THE LITERARY SCORN FOR TALKERS.
UMAN life may be said to be in all respects, moral and physical,
a very diluted affair. Physiologists tell us that the body itself is composed mainly of water; that a thoroughly dried body would lose eight stone out of eleven by the evaporation,—so deceptive is the show of solidity about the human frame. The body is in this respect but the reflex of the mind. The passion for intensity, for concentra- tion, for distilled essences of human energy, is rather unhealthy than otherwise. All good things are well diluted, and are more whole- some on that account. Liqueurs are more dangerous than spirits, and spirits than wines. Even essences of nutritive food are un- wholesome, and cause indigestion. The great authorities say that cheese has more potentiality of human "tissue" in it than any other substance eaten ; but that on this very account it does not digest, so that most of it is wasted ; whereas if it were diluted with a quantity of non-nutritive elements, as meat or bread are, we should get more nourishment out of it. The cakes of concentrated chocolate, which are so much prized on the multum in parvo principle, are about the most disastrous preparations which ever promoted the sale of anti- bilious pills. And so it is throughout human life. Wherever there is too scornful a rejection of the non-essential, too much appetite for essences, there there is the root of disease. In politics England is so great, because England takes politics earnestly but easily ; neither passing through paroxysms of political excitement, nor falling into political stupors when these paroxysms are over. Too much intensity, like a combustible in oxygen gas, burns away too quickly. Purpose is not synonymous with impetuousness. There cannot be a greater • mistake than to despise any agency because there is much in it. which is merely diluent, if there be nevertheless a substantial precipitate of good.
We cannot, therefore, at all concur in the bitter grudge which is en- tertained by one of our most distinguished contemporaries against the Social Science Association, apparently on the ground that the discus- sions to which it gives rise do not uniformly produce fruit at all, and seldom immediate fruits of practical value. No doubt this is true, not only of all "Amateur Parliaments," but of all assemblies of the same kind, political or otherwise. Mr. Carlyle has given ample expression to this educated dislike for "words" in his many tirades against the great "national palaver," "stump oratory," and so forth ; and has failed to elicit much sympathy, not because sensible men differ from Mm in thinking that the House of Commons does waste a good deal of time and strength in empty and unprofitable talk, but because they are very well aware that, in the world as it is, a considerable amount of empty and unprofitable talk is essential to the continuous produc- tion of a little very weighty and profitable talk. Even if by any de- vice we could have a distilled essence of Parliament, it would pro- bably not have one quarter of the influence on the nation which the present diluted medicaments exert. Too much compressed wisdom would not tell on the people at large. In fact, man himself is a com- mon-place being with a large proportion of unprofitable thought in him for every vivifying germ of profitable thought, and if, therefore, Englishmen are to speak out their minds honestly on political sub- jects, we must expect that for the ten per cent. which it is really im- portant to hear, there will be ninety per cent, of verbal dilution, if not error. This may be humiliating, but it is nevertheless true, and when intellectual men, like Mr. Carlyle, fret impatiently against the twaddle of public oratory, they only show that they cannot conde- scend to the level of average humanity,—that they are ambitious of being something more than what Bishop Butler used to call "such creatures as we are, in such a world as the present."
