Short Studies in Character  

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Short Studies in Character (1894) by Sophie Bryant.

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SHORT STUDIES IN CHARACTER Sams BY SOPHIE BRYANT D.Sc. LOND. Mathematical Mistress in the North London Collegiate School for Girls and Author of" Educational Ends." ARDVA QVA PVLCRA London SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO. J 1894 The Gift off Rev. Charles Noyes , North Andover. 51 Bryant BUTLER & TANNER, THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS, FROME, AND LONDON. ANDOVER THEOL. SEMINARY SEP 25 1899 LIBH; زن رنگی 1

PREFACE.

THESE essays were all, in their original form, delivered as lectures to various ethical and educational societies. I do not offer them to the readers of the Ethical Library as a continuous, though ever so slight, study of the subject of character. To this subject, nevertheless, it appears to me that they do belong. all ethics and all educational science point back to character, its fundamental structure, its variety of type, and its ways of development. With this side of ethics and education these essays -each in its isolation and in its own way-deal. Therefore I have called them " Short Studies in Character " ; but I beg the reader to accept them only as studies very short, very slight, and very inadequate in their range to the whole extent of their subject. Speaking generally, Part I. may be said to deal with considerations of character as such, and Part II. with educational problems arising therefrom. But the two subjects melt into each other, and the distinction made may very well sometimes be felt to be illusory. The last essay is not closely connected with the rest, vi PREFACE. and holds its place only as dealing with a subject of general educational import. My thanks are due to the editor for the many valuable suggestions and sympathetic criticism by which he has aided me not a little . SOPHIE BRYANT. HAMPSTEAD, November, 1893. T CONTENTS. • I. THE CARDINAL VIRTUES II. JUSTICE III. "MY DUTY TO MY NEIGHBOUR " IV. FRIENDSHIP V. THE INFLUENCE OF IDEALS VI. TYPES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT VII. VIII. IDEALS OF WOMANLINESS PART I. • SELF- DEVELOPMENT AND SELF- SURRENDER PART II. I. MORAL EDUCATION 139 II. THE CAUSES AND CURE OF SOME MORAL DEFECTS 156 III. " UGLY DUCKLINGS " 173 IV. THE INTELLECTUAL FACTOR IN MORAL EDUCATION 187 V. ON THE DUTY OF CULTIVATING SOUNDNESS OF INTELLECT 207 VI. THE INVERSE SOCRATIC METHOD IN TEACHING . 230 vii PAGE 3 17 30 46 61 78 97 118 •

PART I. ETHICAL. B K STUDIES IN CHARACTER. I. THE CARDINAL VIRTUES.

THE popular discussion of ethical questions is to little purpose if it be not practical. It is not the logical analysis of accomplished virtue that concerns us so much as that practically more important psychological analysis which exhibits virtue as growing from the small beginnings of personal rectitude and dignity to the noble purposes of a character faithful , enlightened, and sure. For us, as for the Greeks who talked of virtue in the Athens of Socrates, the question of most interest is , -How are the citizens to become good, and the children to be trained to grow in virtue ? And so our ethical inquiry takes again and again the form of an inquiry into the order of growth by which excellent character exhibits itself in life. From this point of view the fundamental virtues— those which are fundamental in the psychological sense, as the basis necessary for the coming into operation of all others are not necessarily the virtues 3 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. of greatest use or objective beneficence. Justice, for example that very complex virtue-may or may not be fundamental ; but we will not say that it is so because of its importance to society . We will only call it or any other virtue fundamental if we find it to be so in the subjective sense, an element which must be in the child's character early, as a condition of moral growth. Briefly, then, my purpose is to discuss the most essential elements in a character not yet formed, but forming, for good, the elements without the presence of which it will not begin so to form. When these qualities are absent in a child, then we should be aware that there is danger, and when they are present, we may know that all others essential to general good conduct are likely to be on their way. But first we must place before ourselves a general conception of the character of a virtuous man. He is not simply the useful man, who serves his generation, although he is that. Nor is he simply the self- devoted man, who habitually gives up his pleasures for the sake of his fixed purposes, although he certainly does do this. Still less is he simply the respectable man, whose desires and affections are moderate and evenly balanced, so that his life throughout may fairly be described as comfortable to others and satisfactory to himself. Yet the virtuous man does somewhat par take of this character too, though tempered by the western spirit of discontent and of striving forward to a higher ideal. The virtuous man partakes of all these characters and more. He is self-devoted ; he serves others ; his character tends to adjust itself to his circumstances, so THE CARDINAL VIRTUES. 5 that he is content with his duty and discharges it with pleasure. Above all, he is ever improving himself, growing more hearty in his self-devotion , his service of others, his perfection of character, and his desire for that perfection. The virtuous man is growing perfect, and he desires perfection the more as he approaches the goal more nearly. Yet the more perfect he is, the less does he desire to be perfect alone ; the more does he desire to accomplish with his own perfection the " betterment " of others. Nevertheless, it is the idea of his own. " betterment " that makes possible to him a true con ception of theirs. The prayer-ay, and the practical prayer of real effort-for our salvation comes onlyfrom those who have first striven for their own. But from them it does come certainly, if they find (which is not the same as seeking) the true means to their own. The fundamental virtues may fairly be defined as those which enable a man vigorously to seek these means, and to adopt them stedfastly when found. The virtuous man grows towards perfection by de voting himself to objects outside himself, in the accom plishment of which, for the most part, others partici pate with him. This working for purposes to befulfilled in the world is, as it were, the means by which he lifts himself to higher and higher levels of character. As he works for each of these purposes, he holds them to be what he calls good . I know no truer definition of good in the subjective sense than this : to each man that is good for which he is willing to give up present gratification or endure pain . The good pur sued may be some other gratification in prospect, but 6 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. it is still a good to that man, rather than a pleasure (although it is in itself both) , because it has caused him to " deny himself" at the instant of choice. To postpone pleasure is to deny in the strict sense ; and this is just what the morally worthless man cannot do. No man can work for a purpose, whatever the purpose, who cannot " deny himself." No man can follow either Christ or Satan- though any man may fall into the abyss of moral worthlessness -who cannot "take up his cross " and do without " things. " Self denial is so fundamental a virtue that it is essential to all progress, whether good or bad . Civilisation is built on self- denial, and yet not all civilisation is good . Mammon worship is impossible without self- denial, and so is the worship of every false god, branches as they are, every one of them, of the worship paid to the one false god of self-self- interest and self- glorification. But so also is the worship of the true God, the practice of personal virtue and of good- will towards men. The devil worshippers are more horrible than the morally worthless ; the pure devil worshippers at least are so. They are more horrible, however, just because they are more human and false to their humanity-just because they have one characteristic in common with the faithful. They can devote themselves to a pur pose ; they can be self- denying and courageous. Self-denial and courage-these are the backbone of all character, good or bad. And the backbone of cha racter is the sine qua non of virtue. Primary, then, among the virtues stand these two, not because they necessarily make a man good, but because without THE CARDINAL VIRTUES. 7 them he can neither improve his character nor do his duty, i.e. serve the purpose which he is called upon, or calls upon himself, to serve. We live in an ease-loving, pain - hating age, when these elementary virtues are apt to be esteemed too lightly. Hundreds of years ago our pagan forefathers, out of whose rough crude virtue ours has developed, honoured courage and the endurance of pain as they honoured strength and the power to do great deeds. We have indeed developed their virtues by finding a wider range of self-denials and a truer conception of the objects on behalf of which denial should be made. But without the capacity for self- denial , the ambition to give one's self away, as it were, for a purpose, good, bad, or indifferent, outside self, Christian virtue could. not have been developed as a real character in the races of modern Europe. The Christian practical doctrine of the Cross embodied in a fitter form, and directed to nobler ends, the rude pagan's notion of the grandeur of courageous self- devotion ; and amid all the base and the noble elements that have gone to build up modern Europe, the permanent binding ele ment of the structure has been the spirit of self- devo tion. Yet in our day there is surely a tendency to forget that self- denial is the sine qua non of individual pro gress towards any end. Although social claims are more pressing than ever, and the opportunity of self denial greater, still, the children, at least of the well to- do-and the children are all- important—are guarded carefully from benefiting by the opportunity. The spirit of self-indulgence reigns too often in the nursery, 8 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. and parents are content because the children are happy, having denied them the higher happiness implied in a training to the vigour of a self- denying will. To do without things for the sake of somebody, or just for the sake of being able to do without them to risk and endure discomforts for the sake of being able to bear them-to do habitually what ought to be done, or what is intended, whatever it costs, these are the capacities we need, perhaps more than any others, to train in our children . We cannot begin to train them too early, so soon as self- control is an estab lished possibility. They come absolutely first in the hierarchy of virtues-courage and self-denial, the old Greek virtues of courage and temperance. No doubt the fact ofthe matter is that we can, with our developed intelligence and sympathies, no longer cultivate these virtues in our children by mere repres sion, in the old - fashioned Puritan way. Two resources , however, remain to us. We can practise simplicity and a reasonable hardness of life with them, thus im proving ourselves by the way ; and we can train them to self- denial by the better modern means of giving them plenty of real purposes to fulfil . Honest intel lectual labour, lessons which it is a duty to learn, -here is one very simple means. Not less effective are duties to be done in the house and outside the house, in which the children should have a share. Something to be done, and done as perfectly as possible-in this lies the natural motive to self- denial. A man will not generally deny himself to effect a purpose , however self- denying he may be, unless he believe that he can do something towards effecting it . THE CARDINAL VIRTUES. Neither will he endeavour to perform the equally necessary work of purging himself from faults of cha racter, unless he believe in the possibility of success. If he believe that he cannot help being malicious, or untruthful, or envious, or that he cannot do his work. thoroughly, and if he excuse all omissions by refer ence to an alleged incapacity, then that man is clearly doomed to moral stagnation. Effort is necessary to all individual progress, and effort, being an act of will towards a certain end, does not take place without faith in the possibility of that end. Thus I rank faith, this ethical faith in self, as able to do and to become better, as one of the fundamental virtues. In a cer tain sense it is true that self- confidence is the salt of character. The people who believe in their own possi bilities are the people who go forward . Self-confidence as a virtue is even more fundamental than the complementary virtue of humility ; and the Christian scheme of yirtues does not leave it out. It is indeed the same as the Christian virtue of faith in the Divine grace, by which the personal effort of the faithful is able to surpass its own efficiency. Practi cally, there is no difference between the unperverted doctrine of faith in a saving power which is within our reach, if only, laying hold on it strongly, we use it vigorously, and the simple moral fact, which is its kernel, that we are indeed gifted with a latent power of goodness far beyond anything we have a right to expect from our experience of ourselves. Probably the statement of this truth in terms of the religious consciousness will be to all time the more powerful, and seem the more natural , to the soul deeply IO STUDIES IN CHARACTER. plunged in the despondency due to its sinfulness ; but to many the simple ethical doctrine is in its way more powerful because more easy really to grasp. And so I will state this virtue in ethical terms as faith in the possible good and useful self. Faith without humility is promise with no adequate guarantee of performance. It is right to hope that we can do if we try ; but it is better to be silent till we have tried, and then to assert our success with diffidence and humility. It is well to believe silently in our possibilities, but to look critically at our actual performances while inviting humbly the criticism of others. Self- doubt is the proper complement of self- confidence, and both are necessary to spiritual progress. Humility, as a virtue, is much esteemed in popular morality; but it is liable to an amount of misrepresen tation which seriously impairs its value as a factor in the "bettering " process. As taken up into the re ligious consciousness, humility is the attitude of mind which accompanies the perception that the human perfection possible to ourselves is , after all , inadequate to the ideal perfection which the conception of it implies. After we have done all we are " unprofitable servants," falling far short of that ideal the fulfilment of which is imposed upon us by the law of our moral and intellectual nature. Our vision of good is broader, and our aspirations therefore higher, than our powers can reach . Hence, if we are true-faithful to the spiritual aspirations which claim us, and honest in the estimate we form of our actions and ourselves, it must be that we see ourselves always, and even necessarily, THE CARDINAL VIRTUES. II as "unprofitable servants "-always and necessarily lower than we aspire and feel we ought to be. Religious humility consists in deep and pervading consciousness of this necessary imperfection, this ori ginal sin or weakness which human nature cannot overcome, just because it is human and limited . That it is good to be thus humble, there can be no doubt. It is good because it is just, because no one who is not thus humble can have an adequate conception of the heights and depths of his own moral being. But with the abuses of religious humility we are all familiar, the contented acceptance of the fact that we are " miserable sinners," so wholly un worthy that a shade or two more or less of darkness is not worth considering, from which it follows logi cally that personal moral effort is not worth making, even if the worst extreme of the doctrine be not reached and personal moral effect declared to be im possible. This is the false religious humility which carica tures the true, and is therefore inconsistent with the ethical humility to which it should be correlative . Ethical humility refers to failure in the real possi bilities of well- doing and good- becoming which the over-confident man misses through lack of honesty in looking at the facts of his performance. The man who, in the name of humility, is content to fall far below the level of his possible self, the man who is not always striving to rise towards the ideal, is like one who should refuse to climb the mountain tops because he could not thereby reach the sky. As in the religious so in the moral sphere, faith and 12 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. humility are related, not only as supplementary virtues, but as naturally taking their rise in an attitude of mind which is common to them both. Alike they spring from the whole- hearted purpose to be true-to " leave no stone unturned, " as the phrase goes, in order to secure by one's own honest effort the end in view. The man who is honestly in earnest for the object he pursues does not pause to doubt his powers. If, indeed, he is working for an end outside self, he may well calculate means towards that end, and his own fitness to use those means ; but if he is working for a result in his own character, he believes, as of course, in its possibility. On the other hand, the man who is really earnest is not satisfied with aspirations : he looks to the thing accomplished, and is anxious that it should be perfect in its way. His anxiety to test, his honesty in admitting defect-these are the measure of his true humility. Faith and humility not based in an honest, truth loving heart are not genuine. Thus honesty, also, is a fundamental virtue, because a mind that is willing to deceive itself cannot pursue its own virtue, or any other object, unflinchingly. Honesty is fundamental , just as self- denial is fundamental. Not only virtue as such, but all steady growth of character in pursuit of purpose, is impossible without it . A man who will palter with his own conviction of what is right, who will argue away his own perception of the means to an end, because other means are pleasanter, easier, or otherwise preferable-such a man deceives himself, and misses his path for that very reason . Now it is certainly true that a man very much in THE CARDINAL VIRTUES. 13 • earnest in the pursuit of any end is guarded so far by strong motives against the dishonesty of missing it by self- deceiving arguments. The self- deceiving ar gument generally comes in, not to interfere with the particular ends we have in view, but to prevent us from seeing other ends which we would admit to estab lish a claim on us if we did see them. A case which frequently occurs is this. A man is bent on carrying out some minor purpose, a perfectly allowable, or even praiseworthy one, it may be : he admits in general, as we all do, that he is bound to conform all his actions to a certain standard of uprightness, humanity, and so forth. A temptation occurs : he may score a point by descending to some action of the excluded type . Now three courses are open to him : he may do the wrong act, boldly admitting as much, for the sake ofthe end gained. This course is rarely taken, except by the hardened sinner, or the confident and uplifted saint. Or he may abstain from it, and not score his point. Or he may persuade himself that the whole case is quite different from what it seems, and thus seek by self- deception to serve God and mammon simultaneously. The descent to this gulf is easy enough, and the danger comes early in the moral life. The safeguard is a resolute spirit of honesty in dealing with self, no less than with others, a constant adherence to truth in thought as well as in word and deed. As soon as a child can speak and think, he can begin to bind himself over to the spirit of lies. It is , therefore, never too early to keep the importance of this virtue in view. He should never see or hear 14 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. lies from those to whom he naturally looks up, and his own little falsehoods and subterfuges should never be regarded lightly, though I do not believe that they need be dealt with harshly either. Parents might, for instance, reflect perhaps more than they do on the latent dishonesty implied in the common habit of making excuses. I am indeed convinced that there is no greater safe guard for immediate conduct, as well as for permanent character, in young people, than a strong sense of the hatefulness of deceit. With such a sense there goes infallibly an instinct prompting abstention from all deeds that will not bear the light of publication in the family. The distinctions of right and wrong are necessarily so obscure in a child's mind, -there are so many undesirable deeds that might be done in con sequence, without any real intention of harm-that the earnestly good child, dimly aware of this, falls back upon the test of perfect openness in conduct as the natural security. The honest child cannot help doing this : he does not know what ought to be done, but he does know that all his actions should be open and above- board ; and this is not only good in itself, but a safeguard against particular deeds and the contraction of habits condemned by his little society . To be honest and above- board-to live in the light -this is a condition essential to the healthy growth of character in grown up people no less than in children . Moreover, essential as it is to scorn duplicity in our dealings with others, it is no less essential to despise all attempts at playing the hypocrite with ourselves. And so honesty may be ranked with the fundamental THE CARDINAL VIRTUES. 15 or heroic virtues essential to the growth of character along any well-marked and consistent lines.

