(p. 133)
BOOK III
(p. 134)
‘Even doubts are often instructive, for hasty conclusions may be avoided when we are assured either that what we know is little beyond probable surmise, or that our knowledge is only a few degrees removed from mere ignorance.’ – SATURDAY REVIEW, July 21, 1866, p. 84.
(p. 135)
ANARCHY
IT is a summer morning, and Herbert is riding through the picturesque hills that skirt the valley of the Sacramento, to a spot that has before attracted him as likely to repay labour. He is alone, and well-armed, for violence is now common in the land. Travellers approaching from opposite directions waive each other on the road. If one insists on coming too close, usage permits him to be shot down without waiting for an attack. Bandits from Upper Mexico are abroad; barbarians of wondrous skill in horsemanship, who at full gallop fling the terrible lasso with unerring certainty over the helpless traveller, and drag him to death at full speed. There are fearful reports in the settlements about these murderous gangs. The conversation at the way-side inn where Herbert put up last night was all about them. An American, who has been in the Mexican war, there tells how that many were made prisoners in that way. And how an officer of his regiment was caught, but being better mounted than his captor he out rode him and shot him down with his revolver; but the lasso being made fast to the saddle, the affrighted horse still galloped on, and a long chase was necessary before he too could be shot down, and the officer could release himself. They talk also of how the miners dwelling in lonely places, barricade their log-huts and prepare loop-holes for their rifles. Herbert’s road lies
(p. 136)
through a district believed to be infested, but he thinks the danger not greater there than in other parts of the country. He has ridden far and met with no one, and his thoughts gradually turn from danger to other subjects. He has been to the Bay and deposited the money he took down from the mines in the city banks, having written to the Major’s relations to tell them his fate, and to ask for instructions respecting the disposal of his share. He has found and read the long-delayed letters. Poor Major, thou art happier thus. Thy bride waits not for thee. Death has been busy in that careful land as well as here. Now are ye united, and all doubts are cleared up for ever. And there is one less to weep for thee at home.
The inclination of his horse towards a rich plot of grass reminds Herbert that it is near noon, and therefore time for rest and refreshment. Horse and rider occupy themselves accordingly. A delightful little hollow it is, adorned with mountain oaks and splendid tiger lilies, whose red and speckled blossoms hang heavily in the noon-day heat. Pleasant reposing in such a spot, watching the tiny humming-birds shedding soft murmurs as they dart through the air, and hover around the tiger-lilies, poising themselves a moment on their quivering wings, and then diving up into the overhanging petals; and even wheeling close round Herbert as he sits motion-less in order to tempt their approach.
And so from the sweet scenes of nature, and perhaps suggested by the very contrast, his thoughts recurred to the city he had just visited and the wild deeds there enacted. There he has seen all the order of things completely inverted; private citizens protecting themselves,
(p. 137)
and punishing crime, while constituted authorities aided and abbetted it. He has seen the streets patrolled day and night by bankers, lawyers, merchants, and shop-keepers, all carrying arms, and doing with their own hands that which the appointed guardians of society conspired to prevent. He has seen men seized in the act of robbery, the citizens summoned by the ringing of an alarm bell, and the offender executed on the spot. He has seen a mob, composed of the principal citizens, assault the gaol, take out the felons confined there, and hang them in the street, because they had been placed there for immunity, and not for justice. In the necessity for thus acting he sees the penalty for their own neglect of all the duties of citizen ship for the frantic engrossment of money-making. With full power to be governed in the most perfect manner they could devise, and to select the best agents, they have left all to the worst classes of society, forgetting that Liberty not only confers privileges, but also imposes duties. From the lowest police, through officers, sheriffs, and, it is said, up to the judges and governor of the State, all offices nave been filled with ruffians elected by ruffians assembled from all parts of the earth, and leagued together for plunder and rapine, – a terrible disease indeed, and threatening speedy dissolution to society. The remedy must be sharp in proportion. There was something majestic in the determined altitude of the better classes, when thoroughly aroused to a sense of their danger and their duty.
With that faculty for organisation which the American system seems to bestow as a birthright upon its children, committees of vigilance are everywhere appointed,
(p. 138)
either to see that justice is done, or to do it themselves. Sharp watch is kept, and detection followed by instant execution; little compassion being bestowed on men who commit their depredations with their eyes open, and in full knowledge of what their fate will be; – for men who steal, not because there is no work awaiting them with ample reward, but from pure preference for stealing to working. The effect is magical. The state is saved. Driven from the settlements, crime now haunts the umpeopled districts through which travellers must pass.
Herbert’s tendency to philosophise naturally leads him to thinking about punishment and its meaning. In this simplest form of society he thinks can best be found the true theory of human association, as physiologists seek among the simplest organisms for theories of life and health. Punishment when not mere revenge, is only in self-defence. Justice means only restitution; not vengeance, or retaliation. Man, that is, civilised man, has nothing to do with that. There is but one limit to a inanes liberty of action, namely, the liberty of other men. We have no right to punish or prevent any action except in so far as it militates against our own liberty. The nature and quality of punishment must be determined by, and is an indication of, the stage at which any society has arrived, in its progress towards civilisation. Here in its early stage, and where the offenders against liberty form a large proportion of the whole, is actually a condition of civil war. The upholders of order, that is, those who do not infringe upon the liberties of others, cannot afford to make prisoners, for they have no means of guarding them; far less of reforming them. They can
(p. 139)
therefore give no quarter. Death is no deliberate capital punishment: it occurs in the fight for existence. To punish implies unquestioned superiority. Here it is as yet doubtful which side is the stronger. To spare, therefore would be suicidal. By and by, when life and property are respected by the vast majority, and crime becomes rare, security, leisure, and experience may suggest a mode of disposing of offenders with advantage to both parties. Judicious treatment may even make them useful members of society, and by bema: remunerative, prove even cheaper than hanging. But what may be cheap then is ruinously expensive, even impossible, now. The infliction of death, then, is neither right nor wrong in the abstract, but is determined entirely by the condition of each society. The ruder and simpler society is, the ruder and simpler must be its modes of defence against aggression. The reformation of criminals (a very different thing to their punishment) is a luxury to be reserved for a wealthier and securer society, with more advanced and complex civilisation.
(p. 140)
A VICTIM
THE arms examined, the sharp knife loosened in its sheath, as the only possible defence against the encircling lasso, Herbert resumes his journey – a sample of many journeys mule by him and others in that country. He has reduced the chances of danger by leaving the ordinary track, but neglects no precaution. He rides along making as little noise as possible, and wherever there are trees he keeps near them, remembering that the lasso is useless without ire c scope to fling it in. Night finds him I am from any settlement; but this is a contingency expected and provided against. A little rivulet of clearest water, and a patch of grass, supply all the traveller’s necessities, be he man or horse. A tree to sleep under out of the dew is a luxury. The horse feeds around until it is time to sleep. He is then picketed out with a long rope carried for the purpose. His master rolls himself in a blanket, and with his hollow Mexican saddle for a pillow, soon falls asleep. Happy life, with its dreams by day of hope, and by night of realisation. Pleasant contrast this quiet starry night makes to some of Herbert’s late winter experiences, when camped out in. the forest, with the storm driving through the trees, and sending their big branches crashing down on all sides, and the roar of the wind mingled with the howling of wild beasts, and the rain falling; in torrents covered the ground with running water, which gradually
(p. 141)
won its way even through the indian-rubber blanket in which the traveller enveloped himself on such occasions.
But even then Herbert managed to get through a good deal of sound sleeping, even when the night was such that his poor mule fell across him, chilled to death by the bitterness of the blasts.
Once perhaps the sleeper wakes, looks to see that his horse is all night; looks at the stars, and thinks how much more picturesque he must be than the worthy citizen shut in four walls, decorated with a night-cap, and buried to the nose in a feather-bed. He thinks that heart could not wish for more. had he but some one to care for beside himself. Yes, he feels lonely, but thrusts it away somewhat in this fashion: ‘Never mind; let me but succeed, and it will all come – some day. But the luxury of having some one who would enjoy battling it out with me; who would make part of my history, in-stead of merely listening to it afterwards! I suppose there are such beyond the circle of my limited experience. It seems to me as if I had never really known anybody; – only a few prim, timid, contracted phantoms, made up of conventionality and theology, shrinking from the thought of their own nature, and wearing a perpetual mask, as if to hide their reality even from themselves; the sole visible aim of their lives being to dry up all human sympathy into the spiritual selfishness of devotees. Oh for one whose rich abounding soul dared to be true, and real, and loving: one to whom I might reveal all of myself, and who would glory in revealing all to me! What heights of being might we not tread together! But these are new thoughts for me. Since I lost the poor Major I find myself longing for a companion who would
(p. 142)
indeed be a friend, and my fancy as usual frames an ideal, and this time changes it into a woman. It certainly is not good for man to be always alone. Alone he may be, even in a crowd of intimate acquaintances, from whom all the deeper thoughts and feelings which constitute his actual self, are entirely concealed. Thus, he becomes morbid. Alone with none to care for or consider beside himself. Thus, he becomes selfish. Selfish pleasure is only half pleasure. Happiness doubles by reflection. Self-sacrifice is a necessary result of the law of duality, and verily it hath its reward. That is, self-sacrifice for the good of another; not for its own sake, for then it is a vice, a rebuke to the bounty of nature, and a surly rejection of the good things provided for our enjoyment.’
