The influence of mind on matter, and matter on mind, are also so obscure, that it cannot be affirmed that anything which mental operation can effect on one's own body is contrary to natural law. No physiologist will assert that mental resolution, or conviction, tending towards recovery from sickness, is without some power to bring that result to pass. They will admit also that this is peculiarly the case in regard to those disorders which, in pure ignorance of their actual source, they are fain to call hysterical, neuralgic, or generally nervous. They are all acquainted with many cases in their own experience of recovery from such disorders in which no physical cause for recovery can be imagined. If, then, God should convey to the mind of a patient an impression which brings about recovery, there would clearly be no violation of natural law. With regard to the restoration of life, it is quite true that this is beyond the ordinary power of man's volition. Nevertheless, at each moment of our lives there is a communication of life to the dead matter which has formed our food, but which, after digestion, becomes a part of our living organs; and this is true even in the nutrition of plants. How or at what moment the mind enters or becomes capable of affecting our frames, we do not know. But this happens at some moment before or during birth; its doing so at a subsequent period is, therefore, not a breach of natural law, but is only an instance of natural law coming into operation, by the same cause, at a period differing from that which is customary. Theact, whatever it is, is not exceptional, but ordinary. Thetimeis alone exceptional.
We have now to consider the strictly physical phenomena to which the name of miracles is in this discussion confined, and to which the objection that they are contrary to natural laws is commonly stated.
A very large number of these are at first glance seen to be only instances of inertia being affected. To walk on water, to make water stand in a heap, to raise a body from the ground, to cast down walls, or move bolts and doors, are obviously exertions of simple mechanical force such as we ourselves daily employ. Their effective cause is neither more nor less than an interference with the law of inertia, and by the previous demonstration they are therefore not to be reckoned as breaches of any law of Nature.
Let us try if this can be made clearer by an example. It has been stated before that if iron were made to swim on water by modification of the law of gravity it would be creation of a new substance differing from iron in being of less specific gravity. At the same time, the original iron of normal specific gravity would have disappeared. These processes of creation and destruction would be so unprecedented that we should justly call them violations of the ordinary laws of nature. But at least we should then expect that the light iron thus created would be permanently light, and we should call it another breach of the laws of nature if on lifting it from the water we found it heavy. But if we were to hold a magnet of suitable power over the originalheavy iron, when at the bottom of the water, we might see it rise and float, although not touched or upheld by any visible substance, and although its specific gravity remained constant. In this case it would be moved by a power which overcomes gravity, but there would be no creation nor destruction of any property, and no natural law would be broken. But if now we substitute for "magnetic" "Divine" power, there is still no breach of a natural law, for no property is created or destroyed. In both cases the acting agent is a power outside the iron, invisible and unknown, except by the effects. The effect of both is the same: it is to give motion to matter, and nothing more. Hence, neither violate any law of nature except that of inertia.
Proceeding to another class of miracles, which seem at first to be creative, we shall find that they also come within the range of familiar human potentiality. The making of bread, or meal, or oil, or wine, are instances of chemical synthesis. These substances are composed of three or four elements, all gaseous except carbon (to be absolutely accurate, we must add minute quantities of eight other elements), which no chemist has yet succeeded in uniting in such forms. But chemists have succeeded in forming certain substances by bringing together their elements, of which water is the simplest type, and others of greater complexity are every year being attained. These are formed by moving into proximity, or admixture, the elementary ingredients, under circumstances favourable to their union in the desired combination, and the combination then proceeds by the operation of natural laws. No one would be surprised to hear that some chemist had thus attained to form starch or gluten, the main ingredients of bread; or oil, or spirit, or essences; for if it were announced we should all know that he had only discovered some new method of manipulation by which circumstances were arranged so as to favour the natural laws which effect the union of the necessary elements. Therefore, if these substances are formed by Divine power, it is not creation—it is only the chemist's work, adopting natural laws for its methods, and bringing them into play by transposition of material substances.
Meteorological processes—such as lightning, rain, drought, winds—are sometimes made the immediate cause of "miracles," as when the wind caused the waters of the Red Sea to flow back, or brought the flights of quails, or locusts. These are effects which we know wind is quite capable of producing, and does produce naturally. Was there then any breach of natural laws (beyond that of inertia) in causing such winds to blow? or in bringing up thunder-clouds? or in causing an arid season? We cannot, indeed, say that there was not; but as little can we say that there was. For since we ourselves have acquired such power over lightning, the most inscrutable and irresistible of all meteorological agencies, as to be able to lead it where we will, how shall we say that God's infinite knowledge has not the same power over the winds and the clouds, by employing only natural agencies for Hiswork, and employing these only by the operation of motion given to matter.
With regard to the healing of diseased matter, conjectures also can only be offered, because of the source of diseases we know so little. Sight is restored in cataract by simple removal of an abnormal membrane. Many fevers, if the germ theory or the poison theory be correct, are cured when the germs die, or the poison is eliminated. A power that could kill the germs, or remove them or the poison from the system, would then effect immediate cure in accordance with natural laws. It does not seem necessarily beyond man's reach to effect this when he shall understand natural laws more fully; it cannot, therefore, be a breach of natural laws if God should effect it by laws as yet unknown to man, provided they are brought into play with no other agency than the motion of matter.
It would be folly as well as impiety to assert that it is in such ways only that miracles are performed. No such assertion is made. But when, on the other side, it is asserted that the miracles narrated in Scripture cannot be true because they must involve a breach of the immutable laws of Nature, the answer is justifiable and is sufficient, that they do not necessarily involve any breach of any law, save of that one law of inertia which at every instant is broken by created things, without any disturbances being introduced into the serene march of Nature's laws. The scientific revelation is reconciled with the written revelation when it is shown that neither necessarily implies the falsity of the other.
But supposing the argument thus far to be conceded, it will be urged that the real "miracle" remains yet behind. When man moves matter, his hand is visible: when an animal gnaws a tree, its teeth are seen working; when a river flows down a valley, its force is heard and felt. How different, it will be said, is God's working, where there is no arm of flesh, no sound of power, no sign of presence.
Unquestionably it is a deep marvel and a mystery, that impalpable spirit should act upon gross matter; but it is a mystery of humanity as well as of Godhead. What moves the hand? Contraction of the muscles. But what causes contraction of the muscles? The influence transmitted from the brain by the nerves. But what sends that influence? It is mind, which somewhere, somehow, moves animal tissues—tissues consisting of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulphur. At some point of our frames, we know not yet where, mind does act directly on matter. It is a law of Nature that it should so actthere. But if God exists, His mind must, by the same law, act on mattersomewhere. Can we call it an offence against law if it acts on matter elsewhere than in that mass of organized pulp which we call brains? If no possibility of communication between mind and matter could anywhere be found in Nature, we might call such communication contrary to natural law. In other words, if it were one of the properties of matter that it could notreceive motion from that which is not matter, its motion without a material cause would be supernatural. But since it is of the very essence of existence that matter in certain combinations should be capable of being endowed with life, and by such endowment become capable of being affected in motion by mind, it is indisputable that such capability is one of matter's properties, and that its being so affected falls within and not without Nature's laws.
