• BOOKS.

PROFESSOR MAURICE ON SOCIAL MORALITY.* IF Mr. Maurice had called this book " Lectures on the Philosophy of History in Relation to Social Morals," it would, we conceive, have been nearer the mark than Social Morality. It is a book rich in thought and insight,—full of allusive knowledge on the subject of ecclesiastical history and its relations with secular history, the accuracy and value of which very few men, and certainly the present reviewer is not one of them, can pretend to gauge,—and in some respects, we think, one of the most characteristic and valuable ever published by its author. But it would hardly have occurred to us, had we read the book without seeing its title-page, that the author regarded it as treating on social morality, even in Mr. Maurice's own sense of that term,—the sense in which it describes the moral disposition or genius (rWas) of the nation, the family, and of the individual as a member of the nation and the family. It is true that Mr. Maurice gives us some striking thoughts on domestic relations and their influence on the character of various nations, on the struggle between national character and the universalism of the Roman Empire, on the struggle between national character and the universalism of the Latin Church, on the struggle between individual character and the tendency of Jesuitism to annihilate the individual. On all these subjects what Mr. Maurice says is rich in suggestion and instruction. The great principles of his book are, we think, somewhat as follows :—that society, instead of being the result of the combination of individuals, is really the fundamental condition of all individual life ; that social relations develop true individual life, instead of being developed out of a concurrence of individual influences ; that, again, national life is as strictly the natural and legitimate result of the development of society outwards, as free individual life is strictly the natural and legitimate result of the development of society inwards ; that all universalism which attempts to ignore true national life, whether it rests on the attempt to compromise the differences

• Social Morality. Twenty-one Lectures delivered in the University of Cam- bridge. By F. D. Maurice, Professor of Casuistry and Moral Theology. Loudon : Macmillan.

of national genius and character under the external sway of a single power like that of the Roman Empire, or whether it rests on the attempt to repress national and domestic feelings under the dominion of an ecclesiastical power like that of the Pope, is false and mischievous ; that the only true and Christian univer- salism is not only perfectly consistent with the fullest assertion and development of domestic, of national, and of individual life, but even impossible without such an assertion and development of the more special spheres of feeling and energy ; and that this co-ordin- ate development of the narrowest and the widest relations in which man can be included is sanctioned and upheld by the Christian revelation, which declares as existing in the divine world relations on which those of the human world are founded, and the history of which shows that the divine love, while embracing the whole race, and proclaiming in a real sense a brotherhood co-extensive with the whole race, is specially revealed in the government of the family, the individual, and the nation, before men are fit to be taught that it embraces all nations as well as each.

Such are the general principles of Mr. Maurice's volume, illus- trated with more than his usual power and fertility of historical resource. But we admit that ' social morality,' even in the sense in which he himself defines it, as expressing the peculiar characters or moral habits of various societies and the relation of these to each other, led us to expect a good deal less of the philosophy of history, and a good deal more of an attempt to discover, whether histori- cally or otherwise, what the true ideal of the various social rela- tions, domestic, national, iuternational or universal, is. All practically that we get in this way is the purely negative definition, that the various domestic relations, for instance, cannot be true, if they do not, on the one hand, sustain and cherish a free and noble individual life, and if they do not, on the other hand, sustain and cherish a free and noble national life, and a brotherly attitude between one nation and all the other members of the human family. Thus, to take an instance,—in the lecture on war Mr. Maurice decides that all dread of war is superstitious and destructive when it goes so far as to surrender the proper freedom and independence of national character and genius, when, in short, it sacrifices the highest objects of life for the sake of preserving life itself. And no doubt this is a logical inference from all the principles he had laid down. But he implies that defensive wars are not in all cases the only ones which can be justified,—that the invasion of Palestine by the Israelites, for example, was a genuinely holy war,—yet he alto- gether omits to discuss the grounds on which offensive wars are to be justified, unless, indeed, he means to imply that wherever the nation invaded is in a state of hopeless moral decay and putrescence, conquest and slaughter are justifiable. This, like numberless other questions of social morality, is not in any way discussed. So, too, in treating of domestic morality, of parents and children, of husbands and wives, of brothers and sisters, he never discusses the ideal obligations involved iu such relations,—where they commence and where they cease,—but contents himself with pointing out that the true relation fails wherever either party to the relation is lost in the other, or it begins to interfere with another equally natural relation. Thus the relations of authority and obedience in which fathers and children stand are corrupted, as Mr. Maurice points out, whenever the authority degenerates into dominion, and the obedience into servitude ; they are corrupted whenever they infringe on the free development of the child's individual life,—which, however, cannot be, in his opinion, truly and freely developed, unless it is taught to recognize the true authority of a parent and the true surrender of self-will implied in the obedience of a child,—for Mr. Maurice distinguishes constantly and most justly between freedom and self-will as not only distinct, but absolutely inconsistent with each other. But there his discussion of the morality of this social relation stops. lie does not even give us a sketch of how far, in his estimation, the use of parental authority is a duty and the defiance of filial obedience obligatory: On this subject, and on that of the other relations included in "Domestic Morality," we might have expected, in a course of lectures on social morality, some four or five lectures, instead of one,—and room might, we think, have been made by the abbreviation of what we should call the philosophy of history, which extends over half the book. Mr. Maurice tells us, for instance, that marriage (we are not speaking of the legal, but of the moral tie,) is a relation which is not in any sense constituted by the feelings of affection which induce the man and woman to enter into it. It is a relation into which, whether from good or bad motives, they enter, and which does not depend on those motives. Once entered, it has a sacredness, Mr. Maurice intimates,—we think, truly,—quite apart from those motives, and which cannot be dissolved by any mere failure in those motives. He rejects the sentimental view of marriage as a relation based solely upon certain reciprocal feelings. But he gives us no guidance at all as to the extent of the obligations which he conceives to be imposed by the existence of that relation apart from those feelings. He does not even discuss the moral question of the indissolubility or dissolubility of the tie. He thinks, if we under- stand him rightly, that the moral relation once entered upon, in some sense exists whether either party or both rebel against it and are unfaithful to it. But he does not draw any inference as to what the right and what the wrong method of treating such rebellion is. After telling us that the relation implies ' trust,' that there ought to be in each party to a marriage "the sense of incompleteness without the other,"—he leaves all the moral pro- blems involved to illustrate historically,—very strikingly, no doubt,—the great part which respect for marriage, and the horror of the violation of marriage (at least by the wife), played even in nations like the Greeks, who had never heard the teaching of revelation. No doubt that is a striking lesson as to the depth of root which these domestic relations, and the obligations they impose, have struck in human nature. But it hardly helps us to define even what the ideal relation is ; still less to judge whether Roman Catholicism is right in making marriage absolutely indis- soluble, or many of the modern Protestant States in making it dissoluble almost at pleasure ; and least of all, how far it is or may be a wife's duty to pardon the infidelity of a hus- band, or a husband's to receive back an unfaithful wife.

