THE ARISTOCRACY OF THE FUTURE.
IN Good Words for February, there is published a lecture delivered by the late Canon Kingsley to the men of the railway works at Crewe, on July 11th, 1871, on the study of
nature and natural history. It is called a lecture on "The Aristocracy of the Future." Mr. Kingsley declares that it is by studies of this kind, faithfully pursued, that "the Aristocracy of the Future" will be trained. There is no study like it, he says, laws of the universe to work, their freedom is of little use to them, indeed they have not the knowledge without which free choice is blind and unintelligent. There is no study like Natural History, said Canon Kingsley, for making men feel that they are all members of a true republic in which all faithful workers are equal. In the study of Nature and inductive science the humblest worker is put on a level with the most dis- tinguished, and measured only by the worth of the con- tribution he brings. There is no study like it for teaching true brotherhood ; for in the world of inductive science, all feel the noble ambition to help each other, and forget envy and jealousy in the delight of common service. Further, it is the comprehension of the laws and facts of Nature which makes men strong ; and to be penetrated intellectually by the knowledge of the laws and facts of Nature makes men wise. Therefore, besides securing men in the possession of that freedom, equality, and fraternity which are the aspirations of the higher minds of a republican stamp, the study of Nature and of Nature's laws endows men with the strength and wisdom which constitute the true qualifications of a natural aristocracy, of the " Aristocracy of the Future "
"I used to think," said Canon Kingsley, "that we could get per- fect freedom and social reform, and all that I wanted, by altering the arrangements of society and legislation ; by Constitutions and Acts of Parliament ; by potting society into some sort of freedom-mill, and grinding it all down, and regenerating it so. And that some- thing can be done by improved arrangements, something can be done by Acts of Parliament, I hold still, as every rational man must hold. But as I grew older, I began to see that, if things were to be got right, the freedom-mill would do very little towards getting them right, however well and cunningly it was made. I began to see that what sort of flour came out at one end of the mill, depended mainly on what sort of grain had been put in at the other : I began to see that the problem was to get good grain ; and then good flour world be turned out, even by a very clumsy, old- fashioned sort of mill. And what do I mean by good grain ? Good men ; honest men, accurate men, thoughtful men, patient men, self- restraining men, fair men, modest men ; men who are aware of their own vast ignorance compared with the vast amount that there is to be learned in such a universe as this ; men who are accustomed to look at both sides of a question, and instead of making up their minds in haste, like bigots and fanatics, wait, like wise men, for more facts, and more thought about the facts; in one word, men who have Requited just the habit of mind which the study of Natural Science can develop, and must have; for without it there is no use studying Natural Science ; and the man who has not got that habit of mind, if be meddles with science, will merely become a quack and a charlatan, only fit to get his bread as a spirit-rapper or an inventor of infallible That is an eloquent description of the qualities of mind which a true and patient study of Nature, and the habit of vigilantly watching Nature and deftly availing ourselves of the hints and methods so taught us, tend to breed in men. Something like it has been said in one of Professor Huxley's best lay sermons, the one in which he describes the game of chess, as it were, which Nature plays against man in this world, punishing
with absolute pitilessness every mistake we make, but teaching us by that very pitilessness to play our match with something approaching to her own constancy and clearness of aim.
What, however, we wish to call attention to, is that almost all the qualities which Canon Kingsley enumerates in this eloquent passage, great as they are, and invaluable as they are to all students of Nature, are insufficient for an aristocracy of any kind in its truest sense,—i.e., a class wielding governing power because they are best able to wield it,—and that one of the qualities which did, by an oversight we imagine, creep into Canon Kingsley's list,—the quality of " fairness,"—is not gained by any study of mere Nature, at least below the level of human nature, though it is almost as essential to a permanent ruling aristocracy, as all the others put together. Take the study of botany in its largest sense, with all the insight which it gives into beauty as Canon Kingsley has so eloquently described ; take geology, take natural history, take the study of sky and cloud and sea in their most glorious forms,—and conceive all the qualities which a man may learn from the most steadfast pursuit of science in any of these regions, and the idea "fair," in the sense of just, will never enter into the catalogue of graces acquired
so long as a man confines himself to these sciences. If, indeed, he comes to measure himself against other students of the same science, and to learn how "to give and take" in order that he may do justice to them and they may do justice to him, then, and then only, he comes upon a training in " fairness." But while occupied with these sciences themselves, though the student
cannot master them, as Canon Kingsley truly says, without learning indomitable patience, profound intellectual humility, and great self-restraint, nor without learning the infinite value of accuracy, and the senselessness of a bigotry which takes no account of facts, yet the very conception of justness or fairness never even comes across him. No equity is required to study the value of the insect to the flower or of the flower to the insect, to master the instincts of ants or moles, to infer the history of an upheaval from the stratification of the rocks, or to attribute the perturbations in the movement of a planet to some hitherto undiscovered body. It is not till the relations between man and man are reached, that any discipline of the kind which can teach man to be " fair " is attained. And we venture to say that in
any society where the "rule of the best" is regarded as the ideal of rule, the quality of " fairness " is even more essential to the ruler, than patience, candour, and intellectual humility, put together. Hence we venture to think that if Canon Kingsley had followed this lecture up by others on the true characteristics of " the Aristocracy of the Future," he would have supplemented its lesson by telling his auditors that even in the great school of Nature you cannot learn some of the most important qualities which are absolutely essential to those who would rule men. Further, we cannot help thinking that Canon Kingsley a little
overshot the mark in the eloquent passage which concluded, or all but concluded, the lecture :-
" Take my advice for yourselves, and for your children after you ; for, believe me, I am showing you the way to true and useful, and therefore to just and deserved power. I am showing you the way to become members of what I trust will be—what I am certain ought to be—the aristocracy of the future. I say it deliberately, as a student of society and of history. Power will pass more and more, if all goes healthily and well, into the hands of scientific men ; into the hands of those who have made due use of that great heirloom which the philosophers of the seventeenth century left for the use of future generations, and especially cf the Teutonic race."