• * * *

I have attempted no more than to sketch those fundamental elements in character which go to determine its vitality and energy in growth. The man who is self-denying, brave, confident, humble and honest, is a man who goes straight wherever he means to go. He may be nothing more, but he is a pagan hero, mighty for good or ill, and more probably for good than for ill, because to such as he the powers of evil do not in the nature of things present an object grand enough for the satisfaction of his mag nificent energies. He is a hero, though not yet a saint nor a social benefactor. He is the stuff, however, out of which saints and philanthropists are made, and without which they are not made. And so , keeping in view the old- fashioned meaning of the word , let us call him the virtuous man -the excellently developed manlike man-and thus distinguish him from the good or righteous man, which he is more likely than not also to be, and which he becomes by the devotion of his energies to the right ends of human conduct. In that devotion, by means of that devotion, and also as a cause leading up to that devotion , he develops , pari passu with his heroic qualities, others no less essential, which link him by his affections with his fellow men, to work with them and labour for them. By the growth of sympathy and justice his human virtues become god-like graces, and their range is indefinitely extended. He finds an object for his 16 . STUDIES IN CHARACTER . energies because he cares for his fellows, and adds to his human virtues the Divine virtue of sympathy with all men. In so far as he cared for his own virtue before, he now is ready to work for the virtue of the community, pursuing for others just those ends and means which he has hitherto found good for himself. The present essay is not, however, the place to discuss further the right object of conduct and the character that shapes itself according to the demands. made upon it by those qualities in the object which constitute its rightness . Nor is it the place to consider all that is implied in the development of perfect indivi dual character, moral and intellectual, though it may be pointed out briefly that a will set on that perfection -on personal righteousness -is an essential condition. My subject is that of the cardinal virtues only, and by them I understand those fundamental qualities which are the raw material of worthy character, and the sine qua non of human virtue. Add to them loving- kindness ; add also that hunger and thirst after righteousness which marks the con scientious man ; and we have the character that must not only go straight to its end, but straight to the right end—that end which is itself the measure of human virtue. II. JUSTICE. THE preceding essay has dealt with the essential characteristics of virtuous character considered as a group of dispositions or tendencies regulating the thoughts and controlling the actions of the man able and prone to pursue high aims. History shows and literature illustrates, by an abundance of example, the truth that this backbone of moral character may and does develop itself in cases where the object of moral action—the purpose to be fulfilled -is very im perfectly or even wrongly conceived . The " heroes " of history and literature stand out as heroes, even when all their ends are wrong ends, and all the moral energy expended—ay, and created-in pursuing them wasted or misapplied . Objection may fairly be taken to calling that energy moral which does not tend to the production of moral use ; but there can be no doubt that the common sense of mankind has, at all times and in all places, esteemed as virtues, or excel lences of character, the qualities of courage, self- denial, faithfulness in endeavour, and humility in estimating success . And, indeed, it might be argued that if we were to take our stand solely and simply upon the C 17 18 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. fact of serviceableness—use in the world—as the final test of moral action, these characteristics would still shine forth as among the best of all things in human character, because in the possession of them lies the fitness of a human agent to pursue faithfully and un flinchingly any object, and therefore, if it otherwise attracts him, to pursue the right object—the object that ought to be pursued. • But it is clear that no one can be called good who has not, in the main, the right objects of human action in view. The hero has to be more than a hero before we can yield to him our full measure of admiration and reverence. Before we can do this we must feel that he at least cares for the right things as good. A perfect man would have a perfectly adequate concep tion of the right object, and a whole- hearted desire for its accomplishment. In the attempted satisfaction of this desire, he would display without stint the heroic virtues of courage, self- denial, and the rest. No man can, indeed, have that perfectly adequate conception, because to have it would imply superhuman knowledge and superhuman intellect. The whole hearted desire for good, so far as good is known, one might have, though it may be doubted whether any do reach such a height of emotional goodness, more rare and difficult by far as this must be than the most absolute development of the heroic self- devoted spirit. We seem to see in history, and in the lives of our contemporaries, examples-rare proportionately, but not so few—of persons abounding in the spirit of self- sacrifice, rejoicing in a life of unselfish activity, asking and taking no reward for themselves-persons JUSTICE. 19 who have the martyr-spirit in its best and fullest sense. But this rejoicing in the death of self is not the same thing, though it naturally goes hand in hand with it, as the more joyous rejoicing of those who feel that they are creating a good which all others may feel as good, and to whom it is good for that reason. This, in its fullest extent, is what the whole- hearted desire for good implies-the consciousness of a personal good realized in the realization of any good anywhere in the universe. It is easier a great deal to be self devoted than to feel the thrill of personal satisfaction in every good that falls, and the throb of personal hope in the thought of distant goods which distant others may know and feel. There can be little doubt that the nineteenth century has seen a considerable development of the moral con sciousness in this respect. We live in an age when sympathy-tenderheartedness -is apt to be extolled as the one great virtue. Long ago its value was preached to the world under the name of love or charity, and indeed charity may be considered as the most peculiar and novel contribution of Christianity to the list of the virtues ; but it seems as if the lesson had never been taken to heart in real earnest till near our time. Perhaps this is because the idea has entered so largely into the popular philosophy of the day, and because this is an age largely dominated by its popular philosophy. It is abundantly evident that good cannot be felt or realized as personal good by any one, except in so far as he imagines it to be the personal good of himself or another. It follows that, whatever good may be in 20 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. itself whatever, therefore, the ultimate right object of action may be that whole-hearted desire of the good as good, which marks the man whose heart is in the right place, can only exist in him relative to an idea of the good as a good of persons-a good which he can imagine to be felt as good in the consciousness of another. Intellectually he can, and indeed is neces sarily drawn on to conceive of good as surpassing, though including, all that is imaginable to him as the good of persons : but in so far as he feels it he can only feel it as such , and in so far as he thinks it and fashions means by which he can aid in its fulfilment, it can only appear to him in an idea of that which is good for all persons, and the sum of all that is good for each. Since the object of each man's moral action must be an object which each man can comprehend and feel, that object cannot be strictly what I will venture to call the good in itself, or the moral object of the universe. It can only be the relative good, the good of the sentient creation as he knows it, the good of humanity more especially. Yet it is not amiss for him to bear in mind the fact that humanity is not the universe, and that the moral object, therefore, tran scends the moral object of humanity. Thus he will find occasion for humility on the one hand, and pa tience with the problem of evil ( which is relative evil) on the other. Thus, also , he will find a reason for that sense of mystery and infinitude in things good which supplies much of the moral motive force, as it supplies much of the poetry, in things human. Human virtue is relative to the social object, and the JUSTICE. 21 social object is the increase of human good. This increase of good is what we mean by progress, and so human progress, as he understands it, is the good man's end of conduct. The rules of life which he adopts are regulated by regard to increase of the total good ; and his character develops itself, moreover, as one that finds satisfaction, outside rules of life, in every good that falls, whether it fall to another through his agency, or irrespective of the same. To a description of the social object as human good and human progress all can agree, and I have pur posely used these more abstract terms so far, desiring to take one step at a time, and in this case to see clearly the limited human nature of our practical object before proceeding to discuss its other charac teristics. Nor do I propose on this occasion to discuss them at any length. For practical purposes it does not matter so much whether we consider the ultimate human good to be the well- developed reason, or the perfectly ordered will, or the life of happiness, pro vided we admit, as practical persons must, that the increase of each of these goods tends, in the long run, and when considered over the lives of all persons, to increase the others also . We can have little doubt that the more highly developed soul, with its keen susceptibilities, its radiant intellect, and its will con trolled by sympathetic reasonableness, is a soul capable of heights and depths of happiness unknown to those of simpler ruder make. True, it may be said that so also is it capable of greater depths of pain, and this is a point which the utilitarian must 22 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. consider when by such argument he seeks to conciliate with his view the view of his opponent, who contends that development, and ultimately perfection , is the human good. He may, however, argue, and with force which all must feel, that when the goal is reached, and in so far as at any moment it is reached, the world of perfectly developed beings must be an infinitely happier world than any of those lower worlds where human imperfection is so fertile a source of human pain. He may contend also that the good of the deve lopment lies in this greater potentiality of happiness, which in the limit is not accompanied by an equally greater potentiality of pain. Moreover, I think it might be urged as a utilitarian argument for seeking to press forward the development of human powers, that there is a depth of joy in the best kinds of hap piness, both selfish and unselfish, which is out of all proportion to the corresponding gulfs of pain. This, however, is a matter of experience in which there may be much difference of opinion ; and so I do not press the point, although I think there is good reason to suspect that, given the suitable occasions-and here fortune rules our fate-joy can rise higher above the mean level of feeling than pain can ever sink. If so, of course it is happier to be more capable of joy and pain, as doubtless most of us would choose in any case to be. The perfectionist, on the other hand, may reply to the utilitarian that if approach toward perfection or development lead, indeed, to greater happiness in the long run, the fact is an argument showing that per fection, rather than happiness, should be taken as the JUSTICE. 23 idea of human good which men ought practically to have in their minds for working purposes. Suppose, after all, he might contend, that happiness has a superior right to be held as the ultimate end-the end to which perfection is a means, although it can hardly be accounted a means to perfection-suppose it is the ultimate end, what then ? The moral agent, as such, needs not so much a knowledge of the ulti mate as of the proximate end—the end which he must have in view when he acts ; and this end is not the immediate happiness, but the gradual development of the powers of the race. For ourselves and for others, we know it to be good that our latent powers should have awakened within us. We know, also, that in some other sense it is good to be happy. But, since the former good is more likely to be neglected than the latter, having a less urgent motive force of antici pated pleasure behind it ; and since, nevertheless , we determine that it shall not be neglected , we distinguish this determination from the pleasure-moving tendency as a moral from a natural force, and identify our moral good with our advance towards perfection, while happiness is our natural good. Moreover, having formed a conception of our moral good, we must form the same conception of other people's. Thus deve lopment appears from the first to be the good dis tinguished as moral good, and places itself over against the no less real good of happiness, or natural good, as contrasted with it . Hence, the perfectionist argues that it must be accepted as that proximate or practical idea of good in reference to which action takes place, whatever the ultimate idea of good in 24 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. its last analysis might turn out to be. Practically, this would be the sole concern of a community of per fectly developed beings, with no surrounding of out casts whom it would be their duty to save. In this perfect community it might well be debated whether its good was the good of reason , or feeling, or will , all these forms of good being at once at a maximum in such a community. The discussion would be almost purely academic, since the only practical form of the question possible would relate to the greater or less evil involved in the loss of each. I have said enough, and more than enough-much more than I had intended-on the conflict of these differing ideas of the good, or rather different aspects, as they should be called, of the one idea. Social virtue does not depend on the particular view taken, so much as on the acceptance of the social good, in all its parts, as personal good, by the personal reason and will. It is clear that this acceptance is not complete unless all equal parts of it are recognised as equally important, though all parts cannot be equally pursued by the individual will. This recognition of equality in equals is the property ofjustice. Perfect social virtue requires that each should estimate another's equal good as equal in value to his own , and should be disposed to act accordingly. This seems to be almost as difficult as to see all parts of the field of bodily vision with equal distinctness. We do not see the other's equal good as equal to our own, because we have a more vivid and intimate knowledge of our own ; and even if we did see it, we do not feel it equally, except in the case of persons literally as JUSTICE. 25 dear to us as ourselves, or dearer. Nevertheless, a man may have his mind so attuned that he is prepared to act on this supposition of equality, so far as he can think it, and to endeavour to see and feel it as truly as possible when called upon to do so. This is the man whom we call just. He does not necessarily pursue other men's interests promiscuously, as if they were his own such a proceeding, if repeated by all the just men, would only lead to confusion and de moralisation. But wherever interests clash, the just man judges fairly between others and himself, as if both were equally distant others, and in all his trans actions he is apt to prefer the greater good for another to the lesser good for himself. Justice must be distinguished from kindness and pity, from tenderness and sympathy. Though the just man, as a rule, has these qualities—and the good man certainly has them-they alone might make him only " charitable," which is much less than just. The sympathy of a kindly nature makes justice easy, be cause on this quality it depends that a man shall be able to feel another's good or ill as his own ; and if he does not do this, his justice will be difficult and cold . There are, however, those who feel, and yet fail to see the state of facts as they affect others. Fellow- feeling is very important, but it will surely be misplaced if fellow- seeing be deficient . This power of seeing how things are with others is the power of imagination in a lively, sympathetic disposition- sympathetic ima gination it might be called . Persons of quick imagina tion otherwise, and disposed to be interested in human beings as such, naturally have this gift for knowing • 26 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. how things are with others. Such a gift goes far to make kindliness easy and appropriate, and justice a natural expression of one's state of mind. Imagination and sympathy give colour and warmth and softness to justice, which would be a chilly virtue enough without them. They are, however, of neces sity limited in their scope, and could not, for those who live much, be at work throughout the whole length and breadth of social activity, without producing positive nervous exhaustion. The active social workers cannot afford to feel and imagine in proportion to their work. The burden of sorrowing humanity could not be borne by those who do most in helping others to bear it, if they allowed themselves to imagine and feel it as vividly as they might. And to them the cooler power of reason comes as an alternative and less ex hausting guide, while it serves as guide to all when the limit of their power of fellow- feeling and fellow seeing is reached. We do not always need to have our feelings harrowed in order to see the justice of a case. No man's justice can be relied upon who is not more affected by the statistics of a rack- rented estate than by the details of an eviction scene. We may be as much moved to act when we are not half so much touched to feel, if only we happen to be reasonable enough to see the clear lines of equity in the case before us, and to be ruled by what we see. A reasonable person is, in the first instance, one who can make abstraction of personal interests, prejudices of all sorts, irrelevant feeling of all kinds, and look at things in the pure, clear light of reason, from what may be called the universal point of view since all JUSTICE. 27 others would see it similarly if they, too, made abstrac tion of irrelevant considerations. The reasonable man sees things in this universal light, and is thus predis posed to judge impartially—to think justly. He should, however, for just activity, be a little more reasonable than this : his reason needs to be active or practical in the sense that he has the tendency to act as reason dictates. There must be just so much over flow of reason into sympathy and imagination. The truly reasonable man is practically reasonable ; the merely clever man need not be. He may see quite as clearly, but his ideas fail in motive urgency. This is probably a very common case. Sympathy, imagination, reasonableness, all these are involved in justice, are the factors which enter into the just character, and, by reducing to a minimum the obstructive forces of personal bias, predispose a man to yield to another that which ought to be yielded . But the just man, so compounded, cannot be content with such a definition of himself. He would care a great deal more for a clear definition of his duty- a statement of principle on which he could take his stand in determining what ought to be yielded to others, what is their due. Duty is harder to know than popular moralists generally realize ; harder to know, in many cases, than it is to do when known. The good man-the social man-has the general good at heart, and acknowledges the obligation of justice as a requirement laid on him to act as if all equal parts of the general good were of equal value to him to judge impartially between all others and him self. Now the application of such an abstract prin 28 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. ciple is no easy matter, even though the willingness to apply it be ever so great. He would be a somewhat bold man who sought to apply the bare principle simply to every concrete case which arose. The conse quences of human action are much too complex in this complicated world to allow of any such royal road to the fulfilment of the social end. It is possible, indeed, to expand this single prin ciple into a series of secondary principles which might afford light to the earnest man in his solution of moral problems ; but secondary principles open the door to exceptions, and lead those wrong who apply them as iron-bound rules. In the main the just man must rely, for personal problems, not on the steady application of these secondary principles, but on the immediate judgment which he is able in each case to make, bringing to bear on it, as he should, a conscience warm with kindly sympathies, enlightened by reflec tion on moral principles and an experience of the difficulties which surround their application. No man ever ruled his life aright who trusted solely to rules of conduct for its guidance. Nor are those more suc cessful who take their stand simply on conscience as they find it . What each of us wants is, on the one hand, a conscience or character-call it which you will -moulded to social ends, rooted in just desires, and, on the other hand, an earnest, thoughtful spirit, ever inquiring and awake, ever endeavouring to apply itself -intellect, conscience, heart, and all-to the problem of doing unto each man that which ought to be done unto him. Those who have the just heart and earnest desire to JUSTICE. 29 know justice that they may do it, will always solve their problems for themselves, and act as they see fit . Only it is essential to be earnest for the truth as well as just in feeling . These problems cannot be solved by those who think too lightly of their difficulties . III. "MY DUTY TO MY NEIGHBOUR.” SOCIAL duty as my duty is the subject before us, not social duty as our duty. The latter is the duty of the body of citizens acting together as a political unit, for the benefit of the whole, and each citizen in it. All politically good citizens seek to do their duty to their neighbours by joint political action aimed at the reali zation of an ideal good community. But, as a matter of personal ethics, each seeks to do his particular duty to the other members of the community considered one by one. These two branches of duty differ widely, but they are related . To act rightly each towards each, it is necessary to have a right idea, developed up to a cer tain point, of the just or good community, into which all communities should be endeavouring to transform themselves . For the guidance of personal conduct, however, that idea need not be developed with the same many- sided fulness as would be necessary for adequate guidance in political action bent on securing the full realization of the social end. The science of personal ethics is easier than that of politics, if both are to be carried to the point of perfection-if both 30 "MY DUTY TO MY NEIGHBOUR." 31 are to reflect in their various ways the same ideal of a perfect community. This becomes evident when we reflect how much more possible it is for friends and neighbours to give aid aright to the feeble and even worthless members of society, than it is for society to discharge the same function through any machinery of personal agencies which it can create. To guide him in his relations with others, it is , how ever, quite clear that the good man needs to have a distinct and vivid conception of the social relations which ought spontaneously to prevail in a perfectly ordered and just society—a society in which the prin ciple of justice should be not only recognised, but actually fulfilled . That principle, whatever it be, is binding on him in all his personal relations with others, and the fact, if it be a fact, that he cannot see how it is to be translated effectively into the law of the land and the institutions of the country, makes it not less but more binding as a principle of personal morals. The more evident it seems to him, if it does so seem, that society in its political sphere can, with its present knowledge and circumstances, only do mis chief by attempts to secure more than the crude ele mentary justice which is all it can boast to- day, the more binding upon him will be the obligation to make up for inaction in his political, by increased activity in his personal, sphere. In the latter he can live more nearly by the ideal ; and because he can he must. The kingdom of heaven is realized within him, and thence gives law first to his personal, next to his national, and last to his international life. What, then, is this ideal ? A complete answer to this question would 32 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. go far to furnish us with a satisfactory philosophy of society, and could not be undertaken without enter ing into many disputed points of ethical controversy about which the just man, in his plain practical state of mind, cares very little . To the plain man the most important feature of justice is that it consists in his practical recognition of the truth that another man's equal good is equally important with his own. Start ing from that axiom, and using the aid of mathematics as well as philosophy, a science of just society might be constructed ; but the plain man might not under stand it for himself, and yet be strict in his practical recognition of the axiom. That practical recognition does not lie, however, in a confusion of men's activities generally, each pursu ing the good of some other in a perfectly indifferent and promiscuous way. Prior to the principle of justice which moralises and harmonises the relations of each to each, there is the principle of independent activity, in virtue of which each has his own work— which is his good-to carry on in the world, and un called- for interference with this on another's part is an impertinence and a wrong. Each has his life to live, his work to do, his good to realize, and the first appli cation of justice to him in his relation to others is that they should respect his life, his work, his striving after good, equally with their own, and should refrain from spoiling it in order that they may have more. So far as this right to non- interference goes, jus tice in relation to it is not hard to understand. It is a simple principle of equality applied to persons : the persons themselves are to be treated equally. One "MY DUTY TO MY NEIGHBOUR. " 33 has as good a right as another to make the best that he can of his life, while absolutely none have a right to spoil the lives of others, either for their own advan tage or for any other motive. This, however, does not carry us far. In the first place, it is evident that the children of each generation. could make nothing at all of their lives if they were not protected during infancy, and could make very little of them later if it were not for considerable assistance, educational and otherwise, during the years of childhood. This is so clear that it has been already made the basis of political action. Our education law, as originally enforced, gives the child an absolute right to be educated up to a certain point by some body, and advocates of free education have sometimes based their argument on the general principle, that logically the somebody should be the State-that the State should accept as its own duty the fulfilment of the right it has conferred upon the child. This, as we know, the State now does. The protection and nurture of the children is in each generation one of its most important duties. We have to consider what is due to the children, and from whom it is due. But into these questions it is not necessary to enter very fully here. The institution of the family is at present the general answer to them, a sufficient answer for our practical purposes, since we are not now discussing the political policy of either free education or free dinners, but the duty of the indi vidual citizen only. At the same time, it should be noted here as a question to be solved in personal. ethics, whether those whose success in life (either per D 34 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. sonal or inherited) is such as to enable them to bring up a family, and whose misfortune or fortune it is not to have a family to bring up, should not consider them selves as fairly responsible for their share in contri buting towards the expenses of the next generation in some way suitable to their means and abilities . When circumstances occur to bring this duty home to it, average human nature is not inapt to respond, as when the childless or wealthy members of a family under take to provide wholly or partially for the orphans of another member. Still, something would be gained by a recognition on the part of all such of the fact that their good deeds are not good deeds of charity merely, but of justice also, as the performance of a certain duty which, in proportion to their means, all owe towards the coming generation . We may indeed regard duty towards the family as similar in certain respects to duty towards individuals . Though not an absolute unit, the household family is a unit, with its own work to do that of securing for each member of the family, and especially each young member, his chance of success in life. Outside the household stand the group of relations, friends and neighbours, each having his own proper relationship to that family ; and the principles, whatever they be, which give law to the relationship of individual to individual, regulate also the relationship of each indi vidual to those families, and their family needs and obligations, with which he comes in contact. The first act of justice which he owes to them is that of not hampering them in their discharge of their func tions by undesired and undesirable interference. To "MY DUTY TO MY NEIGHBOUR." 35 the head of each family his family duties are a sacred part of his life ; their performance is part of his work, in the efficiency of which he finds -partly, at least his good. In so far as he is able to perform them, and performs them well, they are his alone to perform ; and strangers hinder his life and the family life by uncalled-for interference. This laissez faire view of social obligations, true though it be as far as it goes , does not carry us far. The world is full of people who have not had a fair chance at the start of people who have failed to utilise their chances, and are stranded now-of people, even, whose history is such as to make their best friends despair that they will ever utilise any chance so well as to be able to stand alone. The just man's duty to put himself in the place of these, and act for and with them , is no less clear than his duty of non-interference with those who do not need his help. His own good should seem to him only equally important with the equal good of the very lowliest. In a just community, the class of those who have never had a fair chance would not exist at all. The just men, therefore, of the actual society that exists, are bound by their ideal to act towards all of this class with whom they come in contact, i.e. their neighbours, so as to secure them that chance to the best of their ability. This they will do by the expenditure of both moral and material means, by personal influence and by a loosening of the purse- strings. And here at once the quantitative character of justice as a virtue becomes evident. The just man is constrained to ask how much is due from him in each case, and he is a 36 STUDIES IN CHARACTER . fortunate man if he is ever able to give himself a per fectly satisfactory answer to this question. He, and he only, can give the answer ; but he gives it under the influence of an idea of justice in which there appear to be involved three principles of pro portionate distribution . In the first place, he will give more or less of himself and his means as there is more or less need of either, in order to raise the recipient into the desired position of being able to take care of himself. In the second place, he will give more or less in proportion to the fund out of which he gives, and the claims made on it : the rich man gives much gold, the leisured man much time, the poor man and the busy man give their mites from a scanty store of wealth and of leisure. And thirdly, he will give more or less according to what I will call the degree of neighbourhood of the recipient : all men may be in a sense his neighbours, but all are not equally his neigh bours. The claim that lies next him has the first claim on him, whether because of kinship , or because of the voluntary kinship of friendship, or because of sym pathy in feeling and thought, or even because of some chance event which makes the helper feel that he is responsible for the helping in that particular case. The man whom I myself find by the wayside, in pain and need, has a claim on me rather than on another, because it is I who have found him. Abstract reasoning does not, at first sight, seem to justify the existence of this third principle ; for as a principle it certainly does, as a rule, exist in the just man's heart. A closer consideration, however, makes its reasonableness apparent. It is right, in the first "MY DUTY TO MY NEIGHBOUR.” 37 place, because it satisfies that principle of economy in the use of moral means, on the application of which it depends that we should get the maximum of good effect in the world by the minimum expenditure of painful moral effort. Sympathy and imagination make justice easy, and also make her sweet to all concerned. The just act, without these, is hard and cold. Now sympathy and imagination are most awake for those who are dear, and for those who are near. It is more natural, and therefore more economical of effort on the part of the giver ; it is more natural, and therefore more sweet and stimulating to the receiver, when friendship is present, either as an old or a new fact, on the occasion of gift. And so, as it is natural that, to take one example, an English heart should be speci ally stirred by the thought of a poor Englishman help less and ill in a foreign hospital ; it is reasonable and right that no more than the fact of a common nationality should be held to establish, in some degree, a certain priority of claim. The rightness in such a case follows on the reason ableness, for a second reason also, which is both important and simple. The reasonable expectations which others form of our conduct is a rough measure of our duty towards them. Natural feelings, and the conduct which is their outcome, each may reasonably expect from another ; and natural feeling turns to the sorrows of kinsfolk and friends rather than to those of "the man in the street. " When, therefore, the generous philanthropist, whose gifts to "the man in the street are large, neglects to provide for the fatherless children of his twin brother, there is an "" 38 STUDIES IN CHARACTER . evident breach of reasonable expectation on the part of their widowed mother and themselves ; and this is somewhat akin to a definite breach of faith on the unnatural brother's part. So, on the whole, I think it may be admitted that our just man has good grounds for his third principle of distribution. It is just to remember the proverb that " charity begins at home." So much for the duty of the just man towards those whose chances of success without his interven tion would not be what he would consider fair in an ideal community. His conduct is more difficult to rule aright towards those who have had fair chances and wasted them, and more especially is it difficult towards that extreme of this class whose character shows no reasonable hope that they will ever utilise duly the opportunities given them. We know how the sentiments of affection and charity suggest re peated attempts to save these erring brothers, and how keenly the tender-hearted feel that, after all hope of better things is gone, the claim on their affections still remains, and they must see that the morally worthless who are near and dear to them at least, shall be maintained in some fitting way. Love dies hard, and even if it be dead in all happier and brighter senses, a brother in distress is still a brother whose pains smart again, and ought to smart in our sympathies. They cannot cease to smart thus with out our moral degradation . Have we here passed to the outside of the circle ofjustice, of duty, and entered on the domain of non obligatory charity-a sphere of conduct which is half "MY DUTY TO MY NEIGHBOUR. ” 39 due to sympathetic weakness, and has no relation to duty ? This, I imagine, is a very common view of the case, and yet a little reflection shows that it is a view the reverse of just. The just man, when he decides that he should help others in proportion to his power to help, has decided both that the service of each to the others is in pro portion to his strength, and that the service due to others from each-that service of fitting each to live his life aright—is in proportion to the other's weakness. This principle, so familiar to all of us in the roman tic traditions of medieval chivalry, can be seen to underlie the whole of our Christian ideas of duty towards the more feeble members of society. Con science will not be satisfied unless we give of our strength to those who are weaker than we. Sacrifice should be in proportion to strength, service to weak ness. And if this relation of duty from the strong to the weak be true at all , it must be true for those more subtle but most effective kinds of strength and weak ness which divide the morally worthy from the morally unworthy. Surely, if the strong man owes to the weak such compensation for the weakness as is pro portionate to his strength and to the weakness of the other, still more does the good man owe to the bad such means of improvement as he can supply, and owes it in proportion both to his own moral worth and to the other's moral worthlessness . Thus the erring brother has the stronger claim on him. None the less is it a claim into which is inwrought, as its very centre, the duty of supplying needs and using in 40 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. fluence so that moral salvation primarily, and material maintenance secondarily, may be the final result . It is his own goodness which the good man Owes primarily to the bad, and his first and most important function in society is to moralise it by his contact with it. The lost sheep in the wilderness is the sheep for which he is bound most to care. True it is that when hope of moral reformation fails, as fail it does sometimes, except to the bright souls whose thoughts never lose the colours of hope, even when reason can see her no longer ; true it is that in the day of despair the good man falls back on that secondary duty of material maintenance, as all that he can effect towards compensating the other for his moral idiocy. Still, even then, his sense of the primary duty is present and active ; for he would con demn himself for any act of foolish indulgence to his brother by which risk of further moral retrogression might be run. The strong feeling of the danger to moral fibre which lies in all charity of the purely pauperising kind reflects this view very distinctly. Those who are physically weak, but morally strong, we may help freely and unthinkingly ; but those who are morally weak must he helped with care, so that they may not be made morally weaker. In many a family there is experience of this contrast, of the child whom the unselfishness of others makes more unselfish-the child that cannot be spoiled -and of the child for whom self- sacrifice, as others soon find out, must be made with reserve, lest it merely feed the spirit of self- indulgence in him. But no degree of worthless ness has, on the highest view of the matter, any "MY DUTY TO MY NEIGHBOUR." 4I tendency to divest the worthy of responsibility for the unworthy. This responsibility of the good for the bad is , like all other social responsibilities, proportionate to the nearness of the persons concerned. In a certain exalted ideal sense, it might be said that the good man holds himself responsible, in proportion to his own goodness, for the sinfulness of all other members in his society, including in its broadest sense all other members of the human family. The guilt of the world is a burden which he feels called upon to bear, in the sense that he feels called upon to give himself, his life and effort, for its diminution at all points. But this burden which he is drawn on to feel as his own is an infinite burden, the duty an infinite duty, while for him, not only his power, but his goodness also is limited . It is at this point, as it seems to me, that the good man, with this sense upon him of the infini tude of duty and the inadequacy of all such as he, finds a natural refuge in the consolations of religion, and creates out of his ethical consciousness religious conceptions which are necessary consequences, each one, of the ethical conceptions into which each pro jects within the finite domain of practical life. Religion springs from ethics by the conception of the existence of an infinite agent for the infinite work that has to be done, related to us as doers of the same work, distinguished from us by our finite powers of labour, and finite powers of love. Religion is abused when, through a false form of respect for the infinite good agent, we exclude ourselves from the activity which we attribute to Him, and thus hold ourselves 42 STUDIES IN CHARACTER . free from that very responsibility, the existence of which is the deepest source of such knowledge of infinite goodness as we may be said to have. In truth, it is clear that the reasoning which ascribes infinite duty to infinite power and goodness, and posits the power and goodness because keenly con scious of the duty-this reasoning ascribes to each a duty proportionate to his moral strength, and relative also to his position in society. And on this latter point one word more. It is more natural, and there fore more economical-it is more natural, and therefore reasonably to be expected, that the moral salvation of those who are near and dear should be first of all the care of each of us. If we do take on our shoulders, as we ought, some part of the responsibility for the sins of the world , then it is reasonable to accept that responsibility more especially for those with whom we have had more frequent opportunities of converse. It is for the members of our own families, particularly the younger members, for our friends, our employés, and all those under our influence, that we are pecu liarly responsible. We cannot quite wash our hands. of their misdeeds. I am my brother's keeper. So far I have spoken of the duty of each to the other as determined by the strength of the agent and the weakness of the patient- of the duty of the strong, as such. But, it may be asked, are there no duties. of the weak, as such ? There are some who in all social relationships take the place of the weak. How should they behave ? And while, to a few chosen ones, it is given to be the strongest person concerned in all relations of life-(a not enviable position) ,—the "MY DUTY TO MY NEIGHBOUR." 43 case of the larger number would be described by saying that they have the happier fate of knowing both sides of being the stronger in some relation ships, the weaker in others . The ethics of weakness, then, is not less important than the ethics of strength, though it may be briefer and less complicated. The function of strength is to give, of weakness to receive. The ethics of strength is the ethics of giving. The ethics of weakness is the ethics of receiving. The first is the ethics of self- sacrifice ; the second is the ethics of a right spirit in the acceptance and use of kindly offices. We all know that much of the charm of life depends on the exercise of such a spirit ; how there are people who, although they have no special claim on our affections, it is a delight to serve, and others, much dearer, who make their service uncomfortable without intending it. What is the secret here ? C The secret is sympathy of the served with the server, the acceptance of services rendered in the way that is most delightful to the donor of the same. The persons who are born to be served by others are those who have quick sympathy with their benefactors. The mistakes of exacting too much, of expecting too little, of a too gushing gratitude, of taking kindness as a matter of course, of remembering too much, of remembering too little, and all the rest, cannot be committed when imagination and sympathy are active enough to make evident beforehand the unpalatable ness to their victim of all these excesses and defects . Weakness, however, is not always gifted with this innate capacity for sympathy with strength, especially 44 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. in the case of those who are almost always in the position of weakness. The really weak woman is the greatest sinner in this respect, or rather the person to whom her limitations of experience and intelligence make virtue most difficult. What she has to do is to model herself after the difficult type of one who, with out strength yet sympathetically understands strength . Reflection and good intentions will do much, even for the most stupid of us ; and I am not thinking of the women only. The weak one in any situation has to realize what it would be like to be the strong. The first step is to realize that there may be a grace and a graciousness in weakness, as we all know that there is in strength. Then add to a keen sense of the sacrifices made, and services rendered, a still more grateful sense of the kindliness which makes them a pleasure to the giver. Much depends on the proper proportion in which these facts are appreciated . An inadequate sense of service is the worst fault ; we call it ingratitude. An inadequate sense of the sacri fice made for us is the next offence ; it makes even a grateful recipient exacting of petty services, and too much disposed to accept services of all kinds as a matter of course. On the other hand, a lack of faith in the kindly nature which takes pleasure in pleasing another produces the various discourtesies of exagger ated independence, ungracious refusals of kindly offices, and others of the same type. Having escaped these errors, it still remains , for those who should make it a pleasure to help them, to enter into the wishes of their helpers, so that it should be easy to know what they wish and what they need. "MY DUTY TO MY NEIGHBOUR." 45 One of the trials of life for some of us consists in not being able to find out what others would like us to do. That would never happen if the persons for whom we do things fulfilled their part in the relation . On the other hand, they must also beware the danger of being too clear in the expression or indication of their wishes, lest they may unwittingly require services which are highly inconvenient. And the stronger their claim on the affection of the other party, the greater is the need of this care, unless, indeed, the happy position is created between the two that no soreness can possibly be caused either by honest asking or by honest refusal. To take refusal well is a part in itself of the ethics for the weak. As regards our memory of good deeds done to us , I suppose it may be said that, as a service rendered should generally be forgotten, so a service received should be never forgotten at all . Yet nothing can be in worse taste than perpetually reminding a bene factor of his services. The taste is bad, because the action is detestable to him. Only as much reminder as is natural to the one and pleasurable to the other can be allowed. And lastly, it should be remem bered that in general a gratitude which is always trying to pay off its debt is a miserable and painful thing. The sweetness of giving and receiving is de stroyed by those who wish to turn its communion into a commercial relation of equivalence in exchange. IV. FRIENDSHIP. THERE are many senses in which we use the simple term my friend." Sometimes we mean only to indicate acquaintance, with a general feeling of kindli ness added . Sometimes we mean all that there is in the fullest manifestation of human affection . And so there are "friends and friends," from the one friend who is most dear, outwards to the circle of dear friends and intimates, and outward still, to the ever widen ing circle of those with whom we have slight relations of a friendly character. A genial man is pre eminently one of such a friendly temperament that he is able to take a real interest in all the members of this outer circle. He sheds on them, as his opposite does not, some measure of the sunshine which all have for those who are near and dear to them. But it is evident that the characteristics of friendship, as such, can best be studied in the more intimate relationships which are the more perfect types. There are, in general, three ways in which a friend ship grows up, and three kinds of friends, accordingly. We find in friendship the means to satisfy three of our most pressing human needs . 66 46 FRIENDSHIP. 47 (1) Because we have life and energetic activities , we need persons in whose service to spend them. We want one person at least for whom we can do some thing, to whom we can devote ourselves, as the phrase goes. The family into which we are born supplies indeed persons to be served, and meets this need to some extent for many, to a sufficient extent. But the family does not generally, just because we are brought up in it from the beginning, give us a person whom we freely choose to serve ; and the great charm lies in this free choice. Perhaps it consists partly in our consciousness that we are still free, except in so far as we lay heavy chains of slavery freely on our selves. That a great part of the fascination of being a lover—I do not mean having a lover-lies in the attitude of voluntary but complete submission of a vigorous will to one perhaps much less vigorous than itself, none can doubt. All really human persons want to give themselves away, at least for something, if not for somebody ; but, because of all the other delightful elements in affection, somebody is ever more attractive than some thing-more delightful, at least. The dear chosen friend, attractive for one reason or another, appears and satisfies the latent need, thus calling out into actual play the energies of self-devotion that were perhaps hitherto dormant. Thus it is that friendship is a school for good social life of the wider kind. In friendship the man learns , it may be for the first time, how natural it is to him to give himself away ; and thus he trains himself to do it for other social ends. By satisfying this fundamental moral need, friendship develops the moral character. 48 STUDIES IN CHARACTER . ( 2) In the second place, friends are drawn together by co-operation for common ends. Without being mutually self-devoted, they may be good comrades, working side by side. The ends pursued may be selfish ends, as when two men co- operate to work a business scheme for their joint good ; or they may be social ends, as when a group of young men associate to carry out some philanthropic work, or meet constantly on committees to effect political purposes in which they believe. Again, the ends, when per sonal, may be sordid, or they may be elevated ends ; they may be connected with pecuniary gain, or they may be those of moral and intellectual improvement. In all cases the comrades use one another, and are themselves freely used . The use of acquaintances to serve sordid , selfish ends is one extreme, and the use of associated colleagues to serve social ends the other extreme; but primarily, what each man considers is not the companionableness of his colleague, not certainly the service to be rendered by himself, but the usefulness of his colleague as a means to the end in hand. The end may be exalted and noble, and he may be dealing with himself also as means ; but, in itself, the fellowship of comrades who meet, let us say, on a political committee, does not go beyond the attitude which looks on persons as means to an end ; an attitude which, in so far as it lasts , is incompatible with real friendship . Indeed , I am half disposed to think that the more earnest a man is for his end, the less likely is he to choose his real friends from among his co-workers for those ends. They are normally present to his mind as instruments, by which his FRIENDSHIP. 49 purposes are to be effected, and affection is impossible until that attitude is broken down. A wrapped enthusiast may even go so far and I believe this is a real type-as to regard all his acquaintances as means to his social ends. Now human nature shrinks from being treated in this way. Each of us claims, as a human individual, that those who come near to us should be interested in us, either not at all, or in part at least for our own sakes . We do not like masters . or comrades, or even slaves, who never look us in the eyes and wonder what we are thinking, or how we are feeling. A truly human person does do this : his natural tendency is to treat his comrades as friends, to advance them presently from the position of means to ends, to notice their personal character as an interesting human example, to take pleasure in the hasty intercourse that time allows, and finally, to become interested in their personal affairs, and sympa thetic with their manifestations of character. If A meets B on a committee, and the two co-operate well, their progress in friendship, if they become friends, has three stages. First, B is a useful means, and will help A to carry his project ; secondly, A begins to think B an interesting character, and takes note of his words. and deeds as he might study a picture or any other object of curiosity. And lastly, A finds out that B is the sort of person he likes, whose tastes and ideas harmonise with his own, and they become friends. (3) And this leads me to speak of the third and most widespread, if not the most important, motive of friendship. Persons are friends because they have pleasure-one of the sweetest of life's pleasures -in E 50 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. each other's company. The need of companionship, pure and simple-of a person with whom to exchange thought and share feeling-is a very real human need. Not only is companionship a source of pleasure, and so greatly desired ; it is also a means of developing character, and so needed, even if it were not desired . Character is developed , as intellect is developed, by the freest and fullest expression of itself, and without intercourse there could not be sufficient expression. Few of us are satisfied to discourse to ourselves. Our thoughts stagnate without a listener in whose ear we can breathe them. And so the friend is dear because his presence is a cause of fuller personal life . Those who remember the oration of Socrates in " The Banquet " will recognise this idea as at the centre of his account of love. A friend may be a companion, a comrade, or a person on whom-often for some accidental and insufficient reason-service and affection are poured forth. A good friendship is one in which any of the three motives operate and are of the right kind, and the friendship is of the highest, when they are of the highest kind. The best friendship is one in which all the motives operate, and are of the highest kind. This is the type of a complete friendship, the devotion to each other of two mutually delightful companions working together for a common end. No one is there fore capable of enjoying, or even understanding, all' the joys of friendship, who has not three qualities. He must have the power of self- forgetfulness, and be able to give himself away for another ; he must enjoy social converse, both the give and the take of FRIENDSHIP. 51 it ; and he must be able to work with others for noble ends. Friendships may be good or bad. To understand the conditions of their quality in this respect let us consider the three cases separately. (1 ) And first, as to goodness in co- operative fellowships, the case is so simple, that there is little to say. Their goodness depends on the righteousness of the objective ends for which they exist. If the ends are allowable, then so is the fellowship ; if the ends are ennobling, then so is it . It is a good thing to be brothers in arms for some good cause. ( 2) Then, as to the friendship of self- devotion, this is good, if the services rendered are good, that is, if they really tend to the spiritual, as well as the material, welfare of the person served. Services which minister to vanity, to self- indulgence, to frivolity, are bad services, and injure the giver who stoops to them as well as, though less than, the receiver. If the services be worthy, it does not matter about the worthiness of the person served. The devotion of a parent to an unworthy child is good, tending to ennoble both, if wisely exercised . The test of good is in the nature of the service, not of the person served ; but wisdom is needed in the choice of means that will be really serviceable. In the devotion of the strong to the weak we have a familiar type of this kind of affection, and all the common conceptions. of chivalry revolve round it. Perhaps it is not so evident at careless first sight that the devotion of the good to the bad is another more exalted and nobler type of the same class. Wickedness is certainly less 52 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. attractive to the ordinary chivalrous temperament than weakness, and yet it is true that the good are drawn to the loving help of the bad in proportion to their goodness, just as the strong are attracted to the weak in proportion to their strength. The attraction of weakness in women, in children, in all who need help, lies in appeal to that element in us which calls, as we are strong, for a person on behalf of whom we shall exercise our strength. In chivalrous affections, as such, the superior is devoted to the inferior; but there are also cases in which the self- devotion flows the other way, from inferior to superior. These illustrate a much more mixed type of affection. Here the inferior serves with a joyous consciousness of worthiness to be served, and almost worshipped, in the person beloved. Sometimes the worthiness may be mainly in the goodness of the objects for which the superior person works, and sometimes it attaches mainly to a personality ruled by noble ideals, and a character beautifully proportioned. When it attaches to both, the friendship of the self devoted person is complete on his part, and the position would become one of perfect friendship if it were to lose its one-sidedness. If, however, there is a marked difference of level between the two, it can never wholly lose its one sidedness -it must remain an unequal friendship . Friendships of this kind are noticed by Aristotle, who holds the view that in all such cases the inferior should give a surplus of affection to the superior, in proportion to his superiority. All, therefore, that we recognise as chivalrous in friendship, the giving of FRIENDSHIP. 53 himself to the inferior by the superior, Aristotle neglects, or condemns as unnatural. How really natural it is, history and romance since his time have fully informed us. But Aristotle's type is natural too, though actually less likely to occur. (3) Two that delight in one another-two that are a never-failing source of pleasure, of stimulus, of inspira . tion to each other-in all times this is what we have most specially meant by friendship. Such a pair can carry on social intercourse continuously and unweary ingly, without reserve. Each is an alter ego to the other, because each has the gift of causing the other to reveal himself, his thoughts and feelings, his hopes, fears and aspirations, without limit, and in the ever fresh and varying forms under which they make them selves known to a man when he talks to his dearer self. A pair such as this are pretty sure to work together for common ends, and they are not likely to fail in mutual self- devotion ; yet the characteristic of their friendship lies less in this than in their enjoyment of each other's company. To enjoy a man's real company as a friend is more than to enjoy his talk, and looks , and acts. It is to enjoy himself-his personality, as revealed in looks, words, and deeds ; and it is this, the man himself, that makes the attraction to his friend. It is not every man who finds a friend-the one chosen friend-with whom he is perfectly content ; but when a man does, then, if you know his friend, you have a perfect representation of what he most enjoys and admires. This is a clue to his own character. It is a clue in very various ways, however, and a clue that • 54 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. • it is necessary to understand, if we are to understand further the conditions on the goodness of which a friendship depends. So here let us raise the question , -For a perfect friendship, the type which all friendships reflect, how should the character of the friends be related ? Various answers have been given to this question, and there rages round it more particularly the famous contro versy as to whether friends should be like or unlike , and even as to whether they should be equal or un equal . The true answer depends, I believe, on the facts of character in each case. If one person seeks and enjoys his like, while another prefers his unlike, then that must clearly be because of some essential differences in the mental constitution of the two. Let us consider. these differences. (a) There are those who might be called idealists in friendship, who all their lives cherish a more or less obscure hope that they will some day find their ideal of character in some person other than themselves. They do not set forth, indeed, to seek the ideal, like a knight of old ; nor do they deliberately measure all their ordinary friends by the ideal standard, till they find the one extraordinary one. But they instinctively keep their eyes open for signs of the ideal, neverthe less, and grow interested in promising persons, till they cease to promise. Thus they carry the ideal about with them as a sort of spiritual dark lantern , till at last the hoped-for he or she appears, or seems to appear, within its rays. Probably the real is not quite the ideal ; but with a reasonable amount of luck and FRIENDSHIP. 55

