MR. PEARSON ON THE DECAY OF NATIONAL CHARACTER.
MR. CHARLES HENRY PEARSON, in the very remarkable book which Messrs. Macmillan have just published on "National Life and Character," brings forward evidence to prove that all the greater races of the world are losing ground,—that the inferior races, like the Chinese, Hindoos, and Malays, and the mixed races of the South American Continent must in the end gain upon them ; that the very tendencies on which we pride ourselves most,—especially the greater humanity which has rendered war so much less cruel, and famine so much less destruc- tive,—are telling in favour of the lower races ; and that the dream in which we have indulged that the lower races die out before the stronger, is a fallacy founded on the ex- perience of one or two non-typical cases, like the failure of the non-industrial races of North American Indians in the United States. On the other hand, in Africa and in tropical Asia and America, it seems that the stronger White races can never work and flourish, though they may direct and, guide to some extent the civilisation of the lower races which do work and flourish there ; while even in countries which are not tropical, one of the great non- progressive races,—the Chinese,—are already showing not only great industrial but very considerable military quali- ties, which will secure them a great weight in the political future of the world. All this is depressing enough. But this is not the worst. Mr. Pearson supplements his argu- ment from the statistics of race, by a still more discouraging argument from the political and social tendencies of modern democracy, to show that even among the great races themselves there is a growing tendency to the decay of individual force, and the substitution of what we may call a pallid average of humble comfort, and well-to-do secular content, for the great storms and struggles which have produced the highest form of human energy and genius. The State is, he thinks, rapidly taking the place of the Church in moulding men's morality up to a certain average decency, a complacency of moral harmlessness. The intenser forms of religion are dying out. Intensity even in the form of Puritanism and Catholic asceticism is dis- appearing. Literature is more and more descending to the level of commonplace taste, and providing for the demands of the vacant-minded, rather than the satisfaction of high ideal emotions. The epic and the drama have lost their hold. Even lyric poetry is losing some of its freshness and simplicity. The novel is more and more taking the place of the higher flights of genius, and even the novel is adapting itself to the tastes of those who like simply to be amused without exerting their minds. Democracy tends to the drilling of the multitude rather than to the elevation of the highest qualities of political and individual life. The force of family ties is sensibly on the wane. The affections are becoming less exacting and more reasonable, but also less romantic. Marriage loses in sacred- ness as legislation more and more provides alleviations for the wrongs of unhappy ties. Even commercial and indus- trial individualism flies at less ambitious aims. The tendency of modern society is to substitute a certain socialistic kind of tame well-being for the greater efforts of adventurous and eager enterprise. On the whole, Mr. Pearson is inclined to expect a higher level of social order, the suppression of • violence, more and more tameness of life, Governments which • succeed better in protecting the poor, and extinguishing all crushing misery and destitution ; but, by way of compen- sation, far less variety and intensity in human life, a lower class of ambitions, a poorer class of tastes, a lower type of physique, a lower type of energy, less religion, more secular decency, more tepid and placid lives. There is obviously a very close analogy between what Mr. Pearson expects in the moral world, and that anti- cipation of the physicists, that the end of the world will come through the dissipation of the solar energy, the loss of concentrated centres of heat, and the uni- lorm diffusion through space of the beat which was once focussed in the great centre of our system. They tell us that all life depends on the give and take of heat, and that when all the heat is diffused in uniform strata, life will come to an end. But no competent physi- cist will, we think, maintain that modern science can really explore or exhaust the resources from which the sun's heat may be replenished,—can tell us, for instance, what is the yearly supply of meteorites which fall into the sun, and how far they may either compensate, or pos- sibly even more than compensate, the loss of its heat by radiation. They know a good deal more about the rate of diffusion of heat, than they do of the causes which bring about its concentration in fixed centres. And we may say the same of Mr. Pearson's theory as to the diffusion and dilution of personal energy throughout the races of the world. We see very clearly bow the training of the lower races of the earth is absorbing, as it were, much of the energy and moral intensity of the higher races ; and more than this, how the civilising and drilling of the higher races themselves is absorbing a great deal of the energy and the moral intensity of the dominant characters to be found amongst the most cultivated classes of those higher races, and we see that, while the average level of humanity is being raised both in the higher races and the lower races, the highest level of humanity is undergoing a certain steady loss, or what politicians call a "levelling down." All this is a natural and necessary part of that process of diffusion,—of that process of leavening the poorer elements of man's nature by the richer elements,—in which, on the whole, civilisation seems to consist. But though we can see this, we do not see with at all equal clearness how new crystallisations of moral and spiritual power are produced, or what are the causes which tend to produce them. Mr. Pearson himself, in his deeply interesting book, warns us wisely enough against too hasty generalisations, whether pessimistic or optimistic, whether despondent or sanguine. He shows us how often predictions on either side have been falsified by the event, how the deepest darkness has often come before the dawn, and how the most brilliant hopes have been utterly disappointed by the result. We cannot say that we attach any great importance to Mr. Pearson's personal conclusion, though we recognise to the full the dangers which he per- ceives in the immediate development of human society. No doubt, democracy tends to bring about a certain rather dull uniformity of life and purpose. No doubt, the mere multiplication of the numbers of the earth's various popula- tions, has itself the effect of deluging the world with a sort of commonplaceness of aim and standard, which just because it is practical, and not too high to be more or less realised, is not brilliant, is not romantic, is not exhilarating. That is of the very essence of the diffusion of a higher spirit. If it raises the lowest level, it tends also to depress the highest ; at least it sets a great example of mediocrity, and affords shelter which is eagerly sought and used, for excusing comparatively poor and humble ideals. You cannot mix hot water with cold without lowering the temperature of the former, just because it raises that of the latter. But from all this it does not follow at all that there are no new causes at work to concentrate human energy, to enrich human genius, to restore the higher aims of human ambition. Mr.
Pearson thinks poorly of the Chinese character, but what might not the tenacious and industrious Chinese character achieve, if it ever fell completely under the influence of Christianity ? What may not be the genius of the great Slav race, if it ever emerges from its present depth of despondency and discontent ? Indeed, we are far from certain that there may not be a coming age for the Negro character itself,—a character full of the more intense elements of affection and emotion, though in its present undeveloped stage liable to all the lowest depths of superstition. We have seen to how great a civilisation the Franks, the Goths and Visigoths, who seemed to the Roman world the very embodiment of all that was destructive, have given rise under the tutelage of the mediEeval Church. Is there not the same destiny in store for very many of the races which we now call the lower races of the world I" In a word, Mr. Pearson's pessimism seems to us to be rooted in despair of God's providence much more than in the facts of human history. Of course, history tells us freely of the decline of one national genius after another. But as yet at least, there have always arisen successors who have in many respects surpassed, though in many they may not have equalled, the achieve- ments of their predecessors.
Previous page