Herbert continues his reverie as he rides along. ‘Is it possible to be absolutely alone, one and sole in space, a conscious unit without any existence external to itself? A subject, with no object – necessarily ignorant of all, and even of self? for self must be dual to act on self. Knowledge of self implies duality of parts, one of which is conscious of the existence of the other, and thence of its own. If the whole be individual there can be no self-consciousness. Man communes with himself by reflecting on his impressions. But these come from without. If there was no without, there would be no impression. Ideas all result from experience, experience of something external, and perhaps internal, to oneself. Absolute loneliness, or oneness, is non-existence. Had God ever been alone creation had never been: that is, there would have been no God. Was it the perception of this necessity that led the subtle Hindoos and the later Christians to the ecclesiastical figment of multiplicity in
(p. 143)
the divine personality? – one sole existence necessitating; a duality, and this again resulting in a third existence: – the prime essence, or “Father,” impelled by his breath, disposition, or “Spirit,” and uttering the Word, or “Son:” the Self, the not-self, and the effect of one upon the other. And so the triune God appears as a logical necessity. And the divine self-sacrifice appears as no mere happy thought, or mechanical adjustment, but as a necessary result of the law of reflection, and founded inevitably in the nature of things and Unconscious Selfishness as the basis of all morals.
‘I think the different theories of modern sects may be classified thus. The Romish deifies the family. The Calvinist the two opposing principles of Good and Evil, after the Manichæans. To this latter the “Evangelicals” superadd the principle of atonement and propitiation by sacrifice, borrowed from the Levitical code. And the true worshipper, (can I call him “Christian”?) acknowledges one God, who is the universal Spirit, to be “worshipped in spirit and in truth,” accessible without Mediator, symbol, or ceremonial.’
And now Herbert’s curiosity is excited by observing a broad fresh-looking trail through the long grass across the line of his route. A trivial circumstance, until it be remembered that a trail does not make itself; and who was there to make that one? Examining it, he finds no footstep of man or beast, but the grass is laid smooth into a long narrow trough, as if by something being drawn along. A thought strikes him. He draws a pistol and cocks it, and rides cautiously along the trail; a foolish thing perhaps to do in a country where every man is for himself: but he does it. It leads toward a
(p. 144)
thicket. There are indications that the trail is one, perhaps two days old. Never mind, he will see the end of it. Certainty is better than apprehension. And certainty he soon has, though the murderers are probably far enough away now from the wretched victim that lies there, all torn and mangled, dragged to death, and flung into the bush to rot. A miner evidently, but with features indistinguishable and pockets torn out, and nothing to be done but hastily tear down boughs, and cover the ghastly dead from sight, and then to horse again and away, first, however, examining the tracks to see which way the bandits have taken. Not his way it appears, but out of the valley by the shortest cut, over the hills to the rear of the thicket. Herbert returns to his route casting many a sharp glance around under the trees and to the ridges of the hills, and deep wrath amounting to exasperation takes possession of his mind, driving away all thought of fear on his own account. So that he even longs to fall in with the assassins, and take vengeance for the. foul deed. It would be a relief to him.
By night he has put many a mile of hill, and valley, and forest, and river between himself and the thicket. Within a mile or two of his destination, he finds, to his disappointment, a new settlement. The spot he has come se far to survey may not, however, have been disturbed. The miners gather round him, and ask what news from the city. He has a newspaper or two, which are welcome indeed; and he tells the tale of the murdered man in the wood. There are eager inquiries from men who are expecting comrades; but there is little satisfactory to be told. Will he go back with a party and bury him?
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Yes; the day after tomorrow will be Sunday, an idle day, and his horse will be fit for the journey, for it is a long way there and back. Let all who have horses arm themselves, and bring a couple of spades, and come. He inquires about the diggings. They are new, but promise well. There is no one else in their neighbour-hood. There is work on the spot for all there, and it is hardly safe to be away from a settlement. They hope he will stay with them, for they like the looks of him, though he is a Britisher, and they guess he knows more than they do, though they shouldn’t have taken him for a miner. ‘Can he do any doctoring?’ for there are two or three sick men, and they don’t know what to give them. Herbert does not wish to divulge his intention by seeming in haste, so he passes next day in the camp, looks round the diggings, and performs the required ‘doctoring.’ He cames medicines always, and in cases of ague and dysentery will back himself against any regular practitioner. They offer payment. Remembering his former experience, he does not altogether decline, but says wait till they get well, and then they shall pay him something: that he does not profess to doctor, but likes to be neighbourly. Next day the party sets out. The dead man is buried unrecognised, and Herbert returns to execute his plan.
(p. 146)
THE CLAIM
THE trial proved satisfactory and Herbert is settled in his new location; and with the aid of some men, whom he manages to hire, is engaged in washing out the gold that lies scattered through the soil of a small valley lying some 3500 feet above the sea. It is a pleasant spot, adorned with oaks and firs in park-like order. Higher up on the mountain-side runs a vein of quartz, of which vast quantities have been broken off and decomposed in. the course of ages, enriching all the lower ground with the gold thus detached. The soil, no-where more than three feet in depth, is loose, black, and rich, and covered with roses now in full bloom, wild cherries, pea-vines, mint, and what the miners call the soap plant, from the root of it, when rubbed in water, making: a white lather. A singular plant this last, being somewhat like a large onion covered by a wig of black shaggy hair. ‘Ah, there’s some poor fellow’s scalp,’ was the exclamation of one on first seeing the soap plant. Altogether a beautiful bit of garden ground, with little lumps of bright gold scattered evenly throughout, from the very grass roots to the rock beneath. Herbert can-not help regretting the destruction of such a spot for all purposes of future use and beauty. By means of a small stream of water directed through a series of wooden troughs, he and his men are causing the whole of the soil to disappear by putting it into the troughs to be
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washed away. The weight of the gold causes it to re-main behind, and by this simple process it is secured. An ideal place for gold digging, the labour is so easy; but they work very hard, notwithstanding, for time is indeed money to the miner, and Herbert pays his men according to the number of hours they work; and none of them wish to remain in California longer than is necessary to make the desired sum with which to return home. It seems that one or two thousand dollars is the aim of most workers there; an important sum to a mechanic or labouring man in the United States, but altogether below Herbert’s notions. There are three: Americans in the party, a Scotch sailor, who has left his ship at San Francisco, and an Irishman who has deserted from the United States army. The best educated of them is a ‘full-blooded Yankee,’ whom Herbert has made his foreman, – a witty fellow, whose great delight is to ‘do the judicious misrepresentation’ for too inquisitive inquirers; for a foreigner holds his claim only by grace of his neighbours; and if it be a good one, it is as well that they should not know it. Herbert’s security lies in the friendly terms he has established, and in there being abundant room for all comers. So universal, however, is the habit of misrepresenting the quality of a claim, that the surest way of deceiving is to tell the exact truth, and to make a show of being very exact in telling it.
