MR. GREG AS AN ESSAYIST.*
THE charm of Mr. Greg's writing, more especially upon political subjects, consists in no slight degree in the difficulty his readers feel in differing with him. Grant his postulates, and it is nearly
impossible not to grant his conclusions. His argument is "linked reason long drawn out," stated in language as pellucid as it is possible for language to be, interrupted by few digressions, and spoiled by no needless qualifications. The reader is carried along the stream quickly, but almost imperceptibly, without jar, or noise, or alarm, till he awakes to find himself at some destination he did not wish to attain, and in which he is quite determined not to stay. We remember a paper published more than sixteen years ago, and universally attributed to Mr. Greg, in which he endeavoured to prove that Napoleon, who had just then seized the Imperial crown, must of necessity attack Great Britain. So perfect was the reasoning of this paper, so closely linked its argument, so unanswer- able its deductions, that it exercised for weeks a perceptible sway over opinion, was said to have had a distinct influence on the Funds, and induced the Government of India to take some extra precautions for the safety of Bombay. Every prediction in the article was incorrect, yet, reperusing it after its main thesis has been disproved, we still wonder how its author could have been mistaken, and doubt as we read whether his judgment or the Emperor's, his words or the actual facts, were in the wrong. There are, we believe, scores of our readers who, like ourselves, will remember that paper ; and the fact of itself indicates unmistakably the existence of some charm in Mr. Greg's writing, some very unusual power of seizing the attention and the memory, a power scarcely less in degree than that exercised by good poetry, however widely it may differ in kind. Part of this effect may be due, no doubt, to his style, which, though always simple and straightforward, intended to set out and not to conceal the thought, has frequently a half-hidden melody inde- scribably pleasant to the men whom Mr. Greg first of all ad- dresses, and who have to read so much harsh or unripe writing. We will make one quotation to illustrate this point, the more readily because the paragraph is a bit of very subtle and accu- rate criticism. The essayist is endeavouring to describe the difference between Carlyle's and Kingsley's references to God :—
" Both men are heartily and instinctively religions ; yet both inces- santly grate against the religious -feelings of reverent Christians, though in a different manner, and from different causes. The one is full of reverence, but has no fixed or definite belief ; the other is orthodox enough in doctrine, but does not know what reverence means. The one has no creed ; the other has no doubt. Mr. Carlyle—as all deep and great spirits must—approaches the high mysteries of the Infinite and the Eternal with awe unspeakable, and almost with humility. He dares not even define the Illimitable Agencies ; he always speaks of them in the plural number. You cannot tell what he moans precisely when be whispers of tho Silences and the Immensities—probably he could not tell himself ; but there is no mistaking the natural tone and sentiment with which man refers to something supremely and incom- prehensibly above him. There may be no distinct Being for whom this awe is felt, but the awe is unquestionably there. In Mr. Kingsley there is nothing of all this. The great creative and pervading Spirit of the universe, who for Mr. Carlyle is I' Etre SupreMe, for Mr. Kingsley is simply le Bon Dieu. He is not a stricken mortal, prostrate before the Ineffable Intelligence, but a workman of God, a soldier of Christ, a messenger who has got his orders from his immediate superior, and will execute them like a faithful labourer. He knows God's will, and it always harmonizes strangely with Mr. Kingsley's objects and opinions. He is an unquestioning obedience, cheerful service, boundless devotion, to his Father who is in heaven ; but of what we call reverence—bushed and breathless adoration, solemn sense of infinite depth and infinite littleness—we can perceive no trace whatever. He seems as uncon- scious as the infant Samuel of a superior Presence. His feelings towards God appear to hover between those of the negro and the Israelite, or rather to partake of both. He speaks of Him, and to Him, with the simple directness, the confiding but not disrespectful familiarity, now of Moses and now of Uncle Tom. When he issues his commands to the world of sinners, it is as though he had just come from an interview with the Most High on Sinai. When he prays, it is (to use Mrs. Stowe's language) as though he knew God was listening behind the curtain. He is unpleasantly fond of introducing the Great Name on all occasions: it is always • God's work,' 'God's feasts,' 'God's heroes,' • God's bells,' 'good news of God ;' expressions which, just and fitting enough when • Literary and soctot Judgments. By W. B. Greg. London : sparingly, solemnly, and appropriately used, produce almost a profane effect by their incessant and uncalled-for reourrence ; appear to be dic- tated chiefly by an appetite for strong language operating on a gentle- man in orders ; and are in fact, we believe, Mr. Kingsley's way of swearing."
The difference between that and average writing is as the differ- ence between port wine in wood and port after it has been mel- lowed by twenty years of bottling in an equable temperature, between a photograph and a miniature, between a linsey wrapper and a Cashmere shawl. We scarcely see how such workmanship can in its kind be improved, how its colour could be deepened without daubing or diminished without leaving a sense of vacancy.
That the original stuff, the material woven, is often not equal to the work always seems to the reader his own loss, not Mr. Greg's, just as the connoisseur who has lighted on a beautiful " bit" in mud or unfit wood murmurs not at the sculptor, but his own ill- luck in not having hit on marble. If the data had but been equal to the deductions, what a work it would have been !—that is the thought Mr. Greg's papers excite in those who disagree with him.
