve.  They  must  also  fall  during 
a  prolonged  period  of  depression, 
or  the  same  catastrophe,  modified 
possibly  by  half  rations,  would  fol- 
low. It  may  be  easily  possible, 
then,  to  precipitate  a  panic,  or 
compel  wholesale  discharges  of  em- 
ployees, by  contending  too  stub- 
bornly for  rates  at  times  when  the 
commercial  movement  has  become 
undecided  and  weak.  The  best 
means  of  maintaining  wages  will 
be  found  in  an  increase  of  capital 
and  the  enlargement  of  enterprise. 
On  the  whole  it  may  be  said  that 
all  theories  of  co-operation  save 
those  that  are  founded  on  our 
growing  financial  methods  may  be 
pronounced  either  inefficient  or 
mischievous.  This  condemnation, 
however,  must  not  be  inteipieted 
to  lie  against  certain  mutual  benefit 
societies  which  are  moving  on  the 
right  road,  but  have  not  yet  suc- 
ceeded in  advancing  to  any  consid 
erable  distance. 


THE  END.