It may be objected that, since it is only living substance which can be acted on by the human mind, it is contrary to law that dead matter should be acted on by Divine mind. But this is a simple begging of the question at issue. It is constructing a law for the purpose of charging God with breaking it. Where do we find evidence in Nature that matter cannot be moved by the Divine mind? Science reveals no such law. Science is simply silent on the subject; it admits its utter ignorance, and declares the question beyond its scope. Undoubtedly it does not pronounce that God does move matter, but it equally abstains from asserting that God does not. For when it traces back material effects from cause to cause, it comes at last to something for which it has no explanation. When we say that an acid and an alkali combine by the law of affinity, that a stone falls by the law of gravity, we merely generalize facts under a name, we do not account for them. What causes affinity, what causes gravity? Suppose we say the one is polar electricity, the other is the impact of particles in vibration (both of which statements are unproved guesses), what do we gain? The next question is only, what causes electricity and what causes vibration? Suppose, again, we answer that both are modes of motion, we only come to the further question, what causes motion? And since motion is a breach of the law of inertia, what is it that first excited motion in this dead matter? Carry back our analysis as far as we will or can, at last we reach a point where matter must be acted upon by something that is not matter. This something is Mind; and God also is Mind.
Again, when any one affirms that only living matter can be acted on by mind, whether human or Divine, we may fairly ask him, not indeed what is life, which is a problem as yet beyond science; but how life changes matter, which is a question strictly within the range of science dealing with matter. But to this inquiry we shall get no answer. The cells in an organism, the protoplasm in the cells, are living when the organism is living, dead when the organism is dead, and, as matter, no difference is discoverable between them in the state of living and dead. The cells consist of cellulose, the protoplasm of some "protein" compounds; no element is added or subtracted, no compound is altered, when it lives or when it dies. Nor can science even tell us when an organic compound becomes alive, or dead. Every instant crude sap is becoming living plants, every instant crude chyle is becoming living blood, every instant living organisms die and are expelled from plants by the leaves, from animals by the lungs, the skin,and the kidneys. Yet no physician can say atwhatmoment any of these carbon compounds become living, or when they cease to have life. Since of this perpetual birth and death in all nature we know absolutely nothing, it is manifestly unreasonable to lay down laws respecting them. If life and death make (as far as we can discover) absolutely no immediate physical change in the matter which they affect, how can we propound as a dogma of physical science that God cannot move "dead" matter, when our own experience tells us that our spirits can move "living" matter?
It is clear that if we are not warranted in making a law, we are not warranted in saying that it is broken. Our concern with laws is to see that such as we do know are uniform, for this is the basis of science. But true science repudiates dogmas on subjects of which it avows its ignorance.
Let us sum up the argument as it has now been stated. The propositions are the following:—
The bearing of these conclusions upon prayer, in so far as it affects physical conditions, may now be briefly shown. It has been argued that, in the light of modern discovery, prayer ought to be restricted to spiritual objects, and that at all events it can have none but spiritual effects. It has for example been asserted that to pray for fine weather, for bodily health, for removal of any plague, for averting of any corporeal danger is asking God to change the laws of Nature for our benefit, that this is what He never does, what would produce endless confusion if He should, and consequently what He certainly will not do.
But if in point of fact God can confer on us all these gifts which we ask from Him without breaking a single law by which Nature is bound,we are restored to the older confidence that He will, provided that such gifts are at the same time consonant with our spiritual good.
Now as it has been shown that God can affect matter to the full extent for which we ever petition by means of Nature's own laws, set in operation by no other agency than the mere communication of motion to matter, it has been shown that He will break no law in giving what we ask.
For example, what is fine weather? It is the result of the due motion of the winds, which bear the clouds on their bosom, and carry the warmth of equatorial sunshine to the colder north. It is still as true as eighteen hundred years ago, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and ye hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth." But if it be no breach of law to give motion to the air, it is in God's power to bring us favourable winds. But the winds we wish are not necessarily moved immediately by God's breath. They depend probably on certain electric repulsions, which make the colder or the warmer current come closer to the surface of the earth. And electricity is motion. It may be directly, it may be indirectly, through electricity; it may be by some cause still further back, that God sends forth the winds; but, if He can give motion, He can direct their currents, and by such agency give to His creatures the weather best suited for their wants.
Or what is disease? Probably, in many cases, germs; let us then suppose germs, because it is what the latest science tells us. But germs need a suitable nidus, and we know that merely what we call "change of air" is one of the most potent means of defending or restoring our bodies from the assault of germs to which it is exposed. We change our air, by moving to another place; what violation of law would there be if God, to our prayer, were to change our air by moving a different air to us? That is but a rude illustration; the marvellous economy of the body suggests a thousand others, none of which may be true, but which yet all agree in this, that they would work our cure by strictly natural laws, set in action merely by motion given to matter.
That even an impending rock should not fall upon us would be a petition involving no further disturbance of natural law. Had we appliances to enhance our force we could uphold it, without breaking natural law. God has superhuman force, and if He upholds it by an arm we cannot see, He will break no law.
It were needless to pursue examples; but the subject must not be dismissed without reference to the spiritual laws, which we are bound to regard in praying for aught we may desire.
These are expressed and summed in the command, "Ask in my name." There is a prevalent misunderstanding of these words, arising out of the theological dogma which interprets them as if they were written, "for my sake." It is unnecessary here to enter into the inquiry how far any prayer is granted because of the merits or for the sake of Christ. It is sufficient that the words here used mean somethingelse. When we desire another person to ask anything from a superior in our name, we mean to ask as if we asked. It must be something then which we should ask for personally. Therefore, Christ desiring us to ask in His name, limits us to ask those things which we can presume He would ask for us.
It is obvious how this interpretation defines the range of petition. It must be confined to what He, all-knowing, knows to be for our good. It must be, in our ignorance, subject to the condition that He should see it best for us. It utterly excludes all seeking for worldly advantage, for which He would never bid us pray. It equally excludes all spiritual benefits which are not those of a godly, humble spirit. Above all, it excludes all things which would be suggested by Satan as a tempting of the Lord our God. To ask, as some scientific men would have us do, for something in order to see if God would grant it, would be an experiment which, applied to an earthly superior, would be an insult—to God is impiety. To such prayers as these there is no promise made, for they cannot be in Christ's name.
Neither can those prayers be in His name which come from men regardless of His precepts. These are contained in the Book of Nature as well as in the Bible, and to both alike we owe reverence. We are bound to learn His will as far as our powers extend, we are bound to inform ourselves as fully as we can of the physical as well as of the moral laws set for our guidance, and having learned we are bound to obey. It were vain to pray for help in an act of wrong-doing, and equally vain to pray for relief from consequences of our own neglect or defiance of such rules of the government of nature as we have learned, or as with due diligence we might have learned. No man so acting can presume to think that he may ask in Christ's name for succour. Christ could not ask it for such as he.