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WITHIN AND WITHOUT
SUNDAY comes, and is prized as they alone can prize it who have toiled all the week from early dawn to dewy eve beneath a hot sun, who have, in fact, worked extra hard on the strength of the day of rest. His men have gone to the settlement, according to miners’ wont, to spend the day in anything but work; and Herbert be-takes himself, with his gun and his note book, to the recesses of the forest. Though high noon under the sun of a Californian summer, and the air is magically clear and bright as it only can be at a height of some three or four thousand feet, there is gloom and coolness down among the thick pines. Herbert often feels lonely, for he finds no companionship such as he desires among those who surround him. It is a relief to get away from them, good fellows though they be, with their small and off-repeated jokes, and noisy mirth, to the society of the tall trees who now bear him solemn company. In this respect he dares to differ from Plato, who preferred town to country on the plea that more is to be learnt from men than from trees. From some men, perhaps. In these lofty pines he sees grand old heroes of many a hard-fought battle with wind and lightning, thrusting their venerable heads far up into heaven, and bringing down revelations of Nature and her doings al-together incomprehensible to the tiny roses that cluster so lovingly at their feet, content there to shed the
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fragrance of their lives as in grateful return for the shelter and the home. He loves to listen to the low hum of Nature purring over her endless work of transmutation, serving as it does only to intensify the deep stillness, which is now and then broken by the sharp tapping of the woodpecker on some giant stem. Lying there with his ear close to the ground it is difficult to avoid fancying he can feel the throbbing of the great heart of earth, the mother of himself, as of those trees, and of the grey squirrels that play in their branches. At times, indeed, the feeling of loneliness becomes terribly oppressive. The indefiniteness of his future; the abandonment of the cherished intention of his whole earlier life; the severance of every tie of kindred, severed even less by remoteness of place than by difference of sentiment; the loss of the one companion to whom he had attached himself; and the possibility of failing in his present quest, – all combine to make him feel acutely his present isolation. Able to call no man friend, or brother, he looks out into infinity and there finds none whom he can call Father. In his weariness and solitude the universe is for him a blank. His bark is launched upon the mighty ocean, with neither chart nor compass for a guide: he is drifting he knows not whither. Yet he will not invent a fiction to bear him company. A fiction? Has it come to that? Yes, he sees nowhere in nature, room for such a being as men call God. He sees growth and change, but nowhere creation. Uniform succession of phenomena, but nowhere will, or caprice. He has traced the flower and the tree, the insect and the animal, and even the earth itself, back step by step to their possible earliest forma, and resolved them into their component
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atoms. He says, ‘Give me only matter and motion’ and all things, even to mine own self, are accounted for. Matter struggles into life, and life into consciousness. But whence the matter, and its law of motion? Must there not be a Maker and a Lawgiver? No,’ he says, ‘for whence the Maker and whence the Lawgiver? Had nothing ever existed, nothing would still exist. Matter is certainly eternal, and it is far easier to believe in that than in the complex deity of the priests. Say they that all things have existed from all eternity in God? That is only to deify matter, or at least to make it a part of God. If matter be self-existent, why not also its inherent law of the mutual tendency of its atoms? in all growth I can discover only a process of accretion varying with its conditions. All things tend towards those for which they have the strongest attraction. Such inclination is part of their nature, and they are in no wise able to alter it. Even man, who claims to be something apart from all other beings, is only free to obey the strongest motive, to follow that which attracts him most.
‘Where then is responsibility? What is that “Sin” of which so much account is made by our instructors? Can any thing act in variance to its own nature? Surely not; and no one is the author of his own nature. Thus it would seem that there is no merit or desert, no punishment, no reward. There are consequences that grow naturally out of previous conditions; and which are more or less pleasant to the individual in proportion as they are in harmony with his nature and conditions. Man may have a perception of the conditions most favourable to him, and act so as to obtain the greatest amount of happiness of which his nature is capable.
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But he must be previously endowed with such powers of perception, and is in no way blameable for being without them. To blame the nature of anything is to blame the source from which that nature proceeds. The past has produced the present, and the present is producing the future. There is a kind of pantheism which represents all things as a manifestation of a Supreme Being that underlies all phenomena, and which teaches that these manifestations vary with the divine will, and depend in no way upon one another. In the most obvious sense such a theory is a deification of caprice, but it is not necessarily so, for even the Supreme Will cannot act without motives, and those motives must have their basis in the nature and condition of things. So that in this manner, also, the sequence of events appears governed by constant laws. What men mean by one being “wicked “is that he does not act in accordance with what they believe to be their greatest convenience, and his own greatest satisfaction. That is, they believe that they know better than he does what is the best course for him to ‘follow. Every man must act so as to please himself according to the best knowledge he has. He cannot help doing so; for that which seems to him to produce for him the most happiness is his strongest motive, and he cannot do otherwise than follow that. To assert that the best men are governed by a sense of duty rather than of pleasure, is not to contravene this argument; it is only to assert that there are men to whom the performance of duty gives the most pleasure.
‘The only sun then is ignorance; ignorance of the conditions of our being, and of the things most suitable to its largest development. What blasphemy it would be
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against the intelligence and justice of any being: to charge him with entertaining infinite wrath against creatures to whom he has given existence, because they are ignorant, he not having given them the knowledge, or the impulse, disposition, or power to acquire the knowledge, of the best proportion in which they can use the things provided for them. Yet this is what Christians believe in with respect to their God. I speak of Christians as if I were not one. Am in not? I don’t know, but I sometimes think that others have forfeited their claim to the title more than myself. I feel that I have faith, though no belief. While my heart draws me towards an ideal of perfection, my intellect is unable to show me that such a being has any objective personal existence. Most people seem to me to have a belief, but no faith. No faith either in man, or in the God in whom they profess to believe. They regard him as an enemy ever watching for an opportunity to take advantage of any slips of theirs to do them a mischief. They speak of “tempting Providence,” as if Providence were some monster waiting to spring upon them the instant their watchfulness is relaxed. If they believed in God as a friend and father, they would hardly talk of tempting their friend or father to do them an injury. Ordinary Christians, so far from granting me the title, would call me atheist. Yet it seems to me that none deserve the name more than themselves. At least all whom I have ever known seem to me to be such, and I think it can be put so clearly as to convince them-selves. I will imagine a right, proper Christian, not Charles Arnold, but an evangelical one, and ask him what he means by “God.” He answers, “A being infinite, eternal, perfect. The sole maker. The supreme ruler.
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The just judge. Whose nature is love, and whose will is law.”
‘And you appeal to the inmost consciousness of every man to recognise the harmony between such a being and the articles of your belief?’
‘Most confidently; for I firmly believe that by no other scheme than the Christian one can the existence of evil and the various attributes of God be reconciled.’
‘Bear with me, while I put your belief into plain language, and correct me if I misrepresent it. The being whom you believe to be God, having chosen to make the universe, when he might have remained alone in ineffable repose, finds himself baffled by his own creation ––’
‘No; baffled by sin, but only momentarily. He did not make sin.’
‘Then something beside God, and independent of him, existed prior to the creation? I think you mislead yourself by making sun an entity. By sun you really mean a going wrong.’ ‘Well.’ ‘Well, God’s creation goes wrong. He has to struggle long with difficulties, and strive by schemes and contrivances to save the countless host of his children from the deadly malice of one whom he hath himself made, and made too in full fore-know-ledge (on the Maker’s part) of all the mischief he would do, and what it would cost to subdue him. And after all He succeeds in rescuing but a small fraction from the Evil One’s hands. For you hold the gate of hell to be wide, so that many walk into it unawares, and that of heaven to be narrow and easily missed. Thus far I am unable to recognise either the wisdom, the power, the beneficence, or the justice of your God.’
(p. 154)
‘You forget that, having made man free, He could not control his use of his freedom.’
‘I remember that, having made his children weak and ignorant of what was best for them, you hold that He placed them in a garden of forbidden delights, and required of them an obedience which, by your deification of Christ, you admit could not be rendered by more man, however perfect, and when they yielded to the first temptation to transgress a little, He condemned them and their unborn offspring to unspeakable tortures for evermore. That is, having made them finite and imperfect, He damned them for not being infinite and perfect, and would only be propitiated towards them by the blood and agony of the only innocent one, the only one who had never offended Him in his life. No human father requires a sacrifice or compensation before he can pardon a repentant child. Is man more tender than God, and is the thing made an unfaithful index to the character of the Maker?’
‘Again, when man punishes he has in view the reformation of the offender as well as self-defence, whereas the punishment inflicted by your God, having for its end, not the benefit, but the increasing reprobation of the sufferer, can proceed only from the bitterest feelings of revenge, worthy the most malignant fiend the imagination can conceive.’
‘What, does not the glory of a pure God demand the infinite punishment of sin?’
‘Do as you please with the sin. I am speaking of the sinner. According to your doctrine he perpetuates, not destroys it. If He be so infinitely pure as to detest that which you cal l sin, how came He to admit its
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defilement into His work? If so infinitely just, how comes, He to make the work of His own hands responsible for the flaws of its construction? If so infinitely merciful and loving, why so averse to pardon His erring children? If so infinitely powerful, why allow an evil demon to devastate the fair domains of His creation? Why, your doctrine deposes God from His high place, and makes the devil triumphant to all eternity. Calvinism, in spite of your calling it “Evangelical Christianity,” is devil-worship. Calvinism is Atheism. It is thus precisely because I accept your definition of God, that I cannot accept your account of His dealings.’
‘But the revelation He has given us in His word?’