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discernment the approximation may be fair enough to make it true that the real friend does indicate the ideal of choice. The man's friend tends to be, or seems to be, that which he admires as best . Two cases must still be distinguished under this head (1 ) In a man of rigid character, born with strong tendencies, and therefore not easily moulded by his ideal of character, the qualities which seem most im portant to him in that ideal, as realized in another, will be just those in which he is himself deficient, and in which he does not much hope to improve himself. This character, therefore, and that of the person or persons he likes best, will probably not be alike, but decidedly different. He admires and seeks friendship with that which he misses in himself, and cannot easily acquire. So the friends are complementary : the ideal is fulfilled between the two, although the chooser would no doubt be still better content if the other alone fulfilled the whole of it. Again, a person with marked initial tendencies chooses under the influence of the negative motive of avoiding those tendencies where they do not contribute to the ideal. A second irritable temper is trying, though less trying than a temper incapable of under standing temper and easily offended by it. (To good temper irritability is only nervous fatigue) . Two obstinate people-ay, and two talkative people instinctively avoid each other in so far as they are dimly aware of their own, and clearly aware of the other one's, inability to control disposition by reason and sympathy. Thus, among children, too, we see the 56 STUDIES IN CHARACTER . born leaders choosing out the born followers for their friends, and not less the predestined affectionate slave devoting herself to the natural tyrant. As in the moral sphere, so also in the intellectual, a person who feels the limitation of his mental horizon, and his own inability to extend it, desires a friend whose thoughts differ from his, and who will take him out of their round in social hours. And so , while at college, the vigorous enthusiasts talk philosophy, liter ature, science, or mathematics, the ordinary student. eschews all " shop," and the weary, though earnest, honour- man seeks, as an escape from himself, a friend who does not understand him . (2) On the other hand, persons of abounding vital energy do not feel keenly the limits, either to their character or their ideas, and are enthusiastic on the themes they know best. So far as they are idealists, they want to realize the ideal themselves, as well as to find it in the outer world of friends. Not feeling any good impossible to themselves, the friend who might supplement their actual deficiencies has not the same charm for them as for the class just considered. It is the reflection of the ideal as a whole for which they look, and they naturally find it best in others abound ing with energy and enthusiasm like themselves, and starting from a somewhat similar standpoint to their own, by interest in the same objects and a taste for the same pursuits. These friends may differ in a thousand ways, but they are more like than unlike. II. Different from all these, and in marked contrast with them, are, I suppose, many persons who are not conscious or unconscious idealists at all, who do not FRIENDSHIP. 57 cherish a silent hope at any period of their lives that one day they will find a perfect friend. These are content to take themselves and others as they are found, and be fairly content if things go smoothly. In making friends, or, say, in choosing a wife, what are the motives that determine the selection in such cases ? Well, I am disposed to think that such a person does not generally choose a wife at all. He finds her, and it occurs to him to marry her, and it occurs to her to consent. And then it is all settled, and, if pretty fortunate in the matter of the accidental meeting, they "live happily ever after. " Perhaps a good many marriages are made in this way, as thus the common saying that marriage is a lottery would be accounted for. Yet it seems odd enough that any should be so made, or that people should be satisfied with the lottery arrangement. Similarly, friends are made, not chosen. Persons drift into friendships because they live next door, or because they get into the habit of playing a game of whist together of an evening, or because, in some way or another, they happen to please each other in quite minor ways. For most of us, many of our more dis tant friendships are of this sort, almost accidental, or founded on a passing pleasure only ; but for the class of persons we are considering, their nearest friendships. are also of this type. The character of their friend, so long as he is respectable and fairly amiable, matters to them very little. Good comfortable people they often are, ready to treat all men genially, and restful to meet ; but they certainly do not long for the realiza 58 STUDIES IN CHARACTER . tion of the ideal, and never, in consequence, partake of the keenest joys or the bitterest woes of affection . Under such motives do we choose our friends, be cause we admire them, or because they are casually pleasant to us ; and the friendships are good if the mutual influence of the friends is good. And herein appears the superiority of the friendship based upon admiration of character to that founded on mere pleasantness of casual converse. It is possible, indeed, to admire a character which is not good, and such admiration has a bad influence on both admirer and admired. It implies also a badness in both originally, and their friendship is bad because they are bad, and therefore influence each other badly, each admiring that which is wrong in the other, and being admired for his own bad qualities, just as two naughty children might band themselves together in a mutual admiration league to be rude to their elders. If a friendship is to be good, the friends must be good, both good. The chooser must choose under admira tion for a noble ideal, and this implies some goodness in him ; and the chosen must answer to the expecta tion, if the choice is to prove satisfactory. And in a complete friendship both are chosen, and both also choose. Such friends improve one another in two ways ; first, by the direct influence of the good character which each has, and secondly, by the influence on each of the other's choice as a motive stimulating him to become what his friend has chosen him as being. The power of such expectation in stimulating moral and intellectual activity is well known. FRIENDSHIP. 59 7 The bad friendships based on wrong admirations are probably common among school boys and girls only. But there are many pairs of comrades who do not admire, but do enjoy, and do not improve each other. These are among those who seek society for the sake of the passing pleasure only, and fall under the degrading influences of inferior character when social pleasures lead that way. So far, indeed, as society is banded together by the mere desire of pleasant inter course, the bad influence and the good must be faced together. If, however, the lower, or only more frivo lous, forms of social enjoyments are sought, each one is stimulated by the expectation of the other to ex cesses that he would not have enjoyed alone. I am not thinking only of boon companions of the coarser sort. There is plenty of polite buffoonery in good society, men and women acting down to a level of frivolity which is not natural to them, and thus de grading themselves to it, because the motives of social intercourse are so frivolous and trite that social success depends, or seems to depend, on an affectation of shallowness that degenerates into the reality. Social intercourse, to be ennobling, must rest on worthy motives, on common interest in high ends, on real interest in noble character, and on desire for the inter change of genuine thought. There are, then, three types of friendship at least, and the third branches into two. My friend may be one whom I first sought out, and who still attracts me, as a person whom I can serve in various ways, and whom it has become a delight to serve. Or my friend has grown into my affections from having been first 60 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. my comrade in carrying out some purpose for which we both cared. Or my friend is my friend because he is my delightful companion ; and he is that, either because he is himself and makes me more myself, or because he is a source of social amusement to me. In the first case, the friendship is good if the ser vices are good ; in the second, if the purposes are good ; in the fourth, if the social amusements are ennobling ; and in the third, if, and if only, the friends themselves are good. V. THE INFLUENCE OF IDEALS. We are all, in a general but very practical way, aware of the influence exercised over conduct by our ideas of right and wrong, of fitness and unfitness. It would seem, therefore, at first sight, mere waste of time to prove, or attempt to prove, that the influence of ideals on character and conduct is a constant regular in fluence carefully to be understood, reckoned with, and counted on when ethical forces for purposes of edu cation are under review. It may be the most im portant ethical force ; probably it is . The practical man acts on this belief without hesitation , when in his original unsophisticated state, innocent of all knowledge of psychology. The study of psychology, however, and especially a very little study of it mere contact with the general ideas of psychological analysis is not inapt to lead to doubts and diffi culties on this score, which, once raised, can only be resolved by the ancient Socratic remedy of more thorough study. It is worth while, therefore, to give the subject a little special thought, to get clear ideas as to the relation, direct or indirect, if any, which exists between the idea of a particular course of 61 62 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. conduct in us, and the occurrence of the conduct by us. Such special thought may bring us another good besides that of greater confidence in the efficacy of those moral appeals which we direct habitually to the intellect of others. It may, by giving us greater insight into the details of the mental operation which occurs when such appeals succeed , enable us to make them with greater appropriateness and skill . I purpose, therefore, to discuss, in the first place, the plain question, -How far, and in what sense, does the idea of an act determine the performance of the act ? This is the general question, and on the answer to it depends the answer to the more particular though more complex question-How far does the mere presentation to an attentive mind of the idea of a course of conduct determine the recipient of the idea to carry out that course ? I will not pretend, or allow it to be supposed , that I have all the weight of all the authority of all the psychologists at my back in the description of the state of the facts which I am about to give. There are differences of opinion among psychologists as to this matter still . As the most difficult of all the sciences, it is no disgrace to psychology that the various thinkers engaged in the analysis of the tangled subject matter of personal experience in different persons should find differences in the analyses hitherto made. Patience, exceeding care, and intellectual sympathy may enable the many analysts to find a single solution at last . But pending the arrival of that happy result, we must recognise and carefully appreciate all sides of the diversity, and endeavour no THE INFLUENCE OF IDEALS. 63 - less to think the matter out for ourselves. My appeal is therefore not to the authority of the professed thinkers, which would suffice in other cases where science is more developed and secure, but must be made direct to that only ultimate court of appeal in all cases the individual consciousness of every one. But that consciousness must be interrogated care fully, analysed strictly. The psychological doctrine which I make bold , therefore, to enunciate here may be briefly stated thus : Every practical idea tends directly to realize itself in act. Let us be careful to define what is meant by a practical idea. It is the representation of a change to be effected in the world. Thus, the cutting down of a tree which blocks the light at my study window is a practical idea, but the tree itself is a theoretical one. The world changed in any way-this formula includes all practical ideas in the widest sense. This wide sense must, however, be a good deal restricted before it concerns us as humanly practical. Our practical ideas are representations of changes in the world, brought about, wholly or partially, directly or indirectly, by our agency. They may, if of this nature, as the felling of the tree is, be practical, though not practicable. A practical idea is not practicable to one of us, unless it is in the power of that one to attempt it ; and it is clear that a practicable practical idea affects one very differently from an impracticable one. Thus the felling of the tree in front of my study window was at the time a practicable practical idea to me. It grew in the front garden of the house which 64 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. I rented from an obliging landlord, and I knew that I could set in action a series of events which would certainly end in the downfall of that tree, if I decided to do so. Contrast this with the case of another tree, which shaded another window, and grew in the back garden of my next- door neighbour. It is clear that the felling of that tree was a much less practicable matter to me. I should have had to set to work on an earlier link in the chain of events, in order to make the attempt, and with much less certainty of the result. Still the idea was practicable, because I could attempt its realization by an endeavour to influence the mind of my next- door neighbour. Suppose, how ever (which was not the case) , that I had so en deavoured, and had failed. The idea would have been no longer practicable, and I should have had to adapt my mind to the continued existence of the tree. It will be clear that the attempt to carry out the represented change will generally, as in the simple case before us, imply a series of events beginning in a personal act, which act is effected in the last resort by bodily movements and some intellectual work. Thus my idea of the felled tree being allowed to work for its realization, a simple course of reasoning suggests that the direct means to its end is a workman sent with the landlord's authority to cut it down. And further, taking this intermediate means as end, my thought suggests as means a letter making a suitable request. This, the proximate means for me, I proceed to carry out by composing the letter with due care, writing it, enveloping, addressing, stamping, and sending it to the post. Then the series of events THE INFLUENCE OF IDEALS. 65 causing each other, which I had foreseen, proceed to occur, and the practical idea is finally realized . This analysis will serve for the type of many others more simple and more complex. The more simple, such as the action of the child when he has learnt to shut a door, should be studied in order to see more clearly how the action abuts on a series of ideas asso ciated in past experience, and terminating in the motor idea of the muscular movement itself. On the other hand, consider such complex cases as the operation of the practical idea of a great political or social change, to see how complex and subtle are, or may be, the processes of reasoning from effect to cause-from end to means-when a statesman, possibly also "an old parliamentary hand, " compasses means to realize the idea. This much, however, must suffice to make clear what is meant by a practical idea, and also by the enunci ation of the psychological doctrine that every practical idea tends, when not hindered, to pass immediately into action to realize itself. The tendency may be quite abortive, and for two chief reasons. The idea may not have sufficient vividness or strength, to rouse up in succession all the related ideas which are its necessary intermediaries, and yet leave in the final one force enough to discharge itself in act. Practical ideas are frequently abortive in this way, and more so in certain slowly moving or inert minds than in others. Persons differ much with respect to this characteristic of practicality in their practical ideas, and ideas differ vastly in the same person , one chief cause of difference lying in the quality and amount of the F 66 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. feeling which accompanies them, since pleasant feeling sustains the idea, thus giving it greater and more continuous force. The well-known inefficiency of the cold intellect to fulfil its thought, is doubtless due to this cause, and clearly we all have large numbers of cold, and therefore feeble, practical ideas which (happily often) produce no effect. Only I am concerned to deny that the feeling rather than the idea is the direct cause, the particular form in which the feeling works itself out being given by trial and error in the first instance, and by association ever after. I deny this, because I cannot see clearly, or even vaguely, how it all happens thus, while I can see how the idea of a movement passes over directly into the movement, and how this idea becomes associated in experience with any appropriate series of ideas by the universally admitted association law. We must pass on, however. The second chief reason for the abortiveness of many-nay, most practical ideas, is the obstruction of other and con tradictory ideas, equally powerful, or more so . The conflict which occurs when two contradictory courses of action suggest themselves, or when a course of action contemplated is checked by the thought of higher considerations to a contrary effect-these are sufficiently familiar to make a reference to them in telligible, as accounting for the equally familiar fact that we do not do everything that it comes into our heads to do that the practical idea, though it so tends, does not always realize itself in act. In passing, I may just suggest that the " mischief," to which active children are so much given, is simply THE INFLUENCE OF IDEALS. 67 due to this tendency to do whatever comes into one's head to do, before it is checked by the host of pru dential and other considerations which later come to mind. So much has been said incidentally, by way of description, which bears on the reasonableness of this view of voluntary action, that, in an essay meant to be practically ethical, rather than psychological, I hardly like to say more. I will, therefore, only refer briefly to the well-known facts of imitation , and to the facts of instinctive action in direct confirmation of this view. In imitation, it is clear that the sight of an act performed by another person does directly tend to the re- production of the act, and it is hard to see how, unless it be through the operation on the activity ofthe imitator of the image of the act, with all its consequent associate ideas. But it is more than time to pass on to consider the ethical bearings of this ideal and, as I hold, main element in the determination of the will . I must therefore leave all further reflection and illustration on the psychological question to the reader, to test it by personal experience, and amplify by reading and discussion . And for the present, I ask him to grant-for the sake of argument, if he pleases-that ideas of conduct do tend in a most real and direct way to realize themselves in conduct. The work of moral education becomes immediately suffused with hope. The ordinary method of progress at once appears to be scientifically, as it has of old been instinctively, by way of instilling into the child's mind right ideas. Only the old-fashioned means of 68 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. instilling them were not always scientific, and so the ideas were not instilled. It is not such a simple matter as our fathers used to think to get an idea passed over from a book, or another mind, to the mind ofany given person. The art of intellectual teaching is better understood than it used to be, though not too well even yet, and one-only one-part of this art turns upon knowledge and skill in this transplantation of ideas. The advanced educational reformer may, I have no doubt, object to me that such a process of transplantation is inconceivable, that each idea must be a new growth in the mind which has it. Well, I admit that, but if I cause a new growth to take place in another's mind, similar to one that exists in mine, then this is all I mean by my lame metaphor of trans plantation and instillation , which words will still occur and have a sound meaning in common talk. The educator is largely, perhaps mainly, concerned with helping the child to grow his own ideas, habits, and modes of feeling. But he is also occupied in causing the formation of regular groups of ideas in every special subject of instruction. The English teacher and the English parent, however, have very uncertain notions as to the usefulness of making conduct a special subject of instruction in this sense. Educa tion, as practised, does not set itself as definitely as it might to the work of causing the formation of a regular group of practical ideas controlling the whole of conduct. At this point it is deficient as moral edu cation. Such a series of moral ideas, once fully developed and well sustained by a constant flow of harmonious THE INFLUENCE OF IDEALS. 69 feeling, is capable of controlling all other practical ideas whatsoever. A conflicting idea is stopped, a dubious one checked, an accordant one reinforced, a neutral one allowed. Thus unity, harmony, and con sistency is brought into that divergent mass of practi cal ideas which make up the mere " mischief " of the mischievous child. All normal persons living in a regularly organized world would probably come sooner or later to develop some series of controlling practical ideas for them selves . Natural character and personal history will determine these ; but few persons are left so entirely to themselves, or should so be left. The heritage of moral ideas should be handed on from generation to generation, ever brightening with increasing truth, loving kindness and purpose, as age succeeds to age. Thus, not only do the conditions of virtue improve, but the ideas of virtue improve, and gain in their effectiveness on conduct. Nevertheless, in our day, the direct education of the child in regular moral ideas is much neglected. "Preaching," as it used to be called, has gone out of fashion, and nothing has been placed in its stead . We all believe firmly, however, in the efficacy of good example, and example is one of the most effective ways of placing moral ideals before the mind, and getting them to be rooted in the mind. For those little gifted with imagination, it is the only effective way, because the idea is here presented clearly, vividly, and as a whole, while other methods suggest it less definitely, less vividly, and require more constructive effort on the part of the recipient to ensure success . 70 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. The example lives before the mind from day to day, and gets itself learned, as we learn to know the furni ture ofthe room in which we live. The importance, therefore, of surrounding youth with good examples cannot easily be over- estimated , and is not, as a matter of fact, very liable to be under- valued , so evident is it. The influence of imaginary examples, as set forth in literature, is much less duly estimated . Parents are much too careless as to the literature on which their children's ethical imagination is nourished, and so wrong examples mingle in the memory with right, no due perspective being observed among the crowd. Two practical suggestions occur at this point. (1) Care should be taken to surround the young with literature of the best ethical tendencies, literature in which goodness exhibits itself in gracious personal forms, and makes its appeal direct to the imagination in a glow of noble feeling. To read of true heroes and heroines is to know them, and to know them is to love them. The presence of such glowing ideals of action in the mind makes for righteousness . But the litera ture, to be effective, must be much more than good in purpose and tendency. Goodness must be effectively presented, and that is as it presents itself in actual life. At least, this is the primary condition of effec tiveness the naturalness-the lifelikeness of the pre sentation. Other conditions are, however, of some importance, since goodness in real life does not always appear in such beauty of graciousness as properly be longs to it. Literature, or to speak still more gener ally, art, does her work badly when she only presents THE INFLUENCE OF IDEALS. 71 nature as nature appears to the clouded vision of the common son of clay. Art has to show nature, and in this case literature has to show virtue, to the common man as seen by the finer sense and deeper insight which genius brings to the work of observation. Literature, therefore, to have ethical value, must not only be of good intention , but must issue from the mind of the true literary artist, adding to the careful realistic observation of things seen the idealist's gift of making evident the beautiful things unseen. Thus it is easy to understand the failure of " goody goody " literature. It is " goody goody " rather than good, because it means well , but is not true either in the lower real or higher ideal sense . Its minor heroes pale and are ineffective, while George Eliot's Adam Bede, and Mary Garth, and Dinah live with us like friends, and move us by their virtues, -while the heroic self-devotedness of Jean Valjean, and the in finite goodness of the good Bishop in " Les Miserables," shine in our minds and hearts as beacon lights of virtue, made visible in the atmosphere of genius. Thus, in order that the examples of literature may work within the mind, the literature must be good in the literary as well as in the ethical sense. We cannot leave this part of the subject without reference to that most used and abused of all great ethical literatures, the literature of the Bible. The heroic ideals of the Bible present a great variety of interesting types, and the mind of the English race throughout the world has been in times past steeped in acquaintance with all these types, and steeped in them indiscriminately. Probably there has been, 72 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. since the Reformation, no other influence more potent than this in determining the character of the British people. But, as the Biblical types have been left to work indiscriminately on the mind of the nation, the pre-existent national type has operated in selecting those most cognate to it in its unregenerate state as most effective on its further development. The effect has, therefore, been to modify the national type, whatever that was, in the direction of those Biblical characters most cognate with itself. Few will, I think, deny that on the whole the characters of the Old Testament have predominated unduly in effect over the Character of the New. In Puritan times this was markedly so, and the political convulsions through which England passed in the seventeenth century tended still more to throw the religious mind back, for its types and examples, to the warlike and intolerant ideals of ancient Hebrew days. It may, indeed, have been because of these historical circumstances, rather than because of any assimilation to an earlier national type, that this effect occurred . When it had occurred , however, it had affected the national type, and thus determined the ascendancy of the Hebrew ideals for the future, unless and until special means should be taken to substitute for them the Christian and hitherto less popular ideal . ( 2) And this leads us naturally to the second pre caution that should be taken with regard to ethical literature. Such literature, and all literature as such, should not be merely read indiscriminately ; it should be studied with care and discrimination, the emphasis being laid on the right points, so that a THE INFLUENCE OF IDEALS. 731333 true ethical perspective may be seen and felt. In other words, the reading of literature for ethical pur poses should be to some extent-not entirely-carried on under the guidance of persons whose sense of right and wrong in conduct and character is penetrating and just. The reading of the Bible, for example, thus guided, is very different from its reading, unguided, by an imperfectly developed mind. A skilful and right minded teacher would, by advice and authority, direct the actual reading, and would further be careful to encourage reverent attention and thought concerning the higher rather than the lower types. Our Puritan forefathers did teach the Bible to their children in this sense. Only they taught it wrongly, the higher thoughts having not come home to their own minds. The same attitude of reverent attention and thought may be taken up with respect to the higher manifes tations of character in any literature. This reverent emphasis which we lay on the good ideal, making it persistent in consciousness and effective on conduct, we communicate to one another by the infection of feeling. And so the higher mind, by personal contact with the lower in the study of literature, can lift it to the highest levels of that literature within its own reach. Besides that of examples, real and imaginary, there is another kind of ideal influence, which works through literature, and can be emphasised by personal sym pathy. I refer now to the influence of epigramatic mottoes, and other literary forms, in which ideals of conduct are expressed in forcible though abstract terms. On some minds these general prescriptions of 74 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. conduct and character work more effectively than do the concrete illustrations. Nor is it hard to see wherein lies their charm. The abstract ideal works more freely, leaving personal character to shape it in its own original ways, and according to a great variety of possibilities . So that, granted a mind as accessible to abstract as to concrete ideas, and the ab stract ideal may be more attractive to it. "Preaching," therefore for this, to be sure, is preaching -should not be despised, only it , like the other teaching, must be well done. The general ideal, to be effective, must be presented with all the force, and wit, and beauty, that literary grace can give. The thought must be true, and its expression must be transparent in meaning and beautiful in form ; it must be good, or we should be better without it ; it must be expressed trans parently, so that it may be intelligible ; and beauty should be added, that it may impress us the more, and abide with us more continually. - Good literature abounds in such good thoughts, and these are the second service which it renders to morality. Best of all, as it still seems to me, are the sayings of the New Testament, and if sermons are poor in ethical stuff it is certainly not for lack of good texts for the sermons. I remember once, when I was quite a girl, coming to the conclusion that the chief value of the sermon very often lay in the fact that it drew at tention to a noble thought in the text. Personal reminiscences are sometimes useful. Two mottoes of action rise always to my mind when I think of this subject, as having been powerful for comfort and use to me. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, THE INFLUENCE OF IDEALS. 75 do it with all thy might. " I believe that thought impressed me purely by its intellectual proportions and the force it breathes , rather than by any special fitness to my mood on the occasion (which I quite definitely remember) when it drew my attention . Be that as it may, it remained with me constantly, and has found for itself a hundred applications. On another occasion, in much depression of spirit, I remember suddenly finding light in the theory of life suggested with such absolute simplicity in the words, " Not to be ministered unto, but to minister." The contrast of the two life theories, the uncertainty of fulfilment in the one, the ever- springing hopefulness of the other, the subjection to circumstance implied in the one, the infinite freedom of the other ; this, rather than the perfect beauty of unselfishness, was perhaps what drove home the idea at the time. But I remember pondering over that, after the idea was impressed ; I remember reading Mill's " Utilitarianism " with it in my mind, as though the book were a sermon on the text, which indeed it is ; and it, like the other, comes to my mind now as an example of the value that lies in the beautiful expression of noble thoughts. The two together do contain a fairly comprehensive theory of life. Following these, there comes to me a thought of Carlyle's, which contains a world of wisdom : " The true merit of originality is not novelty ; it is sincerity." That, as a motto for all who think and speak, may be added to a theory of life, and become the hidden text of many a moral lesson indirectly conveyed through intellectual criticism to others. How cheerful it is to 76 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. think upon ! We can all be sincere ; we can all be original . Hear Carlyle once more : " Good breeding consists in gracefully remembering the rights of others, high breeding in gracefully insisting on one's own. " There is a subtle recommendation to virtue-too subtle it it would be if it were not absolutely true. And this must suffice for a last example of the kind. In conclusion, let us glance briefly at a subject that might well repay detailed study, the influence of both native and foreign literatures on the national character of any nation . I have already referred to the influence of Biblical literature, and there can be little doubt that considerable influence has been exercised on cer tain classes of the European nations, and has filtered down from them to all by the classical literatures of Greece and Rome. There are two other great ex amples of native early literatures, important and in teresting to us. These are the Norse and Celtic literatures, neither of which it is possible to study with out recognising their significance as Pagan Bibles, each in its own sphere, moulding character in accord ance with the ideals of character set forth as objects of admiration in each. An original national literature is an expression of the most potent social genius in the mixture of races that make up the people. But once the literature exists it reacts as cause on its own cause, and still more powerfully on the associated races. Thus national character is moulded through its ideals into the likeness of the ideals which are native to that social factor in the national mixture to which falls the making of the stories and the songs. THE INFLUENCE OF IDEALS. 77 Bythis means captive Greece led captive her captor, imperial Rome ; and by this means, in more modern times, band after band of British colonists have been Celticized in Ireland . Relatively to this last case a curious fact may be noted. The only group of British colonists in Ireland, who have escaped the influence to any extent-I do not mean simply in politics, but in mental form and character-is that band which settled in the north-east, and did make songs of its own, and sang them too, and sings them still to this day. Even they, however, have not been able to keep at arm's length all those social characteristics of manner and wit in which-despite some glaring exceptions—the race excels. All modern European literatures are marked by the influence of all the early streams, and by each other ; so, though there is a national character in each to this day, that character is less emphatic, and has less ethnologic interest than in these early streams. None the less are they full of interest. If the ethnologic interest is less , the total interest is greater, as showing the development of civilized man's ideals of the noble and good . The ideal of manliness develops steadily from age to age, and ceases to differ from land to land. The ideal of womanliness passes through odd tran sitions, and appears in such uncertain lights from time to time, as make it too often a blind leader of the blind. But on this latter subject I will claim attention later. VI. TYPES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT. IN contemplating the unity of the ethical standard as exhibited in the character of the ideally perfect man, the student of ethics is apt to forget that there may be much variety in the process of mind and life that leads up to the complete evolution of that perfect type. It is to the consideration of this variety that the present essay invites attention . Such a study has several advantages to offer. It may comfort some of us a little , and not ignobly, in that dissatisfac tion with self which we are apt to feel, because our ways of doing well differ in many respects from ways in others which we admire as right ; and with this comfort may go the further benefit of better guidance in our ways of bettering ourselves . The study may also, and more often , teach us a wise reserve and doubt in judging of the apparent moral tendencies and order of development in others. Parents and other educators, more especially, may be encouraged to hope, in dealing with that very immature ethical being, the common child, whose moral development not seldom proceeds in topsy- turvy order. The order and method of moral development should 78 TYPES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT. 79 naturally be expected to differ with every different type of personality, although the code of conduct for all be the same throughout life. The variety of intel lectual life is analogous to this, being itself a part of the personal variety. Knowledge is the same for all , as right conduct is the same ; and the thinking pro cesses of reason are the same, as the ultimate struc ture of righteous character is the same. Yet, beneath this uniformity of knowledge and reason, how endless is the variety of intellectual character. A envisages an idea in one way, B in another, and some attention and sympathy is necessary to enable either to grasp thoroughly the method of the other, even when per fectly agreed as to the truth of the matter. Or, to mark another contrast, A approaches the subject from one side, B from another, according to the con dition of their previous knowledge ; different life histories in knowledge characterize each piece of new knowledge. Or the suggestions of the common piece of knowledge vary in the two-the entourage of a common truth . History, disposition, variety of intel lectual gift-all conspire to make the presentations of truth in one mind differ without end from those in another. And the greater the unity of knowledge and reason in the two, the more sensibly numerous will be these minor deviations. Persons do grow alike as they grow wiser, but they also develop more their unlikeness in doing so. The mere fact that progress in knowledge must be from the known to the unknown is enough to secure a vast multiplicity in the lines of development of intellectual life . In the moral world similar conditions prevail. 80 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. Each grows forward from the goodness that he natur ally has to the more complete goodness that he would attain. Or, in other words, it would seem to be an obvious truth, in practical psychology or pædagogics, that progress in virtue is most rapid when each, while steering his course of conduct by an objective standard of right activity, propels himself by the exercise of those good motive- springs which are innately strong in him, and acquires others as outgrowths from and accretions to these. To a greater or less extent this must occur, whether we will or no, but it is in our power to check development by repressing our good qualities because they are not other good qualities, which for some reason or other we have come to re spect more, and which we vainly hope will spring to life in us, if only we leave for them a chamber swept and garnished, and void of all other moral motives . The consequences of such an error may be so serious that it is worth combating. For example, if we observe, or think we observe, that a child acts over much from the motive of satisfying the feelings and wishes of others, rather than from an ideal of right in his own mind, we may confusedly persuade ourselves that by vigorously checking and discouraging the former motive we are actually helping the latter on. In truth, we are probably applying an axe to the central root in the moral nature of a person who differs from ourselves in original type . All nature teaches that advance is made by building on the original type, not by undermining it. Each type may be conceived as having a "beset ting " virtue of its own, a virtue that is not only easy, TYPES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT. 81 but almost inevitable. One cannot break faith, even to the mere expectation of others, without effort ; another cannot swerve from the ways of truth and transparent sincerity. One cannot help being rea sonable, while another has a vivid and far- reaching imagination of consequences which instinctively directs his course ; and again, another is for ever conscious of himself as having an inner worth and dignity which makes it impossible to stoop to the unworthy course. These are familiar facts, or, at least, will be so re cognised on reflection by those who have had much occasion to deal with the immature moral nature of the child, and who have done so wisely. Such a one looks for the vulnerable point in the armour of self will and selfishness, and seeks to develop the whole moral nature by working discreetly at that point. " Tout est en tout," said a wise educational theorist, referring to the unity of intellectual study ; and the same may be said of moral character and the moral standard. Whether it be through reason, or imagina tion, or sympathy, or self- respect that the slowly self completing ideal of conduct first presents itself, matters not ; but it matters that the presentation should be steady and steadfastly acted upon. The good man is he upon whose conduct we can rely as sure to be conformable to a certain type ; but he may have any variety of character that produces such conduct, and probably the better our world grows, the greater will be the variety of the good types produced. Virtue is not dull and always the same. The variety of its harmonies are an endless source of delight. In a single lecture no more than a rough and partial G 82 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. enumeration of these types of personality can be attempted. A complete list would imply a treatise on the vast subject of human character in all the variety of its manifestations. And in the first instance it will be better to avoid the method of abstract theoretical classification, and proceed by observation of those concrete types familiar in experience. Some which I personally have observed I will attempt to describe . From a study of the types observed, a theory of their connection and differentiation may emerge later. I. The first type which occurs to my notice begins by taking all duties as relative to the feelings, the needs, and the expectations of others. Out of this there develops a fixed group of loyalties, not only to all those persons who are objects of affection, but to all those with whom there is any permanent connection— loyalties that may be passionate in their intensity, and incapable of breach without much emotional suffering. Moreover, the existence of such concrete loyalties naturally gives rise to a general sentiment of loyalty as the characteristic of all that is best in oneself, the very centre and crown of moral character. This is how the loyal person feels it ; a breach of loyalty is to him what a denial of faith would have been to one of the Christian martyrs-impossible to imagine, and if, nevertheless, accomplished, to be followed by a sense of unutterable personal loss and ignominy. The loyal man, who cannot break his promises, or disappoint those who trust him, or desert a friend, or take a lenient view of his engagements, comes in his later developments to feel his personal dignity and worth his innermost good of soul-as consisting most TYPES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT. 83 in the maintenance of this his character. But at first he will scarcely feel all this, and always his mind is bent towards the objects of his sentiment rather than on the worthiness of his agency. Uppermost in his mind is the imagination of the effect of his agency on others . It is the sympathetic sting of some other person's imagined feeling that gives impetus to all his acts of never-failing kindness, consideration, and ex ceeding good faith. Inthe early stages of development he, may scarcely at all be aware of his own dignity of character, and his awareness of it at all times depends on the degree of his self- consciousness. The pure loyal type never rests in its self- consciousness, and main tains its ethical balance throughout as a fine equilibrium of many concrete loyalties. It is objective, and looks ever to the result of its agency, and sees this result in the consciousness of others. That its quality is rooted in warm emotional sympathy is obvious. It is objec tive and yet emotional, a statement which may almost seem at first to be a contradiction in terms. The existence of such character is, however, a matter that may be observed. Persons of this type might be called other- conscious, to mark their contrast with the self- conscious, who guide themselves by a conscious ness of the essential fitness for them of the acts they perform . The other- conscious or emotionally- sympathetic man naturally takes up the moral burden of duty in a manner that brings into play the strongest portion of his moral muscle -the imaginative susceptibility which make all loyalties a matter of course. But once the moral burden is accepted, many problems arise, 84 STUDIES IN CHARACTER . and many other moral activities are set to work, by which the scope of the type is widened and improved. Moreover, general character grows in any case as life proceeds, and the man who has firmly taken on him self the burden of duty, under whatever motive, tends to live rightly, and, in living rightly, to mould all natural growths of character to righteous forms. So this other-conscious man, as his self- consciousness deepens, gets woven into his character at the core that thread of conscious right intention, and self- respect in the maintenance of the dominant right sentiment, which is the very characteristic of a different type. It is at this stage that loyalty becomes a conscious principle of action. Earlier it was an instinctive passion at taching itself to its objects. And just as the develop ment of self-consciousness modifies the original type, so does the development of dry imagination and logical reason. This type annexes the other types so far as its potentiality of natural development ( irre spective of virtue) allows. The very stupid person does not develop fine moral insight, but if he be early attached to virtue by his attachable point, such intel lectual ability as he may attain will be used towards the completion of his original type. Much might be said, did space permit, about the varieties of the loyal or other- conscious type. It varies, not only by the original mixture of other types and their accretion to it, but also by all the variety of personality within itself which it admits. Its funda mental characteristic is susceptibility to the feelings of others ; but there are all degrees of insight into them, and a susceptible person may be comparatively TYPES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT. 85 stupid. Probably the susceptible person is never de ficient in perceiving signs of feeling, nor slow to imagine, but he may interpret and imagine errone ously. If so , he unhappily may do much right wrongly. It is not possible, however, to attempt more than bare suggestion in so wide a field as this. II. Side by side with the loyal type let us consider the more generally familiar type of the person whose morality centres, and seems, at least, to be based on profound consciousness of a self from the dignity of which all worthy things should be expected . This we may call the conscientious type, since conscience is just this inner, most worthy, highly self- respecting and authoritative self. The exterior of this type, in one of its one- sided abstract forms, is familiar to us in the Puritans of all time ; but it need not have so harsh an exterior, even if one- sided . Its inner nature may be studied, for one variety of it, in the subjective portions of the Hebrew Scriptures, ethics and religion running together into one stream in those wonderful com munings ofthe human soul with itself wherein it seeks for unity with the God of conscience. But although the religious temperament is implied in it, is necessary to its completion, and shows itself in all those varieties of the type which may be classed together as domin ated by piety, other than the pious types belong to the group. A strong sense of personal worth and the exceeding preciousness of this sound personality is its essential characteristic . When this goes, as to a true perception of facts it must go in the end, with a con viction of personal shortcomings, then the pride of righteousness becomes softened by humility, and if 86 STUDIES IN CHARACTER . still intact, takes refuge in religion, as I understand the word. We may study this type best in our own consciousness, for all do partake more or less of it, in so far as all are self- conscious and also right minded. To none can quite be unknown that shrink ing from the thought of a base act, as something injurious or contaminating in some essential way to self. This marks our consciousness of moral rectitude as the most important personal good, and each knows how he feels it, and how it works upon him. Now the type we are considering has this conscious ness very intensely, and has it constantly. The self-respecting man never forgets what is due from him to his own good character, and is influenced more by motives from this source than from any other. He acts much as his friend the other- conscious man, keeps faith, does kindly, and so on ; but all this, not because he feels the sympathetic sting of his conduct's results, but because it is due to his character to do so. He does not argue thus, but thus he feels . The moral impulse is conscience, dignity, self- respect. Sometimes he combines this with a keen sense of the respect due to him from others, the expectation of which takes its noblest form when that respect is re quired as a proper expectation in others of right con duct and character in him. There are varieties of this type, as of the other types, the nature of some of which has been already indicated . But special notice is due to the character . that combines this intense desire to be held worthy by self with an equally intense desire to be so judged by others, especially some chosen others. I do not refer TYPES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT. 87 now to that general love of approbation which may direct itself to any inferior order of personal acquisition, but to the desire of moral approbation from another, that other judging us by the highest standard as the good man judges himself. The mind of the other is a second, an external conscience, up to the require ments of which we have to live . The whole public opinion around us is such an outer conscience, and the specially trusted and admired friend is even more effective. There are those whose moral development is mainly stimulated and governed by the conscious ness of other- mind acting in this way. But such action implies a well-developed and lively self- consciousness as its basis . Therefore I treat it as an extension of the second type, not as a separate one, nor as an extension of the first. The altruism of the first differs widely from the ego-altruism which prompts one to do as others expect from one's character. In both, however, there is exercise of imagination and sympathy. To realize further the contrast, suppose that A of the first type and B of the second, have a mutual engagement to fulfil, which each is separately tempted to break. The sense of expectation in the other preserves each from failure to keep the engagement. But the expectation that produces the effect is not the same in both. A feels hypothetically B's pang of disappointment as an evil to B, and he cannot bear that. B feels hypothetically the shock of A's judg ment that B has not done as he expected, and this as an evil to B, -a loss of repute which he cannot bear. The people who best keep engagements feel both. Short of this, it will probably be admitted 88 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. that A's method of keeping promises is more fraught with delight than B's ; a B makes a better friend than an A. The defect of the conscientious type is apt to consist in a relative inability to take on new develop ment of character-new ideas of duty. The other conscious man is frequently realizing new needs, new desires, new expectations in his social world, and, responding to these freely, his growth is rapid and many-sided, in proportion as his social world is diverse and fairly practicable. But the conscientious man whose moral judgment is self- centred has no such supply of new ideas and new possibilities of virtue ; he is apt, therefore, to grow by deepening and strengthening, but not by extending his sense of right. If, however, he be of the imaginative variety, sensitive to the opinion of right and wrong about him, new ideas flow in upon him from this source, and the danger of limitation is obviated. Hence is obvious the importance of cultivating this sensitive imagination of opinion in persons of an unduly self centred type. III. Closely allied to the conscientious or self respecting man is the wise and well-balanced man of the Aristotelian ethics . This might be called the æsthetic type, so much does its actual production turn upon a sense of proportion , fitness, and harmony, both in the actions that make up conduct, and the motives that regulate it. Those who are markedly gifted with this sense of moral beauty in conduct and character are apt instinctively to guide themselves by it. Intemperance (in the Greek sense) of all kinds TYPES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT. 89 repels them: moderation, consistency, and the sweet ness of reasonableness attracts. They demand of themselves that their lives shall be a continuous , well planned, well- balanced whole, like a fine musical com position beautifully performed ; and their sense of such a life is like the musician's sense of music. 66 Reason, as with the Greek philosopher, conscience, as with the Hebrew sage, or some equivalent, must, when the matter is thought out, be held to preside over the balancings and harmonies of this well- built ego ; but its real working guide from day to day is taste," on the development of which reason and the will of others acts through longer periods, but to which the appeal that moves character from its moor ings is always finally made. Persons of this type are peculiarly amenable to the influences of good literature. Beauty of character attracts them , and urges to imitation . A minor type, but probably a not uncommon one, roots itself in simple honesty and transparent sin cerity of purpose. Such a person is not sure of him self in any particular way, nor has sympathies clever enough to be guided by beneficent other- conscious ness simply. He is not clear about the particulars of a moral standard like the conscientious man, nor very apt to learn from others, and he is not gifted specially with moral taste. In this absence of any firm basis, he saves himself from perpetual moral blundering by taking with him everywhere the simple obvious virtue of transparent honesty. He feels in stinctively that he cannot do much harm without reproof, if he lets all those concerned know exactly 90 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. what he is doing. At least war is not then made without having first been openly declared . And thus steering his course at the first, he gradually works out for himself a theory of life and some detail of character. I suspect that many immature minds do steer them selves thus with great certainty towards the goal of good, and I would recommend, therefore, as touching the question of moral instruction , that the virtue of openness and sincerity should be impressed on chil dren in all possible ways, not only because these are good in themselves, but because they are guardians of all good, without which many would easily go astray. " Do nothing of which you would be ashamed that the best persons of your acquaintance should know. ” Those who act on this maxim secure for themselves real contact with the best conscience within their reach. IV. We often hear in these days of " appealing to reason " in children. I now come to two types to which that procedure is specially applicable . It is to the prime virtue of the other types, rather than to their reason, that appeal is best made. Some per sons, more than others, habitually steer their course by realizing vividly and distinctly the consequences of actions, whether to themselves or others . The dis tinction between consequences to self and others is probably of less importance in these cases than at first appears so potent a motive, under ordinary cir cumstances, is the powerful intellectual presentation of a state of things out of joint and out of tune, whomsoever it affects. The " appeal to reason, " of which so much may be made in the maintenance of

