THE MODERN EGYPTIAN PHILOSOPHER.
Wisnom has been drawn once more from Egypt ; this time not in myths or mysteries, or in Arab versions of the Greek philosophies, but from a newer school. Three of the greatest nations in the world were lately busying themselves in getting up a quarrel, bandying the half-exploded dogmata of royal "honour," as it exists in the keeping of a rabble rout of fellows with nothing to fear and nothing to lose, and dressed in coats "bound with white tape six sous to the yard." One of these respectable disputants was, strange to say, not a prince, who had something to gain by "marching away with them to glory," but the superenlightened re- public of the age. While these the three depositories of the newest political wisdom were thus indulging old follies, a very great inno- vation was introduced by one of the humbler rulers among the nations, in a corner of Africa. The innovation was of that quiet kind that it attracted no adequate attentiou, and indeed has not yet done so ; for the approval which it very generally received was limited to a part, and that a small part only, of its merits. While England, having lent itself to Lord PALMERSTON, conde- scended to the last bad reason of kings, and was outrun by France and the United States in military ardour, MEHEMET Atr, the Pasha of Egypt, reversed one of the standing maxims of war—that all is fair against an enemy ; and indeed did that which would once have been thought to frustrate the strenuous measures which he so well knew how to use. In fact, he refused to consider the fore- most of his assailants, England, his enemy : looking deeper into her real interests and the sentiments of her people than her own rulers had done, he separated the overt act of her public servants from herself: "he was not at war with England, but with the Ambassa- dors at Constantinople." His son, with the best resources that his country afforded, vigorously opposed the troops of Lord PAL.. MERSTON and Lord PONSONBY ; and at the same time MEnsurr
Au exerted himself to farther the commercial interests and enter- prise of the English people, by protecting her merchants and aiding directly in preserving her last great enterprise, the new road to India, from the attacks and obstructions of his own more bar- barous subjects. How obviously, according to the old rule, it was his interest to take the opportunity which offered itself, of injuring the resources of the enemy, and making its people discontented with so inconvenient a war ! how necessary to vindicate his " honour "! The barbaric ruler, however, saw beyond such wis- dom, and he struck out a great practical lesson to the rulers of the civilized world—that war is a meaner occupation, to be left for the use of diplomatists and professional war-dealers, but to be kept quite subordinate to higher and more enduring interests. He lost Syria ; be made no diversion in its favour on the Isthmus of Suez ; but he preserved the great highway of civilization from Europe to It abates nothing of his merit to retort that "it was his in- terest" to do as he did ; that he had learned wisdom from ad- versity; and that he is not capable of seeing the full extent of his own reform : the wonder is, that of all the rulers of the world, the Viceroy of a Turkish province should be the first to see what his real interest is ; that he should profit so singularly by a very com- mon trouble ; and that he should see so much further, at least, into the gist of his reform than school-taught politicians, as to be the first practically to attest its value. But that he actually does see much further than he has had credit for, is proved by the ad- mirable letter which he dictated to his Minister in reply to the address of thanks which he received from Liverpool; both of which have been published this week. He boldly recurs to elementary principles, disregarding the antiquated dogmas which have amused
those who have set themselves up to be the arbiters of his fate, and enunciates from the sword-bought throne of Egypt a philo- sophy which is struggling into maturity among the books and news- papers of Europe. Nor is it to the trade of kings that MEHEMET Ara's insight is confined ; he has shrewd piercing glances into the more novel and
complicated science of political economy. Of this Commodore
NAPIER gave some amusing instances at the Liverpool dinner on Monday. The Commodore thought himself qualified as an Eng-
lishman to lecture the Egyptian on his monopolies and his slave. trade. Look, rejoined the acute barbarian, to your own Corn-law ; see how long it took you, with all your learning and all your power, to abolish the great monopoly of India—how much time and money
it cost to free your own slaves ; and then give me time to do like- wise. The retort is unanswerable. And it is not merely a clever
reply to a troublesome instance : it shows a true insight into the
relative positions of the two countries ; it proves that MEHEMET Ara has knowledge of human nature, in its English phase and in its Egyptian, and a just appreciation of the actual state of his own people and the means at his own command. So clear-sighted a man may deserve some credit for sincerity as well as cleverness. Who, ten years back, with the map of the world before him and called upon to say which was the country that would put forth these cogent lessons in political economy and national morals, would have laid his finger on Egypt—the land twice abandoned by wisdom—the land of the forgotten lore of the Pyramids and of the burners of the Alexandrian Library—the country of monopolies and Mamelukes?
But there is yet another reflection suggested by these things : MEHEMET Am was not thought a fool for his pains when he sent to guard the property and persons of his "enemies." Boldly re- versing long-established rules of international politics—sweeping aside the rubbish of embargoes and reprisals—this act of the in
is not thought a folly. On the contrary, the tendency is to detract from his merit by pronouncing what be did to be the very best thing for his own interest. And so it is : but do the en- lightened United States-men so shrewdly consult their own inte- rests, when they peril the vast commerce between their country and England ? have the Pasha's patrons in France, the asylum of phi- losophy, when they builded themselves in with their bastioned wall, at the cost of bankruptcy and the wholesale imprisonment of a metropolis, been equally wise in their selfishness ? has moral
England, the abettor of Lord Poesomiv, a right to charge MEHEMET ALT with self-seeking ? But these are narrow ques-
tions: the larger one is, which is for the interest of humanity, the policy of the barbarian or that of his self-appointed teachers ? The very detraction, however, proves this at least, that a great advance has been silently making during the last few years in sound opinion upon the subject of war, when the country which boasts its glories from Crecy to Waterloo and Acre itself, treats the reversal of all warlike maxims, not as a thing questionable, but as a matter of course and mere judiciousness. The enlightened Republicans of the West, the learned diplomatists of England, and the historio- graphical statesman of France, must make haste to keep pace with the "common people" of England and the Pasha of Egypt, for they have been left far behind.
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