Some of the moral questions which most perplex and agitate the social conscience in relation to these various subjects surely should have been so far discussed as to illustrate Mr. Maurice's mode of un- derstanding the depth and breadth of these social obligations, but in fact they are only touched at all in relation to the effect such conceptions have had on national genius and development. Mr.

Maurice always keeps our attention fixed on the fact that no domestic morality can be perfect which tends to extinguish individual life, that no universal morality can he perfect which tends to extinguish national life, and that no individual morality, again, can be perfect which ignores domestic and national morality,—in short, that all the natural relations of life are given to us and are alike divine, and all must be so interpreted as to help and strengthen each other ; but apart from this criterion of wrong,—the tendency to invade other and equally sacred spheres of duty,—he gives us little help towards defining the right.

This is only a complaint against a very valuable and instructive book because it has to some extent disappointed our expectations, —not taught us what we hoped to learn from it,—and substituted a good deal of historical lore which is perhaps a little over our heads. But we have one positive criticism to make on Mr_ Maurice's teaching. It seems to us to assume too often that all institutions which exist in individual nations are inevitable, and that true morality requires us to make the best use of them, not to extirpate them. For example, in his chapter on " Govern- ment," after speaking of Monarchy, Mr. Maurice says :—

" But at this time you will perhaps hear less about this part of our Government than about its aristocratical element. You will be present at many discussions upon the desirableness of 'a second Chamber.' Do you really suppose that such arguments, if they are ever so cleverly conducted, will advance one step the settlement of the question whether England is or is not to have a nobility ? I remember to have heard a distinguished man, not many years dead, a Judge in one of our Equity Courts, expressing his opinion of Lord Russell's Life of Moore. ' An amusing tale,' the Judge said, do not dislike the poet. He was a terrible tuft-hunter, no doubt. But what man, or woman, or child in England, Ireland, or Scotland has a right to cast a stone at him for that ? There is not one of us, you know, that can keep himself from falling down and worshipping u lord whenever he has the opportunity.' One laughed, of course, at the extravagance of this dictum. The speaker's own practice was, I doubt not, a refutation of it. But there must be something in such a remark which we cannot afford to forget. So acute an observer would not have pointed this out as our temptation if it were not one into which we are all likely to fall. If that is so, there must be more in the existence of an Aristocracy than those have discovered who discuss the utility or the mischievousness of a second Chamber. For evil or for good, it has penetrated into our social life ; it affects our Social Morality. For evil certainly if it begets a base fiunkeyism. But can you cure that by abolishing the institution which has been an excuse for it ? The disease may take a hundred forms, may be called forth by the most different objects. See whether you cannot counteract it by nourishing the temper of which it is the grovelling counterfeit. If you are loyal to the family sympathies which an Aristocracy represents—if you remember that you too have fathers and ancestors, let them be of what rank or reputation they may, whom it is in your power to honour or to disgrace—and you will find that an hereditary Chamber, whatever legislative functions it may exercise, need not depress, may do much to elevate, your national, and therefore your individual life. The members of it may have temptations to which we are not exposed. If we are loyal to our common country we may find that what unites patrician and plebeian is stronger than that which separates them."