TYPES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT. 91 school discipline, illustrates this source of motive power very aptly. Suppose there is a rule against talking on the stairs when classes pass up or down. While some are moving about, others are at work. If one pupil talks, the noise is imperceptible to the workers, but if one talks all may talk, many will talk, and the noise would be detestable. Nobody is so unimaginative and dull as not to realize this when reminded, but there are great individual differences. in the degree of imagination attained ; and to those of the class now before us such considerations are spon taneously obvious and powerful as motives. Imagina tion is here both logical and dramatic ; it is the imagination of the historian and romance writer, which fastens instinctively on the natural development of events quite apart from egoistic considerations. A child who finds himself strong in this quality, relative to other moralising characteristics, will naturally tend to lean upon it in shaping conduct and thereby character. He will foresee confusion and maleficent results, and draw back ; while his companion in tempta tion, equally well disposed, is moved in the same direc tion by some immediate tug at the heart- strings, such as his sense of what is due to his self- respect, or what is due to another person's expectation. These differ ences of tendency last through life, and show them selves on the occurrence of new cases ; but it is during childhood and youth that they are most effective. Two friends, X and Y, go out on Bank Holiday to skate on new ice. When they reach the skating ground, which is in full view of the railway, and near a station, they meet the keeper, who warns them off, 92 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. over telling them that the ice is only an inch thick, even in the upper and best parts, and has only "caught " the night before. They accept his statements and his prohibition , but claim politely to go on and look at it, though resigning the intention of testing its strength. The keeper offers no objection to this, and it is evident that he confides entirely in their acceptance of his prohibition. But when they reach the upper part of the ice they find a party of gipsy men and boys walking all over it . Obviously it is quite strong enough for a moderate party of skaters , and the gipsies tell them that it is two and a half inches thick, and represents the accumulation of three nights' frost, not merely one. Clearly, it is absurd not to skate, especially as a considerable portion of the water is not more than two feet deep. Now, what is the ethical position ? May they skate, as a ques tion of right and wrong ? and if not, why not ? Here, at the outset, the instinctive differences of character show themselves. X's mind flies off at once to the fact that it is Bank Holiday, that other would-be skaters will be coming down by later trains, that all these will see from the train this first band of skaters on the ice, and will proceed, will insist on coming on ; that crowds will thus pour on ; that the ice will not bear crowds ; that there may be an acci dent ; also, that the ice will be spoilt, and the owner (who gains shillings by it) thus injured ; that the keeper who let them on will get into trouble. Thus his dramatic imagination carries him on, and forbids. him, while he looks at the ice and tests it, and half begins to put on his skates in impulsive eagerness for TYPES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT. 93 the sport. Then his conscience breaks forth in the characteristic observation : " If some one else came and went on first, I should certainly follow, for then all the harm would result, whether I go or not ; but I don't like to be responsible for going on first. " Meanwhile the slower mind of Y has not got be yond the simple fact of the implied pledge to the man that they would not attempt to skate. This is reinforced powerfully by the circumstance that he has not even looked round the corner to see what they would do. Y is not even tempted ; other- consciousness towards that confiding keeper has him completely in check. He regrets the promise, he regrets much the keeper's confidence in it showing that it is regarded as a strict promise, but he does not even cross the stile. Then the two argue. X points out that the pledge was certainly conditional -the keeper had deceived them about that ice ; but Y does not feel there is much in that he had been the more explicit of the two in promising. And as X recurs to his sense of conse quences B argues that there is not so much deterrent force in them, because very few people would spend their holiday in a probable wild- goose chase after ice , so early in the frost, and so on. Thus they try to weaken each other, but without much effect, and in the end both are more set than before on seeking some sound solution . So Y proposes to toil back through the frozen fields , find the man, point out that the promise had been obtained under false pretences, withdraw it, and, having thus declared war on the irrational prohibition, proceed to their sport. 94 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. Meanwhile another skater comes on the scene unawares, and X's dramatic conscience is set at rest. Crowds do not come, as it happens, and all goes well. Now, there was no difference of moral standard between these two, and no great contrast of character either ; but the first instinctive mental action, though moving to the same end, was thus different in them . In childhood this would have carried with it much greater general differences . V. Besides the development of moral character by dramatic imagination, we have its development by logical reason. The unreasonableness of a course of conduct stings one mind more than another, and, generally, I should suppose, because it is a reasonable sort of mind. That what is good for me is good for you, and therefore is an end of desire for me—this is a rational proposition to which all assent when stated, but which keeps itself in all its con crete applications before some minds more than others, and determines their conduct. Imagination is of course here involved, but it is imagination bridled and harnessed by reason . Here we have the mind that submits, not by an effort, but instinctively, to the Kantian maxim : " Act as if the maxim ofthy will were to become, by thy adopting it, a universal law of nature." Such a mind walks by the light of the universal consciousness. It looks out to the objective always, has, if one- sided, little self- consciousness, little emotional other-consciousness . It is dry, cold, clear, but always intelligible and always to be depended on. A reason is all that it wants, and the soul of it is more easily reached by a reason than in any other way. TYPES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT. 95 It is seldom one- sided , however, in all probability. The man who does not feel for his own common plea sures and pains is so rare, that the moral machine can hardly work without some emotional fervours of the higher sort ; and the " cosmic " emotion attached to the sense of the universal consciousness is not strong enough alone to keep the lower egoism in check. But the rational type compounds well with any other type ; it is the crown of all, and raises the ordinary good man into the ethical philosopher or sage-a Socrates. The combination of high rationality with the concrete other- consciousness and passionate loyal ties of the first type makes a remarkably extra- re garding character very beautiful and well- poised . The perfect type includes all ; whatever it began its history by being, it has become all the rest. It is sympathetic and self-respecting, with a fine sense of fitness and balance , a lively imagination of conse quences, and a firm grasp to seize the universal. And in the perfect type of development all these elements have not only been latent from the beginning, as they must be if they ever come to maturity, but have been efficiently active from the beginning, controlling and yet stimulating each other. Some types remain more or less one-sided throughout ; some develop partially, taking on some other, but not all other sides ; some develop all the sides, and thus debouch from their original side paths into the high road towards perfection. Some join the main stream early, some join it late ; some have been in it from the beginning. Time forbids me to more than touch lightly on the question of classification of the types. They might be 96 STUDIES IN CHARACTER . classified as objective and subjective first, and then, as marked by the predominant characteristics of sym pathy, imagination, and reason, in all the varieties of these qualities. A good classification of types ob served would certainly lead to the discovery of other varieties. For one sentence of educational import I must find space, in conclusion . It is to point out the danger of tampering with the root virtue in each case, as parents and teachers are tempted to do when, that root virtue being different from their own, they desire to see this other planted in its stead. But human virtue is not a growth so vigorous as always to bear such treatment with impunity. If the rose is a wild rose, still rejoice that it is a rose ; and if you would change it for a better, then graft your better rose on the old stock, leaving its roots intact. VII. SELF- DEVELOPMENT AND SELF-SURRENDER. Ir is my purpose in the following pages to discuss self- development as an end of conduct, and self- sur render as a necessary means to the realization of that end. Two questions will therefore be raised, and some attempt made to suggest the answers to them. (1) How far and in what sense is self- development a part of the moral end, if, indeed, it be such part at all ? (2) Howfar and in what sense, if any, is self- surren der a factor in the process of development, so that he who would become himself as all that he might be must first be able to deny himself as merely that which he is ? The second question is at once the more interesting, the more important, and the more stimulating, be cause of the greater obscurity of the paths by which it leads. That growth is to some extent self- abnega tion is indeed evident. We need only remember how necessary it is to control one strong emotion or sink temporarily one opinion in order that another, equally though not so emphatically our own, may have a chance of life. Persons who cannot do this continue in their narrow- mindedness, and their development stagnates . H 97 98 STUDIES IN CHARACTER . Such patent observations as these suggest, though but dimly, a wide- reaching principle of development, into the ramifications of which it will be our business presently to inquire. But first consider briefly the ulterior question. I. THE ETHICAL CHARACTER OF SELF- DEVELOPMENT AS AN END. This is a question that may be very pro perly raised, for, although not only self- development, but self in every form, is a very real and efficient end for all of us, it by no means follows that it is a moral end in the sense of being an object of duty. The idea of duty to self has never seemed to be a very stable · one. Most plain men probably believe , on the whole, that no such duty exists, or at most discover the idea of it only when they want to defend themselves from some unwelcome external claim. The plain man's idea of duty is, in fact, that it con sists in those acts which are due from him to others— to his world ; while from the overstrain of too much duty he instinctively protects himself by his natural sane egoism. The more reflective man's moral ear nestness shows itself by requiring that a place shall be found for this necessary sane egoism, or instinct of self- preservation, in the general scheme of moral order . Thus if any man's wife, mother, or doctor wants him to do or abstain from doing something as a duty he owes to himself, it will be necessary to prove to him that he owes it to his world as proper care of himself for its service. It is generally easy enough-often too easy -to prove this. No forced idea of duty to self is needed to show that a man, not only may, but ought to take care of himself and improve himself, by whole SELF- DEVELOPMENT AND SELF- SURRENDER. 99 some amusement as well as in other ways more directly conducive to his spiritual and physical benefit. The duty he owes to the world through self as the world's servant is only too fatally evident, and earnestness of conscience and fairness of mind are needed to save most of us from over-estimating it ; though the danger of under-estimation is to some temperaments a very real one. We find, then , instead of that idea of duty to self in which good people have sometimes tried to believe, the idea that it is a duty to be and to keep one's self in the highest possible state of efficiency. Now, this is the idea of self- development and self- preservation as a duty-a duty which we owe not to ourselves, but to that world the service of which is the definition of duty. Thus, my health, my happiness, my development, and all that makes for my efficiency, may become a considerable part of my duty as well as an important object of my natural desire. The clear perception of this truth tends to the purification of the natural de sires through their identification with the moral end. This leads to the habitual application of the ethical standard to our scheme of personal joys ; wholesome improving pleasures of all kinds become weighted with a sense of good, -of actual right-doing, —the absence of which from pleasures of the opposite kind makes itself conspicuous to feeling. All the pleasures that are vulgar, degrading, dissipating, wasteful of energy, or perverting it-these are known as light weights, and cannot hold the scale. It is not, indeed, that we choose our ways of pleasure, under ordinary 100 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. circumstances, with deliberate intent to combine im provement and enjoyment. We do things every day, not because they are good for us, or good for others, but because we like them. But the earnest- minded are distinguished from the frivolous by liking rather those personal good things which have permanent value for body or soul. And the frivolous mind, under good guidance, trains itself to this higher plane of liking by deliberate intent to improve its talents and tastes. A side-issue suggests itself at this point. Must a good man be always doing something which more or less remotely can be shown to be his duty ? Suppos ing it agreed that self is not an object of duty, except as the maintenance and improvement of self is due to society, then duty falls into two parts- ( 1 ) the ser vice of others, ( 2 ) the maintenance and improvement of self. Is there any part of legitimate conduct legitimate from the highest and most exigeant point of view-lying outside this double circle of duty ? In other words, may the good man take a holiday from being positively good, and enjoy himself simply, though he neither needs nor sees any prospect of needing recreation. May I spend August in Switzerland, although I am perfectly well, or give myself up to skating in the Christmas holidays, not because I require fresh air and exercise, but because there is ice, it being assumed, however, that there is no posi tive duty in the way? To ask these questions is to ask whether in a proper ethical scheme of conduct there is to be any room for play, distinguishing play from recreation as having no SELF-DEVELOPMENT AND SELF- SURRENDer. 101 permanent end in view, the only end being the enjoy ment of the player. Now, it must be admitted that many earnest people are growing to doubt not only the morality, but even the possibility, of pure play. Hence their resort to games that have a sham object when they require re creation. Having lost touch of the pure pleasures of exercise, they make some pretence of being in earnest about doing or catching something. There is surely a lesson to be learned here, and the lesson is all in favour of preserving our instincts of play. Recreation is needed-is part of duty. Those who preserve their simple playfulness-their joy in wholesome pleasures for the pleasures' sake-can get recreation easily and with the greatest economy, both of money and time. The elaborate apparatus of sham objects is not re quired by them . Therefore it is economical in more ways than one that human nature should preserve in due measure its playfulness. But this cannot be pre served without an allowance of pure play to all of us. Therefore we may play sometimes. The moral law permits play, because play is part of the scheme by which, in the long run, human energy is maximized. Nor can we allow it to count for nothing that happi ness is increased when merriment is abundant. As to the amount of play that shall be allowed, common sense must decide this in each case by the application of the good common rule, that a man should have a holiday when he has fairly earned it, and not other wise. Nevertheless, there will generally be at the bottom of the good man's mind a constant, though unobtru 102 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. sive, idea that the play which he allows himself is, in all its many forms, a part of his scheme of self- preserva tion and self- improvement, and that these are part of the service which he owes to humanity. The need that he should perform that service becomes the more evident when we reflect that, while the development of human faculty is certainly an end to be attained, each person must always be the main agent in securing his own development, and even in preserving his own health. Other persons can help, but less than they are apt to imagine. Each man works out his own sal vation, whether of bodily vigour, or intellectual ability, or moral character. It is one particular piece of ser vice that he has to perform. As regards its import ance, relative to that other part of service which is aimed directly at the good of others, questions arise which are by no means quite easy to settle. Is it better to be doing beneficent work in the world, re gardless of possible deteriorating effects in self, or better to be so acting under all circumstances as to pro duce the best results in the cultivation of one's own character ? A very old theoretic controversy rages round this point, but here it is not theoretic but prac tical ethics that concerns us . Which is for each indi vidual the more right course of these two, —should he aim at perfection of character by uprightness in his own walk, or should he aim at the greatest possible beneficence of conduct ? Let us first remark that whatever the answer which reason gives, different persons will always respond to this question differently, according to their differences of disposition. The mind of objective bent is im SELF-DEVELOPMENT AND SELF-SURRender. 103 one patient with the subjectivity -the implied self- con sciousness of the standard being drawn instinctively to the interest of conduct and its effects, it is to all intents and purposes oblivious of its own character. The subjective mind, on the other hand, is so keenly alive to differences of tone and level in itself that the idea of placing beneficence of result be fore elevation of motive shocks and puzzles it . The two belong to different ethical types, and each has its own proper method of moral growth and moral ser vice. The first does righteously by acting rightly, the second acts rightly by doing righteously. Each obeys a law of its own nature which the other should respect , and each is liable to error by inattention to the rea sonable considerations which are instinct in the very nature of the other. Each, therefore, needs to listen to the answer which reason gives. Reason says, first of all, that " both is best," that no action is perfect which is not the most beneficent possible under the circumstances, and also the most productive of inner gain of righteousness . This assumes, of course, that the two standards are so much in harmony that when most completely fulfilled they are both fulfilled , and this is implied in the more generally accepted common-sense view that man's character is adapted to his duty in general-that the most beneficent kind of character is the best. So beneficence cannot be maximized in the long run un less righteousness is also, and vice versa. And the best is best by both tests, as has been said. But this does not carry us very far. The perfect action does not puzzle us ; but we are puzzled when — 104 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. the outer and inner spheres of duty seem to diverge and conflict. What does reason say to our two dis putants here ? It seems plain enough that she agrees with both. She says to the one, Certainly, it is of the beneficence of the act you should think first, be cause duty is service and service is beneficence ; only be careful to know what beneficence is, which is not "" so easy. " And to the other she says, " You also are right ; the beneficent act, however wisely chosen, is not good, if you allow yourself to be made morally the worse by doing it. Your care not to be made worse will save you from many a hasty error in the choice of sham beneficences, which are evils in disguise ; but its value does not end here. Through all the difficult course of conduct, the claims of character must be up held, else by the loss of character there will be less beneficence, less duty- doing, less service in the end. " How, then, can the claims of character be sacrificed to those of conduct, when the occasion that demands this sacrifice occurs, and yet character be saved ? All depends on the spirit in which the concession is made. This should be a spirit of conscious sacrifice and loss, with a real pang of remorse underlying the conviction of a right choice made. The generous man may be called on to close his hand, the merciful man to harden his heart, and even the truthful man to draw a veil over truth ; and evil consequences to character will result, if these things are done in a spirit of gay self satisfaction. It is in the pain and trouble of them that salvation lives. Sister Simplice, in " Les Misérables," tells a lie to save Jean Valjean from his relentless pursuers. It would generally be wrong to do as she 1 SELF-DEVELOPMENT AND self-surrendER. 105 } did, but in this case it was right, and the good sister had the moral genius to see this. She is herself known as the nun who had never lied , and her word is taken. But we can imagine the horror of that lie to a soul so much bent on preserving its truthfulness. She has done right and knows it ; but she does it on her knees at prayer : perhaps she prayed always afterwards that she might be forgiven. It is a sacrifice, -prob ably the most difficult she has made in her life, though she makes it without hesitation. To such a pure, unsullied soul the telling of a lie is like the am putation of a limb, like parting with a precious part of its own nature. The good sister's exalted sense of right doing could not restore the perfect truthful ness she had lost a lie had been impossible to her, and now it was accomplished . It is true she had gained something in her loss ; she had discovered in herself and brought out a higher power of self- sacri fice than she had ever known before, -a keener in sight into right. But this gain was itself dependent on her sense of loss, on the spirit which made her con scious of the stain on her white robe incurred by the act of just protection required of her.

The whole matter seems to stand somewhat thus : good conduct must be righteous as well as right ; but when objective and subjective claims conflict, the for mer, other things being equal, take the lead. The moral agent, however, in making his choice, takes careful heed to his threatened moral loss ; he does not suffer it lightly, but realizes it with pain ; he is con scious of it as inevitable loss, a loss causing at once condemnation and approval by conscience. The work 106 STUDIES IN CHARACTer. ing of this spirit within him, if it be earnest and deep enough, checks the loss and involves a gain, a growth of character, a deepening of moral motive, a widening of moral insight. He comes out of the conflict scarred, indeed, and saddened, but wiser and better on the whole. Thus the right conduct that conflicts with righteous character may, but only by bringing us through the furnace of affliction , tend to elevate and strengthen character on the whole. Then, and then only, can it be called good . And now, having sufficiently considered both the claim of self- development to be regarded as a duty and the nature of that duty, let us turn to the second part of our subject. II. SELF- SURRENDER AS A MEANS TO SELF- DEVELOPMENT. We ought to cultivate ourselves. It does not, how ever, follow that, although the absence of moral deterioration should be a condition of all our activity, self- culture itself should form any large part of our conscious aim. The direct attempt to make it such is apt to end, partially at least, in failure. The spectator may watch the skilled mechanic at work in amazed admiration of his manual skill ; but he acquired that skill by concentration of his mind on the thing to be done rather than on the skill . Another may admire the intellectual power of the accomplished student, but the student has certainly been thinking of the know edge he desires rather than of the self- culture he attains. And this principle of objectivity in develop ment is no less, rather perhaps more, true of moral than of intellectual and manual skill . We become better mainly, though not wholly, by seeking to do the SELF-DEVELOPMENT AND SELF- SURRENDER. 107 right deed, and we should fail certainly if we were to aim at our own betterness only. Self-surrender in this sense of absorption in the object chosen is not a rival principle of life co- ordinate with self- development. When carried out effectively and systematically it is development. The athlete furnishes the most marked apparent exception to this law of subjective development by attention to objective ends. So far as he has a per manent end in view, that end is the acquisition of bodily skill. This is inevitable, because the effect of such deeds as his is in itself transitory, except for the gain of skill . But, as a rule, the athlete, while at work, does not think of this permanent end, but of the im mediate effect only, the pleasure of exercise or the satisfaction of the hard deed done, and is as indifferent at the time to the improvement of his faculties as the artist absorbed in his picture or the student poring over his books. So even the athlete is not a real ex ception. These examples will suffice to illustrate the principle that, in general, the man develops his faculties by at tention to the natural ends of their activity rather than by attention to them. He develops himself by forgetting himself, by giving himself up to something not himself. And yet, it may be said, he will go wrong—he will indeed fail to secure the ends he pro ' poses if he forgets himself too much, if he forgets himself in the sense of omitting to secure the end as a real expression of his own activity. This danger is most evident in the pursuit of knowledge. The im patient, unconscientious student contents himself with 108 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. the acquisition, or apparent acquisition, of somebody else's knowledge, which, not having thought through for himself, he uses as confidently as if he had really convinced himself of its truth. The conscientious student, on the other hand, while he makes himself acquainted also with the thoughts of others, re- thinks all matter of knowledge for himself. Thus he pro duces for himself, and expresses to others, genuine fresh knowledge recast in the moulds of his own mind. He is sincere, therefore he is original ; for this recasting of thought, and the issue of all thought in forms of expression fresh from the personal mint, is the marked characteristic of the original man. may think and say nothing new, but all that he says is from himself. He It is easy, however, to see that the motive here is not desire for the best intellectual development, but rather earnestness in the desire to make knowledge truly one's own. Nevertheless, it is only thus that the pursuit of knowledge secures true intellectual de velopment. And at this point it is well to note the analogy between such ends as knowledge and personal righteousness of motive, since both refer to mental objects which are yet distinguished from the efficiency of the activities which they employ. Thus the expres sion of moral character, as well as of intellectual knowledge, may have the stamp of originality which marks the activity of a mind that expresses itself, rather than some other, in conduct and in speech. Originality in this sense is an evident essential of sound development, and objectivity of motive is im plied even in it. Let us now turn to that opposite SELF-DEVELOPMENT AND SELF- SURRENDER. 109 and supplementary essential of docility, or the power of genuine self- surrender, about which so much has been implied and so little said as yet. Concentration on objects not one's self is one form of self- surrender , and is involved in all personal progress ; but by itself it is not enough to secure that the progress shall be on all sides, bringing to light the hidden germs of character as well as making more conspicuous those that are well marked. We are each prone to choose as objects of our labour those subjects of knowledge and purposes of conduct which most attract us in our natural unregenerate state, and which therefore draw out most in us those qualities in which we are already strong. Thus we are apt to become only that which we were in any case pretty sure to become ; we emphasize, but we do not develop ourselves. Hence the importance of motives under which, for the sake of something or some one else, we undertake work which does not in itself attract us much. Under such motives we follow, not our own instincts, which ex press the stronger self in us, but the lead given to the weaker and otherwise perishing self, by ideas of use and duty, or by sympathy with friends. Self- surrender proper, and its function in self- development, is the central thought to which I wish to draw attention . When family claims require one of us to put aside work for which he has a taste, in order that some necessary but uninteresting service may be done, the self- surrender develops self just where self is weak ; and it may be that even the particular taste for the moment denied may benefit by the enlargement of horizon that comes to those who do not hesitate thus, IIO STUDIES IN CHARACTER. within reason, to give themselves up to the lead of their environment. So, also, when sympathy with a friend, and interest in his or her ways of life and thought induce us to take up occupations and subjects which do not in themselves attract, we are the gainers bythe opening up of possibilities within us of which we knew not. We surrender our mind in feeling or in thought to the lead of another mind, and, becom ing in a secondary sense that other, as well as ourselves, we win a broadening of our humanity by all that the other's is and ours is not. These acts of self- surrender are always going on about and within us , and happy are they to whom they come with easy grace. We know their quality under various names ; they are responsive, and come to the rescue whenever there is need ; they are docile, and readily give themselves up to learn from any book or any teacher, sinking their own preconceptions and habits with ease for the time ; they are accessible to ideas, however conveyed ; they are apt to under stand the views and feelings of others, not because they are clever, but because they have this power of giving the mind to another, and so becoming the other ; they have a gift for friendship and make de lightful friends, especially of the kind that listens well, that receives all the confidences and strengthens by pure sympathy. Most of us have had, or have, or will have, some friend or friends to whom we can be all this ; but there are some for whom their friendships generally are so characterized . And all the while this self- surrendering , impression able, docile, accessible being, if also a morally earnest, SELF-DEVELOPMENT AND SELF- SURRENDER. III and therefore original, being, grows from less to more, becoming, on the one hand, the counterpart of his world of circumstance, because he never shrinks from doing what has to be done, or from thinking and feel ing what has to be thought and felt, and becoming, on the other hand, so far a completely developed human being as to be typical or representative, not of the average, but of the whole of his social world. Strong minds, if they can do it, surrender themselves thus without fear ; they are so sure of their originality that they dare to be docile. The effect of this self- surrendering habit of mind on the acquisition of knowledge and growth of intellect is specially marked. It is impossible to understand a difficult writer, or one far removed from our own point of view, if we insist on maintaining ourselves through out at our own centre of thought. An author must be read, a thinker must be studied, in the first place, from his point of view. The. mind of the reader must be given to him to follow his lead, opened as wide as it will open to receive his thought, cleared for the time from obstructive preconceptions, however vital, while all in our own minds that helps us to grasp the thinker's meaning is brought into prominence. Great patience is sometimes required for this task, and it is often necessary to read a book through once or twice rapidly, though with care, preserving throughout the most humble and even reverential attitude of mind . The kingdom of knowledge has to be received in the spirit of a little child, and thus things hid from the wise and prudent may be revealed unto babes. A critical habit of mind is invaluable, but in early stages I12 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. " of knowledge it is at least as important to be able to put it, in so far as it is negative, aside. It is , of course, a much cleverer thing to read the difficult author, even as a beginner, in a carping, critical spirit, to gauge all his ideas and test his arguments, by com parison with our own ideas and measurement with our logical foot- rule. And it is perfectly true that we have not finished understanding him, have not made the truth of his knowledge our own, until we have either put him through this sifting process, or thought out the matter for ourselves. Nevertheless, the first step is to see what he means, and to see it in the most favourable light. This is what I imagine some "smart " people, with unnaturally sharp critical intel lect, so often fail to do. The best well-known example of this gift for intel lectual self- surrender is to be found in John Stuart Mill's account of his own growth in thought and knowledge. Turn now to the moral aspect, the side of charac ter. In our day, many doubt altogether the value, though they grudgingly admit the necessity, of the old- fashioned and once over- praised virtue of obedi ence. The republicanism of political life has affected life in all quarters ; obedience was over- preached and indiscriminately praised. We are under the effects of a reaction, and obedience is apt to be valued at less than its worth. For what is it ? It is the sur render of will, and, within certain well- marked limits, the surrender of practical judgment to the guidance of another. The limits should be well- marked, no doubt, so that the act of obedience should never involve a SELF-DEVELOPMENT AND SElf- surrender. 113 breach with the prescriptions of conscience. The old principle that rebellion against the constituted authori ties is only justifiable when for conscience' sake is a sound one. Weare not here, however, concerned with the whole question of obedience, but only with the fact that the surrender of will and judgment which it implies gives to the weak part of the latent practical self a chance of development that could not well be otherwise secured. It is, of course, evident that the source of authority ought to be a good source, and scarcely less evident that, for the best effects, it should represent all those prin ' ciples of action which are most feebly represented in the will of the person who obeys - that sovereign and subject should be supplementary to each other, work ing together in the subject will the accomplishment of the whole. The position of true, willing, and self transforming obedience is, moreover, impossible, unless the source of authority is felt by its subjects to be generally good and reasonable. Otherwise, it is not only founded on force, but ends in force, and is apt to work transformations of character in a direction opposite to that towards which it points : resistance occurs, instead of surrender. Besides authority recognised as good, there is in fluence the influence of strong affection or of ad miration-compelling obedience in the most effective, because the most delightful way. Affection makes a pleasure of even that blind obedience which, without reason or even against reason, may make another's will stronger in me than my own . How this is pos sible let the psychologist determine. It has probably 1 114 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. something to do with that fixation or fascination of the attention by which indications of desire given us by another fill our consciousness to the exclusion of those proper to ourselves. The danger that may lie in friendship of this absorbing sort needs no empha sis . It is dangerous to be under the influence of another, if that other is not good-if the influence is likely to negative the right in us, or bring to light the wrong. The remedy for this danger lies in a right choice of friends before we allow them to be influ ences. But, though still within limits-the limits prescribed by a conscience stronger than any influence is allowed to become-there is no danger, but a certainty of gain, in yielding to the influence of a well chosen friend, proved before choosing to be worthy of trust, and pledged by implication to observe the limits of conscience . The principle that friends should be supplementary in character and tastes here suggests itself in an in teresting light as having ethical significance. Each by his influence develops that which is weak in the other. We can all find examples in our own experi ence, subjects we should never have studied, interests we should never have had, tastes we should never have cultivated, habits of mind that would be strange to us now, had it not been for the influence of some friend to whose thought and will and feeling we had partially surrendered ourselves for the time, and who, though for the most part probably like- minded with ourselves, was strong in some points where we were weak. The happiest relations are doubtless those where each is conscious of using worthy influence and SELF-DEVELOPMENT AND SELF- SURRENDER. 115 being worthily influenced, and these are the healthiest relations also-healthiest for both . For, though we can hardly call it dangerous to be always under good influence, it is certainly enervating for the one as well as stagnating for the other when the relation is never reversed. Slavery, unrelieved by occasional flashes of mastery, may be a happy, but cannot be a very whole some state. It is more difficult to understand, yet the fact seems indubitable, that our emotional life, no less than that of the intellect and will, can take on new forms of de velopment because of contact with other minds. can come to feel, without definitely thinking or judg ing, as another feels in any set of circumstances, rather than as we would naturally feel ourselves. We see the signs and take on the emotional state ; this may be an altogether new experience, and therefore im plies development for us. Thus we may learn new ways of feeling, may develop the narrow round of emotion that is normally actual in us, to include much more which, but for our power of sympathy and will ingness to surrender, we should never know. To re sist this influence is to resist the grace of human nature working through others in us by opening latent springs of feeling in our own hearts. To yield is to surrender the emphasized, limited, familiar self, in favour of a wider self including elements sometimes so strange and unfamiliar that we take it, at first sight, for an outer influence only. To surrender in this sense is to develop. Yet there is need of reserve. Miscellaneous self surrender to persons, and even for purposes, is a sort 116 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. of dissipation, and, if it means an aptness to come under the stronger kinds of influences easily, and to change them often, it is revolting and contemptible. Really strong influences should be rare very rare, and choice ; and the minor influences, which may be taken from all for what they are worth, should hold their own with a light hand only. Nor is it merely with regard to the number of strong influences that there is need for reserve. The need is no less as regards degree and kind. The importance of wise choice, and the duty of maintaining the su premacy of the moral ideals over all influence, have already been noticed. But even this is not all. Apart from actual breaches with conscience, it be hoves us to exercise reserve in self- surrender at all points, just so far as is required by the condition that we should be true to ourselves, —that in all our deeds, thoughts, and feelings we should, even in becoming one with others, still express ourselves, new self and old self, as a whole. In each of us who is worth much there is a hard rock of central character, not lightly to be displaced, not easily dissolved, and all growth is by accretion to, rather than destruction of, this. In the end the nucleus of character may indeed be so over grown and changed as to be scarcely recognisable ; but the process of change is generally slow, and in strong natures does not take place without resistance . The practical rule is not hard to understand. In fluences and impressions should be allowed to flow in freely upon us, provided we can take them and make them part of ourselves, an extension of the self that we already are. And in all that we do and say as - SELF-DEVELOPMENT AND SELF-Surrender. 117 ours we should express ourselves, unassimilated im pressions dwelling with us silently till they become our own. But no fear of altering the present self need be entertained , if the alteration be not for the worse. Self strengthens itself—its limited self-by absorption in the interests that draw it most power fully ; but if it would grow from less to more, the means lie in devotion to objective ends, and in sur render to worthy influences balanced by self-respect. Self- development and self- surrender are not rival principles of the good life requiring the mediation of "a shadowy third " to keep them balanced and to make them one. But self-surrender is the chief means by which development is accomplished in a well-main tained and right-meaning self. VIII. IDEALS OF WOMANLINESS. It is impossible to doubt-though easy to forget how effective are the ideals of a race or an age in shaping the development of the youth brought up under their influence. Generation after generation, fresh human energy springs into life and pours itself forth in conduct and character as freely as the waters stream down the mountain sides ; but, just as the direction of the rivers is predetermined by the con figuration of the land through which they run, so does the energy of each generation form itself according to the thought of the age into which it is born. The thought of the age works on the imagination of the individual, and his imagination of what he should be goes far to determine the manner of man he will be come. As a popular novelist puts it, in the course of describing his hero, it is often of much less importance what a young man actually is than what it is that he gives himself out to himself to be. Nowthe spirit of the ages-in common language, public opinion-expressing itself through law, custom , and literature, has dealt hardly with women in this matter of ideals. The ideal of manliness has developed 118 IDEALS OF WOMANLINESS. 119 steadily, on clear well- marked lines, from age to age, and few men have been born into the world, with any fair chance of knowing its opinion, who have not known well enough what manner of men they were expected to be. Men have always known that they ought to be at least brave and resolute ; and all early, as well as later, literatures teach the supplementary lesson that gentleness is needed to humanize strength, and sympathy to temper resolution. Even in the old Norse literature, where the worship of manly strength seems to reach its highest point, the strain of chival rous feeling is by no means lacking ; and no literature, ancient, mediæval, or modern, surpasses the bardic literature of the early Celt in conceptions of heroic "sweetness and light. " The progress of civilization shows itself less in the development of the manly ideal than in the ever- widening extent of its influence. This is marked more especially by a closer approxima tion of real to ideal on the side of the virtues of gentleness, so that one whom our forefathers would have admired for his strength we abhor for his fierce ness and brutality. Women, on the other hand, have enjoyed no such constancy of instruction, except as regards all those gentler virtues rooted in quick sympathies, which have been allotted to them from the beginning. A woman might be a coward, might, in some cases, even shrink from telling truth at her convenience ; but she must be gentle of speech and aspect, she must be kind of heart, faithful in affection, and sympathetic always. These good gifts were never conceived as the growth of chivalry in her ; they were, and are, her very nature 120 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. as a womanly woman. And to this day these require ments lie deep down in our souls as requirements that must be fulfilled by the real woman, under penalty of forfeiting all our kindly regard. The sense of them makes us shudder at the shrill voice of the virago, and turn in dislike from a woman's platform oratory, if it run into such mild excesses, either of vehemence or flippancy, as can be easily tolerated in a man. And similarly, though we despise the cowardly woman, our contempt for her is not like our scorn of the equally cowardly man. There is some essential dif ference of ideal here which instinctively we all recog nise. The woman must be gentle, though surely she ought also to be brave. The man must be brave, though no one doubts that he ought also to be gentle. It would seem that there should be something of a parallelism in the logical development of the two ideals. The manly ideal starts, as is natural ( con sidering man's circumstances and his essential gifts) , from the side of the virtues of strength, and annexes in addition the virtues of sympathy. The womanly ideal starts, as is no less natural, from the virtues of gentleness and sympathy, and should tend to put on also the virtues of strength . But this second development has been fitful, and therein the trouble lies . For women, the stalwart virtues come into fashion and go out, just as it is sometimes fashionable to be "tall and gracious, " sometimes to be " little and arch. " The heroine of one decade may fly screaming from a mouse, and be rescued by the hero without contempt. The heroine of the next saves her lover from shipwreck, by courage IDEALS OF WOMANLINESS. 121 and skill. This is very confusing to the modern girl's mind. Is it, or is it not, womanly to have skill and strength and presence of mind when danger threatens or overwhelms ? Is it, or is it not, womanly to have a soldier's instinctive dislike to turn one's back on an alarming situation ? Ought women to expect the virtues of courage and resoluteness from themselves ? An example will make clearer what I mean by this simple soldier's instinct that forbids flight and leaves room for real courage. It is, doubtless, at the base of character in all brave races, and is closely bound up with a sense of personal dignity. I have often thought that the first occasion on which one is induced-(quite rightly, no doubt) -by reasonable considerations, to run away must carry with it a great moral shock. The simple instinct was once shown to me very prettily by a little baby girl, who followed me into my room one evening when it was quite dark. I did not strike a light for some minutes. The little girl did not like the dark ; it clearly stirred in her vague ideas of danger; but she was coming after me as usual, and would not turn back. So she came along, all by her self, not seeking in the least my protection, but saying aloud emphatically to herself, " I'se not afraid, I'se not afraid ." She was afraid, but she could not run away. Perhaps the event is pretty enough to be con sidered womanly even by the least advanced. But, granted bravery, is a woman more womanly for being also strong ? Strength and bravery go together in ideals generally. When bravery is a virtue, it is natural that strength should be regarded as a god-like gift ; and so it is in the ideal of manli 122 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. ness. The poor modern girl, however, when she wonders what she ought to expect herself to be, will get uncertain guidance at this point from the womanly ideal as presented in literature. Not only does the ideal heroine vary in all degrees of weakness and strength-from Thackeray's Amelia to Sir Walter Scott's Rebecca-but, if the inquiring girl tries to deal with the subject historically, she will find that the ideal in this respect shows no sure line of pro gression in time. If she read the ancient Norse love, tale of Sigurd and Brynhild, she will see the strong wise heroine at her strongest and most attractive ; and, indeed, the strong wise woman prevails distinctly in both Norse and Celtic literatures, though with a difference in the two. And there are women of old in the Bible, too, who were praised for resolution and strength ; nor are they absent from the classic litera tures, nor from the works of our own great writers such as Spenser, and Shakespeare, and Walter Scott. More modern literature, on the other hand, abounds in weakly heroines-lovable enough, and that is the worst of them. In the last century they suffered from a malady called "the vapours " whatever that may have been. Fainting has had its day of grace and attractiveness, and headaches and neuralgia have an attraction to some minds even now. Another form of the desire for weakness, which modern educa tion has brought into sight, is an insidious notion that there is elegance in being overworked. Now a hero in literature may have ill- health as a foil to his numerous virtues, but a heroine's fragility is often part of her attractiveness. Therein lies the IDEALS OF WOMANLINESS. 123 difference ; but the inequality lies in this-the hero is never praised because he is deficient in the qualities essential to the heroine, her gentle ways, her sympa thy and affection. For him the ideal progresses, for her it flickers . Hence the real men are urged to be gentle and sympathetic, more than the real women are encouraged to be wise, brave and strong. There must be a cause for this, and the understand ing of this cause might help the modern girl to make up her own mind as to whether it would or would not be well to aim at adding, so far as in her power lies , the virtues and graces of strength to the virtues and graces of sympathy and gentleness. It seems necessary that we should here go back a stage, and consider briefly the essential contrast be ween these two groups of good qualities, and the reason why they are assigned , or, as we might almost say, assign themselves, the one to be the essential virtue of the man, and the other to make up the essential virtue of the woman. I do not know that the thought is better expressed than in the words of an old Irish law- writer, who, in the course of his dry annotations on the Brehon Law, bursts forth into a derivation, perhaps more quaint than true, of the Gaelic words (fer and ban) for man and woman. Thus they are called, he tells us, " from the kindli ness of a woman, and the dignity of a man ; and to reach these qualities they exist. " Now I take it that the " dignity " of a man con sists in his capacity to hold himself together and stand firm under all , even the most difficult, circumstances . His sense of dignity underlies his bravery in war, his 124 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. endurance in distress, his general inability to run away or give in under any stress of hostile circum stances. And the gifts of strength are associated with dignity, because they give the power which the strong- souled man assumes in himself. Dignity, then, turns on this strength of soul or resoluteness, and its manifestations depend for their force and amplitude on the possession of strength in all departments of action, so that the strong- souled man must of neces sity desire every kind of strength, and seek to acquire these so far as he may. So much for the man and the essential manly quality. I have already pointed out how this comes to be qualified certainly and steadily by the perception that great individual strength of character needs, in proportion to its magnitude, to be tempered by sym pathy and a chivalrous care for the weaker ones. Hence we find that, in all idealistic literature, the hero is depicted as gentle and tender just in propor tion as he is strong and masterful. He has to be strong against fate and the external world, able to guard himself and his home ; but within the home, and to all weaker outsiders, he is gentle as a child or as a woman. That he should be both truthful and true goes without saying : it belongs to his dignity that he should scorn deceit, the breaking of treaties, and disloyalty to friends. The growth of the chival rous instinct, moreover, emphasises, and still further sanctifies, this virtue of loyal faith, as an essential part of sympathetic affection. Self-respect and other respect alike make breach of faith impossible to the manly man. IDEALS OF WOMANLINESS. 125 Coming now to the woman, it needs but brief re flection to show that the different circumstances of her social position throughout history lead to a dif ferent emphasis in the ideal of her character ; and the emphasis becomes disproportionately one- sided in the semi-ideal types that abound in literature. This happens because the semi- ideal heroine must have those qualities which are essentially womanly, and is not required to have their complement of strength so much as the semi- ideal hero is required to have that complement of chivalrous gentleness without which his strength becomes a positive social mischief. Here we seem to reach the kernel of the matter : the womanly virtues of gentleness need no counter poise, and mere weakness, as a passive evil, in a woman does not cry out for a remedy, like brutal strength in a man. Hence, not striking the imagina tion as an active evil, however much it may destroy. the real comfort of a home, the literary artist is not, and probably never can be, urged to make general war upon its cultivation, as he makes war on the ab sence of gentleness in strength. All persons, with any experience of life, have doubtless, at all times , known well that the weak heroine, whom-in a story— it is so delightful to dash in and save from shipwreck or fire, would probably, in real life , prove somewhat impracticable even in the matter of being saved, and that, for the wear and tear of every- day existence, whatever its work may be, the capable woman, whose head is cool and will firm, provided also her heart be warm, is as much to be preferred to the other type as is the capable man. Persons of experience have, in 126 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. short, always known practically, i.e. in particular cases, that a woman is the better for the possession of any and every human virtue, gift, and grace. But the literary artist, writing chiefly under æsthetic motives, has not been guarded from one- sidedness in this case, as in the other, by the self- evident need of balance in the type ; and the inexperienced, whether young men in their choice of women to admire, or young women in their choice of ideals to live up to, fall readily into the snares laid for them by the literary artist, whose only aim is, at bottom, the production of a picturesque effect. Parenthetically, it may be said, at this point, that the simplest cure of these erroneous views— granting them to be erroneous-lies in the production of the living concrete capable woman. There never was a man who, other things being equal, did not prefer the companionship of a capable to an incapable woman, in real life —at least, provided the woman were not more capable than himself ; but many men have been known to declare, in the abstract, that they did not like clever women, or athletic women, or women specially capable in some other respect. The literary artist aims at picturesque effects. We are all of us more or less artists , with an eye for picturesque effects ; and ideals of character, as they present themselves to us, and are portrayed for us by the literary artist, are apt to be affected as much by the aesthetic as by the direct and serious ethical motive. We have seen how the ethical requirement for counterpoise in manliness is, of necessity, more urgent and uncompromising than the ethical require IDEALS OF WOMANLINESS. 127 ment, which yet, in a certain sense, is equally authori tative, for that counterpoise of womanly dignity—in the sense above described-to womanly sympathy and bound-up-ness -if we might coin such a word—in others . The proper use of æsthetic effects in these matters is to reinforce the ethical principle at work, nor is it possible to depart far from the ethical truth without peril to the aesthetic truth also . It would not therefore, I believe, be possible to work æsthetic effects with weakness as an essential part of the material, unless there were some special reason for its use in art. That special reason is not far to seek. The principle of contrast counts for much in itself. As a foil to the strength and independence of the man, an exaggerated weakness and dependence of the woman can be used with picturesque effect in a story. Since the contrast of nature when both are at their best is, in truth, suf ficient if treated effectively, the resource of exaggera tion is a mark of feebleness ; and the greater artists would, no doubt, always rise above it were they not under the influence of habits begotten by the influence of inferior art. Mere contrast, however, is not the only principle at work here. Development of character is expressed through the development of a drama. In the older stories, the hero, with his independent con trol of life, played, as a rule, the leading part, and the heroine's part was apt, unconsciously, to become a mere opportunity for the further development of the hero's story. Later on, story came to take note of hero and heroine as more equally concerned in its making at least, when a story of love in its main 128 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. intent. Not till the last century, when women them selves took to writing stories, did the tale become common in which the main interest centred in the heroine, and the development of her fortunes and character. The latter kind of story is apt to have a heroine with a mind of her own, however completely she may surrender herself in due course when the hero appears. But the two former, and even now much more common, types are pretty sure in the main, by the very law of their existence, to subordinate the less stable idea of womanly goodness to the necessities for the dramatic exercise of the more stable manly type. There is no doubt that a hero must be brave and kind ; therefore, in a story he must have occasion to exercise his chivalry, and the most picturesque way of doing so is in the service of the heroine. Hence it is necessary that there should be a damsel in distress . Monsters and giants were once most useful means of supply for the distress ; but, with the progress of science, civilization, and general humdrumness, damsels in distress, from overwhelming external cir cumstances, become more rare. Law, order, policemen, and the disappearance of monsters, enable women, under most circumstances, to take care of themselves. Thus the resources of fiction are seriously crippled . The ills that still remain to us are at once fewer and, even to a woman, less overwhelming. Hence the dramatic utility of the incapable woman. If a girl is an excellent swimmer, she need not drown when a boat upsets, and so the hero loses a chance of risking his life to save her from an otherwise certain death. There are, indeed, many graceful acts by which the hero of IDEALS OF WOMANLINESS. 129 modern romance can show, in subtler ways, that valour and chivalry are by no means dead; but striking situations of the sensationally romantic type can no longer be created in any variety without the introduc tion of heroines who are deficient in the qualities and virtues of strength . In short, the dramatic exigencies of chivalry are responsible for much of the common literary depreciation of a woman's strength, and for that leaning which supports this , to some extent, in most of us-both men and women-a dramatic liking for the picturesque effect thus produced. To the man, the exercise of his chivalry is delightful and morally ennobling. To the woman, the experience of his strength stirs her with delight and admiration, but may operate as a great moral temptation—the tempta tion to let her powers lie dormant and dwindle for want of exercise, so that she may have the more pleasure in this superiority at her service which so pleases her. Thus the woman gets the worst ofthe lesson ethically ; while the man loses by the consequent emaciation of her powers. The artist, and we all, as desiring the artistic effects , must make up our minds first as to the ethics of the matter, and then demand for our working ideals that they shall be true to ethics first, and the artistic effects obtained within the lines prescribed as right. For my part, I have no anxiety as to the aesthetic result, even from that limited point of view which makes the dramatic interest of story and of life centre in the development of the hero's character in action . The best art will not suffer by laying aside those extravagant contrasts and extreme occasions for the exercise of K 130 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. courage and strength which are afforded by the exist ence of the more or less incapable heroine. But, even were it not so, there is ample compensation in the interest of the strong, or shall I say complete, heroine's own development of character. The stories which have the heroine, so to speak, for their hero, supply abundant instances of picturesque effects, due to the contrast of firmness and sympathy, strength and tenderness, self- dependence and self- surrender, "sweetness and light," in the central figure. The strong independent woman, quite able to take care of herself and other people too-becomes transformed, without being changed, into the loving, dependent woman, who finds her chief joy in thinking the thoughts, and feeling the aspirations, and taking on the will of another than herself. There is plenty of picturesque contrast in a story showing this . Probably indeed , in real truth, the in tensity of the second phase is proportional to the intensity of the first, so prone is the individual human mind to balance itself by the development of opposites, much as a skater maintains his balance by equal strokes of his two feet. A transformation from one of these phases to the other is not a change. The loving woman is still the strong woman, able to stand alone if need be, or, if more happy, to stand strongly together with another, or even to take up the post of guardian ship for a season, should misfortune require it . Real women of this kind every one knows and every one admires. Nor is it too much to say that the ideal thus briefly sketched is true to the nature of romantic things, while the incomplete heroine of the story, who IDEALS OF WOMANLINESS. 131 is merely the hero's opportunity for heroism, is not true. And this can be explained. Weakness cannot appreciate strength as strength appreciates it, ignor ance is insensible to learning, genius is invisible to stupidity-nay, more, it is even true that cowardice cannot value courage at its worth. To the feeble, mere ly dependent woman, all a man's manly virtues are at an infinite distance, or lie even, as it were, in a fourth dimension of space ; they appear to her only as benefits, which she freely accepts. Of what they are to him she has no conception, that inaccessible fourth dimension being quite unthinkable to her. But the other woman knows and understands ; because she has the manly excellences in her degree, she values superiority in them wherever it occurs. When she benefits by these virtues in another, it is not her mere experience of their use, but her imagination of their exercise that stirs her the more-the power, the effort, the self denial, the thoughtfulness, the endurance. And so, since it is essential that the heroine of romance should appreciate the hero, the merely dependent woman is not, for the most part, true to the nature of romance. I admit exceptions-rare and beautiful exceptions but such women add to their sympathy and tenderness a rare strength of soul amid all their weakness, and so should not be counted as real exceptions at all . No writer has described the Nemesis of graceful feminine weakness more fully, and none more tenderly than Dickens, in the character of Dora. Dora was sweetness and tenderness itself; she was not selfish, she was not vain ; she was only very, very incapable. There are few things in literature, to my mind, more 132 STUDIES IN CHARAC ARACTER. pathetic than dear little Dora's well-meant attempts to be useful and sympathetic. But " darkly wise and great" indeed poor David remained to her throughout. Every one will remember how her aspirations ended in the discovery that she could hold the pens while he wrote. The moral of the tale lies in this , that if Dora had known earlier the value of ability, she would have trained herself to a higher level than that which she reached ; and if David had valued feminine capacity at its true value, he would not have made the mistake of substituting Dora for Agnes. The latter is the moral which Dickens draws, but I submit that the other is even more vital. For types of the capable heroine we may turn to the pages of George Eliot. Few writers have made the lovableness of strength more apparent. She, too, in the story of Lydgate and Rosamond,' has a lesson of warning about the folly of affection based on the incomplete romantic ideal. In Rosamond, Lydgate sees, or imagines, the typical woman, supplementary to himself the man, capable of unlimited devotion to him, and sympathy, though not understanding sympathy, with his feelings and views of life. But all these are in the fourth dimension for Rosamond, and sympathy is impossible where no basis exists in reason and imagination. Lydgate, of course, should have found the ideal in Dorothea, but, under the influence of his false traditions, he judges her at the outset to be intellectual and strong-minded, and therefore deficient in feminine softness. It is often supposed that those who set up the com plete human ideal as the type of womanliness have IDEALS OF WOMANLINESS. 133 chiefly in their minds the independent woman, and her need of a personal use of the virtues of strength. It will now, I hope, be apparent that this may not be so, for throughout we have been considering women in, rather than out of, their special sphere, and with reference to a romantic, rather than a utilitarian, view of life. I am content if I have shown that the com plete human type is needed in that sphere, and that its exercise produces more beauty, as well as more use, in the common course of social and domestic life . If I have dwelt on the beauty rather than the use, it is because I have been dealing with literature and its picturesque effects ; and I have chosen to deal with. the matter thus, because beauty makes itself felt far off in anticipations of romance, while use appeals only to actual experience of its goodness. The imagination of youth will, therefore, always fasten itself on the ideals of romance, and be guided, unconsciously, by pictur esque effects ; and the imagination of youth forms the character for maturity. At least, this is so in the absence of a strong and clear ethical conception to the contrary. Such a conception, however, there is, and we now see how it can be conciliated with and made conducive to æsthetic effects in romance. Think of a woman first as an end in herself, and incomplete ideals will be no longer possible. Perfection of human character in all its aspects becomes an end that should be realized , in her. It is true, indeed, that the best women, as also the best men, think always more of their work in the world than of their own graceful goodness in doing it ; and this great principle of the objectivity of moral 134 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. action should never be forgotten, while our claim is made that the individual subjectivity of each person should be regarded as an end, and for all equally an end in itself. This recognition of individuality, in each by every other, implies the completeness of the true womanly type. But each woman for herself grows best towards that ideal by playing, as efficiently as she can, the part she has to play in the economy of nature and society. And thus we reach the conclusion of the whole matter. All human virtues are virtues for the woman no less than for the man. Let the woman, therefore, develop her sense of individual dignity, with a view to the complete ideal of human excellence. Let her value all good gifts, improve every talent, and scorn every deficiency in herself. But let her also keep her face turned towards womanly duties and womanly responsi bilities, with a modest pride in her household efficiency, her skill of hands, her social tact, her helpfulness in sickness-her womanly ability to make life within the house full of comfort, peace, and beauty. It is this ability to do work well within her own sphere, and the difference of that sphere, which makes the human excellence of the woman seem so different from that of the man ; and this ability, with the special development of qualities which it implies, is gained better by doing the work than by reflecting on specialities in the ideal of womanliness. She who improves her talents, keeps her conscience fixed on the great ideals of virtue, and also does her work well as it comes along, she will become a womanly woman, and be easily recognisable as such. IDEALS OF WOMANLINESS. 135 Suppose we could throw into a composite photograph all the ideals of manly virtues that have ever been depicted, and suppose we did this also with the ideals of womanliness. Each photograph would show all the features of human virtue, but the virtues emphasized in the composite ideal man would not be those em phasized in the composite ideal woman. The contrast noted by the old law writer would appear, and must appear, as a consequence of divergent spheres of duty —the individual dignity of the man, the sympathetic kindliness of the woman. • Let us now suppose the two composites superposed, and a third composite thus developed . The strong features of each would supplement the weak features of the other, and the complete human ideal, balanced and harmonious, would appear. Now, the conclusion to be drawn from this rambling discussion of ideals may be stated thus. Let each of us, whether man or woman, look to the complete ideal as that which we mean to become, and let each, at the same time, do well his or her own work. Character is the after growth ofactivities under the influence of ideals, and so manly men and womanly women come into being. The differences which nature has decreed lie very deep, in subtle contrasts of abilities and purpose, which the unity of ideal serves rather to heighten than to sup press . So, while each grows more like the other in the wholeness and unity of reason and right, the sweetness of diversity, remains to all time, " making one music, as before, but vaster." 1