But to what we can truly ask in His name there is no limit set. We may ask for all worldly and all spiritual good, which we can conceive Him to ask for us, in assurance that it will be given, if He sees it really to be for our good. How it may be reconciled with good to other men is not for us to inquire. The Omnipotent rules all, and He who can do all is able to do what is best for us as well as for every other creature He has made, without breach of one of these laws which He has set as guides for all.
J. Boyd Kinnear.
THEpublic mind of the country is at the present hour largely occupied with thinking about rent. The severe agricultural depression has generated painful effects on the feelings and the fortunes of the people of England. The various classes who are connected with the cultivation of land are visited with much suffering, and we cannot be surprised if they are found discussing whether their relations towards each other, as well as the system of agriculture prevailing in these islands, are precisely what they ought to be. The various methods of dealing with the land and the population that devote themselves to its tillage, have been the subjects of keen debate for ages: failing harvests, low prices, and heavy losses, are well suited to impart energy and even violence to such discussions. In some portions of the kingdom, even agricultural revolution has made its appearance on the scene. The law itself is openly and avowedly defied. The debtor, it is decreed, shall determine at his own pleasure how much he shall pay of the debt to which he is pledged. If the owner of the property let on hire repels such an adjudication of his rights, he is plainly warned that they shall be swept away altogether, and the insolvent debtor be made the owner of what he borrowed. The very structure of society itself is imperilled. "To refuse to pay debt violently," it has been well said, "is to steal, and to permit stealing, is not only to dissolve, but to demoralize society: accumulation of property, and civilization itself would become impossible."
Amidst such agitated passions it was inevitable that rent should speedily come to the front. Those who had contracted to pay rent, in the expectation that the produce of their labour would enable them to redeem their pledge, had been plunged into losses, more or less severe, by the badness of the seasons; their means were reduced; to paywas inconvenient; and it was a simpler method to take the matter into their own hands, and rather than appeal to the feelings of their landlords for a considerate diminution of their rents, to call rent itself into judgment, and to suppress it altogether. When, then, matters have reached the pass that an anti-rent agitation, based on the confiscation of property and the repudiation of contracts, has sprung up, and is swiftly spreading among an excitable people, it becomes important, in the highest degree, that the true nature of rent should be clearly understood by the whole country. Whatever may be ultimately decided about rent, let every man first know accurately what it is. To advocate a system of agriculture which shall abolish the possession of land by a class who are owners and not cultivators of the soil, and thus extinguish the charge for the loan of it to farmers, is perfectly legitimate. Let the merits and demerits of such a tenure be freely investigated; let peasant-proprietorship be counter-examined over against it; but let the conviction be brought home to every mind that no just or intelligent conclusion can be reached, unless every element of the problem has been fully and honestly weighed. A reduction of rents may very possibly be called for by necessity and by reason; but to place the position itself of landlord in an invidious light, as that of a man who exacts from the labour of others that for which he has neither toiled nor spun, is a most unwarrantable process of argumentation, and can lead to no trustworthy result in a matter of such transcendant importance to the nation.
What then is rent? The true answer to this very natural question, obvious and easy though it may seem to be, has been grasped by few only. Let the question be put to a mixed company, and the incapacity to explain the real nature of rent will be found most surprising. One's first impulse is to appeal to Political Economy for an answer, for indisputably rent belongs to its domain; but unhappily Political Economists, for the most part, instead of enlightening have obscured this inquiry for the public mind. Some few amongst them have perceived the true character of rent; but most other economical writers have been led astray into a wrong path by Ricardo. Ricardo's theory of rent was accepted as the orthodox doctrine; but it was a theory from which the common world, landlords and farmers alike, turned away as unworkable. Ricardo was dominated by the passion of giving to Political Economy a strictly scientific treatment, and the explanation of rent he hailed as an excellent instrument for accomplishing his purpose. He built the amount of rent payable by different lands, on the varying fertilities of the soil. Land A paid no rent; its productive powers were unequal to such an effort; it must content itself with rewarding the cultivator alone. Land B presented itself as something better; a feeble rent it could supply. C, D, and E continued the ascending scale; the rents they yielded assumed grander dimensions, till the maximum of fertility and remunerating power was reached. Thearray wore a splendidly scientific air; it almost rivalled the great law of the inverse square of the distances. But, alas, as Ricardo himself dimly saw, rent bowed to other forces besides mere fertility. Varying distances from manures and markets, dissimilar demands for horsepower for the attainment of the same crops, unequal pressure of rates and taxes, and other like causes compelled rent to sway upwards and downwards in contradiction of the law of fertility; and that was not scientific. But it was true in fact, and Ricardo, under the pressure of necessity, summed up these disturbing causes under the general word situation. Like Mill, he had to recognise that Political Economy, as he and Mill posed it, was "an hypothetical science," and that the stern world of material realities was under the dominion of influences which were not hypothetical nor scientific.1
If Ricardo and Mill had contented themselves with laying down what the amount of rent was, governed by the quality of the soil's fertility and by the forces which they feebly recognised by the word situation, no harm would have been done. They would have given a tolerably fair description of the causes on which the magnitude of rent depends. It would not indeed have explained what rent is, but it would have expressed truths with which the common agricultural mind was familiar, and they might have retained the command of agricultural ears. But scientific ambition would not be satisfied with so simple and unpretending a statement. It was resolved that the explanation of rent should take the shape of a scientific doctrine; and with this object it invented an addition to it of whose scientific character there could be no doubt. "It converted the land," in the words of Mr. Mill, "which yields least return to the labour and capital employed on it, and gives only the ordinary profit of capital, without leaving anything for rent, into a standard for estimating the amount of rent which will be yielded by all other land. Any land yields as much more than the ordinary profits of stock, as it yields more than what is returned by the worst land in cultivation." This worst land, which had no rent to give, was erected into a standard which should measure rents as accurately as a yard measures distances, and a pound avoirdupois weights. Most useful indeed is the yard which tells us how far it is to Dover, and the lb. weight which informs us how heavy the load of coals is which has reached our door; and delightful truly, would be an instrument which should tell a disputing landlord and tenants, with unerring precision, how much rent exactly each farm was bound to pay. Butthis "margin of calculation," this land which pays no rent—what landlord or what farmer has ever inquired for it in the calculation of their rents? Has it ever occurred to the thoughts, or passed the lips, of a single practical agriculturist, in these days of excitement, and anger, and unceasing declamations in the press and tribune on rent? And if it had been found, what possible help could it have brought to a single agriculturist? Such land could be no measure to measure by. A measure must either be a given portion of the thing measured, as a yard of length, or else be an effect of a given force, as the height of the barometer of the pressure of the atmosphere. A piece of land which yields no rent cannot measure one that does, because the non-payment of rent is not the effect of a single force but of many diverse ones. A particular farm may pay no rent because it is isolated by want of roads, or is in a lonely spot, or is far off from manures, or is burdened with excess of taxation, as a whole parish in Buckinghamshire which was said to have gone out of cultivation because no man would face the burden of its poor-rates. What facility for calculation could such a parish furnish to a farmer in Middlesex or Lancashire? The selection of such a standard was a purely illogical process; it confounded effect with cause. The forces which determine rent decree that such a farm cannot pay rent, that is an effect; but its paying no rent could be no cause, by the mere fact alone that it did not yield sufficient net profit, why other lands should pay no rent. The margin of calculation was framed at a particular locality, under its own circumstances, but it could say nothing about the circumstances of another farm and their effects.
