MR. BALFOUR'S GOOD FAIRY.
MR. BALFOUR, the Secretary for Scotland, in opening the new Board school in South Bridge, Edinburgh, concluded one of those educational speeches which are dull by the very law of their being, essentially and necessarily dull, by telling us what was not dull at all,—his notion of the best two gifts which should be bestowed by a good fairy on any child for whom his intercession might avail to obtain them. What he would ask for, he said, would .be, first, that the child should not be a politician ; and next, that he should have "an insatiable curiosity to know everything that could be known." We only hope that Mr. Balfour may not be doomed to see a prize offered by some fussy journal or other for the best two fairy gifts that could be devised in competition with Mr. Balfour's, and we shall not certainly be so rash as to put any suggestion of our own in competition with his ; but as Mr. Balfour is a man of considerable intellec- tual mark, we should like to criticise a little his conception of the happiest conditions of life. Probably the first wish was not altogether serious. Mr. Balfour probably desired to express with some force his deep sense of the worries of political life when he gave expression to it. And we have no doubt at all that these worries are very grave, and often oppress both the mind and the heart of the less elastic of our statesmen. At the same time, what end is there in life of any real worth that does not often oppress the mind and heart with the cares it brings with it ? What care of statesmen approaches the tension caused by responsibility for the support of a family in times of great dearth to a poor man ? And yet the one thing which makes the life of the poor worth living is the family tie. What anxiety of statesmen can compare with the suspense with which an army enters on a decisive battle ? And yet what would the profession of a soldier be without the critical battles which give mean- ing and the higher kind of passion to a soldier's career ? When we see men like Canning or Mr. John Morley deserting literature for politics, we may be sure that there is in the political battle-field no little measure of that higher passion which the soldier feels when he sees the colours approaching the enemy's lines. The natures which delight in struggle are often the noblest to be found amongst men ; and unques- tionably there is far more of struggle of the higher kind—if men choose to have it—in politics than in the Army or Navy, for there the intervals of inertness are necessarily and fortunately so long that nine-tenths or ninety-nine hundredths of the whole career is often spent in preparation for the "one crowded hour of glorious life " which gives war its fascination.
But we strongly suspect that Mr. Balfour's anathema on politics was a mere preparation for his panegyric on the blessing of " an insatiable curiosity to know everything that could be known." He thinks such curiosity the one impulse which brings a man nothing but satisfaction. The duties of politicians interfere very gravely with the gratifica- tion of such a curiosity. And, therefore, Mr. Balfour anathematises politics. But what shall we say of the passion in the gratification of which Mr. Balfour thinks that the happiest of all lives are spent ? Well, in the first place, that if it is to form the basis of a happy life at all, he has named it very badly. " Insatiable curiosity " suggests something not methodical and intellectually ennobling in its comprehensiveness, but something miscellaneous and prying, the curiosity which is gratified by gossiping Society papers, for instance,—or if that, as we quite believe, was far enough from Mr. Balfour's drift, the curiosity which is excited equally by almost every kind of inexplicable pheno- menon, and which dabbles in one science one hour, only to fly off to another the next, which passes from book to book, from speculation to invention, from travels to telescopes, from poetry to antiquarianism, in an incessant round of eager inquisitiveness. If Mr. Balfour meant by insatiable curiosity to know everything that could be known," the motive-power of a large speculative nature, he sadly misnamed what he was thinking of. We should doubt whether any great thinker or discoverer who ever lived, had "an insatiable curiosity to know everything that could be known." Speculative passion of the higher kind must be limited in scope. or it will be naught ; you cannot conceive such a mind even distracting itself by the eager study of the news of the day, without loss of power. Indeed, insatiable curiosity after every kind of knowledge is quite incon- sistent with a great intellect, which knows as well what to neglect, where its investigation will be useless and can come to nothing, as it does what to inquire into. And then, as to the happi- ness conferred by such an insatiable curiosity, we are far more than doubtful. There is happiness doubtless in really mastering a great subject ; there is very little in storing up scraps of information on a great number of subjects ; indeed there is nothing that wastes mental power more completely. But even if we assume, as we think we may, that Mr. Balfour used an expression which was not at all suitable for his real meaning, and that he wished to express the passion for knowledge in the largest sense, we venture to doubt whether even that is the supreme blessing, unless we qualify the meaning of the word "knowledge " so as to subordinate duly the sciences which involve only the study of things to that highest wisdom which puts the culture of character far above the mere discovery of physical and intellectual laws. Insatiable curiosity, even in the scientific field, is constantly morbid, frequently unscru- pulous, not seldom cruel. Insatiable curiosity often makes intellectual men experiment on each other's feelings merely to see how this and that sarcasm or disappointment will affect them ; and, again, induces men of science to experiment on the field of sensation by applying every kind of cruel stimulus to the nervous system of the lower animals. We can imagine no worse name for that love of truth in the wide sense which is the master-impulse of human wisdom, than curiosity. Wisdom knows how much there is which a man ought not to pry into, which respect to his own nature forbids him to pry into ; but you could hardly name anything "insatiable curiosity" which renounced the gratification of trying to know anything whatever that it was possible to know, however unlawful the means and however unworthy the end. Indeed, far from thinking even the higher speculation the noblest of all lives,—except in the rare cases in which it is a man's true calling, the one thing in which he can help his fellow-men,—we should say that every pursuit to which a strong sense of duty drives a man,—even if it be, as it some- times is, the political life,—is a higher and happier pursuit than the mere gratification even of the love of knowledge,— for we will not insist on the phrase, no doubt somewhat carelessly used by Mr. Balfour when he talked of "insatiable curiosity."
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