PART II. EDUCATIONAL. 1"6 I. MORAL EDUCATION. FROM THE LEARNER'S POINT OF VIEW. IN considering the learner's view of any part of that process to which he is subjected under the name of education, it is essential to remember that learners are not all of the same kind. Learners differ more from one another as learners than they do as human beings in the general sense. The educational process presents to them totally different even opposite— aspects in different cases, and, when equally beneficial to all , it may be beneficial, nevertheless, in very various ways, each individual using it differently for the satis faction of his individual wants at the time. Broadly, we might distinguish two classes-( 1 ) the lovers of freedom, who tend to become idealists, and (2) the lovers of pleasure, who are naturally sensa tionalists. Both classes may be considered , to begin with, in their egoistic rather than their altruistic char acter. The first use their opportunities, and deal generally with circumstances, for the increase of their personal freedom, the second for the increase of present personal pleasure. The one learner grows good, if at all, by finding freedom in goodness, the other by find 139 140 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. ing pleasure. Let me not be misunderstood , however ; I do not mean that each person, or learner, belongs to one or other of two abstract classes such as those de scribed, but only that each, so far as he is a mere egoist, comes in a general way under one or other of the two ; one loves freedom more than pleasure, and the other loves pleasure more than freedom. More over, few persons, if any, are mere egoists. I submit that this is the main distinction to be observed in children as undeveloped moral agents ; and certainly the distinction of good and bad is most inappropriate and misleading as applied to them good and bad as ordinarily understood, namely, as comfortable or uncomfortable to the surrounding com munity. This latter distinction applies rightly to grown-up people only-the developed moral agents . These are fitly called good or bad from an external point of view, i.e. according as they produce weal or woe around them. But the truly desirable child is the child that will develop into such a good moral agent, and that child might be a very uncomfortable one at the outset. We know how sometimes the so- called bad children grow into valuable men and women, while the good children do not. The object of moral edu cation is to train up children who will be good men ; and children growing towards this goal may not al ways be the kind of children that are commonly called good. Children are simply moral material out of which morality develops itself according to its own laws. We have to supply the appropriate means of nutrition. We should therefore understand the moral bearing ofthe child's manifest tendencies-the condi MORAL EDUCATION. 141 tions of its moral growth-so that we make no mis takes, when we say, " This tendency, unchecked, will lead to good," or " This, unchecked, will lead to harm." Better let the wheat and tares grow together than take the wheat, in our blindness, for tares. In order to justify the distinction here made between the classes of freedom-loving and pleasure- loving children, it will be necessary to consider briefly the general nature of human agency. The object of moral education is to produce the right sort of human agent. What, then, is the inner characteristic of a human agent, and how does its agency become susceptible of that direction which is implied in the word " right " ? A human agent is a growing organism distinguished from all other growing and conscious organisms by the remarkable characteristic of self- consciousness . Such an agent is aware of itself as pursuing the objects which it does pursue ; and this awareness of self in pursuit, being a mode of consciousness frequently ex ercised, and always enjoyed when exercised, comes to be an ardently desired factor in all pursuits. All children, and vigorous children the most, delight in the exercise of their own voluntary activity, in their own choice of the things they shall do. Nurses and mothers, and even teachers, do not always understand this, and many times spoil half the fun , and more, by regulating the children's play for them, or suggesting overmuch. They do worse than spoil the fun some times ; they do their most to spoil the character by training responsible human agents not to choose-not to be responsible. In truth, it is just as wrong to train children not to choose as to allow them to grow 142 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. up quite wildly, choosing at mere pleasure without responsibility for the consequences. One practice is about as bad, and as indolent on the part of the edu cator, as the other. Because it is a self- conscious agent, a child has a will of its own ; it is self- willed , and, clearly, the energy of its self- will tends to be greater in proportion as its activity is vigorous and as its self- consciousness is vivid. In other words, its self- will is greater the more human it is ; it demands freedom, therefore, in its character of a human agent, intensely feeling its personality and eager to assert it. This may, and does, lead to uncomfortable results. Self- willed children are generally uncomfortable, and self- willed adults are frequently detestable. We dis tinguish them from selfish people- the self- indulgent --and despise them less, if at all, but we dislike them about as much. And, indeed, they are often much more inconvenient when they get in our way, and this for the simple but sufficient reason that they cannot be bribed. Not even power can bribe them if they are of the genuine self- willed sort : it is not power, but an infinite right of choice that they desire. It is not to be wished, therefore, that the self-willed child should. grow up into what is known as the self- willed man ; though we should by no means assume that he is likely to do so, without further inquiry into the funda mental sources of evil in this latter character. What then are these ? The self-willed person, so called, is hateful, not be cause he is self- willed, but because he is an egoist. His disagreeableness as an egoist is , however, specially MORAL EDUCATION. 143 noticeable because he has a vigorous will of his own . Thus he forces us to make war upon him when a more passive person of the same type would escape our hostility. But suppose he had a strong dash of al truistic feeling in him, could sympathise with our self willedness, and take more pleasure in a pursuit that satisfied all our wills than in one that satisfied only his. Suppose, further, that he had imagination enough to enter into our ideas of things to be done and objects to be pursued, and could find a wider field for the satisfaction of his energetic personality in these. Sup pose, lastly, that he was rational, that his mind was prone to take up, with respect to all its ideas, whether ideas of action or others, the universal attitude, so that no object could seem quite satisfactory unless it could be viewed as an object that ought to be, or might be, universally pursued. Suppose the self-willed man thus endowed, and where would be our hostility to him ? When thus endowed we choose him as a leader and follow him gladly, developing our own freedom in harmony with his, no less because he respects us than because he agrees with us. Now with a vigorous child it is more likely than not that his self- will should manifest itself while the other qualities which are its necessary complement are still in an incipient stage of development. Such a child may be very troublesome during childhood, but, with out much care, come quite right in the end . If, how ever, his incipient character is not very well balanced to begin with, one of two evils may befal. The child may be embittered by harsh repression and his sym pathies stunted, or he may be allowed by weakness to 144 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. grow up into wild unchecked egoism of the self- willed sort. The duty of the educator is simple enough when he understands it. Instead of devoting his main effort to the control of the stubborn will, he should apply him self to the development of those qualities the absence of which make it stubborn rather than simply strong-a ready sympathy, a quick, vivid, susceptible imagina tion, an ever- present reasonableness. When these are developed, he will thank heaven for his self- willed disciple, and forget the pains he has been at during the earlier period of growth. A child is self-willed because it is a self- conscious agent-human rather than animal. We should expect self-will, then, in children, and be anxious, rather than pleased, when we do not find it, or do not find it de cidedly. But a human agent, being self- conscious , has in tellect as well as will. He has ideas ; he can form ideas of objects to be attained, and finds satisfaction in the mere pursuit of them. It is, indeed, by the de velopment of this capacity up to the level of a habitual. tendency -even an impassioned tendency-that mere self- will is transfigured into the rational man's enjoy ment of his freedom to pursue with others the universal objects of pursuit. A cat lies down in the sun, because it is pleasant. A man toils day and night, although it is unpleasant, in order that he may fulfil his idea. That is his characteristic as man he acts for the accomplishment of an idea ; he pursues ideal ends, ignoring pleasure, often enduring pain. This is his law of life, his natural method of self development. He transforms himself from the inner MORAL EDUCATION. 145 man that he is into another, more developed, higher, inner man, by acting out ideas which are in advance of him. This saying may require explanation. A certain person, in a certain set of circumstances, would, without effort or deliberative thought, act spontaneously in a certain way. In that case, he may act quite rightly, but there is no new development of character implied. Imagine the circumstances to be more com plex, or demanding a greater effort-either intellectual or moral-adequately to meet them ; and suppose the person responds adequately as before. In that case, the response requires an exercise of mental activity— either a bringing to bear of old conceptions of duty on the case, or the formation of new ideas to envisage it. In both cases, ideas are brought into consciousness, with voluntary activity accompanying them ; the man acts in fulfilment of his idea, and thus either an old element of his character is strengthened or a new element developed. In either case character grows, and growth is life ; the inner man lives by such growth, and its law-the law of his human life —is the pursuit of ideal ends . I may become a better person than I am by living up to an idea that expresses better char acter than mine. Moreover it is no less true, and no less important, that the development of incipiently instinctive char acter, going on in response to the demands of circum stance, is continually purified and ennobled by the part which thought plays in modifying and controlling it. As instinct unfolds, ideas mould it to harmony with higher ideal ends. As self- conscious, the man sees himself in this L 146 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. idealising tendency of his ; he feels a satisfaction— sometimes a supreme satisfaction-in its unchecked. fulfilment ; he thinks himself in the truest sense free when he can pursue his ideal ends without hindrance from others, or from his own natural needs and de sires. It is strange, perhaps, that a man should not feel himself to be a slave to his idea when he pursues it unrestingly, while he does feel himself to be a slave to a desire for pleasure which fills his conscious ness. But so it is. We hold ourselves free when we are running after our ideas, and unfree when we pur sue our pleasures or avoid our pains . Our will seems to us to be incorporated in the idea for the time being, while it is swamped in the pleasure or pain . Our in stincts mould themselves to an idea, and are free in it, whereas mere feeling is apt to bind them only. Moreover, I am disposed to think that there is a peculiar sense of self-assertion which is very joyful in the act of idealising will . This sense marks the consciousness of new life --of developing character. The intellectual, self- conscious, self- developing agent has, therefore, a characteristic need. He re quires the ideal material of development, and is inspired with a longing for it that is as characteristic as it is common, and as common in practice as it is often in theory ignored. He longs for an idea which he can. live for, and become his fuller, richer, better self by realizing. An object in life, an ideal to fulfil, a cause to die for, a person to love self-devotedly-we all know perfectly well, when we tell ourselves the truth, that it is one of these we most need to make life worth living. We may preach a prudential morality some A MORAL EDUCATION. 147 times, because it seems so sane, and men are so selfish, ourselves included, we say ; but we know very well that no man ever satisfied his soul with prudence with the sanest selfishness-though many have tried . The only thing that can satisfy a human being is an object of devotion, not himself, for which he can feel it worthy of him to sacrifice himself without limit. No man is fully alive, who is not ready to die for some thing. And I hope I have indicated how this is psychologically possible, how it comes to pass that the characteristic law of human life, as we feel it in our most vivid moments, is not self-preservation, but self devotion passing into readiness for self- sacrifice. " He that loseth his life for My sake "-for some sake " shall find it." That human nature is not all of this high- pitched quality I readily admit, and shall have something to say about the other its complementary — quality presently. A human being is animal as well as human, sensational as well as ideational, merely sensitive as well as self- conscious. He has a generic, no less than a specific character, the latter being that aspect of his character which we have hitherto been considering. Our conclusion simply amounts to this, that the specific characteristic of a human agent lies in the adherence of his self-will to ideal objects, and that, consequently, his law of development is self- devotion for the sake of ideas, or other persons. Every true man, as such, is, in fact, a possible fanatic, and one result of a good education should be to keep him safe within the border- line that divides the hero from the fanatic . For this, if his rationality be not highly developed, a 148 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. 66 measure of sane earthliness —a keen delight in the pleasant things of life-may be very necessary. But, most of all, rationality-the seeing of all things from a universal standpoint-keeps the fanatic within us— the high-strained, over- reaching idealism of an ex aggerated humanity-well in check. And it is worth notice that our rationality does this for us very com monly, and most effectively, in the shape of a keen sense for the humorous side of things. When our zeal for an idea is disproportionate to the true, uni versal value of the idea, and when we are rational enough to see this, it is naturally the sense of incon gruity between the value of our idea and the value we set on it that affects us most vividly. We are amused at ourselves while continuing to be ourselves ; we per sist in our way, but with a quiet, inward laughter to ourselves at our own expense. This keeps us sane, or is the expression of our sanity, since it indicates con tinued consciousness of the wider view which should be kept in mind, and which concentration on our own special objects tends to destroy. Humour is, in short, a sign that enthusiasm and rationality co- exist ; and if they co- exist there must be humour, because there must be intellectual incongruity lurking in us some where. So idealising persons and idealising races are apt to be humorous in so far as they are rational ; and manifestly their capacity for ideas implies accessibility to ideas, and this is a main cause of rationality. Thus the enthusiast, the humorist, and the thinker are simultaneous growths from the stem of human nature ; and the characteristic one- sided development of each the fanatic, the funny person, and the mere theorist در MORAL EDUCATION. 149 spring up side by side within the same race, or even family, and under the same conditions of civilization . We may not then despise the lowlier elements of our nature—the claims of the non- ideal and sensitive self that cries out in pain to be let alone, when we drag it hither and thither regardlessly after the ideas with which we identify ourselves-that raises its voice, too, in grumblings more or less pronounced, when it wants its little pleasures and does not get them. Now a "sane earthliness " consists in not despising over much, in attending reasonably to the claims of the sensitive self, and in doing this, not from some high and lofty motive, but naturally, spontaneously, enjoy ingly. A good person does not pursue pleasure habitually does not make pleasure his ideal object ; but a sane person takes in all that comes along, enjoys himself on every opportunity, and does so in thoroughly commonplace, barbarian ways-the more barbarian the better, because barbarian pleasures are the natural ones by which the organic needs of the system are spontaneously satisfied, and health kept up. It is better, because more wholesome, to enjoy fresh air, food, and exercise, than to enjoy the thousand and one excitements of a London season . Generically, the human agent is a sensitive organism, aware of pleasure and pain, choosing the former, shun ning the latter. Respect for these impulses of his sensitive life is the safeguard of his physical well being. It pleases him to do or to bear that which his physical constitution-and this implies his formed character-fits him to do and to bear. So far as he respects the pleasure- impulse merely, his constitution , 150 STUDIES IN CHARACTER RACTE . therefore, would remain stationary. It is his impulse to transcend the limits of this present constitution that carries on his development ; and this impulse, as we have seen, attaches to ideas and pours itself out in their pursuit. The transcending impulse is an ideal ising impulse-attaching sometimes, when the sympa thies are more roused than the intellect, to the bare idea of another person's will ; under its influence , development of character goes on, and the claims of the pleasure- impulse become secondary. When, how ever, the pleasure-impulse is not kept in its proper, most useful place, but rules supreme, then we have stagnation of character on the one hand, imperturbable egoism on the other. This is an egoism very different from that of the self- willed, freedom- loving egoist ; for the self-willed egoist has a direct tendency to es cape from the pleasure- impulse into ideas, to satisfy himself by the sacrifice of himself for the sake of such objects of devotion as he finds in his surround ings most worthy and adequate in idea ; he satisfies his egoism, in fact, by absolute unselfishness, and every thing depends on giving him a fair chance of such satisfaction in a manner that shall be beneficial to all persons, and that shall not be destructive of his phy sical well- being. His surroundings should not be such as either to exhaust his idealising aspiration by too much work, or to destroy his sane earthliness by too little exercise . The egoism of the pleasure-seeker is a very different thing. You may make him work by rewards and punishments, strictly at the level of his present capacity for enjoyment. You may utilise what sympathies he has to make him act kindly and MORAL EDUCATION. 151 considerately to other people. You may utilise like wise his intellectual tastes , either for his good or the good of the community, but always used by him be cause he enjoys the use. You may do more : you may teach him that it is for his interest in the long run to be useful to other people, and even to act as if the service of others were his inspiring motive ; and within cer tain limits your teaching will be true and he may learn from it. You may enlighten his self-interest as much as you like, and may thus help him to turn into a harmless, even a useful, member of society. And you may go further : you may call this process moral edu cation. And now what have you done ? Your disciple was almost certainly not a pleasure- seeker, pure and simple, with no love of freedom, no joy in ideas, no latent, ever so feeble, aspiration for the life of self- devotion , without which there is not, in the best sense at least , any true morality. You have taken a being feebly marked with the divine image of a genuine humanity, and treated it as if it were not marked at all. You have appealed to the mere pleasure-impulse of its lower nature all along the line, and utilised even sympa thy and intellect to feed this, thus concentrating all the superior energies of humanity on a permanent purpose of selfishness. And under the guise of a pru dent, sensible, respectable, church- going, debt - paying, charity-giving man, you have produced a monster-a debased human being-with all the capacities that should make it at one with all men, turned downwards, and inwards, and backwards upon itself. The egoism of a child, or a savage, is nothing, because their de 152 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. velopment is in the egoistic stage, but the selfishness. of the civilized man is a calculated monstrosity-a perversion of natural development. Yet the produc tion of such monstrosities is the inevitable tendency of any moral education of which prudence or “ en lightened self- interest " is the keynote. I have spoken of the great contrast of moral char acter as that between the lovers of freedom aud the lovers of pleasure ; and I hope it is now made plain that the contrast is a very fundamental one indeed. In short, the lovers of freedom are moral material, the lovers of pleasure are non-moral material-not im moral, quite the contrary-but non-moral simply. I do not believe, however, that any child is a mere pleasure- lover ; and, clearly, if the preceding conten tion be right, education is bound to assume for any child that he has the moral leaven in him, that he can respond to ideas, is capable of self- devotion. As suming this for all children , their positive moral education lies evidently along the lines of appeal to their genuine moral side. But when the pleasure impulse is strong-the child practically a pleasure seeker-a negative moral education is also necessary, in order that the moral impulses may get a fair chance of growth. And this leads to a statement of the practical con clusions to which our inquiry so far has led. Let us take the side of negative moral education first . The non-moral tendency in human nature, which becomes, if disproportionate, an anti- moral tendency, is the pleasure- impulse, including the disposition to shirk effort as painful. When this is disproportionate, we MORAL EDUCATION. 153 have the character recognised as self-indulgent on one side, as indolent on the other. These two character istics, and the latter to a greater degree than the former, are genuine " tares." No industry should be spared to root them out. The self- indulgent child must be disciplined to endure discomforts for the sake of endurance. The indolent child must be disciplined to work till work grows less distasteful. Labour and endurance are the sine quâ non of all moral ability ; and they are only to be got by labour and endurance. So essential is practice in labour and endurance that these must be forced, if necessary, though the widest possible room should be left for the play of free motives. And about the rewards which are used as free motives, and the punishments which represent the occasional necessity of force, I will say one word, and no more. They should both appeal to the highest level of the child's character on which it is possible to get footing for a motive at the time. A lazy child is really raised when induced to work for honour or the fear of shame. So far as a child is what as "the father of the man" it ought not to be, moral education is negative, opposed to the wishes of the educated in the main, and therefore unpleasant. Children will never like this side of their education, and only put up with it cheerfully when they are surrounded by a complete wall of discipline, beyond which it does not occur to them to attempt escape. If, however, they are in dulged at home and disciplined at school, they will be inward rebels always in the latter place, and this will add very much to their mental discomfort. A dis 154 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. cipline equally rigid, and equally elastic, at all points is the true desideratum. In saying that children do not like this side of their education, I mean the negative side strictly, and by no means include the whole of discipline. The same discipline has to them, in fact, a positive aspect, which they soon learn to enjoy. They love freedom ; they find it by a ready acquiescence in the discipline—the order of things-that surrounds them. The freedom loving child hates to be pulled up short for wrong doing, but is all the more ready, for that very reason , to fling his will into compliance with the existing order of things, if you only just give the child room enough to choose . I have noticed again and again how the vigorous personalities enjoy, and respond to, the steady discipline of a large school. They dislike being checked for breach of law, but they like, never . theless, to have a law to live by, and an exacting law too. Moreover, they like to have it strictly adminis tered, perhaps because laxity is the source to which their own occasional breaches, and therefore correc tions, may be chiefly traced. I Discipline, then, is a positive, as well as a negative means of moral education, and the means, probably, through which a generally sound sense of the rights and wishes of others is attained . The discipline is for the good of all, and the children in a good school or family know this, and through discipline learn to identify themselves with the common good. The second, or perhaps it should be the first, means is the development of the sympathies in home life, school life, and social life generally. This should be ་ཁ MORAL EDUCATION. 155 the work of the home above all, and I fear that well to-do homes do it rather badly. We want an unselfish , not a selfish, development of sympathies, a develop ment that will give scope and aim to the self- sacrific ing impulse which is the key-stone of morality. The family should demand service from all its members, and, in its less important degree, the school should do the most that it can do to promote development of the spirit of willing service. And there is one great lesson which we can be al ways teaching, directly and indirectly--the lesson that the world has, in a hundred ways, need for the whole hearted services of every one among us . The sorrows, the wants, the aspirations, the possibilities of the community in which we live —the knowledge of these it is that most inspires the spirit of self- sacrifice within us. But it is not enough to know ; some thing-ever so little-should be done, not as a part of the school organisation, but voluntarily, spontaneously from among the children themselves. A little doing, the little that they can, will keep the spirit of service fresh and make it strong while they are young, and by and-by they will be able to reap a richer moral harvest of good deeds done. And so I would sum up the duty of moral education very simply. Make war relentlessly on self- indulgence and indolence ; and see that children have a chance to find supplies for all those moral needs which are so real to them-a law of life to act within, persons to love, causes to be enthusiastic about, a community to serve, and, if you can, a worthy leader to follow. II. THE CAUSES AND CURE OF SOME MORAL DEFECTS. To those whose business it is to watch over the de velopment of thought and character in a great variety of persons, and under a great variety of circumstances, the conceptions of health and ill - health are seen to apply to conditions of mind as naturally as they apply to conditions of body. Health and its failure are facts of the intellect and facts of the character no less than they are facts of the physical organism. A healthy person is healthy in all respects, every organ doing its work efficiently without undue waste, and all organs working together without strain to the pro duction in the world of those effects which are best. But no person is healthy, however excellent may be his physique, whose thoughts are at war either with themselves or with the nature of things, or whose character is discordant and out of joint. Health is of healthy consciousness, no less than of healthy physical constitution . Our present concern is with certain discordances of character which arise very evidently from failures in healthy development at definite points. To understand 156 CAUSES AND CURE Of moral dEFECTS. 157 such moral discordances, as particular failures from goodness, or defects at particular points in the de velopment of wholesome moral character, is to under stand their causes, and thus obtain a clue to their cure. The cause may lie in personal innate idiosyn crasies, and the power of the educator to control it will then be small, though by no means zero. Or the cause may lie in unfavourable circumstances giving the wrong turn to development at some point, and then the power of the wise educator is great indeed . It is , in fact, with the control of circumstances that his business mainly lies. He has to see that the right social demands, of the right magnitude, and at the right time, are made upon the developing personality. He has, moreover, to observe the effects that are pro duced in each special case, in order that we may adjust the demand, so far as may be, to the personal idiosyncrasy of that case. For instance, suppose we were to find that an occasion for self- denial and kind ness, to which one child heartily responds, produces no reaction in another-except, perhaps, an extra hug to his natural selfishness-this should be to us a sign that we must present him with easier occasions for the exercise of his feeble self-denying powers, carefully increasing the doses as we find they will be taken . We should not shrug our shoulders and simply mark him down as permanently selfish. Duty here is evident enough, but it is not so evident that a simi lar power lies in our hands throughout almost the whole, if not the whole, range of average moral growth. Nothing more needs to be said in general defence 158 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. • of the practical value of our inquiry. This is an inquiry into the rise of moral ill- health as a negative, rather than a positive, evil—as a defect of health—as a failure to develop after the manner of a healthy, vigor ous human being, under the normal circumstances of human life. Congenital peculiarities there may be, to be sure, which, like prejudices in the realm of intel lect, bias the development of character all along the line. Some persons will always be a little vulgar, though surrounded with refinement from first to last ; some could not become vulgar under any circum stances whatsoever. Some, again, are born with a will unshakable by fear ; some are constitutionally timid. Idiosyncrasies like these qualify a man's virtue or vice-stamp it with the stamp of his per sonal character ; but, for the most part, they do not prevent his growth-though there are exceptions along normal lines, under normal circumstances. The disturbing effect of abnormal circumstances we all know well enough. Indeed, we are, perhaps, only too apt to put down all defects of character-especi ally in our own character-to the warping effect of early circumstances. Now, it must be noted that cir cumstances cannot be normal throughout the whole, or even the greater part, of life. They are likely to be abnormal more often than not, and it is just in the management of these abnormal circumstances that the strength, the grit, of a character-its heroic temper manifests itself, so that luxury does not enervate, nor suffering subdue. But, to make this clear, it is neces sary to define the idea of normal circumstances as here used. By normal circumstances in any special portion CAUSES AND CURE OF MORAL DEFECTS. 159 of life, I mean those circumstances, the management of which, by a vigorous unprejudiced growing person, tends to the development of such character in that person as will fit him for the management of life as a whole. Abnormal circumstances, therefore, are those that tend to warp this growing, but not grown, char acter ; while they serve to test the temper of the character already formed. It is our business, then, to maintain for youth the general condition of normal cir cumstance, while we use the abnormal also for neces sary occasional trials. Under such circumstances, a character must either grow healthily, or show itself to be inadequate to the circumstances. In the latter case, it will be our busi ness to adapt them to it more carefully. A defect in the person, or a bias, must be met by some emphasis in the circumstances tending to the remedy of the defect. can. I will not, indeed, venture to assert that, in dealing with mere defects of development, we can cover the whole ground of moral evil. No one, however, will deny that we can thus lay bare the sources of much wrong, and no vexed question of psychology is raised by the proposal to lay bare in this way as much as we An abundant stock of moral ill certainly has its source in arrest of development and the stunted, or one- sided, types of character which result. To take one example only, we know how detestable the strong-willed child may become if his sympathies fail to develop in due course. By- and-by we have the headstrong over-bearing man, a positive person enough to all appearance, but in truth an evil one only 160 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. in so far as he is negative, combining stunted sym pathies with well- grown will. To understand ill- health as defect, however, we must first understand the nature of health. We can not understand the failure of human attempt to live and grow aright, without keeping in view the char acter of the same attempt when tending towards success. All defect implies a standard, the failure to reach which constitutes the defect, and neither stan dard nor defect can, in this case, be understood, with out reference to that process of growth in which moral life consists, and which is at once the manifestation of formed character and its means of formation. Let us pass on, then, to consider the process of healthy de velopment, and the opportunities for defect which it opens up at its several stages. (1) A morally healthy person-a person who is going to be decidedly good-begins life with a vigor ous will of his own. This may make him troublesome at first-it probably does-but it is the essential con dition of his moral life, notwithstanding. He loves the exercise of his own will -his self- will-and resists forcible efforts to repress it. Efforts which are not merely forcible he does not thus resent and resist. Such efforts are those which commend themselves to him in either of two ways. They may commend themselves as leading to some end which he feels to be good, and for the sake of which he, by an act of higher will, chooses his own self- repression ; or they may commend themselves to him as originating in some source of another's will which he feels to be good, and yields to as one yields to a better self. In either CAUSES AND CURE OF MORAL DEFECTS. 161 of these ways will is controlled by itself : it is not repressed ; there is no force and no resentment. Force may be necessary-it often is, no doubt, in this semi- barbarous world of ours ; but use it, and the self- respecting will must resist it as force. And a self-respecting will is so essential an element in the basis of character that too much stress cannot be laid on the duty of the educator to respect, above all things, every other will. Self- will must, indeed, be con trolled, but it should be controlled, if possible, through self. The control of the child's will in early years is the first difficulty the parent has to face, and there are two great dangers for the child. Force may be used to crush his will by fear, or bribery may be used to corrupt his will by pleasure. The former used to be the common case, and we shall never know what we have lost by the creation of feeble-willed men and women in consequence. The latter is, however, in all probability the commoner practice in our own time. Rewards for doing what " mother " says, pleasures in store for the good, obedient children—these things do not make good, obedient children ; they only make children who prefer the pleasures which can be got by the help of others to the joy that pertains to the exer cise of their own self- will. The result is not that spirit of true obedience which is virtue, but that far other result, a will habitually subservient to pleasure motives, a being pliant, soft- willed, and pleasure loving. Here then we have, at the root of the moral nature, two possibilities of defect-feebleness of will, or in M 162 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. dolence, and corruption of will, or self-indulgence. And in finding them, we find how they may be caused, and see also how they may be cured, by a treatment opposite to that which caused them. The feeble- willed child needs encouragement to assert his individual will, to act for himself, to choose for the sake of choosing ; and to this end he should be taught carefully to realize that he is responsible for his actions, whether emanating from his choice or not. Adam, in the garden of Eden, said, " The woman gave it to me, and I did eat, ” but he was held responsible for his actions nevertheless ; and this is the great lesson to be taught to persons of feeble will and persons of arbitrary will, alike . Days in every year are devoted mainly to the chil dren's enjoyment. Let them choose and plan their own arrangements on such days. Also let them be encouraged to initiate plans of work, and left to choose their own ends and means. The pleasure-loving, self-indulgent child needs a different emphasis in his training, though he and all need the lesson of responsibility. He has to deliver himself from a subordination of will to pleasure, and one means to this end is clearly the reassertion of the normal person's joy in the exercise of will as such- of will and its superiority to mere pleasure. It is a commonplace to say that there is a slavery ni the pursuit of pleasure. From this slavery it is a real joy to set oneself free, and it is this joy in the freedom from the slavery of pleasure which the pleasure- lover does not sufficiently feel. The problem is-How can he be made to feel it more ? Evidently, the answer, CAUSES AND CURE OF MORAL DEFECTS. 163 so far, is that he can only learn to better appreciate freedom from pleasure by gaining a larger experience of its joys ; and that experience comes only from practice in the renunciation of pleasure for freedom— the practice of self- denial under any and all respect able motives. The value of self-denial as such is the justification of asceticism in its proper place ; and the fact that human nature loves to feel itself independent of plea sure-claims is the reason why asceticism is possible and may be popular. This root of asceticism is , no doubt, more or less in every human being ; but in these days it does not, doubtless, get enough chance of growthto make it an adequate set-off to the natural love of pleasure, which also is in every one, and which gets chances far too many. Self- denial as such is not, be it remembered, a mere negative : it is the positive assertion of human dignity as superior to the claims of the passing pleasure. Wants and desires may be, like many possessions, keenly felt as burdens on the actively moving soul-fetters which hamper our liberty of will. (2) A person with a vigorous, uncowed, and unbribed will naturally requires some object towards the fulfil ment of which that will may be directed, in devotion to which the person may be satisfied. An object, not ourselves, is the most characteristic human need of every one of us. This comes out in various ways that are not specially ethical. The object may be a person to be admired or, still better, a person to be served ; and in the combination we have the devotion of the lover at its best. Or the object may be a result to be 164 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. attained-political, social, scientific-and the devotee is an enthusiast for his " cause," for his idea of a change to be made in his world. These are the two main types of objects-persons and ideas-in'devotion to either of which the human mind finds its best satis faction. The individual as such-as self-willed rather than self-indulgent-finds a means of expressing his individuality, of pouring forth his soul in life, just in so far as, and no farther than, he finds it possible to lose himself in interests outside self. In the life of the affections, for the sake of other persons, he can be content, and in the fulfilment of ideals or the develop ment of knowledge he can find satisfaction . Either enthusiasm, or both, he requires. Help to find a worthy object of service is one of the duties which the educator owes the child. The vigorous individual needs an object, but it does not at once follow that he will find that object, though it is true that the good person is good just because his affections and intellectual aspirations grow to supply the needed object of devotion, and expand, moreover, as they grow, to become the two great enthusiasms for humanity and for truth which most emphatically characterize a noble personality. Nature may fail to grow these, but we can assist Nature. The actual service of others and inquiry after truth are the means to their growth. A man may be heartless, or have a " cold heart," as we sometimes say. In that case he is simply a person who grows little or no affections, and whose aspirations, if they exist, have no motive urgency. He may be no pleasure-lover, might even have an CAUSES AND CURE OF MORAL DEFECTS. 165 ascetic turn ; he might have a strong will and an able intellect. Such a man must either degenerate into an intellectual machine or develop into a soulless ambition. Few such persons exist, but persons tending to become such do exist. Want of sympathy is the most striking defect here, and exists in persons who are not selfish in the sense of aiming much at their own enjoyment. But from want of sympathy, itself a complex fact, flow other ills-not only coldness, but every other ill that comes from failure to enter into the thoughts and feelings of others. There are several varieties of this defect. Here is a person with limited intellect, always well- satisfied with his own opinion, though all the world should differ from him—so content with his own little candle of wisdom that he refuses to believe there can be anything outside its range. A mind shut up to the common-sense around it, an intellect that cannot be invaded by new ideas-such make the self-sufficient man, who may also be called narrow-minded. powerful intellect is a great help to escape narrow mindedness, but a broad, sympathetic nature is at least as important. This man's defect is of intellectual sympathy; he needs training to understand the thoughts of others . A Here is another with self-will still in the abstract stage-a stage natural enough to children -who, at a time when self- will should be merged in the pursuit, with others, of objects on which the common weal depends, is self-willed in the perverse sense of hating to do anything which any one else has called upon 166 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. him to do. We meet, occasionally, the extreme case of a man who will do nothing unless he is at the head of the whole concern. Persons with such wills show themselves as tyrannical in power and perverse when out of it . Their defect is in sympathy with other wills ; this would make them, if they had it, easily obedient to respected persons in authority, and ready to co operate with others pleasantly. They are defective, moreover, in aspirations, which would make them eager to co- operate with any one in carrying out the common end. The fault, as seen, is a blustering, sensitive self- will . Self- sufficiency may take another form in self conceit. The vain man desires absurdly the good opinion of others as a gnarantee that he is entitled to have a good opinion of himself. The conceited man has the good opinion, and desires no guarantee. He cannot easily be made to disapprove of himself by blame from others. His cure lies, first, in the develop ment of his imagination and sympathies, till he can appreciate outside opinion, and then , if still necessary, let it be given to him in careful doses. But a course of merely stamping on him produces no effect . This is easily forgotten, and we are all too apt to depend on the stamping process -for conceited children more especially. (3) It is important not to confuse vanity with conceit. Vanity might be described as an amiable weakness, incident to natures which combine keen sympathies with a strong consciousness of self as an object to be perceived and judged. Now so far as we think of ourselves we ought to desire our perfection, CAUSES AND CURE OF MORAL DEFECTS. 