The moral to be derived from the examination of Ricardo and Mill's theories of rent is clear. The sooner that their margin of cultivation, their standard of the amount of rent, disappears, the better will it be for the interests of society and of Political Economy. It has driven away all agricultural audience from the talk of Political Economy about rent; it is felt to lie altogether outside of the practical world. Let the land which is cultivated without being able to pay rent be inquired into by all means, whenever there is a call for so doing. Let the impeding causes and all their circumstances be explored, but let the inquiry and its results be kept apart from all rent-paying land. The forces which determine that one farm can pay rent and another none are the same for both, either by their presence or their absence; but the two farms have no connection with each other, except as suffering effects from common causes. When this great truth is seen and acknowledged, and when Political Economy has ceased to talk of the non rent-paying land regulating the amount of all rent, the world which it addresses, and for whom it exists, will be won over to listen to its teaching on rent and to think it real.
And now let us face the question, simply, What is rent? It is necessary to distinguish here between two different meanings of the word rent. It is a legal word, connected with the hire of land or formsof real property connected with land, as houses, rooms, and the like. Agricultural rent is different in nature from the rent of rooms. The rents paid for a house or rooms in a large building such as Gresham House have no relation to any particular business carried on in them, much less do they depend on the success of that business. Agricultural rent, on the contrary, is given for the very purpose of engaging in a distinct business, agriculture; and the profits of that business enter largely, in the settlement of rent, into the calculations of the lender and the hirer of the land. It is of agricultural rent exclusively that we are speaking on the present occasion.
In order to make a correct analysis of the subject, let us place ourselves in the position of a farmer who is offered the tenancy of a particular farm. It is necessary, further, to form a clear conception of the fact, and to bear it constantly in mind, that in all acts of selling or hiring, it is the purchaser or hirer, not the seller or the lender, who ultimately decides whether an exchange shall take place. Whatever be the price asked, be it high or be it low, the buyer by giving or refusing it decrees whether a commercial transaction shall be carried out. It is not the landlord but the tenant who will in the last resort determine what the rent shall be. The landlord may select amongst competing farmers the man who will pay the highest rent; still it will be the judgment of that tenant that will decide at last, not only what the amount of the rent shall be, but even whether the farm shall be let at all. The inquiry thus becomes, What are the thoughts, and what the feelings consequent on those thoughts, which traverse the mind of the farmer? He is seeking to borrow the use of land in order to engage in the agricultural business; his motive is profit, such an amount of profit as will, after repaying all his outlay of every kind, yield him the fitting reward for his efforts and his skill. His object is to gain a living out of his farm; and his calculations turn on the inquiry, on what terms of borrowing the use of the land he shall be able to obtain the ordinary profits of trade. Let us accompany him in these calculations.
The landlord opens the debate by naming the rent which he requires for the farm. The question for the tenant becomes, Can the farm afford such a rent? Here, obviously, the productive power of the soil will present itself as the first and most momentous subject of inquiry. It is a productive machine that the farmer is seeking to hire. The strength of that machine, its capacity to turn out much and good work, is the great point to ascertain. The quality of the soil itself is clearly a most important element of the problem; but it is far from being the only force which constitutes the productive power of a farm. What the climate is at the particular locality is a consideration of great weight. Good land in a rainy district will yield an inferior rent to land of the same quality under a more genial sun and a drier atmosphere. Then the water connected with the farm will come under examination. Will it be capable of creating water-meadows, which have such a lifting powerfor rent in many parts of England? The fertility, too, of the several fields of the farm will differ. The intelligent tenant will feel himself called upon to estimate what amount of crop, what quantity of food for cattle, with his skill and capital, he may reasonably expect to produce. This is the basis of the whole computation—the quantity and quality of the produce that he can fairly reckon on obtaining. And he will not be governed solely by the then existing state of the land. If he is an able agriculturist, he will form a shrewd guess of what he will be able to make it yield by proper treatment. And it is very probable that he will prefer to pay a high rent for good land rather than a lower rent for inferior soil, because he may feel a well-founded confidence in his own resources to work up the greater power of a strong, if even obstinate, farm to larger results.
Having completed the first stage, and formed his estimate of the crops and cattle which the land will yield, the tenant will now address himself to the very grave question of the cost which his manufacturing industry will entail. Here he will encounter forces which pay small respect to the beautiful symmetry of hypothetical economic science, and often influence the amount of rent far more powerfully than the fertility of the land. Will his farm be amongst the light and sunny hills of Surrey; or will it be embedded in the stubborn clay of the Sussex weald? Will he need four horses or two only for each of his ploughs? The crop may be the same for both, but the cost will be widely different, and may create much resistance to the landlord's rent. If he appeals to steam-power for help, he must ask himself how far off he will be from the coal-field, how near to him will be the station at which he will buy his coals. So, again, with his manure. Will the lime and the marl be close to his borders, or must he send his carts long distances to the pit or the railway? Then comes the serious question of the place where his buyers dwell; how far he is from his market; what expense of carriage he will be put to. It may be his good fortune to be offered a farm in the neighbourhood of London, or some great manufacturing town. A weighty rent, it is true, may be demanded of him, even some ten or fifteen pounds an acre; but this will not extinguish the attractiveness of such a farm. Better markets, abundant supplies of manure, cultivation by the spade, and high prices, may possess higher claims in his eyes than a small rent in a rural region.
But the computing farmer's arithmetic is not yet over; he has very formidable figures still to face. His land may be burdened with heavy charges of an exceptional kind. His tithe may be unusually large; his poor-rate peculiarly severe; and the school-rate may acutely try his temper and his purse. Worse still, agricultural wages in his locality may be inordinately high, for wide are the discrepancies between wages in different parts of England, and the worth of the wage may not be repaid by labourers demoralized by trade unions. The long arithmetical array of heavy burdens will be duly noted by the incoming tenant, andcarefully placed to the debit of the debated rent; but one thing he will not do—he will not search out the position of the farm offered in the brilliant series of ascending fertility, and comfort himself with the reflection that economical science furnishes him with the assurance that a farm standing so high above the margin of cultivation must necessarily be able to pay the rent attached to that position, all these exceptional charges of cost of production notwithstanding.