‘A man’s meaning is ever better known by his deeds than his words. Were an angel from heaven to come and tell me such things of a being whom I loved and respected, I should reject it as a slander and a lie. But what you call a revelation is impossibility, for it necessitates a prior knowledge of the divine in order to know that anything is divinely predicated. AH that a man can know is that he has a strong, an over-powering impression, it may be: but of the source of that impression he can know nothing. And of its nature he can only judge by comparing it with his ordinary experience. An infallible revelation requires an infallible interpreter, and both are useless without an infallible understanding to comprehend the interpretation.’
(p. 156)
OLD GROUND
THUS the God and the revelation of his youth and of his kindred abandoned, and their place in his imagination as yet unfilled, Herbert writes to Arnold about the time that the above notes are dated: – ‘l cannot find any innate or intuitive perception of what men call Deity. Is this my peculiar feeling, or is it universal? I can with others reason back to find a First Cause for all that exists, and call that by the name of God. But I cannot see that He has a necessary existence in space, except as a solution to the problem of the universe, or rather as a single hypothesis to save as from many assumptions. So far from perceiving the necessity of His existence, unless to account for my own, it seems to me that I can with much greater ease imagine an infinite vacuum, an utter void. I have thus no perception of the necessity of God; and of course none of that sense of a father’s feeling towards me which a child is said to have of its parent. In all my attempts to form a conception of God as a person, I feel that I am only deifying the final product of my own faculties. The lowest rock we call God. You know the story: – the child inquired of its grandmother what supported the ground? Rocks, answered the old lady. And what supports the rocks? Why other rocks, to be sure. But what is there under all the rocks? Why, bless the child, there are rocks all the way down.
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‘You will say, happy is the man who finds “rocks all the way down.” He has firm standing ground: he can spring up.
‘I am thus, you sec, swimming in a deep sea, “an atom between two infinities.” Above is the illimitable sky; below is the bottomless, no, not bottomless, fathom-less ocean. But I want to feel the bottom; not to have to take it for granted that it must be there to support the sea. Could I once touch it, once gain this certainty, methinks I could spring up. But as it is, I can only float on, sometimes a little more above water than at others, and hope some day to reach the verge where all meet.
‘But ought we not to be able to demonstrate the necessary existence of God, independently of all secondary and derived existences? to be able to reason from Him to them, instead of from them to Him?
‘But in the absence of such intuition, I strive, though I fear in vain, after the lofty results ascribed by Pope to
“The poor indian, whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind;”
– a result, it seems to me, unattained by any Christian I have known. But the poet is mistaken. The indian sees, not God, but gods, or rather big invisible men. Every natural operation is to him the work of a separate personage. That is, every operation that is not constant, or that seems to his ignorance to indicate exceptional power and force; an eclipse, or a thunderstorm. Curiously enough, the regular and benign course of nature is taken as a matter of course, and excites no feelings
(p. 158)
of joy or wonder, of thankfulness, or even of admiration. A party of Indians came up to me one day while I was gazing with delight on a hollow in a hill-side covered with a carpet of flowers of most exquisite colours, a perfect marvel of beauty, which I tried in vain to make them see and appreciate; but I could get nothing out of them, but that it was always so at that spring-season, and that the flowers were not good to cat. Only the more special providences indicate the action of the savages’ gods. It was much the same with the ancient Greeks and Romans. They had no god of the air unless it was in motion: a god of the gale and another of the breeze, but none of the absolute calm. I want to find the one God: the universal unity that underlies and harmonises all manifestations.’
So Herbert, in the welcome intervals of rest, lies in the forest and ponders, and makes note of his ponderings; allowing his thoughts to wander whither they will without fear of trespass or losing his way. At length he begins to feel that he is not altogether without a guide. Though without a Belief he still has Faith. Otherwise why should he care to know? Reviewing his mental condition, he congratulates himself on having outstripped the phantoms that haunted his youth and threatened to ingulf his soul. He has struggled out of the Slough of Despond, out of the dismal swamp of Calvinistic theology. His eyes are cleared of obstructions from that source. He knows not whither he will wend his way, but he sees the vast plain of truth spread out before him, and anything is better than that from which he has escaped. Something is done towards the new edifice when the rubbish of the old one is cleared from the
(p. 159)
ground. So he drives away the feeling of loneliness and goes on his way rejoicing. He claims brotherhood with all living things, and accepts all for his teachers. Watching yon eagles soaring far up in the glowing sunlight, he thinks how his old instructors, to be consistent, must bid them dip their wings and no longer dare to soar aloft, but to cower down among the valleys and the mists. They would tell them that they ought not to trust their own pinions, and to gaze on heaven with their own eyes; because that, forsooth, centuries ago certain ancient eagles soared higher than any modern eagles can hope to soar, and brought down all that can be known of the upper regions of light, and that they must be content with those portions of their accounts which have survived to their time. So he learns that man can behold God and truth as well now as in the days that are gone; and that the experiences of others should be used, not to supersede and obstruct, but to encourage and aid our own efforts. He sees that to assert that God has revealed himself once for all, is to limit him to a time and to a speech, and to expel him from his works, from nature, that is, from his own revelation of himself in deeds. To place God and nature in antagonism is to set up two Gods; that is, none.
So, look at it how he will, he finds all mankind liable to the charge for which they would anathematise him. ‘Then why,’ he wonders, ‘should they be so incensed against me?
‘Out of the thousand religions of the earth, they believe all to he false except one. I go but a very little farther. I believe one more to be false than they do, That is, the whole thousand.
(p. 160)
‘Very remarkable is the presumption of men who require me to limit and shape my conception of the divine nature and method of working, so as to agree with theirs. They require God to limit his revelation of himself to me I the degree vouchsafed to them. Not to themselves but, as far as our English churchmen are concerned, to that of sundry individuals who lived some 300 years ago. The fact is they endow the reformers of the 16th century with infallibility. Had these gone farther and rejected yet more of the Romish doctrine and practice, their conclusions would still have been implicitly accepted. then why blame me for going farther on my own account, unless they believe the reformers infallible, and themselves infallibly right in believing so?
‘But I find myself too much engaged in these retrospections. I want the clash of other minds more advanced than myself to help me forward. I wish l could get books here. I am in dancer of becoming; like Los wife, petrified in looking back; ever contemplating the ruins of the past. Heaven knows, not with any longing towards that past; yet out of their ruins would I reconstruct a habitation for my soul. The name of God is a. tower of strength. For me he is indeed living and pervading all things, and is not merely a being apart. Man has a trinity of wants: a Faith, an Occupation, and a Home. The last means something to love. Let me have patience.’
(p. 161)
A DISAPPONTMENT
HERBERT does not restrict his chances of making a fortune to his own personal operations. Extensive preparations have been made by companies of miners for turning the neighbouring river out of its bed at various points.
The wealth found in the banks has raised sanguine expectations that the bed will prove enormously rich, and many a miner has embarked the whole of his earnings in the venture. At a great price Herbert has obtained shares in some of these undertakings. The skill and energy displayed by the Americans; the manner in which, with so few appliances, they compel the wilderness to minister to their wants, strike him as most admirable. Huge trees are felled, and sawn into planks, and shot down into the steep cañons of the river. Long wooden channels, by them called ‘Flumes,’ are constructed, and strong dams are made to turn the whole of the water into them. At length, after several months of hard work, and impatient waiting for the water to fall sufficiently low, the bed is laid dry. Alas for those who had been eagerly looking forward to spending next Christmas in the home to which their fortunate venture shall have brought affluence and comfort. Instead of the bed of clay glittering throughout with scales and lumps of gold, nought appears but bare granite, smooth and polis.hed by the ceaseless rushing of the waters. It
(p. 162)
is thus in every case in which Herbert is interested. His prospect of leaving California with a competence is in-definitely postponed, and his sanguine temperament feels the disappointment keenly. But to many the shock is more than they can bear. To most dispositions adversity is more demoralising than prosperity. While one class of miners at once seeks fresh scenes of labour, reckless drunkenness is the resource of another; and one poor fellow takes refuge in suicide.
Herbert went over to the settlement the Sunday after the failure was declared. He finds the men all lounging listlessly about, not knowing what to do next, and not sufficiently recovered from the shock to feel energy for anything; so enormous is the amount of labour thrown away, and so high have hopes been raised. A little interest is awakened by the arrival of a preacher, of whom Herbert has already heard from his men, who comes to deliver his usual weekly discourse. Herbert listens with the rest. Strange, it strikes him, is the clinging to dogma and the ignoring of the heart’s real feelings, which mark most preachers of all denominations. This man, a shrewd genial man enough in his ordinary life, no sooner begins to teach others than he begins to say what he does not feel, and cannot really believe. Why will preachers think that inhuman sentiments cease to be inhuman and become divine if uttered in a sermon? Herbert gets angry when, in attempting to ‘improve’ the incident of the poor suicide, the preacher finds no pity or sympathy, but only denunciation. ‘For filthy lucre.’