167 but those who are very open to the impressions of other minds become liable to desire approbation too much, and for its own sake, and this is vanity. It lies in excessive consciousness of self, and of the opinions of others at the same time. If we forget either our selves or others a little, vanity vanishes like a morning mist. But, it may be said, if vanity lies in excessive concentration of thought on one's own character, with an excessively anxious eye to the approbation of others, how then can it come into the category of defect ? It does so, because this excessive concentration of thought on one's own character is itself rooted in defec tive regard to the normal objects of human anxiety and aspiration. The perfection of my character is important to me, and the guarantee of society's approval is not to be despised . Let us care for these things, and care much-we cannot care too much. But let us think more of the objects of moral activity, both great and small. Let our attention be given less to our own perfections than to their fulfilment. Exercise mind, and let character grow, by thought and action that have not our personal minds and characters, but the moral ideas of right and use for their end, the estab lishment of justice, truth, and loving-kindness in the hearts and minds of men. Let us retain always our fundamental moral character of self- devotedness, and, though we care for our perfection and the evidence of it ever so much, we cannot then care too much. Vanity is defect of idealism-lack of enthusiasm for the ideas outside self. What shall we say of am bition-that "last infirmity of noble minds, " as the poet calls it? The term is often applied more in 168 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. praise than blame, and it appears to be used in very various senses in ordinary discourse. More especially it seems that by ambition men very commonly under stand desire for fame. This is vanity, however, and no doubt most would admit that there is more in am bition than mere love of fame. Let us separate out that something more, which seldom, perhaps, is found without a little mixture of the nobler vanity ; and for the convenience of distinction and classification , let us take this as the essential characteristic of am bition. That characteristic may be described as the desire of achievement for its own sake, the thirst of the individual for deeds done by his own hand or brain. I need not pause to prove that this thirst is as real an element in human character as the desire for pleasure or the love of renown, and experience of any consistent use of the term ambition bears witness in favour of the statement that a man is called more or less ambitious according as he possesses more or less of this thirst mingled with his other permanent desires. But it matters little whether we call this quality ambition or not. The quality exists, and am bition is a name by which it can be called . A man may be too ambitious-he may care too much to be the doer of great deeds. Just so, as we have seen, he may be too anxious about the perfection of his own character. Is not the root of the evil the same in both cases ? Is not the excess merely rela tive, and grounded in defect ? He cannot care too much to be the doer of great deeds, if he cares always more that the deeds should be done. The test of character at this point of development is simple, but CAUSES AND CURE OF MORAL DEFECTS. 169 very hard. Can I , with full energy to do and desire to achieve, stand aside and let the work be done by another whose opportunities are better than mine ? If I care more for the deeds than for the doing of them, yes. If not, I cling to power till displaced . Thus the vain man and the unduly ambitious man both fail of goodness, because they think more of themselves than of their object ; they lack self- de votedness or rather they lack the idealism in which self- devotedness finds its outlet. The vain man forgets the object he was pursuing, to bask in the sunshine of his own graceful goodness, as guaranteed by popular applause. His enjoyment of basking may become a disease, so that he seeks applause at last, and not the fulfilment of the object. The ambitious man likewise forgets, while his soul concentrates itself on the fulfilment of the object as his, and not as the idea to be realized in the world . Would you help to guard the children from growing up to the folly of vanity and strained ambition ? Then see to it that opportunities fail not to cultivate idealism and self-devotedness . This defect is a failure of idealism, the pure unselfish spirit of devotion to objects thought to be good. Such a spirit lifts us certainly to a safe height above the levels on which ambition and vanity thrive. But we have not finished yet ; one last question must be briefly asked . How, if the beginning in self- devotion and idealism has been made, is it possible that a failure should take place later on ? (4) We know that it is not uncommon for young people to start in life as enthusiasts ; but, as time 170 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. goes on, and high ideals are slow to fulfil themselves, enthusiasm fades. Gradually, but surely, the ideals are given up, and the man continues his way, working for money, for honour, for occupation, but for hu manity and truth no longer. How are we to guard character from the effects of those disappointments to idealism, those shocks to enthusiasm which are certain to take place ? What is the defect here ? He who despairs lacks faith, and faith is three-fold. Either he is dull, and does not see the great good that there is in every little good done ; or he is cold, and soon wears out a skin- deep emotional enthusiasm ; or he lacks a certain quality of will doggedness-which carries many a faithful soul un faltering on, when hope grows dim, and love grows cold. - strenuousness, "When deeds in hours of insight willed, Shall be in hours of gloom fulfilled . " It is more of this quality of will that is needed-this faithful, loyal temperament that cannot put its hand to the plough and afterwards lightly turn back. A persistent will-patient and unfaltering -above all things it is well to nurse this quality in children faithfulness to the work once taken in hand, be it ever so trivial. Faithfulness is the backbone of faith, and without faith enthusiasm will fade or flicker, after which virtue will be very moderate indeed . And faithfulness implies a sense of duty, a habit of taking conduct as a series of acts that ought to be done, or as pledges that ought to be fulfilled -a sense of re sponsibility for the accurate and thorough fulfilment of every piece of work. CAUSES AND CURE OF MORAL DEFECTS. 171 Attempt has been made to show, though very im perfectly, how, through all the stages of moral growth, abundant opportunity for failure of development and the creation of moral defect exists. I have tried thus to indicate cause, and thereby to hint at means of cure. The healthy man, the relatively perfect man, is he who retains, from first to last, a steady spirit of self devotion to right ideals, backed by the vigorous and persistent self- will which is the root of faithfulness and of enthusiasm alike. The wise educator is quick to see defect from this constantly changing and developing standard, and to apply nourishment and stimulus wherever he sees defect. It is his business no less , or rather more, to prevent the occurrence of defect so so far as may be, by the control of circumstances in school or home life, so that material for right develop ment may never be lacking. It is his business to train the strong will to be its own controller, and to stimulate the weak will by due encouragement, to develop initiative and practical originality in both, while cultivating sympathy in the strong more especially. On that cultivation of sym pathy much of his labour turns. To this he looks for the prevention, and even cure, not only of headstrong will, but of coldness, conceit, and narrow-mindedness, in all their forms. It is his business , too, to sow the seeds and water the germs of self- denying will, as it asserts itself in opposition to the slavery of self- indulgence. And much will depend on the opportunities which he supplies in developing that spirit of enthusiasm, ideal ism, and self- devotion, which gives life and point and 172 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. purpose to character, and without which it must surely relapse into dull selfishness sooner or later. The teacher, no less than the parent, has a mighty power in stimulating that growth of intellectual interests , moral aspirations, and social affections, out of which spring ofthemselves the great enthusiasms that make life worth living. And, lastly, upon the teacher, even more perhaps than upon the parent, it depends that the child shall be trained in the ways of faithful , steady adherence to work and responsibilities once undertaken. III. “ UGLY DUCKLINGS." I HAVE been asked by several persons what my ugly ducklings are, and some have even suggested that this essay should be called by some more intelligible name. To this suggestion, however, I have paid no heed. When I was a little girl, I remember once coming to the conclusion that, after all, the principal use of a sermon lay in the fact that it drew one's attention to a text which thenceforward became subject for reflec tion. And this is just the case with the present essay ; its chief use is that it may, as I hope, draw fresh attention to the very suggestive idea of ugly ducklings on which Hans Andersen has based his well known fairy tale. Still, as the treatment of the " ugly duckling " does involve some difficulties even to those who are already impressed by the moral of that tale, I do not intend to limit myself to the single remark, however useful, that parents and teachers should study that moral. The ugly ducklings which concern us are the dis agreeable, and unpromising, and unmanageable, and otherwise, as it seems to us, " nasty " children with which we have, sometimes at least, to do ; and the 173 174 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. particular ugly ducklings which, like Hans Andersen's, prove to be young swans unrecognised, are the children of the corresponding description which we hastily disapprove, and rest content with disapproving and repressing. The ducks in the pond made three mis takes : ( 1 ) they dwelt unduly on the fact that the cygnet was uglier at the present than the ducklings ; ( 2) they thought he was a duckling, and judged him by the inappropriate standard of ducklinghood ; (3) they saw him just as he was-ugly-and had no perception of the future swan, such as his kindred the swans would have had. The three mistakes are, indeed, aspects of the same mistake, but they merit separate consideration. (1 ) The duckling is ugly ; and the human ducks fail to see that the more valuable character may be the one that implies early stages of ugliness from which less valuable characters are exempt. The more elabo rate moral structure may indeed be expected to require a longer preliminary course of collecting materials than the more simple one ; and, while this accumu lation of moral material is going on, the structure is probably delayed, and some form of moral chaos, with perhaps unpleasant predominance of one or more ele ments, is not unlikely. The simpler character, on the other hand, takes shape readily, and is fit for life in its simpler, less useful, way at an earlier date ; but its fitness for life is only after its own elementary fashion : it settles early, and by-and- by fails to rise to the higher moral difficulties when they come, while, if severely tried, it may break down altogether before the end. • "UGLY DUCKLINGS.” 175 Examples abound in the experience of most of us, if we only reflect on it. Let us consider a few typical contrasted cases. First, there is the case of the good obedient child who becomes the morally feeble or even worthless. man. How is it that the beautiful duckling turns out so commonplace or even irresponsible? Can it be that his goodness meant only the absence of a self- assert ing individuality, troublesome indeed in unreasonable children, but valuable in reasonable men ; that his obedience implied, besides, the absence of any capa city for relying on himself ? If so, he was always a nonentity, always irresponsible ; and we have wrongly approved of this mere negation of character as virtue, because it gave us, forsooth, no trouble ; we saw no difference between it and the real goodness of a strong will set amid the self- acting checks of a genuine moral character. Compare with this the headstrong child whose self- will breaks through all external control, who will not be controlled and does not yet control himself, who is a trouble, if not a grief, to all his friends, but who grows into the energetic, self- reliant, self- con trolled , and earnest man, on whom other persons are ready to depend, and who is as thorough-going in his goodness as in most other things. The naughty boy was naughty because he was a big self with a strong self- will before he had thought enough to rationalise that self, and thus bring that self-will into harmony with other-will and moral ends generally. But his big self and his strong self-will, and his hatred of external control, as external, he keeps throughout. He abolishes 176 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. "must " and even " ought " in his phrasing of moral duty, and adopts their content under the form of "will. " Wemust be careful, however, to distinguish between this kind of young swan and the true ugly duckling of mere self-indulgence. Self- will, as we understand it, and self- indulgence have indeed nothing in common; but they are often confused, and by none more than the self- indulgent people who love to fancy them selves asserting their individuality as free agents, when in reality they are only fighting for their own miserably personal whims and fancies. The self- willed child wants to act freely for himself ; the self- indulgent desires to have his own way, and rather than lose it, will be satisfied to pretend submission. The wheat and the tares are very different, though not unfre quently they look alike. Waywardness has to be cured by some means ; wilfulness has to be fostered, and supplemented by reason. The obstinate child, so- called , is another variety of the species to which the headstrong child belongs. If wilfulness takes the form of a strong self-will resisting the intrusion of other-will into its affairs , the ducks call it self-will, perversity, and so on, and lead it a hard life accordingly. If, however, it takes the form of self- will, i.e. persistence in a course of action once initiated, then the ducks when they disapprove call it obstinacy. Here we see the persistent will refusing to suspend itself, or doing so at the cost of considerable suffering. And this we call obstinacy, and trample on blindly. Let it be granted that the child is wrong in the object of his persistence. Our remedy lies in the "UGLY DUCKLINGS.” 177 endeavour to make him see his error that he may re consider his resolve, not in placarding him as obstinate because he does not easily cease to persist. It is not his persistence that is wrong, but his refusal to reason, if he does refuse. Again, we must distinguish this from the true obstinacy of waywardness. This indicates, not per sistence of will, but defect of efficiency in the action of all but certain motives, chiefly selfish ones, on that will. The distinction is an important one, though somewhat difficult to detect in some cases. But, after all, it may be said-Is not persistence in way funda mentally the same as persistence in will ? Certainly not ; persistence in mere way, as such , indicates either the predominance of the motives which direct that way over all other motives which may be appealed to in opposition to them, or a certain imperviousness of mind to the entrance of motives. The second is the characteristic of obstinacy proper. It is, in fact, very much like that kind of intellectual stupidity which we call " density," if it is not, as I believe it is, the volun tary form of the very same thing. Just as the " dense " intellect sets up a wall of what we call stupidity between it and a new idea, so does the obstinate mind set up a thickset hedge of what we call obstinacy between it and a new motive. (Query :-How much stupidity is obstinacy, and how much obstinacy is stupidity ?) A person of persistent will cannot easily be stopped, but he may be impressed ; a person of persistent way cannot be impressed, but he may be stopped. Another kind of beautiful, but disappointing, duckling is the quick, ready child, wide-awake to every N 178 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. passing impression, and, on this account, apparently so easy to teach ; but concerning whom, later on, it turns out that his wide-awakeness proceeds from the fact that his attention is, as it were, spread out ex ternally on the surface of his experience, so that there is none to spare for attention to the genuine business of thinking experience through and through. His mind is for the most part on or towards the outside, and lacks the clear depths of inward reflection, Now, outwardness is very good in its way ; it means the beginnings of observation and thought, but it means no more. Therefore this kind of mind promises well in the little child ; but the promise cannot be fulfilled , or will not be without much educational labour devoted to that end. Place, side by side with this, the seemingly dull child, who is deaf and blind at times, to the great annoyance of his parents and teachers, but this because his habitual attention is inward, not outward ; be cause it is not his way of thought to spread out expe riences in a thin surface, but to think all experience into solid shape, to give it depth and breadth and consistency. On the outside, he is not ready ; he absorbs slowly, and, except when he intends it, may omit to see or hear altogether ; but whatever he does see and hear he also thinks, and thinks it not super ficially but throughout. Hence experience to him deepens and grows clear, while, later on, he gains. sufficient control of his external attention to use it as he needs. So the obtuse boy ripens into the thought ful man, while the sharp boy degenerates into feeble ness and superficiality. Instances abound in the "UGLY DUCKLINGS.” 179 biographies of eminent men. It is more important for the present purpose to explain than to illustrate . Our first contrast was one of moral, our second of intellectual significance. The third contrast I pro pose as an example of both. On the one hand is the harmless child, who never gets into mischief or does serious wrong, simply because wrong-doing or mis chief do not occur to his mind any more than do other original ideas of any kind. But put such a merely harmless child in the midst of other children not so harmless, and probably he will be just as incapable of following a harmless course which does not happen to be in fashion as he was before incapable of striking into mischief on his own account. And if, preserved from evil companionship, he does grow into a harmless man, he will for very lack of inventiveness be entirely incapable of growing into anything higher. If life be quite smooth, he may do well enough ; but if it be full of temptation and trial, he will fail . " All is not gold that glitters "; see to it that you do not mistake the glitter for the gold. The contrast to this is the mischievous child, who happens to be mischievous because his inventiveness is developed in advance of his power to regulate his flow of spirits and ideas by considerations of the comfort and convenience of other people. Here, as in the previous cases, our remedy should be sought, not by repressing the positive source of mischief, which in the case supposed is at bottom a good thing, but in cultivating the imperfectly developed regu lating checks, i.e., social affections and rational con sideration of other people's equal rights. Let me not 180 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. be misunderstood to imply that we grown-up people are to lay down our comfort and convenience, and allow young "mischief " to ride rampant over us , consoling ourselves with the reflection that mischief is liveliness turned wrong side out, and that it will turn right some day. Perhaps it will if we leave it alone ; but also perhaps it will not. We are no more to leave it alone than we are to deal with it by trying to quench the life and spirit which are its positive sources. We are to deal with it so far as we can by quickening those sources of thought and feeling the deficiency of which is its negative cause ; and for this, strict measures, as well as gentle, may sometimes be necessary. There is yet another special form of ugly duckling hood to which I would like to invite your attention . Impatience of censure is, no doubt, a bad-nay, it may be, a fatal—thing ; but it is, nevertheless, sometimes the sign of the swan. Pursuing the metaphor, a cha racteristic of swan-nature is pride in self- perfectness, and this in the half- developed swan, while the egoistic instincts of self- defence and self-assertion have quite the upper hand, naturally involves a tendency to irri tation when that self- perfectness is roughly called in question. Hence this kind of young swan hates above all things to be found in fault, and, by a natural con fusion of ideas in the childish mind, hates also to be found fault with. I happen to have had particular opportunities for understanding such ducklings as these, and I, for one, would rejoice if the kind were more common. Such a child suffers a good deal, and may be very disagreeable, if plentifully supplied with 1 "UGLY DUCKLINGS.” 181 occasion for wrong- doing, and persistently corrected in a rough-and- ready unsympathetic manner. By- and by, however, unless his social environment is so hope lessly stupid as to drive him to desperation, the child begins to see that there is one certain way of escape, namely, to avoid the occasions of blame. Once this idea has been fairly grasped by a child of the kind I have been describing, no fault has to be pointed out twice the dreaded second occasion is steadfastly avoided. And, from this start, perfectness of conduct is pursued steadily, and, if all else be well, success fully. Grant that the initial motive is not the highest, for it is apparently only pride in external faultlessness , though it may well be doubted whether such pride can exist to any extent without the strong desire for genuine internal faultlessness also ; but, even when the motive is merely external at first, many chances. are in favour of its combination with higher motives , later or at the time, in the production of genuine goodness. The children whose educators really in their hearts respect a child's pride will soon learn that there is no offence in a friendly correction, but tenderness, rather, and help. Then, the more you respect your child's pride, the more carefully exact will be your correction of its faults . What is needed most in all these cases is : (a) That we should refrain from rough classification of children who are only beginners in goodness ( or badness) , as "sheep and goats " ; (b) that we should bear in mind the truth that results in conduct, good or bad, have a negative just as much as a positive cause ; ( c) that we 182 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. should examine our good cases with a view to remedy, should it appear that the goodness is spurious, arising from deficiency of moral or intellectual strength ; ( d) that we should examine our bad cases also, with a view to determining whether they do not indicate mere want of balance, and, if so, to helping on the supply of the want. Worse children than any of the four which I have specified turn out well in the end. Selfish children grow into sympathetic men and women. Cruel chil dren grow up kindly and tender. Tyrannical children become just and considerate. Now, selfishness and cruelty and tyranny are real evils, not virtues in dis guise. Are not such children, therefore, veritable goats "? Are not such faults to be plucked up violently by the roots ? Well, and if the children are " goats," what good will it do either us or them if we loudly proclaim them as such ? -what evil rather ? And, after all , are they such thorough " goats " ? Probably we are, most of us, selfish and cruel and tyrannical, in a partial sense ; but we are many other things besides. We are beings of mixed nature, every one, and so our sympathies and sense of right come in to save us from bad selfishness, and make cruelty and tyranny quite impossible. The difference, then , between our good selves and our bad child is that his moral nature is partial where ours is relatively com plete, and that the part he has first developed , and developed violently, is the non- social or individualistic part. Our defect of treatment lies not in our protest against letting this incompleteness be, but, firstly, in 66 "UGLY DUCKLINGS.” 183 our feeling and thought as hostile to the child, and, secondly, in the limitation of our action to mere re pression, rather than to the cultivation of those oppo site qualities which will enable him to conquer his fault for himself. Look upon your naughty child as essentially unfinished rather than wicked, and never be failing in tenderness of judgment, even when called upon to be severe in act. (2) The ducks in the pond failed to perceive the true nature of the young swan, partly through error of classification . They mistook the cygnet for a duck ling, and judged it by the standard of ducklinghood . Now, this is just what human ducks do ; they will not recognise the right to existence of children who differ from their conception of childhood, as it was once happily realized in themselves. To this concep tion of childhood every child is referred, and con demned as more or less abnormal if the conception will not fit. In ill- assorted families, there is , of course, the greatest temptation to this sort of intolerance, which is only one form-perhaps the most mischievous form of that fatal intolerance which refuses in general to accept the human nature of others as it is, and respect it for what it is. The moral lies in the caution against hastily imagining that we have rightly divined the signs of future character which our children exhibit : their present character we should regard as a mere indication , and a very imperfect one, of their as yet undeveloped selves, having, perhaps, as much relation to it in appearance as a tadpole has to a frog. From this it follows that we should, at all times, be ready to change our interpretation as new 184 STUDIES IN CHARACTER . signs appear. Every one knows that the external physique in childhood and maturity may differ con siderably-how much more, then, the probably much more unstable physique on which character depends ? For another moral, we may note that it is not perfect wisdom to reduce all children to the type of our own childhood, though it may be right sometimes. "When I was a little girl I used to like being told what I ought to do," says the mother. " I am a different little girl, " the child might say, " and I hate it very much." Perhaps the little girl takes after her father, and this might have been his way of growing into goodness, if he did grow. (3) When ducks look at ducklings, they see future ducks, and are satisfied ; but, when they look at this strange non-duckling in the midst of their brood, they see it only as it is-ugly. The swan, on the other hand, looks at the ugly creature, and sees it, not as it is, but as it will be-a beautiful swan. To the swan the cygnet is the promise of a swan ; to the duck it is no promise, but itself. "We see things as they are," says the duck ; " we call a spade a spade ; we do not blind ourselves to our children's faults ; we are clear sighted, sane, sensible people, keenly alive to actual facts." "True," says the swan, " but is it not odd that you should think so much of facts ? To me it seems to matter very little what things are, if only I can secure what they are going to be ; and, as for clear-sighted ness, I cannot but think that it takes clearer sight to see through the actual into the possible, that may be made actual, than to see the actual itself. " To all who are in any sense leaders of children, it may be said "UGLY DUCKLINGS." 185 that, if they can see children only as they are, they have not yet earned the right to be leaders. But, if we see a child's possibilities of goodness at least as vividly as we see its actualities of failure in goodness, the chances are that those possibilities are made much more probable by our vision and its consequences . It is very important that we should not be blind to the actual either ; but even such blindness is , I believe, better in the long run than the other kind. The true critic sees with equal clearness that which actually is , and that which is not yet but may become actual ; and the wise guide lays stress on the one aspect, or the other, as he in his wisdom judges to be expedient . So long as capacity for goodness and knowledge is weak, criticism should be mild and encouragement strong. But with those who are strong deal severely ; teach them to deal severely with themselves-to spare no criticism. It is the privilege of the strong to be judged for what they are simply, and that by the highest standard of the judge. To return to our ducklings, however, it may be asked-How are we to see their good possibilities, if there are no signs of them, or none that we can see ? Well, it is our business to look till we do see ; to search till we find . But, for practical guidance in case of despair, I would suggest the rule-even when there are no signs of goodness or ability, still be lieve in both ; no one is so hopelessly bad or hope lessly stupid that your faith will not prove in itself a cause of cure. The rational conviction left in my mind, indeed, after some experience of success and of failure, is that, so far as my knowledge of means of 186 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. influence go, this simple practical faith in every indi vidual's worth, and in one's own power of bringing that worth to light, is best of all . If so, it is our first duty to respect the " ugly duck lings," and believe in their undeveloped beauty ; it is our second duty to understand them as they promise to be ; and it is our third duty to see them truly as they actually are. The ducks in the pond fulfilled this last duty only. IV. THE INTELLECTUAL FACTOR IN MORAL EDUCATION. THE topic of the present essay is the general asser tion that moral culture depends largely on intellectual character. The converse truth, that intellectual culture depends on moral character, is equally true and probably more familiar, being one that strikes more deeply home to the typical English mind. For that very reason, the typical English mind is less likely to need reminders and suggestions concerning it. Yet before proceeding to our special subject, let us look briefly at this converse truth as part of a more general subject, the inter- relation of moral and intellectual growth. It may be well therefore to begin by stating to ourselves, as well as we can, the general nature of the dependence of intellectual growth on moral character, and then we shall be in a better position to consider the converse relation . Stating it simply and roughly, the imperfectly formed intellectual content of the relatively passive mind is "thought" into shape by its activity under the influence of motives. Activity under the influence of motives is moral activity, if the motives are what we call moral ; and active tendency with moral motive 187 188 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. makes up moral character. Hence a boy with a conscience will therein have a rallying point for his energies, whence to direct them upon the work of thinking, as on any other work. The boy with an ambition would have an equally good position to begin with, but, since conscience covers a wider field of work than ambition covers, conscience must, cæteris paribus, win in the end. The moral qualities of energy and patience are, moreover, involved in every case where thinking is done. It is not simply that the good boy, by industry and concentration, gets through more acquisition in proportion to his ability. It is that he gets through more improvement of that ability. The stupid and uneducated mind might be compared to a pathless tangle—a primeval forest of experiences. Thought is the untangling of this tangle, and results in logical habits, the paths of experience, by means of which we can pass, or be led , rapidly from one point to another. The stupid are those whose innate tangle is very bad, a virgin forest of original non- culture. The clever are those in whom the paths lie beneath the tangle ready for re- discovery, and for whom, therefore, the process of untangling is very easy. The feeble character is the lazy workman who makes uncertain paths and untangles little . The strong character is the energetic workman who makes highways through the brushwood and penetrates everywhere. So it is that the comparatively stupid boy with moral energy conquers, not only knowledge, but his own stupidity, and the tortoise in more senses than one overtakes the hare. Thus virtue as moral energy is the most potent conqueror of stupidity. INTELLECTUAL FACTOR IN MORAL EDUCATION. 189 No less, also, is genius the most potent conqueror of vice. Stupidity cannot be conquered except through the will of the individual , and no motives to its conquest are thoroughly sincere, and therefore effective in producing their whole result, that do not come under virtue in a certain large sense. Vice, on the other hand, by which is meant all moral evil, cannot be overcome except by purification of motive ; and, while habits of action and abstinence enforced from without prepare the way, and make easy that change of mental outlook towards volition which such a purification implies, this is itself the work of genius in the wide sense-or perhaps the exact sense- -as thought with a halo of widespread emotion. Of this more presently ; meanwhile let us turn for a moment to the practical bearings of these thoughts. Into this circle of causation how is the educator to make his entrance ? If virtue does not answer his summons to undertake the conquest of stupidity, how can he call on genius to evoke virtue ? Now, at the worst, since he has not to begin at the beginning, it is a practical suggestion that he should appeal to what little or much there may be of either, or both, to assist in the cultivation of the other. In particular cases, he should consider whether there is more hope of success on the moral or on the intel lectual side, and act accordingly. Quick-witted children are frequently naughty, but they are open to approach by the intellectual road, and if they are also reasonably emotional their case is easy. Dull children, on the other hand, may have a large share of natural uprightness and resolve, or may develop 190 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. these qualities more easily than they develop intelli gence. Deal with them through conscience directly at first, and later on their stupidity will at least have diminished. The danger in such cases is that you may let them work in an unimproving way, so that they learn to acquire, but not to think. On this point the utmost care is necessary. If we could only make " Thou shalt think " the Alpha and Omega of our intellectual education, the "I will think " of our pupils would probably follow ; and there cannot be the smallest doubt that a great disappearance of adult stupidity would be the speedy result. Suppose, however, for argument's sake, that we had to begin at the beginning, and could find abso lutely no place for the fulcrum of our educational lever either in conscience or in reason . There are, for instance, real cases of extraordinarily perverse will and obstinately unreasonable intellect combined. If in such case there should be any affectionateness of disposition to work upon, personal influence might win over the perverse will to partial obedience, and thus do something towards beginning a cure. Acces sory to this means, and failing it, something can still be done by the steady and continuous application to the child's mere selfishness of the external motives of reward and punishment. By means of these, intel lectual work can be secured-though it is very difficult to secure its sincerity also-and thus, some advance along the intellectual line being made, the moral advance will be thereby prepared . At the same time, and by the same means, external good habits can be cultivated : these are in themselves better than nothing, INTELLECTUAL FACTOR IN MORAL EDUCATION. 191 and involve by their mere practice some improvement of motive itself. Thus the ground is prepared for the seed, and, poor though it be, sooner or later, fruit is sure to be borne. I have known of girls on whom, during their girlhood, very little good impression seemed to have been made, but who, long years after wards, were glad to tell how much they had gained in later life from the effects of the detested discipline and its enforced lessons of right and wrong. Extreme cases are pathological, however they have to be cured ; but children who are morally and intellectually healthy require training only. Let us now come closer to a definite examination of this relation between moral development and intel lectual character. We all probably agree in recog nising two distinct modes of moral training, and, though we may, in our estimate of relative value, have preferences for one over another of these two, they are both recognised as legitimate modes. ( 1 ) The first and most familiar is the formation of good habits, and sometimes this is spoken of as if it were everything. (2) The second is the building up of concrete moral ideals, and especially the ideals of uprightness and beneficence, as a centre round which all action and tendency to action must be made to grow. The most familiar example of this is the educational method, if I may so call it, of the Christian ethics : here the concrete ideal is the central influence, not talked about as such, perhaps, but made evident to the mind more or less, and attractive in proportion as it becomes evident. These are the two methods, each of which has its 192 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. use and its limitations in all cases, and its special suitability to special cases. Let us try to get before us more clearly a notion of their special functions and relative value, as well as of the relation of each to the intellectual factor. What is a virtuous habit, and how is it acquired ? A virtuous habit is a tendency to act, on all occasions of a certain kind, in a certain way recognised as right and virtuous . Thus a person of truthful habit tends always, without any special effort of thought and will, to speak the truth ; a punctual person tends to act in expected ways at expected times ; and an early riser lifts his head serenely from the pillow every morning at a settled time as a mere matter of course, and with out any of those agonising demands on a sleepy conscience which some of us know only too well. Such virtuous habits are acquired, as we all know, by steady unremitting practice-no holidays , no back sliding. Dr. Bain somewhere gives us the receipt for early rising in the plainest and most uncompromising way -Jump up every morning without exception, exactly as the clock strikes six. This is simple enough ; but there are habits and habits nevertheless, the difference lying in the mode of their formation . There are two ways of getting the necessary practice, either by compulsion, that is the application of external motives, such as mere fear of consequences ; or by the pressure of internal motives, such as conviction of the useful effects or of the intrinsic value of the habit in question . Now, even as regards success in the formation of mere external habits of action, the superiority of internal motives is evident ; INTELLECTUAL FACTOR IN MORAL EDUCATION. 193 for they are always at work and make backsliding unlikely, while the others are necessarily liable to interruption. But this is not all : a genuine virtuous habit is something more than a habit of action ; it is a habit of volition , involving deliberate preference for the kind of action in question, involving, therefore, the formation of permanent general motives by the repeated action of temporary particular motives of a given class. Now, if on the particular occasions of action the governing motive is really of an extrinsic kind, fear or any other, the moral habit formed is one of fearfulness, or some other, quite as much as the habit required. Hence we see at once that extrinsic motives do not tend to form moral habits in the true sense at all, except as opening up the way to the real motive, by getting the difficulty of mere action out of the way. The trouble and effort of practice in tidi ness, for instance, is apt to prevent the motive of tidiness from getting into play. Here discipline comes in, and, by constant insistence on tidy actions , makes practice easy, and gives the inner motive a chance of growth. If the patient's mind is essentially disorderly by innate constitution, discipline by itself will not make that mind orderly, though it may do a great deal by giving a chance to the higher inner motives to work an improvement and even nurse the motive of orderliness into existence. Good habits, then, are formed by the repeated activity of moral motives, towards bringing about which the function of discipline, in the strict sense of the word, consists in a preparation on the active side, which makes moral volition easy in practice, and 194 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. thereby encourages its establishment in motive. More than this discipline cannot do, as discipline. As administered by sympathetic and logical human beings, much more is done in its name. Logically, the parent or teacher can convince the child that disorderliness is the fruitful source of unseen, as well as seen, disagreeable consequences, and can assist the willing mind in training up its own capacities for order. Sympathetically, he may arouse a kindred glow of admiration for order generally, such as he feels himself, and, by kindling the desire for this good quality, and keeping the flame alight, the work is done. • But all this presupposes a mind in the pupil that can be logically convinced, and that can construct its movements in conformity with its logical convictions, -a mind also that from descriptions and the various manifestations of other minds, can put together and grasp in imagination an ideal unrealized in its own experience, this work being assisted generally-not necessarily by the stimulus of pleasurable emotion implied in the sympathetic relation. It implies, therefore, at once, logical intelligence, practical con structiveness, and imitative constructiveness, or sympathetic imagination with a dash of that strong emotional colour which is the basis of enthusiasm . These are high intellectual qualities, the qualities on the absolute and relative force of which the tone of intellectual character mainly depends. So far, then, as formation of good habit goes, we see that moral education depends on intellectual character very largely. Genius, to take the extreme INTELLECTUAL FACTOR IN MORAL EDUCATION. 195 case, will form in one week a habit that gives work for years to stupidity. You allow some striking observation as to the ill-effects of violent temper to be made. Genius observes, reasons from effect to cause the special outburst-generalises that violence has bad effects ; so far it is logical . Then, as practical genius, it casts about for a remedy, and, finding its self- control, uses this more or less energetically, and so the habit is formed. Or a suggestion is dropped from an acceptable quarter that truthfulness is beauti ful, dignified . You have set genius reflecting on truth, and feeling for its beauty at the same time ; and being genius, not intelligence simply, the notion of truth not only becomes clear, and powerful because clear, but it emerges in a glow of pleasurable enthusiasm. After this the habit cannot but begin to grow. It is indeed abundantly evident that habits imply the existence and growth of ideals-that other ele ment of moral character-to such an extent that this must be recognised as the essential factor in the formation of habit, discipline proper being, however, an important auxiliary. And it is also evident that these two elements, so far as we have yet considered them, as conducive namely to the habitual perform ance of special duties, have a large intellectual factor. We have next to evaluate good habit as a portion of moral character, and to form clearer conceptions of that portion which it does not cover. Habitual actions cost the minimum of effort . If, then, our whole moral life could be mapped out into a sum of moral habits, virtue would be quite effortless, 196 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. and vice as good as extinct. Perhaps this is some persons' notion of the final triumph of virtue, both in the individual and in the society. Some, on the other hand, may think that such a triumph of virtue would be her death ; it would certainly be extinction of her function as revisor and supervisor of existing habits. Virtue can never become a sum of habits, and for this plain reason : there is not a single good habit, except the habit of being good-i.e . of a good will-that may not conflict with real duty at some point or other. Your habits of kindness and sympathy struggle with you when you know that a decisive act of severity is required ; what a help a little touch of hardness would be, or, better still, a freedom from habit alto gether ! Your habit of self- sacrifice tortures you when reason shows that you ought to require the sacrifice from another whose duty it is. Even the habit of truth, as habit, makes war with the duty of silence ; and finally every habit is an obstacle to fulfilment of that loftiest duty of seeking the right with a perfectly free, unbiassed , earnest mind. Goodness does not consist in being good simply, according to the standard already reached, but in becoming better according to some standard as yet neither attained nor understood, except as the ulti mate limit of the " bettering " process. The essential germ of moral character, subjectively considered, is therefore the centering of the whole mind, its habitual and non- habitual action alike, in loyalty to this ultimate ideal standard. I can find no better word than loyalty to express my meaning it implies the double hold of virtue on the moral ideal better than