One item of cost still remains, which the intelligent tenant will investigate before he contracts to take the farm. He will inquire into the condition of the farm—into the outfit, so to speak, which it will require for the full performance of the work which it is fitted to perform. He will endeavour to ascertain the amount of draining which has been effected, the number and state of the farm-buildings, as well as the amount of unexhausted improvements of various kinds which either the landlord or the previous tenant has laid out upon the land. These constitute no real part of the land's fertility, though they increase its power to produce: they are fixed capital in the carrying out of the agricultural business. And here it is important to note that the tenant will not inquire into the amount of money, as such, which the landlord has spent upon his land. He will not pay an additional pound of rent because the landlord can appeal to large figures denoting the capital he has laid out on his fields. This, by itself alone, does not concern the tenant; but it does concern him greatly to learn the actual condition of the farm; and beyond doubt the landlord will be able to demand increased rent, and the tenant will be perfectly willing to pay it, to the extent that the outlay on draining and other improvements has augmented the actual produce of the farm. The tenant looks solely to the working power of the agricultural machine and the results which he may obtain from it; outside of this consideration he takes no account of what outlay the landlord has incurred, any more than of the price which he has given for the property. The tenant will be well aware that if that machinery does not exist, it must be provided by means of an understanding with the landlord, necessarily involving some cost for himself: if he finds it on the ground and at work, he will set down in his calculation an increased estimate of produce without any debit against rent for cost of construction—he will feel that he is hiring a more powerful machine.
The calculating tenant has now formed an estimate of what he may assume as the amount of produce which he can procure from the farm, as also of the cost which the obtaining of that produce in the given locality will entail. He thus reaches the third stage of his investigation—the price which he may reckon on realizing for the products he has raised. Here the peculiar nature of the agricultural business reveals itself. A man who enters upon a new industry, or erects a new mill, or opens a fresh mine, will not inquire for a particular price which he may adopt as the basis of his computations. He will thinkonly of the extent of the demand which exists for the articles that he intends to manufacture. If it is strong and increasing, he will feel sure that the consumers will repay the whole cost of production, interest and capital included, and in addition the legitimate profit attached to the business. If he hires or buys machinery, he will pay the price belonging to it in its own market as a manufactured article, precisely as if he were making purchases in shops; the seller of a steam-engine will not ask how much profit the engine will create for the factory. No doubt, if a site must be bought or hired for the erection of the mill, a higher price for the land will be encountered, in consequence of the prosperity of trade in the particular town or district; but the rate of profit will not rise in the discussion between the landowner and the trader. The price of the land will be regulated by the force of the existing demand for land, a demand which, of course, will gather strength from the swelling profits realized in the trade.
The position of the farmer who is seeking to discover what is the proper consideration for the hire of a farm is radically different from that of an ordinary manufacturer. As all land in England can be said to pay rent, it is clear that its products are sold at such a profit as enables the tenant to reward his landlord for his loan. The sale of what he makes is therefore certain, but the price which it will fetch is anything but certain. His business is subject to influences which very materially affect the quantity of his products, and still more the prices which they will command. He is dominated by the seasons; but it may be argued that their fluctuations may be guarded against by basing the calculation on their average character. The statement is well founded, and every sensible farmer will take the average season as his rule in computing; yet even the average season, as recent experience has too sadly shown, may sweep over a large cycle of years with very disturbing results. But there are other and very formidable difficulties which the farmer is called upon to face. The price which his produce will command depends on forces of great and varying power which are entirely beyond his own control, and often are incapable of being estimated beforehand. He is necessarily met by foreign competition; and that competition itself is stronger or weaker according to the commercial position of the countries which bring it to bear. Further, the state of the home market itself cannot be prejudged. The produce of English land will certainly be demanded and sold; but its price is vastly influenced by the prosperity or adversity of English trade. The rate, for instance, at which meat will be sold will vary prodigiously according as the multitudes of British workmen are earning high or low wages. The fortunes of foreign nations will weigh on the cultivating farmer; they are buyers of English wares, and their financial condition will act on British manufactures and recoil, for good or evil, on British agriculture.
The combined action of these manifold and diverse forces generates a special and very important effect. It imprints on the hire of land adistinct and unique feature of its own; it imparts its peculiar characteristic to rent. The position of the farmer is not that of a man engaged in a business, and buying or hiring a machine which is required for carrying it on; it is rather the situation of one who is examining whether he can reasonably enter upon the business at all. One feeling governs that situation; the tenant must be able to live by it by means of a natural profit after all expenses have been repaid. Thus, the payment for the use of the land takes the form of handing over to the landowner all excess of profit above the fitting reward for the farmer. This seems manifestly the best method for giving the required security to the tenant, whilst it provides the lender of the use of the land a reward just in itself and compatible with the continuous cultivation of the soil. Such a system is not unacceptable to the landlord; he cannot hope to maintain a fixed rent which the returns yielded by the agricultural business do not furnish. To insist upon such a condition would be simply to compel the farmer to renounce the farm. And he will not obtain such a rent from any other tenant; for the one he dismisses has no other motive for leaving except the fact that the farm will not provide such a rent. On the other hand, if he is dissatisfied with the rent offered by the tenant, he has in the competition of tenants desirous of hiring the farm a sure test for ascertaining whether the offer is just or deficient.
It follows, from the preceding analysis, that rent depends on the prices realized by agricultural produce compared with the cost of their production, the farming profits included. A high price does not in every case imply a correspondingly high rent, for the cost of raising agricultural produce varies immensely in different localities; still, as a rule, elevated prices will raise up rents with them. The same truth holds good of every business: it must yield repayment of all cost of manufacturing, and reward the manufacturer with the necessary profit, or it will cease to exist. But agricultural price encounters two serious embarrassments not to be found to an equal degree in other trades. It is, in the first place, powerfully acted upon by the vicissitudes of the weather: a bountiful harvest, coming in contact with great commercial profits, brings a full and often an augmented price, to the great advantage of the farmer; a poor harvest, falling on a depressed trade, often fails to reap a price corresponding with the diminution of the supply. There is but one remedy wherewith to meet the fluctuations of such a market—a remedy, unfortunately, too little heeded by most farmers. The great law of the average harvest must be ever borne in mind, ought ever to govern the conduct of the intelligent farmer: he is bound, by the very nature of his business, to reserve the excess of profits of the good year to balance the deficient return of the failing crop. His rent ought to be, probably is, founded on this principle; his practice often exhibits profuse self-indulgence under the temptations of the prosperous time, in utter thoughtlessness about the future.
We have now reached the full explanation of rent. It is surplus profit—that is, excess of profit after the repayment of the whole cost of production, beyond the legitimate profit which belongs to the tenant as a manufacturer of agricultural produce. The interest which he would have reaped from placing capital which he has devoted to the farm in some safe investment, such as consols or railway debentures, forms necessarily a portion of the cost of production. He would have realized some 4 per cent. on the investment without risk or effort of any kind. This interest constitutes no reward for engaging in agriculture.