He waits until it is over, and then, while all are listening, he asks how he knew that ‘poor Harry
(p. 163)
had rushed unbidden into the presence of his Maker?’
‘Why, didn’t he shoot himself?’
‘Yes, but how are you and I to know that that was not the very mode in which his Maker desired him in to appear before him? Had life been reft from him by illness or accident, yon would have regarded these as ministers of God to do his will; what less claim have the circumstances which drove him to this deed, and the nature upon which they so acted, to be considered divinely ordained? He did not make his own sensitive disposition, or cause his own disappointment.’
‘Then you don’t condemn him for putting an end to himself?’
‘It is not my business to condemn anybody. I only think that if he could have looked forward two or three years, he would have found his future self saying how foolish he was to take his disappointment so much to heart. At that distance of time the whole matter will seem a small one.’
Some of the miners thank him afterwards for that last remark. ‘It is bad enough now, but they guess they wont care so much about it after a bit, if they can only hold on till then.’
A few days, and all are busy again on new ground, hope revives, and misfortunes are forgotten. So runs the gold-hunter’s life. Fascinating in its uncertainty as that of the gambler, but without the demoralisation; the hard labour saves it from that, and still more the consciousness that the success of one is not the ruin of another. – At nobody’s expense save that of mother earth, and she is willing enough.
Herbert himself will have soon to seek other scenes
(p. 164)
of labour, for not only is his present claim nearly worked out, but the supply of water is rapidly failing. He feels much regret at the prospect of quitting that neighbourhood, for he has had many pleasant experiences there. His intercourse with his neighbours, rough and unlettered though they are, has taught him to form a higher estimate altogether of individuals; not, perhaps, of their wisdom or moral excellence, but he has learnt thoroughly to discard the carefully inculcated notion of the total depravity of everybody. And, as some of the notes made before quitting this spot will show, he thinks he has succeeded in discovering how it is that men accept a belief so contrary both to reason and to experience. He writes: –
‘As the tendency of a wound is to heal, so the general bias of human nature seems to be towards good.
‘I have found that the miners when they have come to borrow any of my few book?, have generally asked for “something true.” The country is inundated with novels, mostly translations from the French, lively and clever, but of low rank in the scale of morals. But even these have in several instances served a good end, for they have attracted many to read who would otherwise never have looked into a book. These highly-seasoned romances have served to awaken many a torpid intellect to a sense of its powers. Once awakened, the mind soon finds that such food cloys without nourishing, and demands something more satisfactory. The habit of reading and the desire for knowledge once formed, the transition is easy and natural to more useful knowledge. At least, many of these practical backwoods’-men have
(p. 165)
found it so. The only question they ask when borrowing of me is, “Is it true?”
‘If indeed the mind remains satisfied with light or low reading; if the individual sinks into a mere novel reader, it is probably a proof, not of the necessarily bad effects of such literature, but of the mental imbecility of the individual. Such an one would never have done any good. I confess that to myself it is an immense delight and relaxation to get hold of one of Dumas’ exciting novels. For many au hour of pleasant and wholesome refreshment am I indebted to “Monte Christo,” and the wonderful series which begins with the “Three Musketeers.” Perhaps these hardly deserve the name of light reading. There is an element of grandeur in them that places them far higher in the scale. The death of poor Porthos is itself an epic, and truly Homeric. And the picture of a man making himself a providence and a fate to others is not unsuggestive of a moral.
‘I am sure it is a great mistake to condemn what-ever is not adapted to the highest parts of our nature, or the most advanced stages of its development. And it is a mistake constantly made by those who ignore the fact that man has many sides to his nature, and that the lower are as necessary a part of him as the higher.
‘Not to those who most need it is the gospel preached, but to the select few who already have, or pretend to, a lofty spirituality, such as the mass of mankind are quite unable to comprehend. Calling themselves the elect, they hold that the “.scheme of salvation “was contrived only for them, and complacently regard everybody without their little circle as reprobate. How completely does any miscellaneous assemblage of men give the lie to these
(p. 166)
notions. Among the crowd upon a race-course at home, or in the ship that brought me here, or with these miners, it is impossible not to feel that some far larger theory of God and of the meaning of the universe must be adopted if it is to be applicable to more than one out of many thousands of the human race. How many a clergyman have I known in England who shuts himself’ up to the society of a select few who flatter and humour him, and consult him about delicate mental, or rather emotional, phenomena, and mutually flatter each other into believing that they are the saints, and abandon all who remain without their little coterie to the “uncovenanted mercies of God,” but never venture among them for fear of having to enlarge their theory and lessen their own complacency. it is so pleasant to think ourselves the special objects of divine favour; and so hard to believe in injustice when our own merits are so fully recognised.
‘The poor Major’s library consisted of a cookery book and a Bible. An American, seeing the latter in my hut the other day, remarked, “Excellent work that; there are some first-rate things in it.”
‘I envied him his frame of mind, it was so evidently free from any slavish superstition or prejudice. Truly in its simple narratives may be found a complete revelation o I man. In it he is drawn in all the extent of his nature, without the alteration of a single feature. From the lowest depths to the loftiest attainments of which he is capable, from Ahab to Jesus, all degrees are represented there. It is a gallery in which all the pictures are life-like; but the subjects are so varied that none are too gross for admission. A revelation of God is
(p. 167)
impossible to our faculties, but the Bible reveals man’s idea of God in the various stages of its growth. It consequently represents Him under characters as widely different as were the men themselves who recorded their conceptions; from the “jealous,” unscrupulous, Jewish patriot-God Jehovah, to the universal loving Father. Men cannot imagine God to be other than that which they themselves appreciate. A “revelation of God,” therefore, is a revelation, not o I God, but of man, inasmuch as man’s ideal is the index to his own character.’
(p. 168)
PROGRESS
HERBERT’S chief delight is in his meditations among the pine trees. He is wandering farther and farther from the tracks of his youth. He has got into a world of thought so wide that he can nowhere dash himself against its boundaries; out of the concrete into the abstract. The predominant sensation is one of joy. Like an escaped captive just free from his prison and his chains, he hardly knows yet whither to betake himself. The joy of being free is enough for the present. Why hurry to a conclusion? All things are progressive. If there is the infinite to he studied, there is eternity for the task. Why not linger among the delights of the road?
Something has been gained of late; for he no longer feels in danger of being overwhelmed by the deep waters in which he is floating. He no longer requires to touch the bottom in order to spring up. He feels that in the very ocean around him is ever-present the universal Divinity, as much as in any other place. And so he writes, ‘There is no nucleus of Deity; God being infinite, his centre must be everywhere. He is here, above, below, and around; where the two infinities of earth and sky, like life and death, ever kiss each other, as much here as in the unattainable abyss.’ And again, ‘There is no absolute, no perfection. All things must be progressive. Does progression necessarily involve
(p. 169)
termini? or can we have any idea of progression in the infinite? Yet, had absolute perfection existed prior to the “creation,” the universe had never been. For why create, unless to produce a state of things better than before existed? For the greater glory of God? Then His glory was capable of increase, and therefore was not complete. Therefore there was no perfection; therefore no God! into this maze of contradiction do the theologians lead us, by detaching God from the universe, and making Him a being apart. Abolish degrees in any-thing, and it vanishes altogether. The only absolute is annihilation. In evil, it must destroy itself and vanish. In perfection also it is absolute nothingness.
‘A condition in which there are no degrees and no contrasts is a condition of negation. All light would be no light. All goodness would be no goodness. No distance can be great absolutely, but only as compared with a less distance. It is the imperfection necessary to the finite that theologians confound with sin. Hence comes their doctrine of the total depravity of human nature. They mistake imperfection for wickedness. Existence is a scale whose extremes are infinitely distant, for it may be divided into degrees infinitely small. All things are somewhere between those two extremes. In any condition of existence whatever, however high and excellent, however low and base, it is possible for those dwelling there to conceive something still better, still worse. Let us be placed where we may we can still see a Beyond. Those who have won the highest place in heaven itself have only won the ability to perceive some-thing far higher and better towards which they may aspire. They have only enlarged the circle of their
(p. 170)
desires, and their actual place is one with which they are dissatisfied, and which they long to transcend. The popular idea of perfection necessitates the power to imagine a worse, but none to imagine a better, state of being. The distance from God will ever seem the greatest to those who have the highest faculties for appreciating Him. The highest in heaven will thus feel themselves the lowest. They may even thus feel themselves so far from God that heaven will be no heaven to them; and they may have less pleasure in existence than the tenants of hell itself. For in order to exist continuously in any place the nature of the individual must harmonise to such a degree with the conditions of the place as to derive a certain satisfaction from the mere fulfilling of those conditions. Unmitigated suffering, therefore, cannot long exist. There must be some degree of satisfaction, some pleasure, wherever there is life. Hell is defined to be a state of separation from God. But, as appears above, this is a condition of which the tenants of heaven are better able to appreciate the evil. So that even these dread extremes meet, and heaven and hell are one!