INTELLECTUAL FACTOR IN MORAL EDUCATION. 197 any other. Loyalty implies an obedience enthusi astically given, up to the limits of performance which the loyal subject understands to be required ; and it implies, no less, continual unwearied effort to arrive at a better and more complete understanding of the requirements, besides the deepest possible conviction that, somehow or other, the purpose of these require ments is the highest good. The perfect loyalist ( 1 ) obeys the king's smallest wishes, ( 2) endeavours to understand them better as the king himself under stands, and (3) believes that the king can do —or wish -no wrong. In the adherence of the virtuous man to the moral ideal or object of virtue, these three factors of loyalty are plainly to be discerned. The first is the factor of volition in its double aspect of well developed motive and obedient active powers : on this something has already , been said, in connection with the subject of habit, though habit does not cover all the ground. The second is the intellectual factor proper, which labours hard and long in efforts of logical thought that have produced all the ethical science that ever was written , not to say thought, and in equally potent efforts of many- sided construc tive imagination, that have been no less at work in building up the child's or the savage's first rude notions of a good to be realized in action, than in the highest flights of those great moral geniuses who appear as the inspired teachers of mankind. The third may, I think, be called the religious factor of virtue. Its essence is the anticipation of results to which reason is conceived ultimately to lead ; and this is a concrete act of mind, neither voluntary merely, nor 198 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. intellectual merely, nor emotional merely, but a move ment in the total towards a final unity of end grasped by the anticipation of what is properly called faith . But notice that this final object is not to be grasped, though it may be dimly felt for, by a mere vague flight of emotion, at the very outset of the moral career. It can only be grasped by those who are already labouring, and in proportion as they do labour, for its ultimate realization . It is good, no doubt, for the philosopher to gaze silently on "the starry heavens above and the moral law within," but, if he realizes, in that silent gaze, the infinity that embrace and is within him, it is because his mind is already bent on the labour of understanding the one and realizing, as well as understanding, the other. I do not, however, use the name " philosopher " in its technical sense, but in the large sense by which it is applied to all who strive, however poorly, ignorantly, and humbly, after wisdom. So far as education can deal with it at all, this third factor will be encouraged indirectly by the culture of the other two, and is, or should be, one principal subject of direct religious education proper. For the present, we must leave it and turn to the other two aspects of a subject which threatens to exceed its allotted limits . The aim of the educator is to assist (and mainly by preparing the way for it) the estab lishment of this double movement of morality as an inner law of the individual mind, on the one hand , progress in obedience to moral motives as already existent and understood ; on the other hand, progress in the deepening and broadening of the moral concep INTELLECTUAL FACTOR IN MORAL EDUCATION. 199 tions which supply the motives, as well as their sub sumption under higher and higher conceptions. Now we have seen already that discipline, or the use of external motives to obedience, does not issue in real obedience without the co- operation of reason and imagination ; but it is still more evident that progress in ethical conception is quite impossible without a very high exercise of what may be called the logical imagination, i.e. the power of conceiving ideas in subordination to logical thought. The logical notion of the concept Justice has to be grasped, but that is not all : analysis here comes in, and constructiveness, in order that the applicability of the notion to a particu lar case may be perceived, and that suitable combina tions of action in obedience to other motives as well as this one may be contrived . It is not enough to have a clear grasp of the single idea and to apply it mechanically when occasion occurs. We must be able to determine all the moral ends to be satisfied at once, and to construct actions in accordance. Thus our conceptions not only fulfil themselves, but rise gradually into a clearer and more harmonious light. This then is moral progress -the slow modification of habits and principles, of ideas and ideals, in con formity with the dictates of reason, while the old habits and the old principles are steadily adhered to till they are transformed. Who then is the virtuous man ? He it is who, however humble and unlearned, is growing in virtue he upon whose character all circumstances work to ennoble it. This, at least, is one definition of the virtuous man, and whether it is the best definition for 200 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. philosophy or not, it is surely the best definition for education. In moral education, as in intellectual education, our business is primarily with growth rather than with acquisition, with process rather than with result. And so, whether the virtuous man is to be measured by the test proposed or not, the virtuous child certainly is. The ideal virtuous child, then, may, but need not, have comfortable habits, must have a strong but pliant self-will, must have a logical intellect, a vivid imagina tion, and a fine equilibrium of strong emotion and self- control . Such child will make for himself a moral education out of the commonest opportunities, and, if physically vigorous, will grow best when cir cumstances are most adverse as judged by influence on the average child. A really downright bad educa tion will transform goodness into heroism, while the average child becomes bad. Nevertheless, we must look to the ideal child to see what it is, towards which we mean to help the others -a logical intellect, a vivid imagination, and powerful emotion well controlled . For the sake of their moral value, as well as for their own sake, we have to aim at the successful cultivation of those little grains of reason. and imagination which at the worst lie latent in the dullest mind. Comparatively, we may ignore igno rance if only we can exorcise stupidity. And stupidity is expelled by mental activity rising to higher and higher degrees of itself. Unless a lesson is an exer cise of this genuine mental activity, it is useless, and worse than useless . Every rote-learned lesson is, in deed, a fresh link in the chain of indolent habit, which INTELLECTUAL FACTOR IN MORAL EDUCATION. 201 by-and-by may make impossible the conquest of stu pidity, —a fresh link in the chain, as well as an oppor tunity lost, and a fresh accumulation of undigested material that will soon become hopelessly unmanage able. In spite of our Kindergartens and many other substantial improvements, it is certain that we are still far off from that happy state of things in which, from first to last, the importance of the child's ac quired intellectual habits is at all realized as it should be. How many teachers and parents act up to their conviction, if they have a conviction, that their first business is with the thinking habits of the little child ? Hear Dr. James Ward¹ on this matter : "By a judicious training in observation, you begin to make a child think when it is five years old. But if the child is left to itself till it is seven or eight and then put to spelling and tables, it is really so smothered under a mass of crude and shapeless ideas loosely strung to a tangle of vague words that think ing is impossible. If a child is to think to any purpose, he must think as he goes on ; as soon as the material he has gathered begins to oppress him, he must begin to think it into shape, or it will tend to smother intellectual life at its dawn, as a bee is drowned in its own honey for want of cells in which to store it." • · In truth, we are at a very elementary stage of understanding this business ; we are so ignorant that the best of us scarcely realize our ignorance, while 1 Presidential Address to the Education Society, 1882. 202 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. some, being quite ignorant, do not know of its exist ence. Those few who, with great pains, have attained to some notion of the nature of mental activity do not very well know how to recognise signs of it in a child's mind, and we are so little convinced of the importance of the work in hand that we are care less as to the effects of our indifferent workmanship. Occasionally, we are tempted to think that it does not matter if a child be stupid, provided he or she is good, while by goodness we are apt to mean little more than behaviour that is not troublesome ; and we incline to think that moral education consists in securing this behaviour. We have seen, however, that this is only a small part of such education, the preparation of goodness on the active side ; and that the preparation of intellect and feeling are no less, but rather far more, essential. But, says the objector, every one knows that a highly developed intellectual character, such as is here described, does not necessarily imply a fine moral character. On the contrary, instances abound of high intellectual power and moral chaos, whereas your stupid man has frequently very fixed notions of right and wrong, which keep him out of harm and make him useful up to a certain point. This is perfectly true, and no less harmonious with our result. Genius is not virtue, but only the possibility of virtue ; and, just because it implies a capacity for transcending custom and rising to higher conceptions of duty, it implies a capacity for shaking itself free of custom equally well without this higher flight, though all the time it fails in its own character thereby. INTELLECTUAL FACTOR IN MORAL EDUCATION. 203 Exorcise stupidity and you make virtue possible, just as you make wisdom possible. The moral possibility can become actual only by moral practice. By con stant practice in choosing the right, as right, is developed the one unconditionally good habit of a good will. Such practice education can assist by the supply of suitable opportunities, taking care that there should be some gradation of difficulty in this, as in any other, practice. The teacher assists also by sym pathetic influence in keeping the motive of right doing and choosing on the alert ; and here again the intellectual factor comes in, more or less, in the shape of the sympathetic imagination . But besides this preparation of moral possibilities and this actual practice in the habit of a good will, the parent or teacher has to secure, in the first place, that the intellectual activities shall be turned to moral problems, and has to act as guide to their solution in the second. Much might be said on the necessity and the extent of this guiding function, but a few words as to its modes of operation may suffice for the present. The teacher may constitute himself a guide to morals in just the same sense as he becomes a guide to mathematics-by leading and furthering purely intellectual discussions on the subject. Such a course would certainly go far towards a growth in moral insight, as well as towards the actual construc tion of well- understood and ordered moral ideas. This was the method of Socrates and Plato-a method much neglected in moral education generally, under- rated in all probability because it does imply a certain stage of preparedness, the nature of which it has been my 201 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. main attempt to indicate, but which, when it has not been secured, will only be present by accident .. For an earlier stage, and in a certain sense for a later stage, and for all intermediate stages more or less, there is another method, the appeal to the imagin ation by concrete examples and poetical sayings illustrative of moral ideals. These strike home, and in their concrete form, being æsthetically attractive, come to make part of the mind's ornamentally useful furniture. Meanwhile the imitative impulses are aroused, and the impulses to work out an idea in general, and so the examples are worked up into dramatic form with self as actor. In this way, valu able moral material is appropriated and assimilated , and moral progress is secured, -not, indeed, by the way of clear and definite ideas grasped and under stood, but by the parallel way of semi- obscure ideals, dimly lighted by thought it may be, but glowing with emotional colour, and half- embodied in action from the beginning. These two modes ought not to be alternative : they are complementary. An ideal embodied in concrete form will attract where the pure idea would produce no result. Moreover, its volitional effect is naturally greater, since initially it appeals to the dramatic instinct, being realized in part by the imitative move ment. Nor is this all : though, by comparison with the idea, the ideal is intellectually vague, this very vagueness or indefiniteness contains a first suggestion of infiniteness. Stretching beyond the reach of the thought which it implies, it suggests that continual striving of virtue beyond the moral idea already INTELLECTUAL FACTOR IN MORAL EDUCATION. 205 formed to the farther region of the moral ideal to which allusion has already been made as one indis pensable factor of virtue. On the other hand, since it is every man's duty and privilege to walk in the light of thought so far as he can, he must try to walk in it up to the farthest limits he can reach ; therefore he must not neglect the way of ideas. And so, to sum up, we may describe the virtuous man as he who, besides obeying virtue in act, sees virtue in thought, looks for her when he cannot see, and feels her presence in the darkness. The culture which produces such a result I have tried to indicate. Moral education consists, then, essentially in- (1 ) for mation by practice of a good will, which is also ener getic in action ; (2) efficient training of intellect and feeling generally ; (3) a definite practice in ethical thinking and a course of ethical instruction ; (4) a moral atmosphere in which morality becomes religion. Success depends as much on the intellectual as on the emotional and volitional factors. The stupid man may be in a sense good, as far as he goes, but he does not, in so far as he is stupid, become good. Progress in goodness depends on intellectual efficiency. But progress in intellectual efficiency depends on the moral qualities of activity, energy, and patience . If so, the two great foes of human development are in dolence and impatience. But impatience is only another form of indolence, slightly complicated by the intellectual factor. The one enemy, therefore, that culture must overcome is indolence, not in its coarse, well-understood forms merely, but in its more refined developments as the industrious indolence that reads. 206 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. books, listens to lectures, writes exercises, and works out sums mechanically, but calls itself stupidity at once when an effort of thought is required . The law of inertia is no less exemplified in an unchanging motion than in absolute rest : force is as efficient in changing motion as in disturbing rest. Change of . intellectual movement is the true test of mental acti vity, and its absence implies moral indolence. I will conclude my remarks by another quotation from Dr. Ward's address, concerning a certain species of ants :- " It has been fed and cared for by slave- ants of another species so long, that one of them which he (Sir John Lubbock) kept alone showed no signs of eating in the midst of plenty, and would certainly have been starved to death, had he not put in a slave, which at once fell to, washed and brushed the idler, and filled his mouth with food. " 1 This I quote by way of warning, not, however, so much to the idlers, who will not, of course, read this essay, but to the slave-ants who possibly may. 1 Presidential Address to the Education Society, 1892 . V. ON THE DUTY OF CULTIVATING SOUNDNESS OF INTELLECT. WHEN it is desired to ascertain the size and shape of a room, the problem is easily solved by the application of a foot rule, and the use of certain well- known geometrical and arithmetical principles. With this example in mind, it is possible to conceive of an en terprising pedagogue seeking to gauge the kind and magnitude of the human minds committed to his care in terms of the various faculties which, to use the popular phrase, they possess . The estimates of such a one would be stated somewhat as follows : -Percep tion, 60° ; Conception, 50° ; Imagination, 10° ; Reason ing, 5º, and so on. For the estimate of moral qualities he might, in his imaginings, use a similar process, and thus, having applied his tape measure all round the intellectual and moral man, he would assign to each subject of measurement his proper position in a list of candidates competing for places . Now I do not intend to assert that this notion of applying the tape measure to the qualities of the inner man is so wholly fallacious as to be quite useless in certain cases, for the practical purpose of selecting 207 208 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. candidates to fill particular offices. That physical qualities can be so measured is obvious, and several experimenters have made such measurements in large numbers. In a sense too faculty, as well as knowledge, is measured in all examinations. Indeed , it is probable that we could measure in ways similar to those employed in physical measurements, though less accurately, some of a man's intellectual powers. The difficulty, however, even in a partial way, is very great, so great that only those who have tried can easily appreciate how great it is, and the notion that the whole character of the man or child could be apprehended by measurements ever so distantly ap proximate, as one apprehends the size and magnitude of a physical object, is one which can only be charac terized as an inconsiderate dream. One reason why we cannot measure the more funda mental features of character is that they are mutually involved, and another is that we cannot possibly select a unit of measurement in the ordinary physical sense. Now reflection on this source of difficulty suggests the thought that, though we cannot measure A's special powers as we measure his height and weight, we could estimate A's humanity as a whole by comparing his manifested character as a whole with the typical charac ter proper to a fully and normally developed humanity. We may estimate him by his divergence from the type. This normally developed type is, in fact, the only unit possible to us. It is not a unit proper, but a maximum or limit. Average human nature will not serve instead, partly because we cannot determine, except when statistics are applicable, what average CULTIVATING SOUNDNESS OF INTELLECT. 209 human nature is, and, moreover, the average changes from age to age. On the other hand, we can deter mine the characteristics of the type, first, because we all have a knowledge, more or less, of the type as that which, at our very best, we tend to become ; and secondly, because, looking outside ourselves, we know the type by its fruits-intellectual truth and social use. In the intellectual sphere, doubt and difficulty as to the nature of the type are least when we look to the objective test of a good intellect, namely, its habit of thinking and finding the truth . Without digressing into the higher subtleties, we know well enough what is meant by truth. It is therefore not so difficult I will not say it is quite easy-to determine generally the character of the truth- producing mind, and the truth-producing mind is the mind of sound intellect. Ability to find truth is the general mark of a sound intellect, sound in sense, sound in judgment, and sound in reasoning. Such an intellect is subject to no illusions of sense, does not see things where they are not and as they are not, does not hear statements that were never made, nor report events as they never occurred, but hears, sees, and therefore reports accur ately, in accordance, that is to say, with the actual facts of the case. The sound mind, for instance, sees a shadow on the wall, or a moonbeam through the window, when another sees a hooded ghost. Such a mind, moreover, rightly interprets the impressions received, bringing to bear on them the full light of its previous experience ; it judges soundly ; it sees things whole ; it does not confuse together new impressions P 210 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. and old, but understands in orderly, consistent sequence those relations of the new to the old which make the new intelligible. It appreciates the fact that a noise in the street is not the sound of a gunpowder explo sion, and that the baby's cry upstairs is not that of an infant in dire distress. Just as in sound perception we say that is not so and so, meaning that the fact is different from the thing for which we were about to take it, so in sound judgment we say precisely the same thing, meaning to condemn the inference which too hastily springs into being, and we do so because, keeping our heads, we note that the facts are not con sistent with our theory. The sound intellect observes accurately, judges soundly ; it also reasons correctly, and the correctness of its reasoning is a simple conse quence of the soundness of its judgment. It rejects pairs of inconsistent judgments unrelentingly, just as it condemns the moonlight ghosts and the slovenly single judgments—the false interpretations of fact by thought, through lack of steadiness in perceiving that facts and ideas are inconsistent with each other. Reasoning differs from judgment simply in this, that in reasoning we compare ideas only with ideas for the time, and reason, like judgment, is correct if no incon sistencies are left standing. A sound reasoner may not indeed see his way to escape inconsistencies which press on him from the facts of the case, but the mark of his soundness is his sense of the inconsistency, and his ever-present desire to get rid of it. A mind, therefore, is sound-sound in perception, sound in judgment, sound in reasoning-when, and only when, it is active in the rejection of inconsistencies CULTIVATING SOUNDNESS OF INTELLECT. 211 between thought and things , and wideawake, therefore, also, to receive every scrap of information that comes to it, shedding new light of consistency or inconsis tency on its old contents. It must be, at one and the same time, an open, docile, receptive mind and a strictly accurate, logical mind, insistent upon seeing truth for itself solid and transparent through and through. In all intellectual work, two constant sources of error accompany us. There are two ways in which we can err, and only two in general. We may fail to see all the facts of the case, or we may fail to see clearly all our own ideas of the case. We may fail in either Sight or Insight-in clearness, steadiness, and completeness of either the outer or the inner vision. There is no such thing as a person who takes black for white he only seems to do so who fails to see either clearly when he makes an assertion , and such people are quite common- people who use words occasionally without plainly seeing in their mind's eye the thought for which the word stands-people who handle things occasionally without in the least adequately perceiving the qualities of the things, and who yet dare to make assertions about them afterwards, founded on their ignorance of the qualities they never saw. Sight and Insight sufficient for the subject under consideration, these are the requisites of an intellect easily and instinctively sound, in observation, in judgment, in reasoning. That persons differ greatly, in respect of the degree to which they are endowed with these qualities, is matter of common remark. Especially we notice the people who never can turn up 212 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. the contents of their own minds and get a good look at them—a good look at a considerable portion of them all at once. We have none of us too much of this power-this gift of rapid and wide- grasping insight ; and so we do not see our thought whole, solid, and transparent as we would. Some can only just put two and two together, getting hold of a few ideas labori ously in slow succession, while others in the same time sweep through the length and breadth of memory, and turn out relevant ideas by the score. No wonder that the two extremes should seem so different-cleverness with its rapid and searching insight sweeping out all the corners in an instant, and stupidity, heavy and slow, blinking her eyes over the few links in the argu ment upon which she chances to stumble . Blind of soul she seems to be, but in truth it is this heavy slow ness of hers which is the chief trouble. If she were impelled to faster motion by stimulus and encourage ment, she would surely see more of her ideas, and get to be a good deal less blind . Lack of insight is per haps no more than lack of mental activity-lack of the impulse to search out thought. What, then, is the cure, so far as cure is possible ? The cure is practice in this search-this looking through our ideas ; and this we generally undertake with a view to find the clue to understanding some fact present to our senses . Suppose a child had been shown a certain variety of flower in a group of others belonging to the same order, and afterwards saw the flower by itself. Now, it is a fact of insight that his mind turns up the memory of the whole group complete ; and this memory makes the single flower intelligible -enables him to CULTIVATING SOUNDNESS OF INTELLECT. 213 perceive it for what it is to recognise it-to know it again in its proper relation to others. A child with many opportunities for such perceptions, and using them, is practising insight—the power of calling ideas to mind as they are needed. We cannot see what is not in our minds, but we do very well if we do see at the right instant all that is there, and is appropriate. Suppose, again, that a man has to decide on a course to be pursued under given circumstances. Say, to take a most complex case, it is a question in politics , a problem in government, perhaps. How is his decision based, if based on pure intellect at all ? He sees, on the one hand, the requirements of the situa tion, and he must see them all-all that are essential ; he must look about and make sure that he has seen them. These are the special facts-what he has to see, as the boy has to see his solitary flower blooming in the common garden. Then, on the other hand, he has to look to his ideas-his notions of national experi ence derived from history-(if he has none, then he ought, if possible, to acquire them) —he has to look to his principles, his general notions of right and wrong, his traditions, which he supposes probably to be infer ences from history, and to all else in his permanent current of thought that affectsthe question . Thus, with the facts and his ideas before him , he devises a solution of the problem that shall harmonise them all -shall satisfy the requirements as understood in the light of historical experience, and shall be consistent with his notions of what ought to be done. Evidently the degree of Sight and Insight required in such cases is very great, and for some of the social problems that 214 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. are pressing towards solution we may well wonder whence the necessary degree will come. Nor is it matter of surprise that differences of opinion should be so great, and even embittered as they are. More sight, more insight, and then, if we were all honest and had similar ideals, we should all be agreed. Without the appropriate ideas, the right judgment is not possible ; the statesman must have principles, and a knowledge of human history. But with them it may still be missed ; the facts and the ideas are not all clearly grasped at once, so that the ideas may in terpret the facts. Thus it is also essential to see the facts, and it is quite common not to see them. Power of insight is, indeed, a great source of intellectual inequality ; but so no less is power of sight. There are persons whom nothing escapes, Notice, by the way, the carefully- trained observant excellence of the doctor-his power of seeing differences where others detect similarities only. But some go through the world with their eyes shut ; we call them dull, or, if they are bright in other ways and not dull when roused, simply unobservant. Like lack of insight, lack of sight shows itself alike in simple perceptions, and in the most complex acts of judgment. Open eyes and open ears, searching eyes and searching ears, are essential elements of intellectual success, and the cultivation of observant habits is, though much ne glected, universally admitted to be of great impor tance. Rapid sight and insight naturally issue in quick decision, thoroughness of sight and insight in sound decision . But when facts and thoughts are imper CULTIVATING SOUNDNESS OF INTELLECT. 215 fectly grasped, decision is unsound, and, though ever so slow, must still be called hasty. Those who do not grasp rapidly ought not to act quickly ; but if they are active- willed and energetic they probably do. Hence arises that state of things one example of which is suggested in the maxim, " Marry in haste and re pent at leisure. " The haste is haste, because the whole matter was not fully turned over in mind and compre hended before action. Repentance comes because neglected considerations turn up too late. It is not quickness of decision that hurts, but decision before full account has been taken. When that is done there can be no repentance. The caution against haste in action should really be directed against incompleteness in the deliberations that precede action. The true maxim is not to judge till you know, and not to decide till you make up your mind . In default of knowledge, the only true attitude is suspense of judgment, although sometimes we must act towards an end of which we are not sure, because we think an experiment better than inactivity. Soundness of intellect is clearness of vision. The exhortation, therefore, to be sound, correct, accurate, is an exhortation to see clearly and vividly the objects of your thought, to acquire the gifts of sight and insight. To be accurate is to see clearly ; and it is our duty to be accurate, as it is our duty to be just. It comes to this, then, that in so far as we are dull enough and stupid enough to make mistakes, it is our duty to acquire, laboriously and patiently, those gifts which have been conferred abundantly upon the most 216 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. brilliant of the race. This is as absolutely a duty, though it may not always be so pressing a duty, as justice and charity, as courage and self- denial . The duty can be fulfilled . The gifts which the gods give to some can be earned by others. Just as men learn to be courageous by acts of courage, and self-denying by deeds of self- denial, and just by living justly, so they learn to be observant by observing carefully whatever they observe, and logical by steadily attending to their thoughts when they have thought them . They learn to see by looking—to see facts as they are by forming a habit of careful attention to the facts . They learn to see the inner world of their own thought with something of the wise man's insight, by forming a similar habit of inward attention -a habit of search and scrutiny in the world of thought, as careful and complete as the search and scrutiny it is so much easier to apply to the outer world of things. A habit of looking begets, in due course, a power of seeing . A habit of searching begets, in its time, a power of finding. And so, by a careful process of training, the dull perceptions may be sharpened, and the slow, stupid wits considerably quickened. Sleepy senses may be awakened and blinking intellect trained ' to be open eyed. The soul comes into the enjoyment of its visual powers ; it sees the world, and can find its way about its own mind-can draw out of its treasure- house the things new and old that it needs for thought. The service to this end which can be rendered by parent to child is of inestimable value. Set a child to observe and to tell you what he sees. When he comes CULTIVATING SOUndness of intelLECT. 217 to you empty-handed, or with imperfect information, do not supply it, but send him back to his facts to find more. Then, as he mixes up inferences with his obser vations, note the false ones, and send him either to his facts or his thoughts to correct them. And if his information be unintelligent-if, his intelligence being slow, he fail to interpret his impressions and see what they mean, then send himsteadily to his thoughts ; ask him to think whether he can remember having seen anything like the object in question before : don't tell, don't hint ; get him to reflect-to search his ideas ; this is the cultivation of insight. For example, suppose it has been a wet morning. You send your little boy to the window or door to find out for you what the weather is like. " It is raining," he says. You know that it is not raining at that particular moment. You ask if he is sure-how did he know ? " The flags are all wet," he says . "But is the rain falling now ? " you ask-did he notice ? He is not sure that he did-in fact, he jumped to his con clusion-and away he runs to see whether there are drops coming down. This means putting out a hand or a head, or looking at the pools to see the drops fall , and he comes back to say that there are no drops. "It is going to be fine "-another jump, and another chance for a lesson. "Why fine ? " "The rain has stopped ? " " Have the clouds gone ? do you think the sun is going to come out ? Are you sure it will not begin again ? " Or, better far, you may suggest all this to him, if he has the previous knowledge, by your simple and genial scepticism about the coming fineness. Again he goes to look at the clouds. The 218 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. proverbial strip of blue sky is remembered, and he scans the heavens to find it-this time probably very carefully. None, he reports ; clouds all over still ; no sign of the sun. Then, if you are a good parent or teacher, you will look out too and verify that observa tion, and, if there are any signs of improvement visible which he does not know, show them to him. Those he does know, he should find in his mind for himself. I doubt if there is any better subject for an object lesson than the signs of the weather. I remember much informal training of this kind, such as parents instinctively give to their children when they take much notice of them, and I believe it left its mark more or less on every member of the family. Mental blindness is not quite the same thing as carelessness or as inattention, but it is curable by careful habits of attention . " I saw-I thought- I heard him say," when these are misstatements, as they often are, it is because the person making them was guilty of mental slovenliness. Inaccuracy is slovenliness in this strict sense that it is curable in any person who will recognise it as slovenliness in himself, and treat it as such. Of course this doctrine must not be pushed too far : a feeble mind may be over- weighted, and made feebler, by the sense of this burden of intellectual duty laid upon it. But exactly the same remark applies to all moral claims . There are persons so feeble-it is in part a question of physique at the bottom-that it is cruel and absurd to expect more than a very moderate goodness from them. But a great many dull and stupid people are not feeble-have not their intellectual possibilities CULTIVATING SOUNDNESS OF INTELLECT. 219 limited practically by physique-and they may labour safely at improving themselves. The parent who notices the child's defects of obser vation and intelligence, and who sends him back to his facts and thoughts for more, is exercising in the best sense, and for its true purpose, the faculty of criticism. Moreover, he is training the child to exer cise that faculty on himself. The little boy of the weather- report is not only learning to look round more carefully for his signs in an instinctive way. He is learning to say to himself, "Am I quite sure ? Have I looked at everything ? Have I thought of everything ?" and the person who so treats himself is a sound critic, and is setting himself steadily in the way to find truth . A sound critic-that is not a person who has an infinite capacity for finding holes in other people's work, without either capacity or desire for patching them up or darning them over. Such a person may serve a useful purpose in society, but only because other people darn the holes which he finds. As a human being, whole and sound, one must be a critic of the complete kind, and not simply the finder of holes. And if we cultivate our critical faculty by criticism of ourselves in the main, this is the surest way to success. Criticism should be based on a dread of error rather than on a satisfaction in finding it—on an anxiety to discover truth, an earnest care to be con sistent in thought and with fact. Once a man or a child has fairly started as a self critic, his growth in sight and insight is sure. He will inevitably improve his sensibilities, his habits of attention, his grasp of thought, his power of observa 220 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. tion. Moreover, if a man be deficient as a critic, he will, no matter how great his gifts, be sure to commit himself to many errors. No man has gifts so great as to make occasional slips of thought and defects of observation impossible. No man is clever enough to dispense with himself as critic of all his thought, honestly vigilant in the interest of truth against his own inevitable lapses of attention. Honestly vigilant in the interests of truth ! The more closely we look at this excellence of the critical impulse, the more clearly do we discern in it the features of the old- fashioned virtue of honesty. We are liable to error because our faculties are not infi nitely powerful ; but we fall under the dominion of error, because, from laziness, from prejudice, from personal spite, from party spirit, from self- conceit, obstinacy, and for a thousand other reasons, we allow ourselves the liberty of accepting lies for truth . All men are liable, though not indeed equally, to slips of thought. It should , perhaps, be a comfort to the weaker brethren to know that great thinkers-the greatest-are subject to their own poor weaknesses, only less so. And, for great and small alike, there is but one rule of rectification, namely persistent vigil ance with a view to banish all intrusion of error from the sacred field of belief—the serious workshop of the mind. Honest self- criticism-the constant question, "Am I right, is this true ? "-this is the one and only cure, a faithful discharge of the police function of thought, whose business it is to drag before the logical tribunal all those false products of the actively- working mind which, lurking in dark holes and corners, are CULTIVATING SOUNDNESS OF INTELLECT. 221 believed till discovery leads to condemnation . If we take care of the police, the judge will take care of himself, and just as an active police force of the right sort is in itself a preventive to the existence of thieves and vagabonds, so does an active critical faculty ultim ately prevent the formation of erroneous ideas, by its tendency to produce a settled habit of sound instinctive judgment killing off false ideas before they are born into consciousness . And the spring of a steady habit of self- criticism is the fixed purpose of intellectual honesty. The honest man abhors deception ; he is all for the truth at any cost. He is ready to sacrifice pleasure-to suffer pain no less -for the sake of his consciousness that he is acting and thinking as all men might see him, without any shame of his. He takes, as it were, mankind to witness with him that no doubleness of mind may be found in him at all-that all his thoughts and pur poses are of one consistent piece with which his words. and actions harmonise. He is transparently sincere to others, he is no less upright and single- minded to himself, ever reaching forward to closer harmony with truth . If he be a religious man, he is marked by that keen sense of his life being ever in God's sight, under the eye of the Almighty and Holy One, which is so vividly portrayed in many passages of Scripture . As a religious man his character is recognisable under the name "holy," but simply as a moral man we call him " honest." In the works of intellect he insists on seeing the thing through and through, on knowing all the facts, and on having perfectly clear and consistent views about 222 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. 