And surely; of all public powers, the newspapers—however intel- lectual and fastidious they may be—ought to be the very last in the world to condemn others merely for vain conversation. Are, then, even the most intellectual and serene of the many great powers of
literature either so intellectual as to be wholly guiltless of purpose- less loquacity, or so serenely indifferent to their own reputation that they would be willing to be condemned themselves as purely useless productions on account of that superfluity of talking 1° All news- paper writers must be well aware that if the public unfortunately required highly concentrated "extract of wisdom" instead of fair sense and good. principle in their literary guides, the public would rarely read a single article in a single paper. Fortunately, all that an English public looks for in any public institution, is a fair residuum of good feeling, good judgment, and clear purpose, over and above all, the " common forms" of social expression and average error. And tried by such a test as this—which is the only fair one, as it is that which we apply to the highest as well as the most ordinary products of English experience—isnot the Social Science Association a real gain to the nation, however little it may be able to teach to that " higher intelligence" which criticizes it with so scornful an air? The public does not pay nearly as much for the Social Science Association as it does for a yearly volume of our highly educated contemporary. Nay, a subscriber to the association does not pay so much for his volume of transactions and his opportunities of discussing with other thinkers some of the most puzzling practical problems of the day; and yet there are men of temperate judgment who might hesitate how to estimate the relative advantages derived from the two sources. No doubt they are incommensurable quantities. To see "highest intellect of the age' ex- tinguishing weekly the half-kindled hopes of ordinarypracticalmenis a stimulating, if sometimes a painful, sight. Yet there are not a few who would care still more to gain a few great. opportunities of cherishing one or two great works—of rooting out one or two time-honoured evils —of learning from those who could help them forward. And no one can deny that the Social Science Association—whether its name can be justified or not to fastidious scholarship — has offered oppor- tunities, and cherished great practical efforts, which would other- wise have been lost. It arose, in great measure, out of the educational and reformatory movements, and has done far more to keep interest fresh, and knowledge distinct, on these subjects, than the leaders of these movements could possibly have effected without it. It has generated the Workhouse Visiting Society, a movement for the relief of the destitute incurables, and the Society for finding practical employment for women ; all of them practical movements of the simplest kind and highest value. It originated and did very much to give its ultimate shape to the recent Reform in our Bank- ruptcy Law. It has thrown real light on several dry and com- plicated, but important subjects, such as the Law of General Average which Parliament was not willing to entertain. Above all, it has done far more for elucidating the real attitude of the operatives and their Trades' Unions towards the capitalists, and investigating the history of recent strikes, than all the Parliamentary Committees of this generation have ever acqpmplished. And it has diffused a general knowledge of many of these subjects through a far wider area than any other machinery would have reached. Is not this, we will not say enough—but enough to justify a title to existence and respect— in a life of only four years ? At its first birth it was roughly told by its intellectual critics that it would have done well not to be born. At every succeeding anniversary of its birth the assurance has been renewed. And now, when it has made good its footing in some sense, it is told for the first time that if it had taken some other and widely different course, if it had taken to sending out local missionaries and lecturers to obtain public support for schools and reformatories, it might have been a respectable and useful member of society. Formerly they slid that it had no opportunities of usefulness; now it is pronounced to have clearly had, and to have as clearly lost or abused them ; and all this grudging criticism appears to be levelled at it because its discussions resemble those of Parliament and of the press in being not always equally wise, equally pithy, and equally fruitful. We have not hesitated to point out errors in the policy of the leaders of this association, but it is the mere superciliousness of news- paper pharisaism to treat it with this lofty scorn because its ma- chinery happens to be verbal instead of literary, and because it is vulgar enough to aspire to be didactic and philanthropic without the orthodox instrumentality of schools and lectures.
How much yield of substantial good should be held to justify the existence of any practical institution is, no doubt, a difficult question, not to be determined by any strict theoretical principles. But it is assuredly not well for "such creatures as we are in such a world as the present" to be excessivelyarigeant in this matterwith any but ourselves. For all external growths the external world will best decide whether they are useful and desirable or not. In the mean time there is nothing more important than for the much-flattered newspaper press of this country to look at home. When we find thinking newspaper writers unconsciously expressing their thankfulness that they are not as other men are, "nor even as this Social Science Association," we cannot help putting into the mouth of that distinguished body the celebrated retort, "I'm the publican, not the Pharisee, thank God." In fact, it is too much the fashion amongst highly educated organs to denounce valuable agencies because they are not invaluable. If it be true that "speech is silver while silence is golden," it is also true that the gold is of little use till it is broken into small change. It is not well to be above our condition in this world. The fasti- diousness of educated taste is only too apt to encroach on our natural syilipathy with honest philanthropy and effort. The intellectual sub- limity which points out so scornfully the diluting element in vulgar goodness should remember that all mere negative criticism, however fastidious, is itself of the same nature,—a watery, not an essential element in our civilization. The extreme magnificence of our modern criticism is in danger of overshooting its mark.
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