Now, we are not disposed to deny that Mr. Maurice may be right

in this particular case ; but if he is, it is surely not because this respect for rank exists and is so general, but because it more or less really ennobles those who feel it and those who are the object of it, and would be superseded, if it were to be superseded suddenly, by something less noble, perhaps utterly ignoble, such as the respect for, and the pride in, mere wealth. We do not see why, if the line of argument be true, it should not have equally been used to apologize for slavery in the United States before its abolition.

Surely Mr. Maurice might equally have asked, " Can you cure the tyranny and the servility implied in it, by abolishing the institu- tion which has been an excuse for it ? " Many Northerners as well as Southerners did ask this again and again, and answered it in the negative, and thereupon agreed that the relation of master and slave should be reformed, and not abolished ; yet Mr. Maurice

exults in its abolition. The tendency of Mr. Maurice's social morality seems to us on almost all questions to be too passive,—taking his stand as he does on natural relations as in all cases involving snore or less of divine authority, and giving us no test by which we shall discriminate a spurious, artificial, and debased relation from that in which it properly took its origin,—his tendency being to regard almost every existing national institution as imposing certain conser- vative duties on the nation in which it is found, unless it is either hopelessly corrupt or conspicuously obsolete. This necessarily follows from his accepting the natural relations as the divine foundations of social morality, and from his suggesting no criterion of the possible dissolution of such a relation, and still less of the arti- ficiality, and therefore the non-obligatory character of any relation which may seem and claim to be natural and divine without being

so. The only relations denounced by this book as false and fatal are those which invade an inner sphere of obligation,—imperial obligations which require the sacrifice of national obligations, national obligations which require the sacrifice of domestic obliga- tions, domestic obligations which extinguish the individual life.

But these do not surely exhaust the list of false and mischievous social relations. A relation may be false iu itself, and yet not first

reveal its falseness by invading any other sphere of obligation. It is perfectly true, for instance, that such respect for property as is expressed by Tennyson's " Northern Farmer " of the " New Style" is profound, and in some sense natural, or at least inherited without any special inculcation, in England, is more or less acknow- ledged in our institutions, and is yet a great injury to us. Are we incapable of discovering this, is there no criterion of its evil power over us, until we find it positively interfering with some

social or individual duty ?

We shall give a very false impression of this book, if we do not express the profound interest with which we have read it, and the great beauty and depth of a great portion of it. We find fault with it chiefly for leaving out so much we hoped to find ; but we are bound to say we have found and enjoyed much that we did not

hope to find. We cannot better give a specimen of the depth of Mr. Maurice's thought than in his inference from the fact that

the morality which is deepest, as every one is beginning to see, as well in moral and political as in social matters, is not that which

is most peculiar, select, and exceptional, but that which is largest and most comprehensive. Mr. Maurice characteristically and very powerfully infers from this fact a theological basis for morality :— "Not that which is peculiar, not that which is exceptional, is most elevated ; but that which has the largest, most comprehensive sympathy, which can most enter into the conditions of those who are lowest and most degraded. Whence can such a Sympathy have issued, whence can the desire of it have issued ? If its source is in our circumstances it must soon bo exhausted ; those circumstances, by their varieties and contradictions, are exhausting it. If the source is in ourselves, the Self of each man must extinguish it. The circumstances have given rise to those partial conceptions of worth which men in different regions have formed, which they have exalted into gods. The selfish instincts have made these conceptions incapable of reconciliation. Suppose the sym- pathy to have sprung from a Will which has called Man into being, which is the origin of Life and Order to the Universe, there is at least the dawn of light upon this great paradox, the promise that all our acts, thoughts, and habits may not for ever be entangled in the meshes of it."

And as a specimen of the moral beauty of a book which is full of beauty, let us close our notice with the following striking passage on the harmony between all true nationalism and true universalism of feeling :—

" Our business is not to set England above other countries ; to foster any national conceit. We are not to maintain that nations are only good and true when they have a Sovereign, and a House of Peers, and a House of Commons. But since this is the form of Government under which wo have been nurtured, which has moulded the thoughts of us and our fathers, our loyalty to it will be the beet security that we honour the institutions and desire the growth of every other nation. Our judg- ments are apt to be arrogant, because we see but a little way. The hills that surround as and protect us may shut out the prospect beyond them. But when we reflect how mach those hills are above us, how many generations have dwelt under the shadow of them, and have welcomed the sun as it rose behind them, humbler thoughts will take possession of us. We shall begin to understand that there may bo other regions which lie under the shadow of their own hills, which are enlightened by the same sun."