‘A simple statement, however, disposes of the orthodox tenet on this head. The principles of our nature must ever be our guide. We can imagine no good being to be perfectly happy while any are hopelessly wretched. If there is a hell, therefore, there can be no heaven. If a heaven, no hell. The ideas are of necessity mutually destructive. What St Augustine wrote to the contrary was written by him as a theologian, not as a man. And truly inhuman was a theology which could make the contemplation of the torments of the damned one of the
(p. 171)
principal delights of the saved. This earth, indeed, may comprise the elements of both in itself. If a condition of hopeful progress towards the loftiest end be the happiest possible for intelligent beings, surely there are many such in this world, and to them it is indeed a heaven. If remorse and hopelessness be the lot of the most miserable, there are those who find their hell here. The vast majority are between these extremes. The question for them is to which do they tend? Whereabouts on the infinite ladder am I, and in which direction do I tend? I know no man who can tell me, and I have nothing to guide me aright if I tend a wrong; save only the instincts of my nature, and the influence of the things that surround me. Is more vouchsafed to any? Have any a right to demand more; to require an infallible guide that shall supersede all necessity of exertion and watchfulness on their part? Out upon the old notions that would detach me from the Universe of which I am a part, and scud me wandering through space in search of a distinct, isolated, impossible God! No, no: the Universe is alive, and He is its Life: “The Life of the world.” O ye trees, living columns in these sombre aisles, be not incommunicable to me who seek to learn from you. Reveal to me the mystery of your own being, and perchance I shall discover the secret of mine. Answer for me the question that haunts me; for of fate, wherever I have turned my steps, whether busy at my work, or following with my gun in the tracks of the stag, or wrapped in my blanket at night, the question hath continually rung in my ears: ‘What is thine end and aim?’ And I am disquieted in my mind, for I cannot answer it. I seem to myself to be no more than
(p. 172)
yon lizard that dies after a life spent in the pursuit and digestion of insects. Or even as yourselves, who, after contending for a few seasons with the blasts, fall and bf-come a prey to the fires of the wild man, and whiten the ground with your ashes. What do I here? and what do ye here? Do ye, like some of us men, work, and wonder, and add to your wonder worship? or do ye, like other of us, simply enjoy without thinking or even being conscious of it? I see much that ye may enjoy, in the air, and the light, and the moisture; in the shedding your pollen for a future generation, and in protecting your slender pinelings, and the flowers that grow between. But is this all?
‘And it seemed to me that in the murmur of the breeze through their topmost branches, they sighed down for answer, “We follow the impulse of our nature. The deeper we strike our roots into earth, the higher we rise towards heaven.”
(p. 173)
A HAPPY FAMILY
IT is of no use to remain longer where he is. So, previous to making; a fresh start, Herbert visits the Bay. He there finds letters from home, exhibiting mingled feelings of anxiety for his health and safety in that wild land, and mortification at his desertion of his profession, tempered, however, by half-suppressed satisfaction at his prospects of success, which Herbert now fears he may have drawn in too bright colours. For the time his chronic home-sickness is checked; not that his affection is in any way diminished, but letters and papers from a place we know often seem to transport us thither, in such a measure as to satisfy our longing to be there. From the poor Major’s family, also, he receives the warmest acknowledgment of his care and friendship for their lost relative, with an urgent request that he will accept the money made by him in California. They feel that Herbert has a ‘better claim to it than anybody else, for they are certain the poor fellow would never have made a sixpence by himself.’ these two or three hundred pounds, for it does not appear to have been more, made a welcome addition to Herbert’s little capital; and the kindly tone of the communication produces a glow of pleasure that he feel s to be a sufficient compensation for much hardship.
He enjoys this visit to the city more than any previous one. It is getting more settled and civilised.
(p. 174)
Indeed in no respect, save in position, is it the same city. For San Francisco has been burnt down two or three times of fate. The canvas city gave place to a wooden one; and the wooden city has given place to one of brick, and stone, and iron. He meets people whose society is pleasant to him. There are many women and children now dwelling there, and a child’s cry is to him the sweetest music, after his sojourn in the wilderness. School-houses and churches are beginning to rear their heads. With one of the latter he seems specially pleased, for it is the joint property of three different sects who have united their means to build it, agreeing to use it in turn at different times of the day. He becomes intimate with a New England family, all the members of which are occupied in the same business, but belong to different sects: one or more of them attending each of the services in the joint-stock chapel. Herbert notes that on most ordinary topics, on all affecting their personal relations in life, they are agreed, but on Sunday they diverge each to his own communion, and meet at the supper-table in the evening in harmony so perfect and natural that he cannot but contrast with it the bitterness and gloom that such difference of opinion would engender in every family of his acquaintance in England. Speaking of this one day to the father, a homely square-built man, full of strong good sense, he answered: ‘I guess now, in the old country your fathers there just want their children to look upon them as possessing popish infallibility, and so won’t let them have any mind of their own. Now, you see, if I was to begin with my youngsters in that way, our Yankee children are so keen that they would soon
(p. 175)
find out that I was no more infallible than they are. And when they found me pretending to be what I ain’t really, they would set me down as a humbug. I can’t stand that, so I let them know the first thing that I have only been in the world a trifle longer than themselves, just enough to get a class or two above them in the big school. That I’ll tell them all I know, and the more they can find out for themselves the better. I do my best. I teach them to be more afraid of doing wrong than of offending me; but I don’t set up for a pattern for them in thinking, any more than I do in looks. Some of them take after me, and some after their mother. You ought to have known that woman. Such a right down clever one, and so fond of me, – often said she wouldn’t take ten thousand dollars for me. Well, if they ain’t all alike in looks, I don’t see why they should be all alike in their ways of thinking. There’s Amos, there, he’s death on punkins, and he keeps healthy and strong on ’em, while they knock me right down if I just touch the least morsel. Well, our minds differ just about as much, but we are none the worse friends for that. I guess your old country fathers go on a different sort of tack; but I reckon they haven’t got a better set of boys than mine.’
Sometimes the supper is enlivened by a comparison of the various discourses they have heard during the day, and a discussion about their respective doctrines, but always in perfect charity, as if each one felt that though his belief was the best for him, yet it was not necessarily so for the others. The only approach to bigotry is on the part of an uncle, who sometimes joins the party; a hard-featured descendent of the Puritans, and who still
(p. 176)
clings to their rigid faith and practice. His presence is generally the signal for a dogmatic turn to the conversation. Of an ascetic temperament, he looked with great distrust on all who gave any scope to their natural capacity for enjoyment. He could not understand how a person could frequent theatres and other places of amusement, and yet be a sincere Christian, with hope in the future. He loved to dilate on what he had read about the evil of such places, the temptations and light company, especially of the theatre. He was thankful that he had never tempted Providence by going thither; but he knew enough by description to cause him to fear greatly for those who did go. It was to such a tirade that one of the party, a young- man whose eye and brow bespoke him an artist of no mean order, made answer:
‘My uncle, in ever lose a chance of going to the theatre when there is to be a good representation; but I know nothing of the things whereof you seem to have heard so much. No doubt there is evil everywhere for those who look out for it, but not necessarily in a theatre any more than in a church. I go to enjoy the lofty language of the poet, and the actor’s delineation of nature. So far from getting harm there, I fancy I learn something of good; at least my capacity for enjoyment, which I presume has been given me to be used, is satisfied, and I come away thankful both for the faculty and for the means of gratifying it.’
Another declared that, as far as he was concerned, a broad farce at which he could laugh heartily put him in good humour with himself and all the world for a week afterwards; and in his opinion there was no religion like
(p. 177)
the religion of good humour. He didn’t at all believe in people who thought they were pious when they were only bilious.
To this the Puritan uncle rejoined: ‘Your new-fangled notions just make this world everything to you; a place for working, resting, and playing, in turn. Now, I like to follow what the Bible says, and work here while it is day, and look for the wages elsewhere. The harder a man works here the more he will enjoy his rest
in heaven.’