It remains now to consider certain important consequences which flow from this explanation of rent. In the first place, it is evident that three separate incomes are derived from agriculture, whilst two only make their appearance in all other industries. In common with them agriculture furnishes reward or income for two classes of persons—wages for labourers and profit for the employer. There the similarity ends. A third income makes its appearance for a third person—rent for the landlord. This rent is not an ordinary consideration for hiring some useful machine; if it were a compensation of this nature, it would necessarily take its place amongst the items composing the cost of production. It is a part of the profit won, dependent in no way on the value of the property nor on the price at which it was bought, but purely and simply on the degree of the profit realized. It is a part of that profit, estimated and paid as what remains over—a surplus.
But how comes it to pass that an ordinary manufacture does not yield or pay any such third income? For a simple and decisive reason. A Manchester manufacturer cannot permanently earn a higher profit than belongs to his trade. If we suppose 10 per cent. to be the natural profit of that trade, and he persistently realizes 18, other mills will be opened by new men entering into the business, and this process will be continued till his profits are reduced to their legitimate level. It is otherwise with farming. If a tenant reaps 10 per cent. continuously from his farm, when competitors are willing to be content with 8, the landlord will quickly make the discovery, and will add the surplus 2 to the rent he requires. He will obtain the income, because 8 per cent. is judged by the farming world to be an adequate reward for engaging in agriculture, and because no additional land is to be found for the agricultural business.
2. It is clear that tithes, poor-rates, and other permanent charges, fall upon the landlord's rent, and not on the farmer's profit. They diminish rent. This is a point on which much misunderstanding prevails. A loud outcry is raised amongst tenants at this time of agricultural suffering against the heavy payments demanded of them for special taxes imposed upon land; a strong agitation is rising to obtain their repeal, as being unjustifiable wrongs inflicted on the most meritorious of industries. It is not perceived that these charges figured as items in the cost of production when the farmer was calculating what rent the farm would warrant him to pay: they diminished therent at the cost of the landlord. Tithes and rates took their places in the estimate of the debit side quite as really as the number of horses, or the quantity of manure, which the farm would require. We have seen that rent makes its appearance only after every expense has been provided for, and a legitimate profit secured; then, and not till then, the calculation of the rent begins. If the farming world succeeds in removing these burdens, wholly or in part, from the shoulders of the tenants, there can be no doubt that rents will proportionately rise. The landlords would argue, with entire justice, that all other circumstances remaining the same, the collective farming profit had become larger by the disappearance of these taxes, and as the tenant was entitled only to his natural rate of profit, the increase of surplus would legitimately belong to him. If the tenant repelled such a claim, the landlord would be easily able to obtain the rent he claimed from competing farmers who would be satisfied with the natural profit of the business.
One exception, however, must be allowed to this conclusion—the case, namely, of a tenant who, upon a long lease, had contracted to pay a definite rent for many years. Such a tenant has taken upon himself the chances of the cost of production during a lengthened period, it may be nineteen or twenty-one years, being larger or smaller. If it diminishes during the interval, he gains: if it increases, he loses. Practically he has insured the landlord's rent, during the continuance of the lease, against diminution. For all increase or diminution of rates he fares as if he were the landlord.
3. A third very important deduction follows from the nature of the process which determines rent. Rent does not increase the price of agricultural produce; it does not make bread dearer. Rent is the consequence, not the creator, of price. Here the difference between agriculture and manufacturing trades is vital. The hire or purchase of machinery forms necessarily a part of the cost of manufacturing the goods: it must be paid for by the price realized, or the goods will not be made. On the other hand, the consideration to be given for the use of the land does not enter into the tenant's estimate of his cost of production. He does not direct his inquiry to the right rent till after he has ascertained what the farm will produce, the cost of obtaining it, and the price it will fetch. He then discovers what the profit will be: from it he takes his own necessary share; what is over he hands to the landlord as rent. He does not, like the manufacturer, insist upon a price which must be obtained, for otherwise he would not be able to pay for the use of the machine he borrows; he simply takes the price which he finds in the market, makes himself reasonably sure of the profit which rewards him, and the landlord must take the chance of what rent will remain over, whether large or small. Rent exists because a selling price is found which yields a surplus, an excess of profit beyond what the tenant requires. If price gives no surplus profit, the landlord will get no rent, and he must farm the land himself, or sell it to a farmer.
But there is a peculiarity in the agricultural market which exercisesa very powerful influence in raising rents. Most manufactured articles can be dispensed with, or their consumption greatly lessened, if their cost of production is largely increased, or the means of buying diminished. It is otherwise with food: it must be had, must be bought, if any means of purchasing it exist. The effect of this force on a country situated like England is very marked. England cannot supply food for more than half of her population; the other half must be procured from abroad. Now, the principle which governs the price of indispensable food is the law, that the price paid for the dearest article—say, a loaf of bread—which must and will be bought, will impose itself on all like articles which are actually purchased. When the loaf made in England was cheaper than any imported from abroad, then the price of the English loaf rose to the price of the dearest foreign loaves which were sold and purchased in the English markets. This extra-addition of price was a pure surplus of profit received by the English grower of wheat; the cost of production was not changed, nor his requirement of profit for himself augmented. The gain he thus realized, being absolutely surplus profit, passed to the landowner. The need of foreign corn raised his rent. But the picture has a reverse side. It may well happen that the foreign corn landed in England will be saleable at a lower price than the English. If the supply can be furnished in sufficient quantity to provide bread enough for all England, the English corn in that case must inevitably sink to the level of the foreign—its price will fall, the profit realized on its sale may indefinitely sink, and a great reduction of rents throughout England may well be the inevitable consequence. The only weapon wherewith to fight off the disaster would be such a modification of British agriculture as would lead to the cultivation of other crops than wheat.
Here it seems desirable to notice briefly some remarks addressed by Professor Thorold Rogers to theDaily News, of October 30th, 1879; for though they are in the main true, they might easily give rise to mischievous misconception. He writes—"There is no doubt that rent is wealth to the recipient, and a means of profit to those who trade with the recipient; but except in so far as it represents the advantageous outlay of capital, it is no more national wealth than the public funds are." Surely this is to ignore the fact that the sources from which rent and the dividends on the public funds are derived differ radically in nature. The dividends on consols are the fruit of taxes levied on the whole people of England, and distributed as such to national creditors, which they may consume as they please. Rent is part of a profit earned by an industry useful to the country. A tax and a profit are not necessarily the same thing. No doubt a profit swollen by a monopoly price is equivalent to a tax: and a rent derived from "the price of the produce of land, raised by excessive demand and stinted supply," would be a forced contribution from consumers. But is all rent the child of monopoly? May it not well happen, does it not constantly happen, that rents are high by the side of cheap corn, becausethe agricultural business is largely productive through efforts made by landlords in improving the powers of the soil? Are they to be limited down in their reward to the pure interest which they could have obtained for their capital from investments in bonds and debentures? Is not part of the profit realized legitimately due to them, as profit accomplished by a commercial enterprise? If the returns on improvements made by landowners on their estates were limited to the interest which they could have obtained from consols, would not the motive for making such improvements be sadly wanting? It would sound strange in great manufacturing towns to be told that flowing profits are no increase of the public wealth, that they are taxes resembling the public funds, and must be swept away down to the lowest sum compatible with the existence of the industry.
