VERBAL POULTICES. T HERE is a certain class of mind which
is as fond of abstract resolutions as old women are of poultices. They have an unshakable belief in the soothing effect of the outward application to the body politic of a collection of words of vague and vast import, put together so as to convey the minimum of real meaning. Unfortunately, too, the devotees of these verbal poultices are just now so much in the ascendant, that few people have the courage to feel that they are on the side of virtue unless they are ready to clap a poultice on the moment a public ill is detected, or supposed to be detected. A glaring instance of the infatuation with which people nowadays rush into abstract resolutions was afforded at the recent meeting of the Congregational Union. That is an excellent body of very worthy men, many of them pose essed of great intelligence and cultivation, and they doubtless had a good deal of perfectly necessary and legitimate business to transact. They could not, however, be content with that, or with theological controversy, which should be the stand-by of Church Conferences of all kinds. They must needs apply a poultice to the public mind before they separated. And what a poultice l For flabbiness, for clamminess, for lukewarmness, for want of body and sub- stance, for sickly fluidity, its equal was never constructed. Its terms are worth setting forth to show what a body of admittedly able and well-educated men can do in the way of a resolution when once they have abandoned their minds to the pernicious and debilitating influence of abstrac- tions. They lay it down with all the solemn fatuity of irrelevance that " the assembly desire to bear testimony to the ethical principle that the rights of humanity must take precedence of the rights of property." We have no cloubeetbet when these worthy gentlemen had reverently, not to say unctuously, applied their poultice at " the pit of the stomach" of a suffering world, they felt elated with a sense of their own beneficence. Doubtless to each adherent of the resolution there came a sense as of peace unspeakable, mixed somehow or other with the feeling of taking half-crowns out of [their pockets and giving them to specially deserving objects. They had not separated without having done something to lighten the labourer's toil and to make the world a better and a nobler place than they found it. Yet, in reality, these latter-day Marcus Aureliuses had done nothing but talk plain and palpable nonsense. The resolution was either simple twaddle-and-water, the mildest and most obvious of truisms, or else mere vagueness and unreality. If they meant by their resolution that it is a nobler and better thing to belkind and merciful and helpful than not to be any of these:things, the whole world, pagan as well as Christian, will [shout " Agreed," and will add, with a growl, "Thank you for nothing." If, however, they meant that humanity (with a big " H ") has certain abstract rights, and that property (of course, with a small "p ") has certain other rights, and that those of humanity are of a far superior kind, they are talking a parcel of crazy rubbish—filling their bellies with the east wind, as Carlyle would have said What do they mean by the rights of humanity P Human rights P That is the right of each man to enjoy freedom of action, subject to the limitation that such enjoyment does not infringe the rights of others.' In other words, human rights mean the enjoyment of freedom of action, minus whatever sacrifice of freedom is necessary for the general good of society. But chief among these human rights are what are loosely termed the rights of property4eat more properly rights exercised by human beings in respect of property. The rights of humanity and the rights of (property are, then, the same thing, and can- not be placed in antagonism, as in the resolution. It may be said, however, that this is a refinement, and that, whether well expressed or not, there are such things as what are called in the resolution rights of humanity, and that these ought to be considered superior to man's rights in respect of property. A, it will be said, has as much a ' right to consideration and kind treatment from B as B has to exact respect for his property from A. As a confused statement of the working of the moral law as regards rights and duties, this is not, perhaps, untrue. Strictly speaking, however, there is no comparison possible between the two positions. A has no right to indefinite consideration and kind treatment from B. A right must be something definite, something which is acknowledged, and can be enforced by law. But you cannot define a right to be kindly treated. The law, however, gives B.certain powers over his property which are definable, and these are rights. No doubt B is under a moral obligation to act kindly and considerately towards A, but it merely results in confusion to say that B's moral obligation to be a good man creates in A an abstract right to claim the fruits of that goodness.
Abstract rights are, in a word, delusions. No doubt the community which creates human rights by defining them and enforcing them may take away certain- of the rights over particular pieces of property belonging to X, and may give them to Z, but this is done by definition and limitation. A law declaring that every one with £1,000 a year must find nine just and poor persons and give them each £100 a year would not be giving the rights of humanity precedence over the rights of property ; it would simply be transferring the rights of property in particular blocks of wealth from one set of persons to another set. Again, enacting that no one should after January 1, 1894, exact rents from aged or sick persons would not be establishing the rights of humanity, but merely transferring rights of property. Property seeks an owner as much as water does its own level, and the most you can do, as, again, with water, is to change its course and direction. To talk, then, of the rights of humanity, and to contrast them with those of property, is, as we have said, either a loose and slipshod statement of the truism that we ought all to be good and kind to our neighbours, or else a contradiction in terms.
What is the use of making such a fuss about a verbal poultice P It pleased the Ministers who passed the resolution, and made them feel " comfortable inside," and did no one any harm. Why, then, bother about it ? We bother about it not because we think it will do any injury to any one's property, but because it is by no means a solitary case of canting by resolution, and because we hold that poultices applied to the mind are as weakening in their effect as those applied to the body. Every now and then a verbal poultice may no doubt be of use to soothe a nation. Sidney Smith, when he told the story of Mrs. Partington and the Atlantic at the Reform meeting at Taunton, applied a poultice which did a great deal to relieve the irritation and inflammation which the rejection, of the Reform Bill by the Lords had produced. When, how- ever, poultices in the form of abstract resolutions are applied freely, and merely to induce a general sense of comfort, they are detestable things. They weaken the morale of the nation, and" produce a watery, lethargic, puffy condition, which is destruc- tive to the public health. Dr. Johnson's message to the world was, " Clear your mind of cant." We may vary it to, " Clear your mind of abstractions." We laugh and wonder at the late Romans for their habit of deifying anything and everything, from the Emperor to the kitchen-garden, but we are quite as bad. We are for ever debauching our minds by creating and dwelling on abstractions. We cannot talk of men and women. It must be Humanity. Workmen and employers, or men and masters, are quite obsolete. We must talk of labour with a big " L," and capitid with a big " C." We are not content with even rich and poor, but must talk of the " Masses " and:.. the " Classes "—perhaps the stupidest, clumsiest, and more in- ' jurious of all the abstractions ever perpetrated. No doubt we shall get over our habit of making abstract resolutions on any and no excuse, as we have got over other moral epidemics ; but, meantime, it is difficult for plain men not to have their stomachs turned by the rancid philanthropy now in fashion. At last the world will find that "you may resolute till the cows come home" and yet never get an inch " forrarder."' When this discovery is made, we shall see a strong reaction to the old ground of strong common sense, and "Prove it will become as common a rejoinder as it was a generation ago.. At present, not to accept washy sentiment as truth and to ask for facts is considered rude and unsympathetic.
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