‘I agree a good deal with uncle,’ remarked one who had hitherto been silent, ‘and think he is quite right to lay himself out the best he knows how, to procure the greatest amount of enjoyment, whether in this life or a future one. But I like to make the best of what I have got, according to that text he so often reminds us of, which says, “Sufficient for the day.” So I try to get as much enjoyment as I can out of this world, and when I get into another, I mean to do the same with that; but not to be always counting on it, and losing a chance here for the sake of a better one there. That would be acting just like nine out often miners did when I was in the diggings last season, – always thinking there were better diggings farther on. And the farther off any new diggings were, the richer they believed them to be. it would be such a disappointment when one had gone through this world on uncle’s plan, to find that there was no more to come. Though I can’t help thinking it would only be a fair punishment for refusing all the good things Providence has offered us here because we thought they were not good enough and wanted something better
(p. 178)
Herbert notes here ‘the possibility of brethren dwelling together in unity without uniformity, where due allowance is made for the natural disposition of each: the attempt to secure uniformity, whether in family, church, or state, being but a parody on the famous Procrustean bed. Room for all, and for the development of all, ought, then, to be the guiding principle of every community.’
(p. 179)
BLACK AND WHITE
HERBERT was much surprised to find the first-mentioned of the sons an approver of slavery; the only New Englander he has ever met who held that opinion. But it seems that a keen appreciation of art, and recognition of the rules of taste, are not incompatible with the most eclectic inconsistency in opinions concerning other matters; and the artist’s mind is probably attracted as much by a certain picturesqueness in his conception of the institution as by anything else. Taking Herbert into his sleeping-room, which is also his studio, he exhibits a water-colour representation of ‘the design of Providence’ respecting the negro. It varies from the old pyramidal theory of society in making the broadest basis consist of the whole animal kingdom, instead of the labouring classes of men; and in having a white man instead of a Sovereign for its apex. In the intermediate links he has placed the chimpanzee next to the negro, the whole scale representing a gradual ascent to the highly cultivated European. He has replied to Herbert’s argument from the mischievous effects of irresponsible power upon the governing class by saying that all men possess it in respect of other animals, without being the worse for it; and now he points triumphantly to his drawing.
‘There’s my answer to those who impugn what I believe to be a merciful provision of Providence for the
(p. 180)
improvement and protection of an inferior race. Look at that table of degrees, and point out to me where, guided by evident resemblance, you would d raw a line which shall have the animal on one side and the human on the other.’
The spectator cannot but admit that in facial aspect the negro resembles the race below more than that above him, but denies the inference drawn from that resemblance, saying that the question of humanity rests upon psychological even more than upon anatomical qualities, and he suggests that the argument might as well be carried farther, and a scale drawn of the various classes of white men, having for its basis those engaged in the lowest and most degrading occupations, and the most ignorant and depraved classes in town and country, all in their ordinary condition of costume, and above these the various grades up to the highly cultivated and refined gentleman, who should be represented as clean shaved and in full evening dress. Where, he asks, in such a scale would appearances suggest the placing of a line between those who are fit to rule and those who re-quire ruling. His friend says that practically it is impossible to draw a line between one white man and another, and that each finds his place in the social scale according to his opportunities and natural fitness. That the white is capable of self-improvement. Not so the negro, who never will be fit for other than menial offices.
‘If that be indeed true,’ asks Herbert, ‘does it not seem superfluous to supplement nature’s irreversible decree by human enactments restricting him to a sphere he is already incapacitated by his very nature from leaving? You don’t legislate to prevent horses and
(p. 181)
dogs from assuming human functions. To do so with the negro seems to imply distrust of your theory respecting his real place in the scale. A theory it is difficult to imagine people can really hold who have allowed the two races to mingle until a very large proportion of the slaves have almost as much white blood in them as their owners.’ He admits that this is indeed a crime and a sin, invalidating the claims of the planters to any consideration, but not affecting the abstract question; and Herbert adds to his notes the reflection that ‘all systems of legislation which restrain classes to certain spheres of action are wrong, inasmuch as they imply either a distrust of the assertion that such classes are naturally incapable, or a conviction that they can improve upon the order of nature. Our laws about women come under this category. The just position of all is determinable only by their natural capacity. If the negro can rival the white, if the woman can do the man’s work, they have a natural right to do it. What is called the man’s sphere ceases to be exclusively his. No fear of any real trespass where nature has assigned a real difference. It only shows that man is not in his own peculiar sphere of action when he finds himself encroached on by woman. And not only is the attempt to supersede the inherent laws of things absurd and impious, but it is the wretch-edest policy, at once destroying the beautifully adjusted natural relations of the parties, and placing them in a position of antagonism, producing envy, hatred, and strife, towards each other.
‘The future remedy of slavery will be found neither in the expulsion of the blacks, nor in their amalgamation with the white, but in such advance of social knowledge
(p. 182)
and right feeling as shall permit the two races to be free-dwellers in one State, each preserving its integrity distinct, and fulfilling its own separate function. If the negro prefer servitude for his inheritance he will be free to occupy that rank in the social scale, and there being no compulsion or jealousy to excite opposition, all parties ‘will accept their natural position and willingly knowledge their mutual obligation and dependence.’
‘But how about the blacks having citizens’ franchise, and an equal share in the government? As freemen they would be entitled to that.’
‘And it may be added: and how about women having it? Alas for the white inanes superior intelligence if it is unrecognisable by the black; and alas for that of the man if he cannot convince the woman!’
‘Then why not universal suffrage in England?’
‘Ah, why not, except that the people don’t show themselves anxious for it? Perhaps they think that they would not govern the country any better But what says your father to your slavery principles?’
‘Well, that is a rather sore subject. But he con-tents himself with quoting the golden rule, and says I should not like to be a slave myself. To which my answer is that I didn’t like being taught or punished when I was a child, but it was done nevertheless, and I am not sure that it did me any harm. I shut up uncle, however, by telling h I in that it is an easy thing to bean Abolitionist in respect of another person’s property. I pity the slaves if ever they do come to being deprived of their masters. Whatever our Union is in practice, in theory it is impossible so long as the two great sections differ in their definition of MAN.’
(p. 183)
The conversation at supper that evening turned upon negroes and their future in the States.
‘They will follow the Indians and vanish some day,’ said Herbert.
‘They’ll have votes first,’ growled the Puritan uncle.
‘Never!’ exclaimed one of the brothers; ‘there are reasons physical, and reasons phrenological, against that.’
‘Phrenological!’ sneered the uncle.
‘Yes, phrenological,’ returned the other. ‘A white man’s brain is divided into cells and compartments, each of which has its own particular faculty, and is capable of any amount of development; but a nigger has nothing of the kind, no more than a brute beast. A nigger’s brain is one conglomerated mass of fat.’
‘Don’t believe a bit of it,’ said the uncle: ‘I hate the very name of that mock science which makes a man’s mind and soul depend upon the shape or amount of a bit of flesh. And I don’t believe there’s an atom of truth in Phrenology.’
‘Then the world has been very much mistaken for a vast number of ages,’ observed the artist-brother.
‘How so, when it’s a new invention?’ asked the uncle.
‘Because there has always been a popular belief in the connection between a man’s character and the shape of his head. You yourself acknowledge that much when you call one man “long”-headed, another “thick”-headed, another “bullet”-headed; and when you praise the “splendid forehead” of one, and describe another as having “all his head behind his ears.” And the
(p. 184)
comparative anatomists allow that the moral qualities even of beasts are indicated by the form of their heads.’
‘Ah, the general shape, I allow, may have something to do with character, just as one judges by the form and size of a muscle whether it has any power in it.’
‘I do not see,’ observed Herbert, ‘why organisation should stop at the eyebrows. I have never heard of any such difference between the inside of a black man’s head and a white one’ s, and am inclined to think that if there be any difference, it is rather in the quality of the brain than in its arrangement. But I do not find it so difficult to suppose that various parts of the brain can be endowed with different faculties, when I find that the various parts of the face are so endowed. One part sees, and another part smells, and another tastes, and another hears; yet if we dissect the membranes or nerves of sensation belonging to those parts, we can discover no difference of form or material to account for the difference of function.’
‘Of course if you dissect it; you remove it from its position and destroy its form, which I take to be the principal causes of its different action,’ said the artist. ‘We are all like steam-engines, more or less, and it is only when the whole is combined and animated by a. motive force that each part does its own separate work, though the material of each part may be exactly the same.
‘You were looking a very long way ahead, it strikes me,’ said the father to Herbert, ‘when you talked of the negroes dying out. They are increasing now pretty fast. It would be the best thing that could happen to the States I do believe, but I should like to know how you mean to bring it about.’
(p. 185)
‘Why the best thing?’ asked Herbert.
‘Because wherever there are negroes labour is not respectable for the white man, and I take an idle white man to be worse than an industrious nigger.’
‘Slavery, then, is more degrading to the whites than to the blacks, and the whites know it?’ asked Herbert. ‘It is so. Slave or free, the white man won’t work with the black.’