And what must be said of the ugly word, monopoly, which is so freely flung against the owners of rent? There is a sound of unfairness in it; of unearned gains won without effort from the fortunes of others. How is such a reproach to be repelled? To parry the blow does not seem to be so difficult. There is, indeed, a kind of monopoly which is susceptible of no defence, a monopoly of manufacture conferred on a favoured few, by the arbitrary decree of the law, founded on no superior claim of merit or capacity, and resulting in inflated prices and inferiority of service rendered. Such were the monopolies whose abolition an indignant public opinion extorted from Queen Elizabeth. But a superior advantage of production or sale attached by nature to particular individuals or societies belongs to a wholly different class. Life is full of such monopolies. They are inherent and indestructible. The vineyards of France possess a monopoly of incomparable wine which will for all time earn amazing profits paid by voluntary buyers. England enjoys a like monopoly in the juxtaposition of her coal and iron, which have created a trade that no other nation can rival. The eloquent barrister, the acute physician, the brilliant artist, the quick-eyed inventor of machines, the soul-stirring singer, all are endowed with a personal monopoly resulting in great wealth. Are the men and nations who reap the splendid fruit of such a superiority to be stigmatized as despoilers of their fellow-citizens? Is rent, the offspring of a like advantage, to be painted as a tribute exacted from fellow-countrymen compelled to buy food?
But it will be said, change the tenure of the land, and the wrong will disappear. But what system will clear away superior produce and increased price? Certainly not a universal peasant-proprietor class. Such peasants would still possess the command of higher prices conferred by fertility and situation, and by means of such prices they would gather up swollen profits which would in reality be rent. Then let the land be owned by the whole community in common possession, exclaim French Socialists, and let its fruits be distributed in equal shares to every inhabitant. But even in such an extreme case it would be impossible toefface monopoly. The able-bodied man who received the same share of produce as the weak dwarf, the clever artisan who was unable to earn a special reward for his fructifying intelligence, would inevitably reap a diminution of labour and time. His higher faculties would earn a monopoly benefit in leisure.
The conclusion to be drawn is evident. Nature has scattered monopolies broadcast, higher profits, over the world. She has ordained that they shall ever exist. It is futile to stigmatize rent as an exceptional offender against equality.
4. Finally, one more truth comes forth from this explanation, which has a most important bearing on the efficient cultivation of land. The landowner and the tenant are joint partners in a common business. They share a common profit—the first portion belongs to the farmer, the remainder to the landlord. They are both interested in promoting the success of the agriculturist. If the cultivation of the soil thrives even under the shortest leases, the rent is not quickly raised in consequence of the rising profit—whilst under a long lease very considerable gains may be won before a new settlement of the rent can come up for discussion. This partnership brings a powerful motive to act on the landlord to give help in developing the efficiency of the farming. He knows that if he invests capital in draining and other improvements, he increases the productive power of his land, he is laying the foundation of enlarged results, and he cannot fail to perceive that land thus improved must yield a bigger profit, of which the surplus part, the rents, must necessarily be greater. Thus, an important benefit is acquired, not only for the joint partners, but also for the whole population of the country. Such processes generate more abundant and cheaper food. The landlord who never visits his farms, never thinks of them except on rent day, is blind to his own interest, is forgetting that ownership of land is a partnership in a business. He neglects his own enrichment, and leaves needed resources for the nation unused. The active and intelligent landlord, on the contrary, watches the march of agriculture. He observes where the machine, the soil, requires improvement, he notices the farming qualities of the tenant, he lives on friendly relations with him, and deliberates with him on expanding the productive power of the farm. His rent becomes larger—not only by obtaining interest on the capital laid out, but also by sharing in the additional profit which that capital is sure to engender; and that addition will not be grudged by the tenant. He, too, will have prospered by the help of more powerful machinery in his trade, for he is certain of getting an augmented profit from the capital laid out by the landlord. Whatever may be said of the system of land-revenue which prevails in England, one merit it certainly possesses: it tends to bring the capital of a wealthy landowner to take part in enlarging the power of the land and the amount of its produce.
Bonamy Price.
1It is much to be regretted that Professor Jevons in his "Primer of Political Economy" should have omitted in his explanation of rent the action of the forces which Ricardo and Mill sum up in the word situation. He affirms "that rent arises from the fact that different pieces of land are not equally fertile," and that "the rent of better land consists of the surplus of its produce over that of the poorest cultivated land." How is it then that inferior land near great towns pays a much higher rent than very good land in the heart of a rural district, far away from railways or canals, burdened with high poor-rates, and sorely in want of lime or other distant manures? Ricardo himself admits, and so does Mill, that if all lands were equally fertile, and, it may be added, equally well situated as to other forces, they would still pay rent to their owners.
INprevious papers I have traced the progress of Indian religious thought through the various stages of Vedism, Brāhmanism, Vaishnavism, S′aivism, and S′āktism, and have pointed out that all these systems more or less run into, and in a manner overlap, one another. We have seen that among the primitive Āryans the air, the fire, and the sun, were believed to contain within themselves mysterious and irresistible forces, capable of effecting tremendous results either for good or evil. They were therefore personified, deified, and worshipped. Some regarded them as manifestations of one Supreme Controller of the Universe; others as separate cosmical divinities with separate powers and attributes.
If the religion of the ancient Indo-Āryans was a form of Theism, it was a Theism of a very uncertain and unsettled character. It was a religious creed based on a vague belief in the sovereignty of unseen natural forces. Such a creed might fairly be called monotheism, henotheism, polytheism, or pantheism, according to the particular standpoint from which it is regarded. But it was not, in its earliest origin, idolatry. Its simple ritual was the natural outcome of each man's earnest effort to express devotional feelings in his own way. Unhappily it did not long retain its simplicity. The Brāhmans soon took advantage of the growth of religious ideas among a people naturally pious and superstitious. They gradually cumbered the simplicity of worship with elaborate ceremonial. They persuaded the people that propitiatory offerings of all kinds were needed to secure the favour of the beings they worshipped, and that such sacrifices could not be performed without the repetition of prayers by a regularly ordained and trained priesthood. But this was not all. They developed and formulated a pantheistic philosophy, based on the physiolatry of the Veda, and overlaidit with subtle metaphysical and ontological speculations. They identified the Supreme Being with all the phenomena of Nature, and maintained that the Brāhmans themselves were his principal human manifestation, the sole repositories and exponents of all religious and philosophical truth, the sole mediators between earth and heaven, the sole link between men and gods. This combination of ritualism and philosophy, which together constituted what is commonly called Brāhmanism, gradually superseded the simple forms of Vedic religion. In process of time, however, the extravagance of Brāhmanical ceremonial, and the tyranny of priestcraft, led to repeated reactions. Efforts after simplicity of worship and freedom of thought were made by various energetic religious leaders at various periods. More than one reformer arose, who attempted to deliver the people from the bondage of a complex ceremonial, and the intolerable incubus of an arrogant sacerdotalism.