We venture to doubt this. Great as are the qualities which men of science must attain before they can claim even moderate success in their own sphere, they do not constitute, without various other qualities, in which such men may be, and often are, totally
deficient, the qualities of a natural aristocracy,—that is, of men competent to rule in a human society. Nor, so far as we remember, have men of science, as a class, ever taken a very high place among rulers of men. Run over the greatest rulers of the period since science, in Canon Kingsley's
sense, became one of the leading elements in human culture, and can we find amongst them one great natural ruler whose mind had been chiefly disciplined in the school of science P Even
great rulers who cannot be called absolutely just, as well as rulers who were as deficient in " fairness " of mind as, for any- thing we see, a man of pure scientific training might always be, you will find to be remarkable for some dominant human power of genius or insight which is not in the least of the scientific make and build. The Cromwells, the Somerses, the Walpoles, the Pitts, the Peels, the O'Connells, the Grattans, the Parnells, the Russells, the Palmerstons, the Stanleys, the Gladstones, have never been taken from the scientific caste, and, so far as we can judge, never will be. Both their virtues and their vices are of a type which they could not have either learned or unlearned in the school of science. Their worst charac- teristics have been of a kind which only moral principle or the experience of the human battle-field could correct, and neither moral principle in this sense, nor the experience of the human battle-field, can be gained in studying the methods of Nature and acquiring the patience which the methods of Nature teach. Would Cavour, or Bismarck, or Gambetta have ever acquired the qualities by virtue of which they ruled, in the school of science? What did Paul Bert gain in that school, except that habit of indifference to all mere feeling,—bad or good,— which so seriously disqualified him for the career of a states- man P The first condition of success as a ruler is to know man; and science does not teach you to know man. The first condition of a wise ruler is to care, and to care passionately, for the welfare of the" dim common populations" whom he does not personally know; and science certainly does not develop sympathy with those "dim common populations." It is a great and won- derful field, but it is more or less a backwater at a distance from the course of the great stream of life; and if you take that for your province, though you may make yourself the greatest of human benefactors, or the reverse, your chief thoughts and methods must be confined to a world which is quite outside the region of human character and human will. Even theologians have sometimes been genuine rulers. Hildebrand was a great ruler. Knox was a ruler of no mean order. Calvin had some of the qualities of a ruler, though he was too much devoted to an absolute system. But among the great men of science, where is there one who has ever had even the temptation to stray from his particular province into the tumults of human affairs P Possibly, among the distinguished men of our own day, Professor Huxley, had he chosen so to do, might have become far better known as a leader of men than he has actually become known as a scientific teacher. Bat were not the great gifts and characteristics which fitted him for the sphere of political life, just so many distractions from the sphere to which by preference he has on the whole limited himself P We venture to conclude, then, that though " the Aristocracy of the Future " will undoubtedly possess a few great qualities which the study of science tends to impart, that aristocracy will not be, on the whole, trained in the scientific sphere. For in the scientific sphere, it cannot learn justice ; it cannot learn sagacity as to the ways of men; it cannot learn that power of controlling men which is given in part by sym- pathy, in part by audacity and resoluteness of purpose ; and it cannot there learn that indomitable courage which is always born of a kind of genius which nothing but either the deepest love of man, or the strange and base art which manages to use men as tools, can impart. The best rulers have had the one, and the worst the other; but neither is learnt in the school of natural science. We have little doubt that the late Canon Kingsley, had he lived to complete his lesson, would have agreed in the greater part of what we have said. For he sympathised heartily with strong men, and would have been the last to merge the knowledge of the ruler's art in the knowledge of the laws of Nature.
Previous page