‘And who are increasing the fastest?’
‘Oh, the whites, out and out.’
‘And yon believe they will never be reconciled to each other?’
‘Never.’
‘Then the result is as necessary as that of a mathematical problem. The negroes must at last get crowded into a comer by the whites who detest them.’
‘Not while slavery lasts. That’s the real safeguard of the negro in the States, wicked though it be,’ said the father.
‘Nigger’s best friend,’ said the artist.
‘Cursed institution,’ said the uncle.
‘What’s to end it?’ asked Herbert.
‘Buy ‘em out,’ said the father.
‘Give the slaves arms, and let them free them serves,’ said the uncle.
‘Free the niggers and they are done for,’ said the artist.
‘Who, which are done for,’ asked Herbert, ‘negroes or owners?’
‘Both,’ shouted all at once: except the uncle, who said nothing.
(p. 186)
RED AND BLACK
ONE of the marvels of San Francisco is its instant trans-formation at a certain hour each evening from a place of business into a city of hells. The closing of the offices and stores is the signal for the opening of a host of gambling saloons. They are all on the ground floor, well lit, opening on the streets, and so numerous as to excite wonder at night as to where the stores can be, and by day where the saloons are. these are the usual evening resort of all classes. And there are few who do not at least occasionally attempt to win some of the piles of gold and silver that glitter on the tables. Herbert found himself strongly attracted by the thought that it might be possible to cut his labour short by a few fortunate ventures, but he had not done much in one direction or the other when he found himself playing at a table where one of his fellow-passengers was dealing. As he had barely observed the man on board he was rather surprised by his whispering to him in an interval of the game,
‘Keep your money in your pocket, and meet me out” side at noon tomorrow, and I can do you a good turn.’
‘You came here to make money I suppose,’ was the greeting when they met next day.
‘Certainly.’
‘Then take my advice and don’t play.’
(p. 187)
‘Why, is it so difficult to win?’ asked Herbert, laughing.
‘Difficult! it’s impossible.’
‘But when the chances are so nearly even, surely the interval between the minimum and maximum stake is great enough to allow almost a certainty of winning.’
‘Not a bit of it,’ was the answer, ‘no matter how you arrange your stakes, in the long run it’s just the same as if they were all of one size; you’ll win as many as you lose, and have the percentage of the bank against you.’
‘Then all those systems and calculations which I see people following are a delusion?’
‘Entirely so. They are merely playing against a certain event which is bound, in the long run, to happen. just once in the time it takes for them to win as much as they lose when the event happens, so that they can make nothing by it.’
‘But surely some events are far rarer than others and may be considered impossible,’ observed Herbert.
‘Nothing is impossible to the cards, because the events don’t depend on each other,’ was the answer; and he continued,
‘This dollar has only two sides. Suppose I toss it up and you guess wrong, does that make you any more likely to guess right next time? certainly not; I’ve seen men guess wrong more than twenty times together. Besides, if you play only against a very rare event your winnings will be proportionably small; and consequently, in order to double your capital, you must play so long as to give the event a good chance of happening. Supposing you play against losing ten times running, you
(p. 188)
can tell exactly how often you will do so by reckoning how much your stake becomes if left on to win ten times running. One piece doubling up ten times becomes a thousand and twenty-four, therefore just once in that number of coups you must lose or win ten times running; and you must play that number of coups to win as much as you lose when it comes. The game can’t be played without risking to lose as much as you can win, and the best way of doing that is to put down the whole sum at once. You have just as good a chance of doubling it as by any way of dividing it into small stakes, and you don’t expose it to being dribbled away in percentages to the bank. But if you are wise you won’t touch the thing at all. I noticed you in the Killooney, and though we never spoke that I recollect, I took a liking to you, and I don’t mind telling you that you are too good for the business. If you have won keep what you have got, and if you have lost put up with it. No gambler is ever the richer for winning, and many a good man becomes a scoundrel through it.’
‘Two or three further conversations with my professional friend,’ writes Herbert in his notes, and a careful analysis of the chances in figures, convince me that he is right as to the impossibility of winning by systematic play. Any system may win for a time, but all must lose eventually. In a game of pure chance luck is everything: and in the long; run that must equalise itself. In the mean time the bank is gaining a certain steady profit, and the maximum stake is placed so low as to prevent any extraordinary event from inflicting a serious loss upon it. I have discovered that I am no gambler, since I do not care to play unless I think I have
(p. 189)
a certainty of winning. I can quite understand any one being interested in constructing various systems to play by until the discovery comes that none are infallible. I have made several, and examined many more, each of which at first seemed as if they must win for ever; hut, fortunately, instead of testing them by actual experience, I showed them to my professional friend, who soon demonstrated their weak point. He says that when I thoroughly understand the chances I shall leave off figuring. He says the very fact of a chance being even makes it impossible to beat it, otherwise it wouldn’t be even. It is a great pity. It would be such an easy way of making a fortune if one could sit down for a few hours a-day, and, without risk or labour, make a certain sum. I don’t see why there should be such a prejudice against “gambling” in itself. Every undertaking in life is a venture, more or less doubtful. All these merchants here are liable to fail. Every profession, marriage itself, is a lottery, in which the future happiness of a life depends on an experiment that cannot be undone. This Californian expedition of mine is nothing less. Perhaps the necessity of labour and judgment are redeeming points in all but mere chance speculations. Probably the real evil of gambling consists in its looking only to the end or reward, and affording no employment for the higher faculties in the pursuit. It is impossible to fancy any artist attaining a high degree of inspiration who thinks solely of the money he is to get for his work. I see how it is with me. In this, as in all my other engrossments, I have been seeking for the Absolute. It seems to me a species of Atheism to say that there is no infallible system, even for playing Monté.’
(p. 190)
‘The remark that “in the long rim nothing is impossible because the events do not depend on each other,” seems capable of being applied to a very different line of thought. If in the long rim of events all things can happen, there can be no demonstration of a special providence, neither can a man who believes in the absence of a controlling Will or Character, have any reason for objecting to any system of religion on the score of its improbability. However great may be the chances against an event, those chances are only against its occurring at any given moment. If the opportunity be repeated exactly as often as there are chances against the event, it is an even chance that it occurs once in that number of times. If oftener, the chances are actually in favour of its happening. It is an even chance every time whether red or black wins; yet I am told that one has been known to win thirty times together. The odds against such a series are over a thousand millions to one; but in that number of attempts it becomes an even chance that it occurs. And, inasmuch as the past and future are entirely independent of each other, the most improbable event may show itself directly the game begins, and may be repeated many times in rapid succession. Moreover, an event is brought no nearer to happening after the game has gone on for an indefinite time without its coming. It does not become more likely after, or less likely before, many hands have been dealt. Under the government of chance, therefore, the most violently improbable event not only may, but must, sooner or later occur. But the term improbable cannot be properly applied to that which is inevitable. It must be expunged from the vocabulary of chance, or
(p. 191)
restricted to signify only rare, and that only in proportion to other events which are less so. There is no “improbability” in infinity. If, then, the fortuitous concourse of atoms, unguided by any instinct, ungoverned by any law of uniformity, has resulted in millions of systems and worlds compounded in varying proportions and existing under varying conditions, there must be as many sets of circumstances for these worlds to exist in, as there are worlds: and one of these combinations may form what is called the “Christian scheme.” Or, if there be but one world, and an indefinite number of possible schemes, some one of these must have been hit on for that world in spite of the number of chances against it, and that one might be the Christian scheme. Its being violently improbable has been shown to be no reason against it, since, some one being inevitable, all had a chance. The Atheist, or believer in chance, therefore, has no argument against Christianity, or any other form of religion, on the ground of a priori improbability. He may, consistently with his creed, be a believer, if not a devout one, in the system that comprises the fall and the incarnation, Salvation and Damnation. For the believer in a God of unvarying and consistent character, whose visible creation bears the impress of his mind, it is different. Such an one, must argue from what is good in a human sense to what is good in a divine sense. Seeing that power, and justice, and tenderness, and purity are among the highest attributes of the most perfect human nature, he necessarily infers that they exist in the greatest perfection in the. divine nature. He is therefore unable to recognise as God one who is feeble and baffled, unjust, implacable, and the sustainer of the perpetual pollution of a hell:
(p. 192)
for all these attributes are indubitably indicated by the details of the orthodox faith. The believer in One God and Father of all, cannot be a believer in the Christianity of the churches. The Atheist, or believer in blind chance, alone can consistently be a “good Christian;” alone can receive as a grave verity the sublime irony of the Athanasian Creed. I think it is Babbage who has applied the doctrine of chances to the support of the Christian faith. I wonder whether his argument and conclusions at all coincide with mine.’
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