It was natural that the most successful opposition to priestcraft should have originated in the caste next in rank to the Brāhmans. Gautama (afterwards called "the Buddha") was a man of the military class (Kshatriya). He was the son of a petty chief who ruled over a small principality called Kapila-vastu, north of the Ganges; but he was not the sole originator of the reactionary movement. He had, in all probability, been preceded by other less conspicuous social reformers, and other leaders of sceptical inquiry. Or other such leaders may have been contemporaneous with himself. We have already pointed out that the philosophy he enunciated was not in its general scope and bearing very different from that of Brāhmanism. The Brāhmans called their system of doctrines "Dharma,"1and the Buddha called his by the same name. He recognised no distinguishing term like Buddhism. His simple aim was to remove every merely sacerdotal doctrine from the national religion—to cut away every useless excrescence, and to sweep away every corrupting incrustation. His own doctrines of liberty, equality, and general benevolence towards all creatures, ensured the popularity of his teaching; while the example he himself set of asceticism and self-mortification, secured him a large number of devoted personal adherents. For it is remarkable that just as the Founder of Christianity was Himself a Jew, and required none of His followers to give up their true Jewish creed, or Jewish usages, so the founder of Buddhism was himself a Hindū, and did not require his adherents to give up every essential principle of ordinary Hindūism, or renounce all the religious observances of their ancestors.2
Yet it cannot be denied that Buddhism was very different from Brāhmanism,and it is a remarkable fact that, with all his personal popularity, the atheistic philosophy of Gautama was unsuited to the masses of the people. His negations, abstractions, and theories of the non-eternity and ultimate extinction of soul, never commended themselves to the popular mind.
It seemed, indeed, probable that Buddhism was destined to become extinct with its founder. The Buddha died, like other men, and, according to his own doctrine, became absolutely extinct. Nothing remained but the relics of his burnt body, which were distributed in all directions. No successor was ready to step into his place. No living representative was competent to fill up the void caused by his death. Nothing seemed more unlikely than that the mere recollection of his teaching and example, though perpetuated by the rapid multiplication of shrines, symbols, and images of his person,3should have power to secure the continuance of his system in his own native country for more than ten centuries, and to disseminate his doctrines over the greater part of Asia. What, then, was the secret of its permanence and diffusion? It really had no true permanence. Buddhism never lived on in its first form, and never spread anywhere without taking from other systems quite as much as it imparted. The tolerant spirit which was its chief distinguishing characteristic permitted its adherents to please themselves in adopting extraneous doctrines. Hence it happened that the Buddhists were always ready to acquiesce in, and even conform to, the religious practices of the countries to which they migrated, and to clothe their own simple creed in, so to speak, a many-coloured vesture of popular legends and superstitious ideas.
Even in India, where the Buddha's memory continued to be perpetuated by strong personal recollections and local associations, as well as by relics, symbols, and images, his doctrines rapidly lost their distinctive character, and ultimately, as we have already shown, merged in the Brāhmanism whence they originally sprang.
Nor is there any historical evidence to prove that the Buddhists were finally driven out of India by violent means. Doubtless, occasional persecutions occurred in particular places at various times, and it is well ascertained that fanatical, enthusiastic Brāhmans, such as Kumārila and S′ankara, occasionally instigated deeds of blood and violence. But thefinal disappearance of Buddhism is probably due to the fact that the two systems, instead of engaging in constant conflict, were gradually drawn towards each other by mutual sympathy and attraction; and that, originally related like father and child, they ended by consorting together in unnatural union and intercourse. The result of this union was the production of the hybrid systems of Vaishnavism and S′aivism, both of which in their lineaments bear a strong family resemblance to Buddhism. The distinctive names of Buddhism were dropped, but the distinctive features of the system survived. The Vaishnavas were Buddhists in their doctrines of liberty and equality, in their abstinence from injury (a-hinsā), in their desire for the preservation of life, in their hero-worship, deification of humanity, and fondness for images; while the S′aivas were Buddhists in their love for self-mortification and austerity, as well as in their superstitious dread of the power of demoniacal agencies. What, then, became of the atheistical philosophy and agnostic materialism of the Buddhistic creed? Those doctrines were no more expelled from India than were other Buddhistic ideas. They found a home, under changed names, among various sects, but especially in a kindred system which has survived to the present day, and may be conveniently called Jainism.4Here, then, we are brought face to face with the special subject of our present paper: What are the peculiar characteristics of the Jaina creed?
To give an exhaustive reply to such a question will scarcely be possible until the sacred books of Buddhists and Jainas (or, as they are commonly called, Jains) have been more thoroughly investigated. All that I can do at present is to give a general outline of Jaina doctrines, and to indicate the principal points in which they either agree with or differ from those of Buddhists and Brāhmans.5Perhaps the first point to which attention may be directed is that recent investigations have tended to show that Buddhism and Jainism were not related to each other as parent and child, but rather as children of a common parent, born at different intervals, though at about the same period of time, and marked by distinct characteristics, though possessing a strong family resemblance. Both these systems, in fact, were the product of Brāhmanical rationalistic thought, which was itself a child of Brāhmanism. Both were forms of materialistic philosophy engendered from separate kindred germs.
For there can be no doubt that different lines of philosophical speculation were developed by the Brāhmans at a very early period. All such speculations were regarded by them as legitimate phases of their own religious system. In some localities where Brāhmanism was strongand dominant, rationalism was restrained within orthodox limits. In other places it diverged into unorthodox sceptical inquiries. In others into rank heresy and schism. Buddhism and Jainism represented different schools of heretical philosophical speculation which were in all likelihood nearly synchronous in their origin. That is to say, Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, and Pārs′vanātha, the probable founder of Jainism, may have lived about the same time in different parts of India. Nor is it unreasonable to conjecture that both these freethinkers may have followed closely on Kapila, the reputed founder of the Sānkhya system and typical representative of rationalistic Brāhmanism.6By far the most popular of the three was Gautama, commonly called the Buddha. The influence of his personal character, combined with the extraordinary persuasiveness of his teaching, was irresistible. His system spread with his followers and admirers in every direction, and threw all kindred systems into the shade. Very soon Buddhistic doctrines leavened the religions of the whole Indian peninsula, from Afghānistān to Ceylon. They found their way into every home. They became domesticated in the cottages of peasants and palaces of kings. As to Jainism, centuries elapsed before it emerged from the obscurity to which the greater popularity of Buddhism had consigned it. Nor, even when its rival was extinguished, did it ever rise above the rank of an insignificant sect. At present the total number of Jainas in all India does not exceed 400,000, at least half of whom are found in the Bombay Presidency.