66 them. Now, this is troublesome, because it is generally very difficult, and, in all subjects not yet cleared up to the mind of man, it is impossible to have knowledge which is at once complete and consistent. Many people find consistency easily by refusing to acknowledge any more facts after they have once "interviewed " enough to make up their minds to a view." These are of the narrow- minded logical type, which forms one class in the great company of the intellectually dishonest the largest class, probably, because it is easier for the educated mind to shut its eyes than to be incon sistent. Others, again, are open- eyed enough, but hold self- contradictory opinions -believe mutually contradictory assertions-with the greatest equani mity. Now, since contradictions sometimes turn out to be apparent rather than real, we must not condemn inconsistency too hastily. It is the equanimity that should be condemned, the contented stopping still in a position that must involve partial error. The honest thinker should be open- eyed , always ready to receive new facts, to sift new opinions ; but he must strive for unity none the less , and hold judgment in suspense where he cannot attain it. Nevertheless, the more common way of falling from intellectual honesty lies in the shutting of the eyes to disturbing facts. Men are like "the deaf adder that stoppeth her ears." "The voice of the charmer," uttering wisdom as an assertion of facts, is unwelcome, when it upsets those comfortable little worlds of theory in which we too often envelope-ay, and encrust-ourselves . Now, intellectual honesty, like any other virtue, may be either instinctive or deliberately acquired . With CULTIVATING SOUNDNESS OF INTELLECT. 223 those very honest people whom we sometimes meet, it is probably instinctive. Practically they were born honest, and are, therefore, throughout life persons ofcon spicuously sound mind, fair in argument, just towards opponents, ready also to accept new ideas, showing constantly a disinterested and immovable preference for truth. They need not be enthusiastic lovers of truth ; they are sometimes cold enough ; but, whether enthusiastic or not, they can neither fashion nor believe falsehood , nor can they satisfy their own soul with lies . Theirfriends sometimes think them "horrid," and even uncharitable, because they frown at nice little bits of gossip and refuse to believe in the sacred authority of the on dit ; and another objection to them is their rooted inability to act when they have not made up their minds. Perhaps these are the reasons why one has never read of a fairy godmother who bestowed the gift of intellectual honesty on the young prince at his chris tening. Yet there is no gift so far- reaching in the value of its mental consequences . An honest regard for truth is not only good in itself, but it makes a man industrious, docile, accurate, thorough, and, in the long run, wise. Happy he who is born with a predis position to such a character ! He is not met with every day. Perfect intellectual honesty, unflinching regard for truth, is one of the rarest of mental excellencies . Some have never con sciously sinned, but only because they have never been tempted sufficiently ; to the student honesty is easier than to the man of action . Others , again, have sinned so often and so constantly that they have not the least 224 STUDIE STUDIES IN CHARACTER . idea how dishonest they are. Yet they may be truthful people enough, in that ordinary sense in which truth fulness, so called, falls as far short of real truthfulness as a cook's habit of taking only your tea and sugar falls short of your ideas of strict honesty. It is well known that people who would not tell lies readily believe them on manifestly insufficient evidence, and even go the length of resisting evidence to the con trary. Yet the honesty I speak of is a higher thing than even the regard for truth that is proof against these snares. It is a zealous honesty that tracks out lies and holds them up to the light, that stops the false cheque and detains the bearer. The ways of dishonesty are many and diverse. The man who slanders his neighbour is a malicious liar, and he who easily believes and propagates the slander is maliciously deficient in the perfect spirit of honesty. The honest man is a dead wall to all reports of evil till he has proved them true ; except indeed when it is his duty to act on suspicion, and to that end take into his confidence, not the whole world, but the few trusty persons who should act with him. Propagation of slander to no end is as wrong as slander, and only a little less wicked. The man who, in support of an argument, invents " facts," is a liar under the not wholly discreditable motive of affection for his theory. He may be a fanatic or a hot-headed politician, or he may, alas ! be an interested partisan proving black white for his own advantage. That liar is, however, tinged with folly. who invents many " facts." The cleverer way is to hint your fictions-not to tell them to the audience, but CULTIVATING SOUNDNESS OF INTELLECT. 225 suggest them only. Much, too, may be done by simple suppression of the truth-statement of the facts that tell for you, and resolute suppression of all the others. This is a method so plausible that, in a moderate degree, men are slow to condemn it . Yet it has clearly the very root of dishonesty in it, and must sap the intellectual morale of any man who adopts it. Suppression of the truth is dishonest, but there are subtler forms much than this, and more plausible. To know a fact, and suppress it, is bad ; but to carefully avoid knowing it is not much better -the shutting ofthe eyes to unwelcome facts. Of all dishonesties, this is the most common. Children don't hear what they are asked to do when they don't want to do it ; authors with pet theories don't find the facts which tell against them, or satisfy themselves that, however relevant, they are quite irrelevant. The active politicians are a much- tempted race in this respect. Condemn them, by all means, when they, by invention , suggestion, suppression, or culpable ignorance, pervert the truth, either for themselves or others ; but condemn them humbly, if you are not an active politician yourself, remembering that the temp tations of men enthusiastic for the attainment of ends in which they believe, committed to wordy warfare for ever with a vigilant foe , heated by the many passions of party strife and the nobler passions of enthusiastic purpose the temptations of these are great and subtle, and appeal not all to the baser elements of our humanity. Much less tempted is the man who makes theories, and writes them, not in a newspaper, but in a book. ૨ 226 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. Yet how often he also stops his ears with wax, and when, nevertheless, he hears unwelcome voices , assures himself that they are of no consequence. The essential facts are so and so they all tell for his theory ; for the others he pooh- poohs them, and leaves them out of his book. And so he misleads the public till the critic comes along-and that may take time— and charges him—if a rude critic-with gross and culpable ignorance. The thinker who writes books errs for love of his pet theory. So does the mere student, in silent fashion, for love of prejudices and preconceived ideas . New facts and new arguments threaten his little world of thought. It is so easy to despise them. A frank, though not honest, person says, " I don't want to be lieve this," but the more cultivated and subtle way is to pick frivolous holes in the argument, or to declare it unintelligible, or simply to say that you did not think the writer proved his point. A student needs great honesty if his mind be of that not ignoble type which shrinks from the change of the old to the new. Nineteenth- century dishonesty, like nineteenth century greed, is subtle and refined . It has an " Eton manner." It attains its ends by the indirect method of ignorance. All ignorance, however, is itself the effect of that lack of the honesty which rests not till truth is searched out whole. In these days we do not boldly " cut " our acquaintances in the streets, we simply do not " see " them : that is the more genteel way. And similarly it is that we serve the spirit of lies, not openly, but by self- deception shutting out the truth. Refined persons prefer to deceive themselves CULTIVATING SOUNDNESS OF INTELLECT. 227 along with others : they cannot tell a straightforward falsehood . I doubt whether they are not more difficult to cure than the hardened liars of old - fashioned times. Perfect honesty is not easy. Few can dispense with the necessity of cultivating and cherishing it. And the nature of the cultivation is sufficiently evident. It is twofold.. Cultivate, above all things, a real and constant love of truth ; and to do this it is best to become a searcher for the truth in some one department. Herein lies the moral value of scientific studies : their object is truth, and in them lies therefore an important means of moral culture, if that object of truth be kept before the student's mind. For this reason, even if for no other, a branch of mathematical, physical, or natural science, taught in the right spirit even more than by the right methods, ought to form part of every one's education. Moral science is not the best to begin with, simply because our human prejudices and tradi tions are so involved that it is difficult to form our habits on it. It is the best to end with. But in the main the object should be this to make ourselves in some form or other searchers after truth . It is not simply that we thus acquire right intellectual habits. Far more important is it that thus we acquire an intelligent and discriminative love of truth. In sound. education the mind must be trained to love the truth by knowing it and working for it, just as the mind must be trained to love humanity by knowing and serving it . The love of truth is the prime safeguard of honesty, but it is not enough by itself. We know that scien tific persons, who do understand truth and love her in 228 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. their way, often show inaptitude for honest, unpreju diced argument outside, and even within, their own department. It is necessary to have, besides this interest in truth as an object, the constant presence in our minds of the ideal of truthfulness -the constant presence of the desire to be personally truthful, pene trating all our thoughts, regulating all our dealings with ourselves and others. Towards others it should be our constant purpose to be perfectly sincere, to seem what we are, to be what we seem, scorning to do deeds behind backs that we would not do in the sight of our fellows . Every one will think of the unkind. words that are said in the absence of those criticised , but a much commoner case comes uppermost in my mind. English men, women, boys, and girls find , I am told, in grumbling, a balm for many woes. But why do they not grumble to as well as at the various authors of their woes ? A perfectly sincere race would so grumble, or be silent. The ideal of truthfulness enjoins alike perfect sin cerity to others, and perfect honesty in dealing with one's own mind, an honesty that searches all the corners, recognising sins of ignorance as sins to be classed with those of commission and omission . There is a story told of a servant- girl who, in response to the minister's greeting when he came to call upon her mistress, said, " I'm very well, sir, thank you, and I think that I have now at last got the fear of God in my heart." " I am very glad to hear it, Mary," said he; " and how do you know that it is so ? " " Well, sir," she replied, " I take up the mats now, and move the chairs when I sweep the hall. " CULTIVATING SOUNDNESS OF INTELLECT. 229 And so it is with the honest man. The fear of God is in his heart, as a fear that he may not only seem to be what he is not, but as the more subtle fear that truth may seem to him through his carelessness to be other than it is. So he searches the corners and proclaims what he finds, and neither enmity, nor prejudice, nor the love of a good story, nor enthusiastic partiality, nor parti zanship, nor self-interest, nor any other interest, suffices to make him swerve, by deeds of commission, omission, or culpable ignorance, from the strait road that makes for truth. 1 Thus he not only nurtures his honest love of truth ; he also becomes a more capable critic of his own per ceptions and thoughts . His constant purpose to find the truth trains his intellect to sharpness in eliminat ing all the many products of error that continually rise to mind. And the growth of his ability as a capable self- critic removes innumerable impediments to the play of sight and insight, besides stimulating these activities to the highest personal degree. Then we have the honest critical mind, observant without, clear- sighted within, and this is the mind of sound intellect, limited it may be ever so much, but still sound. VI. THE INVERSE SOCRATIC METHOD IN TEACHING. Most teachers have probably by this time a tolerably clear conception of what is meant by the " Socratic method of teaching " ; though it may be doubtful whether all teachers mean the same thing by the phrase, or whether most mean strictly the method by which Socrates gave his instruction to the young Athenians of his time. Socrates' method, if we may take Plato as a fair interpreter of it, was something less definitely methodical than the carefully designed system of cross-examination by which the ideal modern teacher aims at causing the secretion of knowledge in his pupil's mind. On the contrast between the ancient Socratic method and the modern method which is called by that name, there will be more to say presently. Nor will the contrast between the conditions under which Socrates worked and we work, be less instructive . But first let us consider the Socratic idea of teaching, rather than the method, and note its relations to the other idea, or ideas, which it is probably destined en tirely to supplant in the end . Before Socrates, the Sophist was in Athens. Now 230 INVERSE SOCRATIC METHOD IN TEACHING. 231 the Sophist represents in philosophy the spirit of the "Aufklärung,"-reaction, in its most pronounced form, against the unthinking acceptance of authority and tradition- the assertion of the right of private judgment, and the exaltation of individual opinion as such, without due regard to the solidarity of human reason and the duty of each to think as all could think if all were reasonable. Socrates, on the other hand, represents the deeper spirit of philosophy proper, and criticises the " Aufklärung " after its own fashion. Thus, by criticism, by bringing down the individual's estimate of the worth of his individual opinion, he pre pares the way for that evolution in persons individu ally of universal reason, which is at once the method of philosophic thinking and philosophy itself. For present purposes, however, the chief interest lies in the significance of the sophistic and Socratic movements, not for philosophy, but for education. Regarded from this point of view, Socrates claims attention, as being the first great teacher possessed by the true idea of education . He marked a new era in both departments ; and his attitude in either follows as a consequence from his attitude in the other. He was the first real teacher of whom we read, because he first grasped the notion that philosophy essentially does not consist in any fixed system of dogma, whether traditional or sophistic, but consists in the true think ing activity of all, by which the thoughts of each are brought gradually into greater consistency with one another and with the like thoughts of all . Such a philosophic notion was impossible without a corre sponding educational ideal—the ideal of the perfection 232 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. of human thought and faculty, according to a uni versal, though yet unrealized, type-to be wrought out faithfully for himself by each true learner. Whether Socrates was the first great teacher because he was the first true philosopher, or the first true philosopher because he was the first great teacher, we do not know, and it would be foolish to inquire . He was both at once because he was Socrates. Before the Sophists, and indeed after them, Greek youths were expected to believe what the authorities told them, and to grow up after the accepted type without much care except by way of repression . The Sophists proposed to change all that ; but, while they certainly dealt a blow at the mere dogmatic method of telling people what to believe, and swept away the old unprogressive notion of an accepted type, they failed to substitute the idea of a progressive standard, and thus, falling back on mere self-will and self opinion, they inevitably fell into a new educational dogmatism with all the drawbacks and none of the advantages of the first . " You must think for your self," says the Sophist to the young Athenian, " and I will show you how. You, the individual man, are ' the measure of all things ' ; whence it follows that such and such is the nature of society, life, and the universe. This is wisdom ; we are the Sophists, the men of true knowledge. Distrust all social institutions and conventions, believe supremely in the truth of your own opinions-there is no other test-and you 1 The true Sophist means "What, " though he may say "How. " His is the dogmatism of the arbitrary individual. INVERSE SOCRATIC METHOD IN TEACHING. 233 will be a sophist too. Until you attain to that height of self- reliance, listen to the words of the wise men." Clearly, for practical educational purposes, this is mere dogmatism hydra- headed. But the main point about the sophistical educator is that he could not have for his pupil an ideal of attainment, either pro gressive or unprogressive, and therefore could never rise to a higher aim than the mere sharpening of wits or heaping up views of life and things. Under him the smart young Athenian grew to be proficient in his knowledge of sophistic " views, " and sharp in his critical manner of " viewing " the " views." Philoso phy, and thus all truth, was simply a matter of "views," the opinions of Protagoras, Gorgias, Pro dicus, and " my own. " Doubtless the sophist has been abroad, even in England, not so long ago. The solid achievement of natural science in establishing , on firm grounds of reason , a certain portion of truth , makes it impossible that the modern young sophist should ever be so bad as the more ancient variety. Still, one is sometimes startled at the number of young people who attach as much value to their own solitary individual opinion as to the solidly attested truth of things. The work of Socrates for education was, in the first place, to restore by a deeper criticism the notion of an ideal character-more especially an ideal thinker— into conformity with which each mind should bring itself. So far he was in perfect agreement with the old-fashioned Athenian citizen and with our grand mothers. But he was opposed to them in this, that he placed the realization of his ideal, not in the past, 234 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. but in the future, that future to be wrought out by each man's faithful use of his own powers. Thus he made the ideal progressive, and put a veto on that habit of definite expectation by which parents and teachers still make their lives a burden to so many young people. Now, it is in this transformation of the unprogres sive into the progressive ideal of human character that the key to the Socratic idea of educational method lies. Socrates could not reasonably expect the young Athenian to be, and do, and think according to some preconceived pattern of human perfection, fully as he admits that, up to a certain point, conformity to the common idea of the good citizen is to be required . Education, therefore, could not for him be merely the acquisition of a certain sum of stock ideas and habits, any more than it could be for him, as it was for the Sophist, a lawless growth of individual tendencies and personal opinions. Education must be for Socrates, above all, the development of each man's humanity in feeling, deed, and thought, as a contribution to the evolution of the universal human type. Each man thinking his best adds to the results and the methods of thought generally. Each man being his best sup plies a new idea by which all can know better than before what virtue is . Here the sophistic training of arbitrary self- will and self- opinion is absolutely negatived ; but the person ality of the person is made of infinitely more value than before, because he is called on to become his complete self in order that the universal type may be realized . Plato, the pupil of Socrates, is great, both INVERSE SOCRATIC METHOD IN TEACHING. 235 as man and as thinker because he is so truly himself— Plato-and, therefore, so little the arbitrary individual Plato that he might-just conceivably-have been, had he fallen into the hands of the Sophists. The Socratic idea is not an easy one, and hence the readiness with which it is forgotten or laid aside in practice. The idea is great because it unites comple mentary opposites in thought, and this is what makes it seem paradoxical and difficult. The universal type is to be developed by means of the individual faithfully developing himself for its sake ; and the individual can only develop his normal self by faithful conformity to the best idea of the universal which he can attain . This is a hard saying . It is easy to put one's faith in routine and information after the manner of the old fashioned and quite exploded , but still flourishing, commonplace schoolmaster, who thinks his work all done when rules are kept and lessons learnt by heart. It is easy, too-fatally easy-to be a reformed edu cationist of the sophistic kind, to train boys and girls to be sharp- witted, to have supreme confidence in their own understandings, and supreme contempt for all subjects of knowledge outside its range, with supreme satisfaction in the self- willed arbitrary develop ment which teachers have assisted instead of controlled . Classical men are sometimes even proud to say that mathematics was always beyond them, and it may be suspected that a fairly large number of the educated public deem that metaphysics as a subject of human knowledge is quite condemned when they assert that they never could understand it. The range of knowledge is in our days wide, and so 236 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. it is natural that the modern sophist should appear as the specialist who believes that no subject has any real interest except his own. In Socrates' time it was otherwise, and the educated young Athenian showed his sophistical training by his readiness to have a view on any subject that turned up, and to ad vance it with confidence as being at least as good as any one else's . This was the sort of young person with whom Socrates had largely to deal in that part of his teaching which has been reflected in the method of the Platonic dialogues. It is true that we have also the plain man with conventional opinions genu inely held ; but, as before hinted, these two varieties of pupils were not for purposes of education so very different. In the minds of both were ideas to be combated their own ideas or those of other people-and, error being there, the problem for Socrates primarily was how it could be most effectively replaced by truth. Socrates was in a position quite different from that of the modern schoolmaster. His pupils, or at least those who figure in the dialogues, began with having some idea on the subject in hand, and some confidence in advancing it. The object of the teacher was to improve on that idea, and he aimed always at getting the learner to improve it for himself. He did not— like a modern lecturer on Free Trade, let us say, to an audience of Protectionists-carefully expose the fallacy of the idea, expecting his antagonist pupil to follow and be convinced. On the contrary, he asked for the explanations, he followed , eliciting the particular view by his well-adapted questions, till one of two results INVERSE SOCRATIC METHOD IN TEACHING. 237 was attained . Either the honest truth-seeker, starting perhaps as the plain man of conventional opinions, is brought to the level of the teacher's clearer standpoint, or the self- confident sophist is made to explain his sophism away. Then, in both cases, the way being clear, and the learner in an enquiring state of mind, the Socratic teacher proceeds, as the political debater might with advantage to-day, to develop his own ideas, keeping up the closest possible relation to his learner's mind all the while. Children at school are in a very different case from Socrates ' pupils. Occasionally a " well- informed ” boy or girl may be found, who quotes definitions on all occasions, like some of Socrates' respectable friends , only less intelligently. This is exceptional, I believe, and could never occur in schools of the reformed type . Almost all teachers would deal with this pupil either by direct snubbing, which is wrong, or by the Socratic method, which is right. Occasionally, too, the ob noxiously " sharp " boy turns up and advances original views with alacrity and confidence. He is generally snubbed, and sometimes rightly, yet he gives us our best opportunities for real Socratic teaching, under the Socratic conditions, the absence of which, under most circumstances, is the great objection to much reliance on the so- called Socratic method. Our children generally belong to neither of these types . These are adult, not childlike types, and our children still are children, despite all that is sometimes said to the contrary. It is not normal that children should have definite acquired ideas on grammar and arithmetic, of the copy-book- heading quotable type, 238 STUDIES IN CHARACter. nor that they should have original views as to the entirely arbitrary nature of the distinction between addition and multiplication. We should not, therefore, expect that they will meet us half- way if we start a lesson in the Socratic manner by launching the enquiry, "What is wealth ? " or "What is force ? " When Socrates asked a pupil, " What is courage? " the person he asked felt sure that he knew, and answered ; and then the plilosopher knew how to proceed . But why should a child have any idea sufficient for the enquiry, " What is force ? " He answers blindly, if at all, and is the mere victim of the relentlessly Socratising teacher, as the sham dialogue proceeds. At the end, the definition has to all appearances been neatly evolved, but the perse cuted child cares probably less for it than he did before. Imitation of Socrates will not do. He adjusted his method to his circumstances ; so must we. When people had to be confuted he caused them to confute themselves, when they needed criticism he made them criticise themselves, knowing that to self- confutation and self-criticism all efficient reform of opinion must be finally due. When our children do not need con futation and have no ideas on the subject that require criticism, then it is mere cruelty and irritation to force expression of opinion where there is no opinion, in order that it may be self-criticised or self- confuted . If Socrates ever did this, he was wrong, and we should not imitate him. Our primary work is not to confute, or even to criticise, though the need of thatSEMINARY comes later ; but we ANDOVER THEOL SEP 25 1899 INVERSE SOCRATIC METHOD IN TEACHING. 239 become Socratic in the true sense by recognising that whatever has to be done can only be really done by the child's own self. The true Socratic method is not merely a system of questioning on the teacher's part. It is the method by which the teacher causes the pupil to get for himself whatever he needs. What, then, does he need ? The ready answer comes, " His need is development-self- development, then." Oh, for a Socrates to elicit the full meaning of that word ! But time presses, and I must plead to be allowed to specialize a little. Let us deal, as he does, with intellectual development only. What must a person do to develop his intellect ? I do not think anyone doubts that the person develops his intellect by applying his will to the attainment of knowledge. This is, then, what the person has to do. How is the teacher to get him to do it ? Knowledge is not all attained by the application of will to its acquirement. Much knowledge is merely soaked in by the involuntary activity of an impression able intellect, with no consciousness of any directed effort, and the physiological minimum, we may presume, of such effort. As we all know, however, his impressionability carries the young and ready learner but a very little way, and leaves his knowledge comparatively superficial . To get beneath the surface, and to go far, it is necessary to enquire, aud to do so deliberately and persistently. All knowledge, indeed , presupposes the activities of "What? " " How? " and Why ? " but the surface knowledge of impressions may be distinguished as such by the minimum and scarcely conscious use of these interrogatories. 66 240 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. The second and deeper kind of knowledge is ac quired by a process of real enquiry. We find because we seek the deeper mines. And now note an important psychological fact. The more fitted our minds become for this process of enquiry, the less disposed do they grow to mere knowledge- soaking. This, I believe, to be generally the case, and to be explained as a result of such pre- occupation with lines of enquiry as diminishes mental freedom for impres sions in general ; though the best minds undoubtedly preserve much of the childlike ability to be interested in all things long after they have become active enquirers along particular lines. In those cases, however, the ability to receive impressions is seen to glide surely and swiftly into a tendency to enquire concerning all things. Real knowledge comes by enquiry. To enquire is, in fact, to direct the will to the attainment of know ledge ; and intellectual development is the important co-result that occurs . Hence, it seems clear that, if knowledge is to be attained and intellect to develop , a constant course of enquiry must be pursued by the person who attains and develops. Not the teacher, but the learner, must be for ever asking questions, must be for ever in an attitude of interrogation. In fact, if we are to be educational reformers, we must turn the tables a great deal more completely than we have yet done. It is not enough to adopt secondary princi ples in Socratic method . We have to create a more ideal condition of things-an eager enquiring learner on the one hand, and on the other a teacher directing, assisting, controlling the enquiry, and supplying in INVERSE SOCRATIC METHOD IN TEACHING. 241 due amount, at each step, either the means to the answer or the answer. Socrates' learners were not only already imbued with erroneous ideas which had to be confuted, they were also in an enquiring attitude of mind, ready to attend to any new thing, to follow up any interesting investigation . Our learners are generally in a some what more sleepy frame of mind-perhaps we are partly responsible for this. So it often happens that there is no latent question in their minds to which our lessons, however well given, offer a reply, and thus, for all our apparent Socratic activity, the knowledge poured out glides over their sleepy souls finding no entrance, like the proverbial water on the duck's back. We are dealing largely with unawakened youth, and our problem is how to wake it up and get it to ask questions. And thus it turns out that to be Socratic in spirit we must be inverse Socratic in method. The duty is not an easy one, and I do not propose to show, because I could not, how it is to be fulfilled in detail. Of one point we may, however, be sure the first step to fulfilling it is to get a clear idea of the conception to be realized, a well- educated pupil, a thoroughly well taught class. Such a class is one the members of which fall readily and eagerly on the topic of the lesson and invert the Socratic position by themselves pursuing the enquiry, while the teacher, lightly holding the reins, plays every kind of subsidiary part that is necessary. If your pupils do not question you, then you have, or somebody has , educated them badly. Let this be axiomatic, and the first step to better Ꭱ 242 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. things will be taken. It is not axiomatic at all to many teachers -quite the contrary ; the child is ex pected to follow quietly, to be submissively attentive— poor little uninterested soul—to answer but not to ask, to be with some a passive recipient merely, and with others an active participant in the work of the lesson only in so far as originating ideas set up, like nine pins, for the teacher to knock down. No wonder some pupils are sleepy ; they have been inhaling soporifics all their school life . They have been talked at for hours, till they became, without knowing it, imperturbably and obstinately unimpres sionable. Then they are cross - examined for hours, till they cease to discriminate between true and false, except as means to escape from a drama in which they play always the involuntary and uninteresting part. They want something different from this for their growth. If only they could feel as the lesson begins that now there is an opportunity to get that question answered, and this difficulty cleared up ! Think what a progressive class it would be if half the members came with notes for questions in their heads or hands. We have to create that kind of class by giving every encouragement to the enquiring impulse which all persons have to some extent when they are interested . To succeed in developing this, we must, in the first place, encourage it when it appears, and direct our controlling efforts solely to its guidance, with a view to cultivating a method of enquiry appro priate to the subject in hand. Young people do ask questions, and every question should be turned to account. If it be a question as to simple facts that INVERSE SOCRATIC METHOD IN TEACHING. 243 may be observed, opportunity should be given that the child may observe the facts, and thus answer it for himself. If it deal with a matter of historical evidence, let the evidence be given by the teacher, with such hints as are necessary for its use bythe child . If it refer to a result of reasoning, let due help be given to enable the learner to think it out for himself. If it deal with linguistic or other conventions, then give the answer straight, but as intelligently as you One great step was already made when the learner enquired. The second step is made when you guide him in the pursuit of his own enquiry along the road of its natural discovery. But remember that lesson-giving is always subsidiary to lesson- taking, and feel as you go on that the taker of the lesson is doing his work. can. Occasionally he may fail to do it because he is idle, and then you may be angry with him. An appropri ate reproof is of more value probably to the idle boy than to any other. His conscience is failing him, and it needs a jog ; but let the reproof be rot merely unpleasant but a conscience-jog. Let the class feel that it is doing wrong when it at once fails to under stand some point and does not ask a question about it . Suppose I first invite enquiry on some matter which is probably imperfectly understood. No one ventures a question ; every one looks satisfied . " Very well," 1 say, "then you understand all about it, and can tell me or solve some problems." The class looks blank. I proceed with my questions, the answer to be written out by each one. The pencils move slowly. I take up a paper and read out the unsatisfactory result, 244 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. or, better still , ask some girl to read what she has written. The results are generally miserable, and the girls know it without my individual criticism . Few words are necessary to make the reproof felt. " I do not blame you because you did not know, but I blame you because, not knowing, you had not the earnestness to enquire. Do you expect to know, when you will not take the trouble to know where you are ignorant and to ask a question ? " This is one way of giving a conscience-jog. It is the teacher's duty, however, to keep within moderate limits the strain put for intellectual purposes on the moral conscience. From a very early age some demand should , I believe, be made of a child to do his lessons well for conscience' sake ; but later the demand becomes for many a considerable one, and sometimes too wearing. The teacher should minimise it by making lessons as intrinsically interesting as possible . This all admit ; but the point I wish to dwell on is, that the creation of intellectual interests is all- important for the cultivation of the enquiring impulse. The natural start of a question is an interest -an intrinsic interest-in the subject it concerns. When that fails, duty, or some other ulterior motive, may surround it with a fictitious interest whence enquiry issues ; but the more intrinsically interesting subjects are, the more easily flows the stream of questions. In the production of the inverse Socratic position, then, three conditions are necessary in the teacher. ( 1 ) He should first aim at presenting the general matter- of- fact of his subject so as to make it bristle INVERSE SOCRATIC METHOD IN TEAGHING. 245 with interest, and interest of the kind that suggests further enquiry, The story of King Alfred and the cakes is not interesting in that sense, while some account rightly put of the graves of the pre- Celtic Britons and their contents would certainly be. Teachers would do well to lay carefully to heart the thought that the least interesting, because the least suggestive, parts of a subject are those which leave the unhappy student with no further information to desire. (2) The second rule for the inverse Socrates is to pat all real inquisitiveness on the back, and not be hasty in supposing that a child is merely pert, as is sometimes the case, when he enquires. I have a dread suspicion that the stolidly unenquiring girls of seventeen whom I sometimes meet, were once little inquisitive creatures whose enquiring faculties have been steadily, though quite unwittingly, suppressed . (3) In the third place, we should make it a matter of conscience, with our elder pupils more especially, that they ought seriously and honestly to hold them selves responsible for the weaving of their own knowledge- web, by diligently enquiring after each thread that they require. My experience is chiefly of the teaching of mathe matics and mathematical science, but this doctrine by no means applies only, or mainly, to the teaching of these. It is suggested by study even more than by teaching -though I have tested it in teaching—and the subject of all others to which its application seems to me most evident is that of history. This subject is too long for discussion now, and I must be content 246 STUDIES IN CHARACTER. with suggestion only. The dulness of an historical text- book is a thing that must be felt to be known. The lessons probably are much better ; but imagine what they might be made to be if they were conceived for constitutional history as a real enquiry into the causes of familiar facts, and, in general , as an enquiry into the making of the nations-the home-nation more particularly. The country they inhabit, the laws under which they live, the race or races from which they sprang, the way England came to be what it is-these are ideas of thrilling interest, I imagine, to most English children while still unspoiled . Evidently they are ideas that can be handled in a first lesson, or course of lessons, so as to bristle with suggestions of enquiry. Thus the soil is prepared. Next, let questions be invited in an orderly manner. Each child who wishes might hand in a slip of paper stating the points on which he desires more information . When the ques tions can be used to lead to a course of enquiry, and thus to give a lesson in historical method , so much the better ; but in many cases straightforward informa tion might be more to the purpose. Much would depend on the age and advancement of the class. The good teacher, in this as in all pursuit of ideals, must not look for rules which none could frame rightly, but must feel his way. If he knows what he wants to produce, and how to try for it in general, it is enough. He must watch for the right result, and feel when he has got it, as an artist does in the production of a scenic effect. A teacher is an artist : he needs clear ideas as to the end he desires to attain, much INVERSE SOCRATIC METHOD IN TEACHING. 247 knowledge as to the laws of the human material with which he works, and the quick sympathetic insight by which he feels after and finds the realization of his end. Such insight is as truly his artistic sense, and essential to him, as is the painter's feeling for form and the musician's ear for sound. Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London. V 1 ? I 國 toont 1650 Toto bas 19dtst toail -mos vaeft Todtus t9dt Tans COTol -IGTI Фwon void toodt stil bas gier 1019qtoIls sieerd Art war bus.v9.100 writ out Ikoitflog stil to19vilo llowmor voldi2 tt -19MT Vil batain Wyd tdgit b2Woo Joabni 118V 2-8088 TACH 1919 15910 ToTqm toSTOI ESTI Ssize -Jail DK131 B 310B BIGL 1080- JASE 1stdi to2297g000

See also

• Character