Beyond and beneath this singular felicity of expression, a felicity resulting from severe restraint laid on an originally florid taste, there is, however, great power of ratiocination. There is a book of Mr. Greg's in existence, the Creed of Christendom, which has, we perceive, after many years of partial oblivion, reached a second edition. Dr. Colenso's work on the same subject and in the same spirit has reached fifteen, yet beyond a few arithmetical calculations and some arguments derived from Hebrew scholar- ship, Dr. Colenso has said nothing which Mr. Greg had not said before him, and said better. We do not hesitate to say that for a. man of sound mind to read this book through slowly, and retain his belief in the verbal inspiration of the Mosaic record, is a moral impossibility, and the fact illustrates what seems to us the radical. and single defect of Mr. Greg as a reasoner. He assumes so much. In the analysis of Genesis he could assume nothing, his data were settled for him, and his argument, therefore, has no weak links ; but in his ordinary *hinge he seems to us to trust to iutui- tion, —we do not say, mind, to imagination,—for his facts. He first.
contracts a belief, then looks up evidence, then assumes that the evidence is final, and then writes out on those bases an argument.
which always appears to himself, and very often to his readers, unanswerable. Read, for instance, the paper in this volume on the "Doom of the Negro." Mr. Greg assumes throughout that. paper three distinct propositions ; first, that the negro will not work if free to choose,—an assumption based entirely on his reluct- ance to work for wages, a reluctance he shares with Bengalees, who work twelve hours a day on their own farms ; secondly, that it is our duty to make him work, which it is not, any more than it is our
duty to make Peers work ; and thirdly, that our only mode of performing that duty is to compel him by punishment, which is just the old idea that birch is the best Latin master any school can employ. Withdraw those assumptions, and the article falls to pieces; accept them, and it is a singularly complete argument for negro slavery, with the State instead of the individual as slave- holder. We do not suppose Mr. Greg would hesitate to accept. that conclusion, for his permanent position in social politics is that of the philanthropist who rejects philanthropy. He wishes well to mankind, no doubt, though he seeks their enlightenment before their happiness or their moral improvement ; but he believes it
will be most readily attained by pressure from without, would rather the wise governed,—understanding always by wise those who agree with Mr. Greg,— than that the governed should be gradually made capable of wisdom. He is, he says, no worshipper of force, and he says truly when force takes brutal forms ; but. when it takes scientific forms, in famine, hunger, depopdtation, or emigration, then he, in his heart, seems to approve of force_
Hissingle reform for Ireland has for years been "Empty it," reduce the population to the level it ought, on a careful calculation of its agricultural capabilities, to sustain, and then everything will right itself. He uses statistics as Calvinists use texts, and would argue that if there are too many men to any square mile, some of them not only will die out, which is a mere calculation, but.
ought to die out, which involves for all who act on his proposition a moral dilemma. The logical conclusion of all his papers on Ireland is that we ought to compel emigration ; and though he would see the political difficulties in the way, he would not acknowledge the moral wrong, would not concede that the
helplessness of the weak is the first claim on the helpfulness of the strong. Let the weak disappear, that the strong may be disburdened in the interest of the future.
We do not mean to accuse Mr. Greg of any hardness of heart. Nobody could read his writings and believe in such a charge, but
be has a hardness of brain, an incapacity of sympathy with the feeble, the indolent, or the uncertain. Read his account of Chateaubriand. It is, as far as we can judge, as accurate as it is brilliant ; but when we have finished it, we ask, with amaze, how, then, did this man win a life-long affection like that of Madame Recamier ? Surely in him was something Mr. Greg has not per- ceived, something for which he has not even the sympathy of hate, which he does not understaud, any more than a man without ear understands the charm of music. We believe, without pretend- ing to know, that something to have been childlikeness, the strange innocence sometimes found in very erratic or even bad men, which leaves on the minds of those who know them a conviction that their vanity, and egoism, and capriciousness are not wicked, are qualities, not vices, which under other circumstances will disappear. We have twice in life known such men, and believe this to be the explanation of Chateaubriand's otherwise inexplicable character. Mr. Greg will, we doubt not, reject that explanation ; but he suggests no other, does not even seem to see the necessity of suggesting any other. Compare his farsighted sketch of Talleyrand with the unsatisfactory account of Madame de Stael, -who cannot, like the great diplomatist, be comprehended by intel- lectual force alone ; or like M. de Tocqueville, be completely appreciated, lovingly appreciate 1, from the outside. It is altogether in keeping with this want, a want for which our language has no single word, that Mr. Greg should consider -emigration on a great scale the fitting remedy for a redundancy of -single women, and never so much as think that to most women exile without husband, or lover, or family, is a greater torture than any they can endure from poverty at home. The paper on "Truth versus Edification," is the only one in all this volume with which we heartily- agree, for it is the only one in which the surgical intellect is the most adapted to the argument ; but there is not one in the number which a cultivated mind can read without a feeling of pleasure in its music, a distinct sense of gain from its clear, if harsh and incisive thought.
Previous page
